DVANDOM _____ ______ _____ _______ THE CENTURY PACT PART 6 of 12 [ ]__ [ ] [] [ ]__)) [ ] ` [ ]__ #78 - "Redemption" [ ] [ ] [] [ ] \\ [ ] [ ] copyright 1997 Dave Van Domelen [_] [_]__[] [_] \\ [_]___/ [_]____ -------]==+ <*> +==[------- [cover shows Kid Pocky ripping open his jacket to reveal a scarlet letter "A" on his chest, the same "A" used as Acton Lord's insignia. Copy reads, "Divine Comedy Book II: Purgatori.org"] Lynk sat back against a tree to gather her thoughts before continuing. It had proven nearly impossible...or at least, too hard to be practical...to escape from her place in Hell alone as long as she played along with the viewpoint of the forced dreaming. It would have meant fighting through hordes of Malebranche demons for every inch of progress, which was definitely the stupid way to do things, so she pulled out of the dream and retreated to her own vision of Net.Zealand. Net.Zealand itself was unaffected by the invasion, which told her something very useful: whoever was behind this was NOT a member of the Dream Court. The assault wasn't on the nature of dreams itself, but rather some form of powerful mind control that was being used on the unconscious minds of dreamers under her watch. On the plus side, it meant this wasn't a major power play in the dreamlands, one she was still rather ill-equipped to fight off. On the minus side, Anna's talents really didn't run towards straight mind control, so the odds were she wasn't going to be able to break the invader's hold on his victims directly. She'd have to go into that scarred and blasted vision of the afterlife again and help her friends fight it on their terms before they could wake up. Once she had everyone out, of course, it would be time to go do some serious real-world damage to whoever was behind this.... -------]==+ <*> +==[------- Kid Pocky stood there for a moment, looking uncomfortably at the semi-humanoid fowl that the VAXX appeared to be in this dream. Finally, he sighed and spoke again. "How long have you known?" The VAXX snorted, "From the beginning. I know more than any human mind is capable of knowing, Acton Lord, which is why I spend my waking hours in a childlike state...there's so much room taken up by knowledge that there's little left for intelligence. Only in the odd dream can I expand my consciousness and actually KNOW that I know." "Does anyone else know?" Kid Pocky asked nervously. "Several suspect, I'd wager, but I think you're mainly worried that Anna might have found out through my dreams. No, she hasn't. Frankly, when I was awake I had trouble tying my boots, and when I was dreaming there were far more important things to dwell on than your secret. Still, now it IS important to dwell on, since your drive for redemption may be the only chance the others have to escape their dream hells." VAXX pointed to the mist-shrouded mountaintop. "You must attain Heaven, where I'd guess the person behind this is, and put a stop to it before the others are torn apart from inside by their own doubts and fears." -------]==+ <*> +==[------- "Pull harder, Stomper!" Rebel Yell shouted, tugging on Sidewinder's left arm. "Sidewhiner here wants to be two places at once, let's help him!" "I concur. The split in our former teammate is as yet superficial, not deep enough to represent the depths of his evil." For his part, Sidewinder found no witty banter to add to the discussion, nor protestations of innocence. All he could do was scream as men he had thought were friends tore him in half. Then there was a new voice, behind him. "Don't give in, Sidewinder!" It was Lynk! "So, one of the whores who seduced young Sidewinder away from the LNH!" Rebel Yell crowed, pulling harder so that Sidewinder's vision swam. "We'll do you next!" "Then, maybe we can take the halves and construct two hybrids," Stomper suggested. "A...little help?" Sidewinder gasped. "I can't fight this battle for you, Sidewinder. These are your own insecurities, your niggling doubts about things you've done and can't change. Wait, I *can* help a little. I can pull the illusion away and let you see what they really are," she said, placing her hands over his eyes. Oddly, this didn't block his vision at all. In fact, now he could see that his tormentors weren't Rebel Yell and Doctor Stomper at all...they were a pair of small imps, each no larger than his hand. "THESE guys have been giving me so much trouble?" he asked in disbelief, slamming his arms together and crushing the demons between his hands. "Ow," he added, realizing that the gash down his torso hadn't disappeared. "Little doubts have a way of growing into big insecurities if you don't address them," Lynk replied, lifting her hands away from his eyes and moving to bind up his chest with a roll of bandage she produced from thin air. "I just helped you see how small the problem really was...pointed out the real molehill under the phantom mountain." "Cool. Ow. Could you make this go away too?" he pointed to his chest. "Unfortunately, no. At least, not without expending more effort than I can afford right now. As long as you're in this dream, you'll suffer at least part of the punishment the person behind this had in mind for you... because it's a punishment you inflict on yourself." "Wait...if this is a dream, can't you fix it?" "It's not a natural dream, it's something else. But if I can get everyone free and together, I can wake us up and get us all out. I'd love to just do this one at a time, free you as I find you, but I may need help fighting off some of the manifestations while I free the others, not to mention it may take some sort of group link to break out into the waking world anyway." Sidewinder patted his chest, feeling to make sure it wouldn't fall open again. "Okay, let's blow this taco joint and find the others." -------]==+ <*> +==[------- Squidman was in, to put it mildly, a bad position. He was naked and freezing on the ice, without any of his weapons, facing a demon which could easily have him for lunch. Sort of the inverse of being out of the frying pan and into the fire. He had one ace to play, though. "I killed Sig.Lad. There may not have been another option, but I'll never stop wondering if I could have done it another way. I WISH there had been another way...if I could have died to stop Sig.Lad from having to die, I would have. But I can't. What happened, happened. Even if I could go back in time and change the timeline again so that we could defeat DeFacto without anyone getting hurt, *I* would still know I had once killed Sig.Lad. I will regret my actions as long as I live, but I know they weren't the stuff of eternal damnation." Geryon shied back, consternation showing on its stolen face, the face of Sig.Lad. Was it the incessant wind, or something else? "And yes, my life would have been safer, perhaps happier, if I'd never become a net.hero. There have been dozens of times I wished I'd just stayed a college student and never gotten involved. But there have been more times I've known I made a DIFFERENCE. I helped hold the line, helped stop great evils intent on destroying the world or enslaving its people. I've died before, and to save others, I...would...die...again." Geryon howled in pain and flew upwards, rapidly passing out of sight. "Sincerity, the only way to defeat a demon of insincerity," Squidman said to no one in particular, fighting to keep his teeth from chattering. "Now, out..." he looked away from the wind, towards the titanic walls around the lowest circle of Hell, "...or in?" he faced into the wind. -------]==+ <*> +==[------- "We've moved quickly past the lower ledges of Ante-purgatory," the VAXX explained, "because those deal mainly with matters of doctrine, and you've never concerned yourself with following someone else's dictates. But now we enter Purgatory itself, and the first terrace deals with a sin you have in abundance..." he paused for effect as the pair ascended the final step onto the terrace. Followed immediately by a sixteen ton weight falling onto Kid Pocky's shoulders. "...Pride," VAXX smugly finished. "Few things can better describe your actions than pride." He touched a wing to Kid Pocky's forehead and seven A's burned into his skin there. "Your own scarlet letter, as it were." The two walked along the path, Kid Pocky bowed by the heavy burden he bore. Under his feet, Kid Pocky started to notice images carved into the marble he walked on, and he recognized the first. A multitude of Acton Lords, stretching to infinity, each one a warped copy of the next. "The image there, one of your first exercises in pride. You cloned yourself a thousandfold in an attempt at immortality, yet all that resulted were flawed versions of yourself, often at cross-purposes," VAXX noted. The next graven image was of Acton Lord being thrown from the Pega.SYS before he could reach the Source Code [Bellerophon Gambit #4 - Ed.] VAXX continued, "In your pride, you thought to storm the very gates of the Source Code, seize power over all reality in one daring act. You never even thought of what might happen were you allowed to reach the Source Code, you simply assumed you could master it. Somewhat chastened, you looked for a slightly less grand plan next...merely taking over a subset of all that is," VAXX intoned as Kid Pocky saw a picture of the Universal Office beneath his feet. The burden got heavier as he recalled how he'd used the Multiversal Office Building to control reality in a simple revenge plot [Constellation #14-16 -Ed.], one fated to fail. "Did you stop? Of course not. If anything, your pride swelled greater, as you almost immediately moved to try and manipulate other forces into taking over the world for you. I suppose you thought you were being careful and humble to only seek dominion over the world, which goes to show your overweening arrogance," VAXX sneered as Kid Pocky stepped on the graven face of Starbolt, one of the MACE commanders he had failed to manipulate [Constellation #22-24 - Ed.]. "I...I think I started...to realize...the futility...of it...all... then..." Kid Pocky gasped out as he nearly fell to his knees under the burden. "Which is why your next plot attempted to change the nature of how our reality interacts with others?" the VAXX smirked, not an easy task with a beak. "Maybe you thought you were saving the world, but it was your own colossal ego which drove you to try severing the connection between us and the Writers [Dvandom Force #42 - Ed.]. You would have risked destroying everything because YOU thought it was better than slavery to another being. You didn't even think to ask if there was a better way...the great Acton Lord had to be right!" Kid Pocky stumbled on the image of Tymythy Twystyd, staggering forward to see himself on the Klein Couch, floating before Constellation [Dvandom Force #60 - Ed.]. "And finally, in what may have been your greatest display of pride, you decided that the only way you could solve your personal problems was to invoke the Source Code for help!" the VAXX shouted in his ear. "Acton Lord's too good for introspection or therapy, nothing short of the mightiest power in existence can solve HIS problems," VAXX mocked as the load Kid Pocky carried seemed to double. There was silence save for the creaking of Kid Pocky's bones. He tried to take another step forward, but couldn't. His heart threatened to burst, his vision swam and turned red, and still he couldn't take another step. "This...this burden is too...great for me," he whispered. And with that, it was gone. "And for the first time, you admit you cannot do something, and the admission is true and honest," the VAXX said, helping Kid Pocky upright. "Your pride had never let you admit to more than a temporary setback before, you always *knew* you could overcome anything. Now you know that there are things you cannot do, you've cracked out of the armor of your arrogance." The VAXX touched Kid Pocky's forehead, and one of the A's vanished. "Come, you have more to do before this night is done." -------]==+ <*> +==[------- "Why don't we just bop in and out like you did to get out of your own pit?" Sidewinder asked as he and Lynk scaled the walls of the crevice. "That works for me, but not for you," she replied between finding handholds. "To get everyone together, we have to actually travel within the dreamscape, not outside it. Come one, we're almost at the top," she encouraged him, pausing to summon up a pistol and shoot at a demon that swooped too close. It veered off, cursing her and shaking a fist impotently in the air. "If I remember my Dante correctly, there's only one pit to cross between here and the pit where everyone else should be, and I get the feeling this will be an easy enough one to cross." "Because it's shallow?" "No," she replied as she helped Sidewinder up onto the lip of the chasm. "Because the final circle of Malebolgia is for falsifiers and forgers. It's full to the rim," she swept her hand out, taking in the moat of spirits between them and the huge central pit of the Infer.net. "This pit is full of almost solid Sphammer-remains." Sidewinder's jaw dropped at the sight. All around was an intermittent rain of spirits, falling from the Abyss above into the moat. "Damn, the Order of St. Doomas must have sent a strike team out tonight." Lynk smirked. "Actually, these are probably people who are just now falling asleep and under the influence of our invader. Maybe it'll scare them straight." "Okay, but how do we get across? It's literally the mosh pit from Hell in there. They'll just pull is down to the bottom." Lynk grinned and shook her head. "You forget. These are SPHAMMERS. I've got a little experience dealing with their sort." She turned to face the milling pit. "I've got a new, legal marketing scheme guaranteed to return a thousand-fold on your investment!" she shouted. Sidewinder marveled as the upper layers of forgers rapidly formed orderly inverted pyramids that turned the churning surface into a nearly smooth floor of sphammers. "Quick, before the pyramid schemes collapse," Lynk advised, sprinting across the entangled bodies. Sidewinder followed as fast as he could, and he could feel the surface starting to give way as he approached the far end. With one last leap, he made it to rock before the entire pit collapsed, the upper level of sphammers now being several stories below. For some reason, the Albanian National Anthem started to play. "Whew, that was close," Sidewinder remarked as they walked on towards the pit. -------]==+ <*> +==[------- A second letter had been erased from Kid Pocky's head, and he ascended to the third terrace with VAXX. "Envy has never really been a problem for you," VAXX noted. "Originally, if you wanted something, you took it...no envy involved." "And later on, I realized how pointless possessions could be, how transitory they were," Kid Pocky added. "What's that up ahead?" he pointed to a thick black cloud they were about to enter. "Wrath," was VAXX's only answer. Kid Pocky stumbled as his mind was filled with a series of visions. The first was of a boyish young man, battered about by a man who looked like Fan.Boy, but was far more vicious. It was obvious that this evil Fan.Boy had somehow deeply betrayed his victim, yet for all of it no anger showed on the young man's face [Fan.Boy #16, not actually posted yet because of crossover- induced delays, see http://www.vuw.ac.nz/~thad/blip/fan.boy/fb16.html for the current version - Ed.]. The second vision was a scene out of his own memory. Kat, convulsed and weeping in the Warlord's base, so touched by Doug's forgiveness that she couldn't stand up to her own guilt [Dvandom Force #72 - Ed.]. Finally he saw the assembled LNH, with Lost Cause Boy, Panta and Kid Anarky bowing their heads in contrition. He realized this had to be the infamous "Woody Scandal" [You look it up, I'm beat - Ed.], when the angered reaction of the LNH to the conduct of their own could have torn the Legion apart from inside. But it didn't...cooler heads prevailed, anger was turned aside, and the rift was healed. "These are the goads of this terrace," the VAXX said as Kid Pocky's vision cleared. "Examples of the virtues which turn aside wrath, which counter it, which should be aspired to. The smoke is wrath itself...the blindness and stinging pain it can cause. You have felt much wrath in your time, mostly directed at your 'brother.' He too suffered an excess of this sin when it concerned you." "I know," Kid Pocky replied, recalling the movie file he'd seen of the dead Looniverse, where Sig.Lad's rage had been at its strongest, almost enough to shatter what was hoped to be a last-chance alliance against the inevitable death of a world [Legion of Occult Heroes - Joe, filling in while Ed's on break.]. "Come on, the sooner I face this, the sooner we can be past it...Sig.Lad's dead, and with it the reason for my anger, I don't want to dwell on it any longer." The odd pair entered the smoke. -------]==+ <*> +==[------- "Fight! Fight!" shouted the hockey-playing devils as Squidman kicked the goalie away from Macroman's head. They rushed at him with sticks raised, and he grabbed the puck up from the ice and bounced it off the facemask of the nearest. "Doug, the only way out of this is to fight your own self-doubt!" Squidman shouted as he scooped up a stick and swung it in an arc to knock the legs out from under several skaters. "Easier said than done," Doug shivered, trying to duck away from the demons sliding past. "I mean, when you get right down to it, I *did* betray my aunt...I let her think I was someone she could fall in love with, and didn't tell her thr truth for years! Ow!" "Sorry, one got past me," Squidman apologized, highsticking another devil in a Net.Jersey jersey. "I think your problem is you're taking this way too seriously...Caina, the circle of the Infer.net you're in, is for those who commit betrayal...duck left...on the order of MURDER. Yes, you did wrong by Glory, but not THIS wrong!" "And here I thought my problem was that a bunch of devils were using me for a goal post," Doug sneered. "I mean, you're talking degree...hey, watch the stick...not type. I can't deny I did wrong, neither can you. And that seems to be the problem here...as long as I know I deserve it, I can't get out!" To emphasize the point, he rocked his head back and forth several times to no real effect. Then, to everyone's surprise, machinegun fire pitted the ice (and several devils) from above. The devils scattered to regroup, and Doug and Squidman looked up to see a parachute descending to the ice. Moments later, Lynk and Sidewinder landed, and the parachute vanished. "Faster than trying to sweet-talk a Titan," Lynk commented. "Help?" Doug inquired hopefully. "He's stuck here by his own guilt," Squidman explained. "That's the way this dream works," Lynk replied. "It's using our own angst and doubt against us," she gestured to the bandaged Sidewinder. "But it IS a dream, and I can do a little here and there to help. Doug," she placed her hand under his chin, kneeling down on the ice to do so, "I know you're all eaten-up inside over the deceptions you've been forced into, but you did it all with the best of motives...you didn't WANT to betray Glory, and that makes all the difference in the world." As she had been talking, she'd been slowly lifting Doug from the ice, as if it were water and he weighed no more than a feather. "I...I still don't..." he started. "Shhh...you've told her, you've started to make amends. It's time to stop beating yourself up over what you've done and concentrate on what you WILL do," she finished as he fully emerged from the ice. He blinked and looked around. "Thanks, I needed that," he said. "Don't look now," Sidewinder interrupted, "but the Infernal Hockey League is back for the second period, and none of us is really in fighting shape," he gestured at the unclothed state of Doug and Squidman, and his own held-together-with-spit-and-bailing-wire look. "I can probably do something about that now that we're together and I can draw on our collective willpower," Lynk said, gesturing with her hands. In a twinkling, they were all fully kitted out in their net.hero costumes, complete with weapons and armor. "All RIGHT! Time to kick some demon butt...Armor of Crosspost, LOG IN!" Sidewinder shouted as the battle was joined. Needless to say, it wasn't a very long battle, and moments later the ground was littered with toothless hockey devils. "Now that we've got our hat trick," Squidman announced, "it's time to go that way," he pointed into the wind. "To the very center of the pit itself, where I suspect we'll find at least one of our teammates." Doug, Anna and Sidewinder replied in unison, "Kat." Squidman nodded, "And once we find her, if we're not strong enough to just head out over Lucifer's back, we might go back and try to help out some of the other people trapped in this dream." "I spotted a few likely allies on the way over," Lynk noted. "Good. Let's go," Squidman said, and they set off for the center of Hell. -------]==+ <*> +==[------- "Here we are, one more to go," the VAXX said, brushing the second to last A from Kid Pocky's forehead. "Sloth, Greed and Gluttony have never really been problems for you, I've noticed. But this one might." "Let me guess. Lust?" he looked out over the river of fire that formed most of this terrace of Purgatori.org. "Yes. Although an outside observer might wonder how you even had time for lust, given your drive for power," the VAXX smirked. Kid Pocky closed his eyes and thought back. "You'd be surprised. Especially back when there were hundreds of copies of me floating around the net. One of my selves...now dead, thankfully...was a frighteningly lustful person, giving up almost every other goal in exchange for a pretty woman. He was also stupid enough to chase after a net.heroine...Taskani, I think her name was [this one's waaaaay back in the archives, Electrocutioner's Song or earlier - Ed, back from his break.]. But I think you're on a fishing expedition here, VAXX. For some reason, your all-knowing eye hasn't been able to figure out why I've been carrying such a seemingly hopeless torch for Kat, right?" VAXX nodded. "Even awake, I'm smart enough to tell you've 'got it bad' for her, everyone who spends more than ten seconds in the same room with the two of you has figured that out. But why?" "I'm not sure, and you know what? I *like* it that way. I can't just point to some outside influence and say, 'this is what's making me love her.' It's not my powers, it's not my writer...at least not directly, anyway...it just happened when I wasn't paying attention. I think it happened shortly after she helped thwart my attempt to split us off from the writers [Dvandom Force #42 again - Ed.], when she talked the Green Trenchcoat out of helping me. Tell me, what do you know about Writer Characters?" "They were before my time, for the most part, I'm afraid." "Well, back in the early days, all main characters were reflections of their writers, or 'Writer Characters.' We looked like idealized forms of our writers, or at least we weren't in as bad of shape as our writers. And we shared many character traits with our writers. I shared my writer's deviousness and love for planning. Sig.Lad his heroic ideals. The Dvandom Stranger his enigmatic side. Suffice to say, we Writer Characters have more than a little in common with our writers. "When our writer created Kopikat, I think he may have unconsciously imbued her with traits taken from women he'd loved in the past, or at least had been close enough to that he could get inside their heads pretty well. And maybe that's why I love her. Parts of who I am are in love with parts of who she is, and that turned out to be enough to bring the rest of me into line. Unfortunately, he also gave Kopikat a background which made her very reluctant to let anyone get close, so here I am, patiently waiting and hoping she lets down decades of barriers." He paused. "Now, I think you get some idea of why a lot of characters don't like their writers, aside from just the physical pain we can get put through." "Indeed," the VAXX agreed, as he gestured towards the flaming river. -------]==+ <*> +==[------- "Well, here she is. Our errant Kat, trapped below the ice where she can't even hear us," Doug sighed. "She's buried in so much guilt I don't know if we can even get through to her," Lynk pointed out. "We may have to leave her behind and try to end this at the source to free her." "I say we try tough love first," Squidman replied, brandishing his hockey stick. "Given the nature of this place, if we physically try to hack through the ice, it could 'get through to her' in an emotional sense as well." "Might as well try," Doug agreed, sliding a pair of steel knuckles into place on his hands from a compartment in his belt. "Stand back, I may send up shards," he warned. Once everyone had stepped back a few paces, Doug started striking the ice at a furious pace. It was harder than steel, and he could see the knucks wearing down, but he was also slowly cutting into the surface. He'd have to be careful not to cave in Kat's head when he got that far down. He didn't get that far down. Suddenly a giant green robot rose wraithlike from the ice, knocking Doug aside with a noticeably NON-wraithlike fist. "Sorry, squishies, but she's mine for eternity," the RoboMAC crowed. "I was the first one she betrayed and killed, I have dibs. Come back in a few eons if you want a crack." "Who's the jolly green giant?" Doug asked, skidding to a stop. "No idea, one of the Guardians," Squidman pointed at the insignia on the robot's chest. "Not just any Guardian," the robot shouted, "I'm Aurora, Kat's commanding officer. She fragged me, now I get my vengeance. Wait your turns." "Look, Aurora, we're not here for revenge, we're here to save her," Sidewinder said, flying up to a position near his head (but out of swatting range). "Then I guess I'll definitely have to stop you, eh? For your own good, you understand...free her and she'll only betray you again!" Aurora boomed, his eyes flaring red. "Any ideas?" Squidman muttered to Lynk. "Only bad ones. This has got to be a manifestation of her own guilt, just like all the other punishments we've seen. And Kat's got a LOT of guilt," she added. "Kat, if you can hear me, I forgive you!" Doug shouted to the ice. "Won't do any good, squishy. Maybe you do forgive her, but what about the hundreds of thousands of people and RoboMACs she's sold out over the decades? Hmmm?" Aurora broke into laughter. -------]==+ <*> +==[------- The fire burned to the core of his heart, but Kid Pocky didn't waver, he kept on forward through the river of flames. He didn't want to look down, to see what had to be burning stumps at the ends of his legs, the flesh charring off his body as he walked. The VAXX had gone on ahead, flying over the flames which Kid Pocky had to forge his way through. Heh, forge. He almost laughed in spite of the pain. He really was in a forge here, being tempered in flames, the impurities burned out. Sure, it was only a dream, but when it comes to things like this, is a dream any less valid than reality? He was facing his flaws and, if not overcoming them, coming to terms with them. Then, like a breath of fresh air, the flames ended. He was standing, whole and unharmed, at the threshhold of an earthly paradise. The VAXX was waiting for him, and brushed the final "A" from his forehead. "I...I did it, didn't I?" he asked. "Yes. You are now the master of your soul, free of your burdens and sins, at least in your own mind. Which, I believe, is what you've wanted for a rather long time [since the Evolution storyline, Constellation #32-36, to be exact - Ed.]. Now what?" "Well, I could go on to Heaven, which is probably where the person behind this resides," Kid Pocky replied. "But isn't my true love supposed to greet me here and escort me there?" "In the original work by Dante, yes. But this is merely an interpretation designed to fit the people trapped in it," the VAXX explained. "And it would seem to me that your true love is the last person one would see as an escort to the pearly gates." "So, that's my choice, isn't it? Heaven or love? So be it." Without another word, Kid Pocky turned and leapt from the cliff, leaping out far enough to clear all the terraces of Purgatori.org. He fell, the levels he had struggled to hard to rise through passing back out of view in a blur. Lust, Gluttony, Greed, Sloth, Wrath, Envy and Pride all rose past him, and then he pierced the surface of the ocean, its warm waters suddenly giving way to the fiery heat of the center of the world. He was falling upwards now, along the hairy back of a monstrous creature he recognized as this dream's version of Lucifer, mindless master of the Infer.net. Slowing down, he arced over Lucifer's three heads, where the demon gnawed for eternity on Canter & Siegal, Grubor and Slaton, the Net's greatest traitors. He saw a gigantic green RoboMAC being fought futilely by the rest of his teammates, and knew immediately what it was. It was Kat's own sins, her own self-hatred, driving them away and isolating her from them in a literal sense just as she drove away anyone who got too close in the waking world. He landed directly overhead, the others not yet noticing him, and gently reached down through the ice, drawing Kat's shivering form up into his arms. "It's all right...you can wake up now," he said. And they did. ============================================================================ Next Issue: Dvandom Force deals with the aftermath of this night of soul- searching, and the repercussions on the rest of the country are seen as well. ============================================================================ Author's Notes: Thanks to the Cliffs Notes on the Divine Comedy for helping me jog my memory enough to write a credible approximation of the Inferno and Purgatorio. Careful readers will already have figured out who was behind this, and the rest of you can wait until I get around to #79. }-> Acton Lord's transformation into Kid Pocky was a revelation that hit me while I was planning Dvandom Force #60. As implied in the text of that issue, I didn't *plan* what would happen to him, I gave the character free choice as much as was possible. I also had the Kid Pocky design floating around at the time, and it just "hit me" to have Acton Lord become Kid Pocky, so I took that as a sign of the character's wishes. }-> Anyway, when I started this, I had forgotten about Tsar Chasm's stint as Kid G, and was not trying to rip off Ken's work. It just happened that way. Heck, my early thoughts were that Acton Lord would have been Warlord. But, anyway. Of course, Kid Pocky's story isn't over yet. Not only does he have to decide whether or not to spill the beans to his friends, but where did all that backstory he has come from? Seeds for later stories, maybe even a Kid Pocky LS, so I can be eligible for all four top RACCies. Heh.