What has gone before: roughly 46 pages of text.
"Well," said Mouse as she confronted the faux Legion of Net. Heroes
created by Vector from clones of herself. Staring at the group of
Rebel Yell, Kid Kirby, Lurking Girl, Organic Lass, Pocket Man, Marvel
Zombie Lad, Comics Snob Boy, Lost Cause Boy and Continuity Champ she
mentally evaluated her forces: Writers Block Woman, Twaeila,
Easily-Discovered Man Lite, Insomnia Lad, Coward Lad (currently
possessed by DeadHeadMan), Chinese Guy AKA Bruce (AKA the martial
artist formerly known as Jack) and Lenny the Squirrel. She tried to
think of a zingy little stinger line she could use to sum up the
situation and get the plot moving.
"This sucks." she ended. "Let's just attack first and ask questions
later."
"Is that really such a good plan?" asked Chinese Guy.
"It's never failed us yet," Mouse lied.
"Okay."
The group sprang into action. Sure, at least half of them immediately
tripped on their own shoelaces, but it was a wonderful action shot.
Twaeila blasted around with her gun with wild abandon. Lost Cause Boy
and Continuity Lad bit the dust almost immediately but then Rebel
Yell was in front of her. With a savage kick he knocked her gun out
of her hands and they began to fight like two savage otters.
(What, you don't think otters are savage? Look, they may be small
and cute but those teeth are _sharp_.)
"Ti Kuan Leap - Boot to the head," yelled Chinese Guy, KOing Comics
Snob Boy. "Three Stooges faceslap - nyuk nyuk nyuk! Random anime
attack crying pattern!" Organic Lass went down.
*Not too shabby,* thought Mouse, fending off a punch from Marvel
Zombie Lad. *We're actually doing okay.* She looked over at where
Kid Kirby had Lite begging for mercy in a headlock whilst Lurking
Girl was repeatedly beating Coward Lad over the head with one of his
own shoes. *Then again.* Suddenly she realised something.
"Hey!" she yelled, kicking Marvel Zombie Lad in the shins. "Does
anyone know what any of these guys' powers are?"
"Uhh..."
"Ummm..."
"Errr..."
"I think it's on the website."
"Something about building things?"
"Yes! That's what I thought," said Mouse. "Vector can't duplicate em!
Cos she doesn't know what they are either! Somebody use their powers
to knock out these cos-players[1] and let's get Vector!"
"Okay," trilled Writers Block Woman.
"NO! NOT YOU!!!"
Writers Block Woman exerted her powers. Everyone stopped in
confusion as the power of Writers Block muddled their minds.
*Hmmm... what should I do now, oh I know!*
"GO AWAY!" she yelled.
"NO!" shouted Mouse, grabbing her by the cape. Halted, the heroine
looked around her as the area rapidly emptied.
Writers Block Woman looked at the now-deserted area.
"Oops. Was that a bad thing to do?"
"ARGH!!!"
***
"Prepare the sacrifice!" announced Acolyte. "And prepare him
well! Don't spare the garnishes ladies, for tonight we
summon the one and only Cabbage-Wielding-Angel-of-Death!"
With a swirl of his robes, he left.
Gorilla Grad was somewhat depressed by this change in
situation. Instead of being a captive in the headquarters
of the Church of the Fourth Wall, a position in which he
could watch, observe, and provide a useful forum through
which various writers could detail what the bad guys were
up to, he was now going to be a sacrifice in an undoubtedly
foul and revolting rite of summoning. He noted nervously
the large amount of parsley being brought into the chamber.
Father Brown had left a few minutes earlier, muttering
something about "sacrificial ginzu knives" and now the
only ones in this room were himself and two Vectors. This
was not good.
***
Authorial stared at Lad and lowered his sword.
"What happened?"
"Oh nothing much," Lad quipped. "Taken over by the sexy
babe in the black leather you were about to slice me into
pieces with that sharp sword in your hands until for some
reason you stopped and NOW YOU'RE DOING IT AGAIN!!! AAAAH!"
He ducked the swipe from the sword.
Invisible-Intangible-Inaudible Lass writhed in pain as
one of the Vector's maintained a vixen-nail-polish coated
grip on her throat.
"So lurker, you thought you could interfere." Vector
leaned in close. "You were wrong!"
*Help!* thought IIILass weakly.
Behind her, Narcoleptic Lad roused and watched in confusion
as one of the Vector's tightened its grip on thin air. A
large yawn split his face.
"Don't you what you're doing, gonna stop you," he said,
throwing a nearby plate at the woman.
Vector hissed and loosened her grip. IIILass wrenched
herself free and once again intersposed herself between
the controlling Vector and Authorial, who came to himself
just in time to deflect his sword from Lad's throat.
"What in the world is going on?" he demanded.
"Don't know," said Lad. "But let's take advantage of it,
by all means." He grabbed one of Narcoleptic Lad's arms
and headed for the door. Authorial grabbed the other and
moved with him. IIILass floated after them, always keeping
herself between them and the Vectors.
***
*Oh no, I'm allergic to ginger!* thought Gorilla Grad as
the preparations for the sacrifice continued. *There must
be something I can do!* Unfortunately, it didn't look like
it. He poked at his prison again and felt it give a little
more, but not enough.
He looked at the screens. The animated corpse of Taft was
closer, but it still wouldn't get here in time to save
him. He would have to wait... wait for the right
opportunity. He hoped he wouldn't have to wait long.
***
"Right, is EVERYONE back now?" demanded Mouse.
"Yo," said Chinese Guy.
"Yup," said the squirrel.
"Here!" said Lite.
"Present," said Twaeila.
"Uh huh," said WBW.
"Yes," said Insomnia Lad.
"Hello," said Coward Lad. Mouse looked at him and sighed. "Oh well."
"Look at it this way," said Lite. "At least all the Vector's and
fake LNHers are gone. Don't you think it's useful information that
WBW's powers somehow managed to scramble the Melissa virus as well
as us?"
"Maybe," said Mouse grudgingly. "But it was still a pain getting
you all back. Especially Mr I'm a squirrel, and I can climb all the
way up tall tall trees to annoy you over there."
Lenny tried to look innocent.
Mouse paced. "Anyway, now that you're all BACK here, would you PLEASE
not do that again. Otherwise we'll NEVER get to Alice Springs and
find this Lotion of Emotion." Mouse rubbed her temples. "Not to
mention we've still got to backtrack the Melissa virus AND find out
what she's planning to do in Sig.ago. If it weren't for the fact
that it's hard enough to fit in dialogue for the people we do have,
I'd say we needed more characters!"
"What we need," said Lite. "Is a plan."
There was a pause.
"Are you feeling alright?" Mouse asked.
Lite grinned. "Come on, it's standard dialogue for this sort of
situation."
"Phew," said Twaeila. "For a moment there I thought that I'd
completely misjudged you and that you _weren't_ a half-brained
imbecile!"
"Gee, thanks!" said Lite.
"And to top it all off," said Mouse. "I have this mysterious
note here that says "Nodakommandos", which I do not understand
at all!"
*Ring ring*.
Mouse fished out her cellphone whilst the others watched.
"What?" she demanded.
"Your author is calling from the other side of the fourth wall,
will you accept the charges?" asked the operator.
"Huh?"
***
Gorilla Grad looked at the shishkebabs. "Now THIS is going
too far!" he said. "And I don't even want to KNOW what that
wok is for!"
The two Vector stopped setting things out and headed for
his cage. Gorilla Grad calculated the odds of defeating
them once released and found them depressing.
Suddenly a siren started up and lights began flashing.
"RED ALERT RED ALERT!!!* shrilled a computerised voice.
"BLATANT FLAUNTING OF THE FOURTH WALL IS NOW IN PROGRESS!
THIS IS A LEVEL FOUR CONTAMINATION! REPEAT, A LEVEL FOUR
CONTAMINATION!!!"
The two Vector's turned in surprise as the entire structure
shook. Gorilla Grad saw his chance. He slammed his feet into
the backs of their heads and took off, trying to find his
way out.
*I've got to get back to that theme restaurant!* he thought
to himself. *If what I heard is true, and there really is
a lurker there, they might be able to save us all!*
Gorilla Grad raced through the complex, not even noticing
the nearing figure of William Howard Taft on the viewscreens.
***
"Hello Mouse? This is Jaelle speaking."
Mouse tried not to gape. "This is... uh... unprecedented."
"Yeah well, interesting times and all. Look, I've been in
contact with Ken Schmidt about this Nodakommandos thing."
***
"RED ALERT! THE SITUATION HAS NOW BEEN UPGRADED TO LEVEL
THREE CONTAMINATION!"
***
"Apparantly it refers to an old storyline he did.
'Nodak' is an abbreviated way to refer to North Dakota,
so the Nodakommandos are the North Dakotan commandoes.
They're a private army."
"But I don't have time to go to North Dakota!" yelled
Mouse. "I have to get to Alice Springs, and we don't
even know where that is!"
"They're listed in the yellow pages."
"Really?"
"They are now!"
***
"SITUATION HAS NOW BEEN UPGRADED TO A LEVEL TWO
CONTAMINATION!"
"Damn those LNHers!" Father Brown yelled. "We must
prepare to summon the angel NOW!!!"
***
"But anyway, you..."
Mouse flicked through the yellow pages. "There they are!
Thanks Jae, I owe you one."
"Wait! There's an important plot point you need to know!"
"Later." Mouse hung up.
***
"You got the wrong note..." Jaelle trailed off. "Damn."
***
"Everyone back in the flight-thingee." ordered Mouse.
"We're going to Alice Springs and we're going to get some
people to meet us there. Then we're gonna get that potion
and stop Vector. By that stage I'm sure there will be a plot
complication to show us the way to the next step so let's
get moving!"
***
"SITUATION DOWNGRADED TO LEVEL NINE ALERT... YELLOW ALERT
YELLOW ALERT..."
"The situation is over," said the Acolyte. "That was close."
"Too close!" said Father Brown. "The time is now! Taft is nearly
here, and we cannot stop him... but the Cabbage-Wielding-Angel
of-Death CAN! The ceremony has started now... and soon, Taft
and those wretched LNHers will no longer be able to warp and
destroy as they please. NYAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!"
to be continued
WHAT WILL THE LNHERS FIND IN ALICE SPRINGS?
FOR THAT MATTER _WILL_ THEY FIND ALICE SPRINGS?
WHERE IS IT ANYWAY?
CAN IIILASS SAVE AUTHORIAL, LAD AND NARCOLEPTIC LAD FROM
VECTORS POWERS?
CAN GORILLA GRAD GET OUT OF THE COMPLEX BEFORE BECOMING
A CULINARY SACRIFICE TO THE CABBAGE WIELDING ANGEL OF
DEATH?
WILL VECTOR REESTABLISH HERSELF AS THE MAIN VILLAIN OF
THIS STORY?
WHO KNOWS? FIND OUT WHEN SOMEONE ELSE WRITES THE NEXT
PART OF... BIRTH OF A VILLAIN!
[1] In anime circles the term cos-play (short for costume play)
is used for people dressing up as anime characters. Or any
characters really.
