Blue Light Productions, bemused at how fast the cascade was finished
off, nevertheless comes back for one more milking of the cash-cow:
Birth Of A Villain #37
A chaotic add-on cascade type Legion of Net.Heroes title
"Epilogue 2: 101 Uses For A Giant Carnivorous Mutant Platypus"
Written by Saxon Brenton
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Cover shows some of the Legionnaire's sitting around and looking
bored, saying, "Well I don't know. What do you want to do?"
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A LNH flight.thingee flew across the lemon coloured sky.
Fourth Wall Lass peered out of the window, frowned, then turned
to Chinese Guy and said, "I thought it was only in Tas.mania that the
sky was yellow."
He shrugged. "Mostly it is. But we've crossed the dimensional
barrier into the Dreamtime, so the landscape can get a bit strange."
"Actually," said Lenny the squirrel from the pilot's seat,
"Alcheringa is the Real World of which the Looniearth is just a
shadow. So really it's your sky that's strange."
"So we're nearly there, then?" asked Insomnia Lad somewhat
wistfully as he petted Irving, the giant carnivorous mutant platypus
that he had taken a liking to (the other three were down the back of
the flight.thingee in the storage locker, which had somehow
temporarily developed an LNHHQ-like ability to grow large enough to
accommodate the (numerically) small menagerie of giant critters).
"Uh-huh," said Lenny.
"So, okay Lenny, what I really want to know is this:" said
FWLass. "After Ultimate Ninja put his foot down and said, no, we
couldn't dig a moat around the LNHHQ to keep the platypuses in, what
made you think of the Aboriginal Dreamtime as a place where they could
stay? And for that matter, how come you know how to navigate there?"
Lenny shrugged. "I come from there. It's home."
There was a pause as people thought about this. Chinese Guy
smiled the smile of anticipation of someone who just *knew* what the
next question would be.
It was Insomnia Lad who took the plunge. "Correct me if I'm
wrong, but squirrels aren't native to Alt.stralia."
"That's right."
"So how could you be native to the Dreamtime? Or is this one of
those cases of eclecticism that the Writers keep throwing into their
stories because they think it's funny?"
"Nothing like that. I'm just not really a squirrel, that's all."
Fourth Wall Lass considered. "You're not another shapechanging
Taoist spirit, are you?"
"No."
"Oh good."
"I'm a shapechanging Dreamtime spirit."
"Oh, of course," she deadpanned. "Silly me. I should have
realised."
"Or at least, I used to. I've been cursed to be stuck in a
single, non-native shape."
"Oh?"
"That's an important point," Lenny assured her, gravely, not
looking away from window of the flight.thingee's cockpit.
"It is?"
"Yes." Then Lenny turned from the control panel and gave her a
particularly intense look. "You know how I was one of the group that
got stuck in the past, and how we made it back to the present by using
cryogenic suspension?"
"Uhm, yes."
"And didn't it occur to you how I managed to avoid being the
butt of an Austin Powers joke where all my fur fell out because of a
botched revival process?"
"It hadn't even crossed my mind," she assured him.
"Well, now you know."
Chinese Guy knew that as a yabon spirit Lenny had no true form of
his own and that the very notion of being stuck in a single shape was
upsetting for him. He marvelled that Lenny was able to speak calmly
about it, but at the same time he could see the warning signs that
the other net.heroes couldn't that Lenny was starting to get himself
worked up. He interrupted to defuse the tension. "I would never have
expected Marmoo's curse to have an up side to it," he said gently.
Lenny sighed. "Me neither. Anyway, if you can't keep Irving and
her pals in Net.ropolis, then the next best place that I can think of
is to let them settle down in Alcheringa. Nice friendly place which
doesn't just have spirit creatures, but is also home to all sorts of
megafauna that have been extinct in the mundane world for thousands
of years. Giant platypuses should fit in just nicely with the giant
kangaroos and koalas, and the likes of the diprotodonts."
"Hold up a second," said Insomnia Lad, backing up along the train
of conversation. " 'Her'?"
Chinese Guy gave Insomnia Lad an somewhat incredulous glance.
"Yes, 'her'. Didn't you realise she's female?"
"No. I don't even know how to tell."
"Male platypuses have a little spur on their back legs on their
ankles," Chinese Guy explained. "Looks kind of like a sixth toe at
first glance. It's what they use to inject their venom when they're
fighting."
"Venom!? They're venomous!?"
"Of course they're bloody venomous! Didn't you read Pratchett's
_Last Continent_?"
"I thought he was just exaggerating," said Insomnia Lad.
"Only a bit," countered Lenny.
"You've got an even split between boys and girls between those
four," noted Chinese Guy, pointing a thumb over his shoulder towards
the storage locker. "They should make a nice breeding colony."
Meanwhile, Fourth Wall Lass was thinking off along another
tangent. "Obsessive typing up of loose ends," she decided.
"Pardon?"
"Obsessive tying up of loose ends," she repeated. "Back in part 9
Father Brown's sensors detected Chinse Guy as coming from another
universe.
"Really?" said CGuy. "Let me guess, that was back when everybody
thought I was my Superguy counterpart."
"Uh-huh," she confirmed. "Anyway, I guess the Writer is trying to
tie off that loose end. Obviously, if Lenny's from the Dreamtime, it
was *him* that Father Brown was detecting as an extradimensional."
"The Writer should consider himself lucky that Mouse isn't here,"
said Chinese Guy. "That's just the type of thing that'd set her off
with a cranky attack."
"Why did you insist on Mouse not coming?" Insomnia Lad asked,
curious.
"Because we're going a place where there are dingos, and I don't
trust that bastard Writer not to try one final attempt to pull an
Azaria Chamberlain joke."
"You're being paranoid Bruce," FWLass told him.
"Gales of derisive laughter," he countered pleasantly.
"Well, we're pretty much finished this storyline, and Mouse isn't
here," said Insomnia Lad. "So, it's hardly as though there's going to
be any more opportunities to try."
"True. Unless it happens off panel, like that legal battle
between wReamicus and Father Brown."
"I still can't believe that Green Eggs Hates Spham tried to kill
Father Brown by dumping him in a black hole," said Lenny. "I mean,
didn't he realise that it's only normal people who inevitably die when
you stuff them into a Schwartzchild radius? Nine times out of ten the
heroes and villains just fall through the singularity and out the
other side"
Fourth Wall Lass sighed. "I'm afraid that Father Brown was
destined to survive this storyline. He appeared at the villains get-
together in the epilogue of the Mutton Mania cascade, which supposedly
happens after this one in continuity."
"Supposedly?"
"Yeah. The _Birth Of A Villain_ cascade happens before the
_Mutton Mania_ cascade, and _Mutton Mania_ led into the conclusion of
the _Saviours Of The Net_ cascade. The big fight scene at the end of
_Saviours Of The Net_ was when New Look Lass and Minority Miss were
lost into the dimension of Real Life -1 in the Reality Check arc in
_Minority Miss_, which is what prompted Weirdness Magnet to come
looking for help from the Legion in _Birth Of A Villain_ #31."
"Head... hurts..." announced Chinese Guy.
"I suppose so. For my part, I think I'd better head off and try
and find those two, since it was my powers that got them lost while
the Legion and the Saviours were fighting the Mechanical Author."
"By the way Fourth Wall Lass," said Insomnia Lad, changing the
topic. "If we're tying off loose ends, why was wReamicus Maximus so
keen on keeping Dvandom Force from becoming involved in the storyline
when he was busily dragging in everyone else in sight?"
"Well, Brenton has a completely different idea from Rogers, but
basically he thought that wReamicus was going to use a method of
tapping into Dvandom's power that would have been interfered with by
the presence of Dvandom Force. A type of feedback loop thing. That's
why wReamicus didn't want Dvandom Force, or any of Dvandom's other
characters around: just them being present would have upset his plans,
regardless of whether they physically opposed him or not. When the
Church of the Fourth Wall abandoned wReamicus for an alliance with the
Nodakommandos to summon David Henry into the Looniverse rather than
Dvandom, it would have set the scene for a teamup with Icthys to stop
the Church and the Nodakommandos. Then it would have been a case of
Icthys' presence causing the feedback loop with David Henry's power
and being the key to stopping the villains' plans."
"Icthys?" mused Insomnia Lad, trying to recall the characters
created by DHenry. "The scales of justice? The undead fish animated by
voodoo who fights crime in supermarkets?"
"That's the one."
Lenny interrupted. "Well, we can put aside all of this pointless
speculation on what could have happened if the cascade had gone on
for longer. We've arrived."
The flight.thingee landed beside a billabong under the yellow
sky. The net.heroes and the giant carnivorous mutant platypuses
disembarked, and Insomnia Lad made his goodbyes to Irving while the
other three platypuses slipped into the water.
"You be good Irving," said Insomnia Lad, scratching her under the
bill. "Now that we've got the co-ordinates for this location in this
dimension, I'll be able to come around and visit you from time to time
by using the Legion's transporter.thingee."
Irving hissed a farewell, and then followed the other platypuses.
As the net.heroes made their way back to the flight.thingee,
Chinese Guy elbowed Fourth Wall Lass. "Hey. Look over there," he said,
pointing towards some bushes.
There was a dingo there. It has a swag over his shoulder (which
was labelled 'swag'). It was looking at the four of them and seemed
vaguely disappointed.
"She's not here," Fourth Wall Lass said. "Just go away."
The dingo turned and slunk back into the bushes.
"Let's go home," Insomnia Lad said.
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Saxon Brenton Uni of Technology, city library, Sydney, Australia
saxon.brenton@uts.edu.au
