Four people were walking out of the Lost Cause Boy Memorial
Hospital. They looked quite unremarkable; all with dark hair,
two men and two younger girls, one of them with light-brown-ish
skin, one of the guys Latino-white, the other two pretty regular
Net.ropolis people. They were all dressing in normal clothes,
slightly out of fashion.
Of course, in Net.ropolis, people don't say "looks can be
deceiving" anymore; they say "looks are deceiving". (Younger
people usually say "looks are worth $#!+" or something like
that.) In fact, the thinner girl wasn't a girl at all, and her
hair wasn't really black, usually. S/he normally walks around
with green hair, and his own features are neither completely
male or female, since she is in essence, both. But Green
Delaware (a.k.a. Tree-Hugging Kid) has, as one of his powers,
limited control over her own body; turning the hair black took a
few days, but that was nothing for someone who spent the last
two months in a hospital bed. Granted, s/he was unconscious for
most of the time, but still.
Changing her features was harder. But s/he didn't need to do
that. Her darker-skinned friend -- Apoena Goulao, or Minority
Miss of the LNH -- came to the rescue, with an extremely girly
outfit, complete with padding in strategic places, thanks to her
good friend New Look Lass. And a bit of makeup.
The two guys in trenchcoats and sunglasses were friends, but
they were also there to escort Green out, just in case. After
all, s/he had been sent to the hospital by an angry mob, which
lynched her to what they thought was death[*]. Thankfully, the
physical body that houses the life force of a planet can take a
fair amount of beating without any permanent damage.
[*Beige Countdown #11 -- Footnote Girl]
The shorter guy was Weirdness Magnet; you could tell from his
smile. He only seemed to have three moods in the repertoire:
amused, angry, and angsty, with the latter two being
significantly less common. He wore a trenchcoat partly out of
habit, and partly because he feels cold much more easily than he
feels too hot.
The other man was Godd Fodder, and he wore a trenchcoat to hide
enough weapons to level the city.
*****
Who Cares Studios shaggilly presents...
Weird Comics
#3
The Future Looks Bright Ahead
(a Beige Countdown tie-in)
by Lalo Martins
http://www.lnhq.info/archives/weird-comics/
*****
"I'm sorry I didn't visit more often, Green", said Fodder.
Apoena nodded.
"No worries. WM told me you two were out in space. You'll have
to tell me how it was later."
"Oh, I can say now: 'awful' describes it pretty well", said
Apoena. "Space is fun, but I could do without all the
net.villains. And the black hole."
"I don't like space much", said Fodder. "Less ways to kill,
more ways to die."
"What about you?", Green asked of the other man.
"Well, the election ordeal is finally over. I'm a bit bummed
that Fearless Leader lost; I'd have preferred even myself... or
the kiwi... over Ultimate Ninja. But at least it's over."
"What do you have against the Ninja?", asked Fodder.
"He's no leader. He could get my vote as 'most effective LNHer'
if that was voted on; but his only claim to leadership is being
able to intimidate pretty much anyone. He makes little effort
to know what people are capable of, he's not that good at
strategy, he doesn't inspire, and he dislikes to delegate. I
strongly suspect people voted for him out of habit, or because
it seemed funnier than the obvious choice, Fearless Leader."
"So you didn't vote for yourself?"
"Are you SERIOUS? Dear Prudence! My powers would probably make
me a decent leader, but I'd go helter-skelter in two times!"
"So", asked Green. "What are we doing now?"
"We're taking you to the HQ", said Weirdness Magnet, "where you
can rest and recover."
"Oh, spare me. I've been resting for two months. And I recover
pretty quickly. No, I don't think we can afford any of that."
"Green... we've been looking high and low for months. The New
Misfits seem to have been erased from the face of Looniearth
entirely. Mother Time doesn't seem to be anywhere; I wouldn't
be surprised if she just skipped over the whole Countdown
period. And my double... he's always two steps ahead of us, the
chase has already ceased to be fun."
"I know how it is. I've been after him with the team for a long
time. But after two months in bed, guess what? I actually have
an idea I'd like to try."
"Yeah?", asked Minority Miss.
"Basically. We stop looking for him. What we can do instead is
look for people who know, or knew, him. Or the Empress. People
who were associated with the Crime Empire would be a start."
"We did try that. We're not exactly newbie investigators."
"What?", Apoena asked. "Of course we are. None of us has ever
led an investigation before."
"Uh. Yeah. Scratch that part."
"Anyway", Green continued. "I'm not talking about
investigation. I'm talking about using our powers. Just ride
the flow, you know what I mean? If we hit the spots he used to
hit, talk to the people he used to talk... either something
weird will happen, or Apoena will be able to pick something up
with super-senses or Fourth Wall awareness, or some animal or
plant will tell me an useful story."
"What about me?", asked Fodder.
"You never know when violence will be useful", said Weirdness
Magnet, with a wink. "All right, we'll try your way then.
Where do we start?"
"Last place we've seen him: Bingham Valley."
*****
It was already dark when they started thinking of wrapping up
for the day. They had eaten lunch at the newly-open Bingham
Valley Planet Kirby (two dollars of every Net.meal or Cosmic
Meal go to the neighborhood charities), and dinner at Chez
Tortoise, the oldest restaurant in the area. After dinner,
another four hours walking the dark alleys around Dark Seedy
Avenue, the main road of the newly-grown neighborhood, Carefully
Walk, the street with all the important buildings, and Peril
Mansions, the slum that covered almost 1/5 of the livable area
in the valley. They felt like they had talked to every
homeless, charity worker, drug dealer, and policeman in the
area. (The latter was probably true, since there were only 3 of
them at any given time of the day.)
At some point, they had all split to talk to the homeless living
in an alley south of Scary Boulevard. Apoena and Fodder walked
up to Weirdness Magnet, who was still busy with his interviewee.
"Any luck?", he asked.
"Nothing relevant", Fodder said. "What about you?"
"Naaah. This one doesn't have a point of view, knows not where
he's going to, know what I mean?"
"I'm not then yet", said the boy he was talking about. He had
dirty-gray hair and beard, and thick dark glasses.
"You mean crazy?", asked Apoena, sensitive as always.
"Well, he failed to make any sense at all yet."
"Nope", said Green, walking up to them. "The rats haven't seen
anything useful either. I guess-- oh, sweet mercy of the mother
ocean!"
"Beige greetings", said the homeless boy. "Do I know you?"
"Whino Lad!"
"Goodness gracious great balls of fire", said Weirdness Magnet.
"You mean, the mystery kid you met before[*], whom Analytic
thought could see the future?"
[*58.5 #3 -- Footnote Girl]
"Everyone's a villain but me. Can you spare 58.5 dollars to buy
me another universe?"
"Funny", Green pondered. "He doesn't look as shaggy as I
remember."
"I find it hard to imagine him any shaggier", said Fodder.
"Ooh", muttered Weirdness Magnet. "A shaggy dog joke with
time-travel and a villainous alt.version of the main character,
and a big clock--"
Minority Miss kicked him in the leg. "No."
"The clock wants to cry to mummy, but she's not then."
"What do you know", said Weirdness Magnet, "that actually made
sense, didn't it?"
"You must have a different idea of 'making sense', pal", Cannon
Fodder said, shaking his head.
"Let's get out of here", said Apoena. "We're all tired. Let's
take him to the HQ, and see if we can find out anything else."
"Did I die yet? I kind of miss myself."
*****
Starring:
Fernando Martins Weirdness Magnet (II) mine
Apoena Goulao Minority Miss mine
Green Delaware Tree-Hugging Kid mine
Godd Fodder Cannon Fodder wReam's
??? Whino Lad mine
