========================================================================= Date: Thu, 13 Apr 1995 12:00:00 Reply-To: UCF SUPERGUY List Sender: UCF SUPERGUY List From: Robotech_Master Subject: Introduction and Synopses The fourth Team M.E.C.H.A. Trade Ether-Back consists of: Team M.E.C.H.A. #31-35 Spectrum #7-10 Space Moose #13-15 Marie #1-3 Crapshoot #3-5 AA: A funny thing happened on the way to the Grunions Bob City (Mega)Crossover #1-5, inclusive of some of the above What you hold in your hands (or on your screen) is the fourth Team M.E.C.H.A. Trade Ether-Back. It is a work of enormous size, such that I have to split it up into two parts simply so I can edit and post it. And it has a great deal of complexity. It all started a while back, when some of the newer authors got together and thought, "Hey, wouldn't it be great to have our series cross over?" So, everybody and his sidekick got together in Springfield (fictionally, that is) for the big bash, which, if you've been reading through these TEBs serially, you would have already read in TEB #2, "Destination: Springfield." Then I had to go home over the Christmas holiday, and wrote eight episodes as a transition story between that and the crossover yet to come. Those eight episodes make up Team M.E.C.H.A. TEB #3, "She Blinded Me With Science." Of course, it was all leading back to this. Back to the Ultimate New Author Crossover, the rampage through Bob City. Team M.E.C.H.A. vs. the Mighty Muddy Power Grangers, in a showdown to end all showdowns. Bob City would never be the same again. At this point, it's time to mention a few things about the way the TEB is put together, then go on to explain nuances about the stories that only longtime readers would understand. The assembly notes first. As with TEB #2, this TEB contains segments from several different series, assembled in the order in which they took place. By reading through the entire thing, you get the "big picture"--and boy, is it ever a big one! :) The more astute readers will notice that some of the series will have skipped some episodes since those covered in #2. I did this in order to try to keep this TEB down to something vaguely resembling a manageable size. The skipped episodes are really not important in the context of the Bob City Crossover anyway. (Where they are important, I'll mention them in the synopses at the end of this introduction.) Next, I need to talk about the mistakes that were made during the writing of this crossover. We got so caught up in the excitement of writing it that we inadvertantly forgot to pay attention to maintaining the integrity of the setting. Bob City was created by Ben Brown and Rob Furr as a sort of a monument to film noir. Movies like "The Maltese Falcon," "Double Indemnity," "Sunset Boulevard," and so on, starring great actors like Humphrey Bogart, Sydney Greenstreet, Peter Lorre, Fred MacMurray, and many more. It's the kind of town where mysterious men in trenchcoats lean against lampposts, casting a black shadow against the white circle of light on the sidewalk, while the everpresent nightly rain pours down. The kind of city that inspires one to speak in cliches and refer to women as "dames" or "broads." The kind of city that we rather forgot to portray it as. We rampaged through it with huge mecha and giant squids, generally destroying everything in our path and laying waste to much of the city. We got Rob Furr rather angry at us. I still regret some of the things I wrote during this crossover. Please keep in mind as you read this that the true nature of Bob City can only be explored through the Extreme Team series of stories, written by Ben Brown and/or Rob Furr, and these are available for FTP from the same site where you found this TEB. Just check the index files to find which archives have the stories in them. Now, on to another series of mistakes I made during the writing of these stories. At a certain point, I decided to introduce a new character into my Crapshoot series. I wanted a last name that was vaguely ordinary-sounding, something like Smith or Jones, so I chose Brown. At that point, it didn't cross my mind that there were already two Authors around with that last name, but once I realized this, I thought hey, no problem...it's a common name. So I stuck the disclaimer in at the end of the Crapshoot episode in which I introduced her to state that she was no relation to any other famous Brown on the list or in the real world. :) However, it didn't end there. For the name, I wanted something that sounded kind of Californian. Additionally, I tend to use variants on the name "Sheryl" a lot in stories that I write--I really like the name, and some of my best characters have been named that way. So, taking what sounded like a good Californian derivative of Sheryl, I got Sheri. It was only after the episode had been sent out that Lawrence mentioned to me that his WIFE was also named Sheri Brown. At that point, I had received email on Superpen about this. Eric Burns had said, "Isn't Lawrence's wife named Shari?" And I suddenly remembered, hey, that's right, she is! So in my next CS, I referred to her as "Sheri (not Shari)." Unfortunately, Eric Burns' "Shari" had been a typo. Lawrence Brown's wife's name WAS in fact Sheri. And so I was doubly embarrassed for it, and it took me a long time to live that gaffe down. As I was putting this TEB together, it occurred to me that I could remove the "not Shari" references, reducing embarrassment and the like, but I decided not to. I figured that you might as well get to read the stories as they had gone out (with a few minor edits for continuity's sake), and changing that gaffe would deprive you of a couple of additional laughs at my expense. :) Incidentally, a few months later, Lawrence's son was born, and he was named Christopher Douglas Edward Brown. And my name is Christopher Edward Meadows, and my father's middle name (as well as the last name of three of my characters) is Douglas. Totally coincidental, he assured me. But I know deep down that it's really Lawrence's Revenge. :) SYNOPSES: Crapshoot (By Chris Meadow/Robotech_Master): A young man named Chance E. Vennt discovered his powers of probability manipulation and astoundingly good luck. On his way to try to become a superhero, he met up with Zen Navigator and they hit it off quite well (better than Chance knew, in fact--they actually first met during an AA episode which Robotech_Master later erased from Chance's memory). Spectrum (By Lawrence Brown/Amigoid): No episodes skipped; read TEB #2. Space Moose (By Daniel Pawtowski, aka Gadge): Space Moose and his new sidekick, Clyde the Cowardly Squid, have had several interesting adventures. Most recently, they stopped a falling Soviet satellite from hitting Canada, but Clyde was scared catatonic and Space Moose had to resort to one of his usual unorthodox solutions to get them down. Benedict Arnold, Renegade Dalek and an associate of Space Moose, makes a rare trip to Bob City from his secret base, MooseLodge, in an attempt to fix up the mess. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 13 Apr 1995 12:00:00 Reply-To: UCF SUPERGUY List Sender: UCF SUPERGUY List From: Robotech_Master Subject: THE COPYRIGHT NOTICES This TEB is copyright 1994 by Chris Meadows, Lawrence Brown, Daniel Pawtowski, and Jesse Taylor. Permission is granted for archival purposes and to make one printed copy for personal use. Unauthorized redistribution by other mdeia (such as CD-ROM) is prohibited without the permission of the authors. "Team M.E.C.H.A.," "Mike," "Summer," "Adam Douglas," "Lincoln Douglas," "Sarah Conner," "Bahamode Sigma," and all associated names and locations are copyright 1993, 1994, 1995 Chris Meadows. "Cyclone motorcycles" belong to Harmony Gold, and "Bahamodes" belong to some Japanese company and their appearance in this story is for parody value and not intended to violate copyright. "Spectrum," "Lawrence Brown," "ManCo PoWerArmor," "Foxy," "Dr. Hans K. Cheef," "Fuzzy Bunny," "The Mighty Muddy Power Grangers," "Pinto Sally," "Superchick," "Bull," "Mule," "Reaper," "Hellhound," "Rooster D. Structoid," and all associated characters and places are copyright 1993, 1994, and 1995 by Lawrence Brown. The characters "Marie", "Wayne", "Burnout", "Sanka" and "Shana Shannon" are copyright 1994 and 1995 Jesse Taylor. The "Tornado Power Armor" is also copyright 1994 and 1995 Jesse Taylor. "TONN" and "That Other News Network" are copyright 1993, 1994, and 1995 by Jesse Taylor. All copyrights, where used, are used with permission from Jesse Taylor and said use does not constitute a release of rights. "Invid" are copyright Harmony Gold, and their use in this story is for parody purposes; no copyright violation is intended. "Bob City," "Extreme Team," and all related characters (including but not limited to "Bulletproof," "Captain Non Sequitor," and "Mister Safety") are the exclusive copyright of Ben Brown and Rob Furr. These characters and fictional locale(s) have not been released to the public domain and no rights save a one-time permission for use in this document have been granted to this document's authors. This one-time permission includes permission to store and distribute this document via normal archival routes, but specifically does not cover commercial(including CD-ROM) distribution or print distribution. I, Daniel Pawtowski, hearby give permission for Chris Meadows to use my characters: Space Moose, Clyde, and Benedict Arnold, in his Team M.E.C.H.A. Trade Etherback. These stories are to be distributed in their entirety and without modification. This permission is only granted for the Trade Etherback, all other use of these characters will require additional permissions. Space Moose, Clyde the Cowardly Squid, Benedict Arnold, MooseLodge, the MooseWing, and the MooseMech are copyrighted to Daniel Pawtowski. Daleks are copyrighted to Terry Nation. The character of Benedict Arnold, Renegade Dalek Superhero is intended as a parody, no violation of copyright is intended. ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 16 Jan 1994 20:50:01 -0600 Reply-To: UCF SUPERGUY List Sender: UCF SUPERGUY List From: Robotech_Master Subject: SG: Team M.E.C.H.A. #31 TEAM M.E.C.H.A.--#31 IN A CONTINUING SERIES BY CHRIS MEADOWS, AKA ROBOTECH_MASTER, AKA HEY STUPID A Story of High Technology, and High Government Clearances (Hey, what's with the new format for the titles already? Geez, I liked it better when you centered it.) The door slid open with a scraping sound, as from long disuse. The figure stepped through it, into the light. He was in full Battler Cyclone armor, with the four missile launchers on the armplates. Attached to the inside of his right arm was a huge gun. A gatling gun, six-barrelled, loaded with .50 caliber APDSS (Armor-Piercing, Discarding-Sabot Shell) ammunition. His helmet gleamed in the dim light, reflecting it in different ways as it turned from left to right to take in the area around it. "Come on...I know you're around here..." the man muttered. He reached up and slid the faceplate back, and his features could be seen. He had blond hair, and his face was covered with grime and a few days' growth of stubble. His blue eyes flashed as he peered around the room he found himself in. It was a storeroom of some sort, he knew that. There were all sorts of crates lying around, some half-opened. They were arranged in a pattern leading to the door at the other end of the room. He knew what had to be through that door--the open air and freedom. And yet something held him back...he didn't know what, but...no, wait. That exit couldn't be unguarded. No possible way. It was sucker-bait. He'd scout the place first. Ah, yes...a secret door in the side wall. Slipping inside, he found the stash. Another gatling gun like the one on his arm, first-aid supplies, and extra ammunition. For a moment, he considered taking the other gun and putting it on his left arm, but the one he had required both arms to control, even with the Cyclone armor amplifying his strength. But he did pick up the ammo boxes, dumping them into the gun's ammo hopper for the autoloader to sort and load. The meter on the helmet display told him he had plenty of ammo, and he smiled. "Now we're ready. Let's do it to it!" He stepped back out into the center of the room, casting a shadow in the light from the door. He hefted the gun, engaged the shoulder targeting system and felt the gun lock into place with a satisfying ratcheting click. Reaching up to his helmet, he flipped the visor back down. "It's party time." He stepped toward the door. And then, with a hiss of hydraulics and a demon roar, the light was blotted out by a huge, ugly form. It was an Invid Pincer unit, the bulbous heat cannons on its shoulders glowing ominously. Its slitted eye swivelled to fix the man in its gaze, and in an eerily inhuman voice, it bellowed, "GUTEN TAG!!!" "Guten tag yourself, you ugly sonuva--" BAM-BAM-BAM-BAM-BAM-BAM-BAM- BAM-BAM-BAM-BAM-BAM-BAM-BAM-BAM-BAM-BAM-BAM-BAM... "Enjoy your game of Invidstein Holo-3D?" Mike asked Adam as he stepped out of the locker room, hair still damp from his shower. "Ooooh, yeah," Adam said. "I really like that new cannon you cooked up for me." Mike grinned. "I knew you'd love it." "Heavy firepower to the max, you bet I do! Forget your EP-37 beam gun...that GATLING is a GUN!" "Yeah. And it'll take almost any kind of ammunition you pour into it." "You're kiddin' me." "No, honest truth. Got the idea from a Dale Brown novel I read once. The fighter plane cannon could adjust to most any kind of ammo. I figured, hey, why not for this gun? So, in a pinch, you can dump anything from .22 to .50 cal in there and it'll use it. Naturally, the efficiency and rate of fire will be highest for .50 ammo, and there normally won't be any need..." "But y'never know," Adam replied. "After all, it IS only a thousand-round drum." "Uh, yeah. Only a thousand rounds," Mike remarked. "Anyway, thanks again. I'm going to go and run it through another sim after lunch." "Right...I'll join you for lunch in just a few." Mike took the elevator to the control room, where Link was sitting at the main communication monitor. "Anything yet?" "No..." "Ah, well. They'll contact us eventually. Hey, has there been anything on the news about our friends?" "I don't know, I'll check." Lincoln Douglas punched a few keys to activate the keyword search system. Once activated, the supercomputer would search through news broadcasts, databases, and transmissions for any articles or items with the programmed words in it. "Here's something on Space Moose..." The picture showed what looked like some sort of plane or spacecraft with antler wings, with a giant squid draped all over it. The voiceover announced that this strange aircraft had landed at Bob City Municipal just a few minutes before, and was reportedly Space Moose's aircraft, and that rescue personnel were at a loss as to how to remove the squid. "This is from a couple of hours ago," Link reported. "What about Spectrum?" Mike asked. Link tabbed some keys. "Hmm...nothing showing up under that NAME...but an armored figure and an anthropomorphic fox have been sighted flying through the skies over Bob City, and occasionally crashing..." "Right. Um...what about that big dog?" "Overdog? I don't think anyone's written anything about him yet," Link said. "Okay, right. And the Invid? Have they shown up on the news recently?" "Not that I know of...we really did a number on TONN. I'm surprised they haven't tried to sue us or something." "Shhh, don't give the Authors ideas." Mike looked around worriedly. "Anyway, that's about it. There's an article in the news about Trashman and the ALU breaking up a gang of punks lead by a Xolcha--Xolcha--an alien Jonathan Frakes and Dr. Unorthodox, and something about Radian's escape..." "What?" It was Adam, who'd just stepped into the control room. "Radian got away? I didn't hear about this." "Yeah, apparently she and someone named Shadebeam fooled the central computer at CalForce HQ and made their getaway. There was an APB out, but it was later cancelled." Lincoln hit some keys. "I can get you more data, if you like. We've got a dataline direct to Washington. Secret-Secret cleared information." "What?!" Mike gasped. "Why didn't I know about this? How'd we get that kind of clearance?" "Forget that!" Adam said. "What you're sayin' is this bitch who nearly destroyed the world just bugged out and left before she could go to court?! And they just let her go?" "They didn't 'just let her go,' they put some Secret-Secret Agents on it. One of them is a real wunderkind, I understand." "I don't care WHAT her orientation is. Let's go out and bring her in!" "No." "What?! But don't you think we should help?" Adam asked incredulously. Mike shook his head. "Nah...we've got better things to do. Let the guys who're trained for this sort of thing handle it. What I'm interested in right now is how we have this government-classified information pipeline. Link? How come I didn't know about this?" "You were more interested in the autofactory facility, as I recall," Link replied. "You left most of the info-search systems alone. So did I, in fact, until a few hours ago when I was playing around with...research telemetry." "Hacking, you mean," Mike accused with a grin. Link shrugged, but didn't deny it. "But why didn't the government shut it down when they mothballed the base?" "As far as I have been able to ascertain, it would have been less expensive simply to leave it the way it was than to disconnect the feeds and things. You know how the government is..." Mike nodded. "Absolutely. And thankfully, they ARE that way, so they've forgotten all about us. Come on, Adam, let's go eat." They walked to the elevator, then Mike turned, thoughtfully. "Link. I want you to be sure that the government doesn't find out about this place through anything that you do. In fact, it might be good if this site were expunged from the government's records altogether." Lincoln nodded. "I'll see what I can do." He turned back to the console. In the elevator to the commissary, Mike noticed that Adam seemed to be looking a bit upset. "Adam? What's wrong?" "Those damn mages," Adam replied. "They nearly destroyed the world, dammit. And now the most powerful of all of them is out running loose again, and--" "She's not the most powerful any more," Mike said. "She lost all her magic powers when Ramrod shot her in the head. She's no more dangerous now than your average supervillain." "Just how do you know all this?" Adam asked suspiciously. "I read it in the Weekly World Schmooze," Mike replied. "Regardless, many of Earth's mages helped fight her!" "Yeah, but more were FOR her," Adam replied, as the elevator stopped. "Sometimes, I think we should just go out and ice 'em all. The world would be better off without 'em." "I hope you don't really mean that," Mike said. "If you do, I guess you're not the man I thought you were." Mike walked out the door, leaving Adam standing there with his mouth hanging open. WHERE DID THIS SECRET-SECRET-LEVEL COMPUTER ACCESS COME FROM? WILL THE GOVERNMENT BE MAD AND TRY TO TAKE IT BACK? WILL TONN SUE TEAM M.E.C.H.A. FOR DAMAGES? IS ADAM REALLY NOT THE MAN MIKE THOUGHT HE WAS? WHY THE CHANGE IN FORMAT FOR PREVIEW QUESTIONS AND TITLE? "It's because the author's editing with Pico now instead of Qedit. Duh." OH. ANYWAY, ALL OF THIS AND MORE, COMING UP SOON, ON SUPERGUY!!! (I miss the OLD format...) -- Chris Meadows | SUPERGUY TRIVIA: Who was the first to defeat CHM173S@NIC.SMSU.EDU | the Awesome Force? Hint...it was a supergroup, CMEADOWS@NYX.CS.DU.EDU | sort of... CMEADOWS@NOX.CS.DU.EDU | ROBOTECH@SKYNET.DIALUP.ACCESS.NET ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 13 Jan 1994 01:50:48 PST Reply-To: UCF SUPERGUY List Sender: UCF SUPERGUY List From: Lawrence Brown Subject: Spectrum #7 SPECTRUM #7 by the Amigoid "Married to the Muse" The skies over Bob City were clear and sunny. Large fluffy clouds drifted through the rain scrubbed air, with little on their cloudy minds other than kicking back and relaxing before getting together for their night job. A man let out a hearty whoop as he blasted though the center of a cloud, streaming vapor trails behind him. Clad in white armor with a rainbow diagonal stripe, his arms stretched out to each side, and described lazy spirals as he barrel-rolled up and through the skys over Bob. Foxy unclasped one hand from its death grip on his back to smack his backside. "Giddyup Air-Horsie! Ixnay with the Barrel-Rolls, ok? We just ate!" Spectrum laughed, flipping sharply in mid-air, dislodging his furry passenger. Angling down to intercept the tumbling toon, he swooped her back up into his arms. Foxy screeched and clung tightly to the hero, more excited than upset. A fall from even several thousand feet up was hardly lethal. It might knock her out, and Spectrum might have a heck of a time reinflating her pancaked body, but she'd bounce back. Foxy snuggled her head into Spectrum's neck as he slowed to a hover, just above the rooftops of the city. "You are getting really good piloting that suit." The lower half of Spectrum's face was uncovered, so Foxy could see him flash a broad smile. "You betcha furface. Its starting to feel like a second skin, and I love flying anyway, so you know I'd master it quickly." She smiled a mysterious grin. "You need to master it. Some day you're going to need it in a fight and you will have to be ready." "I am ready, I can take on anything, anytime, anymnhpfh!" Spectrum's boast was cut short by Foxy's sudden kiss. He floated, transfixed, surprised by the ferocity of her embrace, the feeling of the moment sweeping away everything else. At least until the pair impacted on the pavement a couple hundred feet below them. *WHAM!* "Ow. Ow ow ow OW ow." Spectrum gingerly sat up and glared at the cartoon fox who had used Spectrum and his ManCo PoWerArmor to absorb the impact. She grinned at him, "You through making 'asphault angels', sailor? What did we learn from this?" "That everyone I trust will KO me in mid-exposition?" He dusted himself off. "OKay, okay Foxy, you made your point. I need to keep up my concentration." "Thats right hero. You are the power supply for that super suit. Forget to keep feeding energy into the suits receptors, and Goodnight Gracie." "Come here." He grabbed her and pulled her close. Her six foot tall anthromorphic body was only a half a foot shorter than his, so it was no stretch for their lips to meet again. "You didn't tell me you, you, felt this way for me before..." "Well, DUH!" She smiled shyly back. "I guess you were too busy playing superhero to notice. So what are you going to do now Spectrum?" ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Back at their apartment, the answering machine beeped. In another apartment, a man focused his camera on a potted plant. Snapping a couple flash shots off, he stepped back, and then began a series of backflips, each flip punctuated by the 'click-wrr' of his flash camera as he it trained on the photo subject. Panting, he walked to his darkroom. "Almost ready..." ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ The rentacop bank security guard stared blankly at his own body. It was odd looking at ones own body from this angle. "Oh yeah" he thought, "Thats right, I'm dead." And with the last vestiges of awareness he glared at his murderer, silently cursing him as he dangled by his hair from the villian's grasp, his lifeblood staining the scythe that had decaptated him. Reaper chuckled and casually tossed the head towards the other bank employees. "Mule, Bull, Hellhound and Superchick, ah think the folks heah are ready to assist us." "Whut?" Reaper sighed, "Nevermind Mule, lets just rob the damn bank and vamoose!" --------------------------------------------------------------------------- WILL SPECTRUM BE ABLE TO SAVE THE BANK STAFF IN TIME? WILL SPECTRUM AND FOXY GET THE MESSAGE FROM TEAM M.E.C.H.A. IN TIME? WHO IS THE MAN WITH THE CAMERA? FIND OUT MORE IN THE NEXT EXCITING EPISODE, FEATURING THE RETURN OF THE MIGHTY MUDDY POWER GRANGERS, ONLY ON: SUPERGUY !!!!! -- ************************************************************************* * All programmers are playwrights and all computers are lousy actors. * ************************************************************************* Lawrence H. Brown HW Release Lab Admin. lbrown@cisco.com (415)688-4487 Homephone: (408)984-6036 If its urgent: Digital Pager: (408)485-2831 Keywords: VideoToaster!, Champs, Dolphins, Mechforce, Networks, Omaha, Probe ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 18 Jan 1994 14:44:58 PST Reply-To: UCF SUPERGUY List Sender: UCF SUPERGUY List From: Lawrence Brown Subject: SG: Spectrum #8 Spectrum #8 A Story of High Technology and... (waitaminute...) Spectrum #8 A Story of Confrontations or The Fur Flies in This One Folks! (Part One of Two) "Stop it!" Spectrum pushed Foxy away from him, from their perch atop a skyscraper in downtown Bob City. "I can't do this! I'm married!" He stood, and brushed off his clothes. His armor lay to one side. Foxy pouted and rolled up to her knees. "Yeeeahsure. You are just weirded out by the idea of dating outside your species. Come on, it'll be educational!" "NO!" "What if I said pretty please?" "No, damn it, I'm married to someone in Oklahoma. I have a job, and a home, and..." "...and none of this is real. Right. We have been through this before. Who made you Kid Solopsism anyway?" Spectrum turned, "You've been reading the SUPERGUY archives?!?" Foxy shrugged. "I was bored one evening. You were out patrolling, trying to find Dr. Hans K. Cheef; the guy that built your ManCo PoWerArmor, and so I went through the windows tutorial. And you think toons are weird..." She paused, then stood to face him. "I've got news for you, there is nothing in the archive about you at all. Not a word." "Of course not, my archive files only cover up to where I bumped into my author while being sucked into this dimension..." "Your author? That means you were created by him, right?" "Um." "So until he thought you up there was no Spectrum, no Lawrence Brown, no office, nada. And no wife." "Thats not true! I have to have a past." Spectrum held out his left hand. "See! My ring! I got that from my wife." Quick as lightning Foxy snatched the ring off his hand. "No. The author created this to give you a background, a history, something to anchor your self with. But if you claim to be from another altiverse, then how did you get here? Why can't you remember anything about your past? BECAUSE, the author hasn't written it up yet! You got a beef with that, take it up with him, otherwise, you better just learn to deal with it." "Weird stuff coming from a former resident of the cartoon dimension. Maybe I should just send you back!" Spectrum angrilly shouted. Foxy paused. A tear formed at the corner of her eye. She whispered, "Alright sailor, have it your way." She turned and threw the ring over the side of the skyscraper. "NO!" Without thinking, Spectrum dashed towards the edge of the roof. Just as the momentum carried him over the edge of the building, he remembered he'd left the armor back on the roof where they'd laid. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Crapshoot looked out the window at the Springfield Bus Station. He had a hour to kill before the bus moved on. He was hungry and he was more than a little curious about the cloaked figure that had boarded the bus at the last stop. Every time he looked at the mysterious figure, the man would smile at him, then go back to his Rand McNally Road Atlas. Crapshoot decided a walk would be a good idea. Maybe he could suit up and defeat a villian before the bus left. Maybe he could get something sweet. A leftlet caught a gust of air and wrapped itself around his ankle. He read the leaflet, and smiled. Luck smiled back at him. The lobby of the Springfield Children's Hospital was in chaos. A pair of masked gunmen kicked open the exit, dashing out from under the banner which read: HOSPITAL BAKE SALE AND AUCTION TODAY. Lewis grinned to his companion as they ran out into the parking lot. "Just like stealing money from a bunch of babies, eh Huey?" Huey was about to laugh a reply but instead he let out a strangled yelp. his leg was tangled in a tether line. Lewis was clotheslined by another tether line. The breeze picked up and the pair found themselves suspended 20 feet above the ground, hanging by their ankles, above a large balloon that looked like a Macy's Thanksgiving Day Float. They hollered in unison, "HELP! HELP! HELP!" "What a lucky break!" crapshoot thought. "I can finally rescue some people in distress, looks like they accidentally got tangled up in that balloon's tow lines!" He quickly pulled on his costume and dashed to the scene. ----------------------------------------------------------------- Spectrum fell towards the earth, trying to catch the falling ring. *What am I going to do even if I catch it?* He thought to himself. 100 feet from the ground, the ring suddenly just winked out of existance. With only seconds to spare, Spectrum projected blasts of kinetic energy to slow his desent. He plummeted slowly to the ground, landing hard on his feet. "OW! Damn that hurt! Good thing I didn't hit any harder, or else I might end up with no arches. Who knows how that would have effected me." Concentrating again, Spectrum levitated back up towards the rooftop. ---------------------------------------------------------------- Crapshoot listened to the hospital administrator. She smiled at his costume. "Well, Mr. Crapshoot, we appreciate your help capturing those villians. It was so lucky that you happened to stop by when you did. Almost as lucky as we were, those crooks nearly got away with the money we'd raised from the bake sale." She sighed. "Although, its way too little to really do much more than cover the repairs to the parking lot. We could have used 10 times what we made. But we should be thankful for what we did raise..." A little old woman hobbled up to the pair, holding a large glass of lemonade and half a chocolate cake. "Here you go young man, thank you for helping us out. You look thirsty, why don't you take this with you, its left over from the bake sale." Crapshoot walked back to the bus station, with a secret smile. Above the hospital, Overdog floated contentedly. The children were safe, and he was happy. The evil ones were gone. As the breeze turned him in the air, the big eyes suddenly blinked. Passersby mistook his gasp for a momentary leak. In the distance, Overdog saw the strangest sight, something that completely puzzled his simple awareness. A Moosehead with flapping antlers and a giant squid were descending towards the airport at a fast clip. ------------------------------------------------------------- "ALRIGHT FOXY! Hand over my ring!" Spectrum glowered as he alighted back on the rooftop. But Foxy was nowhere to be seen. Her pistol and headset, stolen from the TONN R&D trooper in their last battle, were gone. Sighing, Spectrum pulled on the armor and powered up the systems. Lost in system startup diagnostics, he failed to notice SpaceMoose and Clyde flying towards the airport. Firing blasts of energy into the suit's receptors, he leapt off the edge and extending his gossamer glide enchancers, flying back to Dr. Cheef's house, Foxy, and his ring...he hoped he could set things straight. Continued in Part II...coming RSN... -- ************************************************************************* * All programmers are playwrights and all computers are lousy actors. * ************************************************************************* Lawrence H. Brown HW Release Lab Admin. lbrown@cisco.com (415)688-4487 Homephone: (408)984-6036 If its urgent: Digital Pager: (408)485-2831 Keywords: VideoToaster!, Champs, Dolphins, Mechforce, Networks, Omaha, Probe ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 19 Jan 1994 09:04:58 EST Reply-To: UCF SUPERGUY List Sender: UCF SUPERGUY List From: Jesse Taylor Subject: SG: Marie #1 MARIE PLAYS THE HERO PART ONE by the Shadowy Writer <-----> "This is great!" Marie said to herself, staring out into the wide environs of St. Louis, Missouri, where the Headquarters of TONN--That Other News Network - was located. She had managed to sneak off the heavily stealthed transport shuttle without running into any security personnel (she didn't know that the reason for this was that all but two TONN security guards had been killed by Team M.E.C.H.A. earlier, and that one of those was appearing in another plotline at the moment). "A whole new world, all mine to conque- erm...wait a minute, I'm supposed to be a hero!" Marie pulled out her copy of _Heroic Deeds_ by Foresight of the Persons of Heroic Intent and flipped through it. "Hm. 'Heroes should never attempt to conquer the world--this is considered bad form, as well as an infringement on what is generally a villain's job'." "Right...'Heroes should attempt to commit good deeds whenever possible'... 'Slaughtering villains is generally considered to be in poor taste, as they cannot then appear in later plotlines'...Ok! I think I've got it now...No more villainous dialog, do good deeds, and don't kill people! That's easy!" Having determined the parameters of her mission, Marie decided that her next purpose was to find out where she was going. A search through the TONN archives placed Spectrum in Bob City...But where the heck was that?! "Hm," Marie said, peering at a map of St. Louis. Roads led out in all four major directions, as well as some minor ones. Marie pulled out an 8-sided die (necessary for Palladium games--and you DO remember who makes Robotech, ja?), uttered a quick prayer to the Regis, and tossed. "A 4!" she shouted, before remembering she hadn't decided what the roll would mean. Starting with '1' as due East, she went counterclockwise around the map. "Northwest it is!" she grinned, stuffing her dice and map back into her Invid Standard-Issue Butt-Pack, and powering up her armor. "Is she going in the right direction?" Anime Freak asked one of the sensor techs aboard the Grey October. On two of their monitors was displayed video feeds from two vid-cameras mounted in Marie's helmet. "How the hell should I know?" the tech responded, "It's not like any of us know where the hell Bob City is..." Soon thereafter, Marie discovered two things. One was that while battlesuits are really nifty in combat situations, they are somewhat less so for overland travel. Especially when one tries to jog. The second thing that she discovered was that such travel ate up fuel at a very rapid pace, such that she was down to 1/10th charge on her protoculture unit. "Pooh," she muttered, "Where the hell am I going to get Protoculture in the middle of nowhere?" Turning, she saw that St. Louis was nothing but a glow behind her--she had, in fact, made rather rapid progress. Facing front again, she saw, rising like a mirage out of the desert, a...7-11! For those of you who Don't Know These Things, Slurpees are the source of Protoculture on Superguy Earth. The Invid, when they initially arrived in our dimension, were at a loss to figure out how to convert the cold, icy beverage into usable energy. Finally, after a great many mishaps, one of their scientists was able to build a rather small box that converted Slurpees into good ol' Protoculture. After careful examination, the box turned out to be a plain metal box with two holes in it, input and output, and nothing but a plastic tube inside. Asked how he it worked, the scientist merely pointed to an inscription on the side. SF Writer's Credo : "Who cares how it works, if it's convenient to the plot, it just does." <-----> "Hello, nice young lady-person!" the owner of the 7-11 said as Marie walked in, removing her helmet, "I am Raji, and I will be happy to assist you to find whatever it is you will be needing..." "Slurpees," Marie said, "Four of 'em." "Oh, indeed. Slurpees you must have, now," Raji said, walking over to the slurpee machine with four conical paper cups. "You will never guess what trouble I had over Slurpees back in Detroit--These crazy aliens showed up, telling me to give them 'Protoculture', and when I told them I had none, they trashed my store...Oh, goodness, it was horrible! I moved my store down here, because nothing ever happens around St. Louis, oh no...Hmm, you look a great deal like the leader of those crazy aliens, you know, yes?" "Eh heh heh..." Marie said, looking nervous. "Just an, uhm, coincidence, I'm sure..." Now, back when the events in Force Ten #17 were happening, good ol' Ms. Coffee had been traveling. She'd been robbing banks, terrorizing fast-food stores, and blowing up Maxwell House trucks whenever she found them. About this point, her (stolen) BMW was low on gas, and she pulled into the 7-11 to fill up. Having done so, she walked towards the door, and decided robbing the place would be fun. In fact, she'll walk into the 7-11 right about... "Hands up!" Ms. Coffee growled, using her walker to push open the doors to the 7-11, and pointing her coffee-bean-launching Mr. Coffee machine at Marie and Raji. ...now. "Oh, goodness, no! Do not be hurting my beautiful store, now!! I will give you anything, yes?" "Hand over all your money!" Ms. Coffee growled at Raji. She trained her Mr. Coffee at Marie. "You! I bet you're a hero, right?" "Er...yes?" Marie replied. "I thought so. I'll have you know I'm one of the oldest villains around! I eat wimps like you for breakfast! Try anything and you'll be sorry!!" 'I have got to do something!', Marie thought. 'This battlesuit runs on protoculture, so the weapons and combat systems should respond to mental commands like my Battloid...' She lowered her right arm so that the forearm weapons pod pointed at Ms. Coffee, while snapping her helmet on with her left. In her mind, she imaged the weapons firing... And nothing happened. "Hahaha!" Ms. Coffee said, instinctively realizing what had just occurred, "Weapons jam, eh?" "Aw, shoot!" Marie griped. Now, the R&D team had designed the suit to have multiply redundant systems, as all military units normally do. In the case the thought-control systems didn't work, there were voice-activated backups. The secondary armament of the battlesuit were the eight micromissiles, four in each forearm pod. Guess what the voice command to fire them was... A tiny launch door popped open, and one of the micromissiles shot out, almost beheading Raji, before impacting in the Cheez Doodles display, sending seriously crispy bits of cheese-flavored snack flying around the room. "Eep!" said Ms. Coffee, hurrying (as fast as an old lady can hurry) to safety behind the school supplies. "Whoa!" said Marie, "I wonder what I did?" Ms. Coffee popped up from behind a stack of Bud Dry cases (conveniently beside the school supplies and toys) and fired an explosive coffee bean at Marie. "Yipe!" Marie said, as the impact flung her back into the '$1.00 tapes' rack. She rolled out of the way of a second shot, her armor's systems beginning to get sluggish. 'I need to refuel, but I can't under fire like this!' "My store!" Raji wailed, as another shot from Ms. Coffee blew away the ice cream freezer. "Hrrr...Ok, time to show this old lady who's boss!" Marie said, unslinging the massive gun from her backpack unit. She sighted on the stack of beer cases. A gun this big would probably go through those, whoever was behind them, and most of the wall, too. Marie paused. She was supposed to be a hero, and that book on doing heroic deeds said not to kill...Her training screamed at her to vape this annoyance... but if she wasn't heroic, how would she ever have a chance of meeting Spectrum? "Ha!" Ms. Coffee said from behind Marie, having snuck over there during Marie's musings. Fast as her Invid reflexes were, Marie couldn't turn fast enough to avoid being hit, point-blank, with an explosive coffee bean. The impact blew Marie across the store into the magazines display, leaving a two- inch deep dent in the wall. As Marie struggled to get up, Ms. Coffee noticed the sizable weapon in her hands. 'If she gets up...', Ms. Coffee thought, 'I'm dead for sure! And knowing what being dead is like, I don't think I want to repeat the experience...' "I'll...(ouf!)...Stop...(ow!)...You!" Marie said, struggling to get up. Her armor was almost totally unresponsive now. "Not likely!" Ms. Coffee chuckled, hurrying out to her BMW, and taking off at an adrenaline-pumping 25 mph, laughing evilly all the while. "My store!" Raji wailed, again. Marie heaved herself up, and grabbed one of the Slurpees, pouring it into the 'input' valve on the Protoculture converter. Immediately her armor's power index jumped out of the red, and she was able to move normally again. "I need twenty more Slurpees..." Marie said, "And do you have any containers?" Raji was about to protest, but then he saw Marie's gun, and decided against it. He pointed wearily at the Tupperware shelf, which was the only place in the store that wasn't totally trashed by now. Marie scooped up some of the containers, and began pouring the Slurpees in. When she had filled them all, she placed them in her Butt-Pack. And proceeded to head out the door. "AHEM!" Raji practically shouted. "You forgot to..." Marie whirled around, thinking she had forgotten something, and due to one of those unfortunate mishaps that tends to happen often nowadays, ended up pointing her gun directly at Raji's head. "Uhm," Raji gulped, "N-never be minding--it's on the, uh, house...er..." Marie shrugged. "Whatever!" she grinned, heading out the door. <-----> "So, we know that the automatic weapons controls don't work..." Anime Freak pondered. "Run a full diagnostic on the other two prototypes to make sure they don't suffer from the same problem. And find some way to increase the battery's power--running out of juice that early could be a problem." "Um, excuse me," someone said from behind Anime Freak. He whirled to confront Bland News-Article-Writer, one of the TONN staff. "Yes, what is it?" "You told me to put a positive spin on everything Marie does, right?" "Yes..." "Well look what just came out of the AP machine!" Bland practically yelled, "How the hell do I put a positive spin on this?!" Anime Freak snatched the sheet of paper from Bland, skimming it quickly. "Armored vigilante wrecks 7-11...Damage upwards of $10,000...Then runs off with $60 in Tupperware and Slurpees...Fails to apprehend criminal..." He looked up. "I have a feeling it's going to be one of those weeks..." IS IT GOING TO BE ONE OF THOSE WEEKS??? WILL MS. COFFEE BECOME ANOTHER ANNOYING OLD PERSON DRIVER IN A LARGE, EXPENSIVE CAR??? WILL MARIE FIGURE OUT HOW TO USE HER WEAPONS??? WILL SHE GET A HEROIC-SOUNDING NAME??? DO THE INVID REALLY MAKE STANDARD-ISSUE BUTT-PACKS??? WHAT OTHER 'BUGS' WILL SHE UNCOVER IN HER ARMOR??? WILL SHE END UP AS MORE OF A MORON THAN A HERO??? AND WHERE THE HELL *IS* BOB CITY, ANYWAY??? FIND OUT IN THE NEXT, ALMOST EXCITING EPISODE OF...SUPERGUY! ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 20 Jan 1994 08:22:59 -0500 Reply-To: UCF SUPERGUY List Sender: UCF SUPERGUY List From: dpawtows@VT.EDU Subject: SG: Space Moose #13: Special Delivery! Go Go Gadget Keyboard, still thawing out, presents... SPACE MOOSE #13 or Just a Bob, Bob, Bobb'in along... Somewhere high in an apartment somewhere in downtown Bob City (No, no, NOT Manchu Towers!), a T.V. was turned on. This was not particularly surprising, given that there was precious little else to look at in the metropolis unless one were particularly fond of cataloguing different types of rain. And even devout practitioners of that devout hobby would soon be bored to tears. Which would give them another few hours of enjoyment until their eyes dried, to be sure, but even these citizens would eventually seek some other form of entertainment. Those not smart enough to immediately realize that the best way to accomplish this was to leave Bob City altogether would eventually try television. And thus, a great many people, such as the occupant of this apartment, were watching the broadcast at this particular moment.... "And continuing with our story, this is NoName Reporter for Channel Four News (Best Broadcasts in Bob). Since there has been no change for the last six hours, let us go once _again_ to the images that were recorded earlier today here at Bob City International Airport. As if everyone out there hasn't already seen this $^*#@ reply two dozen ^^$@!&&ing times already..." "NoName!" "All, right, all right, I'm sorry...." The image on the TV changed to a grainy, long-distance view through pouring rain of a strange object, something that looked oddly like a stuffed Moose head being strangled by a small octopus. That is, until the easily-recognizable shape of Fu Manchu Towers appeared in the background to give the viewer a sense of scale. A brief static-free moment let the views see that it was indeed a _large_ Moose-head shaped aircraft with flapping antler wings being strangled by a giant squid. There was also a brief flash of shattering glass and what looked like pieces of an alarm clock flying out a gunfire-shattered window of Manchu Towers, which completely failed to attract anyone's attention. The reporter's voice continued to talk in what was an obvious prerecorded newsbite. "When this strange sight first appeared over the skies of Bob City, winging it's way in from the northwest, it was at first dismissed as yet another performance by Captain Non-Sequitor. However, a series of phone calls to the Bob City Airport Control Tower, the Bob City Police Department, and City Hall warned of the approaching, er, plane and claimed that it was in fact the MooseWing, a plane registered to the Canadian superhero Space Moose. Follow-up calls to the Canadian Prime Minister quickly confirmed the story. Furthermore, the rather odd, scratchy, mechanical voice claimed that the MooseWing had been heavily damaged during a high-altitude mission of some sort, and would be making a forced landing at Bob International (Best Boeings in Bob). The response was swift..." The view changed to footage of airport firetrucks pulling out of a garage, running down several luggage-carrying carts in the process and strewing underwear all over the tarmac. Angry flight crews responded by hurling yet more pieces of luggage after the firemen. "...but ineffective, as all attempts to cover the runway with a layer of fire-retardant foam were unsuccessful. The foam was washed away almost immediately by the rain. In a move that can best be described as "In Character," Captain Non-Sequitor did make a brief appearance to coat the runway instead with a thick layer of tartar sauce and bean dip. The exact reasons for this are still unknown. However, any further attempts to prepare for the crash were cut short by the actual arrival of the aircraft in question..." The recorded newsblurb changed again, to a view looking down the long, somewhat sticky and certainly bad-tasting runway. A rather familiar-looking flapping shape was shaking making a final approach. "Aviation officials have still not determined how the craft was controlled. In a brief statement, Mister Safety said only that "This is a clear violation of nearly half of the 1994 F.A.R. regulations, as well as the Invertebrate Control Act of 1952." Nevertheless, the landing occurred almost without incident..." On the screen, the MooseWing continued its steep glide angle towards the runway threshold. As it flew nearer to the TV crew, the camera's shotgun mike began picking up sounds from the aircraft: a loud *swooshing* noise from the flapping antlers, and a curious mixture of loud, blubbery sobs and giggles, intermixed with strange, unearthly cries of "I'm too young to be eaten". The giggling increased in intensity a few dozen yards from touchdown, then suddenly died down, as if they were the sound of some sort of "engine" being revved for a last-minute course correction. Somehow, a single nose gear managed to emerge from the muzzlelike prow of the plane. Two barely visible bulges near the back were all that showed of the main gear's attempt to force its way through the mass of clinging tentacles that surrounded the aircraft. Dropping it's nose, the MooseWing slammed down hard on the once functioning wheel. The camera panned to track it as it rolled several hundred feet before losing enough lift that the back end settled onto the food-covered runway. There was a sharp reaction the moment the pink flesh of the squid made contact. "AAAAAAAAAAAAAIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!! TARTAR SAUCE!!!!!" The burbling voice, apparently coming from the squid itself, shouted loud enough to shatter the glass of some marker lights. The MooseWing lurched as the immense sea creature tightened its grip on the already crushed airframe, forcing it to roll to one side and drag on wingtip. Since the plane was already pretty well smashed up, though, this didn't make much difference. It slid to a stop about halfway down the primary runway. Fire trucks and emergency vehicles immediately rushed out to meet it, with only three of them skidding off into the grass after their brake pads clogged up with bean dip. The prerecorded clip faded, replaced by a live feed of NoName standing by one side of the runway holding a mike in one hand and an umbrella in the other. Behind him, the distinctive shape of the Clyde-wrapped MooseWing was still laying pretty much where it had come to rest, surrounded by firemen and rescue personnel, some of whom were climbing over the mass of tentacles. "And that's the story so far. All attempts to remove the squid from the plane have failed. Although the rain has washed away the last of the tartar sauce, the squid still seems to be nearly catatonic, not aware of its surroundings, desperately afraid of being eaten by "Sea Monsters". Police psychiatrists have been unable to console the creature, although they have managed to learn that its name is "Clyde". They have also sent out requests to all Bob City pet stores, looking for psychologists experienced in dealing with invertebrates. So far, there have been no replies." The reporter paused as someone handed him a clipboard. "This just in. The Bob City Rescue Squad (Best Bandages in Bob) have lost their fourth set of "Jaws of Life" attempting to pry the squid off the MooseWing. Apparently, they keep inserting the jaws into Clyde's own jaws, and he keeps eating them. They have managed to insert a microphone deep enough into the layers of wrapped tentacles to contact the pilot inside, who does in fact claim to be Space Moose. He has said, and I quote: 'Honored Citizens of Bob City! I, Space Moose, am most proud of the rapid response of your emergency teams to my unfortunate plight! This incident is most regrettable, and I apologize deeply for this drain upon your much-needed resources! I swear upon my native herd that I shall repay your fine city for the expenditures they have made on my account!'" The reporter stopped reading the statement, pausing to roll his eyes. "And that's all we have for you now. This is NoNa-" A scream from off-camera caught his attention. The reporter looked aside and went wide-eyed in shock. "What the- QUICK!! Pan right!! PAN RIGHT!!! Cover this!!" The image quickly and jerkily swing to the right, towards the other main runway parallel to the once currently occupied by the MooseWing and emergency vehicles. A medium-sized twin-engine UPS cargo plane had just touched down, and touched down badly. Later investigation would reveal that the pilot had become distracted, allowing his gaze to become fixated on the rather odd sight parked on the closed runway. But irregardless of the actual cause of the crash, it was going to be a nasty one: The plane rolled violently, snapping off half of one wing, spilling fuel everywhere from a shredded wing tank. The pilot, in a move of either extreme bravery or extreme stupidity, leapt from his doorway and somehow managed to escape uninjured, his fall broken by a thick clump of bean dip that had managed to resist the rain by an incredible stroke of Luck. Or perhaps, it was simply Chance. The plane, however, was not so lucky. It began to cartwheel, shearing off another wing, spewing fuel everywhere as it tumbled. Suddenly, and without Chez Whiz, a young girl's voice screamed from the lines of onlookers who had gathered behind the police lines to watch the MooseWing rescue operations. "NOOOOO!!!!!! My baby brother and sister are in there!!! SOMEBODY SAVE THEM!!!!!" The cry for help spurred the awestruck rescue teams into motion. They leapt into their vehicles and started their engines, in a vain attempt to somehow reach the still-tumbling plane before an inevitable spark ignited the fuel. They had no chance, but they had to try. This was, after all, their job. They had to do it. And this was not only their job, but... "THIS LOOKS LIKE A JOB FOR SPAAAAAAAAAAACE MOOOOOOOOOOOOSE!!!!!!!!!" The camera view jerked around suddenly, trying to track both the twisting cargo plane and the source of that Moosely Bellow. In a flash of silver and fur, an antlered shape tore through the air, racing down the runway. Clutching his mike, NoName stared blankly. "It's...a blur..." Somewhere in the camera's mike pickup range, a walkie-talkie spluttered to life on the Tower frequency. "It's a plane on an unauthorized approach vector." But the person watching the TV knew better. "No, you ratings-mongering idiot! It's SPACE MOOSE!!!!" NoName glanced out the corner of his eye towards his audience, then waved towards his cameraman to move back to the crash scene. The twisted hunk of aluminum and warped propellers was still dancing over the runway, surrounded by a mist of aviation fuel, the broken win spars striking sparks on the asphalt despite the ever-present rain. It was only a matter of seconds until a spark caught. But a few seconds were all that was needed, as Space Moose tore his way through the ruined fuselage and vanished inside. And then the plane itself vanished, consumed in an immense fireball, flames shooting out from the wreckage and down along the fuel-soaked runway, smoke and fire billowing upwards into a mushroom cloud. The shock wave followed milliseconds afterwards, hurling NoName back into his own cameraman. The image on the screen spun upwards into the smoke-filled sky, then went blank. *PLEASE STAND BY. WE ARE EXPERIENCING TECHNICAL DIFFICULTIES* The screen blanked, replaced by some block-lettering text reading "Place Defense Squad Commercial Here" for several long seconds before the feed from the airport was restored. NoName, his face covered with soot, was kneeling down behind a blast-overturned pickup truck and talking horsely into his mike. "*COUGH* This is *Wheeze* NoName Reporter for *HACK* Channel Four, at Bob City International (Best Blow-Ups in Bob)...at the scene of a horrible tragedy....a few minutes ago, a small cargo plane crashed on landing, erupting into a fireball...*COUGH*...the pilot jumped clear, but *WHEEZE* there are unconfirmed reports of children inside. *GASP* The visiting Canadian superhero, Space Moose, *COUGH* entered the plane moments before the explosion. *WHEEZE* The flames are intense, I can't see anything in there, I don't know if he got out in time...*GASP*...no, wait, I think I see *COUGH* something...Sam, pan around and focus in on that..." The view shifted unshakily towards the pillar of flames that still dominated the runway. No attempt had yet been made to extinguish the blaze, which continued to pour black smoke and white wisps of vaporized raindrops into the air. But below, down low, huddled against the hot asphalt in the foreground, was something. A black silhouette against the fiery backdrop of the burning fuel. "I..I can't tell from here...no, wait, it's moving...I think it's..." The silhouette was indeed moving, up to its knees, then standing. It formed into a most distinctive shape as it strode fourth towards the camera with smooth, moosely strides. "Yes! It's Space Moose! And...and he's carrying something! Quick, Sam, gimme a close-up in that!" The camera zoomed in as Space Moose emerged from the clouds of smoke, his silver uniform gleaming beneath a layer of soot and scorch marks, the orange and yellow firelight sparkling off his antlers. He stood tall and proud, with a small bundle of clothes bundled under each arm. "YES!!! HE DID IT!!! HE GOT THE KIDS!!!!" Spurred on by a signal that his camera feed had gone live to the networks, NoName sprinted forward, microphone in hand, through the waves of intense heat. From the gathered crowds, another figure, the small girl who had shouted earlier, squirmed past the police barricades and started running towards Space Moose. "Mr. Moose! Mr. Space Moose! My name is NoName Reporter! Do you have anything to say?" "I am sorry, good citizen, but I do not have time for an interview! These fine children may be in need of medical attention, I must take them to the nearest hospital at once!" proclaimed the Moose. "Betty! Johnny! You're safe! Hoorrray!!!!!" shouted the small child, running up towards the heroic herbivore and the journalist. Space Moose leaned over towards the girl. "You are a member of their family?" "Yes, Mister Moose! That's my Betty, and that other one's my Johnny! Thank you very much for saving them, my mommy wanted them for Christmas, but they didn't arrive in time, so she had to make an order, and we came out here to the airport to meet it, and then we..." The child continued to prattle on as SPace Moose suddenly looked worried. His gaze met that of NoName's for a second, then they both looked down at the "children" cradled in his arms. "Oops," he said. "They're.....Cabbage Patch Kids....." stammered NoName. "Thank you!" shouted the young girl, before snatching the inert bundles of cloth from the superhero and running back to her parents. "I...um, Space Moose, do you have any comments to out television audience about this latest development?" "Why, yes, I do. I wish to say that....well...at least...it could have been worse..." "Could you elaborate on that?" "It could have been Barney." "Good point." And so ended the first ever live network broadcast of Space Moose, the Antlers of Steel, the Arctic Avenger, the Sworn Defender of the Canadian North, to the American audience. The TV viewer in the Bob City apartment turned the TV off. "Well now, that was the most entertaining thing I've seen since my bottle of Listerine exploded." HOW ENTERTAINING IS A BOTTLE OF LISTERINE EXPLODING???? WILL SPACE MOOSE GET GOOD RATINGS???? IF HE DOESN'T, WILL THOSE LEMURS AT THE AD AGENCY HELP???? WHAT ABOUT THE MOOSEWING????? WILL SPACE MOOSE HAVE TO STAY IN BOB CITY????? HOW ABOUT CLYDE????? Most of these answers will be gift-wrapped and FedExed through a zone of very unreliable postal service with insufficient postage, in a vain attempt to deliver them to... SUPERGUY!!!!!!!! ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 20 Jan 1994 12:30:47 EST Reply-To: UCF SUPERGUY List Sender: UCF SUPERGUY List From: Jesse Taylor Subject: SG: Marie #2 MARIE PLAYS THE HERO PART TWO by the ShadowyWriter <-----> Marie continued her trek towards what she hoped was Bob City--actually, she had no idea, given the fact that noone she had run into had known where Bob City was, either. Her armor's systems were growing sluggish again, and a flashing 'check battery level' light was blinking in the left-hand side of her faceplate. "Aw, Hell(tm)..." Marie muttered, stopping to rest a moment outside of a small town called Ft. Morgan. Various neon signs prolaimed the presence of various small-town buisnesses and hotels, none of which had done much buisness since around 1853. The only townsperson who noticed Marie was a rather generic person called John "The Man" Thomas. Having an eye for such things, he immediately identified the armor's occupant as female by the curvature of the exterior (my we're scientific today...:) and decided that this would be an excellent way to stand out among his fellow townspersons...He pictured the headlines now..."Ft. Morgan resident sleeps with heroine.." More like alien, he amended, peering at Marie's Invid (ie: extremely unnatural) hair color. Marie had taken off her helmet and was trying to figure out why the defoggers weren't working. "This stupid armor is a piece of #@$%!!" Marie growled. She was in a bad mood because a couple miles back, the internal air conditioner had cut off, and, well, *you* try jogging along in an unresponsive metal suit and see if *you* don't sweat like a pig. "Ah! Human! Do you know where I can obtain lodging?" 'heh heh', John Thomas grinned, "Yeah, see that Motel 6 over there? I'll, er, buy you a room..." Marie smiled, impressed by the generosity of this human. "You would purchase lodgings for me? How generous!" "heh heh, er, right..." Shortly thereafter... "Aren't you going to, er, take your, um, armor off?" John asked, annoyed. This had to be the densest person he had ever run into. "Wait 'til I finish the internal checks..." Marie replied, fiddling with various switches on her armor. "Say, you'll never guess who I saw..." Yes, it's that time again! When the TONN Research & Development people were constructing the prototype Tornado armor, they analyzed battle footage of Team M.E.C.H.A.'s Cyclones to try and fit an optimum array of weapons on the Tornado. However, given that the final bits were done right after the New Year's Eve party, the designers were, to say the least, somewhat inebriated. Thus they were unable to tell the difference between the Battler cyclone (with the minimissiles), the Sabre cyclone (with the CADS blades) and the Lite cyclone (with the gun). Given that their deadline was rapidly approaching, they kludged together a battlesuit with the weapons of all three. Due to budgetary constraints (most of their funds were later discovered to have been tucked in the bikini bottom of a belly dancer by a particularly inebriated accountant) they scrubbed the monomolecular blades and replaced them with a pair of cheap electric chainsaws, tied into the power plant for energy. And yes, the verbal command to activate them was, indeed, 'saw'. BZAAAAAAAAA!!!, went the two chainsaw blades, popping out of Marie's forearm sheaths. "EEEK!" eek'd Marie. "EEEYAAAAA!!" screamed John, tripping over Marie's helmet and hitting the 'on' switch for the TV. '...fanatical feminists have sworn to 'amputate' 100 males for every day Lorena Bobbitt is on trial...', said Bland Tv-Reporter on the TV screen. Bland looked rather uncomfortable. John looked at Marie. Then at the chainsaw blades. Then at the TV. Then down. "UUWAAAAAAA!!!!" he screamed, even louder this time, running through one wall and tearing off down the road. Marie stared in confusion at the burning footprints on the ground as John's screaming dissappeared into the distance. "How do I turn these things off?" she wondered aloud. Immediately, the saw blades retracted into the forearm pods. "Hm. That nice human must have been in an awful big hurry...Hope it wasn't something I said...Oh well.. Hey! A shower!" On board the Grey October, the monitor tech blinked in surprise as Marie began removing layers of armor. "Awright!" he grinned. Marie's helmet, in which the videocameras were located, had a perfect view right through into the shower stall. Then everything blanked out, as if someone had thrown something on top of the helmet. "Aw, DAMMIT!" Shortly thereafter (I love that phrase!) Marie went out shopping.. Now, in most small towns, people are amazed when they get any buisness at all. But having an armored hero-type shop around in the 'munchies' section of K-Mart is a whole new level of amazing. "How much will this cost?" Marie said a little later, plopping down a large pile of munchies, books, and pistols from the gun section. "Er..." the cash-register-attendant said, beginning to sort through it all. Marie chewed on her lower lip as the numbers mounted on the machine. She had yet to master the human concept of money. She did realize that the little green pieces of paper had value, but she couldn't figure out how the humans distinguished between them... "That'll be $2,456.34," the cash-register-person said. "Will this be enough?" Marie asked, pulling a handful of money from her Butt-Pack. The cash-register-person stared at the wad. The smallest bill in there was a $1,000 bill. "Urk," he said. A slow grin spread across his face. "Um, yeah, it's, uh, exactly enough..." "Wow! Thanks!" Marie grinned. "Paper or, uh, plastic?" "Do I have to pay for the bag, too?" The crp slapped his forehead. This was too easy. "Uhm, yes...Uh, that's another $1,000..." "Ok," Marie said, removing another wad of bills from her pack. "Will that cover it." "Er, ah, yes...Uhm.. Come again, uhm..." "Bye!" Marie smiled, walking out with two bags full of stuff. "I'm going to DisneyLand!" the cash-register-person shouted, running out the other door. Marie had yet to figure out the fine points of human interaction...So she decided to buy some of what are commonly called 'Romance' novels...Pondering on those, she eventually drifted off to sleep, with the wind whistling through the John "The Man" Thomas-shaped hole in her motel room wall... WILL MARIE GET ANY MORE CHANCES TO BE HEROIC??? WILL SHE ACCIDENTALLY DISCOVER ANY MORE OF HER ARMOR'S SYSTEMS??? WILL READING ROMANCE NOVELS HELP HER IN FUTURE 'HUMAN INTERACTION'??? WILL JOHN THOMAS STOP RUNNING ANYTIME IN THE NEAR FUTURE??? FIND OUT IN THE NEXT, EXCITING...SUPERGUY! ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 20 Jan 1994 12:35:55 PST Reply-To: UCF SUPERGUY List Sender: UCF SUPERGUY List From: Lawrence Brown Subject: SG: Spectrum #9 Spectrum #9 "Power Corrupts...Absolute Power Corrupts Quite Nicely" (Part Two of Two) Spectrum flew back to his secret Headquarters, located deep inside the bowels of Roseanne Barr. [Err. Hold it a sec. You don't look like my regular narrator...] Sorry, his water pipes are frozen, so he asked me to sit in for him. Now as I was saying...Our hero landed inside the HQ and sat in front of his 80486 feces and dumped his data... [Hey! I know you, you're that gross-meister, Doctor Phlegm! Thats not in the script! Get outta here!] In a burst of authorial energy, the phoney narratorial standin was melted into a dribbling pile of stinking goo, and then edited back where he belonged. My pipes were repaired, and I was uncerimoniously dumped in front of the mike. In front of me was the script, with a note stapled and highlighted. [Read your contract before you try that next time, buster, I've got other authors waiting for you to finish with my story! --Amigoid] HUmph. ------------------------------------------------------------ "You ready Reaper?" Reaper yawned and glanced up from the Farmers Almanac he was reading. He sat up in the back of the feed truck and nodded to Hellhound, who was polishing his gun. "Yep. Ok Bull, time to hit another bank." Looking back he nudged Mule, who was napping on one side of a pile of hay. "Yo, Mule. Tell Sally she better power up, its showtime..." "Whut?" "Nevah yew mind now, Mule, ah heard him all ready." Pinto Sally grabbed her belt buckle and concentrated, channeling the hyperspacial energies she as well as the others had been exposed to, back at the Odd Science Convention. "Its time to get muddy!" she exclaimed, as skimpy cutoffs disappeared and a full body jumpsuit covered her red helmeted figure. They'd been hired, 5 young farm punks, to create a ruckus and distract the security staff while the Doctors Science looted the exhibits. But nobody had expected the Qyntor Hyperdrive to be a real working device. During the explosion of the Hyperdrive, a bolt of strange energies had knocked the farm five back into the mud. The magic of the land bestowed power on them. The Doctors Science and their captive, Dr. Cheef, built special costumes and battle suits that ran off their warped internal energy. The feed truck ground to a halt, right in front of the Bob National Bank (Southwest branch, open 10-5pm), and the sliding door of the truck opened. Each of the villians leapt out, their motion clipped and stiff: From the driver's seat leapt Bull, in the Blue Costume. Side by Side leapt HellHound & Trasher, wearing Black and Green, respectively. Then their team leader, Superchick. (In a Red Costume that despite its uniformity with the rest of the team, it just seemed tighter and sexier.) Finally Mule slowly climbed out of the back, clad in his Pink Costume. Bull smacked his head. "Ah thought he was gonna wear th' yeller costume." "Whut?" "Look Bull, yew gonna call Mule yeller? He just likes Pink, okay?" Superchick glowered. Her helmet sparked. "Jest! Shut! Yer! Yap! 'N! Open! Thet! Door!" Her natural drawl came out clipped and short, like a badly dubbed Kung Fu Movie. "Waat ees wrong wit our helmets!" Thresher shouted. "Ze are meszing up our accents, no? I sound like ze bad french movie?" He smacked his sparking helmet and the distortion subsided. "Ah knew that Doctor fella we kidnapped was ah phoney! This stuff is a buncha junk!" "Never! Mind! We Go! Mule! Open! The Door!" Superchick whacked her head against Mule's Ignorant Bulk. "?Que?" Hellhound reached for the door, and pulled. The door rattled but did not open. A moment later, a security guard rushed to the door. Spotting the strange group, he unlocked the door and poked his head out. "Hello? What are you, some sort of new superteam? I haven't seen such tacky suits since the Defense Squad..." Hellhound's helmet sparked. In a voice sounding much like Basil Fawlty, he piped up, "No, sorry, my good man. We are here to rob this facility." "Do you have an appointment?" "I beg your pardon?" "Bank robberies are Tuesdays and Thursdays sir, you'll have to come back tomorrow." "Oh. Yes. Well, I'm terribly sorry to to bother you, but is there someone in charge who we could talk to regarding this? We are in a bit of a hurry you know. Lots of robberies to commit." "Sorry sir, but the branch manager just stepped out for lunch." "Oh bugger this!" Hellhound gestured, and a gleaming scythe appeared in his hand. With a fluid underhanded swing he split the guard neatly in twain. ----------------------------------------------- Spectrum landed in the back yard of Dr. Cheef's house. "Foxy you and I have to have a talk about all of this..." he mumbled to himself as he opened the kitchen door. Just a second later, he was splashed in the chestplate with a boiling pot of chicken soup. The old woman at the stove screamed, "Burglar! Oy, what kind of world is this! Gettouttahere!" Spectrum, more surprised than injured (thanks to the armor) blurted out a reply. "Whoa! Who the heck are you? What are you doing in my house?" "Your house? What, you mishuginah? This is my own little boy's home! Where's my little Hans?" Spectrum backed away from the cane she waved at him, too shocked to speak. She looked to the heavens, "Oy, Lenny, you go an die on me, leave me a poor helpless widow by herself fighting a dumpster on legs, who's probably goyim, trapped with this clanking nut in my ungrateful sons house. What can you do, kids today, you support them and do they call? Do they even write a letter? A postcard even?" "Um, m'am, Dr. Cheef never told you about me? About Foxy and Fuzzy?" "No! Nothing. Now get out of here before I call the police!" "But what about my friends, Foxy and Fuzzy?" "I told you already. There is nobody else here! Now get off my property!" Spectrum retreated, not knowing if it was properly heroic to fight little old jewish women. As the police frequency crackled in his helmet, he reflected that the day probably wasn't going to get any better. ------------------------------------------------------------ Afternoon in Bob City central park. Two young lovers strolled along a sidewalk, oblivious to the mugger creeping up on them. Just as he reached for them from behind, a strange clawed arm popped out of the ground, and snatched the thief before he could gasp in surprise. In the blink of an eye, the mugger was plunged into darkness. Adjusting to the faint light, he turned and came face to face with several pairs of glowing red eyes, dimly illuminating the single head they were all part of, and the mandibles that snapped on his throat. The lovers turned nervously, listening to the faint sounds of a man screaming. ------------------------------------------------------------ Hellhound watched over the remaining tellers, all female, who were cowering in fear in one cubicle. The captive men were swaying, as if entranced, breathing heavily and staring at Superchick. Thrasher and Bull loaded Mule's arms up with bags of cash. Outside, the truck began to wobble and then suddenly began floating up and out of the villians' line of sight. The team dashed out the door and stared up at the hovering vehicle. Mule trundled out after them, unaware of what was wrong. "Bull, did you do that?" "Nope. LOOK OUT!" All save one of the team martial-dodged out of the way of the plummeting truck. The feed truck crashed down on the head of the villian in pink. To Spectrum's surprise, the door to the truck opened and Mule climbed out. "Whut was that?" Mule's natural strength and stupidity, combined with the hyperspacial energies, had given him a limited invunerability. Shrugging off the debris, Mule snapped off a lightpole and swatted at Spectrum, narrowly missing. "He makin' me mad!" Spectrum flew at the hayseed in pink. Reaper cried out, "Hey MULE! Looky here!" Mule turned his head to look at his teammate, just before Spectrum slammed into Mule with the destructive force of a parakeet headbutting a 747. "Oook. MNthf. Ow. Ow OW..." "Whut?" Turning back to face the stunned hero, Mule leaned down, picked up the hero, and heaved him as hard as he could, threw him with both hands through the storefront across the street. Stomping back out of Dannys Donut Shop (Best Bagels in Bob) Spectrum wiped the dough off his helmet. Halfway across the street he was engulfed in flames from Hellhound's pistol. Asphault melted and bubbled around him, and he quickly became mired in the instant tar pit. Hellhound laughed, "You ready to say uncle, you sorry excuse for a superhero?" Spectrum swiveled his head, "Actually if you'll excuse the pun, I'm just getting warmed up..." Spectrum pumped thermal energy through the weapon systems, rapidly boiling away the tar from his armor. With a thought, he launched into the air again dodging blasts of heat. "You can dish it out, but can you take it?" Spectrum released a blast of intense heat, and Hellhound hopped aound in a frenzy as his costume caught fire. Thresher grabbed the fire extinguisher from the ruined truck and chased after his roasting teammate. Bull ran over to Mule and grabbed his arm. Superchick shimmied her hips as she walked towards Spectrum. "Oh mah goodness, what a big, strong man you are. You ain't gonna arrest little ol me?" "Cut the nonsense lady, you and your teammates are under arrest!" "What? Ah can't hear you.." Spectrum restracted the lower half of his mask. "I said, you and your...team..mates.....are...under....." Spectrum froze in mid sentence, breathing in deeply the heady fragrance of Superchick's pheremones. "BATTER UP!" roared Bull, as Mule swung the lamp post at Spectrum There was a crunching sound as the zoned hero was whacked a quarter mile away. "Its outta the park! Home run!" Mule beamed proudly. Spectrum slammed into the ground, badly stunned. The blow had cracked a rib, but it knocked him clear of Superchick's influence. He checked the internal status of the armor and groaned a pained sigh of relief. The PoWerArmor was truly a work of art. Although it needed a good cleaning, it was still fully operational. Systems select. Time to rock and roll. The Grangers were gathering up the money bags, ready to beat a retreat when the sonic boom scattered them like leaves. All except Mule, who stupidly failed to notice the attack. Spectrum arced around for another pass, and landed in front of Mule. Tapping him on the shoulder, Spectrum cleared his throat, the sound carried over his external speaker, as he'd resealed his mask. "whut?" "Hi, I'm Spectrum, how do you do." "Um. Uh, Mule. Howdy do." "Mule, I'm going to hit you really hard. Watch this!" "Um. Ok." *B*O*O*M*! Mule sailed back through the bank wall. Superchick got to her feet. "He decked Mule!" Bull shouted, "Thats it. Its MORPHING TIME!" Off in the distance, an electric guitar began jamming out a frenzied riff. Mule staggered back out. One by one, the Mighty Muddy Power Grangers summoned their power armor. "GIANT BULL!" "GIANT MULE!" "GIANT DOG!" "GIANT ROOSTER!" "THRESHING MACHINE" >From out of nowhere, the giant icons of the barnyard came rumbling down the city street. As one, the team leaped into the air and into the cockpits of their respective vehicles. Spectrum looked at the team facing him, and flew straight up. Superchick in her giant Rooster flapped after him but could not come close to the speed of the PoWerArmor. The rest of the team, groundbound, fired ineffectually at the rapidly retreating hero. "The hell with this..." Spectrum activated his comm channels, "I'm calling for backup!" The phone rang twice and a youthful voice answered. Spectrum hovered in low orbit, "Hello Link, I'm having a really bad day..." WILL SPECTRUM'S DAY GET ANY BETTER? WHERE IS FOXY? WHERE IS FUZZY? WAS THERE ENOUGH RANDOM FORESHADOWING? WHY DOESN'T HAN'S EVER WRITE TO HIS MOTHER? FIND OUT IN THE NEXT: SUPERGUY!!!! -- ************************************************************************* * All programmers are playwrights and all computers are lousy actors. * ************************************************************************* Lawrence H. Brown HW Release Lab Admin. lbrown@cisco.com (415)688-4487 Keywords: VideoToaster!, Champs, Dolphins, Mechforce, Networks, Omaha, Probe ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 20 Jan 1994 14:48:14 -0600 Reply-To: UCF SUPERGUY List Sender: UCF SUPERGUY List From: Robotech_Master Subject: Team M.E.C.H.A. #32 TEAM M.E.C.H.A.--#32 IN A CONTINUING SERIES BY ROBOTECH_MASTER, SOMETIMES REFERRED TO AS CHRIS MEADOWS A Story of High Technology, and High Time For Another Crossover, Whee! (Hey, let's not get carried away here...) Lunch was a rather sullen affair, punctuated by hostile glares between Mike and Adam. Summer tried to get a conversation going, but neither Mike nor Adam took part in it, and finally she decided she'd had enough. "Now look, you two," she announced. "I don't know what your problem is, but I've had enough of it. If you two can't get along, why don't you go somewhere else? You're spoiling dinner for the rest of us." Adam and Mike looked at each other, then down at their food embarrassedly. Mike got up. "Just a minute, Summer. Adam?" He gestured, and walked out into the corridor. Adam followed. As soon as they were alone, they both began to talk at once, then Adam said, "You go first." Mike nodded. "All right." He closed his eyes for a moment, then looked straight at Adam. "Maybe I overreacted a little in the elevator. If so, I apologize. I can certainly understand your point of view, even if I don't believe in it myself." Adam returned Mike's gaze. "Yeah, I think I got a little out of hand, too. It's just that this Radian thing's making me crazy. If she could nearly nuke the world once, what's to--but hey, there I go again. I'd probably better apologize for the way I acted, too...though I won't say I'm sorry for what I believe." Mike nodded. "I understand." He held out his hand. Adam looked down at it for a moment, then grasped it. Together, they re-entered the commissary. After that, the meal went a great deal more smoothly. After the meal, they all went their separate ways. Link returned to the command level, Adam to the simulators, Dr. Science to the laboratories, Ray Sterling to the mecha bay where he was overseeing the repair of his Alpha and Mike's Bahamode. Sarah Conner was in the lounge reading a book on aerobic dancing when Mike and Summer walked in. She waved, and went elsewhere to continue her study. "What was that with you and Adam?" Summer wondered. "Just a little difference of opinion..." Mike plugged the earphones into his walkman-type radio and sat down at the table. He flipped open the cleverly-concealed terminal not used since Episode 2 and logged on. "Over what?" Summer asked, brushing on some nail polish. "Nothing important," Mike said, mentally adding, I hope. He hit play, and the tape started rolling. As he listened to it, Mike looked vaguely annoyed. He fiddled with the headphones. "Crud! This stupid headset..." "What?" Summer asked. "It's got a short in it." Mike sighed, and took the walkman off. He tossed it onto one of the couches, aggravated. "Blasted base can make multi-million-dollar mecha, and yet I still have to contend with malfunctioning stereo equipment." Summer looked up. "Hey, let me see that..." She reached over, picked up the radio and headset, and glanced at it. Then, grinning at Mike, she made the headphones disappear. The wire ran right into her arm, rather than terminating in 'phones. Summer chuckled, held the radio against her leg, and pushed. The flesh oozed up over it, and it disappeared. The wire retracted up into her arm. "There. It's all better now," she said with a giggle. "Hey!" Mike protested. "That was mine!" "It's mine now," Summer said. Then she opened her mouth and lip-synched part of "Blue Light" by Stevie Nicks (off the HEAVY METAL soundtrack, of course), then grinned. "And, as you can see, it works better." Mike sighed, rolled his eyes, and tried to ignore her. A few minutes later, he got the call. They all did. Lincoln Douglas wanted them in the command center right away. Once they got there, he found that Link had managed to establish contact with Spectrum. "All right!" Adam said, excited. "Hey there! What's up?" "Trouble." The face on the screen looked a little weary, and the armor suit Spectrum wore appeared battered and splashed with chicken soup but still functional. "And plenty of it." "What's wrong, and can we help?" Mike asked, sliding into place at the central comm terminal and slipping on a lightweight headset. "The problem is this," Spectrum said. "A team of young punks has been ripping off Bob City banks and other places. Several people have been killed, and several buildings torched, too." "Sounds like a job for the Bob City police department," Lincoln commented. "Why call us?" "Because these punks seem to be paranorms," Spectrum said. "Rather POWERFUL paranorms." "We can't find Extreme Team, and don't know that they would be able to do that much anyway without Bulletproof," Spectrum continued. "So we decided we'd better call you." "In that case, we'll be there as soon as we can." Mike keyed the headset and glanced at another screen. "Hey, Ray, how are the repairs coming to the mecha?" "They're almost complete," Ray responded, glancing over his shoulder to where the automated servos and waldos were welding armor and components into place. "I had thought that this place might not be able to handle advanced Robotechnology, but it seems to be doing fine. Now all we need are some Slurpees that we can process into fuel." He reached down to the panel under the screen pickups and punched some keys. "When will we be ready to move out, then?" Mike queried. "I'd say within half an hour," Ray responded. "Understood. Spectrum, we'll be on our way immediately." Spectrum nodded. "We'll be waiting. Oh, and in case the airport is still full up, there's a small airstrip south of town that would probably be able to support your transport." "We'll keep that in mind. All right, Spectrum...thanks for the invitation. See you in a couple of hours. Team M.E.C.H.A. out." "Roger." Spectrum reached out and broke the contact, and the screen faded to black. Mike stood and turned to face the others (including every member of Team M.E.C.H.A. except for Dr. Science and Ray Sterling). "All right, everybody, this is it. Get your individual mecha ready to go and loaded aboard within half an hour. We'll be moving out at 1400 hours." The team scattered and went about their assigned tasks. Mike decided to drop in on Dr. Science. "Yes?" Dr. Odd Science looked up at the sound of the door chime. "Come in." "We've been contacted by Spectrum," Mike announced. "There's trouble in Bob City and we'll be moving out in thirty-five minutes." "Very well...I shall suspend my investigations and accompany you," Dr. Science replied, saving what he'd been working on and logging out. "Um, you don't actually HAVE to..." Mike began. "Nonsense. I would like to have a chance to observe Summer's unique abilities in action. Besides, it is possible that you will need to use the forces of Science in whatever battle that it is to which you go. Make no mistake...I am coming." Mike nodded. "Good." He smiled inwardly. Dr. Science was a good man, a team player even if not necessarily a good one. He was just the sort of man Mike was glad to have on his side. "In that case, I'll see you on the jet." "Very well. I simply need to pack some equipment and I will be with you shortly." As he left the lab and headed down toward the repair complex, Mike suddenly realized something. He was beginning to gain confidence in his role as team leader and his ability to make decisions. He hadn't hesitated upon receiving Spectrum's call but had responded, checking on the readiness of the team to move out. He had then issued orders, and ended up by judging Dr. Science's responses to the situation. "I guess I must be more of a leader than I thought," Mike chuckled, shaking his head. A few minutes later, Mike watched with satisfaction as the Veritech Alpha Fighter, newly-reloaded with missiles and ammunition manufactured to REF specs, was winched up into the M.E.C.H.A. jet's forward fighter bay, and the rest of the team's mecha was secured into the launch chutes. "All right, let's move 'em out!" he called to Adam, and took his place at the copilot's seat on the flight deck. Ray Sterling joined him shortly, followed by all the rest of Team M.E.C.H.A. As they all took their seats, Mike instructed the computer to begin the launch sequence. Two minutes later they were in the sky, rocketing toward Bob City. Mike wondered what they would find when they got there, and hoped that his team could defeat it, whatever it was. WHAT WILL TEAM M.E.C.H.A. FIND IN BOB CITY? WILL THEY BE ABLE TO DEFEAT IT, WHATEVER IT IS? HOW LONG UNTIL THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION COMMENCES? WHICH SIDE WILL ADAM TAKE WHEN IT HAPPENS? WILL SPACE MOOSE STILL BE AT THE AIRPORT WHEN TEAM M.E.C.H.A. ARRIVES? ALL THIS AND DON'T START THE REVOLUTION WITHOUT ME, COMING UP SOMETIME IN THE FUTURE, ON... S U P E R G U Y ! ! ! -- Chris Meadows | Robotech_Master's First Law of Superguy: CHM173S@NIC.SMSU.EDU | Continuity is Overrated. CMEADOWS@NYX.CS.DU.EDU | [this space reserved for second law] CMEADOWS@NOX.CS.DU.EDU | ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 24 Jan 1994 11:35:14 EST Reply-To: UCF SUPERGUY List Sender: UCF SUPERGUY List From: Jesse Taylor Subject: SG: Marie #3 MARIE PLAYS THE HERO PART THREE by the ShadowyWriter <-----> "Ah, a beautiful day..." Marie sighed, peering out into the dark, cloudy mist that had descended on her as she neared Bob City. "Now I just have to find some crimes to sto...huh?" She paused, sensing something. "Invid?! Here?!" Suddenly, out of the mist stomped an Invid Royal Command Battloid, similar to Marie's own, which she had left back at TONN, flanked by two Invid Armored Scouts, which scuttled along the ground like giant mutated insects (which, in a manner of speaking, they were). "You've come to take me back, haven't you!" Marie growled, "Well, I'm NOT GOING BACK!! Do you hear me?!" "Like, chill out, babe," came a voice from the RCB's external speakers. The RCB lowered itself, and the cockpit opened, to reveal... "WAYNE?!" Marie gaped, "What are *you* doing here?!" "Well, I, like, escaped from, you know, the Really Really Hard to Get Out Of Place, and, like, Morgan kinda didn't want me around, so I, like, stole this 'loid and came over to, like, look for you, y'know?" Marie blinked. "Err...How did you find me?" "You were, like, in the news, babe...And, like, your Protoculture engine, like, sticks out on my sensors, kinda, like, really big, y'know..." "I got in the news!" Marie shouted, dancing around. "Yay!" "You, like, robbed a 7-11, babe..." "I *what*?!" Marie yelled. "Like, er, what are you doing out here?" Wayne asked, trying to change the subject. "Trying to get to Bob City and be a Real Hero(tm)!!" Wayne blinked. "Bob City? Where the Hell(tm) is that?!" Marie shrugged. "I dunno. That's why it's taken me two episodes to even get somewhere kind of near it." "Saaay..." Wayne grinned, "You're, like, tryin' to be a hero, like, right? So, like, why don't me and my two buddies here, like, help you, y'know?" "I don't know..." Marie said, thinking, "Do you think you can handle it? Being a hero, I mean?" Wayne grinned evilly. "Hey, it's me!" <-----> "She's with WHO?!" Anime Freak practically screamed. "Er, Wayne, sir...He, uhm, stole a Royal Command Battloid and-" "I READ the SCRIPT, you nimrod!" Anime Freak yelled, "That was a rhetorical question, you know, one that you don't expect an answer for, right?" "Yes, I think that is the definition of a rhetorical questio... EEp!!" ZARK! "I lose more henchmen that way..." Anime Freak sighed, holstering his blaster. "Ok, now, is she anywhere near Bob City?" "We have no idea," Tris replied, from where she and the tech staff were poring over a map. "For all we know it could be in downtown Norfolk...We can't find any references to it anywhere!" "Rrr. Well keep trying!" <-----> Marie and Wayne sat in the cockpit of Wayne's RCB, listening to the police band. "sqqzzk< The Third National Bank of That-Town-Over-There-Sort-Of- Near-Bob-City has just been robbed!! The perpetrators are fleeing in a red Lexus down 15th street...>zzk" "Ok..." Marie said, looking at a map. "You'll be...here. Put the two Scouts here...and here...I'll be here. You herd 'em towards me, ok?" "Like, I think so..." Wayne said, trying to remember where he was supposed to be. "I'm not sure how the radio works in my Tornado suit, so you'll *have* to be where you're supposed to be, or it won't work, ok?" "Err.. yah." "Let's do it!" Marie yelled, leaping down from the RCB and sprinting off into the city. Wayne waved at the two Armored Scouts to follow her before taking to the air himself. <-----> The perpetrators in question were two guys named, strangely enough, Bert and Ernie. They had never done anything big like rob a bank before, so they were understandably paranoid. "Are you sure you've lost the cops?!" Bert whimpered. Ernie goosed the Lexus up to 120. "Yeah, yeah, we ditched those *$%&'s a couple streets back, now we've just gotta...OH #&$%&@#$#^$%&!!!!" The reason for Ernie's rather vocabulary-laden and socially- incorrect outburst was that one of the Armored Scouts had alighted on the street a couple hundred meters in front of them. "AAAA!" Bert and Ernie chorused. The Armored Scout said nothing, which was not surprising, given that it was basically a yucky-looking slug clad in a small mech. It's orders were to herd the humans towards the other Armored Scout. It had no idea what 'herd' meant. It's method of thinking had one way to distinguish things. There were those things that were supposed to be shot, and there were those things which were not supposed to be shot. The Invid decided that this episode hadn't had enough action in it, so it classified the humans as targets and opened fire. "***AAAAAAAAAAAA***!!!" Bert and Ernie chorused, with more feeling this time. Somehow Ernie managed to avoid the blasts of annihilation frisbees that the Invid Armored Scout fired at his car, and whipped right onto a side road. The Scout kept firing at buildings, cars, pedestrians, etc, until it got bored and wandered off. The second Scout had an even shorter attention span then the first, and was allready taking potshots at passing cars, but it's mere presence was enough to deflect Ernie down another side street. A lone figure strode out into the street in front of them. Marie held a loudspeaker to her helmet's visor. "Halt, mis...er...miscellan...no...er...misunder...no, that's not it either..." "GUN IT!!" Bert shrieked. "GUN IT! GUN IT GUN IT GUN IT WUAAAAH!!" "Err...misnomer...no..." Marie pulled out her Heroic Phrase-book (tm) and flipped through it. "Aha!! Halt, miscrea-...OH, @$&%!!" WHAM!, said the car as it slammed into Marie. "AAAA!!" chorused Bert and Ernie. "AAiiii!!" yelled Marie, as she and the car slammed into a building. "She's gotta be dead!" Bert said, getting out of the car. Ernie climbed out after him, brandishing an AK-47. The car shifted, and began to lift up. "No way!" Ernie gulped. "now..." came a muffled voice, "Now you've gone and pissed me off." "Uhm...I believe it's time for a tactical withdrawal..." Bert said. "What?" Ernie asked, firing a couple rounds into the ground. "RUN, you twit!!" "Err, right!" Ernie said. He and Bert ran off down the street. "WAYNE!!" Marie yelled, trying to get enough leverage to get free from the car, which had wrapped itself around her. "Don't let them get away!!" "Right!" echoed a loud voice. The RCB swooped down to tackle the two crooks. Now, before you find out what happens next, a quick size comparison is in order... Take yourself. You range, probably, between five and six feet tall. Picture yourself, three times as tall. You are now just tall enough to scrub the navel of an RCB. It's big. REAL big. 9 meters high, in fact. It weighs twenty-three tons, almost as much as Roseanne Barr. It is not designed to act like a football player. So, imagine yourself in Bert and Ernie's position, when 23 tons of heavy metal death machine comes slamming down on top of you. Does the phrase 'becoming one with the pavement' mean anything? "Oops," Wayne said. "Er...Anyone, like, know some place where I can get this, like, cleaned off?" "Get this thing off me!" Marie yelled. Off in the distance came explosions as the Scouts continued acting like bored Invid. <-----> "Hmph," Marie hmph'd at Wayne. The two were sitting in a small town park, and Marie was working on her battlesuit. Strangely enough, it seemed to be automatically repairing the damage it had taken from getting hit by the Lexus. Marie herself was slightly bruised, but otherwise unhurt. "It, like, wasn't my fault!" Wayne whined. "How the Hell(tm) do I build a rep as a hero if the bad guys either escape or die?!" Marie said, glaring at him. "Why do you, like, want to become a hero, anyway?" Wayne asked. "It, like, sounds really bored, y'know..." "Personal reasons..." Marie said, quietly. Wayne grinned. "Y'know, I heard you've really fallen for that Spectrum guy..." "I HAVE NOT!!" Marie almost yelled. "Well, erm, I guess..." "Tsk," Wayne chuckled, "Like, love is, like, bad karma, y'know. Like, what makes him so special?" Marie paused. "He just...I dunno.. He just has this..energy about him...Wayne, you remember the Regis, right?" "Yah." "You know how, when you were in the presence of the Regis...you just felt this...power...like the air was full of raw energy, all around you...I had forgotten how it felt...Wayne, you remember when we came here?" Wayne nodded. "We all felt the loss--we were no longer linked to the Regis... Garth and me, we tried to hold the Invid together, but more of us started to lose it, just lose it altogether...I remember feeling alone, like something was gone..." Wayne shifted uncomfortably. "This is, like, really deep, y'know..." Marie ignored him. "And then, when I met Spectrum--when we fought in Springfield...I felt that energy again, or something like it... Wayne, I *must* know more about this Spectrum person..." "Whoa, cool! A, like, quest!" Wayne said, "Like, let's go, y'know?" "Hold it..." Marie glared, getting back into her armor. "I do this alone. I certainly don't need you to kill off the people I'm trying to help!" "Whoa...Dissed!" Wayne said. "Look.," Marie sighed, "Keep in touch, ok, but *stay out of my way*!" "N-no problem..." Wayne said, staring at Marie's gun, which was almost, but not quite, pointed at his head. "Say, why don't I give you a lift? Like, since your armor can't fly..." "I don't know if it can fly or not..." Marie said, "I jus.. AAAIII!!!" "Hey!" Wayne said, as Marie shot skyward on a pillar of flame from her jet-pack, which, of course, had voice-activated when she said 'fly'. "Don't forget to write, okay?!" WILL MARIE REMEMBER TO WRITE??? WILL SHE *EVER* MAKE IT TO BOB CITY??? WHERE WILL SHE LAND??? WHERE THE HELL(TM) DID Ms. COFFEE GO??? WHAT WILL WAYNE DO??? WILL HE GET A MINISERIES TOO??? (HAH! HAHAHA! BWAHAHAHAHA!!! That was funny.) WHEN WILL THEY STOP SHOWING THOSE SPAM LITE COMMERCIALS?!? WHO KNOWS, BUT FIND OUT IN THE NEXT...SUPERGUY! ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 24 Jan 1994 12:25:16 -0600 Reply-To: UCF SUPERGUY List Sender: UCF SUPERGUY List From: Robotech_Master Subject: SG/AA: Crapshoot #3: Out One Bus, and In Another CRAPSHOOT #3: OUT ONE BUS, AND IN ANOTHER By Robotech_Master, With Help From Gadge, and Moral Support From All Those Guys Over There The big bus pulled into town as a new day was dawning. It gradually pulled to a stop, hydraulic brakes hissing and squealing. "All right, everybody, end of the line, everyone off," the driver said. Chance and Zen Navigator woke and stretched, yawning, then got up and filed off the bus along with everybody else. "Where are we?" Zen wondered. "Nowhere in particular," Chance replied. "Just where the bus was supposed to take us." He shouldered his bag, and grabbed another from the luggage rack. "You have anything?" "No, just this...atlas." He looked around for a wastebasket in which to deposit it, found none, so just stuck it under his arm for now. "I always travel light." Zen waited patiently for his friend to get his luggage, looking around. His eye fell on a big sign on the bus station they'd pulled into. "NOWHERE STATION," it said. And then, in smaller letters, "Welcome to Particular, pop. 429." "We really ARE at Nowhere in Particular," Zen said, startled. "Of course we are," Chance said. "Isn't that where the bus was going?" "Er, yes. Of course it was!" Zen was still feeling a little bit disoriented from the dimensional transition. Of course, for Zen Navigator, a little disorientation was nothing new, and sometimes even helped. "What are your current plans?" "Well, I don't know..." Chance said. "I'm just going to go along and trust to my luck to see what happens." "As it happens, those were my plans as well," Zen Navigator remarked. "Why don't we do it together?" Chance shrugged. He wondered if his powers of luck would agree? Obviously, if they didn't, some event would occur to separate them...and nothing was happening yet, so..."Why not? Come on, let's go downtown and see about obtaining lodging while I look for work or transportation." "Transportation..." That started Zen Navigator thinking about his own transportation. "At one time, I had a minibus," he remarked. "Where is it now?" Chance asked. "It's in your Au--er, it's in Arkansas." Zen Navigator congratulated himself on the brilliant save. He had nearly blurted out that his psychedelic minibus was berthed in Robotech_Master's starship back in the Authors' Altiverse, and that would have been disastrous. "But I'm certain I shall find it again." Chance shrugged. "If you say so." He thought Zen Navigator might not be driving with a full road map, but he seemed like an okay guy. "Hey, taxi!" "No!" Zen called. "Wait! That might be--" Chance looked at him. "...Never mind," Zen Navigator said. Now was not the time, he decided, to tell Chance about his evil arch-nemesis, Ninja Taxi-Cab Driver. He would just have to be on his guard, he decided, at least until he got his psychedelic minibus back. -------------------MEANWHILE, IN THE AUTHORS' ALTIVERSE------------------- [Note: This segment occurs out of continuity...it is assumed to take place after all this stuff with the vampires is out of the way, so there won't be any problem with any posts Gadge plans to write in the future.] VTAS-1 angled toward the brick-shaped starship, parked in geosynchronous orbit well out of the range of the Noj's sensor systems and asteroid defense. To be precise, on the other side of the planet. "Thanks for the lift, Gadge," Robotech_Master remarked from the passenger seat. "Using that Unix system for intradimensional transport is more trouble than it's worth." "No problem, R_M," Daniel Pawtowski, aka Gadge, replied, pronouncing the underscore perfectly. "I've always wanted to see your starship, anyway." "Great. I'll give you the nickel tour. Hold on a sec." He reached into his jacket and pulled out something that looked like a garage door opener remote. He aimed it at the starship and pressed the button. One of the landing bay doors slowly swung open. "You can land there." "All right. Elma?" "Correcting course now, Gadge," the eyeball-like icon on the vidscreen replied. The spacegoing Jeep banked over, maneuvering thrusters firing precisely and in sequence, the antigrav drive running at minimal power. "ETA minus one minute, Gadge." "Thanks, Elma." Precisely one minute later, the tires of VTAS-1 touched down on the deck of the Ikazuchi starship's landing bay in a precise four-point landing. "Perfect as always, Elma," Gadge remarked, grasping the door handle. Elma's screen icon blinked. "Why, thank you, Gadge. I try." As Gadge was about to open the door, Chris raised a hand. "Hang on, Gadge. Let the air pressure build up. Three...two...one...Okay, it should be safe now." "Right." He pulled the release and pushed the door out. There was a hiss of escaping air as the pressures equalized, and Robotech_Master and Gadge stepped out onto the metal deckplates. "Here we are, the main launch bay for my Ikazuchi, the CONSTELLATION III." "Three? What happened to the first two?" Gadge wondered. "They still exist," Chris said, "but not here. The first CONSTELLATION is my alt.pub.havens-rest characters' starship, and the second is my Valkyrie Veritech fighter from Undocumented Features. The Connie 3 is named in honor of both of those ships..." "...and in honor of They Might Be Giants, eh Chris?" "Hey, if Pickle can name Ramrod after his favorite song, I can name my starship after mine." He grinned. "Come on, I'll show you around. The launch bay first, since we're here. You'll notice all the different starships and fighters. Valkyries, hovertanks, Alphas...you name it, I've got it." "Including, it would seem, a psychedelic VW minibus," Elma observed. "Huh?" Robotech_Master turned, looking at said vehicle. "That isn't mine. It must be--oh, yeah, that's it! It must be Zen Navigator's." "Zen Navigator?" Gadge asked. "That guy who doesn't know where he's going?" "Yeah. He helped me get to the Authors' Planet." "He...HELPED...you?" Gadge asked incredulously. "I'm surprised you didn't end up at the Sage's space station or something." "Well...er...I had to help HIM somewhat." "Huh? How?" "I edited up Chance E. Vennt. He got lucky." "There is something about that bus which my sensors cannot quantify." Elma sounded puzzled. Robotech_Master stuck his head in the driver side window and looked around. "I think I know what it is, Elma. This bus has been with Zen so long, it's picked up some rather unique abilities. Like space travel, for instance. I don't think even The Swede knows exactly how or why, but it goes through space." "Where's Zen now?" Daniel wondered. "Would he go off and leave his minibus behind on purpose?" "Not on purpose, no...but he's in my Crapshoot story right now, and I guess I just forgot..." "So, what are you going to do about it?" Gadge asked. Robotech_Master thought for a moment, then snapped his fingers. "I've got it! Gadge, you up for a field trip?" "Sure, why not?" "Great." Chris tried to access Edit. "Oh, crud. vi? I can't use this. How can I set my default editor to pico...Urgh! Gadge, does Elma have a good editor? Preferably DOS-based?" "Sure," Gadge said. "Great. Mind if I borrow it?" "Sure, if Elma doesn't mind..." "Elma?" "Go ahead, Robotech_Master." "Great. Gadge, you're a life saver." "What flavor?" Elma asked. Accessing his power of Edit through Elma's editor, Chris called up what was currently happening to Zen Navigator and Chance. "Gadge, you ready?" Daniel took a seat behind the Jeep's wheel. "Yeah. I'm just glad I left VTAS-1's extra booster packs back at IslandiaBase. We'd never pass for an ordinary car with the Transport Mode thrusters attatched." "Then go go Gadget Keyboard," R_M said with a grin. And the Jeep, the minibus, and all occupants disappeared. "Are you sure about this?" Gadge asked uncertainly, eyeing the rather natty clothes that R_M had edited onto him. "Yeah! He knows me, he doesn't know you. I can't have him recognizing me. You saw what happened when Shadebeam recognized the Swede." "But I thought that you liked the Radian and Shadebeam series," Elma said. "That's not the point. Look, Gadge, I NEED your help. Will you do this, for me, please?" Gadge shrugged. "All right, all right. Just pray that I don't mess up, I never was a very good actor." "Okay. Uh-oh, here he comes. Places, everyone!" Robotech_Master scrunched down in VTAS-1's passenger seat, watching events outside on Elma's monitor. Gadge got out and walked over to where the psychedelic minibus was parked and leaned against it. Elma darkened the Jeep's windows and monitored. "Stop the cab!" Zen Navigator yelled, causing Chance to jump and the cab driver to clap his hands over his ears. Luckily, the cab didn't skid out of control, and the cabbie was able to grab the wheel again before anything serious happened. "What the hell (TM)--?!" the cabbie asked. "Just stop the cab, all right? Look!" Zen pointed to a nearby used car lot. "There! That's my minibus!" "But I thought it was in Arkansas," Chance said. "No, it's not. There it is!" Chance shrugged. "Do like he says," he said to the cabbie. "'syour money, Mac," the cabbie said, and pulled over for Zen and Chance to get out." By the time Chance hit the pavement, Zen was already halfway to the man leaning against the van, who Chance judged by his natty clothes to be the car lot owner. "Good morning, sir," Zen Navigator remarked. "I am...ZEN NAVIGATOR." "Er, uh..." The dealer looked a little confused, Zen noticed. "Hi!" he said. "I'm, uh, Gad--er, Daniel Paw--Daniel Pawtucket. And, uh, this is my used car lot." "Excellent. I would like to see about purchasing this purple minibus," Zen replied. "How much is it?" "Er..." The used car dealer appeared puzzled. "How much have you got?" he said at last. Zen Navigator reached into his pocket and brought out his wallet. "Um...ten dollars?" he said hopefully. "Wonderful! That's exactly how much it is!" The dealer looked very pleased with himself for some reason. "Very well..." Zen handed the bill over, and the dealer gave him the keys. "Thank you." "Er, thank YOU, sir." The dealer looked rather relieved. "I hope you and your...minibus are very happy together." "We will be." Zen nodded, tipped his hat, and climbed into the driver's seat of the minibus. It started with a throaty rumble, and Zen put it in gear and pulled out of the parking lot. "Chance, my friend! Get your luggage from the taxi! We now have transportation!" Five minutes later, Chance sat in the shotgun seat of the minibus, looking through the road atlas that Zen Navigator had tossed on the floor, intending to find a suitable trash recepticle later on. "What exactly happened in there?" "I met a rather odd man who sold me my own minibus for ten dollars," Zen remarked. "And I thought MY life was strange," Chance said. "So, where shall we go now?" Zen shrugged. "I never set out to go anywhere...just nowhere in particular." "No, we've been there already. I know! Why don't we go to Bob City! It's very near here." "Very well, Bob City it is!" Zen revved the motor, and the bus took off down the road. "Uh, Zen, Bob City is THAT way." Chance pointed. "Don't you see all the big buildings and rain clouds on the skyline?" "Yes, but I know a shortcut," Zen said. "But we're going the opposite direction!" Chance protested. "Trust me. It's a shortcut." Chance rolled his eyes. They would need a lot of luck if they were EVER going to reach Bob City. But then, luck was Chance's forte. "All right...I think we'll probably reach Bob City before long..." "Daniel Pawtucket?" Chris asked, snickering. "Hey, I did the best I could on the spur of the moment," Gadge protested. "Where are they going, anyway?" Gadge stripped off the natty jacket and pants to reveal the Gadget Coat and his jeans underneath. "Probably Bob City, for the big mega-crossover," Chris remarked. "But Bob City's over THERE." "Precisely. That's just Zen's schtick, don't worry about it. They'll get there in time." "But they'd need to be incredibly lucky--Ohhhh." Gadge paused as understanding struck. "Exactly." Robotech_Master grinned. Gadge sat back down in the driver's seat of his vehicle. "So, what now? Back to the Authors' Altiverse?" "I dunno...I thought maybe we could visit Bob City for the crossover. Y'know, write on-location." Gadge shrugged. "Huh. That sounds like an idea. What do you think, Elma?" "As long as we do not let your characters see us, it should not pose any problems," Elma said. "Besides, it would be a great chance to take a look around, actually LIVE the city instead of just writing about it," R_M suggested. "All right. You've convinced me. Okay, Elma, let's go. Destination: Bob City." And so VTAS-1 started its engine and drove off of the used-car lot. It turned its nose toward Bob City, and off it went. It was headed for the metropolis of rain, and film noir, and more rain. As they passed the Bob City limits, just one thought was going through Gadge's mind: "Damn, and I just had it WAXED, too..." DID GADGE JUST HAVE IT WAXED? DOES IT MATTER? HOW WILL THE MEGA-CROSSOVER GO? WILL THIS PROVIDE ANY COMPLICATION, OR SIMPLY THE OPPORTUNITY FOR A FEW SMALL CAMEO APPERANCES AND IN-JOKES? WILL CHANCE AND ZEN NAVIGATOR EVER FIND THEIR WAY TO BOB CITY? WILL CHANCE EVER FIGHT CRIME IN COSTUME, OR IS HE BETTER OFF NOT BOTHERING WITH IT? ALL THIS AND MORE, MAYBE, COMING UP SOMETIME SOON, ONLY ON... SUPERGUY!!! -- Chris Meadows | Robotech_Master's First Law of Superguy: CHM173S@NIC.SMSU.EDU | Continuity is Overrated. CMEADOWS@NYX.CS.DU.EDU | [this space reserved for second law] CMEADOWS@NOX.CS.DU.EDU | ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 28 Jan 1994 08:25:12 PST Reply-To: UCF SUPERGUY List Sender: UCF SUPERGUY List From: Lawrence Brown Subject: GiantSize Spectrum #10, Bob City MegaCrossover #1 Giant-Size Spectrum #10 THE BATTLE FOR BOB CITY MEGA CROSSOVER! #1 Starring Everybody in Town! (whether they wanted to be in it or not...) South Bob City Airport: Late Afternoon. A man in white armor, with a rainbow stripe crossing from shoulder down to opposite hip, stood waiting. Wincing, he touched his bruised side. The ribs were healing already, but it still hurt like hell(tm). But the pain he felt inside was less than the pain he felt from listening to the police scanner... "Unit 15, I need backup!" "Roger, Fire trucks are en route..." "The hell with that, we need the marines!" "Please repeat unit 15, we lost your last transmission..." "Oh man. That giant dog has come towards us! He's opening his mouth, he's, aaaaaaaaaaaaaAAAAAAGH!" "Unit 15, report status. Unit 15?" Spectrum heard only static. Scanning the skies with his optics, he waited impatiently. What was keeping Team M.E.C.H.A.? ---------------------------------------------------- A large tractor trailer rig hissed to a stop on the western outskirts of Bob. At the wheel was a large man with glowing red eyes. Next to him was Dr. Psuedo Science. He keyed the mike on his radio. "Grangers, report status." "Howdy Boss, its me, Superchick. We all's fine here. Phase one of Grand Slam is underway. The hero ...if you can call him that, named Spectrum, put his tail between his legs and flew off." Inside the van, with Dr. Weird Science and three dozen Zoomers, and their hostage, Dr. Hans Cheef, listened in on the transmission intently. At the mention of Spectrum, Hans swallowed and dropped his wrench. "Very good. Continue through the financial district." "Them tracking thingies are a beepin again..." "Bull, what do you have on the sensors?" "Sir the radar tracked Spectrum, we lost him as he was heading towards the South Side of Bob. You want us tuh head on down that way and finish him off?" "Start heading that way, but keep looting the banks and tearing things up. If he isn't a total coward he'll be back. And he'll probably bring friends." ---------------------------------------------------- "So, Mr. Spectrum, this airport is too small for a transport of the size you're talking about..." "Don't worry. Its got VTOL capability. But because of the emergency you better start rerouting those small planes elsewhere." "You don't have the authority! The police--" Spectrum grabbed the controller by the shoulder and shouted, "You idiot! I just heard two of Bob City's finest just get roasted alive. Now, dammit, get on the horn, and clear the area, or you'll have a lot more to worry about from pilot deaths than from some FAA inspector!" The high speed transport sailed into view, and Ray Sterling angled its jets downward for VTOL mode, landing the transport next to the main hangar of the small airstrip. "Finally.." Spectrum sighed. ------------------------------------------------------ The financial district was in chaos. At the center of the melee were 5 giant vehicles. The giants were each about 30 feet tall, and all were bent on destruction, ignoring the masses fleeing the area. Bull piloted his giant namesake through a wall of a financial building. As he punched through on the other side, he stopped and angled his horns upward. The giant Bull's horns crackled with energy. An arc streaked from between them and shot up into the power lines. Suddenly the lights on the city block flared and exploded as ciruits were overloaded by the power surge. "Yahoo!" Bull guffawed, "This is more fun than burnin' roadkill!" Reaper drove his giant thresher down the center of the street, the ultrasharp blades of his machine chewing through a barrier of police cars blocking the road. He redirected the output vent of the giant threshing machine and spewed shrapnel into the upper floors of the buildings. "Yeehaw! Hey, Hellhound, hows that bank vault comin on yer side o the street?" Inside the bank, hellish gouts of flame exploded as the giant maw of the dog opened and belched forth flames of incredible heat, and the vault door reluctantly slagged open. "Hey, y'all the doors open! Its payday agin!! Hey, what tha, aw hell, Superchick, get yer tailfeathers down here, pronto! The damn money's on fire!" From her perch atop the building the giant chicken fluttered down to the street, her talons raking large furrows in the pavement. As she entered the bank she started beating her wings, harder, faster, until it was as if a small hurricane had come into the bank. Quickly the fire was blown out, but the damage had been done. "YEW DAMN MUTT, YEW DONE AND BURNT TH MONEY!" "Shet yer yap, girl, it was your idea tah have me do it! Some high-falootin leader you are!" Light glinted off her beak, and the giant chicken's eyes glowed red. Superchick purred, "Maybe you oughta step out and lets talk this thang over, eh?" "No way girl, ah aint getting a lungful of your stuff, I'm stayin right heah, safe inside my armor." A beam of red light fired from the bird's open mouth, the giant dog started twitching and shaking spasmodically. Superchick laughed evilly. She hissed at Hellhound, who was staggering out a picture window. "You men aint safe anywhere, not while ah have the power... the power of the giant pecker blast!" --------------------------------------------------------------- Dr. Wierd Science turned and glared at his captive scientist. "You gave her WHAT?" Hans shrank back from the enraged Scientist. "I just did what you two told me to do! You told me to build armor to augment and enhance the superpowers those yokels got when they got caught in the blast from that hyperdrive! You wouldn't give me the powerplants I needed, so I had to build amplifiers that drew on those energies to power the suits! I just did what you told me to do!" Wierd tapped the intercom. "Psuedo. Stop the truck. We need to talk." The Doctor of Science glared at the weaponsmith. "You fool! She'll make Lorena Bobbit look like a girl scout by comparison...Now lets go over exactly whats in those armor units..." --------------------------------------------------------------- Sarah, Link, Adam, Mike, Ray and Summer sat around the conference table in the transport. Spectrum plugged a data cable from his suits telemetry system and handed it to Odd Science, who put the output onto the viewscreen. Images sped by like a VCR in fast rewind. "My missing friend, Dr. Hans K. Cheef, wired this recorder into my system while we were running design testing. Looks like it came in handy." "There." Spectrum pointed to the display. "Team M.E.C.H.A., meet the mighty morphing power grangers." Loud groans ensued from everyone except Dr. Odd Science, who looked on in puzzlement. He glanced at Spectrum. "I don't understand." "I'll explain later, Doc. I know they don't look like much, but they pulled a nasty surprise on me and I had to bug out fast, and call you for help. Let me go over each of their abilities: "The girl in red is their leader, they called her Superchick. She has the ability to scramble men's minds, I think its some sort of nerve gas that works only on men." "She's mine." Sarah spoke up. Mike looked over at Sarah. "I'll assign targets in a minute. Don't jump the gun, okay?" Spectrum continued, "The one in green is called Reaper. He's fast with that blade of his, so watch out. The one in the blue is called Bull. He was the driver. I didn't see him fight that much, but he's really strong. The one in black, they called HellHound. He wields a heavy duty plasma flamethrower." "Ouch," Ray remarked. "Doc, can the team's armor hold up to that kind of heat?" Dr. Science shrugged. "It's probable, based on past combat experience, but I would need more data to be absolutely certain." "Was Spectrum hit directly?" Mike asked. "I understand that his armor is modelled after Bulletproof's, after all...would IT stand up to the blast?" Spectrum looked at Mike, "I don't know. My armor may be as tough as B-proof's, but I'm not. If you watch right here..." Spectrum replayed the scene where he was batted away. "They cracked a rib with that swat. The armor held up, but I hurt. Good thing I'm a fast healer..." Spectrum furrowed his brow for a second, then continued. "Where was I? Oh yeah, the guy in pink." Summer giggled. Spectrum went on. "This guy seems to have some sort of invunerability power. I hit him really hard, and he didn't even flinch. Then later I belted him in the face and it slammed him through the wall." Link stroked his chin. "Perhaps some sort of avoidance system?" Dr. Science shook his head. "Their powers have definite psychokinetic tendencies. In this case it seems almost akin to some sort of mental denial. If the subject does not perceive the attack, it has no effect." Adam shook his head. "Spectrum, I still don't get it. When we were fighting the Invid and all those troopers, you were hell on wheels! Why did you chicken out of this fight!?" Spectrum looked at Adam, his face flushed from the rebuff. "Listen. As you get older you learn that sometimes you have to know when to cut your losses and be willing to ask for help. You think I LIKE doing this? Admitting I couldn't handle it myself!?" Spectrum's fist slammed into the table hard. He pointed at the viewscreen and barked, "THATS why, Mister. They are a _team_, and now they are piloting giant farm animals, I didn't know what they could do, and I knew I needed a *TEAM* to help me beat them, without nuking the whole city in the process. Grow up youngster, bigger guns aren't always the answer." Mike stood up and interjected quickly. "Thats enough out of both of you." "You know Spectrum wouldn't back away from a fight if he didn't have to. Spectrum, you need to chill out. I know this is rough for you, but save it for the enemy, okay?" "You don't know the half of it. I lost my friends, my home, and I'm stuck in a fictitious world fighting giant chickens. This has been a rough day." Spectrum shrugged and nodded towards Adam. "Sorry kid, forget what I said." Adam shrugged noncommitally and muttered something about being called "kid," but watched as Spectrum displayed the giant battle robots on the screen. "My guess is that these giant critters have their pilots' powers in some way, and prehaps simular powers to their real-life animal counterparts." Mike stood up. "Ok, team, we've seen enough. Lets suit up and get moving. Doctor, you might want to wait here with the transport." "On the contrary, Mike. I suggest that I remain airborne in the transport to monitor the battle. Spectrum gave us good information, but I would like to gather more data on their mecha and the way they interact with their operators' powers." Spectrum spoke up. "Mike, all except the Superchick are non-flyers. That's one advantage we have over them." Ray interjected, "We could put the plane on autopilot and drop in from above." Mike frowned. "I just don't want to put you in a combat situation if I can avoid it, Doctor." Summer watched the rest of the team hustle off to their launch chutes. She softly put her hand on Spectrum's shoulder. "Spectrum, what's wrong? And where's Foxy?" Spectrum sighed. "She's gone Summer. We had a argument, I shouted at her, lost my temper. I turned my back and she disappeared on me. I don't know where she went." His shoulders sagged. "Hey, aren't you going to suit up?" "Of course!" Summer's body shimmered and changed, expanding slightly into the gleaming black hardsuit she'd worn during the Invid battle before. "All suited up!" her voice echoed from the speakers. "What? How the--? How do you do that?" Dr. Odd Science watched Spectrum's reactions. "It seems to be caused by a combination of nanotechnology and hyperspatial energies. The nanites I designed have apparently formed a kind of symbiosis with her, caused by the hyperspatial blast that occurred above the convention center. She has manifested several unique abilities, including shifting into her hardsuit at will." Spectrum quickly recovered. "Wow. Cool. Does it hurt?" Summer shook her head. "It feels a little weird sometimes, but I'm getting used to it." She skipped off to her launch tube. Odd continued. "She is truly a unique indiviual. I've been monitoring her progress." Spectrum replied, "Nanites? I thought those were little tiny machines, like little repair robots or something." "That's one possible application," Dr. Science replied. "The nanites can, theoretically, be programmed to do many different things, though I have been attempting to develop a system for automatic mecha self-repair." "Really? Listen Doc, if we survive this jaunt, you and I should chat..." ----------------------------------------------------------------- Dr. Weird Science stood stoically while his brother raved at him, again. "I can't believe this! I knew these damn kids would be trouble. We go to the exhibits, we're gonna steal some goodies, and instead we end up with...with...them!" He waved at the computer displays, indicating the armored grangers. "And now its up to me and my Zoomer 'bots to get our fat out of the fire our "guest" has started." "I say we get them out of the armor, get the Zoomers to grab the kids, and get rid of them. AND the creator of their armor! We have plenty of money from their bank heists and we have Dr. Cheef's designs for that kid's PoWerArmor." Dr. Cheef quietly responded, "Great. I do everything you ask. I build the armor to be even better than you expected, I even trained that one boy, JOE-BOB-JIMBO, to help me build the armor. Now you are going to kill me? Why?" "Because the armor is useless to us, you fraud! It only worked because the kids are powering the suits with their superpowers! We thought we were stealing plans to the ultimate battle suit. But its useless without some sort of power supply! You were just out to bilk the damn government out of money for building a weapon that doesn't work!" Hans shot back, "Well, why don't you just modify the suits yourselves? After all you do have Doctorates in Science..." "...Master's Degree's." "But...you call yourselves Doctors..." "Look we were at the beach the day the class covered powered armor, ok? It wasn't our fault! We should be Doctors! I had the flu the day they gave the oral exam! But we're just as good! We'll show everyone, especially that academic review board..." "If anyone ever finds their bodies," Weird finished. "Look, maybe you better send out a couple dozen Zoomers to go scrounge for some weapons; we might need an ace in the hole..." Weird glanced at the TV, which was replaying footage of the Moosewing's landing at Bob City's International Airport (Best Bean-Flavored Tartar in Bob). "Waitaminnite..." ------------------------------------------------------------------ Ray Sterling piloted the transport, with Spectrum sitting alongside. "Spectrum, I'm going aft to get ready for launch. Hold this course until we're ready to go, then head aft and you can bail out after us through the Alpha's launch bay. Dr. Science is back in the comm chair, monitoring." "Ok, Ray. Right after you launch I'll hit the autopilot and come after you." "Adam?" "Ready for launch!" "Link?" "Ready!" "Summer!" "You got it! "Sarah?" "Lets nail 'em!" "Ray?" "Just a sec Mike, ok, Ready!" "Team M.E.C.H.A. -- GO!!!" Six mecha came hurtling out of the skies towards the giant robots. Another figure bailed out right after them, and the transport nosed up to a higher, safer altitude. Dr. Science tabbed some keys to commence long range monitoring of the battle. Superchick, roosting atop another bank, was the first to spot the team. "Whah? Aw Hell (TM)! Hey boys, we got company! Git out here before they--" *BLAM!* Sarah shrugged, her rocket launcher still smoking, "Oopsie! Birdy faw down, go boom!" "Whut?" Mule exclaimed, stepping out just as the giant chicken landed on his back. The wall of the bank blew out as the rest of the Mighty Muddy Power Grangers stepped out. Mike called to his team and Spectrum over the radio. "OK Lets hit 'em! Adam, take out Hellhound. Sarah, go get Mule. Ray, you get to take Reaper, and Spectrum you take out Bull! Summer and I'll go after Superchick! Link, make sure the area's clear, then come in and help anyone here who needs it!" Adam landed hard on Hellhound's head, causing the giant robotic dog to tumble out of control to one side. "Ha!" Adam fired off his weapon and blew giant hunks of fur off the metal sides of the mech. Righting himself, Hellhound turned to face his attacker and let off a blast of intense heat. Adam watched the temperature gauges rise rapidly but he stomped right into Hellhound's face, punching him in the nose. "Anything Spectrum can do we can do, you big mutt!" Bull charged at Spectrum, only to have the Hero dodge to one side at the last moment. "Ole!" Spectrum cried, as the giant mechanical bull charged into the side of a bar. Country music blared, and Bull reemerged with a half dozen drunk businessmen in bad western clothes, whooping and hollering and hanging on for dear life. Ray Sterling piloted the veritech over the giant threshing machine firing his weapons. A shot blew off part of the thresher's canopy and Reaper angrily drove his mech into a parked car, shredding the car and spewing a hail of shrapnel at the plane. Ray banked, narrowly missing the stream of deadly projectiles. "Time to roast this turkey!" Ray decided, yanking down on the reconfig lever. The fighter plane extended arms and legs, then stood upright in humanoid form as it touched down on the ground. "Huh huh huh you're gonna DIE!" Reaper said, steering the thresher toward him. "Whoa!" Ray remarked, sending the Alpha into a quick tuck-and-roll to the right, narrowly avoiding the sweeping blades. As the thresher rolled on past, inspiration struck. Ray's battloid-mode Alpha reached under the farm machine's body and lifted. "Hurgh!" Ray grunted, in time with hydraulic stress meters maxing out on the control board. But it worked. The thresher was lifted up and pitched over on its side. Ray Sterling pumped his fist. "Yeah!" Mike piloted the Bahamode around the Giant chicken, blowing away feathers and denting the metal underneath. Superchick opened her mouth and fired a glowing red beam of energy, striking Mike's mech. The Bahamode sparked and slammed into the ground. As he staggered to his feet, Superchick beat her wings and the rush of air blew him back against a truck. Just as she flapped towards him, talons outstretched, Summer deflected the blow with her armor from one side. "Mike!" Summer called out, "Are you ok?" "No, dammit, I'm NOT ok!" The head of the Bahamode slid forward and Mike pushed himself up and out. "Half the systems are fried, and the damn thing won't MOVE!" "We're outta here." Summer's form shimmered and melted, reforming itself into a Cyclone motorcycle, which Mike jumped on. A shot grazed Summer along the side as they raced off, but it was only a scratch which closed within seconds of its creation. "Mayday! Mayday! OW!!! @$%# DAMMIT!" Adam's Cyclone twiched and popped as some of the ammo cooked off inside his .50 cal gatling gun. He blew the explosive bolts and threw the gun away from him, then grabbed the overheating ammo canister and threw it inside the Giant Dog's flaming maw. "Eat this you mutt!" The explosion flipped the dog over and blew out some teeth, but the metallic mongrel regained his feet, with his fire extinguished. Sarah danced around Mule, firing off missles at him. But the missiles exploded harmlessly against the mecha's thick skin, and Mule continued to ignore her, sucking up the money from the bank in the mouth of his giant mule. Sarah paused, and, seeing Adam's luck, stuck the barrel of her gun in the mules mouth. "Whut?" "I said, spit that money out or I'll blow it out your backside." Mule regarded the armored girl, the rocket barrel, and calmly bit off the end of the lancher. Bull charged again, this time hitting Spectrum and knocking him back. The businessmen got bucked off as Bull turned to face Spectrum. Just as Spectrum was about to attack, Bull's horns began to arc and a bolt slammed into Spectrum. "Oh god that hurt..." Shakily, Spectrum got back to his feet again. Bull laughed, the sound coming out of the mouth of the bull. "Had enough, hero! You gonna quit and run away like a baby again!?" "Let's" "try that again, you walking cow pie." Bull's horns crackled an another bolt blasted into the suit. Spectrum kept advancing, unfazed. "You know, you sorry stinking punk, I bet you would never guess why its not hurting me now. I bet you are wondering how you are going to stop me. You can't. I'm just sucking up your juice and gating it off to another dimension. It hurts like the dickens but the gate works both ways. That leaves you with a problem of scale, punk. You're one hell of a firecracker, but I'm an atomic bomb!" Spectrum grabbed both horns, and channeled every watt of electrical energy he could summon into the horns, melting them into stumps. Then with a angry wave, he canceled the Bull's inertia and hit him with a two fisted blast of kinetic energy, sending him sailing towards Mule. Sarah yelled, "Hey Mule, look here comes your pal, Bull!" "Whut? Oh howdy Bull, whatcha do- Bull got back up. He was angry. He looked at his teammates and bellowed! "LET OUR POWERS COMBINE!" The five giant farm creatures began glowing and fields of energy hissed between all of the robots. Summer skidded out and turned back to watch. "What the hell (TM)'s happening?!" Mike gasped. The robots writhed, assembling and disassembling themselves and drawing themselves together into a nimbus of energy. There was a blinding flash of light and the five individual machines were gone. In their place stood a behemoth of agri-terror. Giant hoofed hindlegs pawed the ground angrily, and the monster stood upright. 80 feet tall, one arm with a nasty looking gun barrel, the other with an even nastier set of retractable claws (thresher blades, dontcha know) and atop its shoulders, a giant horned rooster's head. "*I* *AM* *ROOSTER*-*D*-*STRUCTOID!* DEATH TO CITYDWELLERS!" The monstrosity leaned to look at the assembled heros. "Y'ALL DIE NOW, Y'HEAR?" THWAM! THWAM! THWAM! The giant hooves pounded the ground, collapsing damaged buildings on either side. -------------------------------------------------------------- The Doctors Pseudo and Weird Science watched the monitors, agast. Dr. Cheef let out a low whistle in awe. Looking at the pair, he stammered. "I didn't do that. It wasn't supposed to do that. Why...that little smarty...Bull must have thought that one up himself. Guess we know now what his psychokinetic ability is..." -------------------------------------------------------------- Mister Safety and Captain Non-Sequitor were sitting down at a resturant in downtown Bob, watching the news of the Moosewing's landing, yet again. Mister Safety had paused long enough from writing citations to swallow a mouthful of water from his glass. (boom) Captain Non Sequitor paused from the mashed potatoes sculpture of Elvis he was creating, looking up and out the window of the rooftop resturant. (Boom) Mister Safety looked at his water glass, at the ripples in the glass. "Is that--could it be--a dinosaur?!" a scared waitress gasped. Mr. Safety shook his head, absent-mindedly writing up tickets for the waitress under the Incitement to Panic Civil Code of 1972, Bob City Heath and Foodservice Ordinaces 112.34.5a (Not wearing hairnet), 1.23.5d (Not wearing rubber gloves while engaged in food service), Waitress Reform Act of 1983 (not waiting until patron's mouth is full before engaging in conversation), and 1991 Clean Air Act (wearing copycat perfume rather than the real stuff like Giorgio). "Dinosaurs died out sixty-three (63) million years ago. It is vastly more likely that someone is dressed up in a rubber Godzilla suit and making loud "scrreee-graw" noises, so you shouldn't worry." (BOOM) "Then--then what IS that?!" the waitress gasped. Mr. Safety did not answer, instead writing out a citation under the Silverware Abuse Code of 1981 as the shock waves caused some of the forks and spoons to vibrate off the tables and clatter noisily to the floor. Meanwhile, Captain Non Sequitor sang a tuneful little ditty about food vats, and began to breakdance on the bar. (KATHOOM!) A block away, a giant rooster bellowed and glared towards the rooftop resturant. Standing up, Mister Safety opened his double-sealed velcro wallet and withdrew his VISA card. "...Unless of course, that wasn't a person dressed in a rubber Godzilla suit but, rather, an eighty-foot-tall giant robotic rooster, in which case you might very well panic, as I intend to do. Could you direct me to the nearest licensed psychotherapist?" The patrons exchanged horrified glances at one another for about three seconds, then chorused, "Check please!" ------------------------------------------------------------ Team M.E.C.H.A., Spectrum, and Ray in his Veritech Alpha Fighter (guardian mode) unloaded everything they had, but the giant continued to advance. "I don't understand," Spectrum yelled, "I'm pumping enough power into it to light up a city, but its sucking it up!" "I'm done!" Sarah cried, "I'm out of ammo" "I've shot everything I had at it!" Link yelled, continuing to fire. "It's not taking damage! Face it, we're outclassed here!" Adam kicked the giant's leg, Mike yelled, "Watch out for its giant peck, er, uh BEAK!" Too late--the beak latched onto his arm and tossed Adam high into the air. Mike (in Summer's Cyclone power armor mode) and Sarah blasted off into the air, trying to catch the tumbling hero. Ray got backhanded into a building and was still. Mike/Summer grabbed Adam, and lowered him to the ground. Summer stepped forward, out from around Mike. "Stay here, with him. I'm going back up there." Summer changed back into her more flight-capable hardsuit and took off once more. "Summer, you still got ammo?" "I'll ALWAYS have ammo, Spectrum." "Then let's get this monster!" The pair flew at the robot. The Rooster Destructoid leveled its arms at the hero and heroine. Claws extended from the left hand, impaling Summer on them. "SUMMER!" Spectrum screamed, ignoring the cannon leveled at his armor until it was too late. The big gun discharged, and blew Spectrum over the city, towards South Bob City. "SPECTRUM! Summer yelled, oozing off the claws, momentarily stunned but none the worse for being impaled. As she was about to turn and attack again, Mike called out over the comlink, "SCRUB THE MISSION! Adam's hurt! Damn fool was bleeding from the earlier fights but didn't stop. He's passed out! Go get Ray!" Sarah gathered Adam into her arms while Mike ran for it on foot, trying to put as much distance as possible between them and the Grangers. Link's Battler Cyclone swooped in and grabbed Mike in a dramatic rescue, seconds before the Rooster's feet would have smashed him. Summer landed next to Ray's veritech. "Ray, are you able to fly that thing?" "I dunno; I took some wing damage. Maybe." "We're bugging out. Quick, take off before that monster gets to us!" Summer climbed in behind Ray. A few nervous seconds later, the guardian-mode fighter launched. The Rooster Destructoid leveled its gun-arm and took careful aim. Just as it was about to fire, a giant tentacle grabbed its arm, whipping it around face-to-face with an 80-foot-tall, pissed-off squid. "Pick on somebody your own size, you big chicken!" WHAT HAPPENS NEXT? WILL DALLAS WIN THE SUPERBOWL? WILL ADAM SURVIVE? WILL SPECTRUM SURVIVE? WILL BOB CITY SURVIVE? WILL THEY REALIZE THAT HAVING YOUR CAR STOLEN, CHANGING A TIRE IN THE DRIVING RAIN AND MISSING A HALF DAY OF WORK, HAVING TO PACK FOR A MOVE THAT IS SCHEDULED FOR THIS SATURDAY, GETTING A NEW BOSS, AND FINDING OUT YOUR WIFE'S PREGNANT ALL IN THE SPACE OF A WEEK IS NOT HELPFUL TO AN AUTHOR'S KARMA WHEN HE'S TRYING TO WRITE A WORTHY STORY? SHEESH! All this, and hopefully some Bud Light...next time on: SUPERGUY!!!! -- ************************************************************************* * All programmers are playwrights and all computers are lousy actors. * ************************************************************************* Lawrence H. Brown HW Release Lab Admin. lbrown@cisco.com (415)688-4487 Keywords: VideoToaster!, Champs, Dolphins, Mechforce, Networks, Omaha, Probe ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 1 Feb 1994 18:33:45 -0500 Reply-To: UCF SUPERGUY List Sender: UCF SUPERGUY List From: dpawtows@VT.EDU Subject: SG: Bob City Crossover #2: The Black Ink of Courage Not sure how he got into this, Go Go Gadget Keyboard presents... The Bob City Megacrossover #2 (1/4) or SPACE MOOSE #14 or The Black Ink of Courage or One little, two little, three little Zoomers! "Pick on somebody your own size, you big chicken." said Clyde. Inside their massive combined mecha's cockpits, the Mighty Muddy Power Grangers stared at their screens in shock and surprise. None of them had...but what's this? You are also staring at this in shock and surprise? Wondering how Clyde, who was last seen in a state of near total catatonia, is now staring down one of the meanest mecha this side of Altverse 844BIGNASTYROBOTS? The answer to that is simple. "And I'll tell you for ten bucks!" All right, who let The Sage in here? Get back to your space station! I've got a story to narrate! "I knew he was going to say that." I said GO AWAY!!! "Okay, okay, you don't have to make such a-..AIEEEE!" *SPLUT* That's better. And so, after encasing The Sage in a hollowed out meteor made from pure Spam and hurling him back to his space station, we can go back in time. Not much, perhaps half an hour. And move to the western side of Bob City, to the major airport. The fire trucks and other emergency vehicles were still deployed. Some were parked as a barrier, to keep the general public away from the scene of two recent crash sites. Some were still hosing down the hot, smoldering remains of the former UPS cargo planes. Some had left upon hearing news of fires and battles downtown. But most were still trying to hose down the primary runway, in an attempt to remove the thick, slightly burnt layer of tartar sauce and bean dip left over from Space Moose Episode #13. Inside a large, little-used hangar on the edge of airport property, sat the once-proud MooseWing space fighter. It lay under the bright halogen worklights, showing wide ugly scars of dull metal under the badly ripped and torn furlike armor coating. It's long, gleaming muzzlelike nose was bent and folded. The moose-head-shaped cockpit was crushed, pieces of shattered windshield glass spilled around the eyeball windows like frozen tears. The wide, sweeping antler wings had completely detached, and now lay beside the plane like two halves of a dead bird. At least, those were the thoughts running though Space Moose's mind as he looked over the wreckage before him. It really looked more like the remains of a large metal moosehead with oversized antlers that had been run over by a very, very large truck. Behind him, Clyde sat curled up in one corner, alone in the shadows, slowly crying slimy, salty tears. "I...I'm sorry, Space Moose. I don't know what came over me up there. I just...I mean it..." "Do not be concerned, my faithful companion!" bellowed Space Moose, in a loud, booming voice intended to inspire confidence, "The MooseWing is far stronger than it appears. This damage will be easily repaired." "It's not that," the squid sobbed, "I panicked, right when you needed me the most, right when the most dangerous parts of that satellite were approaching...I let you down....I failed..." "No harm was done," replied Space Moose, dropping into a lower, more soothing tone, "Benedict was able to complete our mission for us." "But what about next time!" Clyde hid his eyes in his tentacles, "There might not be another way! Superheros aren't supposed to run away! Superheros aren't afraid! Superheros never fail!" "That is not true. All living beings have faults. No one is perfect." "Not even Peter Noone?" "Not even him. Clyde, you are young and inexperienced. You have much to learn. Of course you will make mistakes. I have made many myself." "You have?" "Did I ever tell you about the time I mistook a band of Elvis impersonators for Space Nazis?" "No." "I have pictures in my photo album back at MooseLodge. Remind me to show you sometime." "But that's not the same as-" "Of course it is not. All of us are different. You shall learn. I will be proud to continue teaching you in the ways of superheros, and I am sure Benedict would be, too." "I do not agree!!" called a loud, mechanical voice behind Space Moose. Clyde nearly leapt through the roof in surprise. "Benedict?!?" It was indeed Benedict Arnold, renegade Dalek and mobile drink machine. Glaring angrily though his single eyestalk, he rolled in through one of the hangar side doors, towing a heavily-laden luggage cart. Despite his total lack of any means of facial expression, he looked angry. "Space Moose!" he screamed at the top of his speakers, "I have endured the incompetence of this juvenile creature for too long!" "What? Benedict, what are you-?" "I am saying that I should not have allowed this disaster to occur! Clyde has severely damaged the MooseWing, possibly beyond repair!" Clyde cringed back at the Dalek's words, tentacles trembling. Space Moose, feeling the ground shake under his feet, turned to his friend. "Um, Clyde, I think we'll need more lighting. Could you go back to the electrical shed and get another arc lamp?" "But..." "Do as I say. Now." "Um...okay." Moving even more squishily than normal, the teenaged squid stepped out the door, closing it quietly while Benedict continued to glare. Once the former sea creature was gone, Space Moose turned to face his long-time traveling companion. "Benedict, we have had this discussion before. I thought we had agreed not to argue in front of Clyde, it might upset him." "I had. But this situation cannot be allowed to continue. Clyde's failure has endangered the lives of millions of sentient beings. Just as I was once programed to exterminate and subjugate all other forms of sentient life, I must now protect and enhance it. The cost is irrelevant. I cannot allow the feelings of an individual to endanger the population of this planet." "But his mighty strength is a great asset in the battle against evil!" "His strength is a liability if it cannot be controlled. Not even you are strong enough to resist him when he loses control, as he did today." "It was an accident that it looked like a sea monster! He may never loose control again! Why, if he gets into real combat-" "Space Moose, Clyde has not experienced combat against any except token opponents. Even in simulated training sessions, he repeatedly seized up with fear. You insisted that he would improve with experience. To date I have seen no indication of such an improvement." "He is still young..." "He is a coward, Space Moose! He cannot be an active combatant! He cannot be allowed to continue his present association with us, he is a danger to himself and others!" "Benedict, this is not the first time we have traveled with dangerous companions." "This is the first child you have led into combat. Do you wish to see him killed if he undergoes another seizure and we are unable to assist?" "I shall not allow that to happen!" "What if I had been piloting the MooseWing instead of you?" "Then I...I..." The mighty Antlers of Steel trailed off, realizing that he had no counterpoint. If Benedict had been the pilot when the squid lost control, the MooseWing would have surely plunged dozens of miles to the ground, killing both occupants and wreaking untold damage on the ground. And then there would have been no one left to stop the falling reactor core of COSMOS 1313. "I do not know, Benedict. Perhaps...perhaps you are right." "Affirmative. Space Moose, we cannot allow Clyde to engage in combat again until he has proven himself capable." "Then what do we do with him?" "He must return to the ocean. He cannot return until he has reached maturity." Space Moose shook his massive head. "I feel sorry for you, Clyde." Meanwhile: Clyde stood just outside the closed door of the hangar, clutching a tripod-mounted portable arc lamp in one shaking tentacle. Another tentacle was on the doorknob, frozen in the act of entering by the words he had just overheard. "No...they can't mean it...Space Moose, you can't mean it..." Not too far away, a radio had been left playing in an idling pickup truck, while it's driver sought out a restroom. A news announcer was finishing up a report on recent activity in nearby Bob City. "And after Spectrum's sudden departure, the so-called "Power Grangers" have continued their reign of destruction of the downtown area. Police units have been completely ineffective, and there are reports of casualties. There has been no sign of either Spectrum's return or The Extreme Team, although there are reports of BulletProof's possible return by NASA. The Mayor has called for assistance from Calforce and the Defense Squad, but there has yet been no response. There are conflicting reports concerning Spectrum, some claiming that he left to seek help, others accusing him of blatant cowardice. And now I'm getting another update, that a giant farm thresher is about to destroy the WBOB Radio Office (Best broadcasts in Bob) Building at the corner of...wait a minute, I'M IN THAT- AAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!" As the radio newscaster continued to scream amidst the sounds of crumbling concrete, the driver of the truck got back in and turned the station to the "Street Corner Fishing Show (Best Bass in Bob)" and drove off. But Clyde had heard the message. "Spectrum...Space Moose has told me about him! He'd never run away, unless he had to! He MUST have gone for help! That's it! I gotta tell Space Moose and Benedict! We gotta help Spectrum!" Again, he reached for the doorknob. And again, he froze. "No...they'd tell me to stay, that I can't help. Then they'd go and leave me...but if I..." He withdrew the tentacle, then straightened his invertebrate body. "Benedict says I gotta show that I can fight...yes, that's it...I gotta fight...I gotta fight!!" The squid leapt up, snapping two tentacles in a classic "Eureka" gesture. "_I'LL_ go help Spectrum! I'll beat these Greng, er, Greeng-, er, whatever they are. I'll beat 'em myself! That'll show Benedict I'm no coward! Yeah, that's what I'll do!" Moving quickly, Clyde left the arc lamp, which he had accidentally twisted into a hopeless metal tangle while gesturing, and quickly expanded to his full, 80-foot true giant size. With a look of grim determination in his eye, he set his parrot beak solidly and strode across the airport with his massive, multi-limbed stride, completely failing to notice the scores of surprised planes that had to divert suddenly to avoid him. Inside the hangar, neither hero had noticed Clyde's departure. Having finished their discussion of the squid's future, Space Moose was attempting to change the subject. "So, how did you get down here from MooseLodge? Are any of the auxiliary fighters operational?" "Negative." "Then how did you-?" "Greyhound," said Benedict flatly. Space Moose looked confused. "You rode a large dog?" Benedict started to answer, then thought better of it. "Disregard." He rolled over to the aircraft and released the luggage cart from his trailer hitch. "Come, Space Moose. We must begin repairs at once." Meanwhile, only a few miles away, a lone, tired figure in a set of prototype battle armor sat on a large stone block set near the side of a highway, slowly draining a half-melted Slurpee from her Invid standard issue butt-pack into her power supply. "Well, that's the last one left. I hope there's another 7-11 around here somewhere. I'll never find Bob City if I run out of Protoculture." Marie stood up, turned back down the road, and trudged onwards. She never even glanced at the stone (Best Blocks in Bob), nor the "Welcome to Bob City" lettering chiseled into it's surface. She also didn't notice two vanloads full of identical, tough-looking men in Airport Services coveralls. One of them did notice her- his head swiveled to follow in a most mechanical manner. "Combat battle armor sighted." said Zoomer Unit 222 to the van's driver, ZU111. "Affirmative." "Recommend deviation of mission to acquire..." "Negative. Our assigned mission is to retrieve the MooseWing for Doctor Science. This unit shall inform him of the new data." In back, two more of the Zoomers were discussing their mission. "This unit feels that probability of success is low," said ZU888, "Reports indicate that the aircraft is guarded by Space Moose." "That will not be a factor," replied ZU&&&, "if the subject follows previous behavior patterns." "Elaborate." "The Power Grangers will soon defeat Team M.E.C.H.A. and Spectrum. At that point, the subject's Moose Sense will detect the threat to Bob City and he will abandon his vehicle." "And what of the other two, the former marine invertebrate and the alien cyborg?" queried ZU%%%. "Analysis of Dalek combat capabilities indicates minimal threat." "And the invertebrate?" "Psychological profile of this "Clyde" indicates minimal ability to initiate combat activities," answered ZU&&&, "He is a coward." The van drove on, talking the off-ramp towards Bob City International. The road dropped slightly, enough that a series of hills blocked their view of a gigantic, pink multi-tentacled form shambling towards the downtown area at a rapid rate. "I am not a coward. I am not a coward!" Clyde said to himself, trying to bolster his courage. "I can fight these guys. I can! I'll show Space Moose! I'll show Benedict! It's my fault the M'Wing's broke, so I gotta make it up! Yeah, that's it!" He curled up his two longer tentacles into fistlike balls and swished them though the air like a practicing boxer. "Yeah, I'll give 'em THIS...and one of THESE...and sock 'em THERE... and pound 'em like THIS...and hit 'em THERE-" *CRUNCH* "EEK!" Clyde leapt back from the high-voltage power line tower that he had just accidentally crumpled, so nervous that he didn't even notice the thousands of volts of electricity arcing all though his slimy, wet body. At least, he didn't notice until a stray tentacle brushed across a closed gas station, detonating the underground tanks. *BOOM* "AAAAAAAAAAAIIIIIIIIIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!" Shrieking in terror, Clyde dove headfirst into a small duck pond and vainly tried to hide his massive body in water barely ten feet deep. "NONONONO!!! Make it go away! Please!!! Make it...make it...NO!! I can't let myself do that anymore! I'm not a coward, I'm brave!" He once again stood tall, not quite aware of the flock of surprised ducks clinging to various parts of his body. "QUACK!" "I must hurry to Bob City!" "QUACKQUACK!!" "I must not be afraid anymore!" "QUACK!" "I am not a coward! I AM CLYDE!! I AM SQUID!!! HEAR ME..." "QUACK!!!!" "Quack? No, wait, that's not right..." Fed up with matters, the ducks finally pried their feet loose from the slimy squid's rather sticky body and flapped away, quacking insults over their shoulders. Clyde set his beak firmly. "Not even the ducks believe me. But I can do it! I must do it! I WILL DO IT!!!" Feeling a burst of adrenaline in his cowardly veins, he shrugged off the last sparking power lines and charged towards the tall, black, imposing buildings of downtown Bob City. Within minutes, he has reached the outlying urban areas, and found he had a problem. *HONK* "Ow! Ouch!* *HONK!* "Hey, move it, you big squid!" "Oh, sorry, excuse me...pardon me..." *BEEP* "Yikes!" The drivers of Bob, long accustomed to large sea life commuting down the ever-soggy streets, kept running over his tentacle tips while trying to weave through traffic. The scattered kayaks and small motorboats traveling alongside the taxis and buses on the main highway didn't help, either. Clyde came to an abrupt halt to let a migrating blue whale swim down a cross-street. "Gee, they're right when they talk about the rain in Bob." A distant metallic *screech* caught his ears. "Odd. That sounded like a large farm thresher falling over." Shrinking to a medium-sized form, Clyde dropped into the water and merged with traffic, staying right behind a big, black car being driven by a trenchcoat-wearing man who was himself trying to follow a beat-up fishing trawler. Other vibrations continued to rock the streets. "And that sounds like ammunition exploding...and some missiles...and I'm not sure what that was...sounds like it's right around...the. ...corner...." He pulled over into a parking lot as his body began to tremble once again. *ULP* "It must be the battle...I'm getting close...maybe I really shouldn't...after all, Spectrum can handle anything. Can't he?" Growing a bit, he peeked over the top of a building and watched Spectrum blast a large bull-shaped robot into a mule-shaped one. He sighed in relief. "Yeah, he's doing great. And look! It's Team M.E.C.H.A., too! They don't need any help! I'd better get on back before Space Moose-..." "LET OUR POWERS COMBINE!!!" "Huh?" Clyde looked on, puzzled, as the Granger's mecha combined into the towering form of Rooster D. Struction. "I don't get it. He doesn't look so big, he's just about as tall as me....oh yeah, I keep forgetting. I'm huge." The building he was hiding behind suddenly (and with warning, since you read about this in Spectrum #10) collapsed. Clyde "EEP!"ed and ducked back down behind another before anyone saw him. He panted heavily. "Wow. That was a close one, Spectrum might've seen me!" "SUMMER!" *KA-ZOT* "SPECTRUM!" Clyde looked up suddenly to see Spectrum go sailing past, in an uncontrolled southward trajectory. A few hundred yards away, Summer was recovering from being impaled. "Hey! That's not very nice!" Clyde called out, his voice drowned by the echoes of explosions still reflecting off the tall, gothic architecture. "They can't do that! Spectrum and Summer are Space Moose's friends!" "SCRUB THE MISSION!" Mike's voice was audible, repeated over multiple comlinks inside broken cockpits and armor-suit helmets. Clyde wrapped a half-dozen tentacles around himself. "Looks like they really do need help! Gotta get in there, can't run away! I can't run! This'll show Benedict I'm no coward! Space Moose will see how much he taught me! This is it!" Another building shattered from a casual thresher-blade swipe. "Or maybe I should come back after they calm down...or maybe I should go get help...NO!! Benedict would say this proves I can't fight! So I gotta fight! This could be my last chance!! IT'S NOW OR NEVER!!!" Expanding to his full, 80-foot natural height, Clyde strode towards the backside of Rooster D. Struction, which seemed to be preoccupied aiming it's gun-arm towards a distant Alpha Fighter. Tapping the mecha on the shoulder had no effect, so he grabbed the arm with a tentacle and whipped it around, to come face-to-face with it's beak. "Pick on somebody your own size, you big chicken!!" Inside their massive combined mecha's cockpits, the Mighty Muddy Power Grangers stared at their screens in shock and surprise. None of them had ever seen anything quite like this. "Whuuut the heeeek is thut?" pondered HellHound. "Looks like a biiiig turnip with legs. A lotta legs." answered Reaper. "Nope, Ah thunk Ah've seen somethin' like thaut once, on tee-vee" said Bull, "It's a squeed." "Uh whut?" asked Mule. "Big critter. Lives in the ocean." explained Bull. "The whut?" Mule wondered again. "Like a big lake. Real big." "Bigger than the back-hill fishn' hole?" Hellhound chipped in. "I thunk so-...WHUT THE.....?" "SHUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUT!!!!!!!!" The Mighty Morphing Power Grangers yelled in unison as Clyde hefted the metallic bulk of the Rooster over his head and hurled it into a mostly wrecked office building. It scrambled for footing as large gothic gargoyles fell off the surviving parts of the building, bouncing off it's beak. "KILL IT!!!" shouted Superchick, sprawled upside-down in her cockpit by the impact. "Ahh'll geet it!" bellowed Reaper, taking over using the redundant control links. Ignoring the Rooster's weaponry, he brought the machine to it's hooves and charged, razor-sharp beak extended. Seeing the onrushing machine, Clyde's old instincts kicks in, prompting him to shriek in terror and dive to one side. Deprived of a target, the Rooster tripped over a chunk of broken concrete and fell flat on it's belly. Clyde huddled against a building, panting heavily. "Ican'tdothisIcan'tdothis, OhboyI'mscaredI'mscared..." Superchick screamed over her comlink. "Reaper! Do that again and I'll lop your-" "OWWWW!!" cried Reaper, clutching a delicate portion of his anatomy. The Rooster slowly hefted itself back up and Clyde continued to cower, shrinking down to minimum size and hiding inside a trash dumpster. Superchick scanned her monitor, confused. "Hey? Where'd that critter get off to?" "Ah don' know." answered Hellhound. Inside the dumpster, Clyde looked at the immense beak looming over him. "OhNoit'stoobig...I can't fight it, I'm scared. But I gotta fight it, I gotta fight...No I can't...yes I can...No..yes...no...YES!!!!" Suddenly regaining his nerve, the squid exploded upwards from the dumpster, his massive tentacles swinging wide and wrapping around the mecha's body. Unable to keep it's balance, the Rooster fell over. "Shooot! Thut varmit done hog-tied us!" Flames belched from the HellHound portion of the Rooster, with no obvious effect on Clyde, who increased the strength of his grip. Superchick looked around in alarm as the armored sides of her cockpit began to buckle. "That monster's gonna kill us! Open the hatch!!!" "Whut?" Mule looked about, having complely failed to notice Clyde's grab. The ability of the Mule section to completely ignore the squid's crushing grip only served to increase the stress on the Rooster's other components. Disregarding her slow-witted companions, she threw a side hatch open and focused her powers on the mass of pink flesh just outside her window. Clyde's eyes began to swim. "Ohh...I don't feel so...I feel...odd...I...er...." Shaking his head, he let go of the Rooster and grabbed onto a nearby building for support. Superchick grinned. "There's not a male alive who can resist me." She paused the mecha to gloat. Meanwhile, Clyde finally got his eyes to focus. "So this is what the older guys in the school were talking about...but why is this...not right...AHA!!!" Casting aside Superchick's powers, he whirled around and slammed a tentacle into the Rooster's head. "OWW!" cried Superchick, her head ringing with the blow, "That thing sucker-punched me!" "Oooohh, thut wz a bauud pun." "Whut?" pondered Mule, apparently also invulnerable to puns that he didn't understand. Which was most of them. "HA!!" shouted Clyde, "That won't work on me, I'm too young!!" "Too young? Wonder how big he gets when he grows up?" "Forgit thut, he's a coming after us agaun!!" *THWANG* Again the Rooster shuddered from a mighty tentacle blow. Rearing back on it's hind legs, the Grangers cut loose with the main cannon. It managed to knock Clyde back several blocks, nearly crushing a small blue Jeep. Clyde got up with no apparent damage. The Jeep threw itself into a bootlegger reverse and vanished around a corner. "He's still comin'!!" "THRESHER!!!" The Rooster lurched to one side, trying to parry the next blow with the whirling cutters on the other arm (Best Blades in Bob). It worked: Clyde found two tentacles quickly ensnared in the gleaming bladestorm. Screaming in blubbery pain, he kicked the Rooster's side and pulled himself free. Only one tentacle came loose. "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAWWWWWWWWWWWWWW!!!!!!" Clyde howled again, clutching a bleeding stump. "Lookie thut! We done dis-armed the critter!" "But he's got nine more! Finish him off!!!" Clyde yelped when the Rooster charged as fear again seized him. But this time he shook it off quickly, perhaps galvanized into action by the pain of his shredded limb. Ducking low to avoid a sweep by the thresher blades, he slapped four tentacles onto the smooth, rain-eroded concrete surface of a major road, spreading himself wide. Unable to check it's forward momentum, the Rooster plowed into him, streeeeetching the squid's rubbery body like some immense rubber band... "Shuuuooot." ...and then Clyde snapped back like a living slingshot, hurling the Grangers into the cloudy Bob City sky. Clyde shouted in a mix of triumph and pain, charging after them. He got careless- rounding a street corner, he didn't notice the Rooster laying in wait until Superchick lunged outwards with the mecha's beak, sniping off yet another tentacle. Clyde screamed, blasting the chicken-head with a stream of thick, blinding ink before kicking it with five of his remaining limbs. But his blows were clearly weakening- instead of hurling the Rooster away, he merely tipped it onto its back. His vision clouding with pain, Clyde shouted an unpronounceable deep-ocean war cry and charged as the Rooster righted itself and again brought its thresher blades to bear. At that precise moment, at Bob City International: An antlered head shot up from inside the MooseWing's fuselage, tearing yet another hole in the plane's side. "Great Northern Lights!!! There is danger nearby!!" "Space Moose." said Benedict in an exasperated tone, "You have destroyed the secondary gyro system! If this is another cat in a tree...!" "No! I can feel it! My Moose Sense tells me there is danger, great danger!" "It always does." "But this is different! I can feel it!! It is immense...a danger to many...to an entire city...and it is close, very close...and there is also something else, I can feel it in my antlers..." "It is my crescent wrench." Space Moose paused to remove the wrench, as well as two screwdrivers and a power drill, from his antlers. "This is danger...to a friend...danger because of me...because I have... EGADS!!! GREAT NORTHERN HERDS!!!! IT'S CLYDE!!!!!!!" "Space Moose!!! DO NOT--" "THIS LOOKS LIKE A JOB FOR SPAAAAAAAAAAAACCCCE MOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOSE!!!!!!!" With a ripping of metal and a hailstorm of parts caught in his supersonic wake, Space Moose tore through the hangar doors on a course for the rainy heart of Bob City. "--take off inside the MooseWing..." Benedict lowered himself to the floor on his repulsors and turned to looks at the dual Moose-shaped cutouts in both the plane's side and the hangar door. "I should have teamed up with Magnet Man when I had the chance." About a hundred yards away, a large gathering of big, burly androids watched Space Moose's departure with interest. "Excellent," said Zoomer Unit 111, "Space Moose has left as planned. Radio reports indicate the invertebrate will soon be terminated in Bob City. The alien cyborg is alone." "Is the cyborg to be taken alive?" asked ZU444. "Negative," replied ZU111, "The organic components are to be eliminated. Recovery of machine components is desirable, but not necessary. All Zoomers, advance." "Wait!" cried ZU}}}, "The cyborg departs!" Benedict was indeed rolling out of the hangar, muttering something about replacement armor panels from the machine shop. "Advance," ordered ZU111, "Take the cyborg by surprise." The mass of disguised humanoid robots started forward, walking with a slow, causal gait on an interception course towards the slow-moving Dalek. Benedict noticed them out the corner of his eyestalk soon enough, and ignored them for awhile. But then he came to a stop and faced the group. ZU111 slotted his "Casual Conversation" simulation chip, and instructed the others to do likewise. "Halt." "Hello!" ZU111 called, imitating a friendly human voice, "Looks like you could use some help!" "Affirmative" Benedict replied, staring directly at the lead Zoomer. "We just got off-shift a few minutes ago! Heard there was somebody fixing up a plane out here, thought he might need a hand." Gesturing in a friendly manner, ZU111 started forwards again, smiling, hoping to cover the remaining two dozen yards to Benedict before the Dalek realized something was wrong. "Halt. You are not airport personnel." Benedict called, raising his gun. "Huh?" said the Zoomer, faking confusion. "You are not human. You are androids. This is a deception." "Not human? What makes you say that?" "Your impersonation programming is defective. You have forgotten to breathe." "Nuts, I hate it when Weird slips up the small stuff. ZOOMERS, ATTACK!!!" Each Zoomer suddenly stopped and gestured dramatically, shredding their thin disguises of flesh in a spray of artificial blood to reveal their large, muscular, blue metallic bodies. They growled like angry dogs. "Surrender, cyborg." "Negative," Benedict replied, "You are inferior. You shall surrender to me or I shall exterminate." "Very noble. But one Dalek is no match for two dozen crack Zoomers." "Negative!! The Daleks are the supreme beings of the universe!! All are inferior!!" "HA!!" laughed ZU999, "A Dalek, talking tough to _us_. Hell, anyone who's seen Dr. Who knows you tin cans can't hit the broad side of a barn. One Dalek is no threat." ZU^^^ tapped him on the shoulder. ZU999 looked down, at a small red dot glowing on his upper torso. "A Dalek with a laser sight, on the other hand...." His chest was blown apart before he could finish his thought. "EXTERMINATE!! EXTERMINATE!!!! EXTERMINATE!!!!!!!" "ZOOMERS, OPEN FIRE!!!!" As the sounds of energy-fire ripped across the tarmac, there was no one in the hangar to notice three small, furry forms slip in through a loose wall panel in the back. They stood before the MooseWing, silhouetted by the worklights, gazing upon the open canopy and pieces of electronics scattered about in glee. One of them pointed towards the silent plane. "Frink." "Ptang," was the reply, "Frinkfrink." "Ptang. Frink." "Frink." Without exchanging any further words, the three lemurs scampered up the dented side of the MooseWing and leapt onto the instrument panel. Not too far away: A largish chrome battlesuit was trudging down the side of the road, trying to ignore the honking and beeping from passing trucks, and the occasional squeal of tires or hiss of air brakes as someone slowed down to look at her. But the sound Marie would later wish she had heard most did not come in time, for its source was moving much, much faster than sound. For suddenly, and without warning.... *WOOOOOOONNNGGGGGGGGGGGGGG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!* "OOF!!!" Struck by some strange, hypersonic, moosive object, the Tornado's barely-functional gyros completely failed to keep it level. Marie started to get up, cursing under her breath. "What the hell was--" The Tornado's fire-control circuits, hearing the command to activate the HellFire gauntlet flame-thrower system, obediently responded with a rush of blazing orange death from each arm. Set for narrow-stream, the flames somehow managed to act like reaction thrusters, quickly righting the suit without igniting more than three passing Pintos. "Wow." *BOOM* "That wasn't..." *BOOM* "...bad." *BOOM* Her attention was immediately caught by a flashing red threat indicator in her helmet display. The Tornado's tracking circuits had detected something that the Invid databanks classified as a threat! And it was right behind her! Shoving the weapons-power selectors to maximum, she whirled around to face the silver-suited, moosclebound figure that was quickly and heroically climbing out of his self-made impact crater. "Greetings, fair citizen!" bellowed the Antlers of Steel. Oh no, Marie thought to herself, it's Space Moose! He tore pincer units in half back in Springfield! He'll rip me apart! I'll never find--!" "Are you injured? I apologize for my careless flying, but I must reach Bob City at once!" He doesn't recognize me! Marie almost cried in relief. Of course! He's never seen the Tornado armor! And better yet- he's headed to Bob City! "I...I'm fine, it's my fault for, er, hitchhiking like this." "That is good. But you should not hitchhike, young lady. It is a most dangerous way to travel, you do not know the threats that you might encounter on the..." Space Moose trailed off after spying the bulging weapons pods strapped to the mecha's forearms. "...On second thought, you appear to be quite safe. But enough of this. My Moose Sense is calling! I must be off!!" Oh no! He's gonna fly away and leave me here! And I'm so close! And why did the Tornado's cellular phone just switch on?? Marie stabbed the 'hang-up' button and shouted through her faceplate visor. "No, wait! Space Moose! You're Space Moose, aren't you?!? The Antlers of Steel, the Heroic Herbivore??" "Why yes, I am," replied Space Moose, somehow expanding his chest still further. "And you're headed to Bob???" "Yes. There is great danger to the peaceful inhabitants of that fair City!! I must be off to protect them!! According to radio news reports that I have heard over my MooseCom, a band of terrorists have attacked the town! They have already defeated Spectrum and Team M.E.C.H.A., and now by good friend Clyde is battling them himself! I must help him!" Marie quickly shut off her suit's F.M. radio and the Usenet News reader software, then recoiled in horror. "Defeated Spectrum?!? Is he...?" "I do not know," bellowed the Arctic Avenger, "which is why I must...say, are you a member of Team M.E.C.H.A.?" Space Moose looked over her clearly anime-styled armor. Marie thought quickly. How much did the Moronic Moose know of Team M.E.C.H.A.'s membership? She couldn't risk it! Or maybe... "Er, no. But I was trying to find them to join! Do you know where they are?" "Sadly, I do not. But I do know where they would be, were they able. The members of Team M.E.C.H.A. are true heroes, and as such, they would fight the monstrosity that threatens Bob City were they able! As must I! But I can delay no further! Will you join me, er-..." I thought he'd never ask! Marie almost squealed in delight to herself. He'll take me to Bob City! To fight villains who fought Spectrum! He'll come back, I know he will! And when he does... "Oh, er, call me...Tornado!" Again, she quickly hung up the suit's cellular phone. "Excellent! Come, Tornado, WE MUST FLY!!!!" "AAAAAAAAIIIIIIIIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!" Marie screamed in surprise as her suit thrusters suddenly kicked in at full power. Fortunately, Space Moose had already grabbed her gauntleted hand and aimed her in the right direction. The two "heroes" flew off down the road together at nearly Mach Six. Behind them, a pillar of smoke rose from Bob City International Airport. "ZU777 and ###!!!! Come in!!! Are you functional???" Zoomer Unit 111 shouted into his tactical net desperately. But there was no response- the two Zoomers had been completely destroyed by the exploding fuel tanker. They had sought cover behind the explosive-laden human vehicle in the belief that the Dalek would seek to avoid random destruction and not fire at it. They were wrong. ZU111 was aghast- in a matter of minutes, he had lost over half his fighting force to a single opponent. He had never seen an enemy so ruthless. Fifty yards to his left, the barely-operating back half of ZU222 crawled out from the flaming remains of a forklift, grabbing handholds of heat softened asphalt in it's torn metal fingers, until it bumped up against a tall cylindrical form. "This unit requests assistance..." it creaked though it's vocal unit. "EXTERMINATE!!!!" The blast detonated the Zoomer's power unit in an explosion that would have gutted an APC. But ZU111 knew by now how little the Dalek would care. How had this happened? They had started with the tried-and-true basic Zoomer attack plan: Charge the enemy en mass, laying down heavy fire with their mouth-lasers until they could close to hand-to-hand range. If any resistance survived, shred them. But it hadn't worked out that way. The Dalek had stood his ground, refusing to be intimidated as the Zoomer beam weapons glanced off his rounded shell. He had gunned down six Zoomers before they had advanced twenty feet, the explosions of their own power cells breaking up their lines. Quickly re-evaluating his estimate of this obviously augmented escapee from cheap British SF, ZU111 had ordered his troops to scatter amongst the airport vehicles and structures and try to approach the Dalek from many sides at once. But that had only been slightly more effective, as the Dalek had proven it's ability to fire clear through most available cover. But he had a weakness: Benedict was clearly assigning higher priority to closer targets, which supported the Zoomer's initial estimate that he was avoiding hand-to-hand combat. For despite his immensely powerful beam weapons, the Dalek had no hands or limbs to speak of, and his front-mounted gun had a very limited arc of fire. So if they could close, they would have him. But only if they lived long enough to reach him! "Units ZU!!! and )))!! Are you in position yet?!?" "Affirmative." ZU111 checked a tactical position display inside his eyeball. "Unit 555 is ready," he said, "GO!!" The two Zoomers jetted upwards from behind a storage shed, hurling manhole covers like giant frisbees. Simultaneously, ZU555 erupted from the storm-sewer system, ripping though the pavement barely three feet to Benedict's left, while %%% and /// leapt up and charged. Benedict whirled to fire downwards, blowing 555's head off, then backed up to re-target %%%. But his aim was thrown off by the impact of the manhole covers, disrupting the Dalek momentarily. He managed to regain equilibrium fast enough to barbecue %%%, but the distraction had bought /// some time. Sparks flew from his fingers as he grabbed the Dalek's midsection in a crushing embrace. "A force field!! But Daleks don't...THAT'S why he's so tough!" exclaimed ZU111, "CRUSH HIM!! CRUSH HIM, ///!!!! Move out, all remaining units!!!" Snarling like an enraged bear, ZU/// gripped his enemy and squeezed, his fingers cutting deeply into the Mark V Travel Machine's shell. Benedict ignored the opponent he could not reach, choosing instead to gun down ZU's 444, """, and ))). "Face him the other way!! THE OTHER WAY!!!" shouted ZU111. Realizing his mistake, ZU/// turned to keep Benedict's rather limited arc of fire away from his comrades. Which was, apparently, exactly what Benedict had wanted: the Dalek fired again, shooting away the thick steel tie-down cables holding a large load of heavy cast-iron pipes onto a nearby flatbed semi. The pipes rolled off in a clatter of metal, slamming into ///'s legs and knocking him over. He lost his grip on the sparking, force-shielded body of the alien cyborg, which was all the opening Benedict needed. The other Zoomers were nearly upon him: in the ensuing melee of pipes, arms, and weaponsfire, Zoomer Units ///, 888, and @@@ met their warranty expiration date. ZU111 found himself running though the fireball, optical sensors blinded, when a searing pain of subsystem damage-reports tore though his side. "EXTERMINATE! EXTERMINATE!!!!" "DIE, ALIEN MONSTER!!!!" The shot had torn out half his chest. But Benedict was only a few yards away, if only something would distract...YES!!! ZU!!!, the sole surviving member of 111's command, dropped down from a rooftop snarling a Zoomer war cry. Benedict calmly blew him apart like a clay pidegon, but 111 made his move. Like /// before him, the Zoomer commander felt his fingers dig into the force-field covered side of his enemy as he lifted him high overhead. Unable to match the Zoomer's strength, Benedict did not even try to struggle free, choosing instead to shoot the semi's gas tank even as his Dalek armor shell began to crumple. Waves of burning diesel washed over the two locked combatants. ZU111 felt the flames burning into his damaged side and knew he did not have much operational time left. But he did have enough for one, last action... "FOR THE GLORY OF THE ZOOMERS!!!!!" Calling up the last of his battery reserves, 111 hurled Benedict into the sky. Slumping over into the flames, the last thing he saw on his fading optical inputs was the salt-shaker shaped body of the Dalek tumbling in a high ballistic trajectory that would land him somewhere on the far side of Bob City. ZU111 growled a last cheer of victory. Then his own power unit exploded. "Diud youse hear sumthin'?" asked Bull. "Nope." answered Mule. "Must be anutha sub-plot." "Must be." "Will you two quit flappin your gums and FIGHT!" interrupted Superchick, "Finish this critter off before Spectrum comes back!" The downtown fight (Best Battles in Bob) was indeed looking bad for the youthful squid: he had lost two more tentacles to the Rooster's razor beak, and bits of most of the rest to the thresher blades, as well as one swimming fin. Large gashes were scored across his body, and one eye was swollen shut. Rooster D. Struction, on the other hand, was in much better condition: although blackened with ink and covered with suckermarks, the Mighty Muddy Power Granger's mecha was almost completely undamaged. The Grangers themselves, although somewhat shaken, were still going strong. "Flame 'im, Hellhound!" Another searing blast boiled away the pools of squid's blood that had splatterd over the crumpled buildings and debris surrounding the battle. Clyde weakly grasped a chunk of concrete and flung it into the Rooster's mouth. "I won't....run away...I gotta...see this through..." And it looked like he would: another blast from the Rooster's guns toppled a combination parking garage and marina onto the squid's remaining limbs, pinning him down. And Clyde no longer had the strength to lift the building. Superchick chuckled in glee as her mecha crumbled the concrete into dust. "You shoulda stayed in your swimmin hole, you pink freak. The boys and I hada job to do here, and you got in the way." "Yuuup," Reaper chimed in, "and now we'rea gonna do a job on you." "Shut up!" Superchick snapped, "This isn't a time for jokes! This---" "THIS LOOKS LIKE A JOB FOR SPAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACE MOOOOOOOOOOOOSE!!!!!!" "Whuuut?" Mule looked vaguely upwards. Faster than a saber-toothed tiger! More powerful than a mastodon!!! Able to leap tall Tyranasours in a single bound!!!! Look! There on the Bob City Expressway!!! It's a taxidermist's truck!! It's a airboat carrying a duck blind!!!! NO!! IT'S SPACE MOOSE!!!!! AND MARIE!!!! (Um, make that "Tornado") Superchick slapped her forehead in exasperation. "Where do these superheros keep COMING from?!?!?" WHERE DO THEY KEEP COMING FROM???? DOESN'T SHE REALIZE SHE'S IN A CROSSOVER YET???? "Oh, great! _NOW_ you tell me!!" ER, WILL THE GRANGERS TRY A CAREER CHANGE WHEN THEY REALIZE WHAT THE AUTHORS ARE DOING TO THEM????? CAN SPACE MOOSE AND MARIE DEFEAT ROOSTER D. STRUCTION????? WILL CLYDE SURVIVE????? WHERE WILL BENEDICT LAND????? WHERE ARE TEAM M.E.C.H.A. AND SPECTRUM?????? WILL THIS CAUSE A TRAFFIC JAM IN BOB CITY???? WILL THEY EVEN NOTICE????? The answers to some of these questions will be answered, the others will be completely forgotten, right here, only on... SUPERGUY!!!!!!!! ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 7 Feb 1994 11:31:57 -0600 Reply-To: UCF SUPERGUY List Sender: UCF SUPERGUY List From: Robotech_Master Subject: SG: Crapshoot #4: The Road to Bob City CRAPSHOOT #4: THE ROAD TO BOB CITY By Robotech_Master, Who Must Be Crazy Zen Navigator drove happily along in his psychedelic microbus. They Might Be Giants were on the radio, the wheel was in his hands...life was good. The only thing that annoyed him somewhat was the fact that his passenger, Chance E. Vennt, was paging through a road atlas that Zen had, on the spur of the moment, bought as camouflage. "This is odd...I can't find Bob City in here anywhere." Chance turned several more pages, then gave up. "Bob City won't be found in there," Zen said. "That's why you need me. Only my Zen Navigational talents can plot a course to it." "That may be true..." Chance said. "But Bob City is that way..." He pointed at a spot vaguely behind the microbus. "...and we're going this way." He pointed straight ahead. "Of COURSE we are!" Zen replied. "One does not approach Bob City directly...one has to SNEAK UP on it." Chance sighed. "So when are we going to get there?" Zen shrugged. "Who can say? Time is but an abstraction." Zen waved his hand in a dismissive gesture. "Whatever. I kind of wanted to be there in time for the crossover, though..." "Do not worry! We shall get there when we get there." Chance shrugged. "Whatever you say." He sat there for a while in silence, then said, "You know, I have a confession to make..." "Oh? And what would that be?" Zen asked, taking a left turn because he felt like it. "If we're going to travel together, you're going to have to know this sooner or later," Chance continued. Zen turned his head to look directly at Chance as he was talking. "What?" "I'm--ZEN! KEEP YOUR EYES ON THE ROAD!!!" Chance yelled as they nearly ran head-on into a semi. "Worry not! I am ZEN NAVIGATOR!" Zen paused to steer them back onto the road. "That other fellow was not watching where he was going." "And you were?" "Of course! I always am! After all, am I not ZEN NAVIGATOR?" Chance groaned. "Right...whatever." "Now, what was it you had wanted to tell me?" Zen asked. "I'm not a normal human. I'm--" "A Shriner?" Zen supplied. He swerved around a small VW and accelerated. "No, I'm not a Shriner--" Chance began. "A Deadhead?" Zen tried again, blipping the horn at a pair of old grannies in a pink sedan who were going about twenty miles per hour. "No, I'm not one of those--" "Ah! Then you must be a superhero!" Zen pulled around the decrepit drivers, tipping his hat to them in passing. "No, I'm not--hey, wait! How'd you guess?" "It was not a guess! After all, I am--" Chance said it with him, "ZEN NAVIGATOR, I know, I know. But how--" "If you were not a Shriner or a Deadhead, then you had to be a superhero. It was the only other possibility." Zen gestured expansively with both hands, and Chance grabbed the wheel to prevent them from going off the road. "If you say so," Chance said. "But yes, I seem to have this power over probabilities." "Intriguing. Tell me about it." Inwardly, Zen nodded. So THIS was why he had been so willing to trust totally and completely to luck back on board Robotech_Master's starship. "How powerful is it?" "I'm not really SURE," Chance said. "I believe that the way it works, I have conscious control over very minor things, such as dice, or the way natural forces behave. I also seem to be rather lucky, though my luck can work in strange ways. I think it's my subconscious." "Either that, or the Author has been having difficulty making up his mind," Zen suggested. "Yes, that might also be it." Chance nodded. "Anyway, I've chosen a superheroic identity for myself...now all I need to do is find some way to make it big as a superhero." "Do not worry, my friend!" Zen said. "We SHALL find a way to make your heroic identity known!" "Great." Chance grinned inwardly. Zen hadn't noticed, but the roads he'd been choosing were taking them right back toward Bob City. All Chance had to do was make it more probable that Zen would choose the specific road that was the more likely choice. Technically, this was kind of a cheat, because Chance's powers of probability didn't ordinarily work on other people's decision-making process except when they were truly undecided, with no preference one way or the other. However, since this precisely described Zen's current state of mind, there was no problem. "Ah! Didn't I tell you we would get here eventually?" Zen remarked as they passed the city limits and drove into the rain that began precisely at the city limit line. "Indeed you did..." Chance remarked. "And just in time, it looks like. Look at all that smoke rising over there..." "Is that smoke? I can hardly tell through all this rain..." Zen hit the wipers. "Yes, that's smoke..." Chance made it somewhat more probable that the rain in their immediate vicinity would stop. It slowed to a drizzle. (In Bob, one can only do so much.) "Step on it. Let's get over there and see what's going on." As the microbus sped up, it passed by a blue Jeep containing two familiar figures. One, the driver, was wearing a rather old, equipment-laden green jacket. The other was wearing CVR body armor. "See, I told you they'd get here," the armored figure said. "Yeah, yeah." The driver hit the turn signal and pulled out into the lane of traffic behind the psychedelic microbus. "Should we follow them?" "No...they're going to get lost and not show up for a while." The other figure checked his watch. "Hey, isn't it about time for Clyde to go after the Grangers? I don't want to miss this." "It could be dangerous," the eyeball-shaped figure said from the Jeep's dashboard. "Yeah, you're probably right," the figure who was driving replied. "Hey, why are you referring to us as figures? Anyone who's been keeping track of this thing knows that I'm Gadge and you're Robotech_Master..." "Damn it, you ruined the ambience," R_M said. "This is Bob, the city of film noir, remember? I was trying to be film noirish." "'Noirish?' Is that a word?" Gadge asked. "Why are we even showing up in this entry?" "Filler," Robotech_Master replied. "I couldn't post this thing with just 85 lines in it. I mean, come ON, 85 lines is fine for an AA post, but you don't see many SG posts under 120, at least." "What about Good Guy #1?" Elma, Gadge's Muse and VTAS-1's artificial intelligence, asked from the monitor on the dashboard. "Uh, Chris, most of the readers already KNOW that Elma is my Muse and VTAS-1's artificial intelligence," Gadge said. "You don't have to say it again..." "I don't count Good Guy #1. In fact, I try not to think about it," Chris said. "And this is Out of Continuity, so the readers might have forgotten." "Where is Miriam, the former Edit Vampire who is now your Muse, anyway?" Gadge asked. "Will she be joining us soon?" "I left her a note before we made the transdimensional Edit. When she gets back, she'll join us." "Ooh, nice retcon!" Gadge remarked. "Thanks...when you work outside of continuity enough, you sort of get used to it." Gadge looked at his watch. "This post long enough yet?" Chris checked. "Yeah...this makes 120 lines, and once I add the title and teaser questions, that'll be good for ten more. And it might get even longer in the revision process. Okay. We can go ahead and post this now." "Cool. Let's go watch Clyde and the Grangers. Elma, if you would?" "Certainly, Gadge. I am tracking now." "You sure you can find it?" Robotech_Master asked. "An eighty-foot squid is rather hard to miss," Elma replied drily. "Oh, right. Carry on, then." The blue jeep's turn signals flashed, and it headed off toward the site of the conflict. WILL CHANCE AND ZEN NAVIGATOR FIND THEIR PROPER PLACE IN THE CROSSOVER? WILL CHANCE EVER GET A CHANCE TO FIGHT CRIME IN COSTUME? WILL THIS SERIES LAST BEYOND ISSUE #10? DON'T MISS YOUR CHANCE TO FIND OUT--STAY TUNED TO S . U . P . E . R . G . U . Y -- Chris Meadows | Robotech_Master's First Law of Superguy: CHM173S@NIC.SMSU.EDU | Continuity is Overrated. CMEADOWS@NYX.CS.DU.EDU | Robotech_Master's Corollary: ...but sometimes CMEADOWS@NOX.CS.DU.EDU | necessary all the same.