FANFIC: LNH Classics: 501 Blues Long Road 1-2
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writers lost net access until the next fall. This was almost the death of
the LNH, and it might have become just a one-shot mass story if it weren't
for Todd Kogutt (now known as Scavenger).
Scavenger found the Cosmic Plot-Device Caper writers still on the net,
started to put the group back together, and wrote 501 Blues: Long Road to
Nowhere as a jumping off point to restart the LNH. The fall of 1993 saw the
resurgence of the LNH and the first stories of some of the writers who would
later become mainstays of the group.
SubSpace Press is pround to present the rebirth of the LNH.
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501 Blues: Long Road to Nowhere
Chapters I & II
by Scavenger
interlude by Dave Van Domelen
When we last left this particular r.a.c. world, REBEL YELL and MULTI_TASKING
LAD were about to take on ACTION LORD after witnessing the rest of the LNH
vanish through alt.portals.
Suddenly, Multi-Tasking Lad is pulled thru a portal by the evil Dr. Boring and
chained to a bed somewhere. (look ma, continuity). Realizing that he could
never defeat the evil Action Lord without the help of his comrades (Action Lord
has waaaay too much net access for R.Y. too match him), Rebel Yell pulls a
boinsenberry pie from his Bag-o-things-to-throw-at-Nicieza(tm) and hurls it at
the fiend. With Action Lord distracted, Yell makes his escape.
(TWO AND 1/2 MONTHES LATER)
REBEL YELL is in the monitor room of LNH HQ. He has sent out a transmat beam to
rescue all of the LNH still fighting battles that started before the summer.
(SEE THE ORIGINAL LNH CALL TO ARMS). While waiting to find his friends, he's
visited by a silly plot device named Wave Writer who sees that in one really
silly plot line, Rebel Yell is still searching for the LNH ten years later.
He's got a big Mardi Gras Doubloon (SPELLING LAD help!!!!) Shield and a nasty
attitude. Also Lurker Lass becomes an evil villian who takes over the world,
But I digress...
The transmat beam frees Multi-tasking Lad from his Comma of Borringness and
brings him to HQ. Rebel Yell updates Multi-Tasking Lad, who immediately begins
to search the monitors for the LNH, get the bookkeeping updated, order pizzas
for everyone, and catch the first few episodes of the new NET.MAN cartoon.
Suddenly there's a knock on the door. It's TYPO-LAD (told ya' I get you in)!
He collapses at Rebel Yell's feet.
"Rebl Yhelllll, Ihts no gud enymor. Evrythngs fllen apart cince thee prdigal
lefttt."
Yell, having little to no idea what T-Lad was talking about did notice that he
seemed to be discorperating. T-Lad continued. "Yoo gat too hellp me fiind
hem. Hee ken sve uss al." Rebel Yell discussed this with Multi-Tasking Lad
and a desision was make.
Multi-Taksing Lad would stay behind at HQ to continue with the rescue and
clean- up effort, to discover the current location of the evil ACTION LORD,
and to understand the implications left by the terrible BEIGE NOON (happened
durring the 2 1/2 month gap).
Rebel Yell and Typo-Lad would begin a cross-country search in Rebel Yell's
Mardi Gras Float (gotten in the first LNH adventure). The purpose of the
quest? TO find the misterious prodigal.
TO BE CONTINUED-------(I hope)
When we last left our interpid adventurers, Multi-tasking Lad stayed behind
at LNH HQ to continue the search for the missing LNH, while REBEL YELL and TYPO
LAD began the quest for the mysterious prodigal who could save the world.
We Pick up with Rebel Yell and Typo Lad on the road:
"Where exactly are we going?" Rebel Yell asked.
"I'mn naut shur. Al i now iz theat whe naed ta fend tha prdigal"
"But who is the prodigal?"
"I dun no!"
Feeling somewhat discurraged by this lack of direction, Rebel Yell aimed
the Mardi Gras float down the road and continued the quest.
An hour later, after a truly bizarre encounter with Slade, the ranging man(who
was also stuck traveling down the road, looking for a ditch with other wierd
things), not to mention a brief cameo by Hanible Man (the man with Hanible
powers--he loves it when a plan comes together while riding elephants through
the alp s while eating someones leg) who was soon hit by an RV, The float
pulled into a truck stop.
Typo Lad went to fill up the float with gas while Yell got the pair some food.
As he returned to the float, an eerry light washed over them. Suddenly the
float's radio began flipping through the dial, creating a strang message:
"Please-#$@$@Board%#$%you're$%!kraft-+-_#!@+and#$@%fasten@!#$@your#$%@seatbelts
Figuring that it would be good for the otherwise over-complicated plot, Rebel
Yell and Typo Lad complied. Moments later the Float was engulfed in a transmat
beam. not unlike that wich belongs to the LNH.
At the end of the beam, are heroes found themselves confronted by a strange
group of aliens. A green one spoke up:
"I am Bril Pox, Leader of L.E.G.I.O.N. (Literary Excess Growing Idiodicly On
News.net). We are the group whose mythic exploits you formed your own Legion
around!"
Rebel Yell replied, "No we didn't. Y'see last spring someone got the idea to
form this group 'cause we were all pretty tired of what was going on in LSH.
Lots of other people thought it was fun and...
Pox interupted, " That was pre-2 1/2 month gap, in this new universe We were
you're precursers!"
"Oh, so what do you want."
"We have come to warn you that there are too many allusions in your story.
Stop it or else your readers will leave. Furthermore, there is a new evil
upon you. My second-in-comand will explain. OUT-OF-PHASE?
Out-of-phase stepped forward and Rebel Yell immediatly recognized her.
"Lurking Lass/Girl,"he exclaimed, "What are you doing here!?!"
O-O-P said,"/i'm afraid you must have me confused with some one else. Anyway,
thehe is a new evil on the horizon, something even worse than Table, Dr. Kill
File, Manga Man, and the rest of the net.villians. Even worse than the Man
with the Black Hat!!!"
Rebel Yell, somewhat miffed at Lurking Girl/lass 's refusal to admit knowing
him , answered, what could be worse than them?"
"E.R.N.I.E. The Evil Regiment of Naughty Inane Editors. They will come and
destroy your world so horribly, you won't even recognize it. The members
includ e: Peter-out-son--he takes a storyline and warps into a string of
ridiculous event-an-issue issues, Euryne, able to unleash fan-boyish writers
into a once proud comic traditon and let them do event-an-issue stories,
HarrASS, A being so evil that he chases good writers to be chased from books
in order to suit the whims of fanish artists, and then when the artists jump
dhip because of bad editorial control, he still thinks that he's doing a great
job, and then there's their leader ,DeFacto, a creature so twisted that he
thinks he can write like the creators of his world, but fails compleatly, a
being so deformed that he thinks that flooding the market with clones of
characters is a good idea . It is with DeFacto that the rest of E.R.N.I.E can
flurrish. BEWARE THEM."
When Out-Of-Phase finished a big whitish looking clown walked over to a big red
button, He said,"I am Lobo. I need no one. I hunt alone."
with that he pushed the button, and the float vanished, only to reappear at...
The truck stop. "That was weird." Rebel yell said.
"Uhh, yHel. Idun tinc itz uver yat," Typo exclamined.
For before them was a dimensional portal, out of which stepped a chubby man
wearring a red outfit holding a dial.
"Sunta Clas?"
"No," Rebel Yell replied, "Through the magic of ret-con I recognize our foe.
It is he who was once Acton Lord, and .Sig lad and Action Lord and a bunch
of people I can't think of off hand, it is the dreaded DIAL "H" FOR DVANDOM.
The evil friend (That's fiend cries out Spelling Boy from the void) shouts:
"PREPARE TO MEET YOUR DOOM, NET.HEROES!!! BWAH_HAH_HAH!!!"
To be continued...
From: dva...@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu (David VanDomelen)
Subject: Re: THE 501 BLUES: THE FINAL BATTLE FOR R.A.C. (part 2)
Actually, Dial "D" for dvandom wasn't feeling very villainous that night, and
it was after midnight, so after kicking Dyzlexia for putting an H in his name,
he dialed up a brief breather for Our Heroes, in the form of
Letter.Man!!!!!!!!!!
Letter.Man stood there with a goofy grin on his face and said, "We've got
a lovely show for you tonight, everybody. Tonight we do our Viewer Email."
Letter.Man pulled out some blue cards and began to read from them.
"Letter number one. 'Dear Dave, what exactly *are* your net.powers?' and
it's signed Mark Friedman from Columbus Ohio. Well, Mark, I'm not sure. Paul,
do you know what my powers are?"
A wimpy looking person who, much like Lurking Lad had remained unnoticed
up til then said, "Could it be your ability to survive in even the most
inhospitable timeslot?"
"Could be..." muttered Letter.Man. "Hal, do you have a clue as to what my
powers are?"
A voice came out of nowhere and scared the cr*p out of Rebel Yell and Typo
Lad, saying "Well, Dave, I think it's the ability to take any group of people
and make them sit in front of the screen for an hour and come away thinking
they've been entertained."
"Does that answer your question, Mark? Okay, letter number two comes from
Hans Kartoffelkopf, secret agent and all around John Constantine ripoff. He
writes, 'Dave, I have heard of your problems with stalkers, those twisted
individuals who follow you like an unpaid phone bill and stick closer to you
than a bale of cactus needles after you've fallen in it, and I think you should
take more decisive action. Nothing deters one of those scum who for pleasure
think nothing of passing barbed wire through the nostrils of twenty Cub Scouts
and then stuffing them in a bus locker in Queens like taking a ball of blazing
tar and....' Sorry, Hans, but the rest of your demented film-noir-like letter
couldn't make it past the network censors. In any case, I've hired several
Net.Heroes to patrol my house, now that the destruction of r.a.c. will leave
them out of a job." Letter.Man tossed the card behind him and there was a
sound of breaking glass. He leaned conspiratorily toward the two LNHers and
said in a funny voice, "I've got a message for all you kids out there.... Hey
kids."
Letter.Man leaned back again and said (to no one Rebel Yell could see)
"How are we on time? Okay? Okay, now we'll do the Top Ten List from the Home
Office in Milwaukee Wisconsin <cheers emanted from all around>. Tonight's Top
Ten List is 'Top Ten Reasons Crossover Queen Is Incapable Of Conquering R.A.C.'
10: RAC dies Sept 30 anyway
9: She chose Quayle as her running mate
8: If Captain Continuity can't keep track of this mess, who can possibly
conquer it?
7: NBC already bought RAC and plans to show reruns of Dallas on it
6: No competent person would *want* to rule this place
5: The LNH will easily stop her (yeah, right)
4: All of her funds were tied up in Hawaiian beachfront property
3: Her army was vacationing in that beachfront property
2: *Everybody* knows that whenever a villain causes a crossover, that
villain is pounded into hamburger helper by the end of the crossover
And the number one reason Crossover Queen has shown herself incapable of
conquering RAC,
1: Two words: New Mutants!"
Applause thundered all about as Rebel Yell tried to figure out what was
going on here.
"We'll take a break for commercial, and then we'll have our first guest,
the Time Crapper! And we all know how painful that can be."
How would Rebel Yell escape before Time Crapper arrived and bored him to
death with plugs for his newest title? Already Typo Lad had that faxed slime
(fixed smile) of the Letter.Man studio audience, and Yell could feel his brain
going! D"D"D had left longago, and Sig Lad (who had permanently split from
D"D"forD) was *still* trapped on alt.cyberpunk.chatsubo. What would he do???
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