• LNH: Classic LNH Adventures #271: Integrity Quest Part Eight

    From Arthur Spitzer@21:1/5 to All on Sun Jan 15 21:01:43 2023
    And we're back in the past and can check the eyrie archive
    once again.

    Here's where you can find the whole Integrity Quest and well as
    Amabel Holland's very nice Integrity Quest Companion, which is
    well worth a read:

    https://archives.eyrie.org/racc/lnh/Crossovers/


    And we're back in the Integrity Quest storyline! Doug Wojtowicz and
    Hubert Bartels return with episodes 13 and 14! Can Rochester beat
    wReam in bringing death and destruction to the LNH?! Is it time
    for Panta to rip someone's beating heart out so she can lap their blood?!
    Can Lost Cause Boy resist using the W-Word?!! And can our four-color
    heroes cut it in a black and white world?!!



    Find out in...



    _
    | | Classic
    | | =
    | | ____ ____ _ ____ ___
    | |__ | [] | | [] | | | | [] | | _ \

    |____| \__] \__ | |_| \__/ |_|\_\
    ||
    |_| OF NET.HEROES

    ADVENTURES #271


    =====================
    Integrity Quest Part Eight
    =====================





    From: U16244@uicvm.uic.edu
    Subject: INTEGRITY QUEST BLUDGEONS ON.... WITH ROCHESTER

    NET.PATROL: Integrity Quest - part 13: IQ Bludgeons On.. with ROCHESTER!

    [In between this story and the last, the Net.Patrol go to Rebel Yell's funeral, get killed along with the rest of the LNH, and come back after discovering that they never really died. All as chronicled in Seize
    Dangerous. We now return you to your regularly scheduled farce.]

    His name was Rochester, outcast of the Image Universe. He was strong,
    with muscles slabbed like city blocks, with veing pulsing along his arms
    and chest like streets.
    He didn't fly, but he jumped so powerfully, it didn't matter. And he was
    upset that the psycho got the job of doing in Superman. But the job for DeFacto was even better. Join the Integrity Questors, and bring death and destruction to the Legion of Net Heroes.

    And one other thing... like many of the Image heroes with originally black names, Rochester was blonde, blue eyed and extremely Aryan. Now, on with
    the story...

    * * * * * *

    Rochester heard the roar of thunder from the Peril Room, and wondered if possibly either the Post or the Crosspost brothers were joining the Legion. He'd felt instances of Bugtown ultraviolence emminating through the net.
    Yes, this was a good place. A good place indeed.

    Lost Cause Boy, Panta, and Kid Anarky came wandering out of thee Peril
    Room, dazed. LCB extended an arm to Panta for support, and she accepted, flowing to his side, soft and warm. LCB steeled himself against the urges
    that had been brought on by... brought on by... he guessed just being so
    close to someone whose costume was for all intents and purposes nudity.

    (Note: LCB doesn't realize that the Retcon chamber temporarily submerged his memories of DeFacto's interference with his romantic interlude with Panta, making it into a lewd and obscene thing, instead of the honest romance he originally wanted.)

    Kid Anarky shoved the editor's explanation out of the way after much exertion and strain, gasping for breath as he leaned on it. "Cripes Wojtowicz, why not put in more of these per issue. It's not like we're tripping over them enough already."

    (Sorry.)

    "You say something Anarky?" LCB asked.

    "Eh, nothing. Just the writer trying to make cute like the early
    Byrne She Hulks. Ferget it," Anarky sighed. He looked up, seeing
    Rochester, his jaw dropping as Rochester's awesome frame blotted out the background to the point that it was reduced to nothing but weird line
    patterns.

    "Men call me... Rochester," he said.

    "Awww f***. Not another Men call me asshole. Where's Cliche Dude when
    you need him?" LCB groaned. Panta lowered herself into a crouch, snarling, fangs bared.

    "He smells of DeFacto..." she growled.

    "He smells of Liefeld," Anarky noted.

    "Actually, he smells like freshly inked pencils. He must be a new character," LCB noted. "Where comest thou from?"

    "Hunh?" Rochester asked.

    "Oh. I'm sorry. The men call me line threw me. I slipped into the Marvel Asgard/Olympus speech. Where ya from Jack?" LCB asked.

    "I come from a planet far and away..."

    "You mean you know Tom Crusie and Nicholle Kittaen?" Panta asked.

    Rochester rolled his eyes and buried his face in his hands. LCB and Anarky gave Panta high fives as the giant moaned. "I come from a distant world,
    and I have been given powers and abilities far and beyond the scope of your feeble imaginations."

    "Well, you're strong. You're invulnerable. You can either fly, or jump
    really really far..." Anarky started.

    "Okay, most of your feeble imaginations. Work with me here, eh?" Rochester whined.

    "He still smells of ERNIE," Panta growled. "Let me rip his heart out and
    drink the pulsing blood from it as..."

    "Whoa, whoa, whoa," LCB said. "He's a complete and utter stranger who just walks into a superhero headquarters. I know every reader's gonna call me
    an idiot (they've called me perverts before too), but I say we let him
    join us."

    "Why?" Panta, Anarky and Rochester asked in unison.

    "He's a Liefeld character, and as such, a lost cause," LCB said with a wry grin.

    "Yeah, but why should _we_ let him join us?" queried Kid Anarky.

    "Well, it'll keep the story moving." commented Lost Cause Boy.

    Everyone shrugged and nodded at the logic of the statement. Rochester shook hands with LCB, grinding the bones of his left hand into powder.

    "So, now we're almost a full team. Except for Typo Lad. Where is he?" Anarky asked.

    "Probably involved in some other cross-over," LCB said. "That's okay. The
    four of us might be able to handle it. And don't forget, we can always ask
    the Crosspost Brothers for help."

    "The Crosspost Brothers... but how did you know?" Rochester began.

    "Judging from the sound of utter carnage coming from the Perilroom, it's
    either them, or some established group of psychos like Milk&Cheese, Kei&Yuri, Ron&Russ, or some new character who I read about on the net."

    Suddenly, the Net.hero alarm went off. The quartet rushed towards the main monitor room (taking about 45 minutes because they forgot where the damn thing was at).

    "Ouch! Wojtowicz! What did I tell you about subreferences?!?"

    (Sorry Anarky.)

    "I'm gonna tell Savoie to drop a few footnotes on LCB if this happens again."

    (Okay, but I'd get that gouted and bleeding shin looked over.)

    "Ah shaddup and move these damn things."

    "It's the Net.underground! The haven of non-superheroes! It's come under attack." MultiTasking-Man shouted.

    "By whom?" Rochester asked.

    LCB looked at the figures that were trashing their way through the Interdimensional Crossroads. He wondered if the Oz Squad or Faust could
    handle the tangent they were going in. Then he noticed that another
    rampaging force was heading deep into the other direction of the
    Underground, towards Metropolis (not the DC one).

    "It looks like... yes. Spitt's charging towards Metropolis! And we have Yakblood destroying the Crossroads. We're going to have to split up." LCB looked to Rochester. "You'll have to take Spitt."

    Rochester swelled his muscles. "Of course. For I am... Rochester, Supreme's older brother."

    Anarky pulled LCB closer. "Doesn't Spitt look a lot like Doomsday?"

    "That's why you're helping him out Boy Genius," LCB answered.

    "Awww, great. Give me all the fun stuff," Anarky said. "Well, I've been working on my sonic powers. Not very reliable but..."

    "Remember... go in peace and don't say the "w" word."

    "Woody?"

    Anarky ducked under a hail of blows from a rolled up newspaper. "I told
    you don't say the word!!!!!!"

    Anarky turned to Panta. "My God, what did you do to this man?"

    Panta merely shrugged as the net.tubes prepared to teleport them to the
    defense of the Net.Underground.

    Lost Cause Boy was whittled by Wojtowicz.
    Kid Anarky was fiddled by Stephane Savoie.
    Panta was riddled by Hubert Bartels.
    And Rochester was head littled by Rob Liefeld. Copyright 1994, Hubert Bartels


    -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    I N T E G R I T Y Q U E S T

    Reprinting the Integrity Quest books from 1993

    Vol 3.1
    In which Panta and Kid Anarky go off to Net.Underground
    to defend it against the attacks of DeFacto. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------

    From: hgb@catalina.edu (Hubert Bartels)
    Subject: LNH: Integrity Quest: Panta: The Enemy always strikes first

    NET.PATROL: Integrity Quest - part 14: THE ENEMY ALWAYS STRIKES FIRST

    [ Panta and Kid Anarky have been dropped by Net.Tube into the middle of
    the Net.Underground to fight off the attacks of the evil editor DeFacto
    and his archminions. The team of heros has split - Rochester and Lost
    Cause Boy are going after Yakblood in the Crossroads Universe. And Panta
    Kid Anarky are trying to stop Spitt from attacking Metropolis (not the
    Superman one). The issue's cover is a straight-forward scene of the four
    in a charging across the lawn superheros pose.]

    Panta and Kid Anarky fell to their knees as the Net.Tube dropped
    them at their destination. As they stood up, they noticed they were standing
    in a quiet Mid-Western small town street. Leaves were falling from trees. Pumpkins and black paper witches hinted that Halloween was just around the corner.
    "Panta! I'm Black!" Kid Anarky shouted.
    "Um," Panta sniffed. "And white. This is the underground after all. Black and white comics." Panta herself looked stunning in shades of ziptone, shading to larger, darker dots along the shadows and hallows of her slender body. The leopard spots gave her an Op-Art look. "Let's see. Right now, you look rather two-colored. Let's see what we can do about that..." Panta
    slipped a furry hand inside her skimpy bodysuit and pulled out several
    sheets of ziptone.
    "How? How do you know so much about..." Kid Anarky started.
    "Silly. I come from a B&W world. And as for this," she said, looking
    at the sheets of ziptone, "leopards know all about spots."

    A few moments work and Kid Anarky looked as if he had stepped from
    the pages of a Japanese manga compilation. As Panta finished, she dropped
    the used ziptone and scratched her head along her grey mohawk. "Kid Anarky?
    How are we supposed to get back to the LNH?"
    "With this!" Kid Anarky pulled a small smooth shape, about the size
    of a tricorder out of a dark grey shaded pocket. It was satin black, had a large grey button on it and was lettered 'Plot Device' in white.
    "Ah." Panta breathed. "And where are we?"
    "I think we might be on the outskirts of some metropolis. I'm not
    sure though..." Kid Anarky pocketed the Plot Device and began walking. "Let's ask around..."
    Panta followed, her black-tipped tail twitching.

    They turned left, downhill at the next intersection. As they shuffled through the piles of leaves - Panta sliding merrily through each heap and pouncing at stray leaves - they became aware of an strange aura of foreboding. Panta stopped playing with the fall leaves and moved closer to Kid Anarky's side.
    They stopped.
    It was deathly quiet. Even the leaves fell from the trees without sound.
    Panta lifted her head; she could hear a faint sound.
    The sound grew slowly. A low murmur or grumbling. Panta could hear
    it more through the ground beneath her.
    Kid Anarky turned toward her. "Earthquake?"
    "I don't think so..."
    The sound grew louder. Both could hear it clearly now. It was the
    sound of very heavy machinery, moving slowly over the ground. They turned
    to face a low range of hills to the south of them.
    Something bearing a forest of antenna and radar dishes crested the hills. Something that grew larger and larger as it climbed into view. Boxes piled on boxes piled on metal boxes.
    It was huge.
    It stood better than ten stories tall, was carried on 16 gigantic treads, and shook the earth as it moved. Each of the hundreds of treads
    was bigger than a car, each of the drive wheels stood two stories tall. From there up, cold rusting metal soared into the sky, punctuated by portholes, landing bays, and gantries. On top, radar dishes rotated and antenna waved.
    It was the Death Star on caterpiller tracks. In color.
    Panta stopped breathing for a second. She raised her hands to her mouth; she could barely stand in shock.
    Kid Anarky grabbed her elbow. "What is it?"
    Panta could only point to a object waving at the top of the immense structure.
    Kid Anarky followed her wavering furry finger to see a tiny 'Make
    Mine Marvel-louss' flag.
    The enormous tank tipped over the crest of the hill range and rolled more quickly towards the defenseless town. Black soot rolled from the thing's exhaust. As it hit the outskirts of the town, houses collapsed, roads were crushed, people jumped out of ruins and ran.
    Panta saw teams of Spiderman-T-Shirt clad Fanboys emerge from the entryways, jumping on anyone who ran, spraying them with 4 color ink and carrying them into the innards of the huge vehicle.
    Panta turned to run.
    Kid Anarky held her by the elbow. "What's happening?"
    She pointed over her grey and black shoulder. "They're rounding up
    all the survivors. They're converting them, coloring them..." She broke
    away from Kid Anarky and started running.
    Kid Anarky paused for a second to admire Panta's shapely rump before following. She cut across a lawn and ran down another street. Kid Anarky
    worked his legs hard to keep up. Behind the two of them, the sky was filled with the metal leviathan. The air was filled with the sound of crashing trees.
    The two made a hard turn away out of the street into a narrow alley. They pelted down the alleyway.
    To find the end of the alleyway blocked with a tall chainlink fence. Panta turned to Kid Anarky. "This seems like a good time to use that device." Kid Anarky started going through the pockets on his trenchcoat. "Not here. Or there..."
    The walls of the alley shook. Bricks fell out of the neighboring buildings. The sky darkened.
    "Hurry, hurry, hurry," Panta urged, jumping up and down next to Kid Anarky.
    Kid Anarky found himself distracted by Panta's lithe form. His hands slowed their search. He found himself watching Panta's breasts jiggle under
    her bodysuit as she jumped up and down.
    The end of the alley darkened with Fanboys. "Halt!" they shouted.
    Panta and Kid Anarky turned as one. Panta began to gather herself
    for her BERSERKER RAGE(tm) before suddenly straightening up and throwing herself into Kid Anarky's arms. "It's useless, all useless."
    "What's useless, Panta," he said, his arms full of warm furry leopard girl. "Why not just wipe them out like you did that mob?"
    "This isn't a superhero world," Panta sobbed. "That doesn't work here."
    "Ahh..." Kid Anarky said. "Well, it's time I used my powers!"
    "Ummm, isn't that kinda..." Before Panta could finish, Kid Anarky was concentrating and with a FLASH, the two were standing with every visible surface of their bodies covered in day-glow sixties flower-decals.
    "...unpredictable." finished Panta, looking at herself in disgust.
    "Ooops." Kid Anarky said softly as the mob of Fanboys surrounded them. One of raised a strange Cable-like gun and fired.
    Panta and Kid Anarky collapsed to the ground, fully 4-colored.

    [ Is this the end for our hero and heroine? What is Defacto up to? Will Kid
    Anarky be able to concentrate with Panta warmly breathing next to him? Grab
    the next issue of Integrity Quest to find out. ] --------------------------------------------------------------------------------


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    Next Week: More Integrity Quest!

    ==========

    Arthur "Same Classic Channel. But Same Time? Probably not." Spitzer

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