Raccowrimo

Just Imagine Saxon Brenton vs. Andrew Perron in the Return of the RACCies! #6

by Andrew Perron

"Quick, everyone!  Think colorful thoughts!" Manga Man Pink concentrated,
and coruscating pink energy played over the continuity zombie's features.
Manga Man Violet, Bluetooth, and the Red Herring joined in.  The zombie
slowed, but continued inexorably forward.

A bell sounded over the din of battle.  Manga Man Violet was careful not to
break his concentration as he walked backwards and glanced at the Subatomic
Analysis Unit and Rice Cooker. "Thickness of... universe layer?  What-"

As Manga Man Violet's fingertips brushed the crystal, purple lightning
sparked from his fingertips.  A cyan-yellow-magenta-black flash illuminated
the room with blinding radiance, and when it had faded, all was silent...

<------>

PREHISTORIC PRODUCTIONS PRESENTS

YET MORE RESOLVED PLOT POINTS

PLUS ADDED RIDICULOUS

Just Imagine Saxon Brenton vs. Andrew Perron in the Return of the
RACCies! #6

<------>

---<>---

A few short eternities passed in darkness.  Eventually, oblivion took the
texture of a warm red haze, which dissolved in slow yellow light.

Manga Man Violet blinked and sat up.  He was laying on a long red couch
with gold fringes, in what, to his blurry vision, resembled some kind of
late Victorian drawing room.  Colorful blobs he assumed were his teammates
floated around the edges of the scene, along with two dark blobs that
slowly resolved into an impeccably-dressed man in a suit, tie, and bowler
hat standing over what seemed to be a dead body.

"Madames, mademoiselles et monsieurs," said the man, "I apologize for
calling you all here on such short notice.  However, it is not without
quelle cause.  For, you see, one of the people in this room... is Bertrand
Weevil's murderer!" He thrust an accusatory finger down at the body, whose
face, Manga Man Violet could see, had popped off, revealing a cockpit with
a small insect curled up inside.

"For convenience," the man continued, "we will introduce all the players in
this drama.  I, of course, am Ulysses Ploteau, consulting detective." MM
Violet mouthed the man's name.  Something off here...

"This is Mr. Cerulean, the trusty banker." Bluetooth looked confused, and
for good reason; he was dressed in a dark blue smoking jacket and slacks.
His hair was slicked back, and a pipe was clenched in his metal teeth.

"Of course everyone knows Madame Vermillion, lady about town." Manga Man
Pink just looked resigned to being costumed as an antebellum lady of the
American South, complete with pink parasol and poofy petticoat.

"The good Colonel Crimson, lately returned from the front." The Red Herring
was somehow wrapped in the outfit of a long-ago navy, and had a monocle
fixed squarely over one fishy eye.

"Lady Silver and Lord Bronze." Blasferatu had a top hat and tails, while
Hi-Fi Lorelai was elegant and gothic.

"Ume-sensei." Manga Man Violet looked around, then looked down.  Of
*course* he was wearing a tweed jacket, a bowtie, and- yes- coke-bottle
glasses.  No wonder he'd had such a hard time seeing.

"And Mr. White, the family butler.  ...Mr. White?  Now where could he have
gone..."

The parlor door creaked, cracked, and crashed, splintering into shards of
wood.  Convoluted Origin Zombie shambled through.

"Ah, there he is."

The heroes leapt to their feet.  Convoluted Origin Zombie threw himself at
Blasferatu.

"You see," continued Ulysses Ploteau, pacing back and forth heedless of the
battle before him, "I first began to suspect all was not as it appeared
when..."

"White?" Manga Man Pink shouted over the detective, pulling the zombie off
his compatriot. "Surely it should be black!  Also: What the holy humping
Hades is going on here!?"

"...bits of fabric caught in the doorframe.  It was all so simple!  Indeed,
a bit too simple.  It seemed to me that..."

"It's all so familiar..." mused Manga Man Violet, as the zombie dodged
flurry of superspeed punches and wrapped its hands around Bluetooth's
throat. "Like a dream, or a story..."

"Glaghlalllgh!  Less introspection, more color-zapping!"

"...third point of interest; namely, that two weeks ago in the village,
there had been an unexpected shortage of Ovaltine..."

"Color..." MM Violet scratched his head. "The Hungry Past wants to devour
the color, the life, leaving only... a blank page!  Of course!  In comics,
true emptiness isn't black, it's white!" He pointed at the zombie.
"Convoluted Origin Man is wearing a pair of amethyst earrings!"

And Convoluted Origin Man, who was wearing a pair of amethyst earrings,
snapped back.  The Red Herring took the opportunity to paddle him in the
face.

"Don't you see?  The Hungry Past's one weakness is the same thing that the
Writers used to defy it and create the Looniverse: description!  Colors are
probably part of the cosmic Description Force or something, I don't know,
I'm figuring this out as I go along!"

"...curiously, although the clock on the wall read but half past three, tea
was served right after-"

"And you need to help us too, Plot-Error Man!"

Bluetooth, the Red Herring, Manga Man Pink, Hi-Fi Lorelai, Blasferatu and
Convoluted Origin Man turned and gasped.

Ulysses Ploteau stepped back. "I- monsieur, you are mistaken, I do not..."

"I remember now.  Outside the timestream... I brought you there with the
Power Grapety Purple.  You touched it, and it cracked, and... the series
ended on a cliffhanger.  I know where we are now."

Ploteau, AKA Plot-Error Man, nodded sadly. "You're inside Just Imagine
Saxon Brenton Presents the RACCies... Again! #6."

"A chunk of time itself, and it became a world unto its own, a dreamworld
where the LNH writers were happy, famous and successful... and you were one
of them."

Plot-Error Man shrugged with a crestfallen smile. "But with all dreams,
there comes a time to awaken, and I AUGH"

Convoluted Origin Zombie, bored with the exposition, had bodily lifted
Plot-Error Man and tossed him across the room.  Hi-Fi Lorelai zipped over
and interposed her body; he crashed into her, but her stereophonic field
dissipated the impact.

Bluetooth concentrated, and crackling blue electricity played across the
continuity zombie's features, but Manga Man Violet grabbed Bluetooth's arm.
"We could do that, *or* we could help him."

"You could have explained that when you were expositing!"

"Shush.  Now, what does Convoluted Origin Man look like?"

"He... it's hard to tell, sort of blurry or-"

"No, no.  What would you *say* he looks like?"

"I don't-"

"Oh, come on!" Blasferatu stepped in front of them. "He's wearin'
a
motherlovin' three-piece suit with a high collar!"

A crackling burst of brown-orange energy cascaded over Convoluted Origin
Man's body.  The spitting sparks resolved into rhinestones, and as the
discotechnical forces collapsed, Convoluted Origin Man was wearing a
three-piece suit with a high collar.

He froze in mid-attack, and blinked.  The faraway look in his eyes faded,
and he collapsed onto the couch, holding his head and groaning. "I...
what... what's going on?"

"...well I *could* have done that..."

As Bluetooth grumbled to himself and Hi-Fi Lorelai cheerfully explained the
situation to the dazed ex-zombie, Manga Man Violet turned to Plot-Error
Man. "You can manipulate continuity.  You are the key to containing -
perhaps even defeating - the Hungry Past!"

"But affecting the formless past of an entire canon?" Plot-Error Man
stroked the end of his fastidious moustache. "I don't know if I'm capable
of it..."

"You broke off a chunk of time itself and created a universe.  That's
pretty damn capable."

"But... of course!  We'll have to go to the point where the worlds
intersect - the crystal wall at the center of the universe, where the
Anonymous Anglo-Saxon Alliterative Poet Corps imprisoned Cyborg Gorilla
Hemingway!"

The shards of the parlor door were kicked into the room, and in stepped the
Interim Iconoclasts. Their leader snarled, "But first, I think we have some
business to attend to."

---<>---

<------>

Author's Note: Whew.  Okay, I think I hit all the plot points. @-@ Saxon,
sorry about retconning so much of what you set up in issue #4. ^^;

Also, I've been forgetting these in every single issue, so:
Pointless Awards Man IV (aka Manga Man Violet) created by Jesse Willey
Never-Gets-Credit-For-His-Dialogue Lad created by Arthur Spitzer, turned
into Bluetooth by Jamie Rosen
Power Manga created by Jamie Rosen
Red Herring created by Kieran O' Callaghan
Convoluted Origin Man created by Matt Rossi
Plot-Error Man created by Jef Kolodziej
And finally, Blasferatu and Hi-Fi Lorelai created by Andrew Perron.
That's-a me!

Anyone who likes can add a chapter after this one, naturally.  If no one
does for a few weeks, I'll start work on it.

Andrew "NO .SIG MAN" "Juan" Perron, let's see here...