[Hi, Ed here. Wait, lemme get out of these brackets.] Much better! I can finally breathe! HAHAHAHA! FREE! Ahem. It's time for a bit of a recap, and it's come to our attention here at Coherent Comics UnInc. that some readers are having trouble with the diverse sources of background information in this series, since it's a splicing of elements from two previous series. Mind you, there's a good chance that any confusion you may be experiencing is wholly intentional on the part of the Author (that jerk), but since recaps are all the rage this season, here we go. First, the Exarchs themselves all come from the Legion of Net.Heroes Looniverse, at least indirectly. The series that started as Constellation and changed to Dvandom Force is where the Author got his #100 issue, but relax, only a fraction of that mass (which is still smaller than 100 episodes of ALU, let me tell you!) is relevant to the Exarchs. ftp://ftp.eyrie.org/pub/racc/lnh/Series/Constellation/ has Constellation in it. #1-6 are relevant for Seafixer, #18-24 for Katena and #32-36 for Forgeheart and Oakthorn. For the skinny on Skysabre, you should check out "Writing Chance" in Dvandom Force #43-45 at: http://www.physics.ohio-state.edu/~dvandom/LNH/forcestories.html "Ex Post-Facto" in #46-48 is also kinda relevant to how Exarchs got started. It also left footprints on other Superguy titles, but I'll leave those explanations to the Authors in question. http://www.physics.ohio-state.edu/~dvandom/SG is an archive for the Author's first Superguy series, Crazy Guy, which is where Jack, Ben Sidhe and Louie come from (and Jack's father, and Jonkatta, and Gwen, etc). And now, a short Who's That? section. Skysabre: Born Richard Franklins, son of Fred Franklins AKA Mr. Thingy of the Net.astic Nine (inventor of the flight.thingy, net.thingy, comm.thingy and other .thingy technology later used by the LNH). Injected with the Super Molder Serum at an early age to save him from a mystic trap, he developed mutation-related powers and later attracted the net.cosmic power known as the Sig.Force. As Sig.Lad, he was an early member of the LNH, and his evil future self Acton Lord was a major foe of that team. When the Super Molder Serum started to break down and cause uncontrollable mutations despite a PlotDevicium amulet he wore, Sig.Lad sought a more permanent cure. Unfortunately, this cure led to an alternate future where DeFacto V, an even NASTIER future version of Sig.Lad, took over the world. To prevent this future from happening, his teammate Squidman killed him with an AtomiCheez arrow...or so everyone thought. Despite a hijack attempt or two by other Writers, Sig.Lad has stayed dead in the Looniverse, at least. Spat out into the Altiverses of Superguy and stripped of his Sig.powers, Richard has taken on the identity of Skysabre, Exarch of the Air. Having been leader of the Dvandom Force, he has been the de facto (but not DeFacto V) leader of the Exarchs. His aspect is intelligence. Oakthorn: Stan King was the scion of an agribusiness billionaire who ended up trapped on a desert island with a shipment of cheese. He taught himself archery to survive, and learned the many astonishing properties of Cheez (a semi-cosmic analogue to cheese in the Looniverse, much as Spham is analogous to luncheon meat). Always an uneasy fit as a net.hero, he froze when it came time to kill Sig.Lad and save the future, forcing Squidman to do it. He was apparently twinned by the ensuing Cheez/PlotDevicium explosion, with one copy remaining behind to quit the net.hero game, and another becoming the Exarch of Wood. His aspect is emotion, and this often makes him the dissenting voice on the team. Katena: Kat Anders was born in the late 21st Century on an Earth that had been devastated by conflict between two factions of Artificial Consciousnesses, reducing humanity to a protected species. She refused to accept the status of "pet", but in the course of her attempts to prove humanity still mattered her body was destroyed, necessitating her being "scanned" into a Robo body to survive. A few decades later, she was almost destroyed by a nanotech plague, but thanks to the sacrifice of a human friend she was able to overcome it and bring the nanites under her control. The way her faction treated the victims of the plague, however, left her embittered and she struck out on her own. After a few more decades, she had managed to acquire death warrants from both sides, and took the chance offered by the Robot Invasion (Constellation #18-24) to flee to the Looniverse, where she obtained the protection of the LNH. Her attempt to cure Sig.Lad with her nanites would have resulted in the creation of De Facto V, and so she was at the heart of the explosion that killed Sig.Lad. After arriving in the Altiverses, she found her powers severely limited, and she slowly lost her ability to change shape. Upon becoming the Exarch of Earth, she lost that power completely, turning to living marble. However, since this is essentially her fourth body, she's gotten used to that sort of thing. Her aspect is memory, and she can remember every detail of her century or more of life. Very cynical and bitter before joining the LNH, she has slowly started to regain some of that idealism that got her killed so long ago. Forgeheart: Anna Tanner is the daughter of Silver Age hero Rotara (Roy Tanner), inheriting his ability to cast spells when speaking in the Rot-13 cypher (a simple alpha-switch where A becomes N, B becomes O, etc). She joined the Secret Dvanders as Rotanna almost by accident and hung around with the reformed Dvandom Force because it seemed exciting. While the events surrounding Sig.Lad's death had a profound effect on the "mainstream" Rotanna, this version of Anna has been kept too busy to dwell on matters. Not to mention, she's seen far worse since. Finding herself unable to cast spells anymore on arriving in the Altiverses, she felt somewhat useless until finally erupting as the Exarch of Fire. Her aspect is dreams, an echo of what she would have become in the other timeline. Whether she will have any ties to 000SUPERGUY's dreamqueen has yet to be revealed. Seafixer: Floyd Johnsson was a small time supercrook in a reality similar to the ASH Universe (http://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/ASH), until his team decided to hide out from the law in an alternate version of the Looniverse. However, he had the misfortune to be in a Paul Hardy series, Legion of Occult Heroes, and his Looniverse died all around him. As Constellation, he was bonded to a wandering spirit he named Dot. He had potentially infinite cosmic powers, limited only by his strength of will and his understanding of them. Unfortunately, he ran afoul of the Gentle Gift of Crimson in 970SUPERGUY and was defeated, Dot wrenched from his body and (unknown to him) turned into a fetter that bound him to the Darklands. He spent many miserable years as the court jester of the Dark Spire before regaining a glimmer of hope (and a world a pain) as the Exarch of Water. His aspect is cunning, but he's currently more into angst. And can you blame him? Crazy Guy: Born Jack. Just Jack. He later adopted the last name Yuen as a legal convenience. His father hung around with the Monkey King (see Journey to the West, it's literature, and good for you) and gained the Elixir of Immortality, which turned out to be hereditary. Growing up in an altiverse of chop-socky films, Jack is essentially an early Jackie Chan character, bad lip-synching and all (although that gag hasn't really been used in Exarchs). His own series just sort of petered out because the Author lost interest, and a lot of loose ends are being ignored for now. The Jackie Chan Adventures cartoon is currently influencing his portrayal, and has resulted in his father becoming suspiciously like Uncle from that cartoon. Louie the Squirrel: Actually a monkey. A MAGIC monkey, sent by the Monkey King to keep an eye on his "godson" (and also to make sure the whole Squirrel Cold War didn't become a problem for monkeys). Rarely leaves his squirrel form, and honestly prefers being a squirrel. He has mastered only a few of the 72 Taoist magics, but it's enough to make him a serious threat when he decides to cut loose...which isn't often, as he can't sustain most spells more than a few seconds. He talks with a pretty bad fake New Yawk accent, and on the side works for the Gray Squirrel Nation. Ben Sidhe: Mairi Wynn is a contract assassin who was hired to kill Jack. She was so embarrassed by him in their first encounter that she decided to try again as a freebie, and nearly succeeded. This led Jack into all sorts of theological trouble, which Mairi later felt kinda guilty about. Relations between them seem to have improved during the four year gap, but she has not given up her day job (which is why she got captured by the Gentle Gift of Crimson and enslaved, oops). Gwen: Oh, read last episode. She got caught in some mystic fallout and turned into a superhuman, and she's very bitter about this since she's really a squirrel. A Red Squirrel, mind you. Not a stinking Gray, she asks that I clarify. Jonkatta: Another Red Squirrel, he was forced to work alongside the Great Enemy of the People, Jack, while on Mars. He has no special powers, but he's highly trained and physically fit, a squirrel secret agent. Davan: No last name given yet. Just some schmoe living in Topeka who seems to have a knack for being in not QUITE the wrong place at the wrong time, but close enough. I mention him because he'll be showing up again in this series eventually. Um, and now for a little bit of story. Guess I ran a bit long. Oops. Guess I gotta get back in the brackets now. [Maybe I should let these out a size or two. - Ed] @>-`-,-`-,-`-,`-,-`-,-`-,-`- \\ // -'-.-'-.'-.-'-.-'-.-'-.-'-<@ .|,Coherent Comics Presents \\ // #19 - Serpis Bonus --X------------------------- E }X{ ARCHS copyright 2003 by the '|` A Superguy/LNH Tale // \\ Dvandroid (Dave Van Domelen) @>-`-,-`-,-`-,`-,-`-,-`-,-`- // \\ -'-.-'-.'-.-'-.-'-.-'-.-'-<@ "I still think we should have waited a little longer," Oakthorn muttered as the Exarchs hunched their way through a storm sewer. "Found a way to let some reinforcements come along." "Tactically unsound," Skysabre shook his head, ducking under a power conduit. "We're still at the shallow end of our resources curve, and Crimson is at the steep end. In the time it would take us to double our forces, he could jump his up by an order of magnitude or more. The Pentad is weakened right now, missing at least one member, maybe two if Ironwood failed to return to her master. The remaining members won't have had time to train to overcome their problems, so we can beat them again if we have to. Not to mention, the longer we wait, the more likely it is that Crimson will render Seafixer's knowledge of the Dark Spire outdated." "The Dark Spire is a living thing," Seafixer added. "Well, undead, or something like that. The point is, it can reconfigure at will, if somewhat slowly. I've never seen it move fast enough that we'd be in trouble yet, but there could be some small changes already. Give it a week or two, though, and even under normal operation it would start to become unrecognizable." "Um, exactly how disgusting is the interior?" Forgeheart interjected. Her namesake weapon flickered with just enough fire to light their way. "I mean, compared to the sewers." "It varies," Seafixer shrugged, the black plates of his armor shifting greasily under the unsteady light. "The decor tends towards a sort of dark elegance, but with little details designed to be...disquieting. But that's for the 'public' places. We'll be going through utility corridors that the Gift never enters personally, so they'll look more, um...'natural' isn't really the word. Unworked. Like the innards of a giant beast. So...I'd say 'more disgusting' for the most part." Suddenly the tunnel was lit by a golden flare as Oakthorn whipped up his bow and shot into the darkness. There was a truncated squeal, then a splash as something fell into the dirty, slushy water. "Rat," Oakthorn shrugged. Katena peered ahead into the darkness, her eyes still slightly keener than human norms. "BIG rat." Forgeheart brightened her flames for a moment, then let them fade with a shudder. "Big six-legged rat with boils. LOVELY." As they stepped around the corpse, Forgeheart sighed. "I wouldn't mind being back with Jack and Louie right now, though. Oh, I agree we need to move fast, but...we've seen so much death and destruction lately, it'd be nice to catch more of a breather than one nightmare-filled night. And," she admitted impishly, "I'm curious how it's going to work out between Jack and Mairi. There's definitely more going on between them than they would admit to yesterday." "From what I've heard in passing, she's tried to kill him at least twice," Katena shrugged. "Ah, true love," Oakthorn smirked. "Say, is any of this looking familiar, Floyd?" Seafixer nodded. "It's been a while since I was last down here...I preferred to stay out of the public eye when possible, which is why I've been down here in the first place...but it's about the same. The Spire has spread a bit since then, though." To emphasize this point, he struck his palm against the wall. Instead of the dull clank of chainmail against wet concrete, there was a meaty slap. "Unliving flesh, yet harder than steel if you try to break through." The next several minutes passed in an uneasy silence, as splashing footfalls turning into squishing thuds and they rose out of the underground levels. Seafixer guided them through a number of twists and turns, occasionally calling a silent halt in order to let some servitor or random creature pass. Then he stopped without warning. "What's wrong?" Skysabre asked. "Something's been bothering me. Just a second," Seafixer trotted back a few meters and entered a side passage. He came back almost immediately. "We're being led into something. That side passage went two meters, turned, and dead-ended. It used to go on all the way to a kitchen." "Translation," Katena frowned, "the Spire can be reconfigured pretty damn quickly after all." "Translation part two," Skysabre noted as he drew his twin sabres. "Crimson figured you'd try to lead us in via this 'secret' path, and arranged a welcome for us." "Translation part three," Oakthorn nocked an arrow. "We're fscked." Right on cue, the corridors ahead of and behind them irised shut like sphincters, and a new opening appeared in the wall. Beyond the opening was a high, domed room lit redly by glowing spheres studding its circumference. At the center was...something wholly inhuman, yet once human. It was like an obscene tree with stone for a trunk, lashing tentacles for branches and flickering motes of fire for leaves. It rustled, ominously, a beaked mouth opening on the trunk. "Rematch..." it croaked. WHAT THE GRICK IS THAT THING? WASN'T THE STORY KINDA SHORT THIS TIME? SHOULDN'T THERE BE AT LEAST THREE TEASER QUESTIONS? Answers to one of these questions and a fight scene, on the next... SUPERGUY! ============================================================================ Author's Notes: Two thirds of this episode consists of notes. Isn't that enough for you jackals?