Hooded minions of some sort came in wave after wave, each crumpling at the first punch, kick, staff to the wobbly bits or stern look. It was pretty obvious to Jack that these weren't combat-trained minions, but rather support staff and techies pressed into a last-ditch fight that their master couldn't admit to himself he had lost. All the real fighters had.... What *had* happened to the real fighters? WHO were the real fighters? Jack vaguely remembered a red-haired woman in tight clothing...a rather large number of copies of her, in fact. And a bull or beast of some kind. And a ghost? Suddenly, Jack's train of thought was broken as a huge plastic sphere caromed in his direction. "Stop that ape!" shouted the hooded leader of the bad guys. "He's headed for the Fourth Wall!" Jack barely had time to see that there was indeed a gorilla in the giant plastic sphere, a gorilla dressed in rumpled and chalk-marked clothing. Then it was gone, past him in the crush of hapless minions. Something...something was horribly wrong here. Things seemed undefined, yet not spicy. Wobbly at the edges. He vaguely recalled one of the bad guys saying something about a disease...maybe he'd come down with it? He certainly felt light-headed. Time to clear out the cannon fodder. Jack pulled out his sea-fixing pin staff and shook it out to five meters long, then started spinning around, knocking minions over like...minions knocked over by a big staff. Lengthening the staff as he spun, he soon had all the extras flat on their backsides. Well, most of them. The rest were on their frontsides, having fallen differently. He supposed a few were on their sidesides. Sidesides? He was definitely coming down with something. "Not so fast, Chinese guy with squirrel!" the lead villain shouted, standing before a dramatic-looking curtain. He pulled a gold braid cord and the curtain slid aside, to reveal a stone wall with several figures manacled to it. Most of them were unconscious, save for one young lady who was swearing in Maori. "Your allies have all succumbed to my fiendish disease-type plot," he cackled through the hood. "Surrender, or they die!" "Oh. Help me. Please," snarked the young woman, looking rather bored with it all. "Starting with HER!" the leader shouted, pointing at an unconscious woman in impeccably tailored armor. "Mum!" the girl shouted, suddenly concerned. "If you hurt her, I'll..." she paused as realization sank in, "...probably be very cross when I die next." Jack started to reply, then paused as the gorilla in the hamster ball rolled between him and the wall, out of control and, oddly, also cursing in Maori. Regaining his composure, Jack shortened the staff to a mere two meters and gestured heroically. "You'll never get the chance, you bad person!" Then he paused. That wasn't exactly what he'd been trying to say...his dubbing was skewing G-rated. The villain pulled two broadswords from his robe and leaped down in a fluttering of cloth and beard. His hood had fallen back to reveal long white hair, with a sinister white mustache and beard, plus big fluffy white eyebrows. He spun his swords in twin circles of death, leaving Jack to block the deadly strokes with his staff. "Color Blind Tiger Runs The Red Light!" Jack shouted, charging obliquely at his opponent, ducking under the whirling blades and raking the man's chest with a claw-like hand. "Moving Violation!" the villain replied, slapping a traffic citation on Jack's forehead. The ticket then exploded, hurling Jack back, but he managed to land on his feet. "Popeil Pocket Fisherman Cast!" Jack lengthened his staff so that it caught the hood of the man's robe, lifting him off the ground. Then he whipped it back and forth, flinging the villain against a wall and stunning him. "Cobra Defanged," he added as he leapt over and picked up the twin swords. "Heckler & Koch MP5," his foe countered, pulling a machine pistol out of his robes. "Chip Up The Nose!" Jack spat, hurling one of the swords and skewering the leader's head. The dead villain dropped the gun and spat up blood through his cleft palate (and cleft brainpan). Holding the other sword with heroic determination, Jack walked over to the wall of prisoners and struck the chains from the young woman. "My hero!" she gasped, and embraced him. Suddenly, Jack sat bolt upright in bed. "Oh...it was only a dream." "Yeah, only a dream," added the sleepy woman next to him. The young woman he'd just been dreaming of kissing. The young woman who now sat bolt upright, looked Jack in the eyes, and screamed. Suddenly, the reader sat bolt upright in bed. "Oh...it was only a dream." Coherent Comics UnInc. Presents: ___ __ __ ___ _ _ ___ _ _ _ _ CRAZY GUY #30 / '/ | / | / \/ / ' / / \/ Nun N' Gun / /--' /--| / / / __ / / / copyright 1999 Dave Van Domelen `___ / | / |/__ _/ `__/ \__/ _/ ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Ben Sidhe stood in momentary shock, not noticing the splinters which had embedded themselves in her clothing. The newcomer, a hispanic woman with the bearing of a cop, was cursing and rubbing her hand. Somehow her gun had been turned to wood just before being fired. The person who had turned the gun to wood had jumped out the window a half-heartbeat ago. Definitely a cop. The woman didn't stand there like an idiot for long, and had a small revolver pulled out of an ankle holster before Mairi could decide whether to attack or chase the strange squirrely woman she'd just been fighting. "Freeze. I want some answers!" the woman demanded. "An' I wanna see a badge," Mairi replied. If this was just some poser, she'd drop her with a quick kick and leave. If it was a real cop, though, attacking would bring down more trouble than it was worth. There was a pause. Mairi looked her opponent in the eye. She seemed to be debating something. "This is my badge now," she finally said, pulling a crucifix necklace out from under her shirt. "My boss is a little higher up than the police commissioner," her eyes bobbed upwards for a moment, but returned to lock gaze with Mairi quickly enough. Mairi decided the other woman was long gone by now. Might as well see what this one wanted. She picked up one of the less-damaged chairs and sat down, ignoring the gun barrel that tracked her moves. "What's a woman of God doin' wi' nae one, but TWO guns?" "If you're thinking of disarming me, keep in mind it may not stop at two," the woman snarled. "What are you doing in Jack's apartment, and who's that other woman who destroyed my Colt?" "I was coming ta see Jack, an' I noticed someone lurking around in his place. I dinnae know her, but she said she wanted ta kill Jack. I couldnae let her do that, could I?" Mairi smiled. Half a truth was better than a complete lie, after all. "Why were you coming to see him?" the woman asked, still suspicious. "I helped him on a job a little while back, I was in town an' decided ta drop in," Mairi shrugged. "But yuir asking a lot and not answerin'. Why're YOU here?" "Same reason as the one you claim, Ben Sidhe," the woman smirked. "And somehow I don't see Jack working with a contract killer like you. Oh, I've heard of you, not a lot of superguys work for the Triads in L.A., even on a freelance basis. And I'm enough of a cop still to keep an ear to the ground...the better to hear your distinctive scream. I get the feeling that the only reason you didn't want that other woman to kill Jack was that you called dibs." Mairi raised an eyebrow. "How long ago did y'work wi' Jack?" "Who knows? With the way continuity flows around here and the slow pace the Author's settled into on this series, it could have been last week. And why do you care?" "I don't, nae really. But you should care, being a Bride of Christ an' all tha," Mairi shrugged. "Because Jack's been workin' for th' other side, Sister." The nun with the gun lowered it slightly. "What exactly do you mean by that?" Mairi tried not to let her face show the pang of guilt she felt as she said, "I mean, Jack's an employee of Hell (TM) Inc. Doin' jobs tha' Jonesy's own boys cannae do so well." "Like defending holy ground," the woman muttered to herself. Mairi paused. The woman was definitely an ally of Jack's, but he hadn't told her the whole truth. Maybe she could drive enough of a wedge between Jack and this woman that she'd stay out of Jack's life...and out of Mairi's way? "Aye, there's that. Go places a demonspawn might nae be able ta go, avoid scaring the normals, maybe e'en kill men who made deals wi' the devil tha' included clauses against being killed off by demonkind. We had the same target on tha' mission I mentioned, did ye know that?" Mairi prodded. The woman frowned. "Fine. Whatever. I'm taking you in, Citizen's Arrest. I'm sure you have some outstanding warrants." Mairi grinned and shook her head. "Tha' only works if you catch me in the commission of a felony, which B&E is nae." "I doubt my old pals down at the precinct will quibble over that once you're in custody," the woman smirked, raising the gun again. "WHAT GOING ON HERE?" shouted a shrill voice from the doorway. An old asian lady brandishing a broom stood there with a very cross look on her wrinkled face. In fact, the expression seemed to be a permanent part of the pattern of wrinkles on her face. The Sister turned around for a split second, and Mairi took the opportunity to follow the transmuter out the window. "Adios!" she shouted mockingly over her shoulder. * * * * After several minutes of trying to placate Jack's landlady, failing at bluffing, threats and appeals to the landlady's non-existent better nature, Sara was seriously considering jumping out the window too. Even though she knew she wouldn't survive it. Fortunately, the old bruja had called 911, and Sara was able to fob her off on the officer who arrived to take care of the scene. He was a rookie, and a lot easier for Sara to bluff her way past with a flash of her credentials (which gave her no real jurisdiction anywhere, but looked impressive). She did feel bad about leaving the rookie with that old lady, but she needed to get out of there. Unfortunately, once she was clear, it left her alone with her thoughts. Jack, working for the Enemy? Granted, Ben Sidhe was a contract killer who would probably lie like a rug to get out of being arrested. But it made a depressing kind of sense, too. Especially considering his easy access to combat-trained lawyers. She needed answers. And that meant a detective. Not just any detective, though. She'd been asking around trying to find Jack, and the next place she was going to look if he wasn't at his apartment was the office of a certain hard-boiled detective.... * * * * It was another boring afternoon, with nothing better to do than watch the motes of dust pass lazily across the sunbeam before joining their millions of brothers accumulating on the floor, where they'd collect into dust bunnies packing submachineguns and bad halitosis. The office needed a maid service. Boring also meant, lately, that Jack wasn't back from his latest job for Satan T. Lucifer Jones, Duke of Smelly Feet, Sultan of Expired Parking Meters, Emir of Bureaucratic Foulups and Lord High Master to the gun-toting dust bunnies. One of these days, Jack wouldn't come back from one of those jobs...oh, his body would come back, but his soul would have finally been twisted by Jonesy into something black and foul, like the dried remains of instant coffee at the bottom of a coffeemaker that's been left on overnight so that the coffee congeals into a "coffie cookie." Like the Secret Sauce on a McBurger after it's sat out all day under a hot L.A. Sun, slowly burbling and fermenting and carmelizing and doing things unknown to normal science but known only to members of the League of Unconcerned Scientists...and even they wouldn't mess with it. Like.... Suddenly, and without warning, like a bus running over my train of thought, there was a knock at the door. "It's unlocked," I grunted. The door opened and in stepped a slender hispanic woman, whose eyes said danger and whose body said...well, I was no longer in any condition to listen to what that body said, as years of hard living and harder drinking had left me unfit for the company of the fairer sex, or for anyone's company for that matter, which would explain why my current set of friends included an immortal Chinese stuntman, a magic squirrel and a short nine-fingered fellow who hadn't been by lately. "You Hans Kartoffelkopf?" she asked, in a commanding tone. I'd heard that tone too many times in his life. Mostly from cops, but there was also my second wife. Since I was *never* so lucky as to bag a dame like this one, that ruled out my wife, so she was either a cop or an ex-cop. "That's what's on the door." "My name is Sara Lopez. SISTER Sara Lopez," she added, anticipating what had no doubt passed for a leer on my part. "G'day, Sister...what brings you out of the nunnery?" I asked, trying to crack a joke. I may act like an uncultured slob, but I know my Shakespeare, and I know that nuns don't live in nunneries...but if Sister Sara lived in one, she'd be making some damn good money. She ignored the crack like someone who's heard it five times before breakfast every day for the last decade and had to feed it back to the cracker through his cracked teeth three of those five times. "I'm looking for a man named Jack. Chinese, his lips move in Cantonese but his voice comes out in English. I hear he's worked with you." "You hear right, sister. Too bad I ain't seen him in days. He's off on a job." "For Satan?" she asked, the fire in her eyes getting a little brighter and a little darker at the same time. It made me want to sell everything I owned and run away to Samarkand to start a new life as a professional drunkard, and it wasn't even really aimed at me, but at Jack. This must be the hit-nun he'd worked with on that Santo Andreo job. "Look, Jack's a good kid caught in a bad situation. I've got friends looking into a way to break that contract he signed and get him outta Jonesy's hands." Somehow, I didn't think this was gonna cut any ice with the Sister, especially if she was a demon-hunter type. They were pretty fanatical, even for religious fanatics. The kind of people who'd wade through a Kenny G concert packed to the rafters with Teletubbies and Republicans handing out perfume samples to chase down their target. She scowled, the kind of scowl that made me want to join those Kenny G fans rather than stay in front of it for more than another second, then sighed. "Fine. I'll take it up with him when he gets back," she snarled before turning and storming out the door. I was so shaken by all this that I only barely noticed how nice she looked walking out the door...I was just glad she was going out, if you know what I mean. * * * * "...and then this gorilla in a hamster ball rolled by," Jack moaned as he got off the bus. "That was the worst dream I ever had." Louie poked his head out of Jack's shirt and tsk'ed. Well, more of a chitter, but it came out the same. "I TOLD ya not ta eat at that Mongolian Food Yurt we came out in. But NOOOOO, you were HUNGRY. Never eat during a cameo and then get on a bus, it's bad fer th' digesting. Especially that disgusting yak butter-covered stuff!" "Don't say yak butter...eeeeurgh," Jack swayed a bit. "Hey, look... someone threw out a perfectly good bedroll," he pointed to a bedroll on the curb outside his apartment building. He picked it up. "Looks just like mine, too. And hey, an autographed picture of Eddie Munster, just like mine! And a...wait a second...." "You've been evicted," Louie smacked him in the ear with a forepaw. "Filthy rich, and you're evicted." "How? I paid the rent in advance before leaving for Mars," Jack looked about in bewilderment. "The landlady didn't appreciate people breaking in all hours of the night and trying to kill you," snarled a voice from the shadows. A slender hispanic woman stepped into the light. "I've been keeping an eye on your stuff." "Oh, hi, Sister Sara!" Jack beamed. "Thanks!" "Ah, Jack?" Louie crept back a bit. "That's not a 'welcome home, I missed you' look on her face...." "Huh?" Jack paused. "Why didn't you tell me you work for Satan?" Sara said, cocking back the hammer on her revolver. WHY *DIDN'T* JACK TELL HER HE WAS WORKING FOR SATAN? WILL JACK BE ABLE TO FIND A NEW APARTMENT ASSUMING SISTER SARA DOESN'T FIND A WAY TO MAKE THAT UNNECESSARY? ARE THERE ANY WOMEN IN JACK'S LIFE WHO DON'T WANT TO KILL HIM? WILL MOUSE BREAK THE FOURTH WALL LONG ENOUGH TO KILL THE AUTHOR? Answers to some of these questions and less, in the next...SUPERGUY! ============================================================================ Author's Notes: The opening sequence is a reference to a "chaotic add-on story" on rec.arts.comics.creative involving the LNH and a new villain named Vector. I jokingly had Jack pop in to apologize about Vector's car (stolen and wrecked in Crazy Guy #7-8), not realizing this was a different Vector, then fleeing from the wrath of an LNH character called Mouse (the snarky captive in the opening sequence). The later writers in the add-on didn't realize I *had* written Jack back out, but since I didn't give permission for him to continue in the story, it became a running gag to not refer to him by name and to wonder who he really was. I found the whole situation amusing enough to let it hang. As of this writing, that matter had not been resolved...but so few of these add-ons ever really get finished. Mouse used (unnamed) with her writer's permission. For the benefit of readers less well-versed in Shakespeare, a nunnery is a brothel. Nuns live in a convent. The cameo mentioned has not happened yet, and may never happen if the Author in question keeps diverging from the series it's supposed to take place in. }->