Fiction

INVESTIGATIVE REPORT & REVIEW: Spastic Phono Band – “Wings Under Japan” 7″ single – What’s the story behind this band?

SPASTIC PHONO BAND – “Wings Under Japan” (1980 7″ single, Slipped Disc Records)

INVESTIGATIVE REPORT – 45 years ago…

[Editor’s note:  the authors of this report have asked to retain their anonymity.] 

The year:  The harsh winter of 1980, remembered for its deep cold and snow.   In the realm of popular music, all four Beatles were still alive, even though the band had been broken up for a decade.  One of the Beatles soon found themselves in a wee bit of trouble.  This trouble would spill all over the world news, causing rippling effects and ramifications far beyond the shores of England, for that winter in New York State, a band would go on to record a song….

The Beatle in trouble was the still-babyfaced Paul McCartney.  It was no secret that he was already known for enjoying the green leaf.   Back in 1972, McCartney was arrested in Sweden for possession of Lady Ganja.  He was released without charges at that time, but his reputation was now cemented.  McCartney wanted to book a Japanese tour in the mid-70s, but the country was very strict about illegal substances and refused Paul permission to play.  The fans in Japan would have to do without.

Finally, in 1980, Japan had a change of heart and granted permission for Paul McCartney and Wings to tour in the Land of the Rising Sun.

He just needed to make sure he packed appropriately for the trip.

Paul McCartney is an undisputed musical genius.  His songs will last 100 years.  That does not mean that Paul always used his head.  Despite the scrutiny he was bound to experience upon entering Japan, he decided to bring a stash with him.  He was arrested upon discovery at the Narita Airport with 220 grams of Hawaiian green.  Reportedly, he didn’t even attempt to hide the electric lettuce, just packing it in his carry-on bag with his clothing.  Paul subsequently spent 10 days in the keiji shisetsu (刑務施設); actually the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department.  Teenage girls numbering about 50 serenaded the station during Prisoner 22’s incarceration.

Unfortunately for Paul, the nature of this arrest and jailing far away from home meant headlines all over the world.  “PAUL IN CHAINS” and “EX-BEATLE ARRESTED IN JAPAN” went the articles, along with a photo of McCartney being escorted by Japanese officials.  It was huge news, especially in the UK where it became a bit of a media circus.

The judge in the case determined that McCartney brought the drugs for personal use and not trafficking, and decided that Paul had spent enough time in jail.  He was taken to the airport, and flown to Holland, where he was (perhaps surprisingly) refused entry.  He still had time for a chat with the press.

“How did you get out?” asked the reporter.

“Walking on foot,” answered Paul in typical cheeky Beatle humour.

The experience was “a drag” for Paul.  “I was woken up at six in the morning, then had to sit cross-legged for a roll-call. It was like Bridge on the River Kwai. They shouted out ’22’ in Japanese, and I had to shout back, ‘Hai!'”

The 11 date Japanese tour was cancelled at the cost of 2.5 million dollars and 90,000 tickets.

Did he learn from his experience?

“Now I have made up my mind never to touch the stuff again. From now on, all I’m going to smoke is straightforward [cigarettes]. No more pot.”  He later acknowledged his own stupidity.  “Well, to this day I have no idea what made me do it. I don’t know if it was just arrogance or what. Maybe I thought that they wouldn’t open my suitcase.  I can’t put myself back into that mindset now…to this day I have no idea what made me do it.”

Over in America, shortly after shoveling out from a massive dumping of overnight snow, a young songwriter named “Vic Trola” was inspired to write a song.  At least that’s how the credits read on the actual record.  A recent online theory postulated that “Vic Trola” was indeed a pseudonym, but these writings are mostly found in conspiracy theory discussions.  A fringe group that splintered off the main conspiracy theory group added that “Vic” was short for “Victoria”, not “Victor” as previously assumed.   These theories are largely dismissed by the other groups.  Our own extensive research has failed to unearth any other compositions written by Trola; just the one that you are reading about today.  We do know, thanks to documents obtained in the process of researching this article, that after catching their breath from shoveling the drive on that cold winter day, Trola went inside and began writing.  The surviving notes from Vic Trola’s respirologist confirm these facts.

Vic Trola’s song, as it evolved into its final form, was the product of on-stage gigging by the mysterious Spastic Phono Band, and that is where our story really begins.  Though their names are now lost to time, and their relationship to Vic Trola is clouded, we do know that they consisted of a tight rhythm section.  Both the drummer and bassist were exceptional.  They boasted a dual guitar configuration, and multiple lead singers including one female vocalist who appears prominently on their sole recording called “Wings Under Japan”.

The Spastic Phono Band had experience.  They had already been working on a set of originals and comedic covers.  Favourite hits by Santana and the Might Zep were endowed with new witty words, and they found an audience who shared their sense of musical comicality.  Encouraged by the audience reception to these songs, the Spastic Phono Band turned their attention to the hot news of the day:  Paul’s arrest in Japan.  Presumably with Vic Trola’s lyrical input, they started playing bits of his Beatles and Wings hits in a medley.  Egged on by the crowd, and adding throwaway lyrics here and there, the song “sort of wrote itself”, according to a maraca player who claims to have been there at the time (and requested complete anonymity).  It took only three or four shows for the song to come together as we know it today.  The Paul medley became an instant live hit.  The crowds ate it up.  They learned the words, sang along and shouted for more!  Clearly, the song needed to be recorded in a studio, and put out on a record.

Unfortunately for the band and Vic Trola, who were based out of Liverpool (New York, pop. 2400), there were few studios around within the reasonable driving distance of a beaten-up touring van.  Their studio of choice would be unavailable for three weeks, and time was of the essence.  The Paul story was hot now, not later!  Even if they recorded the song immediately, it would have to be mastered and pressed at a record plant, meaning they had to act immediately.  The scarcity of nearby studios presented a challenge.  Would these young musical minds be able to publish their Paul pastiche in time?

As they used to say, the Spastic Phono Band let their fingers do the walking:  They picked up the phone and eventually connected to something that somehow passed as a recording studio.  The old schoolhouse that they booked was certainly was not conceived as a studio when it was built in the last decade of the 1800s.  The top floor housed the recording space, but in a decidedly inconvenient design and safety choice, it was only accessible via an outdoor fire escape.  All the band’s equipment had to be hauled up the emergency exit:  drum after drum after drum, followed by amp after amp.  Bags were passed from vehicle to musician and up the fire escape, which wobbled with every tentative step.  Also, it was winter.  Members of the band were not sure if they were going to survive the combination of snow and ice, metal steps, and gravity.   To our great fortune, they did.

The studio owner was also the engineer, and his soul still lived in the 1950s.  He didn’t grasp the nuance, or understand the Spastic Phono Band’s particular brand of humour.  He did, however, have a friendly personality and got along with the band.  A good sounding record began to take shape on tape.  The band nicknamed the engineer “Eddie”, a reference to a classic Leave It To Beaver character, Eddie Haskell.  Eddie’s studio had all the necessary equipment (minus an elevator).  He even had an ARP synthesizer which can be heard on two segments of the recording: “Silly Drug Laws“ and “Banned in Japan”.  Though the band did not have the budget to spend more time in the studio to do some further work on the guitars, the band climbed down the fire escape holding in their mittens a reel-to-reel tape of their hard-earned work.  Physicists specializing in the behaviour of water at low temperatures speculate that the tape was almost dropped once on the way down, but saved from an icy fate in the snow.

The schoolhouse was demolished in 2025 at 131 years old.

Though recorded, the song still had to be mastered and cut to vinyl.  With time slipping away, and Paul McCartney finally starting to experience a decline in the media frenzy over his Japanese vacation in the big house, the Spastic Phono Band were in an ever-increasing time crunch.  Their song, heavily dependent on McCartney’s imprint in the public consciousness, had to make its way to a physical record that you could buy.  Their preferred manufacturer was fully booked and the band could not wait any longer.  The track was complete, mixed and ready to be mastered…but where?

Through furious searching and some tense bidding on eBay, we have obtained some of the logs, unfortunately anonymous, detailing the following sequence of events of the recording:

Monday.

Tempus is fugiting.  Much to our dismay, the cute Beatle’s troubles in the Far East are rapidly becoming old news.  Also with windchill, it is about four degrees today.

The Paul story was soon displaced by other current events.  The Iranian Revolution made fresh headlines, and soon came the hostage crisis.  Front pages were dominated by the tense 444 day crisis, during which 66 Americans were held hostage at the US Embassy in Tehran.  As it happens, another band in the same area as the Spastic Phono Band, a trio, were working on a song referencing these events.  One of the songs in their regular set, popular in some of the local Irish venues around the area, was Jerry Jeff Walker’s “London Homesick Blues”.  It featured the unique chorus of “I wanna go home with the armadillo.”  (Who wouldn’t?)   This was easily adapted into “I’ve had enough of the Ayatollah”.  The clever lyrical substitute worked, and the band approached the club owners documented only as “The Brothers Three”.  The Brothers actually owned three clubs, which seemed poetic.  The Brothers Three liked the song, feeling that it tapped into the sentiment of the day.  The reached into their pockets and financed a studio recording of the Walker cover.  They were now in the record business.

The Spastic Phono Band, who were familiar with the trio in question, learned of this.  Realizing it was a good idea, they decided to make their own pitch to the Brothers Three.

Wednesday.

They went for it.  Sure, they argued a bit and the oldest one may have smacked the youngest one, but we did get a unanimous decision.  The Brothers Three are going to allow us to use the disc maker where they pressed the Ayatollah record.  

The record would be made in a little postage-stamp sized record plant (if you could call it that) in Connecticut.

Tuesday. 

One of the Brothers Three picked me up in his MG convertible today.  We took the tape to a dumpy little record pressing company.  Mission accomplished.  We ordered 300 copies to be made.   Then headed home, but my companion driving the convertible decided to put the top down.  It may be February thaw, but it was so cold I still don’t have feeling back in my nose.  Considering calling an otolaryngologist.

Frozen noses aside, when the boxes containing 300 copies of “Wings Under Japan” finally arrived, the McCartney story was equally cold.

Friday.

Believe it or not, there isn’t a lot of demand for a record by a band that nobody’s heard of.

The records were delivered to stores, who tried their best to push it, but were fighting an uphill battle. The record was not a hit.  The 300 copies did eventually end up in the hands of the public.  There are no documents detailing any sales, so we do not know if the band sold them at shows, or by mail order, or any of the other quaint methods available in 1980.   Mr. McCartney never stumbled upon the record, as far as the evidence suggests.  At least, we know he hasn’t sued.  But could he even locate the Spastic Phono Band if he wanted to?  We could not.  Vic Trola has pulled a DB Cooper:  Taken the money (if any) and flown.

Though only the original 300 copies were made, we were able to track one down for this article.  It was clearly loved in its previous home.

Housed in a yellow-brown sleeve (the original?), the 45 has a nice maroon label, stating this is on Slipped Disc Records.  Charmingly, the song “Wings Under Japan” is split over the two sides…sides 3 and 4.  (It has been suggested that this release, with sides 3 and 4 instead of 1 and 2), gave George Lucas the idea to number The Empire Strikes Back as Episode V instead of Episode II as expected.  With that film releasing in May 1980, we cannot completely dismiss the claim.)

The track is just over seven minutes combined.

Leavin’ on a Japanese roadtrip,
Headin’ down a London runway,
Paul said ‘I need to bring along some good weed,
Because it helps me relax when I play.’

Guffaw!  The song begins with a spoof of “The Ballad of John and Yoko”, now called “The Ballad of Paul and Linda”, with a similar structure, but words about Paul.  “The way things are gooooin’, they’re gonna scrutinize me!”  And they did…but not long enough for the Spastic Phono Band.  The song continues.

Staring at the man with the baggie.
Paul said, ‘Maybe I’m amazed!
It only amounts to less than half an ounce,
Why do you have to get so carried away?’

In perhaps the most obvious yet fun twist, the song then goes into Wings’ “Hi Hi Hi”…but re-written as “High High High”.  This is funny because it’s so obvious, it had to be done.  It’s amazing nobody else did it.  Incidentally the harmony vocals in this section are rich and excellent.

Next up in the Paul medley is “Silly Love Songs”, redone as “Silly Drug Laws”.  “What’s wrong with drugs, I’d like to know, ’cause here I go again!  I’m in jail…”  Another example of great singing by the Spastic Phono Band, but listen to that 1970s groove and the dexterous bassline!  This is some serious playing.

Side “3” ends, and so we flip to side “4”.  Fortunately in the modern era, we can use our digital capture software to seamlessly edit the two into one track!  Next is “Band On the Run”, revised as “Banned In Japan”.  In this case, the original song is almost a medley of different sections itself.  The Spastic Phono Band do several of them here.  “Stuck inside these stone walls, might be here forever!”  There is a poignant moment coming here, frozen in time.  Little did they know that John Lennon had only months to live, for in December of 1980, he would be murdered in New York.  So to hear the line, “I’ll join with Ringo, and George and John and we’ll put the reunion on,” reminds us that finite period of time when such a thing was indeed possible.

A brief pause and then, just like on Abbey Road, wait for a Beatles-y coda.

“Wings Under Japan” is, quite frankly, one of the best parody medley songs (or however you want to describe it) you’ll ever find, for three reasons.

  1. The mystery.  Who are the Spastic Phono Band anyway?  We may never know.  (Or, more accurately…we may never tell.)
  2. The musical prowess.  There is some serious playing and singing on this brief single, and your life would be richer if you heard it.
  3. Though depicting events before some of you were born, the lyrics are still hilarious due to the timeless nature of weed jokes.

5/5 stars.

 

The Writer’s Room: Chapter Ten

The Writer’s Room: Chapter Ten

Harrison stumbled into the Writer’s Room more dishevelled than Mike had ever seen him before.  He had dark circles under his eyes, his hair had strands going hither and thon, though his moustache was still as impeccable as ever.  He looked a lot like Geezer Butler on this morning.

Mike was as perky as usual, sitting in his chair at the board table, sipping a hot coffee.

“Coffee?” he asked Harrison as the Australian Mad Metal Man took his seat.  Under his arm, a binder full of notes.  He opened the book and declined the drink.

“You look beat,” said Mike to Harrison with a tad of concern.

“It’s like your boys the Arkells say,” answered Harrison.  “We got deadlines to meet.”

It was true.  In addition to writing the Adventures of the Northern Lights, Mike and Harrison were also knee-deep in their latest project:  a series of videos called 50 Years of Iron Maiden.

“That’s why I called this meeting,” replied Mike.  “We both have a lot of stuff going on, especially with 50 Years of Iron Maiden.  I think we need to discuss priorities.”

Harrison nodded and agreed.  “I believe 50 Years of Iron Maiden should be our top priority now.  As far as our adventures go, we have for now calmed the Multiverse and there have not been further incursions from our Decepticon foes.  We have stopped the urgency of the fictional situations for now and introduced some intriguing threads.  I am OK if we take a break.”

Mike shrugged.  “That’s more or less what I was going to say, even though this is actually around the three year anniversary of our stories.”

Harrison thought a moment.  “I forgot that.  I don’t think it’s a big deal to anyone but us, though.”

“Here, you need to drink something,” said Mike as he poured Harrison a sparkling water from a local Canadian spring.  “A toast.  To three years of our superhero adventures…and 50 years of Iron Maiden.”

“Cheers,” said Harrison as he sipped.

“Cheers,” responded Mike.

They both enjoyed their drinks for a moment before Mike spoke.

“Alright, onto business.  Let’s see the art for the Seventh Son episode!  Allons-y!”

With that, Harrison opened his folder and the boys began jamming on ideas.  It would be a productive day.

The end…for now.

 

THE ADVENTURES OF TEE BONE MAN:  PHASE ONE – THE SQUIRREL SAGA 

THE ADVENTURES OF TEE BONE MAN:  PHASE TWO – THE MULTIVERSE SAGA

THE ADVENTURES OF THE NORTHERN LIGHTS:  PHASE THREE – THE UNICRON SAGA

 

SPINOFFS AND SIDE QUESTS

 

THE COMPLETE ADVENTURES OF EDIE VAN HEELIN’

THE WRITER’S ROOM

The Northern Lights and the Glitch in the Matrix

 

THE ADVENTURES OF THE NORTHERN LIGHTS – Phase 3 – The Unicron Saga

Chapter Four:  The Glitch in the Matrix

Starring:

  • Mike the Brainiac
  • Harrison El Moustachio
  • Aaron 
  • Jex Rambo
  • and a returning villain!

Walking through downtown Toronto, the four Northern Lights were incognito!  Aaron was wearing a long blonde wig.  The Brainiac had a fake moustache upon his face.  Moustachio, already having his own moustache, dyed his flesh tone so it could not be seen.  Jex wore a shirt as his disguise.  He was clearly uncomfortable, having cloth on his chest for a change.

“Mes amis, why am I wearing a shirt again?” he asked his companions.

“It’s like the Tommy Lee disguise: wearing a pair of pants!” answered the Brainiac.

“Non, non!” replied Jex.  “I understand.  But why are we wearing disguises?”

“I can answer that,” responded Moustachio.  “Mr. Durling has sent us to Toronto on a mission of utmost importance, and he doesn’t want us recognized.  He fears that if someone sees us here, they will attempt to find out what we’re looking for.”

Jex nodded in understanding.  “Makes sense,” he responded.  “After all, finding Rush Chronicles on vinyl has been a mission of his for many years.”

Aaron, the group’s navigator, was checking out road signs.  “I’m just finding my way here…Snow Dog records is about four blocks due west.”  He pointed straight ahead.  “The proprietor Bytor is an old friend of mine.  He’ll know where to find a copy in this city.”  Aaron swished his blonde locks out of his face.  “I can’t say I care for this wig though.  I’m not in the mood for this hair in my face.”

“Don’t complain!” commented Jex.  “I have to wear a shirt!  C’est nul!  Why can’t I just wear a hat or some sunglasses?”

“Because nobody would ever expect you to be wearing a shirt,” answered the Brainiac logically.  “We can wear the rose of romance, an air of joie de vivre, but we would be recognized too easily and tip off our enemies.”

“I think I’m going bald,” said Harrison as he rubbed his scalp, “but that’s neither here nor ‘hair’.”

“Hah-hah,” answered Aaron.  “Anyway we’ll be there in just a few more minutes.”

It was dark inside the Snow Dog record store, like a tomb of Hades lit by flickering torchlight.

“Hello?” asked Aaron as he rang the bell at the front counter.  Then, out of the lamplight emerged the owner, Bytor.  He was a large man with long brown beard and hair tied back in a ponytail.

“MR. BOOKS!” he proclaimed, embracing Aaron with a large bearhug.  “What’s with the Nelson wig, man?”

“That’s a long story.  It would take me at least 2112 pages to explain to you everything that’s happened since we last met.”  He paused and gestured to the other Northern Lights gathered in his store.  “These are my friends, Mike, Harrison and Jex.”

“Nice to meet you guys,” answered Bytor.  “What can I help you with today?”

Harrison, the man known as El Moustachio with an invisible moustache, stepped forward.  “We’re on a mission to retrieve a rare vinyl copy of Chronicles by Rush.  We’ve checked the subdivisions with no luck, so now we’re here in the big city.”  He stopped a moment to think.  “This is actually my first trip to Toronto,” he said.  “I’ve only ever seen Thunder Bay, Kitchener and Kincardine.”

Bytor laughed a big belly laugh.  “Thunder Bay, Kitchener and Kincardine?  Well you’ll find we have far more vinyl here in Toronto, entre-nous!”

“But do you have the record?” asked Jex.

“Rush Chronicles on vinyl?  I do not, but I have plenty of crates for you boys to dig through.  I’m sure you’ll find something.  I have Chronicles on cassette if you want that?”

“We’re on a mission from a very particular man,” answered Harrison.  “He only needs the vinyl and he is willing to pay top dollar.”

Bytor shook his head.  “Sadly I can’t help you.  Write down your information and I’ll be sure to call you if I see one, Mr. Top Dollar!”

Dejected, the quartet left their information and departed Snow Dog records.

“Well that was a waste of time,” said the Brainiac, usually the pessimistic one.  “Aren’t we even going to stay and go crate digging?”

“On Durling’s dime?  Are you crazy?  He’ll send the Night Ranger after us!” answered Moustachio.

Jex laughed at this.  “Non, non, mes amis, Tim Durling wouldn’t hurt a fly.  Let’s go back, let’s dig some crates!  What are we in a rush for?”  He paused and laughed at his own pun.

The quartet turned back and were shocked at what they saw.  Snow Dog records was no longer there!  A boarded up window with flyers stapled all over it was all they saw.  Brainiac stepped forward tentatively, and felt the plywood of the boards, not trusting his own eyes.

“Guys…what just happened?” he asked his three friends.

The four stared at the boards.  Moustachio scratched his head.  Aaron stood dumbfounded, brushing the hair out of his eyes, unbelieving.  Jex looked just as puzzled, while the Brainiac had fear in his eyes.

Aaron turned to look at his friends.  “That wasn’t just some fly by night record shop,” he told them.  “Snow Dog records opened in 1975!  They’ve been in this very spot for 50 years!  What is happening here?”

“A glitch in the matrix?” asked the Brainiac, only half joking.

“Or worse,” gulped Harrison, stroking his invisible moustache for comfort.  “I advise caution.”

“I agree mon ami,” nodded Jex.  “I suggest we retrace our steps.  Let me check the map on my phone to confirm our location.”

Jex took his phone from his shirt pocket while muttering something about how stupid it was that he had to wear a shirt.  He scrolled and blinked and scrolled some more.

“Guys…” he asked with a quaver in his voice.  “Do any of you have a signal?”  The other three took out their phones and held them up to the sky at various angles.  Brainiac shook his in his hand, while Aaron groaned.  No signals.

“It’s a trap,” whispered Harrison.  “We’re in a simulation.”

“What!?” asked the other three simultaneously (Jex in French).  “When did that happen?” asked the Frenchman.  “We all met at the Kincardine airport.  We drove straight here with one stop at Tim Horton’s.  Aaron got us parked, we walked, and about 20 minutes later we were at Snow Dog!  What was real and what was simulation?  This is freaking me out guys, I don’t mind telling you.”

Mike stepped over and rubbed his friend’s muscular shoulders.  Wow, he thought to himself.  This guy is built!  Aloud, he said something more comforting.  “It’s OK Jex.  We’re all here together, wherever we are.  Harrison and I have dealt with weirder stuff before.  Stick close.  We’re all going to get home.  Now, I suggest we all stay put.  Don’t move.  Just observe.  Look for anything out of the ordinary.”

Instinctively the group formed a circle, facing outward.  Jex was watching the traffic.  Mike had his eyes in the sky, looking towards the upper levels of buildings and beyond.  Aaron and Harrison carefully examined each and every person walking on the streets of simulated Toronto.

Harrison ahem’ed.  “I don’t mean to cause any alarm…but there are two of that man in the red hat.”  He pointed towards a tall man in a red toque.  “No, three…wait…”

The group began to realize there were duplicate copies of every person and every car.  Entire clusters of people and groups of cars would pass by them multiple times.  It was like a old fashioned cartoon where they just recycled all the same footage to save time and money.

Suddenly, Mike snapped his fingers.  “Solved it!”

“Huh?  How?” asked Moustachio.

“Repeated groups…over and over again…like an old style cartoon, when they had to repeat backgrounds and background characters over and over again to save time and money!  That’s the answer!  Who do we know that is stingy enough to go so cheap on a simulation like this?”

The group mumbled among themselves, but could not come to a conclusion.

“Cut to the chase Mike,” ushered Jex.  “Who’s behind this?”

Mike smiled.  “Did any of you guys watch Pam and Tommy on Disney+?”  The group shook their heads no.

“I have two kids Mike, I don’t know what TV is anymore!” chided Jex.

“Well, in that show, Tommy Lee stiffed the carpenter that was renovating his house, Seth Rogen.  Wouldn’t pay him.  That’s what triggered everything that happened.  Seth Rogen stole that VHS tape and sold it to recoup his costs and have some revenge on Tommy Lee.  Think about it!  Most of our enemies are super-rich!  Tommy Lee’s the only one who’s got a thing for going cheap on anything that isn’t his.  He wouldn’t pay for a full-on simulation!  He’d go cheap and half-ass it!  That’s who’s behind this!”

“I’ve never had the displeasure of encountering Mr. Lee in my adventures,” informed Harrison, “But I’ve read all the files.  Your predecessor, Brainiac I, had multiple encounters with Tommy Lee.  It is possible Lee has a vendetta.”

“A ven-whatta?” came a voice from above.  “My duuuuuuuuuudes!  You figured it out!!”

“Show yourself, Lee!” shouted Harrison to the simulated sky.

“Hahah, OK!  Sure thing, bro!”  Suddenly, before the group appeared four duplicates of Tommy Lee!  Simulated Tommy’s, all with the same grin on their faces.

“Grace under pressure, guys!” advised the Brainiac.

“How come he doesn’t have to wear a shirt, but I do??” asked Jex incredulously.

“I think we can take off our disguises,” answered the Brainiac.  “Show ‘im why you’re called Jex Rambo!”

With that, Jex ripped his shirt off and roared.  Aaron tore the wig from his head and put on his war face.  The Brainiac removed his fake moustache, and handed it to Harrison to compensate for his dyed one.

“Northern Lights…kick ass!” commanded the Brainiac.

The four Tommy’s rushed towards them while the Northern Lights took a defensive stance.  Aaron kicked one Tommy in the nuts.  Jex lifted one Tommy into the air, and threw him directly at another Tommy.  The last Tommy seemed to malfunction and ran right past the group, heading into a simulated tattoo parlour, presumably to get a simulated tattoo.

“Is that all you have, Lee?” taunted the Brainiac.  “Turn off this simulation and show yourself for real this time.  We’re unarmed.”  He raised his hands to prove a point.

Like moving pictures, the simulation…shifted.  Windows slid down into the ground, doors dissolved, and the sky changed to metal.  Time seemed to stand still.   Like an afterimage, the Toronto before them disappeared as if they were making memories.  Now, before them, were the shining silver walls of an alien flying saucer.

“Yeah dudes!  It’s me Tommy Lee from Motley Crue!  Welcome to the Bouncy Castle amigos!  That’s what I call this place, I like to hang here with my alien bros!”

“How long have we been aboard, Lee?” asked Harrison with caution.

“Dudes, you’ve been on this ship ever since you met up at the airport.  That wasn’t a car you got into, that was this ship!  See, we got some upgrades boys.  There’s a new boss in town and he’s not the same as the old boss: Uni-ball.”

“Unicron,” corrected Harrison.  “And yes I’ve met your boss.”

Merde! thought Jex to himself.  Tommy Lee works for Unicron now!

“And now, prepare for my boot in your ass!” exclaimed Lee as he launched himself towards the four.  Effortlessly, Jex took him down with a karate chop to the neck.

“OW!” screamed Lee in pain.  “Bro!!  That’s not cool man!”

“Well what did you expect, Tommy!?” asked Jex incredulously.  “Seriously!  And what the hell do you want anyway!”

Tommy Lee rubbed his tattooed neck with his tattooed hand, as he winced in pain.  “You didn’t have to do that, man!  I was just trying to get to know you guys a little better!  My boss, Uni-ball, told me to spy on you, so I figured I’d show you a good time.  A simulated record store seemed like something you’d enjoy, until it glitched up.”  Tommy seemed…apologetic.  “I wasn’t gonna hurt you guys.  Nobody got hurt, right?”

“You did,” laughed Harrison.

“Oh yeah!  I did!” laughed Tommy.

Aaron started to think.  He paused several moments, and then asked his question.  “Tommy…if you don’t wanna hurt anyone…why do you keep working for the bad guys?”

Tommy laughed.  “Dude, I wrote a song called ‘Bad Boy Boogie’!  I’m the bad boy of rock and roll!  Who else would I side with?”

“He’s got a point,” said the Brainiac.  “So Tommy, I guess this means you’re not interested in joining us, the good guys?  You realize that…Uni-ball..is going to eat the Earth, right?  He’s literally going to kill everyone you know.  That’s what he does.”

Tommy laughed again.  “Hahah, yeah dude!  I saw that movie too!  And I…don’t give a fuck!  Not about Earth!  Unicron is going to take me, my family, and my friends somewhere awesome after this.  I get to be king of my own planet dude!  Oh, don’t give me that look.  Fucking self-righteous superheroes!  You’d say yes too.  Especially since there’s nothing anyone can do to stop him.  You should be joining me, dudes.  You could hang out with me and all my buds in paradise for the rest of your lives, or longer!  Unicron says he can keep us alive forever.”

“As what?  A cyborg slave to him?  No thanks!” answered Moustachio.  “I speak for all of us when I say, no way.”

“No way!” echoed the other three.

“Well, fuck you!” said Tommy, as he spat on the ground.

“That does it,” said Jex in as calm a voice as he could muster.  He took three steps towards Tommy Lee, put him in a headlock, and a simultaneous standing leglock.  Tommy winced in pain.

“Ow, dude, stop, fuck!” moaned the Motley Crue drummer.

“This is what’s going to happen, Tommy.  You’re going to set us down somewhere safe, and you’re going to open those doors and lower that ramp.  Then, after we get off, you leave this planet.  Or, I break your neck.  Your choice Tommy.”  Jex was not kidding.

“But I got a gig at the Roxy next week!!” complained Tommy in pain.

“I do know one thing,” said Jex.  “One choice or another, you’re not making that gig next week.”  He tightened his grip.

“Fine fine let go!  I’ll…I’ll leave Earth,” submitted Tommy Lee, as Jex released his grip.  Lee took a remote control from his pocket and hit a button.  The doors to the craft opened, and a ramp lowered.  Outside, the four could see airplanes parked on a runway.

“We never left the airport!” gasped Aaron.

“Nah dude, why not park my spaceship at an airport, right?” said Tommy.

Mike shrugged.  “Makes sense.  Well, we’re not going to make it back to Toronto in time to go shopping anymore.  You guys may as well crash at the cottage tonight and we’ll make a go of it tomorrow.”  He then turned to Tommy Lee.  “You may have aliens, but we have a Jex.  You mess with us again, and he’ll make sure it’s the last time.  We clear?”

“Yeah dude,” mumbled Tommy.  He then raised the ramp.  “I just wanted to be friends, you dicks!” he yelled as the doors closed.

“Good riddance,” said Aaron.  “I never thought I’d say this in my life, but I never want to see Tommy Lee again.”

“Me neither,” said Harrison.  “But do you think that’s the last we’ll see of him?”

Jex grimaced.  “Not a chance.  He lied.  He’ll be back.  And when he does…”

“When he does,” cautioned Mike, “the Northern Lights will be there.”

The end.

 

 

THE ADVENTURES OF TEE BONE MAN:  PHASE ONE – THE SQUIRREL SAGA 

THE ADVENTURES OF TEE BONE MAN:  PHASE TWO – THE MULTIVERSE SAGA

THE ADVENTURES OF THE NORTHERN LIGHTS:  PHASE THREE – THE UNICRON SAGA

 

SPINOFFS AND SIDE QUESTS

 

THE COMPLETE ADVENTURES OF EDIE VAN HEELIN’

THE WRITER’S ROOM

The More Things Change… The Adventures of the Northern Lights (By Harrison Kopp)

THE ADVENTURES OF THE NORTHERN LIGHTS – Phase 3 – The Unicron Saga

Chapter Three:  The More Things Change…

Starring:

  • Harrison El Moustachio
  • Mike the Brainiac
  • Mr. Durling
  • Jexciter
  • Bernard
  • Some nasty monsters and knights!

It was a dark and stormy knight. And it wasn’t happy. Under a violet moon it kneeled amid the burnt rubble of what had once been the completely intact great hall of a once-formidable stronghold.

A blackened skeleton lay on the ground by him, surrounded by the fragments of a red guitar and a black helmet. A familiar helmet. A chill dropped over the already-cold mid Winter’s night.

Getting to his feet, the stormy knight let out a piercing scream, as thunder and lightning raged all around.

Whoever did this was going to pay.

 

 

“So what do you think?” Tim Durling asked El Moustachio, gesturing to a computer screen. The two were in the midst of planning Moustachio’s new secret lair. After all, when he returned to Australia, he would need a state of the art HQ to lead the Australian division of the Northern Lights from.

“It looks great. I can’t believe you got a real transporter system working,” Moustachio gushed. “Soon we’ll be able to meet up all over the world in seconds.”

“Analog’s the trick, every time,” Tim replied with a smile.

“Where’s that door lead?” Moustachio asked, eyeing a rectangle on the northern wall.

“Straight to the garage,” Tim replied.  “For easy access to the Interceptor.”

Moustachio nodded sagely, agreeing with the sentiment.  “You know, if we move the desk slightly, I reckon we can fit in another shelf of CDs there,” he began to say.

Unfortunately, the pair’s discussions were rudely interrupted by a flashing red light that beeped incessantly, demanding the undivided attention of the room’s occupants.

“Hang on a sec,” Tim said, pressing a button on the console in front of him.

A video feed appeared. It looked like it was in a European forest somewhere.

“We took the liberty of placing cameras at the sites of some of your previous battles,” Tim explained. “Just in case anything happened there we’d want to investigate. And it looks like one of the squirrel drones in Romania has spotted something interesting.”

The two men watched the video. The camera panned over to a damaged castle. From inside were bright flashes of light accompanied by cracks of thunder.

This location was, of course, Infernum Keep, the former stronghold of Count Infernus. The vampiric warlord may have been long dead, but that didn’t mean his effects hadn’t caused a lot of trouble for people in the years since.

Almost two years ago, Tee Bone Man fought a group of Satan’s knights there to stop them getting their hands on a veritable doomsday device. The castle had been set alight during those events, but judging from the video feed they had just received, most of the stonework had survived with just a little charring.

Moustachio had been peripherally involved in that adventure, but hadn’t travelled to Romania. This time things were probably going to be a little different.

“That doesn’t look good.” Moustachio mused. “I still remember the trouble this place caused the first time. We’d better investigate.”

“I agree. Something untoward appears to be happening there. And with this location we can’t take any chances. Take Jex and the team there and get to the bottom of this,” Tim instructed the Australian.

“I’ve already let Brainiac know. He’s swung by Jex’s to pick him up.” He continued. “They should meet you at the airport, where I’ve arranged a plane for you.”

“What about you?” Moustachio asked.

“I’m sorry but I’ve got to monitor a mission Night Ranger is about to go on,” Tim replied, rolling up one of his green sleeves to glance at his watch. “He really needs someone in the chair or else he can go off the rails a bit.”

“Alright then, looks like I’ve got some packing to do,” Moustachio replied.

 

 

It was approximately six hours later, and Moustachio was arriving in the waiting lounge. Jex and Brainiac had already made themselves at home, and welcomed the Australian.

“Moustachio! Glad you made it. Sorry to cut your visit to Durling Foundation HQ short, but this is quite important,” Jex said.

“I agree. There’ll be plenty of time for interior decorating later,” Moustachio replied.

“So what do you remember of the castle?” Brainiac asked him.

“Actually, I never went to Romania,” Moustachio replied. “But Tim’s supplied us with a mission report from Tee Bone Man to read on the flight over. That should give us all the info we need.”

“Tim’s a smart man,” Brainiac mused, to nods all around.

While this was happening, the airport intercom decided this was the moment to move the plot along.

“Now boarding flight TVC-Force-1 at gate 3.”

“That’s our flight,” Jex said, grabbing his bags and heading in the direction of the gate.

It wasn’t long before they were on the plane, to find to their delight that the Durling Foundation had spared no expense with their members’ jet.

“Woo! Look at these chairs! So comfortable!” Brainiac cried as he leaned back.

“Ah, legroom!”, Moustachio sighed, stretching out his longer-than-average legs with plenty of room to spare.

The group got comfortable as the pilots began their pre-flight checks, and it wasn’t long before they were in the air.

 

 

Given the journey was going to take more than a couple hours, our heroes had decided to try and get some sleep before their mission. But this was rudely interrupted by some turbulence as they neared the airport. A lot of turbulence, actually. The cause was immediately apparent by looking out the window.

An unnaturally large thunderstorm was looming on the horizon.

“There’s no way we can go through that,” the copilot said, looking at the weather radar display.

“We’ll have to divert,” the captain replied, agreeing with him. “Braşov is nearby. We can make that with the fuel we have. New heading 165.”

“New heading 165,” the copilot echoed, as the plane began to turn with the input.

In the passenger compartment, the captain’s voice came over the intercom.

“Attention, this is your captain speaking. We’ll have to divert to Braşov to land. It’s a day’s travel from where you want to be, but we have no choice alas. I’ve contacted the Durling Foundation, and they’ll have transport arranged for you when you arrive.

This route still took them on the outskirts of the storm, which posed no small danger. The storm seemed alive, and it was as if the lightning was targeting the plane itself. It appeared their secret voyage wasn’t as secret as they had hoped. Moustachio was certainly glad when they finally hit terra firma again.

And sure to the captain’s word, a coach was waiting to take them to the village by Infernum Keep. As they sat down and got comfortable, Moustachio looked out the window. That storm couldn’t be natural.

“This is going to be a tough one buddy. You sure you’re up to this?” he asked the small black squirrel on his shoulder.

The squirrel gave him an exaggerated salute.

“Awesome. You know I feel safer with you around.”

The whole group got comfortable, and the coach set off on its journey. They were able to get ample rest, but couldn’t shake the feeling that this was only the calm before the real storm.

 

 

Later that evening, our heroes finally arrived in the village. The sun was beginning to set, casting a golden glow over the houses and buildings. By popular vote it had been decided that the team would source dinner first. Finding the Olde Mill Inn was not difficult, but as they entered they were nearly bowled over by the volume of one of the inhabitants.

“My friends! Let us feast to this momentous occasion!” cried a voice in a suspiciously old English accent. The source of this, they shortly discovered, was none other than the knight Bernard.

Bernard had been a member of the Northern Lights for a while now, but was rarely seen as he preferred to remain mobile, helping those in need across the globe. But when he received Tim’s messenger pigeon urging this situation to be of the utmost importance, he procured the fastest horse he could.

A veritable banquet had been prepared, and our heroes were all too ready to accept, digging in with gusto. Much food was eaten. Laughs were had. Stories were shared. Bernard had plenty of tales from his time as a medieval knight, and Moustachio regaled the group with his exploits across the multiverse. But all good things must come to an end, and so with the emptying of plates and bowls, it was time to begin the adventure proper.

Jex began to make for the door, but Brainiac piped up with a very valid point.

“Let’s ask around the village a bit first. Maybe they know something, and we can have some idea of what we’ll be walking into. Plus we don’t want to be walking into an adventure with just-filled stomachs now, do we?”

Our heroes nodded, and all set out to glean any reconnaissance that they could. When the group reconvened, it turned out they really weren’t all that much more informed than before.

“Really? That’s all they know?” Jex asked. “We could tell that watching a camera feed from halfway across the globe.”

“You can’t really blame them,” Moustachio replied. “Would you like to investigate the mysterious castle where people are disappearing?”

“Fair point. Well, where are we going from here then?”

“I guess it’s time to head in,” Moustachio said, turning towards the hill the castle was situated on.

As our heroes neared the front gate, the effects of the previous battle here began to become much more apparent. Not even the twisted oak hanging tree by the westmost tower had survived the destruction wrought here all those moons ago.

Scorch marks covered the walls of the keep, and several parts of the building had crumbled away from the fire damage. Most of the castle still appeared to be staying up (just a little worse for wear) but there was no telling what internal damage had occurred. They’d have to watch their step inside.

As they approached, three black crows flew from the tree to the tallest tower high above. Moustachio could not shake the sense of foreboding that troubled him.

As the Northern Lights entered the once-grand hall, the devastating effects of Tee Bone Man’s battle were truly laid bare. A thick layer of ash covered most of the room, and what remained of any recognisable banisters or sculptures had been nightmarishly distorted by the heat.

“I’m not sure I want to have been here the first time,” Moustachio said, cautiously stepping forward.

“Where are we going from here? What’s the fastest way to the throne room?” Jex asked.

“Through here, I think,” Moustachio replied, motioning towards a door on the right.

The Australian took a couple steps into this room, followed by Bernard. The other two men would have continued this retinue, were it not for a portcullis slamming down in the doorway, separating them into two groups. Somewhere up above a bell began to toll.

 

 

“Oops,” Moustachio said, raising his foot and revealing he had stepped on a booby-trapped tile.

Jex grabbed hold of the bars and tugged hard, but they did not budge in the slightest.

“We don’t have time,” Brainiac said. “We have to clear our of here before we’re cornered. Continue on. We’ll meet up with you further up.”

Moustachio nodded and turned towards the exit of the room. Bernard followed him, looking upwards at the ceiling to try and see if there were any more traps lying in wait above. He’d hate to share Catherine Howard’s fate (His old Lady. A tale for another day.)

The other two men turned back towards the great hall. There options weren’t great. One of the doors was blocked by rubble, and they couldn’t risk wasting time trying any on the upper level. The sound of clattering and clamouring was getting closer, as the bell continued to ring above. There was only one option left.

“Quick, in here!”Jex said, flinging open the door opposite the one that was blocked by the portcullis, and entering cautiously.

They seemed to be an antechamber of some kind. A cloakroom was off to the side. Probably not the best place to hide, in all consideration. They quickly crossed the room and entered into a very large open hall.

Before the fire it appeared to have been a spectacular dining hall, but now more resembled a deadly game of hopscotch. Several large portions of the floor had burned away, creating a long drop into the blackness of the cellar below.

“I don’t like the look of this room.” Jex called over his shoulder.

“I don’t think we have the time to double back to the main hall and look for another option. We’ll just have to chance it.” Brainiac replied.

The two men cautiously ventured forth, making sure to take distinct routes to avoid overloading the charred wooden planks with too much weight. This worked until they both converged on one bottleneck spot. There was no avoiding this. The Brainiac went first, with Jex very tenderly following after.

Unfortunately, the added weight of the muscle-bound hero was too much for the rotting beams to take. With an almighty crash, the floor gave way and Jex and the Brainiac were sent plummeting down into the cellar below.

Landing in the flooded bottom of the cellar didn’t render any injuries unto our heroes, but it certainly knocked the wind out of them. However, it didn’t take them long to realise they weren’t alone here. A shifting mass towards the end of the room made a dissatisfied noise and began to unravel itself.

It was difficult to make out in the gloom, but it appeared to be a giant snake of some sorts. Which was very bad news for the two regular size humans that had just so invitingly entered its lair, waist-high in alcohol and sewerage.

 

Up above, Moustachio and Bernard were not having much luck either. A mysterious creature was very close, perhaps only a room away. The two men had to tread very carefully. Moustachio led the way, having studied some old plans of the castle on the flight over. Thankfully they were approaching a stairwell and would soon have some breathing space. Or so they thought.

The Australian peeked around the corner, and his blood froze cold. There, blocking the entrance to the stairwell, was Frankenstein’s monster himself.

“It’s the monster,” Moustachio whispered to Bernard. “He’s blocking the door.”

“The vultures will dine on his head tonight,” Bernard whispered back, reaching for his sword.

“Let’s not rush into combat so hastily,” the Australian counseled, pushing Bernard’s hilt back into the scabbard.

“We’ll have plenty fighting to do later, I’m sure. Let me try something,” Moustachio said with a smile, ducking away to confront the creature.

The Australian straightened his moustache and sauntered out into the room, doing his best to look officious.

The monster growled and began to stagger towards him. Steeling himself, and in his best approximation of a Scottish accent, Moustachio began to speak.

“Don’t take that tone with me my good man! Now buttle off and tell Ispahsalar Infernus that Lord Clarence McDonald and his lovely assistant are here to view the tapestries.”

The creature faltered in its advance, clearly unsure how to proceed. Moustachio, sensing an opening, continued.

“I’ll have you know, inspecting tapestries is a serious business. A man in Serbia was killed when a poorly attached tapestry fell and smothered him. Imagine the shame on the Infernus name if one of the many pieces in this castle were to fall upon poor prospective buyer Mickey Mouse.”

The creature, perhaps simply only to extricate himself from this very confusing situation, walked off through a door to the left and ascended a set of stairs. Both of them knew there’d be plenty of time to bump into one another again.

Moustachio turned back to face the also-confused Bernard.

“You know, I’m surprised that worked myself. Come on, let’s get going before he works out Ispahsalar isn’t a Romanian military rank.”

Bernard obliged, following Moustachio up the staircase to the next floor.

Back in the cellar, Brainiac and Jex were running out of things to throw. They’d been able to keep the giant snake at bay on the other side of the room with a steady supply of wine bottles and amphoras, but they wouldn’t be able to do this forever. Brainiac tossed the last of the dandelion wine, and then reached for the last box of bottles.

“Not that one!” Jex cried, holding Brainiac’s arm. “That’s a 1458 vintage!”

“Bloody hell Jex!” Brainiac replied, putting the bottle away and reaching for another. “There’s only two left now.”

The situation looked dire. But a small neuron fired in Jex’s head, boarded his train of thought, and arrived in his memory core.

“I have an idea!” Jex cried. “Remember the tomb of Sir Richard in The Last Crusade?”

“How could I forget.” Brainiac answered, already flipping a large crate over and reaching for a flare in his backpack. Waiting until Jex was under a box of his own, Brainiac lit the flare and held it aloft. The red light illuminated the dark room, and the Canadian could see that the serpent seemed somewhat mesmerized by the flare.

Taking advantage of this, Brainiac hurled the flare towards the far end of the room.

“God save the keg,” he said before quickly getting under his upturned box. The instant the flare hit the sea of alcohol, the room ignited into a furious firestorm. Jex and the Brainiac remained safe under their boxes, but the snake was not so fortunate. It writhed and hissed in pain as it burned to death over the course of the next few moments.

The two upturned boxes, meanwhile, floated across the burning liquid as their occupants directed them towards the exit door. Choosing their moment, Jex and Brainiac emerged unscathed from underneath and ascended the staircase back to the ground level of the castle.

 

Much higher up, Bernard and Moustachio had made it to the room on the map that was indicated to contain the entrance to the throne room. But instead of a double spiral staircase, there was only a barren brick wall.

Maybe it was remodeled at some point? Or the layout was changed while building? Moustachio thought to himself. No, this room is the only one that is directly below the throne room. It has to be here somewhere, hidden. There must be a mechanism for unlocking it.

The Australian began to look around, desperate to find any clue as to how to reveal the hidden staircase. His eyes drifted to two lion statues set against either end of the wall. Each one had a recess in its forehead.

“Bingo,” Moustachio said, turning to Bernard. “We need to find two crystals that fit into those statues. That should trigger a mechanism that will reveal the staircase.”

Bernard nodded, and the two men set about vigilantly searching the room. There were a number of desks and draws to look through, which hampered proceedings. Moustachio checked behind what he presumed was a self-portrait of Count Infernus himself, expecting a hidden safe.

“Blast,” he cursed, as his search came up fruitless.

He moved onto the small mahogany desk underneath the portrait. Throwing open a drawer, he began to impatiently rifle through it. The contents were mostly letters addressed to all manner of people. One caught his eye though, as the name on the front was Adorian Tepes. What did Infernus possibly want with a famed Vampire hunter?

“Found it!” Bernard exclaimed from across the room, pulling a large ruby out of a teapot on a desk. “Have you the other one?”

“No. I’ve checked everywhere in here. The other one could be anywhere in this massive castle,” Moustachio moaned. “Oh wait. Oh no. I saw a blue gem of roughly the same size on the monster’s belt as it was leaving.”

“Marvelous,” Bernard said, entirely sarcastically.

“Well we’d better get back down there and find him I suppose,” Moustachio sighed. “Bring the other crystal with you. We don’t want to risk someone snatching it while we’re away.”

“Do you have a plan for getting the other one?” Bernard asked, while retrieving the red gem.

“I think I’m going to let my little friend take the lead on that,” Moustachio said, with a sly smile as he looked to Ripper on his shoulder.

 

Further down below in the castle, Jex and Brainiac were very carefully creeping along. There was no telling what horrors could be patrolling the castle, and they’d hate to have to face down any number of them.

They were approaching a corner when Jex silently held a fist up, indicating to the Brainiac behind him to stop. From the room beyond the sound of liquid cascading could be heard. A few seconds later it would go silent, then resume. This couldn’t be a natural occurrence. Someone had to be in the room.

Jex inched to the edge of the wall and very slowly peered around. The sight before him was mildly confusing to say the least. There appeared to be a corpse slumped against the far wall, pouring alcohol directly into the open top of his neck.

You see, this was the Headless Horseman, who Tee Bone Man had encountered the last time they were here. Tee Bone Man had left the crownless-cavalryman to burn with the castle, but it seems he was a little harder to kill than anticipated. His horse, however, didn’t seem to have such luck, making him now more of a headless, horseless man.

“Do you think he’s a threat?” Jex asked.

“Only to himself, by the look of it,” Brainiac replied. “He doesn’t seem to have taken his defeat to Tee Bone Man too well.”

Indeed, the Horseman had become somewhat of an alcoholic of late, if the contents of the room (mostly empty bottles) were anything to go by. This also explained the relative lack of bottles in the cellar below.

“Why don’t we try a little diplomacy?” the Brainiac asked, stepping out into the room.

“Hello there!” He spoke. “My friend and I have no quarrel with you. We’re just here to investigate the upper tower’s new resident.”

The Horseman turned his neck slightly, as if angling an ear towards the sound. Brainiac took this as interest on the listener’s part, and an opportunity to continue.

“If there’s anything you can do to help us find him, it would be greatly appreciated. Regardless, we will be one our way within moments to leave you to your drinking.”

A pause filled the room for what felt like minutes, until the Horseman finally moved. Wordlessly (as usual) the Horseman threw a bottle against the far wall. It struck a slightly off-coloured brick, which moved inwards with the impact.

A grinding sound then filled the room as hidden mechanisms in one of the walls began to move after such a long time of inaction. Slowly but surely a secret passage was revealed.

“Thank you,” the Brainiac said to the Horseman as he followed Jex into the passage.

 

Upstairs the clock ticked on. Moustachio and Bernard were tearing back up the castle, blue crystal in hand. They had no idea when the monster would notice the missing crystal, or how long it would take him to catch up, but they certainly didn’t want to find out.

After an eternity of winding corridors and tiring staircases, they were finally back in the room with the statues. Each with a crystal in hand, they stood before the lion statues, poised. Moustachio nodded, and the two placed their crystals in their respective recesses in the lion statues’ heads.

Immediately the sound of stone grinding filled their ears, as an imposing spiral staircase began to form out of the wall between the two statues. Moustachio knew this would lead to the throne room, which was the very room from the squirrel drone’s video footage.

“Should we wait for our allies?” Bernard asked, looking up the passage that had just been created.

Moustachio thought for a moment.

“I don’t think we can afford to. The monster will surely have heard the noise. If we don’t face whatever’s in that room soon, we may have to contend with both it and Frankenstein’s monster at the same time. “

“Very well.” Bernard nodded. “I can see your wisdom. I just only hope this goes better than that night at Eggerseberg.” (Another tale of Bernard’s. Perhaps there’ll be a chapter dedicated to them in the future.)

The knight then followed Moustachio in ascending the staircase to the top of the tower.

“Why can’t we be the ones they’re scared of? Coming out of the goddam walls and all that. I’d prefer a straight fight to all this sneaking around,” Jex moaned, evidently wanting something to punch.

“When you have sharp teeth, claws and demonic wings you can do the stalking. But for now we have to keep a low, quiet, profile.”

Jex began to mutter under his breath, no doubt cursing the rotten luck that they never got to investigate any gyms.

“Shh!” Brainiac hissed, as the sound of a creature walking on the other side of the wall could be heard.

After a short time the sound faded and Jex let out a breath.

“Let’s hope we get were we’re going soon.” He said, squeezing around a pipe. “It’s going to be tough to fight in here if we get discovered.”

“I think it’s this way.” Brainiac motioned, looking at some bloody writing on the wall. “I hope our friends have had better luck, wherever they are.”

 

The jury was still out on whether encountering the being before them constituted good or bad luck. It probably depended on how the soon-to-occur fight went. Moustachio and Bernard stood at the precipice of the room, peaking around the doorframe.

The room was vast, seemingly bigger on the inside that it had looked from down below. An inner ring of bookshelves created a small haven in the middle, while more bookcases lined the outer walls. One of the room’s corner’s was destroyed, opening out into the cool night air.

On the opposite end a large stained glass window framed a dark being. He was clad in a black garb that almost absorbed the light around, with a large pilgrim hat sitting atop his head. Situated on the cone of the hat was a large yellow eye that swiveled around the room, searching.

“I know you’re here,” The dark being’s voice rang out. “You merely delay the inevitable scurrying like rats back there.”

Exchanging a look, the Moustachio and Bernard cautiously entered the room

“Good, good,” The being spoke. “I have been waiting just for you. You killed my brother the Black Knight. Now I will finally have my revenge.”

“I think he’s confusing us with Tee Bone Man,” Moustachio whispered to Bernard. “But I don’t think telling him that is going to end well.”

“Then I will be sure to tell him my name when I run him through with my sword,” Bernard replied.

“And what is your name then?” Moustachio called out to the man across the room. “For we will need to know what to put on your tombstone when we bury you next to him.”

“I am the More Black Knight,” the More Black Knight said, as Moustachio tried to hold his laughter in. “And I shall not be the one to die tonight.”

The More Black Knight drew back imposingly, but before anyone in the room could react, a bookcase on the north wall creaked open to reveal a passage from which emerged Jex and the Brainiac.

 

“The thing is,” the Brainiac mused, “how much more black than black can you really be?”

“Well, none more black,” Jex continued. “Black is black. Anything even slightly less dark is just a very dark grey. And there’s no such thing as a darker shade of black.”

“SILENCE!” the More Black Knight roared, interrupting the impromptu discussion. “Your trivialities matter none. Revenge will be mine tonight.”

Wasting no more time, he whipped his cloak off and readied his weapon- a large, mystical scythe. His eyes began to glow an electric cyan, and a dark aura surrounded him.

“This is no ordinary foe,” Bernard said, as the More Black Knight began to advance. “We will need a weapon of immense power. Can you buy me some time to get down to the armoury?”

“Consider it bought.” Moustachio replied, drawing his boomerang and advancing on the More Black Knight.

Brainiac and Jex joined him, as Bernard turned and ran towards the exit. His trip was stopped almost immediately, however, by the arrival of Frankenstein’s monster at the top of the stairwell. The creature reached for Bernard, but was summarily knocked sideways out of the way by one very muscly human’s shoulder.

“Go!” Jex cried, engaged in a grapple with the hulking monster.

Bernard tore off down the stairs as Brainiac and Moustachio squared up against the More Black Knight. Brainiac ignited his lightsaber and brought it up to guard. The distinctive red crossguard design cast a scarlet glow across his face as he and Moustachio began to duel the More Black Knight.

Brainiac made the first strike, bringing his lightsaber down with force on the More Black Knights scythe. How Brainiac expected this to go was probably to see his blade slice right through the scythe. How it actually happened was that the mystical weapon met the lightsaber and blocked it without even a hint of damage. The impact nearly knocked the saber from Brainiac’s grip, as Moustachio unleashed his attacks to similar fruitlessness.

“I’ve been looking forward to this!” the More Black Knight cackled, as he effortlessly kept his two assailants at bay.

 

Across the room, Jex and Frankenstein’s monster were locked in mortal combat. Gripping each other’s shoulders they slammed each other into the walls, bookshelves and, occasionally, the other combatants in the room.

Jex was not as strong as the monster and he knew it, but he did have a brain. And that gave him a distinct tactical advantage. Knowing how to use the strength he did have was going to be what won him this battle.

Jex allowed himself to be maneuvered towards the corner of the room that was broken and opened out into the night. Baiting the monster into lunging for him, Jex nimbly rolled out of the way. Before the monster could react, the shirtless Canadian grabbed him and hoisted him into the air.

However, a second before Jex was about to throw the monster down, the bolts in its neck attracted the next lightning strike. With a thunderous crack the high-powered electricity flowed through both bodies, knocking them both to the ground, smoking. Frankenstein’s monster twitched a few times, before lying still. Jex didn’t move at all.

“Jex!” Moustachio cried.

The More Black Knight took advantage of the distraction and slammed the blunt end of his scythe into Moustachio’s chest. Imbued with mystical energy, the impact sent the Australian flying. Moustachio sailed across the room, striking a bookshelf and falling to the ground under a pile of arcane literature.

Brainiac, now currently the sole opponent of the More Black Knight attempted to finish the fight quickly, heavily striking at his opponent multiple times in a row. But this made him careless and the More Black Knight, anticipating the next strike, was able to neatly excise Brainiac’s weapon from his hand with a flourish of his blade.

Brainiac’s lightsaber hilt flew across the room, disappearing into a shadowy corner.

The More Black Knight levelled his weapon at Brainiac’s chest and began to laugh.

“You’ve failed. There’ll be no second chance for you.”

Brainiac frantically glanced around the room as the More Black Knight continued to gloat.

“And now you die – hurk!”

The dark being doubled over in pain, unable to make good on his threat. Clutching his stomach, he tried vainly to remove the glowing sword embedded in it. From behind him Bernard emerged, kicking the More Black Knight onto the ground. Without so much as even batting an eye at his dying enemy, Bernard calmly walked past, pulling the sword from its moorings in the More Black Knight’s back.

“Thanks Bernard,” The Brainiac said. “You really showed him.”

“Indeed.” Bernard replied. “We are lucky Mr Infernus decided to keep such holy weapons here, apparently safely away from his enemies. Mr Morris’s sword was exactly what I needed to slay this foul creature.”

But things were not over yet. From the ground the sound of their foe’s laughter could be heard. A foe that had been thought vanquished. The sound of the low, hoarse chuckling chilled their spines they turned back to look at the More Black Knight’s “corpse”. His body had begun to writhe and bubble, as massive fleshy growths began to take form on his rapidly expanding body. Ripper let out a hiss and retreated back behind Moustachio’s leg. Moustachio, having extricated himself from the pile of books, was regretting that decision and rather wished there was someone’s leg he could hide behind.

 

The twisted monstrosity before them was unlike anything they had seen before. Towering above them was the upper torso of the More Black Knight, sprouting out of a hairy black spider’s thorax. Eight large legs protruding from the large body kept this knightmare  balanced. It spoke, but from where the voice came from could not be discerned, as what passed for a face was now dominated by piercing yellow eyes.

“My powers have increased exponentially since you may have last seen me, Bernard,” The creature sneered. “Now your fate is written in the stars. Perish, like the rest of your kin!”

With a roar the creature charged forward, catching Bernard in the midriff with a leg and slamming him against the stone wall. The knight sank to his knees, dazed. Laughing, the spider creature raised a leg, preparing to squash the fair knight.

But Moustachio wasn’t about to let that happen. He hurled his boomerang into the space between the two, with Ripper hanging on for dear life as it sailed across the room.

At the moment the boomerang was positioned in front of the spider creature, Ripper leapt from it, landing on the More Black Knight’s face and obscuring his vision.

Bernard got to his feet and ran off behind a bookcase, at which point the black squirrel very gratefully leapt off the creature’s face and scurried under a bookcase to hide for the rest of the battle (though he would tell you it was to look for Brainiac’s lightsaber).

“Thanks Ripper!” Moustachio yelled as he caught his boomerang. The spider-creature then turned its attention to him.

“Eeep,” Moustachio squeaked.

 

The situation was infinitely worse now. The creature, though big, was still smaller than the room and able to maneuver around it with no trouble. And it was fast. The Northen Lights had several close calls in a manner of seconds, barely able to dive away in time before a giant spider limb slammed down.

In a brief moment of respite when the creature was on the other side of the room, Brainiac quickly turned to Moustachio.

“I have an idea. Can you keep it occupied for a minute?”

Moustachio gave him a look that suggested that he could, but that if people kept asking for him to cover them, things might not end well for him.

“Just call my name, I’ll be there,” Brainiac yelled over his shoulder as he ran back into the darkness of a corner. Taking a moment to hide behind a bookcase, he pulled out his phone and dialed.

“Please pick up. Please pick up.” he repeated, nervously looking up at the shadow of the moon in the window above.

“Hello?” came a Canadian voice from the other end.

“Yes!” the Brainiac cried. “Aaron, how quickly can you get something to the rooftop of a Romanian castle?”

“Would you like it gift-wrapped or just plain packaging?” the voice of Aaron of the KMA said from the other end.

“You’re a legend! Ok, here’s what we need…”

Across the room Moustachio was breathing heavily. Every dodge drained him of strength. The margins were getting thinner. Eventually he was going to be too slow. And he couldn’t even begin to think about an offensive.

Bernard was doing his best too, but both men were tiring, and the More Black Knight could tell. He was unrelenting in his attacks.

“Mike! We need you here!” Moustachio called over his shoulder. “All together, we can vanquish him!”

“Your hope is foolish,” The creature gloated. “A thousand men have tried. A thousand failed. You have no chance.”

“I dunno about that,” Brainiac said, holding an RPG. “We call this a rocket launcher, and I suspect they didn’t have these over in the land of darkness.”

Before the mutant spider-knight could react, the Canadian fired.

The rocket tore across the room as Bernard and Moustachio dove for cover. It struck the creature directly on the body, engulfing it in fire and knocking it through the window of the room.

The flaming spider-creature plummeted down the side of the tower, before coming to an abrupt stop on the spikes of the gate down on ground level.

After a few tentative seconds, Moustachio peered down.

“It’s hard to tell from this height, but I think that’s done it.”

Indeed, the great big spider’s legs had curled upwards, and a very large amount of blood was beginning to pool outwards from the body.

Wasting no time, Brainiac rushed to Jex’s side and began checking on the unconscious man.

“He’ll be alright,” Brainiac said, looking up at Bernard and Moustachio.

“Let’s get back to the village then,” Moustachio replied. “We can rest up there for a bit before we head back home.”

 

“A toast!” Bernard cried. “To all our yesterdays and their gifts. But more importantly to tomorrow. To the friends passed and to those I now have the privilege to call.”

“Hear hear,” Came the replies from the three other men at the table.

 

 

Meanwhile, far far away in the depths of Hell Satan stood and watched silently. Within the crystal ball before him he could see the remains of the More Black Knight. It wasn’t unexpected, but he had to admit he was disappointed in the totality of the More Black Knight’s failure. Especially after Satan had so helpfully directed him to the ones responsible for his brother’s fate.

It looks like the devil would indeed have some adversity to overcome the next time he tried to conquer rock heaven. Turning to face one of his demonic servants, he began to speak.

“Patch me through to Unicron. I think he’d be quite interested in knowing the capabilities of earth’s new heroes.”

The lord of hell began to laugh. At first a low sound, but soon it erupted into guffaws that echoed all throughout the dark stronghold. Oh yes, Unicron would be most interested in this.

And though few who witnessed it could truly know its significance, all across the realms of the multiverse the Morning Star glowed a bright crimson.

 

HE ADVENTURES OF TEE BONE MAN:  PHASE ONE – THE SQUIRREL SAGA 

THE ADVENTURES OF TEE BONE MAN:  PHASE TWO – THE MULTIVERSE SAGA

THE ADVENTURES OF THE NORTHERN LIGHTS:  PHASE THREE – THE UNICRON SAGA

 

SPINOFFS AND SIDE QUESTS

 

THE COMPLETE ADVENTURES OF EDIE VAN HEELIN’

THE WRITER’S ROOM

The Return of Dr. K: Adventures of the Northern Lights

THE ADVENTURES OF THE NORTHERN LIGHTS – Phase 3 – The Unicron Saga

Chapter Two:  The Return of Dr. K

Starring:

  • Mike the Brainiac
  • Harrison El Moustachio
  • Jen
  • Ripper the Squirrel
  • Max the Axe
  • Señor Spielbergo
  • and a sweet  vintage white Citroën 11 Légère Cabriolet

Friday.

“Well, this is going to be awkward,” said the man known as Moustachio to his friend, Brainiac II.  Both were ensconced in comfy chairs on the front deck of Northern Lights HQ.  They had a wonderful view of Lake Huron, as the breeze cooled their skin in the summer heat.  All was peace.  Though they were technically “on duty”, there hadn’t been a sign of danger in months.  Until now.

A small blue car with a Triforce logo on it was pulling into the driveway of the cottage next door.

“Is that who I think it is?” asked an excited Braniac.

“Doctor Kathryn,” gulped Moustachio.

Brainiac noticed the moustachioed man’s trepidation.  “Hey, what’s wrong buddy?  My sister is awesome.”

“That’s just it,” sweated Moustachio, suddenly not feeling cool at all.  “Your sister might not be too happy to meet the gene donor for your counterpart’s assassin.”

Brainiac blinked.  “Say that again?  I’ve had like two of these already,” said Mike while holding a can of his favourite strawberry cream soda “adult” beverage.

Moustachio spoke slower for him.  “It was my clone, Shinzon, that killed the ‘original’ you, the brother she knew.  Mr. Durling says that even though Shinzon is gone from this universe, she still might have…not a grudge precisely…maybe some negative feelings towards me, and by extension, maybe you too.”

“Ah!” smiled Brainiac.  “No problem.  I’ll just go over and say hello!”

Moustachio grabbed him by the shoulder.  “Not yet.  I’ve been preparing for this eventuality, and I’ve been reading her file.  Let her unpack first.  She doesn’t like unplanned guests.  The file was very specific on that.  According to the dossier…which I assume you have read…once she sent two vicious Schnauzers after a neighbour who merely wanted to borrow a cup of sugar.”

“Of course I read the dossier,” lied Brainiac II.  “But yeah, that is all true about her.  I’ll bring a peace offering.”

The two watched Dr. K unpack her vehicle.  To their surprise, dog after dog after dog poured out of the back seat.  They all ran in an orderly line to the front door of the cottage, waiting to be let in.

“Good doggies at least,” commented Brainiac II.

“Vicious killers,” whispered Moustachio.  “Hey, where is Ripper?  He should stay clear of those beasts.”

As if on cue, a little black squirrel hopped down from a nearby pine, and landed squarely on Moustachio’s shoulder.

“Stay with me, Ripper,” instructed Moustachio.  The squirrel nodded in the affirmative.

Brainiac and Moustachio hung back on the deck, with Ripper standing by, until Dr. K was done unpacking.  Eventually, she emerged from the cottage with two dogs on leashes.

“She’s walking the dogs,” alerted Brainiac.  “I’m going in.”

The two dogs led the way, one light brown and rather mutt-ly in appearance, the other a dark Schnauzer.  Both growled as the stranger appeared on the roadway in front of them.

“Grrrr!” alerted the brown one to the black one.

The man approached.  He had his hands in the air and was holding a frozen salmon.

“Hello!” he said in an awkward but friendly voice.  “Long time no see!”

The girl in red with the sunglasses pulled back on the dog leashes.  They both heeled, one on her right and one on her left.

“More like long time, never seen you before in my life,” she said with a warning tone.

“It’s me…Brainiac…your brother!  I bring you the gift of fish!  You don’t eat meat except fish, see I know that!”

“Anybody who Googles me could know that,” she answered coldly.  “Give me that fish.  Now what are you doing with that Australian asshole?”

Mike handed over the salmon cautiously, without getting too close.  “That’s my friend, Harrison.  He found me on my Earth in the multiverse, and brought me here to his home.  He’s not the one who killed me…killed your brother, I mean.  He’s good.  I promise.  I swear.”  The Brainiac raised his right hand in solemn honesty.  “He’s one of the good guys.  We’re fighting the same enemy as you.”

Dr. K growled and the two dogs followed in turn.  The chorus of growls was almost musical.

“We’ll see about that.  Just stay out of my way this weekend.  You mind your business, and I’ll mind mine.”

“OK, that’s fine…” said Brainiac.

“And keep that Australian out of my sight!” warned Dr. K as she stormed past the Brainiac on her way down the road.

“How did it go?” asked Moustachio.

“Oh, great!” lied Brainiac.  “We’ll be great neighbours.  Just…I think you should probably stay indoors for the rest of the weekend.”

“Oh?  Why?” queried Moustachio.

“Well,” gulped Brainiac, “She did mention that she didn’t want to see you around.”

“Ah,” answered Moustachio.  “Perfect.”

“Don’t worry, I have this well in hand,” lied Brainiac some more.  “Let’s both go inside and watch live Iron Maiden videos on Youtube, but on the big TV.  You’ll love it.  Come see.”

Harrison harrumphed, and went inside with his friend.  Ripper the squirrel remained outside, for it was an unfortunate house rule:  no squirrels inside.  Inside, Ripper hopped over to the laptop on the deck and monitored for danger.

Sitting atop his perch, Ripper sniffed the air.  “Squee squee!” he cried.

“What is it, friend?” said Harrison as he poked his head out the window.  “Something amiss?”

“Squeeeeee!” answered Ripper in squirrel-ese.

“Oh!  You smelled a skunk?  Fear not.  Brainiac said they are endemic to these woods, and are timid and harmless.  You stay out of their way and you’ll be fine.”  Ripper nodded in acknowledgement, and got back to monitoring.

Evening.

The air was still, but the sound of a booming bass clarinet echoed down at the lake.  The Brainiac was making his way back up the path.  The sun had set an hour ago, but at the beach he lingered.  He had been waiting for this day ever since he arrived in this universe.  He wanted it to be his new home, but it did not feel like home at the moment.  Though he recognized every inch of this place, he felt was a trespasser today.  The bass clarinet seemingly mocked his displacement; a thump of bass with his every footstep.  It was an unpleasant feeling.  It crawled over his skin like an insect.

Then he smelled it.  That sweet yet horrible smell of skunk.

“I think one has taken a nest nearby. Best tread carefully this weekend.”  The Brainiac stepped slowly and intently as he walked.  You didn’t want to scare a skunk at night.

Upon reaching the road, he paused to look over at Dr. K’s place.  There, she was hidden within “Kathronia”, her private rehearsal shed.  The lights streamed through the window, and Brainiac could see her practising intensely.  Two guard-Schnauzers stood at either side of the door.

Brainiac resumed walking, climbed the stairs and entered the brown cottage.  Moustachio and Jen were waiting for him in the kitchen.  They were working hard on building a Lego…something.

“Come and see what we made!” shouted Jen in excitement.  Harrison simply grinned in anticipation.

Mike leaned over on the kitchen table and looked to see what they had been working on.

“Is that…me?  A Minifigure me?  With…a drone?”

“It is, and yes, that’s correct,” answered Moustachio in return.  Now Jen was smiling.

“But I don’t own a drone,” said a confused Brainiac.

“That’s ‘Part 2’ of your surprise,” said Jen.  “Max the Axe is on his way tomorrow with a new toy for you.”

“For me?  A drone?” gasped Mike.

“You always said you wanted one,” said Moustachio.  “Both old-you and new-you.”

“That’s true, I have, but I never thought I’d own one!” responded Brainiac.

“Well, Max the Axe called here about an hour ago with a brand-new one in the box.  All he wants is to go for a swim in return,” informed Jen.

“Wow!  I can’t wait for tomorrow!” screamed Mike in excitement.

Saturday.

Max the Axe sat on the front deck with Mike, Moustachio, Jen and Ripper.  He cracked the top of a can of ice-cold beer and swigged it down.  Jen was deep into a Tim Horton’s large, while Mike and Harrison were sipping sweet tea, a beverage they acquired a taste for on their last mission.

“I thought you wanted to swim, Max?” asked Mike of his new guest.

“Gotta chill first!” answered Maxie.  “You got any tunes?”

“How about some Max the Axe?” answered Moustachio as he played “Gods on the Radio” from the laptop.  Max nodded in approval and raised his beer.

“You know, I’ll be able to make some cool videos for you Max, with this new drone.  Down by the River Grand, you playing a solo, me flying overhead…”  The Brainiac was half-way through his new drone manual.  It was charging up as the friends quaffed their beverages.

From next door, Mike saw Dr. K emerge from her cabin with seven or eight dogs.  She began walking them down the road.

“Shit!  Dr. K!  Harrison, get inside!” instructed Mike.  Harrison swiftly ducked indoors before Dr. K could see him.

Dr. K completely ignored them as she walked by.  She had earbuds on, and did not turn her head even a little.  The dogs, however, did.

“Hey doggies!” shouted Maxie from the porch.  “Polly want a cracker?”

The dogs went on their way, out of sight down the road.

Afternoon.

Max was towelling off down at the beach.  “That was a fantastic swim!” he proclaimed as he towelled off his excellent hair.  “I feel completely refreshed and ready for my next beer.”

“How long are you planning on staying, Maxie?” asked the Brainiac who assumed it was just for an afternoon.  Brainiac was flying his new drone up and down the beach.  It was like second nature to him, as if he’d been doing it his whole life.  The drone dipped, dived and dodged through the rocks on the lakeshore.

“How long?  Just a couple days,” answered Max as he towelled some more.  He shook his perfect hair like a dog.  “Need to cool down and chill out.”

“Super,” said Brainiac.  “Unfortunately there isn’t a spare bed, but you can pitch a tent on the vacant lot between me and Dr. K if you want.”

“Copy that,” said Max.  “I came prepared.  What’s for dinner?”

“I guess you didn’t come that prepared,” answered Brainiac.  “We’re having Australian cuisine this evening.  Vegemite on toast with kangaroo sausage.”

“That’s disgusting!” boomed a voice coming down the pathway.  It was Dr. K.

“Oh, hey Doc,” said Mike.  “You know Max the Axe.”  Max waved over.

“You’re actually going to eat kangaroo meat?  That’s disgusting.  Your friend is a savage,” spat Dr. K.

“You’re welcome for the salmon,” answered the Brainiac with bitterness.  “I’d offer to cook it for you, but I’m sure you don’t want your food anywhere near my friend the savage…who saved me, by the way.”

Dr. K ignored him and continued down the beach.

“Come on Maxie, let’s go,” said the Brainiac.  The two walked back up the pathway to the cottage.

Midnight.

Max the Axe tossed and turned in his tent.  The ground was hard beneath him, and his air mattress had a leak.

“Can’t…can’t sleep,” grunted an annoyed Max.  Next door, the dogs woke up.  Then the howling began.  Dr. K’s dogs, awakened by Max, broke into song. They howled like wolves in the night.  “Well now I really won’t be able to sleep,” complained Max as he got up.  “Better go pee.”

Max stumbled out of his tent, and made his way across the road.  He gazed at the stars as he peed.  He sighed in tired relief as the remnants of his beer spilled into the dirt.

“Kangaroo sausage is kinda gamey,” said Max to nobody as he zipped up his pants.  It was then that he smelled it.

“Smells like weed,” said Max as he sniffed.  He heard something moving in the darkness.  “Here, kitty kitty,” said Max to the shrubbery before him.  The dogs sang their song behind him.  The shape in the shrubs made a noise as it moved beneath his feet.

“Heeeeere kitty!” said Max excitedly as he saw a little black face poke out from the shrubs.  The dogs increased their sing-song howling, as if they were warning of imminent danger.  Maxie stepped further into the bushes.  “Here kitty!  Want a piece of kangaroo sausage?”   The animal backed off immediately, and raised its tail.  A black tail with a prominent white stripe running down.  The animal turned and faced its tail towards Max.

“You’re a funny looking cat,” pondered Max as the dogs hit their crescendo.    Then, a noxious spray hit him right in the face.

“SKUNK!  SKUUUUNK!” screamed Max in horror as he fell on his back.  The skunk scurried away in the night, just as scared as Max was.

Suddenly a pack of dogs tore loose from the front door of Dr. K’s cottage.  They ran towards Max, gripped him by the T-shirt, and pulled with all their might.  With their combined strength, they managed to drag Max out of the stinky bushes.  Then, they ran back to the cottage just as fast as they came.  Dr. K emerged, in a really bad mood.

“Thanks for waking up my dogs, Max,” she said sarcastically.  “Oh dear god, that stink!  Did you get sprayed by a skunk?”  She plugged her nose.

“I thought it a was a bush cat!” answered Max.

Dr. K approached with a spray bottle in hand.  Her nose was plugged.

“Looks like your bush was a patch of poison ivy.  You have a fun day ahead of you tomorrow.  Oh, that stink!”

Plugging her nose, she handed Max the spray bottle.  “Take this.  I have lots of experience with dogs getting sprayed by skunks.  Use this, but use the whole bottle.  And keep it down out here!  It’s midnight!  Some of us are trying to sleep!  I have a big day tomorrow and I don’t need you idiots messing it up!”

“I’m just one idiot,” protested Max as he sprayed himself all over with the chemical in the bottle.  “The other idiots are sleeping.”

“No we’re not,” called out Mike from a window.  “Nobody’s sleeping now!”

“What are ya doing tomorrow?” asked Max.

“I have a video shoot for my new album here, and you all better stay out of my way!”  Dr. K stormed back across the road and slammed the door.

Sunday.

It was a quiet morning.  Dr. K was preparing for her video shoot while her dogs stood by loyally.  Everyone else was laying low.  The Brainiac sipped his coffee on the front porch.  He stared intently at the water, doing his best not to look at or attract the attention of Dr. K.  She was in a bad enough mood already, after the shenanigans of Max the Axe the night before.  As for the Axe Man, he slept loudly in his tent between the two properties.

Harrison poked his head out the window.  “Is it safe for me to come out?” he asked.

“Should be OK for a few minutes,” answered the Brainiac.  “What’s up?”

“I’ll show you,” answered Moustachio.  A moment later and he was on the porch with tablet in hand.

“Scanners are picking up a threat,” informed Moustachio.  “According to this map, it is travelling on land, down highway 26.  Roughly one and a half hours to arrival.”

Mike pulled on the little tuft of facial hair under his lip.  He thought a moment.  “Question one:  How do we know it is a threat?”

Moustachio flipped the screen to another page. He pointed.  “See here.  Audio scans.  There is absolutely no bass in a bubble around this vehicle.  Judging by its trajectory and speed of 105 kilometers per hour, we know it’s a land vehicle like a car or truck.  But it is the bass bubble that set off the alert.  Whatever it is, it absorbs bass.”

Mike thought some more.  “Two of us play bass instruments.  It could be coming for me…or it could be coming for her.”  He paused a moment.  “Question two:  Do we intercept, or wait?”

Moustachio smiled.  “Intercept.  Question three:  Which vehicle do we take?  We have our newly acquired vintage white Citroën 11 Légère Cabriolet, imported here from Europe and suped up by the Durling Foundation, and we have the Stealth Jet hidden away from prying eyes.”  The pair had taken the liberty of re-locating both vehicles nearby for quick deployment.

“The Cabriolet!” said Mike as he clapped his hands together in delight.  “You drive.”

“Roger Roger,” said Harrison.

“I’ll bring my bass, it might come in handy, or it might be useless.  We’ll see.  Allons-y!” commanded Mike.

 

Noon.

“There it is!” shouted Harrison as the wind whipped his hair in the open-topped car.  Mike squinted his eyes and confirmed on the scanner.

“A huge bubble of absolutely no bass coming from that thing.  20 meters wide, maybe more.  Good thing Durling equipped this Cabriolet with a subwoofer and a guitar input.  I’m plugging in.  Stop the car!”

Harrison pulled the vintage classic open-top car over and parked.  Mike grabbed his acoustic bass from the back and plugged into the dash.  He strummed.  A throb of heavy bass chords blasted from the car sound system.  Harrison plugged his ears, gave the thumbs up, and jumped out of the car.  “Here!” he said to the Brainiac.  “Ear protection from this point forward!”  He handed his friend a set of high-tech noise cancelling earplugs.

The vehicle approaching them was now clear.  Silver and sleek, it looked like something from a science fiction movie.  Or outer space… thought Moustachio to himself.  “Contact in 10 seconds!” he shouted.  Mike responded with a thumbs up.  He placed goggles over his eyes.  This could kick up some dust.

“Six seconds!” alerted Moustachio.  Mike prepared to pick.

“Two…one…NOW!”  Mike strummed.

And nothing happened.

The silver car streaked past unhindered.  Mike and Harrison’s ears poppped as the bubble of no-bass passed with the car.  They looked at each other.

“Back in the car!”  They jumped aboard and began pursuing the silver speedster.  Harrison gunned it, and the car leaped back onto the asphalt, in a spill of gravel and dust.  “Allons-y!”

Harrison sweat furiously as he fought to overtake the silver vehicle.  “Don’t let him out of our sights,” ordered Harrison.  Mike fired up the big screen and scanned.  His brow furrowed.  “Harrison…I think we’re in pursuit of a vehicle…that may be in pursuit of another vehicle!  He seems to have caught up to, and is directly behind, a small blue car with a single passenger.  Woah!  Cancel that.  He just ran the blue car off the road!”  A cloud of dust exploded on the road ahead.  “There!  That’s it!  Pull over!”

“If I pull over, I’ll lose the silver car!” warned Moustachio.

“We have to help this guy if we can,” reasoned Mike.  Harrison nodded and pulled over directly behind a blue Honda in a ditch.  The driver was getting out at that moment.

“What was that!?” asked the frantic driver who was clearly in the midst of a panic.  “That guy ran me right off the road!”

“We’ve been following him and we have a few questions!” said Harrison.  “Who are you exactly?”

The man brushed dust off his pants, though the road was still clouded with the stuff.  “My name is Señor Spielbergo, I’m a music video director.  I was on my way to film Dr. Kathryn’s new video for her album, but I’ll never make it now!  Look, four flat tires!”

Harrison and Mike looked down and indeed, the man had four flat tires.  He was not going anywhere.

“We have to leave pronto, we’ll call you a tow truck, sorry but we gotta go!  C’mon Moustachio!”  Mike signalled his friend to get in and continue pursuit.

“But wait!!  Who are you guys?” asked the videographer.

“We’re the Northern Lights!” shouted Harrison as his car skidded away.  “And we have an enemy to pursue!”

Afternoon.

Dr. K was absolutely seething.  Not only was Max the Axe’s tent pitched in the exact spot she planned on filming her video, but her videographer Señor Spielbergo was late.

“I’ll film your video for you,” offered Max.  “I have a super-8 camera in the tent.”

“About that…” growled Dr. K.  “Move the tent, now!  That’s where I’m playing my big solo!  Right where you’re camping!”

“Well you can’t play your big solo without a camera,” reasoned Max.

“MOVE!” she bellowed, and then raised her bass clarinet to her lip.  With a mighty breath, she exhaled and blasted Max five feet backwards.

“Alright, alright, I’ll move, jeez I was just tryin’ to help ya.  I’m kind of a big deal you know.”

Dr. K turned her back and stormed off.  Today was already a total disaster.  If it wasn’t for the skunk stench lingering in the air, thanks to Max the Axe, it was definitely the missing videographer.

“At least that lousy Australian has stayed out of my way,” she mumbled.

It was then that she spotted the boomerang soaring over her head.

“Dr. K!  DUCK!” yelled a deep voice with an Australian accent.

Dr. K hit the dirt and looked up.  Three figures were running in her direction.  The lead figure was one she didn’t recognize — a cyborg of some kind!  Its robotic limbs propelled it at great speed in her direction.  Its grey fleshy face stared as it ran.  Behind it in close pursuit were the Australian named Moustachio, and her brother…or Brainiac II, or whatever he was calling himself.

Harrison caught the boomerang and hurled it again.  This time it struck true and hit the cyborg in the back of the knee.  There it lodged itself, and the half-man half-machine hit the ground with a thud.  But the bass-heavy thud was immediately absorbed back into the circuitry of the cyborg.

No bass!  Dr. K realized what this being was.  An Anti-Bass!  And extremely powerful alien android from the Planet Of No Bass, somewhere in Justice For All system.

“It’s here for me!” she exclaimed.  She raised her bass clarinet and blasted as hard as she could.  The bass dissipated in a wide bubble around the cyborg, but it was still on the ground, struggling with the metallic boomerang lodged into its leg.  Then, it began clawing its way through the dirt, carving a trail in the earth.

Brainiac II, with his acoustic bass strapped to his back, raced to help his sister.  Moustachio grabbed the half-electronic being by its other leg and tried to pull it backwards.

“Maybe if we both played the same note, we could overload that thing!” he suggested.  Dr. K shook her head no emphatically.

“It’s still not enough power!  We’d need three bass instruments minimum, and yours isn’t even amplified!”

“Wait!  Look” pointed the Brainiac towards the cyborg.  It’s not crawling towards you…it’s crawling towards the tent!  It’s not after you…it never was!  And it’s definitely not after me.”

“Who else could it be after?” exclaimed Dr. K.  “I’m the bass clarinettist extraordinaire!  Besides, who else here plays bass?”

“I do!” shouted Max the Axe from his tent.  He was pulling a large Peavy bass amp behind him.  “And I have the amplification, too!  Come on Mike, you knew I played bass!”

“I did know that!” snapped Brainiac.  “Plug me in!  All three of us have to play the same notes, simultaneously, to beat that thing!  It was after Max the Axe all along, I guess?”

“I told you I’m a big deal.  Now hold on, I have to tune up you know.  I’m a professional.”  Max fidgeted with the tuning pegs on a nice shiny blue bass guitar.

“Hurry up Max!” cried Harrison.  I’m losing my grip on this thing!”

At that moment, Max the Axe tuned his bass with exact precision.  He looked the Brainiac in the eye.  The Brainiac nodded in return and raised his bass, now plugged into the Peavy.  Max turned his head and looked at Dr. K, who joined them in a line with her bass clarinet.  She raised it to her lips and nodded.  Then, they played.

The sound of the three bass instruments emanated with power, but were swiftly absorbed by the Anti-Bass bubble.  The cyborg trembled and moaned something in a distorted digital voice.  Harrison managed to pull it back three feet.

“That did something!” shouted the Australian.  “Again!  With feeling!”

The three musicians stood and blasted another note.  This time, the circuitry on the cyborg’s head began to sputter and spark, as it cried in digital pain.

“One more!” commanded Harrison.

Together, they played the same note, as low as they could go, one more time.  This time, the bass did not disappear in a bubble.  With a loud tremor, the bubble imploded.  The cyborg was crushed by the force, and fell to pieces.  Harrison’s metal boomerang fell loose, undamaged.  Harrison stood and collected his weapon.

“We did it!” he announced.  “This cyborg is no more.”

The four high-fived in celebration.

“So, what happened to your cool car?” asked Dr. K of Moustachio and Brainiac.  “You came back here on foot.”

“Three cars got wrecked in this adventure, though we were only responsible for two of them,” answered Harrison vaguely.

“The third vehicle belonged to your videographer, a Señor Spielbergo?  He said he was on his way to film your new video today.  I regret to inform you that he is now riding home in a tow truck,” informed the Brainiac.

“Well there goes my video!” stomped Dr. K in frustration.

“Why?” asked Max the Axe.  “Don’t we have a brand new drone here to film you with?”

Everyone stopped and stared in silence at Max.

“Holy shit!  This man’s a genius!” shouted the Brainiac.

Early evening.

A roaring fire blazed in the background as Dr. K played her bass clarinet solo for the drone overhead.  Jen and Ripper the squirrel clapped on in excitement from the sidelines as they watched.  Mike was fully absorbed in his drone controls, as he swooped overhead.  Then he circled around Dr. K, who rotated in synch with the drone.  As a favour, Max the Axe agreed to play guitar in the background.  He looked cool as his hair was swept by the wind.  The drone came down between the two and panned to the lake ahead.

This was going to be an awesome video.

Midnight.

A temporary peace was at hand.  Around the fire sat Dr. K and nine dogs, Jen and Ripper the squirrel, with Max the Axe, the Brainiac and Moustachio.  It was a tense truce.  Dr. K didn’t want to be seated anywhere near the Australian, or the Brainiac that matter.  Max the Axe had beer, at least.  Deep in thought, she rewound the events of the last 24 hours.  That Anti-Bass cyborg wasn’t here for her.  That was a surprise to her.  She’d been making waves through the galaxy as a mercenary for hire with a dog army, and she wouldn’t be surprised if somebody was looking for revenge.

She broke the silence.  “So…if that cyborg wasn’t after me, why did it take out my videographer and try to ruin my video?” she asked.

Moustachio rose to answer.  “Your videographer was just an unfortunate bystander.  We had assumed the Anti-Bass was tailing him for many miles, but they just happened to be going to the same place.  The cyborg was trying to outrace use, and Speilbergo didn’t get out of his way in time.”

Then Max the Axe suddenly awakened from his near slumber.  “Wait a minute wait a minute.  There are robots after me?  Why?  What did I do?”

The Braniac pondered this question.  “It might not be something you did, but something you have.  Do you have anything else of value in that tent of yours?”

“Yah,” answered Max.  “I have three working tape decks, a Casio keyboard and a whole bunch of Starlog magazines from 1985-1986.”

“Bingo,” snapped Harrison with his fingers.

“Don’t you mean dingo?” asked a confused Max.

“No, Bingo, like you Canadians say.  It’s the Starlog magazines.  I have hunch.  Mike, get me a light.  Max, bring me the magazines.”

With Mike shining a light down, Harrison scanned through them issue by issue, until he reached the one he was looking for.  July, 1986.  Transformers: The Movie special issue.  He opened it. Getting more excited page by page, Harrison knew he was on the right track.  Then, he stopped.  He gasped.

“There.  There!” he pointed to a page.  It was a fold-out.

“Complete schematics of Unicron the Planet Eater?” asked the Brainiac.

“Precisely,” answered Moustachio.  “This is invaluable to us, and anybody trying to stop us.  Get it scanned immediately.  This could be everything.  This could win the war.”

“War? What war?” asked Dr. K as Max stared agape.

Harrison grinned.

“Oh, we have a lot to catch you up on.”

To be continued…

THE ADVENTURES OF TEE BONE MAN:  PHASE ONE – THE SQUIRREL SAGA 

THE ADVENTURES OF TEE BONE MAN:  PHASE TWO – THE MULTIVERSE SAGA

THE ADVENTURES OF THE NORTHERN LIGHTS:  PHASE THREE – THE UNICRON SAGA

 

SPINOFFS AND SIDE QUESTS

 

THE COMPLETE ADVENTURES OF EDIE VAN HEELIN’

THE WRITER’S ROOM

Takeover of Rock Heaven (Part 2) – A Northern Lights Multiverse Story (By 80sMetalMan)

Takeover of Rock Heaven

Part 2: The Execution

A Northern Lights Multiverse Story

By 80sMetalMan

See also:

 

“The superheroes have taken the bait, we move now!” Satan commanded his legions.

Satan didn’t have a large force for his planned attack, he didn’t need it. Thanks to his mole, he would have complete surprise. Standing by the secret door, he proudly watched as Hell’s minions marched up and took their postions. When they were all up, Satan knocked on what appeared to be the wall. Suddenly, a door magically appeared and began to open.

“Follow me!” Satan rushed through the open door with his forces filing in behind him. Once inside, his minions began to fill the large reception room and began rounding up citizens of Rock Heaven who were unfortunate to be there at the time, with magic lassos. Keith Emerson and Greg Lake were two of the unfortunates.

“Quickly, check all passages and rooms,” Satan ordered. “Find Elvis, Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and the Big Bopper. Those last three were the original citizens of this place. Make sure you also get Ronnie James Dio and Lemmy. Oh, just get everyone!”

The minions obeyed, they rushed through the corridors and rooms of Rock Heaven, capturing deceased rock stars with their magic lassos and freeing the disciples of Mr. Suplee from their cells. Elvis was soon captured as was Bon Scott soon after. One of Satan’s lieutenants had to tell his troops to control their lusts at the capture of female rock stars. Maybe Wendy O. Williams kicking a few of them in the nuts might have had something to do with it. Still, the lieutenant promised, “There will be plenty of time for that when we get them to Hell.”

All of the captured rock stars were brought to the main reception room where Satan’s secretary ticked them off on his list. It was when they saw the singer, standing by the devil, they knew they had been betrayed.

“Johnny Cash, how could you do this to us? I thought we were friends,” Elvis tearfully inquired.

“It’s nothing personal,” Johnny reassured his old friend. “Back in 1955, I made a deal with the devil, my soul for stardom.”

“You could have made it on your own, you had the talent,” Elvis pointed out.

“Yeah, but this way was easier.”

Meanwhile, Satan was distracted by another of his lieutenants who reported, “We got most of them sir, we’re just mopping up.”

“That’s not enough!” Satan viciously growled. “There are still some key people missing. I don’t see Buddy Holly, Ronnie James Dio or Lemmy.”

“We’ll get them, sir.”

It took three minions and two lassos to subdue Lemmy. Even then, he fought back every step of the way screaming, “I’m gonna kill you mother fuckers!”

The time it took to capture Lemmy, gave Ronnie James Dio and Buddy Holly time to organize a delay action. Ronnie grabbed a mic stand and when the minions approached, the stand let out a blast which sent two minions flying backwards, hitting a wall and knocking them out cold. He blasted four more before numbers took its toll. Ronnie was soon surrounded and captured.

Ronnie’s actions gave Buddy Holly and those who were still free a chance to make a final stand or escape. Producing three guitars, he handed one to Jeff Beck and another to Jimi Hendrix. “Each note sends a blast to its intended target. We’ll make a stand at this t-junction in the corridor and hold as long as we can.”

They didn’t have to wait long. Satan’s hordes came charging down the corridor towards the three guitarists. Buddy fired first, his blast sent three of them flying backwards. Jimi and Jeff followed suit, their blasts sending more minions flying backwards and clogging the corridor. Jimi even ricocheted a blast off the wall, sending five more into the opposite one.

Still, the enemy kept pouring in.

“Buddy, you need to go, we’ll hold as long as we can,” Jeff Beck stated.

After one more successful blast from his guitar, Buddy got up, “You’re right.” He beckoned up one of the other corridors and led twelve uncaptured rock stars away. They followed Buddy down one corridor and then down a less familiar one. Suddenly, Buddy stopped and struck a note on his guitar. To everyone’s awe, a door magically appeared and then opened.

“We figured something like this might happen so we were prepared,” Buddy explained. “No go!”

He watched as the first ten stepped through the door but he held up the last two. “I’m putting the both of you in charge. The door is a portal which will take you to the Metalman. You must make sure everyone gets to him, He’s the only one who can help us, now go.”

“What about you?” one of them asked.

“If I go, they will know something’s up and they will definitely try to search for me and that will stop any plan to take back Rock Heaven,” Buddy explained.

Frank Zappa and Neil Peart nodded their understanding and stepped through the door. Once they were gone, the door slammed shut and just as magically, disappeared. It was like no door had ever been there. Buddy rushed back to where Jimi and Jeff had made their stand but not surprised to see they had been overrun. It didn’t matter, they had done their job, so, the first minions he saw, Buddy raised his hands and surrendered.

All of the captured citizens of Rock Heaven sat in the large reception room awaiting their fate. Mixed feelings permeated the room, some were pessimistically gloomy while others like Lemmy, who whenever a minion came by, called them a “fucking wanker” remained defiant. To add further insult, Dave Holland walked among the heavy metal contingent taunting them, especially Ronnie James Dio. “You wouldn’t let me in here so now you’re going to pay.” Elvis, on the other hand, wallowed in self pity, not being able to grasp how his good friend, Johnny Cash, could betray him.

“Twelve are still unaccounted for,” Satan’s secretary informed his boss.

Turning to one of his lieutenants,, he inquired, “Have you looked everywhere?”

“Yes, sir, it seems like they just disappeared.” Then pointing at Buddy Holly, the lieutenant pointed out, “Maybe he can help.”

Buddy Holly was brought before the Prince of Evil. “Do you know where the others are hiding? Telling me now might make things easier for you when you get to Hell.”

“Not, hiding, escaped. They went through a portal even you can’t open.”

Satan stomped about angrily and bellowed, “Then it will be worse for you, Holly! I shoved pineapples up Hitler and Saddam’s asses but I’m gonna shove watermelons up yours!” Then turning to his secretary, asked, “Who’s missing?”

“Neil Peart, Christime McVie, Christian Fagg, Warrell Dane, Paul Kantner, Sandy Pearman, Muddy Waters, Glenn Frey, Alec John Such, Keth Moon, Jill Janus and Frank Zappa.”

“Drat! I wanted Zappa,” Satan barked angrily. “I remember his portrayal of me in that song, ‘Titties and Beer,’ I was going to make him hold his pickle for enternity.”

Intermission.

The Metalman looked at his cherished copy of Nazereth’s “Hair of the Dog” album. He was ever so grateful the superheroes were able to get it back for him and put Suplee in Hell where he belonged. When they parted company, the Metalman expressed his hearty thanks and wished the superheroes well in their retirement.

A sudden but familiar noise briefly startled him. Someone from Rock Heaven was paying him a visit. At first, he wondered if it was Cliff Burton as it was he who visted the most, making sure the Metalman got his rock historical facts correct. He watched, wondering who it might be and he wasn’t surprised to see Jill Janus as she had vistied before. However, he was rather surprised to see Christine McVie. More rock stars materialized in his living room, some he knew of, others he didn’t. When the sixth person, a man wearing a baseball cap, who the Metalman recognised as producer, Sandy Pearlman materialized, he wondered just how many were coming. He felt particuarly honoured when Keith Moon materialized and then Neil Peart, remembering he brought Neil to the superheroes’ Christmas party. But it was the twelfth and final person to arrive which made his jaw hit the floor. He never thought he’d get a visit from Frank Zappa.

“Why are you all here? What happened?” the Metalman asked, so nervous that his two questions nearly merged as one.

Appointed spokesperson, Frank Zappa, grimly replied, “Satan has taken over Rock Heaven. The rock stars there have been rounded up and are on their way to Hell, we twelve were the only ones to escape.”

“How did it happen?”

“It was an inside job, Satan had a mole in Rock Heaven, Johnny Cash, whom no one would have suspected. Buddy Holly opened up the portal to take us here. He said you would be able to help us.”

“Can you?” Neil Peart pleaded. “I understand the superheroes have retired.”

“They have retired, although they did come briefly out of retirement to get back my “Hair of the Dog” album which Suplee stole. He must have escaped from Rock Heaven.”

“He did,” Frank explained. “He must have had some help, probably from Cash.”

“What shall we do?” Christine McVie wondered out loud.

“There is a new group of superheroes,” the Metalman explained. “They’re called the Northern Lights and we need to contact them immediately.

To be continued…

THE ADVENTURES OF TEE BONE MAN:  PHASE ONE – THE SQUIRREL SAGA 

THE ADVENTURES OF TEE BONE MAN:  PHASE TWO – THE MULTIVERSE SAGA

THE ADVENTURES OF THE NORTHERN LIGHTS:  PHASE THREE – THE UNICRON SAGA

 

SPINOFFS AND SIDE QUESTS

 

THE COMPLETE ADVENTURES OF EDIE VAN HEELIN’

THE WRITER’S ROOM

The Creatures of the Night: The Adventures of the Northern Lights

THE ADVENTURES OF THE NORTHERN LIGHTS – Phase 3 – The Unicron Saga

Chapter One:  The Creatures of the Night

Starring: 

  • Mike the Brainiac
  • Harrison El Moustachio
  • Mr. Durling
  • The Snowman
  • Max the Axe
  • Ripper the Squirrel

Kincardine, Ontario.  Summer.

Moustachio was hard at work.  He had an important job before him.  Tim Durling, CEO of the Durling Foundation, had tasked him with an almost impossible quest:  finding a copy of Creatures of the Night on 8-track tape.  Harrison remembered the conversation well.

“What’s weird is, I’ve only ever seen one variant of it, the US Mercury retail.  There have to be others,” said Mr. Durling.

“You want me to hunt for a Kiss 8-track tape?  Don’t we have any villains to quash?  Perhaps a dark artefact of evil to prevent from falling into the wrong hands?”

“Nope,” answered Durling.  “It’s been pretty quiet out there.  Even your mad clone Shinzon, who we now know survived the final battle with Tee Bone Man, seems to be lost in the multiverse with no way to get to us.  So, this is my top priority at the moment.  I have the Jexciter and the Night Ranger searching Eastern Canada, to no avail.”

“If I find one,” asked Moustachio, “What should I pay for it?”

“In order to know that, I would have to actually see one for sale, which I have not,” answered Durling.

“Ah, an easy task then,” answered Moustachio.  “I’ll get the Brainiac on it, and we’ll begin our search.  I take it we have your stealth jet at our disposal?”

“It is parked at the Kincardine airport right now.  Off you go!” ordered Durling.

That was the conversation.  The only issue now was waking a snoring Brainiac.  Moustachio could hear him, over the crashing waves, all the way down at the beach.

“Always sleeping, that one,” complained Harrison as he put on some shoes and started walking.  “I wonder if the original Brainiac snored this loud?”

From a window, Jennifer (aka Mrs. Brainiac) answered.  “The original Michael was even worse!” she laughed.  Harrison was stone-faced.  He was not amused by the constant snoring, day or night.  It had to stop or he’d never get any sleep himself.  This new Brainiac, whom he rescued from a universe where he was all alone, was almost identical in every way to the original, killed by the evil Shinzon long ago.  He looked the same.  He talked the same.  He was a perfect copy in almost every quality, but two.  One, he was alive.  Two, apparently he didn’t snore as much.  They informally called him “Brainiac II” but for all intents and purposes, he was the Brainiac.  He fit into our universe as if the original never died.  As if he only went away for a little while.

“Hey Harrison,” said Jen.  “Come back here a minute.”

Dutifully, Harrison returned to the front porch.  “Yes ma’am?” he bowed.  From a tree high above, Ripper the Squirrel descended, and perched upon his shoulder.  “Squee squee?” asked Ripper as he joined his old friend.

“Keep an eye on Mike for me,” she cautioned.  “It was fun for me to fly around in space last year, but I’d rather keep him around this time.  Don’t let anything happen to him,” she instructed.  Ripper nodded in understanding.  He was learning English at a rapid rate, though none of the humans had really mastered squirellese yet.

Harrison saluted in return.  Then, Ripper also saluted upon his shoulder.  “Fear not, this is an easy mission.  A fun mission.  No harm will come to the Brainiac this time, I promise.  Meanwhile, I’ll leave Ripper here to mind the camp with you.”  Ripper squee’d in delight, for he knew that Jen stuffed him full of peanuts if he was good.  Moustachio turned and left the pair to conspire.  He made his way down to the beach.  It was a beautiful day, with a light breeze and small waves crashing against the stones.

“Mike!” shouted Moustachio as he approached the beach.  “Time to wake up!  We have a mission.”  He saw a still lump of a human being on the bench ahead, unmoving except the heaving of his body as he snored.  Moustachio covered his ears and hovered over the Brainiac.  He was unshaven and sunburned.

“Mike!” shouted Harrison from two feet away.  The Brainiac did not stir.  Moustachio poked his exposed belly with a stick, and suddenly he started awake!

“WOAH!” shouted Brainiac in sudden shock.  “Oh…Harrison!  What’s up matey?”  He attempted to do an Australian accent.  “Here to put another shrimp on the barbie?”

“I told you to stop talking like that,” complained Harrison.  “Now come back up to the camp.  We have a mission.  From Mr. Durling.  You’ll like this one.”

“And I told you, stop calling it camp!  Our headquarters is a cottage, not a camp.  We are not Northern Ontario savages.  We have our own dialect!”

“Noted,” responded Moustachio.  “Now get your Crocs on and get back to the cottage.  My understanding is the stealth jet is fueled and waiting for us at the airport.”

“Aye-aye, captain!” saluted the Brainiac as he leaped to his feet.  “What’s the mission?”

With a sly wink, Moustachio told him.  “You and I are going to hunt for an 8-track copy of Creatures of the Night.”

The Brainiac’s jaw dropped.  “No way…that thing is pure legend.  I’ve never seen a copy, only pictures.  But I have a pretty good idea where to start.”

“Where’s that?” asked the Moustache Man inquisitively.

Mike winked.  “To the jet!  We have to head back to Kitchener, and Max the Axe’s garage sale.  Allons-y!”

The black jet cut silently through the clouds.  Stealthy as a bat at night, the jet attracted no eyes as Moustachio and the Brainiac soared.  The sky was a bright, vivid blue, dotted by puffs of white clouds and a gleaming yellow sun.  In the pilot’s seat was the Brainiac, while Moustachio sat behind, monitoring the radar and communications.

“How about a little music?” asked the Brainiac of his friend.

“‘Flight of Icarus’ seems appropriate, without the crashing of course!” answered the moustached Australian.

“Cheerio!” exclaimed the Brainiac.  The opening chords crunched in the earphones.

“Flyyyy…on your way!  Like an eagle…fly as high, as the sun!” sang Mike as he pulled back on the controls, causing the jet to climb sunward.  He did a fancy maneuver, testing the responses of this new stealth jet.

“Wait a minute…” gasped Moustachio.  “Mike, we are not alone here!  I have four bogies on an intercept vector!”

“Time to dive!” replied Mike, as the jet lurched groundward.  “What do you see?”

“They’re small…four tiny blips on our radar.  Too small to be manned.  Must be UAV’s, unmanned aerial vehicles!  They’re diving too!”

Mike pondered this information as he attempted evasive moves.  The jet suddenly shot off to the west, towards the coast of Lake Huron.  “I got this…besides, I know a few maneuvers, we’ll lose ’em,” he said calmly.

“We’re not losing them!” answered Moustachio.

“What the?!” exclaimed Mike as one of them fired a shot!

“This tape must be hotter than I thought,” he Mike with concern.  “Try to hold them off, angle the deflector shield while I make the calculations to hit the afterburners!”

“Shields up, captain!” answered Harrison in the back.  “Get us out of here!”

Mike hit the afterburners, and suddenly the jet leaped skyward.  He and Harrison were pressed back into their seats as the jet continued to climb.   “Flying is for droids…” mumbled Mike.

Harrison fought the G-forces as he struggled to see the radar screen.  When his vision returned, the radar screen bore good news. “That did it!  We are clear!  Kill the afterburners!”  Mike hit the the controls, and the jet began to level out.

“Whew…that was close!” said Mike as he wiped the sweat from his brow.  “But who could be after us?  Who is trying to stop us for getting that tape?  And why?”

Harrison thought a minute, but did have one suspicion that he wasn’t yet ready to share.  “I have a feeling we will find out,” he said.  “But we must be on the right track if they are trying to stop us.”  Mike grimly agreed with his Australian co-pilot.

“Then let’s continue with our mission, with our guard up.  Once we land, I suggest we do not leave this jet unarmed,” he warned.  The two were uncharacteristically quiet the rest of the trip.

“Woah!” blurted out a bleary-eyed Max the Axe.  “A jet!”

Indeed, the black stealth jet was making a vertical landing right in front of Max the Axe’s garage sale.  A big sign saying “Trillion Dollar Treats” hung overhead.  Max shielded his eyes from the blast as the jet softly landed.  He watched as two figures exited the cockpit.

“Mike!  Harrison!  Good to see you guys!  What are ya lookin’ for?  I just got in a brand new Sony CD player that can hold 100 CDs at a time.”

“No thanks Maxie,” answered Mike, shaking his hand.  “We’re after something else.  We’re on a quest.”

Max shook Harrison’s hand.  “Where are you off to?” he asked.

“We don’t know where we’re going, we just know where we’ve been,” answered Harrison cryptically.

“Searching in the darkness, running from the day?” asked Max.

“Exactly,” answered Harrison, pointing at Mike.  “This one seemed to be averse to daylight, he’s always napping!”  The three laughed.

“What we are hunting for,” said Mike, deflecting the jokes, “is a very rare copy of Creatures of the Night on 8 track tape.  The Kiss album.”

“I had one here last week,” answered Max nonchalantly.  He started to dig through his piles of tapes.  “It must be around here somewhere.”  He dug more frantically, tossing audio equipment here and there, trying to get to the bottom of a pile.

“Well, Max?” asked Harrison.  Max ignored him and mumbled something about how he knew exactly where it was.

Mike leaned over to whisper to Harrison.  “I have a feeling this is a dead end after all.”  Harrison nodded in sullen agreement.

Finally, Max emerged from a pile of broken speakers, empty handed.

“It’s been stolen!” said Max.  “I know exactly where I put it, and it’s gone.  I’ve been robbed!”

Mike and Harrison looked at each other knowingly.  The thief had to be the same person who sent those UAV’s after them.  It could not be a coincidence.

“Max, you won’t believe this, but…” said Mike before he was cut off by the sound of a large blast.

“Take cover!” cried Moustachio as he wielded his boomerang.  “We’re under attack!  Again!”

From around the corner came four…snowmen?  Each one carried a blaster and they were approaching very slowly.  After all, Snowmen don’t have legs.

“Oh, man…” said Mike, ducking with his head in his hands.  He brandished a new, red lightsaber T-guard and ignited it.  It crackled with wild, uncontrolled energy.  “There’s only one man dumb enough to send a snowman army after us in the middle of summer.”

Harrison nodded.  “I think I know who.  Come on, this shouldn’t be too hard.”

As they approached closer, Moustachio and the Brainiac could see there were actually three snowmen, and one snowwoman.

“She’s a killer!  A stone-cold killer!” exclaimed one snowman, as the snowwoman aimed her blaster at Moustachio.  He threw his boomerang, deflecting the shot.  It returned to his waiting hand, and he launched it again.  This time it claimed one of the snowpeople’s heads.

“Danger! Danger!” cried the snowwoman, as Mike bisected it.

“Of all the tapes we needed, we had to seek the one that set the Snowman off!” shouted Mike.

“Well too late…we can’t stop this thing we started,” answered Harrison.

“Just don’t get reckless!” instructed Mike.  He leaped into the air, did a somersault, and landed right between the last two snowmen.  They took aim at him.  Leaping once again, Mike was out of the way when the two snowmen took each other out with their own shots.

With the sound of a flash, Mike turned off his lightsaber.  Harrison holstered his boomerang.  Max had somehow fallen on the ground after all the excitement.  The pair went over to pick him up.

“Easy Max,” said Moustachio.  “You’ve had a busy day.”

“That was crazy,” answered Max as he lurched to his feet.  “I’ve never heard of living snowmen before,” he said as he wiped dirt from his jeans.

“We have,” said Harrison.  “And I know where we must go next.  But we will need help.”

“Here…take this,” said Max, handing him a large box.  “This has been in storage since 1984.  You’ll have to break the latch off the box to open it.  But don’t open it until it’s time.”

“What’s in it and how will we know when it’s time?” asked Mike.

“Trust me,” answered Max.  “I’m kind of a big deal.  Did you guys need some smoke detectors?  I have six over here, still sealed in package.  A great deal.  I’ll give you all six for $20.”

“No thanks Maxie,” answered Brainiac.  “But keep your radio on, just in case we need you.  We know who stole your tape, and we’re going to steal it back.  Mr. Durling needs it, and he will assure that you are adequately compensated.”

“Ask that Durling guy if he needs any Marillion,” answered Max.

“He doesn’t!” replied Mike and Harrison in unison.

The stealth jet was now in American airspace, heading for its ultimate destination:  North Carolina.  The Snowman’s compound.  The Snowman was an eccentric collector, and member of the Northern Lights, whose Kiss collection boasted a copy of the Super Duper Vault, so large he had to build another house to store it.  He was known for his rather useless army of snowmen.  And now, our two heroes were on their way to a confrontation that neither of them wanted to have.

“I don’t understand something,” said Harrison from the back seat.  “The Snowman is one of us, he is a chartered member of the Northern Lights.  Why would he be working against us?”

“The answer, my dear Australian friend, is simple,” answered Mike in the pilot’s seat.  “With Kiss collectors it’s every man and snowman for himself!  Creatures of the Night is a holy grail tape, so rare that even Mr. Durling has never seen a copy in the flesh.  Snowman is one of the world’s foremost Kiss collectors.  It’s almost expected that he would crank up his war machine to steal that tape from Max.  He will stop at nothing to have a complete collection.”

“Makes sense I suppose, but the idea of going to war against our friend makes me mildly uncomfortable,” said Moustachio.

“I agree with you there,” lamented Mike.  “I think we can do this without anyone getting hurt.  We just need to steal that tape back.  It rightfully belongs to Max the Axe, and Mr. Durling will pay Max whatever it costs to get the tape, but one thing for sure is that it doesn’t belong to Snowman.  He stole it, plain and simple.  He can’t keep it, and we’re going to make sure of that.”  Some sweat broke on his brow, and he felt tense in his stomach.  “I just hope it doesn’t come to violence.”

Moustachio glanced at his radar and saw that they were close.  No enemy bogies were approaching.  “All clear on the radar,” he said.

Mike had a chill up his spine as he circled a clearing near the Snowman’s two houses, perfect for a landing.  What was that chill?  The air on his arms was standing up.

“Harrison…I feel cold…did something bad happen in this place?” asked Mike with foreboding.

Moustachio had kept this information to himself, but it was finally time to tell the Brainiac what happened.

“Yes.  I had hoped you would not have to know this, but according to Tee Bone Man and Superdekes, this is where you died.  Rather, where Brainiac I died, in our universe.  And he was killed by my own clone, Shinzon.  But I assure you, nothing like that will happen this time,” comforted Moustachio.

“So this is where your Brainiac was killed,” said Mike with grim darkness in his voice.  “I don’t want to know any more.”

“Let’s put it behind us then,” said Moustachio.  “I see a good place to land, right there by that stand of trees ahead.  It’s far enough from the houses that we won’t seem like an immediate threat.  Maybe we can talk our way out of this.”

“I thought you said you could talk our way out of this!” complained Mike the Brainiac as he dodged laser fire behind a rock.  “You call this a diplomatic solution?”

“No!” shouted Harrison from behind another rock.  “I call this aggressive negotiations!”  He hurled his boomerang, and it struck true, decapitating an advancing snowman.

When the two had landed, they approached the two houses slowly with open hands.  Harrison stashed his boomerang in his belt with no intention of using it, but then dozens of snowmen forced him to change his mind!  They were now in the thick of it.

“How come I always end up hiding behind a rock?” muttered Harrison.

“At least you have me for company.  Now what?!” asked Brainiac in frustration.  “Hang on!  My phone is ringing!”  Mike stopped to answer his phone.  Unsurprisingly, it was the Snowman on the line.

“You guys better get out of here now!” warned the Snowman.  “I know what you’re here for, and it’s mine!”

“Snowman, it’s Mike…you remember me don’t you?  That tape doesn’t belong to you.  We know you stole it from Max the Axe and we’re here to get it back.”

“Of course I know you Mike…I cradled you in my arms as I watched you die!  And I don’t care where you came from or how you got here but that tape is mine!  I must have the precious.”  Snowman hung up.

“So much for negotiations, aggressive or otherwise!” shouted Mike to Harrison.  “We’re going to have to take it by force.”

“With only my boomerang, against all these snowmen?” asked the Australian as he hurled the projectile again.

“Wait…I have an idea!” exclaimed the Brainiac.  I just need to hack into the Snowman’s sound system with my phone!  Buy me time, Moustachio!”

“I’ll do my best,” answered the Australian, with doubt in his voice.  Brainiac was frantically working on his phone, trying to figure out the Snowman’s password.  Harrison stood upon the rock, and threw his boomerang again, taking out three snowmen with a single shot.  It returned to his hand true as ever, but the snowman army kept advancing.

“Please hurry!” he pleaded.  “I can’t hold them off forever!  He must have a whole snowman factory in there!”

“I’m trying!  I cannot crack this password,” said a panicked Brainiac.

“Maybe you’re overthinking it!” advised Moustachio.  “Try something really stupid!”

With that, the Brainiac tried one of the dumbest passwords he could think of:  PASSWORD1.

“I’m in!  Harrison you’re a genius!” cried Brainiac in glee.  He then quickly changed the password, locking out the Snowman.  “Alright…here we go…wish me luck.  Cranking the volume to 10 and hitting play…”

At that, music suddenly poured across the field.  The chyme of beautiful strings and piano filled the entire area.  All the snowmen stopped, as if hypnotized by the music.  And then, the singing began.

“Beth I hear you calling, but I can’t come home right now,” came the voice from the massive sound system.  “Me and the boys are playin’, and we just can’t find the sound…”

Laughing, Harrison jumped off the rock in hysterics.  “Oh, now that’s both hilarious and genius,” he said to the Brainiac.  “Call Snowman back…tell him we have the high ground now.”

Mike dialed, but the Snowman wasn’t answering.  The song looped back to the start.  The snowmen were motionless.  “Beth I hear you calling…” repeated the song.  Taking a deep breath, Mike stood and watched.

“It’s a waiting game now.  How long can he endure ‘Beth’ at that volume?” said Mike to Harrison.

“I give him an hour,” said Moustachio.  “Two hours tops.”

It was far shorter than that.  Within 15 minutes, Snowman emerged from one of his houses, waving a white flag and carrying an 8-track tape in his hands.

“I surrender!  I surrender!  Please turn off that awful ballad!  I can’t take anymore!”  He was trying to cover his ears while waving the flag and holding the tape.  If the situation wasn’t so serious, it would be quite comical.

“Hand over the tape Snowman, and Mike will stop playing ‘Beth’!” ordered Harrison, with boomerang in hand.

“Take it, take it, take it, I don’t even care anymore!” cried the Snowman.  “I never want to hear that terrible song again!”  He handed the tape over to Harrison, and Mike used his phone to stop the music.  It was over.

The three sat at a picnic table, drinking sweet tea.  The conflict had ended, and peace had fallen over the clearing.  The snowmen had long since melted in the heat, creating muddy pools of water in the field.  Snowman was deeply sorry for attacking his two friends.

“This is so strange,” said Snowman to the Brainiac.  “The last time you and I sat at this table was the day you died,” he explained.  “But I guess you’re back now?”

“Not exactly,” said Harrison.  “I was lost in the multiverse.  I found a version of Mike who was identical in every way to ours, but he was alone.  I brought him back with me.  We call him Brainiac II to keep things simple.”

“And to quote Gene Simmons, I fit like a glove!” laughed the Brainiac.

“I’m glad we can laugh at this now that it’s over,” said a relieved Snowman.  “Did you ever find Edie Van Heelin’s killer?” he asked.

“Who?” asked a perplexed Brainiac in return.

“Never mind,” said the Snowman.  “All’s well that ends well.”

“That it is,” said Harrison.  “But I think it’s time to open this.”  He placed the wooden box that Max the Axe had given them earlier on tabletop.  “Max said we’d know when it was time to open this, so I think now is the time.”  He used his boomerang to break the latch, and then pushed it across the table to Snowman.  “This is your compensation for the Creatures of the Night tape.”

Snowman gasped.  “What’s in it?”

“We don’t know,” answered the Brainiac.  “Open it and see!”

And so the Snowman did.  Lifting the top of the box, his eyes glowed when he saw what was inside.

“Why…this box is filled with sealed copies of Kiss Animalize on 8-track!” he exclaimed.  “I…can’t thank you enough!  Here, take this one and give it to Mr. Durling.”  He handed over one tape to the Brainiac.  “I am so happy!  And I’m also glad I didn’t kill you.  It would suck to see you die twice.”

The Brainiac laughed and shook the Snowman’s hand.  “I’m glad too.  Now we have to be off.  We have an appointment with Mr. Durling, and he won’t believe it when we bring him both Creatures and Animalize on 8-track.  Thank you for your cooperation, Snowman.”

The three shook hands.  Mike and Harrison began walking towards the jet.

“Wait!!” cried the Snowman.  “Can you unlock my stereo system before you go?”

Mike reached for his phone and laughed.  “There you go – password reset.  But man, you gotta think of better passwords in the future!”

With that, the two climbed on board and soared back to Canada.  The first mission of the new Northern Lights now complete, the boys blasted a CD of Creatures of the Night in the jet as they made their way home.  All was well in the land.

Until next mission, that is!

THE ADVENTURES OF TEE BONE MAN:  PHASE ONE – THE SQUIRREL SAGA 

THE ADVENTURES OF TEE BONE MAN:  PHASE TWO – THE MULTIVERSE SAGA

THE ADVENTURES OF THE NORTHERN LIGHTS:  PHASE THREE – THE UNICRON SAGA

  • Chapter One:  Creatures of the Night (by LeBrain)

 

SPINOFFS AND SIDE QUESTS

 

THE COMPLETE ADVENTURES OF EDIE VAN HEELIN’

THE WRITER’S ROOM

Mr Moustachio’s Multitude of Marvellous Multiversal Misadventures: Tales From The Multiverse Chapter 4: Homeward Bound by Harrison Kopp

by Harrison Kopp

Mr Moustachio’s Multitude of Marvellous Multiversal Misadventures
Tales From The Multiverse

 

Homeward Bound

Brainiac II looked out the window. It had been cloudy earlier, but it had cleared up since. The sun shone low on the horizon, painting a hazy shade of winter across the sky as the final bits of cloud dispersed.

Blast it. He thought to himself. If I don’t hurry up I’m going to miss the sunset.

Ever since the Calamity, nothing has been the same.  Especially sunsets.

“Jen…” he whispered solemnly.  She would have loved these sunsets.

No-one ever found out where the sickness originated.  There were theories, conspiracy and otherwise.  In the beginning, it felt like the flu.  Within weeks, it was on every continent except Antarctica.  There was a race for a vaccine, but as the months wore on, it never materialized as promised.  The death toll rose until, eventually, half the population was decimated.  Then, the virus burned out as quickly as it came.  There hasn’t been a confirmed case in a year.

Sometimes the Brainiac wondered why he lived when everyone else he knew didn’t.  Something in his genes, or just dumb luck.  Or bad luck, he thought.  Sometimes he dreamed that Jen was still here, but just…away.  Away in space, in orbit, or on the moon.  Just out of communication.  He both loved, and hated those dreams.

Back to reality.

He put the last few jars away in the cupboard, making sure everything was in order.

Parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme. All as it should be.

He was finally done in the kitchen. The 7 o’clock news was coming over the radio, something or other about the current boxing champion. But Brainiac II didn’t really care at the moment. It was all just voices of old people to him.

He stepped outside into the winter evening. The sunset was beautiful this night. One of the best he had ever seen. It would have looked amazing from above.

He sat on the bench, gazing out over the lake as the sun dipped over the horizon. It was so serene. A squirrel sat in the ground next to him, eating a nut. A sparrow flew overhead, finding a tree to rest for the night.

With the sun fully below the horizon now, Brainiac II decided it was time to go inside, and turned back into the night. And that’s when he noticed something odd. He couldn’t hear anything but the sound of silence.

A too silent night, now that you think about it.

The cool night air touched his skin as he peered out into the forest. The darkness concealed much, but he knew these woods well. It was unlikely someone would have been able to find him here.

But Brainiac II couldn’t shake the feeling that something was off. He listened out, more closely this time. Now, very faintly, he could just make out what sounded like a car’s engine.

That’s odd. he thought to himself. Mrs Robinson’s the only one who still lives nearby, but she doesn’t have a car.

The sound came a little closer, and then stopped. Brainiac II crouched down, peering out into the gloom. And he didn’t have to wait long to find out who it was.

Out of the brush stepped a most peculiar man. A long-haired man with a moustache. Brainiac II froze cold. He recognised this man. He was older here, but this was the man from his dream. The man who killed him.

The man who, right now, also saw Brainiac II.

“Hey, are you alright?” he called out to the Canadian in the bushes.

“If you think false sincerity is going to get you the jump on me, you are sorely mistaken,” Brainiac II said, standing up straight.

“Brainiac…?” Moustachio said. “Boy you’re a sight for sore eyes. I’m so relieved to see you.”

“Oh I’ll bet you are. Are you here to finish the job? One half of us wasn’t enough for you?” the Canadian sneered.

“Hey, my name’s Harrison Holden, and you’re my friend the Brainiac,” Moustachio said, trying to remind Brainiac II of a connection the Australian had with the original Brainiac.

“Lies! Deceit! I saw what you did. You may have aged, but I recognise you, plain as day.”

“I don’t know what you think you saw, but I’ve been gone for almost a year. And I would never hurt you,” the Australian man said, holding a hand out for the Canadian.

Maybe it was the soft-spoken nature of the Australian, or the way in which he seemed to genuinely believe the words he was saying. Or maybe it was just Brainiac II wanting to believe the words were true. The Canadian cautiously clasped the Australian’s hand in a handshake.

“So tell me, why did you think I was going to attack you?” Moustachio quizzed him.

“Well, last night I had the strangest dream. And I’m not entirely sure that it was just a dream. I saw a man…he looked just like you, except for the moustache. And he was a little younger too. He killed me. I think he knew me before that, too.”

“Well, I wouldn’t say ‘killed’ just yet,” rang out a voice from the darkness. “But it is on my to-do list for the day.”

The two men instantly snapped into action, back-to-back and scouring the darkness with their eyes. Neither could pinpoint the source of the voice yet.

“And what a treat to finally get the chance to end my ‘father’s’ life too,” the voice continued, seemingly coming from all around.

Moustachio pulled his new space-metal boomerang from his holster.

“Don’t count on it.”

“Oh, I love it when they try to fight back,” gloated Shinzon, the evil clone of El Moustachio, as he sauntered out from the darkness. He ignited an emerald green lightsaber, and dropped into a fighting stance. Moustachio positioned himself between Shinzon and Brainiac II.

The two opponents circled one another, occasionally feinting or lunging in an attempt to draw the other into committing to an attack.

Eventually Moustachio thought he saw an opening, and threw his boomerang.  Shinzon just reacted in time, raising his lightsaber to knock the thrown metal blade into the ground beside him.

Shinzon charged at the now-defenceless Moustachio, but the Australian had expected this. Moustachio had run forward too, meeting Shinzon before the latter man had fully readied his blade for an attack. Taking advantage of the momentum, Moustachio slid forward, knocking Shinzon’s legs out from under him.

Shinzon got to his feet, now in a slight panic, and looked around for his opponent. But instead he spotted Brainiac II right nearby him. A cruel smile crossed his lips.

“This was the very lightsaber the original Brainiac tried to kill me with. How poetic, it will be the weapon to kill you. It almost rhymes.”

And he swung his lightsaber down at Brainiac II.

Moustachio had blocked the slash with his boomerang, holding back the might of his dark reflection. Sparks flew from where the two weapons met, but Moustachio held firm. The forgemaster was right – his weapon would not fail him.

Mustering all his strength, he pushed back, and Shinzon was sent staggering backward. Moustachio cast a quick glance to Brainiac II to make sure he was alright, in which time Shinzon had recovered and brought his blade back up to guard.

“Hahaha!” the clone cackled. “Is that really all you’ve got?”

But before either of the two men could continue the fight, the ground in front of them shattered with an ear-splitting crack. The two faced each other, both somewhat unsure how to proceed.

Then a deep voice bellowed out from seemingly nowhere.

“YOU CANNOT HIDE ANYMORE! YOUR DOOM IS AT HAND, WORM!”

Shinzon frantically looked around the night sky, terrified. Moustachio spied this and pressed the man for information.

“What is this? I know you know!”

Shinzon turned to him, the colour drained from his face and not even caring that they were fighting just seconds ago.

“Unicron. He’s found me.”

A chill ran down Moustachio and Brainiac II’s spines. They both recognised that name, and they both knew the incredible destructive potential. And then they saw it. Right there in the night sky, taking up almost their entire view.

A large chunk of the Earth broke away from the crust and flew upwards towards the giant mouth in the sky. A small town could be seen on the rock. It had to be home to ten thousand people, maybe more. All gone now.

Brainiac II was in shock, still trying to comprehend the reality that Unicron was real. Moustachio turned back to face Shinzon. Despite the fact that the man across the chasm had just tried to kill them, Moustachio still thought he deserved better than to be devoured by the god of chaos.

“What about you? Can you even escape this planet?””

“Don’t worry about me. I think I know somewhere they can’t find me,” Shinzon yelled over the abyss before disappearing into the darkness. Moustachio turned to Brainiac II.

“Come on, we have to be quick. My car’s not far from here”, he said, breaking into a run.

“Your car?” Brainiac II asked, more than a little quizzically.

“It’s no ordinary car,” Moustachio replied.

With Moustachio guiding them both as he retraced his steps, they found the car before it could be swallowed up by the crumbling earth below. They both jumped in, not even bothering with seat belts, and Moustachio floored it.

The ground began to crack under them, racing along with the car. Fissures of lava spurted out of brand new “potholes” in the ground. Moustachio weaved around them, all the while continuing to increase his speed.

An orange explosion engulfed the car. Moustachio closed his eyes, daring not to look. After a few seconds of engine noise, he slowly opened them.

“Whew.”

Everything was quiet. Around the car was a serene Canadian countryside. No lava, no fire, no giant demonic planet in the sky. To his left Brainiac II was breathing heavily, trying to comprehend what he had just witnessed.

“What is this? A time machine?” the older man finally asked.

“No, even better,” Moustachio replied. “A vehicle for traversing the multiverse.”

“The multiverse?” Brainiac II queried, hardly believing his ears.

“Yep, the times, they are a-changing. But for now they’re going to be a bit more familiar. I think this is it this time. I think I’ve finally made it home.”

“Home…” Brainiac II echoed.

“Yours too now, I think. We used to be old friends. I hope one day I can call you that again”, Moustachio said. “We’ll head to the cottage tomorrow, but for now, let’s find a place to stay for the rest of the night.”

EPILOGUE:  Two months later…

Though Moustachio ached for Australia, he hadn’t minded being away from home in Canada.  It was summer in Canada, while back home it was winter, and Canadian summers were not so bad.

He recalled the night they arrived here, at the Brainiac’s cottage.  It was dusk, but the wooden structure in the trees was exactly how he imagined it.

There was a car in the driveway.  There was a light on inside.  Moustachio and Brainiac II exited the Interceptor and slammed the doors.  This caused a great commotion inside, since company was not expected.  You can imagine the waterworks on the faces of Jen, and Mike’s family, when they saw the living and breathing Brainiac II before them.  They lost their Brainiac a year prior, killed by Shinzon…and their Mike was an identical person to Brainiac II, who had lost his own family.  Everyone was there, even Ripper the Squirrel.  He leapt upon Moustachio’s shoulders and kissed his face, unable to believe that his Australian friend had returned after so long.

After the emotional and teary reunion, Moustachio knew they had to get back to business.  A phone call to Tee Bone Man, whom they discovered had retired after seemingly defeating Shinzon and losing his powers, revealed that there was now a new team of superheroes:  the Northern Lights!  And with the help of their sponsor and de facto leader, Mr. Durling, Moustachio and Brainiac II established a new headquarters.  You couldn’t have asked for a better one than the cottage in the woods.

“I could get used to this,” said Moustachio, surveying all the new equipment they had at hand, feet up in the most serene of surroundings.

“It’s no so bad, huh?” agreed Brainiac II.  “I think I’m finally happy.”

“That’s good to hear,” responded Moustachio.  “Would you mind switching on that screen?  I want to scan for threats, now that Mr. Durling has provided all this new top-secret tech.”

“You got it,” smiled the Brainiac.  “But Unicron aside, you haven’t told me much about what we are up against.”

“Oh, you wait and see!” grinned the Australian.  “We have adventures ahead that will rock your socks off.  Get ready, Brainiac – we’re just getting started!”

TO BE CONTINUED NEXT MONTH in THE ADVENTURES OF THE NORTHERN LIGHTS Chapter One! 

THE ADVENTURES OF TEE BONE MAN:  PHASE ONE – THE SQUIRREL SAGA 

THE ADVENTURES OF TEE BONE MAN:  PHASE TWO – THE MULTIVERSE SAGA

THE ADVENTURES OF THE NORTHERN LIGHTS:  PHASE THREE – THE UNICRON SAGA

  • Chapter One:  Creatures of the Night (by LeBrain)

 

SPINOFFS AND SIDE QUESTS

 

THE COMPLETE ADVENTURES OF EDIE VAN HEELIN’

THE WRITER’S ROOM

Mr Moustachio’s Multitude of Marvellous Multiversal Misadventures: Tales From The Multiverse Chapter 3 by Harrison Kopp

by Harrison Kopp

Mr Moustachio’s Multitude of Marvellous Multiversal Misadventures
Tales From The Multivers Chapter 3

 

Part 1 – Man Of A Thousand Blades

Sunset Town

The 21st century

An hour before it’s dark

 

Sweat was pouring off El Moustachio’s brow. The heat of the furnace was intense. The temperature needed to melt this metal of interstellar origin was unimaginable. The master of the forge, an aging individual with a black beard and more lines on his face than most had years lived, watched over the proceedings.

“If you forge it properly, it will be harder and sharper than any other metal you will find. But fail in your technique and it will fail you when you will need it most.”

Moustachio was concentrating intently. The skill required was beyond anything he had trained for in the past. And that included the mandatory boomerang training he had taken in school back when he was a kid.

Finishing his efforts, he set the blade to cool. That afternoon, the pair returned, and the forgemaster inspected the Australian’s handiwork.

Moustachio had crafted a new boomerang. It was still moustache-shaped, but this time it was a little different. His previous boomerang had had the grips on each end and the blade in the middle, but this one reversed it. He could still throw it with ease, but now, with the blades on the ends, he could also wield it in close quarters as one would a double-bladed knife. Easily the superior weapon of the two.

The forgemaster turned it over in his hand, running his eye along the cutting edge.

“Never have I seen so flawless a blade in all my years teaching,” the master said.

“Thank you,” said Moustachio.

“And never before have I seen so many attempts.” The older man continued, gesturing to the many discarded semi-completed blades (Moustachio had been here only 80 days, but had spent most of them in the forge).  “You have learned well with each try, and your determination and drive for perfection is beyond that of any of my previous students. This blade will not fail you.”

And so the time came for Moustachio to move on in his travels through the multiverse. He bid his master farewell and gunned the engine of the V8 interceptor, roaring off into the great unknown with his new weapon.

 

 

Part 2- Tennessee Bones & The Temple Of Doom Metal

 

South America

1995

 

Tennessee Bones strode purposefully through the South American jungles, occasionally pausing to hack at some vines blocking his path. Behind him walked El Moustachio, enjoying the clear path the former man had created. The two men were here trying to locate a hidden temple dedicated to Doom Metal.

It was rumoured to contain many artefacts of the musical genre, some of which had essentially become ‘extinct’ in the music collector’s scene in the rest of the world. But so too had the temple and its treasures been lost. The two men were following a tattered map. While they both had their doubts as to its veracity, they were both willing to give it a try.

Abruptly, Tennessee came to a standstill. Under the brim of his fedora hat his eyes studied the dense vegetation in front of him. Then, without a word, he stalked forward and made three direct cuts to a specific part of foliage.

The plants melted away to reveal a hole in a rocky wall. From inside the faint sound of wind could be heard.

“Looks like it’s through here,” he called back to his Australian companion.

The two men carefully ventured forth. There was no telling what traps had been laid to protect the precious musical artefacts inside.

 

 

After a short time, with more than a few close calls, they happened across a large circular chamber, with pedestals lining the outer wall. A mass of candles lit the room, and atop each pedestal sat a vinyl record or compact disc (as well as a few other, more obscure, music formats). The two men knew they were in business.

Tennessee could hardly contain himself, bounding forward with such enthusiasm that if there had been any traps in the room he would have gleefully sprung them without the chance to react.

“The superintendent will be thrilled with these finds. The museum will be having a new exhibit alright. We might even need to build a new wing to house it all. I won’t be able to bring this all back with me in one trip.”

The Canadian ran from pedestal to pedestal, gawking at sights once thought completely lost to mankind.

Moustachio homed in on one in particular:  Black Sabbath’s 1970 debut album. There was an entire shrine dedicated to it at the back of the room, with copies of the album on every possible format. Even 8-track! Moustachio wasn’t even sure if it came on 8-Track back in his home universe.

The plaque below the display described the album as the forebearer of the genre.

It seems some things do remain consistent across the universes, Moustachio thought to himself.

Tennessee had no use for it. It was, after all, widely available, unlike some of the other rare finds in the room. Moustachio happily helped himself to the cassette edition of the album. Why that one in particular, I hear you ask?

Well part of the process of transferring universes using the V8 Interceptor required the driver to be listening to pure rock music. Where before he would have to tune into the radio and get lucky, now he could play it on demand.

(Is Black Sabbath strictly rock music? Well, heavy metal founders this, riffmaster that yadda yadda. They still count as rock music in my book. I’m pretty sure they described themselves as hard rock music back in the day. Motorhead would always introduce themselves as rock and roll too. And besides, these are just labels record companies give bands to market them to people who liked similar bands. Iron Maiden aren’t heavy metal, or hard rock or progressive metal- their Iron Maiden! Listen to whatever you want to, and don’t let anyone tell you you can’t enjoy Ghost because “they’re not heavy metal”).

Anyway, sorry about that. Back to the story. The two men parted ways, happy to have spent the time together in company, but both with their own paths to tread. Tennessee Bones still had numerous treasures to uncover, and Moustachio once again set out into the infinite multiverse searching for a way home.

 

Part 3 – A World Without Heroes

Earth-88

1942

 The throaty crackle of a powerful V8 engine shattered the stillness of the Egyptian desert morning. Its dawn chorus was echoed by the quieter, but rougher, sound of a diesel truck engine.

Racing through sand roads was Moustachio’s V8 Interceptor, now with a modification to the rear to fit one large fuel tank and another large tank with an assortment of compartments for various liquids. Being out on the road in the multiverse often took him away from oil and coolant for extended periods of time.

Fleeing the black car was a Mercedes-Benz LG3000. The workhorse truck had had a head start, but Moustachio had quickly closed the distance. The Australian pulled a revolver from his door-well and fired at the truck’s rear. This did not escape the notice of its occupants, and out from inside the truck swung a stony-faced German in black armour.

He effortlessly climbed to the roof of the truck and fearlessly turned to face the source of the bullets.

Moustachio fired again. Three shots. With almost impossible reflexes, the unusual German Soldier raised his shield, blocking them all. Upon his shield was a familiar 3-point star insignia.

The German was not content to merely soak up ballistics, however, and promptly hurled his shield directly at the V8 Interceptor’s windscreen.

Moustachio swerved to avoid the flying shield, nearly taking out a wandering camel. The shield, meanwhile, bounced off the ground at a peculiar angle, before ricocheting off a rock wall and returning to its owner’s arm.

Suddenly Moustachio knew exactly who this was. And he wasn’t thrilled at the idea of having to take on Captain America. Well, more like his German variant. Kapitan Deutschland, probably.

They were approaching the outskirts of Cairo now. This chase could get infinitely more dangerous if it continued. Bullets sprayed the air next to his car, and he flicked his eyes to the mirrors. A couple of German pursuit cars had caught up to him.

Crud, Moustachio thought to himself.

Atop the truck Kapitan Deutschland readied his shield for another throw. Behind him the vehicular gunners adjusted their aim. Between the two of them, one would hit their target.

With a heavy heart, Moustachio had to withdraw from this chase.

Regretfully he gunned the engine and disappeared into another universe seconds before his position was riddled with gunfire. He hated to leave the cargo in the hands of the Germans, let alone give them free reign on the rest of this world, but he had no choice.

One day I’ll come back he thought to himself as he disappeared in a fiery-orange flash.

Part 5 – A Selection Of Items That Can Be Found In The Interceptor’s Back Seat

 

The Cross Factour Live

As you could imagine, in the multiverse you could often find alternate versions of history. In the music world this meant a wealth of albums you could only dream of back home. Moustachio had bought a few of them along with him. For his friend Tee Bone Man there was the rest of the Van Halen discography with David Lee Roth on vocals. For the Brainiac there was Kiss’s Creatures of the Night album, but with Eddie Van Halen playing guitar instead of Ace Frehley. He’d also taken the 8-track copy of Black Sabbath, for good measure. There could be some weird people out there who collected formats that they couldn’t even play.

For himself, Moustachio had a couple of interesting finds. He had grabbed a neat 7” single from Thin Lizzy for the song “Reelin’ in the Years”. He knew this as a Steely Dan song in his home universe, but routinely called it the best Thin Lizzy song they never wrote. He was thrilled to have a version with Phil Lynott singing, and the sizzling dual-guitars.

But the best find for him was the live album from Iron Maiden’s ’95 – ’96 tour, with Tony Martin on vocals. Moustachio loved Blaze Bayley, but he also always wanted to hear what it would have sounded like if Tony Martin replaced Bruce Dickinson in 1994.

 

A Dual IPA Beer

This was a genius one. Someone had invented a bottle with two distinct segments, one taking up the top half of the bottle and the other the bottom half. There was a one-way valve in that divider that allowed liquid from the bottom to enter the top, but not the other way around.

This bottle was filled with two different IPA beers – one in each half. As the drinker drank, the top liquid would be replaced with liquid from the bottom half, ensuring that every single mouthful tasted different. A truly revolutionary concept.

This would, however, upon reaching the halfway point, also make it look like the remaining liquid was levitating.

 

Kylo Ren’s Lightsaber

On Kef Bir, Moustachio had bartered with a fisherman for the lightsabre Kylo Ren had thrown into the sea when he turned back to the light side. It wasn’t functioning anymore, as the water had thoroughly soaked the insides, but Moustachio was sure his friends back home could get it working again.

 

 

Part 45– Colourful Dossier

Earth-1340

 

This was a weird one. El Moustachio had found himself in a universe where everything appeared to be made out of some form of plastic building block. It took a lot of getting used to. Not being able to scratch one’s own back was certainly a bummer, but he came to appreciate the simplicity of the world in a lot of aspects.

It didn’t take him long to find a group of like-minded heroes. The League of Extraordinary Minifigures, as they had named themselves, were more than willing to accept Moustachio’s assistance in their endeavours. And while he would embark on several adventures with this team, he ultimately decided to move on and seek his home universe once again.

 

Now these are, of course, only a small selection of El Moustachio’s exploits in the multiverse. The true extent of his adventures stretched over several months and are too numerous to give form to in this level of detail. But we will give you a taste of the next full-length adventure in this series in the coming paragraphs.

 

Part 6 – A Savage Circle

A World Not Too Dissimilar To Our Own

Wednesday Morning, 3AM

 

With an uncontrollable scream, the Brainiac lifted his lightsaber in the air with both hands, ready to strike the killing blow.  “Time to die, clone!”  He swung the blade down…

…And was met with the sharp end of a Vibranium boomerang embedded in his chest.  In his mad rage, he could not see that Shinzon was still armed, with the deadly boomerang in his right hand.  Shinzon grinned wide as he shoved it deep.

“Time to die indeed!” he cried in victory, as the Brainiac collapsed on the ground.

Barely able to speak, Brainiac sputtered blood from his mouth and fell to his knees as his vision blurred.

He awoke with a start. Not the same Brainiac that was killed by Shinzon, though. This one lived in a different universe (and we shall refer to him as Brainiac II henceforth, to avoid confusion). He was soaked in sweat and breathing heavily. He couldn’t believe the nightmare he just had. It was a nightmare right? It felt so visceral and real.

He lay back down in his bed and tried not to think about it. Life had been crap enough recently, without adding thoughts of his imminent death to it.

But it was at this very moment that his life was about to change for the better, as elsewhere in the Bruce County, one El Moustachio and his V8 Interceptor burst into this universe in a burst of golden-brown flame.

 

 

 

THE ADVENTURES OF TEE BONE MAN:  PHASE ONE – THE SQUIRREL SAGA 

THE ADVENTURES OF TEE BONE MAN:  PHASE TWO – THE MULTIVERSE SAGA

THE ADVENTURES OF THE NORTHERN LIGHTS:  PHASE THREE – THE UNICRON SAGA

  • Chapter One:  A New Beginning

 

SPINOFFS AND SIDE QUESTS

 

THE COMPLETE ADVENTURES OF EDIE VAN HEELIN’

THE WRITER’S ROOM

The Adventures of Tee Bone Man: The Final Chapter (by Harrison Kopp)

THE ADVENTURES OF TEE BONE MAN
PHASE TWO: THE MULTIVERSE SAGA

Chapter Twenty-Six: The Final Chapter

By Harrison Kopp

Shinzon, the renegade clone of El Moustachio, was having a bit of an existential crisis. Again. Since escaping Marshall Lokjaw and choosing Hawaii to lay low, he had found life to be quite uneventful.  And it was kind of bothering him.

As he walked back to his volcanic lair underneath Diamond Head, after yet another day working in a grocery store, he took a few moments to reflect on his existence now.

Is this really living? Just existing without purpose, spending all your time surviving? Do people just do this every day until they die?

Since killing the Brainiac and fulfilling his number one goal in his short life, he’d been without direction. He was only hiding here out of necessity, as Tyranus had put a very large bounty on his head, and he was going a little stir crazy.

There were admittedly some benefits to the peaceful life. It was less stressful, allowing him to slow down focus on the smaller things. Each day gave him unique reasons to smile. In theory. He just wished people would stop asking about his hook hand. It was a souvenir from his battle with the Brainiac, but he sure as hell wasn’t going to be telling anyone that.

And there would be no smiling at the moment, for Shinzon’s ruminations were cut short when he stubbed his toe on something.

“Ow!” he cried, frantically looking around to see if anyone had heard him. It seemed not. He looked down to see a piece of metal sticking out of the ground.  It glinted in the sun, one corner freshly cleaned from a recent rain storm.  The rain must have unearthed it…whatever it is, thought Shinzon.

Reaching down, Shinzon pulled hard. It took a fair amount of force to dislodge it from its earthy prison, but he managed. He turned it over in his hand and examined it. It looked like it had been there for an incredibly long time. The dirt was caked into every crevice. Curiously though, the metal was pristine underneath. And it smelled of alcohol.

This could be worth further study he thought to himself, putting it in his backpack. He continued his ascent, once again allowing himself to become lost in thought regarding his future plans.

Finally making it up the mountainside to the entrance to the lair, he pressed the concealed button and entered the hatchway. After putting the supplies he’d bought in the “fridge” (actually the air conditioning unit from the Quadjumper), he placed the strange device on the workbench and went to sleep. It could wait until tomorrow.

However, unbeknownst to Shinzon, and the rest of the residents on Hawaii, things were about to get a lot more exciting the next day, because as they slept on this warm night, a flying saucer of Martian origin touched down in the forest outside the town. Out from it emerged three aliens, who quickly disappeared into the night.

 

The following morning, inside Deke’s Palace, Tee Bone Man and Superdekes were up bright and early and hard at work looking over everything they knew about Shinzon. It wasn’t much. To them, he was a Lego thief who had disappeared during an earlier adventure. The next they heard of him, he had inexplicably reappeared to murder the Brainiac.  This particular incident would lead to a vengeful Dr. K (Brainiac’s sister) confronting our heroes and demanding they end Shinzon for his part in her brother’s death. And she meant business.

But at the very least, they had confirmed that Shinzon was on Earth. That meant that it was just a matter of finding him. Tee Bone was currently scouring the internet for any mentions of his name that weren’t Star Trek related (not easy), and Deke was reading the findings from the other members of the Northern Lights.

The ring of the doorbell disrupted their workflow. Deke answered it to find the local mailman out of breath.

“*Huff*… *huff* Someone *huff* wanted this to get to you,” he said, handing Deke a mostly flat package. The tell-tale sign of a record.

“Thank you,” Deke said, taking the record. “There’s a water fountain on the grounds about 30 metres that way.”

The mailman let out an appreciative exhale as Deke closed the door and began to unbox the package. Sure enough it was the album he’d expected, on Thalarian green coloured vinyl at that.

This particular record wasn’t easy to come by. The KMA eastern offices had pulled double time with their grail list searchers to find it. But they had come through, and Deke now held in his hands a copy of the only vinyl edition of Jerry Goldsmith’s Star Trek: Nemesis score. It was the film that Shinzon’s creator had taken the pleasure of sourcing the clone’s name.

Deke returned to the theatre room (they were using the bigger screen to better scour security camera footage) and put side A of the soundtrack on, before going back to work. But it wasn’t long before the skipping of the record (harder to discern than usual due to the lack of vocals) got the two heroes’ attention.

“Tee! Danger vibes!” Deke exclaimed. “Just as we’d hoped.”

The skipping of the record was then joined by the ringing of their secure video call line. This could only mean one thing.

 

 

Tee Bone ran over to the computer and answered the call. The video connection was operating, but the camera seemed to have been angled too low, as all our two heroes could see was one very muscly chest.

“Mes amis!” came the voice of who they recognized as Jex Rambo through the stacks of Marshall amplifiers arranged in a 5.1 Surround Sound configuration.

“Jex!” Tee Bone excitedly said. “Great to see you. Want to have that discussion about Done With Mirrors we were planning?”

“I’m afraid I’m calling on official Durling Foundation business this time, Monsieur,” Jex replied. “Last night our long-range sensors detected an unknown object enter the atmosphere and land in Hawaii. The engine emissions match those of the Martian UFO you brought back last year.”

“I knew it was a good idea to let them take a look at that UFO we stole from Mars. Can’t believe Snowman didn’t want to lend it to them,” Deke said, though he was quite puzzled by the strand of dyed blonde hair they’d found on the back seat. Maybe a DNA test would reveal who else had been in the ship, and when.

“We’re sending over some agents to investigate,” Jex continued.  “I think we could use your help on this one.”

Tee Bone cast a glance at Deke. It would seriously derail their search for Shinzon.  They only had 30 days to find him, per their temporary truce with Dr. K, but they’d always help a friend in need. Deke nodded in the affirmative.

“We’re in.”

“Excellent. We’ll be testing out a new stealth jet we’ve been working on so we’ll be find you once we’ve touched down there.”

“It’ll be late by the time we all get there. Get a good night’s rest and we’ll meet up in the morning.”, Jex said as he signed off.

 

“Do you see them?” Deke asked, hoping.

“It’s not easy to spot him in this crowd you know,” Tee Bone replied. “Lots of shirtless tourists.”

But it turns out they didn’t need to find Jex, as he found them first.

“Mes amis!” Jex Rambo shouted from behind them.

The two heroes spun around to see the recognizable abdominal section of Jex Rambo. Handshakes were in order, before Tee Bone sharply cut to business.

“Our previous encounter with Martians indicated they were interested in replacing key members of our society with doubles. But we atomised their leader.” he said

“They must be reporting to someone higher then,” Jex mused. “It will be hard to track them down in this city. We’ll have to split up.”

“Alright.” Deke spoke up. “Why don’t you check on the governor and make sure he’s all accounted for in the past 24 hours. We’ll do a little investigating among the populace.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Jex replied.  “Now, let’s see if we can find these aliens.”  The trio went to work asking around the town and looking for clues.

 

 

Very nearby, Shinzon was engaged in one of the most sacred of domestic rituals: the washing of the laundry. Of course, he had no way to do this in his volcano lair, and so he was currently putting change into the washing machine at town laundromat.

How has my life come to this? He thought to himself. I was destined for greatness.  Although, to be fair, the chances of being murdered in a laundromat are pretty slim. Maybe this isn’t so bad after all.

He pressed the start button and turned around to take a seat and wait.

A little while later he looked up and an icy shot of fear went straight through his heart. Walking right up to the door of the laundromat was none other than Tee Bone Man and Superdekes.

It only took them a minute. The two men had entered and looked around.  Nothing much looked out of the ordinary.  That was, until they got to the washing machine where Shinzon had been sitting mere moments before.

“Hey Tee, come take a look at this,” Deke said, motioning towards the washing machine.

Tee Bone walked over and the two studied the contents of the machine. They didn’t recognise the silver and blue jumpsuit Shinzon usually wore into action, but they did notice it.

“This looks odd, almost alien even,” Deke said. “But what is it doing in one of these machines?”

“Well, it’s almost done. Let’s just wait here and see who comes to collect it,” Tee Bone replied.

Shinzon watched the two men take a seat from inside the wardrobe he was hiding in. This was not good.

But luck was on Shinzon’s side today however, because only a minute before the load was due to finish a great cacophony of sounds caught the attention of the two heroes. From outside came the echoes of screams, car brakes and the smashing of metal.

Tee Bone and Deke immediately sprang into action, running outside to face whatever was out there, which turned out to be just a car crash. However, a superhero is always on call.  They still lent their aid, Tee Bone’s super strength helping remove the twisted metal trapping one of the drivers.  Other than that, there was some damage to the building, but everything appeared to be fine. Most of the people appeared to have panicked and left the scene already, and no one was hurt.

The two men re-entered the laundromat, only to find the machine they had previously been staking out completely empty.

“Blast!” Deke cursed.

Tee Bone radioed Jex.  “Hey Jex, we’re at the laundromat and we think someone with valuable intel just left here. If you’re nearby, keep an eye out for someone carrying a silver and blue jumpsuit.”

“Got it,” crackled Jex’s reply.

 

 

Shinzon’s luck had just ran out.  Having cleared the city limits, he thought he was home-free. He thought wrong. Before him stood three Martians, all blocking his path.  There was only one thing he could do now, but it meant bringing the men he had just escaped right to him.

Pulling a flaregun from his pocket (the closest thing he had to a weapon) he fired directly at the sky and ran for his life up the mountain side.

Meanwhile, the man known only as the Night Ranger, an enforcer for the Durling Foundation, continued to prowl the rooftops. His black cowl concealed his face beneath.  The commotion near the laundromat had not escaped his attention, and he was now listening out for any clues as to what happened. One conversation in particular caught his attention.

“It was like an evil koala or something,” a young woman said. This could be something Night Ranger thought to himself.

But before he could follow this thread further, his attention was immediately drawn to the sound of an explosion from the jungle nearby. He looked over to see a bright red flare burning in the sky.

“Night Ranger, come in!” came Jex’s voice from his radio.

“I see it,” Night Ranger said, already running in that direction, his cape a blur behind him.

“Tee Bone and I are already en route,” Jex continued.

“Understood,” Night Ranger replied, altering the direction he was heading in.

 

Shinzon was tearing up the mountainside as fast as his legs could carry him, but the Martians continued their dogged pursuit. A searing laser blast sizzled past his ear and vaporised a tree in front of him. He was running out of time and luck.

He dared not drop the bag of laundry. If he got out of this he would need the jumpsuit within.

Finally reaching the concealed entrance to his lair, he practically dove headfirst into it through the foliage. Several laser blasts atomised the leaves obscuring the hole. He only had seconds before the Martians were upon him.

He got to his feet and tore through the tunnels towards the Quadjumper’s cave. Twisting and turning through the tunnels, he was sure he’d lost his pursuers. But that was far from the case, he would discover when he entered a large cave room. At the exact moment the Martians and our heroes converged on that very location.

“YOU!” Tee Bone growled.

The enraged superhero struck a violent power chord so hard that he broke two of the strings on his guitar. The sonic wave picked up Shinzon and slammed him violently against the cave wall.

A great rumbling filled the tunnel. Cracks began to appear in the walls, as steaming orange liquid began to ooze out of then.

“Oh shit…” Tee Bone exclaimed with his eyes wide.

Rocks began to fall, separating the three groups from one another.

The way forward was now blocked in this tunnel. From beyond the rubble cave was heard the harsh sound of Martian speech. But the cave network was multi-latticed, and Tee Bone knew there’d be a way through in one of the previous tunnels they’d passed. He began to run, but Deke attempted to grab him.

“We can’t Tee! We have to get out of here!” Deke pleaded.

“No! He’s going to pay for what he did!”

“I know, and he will. But it’s too dangerous. Trust me. We have to go now.”

Tee Bone paused for a second, then nodded.  “Alright.”

The two men turned around and sprinted for the way they came. They retraced their steps back, skipping around pools of magma seeping up and falling from above, like a real-life game of “The Floor is Lava”. They reached the exit with not a moment too soon, as the entire cave behind them flooded.

Without a second’s hesitation, Tee Bone grabbed Deke and flew them back down the mountain to the outskirts of the city. They’d be safe from any lava here, short of a full-on eruption.

 

 

Looking upwards, they could see the Quadjumper in the lower atmosphere, with an alien UFO in hot pursuit. Tee Bone prepared to take off after it, but Jex stopped them.

“Don’t worry, I have a guy on this,” the muscly man said.

And sure enough, Jex made good on his word. Mere moments later a black stealth jet streaked past the trio and blasted towards the upper atmosphere, quickly overtaking the martian UFO.

“Night Ranger!” Jex cried into his radio. “You read me buddy?”

“Loud and clear,” came a mechanically distorted voice “Don’t start thinkin’!  I’m gaining on the fleeing ship.  I can almost see their faces…”

“Shoot him down!” Tee Bone yelled into the radio.

The jet was almost in striking range, but a blinking red light on the console alerted Night Ranger to a problem. A failure in one of the coolant pumps. “Damn!  Can’t find me a thrill…”  He had to abort.

“I’m sorry guys, but there’s been a technical malfunction here.  One of the cooler pumps that goes directly into the Streamyard unit have completely failed.  It’s frozen up.  I have to withdraw,” he radioed down to his friends on the ground.

“No!” Tee Bone yelled.

“Sorry,” Came Night Rangers apologetic voice over the radio.  “It’s a mechanical failure…the tech in this jet is all analog.  I’ll crash if I try to pursue.  Blame Mr. Durling for his obsession with this old 80s stuff.”

The stealth jet disengaged and headed back to the surface, but the alien UFO continued right past it, lasers blazing.  Tee Bone Man responded immediately, and got himself into the air.  “We want Shinzon alive!” he announced, and aimed his guitar carefully for a shot that would disable the engines.  He could fly beneath, and bring it to a safe landing.  Or, less lethal landing anyway.  If his aim was just right….

The UFO also had its sights on Shinzon, and its occupants did not care if he was alive or dead.  They continued to fire laser blasts directly on the Quadjumper.  Several of them found their mark on the Quadjumper’s rear, exploding into green splashes of colour and leaving dark scorch marks.  Helpless to stop it, Tee Bone gasped.  Softly landing, he watched what unfolded next.

In the cockpit, Shinzon was frantically trying to keep his ship moving upwards. As the sparks and steam clouded his vision, he desperately looked around for the fire suppression lever. But it was actually the strange device he had discovered on Earth that drew his attention.

It began to grow warm and vibrate gently. The stench of Scotch filled the cockpit.  Then, an instant later, the Quadjumper was enveloped in a deep gold explosion, and ceased to exist in Tee Bone’s universe.

Tee Bone stared at the sky ahead, viewing the aftermath of the explosion the Quadjumper had disappeared into.

“Good riddance,” he shrugged.  “We can hope.”

 

Later that day, the heroes were meeting up in a local restaurant for lunch before heading back to Canada. The rest of the morning had been pretty uneventful. The aliens had left the Earth after seemingly completing their mission, and our heroes were now enjoying a quiet moment of reflection while eating.

Jex had also taken the time to properly introduce Tee Bone and Deke to the Night Ranger.

“I’ve been here this whole time. Just incognito,“ the masked hero said.  “I have to cover my face in public when buying Bon Jovi records at the local Walmart.”

The group nodded in understanding.

“How come we never saw you then?” Deke quizzed him.

“I’m good at my job,” was the reply.

“Haha. Well you’ll have to teach us your ways sometime,” Deke laughed.

“So what happens now?” Jex asked Tee Bone.

“Well Dr K should be off our backs now.  And our Shinzon problem is solved too,” Tee Bone said. “With a little luck I think we might have a bit of peace and quiet in the coming months.”

“That sounds good to me buddy,” said Deke.  “I could use some R&R – that’s rock and roll!”

Outside the restaurant, the quartet said their goodbyes.

“You take the stealth jet home,” said Tee Bone.  “I feel like flying.”  Tee Bone stretched his arms into the air — and nothing happened.

“Doing some yoga, mon ami?” asked Jex Rambo.

“Hang on,” said Tee.  “Sometimes it takes a little jump to get airborne.”  He jumped, arms outstretched to the sky…and nothing.

“The hell?” asked Deke.  “I mean, I always joked that you can fly and I can’t, but this isn’t funny.  Try strumming some chords.”

Tee Bone removed the Stratocaster from his back and played a chord.  It came out muted, out of tune, and completely unamplified.

“I…can’t fly!” said Tee Bone in distress.  He tried blasting a nearby tree with the power of radioactive Scotch.  He may as well have farted in the wind, for nothing happened.

“I don’t understand what’s happening!” cried Deke.  “Try something else.  Try…up up and away?”

“It’s no use Deke!  I cannot fly!  My powers…they’re gone!”  Night Ranger and Jex Rambo looked on with great concern.

“What happened to Tee Bone Man?” screamed Deke in hysterics.

From above came a voice.  A hollow, echoey voice that was somehow familiar to the two superheroes.

“I believe I  have the answer to that,” came the voice.  Before our group appeared a spectre.  It was the visage of an elderly man, dressed in jeans and a black leather jacket.  The transparent man smiled on at Deke and Tee Bone.

 

 

“Holy shit…” said Night Ranger.  “I recognize that guy…”

“Sacre bleu!  Me too!” exclaimed Jex.

“So do I!” cried Tee Bone.  “If it isn’t William W. Roderick Stewart the Third!”

“In the flesh!” bowed the image of Stewart.  “Well, in the ectoplasm anyway.”

Jex Rambo snickered at the joke.  He was, after all, a Ghostbusters fan.  “So you are a ghost?” asked Jex.

“Indeed I am,” answered Stewart.  “I have been watching from above, in Rock and Roll Heaven, all this time.  But friends…your time is at an end.  Your duties are fulfilled.  Tee Bone’s powers were intrinsically linked to the Scotch Matrix, an object of great power.  It was hidden here in Hawaii all this time, unknown to me.  Now, the character you know as Shinzon has caused it to leave this universe.  Where it has gone, I do not know.  My powers do not extend that far.  But without it in this universe, Tee Bone Man’s Scotch based powers cannot exist.  The Scotch Matrix was a powerful artefact indeed.”

“But we have so much left to do!” said Tee Bone.  “We have to save rock and roll!  You said so yourself!”

“That I did,” answered Stewart.  “And have you not done that?  Many, many times over?  Have you not saved rock and roll from Satan, Tommy Lee, Billy Sheehan, Wicked Lester, and many more?  And now you have saved this universe from Shinzon, and the masters he served — Tyranus, and Unicron, the Eater of Worlds.  He shall not be feasting on Earth this time.”

“What are you saying, old man?  That you don’t need us anymore?  You’re cutting us loose now that Tee Bone is no longer of any use to you?” scolded Deke.

The ghost of Stewart laughed.  “Me?  No, no.  You misunderstand.  Once I left this mortal coil, I was no longer in any control.  I am merely a watcher, an observer now.  However, the universe clearly conspired to create you two in the first place.  The universe knew it was in danger, and so brought you to me, and gave you powers.  What is given can be taken away…and you have done your duty.  You have done more than enough.  And now, you may have your rewards.”

“Rewards?” asked Tee Bone.  “What rewards?”

“Exactly what you wanted!  R&R – rock and roll, plus rest and relaxation.  You can go home now, Tee Bone.  Go home.  Enjoy life, with Deke.  Play music, and never worry about danger vibes again. You may stay in Deke’s Palace forever.  It is yours, to do with as you please.  The next generation is here.  The Durling Foundation, and these two men, Night Ranger and Jex Rambo, are capable of defending the Earth.  They will not be alone.  They have the rest of the Northern Lights at their command!  The King of Sharks will defend the sea.  The Mars Man will be sent to the Red Planet to deal with the Martians.  You have the bank accounts of the Snowman, and the libraries of Mr. Books.  You have Specialist Jen Ladano watching from orbit.  For what it’s worth, Max the Axe is always on standby.  And there may be some old members of the band returning to the fold, if the universe wills it.

“Go, Tee Bone Man and Superdekes.  Now, you are simply Troy and Derek once again.  The world is in good hands.  I have…foreseen it.”

And with that and a sly wink, the spectre disappeared.

“Wait!!  We have so many questions!” exclaimed Deke.  “What is the Scotch Matrix?  Who is Unicron?”  But it was no use.  The ghost of the man who started it all had disappeared, like Obi-Wan Kenobi into the mists.

It took a moment for all this to sink in.

“You know what Deke?  I’m actually relieved,” said Tee Bone.  “I mean, it’s no secret that this job has been hard on my health.  Look at my trips to camp, for example.  I’m…I’m excited about retirement!”

“Actually…me too,” said Deke.  “More time for music,” he reasoned.

The heroes embraced, and went their separate ways.  Home.

 

 

Back in Canada Dr. K, was reviewing the footage sent to her from Deke. The camera feed on the stealth jet had recorded Shinzon’s demise. But her desire for revenge wasn’t satiated yet.  Shinzon couldn’t have been working alone. Tee Bone Man and Superdekes were off the hook, but someone had orchestrated her brother’s death.

And they were going to pay.

Shinzon, meanwhile, was intently holding his breath, and not just because he wasn’t 100% sure the ship was still airtight. All four engines were out and he was drifting Cthulu-knows-where. Life support was barely functional.

Trying the ignition again, he was rewarded as the engines coughed to life. The husk of the starship began to stagger erratically towards the nearest planetoid.  If Shinzon survived the ‘landing’, he was going to be in quite a predicament.

 

The farthest reaches of space

Lord Tyranus would never admit to feeling fear, but that was exactly the emotion that ran through him as he approached the dark patch of space that his terrible master resided in. He’d spoken with him many times before, but this was the first time he was doing it in person. And the first time he was facing him after such monumental a failure.

The gigantic robotic planet took up the entire viewscreen of the Sith Lord’s shuttle, and even though his master was in planet mode, Tyranus could tell he was furious.

The thunderous voice or Unicron burst forth.

“Speak! Have you ended the clone’s existence? Is the Scotch Matrix recovered?”

“N-no master. I arrived too late.” Tyranus spoke, his heart in his throat. “But…”

“There is no ‘but’!” he roared. “No more excuses! Your failures have had terrible and far-reaching consequences. Your inability to capture this loose end has now allowed him to unravel the very tapestry of my designs. You knew the Scotch Matrix was on Earth. You just had to get it. Now it could be anywhere in the grand calculus of the multiverse.”

“I’ll redouble my efforts to find him,” Tyranus squeaked out futilely.

“No, you won’t. I’ll do it myself.”

A deafening roar filled the once-Sith Lord’s ears. His robotic hands crumbled away to dust before his eyes. Then the shuttle began to shake as a loud hum developed. He looked out the viewscreen in horror. Unicron’s rings were lit up a deep glowing orange. The hum began to pulse, reverberating around. Tyranus scrabbled for the shuttle controls futilely, unable to grasp anything with the stumps at the end of his arms.

Then, with an ear-splitting crack, the planet-sized Transformer and shuttle were gone, leaving behind only empty space.

 

Back in the Palace our retired heroes were enjoying their first day of rest. Things had been hectic for the last three years.  The pair were enjoying this moment of slowing down. And it looked like they were going to get it. Everything Stewart said appeared to be true.  Deke’s radioactive Scotch sensors had detected a massive surge from deep within the galaxy, that could only mean one thing. The Durling Foundation’s deep-space satellites corroborated his data.  Unicron, and the Matrix, had left this universe.

For how long, they couldn’t tell. But if he ever returned, the New Northern Lights would be ready.  The Mars Man was now installed on Mars.  Mr. Books had a splendid new library to work from, provided by the Durling Foundation.  Jen was in Space, keeping a close eye on the blue planet below. For a change, all was well.  Even the Sasquatches were laying low this season.  Not a single sighting, all summer.

Deke stood by the turntable, dropping the needle on a record. A few seconds later the opening notes of Van Halen’s “Eruption” blared forth from the speakers. Tee Bone began to get lost in the music. Eddie’s playing was note-perfect.  No danger vibes.  He got up, kicked off his socks, and danced.

This was going to be a great afternoon.

The End…Of This Phase

The tales of Tee Bone Man and Superdekes’ exploits may be finished, but don’t worry. You’ll be seeing more from the multiverse soon. There are plenty of stories still to tell, featuring characters new and old.  Your favourites will be back soon…

The Saga continues…with the Adventures of the Northern Lights!

 

 

THE ADVENTURES OF TEE BONE MAN:  PHASE ONE – THE SQUIRREL SAGA 

THE ADVENTURES OF TEE BONE MAN:  PHASE TWO – THE MULTIVERSE SAGA

THE ADVENTURES OF THE NORTHERN LIGHTS:  PHASE THREE – THE UNICRON SAGA

  • Chapter One:  A New Beginning

 

SPINOFFS AND SIDE QUESTS

 

THE COMPLETE ADVENTURES OF EDIE VAN HEELIN’

THE WRITER’S ROOM