[2/28/2001 11:47:46 PM | steve higgins] Here it is, kids! Finally conf story lives again! In the next few days I will actually begin the new story, which will focus on those few heroes who remain in Cape (Progger, Vacuumboy, and a new character) going about the task of bringing all those heroes that have parted ways with them (Hunter, Murray, the Goalie, RecklessBoy, and others--maybe stallio! if Ben is going to post here) to combat a new threat to Cape. Some old characters will choose to remain where they are; some will return. Some new characters will show up, and some of these will surely be killed off rather quickly. The villains will be both old and new. But hopefully we can continue the story from years ago, without referring back to it too much so that these new tales can stand alone. That's why this intro storyline is designed to catch people up without being too involved. I have a definitive ending in mind for the series, and would like to tell a limited number of stories here so we can put these characters to rest once and for all when we're finished. But until then, all bets are off. If I've given you access, you can add to the story anyway you see fit (as long as it doesn't totally negate anyone else's work) and take the story where you want it to go. Enjoy! Steve (Vacuumboy9) Higgins [3/1/2001 12:35:54 AM | steve higgins] Here are links to Conf Story I and II, respectively, so folks can check them out and read up on the history of these characters if they wanna. Conf Story Conf Story II Will begin the new story very soon, I promise! Steve (Vacuumboy9) Higgins [3/5/2001 9:28:26 PM | Jared Edwards] Well, "The Hunter" is back on board, so let's get this party rolling. [3/6/2001 1:59:19 AM | steve higgins] Part of Heartless Bitch's spine went flying by Vacuumboy's head as he cried out, "We can't beat this thing! It's just going to keep grinding through us. We've got to get reinforcements!" "Everybody fall back!" Progger shouted to his fellow heroes moments before the beast ripped through his larynx and neck, leaving his head barely attached to his body, hanging by a thin strand of flesh. The heroes remaining alive scrambled up the ladder and out of the manhole, running for their big white van as quickly as they could. Quiet Girl, the last one out, slammed the manhole cover down and followed her compatriots in silence. "We've got to do something, reorganize our forces before we go in for an attack again," Vacuumboy cried as he hopped into the back of the van. "Who's still alive? sound off!" Kid Wicker said, "It's just you, me and Quiet Girl, VB. We're all that's left." "We lost everyone else?" Vaccumboy asked in disbelief. Quiet Girl could only nod her head. "Damn I'm glad I waited in the van to monitor things," said Snider from the driver's seat. The Van's car stereo roared to life, playing the sweet sounds of Fish, and the Progger suddenly appeared again out of nowhere. "At least we can hold it off for a while," he said as he jumped into the front passenger seat and hit a large red button built into the dashboard. A violent explosion below the surface of the street rocked the van and threw its contents about. Snider collected himself quikcly and checked the radar screen in his console. "The creature's falling back. We've bought some time." "What WAS that?" Kid Wicker asked of Progger. "I've taken to booby-trapping my bodies with explosives, so that in case of emergency I can detonate myself or my corpses," Progger explained. "Since my prog music will bring me instantly back to life, I decided self-destruction would be a good trick to have up my sleeve if I ever got into dire straits." "What's the matter with the Dire Straits?" snider asked, then began humming "Money for Nothing" to himself. "Blasphemer! Only prog music shall be listened to in my vicinity," Progger screamed as he lunged for Snider's neck. Quiet Girl quickly stepped in to restrain Progger by grabbing him by the ears and pulling him back into the back of the van. "That pretty much clinches it for me," Snider said then. "That creature somehow can manifest its own hatred in others and make them attack even their closest friends. I got all kinds of paranormal readings on my equipment here while you guys were fighting it, ectoplasmic residue, psychosomatic disturbances, you name it." "We KNOW that it redirects our aggression already," Kid Wicker said. "I saw what happened when Son of Sam I Am bumped into the Flautist down there. He punched him so hard that the flute went through the back of his head." "Then that damn creature took a bite out of Sam's midsection..." Vacuumboy let his words trail off. "I can't believe they're all gone, even Salary Cap Lad and Captain Kazakhstan. all of my students gone..." Quiet Girl hung her head in sadness, while Progger tried to console Vacuumboy. "Look, man, it's not your fault. Sure you were their teacher, but they knew what they were signing up for when they entered SEMO's superhero training program. We all did." "You're right. We've got to focus now on new strategies," Vacuumboy said. "Let's get back to base and see if we can track the monster's movements with the tracer that the Vestige hit it with right before she and Feng Shui Man shot each other." Snider drove the van calmly back to Broadway. He stopped in front of his former storefront, where the sign for "Snider Paranormal Investigations" still hung in the window. The heroes stepped up to the front door and snider waved his hand over the lock, allowing the front door to open. Once inside the building, they took the hidden elevator down to the secret base of operations the heroes had set up far below ground. "OK everyone," Vacuumboy started commanding as soon as they reached the safety of the secret base. "Here's the plan. Progger, you and Snider make sure you can track the beast adequately with The Vestige's tracer. Then I need the two of you to combine your areas of expertise, Progger's technological skills and Snider's paranormal abilities, to build a device that will protect us from the beast's aggression redirection." "We can possibly jury-rig something similar to the boots you built to protect the heroes from the Shupe vampire," snider commented as he and Progger stepped back into the lab the two of them shared to get to work. "What should I do?" Kid Wicker asked. "You need to plug up any and every entrance in this base, then in my base underneath the Marvels and Legends comic shop, to the sewer with your wicker powers. I'm talking everything from shower drains to toilet bowls, plug it all up!" "How are we going to... ya know, do our business?" Kid Wicker asked. "We'll have to improvise," Vacuumboy said. "Progger's been working on this thing that's made of three little seashells..." Kid Wicker grimaced and said, "I'll just go to Blimpie and use theirs." "Quiet Girl, you're with me." She nodded and followed Vacuumboy to the teleportation device that sat in the corner of Snider's secret underground base. "Where are you guys going?" Kid Wicker asked. "To call in the big guns," Vacuumboy said and activated the device. Both he and Quiet Girl dematerialized, leaving the others to their work. [3/6/2001 11:15:12 AM | Jared Edwards] Quiet Girl and Vacuumboy rematerialized milliseconds later deep beneath Marvels & Legends. All around them were computers, weapons, and communication devices. Behind them was one of the Progger's labs and the tunnel to the Love Chicken Garage under Houck Stadium. Quiet Girl slipped on a nearby device that translated her thoughts into spoken words (she never carried it on missions due to the danger of announcing team strategy to the villain by accident). "Who should we contact?" projected Quiet Girl. "I'm getting the band back together," replied Vacuumboy, "This is going to take experience and reckless abandon. You students have the abandon, but the experience can't be taught. If we can get Stallio!, the latest incarnation of the Goalie, Reckless Boy, and Murray then we should be in good shape." "What about..." "Yeah, I know, we're going to call the Hunter, too. The problem is that he has started his own team over in Carbondale. The others have all gone into retirement. He won't be as rusty, but he has more responsibilities to deal with because he's still active." "Where are the others?" "Murray has been working as a sideshow attraction. He brings in a fortune as a severed head, a huge head with a small body, or a man who can survive decapitation, depending on what stage he is at. "Reckless Boy just finished a short jail sentence for shoplifting. They let him out early because he was costing the system a fortune in damage to the facilities. We'll have to work through his parole officer. "Chopper just kind of drifts around. He may be the hardest to find, because he's looking for a place to fit in. I haven't heard from him in months. "Stallio! is spending a little time in the realm of the Fae, but mostly he just works at a normal job, pretending to be a normal person. He tried to continue to be a neutral super being, but the heroes and the villains both rejected him. The cops harrassed him no matter what he was doing. He's kind of disgruntled, so getting him back may not be easy..." "Anyone else?" "Well," said Vacuumboy, "I'm not ruling out anyone, but that's where we start." [3/6/2001 12:44:09 PM | stAllio! nGsta] "ugh," said quiet girl through the interpretive device, "i've got some headache." "i know what you mean," replied vacuumboy. "i feel like i'm trying to follow a complex story while starting in the middle & reading bottom to top. but we need clear heads if we're going to get the team back together." "yeah. so who do we try to get first?" asked quiet girl. "well i don't have any kind of magickal background that i know of, so i don't really even know how to get into the faerie realm, & normal communication lines won't reach there. & considering the last i heard about the fey's attitude toward we big folk, it's probably just as well that we don't try to go to faerie until there are a few more of us to back each other up. "since we don't have any leads on chopper's whereabouts, it'd be kind of foolish to try to track him down first, too. if we're lucky one of the others will have an idea where to start looking for him. & with jared occupied in carbondale, we should probably start with one of the 2 who're still in town, murray or chet. so where would you rather go first, the parole office or the circus?" [3/6/2001 3:42:21 PM | steve higgins] "Actually, first things first, I need to make a call." Vacuumboy stepped over to his inflatable computer console and dialed up Towers. Moments later a robot answered. "Towers custodial. how may I be of assistance?" "Hey Jan-I-Tor. It's me, Vacuumboy." "Hello sir. Is there a problem with our trash disposal plan?" "No Jan-I-Tor not a problem, just something that needs to be added." "Added, sir?" "Yes. We need you to reroute the sewer lines all across campus. The beast that's plaguing Cape from the sewers might use the pipes to come up to the surface and attack the students on campus, like he did last week at the cineplex. Until I let you know otherwise, I want all the drains on campus to drain into my vacuum dimension." "will this be a permanent change, sir, like we did with the trash chutes last year?" Jan-I-Tor asked. "No, it'll just be temporary. The vacuum dimension is a big place and the otherworldly beasties there have been devouring your trash almost as soon as you pump it in, but I don't want the place to start smelling rank." "Understandable, sir." "Is everything going alright on campus?" Vacuumboy then asked his robotic janitorial replacement. "Yes sir. For a short time after I was promoted in charge of all janitorial services, shortly after your departure, things were hectic, as you know. But Automaton Services across town has provided me with a complete robotic staff and everything is running smoothly now. Towers has never been so clean." "Great work, Jan-I-Tor. I'm glad we never had that final battle. You clearly deserve the job more than I ever did." Vacuumboy smiled and then shut off the communication. "Alright Quiet Girl, let's go to the circus." Quiet Girl made no reply. "What's the matter?" Vacuumboy asked with some concern. Quiet Girl whipped out a pad of paper and used her super-skills at shorthand to jot down a message in an instant, which Vacuumboy then read. "I told you before not to try sending your thoughts over the phone line. It doesn't work. Besides he's a machine and can't read them anyway. You've overloaded the device again. You might as well leave it here then." Quiet Girl removed the device, pouting as she did so. "Don't worry," Vacuumboy said as he led her to the Lovechicken 2, the two-seater version he kept parked under Houck as opposed to the massive interstellar traveler he kept under Cardiac. "We'll have Progger fix it up when he's not so busy." As he was climbing into his vehicle, a thought occured to him and he called out, "Annoying Fanboy?" A creature that looked somewhat like a CGI George Lucas creation rose up off the inflatable couch in the corner, where it had been quietly reading comic books completely oblivious to their actions. "Yesa, Vacuumboy?" "Hold down the fort while I'm gone." "Meesa hold down the fort bombas good!" he cried as the Lovechicken2 sped away. Once the vehicle was gone, Annoying Fanboy slunk back in his inflatable seat and continued reading the new issue of Tomb Raider. When Quiet Girl and Vacuumboy reached the circus, they were disappointed to discover that Murray was no longer a member of the freak show there. "Yup, he quit 'bout a year ago, moved on outta town. Said this place had bad mem'ries fer him," said the carnival owner. Vacuumboy slightly cringed at the words of the head carney, partially because the words reminded him of the reasons why the team had split up in the first place, but also partly because he was deathly afraid of carnival folk. He swallowed and mustered up the courage to say, "I'm a friend of his and I need to speak to him. Can you tell me where he went?" "What kinda friend don't speak to ya fer over a year?" Vacuumboy had no reply, so the carnival owner simply said, "Got a ferwardin' address here in his file. Hold on." the carnival owner rummaged through a pile of papers sitting on the edge of his desk, his small hands shuffling the paper quickly. While the carney's back was turned, Quiet Girl quickly whipped out her pad of paper and scribbled down, "do you smell cabbage?" But before Vacuumboy could answer, the carney had found the information he was looking for and handed it to him. Vacuumboy read the paper and a smile came across his face. "I knew he wouldn't stay away for long. thank you, sir," he said, handed the paper back to the carney, and led Quiet Girl out of the deluxe super-wide. As Vacuumboy got into the Lovechicken2, he accessed the video communication system on board. Quiet Girl quickly scribbled down on her pad, "Where?" Vacuumboy replied as the phone call went through, "Rolla, with the Smartass Justice System." Suddenly the Lovechicken2's windshield filled with an image of a orange-skinned hulk. "smartass justice system. what's your emergency?" "Hi, Murray. Back in the superhero business I see." "Oh, it's you," Murray said, then in answer to Vacuumboy's question he replied, "What's one of the first lessons you teach your students, VB? With great power comes great responsibility. Spidey was never able to give up the life; neither was I." "i'm glad you've come to terms with things then." "Oh I still feel guilty for what happened to all those people," said Murray. "I just couldn't turn my back on the others in pain just because we screwed up." "It wasn't our fault, Murray," Vacuumboy implored. "The Sodexho Slasher was just too powerful that second time; the good guys can't always win!" "We should be able to or die trying, VB. I should've done more," Murray replied, his head hanging low. "The slasher had carved you down to nothing but an eyeball and have a tongue! What more could you do?" Vacuumboy stopped himself. "Look, we don't have time for this. the people of Cape need you again. We need the entire smartass justice system in fact, Little Tyke-bot, the White Slut, Kaufman, Normal Guy..." "Rolla needs us too, man! I may not be facing certain decapitation like I use to with your team in Cape, I may not have to regrow my body on a daily basis by ingesting tons of kool-aid, but I'm still needed here!" "Then leave kaufman behind and bring the rest of the team. People are dying here! We have a chance to save lives, maybe make up for what happened before!" Murray sighed and gave in. "We'll be there on one condition--tell me what the heck you did to your hair?" Vacuumboy rubbed his bald head and said, "I'm a mentor for a group of young students now. I had to go with the Prof X look." When Quiet Girl joined Murray and Vacuumboy in laughing, Vacuumboy said, "Oh by the way Murray, this is one of my students, Quiet Girl." "I didn't see her there." "That's her power, to go unnoticed through her silence and thus gain the element of surprise. She's also got some keen weapons, but I'll explain that all to you and about the menace we're up againsy when you guys get here. Meet at Marvels and Legends at six p.m. tomorrow. That'll give me plenty of time to collect the others... oh, by the way, do you have any idea where Chopper is?" "Last I heard he got hitched." "Married? Boy, I HAVE been out of touch with you guys." "Yeah, check in the superhero registry under the crimefighting team the Bride and Groom. They should have him listed. I'll go collect the others. See you tomorrow." The windshield returned to normal and Vacuumboy glanced at the clock in his dashboard. "We'd better check with RecklessBoy's parole officer first before we look for chopper." And with that the Lovechicken2 took to the air again. [3/6/2001 6:50:37 PM | Jared Edwards] The Love Chicken II had soon arrived at a large building on Sprigg St. "Good evening, Officer Gullet," said Vacuumboy, "Are you enjoying the new job?" "Yeah, life at DPS had gotten a little dull..." "I'm here about Rec...uh Chet Smith," said Vacuumboy, trying not to give away Reckless Boy's secret identity. "What do you want with that freak?" asked Gullet. "We think he may have some inside info on a case," lied Vacuumboy. "You'll find him at the offices of Harlan and Crash," said Gullet, "It's a demolition company. They were the only ones that would deal with that klutz." "Thanks for you help," said Vacuumboy as he and Quiet Girl were off again... [3/6/2001 7:29:43 PM | Jared Edwards] They had soon arrived at the offices of Harlan and Crash, which were located on Lexington just east of Sprigg. "I didn't realize anything was out here," said Vacuumboy as he looked at the massive building with the logo 'if it was built, we can break it' on the side. "I guess Cape is growing." At that moment, Vacuumboy heard a familiar scream. "Someone needs help," wrote Quiet Girl quickly. "Nah, it's just Chet," said Vacuumboy as he walked toward a side entrance... [3/6/2001 11:08:46 PM | Jared Edwards] Meanwhile, back at Snider Paranormal Inverstigation: Kid Wicker and Snider were playing a round of chess. Snider, of course, had to play blindfolded. Even then it wasn't fair because he was reading the Kid's mind. The Kid tried to send false strategy, but Snider was flawless. He had spent years honing his telepathic skills (and his psychokinetic skills, too, which he was using to move his pieces while watching the board through the Kid's mind). Progger was putting the finishing touches on the protective helmets. He was supplying the locking mechanisms, and Snider had already infused them with a psychic charge. "Check," announced Snider. Wicker made his move, and then Snider moved: "Mate." "AGGGHHHH!!!" "The Progger just died," announced Kid Wicker. Snider ripped off his blind fold and rushed to the lab area. The beast was protruding from a floor drain previously hidden beneath an old rug. "I thought you plugged all the drains," yelled Snider. "I would have if you hadn't hidden one," responded a defensive Kid Wicker. "Everyone knows basements have drains in the middle of the floor," screamed Snider. "Shut up," yelled the Progger as he blasted the beast from beside his Progg(tm) rejuventator in the corner. "It's using it's powers." Snider took the opportunity to focus his psychic energy on the beast. He forced it back into the drain an inch at a time as the Progger kept it from being able to focus with his Progg(tm) Blaster. "Seal....It....Wicker..." gasped Snider, who was obviously in pain. "Done," yelled Wicker at the exact moment that Snider's head exploded from the combined psychic stress of his powers and those of the beast. The Progger and Kid Wicker stood silent in shock...