🚀 go-pugleaf

All characters are property of their respective authors, and this story is
copyrighted 1993 by Dave Van Domelen.  Permission is granted for the
distribution of this story via SUPERGUY and for archival, but all other
rights, including repost, are reserved to the author(s).

This story was written by Dave Van Domelen,
dvandom@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu.  It is to him that all praise,
death-threats, invitations to join Superguy, etc. should be directed.

[Some of the scenes in this story are from early fanfic stories on
alt.toys.transformers.  Just so you know. --Mike]


Constellation #17 - "Corruption is a Transformation" - by Dave Van Domelen
               copyright 1993 for Coherent Comics UnInc.
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[This story takes place during the "Looniverse Adrift" saga in LNH Comics
Presents #14-??.  Almost all the series regulars are tied up in that storyline.
Acton Lord has graciously consented to fill in for them.]

[Cover: Acton Lord standing with his head tossed back laughing.  Behind him is
a fractured background, with each piece containing elements of different
Transformer fanfic stories.]
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     Acton Lord brooded over his computer terminal.  Several hours ago a wave
of lethargy had swept over him, threatening to send him into a coma.  His
highly trained Gradgnomes had instantly sprung into action, activating Andale
Atoll's Dimensional Integrity Stabilization Causator (DISC).  Acton Lord had
swiftly recovered, but knew it was only a momentary respite.  DISC blocked many
outside transmissions, but those he was able to receive told him the Looniverse
itself was under some form of attack.  The source was uncertain at this time,
but what *was* certain was that he only had enough power to sustain DISC for
another few hours.  His all too recent failure to gain multiversal domination
had left Andale Atoll's resources drained to the barest minimum, and little
time had been had to recharge depleted batteries and cool stressed generators.
     Still, it would have to be enough.  Analysis of the phenomenon indicated
that only Acton Lord himself was in immediate danger.  Hence, he would have to
find a refuge to ride out the storm.  However, he wanted more than a bolthole
for himself.  If worst came to pass, it might be necessary to evacuate his
entire base of operations to another net.universe to begin anew his bid for
control.  Hence, his computer systems were analyzing new.realities where Acton
Lord could restore his personal power and be able corrupt dimensional bounds to
bring Andale Atoll into this other reality.  This net.universe would need to
possess natives who were corruptible, which in most cases meant creative
writing groups.  Non-writing news.groups had few natives to corrupt, and most
of them were protected from the van of his power by the mysterious Trademark.
     Alt.cyberpunk.chatsubo was immediately out.  The powerful Plot King was
still roaming its plotlines, and would instantly sense the kind of disruption
caused by a crossover.  Besides, the cyberpunk reality took the thrill out of
corruption...it was so commonplace that it would hardly serve to empower him.
No, there must be innocents to corrupt if Acton Lord was to gain any power.
There had to be a kind of polarization between Good and Evil.  Not simply
different shades of Evil.
     Also abandoned were the Dragon's Inn and Callahans realities.  Acton Lord
knew too little of them to risk them, and the former at least was more magic
than technology based.  He had no desire to run into another reincarnation of
King Arthur [ed. note: In Constellation #16 it was revealed that Acton Lord and
Sig.Lad are the LNH Looniverse's incarnations of Modred and Arthur] so soon,
and both of those realities seemed likely to have their own.
     Alt.QL.creative?  Too limited in scope.  And the primary character was too
incorruptible.  Alt.startrek.creative?  Tempting, but he'd heard the flamewars
there were far more intense than he cared for.
     Rec.arts.manga and Rec.arts.anime.stories were vast sources of possible
power, being in the far more stable and widely-distributed rec.hierarchy.  They
were large enough that normally he could easily escape notice for the time he
needed to gain an unassaultable foothold.  Unfortunately, a native of that
net.reality, Manga Man, was rather territorial.  Manga Man would probably, in
the kind of coincidence common in poorer Manga, stumble across Acton Lord all
too quickly, and with his arsenal would prove too troublesome a foe.
     That didn't leave much for the embodiment of corruption to choose from.
If only he could find a newer reality, where he wouldn't automatically be known
as an outsider, where there was enough fanfic to sustain his needs, but where
there was no coherent continuity yet.
     As if to answer his silent plea, a news.group scrolled into view.  Acton
Lord stopped the automatic search program and closely examined several of the
articles.  Oh yes...this would certainly do.

               *              *              *              *

     An hour later, Acton Lord's preparations were complete.  He had been
cautious enough to lay aside a spare suit of Bio-Booster armor when he had been
master of the Multiversal Office Building (requisition forms were so convenient
at times, he thought), and he now wore the rather baroque suit.  The price of
boosting his physical attributes for too long could be high, but in his
depleted state he needed all the help he could get.  Besides, the armor would
help him fit in with the natives of the new reality if his presence was
discovered.
     He had left strict orders to power down the DISC the instant of his
departure and to concentrate all efforts on rebuilding the reserve power
supplies.  The Gradgnomes should be safe from the strange lethargy effect, and
although sensors showed the exterior to be sheathed in flames, the base was
built to resist all but the most intense flamewars.
     Concentrating on corrupting the boundaries between realities, Acton Lord
watched as the air in front of him, or rather the space itself, began to pucker
and rot, finally dripping away like slime to leave a hole in reality.
Activating his armor's stealth systems, Acton Lord dove through the portal.
     Left to itself, reality will tend to assert strict divisions between
dimensions, and so it did here, the rift closing almost before Acton Lord was
through.
     He was in a cavern of sorts.  There were obvious signs of artificial
efforts to turn a natural cavern system into some sort of headquarters.  The
ceilings were many meters tall, the walls far enough apart that a tank could
easily drive down the tunnel.  Yet, for all that, this section of tunnel gave
the impression of being a disused side tunnel, and not a main thorofare.  The
tunnel was not lit, nor were there sources for light, indicating those who used
them provided their own illumination.  Or needed none.
     Acton Lord activated passive sensor systems, giving him a blurry vision of
the tunnel without shouting his presence to any who might be nearby.  Placing a
hand on the tunnel wall and activating a short burst of geological mapping
sonar, he determined that there was a large chamber to his gyroscopic North.
Magnetic compasses agreed that it was North, indicating that this was, if not
Earth, very similar.
     Slowly, Acton Lord padded along the tunnel on the suit's extended legs.
Soon enough, he reached the cavern his sensors had told him of.  It was an
underground lake, largely still and quiet, the result of the caverns dipping
below the groundwater level.  A green glow came from across the lake.
     Being certain full stealth was in place, Acton Lord magnified the image
until it was more than a simple prick of light.  It was a huge robot of some
sort, with a greenly glowing faceplate.  It also seemed to have wings, although
the wings were not in such a place as to enable flight.  Acton Lord could
easily see how a slight reconfiguration could allow this robot to become a jet
craft, much like the transforming jets that Manga Man professed to loathe but
secretly coveted.  The robot seemed lost in thought, some sort of internal
conflict.  Acton Lord could feel the corruption of this being even from where
he stood.  It had once been something else, and now was a ruthless...man, for
lack of a better term.  It certainly bore itself like a man.
     The robot removed its faceplate, cutting down the glow and revealing its
features.  Acton Lord's sensors compensated for the dimming effect and Acton
Lord had to suppress a gasp.  The robot was disfigured, maimed in the face.
Even without knowing what was normal for such a race, Acton Lord knew such
features could only be the result of tremendous trauma.  The robot threw back
its head and screamed something.  The sound carried far, but badly, and even
the Bio-Booster's onboard computers couldn't decipher it.
     Acton Lord smiled.  This corner of the net.reality had promise.  Despite
the Trademark which was obvious from even this far away, the natives were at
the least a potent source of power for Acton Lord.  He may be unable to corrupt
them, but he could draw strength from the corruption that already existed.
     Suddenly the scene shifted.  The lack of a single continuity in the
net.reality meant that once a particular part of a story was over, the set had
to be cleared for the next story.  Lacking a single unifying background, the
various components struggled to eke out a niche for themselves, and the
underlying reality had to shift to accomodate each newcomer.
     Acton Lord immediately realized he was overly conspicuous in the new
background, that of an all-too-familiar looking space station.  He smiled
grimly even as he faded into the shadows.  Crossovers corrupt.  As competing
Trademarks vied for supremacy, he was more able to influence events to his
liking.  For now he simply altered events to that none could notice him by
corrupting perceptions.  He looked like an ordinary resident of the station to
all concerned.
     Immediately he set out looking for the connection to this reality.  The
starbase was of another net.world altogether...where was the link to this one?
     Entering the station's bar/casino/brothel, Acton Lord saw his quarry.
Another large robot, this one apparently a ground vehicle in his other form,
was gambling on one side of the room.  Quite successfully, in fact.  So
successfully that the bar's owner was soon imploring the robot to stop gambling
for a moment.
     So drunk on the heady air of corruption provided by the bar was Acton Lord
that he almost missed seeing the robot shift into its other form.  The change
was fairly remarkable...not the literal shifting of Manga Man's jets, or the
fluid change of an organic shapeshifter.  Something in between.  Sizes changed,
parts appeared and disappeared.  Sensors indicated dimensional rifts opening
and closing throughout the process.
     Acton Lord regretted not being able to follow two such corrupt individuals
further, but his disguise would not carry to the level of true invisibility,
nor was it proof against the prinicipals of a story, such as these two.
     Interesting as this all was, Acton Lord hoped to find some characters he
could more directly manipulate.  Those without the protection of Trademarks.
Surely, even as new as this net.reality was, it must have characters without
powerful Trademark protection, only the easily ignored Copyrights.  Using a
device based on one of Netlurker's tools (ah, if only Netlurker had not been in
Net.ropolis when the effect struck!) Acton Lord stepped back from the reality
enough to view the past few days of activity.
     He saw numerous postings of characters without Trademarks, which was a
hopeful sign for the future.  However, only a small handful of these were
involved in anything actively, and they were all embroiled with Trademarked
characters.  One insane 'doctor' here, a brash warrior there...he looked for a
higher concentration of unprotected characters.
     RoboMACs?  Definitely not a term native to the reality this net.world was
devoted to.  Looking more closely, Acton Lord saw an all-too-familiar hand at
work on this.  An alternate version of the Dvandom Stranger had created these
characters, this world.  Acton Lord felt his pulse quicken: to subvert the
creations of even an alternate version of the Stranger would go a long ways to
settling old debts.  Acton Lord had not forgotten nor forgiven the pain he had
suffered as a pawn in the origin story of the Dvandom Stranger.  Even to this
day he still felt phantom pains from his hand, the hand that had been burnt off
by the Dvandom Dial [see Bellerophon Gambit TEB].  Even though he was several
GIF clones removed from that form, the memory still haunted him.  He surged
back into the net.world at the point where the RoboMACs article had been
posted.
     His systems immediately adapted to the airless space he found himself in.
Looking up he saw a crescent Earth...he must be on the Moon.  All about him
were devastated buildings, which he somehow knew to be called the Wasteland.
He used his enhanced strength in conjunction with the lower gravity to leap to
the top of the nearest stable tower, in order to get a better survey of his
surroundings.
     Slowly scanning the area with his sensors, he picked up occasional
activity.  Pathetic, ruined shells of robots scavenging in the wreckage or
digging with improvised implements for the mineral tidbits which may or may not
lie below the shattered concrete and steel.  Some force had turned a vast area
of the Moon into a city...then abandoned so much of it to scavengers?  Acton
Lord looked again at Earth, and realized even the dark side was better lit than
it should be.  Could it be that the entire Moon was covered in metal now?  If
it was, Acton Lord would have to wait for confirmation.  He had no desire to
become a blip on anyone's detectors by rising above the ruins to get a better
look.
     One of the scavengers had changed form to become a battered old pickup
truck, and was hauling some scraps of armor plating.  Acton Lord quietly
shadowed the pathetic wreck, in the hopes of being led to someone more
interesting.
     Nearly a hundred kilometers later, Acton Lord was beginning to tire.
Fortunately, he seemed to be at his goal.  A crude 'storefront' had been set up
in one of the less-devastated buildings, and a robot that bore an uncanny
resemblance to the one back on the space station was apparently holding
business hours.
     The pickup came up to the storefront and changed back to robot form, the
burden shifting from its pickup bed to its arms.  "Okay, Charley, I got those
duranum plates you wanted.  Now what about that replacement Sieve you said you
had?"  Acton Lord was picking this up on radio, on a fairly broad band.  Must
be the equivalent of normal speech, he mused.
     "Sorry, Mudflap, I got shaken down by some MACE punks today, the Sieve was
broken.  However, I can give you a good solid recharge for those plates...."
Acton Lord could sense this Charley was lying, the aura of corruption about him
deepened.  "See, I got laser burns for my troubles!"  Charley turned to show
scorch marks on his back.  They seemed authentic.  Ah, realized Acton Lord.
Charley *was* attacked, but is simply using this as an excuse to cheat his
customer.
     "You know my capacitors can't hold a solid charge anymore, Charley!  I
need that new Sieve, or I'll be stuck trying to keep my brain going on solar
power!"
     "Hey, don't waste your energy ranting at me.  I'd sell you the parts if I
had them, but you know MACE, they don't play fair.  Maybe if you hold onto
those plates for a while I can find another Sieve for ya?  Or...."
     "Or what?"
     "Well, I *do* have a less-than-perfect Neutrino Sieve or two in stock.
Not pristine, but better than what you have, I'd wager.  But fixing one up to
fit you would raise the cost...the plates you have there would probably cover
it."
     Mudflap seemed about to attack, but slumped in resignation.  Obviously
this had been Charlatan's plan all along...make him bust his transmission
getting together the capital for a new part, then foist off something barely
better than he already had.  But he had no choice.  "All right.  But I want a
guarantee on the connections...I don't want to be bumping along rough terrain
and suddenly have my power disconnect."
     "Sure, sure," smiled Charley.
     Acton Lord turned away and considered his next move.  Then his
interdimensioanl communicator bleeped.  An all clear?  Apparently whatever
force had set the Looniverse adrift had been thwarted, and Acton Lord could
safely return.
     As he opened the rift home, Acton Lord decided that this net.world had
definite potential...potential he would have to find a way to exploit, and
soon.

     Dave Van Domelen, kudos to all the fanfic writers whose stories I refer
to, for your great work!