🚀 go-pugleaf

[CONTINUITY NOTE:  I'VE FALLEN A BIT BEHIND...  THIS EPISODE AND
 THE NEXT ONE AS WELL TAKE PLACE BEFORE THE END OF THE INDUSTRIAL
 REVOLUTION STORYLINE.  DON'T WORRY, I'LL CATCH UP.  I HOPE...]

   The Mages roared into the center of town at a quarter of six,
three dozen strong, riding black and chrome motorcycles.  For ten
minutes they circled around the streets of Laconia, chanting their
daily mantras and practicing the Ninety-Six Hand Gestures of
Father Grimoire.  "Hey, look!  It's the Mages!" exclaimed a
pedestrian, obviously a tourist, in a sarcastic tone to his two
friends.  The three looked like college students, two men and a
woman who had driven into town in an beat-up Chevy with
Massachusetts license plates, annoying the locals with questions
about space aliens.
   "The Mages?" asked the woman.
   "That's what it says on the back of their jackets," said the
first student.  "What a stupid name for a motorcycle gang!"
   The leader of the gang, Father Grimoire himself, turned his
Harley around and approached them, a mischievous twinkle in his
eyes.  "You kids got a problem?" he asked, stopping right in front
of the students and removing his helmet.
   "No problem at all," said the second student quickly.
   "I don't believe it!" exclaimed the first student.  "It's
Gandalf in a leather jacket!"
   "Tom," said the woman under the breath, "I really don't think
it's a good idea to provoke them..."
   "Why not?" asked Tom.  "I'm getting sick and tired of this
town, and we're no closer to finding your sister and the others
than we were before we left Dillweed City!"
   Father Grimoire was intrigued.  "You're looking for somebody?
Here?"
   "We're looking for aliens from an orbiting hotel," said the
second student.  "Have you seen any?"
   "We've seen a lot of things." said Grimoire simply.  "And we
have secrets that allow us to see even more, but we can't give our
secrets away to outsiders."  He glared at Tom.  "Especially not
those with an attitude like yours."
   "Tom doesn't have an attitude," the woman assured him.  "He's
just had a bad day--"
   "I do too have an attitude, Tracy," Tom insisted.  "And why
not?  My life hasn't been worth squat since Laurel was killed--"
   "By a mage?" asked Grimoire.
   "By a five-hundred-foot lizard made of oatmeal," the other
student told him.
   "They were playing rock-paper-scissors," Tracy explained.
   "Hmmmm, yes, tragic," Grimoire nodded.  "I had a cousin who
died like that.  I sense that you have power, all three of you.
It's not magic, but we've been known to bend the rules in the
past..."
   "What is he talking about?" asked the second student.
   "Just nonsense, Mark," said Tom.  "I think he's senile."
   "No!" said Grimoire, holding his hand up in a simple gesture --
Hand Gesture #37, in fact -- that seemed to attract all attention
in the town.  The other members of the gang crowded in behind him,
and town residents gazed out of windows all over the square, all
focused on the ring on Grimoire's index finger.  "I can't promise
to find your friends, but if you pass the test, I will deliver
your aliens."
   "Test?  What test?" asked Mark.
   "An initiation," Tracy whispered.
   "Exactly," Grimoire smiled.  "Gentlemen...  Start your
engines!"


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    *  *   *  *      *      *   *      *     ******  *   *  *   *
****    ***   *      *****  *   *      * TM   *  *    ***   ****

                           SUPER SEVEN #6D
                           WORLDS APART #4
         Copyright 1994, Greg Fishbone, all rights reserved.

  Permission is hereby granted to disseminate or reproduce this
  work via electronic means only, for entertainment purposes only,
  and only if all attributions and headers remain in place and the
  text of the work (including attributions and headers) is not
  altered in any way.  Any reproduction of this work for profit of
  any form is strictly forbidden without the express written
  permission of Greg Fishbone.  Hard copy reproduction is limited
  to single copies printed for the use of the user only, and
  cannot be mass produced or disseminated in any way.  Implicit
  permission is granted to make reference to the characters and
  events of this work in the context of the Superguy Subtopic of
  the Superguy Mailing List only, and such use does not constitute
  an abridgement or relinquishment of any of Greg Fishbone's
  rights as they are expressed or implied herein.  All other
  rights not specifically referred to in this notice are reserved
  to Greg Fishbone.  "Super Seven", "Dillweed City", "Worlds
  Apart", and all character names used in this story are
  trademarks belonging to Greg Fishbone, who reserves all rights
  to their use except in the context of explicit or implicit
  permission granted to Superguy authors.  (WHEW!)

Feedback to fishbone@astro.ocis.temple.edu -- just to let me know
you're out there!


   In other parts of the country, magic users were ridiculed,
persecuted, or even killed out of fear or envy or hatred -- but
not in Laconia.  Laconia in the summer had always been a
motorcycle town, and the local mages, banded together for
protection and mounted on bikes for mobility, fit in perfectly.
Towns and cities from Maine to Connecticut quivered when the Mages
rode through, but Laconia was their Mecca, a holy ground where
they could do no wrong, a place where they were respected, even
honored for their abilities.  With the Mages patrolling the
streets of Laconia, crime had fallen to practically nil.
Residents were treated to nightly exhibits of pyrotechnics and
wizard-duels, and most had even learned a few spells of their own,
in exchange for food, shelter, or gasoline.  And the local economy
was booming, helped by record levels of tourism.
   And now the sidewalks swelled with residents and tourists alike
as the cycles spun and twirled in intricate patterns around the
three members of the Super Seven.  Tom, Tracy, and Mark stood in
the center of the intersection, not quite sure what would happen
next or what they were expected to do about it.
   "I'm getting dizzy," said Tracy, as the bikes continued to whiz
past closer and faster than ever.  "They're like a precision
flight team!"
   "Well," said Tom, "if it's a battle they want..."  In an
instant, his body was glowing with bright magenta energy,
completely transformed into living humanoid plasma.  As Mr.
Plasma, Tom launched himself forward, scattering motorcycles and
their riders in his wake.
   "Interesting," said Father Grimoire, from his spot on the
perimeter.  He made a subtle hand-gesture, and the Mages
reconfigured themselves into a new pattern, dividing their focus
between Tom and the other two superheroes.
   The other Mages made similar hand gestures of their own, and
strange things began to happen.  The street split open under Tracy
and Mark, catching them completely by surprise.  Mark grabbed
Tracy around the waist and reached out desperately with his
magnetic perceptions as the two of them plunged downward into a
seemingly bottomless abyss.
   "Mark!  Tracy!" shouted Tom, running back toward his teammates
as they dropped out of sight.  A moment later, they reappeared --
with Mark balanced on a hovering manhole cover, holding Tracy in
his arms.
   "Magnoboy!  My hero!" Tracy exclaimed.
   "Funny, Anode," said Mark.  "You know, you're heavier than you
look."
   "Fah!  I bet you say that to all the girls!"
   Tom tried to turn back to face his share of the Mages, only to
discover that he was suddenly up to his knees in tar.  In plasma
form he could leap great distances, but he could not fly, and the
more he tried to move around in the gooey liquid the deeper he
sank.  "Nice trick, Gandalf."
   "The name's Grimoire," the Mage told him.  Tom struggled
angrily, causing the tar level to rise from his waist to his
chest.  "That's not very constructive, son.  You've got to use
your brains to get out of a sticky situation like this."
   "I'll be using *your* brains as *play-doh* in a moment!" Tom
shouted.  He flailed his arms around violently, and sank into the
tar up to his neck.
   "Tom!  Grab ahold of this and I'll pull you up!" said Mark, as
he maneuvered the manhole cover he and Tracy were riding on within
a foot of Tom's head.  Tom pulled his plasma-form arms out of the
tar and grabbed the metal platform, as Mark struggled to locate
enough metal in the surrounding buildings to pull the disk higher
into the air.
   "Say, Mark?" asked Tracy, a little tentatively.
   "I'm... trying to concentrate.  What is it?"
   "That manhole cover's a pretty good conductor of heat, isn't
it?"
   "Huh?  Yeah, I guess."
   "And Tom's hands are a probably a few hundred degrees when he's
in plasma form, right?"
   "Um, sure.  Why?"
   "I just thought you might want to know that your sneakers are
on fire."
   "What--?  Aaaaaaaaigh!"  Mark leaped off the manhole, taking
Tracy with him.  The two of them landed in the street, just beyond
the edge of the lake of tar, and they immediately had to roll
across the ground to avoid being run down by Mages on bikes.  The
burning rubber soles of Mark's shoes spread putrid clouds of black
smoke around him and Tracy as the two of them struggled to remove
the offensive footwear.
   "Oh my god--  Tom!" Tracy exclaimed.  They turned back to the
tarpit just in time to see their teammate disappear beneath the
black surface, trapped under the weight of the heavy manhole
cover.
   "Well, I guess THAT wasn't the greatest idea I ever had," said
Mark glumly.
   "Wait!  Look!"  Tracy pointed to the spot where Tom had just
vanished.
   The tar was bubbling, slightly at first, then almost violently.
The thick soup of petrochemicals caught fire and burned away in a
giant ball of flame as they watched, revealing Mr. Plasma, burning
with such intense light and heat that it was painful to look at
him.  "Okay, Gandalf," he said, "it's payback time!"
   "Grand finale, phase one!" Grimoire ordered.  The other Mages
nodded obediently.  Tom, making his way directly toward the leader
of the magical biker gang, found himself in the middle of an
intense display of sparkling, dazzling lights.  Somehow, he missed
the gang leader, dove through the quickly-parted crowd, and
demolished a small office building.
   "Phase two!"  The Mages shifted their riding pattern and waved
their hands impressively in unison.  The skies darkened and filled
with storm clouds, and lightning raked to the ground all over
town.
   "Grimoire just made his first mistake," said Tracy, reaching
her hands upward toward the sky.  Mark jumped back away from her,
and managed to get about twenty feet away before his teammate was
struck with a particularly large lightning bolt.  Millions of
volts of electricity coursed through Tracy's body, snaking outward
in all directions as solid chains of energy.  Mark hit the ground,
and so did three dozen Mages, thrown from their bikes by the whip-
like electric coils.
   "My turn!" shouted Mark, reaching out with all the power he
could muster.  All around the intersection, riderless motorcycles
flew into the air in a cyclone of electromagnetic forces.  Almost
as an after thought, Mark pushed all the force lines in a single
direction and tossed the bikes away down the street, completely
out of sight of the battlefield.
   "Very, very impressive," said Father Grimoire.  "Mages regroup!
Full attack positions!"
   "I don't think so," said Tom, sneaking up from behind and
putting his arm around the leader's neck.  "Anyone moves and
Gandalf here is charcoal!"
   "We surrender!" shouted the Mages.
   "Well played, heroes," said Father Grimoire.  "You have earned
the right to join us!"
   The crowd cheered and the other Mages relaxed, but Tom only
tightened his grip and turned the intensity of his plasma up a
notch.  "It doesn't end that easily, wizard.  You tried to kill
us!"
   "Tom!  Let him go!" shouted Tracy.
   "It was just an initiation, remember?" asked Mark.
   "It sure felt like a real fight to me," said Tom.  He looked
slowly back and forth from Tracy to Mark, as Father Grimoire
squirmed nervously and the crowd looked on in silent
anticipation.  "All right, I accept your surrender," he said
finally, and everyone present breathed a sigh of relief as Mr.
Plasma released his grip on the head Mage.
   "Mr. Plasma, Magnoboy, and Anode of the Super Seven," Father
Grimoire intoned, with a flowery wave of his hands, "on this day
and in front of these witnesses assembled, I hereby declare you to
be honorary Mages of the Order of Laconia."
   "Cool!" exclaimed Tracy.  Three Mages stepped forward and
presented the heroes with their leather jackets.  The crowd
erupted in cheers and applause.
   "Maybe we should move here," Mark suggested.  "We never get
this kind of appreciation back in Dillweed City."
   "Yeah," Tom nodded, "no matter what we do, Spoonman always gets
most of the credit."
   "You know Spoonman?" asked Father Grimoire, somewhat awestruck.
   "We'll introduce you sometime," said Tracy.  "Now that we've
passed your little test, what can you tell us about the aliens
we're looking for?"
   "They're all around you," said Grimoire in a low conspiratorial
whisper.  He made a subtle gesture toward the crowd of spectators.
"It's hard to tell which ones are which, but I'd say about half of
the so-called tourists are not of this earth."
   "Alien tourists?" Tom exclaimed.
   "Shhhhhhh!  They'll hear you!" said Mark.
   "They come to watch the magic shows we put on.  They're
attracted by mages and superguys, and they seem to know in advance
when a battle is going to be fought -- your initiation has brought
out more of them than we usually get."
   The crowd was dispersing, and most of the other mages were
busily working to repair the damages caused by the battle.  A
crackling voice from an old PA system called off the tour group
buses that were boarding to leave for the night.  "We need to get
up to their ship," said Tracy.  "My twin sister and two of our
friends are trapped up there, falsely accused of murder."
   "I wish I could help you," said Grimoire, "but I know nothing
more about the alien tourists."
   "Whispering Pines Nursing Home," the voice on the PA system
intoned, "your bus is now boarding.  Weaver Party, your bus is
leaving in five minutes.  Hotel LaGrange Tour Group A, your bus is
leaving in ten minutes..."
   "That's it!" Tracy exclaimed.
   "What's it?" asked Tom.
   "Hotel LaGrange!  Guys, we've got to get onto that bus!"

                               * * *

   Two million miles away, the other three surviving members of
the Super Seven raced through the water pipes of the Hotel
LaGrange Starship at the speed of light.  Kyle had given Nick a
detailed description of the ship's layout, as he remembered it
from his vision, but Nick still found it difficult to navigate to
the area they wanted to reach.  The water system snaked through
the walls in a nearly random manner, causing Nick to double back
several times before he was able to reach their destination.
   He brought them out through a dripping faucet and raced around
the room to make sure nobody was around.  Then, he shifted the
three of them back from energy to matter and they appeared in the
room as if out of thin air.  Nearly half a millisecond had passed
since their escape from the Hotel's brig.
   "This is it?" asked Stacy.
   "From what Kyle said," Nick told her.  "I never knew a hotel
that had a morgue before, but I also never knew a hotel that
happened to be in orbit..."
   "There aren't any bodies on the tables," Kyle noted, "so they
probably haven't done the autopsy yet."
   "Which means he's got to be in one of these drawers," said
Stacy.  She paused for a moment, considering.  "You know, I've
never seen a dead body before..."
   "None of us have," said Nick.
   "I have," Kyle told them.  They stared at him.  "My dad was a
mortician.  My brother and I grew up around cadavers -- we even
used to play 'hide and seek' in the coffins."
   "Then I guess you can do the honors," said Nick.
   Kyle checked the labels and pulled out a drawer with the name
'BOBBIN' written on it above the day's date.  The others watched
as he unzipped the plastic bag that contained the body.
   "God, I can't look!" Stacy exclaimed.
   "It's okay," Kyle told her.  "You can wait over there."
   "No," she said.  "I have to see for myself."  She moved to
Kyle's side and he squeezed her hand for support.  Then he pulled
back the plastic with his other hand.
   "So, that's the desk clerk we're supposed to have murdered,"
said Nick.
   "Yup."
   "He looks *nothing* like the guy we saw at the desk when we
were there!" Stacy exclaimed.
   "Which means that man must have been an imposter--" said Kyle.
   "--And, most likely, the real murderer!" Nick added.
   "Interesting," said Stacy.  "I think I'm going to throw up
now."
   "Yeah, me too," said Nick.  The two of them ran for the wash
basins on the other side of the room.
   "You people don't appreciate anything," said Kyle, zipping up
the bag and closing the drawer.


IS THERE GOING TO BE ANOTHER EPISODE IN THIS SERIES SOMETIME
   THIS MONTH?
DOES ANYBODY STILL REMEMBER THE LAST COUPLE OF EPISODES?
DOES ANYBODY EVEN REMEMBER WHO THESE CHARACTERS ARE?
WILL THE SUPER SEVEN #7 STILL COME OUT ON SEPTEMBER 1, AS
   PROMISED?

YOU'LL FIND OUT AT THE SAME TIME I DO IN THE NEXT EXCITING
INSTALLMENT, ONLY ON...  *SUPERGUY*!