Teenfactor #26

Subject:     LNH: Teenfactor # 26: Finally--- Poland!
From:        TIFFER003 <TIFFER003@aol.com>
Date:        27 Jan 1998
Message-ID:  <70761381.34ce39ac@aol.com>
Newsgroups:  rec.arts.comics.creative

Teenfactor # 26

"Finally--- Poland!"

Previously: Morgan Le Fab fought her sister, Jamie, one on one, which helped
prompt Morgan's decision to stay in Net.ropolis and quit Teenfactor.
Teenfactor left Net.ropolis to go back to its home base in Sig.ago. While in
Net.ropolis, Carolyn gained a lot of weight, Toby Mustard,aka Tomo was
introduced and the team made freinds with FISH Force, Writers Block Woman and
Mouse. Now, they return to Sig.ago, in their brand new Teencruiser Special
Edition...

Cover: It's populated, folks! Our heroes face the reader, along with six
others whom we'll meet shortly. 

************************************************

Prelude: The base of Lagneto.

"You failed me, Myron," said the voice slowly. Lagneto clenched his fist
evilly, trapping the silence that hung in the air. "Do you realise what the
price of failure is, Feebles?"

Myron T. Feebles, the famous net.hero impersonator, nodded slowly with a deep
sigh.

"You will not die," Lagneto said to the man before him, "for I know that H.
Bartels will kill Thor, the esteemed author... For a long time, I have planned
and plotted, trying to make Net.ropolis my city. I have plans for this city...
and I'll not see it wasted." Lagneto paused, dramatically, not so much for the
dramatics but more so to make sure no one saw that veiled connection he subtly
hinted at: the day he stopped Eraserhead. (See INSANITY UNLIMITED # 1.)

Myron nodded again, as Lagneto spat at him. "You failed to get the boy called
Toby Mustard, codenamed Tomo. While yes, the Cabbage Weilding Angel of Death
kept his grubby paws away from him, he now resides with Teenfactor."

Myron gasped, remembering how (former) Teenfactor teacher Jenifer Frost handed
him over to Lagneto in a sick game of revenge on the latter. (Frost And
Teenfactor # 5.) "I thought Teenfactor only had teenagers," said Myron
pathetically.

"True," said Lagneto with a certain flair of self- righteousness. "But perhaps
the fact that Tomo's age was slowed when, once, he was in our possession,
might of affected him. He's 13, I beleive... but he's been in cyrogenetic
statis for a while."

"Then... what is to be done about it?" Myron dared to ask.

"I'm not sure yet..." Lagneto sniffed the air, "but the winds are changing and
he shall soon be within our grasp."

*********************************************

"Here we are," the voice of Carolyn Forge said as the door to the Teencruiser
opened," home sweet home."

"Finally," sighed Mable, "I thought that trip would never end."

"Yeah, well, it did," Carolyn said simply as she exited the Teencruiser
Special Edition. She trotted down carefully and proceeded to reach for the
door handle to the HQ. Roxanne ran up and blocked the doornob quickly. "Hey!"
said Carolyn."What gives?"

"You... you can't touch the doornob!" stuttered Roxanne. "You've got tapeworm!
You can contaminate us all!"

"I don't have tapeworm," said Carolyn both slowly and angerily.

"Okay, okay," Roxanne said, as she stepped back. Carolyn entered and Roxanne
cleaned off the doornob. "Come on in, everybody."

Mable quickly went in after Roxanne and Martin was next. They propped the door
open for little Tomo who began to scurry inside before noticing Shaggy.
Shaggy, dejectedly, walked at a slooooowwww pace, causing Tomo to look up.
"What's wrong, Mr. Shaggy?" asked Tomo politly.

"Girl troubles," Shaggy said, "you wouldn't understand."

"Oh," said Toby, opening his mouth up wide, "okay. Well, have a nice day, Mr.
Shaggy."

Tomo filed in with Shaggy just behind him. The Teencruiser Special Edition had
two more inhabitants who came out at the same time. "Let go of my finger,
you--!" scolded Arcania as she tried to shake off the Woolsh. The fuzzy little
pet didn't seem to get the meaning.

**************************************************

"There you are!" said Gerald Brown, Teenfactor's government liason, as he let
the team in. "Where have you been?!"

"On vacation," Martin Mylar, the mighty Polybag Person, said to Gerald. He
emphasized vaCatION, putting more drama on each syllable. He expected the
dramatic effect but instead found laughter. "Doh," said Martin sadly.

"For two months?" asked Gerald.

"Yes," answered Carolyn as she proceeded to unpack her things. "We're really
sorry, sir. The Teencruiser broke down."

"It's alright," Gerald said reluctlantly, "but a bit too long of a vacation.
You have a mission ahead of you," he said with importance. He was much better
than Martin was but it still sounded stupid.

"A mission?" groaned Carolyn. "I've just had a loooonnng flight so it better
not be too far away."

"I strongly suggest against a mission," Vixen said. "Carolyn has tapeworm and
better lay down..."

"I don't have tapeworm!" said Carolyn. "This is getting really old!"

Gerald ignored their squabbling and handed a diskette to the Polybag Person.
"This is an automatic flight program," he said, placing it firmly in Martin's
hand. "It will take you to Poland and give you the details of your mission."

Martin nodded importantly, or at least tried to nod importantly, and was on
his way to the Teencruiser Special Edition. "Teenfactor... away!"

"Can I go too?" asked Toby as he pulled on Martin's flimsly costume.

"Uh..." Martin paused for a second and took out his superhero handbook,
choosing a random passage. "Yes, fill in name here, you can accompany the bold
team of fill in name here on our mission to fill in place here, so that we can
install a sense of liberty, and,uh, justice for all, no matter what their fill
in politically correct term for reason why the person would not come...!" He
raised his voice on the last word to make it sound dramatic.

Toby scratched his head but smiled freindly as usual. "Okay! Let's go!" He
jumped on Martin's back.

Martin reluctlantly tugged Tomo along, the rest of Teenfactor following them
on their second mission since the beginning of this series. 

***********************************************************************

"Now where are we?"

"I beleive the question, dear brother, is *when* are we?"

"Very astute,sister," the more masculine of the two voices called as the body-
slide completed. "It appears to be a cold Artic landscape, circa 1998," he
continued.

His sister knealt down to the ice cold polar ice caps and tapped it lightly.
"True," she said slowly.

She looked up at her brother with a strange, inquiring look. "But however did
you figure out that?"

"Oh, just that 1998 calender laying on the ground," said her brother as he
pointed out calender. "And I beleive our prey is here... somewhere."

"Really?" asked the female. "How simply divine..."

"Soon," the male voice said, raising a fist into the air, "the world shall
once again fear the power of Hunter- Hunted and Hunted- Hunter!"

At this note, both of them laughed evily as most villains we haven't seen in a
long time do.

*************************************************************

"If I ever have to go thru another wretchedly boring flight like that again, I
swear I'll scream!" said Vixen angerily. "I'll literally scream!"

"Get a hold of yourself," said Carolyn as she propped open the door to the
Teencruiser with a meer flick of a button. "I've been hungery since we got
near the Atlantic and you don't see me complaining."

"The only reason why you're hungery is because you have TAPEWORM!" shouted
Roxanne. 

"Only you--"                         "I--"
"won't"                            "don't have--"
"admit it!"                         "TAPE--"
"Yes you--"                        "WORM!"
"Yes you do!"                  "No I don't!"

"Will you two just shut up?!" said Mable impatiently. "We're here because we
have a job to do and that means we better do it! Understand? Good! Now
everybody out!!!"

Everyone grumbled a bit and Carolyn could be heard to whisper "donot" but
generally everyone was silent enough by the time they all got out of the
Teencruiser.

"Now," said the Polybag Person with some degree of importance, "do you all
know why we're here?"

A "no"  or two or five emitted from the crowd of Teenagers.

"I do," said Toby.

"Didn't anybody pay attention to our little on- flight mission breifing?"

"I did," said Toby,  though no else did.

"Alright," said Martin, "There's a group of net.villains called The perplexing
Random Battalion of Poland. They have no real personalities except those that
may develop accidently. Yesterday, there were..."

"Six members," suggested Toby carefully.

"Right... how did you know that?" Martin asked.

"I payed attention, Mr. Mylar," Toby said with a wide smile.

"That was kind of you, Toby..." said Martin, using what would be a dramatic
pause had it been a dramatic moment, "...I'm glad someone's earning their
pay."

Had that been a dramatic pause, Teenfactor would of then gasped dramatically.
But, since it wasn't, and instead was an ackward attempt at a dramatic pause,
they all just sort of grumbled. "Today it has... 25 members." Martin chose
this time to attempt another dramatic pause. Since this was the appropiate
moment, Teenfactor did gasp dramatically.

"As you can see, they're only getting more members. But, luckily for us, the
original six sent for these from Lee's Supervillains, International, and they
won't arrive until today in... four hours. Which means we got that much
time..."

"Four hours," suggested Tomo.

"Four hours," nodded Martin," to halt the delivery of the 19 new henchmen.
This plan has been divided into two parts," he continued. He gasped for a
moment and drank some water from a glass. "I haven't had this much dialogue in
a long time."

"Would you like me to finish for you, sir?" asked Toby. "Your voice sounds
awfully dry, Mr. Mylar."

"Go ahead, Tomo," said Martin. "It will give me more time to study my dramatic
posing and read my new Adam West drama lesson book."

Toby cleared his throat very loudly to make sure everyone was paying
attention. "The first part of the plan is to get the box and arrest it before
it can be opened," he explained. "But to get the box, we have to stop the
perplexing Random Battilion of Poland so they can't sign for it."

About 1 block away, just one measly block from the landing pad Teenfactor was
situated on, Teenfactor was being... (dramatic pause) observed. " 'This is
strange,' said Daresquirrel with dramatic tension in his voice," said a voice
flatly.

"Just give me the binoculars, Elton," a female voice said with an annoying
tone.

" Daresquirrel paused, looking swiftly to make sure that no evil ear was
arround to discover his secret identity as Elton Wallace, accounting college
student. Leaning off of his trusty Darehorse, Daresquirrel passed the
binoculars to his fearless leader, the heroic Iron Canary, and said, 'Here you
are, fearless leader of our brave team, but be careful not to give away the
dramatic and horribly secret secret identity of I, Daresquirrel!" said the
first figure in a flat, narrative tone.

The female grabbed the binoculars and watched carefully. "That's Mable! And
Carolyn! And Shaggy! And Lavender!"she said. "What are they doing here?"

"Do you know those guys?" a third voice asked, peeking from behind a large
building as best he could, for this third voice was about 10 feet tall.

"Yes, I know them. They're an American group..."

" 'Of Net.villains?' suggested Daresquirrel as he urged his Darehouse towards
the vile scum with his sacred words of... 'Bubblegum!' "said the first voice.

"No! They're not...! Oh, Damn!" swore the second voice. It was too late, as
the first voice was already on his way to thrashing our heroes.

" 'Give up, foul villains!' cried Daresquirrel with enthusiasm," said the
voice as he rode, on his trusty Darehorse, in the same path as Mable was
standing.

"My God!" screeched Mable. "It's a manaic on a horse!"

"He must be one of perplexing Random Battilion of Poland!" said Carolyn.
Luckily, she had changed into her Areo Lass costume in the Teencruiser's
bathroom department before arriving in Poland so changing wouldn't present a
problem. (See issues 17 and 24, for example.)

" 'Do my ears deceive me?' said Daresquirrel as he dared closer to the
villain, ' or did she just say that she was one of the perplexing Random
Battilion of Poland, sworn enemy of I, Daresquirrel?' " said the figure who's
name was obviously Daresquirrel.

"He must be a villain!" said the Polybag Person who had trouble hearing over
the confusion. "Only villains talk in third person! I know! I've tried it!"

" 'Taste the power of the Daring Daresword Of Daresquirrel!' said Daresquirrel
as he menaced his newfound foes with the device," said Daresquirrel.

"Eat snot, Squirrelboy!" said Mable as he sneezed.

"Oh dear!" fretted Tomo. "We shouldn't be fighting! Fighting is wrong!"

" 'Why am I fighting you?' asked Daresquirrel with a puzzled look," said
Daresquirrel as Toby's freindship powers began to work.

At that moment, five  more costumed figures entered the fray. One of them wore
an iron suit in the shape of a canary, with burning red eyes. She rode a
chariot pulled by two real canaries, only bigger ones.

Another was male, about 7 feet tall. He wore a riveted helmet and an iron
battle armor suit. This guy had no face mask and a well- detailed
(read:wrinkled) face, while his left hand held a gigantic axe, blue in shape.

A small bat rode a motorcycle.

A blue - purplish dragon just sort of hung in there.

And, finally, a midget in a small car, wearing a tuxedo and a white mask, a
rose in his hand and a tophat on his head, appeared.

"There are six of them!" said Shaggy. "They must be the perplexing Random
Battilion Of Poland!"

"The perplexing Random Battilion of Poland?!" said all of the new figures at
the same time. Well, except for the dragon, who couldn't seem to talk,
Daresquirrel, who just added "said Daresquirrel in astonishment" to the end of
it, and the canary- suited girl, who just sighed deeply.

"We are *not* the perplexing Random Battilion of Poland," said the canary-
suited girl. "And neither are they," she explained to her team.

Everyone, for the most part, said, "Oh."

"We are Action Legion Poland!" said the canary dramatically. "I am called Iron
Canary. I already know all of you..well, most of you anyway."

"You do?" asked Carolyn. "That's strange, cause I don't know you."

"Well you should, silly girl," said Iron Canary with a laugh as she removed
her helmet, revealing a familar face...

************************************************************************

Next: Who is that mysterious face? Find out next time, in hopefully three
days, in the next issue of... TEENFACTOR!

**************************************************************************

Everyone is mine, nyah, nyah, nyah. Action Legion Poland is mine, though its
members were created by Lee's Useless Superhero Generator. The same process
created the perplexing Random Battalion of Poland.

*****************************************************************************

1998 Tom Russell Jnr.

On to Teenfactor #27.