The Adventures of Me in the Marvel Universe:
Startup Escalation 1999 2000 2001 2002 Jellyfish 2003 A Sequel 2004. .

The Adventures of Me 2002

The Great Jellyfish Hunt

Jellyfish Hunt? Why are we hunting jellyfish, anyway? Because these aren't just any jellyfish; these are mind-controlling alien jellyfish. And they've messed with my life more than once, so I've joined the hunt. And I go to one of the hunters' briefings, and take notes.

  • What do we know about the jellyfish? I know from personal experience that these creatures fly, have electrical powers, communicate via electricity and telepathy, and like to hang out with terrorists.
  • Where are they living? Most of them seem to be in Lake Michigan. They like freshwater.
  • How do they protect themselves? Many of them have volunteered to stand sentry duty on the major approaches to the lake. They usually set themselves up in water towers, with special transmitting equipment so their mind control can go for miles.
  • What do they eat? Microbes, largely. The ones in the lake eat freshwater fish, and send rations in to the sentries.
  • Who else knows this stuff? The readers of the Weekly World News and some other fine tabloids, but that's about it.
  • What's the U.S. Government doing about it? Apparently they are not taking reports of flying jellyfish seriously... or if they are, they're suppressing them along with all the other UFOs that ever got categorized as "weather balloons".
  • Who's this "we" in the Jellyfish Hunt, anyway? The hunt's being led by a bunch of paintball players.
  • Paintball players? Why?
    1. They have experience. Lots of trained soldiers and militiamen play paintball. The others make up for their lack of professional experience with lots of practice.
    2. They have organization. You should see the effort that goes into some of those paintball games.
    3. They have power over Jellyfish. Fresh paint not only does a number on Jellyfish senses, it inhibits their mind control if you get a head shot on one of their underlings.
  • How's the Jellyfish Hunt going? Not terribly well, for the hunters.
  • Until I came to Illinois, the paintballers couldn't even get to O'Hare Airport, which kind of interfered with their coast-to-coast travel. One of the jellyfish habitats in the western suburbs guarded its approaches. Anyone the Jellyfish didn't like who came in on a plane would have a seizure.

    But then I came to the Chicago suburbs for the Silly Days Parade. The parade was such a tourist attraction, the Jellyfish were overwhelmed. (We figure they'd learned how to filter out the mass of travellers through O'Hare Airport, but only with special equipment that they didn't have time to place near the parade ground.) I'd organized the parade, so the Jellyfish tried to get me out of the way. The Jellyfish Hunters showed up just in time to help me, so I owe them one. I'm joining the hunt.

  • What's the plan? The Jellyfish Hunters have to admit, they need a change of strategy. They plan to set up one of their usual mass assaults on one target... while special forces deal with another.
  • What do they have for special forces? It seems I fall in the "special forces" category, because the hunters have noticed I do some strange stuff... like Hulk out. But besides me, there's...
  • What's the goal? The Paintball Hunters would like to get a tanker truck of special chemicals into the south end of Lake Michigan. That should send the Jellyfish fleeing from four out of five Great Lakes.
  • What's the target? The big mass of paintball hunters is going to assault Michigan City, Indiana. But we're going to sneak into Saint Joseph, Michigan. The tanker truck is waiting in South Bend, Indiana, and can make it either place if something succeeds.
  • How do we get there if Jellyfish can mind-control us away? Hopefully the mass of paintballers in Michigan City will get their attention. Even if not, we hope we can make it in. Yon and Kristi both say they can resist the mind control. And I have a car that drives itself, so I plan on sleeping all the way there.
  • Surprises are bad and planning is good, so how exactly are we getting in?
  • What are we doing once we hit town?
  • I'd like to end the story here and say things went according exactly to plan... but no plan with me in it is ever exact.

  • Before I boarded the train in Chicago, I bought a newspaper. It mentioned Captain America addressing the United Nations. So far, so good; Cap's in one universe and the Jellyfish are in another. It's only me who's in both. So, on to St. Joseph.
  • My train hit town about half an hour late, in the middle of a lake-effect snowstorm.
  • When I hit the main street, people were pouring out of bar rooms. Militia alert? Could be. And one group noticed me, obviously a stranger in town because nobody comes to visit Lake Michigan during an ice storm if they don't have to. I moved casually away, but another group blocked me.
  • Yon the Shit Hunter was up on the hotel rooftop, picking off militiamen with rubber bullets as they chased my coat. But then he got a call for help from Kristi the Whale Girl. So did I, for that matter. I talked the local militia into following me up to the water tower, but by then things had been decided.
  • Anyway, we not only all made it home, we caused such a ruckus among the Jellyfish hive mind that our forces down in Michigan City stormed right in. The tanker truck dumped there, and the Jellyfish in the lake all had to flee. The ones in the water towers surrendered, because all that water comes from Lake Michigan. And everything downriver from there is now uninhabitable for Jellyfish. Hooray for us!
  • The Jellyfish Hunt is winding down for now. They say there might be some little colonies of Jellyfish in the Finger Lakes of New York, and some big colonies in Lake Superior, Great Slave Lake in northern Canada, and Lake Baikal in Siberia, but they're surely not a problem around here anymore.


    The Adventures of Me in the Marvel Universe:
    Startup Escalation 1999 2000 2001 2002 Jellyfish 2003 A Sequel 2004.