POWERNAUT 2005!

All the links here can be found under http://www.eilertech.com/stories/ .

I never was good at getting along with myself. And Karl Scribner *is* myself. Due to this year's reality shifts (ref: 2005/humans.htm), I got my name, he got my history, and we both got most of our memories, only Karl got more. I'm not sure which of us came out farthest behind. But Karl used superhuman powers to not look like me! Heh.

Now Karl and I are joined again - physically on occasion, with the Powernaut as a third partner. I call the events which led up to that "The Dark Maneuvers". Karl calls them "Workin' for the Powernaut". (see Powernaut 2005 Episode 3) Workin' for the Powernaut has already warped Karl's mind away from mine, or vice versa.

Karl is senior in this enterprise. That means he's the administrator, and I'm the field agent out doing the work. I can tell he thinks I'm weird, but he tries to treat me gently. Just as well.

Karl and the Powernaut established their headquarters in Mobile, Alabama, for some reason I never quite understood. This is far away from up North where we ever lived. Karl's not only in escape mode, he's gone off at right angles from where he was ever comfortable. But I understand. I've escaped my life too, except I can have it back if I ask. Karl can't.

It's awkward when our old friends contact us. For instance, I'd (we'd) promised our friend Anne that if she ever chucked her day job in Chicago and opened a bed-and-breakfast, I'd be there to help her. Technically Karl made the promise but I had the name, so I got to go. I like taking over Karl's old promises... Anyway, that's how this adventure started.

And that's quite enough of my personal problems. I need to be Wyatt Ferguson now. And in all modesty, the world needed someone to be Wyatt Ferguson for this story.

All the links here can be found under http://www.eilertech.com/stories/ .

Karl remained on our Earth during this year's reality shifts. I remained there too, in my own way. But most of our Earth's heroes did not. The space aliens made them run a space gauntlet and then lose their powers. The World Journal Monthly told their story better than I can. (ref: 2005/journal_melon.htm) But I can tell you who I recognized there.

• Lucianus Autonomus. He's the Earth's most experienced mystic... and he's Elton John's favorite boxer. Need I say more? (ref: lucianus.htm)
• Vara Hosea. She's a piano musician. And she's Lucianus's deputy champion. I used to be her deputy champion... for Death. (ref: death.htm)
• California Governor "Crusher Joe" Corrigan. ... We're an odd couple, with some weird shared past. (jehovah.htm) But we've worked together nicely, thanks. That was actually kind of spectacular. And it involved Bugs Bunny... or at least something that looked and acted like him. (ref: duopol3.htm)
• Sylvester Morrow. I hadn't met him, but I've seen his byline in the World Journal Monthly. (ref: 2004/journal_bear.htm)
• Leo. I hadn't met him, but I know he used to work with Crusher Joe. And he was there to bat against my team at the Boys of November game last year, as Mark Simon! Not that I was there... but hey, small world. (ref: baseball.htm)

Sylvester says, some other heroes were there but preferred not to show up in a Powernaut comic, and others just chose not to come. I can understand the desire to *try* to duck that stuff; I just prefer to run into it head-on.

All the links here can be found under http://www.eilertech.com/stories/ .

Karl investigated an alien infestation earlier this year. He helped discover the existence of Spanker 4 then! (ref: 2005/fergletter_jun.htm) Medieval records (purportedly from genies) revealed the Spankers before that - as alien minions!

I can testify for the aliens. I met them all in 2003. (wealth.htm) And they know of me from an End of the World thing in 1999 - when I had Deputy Deathbringer powers. Really. I reported to Vara Hosea (who was also in that room), but I also took some initiative back then. (me1999.htm)

I first ran across the Jellyfish in 2002 (ref: jellyfish.htm), and their leader "David" the year later (ref: farm.htm). I'm less familiar with the "Greens", but they resemble the "Mad Axeman from Venus" that rampaged across the eastern United States in 1992. The Green leader named himself Bneezl. He looked the most human of them - or at least he had the biggest neck. Reportedly that's the result of generations of breeding to adapt to our Solar System.

You're probably wondering what it is about aliens and spanking... Aliens consider Earthlings to be like naughty children. And they prefer ritual with their punishment.

All the links here can be found under http://www.eilertech.com/stories/ .

I have often encountered seven *things* which could warp all reality. (ref: duopol2.htm) They individually have control over Time, Space, Mind, Soul, Power, Reality, and Permanence. They look like gems, but they work like engines. So I refer to them as the Engines of Reality. They hop around universes, but nowhere but here have they all ever appeared at once. Here's what I know about their appearances.

• I'm told I got to hold all of them myself in 1969 (ref: Powernaut 1969 Part 2). Apparently the experience was so psychedelic it rotted my brain 'til 1971 (ref: 2011/1971.txt). But the Engines seemed to remember it fondly, based on how often they visited after that.
• I saw the Engines again for the first time in 1988 (ref: duopol1.htm). They induced a reality merge and superhero outbreak throughout my metropolitan area. At one point, somehow the heroes all ended up in my living room and the Engines in my basement.
• Then the whole thing happened again in 1996 (ref: duopol2.htm). It was almost exactly like before - except the heroes were different, and there was more time travel. I was there from both 1988 and 1996! Queen Zenobia (really!) and I teamed up but couldn't hold on to them.
• The appearance of 2004 got screwed up when evil mages attacked in 2003 (ref: duopol3.htm). The Engines got summoned and then scattered throughout Middle Eastern ancient history. There they just made things strange. I got to time-travel and put things right... but the Engines stayed behind.
• Karl found out earlier this year, the medieval Spanker 3 fizzled out in the Middle East (ref: 2005/fergletter_jun.htm). Before Karl's team could investigate, the famous 2005 reality shifts hit (ref: Powernaut 2005 Episode 1). It seems Spanker 4 appeared then, and went hunting for power objects in the Middle East... guess what he found!

I am so familiar with these things, I held them and *renounced* them once - permanently, because of the Engine of Permanence. (1988/me2.htm#sevenways) Unfortunately, at the time I neglected to ban *others* from chasing that same power. They merely have conditions before they can affect *me* with it.

So, you might consider me an expert on the Engines of Reality. As that expert, I now tell you... They're bad news. They're like the root passwords to everything, and the sysadmins of reality are just shrugging and saying "Whatever, you can just figure it out yourselves".

All the links here can be found under http://www.eilertech.com/stories/ .

Each of our planet's largest land masses have a super-powered Doom Creature. Asia and Europe are technically one land mass, but they each have their own Doom Creature. (I hear they slop the boundaries freely, though.)

Most pertinent to this story is the Asian creature, the Doom Panda of Gravity. Spanker 4 slaughtered it. The European creature the Little Doom Pony was also present, but ran away.

Slaughtering a Doom Creature gave Spanker 4 a power source independent of the Engines of Reality. That gave him some options, as we would find out.

North America lacks its own Doom Creature. Ellipsis and the Balance killed its Doom Bear in 1991. Somehow they acted as a buffer against the reappearance of a continental Doom Creature ever since, until the 2005 reality shifts. Doom Creatures acted as a buffer between the other continents and doom when Spanker 4 attacked. North America therefore went through Spanker 4's attack in a different way from the other continents.

All the links here can be found under http://www.eilertech.com/stories/ .

"Neutralizer" powers are a time-honored superhuman power in their own right. Somehow when the aliens re-engineered our world to eliminate the superhuman powers, the Neutralizers survived with their own powers. Either the aliens arranged this, or superhuman powers themselves did.

For some reason, Anne had those powers. And she operated in a town where aliens operated greatly. (ref: ../jellyfish.htm) I've asked her where her power might have come from, but she's stumped.

As for myself... I have long had the power to avoid things. At its greatest, this power lets me walk outside reality - and even arrive elsewhere within it. With some help from the local mages who were there for the Occulator Compuplex, I had the rare privilege of surprising the Powernaut with a teleportal! Oh, that was fun.