Fanfiction:That's Not Funny: The Unimaginatively Subtitled Adventures of Lance the Wolf

If you value your intelligence, you will not proceed further.

And as this story is incomplete, you may be left on an epic cliffhanger. (Or, more likely, a really lame cliffhanger.)

Overview
Lance the Wolf, a comedic college student, is challenged by a friend to find something that Lance doesn't find funny in some way. In an entirely unrelated incident, he is possessed by the ghost of a long-dead wizard, and is convinced to assist him in exacting revenge on the sorcerer who killed him. With the help of a reformed felon, at the end of an arduous journey, Lance finds the sorcerer--and an even greater threat.

Lance the Wolf
A college freshman with an overdeveloped sense of humor, Lance has potential to become a great hero. All he needs is some strength, some brains, some sanity, some competence...

Doom the Hedgehog
Two and a half centuries ago, powerful wizard Doom unwisely took on the even more powerful Nox Nekros. Now cursed to wander the world a homeless spirit, he is eager to exact revenge on his foe...

Stalemate the Echidna
In prison at age 16 for assassinating the governor of the Iron Mountains, Stalemate was taught by a kindly old chaplain that he didn't have to follow his outlaw father's path. Eight months ago, he was freed by a clerical error. Now he wanders the mountains, in search of opportunities such as this...

Nox Nekros
Having lived over three hundred years off of his connection to the underworld, Nox is an extremely dangerous and powerful sorcerer. However, his current employment under an evil genius may be his undoing...

Dr. Maxwell Hamberger
Dr. Hamberger believes that robots are superior to animals, and that humans are superior to robots. Most of all, he believes he should be superior to everything...

1: The Bet

 * Lance the Wolf started the day in his usual fashion--arguing with the alarm clock.
 * "I was about to wake up naturally and peacefully!" he protested. "But you--you authoritarian, you had to yank me out of my slumber prematurely..."
 * "You know," remarked his dormmate, Brad the Hedgehog, in sleepy lack of amusement, "sometimes I wish the clock would talk back to you."
 * "Now that'd be a great story for my performance," Lance grinned, brushing his somewhat long, maroon fur out of his eyes.
 * "You say that for everything," Brad grumbled. He couldn't tolerate anyone before his first cup of coffee in the morning, much less the semi-professional comedian Lance.
 * The two were freshmen at Neon University, a college built in the heart of the bustling metropolis of Neon City, which in turn is just north of the Iron Mountain Zone, which is pretty much in the middle of nowhere. Lance and Brad actually got along fairly well--after coffee. The normal routine continued as Brad hopped into the bathroom to shower and dress, while Lance straightened up the room and hummed classic country music.
 * This was a Thursday morning, so while Brad went to the cafeteria for breakfast (and more importantly, coffee), Lance bathed, dressed, and drove to the Purple Duck Diner to meet Penn.
 * Penn the Fox was a friend of Lance's family, but more like an older brother to Lance himself. As all three of Lance's siblings were older sisters, as a kid he had arguably needed one to keep sane. (Not that Lance was ever accused of being sane.) Penn was now three years out of college and had a solid job in journalism, but he maintained a mentoring relationship with Lance. One way he did this was by treating Lance to breakfast each Thursday morning.
 * Soon, Lance was recounting the events of the past week. "So I was in line to check out at the grocery store, to buy the one thing I can afford for the week. The guy ahead of me was this big, muscular guy--you know, the type of guy who lives on kale and spinach?" He paused for the imaginary audience to respond. "I kept checking my belt to make sure I wasn't losing weight by just standing behind him." Another pause. "Anyway, I watched as this health nut pulls eight bags of potato chips and a fried chicken out of his cart." Pause. "I wanted to ask if he'd just been laid off from his gym advertising job, but the biceps convinced me not to."
 * Penn chuckled. "Really, Lance, you need to stop using me to rehearse your act."
 * Fred, the owner, chef, and coincidentally Penn's father, brought their food out to them. "He still trying to make you laugh, Penn?" he winked.
 * "He's coming closer," Penn grinned.
 * "Well, there's a reason he's the prime attraction Friday nights," Fred replied, referring to the open-mike show his business hosted each Friday evening. He then left to attend to other duties.
 * "In all seriousness," Penn remarked a few minutes later, "I don't think I've seen anything that you wouldn't find funny."
 * "Black Arms invasion," Lance quickly countered. "Wait, they have the universe's ugliest faces...uh, Robotnik's an evil maniac, but he is even uglier..."
 * "See?" Penn replied, but not with the I-told-you-so tone that normally accompanies that word in that context. "I'm serious. Find one thing to which you can honestly say, 'that's not funny', and I'll give you fifty bucks."
 * To Lance, living on the stereotypical college-student budget, fifty was a substantial amount. "Heh, really throwing that much away so easily?"
 * Penn grinned again. "That much less for Kay to spend on her hair." (Kay was Penn's wife, in case you didn't guess.)
 * "Deal," Lance said. Then, as an afterthought: "Though I must admit, I'm not a hundred percent sure I'll win."




 * Until nearly dinnertime, the day passed without significant event. That evening, shortly after his last class, Lance was walking around the Neon University campus. Or rather, wandering aimlessly around campus, alternating between singing Merle the Coyote songs and mentally writing comedy material. Walking was the one thing (besides eating) that Lance could do concurrent with thinking.
 * On that note, as Lance thought as he turned into a random blind alley, he couldn't even pay attention to his surroundings while thinking.
 * "Great," Lance said aloud, "lost in my own school again." But just then, something caught his eye. It was beginning to grow dark, and a luminous, light-green mist was just barely visible in a corner.
 * Lance paused. In his world, you believed in magic. You believed in ghosts. This gave the appearance of something supernatural, but if this was supposed to be a dramatic arrival of some long-dead villain, it was a near-epic fail.
 * As subtly as it appeared, the mist vanished. Lance shrugged and turned to go to the cafeteria. But then, not subtly at all, his mind went on overload and he fell to the pavement amidst a flash of green light.

2: The Spirit

 * His head spinning, Lance slowly picked himself up. Garbled thoughts and images sped across the screen of his brain. He couldn't even piece together a sarcastic remark.
 * Then, after a minute that felt like five, his head cleared. Yet he still felt something strange in there. Something...
 * "Greetings," an unfamiliar booming voice said--using Lance's mouth.
 * ...ghostly.
 * "I don't swear," Lance remarked, "but I really want to right now."
 * "Calm yourself," the voice said. "I mean you no harm."
 * "Then what are you doing?" Lance demanded, almost yelling.
 * All will be explained--or most of it, at least. To avoid awkward, uninformed conversations, I will remain silent until you are in your private chamber.''"
 * "Uh, okay..." Lance replied. It came to mind that he didn't even sleep alone, and he couldn't hog the bathroom for an extended period of time. But then he remembered: by random chance...a lot of random things work in protagonists' favor in these sort of stories, don't they?...Brad planned to party with some other friends of his that night, so that gave them until 11:59 pm. Plenty of time for dinner as well as explanations for being inside one's head.
 * So, Lance found his way out and went about business as usual until a couple hours later. When Brad left for the party, Lance set up the desk lamps to fake cop-movie-interrogation-room-style lighting and sat down. "Spill it," he said.
 * The voice complied. "I am called Doom, Doom the Hedgehog," it said. "When I was alive, I was a powerful sorcerer."
 * "Never would have guessed."
 * "Over two hundred fifty years ago, I was at the height of my power. I was the second-most feared magician in the Iron Mountain Zone. But though I was in my seventies, wisdom had not yet set in. I chose to hunt down the most feared sorcerer: Nox Nekros."
 * "And failed epically."
 * "That could be said, yes. After a power battle today's apathetic generation wouldn't consider noteworthy, I was killed. But Nox wasn't through with me--so thoroughly did he enjoy my defeat that he immediately brought back my spirit."
 * "So he could kick your butt again?"
 * "On the contrary. In spirit form, my power is useless. I require a physical body to employ the magic that made me a formidable warrior."
 * "Hence me."
 * "''First of all, that makes little sense; second of all, I will get to you soon enough. As I was saying, my most famous power was useless. In addition, while a spirit can cause physical harm, if I were not possessing something, he could easily dismiss me should I attack him again.
 * "I eventually found a host who was strong enough of body and mind to help me wreak vengeance upon Nox, but by then, it was too late. He had disappeared from his usual haunts without a trace. Thus, I have spent the last quarter century wandering, searching for the one who destroyed and cursed me so."
 * "Pardon the obvious question, but uh...wouldn't he be dead by now?"
 * "On the contrary. He feeds off his connection to the afterlife. As long as there are souls to send back and forth, he lives on, powerful as ever."
 * Lance shivered. "Well, at least he's not been seen for two-hundred-plus years..."
 * "Until now."
 * "Thank you for that uninformative, enigmatic statement."
 * Doom was obviously already beginning to grow tired of his host's overdeveloped sense of humor. "Just yesterday, I wandered into a laboratory belonging to a human, one Dr. Hamberger." (Here Lance snickered.) "I happened to overhear this Hamberger speaking to a colleague, and found that a hedgehog named Nox had been a great help to Hamberger by conjuring up spirits of long-dead scientific geniuses. I knew we had our man."
 * "Am I allowed to be a jerk and say it might have been coincidence?"
 * "No."
 * "Ha! A straightforward, monosyllabic answer!"
 * Doom groaned audibly. "If it weren't for the potential I see in you, I would abandon you right now."
 * Lance burst out laughing. "You see potential? Get some glasses. I'm no warrior, I'm an almost-funny comedian!"
 * "So you think. (About the first half of that last sentence, just to clarify.) Whether you realize it or not, the blood of your warrior ancestors flows through your veins. Also, you are but a tool--I shall exact my vengeance myself."
 * "Way to make me feel special."
 * "I will give you until Saturday to prepare. You may inform whomever you like about me--I fear I am entirely forgotten now. But that is no matter...only my vengeance is of importance to me..."
 * "May I request that you not go off rambling? It's my breath too, y'know."
 * Doom, for once, seemed to understand. "Of course."
 * The ghost silenced, Lance tried to work on his material for the next night. But he found it difficult to focus. Doom kept lurking in the back of his mind...literally, Lance observed.
 * He decided the best way to prepare for his quest would be to get some extra sleep, so he changed into the old t-shirt and basketball shorts that served as his pajamas. In the process of doing so, he found something under his clothes. To be more precise, a dark-green-colored garment that is best described verbally as a combination of vest, tunic, and scrap fabric, fastened by a black leather belt. Yeah, good idea--go look at the poster to see what on earth I'm saying.
 * Sensing Lance's puzzlement, Doom explained. "A strange side effect of my possession...the new addition to your wardrobe. It is what I wore back when I lived."
 * Much to Lance's relief, it came off normally. "Green goes terrible with my fur," he remarked to nobody in particular.
 * Lance finally climbed into bed. As he drifted off to sleep--something he could do almost at will--he heard Doom whisper: "I shall have my vengeance..."

3: The Advice

 * Friday morning, Lance randomly received a phone call. (Again with the randomness...) Lance was a bit surprised at first, but was later glad to have gotten it.
 * "Hello?" Lance answered.
 * His father Don's slow, calm voice came through the receiver. "Lance?"
 * "Oh, hi Dad. Random checkup again?"
 * "You could say that. I just felt led to call you this morning. Anything you'd like to talk about?"
 * Lance thought. He had never been good at thinking, and his dad had frequently offered just the advice Lance needed for eighteen years. "You know, funny you should ask..."
 * Briefly he explained, then noted that he had to get to class soon. "Tell you what, how about I come over later? Say, seven o'clock?"
 * Don, an easygoing wolf, had listened to and understood Lance's story with little to no shock. But now he displayed surprise. "Isn't that the same time as your show?"
 * Lance grinned. "I ain't been able to focus long enough to put one together. Old Fred can do without me for a week."
 * "I should hope so. See you tonight, then."
 * "Alright, bye."
 * That evening, Lance met with Don and Hannah Ryder in their home on the edge of Neon City. In greater detail than earlier, with occasional interjections from Doom, he told his parents what had happened.
 * "Oh, you poor thing!" was the first thing out of Hannah's mouth.
 * "Mom, I'm perfectly alright," Lance insisted. "I'm already getting used to having someone else in my head."
 * "He has been one of my best hosts," Doom agreed, "and I haven't even seen him in battle yet."
 * "If he learned at all from all those action movies he watched in high school, he ought to be in good shape," Don grinned.
 * "Dad..."
 * "I'm joking, son. But you're not exactly helpless. If you feel you should help this Doom fellow..."
 * "I'm still here, you know..."
 * "...then do so. And if you don't feel right about it, then don't. It's quite simple, really."
 * "No one ever accused you of being overprotective," Lance muttered.
 * "Honey," Hannah protested, "he could get killed! You heard the ghost--this villain outdid a powerful sorcerer! I know you wouldn't have let any of the girls do this!"
 * "Of course not," Don replied. "They're girls."
 * "Way to gender stereotype, Dad," Lance observed.
 * "Blame the author. Anyway, Hannah, I trust Lance's judgement. Despite how it seems sometimes, he's got a good head on his shoulders..." Either Lance or Doom snickered. "...and he tends to be over-cautious. Something our girls could have learned, if their ER bills are any indication."
 * "But...but..." Hannah stammered, falling into her husband's arms.
 * Don looked at his son. "I'll handle her; she'll be alright by tomorrow. You make your decision and act on it. We'll see each other again, whether on this side of the river or not. See you around, Lance."
 * Lance bowed for no particular reason. "Thanks, Dad. See ya 'round."




 * "Well, have you made your decision?" Doom asked as Lance drove home.
 * "I thought you could read my mind," Lance pointed out.
 * "An entirely unfounded theory. Answer the question."
 * Lance sighed. "Well, I will spare you the idiotic chain of thought that brought me to this conclusion, but my mind is made up. I'm going."

4: The Start

 * Lance's start was nondescript. He just ate breakfast, grabbed his duffel bag, got in his car, and drove down the one vehicle-friendly road into the Iron Mountains.
 * The road ended halfway up one of the smaller peaks. "So, Doom, where do we go from here?"
 * "I don't know."
 * "Very funny. If you want to have your revenge, you have to tell me."
 * "I do not jest. I don't know."
 * Lance exploded. "Seriously?! You dragged me out into the middle of nowhere just to tell me you didn't know where to go?!"
 * "I confess I did not think this through very well."
 * "Well, start thinking, sonny."
 * "Did you just call me 'sonny'?"
 * "Yes I did, sonny! Now, do you at least have any general idea where the guy is?"
 * While they were arguing with each other, and Lance was running out breath twice as quickly, they did not realize they were being watched.
 * "I was known for my magic," Doom continued to protest, "not my sense of direction."
 * "Why are we standing here arguing anyway?"
 * "Excellent question," piped up a strange voice, much deeper than Lance's but much higher than Doom's. A young, dark blue echidna, wearing orange shorts and holding a flanged mace, climbed down from a tree. "Especially since you seem to have multiple personality disorder."
 * "I don't, FYI," Lance grumbled. "I'm literally possessed."
 * To Lance's surprise (and relief), the echidna merely shrugged at this. "Seen stranger things in my time."
 * "Like an evil wizard, perhaps?" Lance tried.
 * "Fool," Doom sighed.
 * "Nope," the echidna replied. "But now I'm sure you're not with the government--even they are more subtle than that."
 * "Good, I get enough hate as a comedian, I don't need being mistaken for a government agent thrown on top of that."
 * "Around here, there's people that would shoot you for being either." The echidna grinned. "I'm serious."
 * "Comforting."
 * "Anyway, I see you are looking for someone," the stranger continued. "I'm in a good mood, and bored beyond belief, so I'd like to offer my services."
 * Lance shifted his gaze to the mace. "You pretty good with that?"
 * "Only compared to some."
 * "Well, I don't have any idea where I'm going, but I have a feeling it won't exactly be a bed of roses. So yeah, I need some help."
 * "Remember: I get Nox alone," Doom cut in.
 * "Then, you have my assistance," the echidna said, bowing. "My name is Chase, but I go by Stalemate."
 * "Because you never win?" Lance cracked.
 * "My father went by Checkmate," Stalemate explained. "He was an outlaw, and led me down the same path he had walked his entire life. But while serving time for assassinating the governor, I underwent a massive change of philosophy."
 * "You speak of your past quite freely," Doom remarked, "especially being a criminal."
 * "I'm ashamed of my past, but I'm not going to hide it either. The kid I am now and the kid I was then are constantly fighting within me, neither keeping the upper hand. That, my friend, is why I call myself Stalemate."
 * "If you assassinated the governor," Lance wondered, "how are you here? You're much too young to have served even the lightest sentence to completion."
 * "Clerical error. But enough about me. It's hard even for us natives to find our way into these mountains; we don't need to burn daylight."
 * "Agreed," Doom replied. "Lead the way."




 * Even with a guide born and raised in the area, Lance found that it took two hours to so much as get over and off the mountain. "I'd go faster," Stalemate said at one point, "but you city slickers couldn't handle the terrain."
 * "To with the terrain," Doom swore. "I will not have my vengeance delayed by a mere inconvenience."
 * "And I will," Lance countered.
 * "It's no mere 'inconvenience'," Stalemate grinned. He pointed seemingly straight up a cliff face. "Any native would scale that without blinking."
 * Lance grinned. Doom groaned.
 * That night, they camped in a small cave in a mountainside. Stalemate had chosen this spot thoughtfully. "The winds here can start up at any moment, and when they start, they start."
 * Lance watched night fall from the mouth of the cave while Stalemate started a small fire. His eye caught something--or more precisely, Doom caught something through Lance's eye.
 * "What's that out there?" Doom asked.
 * Stalemate looked a moment to where Lance was pointing, then started digging around in his pack. He returned with a telescope. Peering through this, he said, "It's a chimney--the industrial kind."
 * "Can you see anything else?" Lance inquired.
 * "I see a sign. Can't make out much detail from here, but the logo is gigantic. Looks like an M-H monogram."
 * "Wonderful!" Doom exclaimed, Lance's relaxed posture not matching the ghost's excitement. "That is the brand of Dr. Hamberger! We are closer than ever to finding Nekros!"
 * Stalemate grinned. "Do you have any idea how far off that factory is? Timewise, that is?"
 * "Fifteen years!" Lance immediately answered, much to Doom's annoyance.
 * "That factory's on the third tallest peak in this range. If the weather agrees with us, it'll take four or five more days."
 * Doom swore, so Lance pointed out, "I thought you said you were from here."
 * "I was. But I came from the foothills."
 * "Meaning?"
 * "The foothills," Stalemate cut in, "have always been home to the tame, cute little villages. The deeper into the Iron Mountains you get, the rougher the terrain gets--and the people."
 * Lance yawned. "Well, anyway, so much for not missing school. We've got a long way to go, and a short time to get there, so I vote that we sleep."
 * "Go ahead," Stalemate said. "I'll keep watch for a while."
 * Lance did not need to be told twice, and was out in moments.

To be continued...