Table of Contents
Montana Howery and the Mantle of N00b
Plot
The episode opens with Dave Howery taking Keira Knightley on vacation in the shuttle Mynx VI. Unbeknownst to them (but knownst to us), Thande and Flocculencio hid in Keira's suitcases to watch her undress and then became trapped.
Dave takes Keira to a timeline where a gigantic, miles-tall and mile-thick wall lies along the border between the Russian and Chinese empires in central Asia - That Damned Kazakh Border. After eating dinner, Dave leaves Keira in a drinking contest and goes to get his Bag of Holding with his wallet. However, he's attacked by Redem, one of the prison guards who abused him in his former life (“TO LIVE AND DIE IN SAULT STE. MARIE”). Dave fights Redem off with Thande and Flocc's help and Redem goes flying out of the window, skydiving to safety, still with Dave's bag.
Keira drinks all the locals under the table, helped by her simplified genetic makeup making her immune to alcohol, and thus they get the meal free. However, they are accosted at the shuttlebay by Redem and his employer - Evil MrP (“V IS FOR VENDETTA”, “THE MACHINE”) and two Space Janissaries, 037771 and and Ed Costello. Terminology has subtly shifted and Thande deduces that the ASBs have been interfering with the Vendetta timeline.
Evil MrP retrieves a magic map from Dave's Bag, but only Keira can read it. She negotiates, offering to read it and give herself to Evil P if he lets the others go free. He agrees to do so - after they have found what they are searching for, the Mantle of Eternal N00bishness or Mantle of N00b for short. This is a jacket which is stained with the blood of the original clone-source luakel, allowing the Vendettas to engineer a virus to attack all luakel clones everywhere.
In their Blunderstork ship, they go to the timeline/planet Champagnia and Dave, Thande and Flocc are sent off to buy ornate clothes to blend in. They do so, buying ones with hidden weapons. Then Keira leads the group to the catacombs where the Mantle is hidden, but Dave manages to fool Redem with wrong directions. Dave, Thande and Flocc go off to find the Mantle, defeating various traps before reaching the central chamber - though Evil P and the others have realised their mistake and followed them.
They are faced with a huge array of possible Mantles and a vortex gateway through which the Machine keeps sending Nekromen, an uprated military version of luakel clones, to protect the Mantles. P starts killing the Nekromen, while Redem choosely poorly and ages backwards to an embryo. Dave chooses wisely, but P no longer cares about the Mantle - he decides to lob a planet-buster grenade through the vortex to deal with the Machine directly. However, 037771 turns out to be a Traitor Janissary and fights Ed Costello - Dave uses IronYuppie's bullwhip to pull the grenade out of P's hands, but it's already armed.
In a fortunate deus ex machina, the AH.com Ship shows up and rescues the four crewmen. Evil P jumps through the vortex to the Machine. Then the grenade goes off and Champagnia blows up.
On the AH.com Ship, Thande and Torqumada demonstrate conclusively that the blood on the Mantle is from a luakel too similar to our own, and thus must be fake, while on the Machine, a small army of Nekromen decide to take revenge on Evil P, who unfortunately turns out to be a masochist…
Continuity
This episode takes the Vendetta crew from V IS FOR VENDETTA and THE MACHINE but makes significant changes as mentioned above. The secrets of this episode would go on to be explained in THE ULTIMATE SHOWDOWN and THE GATES OF DAWN.
Reception
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Behind the Scenes
The episode started as a brief idea by Thande that “Indiana Jones/Warhammer 40K” must, surely, be one of the few crossovers that has never been tried. He now awaits proof to the contrary.
Easter Eggs
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