Author notes

Happy Birthday Hogan 2013

Roar Comics

on April 27, 2018

This-here was a little birthday short from 2013 for L.P. Hogan.
A gent who has done wonders for the webcomics community as the founder/proprietor of The WebComics Crossover and Cameo Archive!!

The boys pop into another parallel reality…
(This had also sparked the (now-ongoing) idea that, instead of touching down in every reality in a big bolt of lightning, as I originally wrote them doing, they would pop out of innocuous little places, usually too small for one guy to fit, muchless 3, and that their travels between dimensions are signified by tie-dye effects.)

They emerge in a Nexus Dimension. Number 37, to be precise. A waystation universe that detected dimensional travel early, and thus, they built their entire being around regulating it.

One L.P. Hogan just happens to be a high-ranking magistrate of the Interdimensional Border Patrol, and the boys entered his dimension, accidentally, though illegally, through his recycle bin… totally disrupting his day off.

===================================
-Dimension #37.
A waystation universe that detected dimensional travel early. Over time, they built their entire being around regulating it. The entire dimension is only about half the size of Planet Earth's solar system. There's only 4 planets orbiting a sun. That reality's version of Mars is still inhabited by its Native Beings, and the Earth itself is a bustling, futuristic omega-city, though, in the smaller areas, not much different from any other Earth.

One L.P. Hogan just happens to be a high-ranking magistrate of the Interdimensional Border Patrol. He's been on the job for 14 years, now, and hasn't had too many run-ins with too many extradimensional beings that he couldn't handle. Hogan spent years cataloguing other realities long before the agents of the Interdimensional Border Patrol recruited him as an agent and shunted him off to the "Pocket-Earth" that would be his workplace for 5 months out of every calendar year.

He enjoyed his life, and he enjoyed his job. A man of wisdom and patience, few things ever really got on his nerves. Few BEINGS ever got on his nerves… until 2013. It was his first day off in over a month, and, it was also his birthday. He meant to simply relax, play a few video games and maybe catch a little galactic Grav-ball on the telly (The Shelterville Scorpions were playing the Riley City Pookas in a grudge match 7 years in the making). Hogan was really in NO mood to deal with any interdimensional nonsense. He'd left all that back at the office. Or so he thought.

He was surveying his lawn to see if it would need a mow. The mowing itself would wait until tomorrow, but, he figured he may as well check that while retrieving his mail. When out on his lawn, there arose such a clatter - his recycling bin began to shake and hum, and out from the blue hunk of plastic, an odd, psychedelic light shown. the lid flew open and up popped the heads and shoulders of three odd young men in slightly oversized black suits with white dress shirts and colorful neckties.

The first among them, a Native American lad with somewhat shaggy hair, long, thick sideburns, a soul-patch and mischievous grin spoke, as he straightened his green silk tie.
"Another day, another parallel reality!", he said.
His partner, a Caucasian with a long, black ponytail and a nosering in a blue tie wearing small, blue diamond earrings stared skyward and wondered, aloud, where they were. The third, a quiet gent of African American descent wearing a purple tie, earrings and large, round purple goggles atop his forehead that somehow reminded Hogan of spider's eyes as they were juxtaposed against a heard full of spindly black dredlocks, sifted through the bottles, cans and newspapers that the three young men were somehow swimming in, though no ONE man could fit in the bin comfortably, muchless THREE!
"Wherever it is, they can't sort recyke properly", he retorted with derision to the one with the ponytail's question.
Hogan was amazed. Amazed and ANNOYED. These three were obviously not NORMAL by any stretch, and, they'd somehow just entered his dimension via a localized, self-generated portal. Which was illegal in Dimension 37.

Hogan cleared his throat. The similarly dressed trio perked up and simultaneously turned their heads in his direction as if they'd practiced it.
"Hi? Hello? How are you?" they said in turn, almost singing it.
"A word of advice, boys", Hogan began, mentally sizing up these three recycle bin squatters to assess if they were a threat or not, "If you're going to enter a dimension illegally, DON'T do it in a Reality Border Patrol Magistrate's FRONT YARD!"

He could see the wheels turning in their heads. He didn't gauge them to be malicious, and could see that they were confused as to their surroundings, yet, he could also tell that something… SOMETHING was slightly 'off' about them. They were used to dimensional travel. The few times Hogan had dealt with folks who had ACCIDENTALLY broken the barriers betweenh dimensions, they'd been scared or excited. These three acted as though popping into another dimension was old hat.
Also, their eyes were yellow. That usually indicated a hint of the supernatural in any creature that wasn't of reptillian ancestry. That psychedelic tie-dyed lightshow he saw may well have been magicks, which meant that, though they may not be a threat, these three were not as human as they looked outwardly. The Native American boy in green explained that his name was Monroe and his companions "ponytail" and "goggles" were Bjorn and Quinn, respectively. They had somehow taken a wrong turn and that their destination was a dimension where Earth was a worldwide tropical paradise by way of being 4 Galactic degrees closer to the sun and the rise of humanity happened an aeon and a half later than it usually does.
How one takes a "wrong turn' in dimensional travel was beyond Hogan, but he went with it. As far as illegal entry to Dimension 37, these three were first offenders who meant no harm. Seeing as Interdimensional Border Patrol was in Vancouver, Canada, and Hogan had just gotten off a sonic transport home, he was in no mood for the 9 hour flight that would take these newcomers to be processed. He was just about to put in a call to the agents at the nearest satellite center when Quinn said that there was no need for that.
Before Hogan could ask what the quirky young man meant, all three of them snapped their fingers in unison and in a brief flash of purple light, Hogan and his three charges were instantly transported back to the home office. Of course, Hogan was still clad in nothing but his grey bathrobe and the bunny slippers that his daughter, Scale had given him for his birthday the previous year.

"Hey… boss?", one of his agents, a short, anthropomorphic green dragon, vaguely shaped like a bowling pin whose tail had a blunt, semi-phallic-looking tip, said with a confused look on his face. "Didn't you fly out for home this morning? And why are you in a bathrobe?"
Hogan sighed. He realized that he was right about the three boys in the black suits. They were gonna be nothing but trouble.
"You three!" he called to them, "This is Agent M. Organ of the Interdimensional Border Patrol. He will be temporarily handling your case. M? I want you to take these three… beings and get them some basic paperwork. Get them a temporary dimensional travel visa and some I.D.s, then.."
Hogan leaned over so as to get close to M. Organ's ear,
"Get them the HELL outta this dimension! I think they're demigods or spirits or something. That never goes well!"
"Gotcha, Boss!", M. Organ whispered back.
All the while, Hogan just barely registered that Bjorn, Quinn and Monroe were snickering and whispering amongst themselves. The "Misfits of Mischief" as they were known in some realities, were using a stick that Bjorn had manifested out of nowhere to lift the exasperated Magistrate's bathrobe up in the back and were peeking at Hogan's legs and backside much in the fashion of a scene out of Beetlejuice.
"Sweet calves for a man his age," snarked Monroe, "He MUST work out!"
"Butt's not bad, either!", Bjorn chimed in, his head cocked to one side with a lascivious grin.
"Though", Quinn interjected, "if he's gonna leave the house in just a bathrobe, he really should wear underwear!"

Hogan whipped around to see the trio, eyes skyward and off to the side, smiling in mock innocence. Their black suits were now bleach white and little golden halos had manifested above their heads.
"Go. Now!", poor Hogan barked as he stomped off toward his office to grab the change of clothes he kept in his private locker for just such an emergency. If there was only one thing worse than supernatural beings with reality warping powers, it was when said beings were trying to be FUNNY. Malevolent evil is easier to deal with than mischief-makers! As Hogan walked, he felt a draft. Looking down, he noted that his bathrobe was now about a foot shorter and frilly pink.
Damned mischief makers!

M. Organ never got the trio processed. Taking them to a magically reinforced holding cell, he got into a conversation with his new charges. The one with the ponytail was flirting with him. SHAMELESSLY. The trickster with the nosering and the miniature dragon were birds of a feather, but, sexually incompatible, according to M. That's when Bjorn demonstrated one of the many perks of being a shapeshifter. He winked at M., and, as quick as said wink, transformed into a feminine version of himself. A slim, petite raven-haired beauty with a nosering, wearing a baby blue string bikini that left little to the imagination. M. was "smitten" to say the least, if the rather prominent bulge in the trousers of his Patrol uniform was any indication.
"You like?", Bjorn asked, her voice as thick and sweet as honey.
"I definitely like", M. Organ retorted.
"Then how about this?" Monroe asked, as he and Quinn also winked at M. Organ and transformed not just into feminine versions of themselves, but into femme DRAGON versions of themselves, also wearing teeny string bikini's in their own signature colors.
M. Organ was so very 'pleased' you could almost see little tangible hearts fluttering around his head… then, he stopped. His expression fell.
"What's wrong, big guy?", Quinn asked, and pursed her dragon lips into a parody of the pout that now adorned M's.
"You guys, er, girls(??) are hot, and all, but… you kinda remind me of my cousin, 'F'. I'm many things, but–
"Say no more", Monroe said, leaning in uncomfortably close to M, with her scaly, inexplicably large dragon-girl cleavage brushing gently against M's cheek.
"What would you like us to look like? We're very…. 'versatile'."
Less than 5 minutes later, M. Organ and a trio of shapeshifting demigod(desse)s who were now sexy, buxom tiger women, were engaged in a vigorous game of Naked Twister in the Reality Border Patrol Headquarters' showers. 19 minutes after that, Agent M. Organ was fast asleep on a locker room changing bench with a huge, pleasantly exhausted grin across his scaly face. The tigresses showered while singing "Puff the Magic Dragon" in three part harmony, then transformed back into Bjorn, Monroe and Quinn. They manifested their black suits, and this time, clad themselves in black neckties, but their dress shirts were in their signature colors of blue, green and purple, respectively.
"We'd better get while the getting's good", Bjorn told his fellows, "I don't think this is a safe place for us, what with being on the big boss's bad side."
"Yeah", Quinn added, "I don't think many more of these Reality Border Agents will be as easy OR as fun to distract as our horny little dragon friend, there."
"I agree", Monroe mused, stroking his soul-patch and peering at the long row of red gym lockers, looking for a proper interdimensional exit, "We may not know where we're going, but we should get outta here before they slap us in a holding cell that can actually HOLD us!"
With that, the trickster trio picked the lock on locker #446, which belonged to an Agent Bethany Gibson, a parallel reality counterpart of a lady the boys had already met, briefly, in another Earth when they entered her reality through the paper tray of her copy machine at work.

The trio squeezed themselves into the locker as though they were made of Gummi Bears and shut the door. In a blast of swirling, multicolored light, they disappeared from Reality #37, as though they were never there. Having never been put in a holding cell, processed, or given the proper paperwork, the only evidence of their existence was the smile on the face of a nude, snoozing dragon, and a frilly, pink and very very short bathrobe hanging up in the personal office locker of Reality Magistrate L. P. Hogan, who was now stuck in Vancouver, Canada for ANOTHER day, waiting for the next flight home.