View source for Marksmanship-522 and the Multi-Dimensional Race (short story)

{{DISPLAYTITLE:''Marksmanship-522 and the Multi-Dimensional Race'' (short story)}}{{Short Story
|title1= ''Marksmanship-522 and the Multi-Dimensional Race''
|image1= Marksmanship-522 and the Multi-Dimensional Race - Cover.jpg
|caption1= 
|other_titles=
|hero(es)= [[Marksmanship-522]]
|villain(s)= [[Zyargaff Beast]]<br><small>(mentioned)</small>
|featuring= [[Lilathia]]<br>[[Brutus]]<br>[[Lord Thymon|New Post Office employee]]<br><small>(mentioned)</small><br>[[Bibliophile-962]]
|setting= [[Cupid Homeworld]]<br>[[Planet (Marksmanship-522 and the Multi-Dimensional Race)|Unnamed planet]], [[Prime Universe]]<br>[[The Void]]
|length= 2,924 words
|series= ''[[The Crew of the Copper-Colored Cupids (series)|The Crew of the Copper-Colored Cupids]]''
|format= 
|writer(s)= [[Lupan Evezan]]
|artist(s)= [[Aristide Twain]]
|dates= May 1st, 2019
|original_link= [https://thecrewofthecoppercoloredcupids.wordpress.com/2019/05/01/marksmanship-526-and-the-multi-dimensional-race-story/]
|seriesnav = ''[[The Crew of the Copper-Colored Cupids (series)|The Crew of the Copper-Colored Cupids]]'' official reading order
|previous = ''[[The Copper-Colored Cowboy (comic story)|The Copper-Colored Cowboy]]''
|next= ''[[Whatever Happened to Lord Thymon? (comic story)|Whatever Happened to Lord Thymon?]]''
|seriesnav2 = ''[[The Crew of the Copper-Colored Cupids (series)|The Crew of the Copper-Colored Cupids]]'' release order
|previous2 = ''[[The Copper-Colored Cowboy (comic story)|The Copper-Colored Cowboy]]''
|next2 = ''[[Whatever Happened to Lord Thymon? (comic story)|Whatever Happened to Lord Thymon?]]''
}}'''''Marksmanship-522 and the Multi-Dimensional Race''''' was a ''[[The Crew of the Copper-Colored Cupids (series)|Crew of the Copper-Colored Cupids]]'' short story written by [[Lupan Evezan]] and illustrated by [[Aristide Twain]]. It was Evezan's first long-form ''Crew of the Copper-Colored Cupids'' and the first to start [[Marksmanship-522]].

==Contents==
===Plot===
[[Marksmanship-522]], of the [[Crew of the Copper-Colored Cupids]], has been assigned to romanticise a mere two people from an [[Planet (Marksmanship-522 and the Multi-Dimensional Race)|alien planet]] in the [[Prime Universe]]. After climbing out of [[Marksmanship-522's first Fog Ship|his Fog Ship]] at his destination, he quickly finds the two houses on hills facing each other that he was instructed to find, and goes up to one of them. Its owner, [[Lilathia]], initially thinks that he is an assassin sent by the other house's owner, [[Brutus]], and captures him in a [[burlap sack]]. 

However, after he clarifies that he is a neutral visitor from [[Cupid Homeworld|another world]], Lilathia is overjoyed to have a “neutral robot” on her hands and brings him to Brutus's house. They explain that they are the last members of each of their species still carrying on a feud that started as a centuries-long war between their peoples (although they are not the last of their kind altogether — most of their kinsmen simply got tired of the hostilities and went on vacation in outer space, leaving the two alone on the ravaged planet). To settle their differences once and for all and bring an end to the protracted conflict, they long ago decided on wagering the outcome on a [[Cross-Dimensional Grand Prix|cross-dimensional race]]. However, with no neutral arbiter to determine who won in case of a close race, they had to put it off until now. 

Marksmanship is thus shanghaied aboard [[Lilathia's pan-dimensional speedster]] (with Lilathia crashing the latter into Marksmanship's [[Fog Ship]] to prevent him from escaping) and the race is on, a dizzying faster-than-lgiht experience that cuts a trail of mayhem across [[the Multiverse]] and leaves Marksmanship barely able to think coherently once the two ships finish their tour of all that is and return to their starting point. A somewhat babbling Marksmanship is forced to admit that as far as he could tell, the Grand Prix ended in a tie. Lilathia and Brutus are surprisingly pleased with this result, as they felt they wouldn't have known what to do with themselves if they'd had to stop feuding. Marksmanship is all too happy to take the fact that they're ''happy'' feuding as equivalent to them having been successfully romanticised, and returns to the Homeworld in Lilathia's speedster, which she graciously gives him, having no further need of it.

Back in the house [[Cupid Homeworld|Homeworld]], Marksmanship hands in his paperwork to the [[Department of Completed Assignments]] and specifically requests “that he not be assigned to anything else that might involve any sort of high speeds ever again” before donating the speedster to the [[Department of Transportation]]. All is well that ends wall, except for [[Bibliophile-962]] of the [[Department of Documentation]], who is not best pleased at the huge new list of universes to document all from a single Cupid mission.

===Worldbuilding===
====Universes====
* [[Marksmanship-522]] travels from the [[Cupid Homeworld]] to the [[Prime Universe]].
* A previous adventure in [[Dimension 42µ]] is mentioned.
* The [[Cross-Dimensional Grand Prix]] accidentally creates a whole new universe, and also interferes with “thousands” of dimensions, including:
** [[Dimension )-0//zx]] by awakening a “sleeping abomination” who had been dreaming into existence;
** [[Dimension ^6-Q]], “smashing into” this dimension and causing “a [[space-time ripple]] which echoed back through time (and space) and created four of the suns of the legendary 24-sunned [[Gambit System]] in the past”;
** the [[Cupid Homeworld]];
** one where the disturbances in reality “destroyed and then promptly recreated” the home of a poor family of fish-people; 
** a cluster of [[Prime-adjacent]] dimensions which had hitherto been “otherwise exactly the same as the Prime Universe” but where the passage of the Prime Lilathia and Brutus's speedsters “accidentally prevents the very race from ever happening”, causing them to be “very different afterward”;
** a [[Dimension (Marksmanship-522 and the Multi-Dimensional Race)|dimension inhabited entirely by anthropomorphic root vegetables]] where they accidentally and very tragically “caused the invention of french-fried potatoes”.

====Other====
* [[Marksmanship-522]] “led the team that romanticised the [[Zyargaff Beast]] in [[Dimension 42µ]]” and “fired the famous first shot of the [[Second Great Spaghetti War]]”.
* [[Lilathia]] and [[Brutus]]'s [[Planet (Marksmanship-522 and the Multi-Dimensional Race)|planet]] is “a dusty, nameless planet a few light-years from the Prime Earth”.
* Members of the [[Crew of the Copper-Colored Cupids]] have “identification cards”.
* Marksmanship is unsure who assigned him his mission, but supposes it might have been [[Cupid Parliament|the Parliament]].
* Lilathia and Brutus's [[pan-dimensional speedster]]s are [[Void Ship]]s which “can travel much faster than the speed of light”, allowing them to “breaks through to other dimensions”.
* The Crew's [[Department of Space-Time Anomalies]] fails to detect the brief incursion by [[Lilathia's pan-dimensional speedster|Lilathia]] and [[Brutus's pan-dimensional speedster]]s into the [[Cupid Homeworld]] on their radar because “the entire Department is out to lunch”.

===Continuity===
* The [[Interdimensional Tavern]], recently introduced in [[PROSE]]: ''[[The Interdimensional Tavern (short story)|The Interdimensional Tavern]]'', appears. Furthermore, the events of the [[Cross-Dimensional Grand Prix]] are noted to cause the destruction of [[Dimension )-0//zx]] except for [[Tpxszum|two]] [[Frederick|survivors]], as well as the creation of some of the stars of the [[Gambit System]], in both cases paying off background details from ''The Interdimensional Tavern''.
* It is mentioned that the [[Crew of the Copper-Colored Cupids]]' [[Department of Postal Services]] has recently “received quite a boon in the form of a new, non-Cupid employee of late”. [[COMIC]]: ''[[Whatever Happened to Lord Thymon? (comic story)|Whatever Happened to Lord Thymon?]]'' revealed this to be [[Lord Thymon]], who stayed in the [[Cupid Homeworld]] following the events of [[PROSE]]: ''[[Lord Thymon and the Department of Problem-Solving (short story)|Lord Thymon and the Department of Problem-Solving]]''.
* This story marked the first occurrence of the recurring motif (and, increasingly, metafictional recurring joke) in [[The Crew of the Copper-Colored Cupids (series)|the series]] of characters being captured inside [[burlap sack]]s. It would first recur in the next long-form ''Cupids'' prose story, [[PROSE]]: ''[[Acquaintanceship-982 and the Missing Mail Mystery (short story)|Acquaintanceship-982 and the Missing Mail Mystery]]''.

==Behind the scenes==
===Read online===
The story can be read for free [https://thecrewofthecoppercoloredcupids.wordpress.com/2019/05/01/marksmanship-526-and-the-multi-dimensional-race-story/ on the ''Crew of the Copper-Colored Cupids'' website]. 

[[Category:Stories]]
[[Category:Prose Stories]]
[[Category:Short Stories]]
[[Category:Written by Lupan Evezan]]
[[Category:Drawn by Aristide Twain]]
[[Category:Released in 2019]]
[[Category:Installments of The Crew of the Copper-Colored Cupids]]
[[Category:Featuring Marksmanship-522]]
[[Category:Featuring Lord Thymon]]
[[Category:Featuring Bibliophile-962]]