[LNH] LNH Comics Presents #37: INFINITE LEADERSHIP CRISIS Episode Two

[Martin Phipps]

Third attempt at posting.


              LNH Comics Presents #37

            INFINITE LEADERSHIP CRISIS

                     EPISODE 2

LNH HQ.  April 2nd, 2007.

  "Good morning."
  "Good morning, Irony Man," Captain Cleanup said in
reply while continuing to mop the floor.  "You're up
bright and early today."
  Irony Man nodded.  "Have to be.  With Ultimate Ninja
on vacation I need to be on my toes."
  Captain Cleanup laughed.  "I'm sure Fearless Leader
has everything under control."
  Irony Man just smirked.  "Right."  He pointed to a
smudge on the floor.  "You missed a spot."
  "I was getting to that Captain Cleanup assured him."
  "Of course you were," Irony Man said.  "See you."
  Captain Cleanup grimaced: Irony Man sometimes got on
his nerves.  Hell, he got on everybody's nerves.

  Irony Man went to the LNH leader's office and saw
that Fearless Leader wasn't there.  (Sleeping in on
the job, eh?)o. Irony Man thought.  (I'll be sure to
tell the boss all about it when he gets back.)
  Irony Man looked down longingly at the chair behind
Ultimate Ninja's desk.  Irony Man was one of the first
memebers of the LNH.  His dad paid for all of this!
He bought the building, installed all the
state-of-the-art equipment!  Then he got bumped down
to a second stringer after the Cosmic Plot Device
Caper.  Why?  Because he didn't have a regular writer?
 Because he was a parody of a mainstream comic book
character?  It wasn't fair.  _He_ should be the one
sitting in that chair.
  Irony Man smiled.  Maybe this was a good thing after
all: Fearless Leader would show how incompetent a
leader he was that month and then he wouldn't be
second in command anymore.  Then the next time the
Ninja took a vacation it would be his chance to shine.
 Things would go so smoothly with him as leader that
the Ninja would just step down and devote his time to
training the next generation of ninjas.

  An hour passed and Fearless Leader didn't show up
for work.  Irony Man tapped his comlink.  "Fearless
Leader."  No answer.  "Fearless Leader?"  He sighed.
Damn that fool if some major crisis came up and he was
still in bed.
  Irony Man waved to Fred as he passed through the
lobby.  In the cafeteria, several late rising
legionaires were still having breakfast.  Fearless
Leader wasn't amongst them.  Irony Man walked up to
the elevator and pressed the up button.
  A couple of minutes later, Irony Man was upstairs
heading to Fearless Leader's quarters.  He knocked on
the door.
  "Fearless Leader," he said.  "Hello?"  He tried the
door knob and found the door was open.  "Hey, Fearless
Leader, are you there?"  No answer.  "You must be here
because the door's open so what's up?  Why aren't you
working?  Mouse away and all that, eh?  Didn't take
you for a slacker.  You were the last one I thought
would slack off, in fact.  Hey?  Where are you?"
  Irony Man took a look around Fearless Leader's
quarters: he wasn't in his bedroom or in the kitchen.
Irony Man sighed.  He was going to have to look in the
bathroom.  Irony Man braced himself for what he was
going to see: he always suppected that Fearless Leader
was a dickless wonder but he didn't want to find out
by walking in on him while he took a shower.
  (He's not here)o. Irony Man thought as he opened the
door and took a look in.  (Well if he's not here and
he's not downstairs then where is he?)

  Irony Man headed back downstairs and went to the
monitoring room.  Multitasking Man was there.
  "Hey, Multitask!"
  "Hey!" Multitasking Man said without looking up: he
was busy checking his e-mail, playing Net.trek,
downloading the latest episode of Heroes and posting a
flame to some loser on rec.arts.games.
  "Say, Multitask, have you seen Fearless Leader?"
  "No.  Haven't you?"
  "Not today."
  "Odd."
  "Did he say anything to you about going somewhere
today?"
  "No.  Wouldn't he have said something though.  I
mean, he's the leader while Ultimate Ninja's away."
  "Exactly."
  "Okay.  I get your meaning.  Let me just finish
typing this and I'll hit send.  Okay.  'And so you can
just kiss off.'  Not you, Toony.  This guy I'm
replying to."
  "I knew that."
  "Okay.  Let's see.  I'm doing a search now of the
whole building.  Hmm."
  "Yes?"
  "He's not here."
  Irony Man grimaced.  "Right."  He tapped his
comlink.  "This is Irony Man.  All senior staff meet
me in the Central Control Centre."  Irony Man
proceeded to the next room and waited for the others
to show up.

  Ten minutes later the others started to show up.
  "Where's Fearless Leader?" Catalyst Lass asked.
  "That's what this is all about," Irony Man said.
"He's not here."
  "Damn it," Sarcastic Lad said.  "I could have stayed
in bed this morning."
  "That's what you think," Irony Man said.  "With
Fearless Leader missing, I'm in charge and you're all
on duty until I say otherwise."
  "Hold on," Catalyst Lass said, "why are you in
charge?"
  Irony Man sighed.  "Isn't it obvious?"
  "No," she said.  "Shouldn't we vote on this."
  Doctor Stomper spoke up.  "It is hardly necessary,"
he said.  "Our focus should be on finding Fearless
Leader."
  "Any idea what happened to him?" Cheesecake Eater
Lad asked.
  "Obviously 'Fearless' Leader chickened out," Irony
Man said with obvious distain.  "He couldn't handle
the pressure."
  "All we know is that he's not here," Sister
State-the-Obvious said.  "As he's not here, he can't
tell us why he left."
  "Do we know he left?" Master Blaster asked.  "What
if somebody took him?"
  "There's no way anybody can abduct a legionaire from
LNH HQ without the alarms going off," Adamant
Authority on Everything insisted.  "It just sin't
possible."
  Irony Man nodded.  "Stomper, I'm putting you in
charge of finding out what happened to Fearless
Leader."
  Doctor Stomper nodded.  "I think I'll want Occultism
Kid's help on this just in case there was something
supernatural involved."
  "I'll do whatever I can to help, of course,"
Occultism Kid said.
  "Good," Irony Man said.
  "We still haven't established that you are the one
in charge," Catalyst Lass pointed out.
  Irony Man sighed.  "Okay, show of hands.  Who says
I'm in charge until we find out about Fearless
Leader."  The vast majority of legionaires present
raised their hands.  "There.  Happy?"
  "Alright.  But what if somebody happens to you?  Who
become leader then?"
  "Me?"  Irony Man laughed.  "Nothing's going to
happen to me.  I'm not going anywhere."

Fearless Leader is Dave Van Domelen's
Catalyst Lass is Elisabeth Riba's
Irony Man is Doug Moran's
Multitasking Man is Jeff Coleburn's
Dr. Stomper is T. M. Neeck's
Adamant Authority on Everything is Raymond "wReam"
Bingham's
Sarcastic Lad is Gary St. Lawrence's
Cheesecake Eater Lad is M. Jotham Millheiser's

Martin