[LNH] Legion of Net.Heroes volume 2 #22

Jamie Rosen jamie.rosen at sunlife.com
Mon Sep 24 17:45:55 PDT 2007


___  ___________________________
| |-|                           \
| |-| []                        /
| | | [] egion of               \
| | | []__ [] []   []  []       / #22 "And Call My Killer...
| | | [___][ \[]et.[]__[]eroes  \      Colourblind!"
| | |      []\ ]   [ __ ]       /
| |-|      [] []   []  []       \
| |-|___________________________/
| |
| | [A dark cover. Ebonics Lad stands
| | in the spotlight as all around
| | him lie the fallen bodies of his
| | LNH teammates. He looks
| | guilt-stricken as he exclaims:
| | "Dag, yo! Da LNH be dead, an' I'm
| | da one what busted a cap in dey @$$!
|_| My bad."]

Ebonics Lad flopped onto his bed. It had been a rough day, and he was
dead tired. As if sensing his fatigue, his black lab Chunky leapt up
to join him on the bed, tail wagging and tongue lolling out the side
of his mouth.

"I'm straight up beat, dawg," he commented to Chunky. "Fo' shizzle."

Chunky nodded understandingly.

Ebonics Lad shook his head and closed his eyes. What had he come to?
He loved Chunky, sure, but surely there was more to life than that!
The rest of the Legion treated him like a joke when they even
remembered he existed, and without Minority Miss there wasn't really
anybody else to talk to except for Chunky -- just a buncha cracka-@$$
mofos who barely even gave him the time of day. If only there was some
way he could show them he was for real, a way he could show them he
was legit. If only...

"Are you looking for something?"

Ebonics Lad's eyes snapped open and he sat up. Seated at the edge of
his bed, crosslegged, was a wiry, white-haired man wearing a
blindfold.

"What?" Ebonics Lad demanded.

"I said, 'Are you looking for something?' I can usually tell when
people are looking for something." The man smiled. "And I can usually
give it to them. Tell me what it is you seek."

Ebonics Lad scowled. "You must be straight trippin', G -- showin' up
in a @%@*@'s room like dat, spittin' all dat bull@$%@ about, 'Are you
looking for something?' 'Tell me what it is you seek.' I tell you
what, I'm lookin' to put this foot all up in yo' @$$ if you don't step
off."

The man stood up. "Fine, fine, no need to get tetschy," he said,
walking backward. "I'm leaving. Jeez, some people." Ebonics Lad was
about to warn him he was going to back into the mirror, but slowly the
stranger simply faded away, until nothing was left but the memory of
his presence in the room.

"Aw $#!+, mang," Ebonics Lad lamented, scratching Chunky behind the
ear. "Now how'm I supposed ta get ta sleep?"

@%%%%%%%%%%@

The white-haired stranger scowled. He had come to the Legion of
Net.Heroes headquarters looking to sow discord and strife, but so far
he had been unable to tempt any of these accursed Net.Heroes away from
their path of sweetness and light. Net.Heroes were notoriously
headstrong, and it occured to him that perhaps that was his problem --
rather than try to tempt them from the path, he should let them stray
from it of their own accord. And what better way to do so than through
a spot of disguise and illusion? He ducked into the ladies' room, and
anyone who was watching would have seen New Look Lass step out in his
stead.

"Ah, New Look Lass!" Irony Man said, walking up to her. "I thought I
saw you go in there." aLLiterative Lass and Cheesecake-Eater Lad were
with him.

"Yes. Yes, of course you did. Please, come with me, I have some new
costumes I'd like you to try."

"Certainly, Stylish Sister," aLLie responded.

"I was wondering if you could let mine out," Cheesecake-Eater Lad
said. "The waistband seems to have, uh, shrunk."

"No need. My new outfits will fit you all perfectly, I assure you."

"That sounds almost too good to be true," Irony Man mused.

"Heh. Yes, well, it's my gift, no? Come along now."

The three LNHers followed their false friend [don't steal aLLie's
gimmick -- ed.] down one of the constantly shifting hallways of the
LNHHQ to a linen closet that was quickly masked by illusory tailor's
room just before they opened the door.

"Your room seems to be smaller than I remembered," Cheesecake-Eater
Lad remarked. "Maybe it's shrunk? Like my waistband, I mean."

"Oh, it's just full of old uniforms. Here we are -- try these on,
please."

The false-faced fashionista [I'm warning you -- ed.] handed the three
heroes plain white bed sheets, which they unwittingly draped over
their heads, thinking instead that they were donning new uniforms.

"Like this?" Cheesecake-Eater Lad said. "It's nice and roomy."

"It's Certainly Spacious," his wife agreed.

"Yes, this uniform is quite specious -- er, spacious, I mean to say.
What a strange malapropism," Irony Man mused.

"Let me adjust them for you." The man who would be New Look Lass
pulled the sheets upward until they formed peaks. "Now, would you do
me a favour? I have a new uniform for Ebonics Lad -- would you three
fetch him for me?"

"Of course, NLL," Cheesecake-Eater Lad said. "We'll be right back."

@%%%%%%%%%%@

Ebonics Lad was reading Ralph Ellison's _Invisible Man_ when his door
opened and three people in white sheets came into his room. "Ebonics
Lad," said their leader, "we have come for you."

"Aw snap!" he exclaimed. "Y'all honkys done lost yo minds!" He sprung
from the bed and assumed a fighting position in front of the mirror,
reaching for his gat with one hand and his empty bottle of Cristal
with the other. As he did so, however, the three figures came to a
stop and pointed at the mirror.

"What are We Wearing? Why, What Wickedness!" aLLiterative Lass pulled
the sheet off of her head, and Irony Man and Cheesecake-Eater Lad soon
followed suit.

Cheesecake-Eater Lad looked at the outfit in his hands. "This isn't
what New Look Lass gave me..." he said. "Is it?" Irony Man frowned.

"Dag, yo!" Ebonics Lad said. "Y'all got played, ya feel me? And you
can be d at mn sho' I know the @%@*@ who played you. Yo, Colourblind,
where you at? Where you at, b!+(h? $#!+."

The four Net.Heroes waited, but no one showed themselves.

"Aight. I tried to ax you politely, but now you done p!$$ed me off, @
%@*@. Looks like we gon' do this the hard way." He put down the gun
and the bottle, placed a bookmark in his book, and drew himself up to
his full height.

"Caeco Coloris, known as Colourblind," he said, "demon of the eighth
circle, sower of discord and bringer of strife, I compel you in your
name and the the name of your maker and your ruler to manifest
yourself." The other LNHers watched in confusion as a blindfolded,
white-haired man materialized amongst them.

"Fool!" he said. "Who are you to command me?"

"I am one who knows your true name, Caeco Coloris, passed down from
generation to generation, from father to son," Ebonics Lad said. "And
with that name I command you to return to your proper domain. You have
been discovered and your true nature found out. Return!"

The blindfold fell away from the man's face and his eyes blazed with a
colourless fire, so hot that it melted the skin on his face until all
that was left was a bleached white skull, and soon even that began to
fade to transparency. "You fool! You could have power -- you could
have respect!"

"I could have none of those things," Ebonics Lad said. "Not by your
hand. Only by mine own. Begone!"

"Foooooooooooool!" The demon howled, and the fire that burned behind
his skull engulfed him until nothing was left, not even ashes.

"Ebonics Lad," Cheesecake-Eater Lad said. "I'm sorry. We didn't
realize -- I mean, it must have looked like..."

"Don't mention it."

"Truly, we feel Terrible," aLLie said.

"Do any of you know my real name?" he asked.

The LNHers were quiet.

"Cyril," he said. "My name is Cyril King. My grandfather's name was
Cyril too -- but do you think any of the Wireless Heroes called him
that? He was 'Jungle Jim, Noble African Savage.'" He shook his head.
"He was from Sig.ago! He was from Sig.ago and his name was Cyril and
he had to wear a loincloth and run around with a spear if he wanted to
get into the hero business."

Cyril bent down and pulled a suitcase out from under his bed. "It was
no different for my dad," he continued, starting to pack. "He started
out as Token Black Man, then when the 70s rolled around he was just
Black Man because there was a rule that you had to be 'Black'
something if you were gonna be an Af.rec.an-Ame.rec.an hero back
then." He laughed bitterly. "Then he went by Angry Black Man, and then
when he got to finally drop it and try being just 'The Man', you
should have seen the Net.Villains he wound up fighting. You ever heard
of Black Face? The Minstrel? The Silver Slaver?" He shook his head.
"One day he made a deal with the demon Caeco Coloris so that people
would never again judge him by the colour of his skin. Coloris flayed
him alive, driving him mad and leaving him with all of his muscles and
tendons exposed. He went on a two-week rampage as the Visible Man
before the cops brought him down.

"Now here I am following in his footsteps. Ebonics Lad -- what a role
model! But I didn't think I'd have gotten into the LNH as Moderately
Well-Read Af.rec.an-Ame.rec.an Fellow. Who knows? Maybe I would have."

"Ebonics -- I mean, ah, Cyril," Irony Man said. "I understand why
you're upset, but--"

"Do you, Irony Man? Really?"

"Er -- well, that is to say, ah, I..."

"I don't mean to take it out on you three," Cyril said, shutting his
suitcase. "I never really gave you guys a chance to accept me for what
I am, and Coloris could sense that bitterness inside me. I need a
fresh start. A start as someone other than Ebonics Lad." He started to
walk out the door, then stopped. "Come on, Chunky," he called, and the
black lab ran to him. "Who knows?" he said to the other three. "Maybe
I'll stay in the Net.Hero business on my own. And maybe I'll be back
some day."

And with that, the hero formerly known as Ebonics Lad departed LNHHQ.
What wonders awaited him? Only the true test of time would tell. [all
right, I warned you -- ed. *blam*]

|_.|\|.|-|.
_____

Author's Note:

This story went through a couple of versions, because I was a little
uncertain about the line I was treading. I ran it by Tom, who would be
reluctant to admit it but created Ebonics Lad back when we were
younger and stupider, and he made a couple of suggestions and gave me
the go-ahead. I, of course, paid no attention to the suggestions, but
here's the story.

"Caeco Coloris" is really, really bad Latin (or "comic book Latin", if
you prefer) for "colourblind." I mean, *really* bad.

I'm a little tempted to see if I can write more stories for Cyril,
especially since his current status with respect to being alive is a
little uncertain. But I have enough on my plate as it is (October
should be quite busy on the posting front *knock wood*), and I don't
know if I could keep the stories from degenerating into either
melodrama or tastelessness.

_____

LNH: The Misplaced Adventures

"Hey Time-Waster Lad. Reading old scrapbooks again?"

"You bet, Token Girl! Check this out -- it's the team portrait from
when the LNH and the NHL traded jobs for a day."

"Neat!"

"I'll say. And this media guide is from when Sarcastic Lad and Starts-
Arguments-For-No-Apparent-Reason Kid had a debate on Meet the Press
Any Key to Continue."

"That must have been something."

"It was -- but that something wasn't very good."

"And what about this one, Time-Waster Lad? The pages are all stuck
together."

"That's from when Self-Righteous Preacher was hit with an inversion
ray by the diabolical Mirrori Mage."

"Eww -- tell me it's not..."

"Oh no! He was turned into Walk-All-Over-Me Lady, and Cheesecake-Eater
Lad had her fetch him a cheesecake-flavoured chocolate bar. The
wrapper's just a little sticky. See?"

"Oh yeah. Boy, we LNHers sure do get into some wacky adventures, don't
we?"

"You bet! Although... not you and me, all that much."

"That's why we have the scrapbooks!"

"Speaking of scrapbooks, check this out..."

_____

Contents (c) Copyright 2007, Jamie Rosen

Characters (tm) trademark and/or (c) copyright their respective
owners, all useable without permission unless otherwise indicated.

--------------------------------------------------
The Legion of Net.Heroes...
because the world doesn't need another superteam!
--------------------------------------------------




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