LNH20: LNH20 Comics Presents #6: The Spoon of Destiny Saga Part 6

Lalo Martins lalo.martins at gmail.com
Wed Jan 4 23:26:17 PST 2012


In the street next to the Netropolitan Museum of History, Lindsey
Gensym was watching the LNH battle the Otakaiser, unnoticed as
always. That battle had started right in front of her eyes, right
after Dr. Mood had surrendered. Of course, she was also in the room
when Dr. Mood initially attacked, and she had, as always, wondered
whether it was finally time she pitched in to help. Granted, her
powers weren't much, but she had them, and she felt she had a duty to
use them.

On the other hand she was also a promising musician running her own
label *and* on the last year of her MBA. She had a duty to all those
other things, too.

But this time, this time surely it was time to intervene, she
thought, as Kid Enthusiastic died again; it didn't look like the LNH
had a chance. She took a deep breath and prepared--

But then Kid Enthusiastic was back, and the Otakaiser simply
vanished. As the old-young LNHer explained to his colleagues that
Death had taken the Otakaiser away for bureaucratic reasons, she
sighed and turned around to leave. Which made her the first to notice
how the museum was now glowing an eerie blue light.

.o(Well), she thought, .o(this is getting too complicated even for
the LNH. I guess *now* it's time to step up and do my part.)

And she rushed towards the museum.

*****

Meanwhile, in the LNHQ, Pantra strolled in after an extended absence,
licking her claws clean of her pigeon lunch. She had just walked back
from Oregon, because she couldn't remember where she had parked and
cloaked her Flight.Thingie. (The vehicle had since been brought back
by remote control.) She seemed to be in a good mood. She walked past
the receptionist, which glared at her disapprovingly, and turned into
a corridor, humming a tune (the strangest song known to man).

"Ohai, Adam, Felix!", she said, as she bumped into Professor Penumbra
and Fearless Leader. "Congratulations on the space battle!"

"Thanks", said the latter. "Sorry you missed it."

"Me too. Damn cloaking. But it's all right, I had my own little
Lycopersicon adventure."

"I've read the report. In fact, I'd like to talk to you about--"

But they were interrupted by an elevator door, which opened and
spewed out Walter "Wikipedia" Brown, Juliana "Amazon Lass" Almeida,
Edward "E-Boy" Boyd, George "Google Lad" Patel, May and Jay Nguyen,
Too-Much-Time-on-His-Hands Lad, and a very large man that looked
like...

"Can't be", said Professor Penumbra. "Googlemesh?"

"Verily", he said, which made Walter groan.

"But", Fearless Leader started, "he hasn't been seen since nineteen
six--"

"It's an honor to meet you, sir", said Pantra, beaming, and cutting
ahead to shake the demigod's hand. "I read all about you!" She wagged
her tail. "I do so like a god."

"I'm a demigod, in fact--"

"I got my own powers from Sekhmet, you know."

"Indeed? Who's this Sekhmet you speak of?"

"Wait", Edward asked. "Sixty? I thought he hadn't been around for
thousands of years."

Walter rolled his eyes. "Do catch up, Ed. He was here in 1962, when
The Network found The Village, the precursor to Netropolis."

"Indeed", said the demigod. "Your stalwart lad with excessive time
informed me of how the village had grown. Makes me proud of it!"

"But your battles...", said Jay, confused. "The other world..."

"I had an..." he looked helplessly at Too-Much-Time-on-His-Hands Lad
for a moment, made a frustrated face, and finally said a Sumerian
word.

"An alarm system", offered the young LNHer. He looked at the others
apologetically. "Not a term that came up much in our language
exchange."

"Indeed. So, I had one. An alarm system. Should the dire tyrant
ApocaLISP rear his foul countenance, my alarm system would summon me
forth--"

"Or summon you back?", asked Google Lad.

"Back and forth", said Pantra, with a smile.

"Stop it, you two, Deus me livre", said Amazon Lass.

"But ApocaLISP did, er, rear his countenance a few more times after
that", said Walter, somehow making that sound like a question.

"As you mentioned, however, my good lad, in those ides I had the
honor of making the acquaintance of the brave heroes calling
themselves The Network, a true modern version of my Legion!" Then he
realized where he was and who he was talking to, and did a bit of a
semidivine double-take. "Er, modern for then, I mean. Of course your
Legion--"

"Never mind that, we know what you mean", said Professor Penumbra,
who seemed a little annoyed for some reason. "Do continue, I confess
I'm curious myself."

"Well, it was clear that this world was now in good hands. So I
adjusted my, er, alarm system, to only summon me again if the tyrant
should return while there were no heroes capable of defeating him."

"Aaaah", made the Professor, as if finally understanding something
that had bothered him for years.

"And that never happened?", asked May Nguyen.

The demigod seemed a little uncomfortable. "It did once, in fact, but
for some reason I found my way back to this world blocked. I surmise
it might have been during the period of what you call the Killfile."

"That would follow, yes", said Fearless Leader, finally understanding
what had been bothering Professor Penumbra.

"You mean ApocaLISP did awaken once during the Killfile?", Edward
asked.

"That he did", said Fearless Leader. "That he did."

"And?"

He didn't seem willing to discuss it further. Finally, Penumbra took
pity on the boy and answered.

"Pla.net.ary Investigations pulled back everyone who was still
active. Myself, Jim, Tori, Doc, even the Spawn Camper[*]."

[*] Who was known as the Gold Farmer at that time, but that's not
something he was very proud of, so he joined the battle as Spawn
Camper, and most of the other people involved never learned that he
and Gold Farmer were the same person -- Continuity Untangle Lad

"Wow. And you won?"

"Somehow, we're still here", moaned Fearless Leader.

"By the skin of our teeth", said the sorcerer. "And possibly only
because the Killfile had significantly nerfed ApocaLISP as well. But
many of us suffered serious injuries, and Mr. Whoa died on the
battle, his hereditary powers seemingly lost..."

"Maybe for the better", pondered Too-Much-Time-on-His-Hands Lad. "A
six-year-old with that kind of power during the Killfile years? Ugh."

"Did I just miss part of that conversation?", Pantra asked.

As is often the case, Walter helped out: "Mr. Whoa had two children.
They were six and four when he died. Only two years after the fall of
the Killfile, his son, then 13, finally received those powers, which
the family refers to as The Amazing Force. I believe you met his
sister a few days ago, in California."

"Oooh."

They had been walking around the HQ, and now they stopped, when they
noticed they were about to leave a room without Googlemesh. They
looked around and found him staring at a statue; they were in the
hall of statues adorning the entrance to the tomb of the LNH Setup
Kid. To their surprise, the demigod had casually dismissed his own
statue, and was staring in awe at the statue of the LNH Setup Kid
himself.

He noticed they were noticing him again, and got enough hold of
himself to shake his head and ask; "You... how did you know him?"

"Wait, how did *you* know him?"

"From the old days. He was the first extraordinary warrior I met
after the death of In.Kidu. We journeyed together in search of
Ut.net.pish.ti, then we broke the earth and retrieved the ghost of
In.Kidu, and as the five of us, that is including Ut.net.pish.ti's
wife, started roaming the world together fighting all kinds of
terrors, it was his idea that we called ourselves the Legion. And
then we acquired even more members, from lands far and strange, and
became legend. If he is indeed dead, it's appropriate that this
building is his final resting place, since we named the building
after him, after he disappeared."

"That is--", said Walter, adding the new information to his mental
repositories in geeky glee, "wow."

"It makes no sense whatsoever", complained Edward.

"It makes a lot of sense in fact", said Professor Penumbra.

*****

And in a sub-sub-subbasement, a dimensional portal opened, and three
lemurs scampered out, one of them carrying a spoon.

<Halt, interlopers>, said a green kiwi. <You're not welcome,
especially carrying dangerous artifacts!>

But none of the lemurs spoke kiwi, and the one carrying the spoon
brought its full power on the hapless bird guardian, scooping her out
of history retroactively.

That was, however, enough distraction for twenty-two other kiwis to
jump the trio and subdue the lemurs; the spoon-wielder still tried to
use it again, but it was soon knocked out of its hands.

<Undo the last thing you did>, said the kiwi that was holding the
spoon, to, well, the spoon. And the missing kiwi warrior reappeared.

<Thanks>, she said.

The lemurs grunted a question.

<No>, said the kiwi who appeared to be the leader, <we don't know
what we're going to do with you. Can't say I care either, as long as
this toy is out of your hands.>

<They can't understand you, you know.>

<Don't care. Maybe we throw them upstairs, let the humans deal with
them?>

<Works for me>, said another kiwi.

<What about the spoon?>

<I say we take it to sub-sub-basement 42. Throw it in the pile of
composting dragon manure.>

<Not me.>

<Why, won't get your precious paws dirty with dragon manure?>

<No, it's not that. It's just I've been saying that thing is liable
to explode any time, I'd rather not be around when it does.>

<Sissy. All right, I'll take it myself.>

<Wait>, said yet another kiwi. <I think I've been hearing the humans
talk about this spoon. I mean, our world's equivalent. It seems some
net.villain is trying to obtain it.>

The oldest and wisest kiwi in the group rolled up his eyes.
<Synchronicity. Ugh. I hate that.>

<One more reason to dispose of it>, said the leader. <Even though I
think this version is a lot less powerful than ours, still probably a
dangerous thing to have at this time.>

<Agreed>, said a few of the kiwis. And the group split, some to guard
the leader as he took the spoon to the compost pile, some to escort
the lemurs upstairs and release them in the cafeteria at the time
when they would cause the most possible confusion.

*****

Will the lemurs cause confusion in the cafeteria? (Well, of course
they will, the question is whether we'll bother to show that. There's
confusion in the cafeteria all the time.) Will the kiwis successfully
dispose of the alternate Spoon of Destiny? Will the pile of dragon
manure explode? Will someone please advance the bloody plot? Will a
writer finally write something about the team who went to Italy?

Stay tuned to this newsgroup (or website if you're one of *those*
people) to see, in future issues of LNH20 Comics Presents!

(Or, you know, write you own. You're totally allowed to. I swear.)



All characters are free to use unless otherwise noted below.

Lindsey Gensym/Lurking Girl created by Lalo Martins and Andrew
Perron, inspired by the Looniverse Lurking Girl, created by
Tori Fike.
The Otakaiser created by Andrew Perron and Tom Russell.
Dr. Mood seems to have been created by Adrian J. McClure.
Kid Enthusiastic created by Andrew Perron.
Pantra created by May B. and Lalo Martins.
Professor Penumbra created by Lalo Martins.
Fearless Leader created by Adrian J. McClure and Dave Van Domelen.
Walter "Wikipedia" Brown, Juliana "Amazon Lass" Almeida, Edward
"E-Boy" Boyd, George "Google Lad" Patel, May and Jay Nguyen
(collectively "Generation 2.0"), and Googlemesh created by
Martin Phipps.
Too-Much-Time-on-His-Hands Lad created by Dave Van Domelen.
Does anybody even read this stuff?
Spawn Camper/Gold Farmer/Griefer (or whatever his modern name ends up
being) created by Dave Van Domelen.
Mr. Whoa, Hyperbolic Boy, and The Amazing Amazon created by Lalo
Martins, ask before using.
The Ancient Legion created by Adrian J. McClure, check with the
writers group before using.
The LNH Setup Kid created by Adrian J. McClure and Andrew Perron,
inspired by the LNH Setup Kit created by Arthur Spitzer. Reserved.
The LNHQ Kiwis created by Lalo Martins, inspired by Kid Kiwi's Kiwi
Kommandos, created by Descrii.
The Three Lemurs created by Saxon Brenton.
Mother Time created by Rob Rogers, doesn't appear in this issue at
all, but I thought I'd mention her because the LNH20 version is just
too awesome.

-- Lalo “kiwi kiwi kiwii” Martins


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