[LNH2] LNH Asia: Full Throtle #2

[Martin Phipps]

2020.  The future.  LNH Headquarters, C.bu, Philippi.net.

  Deja Dude gathered his team around him in his living room.  There was his 
son Deja Dude II, Utraman, Moonfire, N, Nimbo, Intuition Girl (once 
mistakenly refered to as "Moonstar" last issue -- Footnote Woman) and Master 
Roster Man, who the other six had recently rescued from the clutches of the 
Lan.darin who had been keeping him prisoner in a dungeon under a bar in 
Mon.gosub.lia for most of the past twenty years.

               LNH Asia Full Throtle #2
                I am...  the Lan.darin

  "So, MRM, are you feeling better?"
  "Much better!" he said.  "Your wife is a great cook!"
  "Thank you for saying so!"  Deja Dude addressed the rest of them.  "You 
all did a fine job rescuing Master Roster Man but, unfortunately, the job is 
only half finished.  You see, when Master Roster Man was captured he had a 
copy of the LNH roster with him on a floppy disk and we suspect that the 
Lan.darin still has it."
  "But that roster must be twenty years out of date now?" Deja Dude II 
asked.
  "Yes, it would be."
  "And isn't the LNH roster available on line at 
http://www.eyrie.org/lnh/roster?"
  "Well, yes, it is."
  "And even if it weren't, what possible harm would there be in having 
anybody know who was in the LNH?  Isn't that already public knowledge?"
  "Except that the roster includes information such as the Legionaires real 
names, their power levels, weaknesses, stuff like that.  It would be 
unfortunate if this information got into the wrong hands."
  "Isn't it already in the wrong hands if the Lan.darin has it?"
  "I suppose so."
  "And do you suppose that after all this time he hasn't already looked at 
the information and the disk?  He's had plenty of time already to either 
make use of the information on the disk or else sell the information to 
other net.villains in the Loonited States."
  "Yes, well, um," Deja Dude said, "say, Nimbo, will you stand up please?"
  "Okay."  She stood up.
  "Walk over there."
  "Like this?"
  "Yes, that's fine.  Now, walk over to here."
  "Okay."
  "Good.  Now, go sit down again."
  "Okay."  She did.
  "Now, son, what were you saying?"
  "I forget."
  "Exactly.  You were thinking too much.  As long as the story has a 
beautiful girl in it then none of the readers are going to be thinking of 
such things."
  "Well, we don't just have Nimbo!  We have N and Intuition Girl too!"
  "Exactly!  With three beautiful girls you don't even need a coherent plot. 
  Hell, we could have one of the net.villains a beautiful girl too and then 
readers would let us get away with absolutely anything!"
  "You mean like having one of the main characters figure out the location 
of the bad guy's secret headquarters after smelling bird poop from the back 
of somebody's car?" Utraman suggested.
  "Yes!  Stuff like that!  Ugly male detectives like Columbo always had to 
find hard evidence to track down their killers but in a story with a bunch 
of beautiful girls then disbelief is not only suspended but rendered 
irrelevent!"
  "You mean the reader isn't even following the story?" Moonfire asked.  
"He's just checking out the girls?"
  "Precisely!"
  "So the girls had better come with us to find the Lan.darin!" Deja Dude II 
said.
  "Not so fast!" Deja Dude said.  "If we go after the Lan.darin then chances 
are we are going to have a fight scene!  It would be better if you, Utraman 
and Moonfire went alone!"
  N pouted.
  "Sorry!"

The next day, in Lan.jing, Chi.net...

  "Before we face the Lan.darin," Deja Dude II said, "We should go over what 
we know about him."
  "Go ahead," Utraman said.
  "The Lan.darin, otherwise known as Wang Weilei was abducted by Dorfs, back 
in 2002 during their all out war against Looniearth, when he was a mere 
teenager.  He had been making a living on the streets of Lan.jing as a 
pickpocket so it was a simple matter for him to steal their greatest 
weapons, their rings of power, and use them against them.  There were ten 
rings in all: a flight ring, a fire ring, a poison gas ring, an invisibility 
ring, a freezing ring, a lightning bolt ring, a force shield ring, a 
disintegration ring, a sonic blast ring and a telekinesis ring.  He 
destroyed the Dorfan ship he was on and made his escape.  So was born the 
Lan.darin."
  "In other words, he's almost a complete rip off of the similarly named 
Marvel comics character," Moonfire said.
  "Yes, except his motivation is a bit different: you see, his family died 
in the same attack that gave him his rings of power and he's become very 
bitter about that.  At first he was grateful to the LNH for stopping the 
Dorfs but later he came to believe that the LNH didn't act quickly enough to 
save his family or -worse- were responsible for what had happened in the 
first place because they had encountered the Dorfs before but hadn't made a 
point of warning governments around the world against the potential threat, 
as if there was anything conventional militaries could have done about 
attacks from space!  Several times since then, the Lan.darin has fought 
against the LNH, but he was never considered a major threat.  This, no 
doubt, only served to frustrate him more.  In recent years, he seemed to 
have disappeared, but Master Roster Man and the girls have all positively 
identified him as being the net.villain they saw in Mon.gosub.lia."
  "So why are we looking for him here in Chi.net?" Utraman asked.
  "Intuition Girl suggested that he might be operating out of his home town. 
  It's only a hunch."
  "I've come to respect her hunches though," Moonfire said.
  "Me too," Deja Dude II said.  "So here were are."
  "Wait!" Utraman said.  "I hear something!  Move!"
  Flames, lightning bolts, sonic blasts, blasts of cold air, clouds of 
poisonous gas and distintegration beams all rained down on our heroes who, 
thanks Utraman's warning were able to either dodge or otherwise protect 
themselves from the attacks.
  "He's flying around above us," Deja Dude II realised.  "And he must be 
invisible.  Obviously, he's gotten better at using his rings over the years: 
he's using several rings at once."  Deja Dude II grimaced.  "This could be a 
bit difficult."

Meanwhile, back in C.cu...

  Deja Dude was sitting in his living room watching the opening credits to 
Spiderman 6 on HBO when he heard a knock on the door.  He got up and went to 
the door to see who was there.  He was shocked to see who it was.
  "Cute Anna!" he said.

NEXT: Cat Fight!

LNH Asia, including N, Nimbo, Intuition Girl, Deja Dude, Deja Dude II, 
Utraman and Moonfire created by me.  The Lan.darin and Cute Anna created by 
me.  Master Roster Man created by Jef Kolodziej.

Martin

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