LNH: LNH Comics Presents #500: INFINITE LEADERSHIP CRY.SIG Episode 465 -- Part II

[Arthur Spitzer]

Part II:

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Once they reached the Peril Room they separated.

Cannon Fodder and Vector Prime left for the Peril Room Monitoring Room 
leaving the rest of the Surreptitious Seven with the dying 
Pulls-Paper-Out-of-Hats Lad in the Peril Room.

Both Vector Prime and Cannon Fodder (using skills he had picked up from 
wReamhack) got the Peril Room back on-line.

"I need to find a way to keep Pulls-Paper-Out-of-Hats Lad trapped in the 
computer system when he dies in the Peril Room and not have him teleport 
back to the material world, do you think you can do that?" Cannon Fodder 
asked Vector Prime.

"I think I have a virus that can accomplish that."  Vector Prime used 
her powers to infect the Peril Room.  "I think it's ready to go."

Cannon Fodder turned the Peril Room on.  And then he turned all of the 
safety options.

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<<Okay.  I want some one to kill Pulls-Paper-Out-of-Hats Lad.  God. 
Please let this work.>>

The Alt.Imate Ninja quickly complied with that request stabbing 
Pulls-Paper-Out-of-Hats Lad multiple times in the heart.

Pulls-Paper-Out-of-Hats Lad vanished from the Peril Room.

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Cannon Fodder looked at the monitor screen.  "Is he there?"

Vector Prime gazed into the computer system.  "Yes.  He's there."

"Christ, I hoped that worked.  And now to free all of the supervillains. 
  Oh, Jesus."  Cannon Fodder sighed to himself.

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After a number of exciting thrilling battles with LNH robot duplicates 
the Surreptitious Seven and Cannon Fodder made their way to the LNH 
holding cells.

Cannon Fodder looked at the mass of evil that was crammed into those 
cells.  The Brotherhood of Net.Villains.  Pencil Rain.  The Seven Deadly 
Sphammers.  The Union of Useless.  System Crash.  The Newbie Syndicate. 
  The Cynical Six.  The Dunce Circle.  The Lumber Jerks.  The 
Net.Villain Wannabes.  The Radicals.  The Stereotype Squad.  The 
Youngstuds.  The Anti-Canadian Defamation League.  And a number of 
freelance villains.

This was insane.  He couldn't do this.  Free all of these monsters.  But 
he had to.  To save the world from an even greater threat.

So he and Easily-Discovered Bran Mite explained the entire situation to 
this den of devils.  And they explained their plan for a Cannon Fodder 
led team to take down the LNH Robot Duplication Machine while the rest 
of the villains battled the robot duplicates.  And after every villain 
gave their word of honor that they wouldn't kill Cannon Fodder, Cannon 
Fodder said the code that would open up every single prison cell.

And as the cell doors opened, the doors of the prison cell area burst 
open and a horde of LNH robot duplicates started to pour into the room.

And the battle had begun.

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And as Cannon Fodder and his team consisting of Vector Prime, Alt-Imate 
Ninja, and Londonbroil made their way for the LNH Robot Duplication 
Room; Cannon Fodder looked at what he had wrought.

He saw the Injoker grappling with the Gamerboy duplicate.

Cowardly Lott and Coward Lad trembling in a battle of "Please, don't hit 
me!"'s.

Hell-Catalyst pulling Revamp Lass's hair.

The Chuggernaut in a chug-off to the death with Frat Boy and Token Girl.

Mr. Paprika rotting away Dr. Molar's teeth.

Always-Seems-Powerful-On-His-Own-But-Gets-His-Ass-Kicked-in-Crowd-Scenes 
Boy getting his ass kicked by Thread Bear.

Arthur E L Presence looking very unsatisfied as he knocked off Deja Dude.

Shoe Devil battling Shoe Boy.

Fanboy King out-fanning Fan.Boy.

Flying.Altogether.Too.Naked.Villain out-nuding Nudist Man.

Limburger Lad out-cheeezing Cheeezarr.

Slobbering Grue! out-grueing Ur-Grue.

Dr. Boring out-dulling a team-up of Limp Asparagus Lad and Boring Man.

Move-Del trying to move Chair.  But Chair would not budge.

Table tabling Stat-taking Kid.

The Newbie Syndicate battling Teenfactor.

Brain Boy battling The Robot with Lawrence Welk's Brain.

Jesse Willey's Grocery List strangling the Vel duplicate.

Kidzip trading blows with Undone Fly Guy and Dr. 
I-Shoot-Powerful-Beams-Out-Of-The-Palms-Of-My-Hands-How-Hardcore-Am-I. 
[Editor's Note: This fight is in fact a complete rip-off of the one in 
Possum-Man: Relinquished #2: Safety First.]

The Worm gnawing on grass and Ro-Man beating his chest in triumph over 
the dead bodies of the Load Island Renegades duplicates.

Barrage savagely mauling a team-up of Mojo Dog, Dog Boy, and Cauliflower 
the Christmas Miracle Pooch.

Bluetooth translating Miss Translation.

Decibel Dude and Vigilante Guy battling the Time Mime and Kronos the Clown.

The Secret Dvanders vs Pencil Rain.

The Legion of Occult Heroes vs Angst.

Los Bastardos vs Happy Pig Boy Force.

The R-Men vs Y-Plex Burp.

Kirbybot vs Kirbybot.

The Alt.Ter.Net.Tives vs The Seven Deadly Sphammers.  As Glitch Girl 
tried using her powers a number of robot duplicates started to go haywire.

Comic Snob Boy's witty criticism was useless against the RobGoblin's sales.

He saw the Psycho Pawn sighing wistfully to himself as he stood over the 
bodies of Loopy, Marcy, and King Quake.  "A shame."  He shook his head. 
  "A right shame it is.  All of these robot duplicates and not one with 
a single wallet.  A right shame."

He saw the Self-Righteous Preacher duplicates and Net.Patrol duplicates 
fighting each other strangely enough.  Cannon Fodder wondered who that 
Cat girl was supposed to be a duplicate of.  And seeing Lost Cause Boy 
again.  The LNH Robot Duplication Machine was bringing back everyone.

As he looked at the battle it all seemed wrong.  He should be on the 
other side battling all of these villains.  But no.  They weren't his 
teammates.  Just warped doppelgangers of them.  And he continued on his 
way kicking Spelling Boy's head off.

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Suddenly the Alt-Imate Ninja stopped.  "I think we should all stop 
here."  They had been climbing up stairs.

"Umm.  Why exactly?" asked Cannon Fodder.

"Because the LNH Robot Duplication Machine has offered me a better deal. 
  And it will be easier to kill you all here!" the Alt-Imate Ninja said 
with a savage expression as he lifted up his own Alt-Imate katana.

"No!  I control you!  I control you!  You're mine!" shouted Vector Prime 
as she lunged at him -- sparks crackled from her hands.  The two fell 
down the stairs as they wrestled each other in a savage manner.

"Umm," Londonbroil asked, "What should we do now?"

"Go on," Cannon Fodder said with grim determination.  And so they did.

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And they finally reached the LNH Duplication Machine Room.

"It's over, LNH Robot Duplication Machine!" Cannon Fodder said in a 
stern voice.  "You've lost."

<<Have I?  I could easily kill the two of you where you stand.  What 
makes you think you've won?  Your Vector Prime is lost.  She was your 
best chance at defeating me.>>

"Let me explain.  In two minutes this whole place is going to blow up. 
I've set off the Ultimate Self Destruct Code.  It's a nuclear bomb that 
when it goes off will destroy all of the LNHHQ and probably all of 
Net.ropolis."

"Umm, mate.  You bloody loony?" said Londonbroil backing slightly away 
from Cannon Fodder.

<<You're bluffing.  You wouldn't cause so many innocent deaths!>>

"I wouldn't?  I think you should remember that I'm human therefore 
completely irrational!  Why wouldn't I do that?  The question you need 
to ask yourself is can you afford to take the chance?  Logically, do you 
sacrifice yourself to insure the LNH and Net.ropolis don't blow up or do 
you die with Net.ropolis?  What would a logic rational machine choose?"

<<I must sacrifice myself for the good of the many.  That is the logical 
decision.>>

"Then do it."

<<I only wanted to save the world.>>

"That's all I want to do too."

<<Goodbye.>>  And the Robot Duplication Machine started to shoot out 
sparks as it ended its life.  Londonbroil helped using his flamethrower 
to cremate it.

"See you in 'ell.  You bloody piece of tin!"  And then Londonbroil 
looked back at Cannon Fodder.  "So, is it over?  Did we win?"

Cannon Fodder looked out the door and saw that all of robot duplicates 
were collapsing to the ground.  "I guess so."  And then Cannon Fodder 
disabled the Ultimate Self-Destruct Code.

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"So, you're sure you don't want to join up with my new Legion of 
Net.Villains?  I've got a great health plan.  I could really use someone 
with your type of skills."

Cannon Fodder declined Easily-Discovered Bran Mite's offer.  "No, I 
think I like being a hero.  But thanks."

"Suit yourself."  And Easily-Discovered Bran Mite disguised as Mynabird 
went off to mingle with the other supervillains that were still partying 
up at the LNHHQ.

Sipping fruit punch, Cannon Fodder just looked at the insane celebration 
that was happening.  The Solid Gold Dancers were boogying it up to some 
Disco Music.  The RobGoblin was break dancing.  The Time Mime was 
playing charades with a couple of other villains.  Poli.Sig discussed 
the 2008 Election with GREN.DEL.  Dr. F was holding up Dr. Stomper's 
head like a trophy.  He didn't think he had ever seen Supervillains this 
happy.  They had finally defeated the LNH.

It was almost midnight.  Time to take his time-delayed suicide pill. 
Cannon Fodder popped it in his mouth and took one last look at everything.

All the robot duplicate corpses.  All the damage of a thoroughly trashed 
LNHHQ.  All of the happy supervillains trashing it even more.  Oh, God! 
  What have I done!  What have I done!  Ultimate Ninja is going to kill me!

And with that thought Cannon Fodder vanished.

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And Cannon Fodder opened his eyes.

And he saw a horrible mechanical monster that looked exactly like the 
embodiment of pure evil.

"The Looniversal Answering Machine!  You're the one!"  But no.  There 
was something wrong as he looked more closely at the Looniversal 
Answering Machine.  It looked rusted and beat-up.  Its legs and arms 
were chained to the ground.  Its eyes started to glow weakly and it 
looked in Cannon Fodder's direction.  And it started to speak.

<<Greetings <click> from the Looniversal <wrrr> Answering Machine! 
You're probably <click> wondering why there are no <wrrr> posts in the 
groups called alt.comics.lnh and <click> rec.art.comics.creative.

Sometimes, we <wrrr> wonder, too.

Quite simply, <click> the LNH no longer <wrrr> exists.  The last story 
was posted <click> on April 29, 2008.

There is, however, still <click> an incredibly large <wrrr> archive 
filled with plenty of <click> great stories at...>>  The voice of the 
Looniversal Answering Machine died.  And its eyes dimmed.

Cannon Fodder looked around.  He was in Net.ropolis, but all he could 
see were ruins.  The whole world looked beige.  Where the Looniversal 
Answering Machine was chained was where the LNHQ should be.  Who had 
done this?

And then he saw someone floating down towards him.

Someone who was wearing shiny armor and a royal blue cape.  And on one 
hand he had a gauntlet laced with insanely brilliant gemstones.  And on 
the other hand a ring on his finger that sparkled with retroactive energy.

"Oh god.  Tsar Chasm!" Cannon Fodder said recognizing him.

The floating man laughed.

"No, not really.  I just wanted to see what your face looked like when 
you saw Tsar Chasm wielding the Ring of Retcon and Insanity Gauntlet. 
But no -- I'm not Tsar Chasm.  But I am someone you know, Cannon 
Fodder."  The image of Tsar Chasm disappeared and a new one emerged.

"Acton Lord?" Cannon Fodder gasped.

The Floating Man laughed.  "Nope try again."  A new image appeared.

A succession of images of different people that Cannon Fodder had faced 
and some he had never seen before.

One moment the figure was Dr. Net.ropolis.

Then Dr. Killfile.

Then the Ultimate Ninja.

Then Rebel Yell.

Then FlatPhoot.

Then Jarvin Tazakles.

Then Dr. Cool J Dog.

"Okay.  Let me guess.  You're like Mr. Annoying Shapeshifting Dude, right?"

The floating figure laughed.  "You want to know who I am.  Very well. 
I'll let you have this small honor of knowing the face that destroyed 
the LNH.  Knowing the face that beat you all.  Are you ready?  Are ready 
to know who I am?"  A new face emerged that Cannon Fodder recognized.

"Bart the Receptionist?  Okay.  I'm sick of this game.  Who are you really?"

"I am Bart the Dark Receptionist, you fool!  I am the destroyer of the 
LNH!  I beat you all!"

"Really?  You're Bart the Receptionist?  Really?  You're not pulling my 
leg are you?  I mean really?  Christ.  I can't believe this.  Really?  I 
think I'm going to have to sit down and just take this in.  Bart the 
Receptionist.  Wow -- that's just totally -- Damn.  I mean, really?"

"Yes.  Really.  And these are really the Ring of Retconn and Insanity 
Gauntlet I'm wearing right now.  Really.  Although, to be entirely 
candid I'm not the one that will destroy you.  I just work for them. 
I'm just the one who set everything into motion.  Do you want to know 
how the LNH is going to die?"

Cannon Fodder sighed to himself.  "I guess I have to.  Don't I?"

Bart nodded and lifted up Cannon Fodder with an invisible force.  They 
flew off towards the northern part of Net.ropolis.  Everything was just 
battered and broken.  And then two big skyscraper buildings came into 
view.  No.  They weren't buildings.  They were thrones.  And two 
gigantic monsters were sitting on them.  The first monster had a body 
made out of human corpses.  And its head was made out of a cloud of 
flies and worms.  Its eyes glowed red.  One of its hands held a 
blackened sword.  Dekay.

The other monster was a pale white color.  In the middle of its chest 
was a gaping mouth, which had seven forked tongues each a different 
color.  It only had one eye on its head, and it was a very blood shot 
eye.  A number of spikes stabbed out of its head.  Each spike had a 
skull attached to it.  One of its hands held a spiked club.  Diskolor.

Dekay and Diskolor.  The Bryttle Brothers.  Memories of Beige Noon 
started to flood into Cannon Fodder's brain.  Oh god.

"From the horrified expression on your face, Cannon Fodder, I see you do 
know who the two gentleman who have employed me are."

"This is insane, Bart!  They want to destroy everything!  They want to 
destroy us all!  They'll destroy the entire Looniverse!"

"They already have.  You see, Cannon Fodder, this is 85 years in the 
future.  They've destroyed every single bit of life.  It's all gone. 
And they destroyed all of the universes that existed on 
rec.arts.comics.creative.  8FOLD, ASH, OMEGA, RACCChallenge, Crossroads, 
LNHY-- they're all gone.  They're coming in 2008.  And they'll battle 
the LNH.  And they'll destroy them."

"We beat them once, Bart.  Back in '92.  We were a young clueless team. 
  But we beat them."

"Yes.  You did do that.  How's the Four Color Kid, btw?  Still Dead?  He 
was the one who beat them.  If it hadn't been for his sacrifice you'd 
all be dead.  But he gave you a 16 year reprieve.  16 years to live, 
laugh, and love.  But this time there is no Four Color Kid to save you. 
  This time you die.  This time's for keeps."

"You don't know that!  We have people from the future who are constantly 
popping into the LNHHQ!  There's a whole LNH imprint devoted to the 
future adventures of the LNH!"

"When was the last time you saw an LNH2 story on RACC?"

"Why are you doing this?  Why would you want to destroy everything, Bart?"

"Well, they won't destroy everything.  Just the future.  The past will 
be fine.  And what do I get out of all this?  A planet.  A planet called 
QWERTY."

"Qwerty?  But Qwerty's dead!"

"Yes, now it is.  But in the past it was quite the thriving culture. 
With a long rich history.  You see while I've been away from the LNHHQ 
I've done all kinds of things.  Had all kinds of adventures.  And there 
was this time I was on this Dorfian space cruiser commanded by a bunch 
of space pirates.  This Dvorkian lent me this book on the whole 
Dvorak-Qwerty War.  In it I discovered something very interesting. 
There was a picture of this famous Qwertian king by the name of Qwert-El 
who had a very long reign.  A million years to be exact.  And the book 
had a picture of him.  And here's the interesting thing.  The picture of 
him looked exactly like me.  Isn't that interesting, Cannon Fodder?"

Cannon Fodder didn't answer him.

"Well, anyways somewhere along the line I ran into this cult who 
worshipped Dekay and Diskolor -- and they wanted me to retrieve them 
from wherever they were.  And to make a long story short, I made a deal 
with them.  A deal where I would help Dekay and Diskolor escape the 
limbo they were trapped in and they would give me something in return. 
A deal where I would go to the past and become this Qwertian king."

"Okay.  But the thing I don't get though is why the whole disappearing 
LNH Leaders thing?  What was the point?"

"Dekay and Diskolor have a flair for the dramatic.  Oh, btw, thanks for 
reminding me.  Get a sample from Cannon Fodder."  A tiny little robot 
suddenly flashed into view.  It flew over to where Cannon Fodder was and 
shined a laser into Cannon Fodder's mind.  And then it pricked a needle 
into Cannon Fodder's skin.

"Ouch!" said Cannon Fodder as he tried to swat the robot away.  "What 
did you do that for?"

"Oh, just cell samples.  And also stealing all the dirty little secrets 
within your brain.  You'll have to wait to know why."

"How did you manage to capture every LNH'r?"

"The code pills.  There were tiny little time machines within them.  Of 
course for those LNH'rs like Dr. Stomper and others who decided to not 
take the code pill I had to improvise.  Usually putting the time machine 
in their food or something.  And it worked for the most part, except in 
the California Kid's case where the pill seemed to go into California 
time.  And I'm not sure what happened to Sarcastic Lad's demon."

"Where are all of the LNH'rs?"

"Back in the past.  May 2nd, 2007 to be specific.  The whole endless 
April was mostly because the history that I've read stated that the 
Leadership Cry.Sig was only in the month of April 2007.  So I retconned 
the April of 2007 to have the number of days that I needed.  Plus it 
created another diversion for the LNH to deal with.  You're the last one 
I'm taking though.  If I snatch one more LNH'r I'll lose whatever sanity 
I have left."

"Why would Dekay and Diskolor send everybody back into the past?  It 
makes no sense?  Why not just kill each one of us here?"

"I know.  It's very stupid.  But Dekay and Diskolor want you to be at 
your very best when they destroy you.  They want you to know that they 
are coming and nothing that you do will stop them.  They want the LNH to 
have one last great battle."

"Why, Bart?  How can you do this?"

Bart ignored the question.  "I've answered enough questions.  Time to go 
back to the LNH's grave."  Bart flew back to the Looniversal Answering 
towing Cannon Fodder.  He dumped Cannon Fodder on the ground.

"And now I guess I'm going to go to the past.  And I expect the LNH will 
send some team back in time to try and get back at me.  Don't worry. 
I'll waiting.  Goodbye, Cannon Fodder."

"Oh, and just in case you were wondering -- yes -- Dekay and Diskolor do 
eventually find away to permanently kill you.  And the time delayed 
suicide pill you took should be working anytime by now.  See you in the 
Beige Midnight Crossover."  And with that said Bart the Dark 
Receptionist floated up to space.

And Cannon Fodder was starting to feel very sluggish.  The pill was 
starting to work.  Cannon Fodder collapsed to the ground.  And he heard 
a voice.

<<Please <click> end me.  Can't take it.  Repeating same message <wrrr> 
over and over. <click> Please.>> pleaded the Looniversal Answering Machine.

"Sorry," Cannon Fodder said, "Can't."  Cannon Fodder couldn't move much 
less end the Looniversal Answering Machine's life.  His vision started 
to blur.  His heart started to slow down.

And then he was dead.

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Credits:

Well, I'll probably do a complete credit thingee some other time for 
this.  But here are credits for some of the more important players in 
this issue...

Cannon Fodder is wReam's

Dekay and Diskolor are Todd "Scavenger" Kogutt's... and I did get 
permission from Scav to use him for this and the Beige Midnight 
Crossover in 2008... which was cool of him... Thanks, Scav...

Bart the Receptionist is Ken Schmidt's and I believe he is Public 
Domain... It was Descrii (Ian Porell) who came up with the whole Dark 
Receptionist idea...

All the Easily Discovered Man rogues... except for EDB-Mite and Uma 
Thurman are Rob Roger's

Arthur's Notes:

Oh man.  My mind is jello.  And I still have to write an epilogue for 
all this (which I think is going to be delayed by a week or so).

I think if given another couple of weeks or so this whole issue would 
look better.  Rob was supposed to write more than this... but he had to 
take a trip out of the country... so he sent me what he had finished 
(which was a lot... just not in the sense of advancing the plot I had 
outlined).  You can probably tell the stuff he wrote and the stuff I 
wrote by the fact that I was too lazy to make the number of characters 
per line uniform.  It was fun working with Rob, but I think both of us 
needed a lot more time to make this issue work.  And so this is what you 
get.  Was going to have this issue have a cameo of at least one 
character from every single writer who had ever written an LNH story, 
but after looking through the Author List I realized what an insane idea 
that was.

And the ending opens a whole new can of worms.  The ending was my clever 
way of not having to write a way how the LNH defeated the people who had 
captured them and instead just leave it for those writers in 2008 to 
worry about.  Of course I feel obligated to do the Beige Midnight and 
hopefully can find a few more suckers... I mean writers to go along with 
me in it... I have a few ideas, but mostly I'm not really sure what's 
going to happen in it...

Dekay and Diskolor were before this issue found in a flashback in the 
Lurk of Faith miniseries dealing with the whole 2 1/2 month gap period. 
  I always found the whole concept behind them kind of cool.  These 
vague menaces that nearly destroyed reality and the LNH who just 
disappeared and were never seen of again.  Back when Retcon Hour was 
happening I think I proposed to McCoskey that they should be the big 
bad.  But wisely he turned that down because it would have just 
complicated things since they already had a ton of villains.  So when 
Rob suggested the whole idea behind some force causing leaders to 
disappear the idea of bringing back the Bryttle Brothers popped in my 
head.  And if you look at Episode One (Fearless Leader one) you'll see a 
tiny bit of foreshadowing involved Pulls Paper out of Hats Lad's power 
problem pulling out brittle pieces of paper.

Rob and me decided to have Bart be the mercenary hired halfway through 
the crossover... we were originally going to have someone else... but 
decided that Bart would be a better choice...  And I threw in the whole 
Ring of Retconn and Insanity Gauntlet to make him a somewhat credible 
threat...

All in all this whole things been fun... but Christ I don't know how 
Jeff McCoskey did all of those Crossovers...

I'm glad that we can still attract eight or so writers to engage in a 
month of madness.

Arthur "Hope you enjoyed it too" Spitzer