LNH: 58.5 #25

[Lalo Martins]

Previously on 58.5:

Since the beginning of April, one LNHer (sometimes more) was
picked as leader, every day, and disappeared at midnight.  That
wouldn't be such a big deal, if it wasn't for the fact that
April has already lasted for 289 days.

A few weeks ago, the Looniearth was invaded by an alternate LNH
from the "Evilverse".  They defeated most of the remaining
members of the "real" LNH, and took over Net.ropolis.  President
Luthor then decided to seal the city in a force field.  The New
Misfits got stuck inside it, where they joined the Resistance,
which strangely enough, is led by the Crime Empire, which in
turn is led by Paraddox (formerly Weirdness Magnet) and Vector
Prime (a.k.a. the Melissa Virus).

But Evil Doctor Stomper has a mega-doomsday-device, the
"Ultimate Gnab", with which the Evilverse LNH plans to implode
the Looniverse, if they can't break through the force field...
and now the New Misfits have to steal it.

  =============================-=============================

The fight had been going on outside the LNHQ for half a day, and
it didn't look good.  The Crime Empire goons gave up and ran
away two hours ago, and about one hour ago the New Misfits did
the same, regrouping to treat their wounds.  Laran and Old Ugly,
however, refused to run, and stayed behind to guarantee their
friends a safe escape.

"Bring it on", screamed the Etruscan god, laughing manically.
He was covered in bruises and had a broken arm.

Old Ugly, two legs already missing, took a shot from Master
Blaster, and turned upside down, apparently dead.

And soon afterwards, Laran was finally subdued.

The survivors of the Evilverse LNH relaxed for a moment, then
looked at Fearless Leader.

"Take him to our prison in the Evilverse before he wakes up.  I
think that won't take long, so hurry up."

"What about this thing?", asked Master Blaster, poking Old Ugly
with one of his guns.

"Take it to Doctor Stomper's lab.  I want to know what it is."

As T.E.R.R.O.R. staff started the cleanup, LNHers started
carrying out their leader's orders, and life in the LNHQ resumed
what had been recently passing for normal.

Master Blaster and Doctor Stomper carted Old Ugly into the lab.
"Thanks", said the scientist.

"%~#@~&~ you, just following orders.  Now I need a brewski."

Stomper sighed, waited for the other to leave, and turned his
back to the fallen monstrosity, to pick up a pair of gloves.

And an energy beam emerged from Old Ugly, blasting his head off.

"Good Bob", said Blackbird.  "You didn't have to kill him!"

"Sorry", Daniel answered.  "We're flea-sized, I thought the Big
Gun's blast would be proportional.  I have no idea how this
thing works!"

"Oh well.  Let's get back to normal size and nab the Gnab."

"Werd", said Ultra-Mobile Dawg, as he started restoring his
teammates to regular size.

  =============================-=============================

Who Cares Studios sneakily presents...
                        __________    ______
                       / ____( __ )  / ____/
                      /___ \/ __  | /___ \
                     ____/ / /_/ / ____/ /
                    /_____/\____(_)_____/

                             #25

                  Step On Everybody's Feet

                       by Lalo Martins

                   Part 8 of Beige Twilight

http://www.lnhq.info/archives/58.5/

  =============================-=============================

"I can't believe Laran agreed to--", said Sammy.

"Take one for the team", Green interrupted.  "Had to be done."

"For dolo too.  Nakey homie get dap when we bounce this pad",
said Ultra-Mobile Dawg.

Green injected Old Ugly with something from his pocket.  "Locke
said this would take about a minute to work."

"This must be it", Howie K. said, holding the Ultimate Gnab is
his hand.  "Doesn't look too much like the picture, but--" he
dropped it in Daniel's hand.  "Do your 'Contraption Boy' thing,
will you?"

Daniel examined the device for a moment.  "This is it.  The
Ultimate Gnab.  Instant universe collapser."

"Why don't we just destroy it?", asked Green, with an extremely
displeased face.

"With this kind of power supply?  Destroying it would probably
blow up the planet.  Not an option."

"Bouncin time then", said Dawg, getting the Gnab and sticking it
in his backpack.

Old Ugly ticked.  His legs and carapace were restored.

"That's a neat trick", said Daniel.

"Yeah", Green agreed, "but she said it weakens his immune
system, so she can't regenerate him like this all the time.
Only in emergencies."

"What are you looking for?", said Blackbird.  Dawg was opening
all other doors in the lab.  "The exit is right here."

"Bathroom, yo.  Gotta do the shizzle, know what I mean?"

The leader of the New Misfits just sighed, and pointed to
another door.  Dawg threw his backpack to Daniel and disappeared
through the door.

Before he could come back, however, the exit was blasted in.

"I knew it", said Evil Insomnia Boy.  "They're here!"  But
Master Blaster, Ordinary Lady, Cheesecake-Eater Lad and
You're-Not-Hitting-Me-Hard-Enough Lad weren't listening.

Contraption Boy and Master Blaster just stood, face to face, eye
to eye, hands hovering near the weapon holsters.  They stared at
each other for a few tense seconds, sweat running down their
brows.  Finally, they both made the move.  Daniel fell to the
floor, Big Gun in hand.

Howie and Ordinary Lady were in a complicated dance, each one
knowing the other's moves too well.  But a beak thrust in
Ordinary Lady's eye ended the fight.

Back in the corridor, a few more LNHers struggled to join the
fight, but vines and branches from all the decorative plants in
the building refused to let them.

Insomnia Boy and Analytic were locked in a furious trivia
challenge, speaking almost too fast to follow.

Jets of black energy and cheesecake were beginning to cover the
whole room.  Master Blaster prepared to shoot Blackbird from
behind, but Howie K. knocked him out just in time.  Old Ugly
clicked and ticked, protesting the beating he was getting from 
You're-Not-Hitting-Me-Hard-Enough Lad (who, to be honest, wasn't
looking to good, with all the cuts and scratches).

"I just recovered the security tapes", said Multi-Tasking-Man's
voice through the comm.thingie in Stomper's desk.  "They've
stolen the Ultimate Gnab.  It's in the backpack in Contraption
Boy's hands.  Queen from king three to queen's knight six."

Cheesecake-Eater Lad dodged some dark energy, and made a dive
for Daniel.  Howie ran to stop him, but he grabbed Dawg's
backpack, and, with a triumphant smile, opened it.

"You lost, fools.  You think you can steal our tech from under
our noses?  We're the LNH!  We--"  His face turned white.  The
backpack was empty.  "Where is it?  Where is the Ultimate Gnab?"

But Howie K. knocked him out before he could get an answer.
Blackbird took a deep breath and concentrated his powers.
"They figured it out.  Time to get out of here."

Analytic swiftly moved his hand, pressed a point on Insomnia
Boy's body, and the latter fell instantly asleep.  "Never give a
super-detective time to study your body", he muttered.

And as half the New Misfits gathered around Old Ugly, who was
still pumping You're-Not-Hitting-Me-Hard-Enough Lad with more
and more energy, Sammy pressed a button on Daniel's wrist.  A
light shimmered around the heroes, and Blackbird poured out his
power in a new way he never tried before.  Darkness swept around
the room, and all the extremely dangerous experiments Doctor
Stomper had in there decided to malfunction at the same time.
Explosion followed explosion.

"You won't escape", said You're-Not-Hitting-Me-Hard-Enough Lad.
"I'm at the height of my power, and explosions will only feed me
even more!"

"You can be as strong as you want", said Sammy, as the LNHQ's
Stomper Failsafe Protocols activated (a little something Captain
Cleanup had asked for), jettisoning the whole laboratory out to
space.  YNHMHE Lad concentrated all his power in one last
attempt to break their force field; and just before he hit,
Sammy shifted his weight just a little bit.

Of course, hitting something in free flight, without your feet
firmly planted, is often a bad idea.  The impact only served to
shoot both Evilverse villain and New-Misfit-containing-force-
field-ball out of the flying laboratory, in almost opposite
directions.  YNHMHE Lad hit the force field around the city,
then landed at E Bay.  The New Misfits landed in Fan.way Park,
Home of the Net.ropolis Ninja Baseball Team, where Paraddox was
waiting for them with a net.

"This went better than expected", said Sammy, beating the dust
out of his clothes.

"What about the others?"  Melissa asked.

"Dawg flushed the shuttle ship down with the Ultimate Gnab, as
planned.  As for whether they made it to the submarine, it's too
early to tell.  No news from Manhandler yet?"

"I'll check", she said, getting a comm.thingie from a pocket.

  =============================-=============================

"GROOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOSSSSSSSSSSSSSS", screamed Bonnie.

"Be easy now ma boo, plan ain't mine, know what I mean?"

"Nobody's saying it's your fault, noofer, but it's still grifing
disgusting, it is."

Bonnie rolled up her eyes.  "And why do I have to get stuck with
the Slang Squad?"

"Peep that boo, that our jetizzle."

"He means 'outquant port', I think", Locke clarified.

"Wow thanks.  Yes I see it.  Hold on, this Crime Empire shuttle
gets a bit bumpy when it goes from submarine to flight--"

"Word up.  Be easy and we roll out just tight."

"Sure we do", she said, as the Bandwagon finally agreed to fly
out of the disgusting water, as it fell from a pipe like a
stinky waterfall.

  =============================-=============================

Starring:
 Sgt. Lauro Graziani   Laran, god of war      mine
   (deceased)
 Old Ugly                                     mine
 Daniel Hunt           Contraption Boy        mine
 Blackbird Jones       Blackbird              mine
 Doug "Dawg" Tyler     Ultra-Mobile Dawg      mine
 Meredith Samuels      Analytic               mine
   ("Sammy")
 Green Delaware        Tree-Hugging Kid       mine
 Kiwi Kiwii Kiwi       Howie K.               mine
 Bonnie Chique         Bandwagon Chick        Sue Clark's
 (unpronounceable)     Locked Room            mine
 "Andy" Martins        Paraddox               mine
 Melissa               The Crime Empress      Rob Rogers'
 Mister Manhandler                            mine

If you're on Facebook, join the LNH group today!

  =============================-=============================

Bonus feature: how to write Howie K.

real name: Kiwi Kiwii Kiwi
aliases: The fighting kiwi, the master of kiwi-fu
age: sliding, circa 16 (in kiwi years)
appearance: a humanoid bird, about a meter tall, with green,
spotted plumage, of very thin feathers, that look a lot like
spiky hair.  (The LNH kiwi, or "Apteryx Descrii", is deep green
with black spots, as opposed to most other species, which are
brown, with or without black spots.)  His eyes are all-black, he
has black whiskers (not quite as long as a cat, but roughly the
same shape), and a long, thin beak.  His wing-like arms are
barely enough to reach each other, and his feet look like those
of a parrot.  Since the New Misfits got new outfits from
Paraddox, he's wearing a sharp, black three-piece suit, a
lead-gray shirt, deep green tie, belt, and cuff-links, and a
light-gray trenchcoat full of hidden weapons.  He'll also, very
occasionally (read, in a harder than usual battle), take off the
coat and jacket, and wear a martial-artist-style black band on
his head.

powers: none.  He doesn't fly, he doesn't talk to birds.  But
he's an extremely capable martial artist, having even
synthesized the many martial arts he's mastered into his own
style, which he calls "kiwi-fu".

personality: loyalty is the keyword with this bird; there is
nothing more important than his friends, and looking out for
them.  He's still shaken by the loss of his best friend, Mary
Smith; since then, he has been taking his responsibility towards
his friends in a fight even more seriously.  The fact that the
New Misfits still keep dropping like flies isn't helping...

Originally a member of Kid Kiwi's Kiwi Commandos, Howie has been
living in the LNHQ for years.  He's spent much of his downtime
around Ordinary Lady and her friends.  Eventually, as Kid Kiwi
became less and less active, a number of birds who had
distinctive personalities (see "Harris the Kiwi") officially
left the Commandos, becoming LNH members in their own right.

Infinite April (Infinite Leadership Crisis) would bring Howie an
opportunity to improve his skills even more, when Ordinary Lady
edited WikiBoy into a martial arts master and ordered him to
instruct the whole LNH.  "Most learned a bit, many forgot
everything the next day due to exhaustion, a few were too
boneheaded to learn anything at all, and only a handful learned
enough to really make a difference.  I think I can safely say, I
was the best student of all..."

A few weeks later, after he had already informally joined the
New Misfits, Mother Time fired a "devolutionary" beam at his
friend, Locked Room.  Howie jumped in front of the ray, which
changed him into his current form.

dialog style: pretty standard "real-life American teenager"
talk, with occasional but not heavy slang.

allies and friends: Member of the New Misfits, best friends with
Mary Smith (Whatever) (believed dead).  Since her "death", he's
developed a strong, brotherly bond with Mary's other best
friend, Locked Room.  (That Locke is probably one of the few
people capable of treating Howie if he gets ill or injured, what
with Stomper being missing, also helps!).  He still has deep
respect for Ordinary Lady, whom he considers his master.

enemies and dislikes: none in particular.