LNH20: LNH20 Comics Presents #2: The Spoon of Destiny Saga Part 1 (1/2) (was: LNH20: LNH20 Comics Presents #2: The Spoon of Destiny Saga Part 2

[Martin Phipps]

LNH20 Comics Presents #2:
The Spoon of Destiny Saga: "Re-animations and Revelations"
Chapter 2 of a chaotic add-on cascade
by Adrian J. McClure, Andrew Perron, Martin Phipps and Dave Van
Domelan

***

Dr. Mood had been at the Netropolitan Museum of Art looking for the
Spoon of Destiny when five Legionaires (Doc Nostalgia, Nudist Man,
You're-Not-Hitting-Me-Hard-Enough Lad, Kid Enthusiastic and Nerf Girl)
showed up in a flight.thingee.  He went out to face them and was just
about to press the fear button when he saw Nudist Man.  "I give up!"
he shouted, falling to the ground on his knees. "I surrender! Please
don't hurt me!" He started to sob.

"Oh come on!" shouted You're-Not-Hitting-Me-Hard-Enough Lad. "That's
pathetic! Aren't you going to give us even a little bit of a fight?"

But before he could say anything, a man on a flying motorcycle touched
down beside him. He seemed to be a teenager, and was dressed in a
costume that looked like two fashion designers had gotten incredibly
drunk and added as many ridiculous elements as they could possibly
think of. He was wielding a gigantic lance. "Whirling Otaku Fury!" he
shouted, pointing the lance at Kid Enthusiastic. It shot an enormous
spinning blast of energy at him. Kid Enthusiastic leaped out of the
way, but not quickly enough. He fell to the ground dead.

"Ha! I had hoped my sister would be among you, but no matter. You
cannot stand before the power of... THE OTAKAISER!"

***

Kid Enthusiastic shook himself and watched his body land.

He didn't mind that he'd been killed dramatically - it was part and
parcel of the job!  But he had been hoping that the experimental web
of filaments he'd woven into his costume would absorb at least *one*
blast like that.  Back to the drawing board, it seemed.

If one had vision that looked into the aetheric, one would notice that
he looked very little like a ten-year-old boy at the moment, or,
indeed, the forty-year-old he chronologically was.  He was more like a
pinpoint of light, with fluffy clouds trailing behind as it moved.  He
drifted purposefully over to the Otakaiser's device, hoping to gather
some intel on it before--

"Oh.  It's *you* again."

Kid E sighed.  Before *he* showed up. "Hello, Ebon Skater."

The man before him, hovering slightly off the ground, fumed.  He was
scrawny and pale, with dishwater-blond hair.  He looked to be around
college-aged, and was dressed in an immaculately tailored suit one
size too large for him. "That's *Death*, not that you didn't know.  I
was hoping to actually do my job today, but now I see that that won't
be possible."

If he'd had eyes, he would have rolled them.  This being was one of
the few people in this wild and woolly world that he simply... didn't
like.  It was weird!  "Y'know, you don't have to bug me every time I
die.  It's not like I'm one of those confused revenants that don't
know which way the afterlife is."

Death sniffed disdainfully. "Regulations state that all deceased must
be tracked, no matter their metaphysical state or ultimate
destination.  In the case of... net.heroes..." He pronounced the word
as if naming the exact type of rotting, moldy garbage he was currently
scraping off his shoes.  "...a representative of Deletion is required
at each extinguishing."

"Well *yeah* but come on!  I'm busy here, anyway." He sent his
attention back at the device.

An "a-HRM" issued from Death's dry throat. "Knowledge from beyond the
veil is a strictly controlled substance."

"Knowledge isn't a substance!"

"Nevertheless, I am required to ask you to cease and desist."

Kid Enthusiastic made the aetheric equivalent of a frustrated puff of
breath out his nose and turned the full power of his spiritual
viewpoint at Death, shining like a ghostly searchlight. "Ask away,
then!  It's not like you can *do* anything - I'm an Immortal with a
capital I, which is *just* as official an office as yours!  Feel free
to kick it up to your bosses, but they must wearing out their
'REJECTED' stamp on your paperwork!"

Death narrowed his eyes. "Oh, trust me.  There *will* be consequences
for this willful twisting of the codified control policies."

"Fine, fine.  So you go and do that, and leave me to wwwwWHEEEEEEEE"
Kid Enthusiastic was suddenly sucked back into his body as it knit
back together.

And in the sudden spirit silence, Death chuckled. "Oh, I plan to." He
walked off, into the mists.

***

"The Otakisser?" Nerf Girl asked.

"THE OTAKAISER!"

"Whatever!  You just killed Kid Enthusiastic!"

Kid Enthusiastic got up.  "Actually, I'm fine, I just..."

The Otakaiser shot another enormous spinning blast of energy at him
and killed him again.

"Hey!  Stop that!" Nerf Girl insisted.

"No!" said the Otakaiser.  "Kid Enthusiastic must die!"

"Why?" Nerf Girl asked.

"Indeed!" You're-Not-Hitting-Me-Hard-Enough Lad said.  "If anyone
should be killed it's me!  Come on, give it your best shot!"

"Are you people insane?" the Otakaiser asked.  "You have this guy here
who doesn't know when to stay dead, another guy who actually wants me
to kill him, a naked man and a little girl with a toy?"

"It's not a toy!" Nerf Girl insisted.

"Oh really?" the Otakaiser said.  "Then I take it you actually expect
to hurt somebody with that thing?"

Nerf Girl angrily lunged forward and stabbed the Otakaiser in the gut.

"I stand corrected," the Otakaiser said.

Nerf Girl withdrew her sword.  "Oh my God... he's bleeding!"

"Somebody should get this guy to the hospital!" Kid Enthusiastic
(alive again) said.

"So...," the Otakaiser said, "Kid Enthusiastic... yet lives.  I have
failed... in my mission.  It is only fitting... that I die."

"Oh no you don't!" Doc Nostalgia said.  "You're not going to get away
that easily!  Come on everybody, let's get him in the flight thingee!
We're taking him to Net.ropolis General Hospital!"

***

Sexy-Disturbed-Sparkly-Vampire-Man, the Private Eye and Explain-the-
Joke Lass were discussing the best way to deal with WHATEVER (the
World Headquarters for Anarchy, Terrorism, Evil, Vengeance,
Extermination and Retribution) when they noticed that they were
surrounded by cats, who slowly advanced toward them, their eyes
gleaming with great-even-by-
feline-standards malevolence.

Suddenly a box at their feet began to shake.  It was the box that
Jerry Muggs had been carrying.  He was apparently delivering it to
WHATEVER when Sexy-Disturbed-Sparkly-Vampire-Man attacked them.  It
was only now that they came to realize that whatever was inside the
box had to be alive.

Sexy-Disturbed-Sparkly-Vampire-Man was about to step on the box when
Explain-the-Joke Lass stopped him.

"What are you doing?" she asked.

"We don't know what's in the box?" he said.

"It could for all we know just be a cute little kitten!" she said.

"Really?" SDSVM asked.  "Seriously how long have you people been in
this business, hmm?"

Then the box opened.  A mouse walked out.  But was, apparently, no
ordinary mouse as the sight of this mouse caused all the cats to run
away.

"It's no ordinary mouse," Explain-the-Joke Lass explained, "because
cats normally chase after mice: they are not known for being afraid of
mice."

"I apologize," SDSVM said.  "Obviously with this caliber of
observation skills you must be a genius."

"You're being sarcastic," Explain-the-Joke Lass said.

"Like I said!  Amazing!"

"Enough!" the Private Eye said.  "What is so special about this mouse
that cats would run away from it!"

"It is as you guessed," the mouse said.  "I am no ordinary mouse."

"It speaks!" Explain-the-Joke Lass said.

SDSVM rolled his eyes.

"For I," the mouse said, "am the super intelligent mouse known as...
THE CRANIUM!"

***

     Acton Lord, fifth to carry the title (although the public knew of
only three, and some suspected all three were the same man kept alive
by techno-mystical means), was tending to his garden when a soft chime
sounded in the back of his mind.  He and the Twisted Library had
become more intimately bonded during the years of the Killfile than
any previous Acton Lord, and he no longer needed the ostentations
instrumentality his predecessor had used, and that he himself had
required back when he tried conclusions with his brother in the 1990s.

     The chime told him that something important had happened in
Netropolis, a city he had largely left to its own devices in recent
years.  Even after the Killfile dropped and his exile was ended, he
hadn't made more than a few desultory efforts in the direction of his
old home.  He had found much more rewarding pursuits on higher planes,
after all.

     He briefly sorted through the data the Library made available.
For all his training and mystic talent, he still had a human mind.
True omniscience would destroy him just as surely as an excess of any
other sort of power, but the Library gave him a controlled version of
it that was nearly as useful.

     "Hm.  The Spoon of Destiny?  No, that can't be it," he shook his
head.  To be certain, the Spoon was an artifact of great power, and
Ultravac a deliciously corrupt machine who had been a useful pawn in
the schemes of the most recent three claimants to the title of Acton
Lord.  But it couldn't have been urgent enough for the Library to
intrude on the tending of Acton Lord's
nigellas.

     The trouble with limited omniscience was that it was...well,
sphammy.  It took subtly to filter out the useful information from
that which merely seemed useful on the surface.  The Twisted Library
may have had a will and a mind of its own, but it had inhuman
priorities and could never quite understand the details of what
organic life wanted, even when explained exhaustively.

     Finally he found it.

     A slow smile spread across the face of the man who the world only
knew as Acton Lord, but who would have been named Graham Franklin had
he not been stolen away from his parents by the previous Acton Lord.
"Ah, yes.  My niece has joined the Legion of Net.Heroes.  Family is
important, I should find her some sort of gift to commemorate the
event, provided she survives her clash with that computer.  It's about
time I picked a successor anyway, and what better gift is there for a
net.hero than her very own nemesis?"

     A slow chuckle gradually built into a maniacal laugh.

     "Ah, I've missed that part of the job," he sighed as his laughter
continued to echo through the infinite corridors of the Twisted
Library....

***

Who hired the Otakaiser to kill Kid Enthusiastic and why does he want
him dead?

Where did the Cranium come from?  Is he hero or villain?  Why was he
being delivered to WHATEVER?

Who will Acton Lord choose as Nerf Girl's arch nemesis?

Some of these questions may or may not be answered by someone other
than me in the The Spoon of Destiny Saga Part 4 (because Part 3 was
already posted)

***

Notes:

Yes, I know Dave posted his "A View From The Twisted Library" as an
add-on to Part 1 but Part 1 was long enough already and we already had
Part 3 posted so I thought the simple solution would be to take what
Andrew wrote and what Dave wrote and put it into Part 2 and then I
would only have to slightly advance the Otakaiser and cats plots and -
ta da- that would be issue #2.  So now people can either continue with
issue #4 or add on to issue #3.  Yeah, I somehow expect somebody to be
pissed at me for some reason but, you know, I after I while I develop
a thick skin.  Anyway, it's been a week and none of the plots from #1
were advanced so I figured I might as well do something or else this
thing would be dead before we even made it to the 20th anniversary. :)

Martin