LNH20: LNH20 Comics Presents #5: The Spoon of Destiny Saga Part 5

Adrian J. McClure lord_soldeed at yahoo.com
Tue Dec 20 09:34:25 PST 2011


LNH20 Comics Presents #5:
The Spoon of Destiny Saga Part 5: "Time and Again"
Chapter 5 of a chaotic add-on cascade
By Adrian J. McClure

***

So now Nerf Girl had faced her first actual net.hero battle. She'd had
to fight for her life once before she was technically a net.hero, but
now she actually had a name and a costume and was a bona fide card-
carrying member of the LNH. Back before she started out she'd hoped
that her first battle would be against a real net.villain, someone who
could make the world tremble. But after facing Agent-M in the Peril
Room, she was glad she had faced an enemy weak enough for her to
survive. She tried not to think of the fact that she'd almost stabbed
him to death.

It was strange how weak and vulnerable the Otakaiser seemed now under
all that armor. He was actually several years younger than her. He
reminded her a lot of her younger brother--adopted brother, she
reminded herself--a worryingly dedicated otaku who had actually turned
down the one girl desperate enough to ask him out to a dance because
he didn't want to cheat on Rei Ayanami. The Otakaiser was crying now.
She'd known intellectually how deadly her weapons could be, but she
had no idea she could come so close to killing someone--

But she hadn't. She'd defeated him by elbowing him in the gut. No,
she'd stabbed him, except he had a healing factor. So how--

Before she could figure out what was going on, the Otakaiser's sobbing
turned into laughter. "You fools! Did you really think you could
defeat me so easily? OTAKU LIMIT BREAK!" He was clutching a cube-like
object he took from his armor. Then he began to glow and rose into the
air. Nerf Girl found she couldn't move. When the light faded, he was
now dressed in even more garish armor with enormous horns. "Now I am
Otakaiser Ultra! See how easily your pitiful Legion shall fall beneath
my might!"

"That's just what the last one was saying," said You're-Not-Hitting-Me-
Hard-Enough Lad, but even he seemed visibly shaken.

"Do you think to mock me? I am no longer the weakling who you once
fought. For now I wield a power beyond all comprehension... the power
of THE OTACUBE!" He held up the device in his hand, pulsing with
uncanny energies.

"Wait, have we fought this guy before?" whispered Ultimate Mercenary.
"Doc Nostalgia, do you remember him?"

"I think he was Manga Girl's brother," said Doc Nostalgia. "That fight
didn't take very long."

"Fools! You won't believe the things I can do now!"

"Well I'll bet you've never faced a ninja before!" said Ultimate
Mercenary.

"Ninja? Bah! How dare you call yourself a ninja? Your costume is too
dark and you're not even wearing a headband! I'll bet you can't even
turn into a log!"

"That series is a disgrace to all ninja! You will pay!" shouted
Ultimate Mercenary, who lobbed a smoke grenade at the Otakaiser. The
Otakaiser pressed a button on his now significantly larger lance and
vaporized it instantly. "Someday that'll work..." Ultimate Mercenary
muttered under his breath.

Now the battle had started again in earnest. "We've got to get this
out of the museum!" shouted Doc Nostalgia. "We don't know how that
'Otacube' of his will interact with the other artifacts." Then he did
a double-take, apparently realizing that they were now in the street.
It provided the Otakaiser an opening to attack him. "Hot Blooded Otaku
Burst!" he shouted, knocking him onto the groun. Nudist Man, You're-
Not-Hitting-Me-Hard-Enough Lad, and Ultimate Mercenary then charged
him, but he didn't seem to budge beneath their blows.

And through it all Nerf Girl sat on the sidelines, unsure of what to
do. As far as members with tactical skills went, Kid Enthusiastic was
down for the count and You're-Not-Hitting-Me-Hard-Enough Lad had taken
too many hits to be of any use. His power was that he got stronger the
more he was hit, but he also got less rational. He'd evidently still
been a bit punchy already after the fight with the Lycopersicons. "Kid
Enthusiastic, what--" But he was dead. Except he wasn't, he was
fighting the Otakaiser. Except he was standing beside her.

He started fiddling with a device built into his wristband. "Temporal
stabilizer. That should keep us safe for a while. Anyway, I figure
it's that 'Otacube.' Death must have taken that knowledge from my mind
without me noticing. It's powered by a Retcon Ball!"

Nerf Girl gasped. The Retcon Balls were ancient artifacts of
unimaginable mystical power. Assembled in one place, they would give
their wielder a chance to retcon one aspect of history, but even one
of them could be dangerous in the hands of someone with the right
technology.

The other heroes were still fighting the Otakaiser. At one moment the
Legion seemed to be winning, but then they flickered and the Otakaiser
had the upper hand. Only Ultimate Mercenary didn't seem to be
affected, maybe because he was from another continuity. He was in the
same position the whole time, but the way the fight was shifting
around him meant that he was still disoriented.

Doc Nostalgia, now unwounded, picked up Nudist Man--which made him
rather uncomfortable--and threw him at the Otakaiser, Fastball Special
style. The Otakaiser reacted about as you would expect a straight
teenage boy to at the sight of a naked man. This left him open to the
other heroes' blows. But then he raised his cube again, and shouted
"Righteous Otaku Mosaic!" Nudist Man's naughty bits were now
pixelated, and the Otakaiser no longer had the jibblies, allowing him
to take the upper hand again.

"This isn't looking good," said Nerf Girl. "What should we do?"

"Can you create a distraction?" asked Kid Enthusiastic.

"I don't know. This is getting to weird and confusing for me. And I
almost killed him. I--I think I'm scared--" She tried not to cry. She
hoped her parents and her brother would never--then she had an idea,
remembering something she'd seen when she made the mistake of browsing
her brother's hidden folder. She pulled her phone.thingy out of her
belt pouch and searched for a naked picture of Rei Ayanami, which
wasn't hard to find at all.

The other heroes were pinned to the ground by a forcefield. "And now
the time has come to finish you!" said the Otakaiser, raising the
Otacube dramatically over his head. Then Nerf Girl leaped at him with
the phone.thingy in her hand. The Otakaiser's jaw dropped, his eyes
briefly popped out of his face, and his nose started bleeding
profusely. His hands started shaking and he dropped the Otacube. Kid
Enthusiastic then grabbed the cube and flicked a switch on its side.
The energy faded away and now the Otakaiser was back in his original
armor. "Give me that!" he shouted, pulling out his raygun again and
firing a blast. Kid Enthusiastic dived straight into the blast, then
to the ground dead. Again.

***

"Again?" Death's face was impassive as ever, but he was developing a
noticeable twitch.

"Well, it's not my fault and there's nothing you can do about it. I'm
fully authorized to come back from the dead," said Kid Enthusiastic.
"Why don't you take it up with the Otakaiser? He's the one who keeps
killing me and making a mess out of time. And there have got to be
some kind of regulations about using something like the Retcon Balls,
right?"

"Indeed," said Death, as Kid Enthusiastic once more returned to life.

***

"Wait, what just happened?" said Nerf Girl, looked at where the now-
vanished Otakaiser had been.

"Death did," said Kid Enthusiastic. "He was mad about how I kept
coming back but couldn't do anything about it, so I convinced him to
take it up with the Otakasider instead. He's authorized too, though, I
guess. I think you can basically mess up time and reality as much as
you want for mystical tournaments, so the gods of his home will
probably come in and bail him out soon. But it should keep him for a
while."

"But time's still acting up," said Doc Nostalgia. "See?" A passerby,
who hadn't seemed to notice the net.hero fight, was walking across the
street. A car swerved to avoid the net.heroes and slammed into him.
Then he was on the other side and nothing had happened.

"So it's not just the Retcon Ball, then. It must be reacting with
something else," said Kid Enthusiastic. "I was wondering about that.
He didn't seem to be controlling the retcon effect, otherwise he would
have had the upper hand the whole time. Wonder if it was something
from the museum--"

Then they heard the screams of people who were running from the museum
in question. It was glowing with an eerie blue light. "I guess that
answers our question," said Kid Enthusiastic.

***

Andrea stood alone in Ultravac's computer room, watching the pattern
of the blinking lights. It had been some time since anyone had called.
Part of her hoped the LNH had stopped whatever their plan was. Part of
her hoped they hadn't, because then she'd be out of a job again.

The computer spat out some ticker tape, waking her up. She took it in
her hands and read it. "The battle with the Otakaiser must be over
now. The next phase of the plan should be ready to begin any minute
now." She looked at the piece of ticker-tape in her hands and did a
double-take. "Wait a minute, Ultravac, why do you need me to read your
paper when there's no one around?" The next piece of ticker tape said,
"Shut up you crazy broad! What kind of archvillain would I be if I
didn't talk to myself on occasion, huh?"

Then the screen turned on again and she saw a zombie. More
specifically, it was a zombie version of Chuck Norris. He must have
been summoned by Lord @zrael, the dreaded @lantean necromancer, using
the Necromemicon, the Book of Dead Memes.

"We failed," said Zombie Chuck Norris. "The Legion kicked Otakaiser's
ass, and now the Elder Gods are coming in to stop us!"

"Dramatic pause," Andrea read from the ticker-tape. "Oh wait. I
mean..." She stood still for a second and tried to look appropriately
dramatic. "Just as planned. Muahahahahaha!"

"What? How?"

"Wait and see," Andrea read. "Soon all will become apparent."

The screen turned off, and Andrea was alone in the room with Ultravac.
Except she wasn't. There was a woman in the room wearing a black
cloak.

She was young and seemingly frail, with bright golden hair and shining
blue eyes. A mocking smile lit up her cherry-red lips. In her right
hand she bore a rose.

She was of middle years, tall and proud and full-figured. Some grey
had entered her hair. Her face was set with determination. In her
right hand she bore a Horn of Plenty.

She was old, indeed ancient. Her hands were clawlike and withered but
her grip seemed no less strong for that. Andrea was thankful she
couldn't see her face. In her right hand she bore a scythe.

"Mother Time," read Andrea, her voice shaking a little despite her
best efforts. "Is all in readiness?"

"Indeed," she said, with three voices speaking as one.

"Is the next phase ready to begin?"

"Soon," said Mother Time.

"Soon," said Mother Time.

"Soon," said Mother Time.

---

Notes: Even though Martin Phipps actually corrected the continuity
error, I left the retcon stuff in because it fit what I had already
planned with the Retcon Balls and Mother Time. Gotta love cascades.

The phone.thingy is the slightly more advanced Looniverse-20
equivalent of the iPhone. By now some of the Mr. Thingy's more low-
level technology has made it into the mainstream after the fall of the
Killfile, including the phone.thingy, which is based on the Net.tastic
Nine communicators. The world is still struggling to assimilate more
advanced hypertech, however. The Legion's version of the phone.thingy--
which Sigrid hasn't been given yet--is more advanced still.

Mother Time created by Rob Rogers


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