LNH20/REPOST: LNH20 Comics Presents #4

[Andrew Perron]

You know what we need more of?

You know what the early LNH had a lot of?

You know what really brings fanboys and fangirls in?

SHIPPING!

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LNH20 Comics Presents #4
The Spoon of Destiny Saga Part 4: "Free Shipping With Twenty-Five Dollars'
Worth of DOOM!"
Chapter 4 of a chaotic add-on cascade
By Andrew Perron
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As Professor Penumbra faded from sight, Kindle pulled at her hair. "Does
that muckraking blaggart think this place is Grand Central Station?  What a
reprehensible goon!" She fumed in a literal sense for a moment, then sighed
and turned to the patient next her. "Did he mess you up in any way?"

The young man shook his head.  He was a bit thin and pale, with short,
curly blond hair that had the faintest pattern of dark spots on it. "Um,
I'm all right.  Just a little spooked." He offered a smile that, though
wan, was genuine.

Kindle nodded and grinned back. "All right. I'm going to go see what that
melon farmer's shouting about." She walked back, to a bed where someone was
yelling hysterically about tentacles.

Otherkin Lad sighed.  She smelled like the desert breeze, and she truly
cared about each and every member of humanity.  But how could she return
the feelings of someone who couldn't even live up to the legacy of a dog?

Fifteen years ago, Cauliflower the Christmas Miracle Pooch had died; the
same day, Brendan Weatherwax had been born.  He'd grown up hearing tales of
Cauliflower, his heroism, his kindness, his saintliness; even during the
Killfile, when the adults had seemed to forget what the net.heroes had done
for them, Cauliflower came up like clockwork each holiday season.

After the Killfile fell, everything had seemed brighter and more alive, so
he hadn't realized that Christmas (which he had always loved) felt even
more so.  But a few weeks before his fourteenth birthday, when he'd pulled
the homeless old man out of the alleyway and into the emergency room, and
the doctors had watched his organs repair and renew themselves...

Kid Enthusiastic had detected what he called "Christmas radiation" coming
from him.  Professor Penumbra had taken him aside and explained that the
powers of the Holiday Miracle Pets were bequeathed not to their bodies, but
to their souls.

He had, of course, been excited to become a net.hero.  If he was able to do
anything to bring a quantum of peace to Earth, it was worth it.  But... how
could he possibly live up to it?  That heroism, that kindness, that
saintliness?  The public didn't know about the connection, but most of the
LNHers did, and he could feel that expectation aimed at the back of his
head.

He rolled over, taking weight off the wound he'd gotten while saving a
busload of disabled students from a Lycopersicon by talking it down and
getting it on the side of humanity.  Ah, well.  Maybe he'd be able to live
up to it somehow, someday...

----

You're-Not-Hitting-Me-Hard-Enough Lad screamed his rage and ran at the
Otakaiser's mechanized motorcycle, fist raised.  With a splurch, he was
instantly wrapped in pink goo.  He strained and struggled, but without
repeated impacts, his body couldn't build up the super-strength needed to
break free.  The Otakaiser laughed contemptuously.

Doc Nostalgia rolled his eyes.  Half of his men down already?  Net.heroes
these days... He took a deep breath and prepared his best Moral High Ground
voice. "Stop right there!  Desist, foul miscreant, or else we'll... we
will... go in and stop... you..."

Oh, God.  It was happening again.

When the anti-entropic energy had restored him to his former youth, it made
sense that his hormones had returned to a youthful state.  Brashly, he'd
assumed he'd be able to handle it; going through it once had been simple
enough, so going through it again should be a piece of cake, right?

Ha ha, no.

He would be going about his business and suddenly, out of nowhere, his
gonads would take his brain in a deathgrip, whispering sweet nothings to
him about the attractiveness of the person he was currently speaking to.
He'd managed to divert suspicion so far with bluster and subject-changing,
but he'd never had the attraction kick in when he was facing an enemy!

Otakaiser had begun to look at him funny, but luckily, Nudist Man was there
to do what he did best: distract people. "Yeah!  There's no way we're
letting you get the Spoon of Destiny!"

"Spoon of Destiny?" Otakaiser threw back his head and laughed. "Bakayarou!
Why would I waste my time with such a trinket?  No, my true goal is to
collect ALL SEVEN PIECES of the Cutlery Set of Destiny!"

Nerf Girl gasped. "That can't be!"

"It really can't..." murmured Doc Nostalgia, raising an eyebrow as he
pretended his composure had never wavered.

"That's right!  And I already have TWO of them!" Otakaiser held up a
barbecue fork and a ladle, each set with golden inlay, carved with ancient
hieroglyphics, and studded with mysterious, menacing eyes.

Doc Nostalgia sighed and rubbed his temples.  Well, at least the attraction
was rapidly ebbing away... "Idiot."

Otakaiser gasped. "Did you--"

"Yes!  I called you an idiot!  Look, there are two reasons why there's no
such thing as the Cutlery Set of Destiny.  The first is that, whenever a
plot-central Item of Power is revealed as being one of a set, the other
members of the set are almost impossible to make as 'special' as the
original, leading to a gap between reader expectations and story execution
that devalues both the new ones and the original!"

Otakaiser hissed. "And the second?"

"Well, the Spoon of Destiny doesn't look anything like that.  For starters,
it's not Egyptian."

Otakaiser looked at the Barbecue Fork of Peeling Gold Foil and the Ladle of
Didn't Seem Quite So Obviously Fake Twenty Minutes Ago. "Bah!" He tossed
them to the ground. "My minions will pay... but first, I will--"

"Excuse me!"

"Hrm!?" Otakaiser looked over his shoulder.  

There was Kid Enthusiastic, who was holding some sort of kewl-looking
crystal-metal gadget, trailing wires off into the half-disassembled engine
of the motorcycle. "Is this important?" The machine shuddered, then clunked
to the ground. "Guess so!"

"Argh!" Otakaiser leapt in the air.  He made an amazing, spinning,
physically-impossible arc, and landed next to Nerf Girl, raising an
obviously overdesigned laser pistol to her head. "That's it!  No tricks, or
the girl gets it!"

Doc Nostalgia almost smiled.  Well, this was more like it!

Nerf Girl stepped on Otakaiser's foot, then grabbed his hand, swung it away
from his body, and dropped her elbow in his solar plexus.  He dropped the
pistol and curled up, groaning.

"Wow," said Nudist Man, "you took him out without even using your powers!"

...not, Doc Nostalgia added hastily, that having females who could rescue
themselves was in any way a bad thing.

In fact, it seemed quite... attractive...

----

Rwtn-T'bol watched the net.humans walk off along the chaotic paths.  It
sighed. "Thought they'd never leave..."

It lifted a strangely shaped hammer in its tentacles, made of frozen
starlight and the brittle bones of dead gods.  The head came down on the
cosmic membranes, and a shudder went through the underlying fabric of
existence.

The unreality of the place parted, a swirling rift that scattered the
headless eyes and the timeless clocks.  Through it stepped a figure in
silvery armor; circuit patterns with strange, Kirby-esque zigzags danced
over the surface, and its sculpted face was set, an all-wise, all-seeing,
all-judging expression. "The Router... is here."

"Shut up and kiss me," said Rwtn-T'bol, and took it in its tentacles.

----

Andrew "NO .SIG MAN" "Juan" Perron, dodging the tomatoes... now!