LNH20/REPOST: LNH20 Comics Presents #14

Andrew Perron pwerdna at gmail.com
Tue Jul 24 11:57:32 PDT 2012


LNH20 Comics Presents #14
The Spoon of Destiny Saga Part 14: "What Happens Next"
Chapter 14 of a chaotic add-on cascade
By Andrew Perron
----

Within the well-furnished but suddenly-shifting rooms of the 
Netropolitan Museum of History, Nerf Girl picked up the Sword that she 
had drawn from the styrofoam Stone and attempted to hold it in a simple 
guard position.  It slipped from her fingers as if the handle were 
covered in the finest extra-virgin motor oil and clattered on the 
ground.  Dangit!  How was this happening!?

Suddenly, she heard the newly-felted Doc Nostalgia shout, "--MISTER 
MORRISON!"

Of course!  Mister Morrison, the indescribable imp of imagination!  
She'd seen that name many times in the research she'd done after 
finding out who her real parents were...

He'd first shown up as a problem for Nowhere Man in the mid-'60s, and 
had quickly gone on to bedevil the Network as a team. (His third 
showing against them had famously inspired both a novel by Heinlein and 
an album by The Who.)  But in these early appearances... well, it was 
*always* hard to tell what he was on about, but there had been 
insinuations that he "wasn't supposed to be there yet" and that he was 
"on a pleasure trip".  Indeed, after his most famous appearance, he 
didn't show up again until 1987.  In later appearances, his methods 
seemed to drift from "insane puzzles that would get him to go away" to 
"insane puzzles that would unlock deep philosophical truths about the 
nature of reality".

And there he was!  Walking down the hall towards them, head 
continuously exploding into a million multicolored butterflies which 
turned into comics as they flew by.  His jacket constantly shifted, 
from leather to flannel to waterproof to military.  His body seemed to 
be made of tiny, shifting pixels that one could only just make out, no 
matter how close he was.  The paintings on the walls around him 
rippled, turning from abstract representations of thoughts into 
thoughts themselves and back.

Doc Nostalgia held his head. "Sensory overload... getting too much... I 
can't *think*..." He flew up, crashing through the roof and into the 
sky.

Ultimate Mercenary rummaged through his pockets as Mister Morrison drew 
closer.  He pulled a sextant out. "Yarrr, that's not it..."
A Jolly Roger. "Nay..."
A bag of parrot chow. "Nay..."
A bottle with a miniature ship in it. "Nay!"
A smoke grenade! "Ah, there's the thrice-poxed dog!"
Then it exploded in his hand.

Kid Enthusiastic pointed his handheld scanning device at Mr. M, only to 
find that it had turned into a magical princess wand, and that he was 
wearing a stylized version of Japanese boy's school uniform, in blue 
and red. "Um... Enthusiastic Statistical Acquisition!"

Mister Morrison bowed. "ThE bRoWn Ox QuAcKeD, oVeR sYzYgY's LuMpEn 
JoWlS."

Nerf Girl scratched her head.  Speaking of insane puzzles...

Nudist Man peeked out from behind a column. "That certainly *sounded* 
like English..."

"Looks like he's using a Standing Trope Reversal Wave on us!" said Kid 
E. "I think--"

"Wait!" said You're-Not-Hitting-Me-Hard-Enough Lad, who had been 
floating intangibly in the background. "I can feel the imprint of the 
logic puzzle on my mind!"

"Of course!" said Kid E. "He's changed your powers from absorbing 
*physical* impacts to absorbing *mental* impacts!"

"Yes, and it's obvious!  His sentence used every letter of the alphabet 
at least once, except for 'I' and 'F'!  The puzzle solution is an 
English sentence, and the first word is 'if'!"

"Blimey!" said Ultimate Mercenary. "We'll have no trouble with the rum 
dog's bilge-sucking brain-twisters at this rate!"

There was a giant sucking POP! and they were back to normal.

"...or not."

Kid Ethusiastic cocked his head to the side. "Hey, do you guys hear 
that?  A sort of descending scream?"

                            .p°w°q.

January Frost narrowed her eyes. "The fact that I cannot remember what 
happened to our charges - and the fact that this did not seem at all 
odd until just now - yes, I have a problem with this."

Fearless Leader spoke quietly. "Doc, you have to remember.  What 
*happened*?"

"It's no use," said Cranium 5. "Until the two time periods catch up 
with one another, the memories will remain inaccessible!"

"Will you all SHUT UP!?" shouted Doc Nostalgia, clutching his head. 
"You're too loud, I can't *think*..."

"At the very least," said January, "we need to find out what's happened 
to the rest of the team in this time period."

"I'd advise against it," said Cranium 5. "You can see the effects that 
collapsing the waveform are having on the good Doctor."

"Say," said Fearless Leader, "do you hear that?  Sort of a... 
descending scream..."

"We have to do *something*," said January, getting right up in the 
mouse's face. "Send a signal, or--"

"I tell you, there is no way the two time periods could cross over!" 
shouted Cranium 5.

THR-KRASHH!  The skylight shattered and Doc Nostalgia tumbled through.

"...but then, temporal physics was never my specialty."

The one Doc Nostalgia fell on the other, and when they touched, there 
was a wave of blazing light...

                            .p°w°q.

Nerf Girl grabbed her foam blade and raised it confidently, but Kid 
Enthusiastic held out a hand. "I wouldn't attack him directly.  It 
gets... messy."

"So what do we *do*?" grunted You're-Not-Hitting-Me-Hard-Enough Lad, 
cracking his knuckles idly.

"Noitseggus a ekam ot em wolla, esaelp." Mister Morrison spread his 
hands, and shimmering blue portals appeared around them.  Cats with the 
bodies of toaster pastries shot out, trailing rainbows behind them.

"It's the Memetic Minions of Morrison!" shouted Nudist Man, just barely 
dodging the shimmering trails.

"This must be another puzzle!" said Sister State-the-- no, wait, I mean 
Ultimate Mercenary. "But how are we supposed to solve it?"

Kid E said, "I think--"

Suddenly, light streamed through the windows, and a wave of surging 
energy washed through the room.  Nerf Girl could feel her bones 
twisting, a startling and disturbing sensation compared to Mister 
Morrison's quick transformations.  As the light faded, she could see 
the newly changed forms.  Kid Enthusiastic was wearing a leather apron 
over a pair of overalls, a helmet, leather gloves and heavy-duty 
goggles.  Ultimate Mercenary was dressed in an all-concealing black 
outfit with a red, white and blue belt.  Nudist Man looked like he was 
made of marble.  You're-Not-Hitting-Me-Hard-Enough Lad was wearing an 
all-blue outfit, a padded helmet and boxing gloves.

Nerf Girl looked down at herself.  Her skin looked faintly metallic, 
and... were those *claws* at the ends of her hands? "My god..." Her 
mind whirred. "I've been turned into MechaKat!"

"Your mother... mine..." Kid Enthusiastic looked around. "We've all 
been turned back on the legacies that inspired us!"

"Like some sort of... Nostalgia Wave!"

Ultimate Mercenary stared at himself in shock.  Shaking out of it for a 
moment, he said, "At least the nyancats are gone!"

"Etilop gnibe tsuj saw I, yllautca." The portals reopened, and the cat 
barrage began anew...

                            .p°w°q.

Brain the Objectivist Pizza Delivery Boy opened his car door and 
stepped out.

The grass was soft and dewy under his feet.  He was on the edge of a 
forest near the shore of some island he couldn't name.  It was 
twilight, but there was some bright light coming from within the trees.  
He walked towards it, parting branches in his way, until he came to a 
clearing.

Human figures, in suits of colorful spandex and poses of perfect rest, 
lay on a hill.  At the top, there was a man floating in midair, whose 
blade burned with a pure incandescence.  He recognized them, from 
newscasts, from books and magazines, from memorials held long ago...

"The Saviors of the Net..."

----

Author's Note: Okay, let's get this train kickstarted!  Adrian called 
dibs on the next chapter, and I've sent him my notes, so look out for 
another issue soon!

Andrew "NO .SIG MAN" "Juan" Perron, plot moves forward!


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