LNH20: LNH20 Comics Presents #21 [1/2]

[Jeanne Morningstar]

Over five years ago, on the somehow still-existing newsgroup called 
rec.arts.comics.creative, a bunch of people decided to make a new LNH 
world to celebrate its 20th anniversary, because why not. This spawned a 
surprisingly elaborate superhero and complex shared universe that never 
quite died out.

Now, a new era in the history of the Legion of Net.Heroes of Earth-20 
begins with…

————
LNH20 Comics Presents #21:
"New Americana"
by Jeanne Morningstar
————

FIVE YEARS LATER:
It started when Facebook fired their human moderators and switched their 
newsfeed to a machine algorithm. A powerful machine intelligence was on 
hand to shape this to their advantage: Ultravac. It now controlled the 
flow of information that a vast majority of Americans saw.

Within six months it ruled the world.

Welcome to the age of WHATEVER.

****

Asma Abdul was preparing to go to the mall to grab some chili cheese 
fries, but was interrupted by a knock on the door. It was three 
skull-faced cyborgs with worryingly large guns. Must be door-to-door 
missionaries again, she thought.

"Like, are you Roko's Witnesses? Get lost, weirdos. I don't want to read 
the Sequences."

"We're from SPAMMER," said one of the cyborgs. "Don't worry. You're 
going to be safe with us." The light glinted off his skull.

She recognized these things--Newsreavers, state-of-the-art anti-terror 
cyborgs developed by the US military. She'd been told they were only 
eviscerating people who deserved it, but now they were being used 
increasingly on US soil.

"Asma," said the other one. (They were all basically alike and they're 
all going to be done for within a few scenes, so don't worry about what 
their names are.) "You are a net.ahuman with the power to control 
powerpoint transitions. You must come with SPAMMER for your own safety."

Their way-too-large-for-anyone-to-actually-carry guns were pointed at 
her parents. She nodded at them silently.

Asma felt the grip of metal hands dig into her arms."Don't worry," said 
the third Newsreaver. "SPAMMER will keep you safe."

****

 From the bushes nearby, three net.heroes watched.

"Ah'm as nervous as a long-tailed cat in a room fulla rockin' chairs!" 
said the Phonetic Accent Kid.

"Hey, don't worry too much," said Pantra. "You're the new member with 
kinda goofy powers who's never been seen before and is charging into a 
big scary battle... Yeah, you're probably gonna die. Sorry."

"We don't know that!" said Sigrid. "I mean... okay, the odds aren't 
great. But..." She shrugged. "I'm not so great with this whole hope 
thing. I wish Otherkin Lad were here. But... yeah. If you die, I'll kick 
your killers' asses so hard they'll feel it in the afterlife. Promise."

"Vell, all right," said Phonetic Accent Kid.

"Time to get to work," said Sigrid. She threw a tracer at the car, to 
hack into its radio, for extra drama. Then she unsheathed her crossbow 
and made a flying leap. "KIYAAAAA---" She was knocked out of the air by 
a passing pigeon and crashlanded in the bushes. "OK, let's try that 
again..."

*****

Asma was trying to struggle out of the Newsreavers' grip in the car.

"Skull emoji skull emoji skull emoji skull emoji!" shouted Asma. "Dang 
it. Why can't I use emojis on usenet?"

"People only use usenet for illegal downloading now," said the 
Newsreaver. "Welcome to the twenty-first century."

Their conversation was interrupted by dramatic slow clapping and gutiar 
strings.

"Wha--"

_Well you can run for a long time, run on for a long time, run on for a 
long time, sooner or later God'll cut you down._

A young woman landed on the head of the car. Her short hair was dyed a 
deep blue. She wore bright femme-y clothing under a black trenchcoat 
that flapped dramatically in the wind. In her hand she held a pink and 
white Nerf Rebelle crossbow, and a Nerf sword was sheathed by her side.

"Like, whoa! It's Nerf Girl!"

She blasted open the car window with three nerf bolts, taking out the 
Newsreaver in the driver's seat with a headshot. Windshield glass and 
cyborg parts scattered everywhere. It would have looked really 
impressive if someone was drawing it but you'll just have to take our 
word for it.

"Argh! It'll take forever to fill out the paperwork to repair that guy! 
You dollar sign pound sign at sign exclamation point!"

"Uh, those you can actually say," said the decapitated Newsreaver. But 
before the other one could curse properly, Nerf Girl had kicked his head 
off.

_Go and tell that long tongued liar, go and tell that midnight rider, 
tell the rambler, the gambler, the backbiter, tell him that God's gonna 
cut him down_

She dusted off her hand. "I'm Nerf Girl. What do you think?

"Like, that was really cool, but the car's going to crash."

"Oh."

The car careened right into a window that read OVERPRICED COFFEE. Nerf 
Girl stepped off the hood and walked up to the counter. "Vanilla chai 
latte, please?"

"Uh... sure," said the barista, a young curly-haired woman with a nose 
ring. "That'll be seventy dollars... Actually, you can have it for free. 
They pay me basically nothing."

"OK. Here's a tip." Nerf Girl gave her two hundred dollars. "Sorry about 
the window."

"It's OK."

"So, uh..." Nerf Girl was about to ask the barista for her number when 
three more cyborgs burst through the window. She took the three of them 
down, but by the time she was done the barista had run away.  "Damn it," 
she muttered. "Whenever I get somewhere with a girl, there's always 
cyborgs. Or demons. Or cowboys. I hate all those things."

Asma, meanwhile, was staring slack-jawed at all the superhero 
shenanigans. She decided it was time to beat a hasty retreat, but Nerf 
Girl grabbed at her coat. "Hey you! You need to stay with us."

"Like, maybe I'd be safer away from the killer cyborgs, y'know?"

"Look, kid, I'm the experienced hero here. You just have to do what I say."

"Aren't you, like, four years older than me?"

"That's forever in superhero years."

"Are you even old enough to drink?"

"I'm old enough to kick cyborgs in the face."

By then, the other Legionnaires had caught up with them. "Hi!" said 
Pantra. "I'm Pantra. I'm a cat."

"And I am ze Phonetic Accent Kid. I have ze powair to speak in any 
phonetic accent. Or ze non-offensive ones, at least. Comprendez-vous?"

"And, like, what are you doing here?"

"Der Legion is scattered across der world. Der LNHQ is in der hands of 
das enemies. Ve need every hand ve can get. Ach du lieber!"

"Look, could you try to stick to one accent per conversation?" said 
Sigrid. Then she saw laser pointers of the sniper rifles pointing at 
them. Pantra started batting hers around.

"Newsreavers! Attack!"

"Are those cyborgs?" said Pantra.

"Yep," said Nerf Girl.

"Can I rip out their body parts?"

"Yep."

"Good!"

The giant furry ball of wrath hissed and leaped on the Newsreaver.

"Aaaa! Noooo! I'm allergic to cats!" he hissed.

Meanwhile, Sigrid blasted away at more of the robots, while Phonetic 
Accent Kid, who didn't really have anything to add to this fight scene, 
made himself a cappuccino.

*****

THE LEGION OF NET.HEROES
will outlast all social networks and dance on the grave of Twitter

*****

Pantra batted the cyborg's severed head across the floor. "Not now!" 
said Sigrid.

"Aww, you're no fun." Pantra kicked the screaming head into the corner.

"Think they're done now?" said Asma

"Engage Megareaver 07!" said the head.

Something charged through the room and crashed through the window. It 
was... A hulking armored cyborg with a horse's head, wielding a massive 
sword, riding atop a mechanical horse with the head of a balding 
middle-aged man.

"I am the Horse-Man!" said the Horse-Man, raising its massive meat 
cleaver of a sword. "And this is my Man-Horse!"

The Man-Horse reared on its hind legs. "Moooo!" it bellowed.

"Prepare to die!"

"How the hell are we gonna stop this thing?" said Pantra.

"Easy peasy," said Sigrid. "It's probably using half its energy to hold 
up that giant sword. All I have to do is engage it in fencing combat for 
a while, and you can take it down when it's used up. Men always get hung 
up on big swords, but it's not the size, it's the stabbing."

She slung her crossbow on her back and drew her sword with a smooth, 
practiced motion (probably it was stock footage). She leaped up into the 
air and struck at him with a series of sharp strokes. Her own Nerf blade 
cut a notch into the side of Horse-Man's cleaver. As the Horse-Man 
pressed his sword against hers, fighting to strike her down, Pantra, 
wiggling her butt, leaped up for an attack. But the Man-Horse saw her in 
time and turned its head, striking her down with laser beams. "Roar!" it 
said. Meanwhile Sigrid was sweating, beginning to lose her grip and fall 
off the horse.

Asma found herself moving her arm, pointing at the Man-Horse. Suddenly 
she didn't feel like a scared bystander anymore. She saw this queer, 
biracial girl, who wasn't much older than her, fighting it out with the 
giant horse-man-cyborg,. Looking at Nerf Girl, she felt like she could 
be a hero.

"Hasta la vista, cyber-creep!" she shouted, blasting its sword arm off 
with a screen wipe and knocking him to the ground, shattering him to pieces.

"Honk honk!" shouted the panicked Man-Horse.

Sigrid stood up and dusted herself off. "Hey, that was pretty good."
  Just then, a sleek black car pulled up to the library. It had a bumper 
sticker reading "My Other Car is a Flight.Thingy." At the wheel was a 
man with white hair--Fearless Leader. "Get in!" he said. "We're heading 
to the library!"

They didn't have to ask Asma twice. She jumped into the car and, at 
tremendous speed, ti took off. Somehow even though they were going at 
top speed, they never ran into anyone or hit any red lights. Obviously 
this was a hero's car.

"Look out!" said Sigrid. "Something's following us!" A red streak came 
through the sky--a man with long hair, and a blue cape and a belt with 
"N" written on it. It was none other than the man who had been a 
founding member of the Legion and was now a champion of the SPAMMER 
Initiative--Doc Nostalgia.