LNH: Another LNH Title? Really? #11: "Foo Fight!"

[Jeanne Morningstar]

Another LNH Title? Really? #11:
"Foo Fight!"
Another tale of Sabertoothic groundwork-laying, by Jeanne Morningstar

Note: the framing sequence of this issue takes place after Hungry, 
Hungry Sabertooths! #24. The flashback takes place in late 2019.

====

"Masterplan Lad," said Chaos Theory, "tell me what you see." They had 
taken the form of a giant floating screen with a baby-like face on it.

"Earth-X references? In 2020? Really?" said Masterplan Lad.

"Why not? People are rereading/watching/listening old media they love in 
to deal with stuff right now, and time isn't real anymore."

"I suppose not. But we're not on the moon anymore, we're sitting on top 
of the Netr.opolis Bandshell."

"I *guess*," said Chaos Theory.

"Well. There's... a significant flow of drama moving toward the 
Bandshell. I believe it's coming from Catalyst Lass. Whatever it is that 
happens in the end, she seems to be at the heart of it."

"Ah. Yeah, that's been a big Thing with her in this Writer's work. The 
thing with her and Token Girl. So how's that been going?"

"Hmm. Let me see. I see... a battle on the planet Mars..."

====

A fleet of LNH starships, the largest gathered since the Beige Midnight 
crisis, surrounded the planet Mars, with the more cosmically-powered 
members floating outside.

Since her brief moment of cosmic awareness [Just Another Cascade 
#12--Footnote Girl], Catalyst Lass had known the big cosmic threats that 
were coming, so she'd reached out and recruited more powerful members of 
the LNH to face them. There was Cool S, who wielded the power that was 
the embodiment of all the angst and messed-up identity feelings of 
teenagers who had ever drawn the Cool S symbol. Their predecessor had 
blown up Bittsburgh once but luckily, it came back, just as Canada did 
all those times. Bitmask, the cosmic being that was their moirail, also 
helped. Finally there was Slasher, a Supermoderator of Webster's World 
who was the granddaughter of a legendary net.hero of Earth, who besides 
the super-strength and flight powers built into her suit had the power 
to wield the combined abilities of any ship drawn at random from her 
Slash deck.

They and other LNHers had assembled on the planet Mars to face the power 
that had come there: the Foo, awe-inspiringly powerful interdimensional 
beings who had shaped life on Earth and the architecture of the Usenetverse.

"The... Foo?" said Token Girl.

"Look, the writer is trying to get this issue out as quickly as 
possible," said Halls Jordan.

Though she had no cosmic powers, Token Girl was with them too. She 
insisted on coming and Cat knew even she couldn't talk her out of it. 
Her natural place was by Cat's side. If Catalyst Lass was the Guenivere 
of the LNH, the queen who inspired the knights to greatness, than Token 
Girl was her first of knights, her champion. But Cat wasn't into her in 
that way. Really. She wasn't.

In space, a group of LNHers struggled against the Foo's drone fighters.

"The Foo Fighters?' said Painful Pun Person. "Maybe they should've 
called this issue 'Overlong'. Heyo!" The terrible pun shattered several 
of their ships to pieces.

On Mars, another team was facing up against their heralds, Cosmic Himbo 
and Space Goth GF.

"HUZZAH!" said Cosmic Himbo as he cannonballed on top of Captain 
Continuity. Slasher struck at him with the combined cosmic existential 
powers of Friedrich Nietzsche/the 2001 Monolith.

Space Goth GF blasted the LNHers with Claremontizing rays of her goth 
magical girl staff with black wings, transforming them into Hounds. "Oh 
no!" said Cliche Dude. "This is so wrong and yet so right! I feel so 
evil, and yet so sexy!"

"God damn it," said Halls Jordan. "Why are there so many spikes on this 
thing? This costume is itchy and it's kind of riding up my ass." But he 
joined Cliche Dude in attacking the Ultimate Ninja anyway.

"I was doing the whole 'evil goth who turns people into brainwashed 
pawns' thing first. [see Just Another Cascade] Loser!" said Merissa, 
firing on the two of them.

Space Goth GF tried to Claremontize the Ultimate Ninja too, but with the 
power of his ninja mental training he reflected the bolts. Still, she 
could tell there was so much hidden beneath the surface of his (her?) 
mind, currents of uncertainty beneath the iron-hard resolution. [cf 
Hungry, Hungry Sabertooths! #6 et al. Ultimate Ninja II's Super 
Ninjamorpher grants her a psychic ninja shield that conceals her mind 
from most telepaths. Incidentally, continuity-aware beings such as 
Masterplan Lad, Captain Continuity and myself are aware of her identity 
when we are directly working with continuity involved but forget 
afterwards--Footnote Girl] She was so distracted by the strangely 
attractive ninja that she didn't really notice the exploding bus token 
until it knocked her over, breaking her hold on the two net.heroes.

"Damn it!" she said. She saw that Catalyst Lass was standing in the 
heart of the power, directing it, a power to match her own.

The rays struck Token Girl, transforming her into a punk with face 
paint. "Kill her!" said Space Goth GF.

"You really wanna do that Tara?" Cat said. "I know being evil is fun, 
but you you have so much more fun with me."

Token Girl stood between the two of them. There were now two women 
fighting for control of her mind, which was a confusing but intriguing 
place to be in.

"Look, could you both just... stop this for a bit, this is too much. Uh, 
I guess there's not a safeword for superhero fights."

Space Goth GF decided that she would stand down, somewhat surprisingly. 
She'd found herself strangely starting to admire the LNHer, with her 
intense capital-D Detemrination and her devotion to Cat. She was 
intrigued by all these remarkably strange people whose minds she'd 
touched, and the bond they shared with each other. In all her existence 
as herald of the Foo, no one had ever actually cared about her, except 
for her brother. "Damn it!" she said. "Having Cliche Dude's mind under 
my control is rendering me susceptible to cliched character motivations! 
But I will not have a redemption arc! I will not!"


"You sure?" said Cat. "I mean, being part of the LNH is amazing. There's 
so much cool, fun, silly stuff you can do and so many good character 
dynamics. That's a lot more fun than just going around outer space 
blowing up planets, right?"

"Hmmm..." said Space Goth GF. The air flashed blue as she resisted 
Catalyst Lass's catalyzation powers, but in the end she had to give in. 
"Brother!" she said to Cosmic Himbo. "We are now fighting with the LNH 
against our creators!"

"Oooh!" said Cosmic Himbo. "You know, I had a feeling something like 
this was coming. All right then!" He stopped fighting Captain Continuity 
and started fighting the drones instead.

"Hold!" echoed an impressively cosmic voice in the air. Three large, 
green spectral holographic images appeared. "We are the Foo! We are the 
masters of the architecture of Usenet! Long ago, we seeded life on Earth..."

"Now wait," said Nit-Pick Lad. "Hold on just a minute. I thought the 
RACCelestials seeded life on Earth."

The Foo leader tapped xyr foot. "...those RACCelestials take credit for 
everything! It is we who--"

"And what about the Xinerama Brotherhood from 58.5? I thought they were 
the ones who were the cosmic caretakers of Usenet."

"Look," said the Foo. "The Writer didn't have time to get in touch with 
Lalo and wanted this issue out quickly, all right? Put it down to 
Hypertext-time..." Xe let out a big sigh. "You know what, this part of 
the cosmos is too silly. You can keep it." And with that, they vanished 
and all their drones shut down.

Cat stood on the part of Mars the Foo had terraformed (right next to the 
tripod invader base and the sword-and-planet ruins), looked up into the 
stars, and let out a huge sigh of relief. The LNH had pulled through and 
defeated a foe of overwhelming power. A lot of that had been down to 
her. The decision to bring Nit-Pick Lad to Mars had been the second 
thing she remembered from her brush with cosmic awareness.

"You OK, Tara?" she said, wrapping her arms around her friend.

"Yeah." She smiled. "You know, I think I might actually be keeping this 
jacket."

"Oh?" Cat's eyebrows rose upward.

"What, you're not jealous, are you?"

"No, no, of course not. Ha. Just... you've made some dubious 
relationship decisions in the past..."

"Nah, I'm not seriously into her. I just... well, I didn't mind the 
whole mind control thing because this was a pretty light one-off story. 
But I actually did like the way that made me feel, a little bit. The 
whole 'getting in touch with parts of yourself you don't normally' 
thing. Specifically the gay parts." She took a deep breath. "I'm going 
to start dating women."

"Oh?" said Cat. "Thinking of anyone in particular?"

"...Not yet."

"Well... I'll see if I can help you find someone."

She really did want her friend to be happy, more than anything else in 
the world. Her past romantic experiences hadn't exactly helped with 
that. Cat wanted to find someone for her who would be absolutely 
perfect, who she was sure wouldn't let her down. Her friend deserved the 
best. And on her own, even with her impressive grasp of shipping, she 
hadn't been able to find just the right person. But maybe, just maybe...

=====

"Goodness, that scene was a mess," said Masterplan Lad. "All those point 
of view changes..."

"Yeah well," said Chaos Theory, "the Writer's been trying to compress 
like two years' worth of plots they had into a handful of issues. Cut 
them some slack. So did she get her a girlfriend?"

"I doubt it," said Masterplan Lad. "The plan seems like the sort that 
would easily go horribly wrong. And indeed, it seems it did..."

====

TO BE CONTINUED IN

LNH V3 #3

"SEQUELS ARE ALWAYS WORSE"

COMING TOMORROW!

====

Notes:

So this was originally the first scene of LNH v3 #3, the emotional hinge 
point of a lot of my recent LNH work. It (and the framing sequence) was 
self-contained and different enough from the rest of the issue that I 
spun it off into its own thing. Funny thing: it was supposed to be a 
banged-out-quickly issue but then I didn't think of splitting off this 
scene until I was done with the whole thing, and then decided Nit Pick 
Lad's appearance was substantial enough I should ask Mark Friedman for 
permission! So it took a while. So I could have thought of a decent name 
for these aliens, but I won't.

The scene was, of course, a parody of Hickman's Avengers. It was a sort 
of weird spinoff of a spinoff to the cascade, but I liked the character 
concepts I introduced enough that I kept it. (It also sets up a romantic 
complication for Ultimate Ninja II, the first of many.) The Foo are 
based on the Builders. Cool S, Bitmask, Slasher, Cosmic Himbo and Space 
Goth GF are all based on Hickmanvengers characters: Starbrand, 
Nightmask, Smasher, Ex Nihilo and Abyss. They are all Free For Use.

Slash: Romance Without Boundaries is one of the greatest party games of 
all time and the pairing here is one of the most memorable ones I played 
in it. (I lost to 2001 Monolith/Sam Beckett.) The deck can be found here:

https://playdatenh.files.wordpress.com/2013/11/slash-pnp-1311282.pdf