LNH: Hungry, Hungry Sabertooths! #9: "My Diabolical Plans, My Diabolical Plans. and Me"

[Drew Nilium]

HUNGRY, HUNGRY SABERTOOTHS!
#9: "My Diabolical Plans, My Diabolical Plans. and Me"
A tale of the Legion of Net.Heroes and their enemies, by Drew Nilium

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Kid Enthusiastic put on the mask. The microphone. The rollerskates. Now that he
was in the presence of the cosmic being that embodied everything he wanted to
be, there was only one thing to do...

"Welcome to the first episode of the LNHQuarantine podcast!!" The two of them
walked thru the halls of the LNHQ, chatting, laughing and recording.

"You know what we say every episode," said Enthusiasm of the Finishless. "The
power of Enthusiasm compels you!"

Kid Enthusiastic gasped. "Do we say that every episode!?"

"Well, we have so far!"

They both laughed uproariously!

"Nope," said Small-Attention-Span-For-Nonsense Lass, and booked it *straight*
outta there.

"Gasp!" said Kid Enthusiastic, pointing down the hall. "Our first guest!"

A massive polydactyl sabertooth tiger in a top hat was sleeping in the corner,
right next to the doors to the cafeteria. It uncurled, stretched and
yaaaaaaaaawned~

"Awwwwww!" they awwwww'd in unison!

"Good morning, Mx. Tiger!!" said Enthusiasm, holding a cosmic microphone in
their spectral hand. "Do you have anything you'd like to say to the fans at
home!?"

The tiger sniffed the microphone, then rubbed its chin back and forth against
it.

"I see, I see!" said Kid E, nodding eagerly. "And what's the hardest thing
about quarantine been, for you?"

The tiger walked around Kid E, sniffing him and the many gadgets on his person,
then decided he wasn't edible and sat down to wash its paw.

"Oh, well-put, well-put!!" bubbled Enthusiasm. "And finally, do you have any
opinions on the issues of the day!?"

"Eat cops and landlords," said the tiger, then stood up and padded off to see
if it could find lunch.

"Ohhhhhh man!" They laughed and high-fived and jumped up and down. "That was
amazing, oh wow..."

"Okay, who's next!?"

"Uhhhhh..." Kid Enthusiastic peeked around the corner. There, he saw Multi-
Tasking Man, chucking diabolically while he refilled the soda machine. "Oooh!
Him!"

"Eh?" M-TM looked up as the two forces of personality descended upon him. He
quickly straightened up out of his 'half-crouch, fingers posed like claws'
position and smoothed out his costume. "Ah, hello, Kid Enthusiastic, physical
manifestation of greater forces abroad in the universe. Can I do something for
you?"

"Hi! Welcome to our podcast!" said Kid Enthusiastic, sticking a microphone in
his face.

"We were both super interested in what the heck you were doing here!!" said
Enthusiasm, vibrating in place with barely-contained interest.

"Ah," said Multi-Tasking Man, face twisting into a grimace. "Suuuuuure. Well,
ah..." He looked down at the soda. "You see, our beverage supplies have been
interrupted by the virus, so I manufactured... I had one of our colleagues
manufacture some for us."

"Oooh, what flavor is it?" said Kid Enthusiastic, squinting at the cans, whose
labels were all-black with the word 'FUN' printed on them in jagged red letters.

"...regular... soda flavor." Multi-Tasking Man shoved the last few cans in the
machine, then picked up the box and started walking away. "Sorry, must be going
to... box... time now. Goodbye for a long time." He power-walked down the hall
and away.

"Cool! Bye! Seeya!" The two of them waved energetically, and Enthusiasm hmmmm'd,
swinging the microphone around to point it at the soda machine. "And what about
you, what are you up to?"

"Well, I'm just here spying on the LNH! Wait--" The soda machine jumped in
shock. "Why did I say that!?"

"The power of Enthusiasm compels you!!" Kid Enthusiastic and Enthusiasm high-
fived again!!

A cracky voice issued from within the soda machine. "We've been made. Fanta
Source, pull back!"

The soda machine, in fact Ven-Dorr The Thing That Walked, Er, Rolled Like a
Man, pulled his plug out of the wall and rolled away. "So long, suck--
yeeeeeeargh!" Suddenly, Ven-Dorr stopped and fell over!

Kid Enthusiastic and Enthusiasm looked at each other, then at the fallen
machine. They crept toward his prone form...

Even more suddenly, Ven-Dorr flew into the air on a jet of Peach Persimmon Mr.
Paprika! "RAAAAAAAGH" He crashed thru the skylight and kept ascending!

The panels of his body unfolded, complex machinery visible beneath, extending
out into the air, then extending further, more metal inside than there could
possibly be! Out of the boxy wheeled form, there came legs, a tail, a head, all
of them monstrously huge!

Ven-Dorr landed on four enormous, clawed legs! He raised his head and roared -
for he was now a giant, robotic, red-and-brown sabertooth tiger, Vendoridon
Megafatalis!

"Cooooooool..." said Kid Enthusiastic and Enthusiasm, eyes sparkling with glee.

The malign presence behind Multi-Tasking Man's eyes squinted up into the sky.
What an unexpected outcome of his diabolical plan! When UltraKiwi Wondersock
had made magical soda which would transform its drinker into a giant monster,
he hadn't expected the soda machine itself to be sentient! But this fit his
plans perfectly - his plans for revenge on UltraKiwi!

On a perch atop LNHQ, UltraKiwi sneezed. Was she getting sick? Perhaps that was
why she was feeling this strange presence, like a negative energy she had not
sensed in thousands of days...

But that didn't matter much because holy shit a giant robot sabertooth tiger!
The second giant monster in as many days! Time for action!

"ULTRA-KIWI!" She rose up, one tiny wing pointed in the air, and turned into a
giant silver-and-red kiwi-shaped hero!

In front of a bank of monitors set up within an abandoned The Nature Company
store, Doctor Killfile watched the goings on with just as much interest as the
podcasters themselves.

"A *robotic* sabertooth... has the virus mutated?" she said, zooming in as the
two titans slammed into each other. "No... something stranger is going on..."
She grinned. "*Excellent*."

She could feel the blood pumping in her veins. Once, she had wanted to be a
hero; once, she had been. But she had been at the mercy of an awful, awful
world, one that had seemed determined to turn her into a villain, into an
awful, awful person, as muck and mire as the world around her. And in the
moment when she was at her lowest, she had torn away all she'd been, and become
a villain  - but *not* the world's villain, *not* the one it was trying to make
her! She had ripped her name from the world - the name it would never have
thought her worthy of - and she would make *it* worthy of *her*!

Doctor Killfile would be the strangest, the most ingenious, the greatest net.
villain the world had ever known!!

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Drew "plot motion!!!" Nilium