LNH: WikiLull: Pre-Final Epilogue, AKA President Evil #6: A-Pack-O-Lies Now [1/2]

[Jeanne Morningstar]

[Content warning: this is a story about American politics so there's 
discussions of police violence, imperialism, and the general sense of 
electoral hopelessness.]

Somewhere in the surprisingly extensive and spacious sewers of 
net.ropolis, where the not-yet-named Morlock-y communes that had emerged 
in the wake of WikiLull lived, Forgotten Gal was chowing down on (of 
course) a pizza. Maddie, her girlfriend, walked into their shared sewer 
apartment.

"Sorry I'm late, babe," she said. "Just had to pick up up my hormones 
from Dr. Variel."

"What's on your mind, gorgeous?" said Forgotten Gal.

"Just thinking about the election," said Maddie. "Or trying not to."

"Boy do I know that one," said Forgotten Gal. She stretched out and sighed.

"This looks like it could be even worse than the 2000 one, and that was 
a disaster."

"It sure was." Forgotten Gal smiled. "You know, I was involved in the 
end of all that."

"You were?"

"It's a long story. In fact, it's a cascade that never got finished."

"Another one?"

"Yeah. There are a lot of those. This one was called... PRESIDENT EVIL. 
See, in the 00s the Writers decided that Hexadecimal Luthor was 
President, based on the President Luthor storyline at DC back in the day..."

"A supervillain who was the embodiment of 80s corporate greed as the 
president. Imagine *that*," said Maddie.

Forgotten Gal laughed bitterly. "...but then there was the one random 
issue that referred to Bush as president. So they started up that 
cascade to explain things, but it never really worked out. But I 
remember how it all ended. I was there..."

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#6 "A-Pack-o-Lies Now"

by Jeanne Morningstar


So, what happened so far [said Forgotten Gal] was: In RACCoon City, 
Net.Vada, this shadowy company called the Raincoat Corporation was 
experimenting with something called the W Force, which drew in various 
weird powers like some being called Pregnant Chad. The Random 
Heroes--Compu-Yak, Winter Droid, Blak Wizzarde, Shining Wombat and 
Suicide Flower--came into town just in time to investigate the Raincoat 
Corporation's creepy corporate bunker, and they met their newest member, 
the Obsidian Ranger, and another random hero named Lion Brain tied up 
Pregnant Chad outside. This was one of those "throw at least one new 
character every issue" kind of stories. The Random Heroes got cornered 
by a bunch of zombie senior citizen--you know, 2000 election topical 
humor--and that's where I came in. Me, the fabulous Forgotten Gal! The 
emergence of the W Force had pulled me out of Limbo, and I got dragged 
into battle alongside the Random Heroes too. Meanwhile, Lion Brain was 
getting ready to join them, but he was attacked by... the Random Villains!

****

["Oooh, nice retro scene transition," said Maddie.]

So, Lion Brain was about to fight a doomed battle against the entire 
Random Villains (Baroness Wizard--my archenemy, Compuwarlock, Android 
Barbarian, Lurking Vampire, Psychic Crustacean, The Living Bee, Phantom 
Weirdo and Super Eyeball) and then suddenly they stopped in their 
tracks. There was some British kid with an umbrella wearing a natty 
suit. He dusted off his suit and looked Lion Brain in where his eyes 
would have been if it hadn't been a giant floating brain.

"My name is Masterplan Lad," he said. He pulled a card out of his 
pocket. "Ahem," he said, reading from it. "My appearance here takes 
place before the original Ultimate Mercenary series. This is the 
earliest currently existing chronological story on my own personal 
timeline." He put it back in. "I was given that by my superiors. I don't 
actually know what an Ultimate Mercenary is. Also, the Writer wishes to 
apologize for the fat jokes in the previous chapter. Now follow me."

Lion Brain, who had already been pretty confused, followed him, walking 
down the narrative pathway created by their Plot Device in the form of 
an umbrella.

["How are you narrating this?" said Maddie. "You weren't there for that 
part of the story."

"Shhhhh," said Forgotten Gal.]

Together they walked through the walls, to where me and the other Random 
Heroes were fighting the zombie senior citizens. The umbrella blinked 
and the zombie senior citizens were gone.

"I shunted them to another part of the storyline," said the weird 
British kid. "The zombies and the Forgotten Villains should be keeping 
each other busy for a while."

"Oh boy, another new character," said Compu-Yak, "what is it this time?"

"I suppose I should explain," he said. "I am Masterplan Lad, of the 
Knights Temporal, guardians of the narrative and protectors of the 
sacred story. I have been sent to help you wrap up this storyline and 
resolve the discrepancy of who the Usenetted States president is to the 
LNH can maintain some vague resemblance of coherent continuity."

"You look a little young to be some kind of cosmic time guardian," I said.

"Yes, well, er, time is relative," he said. He tugged at his collar a 
little. "You see, I am involved in a war spanning time and space against 
the enemies of the Knights Temporal, a transtemporal posthuman empire 
called the Evolved. Their goal is to use technology to transform 
themselves into gods..."


"So... they want to evolve humanity... and that's bad... why?" said 
Winter Droid.


"In keeping with common narrative tropes about posthuman entities, 
they've lost track of their humanity and their fundamental moral values."

I wasn't so sure the guys Masterplan Lad worked for were so in touch 
with humanity themselves, but I let him go on:

"Their goal is to gather narrative energy to affect the outcome of the 
2000 election, one of the hinge points of history that leads to their 
timeline. You see, in one version of history, the city Sig.ago is 
destroyed [The Team #25--Footnote Girl]. This leads to the super-genius 
inventor and businessman Andrew Weinstein [also from The Team], who was 
from Sig.ago, developing revolutionary technology which serves as the 
foundation of their way of life. The destruction of Sig.ago is closely 
tied to Bush being president. There are only two possible outcomes of 
this election--"

"Only two? Really?" I said.

"Only two. Either Hexadecimal Luthor wins or George W. Bush wins. As bad 
as Luthor is, he is fundamentally a superhero-genre narrative force who 
can be contained and defeated within a superhero genre narrative. Bush 
represents Real World problems, and so it's far more difficult to face 
him within those terms. Because of interference from the Real World, the 
balance between comedy and drama in the LNH has been unstable for some 
time. Because of the narrative imbalance caused by the events of 9/11 
[see Limp-Asparagus Lad #55], the nature of the Looniverse was seriously 
disrupted and underwent a Darkening when Doctor Wiley stole the Clogs of 
Comedy around the same time [Journey into Irrelevancy #3-4]. If--"

"Enough explanation!" said undead consumer safety advocate and third 
party presidential candidate Ralph Nadir, who was also here for some 
reason. "You said you were here to actually get this story over with, so 
when are we getting it over with?"

"Any moment now. Follow me."

I thought about what Masterplan Lad had said. I didn't like the sound of 
this Hexadecimal Luthor, and I could tell this Masterplan Lad kid didn't 
either. From my days in the war, I remember the feeling of trying to 
rationalize orders from on high you know are shitty.

We walked through the creepy secret bunker of the Raincoat Corporation. 
"This place looks extremely unsafe," said Ralph Nadir. "I'll definitely 
have to write an expose of whatever it is they make here."

"What the heck *does* the Raincoat Corporation manufacture, anyway? Does 
anyone know?" said Shining Wombat.

"Evil, I guess," said Lion Brain.

"Phooey!" said Blak Wizzarde. "I was looking forward to fighting more 
zombies!"

"That's sure not how you were reacting when they were trying to eat us," 
said Suicide Flower.

"But zombie battles are Kewl!" said Blak Wizzarde.


"Well," said Obsidian Ranger, "that'd be fun to play in a video game but 
kind of repetitive to read in a text story."

We made our way to the center of the complex. "One of the Knights 
Temporal is already on the inside," said Masterlpan Lad. "He should be 
ready to let us in any minute--"


Just then we were attacked by these big, gnarly final boss zombies. We 
had a really swell fight I don't have time to describe, and in the 
confusion I got separated from the rest of the team along with 
Masterplan Lad.

We barely managed to escape into a secret room. "Well this looks bad," I 
said.

Masterplan Lad shook his head. "I have faith in the Writers. They'll get 
us through. I'm fairly sure tThe universe wants us to be alone 
together," said Masterplan Lad, panting. It would've sounded like a 
pickup line coming from anyone else. "It's following a Doctor Who 
narrative template and you're being slotted in as my companion."

"Hey, who says I'm not the hero and you're not the sidekick?" said 
Forgotten Gal. "And what's a Doctor Who?"

"Well..."

Before he could explain Doctor who, we saw there was someone else with 
us. It was a blonde man in a suit. The first thing I noticed about him 
was that he was intensely handsome in a kind of creepy way. The second 
was that he was actually pretty young, not much older than MPL. But he 
was still really, really built, like anime characters are sometimes."

"Ah!" he smiled with relief. "This is the Knight I was talking about. He 
was using the name Daniel Marlon. He's a good friend of mine, Forgotten 
Gal, you can trust him..."

He smiled. "I'm afraid not," he said. We saw a bunch of armored 
paramilitary goons beside us. I felt a tranq dart hit me in the neck, 
and everything went dark...

****

When Masterplan Lad and I woke up, we were tied down and manacled to 
metal slabs. It was a familiar situation for me. Standing over us was 
that Daniel Marlon guy, who looked like he was gearing up for 
villain-lecture mode. He had a copy of From Ritual to Romance by Jessie 
Weston he'd been reading on a table beside him. Behind him was this 
weird, glowing tank.

There was a corpse of a god in the tank. The same one I'd killed and 
then pulled into Limbo to make sure it was extra-dead.

"Ah, I see you've seen my greatest weapon," said Daniel Marlon. "It was 
salvaged from a Ragnarok that happened a long time ago in this universe. 
This is the god who decides the outcome of battles, who appoints kings."

"The W Force," said Masterplan Lad. "It stand for Wotan."

"I remember now!" I said. "I was sent into Limbo to stop a narrative 
magicakal ritual carried out by Nazi sorcerers to summon an evil Nazi 
version of Norse mythological stories to change the outcome of the war! 
I fought alongside the original Eddic versions of the Aesir and 
Valkyries against the ones from Nazi iconography!" I winced at my own 
expository dialogue. See, as a Golden Age heroine I either talk like an 
actual Golden Age character, if I'm lucky, or like a Roy Thomas character.

"Ah, so this is all a symbol for the resurgence of fascism, naturally," 
said Masterplan Lad.

"Indeed," said Daniel Marlon. "We engineered Pregnant Chad as an 
incubator to create a child which would hold within himself the power of 
the W Force," said Daniel Marlon. He gestured to where Pregnant Chad was 
strapped to a table beside him, with doctors ready to operate. "Brought 
fourth with a Caesarian section, of course. Soon that child will be 
born, and through it I will take control of history."

"How dare you!" said Masterplan Lad. "You betrayed the Knights Temporal--"

Daniel Marlon laughed. "I was sent here on their orders. I'm just doing 
it for myself instead of for them. Did you really think they'd send a 
novice Knight who hadn't even chosen their True Name for a crucial 
mission like this? You were being set up to fail. The High Council of 
the Perceptory wanted to make what they were doing look heroic and 
honorable, sending out a young hero for a noble and doomed stand, while 
they would make their true move from the shadows."

"You're lying," Masterplan Lad said.

"Believe that if you want. They wanted me to channel the W force for 
their own ends, but I had other plans. I'm going to write in even more 
people as the President! Ralph Nadir! Zombie Elvis Presley! Arthur 
Spitzer! Howard the Duck! They're all going to be President! And then 
the narrative will collapse completely--and I will reshape it to my own 
ends!"

He walked over to Masterplan Lad and leaned in to him homoerotically. 
"My orders were to kill you, see, but I couldn't do it. You're just too 
cute. I could hurt you, yes, but not kill you." He smiled icily. MPL 
blushed. "But now I've decided I'm not taking over the universe for 
other people anymore. I'm doing it myself. I will rule all of time and 
space--and you can rule with me!"

"No," said Masterplan Lad, jaw slack with absolute horror.

"Ah, right, ruling isn't your thing, is it? Well, you can serve me, then."

He looked like he was seriously considering it. But he clenched his jaw 
and said, "Absolutely not." I remembered all my interactions with 
Baroness Wizard, and I was familiar with the dynamic. As confused and 
lost as he clearly was, as much as he was beholden to the shitty ideas 
of the people who taught him, that kid was a hero.

Luckily, so was I, and I was a lot more experienced. The baddie was 
distracted by homerotic tension, and, of course, he'd forgotten about 
me. By the time he was done speeching I had already slipped myself out 
of the bonds. I'm an old hand at getting out of manacles, ropes, chains, 
eels, and just about anything else you could tie someone up with. You 
know how Golden Age comics are, right?

"You're not the first person I've ever heard give a speech like that," I 
told him. "You remind me of a guy called Adolf Hitler! And you're 
getting the same thing he did--a sock to the jaw!" I knocked him to the 
floor.

"Adolf Hitler?" he said. "Haven't you ever heard of Godwin's Law?"

"I don't think that really applies when you're wielding the power of a 
dead Nazi god," said Masterplan Lad. By now Ralph Nadir, who was still 
around for some reason, had freed him, and he had his weird umbrella 
thing back, but they were still fighting it out with paramilitary 
corporate goons.

"Well, that's just the way things are," he said. "But it's too late to 
stop me now."