LNH: Leadership Cry.sig: Net.ropolis 2023 #11: "Plans of the Candidates! Who Moved My Stapler?!?"

[Drew Nilium]

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          Issue #11: "Plans of the Candidates! Who Moved My Stapler?!?"
_______________________________________________________________________________

 From "The King in Beige", Act 1 Scene 2:

Alas! Lost Net.ropolis
    Your towers fallen, your bowels gutted
What mischief lay low
    Your countless defenders since time unknown?

Sorrow! Lost Net.ropolis
    Regret the day you welcomed the stranger
Who shook the bedrock of your dreams
    From behind a mask of righteous might

Amen! Lost Net.ropolis
    Though your warnings burst the sky
Men went deaf with willful greed
     And only the King remains.
_______________________________________________________________________________

When the Ultimate Ninja had gone missing, the Co-Deputy Leaders had sealed off
her office for security reasons, which was why Cynical Lass was sitting in the
anteroom with John and Sally, the Ninja's assistants. Together, they had taken
over running her campaign for leader, and right now, that meant answering the
deluge of questions from reporters, pundits, and concerned citizens wanting to
know if the rumors were right and Nina had betrayed the LNH.

"Our official statement is that the most likely possibility is that the
Ultimate Ninja has found herself on a mission to save and protect the city
and/or humanity, and has not had the opportunity to contact us. We look forward
to her return, and maintain--" Cynical Lass stopped as the voice on the other
end said something she considered very rude. "Well, if you don't like that, you
can just *take* it and--" Gritting her teeth, she pulled herself back from the
edge. "You can just... take a look at our social media account for further
updates. Goodbye!"

She slammed the receiver down, having used the landline specifically so she
could, and fumed. Her name was literally Cynical Lass. Where the fuck did they
get off making her have to be the optimist?

(Her name was Joy Casterwick, and she'd chosen this identity for herself. And
if she was choosing not to follow it, what did that make her?)

"Boss," called Sally, "somebody's here to see you!"

She'd *never* wanted to be called boss. Arghle bargle gragh... She looked up
and she saw...

...something, a vagueness in humanoid form which could only be Fuzzy, one of
the oldest Legionnaires, who had signed up as a candidate somewhere in all the
hubbub. Great - was she here to performatively poke at Nina's absence and get
some ammo for *her* campaign?

"Whaddaya want?" Cynical Lass was British, but had slipped the writer a twenty
and told them to use the slang they were comfortable with. She didn't need to
be annoyed at her own dialogue on top of everything else.

"Is there anything I can do to help?" Fuzzy replied.

"...help like pose for the cameras to show how much community spirit you have,
or help like help help?"

"Help help." Fuzzy sat down at an empty desk. "I don't believe Nina would run
off at the first sign of trouble. She's my teammate, and I trust her."

"...okay, well..." Cynical Lass side-eyed her, and internally shrugged. "Just
tell that to the people who are calling in."

"Can do." The phone rang, and Fuzzy picked it up. "Legion of Net.Heroes,
Ultimate Ninja's office, who may I say is calling?"

Cynical Lass watched as Fuzzy stonewalled multiple people in a row with vague
answers that confounded their ability to object. Finally, she couldn't take it
anymore. "Hey, why'd you start running, anyway? You know she's been doing a
good job."

"I know," said Fuzzy. "I also know that... winning against net.villains and
newbies wouldn't be a real victory - it wouldn't prove anything, to her or to
the team. Whoever becomes leader has to show that they're on the level of the
'classic' LNHers - and if none of the candidates are, one of them should take
on the job."

Cynical Lass's shoulders untensed, just a bit, and she let out a breath.
"...you're pretty smart, you know that?"

"Thanks, I do."
_______________________________________________________________________________

Hexadecimal Luthor sat in his hotel room, swirling wine in a glass and
chuckling as he stared out over the city. Once, he had thought every member of
the Legion was a fool, to his regret. But in an election, all that mattered was
getting a majority, of the foolish, the selfish, and the venal.

Those erstwhile heroes had let him cool his heels in the Cretaceous for a solid
week before bringing him back to the present. Well, could he blame them? Yes,
he could, and absolutely would; but at the same time, he knew he'd have done
the same or worse.

He'd stood trial, all the while proclaiming his innocence. He knew it wouldn't
matter, because of the genie magic that had beamed his diabolical plans into
the minds of everyone in the world - *genie magic*, utterly ridiculous nonsense,
and the ridiculousness of the world in which he lived was another thing he'd
underestimated to his detriment - but it was the look of the thing. And they'd
sent him off to jail - but not the special ones packed full of technology they
sent most net.villains to. He wasn't the first President of the Loonited States
to be convicted of a felony, nor of treason - good old Tricky Dick had gotten
there first - and there was a policy on this, landing him in a prison that, in
theory, had both excellent security and the kind of conditions that wouldn't be
a hardship to the Secret Service agents that both protected and watched him.

He could've escaped from there the first day, of course. But he had had no
intention of that. The LNH thought that, stripped of his political power and
denied the majority of his financial influence, Hex would be helpless. But they
didn't realize that, before he had reset his own history to become a powerful
businessman, he'd been Hex Luthor the criminal mastermind, whose bountiful
brain constantly created scintillating schemes!

In his life before the Reset Button, he had always done well in prisons,
creating new criminal connections, bribing officials, and convincing those
whose lives had been disrupted over petty, stupid laws that he could help them
strike back at the society that had pulled the rug out from under them.

Those skills were rusty, but he polished them up quick. And though he'd been
stripped of any official power, he had enough blackmail material on senators,
congresspeople, judges and more to have plenty of strings to pull; strings that
ended up getting him the ear of the new President, Bad Judgment Boy.

He'd taken the baseless claims of innocence he'd plead during his trial, and
spun them into a story involving evil twins, clones, virtual reality
simulations, and walking backwards over the International Date Line on February
29th. Bad Judgment Boy had bought it hook, line, and sinker, and given him a
full pardon, no strings attached.

And now... now he was not going to repeat his past mistakes. Once he had
control of the Legion, he wasn't going to go for grandiose plans involving
strange mcguffins and armies of brainwashed net.heroes. He was going to use
them as a tool - a means to accumulate more power, more money, the old-
fashioned way.

Yes. He could definitely do that this time. He could withstand the temptation.

Even though.

Even though he could still hear the song in his mind. The beautiful,
transcendent song of the Cosmic Plot Device, singing thru his mind and body,
making him one with the rhythms of existence, the melodious ticking of the
system clock of reality lighting him up inside...

He wanted it. Wanted it more than he wanted power, more than money, more even
than revenge, just to have it in his head again...

But no. The Cosmic Plot Device had been destroyed when Occultism Kid had saved
the world. Which was fine. Absolutely fine. He could be satisfied by mundane
things.

He could be happy.
_______________________________________________________________________________

No one sat in a room.

His identity had been erased when he'd died. Even "he" was an affectation that
didn't really fit the truth. He only had a name when he was wearing a mask. So
it had been easy to put on the mask of Kid Unknown and join the Legion.

A long time ago, he'd been angry at the Ultimate Ninja. The Ninja had betrayed
his trust, and needed to learn better. He'd put on a different mask and gone
out to confront him, and...


...he couldn't remember how it had gone. But when he learned about the new
Ninja, he knew she had to learn those same lessons before she made the same
mistakes - before she betrayed her comrades like he'd been betrayed.

So he had found the worst possible Legionnaire to be leader and put her on the
ballot. A challenge no one could ignore, to make sure someone would stand up
against her.

Because there were no good unquestioned leaders, and every incumbent needed a
Challenger.
_______________________________________________________________________________

Two shadowy figures, lit by the glare of streetlights thru an apartment window,
leaned over a body.

Blood was all over the floor, splashed atop intricately chalked magical runes.
One of the figures had her eyes closed, breathing deep the ugly smells, while
the other waited patiently, as if they had all the time in the world.

"He summoned something he couldn't control..." murmured the breather.

The other waited, calmly, for the follow-up.

It was not long in coming. Suddenly she staggered backwards, eyes flying open.
"Oh, no... it was the Ninja."

The other let out a short, sharp breath of their worst suspicions confirmed.
"He knew, like all of us did, when the battle would be. When the news came that
the Ninja was off the board, it must have been too big a temptation to ignore."

"And too big a task to fulfill." She took off her glasses, cleaned them. "We
have a rogue Meeple wandering around, just as everyone else is about to lay
their own pieces on the board - whether they know it or not."

The other looked out the window, gazing on the terrors that were coming. "Begun,
the Red Stapler War has."
_______________________________________________________________________________

Drew "I know what I think this all means, but what do *you* want it to mean?" Nilium