You can sift through the racc list archive https://lists.eyrie.org/pipermail/racc/
or you can try google groups racc for the whole issue of LNH vII #50.


And this is the conclusion of the Big Mega Multi-Writer Issue of LNH vII #50. There were Eight LNH Writers involved in the writing of this and they
are as follow: Jeanne Morningstar, Rob Rogers, Scott Eiler,
Dave Van Domelen, Arthur Spitzer (me), Drew Nilium, Martin Phipps, and
Saxon Brenton.

And we reach the conclusion (I mean, sure, I could probably split this into
two more issues, but I'm not going to do that). We've got tons of Dorfs and LNH'rs turning into Dorfs and Irony Men having Identity Crises. But is there something else this story could use? Perhaps something long forgotten from like the beginning of the story? Something that could return? Like maybe a
-- GIGANTIC HELPING OF TACO SALAD CHEESECAKE!!!!? What? You don't want that!? Well, too bad, bub, because that's what you're going to get!

And now...






_
| | Classic
| | =
| | ____ ____ _ ____ ___
| |__ | [] | | [] | | | | [] | | _ \

|____| \__] \__ | |_| \__/ |_|\_\
||
|_| OF NET.HEROES

ADVENTURES #225


=====================
LNH vII #50 The Conclusion
=====================




From: Andrew Perron pwerdna at gmail.com
Date: Sun Nov 2 16:20:29 PST 2014



--LNH-- --LNH-- --LNH--

The elevator went ding! The business end of Master Blaster's BIGGUN
poked out, followed by the man himself. Irony Man II came after,
carrying the prone form of Bad Judgment Boy, along with Horrible Name
Lad, You're-Not-Hitting-Me-Hard-Enough Lad, and Anal-Retentive Archive
Kid II.

"Horrible Name Lad, take Bad Judgment Boy to the infirmary," said
Irony Man.

"Why me?"

"Because he will be excited to hear any new name you come up with
after he regains consciousness."

"Ooooh!" He ran off pushing a stretcher.

"Have we done that gag already?" asked YNHMHELad.

"It matters not," said Irony Man. "We must find Kid Kirby and tender
to him the antidote to the Dorf virus."

--LNH-- --LNH-- --LNH--

"Hmmm," said Doctor Stomper. "I feel as if I've forgotten
something."

--LNH-- --LNH-- --LNH--

They made their way down the corridors towards the cosmic lab.
Master Blaster shook his head. "So why am I on the team with the
delivery boys when I could be blasting Dorfs?"

"Danger is yet afoot," said Irony Man. "The Dorfish virus has
spread, and not one is safe. Wherever we go, we may run into--"

A groan issued into the corridor.

"Who--" YNHMHELad spun in place. "Where's that coming from?"

ARAK frowned. "Something is making my right eye water." He turned,
slowly, staring forward and concentrating on the edge of vision, walking
at an angle and groping at the wall until his hand came in contact with
a doorframe. "Got you!"

"A perception filter -- several, more than likely," said Irony Man,
who opened the door and stepped within.

"What are you guys talking about?" said Master Blaster, facing the opposite direction. ARAK sighed and guided him into the room.

The groans were coming from a suit of bulky, Gothic armor, covered
with spiked protrusions, hooks, flying buttresses and more skulls and
chains than Todd McFarlane could draw in a weekend. The helmet was
missing, and the face underneath was Dorfian, but familiar...

YNHMHELad gasped. "That looks like... Toony! Irony Man must have
been Dorfized!"

"Yes," said Irony Man (that is, Irony Man II, the one we've been
following in this scene). "It appears as if there was a struggle."

Master Blaster said, "Musta been when he Dorfed out -- but why
didn't they use the cure?"

"Possibly..." ARAK stroked his orcish chin. "Possibly, his Dorfified
armor prevented them from using it. So they had to leave him here."

"I may be able to awaken him, then talk him down," said Irony Man.
"But it would require solitude."

"Oh?" Anal-Rententive Archive Kid raised an eyebrow.

"He is my Secret Keeper."

"Ah!" ARAK nodded, YNHMHELad's face lit with understanding, and
Master Blaster grumbled. The Mysterious Secret and the Secret Keeper
were ancient net.hero traditions passed down through Ages past. They
could not be contravened, unless you thought you were Alan Moore or
something. The three heroes filed out, leaving the Irony Men alone.

Irony Man held out a hand and sent an electric pulse into the
other's suit of armor for precisely one point three six seconds. "Reg Hfffgrktt, awaken."

The great nostrils snorted, and the Dorf who had pretended at Toony Stark's form awoke. Its eyes fixed on the armor in front of it. "You!"
It tried to rise, but found that its own armor did not respond. "What-- Betrayer!"

"One cannot betray a cause one is not part of." Irony Man's optics
gazed into the Dorf's eyes, and through his rage he felt unnerved.

"But-- but you were *instrumental* to our cause! You provided the
mindscan that allowed me to emulate Toony Stork's emotions and
memories!"

"Indeed. If I had not, you would have taken it yourselves, and left
behind a substance remarkably similar to scrambled eggs. By preventing
that, I acquired an ally in this timeline. As to your cause, it did not
matter. The history books say the Legion stopped you, though not how."

"A time traveler!? You two-faced lying bastard!"

"Indeed." A panel opened in Irony Man's armor, and a small disc fell
out. "All that is left is to ensure that the lie continues, and things
turn out as they should."

"Hah! Fucker that you are, killing me to secure your own plans!
Hypocrite hero!"

"Killing you? No, Reg Hfffgrktt. Instead you will remember."

"...remember?" The unnerving feeling blossomed into fear. "Wh-- what
is that?"

"It is a teleport module capable of reaching Dorfia."

"...you're $#!%ing me. You can't expect me to believe that that
thing can send me hundreds of lightyears away."

"It can. And it will. And when you return home, you will remember
what it was like, to be Toony Stork. You will remember his friends. And
his failure. And his pain. And why he did it."

The Dorf shook in his metal prison. "Why!? You shit-brained pig-
licking fuckstick, WHY!?"

"The Dorfs have schismed, broken into factions of which you and your companions are but one. An ideological civil war. By resurrecting the
Prophet, you hoped to prove the rightness of your cause. In a battle
like this, a few individuals can make the difference. And a Dorf who
knows what it is like to be human..."

"Damn you! DAMN YOU!" Flecks of foam flew from his mouth, and his
cheeks were red with rage. "Do you know how painful it was to see
through his eyes!?"

"Yes. I do."

And Reg Hfffgrktt vanished in a pale blue flash.

Irony Man stood, looking down at the spot where he had been. Then he turned and opened the door, leaving Comics Snob Boy's room to the past.

--LNH-- --LNH-- --LNH--

Cynical Lass, Poignant Death Lass, and Painful Pun Person picked
their way down a dank corridor, wind whispering between the rough-cut
stones. Flickering torches lit their way, and somewhere, far off, was
the sound of dripping water.

"This is the same building where Multi-Tasking Man uses the waste
heat from the pocket cyclotron to make coffee, right?" said Cynical
Lass.

"Setting inconsistency isn't what I'm worried about," said Poignant
Death Lass. "How are we going to get out of here and into the sub-
basements proper?"

"That's pretty simple, if you're a-cute enough," said Painful Pun
Person. She stepped up to an apparently blank wall and gave it a puppy-
eyed pleading look, filled with charm and charisma.

Something in the stone chirped. "Retinal scan complete," said a
melodious voice, and the wall slid back. They stepped through into a
wide, tall corridor, with a plaque next to the door reading "Floor -12".

Cynical Lass shook her head. "Makes as much sense as anything. But
how'd you figure it out?"

Painful Pun Person smiled. "I'm just that a-door-able!"

Suddenly, a cloud of blue and red sparkles zoomed through the air
with a humanoid figure half-visible inside, giggling in glee.

Poignant Death Lass squinted. "Was that Kid--"

Even more suddenly, there was a loud ding! and the elevator doors
they hadn't noticed opened, and Doctor Stomper stepped out.

"Doctor Sto--"

The most suddenly of all, Masterplan Lad, WikiBoy and Ubiquitous Boy
Lad Jr. ran past, shouting and pointing at the sparkly cloud, and Doctor Stomper turned and ran after them.

"..."

Painful Pun Person pointed. "Chase that race!" And they ran after.

Doctor Stomper, breathing hard, fell into place next to Masterplan
Lad.

"Masterplan Lad!" said Doctor Stomper. "The Dorf virus -- it's a biological weapon! What if they find some way to mutate it into new
strains so that it reinfects us?"

"They have!" said Masterplan Lad. "But the energy of the Urple Ray
mutated the virus into an extreme form in Kid Enthusiastic's blood, so
if we can isolate it, we'll be able to create a cure that'll apply to
any form of the Dorf virus!"

"Hey, we have exposition too!" shouted Painful Pun Person. She and Poignant Death Lass pulled the wheezing Cynical Lass forward.

"Ho--" She coughed. "Okay. The Toony Stork we've been dealing with
was actually a shapeshifted Dorf, trying to wipe out all Toony's data on
the first LNH mission. Poignant Death Lass found out their weakness,
though -- they can't handle emotions. Other than 'frothing rage', of
course."

"Got it," said Masterplan Lad. "But if that was an impostor, where
is the real Toony Stork?"

~~LNH~~ ~~LNH~~ ~~LNH~~

Toony Stork could feel something choking the life out of him. Who
had he pissed off now? It was a green scaly hand with claws. And it was
also his right hand. His right hand was attempting to murder him. He
quickly tried to remove the hand on his throat with his left hand, but
for some strange reason, his left hand completely passed through the lizard-like right hand. His left hand was a ghost. Getting desperate, he
rolled out of bed and hit the floor hard, right on top of his right
hand, which was enough to loosen it from his throat.

He then screamed for help.

~~LNH~~ ~~LNH~~ ~~LNH~~

"This is amazing," said Doctor Stomper, glancing at his computer
screen. Irony Man (Toony Stork) was bound on an inclining chair -- his
legs and hands shackled (except for his ghost hand). Various LNH'rs
surrounded him.

"Your right hand appears to be an alien shapeshifter. Your left hand
is some virtual reality construct that doesn't really exist. Your right
leg is robot duplicate of your leg. Your left leg is a prophecy from
the future about your left leg. And your buttocks appear to be from an alternate Looniverse (Earth-Millar) where every single member of the LNH
is a complete asshole." Dr. Stomper took a deep breath. "And your brain
-- well, appears to be divided three ways. One part is a clone brain
that seems to be controlled by an evil government conspiracy. The second
part is controlled by some body jumping supervillain (Dr. What-Me- Acting-Strange). And the last part is being controlled by you. It's like
your entire body is a composite of comic book tropes that Tom Russell
doesn't like."

"So, what's this mean?" said Irony Man with an uneasy expression on
his face.

Dr. Stomper took off his glasses and wiped them with his labcoat.
"It means Tom Russell probably won't like this story when he reads it."

"No, no. I mean all those things I did -- horrible acts I committed
during Beige Countdown and Beige Midnight -- does it mean...?"

"In many ways, it's incredible that you didn't just go on a mass
murder spree with all of these evil body parts in control of you. But,
yes, you're completely off the hook."

"How did this happen to me?"

"Good question. Using my sensors, I do detect a trace of revamp
energy in your blood. Can you think of any exposure to revamping?"

"I don't know. Wait, back in 2005. Yeah, I fought this pack of Mecha-Revampires. Maybe they infected my suit and that in turn infected
me. Is there any way to cure me?"

Dr. Stomper nodded. "Yes, I think if we download your good brain
energy and install that into a cloned body of yourself -- that should do
the trick. We'll have to install it into a teenage version of yourself
though. Anything older and there'd be problems."

"Me a teenager again? I guess I can live with that."

"Oooh. Dibs on calling you Teeny Toony," said Catalyst Lass with a
wink.

"Only you. Only you, Cat." Irony Man shook his head while laughing.
"I'm just glad I can finally be back to normal. Be a hero again."

"We're all glad," said Fearless Leader patting Irony Man on the
shoulder.

The Ultimate Ninja gave a silent nod of approval.

"This whole thing has been such a nightmare, but now -- now it feels
like I'm finally waking up..."

--LNH-- --LNH-- --LNH--

"Toony?"

"Toony? Time to get up. Toony?"

"Huh?" Toony Stark opened his eyes, wincing a bit at the light. He
looked and saw an attractive woman in business attire with a mug of
coffee and a paper in her hand. It was his personal secretary, Paprika
Pitts. "Oh. Hi, beautiful."

"Having a nice dream?"

"Well, it was better than being awake." Toony took the coffee and
began to sip it.

"Oh, you're on the front page again!"

Toony looked at the newspaper. The headline read, 'Irony Man Does
Hand Stuff!! Net.ropolis Saved!!'. Toony threw the paper on his bed.
"Yeah, that's wonderful."

"Do you want me to bring anything else up?"

"Yeah. A dozen bottles of liquor. Doesn't matter what."

--LNH-- --LNH-- --LNH--

The LNH Kitchen:

And the massive chunk of leftover Taco Salad Cheesecake lying on one
of the kitchen counters realized something.

Taco Salad Cheesecake think, therefore Taco Salad Cheesecake am,
thought Taco Salad Cheesecake.

And Taco Salad Cheesecake began to think about more stuff.

Hmm, thought Taco Salad Cheesecake, no one seem to care what Taco
Salad Cheesecake thinking. Once Taco Salad Cheesecake a vital part of
issue #50, but now everyone forget Taco Salad Cheesecake. This make Taco
Salad Cheesecake sad. Very sad.

Why no one love Taco Salad Cheesecake anymore? Taco Salad Cheesecake
don't understand. This make Taco Salad Cheesecake angry. Angry at world.
A world that could ever forget Taco Salad Cheesecake!

Must make world pay. Pay for Forgetting Taco Salad Cheesecake! Will
make World remember Taco Salad Cheesecake! World will never ever forget
Taco Salad Cheesecake! Never again!

And the Taco Salad Cheesecake began to focus on its shape. And feet
began to sprout out of Taco Salad Cheesecake. And those feet lifted Taco
Salad Cheesecake up and helped him leap towards the ground.

And just as that was happening, Cheesecake Eater Lad walked right
into the kitchen with a bunch of plastic containers in his arms. And
Cheesecake Eater Lad watched the Taco Salad Cheesecake eat its way
through the floor.

Cheesecake Eater Lad walked over to the hole and saw the Taco Salad Cheesecake eating his way through the basement floor too. And the
various sub-sub-basements beneath the basement.

Cheesecake Eater Lad sighed and put down his plastic containers.
"Note to self: Never ever *ever* make Taco Salad Cheesecake again."

--LNH-- --LNH-- --LNH--

General Jarrek turned to the sensors they had trained on the
entrance to the LNHQ. Nothing so far. By now, Hfffgrktt should have
destroyed all evidence of the Dorfs' weakness -- by stealth or by force.
But he still wasn't--

Ah! There -- a figure, disguised cunningly as washed-up net.hero
Irony Man. Yes, and now, the ducklicking mothers would--

"Hey asshole!" said one of the undertroopers, looking through a
visor that was pointlessly glued to the instrument panel. "Reg
Hfffgrktt's signal just went dead!"

"..." Jarrek stared at the figure. A goddamned ruse. Looks like the
Legion was a little less incompetent than they'd figured. He spun around
and faced his troops. "Well guess what!"

"WE KNOW ALREADY!" they shouted in unison, then ran in a
disorganized scrum to the transporter room.

--LNH-- --LNH-- --LNH--

Dozens of feet fell pell-mell on the curiously well-kept floors of the sub-sub-sub-sub-sub-sub-sub-sub-sub-sub-sub-basement.

"Kid Enthusiastic!" shouted Doctor Stomper, waving his hands at the
flying transfigured boy. "We need you to stop for a minute so we can
derive the cure for the Dorf virus from your blood!"

"Okay, you can do that!" Kid E shouted back.

"Oh, excel--"

"Once you catch me! WHEEEEEEE!" He rose up in a cloud of sparkles.

"It's no use!" said Masterplan Lad. "He's too fast and agile in this form!"

"If only there were some way to attack him from above!" said
Ubiquitous Boy Lad Jr.

shompshompshompshompCHOMPCHOMPCHOMPCHOMP! Suddenly, a great hole
appeared in the ceiling, and through it fell the Taco Salad Cheesecake
-- right on Kid Enthusiastic's head!

"Yeah, like that," said UBLJr.

"What a cheesy coincidence," said Painful Pun Person.

"haha whee~" Kid E fell out of the air, plummeting TO HIS DOOM.
Poignant Death Lass gasped dramatically, to increase the tension.

Anal-Retentive Archive Kid II called out, "Wikiboy, you're a rocket launcher that fires psychic-energy-seeking impact-softening gel-
spheres!"

"What!?" Wikiboy poofed into his new form, and Cynical Lass,
standing next to him, grabbed him and fired from the shoulder. Kid E
bounced to the floor in a ball of goo, safe but messy.

Doctor Stomper stopped, wheezing. "Good-- Whew! Good teamwork."

--LNH-- --LNH-- --LNH--

Soon, everyone was gathered in the infirmary, waiting. Kyoko had
woken up earlier; by now she was back home, taking a nice relaxing bath. Pulls-Paper-Out-of-Hats Lad was finally awake, watching intently. Kid E
was strapped to a medi-bed, bouncing cheerfully and letting off clouds
of distracting sparkles.

Doctor Stomper carefully drew a vial of sparkly pink blood from his
body. He divided the blood into two vials. In one, Wikiboy added the
cure for the Dorf virus, and both were sealed.

All eyes were on Dr. Stomper as he placed the vials into a
centrifuge. Masterplan Lad checked his watch. Anal-Retentive Archive Kid
II paced up and down. Painful Pun Person nibbled her nails. The Taco
Salad Cheesecake sat on a shelf and swung its little legs.

Bad Judgment Boy was strapped into the next medi-bed over, partially
so that the Urple Ray treatments could do their work, partially because,
well, Bad Judgment Boy. Horrible Name Lad and Poignant Death Lass were
catching up beside him.

Bright blue liquids bubbled through antique glassware. Dry ice was
set in Erlenmeyer flasks. Electric arcs climbed up a Jacob's Ladder.

The door opened. Cynical Lass tensed up, but it was only Irony Man,
Master Blaster, and You're-Not-Hitting-Me-Hard-Enough Lad. Doctor
Stomper went over, and they talked in quiet tones; they had not been
able to gain access to Kid Kirby's lab.

A whirring noise filled the room, as the synthesizer produced serum
out of the anti-Dorfigen and Kid E's blood. Slowly, a glass-walled
canister filled with a glowing green substance. With a ding!, the
process was complete.

Doctor Stomper filled a syringe with the new vaccine-slash-cure. He
took a glance at the assembled crowd, and injected it into Kid E.

The sparkles faded, the horns shrank away, and his skin resumed its
usual glow. The cure had worked.

"Zzzzzz," said Kid Enthusiastic sleepingly.

"Excellent," said Dr. S. "Let's--"

And then Ubiquitous Boy Lad Jr.'s eyes widened, "Guys!" he said.
"The Dorfs! They're-- they're--" And then his body twisted! The change
was upon him!

--LNH-- --LNH-- --LNH--

Seyfert looked up. He'd taken care of Slickshiver, but it wasn't
over yet, not by a long shot. After channeling the TheyMightBePower, he
felt like one might after a round of good exercise: exhilarated but
exhausted. His bones were sore, his head was ringing, and he had "The
Sun" stuck in his head, which was especially annoying for him because he
was an astrophysicist and it was innacurate. The sun was NOT in fact a
mass of incandescent gas. (Later They Might Be Giants issued a
retraction song about how the sun was a miasma of incandescent plasma,
but it wasn't as catchy.)

And now he had to deal with the Dorf warfleet that was closing in on
him, like a flies swarm of flies surrounding a piece of roadkill. Time
flies like an arrow, as the old saying went. Fruit flies like a banana.
Of course, he'd faced time flies before, and in his experience they'd
eat just about anything. He wasn't eager to do so again. His head was
going to be full of non sequiturs for a while after he channeled the TheyMightBePowers, so he'd have to deal with that as well.

The probability he'd make it out of this one alive was
astronomically low. Of course, he was not just a net.hero, but one of
the cosmic net.heroes, so the same could be said of everything that had happened in his entire life. Who could have guessed back when he was a
physics grad student that he'd end up working for Project Celestia, or
that he'd inherit the mantle of Protector of the Looniverse? Even if he
didn't make it, though, he wasn't afraid of death. Not since beating one
of its aspects in an eating contest years ago. But he was a little
afraid of letting go. He had his share of loose ends to be taken care
of. Like Dev-Null... No, maybe it was better if he left that particular
loose end untied. He still felt badly about how that had all ended. If
only... No, he reflected as he dodged a Dorf bolt, this was probably not
a good time to be thinking about his romantic problems.

But then another Dorf ship suddenly appeared out of hyperspace and
started blasting the rest. Seyfert shouldn't have been too surprised, he thought, to find that the Dorf were turning on each other. He was a lot
more surprised that as many of them were working together as they were.
The status of any given Dorf emperor was tenuous at best. Actually
getting their subjects to respect them was out of the question, and
getting them to fear them was extremely difficult, so the best bet was
to make sure the rest of the Dorf hated any potential competitors more
than whoever was in charge. Thus, the mission against the LNH, giving
them a common enemy after a long and bitter civil war. He needed to
figure out if there was a way to resolve the war without reviving an
empire that was a danger to the rest of the galaxy. But first, he needed
to get out of there and stop expositing to himself.

Warping through space and time with the power of the Quintom Bands, Seyfert looked behind him and saw flashes in time and space -- the
increasingly convoluted plot of the story he was in. There were quite
enough loose ends, and it was time for someone to do something about
that.

Tentatively, he reached his mind beyond time and space, seeking out
his patron, the cosmic entity Unixepoch. To this day, he still was not
used to the experience. His perceptions stretched out into the nth
dimension, leaving the material universe flat and small behind him. He
beheld Unixepoch -- a gnarled creature plantlike tendrils, made of ASCII
art.

"Hey Unixepoch!" he said, his voice sounding quiet and feeble
against the background noise of the Omnilooniverse. "What exactly is
going on in this story, anyway? And what am I supposed to do now?"

<THAT 1S A VERY G00D QUEST10N>, said Unixepoch. <THE PL0T TW1STS AND
TURNS IN MANY D1RECT10NS. 1T 1S Y0U WH0 MUST UNT1E TH1S KN0T. Y0U MUST
UNC0VER THE MANY SECRETS AND 1RON1ES OF THE LEG1ON'S H1STORY.>

"Well, that sure was helpful," muttered Seyfert to himself, then
realized Unixepoch could hear it anyway. Of course, the being could hear
his deepest thoughts, so there was no point in trying to hide them.
"Wait a minute... Ironies? Of course. Someone's got to find the real
Irony Man and get him to sort this stuff out, so it might as well be
me..."

With that, he wrenched back into normal spacetime. He rapidly fell
through space, across the galaxy, wondering if he would fall out of the Looniverse entirely. But he took control with the Quintom Bands, and
abruptly slammed to a halt in front of his destination: the penthouse
where Toony Stork had been in hiding for the past year.

--LNH-- --LNH-- --LNH--

"Wait. This is okay," said Ubiquitous Boy Lad Jr. as he began to
slowly change into some strange-looking monstrosity. "It's all okay.
Everything is okay." Claws and fangs grew out of his hands and teeth. Razor-sharp spines began to pop out of his skin.

"Umm," said Cynical Lass pointing a BigGun (TM) she had in her hand
at his head, "There are a lot of words that I might use to describe
what's happening to you -- but I don't think 'okay' would be one of
them." The rest of the LNH'rs in the room also pointed various weapons
at him.

"No, no. You don't understand," said Ubiquitous Boy Lad Jr. as the
brain portion of his head began to rapidly expand like an out-of-control balloon. "There's a Dorf warship hovering over Net.ropolis as we speak.
Right at this moment a Dorfian Soldier has her hand on a button and
she's ready to push it. When she pushes the button, the warship's cannon
will utterly annihilate the entire city of Net.ropolis. Everything will
be gone. The LNHHQ. Everything in the city. It will be the end of
everything. The end of the LNH." He paused a bit after this with a cold expression on his face as he looked at Cynical Lass. His head continued
to expand. "It's all okay. Everything is..."

"Stop! Stop it!" said Cynical Lass, ready to blast the hell out of whatever Ubiquitous Boy Lad Jr. had changed into. "You really don't want
to use that word! I mean it!! Don't use it!!!"

"It's going to be-- umm... Calm down, Cynical Lass. And other LNH'rs
that are about to shoot me. Calm down. Really. I've got control of her.
The Dorfian Soldier. Her hand is no longer on the button. I've got
control over the whole ship. I've got control over all ships. Every
ship. I've got control of all the Dorfs."

"What are you talking about?" asked Irony Man II. "All of the
Dorfs?"

"Yes," said Ubiquitous Boy Lad Jr. whose brain was continuing to
grow. "Every Dorf in every galaxy. I am in them all. In their DNA. I am
them and they are me. I am the Dorfian Over-Mind. And I am Ubiquitous
Boy Lad Jr."

"I -- I don't understand," said a confused Pulls-Paper-Out-of-Hats
Lad.

"I do," said Masterplan Lad, quietly. His hand moved, and suddenly,
he was holding the syringe of Dorf super-cure. "Every Dorf is Ubiquitous
Boy Lad Jr. right now. And Ubiquitous Boy Lad Jr. is every Dorf -- and
every single person with the Dorf virus in their bloodstreams."

"Then-- we could cure all the Dorfs at once!" said You're-Not- Hitting-Me-Hard-Enough Lad.

Cynical Lass looked at the syringe. "And what happens if you cure a
Dorf of being a Dorf?"

There was silence in the infirmary.

--LNH-- --LNH-- --LNH--

General Jarrek and his soldiers stood, halfway through the door into
the lobby. Marshall LaRocque had his chainzookasword out, grease
dripping from the barrels.

They stood, faces relaxed, staring off into the distance.

The Heart of the Prophet pulsed.

--LNH-- --LNH-- --LNH--

UBLJr.'s head pulsed, his braincase a great sphere. "Whatever you
do... do it quickly... the rage of billions, I'm holding it back... ow
owie ow..."

"...maybe they'll just become human," offered Namer Boy.

"Maybe they'll be freed of their hate," pointed out Wikiboy.

"Maybe they'll die," murmured Poignant Death Lass.

"Hey, would that be so bad?" Master Blaster rolled his eyes.
"Seriously. They're DORFS. They'd do it to you and laugh."

Irony Man II simply stood and watched.

Masterplan Lad gazed into the bubbling green liquid. "Do we have the right? A little pinch, push the plunger, and that's it. The Dorfs cease
to exist. Hundreds of millions of people, thousands of generations can
live without fear, in peace, and never even know the word Dorf."

"You know," said Painful Pun Person, "there's one thing you guys
haven't considered."

"Yeah," said Horrible Name Lad, "if there aren't Dorfs anymore, then
we can't call it Six Dorfs Over Newark: The Angriest Place in the
Galaxy."

"That, and... pretty much everyone here is still infected. Are you
sure that this destructiveness, this bloodthirstiness -- what if it's
all a bit of martyrDorf?"

Everyone groaned.

"...but she's right," said Masterplan Lad. "This entire time, we've
been so *angry* at the Dorfs... but nobody's angrier at the Dorfs than
the Dorfs themselves."

"Yeah..." said Ubiquitous Boy Lad Jr., sweat dripping down his
enlarged head. "You got that r-right..."

"Okay, but how do we decide?" said Cynical Lass. "There's nobody
here who's definitely not infected, except--"

Kid Enthusiastic sat up in the medi-bed. "Boy, I feel a lot better!
...uh, why's everyone staring at me?"

--LNH-- --LNH-- --LNH--

Seyfert's boots landed lightly on the concrete balcony in front of
the door to Toony Stork's penthouse. He wasn't sure how to proceed -- he
didn't know the former Irony Man very well. Would he be angry at the
intrusion? Would he be glad of a sympathetic ear?

The door slid open, and the cacophonous clamor of an outrageous
party boomed out.

Or that was a possibility, too.

Seyfert stepped into a room crowded with guests, none of whom gave
him more than a glance before turning back to drinks and light
conversation interspersed with heavy petting. He muttered apologizes and carefully slipped between partiers to find Toony lounging on a lounge
chair, sipping something that could strip paint from a wall at five
paces.

"Excuse me, Mr. Stork?" said Seyfert, kneeling down awkwardly next
to the chair. "There's some trouble with the Dorfs, and--"

"Dorfs." Toony snorted. "I could tell you about Dorfs."

Oh lord.

"Dorfs're..." He pointed three inches to the left of Seyfert's face.
"You ever made a mistake?"

Coming here without a pitcher of black coffee, thought Seyfert.
"Sure, plenty."

"Who d'y'think was the Dorf who made the first mistake? Like..."
Toony leaned forward on the arm of the chair, finger wobbling back and
forth. "You gotta figure there's a hundred or a thousand or a million
billion mistakes they made to turn into what they are now. But what
prehistoric Dorf y'think started it all? Who y'think said to the
serpent, 'Hey one order of apples please, heavy on screwing up the
future', hm?"

This was hopeless. Anything he could get out of the man's booze-
soaked brain would be mangled beyond recognition by the regret that had
sunk him into this hole. Better to leave him to rot.


[continued in next message]

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

Looking back at this issue, it reminds me a lot of 52 (which I reread
recnetly, and very much enjoyed all the non-Geoff Johns-y bits of). That
was a series written by a bunch of people with very distinctive creative
voices that somehow (well, Keith Giffen doing backgrounds through the
whole series helped, but) meshed into a cohesive whole. LNH v2 #50 was
similar. I know there were some bits that were attributed to other
people in previous discussions I'm pretty sure I wrote... but there are
also some bits where I have no idea who wrote them. I feel like we did a
good job all building on each other's strengths as writers; I know
working with Rob and Saxon really helped me level up.

I know the epilogue scenes were me and Drew. Those were written at the
end of 2014, coming off the high of the Gillen/McKelvie Young Avengers
ending (a series that played a huge role in me realizing I was queer).
That's where the whole anniversary party aspect came from.

Someday I really have to address Time Crapper IV getting married to
Betamax in the future (a Doctor Who-inspired bit, of course). Maybe
after I tackle a few of the other loose ends that I have floating around.

"This was supposed to celebrate everything that was great about the LNH
so we could go forward into a new era. Instead, it just about destroyed us."--that line was of course me putting in my feelings about the
writing process. In the end, though, this story really did set up a new
era, with lots of stuff that played out in narratively rewarding ways--
the return of Halls and Cliche, Toony's definitively drawing a line
under his life as a net.hero, and especially Captain LNH and expanding
the overall mythology of Vector.

We were able to make the best of the frustrating circumstances behind
this issue, because it meant that LNH would have to leave behind a lot
of its past stock elements and find new stories, and by the end we were
already starting to build them. It really laid the seeds for the current
core LNH which is always dynamic and evolving, like the Claremont X-Men
in its prime. I'm very proud of this issue in the end, where it landed thematically and emotionally and what it did for the LNH.

And I get a big smile out of seeing the credits list at the end.

Oh, and "Jump" by Kriss Kross was an in joke on my part--it was the
number one hit the week the first LNH post was made.

Jeanne Morningstar

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On 12/19/21 11:35 PM, Jeanne Morningstar wrote:

Looking back at this issue, it reminds me a lot of 52 (which I reread recnetly,
and very much enjoyed all the non-Geoff Johns-y bits of). That was a series written by a bunch of people with very distinctive creative voices that somehow
(well, Keith Giffen doing backgrounds through the whole series helped, but) meshed into a cohesive whole. LNH v2 #50 was similar.

Definitely agreed. :D

I know there were some
bits that were attributed to other people in previous discussions I'm pretty sure I wrote... but there are also some bits where I have no idea who wrote them.

Yeah that's entirely possible. X3

I feel like we did a good job all building on each other's strengths as writers; I know working with Rob and Saxon really helped me level up.

Very much agreed. :>

I know the epilogue scenes were me and Drew. Those were written at the end of 2014, coming off the high of the Gillen/McKelvie Young Avengers ending (a series
that played a huge role in me realizing I was queer). That's where the whole anniversary party aspect came from.

YEAH :D

Someday I really have to address Time Crapper IV getting married to Betamax in
the future (a Doctor Who-inspired bit, of course). Maybe after I tackle a few of
the other loose ends that I have floating around.

It's fun to have these hooks! n.n

"This was supposed to celebrate everything that was great about the LNH so we could go forward into a new era. Instead, it just about destroyed us."--that line was of course me putting in my feelings about the writing process. In the
end, though, this story really did set up a new era, with lots of stuff that played out in narratively rewarding ways-- the return of Halls and Cliche, Toony's definitively drawing a line under his life as a net.hero, and especially
Captain LNH and expanding the overall mythology of Vector.

Yes!!! It's influenced so much of what we've done since!

We were able to make the best of the frustrating circumstances behind this issue, because it meant that LNH would have to leave behind a lot of its past stock elements and find new stories, and by the end we were already starting to
build them.

yessssssssss <3 <3 <3

It really laid the seeds for the current core LNH which is always
dynamic and evolving, like the Claremont X-Men in its prime. I'm very proud of
this issue in the end, where it landed thematically and emotionally and what it
did for the LNH.

Same. :>

And I get a big smile out of seeing the credits list at the end.

:D :D :D I love putting that kind of feelsy shit in. I should do it for HHS too maybe.

Oh, and "Jump" by Kriss Kross was an in joke on my part--it was the number one
hit the week the first LNH post was made.

That just feels so appropriate. X3

Drew "The Nineties" Nilium

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On 12/12/21 4:27 PM, Arthur Spitzer wrote:
<snip>

And we reach the conclusion (I mean, sure, I could probably split this into two more issues, but I'm not going to do that).

Fair. X3

But is there
something else this story could use? Perhaps something long forgotten from like the beginning of the story? Something that could return? Like maybe a -- GIGANTIC HELPING OF TACO SALAD CHEESECAKE!!!!? What? You don't want that!?
Well, too bad, bub, because that's what you're going to get!

YEAH!!! <3 <3 <3

The elevator went ding! The business end of Master Blaster's BIGGUN poked out, followed by the man himself.

This has always been a neat mental image to me. :>

"It matters not," said Irony Man. "We must find Kid Kirby and tender
to him the antidote to the Dorf virus."

--LNH-- --LNH-- --LNH--

"Hmmm," said Doctor Stomper. "I feel as if I've forgotten
something."

This was when I was stitching the various scenes people had done together. X3

"Danger is yet afoot," said Irony Man. "The Dorfish virus has
spread, and not one is safe. Wherever we go, we may run into--"

A groan issued into the corridor.

"Who--" YNHMHELad spun in place. "Where's that coming from?"

This is me loving Rob's scene enough that I had to play off of it. <3.<3

ARAK frowned. "Something is making my right eye water." He turned, slowly, staring forward and concentrating on the edge of vision, walking
at an angle and groping at the wall until his hand came in contact with
a doorframe. "Got you!"

"A perception filter -- several, more than likely," said Irony Man,
who opened the door and stepped within.

"What are you guys talking about?" said Master Blaster, facing the opposite direction. ARAK sighed and guided him into the room.

An obvious gag but I love it. X3

"I may be able to awaken him, then talk him down," said Irony Man.
"But it would require solitude."

"Oh?" Anal-Rententive Archive Kid raised an eyebrow.

"He is my Secret Keeper."

"Ah!" ARAK nodded, YNHMHELad's face lit with understanding, and
Master Blaster grumbled. The Mysterious Secret and the Secret Keeper
were ancient net.hero traditions passed down through Ages past. They
could not be contravened, unless you thought you were Alan Moore or something.

heeheeheeheehee

"But-- but you were *instrumental* to our cause! You provided the mindscan that allowed me to emulate Toony Stork's emotions and
memories!"

"Indeed. If I had not, you would have taken it yourselves, and left behind a substance remarkably similar to scrambled eggs. By preventing
that, I acquired an ally in this timeline. As to your cause, it did not matter. The history books say the Legion stopped you, though not how."

I love playing around with this behind-the-scenes stuff~

"The Dorfs have schismed, broken into factions of which you and your companions are but one. An ideological civil war. By resurrecting the Prophet, you hoped to prove the rightness of your cause.

Including making some implicit stuff explicit and setting up a status quo that's
still going. :>

In a battle
like this, a few individuals can make the difference. And a Dorf who
knows what it is like to be human..."

"Damn you! DAMN YOU!" Flecks of foam flew from his mouth, and his cheeks were red with rage. "Do you know how painful it was to see
through his eyes!?"

"Yes. I do."

And Reg Hfffgrktt vanished in a pale blue flash.

I'm real proud of this scene. ^#^

Cynical Lass, Poignant Death Lass, and Painful Pun Person picked
their way down a dank corridor, wind whispering between the rough-cut
stones. Flickering torches lit their way, and somewhere, far off, was
the sound of dripping water.

"This is the same building where Multi-Tasking Man uses the waste
heat from the pocket cyclotron to make coffee, right?" said Cynical
Lass.

heeheeheeheehee

Suddenly, a cloud of blue and red sparkles zoomed through the air
with a humanoid figure half-visible inside, giggling in glee.

Poignant Death Lass squinted. "Was that Kid--"

Even more suddenly, there was a loud ding! and the elevator doors
they hadn't noticed opened, and Doctor Stomper stepped out.

"Doctor Sto--"

The most suddenly of all, Masterplan Lad, WikiBoy and Ubiquitous Boy Lad Jr. ran past, shouting and pointing at the sparkly cloud, and Doctor Stomper turned and ran after them.

"..."

Painful Pun Person pointed. "Chase that race!" And they ran after.

Sometimes stitching is just super fun. X3 And I love the breathless exposition that follows this.

Toony Stork could feel something choking the life out of him.

This bit was originally an independent piece of Arthur's that we worked into the
story. I think it really sings. <3

"Your right hand appears to be an alien shapeshifter. Your left hand
is some virtual reality construct that doesn't really exist. Your right
leg is robot duplicate of your leg. Your left leg is a prophecy from
the future about your left leg. And your buttocks appear to be from an alternate Looniverse (Earth-Millar) where every single member of the LNH
is a complete asshole." Dr. Stomper took a deep breath. "And your brain
-- well, appears to be divided three ways. One part is a clone brain
that seems to be controlled by an evil government conspiracy. The second
part is controlled by some body jumping supervillain (Dr. What-Me- Acting-Strange). And the last part is being controlled by you.

Every sentence of this paragraph is a different amazing joke.

It's like
your entire body is a composite of comic book tropes that Tom Russell
doesn't like."

"So, what's this mean?" said Irony Man with an uneasy expression on
his face.

Dr. Stomper took off his glasses and wiped them with his labcoat.
"It means Tom Russell probably won't like this story when he reads it."

heeheeheehee! I think about this joke at least once a month. X3

Dr. Stomper nodded. "Yes, I think if we download your good brain
energy and install that into a cloned body of yourself -- that should do
the trick. We'll have to install it into a teenage version of yourself though. Anything older and there'd be problems."

"Me a teenager again? I guess I can live with that."

"Oooh. Dibs on calling you Teeny Toony," said Catalyst Lass with a wink.

I wonder if anyone remembers the "Teen Tony" era of Iron Man, nowadays. X3 Considering how many terrible revamps we've had since then...

"Having a nice dream?"

"Well, it was better than being awake." Toony took the coffee and
began to sip it.

God, the thick pain and irony of this part. I love it.

Hmm, thought Taco Salad Cheesecake, no one seem to care what Taco
Salad Cheesecake thinking. Once Taco Salad Cheesecake a vital part of
issue #50, but now everyone forget Taco Salad Cheesecake. This make Taco Salad Cheesecake sad. Very sad.

This was such a good thing to bring back. X3

And the Taco Salad Cheesecake began to focus on its shape. And feet began to sprout out of Taco Salad Cheesecake. And those feet lifted Taco Salad Cheesecake up and helped him leap towards the ground.

Astounding.

Cheesecake Eater Lad walked over to the hole and saw the Taco Salad Cheesecake eating his way through the basement floor too. And the
various sub-sub-basements beneath the basement.

Cheesecake Eater Lad sighed and put down his plastic containers.
"Note to self: Never ever *ever* make Taco Salad Cheesecake again."

heeheeheehee

"..." Jarrek stared at the figure. A goddamned ruse. Looks like the Legion was a little less incompetent than they'd figured. He spun around
and faced his troops. "Well guess what!"

"WE KNOW ALREADY!" they shouted in unison, then ran in a
disorganized scrum to the transporter room.

This was me playing with the idea of "correct" Dorf military discipline.

"Kid Enthusiastic!" shouted Doctor Stomper, waving his hands at the flying transfigured boy. "We need you to stop for a minute so we can
derive the cure for the Dorf virus from your blood!"

"Okay, you can do that!" Kid E shouted back.

"Oh, excel--"

"Once you catch me! WHEEEEEEE!" He rose up in a cloud of sparkles.

heeheeheehee

"If only there were some way to attack him from above!" said
Ubiquitous Boy Lad Jr.

shompshompshompshompCHOMPCHOMPCHOMPCHOMP! Suddenly, a great hole appeared in the ceiling, and through it fell the Taco Salad Cheesecake
-- right on Kid Enthusiastic's head!

Bringing all the plot threads together! :D

Anal-Retentive Archive Kid II called out, "Wikiboy, you're a rocket launcher that fires psychic-energy-seeking impact-softening gel-
spheres!"

"What!?" Wikiboy poofed into his new form, and Cynical Lass,
standing next to him, grabbed him and fired from the shoulder.

heeheeheehee

Bad Judgment Boy was strapped into the next medi-bed over, partially
so that the Urple Ray treatments could do their work, partially because, well, Bad Judgment Boy.

*cackles*

The door opened. Cynical Lass tensed up, but it was only Irony Man, Master Blaster, and You're-Not-Hitting-Me-Hard-Enough Lad. Doctor
Stomper went over, and they talked in quiet tones; they had not been
able to gain access to Kid Kirby's lab.

And cutting off that little plot-thread. X3

"Zzzzzz," said Kid Enthusiastic sleepingly.

omg I forgot this one

And then Ubiquitous Boy Lad Jr.'s eyes widened, "Guys!" he said.
"The Dorfs! They're-- they're--" And then his body twisted! The change
was upon him!

:D Cliffhangers!!

His bones were sore, his head was ringing, and he had "The
Sun" stuck in his head, which was especially annoying for him because he
was an astrophysicist and it was innacurate. The sun was NOT in fact a
mass of incandescent gas. (Later They Might Be Giants issued a
retraction song about how the sun was a miasma of incandescent plasma,
but it wasn't as catchy.)

It's true.

Time
flies like an arrow, as the old saying went. Fruit flies like a banana.
Of course, he'd faced time flies before, and in his experience they'd
eat just about anything. He wasn't eager to do so again.

Heeheeheehee

He had his share of loose ends to be taken care
of. Like Dev-Null... No, maybe it was better if he left that particular
loose end untied. He still felt badly about how that had all ended. If only... No, he reflected as he dodged a Dorf bolt, this was probably not
a good time to be thinking about his romantic problems.

That relationship is something we had a lot of plans for, once upon a time. X3 Someday. Probably.

The status of any given Dorf emperor was tenuous at best. Actually
getting their subjects to respect them was out of the question, and
getting them to fear them was extremely difficult, so the best bet was
to make sure the rest of the Dorf hated any potential competitors more
than whoever was in charge.

Excellently put.

"Well, that sure was helpful," muttered Seyfert to himself, then realized Unixepoch could hear it anyway. Of course, the being could hear
his deepest thoughts, so there was no point in trying to hide them.

Heeheehee

"No, no. You don't understand," said Ubiquitous Boy Lad Jr. as the brain portion of his head began to rapidly expand like an out-of-control balloon. "There's a Dorf warship hovering over Net.ropolis as we speak.
Right at this moment a Dorfian Soldier has her hand on a button and
she's ready to push it. When she pushes the button, the warship's cannon
will utterly annihilate the entire city of Net.ropolis. Everything will
be gone. The LNHHQ. Everything in the city. It will be the end of
everything. The end of the LNH."

This is some good-ass dread

He paused a bit after this with a cold
expression on his face as he looked at Cynical Lass. His head continued
to expand. "It's all okay. Everything is..."

"Stop! Stop it!" said Cynical Lass, ready to blast the hell out of whatever Ubiquitous Boy Lad Jr. had changed into. "You really don't want
to use that word! I mean it!! Don't use it!!!"

"It's going to be-- umm... Calm down, Cynical Lass.

X3 <3 <3 <3

"Yes," said Ubiquitous Boy Lad Jr. whose brain was continuing to
grow. "Every Dorf in every galaxy. I am in them all. In their DNA. I am
them and they are me. I am the Dorfian Over-Mind. And I am Ubiquitous
Boy Lad Jr."

This is such a good use of his powers, omg.

"Then-- we could cure all the Dorfs at once!" said You're-Not- Hitting-Me-Hard-Enough Lad.

Cynical Lass looked at the syringe. "And what happens if you cure a Dorf of being a Dorf?"

There was silence in the infirmary.

:D :D :D To toot my own horn: What an excellent ethical quandary for the climax. n.n

Masterplan Lad gazed into the bubbling green liquid. "Do we have the right? A little pinch, push the plunger, and that's it. The Dorfs cease
to exist. Hundreds of millions of people, thousands of generations can
live without fear, in peace, and never even know the word Dorf."

Obligatory Doctor Who reference~

"That, and... pretty much everyone here is still infected. Are you
sure that this destructiveness, this bloodthirstiness -- what if it's
all a bit of martyrDorf?"

Everyone groaned.

"...but she's right," said Masterplan Lad. "This entire time, we've been so *angry* at the Dorfs... but nobody's angrier at the Dorfs than
the Dorfs themselves."

:D :D :D I'm proud of this too!!

Seyfert stepped into a room crowded with guests, none of whom gave
him more than a glance before turning back to drinks and light
conversation interspersed with heavy petting.

heeheehee

This was hopeless. Anything he could get out of the man's booze-
soaked brain would be mangled beyond recognition by the regret that had
sunk him into this hole. Better to leave him to rot.

...said the part of Seyfert's mind that he never listened to.

:3 :3 :3 <3 <3 <3

"Yeah... yeah, I know." Toony sighed, and turned his half-full glass
over, spilling the amber liquid on the floor. He pressed a concealed
button on the bottom, and as one, the party guests slumped, inert forms
clattering to the floor.

Seyfert looked around. "...they were robots."

"Perfect for being alone in a crowd." Toony pushed himself to his
feet, tossing the glass behind him. "The storyarc reactor should filter
the alcohol out of my system while we fly to the LNHQ."

This is where my characterization of Toony really starts taking hold - someone who sailed thru life justifying their jackassery until they smacked into a wall where they either had to destroy their ethics to justify it or completely reassess their whole being - and chose the latter. That's a hero, you know?

"And you think you can do it?" Seyfert wasn't sure. This all felt
too easy... but then he saw the look in Toony's eyes. No. Not easy at
all.

"Haven't you read the newspapers? Saving the world's what I'm good
at." Toony shook his head, looking at the discarded glass, lying on the lounge chair. "Seems like the only thing I'm good at, anymore."

:D :D :D

"...so what you're saying," said Kid Enthusiastic, in an 'I'm
thinking really hard!' pose,

I _think_ I meant Rodin's "The Thinker", but who knows. X3

"And... PLEASE hurry..." said Ubiquitous Boy Lad Jr., eyes shifting colors kaleidoscopically. "Or I WILL TEAR YOUR sense of languid ease OFF
AND SPIT IN THE provided spitting receptacle NRRRrrrRRRrrghg..."

heeheeheehee

"..." Toony fell into a chair. "Of course of course." His shoulders slumped. "Would it also help fight the Dorfs if I was having my genitals electrocuted while I told you?"

Kid Enthusiastic made a face at the mental image. Pulls-Paper-Out- of-Hats Lad scratched the back of his neck. Ubiquitous Boy Lad Jr.
gurgled.

heeheehee

Namer Boy raised his hand. "Don't you need the memory sticks to remember all this?"

Toony shook his head. "Before I left, I copied everything back into
my brain. Seemed like the best punishment I could give myself."

Characterization *and* moving pieces! :D

He took a drink of water, cleared his throat, and began. "At the
time, there was no big Ame.rec.an net.hero team -- just a lot of free
agents who teamed up once in a while. Net.ropolis had been a hub for
this sort of thing since Boy Lad's day, but the first time most of these people had met was when she sent out a distress call out to every
net.hero in range."

Note that the specific time period here is left vague; since Martin's stuff was still in this issue, I figured it'd be a bad idea to mess with his ridiculously extended "founding of the LNH" timeline.

"A hero we all knew and trusted. Malysa El-lenn Aitch. A half-human half-Dorf who was Seyfert's predecessor as Protector of the Looniverse
-- Captain LNH."

"Of course there was a Captain LNH before there was an LNH,"
muttered Master Blaster, dangling his BIGGUN over his shoulder.

heeheehee

"I'm surprised nobody mentioned her when Vel was around," Doctor Stomper noted.

"Yeah, well, don't get ahead of me.

Gently easing in the retcon...

Horrible Name Lad and Poignant Death Lass blinked loudly. "Wait, so there used to be *another* Horrible Name Lad?" PDL said.

"Horrible Name Lad I was actually his name," noted Toony. "A side- effect of his powers."

"I'm a legacy character..." squeed HNL.

I'm gonna have to write a story about this at some point. X3 But I definitely also wanted to help these new characters feel firmly placed as part of the Looniverse.

"Miss Calico?" said Pulls-Paper-Out-of-Hats Lad. "I thought Tom
Russell retconned Teenfactor out."

"Well, this was the post-Cry.sig post-Retcon-Hour post-Infinite- Leadership-Crisis post-58.5 post-Beige-Midnight pre-Just-Another-Cascade version of her."

"Oh, I see."

"What?" said Anal-Retentive Archive Kid II, blinking.

a.) I still love messing around with Teenfactor stuff so much. X3
b.) Reference-forward to JAC, since again, this part was being written in the middle of that.

The Dorfs had been trying to gain access to our
planetary transreality nexus."

"You mean the one in the LNHQ?" said Kid Enthusiastic, wibbling energetically in his seat. "The mysterious higher-dimensional energy
pattern which, despite the best minds in pseudoscience working on it, we still don't know if it's a living creature that feeds on heroic emotions
or a locus of magic that attracts heroic energy or what?"

"Yes, though at the time, it was the mysterious higher-dimensional energy pattern in the defunct Net.ropolis Hotel Grand."

"Never could understand why they kept trying to keep a hotel open here," said You're-Not-Hitting-Me-Hard-Enough Lad. "It kept going out of business because of weird paranormal happenings, or some net.villain
running a demented scheme out of one of the rooms, or a giant butterfly laying eggs in the honeymoon suite..."

Bringing together a bunch of LNH writers' work here into a coherent idea of the history of the LNHQ, tho of course Saxon did the hardest parts a while ago.

"That's what the fake you said," Cynical Lass noted with a raised eyebrow. "That they'd mind-controlled the August One -- that is,
Occultism Kid -- and had him open the portal."

"What, mind control on the one person best protected from outside influence? Gotta hand it to the Dorfs, they don't lack for ego."

Maybe a *little* making fun of Martin. X3

Toony
shook his head. "No. They were opening the portal on Earth because the
thing they needed to open the portal was on Earth -- the Cosmic Plot
Device."

There was a gasp, and Painful Pun Person muttered, "So it really was
a parody of the Avengers movie!"

Remember when Avengers movies were fun and not overbearing? @.@

"Indeed. Jarrek broke into the Net.ional History Museum, guns
blazing, and stole it.

I eventually did up a history of the Cosmic Plot Device for the wiki, and I'm proud of juggling a lot of seemingly-contradictory stories into a coherent history. X3

"DUN DUN DUN!"

"Thank you, Bad Judgment Boy.

Love this gag. X3

Miss Calico was trying to explain why she wasn't going
to call herself 'Aero Lass's Future Mother Woman',

heeheeheehee

"DUN DUN DUNNNNN!"

"Yes thanks you can stop now.

:3 :3 :3

"We fought him with everything we had. Repulsor blasts, mystic fire, old comics, getting things weeks late, focused totality, snobbishness, horrible names, longwindedness, tabulation, convincing everyone to do
the same thing, and whatever Miss Calico's powers were in this version
of history.

I love the LNH. X3

"List Lad took him out right after, tripped him up with the original air dates of every episode of Guiding Light."

The longest-running serial narrative in history, at least at the time it ended.

said... I said I was fine. That I could work through the rage.
That it wouldn't affect my judgment."

The people in the room looked at each other. A glance passed along a thought -- about fogs of rage that clouded one's mind.

THEMES!! :D

"And in that crystal-clear moment, I could see it. This was exactly what Jarrek wanted. The Device could reach as far as the Dorf homeworld,
but it had to find it first. It needed a signal, an identifier. And I
had given it one -- the channeled power of my rage."

THEEEEEEEEEEEMES

"And... and Captain LNH had seen it too. With the power she usually had, she could have blocked a sun. He had taken that, but he hadn't
taken... taken the willpower, the courage that she... she needed to..."

;-; yessss

A tear rolled down UBLJr.'s wide face. "Nothing in Dorf society prepared them for that kind of grief. When he got back, they thought we
knew their weakness, called off any plans to invade that way again."

Tying together bits of plot with characterization!!!

"The memory recording software I use is based on my early
experiments in... in uploading minds. I tried to transfer Captain...
tried to transfer Malysa's mind to an AI, but it... I was in there for
three days without sleep, it wasn't, it was flawed and unstable and it
didn't work..."

aaaaaaaa ;-;

"I had
failed her twice, and I failed her once more. I couldn't... couldn't get
rid of what was left of her, so I stored the project with my memory
files. Even when I moved them into the LNHQ. And that's where it was
when wReamicus Maximus stole it -- and used it as the basis for Vector,
the living computer virus."

A retcon that set up a lot of what's been happening since!!

"What the hell," groaned Master Blaster.

This is the last lime Master Blaster ever says, for the record. Seems fitting. X3

And Toony stared right back. "You're not wrong to hate me. But I bet
I could give you a run for your money. And if killing me would bring her back, I'd say -- do it. But we both know that it won't. So what will you
do with your hate?"

Jarrek's hand opened, and Toony fell to the ground. He ripped his
claws across his own armor and pulled out the Heart of the Prophet. And
he squeezed.

Jarrek screamed, and the Heart screamed with him, and they were
caught up in a great ugly yellow flame of pure rage and were gone.

*toots own horn cos this is good shit!!*

"These Dorfs - they've seen all this. Their captain is dead. I've
got one chance. My control is fading, but if I can bring them together,
maybe there could be some faction in the endless Dorf wars that could...
that could remember what happened."

"Wait!" said You're-Not-Hitting-Me-Hard-Enough Lad. "You don't have
to do this! There's got to be another way!"

Ubiquitous Boy Lad Jr. shook his enormous head with a smile. "I have to. And besides, if I don't -- this issue will never get posted.
Goodbye, my friends." And with that, he was enveloped in a teleportation beam, lifted away into the Dorf ship.

This was an Arthur bit, and it was a good idea.

Catalyst Lass opened the door. "Guys? Did something happen while I
was getting ready for the party?"

X3 X3 X3

A pretty butterfly
landed on Taco Salad Cheesecake's finger. Taco Salad Cheesecake gazed
at the pretty butterfly. "No. Taco Salad Cheesecake needs to figure
things out. Find out what Taco Salad Cheesecake's purpose is. Why Taco
Salad Cheesecake exists. Yes. Taco Salad Cheesecake begins a long
journey today. A long journey of discovery. A long journey in which Taco Salad Cheesecake will hopefully find -- *Taco Salad Cheesecake*!" The
pretty butterfly flew off Taco Salad Cheesecake's finger and fluttered
off into the sunset.

heeheeheeheehe X3

Taco Salad Cheesecake put on its motorcycle helmet and started up
its bike. And then it waved to the LNH and the LNH waved back. And many
in the LNH wondered if this would be the last time Taco Salad Cheesecake
ever actually appeared in an LNH story.

So far, at least!

And the LNH looked as the sun sank into the horizon. "Well," said Pulls-Paper-Out-of-Hats Lad, "guess it's time to get the LNH 20th
nniversary Party started!"

"Maybe we should call it the 22st Anniversary Party, considering
when this thing will probably get posted," joked Namer Boy.

And all of the heroes had a hearty laugh at that.

And then they stopped laughing. Because... yeeeeeah.

eheheh ``;v

I was just kind
of hoping we could go one storyline without some big tragedy or dark
secret, but I guess that's not how they do comics anymore. This was
supposed to celebrate everything that was great about the LNH so we
could go forward into a new era. Instead, it just about destroyed us."

"Well," said Catalyst Lass, "that whole thing was hanging over our heads for a long time. We would have had to deal with this someday, one
way or another. Now we can make a clean break and move on."

Big tragedies and dark secrets are okay as long as you achieve actual narrative catharsis, you know?

In later years, the LNH 20th anniversary party became a thing of legend, told by the new generation of net.heroes who were just beginning
to trickle in to the members who followed them to demonstrate their seniority, then repeated with all the additions and distortions one
would expect.

Love this idea. :> And of course, Horrible Name Lad, Poignant Death Lass, and Painful Pun Person are the first of that new generation.

Friendships were made and lost. There were first kisses, pointless
arguments, dance-offs. Most of this will not be related because this
story has gone on for quite long enough.

heeheehee

Kid Enthusiastic skipped out on the party, as
everything he'd been through left him tired enough to need a day-long
nap.

This is a Jeanne part but man, that's such a good characterization point, and relates well to the deeper character points from HHS #7.

Ultimate
Ninja stood sentinel at the doorway and didn't move an inch, except for charging onto the dancefloor and furiously dancing when "Kung Fu
Fighting" played.

heeheehee

There were other, stranger rumors too. Some spoke of hearing purring and feeling a cat's fur brush up against them, but no one could say who
it was. Others recalled a pale, gaunt figure who complained at length
about the New 52 and berated everyone in hearing for not reading the
comics of Daniel Clowes, then vanished, walking between the shadows at midnight.

I feel like we really paid some good homage to yesteryear, here~

Dr. Stomper nodded. "I'm feeling a little sad, though. Just thinking about everyone who's come and gone."

"Such as Captain LNH?"

"I was thinking more about the characters of authors who went away.
As awful as this may sound, in a way, the deaths are easier to deal
with. That way there's some closure. I was thinking of the characters of authors who moved on or dropped off the Net, who never had a chance to
have their stories finished in a satisfying way."

And a very pointed reference here. X3

Sing-Along Lass nodded. "It does feel strange not having Rebel Yell
or Lurking Girl here. I still sometimes think that one day they're just
going to walk in and come back like nothing had happened..."

Everyone gasped. The crowd had clustered by the door, staring at the two figures who had just walked in. "Who is it?" said Sing-Along Lass.

"It's... no... it can't be!" said Doctor Stomper.

"Obscure Trivia Lad thought they were gone forever!"

"That's right!" said the figure at the room. "It's us -- Halls
Jordan, the Cosmic Custodian, and Cliche Dude!"

heeheehee :3 Notably, Jef popped up on the LNH Facebook group around this time and declared all of his characters freely usable, so Jeanne took this opportunity to bring a couple of them back in a big way.

Masterplan Lad shuffled awkwardly as the party roared on around him. The crowd was so large he felt like he could barely breathe. He wanted
to be talking with someone, but he didn't want to start a conversation
with anyone. Where would he even begin? He barely recognized anyone in
this sea of faces around him.

And this is a good step towards his later characterization. :>

"I'm quite familiar with the tropes of this genre, you know. Hmm. You're right, though. How about... David X. McKenna?"

"Ha! That's pretty clever. Well, I think it's clever, but I'm
getting extremely drunk." She smirked. "You ever drunk before? You have
that fresh-faced cherubic teetotaller look about you."

"...I can't remember, but probably not."

Adorable. :>

Masterplan Lad stroked his recently-bearded chin. Had she been
trying to flirt with him? It was impossible to tell. She'd have to have
been fairly drunk to find him attractive.

Aw sweetie. X3 I hope his egg cracks soon.

He'd felt that uncomfortable twinge of feeling he
felt -- thankfully intermittently -- around men, women, and especially,
it would seem, gender-indeterminate chaos beings.

^.~

"Oh, sorry," he said reflexively.

"Thank you?" said the young man, as if someone apologizing was so
rare to him he couldn't quite believe it had happened.

Poor WikiBoy. X3

"That's interesting," he said. "Did you know in advance what kind of truck you were going to turn into?"

"I don't know?"

"I deliberately tried not to picture anything. So your traits beyond
the order that's given you initially -- when you developed needles for
fingers initially, for example -- could be under your control?"

And a step in our characterization of him, too. :>

Irony Man II, slipping gingerly around the party, smiled at Halls Jordan's expression of frustration with time travel. It was a fine
ironic smile, one she'd spent her whole life cultivating, but it was
wasted on the party, as she was wearing a mask, and she didn't want
anyone to pay attention to her anyway. Then again, there was a certain satisfying irony to that.

She's such a neeeeeeeerd


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