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or you can try google groups racc for this issue of JAMWCtwPNHaE.

Jeanne Morningstar gives us 'Just Another Multi-Writer Cascade That Will Probably Never Have an Ending' chapter 12. Are we reaching the end and
did Dr. Turn-On-Tune-Out-Drop-Out bring enough Fruit Rollups of
Enlightenment for Everyone?!


Find out in...



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| |__ | [] | | [] | | | | [] | | _ \

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

ADVENTURES #242


=====================
Just Another Multi-Writer Cascade that will
Probably Never Have an Ending Part Eight
=====================






From: Adrian McClure mrfantastic7 at gmail.com
Date: Wed Apr 1 12:14:55 PDT 2015

NOT A HOAX! NOT A DREAM! NOT AN APRIL FOOL'S JOKE! IT'S…

JUST ANOTHER CASCADE THAT WILL NEVER HAVE AN ENDING #12

"Everything Ends"

by Adrian McClure

Note: This issue continues from Looniverse Y #14

[The cover shows someone holding the Kubrik's Kube in her hand, against the backdrop of stars. Each of the Kube's facets show the face of a different LNHer.]

OUTER SPACE, THE PLANET INFERIOR

The end was near, Net.Access knew it. Lan.OS had dramatically gestured his hands to send Net.Access to the Friend Zone to retrieve the Kubrick's Kube
and allow him to fulfil his destiny. Which, of course, she was going to
stop. She was already running through strategies to defeat this fearsome
enemy. She'd already helped her friends save the universe from the Hungry
Past in a really impressive way she couldn't quite remember [cf. the ending
of Just Imagine, coming soon], but now she'd do it on her own. This would
be her moment, the moment when she proved she was truly worthy of being an LNHer.

LAN.os waved his hand and nothing happened. "Where are you?" he said "Bah!
I knew I could never rely upon a woman!"

"Don't ask me," said Net.Access. "I'm not doing anything. I have no idea
what's happening." She frowned. There was something weirdly familiar about
this "Friend Zone" thing, but she couldn't quite pin down why. She had
tried taking Advanced Metacosmology in her one semester of Dave Thomas
Deluxe University, but the class was at 8:30 in the morning, so she'd
gotten absolutely nothing out of it. It had probably been a bad idea to
take it as a freshman, too, and she probably shouldn't have taken 27 credit hours. No one had ever accused her of lacking ambition.

"Hold on," she said. "I think I remember about this "Friend Zone"—you can't enter it alone. That's kind of the whole point. You need friends there."

"But… I have been alone for countless centuries of hellish torment! Forever alone!" Every single person in the audience winced.

"But you were sent here by a cosmic entity, right?" said Net.Access. "So
that wasn't how it's supposed to work normally."

"I… perhaps." LAN.os crossed his arms and grunted. "Where, then, are your friends?"

"I… I don't know." They were all back on Earth, as far as she knew. She
hoped she'd live to see them again, and she couldn't wait to tell them
about all this. "I think there are ways of getting around this. Hold on."

Holding the pattern in her mind, she shifted her body again. This time
she'd turned into a mode of transport again, but it was a different kind of thing—a time ship, not borrowing from classical mythology but from a book she'd read recently based on a TV show that was probably never coming back.

"Okay guys," she said, "I've summoned the block transfer equations of a
Type 103 Time Ship. I'll need a crew to operate me, though."

"You may take whoever you wish," said LAN.os, "as long as Ultimate Ninja
and Fearless Leader, the leaders, remain here."

Ultimate Ninja screamed and leaped, drawing his katana. LAN.os's hologram, flickering with power, backhanded him, freezing him in place.

"That's not going to work," said Sister State-the-Obvious

"I guess we'll have to negotiate," said Fearless Leader.

"All right," said Net.Access, "we'll need a group with a wide range of
skills and abilities for whatever we might encounter out there. I'm going with…" She rubbed her chin for a moment, inwardly cackling with glee. All
her time reading the LNH roster would finally pay off. Although the team
had probably gained a lot of members since she had left the Looniverse.
Well, she'd work with what she could remember. "Well, beside me, how
about.. Catalyst Lass, Doctor Stomper, Sister State-the-Obvious—"

"I"m here!" said Sister State-the-Obvious.

"Dr. Turn-On-Tune-In-Drop-Out…" She remembered the Legion of Net.Hippies a bit from her history reading at least.

"Absolutely!"

"—and… Pliable Lad? How did you get here?"

"Rifts, I guess," said Pliable Lad. He shrugged. "Last I remember, I was in
the LNHQ, trying to help close them, then we put a piece of Beige Midnight Story into the rifts to close them, and I guess I got dragged through them."

"Most likely," said Dr. Stomper, "you were hit by crossover radiation."

"OK, Pliable Lad. Then we're good to go."

"Very well then!" said LAN.os "And remember, if you do not retrieve the
Kube and bring me to this world, I will kill every one of these LNHers!"
The Legionnaires readied for combat—Cannon Fodder raised his gun and Token Girl her slingshot that shot exploding bus tokens—but before they could
move, red force fields appeared around everyone's chair.

"You and what army?" said Token Girl.

"This one, as it happens." LAN.os pointed to his assembled soldiers. "But
as it happens, I do not need them!" He snapped his fingers and a red bolt struck Cannon Fodder, killing him. Cannon Fodder sighed.

"…all right. Let's do this." Net.Access unfolded her own body, revealing a door.

"Gah!" said Pliable Lad. He blinked. "Never mind, sorry. I'm the last
person who should be freaked out by weird shapeshifting stuff…" He opened
the door and hesitantly walked in. The others followed. They found
themselves in a wide, airy room with walls and console made of pink and
purple crystal.

"Oooh, nice," said Catalyst Lass. Dr. Stomper

"Sister State-The-Obvious?" said Pliable Lad. "What happened to your hair?"

"I cut it."

"Uh…" Catalyst Lass looked at Sister State-the-Obvious's hand, where her wedding ring had once been, and frowned. "OK, so does anyone have any
plans? I assume the idea was to get us all in here so we could make an
escape plan to take down LAN.os."

"Yeah," said Net.Access. "Can any of you contact the outside?"

"Of course we can coordinate, man," said Dr. Turn-On-Tune-In-Drop-Out.
"I'll just use my mega-groovy astral form! Just give me a moment to trip out…" He pulled something from his pocket.

"Is that a fruit rollup?" said

"It's not just any fruit rollup, man! It's a Fruit Rollup of Enlightenment, engrooved with the patterns of the cosmos."

"Well, whatever works," said Net.Access. "Anyway, can you join with your teammates and arrange some kind of jailbreak?"

"Sure thing!" Dr. Turn-On-Tune-In-Drop-Out unrolled the fruit roll-up, sat
in the lotus position, and slowly and reverently ate it. A ghostly blue afterimage afterimage of him floated up from his body and then vanished, bursting into sparkling blue lights…

****

All of the LNH had been teleported into LAN.os's massive dungeon, where
they were imrpisoned in stasis pods. (Your favorite character who hasn't
shown up yet was probably there, but unfortunately didnt' have much to do
other than be trapped and confused.)

Burning Bra Lass struggled against her bonds, as Anti-Christ Lad attempted
to send forth his soul-self beside her. The ghostly form of Dr. Turn-On-Tune-in-Drop-Out appeared in midair in front of them. "Whoa, this
is radical!" he said.

.o(What are you doing here?) said Burning Bra Lass, effortlessly slipping
into the psychic speech the team had practiced.

.o(I've got, like, this important message to lay down on you, brother and sister. I'm—uh—)

.o(What is this grave message which you have to impart to us, my friend?)
said Anti-Christ Lad.

.o(I… um… whoa! Look at that, man! I can hear the cosmos resonate… Seriously what if, like, our universe was like one small atom in this
massive cosmic macrostructure? You ever think about that?)

.o(Oh no), said Burning Bra Lass. She would have slapped her forehead if
she could

.o(My friend, you have partaken overmuch of the food of enlightenment!)

.o(Seriously man you… whoa, your'e really pretty.) His astral hand reached out to touch Anti-Christ Lad's face.

.o(…thank you?) said Anti-Christ Lad, blushing.

.o(Look, this ain't the time,) said Burning Bra Lass, but she found herself smiling. .o(Save the cute stuff for later, just tell us what's going down.)

.o(We're hoping we can start a jail break, man. I can give you a blast of cosmic love to jump start your powers! Wait, no, that came out all weird, man…)

.o(Yes, that did sound rather off color, my friend, although—)

.o(Save it for later, you two), said Burning Bra Lass, grinning ear to ear.
Dr. Turn-On-Tune-In-Drop-Out touched each of their foreheads with his
astral fingers, setting off blue sparks, and then he vanished.

Burning Bra Lass closed her eyes and clenched her fists. Her bra began to crackle with a bright orange flame, which gradually spread out over the
pod. Then it burst open and she fell on the floor, covered with stasis
fluid, and determiend. "There ain't no chain I can't break!" she cried,
raising her fist in the sky.

Two of the Dorf guards, soldiers left over from the invasion the LNH had
fought as well as other factions of the prolonged Dorf Civil War that had
since fallen apart [see LNH v2 #50], charged in after her, rifles at the
ready. She knocked one down with a single punch to the gut, then blasted another with flames. A third, behind her, was felled by a nerve pinch from
the guard beside her. "That you, Anti-Christ Lad?" said Burning Bra Lass.
As if in answer, the possessed guard floated in midair and his head began
to spin around, vomiting on the four guards who were closing in.

She smashed Anti-Christ Lad's pod, freeing him, and he drew his soul-self
back into his body. "We won!" said Burning Bra Lass.

"Do you call this a victory? When I have yet again used my Satanic powers
and fallen into the path of my dark destiny? I—"

"Leave the speech-making to the politicians, Anti-Christ Lad. We got a
universe to save."

"Aye, but how do we free the Legion in time to face that entire army?" The
Dorf guards were swarming into the prison station.

"We kick their ass. It's simple."

"True. And yet I cannot help but feel a certain regret. How many of them
are truly committed to LAN.os's evil cause? I entered the mind of yon soldier—he joined LAN.os after his army fell apart, but his mind was full
of regrets and fears he could not bring himself to express…"

"Hmm, maybe you got a point. Let's see…" She backflipped on top of the paltform in the center of the room. "Listen up people!" she said. The whole army stopped in their tracks. "All right," she said. "You could beat us up now—which would mean a lot of hurt for you. What are you getting out of it?"

"We must serve the will of LAN.os!" shouted one.

"Why?" said Burning Bra Lass, crossing her arms. The flames in her bra
leaped up for emphasis.

"Because he pays us!" said another.

"…not really," said a third. "Not a whole lot." They started to grumble
among themselves.

"I know that a lot of you are outcast in your own worlds, with nowhere to
go. But LAN.os won't do you any good. You'll just replace one thing that's pressing you down for another. Do you want to keep lashing out because you
can and hurt people who are just like you? Or do you want to *use* your
anger and hit where it matters?"

"Let's get him!" said an insectoid alien in the crowd, starting a mutter
that gradually turned into a roar.

"I thought so," said Burning Bra Lass.

"I thought you said to leave the speech making to the politicians?"
whispered Anti-Christ Lad.

"Yeah, I'm better than you at that. Sorry." She smirked.

"Good job, people!" Dr. Turn-On-Tune-In-Drop-Out's astral form flickered
back into existence. "Sorry, just tuned out there a bit."

"Yeah—gnn!" Burning Bra Lass's flames shot up again, and she fell on her knees before pulling herself together..

"Hey, are you ok?" Dr. Turn-On-Tune-In-Drop-Out's astral form hovered over
her. "You gotta be careful, man. Like, I admire you a lot, but sometimes
I'm worried you give too much for the cause. Like, if you're fighting a
world that doesn't love you, you gotta love yourself too, y'know?"

"Yeah, yeah. Let's just get this done."

****

Net.Access found herself materializing within the Friend Zone. At the
moment, the sky was bright a rainbow of soft colors. She stood on a cliff overlooking a calm ocean. Iridescent birds flew by and sang melodious
songs. In the ocean, she could see dolphins playing. A light purple octopus arose from the depths and waved at her with its tentacles, then sank back
down.

It was a calm, peaceful place. She wanted to stay here and enjoy the
feeling of the soft breeze and take in everything. But she didn't want to
be there alone. Maybe someday she'd be able to take Victoria here and they could sit together and watch the ocean… assuming that worked out.

"Ahem," said LAN.os. Net.Access remembered what she was doing there and coughed. "Now, we shall join together and capture the Kube—and then I shall be victorious! Even with all your might, you shall never be able to
overcome me! It shall be a battle for the ages, but one where I shall
triumph, for I possess the rational aptitude that you, a mere woman, can
never imagine!"

"All right then," she said, "Let's get this over with." She unfolded
herself again, revealing the door. LAN.os stared in disgust, but then
opened the door, cackling with glee…

And fell into an endless dark void, screaming all the way down.

"What happened?" said Pliable Lad.

"I sent him to a null-time pocket," said Net.Access. "It should hold until
we get this mess sorted out."

"Well, it looks as if we managed the prison break, and bagging LAN.os,"
said Catalyst Lass. "Now we just find the Kube. That should be pretty easy
for you as a time ship, right?"

"I—" The console room shook. "Uh," said Net.Access, "I'm not sure how long
I can hold this together. I'm channeling these equations from another
universe, but I don't really understand them. But I should be able to grab
the Kube."

"Hmm," said Doctor Stomper, fiddling with the dials on her console.
Net.Access found herself wishing again that Victoria were here. She might understand this weird feeling of not quite inhabiting your own body. And
Dr. Stomper was doing pretty well piloting her but Victoria, even without
the mindlink they possessed when Net.Access was in machine form, would do
so much better. She imagined Victoria's fingers deftly operating her controls… And then she felt herself blush a little. Thankfully, she was in the vortex of Hypertext-time, and no one was around to watch…

"Oooh, that was neat," said Catalyst Lass.

"…what was?" said Net.Acccess.

"When you made the wall of your console room glow a bit."

Net.Access sighed. "Dr. Stomper, can you zero in on the Kube?"

"I—hmm." He put up a diagram of Hypertext-time—everything the LNH was or could be—on the screen. "I think we may have other problems. Pliable Lad,"
he said, pointing to the jagged and growing holes in the
constantly-shifting structure, "are those the rifts you meantioned?"

"Yeah, I'm afraid so," he said. "We tried to fix things by activating some inspiration particles with concentrated Beige Midnight Story…"

"I see," said Dr. Stomper. A golden glow was making its way up the holes, slowly patching them, but not as fast as they were growing. "We'll have to stimulate the inspiration particles somehow. It should be possible to
restore the universe as long as nobody's started any cascades since this
one." He opened the LNH wiki and skimmed the list of recent stories.

"Hey," said Pliable Lad, looking over his shoulder, "what's Death of Trophy Wife?"

"Oh dear," said Dr. Stomper.

And then the multiverse exploded.
-------------- next part --------------


From: Adrian McClure mrfantastic7 at gmail.com
Date: Wed Apr 1 12:19:49 PDT 2015


"No," said Catalyst Lass, as the rifts opened wide, encompassing
everything. At first slowly, and then faster and faster, everything on the diagram began to fade away. And then there was nothing. Not light, not darkness, not noise, not silence. Nothing at all.

For a moment that stretched out forever—although it was hard to tell,
because there was no time anymore except for the bubble inside the ship—everyone was silent.

Then a being appeared in midair—a stick figure with angel wings and a
flaming sword. "What the hell is that?" said Catalyst Lass.

"Uh... that's the embodiment of Simplicity," said Net.Access [last seen in Ultimate Mercenary #7]

"Ha!" it said. "I told you if you made things too complicated everything
would be destroyed! I was right! I told you soooooo…" Then, gradually, he faded away and was gone. The silence fell again. Everyone stared out at the nothing in the viewscreen.

"Man, what a drag," said Dr. Tune-on-Turn-In-Drop-Out.

"So it's just us," said Sister State-the-Obvious.

"It is," said Net.Access. "And I don't think I can keep us here for much longer. We're basically going to die in a few minutes." She made a muffled noise that was somewhere between laughter and crying. The room turned
silent again, until Pliable Lad said, "huh."

"What is it?" said Catalyst Lass.

"I think I know why I'm here now," said Pliable Lad. "See, I was jumping
back and forth between these different timelines… I guess they were all different worlds of RACC. This was a couple months after the first vote to create RACC which failed. [Pliable Lad #8] And I think the RACelestials
sent me there so I could decide for the vote. And maybe they wanted me to
see if RACC has a future… I guess it doesn't." He laughed weakly.

"We lost," said Sister State-The-Obvious.

"No we haven't, not yet," said Catalyst Lass. "Come on, guys. We can retcon this."

"Yeah! This, uh, this isn't even the first time the entire universe has
died, right?" said Net.Access.

Dr. Stomper rubbed his beard. "I'd like to believe that's the case. But frankly, our entire existence as a group after 20 years stretches
probability to the breaking point. If it ended here I wouldn't be
surprised. I'll do what I can, but I'm not really sure what I can do."

"We do totally have some of the most brilliant and groovy minds of all
time, dude," said Dr. Tune-On-Turn-In-Drop-Out.

"True," said Dr. Stomper. "If only we had time…"

"I.. I don't know… I don't want to bring it back," said Sister-State-the-Obvious. "Usenet has died out. Most of the authors who
made the LNH matter are gone and took their characters with them. And most
of the relationships that people cared about are gone… All of the LNH
stories this year have been written by two people. It has to end
eventually. There are so many things in fandom culture that get drawn out
too long and do nothing but disappoint people."

"What? How can you say that?" said Dr. Stomper. "You want to kill
everything?"

She shook her head. "I can't make myself care."

"wReanna," said Dr. Stomper, "I know your marriage doesn't exist anymore, but… but…" He shook his head. "But that's the thing. There aren't happy endings for people like us. But there's always other stories, new
potential. It never ends."

"It just did."

"I…" He looked out the window, into the great emptiness where the universe had been, their small spaceship the only fragment of life remaining. "I
wish Sing-Along Lass were here."

"It was never going to work out."

"I know." Tears glistened in his eyes, though he held his voice even. "I
just remembered her—her powers—she was able to channel the Cosmic Plot Device. [in Beige Midnight] I was hoping—" He looked out into the window,
his words lost in the nothing all around them.

"I'm sorry," croaked Sister State the Obvious. She squeezed his hand.
"You're a good man."

"Thank you."

"But that's not enough."

"Maybe not," said Pliable Lad, ‘but it's not just him. I don't know how
much has changed since my time, but… Even with just the six of us, we're still the Legion, and there's nothing we can't do!"

"He's right," said Net.Access. "We can do this. And we should. When I was
in college, struggling to get stuff done, with no money and no social life,
I used to read about the Legion every day. It was the only hope I had.
Maybe there's someone out there in the Real World who feels the same way.
Even if there's just one or two people who care about it, that's still
enough."

"Yeah!" said Catalyst Lass. "We can bring back the world. And we should. There's so much great stuff. like Cheesecake Eater Lad and his pepperoni
and avocado cheesecakes, and Token Girl and her life size Totoro plushie,
and the Peril Room and the sub-basements, the kiwis and the oozelfinches…
all of that."

Everyone gasped. Somewhere in the cold and endless emptiness, a star
briefly flickered back into life.

"Wait a minute," said Catalyst Lass. "Did I just—"

"Catalyze the universe back into existence for a bit?" said Doctor Stomper. "I… I think so."

"Hmm. Is there any way we can boost my catalytic effect?"

"…I think so!" said Net.Access. "I could use my circuits to 'broadcast' the effect, maybe…"

"But we'd have to use both magic and science, and like… smoosh them
together, man," said Dr. Turn-On-Tune-In-Drop-Out.

"Well," said Net.Access, "we could use my block transfer circuitry to do
that, I guess…" The room shuddered again. "I think I can hold together that long. It'd take a lot of power though."

"We could use your own enthusiasm for the LNH as a battery source!" said
Doctor Stomper. He and Dr. Turn-On-Tune-In-Drop-Out huddled together and started drawing up plans and technobabbling together.

"We will need some rubber bands though," Doctor Stomper added.

"I guess I can take care of that," said Pliable Lad.

After some rummaging around, they put together a device, stuck together out
of various things in Dr. Stomper's and Dr. Turn-On-Tune-in-Drop-Out's
pockets and held together by Pliable Lad. "Oww," said Pliable Lad. "This
kind of hurts."

"Don't worry," said Doctor Stomper. "This shouldn't take long."

The ship was absolutely quiet. At first nothing seemed to happen. But gradually, one by one, pieces of the world back to life, then faster and
faster as the device ran on. Pliable Lad felt his mind stretch and distort along with his body. He heard a strange noise somewhere, on a plane beyond
the physical. He was conscious of being watched by something far beyond his comprehension.

Philosophers and mystics might argue about whether a tree falling in a
forest made a sound, but Pliable Lad now knew what was the sound of RACelestials nodding.

Catalyst Lass stared into the whirling depths of the "Oh my god," said Catalyst Lass. "I can see… I can see everything. The Kube—it's a microcosm of the Usenetverse. The pattern—it's everywhere—I can see it!"

The winds of creation blasted the ship out of the outside dimension it had occupied. But now it was caught in the stream of time and space between
worlds, drifting through the kaleidoscopic of hypertext-time.

"Whoa!" said Dr. Turn-On-Tune-In-Drop-Out. "Turbulence!"

"We're going to crash!" said Sister State-the-Obvious.

"Look!" Catalyst Lass saw something approaching on the viewscreen from the stream between the worlds, something shrouded in darkness. "She's coming."

"What's that, man?" said Dr. Turn-On-Tune-in-Drop-Out. "That looks like one seriously bad trip, brothers and sisters—and it's headed our way!"

"I could have told you that," said Sister State the Obvious.

"No," said Catalyst Lass, who still had a blissed-out smile on her face.
"She can save us."

"She?"

As the dark being approached the ship, they saw it was a human figure in
armor. The armored being embraced the ship's figurehead, and there was a
burst of light. The LNH found themselves drifting gently through the air in
the same realm they'd left behind, with the armored figure holding
Net.access in their arms.

As she reached the ground, her helmet retracted, sending her long black
hair flowing in the dramatic wind that didn't seem to be affecting anyone
else.

Net.Access opened her eyes and saw the woman standing over her. "Victoria?
I'm alive?"

"Yeah. I got you, Alice."

"What's going on? Where are we?"

"I reached you through the Friend Zone," she said. "That's where we are
now. Because… we are friends, and we always will be even if things don't
work out in, you know, the dating way. And I'm not going to let go of that.
I think…"

"Yeah?"

"I think we can make this work. I don't know who I was before, but
everything we've been through together, where we are now… It matters. I
think this is worth a try."

"Oh my god, really?" She nuzzled into Victoria. "That's great!"

"I…" Victoria smiled uneasily, stroking her hair. "I honestly find it kind
of hard to believe you're really into me."

"Why? You're great."

Victoria looked away and shook her head. "No I'm not. You're cool and
confident and heroic. I'm scared and confused and I have no idea what I'm doing."

Net.Access laughed. "You really think I know what I'm doing? Well I don't.
My life, it's like this train whose brakes fell out and the ride's great
but what's going to happen when I reach the destination? I have no idea
what I'm doing either. Well… except for hopefully you."

"Aaaa!" Victoria twitched, almost dropping Net.Access.

"Oh my god!" Nec.Access slapped her forehead. "Did I go to far?"

"No! No, I uh, I… I really like that you're, you're into me like that."
She tapped Net.Access on the nose. Net.Access laughed, putting her arms
around Victoria's neck, and drew in to kiss her.

"Aaaaa!" said Catalyst Lass. "That's so adorable!" Victoria drew her sword, dropping Net.access on the ground. "Oh, sorry," she said. "I, I just,
romance is great. I'm Catalyst Lass." She hurriedly re-composed herself and held out her hand. "Sorry."

"OK, I've heard of you," said Victoria. She looked around, taking in the scenery, and frowned. "OK, what's going on here?"

"Well!" said Doctor Stomper, "Quite a bit, really." He then explained as
best he could about the Rifts.

"Hmmm, I knew about the rifts," said Victoria. "I ran into that in the
other universe. So where's this Kube—"

"I've got it." Catalyst Lass had pulled the Kube out of her pocket and was playing with it, almost caressing it. Her laughter was a little worrying.
"I remember the pattern," she whispered. "I can do this… I can remember everything. I can reach the out to the whole universe. I can make
*everyone* happy."

"Should we maybe do something?" said Victoria, but she found she couldn't
move. The device began to throb with an unearthly hum, and Catalyst Lass
was enraptured in the slowly cohering pattern.

A tiny metal disc whooshed through the air, knocking out of her hands with
an explosion. "Not a chance, Galadriel," said Token Girl.

"What? How dare you?" She blinked, slowly taking in the world around her.
"Oh! Tara!" " She leaped at Token Girl like a cat, almost knocking her
over. "You're alive!"

"Yeah." She smirked. "I thought that was Sister State the Obvious's job."

"You'd be surprised," said Sister State-the-Obvious.

"You OK?" said Token Girl.

"Yeah, just feeling kind of… cosmic," said Catalyst Lass. "I saw
everything, I can't remember it all, but… there were three things. Three things I had to remember. About the future of the Legion. I know—I know who needs the Kube." She bent down to pick it up and put it back into her
pocket, not looking at it.

"Let's get going," said Token Girl. "There's a revolution going on. It
should be winding down right about now."

"How did you find me, anyway?" said Catalyst Lass.

"Well, duh, this is the Friend Zone. I guess you must have brought me here subconsciously since you knew you needed me." She side-hugged her tightly
as they walked together. They realized a glowing blue aura had surrounded
them, which gave off a bell-like tone. When Victoria reached down to help
up Net.Access, they too were surrounded by an aura, impossibly bright. Dr. Stomper reached out his hand to Sister State-The-Obvious, who took it. A
faint aura surrounded them. Each aura had a different color and tone. The LNHers realized they were hearing music all around them, the echoes of all those who had passed through this world.

"Man," said Catalyst Lass, "this place is pretty nice. Why would anyone
hate it?"

"Some people," said Dr. Turn-On-Tune-In-Drop-Out, "are just not groovy."

As it happened, Token Girl's entrance into the dimension had created a
portal back to Planet Inferior. The rest of the team stepped back through
it, to the former throne room of LAN.os, where the army was gathered along
with the freed LNHers.

"Welcome back!" said Anti-Christ Lad. "Where is LAN.os? Yon disgruntled
horde would have words with him?"

"I've got him," said Net.Access. She hacked up the time bubble, which
burst, dropping LAN.os on the floor. He was once more in his throne room,
but things were quite different for him now, surrounded by a hostile army.

"All right," said Burning Bra Lass, "it's over for you now, LAN.os. The fat lady sang. And that's me!"

"No! No! It can't end like this!" LAN.os was on the verge of tears. "You
can't take this away from me! Everything I ever did, I did for love!"

"Well why didn't you pay us?" said one of the Dorf soldiers.

"Love is expensive!" He stood up and his hands crackled with energy. He probably couldn't stop this whole army, Catalyst Lass thought, but he'd do
a lot of damage going down. "I will not stand for this! I must have the Kubrik's Kube! I must have the love of Lydia—"

"Okay, this has gone on long enough." Lydia Devin stepped out of the
shadows, facing LAN.os. "Look. I hate to break it to you—well, actually, I don't—but it's not going to work. For one thing, I'm not interested in *any*one that way. For another thing, I wouldn't be interested in you
anyway. You don't need the Kube, because it'd just tell you what you
already know and you won't listen. The reason no one wants you isn't
because the universe is unfair, it's because you're a colossal douchebag."

LAN.os removed the fedora from his head and shed a single tear.

"And incidentally," said Lydia, "I could write a whole damn book about how unfair the universe is, and in fact I did [it's being revised right now!—ed.], and you don't hear me whining half as much as you."

"I… I…" LAN.os fell to the floor and started bawling. "Then I have lost everything! What is there left for me to do?"

"Well, um," said Lydia, "you could try exploring the Friend Zone a bit. You know, actually making friends.Not that I could give you any help there.
That's why i sent you there—you'd have to really make friends with someone
if you wanted to get out. I could have just destroyed you, or I don't know, punished you by turning you into a dildo or something, but… That's who i
am, I guess. That's not what I want to do with my life. "

"Ha! How could I ever have idolized you?" LAN.os grimaced through his
tears. "You are foolish, and weak—"

"Well, I'm not the one trying to take over the universe because I was
turned down, so what ever" said Lydia.

"OK," said Fearless Leader, "it looks like we're pretty much done. Let's—"


[continued in next message]

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