Baron Zemo's Lair. - spiffy #5- To Lead a Lair Legion, part one.

Baron Zemo's Lair

spiffy #5- To Lead a Lair Legion, part one.
Monday, 18-Oct-1999 21:24:36
24.64.71.35 writes:

spiffy #5- To Lead a Lair Legion, part one.

“This meeting is now in session!” the Dark Knight announced firmly, slamming his gloved fist into the table for emphasis. His tone left it very clear that argument would not be tolerated. “First order of business,” he pushed onwards, “is Lair Legion strategy and procedure. An area,” he added, staring pointedly at Visionary, “that my predecessors left woefully unorganised. Would anyone like to say anything before I begin?”
spiffy timidly raised his hand, then let it drop as the Knight sent a withering glare in his direction.
Somehow still shadowed in the well-lit conference room, the Lair Legion’s current chairperson whirled on his heel and paced towards the wall. With a sharp, smooth gesture of his right hand, he unfurled a map and flattened it onto the wall.
“This, as I expect all of you are already aware,” he said, tapping the map with a pointer, “...is Parodiopolis. You should all study it, examine it, learn its every twist and bend. This,” he tapped it three times in quick succession, “is where our enemies live, sleep, and breed.”
“Eugh, they breed?” someone muttered under their breath. The Dark Knight’s head snapped towards the source, his narrowed eyes scanning the room. There was dead silence.
“This city,” he finally continued, “is what each and every one of you is sworn to protect, be it from villain or natural catastrophe. And protect it you shall, whether it means your skin is boiled off, your marrow sucked from your bones, your eyeballs slowly sucked from their sockets... your very lives mean nothing if the city falls.”
His eyes roamed back and forth, examining nervous and uncertain faces. He would shape them.
“I have split the city into six quadrants. Each team will be responsible for one quadrant during a four hour period, after which they will rotate. The teams are posted and...”
“Waaaaaiiiit a second,” Hatman interrupted him. The Dark Knight turned his piercing gaze towards the capped crusader, who gulped nervously. “If there’s six teams, and we spend four hours at each spot... that’s twenty-four hours. When do we, um... sleep? And eat?”
“Those things are for the weak,” the Knight glowered.
Just then, the security alert started to buzz. DK flipped a hidden switch, and a television screen instantly descended from the ceiling. A quick press of a button, and the screen flickered to life.
“This is Nancy Daniels reporting from downtown Parodiopolis, where chaos has broken loose.”
“Seems to do that every couple days...” spiffy noted.
“Baron Zemo’s Scourge moments ago entered the Royal Burger and reportedly sat down to order lunch. A waitress wisely activated the silent alarm, and police has just arrived on the scene. The Scourge’s reaction is not yet...” her voice trailed off as a police cruiser exploded in the background and Venom pounced on a startled officer. “The Scourge has now been engaged. Please avoid this area at all costs. I repeat, the Scourge has...”
The image died and everyone’s attention returned to the chairman, who was already formulating plans.
“Hatman, deploy the Legion’s scout cameras to stake out the scene. Yo, inform the air traffic control office that the LairJet will need cleared airspace within the next five minutes. Goldeneyed, take CrazySugarFreakBoy! to the scene and assist with evacuation procedures. Everyone else with me, to the hanger!”
No one moved.
“Which cameras?” Hatman asked nervously after a few seconds.
“Can I, like... leave?” spiffy offered. “I’m not even in the LL, I just live here.”
The Dark Knight gave a long sigh, massaging his temples with one hand while shaking his head. “I’ll take care of it,” he muttered, and leaped out the window.
“I think you need a less competent chairperson,” Cheryl whispered to Lisa in the silence that followed.

“Okay, um... I call this meeting to order,” spiffy said hesitantly. He stood awkwardly at the head of the conference table with everyone seated around it. All their eyes were trained on him. He swallowed hard. “Um, first of all... regarding the last meeting...” The word ‘meeting’ was several octaves above normal, as his voice cracked at the most innoportune of moments. His face flushed as several Legionnaires raised their hands to their mouths to conceal laughter. Cheryl gave him an encouraging thumbs-up, so he swallowed again and continued. “Ah... the proposed revision of Legion strategy and protocols is being researched by NTU and Yo, who will report on whether it is necessary or not.” NTU-150’s eyes got very wide and darted back and forth.
“Friend-Enty and Yo-being will do job good!” Yo chirped. Enty’s face paled and he shook his head frantically.
“Moving on,” spiffy began, ignoring the inventor’s disaccord, “as the first order of business, I’d like to propose that we hunt down the assassin known as...” he looked up from his paper. “The Bone.”
Everyone stared at him. Starseed’s eyes narrowed, but Lisa was the first to speak.
“That’s a good idea, spiff... but aren’t there more pressing concerns than the Bone? Like... villains that’ve been active in the past decade?”
“I think the fact that we haven’t heard anything about him is more than enough reason to track him down,” spiffy insisted stubbornly. “Who knows what he’s been planning for all this time?”
“That’s true,” Lisa said slowly, “but don’t you think that a task force should be assigned to learn more about the situation before the entire team moves in?”
“What she’s saying,” Starseed broke in, “is that the Legion isn’t for personal concerns.”
“Of course, I know that...” spiffy assured him, quietly crossing off number two on the list, ‘get me together with Lauren.’ “I just thought I’d address it as a concern.”
There was a brief silence, with everyone’s eyes trained on spiffy. “What’s next, dear?” Cheryl prodded.
spiffy’s face reddened again. “Uh... that was kind of it,” he said lamely.

“... the Scourge was defeated by urban legend the Dark Knight, but managed to activate their teleportation grid in time to escape capture. Zemo’s press agent assures the public that no scheme of his was thwarted, and that the Scourge had simply been out for lunch.”
“So...” spiffy was sitting on the couch in front of the TV, where the weather had just come on. “That could’ve gone better, huh?”
“Aye,” Donar nodded in agreement. “Jarvis ‘twas a much more worthy leader than thou.” His face turned thoughtful as spiffy glared at him. “Except perhaps the period in which he was mad.”
“Angry mad or psycho mad?”
“As I remember, ‘twas a bit of both...” Donar muttered.
“It wasn’t that bad, spiff,” Banjooooo reassured him. “Better than SG’s meeting, anyway.”
spiffy shuddered. “Vizh still hasn’t gotten rid of the trout stains.”
“And you’ve got the whole status thing! You outrank...” Banjooooo’s gaze drifted over Donar, a prince of Ausgard, and Avatar, the former Parody Warrior who was flipping through a magazine across the room. Then there was him, the supreme ruler of his underwater kingdom. “Uh...” he paused to think. “You outrank Vizh!”
“He’s not on the team,” spiffy said dryly.
“And neither are you, technically,” Banjooooo concluded. “There you go, you outrank Vizh.”
“Hold, comrades!” Donar suddenly cried, cutting off spiffy’s retort. “‘tis a novel comedy program! Pray thee, watch!”
“If it’s a sitcom,” spiffy said slowly, looking at the screen, “then how come that reporter lady’s on it?”
“Once again, this is Nancy Daniels reporting live from Parody Square, where a new team of villains has taken a group of tourists hostage in the opening gambit of a malicious scheme. Their leader has requested an interview.” Confidently, she strode towards the edge of the square, where six figures stood in the shadows. Five seemed human, and the other looked like a horse. “Excuse me, this is Nancy Daniels reporting for PCB, may I speak to the man in charge?”
“Certainly,” a man’s voice said, and its owner stepped into the light. His diminutive figure was enrobed in a leopard-pattern jumpsuit with what appeared to be a vine in the place of a belt. “Greetings, viewers! You probably know me as Swingy, master of the swinging arts!”
“No way...” Banjooooo breathed. spiffy frowned at him.
“You know this guy?”
“Me and Finny fought him right after you died...” the sea monkey said, eyes fixated on the screen. “Well, kind of... he kept running into our legs until Finny stepped on him.”
“Several weeks ago, I was bested after an epic confrontation with the Makluan dragon, Fin Fang Foom, and Banjooooo, king of sea monkeys! But now, I have returned... and not alone! Allow me to introduce... the Living Statement, who labels his every action!”
A man dressed in a yellow spandex costume with two quotation marks on the front stepped forwards. “Breathe... breathe... breathe... wave... breathe...” he muttered, waving at the camera.
“Pudu Lad, the boy with the powers of six pudus!” Swingy continued. A boy that had a costume reminiscent of Bambi appeared.
“Pudus are the world’s smallest deer,” he chirped.
“Star-Fish, aquatic master of swimming!” The camera swung over to reveal an empty wall, then down to show a giant starfish with arms and legs protruding from between its points lying on the ground, gasping and weakly rocking back and forth. “And finally...” Swingy stepped aside to reveal two shadowy figures. A man dressed in a business suit stepped forwards, and opened his mouth to speak.
“A horse is a horse, of course, of course,
And no one can talk to a horse, of course,
Unless, of course, that talking horse,
Is the famous Mr. Ed!” he sang. Donar blinked.
“Hast they recruited the corpse of yon children’s entertainer? Be he not deceased?”
His question was answered as the horse-shaped figure stepped forward. A horse it was, but with rotting flesh barely covering its bones, and one eyeball hanging from its socket.
“Ew,” Troia noted as she walked by. The man started singing again.
“Not just some talking head,
He’s a rotting horse instead,
He can talk, and he’s dead,
He’s the zombie Mr. Ed!”
“They art truly scraping yon barrel for this program,” Donar said sadly.
“I... think they’re really villains,” Banjooooo said slowly.
“Nay,” Donar said emphatically. “No villains be so very unthreatening. Except perhaps Zemo.”
“Together,” Swingy continued, “we form the newest terror of Parodiopolis! Together we are... Proctology!”
There was stunned silence from the news crew. After a moment, the reporter whispered something into the villain’s ear. His eyes widened, and he whirled around to point accusingly at Pudu Lad.
“I TOLD you it meant something different!”
“Hey!” Pudu Lad raised his hands defensively. “My friend told me the mere mention of the name sent terror through his spine.”
Swingy sighed and turned back to the camera. “No matter... now, citizens, listen closely... if your civil government does not turn the city over to us within the hour, all of the hostages will be hurt. And it will be on your heads!” With that, he stalked back into the shadows, leaving a bewildered Ms. Daniels alone.
“They’re villains!” spiffy said decisively. He stood up and placed his hands firmly on his hips. “Lair Legion, line up!” he called out at the top of his voice.
“I, ah... don’t think we use that anymore, man,” Banjooooo muttered.

“They art NOT villains!” Donar insisted, his voice raising.
“Look,” spiffy grunted impatiently. “Hostages, demands, costumes… they’re villains!”
“Did thou see them??” the Ausgardian demanded.
“I…” spiffy paused. “Okay, uh… uh… the Birthday Bandit was lamer than them. And we fought him!” Banjooooo nodded emphatically as Donar gave them both puzzled looks.
“Who be…” he began, before being cut off by a loud beeping and flashing LED’s above their heads. NTU poked his head out from the cockpit.
“spiffy?” he called, a note of concern entering his voice. “Did you refuel the LairJet?”
“Ummm… no…” spiffy frowned. “That’s the leader’s… oh crap.”
“Yeah, see, the thing is, we don’t have any fuel,” NTU wet his lips nervously.
“Well at least we’re not over like…” spiffy started.
“A packed football stadium?” Banjooooo offered. spiffy leaped over to the window.
“So we are.”

NEXT: The Lair Legion fights Proctology!
The Lairjet… falls.
spiffy’s still leader!
Coming… soon.

spiffy