Posted by Dancer on February 19, 2001 at 16:27:04:
The Scene: The Bean and Donut Coffee Bar, where celebrity visitors little suspect that they are being waited on by Dancer in her secret identity (mild mannered waitress Sarah Shepherdson] Nats: I still don’t think it is fair that we don’t have an asteroid base. All the cool teams have outer space bases. Trickshot: Yeah. And Dark Knight. All the cool teams and Dark Knight. Ziles: Outer space bases are passé. They’re so sixteenth sector. Hatman: And think of the bus fares to get to work. Nats: I still say we should have one. Maybe we could battle some intergalactic tyrant and get their base off them when they fall into a Negative Zone portal or something? Sarah: So, um, you’ll be wanting your next latte decaf, right? Mysterious man wearing pinstriped suit and carrying briefcase: Excuse me, buddies, but I could not help but notice that you are thinking about purchasing an asteroid base. It just so happens that I have a few such installations for sale, and would be glad to show you what I have on offer. My card. Hatty: Honest Harry’s Intergalactic Real Estate? Trickshot: “Fixer-upper planets a speciality?” Honest Harry: Sure. What say we go and take a look at this little beauty of a secret lab I’ve got orbiting Jupiter right now? Ziles: Well, we have tickets for Phantom of the Opera and… [There is a huge crackly visual effect, sort of what you see when you wake up after a night on the vodka just before the “whose feet are those sticking out from the other end of the bed” moment. Er, don’t ask. Our heroes just find themselves zapped onto a spooky old space station.] Trickshot (who has just discovered the delights of zero-gravity coffee in his “crochal zone”): Aaaagh! Nats: Hey! That was a type seven transgalactic portal. I recognise them from my work with Miss Frammlicker at the Interdimensional Transport Corp! But they only get used by… ulp! Ziles: Ulp? Ulp what? Ulp good? Ulp bad? Ulp going to blow up the galaxy? What?? Nats: Ulp they only get used by Hero Feeders, the interdimensional thingies that erase superheroes. Honest Harry: Yessir, gents, I have here for your eating delight four prime Lair Legion super-heroes, only slightly used. Ziles: Hey! I am not even slightly used, thank you very much. Trickshot: *snicker* That’s not what that security video Flapjack boosted from Finny’s office indicated. Hatty: Get with the programme, guys. This is serious. The Hero Feeders are the things that did in Captain Featherweight, Curry Eating Lass, The Mopman and Spongo, and Prodigious Boy. Nats: Who? Hatty: Exactly. Ziles: We’ve been kidnapped and sold as interdimensional dogfood? Trickshot: Well, in your case it’d be interdimensional bit… ouch! Honest Harry: No hard feelings, guys, but these Hero Feeders are real good customers. And they provided me with the technology to neutralise all your powers, too. Even Nats’ really sucky ones. Nats: Hey! Trickshot: Well I don’t got no powers. It’s all skill. I’ll just grab my bow and… er, you didn’t teleport my bow and arrows here, did you? Hero Feeders (rustling): Yum yum. Dancer (leaping from the shadows): Not so fast, Honest Harry. You left the Diner without paying your bill and without leaving a tip! Ziles: Dancer? How did you get to this desolate asteroid base roughly seven light hours from Earth? Dancer (throwing bow and arrows to Trickshot, relaxor cream to Ziles, Rockets cap to Hatty, and a nice magazine to Nats): By amazing coincidence I was sucked up in the dimension gate energies, and arrived in time to overcome the anti-powers engines the Hero Feeders had in place prepared for you four. Hero Feeders: Uh oh. Hero Feeders: Er, cheque please. Hatty: Take that, foul interdimensional gobblers. [Smites evil] Nats: I am soooo glad he didn’t say that in a fight where CSFB! was present. Dancer (zero-G high kicking Honest Harry into the wall): And take that, you welching non-tipper, you! Er, and vile kidnapper. Hero Feeders: Eeek! Mommy! [Unpleasant splatting sound as Lair Legion mop up Hero Feeders.] Trickshot: Easy! Er, how d’we get home now? Dancer: That is why I brought Hatman his Rockets hat. He will push the whole asteroid base back to Earth. That way you can have an asteroid base AND not have to run up the bus fare getting here. Hatman: And then I can use my LL medical insurance fore the hernia treatment. Ziles: Then it is a happy ending after all. Nats: Yeah. And think how pleased Finny will be when we deliver eight hundred tons of used space-junk to Visionary’s back yard.