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Post By An attempt at an introductory story for new readers of the Parodyverse, by... the Hooded Hood Mon Jun 20, 2005 at 06:49:35 am EDT |
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A Typical Day in the Parodyverse | |
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| A Typical Day in the Parodyverse Who's Who in the Parodyverse Where's Where in the Parodyverse  Sir Mumphrey Wilton stood on the Observation Deck of the SPUD helicarrier and watched the city of Parodopolis pass below him through the glass wall of the great flying aircraft carrier. He marvelled at the way the city had grown and changed in the years since he had first journeyed to ‘the Big Banana’. “Can you see the damage from all the way up here?” Dan Drury, director of the Super-Menace Principle Undercover Division demanded, spitting out the end of his Havana cigar in defiance of a dozen regulations and joining his old comrade at the view port. “Column of black smoke over past Off-Central Park,” Sir Mumphrey answered him absently. “Over towards the Twin Parody Tower, not far from the offices of the Daily Trombone.” “That’ll give J. James Jerkson somethin’ ta write about then,” Drury snorted. “Not everyday a giant Mr T robot nearly demolishes his newspaper.” “Not since last Thursday,” Contessa Natalia Romanza chipped in. “It wasn’t actually a giant Mr T robot,” Mumph corrected the spy. “Not this time anyhow. It just looked like one, what?” Drury shrugged. “That’ll make Jerkson feel so much better. He’ll probably not blame the Lair Legion or Goldeneyed fer tryin’ to kill him at all this time.” The Helicarrier tilted slightly as the giant anti-gravity turbines compensated for wind drift and brought the vehicle round away from the dark shadow of Gothametropolis York. The old city across the Sheldon River from Paradopolis was older and more sinister than its bright new neighbour. The neat gridline of roads with their tall shining buildings that characterised central Paradopolis were absent from the tangles smoky streets of Gothametropolis. Instead baroque stone structures lurked in permanent gloom from the industrial sites along the waterfront to the gothic mansions of Millionaire’s Row. The Helicarrier wasn’t welcome over GMY, by order of the city’s new Mayor Velma Klein; and some said by fiat of her sponsor, Harry Flask, the Lycnhpin of Crime. Since her election it was illegal to use super-powers in Gothametropolis, and her specially trained police force dealt harshly with infractions. “We’ll get to her in time,” Drury noted, following Sir Mumphrey’s gaze across the river. “And her chubby paymaster. He’s on the list.” “Hmph,” frowned Mumphrey. “List never seems to get any shorter though, does it? Just as we’d cleaned up the rogue nation of Badripoor and got young spiffy to be President for Life over there we have half a dozen other hotspots flare up. Factor X’s arms smuggling. HERPES terrorist attacks. Anti-mutate riots. And now that dashed Baroness von Zemo’s gone and done a legal takeover of the Interdimensional Transportation Corporation and you know she’ll be up to no good with such a potent power base behind her.” “We’ve got our legal guys onto pulling our contracts out from ITC,” Drury assured the eccentric Englishman. “Apparently its not as easy as we’d thought.” “I’m sure young Al B. Harper and Miss Framlicker would welcome some business for their own rival company, Extraordinary Endeavour Enterprises,” Sir Mumphrey recommended. “Of course they would,” the well-informed Contessa observed. “They work out of an abandoned firehouse in the seedy Sixways district of Gothametropolis, with dangerous second hand equipment and Nats as an employee. That’s a big enough handicap for anyone, surely.” “I’m all fer supportin’ the underdog,” Drury snorted. “Even when the underdog just dropped a giant Mr T robot smack in the middle of rush hour traffic in Parody Plaza. “As I said, it wasn’t actually a giant robot,” Mumphrey reminded the SPUD director. “Thought so at first when it attacked the Phantomhawk Memorial Hospital and the Lair Legion were scrambled.” “They weren’t the first heroes on the scene, were they?” the Contessa checked, comparing her own notes with the official report from Police Commissioner Don Graham. “That not-robot-after-all started its rampage in Hell’s Bathroom and attracted some local attention?” “Ah. That’d be young ManMan and his talkin’ knife Knifey,” suggested Sir Mumphrey. “At least accordin’ to Catbot.” “Catbot?” Natalia Romanza checked. She hated not knowing all the players. “Robot cat,” Sir Mumphrey shrugged nonchalantly. “Fleabot made him, apparently.” “Fleabot the robot flea,” Drury sighed. “Who was made by Hallie, the computer sentience that runs the Lair Legion computers.” “Actually Hallie and Fleabot were both made by an evil scientist to destroy the Lair Legion,” the Contessa footnoted. “And then the Legion took them in.” “Seemed the decent thing to do, what?” Sir Mumphrey shrugged. “Decent chaps. Anyhow, after young ManMan got trodden on a few more heroes chipped in. But when it first met ManMan it looked like a giant Elvis. By the time it was fighting Messenger it was like a giant Disco Hitler.” Drury already had a report on the melee with the vigilante postman. “Disco Hitler was one of Messengers old bad guys,” he pointed out. He rubbed his forehead. It was going to be one of those briefings. “Absolutely,” Mumphrey agreed. “And when a few other chaps chipped in to help – hard not to spot a hundred foot high marauding dancing Nazi, don’t y’know – when Yuki Shiro turned up and Nitz the Bloody came in with his magic hoodoo and so on, the dashed thing changed again. Into a giant samurai and into a giant nude Natalie Portman respectively.” “Do we have photographic evidence of this/” Drury wondered. “So the menace was changing depending on who it faced?” the Contessa concluded. “Absolutely,” agreed Mumph. “Or at least so Xander the Improbable said, when I sent the Librarian round to his watchmaker’s shop and plumbing store have a quick check with him.” “I bet that was expensive,” Natalia noted. “The so-called sorcerer supreme of the Parodyverse and master of the mystic crafts doesn’t consult cheap.” “Didn’t want his shop stepped on either though,” Mumphrey noted. “Anyway, by this point the Lair Legion had lined up against the beastie. The Operations Team at least. When Hatman went in against it flying with his Jets cap it became a hockey player with a hundred foot long stick.” Drury checked the records. “And Hatman was well pucked,” he pointed out. “Thing was deuced fast. Then it became a Decepticon to bounce CrazySugarFreakBoy! five miles out to sea, and a theatre critic to get rid of Dancer.” “I take it while your heroes were getting their butts handed to ‘em there was a plan B?” Drury suggested. “I’d hate ta think you guys are as dumb as Herbert Garrick’s reports say you are.” Mumphrey scowled at hearing the name of the President’s Special Advisor on Metahuman Affairs. Bad News Herb ran the mutate-hunting Sentinoid programme and had recently become involved in the Federal Meta-Human Resource Centre designed to train the next generation of government super-agents. He wasn’t a big Lair Legion fan. “Mr Garrick was noticeable by his absence as Nats and Trickshot tried to hold that marauding giant from crushing Rocketman High School,” the eccentric Englishman answered stiffly. “The Manga Shoggoth got stepped on and was tracked along all the way over Off-Central Park.” “Great. Loathsome elder being goo spread all across the city,” Drury frowned. “Don’t worry,” the Contessa assured her boss. “Fragments of Shoggoth tend to crawl after him and join up again eventually.” Somehow Drury wasn’t comforted. “What was Mr Epitome doing during all of this?” the one-eyed spymaster demanded. “I thought his Office of Paranormal Security would have been all over something like this given how desperate he’s gotta be fer good press since the investigation OPS has sicced on him.” “Epitome’s playin’ a long game,” Sir Mumphrey Wilton warned. “Don’t quite know what he’s up to yet, but his idea of patriotism might not be the same as yours or mine. Anyway, there was no sign of the OPS, just our chaps and a few helping hands.” Helping hands immediately reminded the Contessa of Josh Clement, the super-fast mutate known as De Brown Streak. “Where was your probationary member?” she asked the leader of the Lair Legion. Sir Mumphrey pointed down to the city below. “Clement was Plan B. He was searchin’ where the big blighter had come from, gathering readings for Harper and Hallie to analyse. We were getting an awful lot of narrative energy tracks, y’see.” “Narrative energy,” Drury repeated. “Are we about to go into a technobabble explanation?” “Hope not,” Mumph replied. “Just had breakfast, what? But Clement did discover the big metal egg-thingie the thing had evidently come out of, and it was filled with traces of pure story.” “So the creature was sensitive to whatever the people it was facing were thinking of?” the Contessa suggested. “That’s why it kept changing?” “Could be,” the eccentric Englishman agreed. “And fortunately, the Lair Legion has its own pure thought being from Yo-planet.” “You sent Yo in to think at it,” Drury surmised. “That explains the reports we got about a giant fuzzy bunny leaping tall buildings with a single bound.” “That was an inevitable side effect,” Mumphrey admitted. “But we contained it in Parody Plaza through a combination of Nats telekinetics, Dancer’s probability manipulations, Trickshot’s screamer arrows, Hatman’s director’s hat, CrazySugarFreakBoy!’s silly string, Messenger’s razor letters, Nitz’s conjurations, and Yuki’s acrobatics. Then Ms Lisa Waltz used her legal summonsing powers to teleport De Brown Streak to her. DBS was still holdin’ the giant egg so it came with him.” “And then what?” Drury demanded, still eyeing the black smoke coming from the city below. “Then Visionary took over concentrating the being into a familiar form,” Mumphrey explained. “Seems he’s battled giant robotic Mr Ts quite a bit before.” “Pity the fool,” muttered the Contessa. “Anyway, Visionary visualised the creature into a form that could be disrupted while they tried to force it back into its egg. Might have worked too but we had some unexpected help of another kind.” Drury checked the weather reports. “This was when the thunderstorm hit,” he observed. “Your Junior Lair Legion training programme got involved? Harlagaz the demihemigod of thunder?” A nasty thought occurred to him. “Please tell me Kerry Sheoherdson the probability arsonist wasn’t there!” “No. We had the Juniors safely under lock and key with my amanuensis Miss Asil Ashling and complainin’ about not being able to join the fight,” Mumphrey assured the Agent of SPUD. “Kerry Shepherdson, Fashion Accessory, Ham-Boy, Harlagaz, Hacker Nine, and Glory were all quite safe.” “Safe isn’t the word I’d use to describe them,” Drury pointed out. “But if it wasn’t Harlagaz…” “It was his father,” Mumphrey explained. “Donar evidently wanted advice from Visionary about which socks to wear for the great Nifflegjarl Hunt in Ausgard, home of the Ausgardian gods, so he’d just dropped by over Bifrosting the Rainbow Bridge. When he saw the conflict he naturally wanted to join his old Lair Legion comrades in the fray.” “So he wrecked the plan,” Natalia Romanza surmised. “Well, he utilised a different plan,” Mumphrey answered in mitigation. “He picked up the narrative egg and smote the creature with it.” “Which is when the thing fell down on the buildings and exploded,” Drury concluded. “Nats and the Shoggoth contained the damage,” Mumphrey pointed out. “The Shoggoth is quite cushiony, in a horrible gelid sort of way. And Nats’ girlfriend the Princess Uhuna has healin’ abilities, so that’s all right.” “The creature’s been confined then?” the Contessa checked. “I know you called for a Bautistamatic Neutraliser Chamber from your old member NTU-150…” “Al B. and young Enty whipped up a transfer device to transport the beastie back to the narrative sub-plane it was native to,” Mumphrey explained. “Seems it had somehow been dimensionally transported from its native habitat then set loose to rampage across the city.” “And who do we know that’s just bought herself an Interdimensional Transportation Corporation?” Drury spat. “Looks like we better step up the Baroness Elizabeth Zemo investigation, Talia. But her ta the top of th’ list of bad guys we find ways of taking down.” “Agreed,” Sir Mumphrey affirmed. “Time to take a much closer look at what they young woman’s up to.” He checked his pocketwatch and realised time was getting on. “Now I’d best be headin’ back to the Legion and see how they’re doin’ winching Jerkson out of the sewers, what?” The Hooded Hood watched Wilton and Drury shake hands and separate as he watched through the dark reflections of his mirrored Portal of Pretentiousness. He sat back on his dark stone throne and sipped some tea. “Splendid,” he declaimed to himself. “I’m sure dear Elizabeth will have something to say to the ITC technicians who so badly fumbled the dimensional transfer as to drop her prize where it would attract the attention of so many heroes.” Flapjack, the Lair Legion’s disgusting major domo, had previously been the Hooded Hood’s flunky. When the cowled crime czar required attending he often used his ability to retrospectively change continuity to arrange for Flapjack to momentarily be back with him. “I think the Baroness will be spitting feathers and disembowelling people,” the hunchback butler offered. “I certainly hope so,” the Hood replied, touching his fingertips together in an arch. “I’d hate to think I arranged for her package to be mis-delivered for nothing. The attentions of our glorious heroes should keep her occupied just long enough for me to prepare a proper welcome for her when she chooses to oppose me more overtly.” “You sent that giant monster rampaging over the Big Banana kicking all the good guys round just to piss off the Baroness and keep her busy?” Flapjack admired. “Of course not,” the Hooded Hood replied. “Not only to piss off the Baroness and keep her busy.” And he said no more.  The origin of the Parodyverse’s greatest heroes Lair Legion: Year One Previous introductory story Welcome to the Parodyverse (now a little outdated) Many more stories at The Hooded Hood's Homepage of Doom Original concepts, characters, and situations copyright © 2005 reserved by Ian Watson. Other Parodyverse characters copyright © 2005 to their creators. The use of characters and situations reminiscent of other popular works do not constitute a challenge to the copyrights or trademarks of those works. The right of Ian Watson to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the UK Copyright, Designs & Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. |
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