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Post By The Hooded Hood returns with a double-length helping of scenes in the lives of everyday Parodyverse superheroes Fri Nov 04, 2005 at 04:08:13 pm EST |
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#236: Untold Tales of the Lair Legion: Catching Up, or Don’t Tug at the Loose Ends | |
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| #236: Untold Tales of the Lair Legion: Catching Up, or Don’t Tug at the Loose Ends Previously… * Pigeon warrior exile Shazana Pel became involved in the Hooded Hood’s resistance to her people’s takeover of the planet Caph [Untold Tales #219] * Visionary acquired a new home [in the closing chapters of Heart of Darkness]. * Nats’ wedding with Princess Uhunalura of the Abhumans ended in disaster and heartbreak [Untold Tales #227]. Nats went to hell. * The Parody Master returned, absconding with Ausgard, apparently wiping away the Chronicler of Stories and Amazing Guy, and forcing the Shaper of Worlds to flee to asylum (literally, since she went to Herringcarp) [Untold Tales #228] * Josh Clement began an affair with Princess Uhunalura of the Abhumans [The Intermittent Adventures of De Brown Streak #20] * Visionary began to date Josh’s twin sister Pricilla DuBois (secretly the mutate terrorist the Vermillion Vex) [The Intermittent Adventures of De Brown Streak #21]. * Mr Epitome was mysteriously robbed of 15 years of memories [Mr Epitome #44], and rejoined the Lair Legion [Untold Tales #229]. * Baroness Elizabeth von Zemo began a plot to defeat rival archvillain the Hooded Hood. The Hood seemed quite pleased [|The Baroness series]. * The Lair Legion thwarted the creation of a Transnuclear Weapon [Untold Tales #231-235]. * It becomes known that Hallie had an affair with Epitome back when she was temporarily human and before Epitome’s memory was wiped [Great Parodyverse Moments #5]. * Hatman was smitten with Zdenka Zarazoza, the Candian superheroine Rabid Wolf, and was devastated to find she was married [Untold Tales #235]. * Liu Xi found herself in serious trouble when she walked smack into the middle of another complicated Hooded Hood plot [Adventures in Parodyverse: Path of the Righteous]. * Dimensional traveller Lara Night went through a series of intense relationships with various members of the Lair Mansion household, culminating in her being captured then rescued after an illicit Office of Paranormal Security operation to secure her for the national interest [Adventures in Parodyverse: Path of the Righteous]. * The LL Field Team were stranded and amnesiac on Apocalyspe [Far Away #1-13]. * Hallie experimented with a robot body [Strong Suit series]. Untold Tales #236 occurs before the Lair Picnic in Intermittent Adventures of De brown Streak #26-26 and Call of the Wild #1. “Welcome back,” said Asil Ashling. “How was Samantha?” “Perfectly fine,” Sir Mumphrey reported. “Her parents were exaggerating about her school traumas. Just a bunch of smugglers pretending to be ghosts in the old lighthouse to scare away snoopy kids, what?” “They thought pretending to be ghosts would actually discourage the kids checking it out?” “Apparently these days there’s all kinds of school regulations about fighting crime after lights out,” Mumphrey disapproved. “As if at some stage in their youth every child doesn’t have to uncover a forgery ring or an art theft warehouse of something. Hmph. Rite of passage, don’t y’know? Still, I’m glad my granddaughter has the sense to know how to handle a chainsaw properly, what?” The eccentric Englishman doffed his Burberry and looked around the hall of the Lair Mansion. “So where is everybody?” he asked. “Pirate zombie monkey raiders in the subway,” explained Asil. “Ah. Jolly good.” It was good to be back. CrazySugarFreakBoy! grabbed Black Bobo by his rotting tale, stretched him like a rubber band, and catapulted him back into his comrades. “You know, we really have to do this more often,” he told his comrades. “We don’t fight enough pirate zombie monkeys.” “I think we do,” warned Mr Epitome, hammering Peg-Paw Pepe into the third rail. “This is the third outbreak in two weeks.” “Yes, but they are being so cute!” Yo pointed out as s/he spiked their main cannon so it exploded on firing. “Except for the bits which are to be dropping off and to be crawling after us, of course.” “Maybe it’s their spawning season?” Trickshot suggested as he gathered handfuls of rotting buccaneer simian for the de-animator that Al B. Harper was setting up. “Even zombie pirate monkeys need a little loving, I guess.” “Everybody needs a little loving some time,” agreed Dancer, improbably avoiding the flintlock fire and leaping aboard the ghost galleon to plant Al’s ectoplasmic disruptor coils. And then she added sadly, “Poor Jay.” “Mac?” Hatman called out to the minister of the Zero Street Mission. “You got a minute?” “I’ll just dump this bundle of goodwill clothes in the vestry then sure,” Reverend Fleetwood agreed. “It’s getting tougher again, now the spotlight’s off Hell’s Bathroom. All the grants are drying up but the people still need food and clothes and shelter.” “I guess people forget, after so many news cycles,” Jay Boaz disapproved. “Right after the riots the government couldn’t do enough.” “Oh, the federal money has to go to the most urgent places,” Mac admitted. “And what with all the floods and hurricanes and stuff the public purse is looking pretty bare by the time Slumtown comes up. We can hardly tell the people of Bienville to go live in tents because we haven’t finished clearing up the last disaster-but-five, can we?” “I guess not.” Hatman helped the minister store the second hand clothes in his crowded study. “So what’s the problem?” Mac asked, looking seriously for the first time at his troubled visitor. “And will coffee help?” “Just a kind of spiritual dilemma,” Jay explained. “I’m thinking now I was stupid to come and take up your time.” “Jay, after a day trying to balance the books for St Jude’s Orphanage and arguing with social services about whether the Bronson girl should be put in care I’d absolutely love to discuss a spiritual dilemma. You tell me what’s on your mind.” Hatman accepted the proffered steaming mug of Navy coffee. Mac was an ex-special forces chaplain, and some habits died hard. “I’m having a few problems with the seventh and tenth commandments,” the capped crusader admitted. “Really? And who’s wife are you coveting and having adulterous thoughts about?” “I went to Candia recently and met a girl. I didn’t know she was in a state-arranged marriage with a man she didn’t love. She was… well she’s perfect.” Mac sipped his own coffee. “Go on.” “Her name’s Zdenka Zarazoza, but her superhero name is Zvesti Zdrugi, which means Rabid Wolf.” “She sounds charming.” “She is charming, Mac. I mean, she’s classy, she’s noble, she’s kind, she’s got this kind of innocent beauty of spirit…” “And she’s got a husband,” the minister pointed out. “I’m not so much an Old Testament kind of preacher myself, but Jesus also said that when a man and a women join together they become one flesh. What God has brought together let no man put asunder.” “But God didn’t put Zdenka and Captain Mud together,” Hatman protested. “The Candian state did, in some obscene attempt to have them breed little superheroes. Mud had to divorce his old wife, the one he had before he got his powers, even though they had three kids. Zdenka was a foundling, brought up by the state, so she didn’t even have a family to speak up for her.” Jay looked a little bit sheepish and added, “Oh, and she’s the goddess of the north.” “So you’re having a bit of trouble with the first commandment too, then?” Mac observed. “Not a goddess in the worship sense,” Hatman protested. “Although I guess a lot of the common people in Candia think she’s kind of the spirit of their country or something. Heck, she might be. But I don’t mean...” “Relax,” Mac assured his visitor. “I’ve met Donar, remember? I’ve seen him eating burgers. I know there’s a bunch of mythlands beings with some pantheistic god-like powers. I don’t have a problem with small-g gods unless they’re pretending to be some kind of supreme deity demanding worship.” “Zdenka’s not like that. But there is some kind of link between her and the land and the people. That’s why the State wanted her married to the State’s foremost superhero. It sends a message.” Mac Fleetwood looked sympathetically at Jay. “You’ve got it bad, haven’t you?” “I know I can’t be with her. I know it’s wrong. But I can’t forget her. I can’t stop thinking about her.” Hatman pushed a crumpled piece of paper across the table to Mac. “And then there’s this.” “She’s coming to Paradopolis on an exchange visit, and she wants you to guide her?” the minister noted. “Fair enough.” “Fair enough?” Jay objected. “Mac, it’s bad enough knowing I can never be with her. And everybody’s giving me advice about how I should behave, what I should say or do, how to resolve things…” “Isn’t that up to the lady as well? How does she feel?” “Her letter makes it pretty clear she wants to see me. And I think she… likes me.” “Do you think she’s looking for an affair then?” Hatman considered this. A part of him wished she was. “No,” he answered at last. “No, if she was that kind of woman there were plenty of times for her to try back in Candia, before I knew she was married. But thinking back on it, she always warned me off going any further, against getting attached to her.” “Well then, maybe you should think through your options?” Mac suggested. “What might happen? You meet and have a pleasant time showing her the city. Or you talk through your feelings and recognise nothing can be done about them. Or you succumb to temptation and have an adulterous relationship. I think that covers the main possibilities.” “I won’t do that last one,” Jay assured the minister. “Zdenka’s too good to cheapen her with that kind of thing. And I know it’s wrong,” He slammed his empty mug on the desk. “It’s just so unfair! And it’s going to hurt so much, being with her and not being able to…” “You’re a hero, Jay. You suffer often, and risk yourself to save others from suffering and pain. You choose to do the right thing even though it costs you, and may one day cost your life.” Mac laid a hand on Hatman’s shoulder. “Isn’t this another time when you have to suffer to ease another’s suffering? Zdenka’s suffering, in this case? Doesn’t she deserve the best you can give her while she’s here? Your care and affection? And your honourable forbearance?” Jay Boaz slumped his head down onto the desk. “Sometimes I hate being the good one,” he admitted. “Thanks for coming along,” Visionary told Lisa. “I have absolutely no idea on how to shop for a young girl’s seventeenth birthday. And Kerry has made it absolutely clear that given our new and, as she describes it, disgusting and painful relationship, her present had better be pretty damn spectacular.” The first lady of the Lair Legion considered the list. “Are you really going to buy her an Abraham’s tank?” “There is nothing on that list I am considering buying her,” the possibly-fake man answered clearly. “Not even the suggested underwear. Especially not the suggested underwear.” “Those are some nice items,” Lisa approved. “But I can see where your guardianly veto might cut in.” “Right. Also I admit there’s a slight budgetary constraint as well as the human rights issues involved in her present list. I’ve had to furnish my new home, and even with that second hand stuff we salvaged from Peter von Doom’s secret headquarters it’s more or less wiped me out.” “So you want a cheap, non flammable, no-lingerie solution to Kerry’s birthday gift,” Lisa summarised. “And then you thought of me?” “Well, I asked Pricilla, but she just joked about perhaps ‘buying a bottle of arsenic for the brat’,” Vizh explained. “And I couldn’t bring Miiri or Hallie. Miiri insists on modelling the underwear so I can decide if it pleases me. Hallie still isn’t so good at underwear anyhow.” He caught Lisa’s raised eyebrow. “She doesn’t need to generate it when she’s making holograms,” Vizh explained. And when Lisa’s brow remained high he added, “She had a bad experience with her first bra.” “You have a secret life that sometimes surprises me,” the amorous advocatrix approved. “So, according to your finances you can probably buy her a packet of chips.” “I think I could probably afford a soda to go with that as well,” admitted the big spender. “But it’s the thought that counts, right?” “With seventeen year old girls? No.” The two continued on their doomed shopping trip. The man in sandy monkish robes simply watched them and bided his time. “How’s it going, old chap?” Sir Mumphrey Wilton asked the Librarian. Lee Bookman looked up from the files he was tabulating while doing his monitor duty. “Everything’s cross-indexed,” he replied. “Well, everything that has been reported properly in the official format.” Mumphrey should have known better than to expect a non-literary non-work-related answer from the obsessive tabulator. “Been keepin’ you busy, what?” “Well, there was that bunch of data we got during the Uranium Sting operation. Then we had all those dimensional upheavals with forward young women in our attics and showers and suchlike.” The eccentric Englishman glanced at Bookman. “Not my shower,” the Librarian hastily corrected himself. “I never have anyone in my shower.” “Pity,” said Mumphrey. Bookman hastily moved on. “And then there’s the huge stack of data we picked up from Apocalyspe. No Librarian’s ever got a data dump from there before. The Intergalactic Organisation of Librarians was very excited. I might get another commendation.” He shrugged. “Or a censure. They haven’t decided yet.” “Sounds like you have things well in hand.” “Oh really? I still don’t know what happened in that ‘Legion of the Woods’ case, or when Mr Epitome went to Texas, or when De Brown Steak encountered the Botherhood of Evil Mutates. And when I asked Mr Epitome what happened the time he and CrazySugarFreakBoy! swapped brains he simply said that it all happened before his mind got wiped and he had no memory of it.” “You could always ask young Dreamcatcher.” “He said it was probably all retconned by the Hoodily Hood anyhow, but if I wrote a list of questions he’d get Vizh to take them over the next time he called at Herringcarp to bitch-slap an archvillain.” Sir Mumphrey Wilton scowled at the reminded of the cowled crime czar’s existence. “The Hooded Hood.” Shazara Pel flew straight through space, generating a point-specific gravity wave with the z-alloy bands she wore on her wrists and ankles, shaping the wave-field with her artificial wings. Then, at the last moment, she veered away from her crash collision with the Shee-Yar Medium-Range Assault Vessel, leaving the gravitic wave to impact across it’s forward shields with shattering force. The ship’s defence screens spluttered and crashed, and the Thonnagarian warrioress turned on a pin and came back straight at the plexiglass viewing panel on the command deck. “Secondary shutters!” screamed the watch commander, but too late. The pigeon warrior flexed her mace, enhancing it’s gravitic signature so it hit with a quarter million ton force and held it above the plexiglass. “Bang, you’re dead,” she said over the ship’s communication system. “Or you will be if I let this mace fall.” The watch commander had to admit it, and his captain’s indignant enquiry about what in the name of the first egg was going on was cut short as he recognised the situation. “This is your one and only warning,” Pel said. “The Andromeda Nebula is out of bounds. Blockaded. Even to the newest acquisitions of the Parody Master’s growing empire. Next time you cross the exclusion zone I won’t be so merciful.” “You are one woman,” sneered the captain. “One against whole armies. You Thonnagarian remnants may think yourselves clever to have suborned one primitive world of green-skinned slaves, but if we choose to make war on you and take Caph from you, be sure we will.” “Bring it on,” Shazara Pel answered, cracking but not shattering the plexiscreen before winging away from the damaged cruiser. She felt no need to tell the Shee-Yar that she wasn’t with the Thonnagarian warrior elite; in fact she was working for the downfall of the Great Eyrie. The blockade worked two ways. “Target all weapons on that bitch!” the captain commanded. “Now, while she’s at range.” But somehow, Shazara Pel had gone. “I trust you enjoyed your stroll?” asked the Hooded Hood as the warrior woman emerged from the Portal of Pretentiousness. “Very much,” Pel admitted, flexing her pinions and grinning. The joys of battle sung within her. She had cause again. “Vaahir’s concept of a two way blockade is driving everybody crazy.” “Indeed. And now we have the Thonnagarians and the Parody Master’s puppets at each others’ throats too. A most satisfactory arrangement.” “As long as we can keep the Shee-Yar and the Skree and his other dominions from just walking in and annihilating Caph.” “As you say. There is a subtle balance to be maintained.” The Hooded Hood grinned. “Fortunately, I can be very subtle.” Pel grabbed him by the cape, kissed him soundly, and threw his onto the bed. There was a time for subtle, and there was a time for being Shazara Pel. Katarina Allen entered the Bean and Donut Coffee Bar uncertainly and looked around for the person she was there to meet. Instead she found a dark-haired waitress waiting for her. “Hi!” smiled Sarah Shepherdson. “Kat Allen, right? The famous Kat Allen.” “Famous?” “You save the Lair Legion and beat a wickedy horror planet. That’s pretty famous, right?” “I was mostly just trying to survive,” the young woman admitted. “I’m here to meet someone, but…” “Dancer?” Sarah asked. “Yeah, she called to say there was a Lair Emergency or something. There’s always a Lair Emergency or something. Feels like there’s about ten different things happening every week sometimes.” The waitress thought more. “It’s quietened down just now though,” she added a little sadly. “It doesn’t matter,” Kat assured her. “About Dancer. I know she has important things to do. It’s good to meet you at last, though.” “To meet me?” “The famous Sarah Shepherdson. Mr Epitome told me about you and your little sister. And how to keep her from being deported you had to take Visionary as your…” “We couldn’t get round that bit of the problem,” Shep admitted. “I can live with it, although my sister’s pretty traumatised.” Kat regarded the trim waitress with an appraising glance. “I can see why Mr Epitome thought to call Dancer by your name when we were amnesiacs on Apocalyspe. You have similar build and hair colour.” “I get that a lot. But not as much as you’d expect, statistically,” Shep confided. “But Dancer’s a friend of mine, and she asked me to take care of you until her other guest arrived. So let’s grab a booth and you can tell me if you’re going to see Mr Epitome again.” “I really don’t…” “It’s okay. I think it’s great that someone’s finally reminding him of his heroic side. He really needs you, even if he doesn’t know it yet, being, y’know, male.” Kat couldn’t help smiling. “I wondered if maybe your friend Dancer fancied him. After all, she ‘remembered’ they were married when she was amnesiac.” “I think she just sensed that he was tragically unsuitable for her and would wreck her life and break her heart. So naturally she assumed they were together.” “I’m not actually sure why Dancer asked me to meet her today. Is there some kind of superhero girlfriend’s orientation and support group? Because I have to tell you that… Dominic and I aren’t really…” “Nothing like that. She just knew you were new in town, wanted you to make a few friends. How’s the new business going?” Katarina’s face fell a little. “It’d be fair to say I’m going to struggle. It’s hard getting started in a new town against established businesses. But I’m determined to try and make my hand-woven fabrics shop a success. If there’s one thing I learned on Apocalyspe it’s that you shouldn’t put off trying to live your dreams.” The café door opened and Dancer’s other guests came in, two women and an enthusiastic young man who vaulted over the tables to grab Ms Allen and give her a big hug. “Kat! Whoa, you’re looking good! Great to see you again this is April my girlfriend she does comic books and stuff and I’ve told her all about us how we met in this gladiatorpitbackwhenyouweregoingtobegivenasaprizeto…” “Hi,” April Alice Apple grinned at Kat. “I guess you remember Dream.” “Vividly, given he saved my life,” Katarina Allen admitted. “I’m glad he’s recovered.” “Wait till he suggests a threesome,” Shep warned. The final member of the luncheon party came forward. “That looks very much like a St Sylvain original from the fall collection,” she noted, admiring the fit and hang of Kat’s dress. “It suits you very well.” “It’s great, isn’t it?” Kat had to agree. “A loaner. I could never afford something like this. But I love the fabrics. I make materials like this. One day I’m going to send some of my stuff to Sydney St Sylvain to say thank you. Imagine if she used some of it!” “Imagine that,” smiled Sydney St Sylvain, the Fashion Faerie. “Ms Allen, I’ve been dying to meet you…” A dozen attempts to breech the dimensional barriers had failed, leaving nothing but burned out components and a smell of burning flesh. The thirteenth succeeded, opening the portal to hell. And Miss Framlicker stepped through. “Bill?” The red-headed man on the black malachite throne looked down on his former supervisor. “Muffy.” “I don’t use that name any more,” Miss F said stiffly. “Ever.” “School must have been hell for you,” agreed the flying phenomenon, putting down the diary he was reading. “Except that now I know what hell means.” Miss Framlicker picked herself up and brushed herself off and looked around the crimson hall. “That’s why we breeched the barrier, Nats. Al, Amy and I have been working on a way to get you out of here. To detach you from this curse and the powers that bind you to the abyss.” “That’s very thoughtful, Muffy. It’s nice to know that not everybody has written me off and forgotten about me, or stabbed me in the back. After all, you’d never write off or betray anybody, would you?” “Of course not.” Miss Framlicker frowned. “Bill, are you okay? I mean, as okay as you ever are? You seem… changed.” “Have you seen my new zip code? But I wasn’t being bitter about your part in bouncing me from my minimum wage high-risk whipping boy job at ITC. I was referring to Mrs Honey Framlicker, your mother. You do remember her?” “Of course I remember his,” blanched the EEE administrator. “What’s she got to…?” “I’m privy to lots of dirty little secrets down here, Muffy. I know what a good girl you were, even after your mother cursed you with a name like Muffy. How you paid for your mother’s care when the Alzheimer’s set in, even when she didn’t know you any more. Just as well, since she’d have disowned you for the way you paid for her treatment.” “It was just photographs,” Miss F said faintly. “I know your secrets now, Muffy. I know how you feel about me. I know how you feel about Al.” The diary was already open at the appropriate page. “November 11th. This was The Day. Al asked me to marry him, and I said yes. Al is The One. And this is the day that we became one. I will love him forever.” “Where did you get that?” demanded Miss Framlicker, flushing red. “How?” “Hell,” snapped her tormentor. “Place of revelations and retribution. It’s right there over the gates: Abandon Hope All Ye Who Enter Here. You entered.” “To get you out, Bill. To save you. We’ve been working on a way to separate out the arcane-encoded auric waveforms and…” “You should have jumped my bones when you had the chance, Muffy. Before I met Ruby and Uhuna and Regret. You know, real babes who are still in their prime.” The red-headed man sneered down at his victim. “You think you can compete for Al with a hot mechanic in loose overalls and a cyborg sex-chick he built for himself? Or with the time-travelling mother of his only son? Or with Adora the Enthrallress. Even ten years ago when you were a hottie you’d have struggled. Now? Go back to your secret bedroom stuffed full of stupid fluffy toys and stop pretending you matter to anyone.” “Bill!” The flying phenomenon snorted. “Oh, payback’s sweet. That’s what I love about this place. I only wish I could keep you here, Muffy.” There was horror in Miss Framlicker’s voice as she bit back her tears. “What have you become?” “I’ve grown up. But I’ll tell you what, Muffy. I’ll grant you your wish, if you want. I’ll make Al B. Harper fall back in love with you, like it used to be before you both got telepathically mind-f*&%$. I’ll make your dream come true. The love of your life. The One. The only man you’ve ever been with. I’ll give him to you, to marry, to have babies with. The whole nine yards.” “You bastard!” “And all it’ll cost you is your signature on a little legal document I have here. And maybe a quick blow job, just because. What do you say?” “I’d tell you to go to hell but you’re already there!” “I’ve not even started, Muffy. I have a really long list of people who’ve pissed me off over the years, but I’ve got the power and resources now to pay back a million times anything they’ve ever done to me. And I will. You’re just the entrée, but I’ll be back for you later, Muffykins. Now get out!” A single gesture sent the scorched EEE administrator sprawling away across the floor of the Sixways firehouse. Sobbing. In hell there was the sound of laughter. “Well, that was great fun!” Then the doors of the crimson hall slammed open. Nats strode in, shaking his head. “I’m back. I sorted out that quarrel between the Q’Lath Demons,” he reported. “They were just bored, making trouble is all.” Regret quickly shifted from resembling Bill Reed back to her own shape and padded over to greet the newly returned hell lord. “If you don’t give us something to do we haven’t got anything to keep us from making trouble,” she answered with a little smirk. “Anything happen while I was out pacifying the abyssal hordes?” The temptress shook her head. “Just a little housekeeping,” she told him. “But I quite enjoyed it.” The chymeric diagram on the cold stone floor glowed with an unearthly actinic light, its runes twisting round upon themselves as the course of time/space was confounded by a temporary alteration of the laws of nature. A foul stench billowed from the centre of the circle and then a steaming blob of pustulent membrane slurped out of nowhere and exploded across the cellar. Ebony closed her ceremonial umbrella and let the bits of Shoggoth on it drip to the ground. Hallie, immaterial because she was in hologram form here in the basement of the Lair Mansion in the halls claimed by the Legion’s resident elder beast, moved forward to check on the two slime-slicked travellers who’d appeared with the Shoggoth. “Are you okay?” “Verily, I feel as though I hast been for a nighteth out with yon Ausgard XI Rugby Teameth,” Donar complained. The hemigod of thunder squeezed Shoggoth-goo from his beard. “Many a time hath I awoken covered in slime and vomit after such carousing,” he confessed. Liu Xi looked tired and ashen. She reflexively propelled away the gobbets of loathsome elderspawn that clung to her, and even that minor manifestation of her elemental gifts exhausted her. “It wasn’t there,” she told Hallie. “Where we were looking for. It was gone.” The Shoggoth oozed together slowly and painfully, seeping up into the smoking jacket that Ebony of Nubilia held out for him. He wavered into human form then held still while the priestess wrapped bandages to keep him in shape. “It was a most difficult dimensional transition,” he admitted. “We knew that the Family of the Pointless had withdrawn from intercourse with the Parodyverse, but not how thoroughly.” Hallie bit back a Nats joke. “You couldn’t find them to ask about where the Parody Master might have stowed Ausgard?” “There is nothing there now where their domains lay save pure void,” Liu Xi reported. “So much void. I had trouble navigating.” “Verily, if t’were not for the young wench we wouldn’t not have made it back,” Donar admitted. “Yon tides of nothingness wert very strong.” “I knew my larger self had proscribed my dimensional transit capabilities,” the Shoggoth admitted. “I had not realised how much.” “You… he had his reasons,” Ebony reminded the Shoggoth. “I wish there was some way I could get you two to see sense.” “That da-shiong bao-jah-shr duh la-doo-tze!” spat Liu Xi. Ever since the Legion Shoggoth-fragment’s confrontation with his parent biomass over the Candian incident, the girl had become very partisan regarding which side of the Shoggoth-divide she was on. “We nearly got killed because of the limits he put on you.” “And all for naught,” Donar mourned. “Another means of finding my beloved Annj is gone.” He straightened up and his eyes were as bleak as Fimbulwinter. “But I shall find a way. And then let yon Parody Master fear mine wrath!” The old waterfront on the south-eastern seaboard of Paradopolis was gradually changing. The old wooden wharves and faded warehouses of the 20s and 30s were being cleared away for exclusive waterfront dwellings and a new marina. The Paradopolis Development Consortium were putting the new monorail terminus in the area. But down by the shore there were still some of the old, rotting timber barns and bond-houses of a different age, stood on ancient pylons over the tide-washed grey shingle strand. De Brown Streak located Pier 7 Warehouse 3, one of the seediest and most disreputable-looking of the old structures. An outside stairway led up from the boardwalk to an office door on the upper storey. The bottom half of the stair had been freshly painted. The top remained peeled and rotting. A makeshift sign was thumbtacked to the wall: Yuki Shiro Investigations: No Job Too Dangerous, No Fee Too Big. Walk Up. DBS had never walked up stairs in his life. He blurred to the door and found it ajar. Inside there was a cramped office decorated in 50’s institutional green and filled with a desk, two chairs, a hatstand, and a filing cabinet. Raymond Chandler would have been proud. Behind that a door opened into a second room, a bed-sitting area with an alcove for a kitchenette and a bathroom beyond. These two rooms had shuttered windows that looked down into the dark bulk of the warehouse beyond. The vast space was empty now except for a stripped-down motorbike and some tools. “Yuki?” De Brown Streak called. “You in? I have a problem.” The cyborg P.I. appeared from some store cupboard down on the warehouse floor. “You’re a sex maniac in an inappropriate relations who can’t handle commitment or get over the fact his sister’s dating Visionary?” Yuki speculated. She put down the socket set and jumped up to the balcony to join him with a single spring. “I’m too sexy for my shirt,” Josh Clement shrugged. “But you knew that, right? No, I have a different, although related problem.” He looked around Yuki’s new living space. Everything was half finished. Clothes still unpacked. Furniture not yet assembled. Paint tins unopened. It was as if she’d started with a good will, then just stopped. Yuki caught his eye. “I got distracted,” she said defensively. “By, you know, that Apocalyspe thing.” “By being ripped onto an alien world as an amnesiac, getting buried alive, believing you were a robot, then nearly dying of your wounds while saving our asses,” DBS summarised. “Yes. That’s my problem.” “I’m fine,” Yuki warned him through gritted teeth. “No need to discuss it further.” “There is. I didn’t remember who you were when I was hitting on you. And I don’t think I was a very good friend.” “I accept your apology,” Yuki told him. “Next topic.” “And I can’t help noticing after your time there you haven’t got back to setting your place up, and you haven’t been…” “Next. Topic.” Josh Clement considered his options. “So, you need help unpacking?” he asked at last. “Sure. Why not? But only because I feel sorry for you with the Uhuna thing. I don’t have a care in the world.” “So how bad is it?” asked Miss Framlicker. She showed no sign of her earlier ordeal. Her hand didn’t tremble on her coffee cup. Her eyes weren’t reddened. “Give Al some coffee,” advised Bry Katz. “Put alcohol in the coffee.” “I hate legal stuff,” admitted the Lair Legion’s archscientist. He sat forlornly in the business office of Extraordinary Endeavour Enterprises converted firehouse and stared wistfully out of the door towards his workbench. “I know,” Laurie Leyton told him. “But we at Waltz & Lucifer, Attorneys-at-Law, believe in delivering bad news in person.” “Bad news,” Miss F frowned. “Go on.” Laurie laid out a series of documents on the desk before them. “These are the depositions, claims, and summonses to date about Yuki Shiro,” she explained. “Shouldn’t you be giving them to Yuki?” asked Miss Framlicker. “No,” Lisette replied. “because all of these documents assert Yuki is not a person but property, and cite Al B. Harper as her owner. Its owner.” “Except this one,” Bry added helpfully. “This is a counter-ownership claim purporting that you stole patented technology invented by one Dr Brock P. Lydekker to create the cyborg, and that she is therefore legally his property. And this one from the Federal Meta-Human Resource Centre, which asserts that salvaged Technopolitan components were utilised in her construction. And rights to all such technology have been claimed by the US Government, in some grandfather legislation tacked as an amendment to the Mutate Control Bill.” “I don’t own Yuki,” Al B. objected. “Robot enfranchisement issues aside, she’s not a robot. She’s a cyborg, with her own original organic brain. She’s like an omniplegic, with an artificial body.” “So we assert,” agreed Laurie. “But Mayor Klein’s office say you illegally used dead human tissue matter in illicit medical experimentation, and the unlicensed recycling of human body parts is a federal offence liable for a term of imprisonment up to twenty years. They hold you responsible for your robot’s rampage, and the city of Gothametropolis is suing you for damages and compensation. Around eight hundred million dollarsworth, I understand.” Al B. choked on his coffee. “Al doesn’t have that kind of money,” Miss F objected. “They’ll be filing to freeze his assets soon pending a court decision on ownership of his patents and his share of EEE,” Bry warned. He laid a comforting hand on Al’s shoulder. “Sorry, Al, man. They’re going after Yuki, they want to see her dismantled, but first they’re going to shut you down.” LeVeau M’Tumbe added another chicken head to the brew, some ox blood, and a stock cube for body, then sprinkled the mixture over her next batch of monkey pirate zombies. Monkeys because they’re fast, agile, and able to get into place a man can’t. Pirates, because they had to have the temperament to rob and pillage and bring the loot back to her. And zombies because, well, she was the Voodoo Vicaress. She has an image to maintain. “Last time,” she promised herself. “After this I start researching how to give them wings.” The undead simians gibbered to themselves and waited to be handed their head-scarves, miniature cutlasses, and flintlocks. The Voodoo Vicaress fondled her fetish staff and began to give her minions their instructions. Then Mr Epitome kicked the wall down. “Be putting down of the uncute fetishing staff and to be backing away,” Yo warned. LeVeau turned round. CrazySugarFreakBoy! bounded past and grabbed the staff from her hands. “Hey, I have a complaint,” he called. “I thought all you hot voodoo priestesses were supposed to do the magic naked and stuff?” “Let’s give thanks that we’re before the watershed then,” suggested Dancer, neatly catching the Voodoo Vicaress in an armlock. “Surrender or have your hair ripped out. Your choice.” Trickshot leapt through the hole Epitome had made, bow held taught, and stared in disappointment that the battle was over so quickly. “Hey, I said I’d only be a few minutes with those zombie snakes,” he complained. “There’s a cage full of zombie pirate monkeys left,” CSFB! pointed out helpfully. “And what am I going ta do with a cage full of zombie pirate monkeys?” demanded the irritating archer. Mr Epitome had a suggestion, but Trickshot wasn’t going to do that. Hector Manchester was a political appointee to half a dozen key defence committees, and he was on first name terms with most of the Joint Chiefs and the Cabinet. That was why he’d been given the job of shaping up the Office of Paranormal Security after the debacle of Mr Epitome’s fall. It was a top secret appointment, known only to a select few West Wing staffers, the President, and a secret cabal of power-brokers. Only Aldrich Grey disapproved of the choice, and was quietly making his own arrangements. It had been a long day for the new OPS Director. Epitome had done his paperwork at super-speed, which meant that he could get through far more administration than any normal human. Manchester didn’t like looking second best. He didn’t like Epitome. The fact that the man had intervened in a covert operation to extract vital defence data from some extradimensional refugee in the Lair Mansion only showed how unreliable Dominic Clancy had become. “Illegal operation my ass,” he snorted, pouring himself a drink. The phone rang. Very few people had Manchester’s private line. “Yes.” “You’re an arrant ass, sirrah,” barked an angry English upper-class voice. “Not to mention an oik of the first water.” “Sir Mumphrey Wilton of the Lair Legion,” Manchester recognised. “How did you get this number? And why are you calling?” Mumphrey wasn’t about to remind the idiot that he had Hacker Nine in the Juniors training programme. The eccentric Englishman had agreed to purchase the lad some woofers and tweeters whatever they were and it had taken Zach Zelnitz less than twenty four hours to discover the new OPS Director’s name and location. H9 declared it was much easier without Epitome at OPS. Then he’d looked round nervously. “I know you’re running the show over at the Office of Paranormal Security,” Mumphrey answered. “Or at least you’re the blithering ass who’s supposed to be runnin’ it. So you tell me whether that assault on Lair Island was authorised by you because you’re an arrant imbecile with no regard for the law, respect for your allies, or wit to find your backside with both hands and a map, or if you’re so blatantly stupid that some unauthorised faction of your own organisation was able to undertake such a cretinous course of action while you were drooling on your boots, what?” Manchester caught his breath. “I can’t discuss any of this with you, Wilton…” “That’s Sir Mumphrey Wilton to you, you colonial tick!” thundered the eccentric Englishman, “And by George if you don’t start shaping up and stop interfering with my team I’ll be down there with a horsewhip to thrash some sense into you! Now get this into your blithering blighted skull, you pustulent fewmet. If you or your agency ever attempt to infiltrate the Lair Mansion again, or assault any guest of this household, I will personally come and use your head for a rugby ball and drop kick it over your house. As it is, expect me to be demanding of your President that he replace you with somebody competent, or at least somebody who has two brain cells to rub together. Am I being completely clear, you turgid festering carbuncle on the backside of humanity?” “You can’t speak to me like this.” “I rather think you’ll find I can,” hissed Sir Mumphrey. “And now I have more important things to do with my valuable time than listen to your slack-jawed mouth-breathing. Like wipe horse-droppings off my riding boots. But if you care to look out of your front door you’ll see I’ve sent you something to keep you and OPS occupied and away from grown-up affairs that don’t concern you. Do not provoke me to take a personal interest in kicking you round the quad.” And the leader of the Lair Legion slammed the phone down. Then Manchester thought of all the good retorts he could have made while that limey sonovabitch was yelling at him. “He’ll regret this,” swore Hector Manchester. “Oh yes.” So Wilton wanted to play rough, did he? He strode to his front door and flung it open. The security guards were already examining a large wooden crate that had been dropped off by EEE a few minutes earlier. “Don’t open it,” Manchester warned them. “Scan it for explosives.” And then the front of the crate shifted one minute into the future, as it had been programmed to do. And then Hector Manchester found out what the Lair Legion had done with all those leftover pirate zombie monkeys. Next time: Well, actually that’s Untold Hallowe’en Tales #237, but since that’s already been posted we’ll skip straight on to check up on Amazing Guy and the Chronicler of Stories in UT#238: Pebbles Before the Avalanche. And as they like to say these days, nothing will ever be the same again. In the meantime, if you’d care to indicate which of the various plot strands from our story above you’d like to see emphasised and pursued in Untold Tales I’ll see what I can do. If the content of this chapter doesn’t give people something to discuss I really might as well give up! Footnotes Have Risen From the Grave: Samantha Featherstone is Sir Mumphrey Wilton’s young grand-daughter, recently sent to boarding school for the first time. She featured prominently in UT#230: Dear Diary, or Fighting Evil and Smiting the Ungodly On My Holidays. Kerry Shepherdson, probability arsonist is Dancer’s little sister (although the world mostly knows her as waitress Sarah Shepherdson’s little sister and from all those America’s Most Wanted episodes). She’s about to turn seventeen. Sounds like an excuse for a round robin story to me. The events (and teaser) regarding Visionary and Sarah take place in Visionary’s Heart of Darkness storyline. Shazara Pel, exiled Thonngarian pigeon-warrior, took up the Caphan defence cause in UT#219: Shazara Pel Must Die! (or The Saga of the Eleventh and Twelfth Caphans). She kindled a passion-under-fire relationship with the Hooded Hood in the same chapter. Nats (Bill Reed) is a former member of the Lair Legion, recently trapped into becoming a lord of hell. The temptress Regret is his personal demon and would-be mistress. Nats previously worked for Miss Framlicker when both were employees of the Interdimensional Transportation Company, then again later when Miss F and Al B. Harper set up Extraordinary Endeavour Enterprises. Miss Framlicker, her previous brief fame as a magazine centrefold, and her history with Al B. Harper, and her subsequent work with EEE and ITC has been chronicled in Great Moments in Parodyverse History #I: Study Group, Nats’ Simple Job, and many Untold Tales. Katarina Allen, a weaver from Bienville, Louisiana, was one of many humans kidnapped to the alien world of Apocalyspe to be tested as a prelude to the Parody Master’s invasion of Earth. Kat befriended and subsequently became the lover of the amnesiac Mr Epitome, and their relationship has been rekindled since their return home. Kat’s story is told in Dancer’s excellent Far Away series. Yuki Shiro’s Detective Agency needed relocating after her previous Gothametropolis base got trashed by the Machine Shop and the city pulled her investigator’s license. With DBS’ help, Yuki has moved into the waterfront warehouse site formerly used by Banjooo and spiffy’s Detective Agency. Technically there’s still a damp patch in one corner of the shed that’s a Sea Monkey embassy. Yuki has a traumatic time during the Apocalyspe adventure, being buried alive but paralysed and amnesiac, facing some of her most personal nightmares. So far she’s refused to talk about her experiences. Yuki managed to really annoy GMY Mayor Vera Klein in UT#221: The Machinery of War, or Lost Causes. In reprisal, the city of Gothametropolis is seeking to prove Yuki is an out of control machine and have her dismantled. Our chapter here brings us up to date on their efforts. Al B. Harper, principal designer and builder of Yuki’s robotic shell, may be the first casualty. Dr Brock Lyddeker is Harper’s old college buddy and more recently arch-rival. The Manga Shoggoth fell foul of his parent biomass in UT#235: 101 Uses For a Transnuclear Weapon. Here we discover that part of his punishment has been a constraint on his dimension-shifting capacity. Liu Xi Xian is an orphan girl with elementalist abilities who has shown some capacity for manipulating the dimensions of void. She recently quarrelled with the main Shoggoth mass over whether Visionary should be put down to save the world from the Heart of Darkness. The Voodoo Vicaress (LeVeau M’Tumbe) has taken over the mantle of previous Voodoo Vicars such as her uncle, the late Josiah M’Tuba, whose loa now dwells within her. This is the Vicaress’ first recorded foray against superheroes, and the first indication of her liking for zombie animals. Hector Manchester appears here by name for the first time as the new Director of the Office of Paranormal Security. Replacing Mr Epitome, Manchester seems to have instituted an ambitious policy change regarding operational methods, culminating in an illegal black operation assault to abscond with Lara Night from the Lair Mansion. His actions were thwarted by an ad-hoc alliance of superheroes, and Mr Epitome intervened when he realised that OPS was conducting a rogue operation to limit any damage to his former organisation. This chapter indicated Sir Mumphrey’s response to Manchester. We’ve already seen Epitome’s former sponsor Aldrich Grey take steps to have Manchester replaced with a candidate of the Grey Eminence’s choosing. Manchester’s days may be numbered. I’m aware that Manchester and Mumphrey’s interactions here may not quite match with the eccentric Englishman’s responses as depicted in Adventures in Parodyverse: The Path of the Righteous Part 7. However, there’s a slight continuity blip in that series in that Mumphrey and Yuki both seem to be aware of the existence of Aldrich Grey there, whereas a key element of the Mr Epitome series is that few know of the Grey Eminence, and virtually no-one – and certainly not the Legion (or Epitome himself now) - knows the Eminence is Grey. So until the apparent discrepancy is clarified by poster-Killer Shrike, preferably in the form of a story, I’m just staying clear of the incident and assuming Mumph knows of the Eminence but not his identity. Manchester’s there to be the whipping boy, and he may soon be gone anyhow. For more on Aldrich Grey, see #238. The Hooded Hood's Homepage of Doom Who's Who in the Parodyverse Where's Where in the Parodyverse 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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