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Post By The Hooded Hood tackles a new UT readership low Sat Nov 26, 2005 at 08:01:16 am EST |
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#243: Untold Tales of the Junior Lair Legion: Places That We Should Not Go | |
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| #243: Untold Tales of the Junior Lair Legion: Places That We Should Not Go “Don’t panic,” Visionary advised. They were such unusual words for him that most people looked up from the breakfast table in the Lair Kitchen. “What do you mean, don’t panic?” objected Amber St Clare shrilly. “How can I not panic?” “Try to be taking calming deep breaths,” Yo advised, shifting to female form so it was easier to graphically demonstrate. Yuki slapped Trickshot on the back until he coughed up his Weetabix. “You could also try putting you head in a paper bag,” CrazySugarFreakBoy! advised the Legion’s government liaison. “We keep one around here in case Epitome comes down to eat especially ugly.” “Do not provoke a man before he has his eggs and ham,” the paragon of power growled from behind his newspaper. “I’m not panicking,” Amber clarified fiercely. “Hyperventilating a little, maybe, but not actual panic. I can totally cope with this.” “Cope with whut?” Trickshot wondered. “You finally given in an’ admitted your deep monkey lust fer me?” “Absolutely not,” the young woman glared. “But I have just found out that Visionary smuggled a pair of illegal Caphan refugees onto Earth this morning without any kind of pre-agreed immigration clearance or diplomatic approval.” “More green-skinned slave girls?” Yuki Shiro whistled. “Wow Vizh, you’re a machine!” “Are you at least gonna share ‘em round this time?” Trickshot demanded. Without De Brown Streak around he was the one that had to make these kind of comments. The Librarian looked up from a Best of Charles Shultz volume. “I suspect at this time one of his guests is a Caphan male or some distinction. Yes? Good grief.” “Yo is thinking we are not to be judging of cute Visi.” “You haven’t heard the best of it yet,” Amber warned them. “One of them is royalty. The Emir of All Caph. The exiled Emir of All Caph. Vizh has brought the exiled Emir of all Caph back to the United States of America without any liaison with the State Department, no regard for the interplanetary consequences, no agreed itinery or diplomatic programme…” “That’s going to help our negotiations with Garrick on SR1066,” noted Epitome. “I am sure Visionary had a perfectly good reason for doing that,” Asil challenged, defending the Great Man. “Tell them, Visionary.” “I wanted my bathroom back,” the possibly fake man admitted. Seeing the looks the breakfasters gave him he added, “The Hooded Hood stole my bathroom, and was holding it hostage.” Yuki leaned back in her chair happily. “I love breakfasts here,” she admitted. Sir Mumphrey finished his kedgeree and took a sip of his morning tea. “Lair Mansion’s not technically under US jurisdiction, Ms St Clare,” he advised the liaison officer. “There’s a memo from Ms Waltz about it lying around somewhere.” He glanced out of the window down to the shoreline where Vizh’s new house was settled. “Take it your visitors are in your new domicile, what?” “Yes,” agreed Vizh. “Bringing them back all made more sense when the Hooded Hood was kissing Shazana Pel. And Ohanna wants to see her sister Miiri, so I’ve got the Shoggoth talking to Ebony to talk to the Shoggoth about getting the Caphans to Lemuria to meet up with the Caphans.” “Yep,” Yuki repeated. “Breakfasts here are always special.” “But there’s been no official welcome,” Amber persisted. “No ceremonies. No cultural exchange. No opportunities to clarify interplanetary relations with…” “Prince Kiivan and Ohanna are only teens,” Visionary assured her. “I left Kerry and Hacker Nine looking after them.” That was what launched Amber into full scale panic. “I musteth come with thee, father,” Harlagaz Donarson protested. “You canst not force me to stayeth at home whilst there is reaving and slaying to be done for the nonce!” spiffy intervened between Donar, hemigod of thunder, and his rebellious son. “Er, you do realise we’re not actually invading Olympus. Both of you?” he checked desperately. “We just want to look in the Pool of All Plot-Spoiling to find out what happened to Ausgard, right?” “Oh aye,” agreed Donar. “I wilt only smite them if they wilt not getteth out of mine way.” “Hooga!” agreed Caveguy, Lord of the Savage Park, waving his club in the air. “See?” Harlagaz complained. “A hairy mortal savage can go smite Olympians but I have to stay home and study? That is so unfaireth.” “You see, Elsqueevio’s more or less in charge in Olympus these days, and he’s letting us up there as a special favour to me…” spiffy persisted worriedly. “We art in most grievous dangerous times, mine son,” frowned Donar. “All of Ausgard and that which we gods protect hangeths on the edge of oblivioneth. Therefore it is meet that thou remainest with thine boon companions in the Junior Lair Legion that if I fail thou takest up the mantle to avengeth me and save all.” “That is such a crocketh, father!” Gaz shouted angrily. “I art not still seven hundred, you know!” “How old wouldst thou say he ist mentally, coat-rack?” the Oldmanson asked spiffy. “Eleven?” guessed the fern wielder. Or three years less than you he didn’t add, because he preferred not to be smitten. “Hooga,” suggested Caveguy sceptically. “Tis settled then,” Donar proclaimed. “Come, coat-rack, hairéd one. Let us hie to Olympus and battle our way through their endless hordes to win our way to the Pool of All Plot-Spoiling!” “Elsqueevio is expecting us,” spiffy tried again. “He’s getting in sandwiches and kebabs…” There was a flash of transdimensional light and Harlagaz was alone in the room. “Crappeth!” he swore. “Late again,” scowled Miss Framlicker as Fred Harris hurried into the Extraordinary Endeavour Enterprises firehouse. “Any lateness penalties we incur on this delivery come out of your pay.” “But… I already owe you six weeks pay as it is!” Ham-Boy objected as he was dragged towards the transfer grid and Amy Aston fastened his saddlebags to him. It was only because Al B. got to her in time that she didn’t use a stapler. “So you’d better make this a good mission,” Miss F said inexorably. Fred was starting to think that maybe working as Nats’ replacement as EEE delivery boy wasn’t a smart move. His schedule was already overcrowded between the Juniors, being a part-time student in Goth Haven, and his evening job at the Gulp-n-Go. He’d survived nearly four weeks of Harper and Framlicker catapulting him across time and space but so far he’d not met a single sex princess to call his own. “Where am I going this time?” Ham-Boy whimpered. “And how much will it hurt?” “Simple mail delivery job,” Miss Framlicker told him. “Even you can’t screw this up.” “It’s an unusual set of co-ordinates,” Al B. admitted. “Fluctuating. I’ve had to develop a whole new matching technique to stop your molecules being sprayed across infinity on landing, but I’m fairly certain the basic math is sound.” “Fairly certain?” Ham-Boy swallowed. “Look, about this job…” The Amy pulled the big red lever and Fred Harris was catapulted across dimensions. “Anyone feel like a bagel?” wondered Miss Framlicker as Ham-Boy vanished on his journey. “I am sorry,” Glory told Fashion Accessory, using her paw-operated translation device to shift her movements to synthesized speech, “but I think I prefer my normal collar. This one just feels a little too poodle.” Samantha Bonnington sighed. So few of her teammates appreciated her efforts to make them more chic. She gestured and transmuted Glory’s collar back to plain leather. “Well, I suppose it does have a basic retro look to it,” she consoled herself. “A kind of dog’s dog feel to it.” “Are we going to carry on with your party preparations?” the mutt of might prompted her. “After all, turning eighteen is a big rite of passage for humans. After this you will be able to vote.” “After this I can legally jump the bones of the stud of my choice,” FA responded. “Um, by the way, did we add Hatman to the party list?” “I do not know if Hatman would be interested in mating with you when you come into season,” Glory warned the California blonde. “I think he is the sort who mates for life.” “Hey, it’s over a year since he got any action with Sorceress. And that thing with the Candian babe so isn’t going anywhere. He’s probably bursting. It’d be a public service.” “You mean a service in Off-Central Park or something? Like Nats and Uhuna almost had?” “Ah, no, not quite like that. But you have to admit he’s the cutest of the heroes, with that big strong chin and Dudley Do-Right attitude?” She looked wistful. “And just once, wouldn’t it be nice to date a guy who you knew wasn’t a total bastard?” “Have you been talking to Sarah again?” Glory wondered. “No, look,” FA confided in the border collie. “You have to get the secret origin of Fashion Accessory to understand this. Back when I was sweet thirteen, just out of my braces, I have this encounter with the Hooded Hood…” “The Hood!” Glory yelped. “Yeah, the cowled crime czar himself. And he had a deal for the bored little rich girl, okay? He could arrange for me to get a fragment of an Austernal’s matter-shaping power in exchange for me joining this sidekick group called the New Battlers. It was all part of one of his big plots against the Lair Legion, but I never did the homework to find out what.” “It was in the Sidekick Day case,” Glory informed her. “Whatever. Anyway, I wasn’t going to look at the small print, and I guess he knew that before he came to me. None of us looked, not me, not Lisette, not E-Male, none of us. So we played the part and we became teen super-types. But not nice teen super-types.” “The New Battlers styled themselves a cutting-edge super-team that eschewed the cliché old expectations of the establishment about saving people or doing good and simply went out and had a wild time,” the pooch of power quoted from the LL files. “Sure. And it was filled with horny bastard guys who knew just how to manipulate a precocious teenager who wanted to fit in,” Samantha added. She seemed to shrink at the memory. “Lisette was the star of the show, and Wyrmbait loved it, but… well now I wish I’d never met any of them.” She smiled weakly, trying to cover up her emotions. “So you can see why a guy like Hatman might look pretty special to a girl like me, eh?” Glory didn’t know what to say, so she laid her muzzle down on the girl’s lap and let Samantha stroke her ears. “You’re a prince, right?” Kiivan asked the hulking warrior who was handing out the pizza. “Yeah, I supposeth,” Harlagaz Donarson shrugged. “Mine father ist ruler over Ausgard and mine grandfather is the Oldman who art monarch over all. But it ist not really a big dealeth.” “We never had royalty in the Technoverse,” Hacker Nine chipped in. “And the pizzas tasted more plastic and artificial too. I think it’s the carcinogens that give it this great taste!” “So do you think about duty?” the exiled Emir of Caph continued. Harlagaz took a massive bite out of his four seasons with added gjarlenwolf. “Duty? Tis mine duty to smite felons, and to protect yon innoncents from those who wouldst prey on them. And also to taketh out yon trash each day and compact it into yon bin.” If he had any deeper thoughts or resentments about his father’s departure earlier he gave no sign of it. “Protecting people, yes,” Kiivan repeated. “That’s all I think about these days.” “You have a lot of people looking to you for some help,” H9 shrugged. “A whole planet to save. Very Star Wars.” “And I must save them quickly,” the Caphan prince declared. “Every day they spend toiling under the lash of the Thonnagarians is one day too many. That is why I begged the Hooded Hood to allow me to spend time… in time.” Harlagaz burped. The conversation had just gone above his level. “The Hoodsy dropped him through that Portal apparatus to a slightly different time,” Zach Zelnitz translated. “Then he got a year’s worth of tutoring in at some Naicluv academy, and another with the Yellow Flashlights Corps, and another at the IOL Branch Library courtesy of Mr Bookman’s Crystaxian buddies and in between Kiivan got back to Vaahir in time to beat up the baddies before supper.” “Lord Vaahir is a great warlord, and a fine tutor,” Kiivan admired. “I have learned much from him, and from Pel. But I have to learn… more.” “Like how to run things as well as how to hit things?” H9 suggested. “I hast noticed that if I hitteth things long enough twill solve most problems,” Harlagaz shared earnestly. “But if I am to command Lord Vaahir and men like him in my service, I must be… worthy. I must know more, be more. I have to be able to surprise them.” The demihemigod of thunder looked up in alarm. “Thou hast been learning from yon Hooded Hood!” “A masterclass in deception and planning,” Kiivan admitted with a grin. “When he forgets himself and starts to get into the spirit of the plotting he’s almost human.” “Trust not yon felon,” Harlagaz warned. “He art only using thee for his own ends.” “I know what the Hooded Hood wants,” the Emir admitted. “I already gave it to him: the transmundium we liberated from the Caphan Treasury. That’s why he was willing to help us.” “One reason, mayhap,” rumbled the Ausgardian. “So will you be time-hopping again after your trip to Earth?” H9 asked Kiivan to break the ominous silence that squashed the conversation. The Caphan took another piece of the pizza. “I imagine so. The Hood has arranged for Ohanna and I to study with the Observers for a year, then three months back with Lord Vaahir again, then a season with the Xnylonians, then the Weaponmancers. By the time Lord Vaahir’s servitude on Plxtrazar is concluded and he is free to aid us I expect I will be of age to properly claim my throne.” “Wow, that’s quite an itinerary,” Zach Zelnitz admitted. “And what then?” “Then the hard part begins, rebuilding and reforming my world.” “If thou needest any aid in smiting yon invaders,” Harlagaz mentioned casually, “I trust thou would’st not begrudge thine friends some measure of the smiting?” “I was hoping you’d say that,” the Emir of Caph admitted with a smile. “Vaahir’s a great start, and Pel too, but I’ll need more than an army of four to…” “Four?” H9 asked. “Ohanna, of course,” Kiivan answered with a sigh. “She’d never let me leave her behind. Besides, who would I argue with if Ohanna of Raael wasn’t there to tell me what’s wrong with me?” “Ohanna ist thine bond-maid?” Harlagaz asked. “Ohanna isn’t my property at all. But she is the most annoying, argumentative, perceptive, manipulating, ego-stamping, competitive girl in the history of the universe.” Kiivann shook his head a moment, amazed by how easily his companion could get under his skin even in her absence. “Of course she’ll be with me. I couldn’t do it without her.” “Okay,” Kerry Shepherdson said. “You might have wandered the galaxy and stuff but you are totally going to freak when you taste deep pan spicy hot pizza, Ohanna.” The Caphan girl shifted nervously under the tent of blankets on Kerry’s bed. “And that’s a good thing?” she ventured. “Personally I think you should try the low calorie vegetarian option,” Samantha Bonnington advised, “but on the whole there’s nothing that says Earth is good like freshly-baked pizza. Well, maybe a few things, but none that Vizh is going to allow in Kerry’s bedroom.” The three girls were huddled in conference about Ohanna’s first visit to the legendary Earth. The Caphan slave girl cautiously tasted a corner of the food she’d been offered by the chattels of the House of Visionary (except they weren’t chattels because Earth was a planet that believed in enfranchisement of women, as long as they weren’t too enfranchised). “Ohh,” she admitted, “this does taste good!” “Told ya,” Kerry smirked. “We don’t want you telling your sister that we didn’t look after you properly. There’s no need for you to suffer like I do.” Ohanna looked flustered again. “I thought all my family destroyed,” she admitted. “We all thought Miiri long dead, sold offworld and lost forever.” “Well now you know better,” FA told her. “Tomorrow you get to go to the Sanctuary and meet her again.” “I hardly know her,” Ohanna admitted. “It is six of your years since she saw me last, nine since I saw her…” “Hold on,” Kerry objected. “Serious math failure here.” “It is six years since Miiri was sold to Prince Aarmus and left our House,” Ohanna explained. “And but six of your months ago that I escaped from Caph as it fell to the Thonnagarians. Yet for Prince Kiivan and I three years have passed, since after we had spent some time learning from Lord Vaahir, the Lord Hood took us through his Portal of Pretentiousness to study and train elsewhere, most recently at the Library of the Crystaxians.” “So how old are you, really?” Samantha asked. The girl looked young, but her manner was grave and adult. Perhaps all Caphan girls jumped from being children to women? “Nearly four,” Ohanna admitted. “In your years, perhaps… sixteen cycles?” “Hold it. Time out,” declared Kerry. “Lord Hood?” “The Lord Hood is my master,” the Caphan explained. “My father passed ownership of me to him.” “Not any more,” FA told her. “This is Earth. We may have to live with Oshkosh B’Gosh and Brittany Spears but we don’t allow slavery here.” Ohanna shook her head. “I am the Hooded Hood’s property, until such time as he disposes of me. That is our way.” A small subversive flicker of a smile twitched one corner of her mouth. “For now.” “For now?” Kerry pursued. Ohanna blushed greenly. “Prince Kiivan and I… that is, Prince Kiivan has a few ideas… for reform.” She clearly felt she’d given away too much. “You have been most hospitable, sisters,” she said hurriedly, stuffing down the last of her slice of pizza. “But I should be going now to attend to the Emir. He was talking with those boys but by now he may already be in bed…” “Attend to him?” Samantha questioned. “In the middle of the night? In his bed?” “I always sleep with Kiivan,” Ohanna shrugged. Then she realised the implications the Earth girls were drawing. “Oh, I do not pleasure him. Lord Hood has commanded me to remain innocent.” “Right. You’re allowed to share a bed with Kiivan and I’m not even allowed boys in the same time zone as my bedroom,” Kerry complained. “Life is so unfair.” “He’s lost so much, Kiivan, and he works so hard to try and put things right,” Ohanna explained. “It is good for him to have someone to hold onto when he closes his eyes, to remind him of the people he fights for.” “Does Vizh know about your sleeping arrangements?” Kerry speculated. “And if not can I be the one to tell him, when he’s drinking his coffee tomorrow morning?” “Well, if you’re not Kiivan’s slave, and he can manage to stay awake for a while longer,” FA considered, “there’s more to Earth than pizza that you might want to see.” Kerry looked sideways at her friend. “Are you suggesting creeping out in defiance of Visionary’s instructions and showing Ohanna and Kiivan the night life in the Big Banana?” she demanded. “Yeah.” “Excellent.” Ham-Boy smothered the last of the giant centipedes in chicken nuggets, pouring on the meat and using his powers to have it crush the ravening monster until it popped in a squishy mess. Then he fell back onto his bottom. “Ouch,” he panted. “Simple mail delivery my ass!” He noticed three robed figured appearing from behind the splattered caterpillars. They wore brown hooded habits, like monks, and they bowed to him. “What now?” Fred Harris sighed, staggering to his feet. First it had been the cancerous soap bubbles, then the hall of extremely intimate traps, then the kraken weed, then the caterpillars. “Please tell me you’re not killer uber-ninjas.” “We are not killer uber-ninjas, Frederick Hogarth Harris,” one of them replied. “What? You know… er, I mean, who’s this Harris guy?” Ham-Boy covered. His identity was a closely-guarded secret. “You are, Ham-Boy,” another monk replied. “We have been monitoring the exploits of your world’s meatiest hero from the start.” “You have? Um, I mean, I don’t know what you’re talking about. This Harris…” “It is our role to watch for and nurture heroes for the coming trial,” the third figure said. “That is why we arranged for you to bring a message to us, so you could be tested. “Tested!” yelped Fred. “You mean all those things trying to kill me…?” “We were merely assessing your level of competence,” the monk explained. “We of the Order of the Observing Eye have long had an interest in the development of extraordinary beings.” “Would you say that your performance is typical of that of your team-mates in the Junior Legion training programme?” another asked. “Performance? You get me to bring you a letter so you can try to kill me…?” “Is it typical?” the monk persisted. “Yeah, I guess. Why?” The Order of the Observing Eye told him. CrazySugarFreakBoy! noticed the cautious nose edging round the door of his room. “Come in Glory,” he called. “What is it?” “Am I interrupting you?” the dog asked, carefully picking her way across the magazines strewn all over the floor. “Not at all,” Dreamcatcher Foxglove grinned, bounding up to sit cross legged. “I was just catching up on my studying.” “I thought you were reading comics?” “Like I said. Is there something you need, Glory?” It was a comfort to the young collie to be able to communicate with CSFB! without her translator, since the wired wonder’s ear-ring and tongue-stud offered instant translation. “I wished to discuss something, but I do not think I can discuss this with Dominic,” she explained. “Because he’s a tight-assed ultra-Republican Fascist demagogue?” Dream suggested. “He is not any of those things,” Glory growled unhappily. “But he does get a little embarrassed when I want to discuss sex.” CrazySugarFreakBoy! grinned. “Yeah, I can see that. So what’s the problem?” Glory sat on her haunches beside the bed. “A friend of mine explained how she was made unhappy by unwise premature mating,” Glory explained. “I am now growing from puppyhood to be an adult bitch, and many dogs wish to sniff me.” “That’s only natural, Glory,” CSFB! assured her. “You’re a great-looking bitch.” “Yes. But also I am unique, because my intellect has been boosted many times by the same classified process that gave me my enhanced physical powers. So now I am not simply an animal with animal lusts.” “You want more than just physical sex, doggy style,” Dream acknowledged. “But you’re getting animal urges.” “I suppose so.” Glory looked almost embarrassed herself. “But although I am very happy to be a dog, I do not want to simply be an animal. Thinking beings must choose when to surrender to their instincts and when not to. And I am becoming a little scared.” “Of never finding the right partner? Or what happens if you give in to your feelings? Of puppies?” “All of those, yes,” agreed the mutt of might. “What should I do?” “You realise that Visionary will kill us if he knew we’d sneaked in to the Willow?” Hacker Nine pointed out. “And then he’d turn us over to Sir Mumphrey to be killed some more.” “Where’s your sense of adventure, H9?” Kerry Shepherdson asked him. She gestured round the most dangerous night-club in town, rebuilt after its recent traumas and more opulent than ever. “Think of this as a kind of physical hacking. We’re getting past firewalls and going where we shouldn’t be.” “I suppose this could be useful training for our return to Caph,” Kiivan considered. “Or just a fun night out,” Fashion Accessory suggested. “It’s okay to have fun once in a while too.” Ohanna looked uncertainly round the vast, crowded dance room. “We are not the only green-skinned people here,” she noted. “Who are these other Caphans?” FA followed her glance. “Those aren’t Caphans,” she said, spotting the silver bikinied girls dancing at the end of their masters’ chains. “That’s body paint. The slave-girls the LL brought back from the Transworlds Challenge kind of started a fashion trend. That’s a lifestyle choice.” “So who do all these women belong to?” Keevan puzzled. “Are they pleasure slaves of this House?” “They belong to whoever they want to belong to,” Samantha told him. “Preferably someone with a nice car.” “Or an Abraham’s tank, perhaps,” Kerry contributed. Harlagaz glared round the decadent night club, ignoring the interested glances from half the young women present. “This place doth have the stink of Faerie,” he glowered. “Not that we’re judging,” FA told him. “Besides, pink is a valid fashion choice for any sexuality these days.” “He means the establishment is run by one of the Fey race, disguising her glamours behind a commercial mortal façade,” Donny Drummond told them, appearing from the bar with a pint of lager in his hand. “Wyrm Lad!” spat Kerry Shepherdson, recognising the putative leader of the New Battlers. Drummond sipped at his drink. “These days I prefer Lounge Lizard,” he replied. “But I’m guessing you’re still all Juniors.” Ludo Donger muscled his way through the crowd. “Did I hear somebody mention Juniors?” asked Thunderstroke, the ersatz Ausgardian. “Aw, they’re so cute!” “How many times hast thou died now?” Harlagaz growled at the big Australian muscle man. “Wouldst thou like to try for one more?” “These are clan enemies?” Keevan recognised, wishing he had brought his plas gar honour sword. “Just cutting edge supertypes these wannabees can only dream of being,” Wyrm Bait told him, eyeing the young Caphan up and down. Ohanna moved between the emir and the dragonette. “Why should our friends dream of being poseur skanks?” she wondered, glaring at Tina Drummond. Suddenly all the New Battlers were there: Lounge Lizard, Wyrmbait, Little Buttie, Hat Kid, Boy Wonder, and Thunderstoke, flanking the four Juniors and their two guests. “Guys, if we brawl here innocents are going to get hurt,” FA pointed out to both sides. “As if we care,” shrugged Lounge Lizard. “Boy, those Juniors have been a corrupting influence on you, Sammy. But we knew you when.” Kerry stepped forward. “I could burn you from the inside out right now, right here, and nobody would notice anything but smoke coming up from your ears,” she threatened. “One, I’m fireproof,” Lounge Lizard told her. “Two, I know you don’t have the guts to let yourself go like that. And three, you’d be dead before you tried it, because we don’t play by your stupid, pathetic rules. So back off, psycho-bitch, before I smack your cute little backside.” “That doeseth it,” Harlagaz shouted. “Prepare for a lifetime suckething thine food in by straw!” Hacker Nine flicked a stud on his palm pilot and set off the fire alarm. The sprinklers burst to life, drenching everybody in the club. Mr Oxalis, the impossibly-huge bouncer noticed the affray and began to push through the squealing wet partygoers to get to the confrontation. “Another time, Legion-babies,” Wyrmbait said as the New Battlers split up and fled. “You can’t keep slithering out of this forever.” “We need to get out too,” FA called to the others. “H9, get Ohanna and Keevan to the fire exit,” Kerry called. “Gaz, FA, and I will split up so the bouncers follow us not you.” The Juniors pressed off into the crowd. “A contest?” Ham-Boy frowned. “Like the Transworlds Challenge?” “More of an examination,” Goomtar of the Observing Eye explained to him. “Each year we host a trial for the neophyte hero training teams to test their skill and competence against each other in a measured trial. This enables their teachers to assess how well their pupils have progressed and to determine which if any should graduate from their tutelage.” “And how is it that the Juniors have never been involved in one of these before?” HB demanded. “Your headmaster turned us down,” Goombar shrugged. “We always assumed it was because he was ashamed of how badly you would fare in the contest.” “Professor Xalter’s School for Gifted Mutates has taken the prize for five years running,” Goomdor chipped in. “And they are hot favourites again this year.” “What does this exam consist of then?” Ham-Boy wondered. “Is it multiple choice?” he asked hopefully. “There is usually a test to be achieved over a period of time, requiring a number of intermediary obstacles to be overcome,” Goomtar outlined. “Here, take this.” Fred accepted a carved wooden stick from the mysterious monk by pure reflex. He was a polite youth. “What is it?” he enquired. Goombar ignored him and went on with the exposition. “The Order judges points for the teams based upon their performance, co-operatively with each other or in opposition. The most points are achieved by accomplishing the mission of course. The examination typically takes five days to complete.” “Five days? That’s a lot of questions,” Ham-Boy admitted. “But about this stick…?” “That is a Quest Stave,” Goomdor proclaimed. “In accepting it you agree to participate in the trial or to die.” Fred dropped the wooden stick rapidly and backed away. “And you have accepted it,” Goomdor told him. “This time we decided that refusal to participate was not an option. Your team-mates must decide for themselves whether they wish to accompany you, of course. But you at least will be Tested to the uttermost.” Kerry surged thought the crowds around the bar then on towards the main exit. A handsome young man pressed against her as she hurried past, brushing his fingers across her bare shoulder. “You want me,” he told the probability arsonist, and smirked at her. And it was true. Suddenly Kerry wanted nothing more than for him to rip her clothes off right then and there. “Yes,” she breathed. “Oh please!” “This way,” he said, taking her hand and leading her towards the gents toilets. “We wouldn’t want to be interrupted.” “Whatever. Just take me quickly.” The desire overwhelmed everything else in Kerry’s mind. His touch on her shoulder seared her like fire. The young man dragged her into the bathroom and tossed her unceremoniously into a cubicle. “Strip off then, Kerry” he grinned. “I don’t have all night.” Kerry didn’t know how the stranger knew her name. She just wanted him. Although some small part of her was screaming for her to stop and think it was too deep down. She reached for her t-shirt and dragged it over her head. “You don’t want to do that,” another voice told her. She peered out of the cubicle past her sudden date and saw another teenager leaning against the bathroom door. He wasn’t as good looking as her sex partner, but he had a certain rakish charm with his insolent smile and his battered biker jacket. Maybe after she’d done the handsome one, Kerry thought… But she found she no longer wanted to drag off all her clothes. “Lyle!” the handsome boy scowled. “I thought I locked that door!” “You didn’t,” Daniel Lyle assured him. “Let the girl go, Drugo.” Drugo pointed to Kerry as she stood confused in the cubicle doorway, clutching her t-shirt in front of her. “You know who she is, don’t you? I was just nobbling the competition. So to speak.” He smiled ingratiatingly at Lyle. “There’s plenty there for both of us.” “No, there isn’t,” the biker-jacketed teen replied. “Get the hell out of here, Drugo, before I have to beat the crap out of you.” “This is a chance for us to take out one of the Junior Lair Legion before they even know what they’re into,” Drugo Lodestone argued. “We can’t miss a chance like this.” “We can. Now piss off.” The two young men locked wills for a moment, glaring across the bathroom. Drugo looked away first. “The White Empress will hear about this,” he warned before he stalked out slamming to door after him. Kerry watched him go with desperate pangs of longing. “It’s okay,” Lyle told her. “His skin secretes a psychotropic sweat that can amplify people’s desires and suppress their inhibitions. He’s a lot of fun at parties. It wears off after a few hours.” Kerry tried to battle with the surging emotions running through her. “So… do you want to have sex with me?” Daniel Lyle looked the pretty topless teenager up and down. “Sure,” he agreed. “Why not?” Next Time: Ham Boy’s little problem! Keevan on Lemuria! Miiri and Ohanna! Kerry and Danny Lyle! Fashion Accessory and the New Battlers! Lisette and …....? All coming up in Untold Tales of the Morning After. Killer Shrike's Glory Tie-In: Doggerel 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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