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Post By The Hooded Hood wishes everybody tidings of comfort and joy, and points out that if he does many more double-sized chapters we'll have to start calling the regular ones half-sized. Fri Dec 23, 2005 at 03:09:08 pm EST |
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#246: Untold Tales of the Junior Lair Legion: Smells Like Teen Spirit (Judging By the Way it Burns) | |
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| #246: Untold Tales of the Junior Lair Legion: Smells Like Teen Spirit (Judging By the Way it Burns) What has Gone Before: The Order of the Observing Eye, a mysterious bunch of interdimensional monks, has organised the latest in their annual achievement trials for junior heroes (and villains). This time they have used one of their Quest Staves to force the Junior Lair Legion to participate, to the displeasure of the Legion. Other contestants include the iconoclast New Battlers, whose member E-Male recently hospitalised Lisette and Mac Fleetwood and who are blackmailing Fashion Accessory to betray her team-mates, and Young Heckfire, whose leader attempted to seduce Kerry Shepherdson with his emotion-manipulating sweat until thwarted by his own team member Daniel (Denial) Lyle. There’s a quick checklist of contestants at the bottom of this page, but beware because it includes spoilers for the chapter. The Hooded Hood's Homepage of Doom Who's Who in the Parodyverse Where's Where in the Parodyverse  The swarming heart of Tokyo was seething even more than usual around the Shinjuku Park Tower, the location of the Park Hyatt Hotel where the students involved in the Hero Trials were being lodged. White-gloved police officers kept back pressing crowds as the white limousines delivering Young Heckfire purred up to the red carpet.Across the parkway, Visionary fumbled with a clip of unfamiliar banknotes and tried to work out the Yen-Dollar exchange rate as the Juniors dragged themselves out of the taxi-van. It had taken two hours to clear customs at Narita International Airport, another fifty minutes to use the rail-link to Shinjuku Station, and then just under half an hour to find Ham-Boy again. “He seems like a happy man,” Visionary noted worriedly as the taxi driver grinned and bowed to him and hurriedly drove off. “More than I can say,” Fashion Accessory complained. “I need a five star suite, a bubble bath, and a foot massage, stat. Not from you, HB.” “You canst give me yon foot massage if thou likest, meaty one,” Harlagaz offered his teammate. “Ham-Boy can borrow my leash if he likes,” Glory suggested helpfully. “If it would keep him from getting lost.” “I didn’t get lost,” Fred Harris complained. “I was just trying to figure out how to get a candy bar from one of those machines and then you all crept off.” “But it never works,” Kerry pointed out. “You always find us again.” “There are so many people here,” Ohanna of Raael noted, keeping close to the group. “Even more than is the grand casbah. Have they all come to observe our performance in the trial?” The young Caphan wondered if she should have allowed herself to be convinced into terrain garb. Her formal meshwear would have been much more appropriate. “I do not think they are here for us,” Prince Kiivan noted, pointing to the limousines. “They are paying tribute to those beings leaving the white chariots.” “More contestants?” scowled FA. “More contestants getting my spotlight? And arriving in style instead of, y’know, like they were travelling with Visionary.” “I think that must be Young Heckfire,” Kerry suggested. “That’s Danny with them.” “Danny?” puzzled Vizh. “Danny who.” “Nobody,” shrugged Kerry. “Nobody you should know about,” agreed FA. “Who’s that girl with them?” Hacker Nine wondered. “The one who looks like she’s wearing Falcon’s costume?” “Which art yon one who terms himself Lord and Master?” Harlagaz wondered. “I needs must know what I wilt soon be wiping off mine fist.” “Now remember, we’re here as guests,” Visionary warned his charges. “We have to… hey, come back!” The Juniors tried to get through the crowd, but the cordon held them back while Young Heckfire processed into the foyer of the most exclusive hotel in Tokyo. “Hey, we’re contestants too!” Hacker Nine objected as a policeman jabbed him backwards with his baton. “Just because we don’t have the operating budget of those Heckfire guys…” “Or the head teacher,” whistled Harlagaz, staring as Anna Salem, White Empress of the Knights of Heckfire slid elegantly out of the limo. “Why can’t we get taught by those? I mean her.” “Hey,” objected Vizh. “You couldn’t pull off that bustier look, fake-o,” Kerry advised him. “Pull off that bustier…” Ham-Boy agreed weakly, very distracted. “That underwear on the outside look is so outdated,” sulked Samantha Bonnington. “Besides, that lace-up thread looks awfully fragile to me.” And she concentrated, because ranged transmutations were hard. “Trickshot?” Artemis swallowed hard. “Trickshot?” “In the living breathing flesh,” smirked the irritating archer. “Who else could be that annoying?” queried Yuki Shiro. The young woman who the two Legionnaires had been searching for looked a little alarmed and glanced round at the would-be robbers she’d captured. “I can shoot better than this,” she blurted. “It’s just that when I get excited I…” “Twitch ta the left if you’re not payin’ attention,” Trickshot concluded for her. “Yeah, I saw that. But if you brace your arm a bit more and let your elbow take the recoil you’d sort that out right away. Don’t look so down, kid, you’re doing swell!” Artemis quickly retrieved her arrowheads. She had no means these days of getting replacements. “I didn’t mean to interfere with a Lair Legion field operation,” she apologised. “So you know we’re Lair Legion?” Yuki noted. “I do my homework,” Charlotte Ouk answered. “When your only talent is shooting a weapon that’s been outdated for three hundred years you’d better take the time to study.” “Got that right,” snorted Tricky. He caught Yuki’s glance. “What? I study. Ya think I’m this good without some practise?” “I thought being this obnoxious came naturally,” the cyborg PI retorted. “Don’t pay no attention to pinkie here,” Trickshot told Artemis. “She’s strugglin’ with a deep unspoken attraction ta me, and the poor woman don’t know how to handle it. Anyhow, like we said, we could use some help from you, kid.” “He’s right,” Yuki agreed. “About needing your assistance, not about the self-deluding ego-trip ramblings of his reality-challenged little mind’s false conclusions about me, I mean. We need you to go undercover for us, and it could be dangerous.” Artemis shrugged and shouldered her bow. “When do I start?”  “I am Goombar, of the Observing Eye,” the neat bald monk told the Juniors, bowing low. “I am here to welcome you to the trials, and to instruct you on protocol.”“Things like not accepting any sticks off you?” asked Ham-Boy sourly. “How many of you guys are there?” wondered Hacker Nine. “And why do you all look alike?” “We have served the cause for many millennia,” Goombar told him. “After a while, the cause imprints itself upon our flesh.” “Like a kicketh up the butt?” suggested Harlagaz. “What you did to force the Juniors to participate was wholly unethical,” Visionary warned the monk. “We want you to remove the geas now. You’ve never forced the Juniors to participate in your stupid contests before.” “We have never had such urgent need to map all Terran heroes before,” Goombar answered. “You have seen the way your world is going. Do you believe there will be a contest such as this next year?” Nobody answered that one. Outside there was more cheering. A sleek black plane was hovering over the plaza and a group of smartly-uniformed youngsters were being telekinetically lowered to the hotel entrance. “Look, no taxi,” muttered Fashion Accessory. “Ah, the All-New X-Students,” noted Goombar in admiring tones. “They have won the trials five years running.” “Mutates?” guessed Kerry. “Students of the Xalter Academy,” Glory supplied in yaps translated by her voice machine. “Founded by the late Professor Claude Xalter and now operated by his original students, the Evolutionary Revolutionaries, the Academy offers its students a chance to hone their skills and fight for a world that hates and fears them.” “I fear those haircuts,” admitted Ham-Boy, staring down from the reception lounge at the clean tidy young people accompanying Storm Trooper through the front door. “So they’re the favourites, are they?” Hacker Nine muttered, quizzing his palm pilot for information on Redeye, Wisp, Ironworks, Shadowcreeper, Coldfront, Psychorunt, and Flaming Resurrection Girl. “Okay.” Visionary looked back at the monk of the Observing Eye. “You were just offering feeble excuses why you assaulted my students and put their lives at risk,” he prompted. “Oh, there is little risk of fatality,” Goombar assured him. “Very little. We haven’t had a death for three years, and even then it was only because Balloon Girl got overexcited. There are precautions.” He leaned forward and explained. “Once the trial begins and the students enter the location, after eight hours the whole exercise is stopped.” “Stopped?” asked Kiivan, suspiciously. “How?” “The teams are secured safely in their own force field bubbles, where they can rest and recover for four hours. Then the contest proceeds for another eight hours, and then a four hour break, and so on.” “Do these force bubbles have bathrooms in?” worried Ham-Boy. There was a rumble from the plaza as an armoured vehicle half-tracked its way towards the hotel. It rolled over a potted plant and came to a halt nudging the pole that held up the entrance canopy. “Turrets Industries Columbus-Class All Terrain Armoured Anti-Terror Vehicle,” Hacker Nine recognised. “Type Two, with the fluffy windshield dice.” “You know your ordinance,” admitted Ohanna. “Right down to their main computer over-ride sequence,” H9 assured her. “Anyone want me to send that vehicle right into the lobby?” “No,” said Visionary firmly. “Mayhap just as far as the coat check?” pleaded Harlagaz plaintively. “Whoever’s driving that thing is doing a good enough job of crushing stuff already,” pointed out Vizh. The side panel hissed open and the C-Team of the Federal Metahuman Resource Centre deployed. Teen Avenger, Billy Goat, the Human Zamboni, Psi-Lance, Dreama Garner, and the Masked Muskrat staggered from the vehicle. All of them appeared to be shouting at somebody who couldn’t be seen. Special Agent Rupert Holcombe gathered the unit together and marched them inside. “I feel so bad for the porter who has to park that,” Ham-Boy admitted. “Me too,” agreed Hacker Nine, slipping his data pad away innocently. “How many groups are contesting these games?” Prince Kiivan demanded of the monk of the Observing Eye. “This year?” Goombar replied. “Nearly everybody. The Wonder-Friends are already here, and so are the Belgian Wafflettes. The Fey Boys are coming tonight.” “We didn’t ask for their social calendar,” remarked FA. The ground shook again. “And that will be the Giant Robot Six,” added Goombar. Outside a massive humanoid machine neatly divided up into six separate elements, each of which folded up into a different kind of vehicle, and then into smaller human-sized combat suits. The local crowd went wild. “Those power packs look like they could run a little hot,” muttered Kerry darkly. But as Giant Robot Six strutted up the red carpet amidst cheering fans and swooning girls, the sky was filled with belching smoke and fumes from an Apocalyspian battle-cycle. The New Battlers power-dived, sending the surprised Japanese heroes diving for cover, coming to an oily stop that shattered the glass doorway to the hotel. “Out of the way, losers!” E-Male called. “The New Battlers have arrived. Queue up in order of cuteness to come and worship us.” “I couldst not help it,” Harlagaz told Visionary. “I wast just holding yon chair out of yon window and mine hand slipped.” “Dr Whitwell, I really can’t approve of this kind of procedure,” Dr Bennett warned, looking down at the livid blob of scar-tissue that was Laurie Leyton. The girl was submerged in a saline bath, her charred form pierced with half a dozen intravenous drips. The best prognoses gave her twenty four hours to live. “I’m not asking you to approve, William,” the Senior Medical Officer of the Phantomhawk Memorial Hospital advised him. “I’m asking you to go away.” “It’s atypical,” Bennett warned. “Possibly unethical. I’ll report this to the Board.” “Well the meetings have been getting very boring lately, William. Good day.” Whitwell waited until the outraged trauma specialist had left the private room before he turned to the visitors. “He’s right, of course. This is an unorthodox procedure.” “We have used it before to good effect,” Princess Uhunalura of the Abhumans assured him. “You know my gifts.” “You can shift wounds and illnesses from one person to another,” Nurse O’Mercy answered. “Right. And today I have a pair of, um, health donors who are willing to take on the burns from Lisette, to make her better.” “All the appropriate consent forms have been signed,” Mr Epitome assured the staff. “Ms Waltz has looked them over. Your hospital’s liability shield is absolute. Just think of it like somebody donating a kidney or similar.” “Besides, you had no problem with Uhuna doing this when the Hellraisers’ plague was devastating the city,” CrazySugarFreakBoy! reminded them. Uhuna shuddered. She didn’t like to remember that day, the day she’d become a murderer, the day she’d died. “It’s okay,” CSFB! told her. “Look, both of us heal real fast. Me because my powers tend to fix me up when I’m hurt, Epitome because he’s too dumb to know when he’s wounded.” “My government-enhanced form repairs itself after injury,” Mr Epitome corrected the wired wonder, glaring across at the young man chugging extra-sugar cola drinks by the six-pack. “But Foxglove is correct in saying that both of us could recover from third degree electricity burns as Ms Leyton could not. And unless we can restore her to a semblance of heath she may well die and would certainly live for the rest of her life with massively disfiguring scarring.” “And also, she’s our friend,” pointed out CSFB! “It’s good to have friends,” admitted Grace O’Mercy, a little wistfully. “Then if everybody has explained their viewpoints enough, perhaps we could proceed?” suggested Dr Whitwell. “Your highness?” “He means Uhuna, not you,” CSFB! told Epitome. The princess of the Abhumans laid her hands on the festering red blisters that were Lisette’s face. “This is going to hurt,” she warned her comrades. “We’ll have to do it slowly, and I’ll have to be careful to send the damage to whichever of you can cope with it at the time. Only Epitome could regenerate burned out eyes, I think.” “Looking forward to it,” sighed the paragon of power.” “Let’s just do it,” CrazySugarFreakBoy! said impatiently. “Then we can heal up and go find the slime that did this to her.”  The mentors and tutors met in the Peak Lounge, the hotel’s summit conference room. Visionary stared round at the others waiting for the Order to explain what was to happen. He wasn’t comforted by the familiar faces.“Hey, Vizh!” called Roni Y Avis, smiling insincerely as he came over to glad-hand the possibly fake man. “Good to see ya, guy! You’re looking a helluva lot better than you were a few months back.” “I see the skin grafts have taken,” Vizh replied coolly. It wasn’t that long since Avis had spearheaded the smear campaign that had branded Visionary a child molester and all-round pervert. “Yeah. All a big misunderstanding really. But the government picked up the tab in exchange for me helping them out with this whole SR1066 thing. Can I count on your for an ad spot, Vizhter?” “You can count on me for a kick up the backside,” the Junior’s teacher retorted hotly. “And you can tell your FMRC friends from me…” “Whoa, nelly! I’m not here representing the Feds. That’d be the big stiff over there with the salad bars on his uniform. Holcome or some such. Nah, I’m here freelance, retained for the job by those fine young New Battlers.” “I should have known. They seem to enjoy sleaze.” Avis seemed hurt. “Vizh, Vizh, what have I ever done to you to deserve this?” “Well, starting with the Happy Place takeover and moving forwards…” “Exactly. Nothing. So let’s call bygones bygones and get on with the gossip, huh? You need me to fill you in on the runners and riders.” “I need you to stand away from me, before I have to go find my talking paper-knife.” “The tuff chick with the Mohawk over there is Deborah Blitzen,” Avis went on, happily oblivious to the waves of hostility radiating from his companion. “Storm Trooper, of the Evolutionary Revolutionaries. Those poor kids are so tightly grilled they go to the toilet by formation.” “Yeah, the Juniors are pretty good about sneaking out together for so-called bathroom breaks,” Vizh admitted. “The old guy with the long moustaches is Professor Tofu. He invented the Giant Robot Six technology. They say he used to word for the Devil Doctor.” “Great, well I must be going and… talking to somebody I can stomach.” “Good luck in this room,” said the sleek raven-haired woman who’d come up behind them. Vizh started as he recognised the White Empress, Anna Salem. “M-Ms Salem. Hello. Er, about that wardrobe malfunction earlier…” “Yeah. Any chance we can schedule that again later, when there’s more chance to brief the press?” checked Avis. The White Empress gave him a stare. The inventor of internet spam went suddenly pale, clutched his collar, and hurried off without a word. Visionary was left alone with tutor of Young Heckfire. “So, how about them Yankees?” Vizh offered nervously. “Don’t be afraid,” Anna Salem told him. “We don’t have to be enemies. I can see in your mind that you enjoy the company of bad girls.” Vizh clutched his fingers to his head as if that would keep out the telepath. “I’m not going to think about anything useful,” he warned her. “And I’ve had lots of practise at it.” “I can tell,” agreed the White Empress. “But there’s something you’re hiding in there, some little defended secret locked away deep inside that I can almost…” Then the telepath clutched her hands to her mouth and hurried off to vomit. “The Manga Shoggoth on bathnight, you mean?” Vizh called after her. “Yeah, I asked him to close off that bit of my memory. Er, I think the ladies room is that way.” The authorities of Gothametropolis York still couldn’t find the firehouse headquarters of Extraordinary Endeavour Enterprises because of the modified exclusion field that Al B. Harper had set up around it, but Sir Mumphrey Wilton and Asil Ashling had no problem whatsoever slipping through and getting inside. They just picked their way around the burned-out ITC pulse generator and knocked on the door. “Come in,” Amy Aston told them, wiping her oily hands on the bib of her overall. “Framlicker’s in the office fretting about the accounts and Harper’s up in the gallery lab geeking away as usual.” “Thank you,” Mumphrey said with his usual impeccable courtesy. “Then we’d best be up to see him, what? I gather he’s found some information from the evidence at the Zero Street Mission.” Al B. and Hallie were both clustered round the spectroscope as the guests arrived. “Something interesting?” Asil asked them. Hallie looked at the Lisa-clone a little bit unhappily. “Er, yes, something,” she agreed. “We found some unusual traces during our DNA check.” “Very unusual,” agreed Al B. “Most of the chains had been completely denatured. I’m positing that some kind of electromagnetic effect was responsible, consistent with the significant electrical shock that Mac and Lisette suffered. But we did manage to isolate one very atypical feature that has survived the blanking.” “You know who’s DNwhatsit it was that touched Fleetwood?” Sir Mumphrey asked. “Spit it out then, man!” Hallie answered. “It was Asil’s.” “Asil!” Mumph spluttered. “But that’s…” “It wasn’t me!” the girl protested. “Why would I…?” “Of course it wasn’t her,” Al snorted. “But the best match we have for this atypical material is Asil. It’s a trace we only find on genetics that have been artificially replicated. Cloned.” “It was my clone that did that?” Asil worried. “I have a clone now?” “Not your clone,” Hallie assured her. “But a clone. And more precisely, a clone made using the technology of the diabolical Dr Moo.” “Moo,” spat Asil. “That big cow! This time she’s gone too far!” “It might not be Daio Waltz,” Al reasoned. “There’s plenty of her technology in other hands. Apparently she had a clone of her own going round these days too…” “Oiad. I heard,” scowled Asil. “And this might be a cloning job she was commissioned to do for someone else,” Hallie went on. “She used to do those sometimes as…” “As a cash cow,” interrupted Asil. “Still, useful lead. Well done Harper, Hallie,” Mumphrey praised them. “It looks like we need to turn the troops loose now to find the diabolical Dr Moo!”  “So what are the rules of engagement?” asked Prince Kiivan, cleaning the edge of his plas gar honour blade. Ohanna sat beside him, crocheting.“It’s a practical exam,” Visionary explained to the Juniors back in their suite. “The teams are all shifted to some secret location – the Arctic circle say, or some alien planet. Hidden in that location are some special coins. Exactly five thousand of them. The bronzes are worth one point, the silvers five, the golds ten, and the platinums fifty.” “We have to questeth for yon treasure,” understood Harlagaz. “Yea verily, we wilt smite those felons who seek our rightful gold most wrothfully.” “Teams get points for holding the most treasure at the end of the contest on the third day,” Vizh agreed. “There are also discretionary points given for clever or brave actions during the test and a score out of a hundred by the judges on general technique.” “It all seems a bit childish, really,” Ohanna pointed out. It was a boy’s game. “But since we’re in it, we play to win,” argued Hacker Nine. “At any point, a contestant who feels they are out of their depth, or who is hurt, or who is captured, can simply say ‘I Yield,’ and they’ll be teleported out of the test,” Visionary went on. “Also if you’re in danger of serious injury or death, the Observing Eye will yank you out of there a fraction of a second before disaster. So they say.” “Are we allowed to capture these coins from the other teams?” asked Kiivan, beginning to smile like a pirate. “I believe you can,” Vizh admitted. “But be careful. All we really have to do is survive.” “It is a hunt,” Glory pointed out enthusiastically. “It might be great fun!” “Also factor in the possibility of being able to kick the crap out of the Battlers and Young Heckfire,” added Ham-Boy. “It might not be a total waste of time.” “I don’t want any foul play,” Visionary warned his team. “It doesn’t matter if you win or lose, it’s how you…” “Yes it does,” objected Prince Kiivan. “It is a matter of honour, and of proving oneself to be in the right.” “And to smite yon caitiffs most grievously,” added Gaz. “And to send the Observing Eye crawling away while the whole universe laughs at them,” added Hacker Nine. “But otherwise it doesn’t matter at all,” concluded Ohanna wryly. “Just don’t try to hurt anybody,” Visionary insisted. “Are you listening Kerry? Kerry?” “She, um, she had to step out,” FA admitted lamely. “Um. Feminine hygiene products. You know how it is.” “Nobody warned me that it was the time of the month when Kerry gets specially grumpy,” shuddered Ham-Boy. “We’re going to need extra burn crème.” “Ms St Clare,” noted the new Director of the Super-Menace Principle Undercover Directorate as the Lair Legion’s government liaison was led into the secure levels beneath the White House. “Yes,” agreed the attractive young woman, uncomfortably aware of the two large security guards flanking her. “You can go,” Exemplary told the security men. “Ms St Clare is one of us.” Somehow Amber didn’t feel any safer alone with the lean, hard-eyed man in the perfect grey business suit. “I’m here for my usual liaison briefing,” she warned him. “I’m due with Special Agent Garrick in three minutes.” “Agent Garrick knows I’m interviewing you,” Exemplary assured her. “I’m meeting with all kinds of key staff these days, making sure they’re ready for the big changes ahead of us all.” “Special Resolution 1066,” Amber guessed. “1066, yes. Legislation to help us bring the metahuman population under control, to make them accountable to us.” “That’s not law yet,” the liaison officer noted. “But it will be, Ms St Clare. I can promise you that. So the only question is, when it does, and the Lair Legion decide to flaunt the will of the people and go rogue…” “You don’t know that they’ll…” “When they go rogue, I need to be certain that you are still one of us.” Amber found she was sweating. “You know I’m loyal. I’ve passed every screening.” “Yet still there are doubts. Those heroes can be very engaging. Living amongst them like that, seeing their human sides, it’s only natural to develop sympathies for them. And some of them are very attractive.” Exemplary looked across at Amber. “I’ve always fancied Dancer myself. How about you?” “I do my job, and I do it well. I do what’s required of me to ensure a reasonable level of co-operation between…” “Reasonable,” chuckled the new SPUD director. “Reasonable doesn’t come into it. Not once SR1066 is passed, and the legislation that’ll follow it. We don’t want reasonable from you, Ms St Clare. We want absolute loyalty.” “I am absolutely loyal to my country,” insisted Amber, her temper flaring. “Good,” agreed Exemplary. “Then you will have no objection to receiving a Patriot Brand to ensure that loyalty.” “W-what? Those control methods are for metahumans.” “A number of key staff have elected to receive them also,” the man in grey explained. “We think you should be among them.” “I don’t need a techno-psychic control mechanism on me to make me a patriot!” Amber shouted. She was becoming frightened. “But you’re going to have one all the same,” leered Exemplary. Amber suddenly found her nervous system was locked; one of the aspects of Exemplary’s ability to control bio-organic energies. He strolled over and produced a thick circular disk from his pocket. No! Amber tried to scream, but her vocal chords weren’t working. “You should be proud. We don’t waste these on everyone.” Exemplary carefully unbuttoned her blouse then lovingly unhooked the front of her bra so he could press the disc over her heart. Then he thumbed the activation seal on the back of the device. The brand glowed red, then the whole mechanism sank into Amber’s flesh. If she’d been able to make a sound she would have screamed at the searing agony that seemed to go on forever. But at last the brand cooled and she realised she was going to live. Only a livid red patterned circle remained to show where the Obedience Brand had been. Suddenly she could move again. “You bastard,” Amber sobbed, clutching her blouse across her breasts. “Yes,” agreed the SPUD director. “Now listen to your instructions, Ms St Clare.”  The sparklers fizzed away on the top of the giant chocolate sundae. “There,” said Danny Lyle. “Isn’t this so much better than bloody revenge?”Kerry Shepherdson glanced at the fireworks and they exploded in plumes of flame that soared high into the Tokyo night. “Maybe you can do the bloody revenge thing later, then,” Danny conceded, “but honestly, if you’d just burst in on Drugo after you made his shower explode, we’d got precautions and stuff that would have shredded you worse then the sushi we just had.” “Says you,” retorted Kerry sullenly. “So you used those creepy powers of yours to stop me broiling your slimy pal.” “Okay, two things. Firstly, Drugo Lodestone may be slimy but he’s not my pal. Nothing would make me happier than to see him suffering painful and long-term debilitating burn damage. But I don’t think you should be the one doing it, Firecracker. Leave that stuff to the bastards. And secondly, I didn’t use my powers to stop you barging in and triggering the Empress’ anti-sabotage trap.” “Really. Then how did you stop me?” “Well, I kind of grabbed you and asked you out for sushi.” Denial gestured round to the little crowded outdoor eatery down the side-street from Studio Alta. “And you came.” Kerry considered this. “That wasn’t all. You used unfair means.” “Well, I kissed you. But then you kissed me, so really I figure we both used unfair means.” “I never kissed you, Danny Lyle!” “Excuse me, but I’m pretty sure that wasn’t my tongue down my throat. Anyway, I was only trying to save your life. I had to kiss you. It was heroic of me.” “It was brave of you, I’ll admit,” Kerry agreed. “But how do I know you’re not just using me to find out what secret plans my team has for whupping your team’s butt in these geek-tests?” “You have secret plans?” “Like I’m going to tell you.” Danny laughed and finished the last of his squid. “Well then, what if you’re only here toying with my affections to vamp our secret plans then? I read your file. I know how you seduced poor spiffy into becoming a wanted criminal as part of your arms-smuggling deal.” Kerry looked away. “That was last year.” “And there was something about blowing up the Royal Palace of Badripoor?” “I blow up lots of things.” “Like I said, I read your file.” “What about you then, Fonzie?” Kerry demanded, taking the offensive. “I don’t know anything about you except you make good hot chocolate and you were scared by Rebel Without a Cause as a child, I guess. Oh, and you seem to have the power to make buttons come undone while kissing girls.” “Hey, I’m a seventeen year old male. We all have those powers. It’s a curse.” “You seemed to be bearing up under the horror of it.” Kerry allowed herself a scoop of the dairy ice cream. “I’m still going to make your team-mate wish he’d never been born, you know. I bet he needs surface skin to make that sweat of his.” “So it is to be war between us!” grinned Danny Lyle. “Yep. A fight to the finish.” And then they kissed again. Liu Xi forced herself to wait until the first smudge of dawn pinkened the eastern sky out over the cold Atlantic before she surrendered. Then she slipped off her futon, stepped into her clothes, swept her hair back from her face, and headed to the cellar. The Lair Mansion was old, and beneath it were basements and tunnels older still. Some were older than the human race. Liu Xi knew from Ebony that the Celestian Space Robots had once hidden a great treasure here, guarded by one of their own kind locked in eternal dreaming sleep. They had placed fortifications both subtle and powerful to protect their secret, and although both treasure and Dreaming Celestian were now gone the defences remained potent. Others had been attracted by the power, and now slumbering elder beings, ancient ghouls, ghosts, time anomalies, and things stranger yet clustered near the catacombs. And there was a door. Liu Xi had explored the tunnels before but she’d never noticed it until yesterday. “This is a bad idea,” the young elementalist told herself as she padded into the deeper layers of the basements. Here the tunnels were carved – or gnawed – from the deep basalt. The only light was the small glow Liu Xi Xian generated on her cupped palm. “I should have mentioned to somebody what I found,” she observed aloud. Right now it was important for her to hear a human voice. And then she was at the door, the arched iron portal that had haunted her thoughts all night, keeping her from sleep. It fascinated her and frightened her. She couldn’t sense what lay behind it, so it intrigued her too. It was cold to the touch. It was locked. Liu Xi used her elemental gifts to command the metal. Rusted tumblers strained and shifted behind the iron plates, moving cunning levers and drawing back bolts. The girl was surprised how hard it was to unlock. It was like pushing worlds. With a crack the seal around the door broke. The hinges squeaked as the portal swung an inch open. A soft green light shone through the crack. “I should go get somebody,” Liu Xi warned herself. Even as she spoke she knew she wasn’t going to leave now. Instead she hooked her fingertips around the edge of the door and pulled it ajar. The other side of the door was a landing, and a staircase spiralled down from there into stygian darkness. And sitting cross-legged on the landing waiting for her, reading the July 1978 issue of Popular Plumber, was Xander the Improbable, sorcerer supreme of the Parodyverse. “About time you got here,” the red robed mage greeted her. “Come in and shut the door. We have a long way to go.”  That evening the ballroom was packed with students and invited guests for the formal dance before the trials. The Order of the Observing Eye were there in their finest saffron robes, watching carefully to ensure that there was no foul play amongst the participants. Everyone else mingled in their formalwear and sized up the competition.“Are you sure about this dress?” Ohanna asked Fashion Accessory anxiously. “It seems to cover up an awful lot of me.” “It’s absolutely fine,” FA assured the Caphan. “That gold sheen sets off your green complexion, and you’re showing just enough to keep people interested. Look at Kiivan. He’s interested.” Ohanna glanced at the Emir of All Caph, descending in his tuxedo as if he was born to it. He wore his honour blade at his side, and a sash with the seal of Caph emblazoned on it. And he was looking at her. “Kiivan has seen me naked many times,” Ohanna shrugged. “On Caph we have different taboos to you humans, and…” “He’s not seen you like this,” Samantha assured him. “Now watch.” She smiled at Ham-Boy and watched him refresh his glass onto his shoes. Harlagaz had elected to wear formal Ausgardian wear for the occasion. That involved a greatly horned helmet, chain mail, and the skin of a dead Grimpenjarg for a cloak. Nobody was snickering for long. “Tis time we didst meet with our enemies and teach them to cower in our presence,” the demihemigod of thunder suggested. “Or we could dance with them?” suggested Kerry innocently. “Just, y’know, in the spirit of the event.” “That’s right,” agreed Visionary, ignoring for now the little prickings of suspicion that welled up in him at his ward’s helpful behaviour. “Very good, Kerry. Um, this is dancing in the non-explosive sense of the word, right?” Kerry shrugged, smoothed down her strapless red dress, and headed across the dance floor. “Maybe,” she replied. Hacker Nine looked uncomfortable in his tux. His arms and legs seemed to protrude too far, and the necktie that Visionary had helped him fasten was far too tight for him to breathe. Vizh had assured him that everyone had them this tight. “Right, data collection,” he said in a strangled whisper. “Key strategic information gathering mode commence.” Glory didn’t need to gather more data. She’d already been found by the Apocalyspian Warhound that the New Battlers had brought with them. The Battlers had eschewed the formal gear of the other participants and were lounging in torn jeans and t-shirts with rude slogans on them, but Ripper wore an adamantine-tined collar to set off his fangs and spine-ridges. “You!” he growled at Glory. “I’m going to tear out your throat, little puppy!” The mutt of might looked up at the horse-sized killing machine. “I don’t think so. My friend Mr Epitome has already told me how to deal with you pig-dog-frog things.” “And how’s that, dead meat?” “Well, he said you tasted best in a burger.” “Hey, keep your flea-ridden monster away from our dog,” FA warned the New Battlers. “Why? Because your little bitch might get chewed up and spat out?” suggested Lounge Lizard. He looked Samantha Bonnington up and down. She looked good in her aqua chiffon. “Or is that you we chew up and spit out, Sammy?” Ham-Boy was at the buffer table filling his plate and wondering if he should go over to join FA. But she seemed very much at home with her old team-mates in the New Battlers. E-Male even had his arm around her. He forced his gaze away and found he was stood beside one of the students from the Federal Metahuman Resource Centre. “Hi,” said Semi-Transparent Lad from behind a pile of drumsticks. “Hey,” replied HB. Then he remembered he was supposed to be information gathering. “So you’re with the FMRC, eh?” “Yep. And you’re Lair Legion?” “Yep.” “Okay.” “Okay.” Across the room, Drugo Lodestone was dancing with Stacy Royale when Harlagaz Donarson stepped up to them. “Mighteth I cutteth in?” he demanded in grim, rumbling tones, like the promise of distant thunder. “No,” replied Lord and Master. “The lady’s dancing with a man.” But Gaz cut in anyway, lifting Black Empress out of Lodestone’s arms and sliding her away. “Tis not her I was seeking,” he answered as he grabbed Lord and Master in a bone-crushing grip and continued to waltz him round the floor. “I hear thou hast sweat that canst make thine enemies love or hate or fear. Thou hadst best start sweatething now, vile caitiff.” The monks moved in to separate the two of them. “How judgemental,” complained Zack Zelnitz. H9 had naturally gravitated over to the sound stack where he was analysing how to over-ride the music selection and get some episodes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer up on the giant video screens. “EM locking conduit on the feed, splice into the web with a microburst pulse receiver, patch in a C&C circuit with a reciprocal feedback function and it’s simple,” reeled off Rupert van Meer, looking over Zack’s shoulder. “Very basic stuff. A moron could do it. You could do it.” H9 turned round to see Blatant Genius peering at him. “I couldn’t do it,” he retorted. “It has no style. It doesn’t make a statement. It lacks all class. But, y’know, I guess not everybody can have imagination.” Van Meer sneered over his datapad. “I have imagination. I’m imagining right now how badly I’m going to overpower your limited little brain in this contest to come.” H9 shrugged. “What, you’re supposed to be my arch enemy or something? Is there an appeals procedure, cause really I was hoping for someone a bit cooler.” Blatant Genius was about to think of the ultimate retort, something that would shred this inferior intellect for all time; but instead his team-mate touched his shoulder and said, “Can you come back later, Rupert? Zack and I need to talk.” Hacker Nine looked up as he recognised the voice and felt as if he’d been punched in the gut. “Lindy!” “Yep” agreed Falconne. “Zack, there’s a few things I need to tell you…” Kiivan was aware of the woman approaching him from behind long before he felt the tap on his collar, but he suppressed his warrior instincts and waited until she made her move. The girl was quite attractive in a low-class kind of way, decked in working clothes that appeared to be deliberately torn and cut off. “Hi,” said Wyrmbait, breathing so that her too-short t-shirt swelled fascinatingly. “I’m Tina.” “Well met, Lady Tina,” answered the Prince. “And I was just wondering if you’re really green. All over.” “I am the Emir of All Caph, a strange visitor from another planet.” “Really? Well, you deserve a special welcome then.” Kiivan regarded the young woman discerningly. “I have received a special welcome, thank you” he replied. “My companion Ohanna arranged for me to visit her sister and her sister’s eight harem-partners. They received me with great honour and much worship. I have also received noble hospitality from the Lair Legion and their students.” “I bet I could make you feel more welcome still,” promised Wyrmbait. Prince Kiivan looked the new Battler up and down and smiled politely. “I doubt it. Goodnight Lady Tina.” “What?” asked Tina Drummond as Kiivan walked away to find Ohanna of Raael. “That’s all?” “Oh,” the Prince responded to the outraged rejected New Battler. “May your loins bring joy to your lovers and your womb be fertile.” “What?” “All seems to be going pretty well, doesn’t it?” Semi-Transparent Lad asked Ham-Boy as they stood by the food. “Yeah,” agreed Fred Harris. “Pretty well.” “Pretty well.” The stood in silence until one of Xalter’s neatly-turned-out young men came over to refresh his glass. This one had a steel visor over his forehead and a name tag that identified him as Redeye. He eyed the punchbowl uncertainly. “This hasn’t been spiked, has it?” Semi-Transparent Lad looked a little gloomy. “I don’t think so.” “Don’t look at me,” Ham-Boy said. “All I could spike it with is sausages.” “Sausages!” Bunny Fame, the X-Student codenamed Wisp, giggled uncontrollably and blushed deeply until Flaming Resurrection Girl led her away to breathe into a paper bag. “I suppose it might have been spiked,” conceded Semi-Transparent Lad. Visionary was having a bad ball. It was hard to keep track of all his students in the crush. He’d already been spoken to by the monks about Harlagaz, and he’d spent fifteen uncomfortable minutes stood between Ripper and Glory. Now he’d lost H9 and Fashion Accessory. He was worried about what each of them might be doing, in entirely different senses of the phrase. “Kerry, do you know where Samantha is?” the possibly-fake tutor asked Kerry, glad of the excuse to pull her aside from whoever she was dancing far too close with. “I haven’t seen her for some time.” The girl looked around. “I dunno,” she admitted. “Maybe she found some hunky studly and slipped off to find a guest suite?” She loved the way Vizh’s face twitched when she said things like that. “Hey, FA’s eighteen now.” “She’s not eighteen on my watch,” Vizh growled. “Besides, this is Tokyo. We crossed the international date line or something.” “Visionary, right?” Danny Lyle asked. “Yes. Why?” The young man shrugged. “Just thought you wanted to check up on that Samantha girl. She’s not left. She’s on the balcony.” Something about the way the young man said that, the certainty in his denial that FA had slipped away, convinced Visionary. Pausing only to glare hard at the young man dancing with Kerry he shouldered his way through the throng and found the glass screen onto the gallery deck. “Sneaky move,” Kerry noted. “I just told him what he asked me to,” Danny shrugged. “Yeah, I wasn’t talking about that. Hand back on my waist, buster. Now.” “Right now?” “Well, pretty soon.” Artemis slipped away before the news crews could arrive, but she waited on the rooftop until the Office for Paranormal Security van she’d called turned up to drag Appendage Man from the remains of the electricity sub-statation. She wasn’t taking any chances that Milton Freebish might wake up and renew his assault upon the beauty salon’s customers. Only when the disgusting villain was in power-dampening shackles inside the armoured vehicle did she relax and turn to go. That was when she saw the monks. “Observing Eye,” she noted, nocking a pair of arrows at the two bald men who were watching her from the shadows. “You know of us,” Goomdin recognised. “I do my homework,” Charlotte Ouk replied. “What do you want?” “If you know of us, you know of our interest in heroes.” “Male heroes, from what I hear,” Artemis challenged them. “Didn’t you used to farm out the heroines to the Amazons or something?” “We have many outlets to place children of promise,” Goomtar assured her. “Some we arrange to be mentored elsewhere. Others we train ourselves. Some we raise from infancy. Others we recruit as they grow to maturity.” “So this is a sales pitch? Or a conversion attempt? I already bought a Watchtower, thanks.” “This is an opportunity,” answered Goomdin. “Look at yourself, Charlotte Ouk. Your training has been good but it is incomplete. Your mentor has fallen and can take you no further. Is all your life to be spent scrabbling on the margins, trying to do good with diminishing resources and growing despair?” “And consider the world,” added Goomtar. “We can give you sanctuary from those who would track you down and force an Obedience Brand upon you. We can offer you a chance to become a true force for good that can change your world.” “And there’s no price tag attached to this, I suppose?” Artemis scorned them. “It’s all for free, because you’re such great fellahs.” “It is our duty, our calling, to nurture metahumans of potential wherever we find them,” Goomdin replied. “We extend that opportunity to you now, Charlotte Ouk.” “Okay, so you figured my secret ID. I can’t say I’m happy about the idea of you creepy little guys spying on me in the shower.” “You must decide whether to seize your chance at greatness or to remain in darkness, forever less than you could be,” Goomdin warned her. “Will you come with us?” Artemis considered her reply. “Can I take the tour and then decide?” she asked them. “See what you’re like, understand what I’m getting into?” The monks exchanged satisfied looks. “That is a wise reply,” they agreed. “Come now with us. We will take you to the Order.”  Samantha was staring out over the illuminated city, and her shoulders were heaving almost imperceptibly.“Samantha?” She turned guiltily and suddenly her makeup was perfect again, but not before Vizh was able to glimpse that she’d been crying. “Just catching some air,” FS lied. “It’s so hot in there.” “Samantha, what’s the matter?” Vizh asked her. “I know I’m not the ideal person for you to talk to. I know you don’t usually talk to me at all, except when you want better grades. But still…” “I don’t know how to talk to you,” Fashion Accessory admitted. “I don’t know how to talk to anybody.” “So we’re both baffled. That’s a starting point, isn’t it? I can do baffled better than anyone.” FA snorted, half laugh and half sob. “You can,” she admitted. She swallowed hard, and made a decision. “Visionary, can I ask you something? About you? Have you ever been in a situation where you had to choose between letting your friends down and losing everything?” Visionary looked at the blonde girl, trying to understand what was upsetting her. “I guess. There’s a few decisions I’ve had to make that have been… very hard.” FA sniffed, nodded, and turned away. “And I found something out then, too,” Vizh added. “Something important. You see, when you are in that situation like you said, when you have to decide between sacrificing yourself and saving the people you love…” He paused, choked. “Yes?” asked Samantha, frozen on the spot. “That’s when you find out who you are. That’s when you find out if you’re a hero.”  The following morning the teams assembled in the lobby once again. Goomtor of the Observing Eye outlined the rules again. “We’ll be monitoring for danger. Simply say that you yield and you’ll be removed from the contest.”“So we could just yield as soon as we get there and we’ll be free of my geas,” reasoned Ham-Boy. “Except we’re here now,” answered Kerry. “We don’t yield. We win.” “You seemed to be yielding okay last night, Kare, last I saw” FA pointed out. “Maybe I won?” shrugged the probability arsonist. “There’s Lindy in her Falconne costume,” Hacker Nine pointed out. “She’s really going through with this, being a Young Heckfire or whatever.” “She wast much unsettled by the vanishing of her brother,” Harlagaz noted. “Oftentimes must a person seek ventures new to deal with such inner turmoil and change.” Zack Zelnitz eyes were dark. “Yeah,” he muttered. “I do not like the way that the New Battlers are looking at us,” growled Glory. “Why should they seek to be part of this trial now, all of a sudden? What are they really up to?” “Whatever the trial, we shall stand by you,” Prince Kiivan assured them. He and Ohanna both wore Caphan swords and were clad in duelling garb. Ohanna glared across at Wyrmbait. “Do your best,” Visionary told them, “but remember it’s not mortal combat.” “Yeah, right,” agreed Kerry distractedly. Goomtor finished his proclamation. “And so, let the seven hundred and thirteenth Earth trial begin!” The teleportation energies suffused the teams and shifted them to the battlefield. “Hold it!” Hacker Nine called out. He’d been trying to lock onto the frequencies so he could track where the other contestants were sent. “Someone’s reprogramming the transfer co-ord…” And then the Juniors were gone.  “Now will you tell us where you sent them?” Visionary demanded of the monks.“Certainly,” Goombar answered helpfully. “This year the trial is being held on Kaibutsu Shima.” And that was enough to trigger flashbacks for the possibly-fake tutor. “Kaibusi whatsis?” puzzled Roni Y Avis. “Kaibutsu Shima,” scowled Visionary. “In English it means Monstrous Island. Where the monsters come from.” *** Next week: The trials! See our bold heroes and wicked villains mix and match on an island full of giant monsters and ancient mysteries! Thrill at the treachery of Young Heckfire! Gasp at the savage malice of the New Battlers! Admire the well-ironed uniforms of the All-New X-Students! All this plus more on the door, the hunt for Dr Moo, Yuki and Trickshot in a tight clinch, and Yo and the Librarian’s wagon train to the stars. That’ll be in Monster House coming soon to a Parodyverse near you! All the Fun of the Footnotes: Trial Teams Checklist The Junior Lair Legion Training Programme: Kerry Shepherdson Harlagaz Donarson Ham-Boy (Fred Harris) Fashion Accessory (Samantha Bonnington) Glory, the mutt of might Hacker 9 (Zack Zelnitz) Prince Kiivan of Caph Ohanna of Raael Tutor: Visionary The New Battlers: E-Male II (Rico Torino) Lounge Lizard (Donny Drummond) Wyrmbait (Tina Drummond) L’il Buttie Hatkid (Ben Grover) Boy Wonder (Tim Grimson) Thunderstroke (Ludo Donger) Ripper, Apocalyspian warhound Agent: Roni Y Avis Young Heckfire: Lord and Master (Drugo Lodestone) Black Princess (Stacy Royale) Denial (Daniel Lyle) Alpha Dude (Jason Conner) Blatant Genius (Rupert van Meer) Privilege (Lucy deSoth) Crapsack (Gnudier Lokotowicz) Falconne (Lindy Wilson) Headmistress: The White Empress (Anna Salem) The Federal Metahuman Resource Centre: Teen Avenger (Betty Marsh) Billy Goat (James Milton) The Human Zamboni (Oswald Vanderhoosey) Psi-Lance (Lance Jones) Dreama Garner The Masked Muskrat (Morty Jones) Semi-Transparent Lad (Ben Hermes) Training Officer: Special Agent Rupert Holcome The All-New X-Students: Redeye (Will Winters) Psychorunt (Bradford) Wisp (Bunny Fame) Ironworks (Ivan Stalin) Shadowcreeper (Hans Morden) Coldfront (Benny Doyle) Flaming Resurrection Girl (Jenny Gold) Mentor: Storm Trooper (Beborah Blitzen) Other teams include the Giant Robot Six (Inventor: Professor Tofu), the Wonder-Friends, the Belgian Wafflettes, and the Fey Boys. The images appearing in this chapter are all of Tokyo and the Park Hyatt Hotel. 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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