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Post By The Hooded Hood ploughs on with the overstuffed chapters like a post-Christmas binge eater Fri Jan 06, 2006 at 09:24:39 pm EST |
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#249 Untold Tales of the Junior Lair Legion: Monstrous Pie | |
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| #249 Untold Tales of the Junior Lair Legion: Monstrous Pie Previously: The Order of the Observing Eye’s annual trial for promising young metahumans has become the venue for an out-of-control inter-team struggle between the Juniors, the New Battlers, and Young Heckfire, interrupted only by the arrival of the most powerful monster on Monstrous Isle. Semi-Transparent Lads, only member of the Federal Metahuman Resource Commission still in the game has rescued one of the two remaining members of Giant Robot Six, one of the beautiful Butterfly Twins. Meanwhile, the Legion pursues the Observing Eye for their coercion of competitors, infiltrating teen-hero Artemis with miniaturised Yuki Shiro and Trickshot into the Order’s extradimensional stronghold. Xander continues to train Liu Xi for some unspecified future purpose. Weak and wounded Lisette has vanished from her hospital bed. And the trouble is only just beginning. A cast list of the Junior teams is available here. Other cast and locations are at Who's Who in the Parodyverse and Where's Where in the Parodyverse. Previous chapters are found on The Hooded Hood's Homepage of Doom. Glory dug her way out from under the landslide, then Harlagaz hurled the rocks away so Kiivan and Ohanna could crawl free. The whole mountainside was changed, the steep cliffs scarred by runnels of cooling lava, the nearby rainforest a graveyard of charred trees. “Kerry was very upset, then,” noted Glory. She sniffed around to try and find the other Juniors. “Is that big lightning-breathing reptile gone?” asked Ohanna nervously. “What was it?” “It wert yon fabled big-lightning-breathing-reptileth of legend,” Gaz told her. “Mine father didst once drop nuclear weapons down its throat to conquer it.” “It swallowed atomic devices and that didn’t stop it?” Kiivan worried, looking at the trail of destruction where the beast had rampaged down towards the bay. “Oh aye, twas blowneth to pieces. But mine sire toldeth me yon pieces wert all crawling back hereth.” “It got nuked and it… grew back together?” swallowed Ohanna. She nervously tried to untangle her tousled hair. She’d only recently transmuted back from being a tiara courtesy of the attack of the New Battler Hatkid. “Perhaps each of the pieces grew into a new monster?” Kiivan considered. “Anyway, let’s try not to meet it again.” “I mindeth not meeting yon beastie,” Harlagaz Donarson assured them. “Mine father had this theory that if he jumpethed down its throat he might fighteth his way out from inside.” “Perhaps we should find our friends first,” suggested Glory. “Who knows where the earthquakes and landslides and thrashing giant monster might have sent them. What if they were captured by the enemy?” But the mutt of might had a thoughtful set to her ears as she carried on the hunt. “We have to find her!” Goldeneyed shouted wildly as Mr Epitome dragged him out of the hospital room. “She’s still hurt, weak as a kitten, helpless! We need to find where Laurie is!” “We will find her, Bry,” Hatman assured the agitated hero. “But you have to calm down. We need to check the room for clues.” “That’s right,” agreed CSFB! “Just chill for a moment and let Uncle Mumphrey work his temporal mojo, okay?” Sir Mumphrey Wilton looked around the ninth floor hospital room that had held the recovering Laurie Leyton less than an hour before. Only the open window suggested any means of exit that was even remotely conventional. “I can sense teleportations and stuff like that,” Goldeneyed called out. “I’d have woken up if somebody tried that!” “Jolly good,” the leader of the Lair Legion replied. “Now if you’d kindly flap over in the corner I have some work to do, what?” He pulled the large golden pocketwatch from his waistcoat and carefully adjusted the dials. One of the Chronometer of Infinity’s functions allowed it to replay images of recent events, and the kidnapping had happened only a short while ago. Mumph hadn’t had the range to discover Laurie’s original assailant this way, but he was confident he could solve this mystery now. The timepiece whirred and blurred images began to reverse-walk around the room: Mumphrey himself and Goldeneyed and the others, Beth Shellett and Mac Fleetwood discovering the bed was empty. And then… Mumphrey slowed down the replay. A vast, matted, shaggy bulk reversed into the room, carrying the limp Lisette in its arms. Even crouched down its head and shoulders brushed the suspended ceiling. As the Legionnaires watched it walked backwards and gently laid the girl in the bed.” “What the heck is that?” demanded Hatman. The beast seemed to be whispering to Laurie, and then it moved backwards again past the sleeping image of Goldeneyed and climbed out through the window in reverse. “A sasquach?” CSFB! suggested. “Hey, Hatty, you’re the Alpha Flight fan, you should know.” Sir Mumphrey froze the temporal echo and studied the shaggy vicious-looking beast closely. “That’s not a sasquach,” he declared authoritatively, “That’s a troll.” Dawn came up orange-gold over the eastern horizon, and Kerry woke up snuggled warm next to Danny Lyle. She jumped away in surprise, then found she was again wearing nothing except his leather jacket draped around her shoulders. “Okay,” she warned him. “This time you die!” Denial rolled aside as the soft bush he was lying on burst into flame. “I mean it!” Kerry warned him, making the ground explode around him. Danny stopped dead. “Okay then,” he agreed. “Kill me.” Kerry made the tree behind him burst into splinters. Danny flinched but he didn’t move.“See, I’m calling your bluff, Firecracker,” he told her. “You don’t want to hurt me.” “Don’t you use your denial powers on me, you lying, treacherous, betraying scumbag!” shouted Kerry. “Where are my clothes, you pervert?” “Calm down,” Danny urged her. “I didn’t use my denial powers. I’m not defending myself in any way.” He was starting to feel hot spots over his body, and suddenly calling the probability arsonist’s bluff didn’t seem like such a smart idea. “It’s Fashion Accessory you’re mad at, not me. She was the one who changed your clothes into an asbestos straight-jacket so her new Battler buddies could ambush you.” The riotous events of the night before all flooded back to the traumatised teen. “FA. She turned against us! And then you attacked.” “Not quite,” Danny told her. “You see…” “Hold it, buster. Before the big exposition you hand me your shirt. Show’s over.” “Sure. You could have had it last night, but I was so exhausted from denying us from under the big lizard’s foot that we both more of less passed out.” He exchanged his slightly scorched shirt for his biker jacket. “What are those marks on your back?” Kerry demanded, spotting the livid lines that criss-crossed his shoulders. “Psychic scars,” he shrugged. “It wasn’t a real flogging the White Empress gave me, but my body doesn’t know that so it reacts accordingly. It’s purely psychosomatic.” “Why did your teacher flog you?” Kerry couldn’t help asking. “The most Vizh ever does to us is kind of look hurt and helpless.” “I just upset her about something. It wasn’t that big a deal.” The girl considered this. “Was it over me? Over helping me?” “Nah, ‘course not. Don’t flatter yourself, Firecracker.” Kerry could have wished the shirt to be a little longer, but it did at least give her the semblance of modesty. “I am so going to kick FA’s witchy betraying ass from here to Tokyo,” she muttered. “It was a bit of a surprise that Fashion Accessory went back to batting for the New Warriors,” Denial admitted. “See, we needed to take your team down so we could get hold of Hacker Nine to break into the C&C technology near the volcano’s peak. But the New Battlers seem to be going round killing everybody they find, and they’re looking for the same control room I think.” Kerry looked sharply at her companion. “Right,” she said. “If the new Battlers can pull in FA to join their nasty little gang, I’m drafting you.” “You’re what?” “Drafting you. Into the Juniors. By the power vested in me. You’re drafted.” Danny chuckled. “Hello, reality check. I’m a cool bad guy from the Knights of Heckfire. I’m training to take over the world. It’s in my blood. It’s on my to do list. Why should I suddenly go all Saved By the Bell and hook up with a bunch of Junior heroes?” “Because I’m asking,” Kerry said. “Things are going sour, Danny. You know they are. People are in danger. My friends are in danger. Maybe everyone is. We have to stop that, because… well, because.” “Not convinced, Firecracker,” Danny admitted. “My advice to you is to come and join us. I can protect you from… what’s coming if you join us.” “Like Lindy?” accused Kerry. “No, I know what side I’m on. So you’re just going to have to join it, right?” “We could just stay here in the shrubbery and go back to that kissing we keep slipping into.” Kerry grabbed the front of his jacket. “We. Go. Save. The day. Right?” “Still not convinced. Sorry Kerry, but…” “You help me,” Kerry said at last, breathlessly. “A bargain. You help me to set things right, save people, help my friends… and you can have me. Okay? You know what I mean. You help me and then I’ll do anything you want. I promise.” Danny Lyle swallowed hard. “Anything?” “Anything. Hottest date of your life. O-okay?” Danny considered the passionate girl in his t-shirt. She certainly had to power to make him hot. “Okay,” he agreed with a grin. “Let’s go save the world.” “Well,” demanded Visionary, standing over Goomtar as he fiddled with the Observing Eye monitor column that was supposed to interface with the automated command and control centre installed on Monstrous Island. “We’re working on it,” answered the flustered monk. “This is technology derived from the Second Oldest Race, you know. They probably had it from the Celestians themselves. It’s very tricky.” “You mean you don’t properly understand it,” Visionary accused. “There’s really no need for such panic,” White Empress of the Heckfire Club smirked. “Then again, I have every confidence in my students.” “Can you get it fixed or not?” demanded Visionary, glaring at the Observing Eye. “Depends on whether we want to flash-fry all the people on the island and wipe the memory buffers containing the ones who should have been teleported out or if we’d prefer to do it another way,” snapped back Goomtar. Vizh’s confidence in the Order hit a new low. “Right,” he said, handing his mobile phone to Goomdor. “You, call speed dial one. Now.” “Who is it?” “It’s a consultant. Call.” Goomdor looked uncertain but he adjusted the defence shields around the tutors’ compound in the Park Hyatt Hotel to allow a telephone message and thumbed the number. Visionary took a small powered-down thimble-sized ovoid out of his pocket and fitted a small battery into it. Hallie flashed down the phone line and jumped into the hologram drone, forming up her familiar green-skinned avatar. Goomdor toppled back, dropping the phone. “What? You can’t do that!” he objected. “The rules…!” “I really don’t care about your stupid rules,” the possibly fake man told him. “I care about my students.” “The defences will wipe clean your intruding artificial intelligence,” Goomtar warned. “I don’t think so, baldy” Hallie told the Order of the Observing Eye. “Right now I am your defences.” She smiled sweetly. “So be nice to me.” Makiko Yamasaki scrabbled as far back into the cleft as she could, striking out with the branch she’d used as a staff, but she knew the chase was over. The octogorillas had caught her at last. She covered back and screamed. She hoped the big hairy primates would just eat her. The bull octogorilla roared back, hammering his chest. Then the rock dropped down and bounced off his skull. He toppled sideways in mid roar. “Up here!” Semi-Transparent Lad shouted from the top of the cliff. “Maki-chan! Up here. Climb!” But there was no way the exhausted Butterfly Girl of Giant Robot Six could make her way up the sheer rock wall. Her twin sister vaulted gracefully over Ben Hermes and lowered her legs over the chasm. “Hold on to me!” Tei-Chan told him, dangling her feet down so Makiko could catch onto them. “Now, pull us both.” “Did I mention I don’t have super-strength?” STL warned them as he linked his arms around Teiko’s torso and pulled. The angry octorillas surged forward, maddened at losing their prey. “Don’t drop us!” Tei-Chan shrieked as Ben staggered. “I can’t… lift you both,” he warned. Maki-Chan saved the moment. She lithely shinned up her sister’s body until she could clutch the cliff top, then swung herself round to clamber free. Ben dragged Teiko up just moments before the octorillas surged into the crevice. Maki-Chan stared at her sister and the strange American for a moment, then the Butterfly Twins fell into each others arms, chattering in Japanese. Ben was almost distracted enough by two hot naked manga twins embracing each other than he didn’t spot the octorillas boosting one of their number up the cliffside. “Er, perhaps we should do the recaps later?” he suggested, grabbing a twin with each hand and running. “So you guys are Order trainees, right?” Artemis said to the young heroes to whom she’d just been introduced. “So why aren’t you participating in those trials the Observing Eye are supposed to be running right now?” Beanie looked a little abashed. “Well, two reasons really. One because we’re not exactly a team, and that particular game’s for teams only. But also…” “Also our powers suck,” Fly-Girl explained candidly. “I can detect mutates, Beanie can make people forget the last thing that happened, and Cody can understand any language. That doesn’t exactly make us heavyweights.” “It makes me idea for assembling flat pack furniture though,” Cody Harper said in his defence. “And I’m not in the tests because robots are excluded,” Glitch added. “Which I find to be very old-fashioned of the Observing Eye, by the way. Very mineralist.” “I’m here to check out the set-up before I decide whether to enrol,” Artemis explained. “What do you think?” Cody shrugged. “Well, it got us out of a hot spot, but so far I don’t think they really know what to do with us. Apparently we’re not ‘Xalter Academy material’.” “I don’t need a haircut,” Beanie objected. “I especially don’t need that haircut.” “And I didn’t really want to go to Amazon Isle,” Fly-Girl admitted. “No phones, no pizza? I mean…!” “The Order seems very inflexible,” Glitch adjudged. “I don’t think they can cope with extraordinary students. I mean ones that don’t fit the profile of what they’re looking for. People like us.” Artemis was automatically on the side of extraordinary students. “Sounds like I wouldn’t fit either,” she admitted. “Maybe I’ll just head home.” “Did they warn you that they mind-wipe you before you’re sent back?” Glitch checked. “They take you up to the Sanctum Level and erase all memory of this place or of them.” “No, they omitted that part,” scowled Charlotte Ouk. “But tell me more of the Sanctum Level. You interest me strangely.” “I said all along we don’t need him. I still say we don’t need him!” Zack Zelnitz returned to consciousness aware that a particularly uncomfortable rock was imprinting itself in his cheek. He couldn’t do much about it because of the cuffs linking each of his wrists to his opposite ankle. “We do need him,” a woman’s voice was saying. “You haven’t been able to break the coding on the security door, and now all your equipment has exploded. So if we’re to complete this mission we’re going to need him.” Hacker Nine looked around. He was in a jungle clearing, and oozing nearby was the Yong Heckfire member Crapsack. He’d been captured by the enemy. “I can break the security on his datapad and use it myself,” Blatant Genius insisted. “It’s only a matter of time. Zelnitz only has one trick when you get right down to it.” “But I do it so well,” Hacker Nine pointed out. “Yeah, I’m awake. Do you think Black Princess could come and spank me? That’s usually how these dreams work out.” “He’s awake,” Lord and Master noted with satisfaction. He held out one sweaty bandaged hand towards the captured techno-anarchist. “Now to compel him to serve us.” “Two points,” H9 responded. “One, if you’re hoping to have me do something technical I need to be in my right mind, and two you’re really just not my type, sweetheart.” “He’s right,” Privilege admitted. “Let me torture him. I can do it easily, and I need more practise.” “Oh, you’re a cutie, aren’t you,” Zack noted. “Look, just tell me what you want and we can talk.” “He’s right,” said a familiar voice behind the captured Junior. “Let me talk to him.” And the familiar shape of Lindy Wilson in her Falconne costume came into view. She’d removed her helmet and was looking at him with her soft brown eyes. “Hello Lindy,” Zack spat. “Still enjoying your time with the establishment villains?” “Don’t be bitter, Zack. I had to make a choice. I had to take control of my life.” “By selling out to these corporate bastards?” “Crapsack is not a corporate bastard,” Crapsack objected. “Although Lord and Master probably is.” Alpha Dude came into view. “Shut up, Crap. Look, Zelnitz, the chick dumped you. For me, as it happens. Get over it. Now help us or I’ll kick the living shit out of you, okay?” “Please, Zack,” Lindy pleaded. “Just do what they want. Please?” “Crapsack. My name is Crapsack, not Crap.” “Give me my datapad,” said Hacker Nine. “And somebody get me a coffee.” Liu Xi Xian followed Xander’s careful instructions and shifted the void tangentially to the narrative sub-plane, trying to visualise the variables as the mage had told her. It was much harder then usual, physically exhausting as well as mentally debilitating, but at last there was an elastic pop and the two of them emerged back into the physical universe. “Ouch,” complained the elementalist, massaging her shoulders where the aches were worst. “I’ve never found that so hard before.” “You’ve never travelled so far before,” Xander explained to her. He pointed around at the teeming marketplace. “Welcome to the Andromeda Nebula.” Liu Xi’s jaw dropped. “The where? Andromeda nebula?” “Yes. M31. NGC224. Known to the ancients as Al Sufi after the author of The Book of Fixed Stars Abd-al-Rahman Al-Sufi, A.D. 964. We’re about 2.5 million light years from Earth.” Liu Xi stared around her at the bustling alien market filled with bizarre green reptiloids of all shapes and sizes. Monorails overhead carried high speed trains. Squat bulky towers dominated the skyscape, but there was a glittering crystal palace at one end of the great plaza. “There are aliens here. Lots of them.” “That would be because they live here. It’s only fair. They’re Skunks, and this place is called the Skunk Homeworld. Do the maths.” “The Skunks? They’re shapeshifting spies who once tried to conquer the Earth.” “More than once. But I don’t think any of the people here were personally responsible.” Xander pointed to the palace. “That would be some of the people in there. But not the one we’ve come to see.” Looking more closely, Liu Xi saw that there were guards posted around the city, and tanks around the palace. Whereas most of the architecture and clothing was brown and purple, and tending to chunky blobs, the soldiers and their machinery were crisp red and gold. The soldiers were taller and clad entirely in crimson armour. Liu Xi remembered Yuki talking about this. “Those are Avawarriors!” The master of the mystic crafts nodded. “The Parody Master conquered the Skunk Confederacy a couple of months ago. This place is part of the New Parody Empire now. Come on.” “We’re just walking up to the gates of the palace? Up to the guards?” “Well, they can tell us where the person we want to see it,” Xander explained. He straightened his dusty red robes and wandered over to the nearest Avawarrior. “Good afternoon,” he smiled benignly. “Would you be so good as to announce that the sorcerer supreme of the Parodyverse and Miss Liu Xi Xian are here to visit Prime Princess Annar? Thank you so much.” “Rise and shine, Sammy,” Lounge Lizard said, sliding his tongue along the side of Samantha Bonnington’s cheek. “Time for the first day of the rest of your life.” Fashion Accessory shuddered and pulled herself up from the bare ground. She created herself extra layers of clothing as if to insulate herself from her old team-mates in the New Battlers, but she knew it wouldn’t do any good. They owned her. She had nowhere else to go now. “We’ve located the Belgian Wafflettes,” E-Male briefed the gang. “They’re just coming out of the cave systems, and they look pretty hacked up. I think those giant centipedes might have gotten a couple of them. There’s only four left, and one of them was being carried.” “You’re going to rob them of their coins?” FA asked, nervously. “Sure,” L’il Buttie told her. “And then we’re going to gut them.” “You mean knock them out of the contest.” “I mean gut them. Boy Wonder has a device that blocks the recall signal so we can really kill losers.” “Stop giving away tactical information to people of uncertain loyalty to the team,” Tim Grimson warned. “Aw, Sammy’s one of us again,” Wyrmbait smirked. “As long as we have the tapes. Right, Sammy?” Fashion Accessory stood miserably in the midst of the New Battlers and wondered what she’d ever seen in them. “You mustn’t kill them,” she said in a voice that cracked with fear. “Oth couth we kilth them,” growled Thunderstroke, whose jaw had been shattered by Harlagaz the night before. “Whethe the fun otherwithe?” Ripper growled and sniffed the air. “This isn’t the time for doubts, Samantha,” E-Male told the blonde valley girl. “You made your bed now you’ve got to lie in it. With us. But Wonderboy’s right that we need to be sure that you’re on the team. So when we go to carve up the Wafflettes, I want to see blood on your hands, Sammy.” “What do you mean?” “I mean I’ll be right next to you as you use your powers to make those losers’ costumes choke the life out of them. I’ll have my hands right here on your so-pretty cheeks, and if you falter even for a minute I’ll burn you so badly that the only magazine covers you’ll ever be on again are medical journals.” Tears welled in Fashion Accessory’s eyes. “D-do it then,” she told him. “Because I’m not becoming a murderer. I’ve learned better than that.” “From your so-kewl Junior friends?” mocked Lounge Lizard. “Yes. From them. Because they might not be cool and radical, but they’re brave and loyal and kind. And they know what it means to be heroes, and even though I’m finished they’re going to find you and kick your kewl asses all round the island. They’re a hundred times better than you. A million!” “Okay. Take a last look at Sammy the way she was, guys,” grinned E-Male. Then the charging dinosaurs burst out of the forest, maddened by the fresh bloody trail they’d been following. The clearing erupted into chaos. Ripper snarled and bit a reptile in two, but there were a hundred others. And suddenly the floor was slippery with mincemeat and offal and everybody there was tangled in chain after chain of greasy sausages. “What?” gasped Fashion Accessory as she was lassoed by another chain of Cumberlands. “It’s a rescue,” Ham-Boy pointed out. “Are you coming or not?” “The Juniors are here?” Samantha asked. “I’m here. So let’s run.” The world’s meatiest hero paused only to call down a rain of t-bones and to animate the sausages into an attack formation, then grabbed FA and dragged her away down the slope. The Monastery of the Observing Eye was an Escher-like building spinning above the Vortex, the swirling mass of unformed narrative that connected the various dimensions of the Parodyverse. From this secret, shielded location the Order kept tabs on the development of metahumans and significant other characters on Earth and a dozen other realms that were currently important. They hadn’t always watched the Earth. They weren’t like the Observers, sworn to record the story of the Parodyverse to preserve it when it was gone. Nor were they Librarians, seeking to preserve information beyond the coming apocalypse. The Order’s religious fervour was directed at ensuring that all the prophesied players in the Resolution War for which the Parodyverse had originally been created were ready when the time came. And since the Earth was currently the Parodyverse’s nexus planet, the place around which the stories span, Earth was their main focus just now. Almost five hundred monks worked without sleep to identify and develop young people who just might play a pivotal role in allowing sentient life to survive the Resolution conflict and continue the Parodyverse when it was all over. But the trainers were better on theory than on practise, as Yuki Shiro pointed out as she and Trickshot used their currently-reduced size to slip under doors to infiltrate the Inner Sanctum. Although she was less than a half-inch high thanks to judicious use of Fleabot’s size-changing particles earlier, Yuki still retained the titanium-steel robot shell she’d received after her human body was destroyed, and that was quite strong and tough enough to bore through the ancient mortar between the stone slabs of the monastery. Where she encountered a more sophisticated barrier such as a force field she was able to spoof the local security chip with her on-board computer. Trickshot’s job was to keep off the automated defence nanobots. The tiny robots weren’t very co-ordinated, but they were persistent. It was a good thing that the irritating archer was as good a hunter as he boasted he was. It took the better part of a day for the two intruders to worm their way past Order safeguards and burrow their way through the final plaster into the Order’s most secure area. “Hold it,” Yuki cautioned. “I’m going to risk a little active scan. We can’t afford surprises now.” It took the cyborg P.I. almost twenty minutes to analyse the defences of the chamber in such a way as not to be noticed by the systems. Trickshot occupied himself by rigging up a harness arrow so they could cliff-walk up the console side to get to the main data desk. “We’re clear,” Yuki said at last, and snapped the vial of size-changing particles that returned them to their usual masses. “Hey!” complained Trickshot, “if you were going ta do that why did you let me waste all that time with th’ arrow harnesses?” “It kept you quiet,” explained the purple-haired gumshoe. “Okay, think you can prepare another harness oR something while I check what the Observing Eye’s up to on this database?” The archer muttered something rude under his breath as Yuki began to hack into the systems. Most people would have heard the hunting call of the spine-wolves and run away. Harlagaz Donarson heard it and crashed forward through the undergrowth shouting, “Over here, vile monstereths. I art a helpless and toothsome victim forthwith for the nonce! O hath mercy on me!” Kiivan and Ohanna exchanged despairing glances and raced down to support the demihemigod in his battle. Glory identified the pack leader and flew straight in to take her down. As soon as the mutt of might tore out the lead spine-wolf’s throat the others raced away yelping. “And don’t come back,” barked the pooch of power, her hackles high on her back. “Come back!” called Harlagaz. “I hast not yet finished slaughtering you!” Ohanna was the first to spot the bloody mess that had been dragged across the clearing. “They were attacking someone! He’s alive!” Kiivan moved across to examine the wounded man. Then he pulled his dagger and pressed it to Hat Kid’s throat. “No! Please!” gasped Ben Grover. “Don’t!” “Do not slaughter you as you killed others?” the Emir of All Caph snarled. “Do not avenge your assault upon my companion the Lady Ohanna?” “It is Hat Kid of the New Battlers,” Glory recognised. “He has lost a lot of blood.” Keevan leaned over the fallen New Battler and examined the shoulder gory gash. “I meant to hit him in the throat,” the Prince clarified. “Speak, caitiff, and quickly!” Harlagaz demanded of Hat Kid. “Whyfore art thou here, and where hast thine vile allies taken our missing friends?” “Don’t kill me!” shrieked the terrified fat youth. “Oh please! The… the Battlers left me because I was hurt and couldn’t keep up. Sammy’s with them but nobody else. Sammy came back to us because we blackmailed her to. And they left me behind!” “Blackmail?” Ohanna asked. “What is that?” “We had some tapes of Fashion Accessory and the guys. You know. Brittany Spears stuff. Pam Anderson. She came back or we put them on the net and ruined her.” “And thou darest ask for mine mercy?” thundered Harlagaz. “Why are the New Battlers so interested in this competition anyhow?” wondered Glory. To the terrified Hat Kid the bloody-muzzled sheepdog seemed only to be snarling right in his face, but Ohanna translated the question. “We’re being paid. Lots,” Grover cringed. “We’re supposed to break into the command and control centre that the Observing Eye put here and steal their recording tapes.” “Their recording tapes?” Kiivan puzzled. “I thought the contest was transmitted anyhow.” “Not those tapes,” Hat Kid answered. “The real tapes. The reason these Observing Eye guys hold these contests. They’re also logging the DNA and auras of all the contestants, so they can replicate better versions later, make an army of super-types. Hundreds of armies.” “So that’s why they needed the Juniors to be in this match,” Glory reasoned. “This was their last chance to copy us and our powers.” “And that’s why that Baroness is paying us so much money to grab the data. She needs her own army of superhumans for some scheme of her own.” “The Baroness?” Harlagaz noted. “Meanest thou yon Elizabeth Zemo, yon treacherous cunning witch who didst dally with mine heart though foul occult wiles?” “That very cunning treacherous witch,” agreed Hat Kid. “And hey, dude, score!” “As we suspected, there is more going on than was first apparent in this contest,” Kiivan observed. “We will need to make our way into this command and control centre of which the pusillanimous worm speaks.” “Hey, since you lost your Hacker dude you might as well give up,” Hat Kid warned them. “Boy Wonder can get into nearly everything and he had to give up. That’s why we tried to grab Zelnitz from you.” Ohanna frowned. “How do you know we lost Lord Zelnitz?” she demanded. “He might be with others of our group hidden in the forest.” “How?” Ben Grover tried to smirk but he was in too much pain. “Because we know those Young Heckfire bastards got him. Because our agent in their ranks told us so.” “Copyin’? Those Observing Eye guys are taking readings on the kids so they can create better versions?” Trickshot looked over Yuki’s shoulder at the data she’d dredged from the Inner Sanctum’s systems. “Looks like,” the P.I. admitted. “This is really sophisticated technology, as adept in its own specialised area as the stuff the Librarian uses on the Moon. And for thousands of years the Order has been taking biometric readings and psychic profiles and stuff from their pupils, then using it to recreate them generations later, similar powers and characters, but tweaked to be what the Order consider better.” Yuki checked through some of the information folders. Project: Goldeneyed caught her attention. It outlined how the Order had retrieved Bry Katz and his cousins from one obscure distant future, and how they had trained and prepared Lisette at the Hooded Hood’s request then arranged for her to meet G-Eyed. “Did you know Goldeneyed was a descendent of someone called the Celestian Madonna and an Unhappy Place Symbiotic Fern and its wielder?” she asked Trickshot. “Who cares if spiffy is Bry’s great grand-dad?” the archer shrugged. “Does it say where they stowed G-Eyed’s kid? Or at least what time-frame?” “It’s in here but under security seal. I don’t want to risk that just yet. Let’s stick with the primary mission. We need to find out what the Order knows that we don’t that makes them so keen to train all these… Ah, got it. A file called the Sacred Texts ought to do it!” “They got monitors from here into the shower rooms?” Trickshot noted, looking round. “Those pervs. And hey, isn’t that screen showin’ the Golden Age dimension where Finny got hisself trained? Where Lisa’s kid got sent?” Yuki was concentrating, assimilating data. “Okay, it looks like the Order got some prophecies from Wilbur Parody, from the time he was Chronicler of Stories and knew stuff. And then they decided it was their holy mission to…” She stopped and her synthetic skin flushed an angry red. “Those bastards!” she snarled. “They don’t just train heroes, don’t even just train villains! They assess them. And every time they feel one of them doesn’t come up to the mark, the fail them.” “Like high school.” “If high school arranges for you to die horribly so your previously-stored genetic material can be used to make a better replacement for you,” snarled Yuki. “They don’t do it often, just in extreme cases. And sometimes they just pull in an alternate reality counterpart they already seeded there as a kid” She looked over at Trickshot. “Like they did with you.” Carl Bastion’s jaw dropped. “What? You’re sayin the Observin’ Eye messed with my origins?” “They seemed to feel the original was defective. Fortunately, they’d already trained Natalia Romanza for the Soviets, so she was easily manipulated into…” “Into killin’ me! I mean him,” Trickshot stammered. “I knew these guys were dodgy bozos, but…” “There’s more,” Yuki warned. “They’re expecting things to go very badly on Earth with the new Metahuman Registration sanctions. So the Order has decided it would be better to take biometric readings of all the next generation of heroes so when they’re all dead they can resurrect the best of them.” She looked up from the screen. “There’s supposed to be a malfunction in the trials they’re running right now, caused by hacking by some of the groups involved. There isn’t. This is planned.” “It is all planned,” agreed Goomdin, from the doorway. “Planning is one of the things we excel at. That is why we allowed you to demonstrate your own abilities for our biometrics systems, so that we could log you two as well before you were eliminated.” The monk nodded to the dozen top students called from the combat bays to deal with the interlopers. “Eliminate them.” Semi-Transparent Lad had had to sacrifice his pants, or at least the legs of them. They’d gone to wrap around the feet of the Cho Cho Futago, the Butterfly Twins he’d rescued. They could survive without other clothing – they were having to take turns with Ben’s shirt – but on the rough ground they were traversing their soles would have been cut to shreds. “I’m starting to feel more and more like Tarzan,” STL admitted as he helped the girls down a shale embankment into a fast-running stream. The octogorillas were still hunting them. They couldn’t be more than two minutes behind them. He tried to keep up the merry quips to help the twins along. He was wishing now he’d paid more attention in Hero Banter 101. Teiko and Makiko were visibly flagging, their torn exhausted bodies struggling with every step. They wouldn’t last much longer. “Come on, please,” he begged them. “Just a little bit further. Maybe under the waterfall. We can hide.” “We are coming,” Tei-Chan promised him. “We are doing our best.” The lead octogorilla created the clifftop and spotted the fugitives in the water. “Run!” Ben called, but Maki-Chan tripped and splashed down into the shallows. For the second time in twenty-four hours Semi-transparent Lad had the opportunity to flee and abandon his companions. He didn’t like having to do the right thing any more now than then. “Get her up, Tei-Chan,” he called. “Help her. I’ll hold them off!” For maybe eight seconds before they rip my head off, he didn’t add. The octogorillas leaped down towards him. And then their fur caught fire. The charge suddenly became a rout. The terrified primates dived into the water, beating their fur, trying to put out the flames. But the water around them bubbled and boiled, scalding them, sending them fleeing into the forest. Kerry Shepherdson and Danny Lyle emerged from the undergrowth to help the Butterfly Twins to safety. “Hey, I’m the cool one!” Danny Lyle objected as he helped the trembling Semi-Transparent Lad to the shore. “How do you get two naked chicks and I only have one?” “Ignore him,” Kerry advised the Cho Cho Futago. “He’s my problem.” Trickshot rolled low, flicking a dagger to pin one of the Skree martial arts heroes to the wall by his tunic and toppling the Shee-Yar matter rearranger into the Naicluv psi-blade combatant. Yuki ripped out the sacred console and hurled it into the other students. “Blasphemy!” screamed Goomdin. “They profane the sacred database!” “Yep, that’s pretty profaned,” agreed Tricky, launching a screamer arrow to disorient the trainees then taking down two more with jabs from each end of his bow. “Shame, really.” Yuki ran up a wall then backflipped over the energy projector ands turned him so he sprayed the shapeshifter and the strong girl. Then she dropped in front of Goomdin to head-butt him. Goomdin caught her, flipped her over, and held her in a full nelson, without even having to work hard. “Now!” called Yuki. Trickshot fired the electroshock arrow right into the cyborg P.I, electrifying her outer skin and sending the monk crackling away twitching. “You better have missed the jacket,” warned Yuki, pulling the shaft from her. “Hey, I’m good at this,” the archer smirked. “I shot you right in the butt.” The great warning bell began to ring in the tower. “I guess we upset them,” grinned Yuki. “Now they’ll all be after us.” “I hope so,” Trickshot grinned back. “I haven’t had a good workout in weeks. He blew out one wall of the sanctum level. “Let’s go.” Yuki dropped down onto the first cadre of trainees being marshalled to catch the intruders. It was important to keep the Order from realising why she’d really damaged their sacred database. The longer they concentrated on catching cyborg and archer the longer before they realised Yuki had just disabled their shielding systems from Lair Legion detection. The sunset of the second day of the trial was as spectacular as the sunrise. The dying sun painted the skies dappled crimson behind the brooding volcano. The fire mountain had clearly been disturbed by the wakening of the giant lizard-monster, since there had been a couple of minor tremors since then and a light black smoke was rising from the funnel. “We should stop here and camp for the night,” Ham-Boy decided. “It’s pointless trying to go on in the darkness.” “I could create some luminous material,” Fashion Accessory offered. “It still needs light,” Fred Harris pointed out. “Look, the others won’t be able to move by night either.” “E-Male glows,” Samantha Bonnington pointed out. “And they already know where Young Heckfire are taking Zack.” She glanced over at her erstwhile team-mate. “You don’t trust me, do you?” “Sure,” HB told her. “I heard you with those Battlers. You didn’t want to be there. You stood up to them.” FA’s usually-beautiful face was blotchy with weeping, her make-up run into long streaks down her cheeks. “I didn’t stand up to them, Ham-Boy. Not when I should have done, back at the start. Not when it counted.” “FA, they were going to scar you for life, and you didn’t give in. I know how much you… well, you pin a lot of your self esteem on your good looks, I guess. And they were going to take that away from you. But you wouldn’t give in.” “But I was so frightened, HB. Helpless. Not like all the rest of you, the heroes.” “Hey, you think I’m fearless? You’ve got to be kidding. And with the Juniors, it’s always like I’m the hanger on, tagging along for the comedy relief.” “Visionary… Visionary told me that when you have to choose whether to give up everything to do the right thing, then you know if you’re a hero.” “Wow, Vizh said that? He must have got it from someone else.” Samantha shook her head. “They have videos of me, HB. Back when I was younger, and even dumber than I am now. Back when they took advantage of me. Back when I thought they were all so cool and I’d do anything to fit in.” “Oh.” “Yeah. And they said… they said if I didn’t come back to them… betray the Juniors to them… They can wreck my life, HB. Now they will.” “I guess so,” agreed Fred Harris. “So when I should have been brave and given up everything I dreamed about, to be a hero, I didn’t. I just gave them my friends and showed what I’m worth. Which isn’t very much.” Ham-Boy caught her as she turned away. “No, don’t cry again. C’mon Samantha, we all screw up. I’m really good at it. All of us Juniors, we’re kind of screw-ups sometimes. But you know what? I’d rather try and do something and screw it up than be one of those people who never tries anything at all.” Fashion Accessory looked at him. “We’ve saved lives, FA. Saved them. We’ve helped people. You’ve saved lives and helped people. That’s not worth nothing. And if you messed up before about the blackmail, you stood up to E-Male when it counted most. And in my book that makes you a pretty good hero, Samantha.” “I always make fun of you, Ham-Boy.” “Yeah.” “I always treat you like dirt.” “Well, sometimes.” “And I’m not a good friend to you.” “We all screw up,” HB told her. “A real friend will always give you another chance.” “You have no chance!” declared Gookdor as he led the charge of the monks themselves, each with an energy battle stave whirling around them. Trickshot and Yuki stood at bay, surrounded. “You got the frequency?” the archer asked her. “657.3 megahertz,” the cyborg calculated. “Got it,” answered the archer, twisting the ring on his EMP arrowhead then hurling it to the ground. Suddenly all the energy staves fizzed out, and Yuki went in. “Is this it, then?” Trickshot demanded. “Is this the best you can do? Boy, how did you bozos ever manage ta murder your way through all the kids you failed?” “You tempt your destruction with such arrogance!” warned Gookdor. “Well sure,” agreed the irritating archer. “I’m Trickshot.” “He is,” agreed Yuki, kicking Goombok and Dookgor in the heads as she vaulted past. “He’s Trickshot and apparently nothing can be done about it.” “I think we could manage to do something,” answered Gookdor, catching the next arrow aimed at him out of the air and snapping it. His energy shuriken caught Yuki in the back, seizing her systems for just the second it took for the monks to overpower her. As Trickshot turned to help her a sandaled foot caught him in the side of the head. “Don’t capture them alive,” Gookdor instructed the Order as they piled onto the fallen heroes. And then the alarm sirens changed tone as the vortex heaved and a full-speed Lairjet dimension-jumped past the monastery’s exterior defences and demolished its way through half a dozen walls and buildings before skidding to a halt in the main courtyard. “Heh,” chuckled Trickshot from beneath the monks. “Destroy that vehicle, too,” ordered Gookdor. Half a dozen of the trainee power projectors hurled energy bolts and the LairJet exploded in flame before anyone could exit. Yuki and Trickshot exchanged satisfied glances. “And now…” went on Gookdor, just before Goldeneyed slammed him through a wall. “Don’t you people teach diversion to your students?” demanded Hatman as the Lair Legion poured through the door. “Destroy them!” shrieked Gooblan. “All units, all resources, close on this position. I declare Condition: Jihad. Destroy them all!” “Oh yeah,” grinned Trickshot. “I been waitin’ fer this.” “There it is,” Blatant Genius declared. “Only my brilliance could have penetrated the camouflage shielding the Order used to conceal the entrance.” “Well done on finding a door,” Zack congratulated the agitated bespectacled villain. “Be sure to put that on your resumé.” “You know, I kind of like that Zack of yours,” Alpha Dude confided the Falconne. “Can we keep him instead of van Meer?” “He’s not my Zack,” Lindy snapped. “That’s right,” H9 said, not even looking over his shoulder as he examined the locking mechanism. “She dumped me like last week’s fish. She lied to me then set me up to become your captive.” “That wasn’t Wilson,” corrected Lord and Master. “You were suggested for the job by the missing saintly Denial. The guy who’s off getting his jollies with your little jailbait arsonist.” “I didn’t set you up, Zach,” Falconne insisted. “Whatever. Get geek-boy to pass me my datapad.” It was rare that Hacker Nine could get away with calling somebody a geek. “I could have walked through your security barriers like they weren’t there,” Blatant Genius said sourly. “Hooray. Now stop breathing in my face. Stop breathing all together if you can.” “Can you open it, Junior?” demanded Black Princess. “Your health depends on your answer.” “Maybe, if people stop distracting me,” Zack snapped. He tinkered for the better part of half an hour, prodding his datapad probes at exposed wires in the door lock. Finally he stepped back and straightened up. “Okay, I can do it,” he admitted. “Was it the Fourier sequence put through an inverse Kirby wave?” Blatant Genius asked eagerly. Zack ignored him. “Open it then,” commanded Lord and Master. “Yes,” agreed Crapsack. “Crapsack thinks it is going to rain.” The volcano shuddered. “I can open it,” Zack answered. “But I won’t. In fact I’ve just inputted a sequence that will scramble the lock and activate the omega level defence protocols to keep you out for good if I don’t reverse it in ten minutes.” Black Empress held out a hand to restrain Drugo Lodestone. “Why ten minutes?” she demanded. “Because I reckon that’s how long I can hold out on whatever torture you do to me. And like I said before I won’t be any good under sweat-boy’s influence.” “How about mine?” demanded Lucy DeSoth malevolently, fingering one of her exclusion coins. “Or yours, braces,” H9 scorned. “Crapsack,” ordered Lord and Master, “break the little punk’s fingers.” “No!” squeaked Lindy. “Wait. There’s another way. We can persuade him. What is it you want, Zack? Money? Power?” “Her?” suggested Black Princess. “Undo the code and we’ll give her to you, helpless, for whatever you want to do.” “What?” Falconne objected, “you can’t just…” But Lord and Master had gestured and Crapsack grabbed Lindy and held her firm. “Right idea, wrong strategy,” Drugo announced. “You see, Zelnitz, the main reason we brought little Lindy here on the mission was in case we needed leverage on you. Not to offer her like a treat, toothsome little morsel as she is. To use her as our hostage.” He brushed his finger against Falconne’s exposed cheek and she began screaming. “Open the door or we hurt the girl.” “He means it,” Alpha Dude warned. “Open the door, Zelnitz. It’s over.” Hacker Nine was deathly pale. “You wouldn’t really hurt her,” he argued. “She’s one of yours.” “Her?” scorned Stacy Royale. “A common black little street slut? Anyone could wear that armour and do better than her. She’s nothing. Expendable. I’ve said so all along.” “Crapsack thinks you should open the door now, Mr Zelnitz,” the hulking pile of sewage gripping Lindy declared. “Crapsack does not want to hurt Falconne, but he will do if Lord and Master tells him to.” Zack sagged. “Okay,” he conceded. “Let her go. I’ll do it.” “Disable her costume,” Lord and Master told Privilege. “I don’t want her trying anything by way of revenge when she finally stops screaming.” “That’s the way it is with Young Heckfire,” Blatant Genius explained as H9 opened the door. “Survival of the fittest.” He gestured to the control room within. “We win.” Next Time: Graduation! Who makes the grade and moves on? Who still has things to learn? Who washes out? Who betrays who? Who dies? The Lair Legion vs the Order of the Observing Eye! The Juniors vs the New Battlers and Young Heckfire! A really big lightning-breathing monster that can’t be named for copyright reasons, and its friends. Kerry and the volcano! The senses-shattering conclusion in the grossly oversized 250th edition of Untold Tales (although please note that the Management cannot be held legally responsible for any shattered senses) Original concepts, characters, and situations copyright © 2006 reserved by Ian Watson. Other Parodyverse characters copyright © 2006 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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