 |
|
|
Post By The Hooded Hood has had to really struggle to get this one out today Sat Mar 11, 2006 at 12:20:59 pm EST |
Subject
#262: Untold Tales of the Lair Legion: Frontiers, or Waiting for the Hammer to Fall | |
|
|
Next In Thread >> | |
#262: Untold Tales of the Lair Legion: Frontiers, or Waiting for the Hammer to Fall What Has Gone Before: The Parody Master’s march of conquest across time and space continues. On Earth the persecution of superheroes continues as a prelude to his invasion. Creatures of the occult underworlds are taking sides ready for war. Espionage agency SPUD has been compromised, leaving premiere superspy Natalia Romanza only one escape, to travel through time in the hopes that her friend Trickshot would somehow find and retrieve her. The Parody Master has claimed a number of talented women as his brainwashed brides, yet he still seeks to add more to his collection. Amongst these are elementalist Liu Xi and Kinki, daughter of the time villain Wang the Conqueror. These two, plus kidnapped archscientist Al B. Harper and amorous advocatrix Lisa Waltz, are lost aboard a crippled dimensional dreadnaught in the fierce narrative vortex between dimensions, hunted by Parody Cult fanatics, the chilling Doomwraiths – and the sorcerer supreme of the Parodyverse, who has been Obedience Branded to serve the Parody Master. The Hooded Hood's Homepage of Doom Who's Who in the Parodyverse Where's Where in the Parodyverse Trickshot disabled the four million pound security system around the Paradopolis museum with an ease that would have horrified its Board of Trustees. It certainly horrified his companion. “How can you do that?” George Gedney asked as the security cameras began recycling their own inputs and the infrared beams flicked off. “Pure skill, kid. I being doin’ this a while.” “Breaking into museums in the middle of the night?” “Goin’ places folks don’t want me ta go.” The young part-time curator of the tiny Willingham Museum looked nervous. “But the Board of this museum did ask you to test their security, like you said?” he checked. “Sure, whatever I said,” Tricky assured his patsy. “Now c’mon. You said you knew the layout here?” “I interned here with Dr Carl Hallow… the last curator here, for one summer.” “Carl,” the archer murmured, suddenly subdued as he thought about his fallen friend, Pigeonman. “He wuz one’a the good guys.” He snorted and suddenly he was all business again. “So ya know the basements?” “The basements? Well sure. But why would the Board of Trustees want you to check the basement?” Trickshot sighed. Well, they were inside the security perimeter now so he might as well tell the truth. “They didn’t, kid. I just told you whut you needed to hear ta get you guidin’ me into the museum. Sorry about that.” Gedney blanched. “You said Asil recommended me for the job!” he objected. “You said she said…” His face fell. “She didn’t recommend me?” Then another horrible thought struck him. “You’re really robbing this place?” “Relax, kid,” the irritating archer told George. “I’m not here ta steal anything. In fact I’m here ta leave something behind.” George Gedney wrestled with complex feelings. The government had apparently been Patriot Branding all the people close enough to the Lair Legion to be able to spy on their counsels or bring emotional pressure to bear. Nobody had come after George. Now he was being used as a pawn by the Legion themselves. Maybe Asil really did recommend me for the job, he thought bitterly. He looked down at the small stainless steel box that Trickshot had asked him to carry. It was about the shape of a ruler. “What’s in here, then?” he asked miserably. “Aw, don’t feel bad, Georgie,” Trickshot told him. “All the girls love a roguish man-of-action. Look at me.” “Yes,” sighed George, plunging into deeper depression. “The box?” They were in the sub-basements now, and Trickshot was prising up one of the ancient flagstones that covered the floor. “Take a look if you want,” he offered. George Gedney unlatched the case and examined the interior. Laid on a styrofoam pad was a single arrow. Attached to its shaft was a plastic collar with strange symbols written on it. George couldn’t crack the code. The globe-shaped module slipped over the sharp head was of glass and metal. “And?” George prompted. “It’s an arrow,” Trickshot explained helpfully. “With a message on it.” George traced the carvings on the plastic. “What does it say? A message to who?” Trickshot took the arrow and its case, sealed them shut, wrapped them in a polythene bag, and dropped the whole thing into the trench he’d made two feet beneath the flagstone. “It’s some egghead code whipped up by Dr Weed Wrichards for me, okay? Nobody’s gonna crack that less’n they’re Wrichards level brainy, and they know 4-D math on top. Luckily the guy the message is for kin do stuff like that.” “And he’ll be checking this basement out in case you left him an arrow?” Trickshot smirked. “It’s a longshot. My longest shot ever. This arrow’s gotta hit a target. It’s gotta hit somebody in 2462.” “2462?” George puzzled. “You mean the year 2462?” “Yep,” grinned Trickshot. “See my best gal Natalia got herself zapped through time and she needs me ta git her home. So I need me a time-traveller, right? Well it so happens I met this guy, Justin Tyme…” “There’s a time-traveller called Justin Tyme?” “Hey, it’s the Parodyverse. So this Tyme guy comes from 2462, right? And he works out of this big science institute whut’s built on the ruins where the Paradopolis Museum once used ta be. Right here.” Gedney blinked and wondered if she could surreptitiously check the archer’s breath for alcohol. “So you know the future. What’s going to happen?” “I know one possible future,” Trickshot answered. “Evidently there’s thousands of ‘em, mostly where we all get wiped out. But Tyme’s an okay guy an’ his future could be a lot worse. And I need him to jump into his ultraframmistat, head back here, and help me pick up Talia.” George Gedney looked down at the newly-replaced flagstone. “And you’re counting on him just finding your message and coming to help?” “Nah. You saw that arrowhead, right? It’s got some radioactive gunk in it. It’s gonna take it about four hundred sixty years ta chew its way through. And then the science centre’s radiation sensors will start picking up something right under their institute. And when they go look, they’ll find my time capsule. And when they can’t read the message, they’ll ask their biggest egghead.” “That’s… almost coherent,” George had to admit. “So we’ve buried the thing. What do we do now?” “Now? We sit an’ wait fer Justin ta get here, then we rescue the Contessa from the dinosaurs or whatever and we head home for chilli dogs. Okay?” “Dinosaurs?” whimpered George. The massive interdimensional dreadnaught Eradication of Heretics glided into the dimensional vortex, a city-sized piece of ordinance capable of shattering planets. Holy Taur, High Priest of the Parody Cult, twitched on the command deck in ill-concealed impatience. “Well?” Commander Looris checked the report logs from the hundred or so scoutships searching the dangerous narrative currents of the void between realities. “We’re not receiving any positive indicators, your eminence. It is likely that the Conquest of Destiny has been lost. There are tides here that even a sister ship to this vessel could not resist, and if as you say the Singularity Riders drained all power from the vessel…” Taur looked disappointed. He’d really wanted to have Al B. Harper, Lisa L. Waltz, and Kinki the Conqueress on his penance hooks before they died. “What would you say the odds of their survival might be, on a powerless craft in the deep shear of the vortex?” he demanded. “Almost impossible to survive,” called the rumpled man in the faded red robes who was slouching and spinning in one of the control chairs by the environmental support console. “Infinitesimally small. So they’ll have done it, of course.” Taur didn’t like the sorcerer supreme of the Parodyverse. Even scorched with an Obedience Brand, Xander the Improbable had heretic written all over him. “You know something?” The master of the mystic crafts shrugged. “One of us has to,” he pointed out. “Look, this is Lisa and Al we’re talking about. They’re two of the main characters of the Parodyverse. They’ve been selected by whatever forces there are to be major players in the plots. The narrative wraps around them. And the vortex is all about that.” Commander Looris checked his readouts again. “Sir, the concept shelves down in the deep vortex could rip this ship apart if we made the slightest mistake. Without power there’s no way the fugitives could manoeuvre to prevent breaking up.” “Want to put money on that, Commander?” the mage asked. “And as a side bet, how much do you want to gamble that they picked up Liu Xi Xian before they escaped? Your other missing bride will be with them, wherever they’ve got to.” Holy Taur looked up fiercely. “Then we must find them. Our Master wants the Earth elementalist as one of his chattels. He wants the Booke of the Law burned in his Infinity Forge. He wants the brain of Al B. Harper added to the Gestalt Intellect. His will be done!” “And I want a bacon sandwich,” added Xander the Improbable. “So I’m going to find a kitchen, you look for your missing dreadnaught. Oh, you should start by mapping all the major matter accretions down at about 65,000 concepts. The bits of rock and stuff that have been sucked into the vortex. Concentrate on chunks big enough to hide a city-sized ship on. That’ll be where Al will have got Liu Xi to park them while they do something clever with their power systems.” And the sorcerer supreme shuffled off towards the mess. “I claim this rock in the name of Kinki the Conqueress, future ruler of all that is or will be!” proclaimed the blonde woman in the tight-fitting jumpsuit. She planted a flag into the squelchy loam of the great chunk of spinning matter that the stolen dreadnaught Conquest of Destiny had crashed onto. “Feel better now?” Liu Xi Xian asked her. “Now you own the big space-rock, I mean?” “Slightly better,” admitted the daughter of the time-tyrant Wang. “It’s a small start. I mean, now that dad has had to take himself and his empire out of timespace to avoid the Parody Master, I’m going to have to start founding a power base of my own.” “Of course,” Liu Xi nodded. “Why?” “Why?” Kinki seemed a bit taken aback by the question. “Because… well, what’s a girl without a galactic empire to command?” “Happy?” Kinki seemed shocked and embarrassed. She looked around her at the old carved crystal. In some places it still retained shape where it had been carved into elegant arches and buttresses. Much of it was blackened and stained. “What do you think this place was, before it fell down here?” Liu Xi touched the crystal, then shuddered. “It was a fortress of light,” she reported. “And then it was taken and turned into a stronghold of darkness. And then it was destroyed.” There were familiar psychic spoors here, but Liu Xi wasn’t yet practised enough to pick them out. Al B Harper and Lisa emerged from external hatch P-66 to join them. “We’re going to need an outside power source to jumpstart the fusion field motivators,” the archscientist explained. “If I can get the power systems up and running I can soup up autorepair and we can be up and running in less than a week.” “A week?” objected Lisa. “The Legion will be going frantic. I could just summons somebody here who could get us home.” “No,” Al objected. “The Parody Master will be scanning for you using your summonsing abilities. It’d lead them right to us. And since Goldeneyed lost his powers and Donar’s dimensional abilities were affected by the loss of Bifrosting there’s nobody who could reliably get us back anyhow.” He glanced back at the grounded hull of the enormous vessel. “Besides, we really need this thing on our side if it comes to a showdown with the Parody Master.” “Then get to work restoring my vessel,” demanded Kinki. Lisa raised an eyebrow. “We still need that external power supply,” Al B. pointed out. “I’m recovering my power,” Liu Xi reported. “I may need a few more hours of sleep, but then I could…” “I’m not putting you into the organic interface,” Al told her. “The Parody Master is obviously not fussy about the rate he rips energies for his ships out of his metahuman batteries. Besides, they’re probably also scanning for you using your powers. Xander will know how to do that.” Liu Xi shuddered. “I thought he was my friend. A mentor.” “He showed you how to get away, didn’t he?” Lisa pointed out. The first lady of the Lair Legion pointed over the broken crystal rock to a distant horizon. “Anyhow, we’ve picked up another source about fifteen miles that way. So we ladies – and Kinki – are going to locate and recover it, while Al does incomprehensible and tedious things with his new toy, okay?” “You may lead on,” Kinki told her. Warren Kennedy-Rockefeller-Hearst-De Sade IV staggered into his forty million dollar mansion and hurled his gimp mask across the hall. “That does it!” he told his faithful family retainer Albert. “That’s it! The last straw!” The butler picked up the black rubber faceskin and placed it on a waiting silver tray. “One advised the master not to venture out with so many agents attempting to illegally prosecute Special Resolution 1066,” he sniffed. “Sure. But one didn’t mention they’d be waiting for one at one’s freaking target sex club that was a front for the white slavery ring one has been tracking for one’s last six months,” growled Fetish Lad. “Those morons blew everything, and I don’t mean in a good Jenna Jameson kind of way.” “One doesn’t wish to add to the master’s woes,” Albert noted, “but one feels one should also note that there has been a small landslide in the southern end of the Fetish Cave.” Fetish Lad dropped his handcuffs onto the silver tray next to his mask and sighed. “Maybe it’s a sign. Maybe I need to put away the bondage gear and concentrate on being an obscenely rich handsome playboy?” “Perhaps master should examine the rather curious damage before master decides?” suggested the butler. Warren Kennedy-Rockefeller-Hearst-De Sade IV headed to the fetish slide and took a look at what the rockfall had uncovered at the far end of the underground cave system beneath his ancestral stately manor. “Oh,” he said. The shop girl looked up to find herself face to face with a cheeky grinning visitor. “Oh!” “Hello, darling,” he said, winking. “What’s a nice girl like you doing in a place like this?” “Not falling for that old line,” snorted Ruby Waver. “Is there something I can help you with?” “Depends. What are you doing on Saturday night, then?” Ruby caught herself before she fell into old reactions and gave him a checking-you-out-too look back. “I’m seeing someone who has more class and style than you do,” she put him down instead. “Poor kid,” sympathised Con Johnstantine, Heckblazer. “Well then, in that case I’m here to see the boss. Is Mr Li at home?” The shop was Mr Li’s Laundry of Doom, where all kinds of stains got treated. “Mr Li’s busy just now.” “Tell him an old friend’s here to see him,” Johnstantine smirked. “He’s no friend of yours, Con Johnstantine,” growled a new voice from behind the bead curtain to the laundry’s interior. Tanner came through to stand between Ruby and the visitor. “I warned you I’d rip your throat out if I ever saw you again!” Con Johnstantine lit up a cheap cigarette. “I don’t think it was my throat,” he recalled. “Anyway, I need to talk with you as well, Tanaise.” “Tanner,” said the lycanthrope, baring his prominent teeth. “You call me Tanner.” “Whatever. Anyhow, I just thought you’d want to know that Belladonna Rouge is in town, recruiting. You remember Belladonna?” Ruby’s ears pricked up. “Do I get footnotes?” she ventured. “Old girlfriend,” Tanner snapped. “A real bitch.” “And gathering together a lot of her old boyfriends, so I hear,” Johnstantine reported. “I don’t think you’re on the invite list, though.” “I might crash the party anyhow.” “Okay, is this one of those ultra-occult conversations I don’t understand because I’m not a zillion year old monster?” Ruby checked. “Sorry, luv,” Con told her. “You had your chance to ply me with drink and get info out of me Saturday.” “Keep away from Ruby, Johnstantine. She’s suffered enough.” “Really? I’d say anybody who turns down a quarter mil for a Playboy spread has brought their own suffering upon themselves.” Johnstantine ran his gaze over Ruby’s curves. “And brought deprivation to the Western male world.” Tanner’s hand closed around the English occultist’s throat. “If your next words aren’t about where Belladonna’s holding her clan gathering, you won’t be speaking any more.” “Okay,” wheezed Johnstantine. “So you’re signing up for the big fight. Good news. I’ll be sure to tell the others that you’re on board.” Tanner’s brows furrowed. “What others?” Johnstantine grinned again. “Hero Feeders!” warned Kinki the Conqueress, pulling her omni-transistor ray. Liu Xi and Lisa instinctively closed into a circle, facing out, as the grey canine shapes oozed out of the darkness to surround them. “These must be fairly basic Lurkers,” Lisa noted. “Not very sophisticated or powerful. A long way down the food chain.” “Above or below us?” Liu Xi wondered. “They eat stories,” Lisa explained. “They crave characters. If they get us they’ll chew us out of the narrative as if we never existed.” “We can take them,” Kinki declared, aiming her bulbous weapon. And then a new voice called out. “No! Don’t shoot!” And then to the Hero Feeders: “Bad dogs! It’s okay, they’re not the enemy. You can go back to your patrols!” To the adventurers’ amazement the vicious predators slunk away, growling. But that was nothing to Liu Xi’s surprise when she recognised who had sent them away. “Cleone!” Lisa was more suspicious. “Or a Hero Feeder who’s taken her shape. Are you really Cleone?” “Yes,” answered the beautiful white-haired swanmay at the door to her makeshift home in the ruins of a shattered crystal library. “You know this woman?” demanded Kinki, aiming her weapon at the stranger now. “If she really is who she claims to be,” agreed the amorous advocatrix. “She’s Xander’s companion,” Liu Xi warned. “His familiar. But she disappeared.” “And now you know where I went,” Cleone replied. “I’ve been waiting for you.” D.D., the artificial intelligence administrator of the Lunar Public Library, picked up the interstellar priority communications call within six picoseconds of the signal hitting the sensor array. She handshook and verified the message as being from the Central Library, on a frequency reserved for Governors business. “Hello, this is Library 7272. How may I help you?” The unpleasant bloated face of Supervisor Garth glared back at her. “I will speak with Bookman,” he announced. “I’m sorry, Supervisor Garth, but the Librarian is out on a book retrieval operation and is not available to speak with you at this time.” “Patch me through to him. That’s an order.” D.D. metaphorically swallowed hard. Lee Bookman has been missing ever since his Galactibus was thought destroyed by Z’Nox Assassin Ships while he’d been trying to sign up allies against the Parody Master. “Mr Bookman is not currently within contact range of this facility,” the A.I. prevaricated. Supervisor Garth’s eyes narrowed. “Are you telling me that Bookman has been breaching operational protocol again?” he asked dangerously. “No sir, I am not telling you that,” answered D.D. carefully. Garth snorted. “Get hold of Bookman. Tell him that he’s been recalled to the Central Library. Reassigned.” The Supervisor looked happier. “He is no longer the Librarian of the Lunar Public Library. He’s to pack up and get back here within the week.” “Sir, I don’t know if…” “I don’t care what excuses his hacked little artificial intelligence wants to make,” Garth warned. “You’re just a glorified answering machine, D.D. So do your job like a good little machine and tell Bookman to report to the Governors. A temporary Librarian has been assigned and will be with you in a few days.” “But sir…” D.D. protested. “I’m sure that Auditor Blay-Kee will soon have your branch running according to the book,” the jowly superior declared with satisfaction. “Supervisor Garth out.” Whoever it was that was tracking Fetish Lad across the rooftops was faster, stronger, and more dexterous than him. Which just left smart to be tested. The kinky knight’s equipment had proved useless. The armoured figure had shrugged off the power paddle, the electro-nipple clamps, even the ejaculator ray. “And he’s still coming,” FL grumbled to himself. “And not in an Asia Carrera kind of way.” Fetish Lad hurled his mimetic rope across to the roof of the building he was aiming for and shimmied across. His opponent simply leaped the fifty foot gap . “Showoff,” complained FL. He was in no doubt of what the armoured enemy wanted. It had to be the device he was carrying, the box of tricks from the hidden compartment revealed by the suspiciously-times landslip in the Fetish Cave. The hologram had explained everything; why the device had been placed there in 1906, where it had to be delivered to and why, and who was likely to try and stop it. “They could have got Carrie Fisher to do the holography though,” complained Fetish Lad. The Avawarrior sprang, his molecule-thick slicing the spot where FL had been seconds earlier. Fetish Lad avoided it by falling backwards through the skylight and tumbling hard into the Egyptian wing of the Paradopolis Museum. He tried to rise but found his legs didn’t want to move. The Avawarrior dropped lightly to stand over him. “Promise this will be painful,” moued Fetish Lad. The fast-acting cement-foam arrow caught the Avawarrior right in the centre of his helmet, coating him with goo that solidified in seconds to top-grade plascrete. “Will you settle fer him having some heavy bondage?” asked Trickshot, responding to the intruder alarm. He pushed the trapped avawarrior over so he spun round on the floor. “Heh.” “Trickshot,” FL called out. “Thanks for the save. I have a package for you from the future.” “How could you wait for us?” challenged Kinki, staring suspiciously at the delicate silver-haired beauty who could command hero feeders. “It was pure chance that brought us to this rock, here in the chaos between realities.” Cleone smiled and led them inside the ruin of the fallen fortress. The old library had survived its collapse into the vortex relatively intact. It laid at a slight slant, but Cleone had done her best to restore the books and scrolls to their shelves and to make the place more homely with silks and woven goods. “When I found the doorway in the Lair Basement that got me into all of this,” Liu Xi remembered, “Xander was waiting for me. He knew where I’d be going.” “Well he is the master of the mystic crafts, dear,” Cleone pointed out. “Would you like some tea? Jaffa cakes? I don’t know how I ever lived back in father’s Mythlands halls without Jaffa cakes.” “If she is Xander’s tool and Xander has been branded by the Parody Master…” reasoned Kinki, “Then Xander must know we are coming here also.” Cleone smiled. “Well, he did,” she agreed. “But then he forgot.” Lisa looked around and noticed the battered box that Xander had once entrusted with Dancer. “He forgot,” she noted. “Did Xander also foresee perhaps that he was going to get Branded by the Parody Master?” “Well it was always likely,” the swanmay agreed. “That or killed, and Xander didn’t like that idea. So he made arrangements.” “Like hiding you away here,” Liu Xi suggested. “Like that. And hiding some of the things he knew from himself so he couldn’t use them for the Parody Master. He had to find ways of protecting the things he was setting in motion from the Xander who served the Parody Master heart and soul.” Lisa looked at the box. “And he gave them to you to look after.” “Yes. He gave me his real heart and soul.” “So you could free Xander?” Liu Xi hoped. “Get him to overcome that Brand?” Cleone’s face fell. “No. I don’t know how to do that. If Xander had a plan for that he didn’t share it with me. All I have to do is keep his box safe and help you when you get here.” “Help us how?” asked Kinki, still suspicious. Cleone pointed to the Mark III Xnylonian Ultraconcept Power Core purring in the corner of the room. “Escape to start with. And then I have to lead you into mortal danger.” “Okay,” Lisa agreed. “After the Jaffa cakes.” “Hello,” said Professor Justin Tyme, “and greetings appropriate to your time zone and orbital position.” Trickshot looked down at the hologram projected by the little device Fetish Lad had delivered. “Geez, he got old,” he said. “Ah, the systems here recognise the voice print of Carl Bastion, a.k.a. Trickshot the Marksman, a.k.a. the irritating archer,” the hologram noted. “Adjusting to primary function message.” “You know this guy?” George Gedney surmised, trying to keep afloat. “Justin Tyme,” Tricky nodded. “I told you about him. I’m guessin’ from his wrinkles that my little time arrow overshot a bit. Still, I’m gonna score this a hit.” “Not that guy,” George worried, ignoring the hologram and pointing to the leather clad kinky avenger. “Him!” Fetish Lad blew him a kiss. “I’m recording this message in the Earth year 2482,” Tyme explained. “By that time the museum you left your arrow in is the Advanced Sciences Institute, named after… ahem, well, me. It’s heavily shielded, which is why it took a while for our sensors to pick up your radiation beacon. Fascinating code algorithms in your message though. The ultramathematical vector notation was… Um anyhow, I received you call eventually. Better late than never, as we time travellers say.” “Git to the point, doc,” Trickshot breathed. “To summarise the long-winded hologram,” offered Fetish Lad, “the professor can’t make house calls right now. Seems that tall, dark, and armoured over there has a boss, some nasty called the Parody Master, and there’s a watch now being kept on all time-travel to this era. So your friend Professor Tyme couldn’t send a time travel unit direct to you.” “So how do you know Tyme?” George Gedney wondered. “Don’t,” FL shrugged. “But evidently my great grand-uncle Blanchford did, because he arranged for some gadget to be bricked up in my cellar a hundred years ago with a timer set to reveal it yesterday.” “Smart way of getting round this Parody Master’s time monitoring,” George had to admit. “Time travel the hard way.” “This device will automatically transport you to where Contessa Natalia Romanza shifted through time,” the hologram lectured. “I doubt it can be very far considering the power levels and condition of the technology she utilised. It will then take approximately a day to recalibrate itself and return you to the present. If your lady friend is with you at that time she will return also.” “Sounds like a fair deal,” FL admitted. “Sure,” agreed George. “Tell that to the other men in red and black armour that have just come to visit the Egyptian exhibit.” Trickshot and Fetish Lad took up defensive poses as half a dozen more avawarriors entered the museum. “The time police?” worried George. “Nah. Those look more like hedgehogs,” Tricky reassured him. “These guys are goons of the Parody Master, chasin’ time travellers.” “And you have a plan to escape them?” Fetish Lad asked. “Like perhaps summoning the Lair Legion to help out?” “Aw, they’ll be jammin’ the comm-frequencies,” Trickshot shrugged. “We don’t need the Legion to ditch these bozos.” “We don’t?” George worried. “Then how…?” Trickshot activated the time travel device. “Aw cr…” said Fetish Lad just before the three of them vanished. “There they are,” Xander pointed, picking out the hastily-cloaked dreadnaught on the ruins of the Hellraisers’ astral fortress. “Clever choice of hideout. The overwhelming karmic harmonics almost hid them from your sensors.” “Very clever,” spat the High Priest of the Parody Master. “A few hours longer and we would have had to shift from this sector as this vessel’s energies became depleted. Harper will indeed be a useful addition to the Gestalt once he has suffered on the penance slabs for a decade or more.” “Don’t celebrate the capture yet,” Commander Looris warned. “I’m getting the signal to stand off. We don’t go in.” “Who dares countermand the orders of Holy Taur, High Priest of the Parody Cult?” demanded Holy Taur. The vessel commander genuflected hurriedly but switched the forward screens to show the dark creatures emerging unscathed from the fury of the vortex. “They do,” he said, pointing to the Singularity Riders. The Doomwraiths screamed in victory and wheeled down towards the grounded ship that contained their mortal prey. “Oops,” said Xander the Improbable. Next Time: We return to the Swordrealm and Esperine, where the divided peoples await the vengeance of the Parody Master and his unstoppable battalions, where only one pure thought being and one absent-without-leave Librarian can prevent genocide, and where the problems of two little people don’t amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world. And then we crash Lisa, Al B., Yuki, and Cleone into the plot. Literally. UT#263: The Price of Resistance, or The Hammer Falls You Never Bring Me Footnotes Any More: This chapter includes the Untold Tales debut of one character and the reappearance of three relatively seldom-used ones. Justin Tyme, hero of AG’s Tyme Travels stories, is a time traveller from the year 2462. He has been stuck bouncing from through the various time periods of the Parodyverse. He has been credited as the first inventor of time travel. An older, more experienced Professor Justin Tyme later set up an institute for chronal studies and it is this version of the character who responds to Trickshot’s pleas here. Cleone Swanmay, one of thirteen daughters of the King Under the Mountain in the Mythlands, is a swanmay (a woman gifted with the ability of transforming into a swan through a mystic mantle). After being captured and bound by a cruel sorcerer she was rescued by Xander the Improbable and then saved his life in turn by sharing her life-force with him. This has bound them intimately. Although now exiled from her mythlands home, Cleone still has the gift of perceiving truth and knowing people’s hearts. George Gedney is the part-time curator of the Willingham Museum while he works on his incredibly boring doctoral thesis. He recently came into contact with the Lair Legion through Asil Ashling, Mumphrey’s amanuensis, for whom he has a desperate affection. Fetish Lad is best described in the words of his creator, Lee (ManMan) Calloway: Name: Fetish Lad Aliases: The Perverted Knight, Real Name: Warren Kennedy-Rockefeller-Hearst-De Sade IV. Age: 18 Occupation: Playboy/Sometime Superhero. Origin (Briefly): After the murder of his parents, Warren was brought up by his trusted servant, Albert. As an inquisitive youth, Warren spent his time exploring the confines of his childhood home, the Kennedy-Rockefeller-Hearst Mansion. During this time, the lad found a secret passageway that led him below the mansion’s foundations, into a blackened cavern, and what he found both horrified and bewitched him. The Fetish Cave as it is known was a collection brought together by all of Warren’s great ancestors into one place. Unspeakable acts of depravity are celebrated as physical art-forms; obscene artefacts culled from the history of the world are displayed proudly; manuscripts of banned novels, transcripts of sexual woe, and photos of impressively long appendages (male & female) are all here. And Warren begins to learn… Upon his (early) graduation in engineering at MIT, Warren begins to explore the possibility of using his fetish knowledge for the force of good, to stop events such as the one that made him an orphan. Experimenting with technology and able to fashion useful equipment, he combines the two aspects of his expertise. Equipment: Fetish Lad’s costume is (seemingly) a one piece latex/rubber suit, complete with Gimp Mask, and while there seems to be no room for the adornment of equipment, the Perverted Knight seems to have an endless amount of “storage” – just don’t ask him where he puts it. The Power Paddle: Fetish Lad’s greatest ally in combating evil. This paddle can deliver a blow 100 times stronger than the biggest spank. It can also transform into a cat ‘o nine tails for those difficult to reach areas. Self-Binding Mimetic Rope – Once thrown, this gadget can apprehend the toughest of opponents. This handy device also helps FL move about the city, ala, Spider-man. Ejaculator Ray – Stimulating areas of the brain, this captures all but the most frigid of villains, while they love it…12 settings. Electric Nipple Clamps – Can deliver shocks up to 20,000 volts. General Character Warren, without his Fetish Lad persona, is a quiet lad: honourable, polite, and gentlemanly. In the costume, he is extroverted, charismatic, flirts with absolutely everyone (without ever following through). Think Dr Frankenfurter from Rocky Horror Picture Show. And for those who like plot correspondence, here’s some conversation I had with AG over the Trickshot elements: IW: Tricky needs a time machine. He's going to make the longest shot of his career. he intend to leave a message arrow somewhere where it will be found by Justin Tyme far in the future, asking for Tyme to come back and help him. Where would he leave such an arrow? The museum that Pigeonman curated? How would he make sure it got to Tyme's attention so far in the future? AG: The Justin who will find the message and rescue Tricky will be an older, wiser Professor Justin Tyme. He looks the same except he has graying temples. Ok, during the Crisis Tricky and his gal spy helped the younger Justin chase some looters away. Where they did this was at the Institute set up based on the studies of the older Justin. So Tricky knows exactly where the Professor Justin Tyme Institute For Higher Learning and Chronal Studies is located at in the future. He knows it's next to Pigeonman's museum. Now remember, Tricky's friend, Carl aka Pigeonman, died during the Crisis, so he's going to miss him. He would travel to the exhibit floor that would be the same floor that will in the future be devoted to heroes of the 21st century. Currently it covers Ancient Egypt. He would take a small Time-Chip that he picked up during the Crisis (in case he needed it) and slap it in the corner near the floor. All he was told by Justin was to press a button and it should send out a beacon to him. Professor Justin Tyme, older, wiser, will answer the beacon. Does that help at all? IW: Yes, that's useful. However, rather than the time-chip I think Tricky should have to make another of his famous long-shots: 1. He straps his message to an arrow. The message is coded, and the arrow has a slow-decaying arrowhead with a mildly radioactive substance inside it. 2. He arranges for the arrow to be hidden in the basement of the museum, in a time capsule - the non-time-traveling type that is just a box hidden for the future. 3. It takes - how many years into the future is Tyme anyhow? - that many years for the shielding around the substance to decay. 4. A radioactive source beneath the Tyme Institute is then picked up on sensors and the capsule located. 5. The message is coded in a way that only Tyme himself can decrypt (it's a code Tricky had Wrichards whip up for him in ultramathematics). Now the problem is that the Parody Master is now intercepting all incoming time travellers (after the trouble he's had with Wang and Starcross), so Tyme is just as clever. He sends a time-travel device and a tracking sensor back to 1906 and leaves it in exactly the same way, to be picked up by Tricky at the appropriate moment. Then all Tricky has to do is travel in time, rescue Natalia, fight off the bad guys, and get home in time for chili dogs. Simple, eh? 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. |
| Follow-Ups: |
|
| Echo™ v3.0 alpha © 2003-2006 Powermad Software |
|
|