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Post By The Hooded Hood's double-sized turning point issue Sat Apr 08, 2006 at 11:37:48 am EDT |
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#268: Untold Tales of the Lair Legion: The Grave Mistake | |
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#268: Untold Tales of the Lair Legion: The Grave Mistake Content Warning: This chapter includes some unpleasant and gory bits.Previously: The government seeks to force all metahumans to register and to receive a mind-over-riding Obedience Brand. The Lair Legion opposes this. The government has therefore initiated covert dirty tricks against the Legion, beginning with unleashing Erskine Black, an old enemy of Sir Mumphrey Wilton’s, to murder Wilton’s family and kidnap his grand-daughter Samantha. They have also targeted Visionary’s newborn child, used CrazySugarFreakBoy!’s friends and sister against him, and ambushed Dancer to Brand her. Somebody has made a Grave Mistake. This chapter particularly follows up plots and characters referred to in UT#259: Nothing Stays Buried Forever and UT# 266: Special Protocols, Extreme Measures A list of the members of the cabal plotting SR 1066 is available here The Hooded Hood's Homepage of Doom Who's Who in the Parodyverse Where's Where in the Parodyverse  “If an injury has to be done to a man it should be so severe that his vengeance need not be feared.” - Niccolo Machiavelli April 23rd, 1851: The little boy was curled up into a happy ball, sleeping with the innocent abandon only a three-year old can achieve. Strewn around him on top of the sheets was the treasure-haul of his birthday presents: a primer of nursery rhymes, a whip-and-top, a carved wooden soldier. The apple and pear and nuts were long gone. Clutched in his arms was the precious cedarwood cricket bat, his new prized possession. The nursery was dark and quiet; and then it was darker. E’Koor the Vengeful slid out of the shadows, an impossibly tall, thin figure in rotted black robes like the death of galaxies. He smelled of wicked old men and he rustled like dead insects trodden underfoot. He was a Singularity Rider of the Parody Master, forged of the chained tormented souls of a slaughtered world, and he was here to kill the child. He’d come through time despite all the protections to kill the child. “And what do you think you are doing?” asked a sharp, cross voice. The Doomwraith turned to view the old woman in the grey nanny’s uniform stood in the doorway. She had tight grey hair pulled back into a severe bun and a piercing gaze designed to make any infant finish his vegetables. She smelled of camomile soap and lavender water and health and efficiency. And she wasn’t afraid of E’Koor. The Singularity Rider reached out negligently to snuff her lifeforce. Then he doubled over in pain, wracked with a torment he usually directed at others. The Doomwraith hissed. He had a Creation Crystal plundered from the Shaper of Worlds’ workshop to bypass the temporal wards protecting the child’s history. What power could over-ride such authority? “I asked you a question,” Nanny Greenwood told him severely. “You’re not allowed in the nursery.” She came and stood over the agony-wracked cosmic being. “I think you may be up to no good!” The Singularity Rider had destroyed worlds. It focussed its power to slap this woman from existence. The blow reflected back on him, smearing him across time and space. It would be weeks before he could reform. He’d picked the wrong nanny to try and cross. Nobody tried to hurt Nanny’s little boy in Nanny’s nursery. Nobody. Nanny Greenwood tucked her charge in more firmly, stroking his curled thatch of hair. “Sleep on, little Mumphrey,” she told the future Keeper of the Chronometer of Infinity. “I won’t let any harm come to you.” Three Weeks Ago: Erskine Black had handcuffed Samantha Featherstone to the doorknob so she had to watch what he was doing to her mother and father; and what the immortal villain was doing was torturing them to death. They were pinned to the wall and he was destroying them slowly and joyfully, piece by piece. Samantha was twelve, summoned home from her boarding school by a message that she now knew to be a trap. Until an hour ago her life had been sane. Now she huddled beside the gory corpse of the Wilton family maid and waited for her turn to die. “Watch this next bit carefully, Samantha,” Commander Black instructed her. “It’s an experiment. We’re going to ask your father if he’d rather I unwound his intestine your mother’s. It’ll be interesting to hear the answer, don’t you think?” Samantha didn’t close her eyes or turn away. The last time she’d tried that Black had gouged out one of her father’s eyeballs and made her mother eat it. She watched, wide-eyed with tears streaming down her face and wondered if this was what hell was like. She knew that Black was saving her till last, and that was when she’d understand hell. Erskine Black hated her grandfather, Sir Mumphrey Wilton. He claimed to have abused and destroyed Mumphrey’s sister long ago. He claimed he had a taste for Wilton women. “Something about the screams.” Samantha and her family were usually protected. Grandfather had explained it to her once. He was the Keeper of the Chronometer of Infinity, a holder of cosmic office, and he had set up temporal guards and wards that would cut in if an enemy tried to harm his family. But somehow Black had come by some small glass carvings which could override those protections. Mumphrey’s precautions were washed away, and the Creation Crystals had made whatever happened with Black’s tortures here impossible to erase from time. “You won’t die, though,” Black had promised her with a chilling lustful smile. “I want Mumphrey to see what I’ve done to you, what I’ve made of you, before you go.” Nobody could save her, and the kindest thing anyone could do for her mother and father now as to kill them quickly. Samantha cowered away as the blood splashed over her again and her mother screamed anew. She forced herself to stop screaming in time with her mother. Instead she huddled by the door and worked the seam of her collar open. That was where her lockpick was. The pick and the lessons to use it were a birthday present from Yuki Shiro, the Lair Legion’s cyborg P.I. She’d said it was a useful skill for a girl to have. It was a bit of fun. But Samantha had never done handcuffs this difficult, and never under such terrible circumstances. It took her fifteen minutes, while Black was busy with her mother, for Samantha Featherstone to turn the tumblers and loosen her wrists. What now? Samantha didn’t think she’d get away. Black was fast and strong. She couldn’t outrun him or fight him. He was killing her parents then he’d use her as bait to catch and kill her grandfather. Sir Mumphrey’s pocketwatch would be useless against those Creation Crystals. That was why Black had brought them. I wish Nanny Greenwood was here to protect me, Samantha thought. She would know what to do. Her first nanny was a fierce relic of an earlier age, and had nannied her mother and grandfather and great-grandfather before her. That made her at least two hundred years old by Samantha’s calculation, and nobody had ever explained how. But Nanny Greenwood wasn’t there. Samantha knew what Nanny would want her to do, though. She couldn’t save mummy and daddy. It was too late for Conchita. It was too late to save herself. But she could save her grandfather. Samantha lunged forward. The black bag of Creation Crystals lay next to Black’s case of torture instruments. She grabbed the Crystals and smashed them against the wall with all the force she could muster.. They shattered with a swirl of blinding energies, then vanished into nothing. Erskine Black turned back to her with a deadly fury and murder in his eyes. “What did you do? What did you do?” Samantha Featherstone shied away, terrified, a child overwhelmed by a monster. “I beat you,” she whispered. Now: Hector Manchester settled behind his desk at the Persephone, Virginia headquarters of the Office of Paranormal Security to take his phone call. “Edward. Nice to hear from you.” “Well that depends on how things are going,” the representative of the Shadow Cabinet told the puppet-director of OPS. “What have you to report?” “Success,” replied Manchester. “Hatman didn’t cave and CrazySugarFreakBoy! got away mangled to hell, but we got the Probability Dancer. She’s Branded and she spent all night singing her heart out about the Lair Legion’s secret plans. We have the location of their covert back-up bases, security override codewords, communications keywords, the lot. We know their plans to resist against registration, the hows, when, and wheres. And also her assessment of the known vulnerabilities of her team-mates and her pathetic secret identity, of course.” “You’ve sent her back in there?” “With the new neural neutraliser package. Once she activates that we’ll have a mansion full of mind-numbed zombies for around half an hour. They’ll be ours for the taking. She’ll use her powers to guarantee the attack works.” “Hmph,” considered Edward Gramayre. “What about the Shoggoth and that ridiculous thought being? And does the thunder god even have a brain to neutralise?” “It’s all in hand. Harmanda’s people at COPE have been very thorough. And if necessary we can always send in Major Standard’s Terminus Team to finish off the stragglers.” Hector Manchester leaned back in his chair. “The Legion have actually been very helpful in gathering together so many unpatriotic elements in one place, really.” “Don’t get overconfident,” Gramayre warned. “Never forget that…” And then he fell silent. “Edward?” Manchester tried the line again. It was dead. He buzzed the intercom, but it wasn’t working. In his haste he knocked over his table lamp. It didn’t hit the floor. It just hung there, suspended in time. “You were warned,” Sir Mumphrey Wilton said, appearing seemingly from nowhere. The old man wore the Inverness cape and other accoutrements that were the full equipment of the Keeper of the Chronometer of Infinity. With them his power was magnified manifold. “I warned you not to cross me, Manchester.” Hector Manchester, the only other man for ten miles around not frozen in time, toppled backwards out of his chair. “Wilton! But you’re…” “Supposed to be incapacitated with grief?” spat the eccentric Englishman. “Crippled with doubts because my grand-daughter is in the hands of a sadistic madman?” “That wasn’t my idea,” Manchester claimed. “I was only…” “Following orders?” Wilton asked. He checked Manchester’s metabolism with his pocketwatch. Obedience Brands resisted his temporal manipulation. “You’re not Branded like Garrick is.” There was something in Wilton’s tone, in his gaze, that warned the OPS director that he was in mortal danger. The rules had changed. The rules had gone. “You’re… you’re not supposed to use those abilities you have for personal reasons, or to change world history!” he gabbled. “Really?” snorted Mumphrey. “And if I do, who’s going to stop me? The Triumverate? The Celestians? You?” “Wilton, I swear to you…” “You were part of a cabal who set a murderer loose on my family. You share the blame for their deaths. Did you think any of you would be safe from me after that? They hadn’t thought it through properly, Manchester realised. If Wilton didn’t crumble and walk into Erskine Black’s trap, didn’t fold and become their puppet, what would come after? What happened once the Keeper of the Chronometer of Infinity stopped playing by the rules of civilised society? “You will now tell me everything you know about Erskine Black,” Sir Mumphrey ordered. “What you told him, what you provided him with, bank accounts, maps, documents. Everything.” Manchester shook his head. “I don’t know… Aaaaghh!” “That’s your heart and kidneys ageing ten years,” Mumphrey warned. “Hurts like hell. How many more years do you think you have in you, Manchester? I can age you to dust and make it feel like it takes you a million years to die.” “P-please… don’t.” The OPS director was blubbering now, curled on the floor, terrified. “I warned you once before to stay out of my affairs, Manchester. You’re a pathetic little tick dabbling in things you don’t understand. I only give one warning, and you ignored it.” Hector Manchester scrabbled across the floor away from the vengeful man he’d helped destroy. “You are going to die,” Mumphrey told him. “I am going to kill you. I am going to execute you for your crimes. The only question is how long and how horrid your death is, you murderous coward. And that depends on how much you can tell me about where to find Erskine Black and Edward Random.” Manchester screamed again. “There go another ten years,” Sir Mumphrey told his enemy. “Ready to chat?” “I’ve not got the time or patience to be scared of you right now,” warned Asil Ashling, clenching her fists. “So just tell me what I want to know.” Hagatha Darkness was a different sort of old woman to Nanny Greenwood. Her severe face had no comforting wrinkles ready to turn into laugh lines for innocent good children. The witch of Covenant House sat in her rocking chair knitting like the hags of destiny and stared at the presumptuous young woman who was trespassing on her time. “Very good,” she approved. “You may amount to something.” “Just tell me about Commander Erskine Black,” Asil repeated. Hagatha hadn’t always been old and severe. Over a century before she’d been young and beautiful, and her lover had been Sir Mumphrey Wilton. “I believe he was a bully at Mumphrey’s school,” she replied, still knitting. It looked like she was crocheting a noose. “Later he was on an expedition with Mumphrey to discover the Fountain of Youth, along with Mumphrey’s sister Madeline and her husband. He seduced Madeline into betraying the others, left Mumphrey and the husband for dead, then sold Madeline as a white slave when he’d finished with her. Mumphrey and the husband caught up with Black, who was now immortal thanks to the fountain, and Black killed Mumphrey’s brother-in-law too.” That tallied with the few notations Asil had found in Sir Mumphrey’s journals. “And Black’s been around ever since?” “Mumphrey disposed of him. He never told me how, but I learned by myself that he’d buried Black alive.” “B-buried him alive?” Mumphrey’s amanuensis was shocked. “There’s a core of ruthlessness in Mumphrey Wilton that he tries to hide from young ladies,” Hagatha snorted. “That’s why I chose him to father my child.” “There’s a core of decency in him that’s more fundamental than that,” Asil argued. “Black’s back. He’s killed Felicity, Mumphrey’s other daughter, the one by his wife Madge. He’s stolen Madge’s bones. He’s out to destroy Mumphrey. You have to help me find him.” “Mumphrey or Black?” “Either.” “And if you find Erskine Black, what will you do to him?” Asil shuddered. “I will kill him,” she said. Hagatha considered this for a moment. “He’s hidden from me,” she replied. “He’s lined up powerful allies. He’s waiting for Mumphrey’s loved ones to try and help, to walk into his trap. He’ll be looking forward to you, Asil Ashling.” “Then he doesn’t know the first thing about me,” the young woman promised, staring hard into Hagatha’s eyes. After Asil had gone on her way Hagatha stopped rocking for a moment to admire her new herpatorium. “Revenge is a very powerful force, wouldn’t you say Belial?” she asked the largest of the serpents slithering inside the glass case. Cleone Swanmay got past the security cordon into the private suite where Visionary, Miiri, and Hallie were saying goodbye to their infant daughter. Less than a day since her birth they had discovered the child dead in her incubator. “Poor Visi and others are just to be making of their peace with cute-Naari,” wept Yo. “Is to be worst day of ever.” “Can I go in?” Cleone asked. Her silver eyes seemed to reflect cloudy grey skies. “I’d like to be there for Hallie and the others. And… I’d like to sing a song for the little one. A threnody. It’s all I can offer.” Visionary looked like a walking dead man, but he went through the motions of welcoming Cleone into the private room. “Thanks for… for coming. She’s… over there, in Miiri’s arms.” “I’m so sorry, Visionary,” the swanmay told him, touching his cheek. “At times like this words seem so… insufficient.” “When I find who sabotaged that monitoring equipment that would have alerted us to a problem with Naari we won’t need words,” Hallie swore. Cleone moved over to look at the child. Miiri lifted the blanket aside to show the little infant with its blackened, deformed left side. Cleone shied away. “What is that?” she asked in distaste. “That is my daughter,” Visionary said fiercely. “That is who she is!” He hadn’t expected prejudice from the beautiful Mythlands exile. “No,” Cleone answered in disgust. “It’s not.” She reached over to the little bundle in Mirri’s arms and brushed away the glamour that disguised the rotten tangle of rags, leaves, and old sticks that looked like a baby. “It is a lie.” The Caphan woman dropped the decaying package with a scream, leaping back in horror. The thing in the hospital blanket bounced onto the floor, splitting apart and splattering out across the tiles. A few roaches skittered from its broken mass. Cleone ground them underfoot. “What?” asked Hallie, her Holographic Emitter Drone moving nearer so she could unleash a full sensor burst on the thing they’d thought was Naari. “What is it? What was it?” The swanmay looked down at the mess. “A changeling,” she replied, frowning. “A magical animation made to resemble a mortal baby, made to sicken and die.” “I was carrying that in my… virtual womb?” the artificial intelligence asked with growing horror. “Of course not,” Cleone told her. “I’d have seen through it at once, and your sensors would have diagnosed something wrong. This changeling is new.” “Wait a minute,” Visionary breathed, shock and grief solidifying into a cold murderous fury. “Are you saying this isn’t Naari? Never was Naari?” “Then where is Naari?” keened Miiri. “Where is my daughter?” “Hallie,” Vizh called urgently. “At the mansion… has Marie keened? Has the banshee wailed for a death in the family?” Hallie checked her security logs. “No…” she reported, realising the implications. “There hasn’t been a death.” “Where is my baby?!” shrieked Miiri again, rooting through the smelly bundle of goo to try and find some clue. “Where is my baby!” Cleone’s silver eyes seemed to reflect winter storms. “Stolen away,” she replied. “By the fairies.” Dancer slipped into the Operations Room at the Lair Mansion and dropped her handbag on a vacant chair. “Hi guys,” he called to Hatman, Mr Epitome, and Katarina Allen. “How’s things?” She caught their expressions and her face paled. “What’s wrong?” In a few terse words Hatman sketched the reported death of Naari, the assault on CrazySugarFreakBoy!, and his own encounter with Rex Regent and the Doomherald. “The media refuses play those faked tapes I took them, though,” he concluded. “The fourth estate’s as frightened as everybody else.” “The freedom of the press is guaranteed by the Constitution of the United States of America,” Mr Epitome growled. For days now something had been brewing inside him, a slow patient fury looking for the proper outlet; the kind of fury that overthrows tyrants and founds new nations. “And Yuki?” Dancer checked “She’s going to be okay, right?” The Ops Room door opened and the cyborg P.I. herself limped in, lurching in an ungraceful manner and rubbing the new artificial skin round her neck. “Give me at least forty-eight hours to recalibrate my systems and adjust my motion algorithms and I’m as good as new,” Yuki Shiro assured them. “Better, given the secondary adamantine spine sheathe Al added as an upgrade to stop me being beheaded again.” Al B Harper entered the Operations Room behind his patient. Kinki the Conqueress wasn’t allowed in the secure areas, and he felt safer there. “She’ll have one hell of a headache for a while,” he warned, gesturing to the purple haired cyborg. “She was coming to the end of her emergency oxygen supply to her brain compartment. Good thing Dream got her home so fast.” “Shame his freaky sister isn’t in any fit state for round two,” grumbled Yuki. “Dream’s taking his mom and April and Pelopia out to his dad’s reservation for safe keeping,” Hatman explained. “We’re starting to quietly evacuate the mansion in case… well, you know.” Mr Epitome pointed to the situations globe. “The Juniors are prepping to escort the next planeload of meta-refugees out to Badripoor. We’re getting intel the opposition might be initiating an air blockade so we need someone riding shotgun. Glory’s in charge. And we’ve got Donar, Trickshot and the newbies out in the field doing, you know, superhero things.” “What about you, Dancer?” Mr Epitome enquired. “We were getting rather worried about you.” “I called in, didn’t I?” Sarah Shepherdson asked him. “Used all the safewords.” “Yes,” agreed Hatman. “So you were able to help Jenny with her problem, whatever it was?” “Not really,” the Probability Dancer admitted. She flopped down into a seat. “It was a trap. She’d been Obedience Branded.” “Oh!” gasped Kat Allen. “Then they were waiting for you? How did you escape?” “I didn’t,” Shep revealed. “They caught me and Obedience Branded me too.” There was a long pause in the Operations Room. Then at last Hatman said, “Excellent!” Three Weeks Ago: Erskine Black twisted Samantha’s arm until she cried out then hurled her down into the cage he’d prepared for her. “Welcome to your new home,” he mocked. “It’s not much, but in time you’ll come to think of it as your favourite place in the world. A refuge from your torments.” Samantha already felt happier with bars between herself and her captor. On the journey from her parents home to wherever this was he’d entertained her with graphic details of his planned programme of how he was going to rape, torture, and destroy her. She knew she hadn’t the strength of character to endure all of that. Black scared her more than anything she’d ever imagined could. “I think it’s time for me to make another call to your grandfather and invite him to join us down here in the Devil’s Arse,” Black told her. “That’s the local name for this cave system. You’re in the Peak Caverns under Peveril Castle in Edale, Derbyshire. It’s an old hideout of mine.” Samantha forced herself to look at Black. “My grandfather will kill you,” she said. “Mumph? The old boy’s welcome to try.” He gestured round with his hand-torch and as the light played over the vast walls of the deep cave Samantha could see the glowing silver lines overlaid across the rock. “Those Creation Crystals aren’t the only bit of interesting kit I got issued by the people who want Wilton dead. This whole place is designed to be a trap for the Keeper of the Chronometer of Infinity. When he uses its powers here, there will be… consequences. I’ve arranged for guardians too. So if gramps doesn’t do what I tell him and hand me his Lair Legion all gift-wrapped then come and lick my arse, when your beloved grandfather comes here to try and rescue you, that’s when the fun really begins.” He raked his torch along the bars of Samantha’s cage. “I’m going to go to the surface to use one of your modern communications devices now. I’m going to have another chat with old Mumph. We’re going to see what kind of man he is, a traitor to his friends or to his family. And when I get back you and I are going to become much better acquainted. Enjoy your last hour of innocence, little girl.” He left Samantha in the dark, haunted only by the luminous lines of the trap set for her grandfather and the promise of shame and torment to come. Now: “I can sense her,” Lisa Waltz reported to Visionary, Hallie, Miiri, and the knot of wellwishers crowded around them at the hospital. “I could summons Naari here with my powers, but… I think there’s some kind of power holding her back. I could bring her, but I think the power’s designed to hurt her if she’s summonsed.” “Where is she?” pleaded Miiri. The Caphan’s hand was on a needle-thin dagger that she had been trained in the use of since she was four years old. She was ready to kill anybody to recover her baby. “My power doesn’t tell me things like that,” Lisa apologised. “A long way off, I think.” “In Faerie,” Cleone surmised. “The many Coloured Land.” “Another dimension?” frowned Prince Kiivan, Emir of All Caph. “Who would wish to take your child so far? And why?” “Somebody who wants to die,” answered Ohanna of Raael. “We’ll get her back,” Hallie assured herself as much as the others in the room. “If we have to crack Faerie in half we’ll get her back. Doesn’t the Faerie Queene owe the Legion a favour?” Yo hurried into the room with Grace O’Mercy. The Night Nurse didn’t look her usual calm self. Her nurse’s uniform was splattered with blood. “Cute Grace is to be being coming to be warning of us,” the pure thought being called out. “Cute Grace is to be knowing of who is to be cursing of Miiri to be getting of Visi!” All eyes turned on the Night Nurse. “Do you know somebody calling themselves Camellia of the Fey?” she asked. “Yes,” answered Visionary through gritted teeth. He and Hallie and Miiri had been amongst the group who had fought at her night club a few months earlier when Desmond Djinn had sought to destroy them all. “We know her.” “But not for much longer,” Hallie vowed. Donar pounded down the wall and unleashed a thunderstorm into the expensive engineering factory in Weisbaden, Germany. The intensity of the tempest knocked everyone present off their feet, scattering bucket-helmeted B.A.L.D. operatives and the paramilitary mercenaries of Factor X alike. But somehow Trickshot’s purple arrow flew true through the hurricane winds and impacted with the Orgone Inductor Cannon. The object of the weapons sale exploded into fragments, further scattering the surprised villains. Belatedly, an intruder klaxon began to blare. Donar entered the factory and started picking off the Drednot guard robots. “What is this? What is this?” screeched M.O.D.E.M., the deformed genetically-engineered creature in charge of the secret terrorist weapons manufacturing cabal B.A.L.D. “I thought the Lair Legion were busy! I thought they were being taken care of!” “Not so busy we can’t find time ta stop losers like you, Humpty Dumpty!” called Trickshot, disabling the vast flying head’s hover-chair with a well-placed mayonnaise arrow. Nadya Prokofiev, the Mind’s Eye, reached out to snuff the irritating archer’s mind. Then she felt the knife at her throat. “Don’t,” recommended ManMan. “Seriously. You could probably mind-zap me but I don’t think that would stop Knifey opening your jugular. That’s the trouble with sentient weapons.” “On the other hand, we’re great at parties,” Knifey added. “But the kid’s not joking about the jugular part. Feel free to surrender any time now.” The Mind’s Eye activated her teleport recall and vanished from ManMan’s grasp. “That feels just like a typical Saturday night date of mine,” Joe Pepper complained. “Al’s going to take it personally that Factor X has designed a way past his teleport exclusion field,” Knifey noted. “There’ll probably be notation involved.” ManMan paused to add the complicated piece of origami to the nearest computer terminal. “Lee, is this right?” he asked his commlink. At the Lunar Public Library Lee Bookman started downloading the contents of the B.A.L.D. database via the data transfer parchment. “You have a talent for paper folding,” the Librarian congratulated Joe. “The Intergalactic Order of Libraries thanks you for your donation.” Out in the main combat Donar was just getting warmed up. “Come forth felons and be whomped in order of ugliness and evildoing!” he shouted at the fleeing guards. “Let Mjalcolm pound out the malefactor within thee! Tis for the best!” “Did’ja think we’d let you punks slip through th’ net just cause we got bigger fish ta fry too?” Trickshot shouted. “Send the word. The LL’s still on watch. Tell ‘em all, as soon as you get your sorry butts outta the prison hospital!” “Also, if it wouldst help, we can’st stop for a moment whilst thou getteth out more of yon combat robots,” Donar offered. “They doth crunch most satisfyingly.” M.O.D.E.M. pulled his massive bulk across the floor towards the plant destruct button. A sword-carrying woman in black and purple was waiting for him. “I can’t allow you to do that,” she instructed the Machine Organism Designed for Exterminating Meddlers. She casually and expertly cored out the weapons control package in M.O.D.E.M.’s battle chair. “It would be naughty.” “Who are you, woman?” demanded the leader of B.A.L.D. “How did the Lair Legion come to find this place?” “Call me Citizen Z. I know things. So when a pompous flying-head slimebag tries to capitalise on the disappearance of Baroness von Zemo and take over her weapons manufacturing operations I’m honour bound to bring him and his pathetic organisation to justice.” She stamped down hard on the helpless giant head. “I’m only doing this to uphold the cause of good,” she assured M.O.D.E.M. “Take that, you fiend!” “A complaint from Dr Vassilych,” Vicki Farmer told Aldrich Grey and Edward Cromlyn over secure telephone link. “Apparently the Lair Legion just busted up some arms deal Factor X had going with B.A.L.D. as part of the new world order.” “Too bad,” the Grey Eminence shrugged unconcernedly. “I’m sure not gonna weep into my beer over some Commie arms dealer and a big fat floating head getting their balls busted.” “But we need that Commie arms dealer and that big floating head, as you so colourfully describe them,” Edward Gramayre noted. “The Lair Legion is becoming a problem that requires immediate solution.” “We have our assets all set for the Badripoor expedition,” Dr Farmer reminded them. “We can’t vary the timetable now. Besides, we have our in to the Legion to keep them busy.” “Not busy enough, evidently,” observed Gramayre. “Give them something else to think about. A casualty.” “Could be a messy thing to send Aryan Ideal in to that Indian Reservation where they’re protecting intended registration-dodgers,” Grey pointed out. “We could brand another of the Legion’s friends,” Farmer suggested. “Intel says that museum man is back home in Willingham now.” “We don’t need any more Branded puppets just now,” Gramayre judged. “Just a body count. Kill him.” “What?” “Kill him. Send in a heavy metahuman assault team and pound him into jelly. Send a message to the Legion to stop interfering with us. Kill the man.” Gramayre chuckled. “That’s an order.” Three Weeks Ago: There were security guards on the Peak Cavern, and the tourist office in Castleton, Derbyshire had been told that there was flooding making the popular tourist spot dangerous. Beyond the usual walking route through the Orchestral Chamber, Pluto’s Dining Room, the Devil’s Staircase, and the Five Arches were miles of deeper caves usually reserved for potholers. It was there that the demons Black had conjured stood sentinel waiting for Mumphrey Wilton to arrive. The gate guards were trying to stop an cantankerous old woman with an umbrella from passing the turnstyle. “Don’t you argue with me, young man,” she warned the unfortunate special forces lieutenant. “I’m a pensioner. I know my rights!” “Listen, granny, the caves aren’t safe today. Come back in a couple of months.” The old woman looked up sharply and the soldier was transfixed with fear. “Granny?” she asked sharply. “You can call me Nanny. Now go down to the village and call your mother! All of you!” She stopped to watch a platoon of soldiers racing down the steep mountain road towards Castleton and passed on into the caves. It was quite a climb down into the depths of the Derbyshire hills. Strings of wall lights had been laid along the pathways fifty years earlier, but the caverns were still the dark, gloomy places they had been when these had been lead mines hundreds of years earlier. Children had died down there, Nanny could tell. Nanny scowled. The demons attacked as she passed through the hidden door into the deeper caverns. Nanny spoke sharply to them with the added authority of an umbrella. When they pressed forward again they were obliterated. There were layers of carefully-constructed traps to capture and neutralise the Keeper of the Chronometer of Infinity. Nanny had no time powers except the ability to say when it was bedtime. She struck a match, lit a lantern, and proceeded to the cave where Samantha cowered in her cage. “My dear?” she called out. Samantha Featherstone stared at her old nursery nurse in disbelief. “I-is this some trick?” she worried, clutching her knuckled to her mouth. “I should think not, Samantha. You did make a rather powerful wish, you know.” “A wish? What do you mean?” “The Shaper of Worlds’ Creation Crystals. One of them by itself was enough to embed your poor parents deaths into history. You smashed a whole bagful and wished that I was with you to protect you.” Samantha realised that was exactly what she’d done. “So the Shaper’s power reached back in time a couple of hundred years, conferred longevity and all kinds of protective powers on me, arranged for me to be around to look after your grandfather when the monsters came for him as a baby and so on, and… well, here I am my dear, ready to assist you in thwarting the plans of the evildoer.” Samantha blinked. “You’re saying I… I created you, Nanny?” Nanny sprung open the lock with her umbrella. “Well of course not, Samantha. Don’t be silly. You just arranged for me to still be around. Don’t slouch, dear, there’s no excuse for it. Now…” “Now you die,” Erskine Black said. He was back, and he wore an unpleasant grin on his face. “Nanny Greenwood. I’ve been looking for you.” “Commander Black.” Nanny couldn’t have spoken in tones that expressed more contempt or disgust. “I except Mumphrey will be along shortly to thrash you to death.” Black was unmoved. “I did my homework. I’m protected against you as well, Nanny. Can you say the same about me?” Nanny stood between Black and Samantha. “Let’s find out,” the old woman declared. Now: “It looks as though Wilton is still active,” Harmanda Barriere reported to Edward Gramayre. The head of the Special Protocols Against Metahumans programme had no idea where her elusive college was speaking to her from. The Shadow Cabinet had its own ways of protecting its operatives. “I heard about them finding what was left of Manchester,” Gramayre replied. “Garrick is missing as well. It looks like Sir Mumphrey has decided to take the kid gloves off.” “You assured us you could deal with him,” Harmanda accused. “You said you had means to take him down. Have you executed that grotesque plan with his family for no good purpose other than to tick him off?” “Oh, he’ll die, all right. I’ve leaked the location that Black is holding his grand-daughter. That should move things along a bit, and keep him off our backs.” “And if it doesn’t?” “It will. And when he goes to Derbyshire he’ll find more than he bargained for waiting for him.” “Very well,” Barriere noted. “I hope you’re right.” She ended the connection and turned to face the deadly stare of the eccentric Englishman standing before her with his pocketwatch. “There,” she said. “You may live,” agreed Sir Mumphrey Wilton. “Keep out of my way in future, madam. You and your cabal have used up any tolerance I had. Now get out of my way.” “Don’t see this as a threat,” Political Machine suggested. He appeared human except that the skin showing from under his Armani business suit was shiny silver. “See it as an opportunity to retire with some dignity, or to accept a somewhat more subordinate role in the hierarchy from now on.” Akiko Masamune sat in her pink and white pinstriped twinset and observed the representative from the robot mercenaries the Machine Shop. “So Harry Flask is making his move at last, is he?” she asked coldly. “Yes. He’s done a series of deals with the consortium behind the Freedom and Patriot Act,” Political Machine recounted. “He has access to the catalogue of Patriot Branded metahumans, to the Sentinoid programme, and some limited call upon us of the Machine Shop. He’s been able to recruit powerful enforcers from offworld. He’s strong enough to take you down with a word now, Ms Masamune.” “So I just leave town and hand my business interests over to Camellia of the Fey?” “Of course not. You sell them to her. Mr Flask bears you little personal animus. He’s still willing to deal with you reasonably.” “Thank you. Tell the Lynchpin of Crime that I will consider his offer, and will then convey my reply to Camellia,” promised Akiko. Political Machine made a correct bow and was escorted out. Akiko turned to the painted screen that hid her other guest. “Well?” Frankie, leader of the Zoot Suit Gang, poked his Brylcreemed head from cover. “Looks like the big dogs are feeling frisky,” he admitted. “You’re not going to take the offer though, right?” “I have considerable resources,” Akiko admitted, “but not enough alone to counter Camellia, the Lynchpin, and the powers they can call upon.” “You could just disappear like the Zooters did, prepare something underground.” “No. This must be faced here and now, Frankie. We need to call in some allies.” She opened a lacquered cabinet and revealed a doorway behind it. “This way please.” “Very Narnia,” Frankie admitted. “Where are we going?” “A meeting,” Akiko told him then stepped through the dark portal. Frankie shrugged and followed her. “Good evening,” said the Hooded Hood. “A pleasure to see you again, Akiko. How do you do, Mr Frank?” The leader of the Zoot Suit gang looked around the table. Besides the Hooded Hood, the room contained the Word of Logos, Granny Grimness, a holographic representation of the Grey Eminence, and a nervous-looking Hacker Nine. Frankie flipped his fedora onto the hatstand. “Feeling better,” he grinned. “Good,” the cowled crime czar replied, indicating the two remaining seats. “Then let us proceed.” Sometime in the Last Three Weeks: “What’s happening, Nanny?” Samantha asked, staring beyond the hazy sphere that surrounded them. “Well, use your brains, child. They’re very good ones if only you’d apply them. What do you think is happening?” “Erskine Black attacked you, and… the defences grandfather put on all of us still work for you.” “The many Creation Crystals you used to enhance me outweigh the one Black used to over-ride Mumphrey’s powers. Carry on.” “Commander Black isn’t stopped in time because he’s… he’s working for somebody powerful enough to exempt him from grandfather’s temporal abilities. But the part of the contingency that freezes us in time still worked.” “Very good, my dear. And that means…?” “It means he can’t touch us, can’t hurt us, as long as we’re stuck frozen in time. That blur outside means time is passing much faster for them than us, and he can’t get us while it does!” Nanny nodded. “That’s precisely what it means, Samantha. So now we just have to wait.” “Wait for what?” The old nurse stroked Samantha’s hair as the child curled with her head on Nanny’s ap. “Wait either for the timestop to be exhausted when we must face Black again, or for Mumphrey to come along and save us both.” Samantha considered this. “Grandfather didn’t… he didn’t save…” “Mumphrey had no chance to save them. Mumphrey didn’t kill your parents, Samantha. Black did. He’s a vile wretch and he deserves everything Mumphrey will do to him and more besides.” “But will he come, Nanny? Black is waiting for him. It’s a trap. I don’t want him to die as well!” Nanny patted her charge. “Brave heart, Samantha. He’ll come.” Now: Aryan Ideal had hardly laid a hand on the pretty Native American political protestor he and his men had dragged into the detainment van when the whole vehicle was tumbled onto its side. Then the girl was gone in a green and orange blur and CrazySugarFreakBoy! was in his face. “You picked the wrong day to dick with the US Government, you half-breed pinko!” Karl Braun assured the wired wonder. “And you picked the wrong place to try your racist pervert crap, you &%$£” *&%**£ *£%%&…” CSFB! told him, dragging him out before the cameras. “Sorry, Hatty, but I’ve now got to beat this guy to a pulp on national television.” “I’m stronger than you, nearly as fast, and you can’t do squat to hurt me,” Aryan Ideal pointed out. “Like that’s gonna stop me!” “Excuse me,” said Pelopia, interrupting the confrontation. “I do not feel you should continue this, Dream. You assured Hatman of your conformity to his command when he appointed you acting Deputy Leader of the Lair Legion. This action would be counterproductive to the strategy your team is developing and would adversely affect your performance in your new role of authority.” “Ooh, is this one yours, Foxglove?” leered Braun. “I’ve never detained a bald chick before. I’m gonna detain her real good.” Pelopia, Disciple of Logos, made three quick jabs at Aryan Ideal, using her knowledge of nerve clusters and her remarkable training. Aryan Ideal looked at her in disbelief and fell over. “I shall now go and revise our daughter’s diaper,” Pelopia announced. “Please conduct yourself in a more thoughtful manner in future.” CrazySugarFreakBoy! silly-stringed Braun’s hands and feet together behind his back. “Hey dude,” he chuckled in the paralysed Aryan Ideal’s ear. “You just got beat up by a girl, live coast to coast.” “Ouch,” said Sarah Shepherdson as Al B. Harper peeled off the artificial layer of skin around her midriff. “That stings!” The thin ring of gel beneath the skin oozed away onto the medical couch. “If you think that hurts, you should try holding an Obedience Brand in an interstitial state with a transient genetic coding algorithm,” complained the Manga Shoggoth. “This thing’s very powerful and clever. If it had been aimed at me it might even have got me.” “But it wasn’t,” pointed out Al B. “And now we have a working example of the Obedience Brand to go along with the latent one CSFB! brought in.” “And the rest?” checked Mr Epitome. Fleabot jumped out of Dancer’s glossy black mane of hair and grew to his most customary six inch length. “All recorded,” the custom-designed spy robot reported. “From them using the Obedience Brand to force Jenny and her daughter to do what they did through all the questions they asked Dancer to the instructions they gave her.” “Which were ick,” Shep added. “I’m supposed to use my looks and powers to seduce you if necessary by the way, Hatty.” “I was very impressed with Dancer’s secret identity,” the Shoggoth bubbled. “Poor Molly Mortenson slaving away at the check-out every day then saving the world by night as the Probability Dancer.” Shep grinned. “They forgot I’m an actress,” she shrugged. “There’s some kind of nasty neural wipeout weapon in my handbag for you to look at Al.” “On it,” promised the archscientist. “I’ll try and arrange a countermeasure by tomorrow.” “You’re sure you’re all right though, Dancer?” Hatman asked anxiously. “I know you volunteered for the mission but…” “It was pretty horrid,” Shep admitted, “especially the anaesthetic part and what they did to innocent people, but if it helps us break the brands…” She remembered something else. “By the way, amongst all the other instructions they gave me they wanted me to locate and deliver some jewels the Caphans brought to Earth with them. We’d better find out why.” “Interesting,” Yuki mused. “That’ll give me something to do while I’m recalibrating.” “My main biomass has the Markabian legend-gems in storage on Lemuria,” the Shoggoth noted. “You had better ask Ebony to retrieve them before he seals the continent off tomorrow.” “I told them everything,” Dancer assured her team-mates. “They’ll be covertly watching all the secret bases Vizh and Donar set up, tracking the bank accounts Lisa established. Looking everywhere but under their noses.” “And the very best thing about all this,” smiled Hatman, “is that they still think they’ve got a spy in our camp and they’ve got the upper hand. Whereas I’m actually beginning to think that Mumphrey’s plan has a chance of working.” “You plan won’t work,” Asil told Sir Mumphrey Wilton. The eccentric Englishman turned round on the railway station platform and stared at his amanuensis. “Hmph. Should have known that if anyone could fine me it would be you, Miss Ashling,” he conceded. “When you don’t want to use Legion resources you get the Scholar-Ghouls to do your research, and you travel using Ghost Taxi, and you use that credit card from the Indian Rakshasas,” Asil pointed out. “But your plan won’t work.” Mumphrey gestured for Asil to sit beside him on the bench at Derby railway station. “And what plan is that, my dear?” Asil thought Mumphrey had aged ten years in the weeks since he’d vanished. “I’m so sorry about everything,” she said, holding the old man’s hands. “About Felicity and Sam and all of it. I wish there was something I could do to change it all.” “Black’s made damned sure – deuced sure that nobody can do that,” Mumphrey growled. There was a raw tone in the Englishman’s voice that Asil hadn’t heard before. “But dying is not a good plan,” the young woman went on. “I know what you’re intending. You think if you can rid the world of Black, make him pay for what he did, and if possible rescue Samantha from his clutches, then that’d be worth dying for.” “It would,” Sir Mumphrey argued. “I’ve had a long innings, Asil, but I think it’s just run out. The last ball. I… don’t believe I can come back from this mission.” Asil grabbed his whiskers and forced him round to look at her. “Mumphrey, you listen to me. Even if Black has taken Felicity from you, taken Sam from you, taken everything else from you, you are not alone! You will never be alone as long as I am alive. Do you understand me, Mumphrey? I will always – be – there – for - you.” Mumphrey swallowed hard, his red eyes moistening against his will. “Some things a chap has to do, what?” he asked gruffly. “Mumphrey, he did terrible things. He hurt them to hurt you. But you don’t have to bear all this yourself. You’re a good man. A great man. Don’t destroy yourself from some meaningless revenge.” “Best thing you can do now, Asil, is to head off back to safety. Black’ll be after you as well, to complete his set. If you care about me, go home.” Asil shook her head. “I’m not your daughter, Mumphrey, or your grand-daughter. I’m not with you to be protected. I’m with you because…” “Because?” Asil laughed though tears were streaming down her face, “Because I think its important to smite the ungodly as well, you idiot!” She embraced him then, and after a moment she felt something inside him snap and his arms folded round her as well. The train to Edale rattled into the station. “I have to go,” Mumphrey told Asil. “You have to stay.” “But?” Asil demanded. “But if I can… not die… I won’t die.” “Your word, Sir Mumphrey?” “My word, Miss Ashling.” Asil watched Mumphrey climb aboard the train and watched the train slip from the station before she wiped away her tears. Then she flipped open her mobile. “Plan F,” she said. “Flapjack, could you stop making kissing noises down the phone and just tell me if Asil will take my call?” George Gedney asked frustratedly. “When we parted before I think I was probably a bit abrupt, and…” “She’s not here, Georgie. I had the pool draw that she’d run off to elope with you so if that’s not the case I’m out two bucks.” “Not there? I thought Hatman told her to stay put where she’d be safe since that lunatic that killed Sir Mumphrey’s family might be looking for her?” “And yet,” replied the Lair Legion’s hunchbacked major domo. “Well where is she?” George demanded. “Are they looking for her? Has Lisa tried to summons her? Do I need to come and help with the search?” “Lisa says she’s a grown woman and if she want to head off an do something stupid that’s a choice she should be allowed to make,” Flapjack reported. “I didn’t really have you in the draw. We all think she’s run off to find Mumphrey an’ try to help him.” “To Mumphrey?” George worried. “But that’s the most dangerous place she could… hello? Hello? Are you still there, Flapjack?” The line was dead. That was because Appendage Man had just ripped it from the wall. “George Gedney?” enquired Razor Ballerina. “We’re here to kill you.” The guards at the Peak Cavern gates were surprised when they found they were somewhere completely different. They appeared to be in a boat by a river, where tangerine trees touched marmalade skies. Suddenly someone was there at the turnstyle: the girl with kaleidoscope eyes. “Hello everybody,” smiled Mad Wendy, “Welcome to my house.” “Thank you very much, m’dear,” Sir Mumphrey Wilton acknowledged the help of the new ruler of the dream-realm. He left the soldiers as the newspaper taxis appeared on the shore and he went down into the caves. There were some electronic traps scattered around the caverns. Mumphrey used the gadgets he’d taken from the HERPES supply dump he’d forced Count Fokker to reveal and bypassed them without incident. The fairy dust got him past the Ass-Raping Ninjas. The Abhuman negativity bomb got him past the Sentinoids. The demons were ready for him though. They tore the device out of his hands and ripped it to pieces. “No idea what that thing was, actually,” Sir Mumphrey Wilton told them. “Just picked it up in Celestian City when I was in the dimension of the Giant Space Robots.” The device crackled with retributive energy, searing the abyssal entities out of existence. “Those Celestian chappies do take their warranties seriously, though,” Mumphrey added, stepping over the piles of dust. “Have we played enough games, Black?” Commander Erskine Black turned up the illumination in the cavern. “Oh, I don’t think there’ll ever be enough time for all the games I want to play with you, Mumphrey,” the immortal man promised. “So you came.” “Control, this is Major Standard. Do you receive me, over?” “Standard, we receive you, but only because of the comms upgrade we got from our Apocalyspian allies. What’s going on there?” “Sir, we’re getting indications that Wilton must be inside the caves. That gimp esper the Doomherald loaned us is going ape. Somehow Wilton must have got past the gate guard. I don’t even know where the gate guard are. What are my orders?” “Go in. Go in with everything you’ve got and take Wilton down. Use every metahuman asset at your command and wipe that English bastard off the face of the Earth.” “Sir, yes sir!” Major Standard shut off the brick radio and turned to his troops. He found himself instead staring at the chest of a bipedal hippo dressed in a tartan uniform. “All clear on what ye ha’ tae do now, laddie?” asked Sgt Grievous McRabble, towering over the government operative. “Cause let me tell ye, the Detonator Hippos are verra certain of what we’re all aboot!” And then the bipedal hippo in tartan exploded. And then he reformed. And then there was quite a big fight. “The lads look to be enjoying themselves,” Captain Argus MacHarridan noted as the Obedience Branded metahumans of the Terminus Team encountered the genetically-modified Detonator Hippos. “Been a while since they could cut loose like that. Verra kind of you tae hire us, Miss.” “I’m delighted you could come,” Asil replied distractedly. “Now help me find a way past this Apocalyspian forcefield so I can get to Mumphrey.” “So you came.” “Of course. But not to play your games, Black. To kill you.” “Except I can’t be killed, Mumphrey. You know that.” “You’d be amazed how much more resourceful I’ve got in the time since you were buried, Black.” The Commander snorted, amused. “You haven’t asked me yet how pretty Samantha is, Mumphrey?” “That’s because I’m not playing your games, Black. That’s why I threw away the transmitter, didn’t reply to your demands, didn’t give in to you. We’re facing war, Black, bloody genocide. I love my grand-daughter more than I can say, but I can’t give the world for her. What about all the other grandchildren? All the innocents everywhere? Can’t be done. Won’t be done.” The eccentric Englishman glared at his enemy. “I’m going to kill you.” “Actually, she’s fine,” Black went on. “Really. Completely fine, her and your Nanny Greenwood.” “Nanny Greenwood?” Mumphrey frowned. “What’s she got to…” “She came to rescue Samantha,” Black explained. “It seems as though Samantha managed to power up her Nanny enough that my countermeasures didn’t wipe away the temporal protections you put on your old nursie, Mumphrey. So when the old bat provoked me into attacking her, she and Samantha were both frozen in time, protected by it for as long as it lasted.” Mumphrey could see now, in the gloom. There was the cage, and by it, slightly blurred by the familiar light distortion of temporal stasis, were Samantha and Nanny Greenwood. “Samantha!” Mumphrey choked, seeing his beloved grand-daughter alive and unharmed, beyond all hope. “I know,” Black smirked. “Wonderful, isn’t it? And I had such plans for her, Mumph, old bean. And if you’d been even a day later I reckon the jolly old temporal charge you used to protect them would have been up and I could have given you a proper sight to welcome you. As it is, it looks like you’ve got here in time.” “So all I need to is cancel the timestop, beat you senseless, then home in time for tea, eh?” snorted Sir Mumphrey. “Except for the part about the trap.” “Trap?” asked Black, cunningly. “The part where I get lured into usin’ my Chronometer and whatever you’ve set up to scrobble the Keeper takes me down.” “Well, there is that, yes,” smirked Black. “You see that’s the beauty of it, Mumph old fellow. Unless you rescue ‘em, pretty soon your Nanny and your delicious little grandchild will be mine to play with. You have to stop me to rescue ‘em.” He stalked up and down. This was the moment he’d planned all those long years buried in the dirt. “But you’re not the man you once were, Mumph. Time was when you were a youngster you could beat me in a fist fight, but really you’ve let yourself go no end. Shocking. Do you think you could beat me now?” “Willing to have a go, you arrant bastard!” “So your only hope is either surrender or else use that magic pocketwatch of yours. Except if you use that, it’s game over.” “And if I don’t use it, you’ll beat me anyhow and take it off me then,” surmised Mumphrey. “Correct. And I’ve made sure all your other little contingencies have been neutralised when you entered this cavern too. A little bit of narrative necessity, courtesy of the Shaper’s goodie-box.” Commander Black cracked his knuckles. “So what’s it to be, Mumphrey? Fisticuffs or surrender or what? Knuckles or pocketwatch?” “Can’t be the Chronometer,” noted Sir Mumphrey Wilton. “I didn’t bring it.” George Gedney thumbed the centre stud of the shiny object he’d found a week ago on another world. The temporal pocketwatch halted time around Appendage Man and Razor Ballerina, holding them helpless. “Oh boy,” swallowed the new Keeper of the Chronometer of Infinity. “So what do I do with them now?” “All those traps and whatnot?” Mumphrey asked Black curiously. “Were they by any chance set to operate against the Keeper of the Chronometer? Specifically against the Keeper?” “Of course,” gloated Erskine Black. “I don’t take any chances when it comes to you, Mumph old boy.” He closed his fists. “You know, I’m going to enjoy beating the snot out of you, Wilton. Just like when we were boys. And then I’m going to make you watch as I take little Samantha and…” Mumphrey pulled the revolved from his pocket and shot off Black’s kneecaps. “You know those precautions against the Keeper bringin’ in contingencies?” the eccentric Englishman suggested, “You should have read the small print on the packet.” “Aaaagh!” screamed Black as the blood welled from his injured legs. “How…?” “Gave up the office, you stupid blaggard!” Mumphrey said, stamping down on Black’s shattered knees. He fired again, blowing holes in the villain’s shoulders. “Stay down. You murdered my little girl, my Felicity, and my sister Maddie. You desecrated Madge’s grave. And you threatened my grand-daughter. Now you might think that makes you a bastard, laddie, but let me tell you, there are things worse than being a cowardly, murdering bastard and I’m going to show you what they are.” “Please, Mumphrey… It was a mistake… Gramayre, Edward Gramayre of the Shadow Cabinet… You know he has mind-control powers Mumphrey, you know… Aaaghh!” That shot took off Black’s genitals. “Best thing about you having drunk from the fountain of immortality, Black,” Mumphrey told him. “I can keep this up for days. Weeks. Years if I want to. You say you can’t die? I can make you spend forever wishing you could.” “Don’t bury me…” “Oh no. This time I’m not going to be so kind.” Mumphrey turned to the newly-laid video feed on the cavern wall. “Are you watching this, Gramayre? I hope so, because when I’ve finished with him and rescued Samantha, and made sure that Erskine Black will never harm anyone ever again in the whole of time and space… then, Gramayre, I am coming for you.” He shot Black in the stomach. “Wilton out.” “Mumphrey? Stop.” Sir Mumphrey Wilton looked up from his torture of Erskine Black. His hands and face were bloody. “What?” “I said stop,” repeated Asil. “You’ve beaten him.” “But not punished him!” declared the outraged Englishman. Asil looked at the whimpering wreck on the floor. “He’s been punished. But really, what could you do to him that makes up for what he’s done?” “I can try,” snarled Mumphrey, turning to Black again. “Semper et infirmi est animi exiguique voluptas ultio,” Asil cried out. “Revenge is always the weak pleasure of a small and narrow mind,” Mumphrey translated. “It’ll take more than a quote from Juvenal to save this bounder!” “Revenge, at first thought sweet, Bitter ere long back on itself recoils,” Asil shot back. “It’s not Black I’m trying to save.” “Paradise Lost,” recognised Mumphrey. “You’ve been taking my advice on your reading matter. But Black…” “That old law about ‘an eye for an eye’ leaves everybody blind. The time is always right to do the right thing.” Mumphrey blinked. “I… don’t know that one,” he admitted. “Martin Luther King,” Asil told him. “After your time. Or is he? What has Mumphrey Wilton learned in all the years since he buried Erskine Black?” She stared at the dishevelled, blood-stained avenger. “What’s at your core, Mumphrey? Revenge? Or something better?” “Revenge is an act of passion; vengeance of justice. Injuries are revenged; crimes are avenged. Samuel Johnson,” murmured Mumphrey. “Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us,” Asil replied. “Top that one! Or how about ‘Don’t be such a damned silly fool, you blistering, blithering idiot!’? Mumphrey Wilton. Black’s done enough harm. Don’t let him destroy you as well.” Mumphrey glared down at the pulped, writhing mess beneath him. “He’s done,” Asil said. “We’ll find a way to see that he never comes back. But now we need you to be more than an avenger. Samantha will be out of that timestop soon. She’ll need you. The Parody Master will invade our world. We’ll all need you. You don’t have the time for revenge.” Asil knelt down and took Mumphrey’s bloody hands in hers. “We need you, Mumphrey. Don’t desert us.” “I…” The weight of the world was on Mumphrey’s shoulders. He wasn’t strong enough to carry it. “Sssh. I know. I know.” Asil Ashling carried him as he carried it. Akiko returned to her office. An administrator bowed low and told her she had more visitors. “Visionary,” the crimelord recognised as she entered the audience chamber. “And Hallie and… Miiri of Caph?” “Miiri of Earth,” replied the Caphan. Visionary tossed the carved ceremonial summoning stick onto Akiko’s desk. “You wanted an alliance with the Lair Legion against the Lynchpin and Camellia of the Fey,” he declared. “You’ve got one.” Akiko looked at the determined faces of her three visitors. “This is sanctioned by your acting leader, Hatman?” “Hatman says it’s time we arrested Harry Flask,” Hallie reported. “This is war.” Next week: We follow up on the ramifications, as Mumphrey deals with Black – and Samantha – and George, Visionary goes after Camellia – with all the forces he can muster, and Hatman goes after the Lynchpin. Of course, things could be complicated by an army of zombies left over from the Underwar, and Akiko’s ninjas, and the full force of the Machine Shop, but we can’t have everything, can we? Another major chapter to push things along, coming as UT #269: Robots vs Fairies vs Ninjas vs Zombies. If I can work Fitz the Barnstorming Monkey in there too I will do. I Will Be Footnoted On the Whole Pack Of You! E'Koor the Vengeful is one of seven Singularity Riders of Doomwraiths, immensely powerful prime servants of the Parody Master. They have the ability to drain energies, including lifeforce, from all around them, and they travel through time and space on strange winged shadow-reptiles. Nanny Chastity Greenwood was nanny to Mumphrey, his father, his daughter Felicity, and latterly to his grand-daughter Samantha, as well as to many other children. She's not Mary Poppins. Empowered by the Creation Crystals of the Shaper of Worlds she has the ability to draw on immense forces to protect children in her charge. Hector Manchester was the political appointee to the role of Director of Officer of Paranormal Security. Now he's dust. The Keeper of the Chronometer of Infinity is a cosmic office - a job conferred upon a mortal to maintain some part of the smooth running of the Parodyverse. The Chronometer counts down to the Resolution War that fulfils the Parodyverse's purpose, and the Keeper is tasked with preventing temporal interference on whichever world is currently the focus of the Resolution Prophesy. While the Keeper has some leeway in how his roe is interpreted, he is not allowed to use his power to affect the course of history. He can access the full abilities of his office only to fulfil his primary duties. Or at least that has usually been the case. The Keeper and other minor office holders are moderated by the Triumverate of greater office holders - the Chronicler of Stories, the Shaper of Worlds, and the Destroyer of Tales. Currently the Parody Master has captured the Shaper's workshop (and the majority of her power), has banished the Chronicler of Stories, and has destroyed the Destroyer of Tales. This leaves the remaining minor office holders unpoliced. Sir Mumphrey Wilton has been keeper of the Chronometer of Infinity since 1878, and has now passed the role on to museum curator George Gedney. Hagatha Darkness, the witch of Covenant House, conceived a child by Mumphrey Wilton in the late nineteenth century but never told him. She thwarted the Demon Lover who had impregnated women of her household for millennia and concealed the pregnancy through temporal trickery so the child was born many years after. Sorceress (Whitney Darkness) is the grand-daughter of Mumphrey and Hagatha. The Peak Caverns, beneath ruined Peveril Castle at Castletone, Edale, Derbyshire, England, really do exist. They're an extensive deep cave system, mostly natural but also mined out for their lead deposit in mediaeval times. They're rather beautiful but dangerous beyond the tourist routes, and I've potholed them. There are some good site descriptions with images at http://www.cressbrook.co.uk/hopev/caves.htm , http://www.castleton-rocks.com/peak.html , and http://www.peakcavern.co.uk/ . M.O.D.E.M, the huge genetically-engineered floating head leading B.A.L.D., and The Mind's Eye, Nadya Prokoviev, right hand woman to Dr Vassilych, Factor X, are described in Who's Who in the Parodyverse. Political Machine is the public face of the robotic mercenary group The Machine Shop, who are assisting the SR 1066 cabal in exchange for promised robotic rights recognition. The Hooded Hood's Guests: Gideon Book, the Word of Logos, Pelopia's father, is assumed dead by the world. Granny Grimness is the Headmistress of the Joy Orphanage on the brutal alien world of Apocalyspe (which has been conquered by the Parody Master), the Grey Eminence (Aldrich Grey) is the founder of the Office of Paranormal Security, a member of the SR 1066 cabal, and a secret opponent of the Parody Master. Hacker Nine (Zack Zelnitz) is a computer genius interning with the Hood. Aryan Ideal (Karl Braun) is a right-wing self-proclaimed superhero who exploits the legal precedents of superhero vigilantism to promote his own brand of racist justice. He volunteered for a Patriot Brand and has enjoyed working for the government ever since. Appendage Man and Razor Ballerina are described in Who's Who in the Parodyverse. Mad Wendy is an awesomely powerful reality-bending psionic who became the replacement for Frightmare as lord of the dream dimensions in the 2005 Christmas Round Robin ( * pokes Al B. to finish that off * ). Major Standard and the Terminus Team have been mentioned before but make their debut in this chapter. The Terminus Team are supervillains forged into a disposable fighting unit through Obedience Branding. The Detonator Hippos were recruited by Dancer and Yuki to assist Sir Mumphrey with the Parody War. Asil has borrowed them. They're an artificial lifeform created by the Abhumans using the same technology that made the Racoon People and the Vesalian Talking Apes. 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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