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Post By The Hooded Hood covers the penultimate plotline of the SR1066 arc Fri May 05, 2006 at 03:07:13 pm EDT |
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#271: Untold Tales of the Fall of Badripoor | |
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#271: Untold Tales of the Fall of Badripoor The Junior Lair Legion by Visionary Previously: As the US and other nations push through draconian metahuman control legislation, the rogue Pacific-rim nation-state of Badripoor allows refugees to take asylum from the coming storm. The Junior Lair Legion are assigned to escort the last plane-load of escapees across the world to safety. But the world powers are unwilling to allow such an escape, of to leave Badripoor with so many powerful and uncontrolled metahuman assets. They therefore recruit Uuuuukelele, dissident princess of the Sea Monkeys, to lead their spearhead and open the way for the destruction of the city and everyone in it. Or… Previously: Amidst mutual rancour and accusation, Kerry and Danny have split up. Glitch, Kid Produce, Fetish Lad, and Captain Courageous are being considered for places on the Junior Lair Legion programme. Nobody has yet noticed Cody Harper’s disappearance. Glory faces her first test as T.A. to the Juniors. Ham-Boy has graduated from the team but still seems to be around when Fashion Accessory needs some heavy lifting doing. Harlagaz feels like whomping something. Relevant tie-ins include: Nobody’s Talking To Me, a tie-in to UT#238 by spiffy Kerry and Danny: Dead by Dancer True Confessions of Sea Monkey Sex, and other revelations (from UT#268) Dramatis Personae: The Junior Lair Legion Training Program and their friends: Glory, the mutt of might, newly-appointed Teaching Assistant Kerry Shepherdson, fiery-tempered probability arsonist Fashion Accessory (Samantha Bonnington), fabric transmuter Harlagaz Donarson, demihemigod of thunder Denial (Danny Lyle), reality-denying self-defined supervillain Ham-Boy (Fred Harris), the world’s meatiest hero Fetish Lad (Warren Kennedy-Rockefeller-Hearst-De Sade IV), the kinky knight Kid Produce (Jasper Stevens), the vegetable-using vigilante Glitch, girl-Transformer robot from a distant star Captain Courageous (Christopher “Kit” Kipling), the world’s politest crimefighter The Badripoorians: Spiffy (Mark Hopkins), symbiotic fern-wielding President for Life Banjoooo, King of the Sea Monkeys The Idiom (Leticia Gahagan), counterculture scientific genius Beverly Campbell, spiffy’s aide-de-camp and girlfriend The Opposition: Mrs Harmanda Barriere, director of the Special Protocols Against Metahumans (SPAM) Admiral Rupert Sharrow, commanding the USS Jarvis. Uuuukelele, Princess of the Sea Monkeys And also including: Liu Xi Xian, teenage elementalist squatting in the Lair Mansion Fitz, the barnstorming pilot monkey Cast and locations are at Who's Who in the Parodyverse and Where's Where in the Parodyverse. Previous chapters are found on The Hooded Hood's Homepage of Doom.  The Bautista Enterprises twin engine Techheed-SL 70 long range passenger jet flew at eighteen thousand feet over international waters, about two hundred kicks south of the Aleutians, heading west south west towards the Pacific rim. It carried two hundred and thirty-one political refugees, fleeing from America and the Freedom and Patriot Act which compelled metahumans and former mutates to be fitted with a techno-organic Obedience Brand to control their behaviour. Few of the frightened people on board were combatants or had ever used their powers in rage. Two exceptions were Jayden Barnes and Simon Weiss, better known as minor supervillains Strongarm and the Pump. Like everybody aboard the shuttle they’d been examined by the Manga Shoggoth before takeoff for Obedience Brands; but there are more ways of commanding people than alien control implants, and the six-figure Cayman Islands account deposits had firmly secured the loyalty of these two men. Barnes and Weiss left their seats and moved forward towards the flight control compartment. The stewardess’ warning that they weren’t allowed up there turned into a frightened squeak as Strongarm pinned her neck to the wall. His other fist crumpled the reinforced cabin door and tore it open. “You get one warning,” the Pump told the cabin crew. “Turn this plane round for Guam and prepare for a landing. Otherwise… is that a chimp?” Fitz the Barnstorming Monkey turned round in his seat and gurned at the hijackers. “You’re taking over this plane?” a young man on the front passenger row realised. “You’re air-bandits? Oh please! No! Oh spare me, I’ll do anything!” He dashed forward and fell on his knees before Strongarm, clamping his arms around the hijacker’s thighs. “Anything at all!” “Eew,” Barnes cringed. “Gedoffame, you sicko!” Fetish Lad moued. “Your loss,” he grinned wickedly, pulling away before the explosive clamp he’d attached to the front of Strongarm’s pants went off. “Eeek-a-eek-ekk-eek!” chattered Fitz excitedly as the super-strong villain bent over clutching his groin. The pilot monkey was so excited that he barrel-rolled the aircraft quite unexpectedly, rumbling the Pump over and over so fast that the mercenary had no time to use his vacuum-powers. The man in the co-pilots’ chair anchored himself with a row of sausages and enveloped the Pump in a pile of raw red meat. “Stay down,” Ham-Boy warned the hijackers. “Don’t make me use the offal.” “Oh, that is just disgusting!” winced Fetish Lad. It was evident that the agents aboard the flight had failed. Sentinoid command issued the orders from the Turrets Inc S-190H “Blackdeath” Stealth Communications Cruiser that was pacing the passenger flight from behind its electronic cloak two thousand feet above. Four fifteen-foot tall humanoid robots peeled from the cloud cover with orders to destroy the commercial craft before it could deliver its cargo of dissidents to the rogue nation-state of Badripoor. “Permission to engage is given,” Sentinoid Control told the combat machines. “Destroy the aircraft.” He turned to watch the show on the feed from the Sentionoids’ on-board cameras. Then one of them flickered out. “Playback those last frames,” he called to his technician. “Quickly!” The images appeared again on screen, slowed down so the rapidly-approaching goat-driven flying chariot carrying the angry young demihemigod could be seen. “That person just drove two goats through thirteen million dollars of US ordinance!” Sentinoid control warned. “Sentinoids two through four, analyse and adapt.” The combat machines had the ability to re-engineer themselves to respond to metahuman abilities used against them. “Continue attack run.” Another distraction. This time there was a polite knocking on the main hatch to the S-190H’s passenger space. At twenty thousand feet. Then Glitch lost patience and heaved the door off its hinges. The sudden decompression would have hurled everybody out of the plane had it not been that the green and orange reconnaissance robot was blocking the exit. She pushed forward so that Fashion Accessory could fabricate an impervious covering for the broken door. Samantha Bonnington made sure her comrades were safely aboard the aircraft then willed her flying carpet – actually a swathe of designer raffian with a daring deco edging – back down towards the passenger jet. “Who the hell are you?” Sentinoid control demanded of the invaders to his aircraft. “Excuse me, sir,” Captain Courageous told the Air Force bigwig, “but we have reason to believe that you were about to engage in unprovoked combat activity against an unarmed civilian aircraft in breech of international law and moral custom. We are going to have to ask you to stand down pending an enquiry into your behaviour and determination of possible disciplinary action.” “Call this a stealth ship?” sniffed Glitch, whose futuristic Transformer technology had easily penetrated the countermeasures shielding the aircraft. “Kludge. Nothing but kludge. You should ask for your money back.” “You think you can just barge in to a military vessel like this and take over?” Sentinoid command shouted in the face of the implacable young man who was demanding his surrender. “Do you?” “Yes, sir, I do. On account of my being able to pop your head like a pimple and to cripple every single man in this cabin in a little under half a minute, based upon my last efficieny assessment. So I suggest you sit down, sir… before I stop being polite.” Kerry Shepherdson glared hard at the incoming Sentinoid that was gaining on Harlagaz’ goat cart. The Sentinoid exploded. “Shoddy workmanship,” muttered the probability arsonist. “An accident just waiting to happen.” “They art cheating now, shielding themselves from being head-butted by Ausgardian War Goats,” Gaz complained. “Get me close to that one that’s heading up from below,” Kid Produce called. “You can’t fly,” Kerry pointed out. “He doesn’t know that,” KP answered, and launched himself off the goat chariot to take down a $13,000,000 piece of technology with a bunch of radishes and a particularly vicious artichoke. “It might be a good idea to catch him again when he’s finished,” Glory woofed over her collar radio to Fashion Accessory. “I guess,” agreed FA. “But what about number four?” The Sentinoid rose in front of the passenger jet, causing Fitz to flip the aircraft again in an attempt to avoid incoming missiles. “Get us over there quickly!” Glory barked. “I art trying but these goats doth not turn on a groat, you know!” Harlagaz warned, struggling with the reins. The Sentinoid reached out with its massive hands, intending to shred the plane’s nose cone. “We’re going to be too late!” shrieked Kerry. Then the Sentinoid vanished. It had never been there. “What?” FA asked in puzzlement. “What!” demanded Kerry. “Kes to Ham-Boy! HB, do you happen to have Danny Lyle aboard that plane? Using his denial powers to make Sentinoids never have been here? Do you?” “Er, if I say yes will you make me explode?” asked Ham-Boy worriedly. “Welcome to Badripoor,” Beverly Campbell told the stunned refugees as they staggered off the somewhat scorched and battered passenger plane. “I’m here on behalf of President spiffy to welcome you all and to show you where to go to be assigned homes and goods.” “Yes, I imagine she’s very good at being the welcome wagon,” Kerry muttered sourly to Samantha Bonnington. “I imagine she’s had a very great deal of practice.” “I thought you were over Mark Hopkins, Kare?” Fashion Accessory reminded her friend. Bev and spiffy were a hot item these days. “Maybe I am,” Dancer’s younger sister answered. “I am so over Danny Lyle though.” And she proved it by pointedly turning her back on the leather-jacketed youth. “Badripoor has a lot of refugees,” the object of Kerry’s ire went on, unaware of the little wisp of smoke rising from the back of her dress, or of FA’s hasty repair job. “It’s a real melting pot of a city. Whether you’re super-powered or ex-mutate or whatever you’re welcome here.” “But what are we going to do?” asked a balding middle-aged man whose only super-power was free-floating eyebrows. “To make a living, I mean?” “You’re our guests for the next few weeks while the whole Freedom and Patriotism Act mess gets sorted out,” Bev assured him. “Anybody who wants to volunteer would be welcome to help out in our ad-hoc security force, the Abandoned Battalion. After that…” “We’ll all be dead anyhow,” Kid Produce muttered. “Massacred by the Parody Master.” “That’s no way to talk,” Kit Kipling told him. “Chin up. We’ll find a way.” Jasper Stevens glared at Captain Courageous. “Did your girlfriend get murdered, then your friends get wiped out, then your team collapse, then your arch-enemy take over a country and you can’t do anything about it, then your parents get Obedience Branded?” he asked roughly. “No? Then shut up.” “Understood,” nodded Kit, understandingly. “What about the gunboats and stuff?” asked an ex-mutate girl who no longer had the power to change her shadow’s colour. “You know, those big grey things out in the bay?” “They can’t harm us,” Bev Campbell assured her. “See the seeweed clogging the harbour? We have Banjoooo, King of the Sea Monkeys working with us. And some other defences. A force field and things. You’re quite safe.” “Apart from the imminent horrible death,” KP added, turning away. Letitia Gahagan was hard at work in the lab she’d commandeered under the Presidential palace. She’d originally started work in it under the previous Presidential incumbent, Count Armageddon, and had stayed on when the country had voted in a new and fernier leader. She looked up to find a shaggy black and white muzzle in front of her, and two soulful brown eyes. “I thought I had anti-intruder defences,” she pointed out. “They were very good,” agreed Glory, the mutt of might, when the Idiom activated dog-to-human translation circuits. A thought occurred to the pooch. “They weren’t supposed to keep me out, were they?” “Er, no… no, of course not.” The sometimes-supervillain called the Idiom pushed her swivel chair away from her console and looked across at the pooch of power. “I was meaning to take a break and come for a chat,” she lied. “I didn’t mean to interrupt anything important,” Glory said. “Nothing important. Just checking the calibrations on the force shield I raised to keep unauthorised aircraft and Sentinoids from buzzing us. Routine work in Badripoor these days.” “It is nice to see you again,” Glory told her. “Of course, if you were on US soil now I would have to arrest you.” “Nice to see you too, of course,” Letitia replied. “So… how’s things?” “Dominic is quite well,” the dog answered, referring to her friend and colleague Mr Epitome, the Idiom’s former lover. “I am sure he would miss you if he had not had many years of his memory wiped out by some mysterious incident.” “Yes, I heard about that,” the Idiom replied. “Did Dominic ever find out what caused it?” “Not yet,” Glory replied. “That is why I came to see you.” “Me?” Letitia swallowed. “Why would you want to talk to me about that?” “Well, it robbed you of your relationship with Dominic,” the mutt of might pointed out, “and because you are a very brilliant mind you might be able to find out who was responsible for attacking him. Perhaps you could even find a cure for his amnesia.” “Ah, right,” breathed the Idiom. So Glory hadn’t worked out that it was her M/ELTZER ray that had curtailed Mr Epitome’s plans to cross the line and do something unforgivable. “Well, I don’t know if Dom would want me interfering. You know how he is.” “Yes. I think he is happier now. But he thinks he would be happier knowing and remembering, so that is what I am asking you to help with.” “I see. Well… I’ll certainly look into that, Glory. No promises, though.” Glory wagged her tail. “Thank you. I knew you were still Dominic’s friend!” “Danny Lyle, right?” spiffy checked. “Denial.” “No,” answered the leather-jacketed youth standing on the palace balcony admiring the sunset. “What? I thought… Oh, right. I bet that joke never gets old,” Mark Hopkins scorned. “Some jokes don’t,” Danny answered, looking the President of Badripoor up and down. “I hear you’re dating Kerry now,” spiffy noted. “I hear you’re sleeping with your secretary. So what?” “So I don’t go around calling myself a supervillain,” pointed out the ferned phenomenon. “Right. And how many countries have you invaded, all told?” Danny shot back. “Including this one and all the times you’ve conquered France?” “That’s not the point. The point is that I did conquer them. When they annoyed me. Except for the times it was my evil clones and stuff. The point is that I can get very cranky when I have to.” Denial shrugged. “I’ve already had the don’t-hurt-Kerry speech from pretty much everybody on the planet,” he pointed out. “One more set of threats isn’t going to make much difference. Besides, we’re done. Over.” That stopped spiffy in his tracks. “Over? As in finished?” “As in totally finished. So none of you have any need to worry. Well, not about that. Maybe you should start to wonder how deep that fern on your head has sunk its roots.” But spiffy got in the final shot. “If you’re totally finished with Kerry… why are you here?” “This is my kind of town!” admired Fetish Lad, holding his arms wide to gesture to Badripoor spread out below him around the weed-choked bay. “Is it?” worried Captain Courageous. “Oh dear.” “I mean it,” FL continued. “Where else could you walk down a steep cobbled high street and find a Hawaiian sushi bar, then a piercing salon, then a theatrical dentistry store, then a little bookshop specialising in 18th century polemical tracts, then a cream bun bakery, then a little theatre doing an all-puppet version of Chess?” “Ah…” relaxed Kit. “Yes, I see what you mean. I thought you meant there was lots of…” “I saw that theatre,” chipped in Glitch. “Wasn’t it opposite the one doing the all-nude version of Lassie?” “Never mind,” concluded Captain Courageous. “Fortunately I brought along some field manuals to revise.” Fetish Lad flung his arm round Kit. “CC,” he grinned, “Do you mind if we call you CC? CC, you cannot come to the wicked capital of wicked things in the world and not go trawling the clubs and exploring the back passages.” “And some of the little side streets,” added Glitch with a giggle. “Wait a minute,” objected Ham-Boy, sweltering in the humid climate beneath his thick ham-cowl. “We’ve delivered the refugees. Why aren’t we getting back to Paradopolis to help the Legion? And before Kerry blows up any more major architecture here?” “I asked Glory about that earlier,” Kit answered, happy to get back to business. “Our orders are to remain here and supplement the defence of this city until the Legion sends for us.” “So we have been sidelined,” hissed Kid Produce. “I knew it!” On the bridge of the USS Jarvis, the carrier flagship out in the bay, the sonar operators tracked the passage of Uuuuukelele, Princess of the Sea Monkeys, until she vanished in the haze of static at the edge of the force-field dome that protected Badripoor. “What’s this?” asked Admiral Sharrow sceptically, “Attempt seven, eight?” “Nine,” answered Harmanda Barriere, director of the Special Protocols Against Metahumans, “but each time she gets a little further through their defences.” “I’m not used to the success of a military operation being dependent on a prima-donna brine shrimp,” “Needs must, Admiral. Sea Monkey royalty have a mutagenic ability to develop temporary additional random superpowers in the presence of cosmic energies, and we have reason to believe that the Idiom harnessed such forces to sustain that goldfish bowl over the city. So Princess Uuuuukelele just needs to cycle through her spontaneous powers till she find one that’ll get her through.” “And then what?” asked the Admiral. “We know they have a Sea Monkey inside there too. And he’s more senior and experienced and powerful than Little Miss Only-Drinks-Perrier.” “Once she’s inside she opens the sealed box we gave her,” Barriere replied. The large black woman looked worried for a moment then covered. “We have a second agent in the box. A secret weapon.” “And that is…?” Barriere passed him a dossier. “A souvenir of the Technopolis War, Admiral. One of their very nastiest science villains.” “Technovore,” read Sharrow. “An insane murderous sentient computer virus capable of animating any machinery and shifting its consciousness from system to system at will. Formerly imprisoned… on Pluto?” “The Dark Knight had a base there. It’s been neutralised by our allies. Now Technovore belongs to us.” “Do Patriot Brands even work on sentient computer viruses, Mrs Barriere? Especially insane ones?” “I have no idea, Admiral. But I can guarantee that once he’s loose in Badripoor, that missile shield is coming down. And then everything is coming down.” Uuuuukelele, princess of the Sea Monkeys, willed the choking waterweed out of her way as she squirmed through the silted basin of Badripoor Bay. It was proving harder than she expected. “When the hell did Banjooooo find the time to learn to knit,” she complained. Eventually she just lost her temper and started shredding her way forward faster then the accelerated vegetation could regenerate. It was all going beautifully until the fern fought back. Too late she realised that this strange-coloured patch wasn’t seaweed like the rest, but rather sentient symbiotic plantlife from the unhappy place. And it was attached to the President of Badripoor. “spiffy!” she gasped, willing her fins to become more clawed. Then she noticed that he was swimming in a bubble of air generated by his ally and old friend, the King of the Sea Monleys. “Crap,” she added. “Hello, Uuuuukelele,” Banjooooo told her, looking not at all amused. “You have no idea how much I enjoyed your recent TV interviews.” “A lot?” the exiled accidental royalty ventured. “It so happens that…” “You’re a pretender,” Banjooooo told her. The ferns were wrapping her quite tightly now. She had the uncomfortable feeling that if she tried to swell to giant size she might well slice herself in two. “I’m completely not,” she argued back. “It was very inconsiderate of you to die then have the bad manners to come back. I say that once you’ve died enough to trigger a new royal egg to hatch you should have the grace to stay deceased.” “And I say that I’m King of the Sea Monkeys and I’ve disowned and exiled you. And that was me being merciful, given that the law says I could have slaughtered and eaten you.” “Dude,” spiffy muttered to Banjooooo, “You’ve gotta get some better laws.” “You say you’re the King,” Uuuuukelele objected, “but we both know you won’t be for long. Right, daddy-to-be?” Banjooooo swallowed hard. “So what? I’m still King right now and my word stands. You’re disinherited, and my son will rule after me. Especially if I happen to eat you to shut you up.” “Really,” spiffy went on, “that’s too gross for words. Even as a threat.” “You won’t eat me,” the princess scorned. “You’re too soft.” “You’re daring me to eat you?” “Take a bite if you’re so tough.” “I’m not hearing this,” spiffy warned them. “Lalalalalala!” Banjooooo sighed again. “Alright. You’re not going to get eaten. But you’re not going to be Queen of the Sea Monkeys either. My orders are signed and sealed and witnessed by the Vizier.” “You’re trusting a Vizier?” spiffy asked incredulously. “Really?” “Well what if I kill and eat you then?” Uuuuukelele challenged her cousin. “A proper championship challenge. Then I’ll have the right to undo your laws and become Queen.” “What is it with you sea monkeys?” spiffy complained. “Always with the cannibalism. Haven’t you heard of democracy?” “Says the supreme lifetime President of Badripoor,” shot back Banjooooo. “Anyhow, its irrelevant, because even with my powers waning as I become human now my mating cycle’s over I could still beat this little upstart. I’ve survived the Parody Master, Galactivac, and Lisa with PMS. I can handle one sparkly little wannabee.” “Bring it on, fishbreath!” shouted Uuuuukelele, shrinking to her true size (a quarter of an inch long) to slip through spiffy’s fronds then assuming her massive hundred foot aspect. “You asked for it, you’ll get it!” Banjoooooo told her, rising to a hundred and forty feet. “Hello? Remember to maintain that air bubble please,” spiffy called to his angry friend. “Glub!” And forgotten by all, the box Uuuuukelele had been carrying tumbled to the sea bed and cracked open. “That’s another thing off my to-do list,” Fetish Lad admitted, “Getting thrown out of a Badripoor pleasure house. I just didn’t expect it to be like this.” Captain Courageous’ face was flushed bright red. “When you ordered our food you didn’t mention it was served on naked girls,” he accused the kinky knight. “I only offered the young lady a jacket so she wouldn’t have to lie around with nothing but fruit and cream on her.” “I thought it was very gallant,” Glitch chuckled. “You know, I bet fresh cream could act as a lubricant for robotic parts as well…” Then she folded over and screamed. “Glitch?” FL asked, worried. “Are you okay?” “Perhaps it was those suspicious-coloured cocktails she imbibed?” Kit Kipling worried. “I stuck to that juice health drink the lady at the bar kindly recommended, and even that made me feel a little bit dizzy.” Glitch shivered and spasmed. “I’m… under attack!” she gasped, writhing on the crowded market street. “Somebody’s trying to… penetrate my firewall.” Captain Courageous looked around. “The cad,” he frowned. “Where? Who?” “We need to get help,” Fetish Lad decided. “Where did Ham-Boy and Kid Produce get to?” “So what’s the problem?” Ham-Boy asked Kid Produce as he found him squatting gloomily on a spire above one of the many temples on the eastern city heights. “I know you’ve had a tough time of it, but you seem so changed from the guy I used to team up with.” “You don’t know the half of it,” snapped Jasper Stevens. “What I’ve seen, where I’ve been. You don’t know.” “Which is why I’m asking,” Fred Harris said reasonably. “Come on, I’m your friend.” “Are you dead?” “No.” “Then you’re not one of my friends.” Ham-Boy shook his head. “Look, you have to snap out of this. I know you’ve lost people, but not everybody you love has to die…” That was when the SWAT team blasted HB in the back. The Idiom was blown to the ground as the console she was working at exploded. Then the metal of the mainframe twisted and bent into a crudely humanoid form and came for her. Glory, the mutt of might, slammed into Technovore at close to MACH-1, scattering pieces of the temporary body he had formed all over the lab. “FA, evacuate Letitia,” the dog yapped. “Gaz, Kerry, stop him reforming. Quickly!” “What’s going on?” gasped Letitia Gahagan as her clothing hauled her quickly away from the combat zone. “You’re the brains,” Samantha Bonnington pointed out. “We were hoping you had the footnotes.” Technovore bent the steel framework of the lab round to try and skewer Harlagaz. The demihemigod wrestled with it until it unexpectedly fractured through fault like explosions courtesy of Kerry Shepherdson. “Best estimate, we have a sentient technological virus loose in the Palace,” the Idiom estimated. “Probably Technovore, the Technopolitan science villain. He was classified as an omega class threat.” “And that’s bad,” surmised FA. “Omega is bad?” “Very bad,” the Idiom agreed. “Worse than your SAT results.” She glanced through the broken wall at the night sky. Half a dozen bright trails were incoming, telltale signs of Exocet missiles. “And it looks like he’s taken down the defensive barrier,” she added. “No, he hasn’t,” denied Denial, appearing suddenly to rush over the rubble towards the combat zone. The bright trails flared across an invisible bell-dome over the city, but their blasts didn’t penetrate it. “I’d really appreciate it if you did something clever to keep it that way. I don’t know how much longer I can prevent the inevitable.” “Danny, what are you doing here?” Kerry shouted angrily. “I don’t need rescuing by you.” “Sorry, Firecracker,” Danny sneered back. “I thought Bev Campbell was down here and might need a hand.” “Her?” Kerry seethed in rage and Technovore exploded into molten fragments again. “Gotcha,” grinned Danny Lyle. “For the nonce!” called Harlagaz. “But look yonder. While the barrier wert down it seemeth that a dozen of yon Sentinoids hath entered the city.” He broke out into a big happy smile. “Most excellent!” The SPAM SWAT team was equipped with sophisticated battle armour, power suppression fields, and mutate power elimination rifles. They’d bracketed Ham-Boy with their energy weapons, sending him toppling almost to the edge of the temple ledge. Now they came at Jasper Stevens. Kid Produce’s vegetable-producing apron was magic. It ignored their suppression fields. With an animal snarl KP brandished two razor sharp carrots and leaped forward at the squadron. They were about to discover whole new applications for fruit and veg. Half a world away, Liu Xi Xian woke from an unpleasant dream and shivered from the cold; and the young elementalist didn’t get cold. She glanced around her attic room trying to work out what had disturbed her so. She reached out and grabbed the tiny crystal on a thing gold chain and closed it in her fist. Then she saw the woman, almost young enough to be a girl, surely no older than Liu Xi herself. She wore a full-length gown and her hair was elaborately coiffed atop her head. And she was transparent. “Marie!” Liu Xi recognised. She knew the Lair Mansion housed ghosts. Marie Murcheson was the banshee that had been adopted by the island’s cosmic defences as their guardian and watchdog. “Marie, what is it?” The ghost looked sadly at Liu Xi, or maybe through her, then glided away, straight through the door. Liu Xi scrambled from her futon, dragged on a vest and sweat pants, and hurried out after the spectre. Then she stopped. This wasn’t the landing. The landing didn’t have bare rock walls carved smooth by hand a hundred thousand years earlier. Yet Liu Xi hadn’t sensed any manipulation of the Void to distort special relationships. “Marie?” There was no sign of the Lair banshee now. Cautiously, with growing dread, Liu Xi padded down the hallway, generating light in her cupped palm to guide her way. Perhaps it was her nervousness that made the glow flicker, casting dancing shadows over increasingly familiar tunnels. And there was the door, the ancient metal portal that Liu Xi had opened once before. And it was slightly ajar. “What’s the situation?” demanded Kit Kipling, racing into the Palace with Glitch slung over his shoulders. “Glitch says she’s being attacked.” “That would be Technovore,” Fashion Accessory filled him in. “Sentient computer virus that can morph machinery. He’s active all over the city. spiffy’s Abandoned Battalion are out fighting it and stuff.” “He’s getting very fresh,” warned Glitch. “And really, he’s not my type.” “Your firewalls are keeping him out?” Glory asked urgently. “Letitia, if Glitch can contain him…” “We could trap him in one place and maybe take him down,” agreed the Idiom. The symbols and numbers that always scrolled across her dark green costume increased in speed as she put her mind to work. “Okay, I need Glitch plugged into what’s left of our intranet.” “Leading a guy on, into a trap,” snorted Danny. “That’s a very old plan.” “There’s a reason it’s an old plan,” FA pointed out smugly. “We need to work quickly,” Captain Courageous pointed out. “Those Sentinoids are wreaking havok in the city, hunting down metahumans. We promised to protect them.” “Gaz and Kerry are on it,” Glory barked. “Now we must work fast to set a trap.” “I do have a selection of handcuffs,” offered Fetish Lad. “What’s the situation?” asked Admiral Sharrow, trying to make sense of the garbled imagery and sensor data that was coming in. Harmanda Barriere pointed at the main screen. “Well, we have two big-ass sea monkeys brawling in the bay,” she pointed out. “And a dozen Sentinoids and my elite SWAT team penetrated the force wall before they somehow got it back up.” “I thought you said that Technivore could mangle the generators so they would never work again.” Barriere shrugged one meaty shoulder. “We’re fighting superheroes. They’re annoying.” “Come on!” screamed Kid Produce, brandishing his celery sword and turning round and round looking for more enemies. The Special Protocols Against Metahumans SWAT team was scattered around him, pierced with vegetables. “Come on! Bring it on! Bring it all on!” “I think it’s all been brought,” Ham-Boy said blearily, dragging himself up off the ground and peeling away the now-roasted slab of pork that had saved his life. “What happened here.” Kid Produce wiped his tomato-juice-stained hands on a fallen SWAT member. “I feel so much better now,” he growled. HB looked around him and shuddered. “I don’t think anyone will want to reuse those turnips,” he suggested. Harlagaz jumped from the Finance Tower to headbut a passing Sentinoid. “Can thy mother stitcheth?” he shouted as the huge battle robot toppled down. The Sentinoid behind it caught him in a tractor beam and hoisted him into midair, where his strength couldn’t be used against an opponent. “Target One neutralised,” it reported. “Beginning termination.” “I art not neutralised!” Gaz shouted, struggling ineffectually against the forces holding him in midair. “I art just temporarily floated. Thou lousy cheats!” “Put him down,” Kerry shouted, leaning out of the shattered skyscraper window. “Right now.” “Target two, designate Kerry Shepherdson, probability arsonist. Temperature shields implemented. Probability counterwave initiated to prevent systems overloads.” “Oh, Gaz is right,” Kerry hissed as the Sentinoid raised a palm-blaster towards her. “You are so cheating.” Then she made the pavement beneath the Sentinoid explode, tangling him in the electricity mains as the sub-station catastrophically failed to power down the charge. “Just not cheating as good as me,” she said smugly as Harlgaz dropped down to the floor and began kicking the pieces of robot that were left. “Mark, are you okay?” asked Bev Campbell as she helped pull the President of Badripoor from the bay. “You look like a drowned rat. I mean more than usually like one.” “Thanks,” spluttered spiffy. “How’s my city doing?” “Could go either way. Ask again later,” answered his lieutenant. “The force field generator isn’t going to last much longer.” “And the war of the Sea Monkeys?” “Their egos are bigger than they are, but at least they’re only trampling the industrial areas.” “Oh, good.” “So what do we do now?” spiffy grabbed her hand and started running towards the force field projector dish. “My fern can generate energy. I can keep the barrier up.” People cheered them in the streets as they ran. “He’s coming,” warned Glitch. “I shut him out of all the systems he was attacking, but he knows where the source is. He’s coming to get me.” “That is so romantic,” Fetish Lad declared. “It makes me all moist and lumpy.” Captain Courageous took up position far across the room from FL. “Be ready,” Glory warned them. “When he arrives he will…” The pooch of power’s instructions were cut short as Technovore possessed her translator collar and tightened it into a stranglehold. “Hands off our TA!” Fashion Accessory called, transmuting Glory’s collar into a very nice deep-crush blue velvet. Technovore leaped his consciousness across towards Glitch where she was caught up in a complicated web of interface conduits. “Hello, darling,” he buzzed, but was bounced back by the short-range forcefield that the Idiom had set up. He manifested instead through the machinery in the lab, forming up a powerful new body for combat. “The lady isn’t interested,” Captain Courageous told the villain, slamming his fist into a metal head. Fetish Lad slid under Technovore, spreading lubricants beneath the titan’s feet. As the construct tried to grab Kit it lost its balance and tumbled to the floor. Fashion Accessory swathed it in canvas. “Now!” barked Glory, her tone unmistakable even without the translation. The Idiom activated the dimensional transit machinery that Technovore had absorbed as part of his new body. “No!” screamed the sentient virus, resisting the pull of the planar tides. “Is it going to work?” asked Captain Courageous, massaging his bruised fists. “He’s taking a lot of energy to control,” Glitch warned. “But he’s going down,” the Idiom said determinedly. She shunted auxiliary power into the systems and Technovore vanished with an angry final howl. Then all the lights went out. “Oops,” added Leticia Gahagan. “You’re cheating,” complained Uuuuukelele. “You’re deliberately being bigger and stronger than me.” “And also faster and more experienced,” Banjooooo pointed out. “But not prettier,” the princess of the Sea Monkey warned him. “I groom,” the king of the Sea Monkeys answered defensively. “But you can surrender any time you like now.” “And get eaten?” “And give me your word you’ll go quietly back to Lake Superior and not cause any more trouble, ever. I don’t want to kill you. I just don’t want you interfering. The world’s not big enough for two giant sea monkeys.” “Some would say for one,” Uuuuukelele pointed out. “But anyway…” And then Banjooooo spasmed over and shrunk thirty feet, then another sixty. “Ooooh,” grinned Uuuuukelele, “post-breeding metamorphosis! I guess all the stress and exercise must be bringing it on early.” She kicked Banjoooooo while he was down. “This changes everything.” Uuuuukelele shrank down even as Banjoooooo did, until she was standing over him as he curled clutching his stomach in the rubble of the industrial district. “Go on then,” Banjooooo spat. “Finish it.” “No,” said Danny Lyle, emerging from the shadows. “Don’t.” “Or what?” mocked the sea monkey princess. “You’ll fight as his champion?” “If I have to,” the leather-jacketed young man shrugged. “Who are you again?” Banjooooo asked him. “Nothing can stop me,” Uuuuukelele boasted. “It can,” Danny denied. “The force field’s down,” Kerry shouted, racing through the shattered frontage of the Palace with Harlagaz to join the others. “Power’s out all over the city!” “We kind of underestimated how much it would take to project Technovore away,” Glitch apologised. “Could Danny…” “He needs something to work with,” Glory barked. “And he is missing anyway.” “Nah, I’m not,” Denial called, jogging up to join the others with the princess of the Sea Monkeys trailing behind him. “But I’m kind of tapped out right now, on account of having to battle Uuuuukelele here.” “Who won?” Fetish Lad asked interestedly. “Shut up,” said the princess of the Sea Monkeys sulkily. “Bad enough that I belong to the human now, without you rubbing it in.” “You what?” Kerry asked hotly. “You belong to what human?” “Just a silly sea monkey custom for championship fights,” Danny winced. “Funny, really…” Kid Produce and Ham-Boy dropped through the broken roof. “Excuse me,” KP asked them, “but is anybody interested in the incoming missiles about to drop on the city?” Out over the bay the unmistakable contrails of two dozen rockets arced towards Badripoor. Even as the Juniors watched another dozen were launched behind them. “Everybody here will be killed,” Kit Kipling breathed. “Non-combatants. Children.” “Me,” pointed out Fashion Accessory. “What do we do?” Glory jumped forward. “Kerry, try and get some to explode in the air. Glitch, scramble their tracking systems. FA, take Ham-Boy and Fetish Lad and try to divert some from your flying carpet. Harlagaz, take Kid Produce in your goat chariot…” “To my, my goats!” “They dare to missile me? I happen to be the princess of the Sea Monkeys!” “What exactly do you mean, you belong to him now?” “Do what you can,” the Idiom agreed, “but it’s going to be too late.” “This is going to hurt,” spiffy told Bev. “Yes,” she agreed. “Do it.” spiffy plunged his fern into the force field generator and discharged his stored energies. A dozen shells exploded across Badripoor, and another dozen after that. Admiral Sharrow kept up the bombardment for a full half hour, watching great sods of rock and soil get blown out of the cloud of black smoke that surrounded the devastated city. When the smoke lifted there was no sign that there had ever even been a city there at all. “Are we dead?” asked Fetish Lad. “Only I was hoping to tick off a lot more of my things to do list before I tried necrophilia the hard way.” “We aren’t dead,” the Idiom confirmed. “Why aren’t we dead?” “The force field’s back,” Ham-Boy noticed. “How is the force field back?” “And why are you holding that fish woman in your arms, Danny Lyle?” demanded Kerry Shepherdson. “She kind of fainted,” Denial explained. “I was just trying to find a way of stopping, you know, mass devastation and genocide, and… I don’t know what happened.” “I’m getting the data in now,” Glitch told them. “You’re not going to believe it.” “But are we going to like it?” asked Kid Produce. “Well, what do you get if you combine spiffy’s fernal energy and Danny’s denials and Uuuuukelele’s and Banjooooo’s sea-monkey mojos and dimensional instability from what we did to Technovore?” asked the girl Transformer. “Anybody?” The Idiom frowned. “Spacio-harmonic recursive feedback,” she hissed. “Or…” prompted Fashion Accessory. “I guess we’d like the explanation in easy to digest chunks,” Ham-Boy apologised. “Pretend you’re explaining to Visionary,” Kerry snapped. “Badripoor is still enclosed safe in its bell-shaped forcefield,” Glitch confirmed. “Because what happened was the city shrunk to sea monkey size so it was small enough for spiffy’s energy to maintain the shielding.” “Wait a minute…” objected Kid Produce. “Are you saying we’ve just become the bottle city of Badripoor?” “But we can get it back to normal size whenever we like, right?” checked Fashion Accessory. “Right? Guys? Glitch? Idiom? Anybody?” “Oh, crappeth,” said Gaz. Coming Next: The Siege of the Lair Mansion Tie-Ins: Badripoor Soap by Dancer Secrets Within Secrets by Killer Shrike 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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