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Post By Here's more of this stuff from... the Hooded Hood (way to talk the story up, eh?) Sun Jul 30, 2006 at 04:27:07 pm EDT |
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#279: Untold Tales of the Parody War: Unexpected Visitors | |
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| #279: Untold Tales of the Parody War: Unexpected Visitors Previously: The all-conquering Parody Master’s invasion of Earth had been halted for now by the erection of a solar system-wide force field using ancient Celestian technology. After a week’s relative calm in which our heroes have recovered from the horrors of the first assault the challenges of uniting a world in defence against a common and overwhelming foe continue. Sir Mumphrey Wilton has been appointed to head up Earth’s defence, and faces tough challenges and tougher decisions. Al B. Harper is expected to overcome his grief at the loss of his son Cody and his friend Miss Framlicker – and his shock at finding a girl who claims to be his daughter – and provide new solutions for insoluble problems. Donar is no closer to finding his missing queen and native Ausgard. The junior Lair Legion remain trapped with spiffy in the shrunken bottled city of Badripoor, albeit now stored in the Lair Library. The brief period of quiet is about to be shattered by a variety of unexpected visitors. For cast lists, refer to the footnotes below or to the Who's Who in the Parodyverse. Previous chapters are archived on The Hooded Hood's Homepage of Doom.  “Fear not, mine lady! I wilt rescue thee for the nonce!” Donar Oldmanson threw off his disguising topcoat and rushed forward to succour the damsel even as men jumped on his from all directions to bring him down. They had batons and guns and tazers that gave him a nice refreshing tingle in his mouth. Donar shrugged them off and continued to charge across the crowded marketplace. The damsel was already fleeing from her assailant. A bulky man with a porcine face stood in Donar’s way, carrying a sawn-off shotgun. He looked slightly familiar but the Oldmanson had no time to place him as he ran over him to save the girl. A couple of men were being dragged along by looping their arms round his ankles but he easily shrugged them off into the flimsy wooden stalls of the Student Quarter Market. Finally Donar was able to catch up with the distressed woman as she was flinging her baskets into the back of a battered red pickup and fumbling with the keys to get behind the wheel. “Well met, beloved,” Donar called out, rushing over to the tall blonde with the valkyrie figure. “Who art besetting thee that thou needst call for help?” The young woman discharged a can of mace into his eyes and kicked him in the crotch. “Get away for me, you pervert!” she warned him. Then the pain in her toes reached her brain. “Ouch! You super-pervert!” “Annj?” Donar asked in a puzzled and slightly cross-eyed way. “Mine queen of all heaven?” “I’m not your queen of anything, you sleaze!” the woman shouted back. “You might have busted through the police cordon that was waiting to catch you stalking me, but I’m not afraid of you!” Donar scratched his beard. “Stalking thee?” A realisation dawned on him. “Twas me thou wert fleeing, not any fell assailant!” She gave him a look as if he was the village idiot. Then another bit of the conversation caught up. “Those wert officers of the police that I did’st wade through to come to thine aid?” He looked back at the crumpled man in the food-stained overcoat. “That wert Assistant Commissioner Hogglet?” “Yes,” the blonde agreed through gritted teeth. “You think I haven’t seen you looking for me these last three days, and asking about before that? You think I’m going to be another in your dumb perverted serial-killer collection? Do you?” The hemigod of thunder looked unhappy. “Dost thou not recognise me, Annj? Tis I? Donar. Thy husband.” “Husband?” snorted the woman. “That’s a new one.” Then she caught up too. “Donar? Of the Lair Legion?” “Thou recallest me!” the big Ausgardian grinned happily. “I saw you on the TV, if it is you, you big creep!” “Thou… thou dost not recall me, Annj? Really?” “My name isn’t Annj,” the young blonde woman shouted at him. “It’s Marion. And I’m not married to you! Stay away from me, you big freak!” Donar watched in shock and amazement as she leaped into the pick-up and drove it away at tyre-squealing speeds. “Annj?” he asked in a small, sad voice. After a while he helped Assistant Commissioner Hogglet up off the floor and waited patiently while they found handcuffs big enough to fit. The Lair Legion Chairman’s office was still being used by Sir Mumphrey Wilton, so technically now it was the Commander of Earth’s Defence Forces Office. Hatman had settled in to the Deputy Chair’s office next door along with the actual LL Deputy CrazySugarFreakBoy. Dream had tried to make him welcome by moving piles of comic books from one half of the desk and covering some of the walls with hockey posters. But right now Hatman was with Sir Mumphrey in the oak-panelled splendour of the original Chairs office, settled in one of the big wing-backed armchairs beside the antique fireplace. The other seats were occupied by Mr Epitome, the Legion’s military liaison, Lisa Waltz, the team’s legal specialist, and Natalia Romanza, the world’s best spy. Mumphrey passed Hatman a soda and sat back with his own brandy and water with a sigh of relief. “Good to be amongst friends for a bit,” he admitted, opening the top button of his waistcoat. For Sir Mumphrey Wilton that was like kicking off his shoes and putting his feet on the desk. “Spent all morning talkin’ with politicians about the war. Had to deal with the French.” “War is hell,” said Lisa, straight-faced. “Absolutely. Anyhow, wanted to hear first-hand how things stand now you’ve had a chance to update the threat board, what?” “Yes, sir,” Hatman agreed. It was six days since the Legion had managed to fight off the forces of the Parody Master and establish a force field around the entire solar system using ancient Celestian technology. It had been a busy time. “As of 0800 this morning, we’d dealt with all known remaining Avawarrior forces. The last battle was the worst, a hundred and fifty Avawarriors and support personnel at the Aswan High Dam in Egypt. The Shoggoth, Dancer, Yuki, ManMan and volunteers from the Globetrotting Gangbusters put that one down. We have three hundred and forty-seven captured Parody Master personnel in or en route for the Safe. There are some more anomalies to chase up, but so far nothing that shows up more than amber priority on the big globe.” “There has been some criminal activity, too, of course,” Lisa added. “But for the most part Major Standard’s Terminus Team of supervillains working for a pardon seems to have the baddie community a bit of balance. Set a psychotic meta-terrorist to catch a psychotic meta-terrorist, so to speak.” “Yes, we have to thank Citizen Z for all the work she’s done organising those villains. Former villains,” Hatman noted. “I don’t know how she got the likes of Anvil Man and Appendage Man and Razor Ballerina to join the programme.” “Hmph,” Mumphrey replied neutrally, keeping his word the Baroness Elizabeth von Zemo not to reveal her secret identity as the mysterious Citizen Z. The commander of the Earth’s Defence Force needed CZ for later. “Harper has finished his preliminary analysis on the force field,” Mr Epitome reported. “The short, geek-lite version is that the Celestians left defences hundreds of thousands of years ago to protect the island this Lair Mansion is now built on. Dancer, CrazuSugarFreakBoy!, Goldeneyed, Liu Xi Xian, and Xander the Improbable somehow provoked those defences using alien crystals as some kind of super-refractor so that the force field was spawned across a much wider area than usual.” “Instead of covering the island it covered the solar system,” Hatman pointed out. “That’s a whole lot more than usual!” “Bry is still trapped at the focus for all that,” Lisa reminded them. “He’s part of the circuit. The Parody Master only gets kept out for as long as Bry uses his powers to shunt the energies. We’re trying to keep him comfortable. Beth Shellett is almost living down there in the tunnels keeping him company.” “Katz is a good chap,” Mumphrey opined. “He’ll do.” “The force field acts as both a physical and energy barrier,” Epitome went on. “Apparently it keeps out almost everything except non-coherent light. You can see through it but a laser can’t penetrate. Gravity penetrates but extraordinary gravity pulses don’t. And it prevents teleportations, planar travel, even time travel by blocking the access to the intermediary places you need to use to do those things.” Natalia Romanza shifted. “There’s a downside to that, of course. We’ve lost contact with Yo and NTU-150 in the Swordrealms, and we’re cut off from any intelligence about what the Parody Master is doing outside our solar system in the rest of the universe.” “According to Donar we’re still attached to the Mythlands,” Hatman observed. “They’re cut off from the rest of the universe too,” the Contessa explained. “At least Earth’s mythlands.” “So Vizh can get back when he’s finished looking for Naari,” concluded Lisa. “At least he’s safe, I suppose.” Teleportation is also inhibited inside the field,” Mr Epitome pointed out. “There’s a tactical issue here. We can’t count on advanced transport tech to get special forces across the planet. We’ll have to use conventional means to get there, like the LairJet or the Epitome Express.” “The Shoggoth can still do whatever he does to dimensions,” Hatman added, “but the people he takes with him tend to be insane at the other end. And we don’t want him passing through the Celestian barrier in case he… leaves holes.” “The force field won’t last forever,” Lisa warned. “It’s already 10% weaker than it was when it spawned. We have to have a plan about what to do when the Parody Master breaks through it.” “We’re workin’ on it, m’dear,” Sir Mumphrey promised her. “I mean, Miss Waltz.” And then the alarm klaxon went off. Hatman pulled his comm-card and checked with Amber in the Ops Room. “Avatanks,” she warned him. “Teleporting in on top of the Hoover Dam.” “Teleporting?” objected Lisa. “But that’s…” “Alert Tricky to launch the LairJet,” Hatman called. “We’re on our way!” Al B. Harper entered Lair Mansion Holding Cell 1 sucking his fingers. The keypad had exploded when he’d opened the door. “Sorry about that,” shrugged Kara Harper. “I was fiddling.” The teenage girl was laid on the single bench-bed with her legs up the far wall. She was reading some trashy romance novel and correcting it with a pencil. She felt her version war far more interesting. Al pushed aside questions about how anybody could turn a BautistaSecure Lockmaster mk III into a weapon if attack – it really wasn’t that hard – and perched himself on the edge of the washbasin. “I, um, got back the DNA results.” “Well hooray,” Kara told him sarcastically. “It seems… as if you are composed of my genetic material and that of Kinki the Conqueress.” “Yeah. How about that? When two genetic materials love each other very much…” “Yes,” Al agreed quickly. “But… how? No, not the biology. The temporal physics of it. How did you get here, and what happened to your… to Cody Harper?” Kara shrugged. “You’re the megabrain,” she pointed out. “I’m just your love child from the future.” She pointed round the holding cell. “And so far I’ve got to say your parenting sucks.” “You could be a ploy of the Parody Master’s,” the archscientist warned her. “He’s gone after me before.” “Okay, Dr Ego, but what if this isn’t all about you?” Al blinked. “What do you mean?” Kara snorted. “New idea, is that? What I mean is, what if I’m not part of your story? What if you’re part of mine? You just get to be the dead-beat dad who knocks mom up then drives her away and leaves me to be brought up by Grampa Wang.” “You were brought up by…?” “It’s a wonder I don’t insist on wearing pink socks on my head. Really. Yeah, in my timeline you and mom fall out – not that its hard to fall out with mom, I admit, especially when she’s in one of her universe-conquering moods. She heads out so she can hide from the Parody Master who is apparently a really unfun date, pops me, dumps me with gramps, then vanishes off again to plot her awful revenge TM against you and everybody you love. Fast forward sixteen years and I hop into a time-chute and head back to see dad just before he literally slams the door on the whole rest of the universe. And here I am.” Al B, tried to absorb this. “I wanted to find Kinki,” he promised, “to make up with her. But first Miss Framlicker got… And then the Celestian barrier stopped all time travel…” “Miss Framlicker?” Kara asked. “That’s the woman mom dragged out of the timestream to wreak her vengeance on in the torture pits?” Al B.s jaw dropped. “She did what?” Kara shrugged again. “I don’t really know. I was very little at the time. Mom never talked about it.” “Miss Framlicker died when the Parody Master’s forces destroyed ITC. They blocked all dimensional escapes. Are you saying Kinki pulled Miss F out of there through a temporal escape?” “If she did, it wasn’t for nice reasons,” Kara confirmed. Al B Harper’s brow furrowed. Finding Kinki the Conqueress had just got even more urgent. “But… what about Cody? My son, with Kinki. Were you twins?” Kara shook her head and sat up. “You’re not getting this, dad. In the sperm races there’s only one winner. Make a tiny alteration and that winner changes. Suddenly it’s not Cody, it’s Kara.” Her face darkened. “Change that back, and Kara’s gone and it’s the boy you always wanted. Or a different one.” Al rubbed his forehead. “So you’re saying…” “You have to choose who you want to live, dad. Me or Cody.” Trickshot stood in front of the accelerating Avatank and drew back his bow. The gunmetal and crimson war machine sped along the top of the Hoover Dam aiming to plaster the interloper across its front bulldozer ridge. Trickshot wedged a fast-acting thermosetting plasteel arrow into the forward track. As the chemical expanded and solidified into a ten foot wedge it neatly flipped the tank over onto its side then off the top of the dam. Trickshot watched the vehicle spiral to a spectacular landing on the rocks below. “I guess these tank models can’t fly then,” the irritating archer concluded. “They blow up real nice though.” “And so do the people inside them,” Dancer chided, somersaulting over the next tank to set it up for CSFB!’s silly string barrage into the gun turret. “We’re not supposed to be killers, remember.” “Different rules of engagement in wartime,” Yuki Shiro suggested. She waited until ManMan had used Knifey to peel back the outer skin of the third and final tank then vaulted atop it to scramble its control systems and pilot it into a rock shelf. “Soldiers can’t arrest the enemy.” “I’m not killin’ people,” Tricky assured her. “I’ve no stomach fer that. But you saw Al’s analysis. These poor guys have been so cut up and changed by the PM that they’re not even alive any more. I’m doin’ ‘em a favour.” Dancer kicked the side of the tank she’d stopped and the door improbably fell off. CSFB! dived inside to subdue the Avawarriors. “This just isn’t right,” ManMan puzzled, looking over the length of the vast dam. “Like at Aswan. These forces came out of nowhere, and that’s not supposed to be possible now.” CrazySugarFreakBoy! hauled a pair of stunned Avawarriors out of the tank hatch. “I wanna know why the PM’s so interested in dams all of a sudden. Not that taking out the Hoover wouldn’t cause a major disaster.” “We’re missing something, alright,” Yuki frowned, her face serious for once. “But what?” The comm-card bleeped. “Hatman here. Get back to the Mansion to take watch. We have another incursion. I’m taking Epitome and the Shoggoth. There are Parody Master troops at the Murmansk nuclear reactor!” Knifey did a quick calculation. “By the time the Legion gets there by LairJet they’ll have had time to blow that place sky high.” Ham-Boy stirred blearily as Kid Produce shook him awake. “Rise and shine, hero. It’s time again.” “Wha…?” HB asked muzzily. “Wha time?” Then he woke up and remembered. “Yes, that time,” Fashion Accessory reminded him. “Time to provide today’s rations for the million starving citizens of Badripoor.” Fred Harris shuddered. His super-power was to generate meat products from thin air – well, Badripoor’s resident mad scientist claimed he converted ambient free molecules to replicate standard organic template structures, whatever the heck that meant. In any case, in the two weeks since the rogue Pacific basin nation-state had been encased in a force field bell and shrunken to two feet high, Ham-Boy had been a major part of the strategy for offsetting a citywide famine. “He’s not looking too well,” Fetish Lad noted as Fred Harris staggered to his feet. “Heroin chic is out.” Ham-Boy had lost weight in the last few days, and there was a sallow pallor around his eyes. “That had better not mean that he’s actually generating those meat products out of his own body,” Falconne shuddered. “Ew ew ew ew ew.” “He’s not,” Glitch assured them. The orange and green autobot ran a medical diagnostic over the world’s meatiest hero. “He’s just exhausted. There’s a physical effort in using his powers. Usually it’s negligible, but to create hundreds of tons of raw meat every day…” “I still think it’s unfair to call yourself Kid Produce and not to be able to make vegetables,” accused Falconne, glaring over at the lanky long-haired newcomer with the grizzled chin. “And to wear that outfit,” added Fashion Accessory. “It’s so 70s shop delivery boy.” “I need my dimensional pinafore,” KP objected. “That’s where I keep my fruit and veg. Keep snickering, Fetish Lad, and you’ll be getting some free samples.” “How’s the plan to get loose from this forcefield coming on?” Captain Courageous asked hastily to offset more innuendo. “I mean the plan that doesn’t involve us all swelling up and exploding.” “Slowly,” complained Harlagaz Donarson. “I art not sure that yon Idiom doth know what she art doing.” Glory the mutt of might chipped in. “In fairness to Letitia, the interaction of forces that caused us to shrink to become a bottled city were very exotic.” “Yeah, that was a huge coincidence,” Glitch agreed. “Or, y’know, the work of a certain cowled crime czar who then arranged for us to be found and ‘rescued’.” “A crime czar who shall remain the Hooded Hood,” Kid produce growled. “I coulds’t so hath taken him, e’en at this diminutive size,” promised Gaz. “A crime czar who just happened to have his son and heir romancing our Kerry,” objected Ham-Boy. “Where are Kerry and Danny anyhow?” “What time is it?” FA asked. “If it’s a weekday or a weekend they’ll be outside fighting.” “I don’t even know why you’re still here,” Kerry accused her ex-boyfriend Daniel Lyle. “Why didn’t daddy just arrange for you not to get trapped with us when he did his clever bottle trick?” “Has it ever occurred to you that the Hooded Hood and I went our separate ways as soon as I discovered who I really was?” snapped back Denial. “You think I like being related to the archvillain of the Parodyverse?” “Hey, I have to be related to Visionary,” the probability arsonist shot back. “Am I supposed to feel sorry for you because you’re stuck here with the rest of us?” “Am I supposed to apologise just because I happen to be related to somebody who saved us all from being found by the 1066 fanatics who turned out to be working for the Parody Master?” Kerry turned on him. “No,” she argued. “You’re supposed to apologise for setting us up here then showing your true colours.” She snorted. “I don’t know why I’m even talking to you. Why don’t you go hang out with your captured Sea Monkey princess?” “Now I’m in the wrong because I used my powers to stop her devastating the city? I thought that was what you hero types were supposed to do? I mean the ones who can control their tempers and their powers and don’t accidentally blow up major civic buildings.” “If you know I blew up the Badripoor Palace last time I was here then you know I don’t like being betrayed,” Kerry shouted. “You really should start running now, Lyle!” “Like I’m going to run from a juvenile girl with permanent PMS,” shot back Denial. “Especially one who can’t tell what really happened from the childish immature fantasies she cooks up in her own paranoid brain. Well what she calls a brain.” “Fantasies? We’re trapped here in Badripoor by an amazing set of circumstances, aren’t we? You and your daddy are masters of retcon to make that happen, right? Uuuukelele is following you round like some lovesick prawn waiting to make the next generation of Sea Monkey babies with the man who was able to beat her in combat. What part of that doesn’t show you as pond-slime that needs to be wiped off the face of the planet?” Danny folded his arms and smirked. “The part where you love me,” he suggested. The ground beneath him exploded, hurling him back under a shower of molten asphalt. By the time he’d put out his jacket and climbed to his feet Kerry Shepherdson had stalked off. “More trouble in paradise?” asked Uuuuukelele, Princess of the Sea Monkeys. “Little bit,” admitted Danny. “The Firecracker’s not too happy with me right now.” “That doesn’t matter,” the Uuuukelele sniffed, watching the teenage girl vanish back into the rebuilt palace. “She has no idea what’s really going on.” She chuckled a little. “She still thinks I’m your pliant and willing sex-slave prisoner.” “I’m amazed they all bought that,” Danny admitted. “But it’s keeping you around, and that’s what’s required.” “Do you think I enjoy the masquerade any more than you do, Denial?” the sea monkey demanded. “We do what is necessary, both of us, to bring forward your father’s plan.” Sir Mumphrey Wilton smoothed his hand along his sideburn whiskers and sighed. “So many questions,” he said. “Thousands of decisions every day.” “Comes with the job of being ruler of the planet,” Citizen Z told him. “I’m not ruling the planet,” the eccentric Englishman clarified, “any more than young Clancy was President when he had to temporarily assume authority at the end of that 1066 farrago.” “When you have the power to do pretty much whatever you like, you’re ruling the planet,” CV argued. “If you didn’t see that, why would you keep me close to you to advise you on how to use that power?” Mumphrey snorted. “Even people like Baroness von Zemo have their uses,” he replied. “I’ll use whatever tools I have to win this war.” “Such as somebody who knows the criminal infrastructure and can guarantee additional metahuman support from the other side of the fence, while ensuring that nobody takes advantage of the situation to make a personal bid for power?” “Exactly.” Mumphrey gestured to the pile of papers waiting on his desk. “I’m strugglin’. I admit it. So many decisions to make. Do we introduce National Service? Do we declare martial law? Can we compel labour and materiel for the war effort? Do we pardon convicted felons if they serve against the Parody Master? Do we intern those suspected of being followers of the Parody Master? Do we share advanced military technology with nations that have formerly been aggressors?” “Interesting, isn’t it?” asked Citizen Z. “And far from black and white.” “What about those nations who refuse to be part of our effort?” the eccentric Englishman went on. “Do we invade Switzerland’s sovereign borders to ensure it is protected from the Parody Master? Do we force Borovia to align its defences with the rest of the planet rather than attempting an independent defence?” “I’m working on the Borovian situation,” CZ promised. “Vigorously.” “What about Candia? Do we allow it to keep its borders closed and do nothing, or do we demand access to its vast weapons grade uranium stocks? Do we recognise HERPES as an ally now we don’t have SPUD to defend us?” “Do you seek an alliance with the Hooded Hood?” “No,” Sir Mumphrey said firmly. “We will not be resortin’ to that.” “You said you’d use whatever tools were necessary,” reminded Citizen Z. She noticed the choler rising to the eccentric Englishman’s cheeks. “Not Winkelweald,” snapped the leader of the World Defence Force. “We won’t trade one villain for a worse one.” “Worse? Than the Parody Master?” “We can beat the Parody Master,” Mumphrey said. “He’s just powerful. A bully. A cad. Winkelweald is… dangerous.” He stood up abruptly. “Need to be getting’ on, what? Plenty to do. War to win. Enough said.” Baroness von Zemo watched him retreat. “He’s asking the right questions,” she admitted, speaking over her shoulder to the unseen observer. “But he’ll need a few more buttons pushing before he’s ready to decide.” “Indeed,” agreed the Hooded Hood. The superheroes were all busy. It was absurdly easy for the Doomherald to cloak himself in invisibility and walk past the military guard around the Lair Mansion. The most sophisticated detection systems on Earth didn’t spot him. He wandered into the Lair Kitchen, made himself a sandwich, and waited. “Hello, Hatman,” Katarina Allen called from the Lair Legion communications Centre next to the Operation s Room. “Did you get there in time? Do we will have Russia?” “We got here,” Hatman agreed. “We managed to contain the Avawarriors. We have another twenty-three for holding. Alert OPS to get transports here ASAP.” His face clouded. “We lost some ground troops, and some civilian workers. We don’t have the final casualties yet but it might be into… into five figures.” Kat winced. “But you stopped them from blowing up the reactor, right?” “I do not believe they were seeking to blow up the reactor,” the Manga Shoggoth reported, once again eschewing the use of a comm-card. “They could easily have drained the liquid around the fuel rods and precipitated a simple atomic cascade. Instead they appear to have made sophisticated improvements to increased the energy yield of the process by approximately two hundred percent.” Hatman looked over at the gelatinous mass that was emerging from the high radiation chamber. “You’re saying these people teleported in here despite our precautions and a Celestian barrier and decided to service the reactor?” “There’s other stuff you need to know,” Kat interrupted, “Amber had to go bail Donar out or something, so she can’t brief you. But Dream said to warn you that he and the others are responding to two more incursions. CSFB!, Trickshot, and ManMan are heading towards reports of Avawarriors near Alamogordo. Yuki, Lisa, and Dancer are checking a garbled message from the nuclear sub base at Chesapeake Bay.” “More incursions?” frowned Mr Epitome. “But that’s…” “We also have the other groups out investigating,” Kat continued. “Almost everyone. Gangbusters, FMRC, Giant Robot Six, the Waffles, everybody. CV’s co-ordinating with Major Standard of the Terminus Team. Reports from India, East Germany, Iraq, Australia… There’s another one coming in right now.” She looked up. “The Aswan Dam again!” “We’re on it,” Hatman called back. “But find Al and ask him why the barrier’s failing already. And what we can do about it.” Marie Murcheson, the Lair Mansion banshee and guardian against intruders of cosmic power, was slow to manifest. Her demesne had just been increased to cover a solar system. It was hard to spot one cosmic being right in the heart of her territory. But when she did sense the Doomherald she appeared full of righteous anger to wail him to oblivion. “Ah, there you are,” the intruder noted. He put down his cold cut sandwich and opened the small casket he’d come equipped with. “I brought you a present.” Marie jerked backwards as the light from the box enveloped her. She tried to scream but the noise choked in her throat. She couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t move. Since when does a ghost have to breathe?” she thought to herself. And then she realised how strange it was that she was having conscious thoughts. The light dissipated and the resurrected girl fell unconscious on the kitchen floor. “Welcome back,” the Doomherald told her. He bent down and placed the half-eaten sandwich in her hand. “You’re going to need this more than me,” he suggested. Then he headed off to the Lair Library to collect the bottled city he’d come for. Princess Annar looked up as the soldiers opened the holding cell door and allowed a visitor in. “Liu Xi!” she called out as she recognised the Asian girl on the threshold. “Hello again!” Annar was one of the shapechanging alien race known as the Skunks, but right now her morphic abilities were neutralised by the power dampener collar she wore. Liu Xi remembered that Skunks found it a great shame to be seen in their natural forms, akin to humans being stripped naked. “Annar?” Liu Xi asked cautiously. “Is that you?” “It’s me, Liu Xi. It’s so lovely to see you again!” The guards closed the door to seal the young elementalist in with the alien prisoner. “I wasn’t sure that you’d know who I as,” Liu Xi admitted. “I wasn’t sure I wanted you to.” “Of course I remember,” Annar assured her. “Why wouldn’t I?” “Well, y’know, the torture and brainwashing?” the elementalist suggested. “Last I saw you were being hauled off to become a bride of the Parody Master.” Annar nodded. “I was corrected, yes. There are many things a bride of the Master needs to learn, and obedience is first among them.” She smiled over at her friend. “You’ll see, when your turn comes.” Liu Xi felt her stomach churn. “My turn?” “You are one of his chosen brides from Earth,” Annar pointed out. “The training is terrible, of course, long, painful, degrading. But then there is the bliss of serving the Master, or serving as his vessel, of obeying his will.” Liu Xi swallowed. “So you did surrender to the Parody Master,” she accused. “As will you,” Annar promised. “And then we will be his wives together.” She smiled happily at the thought. “Nothing else matters, Liu Xi.” The elementalist tried to hide her shock. Annar seemed almost the same as the girl she’d known; but there was something missing. Some spark of will had gone, replaced by a vacant worship of her lord and master. Liu Xi pulled a small crystal amulet from beneath her blouse. “Do you remember this?” she asked Annar. “You gave it to me.” “Of course I do,” the Skunk princess replied. “I was very silly back then. I thought such things meant something.” “And they don’t?” “No. You’ll understand when your time comes, Liu Xi. Nothing matters but the Master.” The Asian girl angrily crammed the amulet back beneath her clothes. “I’m not going to be a bride of the Parody Master!” she vowed. “I’m not going to let him do to me what he’s done to you! You look like Annar and speak like Annar, but she… she’d hate this. What you’ve become. A serf. A toy. She’d hate it!” Annar looked pityingly at her distraught friend. “Liu Xi, nothing matters once you have become a bride of the Parody Master. Nothing. If I had to I would slaughter you in an instant. But I hope I don’t have to. The Master is so looking forward to taking you.” Liu Xi felt the lightning well up inside her. It would be so easy to let it lance across into the captive Skunk, searing her from existence; setting the real Annar free from the compliant shell she’d been turned into by who knew what torture and horror. And then a chill ran through her. Annar was provoking her to do just that. “Annar?” she asked. “Are you in there?” The princess sat back and smiled. “I’m with child, you know,” she announced. Liu Xi was so shocked she hardly heard the cell door open behind her. “I… I need more time,” she said. “Don’t we all?” answered the Doomherald. “But your time has run out, Liu Xi Xian.” He caught the furious first attack from the cornered elementalist, cast it aside with ease, then gently shut down Liu Xi’s mind to prevent further unpleasantness. He caught her before she crumpled to the floor. “Be careful with her,” Annar ordered him as he released the prisoner from her collar. “My Master is very keen to have her.” “That’s why I got sent,” the Doomherald assured the bride. He held up the force-field shielded city of Badripoor in his left hand even as he slung Liu Xi over his right shoulder. “Two brides down, five to go.” The Avatar broke through to Earth at 0947 local time in Sichuan Province in south-west China. He and a dozen elite stormtroopers moved quickly to seize the Ertan hydropower plant that dammed the Yalong River. He prevented the alarm going off by the simple expedient of exterminating all human life he encountered. “Continue to make responses to their communications as normal,” he instructed the tech agent he’d brought with him. “Continue widening the breach to establish a beach-head,” he instructed his officers. Across the world the Earth’s defenders answered call after call of Parody Forces invasion, running themselves ragged, becoming exhausted. In Sichuan Province the Avatar quietly gathered his forces and prepared for the coming strike. Next Issue: It’s five days later, and our heroes haven’t slept. There are thirty thousand Avawarriors on Earth and counting. The barrier is failing much earlier than expected, and the odds are getting impossible. See Hatman and his team at the end of their strength and the end of their tether in Untold Tales of the Parody War: The Lights Are Going Out… The Mini-Who’s Who The Lair Legion: Hatman (Jay Boaz, Leader), CrazySugarFreakBoy (Dreamcatcher Foxglove, Deputy), Liza Waltz, Donar, hemigod of thunder, Trickshot (Carl Bastion), Dancer (Sarah Shepherdson), the Manga Shoggoth, Al B. Harper, Yuki Shiro, ManMan (Joe Pepper, wielder of Knifey), Citizen V (Baroness Elizabeth von Zemo); and absent this issue, Visionary, Yo, and the Librarian. 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 Uuuuukelele, princess of the Sea Monkeys Other Good Guys: Sir Mumphrey Wilton, leader of the Earth’s Defence Forces Contessa Natalia Romanza, masterspy Amber St Clare, LL liaison Katarina Allen, Epitome’s girlfriend, helping out in the Comms Room Liu Xi Xian, teenage elementalist Goldeneyed (Bry Katz), former LL member, currently keeping a big plot-sustaining force field going Beth Shellett, his friend Marie Murcheson, Lair Banshee (up to this episode) Kara Harper, Al’s daughter? The Bad Guys: The Parody Master, all-powerful all-conquering mega-villain The Doomherald, his messenger The Avatar, leader of his Avawarrior legions Princess Annar of the Skunks, shapechanging bride of the Parody Master The Hooded Hood (Iolodobaoth Winkelweald), cowled crime czar; not working with the Parody Master in any way The Idiom (Leticia Gahagan), scientific genius claiming asylum in Badripoor 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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