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Post By The Hooded Hood gets into the aftermath and hopes readers will too Fri Feb 23, 2007 at 05:30:10 am EST |
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#304: Untold Tales of the Parody War: Fixing Things - Complete | |
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| #304: Untold Tales of the Parody War: Fixing Things Go straight to Part Two Go straight to Part Three Previously: Earth’s attempts to break the Parody Master’s siege by attacking the conceptual plane were costly. Lisa Waltz was slain in battle by the Parody Master. Hatman and Dancer were captured. Donar and NTU-150 were seriously wounded. Yo, Quoth, and Fleabot are missing in action. Now our heroes must pick up the pieces and deal with the consequences. This tale comes after Parodyverse Team-Up #1, #2, #3, and #4, Friends With Benefits, Benefit of Friends, Cupid He’s Not and the conclusion of Another Front The footnotes below contain a Dramatis Personae for the 85 characters mentioned in this episode. Previous chapters at The Hooded Hood's Homepage of Doom Descriptions of cast at Who's Who in the Parodyverse Locations explained in Where's Where in the Parodyverse  The damaged LairJet came in hard. As it bumped onto the tarmac the undercarriage finally gave way, dropping the scorched aircraft down onto the runway where it slid crabwise on the thick layers of crash foam. It skidded aside from its usual course, demolished a hastily-evacuated fire truck, and came to a halt at a slight angle at the base of one of the temporary radar towers. Accident control vehicles screamed in around it to blanket it with water to douse any possible fuel fires. “It’s a good job they don’t make you pay for these things,” Knifey chuckled at his wielder ManMan. “On minimum wage I calculate you could pay one of these off by the time you were two thousand. Assuming you didn’t eat.” “You did just fine, Joe,” CrazySugarFreakBoy! assured the man in the Elvis suit who’d just brought LairJet Three to its final landing. “Every time we write one of these off Enty just designs a better one, so in a way you’re doing a public service each time we crash.” “Except that Bautista is still in intensive care after heart transplant surgery,” Mr Epitome noted, unstrapping himself from his chair and wrenching the exit hatch open. “I hope you remembered to send him a card,” Citizen Z checked with the man of might. “Perhaps one of those your PR office produces, with that photo of you and Glory and the stars and stripes on the front. Who wouldn’t be cheered up by that?” “It wasn’t my fault this time,” ManMan protested, shutting down the remaining two engines on the five-turbine aircraft. “That last remote drone damn near took our starboard wing off.” “You handled it like a pro,” CSFB! encouraged the newbie. “We did the mission. We stopped the bad guys. That’s another hole in the Celestian barrier safely plugged and another elite Parody Squadron for the Ecuador holding facility.” “Although you might want to look up what ‘evasion pattern’ means before next time,” CV added sweetly. “Just a thought.” Mr Epitome dropped down onto the runway and signalled to Sergeant MacHarridan and the rescue crews that everyone was okay. “Sir Mumphrey’s waving us over to the Mansion,” Glory noted with her enhanced vision. “I think there may be news of the others.” “Well good,” grumped the paragon of power. He glanced over at CrazySugarFreakBoy! sourly. “I never thought I’d miss Hatman.” “Hey guys!” called out Carl Bastion, emerging from the Lair Kitchen with a hoagie the size of Borneo. “Put out the flags and git the ticker tape ready. Br’er Tricky is home from his travels!” “And Yuki too!” Citizen Z noted. “How wonderful.” CSFB! hugged the cyborg P.I. as she descended from her room having changed her clothing to something less grubby and scorched. “Great to have you guys back!” he grinned. “For a while there is looked like me, CV, Manny, and Brickhead were the LL field team!” “And great ta be back,” Trickshot beamed in response. “You heard we gave the PM another beating. Right?” But Yuki had picked up on the implications of the acting leader’s comment. “So we’re the only ones made it home? What about Hatman and Yo and Lisa and Donar? Is what the Parody Master claimed about catching Dancer true?” “Dancy got away,” Trickshot insisted. “You saw how pissed the PM wuz about it.” “We still have a lot of personnel MIA,” Mr Epitome confirmed. “CSFB! isn’t amongst them, however,” he added with a sigh. “It’s great that AG was able to find you guys and bring you back though,” ManMan admitted. “It was getting a bit hairy trying to patrol that disintegrating dimensional barrier with such a small operations team. We’re getting more incursions again, maybe a couple a day.” “Did you bring the Shoggoth back with you as well?” CrazySugarFreakBoy! checked, peering for signs of elder slime on the carpets. “He’s down in his cave in a bucket,” explained Yuki. “Ebony said he’d need some regeneration time.” “We brought some other guys back with us as well,” Trickshot contributed. “AG wuz able to find some dudes called Gamma Ray Gary and D’ur Acell what have been blowing up the Parody Master’s stuff from the other side of the galaxy. AG vouches for them.” “What about Al?” asked Yuki anxiously. “And Vizh and the Librarian and spiffy?” “They’re okay,” Citizen Z answered with just the slightest catch in her voice. “But Harper and Bookman aren’t much use for field missions, and Visionary just isn’t…” “They’re fine,” CSFB! interrupted. “Now we just need to find Hat and the others and get the old gang together again and we can find some way of stopping this war for good.” “Lisa died,” Asil said, entering the hallway to call the returned heroes into Sir Mumphrey’s office. “So did George.” That killed the mood of reunion as the Legion filed after her. “We’ve been tryin’ to assemble a picture of how the conflict’s changed since the Battle of the Conceptual Plane,” Sir Mumphrey told the group assembled round his office. In addition to the LL Operations team there was the Librarian, Amazing Guy, Gamma Ray Gary, the Yellow Flashlight D’ur Acell, Asil Ashling, Amber St Clare, and Beth Shellett. “You have achieved amazing things against the Parody Master,” Gamma Ray Gary assured them. “Remarkable.” “We still haven’t stopped him though,” Mr Epitome pointed out, unhappy at the potential back-slapping about what was ultimately a major retreat. “It’s lookin’ like the Parody Blighter’s taken hits in four different areas,” Mumphrey went on. “He lost the conceptual plane and his Infinity Forge, limiting his ability to project his forces to Earth for a short while.” “Don’t forget that Lisa seems to have done something to him too,” the Librarian added. “She somehow revoked his authority in the Parodyverse. It remains to be seen what that means.” “Couldn’t Jury tell us?” suggested Yuki. “Jury seems to have burned off the last of the Shapership in saving our troops,” Knifey reported. “We used up a lot of assets there.” Amazing Guy chipped in. “While we were doing that, Gary and D’ur here were stopping the Parody Master’s Doomwraith factory. He tried to turn the Maxellians into one.” ManMan shuddered. “That would have been so not good,” he admitted. “It was a hideous plan,” D’ur told them. “If Gary hadn’t overcome Lord War and Gamona hadn’t…” “Gamona?” CSFB! perked up. He was always happy to have a green-skinned nude woman somewhere on the battlefield. “Seems she’s working for the Hooded Hood now,” Beth explained. “Wherever he might be.” “Herringcarp Asylum has gone again,” the Librarian footnoted for the newcomers. “The third front Sir Mumphrey mentioned was the Hood sending the Purveyors against key military targets across the Parody Master’s empire.” “As much as half the PM’s war machine might have been damaged,” AG offered. “So we’re only outnumbered ten thousand to one now,” CV editorialised. “But we think the Parody Master somehow struck back at the Hood,” Lee Bookman went on. “Maybe another of those Narrative Bombs that took out Arachknight City.” ManMan shuddered again. “Do we have to mention Arachknight City? It gives me the creeps every time we do a pass over where it was. There’s just something… wrong about it. Something twisted.” “Arachknight City’s a problem for another day,” Sir Mumphrey told them. “Our fourth front is the most recent, the damage Ms Shiro, Mr Bastion, and the Shoggoth did in broadcasting the Hood’s encounter with the Parody Master. It’s too early to evaluate how that revelation will be received by the people he’s conquered.” “Is it too much to hope they’ll all rise up and defy him?” Amber St Clare asked. “We could use some more allies right about now.” “And that’ll be part of our next move,” Sir Mumphrey promised them. “We’re runnin’ out of time so we’ll need to act fast.” “To rescue Hatty and Dancer and the others,” CSFB! suggested. The eccentric Englishman shook his head. “We can’t spare the resources, old chap. I’m sorry.” “I contacted Yi in the Happy Place,” the Librarian reported. “Yo’s not there.” “And I can’t sense where Hatman or Dancer are,” added Amazing Guy. “They could be shielded. Same with the Juniors.” “We can’t just abandon them!” Dreamcatcher Foxglove protested. “You know Dancer and Hatty would never…” Citizen Z laid a hand on his shoulder. “It’s the price of leadership,” she reminded him. “Having to make the hard, lethal decisions that will haunt you for the rest of your life.” “We need intelligence and resources,” Sir Mumphrey summarised. “Tomorrow I’ll be sending AG off with Mr Garrick, Contessa Romanza, and Ms St Clare to negotiate what alliances we can beyond the Celestian barrier. “I’m what?” gasped Amber. “Hey, wait…” “Talia,” frowned Trickshot. “I wuz hopin’…” “I’m sure you were,” snickered ManMan. “I’ll be askin’ Gary and D’ur to head back out to the galactic rim to investigate more badness that Amazing Guy has sensed gathering out there,” Mumphrey went on. “Bad enough to keep nagging at me like a toothache,” AG worried. “I’ll also be callin’ for volunteers for a foray into the transdimensional vortex with the Shoggoth,” the eccentric Englishman told them. “We’ll be makin’ a stab at discovering that secret weapon that’s been prophesied to change the course of the Parody War, the one the PM’s been searchin’ out for months.” “The Doomherald said that the PM believed that Al B. had had personal contact with it,” Yuki remembered. “I’d send him then,” Citizen Z suggested. Sir Mumphrey pushed on. “Finally, after all this time, we still don’t know the origin of the Parody Master, or what his purpose was, or how he can do what he does. We need to understand our enemy to defeat him. Mister Bookman, that’ll be your task.” “I’ll head back to the Moon Public Library at once,” the Librarian promised. “I need to check up on D.D. and A.L.F.RED anyhow.” “Sounds like we have a plan, then,” CSFB! called, clapping his hands together. “And if we can find ways of adding in the rescue of our buddies I wanna hear any and all ideas you might have. So let’s go do good stuff, people! Lair Legion Un-Line Up!” “He’s so inspiring,” Citizen Z told Mr Epitome. Gamma Ray Gary held back. “If we are to remain on your world and recover for one solar cycle,” he ventured, “perhaps it would be possible for me to visit my old comrade Donar Oldmanson. We are linked together through shared danger and the blessings of the All-Pappy. I would like to see him while I sojourn on Earth.” “I’ll take you to him,” Beth Shellett offered. “But I think I’d better warn you about his condition…” On the big TV, Buffy was confronting Angelus for the last time. The man she loved had become something wrong and she had to end him. On the sofa in front of the screen Donar Oldmanson stared blankly and dribbled his cereal down his chin. “Come on,” Annj coaxed him. “Swallow. Please swallow.” The prince of Ausgard didn’t respond to her. The food oozed into his beard to join the drool. Gamma Ray Gary stood stricken in the doorway. “What… what is this?” The nurse who was aiding Queen Annj feed her husband didn’t seem bothered by the horse-headed alien in the spacesuit. Then again, she’d been frisked by a bipedal hippo. “The patient received a serious head trauma in battle,” she summarised. “A human would have died from having their skull cracked open and their brains splattered across the landscape. Ausgardians are tougher than that.” “But not tough enough,” Annj said, suppressing a sob. She stroked Donar’s cheek. “Look, beloved, Gamma Ray Gary has come to see you. Please look.” Donar didn’t respond. “You know of me, my lady?” Gary asked. The woman was dressed in human clothes but there was something about her that suggested she was something more. “For a few months I was Ausgard,” Annj explained. “Even now I can sense the Oldmanpower in you. My husband has spoken of Gary and Ljouis. Figuring the rest wasn’t hard.” She rose from kneeling beside her husband and went over to the alien. “I am Annj, Donar’s wife.” “Well met, my lady,” Gary responded. “This is my companion-in-arms D’Ur Acell, of the newly reformed Yellow Flashlight Corps.” “Hey there,” D’Ur acknowledged. “Do you mind if my flashlight scans Donar.” “Will it involve rectal probes?” the nurse asked. “Only those are the worst. Try holding down a struggling Ausgardian for that.” The Flashlight shook his head and scanned Donar with his beam. He winced. “Oh, that’s… not good,” he admitted. “I’m sorry Lady Annj. I’m not picking up any brain activity at all. His body’s repairing itself, but…” “He was most grievously wounded,” Annj confessed. “Of all the heroes who went to face the Parody Master only NTU-150 and Lisa fared worse. In these few days he has grown back half of his skull.” “But not his mind,” Gary shuddered. “This is most distressing.” “Speaking of,” the nurse announced, “I’m going to have to ask you all to step outside the room for a minute. As you might be able to smell, it’s time to change the patient’s diaper.” Annj winced. “I’ll stay and help,” she offered. “Not this time,” the nurse replied. “I get paid for this. Danger money. You talk with the patient’s friends while I get the job done.” “Come, my lady,” Gary offered. “Donar is my friend. He would want us to speak of him. Let us pass the time with words of happier occasions when he did deeds of glory.” Annj bit her lip and let Gary and D’Ur shepherd her from the room. The nurse shut the door and chuckled. “Well, you are a proper mess, aren’t you,” she said to Donar as he slumped on the sofa. “Stay right as you are while I get some snapshots for the tabloids. Best to let the whole world see what you’ve become, even more brainless than before, you pathetic drooling waste of meat.” The nurse snapped some choice shots of Donar dribbling and slipped the camera back into her cleavage. “Well, now we’ll move on to the sticking you with needles part of our therapy,” she suggested. “You know, I can’t remember the last time I had this much fun, brother.” “I don’t know that I can cope with this,” CrazySugarFreakBoy! admitted, looking at the mountain of paperwork on Hatman’s desk. It had been neatly filed in a series of plastic trays until he’d arrived ten minutes ago. “Or me,” admitted Amber St Clare. “Those are security readiness reports that you’re using to mop up your Jolt.” “There’s a special form to mop cola?” CSFB! despaired. Amber whimpered. Dreamcatcher Kokopelli Foxglove gestured helplessly to the forms. “Are you sure all of this stuff is necessary to do superheroing nowadays. What happened to just webbing the villains to a lamp-post?” “Chain of evidence and proper procedure,” Citizen Z chipped in. “And not being nine years old.” “If it helps,” chipped in the Manga Shoggoth, “I could devise a new form of filing system. That way all the files for the next few years could be put away together right now.” “No, that’s okay,” Amber said quickly. “Really.” “It’s no trouble,” the Shoggoth persisted. “I, um, don’t think we can find the right form for you to take that on with,” Amber fabricated fast. “I think it got Jolted.” “What’s the point of these health and safety statements?” CSFB! continued, shuddering back as if he was Christopher Lee encountering Peter Cushing with a cross. “We’re adventurers. It’s not healthy or safe. Can’t we just write ‘Read some comics, doofus’ all across them?” “I’ll see if Hatman left any crayons in his desk, shall I?” CV offered. “Ack! Can’t we just go bash the PM?” CrazySugarFreakBoy! demanded. “Or at least rescue our friends?” “Sir Mumphrey needs this paperwork by lunchtime,” Amber insisted, invoking a higher authority. “Otherwise there might be dry British cynicism,” Citizen Z warned. “And possible humphing.” “It might help if you simply absorb the documents through your epidermis and excrete the completed versions,” advised the Shoggoth. “That is how I do all of my reports.” Amber surreptitiously knocked one file into the trash bin. CrazySugarFreakBoy! stood up and backed away from the terrifying desk. “Look, I’m deputy leader, right? Acting leader till we save Hatty…” “You realise the chances ever rescuing Jay are pretty small, right?” Amber checked. “Until we save Hatty,” CSFB! emphasised. “So I get to decide what paperwork gets done, and by who.” “If you’d appointed an acting deputy you could perhaps delegate,” Citizen Z agreed. “But so far you haven’t. I’ve done what I can to help out in an unofficial capacity, of course, but…” The wired wonder turned to her. “You want the paperwork? Fine. Have it. Be acting deputy.” “Er, technically CV’s still a probationary member…” Amber ventured. “Acting deputy,” CSFB! insisted. “Give her the damned files. Or let Shoggy eat them. Or burn them. I don’t care.” He turned to leave the room. “I’m going down to see how G-Eyed is. That’s worth doing.” Citizen Z waited until he’d gone than sat behind Hatman’s desk. “Well,” she said, “it seems like we have a lot of work to do.” “Put the filing cabinet down,” Amber told the Shoggoth, “and back away.” It was a fearsome machine, and it possessed the ability to incinerate with invisible rays. It squatted in the corner, its blank façade mocking and intimidating. Flanking it were yet more bizarre mechanisms, each one more dangerous and terrifying than the last. Blades that sliced, surfaces that burned, presses that crushed. Marie Murcheson clutched the bowl in her hands and forced herself to approach the microwave. “It’s okay,” ManMan told her from the doorway. “The NTU-matic became unstable after some problem with the nuclear core so we shipped it over to Visionary’s lighthouse. That’s just a regular model.” Marie jumped and almost dropped her soup dish. “Sorry” she said. “I didn’t know anyone was here.” “Nobody important,” Knifey assured the young woman. “Only Joe.” The resurrected Lair Banshee didn’t seem comforted. She’d been born in 1840 and had been murdered before she’d turned twenty. The modern world was as alien as a different planet to her. “I’m sorry to get in your way, Mr Pepper,” she blushed. “I’ll come back later.” “It’s okay,” the Elvis impersonating Legionnaire assured her. “Everyone’s allowed to use the kitchen. And if you wait for a time when I’m not hanging around the refrigerator then you’ll be hungry for a long long while.” Marie glanced uncertainly at the exit, but Joe was blocking the doorway. “She’s unchaperoned,” Knifey explained to his wielder. “She’s not used to being alone unsupervised with young men.” Marie blushed deeper. “I’m still getting accustomed to the… the twenty-first century,” she admitted. “It’s not just the kitchen utensils. Everything is so different.” She seemed on the verge of tears. Joe quickly shifted out of the way so she could flee if she wanted to, then popped open the door to the microwave for her. “Nothing like a nice can of soup on a cold day,” he assured her. Marie looked stricken. “I made this,” she confessed. “There were some root vegetables in the rack and I found a chopping board and…” her voice trailed off. “I cleaned everything up afterwards.” “Ah, proper soup,” Knifey said reassuringly. “Better than anything you’ll find in tin cans, eh Joe?” “For sure. I’m envious,” ManMan joined in. “You can have it,” Marie said quickly. “Please.” Joe perched himself on a breakfast stool. “I’m not here to steal your lunch,” he promised. “Although it looks great. Are you staying at the Mansion? You could be Lair Cook.” He saw at once that he’d blundered into another difficult area. “I suppose I should look for a domestic position,” Marie confessed. “I cannot stay here as a burden on Sir Mumphrey forever. I suppose my knowledge is somewhat out of date to find a position as a governess or nanny, but I know little about life below stairs either so…” “You’re very welcome here as a guest,” Knifey assured her. “After all, you’ve lived here longer than anybody. Well, not exactly lived.” “My time as a banshee haunting this house is nothing but a blur to me,” the girl confessed. “Mostly I wasn’t even aware, except when somebody of the household died. Then I wept.” “Well I’d say the Legion owes you big time for your years of protecting them,” ManMan argued. “So we’re not going to toss you out on the streets now you’re alive again.” Marie carefully dialled the setting of the Lair Microwave and stepped back quickly as it began to hum. “I was there when you were murdered,” Joe confessed a little awkwardly. “Well, not actually there, but nearby. Some of us got zapped back into the bodies of some of the people who were involved then. I ended up in Blanchford Bertram, one of the old League of Improbable Gentlemen. We tried to save you.” “I know,” Marie assured him. “Dancer was sharing my mind at the time. I think I would have gone mad without her when my fiancée offered me up as a sacrifice to that monstrous elder thing.” “It was a fairly major beech of etiquette on Leyland Reed’s part to offer Marie up to Shabba’Dhabba’Dhu anyhow,” pointed out Knifey. “But we failed,” Joe concluded. “You died in silence and became the Lair Banshee. I’m so sorry.” Marie started again as the microwave timer pinged to signal her soup was ready. “The twenty-first century can be a bit confusing,” Knifey admitted, “but it has it’s wonders too.” Marie brightened a little. “I have glimpsed them,” she confessed. “There was one strange moment when I found myself… returned. I spent a day here in the Mansion, and exploring the city, with Flapjack.” “You poor kid,” Joe sympathised. “Oh, it was wonderful!” Marie told him. Her face glowed with happiness for a moment. “But it was very brief.” “Have you been out of the Mansion since you woke up from your coma?” ManMan wondered. “Would you like to see the sights, get to know your new home?” Marie flushed. “Doctor Whitwell says I am now well on my way to recovery,” she admitted. “I have been walking in the gardens and taking promenades along the cliffs.” “So you’ve not even seen a movie, or eaten at the Twin Parody Tower, or flown in a LairJet?” Joe checked. “We can fix that.” “Really?” Marie’s smile faltered a little. “I don’t know, though. I’m not…” “I count as a chaperone,” Knifey promised. “You’d be amazed how many of Joe’s dates I’ve ruined.” “Let me show you round,” Joe Pepper offered. “It’s the least I can do.” “Well then,” Marie conceded with a little courtesy, “thank you very much.” They were interrupted by the kitchen door slamming as Flapjack stormed away. The Willingham Museum of Curiosities was closed. Its only staff member was dead. Asil Ashling fumbled with the keys because her hands were trembling. The morning was bitter cold with an Atlantic chill but that wasn’t why she shivered. She finally coaxed the sticky door on the old townhouse to open and she ventured inside. The house had been converted into a display area. Every corner was crammed with oddities: collections of scrimshaw, fishing prints, cases of geological specimens, antique whaling kit, a wooden Indian, a camera obscura, two stuffed marlins, a glove that once belonged to Paul Revere. And packed in on the shelves and hidden in the crannies all kinds of strange and fascinating treasures: a set of J.L Magee’s political cartoons, some poetry written by George Brinton McClellan, a first edition of Uncle Tom’s Cabin, a soapstone representation of the Statue of Liberty. And all of it was labelled in neat scholarly copperplate handwriting by its curator, George William Gedney; by it’s former creator. Asil put the keys down on the desk near the door. The old sea-table was still crowded with letters and books, the accounts ledger listing entries to the museum for last week (seven visitors), papers and catalogues from all over the world. There was a small framed photograph of Asil clipped from a larger publicity still of Sir Mumphrey Wilton meeting Queen Elizabeth II. Asil had promised herself that she wouldn’t cry. She’d lied. The clocks had run down. There was a big grandmother longcase that had once belonged to Cornelius Vanderbilt and a wallclock that had been designed by Leyland Reed and an early sea-clock by John Harrison himself. George would have hated that they’d been allowed to stop. But George was dead. He’s never wind the clocks again. Asil looked for the keys but she didn’t know where they were. She’d never bothered to find out. She was surrounded by things that George had thought important, found fascinating, but she’d never stopped to hear their stories. George’s college scarf was draped on the back of his chair. Asil seized it up and smelled it then buried her face in it as she sobbed. “Hey,” came a soft voice from the doorway. Asil whirled round guiltily and found Visionary peering in. “Oh!” she gulped, trying to hide her blotchy face. “I was just…” “Hallie told me you’d come to Willingham,” Visionary explained. “To help pack up George’s things to send to his family. It didn’t sound like the kind of thing you should have to do alone.” “I’m fine,” Asil lied. “You’re too busy to have to do this with me. You have responsibilities.” “Looking after you is one of them.” Asil didn’t know what to do next. She wanted to howl. She wanted to collapse. She wanted to hit something. She wanted a hug. Visionary hugged her. After a moment she squeezed him very tight and began to sob. In Death Valley the heat-haze rippled up off the black and gunmetal grey bulk of a city-sized machine of war that rested there. The desolate plain, completely flat except for the distant Armagosa Range, only emphasised the malevolent mass of the Cruel Deceiver, the dimensional dreadnaught that had defected from the Parody Master’s fleet to serve the Hooded Hood. The red sports car that drove over the Mohave Desert towards it seemed tiny by comparison with everything else in the landscape. “’Tis unnatural,” complained sergeant Argus MacHarridian, security officer to the Lair Legion, and incidentally a Detonator Hippo. “That would be because it is a ten mile long weapon of planetary destruction with enough firepower to crack a continental plate,” Miss Framlicker pointed out. The kilted land mammal snorted disdainfully at the dreadnaught. “Not yon thingie. The weather. All this sun is nae natural. Give me a Glasgow drizzle any day.” “Explain to me again why having a bipedal hippopotamus with us is going to keep us safe if the Cruel Deceiver decides to make us toast,” Amy Aston asked the sports car’s driver, Al B. Harper. “Ah’m here tae add glamour to the expedition,” Argus explained with a winning smile. “If that dreadnaught decided to attack there’s probably nothing left on the planet that could stop it before it wiped out half the country,” Al B. comforted his passengers. “But they stood down and accepted a truce. Now we get to do a technical assessment based on the terms of the agreement.” “Assess what?” Amy objected. “How dead they can make us?” “Ach, they’re nae so tough, lassie,” MacHarridan assured the overall-clad engineer. “Mah brother and the boys took one down just wi’ a few wee detonations in their nuclear core.” Miss Framlicker tapped Argus on his shoulder. “You might want to remember that while Detonator Hippos can explode and reform, us non-detonator humans can’t. Try to restrain yourself.” “They’re lowering an access ramp for us to drive in,” Al pointed out. “Here goes.” The Knights Improbablar had been billeted at the old Paradopolis Variety Theatre. The war-mages and battle-telepaths of the Esperine had elected to use the cellars and caves beneath the rotting old landmark. It had been a crowded arrangement leading to a good deal of friction between two factions who had until recently been a war with each other. Now there was an exhausted truce, and after the foray into the conceptual realm overcrowding was no longer a problem. The Knights kept good watch as they’d been taught during their eight years of squire training, maintaining the firm discipline set by Knight Commander Jados de Jaboz in the Swordrealms and here on Earth by his oldest surviving son Sir John. And after three years of brutal unrelenting war with the occult world of Esperine one thing they could spot was a witch. “Out of my way,” said Hagatha Darkness. “I’m here to see the girl Lileblanche.” “Madam, the Princess of Elsinore is not…” “I am here to see Lileblanche.” The old witch of Covenant House had a stare that could burn through steel. “Fetch someone with authority and wit to comply with my demand.” The watch commander was meeting with Sir John himself to reorder duty rosters given the fifty percent losses of the recent battle; so it was the Captain of the Knights Improbablar in person who answered Hagatha’s summons. “John de Jaboz,” he introduced himself. “Whom do I have the pleasure of encountering?” “It’s not a pleasure,” Hagatha told him. “And I’m not here to see an alternate-universe whelp of Jay Boaz’s either. I’ve come for Lileblanche.” “I’m afraid you’ll need to explain yourself a little more, madam. You’ll understand that not everyone who would visit can be accommodated, but if you could explain something of you reasons…” “Hmph. Polite, like him. Annoyingly noble, like him. Your divergent world breed true, it seems.” Hagatha didn’t seem to like the Knight Commander. “You will fetch Lileblanche because I would see her. I am Hagatha Darkness, grandmother of Whitney Darkness, whose Esperine alternate version I believe to be your precious princess’ mother. Your princess is my kin, and I will see her now.” “Get me those secure files on my desk for 1400 and make sure I have the override codes to the international exotic weapons arsenals by then as well,” Citizen Z instructed Amber as she exited the deputy-leader’s office. “I’m taking a brief comfort break and then I’ll want to issue some standing orders.” She closed the door and headed off towards the entrance hall and main staircase. “I could use a comfort break as well,” Silicone Sally complained. The rubber supervillain was still playing the role of Citizen Z’s all-over jumpsuit. “Did you have to eat nachos last night?” “Shut up!” the Baroness (inside the Citizen Z disguise) said hastily as she noticed the twins coming down the stairs. “I mean, hello Visionary’s adorable little children. My, how you’ve grown.” Magweed and Griffin stood aside as the Legionnaire swept past them. “You too,” Griff told her innocently. The children continued downstairs until they came to the moving panel that allowed them access to the hidden room they’d adopted as their headquarters. Samantha Featherstone was already waiting for them in the secret garret. “Well?” Sir Mumphrey’s granddaughter asked Visionary’s twins. “Magweed can sense people’s true hearts. What did you get from Citizen Z?” Mr Epitome hadn’t expected to run into Colonel Dan Drury. From the SPUD Director’s increased respiration, heartbeat, and adrenaline levels he hadn’t been planning on a meeting with the paragon of power either. “Well, fancy meeting you here,” Drury growled. “Fancy,” Dominic Clancy replied. They eyed each other cautiously across the reception area of the Phantomhawk Memorial Hospital. Visitors and staff bustled and crowded around then, unaware that the former Director of the Office of Paranormal Security and the current Director of the Super-menace Principal Undercover Directorate had a history of mistrust that left them extremely wary of each other. Epitome still had Drury on his list of people who might have blacked out years of his memories a while ago. “So what brings you out of the glamorous luxury of the mighty Lair Mansion on stately Parody Island?” Drury asked. “Same as you, I guess,” Clancy answered. “The men and women crowding these halls fought and bled for their country. I’m here to visit them.” Drury gave a grudging nod of agreement. “They did that. Uniformed and civilian, they fought the good fight. Someone’s gotta look out for them.” The two men fell into step beside each other as they took the stairs to the first casualty ward. All the hospitals for five counties were packed out with the casualties from the recent foray into the conceptual realm. “I heard that the administration is reviewing how much compensation they can offer to veterans of the battle and to families who lost breadwinners,” Epitome noted. “Both the peaceniks and the budgethawks are trying to limit the government’s liabilities.” “We never had this many casualties before,” Drury reasoned. “But I think a few senators’ll be thinking again after my boys get done reviewing the situation.” “Blackmail?” Epitome asked, showing neither approval or disapproval. “Context,” countered Drury. “And we’ve found a few anonymous benefactors what’ll help top up the pot.” “That’d be from private accounts created by BALD and HERPES in the Caymans and transferred to Kuwait yesterday,” Epitome suggested. “Do they know yet that they made donations?” “Not if the Contessa did her usual efficient job,” Drury admitted. “Besides, these guys need is greater than theirs. Don’t tell me you never pulled a black op.” “I’ve contacted a few wealthy patriots today,” Mr Epitome conceded. “And reminded some others that I have x-ray vision.” Drury snorted. “If only you weren’t such a scheming horse’s ass you’d be an okay joe,” he admitted. “If you weren’t an outdated liberal empire-builder with abominable taste in cigars you’d be fine too,” Epitome responded. Drury paused by the door to a private room. “Well here’s where I get off,” he said. Clancy scanned the room by reflex. “Spirodon Stephanides Papadopolis,” he recognised. “He saved your life.” “An’ damn near lost his,” Drury agreed. “It’s still touch an’ go. They had to take his arm off. They’re working to save his leg.” He snorted angrily. “A little Greek coffee-shop owner takin’ on the Parody Master.” “He did as well as you did,” Mr Epitome pointed out. “Or me.” Drury nodded. “He only woke up one time, last night,” the SPUD director confided. “Nurse O’Mercy was there. He wuz lucid enough to know how bad he wuz hurt. He knew he’d been crippled.” “How did he take it?” “He said he was proud to give an arm to fight for his world. If the Parody Master came back for more he’d be ready to take his place to stop him. He still had three more limbs.” Mr Epitome stood straighter. “We cannot fail men like that,” he told Dan Drury. “We must not fail them.” “Damn straight,” the one-eyed spymaster replied. There was nothing else to say. “Bry?” called out CrazySugarFreakBoy! as he descended through the labyrinth of caves beneath the Lair Mansion to where Goldeneyed was trapped in a dimensional doorway. “You wouldn’t believe the kind of crap they’re trying to foist on me today.” There was no answer. Bry Katz lay slumped in the doorway, the extraplanar energies still coursing through his frame as they had done in all the months since the Parody War began. Goldeneyed twitched occasionally but otherwise lay still. “Bry!” CSFB! called, bounding towards him to start the CPR. “So this is Earth,” Kat Allen announced, sweeping her arm around the cityscape as it appeared from Parody Plaza. “Specifically the metropolis of Paradopolis, the largest city in the United States of America.” “It is very fine,” D’Ur Acell told her. “I especially like the monorail. Since I got my Flashlight I never get to go on monorails.” Gary was still distracted by thoughts of Donar. “Tis wonderful,” he said absently. Then he gloomily added, “The bustle reminds me of my own homeworld, before it and my people were all destroyed.” “Er, right.” Kat tried to remain upbeat. “I have a little shop about five blocks over in that direction. I spin lace. But for now I thought I’d take you to one of our local landmarks, a favourite hang-out of the city’s heroes. We call it the Bean and Donut. Come and meet Shep.” Gary and D’Ur allowed themselves to be herded over to the little diner round the corner from the glittering plaza. Only Mr Papadapopolis’ 30-year rent-controlled lease allowed him to keep operating so close to the most expensive real estate in the city, but the little old-style coffee shop was a popular venue amongst those in the know. Kat pushed open the door. Gary swung round suspiciously as the bell jangled. The diner was quite empty for just after lunch, and Sarah Shepherdson wasn’t behind the counter. “Hi,” Tandi called to them from beside the cappuccino machine. “What can I get you?” “Can you guys drink coffee?” Kat checked. She felt suddenly out of her depth tour-guiding two beings from distant planets around Paradopolis. “Three grand lattés please.” The attractive redhead nodded, stuck her tongue out with concentration, and worked the machine. “That girl is a robot,” D’Ur noted, consulting his flashlight ring again. “Robo-American,” Tandi corrected him. “I was made in America.” She thought about her origins as a sexbot. “Quite a lot of times,” she added with a sigh. “You’re the girl Hallie was working with,” Kat recognised. “The one who did the robot rights leaflet.” “Sure,” agreed Tandi. “Hallie was the one who sent me down here to ask if the waitress knew where I could get a job. But the waitress hadn’t turned up for days and the new manager said she was fired and I could try out behind the counter.” “Her misfortune was surely your good luck,” Gary suggested. He was trying to figure a way to drink the coffee through his horse’s jaws. Tandi didn’t seem so sure. “I don’t think I’ll last here,” she admitted. “The old proprietor was apparently a real sweetie, but his son’s in charge now and frankly he’s kind of grabby. If he brushes against my butt one more time I may have to throw him through the plate glass window.” “I don’t think that would be a good idea,” D’Ur cautioned her. “Fine. Go let him fondle your body parts,” Tandi told the Flashlight. “I’m so over crap like that. I’m more than my programming, you know.” D’Ur scanned Christiano Papadapopolis as he emerged from the back storeroom. “He seems not to be a metahuman threat,” he reported. “Although it’s hard to tell. The Earth has so many divergent species. There are baseline humans like Katarina here and the grabby manager, robots like…” (he read her nametag) “Tandi, Ausgardians like Donar, Lady Annj and that nurse…” “Wait a minute,” Kat interrupted. “The nurse? Donar’s nurse is an Ausgardian?” D’Ur checked his power ring. “Why yes,” he replied. “Shouldn’t she be?” Gamma Ray Gary rose up suddenly, smashing the booth to splinters as he dragged Ljouis from his waistband. “Foul deception is afoot!” he thundered. “My fallen friend needs our urgent aid. Let nothing come stand in the way of his succour.” “Um, you kind of have to pay for the table,” Tandi winced. “I’m sorry about everything,” Vizh told Asil. “About Lisa, about George.” “L-lisa was a doody head,” Asil said, muffled in Visionary’s shoulder, “but she was my doody head.” “She was proud of you,” Vizh promised. “Proud of what you’d become. I think she saw you as what she’d have been like with a different start.” Asil was cloned from Lisa. “I’m glad we finally got to talk with each other, me and her,” the girl admitted. “I wish I could say the same about G-george.” “George? You and he were talking all the time,” Visionary argued. “He was always coming round to show you what he’d…” Then he caught up. “Ah. You mean talked.” It was almost too terrible to say out loud. “He liked me,” Asil confessed. “I think he really liked me. He went to the Mythlands for me. He fought a dragon for me.” “That’s got to turn any girl’s head,” the possibly fake man admitted. “The night before he went to the conceptual plane, the party night… he wanted to dance with me.” “Well, it’s good that he got to dance with someone he loved before he went off to war,” Vizh comforted Asil. He knew from the way she stiffened in his arms that he'd misspoken. “I didn’t dance with him. He told me that he loved me and I… I ran away. I left him there, on the street. I never saw him again.” Vizh felt the chill shudder through him now. “Oh. I see.” “I never told him that I… I liked him too, Vizh. He went off to die and I never kissed him goodbye. He stood against the Parody Master to save everybody and he never knew that… I should have kissed him goodbye.” “There are always regrets,” Visionary told her. “Every time we lose someone. Things we wanted to say but never got round to it. Stuff we intended to do together. The brief time I spent with Pricilla wasn’t enough to say and do everything, but who knew it would be so limited? All the time Cheryl and I had together and I still think of stuff we always meant to get round to.” He stroked Asil’s hair. “There are always things left unsaid, thing we wish we’d done.” Asil wasn’t letting herself take comfort. “I hate myself,” she confessed. “I hate Mumphrey for giving him the Chronometer, laying that awful burden on him. I hate you.” Vizh felt he’d been punched in the gut. “Me? Why?” Asil looked up and smoothed his cheek. “It’s not your fault, or Mumphrey’s. I know that in my head. It was my choices. My choice.” “What choice?” The girl shuddered again and braced herself for the confession. “When the call went out for people to go to the conceptual plane and bring back our soldiers,” she explained, “a bunch of us went down from the Lair Mansion to help in the rescue. A lot of volunteers found they ended up rescuing people linked to them, friends, family, loved ones. Or people who would become friends and family and loved ones in the future.” “Thirty years from now a whole bunch of grandkids will be getting the story about how gramps and grandma met when she pulled him out of the conceptual realm,” Vizh admitted. “I don’t know quite how it worked,” Asil admitted, “but when I stepped through the portal to rescue somebody dear to me… I found you.” “And… not George.” “Not George. George died alone.” “Welcome aboard the Cruel Deceiver, Dr Harper. I am Captain Karn, commanding.” “Thanks,” Al B. said. “You, um, know why we’ve come, then. To catalogue your arsenal and assess its capabilities. As per your agreement with us.” “Of course. As we told your leader, having made our decision we are willing to co-operate within the limits of self-interest. We intend no hostile action against you unless the Hooded Hood requires it.” Miss Framlicker winced. “So you really did pick the Hood to follow instead of the Parody Master. You wouldn’t consider teaming up with, say, the Lair Legion?” Karn shook his head. “The Hooded Hood was quite convincing. He revealed to us the likely consequences of the Parody Master triumphing in his campaign, why it would be better to turn freelance, and how it could be accomplished without us being destroyed. A very clever, well-thought plan, really. But until the Hooded Hood deploys us we are content to negotiate with your world government and remain grounded here.” “If you’re playing so nice why are we surrounded by people with guns?” Amy demanded. Captain Karn chuckled. “If I wasn’t playing nice as you put it those people would have used the guns already.” “An’ then things would ha’ got a tad messy,” Argus MacHarridan contributed. “Just sayin, is all.” “Do these people know yet that the Hood’s vanished?” Miss F demanded of Al B. in an urgent whisper. “Let’s not tell them,” the archscientist suggested. He clapped his hands together and beamed at the men with guns. “Well, if we could start by cataloguing the transnuclear weapons…” he suggested. Amber St Clare stormed into the Lair Kitchen, banging the door open so it bounced back and almost hit her again. “I never signed up to go to alien planets,” she snorted, rummaging in the breadbin for some bread for toast. Flapjack was already at the work surface, hitting vegetables with a carving knife. “I take pride in my work,” he complained. “It’s not shoddy, slapdash, bodge-it fix-in-in-three-or-four-days stuff. Some of my repairs can take weeks, even months!” “‘It’ll be good for your career,’ they told me,” Amber vented. “They never mentioned the constant political pressures from fifteen government departments all wanting different things from the Lair Legion. Nobody briefed me on being chased by the Hellraisers while my co-workers got shredded around me, or having a mind-control brand seared onto my chest!” “And it’s not like Mr I-have-a-talking-knife is so brilliant a janitor anyway. So he can unblock a u-bend, big deal! He thinks he can just come in here and steal my job with his womanising Elvis-impersonating ways?” “And now the whole Mansion’s like some kind of military barracks. You know how many times I’ve been hit on by soldiers just today? And always with the same cheesy lines and crude come-ons.” “I was taking care of Marie. How many times did he visit her while she was in a coma? But suddenly she’s up and about, all beautiful and innocent it’s all ‘Oh, I’ll show you the city, darling. Here, let me fondle you into your coat.’” “I don’t speak alien. I don’t have a briefing book. Why should I get crammed through a Celestian barrier that keeps out even the flaming Parody Master? I mean, has anybody checked the safety record of Al Harper’s damned equipment anyway?” “He thinks he can just sweep in there and take advantage because Marie’s all sweet and wonderful. She can’t spot a vile seducer for what he is with his shiny medallion and his glittery rhinestones. I could look like a poofy geek as well if I wanted to. Well, he’s going to find that he’s bitten off more than he can chew. We Carpathian Flapjacks are nobody’s doormats. Unless our master commands us to be,” “What, the Legion woke up this morning and thought, ‘Hmm, Amber’s not had enough chances to get slaughtered this week, let’s send her to Astrovidia and New Skree Lump’?” “Well I’m not going to take it any more!” Flapjack promised. “Well I’m not going to take it any more,” Amber asserted. The paused and noticed each other. “Sorry, what?” Amber blinked. “Eh?” asked Flapjack. Amber looked down at the shredded loaf of bread in her hands. It wasn’t going to be toast. It might be bread pudding with a little work. “Er, I was just getting my lunch ready,” she said sheepishly. “You?” Flapjack went back to his chopping. “I’m just making soup,” he answered darkly. “ManMan likes Marie’s soup apparently. So this is for him.” “That’s, er, very thoughtful,” Amber observed. “I’ve thought about it plenty,” agreed Flapjack with a nasty leer. “I hope he likes the special ingredient. Shame his bathroom toilet’s got all blocked. He might need it.” Lileblanche was psionic. She had low-grade telepathic abilities but high-range telekinetic capacity; and she had been raised in a society that drew no distinctions between psionic gifts and magic, save that one came from energies drawn from the mind and the other from power taken from elsewhere. But she could sense a witch, and she could feel Hagatha coming like a storm. “So you are my alternate-reality great-granddaughter,” the gaunt old woman noted, raising a lorgnette to examine the blonde princess before her. “So it appears,” Lileblanche admitted. “I never knew my own family beyond my mother. I believe my great-grandmother was torn apart by demons.” “Fortunately I am of stronger stuff,” Hagatha told her. She reached out and tilted the girl’s face back and forth. “Whitney was your mother. Who fathered you?” Lileblanche jerked her head away from the witch’s talon. “Not a Demon Lover,” she riposted with a malicious glare. “A prince of the East. My sister’s father was Hermes Vermysteriis, but I was begotten by the Caliph de Clement. My mother was quite besotted with him for a while. I never met him, although I have seen his portrait both in Elsinore and here in your Lair Mansion.” “It’s not my Mansion,” Hagatha snapped. “Not nowadays.” She looked again at the princess. “You have power, child.” “I don’t have patience though,” Lileblanche replied. “Or time for your unsubtle testing. I’m not yours to test, whatever tenuous familial relationship there might be. So let’s get past that part and go on to where you tell me what it is you want.” The Covenant Witch nodded approvingly. “You just passed the testing part, Lileblanche. As for what I want… there’s something you need to know.” Hagatha Darkness leaned in close and whispered the words that would change Lileblanche’s life. “What’s the verdict, doc?” CrazySugarFreakBoy! asked worriedly as Dr Whitwell completed his examination. “Is he okay?” The senior physician form the Phantomhawk Memorial Hospital frowned as he packed away his instruments. Bryan Katz, Goldeneyed, still lay sprawled with his head on Beth Shellet’s breast and his body cradled in her lap, muttering and staring with unfocused eyes into the middle distance. “Okay is not one of the medical terms I’d use for your comrade’s condition,” Whitwell admitted. “Extreme exhaustion, perhaps. Malnutrition. Dissociated cognitive state. But not okay.” “He was like this when we came down,” Dream explained. “Just slumped in the dimensional doorway with his arms still stretched out connecting whatever the hell circuit runs through here that powers the Celestian barrier around the Earth.” “We can’t get monitors to work down here,” Hallie explained, hovering worriedly. The Legion’s A.I. had to download herself into one of the remote holographic emitter drones to visit Bry, and even then she had to keep her visits short before her equipment malfunctioned. “There are some strange electromagnetic null-spots that I can’t quite map. There’s no way to check on Goldeneyed 24-7.” “Apart from keeping a watch,” Beth Shellett said crossly. “I don’t know where my stupid idea to help Sir Mumphrey came from. I should have been here keeping an eye on Bry.” She glanced down at the feverish man in her arms. “Is he going to be okay? Can we finally get him out of this damned door?” “He’s lost weight,” CrazySugarFreakBoy! noted. “I guess he can’t keep teleporting food into and out of himself indefinitely. Or teleporting the fatigue poisons out of his system forever.” “He’s been trapped here for over half a year,” Beth reminded them. “Surviving by willpower alone. It hurts him all the time, keeping that barrier going to keep the Parody Master out. And he said it was getting harder.” “He has burned of 15% of his body mass,” Hallie agreed. “But what choice do we have? We need the barrier, now more than ever.” “I’m giving him a shot of adrenaline and some concentrated vitamins,” Dr Whitwell told them, pulling the ampoules and syringe from his medical bag. “I don’t think there’s much else I can do for him now.” “Defenestrate,” G-Eyed mumbled. “Extradition carnivore tempest rogue.” “He’s been saying stuff like that ever since we revived him,” CSFB! puzzled. “I hope you’re memorising this, Hallie.” “It’s probably just delirium,” the A.I. replied. “But yes, I’ve got it.” “Perihelion. Incarnate Carnifax. Escalate. Impending. Nequaquam Parody.” “We have to do something for him,” Beth despaired. “He can’t last much longer.” “The day Bry can’t go on,” Dream said soberly, “is the day the human race dies.” In the Extraordinary Endeavour Enterprises converted firehouse, Al B. Harper’s son and daughter were passing the time bickering with each other, waiting for a comm-signal. And Cody was finishing a phone call. “I’m sorry, Anastasia, but it just doesn’t work like that,” Cody explained. “Just because you rescued them from the conceptual plane doesn’t mean you get to keep them. You have to give them back. Their sergeant will be worried.” “It’s a kitten thing,” Kara suggested. “They dragged them home, now they get to play with them. Could you get off the primitive communications device, already? I’m expecting a message.” Cody snorted. “Got to go, Ana. My alternate-reality pain of a sister is waiting for some kind of skank booty call. Say hi to the other kittens down at the Dojo.” “You’re calling me a skank?” Kara objected. “You have such twenty-first century morality. Besides, I’ve not even started dating in this century yet. Everyone here is so primitive.” “When you do, make sure I’m around when you tell dad. And maybe when he’s got a mouthful of cereal.” Just then the comm-screen lit up with an incoming message. Al B Harper and his bubble pipe filled the monitor. “It’s me,” he announced. “How do we know that?” Kara demanded. “You might be an evil clone or robot out to destroy the world. Increase our allowance so we know you’re really our father.” Al B. frowned. “You have allowances?” Cody shrugged. “I hacked your ATM a while back. Your PIN number’s a simple code. So, you’re not being held at gunpoint by mad Avawarriors or something?” Al B . shook his head and mentioned the codewords they’d agreed for verification. “In fact there are no Avawarriors left aboard the Cruel Deceiver,” he explained. “Avawarriors are wired so they can’t disobey the Parody Master, so any successful rebellion had to take them out. There are no Parody Cultists left either. The rebels were very... efficient.” “Do we want to know what happened to them?” asked Kara. “Basic organic recycling,” Al confided. “Soilent Green. Captain Kahn explained that they had no choice. With all the Parody priests shot there was no-one to animate the dead as necro-zombies.” Cody winced. “So you’re having a good tour,” he guessed. “If we make it through the day without Miss F or Amy savaging anyone or Argus not exploding it’ll be a miracle,” the archscientist confided. “This place is creepy and the people are creepier. I’m piping you through the data that needs translating and number crunching. Take the cost of doing it from the allowances you stole off me.” “Receiving it now,” Kara confirmed. “Wow, that’s a lot of data. We’re going to need a really big allowance hike.” “The last dreadnaught has a total computer bank wipe before we got it,” Cody remembered. “This one has all the data intact. Defence plans, tactical deployments, starcharts. This is an intelligence goldmine.” “I just wish these guys weren’t so hooked in to working for the Hooded Hood,” Al admitted. “But it seems they insist on being fanatically loyal to somebody.” “Why did they switch?” Cody wondered. “What did the Hood offer them?” “Apparently he told them what the Parody Master would do after he finally won. That convinced them.” “And what will he do?” Kara asked. “When he wins.” Al B. looked a little disconcerted. “That’s a question I really need to ask,” he admitted. Citizen Z slipped up to the top floor landing where attic rooms had been hastily cleared to cope with the massively-expanded population of the Lair Mansion. She waited until the formerly-quiet balcony was deserted then activated the security override device that isolated the cameras from Hallie’s main system. Then she opened the concealed door into the hidden extradimensional space where Heinrich Zemo’s laboratory was hidden. It made no sense to put a mad scientist’s lab atop the Lair Mansion used by Zemo’s archenemies, but presumably it was a supervillain thing. The lab had been abandoned long since, but now it was in use again by its creator’s niece, Baroness Elizabeth Dewdrop Sweetwater von Zemo. Citizen Z was just the disguise by which she manipulated the Lair Legion. “Aah, thank goodness!” gasped Silicone Sally, Beth’s pliant plastic minion and current body-sheathe. The girl peeled from the Baroness and trickled to the ground before finally reforming into her usual zaftig shape. “I swear if I stay that shape much longer I’ll forget how to be anything else.” Beth von Zemo was indifferent to her henchwoman’s suffering. “You could work on being a little more moisture-absorbent,” she critiqued. “I could drown in sweat inside of you.” “Thanks for that reminder that I need to shower for a month,” Sally complained. “This had better be the most brilliant masterplan in the history of the universe to make up for me having to be your Citizen Z outfit.” Beth wrapped a robe around herself. “Well, it might be,” she agreed modestly. “HAGGIE, how are things progressing?” There was a static fuzz then the hologram projectors around the room built up a wire-frame image of a female shape. The Heuristic Accelerated Genius Generated Intelligence Entity was one of the late Baron’s experiments, a prototype for the engram-driven computer-sentience that became Hallie. “Well, I finally managed to replicate the virtual realm hologram generator technology,” she noted with satisfaction. “With the Movie Gun,” the Baroness snapped. During recent crises Beth had managed to infiltrate HAGGIE into key systems and extract the sealed data on the weapon that could translate digital images to reality. “Well, that’s how I did the hologram stuff,” HAGGIE argued pedantically. “Really, all of Hallie’s whole repertoire derives from this one bit of technology. She’s very overrated.” “She could take over the planet though,” Silicone Sally noted. “She said so on TV.” “Anyone with a basic level of competence and access to the abilities we possess could do that,” HAGGIE scorned. “I could do it better, of course.” “You’d better,” Beth warned the A.I. “So the Movie Gun’s ready?” “Not yet. It was disassembled very thoroughly, then digitised, then the data was encrypted. I’m 70% done now, well within the time parameters I estimated for assembly and delivery. You’ll get your world domination on schedule.” “I hope so,” the Baroness scowled. “The Legion has managed to annoy the Parody Master beyond even my projections. When he comes for the Earth he won’t be very happy. I need that Movie Gun.” “So you fight off the Parody Master with it?” Sally worried. “Will that work?” “I steal Earth from under his nose by dropping it into the virtual realm,” Beth explained waspishly. “Once there I will be an absolute goddess, with the power to create or erase at will. All power will be mine and every knee shall tremble and bow.” “Except for the Lair Legion,” Sally checked. “And they’ll be planning your downfall, right?” “Sir Mumphrey Wilton will be dead, assassinated by my sleeper agent, the insipid Beth Shellett. The Legion… I really don’t expect them to survive their final encounter with the Parody Master. But if they do, well once I’m all-powerful we might have a little fun.” “I dibs Hatman,” Sally called. “Hi,” Samantha Featherstone said into the speaker of Sir Mumphrey’s office telephone. It was on old handset with a separate mouthpiece on a cord. Sam had only ever seen its like before in movies. “It’s me again.” “Hello,” answered Champagne from the other side of the world. “You’re becoming my best customer.” “Well, the fight for truth and justice and all that,” Mumphrey’s thirteen-year-old granddaughter answered. “Yes, truth and justice. Absolutely. Yes,” answered the secret international jewel thief that Sam used as a consultant information gatherer. “Very important. I know that's my top priority.” “Listen, I’m posting you some encrypted data files. I’d really like you to see what you can get from them. As quickly as you can, please. Usual rates.” “I should give you a discount. You helped me out with that list of occult experts I needed. I’m not used to clients giving information to me.” “Glad to help. But I need this data broken open. There’s things I have to understand.” “I’ll give it a go. Anything specific I should look for that might help?” Sam took a breath then took the plunge. “Look for anything that talks about Laurie Leyton or Lisette,” she answered. “Or Baroness Elizabeth von Zemo.” Hoki the Deceiver shook her head (she was shifted to female form today, but the Ausgardian god of Doing Bad Things To People And Enjoying It had been known to swing either way). “You know, there’s only so much fun to be had humiliating you when you don’t even notice it,” she told her half-brother Donar. “It was great while it lasted, but now it’s old.” Donar’s head slumped onto his shoulder. His eyes looked in different directions. “Frankly, this is a living straw death,” Hoki told him. “If I’d planned for a hundred years I couldn’t have come up with anything better than this. And because the Parody Master did it to you even the Oldman couldn’t fix you up. Let’s face it, brother, you’re a vegetable. In fact there are vegetables that make you look stupid.” Snot dribbled down the hemigod of thunder’s nose into his beard. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say you were demonstrating that you actually could have been more brain-dead than you were all those years you were blundering around fighting and carousing and being a general pain-in-the-ass.” Donar’s pants darkened again where he lost bladder control. Hoki shook her head. “So I’m going to do you a favour, brother. Something even your little queen Annj won’t do for you. Oh, and by the way, don’t think for a moment that I won’t be finding ways to comfort your grieving widow after I’ve eased you to a warrior’s death. She’s quite a hottie, and the recently bereaved are so emotionally vulnerable. Yum.” Donar’s breathing was shallow and irregular, but otherwise he just wasn’t there. Hoki pulled out a knife. “You’d recognise the steel if you still had a brain,” she noted. “The sorcerer-king Slithis forged it for me. One hundred percent guaranteed to kill a hemigod. It might hurt.” Hoki stroked Donar’s cheek. “But you deserve an ending. Not this. Not forever. So goodbye, brother. I might even miss having you around to torment.” She pressed the knife-point to Donar’s throat and smiled. The wall of the Lair Lounge burst in and Ljouis smashed into the back of her head with devastating force. “Get away from the Oldmanson!” Gamma Ray Gary screamed, following his weapon to pound Hoki into the floor. “Just get away from him!” D’ur sheathed Donar in a yellow bubble of energy to protect him from the fight. Annj came running from the kitchen as she heard the battle. Gary just kept on pounding Hoki until he felt better. It took a good long time. “So what happens?” Al B. Harper asked Captain Kahn. “If the Parody Master conquers the Parodyverse, what does he do next? What did the Hooded Hood show you?” Kahn turned round to the archscientist in disbelief. “You don’t know? Then why are you fighting against the Parody Master?” “He started it,” Amy complained. “Oh, you know, the usual,” Miss Framlicker answered. “Truth, justice, Quixotic idiocy. Sic semper tyrannis and all that stuff.” “What are we missing?” Al B. worried. Captain Kahn looked with contempt on the earth-grubbing humans. “The Parody Master draws his power, as much power as he ever requires, from the very Parodyverse itself,” he pointed out. “Within the Parodyverse that makes him unstoppable.” “We’re really working on that,” Miss F assured him. Al caught the implication of the dreadnaught captain’s words. “But outside the Parodyverse he’s vulnerable. At least not all-powerful. He’s isolated from his energy source.” “Yes,” Kahn agreed. “For now. But the Hood showed us that once he has conquered the Parodyverse, once he has taken his pleasure of it and taken vengeance on all who ever crossed him, once the Resolution War is over and the Parodyverse no longer has a use to its creators…” “Then the Parody Master will break it down to raw energy and internalise it,” Al B. calculated. “If he becomes the Parodyverse, absorbs its essence inside him, he’s no longer tied to this one little cluster of realities. He can go anywhere, any reality. New worlds to conquer. Unlimited conquest.” “If the PM wins he destroy the Parodyverse?” Amy summarised. “Why has nobody mentioned this up to now?” “When we saw the truth of it, saw what our own fates would be, we had to rebel,” Captain Kahn reasoned. “What else could we do?” “We need to get this info to the Legion stat,” Al B. decided. “Can we get to one of your comm-ports right away, please?” “Of course. Please follow Ensign Nergus.” Kahn waited until the visitors had left his cabin before opening the door to his inner chambers. “The inspection visit proceeds well,” he reported. “Tell the Hood’s ambassador that the Lair Legion suspects nothing.” “I’ll be sure to pass that along,” agreed Baron Otto von Zemo. “But you can just call her Baroness.” Lee Bookman manoeuvred the space-ready LairJet onto Landing Pad Chaucer of the Lunar Public Library. The rigged-out Legion vessel wasn’t as handy as the Librarian’s faithful old Galactibus but that was still parked at the Central Library on the other side of the galaxy where they didn’t like Lee very much right now. The Moon Public Library was a sprawling collection of rotunda-topped circular buildings and domes connected by linking corridors and auxiliary data storage nodes. It would have looked like a science fiction poster except that the construction was of marble and pearl as well as shining silver. The landing lights picked out the detail in the eternal night of Luna’s dark side. The landing pad sank down into the dome below, shifting the LairJet to a parking bay. Lee relaxed. It was good to be home. “Welcome back,” D.D. told him over the communicator. “We were worried.” “I was worried myself a time or two,” the Librarian admitted. “The Battle of the Conceptual Plane was… costly, to say the least. Lair Legion membership is proving to be a dangerous hobby.” He opened the exit doors and waved to A.L.F.RED, his major domo and security robot. “D.D., we’ll need to pull all the earliest Parody Master data from the expanded stacks,” Lee called out as he descended to the hangar floor. “I’m particularly interested in origin myths, theological statements, any kind of theories about who he is and where he came from. Pipe the volumes straight through to my study and make sure the coffee’s hot and black.” “There’s a problem with that, boss,” A.L.F.RED warned him. “Given the other dangers around I’m I think I can risk the caffeine,” Lee replied. “The problem is we’re under new management,” A.L.F.RED explained. Then he shot the Librarian down. There was only one way Visionary could help Asil now. The truth. “Asil… I need to tell you something.” The girl was so deep in her misery that she didn’t care how much showed now. He looked up at Vizh’s face with swollen red eyes and no hope at all. “I’ve had enough,” Vizh told her. “Enough loss, enough death. Enough watching my friends die one by one and my other friends weep for them.” “We’ve all had enough of that,” Asil agreed. “Here I am, selfishly indulging my guilt while you…” “I have a plan,” Visionary told her. “To fix things.” “Fix them?” Asil puzzled. “Vizh, you are a Great Man, but Lisa and George are dead.” “I could name you a dozen people who’ve been dead then came back to life Three dozen. I know I have been.” “But these deaths were different,” argued Asil. “Vizh, even if the Hooded Hood was around he wouldn’t be able to retcon…” “Never mind the Hood. He doesn’t have the connections I do.” The girl swallowed back her tears and frowned. “Visionary, what do you mean?” “I mean I’m the Kevin Bacon of the Parodyverse. Um, apart from the success and the money and the good looks. I’ve been everywhere and met everyone. I was the Chronicler of Stories for a day. I once headed a Pantheon of Gods.” Asil admitted this was so. “And there was that one time when we got to the hidden demiplane where the Celestian Space Robots were made, do you remember? There was a control panel that programmed them, that could command them to do pretty much anything and they’d reshape the Parodyverse for you.” “But you resisted the temptation and didn’t use it,” Asil recalled. “Right,” agreed Visionary. “But I’m going to use it this time.” Asil caught the manic gleam in her idol’s eye. “Vizh?” “I mean it. If I can get back there, get to that panel, I might be able to reactivate the Celestians. They can deal with the Parody Master, then they can sort out everything else that’s gone wrong. They can bring back Lisa and George. They can bring back everybody.” “Vizh, there was a very good reason why you didn’t succumb to that temptation last time,” Asil reminded the possibly-fake man. “One false move and you could wipe the Parodyverse.” “Whereas things are so great here now,” he scorned. “No, listen Asil. I’ve had enough. No more friends lost and weeping. No more horror and destruction. I’m going to find a way to get Lisa back.” He looked at the shocked young woman. “Are you in or out?” “How could you possibly get back there?” Asil demanded. “Last time it took a cosmic event with a century of planning by Wilbur Parody and the Hooded Hood!” “This time I have a dimensionally-displaced Lighthouse,” Visionary replied. “And an address book that I’m not afraid to use.” “It’s never going to work. It won’t be allowed. “If I don’t try it, I’ll never know.” “Sir Mumphrey would never authorise it.” “I don’t intend to ask permission. But I could use some help.” Vizh looked at the shocked Lisa-clone. “So Asil, are you with me or not?” Asil swallowed hard. “I’m with you,” she said. “I’m fully aware if the importance of this mission,” Herbert Garrick told Contessa Natalia Romanza. “And as the most senior staffer and most experienced diplomat here I should really be in charge of it.” The Contessa wasn’t impressed. She’d seen Garrick’s secret personnel dossier. “You won’t have Mr Epitome to hide behind on this journey to the stars,” she pointed out. “And I don’t think even Bad News Herb has the galactic reputation of the protector of the Parodyverse.” “Because Amazing Guy faced off against the Parody Master and only got beaten to a bloody pulp,” Amber noted sharply. “I know I feel safe.” “Hey, you’ll like Astrovidia,” Trickshot assured her. The irritating archer had come to see the Contessa off. “You like the Jetsons, right? Just ask for M’Vor and say Hi from Br’er Tricky.” Yuki had trailed along too, since she’d helped with the field briefing. “Stay to the lower levels of their artificial world,” she advised. “There’s less security there and the rebels will be able to shield you from detection.” “And if they don’t?” Amber swallowed. “This itinerary is designed to take us to places where we might be able to gather allies against the enemy,” Natalia reminded the Legion’s liaison officer. “Given the dissent after the Parody Master’s recent reverses were transmitted across the Parodyverse this is the ideal time to network various resistance movements. But it’s bound to be a little dangerous. Comes with the job.” Amber stifled a protest. What was the use? “We need to co-ordinate these alien races under a central authority,” Garrick agreed. “With Earth leadership they can…” Amazing Guy appeared in a flash of multiversal energies and flew down to the courtyard where his next transportees were waiting. “Hi folks,” he called out. “Gary and D’Ur are safely delivered. I just need a moment to catch my breath and we’ll be on our way. Pushing through that Celestian barrier takes it out of me even with Lara and Liu Xi helping out.” “We do have a schedule,” Garrick disapproved. “These negotiations will be sensitive enough without…” “Take all the time you need,” Amber interrupted. “We can come back later. Tomorrow, if you like.” AG shook his head. “I just needed a minute, that’s all. Now I can…” Then he screamed and dropped to his knees clutching his head. “AG?” Yuki called, running over to him. “Amber, alert Sir Mumphrey and Dr Whitwell. Fast.” “What’s wrong with him?” demanded Garrick. “Some kind of fit?” “AG?” Tricky called out. “Speak to me, pal.” Amazing Guy looked up, his face ashen grey. There were tears in his eyes. “He killed them,” he said in dull, flat tones. “What?” Amber puzzled. “Who killed who?” The protector of the Parodyverse had cosmic awareness. When something happened on a cosmic level he knew about it. That many deaths took vast cosmic energies. “The Parody Master. The Astrovid transmission caused rebellion across his whole dominion. He had to stop it. He was angry. So he killed them.” Yuki stared at Amazing Guy’s horrified face. “Who did he kill?” “Everyone,” AG whispered. “Every Astrovid everywhere. Billions of them. Even his wife. To send a message. He's slaughtered every single one.” Next Issue: We (and Xander) devote some attention to Liu Xi Xian and the Doomherald as they find themselves Limbo Dancing And Then: Things get grim as Hatman faces captivity in the clutches of the Parody Master. And the PM’s not in a very happy mood. Maybe that’s why the chapter’s called The Destruction of Jay Boaz. Dramatis Personae In order of appearance or reference: Knifey, ancient sentient talking blade ManMan (Joe Pepper), Knifey's Elvis-impersonating wielder, a Legionnaire CrazySugarFreakBoy! (Dreamcatcher Foxglove), acting leader of the Lair Legion NTU-150 (Jamie Bautista), former Legionnaire, currently in intensive care after battle injuries Mr Epitome (Dominic Clancy), super-powered G-Man, a Legionnaire Citizen Z (Baroness Elizabeth von Zemo, unknown to her team-mates), disguised supervillain, a Legionnaire Glory, the mutt of might, Mr Epitome’s super-powered border collie Sergeant Argus MacHarridan, a Detonator Hippo, the Lair Legion's security officer Trickshot (Carl Bastion), irritating archer, a Legionnaire newly returned from being lost offworld Yuki Shiro, cyborg P.I., a Legionnaire also newly returned from being lost offworld Hatman (Jay Boaz), captured leader of the Lair Legion, a prisoner of the Parody Master Yo, pure thought being Legionnaire, missing in action Donar Oldmanson, Ausgardian hemigod of thunder, a Legionnaire severely injured in action The Parody Master is the villain of the piece, a worlds-conquering massively powerful force of nature who has now turned his attention of capturing and being revenged upon the Earth Dancer (Sarah Shepherdson), missing Legionnaire and in her secret identity waitress at the Bean and Donut Coffee Bar The Manga Shoggoth, loathsome elder being and Legionnaire Ebony of Nubilia, high priestess of the Manga Shoggoth Gamma Ray Gary, Equinnite avenger, an alien charged up with Ausgardian power and the magic weapon Ljouis D'ur Acell, member of the newly reformed space-faring Yellow Flashlights Corps Amazing Guy (a.k.a. AG), protector of the Parodyverse, an Honorary Legionnaire Al B. Harper, archscientist and co-owner of Extraordinary Endeavour Enterprises, a Legionnaire Visionary (a.k.a. Vizh), a possibly-fake man, a Legionnaire The Librarian (Lee Bookman), keeper of the Lunar Public Library, a Legionnaire Liza Waltz, founding Legionnaire recently killed in battle with the Parody Master Asil Ashling, cloned from Lisa, administrator at the Lair Mansion Sir Mumphrey Wilton, leader of Earth's joint defence force, eccentric Englishman and former leader of the Lair Legion Amber St Clare, the Legion's government liaison officer Bethany Shellett, schoolteacher helping out around the mansion in the crisis, sometime romance interest of Goldeneyed Jury, former cosmic-office holder the Shaper of Worlds Lord War, an ally of the Parody Master recently defeated by Gamma Ray Gary and D'ur Acell in the Another Front series Gamona, the universe's deadliest assassin, out to kill the Parody Master The Hooded Hood, cowled crime-czar archvillain, currently missing Yi, pure thought being keeper of the extradimensional Happy Space Herbert P Garrick (a.k.a. Bad News Herb), Presidential Advisor on Metahuman Affairs and general pain in the backside Contessa Natalia Romanza, superspy, Trickshot's sometime romance interest. The Doomherald (Exu), the Parody Master's former lieutenant now operating freelance, previously a captive in the Lair Mansion D.D. , computer intelligence running the Lunar Public Library A.L.F.RED, robotic major domo and security officer at the Lunar Public Library Annj, (Marion Nightshade) Queen of Ausgard, Donar's wife Marie Murcheson, former Lair Banshee, recently resurrected after 147 years as a ghost Blanchford Bertram, member of the 19th Century League of Improbable Gentlemen and sometime Knifey wielder Leyland Reed, Marie's 1860 fiancée who tried to sacrifice her to an elder god Shabba'Dhabba'Dhu, the Groper Out of Grossness who sleeps beneath Paradopolis, one of the Fairly Great Old Ones Dr Whitwell, senior medical officer at the Phantomhawk Memorial Hospital Flapjack, disgusting hunchbacked butler at the Lair Mansion George Gedney, late keeper of the Willingham Museum of Curiosities, and of the Chronometer of Infinity; Asil's suitor killed by the Parody Master Hallie, artificial intelligence dwelling in the Lair Mansion computers, who can also project herself as a hologram using remote drones Miss Framlicker, sharp-tongued co-owner of Extraordinary Endeavour Enterprises (EEE) with Al B. Harper Amy Aston, hard-drinking hard-living overall-clad engineer at EEE Sir Jadoz de Jaboz, Knight Commander of the Knights Improbablar from the quasi-mediaeval alternate reality of the Swordrealms Sir John de Jaboz, son for Jadoz, leading the Swordrealms allies in the war against the Parody Master Hagatha Darkness, an ancient and powerful Covenant witch Princess Lileblanche of Elsinore, a high-range psionic from the alternate reality of Esperine, an ally in the war against the Parody Master Whitney Darkness (the Sorceress), Hagatha's grand-daughter, a former Legionnaire last seen in the Mythlands Silicone Sally (Sally Rezilient) is a rubberised shapeshifting supervillainess minion of Baroness Zemo, currently disgusied as Ctizien Z's costume Magweed is Visionary's 12-year-old daughter, gifted amongst other things with the ability to see people's "true hearts" Griffin is Visionary's 12-year-old son, Mags' twin, with the ability to become invisible and intangible Samantha Featherstone is Sir Mumphrey Wilton's grand-daughter, currently training herself for an adult life of smiting evildoers Col. Dan Drury is the Director of super-spy outfit SPUD, and recently commanded the armies in the Battle of the Conceptual Plane BALD is a high-tech enclave of renegade scientists. They wear buckets on their heads. HERPES is an international terrorist organisation. Really. Mr Spiro Papadapopolis is the proprietor of the Bean and Donut Coffee Bar, and was crippled by the Parody Master in the recent battle Grace O'Mercy, the Night Nurse, is the best ER staffer at Phantomhawk Memorial Hospital, and incidentally a vampire Cody Harper is Al B’s son by Kinki the Conqueress, possessing the gift of understanding any language Kara Harper is Al B’s daughter by Kinki the Conqueress in a different timeline, possessing the gift of mathematical brilliance Anastasia is one of three mutated Bonsai Samurai Kittens Goldeneyed (Bry Katz) is a former Legionnaire with the ability to teleport and manipulate dimensions. He's been stuck in the dimensional doorway beneath the mansion projecting the Celestian force field around Earth since the Parody War began. Katarina Allen is Mr Epitome's girlfriend and occasionally helps out round the Lair Mansion Tandi is a sentient robot, designed as a sexbot and now striking out on her own Captain Kahn is the genetically-superior commander of the defected dimensional dreadnaught Cruel Deceiver. Beware his wrath. Hermes Vermysteriis was an enigmatic wizard from the alternate realm of Esperine The Caliph de Clement is a dashing foreign prince who once swept Lileblanche's mother off her feet (and into bed to conceive Lili) HAGGIE is a Heuristic Accelerated Genius Generated Intelligence Entity, a prototype for Hallie squatting unsuspected in the hidden Zemo lab in the Lair Mansion's attics Champagne is an international jewel thief with amazing detective abilities whom Samantha uses as an external consultant Lisette (Laurie Leyton) went missing about the time Baroness von Zemo began to use her identity in her Citizen Z masquerade Hoki the Deceiver is the Ausgardian god of Dad Things, Donar's half brother or sister The Oldman or All-Pappy is the father-figure of the Ausgardian pantheon, Donar's father King Slithis is the sorcerous ruler of Miserablegitheim in the Mythlands, an ancient enemy of Donar Baron Ottokar von Zemo is the unalive grandfather of Baroness Elizabeth von Zemo (Citizen Z), an evil necromantic tyrant Chronicler of Stories is one of the three key cosmic offices, tasked with maintaining the continuity of the Parodyverse The Celestian Space Robots, massive cosmically-powered entities responsible for the maintenance of the Parodyverse, are currently damaged and offline Wilbur Parody, founder of Paradopolis and the only man to have held all three Triumverate cosmic offices at different times, plotted to capture the Celestians and rule the Parodyverse Lara Night, strange visitor from another universe, is an energy-manipulator able to temporarily create gaps in the now-weakening Celestian barrier Liu Xi Xian is a Chinese elementalist whose void-folding ability can enhance EEE’s machineries to allow occasional and brief portals through the Celestian barrier M’Vor is an Astrovidian freedom fighter who assisted Yuki and Trickshot Original concepts, characters, and situations copyright © 2007 reserved by Ian Watson. Other Parodyverse characters copyright © 2007 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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