#322: Untold Tales of the Lair Legion: Ever After
Previously: There was a Parody War. The Lair Legion defeated the Parody Master, but at a cost. A number of their members were caught in a wave of Narrative Energy and transported away to happy endings. The Manga Shoggoth was lost between dimensions, possibly destroyed. Danny Lyle was brought back from certain death only by Dancer maxxing out her powers.
And now the follow up.
Tie-ins to this story include:
Let’s Get Things Started by Visionary
Dance Dance Revolution by CrazySugarFreakBoy!
Winner and Losers Part 1 and Part 2 by Jason
Survivor’s Guilt Part 1 by Hatman
Winners and Losers Part 3 by Jason
Survivor’s Guilt Part 2 by Hatman
Winners and Losers Part 4 by Jason
***
In the days after the Parody War…
***
The high-tech defence system of Bautista Industries’ Paradopolis lab had been shredded by the damage the plant had taken during the Parody War. It was easy for Morphea to send the SPUD security patrols to sleep with her dream field, and then the Human Tractor just took down a wall so that Ghostface could sneak inside to find the equipment they’d been contracted to steal.
None of the three super-villains had any clue what the device they were after did, but they knew that Justus Screwdriver had a client who would pay each of them two million dollars for delivering it.
Ghostface used his neutraliser stare on the complicated safe lock and wrenched open the door. “This is too easy,” he smirked to Morphea. “With NTU-150 gone and since Jamie Bautista himself vanished in the last battle of the Parody War this company is wide open.”
Morphea shrugged. Little wisps of sleep-smoke coiled from her as she moved. “Bad for them, good for us.”
“Can we just get on with it?” growled the Human Tractor. “Remember the Captor’s training? We don’t stop and gloat on the job. Besides, I want to be home to see Grey’s Anatomy. I am so going to pay Katherine Heigl an unscheduled home visit one of these days.”
Ghostface lifted the Quantum Signature Resonator from its harness. “A few more jobs like this and you could just buy her outright,” he smirked. “Buy anyone you want. This town is wide open now. Wide open.”
Yuki Shiro chose that moment to flick on her torch. “Except for the Lair Legion,” she pointed out.
Ghostface dropped the Resonator on his foot and yelped.
“Sleep!” Morphea cried quickly, gesturing at the cyborg P.I.; but powers that affected human nervous systems weren’t much help against a shielded human brain in a robot body.
“Oh please,” snorted Yuki, stepping forward and carefully folding her jacket over the back of a chair so it wouldn’t get damaged. “Like you said, this is too easy.”
“You’re all alone,” argued Ghostface. “And we have devastating super-powers.”
Yuki didn’t seem that threatened.
“I can crush you into paste,” warned the Human Tractor, stepping forward with his fists clenched.
The cyborg P.I. glared at him. “Really?” She grinned nastily. “The last villain I had a fight with was called the Parody Master. Now he’s a nasty chapter in the history books. I’m still standing.” She leaned forward and asked confidentially. “Are you really sure you want to piss me off right now?”
Ghostface, Morphea, and Human Tractor exchanged nervous glances.
“We surrender?” suggested Ghostface, as the villains put their hands up.
***
In the adjoining computer laboratory, Mr Flay finished extracting encoded schematic data from the Bautistamax mainframe. Mr Skinner came back to join him.
“The young robot lady with the purple hair has just apprehended the hired felons, Mr Flay,” he reported.
“Only to be expected, Mr Skinner. She is, by all accounts, a very good detective, and they are rather stupid criminals.” He glanced up from his work. “That’s why we contracted them, Mr Skinner.”
“She has some very impressive sensory capacities as well, Mr Flay. If we were not shielding ourselves from her comprehension she would have also located us.”
“That’s why we needed those amateurs, Mr Skinner. Forensic investigation will begin in the adjoining vault. By the time anybody thinks to check this isolated database it will be too late.”
“But now we have the schematics, Mr Flay? We have the security blueprints for the Safe Metahuman Detention Facility?”
“We do indeed, Mr Skinner. The jail break can commence.”
***
Hatman tapped on the open door of Mr Epitome’s Lair Mansion office and passed inside. “I’ve finished annotating the sitrep reports,” the leader of the Lair Legion told the star-spangled splendour. “We paid a heavy butcher’s bill.”
Epitome had been finishing off the casualty lists and was speed-reading through a couple of dozen security briefings from the Office for Paranormal Security. He put down his strong Navy coffee and looked at the documents Jay Boaz had laid on his desk. “I’ve been liaising with the vets welfare associations and the Bautista Foundation. Nobody gets forgotten. Not this time.” He didn’t glance up as he added, “So you decided to stay.”
Hatman noticed that Mr Epitome was drinking out of a chipped Lair Legion mug. The handle had been broken off in the recent attack on the mansion and had been carefully reconstructed as only somebody with microscopic vision and computer-precise hand control could manage. “We could get you a new one of those,” Jay pointed out.
Mr Epitome took a sip. “I like the old one,” he responded. “I’m used to it, and there’s nothing wrong with it that couldn’t be fixed.”
“So you’re staying on with the Legion, then?” Hatman checked. “I know there was a time you had some problems…”
“Nothing wrong that couldn’t be fixed,” Dominic Clancy repeated. “Besides, we’re kind of short-handed here right now. An active field roster of you, me, Foxglove, and Yuki. Dancer?”
“Still no sign of her powers returning after she brought back Danny,” Hatman reported. “Al B’s on it, but we’ve also got him looking for the Shoggoth and Knifey and scanning for remaining Parody Master tech and a dozen other things.”
Mr Epitome frowned. “It’s bad news when we send for back-up and the best powerhouse we can field is Visionary.”
“We took some losses to save the universe,” Hatman acknowledged. “I thought this place felt quiet because all the top brass had moved out now the war’s over, but I realise now it’s because we don’t have Tricky bawling up and down the corridors.”
Epitome nudged another folder over. “Some advance reading for you from the Librarian, from before he headed off to IOL headquarters. Summary of the legal wranglings over Jamie Bautista naming the President-for-Life of a rogue nation-state as his legal executor of he vanished. Briefing on ZOXXON’s lawsuit against us for losing their proprietary Cressida biotech. Update on the prosecution’s case against Elizabeth von Zemo. And an extraordinary bunch of security documents that Bookman should not have access to regarding some top-secret debate about the shape of interplanetary diplomacy in the wake of the Parody War.”
Hatman sighed and picked up the documents. “Who’d have thought there would be so much paperwork to do after winning a war?”
Epitome shrugged. “Who’d have thought we’d win?”
***
Sir Mumphrey Wilton scooped up the pile of box files on his desk and dropped them into the waste-paper basket beside it. “There,” he approved. “Done all the necessary paperwork.”
“You can’t do that!” protested the Deputy Secretary to the United Nations. “There are procedures. Details.”
“Hmph,” snorted the eccentric Englishman. “Well, good luck with those, old chap.” He smiled over at Samantha Featherstone. “I’m takin’ my grand-daughter out for an ice-cream.”
“You’re what?” protested the Deputy Secretary.
The leader of the combined Earth defence force turned to the five-star general who was hovering in the doorway. “Oh, and you can tell all those chaps that have been having the secret meetings about how to get me to stand down now the crisis is over that they were wastin’ their time. I’ve just done it.”
***
Sarah Shepherdson smiled to herself as she pushed open the door of the Bean and Donut Coffee Bar and smelled the familiar aromas of home. “Hi guys!” she called to the regulars she recognised. “Miss me?”
“Shep!” everybody called out, milling round to great their favourite and long absent waitress. “How was the emergency waitressing mission this time?” “The double mocha whips aren’t the same without you!” “You have no idea how great it is to have you back!” “Sarah, you were right. She said yes. We’re engaged!”
The currently-depowered Probability Dancer grinned at her friends. “It’s wonderful to see you all again too. I missed you!” She spotted the cat-girl behind the counter. “Hi Violet! I see you got promoted to the day shift. Good for you!”
“Yep,” agreed the last of the feline-people. “I got seniority when Tandi lost her temper with Michael and…”
She fell silent as Michael Papadapopolis shouldered his way through the crowd to see what all the commotion was about. “What’s happening?” he demanded. He saw Sarah and his face darkened. “Oh, you.”
“Hello,” Sarah smiled at him. “How’s Mr P doing? I heard he took on the Parody Master again single-handed, just like he said he would.”
“My father’s not running things here anymore,” Michael answered roughly. “I am. He’s not in charge now.”
Sarah’s smile faded into a mild frown. “And?”
“And you don’t work here any more either. You vanished without a word for weeks on end, leaving me short-staffed. Apparently it’s not the first time you’ve pulled this kind of crap either. Then you just swan back in one day and expect everyone to welcome you back with open arms.”
“And we do,” one of the customers interrupted.
“Yes,” agreed another. “It’s great that Sarah’s here again.”
“Well I’m not a soft touch like my dad,” Michael snapped. “And I say she’s history. Fired. Terminated. Sacked. Out of here.”
Sarah had gone pale. “What?” she asked in disbelief. “Michael…”
“You’re history, bimbo,” the manager sneered at her. “Bye bye.”
“If she’s history, then so am I,” noted a customer, putting down his plate and walking out.
“Me too,” said another, throwing his napkin down and following.
“And me,” agreed a third, glaring at Michael as she left.
The acting manager watched in disbelieving horror as his diner pretty much emptied.
“I can see today’s going to be bad for tips,” Violet sighed.
“You…” Michael gasped, shaking a finger at Shep, “You emptied the place!”
“No, Micheal,” Violet replied. “She fills the place. You emptied it. Oh, and I quit.”
The proprietor stared as Violet helped herself to her due wages from the till, vaulted lithely over the counter, pulled on her coat, and left.
Sarah looked sympathetically at the acting manager. “Michael, you know Mr P wouldn’t want this. Don’t upset him and wreck his business. It’s not too late to fix this. I’m sorry I ran off like that. Just hire me again and we’ll soon get things back to normal.”
Michael was about to launch into a torrent of angry abuse when he caught himself. Instead he ran an appraising eye over Sarah’s ample curves. “Well, maybe you could convince me,” he offered, leering. “In the back room.”
Sarah’s frown returned. “I don’t think so,” she answered coldly.
“Then I don’t think you have a job, sweetheart.”
Sarah blinked back tears. “I’ll… go get my things from my flat then,” she said.
“Fine. Don’t let the door hit you on the way out.”
The last customer in the bar stood up. He was a fairly average-looking stranger with curly shoulder-length hair. “Could I just add something to the conversation?” he asked Michael.
“What?” demanded the acting manager.
The stranger punched Micheal in the face, sending him down between the booths clutching at his spurting nose. “That,” he said. “You shit.”
Dancer didn’t comment other than to drop a first aid kit onto Michael’s groin.
The stranger grabbed some napkins so Sarah could dry her face. “I’m Harry. Have dinner with me?” he asked. “Please?”
“I don’t think so,” Sarah told him. “Sorry. But the thing is I’ve just lost somebody who was… well my boyfriend I suppose and he died, in the war, and if I go out with you you’ll take me out and make me forget him for a minute and I don’t want to do that and then you’ll be all charming and I’ll go all melty and one thing will lead to another and then I’ll feel awful in the morning like I’ve betrayed his memory and that I’m exactly what people think I am and it’ll all be horrible and…”
“Hey,” Harry interrupted. “No pressure. I was just asking. I thought maybe you’d like something to eat. And if you need a shoulder to cry on, I have a choice of two.” He smiled haplessly. “So what do you think? Could you risk a burger without descending into debauchery and self-recrimination?”
Dancer considered the question carefully. “Maybe.”
“Only one way to find out,” Harry pointed out, holding the door for her. “And if you change your mind on the debauchery thing later, I’m totally fine with that too.”
***
“There are a whole bunch of advantages to my new job,” Lisa Waltz admitted to Hallie as the two of them checked the repair work to the Operations Room beneath the Lair Mansion. “I get to be more than one place at once if I want to, so I can visit with Christopher much more often. And I get to pick what kind of animals my emissaries are.”
“Jury liked goldfish for that,” Hallie noted.
“I was thinking of bodybuilders,” Lisa winked. “Of course, I’d have to take time to oil them properly, but I’m going to be one hundred percent dedicated to doing my job right.”
Hallie grinned back at her. “Of course. So will you be rebuilding the conceptual plane or what?”
The first lady of the Lair Legion shrugged. “That’ll be decided later. For now I’m going to lease some offices in St Tropez. At least for the honeymoon period.”
“The honeymoon period with the oiled bodybuilders.”
“Right. I think I’m going to like being the Destroyer of Tales. So far there’s only one downside.”
“Which is?”
The Chronicler of Stories loomed out of the shadows. “That would be me,” he said grimly. “Lisa, would you please keep that bloody cat of your under control. He’s eaten another of my ravens of destiny. Pallas is livid.”
Lisa moued. “He was just playing, probably, and your raven misunderstood.”
“Misunderstood being eaten and digested?”
“He’s a big softy really.”
“He’s a feral killing machine backed by the conjoined powers of the Celestian Space Robots and the Destroyer of Tales,” complained Chronicler. “Keep him the hell away from my ravens.” The guardian of chronologies caught his breath. “Lisa, there’s all kinds of things you need to know about your role. Things you have to understand before you do something disastrous. You can’t just carry on as you did before.”
“But I like carrying on, Greg.”
“Lisa, there’s more going on than you realise. The Parody War wasn’t the end of things. It was the beginning.”
“I only do ends,” Lisa said with a wink to Hallie.
“Just come with me,” the Chronicler growled. “There’s things we need to do.”
Lisa bit back the double entendre, waved goodbye to Hallie, and vanished from the ken of mortal man.
***
“So explain what you do again, Mr Sinclair,” urged Mr Flay calmly.
“I… Once I was a technology designer in Silicone Valley,” gasped the undead supervillain. “I helped design Betamax.”
“Very impressive that, Mr Sinclair,” commented Mr Skinner.
“Then I kind of… died.”
“Suicide is a very ugly thing, Mr Sinclair,” noted Mr Flay.
“And… the Hooded Hood brought me back as a supervillain to join his Purveyors of Peril,” Expired Warranty gabbled. “I battled NTU-150. I have the power to make technology go wrong. Any technology.”
“That’s what your advert said,” Mr Skinner agreed. “We subscribe regularly to Modern Malefactor, Mr Flay and I.”
“We only get it for the articles, of course,” Mr Flay qualified that.
Mr Skinner leaned over the prone supervillain. “So this little box you have given us, Mr Sinclair, this box is guaranteed to disrupt every technological alarm system on the Safe Metahuman Detainment Complex on Flanagan island?”
“On my life,” swore Expired Warranty. “On my unlife, that is.”
Skinner smiled thinly. “It’s a pleasure to see people standing behind their workmanship, is it not Mr Flay?”
“Not exactly standing, Mr Skinner. Not with those two shattered kneecaps. But I take your point.”
“Can I… you said you’d let me go if I did what you wanted,” begged Z.X. Sinclair.
“Why so we did, Mr Sinclair,” agreed Mr Skinner. He snapped the last of Extended Warranty’s fingers and dropped his hand down onto his bloody chest. “You can go now.”
Mr Flay snapped the supervillain’s neck and shredded the curse keeping him in unlife. “You can go rest in peace, Mr Sinclair. Thank you for your assistance.”
***
“Morning Vizh,” called Al B. Harper over his morning crossword as the possibly fake man came in rubbing the red mark on his forehead. “What happened?”
The possibly-fake man slid up to the breakfast table and groped for crullers. “Amber threw a stapler at me,” he objected. “I was just welcoming her back to her job after her stay in Phantomhawk Memorial and I suggested that what she needed was a vacation of some type away with the other support staff.”
“Amber is still recovering from her injuries from the Parody Master,” Asil considered, “but she should not damage a Great Man.”
Al B. put down his paper as Asil handed out the day’s schedules. There was a lot of mopping-up to do after the fall of the Parody Master.
“I think seven down is CLOSET,” Vizh offered helpfully, looking at the puzzle.
“Only in the original version,” Al noted absently as he checked the to-do list. “I tend to translate the letters into higher math, then use a Fourier code to shift them to conceptual strings and try to find a DeVoor acrostic that fits the original grid. It makes crosswords a little more challenging.”
Vizh shuddered. “At least you don’t make the squares kind of shuffle up to make space for whatever words you write in there,” he admitted. “Any word on finding the Shoggoth yet?”
“The main biomass is coming to see us at eleven today,” Asil pointed out, tapping the schedule. “He might have news.”
“There’s every chance that our version of the Shoggoth burned out when he stopped the Narrative Bombs,” Al B. warned. “He was contaminated by mundane matter, weaker than the main, um, blob.”
He glanced over to the counter where Marie Murcheson was cautiously coaxing the toaster not to explode. The former banshee looked up and blushed at the attention. “I didn’t feel him die,” she reported. “I don’t know if I would, him being a produce of Fairly Great Old One technology. I didn’t feel any of the people who went into the Happy Ending die.”
Under Asil’s stare, Vizh finally glanced down at the schedule. “Okay, so we’re reviewing liasing with the UN about Badripoor, then we look at the Terminus Team lists with Garrick to see who gets pardoned, then we see the Shoggoth,” he saw. “Then we…” he went pale. “A new intake of Juniors?”
“Never mind that,” Al B. said urgently. “Who thought it would be a good idea to send CrazySugarFreakBoy! to accept this commendation from the President?”
“CSFB! is deputy leader of the Lair Legion,” Asil blinked. “He volunteered to…”
“Get on the comm-card at once!” Vizh called urgently, springing up and spilling his coffee. “Pull Dream out of there before it’s…”
Al B. had flicked on CNN. The live broadcast from the rose garden showed CrazySugarFreakBoy! meeting the President of the United States. “And now,” said the presenter doing the voiceover, “CrazySugarFreakBoy! will make a few remarks to the President.”
“Mister President,” grinned the wired wonder vengefully. “You are the world’s biggest…”
It was too late.
***
Dancer jumped aside as Mr Epitome slammed through the doors of the Operations Room and headed for the LairJet hanger threatening to tear his team-mate’s head off and kick it to the moon.
“What’s wrong?” Sarah Shepherdson asked Glory as the paragon of power fumed away down the hallway.
“Dominic saw something on television that upset him,” Mr Epitome’s dog replied, using her usual paw to voice translator unit to communicate with humans. She sniffed again at Sarah Shepherdson. “You smell happy.”
Dancer broke into a big beaming grin and did a little pirouette. “Something odd happened last night,” she admitted. “Well, this morning really.”
Glory’s enhanced senses were able to pick up pretty much what the young woman had been doing over the last fourteen hours.
“There was this guy,” Shep confided. “Harry. He plays the sax. We met in the Bean and Donut and he kind of asked me out.”
So far this wasn’t a particularly unusual Sarah Shepherdson story.
“Thing was, when I woke up this morning…”
“I can help you track down whatever is missing from your apartment,” Glory offered.
“When I woke up this morning, Harry made me breakfast in bed.”
“Harry was there?” Glory yelped.
“He’d slipped out early, of course, but to buy me a rose from Mad Molly on the corner of 5th and Ditko. To put on the tray.”
“That sounds very romantic,” agreed Glory.
“He wants to see me again,” Sarah confided. “He gave me his phone number, and when I rang it… he answered. He’s taking me out again tonight. To dinner and a show. And dancing.”
“He sounds very brave,” approved the mutt of might.
“He’s wonderful,” Dancer giggled. “I think he might be the One!”
***
The Grand Repository was a mess. When the rebellion against the Parody Master had flared at the central headquarters of the Intergalactic Order of Librarians the fighting had gone from stack to stack.
“We’re tidying it up,” Selindra Saxmendham assured Lee Bookman as she led to Librarian of Sector 7272 to see the remaining Governors. “It’s just taking some time, what with the transfinite spaces in the deep repositories and all.”
“I’m just glad the Library is free once again,” the Librarian admitted. “For a while there I was worried for the future of the whole operation.”
“The Governors are in deep denial mode,” Selinda warned her mentor. “None of them ever collaborated with the Parody Master, and it was all a big misunderstanding.”
“Precipitated by me escaping with the full data core of the grand archive,” Bookman frowned. “Yes, I picked up the index chatter on the way in. Inquisitor Blay-Kee was practically dancing with joy at the idea of another trial for me.”
“It won’t come to that,” Selinda answered firmly. “Not this time. Too many of us know what you did, what you saved for us. We’re not letting the hero of the IOL be blamed for rescuing us all.”
The high doors to the central hall swung open and library enforcers indicated that Lee should walk into the presence of the Library Governors. Bookman adjusted his robes on his shoulders, took a deep breath, and strode inside.
***
The crew at Extraordinary Endeavour Enterprises hadn’t had chance to rebuild any of the wrecked dimensional jump gate engines that littered their crowded firehouse workspace yet, so Al B. Harper had been forced to invent an entirely new method of quantum pair matching to punch holes through timespace and transport people across interstellar distances. The mark III version managed to cycle all the way through its fold and spin cycle before the strange matter accelerator exploded in a spray of shrapnel. Fortunately most of it lodged in the protoplasm of the Manga Shoggoth’s main biomass.
“Okay,” Miss Framlicker announced, coming out of cover behind her steel-plate-reinforced desk, “so now we know how Apocalyspian doom tube technology operates.”
“Noisily,” complained Amy Aston, picking herself off the floor behind a disassembled dimensional shunt accelerator. “And now with added detonations.”
One half of the pair that had just been pulled back across the galaxies by the experimental new method pulled off his Steelers cap and checked that all his parts were still attached. The other half bounced up and down excitedly, clapping. “Encore!” called Kerry Shepherdson. “Can I go again? I have just got to get me one of those.”
“No,” Visionary shuddered. “I’m adding whatever the name of this device is to the proscribed items list of things that aren’t allowed in the lighthouse. Right next to Skree hover mines, Z’Sox zero-point negativity drones, and Danny Lyle.”
“I told you,” sulked Kerry, “Danny was just helping me find an earring I’d lost down my…”
“Idon’twanttoknow.” Vizh gabbled quickly. “Lalalalalala.”
“How did it go aboard the Parody Master’s warship Bloody Vengeance?” Al B. asked Hatman. “Any trouble?”
“The Purveyors of Peril had pretty much wiped out the opposition before they were pulled back to Earth by the Storyheart,” Jay Boaz reported. “And it’s not called the Bloody Vengeance any more, by the way. And it’s not a warship.”
“Intergalactic laws of salvage,” smirked Kerry. “Now it belongs to my friend Mircandalee, and it’s renamed Tremansalor’s Travelling Intergalactic Vaudeville Emporium.”
That is a better name for a ship, approved the Manga Shoggoth. The loathsome elder being was wobbling in a corner waiting for the transport pad to be cleared. Ships should be called things like Howl’s Moving Castle or Baba Yaga’s Tiny Hut.
“Your friend was okay, then, Kerry?” Vizh checked.
“Better now she’s free,” the probability arsonist replied. “And she was happy to take on whatever prisoners wanted to stay on with her, especially the ones that can hold a tune. Or take a pie in the face.”
“She was happy to take D’Rothy under her wing as well,” Hatman reported. “That’s what the girl wanted, and Mircandalee hasn’t any family now so… well, it all fitted nicely. Aunt Sally’s arrived with the Klayhogs to help sort things out, but it looks like our work there is done.”
“We get front row seats on opening night, though,” promised Kerry. “I’m going to bring the fireworks.”
Vizh looked at the steaming equipment. “What a shame the machinery’s busted and we can’t use it again,” he noted insincerely.
Amy fired another blast of CO2 on the remaining fires. “Aw, we have worse explosions than this using the kitchen appliances,” she scorned. “Al will have this up and running in ten minutes tops.”
“It has multiple redundancies, Vizh,” the archscientist comforted the possibly fake man. “There’s no need for any delay. Kick those fragments off the transport pad and climb into your survival harness and we can get started.”
“Survival harness?” Vizh asked nervously as Miss Framlicker started fastening him into something that was the cross between a parachute and a straight jacket.
“You’d prefer certain death harness?” she asked coolly.
“Why me?” Vizh asked desperately. “I mean, I want to find the other bit of Shoggoth if he’s lost out there spread between dimensions, sure, but isn’t this the kind of thing we keep ManMan for? Or spiffy?”
“Manny’s retired,” Amy pointed out. “And spiffy fled the country.”
Besides, you are the one that had a fragment of me lodged instead of a heart for a while, pointed out the Shoggoth comfortingly. And you have already been exposed and contaminated to many other frames of existence and non-existence, so the additional damage should be negligible.
“Wait… what?”
If it would comfort you, I could retain one of your limbs so that you can regrow yourself should anything go wrong in this interdimensional fishing trip.
“Good luck, Vizh,” Hatman said, patting the regular on the shoulder. “Take care out there.”
“This harness is a bit tight. It’s really pinching in… some places.”
“If you die, that stupid list of yours doesn’t count any more, right?” Kerry checked urgently.
Before Visionary could answer there was another loud crack, a shriek like the destruction of universes, and a kind of swirly purple light. And then he was gone.
***
“Seventeen thousand, seven hundred and forty-three of them,” Governor Roshamon told Sir Mumphrey Wilton as they completed their inspection of Bareta Base.
“That’s a fair number,” conceded the eccentric Englishman. “Can we contain that many here?”
The detention centre had formerly been a covert torture camp run as the blackest of US Government black ops, until it had been exposed by Fin Fang Foom then transported to Comic-Book Limbo by the Parody Master. Now it was back, and SPUD Director Dan Drury, a former inmate, had personally arrested former camp commander Dr Faustian and escorted him to the prison hospital to have his multiple arrest fractures treated. The site was now being used to contain prisoners of war after the conflict with the Parody Master.
“We have the three thousand most dangerous captives, the Avawarriors and suchlike, under wraps in the Safe,” Governor Roshaman told the eccentric Englishman. “The ones here are the next most dangerous prisoners. The low risk prisoners and the dying are housed elsewhere in a range of facilities across the world.”
“The dying?” Sir Mumphrey scowled.
“A lot of the cyborgs and some of the Avawarriors were only maintained by the direct influence of the Parody Master’s power. Without his support their cellular decay is massively increased, their bionic implants are being rejected, their biological functions are shutting down. We’ve already lost almost ten thousand of them and there’ll be more than that before we’re done. We can’t do anything for them but make them comfortable.”
Mumphrey snorted. “It’ll look to the rest of the Parodyverse that we’re cavin’ to those worlds demanding bloody vengeance on the prisoners of war and letting them die – or hastening their demises.”
“But we’re not,” Roshamon insisted. “Their Master did this to them, not us. We’re just left holding the can.”
“Fair trials,” Sir Mumphrey insisted. “It was agreed before I stepped down. A war crimes commission, just like we had at Nurenburg after the last war.”
“I agree,” the Governor told him. “But lots of these prisoners aren’t going to live to see trial unless we can conjure up am medical miracle.”
Mr Flay and Mr Skinner watched them as they walked out of earshot.
“Passionate for fair play, aren’t they, Mr Skinner?”
“I’m touched by their humanity, Mr Flay. I feel we’re all a little bit better for it.”
“Do you think they’ll die when the escape occurs, Mr Skinner?”
“We can but hope, can we not, Mr Flay? We can but hope.”
***
“Dancer.”
Sarah Shepherdson turned over in bed and saw Harry smiling down at her.
“Er, what?” she answered, trying to cover he panic at being identified as a member of the Lair Legion.
“Dancer,” Harry repeated, still smiling. “You look just like her.”
“Um yes,” Shep agreed, pulling the bedclothes up around herself. “I’ve heard that before. But that doesn’t mean…”
“You’ve even got her accent.”
Previously, Dancer’s probability powers had prevented anyone from making the logical connection between two athletic bubbly brunettes from County Mudd, Ireland who were never seen in the same place together. Had Dancer’s influence faded so much that she wasn’t covered now – except by a rumpled duvet?
“It’s not what you think, Harry,” Sarah said desperately.
Harry leaned back, still grinning. “And what am I thinking.”
“You’re thinking that I’m…” She frowned and looked at him again. “What are you thinking?”
Harry leaned forward. “I’m thinking that a girl who looks quite a bit like the Probability Dancer could do very well for herself. Have you ever thought about going on stage?”
Shep blinked. “On stage? I’m… So you don’t think…?”
Harry played with a lock of her long loose hair. “Hear me out, Sarah. I’m working as part of the crew for a new theatrical tour production: Lair Legion, the Musical. It’s all about the heroes of the Parody War. We’re casting now.”
“I think you’ve got this a bit confused, Harry. You’re supposed to tell me you can get me in the movies before you try to take me to bed.”
“Didn’t need to, did I?” Harry chuckled. “And don’t feel bad about that. I’m honoured to be the one that helped you get over your misery, at least for now. I’m totally okay being used only for sex for as long as you need me to. But I’ve got a job to do as well, and finding people to play the Legion on a major European tour is high on my list.” He looked thoughtful. “I don’t suppose you have an Australian friend who’s into bodybuilding, do you?”
Dancer caught her breath. “So let’s get this straight. You turn out to be a casting director for a Lair Legion musical…”
“Assistant to the assistant casting director,” Harry warned. “I can’t guarantee you anything.”
“And you think I could play Dancer in a world tour?”
Harry shrugged. “I think you should at least audition,” he persuaded her. “Do you think you could act like Dancer?”
***
Liu Xi Xian got off the bus and looked around the gloomy industrial wasteland of Black’s Crossing. There was a chill in the air, as if it was going to snow, but she didn’t sense any weather patterns to account for it. The dull dirty buildings were mostly dark and many had broken windows.
The only occupants of the town square moved away from the burned out frontage of a video shop and came to meet her. “So, you got one too,” said Ebony of Nubilia.
Liu Xi knew what the the high priestess of the Manga Shoggoth was talking about, of course. The letter had arrived by overseas surface mail this morning, and she’d come immediately. “I didn’t understand it though,” she admitted. “Why would Xander want us to come here?”
The third woman present, Whitney Darkness, looked around her as a gust of wind whipped up the street trash. Liu Xi hadn’t seen quite that expression on Sorceress’ face before. The Chinese elementalist realised that Whitney Darkness was actually nervous. “I’ve been here before,” Sorceress admitted.
“This place looks like a ghost town,” Liu Xi noted.
“It is,” Whitney answered. “Literally. I came here with the Legion years ago. Back then it was a horrible industrial place where people on the poverty line were trapped slaving their lives away in soul-destroying banal misery. The boss who owned the town was a very special kind of vampire, sucking the life from the whole population. It… wasn’t a pleasant visit.”
Liu Xi looked around her. There was something wrong about Black’s Crossing, something that set her teeth on edge. “You got him, though. The vampire?”
“In the end,” shuddered Sorceress. “We cleaned this place. People were able to leave at last. The Bautista foundation helped them set up somewhere else. Not many folks chose to stay on.”
“Then why did Xander write to me – to us – and ask us to come here today?” Liu Xi wondered.”
Ebony looked up at the grey sky that still seemed stained by the smog from the former factory. “You can sense it. This is still a thin place, where the usual barriers between the mortal and mundane and… the rest… aren’t quite strong enough. The Legion cleaned out the evil that had crept in here, but that just left a nice empty space for something else.”
“Something bad,” Liu Xi sensed.
“Something bad,” agreed Whitney. “My father’s gone now. Hs letter made it clear that he and Cleone couldn’t stay around now because something is coming that he couldn’t stop. Something whose first move would be to destroy the sorcerer supreme.”
“So he needs us to mind the store for him,” Liu Xi agreed. “You know about high magics and things, Ebony’s an expert of dark cults and rituals, and I can sense elemental disturbances. Between us we can sub for a master of the mystic crafts.”
“I’m not too happy about being part of another Xander manipulation,” Ebony admitted. “He tends to get very close to the line, sometimes.”
“But he knows his evil,” Whitney sighed. “You know, I hoped I’d never have to come back here.”
“Was it bad?” asked Liu Xi, catching a little of Sorceress’ nervousness.
“The spirit possessing Hatman very nearly peeled the skin off my face,” she remembered with another shudder, “and that was the nicest part.”
Ebony was dangling a pebble on a piece of string and watching which way it swung. “I think we need to take a look around that derelict factory,” she admitted. “Just in case.”
“Just in case we want to die?” Liu Xi asked.
The three women exchanged glances and moved towards the dark looming silhouette of the old Black Processing Plant.
***
“Hello, Wally,” Hallie greeted the Lair Legion’s postman. “Anything interesting today?”
“Some kind of letters from England,” the old carrier noted. “Handwriting of Xander the Improbable, looks like. Addressed to Misses Darkness and Xian and to Lady Ebony. Sealed with wax and all.”
“It’s a while since we’ve had a letter from Xander,” Hallie commented. “I wonder what he wants? Put them on the side-table, Wally. Whit, Liu Xi, and Ebony aren’t here just now. I’ll let them know about the letters when they get back.”
***
The Doom Tube opened and the master of Apocalyspe strode out, his hands clasped behind his back, his grey granite face promising death and destruction wherever he went. Dark Thugos had recently returned to claim rulership of his tormented homeworld. A little way behind him came his prime servitor Granny Grimness.
“I didn’t need this my first day back on the job,” muttered Amber St Clare.
Mr Epitome moved forward to meet Thugos. “Ready?” he asked. He had no words of greeting for the former Destroyer of Tales, the former tyrant of a Sol Empire in another timeline. Glory and Yuki were also present in the Lair Mansion cell block for the meeting.
“Bring the prisoners forward,” commanded Dark Thugos.
“Not so fast, Stoney,” Yuki interjecting, springing forward to block the archvillain’s path. “Before we hand over Splendiferous Stewart and General Steppenstoat and Kwatrain and the other Apocalyspian nasties who caused so much trouble here in the run-up to the Parody War we want to hear some assurances from you about what happens to them next.”
“You dare to question the will of Dark Thugos?” demanded Granny Grimness dangerously. Her large armoured bulk belied her thin ancient voice.
“Yep,” the cyborg P.I. agreed. “We do. Questioning the will of mad tyrants is pretty much our job description.”
“And if I simply choose to remove my erring retainers from your inadequate containment facilities?” asked Dark Thugos.
“Then there will be unpleasantness,” Mr Epitome warned, staring him in the eye.
“You think you could stand against Dark Thugos and Granny Grimness?” scorned Granny, her face darkening with rage.
“I think your boss knows now isn’t the time to start a war with the Lair Legion,” Epitome replied. “Your world’s in ruins, your armies shattered, your weapons depleted. There are lots of nervous galactic powers and cosmic beings out there feeling a bit sensitive just now about warmongering demigods. I think Dark Thugos is smart enough to work out when diplomacy is better than threats, even if you aren’t.”
“And if he isn’t,” Yuki added, “we’re the Legion. We’ll find a way to kick his butt.”
Mr Epitome glanced at her. “Just because Trickshot’s not here doesn’t mean you have to fill the arrogant bigmouth role,” he scowled.
Yuki shrugged. “I’m over my being impressed by big looming bullies phase.” It wasn’t clear to whom that remark was addressed.
“The exchange,” Glory whined, prompting them back to business.
Amber reluctantly moved forward. “In our preliminary negotiations, we agreed that the prisoners we return will be held on Apocalyspe and never come back to this world,” she noted. “They will be punished in non-lethal manner in accordance with your local criminal justice systems…”
“Oh yes,” chuckled Granny gleefully. “They’ve been naughty boys and their Granny is very cross with them.”
“They will be held accountable for their actions regarding Special Resolution 1066 and the Parody War, but also for their previous crimes in kidnapping humans to Apocalyspe for their inhuman war games.”
“They will pay for their failures,” Thugos promised. “I have spoken.”
“You agree to the terms?” Mr Epitome liked things clear.
“I agree.”
Yuki nodded. “I’ll bring the prisoners out, then,” she acknowledged, turning to the holding cells.
“That will not be necessary,” intoned the tyrant. His eyes flared and livid red beams darted from them. They curved around Epitome and Yuki and passed through the holding cell walls to engulf the prisoners in lurid crimson fire. Kwatrain, Steppenstoat, and Stuart had just enough time to scream before they were consumed. “They have been returned to Apocalyspe to await my mercy,” declared Dark Thugos.
Amber suppressed a shudder. “Well… that’s very nice, then,” she said.
Thugos turned to look at Epitome before he left. “You survived on Apocalyspe,” he noted. “You and your woman.”
“Yes,” agreed the paragon of power. “That’s a nasty vicious planet you have there.”
“You are amongst the strong,” Thugos approved.
“I am amongst the free,” Epitome replied. “Every tyrant should fear us.”
“Well, this day’s going well,” Amber said in a high brittle voice. “Canapés, anyone?”
***
“Lee Bookman, former Librarian of Sector 7272, you stand accused…” intoned the Governor who was to act as prosecutor in the hearing upon the actions of the Librarian Legionnaire during the Parody War.
“Oh do be quiet,” interrupted Lee. He hopped over the barrier rail and dropped onto the floor of the Inquisition Chamber. “Automatic systems over-ride Delbrulian Comsalach Truvane Achidromos. Transfer all Central Repository systems to my voice command.”
There was a surprised hiccup from the Repository A.I.s as over-ride codes that had been forgotten for millennia cut in. The ancient commands had priorities higher than any that could be placed into the system these days, commands placed there by the Founding Librarians themselves.
“What?” demanded the Governor.
“I downloaded the entire Grand Archive through my head,” Lee pointed out. “You think I didn’t index IOL over-ride codes?”
“But…”
“So now we’re going to stop this hypocritical charade and sort a few things out,” the Librarian demanded. “Anyone who thinks differently is welcome to deal with the A.L.F.s and data entities who now work for me.”
“This is against all Library procedure!” shouted Supervisor Garth. “This is…”
“This is long overdue,” interrupted Selinda Saxmendrim. “Go, Lee!”
Leonard H. Bookman stood in the centre of the speaking circle and addressed his accusers – and every librarian in the Intergalactic Order. “First to the charges. I resigned as a Librarian when this organisation surrendered its mission and its facilities to the interplanetary tyrant the Parody Master. You didn’t keep the sacred data safe, and you were willing to give it to a enemy of creation to save your skins. You violated the sacred vows we make about the sanctity of the material we hold.”
“But the archive would have been destroyed otherwise,” protested Auditor Blay-Kee. “Billions of years of documents lost forever.”
“If that’s the price we have to pay for upholding our oath to keep the data from those who shouldn’t have it then that’s what we should have done,” Lee answered gravely. “Fortunately the Grand Librarian has a different idea. He arranged for me to be brought here, and for the entire archive to be downloaded through me, emptying the data banks in the Central Repository so they’d be useless to the Parody Master.”
“We were all nearly executed for that!” Garth accused.
Lee didn’t care. “Meanwhile, the Board of my local library branch, the Lunar Public Library, used a seldom-invoked clause of our charter to declare independence from the IOL. Nobody’s done that for a very long time, but as I’ve just demonstrated with those over-ride codes, just because it hasn’t been done in a while doesn’t mean it isn’t valid. Professor Blargelslarch and my trustees separated my library from the IOL, so I was able to donate the great archive to the systems there.”
“No mere branch library could hold the grand archive,” a Governor scorned.
“And no mere Librarian could be a conduit for so much data without going mad,” Lee added. “We improvised. The data is secure.”
There was a collective buzz of relief amongst the librarians. Some began to sob.
“But before I let you have the archive back,” Lee Bookman announced to the IOL, “if I let you have the archive back, we’re going to get over this hypocritical nonsense of pretending that the Governors didn’t betray our high calling. We’re going to remind ourselves of the purpose of libraries in inform, educate, and enlighten the public. And we’re going to get past all this rubbish about Auditor fleets and Inquisitors and executions.” He suddenly grinned a manic smile. “We’re going to make some changes.”
***
Visionary’s editorial comment as he dropped through myriad strange dimensions suspended by a thin monofilament thread and a life-preserving atmospheric sheath harness: “Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaggggggggggggggghhhhhhhh!”
He briefly glimpsed – and dismissed – dozens, maybe hundreds, of bizarre new worlds. The worst were the ones where the inhabitants seemed to recognise him and wave back. He dropped into regions where smell registered as sight and sight as sound. He passed momentarily through a zone where his body was inverted and he could clearly see his internal organs trailing merrily behind him. Then he landed with a soft plop into a mound of goo not unlike that of the Manga Shoggoth he was looking for.
“Well,” said the man in black who was standing on top of the custard-skin surface of the protoplasm. “This is a pleasant surprise.”
It wasn’t that happy a moment for Visionary. “Nyalurkhotep,” he recognised.
The prime servitor of the Fairly Great Old Ones nodded and looked down at the little human whose soul he had once tried to devour. “That’s right,” agreed the man in black. “I’d come along to consume the Shoggoth, of course, but you’ll make a very welcome dessert.”
***
Chiaki walked with a balanced poise that gave no indication that only a few days earlier she’d taken a poisoned blade through her chest cavity. She arrived early, decided on the best watchpoint, and moved to the position.
She found Champagne keeping watch from it.
“Oh, hi,” the international jewel thief greeted the Psychic Samurai. “I guess we had the same instincts.”
“I like to check out potential clients before I meet them if I can,” Chiaki Bushido noted. “That’s why I’m early. I don’t know you.”
“Well, at least you know I’m the kind of girl who arrives early too,” Champagne pointed out. “Shall we discuss business now or would you prefer to wait until the time we agreed?”
“Now’s fine,” the Samurai agreed. “I’m curious why we had to meet outside St Jude’s Orphanage in Hell’s Bathroom.”
Champagne looked down at the battered brownstone house. “Did you know that St Jude was the patron saint of lost causes?” she asked.
Chiaki cut to the chase. “What’s the job?” she asked.
“I’d like to put you on retainer,” Champagne replied. “Not exclusively, of course. You’re quite a liberty to do whatever else you need to do. But I’d like you to keep an eye on that orphanage as well.”
“On the orphanage?”
The jewel thief nodded. “You see, until recently Trickshot kept an eye on the place, and that was enough to deter the local thugs from getting ambitious. And Police Commissioner Graham’s daughter was a teacher there. Both of them are gone now.”
“You think somebody might try and do something nasty to the orphans?”
“It’s been tried before. This is a bad neighbourhood, and that’s one of the very few good things in it. The Lair Legion can’t always keep an eye out here – and you’re reputed to be very good at anticipating trouble.”
“You want me to bodyguard a whole orphanage. What’s your interest?”
Champagne smiled. “Rumour has it that St Jude’s used to receive large anonymous donations that kept it going, up to the point where the vigilante assassin Cobra disappeared. I hear that there’s going to be another substantial contribution turning up sometime soon, and I’d like to make sure it gets to the children and they get to keep it.”
“And?”
“And if you’re really the Psychic Samurai you know the rest already,” Champagne pointed out. “I travel a lot. You seem to be mostly based in Paradopolis these days. Will you take the retainer?”
“Who knows about this?” Chiaki asked.
“Whoever you tell and nobody else,” Champagne replied. “And I’d like to be kept out of it altogether.”
Chiaki would have taken the commission even without the money. “I agree,” she said. “I’ll protect them.”
Champagne handed over a dossier. “Here’s my best threat assessment. Local crooks, gangs, political issues, old rivalries, lines of fire, enemies and allies, the usual thing. Good luck.”
“You sound like you’re expecting trouble,” frowned Chiaki. “Is there something I don’t know?”
“Not for long, I’d imagine.”
***
“Why Jay,” purred Baroness Elizabeth von Zemo, “how delightful to see an old friend.”
“Old friends don’t throw their injured comrades into the transdimensional vortex to be captured and tortured by the Parody Master,” Hatman replied. He hadn’t come to the Safe to trade banter with the villainess who had secretly infiltrated the Lair Legion for the better part of a year as Citizen Z.
“They do when they’re weaklings who don’t have what it takes to make the hard decisions,” Beth replied. “I acted for the good of the world. CrazySugarFreakBoy! made a much better leader.”
Dreamcatcher Foxglove made a rude sound. “You thought I was an easier mark, is all,” he accused. “You tried to kill Hatty then you shot me in the head.”
“You were an easier mark,” the Baroness told him. “I’m surprised you’re still alive after your encounter with your President yesterday. Or hasn’t Dominic caught up with you yet?”
“Mr Epitome tried to throw me through a wall,” CSFB! beamed. “Of course, I bounce.”
“Well, at least you’ve settled once and for all the question of whether you’re fit to lead the Lair Legion,” Beth smirked. “It’s a good job Jay decided to leave his imaginary love nest with sweet little Zdenka and come back to take charge of your sadly reduced band of super-boy-scouts.”
“We’re not here to trade gossip, Baroness,” Hatman scowled. “We have questions.”
“But my counsel isn’t present,” the villainess noted. “Isn’t this an infringement of my human rights?”
“Isn’t conquering the planet an infringement of human rights?” CSFB! demanded hotly.
The Baroness shook her head. “Not when it was a necessary part of saving the world from the aggression of the Parody Master,” she replied. “Conventional defences had failed. The Legion and dear Sir Mumphrey had failed. I had to step up to the plate and do what was required. But I’m sure you’ll hear lots more about that when I have my day in court.”
“You don’t seriously think anybody will buy that?” Hatman asked.
The Baroness leaned back in her chair and smirked again.
“We have questions,” CrazySugarFreakBoy! repeated. “What did you do with Laurie?”
“Laurie who?”
“Laurie Leyton, who you impersonated right down to a psychic level,” Hatman growled. “We know you did something nasty to her in your cellars. Where is she now?”
“I think you must have me mixed up with somebody who answers naive stupid questions from effete superheroes,” the Baroness replied.
“Where’s your grandfather, Baron Otto?” CSFB! shot at her. “What’s he doing now?”
“My dear grandfather died many years ago. I can show you his death certificate.”
“Where’s Captain Kaan gone?” Hatman demanded. “Where did he take that dimensional dreadnaught that defected?”
“Kaan has gone? And taken an entire planet-destorying warship with him?” Beth shook her head sadly. “How disturbing.”
“He’s not got the Parody Master backing his ship any more,” Hatman acknowledged, “but he could still be trouble.”
“Yes indeed,” the Baroness agreed. “You must be quite worried.”
“What about Silicone Sally?” CrazySugarFreakBoy! challenged. “Any idea where she’ll have slunk off to after she dripped off your fat ass when the PM zapped you?”
“I really don’t think that some who is married to Alice April Apple should go around insulting other people’s vital statistics,” Elizabeth von Zemo replied. “Tell me, when you and she take that pensioner from Faerie to bed with you do you call her ‘mommy’?”
“Give it up, Baroness,” Hatman advised. “You might think you’re playing the clever adversary with an ace in the hole. We know you’re actually being the defeated inadequate world conqueror who got taken down despite her treacheries and brutalities and is going to spend the rest of her natural life in prisons like this. Your dumb impostor games placed the whole world in danger and nobody’s going to forget that. You’re just about the most hated person on the planet now and it’s a pleasure to see you punished for your crimes.”
“Or to put it another way, you got your wide ass whupped by a bunch of kids and Sir Mumphrey Wilton,” CSFB! snickered. “You’re not going to Disneyland.”
The Baroness scowled slightly, but whatever retort she was about to make never passed her lips as the lights went out all over the Safe. The emergency back-ups painted the prison with a livid red light until they also faded out. The alarm klaxons fell silent with a dying wail.
“Trouble,” Hatman frowned, reaching for his comm-card.
“You should have left the jailbreak attempt until we weren’t here, Bethie,” CrazySugarFreakBoy! warned the Baroness.
“This is nothing to do with me, moron,” she snapped back. “I was near the top off the Parody Master’s kill list. You think I’d want to release a couple of thousand Avawarriors into a high-security confined area with me?”
“There’s no radio signal behind these shielded walls,” Hatman discovered. He pulled on his Steelers hat. “We’re on our own.”
***
“That seemed to go very well, Mister Skinner,” noted Mr Flay. The two men in their conservative business suits were stood in the grounds of the abandoned Flanagan Carnival that had once shared Flanagan Island with the metahuman penitentiary.
“Very well indeed, Mr Flay. I imagine that Warden Westwood and the others will be somewhat perturbed at the moment.”
“Somewhat perturbed indeed, Mr Skinner. I believe we can move on to our next task.”
“That’s encouraging, Mr Flay. I haven’t broken anyone’s bones since that iced-cream salesgirl this morning.”
“She won’t forget your sprinkles again, Mr Skinner.”
“That’s true, Mr Flay. On account of me twisting her head off.”
The unusual pair vanished before the security clampdown became total.
***
Whitney Darkness, Ebony of Nubilia, and Liu Xi Xian moved their way carefully through the vast shell of the burned out manufacturing plant that loomed over Black’s Crossing. The only light filtered down in dusty shafts through rents in the corrugated iron roof. Occasional pigeons disturbed the dust on the beams above, scattering ash down to join their guano on the detritus of the floor.
“Something’s wrong,” warned Sorceress.
“This whole place is wrong,” Ebony pointed out. “The atmosphere is…”
“She means something’s specifically wrong now,” Liu Xi clarified. “The dimensions are shifting somehow. It feels like things are closing in around us. Like a trap.”
“Isn’t that likely to be why Xander sent us here?” Ebony checked. “He knew there was some evil that needed to be dealt with, something that he would normally handle.”
“Or manipulate someone else to handle.” Sorceress had no illusions about her absent father, the master of the mystic crafts. “But he’s not the Hooded Hood. Xander doesn’t play games for the sheer pleasure of it.” She frowned and reached for the letter in her pocket. “Why didn’t he give us more information?”
Liu Xi looked around sharply as a movement in the shadows caught her eye. It was only a rat. “This feels strange,” she admitted. “Like we walked into a movie.”
“A horror movie, where the girls get slaughtered one by one,” Ebony agreed. “Let’s not split up and search separately. And maybe we should consider sending out for back-up.”
Whitney agreed and thumbed her comm-card. “Hallie? It’s Whit, in Black’s Crossing of all place. We could use some help. Who’s available?”
“Sorry Whitney,” the voice of the Legion’s A.I. replied. “You’ve not been around much for us lately. Why should we bail you out? You think we’ve forgotten how you sold us out to the Hooded Hood and let him shape a world where half the team were dead just so you and Jay could be all right?”
“What?” gasped Liu Xi as Sorceress turned pale. “That can’t be… No way would she say that.”
“Check your letters,” Ebony warned, staring at the missive she held in her own trembling hand. The document now read entirely differently:
Ebony, I’m writing this not because I think you’ll care but just to let you know how badly I miss my father, who you murdered along with so many others that you’ve fed to that elder monster you worship. Sure, dad was stupid and got caught up with some weird psycho cult that was doing weird things, but I know he’d have pulled round and become himself again if only you hadn’t brought that thing to slaughter him…
Liu Xi quickly glanced down at her own letter; …could have had my love, could have turned me around, taught me what it means to be human, to be a hero. But now I know what I am – a monster, a Doomherald, so from now on no restraint, no attempts at humanity, just death, murder and death, and every one of them will be dedicated to you, my faithless flower, every single time I kill will be in your name and it will be because of you…
The young elementalist swallowed hard. “We have to get out of here!” she cried, grabbing Sorceress and Ebony and manipulating the fifth Chinese element void to transport them far from that terrible place.
“Hold on…!” warned Whitney, but by then Liu Xi could already feel the void tearing under her, dropping them out of reality to somewhere else.
Sorceress just had time to glimpse her own letter as they fell into hell. It simply said: Got you.
***
“All of these?” Director Soames looked up from the report on the desk with a surprised stare.
“I didn’t set the terms of their pardons,” Mr Epitome answered. “But that’s what the U.S. government promised these felons, convicted and unconvicted. If they served in the Terminus Teams with honour for the duration of the Parody War then they got amnesty for crimes previously committed.”
“There must be a hundred names on this list,” the Director of the Office for Paranormal Security pointed out. “How many of these are truly reformed?”
Dominic Clancy looked uneasy. “Hard to say,” he admitted. “But the worst cases aren’t on that list. Harmanda Barriere’s already cherry-picked some for her Deathwatch Detail.” He dropped another dossier that covered the hard-core redemption programme on Soames’ desk. “I’ve done my best to be fair to the men and women who had committed metahuman crimes in the past but who risked their lives to fight for this country in the recent war.”
“And if they’re not reformed?”
“That’s why there’s an Office of Paranormal Security.”
“So you’re coming back, Dominic?”
“That’s not the topic of discussion for today.” Mr Epitome laid a third dossier on the table. “These are the metahuman criminals supposedly killed in the Terminus Team programme. Two thousand three hundred and sixty-four of them, not counting the one thousand eleven who were crippled in battle.”
“Supposedly?”
Epitome frowned. “We have reports from the Shepherdson girl, additional indications from other sources, that the Hooded Hood grabbed some of his cronies from the battlefield at the point of their apparent deaths, substituting versions of them from other possible futures using his ret-conning abilities. He assembled his Purveyors of Peril to use as a strikeforce against the Parody Master. Characters we assumed dead in battle like Anvil Man, Appendage Man, VelcroVixen, Razor Ballerina, all turned up on his latest roster.”
“So the Hooded Hood is back?”
“Unknown. The Purveyors were last deployed by the Hood’s alleged son, Denial. We need to regrade that young man’s threat rating.”
Soames looked down at the papers before him and rubbed his forehead. “So we have to release a hundred supervillains into the wild to keep our word. But that’s okay, because there’s worse out there that we thought were already dead?”
“Stinks to be the good guys, doesn’t it?” Epitome said.
Soames nodded. “I’ll warn the president, and Mr Carnifax,” he said, reaching for the phone.
***
Danny Lyle wandered down the echoing corridor of Herringcarp Asylum and ended up back in the brooding vastness of the Throne Room. VelcroVixen was there, gathering together the shards of the shattered Portal of Pretentiousness.
“How pissed do you think my dad’s going to be?” Denial wondered. The Portal had been destroyed by the Parody Master as Danny had used it against him in the final conflict of the Parody War.
“Depends on whether he’s got a devious Byzantine plan to fix the thing,” Vicki Vee replied. “And whether he intended you to do what you did all along.”
“He arranged for me to meet Kerry,” Danny considered. “I wouldn’t have done what I did against the PM without that. I’m not the martyr type.”
VelcroVixen flashed him a killer smile. “Hey, we all die and get resurrected again in this profession. Occupational hazard.”
“I’m not complaining about the resurrection part, although it is a bit spooky to think that my happy ending is back on plain old Parody Earth with Kes. That feels like an awful big commitment.”
VV shrugged, knowing that her costume made that act spectacular. “Hey, if you’re having second thoughts on the whole being faithful to the little probability arsonist thing, well, you are the boss and I have this standard clause in my contracts…”
Denial shook his head. “I’ve just paid off the Purveyors. They’ve done their job for now.”
“You didn’t mind debriefing me before you met the Shepherdson girl,” Vicki reminded him.
“I’ve kept everyone on retainer though,” Danny went on. “Just in case.”
“In case things don’t work out with you and Kerry?” VelcroVixen asked with a little moue.
“In case I need to take over the planet. You never know.”
VelcroVixen sighed and reached for her travel bag. “Well then, I’ll be on my way. I’ve decided not to apply for the Borovia job. I don’t want to have to wear the padded suit and the purple mask. And I think I’ll avoid the Factor X recruitment drive. That could turn nasty, and anyhow I don’t see Vassily as being much fun in the sack.” She looked thoughtful. “Is Koo Koo Ka Chu seeing anyone right now?”
“Take care, Vicky,” Danny said to her. “Thanks for your help.”
“Hey,” VV replied, “I didn’t bring you back from the dead.”
“Nope. That was Dancer,” agreed Denial. “And maybe Lisa.”
“Actually it wasn’t,” interrupted a cold female voice from behind them. “It was me.”
Danny swivelled round to face the newcomer. VelcroVixen didn’t, since she was now frozen in time.
“It’s generally considered a bad idea to break into Herringcarp Asylum,” Danny warned the intruder.
Madame Symmetry of Synchronicity showed him the object in her palm. “I have a key.”
Denial tried to play for time while he considered his options. “And are you a Babe Neuwirth wannabe or is Christina Ricci your idol?”
“I was the one who brought you back, Daniel,” Symmetry told him. “Dancer was my chosen tool for the job, and Lisa is always obliging, of course – notoriously so – but her new role is about endings.” The former keeper of the Chronometer of Infinity smiled coldly. “Beginnings are mine.”
“Is this going to get anywhere near a coherent account of what the hell you’re talking about soon?” Danny asked. “Only I have things to do.”
“I am Symmetry of Synchronicity,” the intruder told him. “I was dead, smeared across the timelines after an unfortunate misplay against Sir Mumphrey Wilton. Now I’m back, appointed as Shaper of Worlds to initiate interesting new plotlines across the Parodyverse.”
Danny knew about the Triumvirate of great cosmic office holders who maintained the narrative weft that made up the Parodyverse. “Uh oh. I’m guessing that means I’m back for some probably unpleasant reason.”
“Both of us are, Daniel,” agreed Symmetry. “Your father didn’t care enough to arrange for your return.” She reached out and touched painted black fingernails to his cheek. “How fortunate for you that your mother did.”
***
The living lightning seared though the cluster of escaped avawarriors on the landing outside the maximum security cell block then reformed into a human shape. Jay Boaz staggered a little as he pulled off his Con Ed hat. Radical physical transformations always took a lot out of him.
“That’s cleared the way,” he panted. “What’s happening beyond the hallway, Dream?”
CrazySugarFreakBoy pushed his finger into his ear like a deranged folk-singer, picking up audio and video communications on his wowie-zowie walkie-talkie and filtering them through his eerie ear-stud. “I can’t get a full picture because a lot of the security cameras are down” he noted, “but it looks like everybody’s loose. A total security shutdown has released every captive Avawarrior. The few metahuman criminals still lodged here are being massacred, along with whatever guards they can find.”
“Warden Westwood?” asked Beth von Zemo, pickling her way over steaming fallen Parody Soldiers. “It would be a terrible shame if he had been chopped to pieces by these aliens.”
“Westwood and Security Chief Flaherty are in the secure zone at the Warden’s office,” CSFB! reported. “Holy Shawshank Redemption, Batman! They’re under siege, trying to get the last resort self-destruct mechanisms to activate.”
“We’d best get out of here then,” the Baroness advised. “First priority is to alert people to the threat of thousands of escaped Avawarriors. Even without their swords and shields and stripped of what armour could be prised off them they’re insanely powerful and well trained. We’ll need the entire Lair Legion to cope with them. You’ll need it, I mean. What’s left of it.”
“We need to get to Westwood and Flaherty,” argued CrazySugarFreakBoy!. He rounded a corner and slammed his fist into the first of the avasoldiers lying in wait there, then tangled the rest in wads of gooey sticky string. “Then we need to get those failsafes failsafing so the bad guys have no choice but to surrender or go boom.”
“We need to think this through properly,” Hatman decided. “How did these Avawarriors get free? Why now? What do they intend to do? What’s the worst case scen…” He went pale. “The last Singularity Rider!” he realised. “M’Rak the Vicious. He’s imprisoned here, in Vault Zero, deep under the Safe.”
Beth blinked. “In the Parody Master’s absence, that Doomwraith is top of the chain of command.”
“If that Doomwraith gets free then he can suck the life out of everybody on this hemisphere is under ten seconds,” CSFB! noted. “Suck it worse than the new Flash Gordon series. That’s what they’ll be doing first – freeing M’Rak.”
“Right,” Hatman decided. “Dream, go stop them getting into Vault Zero. Citi… Baroness, get to the roof and signal the Lair Legion for help with my comm-card. I’ll try to save Westwood and Flaherty.”
“Since when am I back on the team, Jay?” Elizabeth von Zemo demanded with an arched eyebrow.
“You’re helping out because you want to live,” the capped crusader snapped back. “Now everybody move!”
***
In a nameless dimension of high strangeness Visionary faced off against Nyarlurkhotep, prime agent of the Fairy Great Old Ones, the invading Elder Gods who slept until the stars were right. On two other occasions the possibly-fake man had been nearly destroyed by the malevolent being.
“This time I shall do it right,” the man in black promised. “It will only take a second to shred your soul, Visionary, but you will feel the agony as an eternity.”
“I don’t recommend that,” Vizh warned. “You might just want to look at previous trends of you trying to shred bits of me and see if there’s a pattern.”
The two creatures faced each other across the rotting gelid surface of the biomass they’d arrived on. Visionary hopefully thumbed the fast return button of his harness only to find that Nyarlurkhotep has erased it from existence.
“It seems I’m going to owe my informant two favours now,” the man in black admitted. “Not only did he tell me where there was a little broken Shoggoth to devour but I also get a new meat toy to avenge myself upon.”
“Wait,” Vizh frowned. “Did I miss a plot point? There’s a mystery informant? And he told you where to find our lost Shoggoth.” He looked down at the sticky good that was ruining his trousers. “Is this him?”
“There is a conspiracy,” Nyarlurkhotep smirked. “A plan to eradicate the heroes of Earth once and for all, beginning with your Lair Legion. A number of entities of cosmic significance have been recruited to play their parts. You can be assured as you die that your friends and loved ones will not long survive you.”
“Ohhh,” grumbled the foetid biomass beneath their feet, bubbling a little as it regenerated. “You two aren’t going to let me be dead in peace, are you?”
“Shoggoth?” Vizh checked, recognising the unearthly tones that always sounded as if they’d been fluted down a long drainpipe.
“Here I was, eternally lying after my labours were done, seared out of existence when I reordered that narrative bomb, perfectly content to stay entirely in the past tense, and then you come along and have all this drama right where I can’t help but pick up the causal strands.”
Nyarlurkhotep wasn’t at all concerned that the Shoggoth was awakened. He was much further up the Lovecraftian food chain than a mere slave construct with ideas above its station. “Oh, you’re back are you? Saves me the bother of resurrecting you to dismantle you properly.” He glanced across at Visionary. “Don’t look to this little wisp to save you, fake man. On his best day ever his main biomass couldn’t even scratch me.”
“I don’t need to scratch you,” the Shoggoth countered. “All I need to do is this.”
Then he ate Visionary.
***
The tomb would have been dark but for the hundreds of tallow candles on every shelf and surface. Sir John de Jaboz looked a littler nervous as the ghouls shuffled in to surround him.
“Doesn’t this bother you at all?” he murmured to his companion in adventure, the Princess Liliblanche of Salem.
“Esperine is much more relaxed on the question of undeadness than your humourless knights of the Swordrealms,” the blonde-haired psionic replied. “We’ve had worse things than this to our dinner table at home. Some of their table manners can be a bit lacking though.”
“As long as it’s not dinner they’re looking for now.”
The Abyssal Greye was the last to enter the chamber, holding the door open for Urthula Underess to come in before him. “Do you have it?” he asked anxiously.
Sir John showed him a package wrapped in black silk. He carefully unfolded it to reveal an old leather-bound volume, its pages yellowed and its cover scarred. “The Whispering Monks weren’t happy about parting with this,” the Knight Improbablar mentioned. “Then again, I wasn’t happy about what they intended to do with those babies they’d taken. It was a loud negotiation.”
The Abyssal Greye nodded, his corpse-grey face showing perhaps the slightest sign of satisfaction. He carefully took the volume in long hands with sharp-pointed yellow nails and examined the folio. “A first edition of The New Atlantis, by Sir Francis Bacon,” he breathed (although he didn’t usually need to breathe).
“That’s right,” agreed Sir John. “Just as we bargained.”
“This book means a lot to us,” Greye explained. “The Scholar-Ghouls Under Gothametropolis were inspired by this writing. Bacon’s idea of a colonial haven where the arts and sciences were nurtured and preserved, where rational thought reigned supreme in a scholarly paradise…”
“Sounds really boring,” interrupted Urthula with a mock yawn. “Anyway, in Bacon’s New Atlantis, his Bensalem, the whole society was based around family and marriage.” She looked around. “I don’t see any of you Scholar-Ghouls getting any.”
“You didn’t just want the book though, did you?” Lileblanche asked them. “You knew that once we saw what the Whispering Monks were doing we’d be obliged to stop them. To deal with them permanently.”
The Abyssal bowed his head in acknowledgement. “You have truly paid your end of our bargain,” he acknowledged.
“Not quite,” pointed out Urthula. She turned to the princess. “Did you get it?”
Lili drew a folded slip of paper from her waistband. “This was harder then the monks. In the end we had to ask Contessa Natalia Romanza of the Super-menace Principal Undercover Directorate for help.”
“What is it?” Greye asked curiously as Urthula crammed the note into her cleavage. “Some rare alchemical formula?”
“Orlando Bloom’s phone number,” replied the party ghoul. “But don’t worry. It’s for research purposes.”
“If you are satisfied that our part of the work is done,” Sir John suggested, “may we proceed with out quest? Liliblanche’s this-world-counterpart of her grandmother has revealed certain information to us that…”
“We may proceed,” the Abyssal Greye promised. “The dimensional turbulence of the recent Parody Was prevents us from opening a tunnel through to your conjoined worlds for now, probably for the better part of a year, but we have been able to locate the other thing for which you searched.”
Urthula shuddered. “I still say going up the Black Passage sounds like a prison euphemism,” she insisted. “Look guys, we found an entrance like you wanted, conjured a way past the guardians. But this is dangerous stuff, very dangerous. Time travel is bad for your health. Are you sure you want to do this?”
Sir John and Lili exchanged glances. “We must discover the truth of what we have been told,” Sir John replied at last.
“And it might be interesting,” Liliblanche added with a little dimpled grin. “Coming to Earth is probably the adventure of our lifetimes. We don’t want it to end just yet.”
“Because then you wouldn’t have an excuse to hang around with the stud?” asked Urthula perceptively.
“Of course not. We’re just co-operating – barely co-operating – to solve an ancient mystery.”
“Co-operate this way then, if you please,” instructed the Abyssal Greye. “The Black Passage awaits.”
***
“Remember when my worst problem was trying to co-ordinate international intelligence reports?” Hallie groaned as she received the new slab of data from Reticulum Locus on galactic security conditions. “Now I’ve got terabytes of material on what’s happening in the former Skree empire, on the Shee-yar succession wars, on the war crimes trials on Frammistat Eight, on events on thousands of worlds that I’d never even heard of a year ago.”
“I have every sympathy,” D.D., artificial intelligence at the Lunar Public Library replied. “The days when I just had to maintain a back catalogue of ninety billion billion documents and manage a branch that received visitors from a thousand light years around seem very long ago.”
That prompted Hallie’s next question. “Have you heard from Lee since he went to meet the Governors?”
“Not yet,” worried D.D. “Since we declared ourselves independent from the IOL we’re off their infonet. ALF.R.E.D.’s tooling up and threatening to pay them a visit of we don’t hear anything soon.” The A.I. leaned forward confidentially. “I think he’s hoping we don’t hear anything soon. He’s never really forgiven the Governors for disassembling him that time.”
“Well, some things are hard to forgive,” Hallie admitted. “Disassembly is one of them.” She was multi-tasking as she spoke, of course. “Still no word on whether the Yellow Flashlights survived,” she noted. “D’Ur Acell must be going crazy with worry. Gamona’s disappeared – no surprise there. Massive legal battles over the ownership of the former Astrovidian territory that – oh!”
“Oh what?” D.D. asked.
Hallie squirted the data over to her. “Rather than have another war the locals are all appealing for the Lair Legion to go there and arbitrate. That’s new.”
“Send CrazySugarFreakBoy!” recommended D.D. with a giggle. “See what happens.”
“Hmm. Here’s another request, from Chalastis Core, wanting us to mediate in their dispute with the Weaponmakers of Skelvis. And a plea for help to sort out the depredations of the Shankaru pirate monkeys. Earth’s being cited as expert witness in a compensation claim from the Prospectii for the citizens who were eaten in the Parody War by the Draumid gastronomes. And here’s an offer from Plxytrazar asking if we’ll send one of the LL to go and rule them.”
“Sounds like the team’s going to be busy in the aftermath of the Parody War,” noted D.D. “I hope there’s no Earth crime any more, because they’re not going to have time to deal with it.”
“I don’t think the Legion is likely to start interfering in galactic politics, no matter how much Garrick might like it. It’s not like we have regular interstellar travel technology or the resources to colonise other worlds yet. Once things are settled Sir Mumphrey expects us to go back to being a bit of an interplanetary backwater.”
“Somebody has to do something in the short term, though,” D.D. argued. “If you don’t want to see more unnecessary bloodshed. Winning the peace is as hard as winning the war.”
Hallie thought that through, even as she e-mailed her collated situation report to the United Nations and the G-9 powers. “Well, maybe the Legion could look at a little bit of diplomacy,” she judged. “Things do seem to be very quiet right now here on planet Earth.”
And as she said that the top of the Safe exploded.
***
Yuki handed the suitcase of DVDs up into the goat chariot. “We’re really going to miss you, big guy,” she told Donar Oldmanson, hemigod of thunder, as he laid his Xena collection next to his Buffy collection and his X-box. “You too of course, Annj.”
“It’s been nice that we were able to stay a few days while things settled down,” the Queen of Ausgard replied, “For one thing, I had friends as Marion Nightshade, a life that needed tying up properly, people to say goodbye to.”
“What did you tell them?” Yuki wondered.
Donar put a huge arm around his wife. “Just that she hadst met a man and wast running away with him to a life of unremitting bliss.”
“I didn’t quite use those words, though,” Annj admitted. “I am looking forward to the unremitting bliss, however.”
“Things are yet unsettled in the far realms of the Mythland,” Donar said more seriously. “Mine father the Oldman intends to resume his walkabout so needs must I return to provide the proper whompage of malefactors, ne’er-do-wells, recreants, trolls, ur-trolls, ab-trolls, demi-ab-trolls, demi-ab-ur-trolls…”
“My hubby has a fixed idea about foreign policy,” Annj explained, clinging onto the hemigod’s arm. “And strong views on law and order.”
“And a zero-tolerance policy for mine half-sibling Hoki,” added Donar with a growl. “When I see him I shalt smite him most wrothfully forthwith.”
“Before he does anything?” asked Yuki.
“Oh, he wilt have done something,” Donar answered with certainty. “Best to smite first and asketh questions later.”
“Sorry to slip off like this, but when the Oldman calls you don’t hang about,” Annj told Yuki. “Please pass on our love to the others. It’s been really great hanging out with you all at the Lair Mansion. You’ve all got to come for a long visit at Emoh Sranod when you can.”
“It wilt be good to be home,” Donar confessed, “but I wilt miss mine boon companions in yon Lair Legion.” He looked around nostalgically. “It wouldst have been good to have something to smitheth ere the journey, also,” he admitted.
The explosion as Beth von Zemo triggered the failsafe explosives on the roof of the Safe lit up the sky.
“I’ll hold your Xena collection, shall I dear?” sighed Annj.
***
“What did you just do?” demanded the horrified Parody Priest as he looked back at the hole in the high security building that was still steaming with the heat of the failsafe blast. The squad of escaped avawarriors that had been racing along behind him were now cooked pulp across half of Flanagan Island.
“There are failsafe explosives laced all over this building,” Beth von Zemo explained. “In case of a mass breakout they can be triggered as an emergency last resort. I just used an override that the security staff here didn’t know about to set some of them off.”
“But you’re a prisoner here!”
“I prefer to think of myself as a voluntary guest,” the Baroness sniffed. “It suits me to await trial, and now I’ve brought my own staff in to cook and clean for me the place is quite palatable. The anti-teleport defences here were contracted out to the Interdimensional Transportation Company and I owned that for a while so obviously I’d know about the security back doors they installed. The Legion found those of course, but by then I’d had time to get HAGGIE to install some of my own.”
The Parody Priest glared at her. “Then you must die,” he decided, “but not until you reveal these codes to me.”
The Baroness wasn’t intimidated. “Tell me,” she said, “how much do you think your absurd and burning faith in an overpowered megalomaniac I helped to destroy is going to help you resist a wide-burst cellular disruptor pistol?”
A moment later she re-holstered her weapon. “Not that much then,” she concluded.
***
Hatman burned along the corridor in his Rockets hat, slamming aside avawarriors and jinking round the bulkier masses of the enhanced-strength combat clones. When he saw the enemies in front had anticipated him he switched briefly to his Tornados hat, then followed up with an old-fashioned Bedcap to send them to sleep.
He had to duck behind one of the fallen combat clones as a new party of escapees rounded the corridor carrying automatic weapons captured from the slaughtered guards. He quickly dragged on his Steelers cap again and powered towards them down the corridor. Any ricochets could only hurt the opposition.
“Hatman!” called an ava-commander. “Take him down!”
“Yeah, that’ll happen,” snorted the capped crusader. He dropped low, swapping out his current headgear for a Suns hat to blind his enemies with a sudden flare, then went in close up with his Giants hat to stomp them into the ground with a Fe-Fi-Fo-Fum.
More of the escapees were attracted by the melee. Numbers became overwhelming. Hatman powered though them with his Jets cap and made the secure landing where a dozen ava-army tech guys were trying to burn their way in to the secure panic room box where Westwood and Flaherty had taken refuge.
“That’s a no-no,” Hatman warned the prisoners, taking them and their equipment out with his blasting cap. He pulled on his CalTech beanie for a moment and got the damaged intercom to work. “Warden, this is Hatman of the Lair Legion. Hang in there. We’re on the job.”
And then they came, dozens of them, hundreds, seething down the corridor intent on the death of the leader of the Lair Legion, and the destruction of the men he protected.
***
Sharon Cortiss and her four year old son Dwayne had been in the Safe to visit Martin Cortiss, her husband, better known as the metahuman bank robber King Cockroach. Cockroach had been an inmate ever since he’d made the mistake of pulling a post office job when Fin Fang Foom was buying stamps. Now he was dead, torn apart by the same avawarrors that had taken Sharon and Dwayne hostage to force prison guard Duncan Malley to open the sealed basement area known as Vault Zero.
“I… I can’t open it,” the terrified warder stammered as a Parody Priest prepared to neatly slice one of the screaming boy’s ears off. “I don’t have keys. Nobody does except the Governor. Please, you have to believe me!”
“Open it!” shrieked the hysterical Sharon. “For God’s sake, please! He’s just a little boy! Do what they say!”
“I can’t do anything!” Malley shouted back. “Don’t you understand, there’s no way I can get in there!”
“Oh, I think there is,” the escaped acolyte assured him. “We have been provided with the technology required to overcome the electronic and physical barriers to the cell below. We merely require your word – the word of a duly appointed warden of this gaol – to vitiate the mystical defences.”
“Mommeeee!” shrieked Dwayne.
“Alright!” Malley pleaded. “Don’t do it! I’ll do what you want. What do I have to do?”
“Simply say that we may enter,” the priest noted. “Then your troubles are over.”
“You can enter, alright!” blurted Malley. “Just let the boy and the woman go, will you? You can enter!”
“Good,” noted the cleric. “You may now slaughter the man and woman,” he told his avatroops. “We will retain the boy for the Rider to devour.”
“Noooo!” screamed Sharon.
“No is right,” agreed CrazySugarFreakBoy!, dragging her from the clutches of an avawarrior as he spun past and dropping her safely behind him in a corner. “This is a no-slaughter zone. Don’t you people have any manners?”
Another avawarrior held his blade against the throat of the child. “You will surrender.”
“Sure. Catch.” CSFB! tossed the rocket fuel soda pop in an easy-to-intercept parabola. The fugitive released the boy and caught the missile by pure reflex. It exploded in a shaped charge that embedded him in the wall. The wired wonder scooped up Dwayne and bounced off the ceiling to avoid the influx of angry avatroops.
“Kill him!” ordered an Avacommander, pointing to the intruding superhero.
“Wow,” admired CSFB, tangling the first line of attackers as he tumbled between them, keeping them away from the potential hostages, “I can see that you went to Avacommander school. How else would you have thought up that amazing original plan? And the way you gave the order, so butch and manly… it gave me the shudders. I’m so totally dead now.”
A dozen Avawarriors piled on top of him, each with enhanced strength and reflexes and years of training in combat. CSFB! squirmed out from beneath them, leaving some flash-bang whiz-bangs behind him as a consolation prize, then covered the whole scrum in silly string.
“I said kill him!” the Avacommander called as the Impossibilitium-suited superhero made fools of his elite forces. “Kill them all!”
“Okay, you’re not funny anymore,” Dream decided, bouncing off the face of the trooper that still held Warder Malley then powering in to take down the Avacommander himself. “In fact I think it’s time somebody showed you guys that your stupid Parody War is over. You lost. Deal with it.”
He’d saved the hostages and was holding his own against overwhelming odds of escaped avawarriors. The only thing he’d missed was the parody priest retreating through the doorway to Vault Zero.
Then a wave of weakness came over CrazySugarFreakBoy!, sapping all the energy from his limbs, dropping him to his knees with exhaustion. The adamantite doorway was torn off its hinges with casual force. In the doorway the parody priest staggered and mouthed something which might have been “My lord…” before he decayed to a skeleton and tumbled to the floor.
M’Rak the Vicious stood behind him, his ragged black cloak trailing in a wind that wasn’t there, streamers of midnight malice fluttering around him.
The last of the Doomwraiths was free.
***
“There go the Lair Legion, Mr Skinner,” commented Mr Flay as they watched the LairJet from Parody Island make an emergency landing in the Safe courtyard. “Off to save the day.”
“An inspiring sight indeed, Mr Flay. I’m quite overcome with emotion.”
“It’s good to know that the heroes have arrived, Mr Skinner. It’s good to know they are committed to battling the terrible evil that has been unleashed from Vault Zero.”
“That it is, Mr Flay. It’s particularly good because now there’s no-one else who can help with the second outbreak over at Bareta Base, where there are even more avaforces imprisoned just now.”
“It’s going to become a very messy afternoon, is it not, Mr Skinner?”
“We can but hope, Mr Flay. We can but hope.”
***
All power went down across Bareta Base. Emergency back-up systems did not cut in. Their batteries were dead.
The first prisoners broke loose from their cells less than thirty seconds later.
Panic spread across the camp. Soldiers found their taser weapons and energy rifles to be useless. Only those that still had old-style percussion guns were able to defend themselves, and they were too few.
“Something’s wrong,” warned Sir Mumphrey Wilton as he heard the first gunfire. The old warhorse perked up and looked around him. He grabbed Governor Rashamon by the wrist and pulled her into cover. “Looks like we might have an escape attempt, what?”
“What?” Roslyn Rashamon looked around her in dismay. “My security people…”
“Best stay under cover for now, Governor,” Sir Mumphrey advised her. “I’ll see what I can whip up in the way of reinforcements.” He reached into his waistcoat pocket and withdrew a Legion comm-card. It was dead too.
The first explosions started as the serious offender cells were blown open.
“Hmph,” frowned the eccentric Englishman. “Looks like I’m going to have to settle this myself, by Jove. Very well.” He reached for his temporal pocketwatch and twisted a dial. “Don’t be alarmed, Governor, but I’m sending you six hours into the future, to keep you out of harm’s way.”
“The future?” Governor Rashamon frowned as she tried to remember security briefings on rumours about the former leader of Earth’s defence coalition. Something about time-travelling powers?
“Nothing to fear, madam,” Sir Mumphrey assured her as he thumbed his watch’s activation stud.
Nothing happened. His pocketwatch was drained of power also.
Then the first of the escaped avatroopers found where they were hiding.
***
Things began to happen fast.
***
“I’ve lost Vizh’s biosigns on his endurance harness,” Miss Framlicker reported urgently. “We need to reel him back in. Those bioharnesses are expensive.”
Al B. grabbed a dramatically large lever and slammed it down. Sparks showered across the floor of the EEE firehouse. The hose-winding mechanism salvaged from the building’s former use began to reel in the monofilament cable that had been fed out through the temporary dimensional portal. Amy struggled to maintain the connection with ever spanner in her collection.
The cord came back quickly. The end had been neatly dissolved away.
“Do something,” Kerry Shepherdson demanded, absently twisting the sparks away from her to blister patterns across the wall. “Get me another of those harness thingies so I can go in there.”
That would be unnecessary, the main biomass of the Shoggoth noted, rising from the seats where he had been flicking through magazines and dissolving the pictures he really liked to admire later. Visionary has just died.
“He what?!” demanded Al B.
My absent biomass, the one that was contaminated by mundane matter and was unable to rejoin with me, the one that joined your Lair Legion, has returned from oblivion and he has devoured Visionary. It was required.
“Well get it to sick him up!” shrieked Kerry Shepherson, reaching for Amy’s acetylene welding kit. “Get it to vomit Vizh up right now!”
That is not possible, noted the Shoggoth. The loathsome elder beast twisted his bandaged her around to look with interest at the place where Kerry had burned a neat hole right through his protoplasm. My offshoot biomass has digested Visionary out of existence.
The red phone on Miss Framlicker’s desk suddenly began to buzz urgently.
She overcame her shock to pick up the emergency line. “Uh oh,” she reported. “Major break-out at the safe! Looks like they might be trying to free the doomwraith. Hallie needs us to whip up the transfer conduit we talked about, stat.”
“That would be great if we’d finished it,” snapped Amy, “and greater if we didn’t have to shut down the machinery holding open the gate to wherever we sent Visionary to be eaten.”
“What the hell is happening?” shouted Kerry. “Stay with the plot! This snotball just ate Visionary!”
Technically I am not actually composed of nasal mucous membrane, the Shoggoth explained helpfully. Not am I yet reunited with my errant biomass. However, I am now sensing that his recent experience in diverting the destructive narrative energies of the Parody Master’s bomb has seared that contamination from my offshoot protoplasm. He is now clean and able to rejoin with his parent biomass.
“Yay for him,” snapped Amy. “Except for the whole eating Visionary thing. Do I pull the stop lever on this gate and rack up the other portal or what, Al?”
“If you don’t then more Legionnaires will die,” noted Miss F.
“Vizh. Got. Eaten!” Kerry yelled. The kitchenette microwave exploded. For starters.
Al B. Harper was chewing hard on his bubble pipe. “We’re missing something here,” the archscientist muttered. “Shoggoth, what’s your lesser biomass doing right now?”
He is speaking with Nyarlurkhotep the Damned, the Black Cancer at the Multiverse’s Core growled the Shoggoth.
Miss Framlicker rapped on her desk. “Hello? Major breakout of bad guys at the Safe. Possible Singularity Rider wiping out humanity threat. Think your mighty Shoggothship could get over there and stop it please?”
I am neutral in your wars, the loathsome elder being replied. I have larger things to worry about just now than the fate of your human species.
“That does it,” Kerry fumed. “Pass me those transdimensional vortex coils and that hydrogen tank.”
“No,” Al interrupted. “It’s okay. What the Shoggoth did makes perfect sense.” He slammed a hand down on the emergency cutoff button and the portal they’d been struggling to maintain collapsed and died. “Amy, set up the link that Hallie needs. We can leave the Vizh problem to the Shoggoth.”
“He’s already fricking eaten him!” yelled the probability arsonist.
“Exactly. Not just eaten him but devoured him from existence. And think what happens when Vizh gets taken from existence. Remember that he’s somehow a cosmic placeholder to keep out somebody of reality.” Al saw comprehension dawn across his staff’s faces, then their winces. “Exactly,” the archscientist noted. “Vizh and the Shoggoth couldn’t face off against Nyarlurkhotep. I wonder how the Apostate will do?”
***
Once there was a terrible man, a cult leader and master of destiny whose very word demanded obedience. He named himself the Apostate and he rose from humble origins dominating the Earth to become the unquestioned ruler of the Parodyverse.
Except that was not what was supposed to happen. The Triumvirate of greater cosmic office holders and the Family of the Pointless combined their power and skills to craft an alternative solution. They found a strange man whose very nature was in doubt, who could not be substantiated as either real or fake; or more accurately they found the possibility of such a man existing. The powers that be slotted this Visionary into the place in the narrative where the Apostate would exist, keeping their enemy from the Parodyverse as long as the possibly fake man remained there (alive or dead did not really matter).
On several occasions the Apostate had managed to find ways of temporarily coming into existence and had sought to take Visionary’s life. The most recent and potent such attempt had almost succeeded until Visionary’s wife Cheryl had ascended to become the Goddess of HTML to sear the Apostate again from reality at the cost of her own existence in the Parodyverse. Her actions had saved worlds from domination to the will of the Apostate, but had exiled him with the full might he had gathered up in his march across reality.
“I am returned!” proclaimed the Apostate, peering around from within his horned sacred helmet, surveying his new domain. “Worship me.”
“As if,” snorted Nyarlurkhotep contemptuously. “A psionically magnified human twisting memes? You worship me.”
The Shoggoth settled down to enjoy the show. He wished he’d brought popcorn.
***
Michael Papadapopolis looked up in relief as somebody came into the deserted Bean and Donut coffee bar. His relief froze on his face as he saw his father in the doorway.
“Papa,” he said, putting on a fake smile. “I can explain.”
“Explain what?” the old one-armed man asked, advancing with an angry red face. “You explain why twenty-seven of my regulars are calling me up to complain, yes? To say my son is arrogant little shit who does not treat my staff good? To tell me you sack Sarah and everybody quit? Yes?”
“I can do great things with this place, papa. Better things. I can build up a new clientele, a better crowd. I can… Owww!” Mr Papadapopolis’s walking cane had come down on his knuckles.
“I bring you up better than this, Micheal!” the old man raged. “I not bring you up to abuse young women and be greedy scumbag! I want to give this business I work for twenty-five years to make to you and your brothers and sisters. But business is not just building and equipment. Business is people, is customers and good staff and reputation.”
“I…” Micheal tried to answer but he couldn’t face his father’s wrath.
“Sarah Shepherdson, she best waitress on planet. People, they come here for her, not for coffee. Coffee and donuts are excuse to sit and chat and be asked how they are and tell problems. Sarah good person, she like another daughter to me, like Obelia and Alethea and Desma and Chora and Helen and Dora and Ione and little Lydia.” Mr P shook a finger in Micheal’s face. “She better than my son.”
“Papa, I…”
“You be quiet now,” the old café owner told him. “You be quiet now for very long time. Your next words, they be saying sorry to Sarah for how you treated her. Sarah is good person, she will forgive you and she show you how to be washing dishes in that kitchen, because that what you going to be doing for very long time.” Mr Papadapolis caught his breath. “Maybe I ask Sarah to be manager of this place for me,” he considered. “She not so good at math but she somehow seems to make it all right at the bottom of the columns.”
The door burst open again and a uniformed state trooper burst in. “Sirs, I’m going to have to ask you to come with me. We’re evacuating the city. There’s been a security breach at the Safe.”
Mr Papadapopolis sat down on a chair by the counter. “Then I stay here,” he announced. “I not run when Parody Master come to my café, I not run now.”
“Sir…” said the trooper.
“Papa…” warned Micheal.
“You call Don Graham,” Mr P told the officer. “You call Dan Drury. You tell them Bean and Donut is open for business in this crisis. Free coffees for all defenders of liberty. You tell them that from Spiro Papadapopolis.” He turned to Micheal. “My son, he will be doing the dishes.”
***
Down the road, at one of the umbrella-shaded tables outside Franco’s Crêpery, an athletic young man looked over his Daily Trombone at the military policemen clearing the street. “Sorry, sir,” the officer told him, “but we’re evacuating the city. There’s a bus over there.”
“Carry on,” the handsome stranger instructed the MP. “Don’t let me stop you.”
“Sir, I have to ask you to move towards the evacuation vehicle.”
The Carnifex reached out and scooped the MP’s guts from him then snapped his fingers and erased the officer from existence. “You really don’t,” he said to the place where the MP had been. “I’m enjoying my paper and I want to sit here a while longer. I want to see what happens.”
He absently licked the gore from his fingers and went back to the editiorial.
***
Hatman still defended the doorway that led to Warden Fleetwood and Security Chief Flaherty but the odds were now so great that he knew he couldn’t last much longer. His steel form was scratched and gouged and the press was so great that he no longer had time to switch hats. The avawarriors just kept on coming.
Jay Boaz wondered if this was the time he died. He marvelled at how clear his thoughts were, for perhaps the first time since he’d been rescued from the Parody Master’s torture pits. He thought of Zdenka and Whitney and the Legion. He thought of his recent decision not to opt for a happy ending. He realised that he knew what he wanted.
Hatman stood his ground and fought to the last.
A baseball bat with a nail in it crackled down the corridor, spilling avawarriors to left and right, then returned to the hand of its master. “Ho, felons!” boomed Donar, smiting as he came, “Hast thou met mine weapon Mjalcolm? He art most eager to make acquaintance with thine brain-pans for the nonce.”
“Donar,” grinned the battered capped crusader, suddenly filled with the joy of adventuring. “You gets all the best entrances.”
“Hatman, o glorious leader!” boomed the Ausgardian, slamming aside enemies to join Jay by the door. “Let us smite evil together in fellowship. And then mayhap watch a rerun of yon fabled Xena, Warrior Princess.”
“The Baroness got through to the Legion then?” Hatty checked.
“We interpreted the massive explosion as a call for back up,” Yuki Shiro called, sticking her head down from above the suspended ceiling where she’d been moving unseen by the enemy.
“Well detected,” approved Hatman.
“Twas good,” agreed Donar, preparing for the next avawarrior charge. “Now we hast enemies to thumpeth.”
Yuki dropped down and unslung the tech pack from one shoulder and the unconscious avasoldier tech officer from the other. She began plugging both of them into the door lock that Hatty was protecting. “Just keep those guys off my cute backside,” she told Jay and Donar. “I’m just going to break through this unbreakable door, get inside the secure room, fix the self-destruct controls that have somehow been gremlined, then blow every single avawarrior in this place to tiny little pieces. Okay?”
***
The avawarriors broke down the door to the commander’s office at Bareta Base and found Sir Mumphrey Wilton waiting for them. “Ah, there you are,” he said in clipped tones. “’Bout time. Where’s your commanding officer? Bring him to me right away.”
***
M’Rak the Vicious stood over the fallen form of CrazySugarFreakBoy!, continuing to leach the almost inexhaustible energies from the wired wonder to leave him too weak to even rise. The Singularity Rider reached out for Warden Malley and slowly drained the life out of the man, ageing him to death until he tumbled in a scatter of dry powdery bones onto the floor.
All the time M’Rak was staring Dreamcatcher Foxglove in the eyes, enjoying the agony of helplessness he saw there as he slaughtered the innocent before their defender.
“Next the woman,” the doomwraith gloated. “And then the child.”
CSFB! dredged up his will and tried to battle back. M’Rak devoured Dreamcatcher Foxglove’s renewed energy with an obvious satisfaction and gestured for the avawarriors to bring forward Sharon Cortiss. The worst part was the whimpering woman’s absolute acceptance of her death and damnation.
“Don’t…” CSFB! could hardly find the energy to speak.
“Sssshe is mine,” leered M’Rek. “You cannot ssstop me, hero.” He reached for the woman.
“Hey, spooky!” called Mr Epitome, “Pick on someone your own size!” The man of might powered in from above, slamming into M’Rek with a roundhouse left that sent the unprepared doomwraith back from the hostage. Glory went in and tore the arm off the avawarrior restraining Sharon.
The weakness debilitating CSFB! lessened, and he rolled over and spun his yo-yo cord round the neck of the guard holding little Dwayne.
The doomwraith wasn’t impressed. “Ssso ssstrong,” he mocked Dominic Clancy. “But for how long? I devour the ssstrong.” He reached out to drain all strength from the paragon of power.
Mr Epitome hit him again, feeling his fists tear through dead flesh and bone that was supposed to be insubstantial. “How about that?” he snarled. “Al B’s tech-geekery works. You can’t drain life from me, and I can hit you back.”
CSFB! piled back into the remaining ava-troops. “Glory, get the hostages out. Epitome can hold off M’Rak and I’ll keep these bozos busy. Go!”
“On it!” the mutt of might barked, and began shepherding the terrified mother and child from the combat zone.
M’Rak parried Epitome’s next punch and landed a searing slice of his own that cracked the hero’s collar bone and set him up for a devastating blow to the solar plexus. Epitome caught the second attack though and turned it into a toss that span the black-wreathed doomwraith across the room. “Not used to a fair fight, are you?” he demanded.
The Singularity Rider needed more power. He summoned the life out of every living thing within a thousand miles.
Too late he realised that Epitome had thrown him back inside that accursed cell, that prison designed to hold even the Chain Knight, master of locks and shackles, that prison that prevented projection of energies, transfer of necromancies. While Epitome blocked the doorway M’Rak could not kill others.
The doomwraith saw the harness now, a kind of dimensional transfer apparatus slung across the Earth defender’s torso. “A conduit,” M’Rak recognised. “An energy transssfer to the Queassssy Area of the Negativity Zone. You counter my negative energies with the forcssses there.”
“That was how Harper explained it, yes,” Epitome agreed. “See, the thing you all-powerful bad guys never really get is that the rest of us have to learn and adapt. We get smarter. We get more prepared. Push us enough, we figure out a way to push back.” He parried another slash from the Singularity Rider and landed another satisfying blow in the villain’s face. “Like this.”
“Fool. I ssstill posssessss the might of a whole world.”
Mr Epitome gestured with his fingertips. “Bring it on.”
***
“You’re not thinking clearly, Major Harrow,” Sir Mumphrey Wilton told the injured avawarrior leading the insurrection at Barreta base. “It’s not for me to tell you your job, of course, but you’re thinkin’ sloppily and that’ll get you killed.”
“You are the leader of Earth’s defence forces,” accused Harrow, looking at the old man his troops had dragged to him. “You will command them to stand down and surrender.”
“He’s not leading Earth any more,” Governor Rashamon told their captors. “He stepped down when he led us to victory. Now he’s just a civilian. In fact if you killed him right here and now there’d be some people in government who’d be pleased to hear it.”
“Quite a few,” snorted Mumph. “Anyway, point is old chap, we’re not the valuable hostages you think we are. And you’re not askin’ the right questions at all.”
Harrow scowled at him, his recovered avablade held near the old man’s throat. “And what are the right questions?”
“Well, for starters, who set you loose? How did they come up with a sophisticated energy suppression field that stopped alarms and ray guys and the like but didn’t shut down the electrical activity in our brains? We used something similar against you in the Beijing campaign but we had to snaffle an Abhuman generator that was the size of a large house. So who’s doing this for you and how, hmm?”
“Our brothers have been freed from the detainment installation near Gothametropolis,” Harrow announced. “They could have…”
“Also mysteriously freed, I’ll wager,” the eccentric Englishman interrupted. “But putting aside the how and the whom for a moment, have a think about the why. What’s likely to happen now, d’you think?”
“We shall free our remaining Earth forces, conquer and punish your planet, then begin to re-establish the Master’s empire for the day when he returns.”
Sir Mumphrey snorted again. “He’s not returning, lad. I was there when he went down. It was for good. No, I’ll tell you what happens next. Earth’s governments learn that you’ve escaped. They’ll see that if you abandon your wounded and dying here at Bareta you’d certainly have a fair chance of conquering this world in conventional combat. So they’d only have one choice.”
“The nuclear option,” Roslyn Rashamon shuddered. “One tactical nuke here. Another… another on Paradopolis and GMY.”
“It’s not like we haven’t had to slaughter our own before to prevent worse later,” Sir Mumphrey said quietly, his face pale and grey for a moment. “But don’t think for a moment they’re not considering it right now.”
Major Harrow evaluated the opinion. “Humans are weak,” he asserted, but uncertainly.
“We took down your Parody Blighter,” pointed out Sir Mumphrey Wilton.
***
“Where’s Garrick?” asked the President. “I need Garrick’s input on this.”
“Mr Garrick is still recovering from his injuries,” Miss Peel told the CIC. “I’m fully briefed. The joint chiefs concur with the recommendation. There is no other way to prevent the march of the escaped ava-armies or the menace of the doomwraith. Nuclear is your only option.”
***
The longest session of the IOL Board of Governors in living memory was coming to a close – and since some of the Governors lived for thousands of years that was a long session. But finally agreement was reached.
“So, Mr Bookman,” the Chairman of the Board asked wearily and through gritted teeth. “Do we have an accord.”
The Librarian of the Lunar Public Library checked his list. “A new elected board, an enquiry led by Librarian Saxmunhdam into the actions of staff during the Parody War, a revised charter and operational parameters for the Auditors, and some new guidelines about public access and accountability,” he noted. “Yes, that covers almost everything.”
“Almost?”
Lee nodded. “I want to see the Senior Librarian again,” he insisted. “I’ll return the Grand Repository, but only to him.”
“The Senior Librarian has been confined to the data stack since he helped you steal, er, rescue the Archive.”
“And now he’s exonerated, so let me talk to him.”
Auditor Blay-Kee was almost beside himself with fury. “You’re finished, Bookman! After this, you’re done. History. You’ll never be a Librarian again. Never!”
“Of course I will,” Lee responded. “The Lunar Public Library declared independence, remember? Independent libraries have their own boards, elect their own Librarians.”
“Independent libraries don’t have access to the IOL stack though,” Supervisor Garth gloated. “They can’t call upon the Great Archive.”
“Then it’s a good thing I kept a copy of it all for back-up, isn’t it?” asked the Librarian. “The Senior Librarian. Now.”
The Governors reluctantly undid the security seals so the Senior Librarian could manifest.
“Alone,” insisted Lee.
“This is the Governor’s Chamber,” someone objected.
“And when the new Board is elected they can have it back,” Lee replied. “You people are dismissed.”
After the protesting former Governors had been herded out and the chamber was deserted except for Lee, the Senior Librarian appeared with a somewhat satisfied look on his face. “Very good, Mr Bookman,” he approved. “Never let the administrators get in the way of the actual service.”
“I need to talk to you,” Lee said, cutting to the chase.
“About me manipulating you by authorising Blay-Kee’s persecution?” the ancient man asked. “Or forcing you to declare independence? Or dropping the Great Archive into your head?”
“I’m not interested in all that, or even in the deal you cut with the Hooded Hood long before that to retcon my execution. I’ve been sifting through the Archive data.”
“Something no ordinary Librarian is supposed to be able to do. Something that is the hallmark of only a Senior Librarian, Mr Bookman. Or a future Senior Librarian.”
“Still not interested. I noticed an anomaly in the data, though. Something I couldn’t fathom.”
The Senior Librarian’s interest was piqued. “Oh. Tell me more.”
Lee Bookman leaned forward and whispered. “What do you know about an entity known as the Carnifex?”
***
“How did you get in?” demanded Safe Governor Fleetwood as Yuki pressed the adamantine-laced vanadium steel security door open and entered the Panic Room. “That security is supposed to be impenetrable.”
“I’m that good,” the cyborg P.I. shrugged. “Now show me the failsafe trigger equipment so I can figure out a way to bypass whatever they did to stop it.”
“Over here,” Chief Flaherty answered. “Only somebody with the original schematics could have stopped this working.”
“Right. Luckily I know someone with a back door in.” Yuki tuned her internal transmitter to a specific frequency. “Baroness?”
***
The structural damage to the Safe was now so bad that Hatman could get an outside comm-signal through Hallie to Al B. Harper. The wider tactical update didn’t comfort him.
“Additionally, I’ve not been able to contact Whitney,” Hallie added. “Her comm-signal blinked out in Black’s Crossing.”
“This is starting to look co-ordinated,” Hatman frowned. “Multiple threats to spread us thin and take us out, multiple objectives to achieve. There’s a bigger picture.”
“We could do with some pretty strong leadership here.” Al B. noted. “And preferably a brilliant plan.”
Hatman rummaged in his hatility belt and dug right to the bottom. “How about this?” he suggested, making a quick summary.
“Could work,” agreed Al B. doubtfully. “Except there’s still Sorceress missing.”
Jay shook his head. “Whit can take care of herself. She’d want us to save the world first. Let’s do it.”
***
Vesperine, Lady of Torments, preferred the form of a beautiful albino with blood seeping like tears from her eyes and nails. She sat on her barbed black throne of truths and watched her victims struggle.
“You’re probably wondering why I invited you to my realm,” she announced to Liu Xi Xian, Whitney Darkness, and Ebony of Nubilia. “I assure you it’s entirely personal.”
“Vesperine,” Ebony warned the others. “Lord of one of the hell-planes, roughly on a power level with Mefrothto or Grimpenghast. Generally considered not as dangerous or effective.”
Vesperine shook her head and made Ebony relive the worst moment of her life. The high priestess of the Manga Shoggoth screamed and slumped weeping, still bound by the cords of thorns that restrained the captives.
“I’m not much for clever word games, and I don’t really enjoy being manipulated,” the Lady of Torments explained. “I just want to hurt you.”
“The letters weren’t from Xander,” Liu Xi noted. “You fixed them somehow, changed their contents to bring us into a trap.”
Vesperine had Liu Xi relive the night she’d been taken to the man who was supposed to become her husband. “Speak when you’re spoken to,” she advised the tortured Chinese girl. “I didn’t arrange for the forged letters. That was an associate, who kindly offered me the chance to acquire three interesting souls for my collection.”
“I don’t suppose you could tell me who that was?” Whitney asked. “Just so I can add him or her to my ass-kicking list after I’m done with you?”
“You’re a slow learner,” the Lady of Torments noted, plunging Sorceress into the moment when she had become the possession of the Demon Lover.
Whitney Darkness looked up with a nasty smile on her face. “Actually I’m not,” she replied. She shifted in her bonds, standing straighter. “You see, I learned a lot when I faced down the Demon Lover who’d been possessing my family of thousands of years. Enough that I don’t ever need to fear him again. Enough to know what to do if I ever had to relive that situation. Enough to take him down and borrow his power – which is to say the power he’d leached off all my grandmothers for countless generations – and channel it outwards in one pantie-wettingly powerful malediction hex.”
Vesperine realised too late that Sorceress had been waiting for this. The curse caught the demoness right in the face, shattering the throne of truths and spilling its occupant out across the wastes of isolation.
“Ebony?” Sorceress prompted, lifting the priestess from the wreckage of the thorn vines that had restrained her.
“Standard exorcism ritual channelled through that lovely bit of raw magecraft you just loosed, I think,” Ebony of Nubilia answered vengefully. “Should release every bound soul within a hundred thousand leagues of here, and especially everyone that’s tortured in Vesperine’s collection.”
The Lady of Torments reformed, wrathful, urgent.
“Be sure to remind those souls who was torturing them,” Sorceress advised Ebony. “Liu Xi?”
“Yes,” Liu Xi Xian replied, dragging herself up holding handfuls of abyssal dirt. “This place must go.”
Vesperine came forward, far too powerful for any of the three women to stop for all her injuries. Liu Xi Xian folded earth and fire and void and placed the women a thousand miles distant. At her glance the whole terrain folded like origami, mountains cracking to spew seething rivers of lava down into newly formed acid seas. Searing clouds of caustic steam billowed high into suddenly-red skies. Great chunks of Vesperine’s domain heaved away to embed themselves in neighbouring fiefdoms, triggering reprisals and renewing the turf conflicts that were never more than a minor provocation away.
Vesperine howled through the chaos and came straight for Sorceress.
Whitney waved at her and transported herself and her comrades through the spiritual rift that Ebony’s rite had made and the dimensional crack that Liu Xi’s void-pulling had torn. “See you,” she told the Lady of Torments, “Next time we won’t be so nice.”
They left the Demon Lady to howl for her shattered domain and her lost power and her unfulfilled lust for revenge.
***
By the time you get these letters, wrote Xander the Improbable, you should have already received faked versions which will lead you to some kind of deadly trap. After you’ve dealt with that and returned to Earth, I’d like you to try and keep the occult world under control. Between the three of you – Whitney, Ebony, and Liu Xi – you have many of the specialisations that the job will require. Look for help from Greye, Bookman, Olivia Hastings, Hagatha, Mr Li, even – if you absolutely have to – Johnstantine. Things will get dangerous without a sorcerer supreme to keep a lid on them. You might face some interesting times.
And while I don’t suppose this bit of information will be allowed to get to you, beware your new enemy, the one behind your recent trials, a being known as…
And here a scorched corner of parchment obliterated the rest of the note.
***
“How are you doing in there?” called CrazySugarFreakBoy!, still bouncing around the seemingly-endless hordes of ava-warriors. Any one of them was a good fight. He was running out of ways to keep them busy.
Mr Epitome ignored the dozens of claw-wounds and gouges that laced his body, the broken ribs and the shattered forearm and kept on pounding on the being formed from the twisted souls of an entire planet that sought to make Earth as dead as its own. “Fighting for truth and justice,” he replied in a snarl.
“Got word from Yuki. She’s almost got the failsafe self-destructs online. They’re micro-point-singularities that will take out the whole of Flanagan Island. A by-product of Enty’s automated egg-whisk research apparently.” CSFB! looked a little worried. “Problem is, there’s no way for us to get out in time. This is like Crisis On Infinite Earths #8, where the Flash has to sacrifice his life to save everything.”
Mr Epitome smashed his fist again into the tattered face of M’Rak the Vicious. “Do it,” he ordered.
***
“How do you think it’s going, Mr Skinner?”
“It’s proving most interesting, Mr Flay. It seems as though the governments of this world are considering a scorched earth philosophy.”
“I always enjoy a good patch of scorched earth, Mr Skinner.”
“Nobody enjoys it more, Mr Flay, especially when people do it to themselves. Irony always adds a little piquancy to the smell of burning corpses.”
“That it does, Mr Skinner. So the last vestiges of the Parody Master’s empire will be obliterated for good, and the first part of the boss’ work will be completed.”
“It will be, Mr Flay. At least if Miss Peel is successful in her work.”
“Miss Peel is usually successful, Mr Skinner. She’s a very motivated young lady.”
“So she is, Mr Flay. So she is.”
***
“Please don’t worry, Mister President,” the Carnifex said at the other end of the phone line. “My Esquiline Tower couldn’t be harmed by a supernova, never mind one of your nuclear devices. If you feel you need to detonate a warhead on the Safe then don’t give any thought to my property. You must do as you think fit.”
He went back to his croissant.
***
“You cannot trick us,” shouted Major Harrow. “We are the Avawarriors of the Parody Master! We are his chosen, his elite!”
“It’s no trick, old chap,” Sir Mumphrey told him sadly. “You know your Master is gone. You must have felt his power go out of you. More than half of you are dying because of it, because his will isn’t there to overcome what was done to your bodies to give you your abilities. The Parody Master is gone and your time is over.” He looked up suddenly at the avacommander. “Why did you fight for him?”
“He was our Master,” Harrow replied. Then, seeing in the old man’s eyes that his response was not enough, he added, “Because he would have made a better Parodyverse. Because he would have brought order and enlightenment. Because he made us strong, better than we were before.”
Mumph shook his head. “Can you still carry out his plans without him? Or can you only cause more bloodshed and death?”
“We can avenge his fall.”
“But nothing else.” The eccentric Englishman stood. “It’s over, Major Harrow. All that remains now is for you to decide whether to accept it. Will you be defeated with honour, care for your wounded, comfort your dying, and perhaps secure some measure of peace and some future for your men? Or will you be manipulated into one last bloody fight by an unknown enemy who means you no more good than he means us? Hmm? Which will it be?”
“There’s no way to win this,” Roslyn Rashamon opined. “But it’s still possible for you to lose.”
“We have come to an end,” agreed Major Harrow reluctantly. “But we shall do what we must.”
***
“Carnifex is a Roman title in my culture,” began Lee Bookman. “It means ‘butcher’, and it was given to the Public Executioner of Rome. They called him ‘the man in the blood-red hat’ and he was so feared and hated that he was not allowed to live inside the city boundaries. He dwelled outside the ghost-haunted Esqualine Gate and his lead-studded scourges were hung on public display at the entrance to Rome’s biggest district, the Suburba. He was the empire’s torturer-in-chief. Not a nice man.”
The Senior Librarian had accessed the histories as Lee spoke. “Yes, I can see that. The work – the name – Carnifex appears in other cultures too, always referring to a person of violence, an executioner. And he appears in some of the very oldest legends of the Parody Master.”
“As the reason the Parody Master was created, the thing he was meant to protect the Parodyverse from,” suggested Lee.
“Maybe,” the Senior Librarian agreed. “Or he’s an agent of those who mean us harm.” He relaxed a little. “Of course, the Carnifex who appeared on Earth to help you after the Parody War can’t be linked with any of that.”
“No,” agreed Lee, also calming down. “We’re very lucky that Mr Carnifex is there to help us out now.”
And then everything was alright.
***
“Art thou sure thou wantest to do this, Jay Boaz?” asked Donar, from somewhere in a scrum pile of avawarriors.
“If it’s a choice between him blowing up and me, I vote him,” offered Baroness von Zemo.
“If you’re doing it, Hatty, now’s the time,” Yuki called. “I’ve just activated the detonation sequence.”
“It should be a fascinating experiment,” contributed Al B. Harper from the EEE lab.
Hatman pulled out his Bell Telecom hardhat and began to make connections.
***
In a distant dimension, the Apostate wrestled with Nyarlurkhotep, each an overwhelming force to reshape the Parodyverse.
In Vault Zero, Mr Epitome wore a Negativity Zone harness that countered the world-draining energy field of the last doomwraith.
In the Safe above, Yuki activated the point singularity weapons that opened short-life miniature black holes all around the building.
In the EEE firehouse Amy Aston crept up behind the Shoggoth’s main biomass and quickly jabbed a couple of crocodile clips into his plasma.
Al B. Harper fired up the dimensional engines to a new configuration. Hatman connected all those things together with his Telecoms cap.
***
“Wait. What?” blinked Visionary, looking around him.
“Congratulations,” said Lisa Waltz. “You’ve added yet another multi-dimensional snafu to your charge sheet.”
The possibly-fake man looked around him, then checked to see how eaten he was.
“The Legion managed to link about four different major villain crises together into one major foobar,” the new Destroyer of Tales noted. “Chronicler has gone off to get drunk. I get to untangle this mess.”
“All you have to do is to balance the various forces before the Parodyverse is shredded,” the Shoggoth – the Legion’s Shoggoth – noted calmly. “The fascinating narrative harmonic that Dr Harper achieved has already made it possible for me to vomit out Visionary into being again and remove the Apostate from what you call existence.” The loathsome elder being seemed a bit smug. “Since that Apostate was so intimately tangled in combat with Nyarlurkhotep at the time it looks like he’s gone as well, at least until he finds a way to crawl out of the oblivion the Apostate has gone to.”
“I’m still back at the ‘Wait’ part of the conversation,” Vizh admitted.
“All’s well that ends well,” Lisa shrugged. “But next time any of you try this I’ll be back with paddles.”
***
“Stand down, Mr President. I repeat, stand down!” Amber St Clare called urgently over the direct line to the White House. “We’ve just got contact with Sir Mumphrey at Bareta Base. He’s found and destroyed the technology that was causing the power outage and the avawarrior escapees have surrendered to him. At the Safe the doomwraith his been destroyed and the situation is coming under control. Do you understand? You can stand down extreme responses!”
“I’m sorry, Ms St Clare,” Miss Peel said sweetly at the other end of the line. “The President is busy right now.”
***
“The word is given,” the Commander in Chief said. “Fire.”
“Confirmed,” agreed Dan Drury, Director of SPUD. “Launch.”
***
“You are correct, Sir Mumphrey Wilton,” declared Major Harrow. “We have been defeated. Our Master is gone. All that remains is to die with honour.”
“No, wait!” cried Governor Rashamon, realising too late what the avacommander intended.
Major Harrow fell on his avasword.
Every avatrooper on Earth died.
***
“Epitome?” called CrazySugarFreakBoy! “Epitome, are you okay?”
The charred bloody bulk of Dominic Clancy stirred. The harness had burnt great livid rents in his flesh where it had blown out.
“Please tell me I’m not being cradled in Foxglove’s lap,” he groaned painfully.”
***
“Hatty?” Yuki asked uncertainly, stopping her CPR as her onboard monitors picked up Jay Boaz’ vital signs again. “Can you hear me?”
Hatman looked up blurrily. “Wha’ happen?” he slurred.
“Yon avawarriors cheatethed,” complained Donar. “They all fell down dead for no reason to spoileth the fray.”
The Baroness looked on his with contempt. “Yes. You could have kept on fighting and died otherwise.”
Hallie’s voice on the comm-cards cut through the bickering. “We have another problem,” she announced. “Six nuclear missiles in the air. Three en-route for where you are right now. Automatic cancellation codes are not responding.”
***
“Hi Asil!” called Dancer, manoeuvring her shopping bags through the doorway to the operations room. “Did I miss anything?”
“The end of the Lair Legion and nuclear death for Paradopolis?” suggested Asil nervously.
“Anything else? Did Harry call?”
***
“Well well,” noted the Carnifax, “The Lair Legion are full of surprises, aren’t they? Fancy them being able to survive that number of major threats all at once! And not just survive them – they actually used some of the menances to help overcome others of them. That’s really very clever.”
“Clever indeed, boss,” Mr Flay agreed. “I was just remarking us much to Mr Skinner, was I not, Mr Skinner.”
“Indeed you were, Mr Flay. Still, there’s clever and there’s nuclear holocausts, I always say. Let’s see them clever their way past six nuclear bombs.”
“Let’s not,” the Carnifax replied. “The last thing we want now is to reactivate the Probability Dancer’s abilities by stress for her friends. Besides, they’ve done very well. It would be unsporting to nuke them after all that effort. Not today.” He closed his fist and the six nuclear missiles were crumpled like foil, exploding across his palm so as not to spread destruction on the landscape below. “Tell the President that Mr Carnifex has dealt with his problem for him.”
“I’ll contact Miss Peel now,” agreed Mr Skinner.
“I’m very impressed with these Legionnaires,” the Carnifex admired. “This mission of destruction is going to be far more interesting than I expected. I’m going to take my time.”
“Destruction of the Parodyverse is at your entire discretion, boss,” Mr Flay agreed. “Although me and Mr Skinner, we’d like a chance to do a bit of harm before the end.”
“You will,” agreed the Carnifex. “Blood and fire and pain and weeping. But for now we’ll just see how things go. I’ll live amongst them and they’ll never question my presence. I’ll interact with them and learn their strengths and weaknesses. Nobody will even bat an eye that I’m here, the most powerful hero on their planet. They’ll merely see me as some kind of sentry, watching over them.” He chuckled to himself. “Until the time comes.”
He gestured to the food in front of him. “Paté, gentlemen?”
***
“Can I just say,” Vizh offered, falling back into a sofa in the Lair Legion Living Room, “ouch.”
“Sorry,” the Manga Shoggoth apologised. “I felt that eating you was the best alternative available to me under the circumstances.”
“Can I just say it’s a desperate day when one of us has to eat Visionary to save the day,” added Yuki.
“The doomwraith’s dead and the others are gone,” Mr Epitome said gruffly, sitting stiffly until his own wounds were healed. “That’s all that matters.”
“Not just the doomwraith though,” CSFB! pointed out. “Those mass suicides…”
“A lot of people seem to be very happy about it,” Hallie said grimly. “It’ll save an awful lot of post-war headaches. But there should have been a better way.”
“And the staff at the Safe,” added CSFB!, uncharacteristically serious for once. “We didn’t save them.”
“We did what we could,” Hatman declared. “Someone tried to take us all out, maybe take the world out. We managed to contain their threat, we held the line. That’s the job, team.”
“The Parody War is finally over,” contributed Lee Bookman, putting aside an old copy of War and Peace. “I can’t wait to read the volumes that will be written about those events.”
“They’ll probably be longer than anybody expected,” warned Al B. with a sigh.
“Meanwhile, we’ve shown that the Legion can still take whatever anybody throws at us,” Yuki asserted. “Doomwraiths, Avawarriors, elder gods, whatever the hell that Apostate guy who keeps going after Vizh is…”
“And Vesperine will think twice before coming at us again like that,” added Sorceress with some satisfaction.
“We owe Mr Carnifex a vote of thanks, though,” Visionary pointed out. “If he hadn’t neutralised those nuclear bombs…”
“I couldst have wrestled them,” grumbled Donar. “They art not so tough.”
“I thought things were going to calm down after the Parody War,” noted ManMan. “It looks like you guys are going to be as busy as ever.”
“Brave new world,” offered Sir Mumphrey Wilton. “New challenges. New threats. New adventures. Good show.”
“Can’t we tempt you to stay on?” Hatman persuaded the eccentric Englishman. “I’d step aside for you to lead in an instant, or you could stick around as an associate, or whatever you want.”
The eccentric Englishman shook his head. “Too much has happened of late. Need some time to deal with it all, as you colonials say. Need some time to grieve, to think, to relax. Time to mull over the kippers and read the Times and complain about the cricket. Enough said. Heading back to Blighty after the farewell party for young Pepper.”
“Not just Joe,” Dancer told them shyly. “I won’t be part of the Legion till my power comes back, and… I have other news. News about me… and Sarah Shepherdson.”
“Harry?” asked Asil eagerly.
“He’s not got Sarah pregnant, has he?” demanded Vizh, channelling Shep’s other brother.
“No. it’s just that Sarah might be travelling for a while, and I might go with her. To Europe. You see, she had an audition. For Lair Legion: The Musical. To play me.”
“Shep got a part?” CSFB! beamed. “In a stage production, I mean?”
“There’s a musical?” objected Mr Epitome. “I’m a musical?”
“Well, they turned Sarah down for Dancer,” Dancer explained with a little frown. “Said she couldn’t quite capture the essence of me. But they did offer her a small part as Sorcy. She even gets her own number, if it doesn’t get cut.”
“I thought Mr Papadapopolis wanted Sarah to manage the Bean and Donut,” the Librarian said.
“Maybe when she gets back,” Dancer smiled. “Sorry to cut in to your going-away party, Manny.”
“Your party is my party,” Joe replied.
“It should be everyone’s party,” asserted Asil determinedly. “Except maybe Flapjack and Fleabot.”
“Hey, maybe if Shep’s playing me in that show, you could play yourself, Dancer,” suggested Whitney.
“I don’t think so,” Dancer replied. “That could get weird.”
“What about you?” Hatman asked the Manga Shoggoth, perhaps prompted by the word ‘weird’. “Al says your ordeal burned all the mundane matter out of your system. You can reunite with your main biomass now, go home.”
“Well… I could have done that,” the Shoggoth bubbled, “but then I had to reconstitute Visionary and get us out of that dimensional shear point you created and… um, I seem to have been contaminated again. Therefore I would like to continue to associate with the Lair Legion for the time being if that is possible.”
“That’s your story, is it?” Al B. asked with a sly little smile.
“That is the statement I have made,” answered the Shoggoth stiffly.
“So we’re back up to a field team of five,” Yuki noted. “Plus Vizh, Lee, and Al as associate members as well. Eight Legionnaires in all. Maybe we should give some thought to a recruiting campaign. I have some profiles.”
“I take it Citizen Z is out,” ManMan shuddered. “Did the Baroness escape in all the turmoil at the Safe?”
“No,” reported Hallie. “She went back to her cell and complained about the lack of room service. I think she really wants her day in court. I just wish I knew why.”
“But she’s out of the Legion, right?” Vizh asked anxiously. “Right?”
“I don’t think we should recruit new people yet,” offered CSFB! “It feels like we’d be saying that our friends won’t be coming back. I’d like to give Finny and Enty and G-Eyed and Banjooooo and thuddy and DBS and the rest a chance to make it home. It’s too soon to close the door and put out the candle.”
“I don’t think we’d be doing that,” Hatman argued. “But we do have a lot to do right now, maybe too much for an immediate recruitment drive. And I’d like to get some more security measures in place before we take on any more candidates. We don’t have a good record on new recruits not turning out to be double agents.”
“Unless Mr Carnifex wants to join, of course,” Dancer offered with a little sigh. “He’s very datable.”
“Well it goes without saying that if Carnifex wants in, he’s in,” agreed Sir Mumphrey, “but that’s probably too much to hope for, what?”
“How about you, Whit?” Hatty asked Sorceress. “Are you ready to come back onto the team?”
Whitney Darkness shook her head. “I only dressed up as a superhero for you while we were dating, Jay. Besides, it seems I’ve got some new duties as acting sorceress supreme. Or part of her, anyway. I’m going to be busy.”
Mr Epitome summed up. “So we have Hatman, Yuki, Visionary, the Shoggoth, Harper, Bookman, and me. And CrazySugarFreakBoy! if we’re desperate,” he noted. “Should be enough to hold the line for a while.”
“I art only a short goat ride away if there art trouble,” offered Donar. “And if mine wife wilt let me come,” he added sheepishly.
“And there’s always spiffy,” noted Dancer. “No, really. Stop giggling. It’s not nice.”
“And then there’s the new intake of Juniors,” Hallie added devilishly as Vizh was sipping his coffee.
CSFB! leaned across to a smiling Hatman as Yuki slapped Visionary on the back. “And lucky you, you get Fashion Accessory back as your intern PA,” he warned the capped crusader.
Sir Mumphrey Wilton stood and raised his glass for a toast. The others joined him.
“To absent friends and the victories they helped us win,” he said. “To hard fought fights for dearer freedoms. To heroes across the Parodyverse who stand against the dark. To the Lair Legion, past, present, and future. Long may they line up.”
And they drank.
***
The Lair Legion Scoresheet:
Current Membership:
The Field Team: Hatman (Leader), CSFB! (Deputy), the Manga Shoggoth, Mr Epitome, Yuki Shiro
The Associates: Visionary, the Librarian, Al B. Harper
Previous Members (still around):
spiffy – President-for-Life in Badripoor
Lisa – Destroyer of Tales
Donar – Regent of Ausgard
Sorceress – acting sorceress supreme
Dancer – touring with Lair Legion: The Musical, currently unpowered
Sir Mumphrey Wilton – retired to his Wiltshire, England estates
ManMan – retired to be a building janitor, currently without Knifey
Baroness von Zemo – expelled, awaiting trial
And a quick writer’s note about the Carnifex:
As may be evidenced by this chapter, the Carnifex has arrived but is taking his time in unfolding a plot to destroy the Parodyverse. He’s a pro, so he’s not rushing in to anything. In the meantime, his massively high black iron Esqualine Tower looms over Paradopolis on the bay island where Exile previously had his HQ and nobody thinks there is anything amiss about his sudden appearance or his assumption of some authority in the affairs of the world. He’s a handsome hard-looking man who could probably be played by James Purfoy in the movie.
***
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. |
Welcome Harry. Hope you stick around... - Al B. Harper (in transit) - Tue Sep 18, 2007 at 08:15:50 am EDT