 The Lair Legion, one year in:Jarvis (leader, Tim Butelier), cosmic-powered butler Lisa Waltz (deputy leader), amorous advocatrix NTU-150 (Jamie Bautista), cybernetic millionaire inventor Fin Fang Foom, (Andy Dean) Makluan dragon Dark Knight, (Greg Burch) urban legend crimefighter Banjooooo, King of the Sea Monkeys Starseed (Manuel), master of the Gaaah! Force Yo (Pilar Alarcon), pure genderless thought being Donar (Gavan Carstenson), Ausgardian hemigod of thunder Messenger (Zaurius Angelheart), wise-cracking gangbuster Sersi, party-loving Austernal Rocket Racoon, jet-powered love-rodent Former Members: spiffy (Mark Hopkins), dead and in Hell, Nebraska Visionary, lost in the corn Magnetic Techbird, expelled for being a mutate terrorist The Man Who Wasn’t There, expelled for stealing Jarvis’ winning lottery ticket Space Ghost, expelled for being a pantsless drunk Support Staff: DarkHwk, (Zane), mystic-armoured warrior Zebulon the Elf, diminutive lab assistant HALLIE, computer sentience Fleabot, micro-robot So What Was Going On? It’s impossible to perfectly reconcile early Parodyverse continuity, but for the purposes of this chapter the team’s been going for around a year. The most recent recruits are Sersi and Rocket Racoon. Messenger is still a light-hearted wise-cracking rookie, more Hawkeye than Punisher. The team has faced the gigantic robot Confiscator, the Captor, the Anti-League, Psychic Mastermind, Blofish, Anvil Man, Quake, the League of Losers, Samhain, the Byrne, and of course the Scourge of the BZL (many times). There’s been lots of spiffy developments. Mark Hopkins has been lost, found, replaced by more than one double, gained the only non-evil symbiotic fern in the Unhappy Place, then died and ended up in Hell, Nebraska. Visionary has also had many adventures, including the recovery of HALLIE and Fleabot from Baron Zemo’s clutches, but as of this story he’s suffering from a crisis of self-esteem and has gone off into the corn to find himself. DarkHwk is hanging around with the team as NTU-150’s lab assistant (along with Zebulon). Across the river in Gothametropolis York, Cap leads the eccentric Abandoned Legion (a.k.a. the League of Left-Outs) founded by Hollywood V. Constant amongst the ever-changing line-up are Sorceress, Cobra, and Paste-Pot Pete. And in distant and remote corners of the continent such as Seattle, Canada, and Arachknight City a new generation of heroes is beginning to emerge. Previous Chapters: Part 1: Why there is only one Twin Parody Tower in Paradopolis today Part 2: How the League of Regulars got a mansion, how Zemo got a Scourge, and why Visionary managed not to wet his pants Part 3: What happened when Banjooooo declared war on the human race, and why it’s a bad idea to ever go to the lavatory again Part 4: What really happens in the scaffolding behind reality and why spiffy joining the Lair Legion is a sign of the end times Part 5: Who stole Birmingham and other bits of questionable real estate and why the League of Regulars had to get a new name The first lady of the Lair Legion woke up alone. That was unusual. She felt across and found the other side of the bed cold. Jarvis wasn’t there. Why wasn’t he there? He wasn’t currently dead, depowered, engaged to some trollop, or in any other way incapable of keeping Lisa’s feet warm. Lisa stepped out of bed, slipped on something gauzy and brief, and went off to locate her missing possession. Jarvis was in his office, pouring over paperwork. “Do you know what time it is?” Lisa demanded of him. “Less than four hours before all the preparations have to be in place?” the leader of the Lair Legion answered. “There’s a lot to do.” “Don’t we have people for that?” the amorous advocatrix checked. “We should have people. Hire some people. Enty will pay.” Jarvis gestured to the list before him. “We have to get this right. Day after tomorrow is the first anniversary of the founding of the League of Regulars.” “The Lair Legion,” Lisa reminded him. “It was your idea. We’re the Lair Legion now. We have to be, we already got the stationary done.” “The Lair Legion, then,” the cosmic-powered butler sighed. He ran a hand through his tousled blonde hair. “It’s our anniversary and there’s going to be a celebration.” “A party,” Lisa corrected him. “Sersi definitely demanded a party.” “A party,” conceded Jarvis. “But there’s a lot of detail to be got right before then. Procedures. Invitations. Security protocols.” “Pff,” shrugged Lisa, letting one strap of her peignoir casually drop from her shoulder. “Hand it to Finny. The little dragon likes organising stuff.” “It’s organising a party,” Jarvis pointed out. “The first time I mentioned the P word he hid in a closet.” “You could talk him round.” “It was Space Ghost’s closet. That’s how much he doesn’t want to do it.” Lisa tried again. “Well then, Messenger can do it. He’s the newbie, and he’s a fun party guy, always with the wisecracks. Tell him to get a keg in and I’ll sort the party games.” “No,” said Jarvis firmly, and specifically to Lisa’s party games. “There’s not enough kool-whip in the world.” “There’s enough for right now,” moued Lisa. “Come to bed and I’ll show you.” The second shoulder strap falling was a huge temptation, but Jarvis stuck to his purpose. “I need to do this. We’ve been through a lot lately and the team needs some time to relax and unwind.” “Well I offered to…” “Other ways to relax and unwind,” the butler qualified hastily. “That whole thing with evil spiffy shook us up.” “And then there was fake spiffy,” added Lisa. “And yffips. And Bubba.” Jarvis ground his teeth together. The youngest member of the Legion hadn’t even been able to die properly without massive confusion following. “That’s all behind us now,” he said, wrongly. “Poor spiffy can rest in peace. And we can party.” Lisa checked the invitations, curious as to who was invited. “Visionary’s still off finding himself,” she pointed out. “In the corn.” “Good luck with that,” Jarvis snorted. “He couldn’t find his backside with a road map.” “Cheryl misses him,” the amorous advocatrix pointed out. “She has laundry that needs folding.” Jarvis considered this. “It’s true that I’m having to stick other people on monitor duty,” he admitted. “People who actually have some practical use.” Lisa shrugged, but somehow her nightdress still stayed up. She’d have to practice more. “You’re inviting Hollywood V?” she noticed. “He creeps me out.” The leader of the Lair Legion didn’t trust the enigmatic old man who had bequeathed them the Lair Mansion, or the team of rag-tag wannabe heroes that he’s pulled together. “I want the Abandoned Legion where I can see them,” he answered. “Besides, they have girl heroes that’ll balance out the numbers a bit.” “Sorceress and Cobra,” Lisa remembered. “A witch and a b…” “I invited your sister and her team,” Jarvis pointed out sourly. “What kind of superhero group throws a party and makes welcome their archenemies?” “I never said invite Daio,” the first lady of the Lair Legion pointed out. “But if you don’t want all the dairy produce to go sour three minutes into the bash you’d better keep her sweet, I suppose. And that Wonderbooster guy is kind of cute.” Jarvis ground his teeth together. Again. “The Scourge of the BZL is not cute. None of them. No matter what Yo says. We’re only inviting them to… to get tactical information out of them. That’s it. Tactical information.” “I promise to get tactical information of them,” Lisa promised. “If it takes all night.” “Lisa…” Jarvis warned. “Kidding, Jarv,” the amorous advocatrix told him, almost sincerely. “I just don’t see why you can’t get someone else to do the work so you can come and keep me warm.” “I’ve got most of the team out in the field, talent-spotting,” Jarvis explained. “Since we lost spiffy and I fired Magnetic Techbird and the Man Who Wasn’t There and Space Ghost we could use some new blood.” Lisa considered that possibility with a sudden optimism. “So you don’t mind if I carry on?” Jarvis asked her. “It’s got to be done.” Lisa shrugged again. This time the shrug worked. And that was the end of Jarvis’ office time. There were endless fields of swaying green corn. There was a battered powder-blue Ford Pinto with a failing muffler driving along the ruler-straight road between nowhere and nowhere. There was bickering. “We should stop for directions,” argued Visionary. “It’s been three days since we saw a town. Or a gas station. Or a gas station bathroom.” “Because stopping for directions has worked so well every other time,” Fleabot retorted. The micro-robot had no idea now why he’d agreed to the road trip while Visionary found himself. Even when the yellow-coated reluctant Legionnaire did find himself he’d probably turn out to be fake. “That thing with the corn children and the sickles was probably a fluke,” Vizh pointed out. “And the thing with the vampire cows. And the time with the combine harvester road rage.” “Your amazing lack of statistical analysis notwithstanding,” Fleabot persisted, “there is one other flaw in your brilliant masterplan, o insightful one. And that is that unless you intend to interview a scarecrow there isn’t actually anyone in these endless fields of corn to actually ask directions from.” That was indeed the main flaw in Visionary’s plan, but the possibly fake man wasn’t going to admit it. And suddenly he didn’t have to. There was a figure standing beside them amongst the corn. It seemed like he’d been standing there all along. Visionary pulled the Pinto to a stop. “See? Probably a helpful friendly local who’ll be happy to direct a couple of straying tourist back to the interstate.” “S’yeah,” snorted Fleabot. “Dressed in the traditional local garb of spooky grey cloak and big shadowy hood, with the glowing green eyes that residents of this region are so renowned for.” Visionary had to admit that the figure didn’t seem like the most approachable person in the world. “Er, hi,” he called uncertainly, winding his window down. “We’re lost. Kind of lost. In the not knowing where we are sense. Please don’t sacrifice us in a wicker man.” “You are lost,” agreed the stranger. “And I am… the Hooded Hood.” Canadian Nightmare had the ability to control anything that was Canadian. Right now he was ordering a herd of moose to trample down the bank staff at Baker Lake, Nanavut so he could steal the payroll of the local lumber camp. The neophyte superhero who’d appeared to stop him was struggling. “Okay,” Hatman noted. “ Don’t use the Orioles cap again. People mishear and try to eat me.” “Fool!” gloated Canadian Nightmare. “You cannot stop me! Nothing can stop me! Except perhaps occasional US border import enforcement. But nothing else.” “Not so fast,” the capped crusader retorted. He was very new at this, and he was still working on his banter. He wore faded jeans and a t-shirt with a yellow flame and the legend Abundant Source of Natural Gas on it. His concession to his new vocation was a red tablecloth knotted round his neck as a cloak. He fumbled at his belt and pulled loose another of the sports caps he’d pinned there. “I command everything that’s Canadian,” pointed out Canadian Nightmare. “That includes you.” “That’s what you think, villain,” Hatman called back. He checked he’d got the right selection then pulled his Quebec Nordiques hat on. Immediately he was infused with the Gallic desire to separate Quebec from the rest of the nation, and that was quite enough to resist Candian Nightmare long enough to punch the villain on the chin. “Feu!” Canadian Nightmare crumpled like the economy. And that was that. An old man who’d been crouching in the corner of the bank rose up and tottered outside for air. When he was out of sight he shifted shape again and became Andy Dean, the human form of Fin Fang Foom. “Well?” asked the Dark Knight looming in the trees above. “He’s good,” the Makluan dragon admitted. “Raw, but the right stuff I think. I’ll recommend to Jarvis that we should approach him.” “Is there any way we can insist he ditches the tablecloth?” “One thing at a time.” Finny looked around to check they were unobserved. “What about you?” he asked. “Did you find anything?” DK dropped from the tree, scowling. “I found I can’t trust me,” he admitted. “The other me, I mean. The Chronicler of Stories.” Finny already knew that his childhood friend had two destinies, two incarnation of himself split off from each other to separate beings. In one life, Greg Burch had become the vigilante crimefighter Dark Knight. In the other he had been dragged from his timeline to become the latest holder of the cosmic office of Chronicler of Stories. “You talked to… yourself?” Foom checked. “I was spooky. He was enigmatic,” the Dark Knight summarised. “Bottom line, he’s not telling us the whole story. Him or Carrington.” Carrington was the Shaper of Worlds, another of the three principal cosmic beings who regulated the Parodyverse. “What’s our next move then?” asked Finny. “The anniversary’s nearly here, and that’s probably when it all goes down.” For once the Dark Knight didn’t have the answer. The Shaper of Worlds wasn’t often surprised. It was his job to not be surprised. He was the one who shaped surprises for others. So he wasn’t best pleased when he looked up from his computer and saw Hollywood V standing next to him. “What do you want?” Carrington complained. HV had a talent for appearing where he wasn’t wanted. “I thought our business was now concluded.” “Not quite,” the old man with the white beard and the gnarled staff replied. “One more thing.” “I don’t think so,” the Shaper said. He checked off the list with his fingers. “You pointed the Lair Legion at the Lair Mansion, I got you together with Paste Pot Pete, Sorceress, Cap, Cobra and the others. Done. I get my champions and you get to the next stage in whatever-the-heck eternal quest you keep reincarnating about.” “That’s true,” Hollywood V agreed. “Although things got more tangled than I expected. I owe spiffy a resurrection. And there’s a whole complicated thing about bringing back a pure thought bunny that I don’t even want to get into right now. And an Anti-Legion. And an incident with a banana gun and a sink plunger.” “Why are you here?” Carrington sighed. He’d been trying to get things in order for his successor. There was still a meeting to engineer between Con Johnstantine and Sarah Shepherdson, another political tangle in Costa Del Lune for the surviving Harper clan, a Technopolis invasion to plan to make cyborg technology available to create Yuki Shiro. Another thought came to him. “How are you here?” That was a good question. The workshop of the Shaper of Worlds was protected. There were almost no powers in the multiverse that should be able to get in uninvited. “I was able to get in,” HV explained, “because I have the codes.” “Nobody has the codes to come to this place,” Carrington denied, “Except the Shaper himself.” “Or a former Shaper,” suggested Hollywood V. Carrington shook his head. He still seemed like a young man, despite his many years in the office responsible for starting narratives across the Parodyverse. “If an office holder steps down then his omniscience gets erased. And all the things he shouldn’t still know about, like the dimensional access codes to the conceptual fortresses.” “Unless he was very smart,” HV noted, “and wrote them down first.” “That is forbidden.” “But not impossible,” the Gandalf-lookalike intruder suggested. The Shaper of Worlds exerted his power to know the truth. His eyes widened. “Wilbur,” he recognised. “Wilbur Parody. He broke his oath and retained his knowledge.” “Yes,” agreed HV. “And he’s the only entity in history to have held not just one of the Triumverate offices, but at different times he’s served as all three – Shaper, Chronicler, Destroyer of Tales.” “Are you saying… Parody has retained the forbidden knowledge from all three roles?” Carrington was appalled. That level of insight made Wilbur Parody… almost unstoppable. “That’s what I’m saying,” agreed HV sadly. “Of course, some of that knowledge is invaluable to me in my quest. I had no choice but to accept Parody’s offer and seal a bargain.” The last pieces of the puzzle Carrington had been wrestling with fitted into place. As Shaper he could see all beginnings, but endings weren’t his business; especially his own. “Ah,” he said. “I see. A pity. I’d have enjoyed staying longer, just when it’s all getting going.” Hollywood V raised his staff and seared the Shaper of Worlds to ashes. He knew exactly how to bypass a Shaper’s power, thanks to his sponsor’s information. “I really am sorry,” he declared as he shut down Carrington’s cosmic database and departed. “Good-bye.” Grrl grabbed her opponent and hurled him through the plate-glass window of the Bank of America, out amongst the traffic of busy Columbia Street. Somehow her adversary managed to tumble between the moving vehicles without being ground to meal and came back grinning all over his face. “Whooo!” CrazySugarFreakBoy! cried out in a rush of wild enthusiasm. “Can we do that again?” Grrl grabbed him and slammed him down through the marble floor, then hurled him at the vault door; except that this time he didn’t go. Somehow he’s tied his wrist to Grrl’s with some kind of coloured silly string. “This is so great,” he told her, beaming widely. “Can we banter now? Huh, can we?” Grrl punched him, but the kinetic energy just turned back on her, tumbling her to the floor with her adversary on top of her. “Come on!” CSFB! encouraged her. “Declaim something! Tell me your name in the third person. At least give me your home phone number for later. Do you like sushi? There’s a great sushi bar down Fifth Avenue, near the Smith Tower. We could grab a bite after I’ve thwarted your bank heist.” Grrl rolled on top of him so she could get her hands round his throat. “It wasn’t a bank heist, idiot,” she growled. “This is where I deposit my loot.” “Oops,” responded CrazySugarFreakBoy! “But it’s still ill-gotten gains, right? You got them completely ill?” “I’m going to tear your head off.” Somehow the wired wonder slithered free. “Not on the first date,” he told her. “Maybe after you buy me a sarsaparilla.” Grrl tried to follow him but found her feet were silly stringed together. And to the floor. “Oops, it’s the cops,” CSFB! told her. “Time for me to Lone Ranger into the sunset. Thanks for being my villain today. It was great. Bye!” Then he bounded over the heads of the incoming policemen, twisted round a lamppost, and bounced away down the road, whooping to himself. “Well?” sighed Starseed, watching as the officers of the law pried Grrl free from her entanglements. “Yo is to be liking him,” Yo approved. The pure thought being in the Zorro costume was grinning just like CrazySugarFreakBoy! “You is thinking we should be asking of him to be cute-Legionnaire.” Starseed sighed again. “I was afraid that was what you were going to say.” “The Hooded whonow?” Visionary asked in a puzzled tone. “Hood,” replied the cowled crime czar, distinctly, in his Latvian accent. “The Hooded Hood.” “Oh yeah, this was a good place to stop and ask for directions,” Fleabot noted. Vizh remembered the purpose for the halt. “Do you know the way to the interstate?” he asked politely. “You are not due to find that for some time yet,” the Hood replied. “In the meantime you will answer some questions.” “If it’s a pop quiz we’re doomed,” judged Fleabot. “Hey!” Vizh objected. “I know stuff. Plenty of stuff.” “They’re probably not questions about bowling or pizza toppings.” Visionary ignored the micro-robot and looked over at the archvillain. “What do you want to know? And is this multiple choice?” “Let’s start with Ms Lisa Waltz,” suggested the Hooded Hood. “Easy,” Vizh replied. “That’s the answer, by the way.” “Is Ms Waltz yet aware of the origins of her summonsing ability, or the role she is to play as Advocate of the Booke of the Law?” Vizh blinked. “Most guys just want her phone number.” He thought some more. “In fact, if you could direct me to a gas station bathroom I can probably get it for you. Any bathroom will do.” “So she has not yet learned of her employer’s manipulations,” the Hood mused. “What of Donar? Has he told the Legion how he received his enchanted baseball-bat-with-a-nail-in-it and regained his identity?” “Should I be helping you with this stuff?” worried Visionary. “You being a baddie and all.” “Don’t worry,” advised Fleabot. “The chances of you actually being helpful through what you know are pretty small.” “The Legion is not aware that it has been manipulated, brought together in one place and time for the dark purposes of a fallen cosmic office holder called Wilbur Parody?” Vizh’s face was blank. “Usually I’ve been hit on the head by this point,” he admitted. “Does this plot come with Cliff’s Notes? Only usually we’ve had the cheap gags by now and we’re on to the next part.” “So there are revelations yet to come,” concluded the Hood, speaking more to himself than the possibly-fake wanderer. “Interesting. The game unfolds, and I shall watch it with interest.” “Hold it,” Vizh challenged. “You’re not planning on doing anything bad to my friends, are you?” “Oh yes,” the archvillain assured him. “But only for the greater good of the Parodyverse, and not yet for a while. The world has yet to face the machinations of… the Hooded Hood!” “Great, isn’t it?” Rocket Racoon enthused, gesturing round him. “I’ve been rushing to get everything ready so we can show people tomorrow at the party.” Banjooooo, King of the Sea Monkeys, looked around him uncertainly. “What is it?” he asked. “It’s a museum,” Rocket Racoon told him, with all the zeal and verve that two foot four of fighting furry jet-packed love-machine could muster. “It’s a hall of fame for the exploits of my Lair Legion.” “Ah, verily,” Donar understood, looking at the glass cases and stuffed dummies. “Tis a shrine to the victories of our war band, raided from the burning ruins of our enemies’ farmsteads.” “Kind of,” RR owned. “I just gathered up souvenirs and stuff from the adventures we’ve been having. Trophies.” Donar looked approvingly at the wax statues of the Rogues Gallery. “And thou hast had yon felons stuffed and mounted,” he approved. “I ne’er did like yon Anvil Man anyhow.” “Er, they’re not actually real,” Banjoooo explained. “They’re just fake dummies.” “Like fabled Visionary?” asked the hulking Ausgardian hemigod. “Smarter,” Banjoooo answered. “I’ve got all kinds of stuff here,” Rocket Racoon went on. “That’s a piece of the Twin Parody Tower we blew up. That’s a bit of Baron Zemo’s castle. That’s a bit of Peter von Doom’s death ray. That’s a tape of the karaoke during International Incident. And in that tube there’s some genuine pus from the same episode.” “We’ll take your word for it,” Banjoooo assured him. “Mayhap we should nail the skulls of our enemies to yonder wall?” Donar suggested, getting into the spirit of the thing. “What is this?” Banjoooo asked with distaste, looking into a big glass pickle jar. “Oh, I really had to go to some trouble to get that,” RR grinned. “You know how Roni Y Avis only has one hand now…?” Donar was still watching the statues. “Art thou looking at me?” he challenged the wax Parody Master. “Art thou?” “Still not real,” Banjoooo tried; but in vain. RR continued his guided tour. “This is the deposition for that time Lisa tried to frame Vizh for murder. Here’s the official complaint from France for spiffy invading it. Well, a whole bunch of complaints, really.” He smiled happily. “This wall is devoted to Lisa’s discarded underwear. Really we should make a special wing just for that.” Banjooooo couldn’t help but notice an empty trophy case in a place of honour. “What about this?” he asked. “There’s nothing there.” “Ah that,” Rocket Racoon told him, “is where Sersi’s underwear goes. I’m working on it, day and night.” There was a crash from the waxworks area. “He didst starteth it,” Donar said hastily. “I hadst no choice but to smite him to small waxy pieces.” “I’m going to my tank,” announced Banjoooo. “It’s been a long day.” The young woman had been waiting in the long hallway for a very long time. She didn’t remember how long. She didn’t even remember who she was now. She just knew that she’d been waiting. Now at last somebody came to find her. It was a homely plump girl with short dark tangled hair. Her black clothes might have looked cool on somebody twenty pounds lighter and in better shape. But she had a friendly smile. “Hi.” “Hello,” said the waiting woman. She wondered what else she could add. She didn’t remember why she’d been waiting. The girl in black clearly understood. “Memory loss is quite normal,” she assured her guest. “Come with me, please, and we’ll see about getting you some kind of identity before you’re picked up.” “Sorry, what?” “Picked up. You’re not permanently dead this time. Only temporarily. You got diverted.” The blonde woman stopped trailing her hostess down the corridor. “What? Wait, I’m going to need some kind of background here. Maybe a manual with diagrams.” The girl in black took her kindly by the arm and led her on. “Don’t be alarmed. It’s unusual but perfectly normal. I’m Temporary Death, and this is my domain. Just keep walking towards the light. You died, but it just so happens there’s a job vacancy going and you’ve been selected for the post.” “Did I apply? How did I die? Who am I?” “You got picked,” Temporary Death answered. “I don’t know how these things work, really. I just get the memos. You died in a car crash, apparently. Tragic, really, because you were engaged to be married. Your old identity is behind you now though. I think you’re going to become Jury, the new Shaper of Worlds.” “I am?” A new question occurred to Jury. “What’s a Shaper of Worlds?” Temporary Death threw open the doors at the end of the corridor. “He’ll tell you,” she promised. “This is the Chronicler of Stories.” Even before the smoke died down, DarkHwk had shifted his mystic armour’s visor to infrared and was ploughing through the molten wreckage, hurling fallen girders aside to make a way through. Sersi came in behind him, transmuting the flames so they became to most beautiful and realistic ice sculptures. “What happened?” demanded Messenger, rushing into the remains of the lab, razor letter at the ready just in case. “What the hell happened here?” “It’s NTU-150’s lab,” came a squeaky voice from under the wreckage. “What do you think happened?” DarkHwk heaved the fallen ceiling away from Enty’s desk and dragged Zebulon the Elf from beneath it. “I only stepped out for one minute,” Zane objected. “Just one minute. A short bathroom break. And what did I say, Zeb?” “That it was a real pain getting out of that armour so you could…” “About the lab, Zebulon. What did I say about the lab?” “Not to let anything blow up?” Sersi looked around her at the debris. “Oh,” she noted. “Bad elf.” “It wasn’t my fault!” Zebulon protested, brushing himself off. “It wasn’t. I was just monitoring Enty’s extrahelioetherscope when the whole array just… went boom.” “That is feasible,” admitted Messenger. He’d been considering adapting some of NTU-150’s domestic appliances to use in his arsenal along with his razor letters and parcel bombs. Sersi gestured and reassembled some of the less complicated furniture. While she was at it she changed the colour of the walls and added a nice carpet. “It wasn’t me!” Zebulon continued. “You can check. Ask HALLIE. She was monitoring it all.” “HALLIE?” asked Messenger. He was new to the mansion. “She’s an artificial intelligence,” Sersi supplied. “A sentient computer program. She’s rooming in our mainframe.” “Of course,” the mailman answered. DarkHwk threw open the reinforced blast door to the next lab. The Legion had learned that it was best to have a series of research facilities, each encased in several feet of concrete. There was a working terminal there. “HALLIE?” he asked. “What happened?” The green wire-frame image of Baron Zemo’s A.I. flickered onto the screen. “Feedback,” she replied promptly. “The extrahelioetherscope was trying a random routine scan of the, er, extrahelioether, and it encountered some signal so powerful it blew the machine up.” “So I was totally not to blame,” Zebulon insisted. “This should in no way come out of my wages or go on my permanent record.” “What kind of signal?” Messenger asked HALLIE. “Where was it from? What was it for?” “We’ll be able to find out,” the A.I. promised him. “Just as soon as Enty builds a new extrahelioetherscope.” NTU-150 pulled his eye away from the extraplo-viewer and dropped his faceplate back into place. “Interesting,” he admitted. “Fascinating, really.” “Interesting how?” Jarvis demanded, standing with his arms folded and a cross expression on his face. “Blow-up-the-lab-again interesting?” “Oh yes,” agreed Jamie Bautista. “Well worth a lab or two. I think I’m finally starting to understand Lisa.” The butler blinked. “Well, someone has to,” he conceded. “Her power, I mean,” Enty clarified. “How she does that summonsing thing and teleports anyone from anywhere to be next to her.” He shuddered. “How does your extrahelio… thingy exploding have anything to do with Lisa’s power?” demanded Jarvis. NTU-150 sounded a little sheepish. “Well… I was working on a bit of circuitry to, um, block Lisa’s power. To protect someone against being summonsed against their will. While they’re showering.” He caught Jarvis’ glower. “Allegedly.” “And?” “And the extrahelioetherscope was detecting what power source Lisa taps into when she pulls people through space. That’s the only way to set up a counterwave to prevent the interstitial co-nodes from…” “Right,” Jarvis interrupted, knowing better than to let his team-mate get into the technical details. “So you were scanning for Lisa’s power source. What then?” “Well, from what HALLIE was able to record before the, um, incident, it seems that Lisa draws her power from the same place as you and Starseed.” Jarvis frowned. “I get my power from the Jarvis cosmic. Starseed is one with the Gah!, whatever the hell that is.” “And both of you tap manifestations of the basic power of the Parodyverse. The same power that allows the Austernals like Sersi to do what they do. The power that the Shaper of Worlds and the Chronicler of Stories can draw on. It’s like a spectrum. Lisa is pulling her power from somewhere in the same range.” “And that made your device blow up? I admit Lisa’s good at making things overheat.” Enty shook his head. “There’s something else going on,” he reasoned. “Something somebody doesn’t want me to find out about. Something near the source of that power. But I don’t know what.” He turned back to his workbench. “Not yet”, he added. “Gaaaaaaaaaaa…” began Space Ghost, “…aaaaaaaaaahhh-hic-ah!” The truck he was levitating by application of the Gah! force dropped heavily as he hiccupped, then slammed hard to the floor. “Oops,” said Space Ghost. “Not good,” Starseed, his mentor in the ways of the Gah! noted. “You’ve been drinking again.” “Not for three days, I swear,” SG promised. “There’s just an awful lot of alcohol to come out of my system.” Starseed knew. He’d been in line for the bathroom behind his disciple. “We’ll try again,” he offered. “This time try to avoid any bodily discharges of any kind.” “Where’s the fun in that?” “Take it from the G-.” Space Ghost took a deep breath and summoned the Gah force. Then he paused. “I drink to forget,” he suddenly confessed. “And so I don’t keep seeing all the alternatives.” “What alternatives?” puzzled Starseed. “The other ways things could be. The other stories. Mr T. The Beatles. Oliver North. Baron Zemo. Dolly Parton clones. A thousand worlds screaming all at once.” “SG, what are you talking about?” “Oh, don’t mind me. Deaths of worlds is all.” Space Ghost pointed to the collapsed vehicle. “We still have time to practice some more before we all die.” Starseed grasped the one thing that made sense in the whole conversation. “Good. Let’s practice. Jarvis won’t let you back on the team until you clean up your act. Try the levitation again. But this time be careful. You don’t want to wreck your truck any worse than it is.” “That’s not my truck.” There was an awkward pause. “Maybe we should walk over this way?” suggested Starseed. “Leaving early, Mizz Waltz?” Lisa flinched at the acid tones of Barbie Arterychoke, office manager at Coot, Coot, Wellfudge, and Coot. The amorous advocatrix wondered why she could face down the Confiscator or the Parody Master without a quiver but the vicious disapproval of the sour old woman behind the ancient walnut desk was able to make her quiver. “There’s a party,” Lisa replied. “An anniversary.” “And that’s more important than the Slaughter deposition, is it?” Mrs Arterychoke demanded coldly. “Pretty much,” Lisa judged. “Simonides Slaughter’s a nasty, vicious bastard who actually deserves to be fined forty million dollars for insider trading, so really I don’t mind leaving off defending him until I’ve gone and celebrated doing something actually useful that makes the world a better place.” Mrs Arterychoke sniffed. She could put a whole world of contempt into her sniffs. “You seem to forget what a privilege you received from Mr Coot in being given a position here. Coot, Coot, Wellfudge, and Coot is one of the oldest and most prestigious law firms in Parodiopolis.” The office manager used the more archaic name for the Big Banana. “I’m not forgetting that…” Lisa began. “Especially since you hardly have an… exemplary background either at the bar or in your personal circumstances.” “Hey, I was orphaned and brought by psychotic sadist nuns…!” “Mr Coot endures you for your marginal talent at charming juries and achieving negotiated settlements by… whatever means it is you elect to employ with those men. But do not take for granted your tenure as an attorney-at-law in this practice.” Lisa swallowed. “Fine. Okay. I’ll do the damned Slaughter deposition.” She sighed. “I’m heading down to the stack to dig out some old case notes, okay? Try not to tear anybody’s throat out while I’m gone.” Mrs Arterychoke glared at her until she had gone down the narrow dark staircase into the spooky basement storage area. The glare seemed to follow Lisa even round the corners. The amorous advocatrix pressed deeper into the stacks, along the narrow alleys between the paper-crowded shelves. Some of the case boxes here dated back to the very foundation of Paradopolis. Only when she was deep in the labyrinth of legal precedents did she relax and pull out the communications card that Enty had designed for her. “Hello?” she whispered, thumbing the touch-sensitive surface of the credit-card sized device, holding it at arms’ length in case it exploded. “Can you hear me?” “Loud and clear,” came back the voice of the Dark Knight. “You’re in?” “Yes. That evil sow upstairs thinks she’s scared me into working late.” “Can you find the place where you discovered the Booke of the Law?” DK asked her. “I don’t know. These stacks seem to go on forever. But I’ll try.” “It’s important,” the urban legend told her. “Finny and I have been checking up. There’s an awful lot of things associated with the Legion’s cases that keep pointing back to Coot and Wellfudge. It’s good to have a man inside to rummage about.” The Dark Knight winced as Lisa replied to his sentiment. “I’m a serious superhero,” Banjoooo complained, “And I happen to be King of the Sea Monkeys.” “But you’re also very tall,” Sersi pointed out, supervising from the armchair in the Lair Legion Living Room. “Which makes you ideal for putting up banners, balloons, and party streamers.” Banjoooo thought about arguing some more, but the newest Legionnaire had that determined look on her face that said Rocket Racoon wasn’t the only person who could get transmuted into a small yappy Pekinese if things didn’t go her way. “How is to be preparations going?” asked Yo, poking his/her head round the door. “Yo is to be helping of cute Mr Papadapopolis to be unpacking of buffet.” “Banjoooo was just saying how much he enjoys putting up banners,” Sersi answered. The gorgeous Austernal gestured with her perfectly-manicured fingernail to indicate the King of the Sea Monkeys should move the balloons a few inches to the left. “And how much he likes his own shape,” she added. “I could probably manifest one of those spontaneous powers to shift back to being me,” muttered the monarch of the Sargasso. “Probably.” Messenger arrived. “Where do you want these party poppers, Sersi?” he wondered. “You know, if you gave me half an hour in the workshop I could get a real bang from these things. And next time our caterers turn out to be disguised supervillains we’d be more ready for them.” “Enty already offered,” Sersi pointed out, “but Jarvis said we couldn’t afford another insurance rate hike. And I already knew who the Caterers of Doom were when I hired them. Donar needed cheering up after the end of his Buffy season.” “Is why is Mr Papadapopolis from Bean and Donut diner is also to be bringing of food,” Yo amplified. “And is to be why repair crew is to be standing by to be replacing of kitchen wall after cute Donar learn about Caterers of Doom.” “The guests’ll be here soon,” noted Messenger. “Can we find the owner of this small yappy Pekinese and stop it trying to hump everybody’s leg?” “This is so wrong,” complained Flapjack of the Carpathians. The hunchbacked hench-butler was peering into the misty mirrored depths of the Portal of Pretentiousness, an ancient artefact in the shape of a tall wide looking glass that could show virtually all times and places and even open up doors to them. “If we’re tuned in on Lisa Waltz there are plenty of more interesting bits of her life we could be watching. Videotaping even.” “I think not,” rejoined the Hooded Hood. He sat on his throne-like ebony chair, fingertips cradled together as he observed the images in his Portal. “Do we need to have the not-using-the-artefact-for-your-mail-order-porn-business talk again, Flapjack? You have surely barely healed from the last conversation.” “Just saying,” the butler sulked. “I mean, we can hardly see what she’s doing anyhow, it’s so dark down there in Coot’s cellars.” “It’s darker yet in his mind,” the Hood replied. “But tonight is when that becomes very evident.” And then the Portal fogged and showed nothing. “Hey, you didn’t install net nanny on it or something, did you?” Flapjack asked, appalled. “No,” frowned the cowled crime czar. “Ms Waltz has entered an area which is protected from the Portal of Pretentiousness’ gaze. That is a rare and disturbing thing. To achieve such an effect would require the skills and power of a major office holder – except they are distracted just now - or a Celestian Space Robot, or one of the Family of the Pointless. Or…” “Or?” Flapjack was a great henchman. He knew when to give exposition cues. “Or Wilbur Parody,” the Hood concluded. The major office holders were distracted. Jury found herself in a place of ravens and destiny, a vast endless hall of infinite stories. “Make yourself at home,” a young raven with ruffled feathers told her. “The boss will be along in a minute.” Another, larger raven flapped down to chide the junior. “Quoth,” it told her, “you show your ignorance by how you term our master. Speak of him more reverently. You’re heading for disaster.” “Talking ravens,” Jury said faintly. “Of course.” “The master gives us voices and we give him eyes and ears,” Pallas, the senior corvid, explained. “Our service to the Chronicler is faithful through the years. We help him weave and bind the tales the Shaper makes and spins. Then Samhain brings an end to them when someone fails or wins.” Jury tried to keep up. “Shaper? Samhain?” “Samhain is the Destroyer of Tales right now,” Quoth explained helpfully without the iambic pentameter. She wasn’t licensed yet for poetry. “To make the Parodyverse work the Shaper of Worlds sets narratives going. The Chronicler, our bo- er, master, weaves them all together and develops them. The Destroyer brings them to a conclusion. Sometimes.” “Like the Greek fates?” Jury suggested. “Clotho who spins the threads of destiny, Lachesis who measures them, and Atropos who cuts them off.” “It’s been a while since they had the offices,” Quoth answered. “Before my time of course, but if you get Pallas when she’s had a few sheep’s eyes…” “No time for idle chatter now. The Chronicler approaches,” the senior raven of destiny chided. “Attend well to your duties or else suffer his reproaches.” Jury saw that the dark-haired gaunt man who’d somehow led her to these halls was coming back. Beside him walked a tall sinister figure with ram’s horns growing from a bone-white skull. “The Chronicler and the, um, Destroyer, I presume?” she ventured. “Right,” agreed the Chronicler. Samhain looked the young blonde woman up and down. “Her?” he asked contemptuously. “Are you certain?” “Yes. So let’s get on with this, shall we?” “Hold it,” Jury called. “I’m not certain. I have no idea what’s going on. I’m not just going to follow you blindly to some… unknown… whatever.” The Chronicler of Stories sighed. “If we’re rushing it’s because it’s a crisis. We don’t know what happened to the previous Shaper, only that he’s gone. We need the full Triumverate up and running if there’s something bad about to happen. So pardon us if we don’t have time for the orientation video. Just keep up, damn it.” Samhain was still glowering at her. “This one?” “Commissioner Graham,” Jarvis welcomed the head of the Paradopolis police force. “Thanks for coming.” Don Graham allowed the leader of the Lair Legion to take his coat. “Well, I figured that it being your anniversary tonight you were bound to end up calling me to cart somebody away anyhow,” the officer of the law admitted, “so I might as well get some canapés while I’m waiting.” “I hast already smitten yon Caterers of Doom,” Donar pointed out helpfully, “but I hast hopes of more villainous doing ere the night is o’er.” He went and glared hopefully at Venom. “A drink?” Jarvis asked the Commissioner. “I’d avoid the Ausgardian mead and the Sea Monkey weed juice, but there’s some good brandy and a nice malt.” “Verra nice, hic,” came Space Ghost’s voice from under the tablecloth. “Hey, you never offered me a drink,” Banjooooo complained of his glorious leader. “Get it yourself,” snapped Jarvis. “I need to talk to Don about this new supervillain prison facility they’re making.” “The Safe?” Don Graham asked. “That’s a SPUD project – Super-menace Principal Undercover Directorate. Hush hush stuff. They don’t talk to me about that.” “They talk to me,” NTU-150 admitted. “Mostly they say ‘why does our helicarrier lurch to 45 degrees when the combat floor ladies bathroom gets flushed?’.” “Er, right,” Jarvis responded, moving rapidly on. “We’re just keen to stop this revolving door of super-villains carrying on. It seems like we fight the Scourge about every two days.” “About that,” Pegasus called across to him. “Is Tuesday good for you? Only the Baron wants us to heist another vibratium shipment to create some gadget to thaw out his frozen wife.” “I don’t know that we can do Tuesday,” worried Starseed. “I think Peter von Doom has a Presidential kidnap plot due then. Where’s Lisa? She’s keeping the social diary.” Jarvis looked around. “She’s not here?” A dark suspicion crossed his mind, “Has she already dragged somebody off to a closet?” “I haven’t seen her yet,” admitted Sersi. “But I was distracted. You know, even transmuted into an aspidistra Rocket Racoon was still managing to get his leaves into inappropriate places.” “You have to admire his talent,” Starseed conceded. Jarvis did a quick check of the room. All the Legion were there excect for Finny and DK, who didn’t do parties, and the amorous advocatrix herself, who pretty much did anything. “We really need that new Safe facility,” Enty was telling Commissioner Graham. “There’s more menaces popping up every day. Did you see the report in today’s Daily Trombone? There’s a new terrorist vigilante over on the West Coast, in Arachknight City. Some psycho called Goldeneyed.” “We should track down all vigilantes and put them out of business for good,” opined Messenger. “There’s no room for psychos and nutjobs in this line of work.” “Pardon my pinging,” Enty said as he passed by with half a washing machine strapped to his armour. “Just taking a few sensor readings.” DarkHwk apologetically slipped past them behind NTU-150, hefting the fire extinguisher. “Have you seen Lisa?” Jarvis asked the diabolical Dr Moo. Daio Waltz shrugged. “Have you checked under the table?” she asked. “I thought I heard noises there a while ago.” “That’s just Space Ghost,” answered Jarvis. He looked with a sigh at the discarded white hose over on the Lair Sofa. “And that’s Space Ghost’s pants. Again.” “Then I have no idea where she is,” Moo concluded. “Now you’ll have to excuse me. I need to find a bathroom and get all these aspidistra leaves out of my clothing.” Under the buffet table Space Ghost began to sing Hard Day’s Night. The battling butler let the diabolical doctor head off towards the rest room. He skirted round the corner of the party where Baron Zemo had annexed the cocktail sausages and was about to dispute ownership of the barbeque dip with Donar and Banjooooo. He avoided the dance floor where Yo-woman was teasing Enty about not dancing with her. He headed to the nearest computer terminal. “HALLIE?” The green wire-frame face appeared on the screen before him. “You HALLIEd?” she quipped. “Yeah. Those comm-cards that Enty made, can you track them?” “Occasionally,” the A.I. answered. “Who do you want finding?” “Lisa, please.” HALLIE’s image flickered a moment then returned. “Sorry, Jarvis. I can’t find a signal. Either she’s out of range, has switched it off. Or I guess it might have exploded.” She recognised that she’d disappointed the leader of the Lair Legion. “I can run her last transmission for you if you like,” she offered. “Do that,” agreed Jarvis. Something wasn’t right. The whole floor dissolved away, and a radiant liquid light played over the marble walls. Jury looked down in amazement, her eyes wide. “What… is that?” “The Storyheart,” answered the Chronicler of Stories. He tried to retain his usual cynical pose, but here, in front of the source of his power, the origin of his office, the shining core of the Parodyverse, he couldn’t manage it.” “That which holds the Parodyverse together,” added Samhain, Destroyer of Tales, his voice tinged with wonder. “The wellspring of all the forces that rule creation.” “I understand now,” said Jury; and she did. She knew why she was here, what she had to do, what was important and what was not. She knew she was the Shaper of Worlds, and what that office meant. The Storyheart sang to her. The Parodyverse was made of stories. But in her joy at this fountain of marvels there was one nagging sorrow. With her newfound omniscience she already knew that it was too late. A story had begun without her permission, and nothing could stop it now. “Miss Yo? Miss Yo?” The Zorro-impersonating pure thought being turned round and guiltily tried to hide half a dozen gift-wrapped bunnies behind his/her back. It was getting harder and harder to give surprise presents to the Lair Legion. S/he relaxed with a sigh of relief when she saw it was the Lair Gardener. “Hello, cute Kenny,” Yo called out. “How are you being today?” “Today I am being Kenny,” Kenny answered after due consideration. “Are you to be going to party? Yo might be having a surprise gift for you.” “Kenny likes surprise gifts,” agreed the gardener, “but first Kenny has a problem.” “Finny doesn’t mean to be doing of that to your daffodils, Kenny. Is just that dragons have to be very careful about their nuclear fire breath when is being inappropriately touched by cute-Lisa.” “Not that problem, Miss Yo. Kenny has another problem.” “Yo is wanting to be hearing of the problem, Kenny.” “Kenny will tell Miss Yo the problem.” The gardener opened the cardboard box he was dragging along and lifted out a hedgehog. And another. And another. “Is cute,” Yo beamed, cupping the spiky creatures in his/her hands. “But Yo does not know if Yo has enough wrapping paper for all of them. Will make nice friends though for any bunnies that cute Legionairres happen to be given.” “Kenny has found lots of hedgehogs in Kenny’s garden. Lots of hedgehogs.” “How many, Kenny?” The gardener shook his head. “Kenny does not know. Kenny has not had time to count all the hedgehogs in all forty-three boxes.” Yo was as puzzled as Kenny; but s/he helped him haul the boxes into the Lair Kitchen and started the long process of giving saucers of milk to the waiting Hedgehogs of Time. “Whoa!” CrazySugarFreakBoy! enthused, chugging a can of Jolt and babbling at the same time. “Have you seen this place? If only it was also a satellite orbiting the planet and a space station on the moon and maybe hidden in a cave it would be, like, the ultimate superhero HQ of all time!” Hatman looked around the old mansion, at its moulder plasterwork and wood panelling and lofty classic proportions, and found himself a little impressed as well. “I heard this place got blown up and replaced with some kind of flying LAir Fortress,” he admitted. “But then, I also heard it was much smaller and located across from Off-Central Park. And then on top of a volcano.” “Ah, just some kind of retcons,” dismissed CSFB! “But we’re here! We made it! We’re partying with Earth’s mightiest heroes. Well, this Earth’s mightiest heroes.” He looked around him, almost dancing with excitement. “I’m going to get everybody’s autographs. And I’m going to totally ask that chick in the green snake outfit for her number.” Hatman glanced over at the young woman his new-met companion indicated. Cobra was sipping absinthe and chatting with a blonde girl in sky blue and white whose back was to the capped crusader. But there was something familiar about that contoured body. “We should just go over there and introduce ourselves,” CrazySugarFreakBoy! babbled on. “Maybe they’re superheroes too, and we can do a team-up?” Hatman found himself dragged across the party towards the women. As he approached the blonde turned round and their eyes met. Hatman’s jaw dropped. “Whitney?” “Jay?” gasped the Sorceress, flushing. “What are you doing here?” they both said in unison. “Looks like our friends already know each other,” CSFB! grinned to Cobra. “We’ll have to make our own introductions, sexy dragon lady. Hi, I’m…” Hatman and Sorceress’ sudden reunion after years apart was interrupted by the abrupt sound of a discharging banana gun. Ezriah Coot’s private office had its own private staircase down to the stack. Lisa picked the lock and used that narrow flight of steps to make her way up towards her boss’ desk. She wasn’t surprised at the absence of modern alarm systems. Coot was nothing if not a dusty traditionalist. The office door yielded to the same picklock, and the first lady of the Lair Legion cautiously slipped into the darkened room. She hung her handbag on the hatstand and tiptoed over to the old roller-topped desk that the senior partner used for his business. That lock was even simpler. “If I was a secret compartment, where would I hide?” Lisa wondered, feeling over the desk’s lacquered surface for some kind of stud or slide. “The knot to the left of the inkstand,” advised Mr Coot. “Ah,” Lisa sighed, realising that she’d missed one vital precaution. She made a note that next time she should check that the room was empty, even if there was no reason that its owner should be sitting there in absolute darkness as if waiting for her. “Thanks for the tip.” Coot turned up the desk light that made the room’s shadows seem even darker. “You have no idea how long I’ve been waiting for this, Miss Waltz.” “Catching me redhanded?” Lisa asked, her mind racing. “Are you going to spank me?” “Save your puerile wiles, Miss Waltz,” snapped the senior partner. “I knew that sooner or later you would ask the right questions about the Booke of the Law that you found in the stacks here. I knew that eventually you would work out that it was this firm who directed Mjalcolm to Donar Oldmanson, who arranged for Manuel to encounter the Starseed, who hired Hollywood V to prompt you to ownership of the Lair Mansion on Parody Island.” “Er yes,” lied Lisa. “It was obvious once I thought about it.” Well, once DK and Finny thought about it, she mentally amended. “And then it was inevitable that you would come here for answers. But you will find no answers here, Miss Waltz. Only vengeance.” Something in Coot’s unwavering stare began to frighten Lisa. “Vengeance? For what? I’ll return the office stationary if that’s what you want. And the personal calls on company time will stop.” “Vengeance for something you did over a century ago,” answered the senior partner. He didn’t bother to explain how Lisa would one day soon travel back in time and encounter city-founder Wilbur Parody in the 19th century; how she would thwart the former cosmic office-holder’s plans for supreme power and set back his ambitions for decades. He didn’t bother to tell her that he was really Wilbur Parody, the only man to ever hold all three Triumvirate offices, the only one to cheat and retain that knowledge and power after stepping down from them. But he couldn’t resist twisting the knife a little bit. “You and your friends are due to inconvenience me twice in your future, my past,” Parody announced. “But instead I’ve arranged for them all to be gathered in one convenient place at one convenient time where they can all be wiped out in one fell swoop. Thus my defeat will never have been, and I shall become the supreme power of the Parodyverse.” Lisa felt a little better now she knew her boss was a villain. She hoped that meant that she’d get to punch Mrs Arterychoke later. “And if I summons the Legion here to stop you?” “Go ahead and try. I’ve suspended your office as Advocate of the Booke of the Law for now.” Lisa tried her summonsing powers. They weren’t there. “Fudge,” wasn’t exactly what she said. Jarvis flew over the water from Parody Island to the mainland city. “Have you fixed that last transmission location yet?” he asked HALLIE over their comm-link. “I think so. It was Lisa’s workplace, Coot, Coot, Wellfudge, and Coot, 1998 Leiber Street. The basement, probably.” “I’m on it,” the butler promised, willing his Jarvis cosmic to boost him faster. “Still no answer from the comm-card yet?” “I’m afraid not,” HALLIE told him. “I’m going to try boosting the signal from Jaimie’s satellite array so I can…” And then the comm-card fell silent. “HALLIE?” Jarvis called in exasperation. “HALLIE?” He turned back to look over the sea-channel at the Lair Mansion. The Lair Mansion wasn’t there. Parody Island had gone. “What’s your big plan, then?” Lisa demanded of her boss. “I mean, do you have an army of killer robots ready to unleash? Or even a squad of fairly cross cows? Or a team of supervillains of dubious competence? Come on, Mr Coot, make your move.” “I already did,” Wilbur Parody told her. “I’ve just dealt with your Lair Legion and everybody on my island. They will suffer, they will face the nightmares of their futures, and they will die. You are the only one left.” “Could you be more specific?” Lisa asked. “And indicate the method by which you dealt with them and the best means of thwarting your evil masterplan?” “I think not. Best I just get on with the part where I make you suffer the worst of all, Miss Waltz.” “Well, if you’re not going to co-operate,” the amorous advocatrix sighed, “I guess it’s time for Plan B.” She pointed to her handbag. “You see, I’m not the last Legionnaire.” Lisa’s purse twisted, swelled, and shape-shifted back to being Fin Fang Foom. Andy Dean assumed his reptilian humanoid bipedal form, nine feet tall with a long swaying draconic neck. “We can do this the hard way or the harder way,” he advised the old man. “Your choice.” Wilbur Parody was mildly impressed but not at all amused. “Let’s do it the hardest way,” he spat. “Sir Lucien, be so kind as to kill this wyrm.” “Our pleasure,” said the Chain Knight, appearing from nowhere. He led Phleglethor, Maladomini, Nosferos, and the Bloodreaper forward and they fell upon Finny. To be concluded (no honestly, the next chapter will be the last): Join the Lair Legion as they face shadows from their past and future; witness Hatman and Sorceress battling side by side with CSFB! and Cobra; thrill as the Jarvis cosmic in unleashed; shudder as the evil reaches even as far as distant cornfields and Hell, Nebraska.; and learn at last Wilbur Parody’s vision for the destiny of the Parodyverse, and how he intends to become its supreme being. Everything ends (or starts) with Lair Legion: Year One Part 7 – and if our heroes get it wrong there won’t be a Year Two any more! They Don’t Make Footnotes Like They Used To: The events this story is wound amongst happened so far back that it’s hard to remember who was who and what was going on at any given time. For help I turned to the very earliest incarnations of the Who’s Who if the Parodyverse, version 1 and version 2; and even they refer to things later than this story (the first one probably meshes somewhere around Untold Tales #10). Another rare source was the original listing of characters, rescued from a now-defunct Geocities website. A source I wasn’t able to find (but thought I had) was Jarvis’ invaluable list of events in the early Parodyverse. Does anyone else have a copy? Those who prefer their reference materials to be more contemporary are directed as usual to The Hooded Hood's Homepage of Doom, Who's Who in the Parodyverse (most recent version), and Where's Where in the Parodyverse. The Hooded Hood had not yet made any unretconned public debut in the modern Parodyverse at the time of this tale. He still lived and plotted in Herringcarp Asylum, monitoring things through his Portal of Pretentiousness, attended by his disgusting servant Flapjack. And schemed. The Triumverate of principal cosmic office holders hadn’t really been written in that way yet (that was a wrinkle I added when I started interfering through Untold Tales). However, this story sticks with the established fact of the Shaper of Worlds, the Chronicler of Stories, and the Destroyer of Tales being the three key moderators of the Parodyverse. At the start of this chapter the Shaper is Carrington, poster-character of an enthusiastic early PV contributor who vanished without trace and whose fictional counterpart was eventually assumed to have done likewise. The Triumverate in general, and the Chronicler in particular, are associated with Ravens of Destiny. Pallas and Quoth, the most senior and junior of the murder, are the ones most regularly featured in our stories. The Storyheart which empowers all the other various sources of great power of the Parodyverse has been referenced before but is shown here for the first time. In current continuity it is hidden from the Parody Master beneath the Lair Mansion, unknown to the team. Temporary Death (a.k.a. Tracy) is one of the Family of the Pointless, immortal personifications of certain aspects of the Parodyverse. Like her older, thinner, cooler sister Death, Temporary Death regulates one of the functions of the stories. Later on she develops a crush on Nats, which explains a lot. Space Ghost may also be an errant member of the Family. The Abandoned Legion is another team which operates out of Gothametropolis York, across the river from Paradopolis. Its members are: Hollywood V, mysterious wizardlike founder of the group, whose abilities include mesmerism, illusion, energy manipulation, and dimensional transit. Cap, the team’s reluctant leader, a triangular-shield wielding crimefighter, reserved and sensitive in private life and a combat machine in battle Paste Pot Pete, off-the-wall glue-gun wielding adventurer the Sorceress (Whitney Darkness), the team's compassionate “big sister” who holds the team together, a wise woman with gifts of transmutation and other magical abilities Cobra (Christine McBurney), aggressive, combat-loving ninja martial artist whose instinct is to kill her opponents and whose main weapon is the banana gun Kenny is or was the Lair Legion’s Forrest Gump-like gardener, as detailed in a series of much-overlooked and due-to-be-reposted stories by Visionary. When Lisa Thwarted Wilbur Parody Before: In Untold Tales #8, Lisa and Goldeneyed travelled back to the 19th Century and prevented Wilbur’s Cult of Lugosa from awakening Shabba’Dhabba’Dhu, the Groper Out of Grossness, but never discovered why he might want to accomplish such a thing. In Untold Tales #60, #61, #62, and #63, Lisa and other Legionnaires found themselves even earlier in the 19th century preventing another Parody plot to sacrifice innocent Marie Murcheson to gain cosmic power. Of course, neither of these events has happened in Lisa’s timeline in the story presented here. The Hellraisers were a band of very evil interdimensional marauders last seen in Untold Tales #197: Sir Lucian, the Chain Knight was a great paladin of light who was corrupted by long torture and evil sorceries to become a thing of torture and evil himself. Appearing as a bloody armoured knight with dozens of living chains growing from his ruptured flesh, Sir Lucian had the gift of binding and breaking of bonds and locks. He even murdered the personification of Death and took her power and authority. Nosferos the Undying was a gaunt, pale, bald, ancient elder-vampire, possessing all the legendary abilities of the undead. He could command lesser creatures of the night (and that includes most other undead as well as rats, bats, wolves and slimy things), summon foul weather and famine, smell fear, and hypnotise. He was also an accomplished black magician. Phleglethor the Pestilent was a huge corpulent red-skinned plague-demon with the gift of all diseases. His vast bulk regenerates almost instantly from any wound, and most of his disgusting bodily processes can be used offensively. His effluvia was toxic and flammable, his vomit caustic, his phlegm acidic, and he had a whole range of things he could fart. He could cause any disease at will, and even tailor special illnesses for special occasions. Maladomini, mistress of pain, was a former Guardian of the Booke of the Law (a cosmic office currently held by Lisa), stripped of her office for dark debauchery and sin. She became a succubus, immune to all harm from men and wielder of a lash that can tear through dimensions. The Bloodreaper, last surviving member of the extradimensional marauder Hellraisers, is a sadistic super-strong scythe-wielding killing machine has deity level strength, speed, stamina, and invulnerability. Murder makes him stronger, and his scythe drinks the spirit of those he slaughters. He enjoys carnage. It’s his hobby. For all the other characters please check the Who’s Who. Here’s a note I wrote myself in January 2001 that tried to set Parodyverse history straight in my head: Here’s a slightly updated version of a posting I did in October 2000 when I was trying to consolidate my research for Lair Legion Year One. The recent thinking about the history of the Lair Legion has prompted me to reconsider some notes I sketched out a while back about the possible origins of the team. As many of you know better than me, the early stories which appeared in the latter half of 1998 on the Avengers Message Board were rarely in the sort of format we see today on the BZL and don’t translate well into continuity. The sort of ongoing history we now take for granted has happened almost accidentally and sometimes in retrospect. So here’s what I think we know: According to Jarvis, the Parodyverse was created by cosmic upheavals in other dimensions [i.e. the parody posters being politely invited to find another message board]. Clearly although elements were dragged here from many diverse other universes (some from Marvel or DC comics universes, others from parodies of them, some from message boards etc) the Parodyverse itself has as long and diverse a past as any fictional reality, going right back to the days of the Great Old Ones like Shab’adabba’Dhu, the Groper out of Grossness, and the first coming of the Celestians in an Age Undreamed Of. The special function of the Parodyverse is that it occupies the very far end of the probability curve, acting as a buffer to keep bizarre and unlikely plots from happening in more serious universes. There are therefore quite a lot of strands of slightly-different versions of the same reality going on (hence the variant versions of the spelling of Paradopolis for example, or Visionary’s bizarre habit of sometimes being mechanical) and they interweave until they eventually decide upon one course of narrative which is accepted in retrospect as the one that actually happened. An aspect of the creation of the Parodyverse from various spare parts of other universes is that some of what was posted prior to the BZL board’s existence actually happened and some probably didn’t. I view this in the same way Marvel views it’s pre-FF publishing history, as a less-than-canon source of material to occasionally mine, but unless it’s referenced in modern continuity it’s not considered to have necessarily happened like that. This is specially relevant when dealing with some LL character origins like Space Ghost, Banjooooo, and FFF. The modern age of heroes started with Jarvis, Lisa, spiffy, and NTU-150 banding together to stop Baron Zemo from taking over the world. Before that there had been little superhero activity since World War II when the Golden Age Matadors and others adventured against the Nazis. I’d guess that the League of Regulars, the predecessors of the Lair Legion, probably first formed about four years since whatever the present date is (comic book time being what it is), and changed their name perhaps nine months later. Certainly the LL have been around long enough to be accepted as part of the status quo, and to have gained an international reputation  As a working rule of thumb I’m assuming that everything posted on the BZL up to the end of 1998 was effectively Year One, four years Before Present (BP) (with a few things shuffled about to make sense of some continuity tangles). Year One therefore included the joining of all the people in Visionary’s list (Finny, Banjoooo, DK, Starseed, Visionary, the Man Who Wasn’t There, Yo, Donar, and DarkHwk) and the transformation of TMWWT into the Shaper of Worlds. The League of Regulars took on Peter von Doom, the Scourge of the BZL (a.k.a. the League of Left-Outs), the Obliterator, and a number of comic book creators. The year ended with the first appearance of the Parody Master. A little bit of stuff had happened in the months or years before this, including the first coming of the Dark Knight, Andrew Dean possessing Fin Fang Foom, and Jarvis meeting Lo-Chi, battling Zemo, and gaining the Jarvis Cosmic. Three years BP covers material posted up to about May 1999. There are lots of spiffy-related plots like Bubba, Evil spiffy, spiffy dies etc. There’s an International Incident and a Mob War and that thing with HALLIE and the Movie Gun. The Abandoned Legion have more adventures. Paradopolis is nuked. Rocket Racoon, Sersi, Messenger, and CrazySugarFreakBoy join. The Grim Reaper does stuff. Pierson’s Porter blows up the moon. The year ends with the appearance of the Hooded Hood and the Coming of Galactivac. Two years BP covers stuff posted up to about September 1999. Goldeneyed joins. The unlamented LAir Fortress passes. Paradopolis gets put back. Zemo creates Membrain and there’s a major war over it. Disco Hitler returns to decimate parts of Gothametropolis York. Jarvis weds Melissa. Messenger goes over the top and becomes a killer. New heroes like Exile, ManMan, Troia, and Xander show up. The Sidekick Plague leads to the Judgement of the Celestians. The year ends with Jarvis’ death against the Nebulus. One year BP has Moo and PP honeymooning, the War of the Gods, Dormaggadon’s invasion, the Access Reality War, the rotating chairmanship of the LL then Vizh’s chairmanship, Acts of Ambition, most of Messenger’s rogue period, spiffy becoming omni-mayor, Lisa gives birth, the debut of Nats, Dancer, Saint, Dynamite Boy and a few others, and the Hooded Hood’s brief tenure as Supreme Power of the Parodyverse. In this year Exile, Troia 215, and Trickshot join the LL. This year: Paradopolis gets kidnapped by Dark Thugos, return of the League of Regulars, debut of De Brown Streak and everything that’s happened since. This is the year Ziles joins the LL. Now this is clearly a very incomplete list (I have a more complete one that’s not really for public consumption). It’s only how I see it. Most other events should be placeable by working out which of the events here were going on at roughly the same time. Original concepts, characters, and situations copyright © 2006 reserved by Ian Watson. Other Parodyverse characters copyright © 2006 to their creators. The use of characters and situations reminiscent of other popular works do not constitute a challenge to the copyrights or trademarks of those works. The right of Ian Watson to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the UK Copyright, Designs & Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. |
