This message Premiere #8: Return of the Lair Legion was posted by on Saturday, February 23, 2002 at 09:13.
Doctor Zalas stood at the podium in the White Room, the central operations and council chamber of Technopolis, and looked contemptuously at the four Parodyverse superheroes chained helplessly before him. “So you are the best this world has to offer?” he sneered at Visionary, Cheryl, Lisa, and Yo.
“No,” Visionary admitted. “We’re all kind of retired. But I have the pager numbers of some heroes who would be more than happy to kick your…”
“I’m the best,” Lisa Waltz grinned nastily. “Get me out of these power-dampening handcuffs and return my whip and I’ll give you a full demo.”
Dr Zalas was unmoved by the leather-clad lawyer. “Your planet will be restructured along proper lines,” he told them. “Already we have gained effective control of most of your nation’s cities by stationing our Science Police and Science Heroes to maintain order.”
“Most of the cities?” Cheryl noted.
Zalas sniffed. “We had anticipated some problems in bringing the populations of Parodiopolis and Gothametropolis York into line. We had expected casualties. And we will deal with the resistance in Littlesmallville too, once we have re-located its whereabouts.” He seemed to feel he had to justify the success off his plan and added, “They welcomed us in Arachknight City.”
“Yo thinks that you will not find it easy to beat all the superheroes,” Yo declared passionately. “Yo thinks they will be trashing your plan, whatever you do to us.”
The Science Council Chairman almost spat. “Bah! Your heroes are neutralized. We are even now installing obedience chips on those we have captured, and upon those metahumans contained in your detainment areas. The only serious setback we have suffered was caused by our own renegade operative, and contingencies are in place to deal with that traitor.”
He glared down at the helpless prisoners and thought about kicking them. “When the Red Watchman returns he will show you the fate of those who resist us,” he promised. “You will beg to tell him anything and everything you know as he makes your flesh run over your body and reshapes your forms at his whim. And when that happens, I shall be…” Then Zalas paused. “Excuse me,” he said, hurrying away.
“Hey, where are you going?” Lisa called. “Come back and taunt us! Why are you running off?”
“I… have unfortunately… soiled myself,” Zalas answered unwillingly, but compelled by the genetic modifications that the Red Watchman had made on the clone body he now occupied. “My… master has arranged for me to lose control of my bodily functions regularly, to remind me of my place. I am also required to freely admit this to anyone who asks, and to tell them that this and the… dietary requirements placed upon me are to remind me of my true place in the Watchman’s new order.”
Dr Zalas scuttled off.
“I’m not looking forward to the Red Watchman finding time for us,” Cheryl admitted.
-------------------
Fin Fang Foom was dying. The mutated pollen that the now-fallen science villain Deathspore had introduced into his system was slowly killing him. Normally the Makluan dragon’s alien immune system would have helped him resist the microscopic invasion, but right now none of the Lair Legion’s powers were working. The whole team was confined inside a quarantine forcefield set by Technopolis Science Police to protect the world from the bioorganic weapons released by Deathspore in his battle with the Parodyverse’s champions.
“I think I can bring this force field down,” NTU-150 reported after a raid on the local electronics store. “There’s somebody outside setting up a standing wave in the barrier, and if I match it we can pop the energy shield like a soap bubble. But that would release any nasty viruses or things that Deathspore might have infected the local biosphere with.”
Incommunicado for nearly a day now, the Lair Legion had no idea that the Red Watchman was making his move – or even that he existed. Nor did could know that right now Al B. Harper and Falcon were outside the force field seeking a way to break through with Al’s standing wave gambit..
“It’s a damn good trap,” Hatman admitted. “I can’t help but think how convenient it must be for Technopolis to have us all cooped up here out of contact with SPUD and the rest of the world.”
“We have to do something for Finny,” Dancer argued. “And some of the rest of the team aren’t looking too good either.”
“Not to mention that we also have these children that Deathspore used as a human shield,” Nats pointed out. “We’ve got to do something.” He didn’t mention the blood he had started coughing up since Deathspore had breathed on him.
“I could teleport out of here. I could get us all out of here,” Goldeneyed pointed out, “If only this barrier wasn’t somehow suppressing our superpowers.”
“But it art,” mourned Donar. “Thus I cannot open a dimensional rift.”
The Sorceress snorted. “Right,” she told them. “I’m ready. Stand well back.”
Whitney Darkness had been sitting silently for a few hours now, not participating in the gruesome clearing up exercise of dealing with an entire murdered town. Now she stepped forward and raised her hands to the heavens.
“Our powers aren’t working here, Whit,” Hatman reminded her gently.
Sorceress shrugged. “Then it’s a good job I don’t have any then, isn’t it?” she answered. “I keep telling you I’m not really a superhero. I just know things, and the natural forces and I… we have an understanding.”
Somehow there was a wind blowing Whitney’s hair even though they were all in a sealed force bubble. “What are you going to do?” Nats asked nervously.
“This environment and poor Finny especially are infected with some nasty spores, the ones that Deathspore used to animate the dead and control nature around him. Well I don’t need genetic engineering to do that. All I need is to ask nicely, and I can convince natural things to see things my way.”
“So… what are you going to do?” G-Eyed echoed.
“I hate magic,” NTU-150 confessed. “It feels like cheating.”
The Sorceress’ eyes were glowing. “I’m going to cleanse this town of infection,” she answered in a hollow, far-off voice. “I’m going to clean that virus from Finny’s system. And then I’m going to collapse into Jay’s arms and sleep for a week.”
Donar sensed the build-up of power around the mysterious brunette. He stood a careful step backwards.
“Then I can bring the barrier down,” NTU-150 announced.
“And then we find out what’s really going on,” Hatman decided.
-------------------
Professor Brudas strode out of his new headquarters in the Parodiopolis Twin Tower to join Count Armageddon who was still directing security operations from the very public forum of Parody Plaza, before a hushed and sullen crowd of citizens. Brudas didn’t share Armageddon’s penchant for theatricals, so he spoke to the Science Villain in clipped, hushed tones.
“Report.”
Count Armageddon shrugged. “Some good stuff, some bad stuff. We’ve lost the team looking for that wizard. We haven’t heard from the squad sent after the Hooded Hood and now Herringcarp Asylum has disappeared. We’ve lost a number of personnel in local insurrection incidents which have been efficiently and promptly suppressed. There was a delay in securing the Lair Mansion but we have it now, although the support staff there have hidden somewhere we haven’t yet found them. We’ve taken ITC and the key industrial sites. We’ve secured the Safe and we’re starting to Chip the prisoners. We’ve recruited a few other rag-tag metahumans who may be of some use too, and I’ll be evaluating them tomorrow.”
Brudas checked his comm-pad. “I’m informed that there have also been setbacks in Gothametropolis center.”
“Not my territory,” Armageddon smirked. “Word is that a bunch of local super-hicks snuffed Crevlan and a dozen or more science heroes an’ villains, and that the whole city’s a burning no-go zone. You want me to wander in there and bring back some hero-pelts?”
The Science Councilor shook his head. “No need. The Red Watchman anticipated that as the most likely flashpoint. He is taking a personal interest.” Brudas noticed for the first time that the beaten, half-conscious body of Police Commissioner Graham was still present in the Plaza, tied up to hang by his wrists from a lamppost as a warning against resistance. “Is that necessary?” he demanded.
“Squeamish, Professor?”
“No. It just seems so… untidy.”
“But important. I know terror. I know how to apply it. One of this man’s officers came along earlier to demand his release,” Count Armageddon explained. He gestured to a pile of ashes and a scorched paving slab. “I said no. Since then nobody else has dared to come and ask.”
At that point, as if to confound the villain’s smugness, another hero stepped out of the crowd. “Excuse me,” Frog Man called out. “But I’ve come to see about getting Commissioner Graham to a hospital.”
Count Armageddon scowled and destroyed him.
-------------------
Thermonuclear Man’s near-Earth orbit decayed eventually, and he slammed back to Earth just south of Moses Lake, Washington. Two hours in the freezing near-vacuum of the upper atmosphere had not improved his mood since Premiere hit him there, so his first instinct was to find somebody to kill.
“This world has a lot of towns,” Thermonuclear Man muttered. “The Watchman won’t object if I wipe one or two off the map.”
“Really?” the hero who swooped down to investigate the impact explosion challenged. “Well he might not, whoever he is, but I will.”
Thermonuclear Man loosed a packet of energy in the ten megaton range at Amazing Guy.
-------------------
When the Lair Legion got Ziles’ emergency signal Fin Fang Foom insisted on Goldeneyed teleporting him and Donar to her side immediately, despite the dragon’s injuries.
“Andy!” Ziles cried out as he appeared, and ran to bury her face in his chest.
Finny stiffened a little but quickly realized that Ziles was shaken, really shaken by whatever she had gone through in the two days since she had infiltrated Technopolis. He folded his arms around her and held her close while she sobbed out the shock and fear for a moment.
“What the hell is this?” Goldeneyed wondered, staring at the ruined Technopolitan prison complex that Premiere had somehow lifted out of the city and flown to the neighboring state.
“It’s the place where all our metahuman operatives were held,” the escaped detainee Windblossom explained shyly. She was scrambling through the wreckage releasing as many people as possible, although few of them were well enough to climb free without some assistance. “There’s been a coup in Technopolis. The Red Watchman’s in charge now, and he’s already tortured thousands of people to death.”
“And here’s one more he nearly finished off,” Phase Shift added savagely, emerging from beneath the wrecked compound bearing the shattered bloody form of Premiere. The senior Science Hero was not moving.
“Get the rest of the LL here, G-Eyed,” Fin Fang Foom ordered. “Stat.”
“There are nearly a thousand innocent victims here,” Ziles explained. “Most of them are in no fit state to run, let alone fight. And it’s only a matter of time before the thousands of super-powered agents working for the Red Watchman deal with the emergency Premiere caused in Technopolis and come after them.”
“I wilt fight them all, milady,” Donar assured her.
Goldeneyed ferried the other Legionnaires in two by two, along with Falcon who had hooked up with the group to brief them once SPUD operatives had arrived to care for the surviving children of Pleasant Ridge and to secure Deathspore.
Dancer gave a little cry when she saw Premiere and hurried over to tend to him. “What have they done to him?” she demanded of Ziles in horrified tones.
The Xnylonian shuddered. “Everything,” she answered quietly.
“He still saved us,” Phase Shift argued loyally. “He gave us a chance.”
NTU-150 looked up sharply. “We may have lost it,” he reported. “Finny, I’m tracking multiple incoming grav-vessels, and a lot of flying organic signatures. Probably a thousand or more Technopolitians, homing on this location.”
“We… have time to withdraw,” Hatman noted reluctantly.
“Not with all these people here,” Ziles replied fiercely.
“We’re hurt, sick, and tired,” admitted Fin Fang Foom, “but we’re not going to leave innocents behind. If this is our last battle, let’s do it right.”
“Targets incoming,” NTU-150 pointed out. “Five miles out. Four. Three. Two…”
This poster posed from 195.92.67.75 when they posted
Message Thread