Baron Zemo's Lair. - The spectacular Starseed and the Chicken of Crime

Baron Zemo's Lair

The spectacular Starseed and the Chicken of Crime
Thursday, 22-Jul-1999 18:38:23
195.92.194.101 writes:

There are a million stories in the naked city. And of all the stories in all the cities in all the world, Starseed had to walk into this one.

Starseed judged that the three masked persons outside the jewellers shop who were reaching through a circle cut in the glass window probably weren’t the owners of the emporium and therefore dropped on them like a human-shaped glowing agglomeration of pure Gaaahhhh! energy. The three surprised thugs were hammered to the floor as the superhero towered over them. “Do you go down quietly or do we redecorate the sidewalk with your personal bits?” the Gah! Master asked them. “Your option.”
“Starseed?” the nearest of the felons gasped. “Awl-riight!”
“Geez!” the second gasped. “What amazin’ luck.”
Starseed was a bit taken aback by this. Criminals almost never went into raptures when he apprehended them committing a felony.
He reacted quickly when the third thug reached inside his jacket, but the robber was only reaching for his mobile phone. “It’s OK, superdude,” the thief assured the Gah! Master. “I’m just callin’ in that we’ve found you.”
“Some sort of trap? You want me to just wait here while you call the hordes of H.E.R.P.E.S. down on me? Do you think I’m stupid?”
The thugs debated this but eventually concluded that Starseed was no NTU-150, but he sure wasn’t spiffy either. “It’s just that Crime Chicken really wants to talk to one of the major supertypes. He’s puttin’ out a 5-G reward if we send him a long-underwear type,” thug one explained.
“Counts Lisa out then,” considered Starseed.

Crime Chicken was one of the minor ganglords down in the warehouse district of MetroGothamYork. He was easily identified because of his deadly egg-bombs, his distinctive yellow feathered battlesuit, and the snickers that followed him everywhere he went. But many a lesser thug had died choking on feathers to the sound of Crime Chicken’s infamous catchphrase, “Don’t call me clucky!”
Starseed burst through the wall of the villain’s stronghold, a fried chicken franchise off 6th and Main. The door wasn’t locked, but the Gah! Master had a rep to maintain and, well, it might have been a trap. “Okay, feather-head, don’t try anything or I’ll sneeze you to death,” Starseed warned as the criminal’s rent-a-henchmen picked themselves from under the rubble and reached for their semi-automatics.
“Stop it, boys,” Chicken warned his posse. “Mr Starseed’s here at my invitation. I need to talk to him. Alone.”
The henchmen filed out through the door, despite the fact that it stood in its frame without any walls on either side. “You want I should lock dis, boss?” the last one out asked.
“Out!” screeched Crime Chicken. Then he turned to the Gah! Master and held out his wrists to be handcuffed. “Thanks for coming, Legionnaire. I wanna turn myself in. I confess.”
“You confess,” Starseed repeated. “Confess to what?”
“It was me that killed Harry Flask. The cops dredged his body out of that landfill two hours ago. I did it. Take me in.”
“Harry Flask is dead? The Lynchpin? And you murdered him?” Starseed had not yet learned that the alleged organiser of the MetroGothamYork underworld had fallen, and yet already he appeared to have solved the crime.
“Yeah. I popped him good. But I can’t live with my conscience. Take me in, Starseed.”

The Broccoli Lane Precinct was pretty crowded by this time of night. The usual pimps, pushers, pros, and comic book creators mingled with the people who’d been arrested, milling about and adding background colour as Starseed took Crime Chicken up to the desk. “I’ve got a big one this time,” the Gah! Master told the sergeant. “Seems that old clucky here’s done for the Lynchpin.”
“Uh huh,” the desk sergeant grunted. “Take a number, sit over there.” And he nodded to the chairs where the rest of the Lair Legion were lined up waiting.
“What?” Starseed exclaimed as he saw each of them had a prisoner as well. Lisa had her whip wrapped around Leisure Suit Larry and he didn’t seem to mind. Jarvis was restraining Pineapple Man. CrazySugarFreakBoy! had captured Captain Plunger. Banjoooo was holding onto Bonesnapper Sam. Fin Fang Foom was with the Ovoid. Enty was pinning down Jugs Jordan. Goldeneyed had incarcerated Left Foot Louis. And even as Starseed watched, Hatman dragged in VelcroVixen. “What is this, a crime wave?” the Gah! Master demanded.
“They all killed the Lynchpin,” Dark Knight explained, materialising out of the shadows behind Starseed and damn near giving him a coronary. “Or they all claim to have.”
“Hey, those mouthbreathers didn’t do nuthin’!” Crime Chicken objected angrily. “I killed Flask, nobody else. I did it, hear me!”
“You couldn’t cut a sandwich in two,” VelcroVixen snarled. “It was I who toppled the Lychpin.”
“You? It was me. He didn’t stand a chance,” the Ovoid shrieked.
Then all the others joined in.
“You see, whoever managed to take down the Lynchpin is his natural successor,” Jarvis explained. “And they all say they did it.”
“We’ve got to find out who didn’t do it, and fast,” explained Lisa.
And since the Dark Knight appeared to have vanished again, everybody looked at Starseed.

To be continued

The Hooded Hood's part one in the annoying Visionary's tag event