Baron Zemo's Lair. - Untold Tales of the Lair Legion: War Games

Baron Zemo's Lair

Untold Tales of the Lair Legion: War Games
Saturday, 05-Jun-1999 21:35:04
195.92.194.101 writes:

OK, this is too much. I take my leave of you guys all polite-like with much hear searching. I pop back tonight because I needed a copy of my last posting to send to Dark knight. And what do I find? More angst and heartbreak than an issue of Liefield’s X-Force.

Well, I can’t do much to sort out the difficulties caused by the Pokemon wars, although I’m sorry people have been hurt by them. I’m delighted to hear Lisa’s news, and think she’s once again demonstrated her graceful nature by bravely announcing it at this early stage just to change the mood of her friends. So I’m doing the only thing I can under the circumstances, which is to post a Parody (which I had no intention of writing until tonight), in the hopes of reminding people what the board is supposed to be about; and because sometimes all writers can do to make something better is to write about something else.

THEN perhaps I can retire in peace, knowing that you will all be happy and kind to one another. Yes?

Untold Tales of the Lair Legion: War Games

Messenger opened the sachet of survival ration coffee and mixed it into the billy can of streamwater. It made the water go more brown than before. He cautiously tried a sip and quickly spat it out. “Pwaghhh! It tastes like mud!”
Lisa examined the empty sachet. “Perhaps that’s a cunning survival thing. You know, after rations run out and you have to eat mud, it’ll taste like an improvement?”
Banjoooooo crushed his own tin cup in one mighty sea-monkey paw and hurled it off towards the stratosphere. “I should not be forced to drink that stuff. I’m royalty, you know! People have been beheaded for trying to serve poison to kings!”
“It’s not poison,” objected Messenger. “It’s…” (he examined the packet) “…a satisfying blend of nutrients and minerals necessary for survival in combat conditions.”
“I see.” Banjooooooo looked around the rather gloomy swamp that the three Legionnaires were sitting in. It somehow managed to be cold and wet and dark in such a way that the king of the sea-monkeys, who actually lived on the bottom of the oceanic floor, found uncomfortable. The three heroes had tried to make a small fire to warn themselves even though that might have exposed their position, but it had sunk.
A cheery whistling came from the darkened groves. Spiffy strode towards them plastered with mud and carrying three small tree branches. “I couldn’t find much,” he warned them, “but I found these wonderful fronds.”
Messenger restrained Banjooooo from killing the newly-resurrected Legionnaire for being so cheerful in the face of impending light drizzle in marshes only three miles from the very middle of nowhere. “He can’t help it,” the postman reminded his friend. “He’s so happy to be anywhere but Hell, Nebraska that this seems like a special day out to him.”
“Hell, “ Banjooooo considered. “Yes, that’s where I’m going to send Jarvis for getting me into this. Oh yes.”
There was a terrible snarling and growling from the darkness.
“You’d better go and see what’s happening, Lisa,” spiffy suggested. “I, um, I think your cat has chased a bear up into a tree.”

“Verily, this most foetid place doth remind the Lord of Thunder of Miserablegard in the Bleak Wastes of Crapholeheim,” Donar suggested to his companions. Pausing only to hammer completely flat a swamp snake that had dared to look at him a bit funny, the scion of Ausgard continued to wade through the algae-topped waterways.
CrazySugarFreakBoy! bounded ahead from tree to tree, apparently enjoying every minute of it. “This is great, isn’t it? I mean, being on night training exercises with the Lair Legion, just like they do in proper superhero teams like the Avengers, all bonding together as we face adversity and peril!”
“Jarvis said it would be an opportunity for me to hone my abilities,” Goldeneyed complained. He had just found that his costume was leaking. “So why aren’t we allowed to teleport to the enemy camp and just finish this now?”
“That would be cheating, Goldeneyed-friend,” Yo explained. “This way we practise being to creep up on the baddies, and spend time saying hello to delightful fauna and flora in Earth-swamp and squashing them flat if it is Donar talking to them.”
The Ausgardian hemi-god flattened a tree that was also looking at him a bit funny.
“So do we have a plan?” Goldeneyed persisted. “Other than just wading through a freezing cold swamp that is? Couldn’t we camp for the night and search for the target when it’s daylight and we don’t have to rely on Yo glowing?”
“No! No! No! No! No!” CrazySugarFreakBoy! disagreed, bouncing back to remonstrate with the guest star. “No! You don’t think the other teams would give up just because it’s dark, do you? You wouldn’t see Lisa’s Team Cool Whip give up because it’s zero visibility! You wouldn’t expect Dark Knight’s Team Shadow Wraith to quit because the swamp’s frozen around them! So why should we?”
“Because we art Team Cute Fluffy Bunny,” Donar suggested, sourly.
Yo smiled happily that his friends were all getting on so well together.

“What was that?” NTU-150 demanded, turning his multi-optiscope over to where there was a rustling amongst the bushes. “Are we under attack?”
“No,” sighed Tina. “What you heard was Rocket Racoon exiting at around four hundred miles per hour at the wrong end of one of Sersi’s telekinetic blasts.
“I thought that was my sleeping bag!” came a muffled voice from the distant undergrowth.
“How could you mistake it for yours?” Sersi shouted. “I was in it!”
“I thought you were my teddy?” came the hopeful reply.
“This won’t do!” NTU-150 complained. “We’ve got to take this seriously. There are three teams of Legionnaires out there all competing to find and capture the flag. Our job is to guard the flag with all our resources. That’s why I’ve designed and installed the perimeter defences from a few ideas I had and from Tina’s car…”
“What?” the long suffering woman exclaimed.
“I’ll put it all back together,” Enty promised. “I even thought of a few improvements if I can have you hairdryer and two hundred gallons of industrial glue.”
Sersi decided it was safer out of her sleeping bag and went over to inspect the suspiciously-humming poles that the Lair Legion’s technologist had surrounded the camp with. “What do these do exactly?” she wondered.
Too late she realised she had said that out loud, because then NTU-150 came over and explained it all to her.
Forty minutes into the exposition a sleeping bag with Rocket Racoon was beginning to look good.

“Alright,” Dark Knight told his team in short, terse tones. “I have mapped out the swamp into a hexagonal grid. Each team member will be assigned a quadrant to investigate, starting with those whose terrain indicated a higher probability of a command and control centre location. Each team member will remain in constant contact but we will make use of a code so that opposing teams cannot make sense of the information.”
“I think that’s a pretty safe bet,” Foom considered, looking down at the complicated plans that the Dark Knight had laid out on the turf. The dragon was pretty sure that the bit nearest Hatman was the top.
“Can I make up the codewords?” Starseed asked with a wicked grin. “Can I? It’s been ages since we did Madlibs, and I’ve thought of some absolutely brilliant words.”
“Is it too late to just surrender?” Hatman wondered.
“No surrender. Success is the only option,” Dark Knight replied grimly, his face shadowed by his cowl.
“I could think of a few more options,” Foomy admitted. “Dial out pizza is near the top of the list.”
Hatman slapped his thigh. “That’s brilliant!” he exclaimed. “Forget those quadrants, DK, the little dragon has solved the case!”
“He has?” Starseed wondered.
“I have?” Fin Fang Foom echoed.
Hatman explained.

“So how’s it going?” Jarvis asked, holding out his hand to receive the night vision goggles from his beloved Melissa.
Cheryl looked up from the laptop she was working on. “Well, so far all three teams have penetrated to within twenty miles of the target but none of them has actually found it. NTU-150 has set up some perimeter defences to protect the flag but Tina is making him just leave up the non-lethal ones. Donar is collecting alligators. And all three teams have quite independently vowed pacts for your utter destruction.”
Jarvis was offended. “I don’t see why,” he objected. “Captain America does this stuff with the Avengers all the time and everybody just loves him for it. I tell the Lair Legion that they need a bit of practise in teamwork and stuff and what happens?”
“Sersi thinks you’re accusing her of looking fat,” DarkHwk suggested, remembering that he would have to redecorate the games room when they got back to the mansion.
“Perhaps a swamp in the middle of winter wasn’t the right venue?” Melissa tried tactfully.
“What, the Legion’s only going to take on villains in temperate holiday spots?” Jarvis argued.
“They don’t seem very happy about it,” Cheryl warned.
Nobody loves me,” Jarvis pouted.
“I love you!” Space Ghost assured him, hugging him tightly and breathing 120% proof alcohol fumes onto him. “I looovvvee youuuu, Jarvis! That’s because you’re me frien’. You’re my best frien’ in the whole world!”
Jarvis tried to pull himself away. “How the hell did he get drunk? I thought I told him the bar was off-limits?”
“Well,” DarkHwk explained, “You know how you told Space Ghost and me to go and check how the team’s spirit was holding up? Ghostie misunderstood and went to find some spirits for the team.”
“Because I looovvveeee them too! I love all of you!”
“This isn’t going according to plan at all,” complained Jarvis. “Why can’t the team realise that I’m doing this for their own good?” The leader of the Lair Legion shrugged and went to have a quiet sit down on the hotel patio. The Resplendent was a nice four star venue and it made sense to use it as a monitor base whilst the Legionnaires were on manoeuvres in the swamplands to the west.
Nobody could accuse Jarvis of being insensitive.
That was because they were all up to their hips in freezing swamp water fifty miles away, of course.

“Hey guys! Over here! You gotta see this!”
Goldeneyed sighed and trudged across to see what the ever-enthusiastic Dreamcatcher had found this time. “What is it? A small stone? An amusingly-shaped tree stump? A… oh!”
Donar and Yo came over to where the two heroes were looking down on a tied up and naked man. “Verily, this must mean that Lisa and her team art near,” Donar reasoned.
“Yo thinks this person must be cold. Yo will make this person to be wearing cute bunny costume like cute Cheryl sometimes wears when cute Visionary has worked up enough brownie points.”
Goldeneyed removed the gag from the wild-eyed man. “What happened to you?”
“Didst it involve Cool-Whip?”
“I was just making a delivery,” the now-leotard-clad man stammered. “You know, pizza to your door in thirty minutes or your money back? I got two calls in this area. Then these guys jump me. One of them shouts something that sounded like him clearing his throat.”
“Was it Gaaaaahhhhhh?” CrazySugarMasterDetectiveBoy! suggested helpfully.
“And the next thing I know I’m here all trussed up without my clothes,” the pizza delivery man concluded.
“Yo thinks you look very cute now,” Yo encouraged him.

“But we didn’t order any pizza!” Rocket Racoon was arguing with the guy who was holding three Hawaiian specials with extra beef and ham. “Hey, Sersi – don’t hit me! - I just want to know if you ordered any pizza.”
“That’s not a pizza delivery man,” Tina warned, telepathically probing the newcomer. “That’s Hatman in disguise! They called the pizza company to deliver pizzas to them and then to us, knowing that the thirty minutes or your pizza free gambit would mean the pizza place would have to call up Jarvis for directions to our base camp, and then substituted Hatman for the delivery boy! We’ve been compromised.”
“I never touched you!” NTU-150 objected guiltily. “Oh, I see what you mean. I’ll activate the perimeter defences.
There was a shower of sparks as he pulled the lever and the smell of lightly toasted dragon. “Yeoowwww! These things sting!”
“Sorry, Foomy!” NTU-150 called back. “I think you should count yourself dead. Oh, and don’t try stepping backwards and growing bigger. Your weight will make you fall into the…”
Crash!
“…pit.”
Starseed leapt over the swearing dragon and plunged towards the pole in the middle of the encampment. Sersi grabbed the nearest object to hand – Rocket Racoon – and hurled him with all her might at the advancing Gaaahhhh! master. She caught him in mid-breath, felling him with the ballistic rodent.
“Perimeter secure!” NTU-150 reported as the auto-nets confined Hatman.
“But the flag is gone!” Tina gasped.
Dark Knight dissolved away into the darkness of the swamp. He would emerge again three days later with the piece of cloth that had been on the flagpole and that he had therefore assumed to be the flag. It wasn’t.

“That’s not the flag,” Lisa deduced, as she watched Dark Knight vanish away after the diversionary tactics of his team’s assault. “That looks more like something for a Victoria’s Secret catalogue.”
“No wonder Dark Knight didn’t recognise it, then,” Banjooooo commented. When his team-mates glared at him he added, “Oh, come on. DK isn’t exactly Mr Social Life, is he? Or do you think he’d be browsing that catalogue for himself? His sex life is even sadder than Messenger’s”
“Hey!” objected the postman.
“So what’s the plan, fearless leaderette?” spiffy asked Lisa.
Lisa thought. “We need a diversion. Banjoooo, throw spiffy over into that pit with Fin Fang Foom.”

“What do you mean it isn’t the flag that Dark Knight took?” NTU-150 demanded.
“It was a substitute,” Rocket Racoon explained. “I thought it was best to conceal the flag somewhere, so I put something else up there instead.”
“What?” Sersi wondered.
RR carefully positioned Tina between himself and the Austernal. “Er, it was your underwear, from the pack beside your sleeping bag,” he confessed.
Spiffy’s screams as Fin Fang Foom reacted instinctively to having somebody thrown on top of him at the bottom of a pit saved Rocket Racoon’s life.
“Next attack!” NTU-150 warned. But he was too late. Messenger had already reached the perimeter defence controls and was treating it with the same care the postal service did to all packaged marked ‘Fragile, Handle With Care’.
Just as it looked like Lisa’s team might be winning, CrazySugarFreakBoy! blurred out of the forest opposite at the head of the remaining team except for Yo. Yo had stayed to chat with the nice tied-up pizza man.
“Where ist yon flageth?” Donar demanded. “We hath waded through more crap than a Liefield issue to get here, and now I do not espy yon emblem.”
“Find the damn flag before hammer-boy and his team can!” Lisa commanded her group.
“Don’t let them discover the location of the flag!” NTU-150 warned.
“Get me out of this damned net!” Hatman objected.
“Wait a minute! “Sersi reasoned. “If Dark Knight went off with my underwear, which Rocket Racoon posted on the flagpole, then what am I wearing?”
There was a moment’s silence.
Sersi disappeared under a scrum of highly motivated Legionnaires who needed to capture the flag.

Cheryl switched off the laptop and looked up at Jarvis. “It’s over. The team is built,” she reported. “Apart from Dark Knight , Yo, and a pizza delivery boy being missing in action, and Starseed having concussion from a high impact rodentiform that war-game is concluded.”
Jarvis nodded. “We’ll do a debriefing in the morning. I’d better order room service to bring up my breakfast for about nine.”
“I said that wargame was concluded, “Cheryl clarified. “The Legionnaires have sent word that they’ve just declared a new one.”
“What? I don’t understand.”
“Lisa says to tell you that they’ve worked out that you haven’t been crippled once in this story so far, and that you’d better start running.”
Jarvis was almost at the reception desk before an enchanted pickaxe took out the hotel’s back wall.

The Hooded Hood, who can't just walk out whilst people are frowning and therefore makes this parting offering