Baron Zemo's Lair. - Untold Tales of the Lair Legion: Truth and Consequences

Baron Zemo's Lair

Untold Tales of the Lair Legion: Truth and Consequences
Saturday, 17-Jul-1999 11:01:27
195.92.194.72 writes:

“This meeting of the Association of Superhero Sidekicks will now come to order,” Li’l Buttie announced, politely tapping a gavel on the table. Like the organised person he was he had brought paper to record the meeting, three sharp pencils and a pencil sharpener, and glasses of water in case the speakers got thirsty.
“Order? Large double cheeseburger with bacon and extra fries,” Hat Kid answered by reflex.
“Holy calories, Hat Kid, don’t you ever think about anything but food? Soon you’ll have to change your name to Gut Kid,” declared Boy Wonder.
“Nah,” Wormlad sniggered. “Soon he’ll be changing his name to Hatman. That’s what this meeting’s all about, isn’t it?”
“You bet your sweet sister’s dragon-tail it is, Womy,” Thunderstroke rumbled from the far end of the table. Only reason I joined up with this A.S.S. combo is to get a shot at Sieryn when Donar’s outta the picture.”
“Okay, let’s get down to business,” frowned E-Male. “There’ll be time for name changing and superhero girlfriend chasing once we’ve eliminated the current Lair Legion. For now we need to keep focussed on the plan.”
“Yes,” complained Wormbait, Wormlad’s dedicated twin sister. “Are you forgetting what a mess this world is in, and that the very heroes who should be helping put things right are just slobbing around fighting villains all the time? As the next generation it is our duty to sort it out.”
“So, um, could you please state your names for the record?” Li’l Buttie requested.
Fashion Accessory sighed. “But you know who we are already,” she pointed out. Then relenting at the junior butler’s hurt I-am-trying-to-do-this-properly pout she added, “The ever-popular and stunningly colour-co-ordinated Sersi sidekick Fashion Accessory, present and correct in all my almost-Austernal glory. And let the record state that I’m wearing a peach blouse and matching midi with Gucci purse and gloves.”
“Hat Kid’s here. But to make this list useful, why don’t we get down a pizza order for delivery as we do it?”
“Boy Wonder. And today I’m wondering if I’m ever going to get to meet my mentor Dark knight before we’re forced to eliminate him.”
“E-Mail. Ready to rock. I’m sure not going to meet Messenger who’s supposed to be my template, am I?”
“Little Lisette’s here and ready for action,” Lisa’s younger counterpart promised.
“Let the record show that Lisette is in fact always ready for action,” Wormlad smirked. “Oh, I’m here by the way.”
“Wormbait is ready to do what needs to be done to save society from the anachronistic superbeings of the outdated establishment,” Fin Fang Foom’s other sidekick added.
“And Thunderstroke’s just itching to kick some of that anach… that an… that superhero butt you was talking about.”
“Should I record apologies for absence from spiffy, Zebulon, and Frog-Man?” Li’l Buttie asked conscientiously. “After all, it isn’t their fault that we ambushed them and then dropped them through the dimensional gate in Visionary’s cellar because they wouldn’t go along with our plan to get rid of the Lair Legion.”
“Don’t bother,” Lisette advised. “When I read the minutes I don’t want to hear about losers. But you can make a note about the Asils if you want. Say how they made a bargain with Mr Bojangles, that shady pact arranger, to never have to pine for Visionary any more. And how Bojangles got them to discover the little dimensional rift left by old Wilbur Parody in the hidden basement under what is nowadays Visionary’s condo and to set up a trap for the heroes. And then how the even more mysterious than Dr Moo character Dr Oom turned up to sort out the genetic mess which was the Asils and now they don’t pine because they don’t exist.”
“Note to self,” Fashion Accessory shuddered. “Don’t make pacts with Mr Bojangles.”
“It doesn’t matter that the Visionary Vixens are no more,” E-Male told the A.S.S.es . “All that matters is that the trap is set. Visionary’s house is now one big hero elimination ground.”
“We should record Zemette’s apologies at least,” Li’l Buttie worried. “I mean, she can’t be hear because her dad has grounded her over after that being pregnant incident. And that was all part of the plan.”
“Good point,” Boy Wonder agreed. “But she did smuggle out this video tape to bring us up to date on the domestic affairs of Castle Zemo.”
“We’ll start with that report then,” Wormlad decided. “Stick it on the VCR.”

It started with a pregnant pause; that is, the pause that happens when the most villainous man in the Parodyverse has just been told by his unaccountably genetically created only daughter that she is late with her period. Then behind the abashed-looking Imke Ilsa Zemo her bedroom door cautiously slipped open and the wedge-shaped dragon-head of Fin Fang Foom poked out, saying, “Has Zemo gone yet, Imke?”
The Baron put two and two together and came up with a number large enough to require a Cray II to handle it. “The Makluan wyrm!” he hissed. “My daughter sullied by a creature not only of inferior racial stock but of another race. He must die!”
“Ooops!” Foomy gulped, seeing the masked monarch pulling his laser pistol. “I know how this must look Baron, but you see the thing is Zemette just popped over to the mansion to see us and then we all got caught up in the teleport ray you brought her home with and I didn’t notice because I was… busy…”
The dragon’s life would have ended then and there had Zemette not flung herself at her father and spoiled his aim. A significant chunk of archway masonry disintegrated beside FFF’s head. “Don’t hurt him, father,” Imke cried out, “I love him!”
Then her bedroom wall crumbled because of the structural damage, revealing a giant sea-monkey cowering behind the doorway. “Ooops,” Banjoooo shrugged, as he too was spotted and targeted by Baron Zemo.
Again Zemette made the shot go wild, this time destroying the floor between the two Legionnaires and spilling down into the bowels of the castle. “Don’t hurt him either,” the girl begged. “I love him as well.”
“What?” Zemo scowled. “What do you mean?” He was trying to decide which was worse, a half-dragon grandchild or a sea-monkey in the family. “You tell me you may be with child. Which of these felons has sullied the family honour of the house of Zemo?"
“You mean who’s the likely dad?” Zemette shrugged.
“Could be either, “she told him.

It was later. The Scourge of Baron Zemo’s Lair had actually won a fight for once. Of course, the fact that Fin Fang Foom and Banjoooo had been separated in the home territory of Baron Zemo and were distracted by the accusations of an irate father had helped the odds. And Banjooooo falling into the weapons testing centre had been a bit of a bummer as well.
Now the videotape showed Finny chained to the wall in one of Zemo’s execution cells, his shapeshifting powers inhibited by something Dr Moo just happened to have prepared for such an occasion.
The door opened. “Look Zemo, I can explain everything,” the dragon called out quickly, “Well, maybe not everything but certainly some things. I mean it wasn’t me who got Zemette… I mean took advantage of… Makluan dragons aren’t even genetically compatible with girls… I hear Banjoooo’s a bit of a player…”
But it was Zemette who slipped into the room. “Hush, Foomy,” she whispered. “I just came to say I’m really sorry that dad is going to execute you slowly and painfully in the morning. It’s not how I hoped this would all turn out.”
“It wasn’t me,” Finny wanted to get this definitively on record. “You know it wasn’t me.”
Zemette shook her head and gave him a playful kiss on the cheek. “You don’t know much about all this, do you? When a mummy dragon and a daddy dragon love each other very much…”
“It wasn’t me, dammit!” FFF shouted. “Why are you protecting the real father? Who is it?”
Zemette stretched up so she could whisper in the dragon’s ear. “It was Banjoooooo,” she breathed. “It was Banjoooooo.”

The King of the Sea Monkeys also had a little speech ready when his execution cell door slid open. “Now see here, Zemo, I am the King of the Sea Monkeys. You harm one hair on my head and not only does the entire Lair Legion come and pound you into purple and pink paste but the sovereign nation of the Sea Monkeys will invade. It’ll make Atlantis Attacks look like a forgettable summer crossover comics event. So you’d better….”
But again it was Zemette. “It’s only me, Banjooooo. I just wanted to apologise for getting you into all of this. I feel as though you’ve been dropped in a situation that was none of your choosing because of Finny and me.”
The king of the sea-monkeys’ eyebrows shot up. “Finny and you? Then he is the guy who’s got you in the Zemo junior business?”
“Of course he is,” Zemette confessed. “Why do you think I came to see him in the mansion in the first place.”
“I thought you wanted us to stop your dad reprogramming you to be as evil as him,” Banjooooo remembered.
“And the reason I needed your help to stop that was to protect… little Finny,” Zemette admitted, laying one hand on her stomach. Then she remembered the reason for her visit. “Oh, by the way, I think you’re going to need rescuing. If you could just let me have the Lair Legion emergency codes I’ll have them here to save you before your execution begins at high noon.”

The tape finished. The Assembly of Superhero Sidekicks looked at each other in awe. “Damn, she’s good,” Wormlad said at last.
“The LL should be going in there about now,” Boy Wonder noted on his Knightwatch.
“Hold on,” objected Hat Kid. “We’re missing an episode here. What happened about all that possessed mansion and demon Oddhorn stuff?”
“Oh, I’ve got all of that on CD-rom,” Lisette twinkled. “Zebulon set me up a monitor feed from the mansion a couple of days ago to show how clever he was. I’ve got the entire debacle recorded in technicolor and Dolby stereo.”
“Perhaps we should examine that next then?” Wormbait suggested.

“Enty… Enty speak to me!” a concerned Cheryl demanded. Somehow the demon Oddhorn seemed able to shut down the Lair Legion’s special abilities, the extraordinary things which made it possible for them to function in a superhero world. Oddhorn had forced the laws of real-world physics to apply to NTU-150’s life-sustaining battle armour and now it wasn’t sustaining his life.
In fact the remnants of the Legion were in pretty bad shape. Starseed and Dark Knight had been the first to be de-powered. Even so they had re-entered the fray, proving that they were heroes for more reasons than simply having special abilities. And they had been truly creamed, proving that with no power comes great potential of being mulched by the baddie. Both were lying in little bloody heaps on the floor. Space Ghost had been shocked sober by the discovery of corpses apparently of Lisa and Goldeneyed, and had proved a surprisingly effective foe to the demon set to guard the previously-unsuspected secret beneath the Lair Legion’s island mansion. Now he too had been de-powered and lay stunned beneath the remains of Lisa’s bedroom floor. Telepathic Tina was partially sheltered behind a table and still lay unmoving in the hypnotic trance induced by the now absent advisor on weird stuff Con Johnstantine.
In fact the only Legionnaire now in the fight was the newly-summoned Donar, Hemigod of Thunder, who had just been summoned as being someone who had a long standing grudge against Oddhorn. In fact right now Donar was remembering who was responsible for his long-ago exile from Ausgard and his vow to one day make Oddhorn pay for the massacre of some Norse followers whose only crime had been to want to settle on this island long ago.
“Foul fiend, prepare to eat thy spleen!” the son of Wodin promised.
Oddhorn chuckled and revoked Donar’s powers.
Donar pounded Oddhorn through the wall and out into the raging thunderstorm. “Thy widdle-bitty powers trick will not worketh on me, demon,” the angry thunderer explained. “I wast summoned here using a fragment of the same force thou usest to prevent mine buddies form usingest their powers. So I art immune to thine attempts. Art thou immune to mine hammer in thine kidneys?”
There was a THOOOOOOMMMM!ing sound as Donar conducted empirical tests.
“You don’t know bupkis, forgotten godling!” Oddhorn snarled, dragging himself out of Parody Sound, growing, and coming back at Donar. “I was set here to guard this island by the cosmic big boys. And I can pull in all the power I need to…”
“To repair thy teeth,” Donar suggested, removing some. “And to come back from this… and this…and this…”
Watching from the hole in the mansion wall, Cheryl realised that there was more to the cable-addicted hemigod than the Legion usually saw. Fighting a demon in a thunderstorm it was much easier to see that the Ausgardian was… more. She felt like getting something by Wagner on the music centre. Or perhaps Thus Spake Zarathusta.
Donar came in twenty minutes later needing in new costume, since demon blood stains defeat all but the toughest powders. “How ist yon heroes?” he enquired, slumping onto the laser-scorched sofa.
“They’ll recover,” Cheryl judged. “NTU-150’s armour started up again at about the point you pulled Oddhorn’s head off. And Starseed went all spotty and sparkly again, so I guess everyone’s got their powers back.” She bit her bottom lip and confessed her worry. “It’s Visionary I don’t know about,” she whispered.

“Now there’s a sight you don’t see every day,” Com Johnstantine commented. He slipped in behind the computer console were Visionary was cowering and watched the spectacle of Fleabot vs the mansions mobile automated defence systems. “A giant robot insect against little floating energy cannons directed by a possessed computer system.”
“You’re supposed to be some big occult expert,” Visionary argued. “Why the hell aren’t you de-possessing HALLIE instead of just sitting there watching?. And this is a no-smoking area.”
Johnstantine the Heckblazer looked around at the smouldering remains of the anti-grav weapons platforms and took another puff of his Embassy. “Technically, we need to exorcise Hallie. If you were a fake man we could perhaps interface you with the computer and you could have some sort of virtual reality battle in cyberspace.”
“If I was fake, yes. But I’m real, dammit. So what’s Plan B?”
Johnstantine thought about this. “Well, you and your Legion chums have triggered off an ancient curse most recently monkeyed with by old Wilbur Parody who built this mansion back in the 1850’s. What we need is someone to talk with HALLIE, convince her that they are Wilbur Parody and that the curse is fulfilled, get her to reboot again as her normal virtual self, and then never ever talk about it again. And like I said, a fake man is best.”
“And like I said, I’m not fake.”
Johnstantine smiled a nasty smile. “Look into my eyes, Visionary.”

“So you saved the day?” Cheryl asked her husband after it was all over. “You?”
“Yes, me,” Visionary answered slightly irritably. He had a nasty headache and he couldn’t remember the details, but HALLIE was back to being HALLIE and things had stopped trying to kill them all and he was pretty sure that he had somehow done it. The lack of little details like how weren’t going to prevent him from taking all the credit.
“The mansion isn’t in a very good state,” NTU-150 reported. “Jarvis isn’t going to like the repair bill.”
“Wait till he sees the bill Johnstantine left before he went,” Tina warned them.
“Gah, never mind Jarvis,” Starseed pointed out. “What about Finny, Banjooooo, Yo, and DarkHwk? How could we lose four people in our own mansion?”
“Well it does appear to have rather more in the way of cellars and things than we had noticed before,” Dark Knight pointed out, “and there is the question of how Goldeneyed and Lisa died and were walled up here over a century ago.”
Liiiiiiissssssaaaaaaa!” Space Ghost moaned. Now that the crisis was over he was drowning his grief at the loss of the Lair Legion’s first lady in the traditional manner. So far he had drowned it with beer, tequila, schnapps, vodka, scotch, and Irn-bru and it wouldn’t stay drowned.
“There was some kind of teleportation effect,” HALLIE contributed. She felt slightly guilty about the whole being-possessed-trying-to-kill-people thing so she was making an effort. “Unfortunately, all the screwy stuff going on scrambled my sensors so I’ve no idea who or what or where.”
“And is anybody worried that we haven’t heard from Hatman, CSFB!, Jarvis, and Melissa since yesterday?” Tina asked.
Nobody was.
There was a buzzing from the comm-unit. NTU-150 thumped it until the message came through. “It’s an emergency code,” he reported. “It’s Banjooooo and Finny. They’re prisoners in… in Baron Zemo’s castle?”
“Zemo?” Starseed spat, shifting to his Gah! energy form. “What does that twisted manic have to do with all of this?”
“We’d better go and ask him,” Dark Knight said grimly. “Prepare the Lairjet. And this time don’t get shot down as we approach the castle. That was so embarrassing.”
“If you guys are going on a mission, I’m going home. I’ve got a bad headache,” Visionary warned, “Probably from saving the day.”
“I’ve got one too,” admitted Tina.
“Come back with us to Dullard’s Grove,” Cheryl suggested. “I’m sure Visionary’s little Asil-friends will be happy to fix you a cold compress – if he asks them to.”
Visionary winced. “I saved the day, dammit,” he muttered.
NTU-150, Starseed, Dark Knight, and Space Ghost went off to launch the Lairjet. Cheryl waited until they were out of earshot and Tina was away packing. “”Alright,” she whispered to her husband, “You can tell me now. Who really saved the day?”

“Look at that,” complained E-Male, “I mean, look at it. They get out of situations by the skin of their teeth. By accident. I mean, how can we take them seriously when they let themselves be rescued by losers like Visionary?”
“We won’t have to worry about it much longer, man,” Wormlad soothed Messenger’s sidekick. “The Lairjet should be at Zemo’s castle pretty soon and then it’s the main event.”
“Only if our patron has come through for us,” Lisette warned. “I’ll try and contact him now…”

The Hooded Hood stood in the mists of Comic Book Limbo, whence he had been exiled for his attempt to take over the Parodyverse a short while ago. His arms were folder and his burning green eyes were focussed far from the realm of faded ghostly forgotten characters he now inhabited.
Melissa sidled up to him and coughed politely. “Um, Mr Hood?”
The cowled crime czar was roused from his reverie and turned to regard Jarvis’ new wife. “What is it?” he demanded. “I have already told you I know of no bathrooms in this realm.”
“It wasn’t that,” Melissa replied. “I was… I was thinking about what you said earlier. About how you fixed things for Tim and I to be together? About how you would unfix it if Tim wanted to get rid of me.”
“I needed to drive a wedge between Jarvis and Lisa for the purposes of my plot,” the Hood explained. “I examined the various alternate realities and decided that you were the best way to do it.”
“And you also said that you were stopping whatever it is that’s making Tim change and become nasty?”
“I have suspended the plot for the duration of my own interest in Jarvis, yes.”
Melissa gulped. “So you can fix things? I mean, fix them so they stay fixed? You could… you could arrange it so that Tim would never get rid of me, and wouldn’t get all nasty?”
The Hooded Hood suppressed a smile. “I could,” he agreed. “I could arrange to change Jarvis’ origin, for example. I could arrange for him to have been taken by aliens as a child, raised with false memories, sent to Earth to play out a series of charades as part of a plot to use the Parodyverse as a bio-weapons breeding ground. That would lead to events which would overcome the Sivraj personality. And it would eliminate Jarvis’ former wife Lo-Chi. Perhaps she might now become one of the aliens in disguise. I could ensure that Jarvis discovers his true origins, leaving him with a simpler, cleaner history, and with you. I could do all of that and more. But I would require something from you in return.”
Melissa looked at the ground. “What… what would you require?” she asked.

“…And just as Monica and Chandler get to the wedding chapel, the door burst open and out come the last couple to have got hitched, and it’s none other than Rachel and Ross!” CrazySugarFreakBoy! concluded.
Shab’addaba’Dhu, the Groper out of Grossness, twitched a happy tentacle in excitement. “That is utterly amazing,” the ancient elder creature set as the most terrible guardian of the secret under Parody Island admitted. “That is even more amazing than the stuff you told me about Daphne never realising how Niles felt about her.”
“Yo is pretty amazed as well,” Yo admitted. “Although Yo thinks that Joey is being the cutest of the Friends.”
Hatman wanted to speak. Hatman wanted to say something like, uh guys, its been about twelve hours we’ve been here in this sewer chasm talking TV series with this sanity-mangling monstrosity that hasn’t had his sitcom and soap fix for two decades and I wouldn’t mind only he’s going to eat us anyhow as soon as CrazySugarFreakBoy! runs out of episodes to describe to him which admittedly looks like it’s not going to happen in the next six months but really I’d hoped to have a longer crimefighting career than this so could we please find a way of battling our way out of this and getting some breakfast ‘cause my stomach is rumbling and no I’m not getting more like Hat Kid any minute. But he didn’t.
Shab’addaba’Dhu flexed a tentacle the width of a sequoia and sighed. “Well, this has been a real treat, I can assure you, mortals, but now I’m going to have to get on and devour you.”
“Wait!” CSFB! called. “I know lots more programme summaries. I haven’t even started on Next Gen!”
“It doesn’t matter,” the Groper assured him. “Once I’ve eaten you I can absorb all the knowledge right out of your brain. How do you think I heard about all of this TV stuff in the first place? It’s hardly like I’ve got cable down here, is it?”
“Wait” DarkHwk called out as the fibrous strands started to squiggle out towards him. “I’ve got a deal to offer you! How about… how about, you let us go, and we get you satellite?”
“Yo is thinking that is being a most excellent offer,” urged Yo. “If you are being eating our brains, you are to be getting only episodes we have seen already. If you be getting satellite to watching, you are getting to be seeing all episodes that come out ever in future.”
“What do you say, slimy?” DarkHwk asked, looking Shab’addaba’Dhu straight in the eyes (all nine of them).
Hatman never could believe they beat a Cthulhic nasty with the offer of a Home Entertainement Centre and an MTV subscription.

“They’re in,” E-male reported, monitoring the situation at Castle Zemo. “The Lairjet got within half a mile before being blown out of the sky this time, and the LL have just taken out the perimeter wall.”
“All that smoke is doing untold harm to the ozone lair,” Wormbait worried. “And I suppose that explosion had toxic chemicals in it.”
“I’d say the odds were about even right now,” Wormlad assessed. “Zemette’s turned off the castle defences and the Scourge were taken by surprise. She’ll have got Foom and Banjoooo from their cells to join the battle. I’d say its going pretty well.”
“And both Foom and Banjoooo believe that the other one is father of Zemette’s baby,” snickered Fashion Accessory. “None of them, not even Moo, seems to have worked out that Zemette’s not been created long enough to even have a period cycle, or even to have conceived a child long enough to be detected by any standard test kit.”
“But it’s keeping Zemo off balance,” Boy Wonder pointed out. “And that was our patron’s main objective in arranging for Imke to be created.
“I’m not clear on this,” Hat Kid admitted, spraying BLT over the meeting table as he spoke. “Are you saying that she was created already pregnant? If so, who’s the father?”
“Somebody whose genetic material was available, I guess,” Lisette shrugged. “Hell, for all I know she might just be making up the whole thing. She’s one bitch of a liar.”
“Battle’s proceeding nicely,” E-Male reported. Zemo’s just made a little speech about how he’s going to grind every last one of the Lair Legion into the dust for daring to sully a Zemo, and now he’s explaining what he’s going to do to Banjooo and Foomy. Oooh!” E-male crossed his legs as he listened.
“Here comes the other Lairjet!” Li’l Buttie warned the Sidekicks, watching on another monitor screen. “The jet log records it’s got Yo, DarkHwk, CrazySugarFreakBoy! and Hatman aboard. Out patron must have come through for us. They survived that monster.”
“’Cause they did,” Wormboy snorted. “He went to all that trouble to get CSFB!’s silly suit and Hatman’s Hatility Belt back to them, didn’t he? And he arranged for them to learn about ‘ol Wilbur’s hidden achievement under Visionary’s house from Parody’s ancient writings.”
“They’re in,” E-Male reported. “Battle’s paused. Hatman’s explaining something. Now Zemette’s come forward. She’s saying how she remembers awakening in a lab at Dullard’s Corner… Moo’s twigged the born pregnant thing…”
“It’s so exciting when a plan works out, isn’t it?” Lisette giggled, jumping up and down with excitement.
“Are they buying it?” Thunderstroke demanded.
“Must be,” L’il Buttie judged. “The fighting’s stopped, Zemo’s shepherding the Lair Legion and Moo onto the teleport platform with himself, setting it for Dullard’s Corner. He’s vowing to make whoever is behind this pay, even over Visionary’s dead body. They’re teleporting.”
“OK,” Fashion Accessory reported. “I’m activating the stasis field that Zemette plumbed in around Castle Zemo. That’ll keep the rest of the Scourge out of our hair now we don’t need them any more.”
“I’m patching in the Visionary’s house feed now,” E-Male announced.

“Doesn’t the house seem quiet without all those Asils?” Cheryl asked her icepack-pressing husband. “They left it beautifully clean and tidy, though. I wonder why they replaced the front door?”
“I’ve never heard of a Dr Oom,” Tina admitted. Even after all this time with NTU-150 superheroes confused her.
There was a knock at the new front door. Then the new front door was evaporated by Zemo’s disintegrator pistol.
“You could have been a little bit more patient,” Hatman suggested to the Baron.
“What the heck…?” Visionary complained as the archvillain strode into his living room with ten legionnaires and the diabolical Dr Moo. “Hey!”
“Confess now your part in the creation and impregnation of my cloned daughter or suffer the consequences,” Zemo warned the possibly fake man.
“Yes, do that,” Cheryl frowned. First it was Asils, now this. She was starting to wish Visionary had stayed in that corn.
“You’re not going to believe this,” NT-150 explained to Tina, “but old Wilbur Parody owned this land a century ago, and he apparently buried his greatest work under what is now Visionary’s condo.
“All of this links together somehow,” Dark Knight reasoned. “It ties in with Lisa and Goldeneyed’ murders, with the sudden spate of sidekicks based on Parody’s nineteenth century lawmaking rules, the curse on the mansion, the genetic creation of Zemette, everything. But there’s one piece that we’re missing, and that’s what is in your basement, Visionary.”
“It seems a perfectly ordinary basement to me,” Starseed reported. Whilst the others had been doing expositionary crap he’d got on and checked the cellars. “But I did find this leaf. It looks like it’s off spiffy’s fern!”
spiffy!” Space Ghost cried out. “I looooooovvvvve spiffy!”
“Oh yeah,” Starseed realised. “spiffy is missing as well. I got so used to him being dead that I didn’t notice.”
“What have you done with the concealed laboratory that my daughter was created in?” Zemo threatened Visionary.
“He knows nothing about it,” Tina mindread. Visionary wasn’t thinking about blank sheets of paper just now. He was thinking about how sharp and pointy Zemo’s disintegrator pistol was at his chest.
“Of course, we only have Zemette’s word for it that she first awoke here in a laboratory,” Dr Moo pointed out.
“And we only have Wilbur Parody’s writings to go on about the great work concealed here,” Hatman realised.
“Oh wow! So Visionary’s condo might be one huge trap for unsuspecting superheroes that we walked right into!” enthused CrazySugarFreakBoy!
“A trap set up many years since,” Donar considered.
“By somebody who can alter continuity to suit their purposes,” concluded the Dark Knight. “Ladies and gentleman, I believe I can name our hidden manipulator, the author of the events that have been besetting us. Our adversary is none other than…”
Oh boy!” CSFB! interrupted. “It’s the ever-Hoody Hooded Hoodpecker himself! It’s the Hooded Hood!”
Then Visionary’s house folded in on itself like origami under a fat man’s butt and everybody inside it was spilled away from the Parodyverse to exile in Comic Book Limbo. When space had refolded itself there was a bare plot where the condominium had once stood, and Wilbur Parody’s greatest creation, the time-space rift to the realm where comics characters went to fade away, was sealed shut forever.
Only one grey-cloaked figure stood alone and triumphant in the empty lot, his head raised in triumphant laughter. The Hooded Hood had returned to a world without heroes.

L’il Buttie cracked open the champagne bottle and served his comrades. Wormboy raised his glasses and made the toast. “We did it, boys and girls. We cut away the dead wood. Now we can make the world what we want it to be. Raise your glasses. The toast is: us. The new Lair Legion.”

Next episode: “World Without Heroes”, in which the new Lair Legion face their first challenge, the Gree/Skrunk war begins, and the Hooded Hood pays a visit to the secret bits under the Parody Island mansion. Don’t miss it (except in the sense that all of your characters won’t be there, of course).

The Hooded Hood makes his move