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This message #105: Untold Tales of the Lair Legion: Moonstruck was posted by The first adventure of the new Lair Legion continues with guest stars obscure and alarming and the long-awaited arrival of... well that'd be telling. All inside in lightslategrey from... the Hooded Hood. on Saturday, January 11, 2003 at 12:55.
#105: Untold Tales of the Lair Legion: Moonstruck
Joe Pepper answered the door expecting the pizza guy. What he got was a rock-hard fist in the gut, and a knee to the jaw as he doubled over. “Wha…?” he gasped, fumbling for Knifey, but his assailant caught his wrist as he drew the sentient weapon, twisted his arm, and embedded the blade five inches into the wall. He snapped ManMan’s arm with casual ease, nailed him in a half-Nelson, and marched the near-unconscious hero over to a metal-framed kitchen chair suitable for binding somebody for interrogation.
When the pizza arrived the intruder politely paid for it and gave a generous tip.
***
“The moon,” breathed Sarah Shepherdson. “Wow.”
The Probability Dancer stood beside her Lair Legion comrades in the mysterious ruins of the Turquoise area and admired the full Earth above them. dull thudstood beside her and simply swallowed hard. “Did I mention I get homesick?”
“We’d better set up camp,” Fin Fang Foom declared, all business. “Nats, scout around for a good spot to pitch the geodesic tents. The rest of you, start to haul the equipment off Ziles’ spaceship.”
“Manual work?” objected Pegasus. “I don’t see why warriors should have to carry luggage like porters. We should have brought that repugnant Flapjack creature.” She glaced at dull thud. “Somebody stronger than him, anyway.”
~~He’s really only good for carrying crates of alcohol or amplifiers~~ Cressida warned. The worm wonder swelled inside thuddy’s large intestine and knew him literally inside out.
“And I’m not a member of the Lair Legion, so I…”
“That’s going to get real old real fast,” Ziles warned. “I’ll get Roboti to start moving the stuff.”
“And I’ll have a little chat with you please, Penny,” Finny told Pegasus.
The others watched as the winged woman and the humanoid dragon walked away through the fallen purple city.
“It’s kind of like when Sub-Mariner joined the Avengers,” CrazySugarFreakBoy! considered. “I wonder if I should pick a fight with her to help the bonding process.”
“If you try any more bonding you’re liable to get yourself killed,” Ziles warned.
Dancer was still staring at the ruins. A half-mile wide crater was filled with crumbling stone ruins in an alien style. “This place is amazing. How can be breathe? Who built it? Why have I never heard of it before?”
“Ah, that’d be the Skree Star Empire,” CSFB! grinned. “See, the League of Regulars first found this place in Lair Legion Year One #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’, back when the King of the Sea Monkeys was making war on the surface world. It had been built like thousands of years earlier by the Skree, who needed a research settlement here because this was where the great Celestian Space Robots had abandoned some of the genetic manipulation machinery they had used to create the Abhumans and Deviates.”
“I thought that mechanism was on Monstrous Island?” Dancer blinked.
“Later it was. But back when the Austernals used it to make the Abhumans it was up here,” explained Dreamcatcher Foxglove.
“I thought you said it was the Skree?”
“The Skree built the city. The Deviates chased them off. The Austernals captured the Turquoise Area from them and used the Celestian technology to make the Abhumans. Later, the Abhumans used the same machinery to create the Sea Monkeys and Racoon People and stuff. Simple.”
“What’s amazing is that some of the technology of the city here is still working,” Ziles observed, checking some of her sensor devices. “You can’t see it from Earth because there’s a sophisticated invisibility screen. The atmospheric bubble is obviously still working. But there are some other readings I can’t quite make out yet… something odd…”
Nats flew down to rejoin them. “I think we should set up base in the Hall of Oddly-Shaped Dangly Things,” he reported. “It’s near here, it’s pretty central to the city, and it still has a roof.”
“Great,” smiled Dancer. “Everybody grab a bag and let’s do it. You okay, thuddy? Still confused by the Turquiose Area?”
“No, I get that now,” the Scotsman assured her. “but who are the Skree, the Austernals, the Deviates, the Abhumans, the Sea Monkeys, the Racoon People, and the Celestians?”
***
Hatman was frowning when he came down the main staircase of Darkness House to join Whitney at the reception desk. “There’s something about those two kids,” he muttered, looking again at the register where the names Mrs and Mrs R & M Smith-Jones were the first ever entries. “Something odd.” He confided his worry to his new partner-in-hoteliership. “I don’t think they’re married.”
“Really?” Whitney Darkness, the Sorceress, asked dryly. “How scandalous.”
Jay Boaz realised that it was possibly a little bit hypocritical of him to object given the ongoing relationship he was very much enjoying with Whitney. “And the guy’s got an ID in the name of Arthur Corben at the bottom of his bag.”
“You searched his luggage? Jay!”
“Look, old habits die hard,” Hatman objected. “I can’t just overlook…”
“Young love?” Whitney shrugged. “You haven’t forgotten our early encounters, have you?”
Jay flushed. “There’s more,” he went on. “They had hardly any other bags, and their car has some strange scorch marks on the trunk, kind of like laser blasts or something.”
“Maybe they’re eloping?” the Sorceress smiled indulgently. “C’mon Jay, give them a break. They’re obviously in love – or at least deeply in lust. They could hardly keep their hands off each other. They’re a bit scared because they’re taking a huge new step. All we have to do is keep out of their way and deliver breakfast in the morning.”
“Fine,” sighed Hatman. “If they’re not doing anything to trigger off your mystical senses then maybe they’re just a couple of teenagers on a lark. But the last thing I want is irate parents hammering at the door with the State Police next to them.”
“You worry too much, Hat. Come to bed. I’ll see if I can’t find some way to take your mind of your problems.”
And sixty miles above the deep resonance imaging satellite noted two heat sources ascending the main staircase and reported back accordingly that the way was clear to retrieve the primary targets.
***
“And another thing,” Amber StClare told Goldeneyed as their meeting continued into its’ seventh hour, “I’m tired of people getting my name wrong. Some people keep calling me Amanda. We should add that clarification into the press pack.”
“Right,” Bry Kotyk agreed. He glanced across at Ruby Waver. “Make a note,” he asked the LL’s new secretary.
“Tight-assed government liaison woman wants to be called Amber,” Ruby muttered as her pencil moved over her notepad.
“What?”
“I think the tight-assed government liaison would prefer to be called Ms StClare,” Lania explained helpfully.
G-Eyed considered teleporting to the moon to join the rest of the team. he considered teleporting the support crew to the moon instead. Or possibly the sun. “Is there anything else?” he asked.
“We’re only on item ninety-one of the agenda,” Amber told him. “We’d be getting on better if we had good professional help,” she added, glaring at Lania and Ruby.
Laurie Leyton squeezed Bry’s knee under the table to offer him some tacit support. At least G-Eyed hoped it was Laurie, because otherwise things were going to get a lot more complicated. “We can’t keep Bry much longer,” she warned. “He’s got a meeting with Al B. at 2100, then Amy Racecar on ordinance maintenance at 2215, then Flapjack disciplinary hearing #11324 at 2305, then Commisioner Graham at 0645 tomorrow, then the press conference at…”
“Eight fifteen,” Lania added helpfully.
“And then SPUD after that,” Laurie confirmed.
“I suppose we could reconvene about 1120,” Amber conceded reluctantly. “We should be able to get this stuff cleared before midnight tomorrow, and then we can start on the detail.”
“Er…” Bry almost objected.
“What?” demanded the liaison. “I thought you said you wanted to play a full and proper role as deputy-leader of the Lair Legion?”
“I was kind of imagining taking the team up against Galactivac the Living Death that Sucks or something,” Goldeneyed admitted. “Not… this stuff.”
“This stuff is what makes it possible for you to go up against Galactivac,” Amber chided him. “Now if we can just move onto item ninety-two, the Bautista Indemnity Protocols…”
Bry only screamed inwardly. For now.
***
ManMan awoke when the bare wires of his lamp were touched to the tip of his tongue.
“Aaagh!” he gasped, trying to struggle free before he realised that he was held in place by reinforced security handcuffs.
“Hey,” Knifey called out from where he was still embedded in the brickwork, “If you’re going to torture my partner at lease use me to do it.”
“I don’t think so,” the tall man in the grey business suit considered. “I suspect you might have a trick or two to play on somebody that was holding you against your will. Since I haven’t come tonight to destroy an artefact older than this planet, I think it best you just sit there quietly while your ‘partner’ tells me what I want to know.”
“You leave him alone or I make sure you wish you were never born,” Knifey warned Joe’s attacker.
“I said quietly. If you don’t make another sound I promise to leave Mr Pepper with at least one good eyeball. Deal?”
Knifey shut up. ManMan didn’t. “Who the hell are you, mister? You’re making a… aaaagh!”
The man in the grey business suit had just broken Joe’s little finger. “Nothing personal,” he assured his prisoner. “I could use drugs and psychological games, but I always think that the traditional methods are best to break a man in body, mind, and soul.”
“You’re insane! When I get free from this you are going to get so butt-kicked… aaaaagghh!”
The man in grey wiggled the second of Joe’s broken fingers, grinding the edges together. “I require some information,” he explained. “About the Hooded Hood.”
***
“Pegasus… why did you join the Lair Legion?” Fin Fang Foom asked.
The auburn-haired woman with the angel’s wings glared at him. “What’s it to you?”
“I just happen to be the leader of the…” Finny began, before he realised that his petulant tones sounded just like Banjoooo crying ‘I happen to be King of the Sea Monkeys, you know!’. “I’m the leader,” he said in a gruffer, deeper voice. “I’m responsible for making sure the team works. And right now I’m not too sure about you.”
The mythical being beside him wasn’t impressed. “I’ve been a warrior for more lifetimes than you can count, bucko,” she assured him. “Not your body, maybe, but the sentience inhabiting it is pretty new, isn’t it?”
“But you haven’t been a Legionnaire before,” Foom told her. “Ah, I know,” he cut in as she was about to answer him, “You were in the Scourge and it was a lot better than this. News flash. The Scourge is gone, retconned by the Hooded Hood because it happened to get in his way. And even when the Scourge was here it kept consistently getting its ass kicked by the Lair Legion. That’s us.”
“No,” Pegasus answered. “It was Jarvis and Lisa and Donar, and Starseed and Banjoooo and Yo, powerhouses like that. Not these… children.”
“These children have taken on threats that even the original LL never faced,” Finny shot back. “But that’s not the point. The point is, this isn’t the Scourge. It’s the Legion. And we’re not like anything you’ve ever been a part of before.”
Pegasus shot the Makluan a contemptuous glance. “Are you trying to scold me, little wyrm?”
“No,” Finny answered. “I am scolding you. Shape up. Work as part of the team and put your ego on hold. We want you with us, but we don’t need a pain in the ass. The League’s gone out on a limb for you, to give you another chance after you screwed up pretty badly. Don’t make us regret it.”
Pegasus looked at the dragon. “I see,” she answered.
***
“Hi, Al. how’re you settling in?”
The lair Legion’s new scientific advisor looked up from the cluttered lab where he was defusing NTU-150’s coffee-maker. “Pretty good so far, thanks,” he admitted cheerfully. “Did you know your mechanic doesn’t actually wear anything underneath her overalls?”
“Er, no,” Bry admitted. “But I’m sure it’s in Amber St Clare’s files somewhere.”
“I’ve found that if you just stay in Enty’s lab nobody dares come in and disturb you,” Al B confided.
Goldeneyed realised uncomfortably that he was stood in the said lab right now. “Er, right. Look, I’ve got a favour to ask. Do you think you can get a comm-link through to Visionary’s condo. I need to speak to Vizh. I really need him.”
Al B dropped the phase warp discriminator he was carrying on his foot. “Ouch! Oh, sorry. I thought I heard you say you needed Visionary. Heh.”
Goldeneyed closed his eyed and rubbed his forehead. “I’m afraid… I do.”
***
The terrible screaming woke Hatman out of an exhausted sleep, jolting him to consciousness with the reflexes of one used to rude awakenings. Even as he reached for his Nightcap Sorceress was out of the bed and diving towards the window-curtains.
“What the hell is that?” Jay demanded, racing to join her.
“Some of Grandmother’s wards,” Whitney worried. “Hagatha doesn’t like unexpected visitors, so she has… defences.”
“Like the banshee at the Lair Mansion?”
“Yes. Only not so nice.”
“Oh.”
Hatman and Sorceress scrambled into robes and raced onto the landing to see what was happening. Art and Misty were already at their doorway, looking scared and tousled. “What’s happening?” Art demanded.
“Stay there,” Hatman called, heading downstairs, but everyone followed him.
The intruders were halfway through the broken kitchen window, lying dead and limp with wide staring eyes gazing in horror. Futuristic energy weapons lay discarded on the hardwood floor. But the most obvious thing about the intruders was that they were…
“Monkeys?” Sorceress puzzled. “Burglar monkeys?”
Hatman heard Randy’s intake of breath and Misty’s gasp. “They’ve found us, Art” Misty gulped.
“Have they now?” Whitney scowled. “Is there something you’d like to share with us, children?”
“Like why she calls you Art, ‘Randy’?” Hatman added.
“I meant Randy,” Mindy corrected herself. “I just… call him Art. It’s a pet name. Randy isn’t the name of Art’s best friend that we borrowed as a travelling disguise or anything.”
“Right. And your name’s actually Mindy?” Hat demanded.
“Of course. Mindy Pyrite, er Smith-Jones. Mindy Pyrite Smith-Jones. Yes.”
“And you’re sure there’s nothing you want to share with us?” Whitney repeated.
“No,” Art answered hurriedly. “Look, just let us on our way and we’ll be out of your hair, ok?”
“Let me rephrase that,” Sorceress answered, no longer smiling. “You will now tell us what is going on.”
“Elementary, my dear Whitney,” Hatman said from beneath his deerstalker hat. He’d finally resorted to using his powers to sort things out. “Note if you will the strange wrinkled skin around Mrs Smith-Jones’ wrists and ankles, and the fact that she only breathes just before speaking and at no other time. Note also the technology employed by our simian invaders, designed I would surmise to project electromagnetic pulse packets suitable to upset electronic equipment.”
Misty shook her head “No. it’s not what you think…”
“Are you denying that you are in fact a robot?” Hatman challenged.
“She’s what?” Sorceress frowned. She focused her sensitivity to life upon the frightened girl in the borrowed bathrobe. “You’re right, Jay. She’s got no bio-field.” Then she glanced at Art. “He has, though.”
“Alright, I admit I’m an android,” Misty conceded, her shoulders drooping. “I should have been more careful putting my skin on when that alarm thing happened. But Art’s alive. He’s a monkey.”
“Kind of,” Art winced. “In the… not, kind of way.”
“What?” Misty gasped. “You told me you worked for Evil Monkey as one of his gang!”
“Yeah, well I’m more a sort of, er, undercover monkey, in human form,” squirmed Art. “As if I had been transmuted into being a homo sapiens. Only from, uh, from birth.”
Misty put her hands on her hips and stared at her lover. “So let me get this straight. I’ve eloped not with my monkey lover in a Romeo and Juliet scenario, but with a wannabee monkey who is in fact a pimply teenage boy?”
“Let me get this straight,” Hatman interrupted. “You have eloped?”
“Let me get this straight,” demanded Whitney. “If he’s not a monkey why do we have two dead simians blocking out kitchen window?”
Just then the house shook as a dozen robots broke down the front and back doors and began their attack.
***
The last six hours hadn’t been pleasant for Joe Pepper. Now he hung limply on the blood-stained chair, his body a red web of lacerations, his face a crimson pulp. “I’m very impressed,” his questioner admitted. “Usually people break long before this.” He touched the bare lamp-wires to one of the patches of flayed flesh and watched ManMan jolt spastically to the voltage. “I can see we’re going to have to upgrade your dossier.”
“We?” croaked ManMan.
Ignoring this feeble attempt at information-gathering, the man in grey sat down and helped himself to the last of the pizza. “Next time we do this, no anchovies,” he told Joe. “Now let’s try again. What happened when you stabbed the Hooded Hood?”
“Go to hell.”
“Only if I get a mission that requires it.”
The doorbell rang, and the man in the perfect grey suit looked up. “Ah, yes. That would be my back up plan.”
Joe looked up painfully. “Hnh?”
The intruder glided to the door and answered it. “Ah, Miss Gwen, do come in. Joe’s in the kitchen.”
***
“Hi. You’ve reached the League of Regulars call centre. For intergalactic emergencies, press one. For rampaging supervillains, press two. For grudge-matches with Donar, press three. For personal calls to Lisa, please call her hotline number. Calls are charged at $8.50 per minute.”
Goldeneyed stared at the screen in desperation. He decided that the LL paperwork situation was an intergalactic emergency and pressed 1.
“Thank you for pressing one, intergalactic emergency. All our lines are busy right now, but you are in a queuing system and your intergalactic emergency will be dealt with in strict rotation. Please hold for somebody to deal with your intergalactic emergency.”
Al B Harper watched sympathetically. “Want me to have EDWIN try and get through via HALLIE?” has asked helpfully.
“Oh why not just have me blow my brains out and be merciful?” muttered the Lair Mansion’s new AI.
G-Eyed looked in disbelief at the monitor.
“O you could just teleport over to Vizh’s condo,” suggested Al B. “You can do that, you know.”
“Yes. Of course. I can teleport,” remembered G-Eyed. “Boy, do I need help!” And with a golden flash he vanished from the laboratory.
“I take it that I’m excused from the tedium of having to communicate with last year’s model, then?” EDWIN clarified with Al B. Harper.
***
The lunar campers were woken by the smell of bacon frying and the sizzle as it was scooped onto metal plates by Dancer. “Rise and shine,” she called out sunnily. “Breakfast is served.”
“Marry me,” Nats offered as he woke to coffee and toast.
“Oh Nats, that’s very kind, but you know it wouldn’t work,” Dancer grinned. “There’d be three months of hot, unrelenting sweaty sex, three months of finding we had nothing in common, and a lifetime of bitter recriminations.”
“Will you watch where you’re spraying that coffee?” Ziles complained to Nats.
“Think you could describe the hot sweaty sex part a bit more?” CSFB! asked earnestly. “Only you can leave Nats out of it.”
Ziles blushed.
“Not just now,” Dancer told the wired wonder. “After all, we’d never get Finny out of his sleeping bag, would we?”
“We should eat quickly and begin our survey,” Pegasus suggested. “Our leader should have been up and around preparing for our day long before this.”
“Eh. No rush,” Nats shrugged. “Take some time to smell the coffee.”
~~Could somebody help me to wake Davie up please~~ Cressida telepathed. ~~He’s not really a morning person. Or an afternoon person for that matter~~
Dancer leaned over and whispered something into dull thud’s ear. He sat up suddenly and looked around him with blurry eyes.
“He’s up,” Shep told them.
“Aye,” thuddyagreed, glaring accusingly at Dancer. “But I think I’ll stay in my sleeping bag a little bit longer, while I… calm down.”
“What kind of scientific tests are we doing here?” CSFB! wondered. “Are we looking for the hidden home of the Observer, or just trying to find ancient alien artefacts before the secret hidden bad guys can discover them and use them to conquer the universe?”
“Just some basic survey work,” Finny sighed. “The LL’s never had a chance to explore this place properly, and as Ziles said when she suggested we come here, this seems like a good opportunity to look around. And there is no secret hidden bad guys, Dream.”
CSFB! shook his head and stated one of his articles of faith. “There’s always some secret hidden bad guys if you look hard enough.”
And on the other end of the snooperscope, Webmonkey turned in panic to his comrades. “They’re on to us! Warn the boss! Prepare for all out war!”
***
Hatman in his Steelers hat pounded the last of the robots repeatedly against the kitchen stove until its head had a dint the size of a fist. “Anyone yet ready to tell me what the heck is going on?” he demanded.
“And why out house has just been attacked by mechanoids?” Whitney added. “And why my blender seems to be glaring at me?”
“Sorry about all this,” Art winced. “You see…”
And just then the Zoom Monkeys invaded.
***
The press surged forwards as Lania declared the conference open.
“Goldeneyed, how does it feel to be the first black deputy-leader of the Lair Legion?” demanded Bernice Teschmaker. “is this a major step forward for racial equality, or do you feel your skin colour held you back from the top spot?”
Bry Kotyk, who was white under his all-concealing black bodysuit, took a deep breath and remembered Visionary’s advice.
“I’m Henry the Eighth, I am I am,” he sang, “I’m Henry the Eighth I am…”
***
“You know how good I am at torture, Joe,” the man in grey noted in reasonable tones. “Do I have to demonstrate again on the fair flesh of the delightful Miss Gwen? Or may I call you Stacy?”
Stacy rushed over to the bloody ManMan and glared up murderously at her tormentor. “You bastard,” she hissed. “What have you done to him?”
“Alright, you win,” Joe Pepper admitted with a sob. “What do you want to know?”
***
“Are you okay?” Dancer asked Pegasus as they placed the survey equipment from Ziles’ ship.
“What?” Pegasus turned a cold glare at her new teammate.
“I said are you okay? You don’t seem that happy to be here. I mean, even less happy than thuddy. Sure, he whines and gripes but secretly he’s enjoying it. You’re… not so much.”
“I will endure,” the winged woman assured Dancer. “Your attempt at concern is noted.”
Dancer regarded penny Christopoulus for a moment before speaking again. “We’re not the Scourge, you know.”
“What?”
“Have you forgotten? I was drafted into the Scourge briefly, back when I was starting out?” [See Dancer #10: Say Hello to the Scourge] “I know what they were like. You had to be on your guard all the time, keep your defences up, never let them close enough to hurt you. Right?”
Pegasus bristled some more. “So?”
“So this is the League. These folks aren’t like that. They’re sweet. They go out and save lives and make the world a better place, not because it makes them rich or powerful but because it’s the right thing to do. And we bumble around and make idiots of ourselves, but when the chips are down we save the day.”
Pegasus considered this. “Maybe,” she conceded.
“Just give us a chance, Penny. And give yourself a chance with us, huh?”
“Maybe.”
***
“I caught your performance on CSN earlier,” Falcon told Goldeneyed as he led him towards Drury’s office on the SPUD Helicarrier command deck. “Very… tuneful.”
“I’m beginning to realise why Visionary always had that stunned expression when he was leading the LL,” Bry admitted. “Mind you, he had that stunned expression when he wasn’t leading it, too…”
Falcon smiled and clapped him on the back. “You’ll adjust. Heck, if Vizh could do the job you sure can, right?”
“I asked Visionary about that. He said his main method was to ignore the paperwork until somebody took it away. That doesn’t seem very professional.”
Falcon nodded in agreement. “So what are you going to do?”
“I was thinking maybe teleporting it to the furnace?”
“Good call. Here’s Drury’s office.”
The two heroes entered to find the cigar-chomping commanded or the Super-menace Principle Undercover Directorate looking through his window onto the clouds below. “C’mon in, G-Eyed,” he called. “And Falc, stick around. We’re going ta have to postpone out little love-chat fer later. We got us a situation.”
Suddenly Falcon was all business. “What’s the brief, Colonel?”
“Maybe nothing,” Drury shrugged, “but I wanted a quick recon, and since you’re right here with teleport boy…”
“Goldeneyed,” G-Eyed corrected him. “And I can also use my dimensional manipulation powers to enhance my strength, stamina, speed…”
Drury shrugged. “Whatever. The point is we got a little communications glitch. Canada’s dropped off the map.”
“SPUD lines are down across the whole of Canada?” Falcon worried.
“Not just SPUD lines. Everything. Phones, radio, TV stations. Nothing’s transmitting in or out, as of about ten minutes ago.”
“Sounds like a job for the Lair Legion,” Bry conceded. “I’ll summon them.”
“Not yet,” Drury told him. “We try not to bother you shiny heroes ‘less there’s a damn good reason. I just want you and Sam ter hop over to, say, Calgary and take a look-see at what’s goin on, okay?”
“We’re got visual reference for you to base your jump on,” Falcon added, knowing that G-Eyed needed to visualise his destination for a safe teleport.
“Well, since I’m here…” Goldeneyed agreed. “Let’s roll.”
***
“I’m… impressed,” Finny admitted to dull thud. “I hadn’t expected you to be able to hook up a Mark III Sensor Array without any training or supervision.”
“Fah!” scorned the skinny Scotsman. “If you can disentangle Putrid Rex’s sound kit, get the speakers positioned so they don’t squeal worse than the lead singer of N’Sync, and find a way of plugging the amps together so they don’t fry you worse than KFC on a Friday night at the Fatal Toilet while the crowd’s setting fire to the chairs to use as stage missiles then this stuff is easy.”
“Keep doing whatever you’re doing, anyway,” Ziles instructed him. “I’m getting more of that anomalous reading.”
“Okay,” thudagreed, pressing more band aids onto the comms package. “So, are you two goin’ out or what?”
Finny and Ziles froze.
“What?” said Finny.
~~I think that might have been an indelicate question~~ Cressida ventured.
“Nothing happened okay!” Ziles snapped in frustration. “Nothing at all. Satisfied?”
“Er,” said thuddy. “Absolutely.
“We don’t encourage inter-team romantic relationships,” Foom explained to thudand Cressida.
“No,” Ziles agreed. “He doesn’t.”
Mercifully the killer monkeys swarmed down on them just at that moment.
~~We’re under attack!~~ Cressida warned as she transmuted the first wave of attackers into grapes.
“They’re being directed,” Ziles warned. “That was the odd signal I was getting.” Then, remembering the interrupted conversation, she added, “Well, the odd signal I was getting since we were here on the moon.”
Fin Fang Foom reared up, his massive wings sending armed simians scattering in all directions. But there were more where they came from. Lots more.
The three heroes vanished under a furry pile of fury.
***
Darkness Mansion now needed redecorating. First it would need Zoom Monkeys scraping off the wall, and embedded robot parts prising out of the furniture. In the middle of it Hatman and Sorceress flanked two trembling teenagers and finished off the last of the combat robots.
“Have you any idea what’s going on?” Sorceress demanded of Art and Mindy. “What are these things?”
Mindy pointed to the metallic arm that was still attached to Hatman’s neck as he struggled to breathe. “I think that’s Uncle Herb,” she explained.
There was a tentative knock on the door. “Hello? Can I come in without getting blasted?” a young man called.
“Randy!” called Art. “Dude!”
“Oh, so now he’s Randy,” muttered Hatman, hurling Uncle Herb onto the pile of broken machinery cluttering up the reception desk. None of these people had even signed in.
“He is Randy,” Art explained. “What are you doing here, bud?”
“Looking for you, doofus. Evil Monkey got your note about running off with the robot babe and he went kind of nuclear.”
“Evil Monkey?” Hatman scowled. Somebody was going to be getting a bill for the damage to the hotel.
“So you are a monkey,” Mindy noted, glaring at her boyfriend.
“Er, I think Randy and I are honorary monkeys,” Art explained uncomfortably. “See, we got this job doing comms and gofer work for this villain dude called Evil Monkey, and he was planning against your dad and the suburban robots, and…”
“And he sent you to seduce my daughter, turn her against me, and steal valuable cosmic data,” thundered a voice from the smashed doorway.
“Dad!” squeaked Mindy.
“Uh oh,” gulped Randy.
“What now?” demanded Hatman.
A respectable-looking man in a business suit and country club tie entered the hallway. “Jack Pyrite,” he introduced himself to Jay and Whitney. “How do you do?”
“And you’re Mindy’s father?” Sorceress asked. “Robot Mindy’s father?”
“Well, I was certainly a co-progenitor of her intelligence matrix and had a hand in her general design schematics,” Mr Pyrite admitted. “Although she definitely got her rebellious streak from her mother’s faulty programming.”
“Daddy, I live him!” Mindy shouted, flinging her arms around Art’s neck. “Well, if he’s a monkey I do,” she added uncertainly.
“What stolen valuable cosmic data?” Hatman demanded.
Randy turned to Art with a worried expression. “I was trying to explain, bud. Seems Mindy was programmed with some top-secret data backed up in her sub-files, stuff the robots have been gathering for months, stuff Evil Monkey’s been looking all over the planet for. Conquer-the-world stuff. And then you stole her.”
“He did not steal me,” Mindy said indignantly. “We eloped. And Daddy, how could use me as a data buffer without telling me?”
“How could you give yourself to this… this fake monkey?” exploded Mr Pyrite.
“Yes,” interrupted Hatman, “but about this stolen valuable conquer-the-world cosmic data…”
“Ah yesss,” a breathy sibilant voice hissed. “That would belong to me…”
And Dirth Vortex and his army of Dark Gah! warriors merged from the shadows.
***
“Boy, poor old Hatty doesn’t know what he’s missing,” CrazySugarFreakBoy! declared as he watched Nats setting up the next sensor array. “That poor guy, having to go home and not be a superhero at all when he could be out with us exploring cool alien cities and meeting exotic space-princesses and stuff.”
“I must have missed the exotic space princess,” Nats admitted. “Mind you, that’s the story of my life.”
“What about that Betty Grant then?” CSFB! challenged. “Or Miss Framlicker?”
“Miss Framlicker’s about forty-seven, and she hates me,” Nats pointed out.
“Uh uh. I checked her records. She’s twenty-six, and she paid for her doctoral degree on the proceeds of winning the Miss Nebraska beauty pageant.”
“What?”
“Sure. For some reason she turned down the Playboy spread, but still…”
“Miss Framlicker? The bitch queen from hell?”
“Who has a house full of stuffed teddies? Yeah, that Miss Framlicker.” Dream sighed. “Boy, it’s no wonder you miss all the exotic space princesses, Natsy.”
Bill Reed shook his head. “I’m in a purple ruin on the moon having a conversation with a green and orange superhero about Miss Framlicker in Playboy. This must be Tuesday.”
CSFB! laughed. “Hey, Nats… did you notice all those shiny combat robots when we came in here to set our kit up?”
Nats didn’t laugh. “No. As I matter of fact I didn’t notice them. All of them.”
With a smooth whine of servo-motors the combat drones hefted their weapons and fired.
***
Goldeneyed arrived weak and gasping at the end of a teleport that had been far tougher than it should have been. “Something… wrong…” he warned as he slumped to his knees in the city square.
“I’ll say,” agreed Falcon, looking around at the grim grey windowless buildings covered in a light frosting of snow. “Look up there.”
The street sign said “NO THINKING”, but in small letters underneath it read “City of Kalgaarie, People’s Fraternal Republic of Candia.”
***
The Turquoise Area rocked with explosions as a three-way war blossomed on the moon’s surface. Fin Fang Foom rose from the debris and slagged a robot command post with nuclear fire. Cressida transformed half a dozen Suicide Apes into cassette recordings of Lionel Richie. dull thudshuddered.
“What is this?” demanded Pegasus, in winged centaur form, lashing about her with cosmic bolts as she tried to make sense of the melée. “This makes no sense at all.”
“Welcome to the Lair Legion,” grinned Nats, telekinetically spinning monkey and robot alike outside the artificial gravity of the Skree ruins to float until required.
“See? I told you!” CSFB! shouted gleefully as he swung a killer robot on the end of his yo-yo to hammer back an Electro-Chimp squadron. “Not one but two sets of baddies here trying to take us and each other out. Best. Field trip. Ever!”
“What are they trying to do, though?” Dancer puzzled. “Apart from wanting to kill us, I mean?”
“They’ve got sensory apparatus at work too,” Ziles reported, casually avoiding ape and combat drone attack as she examined her instruments. “Andy, can you hammer us a big hole between those two ruined buildings there? I think there’s something underneath.
Several tons of draconic foot slammed onto the pavement, and through it.
The energy wave from below fused every circuit on the robots and stunned the monkey legions into unconsciousness.
“Ouch,” complained dull thud.
“There’s something down there,” Nats called, flying closer to take a look. Something glowing.”
“Watch out!” Pegasus called to him, leaping forwards she caught the flying phenomenon’s ankle and jerked him aside just as the crimson ray from below would have cut him in two.
Ziles looked up from her readings. “Uh oh.”
And then the Lair Legion were surrounded by battle-armoured warriors, and their commander in chief was levitating up from the hole that Foom had made.
“Uh on?” worried thuddy. “Why uh-oh?”
“Because,” swallowed Dancer nervously. “That guy who just tried to kill Bill is the Parody Master.”
***
“Thank you for your co-operation,” the man in grey told ManMan as he dropped him on the floor beside the unconscious Stacy Gwen. “Next time you’re being tortured within an inch of your life you should remember this little weakness you have about girlfriends getting hurt. But you won’t because I’m going to erase your memory and hers and arrange that when you wake up your wounds will be more or less healed.”
“Then you won’t mind telling me who the hell you are and why you wanted to know about how I stabbed the Hood while under the control of the Red Watchman,” Joe gasped painfully.
“Actually I would. I can make humans forget given enough preparation time, but I don’t think I can affect Knifey like that. So instead I’m simply going to arrange it that if he ever speaks of this, even to you, you and your ladyfriend will both die of instant embolisms. I take it you understand, Knifey?”
“Perfectly,” the blade answered coldly. “And you’re right. I won’t forget.”
The man in the grey suit rose to his feet. “Splendid. I’ll just render Joe here unconscious and continue with my mission then. Have a nice day.”
***
Coming next issue: More robots and monkeys and Dark Gah! disciples! More nasty villains return! G-Eyed and Falcon vs the nation of Candia! Visionary vs Lisa! DK and Messenger! The secret of the strange glowing thingie below the Turquoise Area! Oh, and the new Lair Legion get to take on the team’s deadliest, most powerful old foe at the top of his game in a fight to the finish as they face off against the omnipotent Parody Master. Coming soon.
Notes:
Those of you who want to know more about Art, Mindy, and their extended families should refer to Fin Fang Foom’s excellent Evil Monkey Special - Suburban Warfare
For Dirth Vortex’s first appearance see The Journal of Sir Mumphrey Wilton, Extract Nine: In which Dirth Vortex comes to bitterly regret the kidnapping of Miss Asil
Those who need a refresher on the Parody Master are referred to Lair Legion: Year One, part 5 – Who stole Birmingham and other bits of questionable real estate and why the League of Regulars had to get a new name
All the rest’s in The Hooded Hood's Homepage of Doom, Who's Who in the Parodyverse, and Where's Where in the Parodyverse. But you knew that, right?
This poster posed from 212.159.106.10 when they posted
Message Thread
- #105: Untold Tales of the Lair Legion: Moonstruck - The first adventure of the new Lair Legion continues with guest stars obscure and alarming and the long-awaited arrival of... well that'd be telling. All inside in lightslategrey from... the Hooded Hood. - 12:55 on January 11, 2003
- Kaalgarie? - (nt) Falcon just hopes you don't create Oughtowa. - 13:42 on January 11, 2003
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