#128: Untold Tales of the Lair Legion: Head Games (Version Two), or Once More With Feeling
Previous episodes at The Hooded Hood's Homepage of Doom (this story starts with #110)
Character details in Who's Who in the Parodyverse
The Story So Far:Things went badly wrong when the mysterious covert agency called the Shadow Cabinet brought back the Sentient Thought, a.k.a. Ultimate Ultizon, a.k.a. Resolution, a being dedicated to enabling the Resolution War that is the final ordained destiny of the Parodyverse. Things went so badly wrong that the heroes of the Parodyverse escaped to Faerie to locate the villainous Hooded Hood and have him retcon things back to the way they were. But Resolution had other ideas, and although the heroes’ plans all worked, Resolution is still around. So now it’s the Lair Legion vs Resolution round two, the action replay. And things will never be the same again…
Take a last look at them…
“Give me a big enough lever and a place to stand and I can move the world.”
Archimedes
Chronic screamed.
Then he fell over shivering.
Then he screamed some more.
He rolled into a tight ball clutching his demonic guitar Steve to him.
“Is this usual for humans?” worried Glitch, the Autobot from a distant galaxy, as she tried to stop the sweating, shivering human from biting his own flesh.
Indiana Gnome looked down at the fallen musician. Chronic had gone as grey as the skies over the destroyed town of Langville, Montana that the four refugees had just escaped. “I’m not an expert on humans, being a gnome myself,” he pointed out, “but traditionally this isn’t the kind of thing you’d expect to see.”
“Perhaps they did something to him in there?” suggested Gunther, the towering granite gargoyle who was Indy’s partner in adventure. He gestured back to the crumpled metal sphere that had been Deus et Machina’s town of tomorrow before De Brown Streak had unleashed devastating magnetic forces upon it. “Maybe he’s allergic to strong electromagnetic fields?”
“He’s muttering something,” Glitch noted, cranking up her audio sensors. “I think he’s delirious. He thinks he’s with somebody called Hatman and Sorceress, and they’re taking his Steve away.”
Gunther looked down at the balled-up musician. “Maybe he got kicked in the Steves then?” he speculated.
“And he doesn’t think it’s today,” worried Indiana Gnome after listening to Chronic rave some more. “He seems to be remembering the future.”
***
“You have chosen this path,” the Hooded Hood had said to the assembled heroes as they licked their wounds in a quiet glen in Faerie. A grateful Faerie Queene had healed what wounds amongst them she could, but Messenger, Dark Knight, and Sorceress were too hurt for her arts to do ought but take away the pain. Most of the others bore some scars of their adventures.
“Yeah, we did,” agreed Trickshot. “So let’s do it.”
“He’s not sure he can,” sensed Amazing Guy. “He doesn’t know if he can undo everything that’s happened since Ultizon came to power.” Scott Brunsen’s eyes blazed with fury. “But he will do it.
“I will certainly attempt it,” the Hood agreed. “I merely wanted to be explicit about the terms of our pact. I will use the resources available to me to change the past, to undermine Ultimate Ultizon’s coming to power. You will find yourselves wherever and however you were at the time he was about to incarnate, but you will remember everything that has happened to you these past few weeks.”
“That gives us a tactical advantage,” Finny noted.
“And also stops some of us dying,” pointed out Dancer practically.
“All of us here go back to where we were?” Hatman asked a little nervously; because he wasn’t really Hatman at all, but the changeling who had frozen Jay Boaz in a moment of agony and taken his shape to play cruel games.
“You will find yourself at the Lair Mansion, at the culmination of your fight with the robot Ultizon, just prior to the point where Exemplary appeared and shut you down using Ultizon’s genetic over-ride programming,” promised the Hood. He looked significantly at the faux-Hatman. “You specifically will find yourself there,” he added significantly.
“Ah,” breathed the capped crusader’s evil double. “Thank you, cowled crime czar.”
“You are welcome,” the Hooded Hood told him. He glanced at Pelopia, Priestess of Logos. “The changes you have undergone since you came here will stay with you however,” he warned. By now the Word’s daughter must have detected the new life quickening within her womb. With her total body control she could abort it by will alone, or she could live with the consequences of her passion.
“Ah,” she said with uncharacteristic nervousness. CrazySiugarFreakBoy! Didn’t notice her go pale.
“What about those of us who are critically injured?” asked ManMan. “It’d take fifteen top surgeons and a really good jigsaw puzzle maker to put messy together again.
“Your physical harms will be undone,” the Hood explained. “But other, deeper changes… those you must endure.”
Dancer shivered.
The cowled crime czar gathered his grey cape around him. “As I say, each of you will awaken wherever you were then…”
Visionary raised his hand. “Um, I was being dissected,” he pointed out. Vizh, Nats and Yo had arrived from the realms of Temporary Death shortly after the King of Stories had fallen.
“Yep,” agreed Lisa casually.
“You’re a special case,” the Hood told the possibly-fake man. “You’ll be coming with me.”
“Um,” smiled Visionary wanly. “Could I still choose the dissected option?”
“If I’ve got this right, then the current LL are all at the mansion fighting Ultizon,” Nats remembered. “I was catatonic because the Psychostave had just let itself get broken.”
“It takes a lot to shut you up,” muttered Pegasus.
Ziles watched the conversation silently. She’d spoken little since her brief vision of her Xnylonian homeworld.
“DK and I were stopping the SPUD helicarrier from nuking NORAD,” Falcon remembered. “It was under Ultizon’s control till HALLIE woke up and electronically spanked him.”
CSFB! perked up at the thought.
“I’d just got my mutate powers back after Goldenass shot me with that genetic weapon,” De Brown Streak recalled, “and I’d taken down Hel Rotwang and her village of happy cybernauts.”
“ManMan and I were infiltrating Prophetic Genesis II,” Messenger gasped, lying on the ground in a pool of his blood despite the Contessa and Dancer’s best efforts to bind him. “We were rescuing Yo.”
“Oh yes, please!” agreed the pure thought being. “Uncute Exemplary and his men were not to being nice, and were to be planning nasty things with Yo.”
“And I was, um, kind of invading France,” admitted spiffy. “I was looking for the Bone, the assassin who murdered either my father or adopted father depending on what mood HH is in today.”
The Hooded Hood glared at he disinherited son. “Get a haircut,” he said.
“I assume those we had to leave behind in the Shadowlands of Death will also be restored to the place in life they had previously?” bubbled the Manga Shoggoth.
“Indeed, although few of them will remember what has happened since they died. I suppose Xander, Sir Mumphrey, and the Librarian may remember. They can all be annoyingly well-informed sometimes.”
“So let’s go,” urged Trickshot again. “I got me some Ulimate butt to kick.”
“Just remember what you agreed,” the Hooded Hood repeated. “You asked me to help you rid the world of Ultizon. I warned you that this would cost you dearly, and would shatter your fellowship of heroes, that things would never be the same as they were before. And you agreed to help me prevent the Resolution War, even if that meant assisting me in taking over the world.”
“That’s not exactly how we said it,” objected Goldeneyed.
“That is how I am saying it.”
“We’ll deal with the Hood later,” Lisa said. “He’s in a queue right now. Let’s just de-Ultizon the Parodyverse, okay?”
“Very well,” growled Fin Fang Foom. “Take us in.”
***
It was a bad day and it was going to get worse.
“Call on Line Zero,” said Mrs Vermont over the intercom. “Secure.”
The man sometimes known as Dominic Clancy laid down the audit documentation for his Office of Paranormal Security with a sigh and hit the black button on his telephone. “Epitome here.”
“Lissen, boy, ‘cause I don’t have time to shoot the breeze today,” came the familiar, crabby voice of the Grey Eminence, the department’s unseen sponsor. “I want you to do one of two things. Either drop the investigation into the disappearance of that Paradopolis police commissioner, or else take radical steps to distance the OPS from the Shadow Cabinet, understand? I don’t care which, but either get your head down and cover your ass or else make damn sure there’s some clear blue water between us and Cromlyn’s cronies before the sun goes down. Clear?”
“Sir?” Mr Epitome glanced over at Glory, the mutt of might. She was lying in her basket ears pricked at this unusual conversation. “Are you saying that the Shadow Cabinet is linked with Commissioner Graham’s recent disappearance?”
“No. I’m sayin’ nothing of the kind. I’m sayin’ either shit or get off the pot, Epitome. This is no time for standing in the middle ground.” And the line went dead.
“That was very unusual,” Glory signed, using a mixture of movements and growls to communicate her views.
“Yes,” her master agreed. He rose over to the pinboard where a number of photos and files were joined together with red string lines. It started with Don Graham, one of the most respected and honest law enforcers in the business, vanishing amidst rumours of child sex abuse and massive corruption. Some witnesses claimed he’d committed suicide from the Sheldon Bridge, but there were other stories too. Weird stories.
Then his estranged daughter, schoolteacher Bethany Shellett, had been kidnapped from her place of work in front of thirty traumatised orphans by Joshua Clement, De Brown Streak. Epitome was certainly familiar with that mutants right activist. Epitome would have used the word terrorist. Evidence was found indicating that Clement had raped the woman, but the forensic data found by SPUD via Star Trekkish labs had been brought into question by the Lair Legion. De Brown Streak himself had been brought in crippled by an experimental anti-mutate weapon; but he refused to say where Shellett was, or what he’d done with her.
Clement had been released from hospital custody by the fourth pictured player, the seedy drug-addict supervillain known as Chronic. Rumours had it that Chronic was being paid for his services by another shady faction called the Citizens of Cybernation.
Epitome sighed and rubbed his forehead. So far there was a chain of causality between all the characters. But why was the mayor of Gothametropolis York (and of nearly every other US city and town due to an electoral mishap) investigating? Why had he undergone two seemingly radical personality transplants in two days, from hapless patsy to confident party animal and then to well-informed power broker? “What has spiffy got to do with this?” he asked aloud.
“He has a nice smell,” Glory contributed. “A little bit like fennel.”
“He’s been looking at some financial transactions going back nearly ten years,” the paragon of power noted. “Links that run deep and dredge up all kinds of old associations, like Zemo and ZOXXON and New Tomorrow. And he’s been asking about Exemplary.”
“Exemplary uses too much cologne,” answered Glory. “And he doesn’t like us.”
“And now the Grey Eminence wants us to either back off from the investigation or back off from the Shadow Cabinet. Interesting.”
“What are you going to do?”
The Star-Spangled Splendour pushed another button on the intercom. “Mrs Vermont, could you ask Agents Gardener and Dawes to step in here, please? I have a job for them.”
Glory perked up at the possibility of action. “And what about us?”
“We need to work out what spiffy is up to.”
***
spiffy blinked to consciousness in his own body, which was a relief considering some of the places he’d woken up. He recognised the situation immediately. He was in the hotel at Sur la Plume De Ma Tante that was a cover for the Bone’s thug-training exercises. He was surrounded by the Bone’s graduate masterclass. Across the reception lobby, Kerry Shepherdson, Banjooooo King of the Sea Monkeys, Caveguy, and Hacker Nine were coming second in a battle with the rent-a-thugs because of the Shadow Cabinet nanites infesting their nervous systems.
spiffy had taken the trouble to work out what energy frequencies those pesky molecular robots operated on, and his fern could absorb energy. Suddenly it was a whole new battle.
“Bah, gimmicks!” growled the Bane. “I should have known better than to rely on the Shadow Cabinet. I’ll break you myself.” He closed on spiffy to snap the fern-wielder’s spine.
Across the room Kerry dodged behind the reception desk to avoid the goons who’d just come from laser-rifle practise. “Banjoooo,” she called, “are you fireproof?”
The giant sea monkey stepped on a heavy weapons unit and turned in puzzlement. “Why?”
Kerry flung in the napalm grenade. “No special reason.”
Caveguy took a very direct route in dealing with goons with high energy weapons. He hit them with his club till they stopped, and he shouted “Hooga!” as he did it. The sight of a screaming frothing relic from the Palaeolithic era seemed to have a negative effect on the thugs’ morale.
And Hacker Nine just did what he’d been told to, and cracked open the Bane’s secret computer codes, then transmitted them via satellite modem back to Commissioner Graham in Paradopolis.
“Hold still and die!” hissed the Bane, shredding more of spiffy’s entangling fern and trying to get the omni-mayor’s neck.
“You killed my father!” shouted spiffy, and wished he hadn’t because it triggered a major Star Wars flashback. In his embarrassment he ripped the floor up and dropped the Bane and himself into the weapons testing range below.
“I’ve killed lots of people,” the Bone boasted. “You won’t even make a footnote.”
“You killed one too many,” Mark Hopkins answered grimly. “And you have a big mouth.”
The Bone was far too strong, his body altered through long chemical and surgical processes to be impervious to harm. He could and was shredding spiffy’s symbiotic plant with relative ease. But he’d open his mouth to speak. spiffy crammed fern down the villain’s throat and willed the plant to grow.
“Ack!” choked the Bone. He reached out for the ferned phenomenon, but spiffy backed off, letting his plant do the work.
The Bone reached for the weapons console and activated the point laser system. The room was ribboned with lethal rays.
The fern absorbed them, and spiffy flicked out another tendril to crush the console before the Bane could find some percussion weapon that he couldn’t resist.
The Bone scrabbled at the plant that choked him, turning purple in the face as he fought to breathe. Spiffy watched him struggle. “I could kill you right now,” Mark Hopkins told him. “But of course I won’t. I’m not a murdering vindictive bastard like you.”
The Bane’s fists clenched and even now he had contempt in his eyes for the hero he battled. Compassion was a weakness.
spiffy flexed his fern and snapped the Bone’s neck; gently, so as to keep him alive. “I’m just a plain ordinary vindictive bastard,” he told the broken villain.
***
“He did what?” Mr Epitome scowled as the news came in of a metahuman attack on a French beach resort. “Mind you, this isn’t the first time spiffy has tried to conquer France. He’s always blamed it on evil doubles before. This time he’s going down.”
“Technically he’s acting on behalf of various cities and towns that have declared unilateral war on Europe,” Agent Lester Dawes explained worriedly. “There’s this old loophole in international law. Special Agent Garrick’s having conniptions.”
“Special Agent Garrick smells of carbolic,” growled Glory.
“Herbert Garrick smells of bullshit,” Mr Epitome answered. “So what’s OPS legal saying about this?”
“They’re recommending that we don’t go in until there’s been a chance for the Supreme Courts to rule, sir.”
Mr Epitome jinked the Epitome Express away from its flight path towards France with another sigh. “Do we at least know why spiffy decided to invade an ally nation? If France can be called an ally.”
“He apparently captured the terrorist assassin called the Bone,” Agent Gardener relayed, one finger holding his earpiece in place. “Before it all descended into farce, chaos, and mimes he also transmitted some coded information by high speed modem back to the States.”
“Can we at least get a copy of that, if it went through national phone networks?”
“Yes sir. But it was atypically encrypted, and it may take some time to decode.”
“Or not,” added Agent Dawes. “It seems we’ve just received a clear text copy via e-mail from Commissioner Graham.”
***
“How did you get in here!” objected an outraged raven. “You’re not allowed here. You shouldn’t even be able to find here.”
“He’s the sorcerer supreme of the Parodyverse, and that’s the Keeper of the Chronometer of Infinity,” answered Lee Bookman. “I’m an accredited Librarian of the Intergalactic Order of Librarians Given time I can find a library anywhere, even the library of the Chronicler of Stories.”
“Finding it is one thing, getting out alive again is another matter,” boomed the Chronicler, appearing from the gloom of the vast hall of ravens and destiny. He glared at Xander and Mumphrey in an unfriendly manner. “Didn’t I already kill you two once?”
“It’s alright, old chap,” Mumph assured him. “We don’t hold it against you.”
“Very helpful of you, really,” Xander assured the Chronicler. “But then, you probably knew that, right?”
“What are you talking about?” demanded the office holder responsible for all the story threads of the Parodyverse.
“You knew you’d be affected by Resolution, as the Final Thought, the artist formerly known as Ultimate Ultizon apparently now wishes to be known,” the master of the mystic crafts reasoned. “You knew you’d have to use your powers for him to do things you didn’t approve of. So you set up things to work out the way you wanted even though you acted the way you had to.”
“And you got the Hooded Hood to deal with the King of Stories for you,” Mumphrey approved. “Good show.”
“He’ll be back,” said the Chronicler darkly. “Everyone seems to come back.”
“But now you don’t have to fight us,” L pointed out. “He’s not extended his control to mankind yet. You can maybe even help us stop this Resolution creature.”
“No, he can’t,” Xander corrected. “That’s the snag. Entities like the Triumverate work outside the laws and rules that bind most of us. He and his colleagues have already used their abilities to the utmost to help Resolution. Now they’re using their abilities to the utmost to stop him. The result is basically a no-score draw. The Chronicler, Shaper, and Destroyer are out of this game.”
“Just like the Space Robots,” noted Mumphrey. “One by one we’re losin’ our safeguards.”
“Resolution is playing a long game,” the Chronicler admitted.
“We have to play a longer one,” Xander countered. “And since you can’t affect it one way or another, I don’t suppose you’d mind us using your scrying mirrors to check up on what’s happening in the Dead Galaxy just now, would you?”
“I can’t stop you,” agreed the Chronicler with just a hint of smugness in his voice.
“Thanks,” said the Librarian. It only took him a few moments to master how to focus the shimmering images. Then the great vacuum Ship of Galactivac came into view.
“Oh,” breathed Xander the Improbable, “My.”
***
“I knew Graham was a good cop,” Epitome admitted, “but how the heck did he come up with some of this information?”
There arrayed before the Paragon of Power was a complete schematic of the recent dealings of Exemplary and the Shadow Cabinet – or at least one cell of the most covert association of secret organisations on the planet. Unlocked with the information captured by spiffy was a chain of evidence linking Graham’s attempted murder and a smear campaign on his reputation, the framing of De Brown Streak, the infiltration of a sentient computer virus into the Lair Legion’s computers guised as their new AI EDWIN, and a staggering amount of circumstantial evidence going right back to the ten-year old murder of researcher Helen MacAllistair.
“It’s persuasive if it’s all true,” Frank Gardener admitted, “but I haven’t even heard of half of these agencies.”
“Graham faked his own death to go undercover to solve this,” Lester Dawes noted. “He knew they were after him, and he even arranged for De Brown Streak to keep his daughter safe so they couldn’t use her as a lever. He’s got to be pretty sure of his stuff.”
“So what do we do, boss?” Agent Gardener worried. “If we don’t act on this we’re ignoring a major crime. Hell, lots of major crimes. But of we do act, these guys could crush us like bugs.”
“Graham was smart,” Agent Dawes pointed out. “He’s e-mailed this stuff to all kinds of people. The Daily Trombone, CNN, the Lair Legion, Dan Drury of SPUD, Bautista Enterprises, even some Limey guy called Sir Mumphrey Wilton. If it comes out that we know and didn’t act…”
Mr Epitome made a decision. “They’ve done wrong. It’s our job to stop them, before they hurt the country even more.” He made course adjustment to the Epitome Express. “Get us as many ground troops as you can to meet us at our destination. Tell them to come loaded for bear.”
Dawes opened the comm-link. “Where are we going, sir?”
Epitome pointed to a location on the map monitor. “There,” he told them. “Shyminsky Falls.”
***
ManMan and Messenger rescued Yo and the three of them burst into the dissection lab of Prophetic Genesis to rescue Visionary. They found the possibly fake man with Fleabot standing beside the dismantled remains of a robotic double. The Hooded Hood lay crumpled against the opposite wall.
“Ah, welcome,” said the man in the grey suit. “I see in Visionary’s so-called mind that you are the rescue squad intended to liberate him. You were counting on having overcome the nanites infesting you to give you the edge in your rescue.”
“Who the hell are you?” Messenger asked.
“Joe,” Knifey warned. “He’s not who he seems. Inside, he’s Ultizon.”
The hurled razor-letter crumpled telekinetically in mid-air before it got anywhere near the body of Edward Cromlyn. “Not Ultizon,” the sentience within declared. “Ultizon was a cobbled mess bred from the engrams of a pathetic Nazi. Even Ultimate Ultizon was only a transitional stage. I am what I was in the beginning, Resolution. Lord Resolution.”
“He has more names than Falcon,” complained Visionary.
“Yo is to be thinking that this is being a non-nice not-pure thought being,” worried Yo.
“Knifey’s thinking this guy has taken the Hooded Hood down, so watch out,” ManMan’s talking weapon warned.
“There!” pointed Dr Sethbridge, the scientist who had dismantled the false Visionary. “That one! If the Omega Codes aren’t in this machine, then maybe they’re in that synthezoid there!”
“I’m real dammit!” Vizh objected. “Or at least a certifiably real as can now be established given the retcons that HH has done to me.”
Messenger often restrained his killer in instincts when he was working with heroes less willing to kill. But he was in the new iteration of Prophetic Genesis, a research institution previously devoted to screwing up his life. He was facing an all-powerful telekinetic sentience. And Dr Sethbridge was making a very annoying shrill nasal shriek. This razor letter went straight past Resolution and across the scientist’s windpipe.
Then the shrieking stopped in a blur of blood. Resolution could have stopped this one as well, but he was interested to see what would happen.
“You killed him!” ManMan objected, turning on the postman. Messenger had already assumed a defensive crouch to face the incoming security forces.
“The kid gloves are off, kid,” the vigilante frowned.
“I won’t kill,” Joe Pepper told him. “Not again.”
“Hmmm, you people seem to have also overcome my genetic control programming,” Resolution noted casually. “And the Yo-creature never had a genetic template, of course. I think I’m going to have to put you down.”
“As in put us down gently, shake our hands, and walk away?” Vizh asked hopefully. “Look, you seem to have incarnated yourself anyway without all that dissection stuff this time, so we could just call it quits? We take Messenger away and have him treated in a private clinic and you don’t use your genetic override to conquer the universe? What do you say?”
“Put you down as in slaughter you like dumb beasts and leave your rotting carcasses for the worms,” clarified Resolution. The chuckle was entirely Edward Cromlyn’s.
“Yo is thinking not!” Yo challenged. S/he leaped over the closing ring of guards, rapier in hand, and went in to close combat with the Thinking Machine.
Resolution hammered Yo down with a mere glance. The pure thought being was smashed back with literally bone splintering force and sprawled down beside the fallen Hooded Hood.
Visionary stepped between Resolution and his friend. He had as much chance of stopping a runaway freight train. Fleabot launched himself from the possibly fake man’s shoulder, growing as he attacked.
Resolution mentally caught him in mid air and embedded him in the metal wall opposite.
ManMan’s reluctance to use lethal force evaporated. He ducked low under the arms of the attacking guards and hurled Knifey with all his strength.
Resolution caught the blade telekinetically.
“Ouch,” complained Knifey. “It’s been a long time since anyone was able to do that.”
Cromlyn laughed again, then the knife was spun in the air and hurled itself into Joe Pepper’s guts.
“This… isn’t how it worked out last time,” Visionary worried. “Last time’s starting to look better, and I was dissected in that one.”
“We can’t win this,” Messenger realised. “Time for the secret weapon.” He pulled the com-link he’d picked up on the way and hissed just four works. “Dark Knight. Nuke him.”
***
They brought the Epitome Express in low, counting on the sonic boom to knock down the guards in the outer complex of the anonymous industrial estate that was the cover for Prophetic Genesis II. Glory sped from the craft and made short work of the surface to air weaponry with her powerful jaws.
Two dozen ground vehicles screeched towards the complex, the lead SWAT siege tanks taking down the mesh fencing and shredding the internal electrified barrier. OPS agents swarmed over the perimeter, establishing an outer cordon while their point man and dog went in.
Mr Epitome ploughed his way down through reinforced steel and concrete into the bunkers below, shrugging off the automated ordinance that tried to delay him. The flashes distracted him, though, which was how Exemplary managed to blindside him with a bio-electric blast that set his teeth tingling.
“Stand down, Clancy,” the Shadow Cabinet operative in the neat grey suit warned the intruder. “You’re out of your jurisdiction.”
“I’ve got evidence you’re a clear and present danger,” the Star-Spangled Splendour retorted, heaving a slab of concrete to back off his opponent. “I’m here to take you down.”
Exemplary shrugged off the attack and got in close, each fist blow magnified by his control of bioelectric power to hit like a cannon shell. “You’re out of your depth, Clancy. You and your OPS pretty-boys. You don’t know what you’ve stepped into.”
“The nanite control scam? We’ve been scrubbed clean, Exemplary.” Epitome gave up playing nice and settled for a satisfying hook to the slimy bastard’s chin.
Exemplary took the blow and handed back a harder one. “Too bad,” he taunted. “Now I’m going to have to beat you to death the hard way.” He laughed and used his power to trigger the biogenetic instructions embedded into the Prophetic Genesis guards. “Remember Marrakech?”
Epitome’s enhanced hearing could hear the snarls from here. He recalled the report on the Moustache, and the one-time-only biogenetic enhancement his guards had received that turned them into super-strong monsters for a few hours before killing them. Of course the Shadow Cabinet would have had access to the captured processes. “Glory, go help!” he called to the Mutt of Might. The dog streaked back outside to try and halt the sudden turnabout that was threatening to become a slaughter.
“Surprise one,” gloated Exemplary. “Now for surprise two.” He released a powerful discharge through Epitome, one that sent a weird vibration through the paragon of power’s body. “We also have access to the research notes that created you, Clancy.”
Epitome hit Exemplary but shattered his own knuckles.
“Took us a while to work out a way to more or less reverse those changes for a few minutes,” Exemplary noted, punching out and breaking four of Epitome’s ribs. “But I think it was worth all the trouble.”
“Well, you needed some kind of advantage,” Mr Epitome told him, dodging aside so that his enemy’s fist embedded itself in a bulkhead. “I know how much you try to avoid fair fights.” He leaped back as the explosives from his belt pouch took out the floor beneath them.
They toppled but neither of them fell. They were caught in a telekinetic grip that easily overcame their strengths. “Well well,” Resolution noted. “It seems there was more to the Hooded Hood’s plan than just fiddling with Visionary. Retconning in a new hero and a whole new paramilitary organisation, now that’s thinking big.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Epitome lied. He still woke up nights sometimes sweating after dreaming about his experience at Herringcarp Asylum.
Resolution telekinetically broke Epitome’s left arm. “It doesn’t matter,” he told his new toy. “Just scream for a while.”
***
The SPUD helicarrier listed thirty degrees to port where it had glided to rest on the side of Cheyenne Mountain, NORAD headquarters. The Dark Knight and Falcon had literally pulled its plug.
Falcon staggered as his consciousness was updated with the events that had probably never happened now in the period before the retcon. “Ouch,” he winced.
DK pulled a pen-sized object from his trenchcoat pocket. A tiny red LED winked on as he activated it, and he turned a dial round its rim very carefully to set a specific frequency. “Nanite jammer,” he explained to Falcon. “In this time period we’re crammed full of the little buggers, but this will confuse their control signals, at least as long as the batteries hold out. Don’t get more than ten feet from me or you’re down like these SPUD agents.”
“Right,” Sam Wilson agreed. He pushed worries about the deal he’d made with the Hooded Hood to the back of his mind to deal with immediate business. “We need to manually shut down the nuclear missile bays on this thing. We’ve taken down the electronic command systems but Ultizon might be able to find some back-up way of detonating them.”
Another silent signal flickered on DK’s belt. “No,” he said roughly. “We need to launch them.”
“What? Are you out of your freaking mind?”
The urban legend pointed to the communications chip at his waistband. “That was Messenger, on the frequency I gave him when we planned this. He’s in trouble at Prophetic Genesis II up at Shyminsky Falls. He’s calling for a nuclear strike.”
“We can’t nuke Shyminsky Falls. It’s less than twenty miles from Gothametropolis, and there’s no force field there this time to prevent nuclear fallout.”
“It doesn’t matter. If we don’t do this then it’s game over. We have to take down Ultizon or he’ll kill far more than this before he’s done.”
Falcon stood determinedly between the Dark Knight and the nuclear weapons console. There were a half dozen safeguards to stop intruders just launching the helicarrier’s compliment of ICBMs, and none of them felt safe enough from DK. “No. We can’t retcon this one. We aren’t going to slaughter five million collateral casualties.”
“Get out of my way or I take you down,” the Dark Knight warned.
Falcon wished he’d still got his flight and battle suit, but he’d shucked them off when Ultizon had managed to take control of the computer systems in them. “This is SPUD property, mister,” he warned DK. “And you’re trespassing.”
The Dark Knight altered the range of his nanite jamming field to just one foot, but Falcon didn’t drop. Elsewhere the Lair Legion and HALLIE had overcome the first incarnation of Ultizon, and his control over the micro-robots that infected the Parodyverse’s heroes was gone.
“Right,” sighed DK. “The hard way then.”
Falcon was well trained in hand-to-hand. He lasted three minutes against the Dark Knight, which ranked him in the major leagues. DK put him down at last with a hammer-blow to the nerve cluster in his shoulder and a pinch on the caryatid artery.
He reached the console and prepared to launch.
There were the multiple clicks of many SPUD-issue energy rifles being primed and cocked. Colonel Dan Drury and his security team were back on their feet.
“You’re under arrest, you traitorous yahoo,” the Commander of the Super-menace Principal Undercover Division told him.
“You won’t believe this,” DK answered, “but I have to nuke Gothametropolis to save the world.”
“Yeah, people keep tellin’ me that,” answered Drury. “Git your hands up and step into the light.”
The Dark Knight raised his hands, and dropped the smoke capsule. He glanced once at the weapons console but he had no time now to decode its complex security. The mission was a loss, and maybe the world as well. He hoisted himself up into the ventilation ducts and began the difficult task of escaping the tightest security compound in the free world.
***
“We’ve got those OPS morons on the run,” announced Exemplary. “Even with their little super-dog they can’t take on a couple of hundred drug-crazed genetically unstable security guards. They’re trying to fall back in good order, but it’s only a matter of time before they rout. Then they’re all dead.”
Resolution hardly heard him. He seemed fascinated in how much telekinetic grinding of Epitome’s broken bones it would take to make the Paragon of Power cry out. “They’re not important,” the Final Thought said absently. “When I choose to I can take command of any or all of them. I did it before, the last time we played this story out. But this time I’m not going to make the mistake of letting the heroes live.”
Out of the corner of his eye Mr Epitome saw the fallen Yo blur and vanish as if s/he’d never been there.
Resolution seemed not to notice, in love with the sound of his – or Cromlyn’s – voice. “In the previous iteration of reality, I sent Exemplary to take down the Lair Legion and unite the Black Head carrying my essence with Ultizon’s body. The Hood’s plan this time was clearly to keep Exemplary busy here squabbling with you and so disrupt the timetable, giving the heroes a chance to secure the robot’s body elsewhere.”
ManMan and Messenger blurred and vanished.
“Unfortunately I am too well established now for any retcon to remove me. I am here in my own right.”
Visionary and the Hooded Hood disappeared too. All of Resolution’s prisoners were gone. Epitome took pleasure in pointing that out. His powers were returning now and he was ready for round two.
“How?” demanded Resolution, looking down at the spot where the fallen prisoners had laid. “I’d have picked up any thoughts of escape they had, so…” Then he sensed it, that active, racing brain full of fertile mischief. “De Brown Streak!” he hissed. “How dare he!”
Epitome hadn’t yet worked out that he was fighting more than Edward Cromlyn, a known telepath. “It’s all falling apart,” the OPS agent warned him. “This cell of the Shadow Cabinet’s blown wide open, completely compromised. You’re dead, Cromlyn, and so are all your operatives, to keep the rest of the organisation hidden. Surrender to me and I’ll provide protection. I can…”
He shut up then because Resolution pinched his windpipe shut.
“I’ll kill that interfering mutate,” Resolution vowed. “When I was trying to interface with Glitch all she could think of was him…”
Epitome felt the world going black. He looked down to see Exemplary’s smirking face watching him die.
Then powerful repulsor cannons ripped the remainder of the roof down, surprising everyone present. NTU-150 had arrived as the Legion had planned.
Strange words rung in Dominic Clancy’s ears. “I summons Mr Epitome.” Suddenly he was on the Epitome Express and he was surrounded by people.
He appeared to be cradled in someone’s lap. “Don’t get up,” said Lisa Waltz. “You might have internal injuries. Just stay there and I’ll massage your chest hairs for a while.”
Epitome lurched to his feet. The advanced aircraft was being piloted by Messenger, a sometime wanted felon. He also recognised Visionary, ManMan, and Yo.
“Hello,” smiled Yo, despite the mottled bruising forming over his/her face and body.
“Is this… is this a hijack?”
“It’s a tactical retreat,” Lisa told him. “I’ve got Enty and DBS laying down some covering fire and distracting the enemy while your people get clear. We’ve got to get everybody out of there.”
“Says who?” demanded Epitome.
“Says me,” answered Lisa. “This has gone way beyond a clash with a rogue covert agency. That’s a galaxy-glass menace down there in that guy’s body, and we’re not equipped to take him on.”
Epitome noticed the battered form of the Hooded Hood. “Cromlyn took out him? Now I’m worried.”
The Hood sat up gently. “That was part of the plan. Resolution had to believe he’d overcome my inferences.”
“ Fiddling with Visionary and retconning me,” Mr Epitome said. “Neither was sufficient.”
“Nor was priming Amazing Guy, nor neutralising the Triumverate, nor revising Falcon, nor enhancing Dancer, nor any of the other things I arranged,” agreed the Hooded Hood. “At least not individually. But they did manage to level the playing field for the Lair Legion to take on Resolution this one critical time.”
“You set up the LL to fight Resolution?”
“Indeed. I have great confidence in my regular enemies.”
Prophetic Genesis burst open and Resolution broke free. His physical body was transformed now into a rainbow silhouette and he blazed with psionic power.
“And what’s to stop him following us?” Epitome challenged, unhappy about running away.
Amazing Guy screamed down and thundered into Resolution, toppling them both down into the damaged complex below.
“That is,” said Messenger.
***
Al B. Harper had no way of knowing that the Lair Legion had succeeded in their quest for the Hooded Hood until he suddenly found himself back where he’s been on the day the team had fought Ultizon. He was under the main computer core where he’d just fixed HALLIE. “Gah!” he gasped.
“It’s okay,” HALLIE assured him, flickering in despite the gross damage to the mansion and its hologram projectors. “I kicked that skuzz into so many electrons he’ll never gather himself back up, and the LL’s just taken down that supposedly indestructible adamantite body of his. Those two interns and the robot girl got Amy off the island to a paramedic in time to save her life. It’s over.”
Al B. Harper remembered what he and Miss Framlicker had seen through the scanners they’d cobbled from Galactivac’s Vacuum Ship and the Lunar Public Library’s translation interface. He remembered the Celestian Space Robot floating dead in space, its vast body shattered by its unknown enemy, spiralling beside the decaying energy matrix of a fallen entity of the Constellation. He remembered the third force cutting its way through the two warring sides, taking them both by surprise, doing the impossible in overcoming the very guardians of the Parodyverse.
“No,” he told HALLIE with a shudder. “It’s certainly not over.”
***
The part of Resolution that was still Edward Cromlyn was surprised. All the security assessments on the final phase of the Omega Code experiment had flagged up the most dangerous adversaries that might try to interfere with the plan to set the world to rights. Nobody had tagged Amazing Guy on the list.
At the moment Amazing Guy was bringing Prophetic Genesis II down around their heads, his energy constructs burrowing through walls, floors and ceiling like the fingers of an angry child shearing wet tissues. He was using his link with the cosmic being Eggo to shield himself from telepathic attack, and he was putting out energy in the terraquad range.
“They’re alive,” Resolution told him, shielding himself from another fifteen tons of hurled debris. “Your children never died in this reality. Your wife is fine. We have no reason to fight.”
“You threatened them!” shouted AG, flattening the mutated once-guards against the walls then smashing the walls themselves to pieces. “I sensed them as they died! You threatened them! You thought they were a weakness! You thought they’d make me less!” Exemplary ducked as the main reactor core was hurled at him. “You were wrong!” AG proclaimed.
Resolution was fascinated by the rage boiling off the Protector of the Parodyverse. He shielded himself again and watched as Amazing Guy dismantled a forty billion dollar command centre and anybody who got in his way.
“They make me strong,” Scott Brunsen proclaimed, hurling aside the monstrous guards like rag dolls. “I’m as powerful as my will, and they are the core of my being. Nothing and nobody hurts them, because they are all that holds me back from using this power like I could rather than as I should.”
Exemplary reached through the quantum field protecting AG and got a good fix on his bio-signature. Then he used his abilities to generate a lethal charge through the hero’s nervous system. “Nice speech, Scotty. Good epitaph.”
Amazing Guy cried out and almost fell to the ground, but instead he spun round and gripped Exemplary in a vice of solid energy. “You want to match wills with me, shadow lackey?” AG demanded viciously. “You squeeze and I squeeze and let’s see who dies first.”
Exemplary concentrated hard but suddenly went pale. There was a sickly cracking sound as his limbs and ribs failed him. AG hurled him away. It was an act of will of a different kind altogether to let Exemplary go alive.
Then he unleashed that same will and blew Prophetic Genesis off he face of the planet.
“Well,” said Resolution, “that was quite the show. We must talk later. When you wake up.”
The psionic bolt smashed straight through Scott Brunsen’s mental barriers and sent both him and Eggo into catatonic darkness.
De Brown Streak moved in to catch AG as he fell from the skies. NTU-150 flew close to strafe Resolution and provide some cover.
Resolution concentrated. First he teleported Enty’s anti-psionic harness off him. Then the Final Thought teleported Enty’s pacemaker into his fist and crumpled it to scrap. Jamie Bautista clutched his chest and clanged to the ground in the throes of a major heart attack.
DBS and Glory nearly made it to the horizon with Amazing Guy before Resolution shut them down. After that it was just a matter or reaching out and finding the minds of all those in the Epitome Express and inducing epileptic fits and the battle was over.
Resolution hovered over the burning crater that had been Prophetic Genesis II. Nothing was still alive down there except for the armoured creature clutching frantically at his chestplate, and he wouldn’t last long.
That left only the Lair Legion. “Mustn’t keep them waiting,” Resolution told himself. “And after I’ve killed them I have things to do.”
***
Ultizon had fallen and the Lair Legion were battered but triumphant. Fin Fang Foom stared down at the inert shell of the most lethal robot on the planet. “Right, I want that thing contained. I want it surrounded by concrete and locked in an electromagnetic cage and that’s just for starters until I can think of some proper ways of restraining it.”
Then he blinked, as the retcon caught up with him and his mind was filled with his experiences and knowledge from the alternate future he’d survived.
“Okay,” he breathed. “Has everyone else just got back from the future?”
“Yeah, an’ the future was a pisser,” Trickshot growled.
“Ziles?” G-Eyed prompted the girl in the silver jumpsuit.
The Xnylonian still seemed distracted. “Oh, yeah, sure,” she answered automatically. She adjusted one of her sensor devices to neutralise any remaining nanobots and to shield the team from telepathic attack on the frequency that had shut them down last time. “Safe.”
CrazySugarFreakBoy! looked around. “Grrrrreat! So where’s this Exemplary chump then? He’s due for a bouncing.”
~~He’s not here this time~~ Cressida warned. ~~Watch out!~~
The burst of psionic force shattered Ziles’ defence shields and tumbled them all like ninepins. A swirl of rainbow energies circled around the fallen shell of the Ultizon robot and the adamantite body levitated up from the ground.
“Ah nuts!” hissed Trickshot and loosed a neural disruptor arrow at the rising foe.
Without ever using the broken machinery within the robot shell, Resolution raised one adamantite finger and fired a laser blast in a neat shot right through the archer’s palm.
Pegasus barrelled into the Thinking Machine from behind. “No you don’t!” she shouted. “These people risked their lives for me, again and again! You do not harm them!”
She’d have died right there except that CSFB!’s silly string jerked her out of the path of a lethal wide-beam blast.
“Teamwork,” Finny called. “Sorceress, contain him. Hat, G-Eyed, Dancer, run interference. Ziles, full sensor sweep. Cressida, can you prepare to transmute it?”
~~I’m wiped out from earlier~~ apologised the wonder worm, ~~and his psionic signature is huge. I don’t think I could get him on my best day ever~~
dull thud teleported vertically just as Resolution turned the spot he’d been standing into a molten crater. Cressida turned the heat of the ground into sheets to soften their landing.
Resolution turned his attention to the heroes who were assailing him. Aided by Dancer’s probability-twisting, Goldeneyed had managed to teleport a chunk of the robot’s interior out of his body. Had Resolution been depending on the mechanisms of Ultizon’s frame he would have been defeated then. Instead the adversary loosed a series of neural pulse packets to catch Dancer and G-Eyed where he saw in their mind they intended to be. He was surprised that both managed to avoid them, tumbling aside. Somehow they operated in combat on an instinctive level that surpassed conscious thought.
That left Hatman standing alone in front of the Thinking Machine. “Ah, wait…” the impostor capped crusader managed to say before an energy bolt blew out most of his torso.
“JAY!” shrieked Sorceress, hurling the spell the others had given her time to amass. The very ground under Resolution heaved up and swallowed him.
“Jay!” Sorceress called again, racing over to her lover. He was obviously dead, a gaping space where his chest cavity had been.
Fin Fang Foom caught her. “Later,” he shouted. “Concentrate on the spell. You’ve got to keep Ultizon down there.”
Whitney Darkness shot him a look of pure hatred and twisted in his arms to concentrate on the heaving earth. She grimaced and squeezed Resolution ever deeper. In her hatred and grief she would bury him at the planet’s core.
“I… I’ve got the sensor stats,” Ziles reported, overcoming her shock at the battlefield casualty. “That’s not the robotic Ultizon intelligence, it’s the sentient prophesy that took over – will take over – the planet. He’s animating the shell telekinetically, just like the Psychostave let human intelligences keep occupying dead bodies. We can’t beat the thing by taking out it’s tech, it’s not using any. It’s a psionic adversary.”
“Options,” Finny called to the team.
“Wipe its mind,” Pegasus answered. “Keep it in physical battle to distract it from what we’re doing, then take it mentally somehow.”
Sorceress’ nose began to bleed, and then her eyes. “It’s resisting…” she whimpered. “It hurts. Jay….”
“Cressida, you’re the nearest thing we’ve got to a telepath,” Finny called out. “Can you get us into its mind to fight there?”
~~I can only do transmutations~~ the worm apologised.
“Ye could turn us into thought, maybe?” suggested dull thud “Well, them anyway.”
~~That’s an awfully big philosophical shift~~ Cressida worried. ~~Even if we could find a good rhyme for thought, the chances of me doing it…~
“The chances are good,” promised Dancer. “I can…” She paused in mid-sentence and staggered to her knees.
“Dancer?” worried CSFB! He’d never seen Sarah Shepherdson stumble before.
“I’m fine,” she said, setting her jaw. “Let’s do it.”
Sorceress screamed and spun to the floor as if struck by a physical blow. The ground where Resolution had vanished exploded in molten rock as the Thinking Machine arose.
CSFB! knocked it aside with packages of combat candy, straight into grenade arrowheads thrown left-handed by Trickshot. Dreamcatcher Foxglove tried to think of a suitable taunt to distract the enemy, but all he could think of was Hatman’s corpse lying in front of the battered Lair Mansion.
Resolution lashed out and caught G-Eyed just as he was teleporting in. There was an unpleasant organic crunch and Bry Katz went down. Before the Thinking Machine could finish him off Pegasus swooped down in centaur form to drag him clear. Resolution loosed another energy bolt, catching her on the shoulder and spinning her to the broken ground. A second blast took off her head.
“No!” shouted CSFB!, leaping in past the robot shell’s guard and loosing a short-range combat candy attack into Resolution’s mouth. The enemy had a point blank target to release another shattering energy discharge right into the wired wonder. CSFB! flew backwards as if shot from a gun, hit with the same force that had smashed out the faux-Hatman’s chest.
Finny smashed Resolution into the ground with a massive tale swipe and followed it up with a ranging burst of nuclear fire.
Resolution responded with a neural blast that could take out an army. Finny staggered back and gathered his will for another attack.
The battle wasn’t going well. Dancer was still evading, dancing up probabilities to keep as many of the team alive as possible while they planned their counter-offensive. CSFB! lay unmoving, his impossibilityium silly suit unscathed by the blast but steaming. Hatman and Pegasus were gone. Even now Trickshot joined G-Eyed on the ground, telekinetically slammed with enough force to hurl him halfway across Parody Isle.
Ziles moved in to run interference until Finny was ready. Resolution saw her moves in her mind and caught her by the throat in an unbreakable grip.
His own telekinetic field was shredded as another telekinetic joined the fray. Nats had awoken in the mansion sick bay where he’d been left after the traumatic loss of his Psychostave. But that was before he’d been to the Dead Galaxy, before he’d faced his ghosts and his fears. Now he knew what he was, and what he could do.
“And I know where your weak spots are, Resolution,” he called out, slamming himself at MACH 1 into the robot, shielded by his telekinetic sheath. Ziles dropped limply from the robot’s grasp, another casualty. Nats pressed his attack on every level available to him. He hurled the object he was carrying to Finny.
“The interface helmet to the Virtual Realm of the Movie Gun?” puzzled Dancer. She pushed back the weakness that was assailing her. “Not yet,” she said, for no apparent reason. “Please.”
“Nae just an interface helmet,” dull thud noted. “A port to connect with another world.”
~~And port rhymes with thought~~ noted Cressida. ~~Here goes~~
Nats held out as long as he could. The ground churned and heaved.
A strange mucous slime bubbled up from the cracks and began enveloping the fallen Legionnaires.
“Gah!” cried Nats as he faced the magnified psionic force of a primal fundament of the Parodyverse. He could feel the blood vessels bursting in his brain.
“Now or never,” Dancer called desperately. “I’m sorry I can’t…”
Then she vanished, summoned across the cosmic void to be the herald of Galactivac.
Cressida gave a psychic scream as she strained her abilities to the max even as Nats toppled from the skies into the bubbling goo below.
Finny was transmuted into pure thought. He found himself in a white place facing an amorphous creature of glittering light. Somehow he knew it was Resolution. “Right,” he snarled, “Payback time.”
“As if any creature of flesh could harm me,” mocked Resolution. “As if any mere wisp of narrative clothed in matter could prevent my destiny.”
Finny raked him with claws as hard and sharp as he imagined them. Resolution staggered back. “I know a bit about stories myself,” Andy Dean warned him. “And I will never let you win this one.”
“Fool! I am the Final Thought! The Thinking Machine! The destiny of the Parodyverse made manifest!”
“Yeah? We’ll you’re fired.” And Foom loosed a raging inferno of dragon-breath.
Resolution had never been hurt before. He didn’t like it. He lashed back, psionically ripping skin and muscle from then dragon before him. Finny could hear the sound of his own bones snapping.
He reached out one giant claw and took Resolution in his talons.
Resolution seared away flesh and sinew, leaving the mere skeleton of a dragon claw around him.
Finny squeezed.
The ground around the Lair Island erupted in a massive explosion. Anyone and anything in a quarter mile was rendered to molten particulate dust. The blast washed over the front face of the Mansion itself, scarring it black.
The Manga Shoggoth winced and continued to shield the Legionnaires from the destruction as his own essence boiled off into oblivion. He had once promised to protect these little mortals so they could achieve their own doom or destiny. It would have been wrong to abandon them now. He generated as much ooze as he could to replace that being burned away, and tried to keep them alive.
Then it was over. The once circular island now sported a half-moon bay on its south-east side. The unoccupied Ultizon shell rattled down into the water to be retrieved later by SPUD divers and Banjooooo. Silence fell over the battlefield.
Fin Fang Foom resumed fleshly form, then slumped unbreathing atop the devastation.
dull thud looked around him and tried to keep his lunch down. “Did we win?”
***
Next Issue: The Aftermath. Who lives and who dies? Who stays and who goes? What price has the victory demanded, and who is going to pay it? Who are the Lair Legion’s new lodgers? Why isn’t it over yet, and what could possibly be worse than this? All this and lots, lots more in Untold Tales of the Lair Legion: Aftermath, or Sixteen Sub-Plots Looking For a Home.
***
Aagh! Aaagh! What Did You Do To My Heroes? Dept.:
You’re the victims of a terrible, cunning plot laid out lo these long months, all designed to ruin everything forever. Maybe.
About nine weeks back I did an Untold Survey and asked some questions about what people would like to see. While some themes were generally popular, there was much diversity in people’s views about when and how a line-up chance might take place. In the end I just cheated, corresponded with some posters whose characters might be affected depending on which way the stories ran, and went with their views or permissions. I wanted to do a plot that actually surprised people and went somewhere new.
That said, don’t assume from reading this issue that you know what the outcome’s going to be. Things might be a lot clearer after #129; possibly. We still have a few shocks and surprises in store before we’re done.
I originally conceived the next six or seven episodes to each be stand-alone stories concentrating on different smaller casts, before bringing everyone together again for the closing arc in the current series. I’ve got another three issues written (#133 is only just begun), but I don’t think I’ll be writing more after those three are posted unless the current board activity level changes. So I may need to implement a change and abridge my previous plans to leave the LL in a useable form. What do people think?
Feedback on this issue is most definitely encouraged.
Original concepts, characters, and situations copyright © 2003 reserved by Ian Watson. Other Parodyverse characters copyright © 2003 to their creators. The use of characters and situations reminiscent of other popular works do not constitute a challenge to the copyrights or trademarks of those works. The right of Ian Watson to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the UK Copyright, Designs & Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved.
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| Follow-Ups: |
- Oh dear... - Al B. Harper - Wed Dec 03, 2003 at 06:14:38 am EST
- Whew! Thoughts... - ag - Wed Dec 03, 2003 at 02:40:13 am EST
- How come nobody ever goes for the "put us down gently" option? [Spoilers] - Visionary - Tue Dec 02, 2003 at 12:31:11 pm EST
- Comments... - Goldeneyed - Tue Dec 02, 2003 at 11:28:16 am EST
- I truly enjoyed this epic work. About the others points... - Yo - Tue Dec 02, 2003 at 05:58:14 am EST
- Re: I truly enjoyed this epic work. About the others points... - HH - Tue Dec 02, 2003 at 11:58:14 am EST
- I just said, truly epic....okay, more inside ;) - Yo - Tue Dec 02, 2003 at 12:45:04 pm EST
- An epic answer, too. - HH - Tue Dec 02, 2003 at 03:54:19 pm EST
- Yeah... - Visionary - Tue Dec 02, 2003 at 04:45:52 pm EST
- Point. - HH - Tue Dec 02, 2003 at 05:39:57 pm EST
- And you thought nobody read your footnotes... ;-) (no text) - Visionary - Tue Dec 02, 2003 at 12:36:05 pm EST
- I think we'll spawn the footnotes off into their own limited series. (no text) - HH - Tue Dec 02, 2003 at 03:51:45 pm EST
- I thought that was called the "Who's Who" and "Where's Where" Any chance of seeing a "What's What" soon? (no text) - Nats - Tue Dec 02, 2003 at 07:30:16 pm EST
- What the hell goes into a What's What? (no text) - Flinching HH - Wed Dec 03, 2003 at 04:18:50 am EST
- Oh, how about... Knifey, the Book of Law, the Movie-Gun, cool whip, the Portal of Pretentiousness, the Happy Place conduit, spiffy's fern, razor letters, Pooty, the ··· (no text) - Visionary being especially evil - Wed Dec 03, 2003 at 02:25:17 pm EST
- Shoot! That reminds me! I've got to update When's When! (no text) - ag - Wed Dec 03, 2003 at 02:58:41 am EST
- I find myself echoing L!, Greg and shrike ... - CrazySugarFreakBoy! - Tue Dec 02, 2003 at 03:15:49 am EST
- You posted this on a work night? Damn. I'll try to read and respond soon. (no text) - ag - Tue Dec 02, 2003 at 12:20:45 am EST
- Reactions and Spoilers - killer shrike - Mon Dec 01, 2003 at 10:02:35 pm EST
- Knock-down drag-out blow-up bing-bang-boom rock-em-sock-em rip-roarin' zippidy-doo-dah etc etc. (text) - Nats - Mon Dec 01, 2003 at 08:57:29 pm EST
- Honestly... - anonymous - Mon Dec 01, 2003 at 08:44:14 pm EST
- You're evil, yes. We knew this. *nt* - Finny - Mon Dec 01, 2003 at 08:43:22 pm EST
- Reply..... - L! - Mon Dec 01, 2003 at 03:18:15 pm EST
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