Baron Zemo's Lair. - <font color="lightslategrey" face="Lucida Sans Unicode">Untold Tales of the Lair Legion: The Skree/Skunk War</font>

Baron Zemo's Lair

Untold Tales of the Lair Legion: The Skree/Skunk War
Saturday, 31-Jul-1999 17:06:56
195.92.194.72 writes:

Untold Tales of the Lair Legion: The Skree/Skunk War

War Commander Rox-Hoff, Imperial Marshall of the Skree Fifth Invasion Fleet, stood before the unnecessarily large bank of full length monitor screens and throttled his communications officer. “Let me get this clear,” he told the rest of his command staff as their colleague’s blue skin turned pink from asphyxiation. “First we have to rely upon an alien informant to draw our attention to a potential Fortress Class planet in a prime strategic location between us and the Skunk Consortium. For some reason our own survey probes have completely avoided this entire planetary system. Then we discover that the Skunks have been here for long enough to covertly infiltrate their spineless shapechanging slimebutts into key positions of authority in the leadership hierarchies of the natives. Then we find that somewhere down on the planet there’s a source of energies which make our Quantum Engines look like matchsticks but which our highly trained communications and diagnostics officers cannot pinpoint. And then when Epsilon Squadron go to establish a beachhead in the general area of these bizarre signatures they find themselves beset by… what was the term again?”
“A… super.. hero,” gasped the Comms Officer.
“Yes. A superhero. A terran dressed in,” Rox-Hoff consulted the Intelligence Officer’s report pad, “dressed in the likeness of a local avaianform, possibly identified as a budgerigar. And somehow this budgerigar impersonator has managed to defeat an entire highly trained Skree assault squad and abscond with their Planetary Assault Vehicle.”
The massive video screens cut to a playback. They showed the Falcon involved in a 3-D firefight proving that all those years playing video games hadn’t been wasted. The war raged over Hell’s bathroom, the seediest quarter of Paradopolis. As soon as the Skree assault squad had left their Planetary Assault Vehicle the locals had got it stripped and broken up for parts within ten minutes.
“We… we did receive a transmission from one of their military/political leaders,” Intelligence offered in the hopes of avoiding his Commander’s hands on his throat next. “It seems to be in some kind of code, but the auto-translators are working at full capacity and…”
The monitor screen switched to play the mysterious message. A twenty foot high representation of the grizzled stogie-chomping one-eyed Director of the Super-menace Principal Undercover Directorate appeared behind Rox-Hoff and delivered its message. “Awlright you four-flushin’ yella-crawed slime-sucking turkey-smoochers, this is Dan Drury of SPUD talkin’ atcha. You may think yer fancy-dan shmancy starships give ya an edge on us ground-poundin’ Earth joes but I’ll tell ya what I told ol’ A-dolf back in th’ big one, which is that you can take yer cosmic-ray-shootin’ stereophonic zap-gun gizmos, bend over, and…”
“End transmission,” Rox-Hoff snarled. “Find out what he was saying. Find out who that Budgerigar character is and destroy him. If you can’t locate him in one local solar cycle, annihilate that city. Then find that power source. And get this dead Comms Officer off my deck!”

In the slime-baths of the Skunk Infiltration Station orbiting on the other side of the planet, Imperiator P’Rawn faced a similar situation. In his case however, he had a different way of punishing failing underlings. “So,” he asked G’Ump in sweet and reasonable tones, “tell me again why we failed to gain control of Earth government and destroy the incoming Skree battle fleet, if you would be so kind.”
G’Ump gulped and looked nervously at the three figures who flanked his Imperiator. “Well, your worshipfulness, I did what I had been ordered to do and took the place of the President of the United States of America. A small group of government agents who smoked cigarettes in a room with horizontal blinds were more than happy to replace the real one, who was apparently defective. They claimed he was ‘a sucker for a sucker’, whatever that means.”
“So you gained a position of supreme power as you had been commended,” P’Rawn prompted. “Go on.” The three figures beside the Imperiator detached themselves from his side and stood around G’Ump.
“Well… whenever I tried to carry out my orders, nobody would listen to me,” the shapeshifter complained. “They talked about Q-ratings and lobbyists. There was a mysterious force called the Congress who blocked every move I made as if they knew I was an alien infiltrator. And none of the other socio-political blocks would submit to my reign, even after I told them it was in their best interests. Not even France.”
“I see.”
“They sent me a breadstick, with instructions on where to put it,” confessed G’Ump. “It hurt.”
The Imperiator’s three torturers were actually touching G’Ump now. The shapeshifter shivered, because physical contact whilst in their true form was repugnant to the Skunks. One theory argued that they had evolved their metamorphic abilities entirely to avoid touching each other without first forming a protective coating.
“Exquisite, aren’t they?” Imperiator P’Rawn smiled, as a crocodile might do to his prey. “I had them imported from Earth. It seemed poetic to let their own torture specialists deal with your failure. Introduce yourselves, my minions.”
The three humans who were touching G’Ump leaned forwards. “I’m Candi,” giggled the first, adjusting the top of her strapless bikini to prevent herself escaping too much.
“I’m Barbi,” the second purred, and to G’Ump’s horror actually brushed his ear with nothing less than her lips.
“And I’m Lukki,” promised the third, who, as the intellectual of the group, actually had her name on a little chain around her neck which matched the gold string-mesh of her microbikini. “We’ll make you feel good.”
“No… please…” G’Ump squirmed as they pressed their uncovered tanned soft flesh against him. “Imperiator, have mercy! I did my best.”
“Then why is not every superhero on the planet thronging out to destroy the incoming Skree Armada, pray tell?” P’Rawn asked mildly.
“There… we… we couldn’t find any. I appointed a human with a very special kind of mind to keep watch over them, a precise bureaucrat named Herbert Garrick. But he lost them. They all just vanished. And then Garrick… fell down a flight of stairs despite being securely bound hand and foot and is now in intensive care. And the new superheroes who came along wouldn’t fight aliens. They said they wanted to address green issues and demanded their own cable show. And then they disappeared too.”
“So no superheroes, then? This entire planet was allegedly made a breeding ground for warriors by that obscure alien culture who made that butler hero and when we need a planetful of heroes you can’t locate any?”
“Well, there are a few but they’re all in a stasis we couldn’t break through. We have the Greek god of small waters in custody if that’s any help. And I did find one superhero battling to defend a McDonalds from Skree attack.”
“You captured him with the stasis ray? He’s here?”
G’Ump knew when to save his skin. “Yes,” he gasped as those kneading, roving fingers were taken off him. “I’ll have him brought in.” He made good his escape from the terrible torment of the beach bunnies and called to the guards. “Bring in the superhero Elvis impersonator!”

Con Johnstantine didn’t seem overly disconcerted by the razor-letter at his throat as Messenger prepared to kick the shop door in. “Now then, squire, I’d have thought being a fallen angel an all of that you’d have got the hang of doorhandles by now. Look, like this.” And he opened the door into the little watchmakers and plumbers repair shop at the end of the seedy back alley.
The bell jangled once and fell off. Messenger caught it before it hit the floor. There was a second crash as the clothes-horse full of bicycle chains which had been propped up against the door fell over.
Messenger pushed the shifty Englishman into the room and looked around. “Where is he?” the postman demanded of his prisoner.
Johnstantine shrugged. “It’s like Shroedinger’s cat. He might be anywhere until you see him.”
Messenger frowned. “This isn’t a game,” he threatened. “The entire Lair Legion has vanished. Every other hero is somehow tied up in some kind of stasis bubble. Even Zemo’s castle is locked off. And now there’s that big saucer over Washington. I need answers and I need them fast.”
“What you need,” the strange man who wandered in from the back of the shop recommended, “is a sink plunger.”
The postman whirled round, unhappy at having been taken unawares. Perhaps it was the bunny carpet slippers? “Are you Xander the Improbable?” he demanded.
“What day is it?” the man behind the counter asked, fumbling for a calendar. “Well, let’s say I am for the sake of continuing the conversation, and take it from there. Hello Johnstantine.”
“Wotcher,” the shady Englishman responded. “This is Messenger. Former Lair Legionnaire, wanted for murder, hunted by friend and foe alike, and interested in travelling the world, meeting people, and killing them for their misdeeds.”
“I want to know what’s going on,” Messenger snarled. “I need to find the Lair Legion so that Earth has some chance against those invaders. I need to understand what’s really happening.”
Xander plunked down the sink plunger on the table. “You just need to find a way to get rid of the blockage,” he suggested. “Then all the rest comes pouring out.”
“I know that the Hooded Hood has been manipulating things,” Messenger told the strange shopkeeper. “I know he somehow set off the Sidekick Plague and that led the Legion into some kind of trap. I know he’s enticed these aliens to come to Earth. What I want to know now is what has he done to the heroes, and how do I thwart it?”
Johnstantine pulled the sink plunger from the counter top and waved it at Xander. “Go on,” he encouraged the master of the mystic crafts, “Tell him where to stick it.”

Rox-Hoff looked at the diminutive pink and purple clad figure who stood before him with her arms folded and an aura of supreme confidence. “And why should I ally myself with you when I have an entire warfleet at my back to do my bidding?”
Zemette shrugged and stuck her chewing gum on the laser death console. “Because I know where what you’re looking for is, and happen to have left a nuclear device linked to my heartbeat there when last I was passing. If I die, or send out the special trigger, folks round here will be looking for a new planet to have adventures on.”
The Supreme Commander considered this. “What do you want, Earthling?” he demanded.
Ilse Imke Zemo handed over a detailed list of requirements. “Europe and the Indian Sub-Continent will do for me,” she told Rox-Hoff. “Plus the various pop and movie idols listed as my personal bodyslaves, and a few other goodies that I fancy from the various art houses and treasure stores of the world. I get to rule those bits and you get the big secret that the Hooded Hood retconned me into existence to get his scheming hands on. And didn’t he do a good job on my treacherousness?”
The Contessa smiled up at the humourless Skree Fleet Commander. “So, medals, do we have a deal or what?” She knew when she’d got an absolute advantage.

The captured superhero was dragged before the Imperiator on the Skunk Infiltration Station. “See, most gracious overseer, I did manage to get one hero we can use against the hated Skree,” G’Ump pointed out desperately.
P’Rawn leaned towards the manacled superbeing. “Your name and designation?” the Skunk leader demanded.
“You’ll never learn that information,” ManMan snarled. “ManMan doesn’t talk… damn.”
“ManMan, eh? And why were you protecting what I understand to be a place where humans receive cheap and unnutritious genetically modified foods? What is the secret of that place that you were struggling so hard to protect?”
ManMan said nothing about his sentient weapon, Knifey, alerting him to the danger of the invasion, nor of his epic struggle to keep Stacy Gwen safe from the slimy grasp of the blue-skinned invaders. He wasn't making the same mistake twice. “Do your worst, lizard-breath!” ManMan spat. “I’m not talking.”
“Even under torture?” smiled the Imperiator.
G’Ump giggled. He was all for torture as long as he was on this end of it.
ManMan was less happy. “Er… torture?”
“Oh yes,” P’Rawn promised. “Let us see how defiant you are when Candi, Barbi, and Lukki get to work on you.”
The beach-bunnies moved forwards, giggling. “Love the Elvis suit,” Candi told him as they went to work.
ManMan gritted his teeth and swore his defiance. “You’ll never break me,” he told the Imperiator. “You can… torture me like this for days and I’ll not break. Try it! Please!”

And so to the contest in the main ring, as Troia 215, the Lair Legion’s Amazon administrator, faces off against her first supervillain. Unfortunately, it’s the Hooded Hood.
“Before we engage in a battle to your destruction,” the Hood told the spear-wielding young woman, “perhaps you could answer a simple question for me. As I understand it, the 215 designation comes from your position in the Amazon academy graduation roll, yes?”
Troia couldn’t help but answer. “Well, yes. But I’d have been Troia 213 if I hadn’t flunked Sapphic dancing.”
“I see. Which indicates that there must have been at least two hundred and fourteen other young women in the same graduating class as you.”
“Sure. But none of them’s gone on to make it in man’s world. They’re too busy becoming poets and artists and gymnasts and scholars and… well, none of them get to work as secretary to… damn.”
“Then my question is this. Where did all those young Amazon women come from?”
“What?”
“Where did they come from? How do big Amazons make little Amazons?”
“Well.. hehehe…I was kinda off sick that day and I’ve had to figure this out for myself, but I think it’s something to do with cabbages…”
“You see, the traditional method of begetting Amazons is for a young woman to carry off a warrior she has defeated in battle, have her way with him, and then slaughter him once he has sired a child upon her,” the Hood pointed out.
Troia momentarily considered if this might be an effective method of getting a date with Fin Fang Foom, but eventually dismissed it as rather extreme. Probably.
“Since the Amazons left man’s world millennia ago to hide out on their mythical island where men may not pass and which they may not leave there has clearly been some accommodation to enable classes of young woman to learn the feminine arts of spear-throwing, wrestling, and lassooing, wouldn’t you say?” As he spoke the Hooded Hood was striding down towards the cellars of the Lair Legion’s mansion, dragging Troia behind him by the sheer force of his character and the nature of the conversation. The poor Amazon hadn’t even noticed when Yo-ling, the Hood’s corrupted thought entity, remained behind to guard against any further intruders.
“So… where do young Amazons come from?” Troia found herself asking. She had never expected to learn the facts of life from her first superhero battle.
“There is an agency called the Observing Eye,” the cowled crime czar revealed. “They recruit suitable infants for nurturing towards greatness. They chose Goldeneyed for example. When they find girl-children who are in danger or alone they usually ensure that they are shipwrecked and wash up on the shores of Amazon Isle. I can only imagine that the Amazons are rather surprised at the vast number of girl babies that get washed on their shore, and don’t talk about it in case the insurance shipping people want to talk to them.”
“Was I shipwrecked then?”
The Hood looked distant for a moment. “Sometimes gifted children get missed by the Observing Eye and fall prey to less benevolent foundations. Lisa and Moo went to the Orphanage of the Little Sister of Discipline, who teach very different lessons to universal harmony and creative spearwork. And Jarvis was taken by those aliens who want to farm the Parodyverse for warriors. Other agencies seek to recruit adults - the rather spurious Ass-Raping Ninjas who pursue CrazySugarFreakBoy! for example. And then there are alien races such as the Puppeteers who sent Pearson’s Porter, who want to make the super-powered community and all of Earth their playthings”
“Um, I’m not really up on the Legion files just now,” Troia admitted. “I followed what you were saying up to ‘Lisa and Moo’…”
The Hood’s green eyes bored into the Amazon administrator’s. “I am saying that many forces have an interest in super-powered heroes in the Parodyverse, my dear. And the reason for that interest, whether they understand it consciously or not, lies here beneath the mansion built by Wilbur Parody on the site of a much earlier temple built by Ab-humans in worship of Shab-addaba-Dhu, the Groper out of Grossness. Yet the Secret it conceals is older still, and that is what we will now uncover together.”
The Hood now stood outside the frescoed chamber with the bas-reliefs of the Lair Legion, the hidden room where Foomy and Banjooooo had discovered Zemette. Troia suddenly leaped in front of the archvillain and hefted her spear again. “Uh-uh. If there’s a big secret in there that is so amazing it makes all those people do that stuff you said, well I don’t think a baddie like you should be allowed to go in and get it.” What she wanted to say was: please don’t pulp me.”
The Hood smiled. “In all the possible parallel timelines there was always an Amazon warrior blocking the doorway. That was why I went to so much trouble to retcon it to be you.”
Troia bristled. “Just because I came two-hundred and fifteenth in my class doesn’t mean you can…”
“You misunderstand, my dear,” the Hood proclaimed. “No slight was intended. I merely arranged it so that you would be the guardian for the same reason I arranged for you to be raised by the Amazons, and, I suspect, for the reason you did so poorly in their graduation exercises despite your obvious talents.”
“You sent me to Amazon isle?” Troia 215 gasped. “But why?”
“One last question before we step inside,” the Hooded Hood told her. “What is it that you and Wanda Maximoff, the Scarlet Witch, have in common?”
Troia considered this. “Neither of us wear underwear?” she attempted.
“Both of you have a father who is an archvillain,” the Hooded Hood answered. “Now step aside… daughter.”

Next episode: All the stuff that was promised last episode that wasn’t in this episode. The battle of the titans – Donar vs Thor! Jarvis meets Jarvis! spiffy tries to score with Firestar! NTU-150 and Iron Man build something explosive! Zemo faces off against Captain America! And Messenger goes to extreme lengths to deliver his message! Oh, and Earth gets invaded. Twice.

The Hooded Hood - doesn't anybody else post on this board anymore? I'm getting lonely here, guys n' gals.