#130: Untold Tales of the Lair Legion: First Day On The Job

#130: Untold Tales of the Lair Legion: First Day On The Job

Previously: After their devastating battle with Resolution the Lair Legion has yet to recover. Fin Fang Foom lies in a coma, leaving his deputy Goldeneyed in charge. The team believes Hatman to be dead, leaving Sorceress devastated. Dancer has been claimed as the Herald of Galactivac, the Living Death that Sucks, and her little sister Kerry has somehow gained her powers. Ziles is planning a return to her homeworld of Xnylonia, where she believes she will die. G-Eyed has recruited the Falcon onto the team, and now seeks new ways of preventing disaster ever decimating the Legion again – whether they like it or not.

    “You have made an adequate beginning,” the Hooded Hood adjudged. “There is little you can do regarding the Dead Galaxy situation or the missing Dancer until you receive more intelligence from Amazing Guy and ManMan, but you have recruited a candidate to fill Hatman’s absence and have deployed your forces to mitigate the current upheaval and unrest in the wake of Ultizon’s attempted world takeover.”
     “I’m sensing an incoming ‘but’,” noted Bry Katz, Goldeneyed, acting leader of the Lair Legion.
     “However,” continued the cowled crime czar, “there are a number of other situations that require your attention. First amongst these is the continued existence of the Shadow Cabinet. You have neutralised one faction of the movement, so that Commissioner Graham can safely return to his job and the false charges against De Brown Streak have been exposed as such. But the operative known as Exemplary, a fellow alumni of the Order of the Observing Eye’s Academy for Gifted Young People, is still at large.”
     “Don’t mention the Order,” growled G-Eyed. “They betrayed me when they helped Laurie hide my child from me.”
     “Do try to differentiate between what seems significant to you and what is really of importance,” sighed the Hood. “Your personal feelings and life are irrelevant. You have a job to do, a responsibility to shoulder. Who cares if that task leaves you a bleeding, broken wreck, emotionally of physically?”
     “Well, actually…”
     “You also need to keep an eye out for Edward Gramayre. He may well not have been destroyed when you defeated Resolution, even though he was the principal host for the Final Thought at the time. Gramayre is a powerful telepath and one of the best-connected men on the planet. He is old and dangerous, and you need to prepare contingencies for if he chooses to oppose you again.”
     “Like what?”
     “You have people to advise you on that. Learn to use them. Next you need to exploit the special insights you gained during your time in the retconned future.”
     “How to dance like a broken puppet for the amusement of fairies?” scorned G-Eyed.
     “You learned of Count Armageddon’s rulership of Badripoor. Since the atomic detonation now never took place it is reasonable to surmise that he is still there, amassing an army of felons including the former Technopolitan Science Villains left behind on this planet. You may wish to address this. The opportunity will not be overlooked by others, even if it is neglected by you.”
    “Okay, so we check Badripoor. What else?”
    “You need to make efforts to keep the exiled fragment of the Manga Shoggoth associated with your team. He is a useful asset to exploit. Under no circumstances allow Alaric Harper the opportunity to ‘cure’ him so he can return to his main mass.”
    Goldeneyed shifted uncomfortably. “That doesn’t seem very fair.”
    “Fairness has nothing to do with this,” the Hooded Hood told him. “You asked for advice. This is it. You will also need to recruit Yo. In the absence of Dancer, the pure thought being is your best resource for having a non-typical solution to situations that would otherwise degenerate into bloodshed.”
    “Yo’s with the League of Regulars now.”
    “What is the League of Regulars but the original name for the Lair Legion?” the Hood asked. “I suggest you seek to keep Lisa and Visionary close by for now too. If NTU-150 ever recovers from his weakened heart condition sufficient to go into combat again you may want to bind him to your service also, but even as he is he has uses as an artificer.”
    “I can’t get all these people onto the Legion. The team will be massive.”
    “What, you think it wouldn’t be fair to your enemies to go after them with overwhelming numbers and force? There are thousands of metahumans on this planet. Why shouldn’t the Legion recruit a hundred or so of them? That is the traditional number for a Legion, after all.”
    “A… a hundred members? Finny would explode. I’m just filling in for him until he wakes from his coma.”
    The Hooded Hood’s eyes narrowed. “Indeed,” he said.

***

    “So with no more ado, I hereby proclaim the Falcon to be an official probationary member of the Lair Legion,” announced Goldeneyed.
    “I don’t see why I am still a probationary member,” Pegasus complained sourly. “You’ve made the worm a full member.”
    “Aye well, Cressie didn’t join th’ team so as to manipulate and betray them to a cosmic force dedicated to bringing back the elder gods, did she?” dull thud challenged.
    ~~It’s only a matter of time before you prove yourself to them, Penny~~ the Lair Legion’s the sentient tapeworm member assured Pegasus.
    Most of the team moved in to welcome their newest member. “Welcome to the team, bird-guy!” CrazySugarFreakBoy! told Sam Wilson. “It was long overdue!”
    “Bird-guy?” asked Falcon.
    Nats looked a little uncomfortable. “Ah, well. You see a lot of the LL have cutesy nicknames. The wired wonder. The capped crusader. Coat-rack. That kind of thing. So we thought it would be a great way of making you feel a part of things if we… picked you a nickname.”
    “I voted for Feather-drawers,” CSFB! confided.
    “And what’s your cutesy nickname?” Falcon asked Nats.
    “Dork-boy,” answered Pegasus gruffly as she stalked away.
    “That’s not true,” said Dork-boy quickly. “Sometimes they call me the flying phenomenon, or the aerial delivery boy, but that’s all.”
    dull thud snickered.
    “Back in my old Legion, we used to call Falcon the beaked battler,” Trickshot remembered, “That wus the Legion that died back when my home dimension got wiped. Of course, we didn’t have that traitor Pegasus on our line-up, so we could also call him the winged warrior.”
    “Tricky, you fought for nine days to protect Pegasus from the Wild Hunt,” pointed put Visionary.
    “Oh sure,” admitted the irritating archer. “She’s a lousy stinkin’ traitor, but she’s our lousy stinkin’ traitor.”
    Lisa took Falcon’s arm. “The ceremony’s all over except the bickering,” she assured him. “Now step this way and I’ll take you to your induction.”
    “Um, we dinnae do that kind of induction any more, Lisa,” dull thud pointed out.
    “I believe in reviving old traditions,” she smirked, leading Sam Wilson away. “Several times, if possible.”
    Goldeneyed continued the conversation with Trickshot. The archer rarely mentioned his homeworld. “You said Falcon was on the team already when you were in that other reality?” Goldeneyed said curiously. “Who else was there on your Legion that isn’t on this one?”
    “This is my Legion now,” Trickshot answered gruffly. “Let th’ past stay buried.”

***

    “No,” said Hagatha Darkness. “You will not attempt this. I forbid it.”
    “Your forbidding me days are over, old woman,” Whitney Darkness told her grandmother. “I’m not a little girl any more, being hidden from a Demon Lover. I’m not my mother, so timid she had to run away to escape you. I am the Sorceress, as powerful now as you ever were. So either help me or get out of my way, but don’t preach at me.”
    Hagatha’s face darkened. “How dare you?”
    “I dare! I love Jay, and I’m going to bring him back from the dead. There’s magic out there that can do it.”
    “Forbidden magic, with too high a price! You must not and shall not use such things.”
    “Just because you have never loved anyone doesn’t mean I can’t!” Whitney almost shrieked. “You left behind only man you were ever with once he’d given you the child you wanted. You never even told Sir Mumphrey Wilton for over a hundred years that he was my grandfather!”
    “He’d have been your dead grandfather if I’d told him! Do you think the Demon Lover would have let him survive? Do you realise just how much I’ve given up of my life to your mother and to you, so you could have the things I denied myself?” Hagatha Darkness’ eyes glowed red with anger. “Foolish, ignorant, selfish, petty child!” She forced herself to calm. “You have lost a lover, and it is affecting your judgement. Take some time to calm yourself and think on what you have said and what you propose to do. Let us both spend time apart to recompose ourselves.”
    “Slink away then, old woman. I shall have my Jay.”
    The Sorceress watched her grandmother leave Whitney’s bedroom at Covenant House, then turned to the shadows. “You can come out now,” she called. “I hope watching that amused you.”
    “It was a pure joy,” admitted Blackhurt, Prince of Fibs. “Now I believe you mentioned a bargain?”

***

    Nats retreated into the Lair Bathroom, pulled down his pants, opened his comic-book, and relaxed.
    “We need to talk,” said the Dark Knight in his ear.
    “Gaah!” screamed the flying phenomenon. Bad things happened to his internal plumbing systems.
    “Goldeneyed is making a bad mistake. You have to correct it.”
    “What the hall are you doing? This is the bathroom, for Pete’s sake!”
    “I’m a wanted man.”
    “Not here, you’re not. You can’t just pop up…”
    “I see you’ve got a small problem,” agreed the Dark Knight, looking down. “Anyway, you need to see the material in this folder.”
    Nats glanced down at the manila jacket. When he glanced up again the urban legend was gone. But going to the bathroom was never going to be safe again.

***

    The Legion pager made a desperate sort of strangled buzzing noise then gave up and died. The LL made these things to last, but repeated slamming in a dresser draw could eventually shut them up.
    A few moments ago Visionary had been happy enough to claim it was probably malfunctioning and that G-Eyed wasn’t trying to call him in . Now he looked hopefully at the shattered machine praying it would make another sound to get him out of his current plight.
    “I think I have to go,” he told Lisa hurriedly. “They might need me at the Lair Mansion.”
    “They’ll survive,” Lisa told him. “Now as I was explaining…”
    “Didn’t yours go off?” Vizh persisted.
    “I’ve got mine set to vibrate,” the amorous advocatrix told him. Visionary shuddered.
    “Yo is thinking that cute-Visi is to be listening to cute-Lisa,” Yo advised the possibly fake man. “Is to be great privilege to be legal guardian of child.”
    Visionary glanced nervously at the condo kitchen. “First, she’d not a child, she’s sixteen. Second, I never said I’d be her guardian if Sarah Shepherdson had to go off to Tibet on an emergency waitressing mission. Third, she’s a disaster waiting to happen…”
    “You have so much in common,” chuckled Fleabot.
    “Suck it in, fake man,” Lisa snapped. “Kerry Shepherdson’s your responsibility now till her big sister comes back. Get used to it!”
    “But she’s also got all the powers of the Probability Dancer,” blurted Vizh. “Or in her case, the Probability Arsonist.”
    “Yes,” smirked Lisa with satisfaction.
    Just then the smoke alarms went off in the kitchen.

***

    “You sent for me?” Falcon asked. He was surprised to find Nats, Trickshot, CSFB!, dull thud and Pegasus waiting for him with G-Eyed in the Leader’s Office. “Will this take long, only I’m kind of sleepy?”
    “Lisa induction,” CSFB! explained to G-Eyed.
    Goldeneyed tapped the folder Nats had supplied him with. “Didn’t you think that the LL did thorough background checks on its members?” he demanded.
    “Sure. So do SPUD,” Falcon nodded.
    “Ours seem to be just a little bit more thorough, Mr Wilson. Or should we call you Falko?”
    The name hit Sam like a gut-punch. “What?”
    “Well I for one am impressed,” Pegasus noted, leafing though the files. “I have heard of Falko, although he operated mostly in Asia and the Middle East. A rather competent and ruthless mercenary-for-hire, I am given to believe. You will make a fine addition to our fighting unit.”
    ~~Falko is also a ruthless killer~~ Cressida pointed out. ~~And a kidnapper, a drug-runner, a rapist, a torturer…~
    “I think I’ve seen his sheet,” Falcon admitted.
    “Did you think we wouldn’t find out about your double life, Falcon?” G-Eyed thundered. “About you playing the hero with SPUD but moonlighting as a vicious murderer-for-hire?”
    “What the hell are you talkin’ about?” Sam Wilson answered, starting to lose his temper; but there was a note of fear in his voice as well.
    “I am so sick of traitors,” Trickshot hissed, reaching for an arrow.
    “The evidence against you is pretty overwhelming. SPUD has asked that we take you into custody for questioning,” Nats told the Lair Legion’s newest member. “Are you going to come quietly?”
    “I hope not,” said Tricky.
    “I have no idea what sort of game this is,” Falcon told them, “but if this is some kind of sick prank on the newbie…”
    “Ye’re the sick one here, Falko,” dull thud told him. “Now stand doon or be knocked doon.”
    “This is insane! It can’t be happening.” Falcon released the smoke and tear gas jets in his weapons harness, blew out the wall, and took to the skies.

***

    Lindy Wilson looked around her in amazement. It was their apartment, the one she shared with her violent half-brother, but somebody had fixed it up good. She marvelled at the nice furniture and décor, ignoring the piles of unwashed plates and undiscarded pizza boxes. Compared to what the place usually looked like, this was a palace.
    “Sam?” she called out cautiously. “Falko?”
    There was nobody here. Lindy started to relax. She liked being alone. She bled less.
    She noticed the TV, then bent down puzzled at all the boxes next to it. When had her brother got cable, or that nice VCR? Stolen, probably. But what was the black rectangular shape next to it, and all the silver place-mats stacked on top of it? What was DVD?
    If someone had asked Lindy the date she’d have told them it was almost ten years ago.
    She padded on bare feet into the bedroom. That too had changed. The windows were intact, and the door was on, for example. She couldn’t find any of her clothes. Sam had probably sold them for drug money again. There were quite a few nice things of his in the wardrobe though, even a fancy tuxedo. Something was very wrong.
    There was a knock on the door. Hesitantly Lindy went over to the spyhole to see who it was.
    The door exploded in fragments, and a man in a black-and-red flightsuit and combat harness stepped through the rubble to pick the stunned girl up by the front of her shabby dress.
    “Hi, Lindy,” leered Falko wickedly. “I’m home!”

***

    “You wanna tell me,” Drury raged, “any of you guys wanna tell me how the hell we missed all this stuff in Sam Wilson’s chicken-swogglin’ background check?”
    “Calm down, Dan,” Contessa Romanza advised the Commander of the Super-Menace Principal Undercover Directorate. “It was well hidden. There was no indication that Falcon was anything other than a Hell’s Kitchen boy made good with his uncle’s flight suit.”
    “Hell’s Kitchen boy made good,” snorted the spymaster. “An’ that wasn’t th’ first clue?”
    Natasha Romanza wasn’t intimidated. “You’re a Hell’s Kitchen boy,” she reminded him.
    Drury tried another tack. “If it was so bleeping hard then how was the Dark Knight able to dredge it up first time, eh?”
    “He is the world’s greatest detective,” the Contessa suggested.
    “He’s the world’s greatest pain in the ass. And he tried to use SPUD nuclear weaponry ta take out Gothametropolis. I want him nailed for that one, Talia. You hear me? Nailed.”
    “We have people out there looking…
    “They won’t find him,” growled Drury. “They never do. You find the Dark Knight, Contessa. Personally. This time I want him brought in.”
    “I hear you. I’ll need some time. What do you want to do about Falcon?”
    Dan Drury looked over the files of the atrocities in Iran and Iraq, of the massacre in Thailand, of the Cambodia Incident. He stared long at hard at the pictures. There was a lot of red on them. “If Falcon is also Falko, he’s one a’ the nastiest pieces of crud on our wanted list. Take him down. With extreme prejudice if you need to. Take him.”
    Drury’s advisors decided it would be best to wait and tell him about Messenger and Mr Epitome later.

***

    Pegasus had centuries of experience in aerial battle, and her top speed was in excess of light; but she needed time and range to reach that velocity, and her fighting style was suited to close-quarters air confrontations.
    Falcon had the best three-dimensional combat training that SPUD could offer, but his techniques specialised in range assault and avoidance.
    When Pegasus assumed her winged female form and broke into the air after him, Sam Wilson knew he had to take her down. She’d catch him eventually, and at point blank range the advantage would be hers.
    The sonic screamer he’d dropped in the Lair Mansion was still disrupting the concentration of those who needed to think to use their powers. Goldeneyed, Cressida, and Trickshot were all momentarily neutralised. Nats should have been as well, but he managed to shakily levitate himself out of the radius of the sound weapon. CSFB! had rolled clear anyway, and a few seconds later he snagged the device with his coloured ribboning and smashed it against a wall.
    But by then Falcon was far out of range of the ground-based Legionnaires. He barrel-looped round and launched a spread of percussion rockets into Pegasus’ flight path and wasn’t surprised when she winged round them with little difficulty. Sam likewise avoided the bursts of cosmic bolts with which she tried to bracket him.
    But Sam knew Pegasus had been badly injured recently, and was at nothing like her full capacity. He ruthlessly drew her down to nearly ground level, dodging through the trees that littered the southern shoreline of Paradopolis. He had to advantage here, where his computerised radar systems could image the ground layout and help him predict the terrain. He waited till the Pegasus was committed then dropped a couple of timed grenades on the ground. They exploded as the winged warrioress flew over them.
    Falc jack-knifed in mid air, powered back, and dosed her with a full spray of sleeping gas.
    Even then, Pegasus nearly clipped him with he last cosmic bolt before going down.
    Falcon allowed his pulse-rate to slow and he tried to sort out what was happening in his life. Things had been so good this morning. Now he was a wanted felon accused of crimes he didn’t commit, and he didn’t feel like joining the A-Team. He wondered who had set up the information to make him look like a sadistic mercenary, this Falko person…
    And he froze. He remembered Falko. He remembered calling himself Falko, back with the street gang, back in his youth.
    But that wasn’t right. He’s never really run with a gang, he’d been too busy studying, hadn’t he? Then why did he remember the fights, the drugs?
The crimes.
    It had all changed when he was sixteen. After that for some reason he’d become a different person. He’d looked up his long-lost uncle and he’d found a better path. He’d struggled hard with himself, got himself clean of the narcotics, graduated high school, graduated Paradopolis U…
    But once he had been Falko. How could he ever have forgotten it? The memories that had covered him, that had deluded him all those years he’d been struggling to better himself, why had he never noticed how shallow they were? How false?
    Nats grabbed him telekinetically and held him tight, blocking the control interface that would have let him trigger his flight suit to escape. “Gotcha!” the flying delivery boy told him.
    “Nats, you have to let me go,” Sam called. “This isn’t what it seems. There’s more than meets the eye. I haven’t figured it all out yet, but I have to. And I can’t do that in an LL holding cell.”
    “Sure,” Nats scorned. “You’re really a sweet widdle puppy who never tried to hide his perverted killing sprees.”
    “I never did that. I don’t know what’s happening to me. But I must find out. Please.”
    Nats sighed long and loudly, and dropped his telekinetic grip. “I’ve obviously spent too much time with Dancer,” he said, letting Falc go.
    “Nobody can spend too much time with Dancer,” Falcon assured him. “Thanks man.” And he sped away.

***

    Lindy whimpered in her bonds and tried not to annoy her big brother any more. But she had to know. “What… what’s going on Falko?” she ventured.
    What’s going on is that I’m fightin’ for my life here, sis,” the mercenary in the combat suit told her. He was moving round the apartment setting remote charges. “I got me a rival, just today, thanks to some meddling in time I guess, and I have to see him dead an’ buried.”
    “I don’t understand.”
    “You don’t have to,” Falko assured her. “You just have to scream at the right moments, and then die when you’re no good for bait any more.”
    “Sa… Falko, I’m your sister!”
    “You were my sister, once,” the mercenary replied. “It was only when you vanished that I realised how much you was holdin’ me back. I blew off this neighbourhood, this whole town, and got me a future.”
    “Vanished?”
    “Oh yeah. Near ten years ago my fourteen year old pain of a half-sis ups and disappears. I figured you just ran off again, rather than get put to work at one o’ Mama Grief’s places, an’ I was gonna kill you then, slow and messy. But now after all this time you’re back, and not a day older, and I’m guessing you’re part of this same time-fiddle, Lindy.”
    The girl started to say it didn’t make any sense; but she remembered the chilling man in the grey cloak and cowl, and his glowing green eyes.
    “Me, I hooked up with some B.A.L.D. guys down Memphis way, worked my way through the ranks as muscle, an’ when they wanted volunteers for their enhancement projects I was always at the front of the queue. When Blofish croaked I went freelance, an’ I’ve built a pretty good rep usin’ my fight harness and weapons packs.” He looked down at his captured sister with an unpleasant leer. “An’ I’ve learned not to be so squeamish as I used to be.”
    “Falko? Sam! NO!”

***

    Falcon burst up through the floorboards, sending Falko tumbling away from his hostage. He grabbed Lindy and twisted so he was shielding her in his arms, his armoured wings protecting them both from the blast that came as he remote-detonated Falko’s own munitions around him. He was careful not to set them all off because there would be other people in the tenement.
    Falko reacted very quickly, recovering at once and returning fire from his B.A.L.D. combat harness. He peeled off a couple of micro-rockets that caught Falcon peripherally, but that was enough to send the SPUD operative crashing through his living room wall to the outside.
    Sam rolled as he reeled, clutching the screaming Lindy to his chest. Now blown outside the building he swooped low below the overpass and lost himself in the maze of alleys that was Hell’s Bathroom.
    Falko snarled and powered after him. As an afterthought he triggered the explosives to collapse Sam’s building. He’d always hated this neighbourhood. But Sam had somehow reprogrammed the trigger frequencies and the wounded building remained standing.
    “I’ll be back for you later,” Falko promised it, and turned his trackers onto his enemy.
    Falcon navigated the passages and tunnels with the ease of one who was born there. He still held Lindy. “Hi,” he told her. “We’ve not met. I’m your long-lost brother.”
    “W-what?”
    Sam let his helmet visor slide up for a moment to show his face. “See? It’s me.”
    “How?” Lindy demanded. She gestured back the way they’d come. “He’s my brother!”
    Then Sam knew what he was up against. The Hooded Hood had given him a choice nigh a decade back. Falcon reflected one decision, Falko the other. Somehow they had both existed together; or at least did from this point on. And Visionary had insisted that Lindy not be harmed, so she’d been shifted here, now.
    “He’s the bad-me,” Falc explained to her. “I’m the good me. Pleased to meet you.”
    Lindy looked terrified, but there was a spark of hope in her eyes. “R-really?”
    “Wuss!” sneered Falko as he launched his air to air missiles at them. Falko had also grown up on these miserable streets.
    Falcon triggered his countermeasures, but he had to twist to shield Lindy so the shockwaves knocked the breath out of him. That gave Falko a chance to fire off his electro-claws. The adamantine missiles punched through Falcon’s body armour like it wasn’t there, the barbs deploying to lodge into his thigh.
    Falcon dropped Lindy onto a pile of garbage sacks before the current seared through him; but he was still in the air so the electricity did no more than tingle. He grabbed the cord that connected him to his evil self and launched away at top acceleration. Falko was caught unawares and dragged behind as Falc tried a cracking-the-ship manoeuvre on the side of a building.
    Falko flattened the building with air-to-surface fire before ever he hit it, severed the wires between them, and powered forwards for another assault.

***

    The Hooded Hood was in the Lair Library, looking over a copy of The Prince and the Pauper. “Hey, Hoody!” CSFB! called as he bounced into the room, “You’re rumbled!”
    The cowled crime czar carefully placed a bookmark before closing his volume and looking up. “Indeed?”
    “Mysterious past that nobody ever noticed before? Change of life because of the smallest differences? Come on, this Falc thing has your fingerprints all over it.”
    “And?”
    CSFB! seemed a little puzzled. “And you have to stop it,” he finally answered. “Undo the retcon.”
    “I have,” said the archvillain simply. “Falcon asked it of me, and I have carried out his wishes.”
    “But… he’s a wanted felon now. He was a murderer.”
    “Yes. Now he knows the truth. I have undone my reordering of his life. Of course, such major changes in the wake of the Resolution affair cannot be seamless, and Visionary did request me to take account of Falcon’s sister Belinda…”
    “But Sam’s life is ruined!” argued CSFB!
    “As he requested. Wouldn’t you ruin your life, sacrifice it, to save your half-sister from horror and oblivion?” the Hooded Hood wondered. “That’s not a theoretical question, by the way.”
    And the cowled crime-czar returned to his reading.

***

    They were almost the same, Sam Wilson – the Falcon Sam Wilson – realised. They were equally well trained, equally experienced. Their equipment, from SPUD and BALD respectively, was of equal standards. They were both determined, courageous, committed, scrappy. Neither was going to back down.
    The fight had been going on for a savage fifteen minutes, and half a block of Hell’s Bathroom was on fire. Falko had done that deliberately, of course. He’d been able to get a couple of extra licks in when Falcon tried to rescue victims.
    “You’re almost outta tricks,” he gloated at Falcon over their helmet radios. “And you’re losing a lot of blood.”
    “I don’t see you being as perky as you were before, jerk-off,” Falcon called back. “And I still got enough juice to kick your ass into jail.”
    “You? You’re soft and weak, a pussy working for the Man,” Falko sneered. He fired off the last of his missiles, knowing Falc would have to intercept them or see the tenements behind him destroyed.
    Falcon fell for it. He flew in and used the last of his rubber bullets to detonate the ordinance in mid air. The explosions blew him off balance and out of position, and Falko swooped down from behind and ripped his flight pack clean from his harness.
    Suddenly Sam was flightless in his enemy’s grasp.
    “See? A bleeding heart’ll get you a bleeding body every time,” Falko told him as he dislocated the hero’s shoulder. “Hope you can learn to fly without the tech on your way down, loser.”
    “I don’t need to fly,” Falcon called as Falko dropped him. He’d looped the electrical cables that still trailed from the barbs in his side around his enemy’s neck and was holding onto them to prevent him falling. “Only to know how to tie knots. I guess you were never a Boy Scout, ‘Falko’.”
    Falko almost choked, then pulled his sheathe knife to sever the cords.
    Lindy bounced a brick off the side of his helmet and called him something obscene.
    That gave Falcon a chance to brace himself. He swung in a high parabola and landed on Falko’s back, the cords twisted ever tighter round the villain’s throat. “Take us down, Trigger, or we’ll see how well you fly without a head.”
    Falko swore his defiance and aimed his wrist-firearm at Lindy.
    Falcon ripped Falko’s flight pack out, rendering them both subject to gravity. Both toppled helplessly down to their deaths.
    Nats caught them telekinetically as they fell. “Okay, I’ve worked out who the good guy is,” he called as he held them there.
    “That one!” Lindy Wilson pointed, running over towards Falcon. “Him! My brother!” She looked up at the man who had fought for her, bled for her, been ready to die for her.. “He’s my brother,” she whispered again.
    Falcon wriggled in the telekinetic grip and landed a roundhouse right on Falko that rendered the thug insensible.
    Nats lowered them to the broken ground, and the crowds of Hell’s Bathroom surged forward cheering their champion to surround the Falcon (and kick the fallen Falco, and take his wristwatch).
    And that was the difference between Falcon and Falko, Sam Wilson realised. His whole body ached, he needed stitches and surgery, but he had won and done what was right. Lindy came up almost shyly and stood near him. He reached out his good arm and she ran to him with a little sob.
    Goldeneyed, dull thud and Trickshot teleported in with a golden flash.
    “All done,” Nats told them. “Happy ending.”
    “Not quite,” G-Eyed said uncomfortably. “I’m sorry Falcon, you’re under arrest.”

***

Next Issue: How far will Whitney Darkness go to raise to life the man buried in Hatman’s grave? What is the price that must be paid? What happens when the gates of death are opened wide? And who comes back? Join us in UT#131 for Untold Tales of the Lair Legion vs the Sorceress. And place your bets.

***

Let There Be Footnotes:

On the Hood’s conversation with Goldeneyed: Many of the events referred to here pick up on things that occurred in Untold Tales #100-128. the Shadow Cabinet is a covert and ancient uber-conspiracy of would-be world-manipulators. Edward Random’s cell has now been exposed, and its principal operative Exemplary was badly hurt in battle with Amazing Guy before things went downhill fast in the recent battle with Resolution. The Order of the Observing Eye is a quasi-monastic foundation that trains and nurtures future potential heroes, and once trained G-Eyed and Exemplary. They recently helped Laurie (Lisette) Leyton conceal her pregnancy from her child’s father, Goldeneyed, and have placed the baby beyond either parent’s reach or knowledge. Don Graham is the Police Commissioner of Paradopolis. Nice to know he’s back on the job. And now De Brown Streak is only wanted for crimes he has actually committed, like being an unlicensed mutate. Belasco Medici, Count Armageddon has recently taken control of the Pacific Basin city-state of Badripoor, as the Legion discovered in a future that now never happened. Messenger and Mr Epitome intend to pay the place a visit by #132. A fragment of Manga Shoggoth has been separated from the collective whole and is currently resident in the Lair Mansion.

Trickshot’s Past: The Carl Bastion of the mainstream Parodyverse was betrayed to death by his new wife Natalia Romanza almost a decade ago. She turned to work with SPUD in penance for her deeds. The Trickshot serving with the Legion escaped the destruction of his own parallel dimension and was brought to the Legion via the machinations of the Hooded Hood. He was formerly a member of his own world’s LL.

Sorceress’ Past: Whitney Darkness is the latest (possibly last) in an millennia-old line of witches bred by the Demon Lover to eventually be able to bear a child he could use to incarnate in flesh in the world. At least that was the plan before Whitney, Hatman and the Legion got to him and wiped him out. Whitney’s mother, Vervain Darkness, ran away from home to escape the Demon Lover and after a traumatic time on the streets was rescued and eventually became the lover of the young man who would become Xander the improbably, sorcerer supreme. When she left him he did not know she was pregnant with Whitney. Remarkably, Vervain’s father, Sir Mumphrey Wilton, never knew he had impregnated Hagatha Darkness either until recent days.

Blackhurt, Prince of Fibs is the son and successor to Mefrothto, lord of hell, and he is one of a variety of entities claiming lordship of the nether plains. He has a special interest in the Lair Legion who have thwarted him before.

And finally, on that “permanent death” thing…

Nats pointed out recently that I’d mentioned a permanent death coming up in the Untold Tales series based on a conversation we had in the Lair Legion Living Room chat area. However, as befits the Hooded Hood I chose my words very carefully then, and of course cannot be held responsible for any misconstruction others may have committed. Here’s the actual text of that chat:

Chat in the Wee Small Hours of 26th October 2003:

Nats_> FUNERAL ISSUE?
Nats_> Wait, does this coincide with Nats's date?
Nats_> And how could Nats have a date in the middle of Ultizon and evil faeries?
HH> Heh
Visionary> How often can Nats afford to pass up a date?
Nats_> True.
HH> We have the funeral of a Legionairre coming up in a few issues. I have the poster's permission to do it and everything.
spiffy> That's somehow less than reassuring.
HH> It should be nice and dramatic.
Nats_> I'm frightened.
Visionary> Well, I'll miss him/her/it. He/she/it was like a brother/sister/? to me.
HH> Even if it's Lisa?
Visionary> She was definitely like a ? to me.
Nats_> Does the character stay dead and everything?
HH> it should be nice and dramatic.
HH> And, like the Hooded Hood, I've chosen my words very carefully.
HH> The dead parson may be back for a single issue, but that's it.
HH> Person
spiffy> He slipped! A parson dies.
Visionary> And back again when we fight the JLA.
HH> Indeed.
Goldeneyed> ...um, wow.

And we’ve had the funeral of a Legionnaire – Hatman. I never said he’d be dead when it happened. I trust that clears the matter up?

So that just leaves the question of…

Falcon’s Cutesy LL Nickname: Any ideas, folks?

Previous episodes at The Hooded Hood's Homepage of Doom
Character profiles at Who's Who in the Parodyverse
Location details at Where's Where in the Parodyverse

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.