#135: Untold Tales of the Lair Legion: Family Matters

#135: Untold Tales of the Lair Legion: Family Matters

    “Next,” called Goldeneyed in despair.
    “What, you don’t think Flatulence Lad has a place on the expanded team?” Lisa asked sweetly, checking her clipboard. “He can certainly expand.”
    “Maybe in Lair Legion: France?” wondered Amber St Clare, the LL’s liaison officer. “He’d fit right in with Trapped In An Invisible Box Man, Huge Breadstick, and Soufflé Belle.”
    Bry Katz looked down at the pile of resumes on his desk (well, technically on Fin Fang Foom’s desk, but the leader of the Legion was on a leave of absence right now). “When we always said the LL was the cream of the superhero community I never believed it until now,” he despaired.
    “We may need to work on the international expansion later,” admitted Amber. “We’re still dealing with a few diplomatic wrinkles just at the present.”
    “Such as?”
    “The Rakshasas are happy to be Lair Legion India,” Lisa reported, “but we have to work out that wanting-to-be-able-to-eat-wrongdoers condition they slipped in. And the British are insisting on a no spandex agreement and all their codenames are things like Rupert and Spadger and Dodgy Norris.”
    “The UN’s insisting that Fiesta from LL South America can’t go into combat topless wearing only feathers,” Amber reported, “And I think we have to, um, support them. If nothing else, it’ll stop Ay Caramba! running into walls.”
“And so far the only taker for LL Antarctica is Wonder Walrus,” Lisa noted. “You ruled out Penguin Impersonator Man, right?”
    “We’re also getting some equal opportunities flack from pressure groups,” Amber warned.
    “We’re considering ethnic minorities and women,” G-Eyed argued. “And we don’t discriminate on sexuality, religion…”
    “We insist on people having super-powers,” Lisa explained. “Or at least combat skills. A lot of people are saying that’s unfair.”
    G-Eyed realised now why Visionary always had that rather haunted look when he was leading the LL. “Gah!” he said, in case it made him feel better.
    “Are you sure you want to be doing this right now, Bry?” Lisa asked softly. “Are you sure you shouldn’t be somewhere else?”
    “I’m doing the job,” G-Eyed snapped. “Nobody knows where Laurie went to anyway.”
    “I never mentioned Laurie,” Lisa noted with a smug smirk. “But it’s good that you’ve been checking.”
    “Right,” rallied Goldeneyed bravely. “Let’s get on. Send in… Captain Walnuts…”

***

“I wasn’t sure you would come,” the Dark Knight admitted, slipping out of the darkness up on the balcony of the abandoned warehouse.
    “You wanted to see me,” answered Fin Fang Foom; or rather the intelligence that currently inhabited in the Makluan dragon’s body.
    “Yes, but I thought you might be sore because the King of Tales revealed that I’d got plans for taking you down if I had to.”
    “That’s just a sensible precaution. I certainly have plans for dealing with such attempts.”
    “And I wasn’t sure whether you’d want to discuss that arrest warrant out for me on the count of trying to nuke Gothametropolis.”
    “It seems a perfectly reasonable course of action to me,” the Devil Doctor admitted.
    “At the time it looked like the only way to bring down Resolution. Fortunately I didn’t get to do it before you found another way.”
    “As you say. So why did you call me?”
    “I have some interesting data from Badripoor to pass on. But before I do, I’m getting a little concerned about the Hooded Hood. He’s staying at the Lair Mansion now.”
    “Yes. Goldeneyed offered him sanctuary.”
    “And that doesn’t bother you? G-Eyed seems to be running the team more than you are these days.”
    “I have bigger concerns now,” the dragon promised. “My recent absence has given me the opportunity to reassess the direction of my life, to determine what my best long-term objectives might be.”
    The Dark Knight frowned. The speech patterns and syntax weren’t quite right for Andy Dean. It was almost as if he was reading his dialogue from some invisible cue-cards. “What objectives?” he asked cautiously.
    The dragon shrugged. “To tell the truth, I was thinking of settling down. Putting down roots. Starting a family.”
    “What?”
    “Yes, a proper breeding program, to spawn some little dragons of my own. I financed a programme long ago to explore the genetics of inter-species mating, as you may remember from that debacle last Valentine’s Day. Now I have all the data I need to implant Makluan sperm into a number of metahuman host females and have them gestate true Makluan dragons – up to the point where the drakelings grow too large for humanoid wombs and claw their way out, of course.”
    The Dark Knight was nobody’s fool. “Devil Doctor!” he worked out. “That’s the Devil Doctor speaking.” He thumbed the button that triggered the contingency bombs he’d laid around the warehouse in case Foom had tried to arrest him.
    Nothing happened.
    “As noted, I have plans for your precautions. I arranged for a few of my minions to look for and neutralise your contingencies,” the Devil Doctor explained. Then he breathed nuclear fire, running it across the whole gallery, wide enough and hot enough that no level of acrobatics could avoid it. The whole building exploded in a great gout of flame, and everything inside it was charred to ash.
    The dragon rose to his full height amidst the debris. He scooped down into the flames and seized up the charred corpse of the urban legend. Then with it clenched tight in one massive draconic claw he winged away before the first emergency vehicles could arrive and see him there.
    He was humming the Wedding March as he flew.

***

    “Everybody got everything?” Visionary asked his super-hero class. “Toothbrush, sleeping bags, spare costumes, packed lunch?”
    “I still don’t see why I can’t fly the Lairjet,” sulked Kerry.
    “Because we want to get there?” suggested spiffy, daring death.
    “I couldst have borrowed the goat chariot if I hadst not been grounded after that slight scratch from riding down the Fjossenbjeast,” muttered Harlagaz.
    “Trips out are exciting,” enthused Glory, the mutt of might.
    “This field trip counts for twenty-five percent of our grade,” Ham Boy worried. “I hope I studied hard enough.”
    “Anything to get us out of that stuffy, badly colour-coordinated classroom,” sighed Fashion Accessory. “I for one am very grateful to Fin Fang Foom for setting this trip up for us.”
    The Lairjet wobbled off the runway and sped away.

***

    The shouting was coming from outside the laboratory, which was unusual in Al B. Harper’s experience. Plus, the shouting didn’t seem to be directed at him, which was more unusual still. And the strangest thing of all, the angry shouts seemed to be coming from Yo.
    “Uncute-elder slime!” the pure thought being was yelling, stamping his/her foot in rage and going red in the face. “Nasty sticky-beasting!”
    In the corridor stood the Manga Shoggoth, swathed in bandages like the Invisible Man, dressed in an old smoking jacket. He was trying to maintain his concentration in the face of an angry Yo-being so as not to ooze out and mess the carpet.
    “What’s going on?” Al. B wondered hesitantly, amazed by the tableau outside his lab.
    “I am not sure,” the Shoggoth admitted. “I thought Yo was being friendly.”
    “Friendly!” shrieked Yo. “Is not to be being friendly to be saying what uncute Shoggothing was to be saying!” S/he pulled out her rapier and started stabbing the Shoggoth again and again through his smoking jacket. Little trickles of ooze seeped out.
    “What did you say?” Al asked wonderingly.
    “Yo asked me if I liked the present s/he gave me as a welcome to the Lair Mansion,” the elder beast answered in puzzled tones. “And I did.”
    “Is not all! Is not what he was saying!”
    “Well,” admitted the baffled Shoggoth. “I also said it had some interesting long-chain molecules that I could find interesting ways of recombining, and that I enjoyed breaking them down and examining them.”
    “Ah.” The truth began to dawn on the puzzled scientist. “Yo, did you by any chance give the Shoggoth your usual welcome gift?”
    “Yo is giving Shoggoth a cute fluffy bunny!” Yo agreed, angrily. “And he is to be…”
    “I thought it was wonderful,” the Shoggoth answered. “I internalised it very slowly to examine every last detail.”
    “Bunny murderer!” shrieked Yo, stabbing even harder with his/her rapier. “Uncute uncuting uncuteness!”
    “Um, I think I hear my experiment boiling,” Al B. lied quickly. “If I was you I’d go get someone to sort this mess out. Someone else. Who doesn’t have a… thing… he has to do. In his lab. An important thing. Someone who can help. G-Eyed. Yes, go see G-Eyed. Heh.”
    “I did not mean to offend you,” the Shoggoth assured the thought being. “If it helps I could regurgitate the cellular matter as a composite organic blob?”
    Al B hastily closed the door and hid under his lab bench.

***

    Bethany Shellett checked the peephole before opening the door of her modest apartment. “Bryan! What brings you here?”
    Goldeneyed was in civilian clothes and he looked uncomfortable. “I was just… in the neighbourhood. Passing. And I though maybe I’d come and see how you were. That you were okay. Since that whole Ultizon thing, you know?”
    “I’m fine, thanks,” the young teacher assured him. “I’d invite you in but I’m in the middle of dinner with someone.”
    Bry flushed. “Oh. Sorry. I didn’t think.”
    “It’s okay, no big deal. Maybe you should have called first?”
    “Yeah. I don’t know what’s wrong with me these days.”
    Beth looked closely at the hero. “How’s Laurie?” she wondered.
    “Gone,” G-Eyed said curtly. “She betrayed me. She had my baby and hid it from me. She deceived me about my own kid. Gave it away.” He stopped abruptly. He’d never meant to tell that. Certainly he’d not meant to blurt it at Beth’s doorstep while her dinner-date waited for her in the other room.
    “Oh Bry…” Goldeneyed waited for her sympathy but she went on, “Poor Laurie. She must be feeling terrible right now. You’ve got to talk this through with her.”
    “What?”
    “She really loves you, Bry. She’s never loved anyone else, so she needs you that much more. She gave up her future rather than spoil yours when the Hood tested her. If she hid her baby she was very foolish, but your part is to help her and get the child back for both of you, not to blame her for being damaged by all the horrible things that have happened to her.”
    “She lied to me,” argued Bry Katz.
    “And I’m telling the truth. Go find her. Sort things out.”
    G-Eyed looked stricken. “But… I came. To you.”
    Beth frowned at him. “Am I supposed to be flattered? Your other girlfriend didn’t meet your exacting standards so now I get a test run?”
    “No. That’s not what I…”
She glanced over her shoulder. “Look, I have a guest I need to get back to, and you need to go think about your life. When you’ve got your act together and decided what to do give me a call and we’ll talk, okay?”
    Goldeneyed shrugged. “Sure. Whatever. ‘Thanks’.” And he teleported away in a flash.
    “And take care, Bry,” Beth sighed to the empty hallway.
    Then she turned and went back to dinner. “Sorry to keep you waiting, Josh…”

***

    “Going out?” Fin Fang Foom asked Lania, the Legion’s PR spokescelebrity.
    “Some movie premiere my agent thought I should get to. I need exposure,” the woman in the sleek black evening dress replied.
    “Not that much more exposure,” the Makluan suggested, staring at Lania’s décolletage.
    Lania flushed a little and smiled. “Why Finny, you finally noticed.”
    “I guess I did,” agreed the Devil Doctor. “So let’s cut to the chase. Are you free for dinner one evening this week?”
    “What? Dinner? Finny, are you asking me…?”
    “A date. Yes. It’s time. Let us arrange an assignation, Lania my sweet. A rendezvous. A tête-à-tête. No more games. The real thing.”
    “Why Finster, this is all so sudden…”
    “I can’t resist you any longer, Lania. So let me dine with you. I can promise you an unforgettable night. “
    “Whew! Well, what can I say Foomy, but… yes.”
    Fin Fang Foom smiled a big draconic grin. “Excellent,” he growled.

***

    The SPUD damage repair team had replaced his front door, Sam Wilson noted, but they hadn’t got round to giving him a key for it. He was forced to resort to nervously ringing the doorbell of his own Hell’s Bathroom apartment.
    He was surprised when Reverend Mac Fleetwood answered it. “Nothing’s wrong,” the clergyman grinned as he saw Falcon’s face. “Just visiting with my new parishioner.”
    Then Sam saw Lindy Wilson peering anxiously from the living room. “Hi,” he called to his newfound sister.
    “Sam,” she said guardedly. Well she might be cautious, because Lindy had just jumped ten years into her own future from a time when her brother had been a drug-addicted petty criminal, only to be attacked by the ten-years-on Falko who had become an international mercenary. The regular Falcon version of Sam Wilson had put him down pretty hard.
    “Natalia Romanza called and asked me to look after Lindy while you were being cleared of those spurious charges against you,” Mac explained to Falc. “She thought Lindy needed a friend more than a bodyguard right now.” The pastor’s face sobered. “That was before poor Natalia ended up in intensive care.”
    “I hear she’s awake again now,” Falcon assured Fleetwood. “I’m still not sure it was Trickshot that put her there.”
    “The evidence seems overwhelming,” admitted Mac, “but then again so did the case against you. Have you checked with that Hooded Hood that he hasn’t done another of his malicious retrospective continuity changes?”
    “He says he hasn’t,” Sam reported. “Then again, this whole mess with Falko was the result of him not doing a retcon, so who knows? Anyway, the LL’s got their people on the case, so I guess it’ll all get sorted out eventually. And if it turns out it was Trickshot I’ll take him part personally if Drury doesn’t get at him first.”
    Fleetwood nodded. “I’d best be off, anyway. I just wanted to make my old new neighbour welcome. Bye Lindy. You know how to find me.”
    Belinda Wilson watched the clergyman leave. “We never had no preachers visiting before,” she noted with cautious approval.
    Sam looked at his new always-had-been sister. He remembered things that had been erased from his mind, images of her as a baby, a toddler, a growing woman. “It’s a brave new world,” he admitted.
    Lindy took a reflex step back as he moved towards her and the lounge.
    “It’s okay,” Sam assured her. “We’re both new at this. You’ve had a bad time of it. Now it’s gonna get better.”
    “Reverend Mac brought me some new clothes,” Lindy confessed half-guiltily. “I didn’t have to do anything for them.”
    Falcon recognised the faded Lair Legion sweatshirt that had to be one of Dancer’s donations. “You look just fine in them,” he assured his sister. “Come and let’s talk for a while.”
    In the living area Lindy had set up a branch of pine tree in a jam jar and decorated it with home-made paper trimmings. When she saw that Sam had noticed it she rushed forward to apologise. “I know it’s after Christmas,” she told him hastily. “They’d thrown that tree branch on the garbage pile. But…”
    “But we never did Christmas, did we?” Sam remembered. “Ever. Not since momma died, not always before that.”
    “No,” Lindy whispered. “So I thought… maybe if I got a little tree – not a big one to make a mess – well maybe… we could have a Christmas?”
    Sam couldn’t help grabbing his sister and hugging her. After her first frightened shriek she relaxed in his embrace then wrapped her arms round him to hug him with a little sob.
    “Merry Christmas, Lindy,” Sam told her.
    “Merry Christmas, Sam.”
    Lindy had come home at last.

***

    Trickshot checked the guards to make sure they were breathing comfortably and heaved them over to prop up against the wall.
    “So you came back,” Natalia Romanza declared from her hospital bed. She couldn’t move much because of the casts but she had an evens chance of pressing her call button before the archer stopped her. She didn’t press it.
    “Yes,” agreed Carl Bastion, being careful to keep his distance. “We gotta talk.”
    “I think we do,” agreed Natalia. “You never came to my house that night, did you?”
    “It wasn’t me whut hurt you, no,” Trickshot agreed. “You gotta believe me. I’d never do that ta you, princess.”
    “You would,” contradicted the injured Contessa, “but first you’d have to be betrayed by the woman you loved, murdered, twisted in some realm of undeath by the King of Stories, then claw your way back to Earth with your heart filled with hate and rage for the person who did that to you.”
    And just like that, Trickshot understood. “Deadshot.” He and Natalia had confronted his other self, the actual Trickshot from this timeline, in their recent travels far beyond the mortal world.
    “Yes,” admitted the Contessa. “I can’t prove it wasn’t you, Carl. Drury thinks I’m protecting you out of guilt for what I once did to my Carl. In fact I don’t know for sure even now whether you’re who you say you are or if you’re really my undead ex-husband back as he promised to hurt me some more pretending to be new Carl. But whoever you are, I’m going to tell the truth.”
    “It’s the real me, princess, the LL Trickshot. I just kinda busted outta the Safe and took out Drury’s perimeter guards ta come and straighten things between us.”
    “Maybe. Anyway, the truth’s the same, whoever you are. I took in the man who hurt me and I gave myself to him because I thought he was the living Carl Bastion. Not because it was my dead husband. Because I thought it was the person you claim to be. The arrogant, swaggering, big-hearted, dumb-headed, true-souled man who has somehow made himself into a hero so good that he can stand alongside gods and dragons and heaven knows what with nothing but a stick and a string and make a difference.” She breathed hard and bit back a gasp as her broken ribs rubbed. “So there. If you’re Deadshot you can kill me now knowing I’ve betrayed you again. If you’re not then at least you know the truth.”
    “Wow,” breathed Trickshot. “Talia…”
    Natalia Romanza had said her piece. She laid patiently and waited for her fate.
    “Whut can I say?” Trickshot asked her. “I’ll be back. First I gotta find that piece o’ slime who did this, an’ pin his undead ass to the wall so deep he’ll squirm there for all eternity. Then… we’ll talk.”
    “He said he had other business before he came back for me,” the Contessa warned.
    “Hey, if anyone can track me down, it’s me,” Trickshot assured her. “I’ll be back.”
    “One of you will be,” Natalia said to herself as the irritating archer swung himself away.

***

    “Hey there,” the affable young man asked the Concierge at the Paradopolis Hilton. “I’ve got a delivery of flowers here.”
    “What name?” the desk clerk asked.
    “Rose,” Deadshot answered carefully. “Desert Rose.”

***

    It was the witching hour, and the wind battered at the old shingle walls of Covenant House like banshees of hate. Whitney Darkness wasn’t asleep. There was no point.
    “He’s not coming,” Hagatha Darkness announced from the shadows of the bedroom. “Not tonight.”
    Whitney blinked at the intrusion. She gestured and the candle by the bed flared into light. “Grandmother? What are you doing here?”
    “Protecting you from nightmares, child,” Hagatha told her, “As always.”
    It was the most the two women had said to each other since the Witch of Covenant House had arrived at the Lair Mansion to claim custody of her wayward grand-daughter after Whitney’s attempts to raise her lover from the dead.
    “I’m a grown woman,” the Sorceress answered, staring into the shadows. “I don’t need protecting.”
    “Then you are anticipating your nightly whisper from Blackhurt?” Hagatha scorned. “Yes, child, I know of your bargain. You may have come into your inheritance now but I have a century of experience over you. You made a pact with the Prince of Fibs to borrow the power to push back the boundaries of death and nothing but ill came of it. Now you owe a debt to Blackhurt, that he can possess and use your body for twenty-four hours at some time of his choosing, and each night he visits to remind you of your coming horror.”
    “And you told me so,” Whitney admitted bitterly. “What a fool I am, eh?”
    “All lovers are fools,” Hagatha answered bleakly.
    Whitney turned over to hide her tears. “He wasn’t the same, grandmother. When I brought Jay back… he’d changed. Soured. Become evil.”
    “Really?” wondered the old woman. She turned abruptly to leave. “Blackhurt won’t be coming tonight at least. The wards are set. But I can’t prevent him from claiming what you freely offered, however misguided your reasons for agreeing to it. Get some sleep.”
    The bed felt cold and empty without Jay. “I’ll try,” Whitney promised; but she knew it would be in vain.
    Hagatha Darkness closed the door and went down into her parlour. There a small glass globe stood on a silver stand under a black velvet cloth. The witch pulled aside the cover and stared deep into the misty depths. “Show me Joshua John Clement,” she commanded.

***

    At the same time, Penelope Christadopolous tumbled from nowhere to fall naked and aching onto her bedroom floor. He long hair fanned across the carpet and she breathed heavily as she waited for the welts on her body to regenerate.
    “What the zlotlig happened to you?” Ziles gasped, seeing the blood-laced form of her team-mate suddenly appear in a flicker of starlight.
    The Pegasus moved so fast even Ziles couldn’t quite avoid her. The Xnylonian was pinned to the wall by the wounded winged woman. “What are you doing in here, intruder?” Penny demanded wrathfully.
    “I knocked,” Ziles gasped, trying to loosen the hand at her throat. “Really. Then I just kind of picked the lock to check you were alright.”
    “I do not appreciate uninvited visitors.”
    “I can tell. Are you going to throttle me or have we got over the angry avenger part yet?”
    Pegasus tossed Ziles across the room. The Xnylonian exile twisted nimbly to land on her feet and looked back at the still-sweating, blood-flecked warrior. “So since I actually am an uninvited visitor, you want to tell me what happened just now, and how you got so beat up like that?”
    Pegasus pulled on a robe with some dignity, covering her scarred body. “No,” she answered. “You may leave now.”
    Ziles sat cross-legged on the bed and remained determinedly there. “Look, I’m sorry about barging in. There was some stellar cartography stuff I needed to check with someone for… personal reasons and I figured you were the best bet, given you used to work for a cosmic outfit called the Constellation…”
    Penny flinched as Ziles mentioned the word, giving the Xnylonian a clue about what was happening. “Pegasus, did the Constellation hurt you like this?”
    “What is that to you? What star-maps did you wish to discuss?”
    “Never mind that for now. Pegasus… Penny… what’s happening?”
    “It is none of your business.”
    “Hello? Ziles here. Finding out secrets that are none of my business is my life. Come on, Penny, it looks like you could use a confidante. Let me be your friend.”
    The Pegasus wiped some of the blood from her face. Already the burns and gashes were healing up. In an hour she would be as good as new. “What do you want to know?” she demanded of the silver-suited intruder.
    “Everything, of course,” Ziles admitted with a half-smile. “Not only how you ended up looking like a carved-up slab of beef but the whole story. Were you really married to the King of Stories? Yuck!”
    “He didn’t always present himself in that blazing-skulled aspect,” Penny explained, “and I was always attracted to powerful men. When first we met in the Realms of Myth I was a young, somewhat naive creature of fantasy, and I saw in him what I wanted to see. It was only later that I also saw the cruelty.”
    “So you did the nasty with the Paradox Stranger.”
    “It was an act of defiance as much as of lust, a declaration that I would not be suborned, controlled, enslaved. Also, the Stranger is rather cute. I hadn’t expected the King to react quite as strongly as he did, but then the Stranger took the opportunity to filch something of value to my then-husband at the same time he was wooing me.”
    “So the King of Tales summoned the Wilde Hunt to drag you to eternal torment.”
    “Yes, that was one of a number of over-reactions of his. I briefly took refuge with the then-Destroyer of Tales, and when it became clear that Wilbur wouldn’t or couldn’t protect me then I made my oath to the Constellation.”
    Ziles nodded. “And it was the Constellation that gave you your cosmic energy powers and stuff.”
    “They never explained themselves, and I never asked,” Pegasus admitted. “I learned when you did that they were actually a manifestation of a different destiny for the Parodyverse in which the intruding Fairly Great Old Ones return for all time.” She glared at Ziles. “I don’t like intruders.”
    “But you broke the bond with them back when you brought us all with you to their presence, to save us from that nuclear blast?”
    “No. I only earned their wrath.” Pegasus fingered the long gash that stretched from her fingertip to her upper arm. “To have survived this long outside the Mythlands I had to use the cosmic force to enhance my own abilities of shapechanging and regeneration. I couldn’t live without the Constellation’s power now. And for one hour in every twenty-four I must abandon my earthly aspect and commune with them as pure energy to renew my power and receive my instruction.”
    “Even now?” Ziles wasn’t too happy about a team-mate working for the Fairly Great Old Ones.
    “It’s different now,” Penny confessed. “At first when I went back after learning the truth and spent my hour in agony with the Constellation I thought it was a punishment. Their vengeance on me for failing them, betraying them. It felt much longer than an hour and it hurt me in ways I never thought existed. But now… Ziles, I believe I’m feeling the agony the Constellation is experiencing. They are under attack, and all I’m receiving is a fraction of the hurt being inflicted upon them.”
    “You have to go through this every night?” Ziles worried. “Every single night? Why didn’t you say something, Penny?”
    “It is my problem. My penance. My price.”
    Ziles shook her head. “Now it’s our problem, Pegasus. The team. The family.” She thought hard for a moment and narrowed her eyes. “Maybe you and I can find ways of helping each other…”

***

    “I shall ask again,” the Wilde Huntsman announced to the blood-splattered B.A.L.D. data room. “Where can I find the creature known as the Pegasus?”
    But nobody was left alive in the red slaughter to answer him.

***

    Six of them were gathered round the conference table in the Lair Legion’s Meeting Room. Goldeneyed took the Leader’s chair in Fin Fang Foom’s absence. CrazySugarFreakBoy! lounged next to dull thud, across from Lisa and liaison officer Amber St Clare. Nats deliberately sat at the far end from Bry Katz.
    “This meeting will come to order,” G-Eyed announced, glaring at CSFB!’s yo-yo tricks for Cressida.
    “Where’s everyone else?” Nats demanded. “Peggy? Yo? Falc? Does Ziles even come to these meetings any more?”
    “Yo’s locked herself in her bathroom and won’t come out,” CSFB! reported worriedly.
    “Pegasus is still on sick leave. Trickshot’s on the run. Sorceress and Falcon are spending time with their families, a kind of compassionate leave,” G-Eyed explained.
    “I could have comforted Falc,” Lisa promised.
    “And no sign yet of Dancer,” Nats noted with a frown at the deputy leader. “It’s been what, four weeks? Five? And nothing from AG and Manny, or from Mumph, Xander, and L?”
    “We’ll cover that in the meeting,” Goldeneyed snarled. Nats was really irritating him these days. “Let’s get on without more interruptions, shall we?”
    “Where’s Finny?” Nats asked deliberately.
    “Doing important things,” G-Eyed answered. “He asked me to carry on.”
    “Can’t think why,” muttered Bill Reed, almost under his breath.
    “We’ll look at membership issues first,” Bry told them, “Then we’ll take on the issue of outstanding charges against LL current and former members…”
    “I’m not hunting down Tricky any more than I’d hunt down the Dark Knight,” CSFB! said in determined tones. “We should be helping him find his evil double to spank it instead of co-operating with a manhunt.”
    “The government requested our aid in dealing with a renegade,” Amber St Clare noted primly.
    “So? We’re not obliged to come runnin’ for the US authorities, are we? It’s right there in the charter?” dull thud objected.
    ~~Section Three, paragraph one,~~ Cressida the Wonder Worm confirmed. ~~The independence clause.~~
    “We’re thinking of omitting that clause,” Goldeneyed told them. “We’re negotiating now to be able to expand the LL into at least ten operating teams across the US and beyond, just for starters, and we can’t expect the same latitude with that kind of set-up that we’ve had as an ad-hoc group of dilettantes.”
    “Why wasn’t I told about this legal amendment?” Lisa Waltz asked dangerously. “I had to work off a lot of calories to get that clause included. And getting the video cameras in place was a real challenge.”
    “With respect,” Amber St Clare told her, “You’re not on the team these days, so Goldeneyed wasn’t obliged to consult you. You’re a legal advisor, yes, but not his only advisor.”
    “Because she doesn’t have a cowl, eh?” Nats argued.
    “With respect, eh?” Lisa repeated, glaring at Amber and stroking her indestructible ginger cat thoughtfully. The cat purred and clawed gouges in the table.
    “Look, what’s wrong with wanting to make the Legion stronger and more effective?” G-Eyed challenged. “We’ve got to get past this elitist attitude and look at the big picture.”
    “I already talked to Lesbian Liberator and the Global Guardians,” CSFB! enthused as the talk moved on to new members. “They’re willing to become the Seattle branch of the LL as long as they can keep their sponsorship ties to Mr Book. And I’m working on Sydney and my mom as well. Also I was thinking maybe we should find Pelopia, Priestess of Order, to see if she wants to join the L-team? Be a good gal? She’s be a great addition. We don’t have any bald women yet.” He glanced to thud “Well, except Cressida.”
    “You don’t feel maybe you’re thinking with your hormones?” Nats scorned. “Look, I know you developed a crush on the Word’s daughter while you were in Faerie, but…”
    “What’s wrong with thinking with hormones?” Lisa asked with a wicked little smile.
    “We’ll add her to the consideration list,” G-Eyed promised CSFB! “We’re also checking out Fetish Lad in Las Vegas about setting up a team there. We’ve contacted the JBH about them coming on board as an LL team. I’ll be meeting Jackie Rabbit next Monday. I’ve got people trying to track down the AL. We’re looking at a European branch. And there’s quite a few former members of the Purveyors of Peril who might be willing to reform for a commuted sentence.”
    ~~Won’t there be a few security risks if we induct people who tried to kill us just a few months ago?”~~ Cressida objected.
    “We’ll be introducing some proper psyche testing to screen members,” G-Eyed promised.
    “I could help with any tests required,” offered Lisa.
    “You talk big,” Nats told G-Eyed, pointing at him across the table, “but the Legion’s not getting better, it’s getting worse. We need to be helping Trickshot, and DK, and Pegasus, and Sorcy, and Yo, and Ziles, and Dancer, and the Manga Shoggoth, and seeing what’s wrong with Finny for that matter instead of trying to take over the world. How many of us are here now you’ve started this expansion programme? Four active members? How many of us agree with you?”
    Goldeneyed’s temper flared and he sprung to his feet. “Leadership’s not a popularity contest! It’s not about doing what the majority want. It’s about doing what everybody needs! Or are you really so selfish to preserve your little club that the rest of the world can go hang? Do you enjoy burying teammates at the National Cathedral?”
    “I don’t think it’s selfish to stop you wrecking the Legion and setting it up to help the Hooded Hood conquer the world!” Nats shouted back.
    “Hey, guys!” dull thud tried to interrupt. “Chill?”
    G-Eyed shook his head. “Not this time. He’s undermined what we’re doing once too often. Nats, you’re off the team.”
    “What?” CSFB! gasped, his eyes wide.
“He’s gone,” Goldeneyed repeated. “History. Canned. Fired. Expelled.”
    “You can’t do that,” Bill Reed argued, his face suddenly pale.
    “Technically he can,” Lisa clarified. “He’s deputing for the Leader, and the Leader decides on membership. Jarvis expelled The Man Who Wasn’t There and Space Ghost and Magnetic Techbird in his time.” She glared at G-Eyed. “Of course, it would be colossally stupid to do it.”
    “Your advice is noted,” Goldeneyed answered grimly. “Nats is out. Somebody escort him from the building.”

***

In Our Next Two Issues: It’s time to get cosmic with a capital K as we catch up on Dancer, Xander, Mumph, L., AG, and Manny in the Dead Galaxy; featuring a cast of Celestians, Constellation, planet-hooverers, heralds, doomed civilisations, crazed fanatics, disembodied dragons, winged horses, Xnylonian busybodies, and more. The end of the Parodyverse stats right here in Untold Tales of the Dead Galaxy Again: The Celestian Whodunnit.

For CrazySugarFreakBoy!'s tie in to this chapter go here.

For MangaCoolJason's tie in to this chapter go here.

***

Let the Footnotes Run Free:

Potential New Members: Some of the candidates mentioned in the story are familiar, although we haven’t had the joy of knowing Flatulence Lad or Huge breadstick yet. The Rakshasas are a race of mythological demons from the Vedic legends whom the Lair Legion encountered on their World Tour. The JBH are a loose confederation of heroes operating out of their sentient spaceship Vessel. The AL (Abandoned Legion) are an outlaw team of do-gooders helping a world that hates and fear them, or were until they vanished a while back. Fetish Lad is a Las Vegas-based crimefighter with a range of… specialised… equipment.

Dark Knight’s dilemma: During the recent battle against the King of Stories, the former Dark Knight/Fin Fang Foom partnership and friendship was strained by the revelation that DK had plotted ways of destroying the dragon if it became necessary. Since then the Dark Knight has made international law enforcement agency SPUD’s Most Wanted list, leading to disputes within the Lair Legion about whether they should try and bring him in. Don’t be discouraged by DK being crispy-fried in this episode. By the grace of the Chronicler of Stories, himself an alternate form of DK’s alter ego Greg Burch, the Dark Knight can regenerate even from death. All it costs him each time is a further shred of his humanity. The Devil Doctor knows this and can think of a number of fascinating experiments to do on a man who cannot die.

Beth Shellett is a Paradopolis schoolteacher, daughter of Police Commissioner Don Graham by his divorced wife. In one alternate future she was the wife of a crippled and dying Bry (Goldeneyed) Katz and mother of his children. She was recently rescued from the Shadow Cabinet by Josh (De Brown Streak) Clement.

Laurie (Lisette) Leyton, formerly an intern at Lisa’s law firm and later the LL’s legal advisor, left her post and the city after her lover Bry Katz discovered that she had concealed her pregnancy with his child from him and given the infant up to the hero-training Order of the Observing Eye. Laurie and Bry did not part on good terms. The same future that showed Beth married to Bry featured Lisette dying of a drug overdose in a Gothametropolis alley.

Lania, soap opera actress and minor celebrity, is currently acting as the Legion’s spokesmodel. I’m not sure when or how her obsession with Finny started, but it has certainly involved rivalry with other women interested in the dragon and at least one shower scene. I guess this is one for Andy or Whitney to reveal. Anyway, isn’t it nice that Lania’s finally getting a date with the dragon?

Reverend Mac Fleetwood is the pastor at the Zero Street Mission in Hell’s Bathroom, and my attempt to have one man of God in modern comics fiction who isn’t a hate-filled pervert fanatic maniac. Radical, eh?

The two Trickshots will get more explanation in UT#138 or so, but basically superspy Contessa Natalia Romanza seduced, married, and betrayed the Carl Bastion native to the main Parodyverse reality. He was murdered by Baron Zemo, remade as a twisted undead by the King of Stories, and escaped back to the realm of the living via Sorceress’ attempts to raise the dead. The Lair Legion’s Trickshot escaped from a dying alternate reality during an interdimensional crisis and was sent to the main reality through the manipulations of the Hooded Hood long after the original Bastion had died.

Desert Rose is a warrior ally and possible romance interest of the Lair Legion’s Trickshot. More of her in future footnotes.

the Secret Life of the Pegasus is outlined here in detail for the first time, for the record. The King of Stories was the first Chronicler of Stories, a cosmic officeholder, and now he is a sour dark personification of a creative gift gone bad. The Paradox Stranger is an interfering cosmic meddler of unknown origin with a liking for the ladies. The Wilde Hunt is a bloody, brutal phenomenon that can be summoned to implacably track, capture, kill, and eternally torment those it is set after. It’s bad news that they’re now on Earth. And isn’t it a shame that they’ve just ripped apart an enclave of the super-villain science baddies B.A.L.D.?

Expelled members: The Man Who Wasn’t There was a probationary member when he stole a winning lottery ticket from Jarvis. After his expulsion he joined the Scourge of the BZL, except for the part of him that became Carrington, the Shaper of Worlds. Carrington vanished leaving his post unfilled until Jury was appointed as new Shaper. TMWWT was retconned away when the Hooded Hood took out the Scourge for helping Zemo defy him.

Space Ghost was expelled for drunkenness, and although he occasionally helped out the Scourge he still lived in the Legion’s broom closet and participated in many of their adventures. After being virtually wiped out in the Technopolis campaign, Space Ghost got tired of being the pantsless drunken wonder and withdrew himself to a new identity, becoming a writer in London.

Mutate rebel Magnetic Techbird briefly joined the LL as a probationary member but got into a huge argument with then-leader Jarvis and tried to kill him. After a long career as the principal proponent of mutant rights he was finally captured by DarkHwk and Sir Mumphrey Wilton. He died trying to escape from his trial, although many mutants rights activists insist he still lives.

And of course, all these three protagonists were principal characters of now-missing posters, and are unlikely to return unless their posters come back. They are sorely missed.

Oh, and Nats? Well, we’ll have to pick that up at some future point I suppose, if anybody’s interested…

The Hooded Hood's Homepage of Doom
Who's Who in the Parodyverse
Where's Where in the Parodyverse

Original concepts, characters, and situations copyright © 2004 reserved by Ian Watson. Other Parodyverse characters copyright © 2004 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.