| #142: Untold Tales of the Lair Legion: The Destruction of Laurie Leyton Content Warning: There’s nasty things in this story, with sex, drugs, violence, and a little bit of bad language. Sadly no rock and roll. It was a hard story even to write so if this kind of material upsets or offends you then you might want to skip it and wait for the précis next issue. And I hope you know me well enough to realise that the attitudes, words, and deeds of some of the characters aren’t in any way endorsed or condoned by the author. You have been warned. Caveat lector. Previously in Untold Tales: Pegasus is gone, giving her life to stop Lord Resolution and Galactivac from destroying the Parodyverse with their battle. Fin Fang Foom is back to lead the Lair Legion after a long absence during which his deputy Goldeneyed steered the team through traumatic times with the advice of archvillain the Hooded Hood. Al B. Harper is missing, along with Legion support staff Art, Randy, and Mindy and a massive Abhuman technology nullifier. Ziles is present, but faces a difficult choice about her future. Dancer and Amazing Guy are absent somewhere amongst the stars. And Laurie Leyton, G-Eyed’s former lover, is lost; but more of that anon. There was a discreet cough behind him; except that it was Flapjack doing the coughing, so the hunchbacked servant made a noise a bit like a rat being strangled in a drainpipe. “Uh, master? I need to talk.” The cowled crime czar willed the Portal to shimmer back to starry blackness and turned to look down on his former minion. Before Flapjack had come to work as the Lair Legion’s butler the degenerate toady had been employed at Herringcarp Asylum, the Hood’s own seat of power. “What is it?” the archvillain demanded. “I have a full day ahead of me.” “I, um, I got a favour to ask. Well two. The second one is don’t destroy me for asking the first!” The Hooded Hood frowned. “If this is about Jennifer Aniston again…” “No! No. This is…” Flapjack was shaking as he spoke, raw terror making his yellow eyes wide. Sweat was causing his jacket to stick to his hump. “This is something else.” “Indeed? Speak then.” Flapjack was holding an unlabelled video tape in his trembling hand. “Do you have a VCR?” he checked, trying to stop his teeth from chattering. The Hood pointed to a corner where there had now always been an entertainment centre. “This had better be good, Flapjack.” Flapjack swallowed hard then limped over and fed the tape into the slot. He pushed Play then stepped back and watched the Hooded Hood was the cowled crime czar watched the recording. “Well?” the archvillain demanded when the tape was done. “What of it?” “Well, boss… master… sir…” stammered the terrified butler, “I think what you’re doing is wrong.” Then he screwed up his eyes and waited for the pain to start. “Indeed?” breathed the Hooded Hood. “Y-yes. I’m sorry. But it’s wrong. You have to stop this. You have to let that be stopped.” “Stop what, exactly?” the Hood enquired, staring at his former retainer with piercing green eyes. “Are you suggesting that I am responsible for the situation depicted on that tape?” “Y-yes,” winced Flapjack. “I am.” In the Pacific basin nation-state of Badripoor, Savagetooth hunkered down on a sofa next to Third Degree and tossed him a beer. “Right,” he told the pyrokinetic mutate sadist, “Watch this.” And he thumbed the remote control to start the tape. It was an amateur production, very grainy and hard to watch. The camera wobbled and the lighting made it hard to see what was going on. The sound hissed and almost drowned out the sounds the woman was making. “This is crap,” Third Degree snorted, taking a pull at his can. “Amateur crap. So some guy with a videocam tapes himself shlepping his girlfriend.” “Keep watching.” “Hell, she’s so stoned she doesn’t even know what’s happening to her,” Third Degree complained. “Nice body though,” he admitted reluctantly. “Just keep watching, bub.” The camera panned over the scene as the drug-addled girl writhed under her lover. She did pretty much as she was instructed when it was possible to make her understand what was required of her. Then the camera panned in for a close shot of her face. “Hey!” Third Degree called out, sitting forward with sudden interest. “I know her!” The picture on the video froze, then cut to a card with an international phone number on it. “Yep,” the voice-over said, “this is Laurie Leyton, the super-hero they call Lisette. And as you can see she’s a real obedient little girlfriend.” Savagetooth grinned as Third Degree swore in admiration of whoever had got a genuine hero-girl hooked on drugs. “Now she’s a real fine lay,” the voice on the tape continued, “but she’s getting a bit past her best, you know? So while there’s still some mileage in her I figured to see who else was interested in a drive. I’m planning a party. A real special party for Lisette. All her admirers are invited.” Third Degree took another drink and glanced across at the smirking Savagetooth. “Is this for real?” “VelcroVixen says yeah,” the vicious berserker answered him. “Just $20,000 gets you to this party,” the tape told them, “You get to dance with Laurie, much as you want, however you want. And when everybody’s all danced out, well then there’ll be an auction. And the lucky winner gets to make sure it’s Laurie’s last dance ever. Right there on tape. Copies will be available later for those who can’t make the live event, of course. So if you’d like to meet a real superheroine in person and thank her for all the do-gooding she and her super-friends have done, give the number a call. But have the cash ready.” The camera panned back to Lisette’s naked, sticky body. “This is the chance of her lifetime,” her boyfriend promised. “Don’t miss it.” Savagetooth tossed the phone over to Third Degree. “And how do you conclude that I am responsible for the degenerate actions of Ms Leyton and her current paramour?” enquired the Hooded Hood. Flapjack expected to die now. He had nothing else to lose. “Well… it wus you that kind of split up her an’ Goldeneyed,” he suggested. “You stacked things so she’d decide to hide her baby from him, so when G-Eyed found out he’d had a kid it was far too late to find it. You wanted Bry Katz cut off from all his friends so that he’d listen ta you about the Lair Legion, nobody else. And I gotta admit it was working beautifully until the real Fin Fang Foom came back.” “I have contingencies in place to deal with Fin Fang Foom,” the Hood promised. “Right. I shoulda known. But master, you gotta cut G-Eyed loose. You gotta let him go an’ save Laurie.” “I thought you enjoyed superhero porn?” the Hood challenged him. “Well, I’m as red-blooded as the next leerin’ lusting hunchback minion,” admitted Flapjack with a vile smirk. “But this is… well, I know Laurie. And this ain’t porn, it’s snuff. And she don’t deserve it.” “So you wish me to alter my brilliant long-conceived plans in order to save one broken woman out of all the world of lost souls simply because you knew her?” “Y-yes. And not destroy me too, please!” The Hooded Hood could smell Flapjack’s terror. “And why should I do that? I am, after all, an archvillain. I have already destroyed one superheroine today.” Flapjack winced. “Because… because what they’re planning for her. .. what they’re doing… it’s not classy,” babbled the hunchback. “It’s not worthy of an archvillain.” The Hooded Hood cradled the tips of his fingers and leaned back in his throne. “I see. You may go.” Flapjack looked up warily. “Go? As in go? Alive?” “As in now.” The Lair Legion’s major domo scuttled for the door. But he paused in the entranceway. “And Laurie…?” he asked desperately. “Go.” In the shadowy alleyways of Hogan, Gothametropolis’ notorious red light district, Toenail Alley led to a dark archway and a narrow flight of stairs down into an unmarked cellar bar known as Grosso’s. It didn’t advertise it’s existence because like many of the drinking establishments in this part of the city it catered to a very specialist clientele. And like many of the local members-only bars the patrons often wore bizarre costumes and liked inflicting pain and were more than familiar with handcuffs. Except that Grosso’s was a super-villain bar, where metahuman outlaws could gather for a quiet drink, some gambling, to look for work, and to exchange the gossip of the criminal underworld. It had run for seven years and had never been raided. There was a flash of golden light, and suddenly everyone in the room was waist-deep in a thick, sticky, translucent goo. “What?” shrieked Professor Manyarms. “What is this? I just had this lab coat washed!” Goldeneyed was perched on the bar, where he’d just disarmed Grosso by the simple method of punching him through a wall. “This is a raid,” the deputy leader of the LL answered. “You’re all under arrest. Don’t try moving until the nice SPUD officers arrive to read you your rights.” A dozen or more super-villains reached for their weapons or began to invoke their special powers. They all stopped and screamed as their pants began to dissolve as the gunge they were caught in turned caustic. “I should add that the stuff you’re stuck in, that’s the Manga Shoggoth,” G-Eyed advised them. “You really don’t want him oozing any more unless you’re really missing that prison social life. The Shoggoth is our newest Legionnaire.” “Hello, everybody,” bubbled the Manga Shoggoth, swirling round the legs of the stricken supervillains. “What a lovely place you have here. I believe that’s the right social protocol for a first visit to somebody’s personal domain, yes?” Then it was all over but the SPUD processing team doing their work. “Not a bad haul,” Dan Drury admitted as he watched them drag the felons away. “Too bad it wus a quiet night.” “This was really only a training exercise for us,” G-Eyed told the Director of the Super-menace Principal Undercover Directorate. “An orientation for the Shoggoth. We learned about Grosso’s from a defunct alternative future and we figured to pay a visit. If most of the team wasn’t on another case we might have tried something a bit more elaborate.” “Yeah, that Antarctica hole thing,” Drury nodded. “Glad they’re lookin’ into it.” The Manga Shoggoth pulled himself back into a gelid blob and towered over the mortals. “If we’re done here I should really be getting back to the other team,” he admitted. “Now I’m cut off from my larger biomass I can really only animate one significant plasmoid at a time, and the lairjet is almost there.” “Sure, no problem,” G-eyed assured him. “You did good here. Great start.” “It was interesting being teleported through the electromagnetic shift paradigm,” the Shoggoth said thoughtfully. “Very different from how I would have redefined timespace.” “Er, yes,” nodded G-Eyed. The newest Legionnaire was proving useful but he still made Bry Katz want to run and hide behind a sofa. “It was an interesting experience teleporting you in too. All those… unexpected dimensions you have.” I’ll go and puke later he added mentally. “Well, I must redesignate my corporeality,” the Shoggoth told them. Then he shrunk down to a small gooey blob, and kept diminishing until even that folded in on itself and he was gone. In a Lairjet on the other hemisphere, Falcon swore and dropped his coke as the Shoggoth expanded from a neat matchbox-sized blob to his full dimensions. One of the SPUD forensics technicians called out from Grosso’s back room. “Colonel, Mr Goldeneyed!” He emerged carrying an unmarked videotape. “I think you might want to take a look at this.” In the darkest part of the night Ziles slipped from her bed and made ready. She phased into the deterior realm, the other part of her existence that made her effectively invisible to humans. She didn’t use the power much because she didn’t want to attract the attention of the gahreams that searched for her; but it didn’t matter now. Finny’s room was just down the hall. Her sensors told her the huge dragon was sleeping, but the rough draconic snore was enough to assure her of it. She overrode the protection devices on his door as easily as another person might turn a key, and slipped inside. Foom lay curled on a king-sized bed covered with books and papers and computer discs. All dragons sleep on their treasure. He was in his half-human form, curled almost in a circle with his wings pressed up over his eyes. He stirred in his sleep and for a moment Ziles thought he might awake even though she was cloaked from him. How good were draconic senses anyway? Could they smell fear? Could they smell tears? Ziles looked at the white sheet of paper in her hands. For a moment the alien alphabet – alien to her and to the Makluan dragon sprawled before her, not to the people of this planet – seemed so much gibberish to her. But then the words formed and she read them to herself one more time: it's not a easy thing to do being here with you i've been thinking i should go you have better things you need to do you keep me wondering what you ever saw in me or why i ever believed in the possibility of you and me should i keep on trying or is that a crazy thing to do why should it be so hard to be in love with you should i say i'm sorry is it something i shouldn't have put you through if i left would you be happy it was never something i intended it's not an easy thing to do so now i'm crying wondering if it's through we were so good together is this the end, was it overdue i don't know what went wrong or even when i feel in love with you all i know is i miss you It was a farewell note, of course, but she couldn’t leave it. She crumpled it in her hand and angrily pushed it back into her jumpsuit. Instead she crept forward and climbed onto the bed. She crawled over to Andy and curled for a moment inside the great circle of his sleeping form, secure and content and surprised how right it felt. She lifted her head and gave him one silent kiss. It seemed to her that she had dreamed this moment long before, back when she had been new on this world, when the delirium of the toxins her enemies had placed into her was still fresh. She wondered now how much more of what she’d seen then had been prophesy too. “Goodbye,” she mouthed noiselessly. And then she was gone. Carlos wasn’t so bad, Laurie decided as she lay huddled on her dirty bed and shivered. Neither was Raoul. But Paulo was a pig. She was cold, and it was more than her nakedness that caused it. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d been warm. She couldn’t remember the last time she could keep food down. She wondered how long it was before her next hit, because that would make the hurting stop for a while. She almost said the name, and had to bite her tongue to stop herself. She wanted to say the name, like a talisman to make the bad things go away, but she wasn’t fit to say it. Wasn’t fit to even think it. Laurie Leyton shuddered some more. She was in the first stages of heroin withdrawal and the cramps would start soon. Carlos sometimes held back her drugs so she’d remember why she had to obey him. That way she was more grateful and willing when he was kind enough to send her back into the haze of oblivion. She wanted to be sick, but there was nothing in her stomach to wretch up. She wanted to cry, but all her tears were gone. She remembered crying before, when she’d said goodbye to her beautiful baby, when she’d handed the little bundle over to the kind man in the brown robes of the Order of the Observing Eye. They’d look after it, he promised. They’d see it fostered and cared for, trained in due course if it turned out to have superhuman powers like its father Gol… Laurie winced. She’s almost said it, the name, even if it was just what he called himself when he put on the all-black costume, so tight-fitting and heroic. She’d almost said the name of the man she’d betrayed, wounded, maybe destroyed. She curled up more as the first of the muscle spasms started. The handcuff attaching her to the chain on the bedpost cut into her flesh but what were a few more bruises? She deserved them anyway. She knew that. She deserved what they were going to do to her. She deserved to die. Maybe she’d let herself say the name one last time, at the end. Surely he wouldn’t mind that, just once? Maybe she’d get to say it soon. Dancer and Amazing Guy were hanging at the edge of the devastated starfield, barely keeping the last remnants of AG’s energy wall intact after their ordeals. That was where ManMan found them, piloting up the Galactibus loaned from the Lunar Public Library. Sir Mumphrey Wilton dragged the last survivors of the Resolution conflict aboard. “Hey, Manny,” smiled Dancer blearily from the floor of the space transport. “Took your time.” “We had to deal with a few intergalactic conflicts first,” the Elvis impersonator shrugged. “Now Resolution’s gone all those alien races that hate each other but were co-operating with him aren’t co-operating any more. And Lee’s IOL are kind of freaking at being controlled and at trying to actually delete data. But it’s over now.” “No…” muttered AG as he lay recovering. “It isn’t.” “What happened here?” Mumph wondered, looking out at the burning mess that had once been the edge of known space. “Where’s Miss Christodopulous?” “Dead,” answered Dancer, with a little sob. “She said she had a plan to stop what was happening. Turned out it was to use some gadget…” “The Galactic Nobbler,” footnoted Amazing Guy, “a weapon of last resort to halt Galactivac.” “Yeah, that thing. It has to be triggered up close and personal,” Dancer explained. “So she did it.” “That sounds like Pegasus in determined-warrioress mode,” admitted Knifey, ManMan’s sentient weapon. “Well, I hope her sacrifice got her a top place in wherever myths go after they die.” “At least she took out Resolution once and for all,” ManMan declared. Amazing Guy sat up and shook his head. “Actually…” he sighed. Goldeneyed teleported back to the Lair Mansion to call an urgent meeting. He was surprised when he got there to find it was already starting. “Come in, Bry,” called Fin Fang Foom. “We have some urgent business to attend to.” “I know,” G-Eyed assured him. “I need to… uh, you have urgent business too?” “Just a minute,” called Visionary. “I just need to plug in this module and retire immediately. I just… aaah!” He jumped back as he switched on NTU-150’s new Privacy Assurance Field and danced up and down until the flames on his fingers went out. “There, we’re all cosy now,” Lisa assured them. “What’s up Fin?” “A bunch of things,” Finny told them. “Our squad in the Antarctic haven’t found any sign of Al B., Mindy, Art, and Randy, but they have worked out that somebody’s boosted an Abhuman Technology Suppressor.” “That’s how the Savage Land keeps stone-age, right?” Vizh checked. “So now it’s discovered DVDs?” “It’s one of several devices,” answered the dragon. “Apparently the others are taking up the slack, still preventing all electrical impulses other than those that occur inside living organisms and weather systems. I’ve sent the guys to check they’re okay. But that’s only one problem.” G-Eyed interrupted. “Fin, I need to…” “We’ve just had word from Amazing Guy and Dancer,” the Makluan went on. “Pegasus is dead.” The room went dead quiet. At last, Lisa asked, “How?” Foom explained what they knew in clipped, concise terms. “Although AG thinks the Resolution prophecy will just find another way to manifest again soon,” he concluded. “Pegasus…” said Visionary. “So that’s why the banshee was howling.” “And to complicate matters further,” added the dragon, “Ziles is gone.” “Again?” snorted G-Eyed. “Is she ever here these days? I mean…” “Permanently gone,” Finny told him. “She’s taken her things, all of them, and left behind her membership card and code keys.” Lisa leaned over to Finny delicately. “Have you tried looking to see if any of her things are somewhere else?” she suggested. “Your apartment in the city, for example?” “I know Ziles has been squatting there,” Finny snorted. “I’m not dumb. And I didn’t mind. Her things are gone. She’s gone. She came to my bedroom to say goodbye.” Lisa raised an eyebrow. “Did she now?” “I smelled her as soon as she came in, but I pretended to be asleep,” growled the Makluan. “She’s gone back to Xnylonia. And she was frightened.” “So we go after her and help her,” Visionary determined. “Or better yet, you do.” “Hold it,” Lisa interrupted. “I smell a Hooded Hood diversion here. He was doing pretty well with G-Eyed until Finny got back, and now suddenly there’s a great reason for Andy to leave again.” “Doesn’t matter,” said Goldeneyed roughly. “I’m taking a leave of absence for a few days too. Whatever you say. I’ve got to go find Laurie.” And in a few terse words he explained about the tape and Lisette’s intended fate. “Then yeah, you have to find her,” Lisa agreed. “Now. Go. What are you waiting for?” “Teleport to the phone booth on Seventh and Grim in GMY,” Finny advised him. “Dial this number.” “Who is it?” Bry asked. “Somebody you want to arrest,” answered the leader of the Lair Legion. “Pray he can help you find Laurie in time. Then tell him I need his Knightjet” “You’re going after Ziles?” Visionary approved. “Yeah. We’re not having another grand self-sacrifice.” “I agree in principle,” admitted Lisa, “but the LL’s going through some rough times. They need leadership. Oh, get out from under the table, Vizh. I mean competent leadership.” “Hey!” “You, Lisa?” Finny asked speculatively. The first lady of the Lair Legion shook her head. “I’m pretty sure the Hooded Hood is prepared for that. I think he’ll have plans for whichever leader of the LL we reappoint, and have something up his sleeve to deal with them.” Her face blossomed into an evil, brilliant smile. “So here’s who I suggest to take temporary leadership of the Lair Legion till Finny gets back…” “Nice to see so many Lisette fans here tonight,” Carlos Escalente grinned at the crowded room. The venue was a nameless bar across the Mexican border, a hot sweaty place that reeked of stale beer and cigarette smoke. Paulo was in the corner locking away the last of the money in a steel case, over a million dollars so far from more than forty men who had travelled across the globe to rape and murder Laurie Leyton. And the auction for the painful bits hadn’t even started yet. Raoul nodded to the little man in the B.A.L.D. uniform and the hired technician closed the circuit that sealed the area with a force field. It was costing plenty but guaranteed no interruptions, even from teleporters. The video cameras began to whirr. “Get on with it, bozo,” growled Race War, a South African mercenary with a mutate ability to generate psychic needles. “We got a lotta fun ta get in.” The room stirred angrily, prompting Carlos to get on with the main event. “Okay guys, we got ourselves a few ground rules,” Carlos went on. “When we bring out Lisette there’s gonna be a little draw, and that’s the order you get to have her in teams of three, right? You each get fifteen minutes to start with, and don’t mess her up too bad cause she’s got a long way to go tonight.” There was a rough round of laugher and some raucous comments. “When you all feel you’ve got your moneysworth we have a few little displays arranged that you can help in, with some real special equipment,” Carlos promised them. “And after that it doesn’t matter as much about keeping the little lady in one piece. That’s when we hold the auction for the lucky guy or consortium that’s gonna go all the way, if you know what I mean.” “Yeah, great,” snarled Savagetooth. “We already heard all this when we bought in. Now bring out the bimbo!” Paulo hurried into the backroom and hustled Laurie out under the blazing spotlights. She tottered on her six inch heels and blinked at the dazzling glare. A loud cheer of anticipation rose from forty or more throats. Lisette tried to focus. Carlos had decided to hold back on the medications. A lot of the guys would want to hear her screaming. She knew enough now to realise what was happening to her. She tried to figure the chain of events that had led from a simple date with a guy who’d let her cry on his shoulder to this but her brain still wasn’t thinking right. But she knew one thing. “Carlos,” she said with a dry throat that was almost closed with terror, “You’re a shit. I hope you die.” Carlos slapped her on the rump. “I’m a rich shit, bitch. And you are definitively going to die. At the end.” “Enough of this!” Sweatbath shouted, throwing his beer can onto the stage and soaking the filthy mattress that was set there ready for use, “Strip her down! Let’s see her!” And the rest of the audience joined in the chorus. Paulo had to undo Lisette’s handcuffs to get her blouse off, and at that moment she made a feint and tried to catch him in the throat with an elbow; but her body betrayed her and she toppled over to hoots and catcalls from the men that watched. Brutal hands tore at her clothing. A stinging blow smacked across her cheek. And Laurie Leyton whispered the forbidden word. “Bry.” They were dragging her to her feet by her hair and Carlos was pulling her over to the manacle posts when the explosion happened. The power gauges on the force field generator spiked into the red as a gas tanker fell from forty thousand feet directly atop the glimmering shell about the bar. The burst of flame was the gas ignited lit the hall as brightly as day and left those inside blinking and dazed. But the force field held good. Except that just outside the shimmering barrier Goldeneyed could see the force field equipment. And while it prevented him teleporting through the shield he was able to concentrate and shift the expensive equipment from one side of the room to the other, shearing it from its power supply. The invisible wall twisted and broke and G-Eyed teleported onto the stage. Laurie blinked, unsure whether this was happening for real or not. Goldeneyed hammered a full swing right into Carlos, crumpling the pimp’s nose and jaw and shattering his cheekbone. Escalente tumbled out of the circle of spotlights and did not rise again. “Right, I’m Goldeneyed of the Lair Legion,” Bry Katz said in a deadly flat voice. “Every one of you is under arrest, and if any of you try to resist I will use deadly force to contain you.” He glanced at Lisette shuddering by the manacle post on the stained mattress. “That’s the mother of my child, so if any of you think I’m kidding I swear it’ll be the last thought you ever have.” But the lust-roused room of super-powered criminals was not so easily cowed. Savagetooth was the first to leap forward, while Fleshcrawler, Race War, Third Degree, and Sweatbath were only a second behind. Goldeneyed’s eyes flashed and a quarter ton of pressurised molten magma from the planet’s core gated in to the midst of the villains. It exploded like a giant flame grenade, spraying heated rock hot enough to liquefy flesh amongst the felons. Sweatbath was amongst those covered by the cloying material and screamed once as his face was seared away. Savagetooth dodged it all with casual ease and laced his claws across Bry’s chest. “I got me adamanatine bones, boy, an’ it take more than some itty burns ta stop me,” the berserker gloated. “After I carve you I’m gonna git me a piece of your girlfriend.” G-Eyed gasped as the claws hammered though his chest towards his heart. Or perhaps it was a snarl. He caught hold of Savagetooth’s vaunted unbreakable skeleton and teleported it ten feet away. Then he rolled aside and shrugged off the gristly blubbery things that gasped and oozed atop him. “No bones now,” Bry hissed. Then Fleshcrawler caught him, locking him in place so he couldn’t move. “Nasty boy,” the science villain approved as he came forward to check his handywork. Fleshcrawler could manipulate skin by touch, sculpting it like clay. If he’d ever really been human he wasn’t now. “Of course, that’s not going to save you from becoming my masterpiece.” “Hold him like that,” shouted Race War. “I got me a taste for a piece of hero ass.” Goldeneyed concentrated and teleported Race War inside Fleshcrawler. Both of them fell back, a gruesome amalgamation of arms and legs, both trying to scream with the same throat. The room was still filled with volcanic fumes that clouded what was going on. Paulo pulled a quite ordinary revolver from his waistband. If G-Eyed didn’t see the bullets coming he could die from them like anybody else. A lance of flame burned our of the smoke, catching Bry unawares, searing a neat hole through his right shoulder. Third Degree stalked out of the inferno flicking gobbets of lava from his body. Heat meant nothing to one who could generate it at will. G-Eyed staggered back and tried to stop his body from shutting down. Only his fury was keeping him going. Paulo took careful aim and fired at his head. But Lisette was there, bloody and dishevelled, dragging her tormentor’s arm aside. The bullet went wide, winging Third Degree. “Moron!” screamed the thermal villain, searing Paulo into a pillar of flame and clutching his reddening arm. Goldeneyed kicked out, aiming at the wounded limb. Then he kidney-punched the mutate and brought his knee up as his enemy doubled over to catch him in the throat. Third Degree went down before G-Eyed’s legs betrayed him. “Bry!” screamed Laurie. She started to run to him but Raoul caught her by the waist and hauled her away. “It’s over, darlin’,” he hissed at her as the remaining villains moved forward to surround the wounded hero. “Looks like these folks get two snuffs for the price of one.” Goldeneyed tried to struggle as they started to kick him. “BRY!” Lisette screamed, struggling with her last desperate strength to get loose of her tormentor and somehow shield Goldeneyed. He had come for her. After all she’d done he hadn’t let her die. She had to do something for him, anything. Raoul laughed. The laugh was cut short as a whip wrapped itself around his throat and jerked him backwards off the stage. “Well now,” said Liza Waltz at the other end of the lash. “This looks like a job for the Lair Legion.” That was when Fing Fang Foom ripped the roof off the bar. The Falcon swooped down and did something violent to the BALD operative with the laser pistol. Trickshot dropped straight on top of the scrum of villains about G-Eyed. “L-lisa?” Lisette stammered in disbelief. “What, you thought Bry was the only one who cared about you, Laurie?” the first lady of the Lair Legion grinned. She was even smiling when she jerked Raoul towards her and showed him a new use for a stiletto heel. “And you thought the LL wouldn’t be there to back you up when you needed us the most?” Fin Fang Foom asked Goldeneyed as he heaved him from under the pile of fallen villains. Goldeneyed ignored Trickshot’s attempts at caring for him with a field medical kit and half-limped half-staggered over to Lisette. “Laurie?” “Bry? You came!” “Yeah. Of course I came. It took me a while to get my priorities straight, but… I’m there for you. For all my friends. Always.” The two bruised and wounded people clung to each other for a moment and let the world flood on by. Falcon turned to the cameras and grinned. “And that’s a wrap,” he told them before smashing them to bits. The Hooded Hood allowed his Portal of Pretentiousness to darken once more. So the Leyton girl was saved, safe again in the care of those who might support her through her detoxification and long recovery. And the Lair Legion, so carefully sundered by long preparation, was almost coalescing again. That had to be stopped. After all, the Legion could be much better tools given the right motivations than the Purveyors of Peril had ever been. The cowled crime czar took his seat in his throne and waited for the knock on the door. In some of the divergent futures the Hood could glimpse as a consequence of his retrospective continuity powers, a variety of new pro-tem leaders would be coming to face him any moment now. Whichever member of the Lair Legion it turned out to be there was a set of contingency plans already waiting to be unleashed. He cradled his fingers together in anticipation. Lisa would be the most fun, of course, but Visionary might be diverting also. Or Nats, with so many vulnerabilities to exploit. Perhaps Dancer was back and willing to try her hand against a foe more implacable than the Living Death That Sucks? Or maybe it would be the Sorceress, stained and sorrowing and ripe for manipulation? The Hood briefly entertained the one convoluted future that might uncoil if it turned out to be CrazySugarFreakBoy! at the door. There was an authorative rap and the new acting leader of the Lair Legion stalked in without even waiting to be bidden.” “Ah there you are, Hooded Hood,” said Sir Mumphrey Wilton. “We have a few things to straighten out, you blaggard!” Next Issue: In one of those annoying happening-at-the-same-time deals we see what’s going on with the Legionnaires sent due south and with the kidnapped support staff they’re looking for. Yes, at long last we give Balefire and his gang of malevolent misfits a bit of screen time. We even get to see his newest recruits, including some familiar Parodyverse poster-characters. And the Lair Legion gets yet another new houseguest. Those bathrooms queues must be getting epic. Anyway, it’s coming up in Untold Antarctic Tales of the Lair Legion: Something Abhuman This Way Comes. A Footnote By Any Other Name… So Sir Mumphrey’s a Member of the Lair Legion Now? Well… no. By a bizarre constitutional twist, Finny’s allowed to name a substitute leader while he’s on leave. It doesn’t say anywhere that this leader actually has to be a member. So since the Hooded Hood has prepared for whichever member Finny appoints, and Finny knows that, he decided to think outside the box. Sneaky, eh? More on this n future issues, obviously. But At Least Some Villains Bit the Dust Some. I’m guessing that Sweatbath and Race War are history unless somebody wants to resurrect them very much, but Fleshcrawler has come back from worse than this before, Third Degree has been captured alive, and Savagetooth’s healing factor may keep him going even without a skeleton. It’ll be a long nasty painful process to put it back in again should any archvillain decide to sponsor the project. But figure that quite a few unnamed baddie bit the dust in this fracas. G-Eyed will probably have to face an enquiry for his use of deadly force, but I think he’s got a good case for having little choice given the odds against him. And hey, he warned them. And Ziles is gone? Ziles is returning to Xnylonia for what she believes will be her last adventure, having left behind everything she’s learned to care about since she first fled her home. And nobody can help her, right? Well, that’s what she thinks anyway. And let me take this opportunity to credit Mandi (Ziles’s poster) for the poem her character reads in the story above. The board’s been too quiet on the poetry front recently. 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. |
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