| #144: Untold Tales of Sir Mumphrey Wilton and His Remarkable Lair Legion Previously: Adventure and hardship, assisted by the Hooded Hood, have scattered the Lair Legion far and wide, leaving the team ripe to be “advised” by the archvillain. Pegasus has died saving the universe from Lord Resolution. Ziles has left to return to her homeworld and a dire fate, but Fin Fang Foom is determined she will not face it alone. Goldeneyed has rescued Laurie (Lisette) Leyton from destruction but still has to help with her heroin addiction. Al B. Harper and some of the team’s support staff have been captured by the villainous Balefire, along with an Abhuman technology-suppressing engine. CrazySugarFreakBoy!, Sorceress, Yo, dull thud and Cressida, Nats, and the Manga Shoggoth are returning from the Antarctic without having found them, but with new ally Uhuna, Princess of the Abhumans. And Finny has appointed an unexpected new acting leader to serve in his absence…  It is only in our decisions that we are important. Jean-Paul Sartre “Good Evening, Hooded Hood,” said Sir Mumphrey Wilton pre-emptively. The cowled crime czar looked at the new acting leader of the Lair Legion who stood in the doorway. An ageing, portly Englishman in country tweeds and an old fashioned waistcoat, carrying a gold fob-watch on a chain, he hardly seemed the hundred and sixty-odd years old he truly was. Then again, there were very few who knew that Mumphrey Wilton KBE GCB GCMG CGVO FRS was the Keeper of the Chonometer of Infinity, one of the minor cosmic offices to which mortals were appointed. “I was not aware that you had become a member of the Lair Legion,” the Hood noted neutrally. The eccentric Englishman shrugged. “I’m not. Young Finny just asked me to lead ‘em for a while.” He looked at the grey-mantled archvillain and added, “Feeling was you’d be prepared for whatever Legion member actually stepped forward to take the job, and as you know I have this little pocketwatch-thingie that tells me when time and space get fiddled with. Or retconned.” “You think you are safe from my power?” “I think if you try something I’ll know in time to break your nose before you get me, Winkelweald, and to make sure the Legion knows you’re up to your old tricks.” “Perhaps.” Mumphrey sauntered into the Lair mansion guest room where the Hooded Hood had been staying since his return from the dead. By the cowled crime-czar’s influence the neat small room had become a vast echoing gothic chamber. “So what are you doin’ here, Hood?” Mumph demanded. “Just now? I was reviewing the works of Sartre. You might not have heard of him. He’s French.” “Man is condemned to be free, because once thrown into the world, he is responsible for everything he does,” quoted the old soldier. “No, never heard of the blighter. Why are you here, Hood?” Ioldobaoth Winkelweald shifted in his throne. “My presence makes you uncomfortable?” “Never liked smarmy cads who think they’re cleverer than the rest of us, so what do you think? Why are you here?” “Is this because I once arranged for you to be certified insane and imprisoned in my mental asylum for electroconvulsive shock therapy and deprogramming?” “No, mainly it’s because you’re a slimy villain no more fit to live on God’s clean Earth than a weasel and you’re stinkin’ up the Lair Mansion. And avoiding my question, by the way.” The Hooded Hood bristled. “Nobody speaks to me that way,” he warned. “You should get out more,” retorted Mumph. “You might fool the young ‘uns with that veneer of scholarly reserve and that self-servin’ code of so-called honour but I’ve been spotting bastards for a long long time and I can tell a thoroughgoing rotter when I smell one.” “It must be pleasant to have such a lofty view from such high moral ground,” noted the Hooded Hood. “How fortunate that you have never done anything shoddy or dishonest, never served an unjust cause nor a selfish whim.” Mumphrey stroked his moustaches. “It’s because I’m a bit of a bastard that I can spot a total one,” he answered. “And I won’t ask again what you think you’re doin’ here in the Lair Mansion.” “Good, because it was becoming tedious trying to slow down my thought processes to a level you could cope with,” answered the Hood. “No, instead I’ll just sling you out so you can slink back to that malodorous asylum of yours and gnaw away at yourself as you entangle yourself in ever more ridiculous plots,” concluded Mumphrey. “I don’t believe you will,” the archvillain assured him. “I don’t believe you can.” “Leader of the Lair Legion,” Mumph reminded his adversary. “I’ll just ask the full roster to come down here and eject you. You can probably put up a good fight agin’ em, but that’s the end of your plots to infiltrate and divide and conquer the team, isn’t it? That is what you were plannin’ to do, wasn’t it?” “Leader,” smirked the Hooded Hood. “So the crushing loneliness of a life after Marjorie and the boredom of an eternity trapped in the body of an old man have finally provoked you into trying to recapture past glories, have they?” Mumphrey coloured. “Let’s say I came out of retirement for a moment because I thought I could help with a spot of vermin control, eh?” “And because it gives the illusion that you still have some relevance in a time that has passed you by. It helps you overlook your screaming anachronism.” “If you like, Hood. Difference between you an’ me is, I’m welcome at the Lair Mansion.” “I suppose the idea that I was making a contribution to the benefit of the Lair Legion and to the world never occurred to you?” “Not for a second, Hood. Oh, I suppose some of what you did had good outcomes, but I don’t doubt for an instant that all of it was to further your own convoluted agenda. Or are you givin’ me your word that it wasn’t?” The Hooded Hood leaned forward, his eyes narrowing with anger. “I saved the Lair Legion, old man, saved the world against Resolution. I’ve helped Goldeneyed cope with unprecedented problems…” “Thank you for all your efforts,” Sir Mumphrey interrupted him. “Now get out.” The Hood shook his head. “It’s not that simple, my dear minor office holder. When I agreed to help the Legion, they agreed to help me. To help me conquer the world if necessary. I believe Ms Waltz promised on behalf of the group. And if you can’t accept the word of the first lady of the Lair Legion…” “Oh, I do,” Mumphrey admitted. “Fine lady, Ms Waltz, although she has a poor choice in men sometimes. And as she points out, in being manipulated by you since your return the Legion has undoubtedly helped further your plans of conquest. So that’s one promise fulfilled, what?” “That is paltering with the exact wording rather than obeying the spirit of the agreement.” “Absolutely. Just the sort of thing you understand, Winkelweald.” The Hood rose and strode towards Sir Mumphrey. The Englishman forced himself not to back away from the intimidating presence. One stood up to bullies, even if they could break one. “We would not even be having this conversation if I had not allowed my compassion to interfere with my better judgement and arranged for Bryan Katz’s attention to be drawn to the plight of his former beloved.,” the archvillain pointed out. “Or if I didn’t have a few other questions that you’ll refuse to answer,” retorted Mumphrey. “Such as how Kumari managed to gain your powers after your supposed death. Why Pegasus was the only member of the Scourge that wasn’t retconned when you attacked them. How Nats came to have the Psychostave. Why Falcon’s hidden past came back to haunt him right now. Or why Dancer was recalled to Galactivac just at this moment. And most of all, how did Pegasus get hold of the Galactic Nobbler that she used to stop the Galactivac-Resolution battle? Hmm?” “I owe no answers to you, Wilton,” the Hooded Hood sneered. “You owe answers to a whole world you have manipulated, abused and betrayed, Winkelweald. It’ll be my pleasure to lead the Lair Legion in demanding ‘em from you.” “Like those soldiers that followed you in the trenches? I hope you’ll give the Lair Legion more formal burials than they got.” The eccentric Englishman took a step forward but controlled his temper. “I regret my failures,” he growled, “but the whole Parodyverse regrets your successes.” “I have steered this sorry joke of a multiverse through many dangers.” “And steered it towards others,” snapped Mumph. “And what have you really achieved? Your woman is still dead. You’ve estranged your children, even retconned one of them I hear. Nobody likes you and nobody trusts you and nobody wants you around.” “We have that in common, then,” retorted the Hood, also starting to lose his façade of calm. “When was the last time your children visited you when they didn’t need money, Wilton? What are they telling your granddaughter Samanatha about senile granddad Mumphrey? Don’t you think they’re hoping that you will just get on and die and leave the family estates to them?” “I try to do what’s right because it is right, not because folk’ll like me for it,” insisted the Keeper of the Chronometer of Infinity. “And I do what is right because only I can, and if the Parodyverse does not understand that I am its last best hope as champion and ruler then I swear that I shall save it in spite of itself.,” vowed the cowled crime czar. “Everything I have done has been for that one noble reason.” “Self-serving claptrap!” snorted Mumphrey. “You will nobly crown yourself ruler of the Parodyverse and claim it’s anything but gross ego!” “I will confront the powers that set up the Parodyverse, those shady creators who twisted together this joke of a reality as nothing but a laboratory test setting for their question-resolving Resolution War, and I will destroy them every one!” thundered the Hooded Hood. “They hide beyond the Parodyverse, those creators, behind masks and shadows we are not allowed to fathom. But I will get to them. I will find them. I will break them. I shall revenge this miserable tormented Parodyverse upon them, and to this I have bent all my will.” Even Mumphrey was a little staggered by the Hood’s grand exposition of his ultimate goal. “You seek to hold the forces that made the Parodyverse accountable for what they did?” “Every single one of them. It is they who are my enemies now, not the trivial Lair Legion or even the puppet-powers that maintain this multiverse.” “Give yourself a grand enough objective and you can perhaps pretend the end justifies the means, Hood,” Sir Mumphrey snorted. “But it doesn’t. And you are still the sad pompous villain we both know you to be.” “I have no reason to be troubled by the words of yesterday’s man, Wilton. I have seen your futures and few of them are kind.” “And I have no reason to let you stay in this Mansion any longer, Winkelweald. Your little games end here.” The Hood’s eyes glimmered with green fire. “Beware if they do,” he warned. “You’re a villain,” Mumphrey told him. “It’s our job to take down villains. Expect a call when we find the time to deal with you.” “I can be a dangerous enemy, old man,” the Hooded Hood declared. “You already are a dangerous enemy,” Sir Mumphrey Wilton replied. “Only thing is, I’m not fooled into thinkin’ otherwise.” He looked up at the grim shadowed face of the arch-schemer and added, “Tell you what, though. Here’s my offer, Hooded Hood. If you give me your word – your absolute word – that you will reform and turn your energies only to serving the Lair Legion, that you’ll stop manipulating them and tryin’ to recruit them for your long term ends, that you’ll strive to your utmost to be a good, loyal, and faithful ally as I would perceive and define that… then I’ll sign you up as a member of the Lair Legion right here and now.” The eccentric Englishman stuck out his right hand challengingly. “Well?” “I am the Hooded Hood,” replied his opponent. “I cannot vow to be less than I am, nor accept the conditions you place upon me. Although the offer is cunningly made, and I appreciate the gambit.” “Wasn’t a gambit, man,” growled Mumph. “That was a chance. Maybe your last one.” He stretched his hand forward further. “So, I’m callin’ your bluff, Winkelweald. You say you’re workin’ for the best, for the good of the team. Prove it. Join. Or stop pretending that you’re anything other than a self-serving user.” “I do not acknowledge the choices as you delimit them, Wilton. I have little interest in your petty maunderings and pious mouthings. And the Legion will work for me, whether they know it or not.” “Maybe,” Sir Mumphrey conceded. “And maybe they’ll come knocking on your door one day and give you the thrashing you so richly deserve.” The cowled crime czar’s eyes flashed. “And maybe they will regret the day they ever turned on me and allowed you such boorish license,” he suggested. “Maybe soon.” And then Sir Mumphrey was standing alone, in a guest room just as it had been before the Hooded Hood arrived. Everything has been figured out, except how to live. Jean-Paul Sartre Kerry Shepherdson waited around in the Lair Mansion and tried not to look as if she was waiting for her sister to return any time now from her epic voyages to the other side of the universe. She wandered from room to room, fiddling, assessing how easy it would be to fill the sprinkler system with gasoline. There was a girl she didn’t recognise in the Admin Office, ruffling through the filing cabinets with a determined glare. “Who the hell are you?” Kerry demanded, looking at the young dark-haired woman in the leather jumpsuit. She had a vague resemblance to Lisa, Kerry noticed. A younger sister, perhaps? “Oh, hi!” the girl replied, turning round and standing up. “I didn’t hear you come in. I’m Asil. Asil Ashling. A person.” “Right,” nodded Kerry. “And what are you doing in our office, rummaging though our security files?” “Oh, sorry. I’m Sir Mumphrey’s amanuensis,” Asil confided. Noting Kerry’s blank expression she added, “Somebody who writes things down for him?” she added. “A personal secretary?” “Ah,” Kerry understood. “Okay then. Mumphrey’s the old guy that’s gonna run the Legion while Finny’s slobbering off after Ziles, right?” “Sir Mumphrey is a good man,” Asil answered. “He will make a fine leader for the team. Much better than that doody-head Lisa would have done.” The young woman added by way of explanation, “Lisa’s sister Dr Moo cloned me from Lisa, but I am not an evil bitchy slut.” “Lisa wouldn’t have been that bad a leader,” Kerry shrugged. “Hey, they could have picked feeb-dweeb Visionary!” Asil’s smile vanished. “Visionary is a Great Man,” she said curtly. “A Great Man.” “Hey, he’s my legal guardian, kind of a step-dad. I’ve seen him trying to open cereal boxes. He’s a brain-defective grade-A moron.” “You are the great man’s ward?” Asil said coldly. “He adopted you?” “While my sister allegedly went on this emergency waitressing mission,” Kerry sighed. “I can’t believe that everybody hasn’t figured out yet that she’s really the Prob…” “You are so fortunate as to have Visionary as your mentor and you do not respect him!” Asil shouted. “He is the kindest, bravest, truest man that ever existed, and if you do not understand your good fortune…” “He’s an interfering, unhip, lighter-confiscating, boy-censoring, fake-ass freakshow!” screamed back Kerry. Then Asil hurled herself across the desk and had the young Irishwoman in a neck grip. “I will teach you to respect the Great Man, you lucky ignorant doody-pile!” she promised. Kerry pulled out a portable welding torch and flipped the gas valve. “And I’ll show you what I think of bimbo fake-hero-worshipping clone posers!” Then the pile of files stacked beside the door toppled over, hammering them both to the floor. The welding torch improbably skittered across the carpet and came to rest under the foot of the woman in the doorway. “Well,” said Dancer, staring down at the two girls and glaring, “I’m back.” Freedom is what you do with what's been done to you. Jean-Paul Sartre Sir Mumphrey Wilton joined Visionary, Lisa, and Amber St Clare in the Lair Legion Meeting Room. “How did he take it?” asked Lisa, who knew that the pro-tem leader had been to see the Hooded Hood. “Like a petulant spoiled archvillain, of course,” answered the eccentric Englishman. “He’ll be back.” “Um, the last time anyone pissed the Hooded Hood off he got a snit and tried to end reality,” Visionary noted worriedly. “And he got pretty damn close to doing it as well.” “And you were still playin’ nice with him in the Lair Mansion?” snorted Mumph. “Well mostly we found five star hotels and we’d… I mean, I guess that was a mistake,” Lisa answered, “Having him here at the Mansion, I mean. Not that anybody had him. At all.” “I’m not sure exactly what’s going on here,” Amber St Clare, the LL’s government liaison admitted. “An awful lot seems to have happened in a short while.” “It has,” agreed Lisa. “It turns out that Finny was possessed by the undead spirit of the Devil Doctor and was planning to destroy the Legion and breed with its women. G-Eyed and real Finny got their act together and DD’s gone now. Meanwhile Dancer and Pegasus got into round two with that Resolution prophesy over at the other end of the Parodyverse, and Peggy used some cosmic device to break up a fight between Resolution and Galactivac that would have ripped all reality apart otherwise.” “And we think she’s dead,” intervened Visionary mournfully. “The banshee howled and everything.” “At the same time again, somebody has stolen an abhuman anti-technology generator from the Antarctic near Savage Park, and has scrobbled the tech-team we sent down there to look for it.” “And killed Wonder Walrus,” added Vizh. “Oh Wonder Walrus... we hardly knew ye. Your bristly-face smile, your gleaming tusks, and your huge bloated body will live in our hearts forever.” “Um, yes,” agreed Mumphrey. “And while all of that was going on, the Hooded Hood was undermining the LL leadership so he could manipulate the team into becoming what he wanted it to be for his future plans.” Amber looked uncertain. “But where’s Fin Fang Foom now? And Goldeneyed?” “G-Eyed’s taking a leave of absence to look after poor Laurie for a while,” Lisa explained, “and to kind of recover from a hard time as acting leader. Finny’s gone after Ziles, who thinks she’s gone back home to planet Xnylonia to die for some noble cause.” “I don’t think she should,” Visionary confided. “These martyr deals always hurt a lot.” Mumphrey nodded vigorously. “Here, here! And knowin’ that the Hood was prepared for whatever choice from the team’s membership young Foom made as actin’ leader, the sensible lad made an unexpected decision to catch the Hood wrong-footed for once.” “Enty’s privacy generator really worked,” Vizh admitted. “Of course, the Hood will have retconned that for next time, but it helped when we needed it most. And we can easily get that wall replaced once the scattered components cool down a bit.” “I have certain advantages that don’t appear on your files, Ms St Clare,” Mumphrey admitted, “that make it trickier for the Hooded Hood to retcon me than most. So here I am, deputising.” “But you’re not a member.” “Exactly.” The eccentric Englishman shifted in his seat. “So, to new business…” “Wait,” Amber intervened. “What about the things Goldeneyed set in motion? The expansion programme?” She shuffled her papers. “We still have the new charter to sign.” “Sorry,” Mumph told her, “but that Charter won’t be happenin’. Heroes need their autonomy, and they’re not going to run for permission to any national government before they save the world.” “You need US support to carry out your expansion plans,” Amber argued. “Actually, no,” Lisa noted. “That was just G-Eyed being courteous.” The first lady of the Lair Legion smiled viciously. “I’m not so polite.” “You think the world governments will just sit back and let you form a metahuman army with no regulation or organisation to do what you like?” the liaison argued. “Of course not,” Mumphrey answered. “I expect them to whinge and mewl while we do it. And there will be regulation and organisation. Us.” “I mean outside regulation,” Amber scowled. “You can’t be judges, jury, and executioners.” “Outside regulation from the Shadow Cabinet?” suggested Visionary. “Or SPUD? OPS? NATO? Herbert Garrick? Who do you think would be good at that?” Amber rose to her feet. “Look, you simply can not go about building a hundred-strong Legion without additional checks and balances!” “Won’t be doin’ that, m’dear,” Mumphrey assured her. “We will be expanding the roster a little, but carefully. Good people. People we need. And we’re keeping the training school for a while.” Visionary winced. “We’re promoting Visionary however,” Lisa added. “Really? I don’t have to be teacher any more?” “Now he’s headmaster-for-life,” the amorous advocatrix continued wickedly. “Congratulations, Vizh.” “Aaagh!” “What expansions?” Amber demanded. “I can’t guarantee the government will authorise this.” “Then I can’t guarantee the Lair Legion will respond next time there’s a crisis,” Sir Mumphrey told her; and his face was dead serious. “You tell Garrick that I’ll be out to see the president tomorrow. And warn him that I’ll be coming to explain, not to negotiate, what? I’m not in this job for long and I don’t need to be popular. Just effective.” “He won’t like it,” Amber warned. “Damned shame,” answered the Englishman. “Tell him that I’ll be coming for his ratification of m’ roster, for the confirmation of the Falcon back on the SPUD active list as well as him being on the LL, and for a presidential pardon for the Dark Knight over that nuclear launch incident.” “You can’t get the Dark Knight off from charges of attempted genocide!” Amber almost shrieked. Today was turning into the worst day ever. “Of course not,” Mumphrey answered. “I can’t pardon folks. That’s the president’s job.” “I can see you have a lot of phone calling to do,” Lisa told the government liaison. “The rest of this session’s closed to observers anyway, Amber.” “I’m not the enemy,” Amber St Clare warned them, “but believe me when I tell you there will be consequences for behaving like this.” “I certainly hope so,” Sir Mumphrey told her. “And amongst them had better be confirmation of my roster, reinstatement of Falcon, and pardoning of DK.” Visionary watched as Amber almost slammed the door behind her. “I think she’s a bit cross,” he understated. “Oh dear,” said Lisa insincerely. “She’s a nice gal,” Sir Mumphrey contributed, “but she’s not here on her own account. Makes it hard for her, what? Anyway, to the next thing. Let’s review how our chaps are doin’ down in the Antarctic, brush up on our Abhuman protocol for the arrival of Princess Uhunalura and so on. And then we need to talk about the line-up.” Life begins on the other side of despair. Jean-Paul Sartre Laurie Leyton stirred from another fever dream and wanted to be sick. There wasn’t anything left in her stomach so she dry retched herself awake. Strong arms embraced her, but gently. She forced her crusted eyes open. “Bry?” “It’s me,” Bryan Katz admitted. “How are you doing?” The memories started coming back to Laurie. “You… you came for me!” “Yeah. I came.” Laurie shifted on the tangled sheets. She’d been withdrawing from heroin for twenty-four hours now and the worst was yet to come, but she was having lucid moments. “I didn’t think you’d come. I didn’t deserve you to come. You hate me.” Goldeneyed held her close, hoping his strength would flow into her. “I don’t, Laurie. I was mad at you, yeah. I was shocked that you’d had a baby, my baby, and hidden it all from me. I was hurt that you’d given it up to the Order of the Observing Eye, my own mentors, and they’d hidden it from me too, devious manipulating bastards that they are. And I was… well, I was being a tool.” Laurie shuddered and managed a half-smile. “You were,” she admitted, “but I was the one who betrayed you. Val warned me. I’m so sorry, Bry. So very, very sorry.” “Don’t worry now, Laurie. That’s a problem for another day. I’ll be having words with the Order of the Observing Eye, I promise you. But that’s later. First we have to get you well again.” “They gave me drugs, Bry, the hard stuff,” Laurie remembered. “They did things to me…” “It’s okay now, Laurie. It’s the past. Me and the LL, we kicked their asses. You even helped.” “I did? It’s all so blurry…” “You survived, and at the end you saved my life. That’s the Laurie I know,” Bry comforted her. “She’s still in there, recovering, waiting to come out better than before.” “Oh Bry,” Lisette shuddered. “I still love you…” Goldeneyed held her until her breathing slowed and she went back into a calmer sleep. He gently slid off the bed and went off into the kitchen. “How’s she doing?” asked Beth Shellett, handing him a carton of milk. Bry chugged half a pint before answering. “Toughing it out, like the docs said. It’s not over yet.” “After what they did to her? She’s got a lot to recover from. But you did the right thing saving her, Bry. You know that.” G-Eyed touched the bandages that swathed half his pain-wracked body. “I know that,” he agreed. “and thanks again for letting me bring Laurie to stay at your place, Beth. I never expected…” “She needed somewhere quiet and cosy to get better,” the young schoolteacher interrupted. “What else could I do?” Bry watched Beth turn back to filling her lunchbox for tomorrow’s work. You could have done any number of selfish things, Beth, he thought to himself, but instead you did this. He glanced back to the darkened room where Laurie was sleeping. He loved her still, of course, but he wasn’t so sure that he was in love any more. Beth kissed him on the cheek and said goodnight. Bry wasn’t so sure he was in love with Laurie, anyway. Life has no meaning the moment you lose the illusion of being eternal. Jean-Paul Sartre The exclusive Willow nightclub overlooked the waterfront of Paradopolis’ Englehart River. The original brownstone manor had been expanded with glass-and-steel structures containing greenhouses, pools, and of course the high-tech dancefloors for which the entertainment venue was famous. One of the reasons it was famous, anyway. The Willow was also a place where the cruel and the beautiful met, where hearts were broken, and where futures were sold. It was the home of Camellia of the Fey and her clan of creatures from the Many Coloured Realms. From there they operated their shady tradings of glamours and fortunes, the modern Faeries adapting for a cold iron world. And the Lair Legion came visiting, in the form of its new pro-tem leader and an old friend. It was the friend that knocked on the old oak door of the nightclub just as dawn was breaking. The Willow wasn’t a morning place. Even the huge bodyguard in his black tux and shades looked somewhat seedy as he stared down at the old shawled lady with the basket of apples. “Hello, dearie,” said Hagatha Darkness in a quavery voice. “I’m an aged lady selling apples door to door. It’s traditional.” “We don’t need apples,” the doorman told her gruffly; but nervously. The last time anyone had tried to sell apples at the door in Paradopolis was 1928. “Better to buy an apple than to have an old lady’s curse,” Hagatha warned him, in a much less quavery voice. “Believe me. Now take me to Camellia.” Mr Oxalis, the Willow’s omnipresent manager, was watching the exchange from the shadows of the interior. “She’s demanding entry in the ancient forms,” he warned the doorman. “A proffered sale, a gift, a demand. She knows her rights.” He smiled grimly. “Let the old woman and her companion in.” He never said anything about letting them leave again. Mumphrey followed Hagatha. She gave a shiny red apple to the doorman with a piercing stare and a thin-lipped smile, then said to Oxalis, “May you have all the blessings you deserve.” “We’re here to see your mistress,” Sir Mumphrey told Oxalis when they were safely over the threshold. “On behalf of the Lair Legion.” “The Legion?” Mr Oxilis frowned. “What have those mortal fools to do with us.” “When you start trading humans to the King of Stories or anywhere else, trafficking in souls, and pushing mystical drugs you’ll find the Lair Legion has a lot to do with you,” Mumphrey warned. Mr Oxalis was unimpressed. “You’re threatening us?” “Not yet,” answered Mumph. “But wait about… nine seconds…” he held his hands out in anticipation of his earlier timeshift ending, and then suddenly he was holding a double-barrelled fowling rifle stuffed with salt and iron filings. “Now I’m threatening you,” he continued. “Camellia. Get her.” “No need to be rude, Sir Mumphrey,” Camellia of the Fey told him, descending the grand staircase in a glittering silver gown with a remarkable décolletage. “Here at the Willow we love to grant the requests of mortals.” “Not a request, madame. You will stop your dealings in souls and mystical drugs, or the Lair Legion will see you shut down and salted.” “Or you’ll unleash your pet witch on us?” Camellia smiled at Hagatha. “Even a Covenant Witch might find herself a little out of her depth here, Sir Mumphrey.” “Actually, I was thinking of sending in Fin Fang Foom,” admitted the eccentric Englishman. “To sit on your house. And then the Manga Shoggoth. And the Probability Dancer. And CrazySugarFreakBoy! And after that I was going to loose Lisa Waltz on your tax returns and zoning permits.” He leaned forward. “And then I was going to get really nasty.” “And you expect to ever leave here intact to do this?” Camellia asked amusedly. “You think you can just walk into our realm and threaten us and then leave again?” Mumphrey hefted the rifle in his arms. “I haven’t used my big gun yet,” he noted. “A shotgun of iron? It can kill one or two of us, maybe, Sir Mumphrey, but really…” “He didn’t mean that gun, calliach,” Hagatha snapped. It was all a matter of timing. The second time displacement finished just at that moment, but this time it wasn’t a firearm that arrived next to Sir Mumphrey. “Hello, Camellia,” said Xander the Improbable. “Surprise!” The Fey looked appalled. The arcane wards against the sorcerer supreme were useless if he was already inside the building. “I don’t often make house calls,” Xander told them, “but let me amplify what Sir Mumphrey is saying. Any soul trading, any breaking of the ancient covenant at all, and I’ll be visiting again. With the Lair Legion. With preparations. And you won’t like it. You won’t like it for all screaming eternity thereafter.” Camellia looked with horror on the shabby little man with the faded red robes. “I… I see…” “So let’s talk about an accord, shall we?” asked Sir Mumphrey briskly. Two days later, the doorman who had eaten the apple slipped from his post, moved to Finland, and started a new and happy life an a trainee elf. Generosity is nothing else than a craze to possess. All which I abandon, all which I give, I enjoy in a higher manner through the fact that I give it away. To give is to enjoy possessively the object which one gives. Jean-Paul Sartre Reverend Mac Fleetwood stood before the doors of the St Jude’s Orphanage in Hell’s Bathroom and faced down the bulldozer. “This ain’t the Sheldon Architectural Conservation Zone,” the demolitions foreman warned him. “There ain’t no cameras and bleedin’ heart liberals here, preacher. And you won’t be the first man o’ God I’ve run over with my dozer.” “There are still children in the building,” Fleetwood shouted. “So get ‘em out. We’re not unreasonable.” Mr Sneek, the senior partner of Gothametropolis attorneys Sneek, Grabbit, and Thuggery, waved a set of documents in the besieged cleric’s face. “The mortgage payments on this property lapsed at midnight. My client has foreclosed, and has duly acquired judges warrants of eviction effective immediately. The site is scheduled for demolition today for re-use as an adult entertainment emporium.” “You’re only moving this fast so nobody can get a legal stay while this is all sorted out,” Fleetwood argued. “The orphanage can make the payments.” “I don’t see any orphanage,” Mr Sneek retorted. “I only see my client’s new business venture ready to proceed. And I see a foolish clergyman ignoring site safety warnings and waiving any liability my client may have for your safety while trespassing.” The foreman revved his bulldozer with anticipation. “The children have nowhere to go,” Mac Fleetwood declared desperately. “You have to give them more time.” “No,” said the foreman, slipping his vehicle into gear. “I don’t.” And he rolled forward. Reverend Mac Fleetwood closed his eyes and held his position. A wooden shaft sped faster than a bullet into the bulldozer engine block then exploded it into tiny fragments. “Hey there!” called Trickshot, swaggering from the alleyway, “Good job I was passing. Could have been a nasty accident!” Mr Sneek flushed with anger. “That was wilful property destruction, Legionnaire! Before witnesses.” He fumbled for his mobile phone. “My client will bring litigation to recover the cost of…” The next arrow transfixed the cell phone to the doorjamb of the orphanage. “I got a message for yer client, buddy,” the irritating archer noted. He swung round on the goons with the pickaxes and sledge hammers, and the two that were actually going for firearms. “You boys want to be spending some quality time in hospital?” he warned them. “Think it through You got lots of guys and guns and everything. I only got me a bow and some arrows. But me, I’m brilliant. And I got a real low threshold fer orphan-bullyin’ thugs and I got a lot of sharp pointy sticks ta express my displeasure with.” He smiled wolfishly. “Shall we see who wins?” “You can’t antagonise my client like this,” Mr Sneek protested. “That’s right,” Trickshot agreed. “I can antagonise him a whole lot better n’ this. If he makes me.” “The payment was late,” Mac Fleetwood explained. “We usually receive a large anonymous donation on the first of the month, and it pays the mortgage. It… we didn’t get it yet this month. So Mr Sneek and his client saw their opportunity.” “Yeah. We just found out who was makin’ those donations. It wuz Peggy, and she’s dead, Reverend.” Trickshot looked up wrathfully at Mr Sneek, “but that don’t mean the stuff she cared about’s going to be left ta rot.” “This is all quite legal,” Mr Sneek insisted nervously. “You own actions however…” “Yeah, dumb ‘ol Tricky, eh?” the archer shrugged. “So I’m just gonna sit here while the cops arrive. Don Graham hisself, probably, seein’ as how he grew up in this orphanage wit’ his old friend Mac Fleetwood. An’ then the Commissioner can work out whut’s legal and what’s not.” “Er…” said Mr Sneek. “Meantime Br’er Trickshot’ll just use his Lair Legion Comm-Card ta get Lisa Waltz down here to look at whut’s legal, to be absolutely sure, yeah? And maybe place a coupla calls to the Daily Trombone and the Planetary Bugle. Let them see justice bein’ done, an that.” Mr Sneek was looking distinctly uncomfortable now. “Perhaps my client might be willing to consider a delay if payment was made promptly before close of business today,” he conceded. “Perhaps your client might be willing to write off this month’s payment as a gesture of goodwill to the orphans?” Mac Fleetwood countered cannily. “You think?” “Er… yes, perhaps he might.” “I have some paper here right now,” Fleetwood persisted. “You can write it out, all legal for us, Mr Sneek.” Trickshot watched the lawyer scribble until he’d written something Reverend Fleetwood was satisfied with. Then the archer delivered his message. “Whut I was actually comin’ to tell you is that I got a message ta send to your boss. From my boss.” Mr Sneek looked up sharply. “My boss?” “Tell Harry Flask that the Lair Legion’s watchin’ him. That he might think he’s got hisself all kinds of protection from corrupt judges an’ bought senators, but the LL’s still independent. Tell him that if he oversteps the mark – an touchin’ this orphanage is over that mark, let me tell ya – if he does that, then the LL will be coming ta take him down.” “Mr Flask is a respectable businessman.” “An’ we’re the world’s greatest heroes, Sneeky. So you tell the Lynchpin of Crime to keep hisself quiet, because he does not want the Lair Legion ta notice him,. Capeesh?” Mr Sneek capeeshed. One is still what one is going to cease to be and already what one is going to become. One lives one's death, one dies one's life. Jean-Paul Sartre Messenger wasn’t used to visitors at his seedy one-room motel digs. And in his experience none of them knocked on the door. “Sir Mumphrey Wilton?” recognised the grizzled postman, lowering his razor letter. He opened the door and let the eccentric Englishman into the Spartan tiny room. Messenger was stripped to the waist and in the strips of light through the slatted louvers his back and chest were laced with old scars. “The self-same, old boy,” Mumph admitted. “Sorry to intrude and all that.” “How did you find me?” Messenger wondered. He was supposed to be an undercover agent these days, since his recruitment by one of the shadier arms of the SPUD. “Twenty dollars to Xander the Improbable,” Mumphrey admitted. That was a security hole Messenger would have some trouble closing. “Wanted to thank you for your work in the recent Devil Doctor imbroglio, but you ran off pretty sharpish after the big fight apparently.” “I don’t associate with the Lair Legion much socially, these days,” the postman answered. “Hmph. Shame, that. Seen the records. You were a valuable member, once.” “That’s before I became a killer vigilante and a menace to society,” Messenger declared. Sir Mumphrey shrugged. “Then you died to save the world, laddie. That sets the slate clean in my book.” “Not in everybody’s,” Messenger retorted. “Anyway, I’ve killed people since I got back.” “Rough world, sometimes needs rough solutions,” Mumph admitted. “Not always, but sometimes. I’ve potted a few blighters in my time too. Can’t always be namby-pamby with the ungodly.” He took a breath. “Heard you rescued young Nats too.” “I blew a long-term infiltration operation in Badripoor, yeah.” “Good show. Necessary.” Mumphrey considered the scarred young man who was so much more. “Nobody realises how much you care about things, do they?” “Say what?” “No one would put themselves through what you do if they didn’t care so much about the world. About justice, and fairness. It’s the one thing, the only thing, that keeps you from being a villain, Messenger. Only thing. You care.” “Maybe. So what?” “So I’m here to see if you’re ready to rejoin the Lair Legion. Care with the rest of us, what?” Messenger was stunned. “The Legion?” “Why not? You’re workin’ with SPUD already. That’s only one step from the side of the angels.” Messenger couldn’t suppress a smile at this comment. “Well, thanks for the offer,” he answered. “I mean really thanks. It means a lot. But…” “But not now,” Mumphrey understood. “As the Yanks say, you still have issues.” “Yep. But I’m killing them one by one.” Sir Mumphrey Wilton shook the postman’s hand. “When they’re dead, look us up, eh?” Man is not the sum of what he has already, but rather the sum of what he does not yet have, of what he could have. Jean-Paul Sartre “So…” Visionary asked, “what do you think?” “I think I’ve never seen such a horrible jumble of uncollated data and vital documents improperly stored and indexed in my life,” the Librarian answered honestly. He stared round the Lair Legion records room as if contemplating an exorcism. “Doesn’t anybody do any filing around here?” “I think Troia has a system,” Vizh remembered. “She stuck everything on a spear and filed things under C for crap or M for more crap.” “You don’t have anyone here now?” The possibly-fake man frowned. “I think we have Ruby. She has to do something round here, so it might be her. But, um, those stacked file boxes kind of fell over when she and Nats were in here… exercising.” Lee Bookman looked in horror at the vital case documents lying in crumpled heaps on the floor. Some of them seemed coated in jam. “You, um, if you take copies of this stuff for your Moon Public Library, you can keep it confidential, right? I mean you won’t let villains borrow it and read about us?” “Because it would make you a laughing stock?” asked the Librarian. “No, we’ll put it in a sealed security archive, encrypted with failsafes. We’ll embargo it for, say, a hundred years so nobody can get to it.” He stared at the room. “But first we will remove the jam,” he added. Vizh liked a little jam on his official documents. When things got boring in meetings it gave him something to suck. “Did you get that little problem with your bosses being taken over by Resolution sorted?” he asked the Librarian politely. “Once Pegasus triggered the Galactic Nobbler and Resolution was destroyed the Senior Keepers and Governeors of the IOL snapped back to themselves straight away,” Lee reported. “They called off the auditors review of the Lunar Library and turned back the Censor Fleet.” “That’s probably good then,” recognised Vizh. “AG says that Resolution’s not dead, though. He’s just got to find yet another way to manifest.” “Joy,” breathed the Librarian. “Um, we were wondering something, too,” Visionary went on. “Mumphrey says that on that Crystaxia place the Librarian there, Saru, Saron…” “Sarumex,” supplied Lee. “Yeah, him, he was one of their Matrix Warriors or something, one of the hero team that were planetary guardians.” “In a way,” the Librarian lectured. “He was an associate member, which gave him full membership rights but meant he was not a regular field agent. He offered informational support and research, which in its own way is as vital as participating in combat.” “And the Intergalactic organisation of Librarians allowed that?” “Sarumex interpreted his duties broadly,” Lee acknowledged. “I imagine he justified any actual mission he went on as being about the preservation of data.” “You also kind of helped out during the Resolution thing, and afterwards with the Black Galaxy,” Vizh pointed out. “That was a pretty broad interpretation of your duties.” Lee pushed a lock of stray hair from his forehead. “I suppose,” he admitted. Vizh took a deep breath and went to the point of his mission. “So,” he wondered, “is there any reason why you couldn’t be an, an associate member of the Lair Legion?” Words are loaded pistols. Jean-Paul Sartre On one side of the room stood Colonel Dan Drury, the Falcon, and Contessa Natalia Romanza. The Contessa was still on crutches after her recent injuries, but she still managed to look stunning. Across the floor stood the holographic images of Count Belasco Medici, also known as the absolute ruler of the nation-state of Badripoor Count Armageddon, and his assistant VelcroVixen. The grey-swathed woman called Dreamripper was there in the flesh, under a truce amnesty during the hostage negotiations. “I don’t like having my time wasted, Drury,” Medici noted, pacing backwards and forwards so that his cloak swirled behind him. “My terms are very simple indeed. Even you should have no problem understanding them.” “Yeah well this ain’t the Technoverse where we all bow down an’ kiss your ass,” the SPUD director retorted. “We don’t give in ta hostage takers here.” “Then why are we talking?” VelcroVixen wondered. “We’re all just trying to get what we want in this world, Colonel. We want you to release Third Degree, Savagetooth, and the other of our personnel that were captured by the Lair Legion last night in Mexico. You want us to not eviscerate the captives we’ve taken at the US embassy in Bangladesh. It seems like a simple enough trade.” “I was there when we took down your nasty little buddies,” Falcon told the villains. “We ain’t letting them go.” He chuckled. “Savagetooth would need a spine again before he goes anywhere anyway.” “Then the deaths of the hostages are on your head,” Count Armageddon said simply. “And there will be many others, until such time as you choose to capitulate.” “Or we could just shoot your guys in the head,” suggested Drury. “Don’t get the idea that I’m bluffin’ by the way.” “That would be a most unfortunate turn of events,” Armageddon assured him. “The reprisals of a couple of hundred metahumans can be quite devastating.” “Oh yeah?” Drury countered. “Want to see devastating?” He pointed to Dreamripper. “You can read minds, right?” “Somewhat,” agreed the science villainess. “Sufficient to scan the things that would most terrify a victim in the fugue illusion states I can create for them.” “Scan me then,” Natalia Romanza demanded. “That’s why we wanted you here in person.” Dreamripper glanced for a lead to Armaggedon. “Do it,” he commanded. The woman in grey stepped over to the masterspy. “Open your mind to me then. If you dare.” “No chance,” snarled the Contessa. “I’ve been trained on countertelepathy by experts. But there’s one specific memory I’m going to let you see. Something I want you to read, and to know is true.” Dreamripper burrowed deeper. Then her eyes went wide. “You…! You nuked us!” “She what?” VelcroVixen puzzled. “What do you mean?” Dreamripper backed away from the Contessa. “Her. In some… some other future that was undone… she triggered a nuclear device in Badripoor. Killed everyone. Every one of us.” “Right,” agreed Natalia. “I did. And what I did once I can do again.” “You would destroy a whole nation to contain my threat?” Belasco Medici said to Drury. “I am impressed.” “Be as impressed as you like, buster,” the SPUD man retorted, “but back off.” The science villain considered this. “I still have hostages,” he noted. The door opened and Mr Epitome and Glory stalked in. “Actually, no you don’t,” the star-spangled splendour told him. “While we were on the gab-fest Epitome was taking your hostage situation apart,” Falcon explained with satisfaction. “A hundred percent success,” Mr Epitome told the Count. “And a hundred percent capture rate of terrorists too. Hello again Belasco.” “He does not seem to like you very much,” signed Glory in her language of growls and paw movements. “This is not over,” warned Count Armaggedon. “Not till I light the blue touch paper,” countered the Contessa. “Think about it.” The holograms winked out then. Dreamripper hurriedly made her departure. “Think he got the message?” Mr Epitome wondered. “If not I got a Lair Legion with his name on it ready to spank some Badripoor butt,” Falcon promised. “There’s two hundred super-powered criminals down there,” pointed out Epitome. “But we’ve got the mojo,” Falcon replied. He waited until Drury and Natalia had moved off the see Dreamripper out of the building before he added, “That’s what we wanted to talk to you about.” Mr Epitome turned and looked at Falcon. “What?” “Sir Mumphrey Wilton, he’s acting as our leader-man right now. Says he knows you.” “We worked together on a case in England,” admitted Epitome. “He seems like a nice old chap.” “He is a very nice man,” Glory thumped her tail enthusiastically. “He said I was a fine bitch.” “Well Mumph thinks that your OPS guys might be planning some kind of smear campaign on the LL, specially since we binned that proposed new charter and upset a lot of guys in the Pentagon and on Capitol Hill.” “I’m sure the Office of Paranormal Security would never…” “Right, sure. Anyway, Mumph says to tell you there might be another way. To defuse the situation. To stop all of this getting to DEFCON One.” “I’m not certain there is any situation to defuse, Falcon,” Mr Epitome assured him. He didn’t mention his conversations with the Grey Eminence, the power behind the OPS, about bringing the Lair Legion down. How well connected was Sir Mumphrey Wilton anyhow to get some echo of this? “Mumphrey says you can join the LL,” Falcon concluded. “Right now. Change the system from the inside if you can. He says you’ve got lots of good qualities to bring to the group. He says he wants to give you the chance.” Mr Epitome took a step back. “Me in the Lair Legion?” “Sure, why not?” “You should join the Lair Legion, Dominic,” Glory signed enthusiastically. “They are good people.” “They’re undisciplined, disorganised, egotistical, unethical, unregulated loose cannons,” Epitome declared. “But we know how to party,” grinned Falcon. The OPS agent shook his head. “No,” he decided. “Tell Sir Mumphrey thanks, but this isn’t for me. It would be… a disastrous clash of cultures. It’s not for me. No.” “So you’ll think about it?” said Falcon. Everything comes to us from others. To Be is to belong to someone. Jean-Paul Sartre “I’ll make you a deal,” growled the Dark Knight. “I won’t ask about your feelings if you don’t ask about mine.” “Agreed,” grouched Fin Fang Foom. DK nodded a fraction and his fingers moved over the black control surfaces of the Knightjet. The sleek black vehicle rocketed beyond the orbit of barren Pluto and out into the vast blackness of interstellar space. “But I will ask,” asked the Dark Knight at last, “what the hell you’re doing leaving the Lair Legion at a time like this?” “Strategy,” answered the Makluan dragon; although in the passenger seat Finny had shifted to his comfortable Andy Dean form as he often did with his childhood friend Greg Burch. “The Hooded Hood was expecting me to either run off to Xnylonia and leave him to run the show or to that I’d stay behind and become an emotional cripple through this and whatever else he’d got lined up for me.” “Lania, probably, or someone else from the harem,” suggested the Dark Knight. “Did you at least talk to Lania before you left, to cover the whole trying-to-ravish-her-because-you’d-been –possessed thing?” “I tried. I think she might want a little space for a while.” Finny stirred uncomfortably. “How long to Xnylone?” DK took the hint and went back to business. “Hard to say. It’s not exactly on the regular starcharts. They don’t encourage visitors. They cloaked the whole stellar system behind concept fields and reality barriers to protect their privacy. So I’m just heading towards my best guess.” “Couldn’t you ask the Chronicler of Stories for a hint?” “It doesn’t work that way. Besides, I don’t think the Chronicler and I are on speaking terms these days.” Finny considered this. “Greg, the Chronicler is you, on a different level of reality from a divergence point in your past.” “Past is the word,” DK agreed. “He’s gone on to become more cosmic and broody and bitter…” “Where you’ve just become broody and bitter,” suggested Foom. “The Chronicler thinks I’ve died too many times. He thinks I’m just an echo now, a bad distorted recording. I think he’s lost touch with his roots because he’s stuck his head too far up his own transdimensional ass. Long story short, I’m not on his Christmas card list and he’s not taking my calls about the secret location of Xnylone.” “Best speed for wherever-the-hell then,” sighed Fin Fang Foom, “Before Ziles does something heroic.” Hell is other people. Jean-Paul Sartre “This may be the worst day ever,” groaned Visionary. “Worse than the day we discovered why we’re not supposed to put aerosol paint cans in the microwave?” Kerry asked in a hurt tone. “I’ve got to try harder.” “We all have,” Lisa noted with a determined look. “But really Visionary I don’t see how you can complain about today. You got promoted. And you’re back in the Lair Legion again. With me.” Visionary almost managed to stifle his little whimper. “We were out. League of Regulars, hiding in the Condo, not answering the phone. We were home and free. Well, except for Enty’s inventions and Donar’s Xena-withdrawal rages. We had it all. Peace. Quiet. Nobody trying to kill us. Well, not as often.” “We still have the LoR,” Lisa assured him. “That way we get double the tax breaks, plus we can offset some damages liabilities if you happen to get sued,” “Sued?” flinched Vizh. “What?” “Is something wrong, Visionary?” asked Dancer worriedly. “I was just saying what a good job you’d done with Kerry here.” “While my sister was off on an ‘emergency waitressing mission’,” hissed Dancer’s sibling contemptuously. “If that isn’t the feeblest…” “I thought you said something else,” Visionary admitted. “It could have been hallucination. I’ve been hit over the head an awful lot over the years.” “Oh, about my mum?” Dancer said, “Er, I mean Kerry’s mum. And Kerry’s big sister Sarah’s mum.” “That’s another thing,” frowned Visionary. “For some reason spiffy was all mixed up and thought Kerry was your sister, Dancer. I had to explain that she was actually Sarah’s sister and that you had just somehow passed on your probability-altering powers to her for some unfathomable reason nothing to do with her being your relative.” “I’m glad you cleared that up for him,” Dancer agreed brightly. “Are all of you people completely dumb?” Kerry almost screamed. “Isn’t it obvious that…” Then her chair collapsed under her for no reason whatsoever. “Oh dear,” sympathised Shep. “That did look painful.” “So Kerry doesn’t have probability pyromaniac powers any more?” Lisa asked. “I’m only asking from a liability limitation point of view.” “Well, she might have some,” admitted Dancer. “You see, as I didn’t have any powers when I faced Galactivac he just gave me a new set, so, um, Kerry might still have a bit of the old ones even though I’ve tried to take them all back.” “I was wrong,” groaned Visionary. “The day can get worse.” “All I was telling you was how happy Ma Shepherdson in old Ireland is about the wonderful job you’ve done looking after Kerry,” Dancer explained brightly. “She says thank you.” “And, according to this deposition she wants you to remain Kerry’s legal guardian instead of Sarah Shepherdson,” Lisa added maliciously. “Until Kerry’s forty if possible, according to Mrs S.” “This is child slavery,” complained Kerry. “And cruelty. He won’t let me even keep a flamethrower in my room.” “Good,” said Dancer with feeling. Kerry grinned maliciously. “So I store it under his bed,” she confided with satisfaction. “So… I get to be headmaster for eternity of the junior LL… back on the team as one of these newfangled associate members… and I have to keep on looking after Kerry…?” recited Visionary in a horrified whisper. “I’m so happy you’re back in the swim of things,” Dancer smiled, kissing the possibly fake man on the cheek. “Things wouldn’t be the same without you.” “They’d be much better,” sulked Kerry. Dancer scowled at her little sister. “Don’t make me go fetch Asil,” she threatened. Three o'clock is always too late or too early for anything you want to do. Jean-Paul Sartre The LairJet touched down a little after midnight local time and the dog-weary team members who had been searching the Antarctic for their missing support crew stretched as they staggered down the ladder to the hangar deck. “Welcome back,” said HALLIE, the resident AI hologram. “No luck I hear?” ~~We have some sensor readings for you to study, please~~ Cressida telepathed. Nobody questioned how a sentient tapeworm could communicate with an artificial computer sentience by thought transmission. “And we brought a guest,” added Nats, stepping aside to help Princess Uhunalura down the gangplank. “Uhuna, this is…” “Sir Mumphrey Wilton!” beamed the Princess of the Abhumans. “Every person in the Great Relief knows him!” “They do?” dull thud puzzled. “I thought he was just an old geezer?” “He is the Saviour of the Abhumans,” Uhunalura declared. “Hmph. Wouldn’t say that,” Mumph said depreciatingly. “Pleased I could help out all those years ago, and so on, but…” Sorceress was just catching up on the news. “Mumphrey? My grandfather is leading the Lair Legion now?” “So Finny finally went and swashbuckled after Zilesy eh?” grinned CSFB! “Froody!” “It’s been a long day,” Mumphrey told the Legion. “Just to bring you all up to speed, Finny’s taking a brief leave of absence with the Dark Knight to check that Ziles is alright, as young Dreamcatcher says. Goldeneyed is taking some time too, to help Lisette recover.” “And to get his head out of his ass,” muttered Nats. “Is that possible for humans?” asked the Manga Shoggoth interestedly. “Such extreme flexure, I mean?” “Yo is not to be knowing, but thinks perhaps if we are to be asking cute-Lisa…?” “We’re adding a new category of membership too,” Mumphrey went on. “Associate Members count as full members for voting rights and access to secure data, but they won’t be a regular part of the Field Team. They’ll be on hand for research, specialist input, that kind of thing. Visionary will be Associate in Charge of Training the Juniors. Lisa’s…” “Personnel,” interrupted the first Lady of the Lair Legion. “And morale.” “As Ms Waltz wishes,” deferred Mumphrey. “And joining us as a new probationary Associate Member will be Mr Lee Bookman, the Librarian.” “Yo is thinking that is to be being a good call!” approved Yo. “We have a few details to work out to prevent him being summarily executed by the IOL for helping us, but I’m sure we’ll get the wrinkles out,” Mumph assured them. Lisa leaned over and made sure she was right by Vizh’s ear before adding, “Associates don’t draw a salary, of course.” Dancer patted Visionary on the back until he stopped choking. “And that still leaves us with a Field Team line-up of me, Natsy, Dancy, Sorcy, Cressie, Falcy, Tricky, Yo-ey, and the Shoggy,” reckoned CSFB! “Plus Finny and Ziles when they gets back.” “In other news, the Hooded Hood has decided to depart from the Lair Mansion and go his own ways,” reported Sir Mumphrey Wilton. “And we’ve addressed a few other potential troublespots that we’ll know more about when Falcon and Trickshot get back. Tomorrow we’ve got to lend all our efforts to finding those poor lost chaps and chapess and this big Abhuman doodah. “ He chuckled at the heroes assembled in the hangar bay. “For now, well done, lad and lasses. Who’s for a cup of tea?” Next Issue: Balefire makes his move. Al B. makes his move. Uhunalura moves in. Ruby moves on Nats. Blackhurt moves against Sorceress. Finny and DK move after Ziles. Asil and Kerry move as one. Mumphrey will not be moved. And Paradopolis moves back to the middle ages in Untold Tales of the Big Blackout: Back to Basics With Balefire Pomp and Footnotes: The Line-Up: Leader:Fin Fang Foom (absent), Sir Mumphrey Wilton (non-member, acting) Field Team: Yo, CrazySugarFreakBoy!, Nats, Sorceress, Dancer, Cressida, Trickshot, Falcon (probationary; SPUD liaison officer), the Manga Shoggoth (probationary) Associates: Lisa, Visionary, the Librarian (probationary) The Support Staff: Major Domo: Flapjack of the Carpathians Computer Artificial Intelligence: HALLIE Scientific Advisor: Al B. Harper Government Liaison: Amber St Clare Public Relations Consultant: Cheryl, Duchess of Lake Superior Press Spokescelebrity: Lania Administrative Assistant: Ruby Waver Mechanic: Mindy Pyrite Interns: Art Corben, Randy Robertson Gardener/Handyperson: Kenny …at least for now. Heh. Jean-Paul Sartre (1095-1980): French novelist, playwright, and exponent of Existentialism (a philosophy acclaiming the freedom of the individual human being). He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1964, but he declined it. He has no known super-powers except maybe the ability to make people reading his books feel sleepy. Sir Mumphrey Wilton became Keeper of the Chronometer of Infinity in the latter part of the nineteenth century, and it has retarded his ageing since then. The pocketwatch can manipulate time, slowing, speeding, halting, and even reversing it for brief periods over limited areas. Given time Mumphrey can use it to detect time disturbances and cause more elaborate temporal effects. The office comes with other accoutrements too which magnify the power and range of the Chronometer, but Mumphrey rarely uses them and does not normally carry them with him. Few people know of Mumphrey’s chronal abilities, even in the superhero community, although he has played a prominent role in several modern metahuman crises. Over his long career Sir Mumphrey has been soldier, spy, diplomat, explorer, adventurer, husband, father, grandfather, widower, and a member of the League of Improbable Gentlemen who met in the very same mansion the Lair Legion now have as their headquarters. The Hooded Hood and Mumphrey first clashed on the asylum incarceration incident alluded to in this chapter, chronicled in Extract Twenty-Two: The Case Notes of Dr Maximillian Vaughn: Subject 1932z/12 – Sir Mumphrey Wilton – incurable Lisa made her promise to the Hood in UT#123: Untold Tales of the Last Lair Legion: Happily Ever After. Marjorie is Sir Mumphrey’s late wife, who died sometime prior to the start of his contemporary adventuring. His granddaughter Samantha starred in UT#99: Untold Tales of Nearly Everybody But the Lair Legion: Fragments, where it was revealed that in at least one future she grew to be the next keeper of the Chronometer of Infinity and joined the Lair Legion.. The villainous Kumari was the Hood’s daughter (rather than Troia 215) in one of the many alternative dimensions of the Parodyverse. She briefly took on the role of the Hooded Hood around the time of UT#109: Untold Chronicles of the Lair legion: A Chronicler’s Story. Pegasus avoided the Hood’s retconning of the Scourge of the BZL in UT#74: Untold Tales of the Enemies of the Lair Legion: New World Orders. And the creators of the Parodyverse that the Hooded Hood intends to destroy? That would be you. Asil Ashling is a clone created by the diabolical Dr Moo from her sister Lisa Waltz to seek out and retrieve Visionary from the corn he had retreated to in the early years of the Parodyverse’s heroic age. She is genetically programmed to think Vish is wonderful, but doesn’t need the programming. Her only known super-power is the ability to become whatever age she desires, but is also skilled in various martial arts. For the last couple of years she has intermittently accompanied Sir Mumphrey Wilton as his amanuensis. We still don’t know how exactly she got Visionary back from the corn, but doubtless the last chapter of Vizh’s forthcoming “Happiness” story will explain all. Special Credit to Adam (Visionary) Diller for Wonder Walrus’ epitaph. And of course WW himself was first chronicled by the ever-absent Space Ghost. LL Potential Regulatory Bodies: The Shadow Cabinet is an uber-covert assembly of lots of covert conspiracy organisations. SPUD is the Super-menace Principle Undercover Division of the United nations. Falcon and Messenger currently work for very different branches of this super-spy organisation. The OPS (Office of Paranormal Security) is a US defence department currently headed by the superhero Mr Epitome. NATO (North Alliance Treaty Nations) is a confederacy of military powers in the northern hemisphere, originally formed to counter the armed force of the Soviet Union. Herbert P Garrick (Bad News Herb) is the President’s Special Advisor on Metahuman Affairs. Messenger once dropped him down a lift shaft. Camellia of the Fey and the Willow Nightclub featured prominently in UT#121: Untold Tales of the Lair Legion: The Issue Before It Gets Far Too Weird , and are explained in detail in the footnotes therein. Hagatha Darkness is the grandmother of Whitney Darkness, the LL’s Sorceress. Xander the improbable, the Parodyverse’s current sorcerer supreme, is Whitney’s father. St Jude’s Orphanage is a run-down but much needed facility in Hell’s Bathroom, the toughest part of Paradopolis. The lair Legion keeps an eye on the place. Former residents made good include Reverend Mac Fleetwood of the Zero Street Mission and Police Commissioner Don Graham. Graham’s estranged daughter Beth Shellett works as a teacher at the orphanage. The Lynchpin of Crime, Harry Flask, is the secret power behind Gothametropolis and most East Coast crime. Sneek, Grabbitt, and Thuggery are his attorneys of choice. Messenger’s past: Messenger was expelled from the Lair Legion for excessive violence by then-chairman Jarvis so long ago I don’t have the story saved, and it’s probably lost forever. He went through an increasingly destructive and self-destructive phase before dying to save the world from the diabolical Mr Lucifer and his planned apocalypse. He has since returned with complications that have yet to be resolved, and has received an amnesty for his previous crimes to work undercover for SPUD. The Nuking of Badripoor too place in the now-cancelled future depicted in UT#118: Untold Tales of the Lair Legion: Badripoor Nights. Count Armageddon and Dreamripper are only two of the refugee Science Villains from the futuristic other-planar city of Technopolis that now dwell in the troubled Pacific basin city-state. Dark Knight and the Chronicler of Stories: Right. Sigh. Here’s how I understand it: There are all kinds of cosmic office holders, granted power and responsibilities for maintaining the Parodyverse. One of the most important is the role of Chronicler of Stories, with authority over the narrative strands that make up the reality of the Parodyverse. Some decades ago now, Greg Burch was recruited to this role. So as to not leave a hole in the narrative flow he diverged a version of himself to remain behind as a mortal then went off to become the new Chronicler. This mortal version fell in love, and when his love was murdered began to avenge her and fight all criminals as the Dark Knight – although he may not have been the first such hero. At the end of his career the Chronicler intervened, causing his rebirth – again as Greg Burch – twenty-five years o so back. This is the Greg that grew up with and became friend to Andy (Finny) Dean, was prompted by similar tragedy to take up the mantle of Dark Knight, and later recalled his earlier lifetime and exploits. I think. Check with poster-Greg. The Chronicler has arranged for DK to be resurrected each time he died, but each time brings back a more blurred version of the original mortal. There have been occasions when the current Chronicler has abdicated his office, leaving an other simulacrum of himself in place. Since the Hooded Hood once exploited that the Chronicler no longer uses this gambit. 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.
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