#146: Untold Tales of the Big Blackout: Back to Basics With Balefire 
#146: Untold Tales of the Big Blackout: Back to Basics With Balefire – Part One: Crossing BridgesPreviously: Balefire and his criminal associates have stolen an Abhuman technology suppressor and activated it in Paradopolis. In the blackout that follows, which also prevents machinery such as firearms from operating, the villains carry out their individual objectives under cover of the chaos they have caused. Amongst the most severe of the problems is a major breakout at the super-villain penitentiary known as the Safe. It’s now 1.23am EST and things are just getting started. Meanwhile, in deep space… The Dark Knight looked up from the black display screen on his sheer black control console in the darkness of his Knightjet. “There’s trouble,” he announced. Fin Fang Foom felt he detected the slightest hint of satisfaction in his old friend’s voice. “I didn’t think we’d left any trace on Nacluv,” he frowned. “The perfect espionage operation, and we used their intelligence tech to work out the frequencies of the Xnylonian concept fields if we can only find where the hell Xnylone is.” “Not that,” DK clarified. “Trouble on Earth. Paradopolis and Gothametropolis are blacked out.” “A power cut?” Andy Dean shrugged. “Probably the use of that stolen Abhuman anti-technology engine to prevent all power from working and to modify physical laws so that even firearms don’t work.” Finny put down the dossier he was studying and came over to look at the real-time computer link to DK’s Plutonian computer core. “There was a signal pulsed out on an LL frequency just before the blackout,” he noticed. “That’s got to be Al B. Harper tinkering with the device to send out a location warning. But if the Mansion’s caught in the anti-tech field then the Legion won’t have received it in time to interpret it.” “True. You want us to head back and do something about it?” The dragon shook his head. “No time. I think we have to rely on the LL.” DK winced. “Do we really have to?” “Cut them some slack, Greg. They came through weeks of torment and trial and loss and hurt and they still saved the day with Resolution. Then they nailed the Devil Doctor.” “Before the Devil Doctor nailed them,” noted the Dark Knight. “Is Lania speaking to you again yet?” “She’s just a little nervous,” Foom admitted. “but the point is they all came through. We should have a little confidence in them.” “I have a little confidence,” said DK precisely. “You want we should give them a little help then?” “Can you send the data on the location signal through to someone outside the anti-tech field?” Finny suggested. “Someone who could get word passed on about the generator’s location?” “Dan Drury of SPUD?” suggested DK. “Yeah. But wouldn’t that involve hacking into SPUD’s top-security communications systems.” The Dark Knight almost smiled. Island Paradopolis was joined to the mainland by four bridges, one vehicle underpass, and six subway tunnels. Or it had been, before CyberVenom reduced the Wharf and Dullard Bridges to so much scrap metal with his cybernetic implants and organic alien bodysheath. He’d done the Hogan Overpass as a freebie, although that only crossed the river dividing West Gothametropolis from the commuter-belt of Dullard’s Corner. That just left the Sheldon Bay Bridge and Englehart and then he could start work flooding the subways. There had been quite a lot of people trying to make it out of the city because of the riots. Canadian Nightmare was helping the panic of course, using his abilities over all things and people Canadian to create fear and chaos and distract the forces of the law from the serious looting of the banks and museums. But somehow when the fleeing refugees got to where the black silhouette of the alien killing machine was ripping apart steel with his bare hands and laughing they lost all interest in trying to cross the bridges CyberVenom tore up. “Come on!” he called to them, high on the power his destruction gave him over these insignificant normals. “Nobody man enough to take me? You all think I’m gonna rip you open and eat out your insides?” An impossible split opened where his mouth should have been showing gleaming white teeth and a nine-foot long forked tongue. “Don’t make me come there and pick some of you for the slaughterin’.” CrazySugarFreakBoy! tangled CV’s tongue onto the steelwork of the Sheldon Bay Bridge and then used the knobbled red appendage as a springboard to kick CyberVenom in the face. “Wow, great tongue, CV! If only you weren’t so dog-freakingly ugly you’d be very popular with the ladies!” The villain ripped his tongue free, bringing part of the superstructure with him. “You sthure musht wanth to die badth!” he growled, finding it difficult to talk with bits of bridge still attached to him. “Well, I was going to let you rip me open and eat my insides,” CSFB! admitted hurling combat candy down that gaping maw of a throat. “But then I smelled your breath. Boy, did you eat a dead skunk?” CyberVenom allowed his computer-enhanced reflexes to take over. CrazySugarFreakBoy! was fast, almost impossibly flexible, and as sneaky as all get. But the more CV concentrated the better he came to understand the chaotic rhythms of his enemy’s combat style. “So working on the fair assumption that you’re not the brains behind this, who’s the big baddie?” CSFB! wondered as he dodged and stuck again and again. “The Word? Too chaotic. HH? Not unless there’s something else going on we don’t know about. Fokker and HERPES? Or B.A.L.D.? I hope it’s B.A.L.D. I love kicking that big spud-head-in-a-chair thing they have leading them.” “You’re gonna be a real laugh riot right up to the moment I rip your head off,” CyberVenom told the wired wonder. He suddenly extruded another limb from the alien sheath that swathed his body, grabbed CSFB!’s leg, and wrapped the hero in the energy-draining cybernetic tentacles that sprouted from his back. “And that’s about now. Any last wise-cracks, smart boy?” “Sure,” grinned the sucrose-powered superhero. “I want to know how you keep all that tech going inside an anti-tech field.” He reached out to the small silver box attached to CV’s spine. “Could it be this?” CrazySugarFreakBoy! was close enough to grab the exclusion field modulator now, so he snatched it out of CyberVenom’s flesh and crushed it in his hand. “Oops.” The cybernetic parts of CyberVenom’s body suddenly shut down. The villain was racked with epileptic spasms as he failed to compensate for the sudden shift in nervous control between himself, his alien, and his tech implants. He wanted to scream that CSFB! had cheated, that it wasn’t fair. CSFB! hit him until he lost consciousness and it didn’t matter to CyberVenom any more. Tomorrow’s Episode: The Florist plans to kill every cop in Paradopolis… and only Visionary can save them! No, really. 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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| #146: Untold Tales of the Big Blackout: Back to Basics With Balefire – Part Two: Say It With Flowers “I don’t see why these bad guys couldn’t have attacked on a school night,” Kerry Shepherdson complained as she got off her skateboard outside Police Headquarters. “That way we’d have had Harlagaz and F.A. and Ham Boy and Glory to help fight them. And spiffy I suppose.” “We do not need all those people to help us,” Asil proclaimed, leaping from her bicycle. “We have Visionary with us.” Vizh skidded to a halt and fell off his bike at their feet. “Ouch,” he said. “I am so comforted,” hissed Kerry, looking down at the crumpled possibly-fake man. “Good,” smiled Asil sincerely. “Then let us go inside and smite crime.” “Er, be careful,” Visionary warned the two young girls. “We still don’t have any of our electronic data stuff, so we’re operating on Sorceress’ scrying magics. We don’t know what’s waiting for us in there.” Asil wrenched open the main door. “Flowers,” she answered. “What’s waiting for us is lots of flowers.” The lobby of the Police Department was choked with bouquets. Many of them had broken out of their gift baskets and were tangling around each other making an almost impassable barrier. “I so should have brought a napalm dispenser,” hissed Kerry. “But no, you made me leave it in your bedroom.” “In my bedroom?” Visionary worried. “I said put it back in the weapons locker. And resecure the safety seal.” “Whatever,” shrugged Kerry. “Now I gotta find a gas main.” “This is very odd,” Asil noted, looking round. “All of these bunches of blooms have little cards on them, with messages.” Vizh checked a dedication. “Die, police scum,” he read. “I guess we’re past Valentine’s day.” “This one says ‘Roses are red but blood is red too, I’m am the Florist, I’m going to gas you.’,” frowned Asil. “The Florist?” “I think he battled dull thud once,” strained Visionary. “Also, I think I might be allergic to pollen.” “There’s something weird about that scent,” Kerry frowned. “I think it’s some kind of drug.” “An opiate,” Asil agreed. “We should get in and out quickly before we are affected too.” “No problem,” called Kerry. “I’ll be right back. They’ve got one of those armoured police battering-ram vehicles outside. I, um, I’m pretty sure they’ll have left the keys in.” “I don't think internal combustion engines are working right now,” Asil reminded the annoying teenager who had somehow had the luck to become Visionary's ward. “Oh, I'm pretty sure I'm in with a chance," grinned the Probability Arsonist. “I’ll go on ahead,” Asil told Vizh. “I can be smaller than the rest of you.” She used her gift to change her age to that of a three-year old and crawled off through the tangle of briars. “This is fun!” she called from the jungle depths. “And I’ll just… stay here and co-ordinate,” Visionary called after the young women. That was when the Florist found him. “Ah, there you are,” Walter Kew proclaimed as he discovered the Legionnaire snuffling into a handkerchief in the flower-crowded lobby. “I was starting to wonder if any of you heroes were ever going to get here.” “Sorry. We’re a bit pushed tonight,” Vizh explained. “Somebody blacked out the city, you see, and it’s keeping us kind of busy.” “You’re Visionary, aren’t you?” the Florist recognised. “We’ve been briefed on you. You’re harmless.” Vizh was hurt. “Hey, I can be harmful. I’m often very harmful.” He straightened up and smoothed down his yellow coat. “Beware me,” he concluded. “Or you’ll bleed on me?” the Florist suggested. Vizh swallowed hard. “Um… say, have you ever wondered if I’m fake?” he asked desperately. “Maybe considered dissecting me to find out?” “No,” answered the Florist. “On the whole I think I’ll just kill you and get on.” He looked around the police station-turned-bower. “Balefire said I should use saran gas, but where’s the beauty in that? I’m killing these people aesthetically, the way they deserve. Starting with you, Legionnaire.” Then Kerry drove the police tank through the wall and mulched the Florist’s collection of prize-winning orchids. Visionary dived aside as the ram took out a wall five feet from his head. He wasn’t sure if Kerry was aiming for him. That was about the time Asil made her way through to the seeping gas tanks and turned them off, saving hundreds of lives. “My arrangements!” screamed the Florist, tangling Kerry’s tank in thick strands of vine. Visionary smelled the acrid tang of napalm and dived behind the reception desk. What were the chances of there being a napalm dispenser in a police raid-tank? Kerry showed her appreciation of the world of nature and splashed it with chemical fire. “I’ll kill you!” vowed the Florist. “Spores in your gastrointestinal tract, growing to oaks!” Visionary decided enough was enough and downed the Florist with a well aimed inkpot to the side of the head. He remembered to take a bunch of the remaining flowers home for Cheryl though. It wasn’t really his fault when they tried to strangle her. Tomorrow’s Episode: The Safe is busted wide open, and one man and his dog try to shut it down again – but there are a few objections. 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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| #146: Untold Tales of the Big Blackout: Back to Basics With Balefire – Part Three: Firefighting Mr Epitome and Glory dropped from the Epitome Express at a high enough altitude that the anti-tech field wasn’t badly affecting its systems. They used the simple technology of ripcord parachutes to slow their descent and steered their fall towards the Safe metahuman facility. “Looks bad,” scowled Dominic Clancy as they glided over the walls. “Those are escapees in the outer courtyard.” “I will round them up,” Glory the canine champion promised. “I have always wanted to get in touch with my sheepdog heritage.” “I need to get inside and deal with things there,” Epitome agreed. He landed gracefully, hacking himself free of his chute before he could become entangled like the three thugs he’d dropped it on, rendered them all unconscious in a little under fifteen seconds, then raced through the big hole in the side of the steel and concrete building. A burst of flame seared him as it blew him back into the courtyard. He felt his clothes and hair starting to catch light and rolled aside, dousing himself in the dust. The courtyard tiles were melting beneath him. He tried to leap upwards but his leg sank into molten goo. All around him were walls of fire. “Hey, fried hero on the menu!” laughed Third Degree, the escaping mutate whose fire-generating abilities were currently bent on the murder of the paragon of power. Epitome grabbed a handful of burning stone and hurled it like a cannonball at the villain’s head. Third Degree flinched back and concentrated all his power to vaporise it before it hit. That gave Epitome the moment he needed to pull himself free. He jumped up to the rooftop, avoiding the flailing trails of fire that coiled after him like snakes. Third Degree stalked through the heart of the firestorm hunting him. “Come back! I need a serious superhero kill on my resume,” he called out. “I know just what you need,” growled Epitome as he dropped the side of the building on him. He tumbled with it as he went, riding the leading edge of falling masonry. He used it as a cover so that Third Degree didn’t see him till the concrete melted. By then he was close enough to get a solid punch into the mutate’s face. Third Degree went down in an awkward straggle of limbs. The flames around him flickered and were doused. Epitome staggered as the burns caught up with him. Apart from himself and Third Degree there were no other living things in the inner yard. Escapee and guard alike had died in the conflagration. “Glory?” he called. Glory flew past him, moving horizontally, hit the steel door of the main prison block, and went straight through it. It took Clancy a few moments to realise that his dog had been on the receiving end of an extremely powerful punch. She didn’t come back. “You!” a gruff voice called from the direction Glory had flown. “Come here and die!” Epitome found his limbs disobeying him as he turned to face his new enemy. Twelve feet tall with impenetrable grey skin. Razor-sharp ossified ridges on spine, arms and legs. High-range psionic capacity. Yurt-class strength. All the instincts of the alien murder machine he had been created to be. Epitome was facing Onslaughter. Tomorrow’s Episode: While everybody else is having fun, Balefire has to get on with the Big Plot TM; so next time we’ll see what he’s really up to… and who he needs to help him achieve his fiendish ends.. 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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| #146: Untold Tales of the Big Blackout: Back to Basics With Balefire – Part Four: Hostile Takeover Miss Framlicker was asleep by the time the blackout started, so she had no idea that Paradopolis was facing yet another crisis until her front door was kicked in by Grrl. She fumbled in her nightstand drawer for the handgun she kept there, a specially modified Interdimensional Transportation Corporation Phase-Interstitial Plasmoid Deliverer. It wasn’t working. “Hey, Miss F!” called someone as her bedroom door was shattered to splinters. “Happy birthday!” The intruders were carrying cold lights, the chemical bars that gave an eerie actinic glow. Miss Framlicker blinked the last sleep out of her eyes as a massive negress and a small man wrapped in ribbons and bows stalked into her bedroom. “What the hell is this?” she demanded. She glanced at her digital clock but it was dead. “We’re here to cheer you up,” Birthday Bandit promised her. “We heard you kicked your boyfriend out. Nobody should be alone on such a special day.” “He wasn’t my boyfriend,” Miss F snapped, referring to her former housemate Nats. “Just some sad dweeb who betrayed my trust and took advantage of my kindness to make me a laughing stock.” “You just described all guys on the planet,” growled Grrl. “I hate him,” Miss Framlicker hissed. “I hate him more than anyone in the world.” Balefire pushed Al B. Harper into the room. “Except him,” Miss Framlicker conceded. “And my files say you two used to be so close,” Balefire noted. “Well, enough of the human drama. Time to get on with the plot.” “Why do you want Miss Framlicker?” Al B. Harper demanded. “I’ve already set your anti-tech generator going. Your men are out looting and pillaging right now.” Grrl dragged Miss Framlicker out of bed and threw her a robe. “Aw. I kind of liked the birthday suit,” pouted Birthday Bandit. “The whole looting of Paradopolis is just a perk,” Balefire explained. “A diversion. Something to keep the heroes busy, and maybe make a little walking around cash on the side.” “Harper, what have you got me into now?” Miss Framlicker demanded angrily. “I thought we agreed to pretend you didn’t exist so I didn’t have to disperse your molecules across the interstitial vortex?” “You agreed that. I thought maybe we’d just exchange Christmas cards.” “Hello? Explaining my genius plan here,” hissed Balefire. “Do try and keep the bickering ex-couple stuff to a minimum.” “Who is he?” Miss F demanded to Al. “Jeremiah Frost,” the scientist answered. “Except now he prefers the metal costume and to call himself Balefire.” “Ah yes,” the administrator of ITC remembered. “He tried to hire us to locate some extradimensional energy source that had granted him his link with what he termed corposant fire. His cheque bounced.” “Fortunately, I no longer need to buy your company’s services,” Balefire told her. “Tonight I intend to steal it.” Miss Framlicker shook her head. “I won’t do anything to help you. The ITC building is hidden behind a reality screen. It can only be located if we want it to be found. And I won’t take you there.” She glanced over at her ex-fiancée. “No matter how much you torture Alaric,” she added hopefully. Grrl twisted her arm painfully. “You’ll do what we tell you,” she warned her captive. “The ITC building won’t be hidden by its reality screen right now,” Al B. Harper realised. “The anti-tech field will have shut them down. That was the whole reason for stealing the Abhuman device in the first place, wasn’t it? You wanted to get to ITC.” Balefire nodded. His expression couldn’t be seen under his steel mask, but his posture said he was smirking. “Now all we need to do is claim the complex, install the exclusion modules so it will work despite the anti-tech field, and the building’s own defences will prevent anyone from finding and disturbing us.” “I will not help you,” Miss Framlicker repeated, glaring at Grrl. “You don’t need to, though,” Birthday Bandit giggled. “Not today. Not now I’ve seen you. It’s your birthday, and I can borrow the special gifts of anybody on the anniversary of their birth. So right now I know everything about ITC that you do.” “Crap,” breathed Al B. Harper. “ITC,” announced Balefire. “I liked it so much I stole the company.” Tomorrow’s Episode: Remember poor Warden Westwood over that the Safe, at the mercy of the brutal League of Losers (they prefer the term Frightsome Four)? Time to look in and see how he’s doing, I think. It could get nasty. Or ferny. 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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| #146: Untold Tales of the Big Blackout: Back to Basics With Balefire – Part Five: Losers Warden Westwood was bound to his office chair as Marker Man twisted the steel frame to imprison him. The villain ripped open his shirt and used a felt tip to draw out dotted incision lines. “So we’re not going with the hostage plan, then?” Garbage Burner noted. “We won’t need hostages to escape in all this confusion,” English Man suggested. “We’ll just wait until all the initial chaos has died down and somebody kills that Third Degree idiot and then we’ll be on out way.” “But we have time for some recreational dentistry first, right?” checked Dr Teeth. “I only have five sets of prison warden dentition in my collection, and one of those is that scummy fat guy from the jail in Zimbabwe, and you know what his mouth was like.” “No,” Westwood pleaded as they approached him with wicked grins. “Please…” The reinforced door burst open under powerful blows. “Get your fun elsewhere,” English Man warned. “The Warden’s occupied with us.” “See that’s the thing,” said spiffy, in the doorframe. His symbiotic fern flexed and writhed. “I have an appointment with the Warden, and I really hate to be left hanging around in waiting rooms.” “spiffy!” laughed Marker Man. “spiffy’s going to try and stop us?” “Says the League of Losers,” noted Mark Hopkins. English Man stopped laughing. “We are the Frightsome Four!” he snapped. “We are terrors.” “You’re sure not funny any more,” agreed the ferned phenomenon; and meanwhile the fronds from the symbiotic plant on his head had got into position beneath the floorboards. “Anyway, spiffy’s not going to try and stop you. His fern is.” The tendrils burst up through the flooring, scattering the criminals away from the Warden. “Get him!” shouted English Man; but those flailing ferns were already choking him, binding him tight, squeezing. Garbage Burner turned his flame-throwers on the tendrils. The fern’s energy-absorbing powers drained the heat then sent it back as a searing wave that frazzled the villain’s hair and covered him with first-degree burns. The fern tended to get enthusiastic when spiffy’s attention was elsewhere. Dr Teeth turned to use his drill on Mark Hopkins. A frond hammered into his belly. A second caught him in a straight uppercut. He went down with a grinding of dentistry. That left Marker Man. The villain rolled aside, avoiding the grasping greenery. He hurled three marker pens with deadly accuracy. The fern deflected two of them. The third caught spiffy just above the eye. Another half inch lower would have blinded him, which was Marker Man’s intent. As it was, Mark Hopkins was stunned. He staggered back unable to stop the villain coming in for the kill. Uncontrolled, the fern went wild. By the time spiffy was able to clear his head and stagger to his feet, the League of Losers were laid out across the room. They were smeared with leaf-mould, and all of them needed urgent medical attention. Tomorrow’s Episode: There are lots of Canucks in the Big Banana, and Canadian Nightmare intends to control all of them. You don’t want to know what Krotch wants to do with them. But you’ll find out anyway next time.. 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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| #146: Untold Tales of the Big Blackout: Back to Basics With Balefire – Part Six: The Diversion Gambit Canadian Nightmare co-ordinated the riots so as to shepherd the fleeing masses towards Paradopolis Plaza. He was planning his big finish there, and he wanted as many people around as possible. “Keep them moving, Canucks,” he called out to the thousands of ex-patriot Canadians he’d seized control of and had pick up hammers and knives and whatever agricultural implements they could find. He’d had them smash and burn all the way from the Carrington financial district, even the old ladies wielding sewing scissors. Now it was time for the payoff. “All you Canadians stop being polite and start menacing.” “Hey!” objected Krotch, lumbering next to him and still carrying the horde of dirty underwear he’d liberated from the overnight laundry. “Okay,” sighed Canadian Nightmare. “All you Canadians stop being polite and start menacing, unless you happen to have at least a 38-D bust, in which case report to Krotch here for personal inspection.” “That’s better,” slobbered Krotch. “Yum. Kuties.” “Try not to get too distracted,” Canadian Nightmare advised him. “Out job is to create such havoc that any heroes around will get involved here not interrupt the others gathering the loot.” “I kan think of ways to make the heroes kum here,” Krotch chortled. “Screamy ways.” “Oh, they’ll be here soon enough,” Canadian Nightmare promised. “Once I torch the Twin Parody Tower.” An athletic looking young black man, one of the people lumbering like a zombie beside Canadian Nightmare, suddenly turned round, punched him in the gut, then landed a haymaker on his jaw. “Or not,” suggested the plain-clothes Falcon. His flight suit and combat harness were useless in the anti-tech field, but he was still a superbly-trained fighter. “Hey!” complained Krotch. “You aren’t under kontrol.” “SPUD mind-resistance training,” Falcon shrugged, turning to dodge the first lumbering blows of Canadian nightmare’s partner, “plus, you know, not being willing to be taken in by such a corny power.” “Krotch will krush you!” “Krotch? I’m actually fighting a villain called Krotch? Is this what it’s come to?” But the huge bad guy suddenly reared up and ripped his grubby mackintosh open. “Now you see the power of Krotch!” he called. “Gaah!” gasped Falcon. “I’m blind!” “Yuh!” laughed Krotch, hammering a massive fist to the side of the hero’s head while he couldn’t see to dodge it. “And bleeding!” Falcon staggered and tried to regain his feet. He still couldn’t see, and he knew his enemy was circling him. He heard the little gurgle of pleasure just before the villain struck and managed to take only a glancing blow to the shoulder. But the second punch knocked him off his feet and the hits kept on coming. “Hur,” laughed Krotch. “Hur. Hur.” Canadian Nightmare dragged himself to his feet, feeling his jaw and nose. “Who the hell is that?” he demanded angrily. “I don’t know,” Krotch said, continuing to pummel the unconscious hero. “But he is kute.” The mackintoshed behemoth looked down at Falcon with an appraising eye. “I think Krotch get to know this kutie better.” Canadian Nightmare stepped away and forced himself to take command of the Canadians that had been milling around aimlessly while he was down. “Right,” he told them. “I want every building in this Plaza smashed, looted, and then burned,” he told his slaves. “I especially want that tall building like a Roman candle.” “And also help me get this kutie’s pants off,” called Krotch. “Okay everybody,” called Dancer, dropping down from a nearby rooftop into a lithe crouch. “First, eew. Second, no. Third, surrender or be improbabled.” Krotch dropped Falcon hard. “Ooh. She is kuter,” he decided. “And one hundred percent non-Canadian,” Dancer noted to Canadian Nightmare. “Also, one thousand percent not interested in Krotch, for the record, okay?” “You don’t have to be Canadian for me to stop you,” the Nightmare promised. “Not while I have all these Canucks working so closely with me. You see, unless you surrender, Dancer, I’ll just order them all to cut their own throats. That’s the big plan for me capturing the superheroes when they turn up.” “Ah,” breathed Sarah Shepherdson. “I see.” “You surrender, kutie,” snickered Krotch. “We got hostages.” “Good job I brought backup then,” answered Dancer. “Guys, meet our newest probationer, the Librarian.” Lee Bookman pushed his way forward through the seething Canadian crowd. “How do you do?” he said to Canadian Nightmare and Krotch. “I’m very pleased to meet my first official villains.” Canadian Nightmare had half a dozen of his mind-slaves grab Lee, wrestle him to the floor, and hold him down. “You could have the shortest Legion membership on record,” the villain noted as he looked down at the captured Librarian. “You’re mind-controlling these people,” Lee Bookman confirmed as the villain gloated down at him. “Standard psionic interface.” “Right. And now I’m telling them to rip your limbs off.” “The only reason I was checking,” Librarian explained calmly, “was that I have this gift to absorb and transmit data from written material by touch. So I can absorb, say, a book on higher mathematics and then pass it on to the folks holding me. Very fast.” Suddenly the Canadians holding Lee reeled backwards clutching at their heads. And the effect cascaded through the entire possessed crowd. And to Canadian Nightmare. “Obviously, the information can be a bit stunning if delivered too quickly into an unprepared mind,” Librarian added. “And if that mind is linked psionically with some other minds…” “I think he gets it,” Dancer assured the new Legionnaire as Canadian Nightmare fell face-first onto the pavement. Huh?” frowned Krotch, who didn’t get it. Given that the remaining villain has such a distinctive name there was only one place that Dancer could kick him. Tomorrow’s Episode: The casualties are mounting and the Phantomhawk Memorial Hospital is struggling to cope without power, security, or enough staff. What they do have is unguarded closets full of valuable drugs with a high street value, so the Slumtown Bloods decide it’s a good time to call for their prescriptions. Then things get Messy. 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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| #146: Untold Tales of the Big Blackout: Back to Basics With Balefire – Part Seven: Angel of Mercy The Phantomhawk Memorial Hospital was packed with casualties, and the situation was made more difficult still by the loss of power that hampered all but the simplest of diagnostic methods. The main concourse was a seething mass of confusion, so it was no surprise that the Slumtown Bloods were able to barge their way in without even being challenged. Nobody really notice them until Big Rico brought his sledge-hammer down on the nurses’ station. “Hey there!” shouted Meathook. “We got a need for medication, sister.” The nurse tried to run away but Marlin grabbed her and cuddled her to him. He licked her cheek and said, “Yum. We’re here to collect the candy, baby.” “Keys to the drugs cupboard, nursie,” Big Rico called out. “Now.” There were a hundred or more people packed into the concourse where the raid was taking place but many of them were injured. Most of them were frightened. And there were upwards of twenty gang members from the meanest krew this side of the Sheldon Bay River carrying everything from machetes to bike chains. The man who’d just laid a child crash victim down on one of the waiting area couches stood up and turned towards them. “You’re sick?” Messenger asked them. “I got the cure.” The Bloods recognised him, of course. “The postman!” sneered Big Rico. “But his guns ain’t working now.” Messenger lifted his hands as if he was surrendering. And then suddenly there were gleaming razor-letters between his fingers. “You want to see how nasty I can get when I don’t use firearms?” he asked them. “You won’t be doing jack,” Marlin snickered, pulling the ER nurse closer to him and touching a flick-knife to her throat. “We got hostages.” “Oh yeah!” grinned Meathook, catching on. He leaned over to an old man in a wheelchair and held the weapon he was named after over the heart patient’s eye. “You blew it this time, postman!” “Drop the nasties, Messenger,” Big Rico threatened. “Now. And the trenchcoat. Then get yourself over here so we can beat you to death.” Messenger placed the razor letters back in his pockets. Then he carefully unbuttoned his overcoat and laid it on the back of a sofa. Then he cracked his knuckles. “Try it,” he suggested. “Hit him,” Marlin told his buddies. “And if he tries to fight back, nursie gets a new mouth.” “At least you’re already in a hospital,” Messenger told them as Big Rico swung towards him. He caught the gang thug’s punch, broke his arm, then tossed him hard into Marlin. At the same time he kicked the old man’s wheelchair back hard, toppling him away from Meathook, leaving Meathook open to a bone-crunching blow to the kneecap. “Get him!” Rico screamed, clutching his forearm. The postman shut him up by shattering his jaw. He stamped down hard on Meathook’s head as he passed by and stalked over to Marlin. The gang boy toppled backwards over the nurses station, trying to get away. The nurse emptied a can of mace into his face. She’d worked ER at Phantomhawk for some time. Messenger helpfully broke three of Meathook’s ribs and his pelvis to make sure he stayed down. The rest of the gang turned to run. Messenger vaulted over the patients and blocked the exit. “Uh uh,” he told them. “You’ve been bad. You have to be punished.” He waited long enough for them to realise they were dead and then added, “And today, you get lucky with community service. The hospital’s in trouble, and needs all the hands it can get. You help out all night, best as you can… and I don’t leave you in here.” His smile had no warmth in it whatsoever. “Deal?” Tomorrow’s Episode: While we’re checking out the, shall we say non-aligned members of our Paradopolis cast, let us not forget a neglected poster-character with an important mission who won’t let a little thing like being comatose stop him. It’s coming up in This Ain’t No Technological Breakdown. 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. |
And this chapter accidentally gave birth to a new Parodyverse regular character, as can be seen in the Night Nurse Archive
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| #146: Untold Tales of the Big Blackout: Back to Basics With Balefire – Part Eight: This Ain’t No Technological Breakdown Chronic woke up. There was a tube in his arm where they were feeding him, and he had bed sores. He felt like crap. His guitar hummed at him. Chronic shifted, stiffly, painfully. He was in some kind of sick room, a windowless hospital bedroom. He tried to piece his memories together. Steve hummed again, louder, more insistently. Chronic fumbled for his clothes. He’d been captured, he remembered, and they’d taken Steve from him. He’d had… withdrawal problems. Symptoms. Delirium. Fever. He’d wanted to die. He’d… escaped into a coma. His hand automatically reached out for the neck of the devil’s guitar that owned him. He felt so much better when the strap went round his neck. The weight was comforting. He was stronger now. Steve spoke to him. Not in words, in ideas. He was a constant presence, whispering, advising, changing what Chronic thought. And right now Steve had a job for him. Chronic never stopped to consider how the devil’s guitar had got into his room, or why it had chosen to come back to him now. He just staggered on, out of his bed, down the hall. It was some kind of prison hospital. Chronic recognised the bleak institutional décor. The stationary on the nurse’s table said it was the Safe. That figured. If he’d been found unconscious this was where they’d bring a character like him. Claxons were sounding. It looked like there was some kind of emergency going on. Every so often the building shook. It didn’t matter. Steve dragged Chronic down, deeper down, through concealed service stairs. After five flights the walls stopped being steel and plascrete and became bedrock. There was no light but Chronic knew just where to put his feet. There were vault doors but a prolonged riff from Road to Hell shredded them like confetti. At the end of the hall was another doorway. Unlike the rest of the prison it was still lit up by the pale wire-framed light bulbs. The door was of some smooth black material that seemed almost frictionless. The rusting metal sign on the door read “Prisoner 0”. Steve thrummed encouragingly. Chronic picked away the dried paste that had been used to seal the threshold. It burned at his fingers, this long-calcified holy wafer, but he didn’t care. Even if Steve hadn’t been spurring him on he wanted to know what was behind the portal, the Safe’s oldest, most terrible secret. When the seal finally broke there was a stench of ancient stale air. The door swung outwards leaving a dark rectangle that no light penetrated. There was a clanking of chains, and a deep voice from within said, “At last.” Tomorrow’s Episode: So the heroes are supposed to be diverted while Killer Shrike and Uncle Bob empty out the banks. Unfortunately one of the good guys is still out there, and only he can try and stop the baddies walking off with the haul of a lifetime. Join us for part nine, Slings and Arrows 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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| #146: Untold Tales of the Big Blackout: Back to Basics With Balefire – Part Nine: Slings and Arrows “This is more like it,” Simon Maddicks grinned as he used his wrist blasters to sear their way through the main vault door of the First Paradopolis Bank. “A city in chaos, heroes fighting for their lives, and a really huge haul of loot at the end of it!” For the first time since escaping to this bizarre Parodyverse Killer Shrike actually felt happy. “Just break in so we can get the loot,” burped his drunken companion Uncle Bob. The seedy overweight clown in the shabby spotted overall and pallid white make-up was alternately emptying counter cash into sacks and swigging something from a brown paper parcel. “I could’a been Howdy Doody y’know. It was all network politics.” “Right,” said Shrike sceptically. “Who wants to be a crappy clown anyway? We’re gonna be rich!” Uncle Bob paused in mid cash-scoop and turned to glare at the pony-tail wearing mercenary. “There is nothing more important in this cruddy world than makin’ little children laugh,” the clown glowered. “The little bastards.” Just then the vault door fell off. “Me and twenty million bucks disagree with you, Krusty,” Maddicks smirked. “That’ll give ya something ta think about all those long nights in your jail cell, Barbie!” called out Trickshot as he fired an electroshock arrow into the metal door Shrike was touching. “Oh, an by the way, you’re getting creamed by Trickshot the Marksman. Fer your memoirs.” The capacitor-tipped arrow bounced harmlessly off the door and didn’t electrocute anyone. “Gee,” sneered Killer Shrike. “I dunno which I want to write about first. How I knocked over a bank with a Bobo-wanabee or how I killed a dumb bowman that couldn’t figure his gimmick-arrows don’t work in an anti-tech field.” He skimmed into the air, easily avoiding the next brace of normal steel-tipped arrows and launched a brilliant bolt of lightning from his energy bracelets. “My kit works just fine though.” “I am not a Bobo-wanabee,” hiccupped Uncle Bob. He pulled a custard pie from his pants and hurled it at Trickshot. The splatter was adhesive, catching the irritating archer on the boot, pinning him to the floor. “I could take Bobo with one floppy shoe ties behind my back,” Uncle Bob boasted. “Where did I put down my acid-spray hose?” Trickshot rolled aside, shedding his boot, but wasn’t fast enough to stop another barrage from Killer Shrike detonating his quiver. The explosion knocked him down behind the teller’s counter. “Not so cocky now, Hawkeye-lite?” Killer Shrike called as he pulled a machine pistol from his hip holster and sprayed the area with .33 teflon-tipped bullets. “What is it with flamin’ lame archers in this burg anyway? And what’s a guy with a longbow really gonna do against two hundred rounds a minute of hot lead?” Trickshot rolled away from the rapidly disintegrating counter. “I dunno. This?” he wondered. Without even seeming to look he hurled an arrowtip module from his shoulder harness. The delicate glass V shattered on the wall behind Shrike and the pressurised tear gas billowed out. Uncle Bob sounded his clown horn, and the sonic blast hurled Trickshot back through the plate glass window onto the street. “So what’s green and red and pulped all over?” he said, trying not to hack his lungs out as he waddled after Trickshot. “You!” “Nu-uh,” Carl Bastion denied, rolling away from the cherry bombs and razor-sharp playing cards. “I got a rule never to be creamed by somebody so lame.” He picked up a fragment of plate glass, weighed it in his hand for a moment, then tossed it with pinpoint accuracy into Uncle Bob’s arm. “Aagh!” screamed the clown. “You fu…” Then Trickshot hit him, a close combination one two to padded belly and jowly chin, and he followed it up with a close-range anaesthetic arrowhead crushed under the villain’s big red nose. “Don’t call us, we’ll call you,” he told Uncle Bob. Killer Shrike powered into the archer at close to eighty miles per hour. “Funny. That’s what I was going to tell you, loser,” Maddicks said. “Say hello to my titanium talons.” Trickshot tried to avoid the slashing crescents on Shrike’s wrists but he was being powered through the air at dizzying speeds, facing a foe that was bigger and better trained in close-quarters martial arts than he was. He felt a cold slice across his chest, and another on his face. “Gonna carve you like a Thanksgiving dinner,” Killer Shrike boasted. “My first proper hero kill on this damn plane.” “Or not,” growled Bastion. He reached out and popped another electro-shock arrowhead into Killer Shrike’s mouth. This one was inside the exclusion field generated by Balefire’s anti-tech-supression-supression device that allowed Shrike’s wrist blasters and anti-grav spinal implant to work. The mercenary shuddered and screamed for a moment before ploughing into the sidewalk and crumpling into a heap. Trickshot landed heavily, clutching the slashes on face and torso, but he was the last man standing. “Next time pick someone easier,” he told the unconscious Killer Shrike. “Like Donar or Finny.” 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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| #146: Untold Tales of the Big Blackout: Back to Basics With Balefire – Part Ten: Puzzle Pieces “Y’know, my pa said I was wasting my life playing video games,” Randy Robertson noted as he watched the alien mothership slam down into the green horizon, “but I’ve gotta say I think it was time well spent.” “Because you never know when you’re going to be trapped in a virtual reality dungeon by some homicidal games designer and made to struggle through a hundred levels of shoot-em ups and problem solvers that’ll kill you if you don’t get them right,” agreed Art Corben. “Yeah.” “I think I’ve solved this mathematical problem,” Mindy Pyrite called out. “The one with the four men having to cross the bridge with the lantern. Although why one of them can cross at 10 miles per hour while the others can only do one, two, and five respectively isn’t at all clear.” “Hey, never mind. You did it,” Art congratulated her. He crunched over the shattered yellow spheres that had previously been gobblers chasing him until he found a power-up. “What’s next?” “I just wish now I hadn’t deleted all that math stuff dad uploaded into me,” Mindy the robot girl admitted. “But I needed the memory space for my mpeg collection.” “Okay, it’s another of those logic puzzles,” Randy warned. “Plane carrying seventy passengers crashes in no-man’s land between East and West Germany during the cold war. A third of the passengers are East German, a third West German, and the rest American. Do the survivors get buried in the east, the west, in no-man’s land, or what?” “You don’t bury the survivors, dude,” Art called back. “Next?” *** Mr Limpqvist, Manager of the Interdimensional Transportation Corporation, was anxiously checking the failsafes on some of the more volatile portals. In theory the backups should have shut them down safely when the power went out, but the anti-technology field seemed to have caused some strange effects and the thin old man minced hurriedly from room to room checking as best he could by the light of a hurricane lamp. He sighed in relief as he saw Miss Framlicker in the doorway of the Seals and Sigils Department. “Oh, my dear! You made it in! You have no idea how glad I am to see you!” Then he saw that his administrator was not alone. “They’re behind the attack,” Miss Framlicker warned her employer. “They want to take over.” Mr Limpqvist blinked in alarm. “Oh dearie!” he swallowed. “That’s… well that’s really not very nice.” Balefire stalked out of the shadows. In the darkness there was an eerie luminescence beneath his mask. “We aren’t very nice people, Mr Limpqvist,” he warned. “But we are the new owners of the Interdimensional Transportation Corporation.” The silver-haired old man shook his head. “I’m sorry, but that’s quite out of the question. ITC is responsible to its stockholders and board of directors, and…” “Do you want me to grind you into little pieces?” Grrl demanded, leaning down to breathe into the director’s face. “Er, no. I’d really prefer if you didn’t,” Mr Limpquist winced. “Would you care for a breath mint?” “Get working, Harper,” Balefire told his captured scientist. “Install the exclusion field modulators so we can get this puppy up and running again.” When Al hesitated he added “Don’t make me have to threaten those children’s wards again.” “You haven’t got any way of sending a radio signal in this suppression field,” Al B. pointed out. “Then don’t make me threaten the delightful Miss Framlicker, then. You wouldn’t like what corposant fire could do to her face.” “She wouldn’t want me to let her be used as leverage either.” Balefire’s hand blazed with an eerie green light that danced and flickered like living flame. “Fine. Then you can listen to her screams.” Al B. relented. “Okay. I’ll do it.” “Harper you worm…!” objected Miss F. Grrl slammed her into a wall and dropped her stunned form to the floor. “Oh dear,” fretted Mr Limpqvist. “This is really most upsetting. The directors will not be at all pleased about this, you know.” “Let them send me a memo,” Balefire snorted. “Unfortunately they’re not here to discuss it with me.” “One of them is,” Birthday Bandit blurted suddenly. He held his hands to his forehead as he winkled through the knowledge he was accessing via his link to Muffy Framlicker. “One of the directors… the first director… is here. In this building.” Mr Limpqvist shuffled nervously. “Now really, I don’t think…” “The one who gave ITC this dimension-hopping technology. She’s here,” Birthday Bandit determined. He was sure now. “The senior partner.” “I don’t think it would be a good idea to disturb her,” Mr Limpqvist advised. Al B. kept on installing the exclusion generator as they talked. After all, he had to redesign it on the fly to allow the lair Legion access to the building. “I think we need to meet this founder,” Balefire noted. “And then I have a little job for the Interdimensional Transportation Corporation.” Coming Next: The Big Blackout concludes as Balefire’s real plot unfolds. Sorceress and dull thud visit the villain’s castle and find a few unexpected complications. Jean-Pierre loots Bautista Enterprises. Beth Shellett has an unexpected visitor – well, unexpected by Goldeneyed. Mr Epitome reasons with Onslaughter; or not. Nats and Uhunalura discuss a few things then things try to kill them. And we meet the founder of the Interdimensional Transportation Corporation, and so does Balefire. Just when you thought things couldn’t get worse, it’s Untold Tales #147: Opening Doors. And Since People Insist on These Footnotes *mutter mutter*: The Dark Knight’s Plutonian Computer in on his Knightcave HQ on the remote planet; or at least it was at the point when this story takes place. The Nacluv are an advanced but reclusive race of geniuses (genii) on a distant planet. Their best known refugee is the irritating teenager Joey Z. The Xnylonians are the alien race from which Ziles came and to which she has now returned. More on them in UT#149. SPUD is the international espionage agency titled the Super-menace Principle Undercover Directorate. It’s director is the cigar-chomping tough-talking Colonel Dan Drury. He really doesn’t like people hacking into his security net. The Epitome Express is a flying machine captured from the villainess known as the Idiom, and modified by the Office of Paranormal Security, Mr Epitome’s agency, for use by him in his field work. The Interdimensional Transportation Corporation (ITC) is a technologically advanced company operating out of Paradopolis (and many other locations). Their Paradopolis branch is a hidden skyscraper overlooking southern Off-Central Park – hidden in that it can’t usually be found unless ITC want you to find it, that is. The Manager is Mr Lundqvist Limpqvist, and the senior scientist is Miss Muffy Framlicker. More on ITC next time. Steve is often referred to as the Devil’s Guitar. We’ve heard hints that it has been owned by other musicians before, possibly disguised as other musical instruments (the fiddle Nero used while Rome burned, for example). Its player can send out devastating sonic waves that seem especially effective against extradimensional and conceptual creatures (such as gods), but becomes increasingly antagonistic towards such beings and towards authority. Chronic has owned the guitar for some time now, and he went catatonic when separated from it during the Ultizon affair. Now we know what happened next. Killer Shrike doesn’t like archers. He’s already had a run in with the Trickshot-inspired Artemis in the Mr Epitome series. This episode isn’t going to change his opinion. More Mind Puzzles: Art, Randy, and Mindy’s brain teaser this time is about how four men cross a narrow bridge in pitch darkness. There’s a long rickety bridge over a rushing river. It’s only strong enough to hold two people at once. It’s pitch dark, and the four men who need to cross only have one lantern between them, which they need to carry every time they cross. The four men can cross in one, two, five, and ten minutes respectively. What’s the quickest time they can all get across, bearing in mind they have to carry the lantern back for the next person? Work it out, and if you didn’t get seventeen minutes you’d better try again. How? Well, first two minute and one minute guy cross, and one minute guy takes the lantern back – that’s three minutes so far. Then ten minute and five minute guy cross, taking it to thirteen minutes total, and two minute guy, who’s already on the other side, comes back, making it fifteen minutes. Then two and one minute guys come to the far said in two more minutes’ time, for a total crossing time of seventeen minutes. All clear? Now move on. 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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Microsoft Internet Explorer 6/Windows 2000
Microsoft Internet Explorer 6/Windows 2000
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