| #150: Untold Tales of the Lair Legion: Agents of Destiny, or Knock, Knock, Who’s There? Previously: Computer game designer Jeremiah Frost, seared with extradimensional corposant fire from the mysterious Source, was transformed into the armoured supervillain Balefire. Now with the assistance of minions Grrl and Birthday Bandit he has taken command of the Interdimensional Transportation Corporation and opened the many conduits and gateways they control between worlds. While this keeps our heroes somewhat busy, Balefire has sought out the entrance portal to the Source and has just stepped through. Across the Parodyverse the dimensional gates were open, and creatures from distant realms crossed over into the world we know. Trolls of Miserablegitheim rampaged down Sunset Boulevard. The Slimy Slaver Lovetoad of Frammistat Eight raided a 7-11 in Denver. Anihillatus, Lord of the Negativity Zone argued about a parking ticket for his Locustship as it paused in front of a hydrant prior to his conquest of Milwaukee. Hero Feeders invaded France. And worse yet, many other ancient wards began to weaken as the energies that maintained them dwindled and the interdimensional disturbances increased. The Safe was largely under control now. Mayor spiffy had called in emergency workers from the Gothametropolis mainland to help shore up the damaged supervillain prison, and Warden Westwood was hurriedly doing a headcheck and totalling up the casualties. There were quite a lot. So perhaps it wasn’t surprising that nobody noticed Chronic rise up again from his sanatorium bed and sling Steve, the Devil’s Guitar, over his shoulder. His fingers automatically smoothed over the strings, and the steel wire thrummed at his touch. “Really?” Chronic asked, apparently to nobody. “Are you sure?” The instrument hummed again, a low sound just at the edge of human hearing. Chronic used the neck of his guitar to smash the small mirror over the washbasin. The shards tinkled down into the sink. He picked up the largest piece and used it to cut longitudinally along the arteries of his wrists. He had bled to death before the attendants even realised he was awake. Herringcarp Abbey was just a ruin, a picturesque relic of the dissolution of the abbeys under Henry VIII three hundred and fifty years earlier. After its confiscation along with all the properties of the Catholic church in England and Wales, the site had been purchased from the Crown and had fallen into the hands of the Marquis of Herringcarp. Used first as a manor and later as a madhouse, the structure had been gutted by fire in the early nineteenth century and was never repaired. It had fallen into the same ruin that most of the mediaeval properties had suffered, and now the mere skeleton of the old priory church and cloister remained on its lonely headland. But to Jerome Frost it was the promised land. “At last,” he breathed. Then, contradicting himself he asked, “How much longer?” The foreman of the work gang answered as phlegmatically as he had done the other fifty or so times his employer had enquired about progress. “We’re shifting all the muck we can as fast as we can, sorr,” he promised. “I’ve told the lads about the bonus, and that’s helping a lot. We’ve cleared most of the debris out of the cellars, and we’re almost through the wall.” Frost glanced across the tent to him fellow scholar. “And they’re in the right place?” he demanded of Howard Bookman. “They’d better be, or we’ve wasted an awful lot of time,” the researcher answered him. “Just calm down, Jerome. We’re mere hours off the archaeological discovery or a lifetime.” Frost paced the tent. “But are we? After so long, after so many setbacks, I hardly know if what we’re after is real or just some fever-dream!” Bookman poured his colleague a stiff brandy. “It’s real,” he assured him. “Do I have to recap the evidence yet again.” “Recap it,” Frost demanded. “Recap it until we’re certain we’ve not missed something.” Bookman sighed. “Very well. In AD43, the Legion Nonae Hispana, the Ninth Spanish Legion, came with Claudius to Britain, part of the great invasion force that subdued England to the Roman Empire. They served with distinction until they vanished from the records around AD120 – the Lost Legion.” “And?” prompted Frost. “And tradition has it that they were massacred while working on Hadrian’s Wall, up on the border with Scotland twenty miles from here, captured and destroyed in the most horrible way possible. The Celtic tribes of that time imprisoned captured Romans in their bone prisons, dungeons formed from the rotting skeletons of previous captives - such as the infamous legendary prison of Oeth and Annoath constructed in Wales by Manawyddan, son of Lyr. But such prisons have never been archeologically proved, and the fate of the Ninth Legion has never been discovered.” “Until now,” Jerome Frost interrupted, unable to contain himself. “Until we put together the clues. The writings of the Roman emperors, the recorded history set down by the early monks, the traditions about this site, even the remarkable dowsing of our medium, Madame Henbane,. They all point to this site. Here! Here is where the Celtic druids formed one of their infamous bone prisons, and here they murdered a thousand men in their so-called Well of Souls!” “That Madame Henbane still hears screaming,” Bookman noted. The year was 1878, and the great craze for spiritualism was just catching fire. Even men of science were beginning to wonder if the barriers between the living and the dead could not be rolled back. And ordered, rational Victorian society was looking back on the druids of prehistory as a source of lost wisdom and psychic knowledge. Frost and Bookman were but two of many scholarly and academic dilettantes who took to archaeology and occultism to seek answers about the world around them; but they were the only two who had elected to dig the lonely isthmus where Herringcarp Abbey had stood. “It has to be here,” Frost repeated. Funding for the final stage of the dig had come from sponsors such as the Westminster Necropolis Company and Lord Slaughter, but he was still deep in debt after the costs of the expedition had spiralled. Success meant his fortune was made. Failure would see him bankrupt. “It has to be.” Then the navvies stopped working, and the foreman called up from the trench, “Mister Frost, sorr, Mr Bookman! We’ve found something!” It had been a long night for the Lair Legion. First Balefire had blacked out the city using a stolen Abhuman technology suppressor. Then his cohorts had gone forth to prey upon the stricken metropolis, looting and pillaging at will. Now Paradopolis was swarming with aliens and extradimensionals and, for some reason, around three hundred angry Japanese Elvis impersonators. Dancer arranged for ManMan to deal with that last threat. The Vortex-parasite Hero Feeders that had slipped through had clad themselves in the form of robotic metal pepperpots. They glided forward firing devastating sonic impact bolts from their stubby armatures and promising to exterminate everything in their path. Sorceress collapsed a staircase on them. “Take it easy now, Whitney,” Sir Mumphrey Wilton advised her as she swayed in the doorway of the hovering Lairjet that had brought the rescue team from Balefire’s castle to join most of the rest of the Legion. “You’ve been through a lot tonight. Don’t strain yourself.” “There’s around nine thousand dimensional portals opened up on this planet alone,” Xander the improbable advised the LL’s temporary honorary leader, “I think a little straining is allowed.” “I’m fine,” the Sorceress told them through gritted teeth. “Shredding Blackhurt’s psychic essence and wiping him from the Parodyverse has cheered me up no end.” “Enough to let me go?” asked Pudu Lad hopefully from his holding shackles at the far end of the Lairjet. ~~Guess,~~ suggested Cressida the Wonder Worm. “So, like, how do we know we’re really out of that VR game thingie?” Randy, one of the LL’s support crew worried existentially. “We could still be in there, on one of an infinite number of realistic levels.” “You don’t see any guys in black coats shooting bullets in slow motion, do you?” demanded his fellow intern Art. “Besides, who cares?” As the Lairjet skimmed low through the streets of Paradopolis, robot engineer Mindy Pyrite had another thought. “Did Visionary fall over?” she wondered curiously. “Because if he didn’t fall over in Baelfire’s anti-tech field then he can’t be fake, can he?” “He didn’t fall over, and yes he can be fake,” answered Xander gruffly. He was still tending to De Brown Streak, who lay unconscious from wounds that didn’t show on his body since he’d taken them while astrally projecting into the sorcerer supreme’s memories. Psychic stitches took concentration. “The Parodyverse won’t allow Visionary’s fakeness to be determined now, lest the whole reality unravel into chaos. Well, more chaos. So if Vizh was fake it fudged the anti-tech field to exclude him.” “And if he was real?” asked dull thud “Then it ignored him as usual.” “There are all kinds of portals all over the place,” worried Art, trying to make sense of the scanner readings from the battered Lairjet. “Where do you start trying to address something like this?” “In a bar, maybe?” suggested thuddy hopefully. “I’ve just heard from Ms Waltz that she and Nats are heading for ITC,” the temporary leader of the Lair Legion noted. “So I think we should just plunge in and help out below for a while, what?” He looked over the situation reports being fed to their battle computer from the rebooted HALLIE back at the Lair Mansion. “Veer nor’west,” he instructed dull thud. “I’m keen to have a crack at those Nazi Prawns at Larry’s Bowl-o-Rama.” Beyond the medieval stonework of the chancel vault was a layer of compacted clay and sand. As that crumbled, remains of human skulls tumbled out with the clodded earth. “Human bone doesn’t last all that well in the ground,” Frost lectured. “But the skull is the thickest part of the body, so it’s the last to rot.” “There were a lot of interments here,” Bookman agreed. By now he was used to his business partner’s predilection for lecturing him on things he already knew. “Try and get a skull out intact for measurement. We can try and determine if they were of the right gender to be Roman legionaries.” “It’s them,” said Madame Henbane with certainly. The middle-aged woman affected gypsy garb, and the many charms on her bracelets rattled as she gestured. “I can feel their spirits even now, screaming out for release. They were bound here, bound body and soul!” Bookman didn’t like to think that the medium actually had true gifts. She’d been Frost’s idea, but he had to concede that she had located the exact spot to break through the cellar wall. “Come now, Madam, we have no way of knowing yet of these were clerical interments from the days of the abbey’s foundation or…” “They are chained souls in torment,” Madame Henbane insisted with a sinister smile. “Piled down in that prison of bone, alive, buried beneath the weight of others, corpse upon corpse, starving and struggling, screaming and pleading…” Frost looked up from the muddy hole. “Tell the workmen to take a break,” he ordered the foreman. “We’ll take it from here.” “And the bonus?” “They’ve earned it. Tell them that too.” The foreman nodded, satisfied that here was one instruction he could give that wouldn’t get him a pickaxe in the head. Bookman watched Frost worm deeper into the hole, trowelling away layers of soft earth and pulling loose fragments of bone. There were more recognisable body parts now, the long limb-bones and shoulder blades. From the shape of the pelvises these had probably been male. “Shall we send a telegram to Lord Slaughter?” the scholar considered. “He wanted to be informed when we found anything, so he could be here.” “Slaughter’s just another nosy nobleman,” came Frost’s voice from the pit. “But we accepted his money. We should wire him.” “Send a runner to the post office then, blast it, Howard, if you must. But I’m not delaying on the find of a lifetime. Not one minute.” Bookman was torn between joining his partner in the thrill of discovery and fulfilling obligations. He didn’t like Simonides Slaughter, but he had given his word. His sense of duty prevailed. “I’ll be back soon,” he told Frost. “Try not to go too far.” Jeremy Frost made a non-committal grunt and continued stripping away the layers within the sundered wall. It took Howard Bookman ten minutes to ride his bicycle to the village. The post-mistress was happy to send his telegram, and reached behind the counter for her carbon pad. “Ooh, I’m glad you came in, Mr Bookman!” she cooed to him. “This message just came for you, and as soon as the boy got back I’d have sent it over to Harringcarp.” Bookman watched as she wrote out then sealed the message and handed it to him. “Just get my cable to Lord Slaughter off as soon as you can, will you?” he asked the post-mistress as he idly opened the telegram. “And try to…” Then he frowned as he saw the puzzling content of his epistle. + + + BOOKMAN – DO NOT RPT NOT CONTINUE DIG HERRINGCARP STOP WILL ARRIVE SOONEST EXPLAIN STOP DANGER STOP BERTRAM + + + “Is this a joke?” he asked the post-mistress. “I don’t know any Bertram.” “I’m not allowed to read the messages,” said the old lady piously, despite the fact that she had to transcribe the messages on the machine. “It’s privacy.” “Who is this fellow and how does he know what we’re doing?” “I don’t know, sir. Maybe he was the foreign gentleman that was here with the young lady yesterday asking questions about the abbey?” speculated the post-mistress. “Who? What?” “Didn’t like the look of him,” the post-mistress added, warming to her theme now. “Indian, by the colour of ‘im, and the lady an American by the sound of her, and no better than she should be.” Thus were Dr Hakenfakir and Hagatha Darkness of the League of Improbable Gentlemen memorialised by the General Post Office. “I need to get back to the dig,” decided Bookman urgently. “I need to talk to Frost about all this.” “And is there danger, then?” the post-mistress asked him as he hurried to his bike. “Not that I was reading over my shoulder you understands.” “There’s nonsense,” frowned Bookman. But his face wore a worried frown. “I must warn you,” the Librarian told the Eleventh Murder Phalanx of the S’Zox assassin’s guild, “that if you persist in attempting to conquer this planet two unpleasant things will happen to you.” “Yesss?” hissed High Deathmaster F’Grn’Hth, who has personally preached that the opening of the special portal between Paradopolis’ Off-Central Park and the S’Zox Assassination Academy was a sign from the gods that they wanted everybody on Earth obliterated. “What thingssss?” “First,” Lee Bookman continued, “I will have to ask for your library ticket back, on the grounds that you only knew about Earth because of your use of the Public Library on Luna, and an attempted planetary conquest of a world you discovered thusly is in breach of your terms and conditions of usage.” “Oooh, I’m shaking,” mocked High Deathmaster F’Grn’Hth. “And second?” “Secondly, the Herald of Galactivac will improbably link the special portal on your planet to the one that leads right into the heart of that black hole outside Casterborouros, which will have a short but interesting effect upon your world as it is sucked across the event horizon into oblivion,” suggested the Librarian. Dancer waved across at the Eleventh Murder Phalanx. “Hi!” she called, then swing back to kick the Skunk tentacle-beast in the kodoths as Yo hurled it over to her. “Hmmm,” considered High Deathmaster F’Grn’Hth. “Perhaps we have… misinterpreted the will of the gods. Perhaps they were saying…” “Stay at home and have a cup of tea?” suggested Bookman. “Yes,” said the High Deathmaster in a strangled tone of voice. “Perhaps that was it.” “Okay, so you’re one of Anihillatus’ Negativity Zone Conquest Battalions, trained since hatching in the arts of scorched-earth warfare and interplanetary destruction, equipped with the latest nega-beam disintegration rifles and not afraid to use them, and I’m just one lone CrazySugarFreakBoy! relying on nothing more than my go-go yo-yo, silly string, combat candy, and snappy patter to survive. But I still think your leader looks like he got his head stuck up a scarab beetle’s ass. What is that helmet meant to be, dude?” Dreamcatcher Foxglove twisted out of the way of three dozen nega-beam disintegrators set to Painful Annihilation, bounced off a wall of Gimble’s department store just before it exploded into dust, and pantsed the Conquest Battalion high commander before springing away again. “Don’t disintegrate him!” the high commander screamed. “I want him alive for my trophy collection!” “I’m flattered,” the wired wonder told him. “I mean, really touched, though not in a Lisa kind of way. But I’m still not letting you through that there portal I’m guarding. I’ll die first!” The Conquest Battalions noticed the slim silvery rectangle of another opened dimensional gate. “Really?” growled the high commander. His nega-beam disintegrator smashed the roof down onto CSFB!’s head. “Everybody, through the portal,” he hissed. “Kill anything you find.” CrazySugarFreakBoy! clung to the scorched remaining rafters and watched them sift the rubble for his body. Eventually even the stragglers lost interest and went through the gateway he’d been defending. Dream’s face split into a great big grin. “Enjoy trying to invade Amazon Isle,” he called after the Conquest Battalions. “Suckers!” “See, I toldya that me bleedin’ like a stuck pig would come in useful,” Trickshot told Falcon as the demons swarmed out of the Paradopolis Bus Depot towards them. “Just don’t die while we blow the crap out of these things,” Sam Wilson warned the annoying archer. “I don’t want something like that on my permanent record.” “Nice to know you care,” answered the bowman, releasing one of his holy water and salt arrows right into the lead demon’s throat. Falcon barrelled into the next two monsters, using his vibratium claws and wing-edges to rip through their torsos and send them flying back spraying ectoplasm. “Hey, I’m still a probationary Legionnaire,” Falc pointed out. “I can’t afford screw-up like you can.” “Screw-ups?” Trickshot argued, dropping a flame-headed marauder with a fire-foam arrow. “Whut screw-ups? I’m damn near the perfect member. I even took out Onslaughter once, single handedly.” Falcon peeled an air-to-surface missile into the midst of a tentacle-faced monstrosity. “In some reality that never happened? Yeah, I read your report. I was real impressed.” Now Trickshot was getting angry. He loosed a pair of magnetic pulse shafts into a couple of approaching demons then watched them slam into each other and start to brawl. “What, you’re saying you’re the Pro from Dover an’ the rest of us Legionnaires aren’t up to your exacting standards, Tweety-Pie?” “No, that’s not what I was saying,” argued Falcon, wrapping his extendible claw-line round another invader then powering upwards to drag it’s head off. “But if you wanna talk professionalism, then yeah, you sure have a long way to go bow-boy.” Trickshot pinned the wings of the bat-thing that was dropping down on Falc. “Cause I don’t have all my gear given to me by SPUD and ‘cause I’m not afraid to crack a smile one in a while?” “I could have got that thing,” Falcon complained, barrel-rolling and spraying bullets behind the archer to take down the three shadowy forms that were creeping up. “Anyway, you get most of your arrows from Bautista Enterprises, and I guess you got your personality from K-MART or somewhere cheap and cheesy.” “That does it, dickie-bird!” shouted Trickshot. “First I bust these demons, then I bust your ass!” “And then you wake up in hospital an it was all a dream,” retorted Falcon. And the battle continued. “Bad frosting giant!” Yo told the forty-foot high slaughterhouse of ice and death. “Sit!” The marauder from Miserablegitheim swung a club of glacial rock twenty-feet long and was surprised when the pure thought being in the Zorro costume flicked it away with a rapier. “There’s quite a lot of them, isn’t there?” worried Dancer, skating between the legs of a second giant. It bent over to look in puzzlement between its legs and then toppled over. “Yo is thinking we can be to be taking them,” Yo assured his/her friend. “Yo is thinking they are not being so bad, and maybe to be having a soft chewy centre.” To prove the point Yo grinned happily at one of them and judo-hurled it into the ornamental pond in the middle of the Paradopolis Mall. “It’s not the numbers,” Dancer replied, deftly arranging for two of the intruders to smash each other over the heads. “It’s the cold. I should have worn something over this leotard.” Yo-female agreed. Yo-male didn’t. “Yo is to be more worried for those naughty men that ran the other way through uncute portalling portal,” the thought being eventually answered. “Yo is to be hoping they are not to be causing any trouble on the other side.” “That HERPES assault squad?” Dancer considered. “No chance.” And on the other side of the dimensional gateway, the HERPES assault squad looked up at a bunch of hairy warriors that looked like an accident in a historic renactment. “Ho, fell intruders!” boomed Donar, Hemigod of Thunder and Acting All-Pappy of Immortal Ausgard. “Let the smiting begin for the nonce!” “Now!” screamed Vlasislaus Klosov, head of the Russian Mafia. “I paid good money to have ITC set up an escape portal in my office and I want them to fix the damn thing now! You get them on the phone and you tell them to come here and shut the bloody thing! And post some more guards on it before somebody just wanders through from Paradopolis, for Lenin’s sake!” There was the sound of automatic machine pistol fire from Klosov’s office, and then the Kalishnikov’s fell silent. The crime boss dropped his telephone and rant to see who his henchmen has killed. “Immigration control,” said the survivor of the massacre, ignoring the flecks of blood that had sprayed the hem of his trenchcoat. “Hello, Klosov.” And Messenger smiled. “Okay, I’m pretty sure I recognise you guys, give me a minute,” frowned Visionary as the handsome aliens in the stylish white bodysuits pointed sleek designer weapons at him. “Don’t be insulted that it takes me a minute to place you, but over the years a really huge number of extraterrestrials have threatened me.” “Is he anyone?” the attractive and well-groomed female leader asked her science officer. “It is Visionary,” the equally handsome man with the scanner pad answered. “According to our records he is the leader of the Lair Legion.” “Er, I think your records are about a hundred issues out of date,” Vizh told them earnestly. “But I am real, dammit,” he added just to be clear. “Leader of the Lair Legion?” checked the leader. “Like Jarvis was?” “Of course!” Visionary realised. “I know you now. You’re the Nebulus! You dwelled in the heart of the Interdimensional Nexus, gave Jarvis his cosmic powers, planned to manipulate him to take control of the heroes of Earth.” He smiled as if he hoped to get some kind of award. “Right?” “Can we manipulate this one then?” Nebulus Prime demanded. “Even now, could we achieve our goal and snatch triumph from disaster?” Visionary realised that the Nebulus were the ones who had destroyed the former leader of the Lair Legion. “I should explain that I’m not a specialist in snatching triumph from disaster, really,” he confessed. “What disaster anyway?” “A literal disaster,” Nebulus Prime told him. Then, when she saw Vizh’s blank looks she sighed. “Disaster? From the Latin for a bad star? Dis aster?” The possibly fake man continued to look lost. “Oh, for goodness’ sake, we got into a war with Starseed and got pretty much wiped out,” she hissed. “He and that Avatar android destroyed our power base, before the Starseed mutated to his chrysalid energy form and the Avatar became ruler of the Dreary Dimension. We are all that is left of our once-mighty empire.” “We blame spiffy too,” the science officer added. “Back when the Parody Master incarnated through him.” “But if we can manipulate the leader of the Lair Legion we might yet prevail,” Nebulus Prime noted, staring at Visionary. “But I’m not…” Vizh started. He faltered when he saw them all raising their sleek silver death wands. “Alright, I’ll give you what you want.” He rummaged in his pocket and pulled out his Legion communicard. “Here. This is the leader of the Lair Legion. “ The science officer scanned it. “It seems to be a primitive communications device.” “Yeah. And I seem like a normal human, right?” Vizh said quickly. “But scan me again. Then you’ll see I’m… I’m just a sophisticated carrier for this powerful artificial intelligence embodied in this here… destiny card. Yeah, in this Destiny Card. With capitals.” Nebulus Prime glanced suspiciously over at the science officer. “It may be true,” the good-looking man answered. “Our scanners can’t define exactly what he is. And that card is powerful enough to convince out finest sensors it is no more than a crude transmission machine.” Nebulus Prime took the comms card. “Are you the leader of the Lair Legion?” she demanded of it. “He won’t speak to you yet,” Vizh improvised wildly. “Just… dial this number in. And when a voice says Bautista Enterprises ask them to download the latest software upgrade to you.” He swallowed hard. “Yeah, that should do it.” It was a sign of the very alien nature of the Nebulus that they did not recognised the name Bautista, that they programmed in the number for the upgrade, and that they didn’t react as Visionary threw himself behind some concrete street furniture as the card was improved. Later on Bautista Enterprises apologised for the bugs in the commcard system and Jamie Bautista paid for the crater to be filled in again. The navvies were not drinking their foul black tea around their camp fire. Indeed, the brazier had almost gone out in the persistent drizzle. Herringcarp promontory had the worst weather. Bookman hurried back to the ruined abbey, leaned his bicycle by the east gate, and rushed towards the trench that entered the vault. “Too late, dearie,” madame Henbane told him gleefully. She was perched on the crumbled stone of the high altar, knitting. “You’re far too late. He’s already found it.” “Found what?” “The bone prison,” the medium answered. “The Well of Souls.” Bookman was about to retort and tell her not to speak nonsense, but something about her manner frightened him. And then movement caught his eye. Five horsemen were riding furiously across the strip of rock that connected Herringcarp to the mainland. Although the tide was rising and covering the road they plunged on, their horses’ hooves churning up spray. “What the devil now?” he muttered. He remembered the telegram in his pocket. “Frost!” he called down the shaft. “Jeremy?” No answer came, so Bookman hastened into the vault. The only light here was the pale shaft of day that came from the trench opening and the four storm lanterns that stood around the cleared-out room. The oil lamps’ glimmers played eerily over the ceiling where ribs of stonework formed archways, eerily reminiscent of a bone prison themselves. But Bookman’s attention was all upon the navvies. The six Irish workmen and their foreman all lay dead across the flagged floor, their blood seeping across the ancient stones. Each one had a gunshot wound to face or chest. “They had to go,” Jeremy Frost explained. “They knew too much. They’d have talked about our discovery.” “Talked,” repeated Bookman, stunned by what he’d seen, chilled to see the service revolver in his partner’s hand. “Talked about what?” Frost gestured towards the dig, where he had carved a deep cave into the bone-laced silt. There was a light in there too, an eerie green glow like St Elmo’s Fire. “The greatest treasure a man has ever found, Howard. Power and enlightenment and mystery and revelation.” He gestured wildly to the surface with his gun-hand. “That old crone up there doesn’t know the half of it. A portal between life and death, she claimed. What I have found is so much more.” “What… what have you found?” Bookman asked, trying to back away slowly. He knew now that Frost was insane. Whatever had happened in the last half-hour had driven him insane. Danger, the telegram had said. And five horsemen were coming. If Bookman could just keep Frost talking long enough… “I have found the Source of everything,” Jeremy Frost answered. “Of life and death and… and everything. I can hear it singing to me, singing right now.” “I see. And… what is it singing about, Jeremy?” Frost emptied the full clip of his revolver into Howard Bookman, into his head and heart and belly, sending him jerking backwards onto the pile of navvies to mingle his blood with theirs. “It’s telling me to kill you,” Frost told the new-made corpse. The Epitome Express couldn’t find the skyscraper headquarters of the Interdimensional Transportation Corporation; not until Nats took the whole vehicle in his telekinetic grip and guided it down onto the rooftop helipad. “Reality privacy screens,” the flying phenomenon said apologetically to Mr Epitome as he set the advanced craft down on the triangle. “You can’t find this place unless they want you to find it.” “I bet the IRS could nail it down,” muttered the man of might darkly. “Soon.” “Reality privacy screens?” noted Princess Uhunalura of the Abhumans. “That’s very advanced technology. Where does a mundane… I mean a human company get that kind of science?” “We never asked,” Lisa answered with a little frown. “Until now.” “It will be fascinating to find out,” oozed the Manga Shoggoth. “The four and five dimensional topographies here have a haunting beauty all of their own.” “If Balefire’s here the folks at ITC are in trouble,” Nats called to his companions. “We need to help Miss Framlicker, uh, and everybody.” “Miss Framlicker?” asked Uhuna. “Nats’ boss,” Lisa explained helpfully to the guest who had been loaned to them to track down the stolen Abhuman technology that had made Balefire’s invasion possible. “Nats used to live with her, I believe.” Nats flew into a wall. “I had better go first,” suggested the Shoggoth. “That way I can defuse the dimensional mines lacing these hallways.” “Stay with the Express,” Mr Epitome instructed Agents Dawes and Lewis. He added a significant look that meant Get all the sensor scans you can about this place. “I’m going to shut down this Frost character.” “Yeah, well watch out, Super-G-Man,” Nats warned him. “This place has defences. Lots of clients paid for their transportation services in kind.” “Such as?” Epitome asked, just before the Skree Sentroids fell on him. “We have intruders,” Grrl growled as she watched the roof monitors. “Heroes.” “Really?” Al B Harper asked hopefully. “Anyone good?” “Looks like Nats,” Birthday Bandit reported to his three captives. “Drat,” said Mr Limpqvist. The manager of ITC watched the Sentroids going in. “Nats is an employee. That’s how he got through this far.” “He’s only still on the payroll because you’re ignoring my memos,” Miss Framlicker complained. “Miss Framlicker, I can’t terminate an employee just because he slept with you and broke your heart,” pointed out the dapper little man. “You broke the fraternisation rule just as much as…” “You slept with Nats?” Al B asked incredulously. “With Nats?” “No!” snapped Miss Framlicker. “Let me be very clear about this. I. Have. Not. And. I. Will. Not. Be. Sleeping. With. Nats. Or anybody.” “Right,” agreed Birthday bandit, who was tuned into Miss F’s knowledge base right now because it was her birthday and that was his power. “She’s not slept with anybody since you, Al.” “Shut up!” the ITC scientist screeched. “Too much information,” Grrl admitted. “Just winkle out how to get these lethal defence grids focussed on Nats and the others. I see Lisa and… Mr Epitome? But I have no idea who the hippy chick is.” “Uhunalura of the Abhumans,” Birthday Bandit answered absently, still drawing on Miss F’s knowledge base. “And… did you know that the sine wave amplitude of the Vortex is equivalent to the differentiated ratio of the Negativity Zone over the speed of light?” Miss Framlicker smirked. That was one of her best theories. “Wrong,” Al B. Harper chipped in. “It looks like that under normal conditions, but only because the electromagnetic spectrum gets translated into Day-Vincentian concept units at the perceptional interface. I’ve told Miss Framlicker this before.” “What?” demanded Birthday Bandit. “Are you out of your tiny mind? There’s a vector string of logarithmic progressions through the ascending iterations of the mythlands and that’s the only reason some morons have concluded that…” “Well that and the adductive evidence of the Hero Feeder migrationary patterns across the sub-vortal infrastructure, with some logarithmic shifts in line with the…” Al argued. “…entropic manifestations mapped onto a 5-D metaframe…” “…Boolean and transfinite regression series…” “Ignore this,” Grrl told Birthday Bandit. “We have heroes to kill. Which button do I push?” But it was too late. Birthday Bandit had dug too deep into Miss Framlicker’s deeply held theories. “Any fool can see there’s a clear cause and effect between quantum underpinning Eggo-layers and the Newtonian concept shunts of…” the villain screeched. “Yes, any fool!” shouted Al B. Harper, his face colouring more deeply as he became angry. “Bandit!” hollered Grrl even louder. The Birthday Bandit turned round in surprise at his team-mate’s raucous bellow. Miss Framlicker took her opportunity and smashed him across the face with a telephone. “It’s for you,” she said. The Birthday Bandit went down hard, bouncing off a chair and sprawling in a heap with a broken nose. By the time he woke up it would be someone else’s birthday. “Graaah!” growled Grrl, turning to rend the ITC middle manager limb from limb. Then the wall exploded and Mr Epitome slammed into her at around a hundred miles an hour. Grrl hammered a piston-hard fist at him. He caught it and smashed her through the partition into the next office, and then through the plate glass window. She dropped from the fifty-third floor and bounced. She didn’t get up again. “Gravity can be a problem for you matter-based lifeforms, can’t it?” mused the Manga Shoggoth sadly. “Hello,” said Lisa brightly to the former captives as she followed Nats and Uhuna into the damaged ITC control centre. “Nice distraction, Miss F.” “Thanks,” the blonde-haired scientist answered. “And for the record, Amazon-space weather systems completely invalidate all that outdated Avogadro’s number-based dimensional vibrationary stuff.” “Also,” added Nats over the shouting match that followed, “Where’s Balefire?” The horses would go no further. Even Blanchford Bertram, surely the most accomplished horseman in the League of Improbable Gentlemen, was unable to coax his steed onwards. “Don’t even try it,” Hagatha Darkness advised him. “Somebody’s set off a Ward of Guarding to keep people from this place.” “Hmph,” growled Sir Mumphrey Wilton. The Eccentric Englishman didn’t like magic, and wasn’t sure he believed in it. “Then we’d best get in there on foot, what?” “Thank goodness,” gasped Phineas Quimby, quickly and inexpertly slipping off his mount. The EccentricEtherInvestigatorExpolorer! didn’t like horses. He couldn’t help but think there had to be a better way of transporting people around. “Miss Harkness is correct,” Dr Hakenfakir said, clutching his walking stick like a long dowsing rod. “Somebody is using mind-games here. And there are intelligences around that we do not wish to encounter. Dead minds.” “Oh splendid,” muttered Blanchford. “Remind me to thank Hastings Vernal for putting us onto this one when we get back. If we get back.” “Of course we’ll get back,” Mumphrey assured him. “Right is on our side and all that, eh?” “Tell that to Dr Hopkins and his team,” Blanchford answered darkly. Dr Hopkins and his team had investigated the Affair of the Things from Mars and had never returned. “This way,” Hagatha called, sniffing the air like a hound. Then she frowned. “I sense a very familiar presence.” She led them towards the ruins, where Madame Henbane still squatted on the broken altar. “Good to know you haven’t entirely neglected your disciplines then,” she told Hagatha as the Covenant witch led her team-mates over the ruins. “You!” hissed Hagatha Darkness. “You know the lady?” Blanchford asked. “I know her,” Hagatha agreed, “and she’s trying to delay you. Get down into that vault right now. I’ll deal with ‘Madame Henbane’.” There was in her voice a compulsion there was no denying. “This way!” called Dr Hakenfakir. “Hurry. He’s trying to open up a gateway that was never meant to be thrown wide.” It was easy to spot the entrance to the vault. The dancing green witchfire that licked around it was a dead giveaway. “Can’t seem to calibrate my pocketwatch to that stuff,” worried Sir Mumphrey, fiddling with the Chronometer of Infinity he wore on his waistcoat. “It doesn’t behave like fire,” Quimby noted, “more like some kind of electrical or magnetic phenomenon. Maybe if I…” and he hurled a handful of iron filings at the doorway. The balefire flashed and sparked and shorted itself out for a moment. “Quickly, before it reasserts itself,” called Bertram, hurling himself through the entrance. The other men leaped after him, leaving Hagatha alone with Madame Henbane. “I’m disappointed,” the older woman said. “I didn’t think you’d fall for so obvious a trap.” “Sending my companions away?” Hagatha said. “You’d only have tried to harm them or use them against me. Better to let them deal with the corposant fire and whatever poor fool has found it this time. Whatever makes you think I need help to deal with you anyway… mother?” “Oh, so bold, my little runaway!” mocked Henbane Darkness, “So grown up now with her fancy friends using her gifts like a cheap conjurer. But I taught you all you know, girl, and I have not taught you everything yet.” Hagatha shrugged away the wave of malice that Henbane directed at her. “I learned a few things from my friends,” Hagatha argued. “I learned I have a stronger will than you, for example.” And she scowled pushing the malice back. Henbane toppled backwards off the stone. “You have grown strong,” the older witch admitted. “Stronger than I’d have guessed for such a weak timid child. But he likes them strong.” “He?” Hagatha repeated, her will suddenly faltering. “You brought him here?” “Hello, Hagatha,” said the Love-Talker, appearing behind her to speak over her left shoulder. The young witch felt him before ever she heard him or his cold hands smoothed round her waist in an embrace. “You have grown fair and beautiful, my love. What a bride you will make for me.” Every generation of Darkness women took the same familiar, a Demon Lover who amplified their power in exchange for their favours, and who sired upon them the next generation of Covenant Witch. Hagatha had fled from home as a child to avoid his amorous attentions, but all she had done was delay the day. Over many centuries the Love-Talker had become very adept as seducing Darkness daughters. “Like I said,” crowed Henbane, “An obvious trap. Take her, beloved! I dedicate my child Hagatha, flesh of our flesh, to you!” Balefire looked around. This wasn’t the Source, the place of corposant fire that he’d gone to significant trouble to discover and unite with. It looked more like a place of ravens and destiny. “What?” he demanded. “What is this?” “An antechamber,” answered the Chronicler of Stories, who was set as one of the guardians of what the Parodyverse called reality. “Some place where we could have a little chat before you go on and cause even more damage than you have already.” “Ah, you must be one of those conceptual office holders,” the iron-masked villain noted. “The Hooded Hood mentioned you might interfere.” “The Hood?” scowled Chronicler. “The Hooded Hood’s behind this?” “I am behind this! screeched Jeremiah Frost. “I, Balefire!” The Chronicler concentrated for a moment. “Well, in some senses you are,” he admitted, “but it looks like there’s a whole bunch of other powers using your stupid plan to further their own agendas too. The reason you’ve done so well is because your actions are promoting the coming Resolution War. Somebody big wants the dimensional barriers down for a while so they can do something nasty, and you were a convenient interference to sponsor.” Balefire lashed out with the green flames that formed his essence since his laboratory accident. The fire bent around the Chronicler but didn’t touch him. “Corposant fire is what you get when you burn Imagination Arcane,” the Chronicler of Stories noted angrily. “You don’t even understand about the fundamental forces that make up the Parodyverse, do you?” “I understand that if this is to do with the Resolution War then you’ve already been sent off the field,” Balefire shot back. “Which means you can’t stop me going to the Source, becoming one with it, getting all-powerful, and ruling the multiverse.” “There are five fundaments to our cluster of realities,” lectured the Chronicler crossly. “You’ve heard of Impossibilityium, and of Serious Matter? Well Imagination Arcane is the third, the building block that shapes the worlds around us. It births gods and monsters, weird dimensions, alternate realities. Some very few creatures can draw upon it to alter everything, like Shifter and Mad Wendy. It’s hard to manipulate but easy to destroy.” “Matter and energy cannot be created or destroyed,” Balefire noted. “They merely change their state. Are you going to get out of my way now? I have universes to triumph over. And I didn’t set the Tivo earlier.” “But matter and energy can be reduced to their lowest forms,” the Keeper of Stories persisted. “And Imagination Arcane can be broken down, burned away. And what you get if you burn Imagination Arcane is corposant fire.” “Ah,” understood Frost. “So every time I unleash my power I’m destroying some glorious potential of the Parodyverse, perverting the future and closing off possibilities that will never come again?” “If you want to put it like that, yes. That’s why your balefire reeks of souls lost and worlds destroyed. It’s not the dead from the past. It’s those who will never live in the future.” “Ah,” said Frost again. “Good.” “Good? Your power is the destroy the future, to shred creativity and inspiration.” “Perhaps I’ll change my name to Microsoft then,” considered Balefire. “Now if you’d excuse me, I have to go be supreme being of the Parodyverse. I don’t believe you can actually stop me going through this portal to the Source, right?” The Chronicler glowered as Balefire strode through the antechamber to his destiny. “Almost right,” the Chronicler hissed after Jeremiah Frost had gone. Jeremy Frost burned now. The corposant fire played over his flesh, consuming and renewing as it willed. The agony must have been immense, but he hardly seemed to notice it. His only concern was widening the channel to that mysterious Source, releasing what was inside it, so that the universe could burn with balefire. “Frost!” called Sir Mumphrey Wilton, “Get a grip!” Frost obeyed, raising his revolver and emptying every chamber at the interlopers. Dr Hakenfakir concentrated and the bullets stopped. Blanchford Bertram surged forward. Frost let out an animal cry. The flickering flames dancing up the walls bellowed out, and suddenly they took forms. Now there were glowing green phantoms filling the room, shaped somewhere between skeletons and Roman soldiers. The murdered men of the Ninth Spanish Legion rose again and sought vengeance for their destruction. Bertam fired a double-barrelled shotgun blast into the host. It passed through them entirely. Falling back he pulled a long-bladed knife from his belt and plunged it into the first attacker. This weapon should also have oozed right through the Balefire harmlessly. Instead, Knifey tore a livid gash across the spectre’s torso. It fell back bleeding out green fire. “So good to know I’m a weapon of last resort,” muttered the sentient blade. Dr Hakenfakir pointed his Psychostave at the legionnaires before him. He whispered something in an unearthly tone and the walking cane seemed to actually suck the phantoms inside itself. “These are clearly evolved waveforms based on psychic resonances of the long-dead victims buried here,” reasoned Phineas Quimby. “If I can just convince them all to pass around and hold this copper wire, then quickly cobble together a crude hand-operated direct current generator…” He ducked a searing grasp that would have burned his face off. “Of I could just do this,” he sighed, plunging electrodes attached to the Improbable Aether cylinder in his backpack into the nearest ghost. The phantom sprayed into dying sparks. Of all the League, only Mumphrey had no way of countering the spectres. His pocketwatch seemed unable to lock on to the corposant fire to shift it through time. He had only one course of action. “Frost!” he called, “Desist!” Jeremy Frost ignored him and kept on digging. He was almost through. Mumphrey shot him just once, through the back of his head. Mumphrey shot him just once, through the back of the head… Jeremiah Frost watched with a cold calm as the man who was presumably some kind of ancestor died. “Is this supposed to bother me?” he challenged the swirling energies of the interdimensional vortex? “A cautionary tale about grasping that which man was no meant to know or something? Remind me to be intimidated later.” He ignored the visions and ploughed forward through the gale between realities. He was close to the Source now. He could almost taste it. Balefire had seen it all; the Hooded Hood’s encounter with Dame Jana, the Improbable College’s long war with Malvolio Frost, the dig at the ruins of Herringcarp Abbey, the effect the corposant fire had wrought upon Jeremy. He didn’t care. Apart from noting that a possible Abhuman gene-strain and previous bloodline contact with wild balefire might have predisposessed him for a successful encounter with the Source, Jeremiah Frost took no interest in the past. There before him he could sense the soft point, the place where worlds touched together. Another step would take him to the Source. Balefire paused expectantly. “This is usually the point where a hero or guardian dramatically appears to bar the way,” he announced to the Parodyverse. “Well?” A rift dutifully occurred, as rapidly-growing tendrils of knotting weed formed up into the shambling semblance of a man. “Ah, the Bog-Thing,” the villain surmised. “Protector of the Nexus of Unrealities, apparently.” “Yes,” said the vegetable sentience. “You must… go… no further…” Balefire gestured and immolated the plant creature in searing green flame. “Right. I’ll consider that very carefully,” he mocked as the Bog-Thing burned. Then Balefire passed through the soft place and entered the level of reality that was the plane of the Imagination Arcane. It was all around him, shining with potential, waiting to be drawn into the grosser realities below where it might be spun into tales and legends, deeds and ideas. It glimmered with the colour of possibility. There was no balefire; no source of the energies that had suffused Jeremiah Frost, destroying and rebuilding him into a creature of flame, genius, and death. “What?” Balefire blinked. The rushing reunion with that searing soul flame he had yearned for was not happening. What had gone wrong? Then Nats belted into him flying as hard as he could go. “Stay down, slappy!” the flying phenomenon shouted. “You’re busted!” “Right,” agreed Mr Epitome, catching Balefire as he spun and landing a blow that crumpled the villain’s metal mask like tin foil. The paragon of power was unaccustomed to battling in silvery voids and he wasn’t pulling his punches. “It’s over,” agreed Lisa, tangling Frost in her whip and dragging him back to them. “ITC is rescued, and right now Miss F and Al B. are shutting down all your portals. We’ve pounded your minions. It’s all over but giving you the spanking you deserve!” “I will contain the malefactor within my protoplasm while you prepare to undertake your mating rituals then,” agreed the Manga Shoggoth, misunderstanding as usual; or perhaps not, given it was Lisa he was addressing. “Wait!” worried Princess Uhuna. “We’re missing something…!” Balefire laughed as he understood. His corposant fire lashed out, evaporating the Shoggoth’s biomass, searing Lisa’s whip to ashes, hammering into Nats and Balefire like a falling glacier. And as the green flames Balefire contained within him touched the Imagination Arcane, the silvery strands burned like straw, spreading the dancing green blaze through the whole tangled mass, searing outwards as far as the eye could see. Balefire rose triumphant. “This is why the Source wasn’t here!” he cackled, high on the sudden influx of corposant fire as the burning spread outwards across the infinite dimension. “There was no Source. No balefire. Not until I brought it! I lit it! I am the Source!” “Oh,” winced Nats. “Crap.” *** Hagatha tried not to, but she felt her body stirring as the Demon Lover touched her. She slid around in his embrace and let him press his cold lips down upon hers. Surges of passion ran from mouth to groin and back again, setting her whole being tingling. Somewhere, her mother was laughing. Hagatha didn’t like being laughed at. The Love-Talker’s hands were moving lower now, over her flanks, grasping the folds of her skirts to life them up. Hagatha brought her knee up sharply and planted it where it would do the most good. The naked Demon Lover was giving her a large, clear target. “What?” hissed Henbane. “Not on the first date,” Hagatha growled, backing away from the Love-Talker. His eyes burned red now, and this face suffused with wrath. “Insolent, blasphemous child!” shrieked Henbane, pointing with crooked clawed fingers at her wayward daughter. “You will submit to your destiny.” At the same time, the Demon Lover lashed out in his fury, a painful crippling magic designed to render Hagatha helpless to his lustful will. The young witch received both attacks and passed them on. The Demon Lover staggered as the full vengeful power of a Covenant witch’s curse burned into him. Henbane, totally open as she poured out the venom of her heart, felt the searing malice of her demonic paramour burn into her. And Hagatha didn’t let go. She forced the channel to stay open, so that each of her enemies was forced to pour more and more power, more and more of themselves, to the harm of the other. “I am not yours to give, mother,” Hagatha shouted over the tempest that had arisen as a consequence of her magics. “Nor yours to take, Love-Talker. I am my own, myself, witch and woman!” “Hagatha!” Henbane Darkness called out, choking on the blood that welled up from her throat, “You’re killing me!” “Yes,” agreed the Covenant witch. “I am.” And she watched until her mother convulsed and shuddered as her heart burst. The Demon Lover screamed in anger. Now the channel was broken through which he had been forced to slay his servant and plaything. He rose from the wet turf, uncoiling in darkness to a shape far less pleasing than that he had appeared in before. “Foolish, heretic child!” he growled in a voice that was like a thousand cats screeching. “You have destroyed your own kin but I am stronger than any mere witch! Now I shall break you to my will and you will scream your penance all the days of your tortured, horror-laced life!” Hagatha staggered back, drained by her former effort. She tried to raise defences but the Demon Lover knew the Covenant witches too well and slashed them aside with no effort at all, despite his own injuries. Then something hit him hard on the side of his head, toppling him to the floor and stunning him for a moment. He just had time to realise that he’s been caught by a heavy swung pocketwatch before a searing blade slammed down into his throat. The enchanted knife burned like creation. Mumphrey and Blanchford rolled aside as he unleashed a plume of demonic hellfire. The Demon Lover realised that his victim’s human allies had arrived to help her. He shifted his essence out of the mortal plane to regroup and attack anew – or tried to. The dead man there, the one holding the terrible Psychostave, used its powers to bind him to his physical flesh. The fourth human, the mortal who carried that reality-twisting Impossibilityium compound, was doing something to set up a standing wave that disrupted further infernal exhalations. Then the mortal with the Chronometer was back, punching the Demon Lover again and again. The love-talker should have been able to shrug that off, but each blow hurt more and more. The sentient knife in the demon’s flesh was sapping his strength, but it was more than that. Then the Demon Lover knew. It was Hagatha. Sir Mumphrey Wilton’s blows could hurt him because Hagatha cared for the man. But they hurt him so much! How…? The Demon Lover fell then, and the League were able to imprison him in Covenant Manor for a hundred and twenty years. Of Frost’s conduit to the Source and the corposant energy it projected there was no longer any trace. And three nights later, Sir Mumphrey Wilton and Hagatha Darkness became lovers. Miss Framlicker shielded her eyes from the dimensional monitor. “What just happened here?” she asked in a worried voice as balefire flared across the plane of Imagination Arcane. “Self-fulfilling origin,” Al B. Harper calculated, frantically scrabbling for a pencil to jot down some calculations. “That’s right,” agreed Mr Limpquivst, watching the spread of corposant fire searing the underpinning realm of Imagination Arcane. “Look, there is the incursion that Jeremy Frost made from the weak spot in Herringcarp Abbey, a century and a quarter ago. And that bigger anomaly must be the modern Jeremy Frost interfacing with the realm of Imagination Arcane through his VR helmet.” “But what’s he done?” fretted Miss Framlicker, close to tears. “What have we let him do?” “He’s lit the equivalent of an oil-well fire in the plane of Imagination Arcane,” Al B. winced. “It’ll burn and burn, making him more powerful and destroying all the futures of the Parodyverse.” “I thought the blackout was bad, until he did the thing with the dimensional portals,” Miss F admitted, “but this is even worse than that!” “We have to do something,” Al B. Harper frowned, glaring at the dimensional instrumentation in the ITC control room. “But what?” Time and space rippled behind him. A silver mirrored rectangle unfolded, and Dame Jana and the Hooded Hood made their entry. “Here you are, madam,” the Hood told the founder of ITC. “Thank you for you assistance.” “You’re on a fool’s errand, Ioldobaoth,” the last of the Janus told the archvillain. “But I shall watch your progress with interest.” “Dame Jana!” cried Mr Limpqvist. “Thank goodness! The Source… it turned out to be…” “Balefire himself,” interrupted the old lady sharply. “Yes, I know. It was fairly evident from the start. But better him than somebody dangerous.” “Er, what?” puzzled Al B. Harper. “We know the Imagination Arcane is ignited sometime,” the Hooded Hood answered. “It has to be, because corposant fire exists in the Parodyverse. So better to ignite it in a controlled way, as they do planned burns in forests to prevent flash fires, to create a proper firebreak.” “That is not controlled,” Miss Framlicker warned, gesturing to the dimensional monitor. “That is Balefire becoming exponentially more powerful by the second. And he’s about to flambé the good guys. And Nats.” “I imagine Lisa will be… ahh,” the Hood sighed contentedly as the first lady of the Lair Legion began to summon in her teammates. CrazySugarFreakBoy! bounced past Balefire, disorienting him in the three-dimensional battlefield. Falcon attacked from below, forcing the villain to divert his attention to sear the missiles from existence. And that opened the way for Yo to lash her rapier across Frost’s chest, spilling out some of the precious burning imagination that gave him his powers. “They can be very annoying, can’t they?” the Hood asked proudly. “Yes,” agreed Miss Framlicker fervently. “But they’re all going to die.” The Manga Shoggoth was weak after having most of his biomass vaporised. In this separated condition from his main self he couldn’t regenerate and replicate himself as quickly. So he has to content himself with working at a molecular level, oozing through Balefire’s armour and dissolving the brain-mass beneath. The corposant fire renewed the villain, but it had to hurt. Dancer planted a hard kick in Balefire’s cheat, causing him to miss his aim at Trickshot and giving the archer a chance to get in with his foam arrow. That cooled the area around Frost long enough for Epitome to get in again with another rain of crippling punches. Get back now!” Visionary warned the man of might as Epitome pressed his attack. “What? Why? I’m winning!” argued Epitome, but let the possibly-fake man pull him from the fray. “This is a teamwork thing,” Vizh explained to him. “We do that sometimes.” Then the fire around Balefire transformed into sharp, flesh-shredding wire courtesy of Cressida’s transmutation abilities. The Librarian touched the hot metal threads and transmitted the full works of Barbara Cartland through it into Balefire’s head. It was dirty pool but the situation was getting desperate. Yo went in again, then leaped aside to let Falcon rip off a clip of Teflon-coated bullets. Trickshot took point with an EMP arrow, then CSFB! was back with something sticky and sucrose that wadded over Balefire’s mask. “Your turn again,” Vizh prompted Epitome. “Indulge yourself.” Balefire reeled from the multiple attacks. The corposant fire blazing through him renewed him again and again, but the enemy wasn’t giving him time to plan, time to think. Yet as the flames spread through the Imagination Arcane, his power was growing. With a savage growl, Jeremiah Frost forged a thousand blazing nightmares out of the St Elmo’s Fire, sending them howling towards the Lair Legion. “No!” hissed Sorceress, gesturing as binding the beast by the force of her will. “They Shall Not Pass.” “Holy Gandalf!” gasped CSFB! as Whitney Darkness tackled the incoming horrors. Balefire released a burst of pure explosive flame and hurled the wired wonder aside as easily as he blew away Epitome, Falcon, dull thud, Visionary, and the Librarian, Dancer kicked him in the stomach, and somehow it hurt him. Balefire commanded the flames to become cold, beyond arctic cold, as cold as the void between worlds. Cressida transmuted cold to wold and pelted the villain with tons of chalky soil. But the heroes were running out of steam. Balefire seared the Shoggoth from within him, then hammered Sorceress down from behind, freeing up his creations to fall upon the scattered Legion. “Lair Legion Line Up!” called Nats, using his own pyrokinetics to channel the heat from the nightmares into the dented face mask the enemy wore. Balefire screamed as the memory of his face blustered and burned. He scrabbled at the hot metal plate and hurled it from him. Energy leaked from the ruined countenance beneath. “Jolly good,” said Sir Mumphrey Wilton, spinning Frost round and swinging his heavy pocketwatch into Balefire’s head. And time stopped for a moment. “Whatever you’re plannin’, young Harper, you’d better do it now,” the eccentric Englishman called out. “Planning?” Al B. gasped. “How did he know?” “He’s been doing this for some time,” said the Hooded Hood sourly. “And he has given you the window of opportunity you need.” “It’ll actually work?” Miss Framlicker appealed to Dame Jana. “You can shunt the corposant flame out of the realm of Imagination Arcane,” agreed the ITC founder. “Normally there wouldn’t be enough time to open all the conduits necessary to vent the balefire, but since Frost has helpfully done that for us already the mathematics should hold.” “Proceed,” commanded the Hooded Hood. Al B. pulled the lever for the transfer shunt. Across a million worlds throughout all of time, ship’s masts and high steeples and lonely hilltops and icy marshes were suffused with glowing green flame. People called it soul-fire or corpse lights or will-o-th-wisps or the devil’s candles. Superstitious sailors knew it as wicked and refused to go aloft. Uneducated peasants saw it as harbinger of storm and misfortune and they were right. But the corposant fire was shifted from its plane of Source and scattered across the Parodyverse. The dimensional engines of ITC gave up with an unpleasant grinding groan, and the gateways that had opened and the rifts that had appeared slammed shut and fizzled out. Then there was only the pinging of hot metal and the glowing eyes of the Hood and Dame Jana, green and orange respectively. “Hold still,” Uhuna told Epitome. “I’m trying to transfer dull thud’s burns onto you.” Mr Epitome shifted and frowned. “And I want more lesions because…?” “Because you heal so much faster than he does,” the Abhuman princess told him. “It’s only kind.” “An I’ll owe you a pint,” thuddy offered. The Lair Legion and guests were back in the Lair Mansion. Not even twenty-four hours had passed since the blackout began. Lisa, Visionary, Trickshot, Yo, dull thud, Nats, Sorceress, the Shoggoth, and Uhuna were the heroes in residence. The Librarian wasn’t present. He was busy documenting the case. “Talked with SPUD,” Falcon reported, coming back into the Lair Legion Living Room rubbing his ears after his conversation with Dan Drury. “Colonel Drury says things are getting back under control. ITC are co-operating shifting any stragglers back to where they came from. CSFB! and Dancer are out helping with the round-up. Do those two ever run out of energy?” “No,” answered Visionary despairingly. “I don’t suppose there’s any sign of Balefire?” “After he got spat out of th’ plane of imagination?” Trickshot replied. “Nah. But he’s lost his uber-power. He’s back to his usual annoyin’ self. When he turns up next time we’ll nail his butt good.” “Some of his minions escaped in the confusion too,” scowled Mr Epitome. “OPS needs to schedule a summit with SPUD about prisoner containment during crisis scenarios.” “But we still thrashed ‘em royally,” smirked Trickshot. “There’s going to be a shareholders meeting at ITC,” Nats reported, “There’s all kinds of lawsuits and stuff. And apparently ITC broke some cosmic rules even though Balefire was coercing them.” “They have angered many of the powers,” noted the Manga Shoggoth from his regeneration bucket “It promises to be a lucrative year,” agreed Lisa happily. “Am I the only one who’s not happy that the Hooded Hood got to talk with that Dame Jana lady and seemed pretty smug about it?” worried Vizh. “Hey, I finally got to tell that Hooded jerk what I thought about what he did to Peggy,” Nats pointed out fiercely. “That wiped the smirk off his shadowy bearded face.” “Just before his eyes flashed green,” dull thud pointed out. “Well Yo is to be thinking that we are all to be doing very well,” Yo suggested, handing round chocolate brownies to his/her weary friends. “Yo is thinking we are saving people and fighting of the baddies and doing what is to be done, yes?” “We did what needed to be done,” agreed the Sorceress from her shadowed corner chair. “Yes, it’s all over but the paperwork,” agreed Epitome, rising, his brownie untouched. “and if Princess Uhunalura has finished inflicting injuries on me I’d better be off and get a start on that.” “Oh no,” Yo instructed the paragon of power, pushing him back down into his seat (because Yo thought s/he could). “Is not to be going! Is to be staying and to be joining of Lair Legioning.” Mr Epitome snorted. “I don’t think so, Yo. Not for all the brownies in the world.” “How about for all the people in the world, then?” barked Sir Mumphrey Wilton, entering the room after his conference calls with various world leaders. “Hmm? How about puttin’ those talents of yours to use makin’ the LL even better, what?” “Ooh, yeah, join,” agreed Nats. “as long as I can be the one to tell CSFB!” “We could use a few more pros on the team,” agreed Falcon, with a hard glance at Trickshot. “Right, that does it…” the irritating archer growled, struggling out of his armchair. “Tempted as I am,” Epitome interrupted, only half-sarcastically, “I have enough on my agenda as it is without joining your team, Sir Mumphrey. It would take rather more than…” “A presidential order?” suggested Sir Mumphrey Wilton, handing over the communiqué to the man of might. “A… a what?” Mr Epitome said. Mumph pumped the hero’s hand. “Welcome to the Lair Legion!” Epilogue: Death had had a long day. She’d had to chase over all the known dimensions to pick up the residual casualties of Balefire’s little ploy and now all she wanted was a long soak in a hot bubble bath in her own little house. She was surprised when she opened the door to find somebody waiting for her. “Chronic?” she puzzled. “What are you doing here? I thought my sister Temporary Death was processing you?” “She did,” the guitarist agreed, cradling Steve in his arms. “But I really only needed her to get me here to you.” Death of the Family of the Pointless realised it was very dark in her house. Then she saw her pets, nailed to the walls. They were still alive, of course. She hadn’t granted them passage. “What?” she gasped with growing wrath. “What have you done?” “Nothing,” shrugged Chronic. “It was him.” Prisoner Zero came from the shadows, a tall man in knightly armour of gunmetal grey smeared with blood. His whole body was swathed in iron chains, and some of those now peeled away from him and unwrapped themselves towards Death with lightning speed. “The Chain Knight!” Death had time to gasp before the metal links hammered through her flesh at shoulder and pelvis, smashing her back into the wall, pinning her as the dying animals had been pinned. “Yes,” agreed the Knight. “You… don’t have the power to do this,” gasped Death as the pain washed through her. “You were bound. You can’t…” More chains lashed at her, flaying the skin from her, turning a slim dark-haired girl into raw pulped meat. “I can now,” the Chain Knight told her. “I have sponsorship.” “You have nothing!” hissed Death, unleashing her power. Great wings of night ripped from her back and slashed through the chains that held her. More peeled forward, pinioning her like a black butterfly. The Chain Knight laughed as his appendages ripped the dark wings away. “You’re retired,” he told Death of the Pointless. “I can’t kill you of course. Only you can grant yourself an ending, a surcease from pain.” “My family will…” “Your time and that of your kin is over,” the Chain Knight announced. “There will be new lords over the Parodyverse. And I shall be Death.” Chronic watched as the Chain Knight began his torture. Nine days later Death surrendered and allowed herself to die. And the Chain Knight became the new personification of Death for the Parodyverse. It was only a beginning. Coming next: It’s too long since we caught up with the plots and problems of our tormented little cast of protagonists, so we’ll devote an issue to looking in on some key and not-so-key scenes in the lives of the heroes of the Parodyverse. And in one sense it’s all one big bedroom scene. You’ll see what I mean after reading Untold Tales of the Lair Legion: Home Truths. Springing into Action by Killer Shrike Mr Epitome vs CrazySugarFreakBoy! by CSFB! Mr Epitome and Al B. Harper by Al B. Harper Yo's Follow-Up by Yo Settling In by Visionary Welcome to the Lair Legion - the First Ever Mr Epitome/Trickshot team-Up by Amazing Guy Mr Epitome Drinks a Coffee by Dancer
A Footnote By Any Other Name… How All This Parodyverse Dimensional Stuff Fits Together: The Parodyverse was created at the far end of the probability curve so that the crazy stuff that happens there doesn't have to happen instead in more sensible fictional universes. We don't know who created it, and we'll probably never find out because really there we're talking about the posters themselves. The Parodyverse is literally made up out of stories, which twine around each other to form realities. The space between these realities is the Dimensional Vortex, where the Hero Feeders lurk and prey upon unfinished plotlines and forgotten characters. At the Vortex's centre, the Nexus, all the realities converge. The reality nearest to the Vortex at any given time is the Prime Reality, and right now that's the one most of the PVB adventures take place in. It's not the first Prime Reality, it might not be the last. Within the Prime Reality is a Nexus World. That's the place where the Nexus manifests. At the moment that's in the Wookiegetlucky Swamp in Florida, protected by the Bog-Thing, so Earth is the Nexus World. The Nexus World tends to be a crossroads for all kinds of bizarre stuff, and a lot of the once-mortal cosmic guardians are drawn from it, like the Chronicler of Stories and the Shaper of Worlds and the Starseed and the Sorcerer Supreme. Some people believe that the Parodyverse was created to resolve some profound cosmic question, and that question will be answered by having the Resolution War, the big last adventure and last battle that ends the modern heroic age - kind of like Ragnarok for the Lair Legion. The Resolution War is getting nearer and nearer, which is why the adventures are getting harder and harder, and the guardians are able to do less and less to stop it. The Hooded Hood doesn't want the Resolution War. He doesn't like these Creators (whoever they are) dumping on his universe and he plans to find a way of getting out of it and getting at these Creators to wreak his revenge. We'd all better hope he doesn't find a way of doing that! Who’s Who of Extradimensional Invaders: Trolls of Miserablegitheim come from one of the outlands around Ausgard, home of the Australo-Norse Gods. So do Frosting Giants. The Slimy Slaver Lovetoad of Frammistat Eight is basically what he says, an alien reptile involved in slave-taking and trafficking. He debuted in Dancer #4 and fought the Lair Legion in UT#55: Untold Tales of the Lair Legion Out and About in the Big Wide Multiverse: Worlds Apart. Anihillatus is an insectivoid tyrant ruling large portions of the Negativity Zone. His first appearance was in UT#97: Untold Tales of the Lair Legion: Somewhere Over the Rainbow, or When Villains Picnic. Hero Feeders, or Lurkers, are parasitical entities that dwell in the Interdimensional vortex and prey upon stories, swallowing up forgotten characters and plotlines. We first encountered them (in story form) way back in Untold Tales of the Lair Legion: The House of Weird Tales, or Something Fairly Wicked This Way Comes. Robotic Metal Pepperpots can be very very scary if you don’t have a sofa handy (Note for Americans: this is a traditional British joke; don’t worry about it.). Nazi Prawns are an innovation from Killer Shrike’s writing. Blame him. The S’Zox are a militaristic reptilian species dedicated to interplanetary conquest through subversion and assassination. The Skunks are another of those reptilian alien races bent on conquest, this time through using their shapeshifting abilities to infiltrate society and enslave us all. And their tentacle-beasts don’t like being kicked in the kodoths. The Nebulus were formerly a powerful race that dwelled in the Nexus of Realities and schemed to control the outcome of the Resolution War. They empowered and attempted to manipulate LL founding member Jarvis, and he died stopping them. Between that and setbacks caused by Starseed, Avatar, Space Ghost, and spiffy they are but a shadow of their former selves.. Chronic was a junkie who somehow gained the devil’s guitar, Steve. Chronic is usually a morally ambiguous anarchist who teams up with the heroes as often as he fights them, but right now Steve’s running the show and he’s definitely not himself. And don’t worry, Chronic being dead is in no way intended to terminate his participation in our stories. The Ninth Spanish Legion really existed, and really disappeared from history. Legends vary as to what became of them, but the most interesting ones suggest something very nasty happened in Britannia. Tacitus mentions them as active from the time of the Roman conquest in AD43 and as taking part in the suppression of Boudicca’s (Bodecia’s) revolt in AD65. They left England after that, taking part in the Rhine campaign and possibly getting as far as Judea before allegedly returning to Britain and vanishing. Herringcarp Abbey, for the purposes of our fictional world, was based off the Northumbrian east coast, a wild desolate area of rolling hills and storm-lashed sea. On a map of Britain it’s about as far up the east coast as you can get before reaching Scotland. Lindesfarne, Holy Island, really is a tidal landmass off this coast, and that’s the sort of place I had in mind. Lindesfarne also had an early Celtic Christian community there, and an abbey built in the middle ages. Of course, Herringcarp Abbey and the whole island aren’t there now. It’s off up the coast off Gothametropolis, and the ruined ecclesiastical foundation has been rebuilt as an asylum for the insane. The Bone Prison of Oeth is mentioned in some ancient Welsh legends. These have been recently published with an English translation, by the Welsh MSS Society under the title of “The Prison of Oeth and Annoeth”. The narrative refers to the middle of the first century, when Caradog (Caractacus, King of the Silures, the tribe inhabiting South Wales) was warring against the Romans and slaughtering them most terribly. After so many of the Romans had been killed, their bones, which had been left by the wolves, ravens and dogs, covered the face of the earth. Manawyddan, the son of Llyr, caused these bones to be collected together into one huge pile from one of the battlefields, with other bones found throughout his dominions, so that the heap became of marvellous magnitude. He formed a prison of these bones in which to confine such enemies and foreigners as might be taken in war. He constructed a large edifice with exceedingly strong walls of the bones, cemented together with lime, of circular form and of wonderful magnitude, the larger bones being placed on the outer face of the walls and within the enclosure were many smaller prisons or cells, formed of the lesser bones. This was called the “Prison of Oeth and Annoeth”, which was demolished several times by the Caesar’s soldiers and was rebuilt by the Cymry stronger than before. Even King Arthur is said to have been imprisoned there for a short time. Triad 52 of the Trioedd Ynys Prydein concerns itself with the "Three Exalted Prisoners of the Island of Britain". After listing the three prisoners, the Triad continues as follows: "And one [prisoner], who was more exalted than the three of them, was three nights in prison in Caer Oeth and Anoeth, and three nights imprisoned by Gwen Pendragon, and three night in an enchanted prison under the stone of Echymeint [Llech Echemeint]. This exalted prisoner was Arthur." Madame Henbane appears for the first time in this story. She’s Hagatha’s mother, and she’s not nice. Simonides Slaughter, archaeological dig sponsor, is better known as the President of the sinister Heck-Fire Club and is secretly a Hero Feeder. Amazon Isle, home of, unsurprisingly, the Amazons and their new queen Troia, is positioned at the main approach to Earth in the dimensional nexus as a guardpost to prevent things using it as a means of invasion. They really take trespassers seriously on Amazon Isle, and remonstrate with them using long pointy weapons. HERPES is an international terrorist organisation, a bit like McDonalds. The League of Improbable Gentlemen was a nineteenth century adventurer’s club. It and its members were introduced in #42 Untold Tales of the League of Improbable Gentlemen, which also has footnotes describing them. Those not familiar with the characters may well wish to check those references if the group seem somewhat baffling. Improbabilityium and Serious Matter are indeed two of the fundamental building blocks of the Parodyverse, opposites whose interaction defines many of the stories that make up the fabric of its reality. Improbabilityium is the source of the powers of the many CrazySugarFreakHeroes! through history. Serious Matter is the fundamental element that empowers the Champion of Order, or as we call him, Hatman. Shifter was a reality-bending poster character who seems to have bent himself right out of reality these days. Mad Wendy is a terrifyingly-powerful psionic originally from the Technoverse, depicted in Premiere #16: Lost Children and Premiere #26: Here Comes a Candle…. The Demon Lover and the Darkness Witches were covered in detail in UT#148; check the footnotes there. This is the first time we’ve seen exactly how the Demon Lover was captured and imprisoned by the League. Epitome joins the Lair Legion: Yes, he’s in, so our line-up now looks like this (for the moment): Sir Mumphrey Wilton (non-member, acting leader!) Field Team Members: Yo, CSFB!, Sorceress, Trickshot, Nats, Dancer, Cressida, Falcon (probationary), Manga Shoggoth (probationary) Epitome (probationary) Associate Members: Lisa, Visionary, the Librarian (probationary) I considered writing the scene where CSFB! and Epitome meet as members and discuss their various viewpoints, but I decided that was something better left to the posters themselves to resolve. I hope they have fun with it. 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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