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Post By The reign of evil continues with this slice of lowlife from... the Hooded Hood. Sat Aug 14, 2004 at 01:02:04 pm EDT |
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#165: Untold Tales of the Confiscator: The Badripoor Agenda | |
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| #165: Untold Tales of the Confiscator: The Badripoor Agenda The Hooded Hood's Homepage of Doom Who's Who in the Parodyverse Where's Where in the Parodyverse It was a simple operation. Girls who wanted to break into movies or dancing were recruited through internet advertisements, interviewed in Las Vegas, then signed up for tours of Europe or South America. If they ever ended up on stages it wasn’t wearing clothes. Mostly they were sold off to Asian businessmen who had a thing for California blonde types, or to brothels in Singapore or Taiwan where Americans were popular with the locals. The racket was run by Big Break Brewster, and a decade of police investigations continued to be mired in legal delays, missing witnesses, and court corruption. In fact the only one thing that marred Big Break’s complete satisfaction at his lucrative trade was the local superhero breathing down his neck. Fetish Lad shattered the picture window atop Big Break’s casino-top penthouse and took down the hired help with whip and nipple clamps. Brewster didn’t even get out of his hot tub. He’d made arrangements. The Confiscator came out of nowhere, planting a foot in Fetish Lad’s stomach and following up with a painful jab at the shoulder nerve cluster that made the hero’s left arm useless. “Kill him!” Big Break Brewster demanded of the masked mercenary. “Kill him now!” The Confiscator raked paralysis-poisoned knuckledusters over Fetish Lad’s chest and punched him out through the window where he had so peremptorily made his entrance. For a moment they vanished amongst the mock greenery, locked tightly together in struggle; but then the hero was tossed back into the room like a broken puppet. “Not so tough now, huh?” Big Break demanded. “Not so scary, Mister Local Hero pervert!” The Confiscator slammed his boot down and shattered Fetish Lad’s kneecap. Then he stamped down to take out the other one. Then he reached out, picked the broken hero from the ground, and twisted his neck a hundred and eighty degrees. There was a sickening snap. “Yeah! Yeah!” applauded Big Break. “Now that’s what I call money well spent!” The Confiscator felt for a pulse on the side of Fetish Lad’s head. There was none. “Done,” he said at last. “Brutal and wicked!” the Las Vegas crimelord assured him. “You were worth every penny of your fee.” “Actually,” said the gaunt athletic figure leaning over Fetish Lad, “I didn’t cash your banker’s draft. I got a better offer.” “A better offer. Whaddayou mean?” demanded Big Break Brewster. “You offed the hero for me.” The Confiscator glanced at the meat at his feet. “Him? He was just in the way. He was a means of me getting to you without your security.” Big Break paled and he began to edge out of the tub. “W-what?” he asked. “You work for me.” “Actually, I work for the person who doubled your offer and asked me to remove you so they could absorb your seedy rackets,” the Confiscator explained. Then he shot Big Break twice through the forehead with pinpoint precision. “Done,” he noted with satisfaction. Now the drama was over Rimshooter and VelcroVixen climbed through the wrecked window to survey the damage. “Pretty neat,” admitted Rimshooter looking at Big Break’s corpse. “I’m a pro,” answered the Confiscator. “A dead pro,” VelcroVixen pointed out. “Didn’t you get yourself killed by Third Degree a while back?” “That was the last Confiscator,” the assassin replied. “He was old. I’m not.” “Any relation?” “Yes, I’m his long-lost cloned love-child,” spat the Confiscator. “Any more dumb questions, or have you seen enough to tell Armageddon I’m as good as my rep?” “Count Armageddon already has plenty of people working for him,” VelcroVixen pointed out. “Why does he need a newbie like you?” The Confiscator shrugged. “I let you tag along and audit my work so you could assess me. If you know your business you know I’m pretty damn good. Two confirmed kills in under a minute.” “Then why have we never heard of you before?” demanded VV. “Because I’m pretty damn good. But when the Confiscator name became vacant I decided it was time to get a marketing strategy. If Badripoor’s not interested I’ve got an offer from Factor X and a line on some more work for Akiko…” “We’re interested,” interjected Rimshooter. “Very interested. Welcome to the team.” Beverly Campbell hadn’t thought she couldn’t be in worse trouble – until now. It had all started two years back, a few days short of her sixteenth birthday, when she had discovered that she could make people not notice her. With a little practise she could become to all intents and purposes invisible. It didn’t take her long to figure out that she was a mutate. Her parents wouldn’t understand. They were staunch Bible Belt Republicans and they were squarely behind the government’s Mutate Control Bill. The same day Beverly discovered her powers her father was applauding some item on the news about Sentinoids taking down a mutie terrorist in Arachknight City. And Beverly was stupid. Her powers made it so easy to take whatever she wanted, to shoplift the clothes and trinkets she’d never been able to afford. She didn’t realise that her gifts didn’t shield her from security cameras. She was lucky to have got away with it for so long before she was recognised and IDed. So Beverly Campbell had to flee her home a month before graduation, leave behind her friends and her education and her whole life. She survived for five miserable weeks using her gifts to steal food and stay alive. She was lonely and frightened and cold all the time, but she survived. She woke at night from nightmares where Sentinoids caught and dissected her but she survived. In Reno there was a storefront help project, the Mutate Support Association. It offered free counselling for young people who suspected they were mutates, metagene testing, even legal help with the registration forms if folks turned out to me mutate-positive. Beverly vaguely remembered her father saying such places were tools of the devil, and swearing at the TV when De Brown Streak turned up to stop a riot that threatened to burn one to the ground. Now she plucked up her courage and ventured into the shop to ask for some help. It turned out her father was right. The Mutate Support Association was a tool of the devil. “One little prick,” they told her as they injected her with the powerful narcotic that put her under after they’d determined that she possessed full-blown mutate powers. She awoke again in Technopolitan power dampeners and military-grade handcuffs on a cargo plane bound to distant Badripoor. Count Armageddon was building an army of science villains. He needed raw material. Any scruples or morals his new recruits might come with would soon be seared out of them by the Kaos Energies that suffused his person and by the brutal discipline of the Badripoor regime. But that wasn’t the worst trouble. Beverly Campbell was a wanted fugitive kidnapped from her own country and taken halfway round the world to a nation of supervillains to be transformed into a conscienceless killer. But first Fleshcrawler took a liking to her. “Come with me,” the emaciated Science Villain ordered her, pulling her out of the line-up where Genetwist was evaluating the new deliveries. “I’ve been looking for a new subject.” His smile was pure evil. “You’re going to be my masterpiece.” “Welcome to Badripoor, Confiscator,” VelcroVixen purred, pressing against the mercenary’s arm. “The dark jewel of the Pacific Basin. Eight million people packed into one beautiful, terrible, seething, writhing city with no morals, no hope, and no holds barred. We’re putting you up in the Croque D’Or hotel for now, until you’ve had an interview with Count Medici. If he hires you then you can have your pick of places to stay after that.” “Is it true that the science villains have absolute authority to do anything they like here?” the Confiscator asked. “They’re the elite. It’s a metatocracy. If you have powers, the populace is bound to obey you,” Vicki Vee replied. “It can be quite amusing. But cause too much damage to the property or livestock and Count Armageddon will take it out of your hide.” “Armageddon. You and he…?” “We’re not exclusive,” smiled the former fetishwear model. “He has many enthusiasms and likes to exercise his droit de signeur.” She smoothed a finger along the mercenary’s muscled upper arm. “And I like to offer a welcome for selected newcomers.” “I’ll bear that in mind,” the Confiscator promised her. “If I get that desperate. You said my quarters were this way?” “Please,” begged Beverly, trying to bite back her tears. “Don’t hurt me.” “Not hurt you?” Fleshcrawler leered. “Now where would be the fun in that?” “I’ve not done anything. Nothing bad,” Beverly babbled. She tried to back away from her flesh-controlling captor but her own skin pulled her towards him. With a sweep of his hand he could mould her flesh like putty if he so chose. “You’ve not done anything bad yet,” Fleshcrawler corrected her. “But you will. You will do very bad things. Very bad things for me.” Beverly tried to scream but her tongue wouldn’t obey her. Fleshcrawler reached forwards. The door burst from its hinges and hammered across the room. Something fast and fierce slammed into the science villain and bore him to the floor. “Fleshcrawler, what are you doing?” demanded the Confiscator from the doorway. “This girl is mine.” Fleshcrawler looked up at the huge mastiff-sized reptile that squatted atop him, slavering down onto him. It’s red eyes glared madly back. He instinctively reached up to twist its biomass. “I wouldn’t,” the Confiscator noted. “That’s Daeda. He’s one of Dark Thugos’ Deathworld warhounds. They can’t be metamorphosed. It only makes them cranky.” The warhound growled, its six-inch fangs inches from Fleshcrawler’s throat. Hot drool slavered onto the science villain’s face. “Get it off me!” he demanded. “Daeda seems to like sitting on you,” the Confiscator observed. “Remember what it feels like to have an alien killing machine thinking of you as breakfast, Fleshcrawler.” He glanced over at the pale shivering Beverly. “Who’s this?” “My new toy.” The Confiscator looked the girl up and down. 5’8”, slim and attractive in a youthful way that held the promise of greater things to come, Fleshcrawler’s prisoner was cowering back too scared to even seek escape from the nightmare she was caught in. “I like her,” the mercenary decided. “She’s mine now.” “I found her first,” protested Fleshcrawler. “I’m going to…” The warhound growled, its foetid-meat breath and lizard stink making the science villain gag. “Whose girl is she?” “Yours,” conceded Fleshcrawler. “Right,” nodded the Confiscator. “Mine. Come with me, girl. You’re my toy now.” “I’ve been doing a little research into you,” Belasco Medici, Count Armageddon, said to the Confiscator. “I like to know a little about my retainers.” “That’s always wise,” agreed the newest of Badripoor’s metahuman elite. “You’ve very good at covering your trail.” “Thank you.” Count Armageddon shifted on his throne. “That wasn’t a compliment. Apart from your taking the identity of a former mercenary assassin of some repute and having some formidable combat capabilities you are a complete mystery. I don’t like mysteries.” The Confiscator shrugged. “Like my fa… like my predecessor, I don’t talk about my clients or the work they retain me to do. I’ll give you the same confidential service I gave them.” “You know, SPUD keeps trying to infiltrate spies into my coterie, Confiscator,” Armageddon considered. “I nail most of them to the wharves as a deterrent to other interferers. But it occurs to me that they haven’t tried to infiltrate a metahuman since that debacle with Epitome.” “Remiss of them,” noted the Confiscator. “But the thing is,” Medici went on with a cold smile, “if they did put an agent in, I would know it. I would extend my Kaos Energies – like this – and brush it against the impostor – so – searing out all that is good and wholesome about them and leaving only a rotted corrupt shell.” As he spoke Count Armageddon loosed the sickly green aura about him to sear through the new recruit. The Confiscator didn’t even twitch. “And then what?” the assassin asked. “No good in you at all,” sensed Armageddon. “No emotions, no love, no hope even. There’s nothing left to take from you.” “Well, I’m sort of fond of my Apuffyliptian Warhound, Daedanyn,” confessed the Confiscator. “I practically raised him from a pup.” “I’m told you also claimed a girl, one of the new mutates,” commented Medici. “Rimshooter said we get the pick of the women. I picked her.” “I’ve not yet had the opportunity to sear away her conscience and inhibitions,” Armageddon pointed out. “I don’t want her conscience or inhibitions burned out,” the Confiscator said coldly. “Where would be the fun in that?” Belasco Medici conceded the point with a nod. “As you wish. But I still need to establish whether you really have a place in my organisation.” “I have a place, Count,” the Confiscator answered. “I see myself somewhere very near the top. What do I have to do to get there?” “What you claim to do best,” the ruler of Badripoor responded. “Kill somebody. A hero. Somebody major. One of the Lair Legion.” “On my standard fee scale?” “If you wish. Resources are no problem here.” “Okay. Who do you want dead?” Count Armageddon considered this for a moment, then reached for a file. “This one,” he told the Confiscator. “Kill this one.” Beverly Campbell was waiting in the Confiscator’s quarters when he returned. Where else could she go? The giant lizard-monster watched her but made no threatening move. She watched the Confiscator warily as he came into the luxury apartment and made himself comfortable. “This way, Daeda-boy,” he called to his warhound, leading it into the sauna room. “I think you’re making the lady nervous.” It wasn’t the alien killing machine that was bothering Beverly. The Confiscator returned. He laid a manila folder on the coffee table and turned to the girl. “What’s your name?” he asked his new slave. “Beverly.” “Would you like a drink, Beverly? Or something to eat?” Beverly shuddered. “No. Just rape me and get it over with.” The Confiscator shook his head. “You’ve misunderstood my intentions, Beverly. I claimed you from Fleshcrawler to keep you safe from harm, not to inflict hurt upon you. I don’t abuse women.” Beverly frowned warily. “I don’t understand.” “I am the Confiscator. I take life from my targets for money. I undertake my work efficiently and professionally and I get paid a very large amount for my services. But I do not kill needlessly and I do not enjoy hurting people for the sake of hurting them. And I don’t like seeing others do so either. It is… unseemly.” “But you kill people.” “Nobody’s paying me to murder you, Beverly. So you can relax. You’re safe while you’re with me. Safe from the science villains of Badripoor, safe from me.” “Then what do you want me to do?” “I want you to relax. If you feel like doing a little light dusting and some ironing that would be fine too. Oh, and if you could pretend that I’m using you as my concubine it will prevent any awkward discussions of this kind with my peers, if you would be so kind.” Beverly perched timidly on the edge of the couch. “You’re not going to hurt me?” “I am not. As I said, you are completely…” Then the door burst open as an angry Fleshcrawler returned for payback with Spinoid and Razorbarb to back him up. The Confiscator turned angrily… and changed. Without warning he was suddenly two feet taller, hairy and wolflike. His hands ended in sharp claws and his face was twisted into a red-eyed mask of rage. And he was fast, swatting Razorbarb before the science villain could begin generating his psionic cheesewire and hammering Spinoid through the window to fall nine stories to the pavement below. But Fleshcrawler grabbed the giant triumphantly and used his gift to twist the Confiscator’s flesh beyond all recognition. The Confiscator pulled back to his lupine shape and raked his claws across his assailant’s face, tearing half of it loose in a spray of gore. Then he began to slash at Fleshcrawler again and again, growling like a demented animal. He didn’t stop until the villain was a bloody pulp on the carpet. At last he seemed to gain control of himself. He took a deep breath and eased back his head to look to the blood-spattered ceiling. Then he shrunk back to his previous size. His grey jumpsuit stretched back with him. The fangs and claws disappeared, and the same urbane mercenary stood there with Fleshcrawler’s pulp on his hands. “Get out,” the assassin told Razorbarb as he picked himself groggily from the floor. “Take this useless piece of crap with you. And if any of you try anything again I’ll forget that we’re supposed to be working the same side and I will kill you. Understand?” “Y-yes,” swallowed Razorbarb, pressing his hand against the deep gash that had missed his jugular by a quarter inch. “What are you?” “I’m someone who likes his privacy.” The Confiscator waited until Razorbarb had gathered up the bloody parts of Fleshcrawler and dragged them down the hall before relaxing his vigilance a little. Beverly was huddled against the far wall, her terror back, her eyes wide open with pure horror. “Like I said, safe,” repeated the Confiscator. “Call maintenance. Tell them we’ll require a new apartment.” “O-okay,” Beverly stammered. “And then get some rest. Take a bath and calm down. Watch some TV. Just keep out of my way. I have a murder to plan.” And he opened the dossier Count Armageddon had passed to him and stared hard at the photograph of Sir Mumphrey Wilton. “So who is he?” demanded Belasco Medici. “What is he?” “I don’t know yet,” admitted Vicki Vee, VelcroVixen. “His costume has some kind of refractive properties that prevent us getting a full bio-scan. There’s something similar on that beast’s collar too.” “The monitors in the room?” “He found them and disabled them, every one.” “And he disabled the team you sent to shake him up, too,” noted Count Armageddon. “What did we learn from that?” “Possible lycanthrope, ruthless and powerful” considered Vicki. “A BALD biowarrior? A mutate? Yet he didn’t scan as having any metahuman powers when we monitored him in Las Vegas.” “Scanners can be fooled,” noted Armageddon. “Got that right,” agreed the Confiscator, sauntering out of the shadows. “You need to look at your security net, Count.” Belasco Medici moved very quickly and seized the intruder by the neck. “Why shouldn’t I snap your scrawny neck right now, mystery man?” “Because I’m about to become your most useful operative?” suggested the mercenary. “Let’s cut the Scooby-Doo crap and get down to business. Do you really care who I am as long as I get the job done?” “Let’s say we don’t trust you further than I could throw the Yurt,” suggested VelcroVixen. “Is this about me hurting your feelings by not wanting to sleep with you?” the Confiscator asked. “I wanted to stand out in the crowd.” Belasco Medici looked from VelcroVixen to Confiscator with an angry glare. “Fine,” sighed the Confiscator, wrenching himself from Armageddon’s grip with a painful jerk. “If it’s such a big deal, yes I haven’t always operated as the Confiscator. I’ve taken on the new ID because the old one was getting pretty well known and pretty unwelcome. After the Hooded Hood tried to take me out I felt it was best to be someone else for a while. I don’t want people knowing who I used to be because that would bring a certain amount of unpleasantness after me that I’d rather avoid. I came here because I figured I could make it big in Badripoor if I could do something well. And I can give you everything you wanted, Armageddon – and not in the VelcroVixen sense.” “Keep talking,” growled the master of Badripoor. “You wanted me to prove my worth by offing the Lair Legion’s boss man, Mumphrey Wilton, right? Well what if I could do that and go one better.” The Confiscator chuckled to himself. “What if I could give you the whole team?” “You can take out the whole Legion?” scoffed VV. “Maybe, if I had to, and with time to prepare,” considered the mercenary. “I’ve battled them before. But that’s not what I’m talking about. You see, if I assassinate their leader the team’s going to be pretty mad. Blood crazy. Ready to come down on the murderer with everything they’ve got.” “Yes,” agreed Count Armageddon. “So?” “So I let them. They track me down to some nowhere hole of a ghost town somewhere, and they come for me hard and fast. But…” “But?” urged Medici. “But there’s fourteen of them. How many metahumans have you got here?” “Around three hundred and twenty right now,” calculated VelcroVixen. “Sounds about the right odds,” noted the Confiscator. “The LL walk into a prepared position, right? A killing zone. And we make sure there’s plenty of innocent bystanders around so the good guys can’t cut loose against us.” “Go on,” breathed Count Armageddon. “First we hit them with sonics and concussors. We set up a standing field to prevent teleporting, summonsing and the like, and a force field to stop anyone getting out... Your new playmate the Idiom can set up that part, right? Then you go in there with the Kaos energy, see how many of the heroes you can turn or weaken. And then…” the Confiscator held his hands wide. “Open season. Sixeen to one. Kill ‘em, capture ‘em, convert ‘em, it doesn’t matter. No more Legion.” “No more Legion,” considered Count Armageddon. “It could be done.” “I’m just surprised you’ve waited this long,” admitted the Confiscator. “On the other hand, I’ll be glad for the kill-fees.” “The world powers would go nuts,” VelcroVixen objected. “They’d be back to nuclear options on us.” “I think we have now sealed ourselves against that particular gambit,” noted Medici. “And without the Lair Legion there are few concerted metahuman forces that could resist us.” “Corrupt Dancer and Sorceress onto your side and see how well the remaining good guys do stopping you,” suggested the Confiscator. The master of Badripoor considered the future for a few moments. Then he turned to the Confiscator. “Very well,” he agreed. “I want a full detailed plan prepared, with contingencies and tactical assessments. I want a confirmed kill on Mumphrey Wilton before commencing. And I want you at my side when the Lair Legion enter the trap.” The Confiscator nodded. “You got it,” he agreed. “This is history in the making.” Beverly Campbell was waiting for the Confiscator when he got back with Daeda. She’d gone from fearing his presence to dreading his absences in this terrible place. She only felt safe now when he was close by. “I stayed up,” she told him, swallowing hard. “I made you some food.” “Not hungry,” the mercenary told her. “And I don’t eat food I haven’t prepared myself. Thanks anyway.” “Oh,” Beverly responded. “Sorry.” She waited a few moments and tried again. “Is there anything else you need?” The Confiscator settled at his desk to review his mission notes for the destruction of the Lair Legion. “No, I don’t think so Beverly. Good night.” “I’ve been with you four days now,” the girl went on. “You’ve kept me safe.” “Don’t mention it.” She came up to the desk being careful not to approach him on his blindside. He didn’t like that. “And you’ve not touched me.” “I told you that you were safe here. I meant it.” The alien warhound made some kind of grumphing hissing sound and turned around three times before curling across one of the sofas. “You’ve been very kind,” Beverly blushed. “And you know, if… It wouldn’t be so bad…” The Confiscator looked up. “Stockholm Syndrome,” he told her. “You know what that is? In 1973, four Swedes held captive in a bank vault for six days during a robbery became attached to their captors. They rooted for them, wanted them to succeed and escape, even tried to assist them. Charles Manson’s female co-defendants started out as his victims and turned into his accomplices. Sometimes the hostage thinks they’re in love with the kidnapper.” Beverly backed off as if she’d been slapped. “I never said love. I just thought… I don’t want you to get tired of me. I hate you but I’d rather be… with you than any of the others here.” She bit back a sob. “I don’t have anybody else but you!” The Confiscator looked helplessly at his warhound, then around the room. Finally he held the weeping girl awkwardly in his arms until she was quiet. “I read your papers,” Beverly confessed at last, not moving from his arms. “Are you really going to kill the whole Lair Legion?” “No. I expect some of them will be captured for later torture and corruption,” her jailer answered. “And that doesn’t bother you?” “I’m getting paid.” Beverly pulled away from him. “I’m going to bed now,” she said coldly. “If you come to me, I won’t scream or struggle. I must be completely Stockholmed. I don’t understand you. I don’t know what you are. You frighten me. But you’re all I have left.” “Sleep well, Beverly,” the Confiscator told her. “I have work to do.” The Confiscator went back to his plans. He had a lot to prepare to ensure there was a new ruler in Badripoor when the dust had settled. Alone in his chambers, Belasco Medici peeled off his gown and let the Kaos energies his form was composed of crackle freely over the walls. “Can you hear me?” he called out to the darkness. “We hear you.” “I’m doing what we agreed. The destruction of the Lair Legion. There’s a plan now. But I think I need a little something extra as an ace in the hole.” “But of course,” agreed Mister Lucifer. “What do you want?” Next time: There’s a nasty business going on in the shadows of the occult underworld and it’s the sorcerer supreme’s job to deal with it. But this time Xander can’t be somewhere else when it happens, and the enemy has everything in readiness for his coming. Another wicked schemer makes his play and another hero goes down in our double-sized #166: Untold Tales of the Xander the Improbable: Fall of the Sorcerer Supreme And there are now enough clues to deduce the Confiscator's real identity. Mark your spoilers, please. Somewhere, Over the Footnote… Fetish Lad is a Las Vegas-based crimefighter who has previously teamed with ManMan and Trickshot, using his eccentric apparatus and unusual combat skills to tackle vice and corruption. I’m still waiting for more notes on our hero that his creator ManMan promised me in 2001 *hint* Of course that may be moot now. Big Break Brewster is a sleazy crimelord who hasn’t been seen before. We won’t be seeing him again, either. Akiko Masamune runs the Hong Kong and Mangatown rackets and has previously employed the Confiscator to execute Hacker Nine. The original Confiscator was a professional assassin. Perhaps his most famous kills were Heike Zemo and the Dark Knight. However, when the Dark knight came back looking for him he lost his nerve and went into semi-retirement. He was finally slain by punk newcomer villain Third Degree. Mutates in the Parodyverse: In most nations, including the US, it is required that all mutate powers should be registered with the government, and it is illegal to utilise them without government mandate. Technology exists to remove mutate powers, but the process has a 25% mortality rate and a 15% chance of causing brain damage so few mutates undergo this process voluntarily. The government retains the right to compel the process in the national interest if mutate powers are particularly dangerous. Unlicensed mutates, or those using their powers without mandate, are hunted down by the Sentinoids, a brand of powerful combat robots (they can also be manned by an operator inside) equipped with mutate-detection technology. In command of the operation is security advisor Herbert P. Garrick, in liaison with the Super-Menace Principle Undercover Directorate (SPUD). However, mutate rights is a lively moral issue, with strong public dissent to existing oppressive policies and a range of help organisations and undergrounds existing to support mutates. Some of these, like the Mutate Support Association, are recruiting fronts seeking to capture mutates for nefarious purposes. A number of mutates battle to save a world that hates and fears them, and the most outspoken of the current generation of mutate hero outlaws is Joshua John Clement, De Brown Streak. Badripoor is a Pacific rim nation-state that has grown rich and corrupt through gambling, piracy, prostitution, drug-running, and money laundering. A succession of rotten regimes have been replaced by the new rulership of Belasco Medici, Count Armageddon, and he has forged the rogue nation into a powerful and terrible force in modern world politics. Badripoor’s open-door policy for super-villains has led to it having the highest concentration of metahumans per square mile of anywhere outside Paradopolis. Badripoor villains mentioned in this story include: Velcro Vixen (Vicki Vee) is a former Fetishwear model turned super-villain mistress. She has no super-powers but is expert at unarmed combat and using throwing knives, and has a genuine talent for being deputy-leader of supervillain teams. Rimshooter (Yasud Al-Kamara) can metamorphose his body into weaponry. The former Technopolitan Science Villain has generated missile percussion weapons, lasers, gas guns, sonics, and tranquilliser needles. Who knows what else he’s trained for? Fleshcrawler (Nugent Linnerman) is a spooky creep who can control people’s skin on touch, either to force them to be his puppets or to restructure it into something more to his somewhat perverted tastes. This former Technopolitan Science Villain died at least once and come back from it. Razorbarb (Mickey Spiroletti) is a brash arrogant punk kid, survivor of twins with identical powers. The former Technopolitan Science Villain can generate molecule-thick strands of indestructible wire which can tangle and slice. They vanish if he’s rendered unconscious. Spinoid has a bony razor-sharp carapace and can fire explosive spines from his exo-skeleton. He’s experienced at close-in fighting. The former Technopolitan Science villain has no known real name and may not even be of Earth origin. The Idiom (Letitia Gallagher) is a problem-solving genius who has previously fought Mr Epitome on ethical and political grounds and has recently become his lover. However, she has been corrupted by Count Armaggadon’s kaos energies, truly turning her into a formidable, cold, and deadly enemy and harnessing her creative imagination to manufacture weapons of mass terror. Apuffyliptian Warhounds: Dark Thugos, once Tyrant of the Sol Galaxy in another dimension and currently the cosmic office holder the Destroyer of Tales, formerly operated an interplanetary empire from the heckpits of Apuuffylips and from his roving mercenary planet Battleworld. Amongst the many foul technologies he used was the process that created the tough, strong, vicious Warhounds, a cross between a mastiff and a dinosaur, further enhanced by cybernetics and gene-enhancement. They’re not very friendly. Mr Lucifer is one of the Dead Hell Lords who have avoided annihilation by stealing the power of the Resolution Prophesy. Now they are laying their traps slowly and subtly in readiness for their grand assault on all this is good. More on all of this, including back-issues, character descriptions, and geographical data at 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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