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Post By Noting the tapering-off of PV discussion in the last week or two, the Hooded Hood does his bit to provide topics for conversation. Sat Aug 21, 2004 at 12:11:46 pm EDT |
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#167: Untold Tales of the Lair Legion: The Return of Fin Fang Foom Again, or Leadership Challenges | |
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#167: Untold Tales of the Lair Legion: The Return of Fin Fang Foom Again, or Leadership Challenges The inconceivable Yurt, by Dancer Warning Note: Yo is forbidden to scroll down to the end of this chapter. Previously: Belasco Medici, the kaos-energy-suffused tyrant Count Armageddon, has become absolute ruler of the outlaw Pacific basin city-state of Badripoor. There he has recruited over three hundred super-villains, including the manipulative and seductive VelcroVixen and the mysterious mercenary assassin the Confiscator. Now he plans to honour his pact with the Dead Hell-Lords and bring about the absolute destruction of the Lair Legion. Meanwhile, Mark Hopkins (spiffy) faces the end of his tenure as omni-mayor of most of America but is striving to retain his position in Gothametropolis York in the face of strong opposition from intellectual challenger Dr Shales. Falcon’s little sister Lindy Wilson has run away from home. CrazySugarFreakBoy! has become convinced that his friend Hatman needs a new girlfriend. And Sir Mumphrey Wilton’s tenure as temporary leader of the Lair Legion is coming to a close with the return of Fin Fang Foom. This story takes place after Why are the Legionnaires in the Lair Legion?, Working Late, Steamed, Yo’s Part, The Dancer/Mumphrey Hassling IW Special, Trickshot Weighs In, The Nats/Mumphrey 3-Line Special, Keiko Special Edition, Leadership Implications, and Lisa’s Last Word. “Graaagh! Puny Lair Legion think they are dumb, but Yurt is the dumbest one there is!” Seventy-five tons of walking Russian peasant hut shifted suddenly, slamming one massive arm – or wing – into Mr Epitome and Hatman and pounding them back into and through the shopping village façade. CrazySugarFreakBoy! managed to hold on using his silly string and Dancer slipped herself aside by incredible coincidence at the last minute. “Hold him, guys!” Nats called, blood trickling from his nose where the feedback of the rampaging monster against his telekinetics had taken their toll. “We need to get him to Al B!” The inconceivable Yurt shrugged again and hurled a schoolbus at the flying phenomenon. Nats realised the occupants were still in it. He had to shield them from harm. “Oh this is going to hurt,” he gulped. Trickshot slid low between the Yurt’s support pillars and slammed a couple of sonic arrows into its substructure. The Yurt clutched its groin for a moment and growled again. “Yurt feels good, but Yurt is not that kind of monster! Graaagh!” “Y’know,” Dancer suggested as she whisked Trickshot from under a descending fist that could have pulped a tank, “on the whole I think the Cineplex should just have let him in to see Shrek 2.” “Yo is agreeing,” the deputy-leader of the Lair Legion noted, hopping in close to grab the shingles and turf of the Yurt’s roof. “Yo is thinking no monster can be cross with romantic story of two ogres to being in love!” And the pure thought being twisted and flipped the whole irradiated peasant-hut-thing over her head in an impossible judo throw because s/he thought she could. “The animation was good,” the Manga Shoggoth admitted as the Yurt crashed down inside his gelatinous biomess, “but it would have been better if the characters had bigger eyes. Except Puss in Boots, of course.” “Rrrraaagh! Yurt wants Puss in Boots!” The vast monster struggled to its feet, sloshing the Shoggoth about it, undeterred. ~~I didn’t want to have to do this,~~ Cressida the wonder worm warned the rampaging horror – to the Yurt, that is, not the Shoggoth. “Do what? Why?” dull thud demanded. Fighting the strongest creature on the planet that got more powerful the more stupid it was didn’t appeal to him before breakfast ~~Transmuting bits of Yurt to hurt~~ the telepathic tapeworm inside thud answered. ~~Now he’s going to come and kill you.~~ “Graaaaaahhhh!” screeched the Yurt as six-foot chunks of its masonry melted away. It brushed vehicles aside and raced straight at the rumpled roadie. Dancer and CSFB! hurried to clear shoppers from the path of tumbling trucks. “Run!” shouted Nats. “I’ll try and hold it back telekinetically as… soon… as I… regain…” Then the feedback was too much and the flying phenomenon toppled from the skies. Trickshot fired a foam arrow to give him a softer landing. dull thud ran. It was an easy decision as the vast radioactive cross between a nuclear power worker and a peasant dwelling stomped towards him. ~~Towards Al B’s gamma-radiation leaching platform?~~ Cressida suggested. But the Yurt was fast for all his bulk. An arm decked with indestructible slate protrusions slashed out to rip dull thud to shreds. thuddy instinctively used his power to teleport straight upwards, but that just meant he fell into the Shoggoth-goo around the Yurt’s neck. “Well, you’ve confused it for a moment,” the Shoggoth admitted. “Puny smelly-man! Yurt will crush you!” “Smelly?” thud frowned. “This Flint Michigan and the Mating Octopi t-shirt was fresh on last Wednesday!” CrazySugarFreakBoy! grabbed thud from the Yurt’s shoulder just before Cressida’s host was crushed to pulp. A mere brush of the Yurt’s fist was sufficient to send them both toppling down into the car park. Blood was seeping from the gashes on CSFB!s shoulder. “Yurt kill!” boomed the monster. “Yurt is not to be doing any such thing!” scolded Yo, stabbing the hut with his/her rapier. “Yurt is to be chasing of Yo, pleasing.” But the Yurt reached down and grabbed up CSFB! and dull thud with hands that could crush mountains. And then the second Yurt appeared. “Graaagh!” it shouted. “Fake Yurt thinks it is dumb! But Yurt will show fake-Yurt! Yurt is the dumbest one there is!” The Yurt lost all interest in its captives, dropping them where they could be dragged away by Dancer and Trickshot. It turned to orient on the newcomer. “Puny fake Yurt try to trick Yurt, but Yurt knows who Yurt is.” It paused for a moment to work it out. “Yurt is Yurt. Now Yurt will smash fake Yurt!” “Two Yurts,” worried Trickshot as he pulled the rubble away to drag Hatman and Epitome out from the retail park. “I’m gonna need me some more arrows.” “Relax,” came Al B. Harper’s voice over the comm-link. “Just go with the plan.” The new Yurt shambled away across the lot, heading towards the strange shining platform that had been hastily erected by the concession stands. The original rampaging Yurt stomped after him, crushing vehicles without even noticing. The new Yurt got as far as the platform and turned round to face its pursuer. And it said, “Now, Librarian!” Lee Bookman met the incoming Yurt as it stormed towards the impostor. He laid both hands on the creature and transmitted the knowledge of the full Encyclopaedia Britannica into it. The Yurt staggered as its intelligence spiked for a moment. The Yurt it had been following shifted shape, growing and unfolding into a massive green reptile, and an armoured tail slammed down on the stunned peasant hut. “Now, Harper!” Al B. Harper shunted the gamma-draining device into override. There was a harsh whine and the Yurt wobbled again. The dragon towered over the shrinking creature and kept hitting. When the Yurt fell over he was thin bruised peasant Vlastimock Bogoff once more. Dancer moved in to check the poor man was alright. The dragon slumped down and shrunk to humanoid proportions. Shape-shifting on that radical a level exhausted his Makluan physiology. “Got him!” Yo called happily. “Situation is to be being under control.” S/he bent over and hugged the surprised dragon. “Welcoming back, cute Fin Fang Foom!” “Okay, what’s your position of factory pollution in the Sheldon Bay River?” Lisa L. Waltz demanded. “Er… it’s a bad thing?” spiffy checked. “Yeah, bad thing. Nobody likes pollution, right?” “So you want to shut down the factories, putting thousands of people out of work?” “Er, no. No. Unemployment’s a bad thing as well. Factories are good. Except when they’re polluting the river. Aaagh!” Lisa glanced across at Visionary in the Gothametropolis Town Hall. “We have a lot of work to do.” Vizh nodded. “I don’t see why spiffy wants all that responsibility of being Mayor anyway,” he admitted. “People pushing paper at you all hours, trying to kill you, blaming you for everything people rubber-stamped your name on. And then your desk explodes with napalm…” “Dude, I think you’ve slipped into the first person again,” spiffy warned him. “I want to be Mayor here because GMY’s not had a break for a long time. There are some good people here but its become a bad town, full of crime and greed and mean-spiritedness. I think I can help people get this place back to what it could be, a good home for decent people and their kids.” Lisa smiled. “See, if you could just remember that kind of conviction and passion when you’re answering questions you’d have this election in the bag.” Mark Hopkins put his head in his hands. “The election. Two days! Agh!” It was indeed two days before the public elections for Mayor of Gothametropolis. Mark “spiffy” Hopkins had served a full term despite the electoral accident that had left him omni-mayor of almost all of the United States, and he was desperately striving to be elected again to continue his work in Gothametropolis York. “It’s not hopeless,” Visionary comforted the fern-wielding wannabe-next-Mayor. “Dr Shales and Ms Klein could always come down with serious food poisoning before the public debate tomorrow.” “That’s what I said,” argued Lisa, “but spiffy said that would be ‘immoral’.” “I can do this,” Mark insisted. “I just need more preparation. Sure, Scholes is a doctor of political science and he’s taught at colleges across the country and he’s a respected jurist and stuff, but let’s see how good he is when people start shooting at him.” “He’s noted for his debating skills,” the first lady of the Lair Legion pointed out. “Are you sure we couldn’t just slip a little LSD into his drinking water and then…” “I’ve gotta do this fairly,” spiffy insisted. “Anyway, I’m more worried about Velma Klein. She’s got a campaign budget in the millions, and the media loves her. She’s got endorsements from everyone from the Campaign to Impeach Mayor spiffy to the Businesswoman of GMY. How does she do it?” “Well, being a former CEO of FlaskCo doesn’t hurt,” Lisa pointed out. “Yeah, that’s right. She used to work for Harry Flask, the alleged Lynchpin of Crime. Gee, I wonder where she’s getting all her money from?” “We’re not doing made-up smear campaigns either,” spiffy sighed. “That’s not made up,” Lisa warned him. “If you start doing better in the polls you’d better hope all that bullet-dodging practise you’ve had pays off.” “I am so doomed.” “But at least it’s not possible to get negative votes,” Visionary comforted him. “I don’t like you,” Fin Fang Foom told Mr Epitome. “I don’t like you and I don’t trust you and I sure as hell don’t want you in the Lair Legion.” “I think you’ve made your position reasonably clear, yes,” agreed the paragon of power. He sat with his arms crossed over his chest across the room from the returned leader of the Parodyverse’s mightiest heroes. “Sir Mumphrey’s done a great job in my absence,” Foom went on, “Inducting you is the only mistake he made in my book.” “Sir Mumphrey has proved to be a fine leader of the team,” Epitome agreed. “I’ve had every confidence in him.” The Makluan dragon shifted in his reinforced chair, a little fleck of flame escaping his lips. Mr Epitome had always been able to rile him just by breathing. “I’d toss you out of here like last week’s lasagne if it wasn’t for the fact Mumphrey already offered you a chance. But remember that you’re only a probationary member. Probationers have failed to make it on the team before now.” “I’m sure that with good leadership and proper support I can be an asset to the Legion,” Dominic Clancy replied. “Was there anything else?” “Not for now. I’ll be watching you.” “I’ll make sure I’m impressive then.” The brunette in denims walked into the biker bar on Interstate 666 and looked around. “I’m looking for a girl,” she announced. She waited until the denizens put down their drinks and made their crude responses then held up a glossy 8x10. “This girl. She was out here hitching a couple of days ago. Anybody seen her?” “I can help you get over liking girls, baby,” a twenty-stone biker slurred, hefting his paunch off a bar stool and strutting over. “Ah,” said Julia Thompson. “You must be the Example.” “Example?” the biker frowned. “The example to the others not to mess with me,” Pigeon explained, just before something fast and painful happened to her suitor. “So, this girl? Anybody see her?” Half a dozen bottles shattered on the bartop. “So it’s going to be that kind of interview,” the brunette sighed. “Okay. Let’s do it that way. Sam?” Then the front window shattered in and Falcon flew straight into the mass of bikers. He wasn’t in a very good mood. “I don’t know, Jay. I’m struggling, I admit that.” Fin Fang Foom paced the leader’s office, his draconic tail swishing in agitation. “I didn’t expect to be gone so long finding Xnylonia, and I didn’t expect things to change so much while I was away.” “I know how you feel,” Hatman admitted. “One minute I’m with the team battling the Wilde Hunt, the next everything’s different.” He looked over at the pacing dragon. “So how did things go on Xnylone. Did you find Ziles?” “She’s fine,” Finny said curtly. “No need to discuss it. Right now I have to figure out what to do with the LL.” “Does it need anything doing with it?” Jay Boaz asked. “Okay, a few tactical scenarios could be generated, played out for future combat situations. I’m working on some stuff Sir Mumphrey suggested that…” Finny swung round at the mention of his predecessor. “That’s fine,” he snapped. “Really. But what about the larger issues? I’m trying to work out what changes should be retained, what need to be put back. All kinds of stuff.” “Well, I like the idea of the junior team,” Hatman admitted. “A training academy is long overdue.” “With Visionary in charge?” “He seems to manage,” Jay noted. “It’s not how I’d run the place, but…” “What about all these Associate Members?” Finny asked. “I don’t have any problem with the Librarian poking through our records really, I suppose, or Al B. Harper in the lab.” “You feel like Lisa’s looking over your shoulder all the time?” Hatman suggested. “She is. She’s taking care of you, Finny, seeing you’re alright.” “I don’t need overseeing, dammit. And then there’s Yo.” Jay looked puzzled. “What’s wrong with Yo?” “Nothing’s wrong with Yo. Yo’s great. I love Yo, in a strictly platonic and brotherly way, okay? But Yo as deputy leader? Jay, I want you back in the job.” Hatman shook his head. “Nope, you don’t. You want to give Yo a chance to show what s/he can do. A chance to grow. S/he does things differently to you and me, yes, but isn’t that why we have a deputy leader as well as a leader these days?” “We made a great team, you and I,” Foom argued. “Sure we did. But I have to get my life back together. I’ve got all this liaison stuff, plus tactical advisor stuff, plus some responsibilities I’ve taken on at the Zero Street Mission. And Yo deserves a chance to show what s/he can do.” The capped crusader looked over to the stalking dragon. “Look, I think you’re just suffering from a bit of future-shock, that’s all. You don’t need to feel intimidated or worried or insecure. You’re Fin Fang Foom, one of the best heroes there is. You’ll cope.“ The Makluan looked out of his window over the bay that hadn’t been there a year before. “Maybe.” In another greasy bar another brunette leaned against the counter and chugged another beer; except this bar was in Brindisi, Italy, and the regulars already knew better than to touch her. She stiffened as a hand tapped her shoulder. “You better have medical insurance if you’re going to offer to buy me a drink,” she warned without looking round. “And the last guy who tried to pinch me is still looking for his spleen.” “No drink then,” agreed Al B. Harper. “Unless it’s black coffee, maybe?” The girl turned round. She was attractive in a grubby unwashed-hair grease-stained overall kind of way, despite the ugly livid scars on her wrists. She focussed alcohol-blurred eyes on her visitor with some difficulty. “You! What do you want?” “I came to find you,” the scientist observed. “Well, obviously.” “I’m not here,” she replied. “Go away.” “Not all here, I agree,” Al noted. “How much have you drunk?” “Not enough. Go away.” Al B. looked around the seedy taverna. “This isn’t where I’d expect to find Amy Racecar.” “Aston,” the girl told him. “Amy Aston. I don’t go by that stupid phoney name anymore. I only got it from a comic book.” “Okay. Aston. No problem. I’ve been looking for you, Amy.” The Lair Legion’s former mechanic gave him a mean-drunk look. “Whoopee!” “We were all worried. You came to Europe and you just dropped off the radar. After…” “After some mind-bending bozo rummaged through my most intimate thoughts then had me walk into the Mansion, sabotage the defences, then slit my own wrists?” Amy demanded. “Gee, why would I want to get away after that?” Al B. nodded and sat down on the next bar stool. The locals had learned the hard way to give Amy plenty of clearance. “I can see that, Amy. But we were worried, honestly.” “What, because I lost my power to heat up my body parts? I’m still immune to fire and I can take care of myself.” She glanced round the bar. “Ask anyone here with a limp.” “No need. I know, remember? Anyway, I’m not here to ask you back to the Mansion.” “Well that’s good because I wouldn’t go.” “I do have a job offer for you though,” Al B. Harper ventured. “Are you functioning properly?” enquired the Manga Shoggoth, oozing forward over Finny’s desk to check the Makluan dragon. “Only you haven’t communicated for ten minutes as measured by a human scale of temporality.” Foom snapped out of his thoughts. “Oh, crap. Sorry. I’m still wasted from too much shapeshifting. Sorry.” “That is all right. I occupied my time by analysing the composition of the dust mites embedded in the carpet and inventing new rules for a five-dimensional croquet I’m working on. Besides, I am unfamiliar with Makluan timescales for interpersonal communication so I was unsure as to whether it was normal for you to stare out of the window for protracted periods of time in mid sentence.” Fin Fang Foom forced his mind back to the conversation. “No, I was just distracted. We, um, we were discussing how you feel you’ve settled in to the Legion?” “I feel I am integrated as much as is possible without impairing the sanity of my team-mates,” the Shoggoth explained politely. “I am also experiencing many interesting aspects of human culture, such as internet chat rooms, threshing machines, poodles, and singles bars.” “But no progress on clearing you of the mundane matter that prevents you from returning to your… main glob?” “Not so far. In fact I may well have made the situation worse, because I have had to draw upon more such matter to replicate my protomass under extreme circumstances. But thank you for asking.” “You’re welcome,” Finny answered, trying not to be disconcerted by the thing dripping across his paperwork. “So you’re happy with the team.” “It is an interesting experience,” the Shoggoth answered. “And of course it has been nice to catch up with Sir Mumphrey Wilton again.” “Of course it has,” frowned Finny through gritted teeth. “Hatty, listen,” CSFB! coaxed his friend over the Lair Mansion kitchen table. “So it didn’t work out with you and Bernice…” “You could say that,” Jay Boaz scowled. “Seeing as she hates superheroes and wanted to take me to pieces for affirming male stereotypes by not calling myself Hatperson.” “Nah, she’s okay, really,” Dreamcatcher Foxglove assured his friend. “But I guess you need someone a bit straighter to get back onto the dating trail with.” “No,” Jay replied. “I just need a little bit of time to myself. It’s not like I’m not busy.” “Ah, that’s just displacement activity,” CrazySugarFreakBoy! assured his friend. “Now your next date…” “Displacement activity is you trying to set me up with some romance, Dream,” Hatman pointed out, “You haven’t said a single word about you and Pelopia since you came out of hospital.” CSFB! nodded. “Yeah. I’m still puzzling that one.” He brightened up. “But I met April Alice Apple, creator of Groovy Gecko-Gal! at a convention, and that’s given me a lot to think about! Anyway, about your next date…” “Dream, there is no next date.” “But there is! I’ve already contacted my friend Anna Kensington and arranged something for next Friday. You’ll like her, she plays a lawful good paladin.” “Look, I’m not really…” “Friday, okay? This is going to be great!” Sherman Shales rose from his make-up chair as he saw Mark Hopkins approaching him. “Mr Mayor,” he said, holding out a hand. “Dr Shales,” replied his opponent. “Good to see you. I wonder if we might have a moment alone before we go on air? There’s something I think you need to know.” Shales glanced at his entourage and then at his watch. “I suppose so, if it’s important. But we only have five minutes before we’re due at the live debate.” “This won’t take long.” Dr Shales cleared the studio dressing room of staff and closed the door for privacy. “Very well, Mr Hopkins. What is so important that it requires such a furtive and urgent meeting?” “Just this,” his visitor told him, flexing the ferns that sprouted from the top of his head so they grew and spread like a Medusa’s mane. “You’re out of the election race.” “What do you mean?” Shales asked, edging towards the door; but the trailing vines were already holding it shut. “I mean you should never have gone up against me, egghead. Not ever.” “Mr Hopkins… spiffy…” “Shut up. I’ve heard enough of your clever words.” Then Dr Shales could speak no more. The ferns jammed into his mouth and down his throat. They spilled into his stomach and began to root. He tried to scream but there was no air left in his lungs. The ferns burst out from his torso like he was a sick bizarre planter. His dead body slumped messily to the floor. “That’s politics,” said his murderer. “Will you miss them?” Asil asked Sir Mumphrey Wilton as she helped him pack his bags for the flight back to England. “Of course,” Mumph answered, rolling up his regimental ties and stuffing them in a case pocket. “Splendid chaps, every one of them. Er, except for the chapesses, that is.” “You could stay on,” his amanuensis asked hopefully. “As an advisor or something?” “Last thing young Finny needs,” the eccentric Englishman answered. “No, best to leave him to run his own ship. Always was a temporary thing.” He glanced around him and for a moment he looked old. “Never expected it to get under my skin so much, though.” There was a cough at the door. Fin Fang Foom was there, in his human form of Andy Dean. “Hello. Mind if I come in?” “Course not, old chap. Have a pew.” “I’d like a word in private, if I may, Asil?” The young woman hefted a bag, shooting Mumphrey a defiant glance as he instinctively flinched to carry it for her. “Of course, Finny. I was just taking this downstairs. By myself.” Foom waited until she’d closed the door. “First thing,” he said, still standing, “thanks for looking after the Legion.” “Not a problem,” Mumphrey assured him. “My privilege.” “And secondly, I’m not staying,” Finny went on. “I can’t.” “What? My dear young fellow, what on Earth do you mean?” Andy shifted uncomfortably. “I mean things have changed. While I was away. I’ve changed.” “Epitome, Visionary, and Lisa?” Mumphrey guessed. “Oh, tosh. You’ll get on fine with ‘em when you’ve got your feet back under the table. Splendid folks, each of ‘em, and your Legion’ll be stronger for it when you get the knack of harnessing ‘em!” “It’s not that,” Foom replied. “As I said, I’m different now. Some time away gave me a chance to examine my priorities, work out what I’m really about. I was too busy playing superhero before, being leader of the Lair Legion and all that to really think it through. Now I have.” Mumphrey sat down. “So what have you worked out?” “I’ve worked out that the Legion is important, but it can’t do everything,” Andrew Dean replied. “It’s great as a response mechanism, as a watchdog, as a champion. But it’s never going to solve all the problems of the world, is it?” “I don’t know that anything’s going to do that, old bean.” “Well I have to try,” Fin Fang Foom explained. “I have to try and save the world. Not from super-villains and alien races. We have the LL for that. From itself. From what people do to people. From a future where we’re all just puppets in some media-money-image-politics-superficial world that can ignore the homeless and the starving and the voiceless and the lost.” “Fair enough,” agreed Sir Mumphrey, “but…” “And I can’t do that in the spotlight of leading the Lair Legion,” Finny argued. “It’s not my job any longer. I see that now.” “But… old chap…” Mumphrey waffled. “You don’t know everything,” Andy told him. “There’s more going on than you understand. Listen.” And he explained. Beverly Campbell didn’t even know there was someone in the room until she looked up and saw VelcroVixen standing over her. She gave an involuntary scream. “Oh! You shocked me! You… you shouldn’t be in here. These are the Confiscator’s quarters.” “And some lovely little traps he’s protected them with I must say,” Vicki Vee noted with professional respect. “But so many people underestimate blondes.” “What do you want?” Ever since she’d been kidnapped to the rogue nation-state of Badripoor Beverly had been under the protection of the mercenary assassin known as the Confiscator. She’d not left the safety of his apartment without him all the time she’d been here. She’d not been alone with another person. “Why just a little chat,” smiled VelcroVixen coldly. “About your boyfriend.” “What about him?” Beverly swallowed. There was something about the former fetishwear model glaring down at her that warned her she was in mortal peril. “We’re all curious about him,” VV confessed. “Where he comes from. What he can do. Who he really is.” “I don’t know,” Beverly admitted. “He never talks about himself, never gives anything away.” “Oh dear.” VelcroVixen ran a perfect fingernail gently over the curve of Beverly’s cheek. “That’s a shame. Because you’ll have to find something to tell me if you don’t want to be very badly hurt, my dearie. Perhaps you’d better think harder.” “Please, I don’t know anything! I told you! He doesn’t…” Then a thought struck the frightened girl. “Except…” she gulped. “Except sometimes, late at night…” Vicki Vee raised one perfect eyebrow. “Yes?” she prompted. “What does he do at night?” “When he thinks I’m asleep,” Beverly admitted, “Sometimes he takes something from his tunic and touches it.” “Indeed?” “A cloth. A bag of some kind I think. Or maybe a balaclava?” “What kind of cloth?” “I don’t know. Something purple. A stripy purple bag, okay?” “Or a purple head-mask,” frowned VelcroVixen. “Oh dear.” “I’m sorry to inform you that Fin Fang Foom has left,” Sir Mumphrey Wilton told the Lair Legion. “He what?” Nats exploded. “The guy just got here!” “Some kind of secret mission?” CSFB! suggested. “Boy, he’s right back in harness, isn’t he?” “He has resigned as leader of the Lair Legion and removed himself from the current roster,” Mumphrey answered. “Why would he do that?” Dancer frowned. “He wasn’t feeling unwelcome in the new line-up was he?” “Yo is to be going and talking to him right away,” Yo decided, leaping up. “He’s already left th’ building,” Carl Bastion warned them. “I saw him goin’. You can’t put much past old Br’er Trickshot.” “This makes no sense,” insisted Nats. “This isn’t over that Gold Coin Killer thing is it?” “He was having difficulty adapting to the changes,” Hatman admitted. “But I didn’t expect this.” ~~So what do we do now?~~ Cressida demanded. ~~Do we find him and convince him to stay on, or seek a new leader?~~ “Or an old one,” speculated Dancer. HALLIE flashed into her hologram form in the middle of the meeting room table. “That’ll have to wait for later,” she told them tersely. “There’s a breaking news flash on local TV. spiffy’s been arrested for murder!” “A dozen witnesses saw him in that dressing room with Dr Shales,” Police Commissioner Don Graham explained to Sir Mumphrey Wilton at the cordon line outside the TV studio. “The two of them were left alone. spiffy left two minutes later and returned to his own make-up desk. That’s where we found him after Shales’ body was discovered.” “That makes no sense at all,” objected Hatman, present in his role as police liaison. “Why would he just be sitting there if he committed murder?” “The plant matter traces inside what’s left of the victim are pretty good evidence,.” Graham pointed out. “And Hopkins himself seems confused, dazed.” “Ms Waltz will represent him,” Mumphrey told the Commissioner. “And I’d very much appreciate it if you allowed some of the Legion access to the crime scene for a joint investigation.” “Al B. Harper, the Librarian, Mr Epitome, maybe Dancer for good luck,” Hatman suggested. “You know this is too convenient a set-up, Don.” “Yes, fine, you can have access. Quietly,” agreed Graham, “but in the meantime I’m keeping Hopkins in custody. There’s too much in his record, or in that of his evil doubles’ records if you buy that stuff, to ignore the possibility that he did do this.” “Fair enough,” Sir Mumphrey agreed. “We’ll get on it right away.” “I heard Fin Fang Foom was back to lead the Lair Legion,” the commissioner noted. “He went away again,” Mumph answered tersely. “I assure you it won’t affect our capacity to…” Then he staggered back as an adhesive goo bullet impacted on his waistcoat. The shell exploded coating his midriff in a fast-setting epoxy resin. “Sniper!” called Hatman, spotting movement on the low roof of a nearby studio building. He reached for his Rockets cap. He was too late. The second shot was a hollow-point tungsten-tipped bullet that entered Sir Mumphrey Wilton’s cranium at seventy miles per second and sprayed the back of his head over the steps behind. The temporal pocketwatch on Mumphrey’s waistcoat normally replayed any fatal event automatically to allow him to use the Chronometer’s abilities to avoid it; except the eccentric Englishman’s midriff was sealed in glue so there was no way of using the timepiece. Mumphrey toppled onto the steps between Hatman and Graham. The third round was an incendiary shot that exploded his body into a blossom of flame. Hatman grabbed the Commissioner from the blast radius just in time. By the time the capped crusader had dropped Don Graham and rose to deal with the attacker, the Confiscator had gone. Next Issue: Well, you’d better believe the Lair Legion is going to react to all of this. The mystery of Dr Shales’ murder resolved! The true identity of the Confiscator! GMY’s election results! What became of Lindy? spiffy must die! Messenger vs the Lynchpin! The return of the Dark Knight! Fin Fang Foom becomes angry! And over three hundred super-villains vs the Lair Legion in the ambush of the century! It doesn’t get much more nail-biting than this, as our Villainous Intentions arc moved towards its shocking status quo-breaking conclusion with Untold Tales of the Lair Legion: Blood Vengeance Oh, and let’s be careful not to spoil the plot points for this chapter in subject line replies, please. It is a Far, Far Better Footnote I Do Now Than I Have Ever Done: The Inconceivable Yurt debuted way back in The Hooded Hood Chronicles #7: The Hooded Hood and the Purveyors of Peril Again and first fought the team (in our reality) in The Hooded Hood Chronicles #12: The Hooded Hood and the Rampage of the Yurt. Russian nuclear reactor worker Vlastimock Bogoff was caught in a gamma radiation explosion and became merged with a traditional peasant hut to become the unstoppable Yurt, who gets stronger the dumber he becomes. Don’t make him stupid. You wouldn’t like him when he’s stupid. spiffy (Mark Hopkins), youngest of the founding Legionnaires, became symbiotically merged with a sentient plant from the Unhappy Place, a conceptual dimension. This fern is attached to spiffy’s head and can grow at enormous rates, exert significant strength, and absorb and redirect energy, including light to make spiffy effectively invisible. spiffy became Omni-Mayor in the Pierson’s Porter series and has been clinging to the office ever since. Now he’s made it for a full term but faces tough opposition. He’s faced Dr Shales in a recall election before, in the Mr Epitome series. Obviously, he won’t be doing it any more. Amy Aston joined the Lair Legion support crew as their mechanic, under the pseudonym Amy Racecar, and left under the circumstances described in the text. The character was introduced by poster-Troia, who intended to write a series of adventures for the character but only ever got one episode done. Since the character was directly lifted from an existing comic book source by a poster who is no longer active I was becoming increasingly uncomfortable with using her. Therefore I unilaterally decided to ship her out and leave her in limbo for a while so she could come back refurbished and sufficiently different to stand as a PV character in her own right. So the two most derivative features of Amy, her surname and her ability to heat her body parts are gone, but I hope the things that have distinguished her in the Parodyverse, her attitude, spunk, and tight denim overalls are still intact. I hope folks think that’s a reasonable approach. Who is the Confiscator? What, you think it’ll get given away in the footnotes? You’ve had pretty much all the clues you’re going to get now. Next issue we find out for sure. The Case of the Gold Coin Killer, the epic one paragraph round robin, best fits into the few brief days of Finny’s return to the Lair Legion as chronicled in this chapter. April Alice Apple debuted in CSFB’s recent ... Alias Atreyu Atreides & Atari Colecovision: A Love Story Among Nerds. Anna Kensington most memorably featured in CSFB’s adult-content story The Song of Inanna. 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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