| #168: Untold Tales of the Lair Legion: Blood Vengeance, or Into the Killing Fields Previously: Whilst Falcon and Pigeon continued their search for Falcon’s runaway sister Lindy, the Lair Legion investigations into spiffy’s apparent murder of his election rival Dr Shales were interrupted as the Confiscator carried out his plan to assassinate Sir Mumphrey Wilton. None of the team realise that the assassination is a provocation by Count Armageddon, ruler of rogue super-villain nation Badripoor, designed to lure the Lair Legion into a trap that will destroy them. “Anything on spiffy yet?” Kerry Shepherdson asked for the dozenth time, pacing the Lair Legion Living Room nervously flicking a cigarette lighter. “Mumphrey, Hat, and Lisa are on their way over,” Dancer assured her little sister. “Al B.’s on his way back from Europe and he, Librarian and Mr Epitome will be the primary investigation team.” “Yeah, this has got to be a set-up,” Trickshot noted, muting the bleating commentator on the TV screen and putting his feet up on the coffee table. “I mean, c’mon, who hasn’t been framed for murder a couple times? I mean, I wus just last week, remember?” “But spiffy has been known to be replaced by evil doubles and stuff, right?” Nats pointed out. “I mean, some of his continuity is pretty convoluted. Evil spiffy, Bubba, Abbub… Dark Thugos.” “It was the real spiffy up to last night when we dated together,” Kerry assured them. “Nobody else could be that dorky.” “I thought you were in your room studying last night,” objected Visionary. “Didn’t say what I was studying, though,” grinned Kerry wickedly. CrazySugarFreakBoy! put the phone down and looked worried. “Bad news,” he frowned. “Something else to be evidencing against poor cute spiffy?” Yo fretted. “Bah, worse. Hatty’s date on Friday looks like it was a big mistake. That was my friend and Seattle College roomie Kit Kipling bawling me out.” CSFB! looked stunned. “I had no idea he liked Anna that much. Hatty’s gonna be heartbroken!” “We got one’a our own bein’ arrested fer murder here in case you didn’t notice,” Trickshot pointed out, gesturing to the silent TV with a half-eaten chicken drumstick. “We got more important things ta do than moon after girls.” “Like fried chicken,” munched dull thud. “Exactly.” The network logo was now accompanied by a ‘spiffygate’ graphic, and somebody was interviewing surviving – and now front-running – Gothametropolis mayoral candidate Velma Klein. “I think I need to do a little background checking into that person,” frowned the Librarian. “Ms Waltz seemed to think there was something shady about her campaign finances.” “Is good,” agreed Yo. “We are to be getting to the bottoming of this quickly of is to be losing of election for poor spiffying!” “Your electoral system seems very strange to me,” rumbled the Manga Shoggoth from behind a pile of new Japanese magazines. “Why do you not all just donate a few brain cells and formulate a composite gestalt to aggregate your collective decision-making?” “We’re talking about politicians,” noted Nats. “Brain cells are not required, just nice suits and good hair.” “Shh!” urged Dancer. “Look, Mumph and Hat are coming out of the TV studio with Commissioner Graham. Turn the sound up again. There might be some announcement.” The Lair Legion turned their attention to the monitor as the newsreader explained what the viewers were seeing: “…missioner Don Graham coming down the steps with recently returned supposedly-dead hero Hatman and the English gentleman some are speculating is now in charge of the Lair Legion.” “Well somebody has to be since Finny decided to bail again,” said Nats sourly. ~~I’m sure Fin Fang Foom had his reasons,~~ Cressida the wonder worm telepathed from dull thud’s stomach. “Once you’re free you’d do anything not to go back,” Vizh opined. “This is the latest in a series of incidents in which prominent metahumans have been accused…” went on the TV commentator, then fell silent as the scene exploded into violence. A canister hit Sir Mumphrey Wilton’s midriff, bursting to coat his chest – and temporal pocketwatch – with a fast-acting epoxy resin. “Attack!” reacted Trickshot, instinctively rolling from his chair and coming to his feet with his bow fully poised. There was no sign of the chicken-leg eating slob of a few moments earlier. But in that time a second missile had punctured Sir Mumphrey Wilton’s head, splattering his brains over the steps behind him. The third bullet was an incendiary round that immolated him in a ball of fire. “No!” gasped Dancer. “We gotta get over there!” Nats shouted, hammering the window out telekinetically. “Natsing, take Dancer with you!” Yo called out. “Shoggoth, to be dimension-gating there as quickly as is you can be! Trickshot, prepping of Lairjet!” “They shot him!” cried Kerry, staring at the TV screen. “They shot Sir Mumphrey!” “And now someone pays!” promised .thud. The Las Minas mountain range runs across Western Guatemala, rising up from the steaming swamps to cool heights. In the region of El Progreso lies the small town of Sanarate with two thousand or so people eking out a living in the high valley. The cliffs on two sides give it a natural strategic defence against aerial attack. The ribbon road passes through it with clear lines of fire on anyone approaching. It was the perfect place to prepare for the death of the Lair Legion. Twenty-four hours before the assassination of Sir Mumphrey Wilton a chosen squad of Badripoor science villains had taken the town, secured all communications, and herded the hostages to key sites around the main buildings. Then the main force of Badripoor’s metahuman population, over three hundred corrupted villains, deployed themselves ready to spring the trap on the heroes they were expecting. The Confiscator arrived at Sanarate by hover-flyer with his faithful reptilian war-hound at his heels and stormed over to Count Armageddon. “What the hell are you doing?” he demanded. “That idiocy with spiffy wasn’t part of the plan!” “It wasn’t part of your plan,” Belasco Medici told him. “Have a care, Confiscator. I have allowed you leeway because this initiative came from your suggestion. I will not brook insolence.” “I don’t like sudden changes, and I hate surprises,” warned the mercenary. “I could have taken Wilton at any time. There was no need for any grandstand murder of Dr Shales.” Armageddon shrugged. “The balance of world power is changing today,” he pointed out. “I have need of alliances, and the Lynchpin of Crime is one of them. He wanted Hopkins out of the way so that his candidate could take power in Gothametropolis York. We needed Sir Mumphrey Wilton out of the Lair Mansion so we could progress our plan. Shales’ death suited us all.” “Improvisation is dangerous,” grumbled the Confiscator. “That little show of yours will have left all kinds of sloppy clues for our heroes to follow.” “That was the point, was it not?” the master of Badripoor suggested. “To lure the Lair Legion after you and let them catch up with you here, where we could take them down once and for all?” “Yes,” agreed the mercenary reluctantly. “I just wish you’d told me.” “We all have secrets,” Count Armageddon smiled thinly. Whisperlands was an abandoned military project in the Nevada desert, deserted since the 1960s when the Fake Man programme had come to nothing. Now it was a group of sun-bleached concrete pillboxes shimmering in the heat behind rusting chain-link fences and broken barbed wire. The pick-up truck crunched over broken glass and halted at the sand-strewn gate. “We’re here,” said the driver sourly. “Great,” Lindy Wilson told him, still pointing the electric cattle-prod at her unwilling chauffeur. “I’ll be going, then. You better forget you ever saw me, or I’ll remember what you wanted to do to an underaged hitch-hiker, okay?” Once she and her formidable weapon were out of his cab the driver called her a filthy name and screeched away in a foul temper. Lindy wasn’t thinking about him. She padded over to the largest of the seemingly-deserted buildings and punched a number into the antique keypad. The number was her birthday. The metal door clicked open and she slipped inside. The interior was cool and dark, and the 60’s formica worksurfaces were refurbished with much more modern technology. Lindy looked around and smiled. “Hi, Zack. Did you miss me?” Hacker Nine looked up from his monitors and broke into a wide grin. “Lindy! You came!” “What, you thought I’d have something better to do?” Zack Zelnitz jumped up to give her a hug and a kiss, got nervous, and settled for shaking her hand warmly. Lindy pursed her lips and pecked him on the cheek. Then she hit him. “That’s for making me think you were dead, you rat!” she scolded. “Ouch!” winced Hacker Nine. “It wasn’t my fault, Lindy! I didn’t plan any of that. It was them, all them.” “Them?” Lindy frowned. “Them who?” “Our hosts,” answered Fetish Lad, returning from the kitchen with a tray of sandwiches to discover an unexpected visitor. “Zack, what did we agree about not giving away our location to other people?” “That we’d only give it to Lindy?” H9 answered hopefully. “Close,” Fetish Lad sighed. “Ah well. Care for a sandwich, Lindy?” “I summons Falcon!” Lisa Waltz called out, using her power to bring anyone she called to her across even cosmic distances. There was a flash and Sam Wilson appeared before her. “What the hell do you want now, woman?” he demanded angrily. “What part of taking a leave of absence to find my little sister who you wouldn’t life a finger to help didn’t you understand?” “What part of being a member of the Lair Legion that responds to emergencies didn’t you understand?” the amorous advocatrix replied. “For your information, Sir Mumphrey Wilton was shot dead about fifteen minutes ago, and we thought maybe out SPUD liaison would be of some use to us.” “He what?” gasped the Falcon. “How?” “HALLIE will brief you. Get over to the crime scene ASAP and find out what Dan Drury knows. Make sure he’s shifting heaven and Earth to crack who did this. Move!” “What have we got?” Hatman demanded of the Legionnaires at the first murder scene. “Vegetable matter in Dr Shales’ internal organs, major tissue trauma that suggests a fern was rammed down his throat and burst out through his stomach,” Al B. Harper admitted. “But I want to get these plant samples back to the lab for a closer analysis. There’s something odd about them.” “spiffy’s fern originated in the conceptual realm dubbed the Unhappy Place,” the Librarian pointed out. “That would qualify, surely?” “I’ve conducted a subatomic viewing of the area,” Mr Epitome chipped in. “From the blood residue, the DNA traces, everything, it’s looking like Hopkins did it.” “Unlikely,” Hatman insisted. “Unless it was mind control. Graham said he seemed confused in his dressing room.” “He had a motive,” Lee Bookman pointed out. “Everyone was expecting him to look like an idiot in the public debate with Shales.” “spiffy’s used to looking like an idiot,” the capped crusader pointed out. “No, this looks to me more like it was set up to get the LL over here, maybe specifically to get Sir Mumphrey into the crosshairs.” He glanced at the Librarian. “Did you bring the hat I need?” Lee Bookman passed over the deerstalker cap and Hatman put it on and gained the powers he associated with it. “Now,” he said precisely, his eyes narrowing and filling with intelligence, “let us see what we can see…” “The cops have checked the security cameras,” CSFB! reported to Yo. The wired wonder looked down at the sad chalk outline where Sir Mumphrey’s corpse had been. “Somebody managed to short-circuit the whole system five minutes before Mumph was hit. But a couple of news choppers were taking long shots of the area and they show the assassin up on the roof there.” “Kin we enhance the pictures an’ see who the scuzz is that’s gonna pay fer this?” demanded Trickshot. CrazySugarFreakBoy! handed over some enlarged photographs. “Looks like it was that new Confiscator.” The Manga Shoggoth completed his analysis of the area, which he had accomplished by oozing across in a low slimy wave. He reformed into humanoid semblance. “Once again he has utilised technology dependent upon an understanding of his target’s abilities,” the elder beast noted. He didn’t explain further as few of the Legion were aware of the special properties of Mumphrey’s temporal pocketwatch, but the first shot had been to cover the instrument with hard resin to prevent any replay avoiding the second fatal bullet. “Are we sure it’s Mumphrey?” CSFB! asked. “Clone? Robot? Alternate reality double?” “We just got back the DNA results from the SPUD lab tests,” Lee O’Hannigan, forensic consultant co-ordinating the scene of crime investigations warned them. “Computer analysis says he was the real thing.” She frowned for a moment at one aspect of the murder that puzzled her. “But for some reason, when they cut off that epoxy cement round his middle, they found his pocketwatch was gone!” Yo and Visionary were talking with Don Graham and Dan Drury over by the steps. “I can think of half a dozen ways a super-villain could have made himself look like spiffy and murder Dr Shales,” Vizh pointed out. “I bet you could too, Colonel Drury.” “Yeah, but I can think of all kinds of reasons Hopkins could do it as well,” the SPUD director pointed out. “This is a guy who invades France for a hobby.” “Yo is thinking there is being more to this than meets the eye.” The deputy-leader of the Lair Legion opined. “Is to be investigating how?” “We got it under control, Yo,” Drury assured the pure thought being. “Best you guys go back ta the clubhouse and leave this to the pros, okay?” The silk-clad Zorro-impersonator turned back to the SPUD agent. “No!” hissed Yo. “Is not to be okay. Is to be most unokay. Is Yo to be in charge now to be dealing with who is to be killing leader of Lair Legion, and is to be Drury and Gordon and all others to be helping as Yo tells them and to be getting out if Yo’s way when is time to be dealing with uncute murderer… okay?” Drury took an involuntary step back. “Yo’s as good at something as s/he thinks he is,” interjected Visionary hastily. “If s/he thinks she can get to the bottom of this, then s/he can. Best to let him/her do that.” Drury and Graham exchanged worried glances. “Okay,” they agreed. The campaign office of Velma Klein – ‘the people’s choice for the people’s Gothametropolis’ was in an airy city-centre shopfront staffed by bright enthusiastic workers protected by serious security guards with loose jackets that bulged under the left armpit. Ms Klein was very surprised when all of her security forces started to sing mediaeval rondels. ~~Guards to bards~~ a telepathic voice in her head explained. ~~Should wear off after they’ve compared a few people to summer’s days~~ Ms Klein noticed a shabby disreputable possibly-homeless person in a grubby t-shirt and frayed jeans shambling into the office, accompanied by a lithe woman in leotard and leggings. “Dancer,” she recognised. “And your sub-human companion must be… dull thump?” ~~Close enough,~~ agreed Cressida, the wonder worm. ~~We have a few questions for you, about the murders of Dr Shales and Sir Mumphrey Wilton.~~ “And I have absolutely no intention of answering them except to a duly appointed member of the Gothametropolis Police Force,” the remaining Mayoral candidate answered them. “When I am elected all vigilante nonsense in this town will cease.” She was surprised when Dancer lifted her from her seat and slammed her hard against the wall. “We said,” Sarah Shepherson repeated, her face two inches from the suddenly-worried politician, “we have some questions for you about the murder of Sir Mumphrey Wilton. Right?” Messenger took down the last of the armed goons on the ninteenth floor of Flask Towers and made it as far as the lobby outside the Lynchpin’s private offices. “Not bad,” adjudged Gamona the assassin. “I’ve been hoping for a rematch with you.” “Since the last time I spanked your backside?” the postman snarled. “Sorry, no time for dating right now. Get out of the way and give me Flask and you get to live. Best deal on offer. Take it.” The green-skinned alien assassin strode to block the doorway and stared challengingly at Messenger. A shuriken sliced across the bridge of her nose, penetrating the mesh skin-armour just enough to send a spray of dark green blood into her eyes. Gamona blinked and then doubled over as a foot like a steam hammer hit her midriff pressure points. They weren’t in the same places as a human’s, but her new assailant seemed to know that. “Go in,” Keiko told Messenger. “I’ll be keeping this one busy.” She stamped down hard to partially paralyse one of Gamona’s legs, then pulled a wakizushi to fend off counterattack. “It’s going to hurt her quite a lot,” she explained. “And you are…?” Messenger asked, fascinated by the sudden new player. “I’m the one who followed you in while you were distracting all the opposition,” Keiko answered. She avoided a bone-breaking crane-kick from Gamona and came back with a precision thrust that grew blood from the Lynchpin’s enforcer for a second time. “I’m the one who holds a grudge.” Messenger shrugged and kicked open the doors to Harry Flask’s office. “Okay, fat boy, today you crossed the line and I gut you like a blowfish!” The Lynchpin was gone. Only the movement-sensitive explosive on the desk answered him. “Oh crap. Down!” Messenger called to his unknown ally just before the nineteenth floor of Flask Tower became a searing ball of flame. “The Confiscator,” Falcon demanded of Contessa Natalia Romanza. “What have we got?” “The new guy? Not a lot,” answered the SPUD espionage expert. “Some of it is probably false. We have word he killed Fetish Lad and a crime baron called Big Break Brewster in Las Vegas, and you already know how he walked into NORAD and took down Hacker Nine. Sources say he was working for Masamune in both cases.” “Masamune, right,” scowled the Falcon. “Akiko is going down!” “She’s not behind him now, though,” the Contessa warmed. “Rumour is he was last seen as a guest of Count Armageddon… in Badripoor.” Falcon swore. The super-villain stronghold nation was going to be a tough nut to crack. “There’s other sightings, as well,” Natalia went on. “At a jungle site in Argentina. These co-ordinates.” Sam Wilson checked the map references. “Where Zemo’s castle used to be before the Hooded Hood retconned it?” “And here,” the Contessa continued. “Blackbird’s old stronghold.” “And here.” “The site Jarvis was given the Jarvis Cosmic by Lo-Chi, back before he knew she was a Nebulus agent plottin’ to use him to take over Earth’s superheroes.” “Correct. So take your pick. Is the new Confiscator Zemo, or Blackbird, or Jarvis, or one of their many clones, mirror-doubles, imitators, or successors?” The spy shook her head. “Oh, there’s one more unpleasant connection.” She handed over a glossy image of a huge slavering reptilian quadruped with razor-spines and massive jaws crouching like a mastiff. “Apuffyliptian war hound, specially gene-bred on Deathworld to Dark Thugos’ personal standards.” Falcon stared at the picture. “Gives ugly a bad name,” he noted. “And the Confiscator allegedly has one as a pet. Calls it Daedanyn. But these things have to be bonded at birth to their master. They’re extremely rare.” Natalia looked up at Sam Wilson. “I’ve never heard of one that wasn’t personally gifted by Dark Thugos himself.” Nats found Asil in Mumphrey’s room, finishing packing the eccentric Englishman’s things. “You don’t have to do that, you know,” the flying phenomenon said.. “I know. I just want something to do,” the Lisa-clone answered. “Everyone else has something to do.” “I think people wanted to protect you, maybe,” Nats explained. He played her trump card. “Visionary thought it was best for you to stay safe.” “Visionary is a great man,” Asil answered, “but… but he isn’t always right.” She looked around nervously as if waiting for the bolt of lightning to stroke her. “We all have things to do. Things we have to do.” She looked up with rebellion in her smouldering eyes. “I know what I have to do.” She waited until Nats was gone to pull the Chronometer of Infinity from her pocket. “Lisa, you have to get me out of here! I didn’t do it! I was in my dressing room the whole time. Nobody came in and I never went out. You can ask my fern!” “Nobody’s saying you did it, Mark. Well, except for the police and SPUD and a dozen witnesses from Shales’ campaign team and all the forensic evidence. But there’ll be some little weakness somewhere in the prosecution team’s case, and I’m sure that’ll allow ample room for blackmail.” “But the election… the polls are open in twelve hours’ time. If I’m not cleared by then I’ll lose.” “That may well have been the plan, spiffy. But given the evidence against you there’s no way they’ll let you out until the case breaks differently.” “Is it… is it true someone murdered Sir Mumphrey?” “Someone who knew just what they were doing. But the Confiscator isn’t responding to my summons to appear and be beaten to death by angry Legionnaires.” “That protective anti-summonsing circuit again, huh?” “Actually, no. It’s more as if he doesn’t exist at all. I get no echo back from my summonsing attempts. Anyway, leave it to us, spiffster. We’ll deal with this as best we can.” “Okay. But I hate being trapped like this in the Safe. Every super-villain in the place wants to kill me.” “Most people on the planet want to kill you, spiffy, so it should be just like normal. Anyway, don’t worry about a thing. Everything will get sorted out in time.” “Yeah, I’ll try and be cool. It’s hard, but I’ll tough it out.” “Good boy. And don’t lie awake all night worrying about my legal fees or how you’ll have to work them off. Night, Mark.” “And that’s all they said to each other?” the Lynchpin asked as the tape of spiffy and Lisa’s meeting came to an end. “Every word,” assured Mr Sneek, Harry Flask’s legal advisor. “Not enough,” growled the Lynchpin of Crime. “I don’t want Hopkins back, ever. I didn’t go to all that trouble allying with Count Armageddon to just get Shales out of the way. Put the word out in the Safe. Two million waiting for whoever whacks that weed for good in the next twelve hours.” “To the inmates or the guards?” Mr Sneek checked. “Both. I want him dead.” Kerry checked the caller line identification and picked up the phone in her Condo bedroom. “Hey, FA, what’s up?” The caller line ID had lied. “Kerry, it’s not Samantha,. It’s me.” “Lindy? Where the hell are you? Your big bro’s been going nuts. Everybody thinks you’re dead in a ditch by now.” “Nah. I’m okay. I’m with a friend. But listen, ‘cause this is important, okay?” “Totally listening, Lindy.” Lindy Wilson took a deep breath. “Don’t ask how I know, right, but they’re going to kill spiffy. Tonight. In his jail cell. They’re going to make it look like suicide, I think.” “They? They who?” “They everybody who wants the two mil the Lynchpin’s offering to slaughter your boyfriend.” “He’s not my boyf… never mind. Okay, thanks Lindy, I’m on it.” “You can’t tell the Legion!” Lindy panicked. “Please!” “Oh sure, like I was going to involve the Doofus Patrol.” “Okay, then write this address down, Kerry. This is the location of a secure database in Badripoor where there’s evidence about who really killed that politician guy they say spiffy snuffed. It’s not connected to any outside systems so it can’t be hacked, but on that hard drive is the stuff you need to clear ferno, okay?” “Badripoor. Most excellent. I hear you can get all kinds of ripped DVDs out there right on the street.” “See if you can get me Hellboy, okay.” “’Kay. Thanks for the tip, Kerry. And take care.” “You too. Bye!” Kerry Shepherdson lay on her bed and stared at the ceiling for a moment. Then she thumbed the speed dial on her phone. “FA? Kerry. Call up the troops. Fast. Emergency meeting. Avengers Assemble.” “All is in readiness?” Count Belasco Medici asked the Idiom, one of his most recent and useful super-villain acquisitions. “Oh sure,” Letitia Gahagan agreed, looking up from the complex knot of wiring she was fiddling with. “I’m just bored now, and when I’m bored I improve stuff.” “Describe your preparations.” “Whole city’s set to be covered by a force-screen when the big red button gets pushed. It’s a combined physical perimeter and exotic frequency barrier. Should prevent all kinds of teleporting, summonsing, dimensional travel, that kind of thing. Then that panel over there EMP pulses incoming LairJets, and there’s some ground-to air missile stuff to keep our heroes busy. Then neural dampening fields to confuse Nats and Dancer and Cressida and so on. Sonic pulse cannons set to provoke minor strokes. Strobe effects to cause temporary blindness, maybe epilepsy. All in all, not a good start for the boy scouts.” “And you are certain of its efficacy?” “It’ll do what it says on the packet.” Count Armageddon gave the Idiom a warning glare and marched on to check the other preparations he had made. The Confiscator hung back and glanced down at the wire-tangled trapster. “What else will it do?” he asked in a quiet undertone. “Hey, he corrupted me, not enslaved me,” Letitia Gahagan pointed out. “I’m a cold-hearted bastard now, but I’m not his cold-hearted bastard. Who knows what could happen regarding friendly fire?” The Confiscator nodded approval. “Glad you’ve prepared so well,” he said and sauntered off after Armageddon. The Idiom returned to her systems. There was an annoying computer glitch she had yet to identify, and she hated unsolved puzzles. “Right,” said Hatman to the assembled Legion in their meeting room. “We’ve got a break. The resin Yo took from the second crime scene is a special goo derived from the B.A.L.D. formula that gave Paste Pot Pete his powers.” “So we smash B.A.L.D.,” declared CrazySugarFreakBoy! “The scientist who developed it died in a Membrain attack a few years back,” Mr Epitome reported. “But he had a son who continued his work, a Dr Lester Validez.” “The resin had been modified,” Al B. Harper explained. “Quite a sophisticated job. Added vibratium.” “And the world vibratium market is highly regulated,” the Librarian added. “So I was able to find a paper trail for the purchase of the fragment that was utilised and follow it back through a Swiss holding company and a Cayman Island trust to…” “Where did it come from?” Nats demanded. “Guatemala,” Lee Bookman told them. “Where Lester Validez is renting a home.” “So we smash Validez,” suggested CSFB! “Oh, it gets better,” Falcon told them. “We diverted a SPUD spy satellite over the place two hours ago, and we got some overhead imagery.” The viewscreen clicked on showing an overcoated and hatted figure entering the Validez house off the Sanarate town square. “Is that…?” asked Dancer. “Right height and weight for the Confiscator!” Hatman noted. “Can we enhance that image?” Al B. Harper tapped on a keypad and the picture was magnified. ~~He’s wearing a mask under that hat~~ Cressida noted. “We got him!” Trickshot cried. “Is he still there?” “Satellite’s passed on since then,” Falcon noted, “but he didn’t come out as of forty minutes ago.” “So we smash the Confiscator!” CSFB! insisted. “C’mon guys, he killed Mumph. We have to smash him!” “Oh yeah,” agreed Nats. “I’m in.” “This is a prepared and still unknown foe,” Lisa warned. “If we go, we all go, and we go in carefully, right?” Yo moved forward. “We are to be going,” s/he agreed. “But we are to be going to be capturing uncute Confiscator. Is not to be killing, yes? We are to be being the good guys.” “He killed Mumphrey!” objected Trickshot. “And Sir Mumphing is to be wanting you to be good guys, yes?” Visionary suddenly noticed Asil in the doorway. “You shouldn’t be here,” he warned her kindly. “I’m going too,” she insisted. “Don’t try to stop me.” “Fire up the LairJet,” Hatman called to Nats. “We’re taking that man down.” “You want us to what?” yelped Ham-Boy. “I want you to help me break spiffy out of the Safe,” Kerry repeated. “We crept in there before one time, with Ziles, remember?” “Is not that illegal?” asked Glory worriedly. “If we don’t, he’s dead.” “If we do, we’ve broken federal laws,” pointed out Fashion Accessory. “I’m too cute to be somebody’s prison bitch.” “Could we not tell Mr Epitome and let him arrange protection?” Glory suggested. The mutt of might was very unhappy to be facing such a dilemma. “I promised my source, nobody but us, okay?” Kerry insisted. “So either you come and help or you back off and go home, okay?” “I art with thee, fair probability arsonist,” Harlagaz Donarson proclaimed. “We shalt free yon coat-rack from his fell donjon and smiteth all those who say us nay!” “See,” moaned Ham-Boy. “This is the kind of thinking that gets us grounded for another century.” “So are you saving spiff’s life or not?” Kerry challenged, and held out her hand. “Aye, though the valleys of Griffjenfroth seethe with gnalengjords!” “On the clear understand that I am not wearing that prison costume with the little arrows on it.” “If we have to rescue spiffy this way I will help. But I still think we are being bad, and should inform Mr Epitome.” “We are sooo going to die horribly,” Ham-Boy warned as he added his hand to the pile. And Kerry Shepherdson grinned. “A LairJet has left Parody Island,” the Idiom informed Count Armageddon. “Heading south towards us.” “Good,” responded the master of Badripoor. “Then excuse me for a moment.” He strode into one of the cleared buildings around the town square, and ensured he was alone. Then he pulled out a crystal amulet suffused with his own sickly-green kaos energies. “I invoke thee,” he intoned. The amulet shattered, and a pale green spirit was cupped in the palm of his hand. “Who summons me from the realms of death?” demanded the Voyeur, the former Observer assigned to the planet Earth. “Somebody who sought a favour from the Dead Hell-Lords,” Armageddon snapped. “I ask the questions here.” “I am bound to answer three enquiries,” the Voyeur admitted. “But don’t expect me to be helpful.” “Which, if any, of the current Lair Legion are not aboard that LairJet, and where are they?” Belasco Medici demanded. “They’re all there,” the Voyeur replied petulantly. “Current members and associates.” “Have any of them any idea they are walking into a trap, or plans to escape such a trap?” “No,” the Voyeur said sulkily. “And really that should count as two questions.” “But it doesn’t.” snarled Armageddon. He considered for a moment then asked his third question. “Who is the Confiscator?” “There is no answer to that question,” the Voyeur smirked. “It’s meaningless, and bad grammar. Bye!” And the green face vanished in a lick of flame. “Bah!” growled Count Armageddon and stalked out to ensure the killing zone was prepared. [Author’s Note: This is your last chance to stop and make a guess about the identity of the Confiscator] Count Armageddon and the Confiscator stood in the Sanarate post office, watching the LairJet approach on a monitor screen installed by the Idiom. Behind them Brokenface and Razorbarb watched the cluster of hostages trussed beside the counter. “Not long now,” Letitia Gahagan announced. “They’re entering the perimeter.” “This is a glorious day that will sear in the pages of history,” Belaso Medici promised them. “A day that will change to world. Activate the systems, my minion.” The Idiom almost rebelled right then, but she bided her time. “Activating them… now.” She slammed her hand down on the red button. The equipment exploded, hurling her back across the room. From outside came the sound of weapons emplacements going into their self-destruct cycle. “What?” Armageddon shouted. “You betray me?” The monitor screen fuzzed and crackled and then resolved into the grinning face of Hacker Nine. “Nah. She just didn’t think to shut off all the possible backdoors in to overwrite some of her core command codes, that’s all. Otherwise it was pretty neat stuff what she set up. Shame she never got a chance to stick it to you!” Hacker Nine gave a jaunty wave before the monitor screen exploded as well. Every hostage in Sanarate twinkled and turned into HALLIE, then vanished, leaving only tiny floating hologram projectors of the sort the AI used to make herself hard-light bodies. Then they too exploded. “What?” Armageddon demanded. “How…?” The skies turned black as a Negativity Zone barrier slammed into existence over the whole town, sealing it shut with the power of the Celestians. “NO!” screeched the archvillain. He flexed his kaos-energies to their limits, neutralising the time-distortion effect that would otherwise have spread his army of villains into stasis between fragments of moments. He was able to prevent all his key servitors from being lost across the microseconds, but that left him weak and staggering. The Dark Knight, having triggered the barrier, appeared from the shadows and landed a perfect kick on Medici’s face, tumbling him backwards into Razorbarb. Count Armageddon shrugged off his ally, not caring how much he seared Razorbarb with his kaos tendrils. “You?” he demanded of the Dark Knight. “How?” He glanced across at the Confiscator. “You betrayed me!” “We sure set you up,” agreed the Confiscator. He grew as he turned, and by the time he slammed his massive spined tail into Medici he had attained his full four hundred foot height, wrecking the buildings around him and scattering science villains like dolls. Fin Fang Foom rose up and sprayed the area with nuclear fire. “Oh, and by the way,” the Makluan shapechanger added, “Lair Legion, Line Up!” “Absolutely,” agreed Sir Mumphrey Wilton, first off the Lairjet. “Smite the ungodly, chaps! Let’s go!” Next Issue: Huh? Mumphrey’s alive? H9’s alive? Fetish Boy’s alive? The hostages weren’t real? How? The Confiscator was Finny? Well, half right. Messy and Keiko got blown up? S’yeah! The good guys and the bad guys are all locked inside the Negativity Zone barrier and now it’s time for a fight to the finish? Oh sure. The Juniors are springing spiffy and going to Badripoor? Look out! Explanations, resolutions, changes, and conclusion aplenty in the final chapter of our Villainous Intentions arc, the yet-again double length Untold Tales of the Lair Legion vs the Hordes of Armageddon. Even a Footnote Can Cry Okay, obviously we have a lot to explain in this one, but since the exposition and solutions all appear next issue we can’t give too much away here. People are welcome to offer their own deductions, of course, and some of you have already surmised the plot.. Evil spiffy, Bubba, Abbub, Dark Thugos et al are or have been variants of spiffy at different times. A frighteningly vast amount of early Parodyverse stories were about alternate Mark Hopkins. Hacker Nine, former Technopolitian Science Villain and urban anarchist, was apparently beheaded in Untold Tales #156. Looks like he got better. His keeper, Fetish Lad was slaughtered in Untold Tales # 165. He’s looking quite well for a corpse too. More on this next time. SPUD is a multinational security agency tasked with protecting the planet. It’s director is tough-talking one-eyed ex-soldier Colonel Dan Drury. Amongst its other operatives are superspy Contessa Natalia Romanza and the Falcon. The Lynchpin of Crime, Harry Flask, is a huge fat mobster-lord who co-ordinates most of the rackets on the East Coast. His principal enforcer is the alien assassin Gamona. Recently the Lynchpin sent Gamona to try and kill Keiko, which explains the return visit. Confiscator links: Akiko Masamune is the world’s pinkest crimelord, leader of the gangs that run Mangatown and Hong Kong. Baron Zemo was once the Lair Legion’s most persistent villain before being removed from reality by the Hooded Hood. Blackbird is a criminal mastermind currently imprisoned within the supervillain holding facility known as the Safe. Jarvis was a founder of the Lair Legion and its first leader. He died saving the world from a plot by the extradimensional aliens known as the Nebulus. Jarvis’ first wife was Lo-Chi, whom he did not know at the time to be a Nebulus agent. Dark Thugos is the Destroyer of Tales, a powerful intergalactic warlord-turned-cosmic being. When he creates a warhound, look out! B.A,.L.D. is a criminal scientific enclave, whose experiments may have contributed to the origins of the currently mission Abandoned Legion member Paste Pot Pete. Membrain was an artificial life form who once attempted to destroy Europe. Asil Ashling was a Lisa-clone created by the diabolical Dr Moo to retrieve Visionary from his exile in the corn. Since then Asil has worked as Sir Mumphrey Wilton’s amanuensis and has shared many of his adventures. She has been acting as LL administrator during Mumphrey’s tenure leading the team. She still reveres Visionary as Great Man, despite all evidence to the contrary. The Voyeur was assigned to watch Earth by the Observers, an ancient race tasked with monitoring the unfolding of the Parodyverse. He, spiffy, and a Junior Reader once shared space in Visionary’s head. The Voyeur died after being a regular in The Hooded Hood Chronicles since his debut in #8: The Hooded Hood and the Golden Age Matadors. His presence in our story today can be seen as a worrying sign of the massive power being accumulated by the Dead Hell Lords. HALLIE is the Lair Legion’s resident artificial intelligence, a computer sentience who can manifest in seemingly-human form using holograms and force fields shaped by a small floating projector. It appears in this story as if HALLIE has been impersonating the entire population of Santarate. We’ll try and clear up all the other mysteries next time. Meanwhile, back issues and more information from: 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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