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The Final Untold Tale of the Lair Legion: The Judgement of the Celestians Friday, 27-Aug-1999 23:15:51
The Final Untold Tale of the Lair Legion: The Judgement of the Celestians ‘So it came to pass,’ the Chronicler of Stories wrote, ‘that because of the manipulations of the villainous Hooded Hood, the Lair Legion began to investigate the secret history of the Parodyverse. They uncovered the long story of their own island headquarters, learning of the great Secret hidden there at the dawn of humanity by the Celestian Space Giants. They uncovered, and neutralised, the guardians around the Secret, discovering the Chamber of Extrospection which is the gateway to the truth. And despite having learned from former Shaper of Worlds Wilbur Parody’s writings that “of all the heroes that enter, none shall return,” Jarvis, Lisa, spiffy, the Dark Knight, Goldeneyed, Visionary, Cheryl, and Space Ghost entered the doorway with the Hooded Hood to seek the Secret.’ “I still say we shut have squitted that little worm while we had the chance,” Shaper told the ravens. “Now we’ve got the Celesians involved, they’re making the necessary chronal adjustments to erase the Earth, and in the meantime they’re dominating anyone who was ever touched by Space Robot technology to stop the Lair Legion. That includes the Austernals, the Abhumans, even the Ausgardians.” “And the Racoons,” a helpful raven added. “And the Racoons,” sighed the Shaper. “We did all we could,” the Chronicler replied. “We even had the last Shaper join their team to lead them away from this direction. When Carrington disappeared and my predecessor abandoned his cosmic role to become Dark Knight with no memory of our purpose here, we no longer had the means to divert them from this course.” “We should still have squished that Hooded Hood,” brooded the Shaper of Worlds. “And the Racoons,” the raven suggested. “And the Racoons,” Shaper agreed. The Austernal attack on the Lair Mansion began at 3a.m., when the human body is said to be at its lowest ebb, and when most Austernals are just getting ready to go on to their third nightclub. Sersi, a former Legionnaire herself, led the charge through the front door, but was quickly wrestled to the ground by Hatman, Starseed, DarkHwk, ManMan, and Exile. In fact there seemed to be a massive scramble to jump on her. “Um, guys, there are a few other Austernals,” Melissa pointed out tentatively. Even as she spoke, Partycrasher’s prehensile chest chair was reaching out to clutch her. NTU-150’s repulsors sliced through the tendrils just before he planted the Austernal himself right through what was left of the outer wall. Sersi shrugged off her attackers with a spectacular pneumatic motion. Her eyebeams sliced out with lethal intensity. Hatman swiftly pulled on his sun-hat and blocked the beams. Fin Fang Foom swiped out with his tail, hurling Sersi right out of the mansion and into Paradopolis Sound. “There are too many of them,” ManMan warned, helping his comrades by absorbing dozens of painful Austernal attacks by the simple expedient of not being able to dodge them. “Cute Austernals don’t know what they are doing,” Yo answered back, nimbly dodging from side to side between four of the invaders, waving a rapier which seemed to actually harm the indestructible Austernals because Yo thought it would. “There’s someone giving them telepathic commands,” Tina reported. “That Austernal over there, who’s half TV set.” There was indeed a semi-mechanical Austernal co-ordinating the attack. “We’re on to it,” Fleabot reported, executing a prodigious leap to land on the organiser’s back. “OK, HALLIE, contact is made.” “Hello, advanced alien telecommunications, system,” the Lair’s resident computer intelligence said to the mechanical parts of the co-ordinating Austernal. “I’m here to take command of your control systems and possess you. I’ve had a lot of practise about this lately.” HALLIE wormed her electronic way into the control systems. “Why,” she gasped, “they’re all united in a single linked hive mind at the moment.” “I knew nobody could be this co-ordinated without some additional edge,” Starseed declared. “We certainly couldn’t,” he added sourly. “That means I should be able to send out a command…” HALLIE considered, and then the entire Austernal race crumpled to the ground., “…to stop them fighting,” she concluded triumphantly. “That was incredible,” Exile whistled. “How long will they…?” Then the Racoons attacked. “Where the hell are we?” Jarvis demanded. He floated weightless between the glowing neon strands which twisted away in two directions and couldn’t help brushing against one of them as he passed. The door hissed open, and Baron Zemo stepped in. Baron Zemo: You have done well, my friend, in leading your companions here. I shall reward you greatly. Still, one thing puzzles me. All these years, you were never a man who would sell out his own friends...have the years really changed you that much? Jarvis: Better to be on the winning side of a war, no? Baron Zemo: Heh. That is true. Come, my friend. Sersi has expressed interest in getting.... reacquainted with you. As the door hissed shut behind him, Jarvis' stomach churned. He hadn't REALLY betrayed his friends, which was the important thing, he knew. He still felt like a heel for allying himself with Zemo, even if it wasn't for real, though. The images that shuddered through the butler were so vivid, so real, that for a moment he had lived them. “I was… it was the Return to the Parodyverse,” he shuddered. What do you mean?” Lisa demanded. But just then she too came into contact with one of the pulsing giant threads and was lost in remembrance. "Save yourself, Jarvie!" Lisa was saying. "Hark," Donar said as he appeared. "Tis Hathor the Egyptian goddess of Sex and Fertility!" "No, it's not," Lisa snapped. "It's my OLDER sister, Moo. Now flee while you still can." "What's so scary about a woman with a cow's head," Banjooo asked. "She doesn't look very scary." "Maybe she likes fuzzy bunnies," Yo said tentatively. "Yes," the bovine woman replied. "I like little fuzzy bunnies..." she smiled showing incongruously sharp canine teeth. "...for LUNCH!" Yo fled to his happy place. "Yes," Moo said loftily, "My younger foolish sibling is right to fear me. After all, I control the ultimate weapon!" "I thought Zemo had that," Space Ghost muttered. "No, you fools. I control the power of the digestive end product of an uncastrated male ruminant of the species Bos Taurus." "Huh?" was the collective response from the males in the room. "BULLSHIT!" Moo and Lisa bellowed, being alike at least in their exasperation for dim-witted males. The male BZLers eyes widened in horror as they were suddenly covered with the malodorous digestive end product of an uncastrated male ruminant of the species Bos Taurus. “Oh, I see. Some kind of… very vivid memory,” the first lady of the Lair Legion gasped, clutching her big ginger tomcat closer to her. “More than memory,” the Dark Knight answered, shaking off whatever bitter and private scene he had just replayed. “These are the actual stories which make up our universe. Each strand is a tale, each thread a different possible continuity.” “You’re saying we’re seeing the Parodyverse as if it was made up of stories?” Visionary gasped. Without thinking he reached out and absorbed another narrative. Visionary stood unhappily before the microphone. Starseed had tried to console him on the benefits of Visionary losing the 'odds/evens' bet. This way, Starseed could maintain the respect needed to get the information they wanted from the bar's patrons. Since Visionary never got respect from anyone anyway, Starseed explained, things had worked out for the best. Visionary, however, was quite sure that the whole situation sucked. Not only did he have to sing in front of a crowd of people, he couldn't even choose the song. That was due to the fact that the play list was written entirely in Japanese. He closed his eye and pressed buttons randomly on the Karaoke machine, all the while praying for some early Billy Joel. Anybody could sing early Billy Joel. As the music started, his heart sank. At least, he said to himself, the words to this aren't too hard. He took a deep breath and started singing. "I'm Henry the eighth, I am, Henry the eighth I am, I am..." “Noooooooo!” “It’s just an old story, dear,” Visionary’s wife comforted him. But Cheryl was careful not to float into a strand herself. “This is no use,” the Hooded Hood declared, wrapping his grey cloak around him as if to protect him from the chaotic continuity lines that swayed and hummed like things alive. “This environment is too alien for us to operate in. Join hands. I shall shift the paradigm into something more suitable for us to properly investigate.” The cowled crime-czar’s green eyes glowed and everything changed. “That was a lot easier than I expected,” Hatman admitted as the last of the Racoons want down. “I thought there would be a lot more than eight of them.” DarkHwk snorted. “Hey, don’t complain. It’s a win.” “But where was Rocket Racoon himself?” Finny puzzled. “And why such a lame attack?” The door to the Legions’ sleeping quarters burst open, and the jet-packed rodent himself leaped through the door. “Aha!” he called, “Now, Legion, you face your hardest battle…” Then he keeled over and fell asleep. “Huh?” Melissa puzzled, looking up the corridor where dozens of small furry creatures were sprawled out dozing. “How…?” “No puzzle, l’il missie,” Meggan Foxxx explained, emerging from one of the guest bedrooms. “These little fellahs all tried sneaking in through Sersi’s bedroom window, hoping to catch you unawares. But they found me instead. And the poor l’il guys are just plumb tuckered out.” “But how… you can’t mean… you didn’t…” Troia 215 stammered, blushing. “Honey, don’t ask no questions, I won’t tell you no lies, OK,” Meggan shrugged. “Poor l’il fursters just need a nice long rest now.” It was a hall of mirrors. Each step the Legionnaires took sent back hundreds of twisted and distorted images of themselves. Spiffy was convinced that the little fern-wielder at the very end of the recursive reflections was making rude gestures at him. “Where are we now?” Goldeneyed demanded. This was weirding him out. “The same place we were before,” the Dark Knight answered, turning away from the reflection of a man cradling his shattered love in his arms vowing revenge. “The Hood has just altered our perceptions of it.” “This place is soooo bizarre,” Space Ghost beamed. “I love it.” Then he walked straight through a plain-glass mirror and was filled with the memories of another time: "Hey, Yorgi!" Visionary called to Yo. "You're up!" Yo reluctantly disengaged himself from the back bench, where Lisa had been leaning against him and whispering into his ear. He came forward and picked up his ball with a somewhat dazed look in his eye. "Keep your concentration!" Visionary coached as Yo approached the line. "Don't let her make you lose focus!" Yo nodded and began his turn. Holding the ball in front of him he lined up the arrows on the floor. He then brought his ball swiftly into his back swing and released it. Tina and Banjooo dove for the floor as the ball went sailing backwards over the railing and through the spectators to crash into the arcade. "Aaaaaauuugh!!!!" Space Ghost screamed. "Nooooooooooo!!!! I had the high score!!!!! Why, God, why?!" "Methinks his mind be not on yon pins" Donar noted as the patrons behind the lanes regained their seats. "Interesting accent." Starseed noted from the bench of the next lane. "Where did you say you were from...?" ”This to too cool,” the pantsless wonder grinned. “But I was hoping for the one where I cloned Cheryl and made this Bizarro-Cheryl and then she took me into this closet and…” he shut up as he noticed Visionary and Cheryl glaring at him. “That… didn’t… happen,” Visionary told him very carefully. “Just like there is no Visionary junior, and I am not a fake man. Is that clear?” “It happened somewhere,” Jarvis realised. “Maybe not in what we call the history of the Parodyverse, but somewhere in one of these mirrors,,, I mean strands… I mean stories… possible stories… oh, get it yourself!” “Are you saying that we’re surrounded by all the possible things that could have happened?” Cheryl wondered. “Not all the possible things,” the Dark Knight replied. “Just the possible stories. We walk amidst narrative.” “And we are still not able to function properly here,” the Hooded Hood decided, glaring at Space Ghost. He had arranged for the dysfunctional pantsless hero to come along because Space Ghost had the ability to wander off into the far reaches of the probability strands which his saner colleagues never realised existed, even as he had brought Dark Knight because of his former Chronicler status and Visionary because he was a point-of-view character. In fact every body on the team had a specific function in the Hood’s masterplan. But he was starting to wonder if Space Ghost hadn’t been a mistake. The cowled crime czar turned away from the spank-ray-wielding moron and triggered another paradigm shift. First the lights went out, as the myriad tiny sea monkeys who had invaded the Mansion’s cold water system swarmed over the emergency generator and shorted it. That took HALLIE offline and reduced the chances of the Mansion’s defences actually doing something against an invader from minimal to zero. But that was just a diversion for Banjoooo, king of the Sea Monkeys, who crashed in and used his sonic scream again the Lair Legion. “Banjooooo doesn’t have a sonic scream,” Hatman complained, fumbling for his earmuffs. “He does now,” Starseed complained. “Gaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhh!” And the Gah! Master’s shout neutralised the aural bombardment that the Sea Monkey had begun. That was what Banjooooo had been waiting for. As soon as the Gah! Master had committed himself to using his powers that way, the giant sea-monkey switched attacks, catching Starseed unawares with a swipe of his tail. “Foul!” cried DarkHwk. “Yo is begging cute Banjooooo-friend not to be doing this attacking thing,” Banjooooo looked down at the little flying thought-entity. “You don’t think you can fight a friend?” he asked. Yo shook his/her head. “Yo is not to be…” Banjooooo clobbered him/her. If Yo didn’t believe s/he could win a fight, then s/he couldn’t. Two down, eight to go. “It could be worse,” Fin Fang Foom told the Legion as he shifted up to his full draconic size to wrestle with the giant sea-monkey. “At least all the rest of them are the size of water-fleas.” “What’s wrong with being the size of a flea?” Fleabot challenged. Banjoooo’s Celestian-driven evolutionary abilities were working full whack. He manifested another needed power. “Good point, Foomy,” he agreed. He concentrated and two hundred other sea monkeys burst out from the Mansion walls, all extended to seventy-five feet in height. “Yeah, good point, Foomy,” spat Hatman as he got pounded into the floor. “This is better,” Lisa decided, looking around the old wood panelling which lined the corridor filled with doors. The halls smelled of old leather and secrets. The advocatrix approved. “Kinda reminds me of my old mansion,” spiffy sniffed, misty-eyed. “Except there are no McDonalds cartons. Or beavers.” “So what are these doors?” G-Eyed asked, turning the knob and peering into a random room. “That's the good thing about dreams; once you wake up, you're perfectly safe, because none of it ever really happened in the first place." Dream shut his eyes tight as the tears streamed down his face, and he hoped against hope that the dream was what he'd woken from, wished upon wish that he wasn't dreaming right at this very second, and that for once in his life, the good stuff wouldn't just fade away as soon as the morning sun came 'round. "I promise," he sobbed, wrapping his arms around Izzy and hugging her with all of his might, "That if this is really real, I'll never ever take you for granted again. I want this moment to last forever..." And as much as he fought against it, he could feel himself drifting off to sleep again, as Izzy's soothing voice cooed in his ear that of course it was real, and that this moment would last for however long he wanted it to; but when he reached out to hold her once more one last time, his hands couldn't find her, and all that his fingers could locate to grasp were mounds of grass and freshly turned earth. “Oh!” Goldeneyed gasped, staggering back from the doorway. He was pale with the emotions that had rippled through him, guilty at intruding on such an obviously personal moment in the life of the usually happy-go-lucky CrazySugarFreakBoy! “What was…?” “The rooms are the narrative portals now,” the Hooded Hood told him, peering interestedly into that particular scene before shutting the door. “Whereas the others of the party picked up strands from their own histories, your multi-dimensional speciousness led you to one of your teammates’ experiences.” Which is why the Hood had brought him. “Okay, we need to get organised,” Jarvis decided. “No more opening random doors. We came here to find out what those Celestians want to keep so secret that they’ll destroy our planet to do it. So how do we go about doing that?” “We search,” the Dark Knight suggested. “We split into teams and meet back here in an hour. We’re looking for any really unusual doorway, or something that’s guarded.” “Oh great,” spiffy frowned. “The Scooby-Doo approach.” “Okay,” Jarvis agreed. “DK with me. Vizh and Cheryl with the spiffster. G-Eyed with Space Ghost…” “Oh thanks,” Goldeneyed told the butler as Space Ghost laid an affectionate head on his shoulder. “And Lisa with…” Jarvis hesitated as he realised that this split left the advocatrix with the Hooded Hood, the man who had once convinced her to turn to the dark side, who had destroyed her life in order to remake it in his own sinister image. He wondered whether the Hood had been influencing him in his choice of team division. “It’s OK, Jarvy,” Lisa told the leader of the Lair Legion. “Ioldabaoth and I have issues to discuss anyway.” There was a crossroads up ahead, where corridors twisted away into the darkness. Each team took candles from the sconce nearby and picked a direction. “Hey guys, wait,” G-Eyed called out. “Space Ghost’s just blown our candle out and is trying to smoke it!” “Nah,” SG answered. “Just didn’t want to be an obvious lit-up target when that door there opens.” “That door isn’t opening, though, is it?” G-Eyed pointed out to the pantsless wonder. The door opened. A bloom of memory hit the two heroes. The Lair Legion were all dead, their crucified bodies nailed to the ruins of the Paradopolis Tower. The few surviving humans cowered on their knees before the conqueror, who picked one at random and disintegrated his head just because he felt like it. The countless ranks of his minions stood in perfect formation, weapons at the ready. But the Chronicler of Stories was already sprawled broken and lifeless at the Parody Master’s feet, and the new supreme ruler of the Parodyverse reigned supreme. Then the door opened behind him and the Parody Master saw his chance. Before the humans could close it again he stepped through, and prepared to destroy them – again. “Oh shit,” breathed Goldeneyed. “The fight goes well,” the All-Pappy decided, his far-seeing single eye gazing at the battle of the Lair Mansion, where dozens of giant sea-monkeys were gradually wearing down the Legionnaires. Fin Fang Foom was taking a terrible pounding inside a ring of no less than twenty of the vicious creatures led by Banjoooo himself. Even as the Oldman watched, Exile was sat on by one of them. “It is time for the hordes of Ausgard to make good their ancient pact with the Celestians. Let us go and eliminate those brave, foolish mortals. Hoki, fire up the rainbow.” “One moment, father,” Donar objected. “These heroes be mine truest friends, and it is not a good thing for us to be squashething them for doing what it is meet they should in defending their world.” “You wert not here when we warred with the Space Robots,” the All-Pappy answered. “Mighty as we wert, they cheated by being mightier. Thus were we transported to the realms we now dwell in, and thus were we laid under a fell oath to answer the Celestian summons in time of need. Thine former friends have transgressed against the will of the Space Robots and right mightily pissethed them off, and so we must strike in vengeance.” “This was the great threat ye spokest of when you summoned me recently to the Conference of the Gods?” Donar referred to his recent absence from the Legion, which had ended when Con Johnstantine had summoned the team’s “guardian spirit”. “Aye. As thou woulds’t know hadst thou not sloped off back to thy mortals,” Hoki scorned. “Now step thee aside, Donar,” the All-Pappy commended as the rainbow bridge appeared. “Tis time for us to do this unpleasant thing in honour of our vow.” The thunder god swallowed hard. “No,” he declared, stepping out to block all passage over the rainbow. “They art my friends, and ‘tis not right. None shall cross this pathway without feeling the right good thumping of Mjalcolm.” “You go too far,” Hoki shouted. “Boy, art thou going to get canned big time!” Sieryn shouldered her way forward, her face pale and angry. “Donar, this is serious. Get out of the way!” “I canst not, milady,” Donar told her ruefully, “For it is a matter of honour to uphold mine friends, even though it getteth me the pounding of a lifetime.” Sieryn pursed her lips. “It’s a matter of honour for us as well. Step aside. It’s thy friends or me.” “Then tis my friends,” Donar answered quietly. “Enough of this,” the Oldman boomed. “If thou wilt not step aside, then thou shalt face the entire might of Ausgard. Advance!” And the war of the gods began. “Does this make any sense to you at all, Cheryl?” Visionary asked his wife as they strolled up a flight of stairs to examine another level of the old house that was also the Parodyverse. “What, the idea of strolling round a stately home made of memories, the idea of living in a universe made up of stories, the idea of being associated with the Lair Legion, or the idea that the two of us and spiffy can save the whole universe?” she replied. “Hey,” the fern wielder objected. People were talking as if he wasn’t in the room again. “The idea that we can look through the stories and discover the secret,” the possibly fake man answered. “I mean, we’ve lived the stories and we haven’t figured it out. Why would reliving them help?” Cheryl stopped and look curiously at her husband. “That’s actually a very good point. And I bet it’s one that the Hooded Hood doesn’t want us to think about. He needed us to get him here, because the bas-relief showed nine figures entering this place, but now we’re here he’d want to get us out of the way.” The couple looked at one another. “We’ve got to find Lisa,” Visionary said. “We’re going to lose this battle, Tina,” NTU-150 judged. “Every time we take down Banjoooo’s giant sea monkeys he grows more of them. Every attempt we make to stun him he evolves some new power to counter it. How come he was never this effective as a Legionnaire?” There was a crunch as ManMan departed from consciousness as Banjooooo caught him with a nasty headbutt. “Scan his mind,” Enty ordered. “Find something we can use. We can’t let them get to the hidden chamber below. Jarv and Lisa and the rest are counting on us.” Tina concentrated. “Got it!” she called. “DarkHwk, get down here. There’s something I need you to fetch.” The telepathic girl quickly placed an image in the amulet-powered avenger’s mind, and he streaked away from the battle and off towards the Paradopolis suburbs. “More trouble!” Troia called from the remains of the lobby. “They’ve got reinforcements!” She pounded the first Abhuman through the doorway with her spear. “Do you have an appointment?” “The Abhumans!” NTU-150 recognised. “There must be hundreds of them. Troia, hold that entrance.” “Troia’s busy just now,” Maximess the Abhuman told them. “Troia’s looking deep into my eyes. “Watch it, he’s a hypnotist!” Hatman warned from under a pile of sea-monkeys. “Must… resist…” Troia struggled before the smiling Maximess. She had this nasty feeling that he was the kind of hypnotist that convinced people they were home taking a shower so they’d strip all their clothes off in front of a cheering audience. “You cannot resist, my little cherry,” Maximess smirked, anticipating what was to come. And what was to come was an orange and green streak of fast-moving mayhem that bounced over Troia, planted a big sloppy Bugs Bunny kiss on the Abhuman’s lips, and then flipped him into a wall. “Hey, can you do that one where they make the Statue of Liberty disappear as well?” CrazySugarFreakBoy! demanded eagerly. “I love it when they do that stuff and what about elephants can you do elephants, huh?” Freed from Maximess’ control, Troia went back to her previous mission of disembowelling Abhumans. Maximess picked himself up and turned the wrath of his powers on CSFB! “Prepare for your mind to be utterly wiped,” the Abhuman snarled. “Cool!” CSFB! enthused, as Maximess discovered that his adversary had a very unusual mind indeed. In fact it appeared that Dreamchaser Foxglove remembered everything he had ever read, watched, or found remotely interesting. “Nooooooo!” the mentalist screamed as the continuity of 160,000 comic books flooded his mind simultaneously. CSFB! wrapped him up in silly string then pounded him till he went to sleep. Meanwhile Banjooooo and his minions had Fin Fang Foom on the ropes. A pile of fallen sea monkey attested to the Makluan dragon’s toughness, but Finny was swaying now as he tried to keep up with the brutal beating he was taking. “Not… giving… in…” the shapeshifter gasped. The world was at stake here, and under those circumstances Fin Fang Foom just refused to quit. “C’mon Foomy, fall over,” Banjoooo urged him earnestly. “I don’t want to have to kill you, bud.” “No other way,” the blood-flecked dragon warned. “Is that any way to treat your friends?” DarkHwk demanded, flying back in with a bundle in his arms. “Is that all you are, Banj, an organic robot for those Celestians?” “I got no choice, DH,” the king of the sea-monkeys answered. “I’ve got to obey them.” “Then you’re helping them destroy the world, man,” DarkHwk warned him. “You’re letting us all down, big time.” Banjoooo reached up to swat the amulet-powered hero out of the skies, but the bundle in DarkHwk’s arms screamed. And Banjooooo recognsied the sound. “Elyse?” A frightened face peered out from the travelling rug in DarkHwk’s arms. “Shweetums?” “Ack” Foomy gasped, “the… saccharine… poisoning…” Elyse was really close to Banjooooo now, talking tearfully and earnestly to the giant sea monkey. Banjooooo shook his head and shut his eyes as if to close off what she was saying to him. But he and his followers faltered in their attacks. The Abhumans didn’t. “Some sort of flying machines incoming,” Hatman warned, hovering over the battlefield with his beanie propeller whirring. “We need reinforcements,” NTU-150 admitted. “Melissa, can you get any of the fallen back up again?"” “I’m trying,” she answered. She cradled Starseed’s head and whispered a longshot into his ear. “Starseed, if you don’t wake up and fight they’re going to make you be Space Ghost’s sidekick.” “Gah!” the injured hero twitched, struggling to his feet and looking for something to pound. The first of the Abhuman flying ships came in and started its bombardment. Starseed vaporised it. But there were lots more. Three of them oriented on Troia, their cannons set to disintegrate. Fin Fang Foom interposed himself and took the blast. He keeled over after sending a final burst of nuclear fire out to engulf one of the attackers. The remaining two ships oriented on the fallen dragon to finish him off. Banjoooo slapped them out of the skies. “Hands off my buddy!” he warned them. He turned back to the surprised Lair Legion. “Bugger genetic imperatives,” he shrugged. “I’m a Legionnaire, and I’m fighting for Earth. And for Elyse.” NTU actually smiled for a moment before the stars were blotted out with the Abhuman attack crafts. “So are you going to tell me, or do I have to work it out for myself?” the Dark Knight asked Jarvis as they prowled along their corridor. “What do you mean?” the butler evaded, stopping to study one of the panelled doors. “I took you to meet the Destroyer of Stories, Samhain. You managed to convince him to do something to put a spoke in the Hooded Hood’s wheel, to give us a chance to disrupt that cowled maniac’s plans. What was the bargain?” Jarvis listened at the doorway. The wood was strangely cold to his touch. “Bargain?” “Samhain is not known for his charity. He is charged with bringing narratives to an end. What did he demand of you?” the urban legend persisted. “I think there’s something behind this door,” Jarvis told his companion. “I’m going to open it.” He cautiously turned the knob and peered inside. Adam: Do you see now, Tim? Jarvis: Y-yes.. .yes... oh, God... Adam: I should warn you, there's more. But if you don't want to go any further... Jarvis: No... no... I have to know it all... have to... understand. Adam: Okay... but I'm warning you... the truth hurts. They continued on, and Jarvis was once more flooded with memories... but these weren't memories of his own. Adam's voice narrated, explaining the images he was seeing. Jarvis saw his body strapped to a table, the aliens surrounding, watching in silence. Strange machinery was hooked up to his head, bright flashes of light emitting rapidly from the visor. Jarvis knew the truth now. Jarvis staggered backwards as the future-memory hit him. Dark Knight caught the butler and steadied him. Now the former Chronicler knew what Jarvis had used to bargain with Samhain. He had traded his future, offered it up to the Destroyer of Stories, in order to give his team a chance. The rainbow bridge had been redecorated. There was a sort of broken warrior motif about it now, where piles of Ausgardians had been strewn in the battle to push Donar aside and get down to the real fight against the Lair Legion on Middlegard. Hoki was still organising groups of gods to go and hit his half-brother. “It worketh not, All-Pappy,” the god of bloody-mindedness told his stepfather. “Thou knowest Donar. The more bloody-minded he gets the stronger he gets. Only you have the power to can his ass like he’ll ne’er forget.” “Thou speakest truly, Hoki,” sighed the Oldman. “Very well, now let I loose the terrible…” “Oldman!” The All-Pappy turned round at the sharp call to find a cross young woman glaring at him, hands on her hips. “What do you think you’re doing, exactly?” she demanded, her green eyes flashing. “Gail! I am in the midst of battle. I have no time to…” “You were about to unleash the Oldmanforce against our son, is what you were doing,” the woman told him. “Just because Donar wasn’t there to be bound by the oath all the rest of you were, and is doing what’s right.” “It’s more complicated than that, Gail,” the All-Pappy tried to explain. The Earth Mother wasn’t impressed. “Well, you unleash your Oldmanforce if you want to, mister, but if you do I’m going to loose the terrible power of my alimony lawyers. Just how many centuries back payment do you actually owe me?” And Donar continued to hold the rainbow bridge against all comers. Lisa broke her long silence at last. “I know how you intend to get out of here,” she told the Hooded Hood at last. “You intend to use the loophole in Wilbur Parody’s prophesy, of all those heroes who enter, none shall return arguing that you aren’t a hero, that you’re a villain. And when whatever it is comes to destroy us all, it won’t be able to kill you, because one of our number,” she held up her cat, “is indestructible. Am I right?” “Very perceptive, Lisa.” Even the Hooded Hood was surprised at how accurately the advocatrix had discerned his plan. “The greater powers did not object when I created that feline as a parting gift when they thought they had outmanoeuvred me into sacrificing myself to stop Galactivac. Allowing me to ensure one single cat’s immutable being seemed a trivial price to pay for getting rid of me. How little they suspected that this cat would then become the means of my salvation when I entered the Lair of the Secret.” “So you didn’t just give it to me because I needed something to hug right then?” Lisa asked quietly. “An archvillain never does something for just one reason,” the cowled crime-czar answered gently, cupping Lisa’s chin with his fingers so he could look into her eyes. “But it pleased me to think that you were not entirely alone.” “So what are you saying, Ioldobaoth? That the wicked Hooded Hood has some human feelings after all? You did surrender yourself up to exile in Comic-Book Limbo to save the Earth from the Living Death that Sucks.” “Every man has his flaws, my dear.” “So you do have some conscience, some sense of what’s right. And you did it,” Lisa suggested, leaning quite close to the Hooded Hood now. “Perhaps.” The Hood was very aware of how close and how exciting Lisa’s lips were just then. “In that case,” the advocatrix smiled, “you’re stuck with the rest of us, Mr Reluctant Hero. Are you so certain that you’ll count as a villain that you’ll risk everything that your definition argument will work?” “Very clever, Ms Waltz,” the Hooded Hood snarled, drawing away as he realised the trap the lawyer had laid for him. “But you forget one thing. I can demonstrate my villainy once and for all, here, now, by perpetrating something unspeakable upon you. Thus my survival is assured!” “But you won’t, will you?” Lisa asked, her heart pounding because even now she wasn’t really sure. “Damn you, Lisa Waltz,” the Hooded Hood cursed. “Beautiful starry night,” Pierson’s Porter commented. But he wasn’t looking at the stars. He was looking at Dr Moo. “Yes,” she agreed, lying on the sweet turn and staring into the firmament, “Except for the hundred or so flying ships blocking our view.” “What?” Pierson’s Porter looked up to glare at the Abhuman gunships. But before he could launch into a tirade about the petty stupidity of humans on this planet a dozen bizarre looking Abhumans came and pointed long silvery weapons at him. “You’d better come along quietly, humans,” they warned the diabolic duo. “Humans!” Pierson’s Porter spat, appalled by the insult. “I am the last of the Puppeteers, you misbred random attempt at genetic manipulation.” “Genetic manipulation?” Moo perked up and fumbled for a scanner. “Oh yes, you’re right. Basic DNA sequences enhanced by meta-radiation and cosmic energies. Fascinating. Can I dissect one?” This wasn’t the Abhumans’ definition of coming quietly. They fired. PP’s force field bounced energies right back at them. “Miserable cretins,” the alien snarled. “As if they are anything special just because they’re enhanced with Celestian energies. It’s not how big your power is, it’s what you do with it!” “Uh uh,” Moo agreed. “Help me get a quick sample of this one. The genetic coding is so wonky in these Abhumans that I’m surprised they manage to use their powers without exploding. Shoddy Skree work by the look of it, and rather badly out of date.” “Oh yes,” PP agreed, looking over her shoulder (and down her cleavage) as she worked on a data pad. “Shouldn’t be too hard to set up a catastrophic cascade in their gene sequences that would give their whole pathetic race something to think about as they dissolve into primeval ooze. That will teach them for blocking our view.” “Absolutely.” Moo and Pierson’s Porter were in absolute accord. “Spaaaaaaaannnk Raaaaaaayyyyy!” shouted Space Ghost, hitting the front rank of the attacking Parody Master minions with a full buttock-whack that sent them careening into the walls. Goldeneyed just settled for deflecting those energy blasts the armoured marauders were firing and downing a couple of them the old fashioned way with a couple of roundhouse blows. “Keep running!” G-eyed warned his comrade. “We’ve got to warn Jarvis and the others.” He tried his Legion communicator again, but all he got was old sixties hits: …they are the eggmen… I am the walrus, goo-goo-ga-joob… “Sure,” Space Ghost retorted, “let’s just leave when the dance card’s only just been issued. Well this freshman’s brought a little something to put a kick in the punch!” Goldeneyed had a nasty choice whether to leave Space Ghost alone to battle the legions he was so keen to face and go warn the others or to stay and die with the pantsless wonder. He suddenly remembered how the prophesy had warned that they weren’t coming back. “Hold on, Sundance,” he called to SG, “Wait for me!” But Space Ghost was waiting for the Parody Master’s minions, hand on the doorknobs on both sides of the narrow corridor. As they approached he flung the doors in their faces, spewing the history behind them out onto the unsuspecting troopers. Goldeneyed only caught a brief taste of the story, but he realised it involved the Lair Legion defeating their master. In fact as Space Ghost retreated down the corridor opening doors as he went and laughing like a lunatic G-Eyed realised that all the histories he was invoking showed the Lair Legion thwarting their master. The minions screamed and began to fizz as if they’d been dropped in acid. Their very existence was rooted in their loyalty to and confidence in their dark leader. From that realisation it was only a matter of concentrating hard to teleport the whole bunch of them right into the rooms. “Shouldn’t we help the Lair Legion?” Hunter Victorious asked his two guides as they picked their way over fallen Abhumans and Austenals in the remains of the Lair Legion’s lounge and paused to allow Frog-Man and Zebulon to engage more invaders with some kind of giant robot arm. “No,” Xander the Improbable answered curtly. “That’s not our fight. Not the important fight. We need to find our way below.” “Isn’t he coming?” HV asked, gesturing to where Con Johnstantine was pausing to light up another coffin nail. “He’s got other work to do,” Xander shrugged. “Now come on and be glad that you’ve not learned enough yet to be unable to see the Chamber of Extrospection.” “The what?” “The room where all the carvings are. It’ll be impossible for me to find, I know far too much to be allowed anywhere near it. It’s based on the principle that guns are dangerous so don’t give them to firearms experts. Let children play with them instead.” Xander didn’t sound too impressed with the way universal law had been set up. The strange man in the red robes led the newest and most mysterious of the Abandoned Legion down into the caves beneath the mansion. It all seemed eerily familiar to Hunter Victorious, and he found himself tracing a route that he had never travelled before. There was a flash and an explosion. The Parody Master appeared, as he had when Lisa and Goldeneyed had sought the chamber over a century before. Hunter Victorious raised his blade, knowing even then that it wouldn’t protect him against this unstoppable enemy. Xander was consulting his watch and counting down. There was a second flash and explosion, which knocked HV and the mage off their feet. A second Parody Master - or rather the same one from a different point in the continuum – arrived to annihilate the intruders. Each Parody Master saw the other, and recognised the threat to the Secret that an interloper with those power levels might pose. Each raised it’s arms and sent out a blast with all its power. There was a pop like a soap bubble as the continuum dropped them out of time/space in self-defence. “That should deal with that,” Xander said, stuffing his hands back in his robe pockets. “Couldn’t stop old PM manifesting, so I thought it’d be best to trigger the beacon twice. You’d better go on from here alone. You won’t find the place if I’m with you. When you get there, wait for a while before you enter. Then you’ll know what to do.” Back upstairs, Johnstantine sauntered up to the Abhuman battle commander. “’Scuse me, squire, don’t mean to interfere, but is there a special reason you’re not exploiting that hole in the Legion’s defences over where the kitchen wall used to be? Only askin’.” “Okay, Hooded Hoodnik,” spiffy threatened, “Step away from Lisa.” “Or?” The cowled crime czar sounded amused. “It is customary when making futile threats to suggest some dire consequence of disobedience. In your case, it might be something like, ‘Step away from Lisa or I shall frond you to death.’ In my case it might be, ‘Case to meddle in the affairs of the Hooded Hood or live out your life a broken, pitiable wreck of incontinent quadriplegia, begging for the relief of death but unable to receive it’. I’m sure you get the idea.” “No need to get all villainy, dear,” Cheryl told the Hood. “We just came to save Lisa from your baleful influence, that’s all.” The Hood allowed himself a short burst of manic laughter. “It is I who need rescuing from her influence as a matter of fact. She is a most… corrupting personality.” “I told you Lisa was evil,” Visionary muttered. “The Hood has just decided that the only way to save himself is to find a way out for all of us,” Lisa explained. “And being a sexy Latvian archvillain he’s probably got a contingency tucked away already, right, Ioldobaoth?” “Perhaps,” the Hood shrugged. “First we must locate the Heart of the Mystery.” “I don’t think it’s going to be in one of those rooms,” Visionary admitted. “We should be looking for something different.” “Like a front door?” spiffy wondered. “Of course!” the Hooded Hood cackled, snapping his fingers. “That would be the appropriate symbol in this particular imagery-set. Let us proceed.” “Perhaps after we’ve negotiated with the armoured person with the energy-sword?” Cheryl suggested, glancing back down the corridor. Lisa uncoiled her whip and spiffy flexed his tendrils, but the cowled crime-czar allowed flecks of Kirby-energy to crackle round his hands as he stepped forward. “I shall deal with this interloping minion of the so-called Parody Master. I shall ensure that he wishes he had never been spawned in the pain-pits of his creator.” The Hood’s glowing green eyes flashed. “Listen to me, Avatar…!” The Abhumans next breached perimeter security by walking in through the big hole in the kitchen wall. Here they found the hobo who had wandered across from hell’s bathroom raiding the fridge. Deciding that he had sinister and undisclosed powers they pointed their silvery destruction rods to wipe him out. “No you don’t!” gasped Exile, wakening to find himself again lying on the unconscious and useless heroes pile. He rolled off ManMan and used his IDECT energy controlling devices to divert the killing blasts into the Abhumans instead. “Oops. Hadn’t realised those were on kill.” “Way to go, costume thief,” ManMan snarled, also awoken by the noise. “But watch it, because there’s more of them.” A large teleporting canine appeared behind the hero with all the powers of a man, but was instantly tackled by the usefully-appearing HoundDog, ManMan’s faithful sidekick. “No hard feelings about me borrowing the costume I hope,” Exile called as he struggled with a range of super-powered Abhuman opponents. “And if it’s any comfort, it’s chafing like hell.” “You owe me a new Elvis suit,” ManMan called back, smiting a fish-headed guy back into the freezer. The wide-range disruptor burst put them down in mid bicker. Only the rather startled looking hobo remained standing because he’s been reaching for a ham salad at the time. “You’re the Searcher,” he suddenly said, his eyes lighting up. “You’re the Abhuman whose usual job is to bring back Abhumans who escape from the Great Relief.” The fat man who’d just downed ManMan and Exile turned to look at the white-whiskered old coot. “How do you know that?” “You first appeared in Tales to Infuriate #9, when you were sent to retrieve Spandex Lass. You went rogue in Intimidating Stories #113, and were brought to justice in the classic “If This Be My Proctologist” trilogy in #119-121. You are a minion of Maximess the Muddled, and you have a weakness to extreme cold. Here.” And the hobo threw the ice cube tray at the Seeker, who promptly fainted. Troia and Meggan burst in just in time to catch the last act of this. “How the hell did you do that?” Meg asked the old tramp. “And who are you?” the amazon administrator wanted to know. The light seemed to go out in the old man’s eyes. “I… I don’t remember.” “Hatman, honey, coiuld you stop pounding Abhumans an come here a moment, honey,” Meggan called from the kitchen door. Appraised of the situation, the capped crusader pulled on a straw boater and picked up a razor to shave the beard off the old man. “How are you going to do this?” Troia wondered. “I can use all the powers of a barber with this hat,” Hatty sang back in four part harmony. “Doo-wah-yeah!” The shaggy locks of the hobo were quickly trimmed back until he was clean shaven and tidy. Troia, Meggan and Hatman looked at him with incomprehension. “Still never seen him,” Troia admitted. “Dream, honey, can you come here a moment, darlin’.” Meggan called. “Sure mom,” CSFB! replied, bouncing two Abhumans together until the slumped in a heap and bounding over to the kitchen. “What is it… Wow! It’s ‘40’s Fan, the infallible trivia expert of the Golden Age Matadors who vanished on the eve of Armistice Day never to be heard of again until now when we found him stumbling around as a tramp and shaved his beard to reveal a classic wartime comics character who everyone had thought long forgotten!” “’40’s Fan…” the old man muttered, as if remembering something from long ago. “First appeared in Rampant American Comics #3, teamed with the Crusher and Burning Boy for the first time in Kicking Nazis All Greats #1, continued to battle crime and axis throughout the wartime period…” “That’s it,” CSFB! enthused, “You guys were the greatest!” “What happened though?” Troia wondered. “How did you end up as a smelly old derelict?” “40’s fan’s last appearance was in Severed Finger Comics #53,” the bum frowned, hesitating before continuing. “Seeking the source of all heroes and heroics in the Parodyverse, he entered the abandoned old Parody Mansion, used his powers to detail the layout of the place, found a chamber hidden in caves deep underground, opened up a doorway… no! No! Nooooooo!” 40’s Fan raced from the room, screaming wildly. “We’ve got to get after him,” CSFB! cried out. “Hello? Does anyone mind I’m fighting these things almost by myself?” NTU-150 called from outside. The Legion sprung into action. Nobody followed the crazy old man down to the place where the doorway to the Secret of the Parodyverse was hidden. Hunter Victorious was waiting for him there. Jarvis and Dark Knight heard the energy-blast fire before they saw G-Eyed and Space Ghost pelting down the corridor towards them. “Parody Master!” shouted Bry. “And lots of friends!” “Damn!” Jarvis swore. “Lisa warned us that he got involved to protect the secret back when you were time-travelling.” “Any ideas how to stop him?” G-Eyed asked, skidding to a halt as Space Ghost stopped abruptly in front of Jarvis. The butler glanced to the Legion’s tactical advisor. “One chance,” the Dark Knight answered grimly. “You may recall, Jarvis, how it was alleged that the universe would cease if Messenger died?” “Yes, but that proved to be a misunderstanding,” the leader of the Lair Legion answered. “It turned out that it would only die if I… oh.” “Hey, this is Jarvis,” grinned Space Ghost. “He’s died lotsa times. It’s his hobby.” “But never properly,” Dark Knight answered. “And the Parody Master draws his power from the substance of the Parodyverse. He can’t afford to kill you.” “He could maim you pretty bad,” G-eyed suggested. “Would that count?” “The JarvisCosmic can protect me against that,” Jarv replied. “He’d have to use lethal force to break through my defence.” The butler handed his jacket to the Dark Knight and rolled up his sleeves. “Alright, Parody Master,” he smiled nastily at the approaching enemy. “Let’s rumble.” “Why the hell don’t we make our mansion more flying cannonship proof?” Starseed demanded as he was smashed down yet again by an Abhuman disruptor blast. It wasn’t only his Gah! energy form that was going to be blue and purple tomorrow. “The Mansion’s been attacked by Oddhorn, been possessed and fought the Legion, been invaded by sidekicks, Zemette, Austernals and Abhumans,” NTU-150 pointed out. “It’s going to need redecorating.” “And the Racoons,” CSFB! pointed out as he streaked past. “Don’t forget my mom stopped them single-handedly nearly.” “And the Racoons,” NTU-150 agreed. “There’s too many of those flying things,” Banjooooo complained. He was really miffed that all his extra powers seemed to have gone now he was working for the good guys. Just then an even bigger dark shadow hooked round one of the watching Celestians that ringed the island and opened fire on the Abhuman cruisers from behind. “Lissen up, you craw-itchin’ alien-suckers,” a rough voice boomed from the great SPUD helicarrier, “This is Dan Drury talkin’ atcha. Go get your sorry slime-butts out of here ‘fore we hit ya like a nerdy sixth grader in gym class.” And from a hatch on the big SPUD vessel a newly-suited superhero rocketed out and launched his ordinance at the Abhumans. “Hey,” Hatman shouted, “It’s the Budgie!” A micro-rocket went astray and nearly dropped a wall on the capped crusader. “It’s not just Falcon,” Tina sensed, “Look!” Cobra, Cap, the Sorceress, and Paste Pot Pete leaped into the fray. Well, Pete more sort of drifted down in a parachute and settled peacefully on the grass, but the others leaped into the fray. “See, Yo,” Melissa whispered to the fallen though being. “All your friends are on the same side now, and we need your help to win. We need you. Will you help?” “Yo is being here to be being helping,” the black-clad Zorro impersonator replied, springing up ready for adventure with a big beaming smile on his/her face. “Could you be really good at medicine and get ManMan and Exile back up - again?” Tina asked him/her urgently. “I think we might need them.” “Yo thinks Yo can do it.” “Good,” NTU-150 answered, “’Cause the good news is that most of the Abhumans have collapsed and started frothing for some reason. The bad news is that those Space Robots just started moving.” Hunter Victorious led the hobo through the strange house. At every door 40’s Fan would stop, fondle the wood, and reel off a string of facts about the story behind it. They followed the sounds of fighting until they reached a large entrance hall. From their balcony vantage point they were just in time to see the Parody Master wink out. “That was awesome,” spiffy admitted. “I’ve never seen anyone beat up the Parody Master, Jarv.” The butler smiled happily as he tottered and fell back into Dark Knight’s arms. Jarvis had seen better days. “I suspect that special rules apply here,” DK admitted. “The Parody Master is off his home turf, outside the stories he draws energy from. And on another level, Jarvis is the origin of the Parodyverse.” “It was still great to see PM get his butt kicked,” spiffy insisted. “Yep,” Lisa agreed. The cowled crime-czar was examining the massive entranceway. “The final portal,” the Hooded Hood declared. “Whoever opens this will be destroyed utterly.” “What are you waiting for then?” Cheryl asked him. “I’m waiting for Lisa to do it,” the Hood replied. “Lisa? No way,” G-Eyed objected. “No, it’s cool,” Lisa answered. She exchanged a glance with the Hood and turned the handle. The wave of annihilation burst out to engulf them all. Lisa held her ginger cat out like a shield. Absolute destruction met utter indestructibility. The cat yowled and scratched absolute destruction on the nose. The engulfing wave shattered, scattering the illusion of the house but leaving the doorway hanging in total darkness. Dark Knight produced a torch. “Is everyone alright?” Visionary asked, amazed to be alive. “We’re fine dear,” Cheryl reassured him. “My sweet little kitty’s all agitated,” Lisa warned them. “Did the nasty annihilation wave frighten um then?” “The cat has just survived a force that could destroy universes,” Dark Knight objected. “It has no reason to be frightened.” Actually, the tomcat looked more annoyed than scared. Everybody kept a good distance from it. It was painful cosmetic surgery waiting to happen. “Look in there,” the Hood said, his voice awed and quiet for once. And he gestured beyond the portal. A Celestian Space Robot floated in a cradle of the silvery strands which represented the stories of the Parodyverse. It was circled in a foetal position, hugging something, like a child in it’s cot. It was sleeping. “Aaaaw!” Lisa said, looking at the quarter-mile-long cosmic being. “So cute.” “Not sleeping,” Space Ghost worked out. “Dreaming. Dreaming us. Boy, must I be an bit of undigested pizza!” “The Parodyverse is made up of stories, and the stories are his dreams?”” Visionary wondered. “Is that the Secret the Space Robots want hidden? They tucked up one of their number to have a nap and they don’t want him disturbed?” “There’s more to it than that,” Goldeneyed realised. “I came to the Parodyverse because it was a good place to have stories, a perfect place for them. Like it was designed for stories about the Lair Legion and the other heroes and villains.” “There was this cosmic upheaval,” Jarvis moaned, rousing himself from his punch-drunk haze. “and the JarvisCosmic caused there to be…” “We know the how,” Dark Knight told him. “One of the hows,” the Hooded Hood corrected, “There are several continuity strands which refer to various origins of the Parodyverse. All are necessary components, even when they don’t agree.” “We know the how,” DK repeated. “This is the why. To make a perfect place for the stories.” “Is that the Secret then?” Visionary persisted. “We live in a world set up for heroes and villains to have adventures in?” “Look deeper at those strands,” Cheryl told him. The PR expert in her could sense there was more to it than that. “There are certain kinds of stories…” “This Parodyverse, with all it’s bizarre and conflicting continuity chains,” the Hooded Hood discerned, “is designed to occupy the very steep end of the probability curve. All stories have to happen somewhere. If they didn’t happen here, they would find their way into other, more sensible universes. As it is, we deal with the Disco Hitlers and the Manga Invasions so that others can avoid them.” “You’re saying that the Secret at the Heart of the Parodyverse is that we were put here, with that sleeping Celestian dreaming away at our stories, to have sucky plots so that other more prestigious universes wouldn’t have to bother with them?” spiffy objected. “That sounds like a realistic Secret of the Parodyverse to me,” Visionary admitted. “That’s why Wilbur Parody founded Paradopolis, and why the Secret empowers things like the Gah! force and the Jarvis Cosmic, and why the Space Robots created the Austernals and stuff,” Goldeneyed reasoned. “They were setting the stage for the superhero adventures we all have.” “And what the Secret empowers, the Secret can disempower,” Dark Knight further concluded, remembering how servants of the Secret had been able to suspend the heroes’ abilities. Spiffy was unhappy at the idea of being the suckiest hero in a universe designed for its suckiness. “But… but I don’t see how any of this can be my fault,” he argued. “Lisa and G-Eyed said they’d learned from the Space Robots that it was all my fault.” “Look at what the Sleeping Celestian is cuddling,” Jarvis told him. “Look familiar?” spiffy and the others looked over to the curled Space Robot. “Oh no!” spiffy breathed. “I’d forgotten all about that unfinished plot.” “What is it?” G-Eyed asked. “It’s spiffy’s Cosmic Cube,” Space Ghost told him. “Ferny here had one but never did anything fun with it. It was just kind of forgotten.” “Except it became the means by which the Sleeping Celestian promulgated our Parodyverse as the most improbable of the superhero continuums,” reasoned the Dark Knight. “So, yes spiffy, this is all your fault.” spiffy sulked. “You know,” Lisa considered, “I can see why the Celestians wanted to keep this Secret secret and went to all that trouble. If we’re keeping all that suckiness away from other, more important universes, coping with stuff like the Byrne and Liefield so others don’t have to, then somebody controlling that process could blackmail cosmoses without end. And with the power of a cosmic cube to control a dreaming Celestian…” “…the potential for causing mayhem would be immense,” Jarvis concluded. “By the way,” Cheryl asked, “as a matter of interest, where is the Hooded Hood?” “Oh shit,” somebody said. The Abhumans’ attack had stopped. They fell to the floor like puppets whose strings had been cut as the great Space Robots started to move and closed in on the Lair Mansion. The necessary process of tying off the strands of continuity to allow this world and everything on it to be erased from time and space had now been completed, and the time had come to bring things to a conclusion. “This is great, really great,” the Voyeur cried out, munching popcorn in the adjacent galaxy. “I gotta get this on VCR!” The vast visors of the Celestians rose to reveal the crackling cosmic fires within. “Alright boys,” the demon-lord Mefrothto told his fiends of the pit, “Get ready for incoming.” The high pitched wine of reality-realigning rose in intensity. “I don’t care whut the safety manual says,” Dan Drury told the helicarrier staff. “If I say we crash this bucket right down their throats then that’s whut we’re gonna do.” The sussurus of cosmic power danced around the giants. “It’s definitely some kind of mass hallucination,” Agent Mully reassured her partner Skulder. “All perfectly natural.” One mighty hand reached out a thumb and pointed it downwards: the judgement of the Celestians. “I was just starting to enjoy that planet for all it’s faults,” Pierson’s Porter told Moo in the Crab Nebula. The multiversal energies reached their peak ready for release. A universe held it’s breath. The screaming Mjalcolm hammered down and slammed into one of the visors. “In thy face, thou big bullies!” the hemigod of thunder shouted. “Didst thou think that thou woulds’t get away with it that easily?” The impact was just enough for the Space Robot to notice Donar. “Gaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” Starseed offered, unleashing the full force of his power in a blast which shattered the very stone beneath the Robots and caused the one that was about to de-Donar the Parodyverse to actually take a step backwards. “This is soooo great,” CrazySugarFreakBoy! called out to his comrades, leaping off DarkHwk’s back to attach the jump leads NTU-150 wanted on the Celestian. “This has got to be drawn by Jim Starlin!” “Yo is very sorry but Yo cannot be to be letting cross Spacing Robots to be wiping out Yo’s friends’ planet and their bunnies,” Yo warned. “So Yo is going to be stopping Space Robots.” “You said it, Yo-ster,” Fin Fang Foom agreed, pounding his own Space Robot whilst unleashing a nuclear fire they entirely ignored. “If we go down, we go down fighting.” “They’re actually attacking the Celestians,” Sorceress reported to her Abandoned Legion comrades. “They must know they haven’t got a chance. It’s madness.” “It’s a splendid madness though,” Cap answered. “It’s a madness which proclaims that free men and woman everywhere will fight to live, no matter how daunting the odds, no matter what the danger. It is a madness we should share.” “In other words,” Cobra grinned scarily, “let’s go kick some Celestian ass.” Others were coming to that conclusion as well. From the skies powerdived the Falcon, his on-board weapons systems targeting the joints where his mini-missiles might actually do some harm. On the ground Man-Man actually sliced a tiny sliver from one of the Space Robots with a complaining Knifey. Troia hurled her spear with deadly accuracy, bouncing it off a Celestian groin. “I think we got their attention,” Banjoooo reported to NTU-150. “They have noticed us,” Tina agreed, her hands on her forehead as if that could help her contain the massive Celestian thoughts she was picking up. “They’re triggering their destruction blasts…” “All the cables are connected,” Hatman reported, wearing his Con Ed hardhat. “Let’s try it,” Enty said, pulling the level that syphoned power from the Celestians themselves and fed it into his armour. Behind him Exile tried not to burn out his mind as he diverted the energies Enty wanted along the cables. Fin Fang Foom made a final sortie to force the Space Robot to move into the right position to annihilate him, setting him up in NTU-150’s line of sight. Jaimie released the syphoned charge right into the Space Robot’s back. The shriek of cosmic energies set to carve a world from reality faltered for a moment as one of the Celestians developed a new hole in it’s chest. NTU-150 smouldered gently as every circuit in his armour gave up at once and all the equipment in his lab simultaneously self-destructed – again. Zebulon was already waiting with a fire extinguisher. For a moment it looked like the Lair Legion had a chance. Then the Robot reformed itself and the whine of destruction rose again to killing pitch. With a gesture every hero present was rendered immobile. It was time. “Hold it, Hooded Hood. I can’t allow you to do that.” The cowled crime-czar turned away from the shimmering cosmic cube, with all it’s multiverse-bending abilities, with its potential of controlling the dreams of a sleeping Celestian and all the worlds those dreams protected, to face Hunter Victorious. “The new HV? Now how did I overlook you?” the Hood puzzled, not knowing of Jarvis’ pact with Samhain. “Well, it matters little. There is nothing you can do to prevent the ascension that I have worked for lo these many months.” “You think not?” HV asked, orienting his sword-cane on the villain. “Perhaps you underestimate me?” “No,” the Hood answered. “I know what you can do and what you might do given more time and training. But there is nothing in your repertoire that can save you from my retconning abilities right now. I suggest that you save yourself a lot of trouble and return from whence you came, thanking me for my forbearance.” “Maybe I could stop you and maybe I couldn’t,” Stephen Bloom considered. “But he can.” And 40’s Fan leaped out upon the Hooded Hood. “I have no time for this!” snarled the cowled crime-czar, rewriting continuity so that this smelly old hobo had never existed. “I did exist,” 40’s fan countered. “I first appeared in Rampant American Comics #3, teamed with the Crusher and Burning Boy for the first time in Kicking Nazis All Greats #1, continued to battle crime and axis throughout the wartime period…” “40’s Fan is the greatest source of superhero knowledge there ever was,” Hunter Victorious explained to the Hood as the villain struggled with the crazed loon at his throat. “Nobody remembers the correct continuity better than him. Your power isn’t strong enough to affect somebody like that.” “The Hooded Hood is more than his power,” the archvillain answered. “The Hooded Hood is supreme, and NONE shall stand in his way. NONE!” Retconning super-strength upon himself took a lot out of the Hood, but it was worth it to hear the lethal crack as he snapped the Golden Age Matador’s neck. Nothing was going to stand in the cowled crime-czar’s way now. Except the Lair Legion. The eight who had come with him to this place of secrets had caught up with him in the time it had taken to kill 40’s Fan. Now they stood with Hunter Victorious between the Hood and the Space Giant. “You’re not going to win after all,” Jarvis told the Hooded Hood. It had been a costly card he had had to play to get HV there like that, but it had worked. “You can’t take all of us down fast enough.” “And the notion of ruling the multiverse along with me has no appeal to you?” the Hood asked them. “No, of course it doesn’t. That’s what makes you heroes. Very well. Save your planet. Shift the Secret somewhere else.” The Hood had calculated the odds and they were no longer in his favour. “You’re giving in?” Visionary asked. “Defeat with honour is but victory delayed,” quoted the Hooded Hood. “Well played, Legion. Well done, Jarvis. I shall miss out little contests – perhaps. Farewell.” And he wrapped himself in his thick grey cloak and somehow was gone. “I love that accent,” sighed Lisa. “What do we do now?” Cheryl asked. “To save the Earth I mean?” spiffy fingered his old friend the Cosmic Cube again. “We make a wish,” he told them. The Space Robots halted at the point of Earth’s destruction. The Secret had passed on, gone elsewhere. The heroes had been tested and found true. Despite the limitations of their world, of their circumstances, the men and women for whom the Parodyverse had been built were not found wanting. In fact, they had even added a few surprises of their own. As dawn rose over Parody Island various Ausgardians, Austernals, Abhumans, and Sea Monkeys limped home. The Racoons stayed on in Meggan’s guest apartment for a while. “Sorry we had to do that,” Sersi apologised to the Lair Legion. “If there’s anything I can do to make up for it – not to you, Rocket Racoon!” “You pulled me through, Elyse,” Banjooooo told the young woman he was holding hands with. “It was may darkest hour, and you were the light that guided me out, shweetums.” Starseed made choking noises in the background. “This has been a costly day,” Tina mourned, looking round at the devastation. “Jarvis, Lisa, spiffy, Vizh, Cheryl…” “Hey, it’s no problem,” CSFB! comforted her. “They’ll be back. They’re too good characters to die off for good!” “They knew it was a suicide mission,” Fin Fang Foom reminded the team. “It’s here in Wilbur parody’s book, of all the heroes that enter the doorway, only nine shall return - hey, wait a minute!” “Let me see that,” Hatman demanded, putting on his scholar’s cap. “That can’t be right. It said none before, not nine!” “That was before the Hooded Hood retconned it,” Lisa told them, as the eight heroes who had gone on the mission and Hunter Victorious walked wearily up from the cellars. “I… convinced him to get us another way out. And he did.” Melissa flung herself into Jarvis’ arms with an animal passion. “Oh, Tim I thought I’d lost you forever. Never leave me again! Never!” The Dark Knight sank back into the shadows and kept silent. “Hey guys,” CrazySugarFreakBoy! called to the exhausted and battered superheroes, “Shall we go and fight the sinister sidekicks now?” “Nicely done,” the Chronicler of Stories told the Shaper of Worlds, closing his book. “That trick with 40’s Fan, that was really clever. You’re definitely getting the hang of the job.” “It’s not really over though, is it?” the Shaper answered, dissatisfied. “Well, there’ll be the memorial service for ‘40’s Fan, and a certain amount of screaming when Jarvis sees the repair bill for the mansion, but Donar’s dad’s not anything like as cross as he pretends, in fact he’s secretly quite proud of his son for standing up for what’s right. And the Abhumans will find a cure for Moo’s plague sometime. And the Chamber of Extrospection and the Secret are gone from under the mansion, which probably means that Shab’addaba’Dhu is gone as well…” “That’s not what I mean,” Shaper scowled. “I mean that Samhain’s going to get Jarvis, and the Hooded Hood’s still out there somewhere planning some other trouble, and the Celestians are paying attention now, waiting for a chance to come down on the Parodyverse like a ton of bricks. And Banjooooo knows a bit about his destiny. And Space Ghost’s reality-warping powers are manifesting. So are Melissa’s vexing abilities. Troia knows half the truth about her and that she’s got a brother. Messenger’s not dead like he’s supposed to be, and the heroes have met that irritating Xander. It’s not the way it’s supposed to be at all.” “That’s what makes it an interesting story,” the Chronicler explained. “And that, by the way, is the real Secret of the Parodyverse, whatever the Space Robots think. Things happen that aren’t supposed to, and that makes stories worth telling.” And he opened the next volume. Acknowledgements: The various flashbacks are taken from the works of Jarvis, Lisa, Visionary, and CrazySugarFreakBoy! (as far as I know). Good, aren’t they? At last, the triple-sized conclusion to the story that just went on and on, from the Hooded Hood |
| The Final Untold Tale of the Lair Legion: The Judgement of the Celestians (At last, the triple-sized conclusion to the story that just went on and on, from the Hooded Hood) (27-Aug-1999 23:15:51) |
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