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Post By The Hooded Hood launches our heroes off into a major new adventure, and comments and encouragement are especially welcome Sat Sep 11, 2004 at 07:47:57 am EDT |
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#171: Untold Tales of the Lair Legion: The Transworlds Challenge, or The Price Is Right | ||||
#171: Untold Tales of the Lair Legion: The Transworlds Challenge, or The Price Is Right Here why it was all spiffy’s fault: Mark Hopkins had accidentally become President of the rogue Pacific nation-state of Badripoor, with the help of the members of the junior Lair Legion training programme. Kerry Shepherdson was grounded because she had less-than-accidentally ploughed a twenty-two million dollar stolen LairJet into the Badripoor palace as part of the said coup. That left Kerry at home, bored, and with plenty of time on her hands. Zack Zelnitz, the Technopolitan exile science villain with a genius for compromising computer systems, was believed dead after his abortive attempt to kidnap America’s financial databases. Kerry’s friend Lindy Wilson, who was kind of dating Zack, needed somewhere to hide her boyfriend from all the people who would want to really kill him if they knew he was still around. Kerry, Dancer’s little sister, was being fostered by Visionary at his Dullard’s Corner Condo, and the Condo had a spare bedroom. Of course, Kerry felt no reason to explain any of this to Visionary, who was already smarting because of the whole thermite oven-mitt incident. So Hacker Nine was hiding out in the Condo, quietly wandering the internet using a Bautistamatic can opener that happened to have broadband built in as an integral feature. It was quite natural that a curious young man would hack into the SPUD deep space probe sensor logs and take a look at the interesting faster-than-light signals approaching the solar system. And having worked out that the apparently random crackles were a harmonic code based upon Fourier progression, it seemed only polite to H9 to transmit a reply greeting to the mysterious source. For the first time ever Earth managed to detect and reply to one of the millennial transmissions of the Gamesmaster, thereby qualifying as a Class Ochre spacefaring civilisation and rendering it eligible to be involved in the Transworlds Challenge. This in turn served notice if any more was needed that the human race was becoming a significant strategic threat to galactic stability and should be eradicated as quickly as possible. Then Hacker Nine took a break and made some toast before slipping back to his room for when Visionary got home.  On the edge of the solar system, somewhere a little beyond Pluto’s frozen orbit, Amazing Guy, Al B. Harper, Yo, and the Manga Shoggoth hung inside a glowing bubble of quantum energy and took readings about the incoming transmissions. “They’ve changed,” Al noted, quickly soldering a new set of components into the fragile sensory contraption he had strapped to his chest. “The frequency’s different and the signal’s much stronger.” “Yes,” agreed the Shoggoth, sniffing the ether. “Now it tastes more bananary. With a hint of cinnamon.” “You can sense the transmissions without equipment?” Amazing Guy asked. “Can’t you?” asked the surprised Shoggoth. “They’re specially designed to be within a mortal sensory range on the mundane three dimensions you insist on wading through.” “Yo is wondering where they are to be coming from and what they are to be foreboding. Is anything can cute Al B. be telling of us?” Cute Al B. jammed another component into his array, sucked his flash-burned fingers, and checked his readouts. “Sure. Before it was just a carrier signal. A message. A galactic telephone call. Now it’s more, like a transference beam. A teleport gateway.” “And where’s it forming up?” AG wondered. He was worried because something about this phenomenon blocked his cosmic awareness and that made it powerful and potentially dangerous. The Manga Shoggoth indicated a point about two feet outside Amazing Guy’s energy bubble. “About there, I think,” he suggested. “Your construct is blocking its path.” “Oh,” shouted Al as a massive spray of brilliant light burst in front of them. “Cr…” Amazing Guy sought to maintain his construct in the face of a half-million kiloton concussive force. His bubble shattered like glass and fragmented across half a light year. “..ap!” winced Al B. Then he looked around. Something soft and fuzzy brushed against his leg. “Fascinating,” said the Manga Shoggoth, picking three or four bunnies from his ooze where they had become stuck. “A complete conceptual shift to avoid a stellar-level energy event.” He looked around the green fields and blue skies. “Now this is something special.” “Is to be the Happy Place,” Yo grinned at his/her friends. “And sometimes-cute Shoggoth is not to be dissecting of anything! Yo is to be thinking was to be good time to be having friends to be here rather than be to be ‘sploded in big boom.” “Instead of ground zero in that multi megaton explosion?” AG noted. “Yeah. I’m glad to visit.” He concentrated his cosmic awareness again. “We’ll have to wait until the energy phenomenon has passed on though before we can exit the Happy Place and return to the main Parodyverse. “Yes,” smiled Yo happily. “But is to be bunnies to stroke.”  “We just heard from Yo,” Hatman reported to Sir Mumphrey Wilton and CrazySugarFreakBoy!. “They’re okay, but it’ll be a while before it’s safe for them to exit the Happy Place. You always come back at the point you entered, and right now that’s not a good spot to be.” “Just so as we get that space data for Al B. to fiddle with,” Falcon replied. He didn’t like incoming cosmic anomalies, benign as they might seem. “So Hat’s finished for the day?” CSFB! asked brightly. “Can we go, Sir Mumph, can we? Only this time I’ve found the absolute dream date for Hatty!” “No,” said Jay Boaz firmly. “No more of your set-up dates with neurotic reporters or ex-girlfriends who are in love with your roommate! No more.” “Nah, it’s not like that this time,” Dreamcatcher Foxglove promised him. “I figured it out, and I think Emma’ll be really good for you. You see, you’re a celebrity right, and she’s a celebrity. And I’ve never dated her. I lost my virginity to one of the girls in her old band, but…” “Emma?” Falcon asked, wryly amused. “Emma the celebrity? Emma who?” CSFB! told him. “Well, that’ll Spice up your dating life,” Falc chuckled. “How can I put this?” Hatman asked, flinging his arms in the air. “No. No. No. No!” “I’ll call her,” enthused CrazySugarFreakBoy! But just then Mumphrey put down the phone, looking grave. “Socialising will have to wait, chaps,” he warned them. “There’s been an accident.”  Amy Aston arrived early at the Sixways Fire House, the abandoned building that was now headquarters to her new employer, Extraordinary Endeavour Enterprises. She used the keycard Al B. Harper had issued her to slip through the side door and picked her way across the former truck garage that was now littered with vast partially-assembled dimensional gateway engines. She scowled as she examined the workshop. It needed a serious overhaul. Amy found her locker in the female staff area and slipped out of her street clothes. She was always happiest just in oily dungarees, even if it meant the males around her tended to rivet their fingers to things. She found herself looking forward to a day for the first time in a long time. Then she saw the man staring at her. He was stood in the doorway, his dark eyes transfixed upon her. “Not again!” the nude girl growled and hurled a wrench at the intruder’s head. “I don’t do this crud any more!” The wrench passed straight through the intruder’s head. Then he became translucent and faded away. Amy had just seen a ghost.  Shawn Griffin was trying to have a normal evening. He was at the corner video store trying to decide between Troy (which would have been so much cooler with Legolas and the Hulk fighting for the Trojans) and The Day After Tomorrow (which would have been so much cooler with plot and acting). The truth was DVDs didn’t seem quite as exciting given the kind of things he’d been doing lately. Then the video shop window burst in, and the wave of force sent customers, racks, and everything else toppling to the back of the room. Shawn dragged himself from a pile of soft porn specials and looked blearily outside. The shining nine-foot man in the silver cassock was hovering a few feet above the overturned cars. “Nitz the Bloody, High Priest of Zeku!” he called out in a voice that made the fillings in Shawn’s teeth rattle. “Come forth!” “Uh oh,” breathed Shawn, pulling a thorny cudgel from his back pocket (it didn’t slice him up in there because it’s magic, okay). “Way to maintain a secret identity.” He tossed Troy over to the clerk. “Hold onto this for me, okay. I’ll be back for it. Costumeku!” As soon as his metal mask and ceremonial outfit shimmered around him, Nitz strode through the shattered picture window to face his challenger. The Gamesmaster looked Nitz up and down. “You are the Priest of Zeku, this planet’s most recently manifested world avatar?” “I guess,” shrugged Nitz. “I mean, yeah, Zeku was around a few weeks back so he’s probably the most recent. Why?” “Then you count as your planet’s representative for this occasion,” the Gamesmaster boomed. “I am here to give you due warning of the Transworlds Challenge. Your world has become eligible to compete. Enter or die!” Nitz was still pretty new at this. “Hold on. Are you here for a big supervillain fight with me or what? Because nobody threatens my planet and…” “You are the Priest of Zeku. Receiving the challenge is one of your duties. You must appoint champions to take part in the coming Transworlds Challenge. You must designate an earth-token as your entrance stake. The winners will be blessed with a great gift. Those who fail to compete will be eliminated.” The Gamesmaster glared down at Nitz the Bloody. “I’m guessing your planet will get eliminated. Anyway, you have been informed. You have one planetary cycle to find your champions and a stake. That is all!” Then the Gamesmaster vanished in another flash of energy that toppled Nitz into the store’s trash cans. The young hero picked himself up painfully and peeled the garbage off his coat. It looked like the video evening would have to be postponed. One of the passersby had a mobile phone, and wasn’t going to argue when a man with a metal mask and a cudgel asked to borrow it. Nitz thought for a moment then dialled a number. He needed a champion fast. “Nats. Hi!”  “It has begun,” the Hooded Hood announced. “The Transworlds Challenge.” “Great,” answered Killer Shrike. “What’s a Transworlds Challenge?” He glanced over his employer’s shoulder. “And who’s the chippie?” Keiko glared back at the villain in the black and gold spandex with the yellow topknot on his cowl. “Why is that man dressed like a clown?” she asked. “That’s Keiko Chinato,” Blackhearted explained. “She’s from that other reality the Hood had me checking. Y’know, the one without superheroes.” “Never met a real live superman before, eh?” preened Killer Shrike. “Man?” Keiko replied, looking him up and down. “Where?” “You can get to know each other later,” the Hooded Hood interrupted. “For now I need to conduct your mission briefing.” “At last,” smirked Killer Shrike. “I was getting real bored with just Captain Gloomy and Ice Witch as company.” Sorceress, who hadn’t spoken yet, glared over at the assassin as if trying to decide what shape would best suit him when she transformed him into some kind of pond-dweller. “Every tenth of a rotation of the milky way galaxy,” the Hooded Hood explained, “a cosmic being known as the Gamesmaster conducts a test of all races that have achieved a certain level of intelligence and technology.” “The Transworlds Challenge,” Blackhearted surmised. “Indeed. Those races who fail to compete, or who are unable to enter, are summarily annihilated.” Sorceress glanced up sharply. “The winner receives some gift of immense value,” the Hood concluded. Now Killer Shrike looked interested. “I don’t see why any of this interests me,” Keiko noted. “You said you’d help stop my world merging with this insane Parodyverse of yours.” “And the prize this time will allow me to do that,” the archvillain explained. “This time the reward for the winners is a truly great thing indeed… the Starseed.” “Starseed?” Sorceress looked up. “The former Legionnaire?” “Last we saw of him he’d gone into his chrysalide phase, a crystalline energy structure of immense power,” Blackhearted remembered. “Anyone harnessing that power…” “Could rectify Keiko’s problem,” concluded the Hooded Hood. “So you want us to do this test for you, boss?” Killer Shrike surmised. “No. I have already arranged the necessary competitors. You are required for another purpose.” “Here it comes,” muttered Sorceress. “So near to the Resolution War of which the Starseed is one of the triggers there are bound to be those who feel the need to interfere with the competition… to impede Earth’s chances of prevailing in the tests,” the Hood explained. “Powerful interests are arrayed against Earth and its champions, interests that have laid plans to prevent any successful intervention from any of the creatures of the Parodyverse.” “But I ain’t of the Parodyverse,” Killer Shrike realised, “and neither is Susie Wong here.” “You may not come from here but you can still die here,” Keiko assured him. “Blackhearted is also alien to the main Parodyverse, retrieved as he is from a defunct future and maintained only by my will,” the Hooded Hood added. “So each of you may be able to act when our adversaries do not believe any can prevail.” “Sneaky,” admitted Keiko. “And me?” the Sorceress demanded. “Why do you need me?” Killer Shrike sniggered. “In addition to a champion, each competitor world must stake a planetary avatar, a representative in tune with the biorhythms of the planet,” the cowled crime czar explained. “If the players do not win the match, this stake is… forfeit.” “Nasty,” snorted Blackhearted. “And Sorcy here is all tied to nature and that.” “There are several candidates suitable as a stake,” the Hood noted. “The Bog Thing, Hagatha Darkness, the Celestian Madonna, but Sorceress is the one I deemed most appropriate to wager.” Whitney Darkness said nothing but glared at the Hood with angry, submissive eyes. “So we gotta run interference for the home team in this Gamesmaster’s games while you bet witchie here to win this Starseed thing?” Killer Shrike summarised. “But I do get to kill people, right?” “Unless you shower more often,” Keiko warned him.  The oil fires were still burning on the surface of the Wookiegetlucky Swamp, destroying hundreds of acres of protected environment and turning the skies black with greasy smoke; but the fire boats couldn’t get near the inferno until the nuclear spillage hazard had been dealt with first. ManMan looked up from the diverted tour bus and saw that the heroes had arrived overhead. “Hatman, Mr Epitome, thuddy with Cressida, CSFB!, Trickshot, and the Falcon,” he noted. “The Lair Legion’s arrived on the scene.” The silver haired beauty on the seat behind shifted to stare out through the gloom at the distant figures. “These are your world’s champions?” Cleone asked. “Some of ‘em, yeah,” admitted Knifey, ManMan’s talking weapon. “But we try not to admit it.” Hatman was wearing a nuclear power worker’s hood to protect him from the hard radiation at the centre of the devastation. Falcon got as close as he safely could then dropped the capped crusader into the inferno. “This doesn’t make any sense,” ManMan puzzled as he watched the emergency services shifting traffic away from the devastation. “How can it be both an oil spill and a nuclear leak? Maybe we should get out there and see if we can help the guys?” “No,” said Xander the Improbable, thickly wrapped in an old Burberry coat with the collar turned up despite the Florida humidity. “There’s nothing we can do here. It’s all just cleaning up the mess now. We’re too late.” “Too late for what?” Cleone asked the man to whom she’d literally bound her life a few days earlier. “What has happened here?” Xander gestured out over the burning bayou. “Somewhere out there is the Nexus of Unrealities,” he explained, “a focal point of the dimensional chain that holds this world and its plane close to the centre of the Interdimensional Vortex.” “The what?” asked ManMan. “Ah,” said Cleone. “Yeah,” sighed Knifey. “And it’s guarded by the Bog-Thing.” ManMan caught up. “We’re here looking for the Bog-Thing, ‘cause he’s not dead like the JBH thought, and we want to recruit him against these guys who killed the sorcerer supreme.” Xander looked at the inferno. “And we’re too late,” he repeated. “The Hellraisers got here first. Hard radiation to bind the guardian of the Nexus, fire to destroy him. Damn, that Chain Knight knows his business.” “So what do we do now?” Knifey wondered. “Bring in the Lair Legion?” “No,” the master of the mystic crafts answered. “That would be signing the heroes’ death warrants and tipping the enemy that I am still alive.” He rubbed his forehead. “We keep looking for allies,” he decided. “Elsewhere.”  “I’ve pulled down pretty much everything I can find on past Transworld Challenges,” the Librarian reported as D.D. handed round the coffee and biscuits in one of the study lounges of the Moon Public Library. “There’s quite a lot in the archives.” “Splendid,” Sir Mumphrey Wilton encouraged him. “Such as what?” Lee Bookman gestured to a painting on the wall that suddenly became a video monitor. It showed close-up multi-channel footage of some kind of bizarre space race, with hundreds of different vessels competing in a speed trial. “Well, the whole thing is transmitted live to every participating world, for starters,” he explained. “It’s a serious ratings winner.” “Who won the last one?” Visionary wondered. “That was about a hundred and twenty thousand years ago,” the Librarian replied, “and it was the Skree.” “They gained the technology to create the Supreme Interference,” D.D. added. “It was the start of the Skree Star Empire.” Nats was watching the footage of exploding starships. “There seems to be a pretty high casualty rate,” he observed. “Yes,” agreed the Librarian. “The rules and racetracks are different each time, but there’s usually a fairly loose interpretation of fair play between the contestants.” “Hmph,” scowled Sir Mumphrey Wilton. “What about this Gamesmaster?” Lisa demanded, “What’s his deal? Is he amenable to any kind of.. persuasion?” “Nobody knows much about him,” Lee told her. “He turns up at cosmic intervals, and infrequently at other times, conducts his bizarre intergalactic trials, then vanishes again.” “But someone must have tried to take him out,” Nats argued. “Well, there was the F’Ranii,” the Librarian considered. “You wouldn’t have heard of them. They’re sometimes called the Third Oldest Race.” He pointed to the image of the adjudicating Gamesmaster on the screen. “He’s why you haven’t heard of them. They attacked him and he wiped them out. Even their planets were reduced to dust.” “That’s not nice,” pouted Dancer. “Okay, so how do we win this race thing of his?” All eyes turned to Nitz the Bloody, but Nitz was staring out of the window. “We’re really on the moon,” he said weakly. “As Earth’s chosen representative, Nitz has to nominate a team,” Lee Bookman jumped in. “Seven contestants, and a vehicle suitable for all terrain travel, including space and other dimensions.” “Aunt Sally!” Nats called out. “Aunt Sally can do it!” Nitz looked round in confusion. “Your Aunt?” “Not just his Aunt,” Dancer grinned. “Nats means there’s this amazing vehicle who lives at the Lair Mansion sometimes when she’s not off on her travels, and she calls herself Aunt Sally. She’s an old-fashioned fussy old thing, but very nice. And she can do all kinds of stuff like flying and time-jumps and warp-speed and all of that.” “And she has weaponry,” noted Mumphrey. “Served with distinction in the Technopolis War.” “Sounds great,” admitted Nitz. “Where did she come from?” Nats looked a little uncomfortable. “Well that’s the thing,” he admitted. “We’re not really sure. Exile inherited her from some mysterious relative, and when he went off to the Mythlands he kind of passed her on to me and the guys.” “The No-Girls Club,” smirked Dancer. “Go on, you can say it.” “No,” sulked the flying phenomenon. “You’re saying this Aunt Sally is in the Lair Mansion but we don’t know who made her or what she’s for or why she was given to you?” Lisa noted. “And Finny went for this?” “Finny talked with her,” Visionary said weakly. “And then he went and hid in his cupboard for two days.” “Perhaps we need to talk to the old girl, what?” Mumphrey suggested. “See if she won’t help out.” “And check she’s what she seems to be,” added Lisa prudently. “Nitz has to nominate the vehicle and crew, anyway,” the Librarian summarised. “But there’s one more thing, and you’re not going to like this. The entrance fee…”  “Firstly,” insisted Al B. Harper, “there is no such thing as ghosts.” “Except for the one in the Lair Mansion,” pointed out Nats, helpfully. “Well, except maybe for Marie,” conceded the Lair Legion’s scientist. “And she might just be a transient temporal waveform pressed onto a four-space template with a harmonic frequency similar to human frontal lobes.” “And there’s Dream’s dead girlfriend too,” Nats added. “Except for Marie and Dream’s girlfriend then.” “And those things we fought at Black’s Crossing,” Nats went on. Al B. glared at the flying delivery boy. “Don’t you have anything better to do?” he demanded. “No,” Bill Reed assured him. “Quite happy standing here waiting for Amy to hit you with a blunt instrument.” Miss Framlicker nodded and perched on a workbench to sip her coffee. “Me too,” she agreed. Amy Aston was indeed clutching an adjustable spanner in her fist and frowning. “I saw what I saw, Al Harper,” she insisted. “It was a ghost. The air went cold. A wrench went through its head. Then it vanished.” “Hologram,” suggested Al, risking his life. “Telepathic projection.” “This spanner is bigger than that one,” Miss Framlicker told Amy helpfully, holding out a suitable tool. “Alright, I’m willing to concede Amy saw something the scientist admitted,. “Perhaps if we reconstruct the event…” “Right,” snorted the pretty engineer. “You want me to stand over there in the nude while you examine things, yes?” “In the interests of science,” Nats noted hopefully. “I think Al’s seen quite enough of me in the nude, thanks very much,” she said acidly. Miss Framlicker’s eyebrows shot up. “Has he now?” she said dangerously. The scene was defused by a knock at the door. “A customer?” Miss Framlicker speculated uncertainly. “Nats, get that will you?” Bill Reed flew over and answered the rapping. “Good evening,” bade the Hooded Hood.  “Nitz the Bloody, have you found your champions?” the Gamesmaster challenged when the twenty-four hours were over. “Am I on TV?” Nitz worried. “Uh, I mean, yeah, yes, I’ve found them.” “Name your champions.” The priest of Zeku gestured to the heroes assembled behind him. “Nats, Visionary, CrazySugarFreakboy!, Hatman, Trickshot, Amazing Guy, Goldeneyed,” he introduced them. “Have you found your vehicle?” “Sure. This is Aunt Sally,” Nitz replied. “Hello, everybody,” the red and yellow whiz wagon bade nine trillion viewers across the galaxy. “Wrap up warmly.” “And have you found your stake, a planetary avatar?” the demanded Gamesmaster. Nitz looked unhappy. “Only ‘cause we have to or get wiped out,” he replied sullenly. “We gamble the Sorceress.” “We what?” exploded Hatman. “Your entry is accepted,” boomed the Gamesmaster. “Let the games begin!”  Next time: Sorceress explores Herringcarp, Keiko explores Sorceress, Nitz explores new career choices, Miss Framlicker explores the EEE balance sheet, CSFB! explores Goldeneyed’s origin, and the Transworlds Challenge explorers go off to the races, in Going For the Win For more on some of the topics covered in this chapter, look at Rebound and Spice Up Your Life by Hatman and We're Just Good Friends, Honest by CrazySugarFreakBoy!  Where No Footnotes Have Gone Before Kerry’s Domestic Life: Kerry Shepherdson, younger troublemaker sister of Sarah (Dancer) Shepherdson, is currently being fostered by Visionary at his Dullard’s Corner condo, and being educated as part of the junior Lair Legion. She is secretly hiding teenage Technopolitan science villain Hacker Nine in Vizh’s spare bedroom. Her sometimes-boyfriend spiffy has recently accidentally become President-for-Life of the Pacific rim nation-state of Badripoor. Most of this happened in the last couple of issues. The Happy Place is a conceptual realm linked to the pure thought beings of Yo-Planet. Creatures in a Yo-beings presence, or sometimes those who have been in a Yo-being’s presence, can transfer to the Happy Place at times of great trauma. The Happy Place is usually perceived as a pleasant sylvan glade populated by friendly bunnies. CrazySugarFreakBoy’s First Time was described in one of CSFB!’s earliest stories, which I unaccountably failed to archive for some reason. But you just know he’s going to repost it with extra detail and footnotes now, right? Amy Aston’s Unclad Encounter is in some ways reminiscent of her first meeting with Al B. Harper, where he discovered her en dishabille padding from the shower to the workshop in the deserted Lair Mansion. I think he still has the scar. Nitz the Bloody (aka Shawn Griffin) is the newly-appointed High Priest of Zeku, and African nature god who manifests to Nitz as a phantom rhinoceros. Nitz is granted a range of powers manifested through his cudgel and by shouting a number of magical words suffixed with “-eku”. This is Nitz’ first encounter with many of the superheroes of the Lair Legion. The Bog Thing is – or was – a guardian created out of muck and slime to be the guardian of the nexus of Unrealities that is currently located in Florida’s Wookiegetlucky Swamp. It is the Nexus’ presence on Earth that makes Earth the current focal point of this reality, just as it is this reality’s closest current proximity to the core of the Interdimensional vortex that makes it the principal plane. These things have never been explained more fully than that. The Bog Thing is currently destroyed (by permission of his poster-creator) but I suppose he or a replacement might rise again if required. The Moon Public Library is the nearest branch of the Intergalactic Organisation of Libraries, and the place of which Lee Bookman is Librarian. D.D. is the lunar library’s artificial intelligence computer system. The Skree Star Empire is a militaristic race of blue-skinned space-faring conquerors. Since the recent destruction of their homeworld by Galactivac, the Living Death That Sucks (with the unwitting assistance of Dancer) the race has fragmented. Leader of the largest faction is the fanatical Dronon the Public Accoster. The Skree are also noted for their creation of the Supreme Interference, the massive organic computer only recently shut down by the Lair Legion. Ghosts: Marie Murcheson was murdered in the Lair Mansion in the 1850s and remains as a banshee that manifests at times of death. CrazySugarFreakBoy!’s old dead girlfriend Izzy Shapiro has also manifested to him (although it’s not clear if she’s a ghost as she appears to be or something else). The Lair Legion had an unpleasant and haunting visit to Black’s Crossing in UT#101-104. And Aunt Sally: The remarkable vehicle first appeared in Nats’ tales, under circumstances described in the story above. Now for the first time we can reveal her technical specifications (and one possible interpretation of her appearance, as filtered through the CAD program for a well known children’s product).     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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