Baron Zemo's Lair. - Untold Tales of the Lair Legion: The Wedding of Jarvis and Melissa

Baron Zemo's Lair

Untold Tales of the Lair Legion: The Wedding of Jarvis and Melissa
Tuesday, 08-Jun-1999 19:21:40
195.92.194.46 writes:

“I always cry at weddings,” Sersi sniffed, blowing her nose delicately on Rocket Racoon.
“Yo is confused by Earth mating customs,” Yo admitted, straining to watch as the bride glided up the aisle, attended by Cheryl and Tina. “Why is woman always be wearing white dress?”
“It’s an, um, it’s an old tradition,” Messenger explained. “It’s meant to represent her purity.”
“Ah. Yo sees. And in that case why is groom to be wearing black?”
“This is kinda neat, isn’t it?” CrazySugarFzreakBoy! admitted. “I’ve never been to a wedding before – although it does sort of remind me of that movie mom was in, Bridal Bondage in the White Trash Wedding Chapel.”
“Gah! It’s nothing like it,” objected Starseed. “For a start the bride, the bridesmaids, and the vicar all have their clothes on… WHICH they might have for all I know in that film because I’ve never seen it or indeed heard of it.”
“In Ausgard yon ceremony is done somewhat differently,” Donar admitted. “First yon groom and his friends wouldst band together and burn her father’s farm to the ground…”
“He’s such a soppy romantic, isn’t he?” Sieryn scowled. “Personally I prefer this custom. There’s far less thunder involved and one doesn’t have to rethatch the entire village afterwards.” And she clutched the hemi-god’s arm and looked up at him expectantly.
“The, um, yon flower arrangement ist very fetching,” Donar answered agitatedly.
“I don’t know how he can possibly look so bright,” Space Ghost complained, looking over to where the groom was waiting for his bride to join him at the altar. “After all, he was up most of the night drinking, up to the point where they moved the floor and we all fell over.”
“It never occurred to you in your wild get-the-groom-drunk binge that a butler’s special ability is moving drinks around in front of people, then?” Pegasus commented.
Space Ghost was feeling too sick to react to this revelation about the duplicity of the Lair Legion’s leader by doing anything other than groan. He had a nasty recurrent memory about jumping out of a cake at some point which he hoped would go away.
“Fin Fang Foom looks very smart as best man as well, doesn’t he?” spiffy asked the young woman next to him. “There’s always something about a dragon in a tuxedo. I don’t think we’ve been introduced Miss…”
“Jami,” the shy young lady replied. “Lisa invited me. She said that since love and commitment was blossoming, some of it might rub off on… someone.” “
This is wonderful,” spiffy smiled, still in his I’m-not-dead-anymore euphoria. It would wear off at the reception when he found that his placecard had Hollywood V crossed out on it.
Goldeneyed was also curious about the people he was sat next to. The young woman beside him seemed very pleasant, even if she was staring at the groom in a puzzled kind of way as if half-trying to remember where she had seen him before. The man was positively spooky, however. “Um, would you mind asking your raven not to peck my ear?” the dimension-hopping superhero asked the Chronicler of Stories. The strange man didn’t reply. He seemed engrossed in writing something entitled The Adventures of Goldeneyed #16. However, his raven told Goldeneyed to f*ck off. Now Goldeneyed understood why everybody else had made sure he sat here. All the others knew better.
“Pretty full turnout today,” Grim Reaper commented to Hatman, leaning over from the villain’s section. Unlike most weddings, the aisle divided not the bride’s and groom’s guests but the Lair Legion and the Scourge of the BZL. Some of the others, like Cap of the League of Irregulars, were having to squash in where they could. There was hot competition for the squashing onto Cobra’s pew, and a fair casualty rate.
“Nice to see everybody here,” Hatman answered, impeccable in his usher’s topper for the occasion. “Not often we all get together without trying to kill each other. And so far everybody’s obeying the ground rules. No super-powers, Paste Pot Pete and Jam not to be allowed to make a speech, Space Ghost not to be allowed to sing…”
“I’m surprised to see Visionary and Fleabot,” Darkhwk remarked to the Sorceress. “I thought he was still, you know, being weird in the corn.”
Sorceress nodded over to the new, female Shaper of Worlds. “I think he probably still is. But she’s a sentimentalist. I imagine he won’t remember anything in the morning.”
“Usually Space Ghost’s trick.”
“Well, given the choice between a visit to Jarvis’ wedding and a visit to see his old pal the Yurt in the Abyss I can see why Visionary consented to come here.” Sorceress smiled.
The wedding was moving on as the various BZL heroes and villains got in their character bits. It had all the usual sound bytes regarding I do and all of that, plus the disconcerting whine of NTU-150’s specially designed weapons grid powering up at the part where the preacher asked if anyone had any just cause or impediment. On the bright side, this was one chapel that was never going to have to worry about vandals ever again.
That’s because a short circuit in the grid would burn it down that same night.
“Are you coping with this alright?” the diabolical Dr Moo asked her sister. After all, Lisa had been Jarvis’ lover until she had recently been retconned as his sister, and although the villain responsible, the nefarious Hooded Hood, had given Lisa a large and indestructible ginger tomcat in compensation (which was even now blocking up one of the organ pipes in the hope of catching the obviously-wounded creature making those sounds), no feline could take the place that Jarvis had once held in her life without there being a public decency felony committed.
“Sure,” Lisa answered with a far away look on her face.
“Are you certain?” Moo checked. Lisa had briefly dallied with becoming a villainess during her recent break-up and had been disconcertingly good at it; and Moo liked being the evil one.
“Absolutely,” Lisa nodded. “The only embarrassing thing is I’m not quite sure what to say to Melissa. I mean, do I give her tips on what Jarvis is likely to require on their wedding night or would that be considered a little bit presumptuous?”
“Possibly best to wait for her to broach the subject?” Moo answered tactfully.
Lisa nodded, absently. It was as if her mind was somewhere else, thinking about her own little secret which was more important than anything going on around her…
Now the ceremony was at that amusing part of the narrative where Fin Fang Foom was fumbling for the ring, desperately hoping that he wasn’t going to be the focus of the story’s main humour element. But the ring was eventually produced by the simple expedient of Tina sensing his concern and Cheryl nudging him and slipping a golden band into his fingers. So that was alright.
Then Jarvis and Melissa were being pronounced man and wife, and there was the customary kissing of the bride.
Donar was not impressed. “Hmph! Why, in Ausgard we would’st not have stopped there. We would’st…”
“…have had the photographer get a fine shot of the couple with the vicar in front of the sacristy,” Sieryn interrupted loudly and quickly.
The wedding party ducked for cover as NTU-150’s improved wedding bells chimed out across the city. As the hyper-wave organ kicked in there was a frantic meowwing as a ballistic furry ginger missile was discharged from the pipes and bounced off the roof to stun the Late Great Donald Blake. The cat narrowly missed the shadowy part of the rafters where the Dark Knight was crouching. DK assured himself again that he was only here to maintain security, not because any part of him wanted to see the wedding.
Then the party assembled outside where the reception tents were pitched for the usual interminable photographs. It had perhaps been a mistake to let CrazySugarFreakBoy! and Yo be involved in the wedding organisation committee, because the bunny-rabbits and Archie motifs in the reception tent were less than traditional.
“Time for the bouquet!” Cheryl prompted the bride; and this was the signal for an oestrogen scrum of epic proportions. The flowers arced high into the air. Pegasus’ early lead was destroyed by a venom-blast from Cobra before she too went down to lactose intolerance as Moo made her move. Sersi and Lisa both lunged at the same time before the entire group went down into a pile of flailing limbs.
Visionary and spiffy politely helped the ladies to disentangle themselves. Near the bottom of the stack, just under Sersi the Austernal, they found the crushed but happy form of Rocket Racoon. “Why did you want the bouquet, RR?” Visionary puzzled.
“Didn’t…” the mangled rodent burbled happily. “Just wanted… to be under there…”
At the bottom of the pile spiffy helped Lisa to her feet. She still gripped the remains of the bouquet and seemed a little bit stunned. “No mom, this is not an omen,” she muttered.
“Isn’t there, like, well, a male version of that sometimes?” Starseed asked hopefully. “With a garter?”
“And the winner gets to put it on the leg of the bridesmaid?” Messenger remembered.
The sound of the most powerful battle-armour in the universe powering up beside Tina discouraged further speculation on the possibility of this contest.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” Hatman called wearing his ringmaster’s hat, “Please take your seats for the best man’s speech.”
Fin Fang Foom stood up to deliver his words amidst a spattering of applause and one lone cry of “I looovveeee youuuu, little dragon. You’re my bestest frien’ in th’ world” from a certain Legionnaire who had found the champagne table.
“Ahem,” Finny blushed. “Well, I have known Jarvis for quite some time now, ever since he was involved with Lo-Chi, his… um, no. Well, I know him really well. I was godfather to that little kid he had with Lis… er. I know Jarvis.”
“Don’t worry,” Jarv whispered to Melissa as Fin Fang Foom struggled on with his address. “He doesn’t really know anything that could come between us.” Then Jarvis allowed himself to be corny again. “My love,” he added.
“I know,” Melissa assured him. After all, she had the dossier that Tina and Cheryl had put together for her, along with the Cliff’s Notes about How to Be a Lair Legionnaire’s Wife.
“…so anyway, Enty defused the robo-sheep and Carrington sent it back to the museum,” Fin Fang Foom concluded. The audience dutifully applauded again. “Whew,” the dragon gasped as he sat down again. “I’d rather go up against Blackbird than do that again any day.”
“I think we all would,” agreed Cheryl.
“We have a few telegrams,” Hatman announced. “Dr Valium has sent a free certificate for your first marriage guidance counselling lessons. Frog-man wishes he could be here, but no one’s dug him up yet after he got buried alive in the Hooded Hood adventure. There’s one here from some aliens, who say they haven’t finished with you yet, Jarvis. And Baron Zemo sends his regards on your nuptials and says he will send an appropriate present later.”
Melissa rose now to thank people for coming. She was learning the art of lying (Cheryl’s guide chapter four). “Well, I’d like to start by thanking the caterers. The Betty and Veronica shaped melon was simply delicious, and the bunny napkins made all the difference. Thank you Dr Moo for contributing the, the extravagant dairy products for the event. Thank you Cheryl for convincing the press that this event was taking place in the Paradopolis Cathedral.”
“Heh, Good luck finding your way back from there, press boys,” grimaced spiffy.
Melissa continued. “I’ll thank you in advance for the presents, although as you know we won’t be opening them until NTU-150’s gift has been carried outside and has stopped ticking. And thank you Tim, for finding time out from saving the world to make me the…”
The single shot passed right between Melissa’s eyes and sent her reeling backwards.
Time seemed to stop.
Dark Knight appeared as if from nowhere, instantly calculating velocities and impact angles. “Up there!” he shouted, indicating the church steeple.
Tina scanned for lifesigns on the crumpled bride. She sensed nothing.
NTU-150 checked his scanner array. Nobody other than guests was anywhere within the security perimeter. The killer was one of them.
Banjooooo, Fin Fang Foom, Starseed, Hatman, Donar, DarkHwk, and CrazySugarFreakBoy! all lurched for the belltower at once. Messenger reasoned that there were enough Legionnaires doing the obvious and raced away to check for any kind of assassin’s escape route.
Sersi and Yo dashed to Melissa to see if there was anything they could do. There wasn’t.
Lisa dashed to Jarvis, because she could already hear the cry of anguish gathering in his throat on its way out from his heart.
Visionary noticed something important.
As Banjoooo and Foom scrambled to the apex of the belltower they were slammed together by a powerful telekinetic burst which sent them toppling groundwards again. By the time DarkHwk reached the summit the tower was empty.
The assassin teleported to his fallback point, ready to exit past NTU-150’s still quiescent security array. He was surprised when he felt a heavy spinal punch from behind. “Murderer!” Messenger cried out. “He’s over here, Legion!”
The next moment a powerblast sent the postman smashing back across the churchyard and into the canvas of the tent. The tent ballooned down until Yo decided that it wouldn’t be appropriate and shored it up through his mental energies.
Rocket Racoon jetted across and swerved around the villain, trying to prevent his escape. The villain teleported around the flying rodent and blasted him from behind.
The assassin scrambled towards his getaway vehicle but now found his way blocked by a wrathful thunder godling and an even more wrathful Gaaaahhhh! master. As he swept them aside telekinetically he was distracted by a blur of bright colours as CrazySugarFreakBoy! bounded past him and snagged his mask ajar to temporarily blind him.
The villain was dressed like a waiter, but had a Phantom-of-the-Opera-style mask across his hideously disfigured face. He snarled in anger as he was forced to drag his mask off so he could see again. And what he saw was Jarvis and Lisa coming at him from both sides. And then he was taken down.
“Who are you?” Jarvis demanded, gripping the assassin by his lapels and shaking him. “Who the hell are you, and why did you kill her?”
“Why, don’t you recognise me?” the prisoner snarled in a voice identical to that of his captor. “I’m Sivraj!”
“He’s you!” Lisa realised. “A horribly scarred, evil you. He even has your powers.”
“That’s how he got past the monitors,” NTU-150 realised. “They sensed your DNA and let him past.”
“So what are you?” Jarvis shouted. “A clone? Another version of Anti-Jarvis? What?”
“He’s your future self,” Tina sensed. “He’s travelled back in time… using Zemo’s time machine from the future. He’s insane. He went insane after… after what happened to Melissa.”
“What do you mean what happened to Melissa!” Jarvis demanded. “He happened to Melissa! He killed her.”
“I gave her mercy,” Sivraj hissed back. “Don’t you understand. I’ve saved her. Sweet, lovely Melissa. Now it won’t happen to her. Or me. I won’t exist now.”
“What happened to his face?” CrazySugarFreakBoy! wondered. “It’s EC-gross. It’s in the same league as Victor von Doom, or Baron Zemo…”
“It was Zemo who did this,” growled Sivraj. “It was his wedding gift to his most hated enemy. To be like him.”
“Like him?” Jarvis puzzled. “You mean, horribly disfigured?”
“Yes,” Sivraj spat. “And with a frozen wife!”
“He froze Melissa?”
“To start with. Then he thawed her out and handed her over for worse things. I had to kill her now, today… so that she might never become John Byrne’s personal glove puppet!”
“Eeeuuuwww!” commented Banjooooo.
The Dark Knight was familiar with time paradoxes. “If you have succeeded in preventing the timeline, Sivraj, why are you still here?”
It was a damned good question.
Surprisingly, Visionary had the answer. “Because,” he said, dropping the lifeless mannequin in the wedding dress onto the grass before the heroes, “This isn’t Melissa. It’s a fake woman – and not a word from any of you on the obvious comment, dammit.”
“It is a robot,” Sersi agreed. The Austernal had inspected it carefully. “A brilliant simulacra, but only really a Life Model Decoy.”
“Um, if it’s fixable and you don’t want it, can I borrow it?” Rocket Racoon asked.
“It looks like one of Zemo’s advanced designs,” NTU-150 judged.
“Noooooo!” Sivraj writhed, pinioned by Donar and Hatman. “He has already taken her. I have failed! It was all for nothing! Nooooooo!”
Lisa turned upon her sister with a killing glare. “Hey,” Moo said, backing off a little, “Don’t blame the Scourge for this. You know Zemo, sometimes he goes off on his own weird plans, especially where Heike his dead wife is concerned. We don’t want anything to do with this.”
“We’re only here for the f*cking cake,” Jam explained.
“And to watch the ceremony,” added Uatu.
“We needs must mounteth an expedition to free the true damsel at once, for the nonce,” Donar decided. “Lead us, Jarvis, for were the hordes of Hardcaseheim bearing down upon us still would we… Jarvis?”
“He’s gone,” Starseed realised. “He must have teleported straight to Baron Zemo’s Lair… alone!”

The outer wall of Zemo’s castle was designed to withstand the combined assault of anything up to fifteen simultaneous superheroes according to the warranty. So it was a shame that virtually the entire wedding party were combined in their attempts to vaporise it, because there was no way the five year guarantee was going to cover that kind of damage.
“Ah. I don’t recall this scene from Four Weddings and a Funeral” the Baron remarked acidly. He put down his glass of champagne and rose to meet the assembled massed superheroes of the Parodyverse. “Do come in. Sit anywhere you can find a seat. There are plenty of chunks of rubble.”
The heroes looked at the tableau they had found somewhat amazed. Seated beside Zemo, enjoying a quiet drink until somebody took a wall out, were Jarvis and Melissa.
Clearly quite a lot had happened between scenes.
“You can relax, guys,” Jarvis reported. “Lissie’s OK. Somehow she talked the Baron out of the whole plan.”
“You did?” Lisa asked, sceptically. Zemo was not renowned for listening to a reasoned argument.
“The young lady pointed out that I was unique,” the masked villain explained.
Melissa provided the full story. “He intended to freeze me and to horribly disfigure Ti..Jarvis. All I did was point out that then there would be two insane, scarred, characters who had frozen wives in the Parodyverse, and that Zemo therefore wouldn’t be quite as special anymore.”
“And… he went for this?” Foom asked.
“Incredible, isn’t it?” Jarvis admitted, happy merely to have Melissa safe and sound and back with him again. Of course, this would mean yet another marriage ceremony. His third, if he remembered correctly. “What are the odds of Melissa hitting on the one argument that would convince the Baron not to go ahead with his villainy?”
“Pretty high,” admitted Lisa, glancing across at the smug looks that Chronicler and Shaper were exchanging. She remembered Jarvis’ bride being momentarily touched by the power of Galactivac a while ago, when the Living Death that Sucks had been intent on transforming her into the probability-altering Scarlet Melissa. But surely none of that power had remained in the woman?
“Tomorrow I shall conquer the planet and slay you all,” Baron Zemo warned the Lair Legion. “For now, I simply command you to raise your glasses and join me in a toast. To Jarvis and Melissa.”
“To Jarvis and Melissa,” the guests echoed, for once willing to follow the bidding of the archvillain of the Parodyverse.
“So… about that broken LMD bride…” Rocket Racoon ventured.

The Hooded Hood, who wasn't discouraged strongly enough from doing this. I hope the details and motivations are acceptable. Anyway, congratulations once again. Here's my (cheap) wedding present.