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Untold Tales of the Lair Legion: Insert Interesting Title Here
Saturday, 16-Oct-1999 16:26:43
    203.29.113.3 writes:

    #25: Untold Tales of the Lair Legion: Insert Interesting Title Here

    It was the Lair Legion’s most embarrassing moment. At least this week.
    Dazzling advocatrix Lisa Waltz had been captured after extracting vital information from the computers of international terrorist Maximillian Deathspoon. Held prisoner on Deathspoon’s Caribbean island, forced to sunbathe, drink Pina Coladas, and be served on hand and foot, the first lady of the Lair Legion had eventually freed herself from a power-inhibiting collar, ruthlessly questioned Goomtar (or whoever he was) of the Order of the Observing Eye (a guest on the island), and faced down Deathspoon’s elite security forces. Then she had summonsed help from her allies in the Abandoned Legion.
    Lisa’s never-explained gift was to teleport by subpoena anybody she named to her. In this case she chose her partners in the operation to extract the hard drive from Deathspoon’s Monte Carlo headquarters computer core, the shadowy team of Cap, Cobra, the Sorceress, and Hunter Victorious. What she hadn’t known was that they had been captured by Baron Zemo and they arrived unconscious, shackled, and beaten up worse than the time Jarvis had fallen in with The Man Who Wasn’t There over the winning lottery ticket.
    So Lisa had stretched her powers to the limit and pulled in her usual friends in the world’s premiere superhero team, the Lair Legion. As the leering guards had closed in around her there were the telltale flashes as the nine Legionnaires currently on the planet blinked in around them: NTU-150, Fin Fang Foom, Dark Knight, Hatman, Starseed, Banjooooo, Goldeneyed, Donar, and Avatar.
    But this was a different team to the one she had expected. The regular Lair Legion didn’t wear as much chunky full body armour usually, except for NTU-150, and he appeared to be wearing armour over his armour. It was all definitely of NTU-150’s design however, as it reacted badly to the summonsing energies and short circuited, blowing out backpacks and power grids and sending electrical shocks through the groin areas of the battlesuits. Donar fell over and couldn’t get up again. The rest were just immobilised.
    “Ooops!” Enty gulped. “Maybe cross-linking the energy matrices to my master-unit wasn’t a good concept.”
    Deathspoon’s mercenaries laughed and levelled their laser cannons at the frozen heroes’ heads.
    Lisa sighed. If you wanted a thing doing you really should do it yourself. “Guards,” she called, “Eccentric Escargot!”
    At the sound of the employer-loyalty-failsafe-codewords which the trained-for-hire-by-supervillains minions had been implanted with the guards all slumped to the floor. Dark Knight glided out from the shadows behind Lisa. “Very impressive,” he judged, looking down at the sixty fallen guards and at the empty DK-150 armour which he had never actually been wearing. “But if you had their Azrael codes why did you bother summoning help?”
    There was a golden light as G-Eyed teleported out of his frozen armour, and a little dance as he put out the small fire smouldering in the seat of his uniform. There was a rending sound and Donar got out of his Thunderbox-150 outfit with an almighty muscle flex. “I just wanted to see these bad guys get their asses kicked by superheroes,” explained Lisa. “I got the codeword out of Goombar as a backup in case my summonsing powers didn’t come back in time. I should have known better. What the hell is going on?”
    Starseed-150’s helmet splintered open with a mighty GAAAAHHHHHH!!!!! sound. “Temporary leader NTU-150 thought we would all be more buff in battle armour,” the Gah! Master within said sourly.
    “Temporary leader,” Donar emphasised. “Verily yon armoured contrivance hath pinched mine butt one time too many.”
    Fin Fang Foom shapechanged out of his Dragon-150 suit.
    “Um, could someone help me out, please?” Hatman called. “Only this helmet I’ve got on is giving me all the powers of a broken cybernetic battlesuit.”
    Dark Knight efficiently trashed the Hatmaster-150 while Donar pounded Banjoooo’s Techshrimp-150 to pieces and Starseed released the avatarmoured Avatar from his additional exo-shell. Lisa called G-Eyed over to begin evacuation of the injured Abandoned Legion. NTU-150 began considering designs for the next generation of Legion battlewear.

    If the Lair Legion were having a bad day, Deathspoon’s Monte Carlo casino security forces were having a worse one.
    “Alpha two to alpha one… are you there? Come in alpha one… anybody? Help! I’m in duct 37/blue. I think it’s got Morty… and Chavez. I think it’s stalking me now. I think… oh Chr-------!”
    “Alpha two? Alpha two, respond! Respond! Alpha two?”

    It wasn’t the proudest moment in Baron Zemo’s life either. “So in summary,” he said quietly, marching up and down in front of his minions the Scourge of the BZL, “Four helpless prisoners slated for interrogation, torture, and then death, have escaped from my castle because the security grid was down, and because the super-powered guards whom I keep on a very generous retainer were incapable of stopping them, nein?”
    “It wasn’t like that, boss…” began Wonderbooster, but shut up and started screaming as Zemo activated his pain inducer.
    “Zemo, I have something here,” Moo called from the laboratory. “You’d better look at this.”
    “I shall be back to turn off your pain induction implants later,” the Baron told the writhing villains on the floor. “If I remember.”
    The diabolical Dr Moo was in the secondary lab with her irritating houseguest, the alien Pierson’s Porter. It was the average-looking but immensely smug extraterrestrial that spoke. “I’ve used some of my own advanced technology to reboot your primitive human systems,” he explained to Zemo. “I was able to recover most of the files that Hunter Victorious thought he’s wiped from your systems, although you’ll need to reload your prototype HELLIE system when you want to finally use it. But I did discover something else interesting…”
    The Baron was less than happy with the alien poking round his archives, but he held his tongue while Pierson’s Porter was giving away information. “This is an erased input from one of the security monitors from a little while back,” Moo explained, bringing up a picture of a mundane door on the monitor. “It’s… it’s our broom closet.”
    The bovine mastermind turned up the sound. “Aaahhh… ooohhh… aaaahhhh… oh, lover… mmmmmmm!”
    Zemo frowned at his two occasional allies. “You two were in… my closet?”
    “Absolutely not!” Moo snapped. “That’s Space Ghost’s closet away from home.”
    Zemo frowned more. “So the male… participant… is Space Ghost?” the audio track indicated a rattle of brooms and a last happy sigh. “Then who is the other?”
    “Keep listening,” PP advised.
    “That was great, honey,” SG panted from behind the cupboard door. “I’ve never had cupboard love so good.”
    “Next time we’ll try your closet at the Lair Mansion,” a woman’s voice promised. “It’ll be easy to manufacture an alarm to get those dopes off on a mission somewhere.”
    “Yeah. They’d get all disapproving if they knew about us. But hey, it’s love. I can’t help it that you’re the wife of a Legionnaire, can I, snookums?”
    And there the retrieved tape fragment hissed to back to static.
    “Very interesting,” Baron Zemo agreed. “Very interesting indeed.”

    “Security Team Delta, lock and load flamethrowers and prepare to engage. Control, we’re entering duct 17/green at port 12/omega. We’ve got a trace on the infra-red and we’re moving to contain the intruder.”
    “Confirmed, Team Delta leader. Be careful.”
    “After what happened to alpha, beta, and gamma teams? You better believe it. Okay boys, let’s flush this critter out and nail it’s ass.”
    “Sure boss. Uh… boss? Why does a casino need all these badly-lit crawl-spaces and pipe tunnels with mesh grilles anyway?”
    “Shut up, Ridley. Just keep your flamethrower ready. It’s not getting me like it did Hogan and Pescato. I’m ready for th--------!”
    “Boss? boss!”
    “Over there! I saw something over there!”
    “Flame it! Flame it!”
    “It’s coming straight through the flames. It’s coming! Aaaaggghhhh!”
    “Security Team Delta? Delta? Oh shit, not another one.”

    “I don’t think you understand, sugar-tush,” Meggan Foxxx said to the sweating, polite young security guard behind the desk outside Dan Drury’s office. The exotic dancer leaned right over the console and her 48-DD frontispiece was sweeping papers off the work-surface. “I ain’t a flower-headed nice-guy superhero like l’il spiffy here. I’m a mother who’s lost her boy and I’m going to find out where he is if I have to take you, your helicarrier, and the whole of this SPUD turkey outfit to pieces to find him. Do I make myself completely clear?”
    “I’d listen to her,” spiffy advised. “The last time Baron Zemo threatened CrazySugarFreakBoy! she pushed old Zemie through the Portal of Pretentiousness. Poor guy ended up fronting a night club in Vegas.”
    “I’d just watch her,” DarkHwk added happily, sitting on one of the waiting area chairs and watching Meggan bend over the desk to take the security guard by the lapels and shake him. “We should get more assignments like this.”
    “Whut the ding-dang sam-hillin’ deuce is goin’ on out here?” a rough, tough voice thundered. Everybody turned to see a fit-looking eye-patched man in perhaps his early fifties chewing on a cigar and leaning in the doorway to his office like an old wolf who’s been woken from a dream about lambing time.
    “Ah, Mr Drury, sir,” spiffy flinched. “We’ve been trying to get an appointment with you for the last few days, to ask if you could help with the whereabouts of…”
    “Where’s my little boy, Colonel?” Meggan asked with intense focus.
    “Ah, Colonel Drury,” DarkHwk interrupted hastily. “Perhaps I should do some introductions. This is…”
    “Meggan Foxxx, aka Melanie Hastings, aka Dreamcatcher Foxglove’s proud mom,” the Director of SPUD interrupted. “Yeah, I read ‘er file and I caught all her movies. I’m a big fan. Pleased to meetch’a Ms Hastings; but I don’t know where your boy is, I’m afraid.”
    “My Abandoned Legion are missing as well,” spiffy interrupted. “We know you sent them on some top-secret mission with Lisa – who’s also missing – and we need to know…”
    “Check in wit’ your office sometime, ferny,” Drury broke in. “Lisa and her partners just came home about an hour ago. All yer missin’ persons problems are solved, except fer CrazySugarFreakBoy!. An’ from whut I understand, you guys misplaced him off-plane somewhere.”
    DarkHwk used the internal radio in his mystical armour. “It’s true,” he reported. “Lisa’s back. They went on a mission to infiltrate some underworld casino and it went wrong when Zemo got involved. But they’re back now.”
    “Why does nobody tell me these things?” complained spiffy.
    “’Cause you’re not significant in the big scheme of things?” Drury suggested helpfully. “Look Ms Hastings, I wish I could help wit’ yer missing kid. If’n we git any info I’ll give you a call. In fact, whether we get info or not, I’d be mighty happy to have a hold of your phone number, ma’am.”
    Drury was neither shy nor pushy about it. He wasn’t overawed by her legendary sexual history or obviously titillated by her experiences in the porn industry. He was the most confident, direct, devastatingly handsome man Meg had met since… well, since CSFB!’s father. Meggan actually blushed.
    “I’ll call ya,” Drury promised.

    “So you’ve used cyanide gas, flamethrowers, high energy tazers, and hypersonics and this thing’s just laughed them all off?” Maximilian Deathspoon recapped as he read the frightened and confused reports of the remains of his casino security force. “We’re hosting the most important conference of criminal masterminds ever assembled on the planet and you can’t even deal with one intruder in the ductwork? Get me a power absorption grid and a stasis generator. Then get out of my way.”
    “How many of the guys d’ya want to back you up, sir?”
    “Back up? I am Deathspoon the Assassin. I don’t require back-up. Open the duct.”

    “This is important tactical information,” the Dark Knight considered as he heard Lisa’s story. “We now know that this Order of the Observing Eye is actually preparing the superhero community for some apocalyptic event prophesied in the Second Book of Wilbur Parody.”
    “Who was himself a former Chronicler of Stories,” Goldeneyed reminded the team. “The Observing Eye never mentioned any of this to me when they were training me. Did they say anything to you, Exile?”
    Exile, newly returned from Amazon Isle, shrugged. “I never got good enough grades to make it to the masterclass. We could try and find out where some of the hotshot students like Exemplary got posted and see if they know.”
    “We also know that their programme may have been compromised,” Dark Knight continued. “Deathspoon was an Observing Eye alumnus, and it turns out that he was the Hooded Hood’s son. No wonder he turned to evil.”
    “I’ve been thinking about that,” puzzled Lisa. “It seems too… simple. This is the Hooded Hood we’re talking about. He more or less set off an interdimensional invasion to prevent Troia finding out who her brother was, yet we uncover the truth based on a leak to SPUD? I’m not sure about that.”
    Fin Fang Foom put down the jotter he was writing on and leaned forward. “None of this answers the immediate mystery,” he pointed out. “Which is, what happened to the data that Lisa and the AL extracted from Deathspoon’s mainframe. Spoony thought the Abandoned Legion had it. Zemo thought Lisa had got it. But where did it really go?”
    “Oh, I entrusted it to someone to keep it safe,” smiled the first lady of the Lair Legion. “Mind you, he’ll be well miffed I’ve neglected him for so long. And hungry.”
    “You can’t mean…” scowled Dark Knight.
    “Can’t mean what?” Banjoooooo demanded.
    “I summons my lovely, soft and soppy puss-cat,” Lisa called out, holding open her arms.

    “Deathspoon here. I thought I had the whatever-it-was cornered, but it’s teleported out. I caught the residual energy signature. All that’s left are five dead rats and a furball.”
    “What was it sir? Will it be back?”
    “I don’t know, dammit. But I’m going to find out.” Deathspoon would not make the association between a feral monster in his pipework and Lisa’s indestructible ginger cat for some time yet. Then he would shout for a while.
    As the assassin passed swiftly and carefully along the duct one of the shadows behind him allowed itself to breathe. Then the dark silhouette slipped off to continue it’s mission. The security forces had been able to track and almost corner a disreputable feline. Messenger was an entirely more dangerous intruder.

    “So who the hell are you?”
    “I’m you, Izzy. Or rather, I’m the ghost you became after you died in Dream’s reality, the ghost you would have become if you hadn’t been artificially plucked from your true history and used a s a pawn in the Hooded Hood’s game. Or I’m a figment of Dream’s grief-scarred imagination. Take your pick.”
    “I see. And why are you here exactly, Izzy?”
    “I’ve been keeping an eye on Dream, and I thought you were both a bit out of your depth, frankly, Izzy. So I hitched a lift when the Hooded Hood sent you through that Portal of Pretentiousness. I hadn’t expected you’d be able to see me. Usually only Dream can.”
    “Hey, if I can’t see my own ghost what kind of idiot am I? Besides, if this is Hell that that Hooded bastard’s sent us to, it’s not a place for flesh and blood bodies anyway. We’re all kind of spirits here, aren’t we?”
    “Good point Izzy. I can see why HH decided on you – me - whatever for a guide for young CrazySugarFreakBoy. Speaking of which, where has he wandered off to while we were working out the plot?”
    The Izzies looked around. Hell wasn’t quite how they expected it. “It’s a wild guess,” living Izzy said to ghost Izzy, “but I’d say he went into that comic shop.”
    The girls made their way into Liefield’s Revenge, the speciality comics store for the undiscerning fanboy. “Since when does hell have comic shops?” ghost Izzy asked.
    “Since now,” CrazySugarFreakBoy shuddered. “Look at this place. Look at the stuff they stock, and the prices. Look at how all the old Fox and Kirby stuff has had its pages torn out by the censors. Look at the anti-browsing barbed wire. And… well, every bully who ever beat me up in school is in here somewhere hiding down the back-issue aisles.” Dreamcatcher Foxglove was visibly shaken. “This isn’t what the last hell I was in was like. Or the one before. Hell should have lava lakes and brimstone and badly-drawn rocks, and demons…”
    “Good afternoon,” the middle-aged man in the crumpled sweaty business suit greeted them. His name tag designated him the Manager of Liefield’s Revenge. “I’m your designated tempter for today. How may I torment you?”
    “We’re just browsing,” living Izzy told the oozing shopkeeper.
    He looked down at her with puritanical disapproval for her mode of dress, her speech, her lifestyle choices, everything. Isabel Shapiro was reminded of all those years of parental disapproval, all those years that society had branded her with bad, bad names. “Lying. Yes, that was one of the things that earned your place here, young lady. One of very many things, of course.”
    “What do you mean?” Dream demanded, catching the undertones of the Manager’s comments. “What place here?”
    “Oh, Isabel understands, don’t you, my little sinner? Isobel and Hell have been old acquaintances, or she wouldn’t be a good guide for you. It’s all in Dante if only you ever bothered to read anything but that comics trash your mother let you become addicted to. We’ve all had Isobel down here before. We’re waiting to have her again.”
    “Back off, slimo!” ghost-Izzy warned, stepping between the manager and living-Izzy. “We didn’t ask to be caught is a Judaic guilt system that punishes nonconformity and the reactions we make to life treating us like crap!”
    “Izzy is due to go to hell?” CSFB! realised. “Izzy? She’s the nicest, kindest, finest person ever.” He thought about this for a while. “Uh-uh. Not happening. We’re going to get this thing the Hooded Hood wanted then I’m gonna kick some Mefothtean butt.”
    “Ah, so you are searching for something,” the Manager smarmed. “And if it’s any help, I can tell you that all of hell is contained in my humble little comics store. Please feel free to wander it’s aisles in desperate search of what you seek. Hell is full of seekers, but we always have room for a few more. And it’s the least I can do considering our… special relationship, Dreamcatcher.”
    There was an unpleasant twist in the tone which made CSFB!’s stomach turn. “What do you mean?” he asked nervously.
    “You don’t just get a random designated tempter, my boy. Hell is not a lottery. Hell is very, very specific. When I heard you were coming how could I allow anybody else to lead you to destruction?”
    Dreamcatcher Foxglove looked carefully at the sweaty store manager for the first time. “Do I know you?” he asked.
    “Probably not,” the businessman smiled back, “but I knew your mother very very well. You can call me grandfather.”

    “So how is everybody being to be now?” Yo asked brightly. The infirmary at the Lair Mansion was currently out of action after the experimental new blood-pressure testing equipment installed a few days ago has released super-heated mercury vapour that had triggered a catastrophic reaction with the x-ray disassemblor. The fallen Abandoned Legionnaires had therefore been laid out on the couches in the main lounge. Attempts by Lisa to have Cap carried to her bed for resuscitation had been firmly overruled by new acting League chairman Banjoooooo. Since the King of the Sea Monkey’s edict that henceforth he was to be addressed as “most glorious and sagacious leader-man Banjooooo,” the new new acting chairman of the Lair Legion was Hatman. The capped crusader was already off in his room designing logos for the team hats.
    Yo joined Lisa, Tina, spiffy, and Avatar in the kitchen.
    “Well, Paste Pot Pete’s probably the healthiest member of the team,” spiffy reported. “Cap’s going to be OK if we can afford the dentistry bills. He’s pretty tough. I think he takes being beaten up and tortured as part of the job description. In fact he’s probably thinking he deserved it because he let the team get captured. Cobra’s healing already but I think we might have a problem with her attitude. She seems… angrier than before.”
    “Now that is scary,” Tina admitted. “Hunter Victorious had me do a telepathic scan of him. He said he wanted to know the truth about his relationship with Hollywood V once and for all.”
    “And is Huntering Victoriously to be the same as Hollywooding V?” Yo was curious to know.
    The Lair Legion’s consulting telepath shrugged. “Damned if I know. There’s a sort of façade inside his mind with an entirely false series of memories. That’s what Zemo’s mind-probe was seeing. Even Hunter Victorious knows those are false. But there’s a lot more in there that we just can’t access.”
    “So we just don’t know about HV and, um, HV?” spiffy asked.
    Tina frowned. “I got the sense of a very deep purpose. There’s something Hunter Victorious has to do. Something he has always had to do. Something he’s tried and tried to do and always failed at. But that’s all I can see.”
    “Unfulfilled purpose is a terrible thing,” Avatar declared suddenly, and walked off.
    “And what about Sorceress?” Lisa asked.
    “Sorceress is just fine, thank you,” the young woman herself said, breezing in through the door. “Sorceress is very fine indeed.. Good morning!”
    “You’re sure you’re OK, Minxie?” Lisa checked. “Cap told us that they’d unleashed the Dream Demon on you.”
    The Sorceress snapped her fingers. “That for the Dream Demon. I could have him for breakfast – but I think I’ll go for Weetabix instead. A girl’s got to keep her strength up, you know.”
    The others in the kitchen watched in amazement as the formerly-comatose magic-wielder breezed round to the fridge, helped herself to milk and cookies, and almost danced out onto the rear veranda. “If I didn’t know better,” Lisa puzzled, “I’d swear that she’d had sex.”
    “She did have a certain… mental glow,” Tina admitted. She yawned. Her own night had been filled with assisting NTU-150, DarkHwk, and Zebulon trying to decrypt the data on Deathspoon’s computer core, retrieved by Donar after only an hour’s struggle from the collar of Lisa’s cat.
    “Cute Sorceress is to be leaving her poetry-writing book behind,” Yo pointed out. He/she picked up the little spiral-bound notepad that Whitney recorded her inspirations in. “Yo likes to read what cute Sorceress is to be writing… oh.”
    Tina and Lisa gathered behind Yo to look at the words that Sorceress had inscribed:     ‘Tonight I feel like I could write forever, spool you from my fingertips in a sweet rush of resonant syllable and taste your text on the page.. How long I’ve been alone this way is nothing but hours, but since I have entered the sleeping dragon’s mouth and returned, who knows? Hours behind the door, hours inside myself, because I am you. So smooth, the attic door against my face. Lips touch grain, fine as feathers. I won’t stop looking for a way, I won’t stop seeking out the voice that comes down to me at night, lonely, seeking, cool and needing much touching.
    I wonder are the thoughts I pen tonight mine.. or yours? Do you dream where you are? Do you dream of me, do you see our time around you like a blanket? It warms me, too. I slip fingers down the pen, through wet silk ink, trace your name on the page.. But I mark through it quickly, should she find this page and find me out –
    How can I keep locking a door that should be flung wide? Goodnight, dear watcher. I love you.’

    The literature that Moira was examining was of a very different genre. She sat cross-legged on Finny’s bed reading the sheets of paper he had laid out in front of her. “You have a definite feel for superheroes,” she commented, laying down the last page of the script. “You have the necessary sense of dramatic pacing and epic narrative.”
    “So you liked it?” Fin Fang Foom checked, looking up from his terminal. In a very short time Moira’s approval had become important to him.
    “Hey, you know I’m a fan,” she smiled. He liked how she always pushed her hair back behind her ear before she laughed. “I came along to another dimension to read your stories, didn’ae I? That’s got to suggest I find some merit in them.”
    Finny decided it was time to ask. “About that. Pardon my inquisitiveness, but are you… well, are you human? I don’t know anything about you really, except that you were being offered up as some kind of sacrifice when I rescued you. And that you bear an uncanny resemblance to a Princess I once rescued in this imaginary world the Hooded Hood once sent me to. But I couldn’t help notice that you’ve not eaten or drunk anything in the three days you’ve been here… or slept for that matter.”
    Moira laughed again. “I’m no more human than you are, Makluan. And no less so. I’m a faerie lass from the mythlands, and mortal food would be poison to me. I take my shape from your imagination, which is why I look familiar. When I visit your world I survive on, well, on stories really. I exist to inspire. Look at how much stuff you’ve turned out in the last few days, and how good it is. Everybody writes better when they’re writing for somebody, and right now you’re writing to keep me alive.”
    “Alive?”
    Now Moira looked grave again for a moment. She crossed her hands over her breasts and shuddered. “This world isn’t able to support fantasy creatures any more. Not for long. Too much iron, too much disbelief. I came with you because I really, really wanted to hear your stories, Fin; but it was a grave risk I took, because if those stories don’t sustain me I shall fade into oblivion.” She gave him a brave smile. “So make ‘em good, huh? Make ‘em the best things you’ve ever written.”
    Fin Fang Foom couldn’t remember a woman risking her life for him before; certainly not for his writing. “What shall I write?” he asked, helplessly.
    The red-haired lass considered this. “I don’t think you’ve yet done a definitive origin for yourself, have you?” she asked. “Not one worthy of the narrative you’re building. Write me ‘The Coming of Fin Fang Foom’,” she suggested. “Make it the best thing you’ve ever done.”
    The dragon turned thoughtfully towards his keyboard.

    The Lair Legion, the Abandoned Legion, CSFB, Deathspoon’s Security Forces had all had pretty tough moments in the last few days. But none of them were going to have such a painful, unpleasant time as the nasty youths who had just cornered an old hobo in a Gothametropolis alleyway and were preparing to douse him in lighter fluid for fun.
    The urban legend came out of nowhere, filling the shadows with a darker slab of menace. “Step away from the man,” he warned the thugs. It was their only warning.
    “Sh*t! It’s the Dark Knight!” one of the youths breathed.
    Cutter must have been more whacked out on the PCP than the others, because he was still convinced they could all walk away. “Hold it, cape-guy!” he warned the crimefighter. A trembling blade touched the hobo’s throat. “One step nearer and I’ll slice this bum! I swear it!” The rest of the gang took courage from the hostage situation and reached for their own weapons. The rep of the boys who took out the Dark Knight would be unassailable.
    “You had your chance,” Dark Knight told them. “Now you die.”
    “You… you don’t kill people,” one of the thugs answered, suddenly less confident of his facts.
    “No,” the Dark Knight answered evenly. “Messenger kills people. Not me. Then again, I’m not the one you put that knife to the throat of.”
    Cutter gave a scream as the razor letter severed the nerves and the artery of his wrist in one swift movement. The old hobo had somehow transformed into a fast-moving grim blur of violence and vengeance. Before the gang knew what was happening the Dark knight was also in amongst them; and then their painful, unpleasant evening began in earnest.
    “Thank you for keeping the body bags to a minimum,” the Dark Knight said afterwards.
    “No problem. When in Rome do as the Romans and all that,” Messenger answered. “How’s the Lair Legion?”
    “Chaotic, undisciplined, bickering, naive, and self-indulgent,” DK replied. “Same as usual. Currently dickering about who will we the leader since Jarvis’ self-sacrifice. If they’re smart they’ll offer it to Foom, but I think in the end it’ll be Visionary.”
    “Visionary? Is it that bad?”
    The Dark Knight shrugged. “Did you get the information?” he asked at last.
    “I think Lisa beat me to it. Whatever Deathspoon’s planning is on that computer core she lifted. The underworld is definitely up to something. They’re gathered to elect a new godfather, but I don’t know how yet. I do know it’s due to happen about a month from now.”
    The Dark Knight brooded on this. “We have to know. After all this time we’re still only doing damage control on crime. We have to start making inroads, send a message.”
    “Well, I’m the Messenger,” the psychotic postman pointed out. “You keep covertly supplying me with funds and equipment, I’ll get to the bottom of this eventually. How many of the Legion know about our little arrangement?”
    “None of them. I try not to let the Legion know my business. Foom might have guessed but he seems preoccupied with some woman he dragged back with him from the mythlands. He’s writing her stories! The rest are all too busy derring and doing to see the big picture.”
    “Same time next week then?”
    “Yes. Let’s hope we get bonus thugs at that meeting as well.”

    The rainstorm lashed the waves right over the parapet of the road-bridge which crossed the bay to the barren rock where Herringcarp Asylum jutted from the troubled sea. At the perfect dramatic moment the whole scene was illuminated by a sheet of lightning, revealing the gothic gables and fantastic turrets of the Victorian insane institution. Perhaps it was the wind that creaked open the gates for ManMan’s battered car to make it’s way to the big house.
    “Thisisbadthisisbadthiosisbadthisisbadthisisbad.”
    “Shut up, Knifey,” Joe Pepper told his sentient weapon. “I know this is the most grossly stupid thing we’ve ever done, but frankly I’m pretty desperate not to become the bride of the Devil as well. Or for Mefrothto to claim Troia. So just keep quiet and hope we don’t get retconned into Care Bears or something.”
    “He’s my father. He’d never do anything bad to me,” Troia 215 said uncertainly.
    “He’s not my father,” ManMan pointed out.
    The car stalled right outside the main door. The Elvis impersonator and the Amazon administrator hurried to get to the relative shelter of the portico. Troia pulled the bell and the door was opened immediately.
    “You rang?” Flapjack leered. “Ah, Miss Troia, Mr Deadmeat. The Hooded Hood is waiting for you in his study.”

    Next time: Troia introduces ManMan to her father, CrazySugarFreakBoy!’s desperate choice, Space Ghost’s secret lover comes out of the closet, the rampage of Visionary, and the assemblage of the villains who will participate in the Acts of Ambition.

    By the way, everybody is welcome to suggest minor Parodyverse bad guys who could join in on the coming free-for-all against the LL. Thanks.

    Special contest: Name this chapter Untold Tales. The author couldn’t think of a good title, so now it’s up to you, the reader. Hey, if comic books can do name the letter page contests why can’t we do a name the issue game? Go for it.


    A slice of daily superhero life from the Hooded Hood

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Untold Tales of the Lair Legion: Insert Interesting Title Here (A slice of daily superhero life from the Hooded Hood) (16-Oct-1999 16:26:43)

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