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Untold Tales of the Lair Legion: Bring on the Bad Guys Sunday, 31-Oct-1999 14:40:26
Note: Previous chapters of this story (which began in Untold Tales #18) are available on The Hooded Hood's Homepage of Doom. #27: Untold Tales of the Lair Legion: Bring on the Bad Guys Heinrich Zemo stood in a room of memories. The walls were draped with swastika flags, with old plans and older photographs. On the desk was a sepia print of Zemo shaking the Fuhrer’s hands. And in the trophy cabinet were the skulls of a long line of enemies and would-be heroes who had found to their cost that Baron Zemo wasn’t as ridiculous a villain as he sometimes appeared. You don’t want to know about the lampshades. “Personal log, begin recording,” Zemo called out. Unseen secure systems whirred into action, recording his words and images as he spoke. “Events unfold to my design as if the world was already under my complete command. The lesser criminals have assembled to appoint a grandmaster. Of course they offered me the role and after I declined they sought my permission to empower another. Deathspoon the Assassin is playing a clever game and has convinced the others to elect their leader through a most interesting means. He proposes a contest beginning tomorrow to see who can eliminate the most members of the Lair Legion. I can only assume that he expects to have the inside track in this endeavour.” The fate of the Lair Legion no longer concerned Zemo since the death of its founder Jarvis. He passed on to more interesting material. “Whilst this contest may be of minor interest in determining the abilities and competence of those criminals whom I will one day have to destroy for my new world order and might even weed out one or two of the less able ones – Roni Y. Avis comes to mind – I remain convinced that there are deeper issues behind it. I sense the hand of my old rival the Hooded Hood behind current events, and discerning his purpose is a always an intellectual challenge.” “Let us see. The Hood seduces the Amazon Queen Rigantona and begets two children by her. When she unexpectedly returns to the Amazons who exiled her for her infidelity and sacrifices her life to save them from the Dread Dormaggadon the Hood sends the twins away through time and space. His Amazon ploy served his purpose in that he was able to abscond with the Portal of Pretentiousness which was Dormaggadon’s only window from his gods-forged Dimension of Exile.” Zemo recalled recent events now. “Troia was returned to Amazon Isle by the Order of the Observing Eye, where she was raised with other orphaned girl-children without anyone suspecting her lineage. The male child… now the male child is a mystery. The Observing Eye believe him to have grown to be Deathspoon the Assassin, but that seems to be a very simple solution to a secret the Hood has long struggled to conceal. So is Deathspoon the Hood’s son, and is the Hood behind Deathspoon’s Acts of Ambition Legion-slaying gambit?” The Baron paused for a while to reflect on this. But there was more. “Troia was used as a means of the Hooded Hood gaining access to the Secret at the Centre of the Parodyverse. But after that plan failed – because the Hood was too soft to annihilate the degenerate and sluttish Lisa – Troia left to discover her lineage and her brother. Information anonymously sent to the Super-menace Principal Undercover Directorate at the same time coincidentally points to Deathspoon as Troia’s brother. Troia’s investigations trigger a second Dormaggadon invasion, and this time he is inadvertently destroyed by a bizarre series of mischances – the Hooded Hood’s trademark. Mefrothto takes advantage of the interdimensional upheaval to plan his own invasion, and manipulates a contract of indentured marriage with the Hood’s daughter, presumably to exploit the Hood’s faint-heartedness and force him to yield to save her.” Zemo spun around suddenly. “Of course! Yes, that’s it! The Hooded Hood wanted Mefrothto to commit himself to an invasion, to devote his time and efforts to conquering our world. And while the so-called Prince of Fibs is laying his traps here, the Hood sends the irritating CrazySugarFreakBoy into Hell to retrieve something important. Very clever indeed.” “So now the questions remain: is the Hooded Hood playing two games with Deathspoon and Mefrothto, or are both part of some larger plan? And who is the Hooded Hood’s real son?” Zemo bent his devious mind to probe further. Blofish completed his inspection of the giant shredder and peered over at his senior traps architect. “You may live,” he told him. “Thank you, Supreme Commander, a thousand thank yous,” the timid little man grovelled. Being the death-room designer for the international spy organisation BALD wasn’t much of a career but it was all he had. And the retirement plan was a great inspiration to keep coming up with larger and more bizarre giant props. This time the designer had outdone himself. Admittedly it had blown the entire operations budget for the next five years, but Blofish was determined to win the contest which had been declared to establish grandmastership over the cabal of major villains. Hence the seven miles of death-trapped tunnels, booby-trapped rooms, and fiendish puzzles which were guaranteed to polish off even the bravest team of superheroes. The designer would – had – bet his life on it. “Of course, there is the matter of how to actually get the superheroes in here,” the architect ventured. “That is no problem at all,” Blofish snorted, scratching his adamantium fingernails over the great vault door to the deathtrap complex because he could. “I have retained the services of the finest hunter in the world, a man who never fails to retrieve his designated prey. May I introduce to you… the Captor.” A tall shaven-headed man with a livid scar on his right cheek stalked into the room. He took of his pith helmet and made a formal bow to the BALD leader. “You honour me with the commission to hunt the most dangerous game in the world again. It is my pleasure to defeat and deliver this Lair Legion to you.” He held out a set of playing card photographs, each depicting a current legionnaire. “Pick a card. Any card.” “Who are you?” “I am a miserable sinner, a failure of a man who has not lived up to the promise of my creation.” “What do you want?” “I want to be disciplined as is right and proper. I want to obey your every command. I want to be abused and degraded in every way you choose, and to live to serve only you.” Mother Whipcord considered this. “Very well then. We shall overlook your sinful past, your evil deeds with the Devil Doctor, the Hooded Hood, and Baron Zemo. We shall give you a chance for redemption, to feel the sweet leather sting of the holy sisterhood. Crawl over and take your place with your fellow beasts Rottweiler and the Terrier. All of you shall have your chance to serve the Little Sisters of Discipline.” “Thank you, Mother Superior,” grovelled the appalling Appendage Man. “I live to be hurt by you.” Now Whipcord drew herself up to her full height. “Look then, all of you – sisters, servitors – at the apostate novice who has brought shame and dishonour upon our order. The one who must return to our fold for one final, bitter lesson. See the one who calls herself… Lisa!” The chapel was full of the hissing of nuns and the howling of their pets. “And here with her, our other targets,” Mother Whipcord added. “Corrupted hoydens every one, festering in the sesspits of their iniquity. These then are the ones you must destroy. Name our enemies – name them!” “Lisa!” the congregation screamed with venom. “Cheryl! Yo! Tina!” “Release the hounds,” instructed Mother Whipcord. “Let the scourging of the wayward commence.” The rest of the village was burning nicely, so the four people who had torched it took a little time off to pick up a cold drink in the local bar. “I love the smell of burning flesh,” Garbage Man admitted, hefting the flamethrower off his shoulder-harness and popping an original Coke. Out in Africa they still shipped it in the proper-shaped bottles. “It doesn’t do anything for me,” Dr Teeth admitted. “Sometimes I think you might be some kind of weirdo.” Disgusted with his companion’s ghoulishness he went back to sorting out the bag of teeth he had extracted from the rebel villagers. There were a few interesting specimens for his collection. Marker Man was happily crayoning a brief vignette of the scene onto the tavern wall. After all, when the idea is to send a message about the government’s disapproval of unauthorised activities there’s no point being subtle. “It’s been a good day. Did you see that headman’s face as I felt-tipped his daughter? He told me everything before I’d even finished putting on the reds.” English Man returned with another set of chilled bottles. “Good news, chaps,” he told his team, smoothing his immaculate trousers so they wouldn’t crease as he sat down. He waved his mobile phone at them. “Another job.” “Not another scorched earth decimation,” Dr Teeth complained. “Garbage Man here might like them but they don’t leave any decent remains for me to collect. And I’m absolutely sick of cheap amalgam and lead.” “So I like napalm,” the fat man in the grey municipal overalls shrugged. “We’ve all gotta follow our hobbies. You collect teeth, Marker Man draws on people, and I burn things to the ground with sweet, sweet flames. Live an’ let live or somet’ing.” “It’s not another scorched earth job,” English Man promised. “In fact, it’s back to civilisation – well, relative civilisation, the United States.” “The States?” Marker Man frowned. “I thought we avoided the States these days. Ever since we got out butts kicked by the Lair Legion.” “Yeah. We vowed we wouldn’t go back there till we wuz able to kick their butts,” Garbage Man remembered. “That’s why we’ve been doing all these little jobs in nowhere places, honing our skills and techniques until we’re ready for a rematch,” Dr Teeth added. “Unless… you don’t mean…?” “Yes,” smiled English Man. “Jolly good news. The client is Count Fokker of HERPES. Our targets are the legionnaires. In fact, from what I can gather it’s somewhat open season on the Lair Legion. Our challenge is to destroy them before some other blighters beat us to it.” “I have so little superhero dentistry in my collection,” Dr Teeth mused. Garbage Man wobbled to his feet and hefted his flamethrower. “Let’s go fry some Legion butt,” he snarled. In a black marble office lit by horizontal stripes of sunset through Venetian blinds, the fat man in the white business suit swivelled on his specially reinforced chair and pressed his pudgy fingers together. “The rumours are true,” he told his audience. “Baron Zemo has removed his protection from the superheroes of Paradopolis and Gothametropolis York as of noon today. Word will reach the street shortly that I am offering one million dollars per head for any recognised superhero, and even a thousand dollars for spiffy and Visionary.” “You think that your punks can bring the Legion down?” the man in the rusty red armour demanded. “Of course not, Anvil Man,” frowned the Lynchpin. “ Whilst there is always the chance that some minor thug might get lucky the main purpose of the incentive is to have every petty criminal on the Eastern seaboard gunning for the heroes. That way they will be distracted, unable to rest or organise. Thus they will be unable to distinguish between a trivial amateur attempt upon their lives and a serious and deadly assault by enemies who have fought them before and understand their weaknesses.” “That’d be us,” the Confiscator noted. Some said that Deathspoon was the finest assassin in the world. That was because nobody ever hears of a really efficient assassin. None of the Confiscator’s assignments had ever attracted much publicity; nobody survived to give the interviews. “The money ist pretty good,” the beautifully-coiffured alternate-reality Ausgardian Hämmerblade admitted. “I wilt do it.” “Who wouldn’t do it for this kind of money?” Anvil Man asked. “Money does not interest Gromm the Living Flatulence,” the fourth man before the desk disagreed. “Gromm does this only to see the King of the Sea Monkeys, my ancestral enemy, weeping over the corpses of all he has loved.” “Hey, I’m just doing it so Sersi’ll give me a date,” Partycrasher the rogue Austernal shrugged. “A chick’s got to go for the guy who massacred all her current friends, right?” “Your motivations do not interest me,” the Lynchpin told them. “I do not even expect to win the ridiculous contest for grandmastership of the international cartel of villainy. But I do intend to inflict serious damage on the heroes who have held back my business interests for so long. So go forth. A million criminals will be baying for the Lair Legion’s blood by noon tomorrow; but you will shed it.” The quarter-mile long bio-mechanical snake sidled its way across the bottom of the South China Sea. The ever-svelte Velcro-Vixen piloted her hover-jellyfish through it’s open jaws and carefully docked in the restricted area. She led her guest along organo-technic corridors into the laboratory of the sinister Oriental whom the world only knew as the Devil Doctor. “Ah, my retainer, you have returned from your mission,” the disguised dragon noted, putting down the vials whose contents could devastate continents. Hey, I’m on a work-for-hire basis, but that doesn’t make me your serf, China-boy, Vicki Vee wanted to answer. Instead the former model turned supervillainess replied, “Yes, master. There is no maximum security prison in the world that I can’t break someone out of.” “I would not have needed to be broken out,” the handsome, muscular man in black told VelcroVixen and the Devil Doctor,” had it not been for these accursed power-sapping shackles.” He held up his wrists to demonstrate the devices which NTU-150 had designed to restrain him after his last defeat by the Lair Legion. The Devil Doctor gestured and the power-restraints crumbled from the villain’s arms. “It was careless of you to allow yourself to be captured in the first place,” the oriental lectured. “Given that you hail from the future where you were able to leach the abilities of many of the Lair Legion’s descendants you should never have been beaten by those ineffectual meddlers in the first place.” VelcroVixen shot Quake a sympathetic glance before the Devil Doctor turned upon her. “Where is the second of the minions I instructed you to recruit?” “Blackbird wouldn’t come,” VV cringed. “When I got to the cell, he wouldn’t come with me. Said he had plans of his own.” “Who are you calling a minion?” Quake shouted. “I’m happy you busted me out but there’s no way I…” The Devil Doctor cast a glance at the multi-powered man in black and Quake began screaming. He curled into a foetal position begging someone to get the things off him. “I am disciplining VelcroVixen at the moment,” the sinister oriental explained. “You will remain silent.” “I didn’t bring Blackbird because an unwilling ally is worse than none at all,” VV talked fast. “I knew you could enhance Quake here to be far more deadly than before, and he nearly beat the LL last time. So I left it all to your genius. Hey, you know the rest of us can’t compete with you at this, master.” The Devil Doctor considered this. “True,” he said at last. “Between Quake and my other minion I am confident of victory.” The black-masked menace had been released from his hallucinations by now. “Other… minion…?” he gasped. The Devil Doctor gestured. Lights came on in the massive adjacent chamber, reflecting off a sixty-foot long robot. “A little trifle I picked up,” the Devil Doctor shrugged. “It is called the Obliterator.” Starseed knew that something was wrong the moment he touched the handle of his bedroom door. A wave of nausea overcame him and his throat seemed to be constricted by an invisible hand. Poison he thought as he staggered forward into his room. Coating the doorhandle, constricting my throat to prevent me using my Gaaaaahhhh!!! powers… paralysing me… The woman waiting for him inside his room in the Lair Legion’s Mansion picked him up one-handedly and hurled him against the wall. “Hello, Manuel,” she greeted him. Starseed forced his failing body to fumble for the beside lamp, and hurl it at her. She sidestepped it with fluid ease but that gave him enough time to hit the emergency alarm button. Nothing happened. “I took the liberty of having Space Ghost disconnect that,” Lo-Chi explained, kicking the stricken Gah! Master in the head. “He was so eager that we not be disturbed, poor boy. Seemed almost a pity to truss him up in his own broom closet. Wonder if he’s still waiting for me to join him?” Starseed recognised the intruder immediately. Lo-Chi, former wife of the Lair legion’s founder Jarvis and all-round psychopath. But she’d been revealed to be a ruse, a mere distraction set up by an alien race called the Nebulus, so how could she be here kicking the hell out of the Gah! Master? “I see you’re confused,” Lo-Chi declared. “So perhaps now you are fully paralysed I’d better explain.” Starseed glared and tried to concentrate on a way out. “I suppose you’re wondering why I’m here. After all, Jarvis discovered that all the people of Shangri-La were nothing more than the Nebulus in fleshy disguises, myself included. All that he experienced with us at Shangri-La was to manipulate him into locating a mysterious temple linked to the energies which power the Parodyverse, where he was infused with the Jarvis-cosmic and became a hero. And that in turn forwarded our plan to breed a race of future candidates to join the Nebulus.” A nasty idea began to dawn upon Starseed for the first time. “Ah, I see you’re with me,” Lo-Chi smiled cruelly. “You are recalling how a Pittsburgh lad called Manuel survived a car accident and ended up in a similarly-mysterious temple where he became infused with the energies which power the Parodyverse in the form of the Gahhhh! Force. And you are concluding that if Jarvis’ origin and existence was manipulated by the Nebulus then they might have prepared a backup subject in case their first candidate didn’t work out.” Starseed would have frowned if he’d had any facial mobility just then. The Gahhh! force which had filled him then, and the greater energies that transformed him into a being of pure Gahhh! power after his death and resurrection (during the Lecter/Zombie fiasco) had made him the last Gah! Master. He’d had a free boost at the start, but long after those initial powers had worn off he’d retained his mastery over the bizarre vocal power. Had all his efforts really only been furthering the conquest plans of alien marauders who wanted to farm Earth’s superbeings? “I’ll have some instructions for you soon from your new masters,” Lo-Chi told him. “It’s up to you whether you obey them, of course, but do bear in mind that we can cause your Gaaaahhhh! Powers to overload in a multi-megaton explosion annihilating the fifteen million inhabitants of Paradopolis if you choose not to. Oh, and to prevent you discussing naughty things with your Lair Legion cronies…” She turned to the door and opened it to allow the white-costumed figure of Space Ghost enter. “Well, let’s just say our mutual friend here is going to be staying with you at all times, and won’t hesitate to report you if you step out of line. Right, Space Ghost?” “Whatever you say, Lo-Chi,” the superhero in the door answered. And he didn’t look at all funny just then. Starseed had rarely felt so badly stitched up. Moo sauntered into the lounge of the Bridal Suite of the Paradopolis Hilton’s Bridal Suite to find Pierson’s Porter hunched over some of his off-world Puppeteer technology. “How’s it going?” she asked him casually. The average alien shook his head. “Of all the mindless, trivial, boring people on this mindless, boring trivial planet, that man has to be the most mindless, boring, and trivial,” Moo peered over his shoulder. “Roni Y. Avis, the inventor of internet spam?” she recognised. “Isn’t he one of the contestants in that leadership game the crime-lords have got going?” “That’s right,” answered PP. “At the moment he’s finding that a little bit troublesome. Listen.” A twist of a control crystal put the sound from the surveillance remote drone onto speaker. “…the good henchmen have been snatched up already. Damn and blast the time that stupid Amazon island fiasco cost me! The Devil Doctor’s snatched Quake, the Lynchpin’s hired the Confiscator, and what do I have?” Avis’ long-suffering secretary checked her notepad. “The Birthday Bandit, Turbo Treesloth, and a sentient world-conquering sock that claims to be CrazySugarFreakBoy!’s greatest enemy,” she reported. The millionaire spam merchant winced. “Oh boy,” Moo chuckled. “Even Lisa could deal with that kind of line-up. But why are you monitoring Avis?” “Because he’s preoccupied,” Pierson’s Porter explained. “He’s just had one major setback when he was outwitted on Amazon Isle. He’s about to face another while he’s chasing superheroes in this stupid competition.” “And that would be…?” Moo wondered. “I’m going to take over his company and bankrupt him as part of my masterplan to gain legal control over this primitive planet,” PP revealed. “And not even Turbo Treesloth can save him.” Sickly purple vapours rose from the fumarole where the robed acolytes gathered. Their masked and tattooed master was lit by a Satanic red light. “The time has come, my followers,” Dirth Vortex, master of the dark side of the Gah! Breathed raggedly. “Surrender up your lives that the vengeance may once again walk the Earth.” He began to hum then, a rasping gargle that echoed through the souls of his minions and dragged responding chords from their own throats. The bubbling exclamation rose and rose in intensity until the robed acolytes around the pit shivered like epileptics. Then, at one gesture from Dirth Vortex they plunged their daggers into their own hearts. Still the ululation continued, the purple mists twisting around the falling badies, licking at them as the toppled. “Gaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” the dark Gah! Master cried. The cavern was filled with the pungent, sinister fumes and the echoes of the evil cry. When the sounds had finally faded the mists thinned. Instead of the eight fallen men and women, eight new figures emerged from the vapours. “Welcome back from the twilight of defeat, my warriors,” Vortex hissed. “It has been long since you were released to walk the Earth, but now you are free. Go and eliminate those whom you were created to destroy. Your target is the Lair Legion.” “A pleasure, dear boy,” Anti-Yo told him. Anti-Jarvis, Lisa the Chaste, Anti-Visionary, The Man Who’s Always There, NTU-151, Silent Starseed, and the Anti-Space Ghost agreed with him/her. The Demon Lover rose from the bed where the Sorceress’ nude body slept rapped in twisted, sweaty sheets and padded down the corridor of the Lair Mansion’s guest wing. Across the main landing were the quarters of the regular denizens of this place. All was quiet now. The furore about the faked alarm call to Sydney had died down. Space Ghost had staggered his way through some outrageous explanation which everybody had given up on half way through as always, and had been sent to sleep in the toolshed in punishment. So the Demon Lover passed empty darkened corridors, ignored by the sensors and alarms set up precisely to prevent intruders passing along empty and dark corridors. He paused at the dragon’s door. An old habit, he told himself. He no longer had need to knock anywhere. He overwhelmed the lock, disconnected the alarms and the back up alarms and the back-up back-up alarms that the paranoid Makluan had set up on his doorway, and entered. The faerie Moira crouched on the bed over the sleeping Fin Fang Foom. “You willna’e take him, Love-Talker,” she warned. “He isna’e for you.” “I have no interest in your little wyrm,” the Demon Lover shrugged. “I have come to speak with you.” “You sensed my presence even as I could smell your stench,” Moira recognised. “I prefer to think of it as a musky aroma,” the handsome naked man suggested. A shame that this wench was not mortal, or she would now be begging him to take her there over her lover’s sleeping form. “And I have less interest in your opinions of me than my already marginal interest in your quest here. But I can recognise a talent-vampire when I see one, and although you have attached yourself to this dragon-bard to sustain and amuse yourself it is not his death I see in your prophetic eyes. Who are you waiting for, Lhiannon Shee?” “A great hero will be claimed by death,” she agreed. “I am here for the Dark Knight.” The Demon Lover shrugged. “Then I have no further business with you. I won’t wish you joy of your lover. Your love will destroy him, even as you claim his closest friend from him. Is art really important enough to pay the price you demand for it?” “Oh yes,” Moira answered. “Fin Fang Foom might burn out and pass but his words will live forever. Mozart was never more brilliant than in his final fevers. Van Gogh’s self destruction elevated his art to immortality. Tragedy transformed Shakespere from hack to genius. I can do that for Fin Fang Foom. I shall do it.” The faerie woman passed a tender hand over the sleeping Finny’s cheek. “I have a question for you,” she told the Love-Talker. “Is passion truly so overwhelming that a woman might betray her kin, her friends, and all she holds sacred to enjoy it?” “Oh yes,” promised the Demon Lover. “Little Whitney is mine now in body and mind, and soon in soul. And then we shall see what dark raptures wrack the Earth. Oh yes.” And two creatures of mist and darkness parted in the night. ManMan awoke in a bed of black satin sheets as the first rays of sunlight glinted into the sumptuous palace. The warm rays illuminated the Kama Sutra wall-hangings and the mute Nubian slaves that operated as an air-conditioning system. Joe Pepper sat up suddenly, wondering that the Hooded Hood had given him to drink last night. The golden chain around his neck, the one fastening him to the bedpost, chinked. Then he noticed the other lump in the bed, where the other golden chain vanished beneath the sheets. “Er… hello,” he ventured. Amazing Guy woke from his slumber and started screaming. ManMan screamed back. “Where am I? What did you do?” Amazing Guy demanded of ManMan. “Me? Hey, I just woke up like this. How did I get here? Who the hell are you?” “I’m Amaz… um, just call me Tom.” Amazing Guy wasn’t sure it was a good idea to go by his code-name under these rather alarming circumstances. This camp Elvis impersonator might get the wrong idea. “They call me Ma… uh, Joe,” ManMan answered. A superhero name like his was also right for misinterpretation under the wrong conditions. “Have you seen my Knifey?” That could have come out better as well. “Hello, lovers. I see you’ve recovered from your efforts of last night,” a sexy, definitely female voice greeted them. Tom and Joe turned to squint into the dawn to see who had spoken. A beautiful had woman returned from her morning bathe in the Ganges. She was towelling her flaming red hair and made no attempt to cover her superbly-formed body. ManMan’s jaw dropped. “Troia?” he croaked. The woman looked up at them with her glowing green eyes. Akiko Masamune looked at the reports on her desk, sipped her Diet Coke (albeit from a Tang dynasty teacup) and sighed. Things were getting complicated. She wished she had somebody she could talk to about it. As seemed to be the case more and more often these days, the problem was the Lair Legion. In just a few hours the open season on them would commence, and that somehow disturbed her. For one thing, the Lair Legion were no part of her clan, albeit secretly; she felt a certain familial responsibility for them and it would be bad for business, a loss of face if it became known that she had allowed them all to be murdered by her rivals. For another it felt a bit like drowning a bagful of kittens. On the other hand if she did interfere it was tantamount to declaring mob war on the most powerful villains on the planet. And while Akiko had no problem with that per se she couldn’t see any profit whatsoever in it for her. So the pink-clad Manga woman sat and sipped her fizzy drink and ran the whole dilemma through her head round and round again. Then there was a knock on her door. Her major domo announced that a superhero had called to see her, and enquired whether he should have the intruder executed. “A superhero?” Akiko puzzled. “Which one? Show him in.” She was intrigued to see which hero was brave and powerful enough to beard the head of the Yakusa in her own stronghold. “Er, hello Akiko,” began Visionary. “Attend me, Fearwalker!” demanded the Hooded Hood. The dark silhouette detached itself from the shadows of Herringcarp Asylum and slunk to the cowled crime-czar. ` “Things long in the preparation are about to unfold,” the Hood announced. “The Acts of Ambition should keep most of the heroes distracted. The recent injury of Hunter Victorious and the… distraction of Sorceress will keep those two occult luminaries rather preoccupied. Moira should entertain the Makluan and the Dark Knight. Lo Chi should keep Starseed on the hop. And I have prepared a little challenge for Xander the Improbable which he will learn of anon. The Aardvark gambit is well underway. The grandest trap in the Universe is about to be sprung, and it has been set, baited, and released by… the Hooded Hood.” Fearwalker did not reply. It knew what the Hood had done, what he sought to do now, what would become of it all. Fearwalker did not need to comment for all of that to happen. The Hooded Hood allowed himself a crazed, archvillainous laugh and sent the Fearwalker to trigger the holocaust. 11.30am: “Any luck yet, Jaimie?” Tina asked as she popped her head round the door of the laboratory. “Mnh!” NTU-150 replied. His head was deep inside a clunky piece of apparatus and it was doubtful whether he registered the love of his life was there at all. “We’ve very nearly cracked the code on this data disc that the Abandoned Legion recovered,” Zebulon reported. “That’s nice,” Tina answered. I’m going into town shopping with Lisa, Yo, and Cheryl Tina telepathically spoke into Enty’s head. NTU-150 started and there was a shower of sparks and an “aaargh” as he tried to sit up suddenly. Tina went on her way. Her work here was done. 11.40am: “Hello children. Class today’s going to be a little bit different. Today you’re all going to learn to be hostages. Can you spell H-O-S-T-A-G-E?” English Man asked the infants at the Paradopolis Central Kindergarten. “Twenty minutes to go,” Dr Teeth considered. “I’ll start looking up the Lair Legion’s phone number.” 11.45am: spiffy checked his shopping basket. “Grapes for Cap, bananas for Cobra… not sure why Sorceress wanted this large cucumber… bran flakes for HV (can see why he might need them)… Yeah, I guess that’s everything.” He wheeled his trolley towards the exit. The exit exploded. “What the…?” the fern-wielder reeled from the shockwave. Even as he raised his frondic forcefield he was slammed back into the freezer section by a high-impact force beam. Then he was enveloped by black tendrils of living fabric and felt something sharp and painful slam against his chest. The fern reacted automatically, hurling Venom away from spiffy. But the Man Who Wasn’t There suddenly was, his sudden passage disrupting the fern’s force field so that Pegasus could fly in and catch the ferned wonder up. She hurled him across into a microvave pizza stand where he was stunned by a stream of invective from Jam. Spiffy just had time to wonder why the Scourge of the BZL were attacking him before the substitute Grim Reaper’s stun beam paralysed him. Then he could only watch as Wonderbooster slammed him in the face, spinning him backwards into the yoghurt counter. Pegasus glided in for a landing and touched her communicator. “Scourge here. The lettuce is acquired. Repeat, the lettuce is acquired.” “Thank you, Pegasus,” Zemo answered, stalking through the shattered storefront, ignoring the distant wail of sirens. He stalked over to the fallen fern-wielder and stood over the inert spiffy. “Ah,” he smiled beneath his purple mask. “The Hooded Hood tried to conceal him from me… but I have his son at last.” 11.50am: “So Izzy’s not in hell?” Dreamcatcher Foxglove checked again. “Why should she be in hell?” Xander the Improbable shrugged. “It’s all a state of mind anyway. She can’t be in your hell if you aren’t, and she can’t get to her hell from yours.” “So where is she?” Hatman asked, puzzled by all of this. He’d tried figuring it out with a nun’s habit on, but all he’d got was an irresistible urge to form ghetto kids into a contest-winning choir. “She rejected the Hooded Hood’s retcon,” sighed the sorcerer supreme, “so she probably died as she was meant to, whether she thought she would or not. What happens after that depends on which belief-system actually operates in the Parodyverse.” “But does that mean I’ve got to rescue her or not? Is Izzy okay?” CrazySugarFreakBoy! demanded. “Izzy is happy and well and sends her best wishes,” Xander answered in the words of cheap mediums everywhere. “There’s nothing for you to do, young man. Isobel Shapiro is dead. She recognised that she’d had her time. She wanted you to get on with yours. You do not have to rescue her. She doesn’t need rescuing at the moment.” The Master of the Mystic Crafts chose his words carefully. “Now if you’ll excuse me, today is half-day closing and I need to shut up the shop.” “C’mon Dream. She’s OK. You’ve done what you can, eh?” Hatman advised his friend. “That’s right. Goodbye,” Xander told them, checking the time as he put them out of his shop. After all he didn’t want to be anywhere near them in nine minutes time. 11.55am: “I’ve done it,” reported HALLIE. “I’ve broken the encryption. It’s a file about Deathspoon’s plans to become the grandmaster of an association of underworld types. There are statistics, secret databases, technology, the works.” “DK and Cap will both be pleased,” Enty told the Lair Legion’s resident computer intelligence. “With this info we could…” “There’s more,” HALLIE warned. “There’s… a plot to determine who will succeed to the grandmastership by… NTU, send out an alert to the Lair Legion at once! Warn them it’s open season on them. Warn them now!” 12.00pm – High Noon: “If I may say so, Madames look very fetching in that beachwear,” the deferential chain-store clerk told Lisa and her companion. “By the way, whilst madames were in the changing rooms their mobiles phones were going off.” “The office can never leave me alone,” Lisa complained. “Unless it was a date for tonight,” she brightened. “Yo doesn’t have a mobile phone,” Yo pointed out. “Neither do I,” added Cheryl. “The only thing I have is… an emergency Legion com-card!” Then the windows of the store shattered as the assault began. “There’s definitely something down there,” DarkHwk reported, flying back to the pier to join Donar and the Manager of the Port Authorities. “All I can scan is that it’s very large and probably tangled with the telecommunications cables that are out.” “Mayhap yon salty primate wilt be able to shed more light on the matter whenst he returns from his underwater exploration?” Donar suggested. At which point Banjoooo was hurled out of the bay at roughly MACH-1. “Definitely something down there,” DarkHwk reiterated as the vast gleaming robotic form of the Obliterator rose up from the harbour. The legionnaires’ com-cards began to bleep with a rather unnecessary warning. At City Hall Starseed answered his com-card and heard Enty’s terse warning. “Everybody get down,” the Gah! Master called to Space Ghost and Avatar. “It’s a…” Then City Hall vanished in a burst of actinic flame. The Acts of Ambition had begun. Next issue’s thrill packed menu includes: * Over fifty villains out to get the good guys any way they can! * The true story of the Hooded Hood’s son, and why it’s all spiffy’s fault! * A Sorceress unleashed! * A Messenger also unleashed! * ManMan and Amazing Guy – the shocking truth! * The deaths of at least two heroes, maybe more if we can fit them in! * And the return of Rocket Racoon – well, sort of! Due soonish if not before. A Hallowe'en tour of the villains of the Parodyverse, courtesy of... the Hooded Hood |
| Untold Tales of the Lair Legion: Bring on the Bad Guys (A Hallowe'en tour of the villains of the Parodyverse, courtesy of... the Hooded Hood) (31-Oct-1999 14:40:26) |
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