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Untold Tales of the Lair Legion’s Greatest Battles: Acts of Ambition Saturday, 06-Nov-1999 15:14:04
NOTE: Confused readers may want to take a glance at the "Who's Who Villains' Suppliment" a little way down the board. Really confused readers may want to pay the back-issue bins a visit at The Hooded Hood's Homepage of Doom. This story started in #18, but #27's as good a jumping-on point as any. #28: Untold Tales of the Lair Legion’s Greatest Battles: Acts of Ambition “What do you want?” Akiko Masamune, the speaker, was this powerful: she ran the Japanese Mafia, the Yakusa, and she could get away with wearing pink. “Well, um…” Visionary, the person replying, was this powerful: he was once allowed to do monitor duty for the Lair Legion, but only if spiffy wasn’t available. “You see, I had this information… from this… plumber I guess… that there was this big plot to kill the Lair Legion.” “And?” “And I wanted to know if it was true.” The Yakusa crimelord stared at the rather unimpressive man in the yellow and green overcoat. He was gratifyingly terrified, but true to the psychological profile of him she’d had drawn up back during the International Incident he wasn’t backing down where his friends and wife were concerned. “It is true,” she revealed. “The cartel has decided to elect a new grandmaster through a contest to see who can kill the most Legionnaires.” “And you’re a part of this?” gulped Vizh. “I thought you ruled the Cartel anyway?” “I was its de facto head when the other main representatives were bombed by the Apostate a while back,” Akiko conceded. “However, crime abhors a vacuum. More and more super-powered villains are getting into the profitable end of organised crime these days. So now my term is up and the Acts of Ambition have started.” Visionary looked unhappy. “Does that mean that you’re going to kill me now?” He hoped that Xander the Improbable had been right with all his information. “No. I aren’t in a position to push my authority just now,” Akiko admitted. “There are eight candidates competing already. That should be enough.” “Eight?” worried Visionary. This was worse than he’d anticipated – which was quite a feat, really. Masamune tapped a button on her desk console. A wall slid back revealing two dozen TV monitors. Visionary couldn’t help but think how impressed CrazySugarFreakBoy! would be. Then the woman in pink tapped up the pictures of eight of the world’s most notorious characters. “You recognise them?” she asked. “Erm… That’s Roni Y Avis, millionaire spam inventor,” Visionary frowned, feeling like he was being tested back in school again. “The guy with the facial tattoos is Dirth Vortex, the master of the dark side of the Gaaahh!… not that I’d noticed a bright side, I must admit. The fat guy on those two screens has got to be the Lynchpin of Crime in Gothametropolis. The Chinese guy with the Fu Manchuy moustache is the Devil Doctor, who’s supposed to be another Makluan dragon crash survivor like Finny, only not possessed by a human or afraid of women. Er…” “Wolfgang Fokker of the Hero Elimination Revenge Project Extermination Squad, Blofish of B.A.L.D., Mother Whipcord of the Little Sisters of Discipline- the orphanage that trained Lisa; and the architect of this plot, Deathspoon the Assassin,” Akiko completed testily. Of all the possible champions who might seek her out, why did it have to be Visionary? “And these guys are all trying to, well, kill my friends?” “Yes,” Akiko agreed, picking up her remote control. “Shall we check on how they’re getting on?” Sixty feet of alien robot-organic death machine rose up from the waterfront and caught Mjalcolm straight on the chin. “Have at thee, Obliterator!” Donar, hemigod of thunder, shouted as it toppled back into the waters. “I art right glad to see thee, for behold I have a mighty urge to thumpeth something!” “Watch it, Donar,” DarkHwk reported, picking up the Port Authority Official who had called them in regarding Something Large Tangling Anchor Chains and flying him to safety, “I’m still tracking movement under the water. He’s…” Then the pier exploded I to matchwood as the Obliterator rose up again. “We meet again, Lair Legion! This time it shall be but a moment’s work to obliterate you!” It’s vast head spun round, lancing twin disintegration beams into Donar, slamming the Ausgardian back into and through the side of one of the cargo ships which then exploded. “Gotta go do hero stuff,” DarkHwk warned his passenger, dropping the screaming man on the roof of a nearby warehouse. He swooped low, avoided a thermal blast from the creature’s mouth (noting that his on-board data system didn’t even list that as one of the Obliterator’s powers), and loosed an amulet-blast to try and sever the thing’s throat. The Obliterator didn’t like that. The power blast left a thin blackened scorch mark across it’s neck. It redefined it’s priorities and launched a computer-precise series of disintegrator blasts in a pattern calculated to intercut DarkHwk’s flight path. “Ineffectual fleshling! You will die even easier than Donar!” DarkHwk noticed warning lights coming on inside his armour that he hadn’t seen before as he twisted and jinked to avoid the deadly fire. Some sense warned him that the amulet somehow recognised this threat, that it knew and took very seriously the attack of the Obliterator. The Legion’s database speculated that the Obliterator was very old, a cosmic artefact exiled by the Parody-Master himself. It didn’t say how that happened, or why. Then the last of the disintegrator blasts impacted with Darkhwk’s armour’s forcefield, causing the amulet to divert even the power usually reserved for flight to maintain the suit’s integrity. DarkHwk tumbled into the choppy bay. The Obliterator noted that it’s primary target’s manoeuvrability had been seriously compromised. It peeled off a score of attack drones and sent them in for the kill. A pair of arms came round from behind it and pinned it’s own. “Forget about me, tin soldier?” Banjooooo, King of the Sea Monkeys demanded. The angry hero who had been sent spinning blocks over the city in the Obliterator’s first attack was back and angry. The Obliterator analysed the genetically-manipulated lifeform which was restraining it. “You will be the next to face obliteration,” it promised. As it released a lethal-level electrical charge across its surface, Banjooooo twitched, screamed, and discovered that his body had just modified itself to resist electricity. That in itself worried him, because he usually only developed random new temporary super-powers when his ancestral Celestian-based DNA coding cut in, which in turn made this encounter a situation one which the cosmic Space Robots had thought to programme into their modified subjects. “Thou hast captured the felon!” Donar applauded. “Holdst him still whilst I caveth in his brain-pan for him!” Darkhwk pulled himself out of the river-bottom silt. His armour decoded a small radio-pulse from the Obliterator: < 99 >. Then the assault drones pounded into him. < 98 > went the next pulse. Donar rose into the stormy skies and wound back his arm to hurl Mjalcolm at the Obliterator. That made him a prime target for the energy-blasts which came from an entirely new quarter and caught him in the back. The hemigod was slammed across onto a warehouse roof. “What treachery ist this?” he had time to say before he was hit again from behind, physically this time, as hard as he had ever been in his life. “Hello, little godling,” Quake grinned as he unleashed a barrage of force-bolts at the stunned Ausgardian. “Remember how I once beat you within an inch of your life? Well this time, I’m going the extra inch!” Banjooooo felt the Obliterator shift it’s weight but couldn’t do anything to stop it activating it’s boot-jets and rising into the Paradopolis skies. The giant Sea-Monkey tried to twist the creature’s head off, but instead the Obliterator simply span around like a member of the Linda Blair fan club and unleashed it’s disintegration blasts at close range into Banjooooo’s face. The hero screamed and fell backwards, toppling quarter of a mile back down onto the waterfront. The Obliterator swooped down for the kill, but couldn’t find it’s prey when it arrived at the ruined buildings. DarkHwk wobbled back above the surface of the oily river. His armour was repairing the deep chars it had sustained in defeating the remote drones, but much slower than usual. Zane himself hurt so much that he just wanted to lie down. One glance at the tactical readouts indicated that he was doing best of the three combatants. The pulse countdown from the Obliterator was now at < 76 >. Donar was on the ropes. He and Quake had closed to wrestling distance and were currently putting on a show that would make a WWW Federation fan one happy camper. However, the hemigod was up against an enemy from the future who had managed to steal the powers of a vast number of Legionnaires’ descendants. Quake was stronger, faster, and far, far, nastier. DarkHwk couldn’t even register Banjoooooo on his sensors. Then he heard the scream. The Obliterator had seized up a woman in his massive grasp, and was waving her, King Kong-like, at the approaching SPUD helicopters. And the radio-pulses went on: < 68>. Deciding that innocents took priority, DarkHwk swung in close to the Obliterator’s wrist, concentrated an amulet blast just where his on-board sensors told him the equivalent of the hand-muscles ran beneath the giant monster’s glittering carapace, and caught the girl as she was released when the Obliterator lost momentary control of his left hand. “Aaagh! For that you shall suffer the pains of obliteration,” the giant promised. “Thank you!” the woman cried, clinging to him as he flew her to the relative safety of the dockside. “How can I ever thank you? Oh, I know! How about I give you these specially-designed power-leeches?” And VelcroVixen attached the units designed by her employer the Devil Doctor to neutralise the energies of DarkHwk’s armour. “Aaakkk!” the amulet-powered hero gasped as his armour phased out around him. “Nothing personal,” VeclroVixen told him. “Actually you’re quite cute under all the panelwork.” Then she shot him in the head. “One point to the Devil Doctor,” she announced. “Hold it right there, felon!” the Falcon announced, swooping down from the skies, attracted to investigate by the explosions. The Obliterator, Quake, and VelcroVixen turned to look at him. Starseed woke with a king sized headache. Then he remembered that this was nothing compared to the emperor-sized headaches he was already coping with. “Thank you for alerting us,” Starseed had told the Deputy Mayor of Paradopolis, responding to a super-villain infiltration of the Paradopolis Municipal computer system. “My colleague Avatar will check your criminal database to see how much information has been extracted from it by the recent mysterious attack on City Hall. In the meantime…” “In the meantime me and my best buddy Starseed will just hang out together like good pals should,” Space Ghost had replied. “Right old friend?” And Starseed was reminded that the pantsless wonder was somehow under the thrall of the sinister villainess Lo-Chi, herself a servitor of the alien race who manipulated Jarvis’ origins and may have manipulated Starseed’s own. In fact Lo-Chi had set Space Ghost to monitor Starseed, with the threat that if Starseed didn’t co-operate when the time came they would overload his Gaaaahhh!! Powers and use him to destroy Paradopolis. Avatar failed to notice the odd look that passed between the two heroes. “I have got hold of the relevant information via my Avatarmour,” he reported. “Nothing was extracted in the bizarre assault upon this edifice.” “That doesn’t make any sense,” the Deputy Mayor objected. “I mean, look at the property damage. It can’t be for no reason.” “I said nothing was extracted,” Avatar continued. “In actual fact a small text file has been added to the database. One word: ‘GOTCHA’.” “Gotcha?” Space Ghost puzzled. “What could that…” “Everybody, get down,” Starseed called out. “It’s a…” Then City Hall had burst apart in a bright flash of actinic flame. Which brought the Gah! Master more or less up to date. He looked around. Avatar was up and about examining a violet-coloured plastic wall in the ten-foot square doorless room they were held in. Space Ghost lay immobile against one wall. “Ah, you are back on-line,” Avatar noted. “I resumed standard functionality some seventeen minutes and twenty seconds ago. Since then I have been examining the nature of the area in which we appear to be confined.” Starseed glanced down at the unconscious Space Ghost. “Never mind that just now. There’s something very important I have to warn you about.” “What’s that, old buddy, old pal?” SG asked, sitting up suddenly and smiling falsely. “We’re allllll easrs!” “Um, I think this might be some kind of a trap,” the Gah! Master answered lamely. “Why didn’t you just slice through the wall with your Avasword, Avatar?” “I thought it imprudent to trigger the lethal-level sonic barrage which is set to go off if the walls are damaged,” the former agent of the Parody Master reported. “Why?” Space Ghost puzzled. “Good call,” Starseed replied. “I have also deduced how we came to be here,” Avatar reported. “This calling card would indicate method, motive, and perpetrator.” Starseed examined the pasteboard. “Compliments of the Captor,” he read. “The Captor is a mercenary hunter specialising in the capture of super-powered…” “Don’t quote me files I wrote myself,” Starseed answered testily. “Anyway, even if the Captor did set up that trap at City Hall, that doesn’t tell us who hired him, who he has delivered us to now.” A section of wall slid back to allow a two-way monitor feed. “Ah, heroes, I see you are all awake,” Blofish gloated through the screen. “On behalf of B.A.L.D. I welcome you to my death-trap dungeon…” “I played that game once,” Space Ghost remembered. “I got to level fifteen then got ambushed by goblins.” “You’ll regret this, Blofish,” Starseed warned him. “Adamantium body or not I’m going to take you down for what you did at City Hall.” The Supreme Commander of B.A.L.D. laughed. “I think not, Gah! Master! Let the games begin.” And he flicked a switch. The far wall of the violet room began to rumble forward. “Time to leave here,” Starseed judged. “Avatar, cut us a door. I’ll keep the sonics at bay.” He began a low-level Gaaaaaahhhh! call and managed to modulate the harmonics to neutralise the trap. “Hey, lots and lots of big plastic tubes!” Space Ghost enthused. “Helloooooo!” “Why plastic?” Starseed puzzled, peering into the mazework of pipe-like corridors beyond the rapidly-shrinking cell. “Presumably to protect them from the acid which has now been released into the pipework,” Avatar suggested. “Let’s move,” Starseed shouted. “Avatar’ll navigate, and I’ll try and fend off the acid.” “And I’ll get Blofish with my Spaaank Ray!” Space Ghost offered. “Fool!” laughed the villain on the monitor. “The only way to reach me is to get through every one of the eleven hundred death-traps in my killing complex.” “I can see you now,” Space Ghost pointed out, adjusting the dial on his Spank Ray. “Go!” It was physically impossible for the Spank Ray to reach Blofish over a telecommunications link. The Spank Ray didn’t know this. The death-trap system went down as the adamantium-bodied menace was propelled forward off his seat through his state-of-the-art control console. “Now we have a chance,” Starseed judged. “Avatar, cut us free!” With the complex on automatic the three heroes did indeed have a window of opportunity. Again and again they thwarted robot tentacles, poison darts, death spores, razor gymnasiums, flame-throwers, electro-scythes and so on. “Quickly,” Blofish urged his technicians. “Get the board back up.” “We’re trying, Supreme Commander,” the B.A.L.D. tech-heads assured him. “Even on automatic they can’t reach this position for at least another twenty…” “Gaaaahhhhh!” The back wall dissolved and an angry Gah! Master burned in, his purple-energy form a mere streak. The white-suited Space Ghost bounced after him. “Wait a moment!” Avatar called from the tunnel, “That isn’t Blofish, it’s a robot! This is another trap!” But the adamantium walls had already sprung shut, slapping together on Starseed and Space Ghost with a sickening crunch. “Two points to Blofish!” the nearby monitor screen exalted. “Bad girls! Bad girls! Bad girls!” the abominable Appendage Man screamed as he fell upon Lisa, Cheryl, Tina, and Yo. “But good at it,” Lisa promised, summonsing her whip to her hand and catching it round a particularly delicate appendage of Appendage Man’s. “I’ve been wanting to have another meeting with you ever since I saw the number you did on Cobra, but why am I always attacked by ravening super-villains when I’m trying on bikinis?” “He’s part of a co-ordinated attack,” Tina warned, frowning as she telepathically picked her way through the mound of maggots that was Appendage Man’s mind. “He’s not alone.” Cheryl had fished out her com-card from her purse. “That’s right. The Obliterator’s tearing up the waterfront with Donar, DarkHwk and Banjooooo. City Hall where Starseed, Space Ghost and Avatar were has just blown up. Nearly everyone else is out of contact. Enty’s heading to deal with a hostage situation in Paradopolis Centre First School. HALLIE says it’s part of Deathspoon’s contest to see who runs the Cartels, a Legionnaire-killing contest.” “That is being bad,” Yo considered, dancing away from some of Appendage Man’s flailing bits with the skill of the Olympic gymnast s/he believed him/herself to be. “That means that cute Lisa cannot be to be summoning other friend, because other friends may be helping other other friends.” “We don’t need any help against this skuzzer!” Lisa promised, placing a high heel right into Appendage Man with an organic pop (yes, I know Lisa was wearing a bikini, but she had high heels on as well. This is Lisa, remember). “How about against us then?” Rottweiler growled as he leap out from behind the lingerie counter. His diminutive counterpart the Terrier pounced on Yo from the thong section. “They’ve been conditioned against psychic attack!” Tina warned. “They’re working for someone who’s brainwashed them!” “How about fire hoses?” Cheryl snarled. “Are they conditioned against fire hoses?” And she set off the nearest extinguisher into Rottweiler’s muzzle. “Yo is thinking that Yo could be teaching these bad dogs a lesson,” the alien thought being announced, catching the Terrier by his bio-engineered short tail and slamming him over into his foam-drenched partner. “Don’t get overconfident,” Tina warned. “There’s more to it than three sad male villains. They’re… they’re hiding… something…” then the Lair Legion’s consulting telepath slumped to the floor. “Tina!” Yo called out. “Yo is to be coming to… to…” Then Yo toppled over too. “Something’s wrong here,” Lisa realised. “Cheryl, check… check…” Then the first lady of the Lair Legion fell unconscious as well. Her last realisation before the darkness claimed her was that she recognised the odour of the gas that had been seeping into the room whilst the battle was going on. That left Cheryl, struggling to stay awake long enough to activate the com-card emergency signal. Her gas-fuzzed mind was puzzled because the alert already seemed to be going out, but she hadn’t activated it yet. She couldn’t quite grasp that there were multiple emergency aid requests going out right now. She fell to the floor at the feet of the disapproving Mother Whiplash. “Secure these four, with the extra-spiky mancles” she instructed. “Before they die, they must face the consequences of their actions.” She pressed one steel-capped toe into Lisa’s side. “Especially this one,” she promised. “Thank you so much, but I really do not wish to be oiled by a eunuch,” Amazing Guy firmly told the disappointed-looking fat man in the loincloth. “It’s a… an allergy.” “For that matter, I’ve got a eunuch allergy as well,” ManMan added. “I get a rash.” The tongueless servants waddled off sulkily, leaving the two confused heroes alone in their harem chambers. ManMan waited until they were out of earshot before grabbing Amazing Guy by the lapels and pressing him to the wall. “Okay, mister. You got five seconds to explain what’s going on and what you’ve done to Troia before I beat the snot out of you!” Amazing Guy moved with lightning speed, breaking free of ManMan’s grip and heaving him across the room into a pile of cushions. “Nothing personal, Elvis, but this hasn’t anything to do with me. One minute I’m helping out with a multi-dimensional catastrophe, the next there’s this bloke in a grey cloak with glowing green eyes…” “The Hooded Hood! He sent me here too,” ManMan gasped. “He said if I wished to court his daughter he required proof of my worthiness. And like an idiot I bought it.” “Yep,” came a muffled voice from under the cushions. ManMan joyously reclaimed his sentient weapon, Knifey. “You worked out what’s going on yet then, Joe?” “Hey, that’s cool,” Amazing Guy enthused. “I bet you’d be even better with a proper ventriloquist’s doll though.” There was a tedious but necessary moment where ManMan and Amazing Guy had to swop origins and power summaries. It’s a superhero thing. “I can’t believe I’m having to have the plot explained to me by a talking knife,” Amazing Guy sighed. “Hey, we all have to work with what we’ve got,” Knifey shot back acidly. “Anyway, it looks like the Hood has dropped you two into the bodies of your counterparts on this alternate Earth. Here, half the world is ruled by the Hooded Hood’s son, and half by his daughter.” “Troia rules half the planet?” ManMan gulped. “She’s not Troia here,” Knifey pointed out. “She was never raised by Amazons in this reality. She inherited her father’s powers, and she calls herself Kumari, which is a variant name of the death-goddess Kali. This is her palace, you’re part of her harem, and she’s plotting to invade our universe.” “I think the Hooded Hood would object to that,” Amazing Guy considered. “So he sent us to stop her.” “You and me against an entire world?” ManMan asked sceptically. “Kumari knows that she can’t exist long in another world where she has a variant duplicate so the first thing she needs to do is eliminate Troia,” Knifey went on. “We can’t let that happen,” ManMan objected. “You and me against an entire world,” Amazing Guy went on enthusiastically. “There are four of them. They call themselves English Man, Marker Man, Garbage Burner, and Dr Teeth,” the Commissioner of Police told NTU-150. “The League of Losers,” Enty snarled through his faceplate. “They fought Jarvis once. The League’s kicked their butts before.” “Well this time they’ve taken two hundred and forty schoolchildren hostage and they’ve demanded that your team surrender to them so they can execute you,” the Commissioner scowled. “To prove they’re serious they… well they wrote their ransom message on the headteacher in marker pen after ripping every tooth out of his head, then threw him off the roof.” Goldeneyed gulped. These four hadn’t seemed quite so dangerous when Enty had briefed him on the situation. “Do we have floor plans of the school?” he asked. Blind teleports were dangerous, but not as dangerous as surrendering to terrorists hired by HERPES to kill him. The Commissioner handed them over. “The city has a policy of not negotiating with hostage-takers,” he worried, “but there are two hundred terrified kids in there at the mercy of sadistic madmen. The Deputy Mayor’s in intensive care after that blast at City Hall an hour since, and the whole chain of command’s screwed. There’s a major demolition going on down at the docks as your friends fight that giant robot thing, and the whole of Gothametropolis East is blacked out with some kind of interference cutting off police radios. Frankly, normal procedures don’t work right now.” “Are you suggesting we give ourselves up to these b*astards?” Exile asked, glancing anxiously across to his cousin Goldeneyed for a lead. “I’m… I’m asking you boys to pull off a miracle, is what I’m doing,” the Commissioner told them. “We think they’ve got the whole school booby-trapped. Garbage Man is an expert at field sabotage. And in less than ten minutes they start killing the children.” We’re going to get cut to pieces, NTU-150 thought. Once again he tried to telepathically contact Tina, but got nowhere. “We can’t spare time to deal with the big picture until we deal with this,” he decided at last. “And there’s no point surrendering because we don’t have the whole team here to make the terrorists happy. In fact Exile and Frog-Man aren’t even Legionnaires. We’ve just got to do what we can.” “And what can we do?” Goldeneyed worried. “You get those children to safety, G-Eyed. Frog Man and Exile will handle the traps. I’m going after English Man and his little troupe, and I’m going to make them wish they’d never crawled out from whatever hole they’ve been hiding in for all these months,” the invincible NTU-150 promised. “Let’s go.” Xander the Improbable knew trouble was brewing the moment the bell on his shop door played the funeral march as it rang. He looked up from the alarm clock he was fixing to see the trench-coated Englishman Con Johnstantine slouching in the doorway. “I thought the auguries were dire,” Xander muttered. “Tell me the worst.” “There’s a formal challenge for your title as Sorcerer Supreme,” Johnstantine shrugged. “From someone who really knows magic, I mean. A death match.” The alarm clock on the bench went off in Xander’s hands and just wouldn’t stop ringing. “Tremble in fear, CrazySugarFreakBoy my ancient enemy, for now you face your nemesis of doom in the form of… Argh!Yle, Evillest of Socks, the very Prince of Pestilential Footwear!” “Er, do you know him?” Hatman asked CSFB! curiously as the two heroes were assaulted in an alleyway by a foot-high animated tartan sock carrying a (labelled) nucleonic blaster rifle. “No, but he’s cool,” Dreamcatcher Foxglove beamed, leaping up over the matrix of bright blue energies that spilled for the weapon. “Every superhero needs one annoying bizarre little guy to pop up and make a nuisance of himself between the major villains, and hey a sentient sock’s only a little bit of a rip-off ‘cause it’s not like anyone remembers Ambush Bug these days but boy was Giffen smoking back then, although I’m not sure exactly what he was smoking, of course…” “Pay attention to me!” Argh!Yle screamed. “Argh!Yle is fulfilling his brilliant and fiendish masterplan! Attend me, my minions” A bored looking thug sauntered down the alley carrying part of a killer death robot. “I’m here, Aggh!Yle. Where do you want the rustheap?” “You will address me as Argh!Yle, Evillist of Socks!” “Yes, your all-powerful (snicker, cough) laundromat-fresh worshipfulness,” “Wait! Was that meant to be respectful, you filthy toad, or were you perhaps... making fun of me!?” “Um, uh (chortleAHEM) no, no sir, not at all ...” “I can see this guy as your archvillain,” Hatman admitted to CSFB! “C’mon, lets walk off this way while they’re bickering.” “I never said he was my archvillain,” Dream answered quickly. “I never even saw him before today.” The argument in the alley behind them was continuing: “So where are my other minions, with the rest of my kill-o-matic-bot?” “They called in at the drug store for M&M’s your emperorness (smirk)” “What? Do they not know that they will face the terrible wrath of the very prince of perilous pedalwear?” “I guess not, O evillest… of socks.” (under his breath) "... Emperor BITCH.” “I HEARD THAT, DAMN YOU!!!” (Minions burst into uncontrollably loud, belly-aching guffaws) “Stop it!!! Stop laughing at me!!! “ the sock of Satan shrieked at the top of his lungs, “I've got the guns!!!” The sounds of death rays faded into the distance as CrazySugarFreakBoy! and Hatman raced away through the slums of Hells’ Bathroom. “The emergency call’s coming over the com-card,” Hatty reported. “I’m guessing it’s not about Argh!Yle. Let’s see…” Then Hatty’s com-card was vaporised by a shot from the rooftops. “Sorry, hairless ones, but I’m afraid that you don’t get away that easily. You might have escaped sock-boy, but you’re up against a pro now.” Hatman looked up and saw the small rodent form of Rocket Racoon’s old enemy, Turbo Treesloth. “A pro? OK, lead us to him.” The barrage of laser fire sent Hatman and CSFB! diving for cover. “Nice banter, cap-kid, but you’ll feel less witty with big charred holes through your chest. “Hey, you fly just like RR!” CrazySugarFreakBoy enthused, hurling a package of silly string round the hovering hairball. “Well, nearly as good.” Trubo Treesloth twisted himself so his jet-pack would ignite the string. “Owowowowowow! You’ll pay for that,” he promised as he put out the little fires that smouldered on his fur. He hurled a handful of explosive egg-grenades towards the multi-hued hero, forcing CSFB! to dodge a falling wall. “There’s only one way to deal with this guy,” Hatman decided. He reached onto his hatility belt and pulled out his Davy Crockett hat - the coonskin one. “Alright TT, let’s see how you deal with the real deal. Make was for the Rocket Racoon!” Hatman swooped up into the sky and planted a fist right on the Treesloth’s nose. “Whoo-hooo!” he shouted as the two of them tumbled through the sky in a dazzling array of aerobatics. “After this I say we go raid Sersi’s underwear drawer.” A short time later Hatman flew down, pulled off the coonskin hat, and deposited a sad bundle of fallen Treesloth in front of his partner. “He was working for Roni Y Avis, believe it or not,” he told CSFB! “His lapel button says so.” “Why would Roni Y Avis want to send a baddie against us?” CrazySugarFreakBoy puzzled. “We’d better get back to the mansion and answer that emergency call before we try and work it out,” advised Hatty. “Excellent advice,” a new voice called from the shadows, “but first you must face the vengeance of… the Birthday Bandit!” The villain nearly captured Hatman and CrazySugarFreakBoy! while they were laughing. The Anti-Legion took down the mansion defence grid with ridiculous ease. At NTU-151’s instructions, the Man Who’s Always There phased into the main computer room and slagged HALLIE’s main computer core (fortunately HALLIE wasn’t home right now). Anti-Jarvis’ cosmic energies sent the main doors flying back through the hall and into the lounge, and Anti-Visionary and Anti-Space Ghost sprayed the room with machine-gun fire. Remarkably none of the targets were there any more, and the only clue to their absence was the spanging of bullets on a triangular shield. Then a chain-mail clad blur hammered into Anti-Space Ghost before the black-clad villain could even react. “The Lair Legion had to step out,” Hunter Victorious declared, appearing behind Anti-Yo and brushing against his/her neck in a way that somehow rendered the thought creature unconscious. “But they left us to mind the store.” “ ,” shouted Silent Starseed, causing half the plaster on the walls to shrapnel out towards HV. The newest member of the Abandoned Legion took cover and waited for Cobra to act. Sure enough a high-velocity banana pelted into the Gah! mime’s mouth, sending him toppling backwards. But Lisa the Chaste, the Auto-Censor, narrowly avoided a sharpened sink plunger and summonsed Cobra right into NTU-151’s electrified grasp. Cap leaped to the rescue, somehow tangling the armoured attacker in a newly-severed electrical conduit and sliding the fallen snake-girl free. HV moved in to face Anti-Jarvis, marvelling at the resemblance to the dead leader of the Lair Legion. He was prepared to counter the Jarvis-cosmic, but he was taken by surprise when he slammed into the Man Who’s Always There. A moment later he was down, overcome by the strange multidimensional energies inside the actinic silhouette. Cap turned to face the remaining attackers. He was still confident. There was still one more team member to account for, the one who had asked for time to prepare her magics. “Intruders!” the Sorceress called, and there was a hard echo to her voice that had not been there before. “You will rue the day you dared to raise your hands against me!” Anti-Jarvis released a bolt of cosmic energies to vaporise her. Sorceress ignored it. Her face reflected flickering red flames which weren’t there, and her hands crackled with witchfire as she moved. She opened her palms and the room was filled with choking black fumes. Like serpents they twisted, slithering coldly over friend and foe alike. Cap felt himself growing weaker at their touch, and he wondered for a moment if Whitney had these things under her control or not. The power was palpable, overwhelming the Jarvis-cosmic, the Gaaahhh! Force, the dimensional energies of TMWAT, everything. All he could hear was the laughter of the Sorceress. When the fumes dissipated there was no sign at all of the Anti-Legion. Cobra and HV were starting to stir, and Sorceress was weeping in a huddle on the stairs. A handsome naked man watched unseen from the gallery, and was well satisfied. “Greetings, Dr Moo, Porter.” The press conference was over, and Pierson’s Porter had closed the door on the frenzied reporters to whom he had just announced his candidacy as Mayor. He might have expected any number of people to be waiting for him inside; Roni Y Avis, for example, who should by now be finding out that the alien had bankrupted him while the spam merchant was distracted trying to kill Legionnaires; or more minions of the Grim Reaper angry about that lunar business; or agents of SPUD offering him protection. But he had not expected to find the Hooded Hood. “Hood,” Pierson’s Porter replied, neutrally. “May I present my daughter, Troia,” the cowled crime-czar asked formally. “Delighted,” Moo replied. “She must take after her mother.” “As well that she does,” the Hood answered. “I’ve come to pick up a campaign button.” “You’re supporting PP in taking over Paradopolis?” Moo snorted sceptically. “You’ve never liked him because he once used a love ray on my weakling little sister.” “I can spot a good plot when I see one,” the Hood answered. “And I have no interest in annihilating your boyfriend at the moment. I haven’t even got round to Zemo yet. No, I’m here to help with your campaign.” “I don’t need your help, human,” Pierson’s Porter stated. “Of course not,” the Hood agreed. “But you do need a good administrator for your campaign. So I am going to loan you my daughter.” “You are?” Troia asked. “Don’t I get any say in this?” “No,” the Hooded Hood answered. “Don’t I?” asked PP. “Well, look at it this way,” the cowled crime-czar replied. “I am unlikely to take any action against your current plot if you have my only daughter hostage, am I?” PP considered this. “Alright. Girl, stay by Moo. She’ll tell you what to do.” “And keep her safe,” the Hooded Hood added. “I expect her returned to me in the same condition I loaned her. I assume you can protect your people.” “At least as well as you, retconner,” Dr Moo replied. “Then my work here is done,” smirked the cowled crime-czar. After all, now when Kumari came looking for Troia, there would be some dedicated defenders to protect her. Law and order had broken down entirely in the bay region of Gothametropolis York. A small army of hoodlums, vandals, looters, and worse roamed the streets at will, picking their way over the glass from the shattered storefronts and between the burning cars. With the police diverted to deal with the multiple crises in the tax-paying, registered-voters parts of the city, there was nothing to prevent the weed of crime spreading like, well, weeds. Almost nothing. Because in the shadows two figures were moving, and wherever they passed the weed of crime bore bitter fruit. The poor and the powerless were not entirely abandoned to the tide of evil. Two defenders still stalked, dispensing justice with an iron hand, and in one case, nuclear fire-breath. Which was just as well for the pretty Irish lass fleeing through the stained alleyways with a street gang in hot pursuit. Just as she found her way blocked by the chain-mesh and barbed wire fence, the street gang heard a quiet sound as of knuckles cracking. “The Dark Knight!” one of them gulped. There was no way out of the alley except past the black-caped urban legend. And he almost seemed to be smiling. The fight was brief and bloody. The result was just what you expected. But it gave Anvil Man time to focus his sights on the Dark Knight, so that when he fired his barrage of explosive projectiles it was in a pattern that DK just couldn’t dodge. A large draconic hand got in the way instead. “Ouch!” the Makluan dragon said as the barrage detonated across his scales. Anvil Man decided it was time for plan B. He blew up the alley. Foom had time to save one of the people in the blast zone, his best friend and old partner-in-crimebusting, or the girl by the wire mesh. He snatched up the girl, of course. The alley disintegrated into a vast fireball. The dragon allowed the flames to play past him then turned round and contributed a return fireball of his own. Anvil Man shrugged off the dragon-breath and replied with a barrage of percussive shells which knocked Fin Fan Foom out of the sky. “Finny, are you alright?” Moira asked anxiously. The dragon looked at the girl in his claw and realised who he had saved. “Moira? What are you doing down here?” “I’m needed,” the faerie girl from the Mythlands answered. “And right now, so are you.” Foom rolled aside to avoid the incoming explosions, and used his tail to smash a building down on top of Anvil Man. “You’ve got to get out of here,” he warned the girl. “Every criminal in Gothametropolis has gone nuts, and now we’ve got Anvil Man to deal with and he’s tough. He can make stuff explode and he’s harder to hurt than I am.” Then the hammer pounded into the back of the dragon’s skull. “Yon Anvil Man ist the least of thy worries,” Hämmerblade told him, following up with a series of multi-million volt lighting strikes. “Now thou facest the son of the tempest, master of the power of the storm.” Finny swung round to face the new attacker. Partycrasher ploughed into him with the force of a meteor. “Yeah, and me,” the renegade Austernal added. “Welcome to the Dragon’s Last Stand.” Then he noticed Moira. “Well, hello darling. Stick around. I’ll just kill the wyrm then we’ll date.” “Artless dimwit,” Moira spat. Foom drew in his breath to spew fire on his foes, but as soon as he filled his lungs he knew something was wrong. His chest was burning, as if he was dissolving from the inside. He had no way of knowing that Gromm the Living Flatulence had now made its way into his throat and was literally dissolving him from the inside out. “Finny?” Moira worried as the choking Makluan made not attempt to defend himself against repeated strikes from Partycrasher and Hämmerblade. Anvil Man was dragging himself from the debris to return to the fight as well. “Spare him,” she begged Partycrasher. “Let him live and.. and you can have me.” “Nice offer babe, but you got no bargaining position,” smirked the Austernal. His prehensile chest hair reached out, hooked the girl, and dragged her to him for a long, sloppy kiss. Moira didn’t struggle. She kissed back. Partycrasher released her, but she was still clinging onto him. He tried to get away, but his strength had deserted him. His indestructible Austernal form was ageing visibly as the kiss continued. He scrabbled feebly to be released, but it was a pile of rotting bones than fell away from the Lhiannon Shee, and nothing but ashes that blew away in the wind. “I told ye I was needed,” Moira declared, wiping the unpleasant taste from her lips. Partycrasher was an Austernal, with complete control over every molecule of his body. Moira was a washer-at-the-ford, who warned people that they were going to die. Convince an Austernal that they are dead, and they will make it so. Anvil Man had seen what she had done. He target a full-power blast on her and released it. But at the last moment a monofilament cord hooded his arm and jerked it in another direction. Hämmerblade took the blast full on. The Dark Knight moved from the shadows, looping the thread round Anvil Man’s neck and over a girder, effectively hanging the villain. Anvil Man struggled to get the right angle to blast the thread and free himself. Meanwhile the strange cord, drawn tight by his own weight, was slowly slicing through his almost-indestructible armour, towards his not indestructible neck. There was a scream from Fin Fang Foom as the dragon ignited his own breath inside himself to cleanse his system of the caustic intruder. Gromm was discorporated, at least for now. Finny slumped down, trying to keep breathing even though it seemed terribly, terribly hard work just now. Hämmerblade unleashed his weapon at Dark Knight, which was what the urban legend had been waiting for. After all, he still had the loose end of that monofilament fibre, and he needed something to loop it round. The razor-edged hammer always returned to its master. Anvil Man made a sort of “ack” sound. He finally managed to sever the fibre with his strongest blast, but that was sufficient to render him unconscious as well. Hämmerblade snarled and sent a bright spray of lightning down at the people beneath him. Foom took it full on, twitching helplessly as he struggled to get up. Moira ignored it. Dark Knight somehow managed to avoid it. Hämmerblade seized his returned weapon and prepared to send a wave of energy down to blanket the whole area, destroying everything within five hundred yards. The razor-hammer dropped from his nerveless fingers. The storms subsided as he felt his consciousness slipping away. He tumbled down into the blazing ruins. “What did you do?” Moira asked the Dark Knight. “A rather specialised contact poison on the handle of his hammer,” DK replied. “One doesn’t work on the same team as an unstable hemigod of thunder without preparing a few precautions in advance.” “You used a substance you’d prepared to kill your own teammate?” Moira gasped. “Yes,” Dark Knight answered tersely. “Now give me assistance with the dragon. Until I can find a way through this radio interference the Lynchpin’s ordered I can’t call for back-up.” Moira looked sad. “I can’t,” she answered. “I thought you loved him, or some such absurdity,” DK challenged. “I do,” Moira admitted. “But you won’t be helping him.” Then the Confiscator, the finest assassin in the Parodyverse, pulled the trigger. His customised rifle made no sound at all, but the diamond-tipped, high-impact bullet went straight through the Dark Knight’s forehead and blew the back half of his head out. The second and third shots, to the chest, were mere professional formalities. Moira raised her voice in a banshee keen, for a hero had fallen. The Confiscator changed weapons and targeted Fin Fang Foom. spiffy was quite flattered that he was being treated so seriously for once. The energy-draining shackles were backed up by a series of increasingly bizarre safeguards, right up to the dimensional interlock that would catapult him into Comic-Book Limbo of he managed to break free. Not only were the entire membership of the Scourge keeping an eye on him but almost all of Zemo’s other coterie of retainers as well. Dr Vishnar and Hellfrasier were conferring over his engram readouts. Millennium Bug and the Late Great Donald Blake were monitoring his vital signs. And the others… the others looked almost scared of him. “I still don’t get it,” he told Pegasus. “I mean, why all of this? For me? What have I done against Zemo lately?” “It’s not you,” the blonde-haired equine-girl answered. “It’s your father.” “Dad? Leonard Hopkins has been dead for twenty years!” “And how old are you, spiffy?” “Sixteen – oh!” For the first time the ferned wonder made a logical link between the average human gestation period and the gynaecological probabilities of his birth-date. “Oh, mom!” “Relax, it’s not like that,” Pegasus told him. “It’s not as if you’ve got CrazySugarFreakBoy’s mother. You and she were both programmed to not question the idea that Leonard Hopkins was your father. In fact, you’re adopted.” “Adopted?” spiffy gasped. “But who…? How…?” “How do we know all of this?” Zemo asked, stalking into the room with his special guest. “How do we know your true origin? Ask your sister.” “My sister?” the fern-wielder puzzled, looking at the beautiful exotic woman who had strode into the room beside the Baron. “But that’s Troia! And she’s the daughter of… oh hell, I’m screwed!” “Hardly Troia,” the red-headed villainess replied. “That insipid little creature is nothing compared to me. You may know me as Kumari. I will like you better when you’re blind, deaf, mute, and gelded. I suggest we begin the process now.” “That’s enough,” scowled the shocked and frightened Visionary. He had watched NTU-150, Goldeneyed, and Exile begin the siege of the hostaged school. He had seen CSFB! and Hatman defeat Avis’ absurd villains. He had observed the Abandoned Legion take on Dirth Vortex’s Anti-League. He knew of the struggle at the waterfront with the Obliterator and Quake. Worse, he had seen the death-scene in Blofish’s murderworld, and the fall of the Dark Knight. And he had watched as the Little Sisters of Discipline had dragged away his own wife along with Lisa, Yo, and Tina. Now it was time. “There’s nothing you can do,” Akiko Masamune told him, almost sympathetically. “The hell there isn’t,” Vizh snorted angrily. “Put me through to those archvillains who are playing this game.” “I can’t do that,” the Yakusa lord replied. “If they know you’re here, they’ll either expect me to execute you or come to do it themselves. I’m sorry about your friends and you wife, but…” “Put me through, dammit!” “No.” Visionary took a deep breath. “Alright then, if that’s the way you want it. Fleabot, you attached to her computer system yet?” “Sure am,” the micro-robot who had entered the Yakusa stronghold with Visionary answered. “I’ve hacked in to all her control systems and we’re ready to rock.” “What?” Akiko demanded. “What is this?” Suddenly the video monitors flickered as two-way links were established with Blofish, Count Fokker, the Devil Doctor, Mother Whiplash, Roni Y Avis, Dirth Vortex, the Lynchpin, and Deathspoon. “What is this?” the Devil Doctor demanded testily. “I haven’t time for your interferences now, Masamune. I am about to destroy the Lair Legion!” “Except that I am in the lead,” boasted Blofish. “I can’t talk now!” Avis sounded flustered. “Bring me a calculator! Fast!” he called to someone offscreen before terminating his link. “It’s not me doing this,” Akiko warned, “It’s…” “It’s me,” Visionary announced. “Er, um, is this thing on?” “Go ahead, fake man,” Fleabot cheered him. “Right, well then. Listen up, you villains. This is Visionary, and I’ve got to tell you that I don’t appreciate having my wife kidnapped and my friends killed. You baddies think you can get away with anything you like, because the Lair Legion’s just a bunch of nice, woolly do-gooders. Well today you’ve gone too far.” “Visionary, you are threatening some of the most powerful people on the planet,” Akiko warned him. “I don’t care!” the possibly fake man spat. He was mad as hell and he wasn’t going to take it any more. “You will after my pain specialists have worked on you for a week or more,” Count Fokker of HERPES promised. “So” Visionary continued, “you all have ten seconds to surrender before I send the Lair Legion to take you and your scrawny empires apart piece by piece. Ten.” “The grief has clearly gone to his head,” snorted Blofish. “Nine.” “He is weak and will be easily culled,” Dirth Vortex opined. “Eight.” “I have your beloved Cheryl,” Mother Whiplash gloated. “Beg and I may put her out of her agonies.” “Four,” Visionary answered. “There is nothing this impotent, powerless fool can do against us,” Deathspoon boasted. “Three.” “I wouldn’t underestimate him,” Akiko told them uncertainly. “There are hidden resources to this strange little man.” “Two.” “They’d have to be very well hidden then,” snorted the Lynchpin. “One.” “Well,” sneered Count Fokker, “We’re waiting.” “Zero.” Coming next: Visionary versus the Lynchpin, the Devil Doctor, Dirth Vortex, the Little Sisters of Discipline, HERPES and B.A.L.D! Xander’s challenger. ManMan and Amazing Guy escaping from Kumari’s world. Troia hits the campaign trail. Messenger gets involved. And the Dead Characters section of the Who’s Who starts to fill up. By the way, anyone who wants to discuss their character's part, say why they died for example, is welcome to drop me an e-mail. Due around next weekend. An epic double sized all-out action issue from the fervid keyboard of the horrifyin' Hooded Hood |
| Untold Tales of the Lair Legion’s Greatest Battles: Acts of Ambition (An epic double sized all-out action issue from the fervid keyboard of the horrifyin' Hooded Hood) (06-Nov-1999 15:14:04) |
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