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Untold Tales of the Lair Legion: Famous Monsters of BZL-Land Saturday, 27-Nov-1999 18:13:08
#31: Untold Tales of the Lair Legion: Famous Monsters of BZL-Land Mefrothto, Prince of Fibs, the Fairly Great Adversary of Mankind, Lord of the Fallen Or At Least Stumbled Pretty Badly, stretched out his hand over the world; and wherever the shadow fell, the power of evil was magnified, ten, a hundred, a thousand times… The rain beat an insistent tattoo on the roof of the parked car, but the two occupants behind the steamed-up windows paid it no heed. Wrapped up in each other they paid no attention to what was happening in the darkness outside. They never noticed the Night-Slasher adjust his ski mask to hide the electric chair burns and unsheathe his sickle. It had been a long time since the Slasher had been loosed to impose morality on the youth of today, but now he was. He crept closer to the vehicle and eavesdropped on what was happening inside: “Are you sure about this?” “Of course I am, you just have to twist and lift it a bit as you pull.” “That’s not what I mean. I mean are you sure you want to be here… with me… like this?” A pause, possibly caused by lips being otherwise occupied. “I’m sure. This might be my last chance to be happy. Tomorrow I’m getting married – so are you – and I’m not going to go to that bastard’s bed a virgin.” “What about Finny?” “Finny? Finny’s sweet but he’d run a mile if a girl asked him to do the Bad Thing. And he’s got Lania and Moira and Alison. Now shut up and come here.” The Night-Slasher watched as the car began rocking. He brought his blade down to rip through the canvas top of the vehicle. The couple inside rolled apart, the man getting wedged on the footwell between the back and front seats, the woman screaming. She screamed, “You’re dead, puny male!” The Night-Slasher was slightly surprised. He was used to more mindless terror and less angry nude redheads taking his sickle off him and planting it in his own chest. He staggered backwards. A spear transfixed him through his chest onto a tree. “You brought your spear with you to our date?” ManMan gasped, pulling himself free. “Of course,” his companion answered. “I wasn’t sure how good you were going to be.” “Oh, er, yes,” Joe Pepper gulped, dragging his underwear on and vaulting out of the car to see who had attacked them. He wished he’d brought Knifey now, but the sentient blade tended to make supposedly helpful comments when he was with girls so he’d left it at home. “Troia, I’m really sorry about this, y’know, super-villain interruptus.” “Oh, that’s alright,” the young woman shrugged. “It wasn’t that fantastic anyway.” Then she stabbed ManMan three times in the back. “Goodbye Joe,” she smiled. And the darkness rippled across the land, seeking out things that hated and fanning the fires of their resentment… “Where the hell is Goldeneyed?” Trickshot complained. “There’s never a vegetarian around when you need one.” “Shut up and do the job,” NTU-150 instructed him curtly. The new-old Legionnaire had only been here about five minutes and already he was annoying the armoured adventurer. Enty channelled his annoyance into blowing the undead animal carcasses that were trying to escape the slaughterhouse into tiny gobbets; but the gobbets themselves still crawled onwards in search of revenge. “Finny, we need more fire.” The Makluan dragon batted the last of the over-roast turkeys out of his airspace. “I’m on it, but this is the weirdest set of villains we’ve ever faced.” “I like my zombie pig well done,” Trickshot advised him. Hatman strode into the possessed gun shop holding his Steelers hat firmly onto his head. He didn’t want it whipped off by the poltergeist activity which had animated every weapon in the building and which even now had four shoppers pinned down behind the sales counter. Since they were all members of the National Rifle Association and had taken offence to being shot at by, well, by floating guns, they had chosen to use their God-given right to small-arms fire to defend themselves. It was noisy in the haunted gun shop. The rescue plan was going pretty well since the bullets were just spanging off the capped crusader, up until the point that a ring of pineapple-shaped objects floated themselves around his waist, tied themselves in a knot, and threw their pins away. That hurt. “Ouch,” said Hatman, trying to get his legs to work. Then an unseen force flipped his Steelers cap across the room and he abruptly became flesh and blood again. “Uh-oh!” “Don’t worry, Hatty! CrazySugarFreakBoy! is here,” CrazySugarFreakBoy! called as he bounded across the room. He had a mobile phone held up to his ear and appeared to be speaking into his wristwatch. “Okay dad, I’m at the centre of the ectoplasmic anomaly, what next?” Hatman dragged on his Grenadier Guards hat and exploded, embedding bits of firearm into the walls. The poltergeist wasn’t the only one who could play with dynamite. “But I won’t be doing that too often,” Hatty promised, reforming himself and slumping down to the floor. His Guards hat smouldered quietly. “Right dad, I’m sticking my Impossibilityium-coated arm into the nexus,” CSFB! reported over the airwaves. “There’s a kind of wave effect like the opening credits of the Pertwee-era Dr Who, and…” The shop was shook by a second explosion. Hatman dragged himself to his feet, ignored the panicked cries of the customers for him to lift the counter off them, and used his Bulls hat to help him pull CSFB! out of the hole in the wall. “Dream? Dream, are you okay?” CSFB! looked at the devastated but poltergeist-free shop. “We gotta try that again,” he beamed. The scratching on the inside of the wardrobe stopped at last, and little Jimmy McKenzie watched in horror as the doorhandle on the big oak box began to turn. The crack of light from the hall doorway seemed very tiny, and his parents room along the landing might as well have been a million miles away. Little Jimmy knew what all children instinctively know: call out, move, and the monster will be able to get you. The wardrobe door creaked open, and that corner of the bedroom was shrouded in shadow. There was a ripping noise from that direction and the torn-off head of Jimmy’s stuffed panda bounced off the pillow. Jimmy tried not to whimper as a cruel hand slowly and deliberately pulled the bedclothes down onto the floor. Something black and ice-cold and very sharp reached out for the terrified child. The usual boundaries were gone now. “Avaunt, night-wraith!” the hemigod of thunder shouted, catching the monster-from-the-wardrobe full in the chest with the hurled pickaxe Mjalcolm. “Didst thou thinkest that I couldst not smell the reek of a night-mare?” “It’s okay kid,” Lisa promised, sliding onto the bed with practised ease and placing herself between Jimmy and the monster. “It really is.” The creature of shadows reared up, ready for a fight. Pumped up with the dark power that was washing over the world it felt ready to take on even a hemigod. But Lisa was ready for it. With her developing mother’s instinct she knew the secret of the monster. “Donar, I need to borrow Mjalcom please.” “My lady, I art in fretful combat with a fell fiend for the nonce.” “All the same, I need it. “Fair maiden, there art children present.” “No, I have another use for it. Just pass me the damn pickaxe!” Donar gave up his weapon and continued to wrestle with the Night-Mare. Lisa carefully peeled the “property of Donar” sticker off Mjalcom for a few minutes and passed the heavy instrument to the wide-eyed child. “Now Jimmy, the one person in the world who can really hurt a monster-from-the-closet is the closet owner. Do you know what to do with this magic pickaxe.” Little Jimmy stopped being frightened. “Cool!” All nine-year old boys know what to do with a magic pickaxe. Exile was amazed that Valentia actually looked as good dressed in old stripy pyjama-bottoms and a Lair Legion sweatshirt as she had in silver mesh bondagewear, which was quite an achievement. Perhaps the fact that his slave was not trembling in terror, expecting a fate worse than death at his hands at any moment helped. She still got a bit spooked if he moved suddenly, but she was slowly getting used to the idea that the Lord of the Dreary Dimension to whom she’d been presented as a tithe was not actually an evil, cruel tyrant. “Evening, Valentia,” Derek Foreman bade his houseguest. She hadn’t seem him and his cousin Bry Katz come in. She jumped up guilty from where she had been watching TV with Ben the Bulbasaur’s head resting on her lap. “I’m sorry, I didn’t hear you, master,” she gasped. “So you decided to keep her?” Bry asked disbelievingly as Exile assured the slave-girl that there was no reason for her to apologise for watching TV. “It’s not that simple, cuz,” Exile explained. “When Dormaggadon was Lord of the Dreary Dimension he ruled with an iron fist. Each of the colonies was expected to send him tribute, like slaves, gems, precious metals and stuff, and if they didn’t then he sent his Brainless Ones round to crush them. So there are all these customs which have sprung up over hundreds of years…” “If my lord rejects me and returns me in shame to my village, then my family will have to be tortured to death,” Valentia amplified. “This law is to motivate slaves to please their master.” “I see the problem,” Goldeneyed agreed. “So she’s going to have to camp here until we get this Lord of the Dreary Dimension stuff sorted out, yes?” “Yep. Where else can she go? And it’s really useful having someone who can change the TV channel for me now my remote control doesn’t admit that I exist. But I didn’t leave her alone while I was fighting crime.” And Valentia’s babysitter emerged from the kitchen with the popcorn. “It is to be true, cute heroes. Exile is being to call up Yo and say please to be helping cute Valentia to adjust to life in Paradopolis.” “You got Yo to teach her about life on Earth?” Bry boggled. “Yo?” “Lady Yo has taught me many things already,” Valentia explained. “I now know the grooming and care of bunny rabbits, the rules of the game of ten-pin bowling, and what to do if I meet the Uncute Scourge of the BZL. Only one thing still puzzles me.” “What’s that?” Derek asked. Valentia turned back to the television. “Why can’t Ross and Rachel see that they’re made for each other?” There were three loud poundings on the metal door. “Who the hell could that be?” Exile puzzled. Ben growled. “We’re on an island in the middle of the night?” Goldeneyed more practically opened the door. A tall gaunt man in robes of purple and green stalked in from the darkness. He ignored Yo and G-Eyed and turned his gaze upon Exile. Then he made a small bow. “Master,” he acknowledged. “Er…” the Lord of the Dreary Dimension answered uncertainly. “Who are you?” “It… it’s your Grand Vizier,” Valentia warned him. The terror was back with the slave-girl now. She knew in her heart that this had all been a cruel game to give her hope before destroying her. She cursed herself for being foolish enough to actually fall for it, to actually even like the fiend who owned her body and soul. She braced herself for the pain and horror to come. “Your chattel is correct,” the Grand Vizier indicated. “As I served Dread Dormaggadon now I serve you, Dread Derek. Your legions stand ready for conquest, a million people tremble as they await your first command. What shall I instruct them, my lord?” “He is not wanting to be that sort of Dread Lord,” Yo interfered. “Cute-Exile is being a good man, and he is not to be conquering or dooming anybody. Exile is to be the Nice-Lord of Dreary Dimension, which might be called something more cheerful in the future like Hoppy Bunny Land or something.” “I don’t think I want the job at all, actually,” Exile answered. “Thanks awfully and all that, but I think I’ll just stay here in Paradopolis.” “Ah.” The grand Visier ah-ed. “Ah?” G-Eyed checked. “Ah, that’s not possible? Ah, I’ll arrange it immediately? Ah, I’ll go get the forms? What?” “Ah, I have already taken the liberty of transporting your island and your personal slaves here into the Dreary Dimension, and although I have the ability to do such a thing this way you will recall that escape from the realm is not an option.” “What?” Exile shouted. “We’re trapped here?” G-Eyed gasped. “Yo is unable to think Yo away,” the thought being reported. “It seems that you will be able to continue as our… figurehead here in the Dark Tower for the foreseeable future,” the Vizier secretly smirked. “Figurehead?” Derek Foreman frowned. “I thought I was in charge.” “Of course you are, dread lord, of course you are,” the Grand Vizier assured him with a charming, insincere smile. “And I live only to serve.” “The Abandoned Legion?” puzzled Melissa, “What are you doing here?” Cobra pushed Jarvis’ widow to one side and stalked into the musty darkness of Covenant House. “We’re looking for Hagatha Darkness, Sorceress’ grandmother. Is she here?” “Hagatha is Sorceress’ gran?” “So this is where you disappeared to,” Cap said to the shocked Melissa. “We did wonder.” “I was having trouble controlling the probability-altering abilities which Galactivac awoke in me,” the woman shrugged, “Hagatha offered to tutor me, and it’s not like I had anything else to do.” Hunter Victorious recognised the bitterness behind the statement. Melissa Butelier had enjoyed a few brief months as a happy bride before tragedy had struck and her husband chose to sacrifice himself to save the Parodyverse. “We really do need to see Ms Darkness,” he told the girl. “It’s important.” “Then speak your piece and be done with it, boy!” Even Cobra was taken by surprise by the unexpected appearance of the ancient crone. Hagatha Darkness stalked down the carved staircase and pointed a ringed finger at Cap. “Speak.” “We… we’re trying to find out if something’s wrong with your grand-daughter, Ma’am,” the shield-slinger replied. “She’s suddenly become a lot more powerful, but there’s also a… darkness to her magics that wasn’t there before.” “And she’s withdrawing away from us, as if she wasn’t interested anymore,” HV added. “And she’s boffing someone,” Cobra contributed. She returned the surprised glares of her two male comrades with, “Well, she is.” “The youth with the hats,” Hagatha frowned. “I have already ensured that he will suffer misfortune and destruction.” “Er, I don’t think so,” Cobra continued. “Hatty’s just too… polite…” “Jay is as baffled by this as we are, Ma’am,” Cap told the witch. “If your grand-daughter does have a... a paramour, then it’s somebody different.” Hagatha frowned, then went pale. “The deceitful trollop…” she muttered. “But it can’t be…” She whirled round suddenly and pointed at Melissa. “You! Gather together your things and flee from this house now. Do not return until I bid you. Run from this place and race till your heart cracks if you value your immortal soul.” “Me? But why…?” “Do it” There was something in Hagatha’s voice which bypassed Melissa’s brain and went straight to her legs. The woman found herself fleeing before she could even wonder at the note of terror in her tutor’s voice. “We face something that could shred us and damn us to eternal perdition,” Hagatha warned the Abandoned Legion. “You three come with me.” “And we aren’t fleeing as well because…?” Cobra enquired. “Because you want answers,” the witch shot back. As she was speaking she was leading up increasingly narrow stairways towards the attics of Covenant House. “Because you would risk much for my grand-daughter.” Now she stood before an old cobwebbed doorway and handed a key to HV. “And because I demand it,” she concluded. “What’s in here?” Hunter Victorious asked, brushing webs off the lock. As he touched the door he could sense the potent magics which surged through it, complex patterns of arcane force which took all his growing skill to neutralise so that the key would turn. “That is what I intend to discover,” Hagatha said. For a moment she didn’t seem like a frail old lady at all, she was something bigger and darker and altogether more formidable. Then she pulled herself together and strode into the attic. It was empty. Cobra couldn’t say why she was relieved. “What did you expect to meet in here?” she asked the witch. “My lover,” Hagatha answered. “Er…” Cap wasn’t quite sure how to respond to that. “I wasn’t always old,” the witch told him. “And when my body first started answering the call of the moon he came to me, eternal and handsome. He was a spirit, and he’d been my mother’s lover and her mother’s before that, back to the days when Darkness women guided men in furs to where the game could be hunted.” “Eeew!” Cobra shuddered. “That’s creepy.” “He was also my father, and my grandfather, and so on back to the time some Neolithic shamaness first took him as her familiar,” Hagatha continued without flinching. “What he wanted from me was what he required from all the women of our line: a child, a daughter bred to be an even greater conduit of magic than I. For one generation, and soon he thought, there would be a child sufficiently strong to let him truly break through into our waking world through her, and then nothing could stop him.” “And this entity fathered Whitney’s mother, and Whitney?” HV asked. “No,” Hagatha smiled unpleasantly. “I was a wilful girl, and I had other ideas than being a brood mare. I tricked my Demon Lover. I had friends then, when I was young. They helped me. The sorcerer supreme-as-was, he bound the Love-Talker in this attic, locked him away for ever.” “But the spirit’s not here,” Cobra pointed out. “And only a Darkness woman could set him free,” the witch pointed out. “So if he didn’t father Whitney or her mother…” Cap frowned. “Someone else did,” snapped Hagatha. “It is not important. An Englishman sired my daughter on me without ever knowing his seed bore fruit, and that child foolishly fled and gave herself to some nonentity who abandoned her. When she died it was my duty to raise Whitney in the traditions of her foremothers.” “And you believe she has set this Demon lover free, and now it’s… with her,” HV surmised. “Yes,” the old witch shuddered. “And I can’t stop it or save her.” The distinguished-looking gentleman seemed out of place in this seedy bar in the Everglades, but the three local entrepreneurs who had already tried to mug him were currently enjoying their new career as alligator-fodder, and he had a certain casual assurance about him that suggested the wiser kind of thug would lift his hat politely, answer any questions he might be asked fully and helpfully, then run as fast and as far as his legs could carry him. The bar was crowded tonight. There were strange stories going round of trees that walked and dead men that told tales, of lights beneath the bayou and of unpleasant things flying through the mists. People were frightened and curious and responding to an old instinct that told them to cluster together and keep out the night. All that was to the better from the distinguished gentleman’s point of view. He had come a long way to meet the three punks from Gothametropolis York and he preferred the anonymity of a crowd. “Where is your compatriot?” he asked of the two men who sat uncomfortably in front of him. “We… we dunno,” Larry the Blade admitted. “Drummer Joe, he just went for a leak and then… we never saw him again.” “It’s followed us down here, man,” Ghetto Jake worried. “It’s gonna kill us all. He’s gonna kill us.” “Criminals are a cowardly, superstitious lot,” the distinguished gentleman observed. “Tell me about the… terror which is sweeping Gothametropolis, then.” “They say,” Larry the Blade whispered, leaning forward after glancing around to ensure that nobody was watching from the shadows, “they say that the Dark Knight is back from the dead.” “Indeed? And what do they say he’s doing?” “You heard about Spannerhead?” Ghetto Jake said. “And Midget Mike? And Gravedigger Charlie? And that guy what was messin’ with them kids?” “There has been an unusually high turnover of lowlife in your town, yes,” the distinguished gentleman agreed. “But that is to be expected after the status quo was disrupted by the Acts of Ambition and the self-imposed exile of the Lynchpin of Crime.” “He was dead. He was in a cabinet and dead,” argued Larry the Blade, referring to the fallen Dark Knight. “We all saw ‘im. Then he was gone. You know he was dead. You killed ‘im.” “Actually I didn’t,” the distinguished gentleman told them. “That was the Confiscator.” “But… but we thought you was the Confiscator,” stammered Ghetto Jake. The distinguished gentleman almost smiled. “Oh no. He couldn’t come. But it’s nice to have confirmation about who it was that shot me.” A sudden frost came over the two thugs. “Shot… you…?” “Killed me as well,” the distinguished gentleman admitted. “but while crime still exists and evil goes unpunished there will always be a place for… the Dark Knight.” Then all the lights went out in the bar, and there was only screaming. Five time zones eastwards the dawn was painting the high waterfalls at Reichenback crimson. Xander the Improbable moved his beach umbrella slightly so that his deck chair wouldn’t catch the sun. A few feet away Con Johnstantine chain smoked and watched what might well be the last few minutes of the world’s current sorcerer supreme. “You seem pretty calm for bloke who’s about to have a life and death duel of magic with the most powerful practitioner on the planet,” the Englishman suggested. “Magic’s not about power,” Xander sniffed, and turned the page of his magazine. He’d brought his subscription copy of Practical Sorcery with him, but he only got it for the woodcuts. “You mean it’s about gaining wisdom and understanding the universe and all that,” snorted Johnstantine. “No,” Xander answered. “It’s about winning.” There was a thunderclap and a dazzling light, and the whole of the horizon was filled with the minions of Heironymous Hellbane, the Astral Khan, the challenger in this death-duel for the title of Master of the Mystic Crafts. A squadron of chaos knights on war drakes wheeled overhead. Bound demons rattled their chains and waited for the kill command. Young women in spiked leather outfits balanced on impossible high heels and waited to attack. “He’s arrived,” Johnstantine pointed out. “That’s him in the poncy white outfit and the poofy headgear.” Xander finished his cup of tea, picked up the second, as-yet-unopened flask, and got off his deck chair to greet his adversary. “Evening.” “So, you found the COURAGE to come and face your DOOM at the hands of the ASTRAL KHAN!” “Were you bitten by a radioactive megaphone, squire?” Con Johnstantine wondered of the massive mystic. “Anyways, I’m Johnstantine. I’ll be seconding the sorcerer supreme here in your little duel, as well as handling any side bets that anyone would care to place on the outcome of course.” “Do you wish to PLEAD for your LIFE now, Xander?” the Astral Khan boomed. In a much lower voice he said to the master of the mystic crafts, “After all, you and I both know you’re hardly up to the job anyway, and the current tide of evil washing over the planet magnifies my abilities a hundredfold. Why not surrender and save yourself a slow, painful death, eh?” “I’m only going to tell you this once,” Xander replied, and suddenly the dusty-robed watch-repairer didn’t seem quite so funny for some reason, “You are meddling in things you do not understand. So take your pointless, trivial minions and your pointless, trivial self and get out of here or you will not survive. Do I make myself clear, little wizard?” The Astral Khan actually took a step back in surprise before his natural arrogance took control again. “VERY well! Let us DUEL to the DEATH!” “Set up the covenant, Johnstantine,” said Xander wearily. There was a certain format to these ritual contests, and the improbable mage preferred taking on Hellbane alone than trying to face the Astral Khan and all his minions. Con Johnstantine pulled out the contract which ceded the role and artefacts of the sorcerer supreme to the survivor of the duel. “And you want to do this here and now do you, squire?” the Englishman asked the Astral Khan. “Of COURSE! The ASTRAL KHAN is eager to come into his POSSESSION!” “I imagine your patron Mefrothto’s pretty keen to see me out of the way,” Xander admitted. “Well, since you’ve decided time and place, I think that means I get to decide on the weapons. So I pick duelling with Elder Creatures.” “What?” the Astral Khan asked. “Elder creatures,” Xander repeated. “Loathsome entities that mankind was not meant to know, from an age when the stars were right and all that claptrap. You can do Elder creatures I presume?” “I am the ASTRAL KHAN. I can do anything!” “Splendid. Well do an Elder Creature then. Last one to get eaten wins.” “Nice going,” approved Johnstantine to Xander. “All his ramped up power won’t make him any more skilful at summoning, and your Elder Beastie’ll be bigger and nastier from Mefrothto’s power-up just like his is.” There was a tearing of time-space and a many-tentacled vegetable thing the size of a house slithered forwards at the command of the Astral Khan. “On the other hand, he’s pretty good at that,” worried Johnstantine, just before running for his life to higher ground. Even some of the demons were backing off from this monster. The Astral Khan completed his second spell. “I think you may FIND that the ASTRAL KHAN has place an INHIBITION sorcery upon the area to PREVENT any further summoning,” the would-be sorcerer supreme laughed. “You may find it somewhat DIFFICULT to conjure a CHAMPION!” “Oh, that’s alright,” Xander answered, reaching for his flask. “Here’s one I prepared earlier.” Transparent ooze streamed out of the little flask, gaining in volume until a gelatinous blob stood almost as high as the weed creature. “May I introduce the Manga Shoggoth?” the master of the mystic crafts asked politely. Manga Shoggoth took a close look at the plant-horror that churned it’s vegetable tentacles before him. “Ah,” he declared. “Salad for dinner.” Then the battle began. Mefrothto concentrated harder, pouring all the blackness of his soul out over the planet, probing every corner, seeking every spark of evil to fan it into a flame. And beyond the worlds we know, in a place of ravens and destiny (but mostly ravens), the Shaper of Worlds watched events unfold through her scrying pools and worried where the Chronicler of Stories had got to. There was a hammering on Destiny’s Doors. The Shaper gestured so that the Chronicler could enter. There was much they had to do. It wasn’t the Chronicler. First through the doorway was Baron Heinrich Zemo, the masked monarch, striding as if he owned the place, arrogant enough to be planning the time when he would. Following him were spiffy and Banjooooo, both a little uncertain about why exactly they’d been dragged out of the time/space continuum to face off against a cosmic being. And finally the Hooded Hood entered with a slow measured tread as if each step was an important part of whatever intricate masterplan he was now unfolding. “What the hell do you want?” the Shaper demanded rudely. “Universal domination, the destruction of my enemies, and the restoration of my beloved Heike to my side to rule over all of time and space,” Zemo answered honestly. “However, I am here today as an observer.” Shaper had actually been directing the question at the cowled crime czar who was even now inspecting the visions in the scrying pools. “Looks like you have another interdimensional crisis on your hands,” he suggested. “This must be, what, your fourth, fifth this year? It’s starting to look like carelessness.” “You can see my house from here,” spiffy told Banjooooo, looking into one of the pools. “Or you could if it hadn’t been blown up. Aaagh! No! Bloody beavers! Stop building dams with the remains of my mansion!” “I’m not really intimidated by all of this,” Banjooooo told the ravens. “I am, after all, the King of the Sea-Monkeys.” The ravens snickered. Banjoooooo bad-temperdly ate one. That stopped them laughing. “Get out or I’ll destroy you!” the Shaper angrily shouted to the intruders. “What, when you need our help so very badly?” the Hood suggested. “After all, you can’t rely upon the Chronicler just now, can you?” The Shaper of Worlds paused. She hated these conversations with the Hooded Hood because they never went they way they rehearsed in her head. “What do you mean?” “The Dark Knight was killed recently,” the cowled crime czar noted. “Therefore the contingencies which the former Chronicler of Stories had left for such an eventuality were triggered. Remember that the former Chronicler – now the entity we call the Dark Knight – created the current Chronicler, and was able to add a bit of… programming. Your Chronicler is a bit busy resurrecting the Knight just now.” “Why else do you think the Hood went to all the bother of setting up those Acts of Ambition?” Zemo pointed out. “I admit that things are getting a bit tense, with the possibility of a planar takeover of Hell on Earth, but I can handle it,” Shaper said. “How?” the Hood enquired. “Your proficiency is in initiating events. Samhain is content to see Mefrothto triumph and so will not assist you in his specialist area, endings. The Chronicler who reigns over the middles of narratives might have helped, but is currently indisposed. So who else can you turn to but… the Hooded Hood.” Spiffy and Banjooooo exchanged worried looks and wondered which side they should be fighting for. Sorceress returned to the safe shelter of her own room in the hovel where the Abandoned Legion hid out. It might not have the four-poster bed and open fireplace that her guest quarters at the Lair Mansion had, but it was home. Of course, at the moment her own room did have a four-poster bed and open fireplace, because the Demon lover had thoughtfully provided them for her. And laying on the bed was the marquetry puzzle-box that the Love-Talker had gifted to her. But it was open. And there was a note beside it. The Sorceress hurried over to examine it. After three frustrating days and nights trying to figure a way to open the cunning little container she was eager to know how it had been solved and by who. She recognised the handwriting: Jay. Hatman. ‘Dear Whitney,’ the note said. ‘I hope you won’t be mad or anything, but I noticed you were getting pretty fed up trying to open that puzzle box of yours. So I figured I’d check to see if it was broken or something. I used my Sherlock Holmes deerstalker to give me the Great Detective’s puzzle-solving abilities and got it open, so it works fine. But watch out, Whitney. There’s a nasty little pin on a spring inside it, and it pricks your finger as you undo the last hinge on the box – almost like a trap. There was nothing inside the box. Anyway, if you want me to show you how to gimmick the thing open let me know. Love Best wishes, Jay.’ Sorceress smiled as she saw the traces of the erased word which had been replaced with ‘best wishes’. Then she frowned as she saw the dried blood on the tip of the cruel needle inside the puzzle box. There was something unsettling about all of this… “He should never have interfered,” the Demon Lover declared, appearing directly behind Sorceress and letting his enfolding arms wander across her front. “It was a gift for you, to bind us together forever.” Whitney shook herself free for the first time. “What do you mean?” she demanded. She focussed her talents upon the puzzle box – not the enhanced gifts that the Demon Lover gave her, her own native skills. “Wait… there’s a dweomer on this box. It’s meant to… to sample the soul of whoever’s blood it tastes, to provide a link between that person and… you!” “Had you opened the box and received it’s cruel kiss we would have been united forever,” the Love-Talker smiled. “Like husband and wife, one being. The treacherous Jay has jeopardised all of that.” “You have a lien on his soul now,” Sorceress realised. “His, instead of mine.” “Yes,” the Demon Lover agreed, seizing Whitney and allowing his fingers to wander over her until she relaxed and surrendered as always. “And I can’t unite fully with you unless you undergo the Rite of the Puzzle Box, and you can’t use the Puzzle-Box while it’s all clogged up with Jay’s life-essence. So there’s only one thing for us to do, so we can be together forever.” “What’s that,” Sorceress breathed, trying not to succumb to ecstasy while she was holding a conversation. The Demon Lover nibbled her neck and ear. “We kill him,” he told her. “We’re back!” Visionary called to his wife, his voice betraying his relief as he passed through the Mansion doorway without being vaporised by the stunner guns. “It turns out there were trolls on the Phantomhawk Turnpike Bridge, but I was able to stop them stopping cars and demanding billy goats or children to eat by giving them income tax forms to fill in on their tolls.” “It wasn’t the traditional superhero solution, but it seemed to work,” Fleabot admitted. “I need to know where the rest of the Legion is right now,” Vizh decided. “There’s all sorts of weirdness going on all over the city, like somebody just popped the cork on a big fizzy can of evil. There are mummies terrorising the museum, werewolves in Central Park, and a giant marshmallowy-type man storming down Third Avenue.” “Visionary, we have company,” Cheryl told the new leader of the Lair Legion in a strange, flat voice. She stepped out of the doorway to allow a man in Victorian evening dress to come through. “Ah, the esteemed Visionary,” he smiled toothily. “How splendid. You may call me Count… Craladu. Enter freely and of your own will.” Coming next: A discourse on metahuman circulatory systems (or the Lair Legion vs the Prince of Vampires), an examination on the domestic policy of the Dreary Dimension (or Exile, Goldeneyed, and Yo vs the inconceivable Yurt), a philosophical debate on arcane hierarchical structures (or Xander and Manga Shoggoth vs the Astral Khan and a fighting-mad giant lettuce), one lonely heart’s struggle with love and passion in a world gone mad (or Sorceress’ choice), the sociopolitical considerations of interplanar migrations (or Kumari invades Earth and takes on Pierson’s Porter and Dr Moo), and an example of Machiavellian manipulation in a cosmic-metaphysical context (or the Hooded Hood makes his move). Same bat-time. Same bat-channel. The countdown towards the conclusion of the plot that would not die finally begins, from the Hooded Hood |
| Untold Tales of the Lair Legion: Famous Monsters of BZL-Land (The countdown towards the conclusion of the plot that would not die finally begins, from the Hooded Hood) (27-Nov-1999 18:13:08) |
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