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Untold Tales of the First Lady of the Lair Legion: Lisa Spawns Sunday, 06-Feb-2000 07:24:53
Untold Tales of the First Lady of the Lair Legion: Lisa Spawns ”This is absolutely excellent!” CrazySugarFreakBoy! enthused as he bounced Jam into a wall. “We never get to fight the Scourge any more.” “This is going to be the last time,” Wonderbooster promised, throwing Hatman through a delivery truck. “Because this time you’re all going to die!” “Meanwhile, back in the real world…” G-Eyed suggested, teleporting the ionic menace into the path of Donar’s enchanted mallet. “Very good,” the Man Who Wasn’t There didn’t say as he dropped a wall on Goldeneyed, “But you can’t teleport somebody who Isn’t There.” Then NTU-150 zapped the Man Who Wasn’t There. “I just aimed for why my sensors told me he wasn’t,” Jaimie explained. The substitute Grim Reaper took advantage of Enty’s distraction to short-circuit him with an energy scythe, just before Fin Fang Foom sat on the Reaper. “This is getting pretty rough,” Exile noted, dodging at attack from Pegasus but taking an energy pulse from the Late Great Donald Blake’s cane. He absorbed the blast and sent it back. “Not as rough as it is going to get, my young friend,” Baron Zemo promised. He picked off Yo, Troia, and Trickshot with three consecutive shots from his neural disrupter but failed to get Lisa as the first lady of the Lair Legion summonsed the weapon to her own hand and took down Venom with it. “You will rue the day when you invaded our weapons manufacturing facility,” Millennium Bug promised. “Thou art an outdated bogie now,” Donar told the Bug, “but I shall smite thee for old times’ sake.” “Suffer lactose intolerance,” the diabolical Dr Moo invited the Lair Legion, using her ability to control milk products upon the team. “Nothing but fizzy drinks for this CrazySugarFreakBoy!” Dreamcatcher Foxglove promised the cow-headed villainess, entangling her in silly string and pinning her to a lamppost. “You’re getting pretty good,” Pegasus conceded as she caught him with a wing-swipe, “but I’ve been doing this for a long time.” “Hey, you wanna hit people with wings. Try mine!” Finny suggested to the flying centaur woman, swatting her from the skies with a massive draconic claw. “Aggghh!” Lisa cried out. “Ah! Hold it guys. Time out.” “Time out?” Zemo snarled. “This is not some kind of game.” “I mean it,” the amorous advocatrix said. “I think the baby’s coming.” “Oh yuck,” Finny shuddered. “That means nothing to us!” the Baron warned. “Now prepare to die!” “Of course it means something to us,” Pegasus argued. “Lisa’s our enemy but she’s also our friend. We’ll have to put the fight off until later.” “What?” Zemo yelped. “Pegasus is right,” the diabolical Dr Moo admitted. “I agreed to be Lisa’s coach, so I’ll be busy anyway.” “I don’t believe I’m hearing this!” Zemo screamed. “Sorry, Baron. We’ll fight for truth and justice against you later, OK?” Exile promised. “Right now we’ve gotta get Lisa to the hospital.” The Lair Legion and the Scourge hurried off leaving Baron Zemo still ranting. “Aaagh!” winced Tina. “What’s the matter,” Cheryl asked sympathetically. “Cramps?” “It’s the low-level psionic link I forged with Lisa,” the Lair Legion’s consulting telepath explained. “I think she’s going into labour. I hadn’t realised it would hurt so much.” “All men are bastards,” Cheryl told her husband Visionary. “Come on, let’s get to the Phantomhawk Memorial Hospital.” “What did I do?” Vizh asked Fleabot perplexedly. In the council chamber of the newly rebuilt Paradopolis City Hall a beeper went off. Three dozen men in business suits fumbled in their pockets. It wasn’t any of theirs. “I don’t have one,” Pierson’s Porter, Mayor of Paradopolis told spiffy, Mayor of Everywhere Else. “by simple elimination, that means it has to be yours.” “Oh, is that what it is?” the fern-wielder understood. “I, um, I thought it was some kind of self-destruct device they’d given me.” “If only,” the alien sighed. spiffy fumbled with the little black box until Pierson’s Porter took it off him and got it to render up it’s message. “Lisa is apparently due to spawn,” PP told the fern wielder. “Cool!” spiffy answered. “I gotta go. Let’s do this later guys.” “The mayoral assassination rate may shortly be going up,” Pierson’s Porter muttered darkly as another business meeting bit the dust. “Hi, this is ManMan. I’m currently out fighting for truth and justice somewhere, but if you leave a message after the beep I’ll get back to you. Beeeeeeep!” “Hello Joe, this is Troia. Lisa’s in labour. There’s no point you coming cause you’d only faint, but if you do want to turn up we’re all at the Phantomhawk Hospital, ‘kay?” “Awright you joes, lissen up,” Dan Drury warned the agents of SPUD (the Super-menace Principal Undercover Directorate), “We just got word that Lisa’s waters have broke. So now’s a real good time to go through the contingency plans in case this kid of hers is uncontrollable.” “Surely that’s a bit excessive for a baby?” SuperFalc suggested. “Not really,” Madame Natalia warned. “Our records show that Lisa one had sextuplets by six different fathers, each child having the abilities of their male parent. These children were retconned by the Hooded Hood, but there is reason to believe that young Christopher will be a sum of all the previous six. That is, it will have the powers of Wonder Man, Pietro, Jarvis, evil spiffy, and a couple of others we haven’t nailed down yet. And that is one mighty worrying baby.” “Ain’t nature wonnerful?” snarled Dan Drury. “I must admit to being a little uncertain about the human methods of reproduction,” the Manga Shoggoth admitted to Xander the Improbable. “Presumably one pulls an entire limb off or some similar amount of body mass?” “No, not exactly,” the eccentric mage answered carefully. “Hmm. That’s probably where my penguin-breeding programme went wrong then,” the Shoggoth considered. “You and Sh’Ron had it easy with little Cthandra,” Xander assured the elder being. “You just donated bits of your own gelatinous masses. The human way is far more complicated, even stickier, and often involves prenuptial agreements. But there is one important rule when it’s time for the birthing.” “What’s that?” wondered the Manga Shoggoth. “Don’t be there when it happens.” “Go faster!” Asil instructed the cab driver. “Hurry! My gene-donor is about to have a baby and I want to be there to compare chromosomes.” “Sure lady. I’m goin’ as fast as I can.” “Don’t worry, Asil,” Sir Mumphrey Wilton assured his amanuensis. “I can pretty much guarantee you’ll get there in time.” “Why should you be surprised that I’m here to assist at the birth?” the diabolical Dr Moo asked Cheryl. “My little sister is about to go through excruciating agony in the birthing process and I want to be here to supervise it. And I am the Parodyverse’s leading geneticist.” “I want her here,” Lisa gasped, trying to keep her breathing exercises going. “She’s doing a good job. She’s already vetoed Enty’s birthing machine.” “Is that the one he’s now marketing as a potato picker?” Visionary checked. “So, um, do we know who the father actually is?” Cap asked slightly disapprovingly. “Could be almost anybody,” Cobra admitted. “I mean, there’s all the LL ‘inductions’, villains like the Grim Reaper, Jarvis before he became her brother, any workman who happens to have called at the Lair Mansion. She even spent a bit of time with the Hooded Hood a while back.” “Hey, who cares about the father?” shrugged HV. “Fact is, she’s going to be one hell of a mother.” “How are you spelling mutha?” Cap checked. “Hello, cute gift-shopkeepering person. This is Rabito.” The gift shop attendant looked at the lopsided purple thought bunny. “Very… nice,” she answered. “But I don’t think animals are allowed in here.” “Is alright,” Yo answered cheerfully. “Is thought construct, not animal. But Yo is looking for big stuffed toy like Rabito, but is thinking it must be much much bigger for little Christopher.” “I, um, I don’t think we have any… whatever that is in right now,” the assistant admitted weakly. “Never mind,” Yo shrugged. “Yo is thinking that Yo knows how to get hold of big giant cuddly bunny anyway.” “What do you mean we have to wait in the public area?” Banjoooooo demanded. “I am royalty, you know.” “Yeah. How come you don’t have a sea monkey waiting area?” spiffy asked acidly. “Hey, guys, nice to see you,” Trickshot greeted the two newcomers. “This is turning into a real reunion. C’mon I’ll show you the waiting lounge.” “Who’s here?” spiffy asked, curiously. “Oh, the usual. The whole LL, some of the Scourge, the Abandoned Legion, ManMan, Cheryl, Tina… Space Ghost got his hand stuck up the coke machine and Enty’s cutting him out right now. And DK’s lurking in shadows checking out the ‘security implications’ of the situation, which is probably about as close as we’ll ever get him to admitting he’s fond of Lisa.” “Nonsense,” the Dark Knight declared, appearing from the shadows and scaring the hell out of Banjoooo, spiffy, and Trickshot. “I’ve been evaluating the security implications, and we have a problem. Look at this.” He held out a small piece of circuitry. “What is it?” the king of the sea monkeys wondered. “What indeed?” the urban legend scowled. “Oh great, now he’s ripping out the air conditioning,” Tricky sighed. The Dark Knight glided down the corridor to consult NTU-150. “DK!” Space Ghost greeted him alcoholically. “If ever I needed an escape artist…” “What do you make of this, Enty?” DK asked, ingoring the pantsless wonder. “Looks like your basic dimensional transfer circuitry to me,” Jaimie Bautista judged. “Just activate it and it’ll open up some kind of teleportal and…” Just then the other six hundred devices all activated, filling the hospital with lethal invaders from another dimension. The one that appeared holding Enty’s hand (where he had been holding the transfer device) seemed a bit surprised. But not as surprised as when Space Ghost hit him with a coke machine. Into our world they poured, eight-foot mechanical giants, horrifying, hairy, and appearing in all kinds of pastel colours. On their chests they had stitched huge heart-symbols, and as they committed mayhem they told their victims that they only wanted a hug from somebody they love. Yes. The Care Bears from Dimension 7 had invaded the Parodyverse. “What the heck is going on?” ManMan demanded as he pounded a giant Care Bear back into the Gynecology department. “Looks like your basic dimensional invasion scenario,” Knifey suggested. “Well, not that basic,” pointed out Trickshot. “I’ve never been attacked by a giant childrens’ toy before. Well, not without a child attached to it.” “They must be after Lisa,” Hatman worried. “We’ve got to get her off this floor.” “This isn’t exactly a good time to move her right now,” Cheryl pointed out. “There are about six hundred lunatic stuffed toys that want to love us to pieces rampaging over the maternity wing, and every time we take one down another pops in to replace it” Hatty shot back. “I think now’s an excellent time to move her.” spiffy and Visionary dragged Lisa’s gurney into the lift. “What’s going on?” Lisa asked through her ether-induced bliss. “Nothing to worry about,” Visionary assured her. “We’re just taking you for a little ride.” “Wheeeeeeeeeee!” the first lady of the Lair Legion contributed. spiff and Vizh got Lisa halfway down the building before the power went out trapping them all in the lift. The Care Bears from Dimension 7 rampaged through the maternity wing as far as the Nursery. Then they found a young woman blocking their way. “I think you should turn back now,” she suggested to them. “Get out of our way, or we shall love you to death,” the lead Care bear warned. “The lawyer’s sweet little baby is our main target, but any loveable weeny children with the potential to be bred up for our armies of conquest must not be ignored.” The Sorceress dissolved their weapons with a wave of her hand. “I think you should turn back now,” she repeated. The Care Bears were trained to deal with naughty opponents who wouldn’t let their heads be pulled off obediently. “Your spells cannot affect our soft round cuddly persons directly, oh wickedy witch” they told her. “We have been protected. We are proof to your enchantments.” “Art thou proof to mine hammer, vile pastel mockeries of overmerchandised tat?” the hemigod of thunder stood round the corner to Sorceress challenged them. “Hmm, evidently not.” “I think you should turn back now,” Sorceress advised them again. “If anyone ever stitches you back together again.” The Lair Legion were doing a fair enough job holding back the cuddly marauders, Messenger reasoned from his vantage point on the hospital helipad, but they would inevitably lose if a replacement automaton arrived to take the place of each fallen one. But the postman was somewhat reluctant to leap in to assist with massacring giant robot teddies for no productive end. Clearly there had to be some organising force behind the whole attack. Someone had to have planted those devices which summoned them. And that someone needed a razor letter delivered to their throat. If the Care Bears were somehow controlled or co-ordinated by radio then their controller would probably be near some high vantage point where he would get good signal strength. Messenger decided he needed an aerial overview and considered commandeering one of the nearby press helicopters. Then he spotted the newest superhero in town, Nats, flying over to see what all the fuss was about. Messenger’s smile wasn’t a nice, friendly one. “It isn’t fighting them that bothers me,” panted ManMan. “It’s more the fact that they keep spouting saccharine sentiments about how much they love me as they try to disembowel me.” “Women are like that,” Finny warned. “Woman?” ManMan puzzled. “I meant Care Bears.” “Them too,” the dragon answered darkly. “Weren’t you supposed to be dead?” Hatty accused the Dark Knight. “notthatI’mcomplainingyouunderstand.” “I got better,” the urban legend answered, snicking the head of a lime green teddy that was telling him what a wonderful place the world was. It felt good to decapitate something that was so reminiscent of CrazySugarFreakBoy! “Oh, okay,” shrugged the capped crusader and went on with the literally neverending battle. “If I can just work out the dimensional frequency these guys get beamed in on, I can set up a standing counterwave which can…” Enty considered. “Just do something,” Tina urged the man who was dismantling the X-ray department. “These things are not observing the hospital rules.” “This attack isn’t coincidence,” Cheryl frowned, placing a kidney tray where it would do the most good in one of the Care Bears at the door. “Somebody must have taken weeks, maybe months, to set all those gadgets. And where does advanced technology like that and these robots come from?” “Oh that,” Jaimie answered casually. “That’s all Nebulus stuff. Sorry, thought that was obvious.” “The alien superhero-warrior-breeders that set up Jarvis?” Tina remembered. “Well yes they’d be interested in getting Lisa’s baby, but why would they use Care Bears?” “Perhaps they were out of Smurfs?” speculated Cheryl. “Thou wilt not wuvv me forever!” Donar screamed, filling the fractures ward with lightning and melting his robotic opponents to pulp. “Thou wilt die hard and miserably in the name of the Oldmanson! Thus mote it be!!!” And appropriately for a hemigod there were a series of spontaneous miracles as bedridden people discovered they had the strength to get up and flee at top speed for the fire exit. Lightning strikes are a wonderful motivator. “This is not right,” Yo worried in the lobby by the gift lounge. “This is not what Yo was thinking of at all.” “Don’t worry, Yo-ster,” CSFB! called as he spiralled past with a whole chain of silly-string tangled Care Bears barrelling behind him. “It’s a dimensional invasion from the Nebulus, after Lisa’s kid. They keep teleporting new guys in cause they all got the same circuitry in them that DK found hidden round the hospital. It’s kinda like fighting those unnumbered Brainless Ones, only the Brainless Ones didn’t sing about wishing on rainbows. “Score one for the Brainless Ones,” muttered Exile. “Uh guys, what do you call an entire lobby full of heavy duty android Care Bears with pulse cannons?” G-Eyed worried, spotting what was up ahead. There was a descending whistling noise, the sort that Wile E. Coyote makes after a problem with a canyon cliffedge. Then the entire Care Bear assault force in the lobby was crushed by the descent of the thirty ton giant stiffed purple rabbit. “One calls them naughty and uncute,” Yo replied. “That is the sort of present I was thinking of!” “Are we, like, winning?” Troia 215 asked Trickshot as the two of them held the lift shaft entrance where Lisa was stuck between floors below. “We’re kicking the stuffing out of them,” the annoying archer replied. “The Abandoned Legion’s having a bit of a problem over by the crèche where a new attack force of Energiser Bunnies has warped in, but apparently the team’s taking cover behind Cap’s shield and, uh, Space Ghost’s coke machine.” “But is Lisa okay?” the Amazon administrator demanded. “Well, she’s got Vizh and spiffy to look after her.” “Oh crap!” “Help me guys! Help me!” Lisa screamed, arching her back and writhing in pain. “Okay! Okay!” screamed spiffy back. “I’ll go get hot towels or something. Yeah, water and towels. Agh! Trapped in lift. No towels. Rip up shirt. Yeah, that’s it.” The ferned phenomenon started to tear up his clothing in panicked desperation. “I don’t think that’s going to do it, spiff,” Vizh warned; but his calm reasoned tones came out in a high pitched squeak. He wondered whether it was too late for him to get some of that gas and air too. “Lisa! Lisa, can you use your summoning powers to call a doctor? Or Moo? Or best of all, Cheryl?” “I’m… a bit… distracted… right now… “ Lisa snarled, shaking the possibly fake man by the front of his shirt. “Baby… coming…” “I need a lever, maybe a crowbar or something…!” gibbered spiffy. “Aw man, why did you have to rip out the in-car telephone to use as a birthing implement?” Visionary complained. “Like you’re doing any better?” the fern-wielder shouted back. “At least I know which end it’s going to come out of!” “Guyyyyyssss!” screeched Lisa in agony. There was a thump as something his the top of the car. “Something’s out there,” spiffy said quietly. The trapdoor started to open. “Stand back,” spiffy warned Vizh. “I’ll whack it with my fronds as it tries to come down.” “You’d better keep those bits of weed away from me, Mark Hopkins!” Asil told him sternly, assuming the age of a matron just for a moment before dropping lithely to the lift floor in her normal teenage form. “I don’t take kindly to being groped by tendrils.” “Um no, sorry,” spiffy blushed bright crimson. “Sorry Asil.” “Asil!” Visionary beamed. “Am I glad to see you!” “You are?” Asil beamed back. “Oh yes. What do you know about delivering babies?” “Everything you taught me, Visionary.” “Aw crap,” muttered spiffy. Lisa screamed and things got messy. There was another much louder thump as Mumphrey Wilton managed to lever his somewhat rotund form through the narrow roof-trap. “My goodness, what a remarkable thing!” he murmured to himself as he took in the scene. “Sorry for the delay, had to remonstrate with some stuffed toy robot chappies en route. Good afternoon Ms Waltz, how are you?” “I’m… giving… birth… and none… of these… idiots… knows… what… to do…” Lisa growled through gritted teeth. “Ah, well, fortunately I can help out there. I’ve delivered a few babies in my time, Lisa. Helped Madge with my own little Patricia out in the Borneo bush back in ’69. Asil, hold your doody-head’s hand. Visionary, take the other one. Spiffy…” “Fielding?” the fern-wielder wondered, wishing he’d brought his catcher’s mitt. “Up on the roof and deal with those Care Bears that were following us down the shaft.” “Yes sir!” spiffy agreed enthusiastically. He could cope with alien robots. “And Lisa,” Sir Mumphrey told the first lady of the Lair Legion, dabbing her forehead with his handkerchief, “you just concentrate on your breathing, do as I tell you, be brave and strong for a little bit longer, and we’ll all work together to get you a beautiful baby boy, alright?” “Aren’t you a wanted serial killer?” Nats worried to the man dressed in postal garb who was clinging onto his back with his arms round his neck as they flew high over the Phantomhawk Memorial Hospital. “Yes,” Messenger answered. “What’s your point?” “Shouldn’t I be like, taking you in?” “No,” the postman advised. “You have a very promising career ahead of you. Shame to see it come to so abrupt an early conclusion. Fly over to look at that new-looking aerial on that trailer home would you?” Nats had never been skyjacked before. “Um, okay. But next time I’m kicking your butt.” “Word’s just come in,” DK told Enty. “Transmission’s coming from a trailer in the west car park, brown zone. Who have we got nearest to that?” NTU-150’s faceplate hid the smile that came as Dark Knight forgot he wasn’t tactical commander of the Lair Legion – or even technically alive – any more. It was good to have DK back, even for a while. “That’s be Banjoooooo, Finny and Hatman.” “The big hitters,” approved the urban legend. “Send them in.” Banjoooooo shredded the side of the mobile home and gazed in disbelief at the control centre within. “I don’t believe it! Why did it have to be him?” “Who is it?” Finny demanded, alighting atop the trailer and snaking his draconic head round to see. “Zemo? Blofish? Lo-Chi? Crime Clown? Blackbird?” “Not quite,” Hatty replied. “Damn you, Lair Legion, I’m not finished yet! I have a contract to fulfil with the Nebulus and I’m going to do it. You don’t defeat the Birthday Bandit so easily!” “Maybe you do,” the Birthday Bandit added from somewhere under a Makluan’s hind quarters. “Get out of my way, irritating animatronic consumer icons!” Pierson’s Porter demanded, generating a counter-pulse which shut down the Nebulus command cores inside them. “You sent for me, Moo my beloved?” “My sister is giving birth in that lift shaft and I want to be there,” the diabolical Dr Moo told her alien not-really-husband. “To comfort her?” “To stitch her up,” Daio Waltz answered, very accurately. Peace and order had been more or less restored to the Phantomhawk Memorial. The emergency services were just about squeezing their way past the giant stuffed bunny in the lobby to assist distressed patients and an even more distressed hospital administrator. Spiffy and Visionary were wrapped in blankets and being administered with hot sweet tea. Cheryl was discussing a settlement with the medical establishment’s legal team; she said she was being pretty generous in not demanding a seven figure sum for the distress their Care Bear infestation had caused her clients. CrazySugarFreakBoy! was cheering up patients until Hatman and Sorceress mercifully dragged him away. And Enty was investigating reports that a coke machine was on the rampage down in the hernia ward. But one by one the Lair Legion and their friends found themselves gravitating towards the little room where an exhausted but happy Lisa Waltz was zealously guarded by Moo and Asil, herself keeping watch over a big plastic crib by the side of her bed. And in that crib a very tiny person squinted at the world and tried out his fingers and toes and got used to the idea of being in the human race. “Heilsa, small wrinkled being,” the hemigod of thunder bade Christopher Waltz. “Welcome to the Parodyverse.” “What he said,” Exile echoed. “He is being really, really cute,” Yo laughed. “He is being even better than bunnies!” “Mother and child doing fine.” Moo reported. “I suppose we’d better get back to the battle. Zemo’s going to be livid.” “Aw, let him wait!” Cobra retorted. “Let’s just stay here together and watch the baby.” A large and smelly ginger cat, in contravention of every hospital regulation everywhere, somehow managed to slink up and sniff the crib suspiciously. Christopher noticed the orange blur and reached out towards it. With the finely–honed instincts of a million generations of felines around babies, the indestructible moggy contrived to be somewhere else. “So we finally have something that scares the cat.” Hatty was impressed. “He, uh, he hasn’t demonstrated any of those devastating and terrible superpowers the Hood hinted he might have, has he?” Visionary asked nervously. “Not a one,” Lisa promised. “He’s quite wonderful enough without them, aren’t you Christopher?” Christopher Waltz lay there is a warm happy state and watched all the funny pink blobs looking down at him and decided which of his superpowers he might make use of first. There was a blaaaaarping sound from the nappy area as he demonstrated the first of his special abilities. This episode is, of course, dedicated to Lisa and Christopher. Every blessing to you both. The Hooded Hood celebrates the natal event with this little ditty dedicated to the mommy and baby |
| Untold Tales of the First Lady of the Lair Legion: Lisa Spawns (The Hooded Hood celebrates the natal event with this little ditty dedicated to the mommy and baby) (06-Feb-2000 07:24:53) |
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