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Untold Tales of the Lair Legion Valentine Special Monday, 14-Feb-2000 06:03:08
#40: Untold Tales of the Lair Legion Valentine Special “Happy Valentine’s Day!, Earth people!” Yo called out, dancing across the lawn before the Lair mansion with thirty foot ballerina leaps, followed by a big lopsided purple thought bunny which kept falling over when it landed, and a large ginger cat that kept trying to pounce on Rabito. The pure thought being continued his one pure thought being procession across Parody Isle to where Visionary and Cheryl’s condo was now gradually edging down the slope at about two inches a day. “Happy Valentine’s Day!” s/he shouted through the letterbox. “What the hell time of morning is this?” groaned Visionary, reaching out and hitting the alarm clock by reflex, then hurling it at the wall. Then he remembered this was an NTU-ex, custom designed and built by the Lair’s resident technical expert. There was therefore a very good chance the alarm clock wound now explode. “Oh crap!” breathed the reluctant leader of the Lair Legion, diving for cover under the bed and dragging the duvet off Cheryl as he hid. The alarm clock gave a mangled ping and the mainspring shot a tiny hole in the bathroom mirror. That was all. “What’s going on?” demanded Vizh’s rudely awoken wife. “Where’s all the blankets, why is the alarm clock in pieces, and why are you hiding behind the mattress?” “Sorry, Cheryl, I just…” “Happy Valentine’s Day, cute friends!” bounced Yo. “Yo is being the Valentine’s Day bunny!” Visionary and Cheryl watched their innocent friend leap away towards an unsuspecting Paradopolis. “There… there isn’t usually a Valentine’s Day bunny is there?” checked Visionary. “Not normally,” admitted Cheryl. “Yo may be possibly mixing things up and confusing today with Easter.” “Oh well,” Vizh pointed out. “Look at this. Apparently the Valentine Bunny leaves a condom on your pillow.” Bry (Goldeneyed) Katz took his morning coffee break early and slipped out from Lisa’s law firm down to the Bean and Donut Coffee Bar off Paradopolis Plaza to meet Exile and Valeria. He was surprised when Lisette, the slightly punk legal assistant erstwhile sidekick of Lisa, followed him into the diner. “Wow! What a coincidence finding you guys here in my regular,” she faked. “I’ve been coming here since I moved to Paradopolis and got a job at Lisa’s and I’ve never seen you in here before,” G-Eyed pointed out. “Yeah, whatever,” the dark-haired babe shrugged. She looked across at the girl in the Lair Legion sweatshirt and stripy cotton trousers. “I don’t think we’ve met. I’m Laurie Layton, but mostly these days folks call me Lisette. I work at what Lisa laughingly calls her law practise. Hi!” “Hello,” Exile’s companion replied, raising her hand to duplicate the peace symbol the other woman had made. “I’m Valeria of Carfax, except I can never return to Carfax again of course on pain of execution by torture. I’m Derek’s absolute slave for life.” Exile sprayed his coffee over Goldeneyed. “Oh, that scene, huh.” Lisette nodded knowingly. “Are you into that as well, Bry?” “It’s not like that,” Derek Foreman tried to explain. “See, she was sent as tribute back when I was dimensional emperor of this Dreary Dimension and…” “She just lives with Derek and looks after his needs,” Bry explained wickedly. “Well, whatever rings your bells,” Lisette agreed tolerantly. “What are you doing for St Val’s Night, Bryan?” “I, uh, I haven’t decided between all the options quite yet,” Goldeneyed prevaricated. “He’s coming over to our place for our old video watch-a-thon,” Exile said ruthlessly. He owed Bry this. “You know, Casablanca and popcorn.” “Uh huh,” understood Laurie Layton. “So I figure there’s no point dragging you along to this big party I’m going to then. Bry? Rock stars, media figures, actors and actresses saving the rainforest, that kind of gig?” “Me? Well, erm, I don’t want to let Derek and Valeria down…” G-Eyed prevaricated some more. “We’ll manage,” Exile grinned. “You should go.” “Yes, go,” agreed Valeria. “After all, the problems of three little people don’t amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world.” “You’re sure this is the house?” Trickshot asked nervously. He was out of costume, which always made him nervous, since he’d been wearing the emerald archery outfit since his carny performer days. He was in a brand-new two-piece suit and a white shirt which seemed to be strangling him. And he was about to ring the doorbell of the wife he’d never married and explain that although her husband was dead he was her husband’s alternate-reality double, and good morning. “Sure it’s the house,” NTU-150 agreed testily, rechecking his van’s mobile database. “2310 Rich Guy Road, residence of Ms Natalia Romanza. Need me to do a full-spectrum sensor ray probe?” “No, no, I’ll just buzz the intercom I guess,” Tricky gulped. “You’re sure this is the house now?” The whine of powering-up repulsors inside Enty’s armour convinced him to get out of the van and get on with it. Jaimie had other stuff to worry about apart from finding the irritating archer’s never-wife, like what to get Tina for Valentine’s Day. It was always a problem, and even his inspired gift of carrots the year before last hadn’t gone down as well as the carrots Vizh had given to Cheryl. [Note to newbies: Those of you who are baffled by this reference need to read one of the all-time LL greats, Visionary’s hilarious ”Carrot Love”] Trickshot cautiously sidled up to the big fancy gates and found the intercom. He spotted a security camera gazing down at him and hastily slicked his hair into place before pushing the buzzer. There was a long pause, than a cool, Eastern-European accented and definitely female voice said, “Yes?” “Er, hi. Could I speak to Natalia Romanza please?” “Who are you and what is the nature of your business with Ms Romanza?” “Me, I’m Trick… er, I’m Carl Bastion. But not the one she knew. That is…” “Ms Romanza is busy and cannot be disturbed at this time. Please do not bother to call again.” The microphone shut off with a squawk of finality. “Oh bugger this,” breathed Trickshot and vaulted over the gates to find his never-wife. “So what are you guys doing for Valentine’s Day?” Troia asked curiously to the Legionnaires who had somehow managed to avoid the training session and were instead watching Bugs Bunny on the satellite channels. “Hiding,” Fin Fang Foom declared with a shudder. “I’m gonna call Cobra and see if she wants to take in my mom’s Valentine Vixens Special Presentation over at the Déja-Vu Review Bar,” CrazySugarFreakBoy! enthused. “She’s got this one number with this chocolate syrup where…” “I’m taking CSFB! to the hospital after he’s asked out Cobra,” Hatman explained. “Elyse and I will be having a candlit dinner overlooking the Paradopolis bay and then maybe we’ll go down to the beach for a moonlight swim,” Banjooooo suggested romantically. “Hey great,” spiffy enthused. “I’ll bring my costume to dinner then.” “Well, I’m taking Cheryl bowling,” Visionary said brightly. “She’s delighted.” “I bet she is,” Troia nodded. Then she leaned over to Donar. Right over. “And what are you doing, big guy? Any ideas?” “I art fighting the Hobgoblins of Ne’erdowellheim at sundown, smiting the Pumice Giants in Frothinggard thereafter, and then will retire me to a quiet banquet with Freyda, methinks,” the Ausgardian hemigod considered. “And thee?” Troia stood upright again. “Oh me. I’ve got loads to do. So many choices, tee hee. I might let ManMan take me out, I don’t know yet.” If he ever calls and asks me, the miserable worm the Amazon administrator didn’t add. Natalia Katarina Romanza was classically beautiful, with jet black hair curling almost to her waist and eyes of greenish purple. She moved like a ballerina and looked down her nose at Trickshot like a princess. “What exactly is so important that you have to commit unlawful entry to see me?” she asked in the same delightful accented that the amorous archer had heard at the gate. “Don’t you recognise me?” Carl Bastion pleaded with her. “I mean, sure, of course you don’t recognise me because we’ve never actually met, but don’t you recognise who I look like? A guy you were married to, maybe?” The lady looked him up and down. “I’m fairly certain I would remember being married to something that looks like you,” she told him. “Now please leave before I have to summon the authorities.” “Have you been, what, memory wiped or something like that?” Trickshot demanded desperately. “Grief-blindness? What?” “Mr… Bunion, was it?” “Bastion. Carl Bastion. Y’see, fantastic as it sounds I’m the other-dimensional counterpart of this world’s Carl Bastion, the hero called Trickshot, the guy you…” The front door slammed open as four very large men in serious business suits (with vests and suspicious semi-automatic-shaped bulges under the left shoulder) strode into the house. Natalia actually swung round to face them faster than Trickshot did. Tricky reached instinctively for his bow and quiver before realising he had left them in the van with Enty. He said a rude word. “Leave him alone, Gunter. He’s only a rather deluded visitor, and he’s just leaving,” the lady of the house warned. “I think not, my dear Natalia,” the gentleman in the black military uniform behind Gunter announced, entering the room once his men had secured it. “I rather suspect that he is the person you have been meeting with behind my back, the one you have been bestowing with all those favours which you have henceforth withheld from me.” He placed his monocle over his eye (the one with the livid scar bisecting cheek and forehead) and glared at the amazed Trickshot. “He doesn’t seem worth losing everything for.” Trickshot knew his opponent at once, both from his own world and this one: Count Wolfgang Fokker, leader of the international terrorist group the Hero Elimination Revenge Project Extermination Squad – HERPES – one of the nastiest neo-Nazis alive. He was not a man known for enjoying having his chocolates and cards returned unopened. “You’ve been watching my house!” accused Natalia. “My house,” Fokker reminded her. “My clothes, my cars, my money.” He glowered at her. “My mistress.” “Hey,” objected Trickshot, “the lady’s not for sale! Back off or I’ll find a new place to stick that monocle, baldy!” “Ah yes, the secret assignant,” Fokker remembered. “Take him to our base. Hurt him very badly.” “No!” gasped Natalia. “He’s nobody. Leave him alone!” Fokker grinned unpleasantly. “And then, Natalia, my specialists and I shall teach you what it means to be obedient to your master.” “Hey, Lisa… boss… I was wondering if perhaps I could, perhaps, knock off early tonight?” G-Eyed asked the amorous advocatrix. Lisa handed little baby Christopher to a nervous-looking client to hold and looked at her legal gofer. “A Valentine’s date?” she speculated. “Nah, not really,” G-Eyed blushed. “Just, just escort duty, kinda. Just…” He turned to follow Lisa’s gaze over his shoulder to the doorway. Lisette was there, and she had clearly prepared herself for a night on the town. G-Eyed had never considered that leather and lace could blend together quite that interestingly. The girl’s outfit would somehow have fitted in at both an embassy ball and a rave. Bry swallowed when he remembered to close his mouth. “Has the zimmer feeb let you go yet?” Lisette asked, “Oh, hi boss, didn’t see you there. Nice baby.” “Lisette?” Lisa asked sceptically. “You’re dating Lisette?” “We just happen to be going to the same party,” G-Eyed explained hurriedly. “Bit of a change from your usual tastes isn’t he, Laurie?” the first lady of the Lair Legion asked. “A girl gets fed up of dating interesting studs all the time,” Lisette shrugged. “It’s the Conservation Fundraiser tonight, so sue me if I wanted to drag along a guy who wasn’t a biker, a Neanderthal, a sleazebag, or a superhero hunk.” “Ah,” understood Lisa, remembering that Lisette was actually unaware of her co-worker Bry Katz’ secret identity. “Well in that case you have my blessing. Have fun kids and don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.” “Is there anything you wouldn’t do?” Lisette asked curiously. “Well, there might be something someday,” the lawyer answered honestly. She retrieved Christopher from her client and comforted the infant. “There there, did the nasty man’s jacket make oo sick den?” “Hold it,” Bry objected the Laurie. “You’re dating me tonight because you’re fed up of going out with hunky, interesting guys?” “Well think of it this way,” Laurie told him. “I get to spend one evening actually supporting something I feel very strongly about without fending off an unwashed unshaved slobbering male, and you get to be seen in the company of a drop-dead gorgeous hot-babe you wouldn’t normally get within twenty feet of without being repelled with a fire hose, which has got to do something for your woman-cred. Simple.” Then for a moment the Lisette mask slipped and there was an earnest and intense young woman looking at him. “Look, this is important to me, okay, and I need someone I can depend upon. Please?” “Hey, I can be boring and dorky,” G-Eyed promised. Troia 215 was staring at the telephone when Hatman slipped into the office. “Oh,” he breathed. “I, uh, I thought you’d slipped out for a break.” “You know me,” the Amazon administrator told him, never taking her eyes off the phone. “Busy, busy, busy.” “Sure,” Hatty agreed. “Er, do you want to take a break now? I’ll cover for you.” “No it’s okay,” Troia answered sullenly. “After all, you’ve usually had about a dozen breaks by now in your regular working day.” “No, I’m fine. Thanks anyway.” “Only I wouldn’t want you to feel we were overworking you or exploiting you…” “Jay, I don’t need a damned break, awlright?!” Troia screamed at the capped crusader. “Okay, okay” Hatty placated her, backing carefully towards the door as she reached for her spear. “Sorry I mentioned it!” Troia deflated. “Nah, I’m sorry. I’m being a bitch today. Look, I’ll take a walk. You can secretly ring Sorceress and ask her out for tonight without any of us knowing about it, ‘kay?” She smiled at the stricken expression on Jay’s face. “That is what you were planning wasn’t it?” “Er, perhaps,” he conceded. “Then do it. Don’t worry about CSFB! getting wind of it,” she grinned. “I can pretty much guarantee he’s going to get called out on a League emergency this evening. I’ve already cashed Cobra’s cheque.” “Great!” Hatman beamed. “It’s just that I want everything to go right for our first proper dinner together. We have a lot to discuss. Thanks for the use of the phone.” “No problem,” Troia told him, then added a bit sourly, “It’s not like I was getting any use out of it.” “How much longer is this going to take?” ManMan demanded at 20,000 feet. “It’s cold, it’s wet, I need the bathroom, and I have a date tonight, assuming I ever get to ask her and assuming she hasn’t already gone off the some Ausgardian revels with a certain hemigod of thunder!” “You can’t rush a mission like this, dude,” Metal Super Falcon warned Joe Pepper as he suspended him in midair from their aerial vantage point. “You’re both pros. She’ll understand that the quest for truth n’ justice comes first.” “You don’t have a girlfriend, do you?” ManMan challenged him. “I can tell.” “Something else you probably now have in common,” Knifey, ManMan’s sentient knife, contributed cheerfully. “You never said this stake-out stuff was going to take nine hours,” Joe Pepper complained. “Without a bathroom break.” “You know,” Knifey suggested, “from up here you could just unzip your pants while Falc holds you under the armpits and…” “No!” ManMan and Metal Super Falcon replied in unison. “All those flying suit redesigns,” ManMan told MSF resentfully, “and you couldn’t build in a simple urinal.” “This is your secret headquarters?” Trickshot checked with Count Fokker. “The Paradopolis State Opera House?” “Of course,” the head of HERPES boasted. “Do you think architecture this ugly is accidental? What better way to disguise a massive helicarrier gunship than by making it look like a piece of modern building design. We won awards.” “I presume you will wait until the Conservation Awards tonight before making your big move,” Natalia surmised. “Once the building is full of prominent environmentalists and ecologically minded politicians all in one place…” “We activate out anti-gravity turbines and simply leave, taking them as hostages,” Fokker completed her thought. “Thereafter, there are many oil companies, lumber consortia, whaling operations and so on who will gladly pay large ransoms for us to keep our prisoners forever.” “You monster!” Natalia accused. “You told me that you were a simple shipping magnate!” “I simply ship people, bombs, and terror from one place to another,” chuckled the villain. “Now, take them below and stow them securely. Hurt this strutting gigolo badly before you leave him.” “Hey!” Trickshot warned, “You’d better… Ooof! Agh! Ugh! Unnh! Agh!” “So why did you become a superhero sidekick?” G-Eyed asked Lisette. “I got retconned into it by the Hooded Hood,” the girl answered, looking round at the people flocking into the benefit dinner at the Paradopolis Opera House. “With the emphasis on the conned part. Can we discuss something else?” “Okay. Why did you become a legal assistant?” “Don’t laugh, but I wanted to make a difference to people’s lives, and to save the planet,” she said defensively. “Nothing wrong with that,” Bry considered. “I approve of saving the planet.” Lisette scowled at him then sighed and shook her head. “I’m sorry, you’re just giving me dating flashbacks. Y’know, ‘Hey, I’m all for saving mother nature too baby, just let me unhook this little fastener here an’ we’ll see how great nature can be’.” “That’s not what I meant,” G-Eyed assured her. She looked him right in the eyes cautiously. “It’s not, is it? You really are that square.” “I really am,” he sighed back. “Shall we go in?” “Hey, Lisette!” Laurie and Bry swung round to see E-Male, leader of the New Battlers, approaching them with a babe on each arm. “I see you had to dig to the bottom of the barrel to find a date for tonight after I dumped you,” Messenger’s never-was-sidekick smirked as he strutted over to them. “You didn’t dump me, you cheated on me,” Lisette snarled back. “And I’ve sworn off superguys for good, you rotten bastard! Besides, Bry’s a hell of a lot better in bed than you are, probably because he doesn’t wear tight spandex pants that cuts off blood to his brain and his…” “Bry” mocked E-Male. “A nice boy from your office, huh?” G-Eyed wasn’t entirely sure how to react to the bed comment, but he knew when a bigmouth needed punching on the nose. He confined himself to squeezing back when E-Male shook his hand with a vicious super-strengthed grasp. Two could play at that game. In fact, G-Eyed could go one better. His eyes flashed behind his sun-shades. “Aw, gee, E-Male,” Bry observed. “Looks like you might have had too much to drink.” He pointed to the spreading wet patch on the superhero’s pants crotch where he had just teleported the contents of the nearby fruit cup. “You, uh, you can buy special adult diapers for that if it’s a regular problem, you know.” “Sorry about that,” Lisette said to Bry as the junior postman beat a hasty retreat to the bathroom. “I guess you’re working out the liabilities of a night out with perfection by now, huh?” “Let’s call it getting the bad stuff out of the way early,” Bry answered gallantly. “Let’s get to our table safe in the knowledge that nothing else can go wrong now.” “Is something the matter with cute Troia 215ing?” Yo asked the forlorn Amazon administrator s/he found sitting on the main staircase of the Lair Mansion. “Of course not,” Troia answered self-pityingly. “I needed to stay in tonight and wash my hair anyway. I’m an Amazon warrior, and I don’t need a guy to take me out tonight, even if it is my first Valentine’s Day in Man’s World and I didn’t get a single card. And I don’t mind that Finny’s locked himself in his room and barricaded all the furniture across the door, or that ManMan has forgotten I exist, or that Donar’s spending all his time fighting trolls then getting his rocks off with some Ausgardian sex-goddess, or that all men are pigs and deserve to die horribly.” “You are being to needing a date?” Yo understood. “Yeah, but not you, Yo-ster. It’s nothing personal but the gender-changing thing reminds me too much of Amazon school…” “Yo was not thinking of Yo, cute-Troia. Yo knows a very nice man who is being not with a date tonight and is wanting to get out after long confinement and is knowing how to show a girl a good time. Yo could be telling this nice man that cute-Troia is desperate and wants to go out with him.” “I’m not desperate,” the red-haired girl argued. “Tell him that when you call him.” “She wasn’t there,” CrazySugarFreakBoy! mourned. “I went to the Abandoned Legion HQ and asked for Cobra but there was only spiffy there, ‘cause Banjoooo and Elyse had given him the slip. He was having an evening in pruning his fern and training Hounddog. The whole AL are out on a case. spiffy said they’d got a phone call just about the time I set off from the Lair Mansion and they’d all rushed out together. I don’t understand it.” “Never mind,” HALLIE sympathised. “And before you ask again, no I’m not creating a virtual Cobra for you to play with. Go read your comics or something.” The mansion’s resident computer knew the right buttons to push, because even as he was grieving the lack of a snake-woman to give him multiple fractures for suggesting intimacy CSFB! was marching towards his room and the waiting collection of graphic novels. “We’re naturals,” Dreamcatcher Foxglove muttered his mantra to nobody. “She’s made for me, she wants me, she just doesn’t know ity yet…” “Hi, Dream,” Izzy Shapiro bade him as he entered his room. “Still bad news on the Cobra front?” “Hi, Iz! Well, she’s playing hard-to-get but I know it’s only a matter of time. How’s my best dead ex-girlfriend anyway? “Ah, you know,” Izzy shrugged, “Still an ambiguous possible incarnation of your subconscious or a genuine paranormal manifestation, appearing sporadically to act as your spiritual guide and all-round support mechanism. Happy Valentine’s Day. Thought you might need to read me some Sandman and cheer yourself up, lover.” “Thanks, Izzy,” Dream smiled at his ghostly dead girlfriend. “You’re the best. Happy Valentine’s Day.” The two of them sat on the bed and opened up the first comic. Cobra didn’t know what she was missing. “Are you alright?” Natalia Romanza asked the little bloody heap that was dropped into the holding cell next to her. “Sure,” Trickshot oozed. “Don’t worry about me. I’ll look after ya.” “By being pounded to a pulp.” “Hey, that Fokker slime gets to lay a hand on you over my dead body,” promised the irritating archer with deadly seriousness. “Probably,” Natalia considered. She detached her earring and pressed the microswitch concealed within it. “What are you doin’?” Tricky asked. “I’m signalling our position to my employers, signifying that Count Fokker has finally lost his cool and revealed his hidden hideout and that SPUD can now come in and take him down,” she explained. “Unfortunately, we appear to be in a radio-proof room, so we can’t expect help from Dan Drury just now.” “You work for Drury?” Trickshot realised. “But Drury was th’ one who sent me to your address… He set me up! He wanted Fokker to assume I was the guy you’d been meetin’ with, but actually it was Drury who you were acting as an undercover spy for! And once Fokker thought he’d caught you bein’ unfaithful he dragged us here and had me beaten to a jelly.” “It’s a dirty job,” Natalia acknowledged, “but somebody has to do it.” “So you know more than you were admitting back at the house?” “I know you’re the alternate reality counterpart of my murdered husband, yes.” The exotic masterspy conceded. “I am supposed to know things, after all,” she pointed out. “And I read about the new LL lineup a while back in all the newspapers. I guessed it’d only be a matter of time before you looked me up. It’s what my Carl would have done.” Trickshot looked around nervously. “Don’t’cha think you’re being a bit indiscreet sayin’ all this stuff now?” he asked Natalia. “I mean, if Fokker bugged the house he gave you, surely he’s gonna bug the holding cells on his own concealed spacecraft?” “If he’d got microphones on us his signal-suppression wouldn’t be working,” the exotic beauty explained. “Now no more questions. After all, your armoured colleague NTU-150 has doubtless been tracking us ever since HERPES broke into my house.” She looked at the featureless steel box. “This is a mark twelve HERPES holding bay, and my record time for cracking one is seven minutes nine seconds. Have you got a stopwatch?” “C’mon man, surely you got a mobile phone of something in that getup?” ManMan continued to complain. “Only a comms system tied into the SPUD helicarrier,” MSF shot back. “And I don’t think you want every spook in the Western world to be listening to your Valentine’s message, right?” “But I’m getting airsick up here over the Opera House, and if I don’t make that phone call soon that’s exactly all I’ll be getting tonight,” ManMan pointed out. “In fact, even if he makes the phone call that’s probably all he’s getting,” chuckled Knifey unhelpfully. “Right, that’s it!” Joe Pepper snarled. “I… hey, isn’t that NTU-150 dismantling some kind of giant turbine fan on the roof of the Paradopolis Opera House?” Metal Super Falcon turned his magnifying lenses onto the red and gold armoured figure who was methodically rewiring something very complicated on the dome of the bizarre waterfront building. “Sure looks like it,” he admitted. “Perhaps we should… Hey! I got the signal! Out agent’s calling us in! Let’s go!” “At last!” ManMan sighed. “What’s the plan?” “See that fancy skylight there?” MSF asked. “I’m going to drop you through it.” “Hey, wait a minute, I can’t flyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy!!!” “This is so antibuff and unrad!” Lisette growled at the point where the Conservation Awards were interrupted by the HERPES terrorists climbing onto the stage. “Can’t I get one night without a major supervillian attack to do something important?” “Er, perhaps I should… go phone the police or something?” G-Eyed suggested, in the best traditions of superheroes with secret identities to protect everywhere. Laurie shook her head. “No, you’re only a normal guy. I’d better do something. I just wish I’d brought my whip along, but I didn’t expect it to be that kind of date.” “Do you actually have superpowers then?” Goldeneyed asked curiously. “Well, I can’t do the summonsing thing that Lisa does, but I could kick Buffy’s ass in a straight kickboxing match.” “And those guys have, what, high tech sub-machine pistols and a roomful of hostages to spray if you start something?” “Point. But we can’t just let them get away with this. It could set the green cause back twenty years.” Goldeneyed noticed Count Wolfgang Fokker striding onto the stage. He took the microphone from the celebrity who had been about to award the Best Dressed Eco-Crusader honour and addressed the crowd. “My dear hostages, you little realise that you are at the culmination of a long-planned scheme to launch the latest HERPES battle-carrier. This entire building is actually a flying craft designed to blow that damned SPUD helicarrier out of the skies, and it has been wholly financed by this one simple scheme top capture and keep you bleeding-heart liberals out of circulation permanently. I trust a few decades in our South American labour camps will strip you of your sentimental tree-hugging philosophies. You will find that scrambling for raw meat to survive is a wonderful reality check,.” “I can live with the terrorists, but I can’t put up with this speech,” Lisette warned her date. “Okay. Laurie, I’ve got a bit of a confession to make to you…” G-Eyed breathed. A screaming man in a white sequinned and studded leather costume crashed through the skylight above Fokker’s head and fell heavily on the monocled maniac. “Alright!” Trickshot shouted from the wings. “Elvis has entered the building!” “Archer!” NTU-150 called to him, propelling a pack of arrows and a collapsible bow at the legionnaire. Trickshot rolled forward to collect it, tumbled over one shoulder and somehow came up with two arrows nocked and ready for release. “The Lair Legion!” Lisette breathed. “But do they know that this entire building is bogus, and is really a HERPES death-machine?” “Fools!” screamed Fokker, “Little do you realise that this entire building is really a HERPES death-machine! Now it will rise to the skies and decimate this city in punishment for your interruption of my little charade!” “No it won’t,” Enty pointed out as the head of HERPES fingered a remote control. The Lair Legion’s technical expert scattered a pile of circuit boards onto the dance floor. “It seemed pretty clear that the ventilation systems were far more elaborate that a simple theatre would need, so I took the liberty of doing a quick redesign in your main power conduits and improving the functionality of the whole place several hundred percent. Of course, it won’t ever fly now.” “You did what?” screamed Fokker. “But I’ve got to thank you actually,” Jaimie Bautista added, “because I did get all the spare bits I needed to make Tina this great hairdryer for Valentine’s day, so the death-machine project’s not a total loss.” “You cannot stop us!” the Count screamed. “Hail HERPES! Apply Penicillin and another rash shall come forth within six weeks! Death squads attack! Kill everybody in this room, er, except for our people, who are the ones with the green buckets on their heads.” “No way!” shouted Lisette, and suddenly the nearest HERPES agent had a vegetarian kebab stuck into him. G-Eyed was impressed. He discretely took three more terrorists down while Laurie was looking the other way. ManMan found himself wielding only a knife up against a dozen high-tech equipped supergoons. He grinned. He’d been feeling frustrated all day, and here was his therapy. NTU-150 bracketed the room with precision repulsor bolts, picking off the HERPES men with mechanical efficiency. MSF swooped down and rescued a micro-celebrity from the line of fire of one panicking terrorist. On the ground Trickshot used his crazy-glue arrow to literally pin his adversaries to the wall. Natalia Romanza found her way through the mayhem to face off against Fokker himself. “Happy Valentine’s Day!” she told him as she placed a high heel where it would do the most good. Then Dan Drury and the Agents of SPUD abseiled down through the remaining roof-lights and things got graphic. “What d’ya mean she’s gone for a pizza with Paste Pot Pete?” ManMan shouted at HALLIE down Lisette’s cellphone. “I’ve been out fighting crime! Fighting crime! It’s what superheroes do. I shouldn’t get robbed of pizza for that! Aw man, this sucks.” “Troia getting herself into a sticky situation?” Knifey chuckled. “Shut up. I am never doing Falc a favour again. Never.” “Hey, ManMan!” Metal Super Falcon called across. “Thanks for the assist, guy. I gotta go. These starlets I rescued wanna thank me in their special way. Bye!” “Er… I rescued them as well…” Joe Pepper said plaintively. “See you later, ManMan,” NTU-150 told the Elvis impersonator. “I’ve got to give Tina her present. It’s a hair-dryer, and it can also be used for yard work if you need a flamethrower.” “I’m sure she’ll, uh, find a good place for it,” Knifey assured the armoured engineer. “Need dropping off somewhere?” Enty checked. “No thanks man,” ManMan sighed. “I’ll just go and stand in the rain outside the Pizza Hut window.” “It’s not raining.” “Nothing goes right for me.” “What did you expect?” Natalia Romanza asked Carl Banion. “You’re like the man I fell in love with, but you’re not him. Just being near to you hurts me because you are so like him.” “Aw, Talia, I never wanted to hurt you. I just… I figured I hadda check to see you were okay and that. I sort of feel responsible, cause you’re my widow or something.” The spy stroked the side of Trickshot’s sad face. “Of course. I know the soft heart under that gruff exterior. I would expect nothing else of you.” She looked over to where Drury was leading Count Fokker away. “I have to go now,” she told the archer. “There’s plenty of other assignments for the Widow, and I have a lot of paying back to do for all the terrible things I did when I was younger. Be well.” Then impulsively she kissed him, and the electricity that sparked between them startled them both. “Bye Talia.” “Au revoir, my archer.” Trickshot watched her until she was out of sight. He found ManMan standing next to him. “So,” Joe Pepper wondered, “ wanna split a pizza?” ManMan shrugged and wandered off beside the archer across the tarmac. “This could be the start of a beautiful friendship.” Bry Katz loaned Laurie Layton his jacket as she shivered in the cold outside the ruined Conservation Awards reception. “I’m sorry,” he told her. “I know you wanted tonight to be different.” “Nah,” she grinned. “This was better. Conservation awards wouldn’t headline the news, but this will. And maybe somebody will just think a bit more about how important it is to save the planet because of it, yeah?” “So you don’t mind?” he checked. “I sort of regret missing dinner,” she admitted. G-Eyed considered this. “I could buy you dinner,” he offered. “Er, that is if you don’t mind being seen with me outside needing window-dressing for a formal function, and I won’t be offended if you’d…” “Dinner would be fine,” Lisette assured him. “And hey, afterwards if you play your cards right I might even let you try out this little present the Valentine Bunny left on my pillow…” And high over the city the Love-Yo radiated waves of happiness and joy, and all Paradopolis felt just a little bit better. Lovers kissed and friends smiled. CrazySugarFreakBoy! read A Dream of You with somebody he once loved, Hatman and Sorceress whispered secrets by candlelight, Tina kissed Jaimie, Visionary shared the last of his Slusheee with Cheryl, Banjoooo and Elyse watched the sun set over the city, spiffy taught Hounddog to fetch, Valeria felt very comfortable nestled in the crook of Exile’s arm as Time Goes By, and true love conquered all, at least for now. Happy Valentine’s Day. Hilarity, heartbreak, and, er, h'espionage served up with a big pink ribbon with greetings on the Feast of St Valentine from... the Hooded Hood |
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