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Baron Zemo's Lair

The Collected Compleat #45: Untold Tales of the Lair Legion: All’s Fairground in Love and War, or Something Even More Wicked Than the Last Time We Ripped Off This Title from a Ray Bradbury Story This Way Comes
Wednesday, 26-Apr-2000 17:10:52
    195.92.194.105 writes:

    #45: Untold Tales of the Lair Legion: All’s Fairground in Love and War, or Something Even More Wicked Than the Last Time We Ripped Off This Title from a Ray Bradbury Story This Way Comes

    And now, a word of explanation: First off, I’m back from my break. Hi. Love what you’ve done to the place since I was last here.

    Next, I noted that some of you particularly favoured the short episodic way I presented Untold Tales #43 (The League of Improbable Gentlemen tale) so I thought I’d try it again and see if I learn anything. Therefore I’ve chopped up Untold Tales #45 and 46 into a nine-part serial, and I’ll pop them up roughly daily until they’re done. They form the opening act of the multi-part storyline that will take us to Untold Tales #50, maybe beyond if my abilities to spin out stories endlessly haven’t atrophied.

    The thing is that in these shorter episodes I don’t have the space in each segment to do a recap of everything that’s gone before, so you’ll have to keep up.

    Although not quite everyone is included in these opening parts, I do intend to work in all who wish to be around as the story progresses. Xander, for example, whilst following his doctrine of not being there when it happens, is actually very much active behind the scenes, as we will eventually discover. I’m still not too sure about whether characters like Green Ninja, Saint, and most recently Dynamite Boy want to be involved or not, so if you do, tell me.

    There are a lot of characters in this story, and I sometimes tend to vary between using their superhero and secret ID names for variety of language. Those who need a reference text are referred to the always-slightly-out of-date Who’s Who of the Parodyverse.

    Finally, this story poses a number of moral and ethical dilemmas to some of our heroes, so when they pop up I’d be happy to have guidance from those characters’ owners as to how they think the heroes should react. Interactive storytelling is part of what makes the BZL a unique writing experience.

    IW

    All moveables of wonder, from all parts,
    Are here – Albinos, painted Indians, Dwarfs,
    The Horse of Knowledge, and the learned Pig,
    The Stone-eater, the Man that swallows fire,
    Giants, Ventriloquists, the Invisible Girl,
    The Bust that speaks and moves its goggling eyes,
    All out-of-way, far-fetch’d, perverted things
    All Freaks of Nature, all Promethean thoughts,
    Of Man, his dullness, madness, and their feats
    All jumbled up together to make up
    A Parliament of Monsters…

    The Prelude William Wordsworth

    Prologue: Out across the grey expanse of the Paradopolis Sound the wet morning was smudged with purple thunderclouds gusting down from upstate Gothametropolis like the wrath of God. The salesman gestured to the brewing storm and asked, “How can you not want to buy a lightning rod. There’s a storm brewing. A storm such as this town has never seen in it’s three thousand years.”
    “I never buy stuff from the door,” Flapjack, newly appointed butler and professional toady to the Lair Legion answered. “Not since I got that complete set of A-D encyclopaedias.”
    “Your loss, squire,” the raincoat-shrouded Englishman grinned, hoisting the metal rod over his shoulder and whistling all the way back to the mainland.

    Part One: Swings and Roundabouts

    The Destiny Carnival arrived that afternoon, hoisting its tents on the deserted old switching yards behind the disused Old Paradopolis Central Station. Clowns and acrobats toured the streets handing out free passes to the rubes and terrifying small children. A gymnastic lady who barely missed singeing spiffy’s fern with her fire-breathing handed a whole wad of the colourful tickets to the young hero. “I’ll see you there,” she breathed, and spiffy found himself nodding. Then his mayoral bodyguards wrestled the girl to the floor and beat her to pulp before he could stop them.
    spiffy still went to the carnival though, and he took lots of his friends.
    Written on the ticket it said, “One night only.”

    The pale lights of the carnival reflected on the dark waters of the Paradopolis Sound, and the cheap calliope music drifted over the ragged waste-ground luring young people towards the shabby glamour of the midway. A deformed midget on stilts extolled the wonders of the fair, promising horror and love and a change of fate for all who would purchase tickets. Caged beasts stalked nervously in their painted wagons, glaring at other animals who consumed the bright candyfloss and took turns to shoot clay pigeons for stuffed teddy bears.
    The three girls seemed no different to all the others who drifted along the main street of the carnival gaping at the attractions. Worthy of a second glance, perhaps, because no-one could say they were unattractive even here amongst the painted showgirls of the exhibitions tent which promised a re-enactment of the last days of Sodom at ten tonight, no children allowed and only for the broad-minded. The trio passed Mystic Morgana’s Tent of the Future where the veil of time could be ripped asunder for a silver dollar, and the caravan where the Amazing Hooked Man was pierced and hung from five hundred cruel barbs, past the freakshow where a three-headed monkey solved quadratic equations and for an extra fifty cents the punters could comb the hair of a genuine stuffed mermaid. Further down a gaudy Ferris wheel spun lazy circles in the dark sky and visitors vanished into the cavernous darkness of the Ghost Train.
    “I’m not really sure about this,” Sarah Shepherdson repeated for the fourteenth time.
    “Relax,” Laurie Layton assured her. “It’s going to be great.”
    “I’m not ready for dating again,” Shep insisted. “It’s too soon.”
    “Please don’t worry,” Valeria of Carfax assured the waitress from her local diner. “I am sure that Derek and Bryan will have selected an escort for you of equal honour and integrity to themselves.”
    “Good example, Val, citing your slave-master,” muttered Laurie to the girl who still insisted that stripy pyjama bottoms and a sweatshirt were high fashion.
    “I’m not really sure about this at all,” breathed Dancer.
    It’s probably worth noting what each of these three young ladies doesn’t know just now.
    Valeria, for example, doesn’t know what a date is. In the Dreary Dimension from which she was sent as a tribute slave for the bed of the superhero Exile dates are small wizened fruits, and the only way to spend an evening out with a boy is for him to burn your farm, slaughter your kinfolk, and carry you off across the Endless Tundra. However, since the only time she’s been to Exile’s bed is to change his duvet, and since she’s now gainfully employed as his housekeeper on a ridiculously high guilt-salary, this is actually the closest thing she’s come to a romantic situation with her supposed owner (Derek Foreman) since she risked her life for him in battle with the inconceivable Yurt.
    Laurie is also the part-time superhero Lisette, the sometime-sidekick of the infamous Lisa Waltz, and the first lady of the New Battlers up to that very messy break-up with their leader E-Male. Lisette’s currently off superheroes, and has therefore turned to the intern at Lisa’s law firm where they both work, the amazingly square (to Laurie) Bry Katz. Laurie suspects that Bry is secretly gay, since he has so far conspicuously failed to use her like trash and then dump her despite her offering herself to him on a plate. Bry’s real secret is far more terrible, and thus long he has managed to hide his superheroic identity of Goldeneyed from his troubled girlfriend. This is why Derek and Valeria are also under strict orders not to reveal themselves as a superhero and a refugee from another dimension respectively.
    And Sarah? Well, neither Laurie nor Valeria suspect that the quiet, kind waitress who lives over the store at the Bean and Donut Coffee Shop is secretly the new probability-twisting superheroine Dancer, just as she has no idea that they are more than nice customers who talked her to the carnival on a blind date.
    None of them know who Valeria’s boyfriend’s friend has set her up with.

    “I love carnivals” Elyse Greenwald beamed, staring round her at the colour and gaiety, clinging onto the arm of her escort. How many girls could say they were on a date with royalty this evening, even if it was the King of the Sea Monkeys? How many would want to?
    “I dunno,” Banjooooo frowned. “Everybody’s looking at me like I was one of the acts. Don’t they know I’m one of the most famous superheroes in the world?”
    “Perhaps if you’d worn the disguise that spiffy prepared for you?” Cap suggested.
    “A t-shirt printed ‘I’m not a famous superhero, I’m just a terrible freak if nature’ isn’t my idea of a good disguise,” growled the man-sized shrimp. “Why the hell are all these people gawking at me?
    Becoming suddenly suspicious he whirled round to find spiffy holding a mug collecting from the crowd. “We, um, we need some cash for the sideshows, don’t we?” the fern-wielder asked sheepishly.
    “It’s not too late for me to reconsider joining the Abandoned Legion, you know,” Banjoooo warned.
    “But you’re the whole reason we’re having to endure this humiliating and trivial ‘team-building exercise’,” Cobra complained. “Why we couldn’t all have just decimated a crack house together I’ll never know.”
    “Exactly,” muttered Messenger. “Mind you, there is always an element of petty street crime at events such as this. Muggers, pickpockets…”
    “Ah-ah! No superheroing tonight,” spiffy ordered. “What’s the point of getting you all shaved and smartened up – and bathed – and disguised if you blow it all by ripping the head off some guy who’s cheating at the three card trick?”
    “Better to glue his eyebrows to a railroad track anyway,” suggested Messenger, with a glance over at Paste Pot Pete. Pete had been… strange since his near-death injury a few months back. For one thing, he hadn’t spoken a word since except when a writer had got it wrong.
    “It’d probably be best to keep away from Sorcy’s date anyway, even in your disguise,” Hunter Victorious advised Messenger. “Hatman’s a member of the Lair Legion, and he’d feel obliged to take you in over that death sentence thing.”
    “He could try to take me in,” the postman answered darkly.
    “Hey, I’m a non-active Legionnaire too,” Banjooooo protested.
    “Yeah, but you’re, um… you’re cool,” improvised spiffy desperately.
    “We really must get that death sentence thing sorted out someday,” Cap considered, “but for now let’s concentrate on developing our sense of team in a non-violent interpersonal social situation. After all, we have these free tickets to this carnival event, and spiffy has even arranged a blind date for Messenger here…”

    “Quiet, isn’t it?” gloated Visionary.
    “Where are they all?” Cheryl asked.
    “Most of them went to that Destiny Carnival,” Vizh told his wife. “I gave Zebulon permission to visit home to the North Pole, Fleabot’s with Hallie in the Virtual Realm, Asil’s off babysitting little Christopher…”
    “What about Finny? I don’t see Finny going off to the funfair on a date,” objected Cheryl.
    “Oh, I kind of hinted that there might be something nefarious and sinister going on behind the greasepaint,” the possibly fake man smirked. “He was off there undercover faster than you could say ‘the weed of crime bears bitter fruit’. I’m starting to think I’m getting the hang of this leading the LL thing.”
    “And what did the mighty Lair Legion leader have in mind once he’d managed to get us alone in the deserted Lair Mansion?” Cheryl smiled.
    “Well...” Vizh blushed, reaching under his desk for the bargain bucket of coleslaw.
    “Hey, sorry to interrupt, boss,” Flapjack leered from the doorway.
    “Didn’t I give you the night off to go to the carnival?” snapped the frustrated Visionary.
    “Yeah, but my date isn’t assembled yet,” the hunchbacked retainer explained earnestly. “Anyway, you got a visitor.”
    “Who is it?” sighed the unwilling leader of the Lair Legion.
    “Me,” Baron Heinrich Zemo announced himself.
    Suddenly having every superhero in the Legion all off at once didn’t seem like such a good idea at all.

    “Jaimie? What are you doing exactly?”
    “Er, nothing Tina. I just thought I might improve the energy to torque ratio of this Ferris wheel, that’s all.”
    “Well don’t,” Tina instructed him. “This is supposed to be a fun night out, not a disaster movie.”
    “Yeah most verily,” Donar, reluctantly partnering Lisa for the evening, or as long as Lisa’s promise to keep her hands out of his trousers lasted. “E’en yon dragon hast found himself a companion for the evening.” The hemigod considered Finny’s date again, “Though she ist most grievously ugly.”
    “Whoever it is, it could be love,” Lisa considered. “See how they’re whispering in each others’ ears?”
    “See anything suspicious yet?” Fin Fang Foom asked his mini-skirted companion.
    “Not yet,” the disguised Dark Knight answered, “But this whole place reeks of set-up.” He glowered over to the vast tent containing Vasto the Wonder Frog, and the smaller cabins beyond which promised the Lernean Hydra, the cactus man, Enormous Irma the world’s largest lady in all her bikinied glory, Suicide Blonde’s exotic display arena, and more. The shallow entertainment of the fairground seemed somehow sinister to him.
    “And I thought you were bringing someone special along too,” the first lady of the Lair Legion asked Trickshot.
    “Yeah well,” Carl Bastion frowned, scratching his head. “I was kinda hopin’ to, but it looks like she either didn’t get my message or decided to stand me up. Ah, it was a longshot anyways.” After all, why would his this-dimensional widow agree to see another version of the man she had unwittingly betrayed to his death?
    “Thou canst tag along with Lady Lisa and mineself,” Donar assured him. “Verily.”
    “It’ll be okay,” Trickshot replied. “After all, Space Ghostie’s having a pretty good time solo over there by the peepshow tent with his Spank Ray!”
    “Or cute irritating bowman could be coming with Yo,” the generous pure thought being offered. “Yo is thinking you can come to the archering stand and be winning Yo cuddly fluffy bunny.”
    Trickshot had already committed himself to following the pure thought being when Yo added, “And later we can be to releasing all those poor captive lions and tigers and other cute animals…”
    “Didn’t you bring a date, CrazySugarFreakBoy!?” Tina asked Dreamcatcher Foxglove.
    “No need,” grinned the young man. “spiffy told me that Cobra’s gonna be here. Tonight’s my big chance.”
    “spiffy told you that, did he?” Sorceress noted. “I’ll be sure to let Christine know that.”
    “Whitney honey, you couldn’t!” protested Jay Boaz, Hatman. “It’d be like murder.”
    “You could forget about pursuing Cobra and escort Troia,” Lisa suggested. “Her date appears not to have shown up either.”
    “ManMan?” Troia shrugged. “He’ll be here. Eventually. Just in time to die!”
    The dunking clown behind them literally laughed his head off.

    “Have they all arrived?” Colonel Destiny asked his minions.
    “I believe they have,” Dr Loveray decided, looking up from his peep-o-scope. “Not a bad crop at all.”
    “Well then,” the sinister owner of the Destiny Carnival grimaced, “Let the games begin.”

    Next: Shep’s blind date, Cobra agrees to go out with CSFB!, Zemo takes a delivery, and nothing is quite what it seems



    Part Two: Merry-Go-Round

    “Hello, Michael. Pleased to meet you,” Sarah Shepherdson said politely, trying not to blush. As blind dates went this one was dreamboat, tall, handsome, and somewhat introvert, his eyes hidden behind mirror-shades and his body lean and fit. That probably meant he was a psycho serial-murderer, some cynical bruised part of her warned herself.
    “Hello,” Messenger replied. “It is… moderately pleasant to meet you.”
    “G-Ey… Bryan,” hissed Exile. “Do you know who that is?”
    “Sure,” hissed back Goldeneyed, his arm nervously round Lisette’s waist. “It’s a perfectly normal guy our good friend Mark Hopkins has suggested for a date for Laurie’s friend!”
    “It’s…”
    “Normal.”
    The three couples wandered along midway, past dancing chimps and gawping humans. The sights, sounds, and smells of the carnival assaulted them: the scents of cheap hot dogs and unwashed animals, the gaudy stained silks of the acrobats and the lurid lights of the big top, the false promises of the barkers and the banging of generators operating the mechanical thrills of the Murder Mirror Maze.
    “So you’re a postal worker?” Shep asked politely.
    “I deliver messages that need to be sent,” Messenger conceded.
    “Bry, we can’t let a sweet, shy waitress go on a blind date with… him,” Exile continued hissing.
    “Shut up. Look at it this way, she’s absolutely one hundred percent safe from muggers!” G-Eyed continued hissing back.
    “I am so going to kick spiffy’s ass, bodyguards or no bodyguards,” promised Derek.
    “They do make a nice couple, don’t they?” Valeria smiled romantically. “So what do we do now we’re at this carnival thing?” She looked somewhat nervously over to where shocked rubes were hurrying out of the tent which claimed to house a Sow Possessed of Nineteen Devils.
    “You’ve not been to a carny before?” Laurie asked, amazed again at how hicksville Derek’s girlfriend could be.
    “Lots of times,” lied Valeria.
    “Then you should know the routine,” smirked Lisette. “Let’s go and hit the Tunnel of Love.”

    “So you’ve forgiven me then?” ManMan checked nervously. “I didn’t mean to be late, but Xander’s making me mind his shop for him and every cupboard I open is a new adventure.” He’d lost count of the number of dates he’d been on with Troia 215, and the traditional Amazon courting spear still made him nervous.
    “She got over being mad with you when she rang that bell on the weight-testing device and you couldn’t,” snickered Knifey.
    “I was just being polite,” Joe Pepper defended himself to his sentient weapon.
    “You needn’t worry,” Troia comforted him. “I’ll protect you.”
    “I have a super-powerful grip,” ManMan assured her.
    “Smooth line to use on the ladies,” Knifey commented.
    “So what shall we do now?” Troia wondered, looking round the gaudy fairground. “We could see the world’s strongest man take on all comers at arm wrestling, or check out the Headless Horse. I think we’ll give the Farter’s Choir a miss though. Hey! Hatty! Sorceress! Where are you going?”
    “I was going to check out Mystic Morgana’s Fortune Telling Tent,” smirked Sorceress with the look of one who was about to psyche out the opposition, “but then Dreamcatcher spotted Cobra so we’re in hot pursuit to try and staunch the bleeding.”
    “She might decide to let him live,” Hatman pointed out hopefully.
    “Be real,” Sorceress told him.
    They hurried through the crowd, pushing aside balloon vendors and courting couples to try and prevent a disaster.

    Meanwhile, CrazySugarFreakBoy! had caught up with the object of his obsession outside the Siren’s Cave. “It’s fate that brought us together,” he bounded across to tell Cobra. “It’s like Reed and Sue or Scott and Jean or Clark and Lois. I’d love you even if you became a cosmically powerful force of destruction that wiped out an alien galaxy and returned intending to consume the Earth.”
    “Don’t kill him,” Cap urged the snake woman.
    “I won’t,” Christine McBurney promised with an evil smile. “I’ve been preparing for this for some time. Alright, CrazySugarFreakBoy! I will accept you as a suitor.”
    “What?” gasped Paste Pot Pete.
    “I knew you had a hot monkey-passion for me!” Dream celebrated.
    “Sure,” Cobra told him. “You love me and would do anything for me. Right?”
    “Name it,” beamed CSFB! “I’d battle Galactivac and the Yurt, I’d travel to the furthest reaches of the galaxy…”
    “If only…” muttered Cap.
    “No need,” smiled Cobra. “But there are a few prerequisites before I could accept you as a suitor. Cultural things, to do with my upbringing, which Dream here knows of but will never utter on pain of slow death, yes?”
    “Like what?” Dream wondered.
    “Well, my culture expects me to only accept a mate who is properly circumcised, for example,” Cobra told him; and her eyes were as cold as a serpent’s.
    “Ouch,” winced ManMan and Hatty together.
    “Circumcised,” repeated Dream.
    “Oh yes. And monorchid,” added the snake woman.
    “What’s monorchid?” ManMan whispered to Knifey.
    “Well, there was a famous song about Hitler being like that. Goerbals had two but they were small,” the sentient blade answered.
    “Er…” Dream worried.
    “Would you like me to help you with it now, or do you want some preparation time?” Cobra asked sweetly.
    “He needs time,” Hatty said hurriedly. “C’mon Joe, let’s talk this through with Dream here… over in that sideshow, huh?”
    “Monorchid?” CSFB! repeated as he was dragged off into the presence of Vasto the Wonder Frog.
    “I never knew your people had such strict cultural taboos, Cobra,” Sorceress puzzled.
    “What taboos?” shrugged Cobra, and walked away snickering.

    “Ah yes, Baron Zemo,” smiled Visionary, hammering his finger repeatedly on the emergency summons button. “What an unexpected pleasure. And how nice of Flapjack to just let you in past all the defences.”
    “Hey, my old boss the Hooded Hood always said to show the Baron straight in,” the hunchbacked retainer observed.
    “I could have eliminated your pathetic defences with ease anyway,” Zemo pointed out. “Again.”
    The doorbell rang again, followed by the sounds of the disruptors on the doorframe self-destructing noisily. That caused less lawsuits than the alternative. “Perhaps you’d better go and see who it is,” Vizh told Flapjack hastily. “See which major superheroes it is.”
    “What do you want, Zemo?” Cheryl asked the Masked Monarch.
    “Ah, ever to the point, my dear Duchess of Lake Superior,” bowed the archvillain suavely. “I am here purely in the interests of the public good, in the role of a private citizen who is reporting a disturbing incident to the famous Lair Legion.”
    “So not here to… annihilate us or anything?” checked Visionary.
    “Of course not,” Zemo assured the possibly fake man. “I wouldn’t need to come all this way just to do that. No, my astrometrics minions have detected some large mass travelling at faster-than-light speed towards the Earth, due to impact in a matter of four or five weeks. It is roughly the volume of Galactivac’s world-ship.”
    “That’d be Galactivac the Living Death that Sucks, the Planet-Eater,” Visionary checked.
    “Or something or similar volume,” the Baron added helpfully. “Well, having reported this to the proper authorities, I shall leave you to bumble around and deal with it in your own ineffectual way…”
    Flapjack limped back into the room with Nats. The part-time messenger boy for the Interdimensional Transportation Company was carrying a parcel the size of a shoebox. “Er, hi,,” he smiled, nervously looking at the tableau he found in Visionary’s office. “I, um, I’ve got a package.”
    “For me or Cheryl?” Vizh asked.
    “For, um, for Baron Zemo,” Nats sweated. And he handed it over.
    Then Visionary’s office was struck by lightning and exploded.

    Next: spiffy and the hot blonde, Pete puts his fingers where they shouldn’t be, and Banjooooo has a hard time with women.


    Part Three: The Big Top

    “You take me to the most romantic spots,” scowled Elyse to her Sea Monkey escort.
    “Coming to the dancing girls’ tent wasn’t my idea,” Banjooooo protested. “It was spiffy. There was this girl his bodyguards hospitalised earlier and he wants to find her and ask her out.”
    “Well, he’s got as much chance after that as he had before,” Elyse judged.

    “I’m not sure we should be in here,” Cap suggested, wishing he had his shield with him to protect him from the wide expanse of sequin almost-covered womanflesh. “I’m not sure we should be anywhere called ‘Suicide Blonde’s Pageant of Passion’.” He tried to avoid the living exhibits with titles like The Milkmaid’s Secret, Unable to Decide Between the Triplets, and A Smoker’s Delight.
    “Just think of it as another mission,” spiffy advised. “I’ve gotta find Hotstuff and apologise for earlier.”
    “So this is nothing to do with wandering through a peepshow tent full of strippers and novelty acts,” checked HV.
    “Really?” questioned Cap, unconvinced. “Oh, sorry madame, your top just caught on my companion’s fingers somehow. Keep your sticky fingers to yourself, Paste Pot Pete, Let’s just treat this like any other mission. Any other mission. Any other mission.”
    “Are you really sure you want to find an angry girl who happens to be a fire-breather, spiffy?” HV checked, declining the opportunity to enter a curtained off section of the area with a young lady who felt his lap needed polishing.
    “Ah,” a tall and woman in a black sequinned outfit overheard. She seemed qualitatively different to the heavily-made-up carny girls whose musk filled this tent of promised delights. “You must be the gentleman that our little Hotshot gave the free tickets to. We’d been hoping you would come.”
    “Er, hoping in a good way?” spiffy gulped, suddenly aware that he was in the middle of a tent full of spandex woman juggling sharp objects.
    “Oh yes,” the Suicide Blonde breathed spectacularly. “I have a special act reserved just for you.”

    “They’ve been quite a long time,” Banjooooo noted. “Perhaps I should go in and check they’re all right?” Then he caught Elyse’s expression. “Or not,” he added sheepishly.

    “I wonder if one of you big handsome gentlemen would be so good as to rub this oil upon my person?” Suicide Blonde asked her visitors as she led them into her private booth. It was decorated with terracotta serpents and chimera.
    “Actually, we were looking for… somebody…” spiffy replied, wishing he could remember the name of the girl he’d come to find.
    “Hotshot,” prompted HV. “That’s who we’re here to see.”
    “We’re not here to indulge in… oiling…” Cap blushed.
    Paste Pot Pete help up his hand to helpfully volunteer, showing more animation than he’d done for a long time. Perhaps he was just happy to be able to help out this personable young lady. He picked up the oil pot, dipped his fingers in, and fell over.
    “Oh yes,” Suicide Blonde added. “Did I mention the lethal contact poison in the jar?”
    “The what?” reacted Cap, reaching for the shield he didn’t have with him.
    The terracotta serpents sprang to life and coiled round him and HV.
    “It’s a trap!” warned spiffy unnecessarily, as he was leapt on by two plaster chimerae.
    “No,” answered HV sarcastically. “I thought this was just a novelty bondage act.”
    “You are quite amusing, in a dangerous sort of way,” the Suicide Blonde noted. “Goodbye.” And with a gesture, HV was transmuted into solid gold. “It’s a shame I can’t reverse the process,” she sighed, “but on the other hand you’ll make a really nice ornament.”
    “Murderer!” cried Cap, still struggling with the serpents.
    “I think you mean murderess,” the smiling woman corrected him. She concentrated and the air around Cap solidified into steel. “That should hold you for a while.”
    That left spiffy struggling alone. “Are you one of the Austernals, able to transmute matter?” he demanded, shattering one of his chimeric attackers with a savage frond.
    “Those amateurs?” Suicide Blonde sneered. “Don’t make me laugh.” Then the ground literally rose up and swallowed the young fern-wielder. The whole battle had taken less than a minute.
    The Suicide Blonde took a sip of her Moet and Chandon and stretched languorously on her couch with a little happy purr. Just two targets left…

    “How much longer do we have to stand outside this tent with every sailor in Paradopolis leering at me as he goes in?” demanded Elyse.
    “If you’d only let me go in and find them…” tried Banjooooo.
    “And leave me outside to be propositioned by every sweaty grubby pervert looking for a good time?” the girl glowered.
    “Or you could come in with me?”
    “Into that den of vice and iniquity? What kind of girl do you think…I…” Then Elyse toppled over onto the turf.
    “Elyse! Kiddo, speak to me!” Banjooooo called.
    “I think she’s suffering from the contents of her stomach transforming into cyanide,” the Suicide Blonde explained helpfully. “I could transform them back, but you’d have to surrender to me and go into captivity peacefully. You’ll be quite an attraction for our little carnival.”
    “W-what?” Banjooooooo stammered, frightened by the colour his love had just turned.
    “Oh, to put it in your terms, I’m a villainess who’s just wiped out your friends without even breaking into a sweat, and now either you surrender to me or find a new girlfriend after you’ve buried this one. You have five seconds to decide.”
    The king of the Sea Monkeys decided. “I surrender,” he conceded. “Save her.”
    “I knew you’d see it my way,” smirked the Suicide Blonde.

    Next: Space Ghost bets against Donar at arm-wrestling, Lisette gets frisky, Exile gets a new girlfriend, and there is a passionate time in the Tunnel of Leurve.


    Part Four: Helter Skelter

    “Arm wrestle the universe’s strongest man,” read Donar Oldmanson. “Hah. Verily I shalt win yon cash prize as I wrestle yon felon through the floor.”
    “Er, do you think it’s really moral for a super-strong hemigod like you to take on a carnival strongman?” Lisa asked in the most diplomatic tones she could muster.
    “Not until I get a side bet on,” Space Ghost suggested.
    “Yon varlet suggesteth that he art mighter than I art,” Donar pointed out. “Most righteously must I smite his asseth.”
    “Oh well, I suppose I can stand to see two muscled oiled bodies sweating and heaving, their muscles rippling across their mighty thews” Lisa decided.
    “I’m definitely going to get some cash down on this,” SG decided. “Um, can I borrow five bucks, Lisa?”
    “Laaaaadddddiiieeesss and Geeeennnntttllleeemen!” the announcer shouted as Donar entered the ring. “Another challenger has dared come forward to arm wrestle with the universe’s strongest man! Give a farewell cheer for our brave contestant, Mr Gavan Carstenson.”
    “Yea verily,” Donar agreed. “I art in no way any kind of Ausgardian, or hemigod of any description.”
    “Am I too late for the massacre?” Space Ghost asked, reappearing at Lisa’s side.
    “No, they’re just taking off their robes,” Lisa smiled happily. “Did you get decent odds on Donar?”
    “Oh, I didn’t bet on Donar in the end,” SG shrugged. “Even though the odds were good, I thought the smart money was going on Quake.”
    “On who?” Lisa reacted.
    Then the opponent was led into the ring.

    “Shame Val and Derek decided not to do the Tunnel of Love,” Lisette murmured as she snuggled tight against Goldeneyed. “It’s tremendously scary. Hold me tight, lover.”
    “I think Valeria might have been really scared by these ghosts and goblins,” Bryan realised. “A bit too close to ho… I mean, she’s pretty innocent.”
    “Yeah, that puzzles me,” Laurie admitted. “I mean, all that S&M stuff and she still acts like some kind of high school virgin.”
    “Yes, well…” Bry struggled to explain. Then inspiration hit him and he kissed Laurie. It was an immensely pleasant experience, so he kept on doing it. Somehow his fingers got all tangled with her blouse buttons but that was easily resolved, and the wonders of the tunnel of love went by unnoticed from that point on.

    Dr Loveray watched the young couple on his video monitor. “Hmph,” he snorted. “I hardly need the passion ray at all for them. Still, let’s see how they fare when my beams have sapped all shreds of inhibition from them.”
    He pulled a sinister lever even lower and cackled.

    “I know what you mean,” Sarah Shepherdson told her date. “When I see people starving in the streets, children abused and neglected, folks with their rights just trampled on by a system that doesn’t care I just have to try and do something about it.”
    “Exactly!” agreed Messenger. “And sometimes the only way is through radical action. The innocent have to be protected!”
    “I met my last boyfriend at a protest march,” Shep sighed. “Of course, he was selling t-shirts to the protesters. But he’s gone now. He was slime.”
    “I had a girlfriend,” Messenger remembered, “but she was killed.”
    “How terrible!” Dancer sympathised. “How did you ever survive it.”
    “I managed,” the postman answered darkly. “But some others didn’t survive it,” he muttered to himself.
    “If you need to talk about it..”
    “No. I’ve shut that part of myself off. It hurts to feel.”
    “It hurts like hell,” Shep agreed, “but it’s the only way to get better as well. And how can we make the world right if we won’t let ourselves feel compassion, or joy, or anger, or grief, or love?”
    “You… may have a point,” conceded Messenger. He had never expected a date like this.

    “Not as exciting, that one,” Dr Loveray decided. “Well, my passion ray will soon liven things up in that quarter also.” And another big lever got pulled. “One more hero to deal with,” the evil doctor smirked.

    “I’ve seen trolls, chaos demons, Brainless Ones, and worse,” Valeria of Carfax admitted, “but I’ve never seen anything scarier than that!”
    “She’s only a woman in a bikini,” Exile answered, staring though the glass at Enormous Irma, the Four Hundred Pound Femme.
    “That’s about five normal women in a bikini!” Valeria pointed out.
    Still Exile pressed his face up to the glass. “She’s… fascinating in a bizarre sort of way.”
    “Derek, she’s gross,” corrected Val. “She’s got more blubber on her than a whale.”
    “Don’t say that!” Exile snapped back. He ignored the shocked hurt look on his companion’s face. “I think she’s pretty sweet, actually. Pretty damn sexy.”
    “What?”
    “Ah,” proclaimed Dr Loveray, appearing from behind a curtain. “I see another young man has been captivated by the lovely Irma.”
    “She’s… amazing,” Exile breathed.
    “Derek, you can’t be serious!” Valeria worried.
    “Perhaps I can organise a date for you with my ample associate?” Dr Loveray offered.
    “Derek! Master! Snap out of it! Something’s wrong!” Valeria cried out.
    “Yes… Yes, I’d like that very much,” Exile told the doctor.
    “And what would you give for such a date?” Loveray continued.
    “Derek! DEREK!” shrieked Valeria.
    “Anything,” breathed the enchanted hero.
    “Even your pretty young slave here?” Dr Loveray smiled. “I think I’d accept you giving her to me in exchange for Irma.”
    “Derek! No!” screamed Valeria. “Don’t!”
    “Sure,” Exile agreed, never taking his eyes off the fat lady. “Have her. It’s a deal.”
    Dr Loveray clasped the besmitten young man’s hand. “Done!” he agreed, leering over and reaching to seize the pale and helpless slave girl.

    Well technically, that’s the end of Untold Tales #45. Part Five continues in UT#46, coming next, in which: See the trap of no escape! Witness CrazySugarFreakBoy!’s tumultuous decision! Cringe as the ladies of the BZL take on the all-time nasty women of history! And gasp as our heroes battle Mystic Morgana, the Mirror Murderer, the escapologist known as EndGame, and Vasto the Wonder Frog!!


    The Story So Far, from the Hooded Hood

Message thread:

#45: Untold Tales of the Lair Legion: All’s Fairground in Love and War, or Something Even More Wicked Than the Last Time We Ripped Off This Title from a Ray Bradbury Story This Way Comes - Part Four: Helter Skelter (The Hooded Hood really starts to turn the screws now as we move into the cliffhanger at the end of Untold Tales #45. Oh, and thanks to Exile for his pic of the villain!) (25-Apr-2000 13:28:30)