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Untold Tales of the Lair Legion: Sidekick Day Sunday, 27-Jun-1999 09:39:54
Lisa was in her secret identity of Lisa Waltz, defence attorney. OK, so it wasn’t a very good secret identity, but what were the bad guys going to do, attack her sister to get at her? She got back from court just after noon and made her way up to her office. There she found a young girl sitting in her swivel chair with her feet on the table and looking through Lisa’s collection of… recreational toys. “Hey, Lisa, got anything less sucky than these?” the girl in the tight leather mini asked. She was perhaps fifteen, wearing short black hair in punk spikes, with black lipstick and fingernails. “Who the hell are you? Get off my desk,” the caring first lady of the Lair Legion demanded. Lisa had a vague idea that she had seen the child before, perhaps as one of the intern legal secretaries? “Cheez, adults!” the youngster pouted. “Personality like that, no wonder you need all this gear.” Lisa barely controlled her fist of death. “Just who the… who are you, kid?” “I’m Lisette. I’m your new sidekick, gran’ma. Don’t call me kid.” “My sidekick. I see. And why exactly should I have you as my sidekick?” Lisette gestured to herself. “Hey, I’m younger than you an’ hotter than you, and you’re getting’ to the age where you need somebody to do the strenuous stuff. Oh, and I got a license to say I’m your partner.” The girl held out a piece of yellow paper which Lisa quickly snatched off her. “City of Paradopolis, State of New Parody Sidekick License,” she read in disbelief. “Lisette is hereby authorised to act as junior partner to the superheroine known as Lisa… Who the hell issued this?” Lisette pointed to the signature at the bottom. “Right!” snarled Lisa. “We’ll see about this. Come with me!” Fin Fang Foom was not at his best with women at the best of times. He was especially unprepared for the generously-proportioned redhead that burst through the door when he answered the mansion doorbell. It occurred to the dragon that if Jarvis allowed any servants in the Legion’s headquarters the heroes wouldn’t have to face this sort of thing. This sort of thing at the moment being CrazySugarFreakBoy!’s irate stripper mom. “What exactly is the meanin’ of this, hon?” she demanded, waving a piece of yellow paper in the air. “I don’t mind hanging around to help out my little Dream occasionally so he doesn’t get into any trouble, but no way am I making this a full time career. I have two already.” “Madam,” Foom replied, backing away in the face of two 46 triple D cups heading towards him, “I haven’t the first idea what you are talking about.” “No sweat, dragon-bud,” a youthful voice called from the doorway. “In this partnership, I’m pretty cool about being the one to deal with any hot mamas.” Meggan Foxx and Foomy turned to see three newcomers lounging in the doorway. A fourth was already on his way to raid the fridge. “Come back when you’ve grown pubes, hon,” Meggan answered reflexively. Foom wondered if this was a good time for a security alert. “Don’t worry,” Zebulon said, appearing from the lab areas wearing a version of NTU-150’s armour. “They’re here to see me.” “We’d better do introductions,” the lad in the formal butler’s outfit suggested politely in perfect prep-school tones. “We are some of the new sidekicks who have now been authorised for the Lair Legion. My colleague here with the scaly skin is your own junior partner, Mr Foom. His name is…” “Hey, I can talk for myself, butlerette. You can call me Wormboy. This is my sister, Wormbait.” “Hi, Mr Foom,” the shy young girl in the cheerleader’s outfit with the big dragon picture on her chest giggled. “My colleague who is now investigating the secrets of the Lair Legion refrigerator is known as Hat Kid, and is here to partner the redoubtable Hatman,” continued the polite footman. “Can’t talk,” Hat Kid mumbled, spraying potato chips across the kitchen counter. “Scarfing.” “Why isn’t he wearing a hat?” Meggan wondered. “If’n he’s called Hat Kid, and all?” “Hats are yesterday,” Wormlad told her. “We are the new generation of younger, cooler, superdudes.” “Hold on, Jarvis junior,” Foom objected, “where are all these sidekicks coming from?” “I am known at L’il Buttie,” the polite young man replied. “An’ they’re here for the first meeting of the Legion Sidekicks Society,” Zebulon announced. “Oh, by the way, I’m Superspanner now, and I’ll be faithfully companioning NTU-150, whether he likes it or not.” Foom was still boggled by Jarvis’ sidekick’s choice of name. “Sorry. Did you say… L’il Buttie?” “Mmm-hmmm,” Meggan mmm-hmmmed. “That’s gonna do wonders for Jarvis’ street cred.” “Mr Foom,” Wormbait asked breathlessly, “Would you like to see my Foomfight Dance Routine now?” Banjoooooo was a little bit taken aback as he walked through the Detective Agency door only to be pinned against the wall by his newly resurrected partner. “You bastard!” spiffy shouted at him. “You total, complete, &sshole! First you don’t rebuild my mansion and now this! This is low, pal! This is… this is so low I can’t tell you how low it is! I didn’t come back from hell to be treated like this!” “Hey!” Banjooooo objected. “I am king of the sea monkeys, you know. You can’t treat me like this!” “Who cares if you’re king of some crappy little prawn-things in the rectum of the ocean!” spiffy shouted. “How dare you apply for me to be your sidekick?!” “Crappy little prawn-things!” Banjooooo shouted back, getting irritated. “At least I have a capital letter in my name, weed-boy!” then his mind caught up with his temper and he asked, “Sidekick?” spiffy waved the yellow document in front of the sea-monkey. “Yeah, Sidekick!. It’s all official, stamped by the city and everything! ‘spiffy is henceforth licensed to operate as a junior partner to the superhero known as Banjooooo, under his supervision and guidance… blah, blah, blah… required to say things like Holy Mackerel Banjooooo, how do we get out of this one? every ten minutes… blah, blah, blah… regard with total adoration… blah, blah, blah, not operate independently unless mentor is captured or crippled.’ Believe me, you are going to be crippled.” “I get a sidekick?” Banjooooo beamed. “Cool! Oh, you mean you. I didn’t apply for that, spiff-meister. You gotta believe me.” “Suuuure you didn’t. But I’m still stuck with having to say ‘Holy Fishfood, Banjooooo’ six times an hour. I am so going to kick your ass for this…” Banjooooo sighed. Why didn’t other heroes have problems like this? “Get away from me! I’m fighting crime!” “But Starseed,” Space Ghost pointed out, waving a yellow piece of paper at the Gah Master, “I’m your sidekick now. It says so.” “You. Are. Not. My. Sidekick.” Starseed said slowly and determinedly, hoping to penetrate the alcohol haze which seemed to be becoming Space Ghost’s new super-power. “Shure I am,” Space Ghost nodded, swaying slightly. “Look at the requirements. I get to follow you around, I don’t have to wear pants, and I have to get captured by every third villain. I do all of that already!” “You. Are. Not. My. Sidekick.” Starseed repeated. “Gaahhh!” “You… you don’t want me as your sidekick?” Space Ghost asked. “You don’t love me?” His bottom lip started to tremble. “Hey, look, there’s this man thing – this sober man thing - about saying the, the L-word to other guys, y’know…” Starseed hissed. “You don’t looovvveee me!” “People get the wrong idea, y’know, and…” “Starseeeeeed doesn’t looovveee me!” “Okay, okay,” hissed the Gah! Master. “I love you, SG. Just shut up, already.” “So I can be your sidekick?” Starseed sighed. Why didn’t other heroes have problems like this? Goldeneyed watched carefully as the bank robbers slipped into the First Bank of Paradopolis. This was it. Three weeks of careful preparation, of clever detective work and patient observation were about to pay off. Agents of the Hero Elimination Revenge Project Extermination Squad were about to make their move, and the Parodyverse’s newest superhero could make a big public debut as the saviour of the hour. G-eyed wished that Frog-Man could be with him. He wondered where his erstwhile partner might be. The goggle-eyed guardian of truth and justice had been missing quite a lot over the last few days, and had nothing but feeble excuses when he returned. If Frog-Man hadn’t been Frog-Man, Goldeneyed might have thought that he’d found a woman. The men from HERPES had entered the bank now. Goldeneyed gave them just long enough to commit the felony and then swung down to save the day. The back wall of the bank exploded, sending shrapnel bricks flying over the prostrate hostages. Six young, cutting-edge superheroes bounded over the wreckage they had caused to take on the robbers. In the lead was none other than Frog-Man. “Alright, pondscum, face the might of the New Battlers!” Frog-Man announced, bounding off the face of the HERPES squadron leader. “Right on!” E-Male shouted, electrocuting another raider with his execution-post. “And left on, as well,” the diminutive Yo-ling squeaked, vaporising a villain as easily as s/he had the wall. “Let’s get down with the bad guys,” the pony-tailed blonde in the Donar costume shouted, hitting another two villains with a plastic replica of Mjalcolm. Then, remembering the etiquette of superhero battles, he found a way to work his name into the dialogue. “I’ll show you what it is to face the wrath of… Thunderstroke!” The only female amongst the team bounded forward and gestured, changing all of the HERPES agents’ guns into giant spaghetti. “That’s right boys, you’re up against Sersi minor… but you can call me Fashion Accessory!” “Wait a minute,” Goldeneyed called out feebly. “This was my collar!” Then he saw a hidden HERPES agent raising his gun at Frog-boy’s back and prepared to leap into the rescue. A figure in red and green appeared out of shadows that Goldeneyed hadn’t noticed before and barrelled Goldie onto the floor. “Never fear, sir, we will rescue you,” he promised, hurling a sharp object into the robber’s hand and spoiling his aim. “Stay calm and try not to panic.” And before Goldeneyed could react, Boy Wonder had carried him to safety and vanished back into the shadows. Thunderstroke and Fashion Accessory were securing their prisoners whilst Frog-Man was explaining to the adoring press how the New Battlers had fought the hordes of HERPES. The HERPES squadron leader was led away, muttering “We’d have gotten away with it if it wasn’t for you meddlin’ kids…” Tomorrow’s headlines would read NEW BATTLERS SAVE BANK AND MINOR SUPERHERO. “This is ridiculous!” Hatman complained. “Hat Kid is eating me out of house and home. He won’t go away, but he says fighting villains is uncool.” “Ridiculous?” objected spiffy. “Ridiculous is having to be his sidekick. He should be my sidekick if anything.” “Me, King of the Sea Monkeys, sidekick to a fern-wearer?” objected Banjooooo. “You should consider yourself lucky not to have been sidekicked to CrazySugarFreakBoy! “Hey, it’s pretty cool having Action figure as a sidekick,” CSFB! smiled. “CSFB!, I have to tell you this in all seriousness,” Starseed warned him. “Having your mom as your sidekick is not pretty cool.” He glanced at the snoring pile in the corner. “Of course, having a smelly drunk as your sidekick lacks a certain something as well.” “Can’t you do anything, Cheryl?” NTU-150 asked the Legion’s PR expert. Cheryl was sat at the far end of the room, next to a cowed and silent Visionary. “I’m only here because the condo isn’t safe for us at the moment,” she told them. “Super-villain attack?” Hatman asked sympathetically. Cheryl frowned darkly at her husband. “The Visionary Vixens, a group of jailbait sidekicks who want to attach themselves to my husband.” “But we had to come here and leave them,” Visionary said neutrally. “Oh great! He gets the Visionary Vixens, I get Space Ghost!” “I never encouraged them,” the possibly fake man mumbled. “They were confused. They thought that Cheryl had gone off with Wonder Man and they wanted to comfort me.” “That wasn’t Cheryl,” CrazySugarFreakBoy! explained. “That was Meli… um, that wasn’t Cheryl.” “So even lame heroes are getting stuck with sidekicks,” Jarvis considered, eyeing Visionary. “Hey!” Visionary complained Most of the Lair Legion were assembled in their mansion, considering their sidekick problem. Dark Knight was absent, and had not been seen since the appearance of Boy Wonder. No way was DK going to be seen even in the same adventure let alone the same room as a keen, wisecracking young orphaned acrobat who thought nothing of saying things like, “Gosh Whillikers, Dark Knight!” Lisa was also missing, and her answering machine message had clearly been re-recorded by Lisette: “Hi there, Lisa can’t zimmer herself to the phone right now. If you really need her and wouldn’t prefer a younger, cooler, altogether more rad-sexier version of her, leave some kind of noises after the beep!” But the rest of the team were present – NTU-150, Foom, Banjooooo, Hatman, CSFB!, Starseed, Goldeneyed, and sitting darkly in a corner, Jarvis. Eventually, after letting the rest of them babble on for about ten minutes, the butler lost patience. “Enough,” he snarled. “We have to do something about all of this. Not only do we have hampering sidekicks who will degrade our combat efficiency and make us look stupid…” “Hey, you’re not dissin’ L’il Buttie are you?” Foom snickered. “…but there is a squad of irresponsible unattached sidekicks formed up as the New Battlers, apparently led by Goldeneyed’s sidekick Frog-Boy.” “That’s Frog-Man,” corrected G-Eyed; but somehow that didn’t help when all the accusing stares hit him. “There must be something we can do?” NTU-150 asked desperately. Zebulon as a lab assistant had been perfect. Zebulon in battle armour was as frightening to Jamie as Jamie in battle-armour was to everyone else. The meeting was interrupted by L’il Buttie’s polite knocking to explain that Hat Kid had run out of dip and would the Legion kindly authorise a trip to the mini-mart? Baron Zemo chuckled all the way to his laboratory. The news was full of the sidekick epidemic. It was hilarious. “L’il Buttie,” he snorted as he unlocked the portal. “I wish I’d thought of that one.” He knew something was wrong as soon as he entered his workspace. Heike, his frozen wife, was uncovered, her cylinder standing beside the cloning table. And there was a young woman in familiar pink and purple flicking through his research notes. Zemo’s pistol leapt to his hand. “Whoever you are, do not move! You are now a prisoner of… Baron Zemo!” The girl turned round and gave him a dimpled smile. “Hi, dad!” she said. “I guess this must come as a bit of a shock for you?” “Dad?” Zemo echoed, surprised at the voice so similar to his beloved Heike. And that hair, and the dimpled smile… Zemette passed a clipboard of research notes over to him. “Sure, it was your basic accelerated genetic manipulation. A bit of mom’s DNA, some of your own, twenty minutes in the sleep-teach-growth-accelerator, and its instant Contessa Zemo. How d’you think I turned out?” “You claim to be… my daughter?” “Quick on the uptake, that’s my ol’ pop. You could get Moo to do a bit of analysis, but you’ll find I’m the one hundred percent genuine article.” “But… how?” Zemette held out a piece of yellow paper. “Simple, dad. You needed a sidekick!” “Supposing I don’t want to join the Legion Sidekicks Society?” spiffy argued. “I was a full member of the Lair Legion, you know, up to the point I, uh, died. I had major storylines revolving round me and everything.” “Yesterday’s news, man”, Wormlad judged. “Today you’re one of us, sidekicking that lame sea monkey bozo.” “Hey, Banjooooo’s my friend!” spiffy objected, “Only I can say he’s a bozo!” “See, you’re standing up for him already. That’s what a sidekick does,” Wormbait giggled. “I am not a sidekick!” spiffy shouted. Hat Kid put down his bagel and put a friendly arm over the fern-boy’s shoulders. “I think you’re missing the point of this gig, spiffster,” he told him. “You were in the Lair Legion, right? You know all about them, yeah?” “Yeah.” “Then you know how many of the Legion guys scored with the lovely Lisa over the years?” “I know which three or four didn’t,” spiffy admitted. “And you, you’re underaged, right? Like most of us? So you didn’t get lucky?” “So?” “So, dude, we got Lisette on our team. Still don’t wanna join?” “Ah.” “This place sucks big time,” the much-discussed Lisette announced to the world in general and Lisa in particular. “Of course it does,” Lisa answered. “It’s the central government administration building for Paradopolis. We’re here to find the man who authorised these sidekick permits. And he should be behind this door.” Lisa opened the door. Herbert P. Garrick had come down in the world. Once a Presidential Advisor, he had been stuck with the Presidential Blame for a Presidential Decision That Was Never Made By the President in the little matter of handing the free world over to the Hooded Hood a while back. Now he was reduced to the Office of Superhero Permits. He looked up from his (self-assembly) desk and said, “Do you have an appointment?” “You’re going to have an appointment with your maker if you don’t explain these permits pretty damn quick,” Lisa warned. “Way to show ‘tude, gran’ma,” Lisette echoed. She was still cross because Lisa’s ginger cat had scratched her (having taste). Herbert Gyrich looked at the yellow paper. “Ah yes, permit #377/GT9. Perfectly valid license to be a sidekick. Entirely legal.” Lisa scowled. “I happen to be a lawyer,” she warned Garrick, “and I have never heard of any such statute. How can you force a sidekick onto somebody. Where have they all come from anyway?” Garrick heaved a very old tome onto his desk. The gold leaf on the spine read, ‘The Laws and Ordinances of New Paradopolis, 1891’. “This was written by Wilbur Parody himself,” the G-man warned. “There is no greater legal authority than this. And see section ninety-one, sub-section eleven, paragraphs thirteen to one hundred twenty-two?” Lisa skimmed the relevant statutes. “This makes no sense,” she protested. “Hey, it’s a law book,” Lisette pointed out. “If it made sense, we’d be out of business.” “I mean, this book talks about superheroes, makes laws about superheroes, decades before the first superheroes came into existence,” Lisa pointed out. “So Wilbur Parody was forward thinking,” argued Garrick. “The law is the law. Since we have now had legitimate applicants having presented the correct forms in the appropriate manner, we have to implement the law as it is written.” He smirked at the baffled Legionnaire. “Have a nice day.” “This isn’t over yet,” fumed Lisa. “I’ll be back.” “Hey, gran’ma, don’t have a coronary,” advised Lisette as the first lady of the Lair Legion stormed out. Garrick was left alone in the little basement office, surrounded by the law and the paperwork it generated. “Have I done well, master?” he asked the voice in his head. “You have performed adequately, my minion,” replied the deep Latverian accent. “You may live. But there is much yet to accomplish before my return…” Next episode: It’s Hallow’een night in Paradopolis, and there’s something nasty at the mansion. No, I don’t mean Space Ghost’s underwear, I mean supernaturally nasty, well, more supernaturally nasty than SG’s underwear. Meanwhile the sidekicks go trick-or-treating and Goldeneyed and Lisa have a little chat with old, dead Wilbur Parody. Oh, and the author would really appreciate it if you didn’t give this episode’s surprise ending away in any replies you might post to this story. Thanks. The Hooded Hood; did I mention that I'm back to posting on the BZL for a while? |
| Untold Tales of the Lair Legion: Sidekick Day (The Hooded Hood; did I mention that I'm back to posting on the BZL for a while?) (27-Jun-1999 09:39:54) |
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