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#53: Undead Tales of the Lair Legion: A Perspective from the Other Side Sunday, 25-Jun-2000 08:36:12
#53: Undead Tales of the Lair Legion: A Perspective from the Other Side Lisa L. Waltz looked around her into the gloom and realised that she was in the Land of the Dead. “Crap,” she commented. “Hello, Lisa,” a friendly-looking middle-aged man in Victorian dress bade her. Lisa swung round to face the man. He was pretty ordinary, except he had an old-fashioned moustache, and a stethoscope round his neck. “Hi!” Lisa answered. “I don’t suppose you know the exit door from here, do you?” “I’m afraid not, child,” the kindly doctor told her. “I’ve been sent to guide you from the outer realms to the Halls of Meeting. Still, it’s nice to make your acquaintance.” “Lisa Waltz,” the first lady of the Lair Legion introduced herself, shaking the outstretched hand. It wasn’t cold as she’d expected it to be; or maybe it was just no colder than her own flesh. “Christopher Waltz,” the doctor answered, “I’m your great-grandfather, don’t you know?” “Really? Hi gramps!” Lisa smiled. “So what’s this Halls of Meeting place?” “It’s where the newly arrived face the spirits of those they knew in life who have predeceased them and who wish to conclude business,” Dr Waltz explained. “After that, spirits go away to various places, good and bad. I don’t understand that part, because I haven’t yet gone myself. After that there’s no coming back.” “But you must have been dead for ages,” Lisa pointed out, accurately if undiplomatically. “Time works differently here,” her great-grandfather explained. “I’ve only been present in this realm a short time from my point of view. But I felt I had to stay around to take you straight to the Halls so you wouldn’t get got by the poltergeists or something. It’s the least I can do given the trouble I’ve caused you.” Lisa stopped short outside the vast high-domed grey edifice he was leading her towards. “What trouble?” she demanded. “Oh, you know,” Dr Waltz shrugged uncomfortably. “Signing that pact with Mr Parody to allow you to be indentured to the Booke of the Law, that kind of thing.” “I’m indentured?” Lisa puzzled. “Well it wasn’t an accident you found the Booke, was it?” Dr Waltz asked reasonably. “Look, I’m afraid I have to go now. Everybody enters the Domain of Death on their own, you see. Best of luck and all that. We’re all very proud of you…” “Wait!” Lisa called; but her ancestor was gone. The amorous advocatrix steeled herself, squared her shoulders, and marched into the Halls of Meeting. “Are you dead? Hello?” ManMan came to. The first thing he noticed was that he hurt. The second thing he noticed was that he hurt an awful lot. “What… what happened?” he winced. The third thing that he noticed was that he was having his wounds bathed by a completely unfamiliar young woman in a skintight silver jumpsuit. “You fought the first preliminary bout to demonstrate your worthiness as a challenger to Dark Thugos’ rule of the Skree empire,” she reminded him. “You remember. It was a cool rumble. You versus that big Skree robot.” “Oh yeah,” Joe recalled. “Did I win?” “You somehow embedded your knife into its computer core and slagged it just before it fell on you, daddy-o,” the girl replied. “So yeah, they counted it as a win.” “Great.” ManMan painfully limped to his feet. “That means I get to bleed again later in the next test then.” “Peachy,” the woman in silver told him. “That’s like, really hip. Groovy, in fact.” ManMan’s head still hurt. “Excuse me,” he asked. “Why are you talking like something out of a fifties movie? And for that matter, who are you?” “What’s wrong with the way I talk?” the young woman demanded. “I matched my Universal translator perfectly to your time-zone reference, based precisely on your mode of dress.” “My… Elvis suit?” Joe Pepper checked. “Ah.” “It’s really fab, dad.” “I think I should perhaps explain about my choice of superhero attire, miss…” “Ziles,” his cell-mate told him. “My name’s Ziles.” “Are you a woman of the Skree?” ManMan wondered, noting the lack of blue-tinted skin (and there was plenty of exposed skin to examine). “Nah. I’m an alien here. I was banished from my world after the Dreadful Incident with the plastic tagliatelli.” “The, uh, tagliatelli?” ManMan asked, his voice rich with speculation. “No,” Ziles answered. “The dreadful incident with the inflatable politician. With the exploding bathplug. With the yodelling gynaecologist. Damn. I’m sorry. Your language just hasn’t got words the Universal Translator can use to describe what I did. Anyway, I got banished. Then I got captured by the Skree. Then I got locked in here.” “Well, nice to meet you, Ziles. So why are you locked in with me?” Joe asked. “Because I have to battle you to the death if you beat the man-scorpion of Zwimlinner Four in the next round,” she explained calmly. “It’ll be a gas.” At first there was nothing but darkness, a total absence of anything, that Lisa strained her eyes to penetrate but to no avail. Then there were distant sounds that Lisa remembered as from a dream, or perhaps from her youth. A child sobbing into her pillow. A first sigh of passion. The crack of a whiplash. Then a hand closed on her shoulder. “J-Jarvie?” she asked, with her heart in her mouth. “I’m afraid not, my dear,” the precise, Latvian-accented voice replied. Lisa whirled round. “You!” “Good evening, Miss Waltz” bade the Hooded Hood. “I’m dead. I dead. I an soooooooo dead,” spiffy told himself as he used his fern to cling ivy-like over the roof of the great Morshlock assembly cavern. Far below him thousands of torches illuminated the vast stalactite-filled cave, forming a winding road up to the jagged promontory over the chasm where the tunnel-dweller’s god lived. On that ledge the obese, pale Morshlock king was being adorned with moulds and funguses in preparation for taking a new bride. The ferned phenomenon used the light-bending powers of his symbiotic plant to shield himself from the infra-red eyesight of the light-sensitive Morshlocks. He vaulted over bottomless chasms, avoided the complicated death-traps set by the deep dwellers to protect them from the Outcasts, balanced over high narrow stone bridges above unpleasantly dark pools, and generally did all the stuff a lone hero going to the rescue of friends taken by degenerate subterranean species generally have to do. When he had to fight, spiffy put the enemy down with uncharacteristic viciousness. After all, Lisa had been dragged into Death’s realm because he had screwed up. Nobody else was going to die on his watch. It took three hours of painstaking struggle to make his way directly over the adamantium cage that contained Messenger, Trickshot, Goldeneyed, and Lisette. To one side of it a number of fat naked women were chattering in some pre-human tongue as they boiled cauldrons of water and prepared their meat skillets. The captured heroes were to be invited to the wedding feast but not as guests. “I’m going to die,” spiffy reminded himself. He dug his fingers into the hand-holds bored out by his fern and allowed his arms to support his full weight over the prison far below. “I’m dead.,” he warned as he extended his symbiote to its farthest extent, finding that it was just too short to reach to the cave. “A dead man – and plant,” he shuddered as he replaced his fern into the roof-holds and allowed it to lower him down instead. When the vegetable reached its maximum extension spiffy shut his eyes and simply had it let go of the ceiling. spiffy hit the roof head first and stunned himself. Fortunately everyone in the cavern was distracted just then by the arrival of the bride of the Morshlock king. And the bride was making a speech which would cause any auto-censor in the world to explode. Whitney was not feeling very romantic just then. The weed wonder fumbled at the tightly-bound door of the cage. “I’m going to die here,” he told himself. “I’ll kill you personally if you don’t hurry up with that door,” threatened Messenger. Thus motivated, spiffy pried loose the twine that held the unbreakable cage together. “You’re free,” he announced. “Except for being chained in power-dampeners,” Lisette pointed out acidly. “And missing Sorceress and Lisa-feeb.” spiffy paled. “Lisa’s dead,” he told them. After a moment to allow the sick numb shock sink in he went on, “Whitney’s walking the aisle right now.” “I don’t think Hatty would be too pleased if we let her marry some other guy,” Goldeneyed suggested. “Perhaps we’d better get to the bit of your plan where you get these power-dampeners off us, spiff?” spiffy looked worried. “Aw crap!” Trickshot hissed. “He doesn’t have any more plan than this! You are dead, weed-boy!” “Lisa? Dead?” Lisette gulped, turning away from the others so they wouldn’t see she was affected by the news. “She saved me,” spiffy told Lisa’s legal assistant, “Then… I failed her.” “Big surprise there,” Trickshot snorted savagely. “Never mind that now,” Messenger cut in. “We have a living comrade to rescue, and an escape to accomplish. Given our situation and resources I believe our best plan will be to summon back-up from the surface once we have secured Sorceress. spiffy, go and find us our weapons, and something to break these Skree shackles if you can. Goldeneyed, Lisette, drag this cage – surreptitiously – back towards that rear wall where the roof is lower. Trickshot, with me to rescue the girl.” “Just like old times, eh Messy?” the annoying archer grinned. “We don’t have any old times, Trickshot,” Messenger reminded him. “Oh yeah,” remembered Tricky. “That postman died.” “Ioldobaoth?” Lisa recognised, as the grey-mantled figure joined her in the Hall of Meetings. “You were expecting Timothy Jarvis?” the Hooded Hood asked. “He has moved far beyond these halls, I’m afraid.” “So you’re the most significant dead person who I’ve still got unfinished business with,” Lisa surmised. “Currently,” the Hood admitted. “Currently has business with?” Lisa checked. “Currently dead,” the cowled crime czar smirked. Suddenly Lisa smelled a huge rat. “How much of this did you plan, Hooded Hood?” she demanded. “What are you up to?” “Up to?” the Hood asked innocently. “What ever do you mean, my dear Lisa.” “You died after you found out your rulership of the universe was not required, murdered by Zemo with a bullet in your head. You came to the realm of Death and you’re still hanging around. Was your death… did you plan it?” “There are few ways of gaining an audience with Death if one seeks certain arcane information,” the archvillain conceded. “And one has to make one’s passing realistic, or it doesn’t count.” “And what about me being here for you to gloat to?” Lisa demanded. The Hooded Hood looked at then amorous advocatrix shrewdly. “I have really missed you, my dear,” he admitted. “Tell me how you think I might possibly have arranged a meeting like this.” The first lady of the Lair Legion concentrated. So much had just fit into place with this one name added into the scenario. “Dark Thugos is your alternate-universe son, with ambitions to present the whole of our dimension as a tribute to death. He was bounced from his own reality and just ‘happened’ to end up in this one. Coincidence is your stock in trade, yes?” “Go on,” the Hood prompted. “Thugos had a perfect plan prepared to neutralise Earth’s heroes and take over a weakened and helpless planet. But something went wrong, and by ‘accident’ the whole of Paradopolis landed on a distant planet, literally crushing the opposition and placing us where the Legion could get their hands on amazing anti-Thugos technology and I could ‘happen’ to bump in to you. How am I doing so far, Ioldobaoth?” “Rather well, actually,” the cowled crime-czar admitted. “It all seems a little extreme,” Lisa pointed out. “Most guys who want a date just call me on the phone, not plan an intergalactic war.” “The face that launched a thousand space-ships,” considered the Hood. “But so far you have seen only the beginnings of my scheme, my dear Miss Waltz. Thugos has some other surprises awaiting him on the road to conquest. Come and dine with me at Herringcarp Asylum and I’ll show you what I mean in the Portal of Pretentiousness.” “Herringcarp is here?” Lisa wondered. “Oh yes,” the archvillain assured her. “You can take it with you. So long as you have the ability to restructure the past and a ruthless indefatigable lust for domination, of course. Now come, and see what your draconic friend has got himself into…” “What… what happened here?” Cobra asked, looking out over the bleak, desolate landscape of the dead Makluan homeworld. “How did everything just… die?” “The whole spirit of this orb is dead,” shuddered Donar. “’Tis not just life that hath been taken from this realm, but the very possibility of life.” “You mean…” CrazySugarFreakBoy! gulped, “no MacDonalds?” “I don’t know what happened,” snarled Fin Fang Foom. “I have no Makluan memories. A few instincts perhaps, like breathing fire and eating people – er, I mean flying, but nothing else. The original sentience of Fin Fang Foom gave up this body after a long exile in Comics Limbo. Andrew Dean was merged with the dragon, and it’s been my mind in control ever since. But the history of my people – the dragon’s people I mean – has always been a mystery to me.” “Oh that’s easy,” CSFB! grinned. “Although you never fully revealed your origin, there was quite a bit in Tales to Infuriate #102…” “You cannot rely on a comic book for Fin Fang Foom’s history,” Cobra argued. “Er. Actually the stuff in there was pretty accurate,” Finny admitted. “I, um, I wanted to get a published comic credit.” “A Makluan space-craft crashed on Earth hundreds, maybe thousands of years ago,” Dreamcatcher Foxglove remembered. “At the time the only supposed survivor was the original Fin Fang Foom, although another Makluan refugee, the Devil Doctor, later claimed to have been on it also. And there was a female Makluan in a story that never got finished so that might not be canon. Back then Finny was a nasty guy and went about doing evil and suchlike until some heroes, possibly the Abhumans, handed him his head. Eventually he got zapped into Comics Limbo, where he met Andy Dean and did the deal that made the Finny we know and love.” “It ist a most apt plot summary,” Donar agreed. “Verily, thy ability to remember comic books rivals the fabled Well of Murmur.” “From Dynamic Donar #32, right?” Dream checked. “That was your best issue.” “Could the Makluan craft have been fleeing the devastation of their world?” speculated Cobra. “Yes…” Finny strained, trying to dredge up some long-forgotten race memory which he hadn’t known was there before. “Yes, the planet was endangered. The Makluan peoples had been betrayed, betrayed by one of their own. Those that could took their vessels and fled, but many – most -perished here because of that treachery…” “Is it me, or ist it getting cold round here?” Donar wondered. “You’re a storm god,” Cobra reminded him. “You don’t get cold.” “The Makluans found the one responsible and executed him,” Finny remembered. “They used their advanced arts to bind the traitor’s soul into a Ring of Power, so that he would never find rest. Yes, yes I remember now. The vessel that crashed on your planet was the one carrying the Ring to its place of imprisonment…” “‘Your planet?’” CSFB! frowned. “You mean our planet. Finny usually talks about Earth as his home!” “Foom survived the crash; but the spirit of the traitor was also released, and took possession of the a second Makluan’s dead form, becoming once again the Devil Doctor!” “The Devil Doctor wast the undead traitor that doomed thy planet?” concluded Donar. “The Devil Doctor was he who, thwarted in his attempts to rule this world, instead brought it to the attention of Galactivac, the Living Death that Sucks, the hooverer of worlds!” boomed Finny. “The Devil Doctor was he who offered the magnificence of his rulership to your own pathetic planet, only to be thwarted by a fake imbecile with a stomach full of protoplasm.” “Visionary stopped the Devil Doctor?” Cobra guessed at once. “He whose host body was slain, sending his disembodied spirit flitting home over untold distances to the graveworld of his birth!” the Makluan roared. “The Devil Doctor’s not entirely disembodied right now, is he?” CSFB! gulped. The huge wyrm reared up over them. “Oh no,” he promised. “The Devil Doctor is in!” “That’s not nice,” Lisa told the Hooded Hood. “What were the chances of a random teleport taking Finny to his homeworld, where an undead enemy of his race was waiting for another Makluan body to come along for him to possess?” “The Makluan was the one who operated the Celestian machine,” the cowled crime-czar answered. “It’s very intuitive. It clearly acted upon Foom’s desire to go home. It just sent him to the wrong home.” “By chance?” Lisa asked sceptically. “In the version of reality that prevailed, yes,” the Hood replied evasively. “Speaking of chance, I note that my machinations with Melissa Jarvis have borne fruit, and she has bequeathed her powers to a successor. Let us see how the Probability Dancer is dealing with her Skree captivity, shall we? I believe she has just been given to the soldiery for their amusement…” The Skree troopers approached the Terran woman more carefully the third time. They had assumed that a lone female with her hands bound behind her in power-draining shackles was easy prey. After Well-Arrd and Macc-Cho were dragged away to the infirmary they had revised their opinion. Sarah Shepherdson was lethal with a high kick. “Last chance, guys,” Dancer warned the thirty or so sweaty men in the barracks. “This is not going to happen. I’ll hurt you. I mean it!” “Do something, Ioldobaoth!” Lisa demanded from the gothic comfort of Herringcarp Asylum. “This isn’t nice at all!” “I don’t need to do anything,” the Hooded Hood answered. “Assistance is already at hand.” Lisa glanced at the other Skree-Lump reflections in the mysterious glass, of ManMan battling for his life against a giant man-scorpion, of Troia locked in darkness, of Space Ghost on some kind of operating table. “From where, exactly?” she challenged. The Hood pointed one thin finger at the Portal of Pretentiousness, where another previously passive player was about to enter the game. The power-draining shackles suddenly went dead. Shep felt the strange tingle fill her as it had when she had first opened the brown paper parcel her probability-altering powers had come in. And suddenly she wasn’t frightened any more. “Alright, scum-males of the universe!” she shouted. “You asked for this!” A freak electrical fault in her shackles caused them to explode in the face of the trooper creeping up on her from behind, freeing her arms and creating exciting plastic surgery opportunities for her attacker. She whirled in a high kick, knocking back three soldiers who had just discovered that their disruptor batteries had somehow gone flat. Then she elbowed the sergeant back into the cooking stove, which sent hot grease flying across the room into the next wave of attackers and set off the fire sprinklers. A dextrous leap later onto the plastic table and somehow a dropped electro-blaster sent a stunning charge through the water which the troopers were now standing in. After that it got messy. Then it went very quiet. “Hmm,” Shep considered. “Time for a rescue mission for the others, I think. I could dress up in a stormtrooper’s costume and try and free them, I suppose…” A monitor screen lit up on the far wall. “It wouldn’t work,” the ugly tentacle-headed being on the screen told her. “Don’t you think you’re a little short for an Imperial guard?” “Who…?” Dancer puzzled, trying to assess this latest threat. “Me? I am merely the former ruler of Skree-Lar, deposed by Thugos and supposedly disabled – although not so disabled as to be unable to over-ride a simple power-draining manacle. I arranged for your freedom so that you could assist me in putting right that little problem.” “You want me to help you…?” Shep asked, brushing a lock of raven hair back into her sweatband. “I require you to aid me in overthrowing the Skree Empire,” The Supreme Interference announced. “The Supreme Interference archcomputer was supposed to be disabled,” Lisa noted. “How do you suppose he was left with some independence to save Dancer?” “I couldn’t say,” shrugged the Hooded Hood. “Now let us consider the mysteries of love and death back in spacelost Paradopolis.” “Valeria!” Exile’s misery-laden howl echoed through the basements of City Hall as he cradled the lifeless body in his hands. The dagger protruding from her chest told a terrible story. Originally sent as a tribute-slave to Exile from the Dreary Dimension, and bound by strange sorceries to obey him absolutely, she had been given away by her loving owner while he was under mind control and had become the property of Colonel Destiny of the Destiny Carnival. Destiny had agreed to release Valeria back to Exile in exchange for Exile slaying his cousin Goldeneyed. This was tied in with claims from Destiny’s colleague the Suicide Blonde that she too was Derek Foreman’s cousin, and that on the death of any of them the power contained within them would pass to the others, until but one of the three survived. Valeria knew that she could not allow Derek to harm Bryan Katz. It seemed as though the slave-girl had chosen to take matters into her own hands. “What’s going on!” Hatman shouted, rocketing down the basement steps in his Jets cap. “Where are the Carny prisoners? Where are… oh!” The capped crusader caught sight of Derek miserably huddling the lifeless form to him. “Oh Derek!” Other Legionnaires were not far behind. NTU-150 was next, followed by Yo and Banjoooo. “I thought I detected a teleport signature from down here,” Enty said, avoiding the main issue by fiddling with his gadgets. “The Destiny Carnival must have recovered their confiscated technology and absconded.” “Did Valeria… set them free?” Banjooooo wondered, looking down at Paste Pot Pete’s sleeping drugged form. “She had no choice,” Exile mourned. “She couldn’t disobey a command from Destiny. Any command. She was bound by some stupid magic charm, and she died because of it and because of me.” “Yo is to be thinking that nice-Derek cannot to be blaming himself for cute-Valeria’s death,” the strained thought being told Exile seriously. “Nice try, Yo,” Exy replied. “But even you can’t believe Val back to life.” “Yo is not to be needing to be believing cute-Valeria back to life,” Yo answered. “Cute-Valeria is not being dead.” “Yo, with humans, a knife through the heart is pretty fatal,” warned Enty. “But only to the person with the knife through the heart,” added the Dark Knight, emerging from the shadows and scaring the hell out of everybody. “That’s not Valeria, Exile.” “What?” Derek gasped, looking down at the corpse, “but…” “But Yo believes Valeria’s not dead. And Yo knows things. Please remember that Suicide Blonde is a matter manipulator. She could create a fake corpse that’s identical to the real thing.” “Hmmm… there is a faint metamorphic trace to the body,” NTU-150 admitted. “I think DK’s right.” “Of course I’m right,” the urban legend hissed. “This isn’t a murder, it’s a kidnapping.” “Then I’ve got to get after them,” Exy gasped, dropping the lifeless meat and rising to his feet. “I’ve got to go to her.” “Excuse me,” the sardonic voice of Hunter Victorious came from the top of the stairs. “Does anyone mind that the Celestians have begun to annihilate the planet? Just thought I’d mention it.” Exile punched a wall and followed the other heroes to save six million lives. All he really wanted to save was one. “So where is Valeria?” Lisa asked the Hooded Hood. “On her way to Frammistat Eight,” the cowled crime-czar answered. “The palace of the Slimy Slaver Lovetoad?” Lisa shuddered. “And one of my alternate-reality son Dark Thugos’ boltholes,” noted the Hood. “Now to look in on how my this-reality son and his comrades are doing. “Laurie, you’re going to have to talk to me sometime,” Goldeneyed pointed out to the livid-angry Lisette. “Not if you die slowly and horribly first,” the punk superheroine spat back. “Bryan.” “I was going to tell you, Laurie, honestly. Things just got… complicated.” “And to think that I was going to let E-Male… to save helpless little Bry… what a fool I’ve been! How much you must all have laughed at me!” “Laurie, it’s not like that,” G-Eyed assured her. “I’m… I’m amazed and humbled that you’d sacrifice yourself to save Bry Katz – I mean me. Honest I am. It’s… it’s the greatest thing anyone’s been willing to do for me. Not that I think you should do it, of course. E-Male is going to get so kicked to another planet when I catch up with him…” Lisette actually flinched away from Goldeneyed as he reached towards her. “Just keep away from me, you total bastard,” she warned him. “I never want to see you or even think about you ever again.” “But Lisette…” “I see you’re keeping your minds on the mission then,” spiffy noted, returning with the captured heroes’ weapons and an electronic key. “See if this gets your powers back, G-Eyed.” Goldeneyed felt a familiar tingle of power as the ferned phenomenon deactivated the power dampener. “How did you get that thing?” Lisette wondered. “It was in the store behind the slaughterhouse kitchen,” spiffy explained. “I, um, I went in disguised as garnish.” “I can feel my powers slowly returning,” Goldeneyed noted. “Not enough to teleport us out of here, but at least enough to shift this key and some weapons up to that ledge where Tricky and Messy are.” His eyes flashed for a moment, and a surreptitious wave from a high promontory over the lava lake indicated that the postman and the arrogant archer were now armed. G-Eyed fingered his recovered comm-badge. “What’s happening up there?” he asked them. “The priest is listing the duties Sorceress is supposed to perform as the Morshlock king’s bride,” Trickshot answered. “The toenail lint stuff’s about the nicest thing on her agenda.” “So what’s the plan?” spiffy wondered. “Blast arrows and lava flues,” Messenger answered curtly. “Then I swing down and deactivate Whitney’s energy-dampener. Then the Sorceress saves me.” “Works for me,” Goldeneyed grinned. “Macho bloody men,” Lisette muttered. She snatched the comm-badge from G-Eyed and shifted the frequency. “Hello Hatman and the Lair Legion. Can you hear us? We’d like so help down here.” “We can handle this oursel…” Goldeneyed began to protest; but the look in Laurie Leyton’s face shut him up. Lisa watched her team go into action with a professional interest. “Doesn’t DK look good in those tights?” she noted as the Lair Legion rescue team burst down into the Morshlock caves. By that time there were exciting plumes of lava bursting all over the vast cavern, with the pale bloated subhumans screaming and running about. The Sorceress was screaming even louder and appeared to be kicking a large fat man who had a circlet of twisted metal on his head. Hatman mercifully swooped down and pulled her away before the ridge she was stood on toppled into the magma. The Dark Knight seemed to be in a particularly foul mood. His earlier attempts to communicate with the Celestian Space Robots had failed utterly, resulting in him being cast from their ship down towards the planet at terminal velocity. Fortunately Hatman and NTU-150 had been deployed to catch him. Clearly his sometimes status as Chronicler of Stories had little weight with the Space Robots who sought to destroy the planet where Paradopolis was currently trapped. Then the amorous advocatrix glanced across to her Hooded host and noticed he was watching the encounter with a degree of anticipation. “What else is going on here?” she demanded. “What’s happening while DK, Yo, Hatty, Exy and Enty are distracted getting spiff, Messy, Tricky, G-Eyed, Minxie and Lisette out of there?” The cowled crime czar caused the Portal of Pretentiousness to focus elsewhere to answer his guest’s enquiry. “May I ask what you are doing, exactly?” Hunter Victorious asked Saint, coming upon the white-swathed agent by surprise. Saint berated himself for getting caught like this twice in twenty-four hours. “Special mission,” Saint replied. “I have to set these seven devices at the perimeter of the city and then punch in the activation codes.” He stabbed his finger over the keyboard of the alien technology and activated the last of them. “I didn’t hear about this at the mission briefing,” HV frowned suspiciously. “Need to know,” Saint answered. “I took instructions on this from the Mayor himself.” “Pierson’s Porter, the alien who tried to dominate the entire planet?” HV pointed out. “I thought that looked like Puppeteer technology. I don’t trust him.” “He made a good case to me,” Saint argued back. “We don’t have time to charge the teleport-engines to transport a mass the size of Paradopolis back to Earth before the Celestians destroy this planet. So we need another option. PP has provided one.” “But he didn’t clear it with Enty, Cap, Hatman or me,” scowled Hunter Victorious, “Which means that we wouldn’t approve of it.” The diabolical Dr Moo took HV down with a lactose-blast from behind. “Too bad,” she told the milk-drenched fallen hero. “Time to finish this.” “Mr Porter?” Saint spoke into his communicator. “We’re ready to go.” Pierson’s Porter pushed a single black button. “What now?” Lisa asked, almost afraid of the answer. The cowled crime-czar’s eyes glowed softly as he led her through the Portal of Pretentiousness back to the Hall of meetings. “You have one final appointment, my dear,” he warned her. “Who with?” the amorous advocatrix demanded. “The same final appointment everyone gets,” the slim young woman in black with the ankh round her neck replied. “Me.” “Death?” Lisa gulped. “Got it in one,” the figure in black answered. “Um, excuse me a minute, I’ve gotta concentrate for a mo…” The Celestian Space Robots released their energies upon the planet where Paradopolis had been dragged.. The first wave denuded the surface of all vegetation, searing it sterile of life in one blinding flash. In the lava-streaming tunnels beneath the city the remaining members of the Lair Legion and their friends struggled to survive the tectonic upheavals. “G-Eyed, can you teleport us outta here?” Hatty shouted to the weakened dimensions-twister. “Maybe one or two of us, but not all,” Goldeneyed answered honestly. “I’m still weak from that power-dampener.” “Yeah. I’m sorry about that,” Exile assured him. “And I’m really, truly, honestly sorry about this.” Then he released a lethal spray of energy at his cousin, bathing him in sheer force, keeping up the barrage until there was nothing left to attack. Trickshot brought Exile down with an energy-scrambler arrow. “What the hell…? You murdered him! Your own cousin! Residual energies trickled across the stunned Exile. “I had to… No choice… Valeria’s still alive…” Hatman’s sledgehammer fist slammed down to silence the traitorous Legionnaire. “You killer! You’re going to pay for this!” he warned the fallen hero as he pulled off his Steelers cap to don his fireman’s helmet once more. “Bry!” screamed Lisette, struggling against spiffy and Sorceress restraining her. “Bry! You bastard! I’ll kill you!!” Then the very mantle of the planet gave way and crumbled. The molten core of the dying world flared and splashed in one final defiance, then all that was left of the word was dead rubble spinning in the vacuum void. Death turned back to Lisa. “Now, as we were saying…?” Well, that’s as far as the story goes so far, I’m afraid. There are three more parts due sometime, but no guarantees when. However, whenever there is a next issue, here’s what it’s about: The fate of Fin Fang Foom revealed! ManMan vs Ziles for the right to be personally slaughtered by Dark Thugos! Troia and Dancer vs the Skree Empire – and one will die! Valeria – the true story! Lisa’s appointment with Death! Visionary and the Substitute Lair Legion vs big nasty things from outer space. And a CrazySugarHero saves the day – but it’s not Dreamcatcher Foxglove. All due - someday! The Hooded Hood contributes more death and heartbreak to the BZL |
| #53: Undead Tales of the Lair Legion: A Perspective from the Other Side (The Hooded Hood contributes more death and heartbreak to the BZL) (25-Jun-2000 08:36:12) |
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