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#54: Untold Tales of the Lair Legion: The First Person Singular or Views from the Battlefield Sunday, 02-Jul-2000 10:13:58
#54: Untold Tales of the Lair Legion: The First Person Singular or Views from the Battlefield From The Secret Diary of Troia 215 I hate ManMan. I really do. He’s horrible to me all the time, he’s mean and uncaring and treats me badly and doesn’t care at all. Then when I’m ready to write him off as a bad job and give myself to somebody worthy of the gift he goes and does something like this, risking his life for me without question, facing impossible odds, and all with that stupid good humour that denies the fact he’s going to die, die horribly, and I’m the one who killed him! So here we are on Skree-Lump, homeworld of the militaristic Skree Star Empire, the latest conquest of Dark Thugos. Oh, Thugos is my brother from an alternate reality, except instead of being a weedy nerd with the fashion sense of a blind chimpanzee and a symbiotic plant growing out of his brain he’s a 6’4” stone-faced genocidal maniac with enough power to blow planets apart. And he doesn’t like me. He doesn’t like me at all. He’s already showed me the torture instruments he’s going to use on me and described the terrible things he’ll do with them. At least the first eight weeks of his programme. I snarled back like a good Amazon girl should, doing lots better than I ever did in Miss Laeticia’s Defiance Class. But I secretly am scared, more scared than I’ve ever been, and in far, far more trouble. Earth is doomed, you see. Thugos is leading his Skree invasion force to capture our world, and then every living thing on the planet is scheduled for slow, painful death as a kind of chat-up line for this cosmic entity that Thugos wants to get into bed or something. The Lair Legion and the whole of Paradopolis is dead, teleported to some alien planet that the Celestians have just destroyed. The sensors show that only two people teleported away in time. So now there’s no-one to stop Thugos from doing whatever he wants. And I’m really, truly, all alone. Except for Joe Pepper, of course. I used this ancient Skree custom, whereby a princess can challenge the fitness to rule of one of her family, and have her champion take him on in single combat. They took the charge seriously because I am Thugos’ sort-of sister, and because ManMan was carrying Knifey, who everyone here believes to be the Blade of Fonn-Dhu, legendary founder of the Skree Empire. Since that founding stuff happened before humans learned to walk on two legs that’s pretty unlikely, but it is getting Joe a lot of respect. And that’s why they’re letting him fight three deadly challenges in the Arena of Pain, to prove his fitness to fight Dark Thugos himself. And knowing Joe, he’ll win those three impossible fights – he’s already won against the Skree robot and the man-scorpion just to spite me, he’s only got to fight some alien pixie-chick – and go on to get killed by my almost-brother. Right now I hate him so frickin’ much. I want to hold him in my arms and never let him go and tell him I hate him over and over again and that I want to hate him forever. But soon he’ll be dead because of me and I won’t be able to hate him any more. The Journal of Sir Mumphrey Wilton It was a dashed tight spot, I’ll admit that. With the help of the Manga Shoggoth and Miss Ashling I’d managed to do a sort of time-distortion thingie on the invading Skree/Skunk attack fleet, but frankly that was taking all the chronal energy I could muster from the instruments of office of the Keeper of the Chronometer of Infinity, and it was getting harder and harder to maintain with every passing moment. “Is it totally hopeless?” the bright young gal in the rabbit costume asked me as I came out from the planning meeting at the Lair Mansion for a bit of a smoke (don’t usually these days, even though I can remember when doctors told us it was good for the lungs, but when the planet’s about to get invaded, well dash it all). “Hopeless?” I answered her. Jackie Rabbit was the name she was going under apparently. Her brother had been hero-in’ in Paradopolis when it had vanished. Now she was determined to keep up his legacy and all that. Good show. “Nothing’s hopeless m’dear. We just keep strugglin’ on to do what’s right. Never give in. Never give up.” “You humans have a most extraordinary persistency in the face of disaster,” the Manga Shoggoth bubbled. “I suppose that’s why I sometimes like you.” “We have an extraordinary persistency in finding disaster to face as well,” Xander the Improbable added ruefully. “What’s worrying me is that if the Universe is trying this hard to destroy us then the Final Trial that Wilbur Parody prophesied can’t be too far off. All of this Thugos thing is just an attempt to eliminate us before the big problems start. Nats nearly choked on his coffee. “Big problems? You’re saying this one is minor?” “It’s all relative,” the sorcerer supreme of the Parodyverse shrugged. “And all of Paradopolis being dragged off to an alien planet with my l’il Dream on it and everything doesn’t matter?” Meggan Foxxx demanded. “Everything matters,” Xander told her. “I’m just worrying about the perspectives.” Miss Framlicker, the jolly young woman from the Interdimensional Transportation Corporation came out of NTU-150’s labs looking worried. “I’ve lost the beacon contact with our office in Paradopolis,” she reported. “I… I don’t think the planet they were on is there any more.” Ms Foxxx caught her gasp before it could come out; but for the first time since I met her she looked her age. Young Jackie allowed herself a sob. “They’re all lost?” Fetish Guy asked, stunned. “I fear so,” Miss Framlicker replied. We all stood silently for a moment or two. “I’d better tell Visionary,” Asil decided at last. The last three members of our working party came out to stare helplessly into the starry sky as they got the news. “They wus the best we had,” Dan Drury, agent of SPUD declared. “Sad, isn’t it,” either Nats or Zemo inside him muttered. “This… this can’t be happening,” Cheryl denied, her face very pale. Can’t recall seeing Cheryl frightened before. Visionary clearly felt he needed to comfort her. “We’ll handle it. We have to. We have to, dammit!” Fetish Lad asked the question every one of us was thinking: “But how?” “I’m very glad you asked that, my flagellant friend,” a suave voice announced from the shadows. We all turned round to see Pierson’s Porter and the diabolical Dr Moo emerging from the shadows. “Yes, it is us. You may rejoice in having proper leadership return to save your world.” “We already have a proper leader in Visionary,” Asil snapped hotly. “Hmm, yes. And what a sterling job he has done so far,” Porter mocked. Can’t say I liked his tone. Told him as much. “Vizh has been appointed supreme C-in-C for the duration,” Dan Drury growled. “You ain’t even got a city t’be mayor of now, Porter.” “Ah, now there you are technically incorrect,” Dr Moo explained. And he held up a sort of bell-jar. Inside we could see a tiny model of Paradopolis. A tiny, moving model. “That’s… not a model,” gurgled the Manga Shoggoth. “If that idiot Brainiac could do it with Kandor I could certainly do it with Paradopolis,” Pierson’s Porter smirked. “The teleport of so large a city as the Big Banana would have taken too much time to gather energy for given that the Celestians were about to delete the world we were on. So I arranged for a somewhat smaller package to be transported instead.” “You have the Lair Legion in there?” Visionary asked, his face suddenly suffused with hope. “Ah, I’m afraid not,” Pierson’s Porter smiled. “No time to rescue them, unfortunately. Had to leave them behind on the dying planet.” “Then… they died!” Meggan trembled. “A tragedy, I’m sure,” PP declared, but he couldn’t suppress a smirk. Asil always said he was a bounder. Tend to agree now. “Now, as for my plans to accept rulership of this planet and defend it from extinction…” From the Imperial Archives of the High Makluans, eleventh cycle, nineteen hundred and third segment, the eighteenth (and final) canto Death came upon our world today Heralded by the Great Betrayer, the Devil Doctor who corrupted our gene pool The possessor, who, robbed of his own body took command of others, the un-dead At the last, denied dominion, he chose to condemn us to oblivion. Vast, unknowable, eternal, the Living Death that Sucks rode from the void Heeding the summons of our captured foe he came to steal our very lives Those of us who had the means and courage fled a dying world Some few of those who flew for safety even survived the attempt Destruction was too kind for the Great Betrayer, too easy an answer for his many crimes His essence was imprisoned for all time, entombed within a cane of sacred wood Ensconced within the fastest of our ships, sent speeding from our dooméd home Towards the bleak edge of the universe where it might scream confined forever Damaged was the craft wherin was borne the Devil Doctor Spiralling beyond our ken to who knows where to crash and burn Fallen is our home, the last of life soon gone. And vengeance, like all else that once was ours, is nothing more than fodder for the fiend. Cobra’s War Log My definition of a bad day is when you are shanghaied off one alien planet onto another, dead one, which has been sucked of all life centuries ago by Galactivac the Living Death that Sucks. Then you find that the undead dragon that caused the planetary destruction is still around looking for another draconic form to possess and you happen to have Fin Fang Foom, now the last living Makluan around, as one of your team. Then your dragon gets possessed by the Devil Doctor and starts to try and bake you, and your resident hemigod of thunder (Donar – trust me to get stuck across the universe with a deity from the wrong pantheon) loses his temper and gets into a huge fight with FFF. But what really makes it a bad day is having the other living person on the whole damn planet be CrazySugarFreakBoy!, who has just renounced his passion for you in an embarrassing and public manner and to whom you are trying not to speak; which is difficult when he’s just saved you from a collapsing building in the Donar/Foom war. That is my definition of a bad day. “Some adventure, huh?” the CrazySugarFreakFool! announced, grinning up at me in that ridiculous childish soppy way he has. I suppressed an answering smile and picked myself up. “We have to do something to stop them before they kill each other and us,” I suggested. Dreamcatcher Foxglove bounced to his feet and pointed into one of the shattered buildings. “Runes,” he gestured. “Lots and lots of Makluan runes. Telling stories. I’ll betcha that we could find out what really happened here if only we could decipher these. And I’ll betcha it’ll tell us how to defeat the ol’ Devil Doctor and save Finny.” “And you can read Makluan?” I asked him sceptically. “Well no,” the imbecile replied, “The Eerie Ear-ring only helps with spoken languages. But we’ve gotta translate this stuff, it’s important. Haven’t you watched any SF teevee, Cobby?” Overhead Donar hurled that large war-club at the flying dragon. “Have at thee, possessing miscreant,” he shouted. “You’re not trying, little Ausgardian,” the Devil Doctor snarled back. “Can it be you are afraid of hurting your friend?” Resisting the temptation to gut CrazySugarFreakBoy! for calling me Cobby I examined the runes more closely. There was something about them... “Hey, do that again, Cobby!” the bouncing buffoon called out. “Do what?” I demanded. Perhaps it would not be amiss after all to use the sacred banana weapon of the Cult of Buto to end the life of yet another CrazySugarHero! “Touch those runes and sing them like you just did. I can translate that.” I realised that he was speaking the truth. The Makluan runes were endowed with some sort of telepathic component. As I touched them the song came unbidden into my mind. And although I did not know it’s meaning, Dreamcatcher could apparently understand the words I sang. I decided to let him live a while longer and sang the Death-Song of the Makluans. Reminiscences of a Talking Knife Listen, kid, don’t take those things they’re sayin’ about me too seriously, y’know? If you believe all that folks say about me I didn’t just help that dork Fonn-Dhu carve out the beginnings of the three hundred thousand year Skree Star Empire, but I wus there when Euphonium of Tartarus slaw the Blatant Beast, I played a key role in the transubstantiation of the Auslympians back in the Age of Wonders, I killed the Loathly Vastwyrm at the Temple of the Unspeakable Yen, and I was damned nearly the fifth Beatle. It’s all just stories. Anyway, I wus talking about the time me an’ Joe were trapped in the Arena of Pain, right? We’d already carved up the Sentry Robot and some manscorpion geek, which was no big deal because frankly both of them were asking to be disembowelled, and the manscorpion killed any kind of sympathy Joe might have had for him when he described whut he intended to do to Troia after Joe wus dead. After that it was Goodnight Gracie from Joe’s point of view, and if they do stitch that manscorp geek back together he sure isn’t going to be menacing the ladies again. Anyway, there we were, half the Skree Empire watching us like it was the Superbowl or something, Joe whinging as usual about his broken rib cage from the last fight and stuff, and us facing down our third and final opponent on the road to being gutted by Thugos. The problem this time was that we weren’t up against some giant killin’ robot, or some slimy mercenary from Zwimlimmer Four. We were up against a rather cute young lady called Ziles, an exiled alien whose most offensive act against us so far was to help Joe strap up his wounds and to cradle his head in her lap while he recovered from his ordeals. And since one of the two now had to leave the arena at least maimed and preferably dead I could see that ManMan was going to have a tough time winnin’ this one. “It’s not too late for my master-plan, Stan,” the gal in the silver jumpsuit pointed out as she rounded with my wielder as the games began. “They gave me my equipment back. We could go invisible, slip some sleeping fluids into their air-conditioning, make it through the city to where my spaceship’s hidden, and be away from here before they know my cloaking frequency.” “Not without Troia,” Manny replied determinedly. Single minded, my boy. “And, um, Dancer and Space Ghost, of course. It wouldn’t be right.” The two of them avoided the acid-sprayers (Skree Arenas of Pain are just chock full of interesting geographical features), Ziles fired some sort of beam, Joe avoided it and tried to grapple her (seen him use that move on Troia), and the two rolled apart before the Stompers could land on them. Well it was pretty clear that the two kids weren’t going to get out of this one without the help of ol’ Knifey. “Okay people,” I told them, “We’re not gonna win playing the Skree game. Let’s try somethin’ else. Ziles, how much to they know about your technology and powers?” Ziles made another attempt to break ManMan’s neck and stumbled back as he slashed at her with me. “Not too much I guess,” she answered breathlessly. “Most of my equipment only works for me, so since they examined it without me being there they probably don’t know everything I can do.” “The invisibility thing?” “Probably not,.” she admitted. “Why?” “Joe,” I shouted, using the sort of voice I’d have used when I manifested to Plogibus of Entropia if that hadn’t just been another of those wild stories. “Joseph Pepper! I, the Blade of Fonn-Dhu, speak!” Joe almost dropped me in surprise. Good job I enhance his grip from time to time. “Um, yeah?” he managed. “So you are the legendary weapon they’re talking about, that Fonn-Dhu had when…” “Shut-up! Joseph Pepper, this woman has stood in our way for too long! I command you to use my Disintegration Power upon her, that these Skree sycophants may know the puissance of the enemy they have annoyed.” “Your… disintegration power?” ManMan gulped. “Yes,” I hissed back, “My Disintegration Power. The one that makes people entirely vanish forever. “Oh,” Ziles caught on. “That disintegration power. No, please do not disintegrate me!” “Knifey,” Joe commanded, pointing me at the alien chick. “Disintegrate her!” Ziles screamed dramatically as she fell backwards and blinked out of sight. The crowd went wild. The Skree troopers came to take me away from Joe and lead him back to his cell. “Not this time,” he snarled, pointing me at them (they backed off nervously). “I’ve done your tests. Now I’m going to kick eight kinds of s--- out of your boss. Bring on Dark Thugos!” Sometimes the boy do good. The Last Testimony of Valeria of Carfax, Lady of Shalandalor, First Daughter of Regis Trantor and Dame Sontergard of Fellwall, Keeper of the Secret of the Hidden Chalice Looking back on my life I see it in three parts. I remember being a happy young girl in the Shadowlands west of the Dark Tower. Father was Regis of the whole of Carfax and Shandalor, and was allied through my mother to Felwall and the Low Marshes. Back then I didn’t understand some of the terrible things had had to do to keep his position in the Dread Dormaggadon’s administration. All I knew was that my life was filled with laughter, with loving parents and seven brothers and sisters and the whole complex social and ritual life of being important servitors of the Great Master. I was fourteen when the Lot fell upon me, to be chosen as a sacrifice to the Dread Lord. Nobody could do anything about it of course. Mother wept and father raged but we all knew I was lost then, no more a child of Trantor and Sontergard, no more lady of Shandalor, only a chattel for the pleasure of Dormaggadon. This was as it had always been, and as we believed it always would be. That was the beginning of the second part of my life, the three years of pain in being prepared for the Dark Lord’s will. There were so many things I had to learn: the tenets of total obedience, the rituals of the high court, the histories of the Dismal Dimension, the songs and the dances which most pleased my master, the secret things which a woman must do to pleasure her Lord, the duties and responsibilities which might befall me. I learned to endure the pain of the lash and the sting of the whip. And of course I was constantly girt with cruel spells, bonding me forever with the Dread One or to whomever he disposed of me. I didn’t know then what would happen to me when I was sent to Dormaggadon. Some tributes he merely rended apart, displeased by their appearance or demeanour. Others he took pleasure in destroying slowly, some over years of torture. Yet others he kept, and perhaps that was the cruellest fate of all, for Dormaggadon was not kind to those he had power over, and took great joy in wringing tears from those who truly believed they had no more tears to shed. My training was not quite complete when the Grand Vizier ordered me to be hurriedly brought forth for presentation. The impossible had happened. Dormaggadon had fallen, replaced by an new Dread Lord, the Dread Derek, and the Vizier wished to cultivate favour and also to test this new ruler of the Dreary Dimension. If I survived my first encounter with the new Dark Lord then I could be a spy, even an assassin at the Vizier’s command. The Vizier had always desired me. Many times he had personally taken over the lash during my punishment, delighting at the way my body writhed under his beating. But he never dared to touch me, for that privilege is reserved for the Dark One alone. Yet his fear of Derek was not so great as his fear of Dormaggadon, and so he plotted to supplant the new Lord; and I was part of the spoils he would claim. Spell-bound and shackled I was sent to Dread Derek’s world, knowing what I must suffer, terrified beyond all measure but aware that I must hide my fear and do all that was commanded of me by ritual and training and the Vizier lest my former family and home pay the price for my disobedience (assuming I could disobey; as I say the final gaesae upon me were hurried and the mages wished to take no chances). I went to Dread Derek’s stronghold and surrendered myself to his terrible will. And so began the third part of my life. Against all hope, Derek did not break me. He lifted me to my feet from the ground where I trembled and treated me kindly. He gave me raiment and coffee and comfort, and although he could have compelled me to do anything – anything – he desired, he used me like a lady and cared for me with tender regard. I could not believe my fate to be so benevolent. At first I waited for him to change, to mock my foolish hopes, to shatter the faint dreams he had allowed me. But he protected me from harm, and then with his cousin Bryan and the wonderful Yo went off to protect the entire Dreary Dimension from harm. In fact I have never seen him do one thing which is shoddy or weak or mean, only things which are right and noble and honest. He would blush were I to tell him this, and he would not see it in himself; that is part of the nature of the man. I betrayed the Grand Vizier believing it would cost me everything, but I could not allow him to destroy Derek. I thought then I did it because it was just, because it was the right thing. It was, of course, but I do not think now that this was the reason I did it. My time with Derek was short, just a few happy months as his housekeeper. We cuddled on his sofa - nothing more, and me trained in the eleven hundred ways to please a man – and watched old movies. We had meals with friends and watched contests of sport and walked in Off-Central Park. And once or twice, quite shyly, Derek kissed me, always careful that I did not feel compelled to accept his approach; and the only compulsion I felt to kiss him back had nothing to do with training or enchantment. Now my life is at an end. Derek believes me dead, and I am far away from him. The enchantments that once bound me to him now bind me to another, and soon to a third once another transaction is completed. I had to surrender to this, to force Colonel Destiny (my new master) to take me with him and his Carnival in their escape to Frammistat Eight rather than continue their attempts to corrupt my Exile into murder and betrayal. I had no other choice but to break Derek’s heart and to deceive him, although the thought of it makes me weep almost constantly. I tell myself that I have had a few stolen months of bliss, more than I ever hoped for, more than I could have expected after the lot fell upon me back in the Shadowlands. I go now to the fate I expected then, and I do not expect to live long or die easily. I dream that somehow Derek will find me and save me, like a prince in a storybook, like Ricky does with Lucy, but I know that is a hopeless hope. I wish I could have told him just once what I never dared admit to myself. I wish I had not been bound by my enchantments to remain silent of how he could set me free. I wish I had realised in time that I loved him, will always love him, will love him no matter what happens to me or what I become, will love him beyond life and time and reason and anything else. But wishes are for fools, and I am here, alone, frightened, defenceless, and doomed. When the end comes it will not be too soon. Segment from the Bootlog of GlitchedGadgetRiotGrrlRobot! I blame Doctor Phobia. Dr Phobia hasn’t really explained himself to me yet, but since I found out I was the GitchedGadgetRiotGrrlRobot! he has been responsible for steering me to my most baffling cases. In this case he pointed me to a strange old English chap with a highly advanced piece of technology on his watch-chain – yes Sir Mumphrey Wilton, the former leader of the Lair Legion itself!. “Ah there you are,” Sir Mumphrey noted, as if he had been expecting me. Dr Phobia does that kind of thing as well. “Back in a moment m’dear,” he shouted back into the stately home that had somehow avoided almost any destruction from all the Resolution War damage in 2009. “Don’t be long, Mumph. Tea’s almost ready,” a young female voice came from inside. Sir Mumphrey led me across the lawn then stopped to take a look at my sleek metallic body. “So you’re the new CrazySugarHero, hmm?” he pondered. “I heard the new LL were considering inducting you. You CrazySugarChaps have come a long way since old Quimpot, the EccentricEtherInvestigatorInventor!” “I was told I had a mission of cosmic importance to undertake?” I prompted the strange old buffer. “Hmmm? Oh yes, fate of the future and all that. Yes. Sorry. You need to be getting to the interstitial dimensional crossroads and I need to be getting back to the wife for tea.” “I do?” Dr Phobia hadn’t mentioned this part. “Oh yes,” Mumphrey told me. “You need to meet a rather confused young man who tried using his teleportation energies to get him out of a tricky spot and got caught up in the backwash of a planetary destruction event by the Celestian Space Robots.” I’ll admit to a frisson of religious awe. “The Celestians…” “Yes. He and his cousin had some kind of plan to fake his death, where he teleported out just as his cousin seemed to vaporise him with an energy blast. Neither of them could know that local conditions would mess things up. He’s ended up at the crossroads with everywhere, so to speak, and the only way to get him back where he came from in any fit state to help his friends is for you to help him home via the long route.” “So what do I have to do?” The moustached gentleman fiddled with his pocketwatch for a few minutes then touched it to the smiley-face on my breastplate. I felt an odd tingling. “I’ve bunged some chronal charge in you. Should be enough to get you to the crossroads, pick up young Goldeneyed, go to the far future, sort out the situation there, then get you and the young fellah back to where you came from. Don’t mess it up or the universe goes boom.” “But what do I have to…?” Then the whole of time/space evented around me and I was falling, or rising, or something, towards the interstitial crossroads Wilton and Phobia had mentioned. That’s when I truly decided whose fault it all was. I felt queasy when I arrived. I looked around. “Alright, robot, you have five seconds to surrender and answer my questions before I reduce you to scrap mental,” the feisty black-clad youth with the glowing eyes warned me. I do so love these traditional superhero meeting misunderstandings. From the Journal of Asil Ashling, a person Pierson’s Porter is a bad man. If he wasn’t a bad man he would not go around with the diabolical Dr Moo, who is a big cow. Now he has left all our heroes and Lisa to die on some far-off planet and wants to take over our world to save us from more invaders. “We do not need you,” I told him plainly. “We already have a leader. He is Visionary, who is a Great Man.” Pierson’s Porter and Dr Moo seemed to find this funny. I pointed out that Visionary had been responsible for saving the world from the Devil Doctor, but they still refused to take him seriously. This is because they are evil and do not recognise True Goodness, and is why they will lose in the end. They are the ungodly who Sir Mumphrey always talks about smiting. “No, seriously,” Pierson’s Porter said, “It is time to recognise that your little human destinies are irrelevant and to give over all power and authority to your betters. I can assure you ordered, painless little lives under the rulership of one who has far greater intellect and ability than the whole of your species put together. “No,” Visionary said. Some people looked surprised that Visionary would stand up to PP. I do not know why. “Because you could do a better job?” snorted the alien. “Because you have the technology and organisational ability to repel Thugos’ army of annihilation?” “No,” Visionary replied. “Because we don’t bow down to any tyrants. Not Thugos. Not you. Not anybody.” “Here Here!” Mumphrey whuffled into his moustaches. “Because of your immense stupidity?” PP sneered. “Because it’s right,” Visionary answered. Cheryl took the Great Man by the arm. “Sometimes I remember why I married you,” she told him. “And do the rest of you feel the same way?” PP challenged. “Given the choice between following you and Vizh?” Fetish Lad asked. “I’m with the fake man anyday.” Given his sentiments I let that one fake man crack go. “Yeah, SPUD’s with Visionary too,” Dan Drury announced. “Mainly cause while he’s a useless, harmeless well-meanin’ nobody at least he’s not a skin-crawlin’ smooth-talkin’ buttwad alien like you, Porter.” “We’re all with Vizh,” a pale Meggan Foxxx announced. “And if you really have left my little boy to die you’re going to wish you’d never heard of this planet, you miserable misbegotten bastard.” “Sounds like a consensus to me,” the Manga Shoggoth glugged. I think he may have been laughing. Pierson’s Porter turned back to Moo. “Then I’ll leave you to your futile strugglings, take my city to somewhere safe, and watch you all die horribly from the comfort of my new home. Goodbye.” “Hey wait,” Nats called after the departing villains. “Not all of us want to die here. Take me and Miss Framlicker with you.” “Me?” the surprised lab-coated woman from ITC reacted. “Don’t think I…” “Shut up, wench,” Nats told her. “Well, Porter, Moo, will you take us with you?” “But,” I frowned, “right now Nats is…” “Going to go with PP and the doctor, along with dimensional specialist Miss Framlicker” Xander the improbable interrupted loudly. “And there’s nothing we can do to stop them.” “That’s true,” PP answered arrogantly. “Very well. Framlicker may be of some use for her meagre understanding of interdimensional physics, and from all I know of him Nats is harmless. Come then.” But Nats isn’t just Nats right now, I was going to say, he’s also got Zemo’s mind in his brain. Then I realised what everyone was up to and tried not to giggle. PP and Moo left with Paradopolis in a bottle (well he was Mayor and could take it with him), and with Nats and Miss Framlicker in tow. “I don’t know who’s in the most trouble,” Cheryl mused. “Yeah,” Drury agreed, “But I still want some insurance.” He spoke into a communications device. “Natalia? Listen Talia, I got a new job fer you…” We all felt good for a minute until the planet-sized Doomworld warped into our Solar System and threatened to wipe out all life on Earth. An Extract from the Memoirs of the Devil Doctor It was not a defeat. It was a setback. The world of the humans was mine. My bio-obedience virus had infected almost all of them. Soon the last resistance would have been crushed. I devoured the leader of their opposition. I had no way of knowing that he had smuggled within his disgusting digestive cavities a protoplasmic Elder Creature or I could have taken precautions. The Shoggoth destroyed the dead draconic form which I had worn ever since my escape from captivity when the craft taking me to eternal exile was downed by my followers. I was forced to flee, to hurl my disembodied sentience all the way to the world of my birth, and seek another host. I do not have the ability to possess any but those I have genetically modified. I am hardly the supernatural monster that some make me out to be. It merely occurred to me at the time I unlocked the Makluan genetic code and gave my people the ability to shapeshift that it would be a reasonable precaution to make all Makluans subject to my mental indwelling if I willed it so. That they reviled me for it, called me a ghoul, a devil, destroyed my original body and thought me gone was testimony only to their smallness of vision. They could not destroy me, not as long as one Makluan form remained for me to possess. I became their bogeyman, their nightmare, the story to terrify hatchlings with. I could be anywhere, anyone, meddling in their politics, their religion, their relationships, whatever I chose. What joy to be the entity which brings fear to a race so powerful! But they caught me at last, rejected my offers to guide them to new heights of glory and conquest, crafted a prison of wood and circuits to hold me, bound me with a ring of power, and sought to banish me forever. So I called their doom down upon them, drawing the inexorable Galactivac to Makluos. Since I was to be denied their bodies, what need had they to continue living? Fate intervened in my exile – fate, and a cowled human of inexplicable motives. Possessing a recently-dead dragon from the fallen ship which had been my prison I set about preparing a new kingdom to rule on Earth. Until the Legionnaire and the Shoggoth. What joy then, to find a Makluan form awaiting me on my dead homeworld, and to discover three of the annoying little Earth heroes who had done so much to thwart me. Fin Fang Foom was the only survivor of the starship crash which brought me to Earth, was the only dragon I knew of still alive to resist me, and now he was here but awaiting my possession. So I took him and began to kill his little friends. The one called Donar gave me trouble. It was clear that the little twisted knot of vestigial belief and earth-force was holding back out of regard for his comrade. So I took full advantage of that, unleashing nuclear fire and steel-rending claw and bone-crunching tooth upon him. I was amused when he still called his defiance, less so when his weapon stung my hide despite my best attempts to break him. But humans are devious. I should have remembered that. While the loud hairy one was battling me, the other two – the irritating colourful one and the devious slippery one – somehow managed to get hold of our people’s archives and learn of me. They learned of the genetic trigger which allows me to possess my race. And they knew something which I had only imperfectly understood, that Fin Fang Foom’s mind had long since gone, replaced by that of a mortal youth. The first I knew of this was when I was temporarily enmeshed in children’s toys from the humans’ homeworld, by yo-yos and colourful string and tiny whizzing discs. While I was swatting aside the annoying bouncing youth I received a painful blow from the hairy supposed god. And as I stomped him into the ground the stealthy one leapt at my face and whispered four words in my ear: “Andy… change! To yourself!” Somehow the human who dwelt in Foom’s mind heard this and selected his moment to trigger the metamorphic transformation. All the forms he could have taken would still have had my control template in them, except for the one he picked – his original human shape. That then was the catalyst for this mindscape confrontation: the Devil Doctor versus the human Andrew Dean. He stands before me now. I expect this to be brief. Notes from a Probability Dancer The scene: Dancer is creeping in the forgotten undercity of the Skree, guided by the central computer intelligence which once ruled until Dark Thugos took over Skree-Lump, and which is supposedly confined by the new management but improbably isn’t. Dancer: So why exactly do you look like Mr Potato-Head meets the Sushi of Doom? I mean, those are computer graphics that you’re appearing to me on all those display screen with, right? Why not just look like Brad Pitt or somebody? Supreme Interference: ……um. That hadn’t actually occurred to me. Dancer: Okay. Next question. Who do you think the three sexiest… Supreme Interference (quickly): We’re here. Up this hatch is the torture pit where the Public Accoster took Space Ghost. If he’s still alive that’s where you need to go to rescue him. Dancer: Super. Be right back. (Dancer climbs the ladder and breaks in to the torture pit.) Excuse me, Mr Torturer, but why are you crying? Skree Pain Technician: It’s him! That rotter. He won’t play properly. Dancer: Space Ghost? Spacey, what have you done to the poor torturer? Space Ghost: I didn’t do anything. Honest. Skree PT: Yes you did! Every time I turned my back he got out of the inescapable shackles of his Agony Bed. Then he kept on making us go into these weird stories where I was always being killed by people from your world’s media culture. Then in the middle of my world-famous spleen-ripping special he slipped off for a cup of coffee! Space Ghost: I was thirsty. So was Joe diMaggio. Dancer: Well, I’m sure we’d like to apologise for any inconvenience, Mr Torturer. And I’m also very sorry that I’m now going to have to render you unconscious so we can escape. There, that didn’t hurt very much, did it? Space Ghost: I can fix that (kicks the Pain Technician several times in the head and attaches his reproductive organs to the mains – the Pain Technician’s that is; he’s not that weird) Dancer: Perhaps we’d better be going. Umm, where are your pants, exactly? Space Ghost: Disneyland? Supreme Interference: Come along quickly. If you wish to rescue the Amazon princess before the events we have set in motion come to fruition then you had best hurry. Dancer: I was meaning to ask about that as well. When you zapped me with that ray you said it would stimulate my latent powers, but so far I can’t say I feel any different to normal. Space Ghost: Really? Can I feel? Dancer: No. Supreme Interference: Don’t worry. Things are going according to plan. I get rid of Thugos’ stain on the Empire, you get to go free, and my people’s genetic dead-end gets a huge evolutionary kick. Dancer: I’d better not be pregnant like in that old Avengers Ms Marvel story. Supreme Interference (guiltily): Well, not this time, no. Space Ghost. Look, there are guards outside Troia’s room. Spaaaaaaaaannnkkkkkk Raaaaaaayyyyyyyyyyyyy!!!!!!!! Dancer: But they took your Spank Ray off you and… oh, never mind. Troia 215: And he’s brought my spear! How sweet. (Tests spear on guard) Yep, it still works. Supreme Interference: You must move with all haste now. Your comrade is facing Thugos in single combat and you have less than five minutes to save him and get off the planet. Troia: Then let’s get to it and kick Thugos’ ass. Space Ghost: Dancer, are you feeling okay? You look kinda pale. Dancer: I’ll be okay. Just felt… I dunno. Let’s find ManMan. Meanwhile… ManMan: Just because… koff… you’ve kicked the… hack…crap out of me for… fifteen minutes… gakk… doesn’t mean you’ve won, Thuggy! Knifey: Right. Joe’s still got one good lung. Thugos: Really? Let me rip it out and see. Troia: Leave him alone, you bully! Nobody rips Joe’s lungs out but me. Space Ghost: Aaaw, that’s sweet. Thugos: Ah, you wish to begin your lesson in pain early, my sister. Dancer vomits noisily Troia: Don’t let him scare you, Dancer. Sure he’s a big, ugly, psychotic multi-murderer with enough power to fry us where we stand if he wasn’t toying with us, but we don’t back down from bullies! Dancer: Sorry. It wasn’t Thugos. It’s something worse. I understand now. The Supreme Interference said he was stimulating my latent powers, and there’s only one power I know about that I’ve never used. And only one thing that could take Skree-Lump away from Dark Thugos! (The skies darken. A vast shape blots out the sun. Several billion alarms go berserk in every Skree command centre across the planet) ManMan: What the hell is that? Knifey: Dancer. She got her powers to be the Herald of Galactivac, the Living Death that Sucks. ManMan: And, um, that big thing up there with all the cosmic hoses and nozzles is… Space Ghost: Hi, Galactivac! Galactivac, the Living Death that Sucks (for it is he): I hunger! The Supreme Interference: Yes! Dark Thugos, Tyrant of the Sol Empire: Shit. Next time whenever that is: Life in the bottled city of Paradopolis. The fate of the Skree Empire! Baron Zemo and Nats vs Pierson’s Porter and Dr Moo! The rescue of Valeria? Andrew Dean vs the Devil Doctor for the fate of Fin Fang Foom! Lisa and Death and the Hooded Hood! And whatever happened to the rest of the heroes on the planet the Celestians just blew up? The penultimate chapter in HH’s longest continuous story arc. Don’t miss it. The exact word-perfect same chapter as above, but with some HTML colour changes that will make it possible to actually print out on a black and white printer, from... the Hooded Hood |
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