|
|
#55: Untold Tales of the Lair Legion Out and About in the Big Wide Multiverse: Worlds Apart Monday, 10-Jul-2000 12:53:05
AUTHOR'S NOTE: In my grand plan for this series I had originally envisaded that this would be the penultimate episode. It isn't. When I came to write it it became obvious that the outer space and homefront material would have to be separated, for reasons of space as much as narrative construction. Hence my apologies to those of you with characters on BZL Earth or in the Bottled City of Paradopolis; we'll torment them next time. The rest of you can suffer now. For those of you wondering about Goldeneyed's mysterious journey to the future after last issue's meeting with Glitch, the GoofyGadgetRiot-GrrlRobot!, I refer you to the upcoming short series of stories by CSFB!, Amazing Guy, and G-Eyed, which will hopefully segue back into our grand finale here in Untold Tales, now scheduled for #57 (our 50th issue celebration special). HH #55: Untold Tales of the Lair Legion Out and About in the Big Wide Multiverse: Worlds Apart Behold, Galactivac the Inexorable, the cosmic hooverer, the Living Death that Sucks; he who descends upon planets, draining from them all life and potential of life like some sentient vacuum of death. See how he hovers now above Skree-Lump, might homeworld of the fabled Skree Empire, his entropy-nozzled flexing, imponderable engines of life-leeching deploying around the teeming planet. Not all the defences of the greatest military infrastructure in the galaxy can hold him back. Behold the death of a world. “We’ve got to do something,” Sarah Shepherdson shouted over the screams of a planet. “We’ve got to stop him!” “Are you kidding, Dancer?” Ziles asked her. “That’s the scariest dude in the know universe, and if he’s decided to lunch here then this world is… lunch.” “The wench is correct,” Dark Thugos, worshipper of death and recent conqueror of the Skree Empire admitted. He grasped his opponent ManMan by the throat, broke his spine over his knee, and tossed Joe Pepper casually in a dying heap at Troia 215’s feet. “Your challenge is answered and resolved, sister. Now I must go, before Galactivac further inconveniences my plans.” “Joe!” the Amazon administrator screamed as the limp bloody puppet that was ManMan sprawled on the floor. Thugos allowed himself one dark, bubbling laugh before teleporting away from the dying planet. He was irritated by this setback, buk he had many more resources. By the end of the day, Earth would be one of them. “Do something,” Knifey, ManMan’s sentient blade told the heroes. “He’s dying.” “What, ring Arlington or something?” Space Ghost suggested. “”No,” Ziles answered, “Go grab a Skree medi-bed, and make sure it’s got the bio-ooze regeneration option.” “We can save him?” Troia asked, looking up from her world of personal misery. “If we get this bed thing?” “Maybe,” Ziles admitted. “But we’ve gotta get off this planet. We shouldn’t move a spine injury, but then again there won’t be a ground for him to lie on in less than ten minutes.” “I’ve got him,” Space Ghost promised, lifting Joe with amazing carefulness. “Where’s your hidden ship? And does it have surroundsound?” “Where’s a Skree hospital?” Troia demanded of the nearest computer monitor, since it happened to be inhabited by the Supreme Interference, the collective computer consciousness that has ruled the Skree before the coming of Dark Thugos. “Vector 11-alpha-23,” the Interference answered. “The odds of you making it there and back in time are not good.” “I’ll make them good,” the Probability Dancer promised. “Damn you, Interference, you’ve made me doom a world, but I’m not letting ManMan die as well!” “Dancer, it’s not your fault,” Troia assured the distressed heroine as they raced through the streets of panicking people. “You didn’t know the Supreme Interference was going to stimulate your latent herald-of-Galactivac power.” She hefted her spear and made a path for them. “You can’t hold yourself responsible for… him” (she gestured up to where the vast shape blotted the sun and had begun drawing eerie streams of life-force from the core of the world) “N-not like I’m to blame for Joe dying.” “We’d better have our guilt therapy later,” Dancer suggested, somersaulting over an ugly black chasm that had formed in the thoroughfare. “There’s the hospital, and by chance there’s a bio-bed right inside the foyer. Interference, tell Ziles she can come and fetch us. Interference?” But the core sentience of the ruler of the Skree was far from the falling homeworld by now, planning the next evolutionary phase of his fallen people, dreaming of glories to come a millennium from now. “What do we do now?” Dancer asked as the city began to shake. Pieces of buildings crumbled into the street. Troia wheeled the bio-bed into a plaza. “Hope Ziles is going to come for us,” the Amazon admitted. “And that we can get Joe into this equipment in time.” Shortly after that the planet crumbled into dust, and all was silent in the airless void that had once been the seat of a mighty empire. “Another planet,” Death sighed. “It’s been a busy day.” Lisa Waltz looked at the pale, black-clad girl with disbelief. “How can you be so calm at the death of, what, billions of people?” “Professional detachment,” Death answered. “But to be honest, I am pissed at Thugos for setting all this going." Then she looked at Lisa'’ companion, “Assuming that it was Thugos that initiated these events.” “There is no need to fear a forced liaison with your ardent worshipper,” the Hooded Hood told the manifestation of the end of life. “I have already told you that I stand willing to assist in offsetting your… date… in exchange for a simple piece of information and a minor accommodation.” “And that’s why you brought the keeper of the Booke of the Law,” Death recognised. “So any agreement between us is binding.” Lisa looked around the Halls of Death. “I thought he just wanted me for my body,” she smiled. “Look, it’s pretty clear that some big things are going down in the old universe tonight. Iolodobaoth might have given them a nudge to get the timing right but I’m guessing Thugos was going to make his move sooner or later, right? So just promise to send Hoody back to life and give him the damn information about who created the Parodyverse that he set up his death to discover and we can all get on.” Even the Hooded Hood was surprised by Lisa’s terse summation of his long-range plans. “I will clearly have to be more devious in future,” he noted. “but Lisa is correct, Death. Impart the knowledge I have died to discover, render Miss Waltz and myself safely back into the living realm, and I shall do what I can to prevent the total triumph of my alternate-reality son Thugos.” Death was used to people demanding chess games, riddle contests, even personal combat as a means of staving off the end. She had to admit fomenting universe-wide destruction and setting in motion plans to destroy the creators of the Parodyverse was a sufficiently rare gambit to make the memoirs. “Very well,” she sighed, “but only because Dark Thugos is incredibly icky and makes my skin crawl, and because the information will be useless to you anyway.” The pale girl brushed her fingers over the cowled crime-czar’s cheek. “There,” she told him. “You know now.” The Hood’s green eyes flashed. “Of course!” he hissed. “It’s so simple.” “So we’re going to not be dead?” Lisa checked, wanting to be very clear on the important points of the contract. “And all we have to do is stop Dark Thugos from conquering the Earth and slaughtering every living being on the planet, right?” “Correct,” sighed Death. “Now if you’ll excuse me I have to go and stop a Skree Terminizer your Lair Legion friends dropped through one of my doorways before it makes a nuisance of itself.” “Why not get the LL to deal with it?” the first lady of the Lair Legion suggested. “They’re dead since that prison planet was destroyed by the Celestians, right? I mean, only Moo and Pierson’s Porter teleported away with Paradopolis in a bottle, leaving the heroes on a crumbling, dying world.” Lisa paused then slyly added, “I’m sure they’d help in exchange for their lives.” “I’m sorry,” Death replied, “but one bargain with Death is quite enough of one day. I don’t need help to deal with a big killer robot, I assure you.” “Besides,” the Hooded Hood added, “The Lair Legion aren’t dead.” “Did… did the planet blow up yet?” Sorceress asked the man who was shielding her in his arms as if that could protect her from it. Hatman looked around. “Uh, I don’t think so,” he admitted. “But then, last time I looked the planet had rather more exploding volcanoes and mile-deep rifts and stuff, and less flowers and… rabbits.” “Rabbits?” Trickshot puzzled. “Where the hell are we?” “Easy,” NTU-150 answered, picking himself up from the ground where he was trying to shelter Tina from a cataclysm that was now a dimension away. “This is the Happy Place, the realm where people go when they can’t survive horrible reality any more. Right, Yo?” “Yo saved us,” Banjooooo grinned. “Yo brought us all to the Happy Place at the last moment! Well done Yo! Uh… Yo?” The pure thought being of indeterminate gender in the Zorro outfit lay on a bank of clover beside his purple Thought Bunny Rabito and was quietly fading to transparency. “Yo is sorry,” s/he told them, “but Yo has run out of thinking. Yo is happy to have been to save Yo’s friends.” “Hold it Yo,” Tina cried out. “Don’t fade away! Don’t leave us. We can’t do without our favourite alien!” “That’s right,” Sorceress agreed, stepping round Paste Pot Pete (who was happily playing with his fingers and toes on the lush green turf). “Please, Yo-ster. Stay with us.” “Yo is to be going now,” Yi, keeper of the Happy place told the visitors sternly. “Yo is to have been using up all Yo’s being in keeping humans in your Paradopolis-city from being horrid to each other, and in bringing Yo’s friends to the Happy Place. Now Yo must to be gone, and there is to be no more Yo.” “Uh uh, sourpuss,” Trickshot argued. “No way! We ain’t sayin’ goodbye to our little thought alien just yet, buddy. No way is Yo going to die while Brer Trickshot’s on the case. C’mon Yo, live. We believe in you.” The fallen Thought Being flickered ever fainter. “We do,” Enty agreed. “I know I had… have… had… problems with the gender thing, but Yo, we all love you. You know we do. Don’t go.” “We need you to stay,” Hatman agreed. He lifted Rabito up onto Yo’s chest, where the lopsided rabbit toppled down into a furry purple heap. “Think about all the people who care for you, who believe in you. Vizh, and Cheryl, and Donar, and Lisa…” “You are believing you can save Yo?” Yi asked, very carefully. “Why not?” Cap asked. “This is the place of dreams coming true, isn’t it?” “Yo is…” Yo gasped, “Yo is… to be staying.” The thought being materialised back into a fragile solidity and went to sleep curled up between Hatman and Sorceress cuddling his bunny, with Trickshot standing guard. “I don’t want to break up the Hallmark moment,” Banjoooo admitted, “but there is one other important question, guys. Yi, where are spiffy, Messy, Lisette, Exile and DK? They were with us when the planet was blowing.” “But Yo was very weak,” Cap pointed out, “and none of them are exactly candidates for the Happy place, are they?” Cap pointed out. “Is true,” agreed Yi . “Is why they were sent to the Not-So-Happy Place.” “Uh-oh,” spiffy frowned, his sentient fern rustling nervously on his head. “I don’t like this one little bit.” “Random teleport off a dying world to some sort of overgrown tropical jungle?” Messenger shrugged. “Better than the alternative.” “Didn’t feel like a teleport,” the Dark Knight observed. “More like…” “We didn’t teleport,” spiffy told them. “We dimension-hopped. And I know where we are too. I spent months trapped in this place. My fern came from here.” “The Not-So-Happy Place?” DK scowled. “Wonderful. As I recall there is no escape without rescue?” Lisette was in no mood for expositionary small talk. “Excuse me!” she interrupted. “Aren’t you guys forgetting that that traitorous bastard Exile we’ve got stunned in a heap over there just killed Goldeneyed? And if we let him wake up frankly the rest of us put together aren’t powerful enough to stop him killing the rest of us.” “Lisette has a point,” Messenger admitted. “Exile presumably killed Bry Kotyk after discovering that his amour Valeria was still alive and in the hands of enemies who had previously demanded Goldeneyed’s life in exchange for her freedom. It would be expedient to execute the murderer now before he wakes up and can resist.” “No way,” spiffy insisted. “Nobody murders anybody, alright. Exile gets taken home and brought to trial. No vigilante justice, Messenger. You promised, remember?” “This is different, spiffy,” Lisette argued. “He… he just killed Bryan, his own cousin. And he… I…” Laurie Lee looked down in bleak despair. The last thing I said to him wasn’t nice.” spiffy wondered how bad things were when he was the sober sensible one in the party. “All the same, he gets a proper hearing. That’s justice, right? It’s what heroes stand for.” “I think justice would best be served by a simple slice of a razor letter,” Messenger argued. “You’ll have to get past me first,” spiffy warned, forming his fronds into a defensive armour. “There’s more to all this than meets the eye,” the Dark Knight interrupted. “That’s why I have administered a restorative while you were pointlessly bickering. “Now, Exile, tell us why you attacked Goldeneyed.” “You bastard,” added Lisette. “I… I killed him, didn’t I?” the stunned and battered Exile remembered. “Oh shit, I killed Bry!” “In cold blood!” accused Lisette. “We all saw you…!” “Calm down,” the Dark Knight commanded. “Tell us what you were trying to do, Derek Foreman.” Exile closed his eyes. “When I found out that Val was alive, I knew I had to find her,” he explained. “Colonel Destiny and our supposed cousin the Suicide Blonde had her, and would do terrible things to her if I didn’t kill G-Eyed then myself. That would transfer our power to the Blonde, apparently, and make her this creature of prophesy and destiny. So I whispered to Bry when we met again after the Morshlock thing…” “Where he saved us all,” Lisette chipped in. “And he agreed to fake his death in the hopes that Destiny would use that teleporter thing to snatch me away to Valeria. Then Bry could ‘port after me and we could all get away.” “Goldeneyed was supposed to teleport away as the blast hit him, making it appear that he had been seared to death,” Messenger surmised, “but something went wrong, something interfered with his teleportation.” “Probably the Celestian energies,” spiffy observed. “So Bry was killed in a tragic accident.” “You’re not buying this, are you guys?” Lisette demanded. “He’s a stone-cold murdering geek-dweeb, and he’s gotta die. He’s gonna die!” spiffy and Messenger held Laurie Leyton back as she lunged at Exile again. “I guess Yo must have brought us here to save us,” Exile noted, “but he sure screwed up my plan. Now I’ve killed my cuz and it’s all for nothing.” “I don’t like the way those trees are looking at us,” spiffy shuddered suddenly. “I’m remembering why this is called the Not-So-Happy Place.” “Five little balls of misery trapped in a living hell,” Messenger observed. “How appropriate.” Then the ferns attacked. Back on dead Makluos three heroes looked down upon the fallen human form of Andrew Dean. “Verily I didst not mean to smiteth him back to mortal form,” Donar, hemigod of thunder, earnestly declared. “Right careful wert I being to poundeth him most gently.” “Don’t sweat it, Donar,” CrazySugarFreakBoy! grinned. “I know how these things work. While you were fighting ol’ posessed Finster Cobby and I translated the ancient Makluan runes to work out the origin of the Devil Doctor and reasoned that Andy’s human form might but a crimp in DD’s possession plans. Why I bet that Andy-Finny and DD-Finny are battling it out even now on some cool mental plane, prolly drawn by Steve Ditko (and lettered by Artie Simek).” “We could just slay the human form and negate the threat,” Cobra pointed out. “But,” she sighed, noting her companions’ expressions, “we aren’t going to do that, are we? So how about trying to work out a way off this godforsaken planet?” “Godsforsaken indeed,” Donar noted. “The very life-force wherein the Nature-Mother herself takes her being hath been ripped from this world. Its mythlands art no more, and I canst not engage Mjalcolm’s time/space powers to convey us hence. Moreover, I confess to a certain weakness of mine limbs, perhaps betokening that I too canst not long survive in such a place.” CSFB! noted Donar was pale and swaying. “I thought you just had another concussion,” he admitted. “Sit down big guy.” “Then we may die here,” Cobra realised, more to herself than anybody else. “And with the Cult of Buto destroyed I may be the last of my line. I have failed.” She turned away from the others and walked away. “What a fool I have been.” “Milady, one moment I prithee,” the hemigod called after her. “I urge thee not to despair. Surely twas not mere coincidence that sent us to this necropolis world. Twas as if the Norns themselves didst desire Fin Fang Foom to face his people’s nemesis. Surely then they wilt not abandoneth us hereafter for the nonce.” “I was figuring when Finny fiddled with that Celestian teleport apparatus it read his desire to go home in his mind and zapped us here instead of Earth by mistake,” CSFB! noted. “But your explanation is way cooler, Donar. Let’s go with that one.” Cobra looked down at the twitching form of Andrew Dean. “What the hell is going on in there?” she demanded. It occurred to Andrew Dean that he had forgotten just how big the wyrm Fin Fang Foom actually was. Of course, that was because the young writer usually was Fin Fang Foom, had occupied the body of the Makluan dragon for over a decade since its original consciousness had succumbed to despair in Comics Limbo and surrendered to oblivion. What was different now was that Foom had returned to his dead homeworld and encountered the undead entity responsible for unlocking the Makluans’ shapeshifting ability, a Devil Doctor who had also genetically twisted the dragons so he could possess any of their bodies at will. And it was very different to be looking at Fin Fang Foom from the outside again and seeing the ancient malice in his eyes from the hate-filled mind that occupied him now. It occurred to the Devil Doctor that he had also underestimated the mortal. He had assumed that Dean being the mind and soul of the wyrm would somehow make it less, but aided by his friends the human had shifted the dragon to his own human form, the one modelled on his natural mortal shape, the only form the dragon knew which did not have the Devil Doctor’s twisted genetic template. Hence the two of them now faced off in some bizarre mindscape, half graveyard half futuristic city. Their confrontation would decide once and for all which of them would be Fin Fang Foom. “Tremble, Earth ape,” the Devil Doctor roared, rearing up to Foom’s full seventy-foot height over Andrew Dean. “Tremble and despair!” “Nope,” Andy answered, sticking his hands in his pockets. “Now get out of my body.” “Your body, little flesh-thief? You are nothing but a weak and frightened mortal, a child who stumbled upon a weapon you cannot comprehend. Fin Fang Foom is a Great Wyrm, and will be greater yet as I gain control over his vast power. The universe will tremble…” “You said tremble before,” the writer pointed out. “It’s not good to reuse words so close to each other. It weakens the structure of your ranting. Besides, you can’t have Finny. He’s mine.” A wave of nuclear fire engulfed Andrew Dean. “Uh-uh,” he replied. “This is all just an illusion of what’s really happening anyway. We’re both in the physical brain of Fin Fang Foom. You’re trying to use that genetic twist you built into all Makluans because this is the last Makluan alive and if you don’t live here you don’t live anywhere. Should have thought of that before you sicced Galactivac on the rest. And I’m about to show you something you don’t know, Devil Doctor.” “And that would be?” the undead dragon demanded, reaching out and sending Dean sprawling with a backhanded claw swipe. Andy felt the blood oozing from the three deep gashes across his chest. “That would be that Fin and I have gotten pretty comfortable over the years. We’ve got our act together. We know what we’re about. We stand for justice, and saving lives, and doing the right stuff just cause it is right. Finny’s not a weapon, he’s a hero, and we like it that way. And we’re not letting any spectral Makluan traitor change that.” The Devil Doctor hit him again. “Really?” he gloated. “I’ve had a hundred thousand years practise at being a dragon. What could you accomplish in the mere blink you have occupied Foom?” “Well,” Andy replied, limping to his feet again, “I don’t need the practise. I got it right the first time.” The third blow was meant to shatter the human’s bones and bring the conflict to an end. Andy Dean caught the massive claw in a physics-defying hold. “No,” he replied. “You didn’t understand. I’m not weaker than the original Fin Fang Foom. We’re stronger. We’re right. We are the dragon. And you have no place here.” Andrew Dean sat up, and rippled back into his true shape as Fin Fang Foom. “Er…” CSFB! prompted nervously. “I am myself,” Finny told them. “Andrew Dean, the dragon.” “That’s wonderful,” Cobra told him. “Here, let me kiss you in congratulation.” “Ah, no… no, that won’t be necessary thank you,” the backing-off rapidly wyrm assured her. “He is the real thing,” Cobra noted. “Heilsa, Makluan,” Donar smiled. “I didn’t not doubt for a moment that thou could’st smite yon villain. Er, where is yon villain now?” “Disembodied, lost, defeated,” the Hooded Hood promised them. “Good evening.” The four heroes spun round to find Lisa, her disreputable ginger cat, and the cowled crimelord looking down from a pile of debris. “Milady!” Donar beamed, sloughing off the exhaustion he felt, borne up by the presence of the first lady of the Lair Legion. “Hoody!” CSFB! beamed even more. “Surprise reappearance of a classic baddie! This just gets more and more kicking!” “Hello all,” Lisa smiled. “Care for a lift home?” “It’s nothing personal,” Bambi Bacall told Valeria of Carfax. “I have nothing against you. It’s just that when my plans go wrong I get vexed, and then I just have to hurt someone.” Valeria bit back her tears so as not to give the Suicide Blonde satisfaction. “So Derek and Bry beat you anyway,” the captive sneered. “You set out to destroy them and steal their powers and you failed.” “Exile himself killed Goldeneyed, and then died when the Planet of Imprisonment was erased by the Celestians,” the Suicide Blonde pointed out. “Then if they’re dead why haven’t you gained this power you were expecting, huh?” Valeria challenged. Bambi hit her again. “It might be because of the Celestian energies involved,” she worried. “It may just be a temporary delay. It had better be.” She struck the slave girl again. “Don’t disfigure her,” Colonel Destiny chided. “We want her to look her best for her new master. At least one of us should get some profit out of this miserable exercise. I don’t see Thugos compensating me for the loss of equipment and exhibits after that debacle with Paradopolis.” “Don’t tell me what to do, flunkey,” the Suicide Blonde warned. “I am returning to Dark Thugos shortly, and I shall be certain to report how ineffectual your organisation was against the heroes of Earth.” “We would have succeeded if not for that freak teleporter accident which transported the whole city,” Destiny snarled back. “In a straight fight we would have won hands down. And we’re not the only people to find the Earthlings causing setbacks, are we? I mean, have you visited Skree-Lump lately? Oh, no, you can’t, because it’s bloody space rubble!” Suicide Blonde gave Valeria a final slap and turned to leave. “Dispose of this wench to the Slimy Slaver LoveToad and join us on Earth as soon as you have repaired your Carnival,” she commanded. Then she strode off towards her waiting cruiser. “Quite a nasty one, that,” Mystic Morgana, the Carnival’s spirit-summoner noted. She lifted Valeria’s head to check that she wasn’t too badly bruised. “I’d tell your future, little girl, but I’m afraid you haven’t got one,” she cackled. “I wish we’d had time to verify the nature of those mystic bonds that trap this girl,” Endgame the Escapologist noted. “They’re a lot stronger than the Obedience Chips we use on exhibits. They’d be really useful to us.” “I just wish you’d allow us to play with her a little before disposing of her,” the Mirror Murderer rasped, slicing the air with his glass-sharp fingers. Valeria knelt amongst them and said nothing. “Poor skinny waif,” Enormous Irma chuckled. “Lost because her boyfriend prefers something to get hold of.” “Um, that big talking frog thing’s here,” Hotstuff shuddered. The showgirl didn’t like the way the LoveToad appraised her as he entered to claim his new slave. “Ah, excellent,” gurgled the Slimy Slaver LoveToad, staring over at Valeria. “I think we have a bargain.” “Let’s just check on the terms, shall we?” Colonel Destiny insisted, smoothing his moustaches. “You extend the contract for a Fortress of Thugos on Frammistat Eight for another decade, you re-equip our carnival including a modest trans-stellar teleportation unit, and you provide a new batch of behaviour-modification chips so we can recruit new exhibits.” “It seems rather a lot for one young girl, alluringly innocent as she may be,” the LoveToad objected. “The only slave from the Dreary Dimension available in the Parodyverse?” Mystic Morgana pointed out. “She’ll be the prize of your collection.” The LoveToad leered down at the pyjama-clad prisoner. Valeria tried not to tremble. “Hmm, very well then. I always was a sucker for a helpless virgin. Give her to me and I’ll see you get what’s coming to you.” “Done,” Destiny proclaimed, grasping the LoveToad’s right hand in his own. Valeria felt the gaes of ownership shift again. She now belonged body and soul to a new master. The Slimy Slaver LoveToad didn’t release Destiny’s hand, however. Instead he send a shimmering pulse of power through his own palm into that of the showman’s, sending him steaming backwards to twitch in a heap in the corner. “What…?” Enormous Irma gasped. The attack on Destiny was enough to overcome the telepathic illusion that Tina was projecting into the minds of the Carnival. Suddenly they saw that the figure in their midst was not the Slimy Slaver LoveToad they had been expected. Instead it was… “Exile!” Endgame warned. “Right!” the energy-manipulating Legionnaire agreed. He seized Valeria up and hurled her to spiffy, who commanded his fern to stop bending light to conceal him and start deflecting energy to keep him and the slave girl alive. The wall crumbled in as Hatman arrived in his Rockets cap. He ploughed straight into Enormous Irma, burying her under the debris of the opposite wall. “Meht Yortsed Seibmoz!” Mystic Morgana commended, gesturing to unleash the bound spirits she had at her command. Thirty shambling monstrosities lumbered out of the mists that welled up. A shadowy figure in a dark cape appeared as if from nowhere to deal with them. “Amateur undead!” hissed the Dark Knight. Endgame fingered the remote control to free Enormo the Wonder Frog (this was Enormo II, just when you thought it was safe to go back in the pond). Banjoooo assumed his full sixty-foot height. “Hey, giant aquaforms are my shtick! This is infringing copyright!” he warned as he began to tussle with the three hundred foot beast. Since Enormo didn’t seem too impressed, Banjoooo concentrated really hard and evolved the power to become four hundred feet and really, really hungry. “Hey Endgame, get out of this!” Trickshot challenged, rolling across the floor and letting off a spray of glue and net arrows. Endgame parried them with inertia discs and responded with Flesh-Homing Bombs. Trickshot intercepted them with his next volley and fired back a Cayenne Pepper Arrow. Things were just shaping up for an interesting fight when Messenger stepped out of the shadows and took Endgame down with a single nerve pinch. “Spoilsport!” Trickshot accused. Both heroes staggered as their minds were assaulted by the dredged nightmares of their pasts. “RaeF Fo EiD!” MysticMorgana chuckled. Sorceress tapped Morgana on the shoulder. “That talking backwards gimmick is real old,” she advised before decking the necromancer with a left hook. Morgana’s mystic defences were pretty tough, but she had a glass chin. The Mirror Murderer exploded into a million jagged shards, slicing up spiffy’s fronds as he attempted to get to Valeria for his amusement. NTU-150 used tight-beam sonics on the villain, grinding his very being into powder. “Save me, spiffy!” Hotstuff screamed, running to throw herself into the fern-wielder’s arms (for close range poison needle use). “Shut up, bitch!” Valeria told her, grabbing her by the hair and bringing the showgirl’s face down to meet a pyjamad knee. “Now that felt good.” “How’s it going?” Cap asked Tina from the room down the hall where they kept the real Slimy Slaver LoveToad hostage. “We’re winning,” the telepath reported. “I think Exile is rather motivated.” “Exile should be dead,” Lisette muttered. “Yo is thinking cute-Lisette should not to be so bittering,” the recovering thought being advised. “Yo is thinking that Exy is not to be deliberately killing of cute-Bryan, and also that no power is transferring so perhaps is not be cute-Bryan dead, yes?” That shut Lisette up. “The LoveToad’s waking up,” Tina warned. “Don’t worry,” Cap advised. “Paste Pot Pete’s sticking to him.” “Derek!” “Val!” “Aaaw!” Banjooooo smiled. “I’m a sucker for a happy ending.” “Jay!” “Whitney!” “Er, two happy endings…” “Tina!” “Jaimie!” “Alright!” Banjooooo yelled, “Break it up! We’ve got the Earth to save.” spiffy looked speculatively at Zemette. “I don’t suppose…?” “Don’t go there, weed-boy.” “We still have the problem of getting off Frammistat Eight,” Cap reminded everybody. “Yo was able to bring us out of the Happy Place to here after we’d retrieved the others from the Not-So-Happy Place…” “I swear I’ve still got leaf burns,” Exile muttered. “…but all the spacecraft here are security coded and we’d still take two weeks at maximum speed to get back home.” “We should have returned to Earth instead of coming here,” Messenger said coldly. “One life is less important than the survival of a race.” “Yo wanted to come here,” Yo told him. “Yo is happy to see cute-Valeria to be owned by cute-Exile again.” “We still have the problem of getting home,” the Dark Knight brooded. “Well, perhaps I can make a few suggestions?” Lisa proposed, “And after that, perhaps I can show you folks the way home?” “Lisa!” spiffy gasped. “Y-you’re not dead?” “None of us art dead,” Donar contributed. “But Thugos wilt be when I getteth to him.” “What kind of suggestions?” the Dark Knight asked suspiciously. “This is starting to look promising,” Hatty grinned. “So what’s the plan, Lisa?” “Ah well,” the first lady of the Lair Legion hesitated. “You see…” And she gestured over to the Hooded Hood. Next time: All the stuff that wouldn’t fit this time but is happening at the same time. Time for Zemo and Nats to take on Pierson’s Porter and the diabolical Dr Moo. Time to see what happens when Jack Rabbit is the most experienced hero in Paradopolis. Time to see what happens when a possibly fake man loses his temper. And time to set up for the big finale. All due on no regular schedule The Hooded Hood apologises that this episode only appears in one font colour |
| #55: Untold Tales of the Lair Legion Out and About in the Big Wide Multiverse: Worlds Apart (The Hooded Hood apologises that this episode only appears in one font colour) (10-Jul-2000 12:53:05) |
|
Copyright © Looksmart, Ltd. 1997-1999.
All rights reserved.