Posted by The Hooded Hood bids you all a festive Eastertide and presents this tale of sex, drugs, and rock and roll, featuring a surprise guest star from the past and one or two changes in the status quo on April 13, 2001 at 13:03:21:
#69: Untold Tales of the Lair Legion World Tour: Laws and Outlaws
At this point of the Lair Legion’s World Tour, the theme is somewhat around Law and Order. The premiere superhero team of the Parodyverse were providing security in Switzerland at the controversial World Court trial of the mutant Magnetic Techbird in Geneva. The team itself – draconic leader Fin Fang Foom, the shadow-dwelling Dark Knight, teleporting Goldeneyed, hyperkinetic CrazySugarFreakBoy!, energy-controlling Exile and alien thief Ziles – were torn with dissension since not all of them favoured the idea of bringing Techbird to trial. Mutant speedster De Brown Streak had further complicated things by taking Lair Legion associates Laurie “Lisette” Leyton and Valeria of Carfax hostage and demanding to be allowed to speak to the World Court. A possibly fatal schism between those Legionnaires who insisted on the sepia speedster’s arrest and those who wanted to let him past was averted by the unexpected escape of the Magnetic Techbird and his subsequent threat of nuclear destruction of Geneva, Washington, and Paradopolis. “You want what?” Troia checked. “Perhaps some sort of arrangement of levers and pulleys?” Cheryl wondered, looking down at the snoring hemigod of thunder. “Dan, if you ever point your finger at my little boy again I will go for your nuts with an electric corkscrew.” Meggan Foxxx told the Director of SPUD (the Super-menace Principal Undercover Directorate). The sonic ram hit Fin Fang Foom in the midriff, hammered him back through the wall of the World Court building and toppled him towards the crowd outside. As the shapeshifting Makluan reduced his size so he wouldn’t crush the terrified bystanders, Magnetic Techbird narrowed his magnetic confinement beam and pounded the dragon through the pavement and ninety feet under it. “Now that is what I call a gothic castle,” Flapjack approved as the coach pulled up in front of Schloss Spankenstein. “Look at the crumbling crenellations and grinning gargoyles! And see how the whole west wall threatens to topple down the ravine into the little stream far below! This is class-A ruined fortress stuff.” “I’ve heard a lot of lines,” admitted Sarah Shepherdson, “but ‘I’m a god so you have to go to bed with me’ is a new one.” “You’re going about this all wrong,” De Brown Streak explained to Magnetic Techbird. “You’re playing into their hands, confirming their worst fears about mutants. Garrick’ll easily push through the Mutate Registration Bill if you keep this up.” “Dr Spankenstein, we’re representing the Lair Legion. I’m Cheryl. This is Visionary, Nats, Miss Framlicker, and the person talking to, er, setting free your lab animals is Yo. I understand that you have a new breakthrough in crimefighting technology that you wanted to show us?“ “So far I have beaten you at wrestling, boxing, discus throwing, javelin tossing, shot putting, the long jump, the high jump, the chariot race, the sprint, the marathon, the pentathlon, the decathlon, and peeing into the sea,” Generus pointed out to ManMan. “Are you ready to give up your claim on the wench?” “Ow,” said Visionary. “Ow. Ow. Ow. Owowowowowowowowow!” “Hi! I’m CrazySugarFreakBoy! You may remember me from such battles as CrazySugarFreakBoy! vs Roxx-Hoff, Star Commander of the Skree Fifth Armada, and CrazySugarFreakBoy! vs PsychoAcidPervGirl!, and my personal favourite CrazySugarFreakBoy! vs the Orcs of the Temple of Doom, although that last one was in a D&D session I did. I’m here to distract you with silly string, wrap you in my indestructible yo-yo, and annoy the hell out of you,” CSFB! explained to Magnetic Techbird as he did what he narrated. The missing ladies were in greater danger than Exile imagined. Originally held hostage by De Brown Streak in a bid to be heard by the World Court, Valeria of Carfax and Laurie Leyton had been rescued by the most unlikely of saviours, the Hooded Hood. Nats, Visionary, Cheryl, and Miss Framlicker winced and braced themselves for the thrashing of a lifetime. Flapjack grinned in anticipation of his. Only Yo was looking crossly at Professor Spankenstein as he cranked the Spankinator into action. Therefore only Yo saw the surprised mad scientist receive a crack on his rear that caroomed him across the room and into a pile of bubbling glasswear by the dissection baths. A second blow propelled Spankenstein across towards the flaying bench. “Particular probabilities are hard,” Dancer explained. To anyone else she seemed only to be doing a cheerleading dance. It was a particularly distracting cheerleader dance given her current attire (she and Sorceress had at least donned their bikinis), but it was only a dance. However, urged on by Sorceress she was seeking a very particular set of probabilities. “You don’t understand!” Magnetic Techbird shouted. “I’ve had enough! I’m not an icon, I’m not a cause, I’m not an archcriminal. I’m not all these things you want to make me. I just wanted to have some money, meet girls, and do cool stuff with my powers.” The devastated plaza was a galaxy of blue and red flashing lights atop ambulances and police cars. SPUD agents collected the body and lifted it into an unmarked van for autopsy. Next Issue: The Lair Legion World Tour (or most of it) in India! Will Chronic rock Degenerus’ world or will Degenerus rock Troia’s? Who is the new god in the Lair Legion and who will they sleep with? What will the old god in the Lair Legion say about it? Is Ziles really quitting the LL? All this plus: ManMan says the wrong thing! Dancer gets a job offer! DK on the trail of the mysterious Minion! And more on Valeria and Lisette’s worrying secrets. Be here for The Chariots of the Gods Have All Got Wheelclamped Author’s Note: Readers might have noticed that I have taken the gross liberty of apparently killing off Magnetic Techbird in this story. This should not be taken as a slight on the poster of that name, or as any intention to exclude him should he ever return to the board. However it is a long time since he was around and as long since his character has been used or even mentioned. It seemed better to me to do one good story and tie off the loose ends than just let MT float into limbo. And of course should anyone want to bring him back there are all kinds of ways, not least of which is to deny that the Techbird in this story was the real one at all. As for everything else done to other posters’ characters they have been written with those posters’ at least tacit and in some cases (especially CSFB! and DBS) explicit permission. By the way, The Hooded Hood's Homepage of Doom has been updated. Some of you may wish to take a look. IW
Meanwhile, a second team of heroes – the Probability Dancer, ManMan and his sentient knife Knifey, the Sorceress, Hatman, and Troia 215 - were patrolling the nudist beaches of the small Greek island of Slackos. This pleasant task had been somewhat marred by them being put in stasis while the classical Greek deity introducing himself as Generus commanded his worshipper, the Amazon Troia, to have sex with him.
Yet a third team – Donar, Nats, Visionary, Cheryl, Yo, Miss Framlicker and the hunchbacked Flapjack - were travelling to the Bavarian castle of Professor Spankenstein to evaluate some new criminology equipment he claimed to have developed, but must first find a way of carrying Donar out of the Quaffenblitzenfest where he has become… unlawful. Unlawful as a newt.
All clear? Then let’s get on.
“Sex,” Generus of the Olympians repeated. “Humping. Nookie. Monkey-love. Tum-bumping. The horizontal mambo. I command it. And since I’m one of your gods you’d better do as I say. Otherwise it’s lightning bolt and plagues time.”
“Er…” the Amazon administrator prevaricated. Suddenly she felt naked. Well, okay, she was naked, but now she really wasn’t sure what to do. “If you’re a Greek god how come I’ve never heard of you?”
“I don’t have the PR budget of Zeus and the big boys,” Generus shrugged. “But that doesn’t matter. I’m still divine, and you must obey me. Now lie down over there. Would you like me first in the form of a bull, a goat, a swan, or a shower of gold?”
“What?”
“It’s traditional,” Generus leered. “The gods always come to their mortal mistresses in some kinky form.”
“A lot of women prefer the shower of gold,” Knifey chuckled. The stasis of the gods had no effect on a sentient knife, “But there’s a nasty name for that kind of girl.”
“You aren’t coming anywhere near me like that,” Troia told Generus. “I have a spear.”
Generus transformed it into a skipping rope. “Come, my Amazon beauty, and let me honour you as only a god can. Just hook your legs behind your ears and pick an animal, weather condition, or inanimate object. I can save the bull and the goat bits for your toothsome handmaidens afterwards,” he explained with a lustful glance at Dancer and Sorceress.
“I don’t think Whitney would appreciate another attempt to impregnate her,” Troia warned him. “Anyway, aren’t you supposed to ask me out for dinner and buy me flowers and stuff?”
“Ah, you want the shower of rosebuds,” Generus noted. “Kinky.” He sprung forward and pinned Troia to himself with his god-like strength. Troia hurt her knee on his godlike testicles.
“Get off me!” she snarled. “Amazons don’t surrender to anybody, man or god. Or, er to beasts, weather conditions, or inanimate objects.”
“Like you have a choice, my little minion,” smirked Generus. “What part of god didn’t you understand. My will be done.”
“You’re forgetting one thing, Generus,” Knifey pointed out. “I know the ancient laws. Before you can have the girl you’ve got to overcome her suitor.”
“He has?” Troia asked.
“I have?” Generus frowned.
“Of course. I know the classics,” Knifey assured him. “God versus man in dynamic struggle and all that. It was on all the urns and vases.”
“You have a suitor?” Generus demanded of Troia.
“Sure,” Knifey interrupted the Amazon’s fervent denial. “Just follow the arm that’s holding me and there he is.”
“Then I shall annihilate this mortal and then claim you for my own,” Generus told Troia.
Joe Pepper came out of stasis just as the god hit him.
“Anything,” Visionary answered. “Just get me out from under here!”
“He did try and go drink for drink with everybody at the Quaffenblitzenfest,” Nats admitted, looking down at the insensible Donar.
“Surely he can hold his beer as well as the next man?” Miss Framlicker frowned.
“No, I mean everybody,” Nats clarified. “Every time any person had a drink, Donar had one too.”
“Yo is thinking all was well until Donar tripped over Space Ghost,” Yo explained. “Then is contest with pantsless wonder to be seeing who is to quaff the most.”
“I thought that exposed backside under the table back there seemed familiar,” shuddered Flapjack. “Boy, if Donar’s in this state I wouldn’t want to be Space Ghost in the morning.”
“Please could you get this hemigod off me?” Visionary asked plaintively. “He’s heavy.”
“How did you get under him in the first place?” Miss Framlicker wondered. “Not that I’m judging, you understand.”
“He was trying to help Donar back to the guesthaus,” Nats explained. “And to stop Donar singing the Reaving Song.”
“I had no choice,” Vizh explained from under the deity. “Last time Donar got to the verse about four and twenty virgins they had to evacuate two schools, a hospital, and a nunnery.”
“We’d better get them moving quickly,” Miss Framlicker noted. “Professor Spankenstein said he’d send his carriage for us by seven.”
“Yo thinks he could life cute-Donar,” Yo answered brightly, hefting the hemigod casually by the waist as if he was weightless.
“Not around the middle, Yo!” Visionary called, but it was too late.
“Well now we know why they call it the Quaffenpukenfest,” Nats noted as Cheryl led Visionary off to change his clothes and get a shower.
“Relax, Meg,” Drury suggested, backing off a little from the angry mother. “Look, I have a job to do and I’m doin’ it, that’s all. The kid was out of line and I had to put him straight. That’s whut a father does.”
“You’re not his father!” snapped Meggan, “And what’s so out of line about thinking that someone can change and reform, or that they’re still worth something even if they’re a bit shop-soiled, huh?”
“I never said Techbird couldn’t change,” Drury replied. “I did say it was my job – and the Legion’s – to enforce the law and give the guy his day in court. That means we protect him, we protect judge and jury, we give the democratic systems we fought an’ bled for a chance.” Now the old soldier’s passion was making him fierce. “It don’t matter whut I think of the guy personally. It doesn’t even matter that I’ve visited joes under my command whut got hurt by his ‘political statements’. But I will uphold the law ‘cause that is the right thing to do, an’ it’s why I do my job.”
“And damn the rest of us?” challenged Meggan.
“The rest… well it has to come second,” admitted her suddenly ex-boyfriend. “I’m sorry, Meg.”
“Some things are supposed to be more important than the law,” CSFB!’s mother said. “Family. Love.”
“An’ some folks have to give those things up so the rest of th’ everyday joes on this planet kin have them,” answered Drury. “I gave them up long ago. I had to. I guess I kinda forgot that.”
“I guess we both did, Dan,” Meggan whispered.
The roof was blown in just then so Drury didn’t see her crying.
“Give up,” Goldeneyed warned the escaping mutant. “You haven’t got a chance!” Even he didn’t sound convinced. Magnetic Techbird slammed a sonic wall into him and bounced him into some high-voltage cables magnetically ripped from the wall for the purpose.
“Teamwork, guys,” CSFB! prompted, vaulting over the solid-sound daggers that slashed at him and getting near enough to bounce a kick of the Techbird’s personal shields. “Let’s just…aaagh!” At that point his opponent released a white sound burst at the exact frequency to drop the wired wonder quivering on the floor in epileptic spasm.
Ziles moved in behind Techbird invisibly and tried to apply some Relaxor Cream. “That’s a really stupid thing to do while you’re wearing a metallic jumpsuit,” the mutant terrorist laughed.
“Eeek!” gasped Ziles as her silver outfit pinched her. “That’s rude!”
Magnetic Techbird grinned and used her as a missile to crash into Exile, since the energy-controlling hero’s constant pounding at his shields was starting to annoy him. At a gesture, girders ripped loose from the wrecked World Court frontage and the whole edifice came crashing down on Ziles and Exile.
The Dark Knight loomed up before the villain. “That’s enough,” the urban legend warned. His fist passed right through the magnetic shield due to the sound-dampening knuckledusters and smacked Techbird on the chin.
“Clever,” Magnetic Techbird admitted, “annoying but clever. But not powerful enough.” He grasped control of the iron in DK’s blood and hoisted him in the air. “Say hello to Mister Embolism,” he invited the Dark Knight.
“Say… hello… to Mr… Distraction…” snarled back DK.
Trickshot’s vibratium arrow also passed straight through Techbirds sonic and magnetic defences and nailed his shoulder to the wall.
“Gotta thank the Pantser for that one,” muttered the irritating archer. “Now hang there an’ bleed while I read you your rights.”
The Techbird flicked a hand and hurled Trickshot one mile straight upwards. Then he pulled himself free of the arrow and used his magnetic powers to control the flow of his own blood. “That really hurt,” he warned. “Now I’m pissed.”
“I’ve felt happier myself,” Finny warned him, slamming him to the floor shields and all.
“No more Mr Nice Techbird,” the injured, surprised villain snarled. Suddenly a pinkish-purple sound-cocoon surrounded Foom, Exile, Ziles, G-Eyed, DK, and CSFB! “How many of you can do without air?” he challenged the Lair Legion.
There was a sepia blur and suddenly De Brown Streak was in front of the mutant terrorist. “Maggie,” he called out, “we have to talk.”
“I do my humble best,” Boris the henchman preened. It was nice to have one’s work admired by another professional.
“Boris!” Flapjack grinned. “I had no idea you were henching for Spankenstein. I haven’t seen you since the Lurker’s Ball back in, what ’67?”
“Ah, the girls in their white underwired peignoirs!”
“Passing round the electrodes!”
“We made so much noise the villagers came to complain with torches and pitchforks!”
“Those were the days. And you’re with Spankenstein now?”
“Oh yes, ever since the Count had that unfortunate episode with the holy water-filled jacuzzi,” Boris nodded, his face flushing with happiness right up to his cranial stitches. “The Professor is a brilliant man.”
“We’ll catch up later,” Flapjack promised. “Right now I have to get the masters’ and mistress’ bags carried up. Um, can I borrow a wheelbarrow to get Donar to his room, only he’s a bit… well a human would be under the weather. He’s a god of under the weather.”
“Of course, old friend,” Boris assured him. “I’d help you out only I’ve got quite a lot to do myself. The master wants things just so for his honoured victims.”
“Actually I’d say it was a real old one, according to the legends” Sorceress admitted. “You’re not really going to let him have you are you, Troia?”
“I dunno,” the Amazon admitted. “I mean, he’s pretty sleazy compared to Do, er, to some gods, but on the other hand he could wipe out my civilisation with a snap of his fingers."
Further along the beach Generus had finished beating the pulp out of ManMan and was challenging him to throw discii.
“Try to bleed towards him,” Knifey advised his wielder.
“Just because it’s happened before that gods have forced themselves on mortal women doesn’t mean it’s right,” Dancer scowled. “I think we need a little help on this one.”
“Hatty said the same. That’s why he flew off back to the village.”
“To get to our communicators and call the Lair Legion?” Troia asked hopefully.
Sorceress looked a little confused. “Actually no,” she admitted. “He said he had to get a drink.”
In the village below, Jay Boaz shouted into a cup of wine to the astonishment of the locals. “Come on Elsqueevio! I need you!”
“Too bad,” MT replied. “But I don’t feel like being Mutant Liberation Poster Boy, or being Martin Luther Techbird. I’m outta here.”
“You’re supposed to be our spokesperson!” DBS complained. “You can’t do this.”
“Sure I can. Watch me. You be the Great Mutant Hope. I’m sick of being the underdog. But I’ll do you one favour before I go. I’ll off Garrick for you.”
“No!” cried De Brown Streak. “I hate the guy’s guts but I can’t let you kill him!”
“Like you could stop me,” shrugged Techbird, flicking a thumb at the suffocating legionnaires. The magnetic constraints were preventing Goldeneyed from teleporting free and he was choking with the rest. DK seemed to be in some sort of meditative trance. Finny was the only one who could hold his breath for a prolonged length of time.
Magnetic Techbird gestured and dragged counsel for the prosecution Herbert P Garrick from beneath the rubble.
“No!” shouted DBS, and with a blur he vibrated straight through Techbird’s shields and hammered into him a thousand times in less than a second.
MT winced in pain even though the blows were blunted by his defences. Blood began to seep again from the arrow wound. His scream went outwards hurling De Brown Streak away, ricocheting him into the shattered courtroom. “I am going to break every bone in your body and leave you a drooling cripple!” MT promised the sepia speedster, seizing control of the iron content in DBS’ form.
“Not yet!” warned spiffy, shielding De Brown Streak with his fern. “Lair Legion, line up!”
“Oh yes,” the man with the thick pebble glasses assured them. “I have always been fascinated by crime and punishment. Always. It’s my life.”
“Y’know, there are two kinds of laboratories,” Nats sniffed to Miss Framlicker. “There’s the Interdimensional Transportation Corp. style lab, all white with monitor screen and control surfaces, and there’s the Spankenstein type, with stone walls, lots of glass tubes, and those two big balls shooting lightning at each other.”
“Van der Graaf generator,” Miss Framlicker replied absently. “Don’t let the B-movie décor put you off. There’s some sophisticated stuff here. That’s got to be a cognitive impulse monitor, and that’s a neural lobe stimulator over there.”
“Yeah,” breathed Nats. “I spotted that too.”
Spankenstein was demonstrating his machine. “It looks like a big chair where you strap someone in and that big board there comes up and paddles their butt,” objected Visionary.
“Exactly,” the scientist enthused. “The subject is placed inside the Spankinator – I indulged myself by naming it after me – and then they learn that crime doesn’t pay.”
“So basically it’s an automatic spanking machine,” Miss Framlicker said scornfully.
“Yo is thinking we should have brought cute Fetish Lad.”
“It isn’t just a spanking machine though,” Spankenstein promised. “It’s the ultimate spanking machine. It reacts to your thoughts. It senses not only if you’ve been naughty but if you’re thinking of being naughty, and reacts accordingly.”
“You get your butt whupped for bad thoughts?” Vizh checked worriedly.
“Exactly!” Spankenstein enthused. “And the machine monitors how much it hurts and adjusts the punishment accordingly so that you feel all different kinds of pain.”
“I think we’ve seen enough,” Cheryl decided. “Thanks for your time, Professor. We’ll be sure to let you know.”
Spankenstein was disappointed. “You’re giving me the brush off,” he frowned. “You think I’m mad.”
“Well let’s see,” suggested Nats, checking the points off on his fingers. “Big spooky Bavarian castle? Check. Drooling assistant? Check. Mad scientist lab? Yep. Insane device to spank people when they’re evil? Oh yeah. Bing! You won the prize.”
“If you don’t support my Spankinator programme, then you must all be evil too,” the Professor realised. “You must be punished.” Before the heroes could react he pulled a huge lever that activated the stasis ray. “The Spankinator will teach you the error of your ways.”
“We could always try burger making,” Joe Pepper moaned, trying to pick himself up from the floor.
Generus gestured and created the perfect burger.
“That just leaves the knife-fight,” suggested Knifey. It had been a while since he’d killed a god.
“You begin to see the error of your ways,” Professor Spankenstein gloated. “And I have not yet even turned the machine on.
“Well the straps kind of pinch,” the possibly fake man explained.
“You can’t believe you’ll get away with this,” Miss Framlicker objected, “The Lair Legion will drop-kick you to Venus.” The three legionnaires and their two associates were all strapped in a bending position within the Spankinator. Donar had mysteriously vanished, presumably to find a toilet bowl. When Flapjack had seen his five companions strapped into a spanking machine he had complained bitterly and insisted that room be made for him too.
“After a few days in my Spankinator you will come to see that I was right to punish you,” the Professor told her.
“Given the neural feedback he can condition us at an instinctive level,” warned Cheryl. “It’s the ultimate brainwashing tool.”
“At least Nats is safe then,” Miss Framlicker noted.
“Hey!” the flying phenomenon complained.
“Yo is thinking that this machine is not to be hurting Yo,” Yo declared. “Yo is thinking that uncute professor cannot overcome Yo’s power to be what Yo thinks Yo is.”
“Really?” Professor Spankenstein smirked. He turned a dial and the pure thought being yelped with surprise as a resounding smack fell upon his/her backside. “Think again.”
“Oh no!” realised Cheryl. “Now I know how he’s made the ultimate punishment machine.”
“What do you mean?” Vizh asked. “Isn’t it these bits of wood that turn and…”
“I mean I know how he’s powering it. We even saw Space Ghost snoring obliviously at the Quaffenblitzenfest.”
“Of course!” Miss Framlicker caught on. “That Spank Ray of his, which uses however much force is necessary to overcome any kind of defence and deliver an impact.”
“Boris said somethin’ about having to go roll a drunk for sumpthing,” Flapjack remembered. “They got SG blotto and ripped off his Spank Ray.”
“A cosmic force,” Professor Spankenstein gloated, “Now attached to my instruction devices. The world will obey me! The very thought of being bad will be driven from human minds! Discipline will be maintained. Spankinators in every school, every office, every home!”
“We’ve gotta do something!” Nats called out. “He’s gonna…”
Spankenstein turned the machine on at Intense Thrash.
Distracted by the sudden appearance of spiffy and Banjoooo, MT had allowed his concentration to lapse. Now the LL were free once more.
“Don’t worry Mr Garrick,” Lisa told the battered G-man. “The Legion is here to protect even really slimy, unlikeable people.” Just then Banjooooo flew past and crashed unconscious into the abandoned public gallery. “Of course, we could do with a little help,” the advocatrix considered. “I’m a little out of practise, but I summons Donar!”
There was a flash of light and a heavily snoring hemigod of thunder appeared at Lisa’s feet.
De Brown Streak pulled himself painfully to his feet. “Are you okay?” asked Exile.
“Sure. I think so,” DBS replied. “Nothing six months in traction won’t sort out.”
Exile slammed the sepia speedster into a wall. “Good,” he snarled. “So now you’ve got five seconds to tell me where you’ve taken Valeria and Lisette before I make you eat your spleen.”
“Let us go, villain,” Valeria warned the cowled crime czar. “It is only a matter of time before Rick finds us and he will make you pay for any harm that comes to me.”
“Is that any way to thank me for the trouble I am going to on your behalf, Keeper of the Secret?” he asked her. “After all, I only came to deliver you a message from home.”
Valeria looked at the proffered parchment as if it was a snake. “I don’t want it,” she told him.
“Really?” the Hood asked. “I thought you were a young lady who took her duty very seriously. Or does the fate of your people mean nothing to you now you have… other interests.”
“Damn you,” the slave-girl snarled, snatching the scroll from the cowled crime czar. “How much of this have you set up?”
“As much as I had to,” smirked the archvillain.
“I don’t understand,” Lisette frowned as Valeria took the letter off to a corner of the warehouse to read it. “What’s going on?”
“The Lady of Shalandalor had hoped for longer before her fate came upon her,” the Hood replied. “And so to your fate, Laurie Leyton.”
“My fate? What do you mean my fate?”
“You know that my ability is to alter tiny little details which can have profound effects upon the future,” the Hooded Hood told her. “Sometimes all that comes after depends upon so simple a thing as the result of a test bought in a humble pharmacy. It is within my gift to determine what that result might be, my dear. It is within my power to give you your heart’s desire or ensure your worst nightmare.”
Lisette tried to hide the fear in her eyes. “Don’t… don’t interfere,” she begged him. “Let whatever is going to happen happen, okay. If I turn out to be… to be pregnant” (there, she’d admitted it to herself) “then it might destroy my life with Bry or make it, but I can’t make a bargain with you to make things turn out good.”
“Have you had so much joy in your life then that you can cast aside my bargain and trust to blind fate then, Laurie Leyton?” the Hood asked her scornfully.
“You know I haven’t, Hood. And you probably know I think I might be in love with Bry Katz as well, and that I’m scared that if I’m pregnant it’ll ruin everything. But I can’t…”
“Is this the same woman who was willing to surrender herself to the lusts of E-Male and his friends in order to save her lover from harm?” wondered the cowled crime czar.
“That was different. That was… it wasn’t…” Laurie caught a sob and straightened herself up. “What bargain?” she asked.
“Agh! Stop it!” the Professor shouted. “What are you agh! Doing to agh! Me?”
Nats noted that his bottom was mysteriously unpaddled. “What’s going on?” he checked.
“The neural interfaces?” Cheryl asked Miss Framlicker.
“Has to be,” the ITC technician decided. “The Spankinator is a mind-reading device. The monitor helmets detect things we’re guilty about and bring on the punishment accordingly. We all feel guilty about something, so we all get punished for it.”
“Except for Yo,” realised Visionary. “Yo doesn’t feel any guilt at all.”
“Yo knows that Yo and Yo’s friends have not done anything bad,” the pure thought being assured them. “Except for time when Visi spilled pizza on Cheryl’s couch and pushed the crusts down between cushions so is to be Cheryl not find them…”
“Ouch!” Vizh complained as the guilt earned him a crack.
“And when Visi accidentally was to be dropping the VCR remote into the toilet, and…”
“Ouch!”
“And the time that Visi…”
“Never mind that,” Vizh interrupted quickly. “So you think we’re innocent, and the Spankinator believes you, but you think Spankenstein is guilty, so…”
“Aagh!” the Professor screamed. “Make it stop! Make it stop!”
“Yo is thinking that nasty-Professor is to being have been very, very bad,” Yo warned the mad scientist.
“Hey, this is cool,” Nats smirked. “The villain is punishing himself. Now all we have to do is escape these shackles, give the Spank Ray back to SG for, uh, well relatively safe keeping, and get outta here.”
“Aaaagh!” complained Spankenstein.
“Eventually,” Nats added viciously.
“Keep trying,” Sorceress urged her. “ManMan’s doing better than Generus expected him to at this knife-fighting, but I really think he’s going to die.”
A shadow passed over them and a glowing white winged horse circled down beside them.
“Wow,” Dancer said.
The horse shimmered and became a woman clad in rainbow armour. “What transpires here?” demanded Penny Christopoulos, the Pegasus.
The fight stopped momentarily. Generus backhanded ManMan fifteen feet into the water. “This is no concern of yours, child of the Gorgon,” the god proclaimed. “Begone back to the mythlands.”
“I was thrown out of there years ago,” Pegasus answered. “I think it was after I gelded a little godling.” Her eyes narrowed. “Wait a minute. I know you.”
“I am Generus, god of generalities,” Troia’s suitor proclaimed.
“No-o,” Pegasus frowned with concentration. “No, I think you’re actually Degenerus, the God of Debauchery. Right?”
“And if I am?” shrugged Degenerus. “The Amazon wench is an Olympian worshipper and therefore my lawful prey. You can do nothing about it. Now step aside, for Troia’s champion can rise no more and she has no other suitor.”
“Urgle,” ManMan groaned in a semi-conscious state in the surf.
“Well I’m not a suitor,” Hatman suggested, jetting back down to join the others, “but I’m quite ready to kick seven kinds of godly crap out of you.”
“Jay, where have you been?” Sorceress demanded. “Were you able to contact… the individual?”
But the capped crusader wasn’t listening. Digging deep to the bottom of his transdimensional hat pouch he pulled out a dinted horned helmet. “Only one way to deal with a god,” he frowned, donning Donar’s spare headpiece.
Hatman fell unconscious and vomited. He had indeed taken on all the properties of the hemigod of thunder.
“Do something,” Dancer urged the Pegasus. “Whit says you’re a keeper of the stars and that you can take human form to interact with mortals. So interact.”
“Tell them,” smirked Degenerus, stepping over Hatman’s inert form to approach Troia.
“I can’t interfere if he has overcome her mortal suitors,” Pegasus scowled. “Much as he might benefit from a cosmic bolt transformation into a pig or something. Isn’t there any other man who would be willing to champion your Amazon friend?”
“We’re on a deserted Greek island,” Sorceress pointed out. “What are the chances of finding someone else who’ll fight a god for Troia?”
“Okay, okay,” Dancer sighed, “but I’m really straining here.”
“Don’t worry about me, folks,” Troia said bravely. “Who knows, I might like being, er, well, with a wild bull or whatever. Really. Even if it is really this rather seedy-looking deity with the stained tabard and the extensive range of godly social diseases.”
Dancer collapsed exhausted on the beach.
“Erm…” worried Troia as Degenerus reached out for her.
There was a low growling electric twang. It was the sort of noise you get when you take an electric guitar and amp it through a six million dollar sound system with nine Dolby technicians sitting in a box like Houston mission control. It was the sort of sound that starts somewhere in your bowels and vibrates until your teeth rattle. In comic books it would be written “Whaaaauuuuaaaauuuaaauuuummmm!”
The sound came from a jet black instrument that was held by a man in a black leather duster wearing reflective black spectacles.
“Well hello,” greeted Pegasus, who had a taste for younger men.
“Chronic?” Sorceress asked. The seedy wino they had picked up in a Paris gutter looked a lot better now. Even his stubble looked designer.
“Chronic!” hissed Troia, fumbling for her spear.
Chronic raised his fingers to Steve, his cosmic guitar, spread his legs wide, cranked the volume knob to ‘Apocalypse’, and grinned at Degenerus. “Hello, god,” he said. “Let’s rock!”
“Then stand down,” Finny told him. “It’s not too late. We can finish the trial…”
“No!” MT argued, pinning the dragon to the ground with a dozen I-beams ripped from the skyscraper opposite. Banjoooooo and Exile hurried to shore the property while Ziles cut the dragon loose. Techbird continued yelling. “I’m not playing your games any longer. I’m at the peak of my powers and I shall be free!”
“And how did you get free?” Dark Knight wondered as he failed in his bid to bring MT into contact with the severed power lines that snaked across the courtroom floor. “And recover your sonic carapace for that matter?”
His only answer was a sound barrage that hurled him across the street in a shower of glass.
G-Eyed teleported back in. “I found the girls where DBS said and got them to safety,” he reported. “You’ll never guess who got them… oh sh…!” As he spoke Techbird hoisted him magnetically and started to pull his arms in opposite directions.
High above Trickshot tried not to panic as he free-fell back to earth. He pulled a parachute arrow from his quiver and hoped he could time it right not to become the world’s flattest archer.
“Maggie, you’ve got to stop,” Lisa told the Techbird. “You’re bleeding to death, you’re screaming your throat raw. You can’t possibly win against the whole Legion and you won’t get what you want this way.”
MT caused her steel-reinforced whip to wrap about her throat and tighten.
“Enough!” he cried. “Enough!”
“Did I mention that most of my equipment is plastic?” CSFB! asked chattily as he launched a barrage of combat candy from his Neato-Keeno Knapsack. “Or Impossibilityium, natch.”
The wave of energy that Magnetic Techbird released was enough to stun all the heroes present for a moment. The ruined auditorium burst outwards leaving the mutant standing in a devastated crater. He hugged his injured shoulder and began to stagger for cover.
“Kid,” Dan Drury told him, “yer under arrest.”
Techbird looked up wearily at the SPUD agent. “Another one. I can kill you too.”
“Yeah, maybe. But you look pretty worn out just now, so I’m bettin’ you haven’t got the power to stop me. The heroes’ll be up and about if a few moments. You’re not walkin’ away this time.”
Techbird gritted his teeth, concentrated, and forced Drury’s gun to turn back to his own head. “Go away,” he warned.
“No,” the Director of SPUD replied.
The single gunshot echoed round the hall long after the sound of splattering skull had ended.
“I can’t believe this,” Ziles told Fin Fang Foom. “We pushed Techbird to this by this… this rigid mindless system of laws your planet thinks is so clever. We left him no choice.”
“He had a choice,” G-Eyed growled. “He just chose to take the easy route.”
“You call this easy?” Meggan Foxxx asked, looking around.
“Compared to facing up to the consequences of his actions, finishing what he started, making a new beginning. Oh yeah.”
“Somebody freed Maggie beforehand though,” Exile remembered. “Somebody set this up for their own ends.”
“DK’s staying on here for a few days to ask around,” Finny told them. “If there’s any lead, he’ll find it.”
“Maybe he can find De Brown Streak as well,” scowled G-Eyed. “Lisette says she’s okay, but both she and Val seemed kind of pale to me. I’ve got a score to settle with that guy.”
“You and me both,” Exile agreed. “Garrick’s already put a warrant out for him though. It’s only a matter of time.”
“Kind of like with Magnetic Techbird?” CSFB! asked.
“I can’t believe that scuzz Garrick is makin’ press capital outta this,” Trickshot frowned. “OK, so he saved Drury’s life by shootin’ Techbird from behind. Now he’s gonna get his Mutate Registration Bill passed and we move a bit nearer to a police state.”
“Sometimes there are no easy answers,” the Makluan admitted, “Sometimes the LL just does the best it can, and hopes for a better chance tomorrow.”
“It’ll look for that better chance without me though,” noted Ziles. “I can’t be part of this any longer. I’m leaving.”
And scrawled in fresh red paint on the World Court building ruins were the first signs that nothing was solved, nothing completed. The words said: MAGNETIC TECHBIRD LIVES!