Posted by The Hooded Hood had a lot of fun writing this one, so I hope you have a lot of fun reading it on May 04, 2001 at 09:43:51:
#72: Untold Tales of the Lair Legion World Tour: The Game of the Rakshasas or Extreme Sports and Bad Sports
The Away Team:
Hatman (Jay Boaz, Captain), Donar (Gavan Carstenson), Yo (Pilar) Sorceress (Whitney Darkness), Nats (Bill Reed), Troia 215 (Sweetbuns), CrazySugarFreakBoy! (Dreamcatcher K. Foxglove), Exile (Derek Foreman), Trickshot (Karl Bastion), Goldeneyed (Bryan Katz), Meggan Foxxx (Melanie Hastings), Miss Framlicker (no known first name).
Manager: Visionary, newly appointed god in charge of annoying Rakshasas.
Support Crew: Cheryl, Flapjack
The Referees:
The Pegasus, Xander the Improbable, and Blackhurt, Prince of Fibs.
The Events:
Challenge the First – the Feat of Wrestling
Challenge the Second – the Feat of Warcraft
Challenge the Third - the Feat of Storytelling and Song
Challenge the Fourth – the Feat of Endurance
Challenge the Fifth – the Feat of Lovecraft
Challenge the Sixth – the Feat of Hunting
Challenge the Seventh – Freestyle Bloody Total Carnage
Feat the First – The Feat of Wrestling: “Now remember the rules,” advised Xander the Improbable, sorcerer supreme of the Parodyverse. “I want a good clean fight. No blood-drinking, soul-stealing, or kicking in the runes. This is the first of seven contests to determine who rules the Indian theological domain, and the losers become eternal slaves and playthings of the winners. All clear?” Interval One: “Stop it!” cried Ziles. “You’re killing him!” Challenge the Second – the Feat of Warcraft: “What the hell is warcraft?” Trickshot demanded as Pegasus led them out past the porch of the Black Pagoda onto the jagati, a large flat terrace now overgrown with weeds. Interval Two: Chronic woke up in a rumpled bed next to the pixie-faced girl. “Hi!”, she told him. “How are you doing?” “I don’t see why the Prince of Fibs should referee a storytelling contest,” Exile objected to Blackhurt as the recitation continued. Interval Three “Alright, talk,” Amy Racecar challenged Al B. Harper. “Who are you and what were you doing trying to spy on me while I took a shower?” Challenge the Fourth – The Feat of Endurance “I can eat anything,” Exile promised. “I’ll take the vindaloo showdown.” In the second half of the Challenge of the Rakshasas: The games continue with the feats of Lovecraft and Hunting and of course the challenge of Freestyle Bloody Carnage, we discover the awful fate of Dancer and ManMan, Dark Knight and Amazing Guy’s little problem, and a tough decision for the judges. All in just seven short days from now. The Hooded Hood's Homepage of Doom
“I really don’t remember signing up for that last past,” worried Sorceress. She had a nasty feeling this whole thing was degenerating towards another impregnating Whitney story.
“Don’t worry,” Hatman grinned at his lover. “We’re the Lair Legion. We’ve fought gods and demons before.”
“I can give you some pretty decent odds if you’re interested,” Flapjack offered. “Er, not that I don’t think you’ll kick them outta the court, of course.”
Hatman moved forward and offered his hand to Ravada the Ravager, captain of the Rakshasa squad. “May the best team win, huh?” the capped crusader said.
The Rashasa noble looked at Hatman with narrowed eyes and refused to take his hand.
“Hey, look, he’s doing the old psyche-out-the-opposition trick!” CSFB! called from over Hatman’s shoulder. “Look at this tigery stare, it’s really chilling. I’m really chilled anyway. No really.”
“You will not be such a jester when you dangle limbless on the tree of pain for our amusement,” Ravada promised.
CSFB! still didn’t seem intimidated. He looked up at the Rakshasa captain. “Brrrr. Can you say ‘They’re grrrrreat!’?”
“Perhaps we had best get started?” Xander the Improbable suggested. “The Feat of Wrestling is quite simple. One of the Rakshasa team challenges any one of the Lair Legion to physical combat. No powers but physical ones – strength, endurance, etc. - are allowed. Then one of the Legion challenges a different Rakshasa. If the battles are one apiece then each side elects a champion who has not fought before to battle the other in a deciding match.”
“I fight for the Rakshasas,” Degenerus called, stepping forward. “I challenge Troia 215 to ritual combat. Bring forward the pool of jello and release the eels.”
“What?” Troia shouted. “Where does it say anything about jello?”
“It might do,” CSFB! said hopefully, and got nods from Exile, G-Eyed and Trickshot.
“I think we’ll make do with turf,” Xander ruled. “Three falls, a knockout, a surrender, or a death wins. Begin.”
Troia went for Degenerus’ throat.
“And it’s a good start for the plucky Amazon,” Flapjack noted. “She goes in for a headlock, pulls a rabbit punch to Degenerus’ midriff, follows through with a brutal strike to the… oh, he’s free. He got in a good goosing and she let go. Now he’s coming forward with gropy fingers. He going for a grab. She dodges, leaving only half her t-shirt behind. She sweeps his feet from under him. She’s pinning him to the ground with her legs around his neck! He’s enjoying it. He’s going for a dive…”
“Excuse me?” Cheryl interrupted the excited hunchback. “Would you kindly shut up?”
“And stop talking into that spoon,” Miss Framlicker added.
“Oh yes!” Degenerus was saying as he rolled around the floor with Troia. “Is this good for you too?”
“That does it!” the Amazon administrator screeched, completely losing her temper. “You’re god-meat!” Breaking his hold on her she seized up her spear and jammed it home between Degenerus’ legs.
“Stop!” Xander shouted. “Break! Foul!”
“I’ll say,” winced Trickshot.
“As if such a thing would harm my godly apparatus,” laughed Degenerus, getting up completely unharmed. “As if that spear was large enough! Come, my little Amazon love-bunny. Let us continue our roll in the hay.”
“I’m afraid not,” Xander told him. “Troia cheated, and the match is forfeited. You won.”
“What? But I haven’t even ripped all her clothes off yet!”
“You won. Go sit down,” Xander warned him.
Sorceress and Cheryl forced Troia to calm down and go to the bus for another shirt.
“Our turn to pick a fighter and take on one of their guys,” Hatty breathed. “Gotta pull this back. Donar, go.”
“Right readily, mine behatted comrade,” the hemigod of thunder agreed. “Ho, Degenerus, thine speen is about to make a public appearance.”
“Not Degenerus,” Xander ruled. “He’s already fought. You can take on any of the others.”
Donar spat in disgust and walked along the ranks of the Rakshasa. He stopped in front of the biggest one. “Thou,” he called. “Let’s goeth.”
“I think Donar’s pissed,” Nats noted as the fight began. “Ouch. Yep, he’s not a happy thunder god.”
“Nice muscles though,” Meggan Foxxx answered.
For all the Rakshasa’s size, strength, and speed it was a short battle. Donar beat the demonic tiger-beast to within an inch of its life then lifted it over his head and hurled it with all his strength back into the Rakshasa camp. “Oh deareth,” Donar called as Xander proclaimed him the winner. “Sorry, Degenerus. I dids’t not see where I wast throwing yon opponent. I trust I hast not crushed thee into the ground too badly?”
“The final bout decides this round,” Hatman told the LL. “We need to field someone with enhanced strength.”
“Yo thinks that Yo is strong,” offered the pure thought being.
“But you don’t have a mean streak for this kind of fighting,” Hatty considered. “G-Eyed, go.”
“Oh, thanks,” Goldeneyed answered as he took the field.
Ravada himself came out to meet him.
“Begin,” said Xander, and the Rakshasa reached out with a speed to rival De Brown Streak to seize Goldeneyed by the neck. Before the hero could react he was slammed to the floor and the Rakshasa raked a trail of gashes over his back.
“First fall,” snarled the demon.
Goldeneyed got to his feet painfully and kept his guard up as Xander called to recommence. The Rakshasa knocked aside his guard, seized him round the waist, and hammered him headfirst to the floor. The creature’s claws left an accompanying set of scars on the hero’s chest. “Second fall,” Ravada declared.
Goldeneyed staggered to his feet and tried to make his vision focus.
“Ready to restart?” Xander asked them; but he was looking at Hatman.
“Jay…” Sorceress breathed.
“No,” Jay Boaz decided. “We forfeit. Ravada wins.”
“No!” cried G-Eyed. “I’m not letting you down. I can take him.”
“Aye, verily!” agreed Donar, who always fought best with major head wounds.
“I said we forfeit,” Hatman insisted. “There will be other rounds. I’d like G-Eyed to be alive for them.”
Ravada the Ravager roared. “But this round goes to the Rakshasa!”
If Anvil Man, the mystically-armoured demolitions machine, heard her he certainly didn’t stop pummelling the dragon whose spine he had just broken over his knee. When Ziles and Fin Fang Foom had started to take down the Indian sub-continent’s pornography business and had followed the trail to the white slaving operations of the man known as the Moustache they hadn’t expected him to have so powerful a bodyguard.
“C’mon, wormy!” Anvil Man laughed as he caused the ground where the Makluan reeled to explode under him. “I don’t call this much of a fight!”
Finny couldn’t hold back the roar of pain as he resumed his full draconic size. Shapeshifting with such massive internal injuries cost him a lot, but if he didn’t defend himself he was dead.
“Aaaw! Didums hurt den?” mocked Anvil Man, hammering the massive dragon into the ground. Finny’s thermal breath parted around the villain’s impenetrable armour-forcefield.
“Actually, yes,” snarled the Makluan. “But not so badly I can’t stop criminal scum like you.”
The dragon ignored the bracket of missiles Anvil Man launched at him and seized up the armoured felon in his massive claws. He painfully took to the air, noting that one wing wasn’t working properly, and struggled for altitude.
Anvil Man started breaking Finny’s fingers one at a time.
“Drop me all you want to, dragon-dummy!” the invulnerable villain boasted. “It won’t do anything but make a crater.”
“No crater,” Foom replied. “That only happens if I drop you over land. Let’s see how you swim.” And he released the villain into the Indian Ocean.
“Noooooo!” Anvil Man shouted on the way down. He made a big splash.
“Not too good, then,” the Makluan answered his own query. Then he plummeted like a rock to crash-land on the water himself.
It only took a few minutes for Finny to regain consciousness. Although his battered carcass was screaming to go into its regeneration sleep cycle he couldn’t afford to give up now. He forced himself to take flight, fighting the air to keep his wing-tips above the water. He couldn’t shapeshift just now because all his energies were concentrated on holding his broken body together. He limped painfully back to the stronghold where he had left Ziles.
Ziles and the Moustache were both gone.
“The various arts of war,” the winged warrioress answered. “Feats of swordsmanship, archery, charioteering, racing, and strategy. Each of you will choose a champion to participate, and the round goes to whichever side wins the most engagements.
“Well archery’s an easy pick,” Hatman reasoned. “Nats is pretty fast so we’ll give him racing. Yo, you use an epée, don’t you?”
“You’ll need Yo for the strategy part,” Cheryl advised.
“Yo for strategy?” Miss Framlicker puzzled. “I don’t…”
“The Game of Strategy started in India,” Visionary’s wife explained. “We call it chess. Who else do we have who can think themselves into a world chess master? Unless you have a chess-player’s hat, Jay?”
“No. But I do have a fencing mask,” Hatman decided. “That just leaves charioteering. I wonder if…”
“Me!” CSFB! called out. “Me!Me!Me!Me!Me! Choose me!!”
“Or we could pick Dream,” sighed the deputy leader of the Lair Legion.
Visionary watched as the contestants took up their places. “I don’t like this,” he confessed to Cheryl, who was helping Sorceress bathe Goldeneyed’s wounds. “Why can’t we play these Rakshasas at some out our traditional pursuits, like watching the TV or mowing the lawn?”
“Whose country is it, dear?” Cheryl asked gently. “Now pass me the bandages.”
There was a scream of horror from across the jagati as Nats discovered that the racing contest he was in required him to ride an elephant. “I don’t have an elephant pilot’s license!” he panicked.
“We have got to start working on our recruitment person specifications,” Miss Framlicker muttered.
The contests took place in rapid succession. Archery was the first.
“Hey, no arrow on the planet could do that!” Trickshot objected as the Rakshasa archer loosed a quarrel that span and changed direction in mid-flight to hammer into the dead centre of the target.
“You can’t control your arrows in mid flight?” smirked the Rakshasa.
Trickshot pulled back his longbow and loosed a shaft which splintered the enchanted quarrel down the middle. “Nope,” he answered. “Then again, I don’t need to.”
The butts were moved back another fifty paces. The Rakshasa arrow splinted Trickshot’s previous missile. The arrogant archer pulled, released, and sent another arrow into the dead centre of the last. “We could do this all day,” he told his opponent. “How about we both fire together next time?”
The Rakshasa accepted. Both archers loosed their bolts together; but only one had anticipated the flight of the other and angled their shot to bounce of the opponent’s missile and shiver home at the bill’s eye. “And that is why I don’t bother with magic arrows,” Trickshot told the shocked and stricken Rakshasa. “Pussy.”
Things turned for the worse when Hatman took on Ravada with a sword. “You have much skill with that little pin,” the Rakshasa captain admitted. Then he caught Jay’s blade straight on with his scimitar and cleaved right through the metal, “But a good broadsword wielded with equal skill will beat it any day,” he proclaimed.
Before Hatman could react the Rakshasa lashed out with his off-hand, shredding the fencer’s mask with his claws, drawing blood from Hatty’s cheek, and sending him sprawling to the floor.
Pegasus intervened before things escalated.
The elephant race wasn’t really a contest. The lithe woman in the bangles and little else known as Karma Sutra rode for the Rakshasas. She whispered into her beast’s ear, vaulted onto its back, and clung on with powerful thighs while it thundered towards the finishing line. She was halfway there before Nats got his elephant to move. Then it went in the wrong direction.”
“No!” Troia shouted in her best cheerleader fashion.” Go the other way, you useless imbecile!”
Nats tried his best but the elephant had other ideas.
Then desperation overtook him. He had noticed during his time delivering packages for the Interdimensional Transportation Corporation that no matter how large the parcel he could always fly with it, as if weight and mass were not factors in his ability to move through the air. Gritting his teeth he grabbed the elephant and flew.
It was a good effort, and had the course been just fifty yards longer he might have made it.
“Never mind,” Miss Framlicker comforted him. “You can’t help being useless.” Then she smiled and pointed to his steed. “Still, that’s one confused elephant you left back there.”
CrazySugarFreakBoy! started the chariot race in best Ben Hur style, straddling the horses rather than staying in the car. When his opponent attempted to lash him with his whip he replied with a stream of silly string that tangled the demon to his car. It took only a moment for the Rakshasa to rip himself free but by then CSFB! was ahead.
As they entered the second lap the rakshasa was hurling darts at the mocking wired wonder, who in turn was catching them and juggling them. Things were going well.
Then the rakshasa roared. His own demon-beasts, accustomed to the battle-cry of their feral masters, reacted only by straining at the harness more. Dream’s team panicked and tried to go in different directions. CSFB! maintained his balance but was unable to stop the cart bouncing off a barrier and overturning.
As the horses went down he leaped across to the rakshasa’s chariot. “Hi! I need a lift. Going my way?” he asked. “Oh, and no funny stuff,” he added as the rakshasa tried to claw his guts out. “I don’t put out for rides.”
The rakshasa roared again and lunged for Dream. CSFB! sidestepped, applied a little fizzy pop to the situation, and let the demon topple overboard. The tiger-headed monster grabbed the edge of the chariot as he fell and was dragged along behind it.
“Ouch! I bet that must hurt,” CrazySugarFreakBoy! winced. “Let me take you mind off it with a little finger massage.”
The chariot thundered through the finishing line and the bloody rakshasa rolled away into the dust. Pegasus ruled that the rakshasa had won the race all the same, since both rider and chariot had crossed the finishing line.
After that Yo’s chess match was somewhat moot, but the pure thought being sat down against the rakshasa grand master all the same. Early on the rakshasa had a nasty shock when he found that he couldn’t read Yo’s mind. The thought being returned his intimidating stare with a happy innocent smile. Later on he had an even greater shock to find himself in checkmate. “Yo has always liked horsies,” his opponent explained to him.
But the Lair Legion were two down.
“Oh please, no!” he moaned as she reached under the sheets to him. “I couldn’t.”
“You didn’t enjoy it last night?” the purple-haired girl asked poutingly.
“Oh yes. It was great. I could have done without the cigarette burns and the wax, but the rest…”
“And you haven’t recognised me yet?” she asked him.
“Well, I could have sworn your hair was purple last night, not pinkish, but…”
“Does this help? Needle in the eye, virgin on the slab…”
Chronic recognised the song immediately, and then the singer. “Seduction of the Innocent!” he gasped, recognising the lead singer of the live concert gothic-punk band. “You’re Cinnamon Rain! I saw you on your Circle of Guilt underground tour, when the police raided the warehouse in Memphis and that Chinese guy got beat to death.”
“Happy days,” smiled the girl. She sprawled out onto the bed. “I always like to get to know fellow musicians.”
“But… why… how… what were you doing in Calcutta?”
“Looking for you, studley. I figured I’d check out the new talent before any of the others get their bite of you, and you seemed fine with getting a little underaged booty.”
“Underaged?”
“Hey, no prob. You kind of remind me of my big stepbrother, and age was never a problem when he came creeping.”
Chronic retreated from the bed and fumbled for his trousers. “This is getting too weird,” he admitted. “I mean, Cinnamon Rain, it’s great to… to know you, but…”
“But business before pleasure, I know,” the girl sighed. “Okay. Here’s the deal. You see my boss and listen to what he has to say and maybe he’ll retcon away the fatal poison I gave you just before you woke up. How’s that sound, studley?”
“Poison? What do you mean? And who is your boss?”
“Oh come on now,” PsychoAcidPervGirl! grinned. “Everybody’s heard of the Hoodily Hood.”
Challenge the Third – the Feat of Storytelling and Song:
“Really?” the enemy of mankind answered. “Fictions are my life. And of course, I have all the best tunes.”
The Rakshasa fablespinner finished his tale of the defeat and revenging of Ravana, greatest leader of their people. The Rakshasa’s rewarded him with thunderous applause.
Each team was able to contribute one story, one poem, and one song. Hatman decided to send in Sorceress with some poetry.
Whitney stood beside the pool and loosed her long fair hair. She looked around her strange audience of heroes and demons and began:
“You are the king in my night
The sky so black, so cold
You so white, gleaming, hot on my
Willing skin and again and again
I found you when my heart was lost
Desire took me to you and
You took me everywhere
To memories I’d never been…”
[NOTE: The remainder of this poem, which is written by Whitney herself, can be found on her website at http://www.angelfire.com/tn/hallsofhades/knight.html] Whitney's soft, clear voice echoed around the garbhagrha, the central temple chamber that was literally called a wombroom, where the two teams and the judges sat on divans around the sacred pool. The lyrical rhythm of her words brought a calm after the strong and brutal narrative of the rakshasa talespinner, working its own magic over the listeners. Hatman was surprised how intently the demons listened to the poem. He was surprised how stirred he was by it himself.
Finally Whitney fell silent and there was silence in the room for a moment. “You are very talented indeed,” Ravana the Ravager eventually admitted gently. “I shall ensure that you become my personal slave once we have conquered you.”
“Hold it, Hat,” CrazySugarFreakBoy! warned Jay Boaz as Hatman was about to spring to his feet. “It’s gamesmanship. Remember Troia and the spear? We can’t afford to be disqualified again.”
Hatman settled down during the interval. The willowy and exotic temple servant of the Rakshasas brought around fresh fruit juice to them all. “It’s safe to drink,” Pegasus told the Lair Legion as they looked suspiciously. “It’s a hospitality thing.”
“Thanks, Devadasi,” Nats smiled. “So what’s a nice girl like you doing in a place like this?”
“Serving the gods, of course,” she shrugged. “Well, the demons anyway,” she added. She paused shyly for a moment then asked, “Did you require my personal service, my lord?”
Nats choked on his punch.
“Now you know how I feel,” snickered Exile.
The room fell quiet as the next part of the contest began. This time the rakshasas selected Karma Sutra to sing for them. The dusky houri moved with a sensual grace that pinned every male eye to her. She too stood beside the pool, her perfect figure mirrored in its still waters, and unwrapped her sari.
“Isn’t that cheating?” Miss Framlicker complained. “She’s using… presentation.”
Only when Karma Sutra was nude did she strike an alluring pose and begin her song.
It was explicit. Although the words were alien to most of the Lair Legion the voice and gestures expressed what was happening perfectly. Vizh found his hand gripping Cheryl’s very tightly. Hatman was very conscious of Sorceress pushed up beside him. Trickshot moved his quiver into his lap.
Finally Karma Sura finished and the people present breathed again. “I think I might take up smoking,” considered Trickshot.
“Alright, Troia,” Hatman called. “You’re next.”
“I have to follow that?” the Amazon administrator scowled.
“I’ll hold your clothes for you, mistress,” Flapjack offered helpfully.
Troia quelled him with a glance, did some breath exercises, and began.
Troia’s choice was an unusual one, but she felt that if she had to sing it had to be from her heart. The song was “Your Daddy’s Son”, from the musical Ragtime. A poor black girl in the 1900s, while loving her man and the child he has given her, has chosen to abandon her baby. The song was resonant with pain and hope and humanity at its worst and its greatest. [You can hear an orchestral clip "http://shopping.altavista.com/.../product.sdc?p=10647148#TrackList"
>hereunder “Your Daddy’s Son”]
As she sung, Troia forgot the contest, and the audience, and even herself. Only the music mattered.
When she had finished and the last echoes had died away the Amazon seemed to come out of a distant trance. “Will that do?” she demanded fiercely, “Or do I have to resort to AC/DC?”
“This is turning into quite a contest,” Pegasus noted, consulting with Blackhurt and Xander while the fruit bowl was passed during the second interlude.
“I can see why my father strove to possess the bitch,” Blackhurt admitted, watching as Troia received the accolades of her teammates. “But she has the mark of the gods upon her. She has been claimed by Degenerus.”
“Not yet,” Pegasus pointed out. “She might get through on a technicality.”
The Rakshasa poetry recitation was a passage from the Ramayana, the thousand-year-old epic tale of war between the Rakshasas and the gods. It was plain to see where the rakshasas’ enthusiasms lay.
Hatman went with a controversial choice for final contestant. “Okay, Dream,” he called. “Tell us a story.”
“CSFB!?” G-Eyed checked. “Are you sure about this?”
“Who else but my little boy has a life made up of stories?” Meggan Foxxx asked proudly. “Go on, Dream.”
CrazySugarFreakBoy beamed round at friend and foe alike. “Okay,” he began. “A story. Long, long ago, in a galaxy far, far away…”
It was a tale of love and war, or hope and deceit, of darkness and light. And it had droids.
When the judges awarded the round to the Lair Legion the Rakshasas agreed and gave their opponents a standing ovation.
Her prisoner had awoken to find that he was secured to a chair by all of Lisa’s handcuff collection. In fact, given the fact that it was Lisa’s collection there were all kinds of bits of his body cuffed to the chair. “I’m Al B. Harper,” he replied. “And I was on my way to warn the Lair Legion when something slowed down time around me. It took a whole year for me to get from the porch to the lounge before the effect started wearing off.”
Amy considered this. It might explain why the automated defences hadn’t reacted to the intruder. “What sort of warning?” she asked suspiciously.
Al told her.
“What?” she gasped. “I’ve gotta tell the LL immediately.” She raced for the monitor board, but something happened then and it was going to take her weeks to get to it.
“I want to change rooms tonight,” G-Eyed placed on record.
“I’ll take the long distance run,” Troia offered. “I did the marathon lots of time in Amazon school and, uh, often finished.”
“No. I’ll do that,” Hatman decided, pulling on his Sonics hat. “You did well enough in the last feat.”
“That just leaves the Test of Pain,” Miss Framlicker pointed out. Nats ducked under a table.
“I art ready to taketh yon challenge,” Donar volunteered. “I art more well hardeth than any Rakshasa.
“Jolly good then,” Xander proclaimed. “Well, if we can just get going we can probably get this fourth test going before night falls. We’ll set the runners off now and then we’ll run the vindaloo challenge and the pain thing together alright?”
Hatman and his rakshasa opponent started at the whistle and set off on a twenty-four mile course. Neither was able to make full use of their enhanced speed since the course was designed to be rough, twisting, and torturous.
Across the courtyard in the antarala (the vestibule) Flapjack and the Rakshasa towel boy Woopsa were preparing a vast cauldron of curry. “Hey, this stuff is meltin’ the spoon!” called Flapjack.
“Don’t worry,” the elephant-headed demon answered. “It’ll add body.”
Flapjack looked uncertainly into the pot “Looks like there’s enough bodies in there already.”
“It’s my special recipe,” Woopsa announced proudly. “If people eat enough of it they burst.”
That sounded like fun to the hunchbacked henchman. “Let’s get it on the plates,” he grinned.
Meanwhile the third test had run into a hitch. “We don’t have a torturer on the team,” Nats objected. “We have Donar, who’s willing to endure the torture - not that I wouldn’t have volunteered if he hadn’t beaten me to it of course – but we don’t have anyone to apply torture. That’s not how we work.”
“You have to provide a torturer to torment the opposition, just as they have nominated someone to give pain to your team-mate” Blackhurt warned them. “Otherwise they win by default.”
“I’ll do it,” Trickshot offered.
“No,” Sorceress protested.
“Exactly,” Exile agreed. “It’s out of the question for one of us to…”
“I mean no, I’ll be better at it,” Sorceress clarified.
“Yo is to be saying ‘no’ too,” Yo intervened. “Is not to be any torturing. Cute Lair Legion is not to be like that, and is to be saying will not is to do this thing.”
“But… we’ll forfeit this section of the game,” Trickshot protested. “Do you wanna end up as a Rakshasa chew-toy?”
“Yo is right,” Visionary admitted. “We can’t resort to torture. Otherwise we’re no better than… than somebody who isn’t nice,” he ended lamely.
“I art not to be tortured?” Donar said as they unstrapped him. “I protesteth!”
“This is looking bad,” Miss Framlicker frowned. “We have to win both other events to carry this round.”
There was the sound of a world-class vomit from the direction of the curry-eating contest.
“Well, Exy’d have come first in a spewing match for distance, accuracy, and content,” Flapjack consoled the Lair Legion.”
“Tis like unto the chunder of the gods,” Donar admired.
“But it’s not that sort of contest,” Sorceress pointed out. “He’s supposed to keep it down. Or at least not over Nats.”
“Or explode,” added Flapjack wistfully.
“I could have managed it with cookies,” the green-looking energy-manipulator vowed; then he hurried off to the Lair Bus portaloo.
“Note to self,” Miss Framlicker muttered, “Anti-radiation level scrub on Lair Bus toilet.”
Hatman came in first on the endurance race by a good margin, but it was too little too late.
“Three rounds to one and only three to go,” gloated Ravada the Ravager. “I shall so enjoy having you all as my personal slaves.”
“Is there some way I can possibly blame this on spiffy?” Visionary wondered as everybody glared at him.
Who's Who in the Parodyverse
Where's Where in the Parodyverse