Posted by The penultimate part of the World Tour arc, a complete chapter with doom, disaster, blood, pain, torment, and Space Ghost's bodily fluids; read THIS version (which actually includes text) by... the Hooded Hood on November 18, 2001 at 05:21:58:
In Reply to: #93: Yet More Untold Tales of the Lair Legion vs the New Purveyors of Peril – Last Man Standing or Test Unto Destruction posted by The penultimate part of the World Tour arc, a complete chapter with doom, disaster, blood, pain, torment, and Space Ghost's bodily fluids; read this version by... the Hooded Hood on November 18, 2001 at 05:19:16:
#93: Yet More Untold Tales of the Lair Legion vs the New Purveyors of Peril – Last Man Standing or Test Unto Destruction
Previous chapters at
The Hooded Hood's Homepage
of Doom
Character profiles at Who's Who in
the Parodyverse
Villain profiles for Purveyors of Peril in #75:
Untold Tales of the Lair Legion Who's Who Special Edition: The New Purveyors of
Peril
Other useful things in Where's
Where in the Parodyverse
In London, the Dark
Knight flicked the destruct trigger which detonated the explosives beneath the
Houses of Parliament. It was certain death for him, but it would also eliminate
Purveyors VelcroVixen, Headcase, and Polypheme 1. The math made sense.
In near-Mercury orbit the Xnylonian exile Ziles hung in airless space, victim
of a cruel teleport gate. It was a toss-up as to whether the vacuum, the cold,
or the solar radiation killed her first.
In Los Angeles a bloody and exhausted Troia 215 knelt buried beneath several
hundred tons of destroyed supervillain compound, and realised that even with
debris forming a natural arch above she could not keep the crushing weight off
the stunned and burned Exile who lay beneath her for very much longer.
In Sydney Trickshot was down with multiple broken bones. Goldeneyed sprawled
beside him, exhausted by the supreme effort he had made to defeat the villainous
Spacewarped. Superspy Natalia Romanza lay over them, blood pumping from the
gunshot wound in her leg, knowing that even on her best day she would be hard
pressed to defeat the alien assassin Gamona who had already healed from her
battle-wounds and was coming to finish the fight. Kidnapped schoolteacher
Bethany Shellet watched the horde of escaped criminals close in on them and
tried not to scream.
In Rio the sickly green inhibition inhibitor of Dr Loveray played across
CrazySugarFreakBoy and Whitney Darkness, the Sorceress, stripping them of all
moral restraint and leaving only sheer animal passion.
In Moscow the genetically-enhanced organic killing machine Onslaughter
staggered to his feet despite having lost most of his internal organs and having
a six-foot hole seared through his chest by a solar flare. He turned to destroy
the two fallen heroes who had so nearly killed him, but found the Probability
Dancer standing over the fallen Fin Fang Foom and Donar and smiling at him.
Over Beijing, an exhausted Hatman plummeted from the skies to his death after
averting nuclear holocaust.
In Wuhei, Nats was maintaining his life-signs by tactile telekinesis alone.
More dead than alive, Bill Reed had just discovered that Skree Space Commander
Rox-Hoff had gained the Lair Legion’s forbidden Movie Gun and had used it to
perfectly recreate three more full fresh versions of the Purveyors of Peril. At
a single press of a button, the battered and broken Lair Legion were all
transported to join Nats in the killing zone bounded by a hundred lethal
villains. “Wakey wakey!” Xander the Improbable shouted, banging on the door of a broom
closet that hadn’t been there a few moments before in the hall of the Lair
Mansion. “Rise and shine!” “Sure, I know you think you have the odds on your side,” Dancer warned the
Purveyors of Peril, “but everyone knows that it’s only when the heroes face
overwhelming forces of evil that they pull off the really impressive wins. If I
were you I’d surrender now.” Amidst the broken glass and twisted wreckage of Sydney centre Bethany Shellet
applied a tourniquet to Natalia Romanza’s wounded leg and tried to help her to
stand. “I really think we should be someplace else,” she advised to wounded
masterspy. “Trickshot and Goldeneyed appear to have thought so too,” she added,
looking at the spot where the fallen heroes had vanished from. Of the Lair Legion, only the Dark Knight, Troia, CSFB!, Sorceress, and Nats
were in the fight. Dancer was up but was ignoring the melee to try and start
Ziles’ heart again. The Purveyors had VelcroVixen, Headcase, Polypheme 1,
Suicide Blonde, PsychoAcidPervGirl!, Professor Manyarms, Gamona, Dr Loveray, and
Onslaughter. Anvil Man was up and about but walking funny. The Russian secret service finally ventured back into the Kremlin when it was
clear that the people who were most likely to rip their heads off and spit down
their neck were not immediately evident. Picking their way over the devastation
they eventually found NTU-150 propped against a wall, his cybernetic arms and
legs gone, looking as if he had barely survived a close encounter with a combine
harvester. Dancer had plugged his chestplate into the mains to keep him
alive. “When I said put water on them to wake them up I was rather expecting you to
use the stuff in the taps,” Xander the Improbable pointed out to Space Ghost.
“Oh well.” “I never thought it would end like this,” Inspector Gallowglass admitted,
standing back to back with Con Johnstantine as the two of them were surrounded
by the escaped convicts that VelcroVixen had freed and put in charge of London.
“I always thought I’d get to kill you first.” “Aaaagh!” spiffy had woken up and found the glowing green eyes of the Hooded
Hood staring at him. The Wuhei Defence Station was nothing but rubble now. Random wildfires burned
in the compound. There was the occasional explosion as a military vehicle’s gas
tank ignited but the base had been evacuated of anybody who could move. All that
were left were the dead and near dead, sprawled over and under the ruins of a
state-of-the-art military installation. Lair Legion and Purveyors of Peril alike
decorated the battlefield like bloody trophies. In the acrid smoke only three
people still moved. In the concluding part of the Lair Legion World Tour: Messenger and
Co take on the Celestians, the fearsome fate of spiffy, the Lair Legion face off
against the Hooded Hood, and Visionary’s team have to decide who they can trust
to reorder reality. Suggestions on a postcard, please. It’s all in Untold
Tales of the Lair Legion World Tour: Homecoming
“Crap,” he breathed.
“Whassit?” came a hung-over voice from
inside.
“You have to get up and save the world now,” the Sorcerer Supreme of
the Parodyverse shouted through the wood panelling to Space Ghost. “Then you can
have breakfast.”
The closet door opened and a pair of red-rimmed eyes peered
out. “Go ‘way.”
“Ah, good morning, your Space Ghostness. If you’d shamble
this way please.”
“I wanna be sick.”
“And I’m sure you will be. But just
now I’d like you to stagger over to the main computer console if you would be so
kind.”
“Where’re m’pants?”
“Ah. Isn’t it a little early in the morning to
consider the fundamental mysteries of the universe?”
“Who’re you?”
“I
refer you to the answer to your previous question. Just place your hand on this
identifier panel, please. Computers are hardly my forte.”
Space Ghost
focussed on the three blurry panels and placed his three blurry right hands on
them on the fifth attempt.
“I believe the phrase you’re looking for is
‘reactivate back-up computer.’”
“It is?”
“It is. Trust me on
this.”
Space Ghost slurred the phrase enough times until the system
recognised that it was supposed to be listening to human speech. A large black
screen blinked to life and a wire-frame woman filled the darkness.
“What the
hell is going on?” demanded HALLIE.
“Ah, how do you do,” Xander smiled
winningly at her. “Fin Fang Foom prevailed upon Mumphrey to ask me to drop in if
there was a spot of bother. A sort of contingency, if you will. Since it’s
always helpful to have the leader of the Lair Legion owe one a huge favour I
thought I might as well oblige.”
“I see. And what do you want with me, Mr the
Improbable?”
The mage smiled. “I believe you are the designated keeper of the
virtual reality hidden in the Zemo databanks captured long since by the Lair
Legion?”
Space Ghost turned away and was noisily sick. Fortunately for the
carpet, De Brown Streak was lying there unconscious.
It only took HALLIE a
fraction of a second to take in the situation reports from the Lair Mansion
sensor logs. “Multiple intruders, legionnaires down, Celestian activity in
Paradopolis, massive energies being channelled through the fabric of this
mansion, and a pair of Space Ghost’s pants hanging from the TV arial,” she
noted.
“Not to mention the missing Movie Gun?” Xander the Improbable prompted
gently.
“The Movie Gun!” HALLIE gasped. “It’s being used!”
“Against the
Lair Legion, if I understand the plot correctly,” the master of the mystic
crafts answered, casting a guilty glance over at the Paradox Stranger who he had
clubbed to the floor earlier.
“Right,” frowned HALLIE. “We’ll see about that.
Activate Movie Gun remote self-destruct!”
“Splendid,” smiled the shabby mage
in the red robes. “That should even the odds a bit. You know you’re much nicer
as a virtual intelligence than you ever were in your original human
template.”
“What?” gasped HALLIE. “What do you mean?”
“No time for that,”
Xander shrugged. “Right now I have to get spiffy up and send him to deal with
the Hooded Hood.
“Then we can all get naked and party,” CSFB!
added, giggling. Whitney agreed this was a good idea and was already unbuttoning
her gown.
“Damn, I hoped never to have to use this one,” moaned the battered
Hatman, fumbling at the bottom of his extradimensional pouch for a tiny white
object. The teleport had saved him from death by falling, but he still felt and
looked like hell.
The Sorceress felt the loveray’s effects wash away from
her. “Down, boy,” she told Dreamcatcher Foxglove as he approached her. “How did
you do that, Jay?”
“Don’t ever ask,” Hatman told her, slumping exhausted to
the floor. The contraceptive cap toppled from his head.
“Now kill them,”
Rox-Hoff demanded of the assembled Purveyors.
Then the Movie Gun he held
exploded in his arms, sending him sprawling backwards, his face a gory ruin. The
three full, fresh teams of Purveyors of Peril flickered and blinked out. Only
the battered remnants of the actual team surrounded the Lair Legion.
“See?”
pointed out Dancer. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
“Right,” said Dark Knight,
the other standing Legionnaire. “Payback.”
“Tahiti is
nice,” Natalia winced, trying her strength. “Unfortunately there are around a
thousand stir-crazed escaped convicts surrounding us who seem to want to date us
first.”
“Can you… fight off a thousand stir-crazed convicts?”
Natalia shot
her a sceptical look and then glared at the leering, approaching felons. “No,”
she admitted. “I can just make the first dozen or so wish that they had never
been born.”
‘Deadeye’ Joe Jepson snickered and decided to try his luck.
A
lager can bounced off his head. “Hey, wanker, bugger off and leave the ladies
alone!”
The convicts turned round to see the people of Sydney flooding back
out into the streets. A lot of people. People who didn’t like sleazy murderers
and rapists, and had traditional ways of expressing their views.
“Oh
c…”
There was a sudden surge of Ozzies and the world’s biggest outdoor
barfight began.
The worst part was when they started singing “Tie me Kangaroo
Down, Sport.”
“Dream,” Whitney
said viciously, “I think VelcroVixen likes you.”
“Cool!”, the
loveray-stricken CrazySugarFreakBoy! grinned happily. “Hey, VV, you, me, and a
hot-tub full of baked beans!”
“Hey, Troia 415, looks like your date’s
cancelled tonight, unless you like your boyfriends crispy-fried!”
“At least
I’m not stuck with dating my spear on a Saturday night, Polyfeeb!”
“We need
to order this battle,” decided Professor Manyarms. “We outnumber them and
outpower them, so if we can just…”
“Oh shut up,” the Dark Knight told him as
he dislocated Manyarms’ neck. “Lie there and scream.”
“Nobody here has the
power to stop me anyway,” boasted Anvil Man.
“Yeah, right,” Nats agreed,
grabbing the armoured villain by the ankles and sweeping him into the air.
“That’s why you make such a great club.”
Suicide Blonde saw Anvil Man being
swung towards her but found too late that her matter-transmutation abilities
didn’t work on him.
“That’s pretty neat-o,” admitted PsychoAcidPervGirl!,
leaping onto Nats’ back. Bill Reed had not time to wonder how she could possibly
have managed to catch him in mid-air before she stabbed him with something so
toxic that he had to crash to the floor and concentrate all his efforts on
telekinetically defibrillating himself. “I’d stay and finish you off, but I’ve
gotta go find my big brother before that sex-zap thing wears off,” she
apologised.
“Don’t worry,” Anvil Man promised. “I owe this little f&%$£ a
stomp between the legs. O’ cause, my stomps flatten buildings.”
“Buildings?”
challenged the Sorceress. “That’s kids’ stuff.” Ignoring the pain behind her
eyes she gestured and split the ground apart beneath Anvil Man’s feet. A chasm
two miles deep opened beneath him. then Whitney could concentrate no more and
the great earth-wound slammed shut once more. “Now get out of that,” she hissed.
“Er, did anyone see where CSFB! and VelcroVixen went?”
“C’mon, Ziles, get
up,” Dancer urged the fallen Xnylonian. “I need you to help me beat
Onslaughter.”
There was no dialogue in the contest between Gamona the
Assassin and the Dark Knight, merely lightning-fast exchanges of lethal force,
razor-sharp reflexes avoiding sudden death, and a realisation on DK’s part that
ultimately Gamona was going to win if he played by the rules.
Not that that
was going to stop him.
“There you are,” Enty called. “See that red wire sparking out of my
left shoulder epaulet? Somebody take it and splice it into a comms
system.”
It took a little while to convince the secret service men to do it,
but they so obviously didn’t have a plan themselves that in the end they obeyed
the voice of command.
“Thank you,” Jamie told them. “NTU-150 calling Dan
Drury of SPUD. Come in, Drury. Override priority code Mabuhay
Kapwa-Tao.”
There was a splutter of static and more components of Enty’s
combat armour sparked. “NTU-150? Whut is Sam Hill’s ding-dong blasted name are
you doin’ tying up military channels when we’re in the middle of a blasted war,
you turtle-scratchin’ polecat-lickin’…”
“No time for that, Drury,” Enty cut
him off. “I need a pick up right now, and I need a lab.”
“So the fact we’re
in the helicarrier havin’ an aerial dogfight with the forces of HERPES don’t
mean squat to you, huh?”
“Oh, come on Drury. You’ll have a secret edge. Play
your hidden card and then get over here,” NTU-150 told him. “And make it
fast.”
Drury swore as Enty signed off. The helicarrier rocked again as it was
bombarded by the ion cannons from Count Fokker’s Space Fortress.
“Having a
bad time, Drury?” Wolfgang Fokker mocked. “Can it be that you’ve finally run out
of aces in the hole? Is this the final triumph of the Hero Elimination Revenge
Project Extermination Squad?”
“Like hell,” growled the director of SPUD.
“Awright then. Lissen up…”
“I can’t wait to see what desperate gambit he
tries to pull off this time,” Fokker muttered to his armoured bodyguard. “But
with the whole world in chaos his forces are too spread out to save
him.”
“Take ‘im down, Wilson.”
“What?” the Count shrugged. “What does he
mean?”
Fokker’s armoured bodyguard reached out and gently hammered the HERPES
commander’s head into a bulkhead. “He means it’s time for me to break cover and
go back to being the high flying Falcon,” Sam Wilson explained
helpfully.
“Nice goin’” Drury admitted. He swung round to the technicians who
were trying to keep the SPUD helicarrier aloft. “Now get me to Moscow.”
“What the…” growled Messenger, coming to and finding Space Ghost
standing over him. “Ugh!”
“Hey, why am I covered in vomit?” complained De
Brown Streak.
“Happens to me all the time,” Space Ghost muttered, and
wandered off to look for his pants.
“What’s going on,” Messenger demanded of
Xander the Improbable.
“Well, SG has washed Moo’s control-milk off you in his
own unique way. You might want to think about a new trenchcoat after all of this
is over. HALLIE is doing something clever with the lab equipment to reassemble
Dynamite Boy, and she’s sent a Lairjet to collect dull thud and Chronic.
And I’ve arranged for spiffy to be couriered over to Herringcarp Asylum to keep
his father occupied while you find a way to stop the Hooded Hood from taking
over the universe.”
“I had to ask,” Messenger groaned.
“Yes, you did,”
Xander agreed. “Look, I’d better be going. Things are going to be getting rather
complicated around here soon, and I’d rather not be there when it
happens.”
De Brown Streak looked around. “Moo and that Stranger…?”
“Gone,”
the master of the mystic crafts confided. “Filed away until they’re needed
again. Best not to ask.” The Manga Shoggoth has argued unsuccessfully for being
allowed to digest the Paradox Stranger, but he would probably get on quite well
with the diabolical Dr Moo. They had quite a lot in common.
“And what are we
supposed to do while you leg it?” Messenger demanded.
“Well, a wash wouldn’t
hurt,” Xander suggested. “Maybe tidy up a bit. Sit tight. The whole thing ends
in this very Lair Legion living room, one way or another.”
“How’s this
for a resolution?” suggested Headcase soberly. Whilst the others had leaped into
battle he had simply dragged on a gory butcher’s head and had strolled over to
the fallen Trickshot. “You hero people surrender and I don’t hack this hostage’s
head off?”
The pain of being shifted roused Carl Bastion out of painful
slumber into painful waking. He showed his displeasure by pressing an
electroshock arrow-tip from his shoulder harness into Headcase’s left ear. The
discharge sent both of them back to sleep, twitching and spasming from the
lightning pulse.
Dr Loveray watched the battles with professional interest.
He decided to spray Troia 215 and Polypheme-1 with his passion-ray first. That
should be interesting.
“I don’t think so,” Sorceress snarled, tangling the
sex-scientist in a sudden growth of new vegetation.
“As if that will stop
me,” he sneered. The insect colony which formed the real Dr Loveray swarmed out
from beneath the skin of their host and scuttled towards Whitney.
That was
what the Sorceress had been waiting for. At her command the flames from the
earlier battles swept out across the floor, searing the creature in all its tiny
forms.
“Party pooper!” accused PAPG! as she dropped the Sorceress from
behind. “Later I’m gonna make you eat those.”
“Back off from her,” warned
Dancer. “Don’t make me make you have an accident.”
“Like you can stop me?”
snorted Gwendolyn Lyons. “Probability Dancing can’t work on
Impossibilitium.”
“Maybe,” shrugged Sarah Shepherdson. “If it was the real
thing. If you weren’t just a cheap copy of CrazySugarFreakBoy!, basing your
whole persona on him because you aren’t strong enough to maintain your own
character and identity.”
“That’s not true!” shouted PsychoAcidPervGirl!
“That’s not true!”
Ziles sat up and caught the grape and red coloured teenage
villainess with a sudden nerve pinch. “Way to psyche the villain,” she approved.
The pain in her body caught up with her. “Ouch. I’ll be right back with you
after I’ve coughed up this lung.”
“You’re losing,” Gamona asserted as her
battle with the Dark Knight neared it’s end. “You have been a worthy opponent,
one of the best I’ve ever fought, but I can sense you slowing down. You know it
too, don’t you?”
“You’re a superb physical combatant,” DK acknowledged. “Some
kind of childhood genetic augmentation, I’d surmise.”
“I was raised in Dark
Thugos’ pain laboratories and trained by Granny Grossness,” acknowledged Gamona.
“I’m programmed never to lose.”
“You’re better at fighting than I am,”
conceded the urban legend. “But I’m better at tactics than you are. Look where
we’re battling now.”
Gamona glanced around. “Eeew!”
“Hey, you wanna join
in?” CrazySugarFreakBoy! called merrily. “VV’s all tangled up in my yoyo string
but I could use some of my combat candy and…”
Dark Knight mercifully
discharged his taser into the tattooed assassin. He looked down at CSFB! and
winced. “I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. That is a Bad
Thing.”
“Not too bad, honey,” VelcroVixen squirmed. “Believe me.”
Then
Onslaughter dropped the ceiling on them all.
“Nobody gets everything they
want,” shrugged Johnstantine. “I was sort of hoping to die of a heart attack
while performing CPR to Catherine Zeta-Jones after she passed out from the fury
of our passion.”
“Any last words before we beat you to death?” the gang
leader sneered, raising his bike chain.
“Yeah,” Johnstantine nodded. “What do
you call a turd with four broken limbs?”
“I dunno,” shrugged the
thug.
Suddenly Asil hit him from behind and dropped him to the
ground.
“Neither do I,” Johnstantine shrugged. “What is your
name?”
“Asil!” gasped Gallowglass. “But you…”
“Reverted to the earliest
age I could manage in order to escape Rottweiler and the Terrier,” Asil Ashling
suggested, passing him a much needed reload for his sawn-off shotgun. Suddenly
the attacking mob became a lot less keen to press in on the Scotland yard
officer. “I wasn’t sure I could actually get back. I’m certainly not trying that
again. But here I am.”
“Well,” smirked Johnstantine, cracking his knuckles
and turning to the suddenly doubtful mob. “Here’s another one. What’s black an’
blue and red all over?”
“In a sense we all rebel against those who parented us,”
the cowled crime czar noted.
“Wha? How…? Where?” the ferned phenomenon
stuttered.
“You were fed-exed to me by Xander the Improbable, who hopes to
distract me from my work with the Celestian Space Robots. You came to because I
partially retconned the incident which rendered you insensate. You are currently
my guest in Herringcarp Asylum, as the ghouls under Gothametropolis hoped,” the
archvillain summarised. “Now you have to find a way of stopping me from taking
over the Parodyverse.”
“Oh,” spiffy noted. “I see. Er… any hints or
tips?”
“I don’t think that would be fair.”
“Fair? Oh come on. You can
retcon realities out of existence and I have a fern. I deserve some kind of
help.”
“People do often say you need help,” the Hooded Hood admitted. “Very
well, I shall give you a very clear choice. Join me now in conquering the
Parodyverse, or die.”
“What? I’m your son. You can’t kill me.”
“I can
arrange for you not to be my son and then slaughter you with a good conscience,”
suggested the cowled crime czar.
“Oh. Hmmm.”
“You see, I need the Space
Robots to find out who set up this miserable Parodyverse, who is responsible for
using a whole reality as some kind of petrie dish for the experiment called the
Resolution War. I think only I can prevent that War now.”
“You… want to stop
the Resolution War?”
“Of course. Why should I want the Parodyverse to be
destroyed? There is no point ruling a dead universe. But I also intend to have
revenge upon those who set us up in this absurd little reality in the first
place. They will rue the day they toyed with… the Hooded Hood.”
“And you want
me to help you kick the asses of the powers that set up the whole Parodyverse,
the people who made the Space Robots? You might as well just kill me
now!”
The Hooded Hood looked carefully at Mark Hopkins. “It is tempting,” he
conceded, “but there is still one possible use for you in one future timeline.
Perhaps I should simply send you off-planet to join your Abandoned Legion
friends struggling against the Badoing Slavers?”
Spiffy suddenly willed his
fern to reach out and seize the Hood in a tight, fierce grip. “What have you
done to the AL?” he demanded.
“Oh, nothing a short period of hospitalisation,
some anti-radiation treatment, and years of therapy won’t put right,” the
archvillain answered, not even struggling against his restraints. “Even your
friend Banjoooo will be alright shortly. It seems that the cosmic presence of
the Celestians triggered his power mutations so he was actually able to survive
having his heart ripped out. No, the question is what am I going to do with
you?”
And the Hood’s eyes flashed.
One of them was Onslaughter.
He picked his way over
the debris until he found the twisted, pulped form of Fin Fang Foom. “Wake up!”
he demanded of the broken Makluan. “I want you to feel what I’m about to do to
you.”
Finny stirred as he felt a massive hand crushing one wing.
“Aaaaagh!”
“You’re beaten, wyrm. You and your little heroes. You gave it your
best shot and you failed. Now your world belongs to me.”
“No,” snarled the
dragon. “We don’t fail. We can’t. We won’t. You can kill me, kill everyone here,
and heroes will still rise up and fight you. And beat you. You don’t get it.
You’ll never win for good. There will always be someone there to fight for what
is right.”
Still gripping Finny by the neck Onslaughter reached over and
plucked up the fallen Donar. “Let’s see if I can change your mind,” the killing
machine suggested. Finny gasped as he felt himself psionically linked to the
Ausgardian so he could feel the pain of what Onslaughter was about to do to
Donar.
“Do… thy… worst,” Finny found himself saying. “Bringeth it
on.”
“Oh, I shall,” promised the villain.
“Ahem. Excuse
me?”
Onslaughter whirled round and found Dancer and Ziles waiting to have a
word with him.
“Hi. Sorry to interrupt but we would really like our dragon
and our hemigod back in more or less one piece,” Shep explained.
“So put them
down or we kick your butt to Sigma Alpha and back again,” explained Ziles. “Your
choice.”
Onslaughter reached out with his psionic energies to wipe the minds
of the two females who dared to oppose him. Ziles winced but maintained the
telepathic defences that protected them.
“Fine,” he snarled, tossing Donar
and Finny backwards into a crumpled pile. “We do this the painful way.”
Ziles
held up a tube that looked like toothpaste. “This,” she explained, “is Stimulor
Crème. It hypes people up. They feel like they want to die an hour later, of
course.”
“Now she tells me!” complained Exile as he discharged his energies
at full blast into the gory hole seared in the wounded Onslaughter. Normally the
villain wouldn’t have felt it. Now he screamed.
“Aw, it’s worth it to kick
major league butt,” suggested Goldeneyed, blinking in with a bright golden
flash, seizing Onslaughter’s helmet, and vanishing again taking as much of the
villain with him as he could manage.
“Aaaagh!” snarled the killing machine.
He moved faster than the eye could see, and his wrist-spines slashed across
Exile’s belly. Derek Foreman would have died right there had it not been for a
sudden dive from Dancer pulling him partially out of the way.
“Rick!” shouted
G-Eyed, ‘porting back in to get up close and personal with his cousin’s
attacker.
Onslaughter swatted him aside, shredding G-Eyed from shoulder to
hip.
Dancer went in then, leaping over the villain’s head and trying to keep
away from his razor-extrusions. The problem was that there wasn’t much
chance.
Ziles leaped forward to carry out the plan. Climbing into the seared
hole left by Finny and Donar’s earlier attack she discharged her entire supply
of Relaxor Crème across the wounds.
Onslaughter was carrying on his offensive
by sheer willpower alone, forcing his critically-wounded body to obey him
despite it having taken injury after injury. Suddenly the wave of chemical
relaxation swept over him. It only took a moment for him to dismiss it, but that
moment was enough.
The cascade of motor-failure began in his legs and rippled
across his alien physiology. Blood spurted from three dozen wounds. The strength
waned from his limbs, toppling him to the ground. Suddenly he became aware of
just how many organs he was missing.
“No…” he gasped, but there was no breath
to speak out loud. His last thought was that he couldn’t allow himself to be
beaten by a girl with a tube of ointment.
“The winners and still standing,”
Ziles announced to the devastated wasteland. “The Lair Legion.”
“That’s
right,” the crippled and flood-flecked Fin Fang Foom agreed. “So now we go take
out the Hooded Hood.”