Saving the Future – Part 12: The New Lair Legions (and Other Heroes) Previously: Six days ago the Lair Legion, their Mansion, the island it stood upon, and the SPUD helicarrier all vanished in a bright flash of light. Nobody knows where Earth’s greatest defenders have gone, or if they will ever return. In the chaos and disruption caused by the very public disappearance of the true Legion, a number of villains have made their moves. A major outbreak from the Safe Metahuman Prison has complicated matters. Some metahuman criminals have decided this is a good time to eradicate all superheroes for good, declaring open season on masks. And Danny Lyle, whose potential for becoming a Parodyverse-threatening archvillain provoked the current events, has returned to claim Herringcarp Asylum and the Portal of Pretentiousness and come into his own. Others have come forward to fill the power vacuum caused by the Legion’s loss. Baroness Elizabeth von Zemo has assembled a New Lair Legion to battle the threat of the Purveyors of Peril – a Legion whose powers and personnel strangely match with those of the elite supervillains. The Junior Lair Legion has also laid claim to that title, managing to save Paradopolis from the rampaging Onslaughter, at least temporarily. The U.S. Government has decided this is a good time to sponsor an “official” New Lair Legion under their control and have prepared yet another group to take on the role. And others have noticed the Earth’s lack of defenders too… Previous Chapers Cast List ***     The new Class A Imperium Heavy War Cruisers had been redesigned. The Shee-Yar Empire had learned a lot from the Parody Master’s dimensional dreadnaughts, and while the sleek new interstellar battleship couldn’t replicate the infinite power source that had allowed the dreadnaughts to traverse different planes with such ease, the new vessel design still managed to pack a lot of punch into a fast durable combat platform. Each one was considered sufficient alone to devastate a C-level planet like Sol III.     The empire had sent five of them. They dropped from hyperspace at sixty thousand feet then power dived down towards Jerusalem, the place that the Shee-Yar clerics had determined was the centre of power on the planet. It took a little under a minute to neutralise the Israeli air force.     A port opened on the flagship and seven figures glided down from the skies to land beside the Wailing Wall: Gladeater, Smusher, Titus, Magica, Qua-Star, Temptest and Meantor, the powerhouses of the Imperious Guard.     Gladeater carried a flag which he planted through the flagstones of the courtyard. “Earthlings,” he called in a voice that sounded for miles, “Your planet is hereby annexed by the Shee-Yar Empire, in the name of Emperor K’Ben. Resistance is useless. Instructions will be sent to your former leaders as to the transfer of administration. Co-operate and the transition will be carried out with the minimum of penalty.”     News cameras shot the images, transmitted the words across the world. People who had thought a new era of peace had come felt their hearts sink. The old fears came back, scars from the recent Parody War, memories of suffering and loss. But somehow this was worse; the Lair Legion had been missing for six days.     Gladeater stood immobile, awaiting the world’s response.     The world’s first response was a slow clapping from a brown-haired man in jeans and a denim shirt who strolled out of the watching crowd and dared approach the most powerful heroes of the Empire. “Well done,” he applauded. “I’m impressed. Not only did you use the world ‘Earthlings’ with a straight face but you also worked in ‘resistance is useless’. I suppose next you’ll be saying how you like a girl with spirit and nothing can stop you now?”     Smusher was on crowd control and he was looking for an excuse. He had a reputation to rebuild after the debacle that had been the Empire’s experience of the Parody War “Identify yourself or die!” he demanded.     The brown-haired man strolled over to a magazine stand outside a souvenir shop, plucked a copy of Time from the rack and held it up next to his face. His image was on it, next to the words: WILL THE CARNIFEX LEAD THE NEXT LAIR LEGION? He traced out the letters for Smusher then confidentially pointed a finger at himself.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“It is the Carnifex!” warned the strongman of the Imperium Guard. He struck his opponent without warning, with his full force.     The Carnifex was faster. He caught Smusher’s fist in his own and he held it. He tightened his grip just enough so there was a cracking sound and the Guardsman stifled a cry.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“I think there’s been a mistake,” the Carnifex told Gladeater. “You seem to have accidentally invaded the wrong planet. This one’s already spoken for.” He didn’t say who it belonged to. The cameras were running.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“No mistake, Earthling,” the Praetor of the Guard told him. “I have my orders.” If Gladeater wasn’t happy about turning on the home of heroes who had sometimes even been his allies he was too professional to show it. He had served the Imperium since his creation nine hundred years before and he was not about to question it now.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“From K’Ben?” the Carnifex checked. “Just so I know who to blame for this mess.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“From his Imperial Majesty, yes. Earth has been judged an unstable, unpredictable menace to the Imperium. Now stand down. You face the might of the full Imperium Guard, seventy of the most powerful metabeings in the galaxies, backed by the new Shee-Yar fleet.” Gladeater relented a little. “Once Earth is subdued, there may even be a place for you amongst our ranks.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Really?” the Carnifex asked, looking hopeful. “Golly gosh! How flattering!” Then his face fell. “But there’s a problem. Would I have to get a Mohican haircut like yours? Only I have some self respect, you see.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“You will not yield to the Empire?” demanded Temptest, doubling his hands into fists. He did not like mockery.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“What I am doing,” said the Carnifex, and suddenly his face was deadly serious and his eyes seemed to burn with a hidden fury, “is giving you pissants one last chance to run away and live. But if your next words are not some variation on ‘Goodbye, sorry to have bothered you,’ then I assure you that I will not be yielding. I will be seeing every one of your Imperium dead. No kidding. Dead.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“No-one can defeat the full might of the whole Imperium Guard,” sneered Qua-Star. “No-one.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“I didn’t mean I’d be killing the Imperium Guard,” the Carnifex warned him in low tones that the microphones couldn’t catch. “I mean I’d be killing every… single… person… in your entire Empire, all nine hundred billion of them.” He smiled a nasty, eager grin. “So choose your next words very carefully.” ***     The young woman didn’t realise she was being followed as she left the post office, nor as she boarded the monorail for the journey out to Dullard’s Corner. She never spotted the people in the black observation van on the corner of her street. She didn’t notice the man hiding in the shadows beyond her porch.     The first she knew she was being hunted was when the high-calibre .22 bullet passed through the side of her head and blew her brains out.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“She’d down!” called the observed by the porch. “Go! Go! Go!”     The kill team swarmed over the back wall and crashed through the French window of the neat little rental house. They hurled flash-bangs into the room first to stun the occupants. The three women inside were already disoriented by the death of the fourth and went down easily to the well-trained attackers.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Alive!” Team Leader shouted to the others. “No more killings. Not yet. We need to talk to the bitch!”     The men had moved quickly and almost soundlessly. They tore through the rest of the house, checking it was empty. They secured the perimeter.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Go get the crosses set up in the back yard,” team leader instructed. “And make sure the video camera’s working, and the internet uplink.”     He leaned over one of the young women and cracked a phial of ammonia under her nose. “Wake up, freak!” he shouted, slapping her across the cheek. All three of the prisoners jerked their heads to the left.     Kate blinked back to awareness. Her eyes opened wide with shock and horror. “You killed me!” she gasped.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“How many are you?” team leader demanded, twisting her hair in his grasp. “How many?”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“T-three,” DupliKate gasped, tears coming to her eyes. “Three now.”     Team leader looked over to tech support. Tech support checked his equipment and nodded. “Three, then. Just the right number,” team leader chuckled. “Well then, genefreak, you’re going to get what’s coming to you.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“What do you mean? I didn’t do anything!”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“You exist, don’t you? You’re a perversion of God’s creation, a stain on humanity. You and the mutates and all those metahuman jokes of Satan. But now it stops. Now is the time of Cleansing.”     DupliKate realised they were erecting pitch-covered crosses in her back yard. They had nails and a hammer. They’d brought a camera to broadcast her fiery execution live on the world wide web.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“We are the Brotherhood of the Blackadder,” team leader told her. “We will make the world pure by fire and blood.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“No…” begged Kate. “You can’t…” She tried to replicate herself so there’d be more of her to fight back, but the shock attack had left her woozy and unready.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Strip them off before you nail them up,” ordered team leader. “Should do wonders for our online hit counter.”     The blunt end of a katana impacted with the back of his skull with enough force to dislocate his spine; with precisely enough force. The Psychic Samurai turned from him and began to pick off the other kill team members with surgical precision.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“I am sorry I could not intervene earlier,” Chiaki Bushido told the girl on the floor. “I had to wait until they had all committed themselves and revealed their positions.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Another freak!” shouted one of the Blackadders. “Call in back up!”     Chiaki waited until the call for reinforcements had been broadcast then took down tech support.     The doors of the black van opened and three Mark I Sentinoids climbed out. The original mutate-killing combat armours weren’t as sophisticated as the later versions, but they were powerful and brutal. Automated targeting systems analysed the Psychic Samurai’s combat style then adjusted to continuous fire.     Chiaki changed her style, then changed it again.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“You can’t keep dodging forever,” one of the Sentinoid operators told her through his eternal speakers. “And then it’s goodnight, freakie!”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“I do not need to dodge forever,” Chiaki told him, tumbling away from a barrage of point to point missiles. “Only long enough for my colleague to move into place.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Hello, boys,” Lara Night told the Sentiniods. They’d not encountered her before. They’d not adapted to her energy powers. Lara absorbed all the power from their systems, leaving them locked in useless fixed shells. Then she seared lightning past their insulation buffers and knocked out the men inside the machines, painfully but non-lethally.     And then the battle was over.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“What…” gasped Kate, her three bodies scrambling to their feet. “They…”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“They are the Brotherhood of the Blackadder,” Chiaki told her, helping her to stand. “They are a fanatical human supremacist hate group, dedicated to erasing metahumans. Until recently they have confined themselves to tracking down and murdering former mutates.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“But now they’ve moved their operations up a league,” noted Lara, studying the equipment that tech support carried and the fused remains of the operations van. “An… informant suggested I examine their activities. I’m beginning to see why. This isn’t the equipment of a home-grown fascist cell.”     Kate looked around the ruined remains of her home. “What shall I do?” she asked, lost.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Come with us,” Chiaki told her. “We’ll keep you safe.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Bring team leader as well,” Lara told the Psychic Samurai. “He’s got a lot to explain to us.”     Before the police arrived the women vanished into the dark.      ***     The Banco Mercantil was the largest financial institution in the Cayman Islands. The casual financial restrictions of the tiny nation made it an ideal place for off-the-books transactions, for offshore accounts, and for very safe safe deposits.     At least until the Purveyors of Peril arrived to make a withdrawal.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“The best part about this,” noted Gorilla Grott as he touched the door of the vault to turn it to brass so Clonar could easily wrench it loose, “is that nobody will be able to report what was stolen. Half of it’s illegal gains anyway. The I.R.S services of the world would be fascinated by whatever’s held here.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“That’s why I’m taking a copy of the secret holdings manifest,” HAGGIE chuckled, striding through the ruins. “The blackmail possibilities are endless. Probably more profitable than this bullion and gems run itself.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Less talk,” growled Anvil Man. “More stealing.”     Clonar lifted the vault door high to throw it away, but growled in pain as it turned molten and flowed down over him, coating him in searing liquid metal.     HAGGIE found her unitard had simultaneously transmuted into vibratium, its bizarre countervibrational properties playing havoc with the electronic systems of her android body.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“It’s an attack!” shouted Brass Monkey. “They were waiting for us inside the…” Then he choked on the mounds of sausage-meat that suddenly filled his oesophagus and stomach.     Anvil Man reacted very quickly for such a heavily-armoured fighter, charging in. He slammed headfirst into Hargalgaz Donarson, the two of them crashing together like colliding continents.     Dr Roentgen flooded the room with deadly radiation, slaying hero and villain alike.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Yeah, you didn’t do that,” Denial told him. “In fact you didn’t come on this mission. Bye.”     Suddenly the mad Candian nuclear physicist was somewhere else and nobody was dead.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Aaaaghh!” shouted Clonar, shattering the cooling metal from his body. “Killeth!”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“As soon as I polisheth off yon Anvil felon I wilt be dealing with thee next,” Gaz promised the imperfect Donar clone.     Anvil Man chuckled. “Except that as well as being as strong as you and also unstoppable, I can project explosions anywhere I look,” he added. “Donar Junior go boom!”     There was a massive detonation, enough to shred the guts even of an Ausgardian. Then Brendan MacGillicuddy, the unstoppable Anvil Man, keeled over, blood welling from his lips.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Yeah, explosions,” agreed Kerry Shepherdson, probability arsonist. “What were the chances you’d get that wrong and set it off inside of yourself? And what do you think is about the only force in the Parodyverse you’re not immune to? One guess.”     Brass Money ignored the protein goo clogging his innards. Breathing was a luxury now since the mad ape experimenter had evolved his body into living metal. He dived forward to get Ham-Boy.     He was suddenly dressed in a thick quilted clown outfit that his own power transmuted to metal, leaving him trapped in a thick sheath of brass that held him helpless. As Fashion Accessory created him a big red nose HB buried HAGGIE under a pile of offal. Harlagaz smote Clonar, and the electrical discharge blew out fuses across the island.     Then the view through the vault door flickered and changed. Instead of looking out onto the devastated Banco Mercantil it now looked onto a huge brick-arched underground bunker; and the remaining members of the Purveyors of Peril were waiting.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Get them,” VelcroVixen ordered Appendage Man, Grit, Gromm, Voodoo Vicaress, Razor Ballerina, El Futbalista Atomico, UltiMAX-TremeMan, and Suicide Blonde.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Crap,” breathed Danny Lyle.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“We canst take them,” said Harlagaz optimistically.     Denial had another view on the matter. He’d seen the Purveyors of Peril in action. The Juniors had done well against even numbers, but the Purveyors were the varsity of villains, as experienced and savvy in their own ways as their enemies the Lair Legion.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“And we’re not here,” Danny announced, his eyes flashing with an unholy green light. The Portal of Pretentiousness opened and shifted the Juniors away from the battle.     Kerry hit him. “What do you think you’re doing, idiot?” she shouted. “We were fighting bad guys!”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Keeping us alive?” Denial suggested. “There’s no way we could have taken down the whole Purveyors. So we live to fight another day, okay?”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“It makes sense, Kes,” conceded Fashion Accessory. “We were about to get slaughtered. They ambushed our ambush.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“But I’d have sworn that at first we had them by surprise,” Ham-Boy frowned. “Until that dimensional doorway opened up. I didn’t think they had anybody on this line-up who had that power.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Spacewarped could do it,” Danny considered, “but he’s still catatonic. And Dimensionripper was last seen being held by the Shoggoth. I don’t know of anybody else with that ability.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“We didst run away before we couldst question yon caitiffs,” grumbled Harlagaz. “I wast ready to question them into pulp.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“I’m sorry I saved all our lives, Firecracker,” Danny told Kerry. He tried to put his arm round her but she shrugged it away. “We’ve got to do this differently to how it used to be,” he urged her. “When the villains are running the show then the heroes have to use the dodge and weave tactics.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“And then what?” sulked Kerry. “We hide until they find us and wipe us out like they’re doing to all the other heroes?”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Then we conquer the world,” Danny told her. “When the villains are in charge that what the good guys do.” ***          Smusher was whimpering now, his fist a bloody pulp in the Carnifex’s grasp since the great huntsman wasn’t paying attention to what he was doing.     Gladeater spoke to the defender of Earth. “If we fight here, the casualties amongst your Earthlings will number into the millions,” he warned. “This city will be but a crater.”     The Carnifex shrugged. “We can always get more Earthlings,” he noted. “That’s the fun bit. And destroying the city? That’s probably the most successful solution to the Middle East question anyone’s come up with yet.” He noticed Temptest cringing at his feet and released the Guardsman to fall on the floor to cradle his bloody stump. “Am I to assume you’re going to make me miss my evening watching Survivor because I’m having to wipe out your civilisation, then?”     Gladeator had his mission. “Kill him,” he ordered the Imperium Guard.     But the Carnifex wasn’t there. The sonic boom toppled half the Guard and all the spectators to the ground. Gladeater was the only one able to see Earth’s defender at the speeds he’d just achieved as the Carnifex flew up into the air.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“After him!” warned the Praetor of the Guard, soaring upwards after his target; but even then he knew he was going to be too late. The Carnifex slammed straight through the first warship and pushed it into the next, then the next. Three seconds after he’d begun to move the finest ships ever produced by the Imperium were scrap crumpled together on a collision course with the sun.     Gladeater crashed into the Carnifex, tackling him out of the skies. They plummeted together, impacting thirty miles east of Jerusalem on the Jordan border. Their landfall registered as 3.9 on the Richter scale.     Nightslide shifted the rest of the Imperium Guard in to dogpile the Carnifex.     The Carnifex pulled a Bowie knife from his waistband and began the slaughter.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Die!” screamed Qua-Star, searing terrawatts of solar energy through the Carnifex, blistering the desert around them to glass.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“No, you die!” the Carnifex told him. “I have programmes on Tivo.” He hammered his fist into Qua-Star’s chest, absorbed the nuclear energy that kept the Guardsman alive, then tore him in two.     Magica loosed her psionic onslaught. Fangface and Midmaid came in as usual to finish of the victim while he was confused and disoriented.     But Magica screamed as she made mental contact with the Carnifex. She gouged her own eyes out before his knife ended her. Fangface and Midmaid were already smeared across the crater.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Take him!” screeched GobHoblin, leading wave after wave of Imperiators in at the lone warrior. The Carnifax butchered them like cattle in a slaughterhouse.     Gladeater burst from the hole he’d ploughed on landing. Meanator and Titus were still up, but even as the Praetor of the Guard came back in the Carnifex caught hold of Meanator, crushed his head, then used his body as a missile to hurl through the giant Titus’ chest.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“No!” shouted Gladeator. “Not again!” He’d witnessed a massacre of his team like this only once before, when they’d battled the Parody Master himself. The Parody Master hadn’t been laughing.     The Carnifex wasn’t fast enough this time, and Gladeater crashed into him with enough force to send them both a quarter of a mile across the desert. Gladeater kept up such a barrage of blows that the hunter couldn’t do anything but endure it for a while. Then he rolled aside and came back with a headbutt that registered 4.2 on the earthquake monitors.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Ouch!” the Carnifex complained, staggering back. “Those Mohair bristles really prickle!”     Bloody but undefeated, Gladeater rose to fight again.     The Carnifex directed his full attention on the Praetor. “You were a good opponent,” he congratulated his enemy. “You fought well, right to the last. I’ll remember you with honour.”     Gladeater came in at a quarter of the speed of light. The Carnifex didn’t bother dodging. He took the blow then returned one of his own. Then another, and another, and another, each one beating the life out of his enemy. He didn’t stop until Gladeater was an unrecognisable mass of pulp on the ground.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“You… you killed him!” screamed Astral, backing away.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Well, yeah,” agreed the Carnifex, licking the blood off his fists. “I said I would. I had my serious face on and everything.” He grinned again. “And now for the rest of you.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“I surrender!” Astral cried, raising her hands. “Please…!”     The Carnifex gutted her. “Oh, so not good,” he chided. “Gladeater, he gets a place of honour. He gets his head mounted on my trophy wall. You, you don’t even get made into a lampshade, honey. What a waste.”     Orankle was weeping black tears as he approached her. She was the last of the Imperium Guard, and she didn’t even attempt to run or defend herself. The future was open to her. “You’re going to do it,” she said in a horrified whisper. “You’re going to kill us all!”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“I am,” agreed the Carnifex. “I’m a man of my word. But I’ll tell you what. You wait here. I’ll kill everybody else first. Then I’ll be back for you.”     Pausing only to ensure that all his prey were truly slaughtered he rose up into the heavens and pointed himself towards the distant Shee-Yar stars. ***     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Do not fear,” Liu Xi Xian’s grandfather told her. “All these weeks of study and meditation were to prepare you for moments like this. Fear will destroy you. Courage will sustain you safely back here.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“I’m ready,” answered the young elementalist, and she wondered if it was true.          Liu Xi and the Void Scholar stood on a marble platform at the extreme edge of the old man’s garden domain. Through a tall archway here there was no view of the grey-blue skies over the well-tended Oriental topiary but rather of a livid eye-aching purple swirl that spiralled down forever.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“I’ve been into the transdimensional vortex before, grandfather” Liu Xi said.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Never this deep,” the old man warned her. “The tides here are so strong that no-one could swim back from this place. The forces are such that your body will be shredded within seconds, your soul dispersed an instant later. You must enter the vortex and slip from it before your strength fails and you are utterly destroyed.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“I understand,” said Liu Xi.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Picture your destination well,” the Scholar instructed her. “It is a place you know well. The place you fear most in all creation.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Comic-Book Limbo,” the girl whispered. She’d been marooned there. She’d almost lost herself there. She’d stained her soul forever in that grey land of the lost.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“You must anchor a tiny part of yourself here, with me,” her grandfather warned. “You must delve into Limbo while retaining a fingerhold here. Only that can guide you back. From no other place than my garden would this be possible.”     Liu Xi nodded. She swallowed hard.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Only you can undertake this rescue,” the old man reminded her. “Only you can save this forgotten soul.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“I am ready,” Liu Xi repeated. It was now or never.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Then go,” instructed the Void Scholar. “Make me proud.”     Liu Xi leaped into the vortex. ***     Ã¢â‚¬Å“This is the moment,” announced Hansel Fokker. “This is the time when the Hero Elimination Revenge Project Extermination Squad finally comes into its own!”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Hail HERPES!” cried his sister Greta. “Apply penicillin but the sores will return in a week!”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Lovely,” answered MODEM, the dumpty-like floating genius that literally headed the criminal science outfit B.A.L.D. “But where does my organisation come into these plans? And where does your chequebook figure? We have research overheads, you know.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“And you would know all about overheads,” sneered Hansel, regarding the huge bulbous bloated face atop the child’s useless body floating on the kill-chair before him.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Was that a personal remark?” demanded the Machine Organism Designed for Exterminating Meddlers. “Was it?”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“This is not the time for us to be quarrelling amongst ourselves,” Greta cautioned them. “This is a time for new powers to arise. The Age of Heroes is gone. Von Zemo is correct in that. She is wrong only about who will rise triumphant when the last of Earth’s champions lies dead.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“We have a plan,” Hansel explained. “We shall stage a disaster so terrible that all these metahuman teams must gather to address it. The destruction of a city somewhere. Say Mexico City. I never liked Mexico City. Or Miami.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“The release of Biohazard, for example,” Greta suggested. “Or the debut of Scorched Earth. Something with a death toll in the millions.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“We set lures to bring even von Zemo’s New Legion there,” Hansel continued. “Everyone gathered in one place at one time. All the eggs in one basket.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Is that a Humpty Dumpty reference?” squeaked MODEM, “because if it was…”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“And then we release nuclear holocaust,” Greta concluded. “Inside a BALD metahuman suppression field, of course, to inhibit any heroes who might survive even a blast like that. The last generation of those who would oppose us will perish and the world is ours to carve up as we choose.”     MODEM considered this. “It is a… persuasive plan,” he owned. “I would require guarantees regarding the eventual allocation of resources, and some indemnity for…”     Then the red, white, and blue shield caroomed against the wall next to him, shattered his oversized nose, spanged off the Fokker twins, knocking then down and separating them, rebounded back into the underside of MODEM’s doom chair taking put the anti-grav generator, and finally returned to the hand of the man who’d thrown it.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Your evil plans will never see the light of day, malefactors!” Silver Aegis promised them, leaping into the fray. “Did you really believe a Liefield Model Decoy of Count Fokker would fool me, wrongdoers? Justice will always find a way!”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“An intruder!” squealed MODEM, bouncing heavily on the floor and rolling unfortunately so his vestigial body was flailing in the air, overbalanced by the weight of his head. “Guards! Guards!”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Do you believe you can stop us, you star-addled fool?” sneered Hansel Fokker, reaching for his sister so they could use their joint disintegration power. “The time of your kind has gone!”     Siler Aegis hammered a fist into his face, dropping him like a sack of potatoes. “The time of my kind will never be over while there is tyranny to be fought, evil to be conquered,” Scott Scoggins promised. “The price of liberty is eternal vigilance, and it is a price we pay freely and with pride!”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“You really are a huge pain in the ass,” Greta told him as she activated the emergency teleport to whisk them all away to Factor X’s exfiltration centre. “One day I’m going to see you begging for death.     Then Silver Aegis was alone in the ruined remains of the B.A.L.D. Antarctic research station. But he was not downcast. He looked at the palm-held tracker that reported the location of the homing device he’s planted on Hansel. And now he knew where Factor X teleported his clients away to. ***     The Federal Metahuman Resource Centre Fixed Wing Turbofan Jumpjet hovered over Jerusalem’s temple mount, where police officers and soldiers were arriving to assess the damage of the recent clash. The world’s media were present as the New Lair Legion made their debut.     They made no public announcement, merely descending in their blue, red, and gold uniforms to help with the clean up and ensure that no aliens remained alive in the vicinity. The corpses of the Imperium Guard were taken aboard their Jumpjet for later examination.     While the journalists on the spot were speculating on the logo-wearing heroes who were assisting the Carnifex, a Washington media conference was just getting under way.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Well howdy, folks,” an All-American blonde in a star-spangled uniform bade the press pack. “I guess you all know me, but just in case, I’m Jingo Belle, spokesperson for the U.S. armed forces on superhero matters.”     The cameras began to flash and the VT rolled. The lithe blonde spandex beauty always played well on the evening news.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Now you’re probably all wondering about those heroes who are helping out after the conflict in Israel,” she noted. “Well ladies and gentlemen, that’s the U.S. of A’s very own New Lair Legion!”     The wall screen lit up with bright publicity shots of the young heroes. Jingo Belle talked them through the team.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Leading the unit is The Haberdasher, master of headgear. He’s Montana born and bred, with a long and distinguished Marine Corps history before he volunteered for Operation: American Glory. Then from left to right we have HyperActive, Bunny Hug, USAction, the Targeter, Komodo, and Ultimette.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Wait a minute,” called out Ben Ulsen of the Paradopolis Daily Trombone, “each of these seems to be patterned on one of the real Lair Legion.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“The former Lair Legion,” Jingo Belle corrected him. “Yes, that’s right. Using American know-how on captured equipment from the Technopolis incursion we discovered ways of splicing the genes of a number of metahumans on seven American patriots. These modern-day heroes for a new age carry the powers and skills of Hatman, CrazySugarFreakBoy!, Yo, Mr Epitome, Trickshot, Fin Fang Foom, and, well Ultimette combines the abilities of Sorceress, Lisa, Ziles, Troia, and the Probability Dancer all in one package.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“And this was done with the Legion’s knowledge and consent?” Bernice Teschmaker questioned.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“These are our champions,” Jingo Belle promised. “They will bring an end to the confusion and chaos which has swept the world in the last few days. America will lead the way to a bright new future. The world has a Lair Legion again – and it works for Uncle Sam!”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“I thought there already was a New Lair Legion?” piped up Josie Hart of the Times-Picayune. “Or has Beth von Zemo had her license revoked?”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“That matter is being… reviewed.” Jingo Belle noted.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Is it now?” Baroness Elizabeth Sweetwater Dewdrop von Zemo noted, watching the conference on her fifty inch plasma screen from her jacuzzi in Schloss Shreckhausen. “Well I just hope nothing bad happens to this New New Lair Legion, that’s all.” ***     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Do not make me wrap you in an asbestos anorak again,” Samantha Bonnington warned her fuming best friend. “Morphing cloth to asbestos always gives me a headache. And making anoraks gives me the creeps.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“They can’t just call themselves the Lair Legion!” Kerry Shepherdson shouted. “That’s not their name to give away!”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Mayhap we shalt smite them henceforth until they giveth it back?” suggested Harlagaz Donarson, picking fragments of supervillain from his jacket. The New Lair Legion (Juniors version) had worked off their excess energy from the aborted Purveyors fight by patrolling and had happened to Spring-Loaded Man.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“I’ve got the details now,” Ham-Boy announced, heading back into the room to replace the phone on its charger. “I spoke to Semi-Transparent Lad. He used to be on the Federal Metahuman, er whatever-RC-stands-for training programme, remember? He was in their C-Troop. Well he reckons these government LL are probably the FMRC A-Troop with some PR badging.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“We so need some PR badging,” admitted Fashion Accessory. “If you people would just sit down with my agent…”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Where didst yon warriors gaineth their powers then?” Harlagaz frowned. He wasn’t keen on knock-offs.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“STL spoke to his old boss – you remember that Summers guy from the Graduation Challenge? Summers spoke to some spy chick he knows. Seems like the FMRC got custody of all the Technopolis tech they could get their hands on then mated it with some stuff they bought of the diabolical Dr Moo. It’s all pretty covert, if covert is like a codename for confusing.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“But they stole the LL’s powers,” Kerry argued. “I know how these things work. There’s always going to be a downside.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Like when you got Dancer’s powers,” suggested FA.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Shut up.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“We needs must maketh a list,” frowned Gaz. “So we do not miss out anyone we shouldst be smiting.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“We need to be doing something,” Kerry agreed, still angry. Ham-Boy was going round the room dousing small spontaneous fires with piles of mincemeat. “The Purveyors are running round plundering wherever they like then dressing up as good guys pretending to hunt themselves. Alien races are lining up to conquer the world…”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“They might be thinking twice about those plans after the Imperium Guard,” Ham-Boy noted reasonably.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“And the LL are still missing, despite all the experiments Wrichards and those EEE freaks are doing,” Kerry concluded. “And we’re just sitting around in the Addams Family Mansion waiting for Danny and de Soth to get back from their fact finding trip to GMY.”     Ham-Boy looked around the gloomy gothic architecture of Herringcarp Asylum. “This place always freaked me out,” he admitted. “I keep expecting the Hooded Hood to loom up behind me and tell me Good Evening every time I turn round. It’s getting so I can’t even go to the lavatory any more.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Too much information,” cringed Fashion Accessory.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“The Hood’s not going to just pop back,” Kerry assured them. “Danny and I ran some tests last night. If the Hood didn’t turn up after what we did on his throne then he’s not turning up.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Well, yon Denial hadst best return with his expert very soon,” Harlagaz muttered. “I hast not smitten a villain for nigh on two hours now.” ***     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Ah,” said Salieri Meng, seventh-smartest boy genius on the planet. “I really wish you’d called tomorrow.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Why tomorrow?” asked Danny Lyle, looking round the cluttered garage-turned-workshop in Upper Wuthering Heights, Gothametropolis York. “So you could tidy up?”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Because by tomorrow I’d have perfected the anti-retcon screening on my liquidifier cannons,” Salieri explained. “And then you couldn’t slaughter me.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Why would I want to slaughter you?” Danny puzzled. “Apart from you being, y’know, really annoying.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“He won’t slaughter you,” Vinny De Soth assured the boy genius. “I’ve been trailing around with him for nearly a week now and he’s not slaughtered anybody. He’s a slaughter-free zone, really.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“And where were you in that other reality his alternate dimensional version created, where he tortured power out of hundreds of his girlfriends and turned the world into his personal slave compound?” Salieri challenged.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Um, I guess I was sick that week,” shrugged Vinnie.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Yeah, I heard about the Moderator,” Danny admitted. “That wasn’t me. Not that that’s stopping all kinds of cosmic bigwigs declaring jihad on my ass for it.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Cosmic class enemies,” sighed Salieri, looking over his shoulder nervously. “The upgrades against them could take months. My poor garage.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“That’s why we need to talk to you,” explained Vinnie. “Not about the garage. It’s a very nice garage. As garages go. But then, I live in a hole under the stairs of a second hand bookshop, so my standards aren’t exactly…”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“You’re one of the few people who remembers that Moderator stuff,” Danny explained to Meng. “And that seems to be behind the sudden desire to stick my head on a pike, and maybe it’s behind the sudden disappearance of the Lair Legion and all sanity from the planet. So even though they’re not exactly my favourite people for the whole wrecking-my-date-with-a-taser incident we’re looking to you for some footnotes and a game plan about what the hell we’re supposed to do.”     Salieri Meng put down the circuit board he was working on. “Well, it certainly beats an afternoon hacking into NORAD,” he admitted. “That’s so 1980s.” ***     The screaming woman had a knife at her throat and her attacker was trying to tear open her coat as he pushed her further into the lonely alley. Alcheman crept up as water vapour then formed into a vanadium steel body to slam a fist into her assailant’s head.     The attacker went down like a lead weight. Alcheman crushed the knife in his hand before turning back to flesh and blood. “You’re safe now, ma’am,” he assured the damsel in distress.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Oh thank you!” the blonde beauty told him, clinging to his manly chest. “Thank you for renewing my faith in human nature!”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“You’re welcome,” Alcheman told her, a little uncomfortably. He didn’t want to return to his fiancée reeking of cheap perfume. “And now I need to summon the authorities. You’ll need to make a statement.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Thank you for reminding me that there’s a sucker born every minute,” Suicide Blonde told the elemental avenger. She used her transmutative gifts to convert Alcheman to ice.     Brick Basalt rose from the ground rubbing his jaw. “Nobody mentioned he could punch like that,” Grit, the Granulated Man complained. He could still feel pain when he assumed human form. “I’m gonna snap off his arms and legs for that.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Be my guest,” Bambi Bacall told him. “I never could stand the Dudley-Do Right types.”     Grit stepped forward and crushed the ice sculpture to chips. “One less to annoy you,” he noted. “Easy meat.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Last guy who called me that bought me dinner first,” Suicide Blonde flirted.     The ice fragments melted then flowed together into steel again. “I imagine he discovered the benefits of antibiotics soon afterwards,” Alcheman told her, irked. “You are both under arrest.” He illustrated his point by smashing his fist into Grit again, this time adding a phosphorous flash and a cocktail of acids to fuse the silicone villain into a single solid lump to put him down.     Suicide Blonde turned the atmosphere around Alcheman to cyanide. He shifted to rubber and laid her out as gently as he could manage.     Razor Ballerina’s psychic knives almost cut him to shreds. He groped at the chemical tattoos on his arms and managed to transmute to mercury to give him a moment to recover. An explosive charged-particle ball from El Futbalisto Atomico scattered him all across the alley, disorienting him.     Voodoo Vicaress plunged a shining silver pin into one tiny droplet of him and suddenly he was in agony, barely able to think.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Finish it,” VelcroVixen told Dr Roentgen. “See how good our element ace is with the transuranics. Split some atoms.”     Alcheman felt a searing white fire lance through his brain. He shifted to steam and then to hydrogen, the easiest of the gases for him to form.     It was a mistake. Xatroc detonated him. He tumbled back into his human form in the alleyway,scorched and crippled with pain,.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“The Age of Heroes is over,” VelcroVixen told him. “We’re just the clean-up squad.”     Alcheman transformed into concentrated sulphuric acid and seared his way down into the ground, barely conscious. He dropped into the sewers, aware that his enemies were burrowing down after him. Forcing himself to stay awake he shifted to methane, bubbled under the foul waters, and limped away to refuge.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Run them,” VelcroVixen called after him. “You can escape many times. We only need to catch you once. We’ll find you. We’ll find you and your family and your friends, and we’ll make you wish you never took up the mantle of hero. Your day is gone. All that’s left for you now is misery and pain.”     And Alcheman ran. ***     PsychoAcidPervGirl! dropped down in a ready combat crouch in front of Anvil Man. “Brendon, don’t do it,” she told him. “I’m asking you nicely, just once. Don’t do it.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Wendy,” Anvil Man recognised the former Purveyor of Peril. “This is business. You know better than to get in the way.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Yeah, but it’s my business,” PAPG! replied. “That’s my family you’re targeting tonight.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“So you’re a good little girl now, Wendy,” UltiMAX-TremeMan mocked her. “But that’s not how it used to be, right?”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“I’m not such a shit that I’d attack a superhero’s mom and wife, if that’s what you mean,” PsychoAcidPervGirl! shot back. “Yeah, I heard about your little ambush. Taking on helpless civilians has no class.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Except they are not helpless civilians, are they?” Brass Monkey pointed out. “In this time of crisis they have bravely elected to put on their masks and spandex and fight the good fight against evil malefactors such as we. They chose to fight. They entered the arena of their own volition.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“We just get to do the smackdown,” slavered Appendage Man. “Not to mention the post-game.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“They don’t even have super-powers,” PAPG! objected. “Well okay, Fashion Faerie can shrink to the size of Tinkerbell, but that’s it. They’re just keeping down the muggers and opportunists, making Seattle a bit safer for the people who have to live here. They’re no threat to the Purveyors of Peril.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Have you heard yourself?” UltiMAX-TremeMan sneered. “I mean really? Is this how low you’ve fallen?”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Killeth,” said Clonar.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Cheez! You brought the brain-damaged demigod?” objected Wendy Lyons. “Overreacting much?”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Perhaps we wish to send a message?” rumbled Gromm, the Living Flatulence. He had been thwarted by CrazySugarFreakBoy! before and he knew how to hold a grudge. “Maybe this city should burn.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“We have one simple job to do,” Anvil Man insisted. “We do it and we go home. That’s all. End of story.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“And if I don’t let you?” challenged PsychoAcidPervGirl!     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Like you could stop us, little girl,” sneered Brass Monkey.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Aw Wendy,” Anvil Man told her. “I always liked you. You made me laugh. I’m real sorry that it came to this.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“So you won’t back off and leave my family alone?”     UltiMAX-TremeMan snorted. “We’re not here for them, you cretin,” he snickered. “That was just the rumour we leaked. We’re here for you.”     PsychoAcidPervGirl! blurred aside as Clonar went for her. The pavement where she’d been standing shattered, but she was already bouncing off Brass Monkey and tossing Appendage Man into a wall. She somersaulted over an attack from Anvil Man, spraying his helmet with gunk and planting a foot into UltiMAX-TremeMan’s face.     Appendage Man ripped open his trenchcoat, limbs rippling out in mad flailing profusion, swelling to block the alley, every one of them groping out to grab the fast-moving chaos cutie. PAPG! tossed explosives into those grasping hands then acid-sprayed the wall to drop it on Clonar and Anvil Man. Brass Monkey tried to grasp her with his metallic touch but she ducked low and stapled an electroshocker where it would do the most good. Gorilla Grott went down with a squeal.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Is that the best you can do?” PAPG! taunted. “Maybe you should think again before you go after Fashion Fairy, Action Figure and… and…”     Too late she realised that she’s not seen Groom the Living Flatulence since the battle begun. Then she realised to her horror that she’d been breathing him all along. His gases turned narcotic in her lungs, far past her body’s ability to resist. She crashed to the ground and lay there while her consciousness faded.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“And now for the fun part,” giggled Appendage Man.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“No,” UltiMAX-TremeMan insisted. “You keep off her. She’s mine!”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Yours?” puzzled Anvil Man.     Martin Lillard ran his knuckles almost gently over the pixie curves of PAPG!s cheek. “I have some special uses for the sister of CrazySugarFreakBoy!” ***     It was agony. Liu Xi Xian felt as if her mind was being torn apart. She frantically fought back the horror of what might happen to her if she failed and clung on to her grandfather’s calm presence like a lifeline; in fact that is what it was.     For a moment the dimensional vortex shredded her, tearing chunks from her flesh and burning through her thoughts. She forced herself onwards, past the interplanar maelstrom, as the Void Scholar had taught her.     Into the place she least wanted to be in all the Parodyverse.     The chill of Comic-Book Limbo seemed to freeze her soul. She instinctively knew that she was deeper, much deeper, into that realm of the deleted and forgotten than she had ever ventured before. She felt herself fading, spinning out as she spent herself to move forward. She could not endure here for long.     There was a stone plinth rising from the mists, surrounded by four curved spiked like talons. Laying curled in a foetal ball in the centre of the circular platform was the remains of a girl. There was nothing left but raw pulped flesh and broken limbs.     Liu Xi’s compassion spurred her forward despite the cost. She wrapped the bloody bundle in her arms. It weighed almost nothing. She turned to escape.     The pull of Comic-Book Limbo dragged her back.     For a moment the fear overwhelmed her. She would stay here, fade here, die here. No one would even remember her name.     Her grandfather’s words were only a whisper now, but she held to them. Do not fear. She forced herself forward, although every step felt like her last. She strained to struggle free, to reel in that stretching thread between her and the distant garden where the Void Scholar stood. She felt her senses dimming and her mind growing slow.     She leapt into the dark. ***     Ã¢â‚¬Å“What are you doing in my office?” Commissioner Don Graham asked Chiaki Bushido, the Psychic Samurai.     Chiaki was quite impressed that the old policeman had detected her. “I’m rifling through your computer files,” she answered candidly. “Or rather my friend is.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Lara Night,” Graham recognised. “Thank you for your assistance in recent troubled days. Now tell me why I shouldn’t have the two of you arrested.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“We need some information to save lives,” Lara told him. “We can’t go through official channels because neither of us are exactly citizens in good standing here and we don’t know who we can trust. But it’s important.”     Graham wheeled Lara back from his desk and leaned over the keyboard. “What do you want?” he sighed.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“The Brotherhood of the Blackadder,” Chiaki supplied. “They’re more than they seem. They have access to sophisticated tech, to SPUD cast-off equipment, even to old Sentinoid armour. They’re well informed, well funded, nothing like as hayseed as they pretend.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Go on,” urged the Commissioner.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“We questioned one of their field agents,” Lara explained.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Ah. The Dullard’s Corner incident last night,” Graham recognised. “I should have guessed.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“They’ve had an influx of new support in the last couple of weeks or so,” Chiaki told him. “New money, new sources of intelligence, all sorts of things, from people who’ve never exhibited far-right fundamentalist psycho tendencies before. People who are now even selling their homes to fund terrorism, risking their freedom to set up murders.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“These are some names we got,” Lara added, handing over a list.     Drury ran the checks, then made a frustrated noise in his throat.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Problem?” asked Lara peering over his shoulder.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“They’re all on record,” Graham admitted. “Some in missing persons. Most in the nutjob folder, the Z-Files. Ten and twelve days ago most of these people were claiming they’d been abducted by aliens. Memory loss. Probes. Missing time. The whole late night chat show.” He downloaded the relevant data onto Lara’s memory stick. “Then they all withdrew their reports and went about their daily lives, as far any anybody knew.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Except now they all support the Blackadders,” Chiaki observed.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Yes,” agreed Graham. “And none of them live in my jurisdiction.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“And you don’t know who to trust either,” Lara recognised. “Leave it to us. We’ll look into it.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“You do that,” agreed Don Graham. “But before you do, perhaps Ms Bushido would like to comment on what she did in the Safe on the day of that big breakout?”     But when he turned to look, the Psychic Samurai and Lara Night were gone. ***     The Habadasher looked uncertainly at the plucky girl reporter who’d been embedded with his unit for the operation. “I’m really not certain about you being involved with this,” he told Brianna Anderson of the Gothametropolis Squire. “This is going to be dangerous.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Danger is my business,” the young journalist replied glibly. “Well, journalism is my business, obviously. But I’m no stranger to danger. Really. That’s how I got this tip-off.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“And offered it to the New Lair Legion in exchange for being able to accompany us on this raid,” the Habadasher noted disapprovingly.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“You have good sources,” noted Komodo in unfriendly tones. “It was you who outed the secret identity of the Dark Knight, wasn’t it?”     Brianna looked a little abashed. “That was… it wasn’t as simple as all that. I was used. There was a conspiracy. I nearly died.”      “How did you learn the possible location of the Purveyors of Peril’s secret hideout anyway?” wondered USAction. The master sergeant didn’t like reporters at the best of times, and certainly not in combat situations.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“A reporter never reveals her sources,” Brianna answered uncomfortably. It sounded better than ‘I rummaged through the private files on the desk of my therapist, Dr Pfeffercorn, who’s also treating Sharp Performance of the Nu Lair Legion’. She didn’t understand why the Nu Legionnaires might have information about the Purveyors whereabouts but not yet act on it; perhaps they were still conducting surveillance. But she could hardly pass the tip on to them, so she’s sought out Reuben Holcomb at FRMC to cut a deal.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“When the actions starts, stay low and keep out of sight. The Purveyors of Peril are the most dangerous assemblage of career supervillains this planet has ever seen. They’ll be a big challenge for our first mission.”     Brianna glanced at the quiet disciplined team behind her. Earlier HyperActive and Targetter had been joking around – spazzing even – and Ultimette had been gossiping and girl-talking with Bunny Hug. Now all of them seemed totally focussed on the job at hand. It was quite eerie.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“How long have you guys been around?” Brianna asked. She’d have to run her article past FRMC chief Holcomb but any kind of background would help her get a handle on whatever the real story was. “Were you in the Parody War?”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“We’re the third generation of troopers to receive power implantation in Operation: American Glory,” answered the Habadasher. “The second generation were the ones who served and died in the Parody War. We’re proud to follow in their traditions and to become the Lair Legion.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“What happened to the first generation?”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“That’s classified. They’re no longer around.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“And you’re just a country boy from Montana, Captain Jason Boseman.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“That’s right. We’re all patriots, serving our country.”     Brianna pushed a little harder. “And yet I can’t find any background on you, Captain.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“What do you mean, Ms Anderson? My service record is a matter of public knowledge.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“And so is your whole life. I read the press packs. School reports, college results, military honours. I verified all your information online. But I couldn’t find one single buddy of yours in high school who’d go on record about you. Not one.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Did you try Jack Jansen? Because you can’t believe anything that guy tells you about me.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Your best friend? I couldn’t find anyone who’d talk about him either. Same with Lucy Landless, the girl who was your childhood sweetheart.”     The Habadasher shifted uncomfortably. “I’m not sure where you’re trying to go with this,” he told the reporter. “But it’ll have to wait. We’re in position.” He pointed to the rubble of the ruined ahead. “That’s the place, if your information is correct. The former location of the Interdimensional Transportation Corporation.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“First day casualty of the Parody War,” supplied Komodo, always the best prepared of the FMRC A-Team. “Early destruction priority when the dimensional dreadnaughts went after our infrastructure. We hadn’t got any intel about there being shielded cellar levels though.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Except the construction blueprints I tracked down in the Municipal Library’s pre-computerised archive,” noted Brianna Anderson.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Well sure, that,” agreed the Habadasher. “And if those blueprints are correct…”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Then there was a secret escape duct about here,” concluded Ultimette. “What are the chances we could find it? Oh, look! Here it is!” The sealed hatch clicked open at her touch.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Okay team. Quickly and quietly,” Hadadasher told the others. “Let’s go.”     He led the way through the entrance doorway; and found himself somewhere else altogether.     Somewhere much colder.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“You know,” Doorman declared as the new capped crusader found himself outside the ruined shell of an Arctic observation station, “I don’t like guys who use hats. I really don’t like guys who steal my DNA.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Hatman?” the Habadasher recognised. “Where have you been? It’s so good to…” then his throat closed up.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“You know, the larynx is a kind of entrance, when you think about it. A door,” Doorman mused. “The whole throat is. It can open. It can close. Of course, closed it becomes pretty hard to breathe.”     Jason Boseman scrambled for the caps at his waist but found that they hadn’t transited with him.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“How long do you think you can last without air?” Doorman wondered. “A minute? Minute and a half?”     The Habadasher stumbled forward. He tripped over the frozen body of a naked girl.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Yeah,” Dooman grinned. “I guess you could say this is my trophy room.” He came forward and kicked Habadasher in the gut.     The world was going dark. Habadasher groped at Doorman’s leg, but received a boot in the face. “Your world’s Boaz would have put up a better fight,” Doorman told him. “You’re just a failure. A joke. And guess what’s happening to your little team of Legion wannabees right now? Each of them followed their glorious leader through that doorway, each of them got transported to a different part of Purveyor’s HQ, all alone and helpless.”     Habadasher couldn’t rise, couldn’t think…     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Yeah, they’re dying too, right now,” Doorman told him. “Because you failed. Because you let them down. So long, loser.”     He waited until he was certain Habadasher was asphyxiated then headed back to see who else there was to kill. ***     Salieri Meng sat back in his chair in the library at Herringcarp Asylum. He quite liked the cluttered book-lined space. “Well, the first thing to notice is how much current events have distracted everyone from the initial cause of this cascade,” he pointed out. “The world has stopped hunting down Denial and turned its attention to survival.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Yeah, I wish I could claim I had something to do with that,” Danny admitted.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“But you didn’t right?” checked Vinnie De Soth. “Right?”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“A diversion?” pondered Kerry. “But from what?”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“The question is why did the Lair Legion need to be removed exactly now?” Salieri wondered. “From SPUD’s off-carrier backup logs it’s clear that there was a specific and unusual Lair Mansion intrusion to weaken the Celestian defences and to plant those silico-organic dimensional transfer nodes that shunted away the island.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Just let me fetch my geek to comprehensible dictionary,” said Fashion Accessory.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“All that means is some bad guy had a real urgent need to lose the LL,” Ham-Boy translated. “We should be asking what they’d have been interfering with if they hadn’t vanished.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Mayhap they wouldst have been battling yon Onslaughter and yon Purveyors, and yon Shee-Yar?” suggested Harlagaz.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“None of those things would have occurred if the Legion hadn’t disappeared,” Danny pointed out. “There’d have been a whole other scenario, where the world fell out with the heroes over which organisation got to execute me.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“That was not going to happen,” Kerry told him fiercely. “Not ever.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“I also checked the other security alerts that were passed on to the Legion that day,” Salieri went on. “Of special note were some alien abduction reports, some unexplained and rather massive holes appearing across the planet, and the disappearance of a whole archaeological dig, including the diggers and the site itself.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“A site?” HB noted. “A whole site vanished like Parody Island did?”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“So the report goes. And the holes are interesting too. They were walled with the same microlined patterns as those living stones pushing up at the perimeters of Parody Island before it disappeared.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Interesting,” agreed Fashion Accessory. “What did the investigation reports say about this stuff?”     Salieri held up his hands. “What investigation reports? The Legion were confined to their Mansion. Then the whole island and the SPUD helicarrier disappeared and the world became a crazy place.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Hold it!” objected Kerry. “You’re saying nobody has looked into this? Nobody at all?”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Well, ZOXXON sent an agent into one of the holes. She never came out.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Interesting,” admitted Danny. “Very interesting indeed. Guys, I think we might have some leads to follow.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“And smiting?” checked Harlagaz hopefully. “There wilt be smiting for the nonce?”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“It’s us,” Ham-Boy sighed. “There’s almost inevitably going to be a fight.” ***     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Your Excellency,” HAGGIE communicated via high speed modem to Schloss Shreckhausen. “Some of the internet flags I set have been triggered. Somebody has been researching the events in Peru and the Deviate Shafts. I suspect it’s the Junior Lair Legion.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Kerry Shepherdson and her crew of pests and delinquents,” spat Beth von Zemo. “And they’ll be heading out to investigate, no doubt.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Very likely,” agreed HAGGIE. “What do you command?”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Make sure the Purveyors know what they need to,” the Baroness instructed. “I think it’s time Kerry’s little band came to a sharp and sorry end.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“We’ll get right on that,” agreed HAGGIE. “As soon as we’ve finished up business here, killing the FMRC kids.” ***     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Miss Anderson? Come with me please.”     Brianna Anderson looked around in panic. She wasn’t where she thought she’d be. The doorway had led into a steel-plated service corridor, but this was a barrel-tunnel of old brick, dimly lit by wire-caged wall lamps.     She blinked as she recognised the woman speaking to her.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“VirtueValkyrie?” she gasped. “But how?”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“You led the FMRC people into a trap,” VelcroVixen told her. “That information our comrade Sharp Performance mentioned in her confidential session with her therapist? We quickly discovered it to be fake. A ruse to lure us to our deaths. If only you had been honest with us then we could have warned the FMRC of our suspicions. We might have been able to save more of them.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“More of them? What do you mean?”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“We were able to pull you out, but the others… they’re lost in the Purveyors killing ground, separated and vulnerable. They’re being slaughtered. But were very keen to save an innocent civilian first, even though you violated our privacy.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“I… didn’t mean to,” Brianna stammered. “I was only trying…”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Those stairs there will lead you out into a Paradopolis subway service tunnel,” VelcroVixen told her. “Just keep following it and you’ll reach the surface. Don’t look back. It’s not safe. And a woman with your remarkable expertise in superhero exposé stories is too precious an asset to lose.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“But the Legion! I mean, the FMRC Legion…”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“We’ll do what we can to find them,” VV promised. “Now run, Miss Anderson. Run for your life!” ***     Ultimette staggered through the endless subterranean tunnels, limping, clutching her arm and side where Razor Ballerina’s psychic flechettes had sliced through her flesh. Somehow her powers hadn’t protected the new hero from that brutal attack.     A little way back she’d come across the body of HyperActive, his head literally stamped flat, and later she’d stumbled over a radiation-charred cinder that she feared must be BunnyHug. She forced herself to move on, knowing she was leaving a trail of blood for anyone to follow.     She heard explosions up ahead. She almost ran back the way she’d came, into the darkness. Then she remembered that she was supposed to be a hero. “The team might need me,” she told herself. “Come on, Ginny. Pull yourself together. Do the right thing.”     That’s what she always remembered her father telling her. Do the right thing.     She stumbled on towards the explosions, drawing on her powers to prevent herself from passing out. UltiMAX-TremeMan was hurled through a wall in front of her, propelled by another explosion. He smashed into the other side of the tunnel then fell, bringing a shower of debris down after him.     Ultimette stifled a scream as Targetter scrambled through the hole in the tunnel side.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Hey, doll,” the archer called to her. “You okay!”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“They got Paul and Toni,” Ultimette told him. “They nearly got me. I can’t contact the others.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Yeah, they got some metal monster-girl putting out a jamming signal,” the Targetter told her. “We gotta find who’s still alive and get outta here.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Yeah, that’s gonna be quite a challenge,” said Grit, the Granulated Man, just before he beat down on them with a hurricane force sandstorm. “Bad time to be heroes, heroes.”     Targetter’s arrow was whipped from his hand before he could even string it. The sand formed into a massive fist and smashed him to the ground.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“No!” cried Ultimette, gesturing. Suddenly the sandstorm lost all coherence, careening away down the corridor.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Not bad, kid,” coughed Targetter. “I could’a taken him though.”     The limped on down the tunnels, relying on Ultimette’s chance powers that they’d locate their missing comrades, that they were taking the right route out. Under a fallen section of a side passage that had somehow turned to base lead they found the bloody unconscious form of USAction. When Targetter dragged him out they discovered the hero’s right arm was completely missing.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“What… what could do that to the Sarge?” whispered Ultimette.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Hmm,” tutted Suicide Blonde. “I guess that would be me.” She gestured and turned the air around Ultimette and Targetter’s feet to solid iron. Another gesture transmuted the Targetter’s bow to glass.     Targetter pulled a dagger from his bandana and launched it at her. Suicide Blonde transmuted it to helium. Then she changed the archer’s skin into burning napalm and watched him become a Roman candle.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Nooo!” screamed Ultimette as she watched her friend and team-mate burn.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Oh yes, dearie” Bambi Bacall told her. “The Age of Heroes is over. Sooner or later people are going to get the idea that wearing a costume and battling crime is no longer a smart thing to do.”     Komodo barrelled out of the darkness, shapeshifting from salamander size to the largest he could manage in the confined tunnel and lashed his tail across Suicide Blonde’s face, bouncing her head off the wall hard.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Jordan!” cried Ultimette, recognising her missing team-mate. “Am I glad to see you!”     But then she saw that Komodo was fleeing from Dr Roentegen and the appalling Appendage Man; and her feet were still caught and her crippled team-mate USAction lay unmoving at her feet. The hellish scene was lit by flames from Targetter’s flaming corpse.     Dr Roentgen’s radiation burst seared a neat hole through one of Komodo’s wings. “Game over, as you Americans enjoy saying,” he noted.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Burn the dragon,” said Appendage Man, “but the pretty girl belongs to me.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Jordan!” called Ultimette, urging the dragon to rise. Pinned as she was she couldn’t generate much improbability to help him. Only now did she see the livid burns on Komodo’s flesh and the sticky blood encrusting his scales.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“I’m sorry, Ginny,” he told her, struggling but failing to made it to his feet. “I tried. We all did.”     AppendageMan laughed, moving closer. Roentgen took careful aim at Komodo’s head.     Citizen Z’s boot slammed into Appendage Man’s windpipe, downing the multi-limbed monstrosity to choke for air, and then the dexterious young woman diverted Dr Roentgen’s blast to bring the roof down on the radiation-suited scientist himself. CV rolled aside and clear from the wreckage and came to a halt beside Ultimette and the remains of the FMRC team.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Never give in,” she told them. “You can’t let the bad guys win.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“They killed everyone else, I think,” Ultimette sobbed. “We’re trapped. Surrounded.”     Citizen Z dissolved the metal pinning Ginny and hefted USAction over her shoulder. “We’ll get out,” she told them. “Impossible escapes and being in places I shouldn’t be, that’s my speciality.” She turned to Komodo and Ultimette. “Are you with me?” ***     One by one they went quiet, the worlds of the Shee-Year Imperium: Codobar, Solvis, Taluri, Signar, the three planets of Hoorm, the vast Jeth’Droon trading station. Communications just stopped. Jumpgates went dark. Over the next three days a world disappeared off the empire map roughly every twenty minutes.     Emperor K’Ben raged and dispatched troops and investigators and what remained of his new-minted war fleet, and none returned. Rumours spread of whole worlds reduced to mere rubble and dust. The priests began to talk about the end of days. The people began to panic and riot in the streets and had to be suppressed hard.     On the evening of the third day after the Earth invasion force had first fallen silent, the last of the Shee-Yar holdings disappeared from the homeworld’s communications map and Shee-Yar was entirely alone.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Something must be done,” the priests and councillors all said. “Whatever caused this, it must be discovered and neutralised.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“And how do you suppose we do that?”, K’Ben snarled. “The Parody Master took the Great Crystal from us when he overthrew my sister. He burned it in his Forge. The Imperium Guard have no responded to my calls. Our allies do not answer. Our fleet is gone.”     Then the continents of Shee-Yar itself began to go quiet, beginning with those on the other side of the planet to the Imperial Palace. It took fifteen minutes for the rest of the world to fall. Then the screaming began on the continent where K’Ben held his court.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“We could flee,” the councillors argued. “We could take a fast shuttle and regroup.”     But already two dark-suited figures were waiting in the corridors of power.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“I don’t think that’s going to be possible, gentlemen,” Mr Flay told them, advancing forward with no regard for the soldiers that tried to get in his way. “For two reasons.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“First one being, if you’ll pardon me interrupting you, Mr Flay,” said Mr Skinner, “is that to regroup you have to have someone else to group with, and you gents are all that’s left now of your Shee-Yar Imperium.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“The very point I was driving at, Mr Skinner,” agreed Mr Flay. “But cogently put as usual, with your fine gift for words. And the second reason being that the boss is blowing any kind of vehicle out of the skies, just like as he’s blocking teleportation and dimensional travel and the like.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“On account of him wanting to see every one of you cheeky bleeders dead,” added Mr Skinner.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Seems a shame, though,” Mr Flay noted. “You surviving all through that Lord Resolution’s crusade and through the Parody War only to get wiped out now because you didn’t know when to back off.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Just like those guards which were attacking us while we were talking, Mr Skinner. A fine example of why the Shee-Yar have got themselves in this pickle.”     Mr Skinner looked around him at the hall filled with disembowelled dead. “I’ve got to say, Mr Flay, that to me they look to me to be in more of a jam,” he quipped.     Emperor K’Ben scrambled away, fleeing from the throne room, rushing down corridors towards the secret exit he’d prepared. The crown toppled unheeded from his head as he ran. The screams of the dying filled the palace.     The Carnifex was waiting for him behind the secret door.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“No!” screeched the Emperor, firing his disruptor pistol at point blank range at the intruder. He missed. The weapon was taken from him. “You can’t do this to me! Don’t you know who I am?”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“You would be the man who sent his soldiers to invade my planet,” the Carnifex considered. “They’re dead now. All your subjects are dead, except for one, and I’ll get to her later. Everyone on this planet is dead, except you.”     K’Ben whimpered and soiled himself.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“And do you know why, K’Ben?” the Carnifex went on, leaning forward. “It’s because you don’t know how to wait your turn.”     The Emperor roused himself to answer back. “The Lair Legion was gone. There was no better time for the plan…”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“There clearly was,” the Carnifex answered. “Because look how well it turned out. And the moral of the story is: When I say wait until I tell you before launching an invasion of Earth, you wait until I tell you.”     K’Ben stared at him with wide terrified eyes.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“I’ve got a whole schedule worked out,” the Carnifex explained, “A full programme of exciting challenges for our glorious heroes. Right now it’s the Void Scholar. And I don’t want it messing up.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“You… killed everybody… everybody… just for that?”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Yep,” agreed the Carnifex. “And I’ve got a heck of a crick in my back from doing all of that in so short a time. I hate discorporating. It seems such an impersonal way of committing genocide. So I’ll tell you what… In your case I’m going to kill you the old fashioned way.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“What…?” K’Ben’s lips moved but no sound came out.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“In the old days the Carnifex wasn’t just the executioner. He was also the public torturer. I’m very good at it.” The Carnifex cracked his knuckles. “But don’t just take my word for it.”     The last citizen of Shee-Yar took three more days to die. ***     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Ah, you awaken,” the Void Scholar said to his guest. “It has been many days since you returned from Comic-Book Limbo. I was afraid that you would never recover.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Where am I?” said the girl. Her skin was blistered and red, her face a pulpy mass of exposed tissue, her mouth a ragged gash. Torn red wings protruded from her spine. Claws tore through the tips of her fingers.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“My grand-daughter brought you here. She awoke some days ago, and soon she will be able to walk again.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“And where is here? And who are you?”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Here is my garden, a… between place. I am the Void Scholar, your host, and the one who arranged your rescue. I would introduce you to my grand-daughter who achieved your return from oblivion but it would only confuse her. You will be leaving here today, to undertake a task for me if you agree to it.”     Another question came to the bloody woman’s mind. “Who am I?”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Your memories will return to you,” the Scholar assured her. “You will recall, for example, the name of Samantha Bonnington.”     Those ragged lips twisted into an ugly snarl. “Fashion Accessory. She did this to me. She tore my skin away like a coat. She made me this… this monstrosity. And she and her new friends… they murdered my brother.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“You remember that much then,” approved the Void Scholar. “And the name Danny Lyle?”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Denial?” Another flash of memory. “He retconned me out of existence. When he took over the Purveyors of Peril, when I questioned him… he erased me. To make a point. To show he was serious. He seared me from reality. Murdered me. Damned me to oblivion.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“So he did,” agreed the Scholar. “You see, it is all coming back. Can you venture your own name yet?”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Tina… Tina Drummond,” the pulpy monster remembered. “I was Wyrmbait, of the New Battlers. Sammy and the others. they made me into Wyrmfood.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Quite right,” agreed the Void Scholar. “And now I want to send you back to meet Danny Lyle and Samantha Bonnington and Kerry Shepherdson and their little friends again.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“I’ll kill them all.”     The Void Scholar shook his head. “Not all of them, Wyrmfood. I can show you how to do much worse to them than that. To hurt them so badly that they will envy your condition. I can show you how to wound them so they will suffer for all eternity and never know a moment’s joy or surcease from grief ever again. Interested?”     Wyrmfood nodded. “Just tell me what I have to do,” she agreed, “boss.” ***     Orankle sat cross-legged in the shade of a large desert rock. Her thick eye makeup was marred with tears, but she was calm and resigned when the Carnifex returned for her.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Don’t tell me, you knew I’d come,” quipped the hunter.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“I can see my own death,” agreed the seeress. “I can see so much about you now. Things that were hidden from me before. Hidden from everyone.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Yeah, I’m a man with a job to do,” agreed the Carnifex. “But I’m not in a rush. This place is a lot of fun.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“But you can be destroyed,” Orankle saw. “Enemies you can’t see and enemies you don’t want to see and enemies who’ll finally see you for what you are.”     The Carnifex took her dying prophecy seriously. “In the end it’s going to come down to that big fight, yeah. Me and the Lair Legion, like it was me and the Imperium Guard. In fact I expect a tougher fight from the Legion. I’ve got a lot of respect for them, and it grows the more I research them and test them.”     Orankle gave a bitter laugh. “You don’t know the half of it,” she told him. “And you won’t. Not until it’s too late.”     The Carnifex held up hands still sanguine with K’Ben’s blood. “I could just torture it out of you. I’ve tortured prophets before.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“You failed in your promise,” Orankle told him. “You broke your precious word.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“I’m pretty sure I didn’t. No survivors. Every member of every sentient species in your whole Imperium, dead. I said I’d kill every last one and I did.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Not every one,” Orankle told him. “Not unless you also kill me.”     And she plunged her dagger into her breast and died; died of her own hand, not by the slayer of her Empire.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Well damn,” said the Carnifex.     Then he headed off for a shower and some breakfast. *** Coming Next: Well, whatever folks decide to write, of course, but my next chapter returns to our Land That Common Sense Forgot characters, as the villains make their moves, a couple more unexpected characters join our cast, and some shocking twists make things a lot more dangerous than before. Thanks to Rhiannon for the immensely evil plot assist; I’m so proud that she thought of something nastier to do to people than I had. And After That: Our probably-final chapter in the World Without a Legion arc covers the secret of the Brotherhood of the Blackadder, revelations about the FMRC Legion, UltiMAX-Treme’s plans for PsychoAcidPervGirl!, Alcheman’s decision about being a hero, ‘Wrichard’s experiments with EEE bear fruit, Lisa’s date with the Carnifex, the Hole Man, Wyrmfood’s mission, and then brings nearly all our whole Earth cast together at the end for one big resolution – unless other people take some of this stuff forward instead (which would be good). That’s the Juniors vs the FMRC vs the Purveyors of Peril, with special guest villain Onslaughter. There’ll be casualties. *** Tie-in Notes: While writing this I was very much aware of leaving big gaps of both time and narrative. For example, we don’t hear in detail how Silver Aegis follows the trail from the BALD base or how Chiaki and Lara discover the abductee mystery. Other folks are most welcome – even encouraged – to fill in the gaps if they wish. The Brotherhood in particular are there to get beaten to a pulp sooner or later. The Purveyors are there to escape from. A few more contributions would be welcome. While I welcome folks trusting me to push the story along I feel to be doing a lot of the heavy lifting here. *** Dramatis Personae: The Imperium Guard: Gladeator, the Shee-Yar superman Smusher, Yurt-class strongman Titus, giant-sized powerhouse Magica, illusion-manipulating sorceress Qua-Star, cosmic energy-projector Temptest, lord of the lightning Meantor, genius-brained force-projector Nightslide, mass teleporter and stealth specialist Fangface, feral wildman with massive healing factor Midmaid, battle-trained body multiplier GobHoblin, dexterous weird-bodied freak Astral, telepath and psychokinetic Orankle, prophetess and reality-bender Seventy or so other members not named. Emperor K’Ben, ruler of the Empire The Lair Legion (Purveyors of Peril): VelcroVixen (Vicki Vee), (q.v.) dexterous and seductive field leader Anvil Man (Brendan MacGillicuddy) (q.v.) unstoppable armoured juggernaut with remote detonation powers. The appalling Appendage Man (Milton Freebish), able to generate spontaneous monstrous limbs Brass Monkey (Gorilla Grott), evil ape scientist with the touch that transforms things to metal Grit the Granulated Man (Brick Basalt), mercenary looter composed of sand Gromm the Living Flatulence, sentient Deviate gaseous entity Dr Roentgen (Stanislaus Roentgen), Candian nuclear physicist transformed to living radiation Voodoo Vicaress (LeVeau M’Tumbe), (q.v.) zombie-controlling houngan Razor Ballerina (Mindy Kovkoski), psionic blade generating dancer whose touch and cut steel Clonar, an imperfect clone of Donar with a limited vocabulary and psychotic tendencies El Futbalista Atomico (Xatroc) Mexican footballer able to generate explosive charged-particle balls and kick them UltiMAX-TremeMan (Martin Lillard) drug-fuelled superman related to CrazySugarFreakBoy! HAGGIE (Heuristic Accelerated Genius Generated Intelligence Entity) started out as a prototype computer sentience created by Baron Zemo and now occupied a powerful if defaced robot body in the form of Hallie Suicide Blonde (Bambi Bacall), beautiful but deadly carny performer with the ability to transmute matter into other materials; cousin to Goldeneyed and Exile Doorman (alternate reality Jay Boaz), able to link any two doorways together; a secret member The Lair Legion (Juniors): Kerry Shepherdson, Dancer’s little sister, is a probability arsonist able to make things spontaneously explode or catch fire. Fashion Accessory (Samantha Bonnington) can manipulate and transmute fabrics at will. Harlagaz Donarson is the child of Ausgardian hemigod of thunder Donar Ham Boy (Fred Harris) with the ability to generate and control raw meat Denial (Danny Lyle) technically isn’t a Junior, he’s the guy dating Kerry. He’s also the Hooded Hood’s son, capable of denying recent events to prevent them from having happened, and an alternate reality version of him became the Parodyverse conquering Moderator, triggering the current series of events. The Lair Legion (Federal Metahuman Resource Centre): The Haberdasher (Captain Jason Boseman), cap-wearing commander HyperActive (Lt. Paul Pan), frenetic bouncing battler Bunny Hug (Lt. Toni/Tony Schoville), multiskilled metrosexual USAction (Master Sgt Baxter Thompson) superstrong soldier Targeter (Chief Petty Officer Jack Warringer) arrogant archer Komodo (Captain Jordan Wang) polymorphing dragon Ultimette (Lt. Ginny Taylor) lucky magic-wielding espionage expert Other Heroes: The Carnifex (Mark Carnifex), the Parodyverse’s greatest hero - apparently DupliKate (Kate [Last name unrevealed as far as I can tell]), body-multiplying civilian The Psychic Samurai (Chiaki Bushido), bodyguard and adventurer Lara Night, energy-manipulating elemental from another multiverse Silver Aegis (Scott Scoggins), shield-wielding patriotic champion of justice Jingo Belle, (Josephine Simon), PR-spawned US military superhero poster girl Alcheman (Michael Wooster) transform into combinations of elements from the tattoos on his arms PsychoAcidPervGirl! (Gwendolyn Lyons), CrazySugarFreakBoy!’s sister, with similar powers; a former villainess and member of the Purveyors Fashion Faerie (Sydney St Sylvain), size changing superhero fashion designer Action Figure (Meggan Foxxx / Melanie Hastings) CSFB!s stripper mother The groovy Gekko Girl (Alice April Apple) CSFB!’s comic-book writing wife Citizen Z, an enigma Other Villains: The Carnifex (Mark Carnifex), the Parodyverse’s greatest hero - apparently The Void Scholar, an old man who claims to be Liu Xi Xian’s ultimate grandfather Handsel and Greta Fokker, hedonistic twins running the HERPES terrorist organisation MODEM, huge-headed artificial life form running the BALD mad science group Factor X (Dr Gregor Vassilych), merchant of death and supervillain middleman Baroness Elizabeth von Zemo, scheming archvillainess Spring-Loaded Man (Armand Braithwaite), a metallic villain whose neck, limbs, and torso have been replaced by powerful coils Mr Skinner and Mr Flay, retainers of the Carnifax Wyrmfood (Tina Drummond) disfigured draconic killer with good reasons to hate the Junior Lair Legion And the Rest: Ben Ulsen, reporter Bernice Teshmaker, reporter Josie Hart, reporter Salieri Meng, seventh-smartest boy genius on the planet, survivor of the Moderatorverse Vinnie De Soth, exorcist for hire and personal feng shui consultant Commissioner Don Graham, Chief of the Paradopolis police department Brianna Anderson, the reporter who revealed Greg Burch to be the Dark Knight The Hooded Hood's Homepage of Doom Who's Who in the Parodyverse (up to date for once – read it while it’s hot!) Where's Where in the Parodyverse *** Previous Chapters: #1: “And just when did Danny find time to take over the Parodyverse?” by Dancer #2: "Sometime you have to turn flammable again!" by Visionary #3: That’s the Way the Story Goes by the Hooded Hood #4: See No Evil by the Hooded Hood #5: Whodunnit by the Hooded Hood, Visionary, Killer Shrike, and Jason #6: Suspicious Behaviour by the Hooded Hood, Jason, Hatman, and CrazySugarFreakBoy! #7: Accusation and Denial by the Hooded Hood, JJJ, Jason and L! #8: The Final Solution by the Hooded Hood and Dancer #9: The Land That Common Sense Forgot by the Hooded Hood #9.1: Adventures in Parodyverse by Jason #9.2: Chad and Ronnie by L! #9.3: “In addition to cappuccino and personal hygiene these tribespeople have not yet invented underwear.” by Dancer #9.4: Lone Lost Boy & Heroines Hanging Together by CrazySugarFreakBoy! #9.5: From Dross into Gold by Killer Shrike #9.6: Old Friends and New Allies by Visionary #9.7: Taking a Swim by L! #9.8: A Post-Swim Chat by L! #9.9: Champagne and the Land That Common Sense Forgot by Champagne #10: The Age of Villains by the Hooded Hood #10.1: Adventures in Parodyverse by Jason #10.2: The Baroness #55 by JJJ #10.3: Adventures in Parodyverse by Jason #10.4: Ewe Gotta Have Hart 1 by Killer Shrike #10.5: Ewe Gotta Have Hart 2 by Killer Shrike #11: An Age Undreamed Of by the Hooded Hood *** Original concepts, characters, and situations copyright © 2008 reserved by Ian Watson. Other Parodyverse characters copyright © 2008 to their creators. The use of characters and situations reminiscent of other popular works do not constitute a challenge to the copyrights or trademarks of those works. The right of Ian Watson to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the UK Copyright, Designs & Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved.

You have managed to think up some really nasty things to do to people, again.
I agree with Danny's pull-the-Juniors-out-before-they-die tactic, they're no good dead. But I think they should be going out and doing stuff more. Many reasons for that. Of course if they do that it's possible yhat someone might work out a way to stop them from using their escape, but that's going to take some time since it's hardly the standard teleport they're using. The one really obvious way I can think of someone doing it is picking Danny off early in the fight, which I'm sure the Purveyors will try next time, that could be got around by having Danny at the other end of the portal but then he'd not be able to join in the fight. How good is he at using his powers at range anyway? And could he use the Portal of Pretensiousness to improve on it?
There are a whole lot of quite nasty little plotlines you've got going on in the semi-background.
The Carnifax was certainly brutal, but from the moment he made his go-away-or-I'll-kill-everyone threat it was pretty obvious that that's what was going to happen. The prophesy at the end was interesting though, and the prophetess killing herself to stop him keeping his word was tragic, and a bit impressive too.
I don't know whether to be pleased or to argue that I only had a little bit to do with it.

I'm just exploring the natural consequences of the situation we've extrapolated.


Danny has certainly acquired a major strategic advantage.

The one really obvious way I can think of someone doing it is picking Danny off early in the fight, which I'm sure the Purveyors will try next time, that could be got around by having Danny at the other end of the portal but then he'd not be able to join in the fight. How good is he at using his powers at range anyway? And could he use the Portal of Pretensiousness to improve on it?

See next time, when Danny cradles his fingertips together.


Most of them came from the tie-ins or from correspondence. I should have credited L!Q for the FMRC team, for example.


But don't you think he was sporting to give them fair warning like that? He really didn't want to miss his TV programme.


You managed to come up with the major plot driver of next episode. Well done.

She really shouldn't be duped into leading superheroes to their deaths, and he shouldn't be put in grim and gritty battle scenes.

I'll make some adjustments.

It turns out I'm not getting a tax rebate after all, since an old debt from the Navy, of which I was never informed, finally came to light this year, since this was the first year I've ever qualified to get money BACK from the IRS.

I actually had to go speak at a local college course on gaming, so I only got half-way through this one before heading out the door. I came back, read the second half, then refreshed to read the comments when I found it had changed. One minor note on the change: The reason Brianna is rescued is still left over from the first version, and doesn't fit the context.

More interesting note about the change: Wow! Now I really have no idea who it is in that costume. I had thought it was Sally, but we know where she's at. I'll have to think through the remaining suspects. Can you tell me, is it definitely someone we've seen before?

A very gruesome chapter, and likely a new record in body counts for a single issue. When the Carnifex makes a point, he really likes to drive it home doesn't he? Nice to see his doom foretold, and that he was somehow thwarted in the only way poor Orankle had left.

These Purveyors are certainly the most vicious lot we've seen in a while... Not that they've ever been the cuddly sort. (Well, maybe appendage man, but he's not known for getting consent first.) Doorman's participation makes them especially dangerous... I don't see the students having much change of defeating them directly without gathering the remaining heroes for the big final showdown.

Seeing whom Liu Xi was sent for was also a surprise. I had nearly forgotten about her. She was a nasty piece of work before, and I'm guessing she hasn't mellowed much. I'm thinking she's going to be tasked with bringing about a bit of the Moderator in Danny after all, in order to free him up for dating Liu Xi...

The latest Lair Legion was an interesting take... If any heroes were going to be slaughtered, I don't really object to ones that were just introduced. However, I was actually rooting for them to escape, so you must have done something right. Although who wouldn't root for a combination of Sorcy, Dancer, Lisa, Ziles, and Troia all in one package? I hope her boyfriend is in really, really, really good shape.

Many interesting tidbits here... DupliKate! Alcheman! (Those two would make a fun pairing, actually.) Silver Aegis! (Heh... Modem was fun.) PAPG!

I'll try and find some time to add the adventures of a few of my own. All in all, a big league chapter, and quite a nice (and hefty!) treat to find waiting after work.

I'm glad to see your daughter doesn't think this was too short...wow, that's a lot of story!

I can't tell if you got the e-mail I resent or not about Doorman...regardless I'm enjoying his involvement. In fact, there are a few story elements I can pull into the Doorman series, as long as you don't have any plans for Boseman's corpse.

The Juniors are looking impressive, but unfortunately they just don't have the numbers to go up against this Purveyor's line-up.

Thanks for including DupliKate...I really need to write some more with her. I daresay I'm tempted to include her in the Doorman series but odds are that would be just plain mean.

The Carnifex sure doesn't mess around. I was definitely cheering for Gladeater to beat him; just the fact the Carnifex is a PV version of the Sentry makes me hate him. I did think while reading this you wiped out the entire Imperium Guard just to shorten the Who's Who.

Bringing back Wyrmbait was unexpected, but should lead to some scary consequences for the Juniors, especially Samantha.

I also liked Orankle sticking it to the Carnifex just to be defiant...well, I guess she stuck herself rather than the Carnifex, but you get my drift.

~Hat~

Do we get the text of the talk? Or the Powerpoint slides? Free samples?


Isn't that just like life all over?


Good catch. It's fixed now.


It's someone we've seen before, and not only in Untold Tales #315.


I didn't set out to do a gruesome issue, it just seemed to turn out that way. Originally the Carnifex part was going to be a stand-alone tie-in but it seemed to mesh with the rest of the themes so I folded it into the main story.


They've always been pretty hardcore from what I remember of them, but we're seeing them active over an extended period of time with not that much to challenge them.


All the more so since none of the good guys know he's around.


Danny voiced my opinion in this one: the Juniors were doing pretty well against even numbers of Purveyors. Once the whole of the Purveyors were onto them it was time to be somewhere else.

Mind you, you have to ask whether the current diminished line-up of Lair Legion would fare any better. Ask it fast.


Kerry and Danny have had it far too easy recently.


Actually, they have appeared before in a way, in L!'s FMRC stories. We'll cover that properly in #14.


Try not to get too attached.


I was trying to acknowledge people's efforts at tie-ins and bed them more in the ongoing storyline for some narrative unity. I meant to put Catherine Gillespie in too but forgot.


It would be good to have some more poster story input. I'm running on empty on this story by now - just at the "Why the hell did I get into this and how can I possibly tie it up?" stage - so some help would be useful.

...which is why I've been home 2 days and haven't written anything yet. I can't concentrate. It's very frustrating.

At some point Liu Xi is going to start realizing that her grandfather is working on stuff behind her back. When she does she's going to become angry.

Speaking of which, I'm sure after meeting him and getting a "creepy" vibe, Lara might be keeping a close eye on the Carnifex suddenly becoming active and wonder why. And if she learns he wiped out an entire empire...well, surprisingly she may actually realize it was necessary. But she won't tell the Lair Legion that, or say why to anyone who isn't a close friend (she always had the feeling they were fixated on destroying Earth, and sometimes heavy-handed measures are necessary).

I got a laugh out of Chiaki dispensing with excuses and telling Don Graham the blunt truth. Though it's not that she had much to lose by doing that.

It certainly seems to be sprawling out.


I seem to be having trouble receieving e-mail from some PVB posters. You could try hh at chillwater . demon. co . uk and see if that works any better than the others.

And Boseman's corpse is yours.


Whereas the current LL do?


Right now she's safe wherever Chiaki and Lara hid her - possibly St Jude's Orphanage since Chiaki's on retainer from Champagne to protect that place.


Busted.

Actually, where possible these days I try to steer the PV away from direct copies of existing comics characters. In the Imperium Guard's case they were pretty much directly lifted from a team who themsleves were meant to be a homage lift from DC's Legion of Super-Heroes. Since nobody's used the Guard since AG's early stories except me I decided we might manage without them. But as always, if somebody feels different they only have to write a story that brings them back. A bunch of them got slaughtered by the Parody Master too, so they've evidently got a Ra's Al Ghul-style Resurrection Pit stowed somewhere in what was the Shee-Yar Empire.


That's the plan. It's not like we need the Juniors anymore.


I wanted to show that even with all that power he can't always get his own way. Now he missed his TV shows for nothing.

I have that problem all the time. I think it's early onset Alzheimer's.


He's acting like a traditional Chinese patriarch and telling her only what is good for her, while making arrangements about her which he feels no need to discuss. He's expecting obedience and submission in exchange for which he will see to her best interests as he determines them. It's an old East vs new West culture clash.


He's the world's most powerful superhero. Naturally he'd fly in to save the day against the alien invaders who wanted to conquer the Earth. Hurrah for him!


The Carnifex has effectively established that Earth is a very bad place to mess with. On the one hand it's going to keep a lot of small fry away from the solar system. On the other it's put Earth to the top of the list of cosmic menaces with Galactivac and Thugos.


Why would she lie to Graham? He's smart enough to know when to work with people who can do things he can't or isn't allowed to. Unfortunately he's also smart enough to ask the uncomfortable questions till he gets answers too.

Or it's just because my head feels like it weighs a ton and my eyes are teary, and I can't stay awake for long.



Actually it would be two Eastern cultures clashing, if you consider modern sensibilities. Liu Xi likely looks up to Chiaki as an example, since Chiaki comes from the most similar culture - and Chiaki is strong, independent, irrepressible, and impossible to push around, while still being polite, friendly and while she denies it, somewhat heroic.



Even so, Lara remembers him as being a little creepy. She doesn't really push that much, though, because she also senses that nobody really agrees with that assessment. It's one of those things where you feel like something isn't right, but say nothing because nobody else seems to notice.

Though because of that, Lara will most likely let him go about his business and watch quietly until he does something to justify the 'creepy' vibe.



This is where I get to tell a little story of how Lara realizes these things: Back home, while she's not exactly a full cosmic being, it's like she's in the back seat watching cosmic beings drive the universe.

That means she's been trained to recognize things, to see very large, complex plans in action and sometimes figure them out.

In this case, Lara probably recognized the constant Shee-Yar escalation every time they've been defeated by the Lair Legion, and their obsession with destroying Earth. It's quite simple to "do the math" at that point - sooner or later, the Shee-Yar would get some kind of edge and destroy Earth.

That's why Lara, while she might not like the solution the Carnifex had, she might reluctantly agree with it. The currently Lair Legion strategy with the dangerous Shee-Yar was to occasionally defeat them somehow and then turn a blind eye to their military advancement until they tried to hit Earth again. Lara sees that as an unsound strategy, because sooner or later it'll be too late. Of course, that's where Lara's biggest fault comes into play - she doesn't really have the heart to do drastic "necessary" things like wiping out an empire.



Chiaki never needs to lie - the truth hurts more, after all. And if someone asks her a question she doesn't want to answer, she just ignores it.

She might make excuses in certain cases though, that aren't lies. For instance instead of "we're rifling through your files" she could have said "I needed to use your computer" and dispense with the detail.

With the notable exception of the Shoggoth. No voulenteers?


I can't help feeling that this will come back to bite him somehow.


Sorry. I actually started working on the other story, and then ended up with a wonderful little cold that has crapped up my thought processes completely, so I haven't done mutch on that either...

That's weird, I replied to the message you sent regarding those scenes rather than write a new one, hoping it would get through then. At this point I don't think they're needed anymore, so unless you want to see them for personal interest don't worry about them.


Excellent. I'm on Page 3 of the next Doorman chapter which catches the series up to the Saving The Future series.


Well, if the two teams combined we'd be getting closer to only 2-1 odds.


Kate could staff the entire thing by herself if the other staff are unable to get to work due to the crime wave hitting the city.


I didn't realize they were based on the Legion, but that makes sense. I knew Gladiator was a Superman-rip at least.

I should probably do something to distinguish Gamma Ray Gary from Beta Ray Bill at some point. And while it was unintentional, D'ur almost seems like a copy of Kyle Rayner.




Hopefully you mean they graduate from the Juniors program and they're not all wiped out.


I hope Lara blacked out the power to his place so his Tivo didn't work.

~Hat~

Before I make my comments, a few times early on in the issue, the Shee-Yar are listed as the Shi'Ar. But that mistake was a small one & was corrected in their later references.

On to my comments: I would have like to have seen A-Class/ The Lair Legion been around for a few stories before getting the stuffing beat out of them. But I do like what you did with my half thought out notes about the them (I would have never thought of assigning each a Military class but it works!) I look forward to seeing what happens next to them.

Bring on Part 13! I might get a tie-in before I leave for a week & half (Visiting Family). I've got some ideas (Dury & Ronnie is the most time sensitive idea, the rest can wait).

EDIT: I've now posted a story that I had written early but hadn't posted since I didn't want the top 3 posts on the Board to be from me. The story does kind of, maybe, sort of ties in with this.

No DNA.


Let's hope so. I wanted to show off different aspects of the Carnifex in this story, and his yearning for honour and his apparently flippant response to being thwarted are part of it.


Sally's got a similar cold. It's not helping her temper.

It's a reflection that Liu Xi might want to have "on screen" sometime. On the one hand, her "grandfather" is filling a void she must have had in her disrupted and somewhat lonely life, offering all those family belonging/protection moments she's never had. On the other, the price he demands for it is that she surrenders up the contemporary and Western perspectives she's been exposed to.

> > > Speaking of which, I'm sure after meeting him and getting a "creepy" vibe, Lara might be keeping a close eye on the Carnifex suddenly becoming active and wonder why. > > He's the world's most powerful superhero. Naturally he'd fly in to save the day against the alien invaders who wanted to conquer the Earth. Hurrah for him! > Even so, Lara remembers him as being a little creepy. She doesn't really push that much, though, because she also senses that nobody really agrees with that assessment. It's one of those things where you feel like something isn't right, but say nothing because nobody else seems to notice. > Though because of that, Lara will most likely let him go about his business and watch quietly until he does something to justify the 'creepy' vibe.

Then she gets to live.

> > The Carnifex has effectively established that Earth is a very bad place to mess with. On the one hand it's going to keep a lot of small fry away from the solar system. On the other it's put Earth to the top of the list of cosmic menaces with Galactivac and Thugos. > This is where I get to tell a little story of how Lara realizes these things: Back home, while she's not exactly a full cosmic being, it's like she's in the back seat watching cosmic beings drive the universe. > That means she's been trained to recognize things, to see very large, complex plans in action and sometimes figure them out. > In this case, Lara probably recognized the constant Shee-Yar escalation every time they've been defeated by the Lair Legion, and their obsession with destroying Earth. It's quite simple to "do the math" at that point - sooner or later, the Shee-Yar would get some kind of edge and destroy Earth.

Actually, I think the Shee-Yar has only ever been aggressive against Earth twice before this, when they and many of the star-empires were under the control of Lord Resolution, who had an ability to lock into a genetic obedience code designed by the Celestians into almost all life, and when they were enslaved as part of the Parody Master's dominion and troops had to fight because their homeworlds were hostage for teir endeavours.

What's changed this time is that the Emperess Lie'and'Dry has gone and he brother now rules the Imperium.

> That's why Lara, while she might not like the solution the Carnifex had, she might reluctantly agree with it. The currently Lair Legion strategy with the dangerous Shee-Yar was to occasionally defeat them somehow and then turn a blind eye to their military advancement until they tried to hit Earth again. Lara sees that as an unsound strategy, because sooner or later it'll be too late. Of course, that's where Lara's biggest fault comes into play - she doesn't really have the heart to do drastic "necessary" things like wiping out an empire.

It's the classic situation of picking on a big bully and flattening him to warn others to back off and not disturb you.

I'm looking forward eventually to chronicling the effects of the sudden removal of arguably the most powerful remaining local galactic civilisation. There's certainly going to be some territory-grabbing, but it also opens the way for us to introduce new races from the space on the far side of Shee-Yar territory. We need some new star-faring villains anyhow.

> Chiaki never needs to lie - the truth hurts more, after all. And if someone asks her a question she doesn't want to answer, she just ignores it. > She might make excuses in certain cases though, that aren't lies. For instance instead of "we're rifling through your files" she could have said "I needed to use your computer" and dispense with the detail.

Evading his questions probably isn't the way to get Graham's co-operation.