Saving the Future – Part 22: Plot Points Previously: The Lair Legion, their island headquarters, and the SPUD helicarrier have been missing for four weeks, and the criminal fraternity of the world is enjoying a world without heroes. The villainous Purveyors of Peril masquerade as a new Lair Legion and are hunting down lone remaining heroes. Alcheman has fought back, rescuing villainess Mary Prankstar from her former team-mates and capturing Purveyors’ field leader VelcroVixen. A new generation of would-be Legion were devastated to discover that they were actually short-life memory-faked clones doomed to destruction. The Junior Lair Legion have tried to investigate the disappearance of the heroes, but their attempts went awry when Kerry and Vinnie were influenced by a psionic loveray, leading to Kerry’s separation from Danny and Danny’s increasing isolation. Vinnie has also taken this badly, travelling to his brother’s upstate Gothametropolis mansion and usurping occult artefacts and powers for some as-yet-unrevealed purpose. The Void Scholar’s plans to seduce Celestian Madonna Samantha Bonnington, Fashion Accessory, in the guise of movie mogul Val Vortex, proceed apace. Previous Chapters The Hooded Hood's Homepage of Doom Who's Who in the Parodyverse ***     The former firehouse in Gothametropolis’ crowded Sixways district was cluttered these days, ever since it had been recommissioned as the laboratory and headquarters of weird science group Extraordinary Endeavour Enterprises. These days the main open space was packed with bizarre dimensional transfer apparatus. Steel-mesh balconies were draped with high energy cables. Enigmatic machines bubbled black dots into the air.     But right now the old building was even more chaotic than usual, and the atmosphere was rich not only with tension but with the scents of people who have worked for over a month without taking much time to clean up pizza boxes. Or shower.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Everybody check in,” called Miss Framlicker, co-owner of EEE with the missing Al. B. Harper. Her usually well-coiffed hair was hanging loose and needed a wash, and she spoke with the fevered intensity of a genius finally unleashed.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Okay, I’ve modelled the time-space currents around Parody Island when it vanished and since and configured them into a 5D vector analysis map,” reported Kara Harper, speaking faster and louder than usual because of her caffeine high. In the future she’d come from such stimulants were illegal. “We should have a pretty perfect picture at last of what happened when those alien columns grew up around the site, and what they did to the Mansion.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Confirmed,” admitted her not-quite-brother Cody Harper. He was sat cross-legged inside a ring of free-standing monitors and hologram emitters where he’d patched together translations of the pre-Earth glyphs carved on the black stone monoliths that had burrowed up around the headquarters of the Lair Legion just before it had vanished. “And I’ve locked the instruction glyphs into the gematra database and I’m stapling that to interface with the waveform map. And then I’ve really gotta take a bathroom break.”     Amy Aston was even oilier and grubbier than usual, and she spoke from inside the warpspace vector generator where she’d squeezed to make a last minute adjustment with a large mallet. “Yeah, I’ve got ever single dimension-twisting machine in the building linked in series, and we’re ready to blow up a good part of the continent if we get this wrong,” she confirmed, hitching her dungaree strap back up over her shoulder and damping down a small instrument pack fire by her left elbow. “Bring it on.”     Miss Framlicker turned to the stick-thin man with the greying temples who was watching the output boards and absently stroking his hands over his jowls. “Dr Wrichards?”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Hmm,” the being in the shape of one of Earth’s greatest scientific minds replied. “Very good. Frighteningly good, in fact. I never imagined you could possibly get this far.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Well we did,” snapped Kara. “I’m a mathematical genius, Amy can terrify machinery into behaving, Miss F is smarter than she likes to pretend, and Cody… well, he was here too. So let’s go. Give with the operation codes.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“What Kara’s trying to say in her own graceless classless way,” interjected Cody, “is that we’re all just waiting for you to give us the reverso-ray instructions so we can dig into the vortex after our missing island and tractor it back where it belongs. Before every gadget in this room explodes would be good.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Yes, well…” hesitated the Space Fandom in the shape of Weed Wrichards, “yes, input the following co-ordinates.” He sent the codes to Miss F.     Her hands danced over her keyboard. “Done,” she called. “Hit the big red button, Doctor Wrichards.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Why does it always have to be red?” demanded Kara. “Why not some kind of comforting green? Or lilac?”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“It’s so we know just how screwed we are,” Amy snapped. “Now shut up and let’s do this stupid thing.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“So no bathroom break first?” clarified Cody.     The Space Fandom allowed himself to chuckled as he activated the array. “Done-one-one,” he gloated. “But not what you think is done, foolish humans.”     Amy clawed her way out from the maintenance conduit. It was starting to get hot in there, and while she was immune to all kinds of radiant energy her overalls weren’t, and that was all she was wearing. “Uh oh,” the EEE engineer said, “looks like trouble.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Looks like those codes Dr Wrichards gave us didn’t do what they were meant to,” agreed Kara, hastily running some numbers. “In fact instead of dragging Parody Island back to Earth they were meant to send the whole firehouse into Comic-book Limbo to join it.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Comic-Book Limbo?” Wrichards asked. “Who said anything about…”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Dude, I was stuck there for weeks in the Parody War,” Cody explained. “I know all about that place. I know about the Hero Feeders. I know about the Space Fandoms.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“That’s why we didn’t input your codes,” Miss Framlicker explained to their visitor. “Instead we just stood you on a genetic analysis mesh so we could verify that you actually are a Space Fandom, then calculated a genetic over-ride code to lock you in place as our prisoner, then used the dimensional projector apparatus array to extend that genetic lock to every other incarnation of a Space Fandom across time and space, taking you all down at once.”     Amy whanged the Space Fandom across the stomach with a No 9 wrench. “Not bad for foolish humans, huh?” she challenged.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Ow-wow-wow-wow-wow!” winced the Fandom, reverting to his default form of a weedy ferret-faced humanoid with clammy reptilian hands. As he dropped his disguise the original template for it was automatically released from temporary storage in Comic-Book Limbo. The real Weed Wrichards appeared beside the Space Fandom on the holding mesh and looked around him.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Timespace array to project a neutralisation field to Space Fandoms across the continuum,” he summarised, catching on with a glance. “Good move.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“And now we get to ask this thing some questions,” Cody noted, moving over to take the Fandom by its lapels and shake it. “Like where my dad is.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“And whether he knows how painful an omni-diode gun is,” added Kara.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“And how we really get the Legion back,” Amy chimed in.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“And who’s behind all of this,” considered Miss Framlicker.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Behind this?” The Void Scholar appeared from nowhere, ignoring the sophisticated defence screens around the Sixways firehouse because to him they were antique. “Why that would be me. Well done, everyone. I’m impressed.”     Nobody could reply because they were all held in personal temporal holding bubbles.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Why this plan might actually have worked,” the Scholar admitted. “But I can’t allow that.” He reconfigured Miss Framlicker’s console with the co-ordinates the Space Fandom had originally given, then pushed the big red button again. “Goodbye.”     Extraordinary Endeavour Enterprises vanished away and was lost. ***     Ham-Boy blinked as he suddenly found himself in sunlight. After the constant gloom of grey Herringcarp Asylum it was quite a shock. “Hey, we’re back!” he cried, looking round at the surf-sprayed rocky shore and the long strand of pebbly beach leading off to the distant settlement of Willingham. Behind him Visionary’s stubby lighthouse rose up into an azure sky.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Danny evicted us!” frothed Kerry Shepherdson. “He wasn’t even listening to me, just interested in scoring cheap points then dumping me like…”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Like somebody who cheated on him?” asked Fashion Accessory. She was hastily checking that all her parts had been properly transferred when Denial had used the Portal of Pretentiousness to shift them away from his father’s Asylum. Passing through the Portal was never a comfortable experience.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Cheated on him?” This was the first Harlagaz Donarson had heard of Kerry’s recent problem with Vinnie de Soth. “Who hast cheatethed? And at what?”     Salieri Meng, seventh-smartest boy genius on the planet, had no patience for domestic drama. “Hmm. So why did he return us to this transdimensional beacon lighthouse?” he mused. “It’s Kerry’s putative home, yes, but it’s also a fixed point in timespace, even though it tends to wobble a little between the Willingham shore and the former location of Parody Island. So what was he trying to say in sending us here?”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“He was saying get lost,” Kerry shouted. “Look, no secrets, right? Danny was pissed because Vinnie and I did the nasty together. I don’t know why we did it, but we did. Maybe something to do with that weird lab we checked out. But yeah, I betrayed Danny, and yeah, I feel crappy about it, and yeah, I think that means its over between us.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“De Soth,” hissed Harlagaz. “I see-eth.” He cracked his knuckles.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Big picture time, big guy,” Ham-Boy advised. “Vinnie’s not really like that, is he? Kerry’s right that something must have caused this.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Genetics?” suggested FA. “I mean, you’ve met Sarah, right?”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Shut up, Casting-Couch Girl,” snarled Kerry. “At least I wasn’t trying to get a movie role off Vinnie.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Hey, I was just trying to lighten things up, Kare,” Samantha Bonnington objected. “I know you’re hurting, but no need to take it out on your friends. Your remaining friends.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“But your remaining friends wilt smite Vinnie for the nonce,” promised Gaz. “And then Danny.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Um, that big picture you talked about,” interrupted Salieri Meng. “Does it include asking why the door to your lighthouse is open, and who that is moving about inside there?” ***     Wyrmfood stepped through the flames she’d set blazing with her fire-breath. She deliberately trod on the burning corpses. She liked how they squished.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Sorry, but your terms of sale are not acceptable,” she told the BALD technicians who were now burning smears. She hefted the apparatus she’d commissioned from then and laughed. “Any objections if I just take this? I thought not.” ***     April Apple and Meggan Foxxx exchanged worried glances as there was a tap on the door. Nobody was supposed to know that they’d taken refuge in this quiet Oregon woods-cabin owned by Sydney St Sylvain.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“It’s okay,” a reassuring voice called through the door. “It’s me!”     April answered the knock. “Jay!” she greeted the visitor. “Come in. Meg’s just putting Iris and Ollie down for the night. How did you find us?”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Detective hat,” Doorman lied, following April into the two-room house, admiring her backside. “I needed to check you were okay.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Things were getting a bit hot in Seattle,” April admitted. “Then Gwendy went missing and we just can’t find her, and Mr Book recommended that we, well, book for a while.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“The Purveyors of Peril seem to be targeting secondary superheroes associated with the Lair Legion,” Jay admitted. “It’s getting pretty nasty. I guess they’ve already got PsychoAcidPervGirl!”     April looked unhappy. “Then we’ve got to rescue her, right? Can you detect where she is too? I’ll go get my costume…”     Doorman shook his head. “I can’t save PAPG! It’s already too late. And… I guess you heard about Dream?”     Meggan Foxxx joined them quietly closing the intervening door to the bedroom where her son and granddaughter were sleeping. “I heard some noise about him dying to save everyone again,” she admitted sceptically. “Did you see the body?”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“I saw it, Meggan. I’m sorry. This time it was real.”     April looked stricken, but CSFB!’s mom shook her head. “It was real the other twenty times as well. I’ll just keep a candle burning.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“What about you though, Jay?” frowned April. “How did you get back? You seem… different somehow.”     Doorman grinned. “I guess tragedy changes a man. But I’m holding up. And as soon as I’d started to take a hold of events back here on Earth I knew I needed to pay Dream’s grieving widow a special visit.”     Something in Jay’s tone made Meggan frown. She’d heard that note in men’s voices before – but usually from paying customers. “I guess I’d like a few more details about what happened with my Dream,” she insisted. “A lot more details, in fact.”     Doorman shrugged. “Like what?”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Like who you think you’re fooling pretending to be Hatman,” she hissed, springing and pinning Doorman to the wall.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Meggan, what…?” demanded April Alice Apple, surprised by Meggan’s sudden assault.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“He’s not Jay, honey. Remember when Hatman was on TV, talking about shape-stealing Space Fandoms? Well I reckon…”     She said no more, since Doorman used his door-manipulating gifts to shut off the blood supply to her brain for a moment, pitching her to unconsciousness at his feet. Then he kicked her.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“So, she’s not as dumb as she looks,” the other-reality evil Jay Boaz admitted. “Who’d have guessed?”     April Alice Apple came at him, but he’d already stepped back across the threshold of the cabin and vanished as he passed the doorway.     From the other room, Iris Paintbrush Sunrise Foxglove began crying.     April kicked open the intervening door. Doorman grinned and threw the two infants at her.     As she reached for them they passed the frame of the internal doorway and vanished.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Oops,” Doorman grinned. “Teleporter hat.”     April’s first instinct was to leap on Boaz and twist his head off. But she knew better. “Where are they?” she demanded. “Bring them back!”     Jay shrugged. “You ever been to an Eastern European zoo? They really starve those big cats. And you know those metal bins they put live food in, with timers so the animals can get to the kid or the calf or whatever when the clock pings and the trap springs open?”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Bring them back.”     Behind April, Meggan staggered back to her feet. “What?”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Meg, he’s taken Iris and Ollie!”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“But I can bring them back again,” offered Doorman. “After a little hot three-way action, I’m thinking.” He checked his watch. “Better be good and better be fast, though. Not long till feeding time.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Or,” suggested April,” I could squeeze your balls until you beg to bring them back!” She leaped at Doorman – but that took her across the threshold. She vanished as she leaped.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Wow, what a waste,” said Boaz. “And I’d been looking forward to a slice of that big fat pie.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“What’d you do?” demanded Meggan. She reached into a drawer and pulled a handgun. “Won’t be the first time I’ve shot dead someone who’s messed with me and mine.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“What I did, honestly, was teleport your kids and freckles there about as far away as I can manage. And now they’re dying, if they’re not already dead. You know the Dark Knight once had a secret base on the planet Pluto? Well it used to be a planet. The base got nuked as the Parody War hotted up, but there’s still some doorways there, pointing out into hard vacuum and absolute zero. That’s where your family’s gone, baby.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Bring them back,” Meggan Foxxx demanded, her hand trembling. “Bring them back and I’ll do anything you want.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Sounds great,” admitted Doorman. “Problem is it doesn’t work that way. They’ve got to be brought back through the doorway. Somebody’s got to go get them.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“I’ll get them. Open the doorway.”     Doorman chuckled. “If you insist. Door’s open then. Knock yourself out.”     Meggan took a deep breath and plunged through the doorway. She vanished.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Actually, in absolute zero you last maybe three seconds,” he told nobody as he shut the door behind her. “Should have gone for the three-way, ladies.” ***     The Juniors crashed through the door into the circular hallway of Visionary’s lighthouse, accompanied by a clap of thunder and a spray of table meats. “Hold, foul felons!” screamed Harlagaz. “Prepare to…”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Well, it’s about time you lot got here,” scolded Asil Ashling. “Where on Earth have you been?”     Ham-Boy, Kerry, FA, and Harlagaz skidded to a halt (rather slippily given the table meats) as they recognised the people occupying the room. Salieri Meng peered round to door after them and sighed.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Where have we been?” Kerry demanded crossly. “Where have you been? We called Mumph’s house!”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Well, I’ve been trying not to get caught by Purveyors of Peril pretending to be the New Lair Legion,” answered Asil. “I thought it best not to leave a forwarding address.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Well same here,” argued Fashion Accessory. “Although I have been checking my e-mails and Facebook.”     The Abyssal Greye shuffled away from the ancient carvings he was examining and nodded to her. “I’m afraid that in the tunnels of the dead beneath Gothametropolis we have not yet converted to broadband,” he admitted. “Miss Ashling has been somewhat incommunicado, except for contact with the Lunar Public Library – and it appears to be operating on somewhat meagre and eccentric automatic systems.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Eeek!” FA shrieked as the dressing-gown clad scholar-ghoul approached her.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“It’s okay,” Ham-Boy told her. “The Abyssal is a good kind of undead. He’s more into books than bone marrow.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“It’s not that he’s an undead,” Samantha shuddered. “It’s those old plaid slippers. Ugh!”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Tell me about it,” agreed Urthula Underess, appearing from the little doorway to the cellar and caves beneath the tower. The party ghoul wore a little red dress with some tasteful silver accessories that seemed quite in keeping until one realised they were possibly silvered body parts. “Anyway, we’ve been trying to sort out what happened to the Lair Legion so we decided to start by prodding the one bit of architecture that had somehow associated itself with the Lair Mansion defences.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Ah,” nodded Harlagaz sagely. “We didst begin by seeking out yon felons and smitething them until they wert like unto pulp. But none of them didst explain what the plot wast.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“But we didn’t resort to the living dead,” FA added sourly. “Well, maybe Danny, given how he’s getting with that mirror. And there was that ghost that De Soth was chatting up before he went for…”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“What have you discovered?” Kerry demanded quickly.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Like I said, you don’t need to worry about these undead,” Ham-Boy assured Samantha. “They’re with Asil.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Yeah, any guy I eat enjoys it,” Urthula promised.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“And the Scholar-Ghouls devour only the finest brains to add to our collegium,” Greye clarified. “You are all quite safe.” Then he spotted Salieri Meng. “Except him,” he added.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“We’ve been studying what happened when the Mansion disappeared,” Asil summarised. “And why the Lighthouse didn’t. And we thought you’d be here, where Visionary told you to stay.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“We hid out in Herringcarp.,” Kerry answered shortly.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“We thought maybe if we stayed here the bad guys would come looking to get us,” HB explained.     Harlagaz looked hurt. “We couldst have stayed here and been attacked?” he objected.     Salieri was examining the long chalked equations that the Abyssal had drawn across the walls. “You’ve been trying to work out how the Lighthouse has a bilocational aspect and how that’s linked with the tides and its original purpose,” he noted.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Why yes,” agreed the Abyssal, putting a welcoming arm around the boy genius. “Come and see.”     There was another footfall up the cellar steps and Dr Blargelslarch heaved his round amphibian bulk through the narrow door. These narrow passages hadn’t been designed for an alien archaeologist from Frammistat VIII. “Ah, I see we’ve got guests,” he noted, surveying the newly-arrived Juniors and reserving specially charming smiles for Kerry and FA. “You’ve picked a splendid time to come. I think I’ve decoded those rugose carvings beside the squamous sculptures.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“And that art good?” checked Harlagaz.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“It means we might finally discover where the hidden chamber is and how it works,” explained Urthula.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Oh please, open it up, Dr Blargelslarch!” cried Asil, clapping her hands together.     The reptile folded his webbed hands together, bent his fingers backwards until they cracked, then carefully traced along the hall wall carvings, pausing at various points to press various concealed stud-stones.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“What are we looking for?” Kerry asked suspiciously. She was still angry over her sudden eviction from Herringcarp, and so far she’d had no chance to detonate anything.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Well, Asil brought us all together to research the ancient truths no single arcane scholar could research,” smirked Urthula.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“I can’t believe you people concealed this archaeological treasure from me for so long,” scolded Blargelslarch. “This has got to be the Lost Lighthouse of V’narum from the Uspid Nebula. How it got here to Earth like this is going to take a lifetime’s research.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“This isn’t going to get scholarly, is it?” worried Fashion Accessory.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Oh yes,” approved the Abyssal Greye happily, indicating the two crates of notes he’d taken so far. “You see, somewhere around two and a quarter billion years ago…”     Urthula interrupted. “The short form is there was this big nebula and it had this lighthouse in the middle, warning people of dangers. Then the nebula vanished. But there were still accounts of that Lighthouse, in those moon libraries, with the Observers, on tourist itineries, the usual. And it looked a bit like this – or at least this looks like part of it.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“What dangers?” demanded Ham-Boy.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“What dangers?” demanded Harlagaz happily.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Oh, what most lighthouses warn you about,” Dr Blargelslarch noted, still fussing with wall studs. “They’re a high fixed place with a beacon warning about navigational hazards. In the case of the V’narum Light it was set there to keep people away from dimensional sinkholes to Comic-Book Limbo.”     Salieri Meng’s mouth dropped open. “Of course! That explains how it resisted the dimension shift that took the island. It’s specially protected. And it explains why its location is slightly variable, because its got to float like a buoy to keep its true place. And now we have a really serious clue about where the Lair Legion ended up!”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“They went to Comic-Book Limbo?” Asil asked in horror. “But why?”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Let’s find out,” suggested Blargelslarch. He pressed a final stud but nothing happened. “Um…”     Asil moved forward. “I think maybe that would be specially set to only work for certain people,” she guessed. “Let me try.”     There was a grinding sound as a section of wall slid back. Everybody present braced themselves.     A two inch square panel flicked open beside the front door.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Well, that was anticlimactic,” complained Kerry.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“I was expecting something bigger,” agreed Urthula. “But how many times have I had to say that?”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“There’s something in there,” Salieri Meng noted. “Some kind of scroll?”     Blargelslarch started hunting for acid-free rubber gloves to handle the ancient manuscript. Harlagaz picked it up and read it.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Tis from Champagne and Grace O’ Mercy,” he called out to the Juniors. “They say hello and here art some instructions.” ***     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Well?” demanded Wyrmfood dangerously.     Cosmic appraiser Rupert Weissman didn’t feel too safe even behind the reinforced plate glass of his pawnshop booth. He knew how close to the edge the insane Tina Drumond was – exactly how close – and he knew he’d have to be very careful.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“It’s the real thing,” he confirmed, handing back the device that Wyrmfood had taken from the SPUD base. “Originally conceived by Victor von Doom, refined by Baron Heinrich Zemo, stolen by Erskine Blofish, never actually used. It can do what you want.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“What I want…” Wyrmfood’s scorched lipless mouth turned upwards into a rictus grin. Old burn scabs cracked sending new trickles of blood down her chin. “So this is a genuine, permanent-effect, mind transfer device? With this I can exchange bodies and powers with the probability arsonist Kerry Shepherdson forever? I become her and she gets trapped in this peeled, pain-wracked ruin for all eternity?”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“That is what the device can do.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Just like the Void Scholar promised,” giggled Tina. “Do you know, if this body gets buried it doesn’t die. It can live till the end of time, just like that? But I know how to hurt it more, so it’s worse than that. I’ve been experimenting with pain. I wouldn’t want to let that Shepherdson bitch off easily. Oh no!”     Weissman said nothing. He’d received his fee. He didn’t do freebies.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Everything’s prepared,” Wyrmfood chuckled. “A way to cripple Harlagaz. A way to cripple Ham-Boy. A trap to break Sammy’s heart and enslave her in misery and torment for all her days. Now it’s showtime!” ***     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Just to be clear,” said the diabolical Dr Moo, “this is a hologram of me, and the entire milk carton factory you’ve invaded is set to explode in exactly six minutes. If you have anything to say to me you’d better speak quickly, but please be aware that when I worked on you as part of my amnesty deal with the US Government I was very explicit about not offering a warranty.”     USAction, Ultimette, and Komodo had battled through rabid cow-monster hybrids, lethal lactose dispensers, some very unpleasant bull derivatives, and a host of the mad geneticist’s back catalogue to reach what they thought was her laboratory and this wasn’t what they’d expected.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“We need to talk to you!” Ultimette called out. “You set up the equipment that was used to create us. You’re the only one who can help us now!”     Daio Waltz shook her head. “Actually I’m not. Nobody can help you the way you want to be helped. I told your boss that when he complained about the short lifespans you have.” She looked over he shoulder at some unseen situation in whatever lab she was actually in. “Davidowicz, package that device and get it off to Wyrmfood. She’s eager to get on with crippling her enemies and I’m fed up of fielding her phone calls.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“You’ve created other clones,” objected Komodo. “Asil Ashling and a version of E-Male, for example. They don’t have limited lives.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“They don’t have artificially implanted super-powers, either,” Dr Moo answered them. “That’s the tricky part, you see. USAction there has a genetic link-line to Mr Epitome, allowing him to filter a tiny fraction of the Divine Spark that powers Dominic Clancy into his own biofield. You, Komodo, are pulling Makluan psionic force from Fin Fang Foom in whatever dimension he happens to be in now. Ultimette is dragging tiny amounts of capacity from Dancer, Ziles, Troia, and Sorceress, which is all down to my absolute brilliance. Well, maybe a little due to the Red Watchman’s tech, but only a little bit.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“You’re saying our powers are what are killing us?” challenged USAction.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“In effect. The power-links are burning your lifeforce up. There’s no other way for you to have them. I can’t fix it.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“What if we didn’t have our powers?” asked Ultimette.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Then it’d still be too late,” Moo told them. “You have to believe me. There is no cure for you. You have weeks left at the most. Or three minutes if you don’t clear my factory in time.”          Ã¢â‚¬Å“Then what do we do?” demanded Komodo.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Go left down the corridor you came in by. Step over the udder-drones, head left again by the bull-fighters…”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“What do we do now we know we’re born to die,” Ultimette clarified.     The diabolical Dr Moo took off her cow helmet and looked a little sad for the first time. “Everybody is born to die,” she told them. “That’s why we live. You get to do the same. Make it matter.” She glanced at her watch. “One minute. I can promise you a quick ending if that’s what you want.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Or,” called Citizen Z from the doorway, “you could come with me.” ***     Ã¢â‚¬Å“This is the place,” Kerry Shepherdson shuddered as she lead Ham-Boy and Harlagaz into the abandoned high security laboratory filled with corpses. “Salieri, are you getting all of this on the webcam?”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Yes, it’s a real treat,” came back the sarcastic voice of the seventh-smartest boy genius on the planet. He was smart enough to be sitting in Visionary’s lighthouse monitoring things from across the country. Behind him the Abyssal Grey pottered at his calculations with an occasional expert glance at Meng’s cranium.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“This art most bizarre,” Harlagaz admitted, staring down at the entangled skeletons.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“They probably starved to death,” Meng reported, checking his sensors. “I think… well, I think they were all too busy having sex to stop and eat or drink.”     Kerry sighed. “Yeah, that can happen,” she admitted.     Ham-Boy looked uncertainly at the wrecked bio-lab. “So they were all investigating some bizarre alien creepy and then they all took time out for an impromptu orgy and boinked themselves to death?”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Tis like unto something the Enthrallress might do,” Gaz noted, slightly enviously.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“The Lair Legion has met several emotion-affecting psionics,” Meng reported. He scanned through the database he’d borrowed off a SPUD remote site at Area 51. “But the one that best fits the profile is a being called Dr Loveray.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Loveray?” frowned Kerry. “Wasn’t he the one who zapped G-Eyed and Lisette so that Bry got Laurie pregnant?”     Ham-Boy looked around nervously and checked his ham-cowl was properly fastened.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Loveray was an alien swarm being that could pour himself into human shape,” Meng summarised. “If this lab was examining him – that would have to be before he escaped and joined Colonel Destiny’s Carnival – then what happened there might have been his big finale revenge before he left.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Couldst his influence hath still lingered here e’en after all that time?” wondered Harlagaz. “Yon Vinnie de Soth wast seeking psychic impressions. Yon spirits were still affected by the deathly passions which they hadst received. Couldst that have infected Kerry and Vinnie?”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Vinnie didn’t sense any kind of occult influence on us,” Kerry admitted. “Mind you, I was kind of distracting him at the time.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“There wouldn’t be any occult influence if it was Dr Loveray,” Salieri Meng argued. “He’s a scientist. His powers are based on scientific principles, psionic mood manipulation, pheromone-based hind-brain programming.”     A cockroach skittered across the lab wall. Harlagaz crushed it.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“So what are we saying?” Kerry demanded. “That Vinnie and me got zapped by some old trap of Dr Loveray’s and that what we felt wasn’t us? That we’re not responsible?” For a moment she allowed herself to hope, until she remembered the look in Danny’s eyes.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Well, something clearly happened here,” Ham-Boy pointed out. “Vinnie never worked out how the trail you were following ended up bringing you here anyhow, did he? Why this long-sealed off lab? Was that part of the trap?”     Suddenly the link with Visionary’s lighthouse was cut off.     The lab lights went off.     The lab was illuminated by the flames of exploding control panels. Kerry had only been waiting for an excuse.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Watch out!” Ham-Boy called, spotting the floating weapons platform decloaking. He smothered the nearest to him in a shower of offal but that was what the machine had been waiting for. HB cried aloud and bent over clutching his stomach as the machine locked onto his psychic signature and turned his powers against him.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Treachery!” shouted Gaz. He ripped a section of wall free to shield himself from the platform behind him, but the weapon punched through and tangled him in a neural web that robbed him of conscious muscle control; the first stage in a process specially designed to permanently sear away every nerve and muscle in his immortal frame.     Kerry felt something like a gnat bite into the back of her neck. Then she found her ability to access her powers was blocked.     Wyrmfood dropped the invisibility shield around herself and stalked towards the powerless probability arsonist. “A bit skanky,” the blister-covered dragongirl judged, checking her new body donor, “but I like skanky.”     Kerry checked her companions. One was rolling in agony, the other flopping in nerveless spasm. “Have we met?” she asked her attacker.     Wyrmfood’s tail lashed her across the room. “I’m the nightmare that destroys the rest of your life,” Tina Drummond promised.     Kerry’s grasping hand closed around the high pressure gas pipe leading to the lab bench. ***     Ã¢â‚¬Å“What happened?” demanded Dr Blargelslarch as Salieri began to frantically flip switches on the communications array.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“A jamming field!” Meng cried out. “It was a trap! Call FA!”     Fashion Accessory wasn’t answering her comm-card. ***     Ã¢â‚¬Å“You realise that I killed the first man who drugged me, and then I was only thirteen,” Vicki Vee smiled ecstatically as she writhed on a couch under the watchful gaze of Alcheman and Mary Prankstar. The field leader of the Purveyors of Peril was trying to resist the truth drug that Alcheman had administered a short while earlier.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“I apologise for having to resort to such tactics,” Michael Wooster told VelcroVixen. “I assure you that if things had not been extremely urgent and had you not been a major part of the trouble that’s going on I would never have taken such a step.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Hey, I think drugged kisses are a pretty neat-o trick, Mister A,” Mary Pfeffercorn admitted, wrapping her hand around Alcheman’s tattooed bicep and rubbing her fingers across the glyphs which allowed him to change his chemical configuration. “So much better than the usual drinks ploy.”     Alcheman would have preferred not to be caught in an impromptu team-up with the insane supervillain, but he could hardly have left Mary to be beaten to death by her once-teammates because she wasn’t reliably lethal enough. “I just need to get to the bottom of this,” he declared.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Yeah, that’s what guys usually say when they drug you,” VelcroVixen snarled. Then she giggled and gulped back a sob.     Michael tried to keep his face neutral. He’d had a very difficult few weeks since the heroes had disappeared. First he’d had to overcome his prejudices and fears about returning to his superhero identity. Then he’d been almost killed when the Purveyors of Peril hunted him out for destruction. Then he’d suffered the agonising doubts about whether he dare continue to do what was right. At last the civics teacher had reread his books on the responsibilities of citizenship and had decided to act. He wasn’t certain that the founding fathers would have acted by kissing their enemy with truth serum. Then again…     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Ask her to spill all the good stuff, Mister A.” Mary Prankstar suggested. “VelcroVixen’s always so controlled and cool. There could be like a major paper on this.”     Alcheman carefully confiscated the marker pen Mary was intending to use to draw a moustache on the drugged villainess. “We just ask what we need to know, and then we get out of here before her buddies come to look for her. They’re bound to have means of tracing her.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“I have buddies,” grinned VelcroVixen. “Lots and lots of buddies. It can get very exhausting for a girl, and you can never use the underwear again. Wheee.”     Mary took out a notepad and began jotting, her tongue sticking out of the side of her mouth.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“VelcroVixen, tell us about the new Lair Legion,” Alcheman insisted. “They’re the Purveyors of Peril, aren’t they?”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Bastards, all of them,” spat Vicki. “Everyone is.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Is that a big yes, then?” Mary checked for the record. “Only I already recognised them and you’re doped up so you might as well come clean.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Never clean,” Vicki said sadly, shedding a tear. “She said it would be a great chance for us to do what we do best. Like I haven’t heard that one before.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“She who?” Alcheman persisted.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Baroness von Bitcho,” VV replied, balling her fists and staring at the ceiling. “I don’t know how Silicone Sally didn’t just rip her smug head right off of her fat neck.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“This is a plot from the Baroness then?”     Vicki shook her head violently from side to side. “Nooo. No no no no nooo. That’s just opportunism. Helps her lay her plans for her big day. Takes advantage.” She ran her hands down over her spandex-covered body. “Everyone takes advantage. Sometimes I like it.”     Alcheman caught her hand and moved it away from her costume zipper, and then from his. “So if it isn’t the Baroness, who is behind the heroes disappearing?”     VV shrugged. “She knows, I think. Someone cosmic. Big deal. Big wheel. I’m a big girl.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“She’s much more fun like this,” admitted Mary Prankstar. “Do you see a spare videocamera anywhere?”     Alcheman frowned. “This is deadly serious stuff, Mary. The Purveyors seem to know who I am, so when they hear about this they’ll go after my family and loved ones. I have to find them and I have to take them down fast.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“That’s what guys always say too,” snickered Vicki.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“What’s the big plan then?” Michael demanded of her. “What are the Purveyors really up to? Where are they now? What are you intending to do next?”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Next?” snorted VelcroVixen. “Next we kill off the Junior Lair Legion. Ambush. Pesky kids. ‘Cept we have to keep Fashion Access’ry alive for the big baddie. Must like blondes. Should have a go for him myself if I knew who he was. Bet he’d like me better than her fatness. Bet ‘Bethie’ can’t…” Vicki described some of her specialities. Mary scribbled furiously with wide admiring eyes.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“You’re planning to kill the Juniors? Where? When?”     VelcroVixen explained the trap with the false energy reading at the arctic site where one of the mysterious stone pits had opened up. “I’s all nearly ready,” she slurred.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Hmm, good one,” Mary considered. “But a bit vanilla for my tastes. Have ya thought about adding in some exploding penguins?”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“And where are the Juniors?” demanded Alcheman. “We have to warn them.”     VV snorted scornfully. “If we knew where those little menaces were right now we wouldn’t need ambushes, would we? We’d just go right in. But they don’t have tracker tags like me.”     Alcheman winced. “Tracker tags?”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“See, I told you we should’a stripped her naked and wrapped her in tinfoil!” Mary objected. “Or maybe tar and feathers.”     Alcheman looked nervously around the psychiatrist’s office that Mary had selected as an impromptu hideout. “We need to move out of here fast,” he decided.     Anvil Man came in through the wall. “Too late, bud,” he told the chemical crimefighter.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Hey, that was a new sofa!” Mary scolded.     Gromm the Living Flatulence formed up behind her. Dr Roentgen took out the doorway. Razor Ballerina came right through the window.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Oops,” giggled VelcroVixen. “It’s going to be one of those sorts of dates.” ***     Ã¢â‚¬Å“It’s going to be one of those sorts of dates,” Val Vortex promised Samantha Bonnington as he opened the Veuve Clicquot ‘La Grande Dame’ Rosé Champagne and refilled his guest’s glass. The Croque d’Or’s exclusive dining lounge was empty tonight except for the billionaire movie producer and his companion; he’d hired the entire restaurant.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Val, I don’t want you to get the wrong idea,” Fashion Accessory told the handsome businessman. “I’m interested in your movie – who wouldn’t be? – but I don’t let my social life and my media career cross over.” She sipped the sparkling white. “What I mean is, I don’t want this date to be some kind of prerequisite for a movie deal.”     The Void Scholar smiled. “Samantha, all the parts of our lives are interconnected whether we want them to be or not. Our past shapes us, affects the course of our future. Our choices define us. I appreciate the sentiment, and your honesty in ensuring that this isn’t some kind of casting couch bargain, but there are much deeper truths we should explore.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Wow,” Samantha said, “does that much deeper truths line usually work?”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“It’s not a line. It’s what I believe. You’re a fascinating young woman with a fascinating background. Beautiful, talented, courageous, even before you received some Austernal matter-transmutative abilities – but pardon me for observing that you’ve also been stunted by neglective parents, by poor choice of friends, abusive situations, and a general lack of self-esteem. I want to know the real Samantha.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Don’t believe everything I put on my blog,” FA replied. “Anyway, whatever everyone thinks it doesn’t always have to be about me. Tell me the story of the big-name Hollywood producer Val Vortex. Did you come from some little town nobody’s ever heard of?”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Yes,” the Void Scholar admitted with exact precision, since he’d erased it from history. “I’ve had a long hard career. But everything I’ve done, everything I’ve worked for, all finds its real meaning here with you tonight, Samantha.”     FA sipped her drink again. “Whoa. Now that’s a really heavy line. I agreed to dinner. If you want me to sign contracts you’ll need to run them past my agent.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“It’s not contracts I want from you, Sammy.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Samantha.” Fashion Accessory frowned. “Y’know Val, this is going to sound dumb, even for me, but… I think I’m going home. I’d love to be in your movies and work with you like that, but I don’t think this date is working out. You’ve got the look, the style, the cash, the cool… but it’s like there’s no connection between us. Like I’m an immature kid and you’re a billion years old. Like I’m a specimen on a microscope slide. I don’t know.”     Vortex placed his napkin neatly beside his plate. “Interesting that you feel like that,” he noted. “I had begun to wonder just how shallow you really were. I had not expected insensitivity to be one of the traits of the Celestian Madonna.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Shallow?” frowned FA. “I’m not the one with the ponytail, buster. And what’s with the Celestian Madonna guff? Everyone knows that’s just a myth put out by conspiracy theorists and Hacker Nine. And if there is a Celestian Madonna it’s totally going to be Kerry.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“It’s you,” replied the Void Scholar. “You were conceived during a unique planetary alignment, born during an unprecedented ripple in reality, and your destiny is to spawn a line which will eventually create the supreme ruler of the Parodyverse.”     Fashion Accessory raised a perfect eyebrow. “Okay, I’ve not heard that one often,” she admitted. She was feeling hot and uncomfortable.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“You have rather wasted your life and ignored your destiny,” her date scolded her. “Vain, greedy, thoughtless, lacking any real drive of vision…”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Hey, I’ve got my own line of fitness videos!”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“But all of that will change, Samantha,” the Void Scholar promised. “From now on you will serve only me, and your love for me will be absolute.”     It was like a switch flipping inside Samantha Bonnington. Suddenly she was filled with an overwhelming physical passion for Val Vortex. Her fingers were reaching for her buttons before she was even aware of the rush of desire.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“You may proceed,” smirked the Void Scholar. ***     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Kill them both!” commended VelcroVixen, rising from the psychiatrist’s couch in white-hot wrath, pointing a long-nailed finger at Alcheman and Mary Prankstar. “Now!”     Dr Roentgen blew the whole frontage out of the brownstone, vaporising everything in his way. ***     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Oh please,” mocked Wyrmfood, stalking forward towards her prey. “I’m half dragon. I can’t be harmed by fire.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Really?” snarled Kerry Shepherdson. “How about percussion? As in a gas blast?” She wrenched the pipe free and flicked her cigarette lighter.     Wyrmfood replied with a long tongue of flame that forced Kerry to roll away to relative safety, her jacket smouldering. “How do you like it, smartmouth?” mocked the dragonne. “You know what happens now?”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“What, you go to the gloating part of the lamefest?” snapped Kerry.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Now I take my revenge for what you and your wonder pals did to me and mine.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Sorry, have we met? Only I kick so many feeb asses it’s hard to keep track.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“We have met,” snapped Wyrmfood. “Back when I was Wyrmbait and your little girlfriend Sammy peeled me like a grape. So this is only payback. Courtesy of Dr Moo your Ham-Buddy gets his meat-creation powers reversed up to 10 so he’s constantly dragging his own bodymass out of his guts until he dies from the agony. Courtesy of some ex-Apocalyspian godkiller tech your Ausgardian boy toy gets to live forever crippled so bad he won’t even be able to blink away his tears. And thanks to some Zemo brainswap gadget you get to donate your hot little body to me and live out the rest of your years in agony in this castoff your best friend made of me.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Wow,” Kerry replied. “And did you think up all that just by yourself?”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“You know what?” Wyrmfood spat, “I’m gonna have Dr Loveray crank your sex drives up to 11 permanently. Good luck finding partners when you’re in this pulped scarred wreck of a body. I don’t see me having the same problem with yours.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“So you’re behind all of this?” Kerry smouldered. “You attacked my friends, wrecked my relationship with Danny, turned me into… It was you!”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Hey, you haven’t heard the best bit, Kerry. I’ve just helped set cute little Sammy up for a literal eternity of body-slavery to a guy who wants to breed superbabies from her. And then I get her afterwards. A million years from now she’ll still be a pathetic grovelling sex slave, unable to do anything but scream inside at what I’ve made her.” Wyrmbait’s lips bled as she laughed. “Revenge complete.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“No!” raged Kerry, but she was bracketed again by gouts of fire-breath. “What did you do? Who did you set FA up with? Who helped you arrange all this?”     Wyrmfood scratched long taloned gashed down the sides of her face. She wouldn’t need it anymore. “Oh, an ally of mine. The guy who got rid of your precious heroes so they’ll never return. He’s called the Void Scholar. Any last words before you spend the rest of your life as me?”     Kerry glowered. “Sure,” she spat. “Dr Moo is sister to my big brother’s best friend.”     Wyrmfood frowned. “What? So?”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“So the big cow said she could design a device that would do what you wanted to HB. She never said she would,” Asil explained, slipping from the shadows and taking down the weapons platform holding back Harlagaz.     Ham-Boy was already sitting up, grinning. “Psyche,” he laughed.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Tis good to know the name of our true enemy,” agreed Harlagaz, staggering to his feet.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“The best thing about traps,” Kerry told Wyrmfood, “is that they can work two ways.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“And now you get to come quietly or we won’t be nice,” Asil explained to the dragonne.     Wyrmfood backed away, confused and angry. “You think this is over?” she challenged. “You think I’m just some kid you can trick then dismiss?”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“I think thou art now in the whomping zone,” Gaz considered.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“And then we’d better get to Samantha,” worried Ham-Boy. “She could be in trouble with that Vex Vortex character.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Too late,” gloated Wyrmfood. “You came here looking for answers to what Kerry did, what FA’s doing right now? Here he is!”     There was a buzzing. Suddenly thousands of roaches crawled out from every crevice in the room, skittering over each other and lining walls, floor and ceiling.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Say hello to Dr Loveray!” screeched Wyrmfood, spitting red saliva as she shouted. “Say goodbye to your morals!”     The animal lust from Loveray’s psionic devices washed over them. ***     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Get out of my way!” Fashion Accessory warned Val Vortex. “I’m leaving.” She was sweating heavily, her fists clenched, her eyes watery.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“I don’t think you are,” the Void Scholar told her, finishing his oysters. “You want me.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“I do,” FA admitted. “Really bad. Bad enough to know that can’t be natural, like with Kare and Vinny.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Bad enough to not even mind,” Vortex told her confidently. “Still, if it’s any comfort to you, the child from our union ensures the existence of your friend Liu Xi Xian. She is your ultimate grand-daughter, and if I do not impregnate you she will never exist.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Eew,” shuddered Samantha Bonnington. Her willpower was fading now, her resistance as loose as her gownstraps. “No… way…” she managed to spit.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Come now, Sammy. You know you want this. Surrender.”     FA managed to shake her head. “Not while I’m… wearing bry-nylon granny pants under this Dior original,” she hissed. “I could never get turned on in prickly 70s Wal-Mart underwear.” Samantha Bonnington had her own unique ways of countering champagne seduction and psionic subordination.     The Void Scholar turned to another man Samantha hadn’t even noticed in the restaurant with them; a tall bald scientist with a lab coat and thick-lensed goggles, holding some kind of ray gun that might have been considered futuristic in 1950s sci-fi. “She’s resisting somehow,” the Scholar said. “Turn your love-ray to maximum.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“That will cause permanent psychic damage,” Dr Loveray warned. “She will lose all free will. She’ll obey any command from anybody for the rest of her days.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Acceptable,” agreed the Void Scholar. “Do it.”     Dr Loveray moved his gloved hand to the dial on his weapon. Things skittered under his glove. He was here and he was in a hidden lab destroying the Juniors and he was enjoying himself immensely.     And then the skies went dark outside and the temperature in the restaurant dropped by ten degrees and an angry urgent voice commanded “Don’t touch that dial!” ***     Urthula Underess winced and grabbed her forehead as she sensed a major occult event happening nearby. “Ouch!” she complained.     The Abyssal Greye cocked his head to one side and seemed to sniff the air. “Oh my,” he said mildly.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“What is it?” demanded Dr Blargelslarch. “Some breakthrough in interpreting the instructions Ms Cacciatore left for us regarding the lighthouse?”     Urthula shook her head. “No, it’s a major curse being loosed,” she explained. “Powerful stuff. Interesting signature.”     The Dean of the Scholar-Ghouls Under Gothametropolis concurred. “Fascinating stuff. It was about time young Mr De Soth came into his own.” ***      “You use people!” Vinnie shouted, standing with his arms spread wide in a pentagram in his brother’s commandeered sanctum, shimmering in a bright shell of radiance. “You use people like pawns, like they don’t matter, just to gain your own way!”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Vinnie?” in the distant lab Kerry could hear his voice. Around the Juniors the cockroaches were writhing on their backs like they’d been sprayed with DDT.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“You used Kerry and me, twisted feelings we’d never have acted on to just attack Danny. You gave mad Wyrmfood the chance to carry out her cruel insane plan. You set Loveray on FA so you could rape and enslave her!”     The Void Scholar looked around the sudden tempest that was overturning tables in the Croque D’Or, evaluating the new player.     Vinnie carried on. “But people aren’t puppets. They’re not pawns. We don’t just sit and wait to be moved. We move!”     In the darkness of Herringcarp, the ghost who called herself Amnesia moved forward and touched a spot of wall. A secret door ground open, tearing through cobwebs a hundred years old.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Well you’ve made your moves, Void Scholar,” Vinnie shouted, “but now we have a name for you, and that’s all a curse needs. So how about this: Void Scholar, may you lose that you want the most, face that you fear the most, and be cast from our world for all eternity!” He thrust his hands into the brazier before him and shattered his brother’s remaining collection of spirit bottles and pact phials.     The occult event washed round the planet. In distant Badripoor Tom Black spilt his coffee. In the Wookiegetlucky Swamp Crapsack tossed his breakfast. In Covenant House Hagatha Darkness dropped a stitch.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Oh yeah, one more thing,” Kerry added, stepping forward through the tempest, “That whole power-dampener thing is getting really old. The madder I get the stronger I get, and right now, Loveray, you have truly pissed me off!” She burned out the inhibitor dart with hardly a conscious thought. The bloom of flame burst out from her and washed over the insects on the floor, incinerating them.     The compulsion of Fashion Accessory broke like a severed chain. Loveray’s lab coat transmuted to concentrated hydrochloric acid.     Wyrmfood turned to run. Asil blocked her path. “Hi, you’ve not prepared for me,” the Lisa-clone noted before demonstrating where draconic nerve clusters were and dropping the lizard to the ground.     The Void Scholar turned on Fashion Accessory. “You will come with me,” he commanded. “You will be mine.”     Vinnie stabbed a silver pin into the brazier before him. The Void Scholar screamed and crumpled. Time and space closed around him then spat him out.     Things went quiet. Various people stood in numbed silence as the sense of danger and evil slowly dissipated.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Doth anyone fancy pizza?” asked Harlagaz at last.     Ham-Boy’s comm-card fizzed back into use. “…hear me?” demanded Salieri Meng. “Hello? HB? Kerry? FA? Anybody?”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“We’re here,” Ham-Boy assured the young genius. “We just did that taking down the bad guy thing. I think. We might need some footnotes from Vinnie.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Lovely,” growled Meng. “Well while you were doing that I picked up an energy spike. You know the sort. A major one, just like when the Lair Legion vanished. Something’s happening in the arctic and it’s happening right now. We need to be there.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Does anyone remember when we had downtime?” grumbled Kerry.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“We hast the goat chariot,” Gaz responded eagerly. “We shalt pick up thee and mine lady Fashion Accessory on the way, and investigate right forthwithly.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Well don’t spare the goats,” Salieri warned them. “Whatever’s going on up there is major. I get the feeling it’s going to be the last act.”     Ham-Boy adjusted his meat cowl and nodded. “We’re on our way!” *** Next Time: Amazing how this story refuses to go quite where I planned it. So next time I expect to resolve the Land That Common Sense Forgot stuff, the origins of Vizh’s lighthouse, the secret of the Void Scholar, the revenge of Edward Gramayre, evil Al B., banshees, vampire queens, pure thought leaders, and a whole bunch of other things I haven’t really thought out properly to list yet. That’ll be The Legion Is In, hopefully coming soon. And the time after that I hope to conclude the World Without Superheroes plotline. This needs to end. *** 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 #12: The New Lair Legions (And Other Heroes) by the Hooded Hood #12.1: I Hate You by Visionary #12.2: Champagne and the Tower of Laments by Champagne #12.3: Adventures in Parodyverse by Jason #12.4: The Hearing by Visionary #12.5: Adventures in Parodyverse by Jason #13: Exploring the Forbidden Valley, or Samantha Featherstone and the Crystal Goddess by the Hooded Hood #14: Real Heroes by the Hooded Hood #14.1: “I’d like to be clear that I’m a no-skewer zone, and have been since college.” by Dancer #14.2: Catherine & the Danger Zone by L! #14.3: “Do you know how much shaving I had to do to put this thing on?” by Visionary #14.4: “Well we can’t just wait here till we find a use for Visionary. We’ll starve to death.” by Dancer #15: Change and Decay by the Hooded Hood #15.1: Adventures in Parodyverse by Jason #15.2: Hazardous Chemicals by Killer Shrike #16: One Moment In Time by the Hooded Hood #17: Slaves of the Brain Eaters, Thralls of the Blood-Drinkers by the Hooded Hood #18: Now Get Out Of That by the Hooded Hood #18.1: Adventures in Parodyverse by Jason #18.2: Adventures in Parodyverse by Jason #18.3 Crossing Lines by CrazySugarFreakBoy! #18.4 Shooting You With My Smile by CrazySugarFreakBoy! #18.5: Funeral For a Friend by L! #18.6: Adventures in Parodyverse by Jason #18.7 Playing Both Ends by CrazySugarFreakBoy! #18.8: Adventures in Parodyverse by Jason #18.9: Adventures in Parodyverse by Jason #18.10: Valued Employee by Visionary #19: Probable Cause 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.

It's good to see some things turn out alright for the heroes for once, though I've got a feeling that the Void Scholar is far from beaten and now angry. Still, it's fun to see the villains loose. Now it's the purveyors trap.

I quite enjoyed seeing the EEE cast get their chance to shine. Its a good group of supporting players. The scene with Dr. Moo and the Legion clones was also well done. And Wyrmbait has good potential as a recurring villain.

I have to admit, assuming Meg, April, and co. survive, its going to be pretty hard not to realize that the Hatman imposter is in fact Doorman, since the use of his powers was a bit too spot on.

Vinnie's pretty powerful, isn't he? Still, casting a curse that banishes the Big Villain who's been giving the heroes so much trouble since the plotline started is a quick way to resolve things, and as you say, its probably time to wrap this storyline up.

Looking forward to the big conclusion.

The fake-Hatman and April and Meg scene was the reason why Lara Night had to be somewhere else, isn't it? If so then I can finally post the next part of that. If not I might anyway, and just note that it's a little ahead of schedule.

Now I'm beginning to wonder a bit more about Vinnie and Kerry. If others can resist, that means either those two are particularly weak-willed, or that they have *some* latent attraction that was just magnified. I doubt the former, so the latter may cause problems later.

If the Void Scholar has been badly cursed, doesn't that mean his realm where Liu Xi currently is located will start to crumble? And is that my cue to write something?

Also, I'm suspecting that the Void Scholar lied about Liu Xi's origins (why not? he lied about everything else), particularly that Liu Xi won't exist if his whole plan isn't completed. Faite would know the truth - too bad she's not helping, so Liu Xi will have to discover for herself.

Another well written segment! Good Job!

Wekk, we're moving towards some resolution now so we need to clear the field a little.

Thank you.

There's still the scene that takes place later the same night. And after that we're into a whole new game.


FA resisted because she was actually using her power to help her, and she would have succumbed in the end if not for Vinnie's intervention. But yes, Kerry and Vinnie could have had a thing under different circumstances.


He's been exiled from Earth, but his power remains undiminished. Now he's just got to be more deadly and dangerous.


We'll probably cover this plot point next time or the time after.

I'd have done rather more throughout the story with the EEE crew is poster-Al had been around.


I tried to give Jay some wiggle room and I checked the story with Kirk to be sure about the reactions.


That was really a one-time deal for Vinnie, using some family assets that don't belong to him. And it certainly isn't the end for the Void Scholar. He's the big badd in this storyline so he doesn't get beaten that easily. He's been thwarted one way but he has other plans in place.

A very meaty chapter, and not just from Hamboy's contributions! Wyrmfood's incredibly nasty plot finally gets put into play, and it features quite a few curve balls that I wasn't expecting.

Interesting continuation of the Alcheman and Vixen scene... It was enough to almost make me feel sorry for poor V.V. It also continues the trap/escape/confront/trap/escape/confront pattern the Purveyors and Alcheman have been engaged in throughout this tale. I'll be interested to see how (or if) Mr. Wooster and Ms. Prankstar escaped this time.

I enjoyed the addition of the Lighthouse investigators, and the information they brought with them. (Plus the entertaining interest that Greye has for Meng's noggin.) I'm looking forward to finding out what instructions Champagne and Grace left behind. And I'm always happy to see more of Urthula... but what guy living or dead isn't?

Poor, twisted Wyrmfood... All that effort and for nothing. Not that it didn't seem like a good plan, and pretty thorough. Guess she should have had the stuff from Dr. Moo appraised as well. Still, it was good to watch her malevolent dreams crumble around her. And seeing a sleaze like Loveray get the big smackdown is always appreciated. Vinnie's major contribution was unexpected... I'm guessing after registering on the psychic Richter scale as he did, he's not going to be considered quite so harmless or amusing to other practicing occultists any longer.

As for the Void Scholar, I assume he's far from done. After all, it's not as if he hasn't manipulated things from afar for a while now... being barred from Earth can't be too horribly troubling. I'll be curious to see how you tie the Liu Xi and Danny scene from last time into his grand scheme.

Good stuff, and still a problem with the purveyors to deal with! (And Onslaughter, although in truth he's only been promised in "next issue" blurbs. Nothing in the story demands he make his return during the current storyline if that was a subplot that you'd like to trim for brevity. Not that "brevity" really can be achieved, but you know what I mean...

Looking forward to more!

I'm debating whether to post another World Class or the next part of Lara in Space. Or maybe both. I don't want to mess up the timing too badly.



That's what I meant. FA had to be hit with the "extra strength" version. All it took for Vinnie and Kerry was a little nudging - if they would have really disliked each other, or not have even thought about it, the minor nudging wouldn't really affect them. When they get to thinking about that, it may make things even more confusing.



Sounds to me like his hatred of Vinnie might be his big mistake. Liu Xi won't trust the Void Scholar at all anymore if he outwardly becomes obsessed with killing Vinnie.



I've also been thinking of something interesting: That Liu Xi has been close to nearly everyone trying to take over the Parodyverse lately.

That's interesting because it gives her unique insight. It could mean that she could potentially successfully take over the Parodyverse (she generally doesn't want to, though, because it's too much work) because she knows what it takes and where others have failed. It could also mean she potentially has the ability to prevent anyone else from doing so, if only the powers that be would realize that and listen to her.

Glad to know I can still sometimes surprise people.


Well, I needed to find a way to bring pretty much all the cast together for the home team final, and mutually apparently anihillating them seemed like the way to go.


It seemed likely that some or all of these would be doing something about the vanishing Legion; Asil in particular would be a prime candidate for organising a search.


Dr Moo has been quite fun to include in this as a kind of ambivalent third party, or fourth party, or whatever. As soon as I remembered what Lisa would say about Moo attacking one of the Juniors I realised what my getout was going to be.


I imagine most people will credit his brother Styxus.


So will I.

Of course this isn't the end of the Void Scholar. It's a setback not a defeat. And from the Carnifex's point of view Vinnie is one more quarry properly noted and catalogued.


I think Onslaughter adds the right dramatic crunch at the end of that particular arc.

But next issue: bunnies.


I'm looking forward to the end, but it depends on how people react to potential situations and whether people can still be enthused enough to kibbutz.

There's one key difference about Earth after the fight that will hopefully be established in #24.

> > > Now I'm beginning to wonder a bit more about Vinnie and Kerry. If others can resist, that means either those two are particularly weak-willed, or that they have *some* latent attraction that was just magnified. I doubt the former, so the latter may cause problems later. > > FA resisted because she was actually using her power to help her, and she would have succumbed in the end if not for Vinnie's intervention. But yes, Kerry and Vinnie could have had a thing under different circumstances. > That's what I meant. FA had to be hit with the "extra strength" version. All it took for Vinnie and Kerry was a little nudging - if they would have really disliked each other, or not have even thought about it, the minor nudging wouldn't really affect them. When they get to thinking about that, it may make things even more confusing.

Dr Loveray could make a human fall in love with a sheep. He's pretty much able to affect anyone who has hormones.

> > > If the Void Scholar has been badly cursed, doesn't that mean his realm where Liu Xi currently is located will start to crumble? And is that my cue to write something? > > He's been exiled from Earth, but his power remains undiminished. Now he's just got to be more deadly and dangerous. > Sounds to me like his hatred of Vinnie might be his big mistake. Liu Xi won't trust the Void Scholar at all anymore if he outwardly becomes obsessed with killing Vinnie.

Vinnie's not really relevant to his big plans, and can be easily eliminated later as a minor detail.

However, for the first time some of the Earth-based heroes know who their main adversary is.

> I've also been thinking of something interesting: That Liu Xi has been close to nearly everyone trying to take over the Parodyverse lately. > That's interesting because it gives her unique insight. It could mean that she could potentially successfully take over the Parodyverse (she generally doesn't want to, though, because it's too much work) because she knows what it takes and where others have failed. It could also mean she potentially has the ability to prevent anyone else from doing so, if only the powers that be would realize that and listen to her.

I can certainly see why the Carnifex might be interested in her brain.

Hmm...I'll send an email then.



But it's been established different kinds of people take different amounts. If Kerry and Vinnie took very little, that might make them think later.



Funny how things are linked. That may end Liu Xi's cooperation.



Noted.



Liu Xi is using it at the moment, and might object.

I've now replied.

> > Dr Loveray could make a human fall in love with a sheep. He's pretty much able to affect anyone who has hormones. > But it's been established different kinds of people take different amounts. If Kerry and Vinnie took very little, that might make them think later.

I suspect any young couple where there's a possible connection might have similar difficulties.

> > > Sounds to me like his hatred of Vinnie might be his big mistake. Liu Xi won't trust the Void Scholar at all anymore if he outwardly becomes obsessed with killing Vinnie. > > Vinnie's not really relevant to his big plans, and can be easily eliminated later as a minor detail. > Funny how things are linked. That may end Liu Xi's cooperation.

I suspect Liu Xi will have plenty of reasons to stop co-operating shortly.

> > > I've also been thinking of something interesting: That Liu Xi has been close to nearly everyone trying to take over the Parodyverse lately. > > I can certainly see why the Carnifex might be interested in her brain. > Liu Xi is using it at the moment, and might object.

The Carnifex takes his name from the ancient office of torturer and public executioner of Rome, the one whose iron-shod cats o' nine tails were hung in the forum to remind people of his power. He's used to objections.

Noted.



It probably would. Kerry and Vinnie might at first insist it wasn't their fault, but it's only natural to wonder how much of it was at some point. Especially if Danny points that out first.



The Void Scholar may be surprised at how quick a learner she is these days. Her hidden attribute is that she can be very focused when she wants to be, and the prospect of being held prisoner...again...brings her a lot of focus.



Liu Xi may object louder than most. She can also probably destroy the entire forum.

Your welcome.

It's always fun to see the Undead crew around, and the Avengers crack was hilarious.

I'd like to comment more, but am a little pushed for time at the moment (annual leave coming up). I will try to do some more detailed comments later if I can.

I enjoyed all of this. I've never been a great fan of grim and gritty, and a series of turnarounds like this is always amusing. The reactions of Tom Black, Crapsack and Agatha were ... well, I could see it animated...

Oh yes, and FA always seems to come up with interesting ways of using her powers...

Indeed.

> > > > > Sounds to me like his hatred of Vinnie might be his big mistake. Liu Xi won't trust the Void Scholar at all anymore if he outwardly becomes obsessed with killing Vinnie. > > > > Vinnie's not really relevant to his big plans, and can be easily eliminated later as a minor detail. > > > Funny how things are linked. That may end Liu Xi's cooperation. > > I suspect Liu Xi will have plenty of reasons to stop co-operating shortly. > The Void Scholar may be surprised at how quick a learner she is these days. Her hidden attribute is that she can be very focused when she wants to be, and the prospect of being held prisoner...again...brings her a lot of focus.

We'll see how this plays out, probably in #24.

> > > > > I've also been thinking of something interesting: That Liu Xi has been close to nearly everyone trying to take over the Parodyverse lately. > > > > I can certainly see why the Carnifex might be interested in her brain. > > > Liu Xi is using it at the moment, and might object. > > The Carnifex takes his name from the ancient office of torturer and public executioner of Rome, the one whose iron-shod cats o' nine tails were hung in the forum to remind people of his power. He's used to objections. > Liu Xi may object louder than most. She can also probably destroy the entire forum.

She's make a good trophy.

Easy target.


Proceed.


I tend to dip between serious and light in my PV writing, to a formula that I adjudge is the "spirit" of the board. I also find that my writing tends to inversely reflect how content I am at the time. Expect some light-hearted romps in the next few weeks.


She's got a niche and she occupies it well.