#334: Untold Tales of the Lair Legion: Preparing for Dinner What has gone before:     With the fall of the mad Parody Master, the Parodyverse was left undefended against the threat that he had originally been created to thwart. Immediately thereafter the Carnifex arrived in the heart of Paradopolis with his mile-high Esqualine Tower. He instantly won the hearts of all as the Parodyverse’s greatest hero and nobody has questioned his appearance, motives, actions, or intent.     After the recent loss of Hatman, Nats, and the Manga Shoggoth in battle the Carnifex has agreed to take leadership of the Lair Legion. He has invited the team to dinner at the Esqualine Tower where he will show them what their future will be. Now the heroes must make their preparations. The Hooded Hood's Homepage of Doom features previous chapters of our story Who's Who in the Parodyverse lists details of the cast Where's Where in the Parodyverse covers locations and situations *** 00.11am, People’s Glorious Repository of History, Republic of Candia     Masha Massalsky emerged from the bleak stone building smoothing down her hair and smiling faintly. She approached her date and held up a small bunch of keys. “Here they are,” she said in heavily accented English. “Now we can go to vault.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“They just gave them to you?” her companion asked, returning her cheeky grin with one of his own.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Is my special superpower,” explained the woman her rogue nation-state had dubbed Party Animal. “When I touch people, they want to get wild. You know this.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Honey, when I looked at you I wanted to get wild. No super-powers necessary.”     Masha smiled. “You are charmer, Mr Johnstantine, but I do not encourage six very brawny People’s Elite Guards to become special friends with each other just because you know how to treat girl in bedroom. I am stealing files to help my very old friend, because I worry about her.”     Con Johnstantine lit up an unfiltered cigarette and took a long draught. “Fair enough, darling. I’m stealing ‘em because it’s suddenly become very important to know everything there is to know about your ex-teammate Zdenka Zarazoza, the Rabid Wolf.” *** 1.10am, Hastings Residence, Seattle     Ã¢â‚¬Å“No way is Hatty dead,” Dreamcatcher Foxglove insisted for the twentieth time. “Same with Nats. Same with Shoggy. No body, no death. Hell, these days even with a body it’s only 50-50.”     April Apple Foxglove reached a soothing hand out to her husband. “Nobody’s arguing, Dream.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“I mean it. &*^%, it’s like there’s a revolving door. And Temporary Death likes us. She even stayed at the mansion for a while. I think thuddy might have dated her.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“He’ll be like this for a while yet, April-honey,” Meggan Foxxx warned her daughter-in-law. “Then he’ll get all angry and sulky, then he’ll go quiet. That’d be the best time to haul him off to bed and hope to tire him out.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“I don’t need handling!” protested CrazySugarFreakBoy! “My best friend just fell into a dimensional tear that even Al B. Harper can’t track down. I could have saved him and I didn’t.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Is that what this is about?” April asked. “Dream, I talked to Yuki and Dancer. There was no way you could have grabbed Jay or Bill and still saved the others.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Well there should have been! Me and Hat, we’re the brave and the bold. I thought he was dead before and I left him in a block of ice for about a zillion years. I’m not about to let him down again.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Rant quieter, darling,” Meggan warned. “Don’t wake the rug rats.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“I’m not about to let Hatty and Nats down again,” hissed CSFB! “Tomorrow, when we go to the Carnifex, I’ve gotta convince him to help us find our missing friends.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“If anyone can, it’s him,” agreed April.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“And you’ll come too, both of you,” the wired wonder encouraged his family. “Action Figure and Groovy Gecko-Girl, or maybe your new identity, April. We can put you onto the LL roster and…”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Honey, I’m not about to join the Lair Legion,” Meggan Foxxx interrupted. “I’m strictly part-time and I don’t even have super-powers, ‘cept a real flexibility that comes in useful in my profession.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“And I’m a mother now,” April added. “Well, a step-mom. We agreed I was only going to play the supergal recreationally for the moment. If you want to come to our room… or maybe the top of the Eitel Building…”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“But it’s the Carnifex!” CSFB! urged.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Yeah, and I’m lubed at the whole idea of goin’ to meet him,” Meggan agreed. “What girl wouldn’t be. But tomorrow’s for serious business, Lair Legion business, and that’s not me an’ April. You go and you try and find Jay and Bill if you can and you do some good in this sad old world, honey. I hope tomorrow night’s everything you hope and dream.” *** 1.31am, Herringcarp Shoreline, Upper Gothametropolis York     The remorseless waves washed onto the shingle beach, endlessly rearranging the patterns of the stones, each washing away the last as if it had never been. The stones were always the same. Their conjunctions changed with each sweep of the tide.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“I’ve been to Comic-Book Limbo,” noted Liu Xi Xian, peering out along the thin ribbon road to the bleak outcrop, “and I’m saying this place is creepy.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“And cold,” shuddered Lara Night. “And I don’t usually get cold.”     Chiaki Bushido, the Psychic Samurai, led her little troupe onwards. “Herringcarp Asylum is a creepy, cold place,” she instructed the others. “It’s a sinkhole of madness and broken futures, thousands of variations of tormented lives all packed together and twisted like a black braid.” She pointed to the isthmus ahead. “That’s where it usually is.”     Anna the android focussed all her sensors on the rugged outcrop. “Usually? Does it phase between locations like Visionary’s lighthouse?” she enquired.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“It’s been known to shift and disappear,” Liu Xi clarified, “but not like Vizh’s place. That’s a dimensional anomaly in a building designed to act as a warning beacon for interplanar navigation near the Nexus of Unrealities. When Herringcarp goes AWOL it’s been retconned somewhere else by it’s lord and master.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“The Hooded Hood,” Lara Night breathed. “Who you say is responsible for me not remembering how I got to this place or how to get back home.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“You’ve been here for years,” Anna assured the strange visitor from another multiverse. “You fought in a great war and more. You’ve just had all that taken from you.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“You trusted us with your lives, once,” Chiaki assured the amnesiac Lara.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“I’m trusting you with them now,” Lara noted. “But if you’re my trusted friends why are you bringing me to the Bates hotel in the middle of the night to meet the archvillain you claim did this to me?”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“We need to find out what the Hood’s really up to,” Liu Xi replied. “And since the LL’s pretty busy looking for Jay and Bill and don’t really have time to spare to come and bait the Hood in his lair right now we decided we’d come and try.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“The Hooded Hood doesn’t usually use lethal force against those who confront him unless faced with direct attack,” Anna read from her databanks. “He prefers to confound his adversaries with moral dilemmas and ethical challenges which manipulate them into taking forward some element of a complicated larger agendum.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“And we’re going there why?” repeated Lara.     Chiaki smiled a little. “As for the midnight call, well Herringcarp’s been very elusive since the Parody War, especially since the rumours of the Hood’s return.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“He has returned,” Liu Xi insisted. “He’s been seen.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“But nobody can tell if that is the post-war Hood that has survived the detonation of the Parody Master’s Narrative Bomb or some previous timeline version jumping forward through his Portal of Pretentiousness to interfere with his future,” Anna explained.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Does it matter?” asked Lara practically. “Either way we’re calling at the house of a crazed world-conqueror to ask why he attacked me before.”     Anna came to a full halt. “Except that Herringcarp Asylum is not there. My full sensor sweep is complete. I’m not picking up anything.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“I’m drawing a blank too,” Liu Xi confessed. “I guess the Hood doesn’t want to get found tonight. We should have brought Lisa.”     Chiaki shook her head. “No. There’s something here. Something different. Something…. dangerous.”     The sudden jab of pain in Liu Xi’s head sent the young elementalist to her knees with a cry of pain.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Liu Xi!” called Lara.     Chiaki had her blade in her hand before the first of the undead rose from beneath the waves.     Anna took down the first wave before it became apparent there were literally millions more. *** 1.55pm, The Esqualine Tower, Central Paradopolis     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Come to bed,” the Carnifex invited Zdenka Zarazosa.     Zvesti Zdrugo sipped her wine and shook her head. “Not tonight, Mark. It is not possible.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“It is possible,” the most powerful man in the Parodyverse disagreed. “You mean that you don’t want to.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“I want to,” Zdenka admitted. “Mark, you have advanced senses better even than mine. You can smell me, know whether I have desire. You are handsome man who I am liking very much, but…”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Always a but, Rabid Wolf.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“But this is not the night for us to become lovers, Mark. The night when Jay was lost.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“This is the ideal night, Zdenka. Poor Boaz, your former lover, has fallen. It’s a reminder that any of us might find a sudden ending without warning. We should seize the moment and get what pleasure we can. It may never come again.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“You think I forget Jay so easily?”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“I think you and Hatman had grown apart since you were trapped in that false reality where you lived blissfully as husband and wife for what seemed like years then had to give it up to return to this cold dark Parodyverse,” judged the Carnifex. “Everything after that was less, but because you are a worthy soul – Boaz too, I suppose – you were unwilling to admit that your passion had run its course.”     Rabid Wolf sipped her wine again. It was warm and red, like the light from the Carnifex’s great stone fireplace, like the fires reflected in his eyes. “You study your prey like a hunter,” Zdenka observed.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“I am a hunter,” the Carnifex replied. “The best there is.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“And you come to our world, our Parodyverse. What to hunt?”     The Carnifex shrugged. “Big game,” he evaded.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“You hunt me, I sometimes think,” Zdenka observed. “I am the spirit of Candia. If you chase me you chase all the animal aspects I can become, a whole land. Is that what fascinates you about me, Mark? Do you want to mount and stuff the symbol of a whole nation?”     The Carnifex ran a finger over the goddess’ jawline. “I want to tame you,” he admitted. “You’re a challenge. This Parodyverse is full of challenges. I love it.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Well this part of the Parodyverse is going to make you run a little longer, Mark. Tonight I will fly on the high winds and sing my song for Jay. I will cry my tears to the rising sun and the setting sun. Tomorrow, or the day after, then you may hunt me again.”     The Carnifex forced himself to smile. “As you say, then” he told Zdenka Zarazoza. “A night’s grace then a hunt in earnest.”     Zdenka rose from the fur-strewn couch and moved gracefully to the tall stone-framed window of the black tower. With a half-smile at her suitor she shifted to the shape of the Candian robin and flitted into the night.     When he was sure that Zdenka Zarazosa could not hear him the Carnifex shattered his wine glass and tossed it into the hearth. “Hunted and caught and broken to the whip and harnessed on my leash,” he hissed *** 3.01am, Extraordinary Endeavour Enterprises, Sixways, Gothametropolis York     Miss Framlicker placed a steaming mug of strong black coffee on the workbench beside Dr Al B. Harper. The archscientist looked up in alarm.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Is it poisoned?” he worried.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“No,” replied the co-owner of Extraordinary Endeavour Enterprises, the cutting-edge weird science company that operated out of a converted GMY firehouse.     Al B. sniffed the mug. “Did Amy make this?” It didn’t smell to have alcohol or engine grease in it, as the usual beverages made the EEE’s practical engineer tended to.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“I made it. Unlike most of your girlfriends I don’t need to poison your coffee. If I want you dead I have many methods.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“You made this? For me?”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Yes. It’s three in the morning and you’re still working at finding what happened to our original tea boy. I thought you deserved a hot drink.”     Al B. looked around. “So I didn’t slip into an alternate dimension?”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Would it help if I dumped the coffee onto your lap?” offered Miss F.     The archscientist relaxed. “Okay, now I believe.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Everyone else has flagged out. Amy’s slumped over the trans-particle differential modeller hugging a tequila bottle. Your twins bickered themselves to sleep around two. Have you got anywhere finding Bill and Hatman?”     Al B. brushed back his hair and gestured to the eight computer screens before him. “I’ve been trying to work out exactly where that dimensional rift opened to by recreating the planar conditions,” he explained. “Same thing we tried with Epitome when he didn’t get back after that Moderator event.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“And?”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Same problem. There’s some variable that prevents us from getting any sense out of the thing.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Magic?”     Al B. shook his head. He sipped his coffee and made a face.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Something wrong?” asked Miss F dangerously.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“No. It’s… lovely. Really.” He quickly got back to business. “I could detect magic. I could detect psionics. This is… it’s as if there’s something to detect and I’m just not able to think of it.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Something new, then?”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Something I’m forgetting.”     Miss Framlicker patted Al on the shoulder. “Drink your coffee,” she said maliciously. *** 3.45am, Ghost Taxi Rank, Paradopolis     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Any problem?” Dancer ask as Yuki Shiro strode into the garage wiping her hands on a rag.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Not really,” the cyborg P.I. answered, tossing the rag into an empty oilcan. “Just some things with tentacles for faces and poison mandibles trying to break in through the back door.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Skittergeists,” identified Rosalind ‘Roswell’ Fellkirk, manager of the Ghost Cabs. “They’re small-time predators. Nothing to worry about.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Not any more,” noted Yuki with satisfaction. “You get a lot of monsters at your door, Roswell?”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“A few,” admitted the redhead. “Mostly we drive over them.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“But now?” worried Dancer. “I mean, with Bill missing won’t you have to go through that whole thing again about getting someone else with psychic gifts to own the place. There was that whole mystic covenant dealie…”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Well if Bill Reed had actually been dumb enough to get himself killed then that would be a problem,” Roswell admitted. “Since we haven’t been besieged by anything worse than skittergeists so far tonight I’m guessing that the worst hasn’t come to pass. If he’s just absent we can manage for a while. Heck, we can manage better if he’s absent for a while.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Okay then,” Dancer agreed. “You call us if there are any problems you can’t handle, okay? And give my regards to the boys in the cabs.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“You want a ride back to your Lair Mansion?” asked Roswell.     Dancer shook her head. “We’re going to walk the mean streets. Yuki’s hoping someone mugs her.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“I need to think,” admitted Yuki Shiro, “and I think best when I’m pounding lowlife.”     Dancer and Yuki waved goodbye to Myrna behind the caller’s cage and exited into the industrial wasteland of Shelton.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“What are you thinking?” Dancer asked at last.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“I’m trying to work things out,” the cyborg P.I. answered. “Losing Hatty, the Shoggoth, even Nats is a massive blow to the team. It changes a lot of our strategies.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“I’m still not sure we should bump the Juniors up to membership. Well, not my… friend Sarah’s little sister anyway. The damage bills are high enough already. And who wants to go into action or meet a nice man knowing that your… friend’s little sister is watching you? No, I think Kerry needs to stay in Vizh’s Juniors programme still she’s, say, forty?”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“We’ll have to think about Kes and FA and Gaz and HB once the Carnifex has taken over,” Yuki judged. “Don’t forget that while we were all missing off in the Stitchlands and the villains were taking over the planet those kids were the Lair Legion. They might not have been voted in but they sure stood up for what we’re about.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“And what about Danny Lyle?” challenged Dancer. “He’s not a Junior and I don’t think he’d sign up to be a Legionnaire but he’s there every time they go into action. Are we ready for a guest villain on every adventure?”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Better Lyle than Citizen Z.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“But Danny’s father is the Hooded Hood.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“So we can trust him when he gives his word. And where better to have someone whose alternate-reality self damn near conquered the Parodyverse than within neck-snapping range?”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Yes, I see that, but… it would be weird. I mean it’s bad enough that Kerry’s with Danny when I, um, the Hooded Hood and I once…”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“So what?” blinked Yuki, unaware that Dancer who had once romanced the Hood was secretly Kerry’s sister. “It’s not like how Sarah and Visionary did the deed before they became adopted brother and sister. That’d be icky.”     Dancer smiled weakly. “Um, yes. So… what will you be wearing for the Carnifex’s dinner, eh?”     Yuki looked down at her leather jacket. “This.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“I mean, a girl doesn’t want to be too obvious, too transparent – and not just in that unitard that goes see-through in the rain. It’s got to say ‘hey, I’m available for post-battle debriefing’ without saying ‘hey, I’m the sluttiest superhero since Lisa became a cosmic entity, take me over the death-ray, superguy’. Right?”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“You’re hoping to date Mark Carnifex?”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“You’re not? Come on, Yuki. He’s perfect boyfriend material. I think he might just be the one!”     Yuki sighed. “I have to review all our operational procedures to be ready for the dinner tonight,” she replied. “Status updates on the major criminal cartels, on the galactic security situation, on rogue nation-states, on known paranormal threats, on key metahuman provocateurs. With Mark’s help we might actually be able to take down some threats we’ve never had the scope or range to tackle before. We could target Dark Thugos! Sage Grimpenghast! The Hooded Hood!”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Maybe a two-piece danskin,” considered Dancer. “With spangles.” *** 5.17am, The Arch, Continent of Lost Lemuria     The dimensions yawned and for a moment the twisted archway was a doorway between a church cellar in London and the imaginary sanctuary ordained by a blasphemous loathsome elder entity that rescues the lost and indentured. Ebony of Nubilia stepped from chilly England to the pre-dawn warmth of a tropical beach. She carried with her a tiny jar of salts, all that remained of the piece of Manga Shoggoth that had given his last energies to save his Legion team-mates yesterday.     The high priestess of the Manga Shoggoth was surprised to find the Caphan women awaiting her appearance.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“As Vespiir predicted,” said Kaara with some satisfaction. “Her gifts seem strong.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Which is a shame, under the circumstances,” responded Mirri, a worried frown of her face.     Ebony looked at the seven green-skinned exiles from a lush alien world, noting their serious demeanour and formal hair-braiding. Kriije, a leman of the servitor caste, was even bearing war blades. “Is something wrong?” the priestess wondered.     Koodi blurted out before she could control herself. “Vespiir had a dream! A bad one!”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Not just a dream,” Deeela elaborated. “A prophetic vision, of the kind which made her outcast. A dire warning of the future.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“If true, this warning tells of the destruction of all,” Kriije cautioned. “It begins with the murder of the Lair Legion and all their clan.”     Ebony looked at the pale serious faces of the Caphans. Palest of all was Vespiir herself, still trembling from what she’d seen.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“I have to speak with the Shoggoth anyway,” Ebony declared, holding up the little many-angled casket that contained the mortal remains of the Shoggoth’s own exiled element. “You’d better come along.” *** 10.32am, The Moon Public Library, Mare Ingenii, Luna     Lee Bookman had the ability to work for days without sleep if his Librarian duties demanded it. Right now they did.     D.D., the Lunar Public Library’s resident A.I. file index and general factotum, brought in another pile of documents for classification. “I’m afraid this is just about half-way, Lee,” she warned. “A.L.F.red says the best way to file them would be in the incinerator, but then he’s just having a cranky day. Week. Century.”     Lee laid his hand on the next pile of volumes, speed read them, and added the appropriate classification tags. “We can’t do without this material,” he told D.D. “Well, without any material really, but especially this. The Intergalactic Order of Librarians has been mounting rescue operations on all the data that was stored in the Shee-Yar Imperium at the time of it’s sudden and mysterious death. This is our copy of the files that have been rescued so far. File these under Shen Rae 933.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Noted,” responded D.D. “I don’t suppose any of this is giving you a clue as to what actually happened to the Imperium? A whole civilisation on hundreds of worlds wiped out in a single day? Even Galactivac doesn’t do that.”     The Librarian concentrated for a moment. “There’s some interplanetary comms chatter, fleet deployment logs,” he read. “They knew something was coming but they couldn’t believe how fast and deadly it was. Whole worlds went silent in minutes.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“A fleet?” D.D. wondered. “There’s rumours of a new galactic tyrant arising in the borderworlds.”     The Librarian analysed patters and called up a thousand or so of his favourite books on tactics. “Not a fleet. This was fast but it was focussed. Not an attack on multiple fronts, just one threat that moved with impossible speed, killing all in its way.” He checked more materials. “Something very small. Man-sized.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Man-sized?” D.D. repeated. “How? Is anyone that powerful? Thugos? The Doomherald? The Parody Master, except he’s gone.”     Lee thought for a moment then shrugged. “Whatever it was it happened too fast for anyone to record it. We’d better get on with the filing. I want all of this in place before the Legion dinner at the Esqualine Tower tonight.” *** 1.15pm, Visionary’s Lighthouse, currently in Willingham, downstate Paradopolis     Visionary threw up his hands. “Hallie, you tell her.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“The Carnifex is the greatest hero in the Parodyverse,” the Legion’s A.I. instructed Kerry Shepherdson, Vizh’s ward. “It’s a real honour to be invited to his Esqualine Tower.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Fine, great,” scorned the young probability arsonist, “but not on the night I get to try out my new rocke… er, stereo MP4 player. It was ordered specially from China, where they don’t have safety regulations.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“We did have other plans,” admitted Danny Lyle.     Visionary glared at Kerry’s boyfriend.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“With the Juniors,” Danny added hastily, moving his hand from round Kerry’s shoulder. “A beach party. With no alcohol or sex.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“All the Juniors are invited to the Tower,” Visionary pointed out. “Even graduates like spiffy and Ham-Boy.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“I’m going,” promised Hallie. “I’ll download into my Holographic Display Emitter since I can’t project into the Esqualine Tower otherwise. Tandi’s coming over here to babysit the kids.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Ah,” realised Vizh, “that’s why Flapjack was volunteering to help look after them and wanted to borrow one of Hacker 9’s abandoned PDAs. Amber told him he was going to the dinner with all the rest of the support staff.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“I don’t see why we should have to go to some boring dinner just because the Carnifex is so great and stuff,” sulked Kerry. “It’s the same way semi-innocent young women aren’t allowed to keep reasonable amounts of aviation fluid in their bedrooms. I can see why some young heroes decide to go totally New Battlers and just go it their own way.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Most of the New Battlers are in dead and the rest are in jail,” Vizh pointed out. “Look, this is going to be an historic meeting. You’re going. Call it a class assignment.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“I call it slave labour and child abuse.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“You’re eighteen.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Adult abuse, then.” Kerry turned to her boyfriend. “Danny…”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“The Carnifex isn’t all that great,” the rebel without a cause denied.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“You don’t have to go,” Visionary assured him.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“But I do?” screeched Kerry.     Vizh reached for a fire extinguisher and the argument replayed from the top. *** 2.05pm, Shee-Yar Homeworld, former Shee-Yar Imperium     They’d lost all track of time. Even Liu Xi, sensitive to dimensional folding, couldn’t tell exactly when the battle against the unceasing hordes of undead had been shifted from the shores of Herringcarp to the other side of the galaxy. All any of them knew was that the dead kept coming and there seemed to be no end of them.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Concentrate,” Anna called to Liu Xi as the others tried to shield the young elementalist from zombie assault. “Fold void and get us out of here.”     Lara Night seared another incoming wave of fallen Shee-Yar citizens but the effort drove her back to her knees. Even her energies had their limits and here, where the very sun of this world had been snuffed out, her body recharged slowly.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“I still can’t reach the void,” Liu Xi called, almost in tears. “Something’s blocking me.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Someone prepared for you,” Chiaki Bushido noted, slicing back the next cluster of undead. “Someone prepared for all of us, wanted to prevent us from reaching the Hooded Hood. Perhaps wanted to prevent anyone from reaching the Hooded Hood.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“I’ve recalculated the star maps again and again,” Anna reported. “We’re on the Shee-Yar homeworld. All of these corpses that are attacking us, its an entire planetary population. Billions of dead!”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“What can we do?” Liu Xi despaired. “We can’t fight forever!”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“We fight while we can,” the Psychic Samurai replied. “We do not yield. We do not fall.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“That much I remember,” said Lara, struggling to her feet.     Miss Peel watched her prey’s struggle and sent in another five thousand corpses. *** 4.15pm, The Lair Mansion, Parody Island, off the coast of Paradopolis     Sir Mumphrey Wilton allowed Flapjack to fawn his suitcases over the threshold into the reception hall. Asil Ashling and Samantha Featherstone followed behind. Marie Murcheson and Amber St Clare were already waiting for them.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Welcome back, Sir Mumphrey,” Amber bade the former leader of the Lair Legion. “It’s good to have you in the Mansion again.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“You too, of course,” Marie told the others.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Can you still sense when a Legionnaire dies?” Samantha demanded urgently. “Have you felt anything about Hatman, Nats, or the Shoggoth?”     The Lair Banshee couldn’t help but smile at the girl’s directional intellect. “I’m getting very queasy feelings, but nothing like a death yet,” she answered honestly. “I’ll be paying very close attention to my links with all the residents of this house while I’m holding the fort during the dinner tonight.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“It’s a shame you can’t leave the island now,” Asil sympathised with the ghost. “I can’t believe we’re going to get dinner with the Carnifex!”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“I can’t believe the chappie’s finally seen the light and agreed to join the Legion,” Mumphrey noted. “About time too. Dashed good.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“To lead the Legion!” Amber said happily. “It’s wonderful!”     Sir Mumphrey headed upstairs to get his dinner jacket ready.     Flapjack stepped out of the way for a moment then walked through a door that hadn’t been there a moment earlier. “Boss,” he reported, “he’s here.” *** 4.45pm, The Esqualine Tower, central Paradopolis     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Is everything ready for our guests?” asked the Carnifex.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Everything is exactly as you required it, sir,” replied Mr Flay.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Just as you specified,” agreed Mr Skinner.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Well then,” smiled the Carnifex, “I believe you can take the evening off. You know what to do with it?”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Yes, sir,” Mr Flay agreed with a smudge of satisfaction. “Mr Skinner and me is very much looking forward to some leisure time. Mr Skinner is looking forward to eating the Foxglove babies, whereas I am anticipating our visit to that there dimensional lighthouse.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Both will be good,” opined Mr Skinner. “But we won’t forget them Extraordinary Endeavour Enterprises nor any of the other places on the list.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“And that orphanage,” anticipated Mr Peel. “All those children and that nice holy priest.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“And that hospital with the vampire,” added Mr Skinner. “That should be rewarding, Mr Flay.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“A feast after a famine, Mr Skinner, as my old mum used to say before I devoured her.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Indeed it will be, Mr Flay, and not a moment too soon.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“You’ll know when you’re free to strike,” the Carnifex told them. “As soon as my hunt begins.” *** 5.54pm, Rubinsky Point, South-Western Candia     Zvesti Zdgugo shifted from eagle form and alighted on the clifftop to watch the sun set over the water. She’d chosen the eagle form especially because it reminded her of Jay Boaz. Now in her human shape she allowed herself a tear.      “Don’t cry, Zdenka,” Hatman told her.     Rabid Wolf turned round with a startled cry. Jay stood close behind her, his default Hatman cap pushed back on his head.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Yeah, I’m not a ghost or a clone or and evil double or anything,” Jay promised her. “Just me.”     Rabid Wolf sniffed him carefully then caught him in her arms. “They said you were dead, Jay Boaz! Lost! And now you are here! But how?”     Hatman tensed and separated himself from the goddess of the north. “Yeah, that bit’s complicated, Z. But the short answer is I was rescued from oblivion by, well, by your dad.”     Zdenka frowned. “My…? No, Jay. I am daughter of the gods of ancient Candia, which was carved from your history long since to be alternate place. My mother was the northlands and my mortal father was never known, can never be known…”     A figure emerged dramatically from the shadows. “Good evening,” said the Hooded Hood. “There are matters we must discuss, my daughter.” *** Next time: Dinner for sure, and lots of bad people doing bad things; but also lots of good people doing good things. Impossible odds? Check. Wicked master plans? Check. Playing for all the marbles? Check. Massive cast making it really hard to write? Check. Untold Tales of the Carnifex’s Dinner, coming to a Parodyverse near you. Original concepts, characters, and situations copyright © 2010 reserved by Ian Watson. Other Parodyverse characters copyright © 2010 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.

So the Rabid Wolf is the Hooded Hood's daughter, eh? Looks like Jay dodged a bullet there. That's one family you don't want to get too involved with.

Some very nice scenes in this chapter. I especially liked the Al and Muffy's moment and the contrast of Dancer's and Yuki's priorities as they walked home.

I'm beginning to think the old joke about having friends over for dinner will come true: The Lair Legion is the main course.

So the rift Hatman fell through was Candia? I guess the reclusive country should be glad for that at least.

I wonder why all these universe conquerors/destroyers inevitably decide that the Lair Legion is their greatest threat and therefore must be eliminated before anything else happens? It hasn't worked well so far.

Also I was thinking of a reason why Anna, Chiaki, and Lara's exit depended on Liu Xi when Lara could also remove them from the place, and probably more quickly. She could simply be curious about the place, or who brought them there (a sudden and rapid exit would leave her without that knowledge), or she could just be weakened because using electricity against the dead isn't terribly effective. Or she could just be waiting till the last second because of that curiosity bit.

The curiosity point can't be underestimated since Chiaki hasn't thought to run away and use the topography to her advantage. It's like she knows someone's watching and she wants to put on a show.

Does that file the Librarian received mean he's getting data about Shee-Yar from Shen Rae or is he collecting files because he thinks she's a threat? On a side note, things are changing with the Galactic Alliance, and I'll be posting something about that soon.

It seemed likely that the Hood would want to get someone close to the Carnifex.




It's a while since I did a "downtime" episode and I thought one might work here given the doom-laden future they don't know they're facing.

The Hood's plot has also given me an opportunity to gather together a number of "lost" characters to return into play. That's why I wondered if you wanted Epitome and Glory amongst them.

You're not too far wrong. Some dinners are served up raw.




Nope, the rift was to a place of certain death. The Portal of Pretentiousness snatched Jay from that ending.




The LL are the greatest heroes of the current nexus world of the Parodyverse and they have ties to a number of cosmic office holders and powerful allies. Sooner or later any would-be conqueror's going to have to gat past them before suceeding. Most go for sooner, since on the surface they seem like a fairly easy win compared to some of the major beings.

The Carnifex likes the challenge and wants to collect the set.




I was remembering what you said about Lara needing time to concentrate and prepare, especially if she is shifting others as well. I was also thinking that Lara's memory loss means she's not got many Parodyverse co-ordinates well fixed to aid her. Finally I was assuming that since the Carnifex has studied Lara he'd have found a way to block her escape the same way he put barriers to keep Liu Xi in place.

Mostly I wanted to set up a scenario where the four heroes face utterly overwhelming odds that seem impossible to escape. That's when they get to show their real heroism - and ingenuity. I wanted this to be a battle they'd always count as a tough one.




I think you can assume that to survive a whole day against an entire planet of co-ordinated undead the four of them have been using every trick and resource they know. I didn't go into detail (although these four were the only characters in two scenes in this chapter) but I hoped to give the impression that they were surviving through teamwork and professionalism. more next time.




I wanted to leave it a bit nebulous so as not to interfere with your stories. Either the IOL has been trading direct with Shen Rae or via the Alliance to get the literature. After all, why risk IOL personnel (given that at least one whole library would have been lost in the Carnifex's holocaust) when there's independent contractors who can take the chances instead? Lee knowing Shen Rae's name might indicate he's familiar with the source of the materials or it might just be the codename the IOL people attached when they acquired the data.

Of course, of all the LL Lee is the one most likely to keep Shen Rae a secret, especially if she's a member of the library and therefore covered by its confidentiality policy.

Maybe he won't be so tactless as to feed the Lair Legion the remains of Shee-Yar and then kill them.





I wonder if he knows the Lair Legion is in trouble then? Usually the Hooded Hood won't give away anything until he needs to.





I guess the biggest fault of most of those conqueror types is they're always looking for the fight, and don't realize that just under the surface the LL is fragile and easy to dismantle without a single blow.

Among those I'd expect to know that are the Librarian, the Psychic Samurai, and Hallie.





I forgot to type it in last reply, but I was also going to add: Lara could probably take herself, Liu Xi, Anna, and Chiaki home with her (to her own Earth) because she knows the way so well. But she probably figures they don't want to go there and be stuck while she rests up for a day or so. That would be an absolute last resort.

I guess any strong enough magical barrier (or "bind") will work too though.

Tough battle aside, though, the only way I can see it ending at the moment (because I'm guessing I don't see it all yet) is if the four realize there's manipulation going on, and turn on the source of it (Mrs Peel).





I should clarify...Because the Carnifex killed each one of the Shee-Yar, I always assumed the planet would look abandoned, not like a wasteland. In other words, near the ocean the four women should be able to find a shelter they're capable of barricading and protecting more easily. That's where the running away and using the topography comes in.





Shen Rae's status there might change soon. More in a short story I'm working on called "Zephiir's Prophecy". Actually I'm working on 2 stories at once, and I can't decide whether to start posting that or a short story about Anna called "Catch and Release".





If she is a member that could come in handy for her later.

I have to wonder though, Shen Rae both has secrets about the galaxy and about herself. It's difficult to tell if the Librarian would have both.

I also added some interesting stuff about Faite to this reply: http://mangacool.com/php/show.php?rpy=parodyverse-2010020101271755

...Not that this wasn't entertaining as well, I just don't see it being an animated musical segment any time soon.

These are some nasty customers you have going here... I really hope they don't slaughter us all (again?) The psychic warning sent back to the past better arrive before the Hors D'oeuvres if we're to last past the soup course.

Seriously, though... Dancer dropped the biggest warning possible about the Carnifex in her conversation with Yuki. If only the cyborg knew her well enough to see it...

Lots of fun exchanges in this one (I enjoyed seeing poor Hallie being roped into dealing with Kerry now as well. Dealing with crazy relatives is all part of the relationship game, after all.) A wonderful surprise at the end of the chapter too... Way to roll with the postings, as it were.

I'm looking forward to (and dreading) the big hunt.

I admit, I'm curious if Hatman only came back because I'm back at the board. If so, I got the Parodyverse itch just in the nick of time!

While I followed the last chapter no problem, there were a few things I was a little fuzzy on, so I'm hoping to catch up on my UToLL soon. I still greatly enjoyed the story though.

I'll try get involved in this soon with some tie-ins, but I need to reintegrate a little more before I'm comfortable writing in current continuity.

Nice job!

~Hat~

We already did LL: The Musical and I'd hate to repeat myself.




Where's the drama in that?




I couldn't resist the dig. Maybe Shep's lurking?




It occurs that PV reader engagement seems to wax when there's a sense of forward movement in narrative, so I thought I'd try to generate a bit for a while.

I hope I can find the time to keep up a pace.




Excellent.

Was there any particular cast member you particularly wanted to survive?

The Shee-Yar aren't related to the LL so where's the fun in that?







Is he not... the Hooded Hood?










My take is that the LL aren't fragile at all; they're very resiliant and deceptively hard to beat. They're to the PV what the Avengers and JLA are in their respective mythoi, the prime heroes in a team.










As I've argued before, if the heroes can blink out of danger whenever things get tough then it's not that heroic. Sometimes only the toughest situations can define a character's heroic core.




Noted.







I think it's a bit of both. I didn't get a chance to go into detail in this chapter since it's not that kind of narrative but the Shee-Yar sun is snuffed so there's massively sub-zero temperatures (I assume Liu Xi or Lara could mitigate that) and the planet is floating out of orbit with all the tectonic shifts that implies.







Proceed.







Membership is free to those with the capability to visit and apply.




Could work either way.




Noted.

You got back in the nick of time and allowed me to go back to my original plot.




Jolly good. I've written very little PVB stuff in the last eighteen months I'm afraid.




Current continuity hasn't really shifted much since Saving the Future except that Glory went to look for Epitome, Vizh may be Earth's ambassador to the stars, and he's possibly kind of maybe dating Hallie.

Quote:
Nice job!

Thanks.

The Joker might like that one.





We know.





Yes, they can *beat* any opponent. I'd expect, though, Lee, Chiaki, and Hallie to understand that, and also understand that they could theoretically disable or dismantle the LL by giving them no opponent to fight. For instance making them obsolete somehow, and forcing the individuals to move on to something else.

Fortunately none of those three has a reason - but it's fun to think about what can be done when there's no posturing or ego at stake.





There may be some structures left, at least natural ones.

Both Lara and Liu Xi are capable of generating heat, though Liu Xi can do so much more easily.





I guess Shen Rae has no problem getting there.

Wouldn't that be nice? Well, wherever she is, I hope things are going well for her.





It definitely has me jazzed about the PV... It also helps that I'm between projects again myself, so I find I actually have free time again.




Well, I suppose as long as one of them pulls through to mourn the others, I'll have something I can work with. Plus, as you mentioned, Sarah's AWOL, and she's the one who always said Vizh couldn't be killed off...

More good stuff here. Enjoyed it all. This is shaping up to something big...will there be another shocking revelation next issue? I hope so!

Indeed.










I'm definitely not between projects, but I am forcing myself to structure my time more fiercely. People in the office were laughing at me this week because I was doing the whole "Have to go now, I've got another call coming in" thing so often (I did have calls coming in, though). I must be getting grumpier too, since folks are prefacing their remarks with "I'm sorry to bother you with this, Mr Watson, but..."







Noted.

If it's any help the Carnifex expects Vizh's kids to be joining him for dinner.







Wouldn't that require getting rid of every supervillain, terrorist organisation, alien and supernatural enemy in the Parodyverse then eradicating crime and natural disaster?

Quote:


Quote:
I didn't get a chance to go into detail [about Shee-Yar] in this chapter since it's not that kind of narrative but the Shee-Yar sun is snuffed so there's massively sub-zero temperatures (I assume Liu Xi or Lara could mitigate that) and the planet is floating out of orbit with all the tectonic shifts that implies.

Quote:
There may be some structures left, at least natural ones.

I'm sure there's plenty of ruins and I'm sure that a running battle will enable the heroes to make creative use of them. Unfortunately they've been dropped into the last act of a planetary zombie movie. They'll be fine until they need to rest; or find a bathroom.

I'm not quite sure how far the story will get next issue. It might be a concluding episode or it might be part of a longer storyline; I'll only know when I get round to writing it.

Apropos of nothing, this is the first PV reply I've typed since being pointed to the blog of the artist doing the interior work on my Robin Hood: King of Sherwood book. His page at http://homepage.mac.com/robmdavis/iblog/index.html includes some of his images for that volume for those who are interested.

Good thing Anna's not watching them, she would resist extremely violently (and she's capable of far more violence than Tandi is). Visionary's kids are the first human children she's become very attached to.








Ask Lara Night that question sometime. She "retired" from superhero work back home because there were so many costumed avengers out there she felt like it didn't mean anything anymore. And with the police developing ways to deal with them, that made her feel even more redundant.

The first small step is always the biggest - a long while ago, the Zoot Suit Gang started hosing down heroes with this sticky glue-like foam that shows a lot of promise.





In that case I only have 5 possible predictions:

1. Since Lara isn't going to herself or the others die, she may take a chance and blindly transport all of them to somewhere random and far away...where they'll become stranded for a few days while she waits to recharge (or until Liu Xi is strong enough to get them out). This possibility will most likely be motivated by one of them becoming badly hurt, i.e. the "We have to get out now!" scenario. (P.S. that kind of panic reaction would sort of be like "collapsing the bubble", the one protecting them from the hard atmosphere, so a handful of zombies and some ground dirt would probably go with them)

2. Ms. Peel either stops to gloat, or the Psychic Samurai had a few seconds to focus and figure out she's behind it all. Chiaki pulls a last second switch and seems to abandon the others while she goes after Ms. Peel. At least until Ms. Peel defends herself by sending all the zombies after Chiaki - but by then, the distraction will free Liu Xi to work her void magic.

3. There will be outside rescue - either from the Hooded Hood (protecting his investment, of course - erasing Lara's memory and making plans for her was hard work!) or Vinnie, since they're the only two I can think of that are available. Unless someone is in range of Anna's broadcast telemetry, like that alien bounty-hunter, piloting a stolen Shee-Yar cruiser.

4. The point isn't to kill them, but to disable and capture them for later. That's a classic villain mistake (locking up the heroes instead of killing them) but a highly possible one, since the original point may be to keep them from alerting and rescuing the Lair Legion.

5. Liu Xi finally remembers spells that Vinnie told her about while she was up late at night with him, and she turns the zombies - or their ghostly souls - against Ms. Peel by telling them she was responsible for their genocide.

Anything other than that would probably involve factors or characters I'm not at all familiar with.

Chop chop!




Hey cool. That must feel good - seeing someone depict your story and all that?

Can't say I care overly-much for his Robin (looks too thin and, well, the word that comes to mind is 'dorky'). But hey, he can draw much better than me so who am I to criticise.

The idea is to hurt the Legion as much as possible before they die. Where's the fun otherwise?







Surely if you have the ability to save lives you'd feel bad every time you saw the news about lives lost and knew you'd done nothing?

For example, what superhero (if they existed in our world) wouldn't have flown out of retirement and gone to Haiti recently to help with rescue operations?







I'm hoping to rule this one out as a possibility. The purpose of previous Carnifex provocations like the Moderator Saga and Saving the Future was for him to get the measure of his enemies characters, abilities, and powers. He wants the first of these so he can work out how to torment them, the second so he can set strategies against them, and the third so he can neutralise those which would otherwise interfere with his games. This latter factor is how he's worked out ways of preventing Liu Xi and Lara from departing out of his trap.

Note however that he hasn't simply arranged for their immediate and inescabable demise. He wants them to struggle and suffer for as long as possible before falling; and therein lies his weakness.




I expect that eventually the heroes will work out that escape isn't possible. Thereafter the only acceptable solution is victory.




That might work under other contexts, but I think it would feel like a cheat in this situation. Here's an "impossible challenge" for the characters, which is designed to make them helpless and desperate and ultimately to fail. Narratively it would only satisfy if they managed somehow through their own efforts to thwart that intent to make them victims.




The point's to destroy them, with death being the final merciful end of it. More on this next chapter.




It's one way through, but I think Liu Xi would need considerably more experience and power to accomplish such a thing on a planetary scale.




I think it would be a cheat to bring in some left-field x-factor to this one. The key to victory has to be our heroines toughing it out, dealing with all the crap and horror, and proving they're better than the opposition the hard way. We'll see how that pans out when I write UT#335.

Noted.








Most likely she would - and she didn't give up that stuff entirely at home, she's just not making a career or a public spectacle of it anymore. It's more like a hobby now.

The point is the same with the Lair Legion though - if they were rendered obsolete it doesn't mean they'd give up hero-ing entirely, just that they wouldn't do so as a permanent group anymore.





Like I said, it's a last resort for two reasons: First, if Lara does indeed have a way out, she won't want whoever trapped her there to know about it, because she plans to come right back (and the next trap will be even better). Just like Chiaki says, never let your enemy see your true strength right away.





So if the women have a barbecue and invite the zombies and Ms Peel the Carnifex will be angry?





Since it's very unlikely they can stop billions of zombies one by one, they have to take out the person controlling them. Or take control of the zombies.





It's still a possibility, so I threw it out there.








Anna is a very powerful transmitter, and the frequency range of her transmissions is still a secret. They would only need to convince the zombies within range (the rest are too far away to care about yet, they could take days to arrive).








Of all of them, Chiaki is probably at the greatest disadvantage...since she's fighting with all her limbs, she'll tire most quickly - but she also will be the most reluctant to throw in the towel. She would continue fighting, but you'd be able to tell she's getting tired when she switches from aggressive to defensive.

Anna can continue fighting the longest, because her battery has a kinetic recharge, so the more she's fighting, the more power she gets. She might even be recharging fast enough to use the lasers fairly often. Her being designed that way is no accident - she was designed by SPUD, and one of the requirements was a nearly tireless fighting machine. There is danger of her overheating though, which would cause her to sweat, and then slow down as the water in her body begins to diminish.

Lara would do okay if she paces herself and doesn't use up more energy in a single burst than she can recharge from the planet's magnetic field. Most likely if she's planning something big, she would really conserve that power, in case she has to use it all up escaping far away, or detonating the entire planet's surface.

Liu Xi would have to be smart and use as basic elemental power as she can, because it would tire her out very quickly. Just like Lara, she would need to remember to keep something in reserve for something big - but unlike Lara, she has no way to recharge, so once she wears down, she's out of action.

So eventually it becomes a case of two people protecting all four, and then eventually Anna would be fighting for them all. Then possibly Lara might use the time she's not fighting to build up enough power for a massive detonation, or Liu Xi may just turn hurricane force winds on the zombies, and then pass out from the strain.

Soooo... Rabid Wolf is the latest HH offspring, and the party are going, unawares, to a dinner that is really a trap.

Now, which of these have I heard before....

All we need now is a Bishop.

But if you're not giving it 100% then you're always going to feel guilty about the child you didn't save, the team-mate who you weren't there to pull from their doom.




I suspect many of the LL hang together because they're friends. The whole superhero team thing is just an enabling device.




I'd really prefer to see how the women do when they're actually trapped.







I think Lara and Co would probably elect to live instead.







Noted.




Interesting.




She's also the one most likely to work out a counter-strategy.




How would she function once Lara's not able to shield her from absolute zero, at temperatures where metal snaps and lubricants freeze?




I'm not entitely sure of my physics, but I think the magnetic field is a function of the planet spinning around a molten core. Without a sun there's no force to spin the planet (except residual momentum) and a diminishing magnetic field.




Noted.




I think it's fair to assume that any or all of these things will have been tried in the 19 hours of battle so far.

For the uninitiated, Chris is referring to another story I wrote a long time back.

This was brilliant. The ending was suprising. It's good to be home.

Is there anything else I ought say?

Because you can't be surprised like that while you're not at home?




Incisive commentary is always welcome.

Or possibly "what can I cook you for dinner, beloved father?"