The Junior Lair Legion

Being the exploits of the next generation of superheroes, bright young people gathered by the fabled Lair Legion to be trained as the champions of tomorrow - or at least to stop them destorying property today!


The Junior Lair Legion by Visionary
Cast (left to right): Ham Boy, Kerry Shepherdson, Visionary, spiffy, Harlagaz, Fashion Accessory, (front) Glory.

Untold Tales of the Junior Lair Legion: Professor Xalter’s Academy Was Never Like This


The Night Before Doom - a tale of the Parodyverse

The Junior Lair Legion Programme Multiple Choice Exam Paper

Glory Uses a No 2 Pencil

Ham-Boy's Retakes the Paper

Harlagaz' Seemly and Sooth Answers

Fashion Accessory's Totally Cool Picks

Kerry Answers the Sucky Test

ManMan's ManAnswers

Nats' Answers

C'thandra's Answers (via the Manga Shoggoth)

Yo's Answers

Trickshot's Answers

Keiko's Answers

Davie's Answers (via AG)









***

#134: Untold Tales of the Junior Lair Legion: Professor Xalter’s Academy Was Never Like This

Previously: While Fin Fang Foom is away from the team (and unknown to them being possessed by the villainous Devil Doctor), LL deputy Goldeneyed is instituting a program of reform and expansion, including the establishment of a Junior Lair Legion as a training ground for the next generation of superheroes.

    This is their story…

***

    Visionary looked round the classroom and worried where he’d put his lunch money. Then he checked to see if he was wearing pants. Then he remembered that he was supposed to be the teacher. “Er, good morning class,” he bade the students watching him.

    “Hi,” Ham Boy nodded back.

    “Good morning teacher,” squirmed Fashion Accessory, leaning forward to flash a stunning cleavage at the source of her grade point average.

    “You so suck,” Kerry Shepherdson told him.

    Glory thumped her tail on the floor and pawed a key on her voice translator. “Good morning, sir or madam,” it said.

    “I shouldn’t even be here,” sulked spiffy. “I’m omni-mayor, you know. And I was a founder member of the League of Regulars and the Lair Legion. Well, that was my evil duplicate, but it would have been me if I hadn’t been stuck in the Not-So-Happy Place.”

    “Do I even want to know what that means?” Ham Boy worried.

    “You dated this fern guy?” Fashion Accessory asked Kerry. “Eew.”

    “He was a perfect gentleman,” Dancer’s little sister confided. “Eew.”

    “He smells of fennel,” Glory sounded out on her keyboard, helpfully.

    Visionary felt it was time to try and bring things back under control. “Hey, class! A little order, please? We’ve all got to get along together, y’know?”

    “How would you like us to get along, teach?” languished Fashion Accessory. “What would you like us to do for you?”

    “I, um, er, we’ll start with introductions. We’ll go round the room, say our name and a little bit about ourselves, okay?”

    “Even the boring people?” complained Fashion Accessory.

    “I’ll start, shall I?” Vizh pressed on brightly. “I’m Visionary, and I’ll be your teacher on this course about how to be a superhero…”

    “Because you’ve got so much more experience at that than me, having no super-powers or anything,” muttered spiffy. “I didn’t see you getting pounded to jelly by the inconceivable Yurt.”

    “Dude, I’ve got to admit that’s looking like a plus from where I’m sitting,” admitted Ham Boy.

    “You smell very nice,” Glory admitted to the bacon battler. “Although you are making me hungry.”

    “Er… please don’t eat my costume,” Ham Boy begged the mutt of might.

    “Hey, guys love to eat my costumes,” Fashion Accessory smirked.

    “Is this going to go on for long?” Kerry Shepherdson demanded. “Only I have this new barbeque set I’ve been dying to play with.”

    “We’ll get on then,” Visionary agreed. “Kerry, can you say a little bit about yourself?”

    The dark-haired troublemaker shrugged and stood up to face the class. She pulled her cut-off t-shirt a little further down onto her midriff and grinned. “Hi. I’m Kerry, from Ireland. I had to come to America to be with my sister, but she’s run off so now I have to live with Dorkface there and…”

    “Hey,” said Visionary. “I made you toast this morning.”

    “You’re living with teach?” Fashion Accessory admired. “Wow, you must really need to improve your grades.”

    “Nah, it’s not like you think,” Kerry assured her classmate. “It’s not so much a sex-slave thing as a he-won’t-let-me-near-accelerants-and-yells-every-time-the-bathroom-explodes kind of thing. I think he’s my foster-dad or something.”

    “And to be fair, the bathroom exploded pretty regularly when it was just Enty hanging out at the Condo,” spiffy pointed out in mitigation.

    “Enty did it accidentally,” Vizh pointed out through gritted teeth.

    “I trust that NTU-150 is enjoying his convalescence in the Philippine Islands?” Glory asked politely.

    “Last I heard he’d had a few ideas and was heading for the lab,” Visionary shuddered.

    “Hello? Talking about me right now,” Kerry prompted. “So I’ve inherited the powers of the Probability Dancer while she’s off being Herald of Galactivac or whatever, and now I can make things explode just by looking at them. But he,” (pointing at Visionary) “said I had to learn to use them responsibly. As if lighting a volcano under those steelworkers that gestured at me wasn’t responsible!”

    “Are we talking bronzed, tight-bunned, stripped-to-the-waist-sweat-on-their-muscular-hairy-chests steelworkers or flabby, gut-over-the-jeans, B.O-would-kill-a-skunk-at-twenty-paces steelworkers?” Fashion Accessory checked.

    “That second one,” Kerry assured her.

    “Then you go, girl.”

    “Moving on,” Visionary called hastily, “Ham Boy?”

    “Er, right,” the young man said nervously, rising and knocking his chair over as he rose. “Well… er, do I have to give away my secret identity?”

    “If I wore meat products to fight crime I’d want to keep my name pretty quiet,” Fashion Accessory advised him.

    “The Lair Legion guarantees the anonymity of its members and associates,” Vizh assured him. “Just tell us a little about your powers and stuff.”

    “Um, well, I have the power of meat vision. When I stare at stuff meat just kind of appears,” Fred Harris explained nervously.

    “That is a good power to have,” admitted Glory.

    “Also Meat Sense, that warns me if evil is near…”

    “Why is it called Meat Sense then?” demanded Fashion Accessory. “Why not call it Evil Sense?”

    “I think you’re missing the whole meat motif here, F.A.,” Kerry advised her. “You saw the Ham-Scooter he arrived on, right?”

    “Perhaps he can sense bad meat?” speculated Glory helpfully.

    “And I can control meat products if I concentrate,” Ham Boy pressed on. “Although not raw unprocessed meat.”

    “They call those ‘people’,” spiffy pointed out.

    “That’s about it,” Ham Boy told the class. “Meat Vision, Meat Sense, control over meat. Ham-Scooter. I usually fight crime in Goth Haven, and my main enemies so far are the Disgruntles and E.C.O.L.I.”

    “I heard you actually volunteered for this class,” said Kerry accusingly.

    “There was this advertisement, on how to be a better superhero,” explained Ham Boy. “So I figured I might improve.”

    “That was before you knew Vizh was taking the class then?” spiffy surmised.

    “Well thank you, um, Ham Boy,” Visionary cut in nodding manically and trying to keep things on track. “That was very… inspirational.”

    “Me next,” called Fashion Accessory, leaping up and twirling to show off her designer one-piece with the hand-embroidered gold lace panels. “Hi. I’m Amanda Bonnington, the Fashion Accessory. I’m from Beverly Hills, and I want to be a supermodel. I got some powers a bit like a cut-down Sersi from the Hooded Hood a couple of years back, so I can change the molecules of my costumes whenever I want. I spent a little while teaming with the New Battlers until we split over creative difficulties. My turn-ons are shopping and sensitive guys in designer jeans, and my turn-offs are smoking and boys who won’t take no for an answer.” She glanced across at Ham Boy. “Also, I’m a vegetarian,” she added with a sniff.

    “Good,” answered Fred Harris.

    “Glory?” Vizh prompted. “Would you like to say hello to the group?”

    The mutt of might rose up and wagged her tail at her classmates. “Hello,” she told them via her translator program. “I am Glory. I was enhanced by the same classified process used on my partner Mister Epitome, to have enhanced speed, strength, stamina, and senses. I also have X-ray vision, although no actual X-rays are involved. I am very pleased to be here.”

    “I thought she was supposed to have improved intelligence too,” said Kerry. “If she’s that smart why would she want to be in Dorko’s hero class?”

    “Visionary is a respected member of the metahuman community, although debate continues as to whether he is real or not,” Glory defended her teacher.

    “I’m real dammit,” Vizh argued by reflex.

    “Mr Epitome suggested that my auditing the class might improve relations between OPS and the Lair Legion and would be a useful experience for me in socialising and understanding metahuman psychologies.”

    “Hey!” spiffy cried, suddenly struck with inspiration. “I could bring Hound-Dog down to meet you. You’d love him!”

    “To quote Ms Bonnington, ‘Eew’,” Glory shuddered. “Your Hound-Dog is only interested in one thing, and he also needs a very good wash.”

    “Sounds like all my dates,” Fashion Accessory admitted with a sigh.

    “He has the powers of a super-dog and the brains of a bran muffin,” Glory explained.

    “So he’s your dog for sure, spiffster,” Kerry grinned at the ferned phenomenon.

    “Moving on again,” Visionary interceded hastily before anything got set on fire, “spiffy, do you want to say why you’re here?”

    “What, because it was in Lisa’s plea bargain before the Hague war crimes tribunal about my little invasion of France?” Mark Hopkins glowered. “Bah. Okay folks, I’m called spiffy and…”

    The classroom door smashed open and rebounded from the wall. A large red-haired young man in biker leathers swaggered into the room. “I have arrived!” he announced in a rich, booming voice.

    “We noticed,” Ham Boy scowled. “On account of the door being embedded into the plasterwork.”

    “Ah, hello,” Vizh nodded, carefully noting an L for late next to this student’s register entry. We were just going round the room introducing ourselves and spiffy was…”

    “I art Harlagaz Donarson,” the newcomer boomed, ignoring the fern wielder and unleashing his brilliant smile on the two girls present. “Mine father is the acting ruler of Ausgard, lord of the tempests, and I am his trueborn heir, conqueror of the fell drakkenwurm, master of the rampant goats, and warrior born of the lineage of Oldman.” He stooped and kissed the hands of Kerry and Amanda. “Yet I am humbled to be in the presence of such beauty and grace.”

    “Well I try to keep myself in shape and I did have a haircut recently,” spiffy noted in acid tones.

    Harlagaz noticed him for the first time. “Oh. Thou art here? There is an unseemly growth on thee.”

    “It’s my symbiotic fern!” spiffy told the hemidemigod through clenched teeth.

    “I was addressing the fern,” Harlagaz laughed. Then he slapped spiffy on the back, propelling him out of his seat and across the room. “Be of good cheer, plant pot. I am thy boon companion and do but jest.”

    He sat himself down in the seat spiffy had just flown out of, shuffled it across to be between Kerry and Fashion Accessory, and looked expectantly at Visionary.

    “Say on, wise old mentor,” he commanded. “Let the tutoring begin for the nonce.”

***

    “Visi! Visi! To be coming out of the cupboard now?” Yo tapped hopefully on the broom closet door in the main hall of the Lair Mansion. “Visi?”

    “What is the matter?” demanded Pegasus, spotting the pure thought being speaking to the keyhole. “Space Ghost’s not back, is he?”

    “Is Visi. He is to be saying he is not to be coming out again until Junior League are to be being on state pensions.”

    “That’s five dollars you owe me Cressie,” dull thud grinned triumphantly to his parasitic telepathic intestinal worm. “I told you he wouldn’t last the first day.”

    ~~That’s not the painful bit~~ Cressida said ruefully. ~~I’m going to owe Fleabot fifty bucks.~~

    “Hey guys, look, Falc’s back!” called out CSFB!, leading the adventuring avian into the Mansion. “All cleared by SPUD from mixups with alternate-reality doubles but suspended so he can spend more time with us.”

    “Joy,” said Falcon. So far he hadn’t felt all that welcome amongst the Lair Legion, with the notable exception of Lisa.

    “Falcon?” Pegasus said sharply, whirling round to look at the newest probationary member. “You fought me in aerial combat and brought me low with explosives and gasses of Morpheus.”

    “Er, yeah,” agreed Sam Wilson uncomfortably. “About that…”

    Pegasus strode over to him, grabbed him by the collar, and pressed him against the wall. Then she kissed him. With tongues.

    “I really missed out at my induction,” complained dull thud.

    “You fought well as a warrior should, and achieved a fair conquest” Pegasus told Falcon, dropping him in a happy huddle on the carpet. “Come and see me later.” And she strode off into the Living Room.

    “Hey, I beat you in combat too,” CSFB! called after her, in vain.

    “You need to come out of the closet, Visi,” Yo continued calling through the broom cupboard door.

    “So he can kiss Falcon as well?” snickered thuddy

    “Vizh is in there?” CrazySugarFreakBoy! realised. “Why?”

    “Visi is not to yet be being enjoying teaching cute-students,” Yo explained. “He is to be asking why is not to be teached by Yo or Lisa or Nats or Order of the Observing Eye or anyone excepting him, dammit.”

    “Well G-Eyed’s not too happy about the Order training the next generation of heroes right now,” CSFB! explained.

    “He was even less happy when he found that I’d been released about the same time that Trickshot was arrested for beating up Natalia Romanza,” Falc reported.

    “Robotclonefakedouble,” CSFB! shrugged. “It’s the season for them. Tricky’ll escape, find the bad guy, smash him to a pulp, and bring him in to prove his innocence.”

    “Yo is thinking is to be bad time for cute Lair Legion.” The genderless creature from Yo-Planet leaned down to the keyhole and added, “Is time for all true friends of Legion to be helping out.”

    There was a sound from inside the closet.

    ~~What did he say?~~ asked Cressida.

    “Visi is coming out and will be delighted to help,” Yo informed them. “At least that was being the gist of it.”

***

The Journal of Fred Harris, a.k.a. Ham Boy

Tuesday

    This isn’t quite how I expected it to be. When I signed up I thought it would be a chance to see the world’s premiere superhero team in action, learn what they’re like and how they do what they do.

    The bad news? Now I’ve seen them.

    I guess this must be a pretty bad time for the Lair Legion. Kerry explained some of it to me after Nats’ seminar on How to Use Your Super-Powers To Hold Down a Minimum Wage Job. Seems their leader, the wyrm Fin Fang Foom, is recovering for a major battle and has taken time off to find himself, leaving this newbie Deputy Leader Goldeneyed in charge. G-Eyed is keen to swell the ranks of the team, so there’s been a lot of arguing about who should be allowed to join. I mean lots and lots of e-mail.

    Meanwhile, it seems like half the existing team are getting arrested. Falcon’s been cleared of being an international mercenary assassin but he’s still suspended from his job. Plus he’s apparently got to have a little sister now. I’m not sure whether that’s part of the punishment. Visionary says if she’s anything like Kerry then Falcon may have been Attila the Hun in a past life. Trickshot’s in custody right now, and I heard that they put him in the Safe with around a hundred and fifty super-powered convicts who hate his guts. They say he hospitalised his dead double’s widow, but nobody’s letting me into the files to understand all the footnotes.

    And though he’s not on the team right now it seems that the Dark Knight is wanted for trying to nuke Gothametropolis. There was this big row us kids weren’t supposed to hear when G-Eyed wanted the team to start tracking DK down and CSFB! told him where he could stick his battle plans and then Nats started shouting about the Hooded Hood’s influence and Cressida transmuted the words to ducks and the whole room was filled with feathers.

So far I haven’t seen them fight any crime yet.

    Everyone seems pretty worried about the missing heroes too. Well, Kerry says Galactivac the Living Death that Sucks should be realising the big mistake he made stealing Dancer to be his herald any time now. I asked did she mean that he’d be angry because Dancer had passed on her probability powers to Kerry before she was zapped away, but Kerry said No, he’d just have found out how annoying Dancer could be by now and how impossible it was to shut her up. Nobody’s heard from ManMan, Amazing Guy, the Librarian, Xander, or Sir Mumphrey Wilton either. I wish ManMan would come back soon. It would make me feel more secure in my powers.

    The other students are a pretty interesting bunch. Kerry’s really cute, but she has a tendency to throw compasses when she’s bored. Or set fire to desks. Or Visionary. And she bores easily. Amanda’s far too interested in her appearance and what people think of her, but when she forgets to pose she seems pretty nice, maybe even a bit lonely. Of course, she doesn’t forget to pose that often. When she gets unbearable we just say, “What’s that between your teeth, F.A.?” and she’s gone into the bathroom for half an hour. Glory’s great, even if she does keep looking at me and slavering; but it’s a bit intimidating to realise she’s the smartest person in the room, and probably the most sensible.

    Harlagaz is kind of big-headed. I guess if I was a demihemigod about as tough as a tank and able to juggle them as well I might cop an attitude. He’s big, red-blonde, good-looking, confident, charming when he wants to be, damn near unstoppable in battle. Blast him. He and spiffy seem to argue all the time, and I’m sure Kerry flirts with them both deliberately just to set them off. spiffy seems like a nice kid, but I find it hard to match up the fellah with the fern on his head with the monster in the Impeach Mayor spiffy TV ads. I’m trying to work up the courage to get him to sign one of their 10 Reasons to Mulch Mark Hopkins flyers, as a souvenir.

    Today we had Surviving Laboratory Innovations 101 from Visionary, Due Process and Spontaneous Confessions from Lisa, The Etiquette of Preliminary Misunderstanding Battles in Superhero Team-Ups from CSFB!, and Quantum Resonance Differentiation in Trans-Temporal Interface Mutualities and Interdimensional Convergence Events from the Manga Shoggoth. I need to check someone’s notes on that last one.

    And what’s wrong with Meat Sense?

***

The Fashion Accessory Video Archive

Volume 19, Reel 234

    This doesn’t suck as much as it could.

    Sure, Kerry’s right, Visionary is a dweeb. And that yellow coat of his is so 1930s. Retro is old. But he does kind of seem to care about doing the right thing, and he’s the first teacher I’ve had since tenth grade that hasn’t fallen for the Oops I Dropped an Apple I’ll Just Bend Over and Pick It Up For You Sir trick by trying to jump my bones. Instead of falling over himself to get his hands on me he just fell over the desk, backwards, and spilt his lunch into his lap. Which is kind of refreshing.

    Plus, that opens up a whole new set of problems. Now I have to study. With the New Battlers it was pretty simple. We found somebody that E-Male didn’t like, beat them up, then partied. After E-Male took the big dirt nap we found people WyrmBoy didn’t like, beat them up, then partied. But the LL don’t party like that. Their parties involve quiche and little sausages, and maybe watching a video, and if ever they play twister it’s nearly always with their clothes on.

    At first I couldn’t see why Laurie bothered with these guys. Sure, she might have been getting good sex with that G-Eyed dude but really, was that worth all the aggravation of having to listen to CrazySugarFreakBoy! geeking away over the dinner table, or dull thud’s t-shirts? But then we had Practical Demolition with Pegasus, and she showed us not only how to knock down buildings but how to do it while looking good. There’s a whole range of hair and face care products I’ve never considered that can keep brick dust and ground debris from making you look like, well, dull thud during a major combat situation. It’s that kind of vital advice that proper tuition gets you.

    Ziles was pretty good too. Okay, that silver jumpsuit is sixties-meets-Mork and Mindy, but still she knows her sneaking. She took us for Infiltration and Sabotage, and I learned a lot – blending dark colours and fabrics to accentuate the natural highlights, transposing catwalk poses into stealth situations, all of that stuff. For the practical she had us all break into the Maximum Security Wing of the Safe and then get out again undetected, which was pretty cool. I still don’t know why she had us leave a quiverful of weird looking arrows in there though.

    But best of all is the kind of equipment the LL gets to work with. Their genius leader has invented the best crimefighting tool of all-time, this kind of mentally-operated boot with retractable stiletto heels so you can go from flatties to six-inchers any time you want while battling for your life. What a boon! I couldn’t believe the other girls weren’t even bothering to use them!

    That’s the kind of professional detail you just don’t get unless you’re working with the Varsity.

***

Epistle from Harlagaz Donarson to Freyda Dorisdotter

Delivered by fell flying gjallowsgrim to the Fjords of Flattenheim

    

Heilsa and well met, mother. I art sorry that I hast not written before, but I have been busy settling into the mortal world of Middlinggard and attending to mine lessons as mine father bade me on pain of smiting most wrothfully.

Anyway, I have hied me to the fellowship of heroes in training, and they have sworn me as their boon companion and leader. They art a worthy company, albeit mere mortals, and together we shall set the bards a-singing. I shall tell you of them. First there is mine lady Fashion Accessory of the hair of spun gold, who knoweth the ways and glamours of enchantment, being by nature and disposition a charmer and transmuter of garments and hearts. There is also mine lady Kerry Shepherdsdotter, a dark-tressed spitfire worthy to set Miserablegitheim ablaze with war and desolation. She hast mastery over the stands of probability, and hast also got a secret key to the Lair Legion’s explosives cupboard.

    Mother, I know mine father hast warned me against dalliance with mortal wenches, for to protect the godly line from dissolution and bastardy, but hath he not heard of yon fabled condoms?

    Also of our company is Ham Boy, a goodly youth with the mien of a warrior that hast caught his head in the hinder parts of a pig. Despite the suckiness of his powers he art of good cheer and a boon companion. There is also Glory, a war-bitch most mettlesome, and enough to give pause to a grimpenghast of Frothgard. She speaks but by machine that changes the motions she makes into sounds, but much of what she says is not intelligible. She is only a dog, after all, and therefore not too bright. She uses many words of long syllables that hast no meaning whatsoever.

    Also there art spiffy, whom mine father doth term Coat Rack.

    Soon we shall set forth on some great venture or fell quest and achieve deeds of valour that wilt shake the heavens. Right now I must go and get me ready for sage Visionary’s What To Do When You Accidentally Break the Parodyverse 101.

    Your warrior son,

    Harlagaz.

***

Glory’s Daily Report #9

Training with the Junior Lair Legion

Dominic believed that spending time with others in Visionary’s school would be good to help me understand humans better, and to get more experience of super-heroes working together. He also said I would be able to study abnormal psyches in their natural settings. So far all of that has proved to be true. Plus, Yo keeps sneaking me cookies.

The training is nothing like as formal as we have at the Office of Paranormal Security. It often seems almost spontaneous and unplanned, as if Visionary had no prepared work schedule at all. Yet he is the former leader of the Lair Legion and could never have survived in that job without all kinds of skills. He is very good at concealing them.

A good example happened today, when we did Hostage Rescue in the new bay at the back of the Lair Mansion. Banjoooo came along to play the monster but there was some argument about who should be the damsel in distress. Kerry said she didn’t do the distress thing and Fashion Accessory said she didn’t have a white diaphanous gown with her (although as I pointed out, she could have metamorphosed her St Laurent two-piece into one given her fabric transmutation powers). Eventually by popular vote spiffy got to be the damsel. He was chained to a rock and Banjoooo menaced him with cries of “Now my pretty, it’s the beavers for you, bwa-ha-hah!”

Visionary directed the team to make a plan and find a way of saving the damsel, but Harlagaz laughed and boomed out “Plan? I art in no need of a plan. Mine father never needed to think, and neither hast I!” Then he flew straight at Banjooooo to pound him into submission. Unfortunately Banjooooo was really into the roleplaying by now so seeing the attack coming he quickly swallowed spiffy then turned to meet Harlagaz.

Fashion Accessory pointed out that somebody would have to go down Banjooooo’s gullet to rescue the hostage, but that she’d just had her hair done. Kerry nominated Ham Boy for the job, but suggested there were other directions for getting into Banjooooo’s intestine for the determined superhero. In the end Ham Boy tied a string of sausages to me as a lifeline and I had to go down the giant sea-monkey’s throat to retrieve spiffy. It took a long time to wash the smell off my fur.

spiffy was pretty cross afterwards, and blamed Harlagaz for provoking Banjooooo. It was interesting to observe them posing and preening for Kerry, who is clearly coming into season.

Visionary was almost in tears he was so proud of our achievements. He says he has never worked with a team like us in his life and that’s saying something. Visionary says the nicest things.

***

The Secret Diary of Kerry Shepherdson

Day Twenty-Four of Having to Be Visionary’s Ward

    Good things about Harlagaz: 1. He is a cosmic-level hunk 2. He has shoulders the size of New Zealand 3. He has a great tight butt. 4. He breaks things. 5. He is so easy to manipulate. 6. Did I mention the butt thing?

    Bad things about Harlagaz: 1. He is in love with Harlagaz 2. He has no volume control.

    Good things about Mark Hopkins: 1. He is sweet in a shy sort of way 2. He has a fern to look after him. 3. He is kind. 4. He does not attempt to grope me.

    Bad things about Mark: 1. He does not attempt to grope me. 2. He is not Harlagaz. 3. He is a complete wussy.

    Interesting turn of events today! After twenty-four days of careful and painstaking flirting on my part spiffy and Harlagaz finally got into a big fight!! Yesssss!!!

    F.A. says it was not very kind of me (She had just got a new catalogue she wanted to look at and then she was all distracted by Ham Boy rushing in shouting “Fight! Fight!”), but I think it helped clear the air. Well, big bolts of lightning do that, don’t they? Ozone and all that.

    All I had to say to start it was “Harlagaz, please move your hand away from there.” spiffy, not knowing that Harlahunk’s hand was actually patting Glory at the time got entirely the wrong end of the stick.

    “That does it, Donar-lite!” he growled (who knew Mark could growl?). “You and me, outside, now.”

    This was pretty well timed. Visionary was on the phone to Cheryl, begging her to take him away from all this, so as usual he had no idea what was happening. The Lair Legion were off in their own sordid little melodramas as usual. And still no sign of Sarah. Not that I’m worried. And I don’t miss her, and I don’t cry about it. Ever.

    So Mark and Harlagaz strut outside, both of them pretty cross. Glory’s a bit worried but Ham Boy calms her down with some pork scratchings. F.A.’s looking for a clean place to sit where spiffy’s blood won’t spray her.

    “Come hither and be hurteth, flea,” H. tells M. “I art the scion of Ausgard, huge in power and majesty, and thou art a weed-bearing nonentity that shalt be smitten into paste!”

    spiffy’s fronds cast about and one of them vanishes under the shrubbery. “I’ve been facing off against big-mouthed fat-heads since the LL began,” Mark answers. “I’m still here.”

    Harlagaz laughs and comes at spiffy very fast. For a minute I was worried that maybe I’d gone too far and Mark would get really hurt. Then again, can one EVER go TOO far?

    Ham Boy covers Glory’s eyes.

    spiffy hauls a big brown parcel from under she shrubbery, kind of club-sized. The fern swings it with all its might and it hits Harlagaz right in the face with the package and there’s a boom that accidentally shattered all the windows on the west side of the mansion. Visionary says Mark has to pay for them.

    Then the dust clears. H. is lying sprawled on the floor and he might as well have had those little cartoon birdies circling his head. spiffy’s still standing!

    “What?” we all go.

    The fernster, he just holds up the package high in the air – except the brown paper’s been roasted off now and we can all see the baseball bat with a nail in it. “Thanks, Greek Guy,” spiffy says.

    The skies rumble and a voice answers “Tis only meet, Coat Rack. Mine son hadst needs learn humility ere he is tempered to be a warrior true.” Then there was a flash of lightning and Mjalcolm was gone.

    From inside the house comes the sound of the greater-fretted Visionary in full panic-warble. Glory goes over to H. and starts licking his face to wake him up. spiffy stalks over to me and for one minute I thought he was going to thump me as well. But in fact he grabbed me and planted a huge hard kiss right on my lips!

    Not bad. Needs practise. But definitely not bad.

    Then he stormed inside and it was all over but the gossiping.

***

    “There art no hard feelings,” grinned Harlagaz ruefully. “Thou hast taught me a valuable lesson in caution and war-wisdom and I shall be the greater warrior hereafter.”

    “Okay,” conceded spiffy. “Stick with me and I’ll keep an eye out for you for your pop’s sake.”

    Glory watched trying to understand the complicated relationships of humans, and wondering which if not both of the males was going to breed with Kerry now.

    “You realise I’m going to get blamed for all this damage, don’t you?” Visionary told the class. “Just when I thought we were getting somewhere after we’d got over the packing teacher’s desk with rotting offal incident and the changing teacher’s costume into a tutu situation and you… oh, hello Finny!”

    The Makluan dragon lowered his elongated neck to get through the doorway of the Lair Classroom.

    “I thought you were on sick leave,” Vizh noted nervously. Ever since Finny had awoken from his long coma he’d been different, more remote and spooky.

    “I’m phasing myself back into my work slowly,” the Devil Doctor possessing the dragon’s body answered. “However, I thought it was time to take a hand in the future of our young trainees here.”

    “Right,” Vizh beamed. “I’ll turn them over to you them. Oh yes.”

    “I don’t mean that,” the dragon answered. “I have a little field trip planned for you, that’s all. You… it should last a couple of weeks at the most, and I promise it will be very valuable experience for all of you.”

    “So… who’s taking them on this field trip?” Vizh asked, already knowing the inevitable answer.

    “Get your things together for your first official mission,” the Devil Doctor told the students. “I promise this will be a visit you will remember for the rest of your lives.”

***

Next time: As our innocent students (and Kerry) ship out to unknown danger, we have the inevitable downtime issue. Nothing much happens, so if I was you I wouldn’t even bother reading it. I mean, what can go wrong in an issue with no fighting? When there’s nothing to do but sit around and chat? Bo-ring. But it has to be done, so be here for Untold Tales of the Lair Legion: Family Matters


* For CrazySugarFreakBoy's plug-in story about his character's reactions to the Legion's current troubles, go here



***

Junior Footnotes:

Professor Xalter’s Academy For Precocious Youngsters was a school for young superheroes sponsored by the Order of the Observing Eye. It was destroyed along with almost all its pupils in the earliest days of the modern heroic age, as recounted in Lair Legion: Year One, part 2 – How the League of Regulars got a mansion, how Zemo got a Scourge, and why Visionary managed not to wet his pants. This is the first time I’ve had to footnote a story title.

Fashion Accessory was one of the sidekicks created by the Hooded Hood as a gambit to torment and distract the Lair Legion in UT#5: Sidekick Day. Intended to be a counterpart for then Legionnaire Sersi, she has the ability to psionically rearrange any matter she happens to be wearing. She is also strong, hard to hurt, and naturally blonde (she says). She and most of the other sidekicks joined together as the New battlers, a radical hard-edged gang of street heroes. It was led by the vicious E-Male (an intended Messenger sidekick) until his demise, and then by Wyrm Boy (a Finny sidekick). The first member to permanently leave the team was Lisette, Laurie Leyton, who until recently worked at the Lair Mansion and was Goldeneyed’s boyfriend.

Harlagaz Donarson is indeed the offspring of the hemigod of thunder who has served for a long time in the Lair Legion. Harlagaz first appeared in the classic Dynamic Donar #59: Who Put the Super in Supermarket?. Spiffy beat him in our story today by borrowing Donar’s enchanted basebell-bat-with-a-nail-in-it, Mjalcolm. Usually only Donar himself can wield this mighty weapon, but spiffy must have peeled off the Property of Donar sticker for the duration.

The Safe on Flanagan Island (the big marshy lowland off Gothametropolis), is a penal institution for super-powered criminals. And currently for Trickshot.

Banjoooooo, King of the Sea Monkeys, is another former Legionnaire. He has clearly taken time off from his constantly-interrupted and increasingly complex courtship quests for the fair lady Elyse to make a guest appearance here today.

For the rest, try:

The Hooded Hood's Homepage of Doom

Who's Who in the Parodyverse

Where's Where in the Parodyverse

Original concepts, characters, and situations copyright © 2004, 2016 reserved by Ian Watson. Other Parodyverse characters copyright © 2004, 2016 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.

...with the early exception of spiffy and maybe HB there were no primary poster characters there. All of them had one primary character trait good for determining a reaction. They were, in some ways, reminiscent of the simpler versions of the eraly League of Regulars - all ready to complicate! It didn't hurt that Harlagaz and Kerry had distinctive speech patterns either.

That story would have been either a part of the Untold Tales run I was doing, probably the storyline after the "Undead Invasion" tale that I repurposed for the current trilogy and before the "Returned Chain Knight" tale, or esle a limited series of its own. It would have drawn heavily on Animal House, Revenge of the Nerds and that teen-college movie genre.

As I recall, the students in the Juniors fraternity are: Kerry, FA, Gaz, Vespiir, MLA, and (denying he's a member) Danny.

Weirdly, as I was digging through my long-neglected Parodyverse documebnts folder I came upon three or four unfinished stories I'd never got round to posting. One of them was a dialogue-only piece featuring the contemporary Juniors being 'lectured' by Visionary, a tie in to UT#347. It's so near complete that I may have to polish it up and post it one day.

You know, we all write a story introducing a new member to the Junior program.




I think they all got squished by the Chain Knight, or during the Parody War. It was dark for a while after that.




MLA? I'm drawing a blank...




"Post it you must." /yoda.

There's really nothing stopping you or anyone from doing that.




Nope, currently they all died during the Junior Teams Superhero Games circa UT#247 because Danny Lyle didn't exist to save Kerry.







That'd be Randolph Jerome "RJ" Clement, the MLA (Mutate Liberation Army - he reckons one bloke is enough if it's him), De Brown Streak's young cousin. Last we saw he'd just turned up at the frat house.







Perhaps in due course. I only finished UT#251 tonight. And um, UT#252, which I hasten to add is not part of the trilogy, but just accidentally happened.

Particularly Glory, with her own perspective on the others' behaviour.

I know. I do have a half-baked attempt at writing about a new PVB character sitting on my hard drive still, from 2005 or something I think. Never really progressed it though.







I knew he was trouble!







Ah, forgot that.







Ha! I saw that coming.

I don't know that we have the volume of traffic or posters to much adjust the consensus of the Parodyverse anymore. The existing stuff is still there to play with, but new characters would require sustained and regular exposure to integrate.

That's not to say don't try it, but rather a caution to have realistic expectations. For all our brief reunion bump, the PVB is more or less an historical artefact now.







So did Kerry. I think that was the attraction.







You did not. You said the trilogy would over-run. I have a double-sized conclusion issue to prove otherwise. And a single issue epilogue to follow. So there.

It wouldn't be much to get things going - well, you'd need one or two new posters eager to write stories - but it could easily take off again. Just needs that 'spark'. Though it would no doubt be new blood - new ideas - and not the PBV of old.




I doubt I shall progress it much past the idea/paragraphs it is (like most of my ideas). Or maybe I'll reuse the idea elsewhere. In anycase -there was a tie-in to an existing (but no longer active) PVB regular hero so it wouldn't be that hard on old folks minds to integrate.







They're back now though right? I mean, aside from that chair suddenly catching afire, we never saw that everything snapped back to normal... how much does the Hood dislike his son to perhaps leave some things as they were?







Very well.

Or just re-vamping the whole thing with their own ideas and stories. Academic really, since there aren't any new posters.




I also think of people here as friends, and like to check in to see how folk are doing as much as obsessing over stories and lore of old. But I'm a bit pathetic like that I suppose.




Honestly, I was expecting you to wipe everything. I'm not sure why, but I had the feeling everything was going to be gone at the end with a clean slate.

Now, I'll just have to look over my shoulder for story-Hood to be breaking through the wonderwall to come get me. Good thing he'll go after you first.

And revamps usually work better as new starts anyhow. Unless you think some new posters whould show up and give us Finny 2.0, CSFB! 2.0 and Al B. 2.0.




I think it's admirable that you take an interest.




I remember Scott fretting that I might write the Resolution War and end the Parodyverse, as if I could make it so just by typing it.




You assume he hasn't already replaced me. Interesting. Proceed.

Funnily enough the new Junior member I was thinking of introducing was exactly that, though a different character than the ones you have identified.






Funnily enough part 2. As I was hanging out my washing earlier I was reminiscing about a post-apocalyptic future Al B. Harper with the HALLIE sentience downloaded into his wristwatch. (I can't remember where exactly he appeared but he did appear here once I think - it may have been a reply to an ag or visionary story). Anyway, as I was daydreaming away, this Al B. was scrounging around in the burnt out ruins of the Lair Mansion lamenting the fact that so many of the Legionnaires (who hadn't died a horrible death during the apocalypse) had moved on to focus on themselves and were not helping re-build the broken world etc. etc. For him, this was his family. He would never leave.






I was more interested in seeing what would follow on the blank slate rather than fretting. i.e.: who would come back and re-build. Who would remain forever gone?






You assume I haven't already replaced you all *eyes flash green*.