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> Adventures in Parodyverse - In Training Part 1
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> It seemed like she was waiting for him.  Hatman sensed a careful setup as he entered the Lair Legion greenhouse.  He had been told by CSFB! there was trouble in the glass enclosed outbuilding.
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> He began to suspect a prank when the greenhouse was silent except for the sound of the ventilation fan at one end.  The plants weren’t moving and there were no crashes, fires, or explosions.  No doorways to other dimensions or deep, dark pits.
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> But Lara Night was there, staring up at a small fruit tree.
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> “Did you see anything unusual in here?”  Hatman asked sheepishly.  “Dream told me that--”  He frowned as he realized he’d been had.  He took off his Hatman baseball cap and whispered, “Oh.”
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> Lara smiled and walked toward him.  “No end to his pranks is there?”
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> “I guess not.”  He sighed as he gently put down the cap on a nearby shelf and ruffled his own hair.  “Welcome back, though.  Sorry I didn’t know you were here.”
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> “No worries, I just got here.”  Lara hopped up and sat down on the shelf next to where Jay placed his hat.  “I guess I was a little embarrassed to see you right away after what Chiaki told me.”
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> Jay didn’t move from where he was standing.  He looked at his hat as if he was unsure if he could reach it while Lara was sitting next to it.  “What did she say?”
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> “She said you think I’m always hitting on you.”  Lara replied bluntly.  She then seemed embarrassed by the sound of it, and cast her eyes downward.  “I didn’t mean it to seem that way, you know,”  she added in a small voice.
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> Jay immediately felt bad about Lara’s reaction to the news.  He tried to soften the blow in his explanation.  “Well you are a little flirty with me,”  he said.  “And you talk to me about stuff that’s...kind of personal.”
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> “People always think I’m flirty,”  Lara noted.  “Even when I’m kicking their ass, which is just...weird.”  She shook her head quickly and looked up.  “I thought that...I dunno...we seem to be becoming friends, and to me that means learning about each other and about our lives.  I wasn’t trying to hit on you.”
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> “Okay.”  Jay nodded slowly.  “But you have to understand...I can’t be too careful, after the Wooster Twins and Liu Xi, and who knows who else out there that wants me--”
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> She finally looked up, leaned back against the glass wall behind her.  “Jay, you might not know this but I’m actually kind of a romantic.  I really have to be impressed to sleep with someone.  Or if I wanted to sleep with someone I’d really work to impress them.  I never even asked you to dinner.”
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> “I guess that’s true,”  Jay agreed with a shrug.  He cringed internally at the next question that came to mind.  He hated bringing it up again.  “But how do you explain what happened with you and Dream?”
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> Lara laughed and shook her head.  “You’re his best friend, you should know he’s a romantic.”
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> “What’s romantic about meeting you in the shower?”  he instinctively asked, his voice trailing off at the end of the sentence as he worried about how insulting it was.
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> She shifted uncomfortably as she tried to piece together an answer from the picture in her mind.  “It wasn’t about that.  He took a risk, he half expected me to lose my temper and hurt him.  No safety net, no turning back.  Seeing him vulnerable and at my mercy like that, it really went to my heart.”
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> “But what about the rumored threesome--?”
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> Lara quickly interrupted him.  “He didn’t want to force me to do anything that made me uneasy.  April did show up, and I started getting uneasy, so that part didn’t work out.  The three of us fell asleep together, but that was because I was too tired to go back to my room and I kind of drifted off.”
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> “Are you sure you want to tell me all this stuff?”  Jay asked, seeming a little uneasy himself.
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> She nodded slowly.  “Yeah.  Yeah, I mean...I wanted you to tell me everything about you, so it’s only fair.”
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> “So...what happened with this whole retconned Visionary thing that no one seems to remember?”  Jay asked.
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> “It was a Hooded Hood plot,”  Lara replied with a shrug.  “He was trying to write a tragic love story.”
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> “The rumor is you slept with him,”  Jay pushed further.
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> “Slept with?”  Lara nodded, blushing slightly.  “Yeah.  But I wasn’t quite myself...never really knew why though.  As I said, it was a Hooded Hood plot, so there are a lot of things that weren’t quite explained.  Including the...um...lack of performance.” 
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> He brightened up at hearing that.  Lara had his full attention.  “Lack of performance?”  he asked.
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> Lara looked around the greenhouse suspiciously.  Nobody was around, and she couldn’t sense any electronic recording devices transmitting.  She sighed, realizing there was no trying to derail the conversation now.  “See, this is why I never talked about this.  I don’t really want to embarrass him like that when he doesn’t even remember why.  All I’m going to tell you is that I made him really, really nervous.”
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> A few moments of silence passed between them as the conversation suddenly became very awkward for them both when the realization of what she was talking about hit Jay.
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> Fortunately then, there was an interruption.  Yuki stuck her head into the greenhouse.  “Excuse me...if you two are finished gardening we have a security problem.  Some British woman with quite a mouth on her has been caught spelunking below the mansion.”
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> “Uh-oh.”  Lara smiled sheepishly.  “Um...that’s a friend of mine from back home.  She can’t resist wandering off and exploring.”
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> “Well you’d better explain that to someone because the cops are on their way to pick her up.”  Yuki slammed the door to the greenhouse door, obviously irritated at having her time wasted.
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> “British woman?”  Jay asked.
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> Lara nodded.  “Her name’s Sharon, I’ve known her for a couple years.  She saved my life once, long ago, and we became friends.  She loves visiting new places and exploring so she asked to come with me when I return here.”
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> “I guess we’d better go talk to her before she gets arrested.”  Jay nodded.  “And Lara...thanks for sharing something about you with me for a change.  Makes me feel better...but just a little.  From now on though--”
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> “I know, I know.”  She nodded slowly and hopped off of the shelf.  “Be careful what I say around you so you don’t get uncomfortable.”  She smiled then and handed Jay his baseball cap.  “Are we still friends?”
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> “Sure.”  Jay reached out and nearly hugged her, and she did the same.  But then in the spirit of preventing more awkwardness they decided to shake hands instead.
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> ---
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> Jay walked into his office, surprised to see a dark-haired woman with her hair tied into a ponytail - those hairs that hadn’t fallen loose into her face by now - and looking unhappy that her hands were cuffed behind her back.  She wore a chain bracelet on one of her arms - sterling silver by the look of it - which distracted somewhat from her casual dress.  She simply wore a tight-fitting tee-shirt, jeans, and hiking boots.
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> “You’re Hatman aren’t you?”  she asked in a nicely cultured British accented voice, like he would hear on a television news program from England.  Her tone was a mixture of anger and curiosity.  Yuki was standing by in case she became too rowdy.
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> At that point Lara entered the room.  She immediately turned to face the window, trying not to laugh at the situation.
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> Jay noted Lara’s arrival, and then nodded at the dark haired woman.  “Lara told me about you.  Sharon, right?”
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> The woman nodded once.  “I’d shake your hand but I’m a bit tied up just now.”
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> Hatman couldn’t help but smile slightly at that reply.  He looked at Yuki, who rolled her eyes and removed the cuffs from Sharon.
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> “Thank you.  That’s better.”  Sharon gave an icy look to Yuki as the purple-haired Legionnaire left the room.  She then offered a hand to Hatman, who shook it.  “Pleased to meet you.  Sorry to be so rude to the purple haired girl, I don’t take well to being attacked and pinned to the floor while armed with only a flashlight.”
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> “She’ll forgive you...sooner or later,”  Jay replied.  “It’s nice to finally meet one of Lara’s friends from the other side.”
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> “Likewise.”  Sharon nodded.  “I suppose I should have asked before exploring this old place but it’s quite a curiosity.  I couldn’t resist.”
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> “Remember the mansion has some dangerous places so just...be careful if you’re going to explore,”  Jay instructed.  “And please don’t sneak into any secure areas.”
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> Sharon nodded once.  “Right then, I’ll keep that in mind.”
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> “Sharon,”  Lara spoke up finally.  “You should have a chat with Samantha Featherstone.  She has kind of an adventurous streak too.”
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> “Perhaps.”  Sharon shrugged playfully.  “I might go out and look around the city as well.  I hear it has some strange and interesting places.”
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> “Just don’t make me bail you out of trouble,”  Lara teased.  “Or jail.”
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> Sharon laughed.  She then shook Hatman’s hand again.  “Pleased to meet you.  Hope I’ll see more of you around.”
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> ---
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> Liu Xi Xian was hiding in her room, reading.  She was trying her best to keep her mind off the sadness she felt at the fact that she wasn’t enough of a draw to keep Joe Pepper from leaving.
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> In her mind she kept thinking over and over about the motivation that went into her decision to sleep with him.  She felt lonely, she felt bad for him having lost knifey and been relegated to obscurity.  But she also had become friends with him and wanted to give him motivation not to leave.
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> It was strange, the feelings she had.  She was sad that he was gone, but not heartbroken.  Like she expected to fail...maybe because somewhere deep down, she believed that trying to get him to stay was unfair to him.  Perhaps that’s why she didn’t outwardly resist when he changed his mind about a relationship, and when he decided to leave.
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> The door to Liu Xi’s room opened slowly and there was a delicate knock, as if the person responsible was a little afraid to enter.  There was also a curious rustling noise, and then the unmistakable sound of someone tripping and a nose crushing against the door.  She already identified the visitor even before the ‘ow’ she heard.
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> “Hello Visionary,”  she whispered dreamily, her mind still partly somewhere else.
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> “Hi.”  Visionary sounded muffled as he crossed the room holding his nose with one hand.  He tried not to think about either the prospect of his nose bleeding or the fact that Liu Xi’s room was impossibly larger than the space it was supposed to be in, to avoid fainting in either case.  His other hand held a large indoor plant in its terra cotta pot.  “I uh...brought this for you, to try and cheer you up.”
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> “Thank you.”  Liu Xi put down her book and climbed out of the deep chair she had been curled up in.  She took the plant from Visionary and put it in the windowsill.  “Are you okay?”
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> “Once the bleeding stops I’ll be fine.  Really.”  Visionary tried to convince her.
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> She rolled her eyes a moment before reaching up and pinching Visionary’s nose closed.  Her fingers rapidly became ice cold against his nose, but then they warmed up again slowly.  He was so shocked by the temperature sensation he hadn’t noticed his nose was no longer bleeding.
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> “How did you do that?”  he asked.
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> “I’ve been learning,”  she replied.  “Xander left me a magic book.  I don’t think I can fix anything complicated like broken bones yet...but what could go wrong fixing a nosebleed?”
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> Visionary made a mental note to get an x-ray of his nose at the first opportunity.  “I stopped by because I thought you could use someone to talk to.  And maybe something to do to keep your mind busy.”
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> “Like reading?”  She looked at her book again.
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> “Like...there are a lot of people who never came back from the Parody War,”  Visionary noted.  “And some more who disappeared from the world after that.”
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> Liu Xi looked up at him warily.  “Don’t you think I know that?”
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> “I guess what I’m...um...saying is,”  Visionary stumbled, worrying that he made her more upset, “If you give Joe some time...you can still see him and talk to him--”
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> “No.”  Liu Xi shook her head.  “He wants a clean break.  He told me he doesn’t want to be reminded of this anymore.  Of what he used to be.  It makes him sad to remember what he lost.”
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> Visionary frowned and sighed.  His attempts to cheer her up weren’t working.  “He was a nice guy,”  he admitted.  “I mean, besides being accused of murder a couple of times.  He was always nice to me, anyway.  Always cheered people up.”  He noted Liu Xi’s impatient stare and decided to get to the point.  “So, you know...maybe that means you should do things in his spirit.”
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> “What do you mean?”  she asked.
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> Visionary sat down just then.  It concerned Liu Xi a little how the thoughts he had weighed on him so heavily.  “We lost a lot of people,”  he spoke softly.  “We’re still strong, I mean, but Liu Xi...I’m worried that we’re not the Lair Legion we once were.  And I can’t help wondering if the rest of us worry about it too.”
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> “I think you’re all stronger now.”  Liu Xi replied.  “Especially you.  You’re the glue that holds the Lair Legion together.”
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> “No.  No, not anymore.”  Visionary shook his head.  “I mean...I kind of am, but--”  He looked up at Liu Xi.  “You’re the one everyone talks about in the mansion now.”
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> “Me?”  she asked.
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> “Yes.  The young girl who was taken prisoner so many times, forced to survive on a rock with a homicidal person, fought the Parody Master off...and when you get home--”  He motioned toward the book.  “You return to your room and finish your reading.”
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> Liu Xi looked at the book too.  “So?”
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> “So...either you’re exceptionally brave, or really messed up,”  Visionary explained.  “I vote for exceptionally brave.  Most of the others do too.  Maybe you’re also a little messed up too, but who in the mansion isn’t these days?”
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> She smiled slightly and giggled.
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> “And that’s why I voted for brave,”  he added.  “You still have your sense of humor.  That’s also why I think you’re the glue now.  If you survived what happened to you, without ever being a superhero before...it means we always stand a chance.  It’s inspiring.”
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> “Thank you.”  Liu Xi nodded.  “Now may I please finish my book?”
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> Visionary nodded.  “Sure,”  he said.  “Just spend some time with your fans, would you?”
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> “Okay.”  she nodded again and picked up her book.  She only had a few dozen pages to go.
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> TO BE CONTINUED?
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> -- Story written and copyrighted (C) 2007 by Jason Froikin, and may not be 
> --    reprinted without permission.  
> -- Yuki Shiro designed by Jason Froikin, based on designs by Masamune Shirow
> --  Liu Xi Xian and the Psychic Samurai are original design by Jason Froikin
> --  Lara Night is an original creation by Jason Froikin
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