> Both Dancer and Liu Xi have vanished off to the next phase of the plot. Chiaki's immidate problem will be surviving in a word that has suddenly lost nearly all of its front rank superheroes and none of its supervillains. The balance of power has shifted significantly and it's now open season on people associated with the Lair Legion.
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Chiaki has dealt with some pretty bad situations before. Her first order of business is not to be where she's supposed to be, so the nastiest super-villains can't find her, and then continue her own business without interference. Think Batman with a sword, and a lot less unnecessary showmanship.
She's also not a super-hero, or even really a hero. She might be able to convince some of the less dedicated super-villains to help her, especially since she does have money, and a path to amnesty if anything goes wrong. Killer Shrike is a prime candidate, and perhaps Gamona.
> It's fair to say that the people taking Liu Xi know more about her than she does. That's how they were able to construct so effive a counter to her abilities (elelemental and otherwise). I felt it was time to give you an eventual opening to examine Liu Xi's origins.
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I was wondering just how recent their knowledge is. They might not know she's been learning from Xander's books. Of course the real question is whether they're going to be worth making trouble for - whether they want her help or if they think they're going to imprison her and break her spirit. Because the latter worked so well the last time.
> > It looks like Lara's side trip will be cut short. The Shoggoth will likely know his other biomass at the Lair Mansion is gone and inform her of what's going on. She'll have to go and find them...though...
>
> We'll certainly cover Lara's "Where were you when...?" moment in #9, and then show the situation to which she'll need to react.
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There's no one left to ask her that question, though.
Lara might feel a little overwhelmed having to clean up messes as the last surviving super-hero. She might take a pause to figure out how she can tread carefully - after all, none of the super-villains know she's still alive.
> > ...I suspect that this is all much less than a coincidence. I'm starting to believe that the Shoggoth understands the Chronicler's plan already - and with Lisa backing it 100%, the point is to keep Lara there and away from an attempt at locating the Lair Legion. I think the Chronicler's original idea was to banish Lara from the Parodyverse for a time to accomplish that, but Lisa has other ideas. That also makes it possible that the kidnapping of Liu Xi is directly related.
>
> Now that we've got the mystery part of this round robin over with I thought we'd take it to other territory I've been meaning to cover for a while now.
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I do remember speculating on who and how with the Lair Legion's possible destruction.
> > The question then is, do they convince Lara to cooperate or do they treat her as a prisoner?
>
> We'll cover it. I hope to have the next chapter up quite soon.
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Noted.
> > As a side note, the Chronometer of Infinity sounds like something Faite may have had a part in designing. It's just like her to design something to stop time just at the moment of its bearer's death and rewind a bit, preserving the memory of it.
>
> It's one of the intruments of the Office of the Keeper of the Chronometer, and it's ultimate purpose is to time the countdown to the Resolution War that terminated the Parodyverse.
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In that case she was very likely involved in it. She *is* the kind of cosmic being to wait until the Parodyverse is near destruction and then tell whoever is using the Chronometer at the time that she gave them plenty of warning but they chose to ignore it.
> > Anyway, is there anything you're waiting for me to attempt to contribute? I haven't set up any tie-in things yet.
>
> As I said at the end of the chapter, I recognise that there's not a lot people can write now without further information. I'll try and get that written and posted as soon as possible.
>
> If you want to do a very street-end tie-in you could show the experience the cops in Paradopolis have in the minutes after the lair Mansion and the SPUD Helicarrier vanish. Dan Drury's going to have a bad day.
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I thought about that but it didn't turn out well. It's about 4 paragraphs long and then it wanders off.
