Baron Zemo's Lair. - And FINALLY... spiffy #3!

Baron Zemo's Lair

And FINALLY... spiffy #3!
Tuesday, 20-Jul-1999 21:10:58
24.64.71.35 writes:

spiffy #3

“There you are!” Finny burst into NTU’s lab, pointing at spiffy. “Where the hell did you go yesterday? I almost got arrested for reckless use of fire! I had to fake a Legion emergency to get outta there!”
“I’m fine,” spiffy replied distractedly.
“Um… okay,” the dragon shot a questioning glance at Enty.
“He’s analysing some cup,” the inventor explained. “Hey, could you hold this for a sec?” he asked, gesturing to what appeared to be a flashlight.
“Uh… sure, what is it?” he complied.
“It’s a flashlight. Point it down behind the nuclear-powered toaster… yeah, right there… don’t move it,” he disappeared under the giant toaster, his feet sticking out one end and sounds of fusing metal coming from underneath.
“So… uh… spiffy. What’re you doing?” Finny asked after a few minutes.
“Yeah,” he replied, a cloud of powder rising up around him.
“Alright…”
“Woo hoo! A clear print!” the ferned one suddenly exclaimed, jumping to his feet.
“What?” the dragon said eloquently.
“Fingerprint… I’m trying to track down this girl I met yesterday.”
“Couldn’t have just, maybe, asked for her number?”
“Hey, you do it your way, I’ll do it mine. Wanna come search the Lair databanks for a match?”
Finny shrugged. “Sure, why not.” He dropped the flashlight onto a nearby table and followed spiffy. They heard a brief exclamation of ‘hey, what the…’ then an explosion. A roughly human shaped dent appeared in the door that had just closed.
“Right there,” spiffy said calmly to DarkHwk and Zebulon as they rushed down the hall, gesturing behind him.

“Got her address!” spiffy cried triumphantly, waving a small slip of paper over his head. Finny clapped with mock pride.
“What’s the big deal with this chick, anyway?” he asked.
“You should’ve seen her, man… she took out the robber in seconds. And she doesn’t have any powers!”
“Vizh doesn’t have any powers, you don’t have a crush on him… right?”
“No,” spiffy replied, shooting him a dirty look. “Besides, when was the last time Vizh took out a robber? Or anyone, for that matter?”
“Good point. So what’re you gonna do, just show up at her house?”
“Um…” spiffy deflated somewhat. “I guess…”
“Well, I’m coming,” before spiffy could protest, Finny stuck his head into the next room and bellowed: “Hey! Who wants to watch spiffy try to flirt?”
The dragon was almost trampled in the stampede that ensued.

“Where be the foul villain upon which I shall bestow the righteous wrath of Mjalcom?” Donar asked. spiffy could feel a headache coming on.
“Dammit, Greek Guy, I told you already… we’re going to… uh… ‘woo the fair maiden,’ not ‘maim the fair maiden.’”
“Aye, Coat Rack, but mayhap we shall encounter one whom wishes to disrupt the wooing, therefore deserving of punishment, which I shall gladly bestow!”
“No, no, no, Greek Guy,” CrazySugarFreakBoy! yelled as he bounded by. “This isn’t like a Sue Storm and Reed Richards wedding where a whole bunch of villains showed up to destroy stuff for no apparent reason except for that Dr. Doom told them to because he wanted to disrupt their wedding bliss and then the Fantastic Four and all the other heroes had to stop the villains except there were too many of them, but then it all turned out okay, it’s more like a Peter Parker and Mary Jane Watson wedding where no one showed up, at least no villains, and they both arrived late but everyone else showed up on time and was wondering where they were, except spiffy’s not getting married he just wants this girl to like him so it’s nothing like those two, it’s more like Speedball trying to go out with Turbo except most of the time that was a clone and spiffy’s not a clone, well he kind of is ‘cause it’s really HV’s body, but technically isn’t a clone because HV just changed to make himself look like spiffy and anyway URK!”
“Thou shalt never call me ‘Greek Guy,’ annoyance,” Donar told the caffinated hero whose neck was firmly clamped between the Ausgardian’s fingers. CrazySugarFreakBoy! nodded weakly, then collapsed on the sidewalk.
“You just HAD to invite everyone, didn’t you?” spiffy muttered to Fin Fang Foom. The dragon just grinned in response.
“I don’t see why I had to come,” the Dark Knight said darkly. “This does not further my war on crime in any way. It’s a useless distraction.”
“Think of it as reconnaissance,” Finny told him. “You’ve never been to this city.”
“Or you could just try to enjoy yourself for once,” spiffy added. A particularly nasty glare from the Knight silenced him, and he moved slightly closer to Donar for protection.
“Sho… Yo… you wanna turn into that hot shhhick?” Space Ghost slurred.
“Yo-being is happy being a boy at now time,” Yo replied.
“Shhhhhhhhhhoot,” he drunkenly replied, staggering around. “Finny… wanna turn into a hot shhhhick?” A sweep of the dragon’s tail knocked GothaMetropolis York’s hero to the ground. His arm hit first, activating the Spank Ray which took out a good chunk of the stop sign on the corner. “Shpank… Raaaaaayyyyyy…” he said weakly before passing out.
“My, you’re looking particularly… shaggy,” Rocket Raccoon leered at a nearby poodle. The canine took an involuntary step backwards.
“Hey, this is the place!” spiffy yelled, quickly comparing the address to the one he’d written down. “Now we just need to get her attention somehow…”
“Permit me,” Donar grinned.

Christopher Sparrow considered himself a normal man. He worked during the day and came home to his family every night. He had a wife, one daughter, and a dog. He worked as an accountant, not the most entertaining job, but it paid the bills. He was a pretty average guy, maybe with some rough edges, but hey, everyone has those. He enjoyed swimming, playing baseball, reading, and spending time with his kid. There were only a couple of irregularities.
The first was his rifle collection, which discouraged his daughter from any and all relationships after a couple of mishaps.
The second was his irrational love for ‘Pinky and the Brain.’
When anything happened to disrupt the second, the first came rapidly into play.
On this night in particular, as the familiar ‘To prove their mousey worth… they’ll overthrow the earth…’ caressed his ears, he heard something in the front yard. The first thing he heard was what seemed to be a primal scream of battle. The second was the deafening sound of two objects colliding. The third was that of torrential rainfall.
Someone was gonna eat lead for this.
He stormed out of the room, putting his beloved mice on ‘mute,’ grabbed Lucy (his preferred weapon of vengeance) and kicked open the front door, bellowing “Who the hell is making all that goddamn noise!” as he brought Lucy’s barrel up.
What he saw was eight superheroes on his lawn, waving nervously, and a gushing fountain where the fire hydrant had been.
The kid wearing some kind of plant spoke up first. “Um… hi. I’m a friend of Lauren’s…?”
Christopher’s sight suddenly went red. No one, not even a freakin’ superhero, was gonna take his baby girl from him. He tightened his finger on the trigger.
“Dammit, Chris, put the gun down.” It was Anne, his wife. She just didn’t understand what had to be done.
“But Anne…” he said petulantly, “They wanna see Lauren.”
“Oh, how cute, suitors… let me see… my God, Edgar! That’s the Lair Legion! Let them in! Oh dear, oh dear, I wasn’t ready for this… I have to vaccuum…” she muttered anxiously, running down the hall.
“What’s going on, dad?” Lauren asked, coming down the stairs. She stopped dead as she saw who was outside. “Oh God, not him again…” she muttered as Rocket Raccoon realised she was there. Instantly, he zipped past Christopher and attached himself to Lauren’s leg.
“Hey, honey. Wanna get bestial?” he grinned up at her.
“Uh… can we come in?” spiffy asked quickly.

“Verily, Brain hast done it this time!” Donar exclaimed with enthusiasm, whirling Mjalcom around his head.
Christopher leaned over the back of the couch. “I like this one,” he told Anne for the seventh time.
“That’s nice, dear,” she replied distractedly as she bustled about in the kitchen, wondering silently why she hadn’t prepared for a visit from the Parodyverse’s premiere super-team and what she was going to do about it. This left everyone else seated somewhat uncomfortably in the dining room, whose table had not been designed for seven heroes and a girl. Rocket Raccoon had no problem with this whatsoever, though.
“You’re warm,” he sighed lovingly, tightening his grip on Lauren’s waist even more.
She just looked at her lap with a mix of disgust and helpless rage, shifting around in a futile attempt to dislodge the opportunistic rodent.
“… and then I grabbed evil spiffy by the throat, slammed him into the wall, and let the cops cart him away. It was epic,” spiffy finished his tale with a bow. His companions stared at him, slack-jawed.
“That’s… um… not how I remember it, spiffy,” Finny finally managed.
“That’s probably because of the concussion you got after Mjalcom hit you, Finny,” spiffy hissed through clenched teeth, shooting the Makluan dragon a glare.
“No, no, cute-Finny is right,” Yo cut in cheerfully. “Cute Frank shot uncute-stiffy after uncute-stiffy broke cute-Frank’s house. Frank is good and Yo-friend.”
The kick spiffy aimed at Yo’s knee probably would have incapacitated the poor thought being had Yo though that s/he would be hurt. As it was, s/he just grinned.
“I really like thish shaltshaker…” Space Ghost muttered, holding it upside down. A steady stream of salt crystals poured onto the table, gathering in a little mound to the hero’s delight. He gave a girlish giggle, and collapsed headfirst into the salty mountain. Everyone looked away, suddenly fascinated by the flowery wallpaper.

“I hate everything,” the Dark Knight muttered angrily as Yo applied a mashed potato mustache.
“There!” Yo said, a satisfied grin on his/her face. “Uncute-Darky is being cute now!”
The Dark Knight hunched over in his chair and glowered at his tormentor. “I hate everything,” he repeated.
“So…” Anne began in the silence that followed, “you people must meet a lot of celebrities in your line of work, huh?”
The heroes exchanged glances.
“Well…” Finny thought for a second, “there was the time I almost married Liv Tyler…”
“And when I knocked out the French Ambassador,” spiffy remembered.
“Dan Quayle and Tonya Harding tried to kill us one time…” Finny added. “I think Zemo killed Joan Rivers, that time…”
“Jarvis beat up Bill Clinton… the whole thing with Sally Struthers…” spiffy listed, warming up to the subject. “And I’m pretty sure DK was involved with Joel Schumacher…”
“His death was sweet,” the Knight grinned disconcertingly.
“Anyway,” spiffy said quickly, “Uh… good potatoes, ma’am.”
“You really think so? Oh my, I’m so flattered… a real, live, superhero, likes MY potatoes… oh… I have to go work on the main course… excuse me…” Anne stammered as she rushed to the kitchen.
“’scuse me, spiffy?” Lauren said dryly.
“Yeah?” he straightened up, looking her straight in the eye.
“This… thing… is making funny noises,” she gestured to her stomach, where Rocket Raccoon was purring contentedly.
“Heh… gimme that,” spiffy muttered, grabbing the vermin by the tail and tossing him over his shoulder. “Better?”
“A little,” she grunted, avoiding his gaze.
“So…” spiffy said after a brief pause, “Um… wanna hear about my mansion?”
It was probably a good thing that, at that moment, Brain’s plot was foiled.
“I say thee NAY, foul villain! Thou shalt NOT cause Brain’s downfall!!” The smashing sound that was quickly followed by “My TV!!!” left little to the imagination.
“I’m… um… pretty sure the Legion has some kinda insurance for this…” spiffy offered meekly.

“… and then, after they fought the floating brains that really didn’t seem all that threatening but were pretty hard to beat anyway they got killed by Supernova, but weren’t really killed ‘cause they’re the Avengers and they really don’t get killed even when they seem to kind of like Superman after he got killed by Doomsday and all the other Supermen came to replace him but then he came back and got married and split into two Supermen of different colours which kind of reminds me of Aurora and Northstar who are pretty similar but have the same colours and different sexes and Northstar’s gay,” with that, CrazySugarFreakBoy! paused for a breath, at which point spiffy broke in.
“Finny! You wanted to say something, right?” he stared meaningfully at the dragon, who stared at him questioningly before catching on.
“Uh… right…” he said, grinning sheepishly as he struggled for a topic of conversation. “Um… who wants to… er… play… a game?”
Glares from the Dark Knight (whose entire face was covered in mashed potatoes by this point) and Christopher (who still hadn’t gotten over the loss of his prized television) smashed any hope of that idea.
“Sorry, man,” Finny whispered, shrugging. “I tried.”
“SHHHHHHHPANK RAYYYYYYY!!!” Space Ghost suddenly screamed, shooting to his feet and spraying salt everywhere. Finny and the Dark Knight reacted instantly, leaping towards him and grabbing his arms before he could activate his famed weapon.
“Not NOW, SG,” Finny hissed, then turned to his wide-eyed hosts. “Is there somewhere I can… y’know… put him?”
“I have a fern that gives me super-powers,” spiffy attempted feebly to turn the conversation back to some semblance of normalcy.
“Nay, woman!” a familiar voice roared from the kitchen. “Additional parsley is not needed! Add it, and face my wrath!”
“Alright, I’m sorry…” Anne’s voice replied faintly, “Let’s just serve it, then.”
Moments later, Anne and Donar appeared in the dining room, each carrying several dishes. Donar grinned with pride as he placed a Caesar salad gently on the table.
“’Twas I that tossed yonder salad,” he announced.
The group stared in dismay at what appeared to be a lettuce massacre. Donar’s eyes narrowed.
“Why hast thou not already sampled mine culinary masterpiece?? Eat, foul varlets! Eat!”
As a couple of them timidly scooped the mangled salad onto their plates, Anne placed a large, covered dish on the table in front of Yo, and stood there with an expectant look on her face.
“What be in shiny dish, cute-Anne?” Yo asked, to Anne’s delight.
“Thank you for asking, Yo!” she smiled, and reached forward to the lid. “Today’s meal will be…” she paused for dramatic effect, then revealed the platter. “Roasted hare!”

“Really, really sorry about your wall, ma’am,” spiffy said for the fourth time. Calls of “Yo! Come back, buddy! The bunny’s better now, really!” could be heard from outside the Yo-shaped hole in the wall.
“My fault,” Anne muttered sadly, staring at the remains of her roasted hare. It hadn’t been tough enough to withstand a riot.
“… the Magus made a whole bunch of duplicates of all the heroes and was trying to destroy everything with the Infinity Gauntlet and the dopplegangers, which is some weird word for evil duplicates, were fighting all the heroes to distract them from stopping the Magus and when the dopplegangers got killed they would come back except they were a few feet away from where they died and the Spider-Man doppleganger stayed alive ‘cause Demogoblin saved him but then Carnage killed him but anyway the heroes sent Speedball to get pizza, but he met his doppleganger and they fought and trashed stuff and…” CrazySugarFreakBoy! explained to the phone.
“Gimme that,” Fin Fang Foom yanked the phone from his grasp. “Sorry ‘bout that. Now, can I have 3 large pepperonis…” he glanced at Donar, who was inhaling what was left of his salad. “Um… better make that 13 larges… deluxe…”
“I loooooooooooove you, little doggy!” Space Ghost slurred, chasing Rocket Raccoon past the ruined television set.
“Oh God I wish you were Sersi,” the vermin muttered as he knocked over a set of china dolls. Back at the dining room table, Yo had been convinced to return by Finny, and s/he Christopher were deep in conversation.
“Cute-Jarvis is happy except time where uncute-Jarvis had anger and did things that were bad,” s/he frowned.
“Waitasec… you’re saying that the leader of your team is a psycho?” Christopher asked, confused.
“No, no, cute-Jarvis is good when not being uncute and often is cute,” Yo explained.
“Oh,” Christopher said after a brief pause.
“spiffy was dead but is better now,” Yo chirped.
“This house is far from impenetrable,” the Dark Knight muttered critically, examining the walls.
spiffy sighed and turned to Finny. “Where’d I go wrong?” he moaned.
“You were attracted to a girl,” the dragon clucked in disappointment. “I told you they were evil.”

“… and that, ladies and gentlemen, is why comics are better than women,” Finny ended his speech with a flourish and took his seat. The Dark Knight leapt to his feet, applauding. Everyone else was staring at the dragon, their eyes looking slightly glazed. Finally, Yo broke the silence.
“Yo-being likes froggies,” s/he stated.
“Froggies!” spiffy leapt on the opportunity. “That reminds me… did I ever tell you about the time my evil duplicate took over France?”
There was no response.
“He… um… had a fern on his head…” spiffy continued.
The Dark Knight coughed something that sounded suspiciously like “loser.” To spiffy’s dismay, Lauren nodded in agreement.
“I say thee, comrades, our meal hast arrived!” Donar announced, peering out the front window, where a pizza delivery van had just pulled up. The Dark Knight unexpectedly executed a flip, landing beside the door.
“Stay back, everyone, I’ll make sure it’s not another one of Zemo’s flunkies,” he whispered loudly. Everyone took a step back, less because of what he said than because the Dark Knight was downright freaky. There was a knock on the door, and he whipped it open, then froze. Everyone saw the reason at the same time.
The delivery boy was a girl.
And she was hot.
Rocket Raccoon wasted no time, shooting forwards and wrapping himself around her ankle. “I like your uniform,” he grinned, somehow making that sound dirty.
“Yeah…” she said hesitantly, “You the ones that ordered 13 deluxes?”
“That’s us,” spiffy nodded, being the only guy other than Rocket Raccoon that had retained the ability to speak. The others were staring at the newcomer in awe, or, in Finny and DK’s case, horror. “Just charge it to the Lair Legion’s account,” he said, taking the pile of pizzas.
“Alright,” she shook the raccoon off her leg, “Have a good day.” She turned to leave, then as an afterthought, glanced over her shoulder at the Dark Knight. “Y’know… you’re kinda cute.”
“Yes… well…” he stammered, his eyes darting right and left. “Fin Fang Foom,” he hissed. “Evasive action!”
A few seconds later, there was a dragon-sized hole in the ceiling.
“You’re probably gonna want this,” spiffy pressed Cheryl and Lisa’s business cards into Christopher’s hand.

An hour and several hundred apologies later, everyone was leaving, and spiffy and Lauren were alone on the front porch as Anne made sure once again that the heroes had enjoyed themselves.
“So… Lauren…” he struggled for the most endearing words, but only came up with: “Some evening, huh?”
“Yeah,” she muttered in reply.
“Uh… nice… shirt,” he continued.
She glanced down at her hare-stained t-shirt. “Right.”
“So… wanna… y’know… get together sometime?”
She didn’t answer right away, and spiffy shifted on his feet uncomfortably. Finally, she spoke. “I mean this in a good way, spiffy… but… I never want to see you again, ‘kay?” With that, she turned on her heel and walked inside, leaving spiffy standing on the porch. Eventually, his companions walked outside.
“Verily,” Donar said cheerfully, “This evening has been bountiful and enjoyable!”
“I hate everything,” spiffy muttered darkly.

Next issue: Crossover with Abandoned Legion! "The Art of Danger" part three.

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