Tales of the Parodyverse

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killer shrike
Thu Nov 18, 2004 at 11:41:25 pm EST
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Three Families, Part Two
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“Three Families, Part Two”


Previously: A gang of deformed Japanese gangsters known as the Yakuza Spider Clan have come to Paradopolis, running afoul of the urban vigilante known as Artemis. Artemis, secretly ward to Mr. Epitome was hospitalized in the confrontation. Being in Badripoor at the time of attack, Epitome had no recourse but to ask the Lair Legion for help in the matter, having Glory convince Visionary, her proctor in the Junior Auxiliary, to agree to a clandestine mission….

Five years ago

Dominic Clancy parked in the visitor’s area of the Zebulon Pike Middle School car lot and headed immediately to the front lobby to sign in. It was a well rehearsed routine, as the man had been coming to this post modern sandstone structure every other Friday for three years to pick up Charlotte.

He showed his forged ID to the parent volunteer, who let Dominic sign her out. There was a glitch, however, when the woman called her classroom.

“Mr. Gammons, I’m afraid Charlotte is in the assistant principal’s office,” the woman said, before giving him directions so he could learn for himself what the trouble was.

The vice principal’s office was crammed with files, memos, and binders, lots of binders; for Tardy Policies, and Dress Code, Student Assessment, Teacher Assessment, and on and on. Clancy, a seven year veteran of federal law enforcement bureaucracy, was impressed.

He sat before the administrator’s desk. Charlotte was beside him, stone faced but clearly upset, given her body language. When Dominic had first entered the tiny room Charlotte had given a barely audible gasp and stared into her lap. Now Dominic and the school disciplinarian were discussing her fate.

“This is Charlotte’s first violation,” Ms. Hortence said, “but it’s a serious one. Possession of a weapon on school grounds is an automatic three day suspension.”

Dominic nodded and turned to Charlotte, “Tell me what happened.”

“I had some arrowheads in my schoolbag,” she admitted, “and I showed them to people.”

“Showed them?”

“To her classmates during recess,” Ms. Hortence explained. Dominic looked over to her with a severe glare.

“Did she threaten anyone?”

“No. No, but the students’ statements indicate she talked at length about how good a shot she was, especially at hitting moving targets,” to Ms. Hortence, there was an obvious threat implied.

Dominic continued to stare. The older woman shifted in her chair. Pike Middle was located in ranch country, so she had encountered irate fathers with hard hands and eyes before. But Dominic Gammons looked like someone more accustomed to breaking people than horses.

“Will Charlotte be able to make up the work she misses from the suspension?”

“Of course,” Ms. Hortence said quickly.

“Do you have your schoolbag?” he asked Charlotte, who nodded.

“Everything except my broadheads.”

“I have those,” the vice principal, relieved, bent down to remove them from her desk.

“Fine, then. We’ll get your assignments from your teachers and then we’ll be on our way.”

Once in the car Dominic stated the obvious to his young charge, “You’re angry with me.”

The girl turned and blurted, “Why didn’t you stick up for me?! You know I didn’t bring those to school as weapons.”

“Why did you bring them?”

“To show my friends,” Charlotte replied.

“Male friends?” he asked with a slight smile. Charlotte’s face grew flushed. Dominic decided to spare her further embarrassment and explained himself, “When you break a rule there are consequences. Part of growing up means accepting those consequences.”

“But it’s a stupid rule!”

“You will find, when dealing with institutions, that many of their rules are stupid. The trick is using them to your benefit,” Dominic pulled the car onto the highway, “Now you have an extended weekend. What are you going to do with the time?”

“I’m sure the Donahues have a list of chores for me around the ranch,” she spat, referencing the family that she lived with.

“And after you’ve done them, and your schoolwork, we’ll continue your training. There are rumors that a mob family in Phoenix has been forming ties with Erskine Blofish and his crew. OPS wants me to do some spade work for a RICO case.”

“And you’re letting me come observe?” Charlotte said excitedly.

Mr. Epitome, super agent for the Office of Paranormal Security and fledgling master conspirator, smiled and put his long, ranging arm around the girl’s shoulders, “Unofficially, of course. No sense revealing my secret weapon just yet.”

Charlotte rested her cheek on Dominic’s forearm and closed her eyes, “Thanks, Dad.”

A slight look of discomfort crossed Epitome’s face, a tension brought about by a rarely felt emotion of self-doubt, but he vanquished it and hugged her briefly, “You’re welcome, Charlotte.”

*****


Now, Dominic Clancy was piloting his recently rebuilt Epitome Express airship across the Pacific Ocean trying to coordinate responses to two potential disasters. One was the extraction of Charlotte from Phantom Hawk Memorial Hospital. He had hacked into the facility’s computers from the Idiom’s workstation in Badripoor, and was stunned by the extent of Charlotte’s injuries. Still, for the moment, he felt Glory and her accomplice could handle the simple task of removing her from the site.

The other looming crisis could destroy everything he had worked for.

“We did a toxicology screen on St. Ides once he returned empty handed from his last mission,” one of Epitome’s many operatives told him earlier in the day, “and detected large doses of molecularly modified calcium. It’s been laced with something that can only be described as some form of opiate. Tech Spectre’s been drugged, and from previous samples its-“

“Dr. Waltz,” Epitome interrupted, “She’s gained control of Tech-Spectre. What is his status?”

“We’ve got him locked down for now, but he’s denying ever encountering Waltz.”

“What data do we have on his recent whereabouts?”

The voice on the phone answered, “GPS had him disappearing from Tierra Del Fuego for thirty two hours, reappearing in Oak Brook, Illinois.”

Epitome frowned. There weren’t a lot of dairy farms in Oak Brook, or much of an agricultural base of any kind. It would not seem like an ideal area for the nefarious Dr. Moo to set up operations. However, with his investigator’s mind and his vast repository of knowledge, he soon formed a hunch.

“I believe Dr. Waltz is operating out of the corporate headquarters of Mucho Burger. Contact our agents in the FDA and have them green light any investigation into complaints pending against the organization or its suppliers. I don’t care if it’s only that they don’t change the mop water often enough, I want it pursued zealously and with all deliberate speed. I also need a copy of the building’s floor plans emailed to me immediately. And notify the Board members. Tell them that divesting any holdings in Mucho Corp would be a sound business strategy at this point.”

“Uh, yes sir.”

Epitome hung up and reset the Express’s coordinates for America’s Heartland. Dr. Waltz was about to learn her sister was not the only one who could get the System to do tricks.

*****


“Stop me if you’ve heard this before, but this is the stupidest thing you’ve ever done,” Fleabot told Visionary from his station outside the bathroom door.

“It’s not even in the top five!” the Legionnaire objected as he struggled to knot his necktie. Glory had helpfully provided him with a change of clothes to wear for the assignment: a drab jacket and tie combination that seemed regular issue for government employees, “This is mild, compared to some of the capers Lisa, Dancer, and Yo have dragooned me into.”

“Yeah, but Yo and Dancer care about you. Their dragooning is done out of love. And Lisa, well, she’s not going to do anything that permanently hurts you: a criminal mastermind needs her Otis,” the tiny machine remarked, “But, Epitome plays by different rules. You aren’t his Otis. You’re probably going to be his Oswald.”

Visionary huffed and banged out of the bathroom, “I’m who’s what now?”

Fleabot tried to stare up into what he assumed would be Visionary’s confused expression, but all he saw was a pixilated blur, “Gah! What happened to your face?”

“Nothing. Oh, wait, Glory gave me some salve, said it contained subdermal light refractors, whatever those are. Its supposed to make it impossible for video cameras to photograph me,” Visionary paused, “Maybe I put a little too much on,” he admitted.

“I repeat: this is a stupid idea. And you’re carrying a gun!!” Fleabot extended a miniscule limb to point at the service weapon in his shoulder holster.

“It’s not loaded. I told Glory I wouldn’t carry a loaded gun.”

“Nice of you to put your foot down. Now why don’t you take the next step and tell Lisa what’s going on? Or Hatman? Somebody.”

Visionary slung on his suit jacket, “No. I gave my word to Glory that I wouldn’t tell the others. The only reason you know is because you were hiding in my desk from Asil when Glory came in.”

“I wasn’t hiding. I was circumventing. And, be honest, Vizh, doesn’t the fact Glory asked you to keep this a secret tell you something’s not right here?”

The possibly fake man’s brow furrowed briefly (not that Fleabot could see it), but he shook his head.

“No, Glory’s… Glory’s my best student. I believe in her.”

And with that the possibly fake man left his friend to commit several felonies because of this heartfelt belief.



Next: We catch up with the Yakuza Spider Clan, who are making introductions to the world’s scariest domestic diva who’s not Martha Stewart, witness the debut of Reynard Muldrake, enjoy a bloody high speed chase, and take pleasure in a team up exactly two people asked for. Out next week.

Bless the Footnotes and the Children

Mr. Epitome and Artemis: Quite a bit of backstory here. Mr. Epitome got his powers a dozen or so years ago from a government super agent program. For a while he operated as a special agent of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (where he got his original start working for the U.S.). One of his early foes was a mass-murdering psychopath known as Doc Toxic. One of Toxic’s early plots was injecting dozens of illegal immigrants in the California Bay Area with a mutant smallpox strain, before releasing them to the community where he hoped they would infect other aliens. Charlotte, along with her family, was infected. Epitome stopped Toxic’s plan to spread the virus but not in time to save the original victims from the smallpox. Excluding Charlotte. He took pity on the young (6 years old) Cambodian and worked out a way to secretly keep her in the country, in the care of a retired couple in Arizona, both of whom were FBI agents.

We know Epitome would visit Charlotte, and worked with her in various law enforcement and combat skills, including archery. It has been mentioned that Dominic planned to eventually have Charlotte undergo the same process that gave him his power, but something caused him to change his mind, and Glory, the Dog Dynamo, went through it instead. Undeterred, a now sixteen year old Charlotte ran away from home and used the equipment designed by Epitome to become an urban vigilante type called Artemis. The two met later, in Paradopolis, and after Epitome failed to convince her to return home, has given her some support and approval for her new career. Their relationship is still very strained, however. This stuff has shown up in about a half dozen earlier Mr. Epitome stories, though the numbers off hand escape me.

Phew. Now, the other stuff:

Erskine Blofish: was the former leader of BALD before he got killed by the Purveyors of Peril in Untold Tales # something something (these footnotes are not very fan friendly, I know). He seemed like a cross between a James Bond villain and Cyborg Silvermane, from the Spidey books.

Henry St. Ides and Dr. Moo: Back in Mr. Epitome #32, one of Epitome’s flunkies, a villain known as Tech Spectre, was on the trail of noted geneticist Dr. Moo, whose expertise was needed by the Grey Eminence and the conspiracy he organizes for reasons mentioned so long ago I bet no one remembers. Last we saw of TS he was cattle-prodded by a Mooish looking woman. Now it appears he was subjected to some of the scientist’s mind controlling milk (which I swiped from another Untold Tales story) and sent back to the conspiracy as a double agent. More on this a couple stories down the line.

What’s the gunk on Visionary’s face: I mentioned subdermal light refractors before. Epitome has used them in his cover identities to subtly screw with how the naked eye views a person’s features. It also is extremely effective in distorting how someone looks on camera.






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