Tales of the Parodyverse

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Nats
Wed May 12, 2004 at 08:30:13 pm EDT
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Hide the children! It's...Lair Legion Chronicles #12: Secondhand Emotions, or What's Love Got to Do With It?
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Missed LLC #11? Click Here.

Author’s Note: This story takes place a while back, roughly between Untold Tales #109 and 110 or so, when the last new line-up was in swing. Or, if that fails, this takes place in whatever time period makes the most sense. Hopefully we’ll catch up to the present by #14, here.

Previously in Lair Legion Chronicles…
The new Lair Legion line-up, consisting of Fin Fang Foom, Goldeneyed, Nats, Sorceress, Ziles, Dancer, CrazySugarFreakBoy!, Cressida(with dull thud along for the ride), and Pegasus debuted, with Hatman as senior advisor. Trickshot is also lurking somewhere.
Also, the new members of the team, with Goldeneyed leading them solo in the field, ran across phantasms, Skree Ravagers, and an android filmmaker known as the Camcorder. Most of them escaped with only minor injuries. (Key word: Most.)
There have also been odd displays of affection in the team, as it appears something is playing with passions and lust. And meanwhile, a cult has started worshipping super-heroes, with the Lair Legion as its main deities. There have been several crimes and a few deaths connected with this cult so far.
And now, our story begins…




Above the Parodyverse sit the Triumvirate, holders of three important cosmic officers. There is the Shaper of Worlds, who begins the story, the Chronicler of Stories who continues it, being in charge of the plotline, and the Destroyer of Tales, who ends the stories.
There are also several creatures that act as servants and helpers to the Triumvirate, such as three ravens that serve the Chronicler of Stories. There is the quiet, reserved, lady Quoth; the bold and poetic Pallas; and the stoic, masculine, and quite drunk Nevermore.
They fluttered about the Chronicler’s massive cosmic library, searching for a book they’d been sent to fetch for the Chronicler.
“Where is it?” Quoth asked. “I think it’s supposed to be over in this section.”
Nevermore hiccupped. “Who cares? Let’s just find this thing and get it back real quicklike.” He started to swerve left and right drunkenly.
“Hurry, my friends/we must find this tome/and fly it thither/to the Chronicler’s home,” Pallas rhymed.
“Here it is,” Quoth told them, finding the current volume that would continue the story that the Chronicler had to chronicle. Drunken Nevermore hit the bookshelf with a thud and fell to the ground.
“Ahh, a romance it is/a tale of love and lust/now we must take it back/oh yes we must,” Pallas spoke as he lifted the book into the air with his claws.
“A romance?” Quoth repeated. “Oh, the Chronicler won’t be happy about this. He hates romances.”
“Romances?” Nevermore grinned as only a raven could, flexing his wings. “Who loves ya, baby?”
“Er…right,” Quoth said, ignoring him and flying off with Pallas.
“Hey, come back,” Nevermore called after them before a book fell from the shelf and hit him, knocking him to the ground again.
“This story seems to take place in the Earthen region/I wonder if it involves those heroes, the Lair Legion,” Pallas chimed as he and Quoth reached their destination.





#12

Written by Nats!

Logo by Bry

Secondhand Emotions
or
What’s Love Got to Do with It?



The large helicopter for the Parodiopolis/Gothametropolis Noon News, not to be confused with the helicopter for the Parodiopolis/Gothametropolis Nude News, flew over the city of Gothametropolis York, heading for the coastline.
“…and that’s all for the traffic report. This is Sky Harrison with the Parodiopolis/Gothametropolis Noon News at Noon, once again requesting our show gets a better, shorter name,” said the reporter in the helicopter. “I’m here over the coast of Gothametropolis York right now, and what a beautiful sunny afternoon this is. Back to you, Skip.”
“…and, cut,” the cameraman stationed in the back of the helicopter told him. “Not bad. Let’s head back to the station.”
Sky pulled out a cigarette and lit it. “Yeah, I wanna get back before those damn kids slash the tires on my Mercedes,” he grumbled, taking a drag from his cancer-stick.
“No problem,” nodded the helicopter’s pilot, veering to the left. “I can have this baby back in a couple minutes. Just gotta watch out for the glare.”
“Yeah,” said Sky, blowing smoke out his mouth. “Damn sun.”
“Y’know, for a cheery news reporter, you’re very cynical,” the cameraman observed.
“Well, you can’t afford to be so cheery these days,” Sky replied. “Don’t see what everyone’s so happy-go-lucky about, with the damned global warming. Everything can kill ya these days.”
The cameraman shrugged. “Yeah, like those cigarettes.”
“Exactly!” Sky said. “That’s my point. They’ll market anything these days.” He flicked the cigarette out the window of the helicopter. “They don’t give a damn what you do to yourself as long as they make a quick buck, y’know what I’m sayin’?”
The cigarette surprised him when it came back through the window and landed in his lap. “Damn wind.” He threw it out the window again. “Even the weather hates me.”
“You know,” a familiar figure began, appearing on the other side of the helicopter window. He was dressed in a neon green and orange costume, with bright orange hair and day-glo yellow skin. “I’d appreciate it if you didn’t pollute the environment.” He had Sky’s discarded cigarette between his fingers. “If you choose to smoke, at least be courteous enough to throw it away in the proper place.” He handed it back to Sky. “Now have a nice day, won’t you?”
With that, CrazySugarFreakBoy! dropped from the helicopter, snagged a part of it with his unbreakable yo-yo, and swung off in the direction of the abandoned fairgrounds on the island off the coast of GMY. He performed a mid-air somersault, and then hit the ground running, at an incredible speed.
Sky threw the cigarette out the window again. “Damn super-heroes.”

The Safe was a gigantic prison on an island off the coast of Gothametropolis York, used to house the world’s most dangerous super-criminals.
“Prisoner 24601! You have a visitor here to speak with you.” The guard punched the proper code into the computer and released the captive prisoner. Two guards escorted him to the conference room he had an appointment in. The prisoner was dressed in a bright orange prison uniform, and the guards wore dark blue armor.
“Here we are,” one of the guards remarked as they came upon the entrance to the conference room. He slid his gauntlet off and placed his hand on the palm scanner. The door opened. Inside the room there was a solitary metal table, bolted and fused to the metal floor. There was the obligatory mirror, behind which there was a console that monitored in thermal, electrical, x-ray, and radioactive wavelengths, as well as recorded the conversation. An unarmored guard sat behind it.
There was also a figure already in the room, having entered through the door opposite the door the prisoner had entered. As the guards took there positions, one guarding each door, the figure smiled and waved at the prisoner.
“Oh no, not him,” the prisoner muttered.
“Hiya, sparky!” CrazySugarFreakBoy! grinned.
“Why didn’t you tell me it was him?” the prisoner complained as the guard seated him at the table. “Anybody but him! Please!”
“What’s wrong, Captor? Didn’t expect me?” CSFB! asked.
“No,” the Captor replied, regaining his dignity and poise. “I did not.” He would’ve been curling his handlebar mustache right about then if he wasn’t handcuffed to his seat.
“Well, that’s too bad, baldy. Because here I am, wondering what to do with my free time, and I said, ‘You know what? That good ol’ super-baddie the Captor could use a visit, couldn’t he?’ So I made and appointment and came right down here,” the sugar-addled super-hero said.
“What are you doing here?” the Captor asked. “Did you come just to annoy me, or…”
“I’ve got a proposition for you,” CSFB! said. “I think we should talk.”
“About what?”
“I’ve been looking at your records,” Dreamcatcher Kokopelli Foxglove noted, producing a large manila folder with a collection of papers in it. He shuffled through them. “Good behavior, volunteering… You seem to have quite a decent rep behind bars. Is it just because you’re planning your next scheme, or are you actually trying to turn over a new leaf?”
“I was the greatest game hunter known to man,” the Captor explained. “I was a television star. I had the largest collection of animal pelts and heads in the world. But I was backstabbed and blackmailed, and took my revenge…”
“…and then you became a mercenary, hunting the greatest prey of all…humans. Super-heroes. Whatever paid the best,” CSFB! finished. “Which is great and all, but I need to know if you’ve put your villainy behind you.”
“Why, what are you getting at?”
“I’ve become a sort of super-villain counselor,” CSFB! told him. “I can help you, I can try to get you past your days of evil and all that. And I’m offering you a position in my team of reformed villains…you’ve heard of the Globetrotting Gangbusters?”
“The who?” the Captor responded.
“No, they’re a band. The Globetrotting Gangbusters! Formerly the Goofball Gauntlet. You can have a spot on the team if you decide to go straight. I’m sure I could work things out with your parole officer, and my only request is that you adopt a new alliterative heroing name.”
“Would I get my pith helmet back?” the Captor ventured.
“Um, sure,” CrazySugarFreakBoy! replied. “Anything you want.”
“I’ll think about it,” the prisoner told him. “Is that all?”
“That’s all. I’ve made sure the guards know you can call me back if you want to talk.”
“Okay,” the Captor said. “We’re done now?”
“We’re done now,” CSFB! told him. “Thanks.” He nodded and left.
The Captor then went back to planning his escape from the prison, cursing the Wired Wonder under his breath.

Shortly after leaving the Safe, CrazySugarFreakBoy! was once again bounding across rooftops all over Parodiopolis.
“Wooooo hooooo!” he shouted in glee, taking a few steps on the side of a building before pushing off and launching himself across the street. He flipped around in the air a few times, and then landed in Statue Park, which was located somewhere in the Mangatown district of Parodiopolis.
He landed in a handstand among the statuary representations of the Abandoned Legion, and then launched himself forward. He bounced off the top of a gargoyle, flipped over, hit the ground, waved to a midget wearing a fedora, and then hopped off.
“There’s something you don’t see every day,” Indiana Gnome remarked.
“He could’ve been considerably nicer,” Gunthar the gargoyle stated. “I don’t generally like people that bounce off me.”
CSFB! whizzed past a man in a suit who was carrying a briefcase.
“Howdy!” he greeted.
“Konnichiwa,” the Ninja Accountant replied.
The Wired Wonder next zipped over a park bench that a homeless man was sleeping on. CSFB! left ten dollars.
“Oh, frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!” he cheered, and then raced off. He was feeling really good about himself and the world.
Another person, one CSFB! didn’t notice as he blazed past, walked up to the park bench and took the ten dollar bill from the sleeping man. Then the figure took out a syringe and stuck it in the neck of the hobo, siphoning his blood…

***


The perfectly white vehicle, save for a few Lair Legion decals soared through the open air and touched down on a rocky cliff overlooking the Atlantic Ocean. The vehicle could seat nine comfortably, but current seated four, plus a mountain of luggage, furnishings, and other pieces of life and living.
Nats brought the Aunt Sally down to a graceful landing with one swoop. “So this is Covenant House, huh?” he observed, flying out of the Whiz Wagon that Exile had given to him before he moved to the Dreary Dimension. “Looks big, and old.”
“Kinda like your grandmother, Whit,” Hatman murmured under his breath.
“What was that, Jay?” Whitney Darkness, also known as the Sorceress, asked her boyfriend.
“I said, er, thanks for helping out, guys,” Jay quickly corrected.
“No problem,” dull thud replied, hopping out of the flying car. “Although next time I go for a drive in this, I don’t want to sit in one of those pods on the side. Too rumbly. And please, not so many loop-the-loops next time, wouldja?”
~~I’ve been quite jostled enough for one afternoon,~~ thud’s telepathic and transmutative tapeworm Cressida decided.
“Now how are we getting this stuff into the old house?” Whitney wondered aloud.
Nats clutched his alien Psychostave and concentrated. Quite a few of the large items that were in the back seat suddenly lifted right out of the Aunt Sally, propelled by Nats’s enhanced telekinesis. “Just tell me where to put this stuff,” he told them.
Jay Boaz put his Bulls cap on and lifted a large amount of items out of the trunk dull thud had opened for him. “Errf…I didn’t know we had so much stuff left to bring to this place,” the capped crusader said.
“We had it in decent condition before,” Whitney noted, “but if we want to turn it into a proper bed and breakfast, we’ve got to have more things. These antiques have been in my family for generations, so don’t break them.”
“Tell that to the super-villains that will most likely end up showing up to christen the place,” Hatman grunted. “The only guests we’ve had so far are evil monkey minions and robots.”
“True, but the official opening is soon,” Whitney replied. A wave of her hands and a whispered incantation later, and even more of her belongings lifted into the air, carried by unseen magic forces. “Be a dear and grab the suitcases, would you thuddy?”
“Sure,” the ragged roadie agreed, grabbing one. He pulled it out of the Aunt Sally, but its weight overpowered him and it hit the ground. “Jeez, what do you have in this thing?”
~~Never ask a lady that,~~ Cressida responded. ~~It isn’t proper.~~
“In case you haven’t noticed, Cressy, I’m not exactly a proper guy,” thud answered. “And I’m really not looking forward to throwing my back out.”
Hatman continued hefting the massive weight of what he was carrying as Nats helped Sorceress levitate the other larger items through the upstairs bay window. thud managed to catch up with him, dragging the suitcase along.
“Sure, leave the roadie to the menial labor,” he quipped.
“Isn’t that the job of a roadie?” Hatman replied as he set his cargo down.
“Now’s not the time for a philosophical debate,” dull thud nodded, trying to force the suitcase up the steps onto the porch. Jay picked up the suitcase and put it next to the door for him.
“The things you do for love, huh?” Jay smiled, sitting on the suitcase.
“I can’t say I’m completely familiar with that situation,” thuddy responded.
Hatman chuckled. “Well, I don’t want to babble about it…” He reached into his pocket for something.
“No, babble away. Babble, ramble, yammer, hem, haw, do whatever you wish,” thud said. “I don’t mind.”
Jay now had a small black box he had fished from his pocket.
“Wait, that isn’t--” thud began.
~~Sure looks like it,~~ Cressida replied.
Hatman popped the box open. Inside it was a diamond ring.
“It is! It is!” thud spoke.
“Not so loud,” said Jay.
“Are you actually gonna use it?” thuddy asked him.
“I don’t know,” Jay replied. “I guess I’m just waiting for the right time…and I’m really not sure when that will be. She’s already declined…once. But, you know me. I’m the traditional kinda guy. I guess I was just raised that way.”
“Truth, justice, apple pie, a glass of milk, flossing your teeth…yeah, I do know you,” thuddy replied.
“Jay?” Whitney called from around the corner. Jay snapped the box shut and put it back in his pocket.
“Yeah, hon?” he answered back.
“Don’t be sitting down on the job--get that stuff in there!”
Hatman smiled. “Yes, dear,” he said.

***


Art Corben gulped. He certainly wasn’t ready for what he was about to face. Ever since he had become a minion of Evil Monkey he was in over his head, steeped in ludicrous and unbelievable happenings. But this? This was worse. Much, much worse.
Art and his friend, Randy Robinson, had both taken part-time henchman jobs for megalomaniacal simian super-villain Evil Monkey just to have some spending cash. They never knew they’d be caught up with the Lair Legion and end up having to either volunteer as LL interns, or face a possible trial. Things were so much easier in comic books.
“So,” Art said. “You first.”
“Me? Oh no,” replied Randy. “I think you can field this one.”
“Oh, come on,” Art remarked. “Don’t be a wuss.”
“Me? A wuss? Then why aren’t you charging in there?”
“Obviously I want to get rid of your wussiness by forcing you to do this.”
“So it doesn’t mean you’re wussing out?”
“I’m a wuss? Hah. Whose idea was it to join up with Evil Monkey?”
“Yeah, and look where that got us. Attacked by robots and captured by the Lair Legion.”
“What do you mean captured? We’re not hostages.”
“Oh, really? Sure feels like it.”
“Why? Just because they force us to do whatever labor they don’t feel like doing, make us work nine to five, and don’t let us leave the mansion once we set foot inside it unless we have to do some kind of gardening duty? On second thought, yeah, we are hostages.”
“I still think Flapjack’s playing us with the whole gardening thing.”
“Maybe,” Art said. “So, anyway, you first.”
“Me? No way, man.”
“What are you babies complainin’ about now?” grumbled the Irritating Archer, the Marksman of Mayhem, the ever-troublesome Trickshot. “And what are you standing around for?” He sharpened one of his arrowheads.
“Uh, well, ah, Trickshot, sir,” began Art. “We were…ahh, he was…”
“I think what my friend is trying to say is that he’s much too afraid to feed CrazySugarFreakBoy!’s pet chupacabra,” Randy finished.
“What? You’re the one that’s supposed to--”
“Here’s a thought, gentlemen,” smiled Trickshot. “Why don’t you both go feed the little tyke? I mean, it’s just a chupacabra, for gosh sakes. Now pick up that bag of specially-ordered goat-filled chow, waltz right in there, and dump it in the little fellow’s bowl. Or I’ll throw ya in there with ‘im.”
“Isn’t there a chance that…ahh…he’ll rip us to shreds?” Art asked. “Because my doctor told me to stay away from that sort of activity. The shred-ripping, that is. Hazardous, you know. I mean, I know its main diet is goat’s blood, but it’s not exactly a people…thing…to begin with.”
“Right,” Tricky nodded. “I understand. But really, just ask yourself this. What are you more afraid of? Me? Or the chupacabra?”
Art gulped. “Um…”
“We’ll be right out,” Randy blurted, snatching the bag of chupacabra food. “Done in a jiffy. You’ll see.”
“Good,” Trickshot said. “I’m glad you see things my way.” He walked off.
Art wiped his brow. “And I thought the banshee was trouble.”
“Well, onward, and, er, onward,” Randy chuckled. “Heh…heh. Right?” He turned to the door. Just then, a feral growl erupted from behind it. Scratching noises could be heard.
“So,” Art said. “You first.”

***


“Does this make me look fat?” Amy Racecar asked. “Bulging thighs? Horrendous hips? Anything?”
“No, you look fine,” Laurie Leyton assured her. “Trust me.”
“It doesn’t scream ‘slut’ or anything?” Amy added.
“Why would you not want it to be slu…?” Lania, the team’s PR advisor, began. “I mean, no, certainly not.”
“I’m not sure, it just doesn’t feel…like me,” Amy said.
“That’s because it’s a dress, not oil-stained overalls,” Lania said snippily. “And you’re going to have to lose the baseball cap. It just doesn’t go with formal wear.”
“Lose the hat?” Amy said. “But…but I never take the hat off!”
“Listen,” Laurie, a.k.a. Lisette, said to her. “You’ll be fine. It’s one special night out with a guy whose had his eye on you for a while…”
“In more ways than one, if you remember how you two met,” Lania interjected.
“…and I know you don’t feel right wearing a fancy dress and going to a fancy restaurant, but one night out won’t kill you,” Laurie finished.
“Unless you’re in our line of work,” Amy added, “in which case, it just might.”
“So carry some mace, and maybe a laser gun of some kind,” Lisette smiled. “Just go out there and knock Al B. Harper’s socks off. Make him the luckiest man on Earth.”
“I just might,” Amy said. “I just, just might.”

***


“Does this make me look fat?” Al B. Harper asked. “I’ve been trying to maintain my figure…do my thighs look right in these pants? How about the hips?”
Bry Katz, the deputy leader of the Lair Legion and codename of Goldeneyed, stared at him and said nothing.
“You’re giving me that ‘Al-you’re-stupid’ look,” the scientist-at-large said. “I hate that look.”
“Well, I’ve had time to perfect it,” Bry replied, flipping pages in the magazine he was perusing.
“So how many pencils should I carry in my pocket protector?” Al B. asked.
Bry stared at him and said nothing.

***


The two figures moved together in perfect tandem, and perfect silence. It was a dance of balance, of control. Through these motions, one could find an inner peace to shut out the din of the world outside. The two heaving bodies were one in the sensual embrace that was their shadow dance.
“That was gnarly,” said Ziles, toweling the sweat off her brow.
“Well, Tai Chi can do that,” Fin Fang Foom, extraterrestrial draconic leader of the Lair Legion, replied. “And since when did you start using eighties’ slang?”
“Sorry,” the exiled Xnylonian thief and LL member apologized. “The translator’s a bit farswazzled.”
“It’s what?”
“You see my point,” she responded.
“Yeah, I…uh…” he said.
“Andy? You feeling alright?” Ziles asked.
“W-well, that’s the, the thing,” he stammered. “I’m just, ahh, well, that is…they’re been telling me I’m…um…”
Ziles raised her eyebrows. “Is there a sentence hiding in there somewhere, or are you just stalling for time?”
“I, er, well, you see, we never really get to see each other outside of our super-hero costumes, well, I don’t wear a costume, no pants you know, so that’s not really…I mean, outside the mansion…when not in battle. Uh, but what I mean is…”
“Andy, are you in love with me?”
“I…ahh…bwuh?”
“I have watched many television shows since I came to Earth. This bit usually happens in sitcoms or even dramedies where the boy is trying to say something really nice to the girl but keeps tripping over his own tongue,” she recalled. “This generally is meant to produce a humorous conclusion. And it doesn’t take an empath, even though I happen to be one, to see that you’re having some kind of feelings toward me. I mean, every time we talk your pulse rate quadruples, and there was that time we almost had to sleep together to save the wo… Andy?”
The dragon had given in and passed out.

***


The cloaked figure poured the blood of the lonely into a bowl and stirred it. The cloaked figure followed that up by adding some standard magic-spell ingredients like essence of toad, lovers’ fingernails, leaves from a dead tree, and some nutmeg for flavor. Then the cloaked figure emptied the contents of the mixture into a hollowed gourd, sprinkled the generic magic dust onto it, and set it on fire, while doing the hokey pokey. Then the cloaked figure removed its cloak and stood there spectacularly. Wisps of violet and fuchsia energy encircled the spell contents and the spell caster, forming a dazzling display of light. And then it was done.
“Showtime,” smirked the uncloaked figure. And that’s what it was all about.

***


Nats entered his room at the Lair Mansion, having returned from his trip to Covenant House. His muscles, and his telekinetic ability, felt strained from lifting so much, and he had resorted to using his Psychostave as a walking stick. He removed his jacket and threw it towards his coat rack, but missed completely, as usual.
“I hope they put the alien invasions on hold today,” he grumbled to himself, scratching his backside. “I could really go for a good shower and a nap.” He opened the door to his bathroom and stepped inside.
What surprised him was that his shower was already running. “Um,” he stated out loud. “Well, Bry’s shower is the one with the banshee, so what…”
The next things Bill Reed saw were four slender female fingers wrap themselves around the edge of the shower curtain, and at once he knew it was much, much better than a banshee.

***


Al B. Harper was extremely comfortable around electrodes, chemicals, Bunsen burners, computers, and other kinds of scientific materials and technology. Still, one of the things he was not comfortable around was women. The other thing was clowns; they really gave him the heebie-jeebies.
Luckily, no clowns were in sight, but unfortunately he was seated across a small romantic table at a small romantic restaurant with a couple small romantic candles situated on it from a young, beautiful, and vibrant young mechanic who, when she was not wearing oil-stained overalls, turned out to be quite the looker in a small, romantic setting like the one he found himself in. No, he certainly wasn’t comfortable. Not one bit.
“Comfortable?” Amy Racecar asked him.
“Oh, yes, very,” he quickly replied. “Well, this has certainly been a fantastic night, hasn’t it? Yes, we’d best do it again some time.”
“Al, we just sat down.”
“…right. Well, it’s just so exciting that…well, I mean… You…ahh, well…”
“Well?” she asked.
“Yep,” he said. “Well. Everything’s sure…well. Anyway, how’ve you been?”
“I’m fine. The same as when you asked me that in the taxi.”
“Right, taxi. Sure was nice, and yellow. And, well…” He was hoping some sort of super-villain would attack, but he figured that only happened to actual super-heroes, and not people in lab coats that helped them out. Then he realized he wasn’t even wearing his lab coat, and suddenly felt naked without it. Then he realized he’d not said anything for a good thirty seconds and was instead inadvertently staring at Amy’s chest, which, while a fetching chest, was not proper for a small romantic dinner like this.
“Are you feeling alright?” she asked him.
“Hmm, me?” he nervously chuckled. “Me, no, no, I mean, yes! Yes, fine, sure. Now, how have the…er… mechanical…things… been, lately?”
“They’re, ahh, they’re fine,” she said.
“Oh, well, that’s great, because you know, that, erm…” He prayed for something to ease the tension.
A waiter suddenly appeared. “Greetings. I shall be your server tonight. Would you care to see the wine list?”
“Oh thank God,” declared Al B., snatching the list from the waiter’s hand.

***


Bry Katz was just finishing preparing a tofu-and-jelly sandwich when his girlfriend Laurie Leyton walked into the room. While this might not sound so exciting, one must remember that Bry Katz was the semi-amazing super-hero known as Goldeneyed, master of teleportation and deputy leader of the Lair Legion, and that Laurie Leyton was known in other circles as Lisette, former sidekick to the Amorous Advocatrix Lisa, and also legal advisor to the aforementioned Lair Legion, and that the tofu-and-jelly sandwich was on exciting whole wheat bread, and may or may not have been planning to conquer the galaxy.
“So, Bry,” she said, leaning against the doorjamb, “How are you feeling?”
Bry looked up from the tofu-and-jelly sandwich he was about to bite into. “I’m… okay.”
“Because I’d really like to know if you can help me with that…that thing,” she said seductively, and Bry immediately noticed the expensive lingerie peeking out from under her semi-unbuttoned sweater.
Bry looked around. “Um…right here?” he said. “Now?”
Lisette smiled at him and winked. “Yeah.”
Bry paused for a moment. Finally, he shrugged. “Okay.”
And so, while the tofu-and-jelly sandwich escaped from the clutches of certain doom and lived to plot the conquer of the galaxy another day, it was about to witness something quite obscene, or at least more obscene than the things a tofu-and-jelly sandwich usually witnessed.

***


dull thud took a quarter out of his pocket as seductively as he could and placed it as seductively as he could into the slot, before pushing the button marked ‘Vanilla Coke’ as seductively as he could.
“It was like our eyes just…met,” he said. “I think she loves me.”
Cressida would’ve rolled her eyes if she wasn’t a tapeworm. ~~Davie, it’s a vending machine. It doesn’t even have eyes.~~
“No,” he replied. “It is my lady; it is my love! Oh, sweet, sweet, Coke machine…” He hugged it.
~~I get the sense that this is going to be a long night,~~ Cressida noted.

***


Flapjack banged his mangled fists on the door of a Legionnaire’s room. “Dammit, you! Give them back! Give them back!”
A muffled voice from inside the room shouted back. “No! I’m just getting to the good part where---”
“Something going on?” Hatman asked, walking up behind the hunchbacked hunchback that was the LL’s butler of sorts.
“Yeah,” Flapjack responded. “CSFB! stole all my good porno’s and locked himself in his room with them. Dammit, they’re mine!”
“Um…sure. File a complaint, or something, then,” Jay Boaz told him. He had his arm wrapped around the waist of his darling ladyfriend, Whitney Darkness, the Sorceress.
“What are you nuts? I…hmm,” Flapjack said. “You think that’ll work?”
“Couldn’t hurt to try,” Jay said. “Go look up Ruby and find out.”
“I think she’s off with Nats someplace. And she doesn’t really like me looking up at her.”
“I think it helps if you look up something other than her skirt,” said Sorcy.
Flapjack walked off. “But that takes all the fun out of it,” he muttered.
Hatman carefully watched Flapjack walk away and then turned to Whitney. “Thank God that got him out of here. You know, no one else really seems to be around…”
“Unless you count Art and Randy in the infirmary grumbling about the Chupacabra,” Whitney replied.
“Well, besides them. Pegasus is off in the Constellation, Dancer’s wherever Dancer goes when she isn’t around here, Al B. and Amy are off on their little date, and everybody else seems to have vanished, whatever they’re doing. But more importantly...” He kissed her passionately. “I think it’s a good moment for a little ‘us’ time, yes?”
“We’ve been having ‘us’ time twice a day for the last week,” Whitney told him. “Not, of course, that I don’t like us, or ‘us.’”
“Why, are you thinking of what I’m thinking?” Jay smiled.
“Time to take over the world?”
“Better.” Jay took her by the hand and led her into the nearest supply closet, fingering the small box containing the ring he had purchased for her with his other hand.

***


Fin Fang Foom carefully retreated into his room, backing up slowly to make sure Ziles wasn’t following him. When he had finally made it inside, he breathed a sigh of relief and shut the door. Then he saw what was on his bed.
“Gaaahh!” he shrieked.
“I didn’t know dragons could scream like little girls,” Lania replied. It might’ve been bad enough for Finny to see a woman lying on his bed, but it didn’t help that the only things she was wearing were a large bow tied across her chest and very small red panties, which may or may not have been a thong, but luckily the draconian Legionnaire was not at a proper angle to tell.
“Well, you know, I think, well, um, right, bye!” he stuttered, quickly turning around. Unfortunately…or, perhaps, fortunately, he found Ziles suddenly standing there. “Gaaahh!”
“You know, Andy, I’ve been wondering exactly what sort of things you can do with your shape-shifting, and so, well, I thought…” she began.
Finny suddenly found himself trapped, and with the only escape option to smash through a wall to freedom. Oddly, though, he found himself not exactly wanting to escape.
“And I’ve brought extra relaxor cream,” Ziles added. She was only dressed in what appeared to be a very skimpy, flimsy, and mostly see-through nightie.
“Um, heh,” Finny said, feeling himself becoming more comfortable in the situation. He tried to fight it. “I’d, well, yes, this, um, it’s great, but it’s so hard to, y’know, choose between either of you and I’m sure it’d be unfair to the other one and I… I… ayiyiyiyi…”
Lania stood up and embraced one of his massive draconian arms. Now Finny could see it was, quite clearly, a thong. “Oh, we don’t mind. You won’t even have to choose! You can have the best of both worlds. Concurrently! Right, Ziles? We don’t mind?”
“Surely not,” she smiled, embracing his other arm.
“Besides, it’d probably help my acting career, once word gets out,” the LL’s PR-rep added.
“Word…gets out???” Finny gasped.
“Sure, big guy,” Lania said. “Would you want us to keep you to ourselves?” Also, just for the record, her hair was currently dyed brunette, as she knew it was Finny’s favorite.
“Oh, of course there’ll be word!” Ziles grinned. “In fact, we can even take pictures, or film it, or---”
“Why, I don’t see why…wait, no!” Finny struggled against this newfound wave of confidence.
“Can’t you see the headline?” Lania asked him. “Fin Fang Foom: Sex God!”
“Now come on,” Ziles bade him. “Show us what the Super-Schlong *really* looks like.”
“Er…bye!” Finny yelped, and leaped through the wall to freedom.

***


Nats and Ruby ravaged each other as they both wondered what uses to put the Psychostave to…
Goldeneyed and Lisette did very naughty things as a tofu-and-jelly sandwich looked on…
Hatman and Sorceress invented new uses for a supply closet…
dull thud seductively played with an enticing vending machine…
CrazySugarFreakBoy! watched even more alluring videos than usual…
Fin Fang Foom barely escaped the clutches of the Bad Thing just as the Dark Knight walked up to the front door…
*THOOOOOOOOOOOM!*
“Akg!” cried Finny.
“Ugph!” grunted the Dark Knight. He was upset, not only because he grew tired of the LL’s antics, not only because a large pantsless dragon had just pounded him into the ground, but also because he had not had any coffee in the last hour.
“Just…” he growled, prying himself loose from the dragon, “what…was…that?”
“Er…I can explain,” his best friend told him.
“Please do,” said DK.
“Alright,” began Finny. “You see, I was minding my own business and then Ziles seemed to start hitting on me. At least, I think she was, but maybe she was trying to get me to hit on her, but it was definitely flirting, and then I escaped…well, I fainted, but later I woke up and escaped to my room, but Lania was nearly naked on my bed and then Ziles came in and they wanted to have some kind of ménage a trois and I almost wanted to, but it was the Bad Thing and I managed to escape out the wall, which’ll prolly cost a helluva lot, but then you were here, and…”
“I’d laugh,” said the Dark Knight, “but it would ruin my reputation. Now, quite frankly, I don’t know why your harem suddenly became so forceful, but---”
“It’s not a harem!”
“---but I really must say I don’t care, but I’m sure the others will find it hilarious. Now, I must have my coffee, and if you continue to get in the way of me and my caffeine I will break both of your arms, nigh-invulnerability or not.”
“Ah…”
“You did here me, yes?” the avenger of the night and nightmare of the criminal element scowled. Fin Fang Foom stepped aside.
“Thank you,” said the Dark Knight, entering the mansion. Now, run along and hide in a supply closet or something, if you wish. Or take a cold shower, or something. Get yourself some fettuccini, whatever. But I demand my coffee.”
Unfortunately for the Dark Knight, the coffee was located in the kitchen, but then, so were Bry and Laurie, and surely the astute reader can figure out what happened when DK opened the door and became as horrified as the poor tofu-and-jelly sandwich at the lewd acts going on.
“…someone must pay,” he said coldly, quickly closing the door and sealing the tofu-and-jelly sandwich to its horrific fate before the couple inside even noticed him.
“Um, Greg?” came the voice of Fin Fang Foom. “Er…bad news with the supply closet.”
“Let me guess…Nats and Ruby?”
“No, Jay and Whit. At least, that’s what it sounded like. I was too afraid to open it.”
“What the hell is going on?” grimaced the grumpy gangbuster.
“So,” replied Finny, “maybe they won’t find me if I hide in the kitche---”
“NO!” DK shouted. “I mean, not the kitchen. It’s too…um…obvious.”
“Right, then,” the dragon nodded. “Yep…you bet. I better just…um…”
The Dark Knight’s frown increased in size. “Stop looking at me like that.”
“Like what?”
“Like that, dammit!”
“I’m not… I mean… If you think I…”
“…”
“I’d better… um…” And so Fin Fang Foom leaped through another wall to freedom.
DK sniffed. “I know that smell,” he said. “It’s…nutmeg. Dammit.” He whirled around in the living room. “I know you’re here,” he yelled to the room. “I can smell you in this. It has to be you… the Enthrallress!”
“Excellent detective work from an excellent detective,” came a voice with a hint of an Ausgardian accent. “I’m sure you knew that, though.”
“Adora,” the Dark Knight greeted with much more than a hint of malice. “What did you do here?”
“I’ve just made everyone see what was there all along,” said the Enthrallress. “The passion, the lust… They try to hide it, but it’s been there all along. I’m just helping bring it forth. I’ve been doing it for months now, a little bit at a time, secretly playing with them. That, though, got boring after a while. But *this*… This is wonderful, isn’t it?”
“I can’t say it is. It’s…degrading. And people have to EAT at that table, woman!”
The Enthrallress smiled at him. She was as scantily-clad as possible, dressed with pink chain-mail, see-through pink ribbon and lace, and just a hint of red leather. Her long, flowing, golden hair accentuated her obviously seductive female form. She was, after all, a goddess. A goddess of lust, desire, and enticement, and probably a goddess in the sack.
“Don’t you think they’re happy?” she asked the Dark Knight. “Don’t you think they wanted it this way?”
“No,” he told her. “Not this way. Not with what you’ve done to them.”
“Or is it because you’re jealous?” Adora wondered. “Are you missing a piece of the action? Don’t think I can’t read you. You’ve got plenty of passion of your own. Can’t the dreaded Dark Knight allow himself to love?”
“You’ve turned them all into objects for your own sick pleasure. It has to stop, Adora, and now, before you force me to get violent. And without my coffee, I’m very, very violent.”
“Which one of them would you like, DK? Can I call you DK?”
“No,” he said.
“Surely, DK. I can give you your pick of any of them. Would you care for Dancer? Or Pegasus? How about Amber St. Claire…although I’m not really sure she swings that way, but…? Oh, I know! How about Lisa? Don’t you have a crush on her? Or perhaps you want your sweet, precious, Ziles? I can give you any of them! Or all of them! It’s your choice, Knight.”
The Dark Knight ignored her. “Stop your spell,” he said. “Put them back. They don’t deserve this. Not for a little game.”
“Ahh, I see,” Adora grinned with glee. “I know what you…really want.” She ran a finger along her own breast line. “I think what you really desire is me. Can only a goddess slake your lust, DK?”
He couldn’t take it anymore, and lashed out at her with a fist. She took the punch, but being a goddess it didn’t harm her quite as much as it should’ve. “So you’re the violent type, hmm? The rough predator? Is that your game?” She hit him back with some kind of pink glowing energy blast that knocked him back a few feet.
“The only game here is yours,” he said. “When this is over, you’ll have destroyed their self-integrity. They’re not your puppets, Adora. Love isn’t just for laughs. It can’t be controlled, especially for your purposes.”
“My only regret it forgetting to set up the hidden cameras,” Adora replied. “Now *that* would’ve been a laugh.”
“Take it back, dammit,” the Dark Knight commanded. “Take it back, now. And take back their memories.”
“A memory is a tricky thing to delete,” Adora said. “Memories can’t be destroyed, can they? They have to go somewhere…or to someONE…”
“Then let it be me,” the Dark Knight muttered. “Let it be me. Give the memories to me. They don’t deserve this.”
“And you do?”
“I deserve a lot of things,” he stated. “I’ve seen so much over my lives. I’ve done so much. And I’ve done a lot of things I wish I hadn’t. The world has grievances with me. It owes me pain.”
“Or perhaps you’ll just get preserve joy out of this,” Adora said.
“No,” he growled. “I won’t let you punish them with their own passion.”
“Isn’t love all you need?” the Enthrallress asked. “Fine, then. Have it your way. This was getting to be less fun anyway.” She waved her hand and motioned with her fingers, and the next thing the Dark Knight saw was a bright light. He’d wake up with one helluva migraine.

***


“That was, um…did you enjoy it?” asked Al B. Harper.
“Well, I’d say it was quite an experience,” Amy Racecar answered.
“Look, I’m sorry,” Al replied. “I’m not very good at the entire dating thing, or the fancy restaurant, or even the dressing-up part.”
“Neither am I,” Amy told him. “You can probably tell I was extremely nervous tonight.”
“You? No, you were perfect. I messed everything up, I’m sorry. And look, I didn’t really mean to accidentally set the waiter on fire or douse myself in champagne, but…”
“We were both nervous,” Amy said. “But that part’s over now.”
“Oh?” said Al. “And what’s this part?”
“This is the happy ending,” Amy said, kissing him. And it began to rain…

***


“Well, it was fun,” confessed the Enthrallress. “Up to a point, anyway.”
“Do any of them remember a thing?”
“Nope,” Adora replied. “Their memories are all clouded. They won’t remember anything. Except the Dark Knight, of course.”
“Good.”
“…and, well, maybe that tofu-and-jelly sandwich. Who the hell would put jelly on tofu, anyway?”
“So you got what you wanted.”
“Oh, yes,” she smiled devilishly. “And you? Did you get what you wanted?”
“Yes,” answered the Hooded Hood. “Quite so.”

***


The next morning, dawn broke over Parodiopolis Sound, and the Lair Mansion awoke, having forgotten the events of the previous night. The Dark Knight was nowhere to be seen, and Fin Fang Foom was left to explain two large dragon-sized holes in the building. There was just one thing, though…
“Um…hello?” asked Nats. “Is anybody there? Can you…er…oh, this is embarrassing. …anybody? Anybody at all? Um, someone help, please? Anybody? Ahh, crap.” And so Nats woke up to find himself tied to his bed, wearing nothing but his leather jacket, and with no one around to free him. It would be another two hours before he realized he could probably use his own telekinesis to free himself.
The text, here, lies. There was a second thing left. Something else remembered the horrible events of the previous night, and this something plotted revenge. After all, no one would suspect any devious plots from a simple tofu-and-jelly sandwich.

The End!

Next episode: We take a break from the Lair Legion to tell a story of an age past, when the League of Improbable Gentlemen dwelled in the Lair Mansion, and spooky goings-on were going on in Parodiopolis. It should be up soonish.







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