Tales of the Parodyverse

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killer shrike
Sun Oct 16, 2005 at 11:22:47 pm EDT
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Strong Suit: Interlude
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Strong Suit Interlude: A Side Trip to the Madhouse


Previously: Mr. Epitome lost fifteen years of memory due to the machinations of one mad scientist. Hallie gained a powerful android body due to the machinations of another. And a enigmatic villain now named Illusionous to avoid confusion with another PVB character associated with possible fakery is causing trouble in the city of Las Vegas.


Dominic Clancy walked out from his very long, very cold shower. The bracing wash up brought a bit more focus to his scattered thoughts. He tried to use that clarity to analyze the day’s previous events. Did he misinterpret Hallie’s signals at the college and in the lab? She seemed interested in spending time with him, almost flirtatious, but she bolted once she was… installed in the robotic body. As the Man of Might put on his uniform he wondered what could have made Hallie change her mind.

There were the sounds of the door to the locker room opening, and the familiar mutterings of a man irritated with one of civilization’s supposed conveniences.

“Stupid iPod, dammit. Frickin’ thing won’t work- oh great! Where’s that cord.. gah!”

Epitome rounded the corner to observe Visionary well entangled in the earphones for his personalized music player, “Trouble?” he asked neutrally.

“Uh, no,” the man in the green and yellow gym suit freed himself from his ensnarement with technology, “Though, really, it’s good to play it safe when electronics start to act wonky around here. Even if they aren’t NTU-designed.”

“Of course.”

“There’s that science villain who can take over machinery, Techno 4- “

“Technovore,” Mr. Epitome corrected.

Nnno, I’m pretty sure it’s Techno 4: like Zach is-” Visionary decided it probably wasn’t a very good idea to mention Hacker 9 to this particular man at this particular moment, “Anyway, what are you doing down here?”

Dominic was ready to give the possibly fake man the brush off when he thought better of it. He should make an effort to get to know Visionary better. He was a teammate after all. Glory couldn’t stop heaping praise upon him. And Hallie seemed to have some kind of connection with him…

“Now that my evening is free I’m about to conduct more of an investigation into who may be responsible for my transformation,” he said.

“Oh, yeah? Well, good luck with that. Ah, let me know if you need any help.”

Dominic was sure he wouldn’t, but decided to continue to ‘play nice’ and let Visionary in on his theories. He was especially curious of the Legionnaire’s reaction to one particular candidate “Actually, I would be interested in hearing your opinion on my list of suspects.”

“You would?” Visionary blinked.

“Yes. You are a founding member of the Legion, after all, and a former leader. There are few people around with more experience in the field of metacrisis response than you.”

“Yeah, well, we don’t always learn from our experiences, but, OK. I think I can put off trying to navigate the elliptical runner for a few more minutes.”

“Good. As it stands, I’ve narrowed the field down to five likely contenders: the Hooded Hood, Eddie the Imp, Sir Mumphrey Wilton, Wang the Conqueror or one of his many iterations, and Dr. Moo. Now, if we look first at means-”

“Wait. You think Sir Mumphrey might be behind your memory loss?”

“Yes.”

“That’s- that’s crazy! He would never do that,” Vizh sputtered.

“Really? Sir Mumphrey has displayed the willingness; some would say ruthlessness, necessary to commit such an extreme act. He and I were apparently at odds before my age regression over the entire Maverix incident, and that pocket watch does allow him to manipulate time for a wide variety of effects.”

“Yeah, but he wouldn’t do that!”

“He was ready to destroy the entire planet of Apocalyspe in order to defeat- no, not even defeat, deny the Parody Master a clean victory over us. I would say Wilton’s capable of anything,” Dominic reasoned.

“That was just a bluff,” Vizh protested lamely. At least he hoped it was, “OK, look, if Mumph had a problem with you when you were being an evil bastard, he wouldn’t be so, er, shifty about it. He would have taken you down in a way that let you knew he was taking you down.”

“I see.”

“Yeah, what happened to you is more of a Lisa thing. Forget I said that. It’s more of a Hooded Hood thing. Yeah. He likes playing complicated mind games on people while furthering his goal of universal domination, or whatever his latest scheme is.”

“Good points. Let’s go ask him.”

“Who?”

Dominic sighed, “The Hooded Hood. We know he’s holding court at Herringcarp Asylum. We know he accepts visitors. And we know he doesn’t lie.”

“Right, but I don’t understand how, uh, I became involved with this investigation. Other than on an advisory basis, and advising from an extreme distance,” Vizh protested.

“I assumed you would want to go: word is you’re good at bitch-slapping the Hood if he proves uncooperative.”

Visionary felt his heart leap and make a suicidal plunge into his stomach. He was still waiting for the other shoe to drop from that heated encounter, “Uh… yeah. Right. Give me a few minutes to change, and we can head out.”

After the Paragon of Power nodded and walked off to ready a car from the Mansion’s vast garage Visionary tried to steel himself for the task at hand:

Bad as this idea seems, he thought, Its still less hazardous than me getting on that elliptical runner.

Next: Its road trip time as Vizh and E journey to the grounds of Herringcarp Asylum for a tête-à-tête with the Hooded Hood. But first they have to get past some other denizens of the boobie hatch first, in a tale that has more Bat-villain parodies than you can shake a Laughing Fish at. Out hopefully tomorrow.




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