Tales of the Parodyverse

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killer shrike
Thu Jun 14, 2007 at 08:23:48 pm EDT
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Guess Who's Coming to Dinner? Part Six
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“Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner? Part Six”


Previously: The subterranean supervillain known as Hole Man employed Factor X to recover a large geode currently in the care of the United States government. Meanwhile, Mr. Epitome and his girlfriend Katarina Allen are recovering from a disastrous meeting between them and Kat’s father, the recently reactivated Master Sergeant William Allen.

All the parts are linked here :

One

Two

Three

Four (by Dancer)

Five

Also, this ties into Visionary’s story Rules, Fouls, and Penalties (hopefully in a way that doesn’t queer things)



Nadya Prokofiev was born with a genetic glitch that made her psychic, a powerful telepath and telekinetic whose own inherent abilities were magnified by the mysterious Celestians. She used her gifts to coordinate the operations of her mentor, Doctor Gregor Vassilych, who himself made a handsome living supporting the actions of the world’s metacriminals. Her ability to communicate telepathically over long distances was one of many skills that made the Mind’s Eye invaluable, as these exchanges could not be traced or intercepted by law enforcement authorities.

“Mister Porpelisio,” the wan blonde acknowledged one of her organization’s clients, “What is it you want?”

“I want to know what Factor X has cooking,” Tobias Porpelisio, aka Tobias Porpoise, was unnerved by the voice that seemed to reverberate through the halo frame her wore to prop up his distended head. The gangster who controlled the docks and ports of Paradopolis suffered from a rare form of acromegaly that swelled his limbs and made him macrocephallic, “You guys are bringing in the Demolition Gang to the city.”

“Yes.”

“They’re only good for one thing: bustin’ shit up. So I wants to know what and why.”

“Mister Porpelisio, you know our policy when it comes to client confidentiality. Factor X does not reveal the details of his services under any circumstances.”

The big man fumbled for the handkerchief that stuck from the pocket of his sharkskin suit, “Yeah, I know, but the truce-“

“What truce would that be, Mister Porpelisio?” the Mind’s Eye asked a question she already knew the answer to.

“Pft,” the crime lord exhaled loudly, “Don’t play dumb. The nonaggression pact all of us agreed to at the start of the Parody War.”

“Apparently our client is not content to follow the rules set down by your colleagues. And as for Factor X, we were not involved in any negotiations whatsoever.”

It was then that Tobias Porpoise realized exactly the Mind’s Eye and her master were up to, “You’re going to be pissing off some major players with this stunt, lady: the Hooded Hood, Akiko Masamune, the Word….”

“Winkelweald is at the moment dead. The Word, as always, is marginalized by his supposed destiny. And if Lady Masamune objects to our course of action, she is free to take it up with us. She knows how to reach me.”

“Yeah, yeah,” the mobster smiled. It would be interesting to see how this would play out, for him, and those like him who had operated in the shadow of the pink-clad yakuza oyabun for far too long.

*****


“Slow down. It’s not a race,” Dominic Clancy directed the young girl gawkily trying to breaststroke her way the length of the Lair Legion’s indoor swimming pool.

Magweed, chastened, slowed down her pace. She executed another inexperienced frog kick, made all the more clumsy by her malformed left leg.

“Good,” the big man wading backwards in front of her commended, “You go too fast, you get off course. We’re interested in endurance here, not speed or style points.”

After hours of instruction on breathing and floating the adolescent was just relieved that she was finally getting a chance to swim. Ever since Magweed and her brother had moved into the lighthouse both had looked out onto Atlantic Ocean with something approaching awe. She and Griffin had been accustomed to a lot of strange sights in the Realm of Faerie but never had they seen something as vast as the blue green waters of the sea that surrounded them. She waited for the day that she would be adept enough a swimmer to go into the surf herself. Until then, her lessons in the below ground, antiseptic smelling pool would have to suffice.

At last Magweed reached the edge. Relying heavily on her right side, she climbed up out of the water and sat. Mister Epitome vaulted up beside her a few feet away.

“We rest for a minute, and then head back the other way,” he stated. The young girl, still catching her breath, nodded.

For a moment Dominic considered the young girl out of the corner of his eye. Then he turned and spoke, “I want to talk to you about what happened on the beach earlier. Would that be all right?”

“Yes. Yes, sir,” she answered, surprised Mister Clancy would bring up the topic now. She had relayed her take on the events earlier, to him and Glory and Dream and Miss Yuki and Sir Mumphrey and Sergeant McHarridan and her mothers and then later to Samantha. She had done it so many times she had the part memorized: a strange woman wearing a press pass had asked if she was the daughter of Visionary, and then called her a “soulless monster.”

It was that detail Epitome wanted to discuss, “I’m sure your parents told you not to worry about what the reporter said. And they’re right. When that woman called you… if she thinks that about you then she’s either ignorant to your true nature and needs to get to know you or is bigoted and doesn’t deserve to know you.”

“I know,” Magweed replied, “I mean, I’ve been told that.”

The Paragon of Power nodded, “Good. You need to believe it as well. There’s only one person in the world who can make you feel bad about yourself, and that’s you. Don’t let other people and their opinions upset you.”

He paused, and rubbed the back of his neck restlessly, “It’s a hard thing to do sometimes. Even adults have difficulty with it-“

The green skinned girl thought back to the afternoon where Mister Epitome threatened to “stomp a mud hole” in Dream for making fun of his haircut.

“- but given everything else you’ve had to overcome, I think you’re more than capable.”

Magweed nodded silently and the two looked at one another for several beats.

“Well, let’s finish up,” Dominic slid back into the pool.

That was when the alarms went off.

*****


The M900 5 ton 6x6 cargo truck drove up to the gate at Fort Hama and waited for the night sentry to approach.

“What you got?” the corporal asked the driver.

Springsaw extended the waldoe with the drill attachment from his shoulder blade and punctured the soldier’s skull. Before the other guard in the kiosk could react he decapitated him with a rotary saw projectile.

“Let’s go,” the villain told the rest of the Demolition Gang as he donned his silver hockey mask.

The roof of the back of the truck tore away as Wrecking Crane telescoped his prosthetic legs. Springsaw’s fellow cyborg strode over the fence. At their full height of 150 yards the struts’ power was at maximum capacity, power Crane used to flatten nearby buildings. He leveled his arm mounted rail gun and fired at one of the base’s guard towers. The reinforced walls provided no protection from the high velocity rivets.

Pry Bar jumped from the back of the truck. Out of habit he tugged on the strap that kept his construction helmet on.

“Where’re the barracks?” he asked Springsaw.

After checking the schematics downloaded into his CPU, he replied, “Half a mile West South West.”

“OK,” Pry Bar took hold of the vehicle and lifted it over his head; “Hold on,” he told the last member of the team who still was inside.

Then he used his Ausgardian granted strength to fling the truck to its destination.

Shaped Charge rolled clear of the impact. Moving like quicksilver, the translucent pink woman stretched her way through several of the surrounding barracks, each time leaving behind a portion of her body mass attached to a three second detonator. The resulting explosions were powerful enough to obliterate each of the quarters.

Springsaw listened to the sounds of the blasts, “You know,” he told Pry Bar, “Bandwidth Buccaneer’s map doesn’t tell us where this rock is.”

“Meh,” the leader of the Demoltion Gang shrugged as the two of them walked towards the few soldiers who weren’t caught flatfooted by the ambush and were rushing to meet the threat, “We can get one of these knobs to tell us it’s twenty. I don’t think this mission is really about that anyway.”

“No?” Springsaw said over the raucous sound of machine gun fire.

“No. Job’s a message. The thing with the Parody Master ain’t the only war that’s being fought, and the Russian wants everyone to know that.”

With this in mind both men ignored the bullets and moved in for the first of many kills.



Next: Mister Epitome vs. the Demolition Gang





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