Tales of the Parodyverse

#118: Untold Tales of the Lair Legion: Badripoor Nights


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The Hooded Hood presents this tale of undercover agents, seedy crimelords, corrupt doctators, and a lot of gratuitous show tunes. You have been warned.
Sat Sep 27, 2003 at 06:37:59 am EDT
[ New ] [ Tales of the Parodyverse ]

#118: Untold Tales of the Lair Legion: Badripoor Nights

The Story So Far: The mysterious coalition known as the Shadow Cabinet has succeeded in its centuries-long plot to awaken an ancient sentience now housed in an indestructible robot body and calling itself Ultimate Ultizon. This entity has the ability to control humanoid life at a genetic level and has brought the planet under his absolute control. Some of the Parodyverse’s heroes have managed to break free from this domination and struggle against his reign. One small part of the Earth seems immune to Ultizon’s influence, and now our heroes must find out how and why – before their erstwhile comrades catch up with them and slaughter them for the glory of their new master.

This story takes place after the events of the Villain’s Week tale Third Degree, which serves as a kind of Untold Tales #117½ . Readers may wish to remind themselves of that story before continuing.




Overture:

“Ladies and gentlemen, the Croque D’Or welcomes you to the night of your lives. The world outside my be dark and grey, but here we have music and dancing, fine wines and fine food. Let the cares of the world slip away, for here there is nothing but pleasure – as deep as your purse can allow! The house will be pleased to provide whatsoever you desire, from gaming to romance, from entertainment to ecstasy. And of course the brightest lights in our glittering constellation of attractions, the girls who put the bad in Badripoor, the heartbreaking, breathtaking, glittering, dazzling… Diamond Dancers!”
The lights dimmed, the audience looked up. A bright spray of glittering tinsel dust exploded over the stage, the orchestra burst into sound, and the first evening show of Badripoor’s most exclusive night club casino had begun.

***


    
Act One

The city squatted over the bay, its lights reflecting in the harbour dotted with hundreds of houseboats and fishing skiffs. The sickle moon hung low over Badripoor, painting the city in silver from the ramshackle shanties and sinister warehouses at the waterfront to the white stone palaces of the rich and powerful atop the rugged cliffs.
    Down by the wharfs, the midnight streets were still crowded with traders and travellers, whores and pushers. Pass through any doorway to find forbidden pleasures or sudden death.
    The dark-haired man who pushed aside the bead curtain at Ho Wung’s seedy establishment was either American or European. A mercenary, Wung judged, or perhaps one of the oil riggers who came to Badripoor to spend their hard-earned bonuses on women and drink. “What can I offer you, my friend?” he asked with an insinuating leer.
    “What have you got?”
    Ho Wung gestured to the curtained halls beyond. “Woman. Girls. Boys, if you prefer. Something to drink or smoke. If you want something special, and can pay, we can get you anything you want? A midget? An animal? A seven year old virgin? Just name your desire and… urk!”
    Messenger had grabbed the fat pimp by the neck and was pinning him to the wall. “What I want?” the postman hissed, his eyes dark and angry. “What I want is to wipe every single scumsucker like you off the face of the planet. I want to see you choke on your own greed and filth, and die slowly and painfully for what you’ve done. I want to make you pay for all the misery you’ve caused.”
    Wung’s enforcers noticed the problem and both pulled subautomatics from beneath their long leather coats. A pair of shining knives shimmered through the air and pinned their hands to the plasterwork.
    “That’s what he wants,” Trickshot told Ho Wung, holding the next pair of blades ready for more trouble, “but he’ll settle for the name and address of your boss.”
    “And breaking your arms and legs,” Messenger added.
    Five bloody minutes later Messenger and Trickshot had their next destination.
    “Well, this definitely settles it,” the archer noted, looking with disgust around the seedy brothel. “The rest of the world might be marching to the no-crime beat of Ultimate Ultizon’s mind-mojo, but nasty deeds are alive an’ well and thriving in Badripoor.”
    “That’s what we came to find out,” Messenger shrugged. “How, and why, and whether we can use whatever’s happening here to free the world from Ultizon’s control.” He watched as Trickshot retrieved his weapons from the bleeding guards. “Daggers?”
    “We’re supposed to be undercover, aren’t we?” the plain-clothed archer shrugged. “Arrows kind of give it away a bit, and I’m pretty good with all missile weapons. Now c’mon. Let’s hurt some other slime.”

***


    Up on the heights, Sam Wilson arrived by Rolls Royce at the most exclusive casino night club in town. His rumpled-looking chauffeur, dull thud, helped him out of the car and brushed down his tuxedo before following him through the portico. The Falcon ordered $500,000 dollarsworth of chips and paid cash for them.
    ~~This is how to cash in on drugs~~ telepathed Cressida to thuddy. Earlier that evening the two of them had relieved a pusher of considerable amounts of his wares, and the worm wonder had used her transmutative abilities to change the hash to cash without the usual intermediaries.
    “I still don’t see why he has t’be the one who gets to play James Bond,” muttered thuddy.
    “Which one of us is a secret agent for SPUD, exactly?” Falcon objected. “Which of us has training for this?” Sam smiled at the girl behind the reception desk as she handed over the keys to his luxury suite.
    dull thud copied Sam’s winning smile. The girls face changed as if she’d suddenly trodden in something unpleasant.
    ~~Well, she didn’t hit you with an ice bucket~~ Cressida told her host comfortingly. ~~That’s better than last time~~
    “Shut up,” growled the rumpled roadie. He trailed after Falcon and the fawning hotel manager into the golden lift cage that took them to the gaming levels of the exclusive Croque d’Or. “Are y’ getting any sense of why this whole town’s unaffected by Ultizon yet?”
    ~~I don’t know, Davie. There’s… something. It’s on the tip of my cilia, familiar almost, but I can’t quite define it. The whole place is suffused with it.~~
    Falcon tipped the manager lavishly as he led him to the exclusive casino lounge. “The next show is in the Red Room in about an hour,” the fawning flunky told him. “In the meantime we have blackjack, poker, all kinds of games running. Would you like a companion?” That half million dollars was going to be the Croque d’Or’s before the night was out.
    “I’ll start with a drink,” Sam told him, “and see what develops.”
    thud scowled round the opulent gaming rooms as the manager retreated. “I dinna like this place. It smells of too much money.”
    ~~Soap, Davie,~~ Cressida suggested ~~It smells clean. You wouldn’t recognise it.~~
    dull thud looked round at the glittering night people who winded and dined, gambled and flirted beneath the cut glass chandeliers. “I’m a damn sight cleaner than anybody in here.”
    ~~You may be right~~ his sentient telepathic tapeworm conceded. ~~I’m getting a headache from just surface-scanning these people. I’ve never felt so much corruption in one place before.~~
    Falcon had made his way to the bar. “Vodka martini,” he ordered.
    “Shaken not stirred?” asked the barman. He flipped the bottle high in the air, caught it, and assembled the beverage with casual ease. “There you go, sir.”
    Falcon sipped the drink. “Thank you. Have you any tips about where I should try my luck?”
    “On the tables or with the ladies? Or both at once?”
    “The tables, I think, thank you.”
    “There’s some fine looking women out there.”
    “The tables. Where should I try?”
    The bartender shrugged a not-my-fault-you’re-letting-the-talent-go-to-waste shrug and indicated the roulette wheel. “I’d take a look at that,” he suggested. “But remember these things always favour the house.”
    Sam Wilson glanced at the wheel where a dozen too-rich tourists were being cured of their affliction. “How much?” he wondered.
    “Enough,” answered the barman.
    “Thank you,” Falcon told him, slipping over a hundred dollar chip before sauntering over to the roulette table.
    “You’re welcome, boss,” replied De Brown Streak.
    
***


    “Hey, new skank! You’re boyfriend’s here!”
    Dancer glared over at LaKiki Lamour, headline entertainer at the Croque D’Or, who had been picking on her ever since that conversation about Shep’s alleged scene-stealing in the three o’ clock show yesterday. LaKiki was the star, and what she wanted she got.
    “He’s not my boyfriend,” Sarah answered defensively, looking to where Con Johnstantine stood in his rumpled trenchcoat lighting a cigarette beneath the no smoking sign. “He’s just somebody who turns up every few months expecting to sleep with me.”
    Pegasus adjusted her feathered headdress. “It is perfectly all right to use men for one’s pleasure and then cast them aside when they are no longer required,” she assured Dancer.
    “Um, yeah, that’s what happens,” Shep lied uncomfortably. She padded through the showgirls’ changing room to see what Johnstantine wanted. “You could have waited outside,” she pointed out to him. “There are women getting undressed in here.”
    The annoying Englishman agreed. “Yep. So your point would be…?”
    Pegasus joined them, frowning at Johnstantine because she hadn’t forgiven or forgotten the Affair of the Exploding Terrapin. “What is it you want, Johnstantine?” she demanded.
    Con looked round the crowded room of nubile young women squeezing into sequinned spandex. “More time,” he grinned. “Nah, seriously, I was just checkin’ that you two ladies were settling in here and to see if you’d found anything out?”
    “I’ve discovered that LaKiki Lamour is a talentless low-rent scene-stealing bitch,” Dancer offered helpfully, “And that she has more silicon inside her than the average android.”
    “From the point of view of the mission,” Pegasus interrupted, “we have not yet discovered who the owner of the Croque D’Or and most of the other high-end real estate in Badripoor actually is, but we have determined that they all changed hands recently.”
    “This is Badripoor, darlin’,” Johnstantine shrugged. “They change crime bosses here like Flapjack changes underwear, every six weeks on average. Whoever heads the cartel here has pretty much absolute power over the city, control over every vice and racket around the bay. But that means there’s lots of contenders.”
    “And a comprehensive retirement plan,” Pegasus added. “Succession is by natural selection.”
    “Whoever took control most recently is keeping themselves concealed,” said Dancer . “But that’s why we’re here in the chorus line. He sometimes comes to the shows apparently, and picks one of the girls to take home for the night.”
    “One he wouldn’t need to put a paper bag on her head to date,” LaKiki shouted disdainfully across from her private annex.
    “Excuse me a minute,” Pegasus grimaced, sliding over to have a private word with the star. “I think it’s time to wish Miss Lamour that old show-business salutation.”
    “May your costume halter break just in the middle of your big number?” Dancer checked.
    “No,” rumbled Pegasus, closing LaKiki’s door behind her. “Break a leg.”

***


Intermission

    The Library’s sensors warned Lee Bookman that Amazing Guy was approaching the Main Repository, but they didn’t prepare him for the protector of the universe’s wild demeanour.
    “Scott?” the Librarian checked as AG stalked in. “Are you okay?”
    “No,” answered Amazing Guy in a voice like a dead man’s. “I need information. Now.”
    “I thought your cosmic awareness could…”
    “I need information before I can focus my awareness,” snapped AG. “I need to know all about the Hooded Hood’s last death, the one after he took over the universe and Troia stabbed him. I need to know about whatever deal he made with Death after that, when Lisa found him with her during that Paradopolis-on-another-planet thing. Now.”
    The Librarian had never seen Scott Brunsen like this before. “Sure, I’ll get somebody to scout out whatever we’ve got on that, but you’ve got to tell me what’s wrong, AG.”
    Brunsen turned reddened angry eyes on his old friend. “They’re all dead, Janeen and the kids.”
    “What?”
    “Sure. Some secret order called the Shadow Cabinet, the secret society behind all the other secret societies, the bozos behind the current Ultizon problem, they did it. Either I sat quietly and didn’t help the Legion bring back the Hooded Hood or my family were slaughtered.”
    “So you… defied them?”
    “I had to,” Amazing Guy hissed. “They didn’t realise. They thought they had me by the balls, but they didn’t know what I know. Remember a few months back, when there was a problem at our house with the chimney? A stupid domestic accident, but it would have killed everybody while I was off doing good deeds somewhere else. But the Hooded Hood retconned it so it didn’t happen.”
    “I vaguely remember something about it in a journal somewhere…”
    “Without the Hood, Janeen and the children would already be dead,” AG declared. “Well I checked. That retcon – the Hood hasn’t done it yet. Unless we get him back he’ll never do it. Exemplary can’t threaten to kill my family if I help the Hood. If I don’t help him then they’re already doomed!”
    L swallowed. “So, so what are you going to do?”
    Amazing Guy’s face was stony. “I’m going to do whatever I have to to bring this Shadow Cabinet down. I’m going to bring the Hooded Hood back from the dead. Then, if he can’t retcon my family to have never been killed then or now, I’m going to kill him again with my bare hands.” He swept towards the data console A.L.F.RED had set up for him. “I always keep my powers in check so nobody gets hurt. I always play the nice guy. I don’t let myself go. Well no more. No more.”
    The Librarian glanced at the power register on the Library monitoring systems. I was having to recalibrate itself to measure Amazing Guy. “Right,” he agreed carefully. “We’d… better look some things up then.”

***


Xander the Improbable hardly had time to get back to his shop and put the kettle on before the visitors arrived. They didn’t use the door, bypassing a hundred anti-intrusion devices that prevented them from teleporting into the sanctum sanctorum of the Parodyverse’s sorcerer supreme. They just appeared there.
Xander had already put out three extra teacups. “Ah, you’ve arrived,” he noted without turning round. “One lump or two?”
“We won’t be stopping for tea,” said the Chronicler of Stories.
Now Xander turned. There was the Triumverate, the three most powerful of the cosmic office holders. It was very rare to see the Shaper of Worlds, the Chronicler of Stories, and the Destroyer of Tales all in the same room at once.
“I’m sorry, Xander,” the Shaper told him. “We have to destroy you now.”
“Ah. So now Ultizon is dominating enough sentient life for him to have extended his range even to you?”
“We were all human before we took our offices,” the Chronicler noted. “And we exemplify sentient thought. As Ultizon stimulates the obedience template built into all life touched with Celestian bioengineering – which is every humanoid life-form for starters – so we too become subject to his authority.”
“You can’t like that very much,” Xander shrugged.
“No,” agreed Dark Thugos, Destroyer of Tales, “but we are bound by our offices. And I really don’t mind slaying you.”
The master of the mystic crafts sighed. “I don’t suppose I can change your minds with a nice ginger biscuit?” he suggested. He picked up a handful and slipped them into his pocket.
“Goodbye, Xander,” said the Shaper.
“What, no time for me to think of some famous last words?”
Then Dark Thugos killed him.
Xander’s lifeless body slumped to the floor with a satisfied smirk.

***


Act Two:

    “Don’t kill him, Messenger,” Trickshot warned the postman vigilante. “Killing people is wrong.”
    “Even rapist pornographer drug-dealer scum like him?” the last of the Messengers growled.
    “Yeah, even him. You can cripple him, though.”
    “W-what?” blinked the terrified crime-lord. He’d just been suspecting the good-cop bad-cop routine, but now it seemed more like the bad-cop worse-cop routine. “You can’t… Aaagh!”
    “Hope you have a medical plan from that mystery boss of yours,” Messenger told him, releasing the man’s left hand. “You’re going to need it.”
    “We’ve spend all day workin’ our way up the underworld ladder,” Trickshot noted to the screaming criminal. “We’ve seen a lotta nasty things today. We’re not feelin’ very Miranda. You got one chance to tell us who you work fer before we start reliving our frustrations.”
    “He’ll kill me,” the crime-lord gasped.
    Messenger leaned forward. “Tell us his name or… we’ll leave you alive,” he promised.
    “Alright! Alright! Don’t hurt me again! I’ll tell you!”
    “Spill it, slimo,” demanded Trickshot.
    Their prisoner spit out blood and a tooth and said, “He’s new in town. Just walked in one day, wiped out Boss Hogan and took over. He’s a killer. They call him…
The burst of flame took out the front of the tenement building and seared the crimelord to a charred cinder. It would have taken down Messenger and Trickshot too but the irritating archer reacted quickly enough to push his partner through the doorway.
“What the f…” Messenger began, but a second gout of fire followed them through the doorway, igniting the furnishings of the crime-lord’s apartment. Messenger hurled himself backwards just in time to avoid the blazing ceiling falling on him.
“This way!” called Trickshot, unslinging the duffel bag on his back to pull out his bow and quiver. He hurled a foam arrowhead before him onto the stairwell.
Messenger caught him and jerked him back just as the blast of plasma scorched along the wall and melted the doorframe to slag. “It’s a trap! We’ve been pushing these guys all day and now they’re pushing back.”
The floor behind them exploded and a column of fire rose and sprayed over the ceiling. Across the hallway came cries for help.
“Someone’s trapped in there,” Trickshot realised. “Whoever’s after us ain’t bothered about civilian casualties.”
The room was ablaze now, and the smoke was making it hard to see and harder to breathe. “We can’t help them,” Messenger said. “We have to get out of here.”
“We can’t leave ‘em,” Trickshot called back. “We’re the good guys!” Before Messenger could stop him he vaulted over the flames and launched himself across the disintegrating landing.
“Brave but very dumb,” sighed Messenger. Then he followed.
“Hey, targets. Are you still breathing in there?” called Third Degree, the fire-generating mutate from his vantage point in the midst of the holocaust that had once been the building lobby. “Gee, I hope you haven’t died already.”
“We’ve got to stop him generating more flame,” Trickshot warned as he used the last of his fire-retardant foam arrowheads to create a safe path for the trapped residents to join him in the last bit of the floor not engulfed by flames.
“He’s immune to his own fire,” Messenger hissed. A razor letter melted to vapour before it could reach their assailant.
“Any last screams?” Third Degree called up to the people trapped on the floor above. “I love to hear begging before the end.”
“I bet he’s not immune to tons of falling rubble though,” the postman speculated, jumping clear before the parcel bombs he’d attached to the landing’s supporting walls went off. There was a deafening explosion and six tons of burning building tumbled down into the hallway.
Trickshot kicked out the window and shot a cable line to the next building to evacuate the residents. “Well, we don’t know who the new ruler of Badripoor is yet,” he noted, “but we know he’s gonna be needing a new enforcer.”

***


“Mr Wilson, how do you do?”
Falcon looked up from his pile of winnings and managed to keep his face neutral as he recognised the svelte woman sashaying towards him. SPUD had a large dossier on Vicki Vee, a.k.a.VelcroVixen, a.k.a. the Archvillain’s Mattress. It seemed she had found a new position, so to speak, with the new ruler of Badripoor.
“It seems I’m doing pretty well,” Falc answered, gesturing down to the stack of chips that was growing in front of him. “Luck seems to be on my side.”
“It does seem that way, doesn’t it?” VelcroVixen admitted. She glanced over at the croupier with a how-did-he-manage-to-win-this-much-on-a-fixed-table look. The white-coated man gave a tiny I-don’t-know-but-please-don’t-have-me-executed shrug back.
“I like lucky men,” she said.
“How do you know they’re lucky?”
VelcroVixen took his arm. “I help them get lucky,” she answered with a seductive pout.
dull thud watched from across the room with a look of unbridled envy on his face. “This is so unfair,” he complained to Cressida. “That could have been me getting picked up by the villainous nymphomaniac.”
~~In some parallel universe, maybe~~ his tapeworm conceded. ~~I’m just glad she finally came to get Falcon off the tables. I was starting to run out of things to transmute to luck.~~
It was true. Cressida’s ability to change things into other things that they rhymed with had been badly strained to keep Sam Wilson winning. Not only were there several wallets lighter by one dollar, and a waiter being berated for the sudden disappearance of a full roast duck a l’orange, but one of the security guards had lost his nerve and run screaming from the building and a man at the bar found he could no longer get his Bloody Mary up his straw. Two floors up in the honeymoon suite a newlywed couple were having a celibate first night together.
“So now she takes the big winner to be checked out by the big boss,” thud noted. “Does that mean I can get a drink now?”
Bartender Josh Clement watched Falcon vanish through a curtain towards the private boxes with a wry grin. “You’re not the one that’s going to need sustenance,” he told dull thud; and DBS had some first hand experience to speak from.
VelcroVixen led Sam Wilson past a pair of familiar-looking security guards. “Oh crap,” Falcon thought to himself. “Painhook and Fleshcrawler. So that’s where the released Technopolis science villains got to.” He desperately tried to remember Contessa Natalia’s briefing on how many of them were still at large. Something over a dozen, as he uncomfortably recalled.
“I thought you’d like to meet my employer, Mr Wilson,” VelcroVixen told Falcon as she led him by the arm into a private box overlooking the stage of the Red Room. “He’s interested in lucky patrons. He’d like to get to know you, and invites you to be his guest for the show.”
“That’s very kind of him,” the SPUD agent answered. He brushed through the bead curtain and saw a tall distinguished man with dark, grey-streaked hair sitting looking out over the gathering crowd.
He recognised the master of Badripoor at once when Belasco Medici turned to face him.
“Sam Wilson, may I introduce Count Armageddon,” Velcro Vixen said politely. “Count, may I introduce the Falcon.”

***


The house lights dimmed and the music swelled to announce the start of the evening floor show at the Croque d’Or. The spotlights flicked on to show the radiant smile of the performance’s new star.
“Wait a minute,” objected dull thud from the back of the auditorium. “That’s…”
“A kiss on the hand may be quite continental, but diamonds are a girl’s best friends…” sang Dancer.
“What happened to Kiki LaWhore or whatever her name was?” De Brown Streak wondered.
“A kiss may be grand but it don’t pay the rental…” Dancer continued.
“Who cares?” thud swallowed. “If this doesnae get the attention of yon unknown crimeboss nothin’ will!”
“On your humble flat, or help you feed your pussycat…”
Then Sarah Shepherdson got to the dance section, and DBS and thuddy shut up entirely to channel all their energy into gaping.
In the private owner’s box Count Armageddon leaned forward. “She’s very good, isn’t she?” he asked his guest – or perhaps his prisoner. Falcon sat beside him but the science villain Razorbarb stood right behind him with a loop of psionic monofilament looped round the hero’s throat.
“Yes,” agreed Sam Wilson. His mind was racing fast. Belasco Medici was the new ruler of Badripoor. As Count Armageddon he tapped into something called Kaos Energies, corrosive and corrupting green tendrils that suffused their victims, eroding their sense of morality or searing them to non-existence as their wielder wished. “So Badripoor is immune from the rule of Ultizon because you’ve corrupted the whole place already with your power,” he reasoned.
“Indeed,” agreed the Count. “Not that it needed much Kaos Energy to corrupt this place. VelcroVixen, have the manager send that young lady on stage to have some supper with me after the performance.”
“Of course,” answered Vicki Vee sourly.
“She’s remarkable,” Medici admitted.
“Spectacular,” swallowed Falcon. “How did you recognise me?”
“When you started winning too much on the tables I had my empathic associate Dreamripper scan your mind. You’ve been trained to resist, so that tipped her off that you were more than you seemed. So Technovore checked the SPUD database and there you were, Mr Wilson.”
Falcon added two more science villains to the list of adversaries to worry about in Badripoor, plus the unhappy knowledge that the sentient computer virus Technovore could bypass SPUD computer security to get to confidential files. Dislodging Armageddon from his new power base would probably require the whole Lair Legion, including those members currently hunting down the free members with intent to kill them.
“I knew it was only a matter of time before Ultizon moved against me,” Armageddon noted. “I hadn’t expected him to move so quickly. How did he manage to convince you to oppose me even though his genetic commands do not work within the range of my Kaos field?”
“I’m not working for Ultizon,” Falcon answered. “I’m trying to find a way to stop him. I wanted to know how Badripoor was resisting.” But having the Lair Legion corrupted by Count Armageddon’s Kaos Energies was no solution either. Falcon hoped that Hatman’s team was doing better in Paradopolis.
“Is that I, or we?” Belasco Medici speculated. “There has been some unpleasantness in some of my criminal operations earlier today, requiring me to dispatch an operative to bring things back under control. And VelcroVixen tells me you didn’t arrive alone. A servant of some kind? She’s checking the security cameras.”
Falcon realised that Dreamripper might still be scanning his mind as Count Armageddon directed his thoughts and turned all his attention to Dancer’s memorable stage performance. It wasn’t difficult.
Medici followed his gaze. “She is remarkable, isn’t she? I can’t think why I haven’t noticed her before.” He smiled briefly. “There are many benefits to being lord of all one surveys.”
“Maybe you’re not her type,” Falcon challenged.
“I’m rich, powerful, and vigorous,” the Count smirked. “I’m master of the land she lives in and I still hold to the old custom of droit de signeur. Also the Kaos energies that I control tend to make young women less… inhibited.”
Falcon glanced down at Sarah Shepherdson as she finished an extraordinary series of flips and kicks at the end of her Roxanne number. “Good luck with making her less inhibited,” he told the villain.
At the back of the hall, dull thud winced. “She’s being too obvious using her powers to command the audience,” he worried. “She’s gonna give herself away.”
“We should never have let her see Moulin Rouge De Brown Streak commented.
~~I don’t believe Dancer is using her probability powers in her performance~~ Cressida noted.
thud and DBS gaped.

***


Finale:

Dancer danced. She’d watched LaKiki Lamour stumble her way through this performance three times already and Sarah Shepherdson knew she could do better. Now was her chance.
The audience was hers. She could feel it as they followed her every movement. She could make them laugh or cry, she could mystify them and inspire them and excite them and dazzle them. She could make them fall in love with her.
She directed special effort at the private box where Pegasus had discovered she was being watched by the mystery owner of the Croque d’Or and the city beyond. It was one audition she couldn’t afford to fail.
Her sense of what was happening in the room was complete. She could feel the rhythm of the music, of the other dancers locking in to her movements and amplifying them with her own. They were inspired too, caught up with her performance, giving their best as they hadn’t done before. She knew her audience. She was sensitive to the discreet waitresses who served drinks to the tables and the unmoving security men watching from the walls. And she saw the villains coming up behind De Brown Streak and dull thud before her two comrades realised they were under attack.
“Oh well,” she sighed. “It was nice while it lasted.” And she let her powers kick in.
She waited until the moment when the music climaxed, when the crowd were on their feet applauding. She landed gracefully, bowed to the standing ovation, then let go. Every bottle in the bar exploded in an alcoholic spray. De Brown Streak instinctively blurred aside, and Spinoid’s organic barbs slashed where he had been standing a moment earlier. She blew out the big spotlights at the back right beside Rimshooter, spoiling his aim a dull thud.
“Pegasus!” she called, “Trouble!”
“Good,” answered Penny Christopoulos. She launched herself in a graceful somersault leap off the stage, over the audience, but rather than failing she was suddenly aloft on gleaming white angel’s wings.
“Scene stealer,” muttered Dancer, and vaulted over to the private box to see who the mystery villain was.
Falcon took advantage of the distraction to kick his chair from under him and hammer Razorbarb in the kidneys. “Stay down,” he warned the wheezing mercenary. “Next time it’s not the kidneys.”
“Hey, Count Armageddon,.” Dancer noted as she casually slammed VelcroVixen into a wall. “We come in peace.”
“The Probability Dancer!” the master of Badripoor realised. “I should have guessed. You dance divinely, dear.” He unpeeled sickly glowing tendrils of pure Kaos energy. “And soon you will dance for me.”
“Sorry, I don’t date the boss,” Dancer told him. “That’s unprofessional.”
At that moment, by chance, Messenger blew the roof of the private box in.
“We been chasing the creep responsible fer this cess-pit all day,” Trickshot warned, loosing a paste arrow at the Count. “An’ now we found him.”
Armageddon shrugged the shaft away and released his power explosively, sweeping them all into the auditorium. The crowd screamed and tried to flee as the place filled with supervillains.
“Dimensionweaver, Brokenface, Flashfry, Ultraninja, Mood Swing, Pain Hook,” Falcon recognised. “Ah crap!”
“But they’re very slow, aren’t they?” grinned De Brown Streak, dropping Flashfry, Mood Swing, Dimensionweaver and Rimshooter in something under three seconds. Then Pain Hood turned his nervous system into a tangle of agony.
~~I don’t like these people~~ Cressida told dull thud as she transmuted hall into wall and dropped it on Spinoid.
“Armageddon, I’m coming for you,” Messenger promised as he did something unpleasant to Dreamripper’s neck.
“I’m waiting,” the Count promised confidently.
“We shouldn’t be fighting each other,” Dancer called out. “We’re not here to take you down, Count. We’re here to team up against Ultizon!”
“An it’s goin’ so well so far,” added thud
Airborne Pegasus had the best overview of the melee. “Trickshot, by the stage!” she called out.
Carl Bastion swung his bow round to cover whatever new threat presented itself. Then he lowered it in surprise. “Natalia?” he puzzled.
Contessa Natalia Romanza, SPUD superspy, turned her weeping face towards him. Trickshot had just enough time to see the anti-Kaos harness NTU-150 had designed for her so she could enter Badripoor without losing her link with Ultizon.
“I’m sorry, Carl,” she told him. “This is twice I’ve killed you now.”
“Stop her, you fool!” Pegasus called to the archer. “I don’t have a clear shot!”
Trickshot hesitated. Natalia hit the button on the briefcase she was carrying.
The thirty megaton nuclear device detonated immediately, and the city of Badripoor ceased to exist in a flash as bright as creation. A mushroom-shaped cloud rose high into the atmosphere above the scorched basin that had once house two million people.
“She did it,” reported the Dark Knight from the orbiting Lairjet. “And the sensors are reading no survivors.”
“The Kaos field is dispersed too,” NTU-150 reported. “Finny’s doing a flyover to be certain, but it looks like we got the science villains too.”
“And nobody teleported out,” promised Goldeneyed. “I was jamming them.”
“I think this element of the rogue Lair Legion is dead,” DK declared.
“Good,” approved Lord Ultizon over the radio link to Washington. “That’s what I call a big finish.”

***


Next issue: We’re running out of cast really, aren’t we? Next issue join with the glorious Lair Legion as they carry out Lord Ultizon’s will for the good of all tracking down the last of the evil renegades before they can spoil utopia. See the traitorous final struggles of that CrazySugarFreakFelon! and the evil thought being Yo, and the fearsome fate of those who would oppose the master’s will. Discover what happens when you break a galaxy. Uncover the secret origin of one of the Legion’s most enigmatic members. Learn Miss Framlicker’s first name at last. And beware fairies bearing gifts. It’s all there coming soon in Untold Tales of the Lair Legion vs the Lair Legion, or Desperate Times and Desperate Measures.

***


And Now For a Word From Our Footnotes:

Badripoor, a far eastern bay city-state, has been mentioned a few times but never really featured in a story before now. It’s a lawless playground for the rich and powerful, atop a seething den of corruption, oppression, and vice. As described.

The Paradopolis-on-another-planet thing that AG mentions was chronicled in Untold Tales #45-58.

AG’s family were saved through the intervention of the Hooded Hood in Tales of the Parodyverse #1: Amazement, as told by spiffy.

Count Armageddon and his thugs: Belasco Medici, former tyrant ruler of a European city state in the world of Technopolis, became an indestructible creature of pure Kaos energy. Urbane, cruel, noble, and organised, he recently became absolute ruler of Badripoor.

Third Degree is an insanely powerful flame-generating mutate punk who enjoys burning people. Don’t think for a minute that a building falling on him was the end of this. Next time it’s personal.

Pain Hook can psychically stimulate nerve endings to wrack his victims with agony. He enjoys it.

Fleshcrawler can control people’s skin on touch, either to force them to be his puppets or to restructure it into something more to his somewhat perverted tastes. He’s died at least once and come back from it.

VelcroVixen - Vicki Vee – is a former fetishwear model turned supervillain moll, famously deputy-leading any number of archvillain’s super-teams. But that’s not what she’s most famous for.

Razorbarb is survivor of twins with identical powers. He can generate molecule-thick strands of indestructible wire which can tangle and slice. They vanish if he’s rendered unconscious.

Dreamripper is a high-end mind-reader specializing in people’s subconscious, able to literally turn a paerson’s dreams against them and to craft realistic illusions. She has low-grade mind-reading abilities to inform her power.

Technovore is a sentient computer program with the metahuman ability to mould technology around it. Inhuman, merciless, and sadistic, Technovore was classified as a Level 10 threat in Technopolis.

Spinoid has a bony razor-sharp carapace and can fire explosive spines from his exo-skeleton. He’s experienced at close-in fighting.

Rimshooter can metamorphose his body into weaponry including lasers, gas guns, sonics, and tranquilizer needles.

Dimensionweaver links together any two planes, points, or surfaces, either in the same or different dimensions. She can therefore open a gateway to the heart of a volcano or to the Mythlands, can drop an enemy through a gate beneath their feet into the planet’s core or to the Negativity Zone, and so on. She is highly dangerous.

Brokenface has extendible cybernetic jaws and an “indestructible stomach”. He once managed to rip Donar’s arm half off before the Lair Legion took him down.

Flashfry wields high-energy plasma shapes of searingly hot proto-matter. It’s a good job this guy has a limited imagination.

Ultraninja is a highly skilled martial artist, enhanced with strength, speed, and endurance, invisible to mechanical detection, and able to merge into shadows through some technique we’ve not been able to identify. He’s a very dangerous opponent, good enough to down Ziles in single combat.

Mood Swing controls emotions around him. He’s shown signs of being able to “program” effects too, such as triggering homicidal mania when certain factors are met even when he’s no longer present.

The Hooded Hood's Homepage of Doom
Who's Who in the Parodyverse
Where's Where in the Parodyverse

Original concepts, characters, and situations copyright © 2003 reserved by Ian Watson. Other Parodyverse characters copyright © 2003 to their creators. The use of characters and situations reminiscent of other popular works do not constitute a challenge to the copyrights or trademarks of those works. The right of Ian Watson to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the UK Copyright, Designs & Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved.



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