Post by redsycorax on Aug 30, 2018 23:41:45 GMT
As Bowman and Green Canary's molecules reordered themselves into something like a correct format, Captain Swift handed them an energy drink: "Sorry, the teleporter's been misbehaving again."
"I knew it. Why can't we transfer some of these battle trophies to our old mountain base for storage? I mean, who remembers the War Between Neon and Earth these days?"
"Shhh, not so loud. Princess Power is in the living quarters having a shower. You know how she is with Mr.Might these days."
"And where is our fearless leader, come to think of it?"
"He's currently engaged in a Return to Neon, Part XIV."
"Ah- you mean Barb-El's off to visit his destroyed homeworld which was never destroyed in the first place? Again?! Talk about nostalgia... Why isn't Debbie with him?"
"The teleporter refused to transmit that much raw bulk. Reminds me, we have to have it fixed..." Captain Swift replied.
Green Canary whispered: "Will I ever really be accepted by this group?"
"Despite your rather unfortunate superhero moniker, you are an asset to the FBUS. Your precognitive abilities are highly useful to us." The Bowman added.
"I am also the last superhero recruited to FBUS who is still alive."
"Er, yes, unfortunate about what happened to Black Vulcan, Samurai, El Dorado and Apache Chief. Just think, all of our ethnic minority members were killed during the Crisis on Infinite Earths. How awful."
-How coincidental, you mean, came a disembodied voice from the FBUS AI. For Black Vulcan wasn't quite gone. Due to a snafu in his heavenly ascension, he had turned up corporeally rehoused within the state of the art crimefighting computer network.
"Oh come on, Jeff, we have tried to recruit new black and other superheroes. They just aren't interested."Green Canary protested.
-One ethnic minority death I could expect in a setting like the First Infinite Crisis, but all four of us? Think of the uproar if it had been all three of the group's female members.
"Technically, Lady Liberty has died and been brought back three times."
-That's another thing. Isn't this whole Princess Power/Lady Liberty rivalry routine getting really old and moribund? So they come from different Amazon societies. So they double dip in terms of Amazon representation on this team. People are getting bored with it.
{Just as well they don't know about (ulp) Patriot's adulterous relationship.} Green Canary thought, supposedly to herself. Unfortunately, Princess Power had been on Venus-55 repelling yet another attack from the Gigantic Ovoid Mind against the Faeriewomon of High Queen Dezyra. When they locked tongues for the ritual Venusian French Kiss of Holy Friendship, as usual, Deborah Prentice became telepathically receptive for the next fortnight. {Well, well, thought the Enormous Amazon, so our red white and blue clad leader is cheating on the Icon of Ellis Island. I wonder who with?}
{Imagine, Elephantissima, the Pachyderm City Ambassador to the United States. How could he!?} conveniently thought Green Canary.
So that was it! Patriot was carrying on with the diplomatic representative of the super-intelligent talking elephants of Pachyderm City in Africa!! Princess Power had a wicked thought in mind as she noticed Lady Liberty and Mr. Might step forward from the teleporter. Captain Swift waved:
"See you, everyone. I'm off to the Pride Celebrations in Harvey Milk City. And I have a hot date with Ira afterwards."
-Er, Billy boy? Hate to rain on your parade, but there have been reported sightings of our old nemeses Badman and Robber the Boy Plunder in the area of Harvey Milk over the last fortnight.
"Wasn't what happened to Brian Payne and his ward Rick Grierson truly terrible, though? To think it's been fifty years since Payne Industries went bankrupt and Silver Sorceress zapped him with the wicked spell that turned Capeman and Cloakboy into the Duo of Darkness?"
-Enough with the expository dialogue, Bowman dude! AI Black Vulcan complained. He'd had a difficult enough time throughout the whole week with the amount of energy required to teleport Mr Might back and fro from and to Neon, his non-destroyed homeworld. In his core operating system, he shuddered to think of what would happen if Princess Power needed to use the teleport again. Damn Steve Tremor and his chubby chaser fetishism!!! Why couldn't Debbie use her Transparent ATV to get around?
"Oh, Libby dear, we seem to have a robbery alert in New York City. Let's head off down there and fight evil together. It's been much too long." {Heh heh heh, thought Princess Power to herself. This'll be fun!!!}
Well, there was a robbery about to take place at New York City Museum involving the Diamond Encrusted Ankh of Queen Cleotaylore of the XXII Byrtyn Dynasty of Ancient Egypt, but that was mere window-dressing. The Princess had gotten Green Canary drunk on cheap casket wine last week and grilled her about prospective crimes in the Big Apple's metropolitan area. Lady Liberty was completely blase about the whole situation, given that she was the better crimefighter, had a higher Tracebook and Twit social media rating, and poor Debs had really let herself go with her bonbons. She relished the fact that she was the one who had apprehended the head of the nefarious gang as well as five of his henchpeople, Debs could only manage two and she incapacitated one of them by sitting on him.
Having the Mayor on speed dial, Princess Power demurely insisted that while the Freedom Brigade always acted completely altruistically and never for reward, except at the end of every financial year, Lady Liberty and her were entitled to some quality time at the Hightop Spa atop the swank New York Stilton. All she needed to do now was time things right...
{Here goes!}
In a darkened hotel room, the bare chested Patriot, aka former Governor Jabez. B. Woosh of the State of Alamo, presented Elephantissima with a pair of handcuffs. The pancake-makeupped Pachyderm City Ambassador fluttered her eyelashes and was about to rasp how much she wanted to be tied up and spanked when the door burst open and the lights flashed on.
"You always have something to say about current affairs and the world as it is, Lady Liberty! But what do you have to say to that?!"
"GASP! My husband Jabez is having a tawdry adulterous bondage session with the Pachyderm City female ambassador!!! Jabez!"
"Libby!"
"Jabez!"
"Debbie!"
With a stifled sob, Lady Liberty ran from the room, summoned a teleport and fled to the FBUS satellite.
Meanwhile, in Harvey Milk City, Captain Swift was enjoying his stint as lead float in the Pride parade. He hoped that the engagement ring wasn't too obvious in his Billy Anderson secret identity costume. He was finally going to do it tonight- ask Ira West to marry h...
And at that moment, Badman, the Caped Criminal and his not so youthful ward Robber the Boy Plunder (the Duo of Darkness) swooped down on the assembled floats, bombarding them with Bad Knock Out Gas (C) and rifling inexpensive replica rhinestone necklaces and costume jewelry from the other floats.
Onboard the Freedom Brigade Satellite, the Troublealert shrilled. Faster than a speeding motorist, able to leap tall condominiums in a single bound and about as intelligent as a hefty freight train, Mr. Might, extremely strange visitor from the un-perished planet Neon, heard his signal device reverberate with its distinctive message: "This is a job for Mr.Might!!!" intoned the Man of Yesterday's Tomorrow Today and superjumped from Boston to New York. Then he superjumped to Rhode Island, before he remembered Harvey Milk City was on the Californian coast.
"Here comes MM to save the day!" chortled Robber.
"I'll fix him!" Badman snapped, aiming a customised pistol at the onrushing Man of Aluminium and pulling the trigger. Suddenly, Mr Might felt an agonising burst of pain in his leg, as the deadly but extremely low grade and highly selective radioactive emission sequence cascaded from his one weakness... the element Tin!!!!!!
Like a wounded dove, Mr Might plummeted from the skies.
AsMr Might plummeted downward, as the result of a vicious attack by Badman and Robber, formerly Capeman and Cloakboy, the villainous Duo of Darkness who had turned to crime as a result of the seventies bankruptcy of Brian Payne, Badman/Capeman's alter ego. It got even more complicated, particularly as Robber had previously been Capewoman, but an inconvenient Freedom Brigade Satellite teleport malfunction had led to untoward outcomes. For it had involved the element tin, Mr Might's sole weakness.
(All right, actually it wasn't his sole weakness, it was one of about twenty two items that were fatal or injurious to the Man of Yesterday's Tomorrow Today- mint, the number 24, foccacia bread, Birman kittens, platform shoes, flared bellbottom trousers, bad seventies disco, the Sound of Music album, false teeth, nuns, Glen Larson SF TV series, flock wallpaper, and pickles were some of the others.
)
Happily, up soared Mermaid, his wife, to rescue her unfortunate husband. There was only one problem. Mermaid was not capable of flight. She gasped: "Oh no! It's...Haney's Disease!!!"
While Mr. Might moaned in pain and agony, the Troublealert droned relentlessly on, until The Ghost (formerly Black Vulcan), the FBUS Satellite's resident AI, could find sufficient time to respond to it. It was a hazardous substance alert from Big Blue. While the Neonian Numbskull (to use one of his more prevalent designations) liked to man it up and pretend his 'one weakness' was the rather commonplace Earth element tin, there were actually at least twenty three others known to exist. Other than the ones listed in the above paragraph, these also include mint, the colour mauve, sweet chili, Thursdays, ham and cheese sandwiches, and zombie movies, although it should be noted that this is not an exhaustive list.
Meanwhile, at the Freedom Brigade headquarters, there was expository dialogue going on which explained the absence of the other members of the august association:
"Ah, Green Canary. Did you read the news today? They said that danger's gone away. But I can see the fire's still alight, and burning into the night. There's too many men, too many people making too many problems. Can't you see this is a world of..."
Doris Leech backhanded her husband: "Stop quoting eighties Genesis "Land of Confusion" lyrics at me and get on with the expository dialogue, you fool!"
"Sorry. Now, where were we? Ah, yes. Boltwoman and Infinitesima both turned down Freedom Brigade membership. I'd like to know why. We need more female members and they'll be our first lesbian ones."
"It's this whole unfortunate reputation we developed after the Crisis on Infinite Earths killed off our entire ethnic minority membership. Poor Black Vulcan, Apache Chief, Samurai and El Dorado. Damn the Carnivorous Space Whale that swallowed Black Vulcan, even if it was then instantaneously harpooned by Space Japanese. Damn the ambush by Vampiress that resulted in Apache Chief's untimely end- even if her coffin alarm clock malfunctioned the night afterward, leaving her to flaming oblivion. Damn the sinister Professor Natas and his Noxium, causing Samurai to crash into that airliner midflight. Damn El Dorado's evil Earth-3 duplicate El Diablo for strangling his alternate self. What?"
"Five minutes, eighteen seconds. Now, where were we? What about reformed supervillains?"
"Uh, nope. The Dodo sent an interspacial refusal telegram, stating that he was quite happy going straight on Earth-330 and its alternate Madagascar, where the rest of his species still exists. Dogwoman is deliriously happy with Sir Justin Codpiece in the seventeenth century. That's about it. The rest of our rogues galleries are either now involved in stand-up comedy, retired and handed over to their proteges or employed as Republican Congressbeings."
"What about the Badman and Robber replacement Derivative Duos?"
"Fatman and Tubbin were involved in an unfortunate lift accident due to their morbid obesity, Ratman and Rotten got inadvertantly exterminated in a tragic sanitation accident, Flatman and Ribbon were pulverised by an errant forklift truck with heavy mag wheels, and Sadman and Sobbin' pulled out of it due to the invention of antidepressants. None of them survived the eighties." Bowman replied.
"Incidentally, since when can Badman and Robber fly?"
"They can't. Oh no. It's another outbreak of Haney's Disease, isn't it? I just hope Mr Might hasn't been exposed to polka dotted tin and had another one of his temporary evil spells, or he might decide to cheat on Mermaid with Lori Lake and Louisa Louche again."
"What? Damn it! Is everyone in this organisation sleeping with everyone else?!"
Bowman raised an eyebrow: "Uh no, none of the guys are sleeping with Captain Swift. What about the women?"
"Stop salivating. As if anyone would fit in the same bed as Princess Power. And Lady Liberty never takes her spiked tiara off. We seriously need more female members. I can't stand being their mutual confidante while they undertake mutual character assassination any more, Eric. Honestly, it's like being trapped in an everlasting tape loop of party conversation from Earth 16 and you know how interrelated everyone there is."
At that moment, Lady Liberty stormed in, still irate at her husband's adulterous fling with Elephantissima:
"How could you, Paul! She's an elephant, for Hera's sake!"
"The heart has its own reasons, Liz."
Green Canary groaned: "I thought you and I were supposed to be the grittier, more realistic generation of FBUS members, Eric? Isn't zoophilia sinking too low, even for this AU?"
"Except it isn't illegal in Pachyderm City, just rarely indulged." Patriot protested.
At that moment, the Troublalert rang:
"Oh thank goodness!!!" Patriot, Lady Liberty, Green Canary and Bowman all chorused at the same time, then couldn't work out who should be first in the teleporter for the next five minutes.
On the ground below, Captain Swift simultaneously and conveniently realised what it must be: "Good gorsh! Haney's Disease, the dreaded metahuman disease that causes anomalous out of character behaviour, breathtaking scientific inaccuracy, and cavalier disregard for continuity."
As he said those words, abruptly Mermaid lost the ability to fly, but the speedster set up a wind funnel to lower them to Mr Might's secret base high atop Mount Megalopolis. However, there was a limit to the soft landing possible and the couple crashed through the roof of the Fortress of Self-Absorption. Still weakened by his exposure to his "one weakness" (sic), the element tin, Mr Might moaned and struggled to his feet, before being abruptly felled by the presence of a stray foccacia bread loaf in the vicinity. However, Mermaid had been cushioned by the fall...although the couple had other problems.
These consisted of Lori Lake and Louisa Louche, Mr Might's two ex-stalkers before he had married Laurel Latantis/Mermaid: "Oh no. Choke. Mr Might has been incapacitated by his one weakness, tin!!! Now how can he Marry Me and have meta-offspring?" Lori hammed it up.
"Oh no. Choke. Mr Might has been incapacitated by his one weakness, tin!!! Now how can he Marry Me and have meta-offspring?" Louisa responded, just as badly
"You $!^@#! Hands off! I saw him first!" Lori snapped at her erstwhile rival.
"Make me, slut!!!" And with that, the two women launched into one of their interminable catfights, forgetting that Mr Might had been married to Mermaid for the last decade. Mermaid swam over to the Troublelert Responsometer, requesting help:
"Hi. Anyone? Lori Lake and Louisa Louche have also been affected by Haney's Disease and are having another one of their fistfights in the Fortress of Self-Absorption...three weeks after I'd last redecorated. Could someone get rid of them and make sure there's a non-molestation order to prevent them ambushing Cliff and me?"
Green Canary's face appeared on the Responsometer: "Sure, Laurel. Locking on to them now. How's Cliff?"
"He's been knocked out by the presence of yet another of his 'one' weaknesses, a stray foccacia loaf. Oh, and Badman and Robber flew off."
"Sorry, hon, no-one in that sector. Patriot and some slutty female elephantoid got caught by Lady Liberty in flagrante delecto, Neither of them are answering the Troubelert at the moment. Bowman and I just got back from assessing our last failed memebership drive. Captain Swift is still marshalling that Gay Pride Parade in Off-Center City. Anyway, the Duo of Darkness are just as vulnerable to recurrent anomalous metahuman power episodes as the rest of us."
"I'll take care of Cliff down here. Why can't we have a convenient long-lost cousin from the planet Neon to care for him while he recovers from this latest episode?"
But the answer was lost as a distant antimatter cascade storm began to whiten the more distant verges of their universe. The Freedom Brigade were about to have an Inconvenient Crisis on Their Earth.
As Princess Power arrived in the teleport tube, there was a noisy fizzling sound and acrid smoke emanated from its innards seconds after she squeezed out of the device:
"That teleporter really needs maintenance, Jeff."
"And you really need to go on a diet, Debs." replied Black Vulcan, former FBUS team member and now the FBUS satellite AI.
Lady Liberty and Patriot entered, from opposite sides of the room, glaring at each other. Captain Swift rapidly downed a martini from the Pride sundowner party he'd just left, while a shaky Mr Might and Mermaid awaited the other's arrival:
"We have a Crisis at hand."
"Why? Is someone extradimensional trying to insert itself into our dimension?"
"Not that sort of Crisis. There's a large antimatter storm devastating all before it, and we're right in its various paths."
"This can only be two possible people!' Patriot exclaimed
"Okay, obviously one is Count Peir Dragotone from the micro-world of Transilvexia, given that he has the local Darkseid/Apokolips franchise for our universe."
"Nope,' observed Captain Swift,"Infinitesima said that Badman and Robber took him to court over their new outfits and got him over intellectual property theft. And the other one?"
"Our old arch enemy Venom Volkanik, except he's currently been abducted by aliens and is being held on Space Station 12 by the Anti-Solaronite League."
Bowman and Green Canary entered:
"It's neither. Remember the Anti-Monitor, that sinister entity from an anti-matter universe who tried to use exactly the same method to destroy the Multiverse?" Bowman said, providing the much-needed expository dialogue.
"You mean-!" Mermaid gasped.
"No, it's not him. It's his close maternal relative and your old foe, Princess...Auntie Entity!!!"
Meanwhile, deep beneath the remains of Stately Payne Manor, the evil troika of supervillains that were Badman, Robber and Aunty Entity conversed:
"Soon this cosmos shall be obliterated!!! Nyah hah hah!"
"Holy complete obliteration of our whole reality, Badman!!!"
"Courage, Boy Plunder, she's given us a transmatter unit so we can decamp to another Earth."
"But Badman, if we de-camp, there'll be nothing left of us. And incidentally, I'm 22. Why do you still refer to me as Boy Plunder?"
"Sorry, my Pert-Assed Partner."
At that point, Aunty Entity entered in spectacular fashion, She laughed maniacally as the viewscreen showed hordes of innocent Earths devastated by her latest ploy, As Badman and Robber watched, a lecherous alien zoophile who had seized Earth-R and was busy 'rogering the rabbits' was instantaneously destroyed, as were the targets of his lagomorph lechery. On Earth 15, 233, Bat-Transvestite, Catty and Jokeyoke were obliterated along with their inadvertant targets, Brad (Superman) Majors and Janet (Marvel Maid) Weiss in a Transsexual castle from the galaxy known as Transylvania. The anti-matter storms coalesced around Earth-55 and started to eat at its fabric, as quakes and tidal waves hit the battered and bruised world.
Captain Swift punched a hole in an adjacent box as the FBUS Satellite swayed and rocked:
"Hang on, there's one way out of this!"
"No! Not the Probability Degrader! That's suicide!"
"If we don't act soon, there'll be nothing left of our world."
As Captain Swift threw down the lever, weird vibrations and a blinding white light surrounded them. As it subsided, Captain Swift took a probability reading:
"Okay. We're now Earth 108, 444. What?"
"We're...all rabbits. Like the recently vanquished Earth-R. On the bright side, the antimatter storm's gone. Are we funny animals now?"
"Er, not according to the data I've just received, dudes and dudettes. This is a combination funny animal and grim and gritty universe. The former Tur-Tel aka Superturtle led a devastating alien invasion from his former homeworld Galapagon. They were defeated, but it resulted in the sacrifice of Hoppy the Marvel Bunny after being infected by space myxamitosis. The Justa Lotta Animals superteam that used to be here got destroyed by Kangar-Roo shortly afterward. On the positive side, Badman and Robber have vanished and Aunty Entity is now several thousand realities away."
"Oh, Bowbunny. How will we survive this somewhat weird new universe?"
"I don't know, GC. Incidentally, we may need a divorce. I'm not into doing it cross-species." For Green Canary was now eponymous.
The Freedom Brigade looked out over their new world and wondered what their reinvented cosmos promised them...
THE END
"I knew it. Why can't we transfer some of these battle trophies to our old mountain base for storage? I mean, who remembers the War Between Neon and Earth these days?"
"Shhh, not so loud. Princess Power is in the living quarters having a shower. You know how she is with Mr.Might these days."
"And where is our fearless leader, come to think of it?"
"He's currently engaged in a Return to Neon, Part XIV."
"Ah- you mean Barb-El's off to visit his destroyed homeworld which was never destroyed in the first place? Again?! Talk about nostalgia... Why isn't Debbie with him?"
"The teleporter refused to transmit that much raw bulk. Reminds me, we have to have it fixed..." Captain Swift replied.
Green Canary whispered: "Will I ever really be accepted by this group?"
"Despite your rather unfortunate superhero moniker, you are an asset to the FBUS. Your precognitive abilities are highly useful to us." The Bowman added.
"I am also the last superhero recruited to FBUS who is still alive."
"Er, yes, unfortunate about what happened to Black Vulcan, Samurai, El Dorado and Apache Chief. Just think, all of our ethnic minority members were killed during the Crisis on Infinite Earths. How awful."
-How coincidental, you mean, came a disembodied voice from the FBUS AI. For Black Vulcan wasn't quite gone. Due to a snafu in his heavenly ascension, he had turned up corporeally rehoused within the state of the art crimefighting computer network.
"Oh come on, Jeff, we have tried to recruit new black and other superheroes. They just aren't interested."Green Canary protested.
-One ethnic minority death I could expect in a setting like the First Infinite Crisis, but all four of us? Think of the uproar if it had been all three of the group's female members.
"Technically, Lady Liberty has died and been brought back three times."
-That's another thing. Isn't this whole Princess Power/Lady Liberty rivalry routine getting really old and moribund? So they come from different Amazon societies. So they double dip in terms of Amazon representation on this team. People are getting bored with it.
{Just as well they don't know about (ulp) Patriot's adulterous relationship.} Green Canary thought, supposedly to herself. Unfortunately, Princess Power had been on Venus-55 repelling yet another attack from the Gigantic Ovoid Mind against the Faeriewomon of High Queen Dezyra. When they locked tongues for the ritual Venusian French Kiss of Holy Friendship, as usual, Deborah Prentice became telepathically receptive for the next fortnight. {Well, well, thought the Enormous Amazon, so our red white and blue clad leader is cheating on the Icon of Ellis Island. I wonder who with?}
{Imagine, Elephantissima, the Pachyderm City Ambassador to the United States. How could he!?} conveniently thought Green Canary.
So that was it! Patriot was carrying on with the diplomatic representative of the super-intelligent talking elephants of Pachyderm City in Africa!! Princess Power had a wicked thought in mind as she noticed Lady Liberty and Mr. Might step forward from the teleporter. Captain Swift waved:
"See you, everyone. I'm off to the Pride Celebrations in Harvey Milk City. And I have a hot date with Ira afterwards."
-Er, Billy boy? Hate to rain on your parade, but there have been reported sightings of our old nemeses Badman and Robber the Boy Plunder in the area of Harvey Milk over the last fortnight.
"Wasn't what happened to Brian Payne and his ward Rick Grierson truly terrible, though? To think it's been fifty years since Payne Industries went bankrupt and Silver Sorceress zapped him with the wicked spell that turned Capeman and Cloakboy into the Duo of Darkness?"
-Enough with the expository dialogue, Bowman dude! AI Black Vulcan complained. He'd had a difficult enough time throughout the whole week with the amount of energy required to teleport Mr Might back and fro from and to Neon, his non-destroyed homeworld. In his core operating system, he shuddered to think of what would happen if Princess Power needed to use the teleport again. Damn Steve Tremor and his chubby chaser fetishism!!! Why couldn't Debbie use her Transparent ATV to get around?
"Oh, Libby dear, we seem to have a robbery alert in New York City. Let's head off down there and fight evil together. It's been much too long." {Heh heh heh, thought Princess Power to herself. This'll be fun!!!}
Well, there was a robbery about to take place at New York City Museum involving the Diamond Encrusted Ankh of Queen Cleotaylore of the XXII Byrtyn Dynasty of Ancient Egypt, but that was mere window-dressing. The Princess had gotten Green Canary drunk on cheap casket wine last week and grilled her about prospective crimes in the Big Apple's metropolitan area. Lady Liberty was completely blase about the whole situation, given that she was the better crimefighter, had a higher Tracebook and Twit social media rating, and poor Debs had really let herself go with her bonbons. She relished the fact that she was the one who had apprehended the head of the nefarious gang as well as five of his henchpeople, Debs could only manage two and she incapacitated one of them by sitting on him.
Having the Mayor on speed dial, Princess Power demurely insisted that while the Freedom Brigade always acted completely altruistically and never for reward, except at the end of every financial year, Lady Liberty and her were entitled to some quality time at the Hightop Spa atop the swank New York Stilton. All she needed to do now was time things right...
{Here goes!}
In a darkened hotel room, the bare chested Patriot, aka former Governor Jabez. B. Woosh of the State of Alamo, presented Elephantissima with a pair of handcuffs. The pancake-makeupped Pachyderm City Ambassador fluttered her eyelashes and was about to rasp how much she wanted to be tied up and spanked when the door burst open and the lights flashed on.
"You always have something to say about current affairs and the world as it is, Lady Liberty! But what do you have to say to that?!"
"GASP! My husband Jabez is having a tawdry adulterous bondage session with the Pachyderm City female ambassador!!! Jabez!"
"Libby!"
"Jabez!"
"Debbie!"
With a stifled sob, Lady Liberty ran from the room, summoned a teleport and fled to the FBUS satellite.
Meanwhile, in Harvey Milk City, Captain Swift was enjoying his stint as lead float in the Pride parade. He hoped that the engagement ring wasn't too obvious in his Billy Anderson secret identity costume. He was finally going to do it tonight- ask Ira West to marry h...
And at that moment, Badman, the Caped Criminal and his not so youthful ward Robber the Boy Plunder (the Duo of Darkness) swooped down on the assembled floats, bombarding them with Bad Knock Out Gas (C) and rifling inexpensive replica rhinestone necklaces and costume jewelry from the other floats.
Onboard the Freedom Brigade Satellite, the Troublealert shrilled. Faster than a speeding motorist, able to leap tall condominiums in a single bound and about as intelligent as a hefty freight train, Mr. Might, extremely strange visitor from the un-perished planet Neon, heard his signal device reverberate with its distinctive message: "This is a job for Mr.Might!!!" intoned the Man of Yesterday's Tomorrow Today and superjumped from Boston to New York. Then he superjumped to Rhode Island, before he remembered Harvey Milk City was on the Californian coast.
"Here comes MM to save the day!" chortled Robber.
"I'll fix him!" Badman snapped, aiming a customised pistol at the onrushing Man of Aluminium and pulling the trigger. Suddenly, Mr Might felt an agonising burst of pain in his leg, as the deadly but extremely low grade and highly selective radioactive emission sequence cascaded from his one weakness... the element Tin!!!!!!
Like a wounded dove, Mr Might plummeted from the skies.
AsMr Might plummeted downward, as the result of a vicious attack by Badman and Robber, formerly Capeman and Cloakboy, the villainous Duo of Darkness who had turned to crime as a result of the seventies bankruptcy of Brian Payne, Badman/Capeman's alter ego. It got even more complicated, particularly as Robber had previously been Capewoman, but an inconvenient Freedom Brigade Satellite teleport malfunction had led to untoward outcomes. For it had involved the element tin, Mr Might's sole weakness.
(All right, actually it wasn't his sole weakness, it was one of about twenty two items that were fatal or injurious to the Man of Yesterday's Tomorrow Today- mint, the number 24, foccacia bread, Birman kittens, platform shoes, flared bellbottom trousers, bad seventies disco, the Sound of Music album, false teeth, nuns, Glen Larson SF TV series, flock wallpaper, and pickles were some of the others.
)
Happily, up soared Mermaid, his wife, to rescue her unfortunate husband. There was only one problem. Mermaid was not capable of flight. She gasped: "Oh no! It's...Haney's Disease!!!"
While Mr. Might moaned in pain and agony, the Troublealert droned relentlessly on, until The Ghost (formerly Black Vulcan), the FBUS Satellite's resident AI, could find sufficient time to respond to it. It was a hazardous substance alert from Big Blue. While the Neonian Numbskull (to use one of his more prevalent designations) liked to man it up and pretend his 'one weakness' was the rather commonplace Earth element tin, there were actually at least twenty three others known to exist. Other than the ones listed in the above paragraph, these also include mint, the colour mauve, sweet chili, Thursdays, ham and cheese sandwiches, and zombie movies, although it should be noted that this is not an exhaustive list.
Meanwhile, at the Freedom Brigade headquarters, there was expository dialogue going on which explained the absence of the other members of the august association:
"Ah, Green Canary. Did you read the news today? They said that danger's gone away. But I can see the fire's still alight, and burning into the night. There's too many men, too many people making too many problems. Can't you see this is a world of..."
Doris Leech backhanded her husband: "Stop quoting eighties Genesis "Land of Confusion" lyrics at me and get on with the expository dialogue, you fool!"
"Sorry. Now, where were we? Ah, yes. Boltwoman and Infinitesima both turned down Freedom Brigade membership. I'd like to know why. We need more female members and they'll be our first lesbian ones."
"It's this whole unfortunate reputation we developed after the Crisis on Infinite Earths killed off our entire ethnic minority membership. Poor Black Vulcan, Apache Chief, Samurai and El Dorado. Damn the Carnivorous Space Whale that swallowed Black Vulcan, even if it was then instantaneously harpooned by Space Japanese. Damn the ambush by Vampiress that resulted in Apache Chief's untimely end- even if her coffin alarm clock malfunctioned the night afterward, leaving her to flaming oblivion. Damn the sinister Professor Natas and his Noxium, causing Samurai to crash into that airliner midflight. Damn El Dorado's evil Earth-3 duplicate El Diablo for strangling his alternate self. What?"
"Five minutes, eighteen seconds. Now, where were we? What about reformed supervillains?"
"Uh, nope. The Dodo sent an interspacial refusal telegram, stating that he was quite happy going straight on Earth-330 and its alternate Madagascar, where the rest of his species still exists. Dogwoman is deliriously happy with Sir Justin Codpiece in the seventeenth century. That's about it. The rest of our rogues galleries are either now involved in stand-up comedy, retired and handed over to their proteges or employed as Republican Congressbeings."
"What about the Badman and Robber replacement Derivative Duos?"
"Fatman and Tubbin were involved in an unfortunate lift accident due to their morbid obesity, Ratman and Rotten got inadvertantly exterminated in a tragic sanitation accident, Flatman and Ribbon were pulverised by an errant forklift truck with heavy mag wheels, and Sadman and Sobbin' pulled out of it due to the invention of antidepressants. None of them survived the eighties." Bowman replied.
"Incidentally, since when can Badman and Robber fly?"
"They can't. Oh no. It's another outbreak of Haney's Disease, isn't it? I just hope Mr Might hasn't been exposed to polka dotted tin and had another one of his temporary evil spells, or he might decide to cheat on Mermaid with Lori Lake and Louisa Louche again."
"What? Damn it! Is everyone in this organisation sleeping with everyone else?!"
Bowman raised an eyebrow: "Uh no, none of the guys are sleeping with Captain Swift. What about the women?"
"Stop salivating. As if anyone would fit in the same bed as Princess Power. And Lady Liberty never takes her spiked tiara off. We seriously need more female members. I can't stand being their mutual confidante while they undertake mutual character assassination any more, Eric. Honestly, it's like being trapped in an everlasting tape loop of party conversation from Earth 16 and you know how interrelated everyone there is."
At that moment, Lady Liberty stormed in, still irate at her husband's adulterous fling with Elephantissima:
"How could you, Paul! She's an elephant, for Hera's sake!"
"The heart has its own reasons, Liz."
Green Canary groaned: "I thought you and I were supposed to be the grittier, more realistic generation of FBUS members, Eric? Isn't zoophilia sinking too low, even for this AU?"
"Except it isn't illegal in Pachyderm City, just rarely indulged." Patriot protested.
At that moment, the Troublalert rang:
"Oh thank goodness!!!" Patriot, Lady Liberty, Green Canary and Bowman all chorused at the same time, then couldn't work out who should be first in the teleporter for the next five minutes.
On the ground below, Captain Swift simultaneously and conveniently realised what it must be: "Good gorsh! Haney's Disease, the dreaded metahuman disease that causes anomalous out of character behaviour, breathtaking scientific inaccuracy, and cavalier disregard for continuity."
As he said those words, abruptly Mermaid lost the ability to fly, but the speedster set up a wind funnel to lower them to Mr Might's secret base high atop Mount Megalopolis. However, there was a limit to the soft landing possible and the couple crashed through the roof of the Fortress of Self-Absorption. Still weakened by his exposure to his "one weakness" (sic), the element tin, Mr Might moaned and struggled to his feet, before being abruptly felled by the presence of a stray foccacia bread loaf in the vicinity. However, Mermaid had been cushioned by the fall...although the couple had other problems.
These consisted of Lori Lake and Louisa Louche, Mr Might's two ex-stalkers before he had married Laurel Latantis/Mermaid: "Oh no. Choke. Mr Might has been incapacitated by his one weakness, tin!!! Now how can he Marry Me and have meta-offspring?" Lori hammed it up.
"Oh no. Choke. Mr Might has been incapacitated by his one weakness, tin!!! Now how can he Marry Me and have meta-offspring?" Louisa responded, just as badly
"You $!^@#! Hands off! I saw him first!" Lori snapped at her erstwhile rival.
"Make me, slut!!!" And with that, the two women launched into one of their interminable catfights, forgetting that Mr Might had been married to Mermaid for the last decade. Mermaid swam over to the Troublelert Responsometer, requesting help:
"Hi. Anyone? Lori Lake and Louisa Louche have also been affected by Haney's Disease and are having another one of their fistfights in the Fortress of Self-Absorption...three weeks after I'd last redecorated. Could someone get rid of them and make sure there's a non-molestation order to prevent them ambushing Cliff and me?"
Green Canary's face appeared on the Responsometer: "Sure, Laurel. Locking on to them now. How's Cliff?"
"He's been knocked out by the presence of yet another of his 'one' weaknesses, a stray foccacia loaf. Oh, and Badman and Robber flew off."
"Sorry, hon, no-one in that sector. Patriot and some slutty female elephantoid got caught by Lady Liberty in flagrante delecto, Neither of them are answering the Troubelert at the moment. Bowman and I just got back from assessing our last failed memebership drive. Captain Swift is still marshalling that Gay Pride Parade in Off-Center City. Anyway, the Duo of Darkness are just as vulnerable to recurrent anomalous metahuman power episodes as the rest of us."
"I'll take care of Cliff down here. Why can't we have a convenient long-lost cousin from the planet Neon to care for him while he recovers from this latest episode?"
But the answer was lost as a distant antimatter cascade storm began to whiten the more distant verges of their universe. The Freedom Brigade were about to have an Inconvenient Crisis on Their Earth.
As Princess Power arrived in the teleport tube, there was a noisy fizzling sound and acrid smoke emanated from its innards seconds after she squeezed out of the device:
"That teleporter really needs maintenance, Jeff."
"And you really need to go on a diet, Debs." replied Black Vulcan, former FBUS team member and now the FBUS satellite AI.
Lady Liberty and Patriot entered, from opposite sides of the room, glaring at each other. Captain Swift rapidly downed a martini from the Pride sundowner party he'd just left, while a shaky Mr Might and Mermaid awaited the other's arrival:
"We have a Crisis at hand."
"Why? Is someone extradimensional trying to insert itself into our dimension?"
"Not that sort of Crisis. There's a large antimatter storm devastating all before it, and we're right in its various paths."
"This can only be two possible people!' Patriot exclaimed
"Okay, obviously one is Count Peir Dragotone from the micro-world of Transilvexia, given that he has the local Darkseid/Apokolips franchise for our universe."
"Nope,' observed Captain Swift,"Infinitesima said that Badman and Robber took him to court over their new outfits and got him over intellectual property theft. And the other one?"
"Our old arch enemy Venom Volkanik, except he's currently been abducted by aliens and is being held on Space Station 12 by the Anti-Solaronite League."
Bowman and Green Canary entered:
"It's neither. Remember the Anti-Monitor, that sinister entity from an anti-matter universe who tried to use exactly the same method to destroy the Multiverse?" Bowman said, providing the much-needed expository dialogue.
"You mean-!" Mermaid gasped.
"No, it's not him. It's his close maternal relative and your old foe, Princess...Auntie Entity!!!"
Meanwhile, deep beneath the remains of Stately Payne Manor, the evil troika of supervillains that were Badman, Robber and Aunty Entity conversed:
"Soon this cosmos shall be obliterated!!! Nyah hah hah!"
"Holy complete obliteration of our whole reality, Badman!!!"
"Courage, Boy Plunder, she's given us a transmatter unit so we can decamp to another Earth."
"But Badman, if we de-camp, there'll be nothing left of us. And incidentally, I'm 22. Why do you still refer to me as Boy Plunder?"
"Sorry, my Pert-Assed Partner."
At that point, Aunty Entity entered in spectacular fashion, She laughed maniacally as the viewscreen showed hordes of innocent Earths devastated by her latest ploy, As Badman and Robber watched, a lecherous alien zoophile who had seized Earth-R and was busy 'rogering the rabbits' was instantaneously destroyed, as were the targets of his lagomorph lechery. On Earth 15, 233, Bat-Transvestite, Catty and Jokeyoke were obliterated along with their inadvertant targets, Brad (Superman) Majors and Janet (Marvel Maid) Weiss in a Transsexual castle from the galaxy known as Transylvania. The anti-matter storms coalesced around Earth-55 and started to eat at its fabric, as quakes and tidal waves hit the battered and bruised world.
Captain Swift punched a hole in an adjacent box as the FBUS Satellite swayed and rocked:
"Hang on, there's one way out of this!"
"No! Not the Probability Degrader! That's suicide!"
"If we don't act soon, there'll be nothing left of our world."
As Captain Swift threw down the lever, weird vibrations and a blinding white light surrounded them. As it subsided, Captain Swift took a probability reading:
"Okay. We're now Earth 108, 444. What?"
"We're...all rabbits. Like the recently vanquished Earth-R. On the bright side, the antimatter storm's gone. Are we funny animals now?"
"Er, not according to the data I've just received, dudes and dudettes. This is a combination funny animal and grim and gritty universe. The former Tur-Tel aka Superturtle led a devastating alien invasion from his former homeworld Galapagon. They were defeated, but it resulted in the sacrifice of Hoppy the Marvel Bunny after being infected by space myxamitosis. The Justa Lotta Animals superteam that used to be here got destroyed by Kangar-Roo shortly afterward. On the positive side, Badman and Robber have vanished and Aunty Entity is now several thousand realities away."
"Oh, Bowbunny. How will we survive this somewhat weird new universe?"
"I don't know, GC. Incidentally, we may need a divorce. I'm not into doing it cross-species." For Green Canary was now eponymous.
The Freedom Brigade looked out over their new world and wondered what their reinvented cosmos promised them...
THE END
