While a large gathering of LMBPers celebrated at the LMB ranch, a woman observed them unseen. She said to herself, "I see Lard Lad is still among them. I must take him out first, quietly. His power is the most dangerous of them all. I shall exploit his two great weaknesses, alcohol and sex, and take him out of the fight! He is the key. Yes, no target will be more satisfying to take down. I will savor this greatly..."
So she waited, and sure enough, Lardy was visibly flat-on-his-face drunk in very little time. The party was heavy on booze and light on snacks, so the alcohol got into his system quicker on an empty stomach. The mysterious femme used that opportunity to magically disguise herself. Her shadowy, unseen features transformed into the supple form of Hummer Lass, and she approached the drunken portly hero.
"Hey, Lardy-baby!" she said as she caressed his nether regions. She glanced about to make sure the others didn't notice anything and guided him to a more private place.
"Pru? Didn' know yoo wuz here," Lardy said recognizing his frequent giver of oral sex.
"Yeah, baby, it's me. I've got a surprise for ya, Lardy!"
"Well, yer shurprizes ain' so shurprizin, Pru...but 'm game if yoo are..." And he began to unzip his pants.
"NO!" she said, "um...not here, baby."
"Why not? The guyz'r kinna ushe ta seein' this after alla theesh yeerz..."
"Um, this is special, Lardy. I've, uh, decided to finally go all the way, and I want it to be with you!"
Lardy was stunned, even in his drunken haze. Hummer Lass, despite all her oral expertise, had remained technically a virgin through it all with no vaginal intercourse having ever occurred.
But he wasn't stunned too long and shouted, "AWRIGHT! Lead th' way, Pru!" He had dreamed of this moment for years, and his drunken mind didn't question it at all.
So "Pru" took Lardy by the hand and lead him to an unused stable on the edge of the property. They went up to the hayloft. She undressed tantalizingly for him, and he clumsily disgarded his uniform. When she produced a pair of handcuffs, Lardy was eager to proceed. Securely handcuffed, Lardy lay on his back as his fondest fantasy seemingly came true. She climbed on top, and the loft shook for a long, long time.
The next morning, Lardy awoke still handcuffed and alone. At first Lardy felt a feeling of extreme contentment. Being handcuffed didn't bother him; the kinkier the better he thought. He believed that Pru would be back for more any minute, possibly with kinkier ideas, but definitely ready for more.
But as the time went on without her returning, he began to wonder why she had broken her vaginal celibacy all of a sudden. He was too drunk to question it last night, but as his mind cleared up, he wondered what had changed. He knew they had a deeper connection that somehow went beyond the oral sex and might lead to something else some day; but he didn't foresee it happening any time soon.
And the sex was different from what he expected somehow. Though it was very good, she was not tentative like a virgin would be. She definitely knew what she was doing and was very much in control. And there was something familiar he couldn't place....
But before he could think it out any further, Lardy heard footfalls heading up the ladder to the loft. In a moment, the lady he thought was Hummer Lass appeared at the top of the ladder.
"Sleep well?" she asked.
He smiled and took in her clothed, but still sumptuous form. "Real well!" he replied. "You surprised me, Pru!"
"Yes, yes," she contemplated, "I surprised myself as well. I wasn't sure I'd go through with it."
"But you did! And you surprised me...you really did extremely good for your first time!"
"My, my, Lardy...are you that thick? I thought even you might figure it out once you sobered up."
"Figure out what? That...you've been with someone else?"
"Of course I have, with many, many partners! "
"Pru...I don't know what to say. I'm confused."
"Obviously, fool. But I am not actually Hummer Lass...this is but a glamour."
As Lardy took this all in, he tried to 'port out of his cuffs, but couldn't feel his connection to the Lard Force.
"Don't bother, Lard Lad. You see, I have an enchantment that enables me to strip the powers of any man I have unprotected intercourse with. You're powerless!"
"Wh-who are you?" Lardy asked distraught. He'd been warned over and over that constantly having indiscriminate sex was a bad idea and was now learning that lesson for the first time.
"See for yourself!" and she dropped the glamour, revealing a darkly beautiful woman dressed in a sultry black low-cut dress. Her hair was as jet black as her dress. But nothing was as dark as her eyes. Those eyes sparkled with pure malevalence. Those, more than anything, sparked his memory.
Lardy was stunned. He hadn't seen this woman in several years, but he remembered her vividly. She had been the first and worst LMBP traitor. But the betrayal was more personal to him. She had played with his emotions as if he were her puppet. She had killed someone he loved dearly. He hated her more than anyone or anything in the universe. She was...
"Mordra, the Harlot!!!!" Lardy screamed in utter horror and struggled against his bonds. "God! I had sex with her?!?!? Oh, God, NO!"
Mordra enjoyed this immensely and finally said, laughing, "Oh, yes you did indeed! Don't act so horrified---it's not as if it were our first time, DARling!" And she laughed evilly. "I was going to just cut your throat, but I think I'll just leave you here chained, powerless and disgusted with yourself---what a fitting revenge for how you wronged me long ago!"
"Wronged you? You have some nerve, you bitch! You---!"
"Oh, shut up! You are no longer a threat to me! And I now, thanks to you and your famous promiscuity, have the power to defeat your friends!"
"Oh...no," Lardy moaned
"Oh YES!" Mordra cackled and before disappearing, she shot back, "and I'll call you sometime--honest!"
In her wake, Lardy lay slumped over and inconsolable. All of it came rushing back to him...all of it. He started sobbing uncontrollably as one name whispered out of his trembling lips.
Lard Lad sat alone in a quiet, dark corner booth at Cafe Cramer. This was a very unusual sight. Normally, Lardy preferred the more boisterous night spots of Legion World, especially the Hootchie Hut and Shameless Hussies. In fact this is the first time anyone present could ever remember him being in Fat Cramer's fine establishment. But there he was, sitting alone and staring at his cup of dark coffee.
Soon, Cobalt Kid, Legion World's head of security and one of the LMBP's founders, came in and took a seat at the bar next to Faraway Lad. Faraway had been an LMBPer since its second year and was one of its most easygoing and personable members. Cobalt was always happy to see him.
He greeted Faraway and ordered a cappuccino from the barkeep. Apparently, Cafe Cramer's feline owner had taken the day off.
"How's it hangin', Darden," Cobalt cordially addressed his friend as he tentatively sipped his coffee. He flinched slightly as his lips confirmed the coffee was a little too hot.
"Not too bad, Des. Though I am a little concerned..."
"About what?" Cobalt asked curiously.
In response Faraway made a slight gesture with his head toward the dark corner booth.
Cobalt followed the gesture and saw Cafe Cramer's unusual guest. "Lardy? Here?" he exclaimed in a whisper, but he was unable to avert his gaze.
"Yes," Faraway offered, "he's been here for quite a while, so the barkeep tells me, just sitting there lost in thought."
"God, I don't think I've ever seen him here!" said Cobalt. "He looks like he's not aware of anything. I doubt he knows we're here."
"Yes I know. I was thinking I might go over and talk to him."
"Not so fast, Darden," Cobalt cautioned, "I've known Lardy for a long time. I know when he wants to be left alone and when he doesn't. I think this is one of those times when he has to work things out himself."
"Why do you think that?" Faraway challenged.
"You weren't at the party last week were you?"
"No," Faraway said, "I've been off-planet a couple of weeks. Just got back today."
"Well, you missed a doozy of a fight. Mordra gave us a run for our money!"
"Mordra," Faraway thought aloud, "Mordra...the LMBP traitor?"
"That's her!" Cobalt confirmed.
"I've heard the name and her infamous title before, but that was before my time. What did she do here last week?"
"She posed as Hummer Lass and got Lardy to sleep with her. Thing is, she was able to steal his powers through the sexual act."
"Oh my!" Faraway gasped.
"Yeah, I know. Then, she goes out and steals other LMBPers's powers the same way by posing as other women."
"Bloody hell!"
"Definitely. So anyway, days go by and she wracks up all these powers. All the while, she's got Lardy locked up for days in a stable on the ranch grounds. Finally, she makes her move and takes on Legion World's central command station. She actually succeeded in breaking through to the core control room. She planned on bringing all of Legion World's reactors up to critical mass! Luckily, Stu was waiting for her and conjured up a spell to release the powers she stole. This weakened her a lot, but she was able to teleport off-world. The spell took so much out of Stu that he couldn't stop her. That was two days ago."
"And Lardy?"
"Stu located him after the fight. He was in pretty bad shape. He went to the infirmary but refused to spend the night."
"My goodness," Faraway managed.
"The infirmary visit had some bad news for Lardy," Cobalt continued.
"Bad news?"
"Yeah, they scanned no trace of the Lard Force within him. His powers are still gone. We think Mordra used them to teleport herself out since that's not one of her powers."
"But Stu's spell...?" Faraway probed.
"It restored everyone else's power, but not Lardy's."
"Why?"
"We don't know yet. Maybe it's because his powers were stolen first. We're looking into it."
"So that's why Lardy's so distraught," Faraway said compassionately as he glanced over again toward their mutual friend.
Cobalt shook his head, "no Darden, that's part of it. But I know him. Mordra put him through the wringer years ago like no one else has. She hurt a lot of us back then but none as deeply as she hurt Lardy. And having her do it to him again...that's hard."
"What exactly happened to him before? What did she do to him?" Darden pressed. He hated seeing Lardy suffer like this.
"Well," Cobalt pondered, letting the veil of time slide back over his memories, "first you would need to know about Lardy and his first love...Leelee."
Faraway drew closer. He had never heard of any 'Leelee' before. But he was about to find out.....
I guess I should start first, Darden, by placing things in context a little.
You see, in the earliest days of the LMBP, Lardy was a much different person than he was by the time you first met him. Believe it or not, the Lardy who helped co-found the LMBP was one of the shyest, most modest guys you could ever meet. That fateful trip he took that lead to helping foil the attempt on Engine Joe Brande’s life was the first he’d taken after spending five years in a monastery! As he told me later, all Lard Squires spend five years of intensive training in these special monasteries before earning the title of Lard Knight. It’s required that the squires never leave them even once during their training period.
But, really, before that, he wasn‘t exactly Mr. Popular. Lardy told me that his weight made him an outcast from the earliest grades in school. He was bullied a lot and called all those lovely names that unpopular fat kids are called. It was all he could do to go out and get that job at the grocery tessaract where the freak accident gave him his powers. And yes, Lardy was most definitely a virgin when the LMBP was formed!
And he didn’t turn into the party animal and womanizer we all know and love overnight. He had learned some confidence in himself and his powers, but he still had a big social deficiency. He did form a pretty fast friendship with me, Loser and Lash, but the poor guy could hardly look a girl in the eye, much less ask one out.
Things began to change in that department at the very first LMBP try-outs. It didn’t take long for our reputation to get out there, and soon all the young folks with anything resembling a power demanded we let them have a shot. So a few weeks into our existence, we staged our first massive-ass try-out. We got a lot of good recruits out of it. In fact we increased our membership to twenty five that day! That’s when long timers like Dev-Em and Grey Birdboy joined, but many others only stuck around for a few months or even just a few days.
And of course there were hundreds of rejects. One of these was this sweet, shy girl who called herself Dazzle Lass. She claimed she had the power to create a light so bright that it could blind evildoers, incapacitating them. But the light she made was really little more than what anyone might reflect off a mirror to annoy someone. So we rejected her.
But Lardy had an instant crush on her. I think it’s because he saw a kindred spirit in her, but he told me later that she was simply the most beautiful girl he’d ever seen. Lardy caught up with her, consoled her and offered to help train her to use her powers better. He learned that her real name was Leelee. After he said his name was Anthony, they discarded the silly superhero names with each other from then on. I suspect Leelee began to fall for Lardy immediately, too.
The next day, he went to the other founders and proposed they start up an academy to train those who were rejected, but who had potential. He made sure not to mention any particular names because he didn’t want anyone to know that he had a selfish motive. It was a striking blow for Lardy when Shady insisted there be a strictly professional relationship between teachers and students. But he agreed to the rule with the rest. For the good of the LMBP, he would focus only on teaching Leelee to better use her powers.
However, that proved impossible for them. As hard as they both tried to fight it, Lardy and Leelee grew closer and closer. Soon, they started dating. Lardy told me later that they would go to great lengths to go to isolated places where no one, let alone another LMBPer, would see them. Even then, he said, there were a few close calls, especially when they occasionally went to see the latest holo or dine at little holes-in-the-wall, hoping to be inconspicuous.
Before long, they had moved to the next step and began making love. Lardy told me that his teleportation power came in really handy, so no one would ever see them coming into or leaving Lardy’s room in the old HQ or Leelee’s dorm room in the academy. They felt very guilty about all the cloak-and-dagger business, though. They’d discovered the greatest joy in their lives but were so afraid to share it for fear that Lardy might be expelled from the LMBP and she from the academy. But they knew at some point, they would have to come clean. Perhaps that would be on the day that Leelee, they hoped, made it into the LMBP.
And that chance came very soon. It was our first ever battle with Whordru. That first time, she captured the entire LMBP and had us all imprisoned at Stonehenge. When the academy students heard about it, they staged a rescue. Though the other students fought valiantly, it was two in particular who made the difference: Leelee and Mordra, who was Whordru’s sister. Leelee blinded Whordru with a truly dazzling display that made Lardy proud just as she was about to fire a potentially nasty blast our way. Whordru’s blast went astray, and it hit her sister, who’d flown into its path, instead. Mordra had an energy-reflecting power, so the blast bounced off Mordra, went back to Whordru and stunned her. Leelee delivered a wicked right cross that finished the deal.
For their valor, Dazzle Lass and Mordra were inducted into the LMBP one week later. Lardy and Leelee decided to come clean about their romance at the party that would follow. They shared an embrace after the ceremony before parting long enough to change out of their costumes. Lardy told me they were nervous but ready to get it all out in the open.
But when they met at the ballroom, Leelee had changed her mind. She apologized to Lardy but said she was too afraid to risk her membership just when she’d finally gotten it after she’d thought about it further. She begged him to please be patient a little longer. Lardy loved her so much that he reluctantly agreed, though it was hard for him. So they continued their secret affair.
After that, though, something changed profoundly with her. While things seemed to be going okay with Lardy and Leelee, she started hitting on other LMBPers. One after one, she went to us and started coming on to us. And she convinced every guy she slept with to keep it a secret. So while practically every guy in the LMBP bedded her, no one knew that almost every other guy had, too. Even when the guys would get drunk, they somehow kept their lips sealed about her---every one. Strangest of all, she’d somehow managed to get most of the gay male LMBPers to sleep with her, too! Meanwhile, she went about her relationship with Lardy as if nothing had changed, and he was none the wiser.
Lardy finally convinced her to out themselves as lovers at my birthday party. When Lardy got up in front of everyone, he chose to do this by pulling out a ring and proposing marriage to her. As soon as this happened, most of the men at the party started raising their voices and demanding to know if it was a joke. Lardy explained that they were in love and that he was serious. A huge uproar arose as all these men claimed Leelee was theirs, and everyone got into a big brawl.
Leelee was seen running out of the room crying. And amidst the carnage, Lardy ran after her.
As the huge fight went on, somehow everybody stopped when they heard Lardy screaming Leelee’s name from somewhere outside HQ. Everyone came to their senses in time to see what had happened. What they found was Lard Lad cradling Leelee’s dead body. It was shriveled and desiccated, as if something or someone had siphoned every ounce of fat and meat from it all at once.
Darden, what happened that night rocked the LMBP’s world in a big way. It seemed crystal-clear that Lardy had killed Leelee. Everything you need to arrest someone was there: motive, opportunity and the murder weapon. Motive? Everyone had seen his reaction when he realized his girl had been sleeping with everyone and had allowed him to profess his love in front of them all. Opportunity? Everyone saw him run after her when she left. Weapon? Well, turning a healthy girl into a desiccated corpse was an extreme but logical extension of the lard-siphoning power he possessed, so Lardy was the murder weapon.
And Lardy said nothing to defend himself. In fact he said nothing at all other than Leelee’s name while sobbing. He was in shock. Most of us read that shock as being a killer’s remorse after the fact. It wasn’t believed to be pre-meditated, but it was still murder. Since all LMBPer are forbidden to kill under any circumstances, Lardy was now thought of as the LMBP traitor.
So on one hand, we were demoralized over one of our premier members apparently crossing the line, and on the other, we resented each other for carrying on with a woman we’d each thought of as “ours”. Strangely, no thought was given to blaming Leelee herself for her role of playing us all.
In any case the LMBP was on a huge precipice in our young existence. Many of our newest recruits decided to terminate their memberships. Who could blame them with all the bad feelings going around? And many of our core members seemed to be close to following them out. The remaining founders arranged several forums to try to settle the issue, but they all degenerated into shouting matches. Honestly, the end seemed near.
Amidst all this, Loser Lad and I had trouble believing that our friend had killed anyone despite the overwhelming evidence. The problem was that Loser and I weren’t talking to each other because we had slept with Leelee and resented everyone else who had. We resented Lardy for that, too, but we still didn’t feel he was capable of murder.
Luckily, there was another LMBPer who felt the same and who managed to bring us together for Lardy’s sake. Tsarin Kid, the LMBP’s resident scientist at the time, was one of the few men among us who hadn’t had a relationship with Leelee. His keen intellect and his emotional distance from it all were great assets to him in seeing through all the veils. He came to us separately, having deduced that we would be the most open to helping our friend, and managed to get us to put aside our resentment for each other for Lardy’s sake.
The first step was convincing Shady to accompany the three of us to visit Lardy at Takron-Galtos, where he was being detained pending his trial. This was not as easy as you’d think because Shady had just put in her resignation from the LMBP. With her power being so attuned to the morale of others, it was literally killing her to be amidst such low morale and petty hatred. But we asked for her help, and she gave it.
Lardy still hadn’t spoken since Leelee’s death, so we needed Shady’s power to boost his morale enough to get him to talk to us. If he was innocent, we needed him to tell us himself that he was to give us somewhere to start. It took tremendous effort on Shady’s part, but she did finally coax him out of his catatonia. When he came out of it, he didn’t even know where he was. It was painful for him, but he did talk to us.
Slowly, he told us the whole story of him and Leelee. It affected us in a big way. Somehow, as we realized the depth of Lardy’s love for her, the lingering differences between me and Loser over her began to melt away. They seemed silly and frivolous suddenly. All we had really done was sleep with her a few times, but Lardy really gave her all of his heart and soul. Why had we and the other guys fought so hard over a girl we just barely knew?
And when it came to the question of her death, Lardy said he’d just found her that way; he didn’t kill her. No matter how angry he might have been with her, he could never kill someone he loved so deeply. As shocking as the revelation at the party had been, he just wanted to confront her with it and perhaps find her some help. He had thought that she had a sex addiction or something; but he still believed her feelings for him were real. He wanted to work it out.
But when he found her dead, something shut down inside him. He could deal with anything other than her being dead. His grief was so huge that he couldn’t handle it. Even now, it was only Shady’s boost that kept him from going back into that state.
Lardy’s story and the raw emotion behind it were enough for the four of us. We believed him completely. So first, we arranged with the warden to allow Shady to stay on and give Lardy her brand of therapy. Then, we set out to prove his innocence.
Tsarin’s first goal was to examine Leelee’s body for any evidence. Securing permission from the Science Police, he did so alongside their Chief Coroner. Tsarin had taken readings from Lardy in the past, so he used them for comparison to see if there were any residual Lardforce energies present in her body. A use of his powers this massive would definitely leave traces of those energies in it, he figured. But there were no traces of the Lardforce at all in the corpse.
Next, he went about making sure that this corpse was actually Leelee. Tsarin used all of the latest technology, including some improvements of his own, to go about the task of identifying this body. The tests were thorough enough to detect cloned alleles, slight vibrational differences and even temporal anomalies. After all the exhaustive tests were completed, Tsarin ruled out the body being anyone else other than Leelee. She was no clone, twin or double from an alternate dimension or from another time. The dead person was not only Leelee, but our Leelee beyond a doubt.
Finally, he looked for the cause of death. Every indication was that Leelee had been starved to death and dehydrated. If Lardy hadn’t used his powers to kill her, then Leelee died a slow, agonizing death. Someone kidnapped her, starved her and let her slowly fade away, probably to set up a perfect frame of Lardy and his powers. No food was in her stomach, and her body had gone on to start feeding on its own muscles and organs toward the end. There were no other signs of trauma. She would have to have been dead for weeks before her body was found.
Unfortunately, none of this was enough to set Lardy free. Prosecution would argue that the Lardforce is largely an unknown energy and wouldn’t necessarily be detectable weeks after her death. Proving her identity wasn’t any help since that was never protested. And prosecution could also argue that the findings didn’t rule out use of Lardforce since no one had seen a case where it was used to kill. How would anyone know if the signs of this kind of murder would differ from regular starvation?
Tsarin knew all of this, so he didn’t bother to take his findings to the SP. But for him, they were enough to form a theory of what had actually happened in his mind. Since it was definitely Leelee who’d been killed, then someone had to have been impersonating her for several weeks. Since he believed this much was certain, then it would stand to reason that whomever was impersonating Leelee also kidnapped and starved her. Perhaps it was one of their known enemies, or a new one.
More disturbing, it may have been another member of the LMBP who orchestrated all of this. If that was so, Tsarin Kid would never rest until he identified and brought in the true LMBP traitor…..
Darden, Tsarin Kid believed from the outset that it was probably someone from within our club. After all, we’d taken in many, many members into our ranks in a very short time without any real screening process. By our nature we were a very open, nonexclusive club. We wanted everyone to feel welcome like they wouldn’t any other place. We were an organization of heroic misfits, so it seemed against our ideals to find ways to exclude people. Sure, we did hold tryouts and not everybody made it if their powers weren‘t up to a certain level, but we did set the bar very low. And for those who didn’t make it, there was the Academy Lardy helped create.
But we didn’t even do as much as a light background check on anyone who’d been accepted. Tsarin Kid was probably the only one of us who at the beginning saw our potential and realized we might be vulnerable in this area. And when he and the rest of us charter members met to set down the LMBP Constitution, he wanted a screening process to be put in from the outset. But the rest of us were dead-set against it because it seemed to go against our principles. In the end that first version of the Constitution was little more than a big joke as it set up such “important” staples as the mandatory weekly kegger party and the rule outlawing club functions or activities before noon.
Though he grudgingly backed off from his stand, secretly, Tsarin investigated every new member and academy student. He’d not found anything extraordinary in any of his investigations, though. There were an inordinate number of DUIs, a few misdemeanors (drunk and disorderly and public nudity were the most common) and even a few petty thefts but nothing to really cause special concern. Clean records or ones with basically harmless blotches like those didn’t mean that any member was incapable of the kind of high crime that had been committed.
However, from the time she first tried out for the LMBP, Tsarin was always concerned about Mordra. Mordra was very upfront about her familial connection to the infamous villainess Whordru. Though the LMBP hadn’t yet fought Whoredru, the bearded sorceress’s nasty reputation was becoming well-known. Mordra claimed she wanted to be in a position to stop her sister’s evil and help vindicate the shame Whordru had brought to their family. She was rejected in that try-out---not for her connection to Whordru, but because she wasn’t able to successfully demonstrate her stated power to reflect energy attacks back at an opponent. She applied and was accepted to the Academy after it opened to help develop her power.
The Academy records show that Mordra was on the verge of being dismissed altogether because absolutely no progress had been made in developing that power. In training session after training session, she was unable to reflect any attack back. Luckily, no dangerous attacks were used, her teachers wrote, or she would surely had been killed or severely injured in the training.
But before she could be expelled, the attack I told you about happened that was orchestrated by her sister. Mordra finally showed that she could reflect energy attacks back by reflecting Whordru’s back at her. Moreover, she demonstrated clearly that she was not in league with her sister. So Mordra and Leelee were inducted for their valor in defeating Whordru and saving the entire LMBP.
Tsarin was still concerned, though. It bothered him that Mordra’s powers never worked until that moment. The others felt either that the power only worked against magic or only when she was in real danger, but Tsarin privately didn’t buy it. So he dug deeper to put his mind at ease.
Even then, he didn’t find anything to contradict her story. He really just dug up more info about where Mordra and her sister came from. Apparently, Mordra and Whordru were daughters to an immortal and powerful sorcerer named Mordru. Records on him dated back as far as the 20th Century, possibly further. The last record of him was from over 100 years ago when he apparently met his end at the hands of a band of that era’s heroes. His daughters were actually over two hundred years old themselves. Though not immortal, they aged at a much slower rate than other humans. Whordru had gone off to the Sorcerer’s World to learn to be a great mage like her father. Mordra had stayed most of her life on her home world with her and Whordru’s mother until just recently. From the time Whordru left to study magic to when she recently established herself as a galactic menace, there was no evidence of contact between the sisters.
Even so, Tsarin was still suspicious. The best reasoning he had for this concern went something like this: If someone wanted to infiltrate the LMBP and had something in her background that would make the others doubt her loyalty, wouldn’t the best way to deflect that doubt be to be “open and straightforward” from the get-go about it, rather than hide it and risk exposure? It would be perfect! And if Mordra used this tactic, it had indeed worked.
Sometimes, Even Tsarin felt he was being overly paranoid with this theory. But he felt also that just because you’re paranoid, that doesn’t mean that everyone’s NOT out to get you!
So, on a hunch he enlisted me and Loser to help him search Mordra’s quarters for any evidence that she’d anything to do with Leelee’s murder. Mordra was listed on the monitor board as being off-planet taking some personal leave, so the coast was clear for us.
A thorough search revealed absolutely no evidence that Mordra had done anything wrong. The quarters were the most spotless to be found other than those of Shady and Crusader. Tsarin wondered if maybe Mordra’s place was a little too clean. Frustrated, we were about to leave empty-handed. But Tsarin turned around as we were leaving and returned with a hairbrush from Mordra’s vanity area without giving us any explanation.
The next day, Tsarin had us meet him in his lab. As soon as we got there, he held up the hairbrush and announced, “This proves that Mordra is Leelee’s killer!” Lou and I looked at each other dumbfounded, as if to say, “she beat her to death with a hairbrush?!?!” Our puzzlement must’ve been pretty obvious as he explained what he meant. In a follow-up autopsy he’d performed on Leelee after we searched Mordra’s quarters, Tsarin discovered foreign skin and hair samples under Leelee’s nails. When he compared those samples to the ones from Mordra’s hairbrush, he found a perfect match. Leelee had put up a fight against Mordra at some time before her death which meant Mordra was most likely Leelee’s assailant.
Before we could get too excited, Tsarin made it clear that there was one more piece of the puzzle: Why did Mordra kill Leelee? Tsarin said that he knew who might be able to help them with that question.
Within an hour, we were aboard an LMBP cruiser bound for Takron-Galtos. But we weren’t on our way to visit Lardy, Darden…we wanted to talk to someone else residing there who knew a lot about Mordra.
Whoredru, the bearded sorceress, was about to get some visitors……
Securing SP permission, myself, Loser and Tsarin arrived at Whordru’s cell. We found her remarkably unguarded with no special precautions having been taken. It was just your basic, garden-variety cell. This was because, at the time, Whoredru had been unable to cast spells without the use of her wand. The wand was kept in an inertron vault on the far side of the prison planetoid.
Girlishly twirling her finger on the end of her beard, Whordru spoke first. “So…,” she sighed playfully, “I take it you’ve FINALLY figured her out?”
“Figured whom out?” Tsarin countered.
“Puh-leeze! Let’s not play games, here. My little sis did a number on you, I take it?”
“Yes, she has,” Tsarin answered carefully, “but we don’t know exactly how she pulled it off.”
“You mean, you haven’t figured out her REAL powers, yet?”
“Well, not entirely.”
“Gawd, you all are really dense! Hopefully, you’ve at least figured out that she doesn’t have ‘reflecto’ powers, at least?”
“I suspected that, yes…so I assume the two of you staged the whole fight to help her get membership into the LMBP?”
Mordra gave a heavy sigh. “Hell, NO! I HATE that little tramp! That other little bitch blinded me before I even realized that dear old sis was even THERE!”
“Then why did…?”
“…my blast bounce off her? Our mom put an enchantment on us that made us immune to each other’s power. Mom was afraid we’d kill each other---and she was RIGHT! Just wish she had cast the spell before Mordra pinned THIS on me!” She tugged angrily at her beard. “Don’t think I’ll EVER find the counter-spell to that jinx!”
“But the reflected blast stunned you…”
“…because it was MY blast! That little tramp had the whole thing planned out WAY in advance, I realized later. It was her who sent me the tip I got about the LMB and how destroying them would be a good way for me to establish my reputation and also eliminate the threat to evil you posed that dad foretold you’d be long ago before you ever had a chance to get up and running. She sent it in such a way that I wouldn’t suspect she was behind it. Clever bitch! She set herself up to be there to save the day.”
Tsarin rubbed his chin as he thought aloud, “so her real power is to change her appearance.”
“DING-DING!” Whordru chimed sarcastically. “While I followed daddy’s footsteps and learned the full spectrum of magical power, Mordra concentrated on mastering one talent: controlling men! Mom taught her everything she knows--glamours to change her appearance and how to entrance men with spells to make them obsessed with her and vulnerable to suggestion. But the center of her power lies within a body part of hers that’s enchanted.”
I had to interject at that point. “You mean, she’s got an enchanted pu--”
“Yep!” Mordra laughed. “Once you put your thingy into her hoo-ha, she’s gotcha!”
Loser was taken aback for a moment and restrained himself from making an involuntary shielding motion toward his crotch before asking, “but why screw almost all the LMBP guys and leave it at that? She could have killed us or gotten us to make her leader while we were under her control.”
“That wasn’t her style,” Tsarin answered before Whordru could. “She wanted to destroy us her own way. It’s one thing to try to kill us all; it’s another to destroy us by turning us all against each other. Dead, we still might inspire others to live up to our example. Disbanded, we’re a laughing stock…a tabloid footnote. Mordra’s goal is ultimately the same as Whordru’s, but done in a more subtle way. And she almost succeeded. So…if you hate her so much, Whordru…why didn’t you expose her once you were captured?”
She smiled and replied, “well I still needed your little club gone before it could become something threatening. So I thought I’d see how it would play out. I know I’ll eventually get out of here, so I’ve been biding my time. If your LMBP was dismantled, it would make it that much easier for me to conquer the U.P. and find some way to kill Mordra when I escape. As it is, I’ll still achieve both goals in due time.”
“So,” I said, “Mordra kidnapped and starved Leelee, impersonated her, screwed and entranced over half the LMBP, framed Lardy for murder and got all of us hating each other. God, that bitch!”
“Yes,” Whordru laughed, “that’s why she’s known as ‘Mordra, the Harlot’ among sorcerous circles! She got all of you, and especially that fat-ass member of yours, really good!”
I had to hold Loser back as she started cackling hysterically. Part of me wanted to let him go and help him pummel her.
Tsarin spoke calmly as he said, “that’s all we need. The warden has been listening via comlink and has signaled that this testimony and the evidence we’ve given is enough to free Lard Lad immediately. Let’s go pick him and Shady up immediately. Then we’ll track down that harlot with all due haste and bring her to justice!”
As we headed out of the cell, Whordru called out to me.
“What do you want?” I replied, annoyed.
Twirling her beard playfully, she cooed, “You and I’ll meet again really soon, Cobie…we’ve got quite a date with destiny coming up…” She sighed and giggled like you would with a lover.
I turned my back and grumbled, “whatever!” and joined the others to help set Lardy free. To this day, I have no idea what Whordru was talking about.
We were all looking forward to making Mordra pay for what she’d done.
So we picked up Lardy and Shady from Lardy's cell, briefed them on everything we’d learned and headed straight to Earth. Lardy was strangely quiet and unresponsive the whole time. He had no visible reaction to all that had been revealed nor to the news of his release. We pretty much took it for shock and to his ongoing depression problems Shady’d been helping him with.
Before we left, we asked the warden to keep quiet the news of Lardy’s exoneration and release, so that we could catch Mordra by surprise. He was more than happy to comply but warned us to capture her promptly because he couldn’t have such a dangerous criminal at large any longer.
When we arrived at LMB HQ, Tsarin consulted his surveillance equipment and was able to confirm that Mordra was alone in her quarters. He suggested that we five go there alone to confront her. Bringing any of the others in would take time we didn’t have to debrief, and possibly deprogram, them. We agreed.
I used my magnetic powers to remove the door to Mordra’s quarters. She was waiting for us sitting leisurely on her bed with three large knives lying next to her.
“What kept you?” Mordra said with a smirk on her face.
“You knew we were coming?” Tsarin asked in surprise.
“Yep! You see, my power over men is very strong. Once they’re under my spell, I can know what they’re doing any time I want to. I’ve known what you’ve been up to, Tsarin, since you first got Loser and Cobalt to ‘come around’. Even after they wised up, my link is still intact. And it goes beyond the remote viewing.”
She gestured toward me, “Cobalt, why don’t you use your magnetism to fly these knives into your, Loser’s and Lardy’s hands?” And without hesitation, I did what I was told.
Tsarin and Shady stood aghast while in the next breath, she ordered Lardy to restrain Shady and put his knife to her throat and for myself and Loser to do the same to Tsarin. Shockingly, we did as we were told!
“There, that’s better,” she laughed. “That takes care of the ones I had no power over! If you two make one false move, I’ll have my boys carve you a new smile, south of your old ones!”
“B-but how?” Shady cried as Lardy’s grip tightened. “Dear old sis pretty much told you that my power over men is strong, just not how strong. Once I’ve got ‘em, they’re mine. Even if their conscious minds are freed, I’ve got a firm grasp on their subconscious ones. Trust me, these three will kill you without hesitation.”
Either Tsarin was trying to stall her or he had to put all the pieces to the puzzle together (probably both), when he asked her, “so when did you kidnap Leelee and take her place?”
“Oh that?” she thought wistfully. “I ambushed her right after our induction ceremony. I attended the induction party at the ballroom as her. No one even noticed that ‘Mordra’ was conspicuously absent…all that infamous LMB drinking helped me out on more than one occasion! As ’Leelee’ I convinced Lardy before that party not to out us as a couple as they’d planned. That helped set up all the liaisons I would have with various male LMBers over the next few months since none of them would know Leelee and Lardy were a couple.”
Tears were streaming down Shady’s face as she asked, “how…how long did Leelee…”
“…hang on? Suffer?” Mordra finished for her, hiding none of the pleasure she got from this memory. “Oh, she hung on for two weeks or so. Starvation is definitely not a pleasant way to go, let me tell you! Towards the end, she hallucinated a lot, always sure that her Lard Knight in shining armor would save her! One time, on a lark, I showed her a holo of Lardy and me getting it on. I had him so entranced that most of the time I didn’t even bother putting on the Leelee glamour. It tore her up, but she never did stop loving his fat ass, the little twit!”
Shady cried even harder, and I’d never seen Tsarin drop that sort of detached scientific veneer like he did then. “You horrible bitch!” he yelled. “I’ll see you pay for this if it’s the last thing I…”
“Cut him, boys,” Mordra interrupted. And just like that…oh, god…Loser and I cut his throat.
Sorry, Darden, remembering that is still very hard for me. Give me a second.
Okay, so Tsarin collapsed on the floor while Loser and I just stood there awaiting Mordra’s next command. Lardy didn’t flinch from his grip on Shady.
“See what I mean, Shady?” Mordra cooed. “They’ll do anything I say, which is why I still win. Even though the warden at Takron-Galtos knows about me, he’ll be hard-pressed to explain why the two of you were killed by these LMBers’s hands! The end result will be their arrest and imprisonment. And the LMB will still disband under all this scandal. And I’ll be long gone!”
Shady’s only response was a baleful moan.
“Hmph! Time to end this, I think, since you make such deLIGHTful conversation! Cut her throat, Lardy!”
And …and just as quickly and without hesitation, he did.
But something happened. As Candace dropped to the floor, a light shot out of her that hit myself, Lardy and Loser. She had managed to hit us with a burst of her power. The strength of it was astounding and managed to snap us out of our trancelike states instantly.
Loser and I were frozen by what we’d done when we came out of it, but Lardy took immediate action.
He grasped the knife that lay bloody in his right hand and charged Mordra. We heard him yell, “LEELEE!” before he planted his blade deep into Mordra’s abdomen. She screamed and fell onto her bed unconscious.
In the next heartbeat, he turned and gathered Tsarin and Shady on each of his arms. “I’ve got to ’port them over to the med center immediately!” he barked. “Get the S.P. here to take that thing into custody!” He gestured with his head over to Mordra’s unconscious form as he said the last part. Next in a flash of Lardforce, he, Shady and Tsarin were gone. The Science Police with Takron-Galtos’s warden were there the next instant before we even had a chance to move.
It’s probably a good thing because Loser and I might’ve finished what Lardy started.
“I…I never imagined anything like that---so horrible…” Faraway Lad managed. Cobalt Kid’s story had captured his attention completely, but it made his stomach turn. “How did Tsarin and Shady…?”
“Lardy had teleported Tsarin and Shady directly to Metropolis General and demanded they receive the best medical care possible. If it weren’t for his quick action, they would surely have died that night. As it was, things were very touch-and-go, but their lives were saved. Lardy never left that hospital ‘til long after they were out of the woods.”
“And Mordra?”
“Obviously, she survived…unfortunately,” Cobalt replied shaking his head. “Paramedics helped stabilize her, and she was taken to the medical ward at Takron-Galtos to recover and await formal charges and a trial.”
Involuntarily, Cobalt banged his fist hard on the bar counter. “None of that ever came to pass, though,” he said with a grimace, “because Mordra seduced herself out of that ward as soon as her strength returned! We warned them to keep her away from any contact with men! DAMNIT!!” And he banged his fist again, so loud this time that many patrons looked their way with alarmed glances.
“Sorry, guys,” Cobalt said apologetically to them with a friendly wave and a forced smile.
Tentatively, Faraway asked, “and she’d never been heard from again ‘til that recent business?”
“No,” Cobalt said evenly as he tried to relax into a sip of his cappuccino. “Ugh! This’s really gotten cold! Barkeep can I have another? Anyway, we tried for a long time to track her down, but she‘s been impossible to find. Even before she showed up recently, my office had been actively seeking her out. And her trail now is just as cold as it ever was. She escaped clean. Again. I swear, though, that we‘ll find her, if it‘s the last thing we ever do. She has a lot to answer for.”
“And how were things around the LMB when the dust settled?”
“Tsarin and Shady were never the same again. Tsarin returned for a while and tried his best to resume his old role, but he was never able to put the passion into it he once did. He left with little warning at the end of that first year. Days later, he died under mysterious circumstances. After another couple years, he returned to us inexplicably resurrected as Mystery Lad. He still refuses to open up about how he died and how he came back to life. His new name certainly fits.
As for Shady, she felt obligated to hang around and help build morale back up. She gave us remarkable, uninterrupted service through most of our second year. But when she felt the LMB was on solid ground, she left and has only been with us sporadically ever since. We miss her dearly to this day.”
“Did…did they ever forgive you three?”
“Oh, Darden, they forgave us immediately. They were real troopers about that aspect. No, it was the trauma and darkness of the whole thing that was so hard for them to come to grips with. Forgiveness was never an issue for them---but the three of us may never forgive ourselves.”
“One thing Tsarin did work on before he left was to help us prevent this kind of thing from recurring. He helped us develop mental defenses that would keep us from ever being mind-controlled to that extent again. A powerful enough enemy could conceivably control us again, but being commanded to kill or seriously wound would cause our bodies to shut down. All new recruits were required to undergo that training, as you know.”
“How was Lardy after all that?” Faraway asked.
“Very different. From that day on, Lardy was not the shy type at all. The take-charge Lardy who saved Shady and Tsarin became the persona we could count on in battle. He became so impressive that when we decided to start electing leaders, he was the first, obvious choice. In the next election, he served as deputy, and he would be a nominee on every ballot for quite some time.”
“In his personal life there was also a big change. He became all about instant gratification. You know it’s sayin’ something when I tell you that NO-one in the LMB could out-drink or out-party Lard Lad! Only I could even come close! That also goes for women! As you know, his sexual exploits became the stuff of legend---he’d screw every pretty girl he could get his hands on and then move onto the next one! I was no slouch in that category, but Lardy had me beat---at least I’d occasionally hang out with one lady or another for periods of time, but not him!”
“Sounds like Lardy acted to keep himself from being hurt again,” Faraway observed.
“Exactly. Lardy never showed us his pain over Leelee‘s loss again after he stabbed Mordra. He internalized it completely and became the kind of person who was strong and couldn‘t be hurt by anything. He would deflect any conversation that dealt with Leelee and even insisted that her statue not be included when we erected the Hall of Fallen Heroes.”
“My god…isn’t that a little extreme?”
“Well, yes. But at the time, we all wanted to distance ourselves from that whole thing, so we didn’t fight it. In hindsight we certainly should have.”
“So, he never let himself fall for anyone ever again?” Faraway thought for a moment. “What about someone named---what was it---Helen?”
“Oh, Helen definitely got to Lardy, no matter how much he denies it. She was this sweet girl---very Leelee-like actually---who Whordru used as a pawn once. Whordru enchanted this poor girl who was trying out for the LMB and made her a hermaphrodite. The whole idea was that Helen could only have the enchantment lifted if she could get an LMBer to fall in love with and marry her. As plots went, it wasn’t exactly a grand scheme of Whordru’s but more of a bit of fancy on her part. Whordru enjoyed seeing all the male LMBers react badly when they learned of her ‘horrible disfigurement’.”
“But Lardy looked beyond her condition and showed Helen great kindness. He married her and ‘Hermaphrodite Helen’ became ‘Girl Girl’ on their wedding night.”
“What happened with the marriage?” Faraway asked eagerly.
“They went on their honeymoon, but when they came back, Lardy had their marriage annulled. He claimed that he was under the influence of one of Whordru‘s spells and wasn‘t in his right mind. I don‘t believe it for a second. The spell was only broken because he was really in love with her. I‘m positive that he broke it off because he was afraid the rug would be pulled out from under him again some day. It was a flight response, pure and simple.”
“And Helen?”
“She was head-over-heels in love with Lardy and was devastated by his rejection. But ultimately, I think she understood why he did what he did. I think even today, she’s still waiting and hoping he’ll come back to her. On the few occasions we’ve worked with Helen since, I’ve seen subtle signs from Lardy that he still cares about her. So there’s hope.”
“And what about Hummer Lass?” Faraway added.
“You’re a keen observer Darden,” Cobalt said smiling. “There’s definitely a special connection there. If I had to put it in words, I’d say they are kindred spirits…both damaged goods. They both cover up what’s wrong with their outrageous behavior. I don’t know what Pru’s story is, but I’d wager she had something really traumatic happen to her in her past to make her the way she is. At one time I thought to look into her past to find what that was as part of the security office agenda. But Lardy asked me to nix it as a personal favor. Since Pru’s never really been a threat to us, I agreed.”
“So what is their relationship?” Faraway pressed.
“Officially, there is none. Basically, she’s very jealous and prone to picking fights with women who Lardy is with. And he is very protective of her, helping her dodge any jail time for misdemeanors that she could conceivably be sentenced for. They’re both just too afraid of intimacy to take it any further than a little oral sex here and there. For her part, though, I haven’t seen her be ‘Hummer’ Lass with anyone other than him for a long time. For his part, I haven‘t seen him let her do her thing to him in a while except when he's totally drunk off his ass. I think he cares about her too much to go about business as usual with her anymore. Usually, they just hang out and talk these days.”
“So which do you think he’ll eventually end up with?”
“I honestly don’t know. Truthfully, his scars go so deep, he may never let anyone all the way in ever again. I sure hope I’m wrong.”
After a long pause where Faraway and Cobalt silently contemplated all of this, the barkeep interrupted them. “I was told to give you this, Cobie,” she said while handing him a note.
“Who’s it from, Sheila?”
“Lard Lad.”
“Lardy?” Cobalt said in bewilderment. As one, he and Faraway looked toward the dark corner booth where their friend had been.
“He’s gone!” Faraway thought aloud. “What’s it say?” Darden asked with a bit of fright to his voice.
Silently, they read it together:
Dear Des,
In your capacity as head of security, it’s my duty to let you know that I will be off-world for an extended period of time. Officially, I’m taking an indefinite leave of absence from the LMB.
As your friend, I must ask that you don’t follow me or use the considerable resources of your position to track me down.
Why am I leaving? Because I’m no damn good to the LMB without my powers. I’ve got to do whatever it takes to get my powers back. If I don’t succeed, I won’t be returning. There is also considerable danger involved in this quest, so it’s conceivable that I might not survive anyway. But it’s a quest that I must go on alone. There’s no way you or anyone else can help me.
So as my friend, I’m trusting you to let me do what I must do. I would do the same for you if our situations were reversed. You’ll have to trust me. By the time you read this I’ll be long gone anyway.
You and Darden mean a lot to me, and if I never see you again, I hope you’ll always remember that. And if Bill ever returns, let him know that I’ve never forgotten his friendship either. Also, please look out for Eryk and Pro-D for me.
You three are the best friends a guy could ever have!
Until next time, Anthony
Faraway Lad was a little teary-eyed, but finally managed, “wow. That was…”
“…a load of CRAP!” Cobalt yelled and beat his fist on the bar for the third, and loudest, time.
“What?” replied a startled Faraway as he was jerked out of his ennui.
“Don’t you see?” Cobalt practically yelled as he pounded the bar again. “He only told us HALF the truth! SURE he’s going to try to get his powers back---but he’s gonna go after MORDRA to get them…AND get revenge on her once and for all!! Damn him for not taking me with him!”
“Are…are you sure?”
“DAMN sure! Nobody knows him better than me! I’ll be damned if he’s gonna face her without me by his side! I’ll find him somehow, and then that bitch will really have hell to pay!”
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