LSH: The Battle For The Universe
By Bruce Wayne
Disclaimer: I don't own these characters, I'm just borrowing then for a while.
The characters are owned by DC Comics and I'm writing this just for the fun of
it.
CHAPTER 13 - LEGIONNAIRES DARKEST HOUR
Karate Kid fell back as a roar burst from the rear of the rocket
and a glowing flame drove it upward.
"Too late!" crowed Tazz. "My rocket is on its way into orbit above
Earth."
Karate Kid clutched at him desperately but once again met the
diamond-hard invisible shield of force that had previously protected the
villian.
"I had to convert all my available power into the launching procedure
before," Tazz said. "But now I can keep my shield around me again." He
shrugged. "It hardly matters that you disposed of my android bodyguard.
You may as well share my joy now that Earth doom number four is launched
on schedule, and hear all about it. I want you Legionnaires to know my
achievements in full so that you will more exquisitely enjoy zero-day -- when
your world ends."
"Never mind rubbing it in," growled Dream Girl. "Let us hear the
facts."
Tazz chuckled at the platinum-haired girl, and went on. "My aides
in the 40th century devised and teletransported this launch rocket to me in the
30th century. Its payload is about to got into orbit."
Tazz pointed to a monitor screen in which the powerful rocket could
be seen driving upward and starting to slant toward the horizontal. A short
time later, an outer sheath at the top of the rocket split open to reveal an
intricate satellite.
"The Storm Satellite," said Tazz. "As it spins around Earth about
every ninety minutes, it will spray down kinetic forces into the top layers
of the atmosphere. A violent wind will gradually arise in the thin stratosphere
and work its way down into the thicker air near Earth."
"You mean all the air around Earth will turn windy?" asked Karate
Kid.
"Yes, in eight days. The satellite went into polar orbit, which means
it will shift westward every revolution, and thus will cover every area of the
upper air daily. It will eventually whip up a superhurricane all over Earth,
with wind velocities of five hundred miles an hour."
Phantom Girl gasped. "Most natural hurricanes are about 100 miles
an hour."
"You can picture, then," Tazz gloated, "what my superwind will do,
blowing away people, buildings, everything. It will have the force to level
the sturdiest steel skyscrapers, which will crash in big cities and create
further shambles. After a few hours, Earth's surface will be swept bare."
Karate Kid shuddered at the stark picture of wind-swept destruction.
"Of course," said Tazz, "there won't be much left to be swept
away afer the giant comet crashes, and the Antarctic floods arise, and
Earth's volcanoes erupt in unison. Do you think, Legionnaires, that even
one person will be left alive on Earth after the four dooms strike?"
The five Legionnaires choked, unable to answer.
"There won't be," Tazz predicted savagely. "And that means my
goal will be accomplished, eight days from now. With Earthly civilization
wiped out, there will be no human race to build up a superior technology
that would in the 40th century smash my drive for galactic conquest. In
short, the new parallel universe, or if universe, will replace the former
real universe. And in the parallel universe, I will win the galaxy."
Phantom Girl, who was dressed all in white -- a body-hugging
white uniform with a black letter "P" on her chest, white boots, gloves
and long cape -- felt hollow inside. The brunette asked herself, had this
heartless monster won all? What were his plan's now? "With your four
Earth dooms launched, are you going to return to the future?"
"Not yet, White One," Tazz answered. "I will remain on 30th
century Earth for three more days, to observe and make sure the four
dooms are properly building up to their climaxes. If one or more of them
seems to be halting, I will make the proper adjustments to insure their
final success. Then I will say farewell to Earth ... forever."
The villian's frosty eyes glared at the Legionnaires triumphantly.
"Rest assured that there will be no problems with my plans of Earth
destruction. In eight days ... It will all be over."
Rage boiled up in Karate Kid now, at the smug, ruthless monster
from the future. Leaping up, Val slammed away at Tazz with everything
he had -- or at the force-shell protecting him. It was futile, senseless,
Karate Kid knew. Yet he could not stop himself from hammering away.
Tazz was laughing, harshly.
"Keep it up, assinine Legionnaire. You will never burst through my
energy shell."
Yet suddenly, there was no invisible obstruction there, and Karate
Kid's fist connected solidly with the alien's chin, sending him head-over-
heels.
Val Armorr stood stunned, hardly believing it had happened. Then
he leaped forward and ripped the belt full of buttons off Tazz, who was just
dazedly picking himself out of the dirt. "Without this belt of weapon rays or
your force-shield, you're my prisoner."
"But how can my force-shield be gone?" said the bewildered Tazz.
"Because," a feminine voice rang out, "I penetrated it and turned it
off."
Karate Kid whirled. "Phantom Girl!"
"Maybe we can't stop your Storm Satellite," said Karate Kid,
seizing the still-dazed Tazz, "but we certainly can blackmail this fugitive
from the future."
"Blackmail?" echoed Light Lass, who was the twin sister of
Lightning Lad. Ayla Ranzz was also born on the planet Winath and had
obtained lightning projection powers along with her two brothers on the
planet Korbal, when Lightning Beasts attacked them. When Garth died
in battle with Zaryan the conqueror, she disguised herself as him and tried
to take his place in the Legion. Her imposture was eventually discovered,
but she stayed with the Legion as Lightning Lass. When Lightning Lad was
revived, she didn't worry about being forced out of the Legion -- she simply
decided to let life proceed as it would. Soon enough, her place in the Legion
was assured, Dream Girl used her home planet's science to change her
lightning projection powers to gravity-canceling powers and became Light
Lass.
"First of all," explained Karate Kid, "remember that the other teams
encountered only androids of Tazz in Antarctica and the South Seas. But this
is the real Tazz now, handling the Storm Satellite's launch in person.
Karate Kid shook Tazz like a rat.
"And now here's the pitch, mister. It won't do you much good to be
here for the end of the world, will it? If you die too, in the holocaust you
caused, you can hardly return to the 40th century, and carry out your
conquest of space."
Tazz paled, and Karate Kid went on measuring his words grimly.
"That's the blackmail, pal. We're offering you a trade. Your life
for the lives of billions of people doomed on Earth. I'm assuming that with
your future science you can somehow reverse or halt the Earth-doom
processes ... Well?"
"But what if I can't?" choked Tazz, his face distorted with fright.
"Then you stick with us, as our prisoner, for eight days," said
Star Boy. "You'll have a grandstand seat for the big show that you
produced, as Earth cracks up around your ears as well as ours."
Tazz's face had turned to putty. Terror shone from his eyes. "I --
I don't know if the four dooms can be halted," he stammered. "I never
thought of it."
"Well, you'd better start thinking right now," spoke up Karate Kid.
"And if you fail ..." He pressed a pressure point on Tazz's body. Tazz
winced in pain. "You're going to die a thousand deaths in the next few days
before the real thing comes. I'll use you for as a practice dummy every day,
see?"
Star Boy approached, and he now seized the trembling villian in
his two hands. "That is, Karate Kid will have you only in between the
times you sink you into the ground under your own additional weight
that I give you." Star Boy turned his power onto Tazz and he immediately
felt such incredible heaviness that he couldn't move.
The red-headed Light Lass, in her dark blue and white short
uniform with the emblem of a feather and orange form-fitting shorts
that accented her perfect legs in white high-heeled shoes, was next
to persuade Tazz to go along with them. She said to the villian, "When
the boys get tired of entertaining you, I'll take over," she promised grimly.
Ayla used her power to fling the screeching alien up in the air, like
a mere toy. He sailed up to dizzy heights before he plummeted to the
ground with a thud that knocked his air out.
"And," added the Phantom Girl from the planet Bgztl. Bgztl is a world
separated from Earth's dimension by a "buffer zone." Every inhabitant of the
planet is able, to some extent, to mentally shift part or all of his or her bodily
mass into this dimension, enabling that Bgztlr to pass through solid objects.
She looked Tazz in the eyes, "I would listen to them you monster. We have
other members that can do far worse to you."
"I think," advised Dream Girl mildly, "you better listen to them,
Tazz. Even our leader Invisible Kid probably wouldn't be able to hold
them back."
Karate Kid grabbed Tazz by the neck and shook a mighty balled
fist in his face. "I'll use you as a punching bag every hour on the hour. Give,
you worm ... can you save Earth?"
But Tazz was laughing now, wildly. Karate Kid let him go, surprised.
"Did he lose his mind?" asked Val.
But Tazz replied, "Pretty good play-acting, eh?"
All the Legionnaires jerked at this new voice out of thin air -- the
voice of Tazz.
Then they saw the image of the villian's leering face floating toward
them.
"Grife!" whispered Star Boy, grabbing the now lifeless body of
Tazz. "Then this was an android too."
"Good afternoon from the real Tazz," said the mocking image.
"What fools you Legionnaires are! Under my control, my guided android
pretended fear and helplessness just to carry out the farce to its end. I
have made utter fools of five of the greatest champions of Earth."
They all looked the way they felt ... miserable. Victory had been
snatched out of their hands.
"Let me explain," went on Tazz. "I sent out my three androids from
the start to Antarctica, the South Seas, and the Sahara. I myself have been
safely hidden in a secret haven all the time. Where? You'll never guess. I
must stay three days to make sure the four Earth dooms are coming on
schedule. Well, Legionnaires? An old Earth phrase is most apt at this point:
Cat got your tongue?"
None of them had anything to say.
"Farewell," said the image, receding and fading away. "You'll never
find me in my hidden haven." A last mocking laugh ... then silence.
There was an awkward silence among the five Legionnaires too.
"Three days to search the whole world for Tazz, without a clue,"
said Star Boy, voicing the thoughts of all of them. "We haven't got a ghost
of a chance. Where would we look first?"
Dream Girl's legs buckled and she fell to the ground. Star Boy
quickly rushed to her side and lifted her upper body up. ""Nura?"
"In the sea," she said weakly.
"Is that what you saw?" asked Ayla.
"I saw Tazz hiding undersea," Dream Girl replied. She closed her
eyes as if trying to recall additional details of her vision. "Tazz is in some
sunken hideout in the deepest part of Earth's oceans -- down in something
called the Pacific Trench between Hawaii and Japan, seven and a half miles
deep."
"But how do we get there, and what do we do?" Light Lass asked.
"That," said Dream Girl, drawing herself up, "is something to be
worked out at a Legion briefing back at the clubhouse. Let's go home."
To be continued ...
By Bruce Wayne
Disclaimer: I don't own these characters, I'm just borrowing then for a while.
The characters are owned by DC Comics and I'm writing this just for the fun of
it.
CHAPTER 13 - LEGIONNAIRES DARKEST HOUR
Karate Kid fell back as a roar burst from the rear of the rocket
and a glowing flame drove it upward.
"Too late!" crowed Tazz. "My rocket is on its way into orbit above
Earth."
Karate Kid clutched at him desperately but once again met the
diamond-hard invisible shield of force that had previously protected the
villian.
"I had to convert all my available power into the launching procedure
before," Tazz said. "But now I can keep my shield around me again." He
shrugged. "It hardly matters that you disposed of my android bodyguard.
You may as well share my joy now that Earth doom number four is launched
on schedule, and hear all about it. I want you Legionnaires to know my
achievements in full so that you will more exquisitely enjoy zero-day -- when
your world ends."
"Never mind rubbing it in," growled Dream Girl. "Let us hear the
facts."
Tazz chuckled at the platinum-haired girl, and went on. "My aides
in the 40th century devised and teletransported this launch rocket to me in the
30th century. Its payload is about to got into orbit."
Tazz pointed to a monitor screen in which the powerful rocket could
be seen driving upward and starting to slant toward the horizontal. A short
time later, an outer sheath at the top of the rocket split open to reveal an
intricate satellite.
"The Storm Satellite," said Tazz. "As it spins around Earth about
every ninety minutes, it will spray down kinetic forces into the top layers
of the atmosphere. A violent wind will gradually arise in the thin stratosphere
and work its way down into the thicker air near Earth."
"You mean all the air around Earth will turn windy?" asked Karate
Kid.
"Yes, in eight days. The satellite went into polar orbit, which means
it will shift westward every revolution, and thus will cover every area of the
upper air daily. It will eventually whip up a superhurricane all over Earth,
with wind velocities of five hundred miles an hour."
Phantom Girl gasped. "Most natural hurricanes are about 100 miles
an hour."
"You can picture, then," Tazz gloated, "what my superwind will do,
blowing away people, buildings, everything. It will have the force to level
the sturdiest steel skyscrapers, which will crash in big cities and create
further shambles. After a few hours, Earth's surface will be swept bare."
Karate Kid shuddered at the stark picture of wind-swept destruction.
"Of course," said Tazz, "there won't be much left to be swept
away afer the giant comet crashes, and the Antarctic floods arise, and
Earth's volcanoes erupt in unison. Do you think, Legionnaires, that even
one person will be left alive on Earth after the four dooms strike?"
The five Legionnaires choked, unable to answer.
"There won't be," Tazz predicted savagely. "And that means my
goal will be accomplished, eight days from now. With Earthly civilization
wiped out, there will be no human race to build up a superior technology
that would in the 40th century smash my drive for galactic conquest. In
short, the new parallel universe, or if universe, will replace the former
real universe. And in the parallel universe, I will win the galaxy."
Phantom Girl, who was dressed all in white -- a body-hugging
white uniform with a black letter "P" on her chest, white boots, gloves
and long cape -- felt hollow inside. The brunette asked herself, had this
heartless monster won all? What were his plan's now? "With your four
Earth dooms launched, are you going to return to the future?"
"Not yet, White One," Tazz answered. "I will remain on 30th
century Earth for three more days, to observe and make sure the four
dooms are properly building up to their climaxes. If one or more of them
seems to be halting, I will make the proper adjustments to insure their
final success. Then I will say farewell to Earth ... forever."
The villian's frosty eyes glared at the Legionnaires triumphantly.
"Rest assured that there will be no problems with my plans of Earth
destruction. In eight days ... It will all be over."
Rage boiled up in Karate Kid now, at the smug, ruthless monster
from the future. Leaping up, Val slammed away at Tazz with everything
he had -- or at the force-shell protecting him. It was futile, senseless,
Karate Kid knew. Yet he could not stop himself from hammering away.
Tazz was laughing, harshly.
"Keep it up, assinine Legionnaire. You will never burst through my
energy shell."
Yet suddenly, there was no invisible obstruction there, and Karate
Kid's fist connected solidly with the alien's chin, sending him head-over-
heels.
Val Armorr stood stunned, hardly believing it had happened. Then
he leaped forward and ripped the belt full of buttons off Tazz, who was just
dazedly picking himself out of the dirt. "Without this belt of weapon rays or
your force-shield, you're my prisoner."
"But how can my force-shield be gone?" said the bewildered Tazz.
"Because," a feminine voice rang out, "I penetrated it and turned it
off."
Karate Kid whirled. "Phantom Girl!"
"Maybe we can't stop your Storm Satellite," said Karate Kid,
seizing the still-dazed Tazz, "but we certainly can blackmail this fugitive
from the future."
"Blackmail?" echoed Light Lass, who was the twin sister of
Lightning Lad. Ayla Ranzz was also born on the planet Winath and had
obtained lightning projection powers along with her two brothers on the
planet Korbal, when Lightning Beasts attacked them. When Garth died
in battle with Zaryan the conqueror, she disguised herself as him and tried
to take his place in the Legion. Her imposture was eventually discovered,
but she stayed with the Legion as Lightning Lass. When Lightning Lad was
revived, she didn't worry about being forced out of the Legion -- she simply
decided to let life proceed as it would. Soon enough, her place in the Legion
was assured, Dream Girl used her home planet's science to change her
lightning projection powers to gravity-canceling powers and became Light
Lass.
"First of all," explained Karate Kid, "remember that the other teams
encountered only androids of Tazz in Antarctica and the South Seas. But this
is the real Tazz now, handling the Storm Satellite's launch in person.
Karate Kid shook Tazz like a rat.
"And now here's the pitch, mister. It won't do you much good to be
here for the end of the world, will it? If you die too, in the holocaust you
caused, you can hardly return to the 40th century, and carry out your
conquest of space."
Tazz paled, and Karate Kid went on measuring his words grimly.
"That's the blackmail, pal. We're offering you a trade. Your life
for the lives of billions of people doomed on Earth. I'm assuming that with
your future science you can somehow reverse or halt the Earth-doom
processes ... Well?"
"But what if I can't?" choked Tazz, his face distorted with fright.
"Then you stick with us, as our prisoner, for eight days," said
Star Boy. "You'll have a grandstand seat for the big show that you
produced, as Earth cracks up around your ears as well as ours."
Tazz's face had turned to putty. Terror shone from his eyes. "I --
I don't know if the four dooms can be halted," he stammered. "I never
thought of it."
"Well, you'd better start thinking right now," spoke up Karate Kid.
"And if you fail ..." He pressed a pressure point on Tazz's body. Tazz
winced in pain. "You're going to die a thousand deaths in the next few days
before the real thing comes. I'll use you for as a practice dummy every day,
see?"
Star Boy approached, and he now seized the trembling villian in
his two hands. "That is, Karate Kid will have you only in between the
times you sink you into the ground under your own additional weight
that I give you." Star Boy turned his power onto Tazz and he immediately
felt such incredible heaviness that he couldn't move.
The red-headed Light Lass, in her dark blue and white short
uniform with the emblem of a feather and orange form-fitting shorts
that accented her perfect legs in white high-heeled shoes, was next
to persuade Tazz to go along with them. She said to the villian, "When
the boys get tired of entertaining you, I'll take over," she promised grimly.
Ayla used her power to fling the screeching alien up in the air, like
a mere toy. He sailed up to dizzy heights before he plummeted to the
ground with a thud that knocked his air out.
"And," added the Phantom Girl from the planet Bgztl. Bgztl is a world
separated from Earth's dimension by a "buffer zone." Every inhabitant of the
planet is able, to some extent, to mentally shift part or all of his or her bodily
mass into this dimension, enabling that Bgztlr to pass through solid objects.
She looked Tazz in the eyes, "I would listen to them you monster. We have
other members that can do far worse to you."
"I think," advised Dream Girl mildly, "you better listen to them,
Tazz. Even our leader Invisible Kid probably wouldn't be able to hold
them back."
Karate Kid grabbed Tazz by the neck and shook a mighty balled
fist in his face. "I'll use you as a punching bag every hour on the hour. Give,
you worm ... can you save Earth?"
But Tazz was laughing now, wildly. Karate Kid let him go, surprised.
"Did he lose his mind?" asked Val.
But Tazz replied, "Pretty good play-acting, eh?"
All the Legionnaires jerked at this new voice out of thin air -- the
voice of Tazz.
Then they saw the image of the villian's leering face floating toward
them.
"Grife!" whispered Star Boy, grabbing the now lifeless body of
Tazz. "Then this was an android too."
"Good afternoon from the real Tazz," said the mocking image.
"What fools you Legionnaires are! Under my control, my guided android
pretended fear and helplessness just to carry out the farce to its end. I
have made utter fools of five of the greatest champions of Earth."
They all looked the way they felt ... miserable. Victory had been
snatched out of their hands.
"Let me explain," went on Tazz. "I sent out my three androids from
the start to Antarctica, the South Seas, and the Sahara. I myself have been
safely hidden in a secret haven all the time. Where? You'll never guess. I
must stay three days to make sure the four Earth dooms are coming on
schedule. Well, Legionnaires? An old Earth phrase is most apt at this point:
Cat got your tongue?"
None of them had anything to say.
"Farewell," said the image, receding and fading away. "You'll never
find me in my hidden haven." A last mocking laugh ... then silence.
There was an awkward silence among the five Legionnaires too.
"Three days to search the whole world for Tazz, without a clue,"
said Star Boy, voicing the thoughts of all of them. "We haven't got a ghost
of a chance. Where would we look first?"
Dream Girl's legs buckled and she fell to the ground. Star Boy
quickly rushed to her side and lifted her upper body up. ""Nura?"
"In the sea," she said weakly.
"Is that what you saw?" asked Ayla.
"I saw Tazz hiding undersea," Dream Girl replied. She closed her
eyes as if trying to recall additional details of her vision. "Tazz is in some
sunken hideout in the deepest part of Earth's oceans -- down in something
called the Pacific Trench between Hawaii and Japan, seven and a half miles
deep."
"But how do we get there, and what do we do?" Light Lass asked.
"That," said Dream Girl, drawing herself up, "is something to be
worked out at a Legion briefing back at the clubhouse. Let's go home."
To be continued ...