posted
After her induction, Cobalt Kid took Nakia aside and talked to her in private.
He told her that now that the LMB had a 'Lard Lass', there were going to be more questions about her predecessor's absence. Cobalt told her the LMB's official comment on Lard Lad was that he was on a "leave of absence" and wasn't expected to be away very long. Nakia's induction and her perception as his replacement would inevitably cause speculation about whether the LMB had been putting up a smokescreen.
Cobalt clarified to her what the Lard Council already knew, that Lard Lad was on an indefinite leave of absense and his whereabouts unknown. He explained that Lard Lad had been tricked out of his powers and was out searching for the woman who'd stolen them. Though Cobalt was actively searching for his friend, he'd had absolutely no luck to this point. He asked Nakia not to divulge any of this to the press.
Nakia was confused. She wondered aloud why this secrecy was so important.
Cobalt thought for a moment and told her there was a lot going on. For one thing, threats to the U.P., the LMB and Legion World had been escalating very recently. If Lard Lad as one of the LMB's most powerful members was known to be completely out of the picture, it was quite possible that those holding back would be emboldened to strike en masse. Legion World was still relatively new, and it's defenses weren't quite where they wanted them to be yet.
But there was more. Cobalt explained that recent developments suggested Lard Lad may be very important to certain cosmic powers in the universe. If all these facts weren't already known to those powers, it was the LMB's duty to protect Lard Lad from that information getting out to them. That was as specific as he got on that point.
Cobalt told her that if Lard Lad wasn't found or returned soon, the LMB might be forced to take more extreme measures to hide the truth. He told Nakia that sophisticated designs for Lard Lad robots were already being developed.
Nakia wondered if Lard Lad would approve of those measures. Cobalt paused and said they were merely doing what they thought was in Legion World's and Lard Lad's best interests.
Nakia swore she would keep all the LMB's secrets, and the two headed to her post-induction party.
-------------------- "Suck it, depressos!"--M. Lash
From: The Underbelly of Society | Registered: Jul 2003
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posted
In the year-plus that followed Nakia served in the LMB with distinction. Though not a central figure in them, she fought bravely and effectively in such major conflicts that occurred during her tenure as the LMB Infinite Crisis and the one now known as "The Good, the Dark and the Dead".
Nakia also served on countless smaller missions, even leading squads of less experienced members with excellent outcomes.
On one mission, over a year into her membership, she reached the apex of her career. Working with the LMB's Espionage Squad, Nakia uncovered a plot to kill the U.P. President orchestrated by Dominator agents. In the end the agents managed to neutralize the other Espionage Squad members, and Nakia found herself the only one between a dozen assassins and the President. Singlehandedly, she took down all twelve of them and saved the President's life.
As she caught her breath, the portal she had been waiting for had finally appeared. As she stood before it, the leader of the Espionage Squad, Cobalt Kid, awoke. She had very little time to explain, but Cobalt understood that this was something she had to do and gave his blessing for her to go.
Smiling and in tears, Nakia entered the portal, and Cobalt watched her and it shimmer and disappear. And that was the end of Lard Lass's membership and the last the LMB would ever know of her.
But, for Nakia, what awaited on the other side was not at all what she expected....
-------------------- "Suck it, depressos!"--M. Lash
From: The Underbelly of Society | Registered: Jul 2003
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posted
Nakia emerged from the portal only to find her kingdom in complete ruins. There was absolutely nothing or no one left of Wakanda. It had been destroyed in an attack of some kind.
As Nakia tried to comprehend the mayhem that must have caused this, she found herself with a companion. She was shocked to see it was none other than her mentor Dom Deluise XXVII.
Before she could say a word, Dom began speaking to her. He explained that Wakanda had been wiped out by an alien race called the Badoon, that there were no survivors and that the tragedy here had galvanized the rest of Earth and its allies to fight back hard and repulse their invasion.
He embraced her and told her he had always known this would happen. As she reacted to this in anger, Dom said that he was her grandfather.
In shock she listened to his tale. Dom had been somewhat of a maverick within the Lard Monastery, and as an Elder Knight, he had broken one of their most sacred vows by falling in love with a young Naltorian royal named Nadia who had visited the Monastery with a group of her fellow royals to study some of the Order's meditation techniques.
Dom and Nadia ran away together but found themselves pursued by both the Order and the Naltorian Royal Family. Using an advanced expression of Dom's power over the Lard Force, Dom and Nadia decided to flee to a parallel Earth. There, they settled down and eventually conceived Nakia's mother, Natasha.
They were happy for many years until Nadia started having troubled visions of this Earth's and their own family's future. Eventually, Nadia shared her visions with Dom. Crushed by them, Dom questioned how these events must come to pass as she insisted. Nadia showed him that she had already been stricken by the illness that would eventually kill her, and they both saw multiple doctors to confirm its inevitability. Further, she insisted events must proceed as predicted in order for Wakanda to fight in such a manner as to rally the resistance to the Badoon. Natasha's influence would be key to this, but their granddaughter--her path would lie somewhere else.
Dom went along with what would be his family's destiny, but after his wife died just after the birth of their granddaughter, he could take no more and returned to his home dimension and the Order.
He returned in secret years later to manipulate the "prophecy" of Nakia's succession to the Wakandan throne and ensure that she would be transported to his dimension through a portal of his own making (and back when he felt the time was right). By doing all of this, Dom fulfilled Nadia's prophecy.
After what seemed an eternity contemplating all of this, Nakia broke her silence by hitting her grandfather in the face. She told him that she would much rather have died with her people than to have lived a lie. Then, she demanded he return her to his dimension because there was no longer anything in this one for her.
Once they returned, Nakia told Dom that she wished never to see him again, amd that as far as he was concerned, she had died that day.
And so on that day, both Nakia M'Batu and Lard Lass were never seen again. But the woman they had been would most certainly be important in the LMB's future, though they wouldn't know it was her.
-------------------- "Suck it, depressos!"--M. Lash
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posted
The woman who was Lard Lass wandered around the galaxy aimlessly, eventually drifting into corners of it she'd run in while working for the LMB's Espionage squad. At some point she met up with one of Cobalt Kid's spy contacts, a woman named Jada Konti. She and Jada struck up a friendship, and Nakia finally began to feel something other than hatred and depression as she learned more of Jada's skills as a spy and immersed herself in that lifestyle.
Unfortunately, Jada and Nakia had their cover blown during one mission and Jada was killed. Nakia killed Jada's assassin and contemplated what to do with her life now. Eventually, Nakia decided to have extensive cosmetic surgery done to herself and to take over Jada's life and career. After all, Nakia had "died" months ago and no one but her knew of the true Jada's demise. It just felt right to her, so "Jada Konti" lived on.
Ironically, within months "Jada" would encounter the rogue Lard Lad and be embroiled in the LMB's sphere again extensively. And she would eventually take on another identity vacated by a dead woman. But the LMB would never know the truth of what happened to Lard Lass...at least not anytime soon.
THE END (finally )
-------------------- "Suck it, depressos!"--M. Lash
From: The Underbelly of Society | Registered: Jul 2003
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posted
For anyone interested in where Nakia/Jada's story goes/went after this point, please see the following:
1) Turning Point Part Two, starting here, mentioned as a "green-hued prostitute" (a ruse), before being named and seeing action in subsequent chapters.
"Turning Point" in its entirety is some of the most significant character development I've ever done with Lardy. Nakia as Jada plays a significant supporting role in Part Two.
Jada begins appearing here after first being mentioned here and figures prominently in that story as it winds down. (This is IMO the best tag team thread ever done--check it out!) By the end Jada goes through quite a metamorphosis!
3) The Covenant is an unfinished (at this point) saga featuring Jada (in her new new identity!) playing a lead role.
posted
It should also be noted that in the first two on the list there is no reference to Jada's history as Nakia. That was all revealed here for the first time. As The Covenant eventually progresses, we'll see some direct references to this, I believe.
Thanks, and I hope you enjoyed! Better (extremely) late than never, right?
-------------------- "Suck it, depressos!"--M. Lash
From: The Underbelly of Society | Registered: Jul 2003
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posted
It's kind of like waiting for the trade paperback! I didn't read the initial sections until now.
The Lard Knights and the Lard Monastery - I love that!
But Nakia is the star and it's great to see how she used the Lard Force differently from the others. I'm just sorry to see that she felt she had to abandon her Lard Lass identity and hope that she may go back to it - and find some peace of mind with what happened on Wakanda.
posted
Thanks, FC. I hope the story makes it clear why Nakia took it so hard that she went the route she ended up taking. She felt that everything that made her Nakia M'Batu had been taken away and indeed never may have been very real in the first place.
It's difficult to see Nakia becoming a perfect companion in a Saucy Jones story, but you never know! If you read further (from the links), you'll see that her solution to her tragedies has been to adopt other people's identities. First Jada, and now Bat-Fem. Maybe something more whimsical will eventually cycle around!
As for the politics and structure of the Order of the Lard Knights, that was one of the aspects I enjoyed exploring the most. They are obviously very important to Lardy's past, present and future, so it was nice to look behind the curtain a little there. In the interim (between loooong breaks from this story), I wrote another piece that introduced a rejected Lard Knight who went on to become important to the LSH. Some schmuck named Chuck Taine! Loved writing that one!
Anyhow, I'm glad you enjoyed it! It was my first non-Lardycentric LMBverse story and the first one written completely narrative-style without dialogue. I'm not sure whether the story was better without dialogue, but I stuck with the initial choice I made.
I love getting feedback!
-------------------- "Suck it, depressos!"--M. Lash
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