The LEGO Infinite DC Story - Chapter One (Sneak Peek)

Chapter One: Enter the Void!

We built this city
We built this city on rock and roll
Built this city
We built this city on rock and roll!

            When it came to singing and playing the guitar, Si had the best voice and hands in the business. She would be a sensation on stage. Alas, her only audience was a little Mogwai who delighted in listening to her music while munching on a cookie.

            “Say, ‘You don’t know me or recognize my face’…Say, ‘You don’t care who goes to that kind of place’,” Si sang the lyrics to her newest tune, with Gizmo dancing all around the TARDIS console room. “Marconi plays the Mamba, listen to the radio! Don’t you remember? We built this city…we built this city on rock and rolllllllll!!!”

            BOOM!

            Heavy turbulence knocked Si and Gizmo down – not to mention interrupt what was a jazzy music session!

            “The Infinite D.C. – my biggest critic,” Si jested.

            The problem, however, turned out to be more serious than she thought, as soon as the cloister bell tolled. Her TARDIS’s emergency alert system had informed her of strong interference brewing from within the infinite dimensional corridor itself. She saw it on the monitor in the form of a massive electrical ball of energy.

            “Uh-oh!” Gizmo fearfully chirped.

            Si agreed with the little Mogwai’s reaction. “You said it right, lil’ buddy! We need to get out of here now!” She worked like crazy, trying to vwoorp (as her people – the Time Lords – called it when a TARDIS disappears and reappears) out of the dimensional corridor.

            But, no matter how many levers she pulled and buttons she pressed, the electrical interference kept her TARDIS stuck in place.

            By then, it was too late. Her TARDIS was caught in the electric energy ball.

            Si and Gizmo received a huge shock that knocked both of them out.

            When Si woke up, minutes later, she saw an intruder standing right in the middle of her console room. He was dressed-up in white bandages, including those wrapped around his head, somewhat covering his hideous greenish face. On his chest was some sort of device that Si figured to be for some medical purpose.

            “Who are you?” she asked the mummified stranger.

            He said only one word: “Void.”

            Lifting his left arm, she unleashed a bolt of lightning out of his hand that struck Si, paralyzing her with a painful jolt.

            “I am taking your TARDIS to find an old friend,” he declared, “and make him pay for what he has done to me.”

---------------

            Bricksburg was the one realm Neas loved to visit, especially for its coffee. Brewed just the way he liked it, he shared it with his friends, Rania (a regeneration of his Time Lord father, Aznavorian, a.k.a. “The Tinkerer”) and Al-Lee Kirsch (a human from his home planet of Gallifrey).

            As delighted as she was to taste such amazing coffee, Rania couldn’t help but to make a minor complaint: “It sure is ridiculously expensive. Thirty-seven dollars a cup? That’s outrageous!”

            “I know, but it’s so darn tasty,” Neas said, taking a big sip. “Ahhh! It sure is great to finally spend some time with you, Pop.”

            Rania chuckled. “But, Neas, we see each other all the time – or all the times.”

            “Yeah, but I almost never see this version of you.” Neas gestured up and down at her frame.

            “Meh, this regeneration is the same as all my other lives,” Rania said. “Superior intellect, acerbic wit, quick-tempered, strange admiration for wearing tight pants…There’s nothing really new about this version of me – except for maybe how much I love the color green. Before this body, I’d always been a violet type of person.”

            Al-Lee nearly choked on her coffee. “You were a violent person?!”

            “No, no, sweetheart, I was a violet person,” Rania reiterated. “That means I liked the color violet.”

            “Ah, that makes more sen—”

            KA-BLAM!

            All of the sudden, a huge explosion from outside broke through the coffee shop. It was an unusual type of explosion – exploding outward instead of inward. Bricks were detached from the shop’s foundation, floating towards the culprit of the attack: a green-faced stranger wrapped head-to-toe in bandages.

            He possessed some kind of telekinetic power, moving pieces of the coffee shop and every other structure around him, including vehicles, trees, park benches, and even cats! They all levitated over him in a huge cyclone.

            “Aznavorian!” The stranger bellowed. “I know you are in this world! I sense your very presence! Come out and face me, old friend!”

            Neas angrily slammed down his coffee cup. “So much for a pleasant afternoon!”

            He was just about to leap into action with Al-Lee by his side, until three other individuals were way ahead of them.

            A construction worker, a girl dressed in black stylish clothing, and…

            “Is that Batman?!” Al-Lee noticed of the third individual.

            The three brave characters attempted to tackle the telekinetic villain to the ground. Unfortunately, his power was greater than theirs, and he used it to construct a cage around them.

            “Oh, this is so not cool!” Batman griped.

            The bandaged villain grew more relentless. “AZNAVORIAN!!!!!!!!”

            “Why does he keep calling out your father’s name?” Al-Lee asked Neas.

            “I don’t wanna find out,” Neas replied. “Let’s just take him down!”

            Rania watched helplessly as her son and his companion charged out of the wrecked coffee shop and towards the villain. Their effort was just as futile as the three brave souls from before. They were caught in the cyclone that was increasing in size, much to Rania’s horror.

            She couldn’t stand to let this chaos go on any longer.

            “VOID! STOP!”

            Her command was loud enough to carry over all the screaming and crashing. The villain she addressed as “Void” immediately ceased in his telekinetic attack. The cyclone disappeared and everything caught up inside it fell back to the ground, including Neas and Al-Lee…and, of course, the cats (lucky they land on their feet).

            Rania stepped out into the street, boldly staring down Void.

            “I’m who you’re looking for,” she said. “I’m Aznavorian.”

            Void approached her, his hands sparking with electricity. Getting a close look at her beautiful young face, he sensed that she was telling the truth. “You are Aznavorian…but you are not the Aznavorian that I seek. Don’t think for a second that means you are safe. Soon, this form of you will no longer exist, once I find your original!”

            At that declaration, he disappeared into a vortex of his design, leaving the people of Bricksburg unsettled from the frightening experience.

            With Void gone, Neas and Al-Lee rushed over to check on Rania.

            “Pop, are you O.K.?” Neas asked her.

            “Never mind me,” Rania said. “Are you two O.K.?”

            “Nothing a little more of that expensive coffee can’t cure,” Al-Lee joked.

            Neas, on the other hand, took things more seriously. “Pop, who was that guy?”

            “Someone that I thought was lost forever,” Rania answered.

            “Well, it certainly looks like he was found again,” Neas said, surveying the damage that Void brought to the once-orderly city of Bricksburg. In doing so, his attention was drawn to the still-caged heroes that tried to help stop Void.

            “Uh, could you guys maybe help us out here?” the woman in black requested.

            Neas took out his sonic screwdriver and, with the press of a button, reduced the cage Void trapped the three brave souls in to nothing more than a pile of bricks.

            “Hey, that’s a neat trick,” the construction worker said with a smile.

            “I would’ve done it a second ago,” Batman ungratefully moaned. “My utility belt has something just like what that guy has. It just, you know, would’ve taken too long to get it ready.”

            “Who are you guys?” Neas asked the trio of heroes. “I mean, Batman we know, obviously. But who are you two?”

            “My name’s Emmet,” the construction worker eagerly introduced himself before introducing his lady friend in black. “And this is Lucy – my girlfriend.” He appeared especially giddy in adding that other bit of detail.

            “You can call me ‘Wyldstyle’,” Lucy said. “And we’ve got some questions of our own. For starters, why was that mummy after this lady in the tight pants?”

            Realizing the “lady in the tight pants” Wyldstyle spoke of was her, Rania replied, “A long time ago, there was this accident, and…”

            A loud groan interrupted Rania’s story.

            Everyone turned towards the noise to see a teenaged girl that had wandered their way with her hand clasped against the side of her head. Rania, seeming to be the only one to have recognized her, went to the girl’s aid.

            “Si, where did you come from?” she asked her.

            “That dude with the green face brought me here,” Si said. “He took control of my TARDIS and said that he was coming after you.”

            Neas curiously walked up to the girl. “Did you just say, ‘my TARDIS’?”

            “Yeah,” Si confirmed. “My TARDIS…your TARDIS…both our TARDIS.”

            “She’s you, sweetheart,” Rania told Neas. “She’s a future regeneration of you.”

            He looked on the girl in wide-eyed disbelief. “But she’s…a kid!”

            “Gee, thanks,” Si sarcastically said. “Look, we can make fun of my youthful appearance later. That Void dude is going after Pop’s original self, and we need to find him, so we can stop him.”

            “I think I know just how we can track him,” Rania said. “Thank goodness he left us with your TARDIS, Si.”

            “Yeah, why did he even need a TARDIS in the first place, when he can create his own vortexes?” Neas questioned.

NEXT WEEK!