Deathstalker 04 - Deathstalker Honor

movie.
    Action-packed and vastly simplified, it made billions of credits for all concerned, except those on whose lives it was based, and was quickly followed by many more, of varying quality and accuracy. From Toby Shreck’s prize-winning coverage to wild fantasies that didn’t even always get the names right, the public ate it all up with spoons.
    The most recent, and most popular of all, movie claimed to be a biography of Owen Deathstalker, in which he was portrayed throughout as a saintly and selfless hero, and his associate Hazel d’Ark was a murderous psychopath, barely restrained from constant mayhem and bloodshed by her undying doglike devotion to Owen.
    Owen and Hazel were sent free tickets to the premiere, so they went to see it, entirely unsuspecting.
    Owen laughed so much he hurt himself, and was finally asked to leave by an usher, because he was disturbing the rest of the audience. Hazel stuck it out to the end, gripping the arms of her chair so tightly that her hands ached. When the film was finally over, she set fire to the cinema. Luckily Owen got to her before the city guards did, and hustled her away while the firefighters were still trying to keep the fire from spreading. He then took away all her weapons, wrestled her to the ground, and sat on her until she promised not to hunt down and kill everyone concerned with making the movie. As Owen very reasonably pointed out, such actions would only tend to vindicate the movie’s portrayal of her.
    It hadn’t helped that Owen had been played by a major star and heartthrob, while Hazel had been played by an ex-porn star with more looks than talent and a quite astonishing cleavage.
    So, when a reporter in full battle armor raised the question of the movie, everyone else backed hastily away so that blood wouldn’t get on them. Hazel grabbed a hovering camera out of midair and threw it with devastating accuracy. It hit the reporter right between the eyes and knocked him cold. Owen
    moved quickly in and pinned her arms to her sides from behind. The reporters watched interestedly from what they hoped was a safe distance until Owen had more or less calmed Hazel down, and then they edged forward again, stepping over the unconscious body of their fallen fellow seeker after truth and ratings. Sensibly, they changed the subject. Unfortunately, they picked merchandising. The mass audience’s appetite for celebrity being what it was, even the endless series of movies and documentaries weren’t enough to satisfy their interest in the new heroes. They also showed an insatiable readiness to buy enough general junk based on the movies and their characters to cover a small moon several miles deep. Said junk ranged from the truly tasteless to the appallingly cheap and nasty, and Owen and Hazel did their best to take no notice of any of it, as long as their royalties kept coming in. That was about to change. “Have we seen what?” said Owen, and then rather wished he hadn’t, as the reporter held up a small plastic figure.
    “There’s a whole line of them,” said the reporter cheerfully. “Fully posable action figures, of all the main characters in the rebellion. They’re very popular. Especially the Empress figure. People like to do terrible things to it.”
    He produced more of the figures and passed them forward for Owen and Hazel to examine. They were cast in bright primary colors, with identical muscular figures and politely generic faces. Certainly they resembled absolutely no one Owen knew. He looked at Hazel.
    “Did we authorize these?”
    “Who knows?” said Hazel, glaring at the huge breasts on the figure supposed to represent her. “We signed all kinds of agreements. I lost track.” “They’re harmless enough,” said Owen. “Tacky but harmless.” “Either way, we’d better check this out,” said Hazel. “There’s supposed to be a hell of a lot of money in this market, and if there is I want my share. Which one’s supposed to be Ruby?”
    “Uh, the one with all the guns,” said the reporter. “Nothing like her,” said Hazel. “And she couldn’t even carry that many weapons at once. She’d fall over. Mind you, with breasts that size, she’d probably fall over anyway. Hell, no one has breasts that size outside the House of Joy.” “Is there a lot of this stuff out there?” said Owen, handing the toys back to the reporter.
    “Well, yes, sir Deathstalker. There are lunch boxes, posters, games… These are quite popular just