Posted by The Hooded Hood appears from the mists of mystery to present: on February 03, 2001 at 12:39:21:
Troia’s 21st Birthday Spectacular #12 and A Dark and Stormy Night # 10 – the Conclusions: Troia 215 and the Big Bang
It was a dark and stormy night… “But Daddy, I don’t want to marry De Brown Streak. I don’t love him!” Troia 215 wailed as her birthday party went very wrong. The transfer went very well, except for the bit where the temporal feedback caused Vizh’s refrigerator to explode about quarter of an hour earlier. “How did I guess that Yo was going to give Troia a birthday rabbit?” the Hooded Hood wondered as he watched his daughter sitting happily in the middle of a circle of her friends. “What do you do with all the gift lapines anyway?” “Many happy returns, Troia,” De Brown Streak wished the Amazon administrator. “No hard feeling about me wanting to marry you then?” Visionary brought the Hooded Hood another drink and squatted down beside his chair. “I don’t suppose there’s any chance of you retconning my wall back before Cheryl gets home, is there?” he asked wistfully.
Suddenly the heavens flared and a bright shining star fell through the night sky and hammered down into the sea. Great clouds of steam blossomed across the Caribbean. When they dispersed there was no sign that a high-tech spacecraft had ever been knocked from the skies by an angry Shaper of Worlds called Wilbur Parody.
“The amount of things that crash into this planet,” the Shoggoth complained, “you would think somebody would invent a sort of space-lighthouse or something. If it’s not Makluan saucers it’s Gaaaah-capsules or Skree Sentinoids. We should at least charge for parking.”
The vast proptoplasmic blob eased the ruined vessel onto a nearby island so that any survivors could escape. When it was clear that nobody interesting was coming out of the wrecked vessel he slithered off into the ocean.
The Hooded Hood watched the Shoggoth go. Then he waited.
After a while the galleon appeared on the horizon. The cowled crime-czar continued to observe as it neared the island and two figures came ashore in a longboat. Many years later the Lair Legion would recognise them as Captain Lionmane and the Crazy Old Witch Lady. Guided by the witch’s arcane senses the unlikely pair found their way into the broken craft and retrieved the energy-transfer technology that would make them effectively immortal.
The Hood put the missing component from the device in his pocket and left.
“Oh, thanks,” DBS muttered. “Boost my self-confidence, won’t you?”
“But Troiacakes,” ManMan interrupted, “er, I mean, Troia, if you don’t marry him then the Hood won’t retcon the poison in all our friends’ bodies and they’ll die. And he said that if you’re not married by the time you’re twenty-one the world as we know it will be destroyed.”
“I’m confused,” Troia admitted.
CrazySugarFreakBoy! wasn’t so far gone in his intestinal pain that he would pass up an opportunity to see his dreams come true. “About you sexuality?” he asked hopefully. “Ziles is over there…”
“Shut up, CSFB!” spiffy writhed. “That’s my twin sister you’re talking about. And I’m not about to let dad force her into a marriage she doesn’t want.”
“Wait until you see what I have planned for your twenty-first birthday,” the Hooded Hood promised.
spiffy decided that it was safer to go back to retching.
“I mean, I’m confused by the sudden appearance of this bizarre witch-pirate amalgam monster in the middle of my birthday wedding party,” Troia explained. “It seemed somehow familiar.”
“That was the result of a freak power surge through the alien Z’Sox plot accelerator caused by De Brown Streak pushing the button inside Dancer’s altered probability field a few weeks back when you were all in Crusty Seaman Pete’s storm-washed tavern,” Xander the Improbable explained. “You won’t remember it because your father retconned it all.”
“That’s it!” Hatman shouted, stamping back into the room. Sorceress followed with a happy little smile, adjusting her blouse. “I’m playing my get-an-explanation-from-the-archvillain-free card. What the heck is going on?”
“I sort of remember something,” Dancer sort of remembered. “We all went to this tavern and told spooky stories about a… a treasure hunt? And then the lights went out?”
“I remember that bit,” agreed Ziles, slapping Trickshot again just to be certain.
“The villains intended to drain all the heroes’ super-life-forces into their machine,” Fin Fang Foom remembered.
Visionary’s ever-keen mind caught up with the story. “I got a starfish in my soup.”
“I got turned into a starfish,” a caped amoeba on the floor added.
“There was going to be a battle,” the Dark Knight frowned. “And then…”
“Then the plot accelerator cut in and things got a little wild,” the Hooded Hood explained. “And then Troia plunged her spear into the creature and all the plot energies coursed into her. I had only two options, to allow her to explode and take half the planet with her, or to retcon the whole event temporarily.”
“Temporarily?” Lisa puzzled. “Why only temporarily?”
“He only has so much retcon energies,” Sorceress guessed. “He could only delay things, not change them forever.”
“That is correct,” the cowled crime czar admitted. “And unless Troia shifts the energies by today she will indeed critically self-immolate and destroy the world.”
“But I still don’t understand,” the Amazon administrator objected. “Why do I have to get married to do that?”
“Kundalini,” Cobra guessed. “I imagine there is only one way to transfer those energies to another person.”
“Sex?” Lisa suggested. “I could stand in for Troia if it helps?”
“I have to have sex or the world dies?” Troia gasped.
“I’ll do it,” De Brown Streak promised. “Um, to save the planet, that is.”
“Wait a minute,” Exile objected. He was sensitive to the transfer or energies. “Won’t the transfer just mean that her lover will explode instead?”
“Oh yes,” the Hooded Hood agreed, “but we can always teleport somebody else into space.”
“Er…” DBS objected.
“I’m not teleporting anybody anywhere,” G-Eyed insisted. “Not if they’re going to die.”
“Then you’d better start looking for a new planet,” the Hood advised him.
“Fear not, fair Troia,” Donar assured the Amazon. “I canst not yet see how yon situation wilt be resolved by a right good smiting, but I assurest thee that as soon as it becometh clear, I shalt smite it right verily for the nonce.”
“I am getting some pretty weird energy readings from Troia after that monster-pirate-witch thing attacked,” NTU-150 warned. “I think she’s going to go critical.”
“At least you don’t have to be getting married, cute birthday-Troia” Yo consoled his/her friend. “You are only to being to have nookie.”
Banjooooo caught the Hooded Hood’s expression. “Er… I think marriage is, in fact, a prerequisite,” the sea-monkey noted hastily.
“But then I explode!” wailed De Brown Streak.
“Yeah. That’s what I call a bang,” Nats snickered.
The Hooded Hood gestured for Josiah M’Tuba, the infamous if unheard-of Voodoo Vicar, to step forward. “I have no greater wish to see my daughter coupled with this worthless nonentity Clement than any of you have,” the cowled crime-czar admitted, “so if any of you have any better ideas about saving the world you’d better speak now.”
“Why is it every time I deliver stuff to the LL the world starts to end?” Nats complained. “Er, would you sign for this, Vizh.”
“I thought you were getting pizza,” Space Ghost objected, with a fine grasp of the situation.
“I got called in for an emergency delivery. Just sign will you, Vizh. He’s heavy.”
Visionary had already put his name on the clipboard before his ears caught up. “He? What have you delivered?”
“Ah. Hello.” Deathstar Druid smiled weakly. “Howd’ya’do?”
“You’ve delivered a… what is that?” Hatman wondered.
“I’m Deathstar Druid,” Deathstar Druid explained.
“And that means…?” Ziles prompted.
“I don’t actually know,” the Druid admitted. “I appear to be short on a few details. Like an origin. An appearance. Powers. Background. That sort of thing.”
“Personality,” Trickshot added. “Hey, just helping wit’ the exposition.”
“Where did you pick him up from, Nats?” Finny wanted to know.
“I had to go all the way to the Turquoise Area of the Moon,” the flying delivery-boy answered. “To that strange old city built by the Skree to house all that left-over Celestian technology.”
“That’s where he was engineered,” Xander explained. “To be a complete nonentity, with the power to be overlooked and forgotten on all occasions.”
“Hey, I’m here you know!” Deathstar Druid objected.
Everyone looked surprised. They’d forgotten that.
“Ah,” the Hooded Hood understood. “Recently I retconned the Scourge of the BZL out of existence – except for Pegasus for whom I have a use. I had noted that the Late, Great, Donald Blake’s cane had already adopted a new servant, but I had not appreciated that the force which motivated The Man Who Wasn’t There had also remanifested using the technology which originally spawned it.”
“Er…” Deathstar Druid said.
“And the customer commissioning the delivery was undoubtedly Xander,” the Dark Knight surmised; but the master of the mystic crafts had shuffled off and was nowhere to be found.
“He did his bit stopping the Crusty Sea Ghost Witch,” Dancer shrugged. “Now we’ve got to use the clue he’s given us to figure out a way to save Troia from having to marry DBS.”
“Hey!” objected the sepia speedster again.
“Would it help if I slept with Troia?” Deathstar Druid asked politely. “It might be worth dying for.”
“Hey, if there’s going to be a raffle…” CSFB! offered.
“I have my birthday spear here,” Troia reminded the male population.
“Of course!” the Hood suddenly exclaimed. “That’s how it was done!”
“How what was done?” Troia asked nervously.
“How the Shaper of Worlds downed the Z’Sox starship to prevent it interfering with human destiny. The Turquoise Area’s automated defences must have activated, prompted by a freak surge of immense energy. Interpreting that as an attack, the defence computers launched a counteroffensive on the passing Z’Sox vessel.”
“What freak surge of energy?” Dynamite Boy questioned, spotting his area of expertise.
“The surge caused by the incredible Dancer-caused improbability of Exile transferring energy from Troia into Deathstar Druid who is a product of that city’s Celestian technology, and of Goldeneyed teleporting the Druid back in time to deliver that energy to the City on the Moon.”
“To set the whole cycle going again,” considered Finny.
“And then we smite something?” checked Donar.
“So I don’t have to have sex?” Troia sounded slightly disappointed.
“Well, it might be smart to practise for next time this sort of situation comes up,” ManMan murmured to her.
“And, er, what happens to me?” Deathstar Druid worried.
“Oh, we forget all about you,” the Hooded Hood assured him.
“You’re a living temporal anomaly generated by Celestian technology,” Enty advised the Druid. “You’ll probably survive this. You’ll probably return some day.”
“Sort of like Harbinger in Crisis on Infinite Earths,” CSFB! enthused.
“And we’ll still forget about you,” grinned Trickshot.
“And then the Hood won’t have to poison us and Troia won’t have to get married,” spiffy added hopefully.
“Well, let’s get on with it then,” Troia prompted them testily. “I still have presents to open, you know.”
“We send them back to the Happy Place using Enty’s Happy Place portal,” Lisa whispered. “I think that particular bunny must have been boxed up about eighty times by now. Now it’s my turn to make a guess.”
The cowled crime-czar turned his glowing green eyes upon the amorous advocatrix. “Yes?”
“I guess that you knew all along that Xander had some kind of back-up plan to prevent Troia from having to marry and one of the heroes from having to explode. You were just playing the heavy father to prompt things along, weren’t you.”
“You might think that, Lisa,” the Hood replied, “but I couldn’t possibly comment.”
“And,” the first lady of the Lair Legion continued, “I guess that you knew about that Z’Sox device all along as well, and you could have prevented things going this far if you’d wanted to.”
“Why would I allow things to get this far, my dear Lisa?” the Hood shrugged.
“Because you wanted the Turquoise Area to create Deathstar Druid for some devious future purpose?” Lisa suggested. “Because there are some things that only a man who has no identity and whom everyone always forgets can do?”
The Hood almost smiled. “What man are you speaking of, Miss Waltz?”
“I… I don’t know,” puzzled Lisa. “What was I saying?”
“You were about to suggest eating some cake?”
“Oh, oh yes,” Lisa brightened. “Oh Manny…!”
“You may live,” Troia assured him. “For now.”
“You figure I might have to sleep with some hot chick on my twenty-first birthday to save the planet?” spiffy asked hopefully.
“All those who think that will happen raise one hand,” Banjooooo suggested.
spiffy went back to his coke.
“Folks, I give you a toast,” Dancer suggested. “To Troia. May she always be twenty-one in the Parodyverse.”
The heroes of the Parodyverse raised their glasses. “Happy birthday Troia.”
At his feet a caped amoeba bounced up and down hopefully.