Tales of the Parodyverse

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Dancer had to run 8 miles to post this, so you all better reply!!
Tue Oct 11, 2005 at 08:23:11 am EDT
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Far Away - Part 12?? - with a warning for graphic baddie-bashing :-)
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    “Hello? Is anyone to be being here?”

    Yes.

    “Who is to be talking?”

    I do not recall. Something claws at my mind, robbing me of associations.

    “This one is also to be not remembering who this one is. Or what this one is.”

    You appear to be an entity of pure thought.

    “That is cute. You appear to be being a big bubbling monster thing.”

    You’re probably not seeing my good side. It doesn’t stick into this dimension much.

    “This one has been trying out places to be, but none of the people who are to be visiting are wanting to be this one.”

    You wish to root yourself in a mortal psyche so as to avail yourself of linear thought and perception, and to have a referential experience base to help formulate your character.

    “Is to be so. This one is not knowing who this one is or why this one came here.”

    I am also bereft. There is pain, but I am bound and cannot retaliate.

    “Maybe this one is to be helping? This one has been to be helping of other cute-beings who are to be in trouble, especially cute probability-twisting girl who is to be escaping of uncute bad man. And also brave girl who is to be helping her love to be fighting of nasty General.”

    It occurs to me that we could aid each other, thought being. My memory is being denied to me by psionic barrage and so is yours. But if we each were to access the other’s mind…

    “Is good plan. Let us be doing of it.”

    Ready?

    “Ready.”

    Go.



___




    Miles shattered the force cube, knowing the feedback would kill a woman he was coming to care for a great deal, and maybe the fallen hero who hadn’t awoken from injuries taken saving Miles from death. Miles had to.

    Torkamahda, the Minister of Torments, looked up in surprise as one of the prisoners broke free; but then his face twisted into a mask of amusement. “Interesting choice,” he congratulated the escapee.

    Miles clawed up a section of floor and used it to shatter the remote control that would have created a new, stronger force field to contain him anew. He’d been paying very close attention.

    Torkamarda fell back from the dissection wrack where he was punishing his failed servant Gloriana, fumbling for his instruments of inquisition. He triggered a spray of agony barbs to entangle his attacker.

    Miles avoided them effortlessly, and then he was on the Minister. His first blow hammered Torkamarda back into his computer banks. His second shattered the thick aviation goggles on the torturer’s hood.

    “So, you want to play,” hissed the Minister, heaving Miles away from him. “Do you know how many way I can hurt you, little Terran?” He gestured and dozens of remote pain nodes spiked into Miles’ flesh.

    Miles fist hit him with eleven hundred pounds per square inch, enough to hammer straight through four inch plate steel.

    The Minister willed his chest to re-knit itself and responded with an energy barrage. He was unused to physical combat, but as a member of the Ruling Caste he was bioengineered for strength, endurance, and dexterity. No primitive could stand against him.

    Miles kept on coming. Torkemarda felt his front teeth shatter, tasted his own blood. So that’s what it tastes like. Interesting.

    The Minister discharged more of his personal bioenergies to fry the upstart before him.

    Miles grunted, ignored his blistering skin, and cracked Torkemahda’s ribs again.

    And for the first time, Torkamarda looked into the face of the man attacking him. For the first time he saw what so many of his victims had seen: the face of death. Eyes so bleak they could freeze a world. Rage so hot it could incinerate a galaxy. Hate and loathing directed right at him.

    Torkamarda felt the first tiny splash of fear.

    Miles kept coming. No matter how much punishment the Minister poured into him, how much he hurt the man, he kept coming. He didn’t speak. He didn’t stop. He kept coming.

    He intended to kill the Minister. He wasn’t going to stop until one of them was dead.

    It was time to end this ridiculous brawl. And not like this Neanderthal with the muscles. Like the smartest man on Apocalyspe. Then it would be time for vengeance. He voice-keyed the lab defences to bring the Terran down. “Defence proced…” the Minister began.

    Miles shattered his jaw.

    The Minister’s pain suppression abilities failed and his body was suddenly racked with agony. He enjoyed giving pain. He didn’t enjoy receiving it. “How dareth you?” he lisped. He struck back, enhancing his blow with biokinetic pain streamers, hurling Miles across the room.

    The escapee rose and came in again, fast. But not fast enough to stop Torkamarda hitting the alarm button.

    Miles reached out and broke the Minister’s arm.

    The hatch opened and a couple of dozen Soldiers poured into the room, the first of the Elite Squads always standing ready to attend the Minister’s needs. “Geth him!” Torquemada screamed, pointing with his remaining good arm at the Terran. “Alive!”

    Miles grabbed a handful of wall and hurled it.

    “Mitthed!” crowed the minister, dodging behind the Soldiers while he used his remaining store of bioenergies to regenerate himself.

    The rubble skimmed past the torturer and demolished the panel that controlled the force cube prisons. The other captives tumbled out.

    “Not so much!” snarled Miles.



___




    The Deputy Watch Officer for the Secondary Command Centre was having a bad time. Not only had Primary Command Centre been wrecked by a hurled battle tank, not only had there been a near blister-burst, and an incursion at Gate 9, and critical damage in the Arena section to clear up, but now there was a Priority One alert in the minister’s own laboratories.

    So he wasn’t ready for another emergency call from Dome 91. “What?” he snapped fiercely, before he realised who was calling.

    “Ahh!” he whimpered, coming to attention. “I’m sorry Granny, I didn’t realise… I didn’t know…”

    “Never mind that now, my sweetness,” Granny Grimness told him. “Perhaps you’d like to fix your attention on the eleventh space quadrant and tell me what you’re picking up, boy.”

    Watch-Commander Krassh nearly objected that he was handling a multiple emergency situation, but then the old wounds on his back reminded him that wasn’t a good idea. “Yes Granny.” He glared at one of the tech drones. “Well do it!”

    “What are you picking up there, my dumpling?” Granny asked.

    “It appears to be… an incursion. Somebody is invading Apocalyspe space!”

    “Why so they are, my piskie! And what exactly is invading Apocalyspe space, can you tell me, my dove?”

    Krassh looked furiously at the techhie until he got his answer.

    “S-sir,” stammered the tech drone. “It appears to be… a Type 9 Lozir Enterprises Nebula Galactibus. Nicely restored.”

    “And?” Granny prompted.

    “And a Terran Austernal Paragon Class Exploration and Reconnaissance Vehicle. I didn’t know there were any of them left in service.”

    “And?” Granny was starting to sound dangerously angry.

    “And… a giant robot arm, moving at warp speed!”

    Commander Kraash turned to the screen. “Granny, I will initiate transnuclear countermeasures at once. I…”

    “And what else is there, my pet, my atomie, my beautiful darling poppet?” Granny demanded terribly.

    The techhie cringed. “There appears to be… a mythological impossibility in a primitive chariot being pulled by two angry herbivores.” He was going to die anyway, so he added, “And the whole lot appears to be riding some kind of major temporal anomaly that is phasing them through our defences as if they weren’t there.”

    “Correct,” snapped Granny Grimness. “And do you know why these intruders are cutting through our defences and making war on our planet when we’re all so distracted we can’t even be bothered to properly guard our front doors? Do you?”

    “Because… Er, no Granny,” Commander Kraash admitted.

    “It is because…” thundered Granny. But her wisdom was never to be imparted to Commander Krassh, because just then she disappeared, summonsed across space into the very Galactibus that was hurtling towards Apocalyspe.

    Lisa wanted to have a word with her.

    And then the alarms went off in the Psycheworm Chamber



___




    The Runner went straight for the Soldiers in blind fury, hurling them back into the walls at a hundred miles an hour. Canada ran across to the examination table where his belt lay and pulled it on. Sarah dragged the unmoving form of Robogirl towards the wall.

    “Now this is more like it!” Trickshot approved, kicking an incoming Soldier in the gut. He pinned another to the wall with a casual toss of the first one’s battle-scythe, then retrieved his bow and arrows from the exam table too.

    The Seeker drones started to deploy, ready to use their digitisers to disassemble the team. Trickshot took down six in rapid succession. Then he growled and fired a seventh shot, right at Gloriana’s heart. “I’m sorry, kid. That’s the best I kin do for you.”

    And then a red fury came over him.

    Doc looked stunned for a moment, then saw the woman in the kimono fumbling to detach a power feed from the wall. “That won’t be any good to electrocute anyone!” he warned her.

    “I don’t want to electrocute anyone,” she called back. “My cyborg friend here is dying!”

    Doc ran over and whistled softly at the sophisticated woman-shaped hardware at Sarah’s feet. “Well look, the primary access port’s shredded. You can’t help her that way. If only someone’s thought to design in a secondary energy processing mesh somewhere that… yes, There! Just where I’d have put it! Attach the cable there!”

    A trio of massive hairy Ferret Warriors lunged in to take down Sarah and Doc, the easy kills. Canada got in their way, his Bulls cap on his head. He slammed the Growlies back with all the force he could muster. It turned out to be quite a lot.

    There was a loud explosion that sent almost everyone in the room flying. The Doom Tube opened and the reinforcements arrived.

    “About time!” Torkamarda snarled at Splendiferous Stuart, General Steppenstoat, and Kwatrain. “Deal with them!”

General Steppenstoat grabbed Hatman and hammered him to the floor with his cosmic glaive. Splendiferous Stuart went straight for Sarah. Kwatrain spent a moment looking round, then decided to take down the Runner first then Miles and Trickshot.

    And Miles ignored it all and went on smashing his fists into Torkamarda. Through Torkamarda.

    Torkamarda was going down.



___




    They lay in their cribs, row upon row of them, telepaths identified at birth and set aside for military duties. Their limbs were amputated, because they’d never need to do anything but be linked together through the Minister’s machines to act as a massive psionic weapon. Pale and shrivelled, almost mindless except for their reflex to avoid pain, they had been set to maintain the amnesia that now crippled the Terran champions.

    The Med-Techs who maintained them saw it as a low priority job. Sometimes late at night they’re torment the psycheworms with cigarettes or electroprods, just to pass the time. And then a psycheworm would open its toothless mouth and scream.

    They’d never screamed all at once before.

    And as they screamed, translucent jelly bubbled from their mouths. The slime poured everywhere, impossible amounts of it, congealing together and joining up and washing outwards towards the monitoring stations and the Med-Techs themselves.

    And then the Med-Techs started screaming.

    The massive writhing biomass kept swelling until they were all swallowed in its depths. A few of the brighter Med-Techs realised in horror that this was the elder being that was supposedly imprisoned in an elder sign upstairs. It wasn’t.

    Elder signs don’t restrain beings that can detour through the Happy Place.

    And then a terrible, sanity-shredding voice rang through all their minds: You have all to have been very, very naughty!



___




    Glowing Bouncing Boy lay on the floor where he’d fallen when the force cube shattered. He couldn’t move because of his spinal injuries. He was fairly sure he’d got twenty or thirty other broken bones from the backlash of Miles breaking the cage. His face was already one livid bloody bruise. He watched the battle as the tide turned against his friends.

    Canada was being slowly seared to death by Steppenstoat’s cosmic glaive. Every time the hero tried to grab another hat the General was faster. Steppenstoat was just playing now, capitalising on his opponent’s lack of experience in using his powers. Canada didn’t stand a chance.

    Kwatrain was taking on the Runner and Trickshot. He’d already hit the fast-moving black man with some kind of neural poison that deadened the Runner’s leg and was workings its way through his accelerated metabolism towards his heart. The archer had been holding his own until he’d run out of arrows.

    And Splendiferous Stuart was slapping Sarah about with a joyful, vengeful abandon. He was enjoying every minute of it.

    The few remaining guards had already clubbed Doc down.

    And Miles… He wasn’t even sure how Miles was still alive. Torkamarda had renewed himself to full health. Now he’d got his brutal furry henchmen pinning his enemy while he laid about him with a molecular whip, literally flaying Miles to death.

    “We can’t lose now,” Glowing Bouncing Boy whispered desperately. “We’re the heroes. We have to win. We have to save the day!”

    And just then he thought of a much better code name for himself. He should really be called… CrazySugarFreakBoy! That would be so cool! The wired wonder! The candy champion! The sucrose superman! Your friendly, neighbourhood CrazySugarFreakBoy!

    And just like that he knew…

    He was your friendly neighbourhood CrazySugarFreakBoy!, Dreamcatcher Kokopelli Foxglove, of the Lair Legion!

    Eleven floors below, every psycheworm simultaneously convulsed and went catatonic as their minds were shifted to the Happy Place. Yo was merciful, and the Happy Place was always there for those who were wretched and miserable. And with the psycheworms gone, their amnesiac mental transmissions were likewise gone.

    Only the scientists who’d perpetrated the outrages remained to face the Shoggoth’s wrath.

    Back on level 118-A, Stuart gestured to have the robo-drones pin Sarah to the wall for the next phase of her punishment. He was surprised when she dropped low, avoided them, and kicked one of them spinning into his groin.

    “I remember,” said the Probability Dancer. “I remember!”

    And by pure chance every robotic combat drone, ever electronic weapon, every combat system, or security system, or locking mechanism in the dome short-circuited simultaneously.

    And then every robotic combat drone, ever electronic weapon, every combat system, or security system, or locking mechanism on the entire planet went down.

    And then Dancer went in at Splendiferous Stuart.

    Canada let the General knock him back one last time, then did something unexpected. Without any cap on at all he barrelled into Kwatrain from behind, leaving Trickshot a moment to get his hands on a tray of Torkamada’s scalpels.

    Kwatrain launched a set of his combat dice to avoid the incoming missiles, but the Runner caught them out of the air. The scalpels slashed across the assassin, embedding themselves into his legs and arm.

    Dr Al B. Harper broke free for the guards who were pinning him and lunged to turn on the inbuilt pain transmitters in the Minister’s scalpels. Kwatrain folded over in agony.

    Splendiferous Stuart tried to strike Sarah, increasing his speed so she had no chance of stopping him at all. “No probability twisting can save you now,” he promised.

     “Oh no?” Dancer asked vengefully. “You think? Do you even understand who you’re messing with here?”

    Yuki Shiro jumped to her feet and plunged both her hands into Stuart’s back and ripped out his spine.

     “He does now.”

    De Brown Streak slowed General Steppenstoat down. Hatman pulled on his Steelers cap and broke the General’s nose yet again.

    Miles just heaved on the Growlies holding him, lifting them from the ground and using them as shields against the Minister’s lash, then as bludgeons to knock him back. And then he shook them off and grabbed the Minister of Torments by the throat.

    “Please…” choked Torkamarda. “Remember… who you are!”

    “I do.”

    Mr Epitome ripped the Minister’s head off and hurled it across the room. It thudded off a wall and span to a halt at the bottom of the rack where Gloriana’s corpse looked down on it.

     “Did we just… win?” asked Al B. Harper.

    And then another Doom Tube blast rocked the lab.

    The Master of Apocalyspe had arrived.

     “Lair Legion…” shouted Hatman, and the words felt good in his mouth. “Line up!”








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