Tales of the Parodyverse

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CrazySugarFreakBoy!
Sat Sep 16, 2006 at 10:53:04 pm EDT
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Judging Jury, Fearing Phobia (Tie-In to Untold Tales of the Lair Legion #284: Cabin Fever)
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Judging Jury, Fearing Phobia (Tie-In to Untold Tales of the Lair Legion #284: Cabin Fever)

“Hello, Jury,” the former Doomherald of the Parody Master greeted the former Shaper of Worlds, within Herringcarp Asylum. “That was a neat trick.”

“Exu,” Jury recognized, even before she turned to face the source of the voice, who had intruded upon the Hooded Hood’s inner sanctum without her noticing. “Are you here to kill me?” she inquired, trying to keep her own voice even.

The God of Murder of the Second Oldest Race didn’t feel like waiting for Jarvis’ ex-lover to work up the courage to meet his unblinking gaze, so he simply went to her with broad, brisk strides, before bending over and craning his neck in an oddly birdlike gesture to prevent her downcast eyes from evading him. His slightly wavy, close-cropped, salt-and-pepper hair and matching beard stubble suggested an age contrary to the somewhat younger look of his jowly, pudgy cheeks, even as his towering height, paunchy-yet-muscular frame, and penetrating stare conveyed a sense of his power. However, what Jury found herself most unnerved by was his smirk, which managed to seem less mischievous and more menacing.

“Why would I want to kill you?” Exu chuckled, playing with her like a predator with his prey. “After all, I’m no longer an emissary of the Parody Master, and you of all people should know that I was never indiscriminate in my role in the cosmology of the Second Oldest Race.” His grin was growing and twisting into a snarl, just as his teasing tone was taking on an edge of hostility. “In fact, because that role dates back to one of the multiple-choice beginnings of the Parodyverse, you of all people would know more about it than anyone else, since your specialty as Shaper was all about beginnings, wasn’t it?”

Jury swallowed hard and struggled not to tremble. “Even the Shapers have possessed an extremely limited knowledge of the Second Oldest Race since its extinction,” she insisted.

“But what few facts you did know, you were sure to share with your newest best friend, weren’t you?” Exu accused angrily, his persistent smile now resembling an animal baring its fangs. “Was sharing that inside information part of the cost of your rent here?”

Jury stiffened her spine and inhaled sharply. “I didn’t know what he planned to do –”

“DON’T YOU LIE TO ME!” Exu bellowed suddenly, rushing toward Jury to meet her, almost literally, nose to nose. “The God of Murder hasn’t been the only important role I’ve played in the Parodyverse since it began. Even if you didn’t know that for certain, which I find hard to believe, you must have suspected it, thanks to your special insights as Shaper, and once your pretentious landlord started sniffing around my history, that tip-off must have proven those suspicions, especially for someone as smart as you.” He breathed heavily in and out for a moment, his body slowly expanding and contracting like a bellows, which appeared to calm his temper a bit. “You must have known what someone as smart as him could do, even with such seemingly incomplete and insignificant fragments.”

“Maybe I did suspect what he intended to do to you,” Jury steeled herself, setting her jaw sternly even as a quaver crept into her inflection. “Then again, based on what I did know of your checkered past, maybe I thought it couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy.”

Exu blinked at Jury’s show of bravery, then burst into a fit of laughter. “Oh, well, Bravo Zulu,” he continued to giggle, his flinty eyes twinkling with a disquieting mirth. “I’d be prouder of your boldness, except that I doubt you were motivated by such strong principles when you first realized that the Hooded Hood planned to retcon me into serving as the Parody Master’s Doomherald.” He shrugged simply. “It was just easier to take his word for it, that the end justified the means, wasn’t it?”

“I couldn’t confirm his intentions until it was too late to change his course of action, but yes, you’re right, once I’d verified what he wanted to do, I didn’t disagree with it,” Jury justified herself, with increasing vigor and volume. “The continued existence of the Parodyverse itself required that the Doomherald, whomever he happened to be, would turn against the Parody Master. As much as the Hood hates you, the one thing he trusted you to do, without question, was to defy authority and betray your allies, just like you did your own people … exactly like you did the Janus, Exu.”

The GatewayTraitorGalaxyTraveler! of the Janus Junctures faltered briefly, before regaining his confident composure. “So, you’re even more familiar with my life and times than I’d guessed at,” acknowledged the figure who, in another of his guises, was known as Doctor Xeno Phobia, the Extraterrestrial Enigma. “Good for you. Granted, I’ve adopted so many mutually exclusive origins and identities since the Parodyverse started that even I’ve forgotten more of them than I can still remember, so from that standpoint, it must have been relatively uncomplicated for your boss to carve out one of those roles into its own alternate timeline, one in which the being who I was back then never evolved into the being that I am now, since my memory’s become such Swiss cheese that I’d barely miss it.”

Jury’s defiant expression fell, as she finally grasped his implication. “But because that role has reintegrated itself into your identity …”

Exu’s sinister smirk returned, as he loomed over Jury. “I’ve always been an Agent of Chaos, but recent experiences have reminded me that Destruction is equally essential to Chaos as Creation.” He paused in mid-exposition, appearing to reflect further on those events. “At the same time, I’ve been inspired by the compassion and conscience of a young woman I met along the way. She wields some interesting superhuman powers, but she’s far from the level of a cosmic office holder, and yet, you could learn a lot more from her example than she could from yours. In fact, I’d even go so far as to say your future survival depends upon you doing exactly that. I’m going to give you one chance to part company with your current partner in crime. You do that, and I’ll forgive all your contributions to the successes of his schemes, with no grudges held. Make no mistake, though – sooner or later, I will be coming back around, to deal with him myself, and when I do, if you’ve chosen to stay standing by his side, then your window of opportunity, to escape unscathed from the end that I will be meting out to him, will officially be over.”
__________

The Hooded Hood promises to offer his own perspective, both on this scene and on its attendant allegations, in an upcoming chapter of Untold Tales of the Lair Legion. In the meantime, it might enlighten you all to learn that my mental casting for this tie-in probably reflects the fact that I've been watching too many episodes of the series within the Law & Order franchise, since Stephanie March, a.k.a. Assistant District Attorney Alexandra Cabot on Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, was the actor I had in mind for Jury, while the actor who plays Detective Robert Goren on Law & Order: Criminal Intent, a.k.a. occasional Orson Welles impersonator and professionally scary person Vincent D'Onofrio, inspired this latest interpretation of Exu, a.k.a. Doctor Xeno Phobia.


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