The Moderator Part 25-odd: Attempting to Restrain Large Felines by Means of the Flexible Appendage to the Torso.

Originally posted on Tales of the Parodyverse by Manga Shoggoth.

Parodyverse characters copyright (c) 2008 to their creators. The use of characters and situations reminiscent of other popular works do not constitute a challenge to the copyrights or trademarks of those works.

What has gone before:

The Moderator Saga #6: Mouse and Ming by Hatman.

"Well, the first bodyguard is a woman named Whitney Darkness. She's one of the most powerful witches on the planet. In my reality, she's simply called the Sorceress." Salieri punched a few more keys. "The good news is I'm pretty sure it's taking a lot of her concentration to lock something like the Shoggoth up."

"No problem, we take her from behind," responded Killer Shrike.

"Eww," commented Amy.

"The problem is, she has a bodyguard of her own. I know him in my reality as Mr. Epitome." Salieri sat back to allow his companions to see the picture on the screen.

Amy and Killer Shrike looked at the image on the screen and all hope drained from their faces. "You know him as the Dominator."

The Moderator Saga #22: Check Again by The Hooded Hood.

"Oh, and I contacted a being called Nyalurkhoptep about taking that Shoggoth off my hands. He's possessing Whitney Darkness right now and coming to deal with that clever little snotball."

The Dominator was not a happy man. Metahuman. Whatever.

It was not just being partnered with Whitney Darkness. It was not just the fact that his new duty involved babysitting a huge, blasphemous elder creature in a dank, vermin-infested cellar.

No. It was the nagging feeling that things were slowly, but surely, slipping out of control.

He was a Professional. With a capital P. This meant that he made damn sure that he was honest with himself. After all, the last person you deceive will be yourself - a lesson he felt the Moderator should have learned.

Take his partner. She used to be... scary. Creepy. You didn't look her in the eyes if you could avoid it.

Now, you didn't look her in the face. Or anywhere near the face. He had accidentally caught sight of her eyes, and then gone off to have several stiff drinks to try and forget what he saw. Black, almost reptilian eyes, and a face where hope had not just gone, but fled without even bothering to pack the essentials.

Wherever she walked there followed a susurration. He wasn't entirely sure what a susurration was, and he didn't intend to find out if he could avoid it.

The Shoggoth looked up (in a manner of speaking) at its latest visitors. It could discern three of them:

The Dominator, a pale echo of the creature that alternately called itself Miles, Dominic and Mr Epitome. Mind you, all those mortals were such fragile wisps of matter that it was sometimes hard to tell them apart.

Whitney Darkness, a ex-witch. Now she, what was left of her, was a small, tight ball of self-loathing, terror and abnegation, a grotesque pearl of horror and pain, slowly receding into nothingness.

Then there was her body, currently being driven by an entity that the Shoggoth knew only too well. Nyalurkhoptep, Herald of the Elder Creatures, Possessor of more titles than it is worth trying to look up in the occult dictionaries of your choice.

"Well, little slave. We meet again." it purred in a voice not entirely like that of Whitney Darkness.

Nyalurkhoptep looked around the chamber with some interest. It had never taken too much interest in mortals. It had once considered them to be too brief to bother with, mere smears of organic waste with a sense of self-importance. Now, after having had to deal with them several times, it was beginning to see why the Shoggoth found them so... interesting. Such potential for pain and horror. And the best bit was that most of the time, they did it to themselves.

Mind you, looking around the chamber, it could see why the Shoggoth had a zero-tolerance policy on High Priests.

"What on earth is this supposed to be?", it asked, kneeling down to examine the seal that held the Shoggoth.

I don't know... replied the Shoggoth. I think it started off as an Elder Symbol, but whoever drew it seems to have been a little confused. By the way, I would avoid kneeling around here while wearing that body. It appears that females are supposed to be obsessed with their appearance, and I don't think that yoghurt and mouldy garlic appears amongst the Paris fashions.

"The top half looks like the bottom two dimensions of an Elder Symbol. Then it wanders off into the Grand Seal of Atlantis. I'm not sure what that bit is..."

Seal of Solomon, I think. Oh yes, mind the poppy seeds and peppercorns as well.

"One of the Moderns, I take it? What kind of idiot set up this seal?" Nyalurkhoptep sneered, poking a finger into one of the grooves in the floor. "Holy water? They tried to seal you using holy water?"

Top notch stuff, apparently. Blessed by a Pope. I'm not sure whether it was the fish or the religious one.

"I thought that was some form of scribe."

No. That's "Poe".

"This is the most pathetic attempt at drawing an Elder Sign that I have ever seen! The only part of it that appears to work are the bits that emit in the electromagnetic spectrum, and it's obvious that you did them. Why, incidentally?"

It kept the humans amused. A little light show, a blob of slime here and there and they are happy, I find.

"Dreadful work. And you've been squatting in it all this time." For a moment Nyalurkhoptep experienced a brief pang of sympathy for its former slave. After all, the Shoggoth had raised the vast cities of the Fairly Great Old Ones, and had taken an artisan's pride in its work. "What's been keeping you here?"

I've been waiting. replied the Shoggoth. Waiting for this: Catch!

Nyalurkhoptep caught the amulet. Immediately, the sigils, seals and signs that the Shoggoth had carefully etched on it during his captivity leapt off the its surface, and started scribing themselves up the arm and over the rest of its body, sealing Nyalurkhoptep within the flesh it was possessing. It dropped the - now plain - amulet, but too late.

"Hmmm. Very good work." it commented, examining the result. "But it only seals me in this body. I grant you that it will make it difficult to manifest my full powers, and it is going to be very difficult to remove. You haven't got rid of me, though."

No. admitted the Shoggoth. But I have confined you to one place. And there's a plus: The Herald of the Fairly Great Old Ones now walks the earth. That can mean only one thing...

And the Shoggoth folded in on itself, again and again, until it vanished.

Then Nyalurkhoptep understood the Shoggoth's plan. It swore furiously in Alko for several minutes. It then looked for someone to take it out on.

There was a scream, then the room fell silent.

"And that's for starters. Your boss is next."

What has gone before redux:

The Moderator Saga #13: Something Nasty in the Cellar by the Manga Shoggoth.

In any case, concluded the creature, I cannot help you. It finished its statement with a short utterance in the unknowable language it had used earlier, as it shrank back into the pearl.

"In that case, we will leave you to your lurking." responded Flapjack, leading the others out of the chamber. Functionary protested for a moment, but was quelled with a warning glance from the hunchback.

Flapjack had a worried expression all the way back to the surface. Alko wasn't his strong suit - it wasn't much called for in his line of work - but, like Latin, there were one or two phrases that the good Henchperson would recognise. The last thing the Shoggoth has said was one of them.

Loosely translated, it was: Until the Stars are Right...