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Subject: Saving the Future – Part 21: Points of View


Saving the Future – Part 21: Points of View


Previously:

In The Moderator Saga we learn that an alternate-reality version of the Hooded Hood's son Denial became the worlds-conquering Moderator by draining the life force of thousands of alternate-reality versions of his probability arsonist girlfriend Kerry.

In Saving the Future #1 the Lair Legion act against this reality's Danny Lyle to ensure that he cannot go the same way and threaten all reality.

In Saving the Future #3: That's The Way The Story Goes we learn that the cosmic office holder the Chronicler of Stories has warned of the possible dangers of Denial - a potential end of the Parodyverse - and has provoked a world response to deal with him.

In Saving the Future #8: The Final Solution the hunt for Danny is interrupted when ancient traps shift Parody Island, every on it, and the SPUD helicarrier out of regular timespace.

In Saving the Future #9: The Land That Common Sense Forgot we learn that the Legion are now scattered in a mysterious agglomoration of savage "stitch-worlds". Meanwhile, Baroness von Zemo, Kerry Shepherdson, and the Federal Metahuman Resource Centre are all promoting line-up for "New Lair Legions." The Baroness' team is a disguised Purveyors of Peril. Elementalist Liu Xi Xian found herself in some mysterious Limbo Garden with the Void Scholar who claims to be her grandfather.

In Saving the Future #9.1: Adventures in Parodyverse Chiaki Bushido, the Psychic Samurai released captives from the Safe metahuman Penitentiary in an attempt to distract the new Legion. Hatman's evil alternate reality double Doorman additionally freed the massively powerful Onslaughter.

In Saving the Future #10: The Age of Villains Danny Lyle reclaimed owenership of his absent father's Herringcarp Asylum and remade the dimension-spanning Portal of Pretentiousness. The Junior Lair Legion managed to thwart Onslaughter's murderous rampage through Paradopolis by shifting him through the portal to the Sun. Onslaughter began making his way back to Earth.

In Saving the Future #12: The New Lair Legions, the Purveyors began to weed out all opposition. Early targets were the FMRC Legion, who were trapped and mostly slaughtered by Doorman and the villains. U.S Action, Komodo, and Ultimette survived because of intervention of the mysterious Citizen Z (presumably not Baroness von Zemo in disguise this time), but later learned that they and their team-mates were all short-life clones with false implanted memories.

In Saving the Future #20: Good Intentions we see the Void Scholar's plans to bring Danny and Liu Xi together to exploit a child they could breed and his plans to mate with Fashion Accessory to birth Liu Xi's ultimate ancestor begin to bear fruit. Under Dr Loveray's influence Kerry and Vinnie de Soth end up in bed together. Meanwhile boy genius Salieri Meng is followign up clues about the Legion's disappearance.

In Saving the Future #15.1: Hazardous Chemicals, Alcheman pushed back against previous persecution by the Purveyors of Peril by capturing VelcroVixen - but those events run concurrent to our present story.

Previous Chapters
The Hooded Hood's Homepage of Doom
Who's Who in the Parodyverse

***


    This deep into the Void the only voices were in Liu Xi’s head.

    The young elementalist knew about sensory deprivation. She’d learned to understand something of the fifth and strangest of the traditional Chinese elements in her slow dangerous investigation of how to manipulate it. But she’d never been this deep, and never for this long.

    “I’m bored, grandfather.” Her own words echoed back like some instant replay. “I’m grateful for you taking me into your home, showing me things about myself that I never knew before, but I can’t stay here forever.”

    “Not forever,” agreed the Void Scholar. “But there are things you must master, skills you must hone, if you are ever to accomplish the task that will allow me to set the Parodyverse to rights. And one of the things you must master is patience.”

    “How long have I been here? Time doesn’t make any sense in your Garden.”

    “Even the question is meaningless, child. You have been here for long enough to know that, at least.”

    “That girl you had me rescue, the winged girl with the horrible wounds, what happened to her?”

    “I sent her on, Liu Xi, to a place where she can recover and grow to her destiny.”

    “And the Librarian? I glimpsed him once, caught in Limbo somehow, victim of the Space Fandom.”

    “All such things are mere ghosts here. That situation is long since passed.”

    “You told me that what I was doing would save the Lair Legion from where they’d been trapped.”

    “Then you should redouble your studies and be diligent. In fact there is a task you can undertake now if you feel yourself ready. But it is hard and dangerous, the hardest I have yet asked of you. If you would prefer to remain in my Garden, safe and alone…”

    “I’ll do it. I’m ready. What must I do, grandfather?”

    “Another rescue, Liu Xi. But this one is more critical than any other, and will require you to plunge deep into the Void itself. Deep into yourself. Further than you have ever been.”

    Liu Xi forced her mind back to what she was doing. There was no light here, no sound, not even the sensation of motion. Sometimes the elementalist feared that she was not progressing at all, but would be forever lost in this sensationless null. She tried to visualise the Void as a piece of black silk and herself the seamstress pinching it together to make a stitch. She tried not to scream at the eternal nothing.

    “Where are you going, grandfather? You never leave the Garden.”

    “I rarely leave the Garden, Liu Xi, but there are occasions when such projection is necessary. I have many concerns to attend to. Your own development and education are but a part of them. Saving the future does not come easily or without care.”

    “Is that what we’re doing then? Saving the future?”

    “It is. Now remain in meditation, remember your studies. Soon you will be ready for a sojourn into the deep void. Do not attempt it while I am gone.”

    “Whose voices were those I heard when you were alone in the pergola, grandfather? I thought some were familiar.”

    “Merely those whom I needed to instruct, child.”

    “I thought I heard Baroness von Zemo. She’s a wicked woman, grandfather, the enemy of the Lair Legion.”

    “Even the evil have their uses, Liu Xi, so long as their greed and ambition are harnessed by one wiser than themselves. Now be a dutiful child and attend to your studies. I shall return later to supervise your efforts.”

    Liu Xi had waited until the Void Scholar had departed before plunging into the Vortex alone; and from thence into the Void itself.

    Only now did Liu Xi Xian wonder if that was what the Void Scholar had intended.

    The Void was unending.

    Then Liu Xi’d face felt a sensation. In her blind groping she had bumped into something. Something real.

    Her lips had brushed against other lips.

    The elementalist almost panicked. Who had kissed her? Liu Xi Xian had very limited experience of kissing, and little of it had led to any good.

    Then she realised that the contact had not exactly been a kiss. Her face had just brushed against another face. There was blood on her lips.

    She reached out, extending her elemental senses to the maximum, although such ideas as distance had little meaning in the Void. She caught the tiniest flicker of other elemental matter, of water in body fluids, of earth in flesh and bone, of air in lungs. She reached out until her hands touched a physical form. She grasped it to her though it was slippery with blood.

    She’d rescued a man.

    “Exu?” she asked, and wondered why that name had come to her mind.

    She forced herself to calm again. Panic or even emotion here would be enough to lose her tenuous trail back to the Garden of the Void Scholar. She pulled the body to her, a thin emaciated rack-ribbed form slick with drying blood, limp and unconscious. She disciplined her mind to draw them slowly and surely out of the deep Void.

    It took a long time. She fought fatigue and despair. She clutched the body to her breast and gritted her teeth and drew comfort from actually being able to feel something, anything, in this everlasting nothingness.

    When she felt the Garden she cried with relief.

    Her senses exploded back into her brain. The scent of jasmine and thyme and water-lily seared through her. The sound of rivulets gently rippling down sculpted falls to gentle pools reminded her of life. She waded to them like a weary swimmer dragging a shipwrecked mariner to land, to new life on a tropical island. Her eyes discovered light again, such an unusual sensation. The pergola shivered into existence around her, a patch of oriental Japan balanced on the apex of the Void. Darkness was replaced by willow pattern.

    Liu Xi slumped to the ground. The body she was holding had weight now, too much for her to support.

    Her newly-awakened eyes saw for the first time who it was she had rescued.

    “Danny Lyle?”

***


    “Good Morning Paradopolis! I’m Celeste McChaney and with me on the programme this morning I have the man whose amazing return has commanded the news cycle and been the talk of the world since last night’s amazing return: Sir Jay Boaz, leader of the Lair Legion, the capped crusader Hatman.”

    Jay raised a hand and managed to look a little embarrassed. “Call me Jay,” he asked the attractive newsreader.

    “Jay, first I’d like to thank you for this exclusive interview. There’s so many questions the world wants to know the answers to.”

    “Of course,” agreed Doorman, the evil Jay Boaz from a destroyed alternate reality. “I’ll do the best I can.”

    “Well first, Jay, where did you go to? What has happened to the rest of the Lair Legion?”

    “Well Celeste, it’s a pretty horrible story. The Legion had been asked by the United Nations and the governments of the world to track down a young man named Denial, the son of the archvillainous cowled crime czar the Hooded Hood. There was solid information that this Denial could become a threat to world security, to the future of the Earth itself.”

    “Viewers will recall the all-points bulletins run on this very station four weeks ago,” interjected Celeste.

    “Well sure. Anyhow, the Legion was ready to take down this menace, of course. But nobody can be prepared for his father. The Hooded Hood attacked the Lair Mansion, shifted us all away to try and get rid of us. He very nearly succeeded.” Jay’s face assumed a sombre cast. “CrazySugarFreakBoy! was wonderful. He gave his life that the rest of us might live. He’ll never be forgotten. Later on I’ll be looking up his wife and mother to comfort them in their darkest hour.”

    “But where are the other Legionnaires? And how did you manage to return?”

    “Oh, the Legion’s nobody’s easy meat, Celeste. The Hood might have locked them away in his haunted asylum, but I managed to slip free with the notes from Dr Al B. Harper and the Manga Shoggoth about how to release the others. Sure, it’s a difficult process, but over the next few months I’ll be working with the New Lair Legion to commandeer the expensive rare components we’ll need to return my team-mates to us. I hope the world will co-operate in this difficult undertaking. There’s no price too high to pay to restore the men and women who saved Earth from the Parody Master.”

    “I’m sure all our viewers will agree with that, Jay.”

    “I hope so. Yes, it’ll seem difficult when we have to cut some social programmes and defence budgets and hike taxes a little, but the New Legion is our best line of defence.”

    “Which brings me to the next question, Jay. What do you make of the New Lair Legion? Some people are unsure about them because of their association with world-conquering Baroness Elizabeth von Zemo, and because they’ve failed so far to bring the Purveyors of Peril to book.”

    “Well they’re new, like the name says Celeste, and the Purveyors are the varsity of evildoers. Now I’m here to guide the team I expect we’ll do better. We’re going to start by taking some likely targets of their thievery into protective holding at secret locations. The Baroness has brought the New Legion together because she’s one of the few people alive today who knows just how dangerous they can be, one of the few people who stands a chance countering the plots of Denial and the Hooded Hood. A lot of people were upset when she stepped up during the Parody War and saved the world with that virtual Earth ploy, but in retrospect even we in the Legion have to admit that she did the best she could under impossible circumstances.”

    “But she disguised herself as Citizen Z and plotted against you all,” objected Celeste. “She even betrayed you into a Parody Forces concentration camp.”

    “Sir Mumphrey Wilton was aware of Beth’s identity all along,” Jay assured the world. “It was all part of a deep-cover operation with some classified elements I can’t talk about. But let me assure you that the Baroness did nothing then or now that isn’t for the wellbeing of this world. People can take my word on that. I’ll stake my reputation.”

    “That’s an endorsement indeed, Jay. So you’ll be leading the New Lair Legion and tackling the wave of international lawlessness that has washed over our world in the wake of the disappearance of Parody Island.”

    “I’m advising the President now, and later I’ll be co-ordinating things with the Carnifex himself. We’ll be proposing sweeping new powers to tackle metacrime terrorism. But there is one thing I need to warn your viewers about, Celeste. It’s looking like as part of his criminal schemes, Denial has started replacing our remaining superheroes with lookalike aliens called Space Fandoms. They have all the powers and skills of the originals but their hearts are black.”

    Celeste turned to the camera. “Breaking news and you heard it here on Good Morning Paradopolis. Space Fandoms replace key superheroes!”

    “There’s no need for alarm, though,” Jay assured her. “We possess the ability to detect and expose them. The Legion has already hunted down and eliminated many of them. But the public should beware people claiming to be Ham-Boy, Alcheman, the Psychic Samurai, Lara Night, Glitch, Captain Courageous, Silver Aegis, and especially an impostor masquerading as Citizen Z. If you see these people call the Legion on our toll-free number and we’ll be there to deal with them.”

    “A timely warning, Jay, and I’m sure the public will be eager to help you out against this new menace.”

    “It’s a hard time, Celeste, but if we pull together I’m sure we can tough it through.” Jay Boaz’ confident smile went out to nine million households.

    “Sir Jay Boaz, Hatman, thank you. And now it’s over to Lindsey Chung for the weather and an update on that unusual stormfront in upstate Gothametropolis York. Lindsay?”

    The red lights on top of the cameras went out and Celeste McChaney pulled off her earpiece and microphone. “That was wonderful, Jay!” she gushed at her guest.

    “No problem,” shrugged Doorman. “But you remember our deal, baby. You got your exclusive. Now we go to your place and I get mine.”

***


    “You heard that!” shouted Ham-Boy, pointing at the TV as Hatman’s interview ended. “You can’t believe it! I’m not a Space Fandom. I’m me. I’m not plotting anything. I don’t plot. I have problems with grocery lists.”

    “Tis true,” agreed Harlagaz, relaxing from his smiting stance.

    “But now people are going to be hunting me in the streets!” HB continued. “We have to call Hatty and tell him this is all one big mistake!”

    “Is it?” wondered Salieri Meng, seventh-smartest boy genius on the planet. “Remember those reports from the helicarrier before it vanished of a rogue Hatman doing bad things? We might be closer to the truth about Space Fandoms than anybody realises.”

    “You’re saying that Jay isn’t Jay?” Fashion Accessory frowned. “Well, he was wearing a designer label t-shirt rather than his usual cheap cotton ones from the Student Quarter Market. And also Jay dresses to the right, um, not that I always check.”

    Ham-Boy slapped his head. “Oh, so now I’m being accused of being a Space Fandom by a Space Fandom? That’s all I need to make my day perfect.

    “It makes sense,” Meng admitted. “We already know the New Lair Legion are actually the Purveyors of Peril they’re claiming to battle. Why would the real Hatman throw in with them? The Space Fandom link makes much more sense.”

    “It doth?” Gaz asked.

    “Yes. It’s the one thing that links the Purveyors and the Baroness to the disappearance of the Lair Mansion. The Space Fandom or Fandoms push the victims they impersonate into Comic-Book Limbo. Those readings we took off the worldwide pit shafts have a Limbo signature. The readings from the stonework growing on Parody Island before it vanished have the same.”

    “So the Baroness art responsible!” snarled Harlagaz, slapping his fist into his palm. “We shalt go and smite her forthwith.”

    “All for the Baroness-smiting,” agreed FA, “although later when I get back from my date. If I get back from my date. But how do we get past the whole Purveyors of Peril line-up thing and how does Beth von Zemo come to plant ancient growing stonework from before the formation of the Earth? This is a woman who thinks purple and black is a stylish colour scheme.”

    “We need more evidence, for certain,” agreed Meng. “And also some kind of strategy. Could we prise Danny Lyle away from his pet mirror for a while? Sneaky plans are usually his speciality.”

    “Hold it!” Ham-Boy objected as a new idea impacted through his crossness. “A date? Samantha, we’re in the middle of a world crisis with innocent meaty marvels being accused of being alien traitors and you’re planning on heading out to meet with that Vortex guy?”

    Samantha sniffed. “Val Vortex is one of the hottest producers around. And I don’t just mean he can cut any deal he wants in Tinseltown. He’s a dreamboat. If he wants to have a quiet dinner with me at an exclusive venue and talk about a forthcoming role he’s wanting to write me into…”

    “He doth wish to give thee a part right enough,” growled Harlagaz. “I mistrust yon rich good-looking caitiff for the nonce.”

    “…then who am I to object?” concluded Fashion Accessory. “It’s not like I’m sleeping my way into Hollywood. He knows that. But he is very, very cute, so if the evening goes right then who knows? It worked out okay for Jane Fonda.”

    Salieri Meng interrupted. “Meanwhile, back at the Space Fandoms stole our superheroes and the Purveyors of Peril are hunting us to death scenario…”

    “Aye. We shouldst concentrate on the reaving,” agreed Harlagaz. The Ausgardian looked around. “Where art Kerry? She is usually foremost in the frothing at this moment. We doth need her froth.”

    That was when Kerry peered round the door of the Herringcarp library. “FA, I need to talk with you. Now.”
    

***


    “I’m talking about a trap,” explained VelcroVixen. “One final operation to take down the Juniors and anyone they manage to scrape together to oppose us. The last gasp.”

    “And then the world is ours,” UltiMAX-TremeMan grinned. “Hurrah!”

    “Those kids are getting good,” Anvil Man warned. “What did you got in mind, Vicki?”

    It was Dr Roentgen who rose to explain. His all-over rubber radiation suit crinkled as he walked. “The children have been examining what happened to their mentors. They have been taking readings from these chasms which have appeared across the world. It has not been an ineffective investigation.”

    “So they’ve got someone smart on side,” shrugged Appendage Man. “That’s just one more set of orifices to play with.”

    Gorilla Grott interrupted. “So the plan is to generate some kind of unusual energy wavelength at one of those spots and lure them to investigate again then go in full strength and take them out,” he surmised. “Yes, I’m a genius. I catch on fast, Roentgen.”

    The Candian nuclear scientist muttered under his breath.

    “That’s essentially the operation,” VelcroVixen admitted. “But there’s another site they haven’t checked yet, an ancient pre-Aztec pre-Incan ruin that vanished before all the rest. The Baroness says that was the trigger for all the pits appearing, like taking the cork out of the genie bottle. That’s our ambush site.”

    “Do we really need to take out these chicas?” wondered El Futbalisa Atomico. “We already pretty much rule the world.”

    “There are still dangers,” Razor Ballerina scolded him. “All our enemies must die, slowly and painfully.”

    “I’ll see about setting things up then, shall I?” HAGGIE noted, bringing the meeting to a close.

    “I’ll miss having opposition when they’re all gone,” Suicide Blonde admitted.

    “Oh don’t worry,” Voodoo Vicaress assured the matter-altering femme fatale. “I intend to keep parts of them around for quite a while.”

***


    “Kerry, if you’re going to give me the lecture as well about dating Val…”

    “FA, shut up. This is important.”

    Samantha Bonnington looked closely at her friend for the first time. Kerry Shepherdson had been crying. “Kare, what’s up?”

    “I did something.”

    FA felt her heart lurch. “Who’s dead?” she asked fearfully.

    “Not like that. I did something to Danny. I slept with Vinnie.”

    Samantha frowned. “Vinnie? Vinnie de Soth? Vinnie buys-his-shirts-at-Goodwill de Soth?”

    “Yes, that Vinnie. Don’t ask me why. I just wanted him. He’s kind and funny and sort of cute in a shy don’t-tell-anyone-I-saved-the-planet way and his hair falls down over his… Aak! I still want him! I don’t understand why I’m suddenly so hot for him!”

    “Kerry, you dumped Danny for Vinnie?”

    “No! I don’t want to lose Danny. I love Danny. But I love Vinnie too.”

    “Okay, so you’re looking for a three-way? Should I get you April Apple’s phone number?”

    “FA, be serious! This is going to kill Danny. I never intended anything to happen. Vinnie didn’t either, I think. We’re both feeling just awful about it. And then we keep comforting each other. Like rabbits.”

    “Did he slip you something, Kare? That Vinnie’s a De Soth, and they’re bad people. Did he give you some creepy love potion or something, some kind of supernatural date-rape drug?”

    “I don’t know what happened, except it started when we were investigating that weird lab full of tangled skeletons. I don’t know what to do now. Help me, FA!”

    Samantha thought for a moment. “Okay, first choice: tell Danny or don’t.”

    “Tell him. I can’t live a lie. I’m not like that.”

    “Except when it comes to concealed accelerants or Vizh’s credit cards. Okay then, next thing. What do you want to happen? Are you dumping Danny for Vinnie or are you hoping Danny will forgive and forget and take you back, huge slut that you are?”

    “Hey! I’m not the one heading off for a casting couch dinner-date with my multi-billionaire Hollywood mogul,” snapped Kerry. “I want Danny back, I’m sure of that. He’s the best thing ever to happen to me. He died for me. I’m his happy ending. Or…” Her face crumpled again. “I was.” Even then her body yearned for Vinnie De Soth.

    “Then you’ve got to talk to him, Kare. Right now. You’ve got to be honest and you’ve got to accept what happens.”

    “And what will happen, Samantha? I’ve never felt as horrible as this. Never. All the bad things I’ve done, all the times I’ve screwed up, this is the worst! I think I’ve wrecked the rest of my life.”

    “Well I’ll get the boys to go take a look at that lab again and see if there was anything weird going on there. You deal with Danny. And I’ll talk to Mr De Soth. Where is Vinnie anyhow?”

    Vinnie wasn’t in the Asylum.

***


    Assistant Commissioner Harold Hogglet dropped the last of the depositions onto his boss’ desk and flopped back into a chair mopping his sweating overweight brow. The chair creaked alarmingly. “That’s the last of them, Commish,” he promised.

    Don Graham flipped through the files then added a couple of extra photos to the corkboard behind him, pinning string connecting lines between them. “Okay, I think we know what happened,” he concluded.

    Hogglet tried to look like it was obvious to him too.

    “There has been Space Fandom activity,” the Commissioner allowed, “or at least some shape-shifting power-duplicating activity. And there’s good reason to believe that Liu Xi Xian and Hatman at least have been copied. Liu Xi apparently sabotaged Lair Mansion security before Parody Island vanished. Hatman apparently sabotaged the Helicarrier.”

    “Yeah, I saw the real Hatman today on TV warning about that.”

    “The real Hatman?” challenged Graham. “Are you sure? Because I think the real Hatman would have done what we’ve done and mapped the various powers of this New Lair Legion to those of known members of the Purveyors of Peril. He’d have looked and seen that, for example, Grit the Granulated Man and the Living Beach have never been seen together. Or Brass Monkey and Shiny Simian. Or VelcroVixen and VirtueValkyrie.”

    “So Hatman’s a fake and the new Legion are fakes,” Hogglet guessed. “And we can prove it!”

    “We can’t prove it yet,” the Commissioner glowered. “That’s the problem. I actually have more proof that Chiaki Bushido, the Psychic Samurai, was behind the Safe breakout. Or someone impersonating her was.”

    “Then why don’t we pull the scary chick in and give her the third degree, boss?”

    Graham shook his head. “If she did it then she’s too dangerous to just pick up like that. We’d need specialist help. If she didn’t do it then she’s better out there helping round up the criminals who escaped. If she was replaced by a Space Fandom at the time then she might not even know what happened. In any case it’s too late now to undo what occurred at the Safe, but people are dead and I’ve built a case and Chiaki’s going to have to answer it sooner or later.”

    “So what do we do about the rest?” Hogglet worried. “Crime’s on the up and we’re losing the war, Commish. Things are staying sober down in Mangatown but that’s about it. Everywhere else is going nuts. We’ve got two more guys in the hospital today, Monahan and Dooley. Tried to arrest Brokenface II. Dooley’s in a bad way.”

    “I’ll call his wife later. Meanwhile we’ve got to try and figure something about this New Legion. I keep trying to get through to Aaron Soames at the Office of Paranormal Security but all I get is mad laughter on the line.”

    Hogglet scratched his balding skull. “World’s going to hell in a handbasket, Commish.”

    “Yeah. Let’s get a coffee.”

    Commissioner Graham very carefully placed his spare dossier on the corner of his desk nearest to the window as he left his office. The file wasn’t there when he came back.

    Citizen Z found it very interesting reading.

***


    There was an unusual stormfront over upstate Gothametropolis York. It was centred on a former seminary above Shyminsky Falls, the home of bibliographer and playboy Styxus De Soth, heir to the might De Soth empire. The sudden appearance of the tempest was a surprise to the estate’s owner as he climbed out of his mint condition 1979 Maserati and looked at his storm-tossed home.

    Somebody had carefully picked apart the subtle occult defences that protected the seminary from intruders. Somebody had exorcised the guard demons and neutralised the soulwebs. Months of work, of blood sacrifice, had been swept away by an interloper.

    Styxus burst into his sanctum workroom staff in hand ready to eviscerate the trespasser.

    “Yeah, nice entrance,” his brother Vinnie told him. “Very dark.”

    “Vince? What the Abyss are you doing here?”
    

    “Breaking in. Stealing your stuff. I figured it was my turn.”

    Styxus’ face reddened and his lips drew back from his teeth. “You dare profane my sanctum?”

    “Well you didn’t leave a key under the mat. Then when I found what you’d been doing to protect the place I got annoyed and set everything free. Then I found your occult crucible and used it’s stored-up energies to do what I needed to accomplish. Can’t say I’m that sorry about the mess.”

    The eldest of the De Soth brothers took a step forward. “Do you know what I’m going to do to you, you insignificant pissant, you blood-traitor upstart, you occult nothing? Do you?”

    “Are you going to bore me to death like you did when we were kids, trying to sound like Uncle Belial but actually coming across like Bela Lugosi?”

    “I’m going to make you howl your regrets as I thrash your soul for a subjective eternity and then I’ll turn your grovelling wrecked form over to mother as a Samhain present.”

    Vinnie snorted. “Ooh, spooky! And once upon a time you might even have been able to do it. I’ve toughened up while I’ve been out in the world, Styxus, and today I’m having an awesomely bad day. Somebody used me to hurt people I care about and I’m very very pissed about it. So pissed that I came here and used your stored arcane energies to do something about it. So pissed that I’m going to find whoever it was did this to us and make them wish it was only you doing bad things to them.” He turned and glared at his brother. “So pissed that you. Do. Not. Want. To. Cross. Me.”

    Styxus had always been able to thrash Vincent. He raised his staff.

    “Those bound tortured spirits and demons I freed,” Vinnie told him. “I didn’t send them all straight home.”

    He gestured once, then ignored his brothers screams and turned back to doing what he’d come to accomplish.

***


    Master Sergeant Baxter Thompson pinned Special Agent Ruben Holcomb to the wall with his one remaining arm and squeezed to choke his former commander. “You want to tall me why you made my entire life a joke?” the angry black man demanded of the head of the Federal Metahuman Resource Centre, “or do you just want to get right on to the tearing-your-head-off part?”

    “Baxter, stop it!” chided Ultimette, uselessly trying to drag USAction’s arm away from his victim. “We’re all upset but killing Holcomb won’t get us answers.”

    “I’m actually okay with that,” admitted Komodo. “We’re all going to be dead soon anyhow since we’re only clones with a life expectancy in months. I’d like to see the guy who ordered us off the production line knowing we were expendable go before us.”

    “But this isn’t right!” pleaded Ginny Taylor. “Baxter, you know it isn’t. And he can’t answer your questions while you’re throttling him!”

    Holcomb was turning blue. USAction suddenly released his grip, dropping the G-Man hard to the floor. Holcomb gasped for breath.

    Komodo leaned over him. “Okay, we want answers. Not that false-memory crap that’s had us living false pathetic lives, thinking we had families and childhoods and real values. We want to know how we came to be and how we can live.”

    Holcomb shook his head, his hands wiping the snot and tears from his face. “If you’re here asking you know the answers.” His voice was raspy and painful. Bruises were already mottling his neck. “We salvaged alien tech that allowed us to clone discarded cells from the Lair Legion. First viable batch was unstable and had to be terminated. Second batch served with honour but died against the Parody Master. You’re the third generation.”

    “We heard that the cloning machines had been trashed,” Baxter Thompson said.

    “They were attacked by the Purveyors of Peril,” confirmed Holcomb. “Everything’s gone. All the staff were slaughtered. There’s no way to make new clones of you.”

    “And even if there was, they wouldn’t be us,” Ultimette pointed out. “How long do we have left, Ruben?”

    “We don’t know. Neither previous batch survived to the end of their natural cycles. I’ve seen estimates that give you anywhere from six weeks to six months. Not more than that, though.”

    “Is there anyone who could help us?” demanded Komodo. “Some genius that might save us?”

    “Nobody,” replied Holcomb. “I’m sorry.”

    “He’s lying,” sensed Ultimette. “He’s not sorry and there is someone. He’s thinking about somebody called Daio Waltz.”

    Komodo did his homework. “The diabolical Dr Moo,” he recognised. “Of course. She’s mad but brilliant, and she’s made clones before. Clones with full lifespans.”

    “Where do we find her?” USAction demanded of Holcomb. He snapped the man’s forearm. “I asked where do we find her?”

    Holcomb told him.

    “Don’t come after us,” Ultimette warned the G-Man. “Just leave us alone from now on. You’ve already done enough to us.”

    Holcomb nursed his broken arm and promised nothing.

***


[This section by killer Shrike]

    Velcro Vixen groaned and rolled slowly from the source of the scream. Alcheman pressed several of his tattoos and then kneeled down next to her. Tilting the woman’s head up, he covered her mouth with his own for a very long, very moist, kiss.

    “Uh, whoah,” warned Mary Prankstar, “You probably don’t want to do that, Doctor Alchemy. No telling where she’s been. Of course, your powers let you be your own source of penicillin, so maybe-“

    “I’ve assumed the properties of sodium thiopental: truth serum,” Alcheman said sheepishly when he had pulled away from Velcro Vixen, “I am merely, ahm, introducing it to her system.”

    “Truth serum, eh?” the incognito super criminal chuckled nervously, “That stuff really work?”

    “We’re about to find out,” Michael noted as Vixen’s eyes fluttered open. He had quite a few questions for the woman, and was dead set on getting answers.

[The full story in Saving the Future #15.1: Hazardous Chemicals]

***


    The Herringcarp Asylum throne room was almost in darkness. Kerry had to will the wall torches to blaze to pick her way to the dark stone chair where Danny Lyle stared brooding into the Portal of Pretentiousness. He stared into the glass’ dark depths, his fingertips cradled, his eyes glowing green.

    “Danny, we have to talk.” Kerry’s eyes were red from crying.

    “Do we?” asked Denial. “What shall we talk about, Firecracker?”

    Kerry swallowed. “I did a terrible thing, Danny.”

    “Really? What was it this time? Was it an unforgivable thing, do you think?”

    “It was… it was very bad. Very wrong. I don’t understand it. But I hope it’s not unforgivable.”

    “Why don’t you tell me what it is, Kerry. Explain to me what you’re talking about.”

    A spark of anger simmered beneath the probability arsonist’s remorse. “You already know,” she realised. “You’ve been spying on me with that damned mirror!”

    “It shows me what I need to see, yes,” agreed Denial. “Great performance, by the way, Firecracker. Very enthusiastic. That Vinnie must have been some lay!”

    “It wasn’t like that!” flashed Kerry. “Well it was, but it didn’t mean… I don’t know why we did what we did, Danny. We were under some kind of influence. I’d never hurt you – apart from some accidental minor burns and stuff. I’d never betray you.”

    The Portal of Pretentiousness flicked to life, replaying Kerry and Vinnie fumbling each others’ clothes off in an urgent struggle.

    “Funny,” snorted Danny, “because I thought you already did.”

    “But I didn’t mean to!” Kerry shouted. “Danny, you have to believe me!”

    “Scared?” sneered Denial. “Afraid I’m going to turn you into a living probability battery now and become the big bad Moderator?”

    “I’m scared that this is the end between us, Danny.”

    “I don’t need to be the Moderator, Firecracker. He was limited. He failed. I can do better than the Moderator.”

    “Danny, you have to…”

    “I don’t have to do anything,” denied Denial. “I don’t have to listen to you. I don’t have to save the future for you. I don’t have to hold myself back any longer.”

    “Danny!”

    “I don’t have to do anything but become myself,” declared Danny Lyle.

    His eyes flashed green, and then Kerry, Fashion Accessory, Harlagaz, and Salieri Meng were out of his Asylum and stood outside the tide-washed fastness of Visionary’s lighthouse.

***


    The phantom of Herringcarp stood in darkness, her ragged stained tabard blowing in unseen winds, and she looked far with eyes that had seen horrors.

    “Soon,” she whispered.

***


    Danny’s eyes blinked open and he sat up with a scream.

    A quiet voice reassured him. “It’s okay. Calm down. Everything’s okay.” Soft hands touched his lacerated chest. A cool wet cloth washed the sweat from his brow.

    “I can’t see,” he said.

    “You’re safe now. I saved you. It’s been five weeks since I pulled you from the Void. At least five weeks as best I can tell. Time’s not very constant in this place.”

    “I know your voice.”

    “Liu Xi Xian. I rescued you.”

    “I didn’t want rescuing.”

    There was a pause. “Why were you in the depths of nothingness, Danny Lyle?”

    “Because that’s where I belong,” answered Denial. “That’s where I deserve to be, after what happened on Earth.”

    “Earth? What happened on Earth?”

    Danny’s laugh was hollow and cold. “I saved the future,” he replied. “I saved the Earth and the Chronicler of Stories was right about me. All it cost was everything.”

***


Next Time: Wyrmfood’s revenge, FA’s date, Vinnie’s wrath, Moos’ bargain, the Purveyors’ trap, Onslaughter’s return, that kind of thing. At last There Can Be Only One

All tie-ins gratefully received, of course.

***


Previous Chapters:

#1: “And just when did Danny find time to take over the Parodyverse?” by Dancer
#2: "Sometime you have to turn flammable again!" by Visionary
#3: That’s the Way the Story Goes by the Hooded Hood
#4: See No Evil by the Hooded Hood

#5: Whodunnit by the Hooded Hood, Visionary, Killer Shrike, and Jason
#6: Suspicious Behaviour by the Hooded Hood, Jason, Hatman, and CrazySugarFreakBoy!
#7: Accusation and Denial by the Hooded Hood, JJJ, Jason and L!
#8: The Final Solution by the Hooded Hood and Dancer
#9: The Land That Common Sense Forgot by the Hooded Hood

#9.1: Adventures in Parodyverse by Jason
#9.2: Chad and Ronnie by L!
#9.3: “In addition to cappuccino and personal hygiene these tribespeople have not yet invented underwear.” by Dancer
#9.4: Lone Lost Boy & Heroines Hanging Together by CrazySugarFreakBoy!
#9.5: From Dross into Gold by Killer Shrike
#9.6: Old Friends and New Allies by Visionary
#9.7: Taking a Swim by L!
#9.8: A Post-Swim Chat by L!
#9.9: Champagne and the Land That Common Sense Forgot by Champagne

#10: The Age of Villains by the Hooded Hood

#10.1: Adventures in Parodyverse by Jason
#10.2: The Baroness #55 by JJJ
#10.3: Adventures in Parodyverse by Jason
#10.4: Ewe Gotta Have Hart 1 by Killer Shrike
#10.5: Ewe Gotta Have Hart 2 by Killer Shrike

#11: An Age Undreamed Of by the Hooded Hood

#12: The New Lair Legions (And Other Heroes) by the Hooded Hood

#12.1: I Hate You by Visionary
#12.2: Champagne and the Tower of Laments by Champagne
#12.3: Adventures in Parodyverse by Jason
#12.4: The Hearing by Visionary
#12.5: Adventures in Parodyverse by Jason

#13: Exploring the Forbidden Valley, or Samantha Featherstone and the Crystal Goddess by the Hooded Hood

#14: Real Heroes by the Hooded Hood

#14.1: “I’d like to be clear that I’m a no-skewer zone, and have been since college.” by Dancer
#14.2: Catherine & the Danger Zone by L!
#14.3: “Do you know how much shaving I had to do to put this thing on?” by Visionary
#14.4: “Well we can’t just wait here till we find a use for Visionary. We’ll starve to death.” by Dancer

#15: Change and Decay by the Hooded Hood

#15.1: Adventures in Parodyverse by Jason
#15.2: Hazardous Chemicals by Killer Shrike

#16: One Moment In Time by the Hooded Hood
#17: Slaves of the Brain Eaters, Thralls of the Blood-Drinkers by the Hooded Hood
#18: Now Get Out Of That by the Hooded Hood

#18.1: Adventures in Parodyverse by Jason
#18.2: Adventures in Parodyverse by Jason
#18.3 Crossing Lines by CrazySugarFreakBoy!
#18.4 Shooting You With My Smile by CrazySugarFreakBoy!
#18.5: Funeral For a Friend by L!
#18.6: Adventures in Parodyverse by Jason
#18.7 Playing Both Ends by CrazySugarFreakBoy!
#18.8: Adventures in Parodyverse by Jason
#18.9: Adventures in Parodyverse by Jason
#18.10: Valued Employee by Visionary

#19: Probable Cause by the Hooded Hood

***


Original concepts, characters, and situations copyright © 2008 reserved by Ian Watson. Other Parodyverse characters copyright © 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. The right of Ian Watson to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the UK Copyright, Designs & Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved.
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The Hooded Hood

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