 |
|
|
Post By The Hooded Hood tests the market for a midweek chapter Tue Nov 22, 2005 at 11:22:45 am EST |
Subject
#242: Untold Tales of the Parodyverse: A Bathroom Too Far! | |
|
|
Next In Thread >> | |
| #242: Untold Tales of the Parodyverse: A Bathroom Too Far! This wasn’t Visionary’s bathroom. Again. “Why that little punk…” the possibly-fake man muttered under his breath as he looked at the dark vaulted chamber with its faded oriental finery. “What’s he done now? ZELNITZ!” He glanced over his shoulder back into the hall. It was still the same as before. He looked forward again into the rich gloom of the subterranean chamber. “This wasn’t included in the estate agent’s brochure,” he told himself. “Hey dude,” Zachary Zelnitz, Hacker Nine, called as he slouched out of the lounge with a modified gameboy. “You screamed like a girlie?” “Listen, you little sawn off troublemaker…” Kerry stuck her head out of her bedroom door. “What’s all the noise drowning out important MTV commercials?” she demanded. “Oh hey, Zach, did you put superglue on Vizh’s toilet seat again?” Vizh did a double take. “What? That was you? I thought one of Enty’s devices had malfunctioned.” But now Hacker Nine and Kerry Shepherdson had also seen what had replaced the bathroom. “Wow Vizh, you’ve been remodelling!” Zach whistled. “Oh sure, he’s got enough money for a foetid love-dungeon but he can’t afford to buy me a bazooka and matching ear studs,” Kerry complained. Vizh regarded his house-guests with suspicion. “This isn’t one of your… events?” he demanded of them. “Wish it was,” H9 admired. “I wish I could get pixel depth this good. No, I think this is real. Your bathroom door has connected with an underground funky shack, Vizhster.” “Kerry?” The probability arsonist shook her head in denial. “Is it burning or exploding?” She looked speculatively at the old ragged tapestries and dry cushions. “Yet.” Vizh’s paranoia grew. “Has Liu Xi been visiting? Did Enty attach anything new to the toaster recently? Has Fleabot been at my remote controls?” His paranoia started to mount. “Have I offended Hagatha Darkness in any way? Is there a Shoggoth around? Oh crap, has Space Ghost found my new address?” “We’re not about to be attacked by another of your Lair Legion feeb-villains are we?” Kerry demanded. “Because if so I’m going to get my new blowtorch right now.” “Just hold on while I hook my gameboy into the NORAD systems,” Hacker Nine suggested. “Let me get a bit of data about where this place is.” “Could we diagnose the dimensional portal fairly quickly?” Visionary asked plaintively. “Only I was needing the bathroom.” “Good evening,” said the Hooded Hood into the possibly-fake man’s ear. “And now the bathroom’s not a problem,” winced Vizh. “The Hooded Hood!” enthused Zach Zelnitz. “Whoa, hold there dude, I gotta get my webcam.” The cowled crime czar quelled him with a glance. “I think not.” Kerry Shepherdson had just discovered that she had now always not brought her Agent Orange canisters with her. “Hey, that’s cheating,” she complained. “What do you want, Hood?” Visionary demanded, standing in front of his students. “Lisa’s not here right now.” “I require you to attend a business meeting with me,” the Hooded Hood replied. “It should not take up much of your valuable time.” “Was that a crack?” Vizh worried. Everything sounded sarcastic when you said it in a Latvian accent. The Hooded Hood walked through the door into the dim cellar beyond. “This way, if you please.” “Kerry, when I’m gone call the Legion. Let Yo and Mumphrey know what’s happening,” Visionary hissed urgently. “Oh sure, like we’re not coming with you,” the girl snorted. “Right,” agreed H9. “The Hooded Hood’s like… huge in the science villain department. This is a real learning experience.” The door slammed shut behind them, leaving them in the dingy underground chamber. In fact Visionary could no longer find a door back to his home at all. “Not good. Not, not good.” H9 hammered at the buttons of his game boy. “Tell me about it. I lost satellite uplink and… whoa! Hey dudes!” Vizh glanced at the alien screed running down the tiny screen of Zelnitz’ machine. “What is it?” he swallowed. “I’m shaking hands with the local systems. We’re not on Earth any more.” H9 stabbed happily at his machine. “These guys wouldn’t know a firewall if it fell on them.” The Hooded Hood had already stalked across the chamber and swept back a ragged curtain to another alcove. “He is here,” he announced to the unseen occupants. “And he has a bodacious love goddess with him,” Kerry pointed out, adjusting her cut-off t-shirt to look her best. “And also a tech-dweeb,” she added glancing at the preoccupied Hacker Nine. “Systems here are fairly primitive,” Zelnitz reported. “In decay even. A lot of stuff’s been cobbled from second hand offworld junk.” Visionary ventured forward to see who was in the alcove. A tall, handsome, green-skinned warrior strode out to greet him. “Hail, Lord Visionary! Well met!” “Vaahir of Caph!” Kerry recognised. “Oh, this time you are so toast.” “And the Lady Keerry, I see,” the Caphan rebel noted. “You have grown yet more fair and precious since the time I saw you last.” “Okay, you can live for a while longer,” Kerry decided. “We’re not on Caph,” Visionary reasoned, remembering the circumstances of the Tenth Caphan’s exile. “We must be on… that place I could never pronounce back during the Transworlds Challenge.” “Plxtrazar,” Vaahir prompted him. “A world devastated by war, besieged by raiders and pirates and sorely in need of protection. I have sworn to labour for them in penance for my misdeeds.” “There’s some seriously bad hardware flying in near planet orbit,” Hacker Nine noted as he studied his screen. “Those must be the bad guys. I’ve just shut down their engine cores.” “There are bad guys?” Kerry perked up. “Flammable bad guys?” “I like the way this one thinks!” Shazana Pel approved, striding from the alcove to join them. “Pel?” Visionary had no idea why the exiled Thonagarian Pigeon Warrior might be teamed up with the exiled Caphan freedom fighter. “Is the Librarian here?” The warrioress shook her head. “He left earlier, having brought back our young charges from their stay at the Crystaxian Public Library.” “Young charges?” Vizh glanced for a moment at Kerry and Zach. “Our young charges, not fledglings of yours,” Vaahir explained. Then Visionary realised there were other people in the alcove, a pair of teenagers, boy and girl. Both were green-skinned like all Caphans, but they were dressed in the neat dark uniforms of Interplanetary Order of Librarians interns. The Hooded Hood stepped forwards again. “Visionary, Miss Shepherdson, Mr Zelnitz, may I introduce Mistress Ohanna of Raael, and his excellency Prince Kiivan, the Emir of All Caph.” The Plxtrazar night was cold and clear, the nebula skies far more colourful than those of Earth. Two moons hung low over the horizon. “There has to be an algorithm for tide calculation for a world like this,” Zack Zelnitz considered absently, trying to cope with the sights and sounds of an alien world. He’d come to Earth from the parallel reality of Technopolis, but this was a much bigger change. The architecture, the citizens, the very air was different. The people looked almost human, except for a blue tinge to their flesh and some minor differences in their facial layout; just enough to seem as alien as they truly were. But they cowered like humans. “Are they scared of us?” Kerry asked, disturbed as the hovel-dwellers shied away when they heard someone coming. “Why are they scared of us?” “They aren’t afraid of us,” Ohanna told her. “They’re afraid of the raiders. They’re afraid of being robbed of what little they have left, or taken away as slaves, or simply of being slaughtered for amusement.” Visionary’s face darkened. Then one of the cowering people recognised who was with them. “Vaahir! It’s Vaahir!” And suddenly the dark ruined alley was crowded again. “Whoa, Vaahir has a fan club,” H9 noted. People seemed to appear from everywhere, swarming to see them. “He is their champion,” Prince Kiivan explained. “Their protector. He has bled for them and he has fought for them.” “And he teaches them how to fight for themselves,” added Pel, because in her view that was more important. “They already knew how to bleed.” Kerry looked around the little mob. They were pleased to see the Caphans, that much was certain, but she couldn’t help but notice the details: the tiny infant, so thin at its mothers breast, hardly moving; the old scars on the people who milled about them; the fine clothes now reduced to rags; the child with the stump where his arm should be. She turned on the Hooded Hood. “Why did you bring us here?” she demanded. “Why did you want us to see this?” “Why do you think, Miss Shepherdson?” challenged the cowled crime czar. “Because it needs putting right,” hissed the young probability arsonist. “Yes,” agreed Visionary grimly. “It does.” Kaptain L’Zard sat on his command deck and watched them lash his senior computer technician for the random systems failures that had crippled his ship for three hours now. He was quite enjoying it, so he was irritable when his tactics officer disturbed him. “What is it?” “Kaptain, we’ve got the information you wanted.” “Information? What information?” snapped L’Zard. A few drops of the computer tech’s blood splattered over the Kaptain’s reptilian skin and he absently licked them off. “Oh… you mean the information!” “Yes sir. We know where Vaahir is. Exactly where he is. Right now.” “Amazing how informative these Plxtrazarian mammals are when you hold some of their kinfolk hostage,” L’Zard gloated. “Slice off an ear or gouge out an eye from one of their children or their pair-bonding partner and they’ll betray even their best hope of freedom.” “Yes sir. Shall I see about bypassing the computers and setting a manual missile barrage? And shall it be conventional or trans-nuclear?” “Neither,” the Kaptain spat. “I want a confirmed kill. And that means I want Vaahir and his little friends alive in front of me, so I can torture them to death myself.” He considered carefully. “Contact all the raiders. All of them. Tell them I’m going Caphan hunting, and they can join me if they choose. Give them co-ordinates, but make sure none of them cheat and use weapons of mass destruction. Tell them I’ll wager five tons of pluvium that my people will bring Vaahir in before theirs do.” His forked tongue flicked around his lips with gleeful anticipation. “It’s going to be a glorious hunt.” “I have to say,” Kerry told her hosts, “this food tastes like crap.” “It is,” Vaahir told her. “The recycling units are rather old, but at least we feed the people. I’m sorry I have nothing better to offer you.” “People do bring offerings of food and drink to the Warlord,” Ohanna explained, “but we distribute it amongst the needy.” “This is fine,” Vizh said, “really.” He forced down more of the rotten bread. Hospitality was very important to Caphans, in its giving and receiving. They sat around a broken hearth in the cellar of one of the few roofed buildings. Warlord Vaahir was flicking through the intelligence reports his spies had gathered about the movements of the marauders who picked at the planet like vultures. He evidently didn’t like what he was reading. Prince Kiivan was watching the possibly-fake man carefully and nodded approval at what he saw. “You are the Earth champion who rescued some Caphan slaves, are you not?” “My friends rescued them,” Vizh admitted. “Then perhaps you can tell us what Lord Vaahir may not?” “I’m under oath to the Lord Shoggoth not to speak of Caph while I serve my penance here,” Vaahir explained. “So I could not answer my prince’s questions.” Hacker Nine looked round the gloomy subterranean lair. “This has got to be cruel and unusual punishment,” he sympathised. Vaahir looked up with a strangely shy smile on his face. “Oh no. This is kindness and wisdom beyond measure. This is grace beyond anything I deserved.” Visionary had to admit that the Caphan warlord looked more at peace than he’d ever seen him. Admittedly, he’d mostly seen Vaahir as the Caphan was trying to slaughter him, but the wild desperation was gone from his eyes. He seemed almost… content. “Plxtrazar is a planet is desperate straits,” Ohanna explained. “A border world, formerly a marketplace where many spacefaring nations exchanged wares, but of no great power or influence of itself, now torn by war and ravaged by raiders. They take what the want, goods, slaves, anything of value, and the people cannot protect themselves.” “So I protect them,” declared Vaahir. “This is my sentence. I labour with them, and I comfort them, and if I can I keep them safe.” He turned to Visionary with wondering eyes. “I have helped birth a newborn child.” Then the eyes became hard with pain. “I have buried his mother, when the raiders finished with her. And I have avenged her.” “That’s… well, that’s good in its way,” Visionary agreed. “What I don’t understand is why we’re here?” “All in good time,” the Hooded Hood replied. “You have not yet satisfied Prince Kiivan’s curiosity regarding your slave women.” “They’re not my slaves,” Visionary bridled. “Not anybody’s slaves.” H9 pointed out to the Caphans. “Yeah, your social system sucks, dudes,” Shazana Pel hurled a burned crust to the floor. “The gangly youth is correct, Kiivan. Your social system does suck.” “We’re working on it,” Ohanna said defensively. “We know some things need to change. Like, you know, throwing the Thonnagarians off Caph.” “That’s true, then?” Vizh realised. “The Librarian said something about a coup and some refugees, but…” “We are the refugees, Lord Visionary,” Kiivan explained. “Ohanna and I were rescued by Pel and the Hood and lodged here with Vaahir to learn warcraft.” Kerry glared at the Hood suspiciously. “You’re mentoring them? You?” “It’s not as if I have to give them house room,” the cowled crime czar shrugged. “Besides, they are far less annoying than you Juniors.” Kerry smirked. “As Lord Visionary apprentices you, so the Hood does Kiivan and Ohanna,” explained Pel. “Whoa,” admitted Hacker Nine. “Is there an intern programme?” He glanced over at Visionary. “Not that I’m complaining about you being the teach, teach,” he added hurriedly. “But the Hood…” “The Caphan women you retrieved,” Kiivan prompted Vizh. “What of them? Please?” “The Caphans? They’re fine,” Visionary assured everybody. “Pel knew you’d saved nine of them,” Ohanna said uncertainly, almost breathlessly, “but she could not recall their names.” “Deeela, Sayaana, Philaana, Noona, Miiri, Odoona, Losiira, Luuma, and Kaara,” the possibly fake man answered promptly. Vaahir smiled goofily at the mention of Kaara of Jaaxa, but it was Ohanna whose face lit up at mention of Miiri. “M-miiri? Really?” she gasped, reaching convulsively to grip Kiivan’s hand. “Miiri of Raael,” said the Prince. “Miiri of Earth she calls herself now,” Kerry sniffed. “Hey, wait a minute… Miiri of Raael… Ohanna of Raael…” “My sister,” breathed Ohanna, her eyes becoming moist. “My sister is alive! I am not the last of my house. There is another!” “Two others,” smirked Kerry. “Vizh got your sister up the duff, Ohanna. Congratulations.” Visionary took a step back from the three sword-carrying Caphans. Ohanna looked up at the possibly-fake man wonderingly, gazing at him from his lemon coat to his honest eyes. “You have blessed my sister?” she asked. “She is safe and you have chosen her as the repository of your seed?” “Er…” Vizh gurgled. “I wanted to tell you she lived,” Vaahir apologised to the youngsters, “but I had sworn an oath…” “So now Vizh gets points for knocking up hot slave girls?” H9 complained. “My life so sucks.” “It may be wise to celebrate joyous news later,” suggested the Hooded Hood, “when the combined forces of the marauders who plague this planet are not assembling to annihilate you.” “Trust you to know how to bring the mood down,” snarled Kerry. “It is good that you have come to join me in my fight, Lord Visionary,” Vaahir approved. “When the odds are so much against us and our final gambit nears its fruition, another doughty warrior is always welcome.” “I think you mean doubtful,” Kerry explained helpfully. “Final gambit?” repeated Vizh worriedly. “Is that not why you and your apprentices came to join us in our last stand?” demanded Shazana Pel. “Last stand?” Vizh echoed. “We are close to the end of our resources,” Vaahir explained to his guests. “The methods we have used to deter raiding so far have saved some but not removed the problem. Nor can we continue to harry these forces forever, because we are running out of places to run. So we have determined a different strategy.” “A trap,” Pel grinned savagely. “They know where we are. They will come to take us. Or so they think.” “That’s why we allowed ourselves to be seen and identified earlier,” Ohanna explained. “Now we are bait, and when the raiders come to take us alive…” “We shall destroy them,” Kiivan concluded. “At least, that is the theory. In practise, we expect to either do or die.” “And you brought us here to die with them, right?” Visionary concluded, turning to the Hooded Hood. The Hooded Hood had gone. “He does that,” Pel noted. “At first I thought it cowardice, but now…” “He just does it to annoy people,” Kerry suggested. “Very possibly,” conceded the Thonagarrian warrioress. “There are Plxtrazarians with us, too,” Kiivan continued. “Many who have lost everything and are willing to die in one final attempt to free their world.” “And you’re okay about that?” Zack asked him. “Letting them die, I mean?” “We stand beside them,” Ohanna objected. “Only because you won’t obey orders and go hide,” hissed Kiivan. “I don’t belong to you, Prince Kiivan!” the Caphan girl hissed back. “I’m the Emperor of All Caph. Every Caphan’s duty is to obey me.” “You’re not Emperor until you’ve thrown every single Thonnagarian off our world, Kiivan. Then I’ll obey you. Maybe. Until then, I stay and I fight next to you, okay?” The whole exchange had the familiarity of something that had been rehearsed many times before. “She is a valiant heart, my prince” Vaahir advised. “She had earned the right to fight or fall beside us in this hour.” “She is a disobedient pain in the backside,” answered the exiled Emperor of All Caph; but his eyes said differently. Then the ground trembled as the first of the pirate ships thundered down to surround the camp. “It is time,” Vaahir said. “We must join the others in turning this ambush around. We shall fight to the death.” Kiivan and Ohanna drew their swords. Pel hefted her heavy war mace and flexed her wings. Kerry rolled her eyes. “Teach…?” Hacker Nine appealed to Visionary. “I mean, dude, there has to be another way.” “You saw what these marauders have done to the people of this world,” Pel objected. “It must end, no matter the cost.” Kerry shook her head. “I want to kick these guys in the tuckhas as much as the rest of you, but getting all the Plx… the whatevers killed isn’t the way.” She turned to Visionary. “Right, dorkface?” The juniors’ teacher shook his head slowly. “It’s not the way,” he agreed. The first explosions sounded above, and the Caphans and Pel raced from the chamber into the battle. “So?” H9 asked the possibly fake man. “So,” Visionary sighed, “the kid gloves are off. I mean it. Don’t kill anybody, but… Kerry, Zach, you can do your worst. Let yourselves go.” “Really?” asked Kerry breathlessly. “No limits?” “Do it. Cut loose.” “Oh dude…” grinned Hacker Nine, reaching for his data pad. And a slow, wicked smile blossomed across Kerry Shepherdson’s face, and the flames cast a red glow over her ecstatic countenance. “Whatever you say, Vizhter. Time to let go.” “Sir,” crackled the communication from Kaptain L’Zard’s flagship. “We’re getting some very strange solar flare activity.” He might have elucidated more had the computer systems of the entire raider fleet not gone into overload and begun random attack runs on each others’ vessels. That distracted quite a lot of people. “What the z’grajit’s happening up there?” thundered Kaptain L’Zard as his personal assault vessel rocked when it reverted to manual control. But just then a Thannagarian pigeonwarrior hammered into his vessel’s port stabiliser at forty Gs sending him spinning down onto the rubble that had formerly been a marketplace. “Weapons systems to my personal command!” screamed the angry pirate. Somebody was going to die for this. Then things started exploding. Small things, all around the downed cruiser. Monitor panels, coffee cups, light bulbs, personal sidearms, more and more, gathering momentum, spraying shrapnel over the confined spaces. And this wasn’t only happening on L’Zard’s ship. His crew panicked. Exploding lunchboxes do that to the hardened space marauders, and lots of other bits of the vessel were starting to fizz and smoke. They burst out of the emergency hatches and fled from the haunted vessel. Across the city other downed pirates were doing the same. By the dark alleys that had been their hunting ground were no longer safe. Not when their combat armour shorted out due to critical software failure. Not when their blaster power packs detonated. Not when their blades were too hot to hold, glowing cherry red before shattering. And the Plxtrazarians were waiting in the shadows, and they had long memories, and longer knives. “What is this?” demanded L’Zard, hoisting his vibra-blade and glaring round the plaza. “Who dares?” Warlord Vaahir emerged from the ruins, his plas gar honour sword turning aside energy blasts as he raced towards the master pirate. He was utterly silent. “You!” snarled L’Zard. “You will suffer for this.” He turned to the men behind him. “Bring him down.” But the men behind him were engaged with two green-skinned teenagers with ion-rapiers, falling back from close quarters conflict they had little taste for. A few of them broke and ran for the ruins, which was a really bad tactical mistake. Kiivan and Ohanna fought back to back and engaged the rest. “No one to hide behind?” asked Vaahir at last, closing in on the tormentor of Plxtrazar. “Okay, I’ve just taken control of the planet,” Hacker Nine pointed out to Visionary. “What do I do next?” “Taken control?” Vizh blinked. “What about all the orbiting slaver ships and pirate ships.” “Yeah. They can shut down computer control if they want, but then the protocols to destabilise their fusion engines will cut in.” “Oh yes,” agreed Kerry, wiping the sweat from her brow, flushed with excitement. “And then their arsenals will just explode. Just. Explode.” “Um, you’re not going totally Dark Phoenix, right?” H9 checked of the probability arsonist. “Not totally,” Kerry agreed, grimacing in concentration. “Dweebo said no killing. He never said no property damage.” “I didn’t,” Visionary admitted fairly. “So you’ve got control of the spaceborne forces and you’ve brought down the airborne assault group, Zach?” “With some help,” Hacker Nine agreed graciously. “What do you want me to do with them?” Vizh pointed to the data pad. “We’re somewhere near the Skunk borders, right?” he checked, squinting at the star maps. “Can you make all the crafts eject their weapons into the sun then fly on autopilot to the Skunk homeworld?” A happy grin suffused Zach Zelnitz’ face. “Do I get extra credit if I crash them into the Skunk police headquarters?” he asked. “Maybe,” agreed the possibly fake man. “Kerry, it’s time for you to damp down all the fires and explosions now. I need to go calm things down out there. We don’t want any more senseless violence.” “Do we get to vote on that?” the teenage objected. “Oh, alright. But you know stopping fires gives me a headache.” “What are you going to do?” H9 asked as Visionary went out to the battlefield. “You’ve just taken control of the planet. Now I’m taking control of it,” Vizh told them. “Wait here.” “All hail King Visionary the First,” Zach called after the possibly fake man. Vaahir looked down on satisfaction at the pieces of Kaptain L’Zard and turned to find another enemy. “It’s over,” said Visionary. “Call off the Plxtazarians. You’ve won.” “There are many pirates yet alive in these ruins,” Kiivan objected. “Let them surrender. Stop them being slaughtered.” “Why?” demanded Vaahir. “You have seen a little of what these marauders have done to this world…” “I have. And they deserve to get punished for it. But not by the mob.” Visionary gestured round. “If we’ve really turned the tide now, dealt with those who have been destroying this place, sent a message to deter others, then there’s a new problem to face. What comes next?” “What does come next?” asked Ohanna. “Well,” Vizh shrugged, “That depends. On whether the mob rules or whether there’s some law. Some compassion. What happens next tonight will define the character of this world for generations to come. Will it be a vengeance-filled planet of hate, simmering over old resentments and wrongs, or will it be… better than the marauders?” Kiivan glanced at his Warlord. “It could be better,” he ventured. Vaahir looked down at his bloody plas gar. The man who had seen so many atrocities here, had fought and wept beside so many victims, so wanted to keep taking revenge. His hand shook. “They…” he blurted. “I…” For the first time Visionary felt truly sorry for the Tenth Caphan. “This is the job too, Vaahir,” he said. “What comes after the battle is more important than the battle itself.” Kiivan and Ohanna watched to see what the Warlord would do. Vaahir sheathed his sword. “Help me to bring peace and order to these streets,” he commanded. “It ends here.” “You have done well,” congratulated the Hooded Hood. And he kissed Shazana Pel. “Eew,” said Kerry Shepherdson. “Just eew.” Hacker Nine didn’t see it that way; but then it wasn’t the cowled crime czar who was commanding his attention right now. “I have got to become an archvillain,” he sighed, staring at the tousled beautiful pigeonwarrior. “I have got to start reading my memos,” Visionary added. Vaahir clattered down the steps to his basement lair, flanked by the Caphan teenagers. “All is quiet,” he reported. “Except for the sucking noises,” Kerry pointed out, gesturing to the Hood and Pel. The Hood broke off from his greeting to the warrior woman, and it was the first time that Visionary had ever seen him look a little embarrassed. “It is time that you were going,” he announced gruffly. “Does this mean I get my bathroom back?” Vizh asked hopefully. “I shall return you to your fascinating new domicile,” the Hood agreed. “You have served your purpose here. Now there are things you must undertake back home.” “Since when did we get to be minions of yours, tongues-boy?” Kerry challenged. “I mean okay, it was kind of fun getting dragged out here to save the unpronounceable planet, and I guess you called us in as guest stars because otherwise your flying squeeze might have become crispy fried chicken, but what makes you think we’re doing anything more to help you?” “I believe the Lord Hood wishes you to assist us, Lady Keerry,” Ohanna of Raael explained. “I believe he seeks your aid in allowing us to visit my sister.” Visionary looked at the hopeful young Caphan. Her companion seemed less sure. “I need to continue my studies,” Prince Kiivan objected. “Ohanna… Ohanna must go, of course. But I must continue to hone myself for the time when I retake Caph. I can spare no time to…” “There are things you can learn on Earth, my prince,” Vaahir interrupted. “Even as you learned on New Crystaxia, on Naicluv, with the Xnylonians, with the Flashlights…” “Whoa, you duded have one hell of an intern programme going,” admired H9. He glanced over at the Hooded Hood, “Um, if there are any entry-level positions going…” “You have to come with me, Kiivan,” Ohanna told him. “Just for a short while. Then we’ll come back here and study more with Lord Vaahir. But I would like to see Miiri. Please?” Kiivan nodded. “The legendary Earth is, then,” he agreed. “Excellent,” proclaimed the Hooded Hood; and suddenly the door back to Visionary’s landing was open once more. “This way,” Kerry called to the Caphan teens. “You’re gonna love meeting the Juniors. It’s going to be a blast!” And this was the probability arsonist speaking. Next Time: It’s actually time to start the Juniors’ Graduation story proper; so join us for Harlagaz vs Donar, Ham-Boy’s difficult delivery, Fashion Accessory’s secret origin, CSFB!’s sex advice, Ohanna’s first pizza, Caphan royalty night clubbing, and Kerry in more trouble than she’s ever been in her young exciting life. Oh, and we’ve got New Battlers and Young Heckfire too. Of course, the font will have to be very, very small. Our story starts to pick up speed in UT#243: Untold Tales of the Junior Lair Legion: Places Where We Should Not Go. We May Not Be the Young Footnotes Very Long: Vaahir of Viigo was the title character of the Untold Tales Tenth Caphan arc, #202-208, and was exiled by the Manga Shoggoth thereafter to atone for his crimes on the devastated planet Plxtragar. Prince Kiivan, Emir of All Caph and Ohanna of Raael were the only people to escape from the conquest of Caph by the Thonnagarian pigeon warriors, with the help of cowled crime czar the Hooded Hood, and outcast Thonngarian warrioress Shazana Pel. UT#219 outlines their story, chronicles the relationship between the Hood and Pel, and details how they came into the care of Warlord Vaahir. Perceptive readers may note that the refugees have somehow aged three years in a few short months, or which more next time. Miiri of Raael is one of the nine Caphan slave girls liberated from the Slimy Slaver Lovetoad during the Transworlds Challenge (UT#171-186) and given into the care of first Visionary and then the Manga Shoggoth. Visionary is accounted the father of Miiri’s unborn child. This chapter is the first time the sibling relationship between Miiri and Ohanna has been explicitly referenced. Previous chapters at the newly updated Hooded Hood's Homepage of Doom Character descriptions at Who's Who in the Parodyverse Original concepts, characters, and situations copyright © 2005 reserved by Ian Watson. Other Parodyverse characters copyright © 2005 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. |
| Echo™ v3.0 alpha © 2003-2006 Powermad Software |
|
|