#267: Untold Tales of the Parodyverse: Underwar Previously: As the Parody Master prepares for his conquest of Earth, his Doomherald recruits creatures of the night to act as an advance assault force to collaborate with the conquerors. But not all the horrors of the dark want to march to the Parody Master’s tune.Tie-ins to this chapter include: Night Nurse #0: The Blood Is the Life by the Hooded Hood How To Bind and Elder Creature by the Manga Shoggoth Cast lists are at Who's Who in the Parodyverse Locations described atWhere's Where in the Parodyverse. Previous chapters are found on The Hooded Hood's Homepage of Doom. Part One: Kiss of the Vampire The girl in white walked through the mist-filled weed-tangled graveyard up to the derelict shell of the abandoned church. As she approached, the east doors opened of their own accord so she could walk into the roofless interior. They closed behind her as she passed inside. He was waiting for her by the altar. Tall and saturnine, with the devil’s eyes and a shaved head, Graf Werner Hertzog wore some dark military uniform with silver Gestapo death’s heads. He was waiting for her. “I knew you would come,” she smirked, looking down at the little brunette in the nurse’s uniform. “The call of the blood cannot be resisted. We have so much unfinished business, you and I.” Grace O’Mercy, the Night Nurse, had been killed by this man. She owed her undead existence as a vampire to him. She had lured her fiancée to his death at Hertzhog’s orders. “There’s unfinished business,” she agreed. “Call me master.” “I have an aversion to that title,” she replied. “That’s what Nosferos made me call him.” “Before you slaughtered him and drank his ancient ichor, graining his strength and power?” “Yes,” agreed Grace, shuddering as the dark delight of that deed pulsed through her again. “Master.” “When I taste your blood again that power will pass to me,” Hertzog anticipated. “Then let old fools like Vrykolakas maunder about the ancient ways. My ascent will be all the higher.” Grace looked around her. She’d been here before. “This is where you were staked through the heart,” she remembered. “The day I arose. Why aren’t you gone?” “I learned long ago the secrets of surviving the traditional deaths of a vampire. And I made… arrangements. Pacts. Wilton and his women may inconvenience me but not destroy me. And now Wilton has fallen.” “Sir Mumphrey?” Grace O’Mercy had met the leader of the Lair Legion several times now. She liked the eccentric old Englishman. “What have you done?” “He’s done nothing,” the sleek dark beauty sliding from the shadows interrupted. For a moment the Night Nurse thought it might be another of Hertzog’s slaves, but there was no aura of undeath around the newcomer. Instead she smelled of… “Faerie?” Grace surmised. The woman moved into the moonlight, where the soft rays bathed her so she shimmered. She wore an elegant mantle of pastel silks. The bodyguard behind her hulked over her, half her size again, his vast bulk squeezed into a mortal business suit. “May I present the first of our allies?” Hertzog declared. “La Belle Dame Sans Merci, Lady Camellia of the Fay.” “The future Queene of Faerie,” added Mr Oxalis in his sinister rumble. “Of course,” agreed Camellia. “Inevitably.” Before Grace had chance to question the alliance of fay and vampire she sensed another presence coming over the wall: fast, vibrant, muscles pumping, a compound of ferocity and physical perfection. Another woman landed on the broken chapel floor. Wild waist-length tawny hair swirled about her as she rose from her crouch, shrouded her like a mantle as she stood proud and naked in the moonlight. “A werewolf,” Grace recognised. The stench of lycanthropy was unmistakable. “The werewolf,” Belladonna Rouge replied. “Pack-leader of the Lycanthropes’ Guild, the first amongst the children of the night.” Hertzog had mentioned a war when Grace had met him last. He had mentioned allies. And one by one they arrived to take their counsel. There was the Ghoul, glowing in the dark from the radiations of his native Chernobyl, Abyssal Luminosus stitched together like some undead Frankenstein’s monster. There was the Caribbean woman in the humanskin bikini, festooned with the talismans of voudoun, LeVeau M’Tumbe, the so-called Voodoo Vicaress. She was flanked by two shambling zombies, the vanguard of the legions she had been called upon to raise. There was another old Teutonic being mantled in death, not quite undead but certainly not living, the Baron Ottokar Attila Kublai Tamerlane von Zemo. “You begin to see the new order,” Hertzog told Grace, stood behind her, his fingers fondling her shoulders and neck. And still they came: a handsome young blonde man with hellfire eyes, the incubus Daimon Soulshredder; an undead talking horse with prophetic powers; Baroness Morbo ; the Flensing Man; Belial DeSoth of the witch-clans; a nameless Clock Wraith; a limping Hoodman Blind representing Penny Blood; a twisted mummified thing sent by Ku Ku Ka-Choo; a rotting raven from Lady Morgosa. “The Necromancer General will be delayed,” Belladonna Rouge announced with a smirk of schadenfreude. “I hear he ran into some difficulties binding the Shoggoth.” “These are only a few of the forces that now join our offensive,” Graf Hertzog announced, loud enough that everything present could hear. “Standing with us are entities like the Picnic of Doom, the Choir Menstrual, the Shallow Gravers, the Geometry of Horror, Crapsack…” “What about the Rakshasas?” demanded von Zemo. “They still hold to their word to the Lair Legion so far,” Rouge spat with contempt. “They have grown weak and pale.” “Not all the ghoul clans are with us either,” the Abyssal Luminosus snarled. “But when I have the Abyssal Greye in my claws, I shall…” “There are always those who oppose the night,” Belial DeSoth noted. He fingered an ornate, serpent-tipped blackwood staff as he spoke. “Amongst the witch-kind, for example, the House of Darkness is set against us. That foolish old woman will be taught the folly of her ways.” “And yet you haven’t done it yet,” mocked Baroness Morbo. The tumours on her swollen, misshapen skull snickered to themselves. “How curious.” “We are cleansing the night,” Hertzog assured them. “Those who will not join our crusade will be eliminated. The Darkness witches. The so-called League of Righteous Vampires. Mr Lye. All of them.” “The champions of humanity will fall too,” Rouge added. “The sorcerer supreme is already converted to our cause, and measures are at hand to destroy or enslave Earth’s superhuman entities.” “The Probability Dancer is fallen,” Camellia proclaimed, “and I have personally arranged the slow destruction of the fake man and his ghost of electricity and all they hold dear. One small curse is all it took. Thus I am avenged for their insults to me. So die all the enemies who oppose us, weeping and broken.” “And then what?” challenged the Night Nurse. “And then we shall change the world,” the lord of vampires proclaimed. “We shall take back is planet from humans and rule it in the name of the Parody Master. Humans will be cattle, enslaved for our pleasures, penned in prisons of our dark devising. The age of reason will end and a reign of darkness will return.” He caressed his minion’s cheek. “And you will be there to share in it,” he promised Grace O’Mercy. Interlude One: “Is he in?” asked the nervous elf, peering round the door. “He’s waiting for you,” the pretty sylph behind the desk answered. “Better go in right now.” Zebulon knocked on the door of the Office of Mundane Affairs and was called inside. Rimshard Kentish was an alder man, nearly ten feet tall and covered in bark. He rose from his chair as the four foot elf shuffled into the room. “Ah Zebulon. So you got here at last.” “Er yes, about that,” the Lair Legion’s former technician began. “I think there might have been an administrative error, only I got this summons in the name of the Faerie Queene. Me. Silly mistake, really, one anyone could have made…” “You were summoned, Zebulon,” Rimshard Kentish boomed. “Of all the elves you have the closest knowledge of contemporary mortals, having spent so much time exiled amongst them.” “It wasn’t an exile, just a job opportunity,” the elf assured the Queene’s administrator. “Really, you don’t want to believe all those silly stories about the biochip upgrade in the Christmas Barbies and the battle scenes with the flamethrowers. That was all exaggerated out of all proportion by dwarves that had had their beards burned off.” “You, Weyland help us, are our expert on modern humans,” Kentish sighed. “And so we have a mission for you.” “A… a dangerous mission?” “Yes. We can only hope that you die to make it a success.” He glared at Zebulon. “There is a plot afoot to displace the Faerie Queene with a new aspect. A mortal girl, bred in the Mythlands to claim the power and office, suffused with terrible potential.” “That’s… not good,” Zebulon had to admit. “We believe the time is coming when she will strike, in support of this Parody Master whose forces pour into the Many Coloured Lands with intentions of conquest.” “They won’t though, will they?” the elf asked, worriedly. “Conquer, I mean?” “Already the dark forces flock to join them,” Kentish confessed. “The orcs, the trolls, the deep dwarves, the shadows, the barrow people. The outcome is uncertain. And now, when people’s faith in the Queene is at an ebb, will be the time for her enemy to strike.” “So what do you want me to do?” Kentish leaned forward, his bark creaking, his leaves rustling. “Find this pretender. Kill her.” “Er… kill her? Dead?” “You are now licensed,” the alder man proclaimed. “Execute her in the Queene’s name.” The sylph looked up as Zebulon strode out of Kentish’s office. “Still alive?” she noticed. “Don’t worry about me, Toffeepenny,” he told the pretty elemental, flashing a roguish smile. “K’s given me a mission and I’m going to do it. And afterwards, it’s you, me, and the best parsnip wine in fairytown.” “Is it now?” the sylph asked sceptically. “It is. I’ve been given a licence to kill. 00-Z. All I have to do is find the villainess plotting to overthrow our Queene then kill her. I’ll have saved all of faerie… once this Princess Magweed is dead.” Part Two: Curse of the Werewolf “Oh bugger,” said Con Johnstantine, watching from the ruined belltower above as the meeting of night horrors dispersed. “Why is it never simple.” “And why haven’t they sensed us here?” demanded Tanner. “Why haven’t they heard us, smelled us, tasted our souls?” “Cause I’m not a bleedin’ amateur mate. When I want to spy on the nasties doing their sinister wuggings I don’t go in half cocked. I’m always…” “Completely cocked?” Tanner asked his annoying ally. “Oh, that’s a good one. I really needed a comedy werewolf.” “If you really want to know what you need, Johnstantine, I’ll be happy to tell you and then to demonstrate.” The annoying Englishman snorted. “Keep your woad on, Tanaise. You need to concentrate on your little hairy girlfriend down there. That’s why I’m putting up with your funny jokes.” “Three things, death wish,” Tanner growled. “One, it’s Tanner now. Nothing else. Two, she’s not my girlfriend, hasn’t been for a long time since she cut my throat with a silver knife. And three, you’re putting up with me because you’re desperate and the only alternative would be a team up with Hagatha Darkness.” Johnstantine smirked to see he’d got under the lycanthrope’s skin. “I thought you’d appreciate a chance to run with the big dogs. Tanner.” “Next time I’m going to rip your throat out first and ask questions later.” “Okay. But right now you’d better move because your date’s already left.” There are good reasons why humans are afraid of the dark. One of them was loping over the rooftops of Gothametropolis’ Transylvaniatown right now, making graceful leaps between buildings without even breaking her stride, landing noiselessly without even slowing down. Her russet hair sprayed out behind her as she soared. And behind her came the big bad wolf. Tanner didn’t move with the same grace or style, but with a ruthless economy of movement. He loped from shadow to shadow like the hunter he was. Above him the moon waxed almost full, and the curse waxed with it. She waited for him atop an old tenement, shrouded in moonlight. “So you came,” she smiled; or was that a smirk? “The Lycanthropes’ Guild always used to be smart enough not to hunt on my territory,” Tanner pointed out. “The Lycanthropes Guild never had me as pack leader before,” Belladonna Rouge preened. “The balance of power has changed, lover.” “We haven’t been lovers since you ripped my throat open with a silver knife to infect yourself with the curse,” the tall man replied. His Celtic brogue became more pronounced as he grew agitated. “In fact I seem to remember telling you that I’d rip your head off if I ever saw you again.” Belladonna smoothed her hands down over her sleek body. “Here I am then,” she challenged. “What do you want to do to me?” Tanner shrugged. “You were warm on a cold winter’s night, Donna, but not worth a return visit.” The were-woman’s eyes narrowed and her teeth drew back. Her mane of hair seemed to swell. “I was the best you ever had, Tanner. That’s why you let your guard down. That’s how I beat you!” “If you say so. I thought having my throat cut was a small price to pay to get away from your endless prattling about the sovereignty of the wilderness and the beast within. Men will put up with a lot to have sex, but there are limits, and you get stale fast.” Belladonna caught herself. “Oh, you’ve grown cunning in the centuries since we parted, Tanner. You were always clever. But I’ve grown powerful. Too powerful for you to stop.” Tanner shrugged again. “Is that why you led me here, then?” he challenged. “Onto this trapped roof set to topple us down to where your puppy pack’s waiting in ambush? You’re so powerful you need to assemble the Hunt to help you deal with me?” “They are witnesses, Tanner. Nothing more. I want the Guild to see that all these years they have feared you for nothing. I want them to see the end of the legendary Tanner. I want them to watch me feast on your flesh.” Tanner leaped aside as the roof of the building crumbled inwards. He caught the outer edge of the trapped stonework, held on until the rubble had all toppled, then dropped dexterously into the darkness. There were a lot of werewolves there. “I see body tattoos are in this year with the flea brigade,” he noted, standing upright in human form. “And braids. Very new age.” “They have come to banquet on your flesh,” Rouge told him. “Unlike me, none of them have tasted one who bears a Primal Curse.” “Well, they’d need to have better racks to get that close,” Tanner pointed out. “And to get that close twice they’d need personalities as well.” Rouge snarled, her eyes glinting in the gloom. “You know, now that you’re here with us I’m tempted to set the pack on you after all. To let the Guild teach you why its better to run together than be a lone wolf.” “So you’re having second thoughts, Donna?” smirked the primal wolf. He seemed to swell in the darkness as he sloughed off the veneer of humanity he cloaked himself in. “Suddenly you’re lost in the woods, and you want your pets.” “I want your head on my wall,” the leader of the Guild of Lycanthropes declared. “As a momento. As a warning to those others who do not accept the sovereignty of my clan.” She turned to the hundreds of waiting werewolves; she’d been busy in the three hundred years since she’d last met Tanner. “Hold him down.” Tanner hurled the clay disc he was carrying so it shattered on the ground. “What is that?” Rouge demanded. “Dog biscuit,” he replied, warily watching as the pack circled him and summoned their courage. “You run with fleapelts, I work with the Laundry of Doom. There’s people there who can see the future, people who can do remarkable things. And a lot of the things they can do aren’t nice at all. Like carve arcane summonses in forbidden elder languages.” The first lycanthrope leaped. Tanner took out his throat. Belladonna began to realise that there were more traps here than hers. “What have you done?” “You think because you have fangs and fur that makes you the terrors of the night?” Tanner scoffed. “You think you rule the night? There are other things, older things here in Gothametropolis. Sleeping, mostly. Until someone gives them an alarm call with a ch’tashta rune.” Two more eager changelings died bloodily as they came for their prey. “What’s that?” Belladonna asked, sensing - smelling danger. “Ch’tashta? That’s the Alko word for breakfast.” And then the shimmering multi-dimensional tentacles of Shabba’Dhabba’Dhu, the Groper Out of Grossness that slept beneath Paradopolis and Gothametropolis broke up into the warehouse, rising from below in twisting, snaking coils. And then the hunt began. Interlude Two: “Not again,” complained Regret the Temptress. “How many hours can you sit there watching her in those boring classes?” Bill Reed let the scrying portal return to its default hellfire screensaver. “I could watch Uhuna forever,” he replied. “I love her.” “Even though she betrayed you and was unfaithful to you and chose to abandon you to hell?” the red-skinned demoness pouted. “Whereas I spend every waking moment looking to your needs, managing your court, maintaining your boundaries, serving your every whim? Speaking of whims, you know I could do a pretty good Uhuna impression, right?” “No,” Nats answered firmly. “I let you stay here in my realm because otherwise you’d have been eternally tortured by Sage Grimpenghast. I let you sleep in the same bed with me because… well I don’t really understand why, but I do. And you’re very useful when it comes to inter-demon protocol and stuff which is why I let you play the role of consort. But that’s as far as it goes.” “I’m your consort but I don’t get the privileges?” Regret asked with big sad eyes. “Bill, you know I love you. It’s my one shameful weakness. Why can’t you forget that… bag of mortal flesh and be happy with me?” “Because Uhuna is everything I want,” Nats said. “And one day I’m going to break this curse that binds me as a Lord of Hell, find some way to pass on the power safely to somebody who won’t do harm with it, and I’m going to go back to her. I’ll get everything back, just the way it used to be. That’s why.” “Well,” breathed Regret, “if that’s what you want then that’s what I’ll have to help you achieve. I vow it.” And she smiled. Part Three: Dawn of the Living Bastard The Doomherald’s appearance belied the depth of his power. Indeed, in his leather jacket and pants he looked more like something from one of the more expensive fetishwear catalogues than the emissary of the all-conquering Parody Master. And he was probably the least remarkable-looking being in the room. Bogdan Vlastivock, the Necromancer General, looked like Christopher Lee would after a year of drug addiction and six months interment. He wasn’t actually undead (although it was an easy mistake to make). He preserved his attenuated life by draining the life-force of others through rituals of ever-increasing complexity and cruelty. One such early experiment had been on his niece, Urthula. Now a ghoul, she was bound inside a containment circle where she could listen to her uncle’s triumphant monologues. His earlier setbacks were all forgotten now as his minions and allies came to speak of their triumphs. “Ah, my dear Werner,” the Necromancer greeted the Lord of Vampires as Hertzog arrived with Grace O’Mercy. “You’re just in time to hear the progress of our little shadow coup!” “Excellent!” hissed the nosferatu. “For my part, my agents are even now hunting down those apostates of the Order of Righteous Vampires. Many are already dust. Now they seek the remaining few, such as those annoying children; and then all authority will be mine!” “You think you’ll catch Annabelle with those bumblers?” the Night Nurse asked him. “They’d fall over onto their own stakes if you said boo to them.” Hertzog stroked one crooked yellow finger over her cheek. “When I have renewed the bond of servitude between us I intend to send you to find my enemies, Grace. You shall be the prize of my collection.” “Oh no!” Urthula called out. “C’mon girl. You can’t fall for the old bond-of-servitude prize-of-my-collection line. If I had a rouble for every time I’d heard that one…” “But you shall be my prize, Urthula” Daimon Soulshredder leered. “Your uncle has promised it for my part in his war.” “When all is done, then my niece can be done also,” Vlastivock snapped. “Not till then. For now I need to know how our foes have been eliminated. The ancient covenant of secrecy cannot be violated easily. Many guardians must be swept away before a new world can be achieved.” “The mage Easton West has vanished,” the incubus admitted. “He had many wards in place to warn him that he was being traced. I have sent some of my people to hunt him down, or at least to keep him running. He and his occasional allies will not interfere.” “The vampire Khrys Constantine likewise fled with his woman,” Hertzog shrugged. “Even his own mother does not know where he is hiding. But it matters not so long as he is hiding. While our enemies are scattered and afraid they cannot stand against us.” “The Darkness witch?” “The De Soth Clan are slaughtering her right now,” promised Baroness Morbo. “My own people are hunting down the Dead Boy. Von Zemo seeks to recruit Vrykolakas. The fey woman’s minions hunt the fenborn. Rouge will eliminate the werewolf Tanner.” Johnstantine chose that moment to strike a match and light up a cigarette. “Yeah, about that,” he added, grinning cheekily at the assembly of villains in the underground chamber beneath the old Paradopolis Variety Theatre. “I hear that Belladonna’s gonna need a new Guild.” “Johnstantine!” snarled the Necromancer General. “This place is shielded against all mystical detection! How could you find and breech my sanctum?” “Johnstantine!” hissed Hertzog. “Now you die!” “Johnstantine!” Daimon Soulshredder growled. “I vowed to drag you screaming into the abyss!” “Johnstantine!” cried Baroness Morbo. “You will die a thousand deaths for what you did to me!” “Hey, Con!” called Urthula. “About time you got here.” Daimon Soulshredder was the first to attack. Johnstantine exhaled smoke into the incubus’ face. Soulshredder fell back screaming, clutching and tearing at his flesh to try and get the pain to stop, tearing gobbets of his skin away before he dissolved back into hell. “Holy bong,” explained the Heckblazer, gesturing to his cigarette. “Blessed by the Dalai Lama himself. Good stuff.” “Don’t do drugs,” Grace O’Mercy warned him. Baroness Morbo checked the mystical wards around their stronghold. “There is no way you could have divined our presence here!” she objected. Con held up his mobile phone. “I just called the CIA and got them to track Urthula’s cel position. You people really have to get into the twenty-first century. Even the nineteenth century would be nice.” “Does he always provoke his enemies like that?” Grace asked Urthula, curiously. “From what I've seen, he seems to have a real talent for it.” “He’s a Heckblazer,” the party ghoul answered. “Do not trust him. Do not believe anything he ever tells you. Do not date him.” “But he's one of the good guys, right?” “How long do you have?” The Doomherald leaned against one cyclopean column of blasphemous carvings and folded his arms to enjoy the show. “This way!” the undead Mr Ed guided the pursuers. “The revenant is not far from here now. He has dodged into that human hostelry.” The Shallow Gravers paused. They had no authority to enter into human dwellings. “Don’t be ridiculous,” the Flensing Man snorted. “This is a dawn of a new age where such restrictions will be torn away.” He allowed the claws to grow further from his fingertips and adjusted his mask. “Let us give these people their first taste of the fear and pain to come. Let us enter and find this Dead Boy, in this…” he read the name over the door, “… this Fatal Toilet” Inside, Dead Boy was trying to find the fire exit. “Sorry, mate,” Big Thick Eddie told him. “We had to nail it shut to stop people from sneaking off without paying their tabs. And also because people preferred the alley to the toilets.” “I have to get out of here!” Dead Boy fretted. “There are these people… well not people…” “Yeah, we heard,” Eddie told him. “Our special guest artiste tonight told us you’d be coming, and them. Said to tell you he had a job offer for you when he’d finished his gig.” Across the crowded smoky room the Flensing Man and the Shallow Gravers shouldered their way into the bar. “And now folks,” somebody on the badly-squealing mike called out, “Let’s have a big Fatal Toilet welcome – without the broken bottles this time - a big welcome for our special guest performer… the one, the only Chronic!” “Who?” asked Dead Boy. “Good evening Paradopolis!” shouted the undead rocker. He tuned Steve, the sleek black Devil’s guitar over his shoulder, and eyed the monsters by the door. “Are you ready for a helluva time tonight?” Outside, the undead Mr Ed shook his rotting mane worriedly. “Oh dear,” he admitted as he trotted away as fast of his decayed legs could carry him. “I didn’t see that one coming!” The Abyssal Luminosus favoured the direct approach. He led the Chernobyl Ghouls along the ancient tunnels beneath Gothametropolis, shredding the wards and guards placed by the Scholar-Ghouls who usually dwelled there one by one. “Greye!” he shouted down the tunnels. “Come out and die like a corpse!” He was shambling into the lit areas, where the Gothametropolis collegium lived and worked, before their Abyssal confronted him. “What did we say about you ever coming near our collection again?” Greye demanded of the intruders. “You are weak, Greye!” accused Luminosus. “Weak and pathetic, diluting your natures with words and thoughts!” “Nobody could ever accuse you of thoughts,” agreed the dean of the scholar ghouls. He hefted a thin tome in his hands. “But as for words, they’re far from weak, as I shall demonstrate.” But Luminosus’ tongue flicked across the distance between them and seized the volume out of Greye’s hands. The Chernobyl ghouls giggled with malice as their Abyssal tore the book into shreds and ate them. “Where are your clever spells and fine words now, Greye?” Luminosus mocked. “That wasn’t actually a spellbook,” the Abyssal Greye answered him. “They’re not the only words with power. That was actually a first edition copy of Akiro. More specifically, it was the first edition copy that belonged to the Manga Shoggoth. And he’s not going to be at all happy about what you did to it.” And then the walls seemed to bubble in around the Ghouls Under Chernobyl, and there was the angry whistling tekke-li of a very peeved elder creature, and then there was a long, long silence. The remaining werewolves who had escaped Tanner’s trap chased after him, howling for vengeance, bloody and slime-seared. Belladonna Rouge led the hunt. Tanner led them down to the abandoned dockyards of Hogan, where the vast empty buildings had once teemed with labourers building mighty vessels but now all was empty and dark. “You can’t escape us forever,” Rouge howled. Tanner ran across worm-rotted floorboards until he found himself backed into a corner. “Who wants to run forever?” he growled back. “Bring it on.” Rouge lead the charge, but as more of her pack raced across the unsafe floor the worm-rotted planks gave, toppling the others into the darkness bellow. There came a great growl that set the fallen pack yelping, and the sounds of conflict. “Can you believe the bad luck of it?” Tanner asked Rouge. “Falling right on top of the hidden lair of a genuine troll? Waking him up like that? Oh dear!” Belladonna Rouge was livid. “Another trap! Another trick! You have destroyed my finest servants!” “But no more tricks now,” Tanner promised, growing larger and hairier and much, much more savage. “You wanted to battle me, Donna? You wanted a piece of me? Well there’s only so often I can threaten to pull people’s heads off before I have to make good.” He lunged with impossible speed for the werewoman that challenged him for his turf. “You’re it!” “Say it with me, LeVeau,” Ebony of Nubilia told the trembling Voodoo Vicaress. “I will not raise undead armies of corpses to litter the streets of Paradopolis any more.” Golgotha De Soth neutralised the magical defences around the old Darkness lodging house. Threnody and Styxus made sure that none of the guests would interfere. By the time the old witch knew there were intruders, Belial already had what he needed to ensure victory. “I have your familiar, Darkness!” he crowed at the ancient woman in the rocking chair. He held up and shook the cat in his hands. “As it suffers so will you!” And then he noticed that Hagatha Darkness was rocking with a sleek sooty black queen curled up on her lap. “That’s not my cat,” the Darkness witch informed him with a malevolent smile. “That one’s just visiting. I believe it belongs to Lisa Waltz.” And then things really went downhill for the De Soth clan. “No style anymore,” complained Vrykolakas. “No élan.” “And no huge body counts,” added Baron Ottakar von Zemo. “I miss the body counts.” “They are all so shrill with their telephonic devices and their combustion velocipedes,” the elder vampire went on. “And their endless infernal self-questioning.” “The only self-questioning we had in my day was ‘shall I slaughter some more virgins?’” noted the Baron. “To which the answer always had to be yesss,” Vrykolakas concurred. “More schnapps?” “More,” agreed Ottakar. “Here’s to the whole lot of them going to hell on a one-way ticket!” “Use your scrying pool,” Johnstantine suggested. “Put in a call or two to see how your boys are getting on.” “You are bluffing, Johnstantine,” Baroness Morbo scowled. “Tell that to Daimon Soulshredder,” the annoying occultist smirked. The Doomherald watched Johnstantine with interest. “So you’ve discovered the enclave’s plans and deployed your forces to neutralise them?” he surmised. “Well, I put a few banana skins on the path to world conquest perhaps,” Con agreed. “I imagine your boss’ll be pretty happy to hear that we’ve slapped down this little night rebellion, anyhow.” “Happy?” Urthula asked. “I thought the Parody Master had recruited all these people to take over the world for him?” “Well yeah,” agreed Johnstantine. “But he never wanted them to actually do it. Right?” he asked the Doomherald. “Do I look like a plot exposition device?” the emissary asked. “You look like a leather-boy nancy, chum, but I thought I’d give you a chance to be useful. Nah, look, the Parody Master wants a good game out of Earth, right? He wants us to be his last, best fight before he wins the contest. We’re like, the final level. So he’s secretly hoping we get though this Underwar, survive Special Resolution 1066, all the works. That way its more exciting because he can come and finish us himself. Right?” The Doomherald nodded very slightly. “Perceptive. Let us say that Earth is being tested, and has so far not disappointed.” There was a howl of dismay from the Necromancer General. “What did you do? Johnstantine! What have you done to our forces?” The Heckblazer stuck his hands in his trenchcoat pockets. “Me? I just did a few favours I owed my old mate Xander,” he replied. “Stuff he’d set up back before he got Branded, a few things his missus asked me to sort out. Introduced a few people to a few other people, that kind of stuff.” “And now you are going to die,” Graf Werner Hertzog warned him. “Our day of vengeance begins now.” “I am going to die,” agreed Con Johnstantine, “unless somebody saves me.” And he was looking directly at Grace. “She cannot help you,” Hertzog noted. “Her blood belongs to me.” “If she doesn’t help me, I’m dead. And the world follows,” Johnstantine declared. “Oh you bastard,” breathed Urthula. “What is this?” demanded Vlastivock. “What is going on now? Kill him and be done with it. I have a soul bottle right here! Kill him!” Grace O’Mercy shuddered as she struggled with herself. Do no harm, her creed said; but sometimes cancers needed to be removed. She reached out to Graf Hertzog and ripped off his head. “It’s not working out between us,” she told his decaying bones. “I don’t think we should see each other any more.” Baroness Morbo gestured and released the Scarlet Sigils of Sepperoth to bind the rogue vampire. The Night Nurse shifted to a great cloud of bats that covered the deformed sorceress, picking and scratching. Johnstantine threw his cigarette butt over the magic diagram that imprisoned Urthula Underess; and suddenly she was free. “Fools!” screeched Bogdan Vlastivock. “I am the Necromancer General! I know more about undeath and the undead than anybody in the universe. You think one small vampire can threaten me?. There was a tinkling behind him as Urthula broke his spirit bottles. “Er, one day I shall demonstrate that to you,” Vlastivock added as he hastily retreated. Right into Johnstantine’s knee. “Sorry about that, mate,” the Englishman noted insincerely. “Looks like you’ll be running off and leaving the family jewels behind.” Baroness Morbo triggered her rune of retreat and vanished. Grace formed up to her human self again, except her eyes were glowing red and her lips were drawn back to show her bloodied fangs. “Er, we are on the same side,” Johnstantine told her hastily. “Honestly. And where did you get the power of an Ancient Dead anyhow?” “It’s true!” agreed Urthula. “It radiates from her! Ye gods!” Grace approached Johnstantine hungrily. Tanner dropped down between them. “Back off,” he warned. He held up the object in his hands. “We’ve already ripped enough heads off tonight, okay?” He gestured to Belladonna’s gory head in his fist. The Night Nurse looked at the werewolf, the ghoul, the shattered headquarters, the Heckraiser; and she laughed. “I only wanted to borrow his mobile to get a cab home,” she answered. “I’ll be happy to give the lovely lady a lift home,” Johnstantine offered. “I love a girl in uniform.” “I could make an exception and rip one more head off,” Tanner offered. Next Time: It’s a story I’ve been waiting some time to tell. It’s a tale of vengeance and justice. It’s a narrative that ties up strands from years ago. It’s when Mumphrey Wilton takes the kid gloves off. It has Asil, Samantha, Dancer, Vizh, Hallie, Citizen Z, Erskine Black, Camellia of the Fay, and a whole lot more. It features the debut of a long-anticipated character. It introduces a new superhero. It’s the end of an era. It’s the turning point. Tremble at the coming of… Untold Tales #268: The Grave Mistake. I Was Working on My Footnotes Late One Night: The Baddies: Belladonna Rouge seduced and then betrayed Tanner in 1756 to gain his blood through which she could become an immortal werewolf. She rose to the head of the Guild of Lycanthropes before challenging Tanner again. Graf Werner Hertzog is a vampire of some vintage, going back at least three hundred years. He came to prominence serving the Nazi regime in World War II until he was foiled and seemingly destroyed by Sir Mumphrey Wilton and Miss Canterbury. He encountered his nemeses again in 1949. He converted Grace O’Mercy into a vampire around the time of Untold Tales #68. Hertzog has developed many ways of returning from the grave, giving him longevity unlike that of most other vampires. Bogdan Vlastivock, the Necromancer General is the world’s foremost practitioner of the magics of the dead. While not technically undead himself he has a cadaverous appearance and a penchant for the grand guinol. He is a powerful sorcerer but his spells tend to be ritual rather than spontaneous. Vlastivock converted his young niece Urthula into a ghoul long ago. The Abyssal Luminosus rules the Ghouls Under Chernobyl, and tends to glow with radioactivity. He is not the sharpest tool in the graveyard, but he is very large and strong. Baron Ottakar von Zemo, grandfather of Baroness Elizabeth von Zemo, used his occult arts to preserve himself as “unalive”, trapped in the transient moment between life and undeath. Baroness Ulrika Morbo is the daughter of the late human-demon hybrid Baron Morbo, and like her father is a sorceress of some distinction. Her appearance is marred by a hugely swollen scaly head-bulb. Camellia of the Fey is a dark faerie who runs the illicit drugs and gaming at the fashionable Willow nightclub. Her enforcer is Mr Oxalis. Camellia was recently inconvenienced by Visionary, Hallie, and Miiri, when her nightclub was destroyed and had to be rebuilt, and has subsequently taken her revenge. Belial De Soth is the head of the De Soth Cult, an interbred family of sorcerers and witches with links to the darker gods. Other family members include Golgotha, Thenody, and Styxus de Soth. One daughter, “Lucy” (Lucifera), is enrolled in Young Heckfire. Daimon Soulshredder is an incubus, a demon who takes pleasing male shapes to seduce and damn women. He has made quite a niche for himself in the occult underground as a pimp and purveyor of forbidden substances. He has long sought congress with Urthula Underess. But who hasn’t? LeVeau M’Tumbe, the Voodoo Vicaress is the latest in the line of villainous houngan who use the power of the dark loa to do bad voodoo things. The Undead Mr Ed in a talking prophetic horse, more often seen as part of the supervillain team Proctology. Penny Blood is a mysterious occult being who can write night horrors into being. The Flensing Man and Hoodman Blind are two of her creations. Koo Koo Cha Choo is an ancient Egyptian sorcerer who gradually unfolds his sinister plans in North Africa. The Picnic of Doom is a deadly psychic phenomenon. It previously fought the Lair Legion in The Intermittent Adventures of De Brown Streak #25 The Clock Wraiths are clock-faced assassins who slide through time. The Shallow Gravers are electrically-charged spectres of murderers who were executed by the electric chair. Lady Morgosa le Fey has been mentioned but never described. Now we know she uses rotting ravens, but we have not yet established that she was once a Chronicler of Stories. The Choir Menstrual of the Unholy Orifice are too nasty to talk about. The Geometry of Horror is a multi-dimensional parasite that eats mathematics. Crapsack (Gnudier Lokotowicz) is the new guardian of the interdimensional nexus, and can manifest his sentience through any kind of organic waste product. He was formerly thought destroyed by Kerry Shepherdson. The Neutrals: Zebulon was a disgruntled elf who left Santa’s employ to work for the Lair Legion as a technologist and lab assistant, then graduated to working for Bautista Enterprises. He is very… ingenious. The Rakshasas are a tiger-headed race of Indian demons who lost a challenge to the Lair Legion and abide by their pact of neutrality. For now. Vrykoulakos is an elder vampire who can’t be bothered by these excitable young wisps. When he decides to take a side people will know about it. Nats (Bill Reed) is the newest Hell-Lord. The former Legionnaire was ripped from his wedding to Princess Uhunalura of the Abhumans and forced to ascend the dark throne due to the machinations of Sage Grimpenghast, Master of Deceptions. Nats is assisted in his rulership by his consort the temptress Regret. Wangmundo is a troll, a “fen-born”, who is hiding out in Paradopolis. He doesn’t like to be disturbed and his voice can kill. Shabba’Dhabba’Dhu, the Groper Out of Grossness, the Rummager Below is the sleeping Fairly Great Old One that rests under Paradopolis and Gothametropolis. Occasionally he gets hungry in his sleep. The Goodies: Con Johnstantine is an annoying Cockney occultist with a talent for getting his way. He’s sometimes referred to as a Heckblazer, but mostly they use four lettered words. Tanner is a lycanthrope who works at Mr Lye’s Laundry of Doom. He clearly has an origin waiting to be told. Grace O’Mercy, the Night Nurse runs the Emergency Room night shift at the Phantomhawk Memorial Hospital. She’s also a powerful vampire, but that’s not the most important thing about her. The Abyssal Greye is dean of the Scholar-Ghouls Under Gothametropolis. He’s several clever people. Ebony of Nubilia is high priestess of the Shoggoth Cult, which means she has to go buy anime for the Manga Shoggoth and occasionally frown on his behalf at less bell-behaved cultists. Dead Boy awoke amnesiac and, well, dead, in a lab after some as-yet-unexplained scientific process left him animate. And now he’s going to go work for Nats. Chronic is an undead musician, wielder of the Devil’s Guitar Steve. He is currently helping out in Nats’ abyssal realm. Hagatha Darkness is a powerful and scary witch, grandmother of the Legionnaire Sorceress. She’s not a good person to get on the bad side of. The Manga Shoggoth is a blasphemous loathsome elder-creature with a taste for anime and manga. For the experts amongst you, it was the main biomass who manifested in this story. The fragment with the Lair Legion is fully occupied just now. Annabelle and Roland Forsight are two vampires who were converted as children and retain their juvenile forms. They are associated with the League of Righteous Vampires, undead who try to resist their blood-thirsts. Xander the Improbable is the sorcerer supreme of the Parodyverse. Months after being converted to work for the Parody Master he’s still got plots going to thwart the bad guys. The “Making Of” Extras DVD: ***WARNING: Some bad language ahead*** Here’s some of the correspondence from CrazySugarFreakBoy! (Kirk Boxleitner) that’s gone into making this and some of the other chapters in our recent arc: Kirk: Some thoughts on my cast and SR1066 ... Running through the list here ... The Evolutionary Revolutionaries: Like the X-Men upon whom they're based, this group has been on shifting and unsteady legal grounds ever since its founding, so I'm not seeing any significant reasons why any of them should choose to submit to obedience branding, especially since that's precisely the sort of treatment that they've been fighting against all along. For them, SR1066 is simply the fulfilment of all their pre-existing Days of Future Past fears, so they'll respond to it as such. After all, you can only really threaten someone with a true "worst-case scenario" one time. IW: I'm going along with Josh's recent story in assuming that all (or very nearly all) mutates are currently without powers. The major power shift helps things along in my next arc. I'm assuming the ERs are affected too, and are basically in hiding by then. Of course, there's no reason why some event shouldn't occur to bring the mutate powers back - although I'm sure no such marketing stunt has occurred to Marvel already. Iceman's already generating ice-slides again as we speak. I'll go along with the suggestion that the Evolutionary Revolutionaries are benched for now, simply because I suspect it'll make matters a lot easier for both of us in the short term, although I might reserve the right to reveal later on that the team was merely using the Vermillion Vex's supposed depowering of all mutates on the planet as an opportunity to regain their secret identities and make the rest of the world believe that they no longer had any potentially dangerous superhuman powers, so that they could avoid those mandatory obedience brands, or any other type of "this is not optional for mutates" form of cataloging. I'm thinking that the effect might be temporary, more of a suppression than an negation of mutate gifts. As such, a suitable trauma or other trigger event might reconstitute them. or somebody might come up with a process that restores mutate abilities - for a price! There's a story in there somewhere, but it'll probably be more potent if it waits for a while. The Valiant Vanguard: Yes, this group is long since disbanded, but the irony of SR1066 is that it could inspire the surviving founders to resurrect it. So, let's go through the lineup ... Captain Courageous: Christopher "Kit" Kipling, Dream's college roommate, is the successor to the original Captain Courageous, a time-displaced variant of whom briefly joined the Valiant Vanguard early on in their adventures, just long enough to be written in as a founder. Kit would actually be willing to submit to an obedience brand, if he honestly thought it would serve the greater good of his country and his countrymen, but he operates as a member of Project: Pendragon, whose current leader, Ian Isaac Bradbury, was the former AtomicSci-FiSecretAgent! of the 1950s, so while Kit might have mixed feelings about continuing to soldier on as a superhero, he'll be under marching orders from Bradbury himself to suit up and fuck some shit up (as if a CrazySugarHistoricHero! would choose any other option). I don't know if I'll go this route, but I have a feeling that there's some subversive freedom-loving elements in the US and UK governments who might well feel that their countries lying back and spreading their legs isn't necessarily the best way to deal with an uber-powerful all-conquering tyrant. It'll have to be covert, of course, but for one it would be nice to have a secret conspiracy that was actually the good guys plotting. If you do choose to go this route, you could do worse than have one of the inner circle of the conspiracy be the James Bond of the CrazySugarHistoricHeroes! (which was what I created Bradbury to be). Noted. Blacksmith: I've been setting up Anna Kensington, Kit's girlfriend and Dream's ex-girlfriend, to take over the role of Blacksmith from the original, Ezra Emrys Wright, who died in the Valiant Vanguard's final mission, but not before downloading his consciousness into cyberspace, and becoming the Internet Intellect. Anna has recently developed her own version of Ezra's "Iron Man" suit, and her experiences at the hands of the Aryan Ideal and his Supremacister probably inspired in her a desire to make herself more of an independently powerful player on the scene. SR1066 has to be leaving her feeling terribly conflicted, because on the one hand, she's ultimately a good girl who believes in the traditional American ideal that, if you work hard and play by the rules, life will mostly be fair and you'll eventually succeed, so she won't be inclined to rebel on her own. However, Anna is also a smart girl with a sense of history, and the parallels between SR1066 and Nazi Germany would probably scare her, especially in light of her own close calls with racist assholes, so I suspect she'll reluctantly suit up as well, with Ezra's mind guiding her, ala' Martin Stein and Ron Raymond in Firestorm. It strikes me that there's a good dramatic scene in there if you choose to write it, in which the Men In Grey basically turn up (perhaps even before SR1066 becomes law) to grab and brand her; after all, she's close to known heroes, best to have a few spies in there. So she fends them off, flees to the lab where her experimental armour is waiting... It's shades of the original Tony Stark story, and if there's somebody can get shot down keeping the bad guys at bay while she suits up, somuch the better. Renaissance Man and the Fashion Fairy: Dr. Leonard Day-Vincent is in no hurry to return to active-duty superheroing, much less to restart his old team, since he still blames himself his the failures of that team, and all of its subsequent deaths, but his ex-wife, Sydney St. Sylvain, has grown much more strong-willed in these intervening years, so she'll more than likely force him out of retirement by telling him that she plans on bringing back the Valiant Vanguard to fight The Powers That Be, with or without him. Leonard will want to offer her his protection, so he'll sign up, but in the end, I'm thinking Sydney will be a bit more "in charge" of the team than he is. Sydney, like any fairy, would surely chafe at any confining "geas" such as an obedience brand, that constricted her actions by directly short-circuiting her free will, and after her brief partnership with the chaotic Dream, she might have remembered that the roots of being a fairy are frequently defined by flouting the rules. Part of the stuff happening in the background of the SR1066 arc to lead into the War arc that follows will be the Parody master's invasion of the Mythlands, including the specialised realms of Faerie. The Many Coloured Lands are subtle and cunning, but they're up against the iron jackboot of a tyrant with the power to bend and break them. Think Hitler marching into Poland. This might give Sylvia a chance to touch her fey roots, maybe even lead her team to form the V-Batallion-style resistance movement out in Faerie. It gives them a distinctive role and keeps them from simply adding to the massive bunch of heroes who'll be looking at SR1066 and saying "No way. I'm fighting back." Even as I typed out the notes, I knew I was throwing too many of my characters into the fray of the active resistance, but with so many of them, there was simply no way I could imagine them sitting idly by while Rome burned. I heartily approve of sending Sydney and Leonard into Faerie to fight, along with Anna and Kit (and perhaps even a resurrected Janis Morrison, a.k.a. the Earth Mother, another founder of the team, who was a weird sort of hybrid of Thor and Scarlet Witch), not only because it would have the nostalgia factor of boasting a "reunion" of the names that made up the Valiant Vanguard, but also because it would force Sydney that much further into the leadership role, since nobody else on that team (aside from Janis) would be operating within their comfort zones in the Mythlands. Plus, it would prevent them from rushing to Dream's aid, whenever he inevitably met with whatever dire fate you have in store for him. I'll try and find a way to work this stuff in. It might start with Dream recommending a consultation with Sydney re the reports of possible Mythlands activity, and Sydney agreeing to go look around and declining to borrow the LL because she has some other resources available. The Commedia dell'Arte: Compared even to superhero teams like the Evolutionary Revolutionaries, this supernatural group is almost the dictionary definition of "living off the grid," since like many of the more magical, mystical and non-scientific characters in the Parodyverse, it's doubtful that most of the authorities even recognize, let alone acknowledge, their existence. Nonetheless, let's address them one-by-one ... Easton Ellis Escher West, the Mage: Works his techno-magic through mathematics and hacking to pass as a computer security consultant in Washington, D.C. Pathologically paranoid and obsessed with conspiracy theories, he's long since ensured that his identity doesn't even register on most government or military databases anymore. Given his resources, even if the law finally woke up to the fact that they should be looking for this guy, there'd be next to nothing stopping him from turning into a ghost in the system. Plus, there aren't any substantial records that tie him significantly to the rest of the group. As a mage , West doesn't have too much to fear right now from a government who are more obsessed with nuts and bolts superheroes. He might find himself hunted by nastier things though. The Singularity Riders, PM's version of the Ringwraiths, are being quietly sent to hunt down the mystical characters and secure their co-operation or elimination. These energy and life-sucking beings are roughly in the Silver Surfer-level power class, so most people's heroic encounter with them is basically going to be "How I survived and got away." Easton learned a long time ago that there's no shame in running the fuck away. He's as loyal to the Commedia dell'Arte as he's probably ever been to anyone (it's hard to say, since part of the reason for his pathological paranoia is a patented Logan-style selective amnesia about the past, which has made him suspect that his former memories were "stolen" by The Man), but even with this group, the only obligation he would feel would be to offer them aid in escaping to their own little hideouts, and not implicating them if he ever got caught. Interesting. What I'll probably do with most of this is cover a scene or scenes where the bad guys report back on their activities so far. It'd be far too lengthy for me to cover every attempt on every supporting character, but given as updates it could lead to a nicely mounting tension as failure after failure mounts up until Darth vader chokes the Admiral to death. Jameson Michael "Jamie" Beckett, the Werewolf: The friend that introduced Easton to the Commedia dell'Arte, Jamie has made a fairly successful living off of using his Wolverine-level animalistic tracking senses and hand-to-hand combat skills to establish a name for himself as a relatively reputable bounty hunter (I'd originally set up his shop in New Orleans, Louisiana, but given the damage that area sustained from those two recent hurricanes, he might have either relocated or chosen to stay on and try to rebuild). Because of the nature of his business, I'd expect he's a slightly familiar name and face among more than a few members of the law enforcement community, although not nearly as much outside of his typical zone of operations in the Southern states. Then again, because he usually does his job well enough that it avoids complicating matters for the cops, I'd imagine that many of them might decline to divulge his whereabouts, and perhaps a handful would even agree to actively conceal him. Like Easton, nobody outside of the paranormal "world of darkness" knows his true nature. The lycanthrope community is probably being courted to join the bad guys. There's bound to be some nasty guy who thinks he's leader of the pack and wants to take down those who don't think Wolf Troop of the Great Parody Army is a good idea. Given the fact that werewolves are not exactly known for their ability to come to a civilized consensus, even when it's in the best interests of their own self-preservation, I'd change that idea to, "There's bound to be several hundred self-styled alpha dogs in the packs scattered across the globe who all have their own opinions about how this should go, and who should lead it, no matter where it does go, which means that the lycanthrope community is going to splinter off into a shitload of even smaller and more divisive groups than all of the former states of the Soviet Union." So, like Easton, Jamie should be able to save his own skin, but only if he parts ways with the rest of the Commedia dell'Arte for the time being. Jamie's a bit more loyal than Easton, so this decision will sting his sensibilities, but under the circumstances, I don't see anyone in the rest of the group judging him harshly for it. Christian "Khrys" Constantine, the Vampire: The one whose friendship with Jamie brought Jamie into the group, Khrys balances his time between writing about the trendy goth-punk underground scene in New York City for The Black Cherry Magazine, and trying to help out some of the troubled young souls that he meets along the way as a non-ordained lay ecclesiastical minister for the Catholic church. Khrys' "K.C. & The Sunset Lands" columns lend him an air of cult celebrity among the tragically hip circles in NYC, but like Jamie, his visibility diminishes drastically outside of his specific subculture (coincidentally, The Black Cherry is the same magazine that April Apple did her Groovy Gecko-Gal comic for, back when she was living in New York, and the mass-media awareness of her character was similarly limited by geography and social circles, before she hooked up with Dream). In spite of this modest measure of fame, Khrys could always choose to disappear into the vampire underworld, if things got too hot among the mortals, since his mother, Mhaire "Bloody Mary" Mac Consaidin, owns Le Masque de la Mort Rouge Nightclub in Toronto, Ontario, one of the popular nexus points for vampires across North America. Mhaire disapproves of Khrys' liberal Catholic morality, but he's still blood, and she'd enlist her allies to protect him. There's only one reason he might not opt to hide. Likewise the vampire community might have a lot to gain from alliance with the Parody Master. They're willing to run the concentration camps. The ruling class are, at any rate, as long as it keeps them safely in the shadows. Even the "clanless" wouldn't go against those in charge, since blood is blood, and vampires are every ounce the type of canny Machiavellian politicians that werewolves are not. Khrys' mother might even be a collaborator, in which case she would protect Khrys, but not Olivia, especially since she already sees Olivia as a "corrupting" human influence upon Khrys' morality. I might touch on some of this depending how the plotlines progress, since it also gives me an opportunity to do something with Grace O'Mercy. Olivia Hastings, the Witch and Lovecraftian Investigator: Khrys' human wife, Meg's sister, Dream's aunt and a tenured professor at Miskatonic University in Arkham, Massachusetts, Olivia is arguably the most vulnerable of the Commedia dell'Arte, since she's the one with the most obvious ties to Dream and perhaps the most public life of all the group's members, because she doesn't have any "non-human" side of herself to hide (even her status as a witch is a matter of public record, as being a Wiccan is her professed religious preference, in much the same way that being a Catholic is for Khrys). The only two surprises she would have up her sleeve, if government agents came calling, would be (a) the fact that she's capable of some not-inconsiderable acts of witchcraft, and (b) she can call upon three formidable friends of her own, in the form of her husband and his two associates, none of whom has been "outed" as paranormally powerful. Things could go either way for Olivia. Government interest in her might be more in the form of her being an "enemy of patriotism" in the form of a writer of anti SR1066 material or a defender of sentient rights (in the same way that German academics were persecuted in the 1930s for attacking anti-Semitism). She might find herself visited by one of those "unofficial" mobs of Splendiferous Stuarts. Although she no doubt shares many of her sister's objections to legislation such as SR1066, Olivia has never been much of a commentator upon contemporary culture, preferring instead to concern herself with matters of antiquity, academia, the treatment of mental disorders or warding off the evils associated with the Cthulhu mythos, so if anyone came after her, it would be because of her more famous nephew. Maybe I'm overplaying the Nazi parallels too much. I was thinking of how archaeologists and scientists in the Third Reich were encouraged to find evidence that Negroes were less human and less clever than whites, how the Aryan line had been responsible for every scientific development ever, and how the Jews had been degenerate failures throughout history. I need to get a persecuted academic in there somewhere, but I can probably look elsewhere. So, since I'm leaving aside the Globetrotting Gangbusters (whose choices I believe we'd already discussed in response to one of my stories) and the Amazing Super-Friends (because they'd all be against SR1066, but I have no idea how they'd protect themselves from government retaliation), that leaves us with the lone guns among Dream's cast, as follows ... Bernice Teschmacher, of Who Watches the Watchmen? Magazine: Like J. Jonah Jameson, far too many people forget that Bernice is against superheroes because she's a liberal, not because she's a conservative; in spite of his hatred of Spider-Man and similar "costumed vigilantes," Jonah has repeatedly demonstrated a support for mutant civil rights, apparently under the notion that you can attack someone for choosing to do what they do (putting on a mask and breaking the law), but not for being who they are (being born "different"), and I'd argue that Bernice is much the same in her motivations. The proposal for a "Patriot Brand" might make her queasy, but she could reconcile it by telling herself that, if certain super-powered people want to practice law enforcement without the sanction or training of an officially recognized law enforcement agency, then there needs to be some sort of accountability and oversight, and besides, if they don't like it, they can always just quit and re-enter civilian life, before they're branded (although even that compromise might make her a bit sick, since this is a woman who supports the rights of gays to serve in the military, whose opponents posited a similar stance of "If they don't like these requirements, they can just quit"). But when it's stipulated that all mutants, regardless of their chosen professions or allegiances, will be required to wear brands, she's going to call bullshit on SR1066. I could see Bernice as a political target. She might get hate-mail, threats, a dead puppy nailed to her door. She's the very essence of the freedom of speech that a movement like the one behind SR1066 can't stand. I could see a nasty plot where "rogue metahumans" are sent to mess her up good - "those bastards don't even respect the people trying to help them, see what they did to this poor girl here!" There's a story there somewhere, and hopefully a rescue, but who knows if there'll be time to work it in? In at least one sense, Bernice shares a trait in common with Dream, in that they both tend to believe that, if they're getting threats and being persecuted for what they're saying, then they must be on the right track, so they might as well press on that much further. I'm not sure that an arc such as you suggest could be incorporated entirely into the ongoing narrative, but I just wanted to emphasize that, if you do plan on name-checking Bernice at some point in the plot, I'd appreciate it if it was to address the fact that she has come out against SR1066, for her own reasons. Nothing big or fancy, if you don't have the time or energy to spare for it, but I simply don't want her pegged as a collaborator. She deserves better. On the contrary, I expect she and JJJ to both take a stand, and get hammered for it. PsychoAcidPervGirl!: Business as usual for her, really. If anything, much like prohibition made it that much more socially acceptable for ordinary American citizens to break the law, SR1066 might actually improve PAPG's! standing in American culture, because as we're already seeing in my country right now, the "War On Terror" has divided the population over the long run, to the extent that even a number of Republican analysts estimate that further terrorist attacks on American soil could turn more people against George W. Bush, rather than uniting them in support of him, in the way that 9/11 did. Although I suspect your story has allegorical ties to current events, if you're going to place it in the context of a world whose history over the past five years bears any similarity to our own, then I'd suggest that you show that even the non-superhuman population is on the verge of civil war as a result of SR1066, because we're just a deeply divided people at this point in time. If nothing else, it'd make for a nice contrast to the typical mob scene of "every single one of the non-superhumans rise up and persecute the superhumans," ala' Days of Future Past. I have something of that planned, but I don't want to give too many spoilers. Sooner or later I'll need to have some of the "resistance" captured and converted. It occurs that PAPG! might be a particularly shocking character to catch and change over, and give a very personal stake to CSFB! Your views? Louis Laughing Fox: He's not running and hiding anymore. He took off, years ago, because he didn't want Dream or Meg to catch any of the fallout from the as-yet-unspecified bad medicine that's been following him for most of his adult life, but now that he's back in their lives, he's not leaving again, and he might not have to. Remember, here in the United States, Native American tribes are federally recognized as possessing the rights to form their own government, enforce civil and criminal laws, levy taxes, establish tribal membership, license and regulate various activities, zone property and exclude people from tribal territories. Even when you remember that these tribes possess many of the same limits as states - they don't have the power to declare war, engage in foreign relations or coin their own money - that's a shitload of precedent for the Spokane Indians of Washington, or any other federally recognized tribe, to tell the government that they can shove SR1066 up their ass. Yes, in practice, the tribes' rights would be a bit different, since the federal government could charge in with guns blazing and just massacre the shit out of them, but that's precisely the sort of public relations nightmare that would turn even a majority of middle-of-the-road Americans against the "Patriot Brand" in the first place. Louis is respected among the tribal elders of the Spokane Indians, so with some admittedly heavy arguments, I could see him persuading them not only to defy SR1066, but also to extend temporary "tribal memberships" to various non-Native American asylum seekers, as they saw fit. That sounds like the kind of thing that would work pretty well as a controversial point. but then provoke some kind of violent flashpoint towards the end. Nice thinking. Oh, it would definitely turn ugly, but significant blood would be drawn from both sides. So, yes, by all means, let's create a set of circumstances that angers almost all of the tribes enough that they're willing to actively resist the federal government. It'd make the L.A. riots of the 1990s, that followed in the wake of the Rodney King verdict, look like a motherfucking county fair, because nearly every Indian who lives on the Rez has two things in common - he's known for getting his drunk on when he gets good and pissed off, and he owns a gun. Noted. Meggan Foxxx: She's got a nationally syndicated radio talk show (with a cable TV version already in the works, I'm thinking) and an increasingly high profile in pop culture, thanks to society's slow but steady assimilation of pornography into the more morally acceptable "mainstream." Taking any sort of action against her, whether under ostensible legal pretenses, or as part of an outright Mafia "hit" or a Guantanamo "detention," would be no less futile than trying to pull a covert version of those actions against, say, Howard Stern. Even if she just got "vanished," it could stir up a lot of unwanted attention, especially since she's already started speaking out against SR1066. With that in mind, it's in her best interests to stay in the spotlight as much as possible. And god help anyone who tries to abduct or harm her baby Oliver, because she will kill them, no exaggeration. Meg doesn't play by any of the Silver Age rules that her son has adopted; if sufficiently threatened, she will go Jesse Custer from Preacher. She sounds like a prime candidate for an Obedience Brand. There's probably a hard conversation to be had between Dream wanting to evacuate her and Oliver to the Lair Mansion for safety (there'll be a few evacuations like that) and Meg not wanting to budge and give in to terrorism. Not to sound bloodthirsty, but I think this is the arc where Meg needs to kill someone. Probably only one person, and definitely only after she's had her back pushed to the wall, but it needs to be shown how seriously Meg takes the safety of her children, and since Dream (and, in a different sense, PAPG!) has become largely self-reliant and capable of taking care of himself, the presence of helpless infant Oliver serves a useful purpose in reawakening her merciless maternal nature. Make no mistake, this needs to be justifiable homicide, but it also needs to be coldly remorseless on Meg's part, preferably in full view of her would-be attackers, to give them some sense of the scary-ass bitch that they're dealing with. That sounds like a compelling narrative, but one you'd probably need to write yourself. I'll certainly set something up in the "now they're going after everyone" chapter. "What about Foxglove's whore mother?" "We sent a detachment to Brand her and her new kid. Hell, there was a lottery over who got to get down there and try her out once she was all Obedient. We sent five guys in the end. She won't be any trouble." I think this covers most of my cast, except for the loose ends I already noted, but if you have any further questions, let me know. The other plotline I want to weave in is about laying down one of the fundamental mistakes the Parody Master makes that will come back and bite him as we move towards resolution. The Doomherald visits Book, as he does several influential Earth power bases, to negotiate an alliance (read: recruit as minions). He'll seek to persuade Book that this is all in the further cause of Order. I don't see Book buying this. He'll seek his usual neutrality, or hold out to provide minimum tacit support until he can decide later. The PM isn't having someone as dangerous as Book on the sidelines, so he has one other demand: an alliance that involves Pelopia becoming a Bride of the Parody Master. An incidental consequence of that is that any previous children of hers must be destroyed. Book wouldn't take kindly to this, but he may have to decide on playing a longer game than Pelopia might like. Anyhow, the consequence might be Pelopia - and Iris - appearing at the Lair Mansion seeking refuge. And that could allow for a little bit of April-Dream-Pelopia dynamic which could be a lot of fun, for us to read anyhow. Your instincts regarding Book are dead-on, and while I don't see her as being quite so emotional or independent, I suppose I could see Pelopia breaking with her father's wishes to abscond with her fetus to the Lair Mansion. And yes, however you choose to do it, I think that Iris should be a fetus that's been extracted from Pelopia and placed in stasis, at least for now, because (a) it leaves Iris' actual "birth" date up in the air, (b) it allows Pelopia to retain a full physical combative role in all of the adventures that ensue, and (c) it lets Dream know that he has a child now, without shoehorning that child into his world just yet, since I don't know that he's ready to be a dad just yet. No problem. As for Book, I'm thinking he's likely to fake his death, perhaps with a big explosion taking out his penthouse. That'll give Dream another reason to hate the PM, Pelopia a reason to flee to the only other person she's ever had any feelings for, and Book a chance to move quietly into Herringcarp Asylum as previously arranged. Original concepts, characters, and situations copyright © 2006 reserved by Ian Watson. Other Parodyverse characters copyright © 2006 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. |
