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Post By Okay, now the Hooded Hood's resorting to triple sized chapters to get the damn story told Fri Aug 25, 2006 at 12:26:36 pm EDT |
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#284: Untold Tales of the Parody War: Cabin Fever | |
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| #284: Untold Tales of the Parody War: Cabin Fever Previously:The universe conquering Parody Master has turned his attention to Earth but is currently thwarted by a powerful Celestian defensive barrier around the solar system. Some of his agents are stuck on Earth though, and the Doomherald and shapeshifting Skunk princess Annar have captured elementalist Liu Xi Xian and the miniaturised bottled city of Badripoor. Liu Xi Xian and an unidentified resident of Badripoor who will become the Celestian Madonna have both been designated as Brides of the Parody Master as Annar was before them. For now the Doomherald is holding the bottled city and Liu Xi, restrained by a mystical collar that prevents escape and inhibits her powers, in a remote Alpine cabin. The footnotes contain a cast list for this chapter.  It was always night in Badripoor nowadays. That was because the miniaturised former Pacific Basin rogue nation state was now contained in a force-field bottle two feet high and locked in a metal trunk ready for shipping to the Parody Master. It was almost two months since the concatenation of weird science forces had trapped the city inside the energy barrier to save it from more immediate destruction. Some people blamed Uuuukelele, upstart Princess of the Sea Monkeys. Others pointed fingers at Leticia Gahagan, the genius metahuman known as the Idiom, whose force fields had malfunctioned. A few suspected Daniel Lyle, the young self-proclaimed supervillain Denial. Most people blamed the harassed President For Life spiffy - and pointed out that he was only President for Life. Sober estimates had indicated that Badripoor could survive for up to four weeks trapped in an airtight microsystem before its citizens ran out of air, then food. Three weeks after everybody was supposed to be dead the young heroes into whose care the city had fallen were having more than a little bit of trouble. “Do not despair,” Glory, the mutt of might, told her class. Glory was a border collie enhanced by exposure to weird radiation called the Divine Spark. Her physical and mental acuity had been massively amplified but she needed the help of a paw-friendly keypad and a voice synthesiser to communicate with her human friends. The dog was one of the graduates from the Lair Legion’s Junior Hero Training Program and now she interned as a teacher with it. In the absence of Visionary and the other Legionnaires, Glory was in charge. “You have all done very well again. We just need to debrief.” The official Juniors were Harlagaz Donarson, demihemigod of thunder, Samantha Bonnington, fabric-transmuting Fashion Accessory, and probability arsonist Kerry Shepherdson. Their numbers were swelled just now with unofficial teammates Captain Courageous (Kip Kipling), female autobot Glitch, the vegetable vigilante Kid Produce (Jasper Stevens), Fetish Lad (Warren Kennedy-Rockefeller-Hearst-De Sade IV), the high-flying Falconne (Lindy Wilson), and slouching James Dean lookalike Denial. Most exhausted of all those present was Ham Boy (Fred Harris), whose ability to generate meat from thin air had been taxed to the maximum over the last few weeks to feed a starving population. “There wert food riots over in yon Market District again,” Harlagaz reported. “I wast restrained as thou askest and did but whompest three felons through shop windows.” “Restraint,” whispered Kid Produce, his face darkened by a growth of stubble. “Why bother? They break the law, they get the carrot.” “Eew,” said Fashion Accessory. She surreptitiously transmuted a small spritzer of perfume and sprayed it over in Kid Produce’s direction. “We can’t possibly police a whole city,” Falconne complained. “People are getting desperate as things run out. First the food and water shortages, now there’s no medicines, no fuel…” “No sanitary arrangements,” Danny Lyle contributed. “We should try again to set up a recyling system to recover protein from human waste,” Glitch suggested with the happy ignorance of a mechanical about human attitudes to bodily waste. “If we can get hold of some flavouring…” “We have to hold the line,” Kit Kipling told the others. “If we set a standard, people will strive to maintain it.” “Ooh, if only,” moued Fetish Lad. “But then there’s be a citywide shortage on pantyhose and safety pins, so there’s no winning.” “spiffy says that the Idiom is working all out to solve our problems,” Glory reported to the class. “It is more difficult now because of the Celestian barrier that prevents dimensional invasion on Earth. The same barrier stops size-changing particles from working.” “Plus we’re, y’know, stolen and locked in a box!” Kerry exploded. “When are we going to do something about that?” “Maybe when we can, y’know, get out of the box without bursting?” Ham Boy suggested wearily. He’d had this argument with the fiery probability arsonist before. “And when does the Idiom say that will be?” Kerry demanded. She glanced over at Denial. “Or maybe you should ask your new Sea Monkey girlfriend?” “If we’re back to this part of the argument I’m heading off for bed,” Falconne warned. “But wake me up if they start making things blow up.” “Maybe if they wrestle in a mud pit?” Fetish Lad suggested. “Just pick up tomorrow’s assignments on the way out,” Glory asked them. “Tomorrow is another disaster,” Kid Produce philosophised as they staggered to their rooms. The logs crackled and the room was fit only by firelight. Princess Annar was an early sleeper and had retreated to her room in the little Alpine cabin. Liu Xi Xian sat curled in an old sofa under a blanket, watching the Doomherald watch the fire. In the weeks of Liu Xi’s captivity the three people in the little hut had developed a routine which, if not exactly comfortable, was comforting in its familiarity. Every night the Doomherald sat reading by the light of the flames until the embers burned down. Sometimes he asked Liu Xi questions about the literature to help him understand some nuance of Earth custom or history. Sometimes Liu Xi helped him out. After the flames burned low he would just sit and watch them. “Fascinating, isn’t it?” he said at last as flames licked the embers. “Like the death of universes.” “That’s not what I see,” the elementalist girl replied. “I see the dance of energies, a glorious interchange of potentials and possibilities. I see light and heat and beauty playing together like the creation of dreams.” She fell silent then, blushing, as the Doomherald looked up at her in surprise. “I thought that magic collar had suppressed your power,” he noted. “It’s stopping me burying you under a mile of rock or searing you into superheated plasma,” Liu Xi answered, “but seeing the world through the interplay of the elements – that’s who I am.” “Maybe part of who you are,” the Doomherald judged. “But there’s more. The part of you that sees the interplay of forces and turns it into poetry.” Liu Xi watched the fading fire. “I see life there. But all you see is death.” “That’s true. But death can have its beauty as well.” The elementalist found herself being constantly surprised by her captor. He wasn’t at all what she’d expected. At first she’d expected brutality, revenge for her first encounter with him where she’d been the vessel of Celestian forces that had hurled him across half a universe. Then she’d expected guile and malice. Now… Well, maybe he was playing a very clever deep game indeed. “Why do you read all those Earth books?” she asked him. “I like the stories,” he answered. “And it’s not as if I have much else to do except play board games with you and Annar. And stay low.” “What about kidnapping all those other poor women the Parody Master intends to brutalise?” The Doomherald shrugged. “All in good time. I can’t get you all back to the Master yet, so I might as well keep my problems to a minimum. You were a target of opportunity when I went to free Annar. But I don’t know that I could manage you and Dancer and Pelopia and the others. We only have one bathroom, for starters.” “At least Uhuna got away from you,” Liu Xi said. “Poor Uhuna.” “She’s not got away from me,” the dark-haired man said, poking the fire’s ashes to coax a little more light. “She was murdered, so I can find her.” Liu Xi frowned. “That makes no sense. What do you mean?” “I mean that I’ve not always been the Parody Master’s Doomherald. Back when I had a day job I knew a lot about murder. Everything, really. So I know where Uhuna’s spirit has gone, and why, and where it’ll be when I need to collect it.” He smiled apologetically at his prisoner. “I’m really very good at this stuff, Liu Xi. Sorry.” “I don’t know how you can do what you do. Serve the Parody Master. Do evil for him. Don’t you have a conscience?” The Doomherald shook his head. “I know what he can be like. I’ve seen him at his worst. But I’ve seen him at his best too, and then he is… stunning. Such a leader. He could make you follow him anywhere.” “After a few weeks in his torture pits,” Liu Xi added bitterly. “I saw your back. When you changed your shirt, and when you go out to chop the firewood. Those scars.” “Those aren’t a torturer’s indoctrination,” the Doomherald corrected her. “I chose to support the Parody Master because I thought he was the best hope for this Parodyverse. A chance to bring some… some resolution to the turmoil. He’s a harsh solution, yes, but he’s the best hope of a conclusion to the stories where this Parodyverse survives.” “You’re talking about the Resolution War,” Liu Xi recognised. “So if you weren’t tortured…?” “Punishment,” the Doomherald explained. “The boss isn’t forgiving of failure. So I try not to do that.” “What will he do to you if I escape?” “It won’t involve hugs and puppies. At least I hope it won’t. Yuck!” Liu Xi shifted in her blanket. She always found it hard to argue with the Doomherald. She wondered if he was as disconcerted debating with her. “You must know it’s wrong, what he’s going to do to me. I don’t want to be his bride. I don’t want to go to him. I don’t want to be made into… into something like they’ve made poor Annar. Some shell in my shape.” The Doomherald couldn’t meet her gaze. “I know it’s wrong,” he admitted. “Then help me. Let me go. Turn your back on him.” The Doomherald shook his head. “It doesn’t work like that, Liu Xi. As I’ve said before, I’m terribly sorry. The best I can do is to give you a few weeks of comfort and relative peace while the rest of the universe goes crazy.” He reached over and tucked the blanket round her toes. “That’s all.” Liu Xi snorted. “What kind of name is Doomherald anyhow? It sounds like you were named by a ten year old boy.” “The Parody Master named me,” the Doomherald answered. “Back when he rescued me and remade me and amped up my powers. It’s not a name, it’s a title. The Doomherald. Like the Avatar, or the High Priest. There’s only one of each of us at any given time.” “So what is your name?” Liu Xi wondered. “Or is that another big cosmic secret?” Her captor snorted. “Not really. I’m Exu. How do you do?” “Exu.” Liu Xi tried the name on her tongue. “And where are you from, Exu?” “Oh, now that’s a long story,” the Doomherald told her. “The fire won’t last long enough for that one.” “Tomorrow then,” Liu Xi asked him. “Will you tell me tomorrow?” Fred Harris answered the quiet knock on his bedroom door and then wondered whether he’d dozed off without even realising it. After all, Fashion Accessory knocking on his bedroom door in the middle of the night was one of Ham-Boy’s recurring fantasies. “Let me in, then,” Samantha Bonnington told him. “It’s drafty standing in the hall in nothing but a French-stitched peignoir and matching stockings.” “Er, right. Yes. Inside. That would be this way. Yes. Come this way.” Ham-Boy staggered backwards, tripped over the bed, and landed in a tangle of quilts on the other side. FA slipped into his room and shut the door. “You know why I’ve come, right?” she asked the world’s meatiest hero. “Um… Because I’m hallucinating? Is it my birthday?” “Because I need to talk with somebody sensible that I can trust,” Samantha replied impatiently. “But I don’t want to upset Glory, so I had to talk to you instead.” Ham Boy pulled himself up and tried to regain his dignity. “Of course. Come in.” “I am in, HB. I’m sat right here on your bed. Are you choking on something?” “No, no… Just need a glass of water or… CPR.” Fashion Accessory frowned at her team-mate in the dimly lit room. “HB, are you still wearing your ham cowl? In bed?” Ham-Boy had hastily grabbed his mask when someone had knocked at the door. Of all the young heroes he was the only one that still maintained a secret identity. “Um… sometimes,” he answered evasively. “For… personal reasons.” FA shuddered. “Okay, enough about the secret life of dorks. I need to talk to you about Kerry.” “Kerry? Oh, so… I’m awake?” Samantha frowned. “Well, you could be geeking in your sleep I guess. But generally you have to be fully conscious to be this much of a dweeb. Look, I need to talk to someone. Are you going to listen or do I have to think up really short words and go down the hall to Gaz?” “I’m listening. What is it?” Fashion Accessory seemed pensive and uncomfortable. She transmuted Ham-Boy’s striped cotton pyjamas to a designer silk ensemble without even thinking about it, then explained. “This whole thing we’re in, Badripoor. The stuff with Danny and Uuuukelele. The accident with the force field. Getting stolen by the Doomherald. Doesn’t it seem weird to you?” Where to begin? “Well sure. But there’s not a lot in my life these days that’s normal.” Fred Harris gestured to the night-lingeried California blonde spread out on his bed. “Like… you.” “Well of course I’m special,” FA answered. “And yes, I imagine a girl in your bedroom must seem pretty weird. But I mean beyond your usual not-got-a-lifeness, HB. Don’t you think that someone as clever as the Idiom should have been able to science-geek her way out of this by now? Don’t you think that Denial could have denied us free?” “I don’t know,” Ham-Boy considered. “Danny doesn’t like what’s happening to the people in the city, the suffering and hardships. And Ms Gahagan seems to be getting more bad tempered every day. If they could help us escape before we die then why wouldn’t they? And what his this to do with Kerry anyhow?” “Oh come on,” Samantha urged him. “You heard the Doomherald say why he’d stolen Badripoor. One unlucky girl here gets to be a Bride of the Parody Master. He apparently wants a grabby date with the Celestian Madonna, and we all know who that’s going to turn out to be.” “We do?” “Yes, we do. It’s Kare. Come on, she has the powers of a Herald of Galactivac. On a bad day she can cause continents to burst.” “There’s other possibilities,” Ham-Boy argued. “According to Glory the Celestian Madonna is the ultimate grandmother of Goldeneyed, Exile, and Suicide Blonde. Their parents are a Zemo and a descendant of the Madonna and the Fernbiote.” “And eew again,” FA interrupted, holding up her perfectly-manicured hands. “As if being done by the Parody Master wasn’t bad enough, somebody has to get done by spiffy?” “Well, not necessarily, according to Glitch. It could be that the Celestian Madonna’s kid and spiffy’s kid get together. Or their grandkids. Or their great…” “Yes, but that still presupposes that spiffy reproduces. Eew.” “The Celestian Madonna could be Bev Campbell, spiffy’s girlfriend,” Ham-Boy suggested. “Or Uuuukelele. She’s plenty powerful. Or Lindy, I suppose. Or Fetish Lad, depending on just how kinky he truly is. Or… you.” “No. I am in no way going to be any kind of Celestian Madonna. Have you even seen Madonna’s fashion choices? No, it’s Kare. That’s why I need to talk with somebody.” Ham-Boy perched tentatively on the corner of his bed. “What do you want to say?” “What do you want to say?” asked Princess Annar, turning to look directly at Liu Xi. The two of them were in the kitchen of the Alpine cabin. The sun was streaming in through the open door and windows but Liu Xi’s restraint collar prevented her from running out and away down the forested slope. “I don’t have anything to say,” Liu Xi replied. “I think you do,” the Skunk princess answered. She put down the ingredients for tonight’s meal – Annar had discovered a passion for Earth food – and sat across the table from her captive. “You keep watching me. Then you open your mouth but you never speak.” Annar must have eyes in the back of her head, Liu Xi thought, In fact, considering she was one of the most powerful Skunk shapeshifters in existence she probably could have if she wanted to. “I keep forgetting that you’re not who you look like,” the elementalist accused. “Not the person I called my friend.” “Of course I’m you’re friend,” the princess protested. “Liu Xi, soon we’ll be more than friends. We’ll both be wives of the Master. We couldn’t be closer!” There was a chopping knife laid on the scrubbed pine table. Liu Xi couldn’t seize it up and use it. “And it doesn’t bother you that I don’t want to be the Parody Master’s bride? That I’m scared of him and what he’ll do to me?” “Oh, it’ll be horrid,” Annar admitted. “I’m dreading it myself, because I’ll probably have to help with your conditioning. But it’ll all be for the best in the end. You’ll come to see that.” “I’ll be destroyed,” Liu Xi replied. “Like you were.” Annar smiled, but it didn’t reach her eyes. “You’ll come to see it all very differently when the time comes. Your past life will seem like a silly waste of time. All the things you cared about will mean… nothing. The Master is so big there’s no space for anything else inside your heart.” Liu Xi wanted to be sick. spiffy willed his symbiotic fern to grow out from the top of his head and swathe him in its long fronds. Then he had it use its energy-manipulating properties to refract light around him, rendering him effectively invisible to eyes and to electronics. “Wow,” admitted Beverly Campbell. “Back when I had mutate powers, making people not notice me was my whole shtick. You get invisibility as just a side effect of your fern’s abilities.” “He doesn’t do it often,” Banjoooo explained. “He tends to trip up over his own feet because he can’t see them.” Mark Hopkins ignored his friend’s caustic comment. “Right,” he announced. “I’m going in. Start Operation: Distract the Idiom.” “We have got to get better codenames for our operations,” Banjooooo told him. The three of them trekked down the palace corridors to the section that Leticia Gahagan had reserved as her laboratories. Large power cables snaked along the hallway and in to an area marked Do not come in if you don’t enjoy multi-megawatt electrical arcs searing through your body. Bev knocked. “Go away,” came the irritated reply from inside. “I’m busy being brilliant.” “It’s Bev,” spiffy’s aide called out. “I have Banjooooo with me. He’s transmuted again.” “Perfectly normal,” the Idiom called back. “He’s at the end of his reproductive cycle. He’s converting to be a baseline human. There’ll be a cycle of step cellular changes.” “I saved the bits that dropped off this time,” Banjooooo called back. “Could you just check that they’re all supposed to have dropped off?” There was an exasperated sigh from inside the room and Leticia flung the door open. “What?” she snapped. “I can’t spend all day looking at parts of you that have fallen of, you know!” spiffy slipped past her and into the lab. A monitor flickered, open at the Idiom’s research files. Interrupted, Leticia hadn’t activated the security codes to protect it. Mark followed the menu until he found Badripoor, dimensional translation, reversal methods. Then he read. Then he frowned. “Confidence for confidence,” the Doomherald bargained. “I’ll tell you my secrets if you’ll tell me yours.” “I won’t betray my friends to you,” Liu Xi argued. “If you think…” Exu held his hands up. “I’m not interrogating you. I don’t want you to tell me where Sorceress is or how to get to Zvesti Zdrugo. I just want to understand you a bit better. You confuse me.” “Me? How?” “You’re like a deep pool reflecting stars. I don’t know what’s in you or what’s a reflection of something else. I don’t understand why you act like you do sometimes. Why do you shift from passive to assertive, from shy to dominant, from calm to anger and back again?” Liu Xi folded her blanket closer around her like a protective wall. “Why should I tell you?” “Because you want to know who I was before I was the Doomherald. And when I’ve told you that then you won’t want to tell me afterwards.” “I was brought up very traditionally,” Liu Xi answered. “For my culture, that is. And later, when I was in my teens, after I lost my parents, I was sent to an arranged marriage.” “Annar said something about that,” Exu remembered. “It seems to have been a formative experience.” He pondered this for a moment, then his eyes widened. “You murdered the man who was to be your husband! You used your powers to slaughter him!” Liu Xi started. “How could you know that?” she asked. “I never told Annar that!” But the Doomherald seemed to be watching something very distant. “I see it now. He took you into his home. You believed he was going to marry you. You played the role he demanded of you, of obedient bride. And in the morning, he cast you aside. Laughed at you. Told you that you did not meet his standards.” “Shut up!” Liu Xi shouted. “How can you know this?” Exu seemed to awaken to the fact that he’d upset his companion. “Sorry. Once I saw it it was so obvious. That’s why you murdered him.” “I didn’t… I didn’t know my powers. I didn’t know what I could do. I was so hurt, so angry, so frightened…” “It’s okay,” the Doomherald assured her. “You wanted him to die for one brief moment, and then your wish came true. You’d be amazed how many people carry murder in their hearts for the merest sliver of a thought. The only difference is that your powers turned the thought to the deed.” “How do you know all this?” Liu Xi demanded. Her temper was rising. “Because of who I was, before I was the Doomherald,” Exu answered. “I’m sorry, Liu Xi. I was the God of Murder. So you see, I know all about you because I know about every murderer and their victims. If I look in the right places.” Liu Xi blinked, her fury replaced by shock. “The God of Murder. Like Donar is the God of Thunder?” “In a way. Except that Donar is a very recent deity, grown from the belief fields of your Earth. His pantheon have pushed back to the beginning of time, of course, to become one of the origins of the Parodyverse, but he and it are still rooted in this time and place, give or take a few millennia.” “And you’re not? You’re from an alien pantheon, on an alien world?” The Doomherald nodded. “I was believed into existence a very long time ago. By the people you call the Second Oldest Race.” The room seemed colder now. Liu Xi shivered under the blanket. She instinctively willed the fire to swell, but it didn’t. That crystal collar around her throat was doing its work. “You were a god of the Second Oldest Race?” she asked. She was trying to remember Xander’s cosmic history lessons. “They were… what?” “Nobody knows,” Exu assured her. “In their hubris they punctured through to the interdimensional Vortex and opened the way for the Hero Feeders to enter the universe. These were the prime Hero Feeders, vast and terrible, not the sad vestiges left after their war with the Second Oldest Race.” “Hero Feeders wipe out… people, events, everything,” Liu Xi remembered. “And that’s why nobody remembers the Second Oldest Race’s name, or their deeds, or their songs or stories,” the Doomherald explained. “And nobody remembers their gods. The whole pantheon was wiped clean along with everything else when the Lurkers Between attacked. Then the Celestians came and interdicted the whole Black Galaxy, a ban that has only been breached by your friends in the Lair Legion in the last couple of years.” Liu Xi felt very small. “But you survived,” she pointed out. “Exu.” The Doomherald shook his head. “Not really. I remember my name, my function, but that’s about it. The only reason an echo of the God of Murder survived was that the Hero Feeders were effectively committing genocide, murder on a galactic scale, and that empowered me even as I was eaten away out of history. After that I just hung there, dormant, between existence and oblivion. For billions of years. Until the Boss found me and restored me.” Exu looked up into Liu Xi’s face. “restored me for as long as I serve him.” “Ah. So that’s it.” The Doomherald rose. “I’ll go away now,” he promised. “I won’t disturb you again.” Liu Xi sprang up to block his path. “You don’t have to go, Exu. Not if you don’t want to.” “Didn’t you hear me? I’m a former god of murder, rebuilt by the Parody Master to be his envoy. I’m literally a Herald of Doom. I was responsible for the slaughter of billions, and now I’ve been upgraded!” The elementalist saw the self-loathing in her captor’s face. “How many of those billions did you kill yourself? As a percentage?” The Doomherald considered this. “Not a lot, I suppose,” he admitted. “But those I did murder were murdered properly.” “But the rest were just… I don’t know. How does a god of murder preside over killings? Donar can make thunderstorms, but is he responsible for every house that gets struck by lightning?” Exu dodged round her. “I have to go,” he declared. “Good night, Liu Xi.” Danny Lyle was jerked back by the frond round his throat and hurled across the room. He slammed hard into the antique sofa and toppled backwards amongst the splinters. “You did not just do that, you weed-wearing git!” he snarled, and by his power of denial that suddenly hadn’t happened. spiffy picked up the sofa with his fern and smashed it into Danny instead. “Right,” Denial gasped, “That didn’t happen either. And you’re not attacking me any more.” Mark Hopkins paused for a moment, then pinned the self-proclaimed supervillain to the carpet. “This isn’t an attack,” he answered. “It’s restraint.” As Danny opened his mouth spiffy filled it with foliage. “Shut up. No more denials.” Danny struggled, but without his voice his powers were severely limited. “You know all those people who warned you about messing with Kerry?” spiffy went on. “You should have taken them seriously.” He hoisted Danny up to dangle in front of him wrapped in creepers. “Guess what I did today?” Mark Hopkins asked angrily. “FA and Ham-Boy suggested that I had a little look in the Idiom’s computers. I found some very fascinating e-mail correspondence there.” Denial went limp and stopped struggling. “I was surprised that some of the correspondence was from after we got locked in a force field jar, cut off from the world” spiffy noted. “I was absolutely fascinated to find out that Leticia had been in correspondence with your father, the Hooded Hood. About something she calls ‘the plan’.” spiffy slowly released Danny down onto the floor. “Don’t try using your powers on me,” the fern-wielder warned. “I’ve been doing this for a long time. Just explain to me what you did to set Badripoor up. And why you had to hurt poor Kerry to do it.” Denial spat a few stray leaves from his mouth and sat up. “Well,” he complained bitterly to his captor. “It’s about bloody time somebody asked.” “I don’t understand humans,” confessed Annar, princess of the Skunk Empire. “You make no sense.” Liu Xi was sitting at breakfast with her two captors. The Doomherald was reading a paper but Liu Xi didn’t understand much French. The photograph on the front showed Donar and Mr Epitome dragging fragments of a futuristic battle tank out of some devastated blazing building. Annar was making omelettes. “It’s true,” agreed the Doomherald. “You don’t make sense.” Liu Xi felt called upon the defend her species. “Maybe we just don’t make sense to evil conquering enemies?” she suggested. “No” Exu considered soberly. “I think you confuse everyone across the galaxy.” Annar added some seasoning to her pan. “On the surface you look like such an easy conquest,” explained the Skunk. “You have no central government, no significant interplanetary capacity, no major weapons. My people scouted you for years, ready for the time we would take control of your world.” “Yes. I read the file on that debacle,” snorted the Doomherald. “You see that’s where you humans get confusing, Liu Xi. When your heroes buck the probability curve. When your race spawns a Hooded Hood or an Amazing Guy or an Al B. Harper. When your ordinary people suddenly change and become… extraordinary.” “We don’t like slavery,” Liu Xi answered. “We don’t like bullies.” Annar dished out the breakfast. “Your race is so weak I can’t believe it survived so long. And yet you chased off Galactivac. You defied the Celestians. You toppled Lords of Hell and survived the Hellraisers. You won the Transworlds Challenge.” Liu Xi pointed to the newspaper. “And I guess we’re still thwarting your lord and master, too.” “Looks like, for now,” the Doomherald admitted good humouredly. “Are you going to tell me about it?” the elementist challenged, “or would that disrupt this first stage of your prisoner brainwashing programme?” “You are not permitted to know,” answered Annar. She reached out, transmuted her hand into the caustic claw of a Veralanic Acid Beast and dissolved the Doomerherald’s paper from his hands. “Hey! I wasn’t finished with the crossword,” he complained. “French word, five letters, starts with ‘a’, third letter ‘o’, smells like trouble you’ll enjoy regretting.” “You’re treating this as if it was a holiday!” complained the Skunk princess. “It’s not. We’re still here serving the Master!” Liu Xi twitched her chin up defensively. She’d been right! “I can serve the Master and do a crossword at the same time,” Exu answered. “And Liu Xi, this isn’t any part of your Bride conditioning. You’ll know when that starts. Trust me.” “Never,” the elementalist snorted. “You’re worse than Annar. At least she was broken into what she’s become. You chose it.” “I am proud to serve my husband and Master,” boasted the princess. “Whatever pain and degradation he would have me suffer is as nothing compared to being his instrument. His abuse is bliss to me!” Liu Xi shuddered. The crystal pendant beneath her blouse felt cold. “Anyhow,” sighed the Doomherald, “it so happens that we’re not just sitting here any longer. The Master’s forces have come to Earth. It’s just that the Lair Legion haven’t noticed them yet.” Annar looked up like a faithful Spaniel hearing her owner’s footsteps on the path. “The Master is here?” “His Avatar is here,” Exu answered her. “He’s been here for three weeks, apparently. Slipped in during the dimensional disruptions with a substantial force of Avawarriors. Nearly a hundred thousand of them.” Liu Xi swallowed. “And the Legion hasn’t noticed that?” The Doomherald shook his head and bit into his omelette. “China’s a big place. Avatar’s no dummy. He’ll strike when he’s ready and not before.” “And you have spoken with him on your journeys,” Annar asked eagerly. “We are to join him?” “Not yet. He’s sending people here. He has some senior Cult Priests with him who can identify and extract the Celestian Madonna from that bottled city in the cupboard. They can then take… take Liu Xi and the Madonna into their custody, freeing us up to find the other women.” “They’re coming?” Annar exclaimed. Liu Xi’s stomach churned. “When are they here?” Exu shrugged. “Don’t know. Soon.” He glanced over guiltily at the elementalist who has suddenly lost all interest in her breakfast. “Then you’ll know that your preparation as the Master’s Bride has begun,” he said. It was quite a crowd clustered in spiffy’s office. Mark Hopkins perched on the edge of his desk, flanked by Bev and Banjooooo. The Juniors sprawled across the other furniture, except for Captain Courageous, who assumed a standing easy posture with his back close to a wall, and Kid Produce who paced the carpets looking angry. Uuuukelele, Princess of the Sea Monkeys, had selected the antique armchair that most resembled a throne. Danny Lyle leaned on the window frame, his face unreadable. Leticia Gahagan perched on a hard-backed chair with a laptop on her knee. Fitz, the Barnstorming Monkey who had brought the Juniors to Badripoor ignored the proceedings, handing down from the chandelier playing on his Bame Boy. “Okay, I’m sensing heightened adrenaline levels in the room,” Glitch warned. She glanced between Kerry and Danny. “And toxic hormone densities.” “We are all here,” Glory yipped. “What is it that you wanted to say, Mark?” “I have new information,” spiffy answered them. “Well, new to some of you. Danny?” “Danny?” snorted Kerry. “Oh right, of course Daniel Lyle would be behind everything.” The Idiom looked up from her screen. “You went into my e-files,” she noted to spiffy. “Very slick. I’ll have to watch that.” “What ist going on?” demanded Harlagaz. He moved closer to Denial so as to be in a good whomping position. “My father,” answered Danny. “That’s what’s going on. I did a deal with him.” “The Hooded Hood!” Ham-Boy hissed. “No wonder things are so tangled and complicated.” Kerry was glaring at Danny as if he was a poisonous snake. “What deal?” she asked. Danny glanced at spiffy. spiffy took pity on him and helped him out. “The same thing that the Hood did to me once, when he retconned me not to have ever been his son after all. That’s what Danny wanted. Not to be the Hood’s kid.” This part was news to Uuuuukelele. “Why? Your father is an archvillain who commands respect across the Parodyverse! As his son you have every opportunity to take control of his empire and become all-powerful!” “It might be news to you,” Banjoooo told his cousin, “but not everybody wants to make it big on the coat-tails of their relatives.” “Danny didn’t want to be related to that criminal,” Kit Kipling approved. “But what did he have to do as his side of the bargain?” “Wait a minute,” FA interrupted. “Why didn’t you want to be his son?” Danny glanced miserably at Kerry then turned aside. “No special reason,” he answered. “Doesn’t matter now.” “As if the Hooded Hood was ever going to make it a simple easy deal,” the Idiom noted. “He rarely does anything for one purpose, and never for the reasons you think he has.” “Danny wasn’t the only one with a deal, though,” Bev Campbell accused. “Right, Uuuukelele?” “That’s Princess Uuuuukelele,” the sea monkey answered with shrill dignity. “I happen to be princess off the sea monkeys, you know.” “Only be default,” Banjooooo grumbled. “Boy, when my kids hatch you are going to have your semi-royal ass so kicked…” “Not just by default,” spiffy corrected his old friend. “By really fortunate timing of your reproductive cycle and by some strange coincidences. The sort that a certain cowled crime czar specialises in.” Kid Produce stopped pacing. “You’re saying that the sea monkey did a deal with the Hood too? For what?” “That’s princess sea monkey!” “She became princess,” Glory guessed. “In exchange for using her powers to trap us all here! Her powers and Danny’s.” spiffy glanced over at Leticia. The scientist sighed. “Oh, very well. Yes, that seems to be what happened. The Hood wanted us in a bottle. He wanted us captured by the Doomherald. It was quite obvious to anybody with the least shred of intellect.” She looked at Mark Hopkins. “And others, eventually,” she added. “You were working with the Hood too!” accused Kerry. “That’s why you were never able to figure a way out of this situation. You didn’t want us to get out. The Hood wanted us here!” “That’s not quite true,” spiffy corrected her. “Leticia worked out early what was going on, and after that she just… stalled. Because…” “Because I’m not stupid enough to get in the way of a Hooded Hood plan,” the Idiom declared. She glanced at spiffy and Banjooooo, who clearly were that stupid. “There are… all kinds of things the Hood could arrange to happen if I crossed him. Secrets that could come out. Bad things that could happen.” She deliberately didn’t look at Glory. “So you just kept quiet,” Glitch reasoned. “Because you were scared.” “The word I’d choose is sane.” Fetish Lad looked around the room with the delight of schadenfreude. “Ooh, this is better than the soaps. Is this a good time for me to reveal that I’m secretly Kit’s long-lost Siamese twin?” “You are not,” reacted Captain Courageous. Fetish Lad blew him a kiss. “Mine head doth hurt,” Harlagaz admitted. “Who ist the one that needeth smiting first?” “Hold that thought, big fellah,” Kerry told him. “We still don’t know why Mister Lyle’s daddy actually wanted us in a teeny bottle on the Parody Master’s shelf. Mister Lyle?” “Well,” Danny sighed, “as far as I can see, the Hood needed this set-up for several reasons. The whole Badripoor-in-a-bottle thing saved your lives from that carpet bombing attack.” “I am not comforted that the Hooded Hood wanted to keep us alive,” Fashion Accessory announced. “Second, he needed to keep a reserve force of metahumans out of the early events of the Parody War, fresh and ready.” “This whole city is teeming with refugee metahumans who fled from SR 1066,” Bev realised. “Hundreds of them. Thousands if we count depowered mutates.” “Third, he needed to find out where the Parody Master was keeping his Infinity Forge, this big cosmic battery that’s amping the PM’s powers from insanely powerful to impossibly insanely powerful.” “The Hood expected that Badripoor would be taken to whatever secret facility the Forge is kept in,” Ham-Boy guessed. “So that the Celestian Madonna could be extracted from the bottle and the rest of us could be… I dunno. But something nasty.” Glory chipped in with the next part. “But then the Hood could set us loose and try to seize the Forge in the resultant chaos!” “Pretty much,” agreed Danny. “That was the deal. You were all bait. I set you up.” He turned away. “Sorry. As if that’s worth anything.” “And the whole people starving to death and suffocating while we wait thing was… an oversight?” Falconne asked caustically. “Nobody knew the Lair Legion would pull that stunt with the Celestian barrier,” Uuuuukelele objected sourly. “We should have been taken to Parody Master centrasl weeks ago.” “So wait a minute…” Kerry objected. “Are you saying all that stuff about you owning Uuuukelele and her wanting to spawn with you was just blowing smoke?” “Ooh, right to the heart of the important stuff,” Fetish Lad purred. “Never mind the cosmic drama, let’s have the soap and sleaze!” “As if I would be anybody’s slave!” proclaimed Uuuuukelele with a toss of her finned head. “I happen to be…” “Was it always this annoying when I kept saying that?” Banjooooo asked spiffy. “Oh yes,” the fern-wielder breathed. “Welcome to my world.” “Wait!” Harlagaz interrupted. “Art thou saying that we art hiding here until tis time to break forth and smite yon Parody Master?” His face lit into a brilliant beaming smile. “It was a reasonable plan on the Hooded Hood’s part,” Captain Couragous considered. “Except that it endangered all the people crowded into this city and manipulated us to undertake the mission without our consent.” “Yeah,” agreed Kid Produce. “Otherwise I’d have signed up in a Paradopolis minute!” “Shut up about the Hood’s stupid plan!” shouted Kerry. “Danny, what the hell were you up to? Why would you make such a dumb, stupid, brainless, stupid, dumb deal?” Fitz covered his ears. Mario had just crashed and burned too. “Oh come on,” Fetish Lad murmured in her ear. “You know why.” “Danny deceived and betrayed Kare and served her up as a Bride of the Parody Master because he cares about her?” FA snorted. “Boy those Shepherdson women can pick ‘em!” “I had a better plan than that,” Denial objected. “I was going to seize the Infinity Forge myself and use it against the Hood as well.” “Hey, that was my plan!” objected Uuuuukelele. “And mine,” the Idiom noted. “I wast thinking of smacking yon Hood and yon Parody Master on the upsides of their heads,” Gaz offered. The room fell silent as the weight of revelation overwhelmed everybody. “The question now,” Glory barked at last, “is what are we actually going to do?” It was a the night after Liu Xi had learned about the Avatar’s coming, a week since the Doomherald had last joined Liu Xi at her night-time vigil before the hearth. She was surprised when he slipped into the room to sit with her now, and more surprised at how glad she was to see him. Be careful, she told herself. The idea is to get him to betray weaknesses. Not to betray yourself. “May I… join you?” he asked uncertainly. He was far from his usual urbane and glib self. “There are spare chairs,” Liu Xi replied, gesturing. Exu slid into his usual armchair. He opened his book and they sat in comfortable silence for a long while. “Does it make a difference?” Liu Xi asked him at last. “Knowing that I murdered my lover?” “I’m hardly prejudiced against murderers,” Exu pointed out. “And I know the circumstances. I’d certainly have done the same thing if I’d been there.” Silence reigned again. “Does it make a difference now you know what I really am?” the Doomherald asked tentatively. “Well now I can pity you as well as despise and abhor you,” Liu Xi shot back. She instantly regretted her words when she saw the hurt on his face, then scolded herself angrily for caring whether her captor and enemy was wounded by her barb. This time the silence seemed to drag uncomfortably. “Well what do you expect?” Liu Xi asked at last. “I’m your prisoner. The Avatar is coming for me, with his Cult Priests and Inquisitors. You’re the one who’s going to hand me over to be tortured then raped then enslaved for the rest of my life, to be turned into something I’ll hate, something I dread. What did you think you were doing all these evenings in front of the fire?” “I wasn’t really thinking at all,” Exu admitted. “It’s a very basic instinct really. Spend some quiet time with a beautiful girl and get to know her better.” “Beautiful?” A spike of panic raced through Liu Xi’s body. The Doomherald saw her face and chuckled. “Don’t worry,” he assured her. “We won’t be playing Tristram and Ysolde.” Liu Xi wasn’t familiar with Arthurian literature. “Who?” Exu tossed her a volume from the pile beside his chair. “Classic romantic tragedy. Sir Tristram is sent by his master and uncle King Mark to woo and win the fair Princess Ysolde to be Mark’s queen. But Tristram falls for Ysolde himself, and they become lovers before and after her wedding to Mark. Eventually Mark finds out and slays Tristram. Ysolde dies of grief. King Mark’s country sinks into the sea. The end.” “Oh. I see.” Liu Xi tried to come to terms with all the confusing conflicting ideas and feelings running through her head. “Did Ysolde want to marry King Mark?” “She was given to him as part of a treaty in payment of a debt of honour,” the Doomherald said. “Of course, speaking as a former god of murder, she and Tristram were idiots.” Liu Xi couldn’t resist it. “Why?” “It was clear once the affair began – on the boat delivering her to her wedding – that it was going to end in blood. If the lovers didn’t want it to be theirs, then they should have assassinated old King Mark and made Tristram king, with Ysolde his legitimate and loving queen.” Exu smiled at Liu Xi for the first time in days. “Better living through murder.” “What about honour? Fealty? Duty?” Liu Xi asked. The Doomherald sobered. “Good points,” he conceded. “Very good. And that is why we won’t be playing Tristram and Ysolde.” “But you can sit with me?” Liu Xi asked. “I can sit with you.” How far will I go to destroy this man and escape this captivity? Liu Xi asked herself. She knew she would have to find out. “It’s amazing how you do that,” Glitch admired as Kid Produce and Ham-Boy struggled to set up the Idiom’s massive equipment atop the President’s Palace. “I’m so envious.” “I work out and eat my wheaties,” Kid Produce replied. “Keeps me in shape. I can bench press 130.” “I don’t mean lifting that machine,” the female Transformer clarified, negligently hefting the heavy dimensional modulator with one hand and shoving it into position. “I mean that heat exchange system that allows you to make your shirt go all wet and clingy on you.” Ham-Boy caught on. “You’re admiring how we sweat?” “I glow, personally,” Fetish Lad promised. “Could you all stop sweating and please carry on with building the get out of here machine?” Uuuuukelele told them crossly. “I’m so tired of this gig. I have sea monkeys to rule, you know.” Captain Courageous shook his head. “Apparently not, your highness. I checked with King Banjoooo. Whether it was a fake defeat or not, you did apparently admit to forfeiting in combat to Mr Lyle.” The sea monkey princess spun round. “That was a ruse!” “But according to sea monkey law, it does mean you were formally vanquished, and as such can’t take up rulership until such time as you have completed the nine acts of atonement.” Uuuuukelele frowned. “What nine acts of atonement? There is no such law!” Banjooooo smirked from the scaffolding below. “There is now,” chuckled the outgoing King of the Sea Monkeys. “Enjoy.” “You could just take this collar off me,” Liu Xi begged. “You could let me free, let me take the Badripoor bottle, and I’d run. You could just let me go.” Exu shook his head. “We’ve been over this before. I’m sorry but…” “But not sorry enough to do anything about it, or to stop contributing to your part in my destruction.” It was morning again in the Alps. Annar entered, carrying the metal box that contained the miniaturised city. Today she had eschewed her human disguise and looked again like the princess of the Skunks. Today they were expecting visitors. “Most Holy Taskalak and his retinue will be here within the hour,” Annar reported. “They called from the airport before the latest of those tedious blackouts.” “The Cultist Priest and his Inquisitors who are coming to take me away,” Liu Xi noted. “Yes,” smiled Annar. “My Master’s will for you will be done. This is a happy moment, a great moment. Praise him!” Liu Xi Xian turned back to the Doomherald. “You want to see me become like her? The Annar who was my friend was so alive, so full of imagination and… and dreams, and hopes and… and now she’s like some sort of robot!” She turned away again to hide the tears forming in her eyes. “I thought you were starting to… to care for me.” “I know you did,” Exu replied. “If you hadn’t had hope you’d have had a very miserable few weeks here with us.” The young elementalist felt her insides turn to ice. “Are you… are you saying you led me on? Kept me… hoping for rescue when you knew none would come. Kept me dreaming of escape to just make life easier for yourself? Some sort of sick game?” “Are you pretending that you weren’t trying to charm me, make me feel for you so I’d be stupid enough to betray my boss and get myself slaughtered for you?” He snarled at her. “You’re very good at it. A little more experience and next time your husband won’t throw you back.” Liu Xi slapped the Doomherald hard across the cheek. He had the grace to flinch. “You are vile,” she told him. “God of murderers, you have certainly murdered me!” Annar reached one flexible arm out and dragged the livid girl away from her tormentor. “You should have included inhibitions about assaulting you in her collar,” the Skunk chided. “She can’t hurt me,” Exu said; but his face was pale. Liu Xi was beyond conscious thought. She grabbed up the carving knife from the table and jabbed it into Annar’s arm. “She might be able to hurt you a little,” the Doomherald conceded as the bleeding Annar slammed Liu Xi away from her across the room. The elementalist tried to twist so the blow would smash her through the window. Once outside the cabin she might be able to flee. Her muscles betrayed her. She crashed into the kitchen cupboards instead. The shock pounded all the breath from her and she tumbled to the ground with vomit in her mouth. “You dare assault the Bride of the Parody Master?” Annar fumed, her hands becoming blades. “You dare?” The Doomherald reached forward, touched Annar’s neck, and rendered her unconscious. “That’s enough,” he said. He bent down and checked if Liu Xi was badly hurt. “Saving me for your boss?” the girl asked bitterly. The Doomherald jerked her to her feet quite roughly. Liu Xi found it hard to stand. He glared at her. “Go,” Exu told her. “Get out.” Liu Xi looked up at him. “What?” “Run. You get one chance. This is it.” The girl blinked again at him. “What is this? Another of your games?” “This is suicide. Now go. Taskalak and his men aren’t far away.” Liu Xi looked past the Doomherald at the box on the table. “I need to take that too,” she told him. Her captor shook his head. “Badripoor stays. That’s the deal.” Liu Xi shut her eyes. She found she couldn’t control her trembling. Her ribs ached and she wanted to curl up and die. She wanted to run screaming into the forest. She wanted to hide. She wanted the powers that were her birthright. She wanted it all to be over. “If Badripoor stays… I have to stay too,” she heard herself say in a quavering voice. The Doomherald looked annoyed. “You asked for a chance. You made your case. I’m giving you what you asked for. Don’t ask for more.” “I can’t leave somebody else to face what they did to Annar. I can’t leave a million people to die because the Parody Master doesn’t need them. I just can’t.” “You wouldn’t get two miles dragging that heavy box with you.” Liu Xi reached up to the hated crystal collar that bound her elemental powers. “Then take this off me. I can fight then, or vanish through the planes.” “The planes are closed,” Exu reminded her. “You couldn’t get away, and the Parody Priest will have geasa that will bring you down if you face him. This is your last chance. Please go.” Liu Xi looked at the confusing, confused herald. “Why are you doing this?” she asked. “Are you going or not?” “Not without Badripoor.” “Then your blood is not on my hands.” Outside there was the sound of a van coming to a halt. The inquisition had arrived. “So tell me this, Danny,” Kerry demanded angrily, “When you did this deal with your daddy did it bother you that you’d be sending a million citizens of Badripoor to their deaths?” Denial was strapped into the Idiom’s amplifier chair, a device that could theoretically boost the young man’s powers for a short time. He could hardly move, which made an angry probability arsonist looming over him even more intimidating. “Yes it bothered me,” he answered equally angrily. “You think putting a million men women and kids in danger wouldn’t bother me? But do the math!” “The math?” snorted Kerry. “What kind of sums could possibly justify what you and Uuuuukelele did between you?” “How many people has the Parody Master killed?” Danny challenged. “Whole planets. Whole civilisations. Billions. Billions and billions. Numbers so big we can’t comprehend how big they are. How many will he kill if he takes Earth? Six billion more. If you had to choose to kill one person to save a hundred lives wouldn’t you do it?” “No,” Kerry answered. “I’d find another way.” “Cheat answer,” Danny spat. “Well this is that kind of math. Maybe sacrifice Badripoor and maybe stop the Parody Master. Badripoor gets dragged off to wherever place the PM’s got his Infinity Forge, there’s chaos everywhere – you give good chaos, Firecracker – and while that happens the Hooded Hood wanders in and destroys or snaffles the Forge. Earth gets a chance it didn’t have before. That’s why I did it.” “Liar,” Kerry replied, her brogue getting even stronger. “You did it because you wanted not to be the Hooded Hood’s son.” “Because I thought you wanted me not to be the Hooded Hood’s son.” “Don’t you dare try to blame this on me, Danny! You lied to me, lied to all of us, used us as pawns in your game! You really are the Hooded Hood’s son, aren’t you?” Danny slumped back. “Yes. I buggered it all up, alright. Completely.” He shut his eyes. “But do we have to have this conversation right now? I’m just about to get fried in the Idiom’s power-booster, and I’m not really at my best.” “Yes, we have to talk now,” Kerry insisted. “Because… because there might not be a later.” And there it was, out in the open: Leticia Gahagan’s projection of a 40% chance that this would burn out Danny’s brain. Kerry leaned over and kissed him, hard. “Do not die,” she warned him fiercely. “I haven’t done shouting at you yet. Nothing like.” “Right,” he agreed, failing to hide the huge beaming grin that painted his face. “Okay.” “Thank you for restraining me, Doomherald,” Annar told Exu. “Had I damaged Liu Xi then my Master’s wrath would have been awesome.” “Any time,” the Doomherald told her, masking his discomfit with his familiar irreverent tones. He was watching Holy Taskalak’s men wrenching Liu Xi’s arms behind her to fasten her in fetters. “And this is the bottled city,” the Parody Cult Priest admired, lifting Badripoor from its metal container. “Fascinating. Holy Taus is very much looking forward to dissecting this and recovering the Celestian Madonna.” Liu Xi looked across at Exu. “Goodbye,” she whispered. He turned away. “But why is the city glowing?” Taskalak wondered. “Come on,” Banjooooo shouted. “If you’re the princess of the sea monkeys you should be able to do this!” “Shut up!” screamed Uuuuukelele as she strained and writhed in her own amplification chair. “Last time the Hooded Hood was making the right outcome happen! Last time there wasn’t a Celestian barrier between me and the dimension of the size-transfer particles!” “I could stand to watch her writhing on that couch a while longer,” Fetish Lad admitted. “Just keep trying, Uuuuukelele,” Glory encouraged. “We’re working on making a weak spot in the Celestian barrier right now.” “Er, won’t that allow hordes of the Parody Master’s forces to swarm through and attack us?” Fashion Accessory pointed out. “Yesss!” hissed Harlagaz happily. Fitz hid his head under his armpit. “Eeeek!” “What it should do is flag up a big red warning light at the Lair Mansion,” Kit Kipling explained. “They’ve got to be monitoring for people trying to create conduits. So it’ll bring them all right here!” “And we won’t all explode as we break out from this forcefield?” spiffy checked nervously. The Idiom’s green data-sensitive jumpsuit was scrolling with 0s and 1s at a blinding pace. She was crouched over her instrument pack absorbing information from six monitors at once and typing on two separate keyboards with different hands. “We won’t explode assuming Danny can continue denying that we do,” she answered distractedly. “And assuming Uuuukelele can generate a city’s worth of size-changing particles given access to cosmic-level stimuli. And assuming Glitch can process the data I need for the modulating field fast enough.” “Actually, all the data’s kind of turning me on,” the Transformer admitted, winking at Kit. “And assuming we can maintain a power output huge enough to punch a temporary hole in the Celestian barrier,” the Idiom continued. Ham-Boy glanced over at where Kerry was grasping two tritium rods that passed into an atomic reactor. “You’re asking Kerry to make things burn.” he pointed out. “Nuclear things. Is there any way I could be on another planet?” “She is doing very well,” Glory barked loyally. “I am proud of you all.” “It all sounds incredibly risky,” spiffy noted, glancing very worriedly in Kerry’s direction. He didn’t like the way she was grinning. “And assuming I’m not distracted from my calculations by irrelevant whining,” Leticia concluded. “If Kerry blows up the planet does that count as relevant whining?” Falconne checked. “Wait!” spiffy called as the Idiom gestured for Harlagaz to wrench down the big Go lever while things began to spark and fizz across the vast laboratory. “I have more questions.” “Too baddeth,” Gaz answered, ramming closed the final circuit. The Alpine cabin exploded into fragments as the city of Badripoor unfolded within it. The force-field expanded along with the buildings for a while then popped like a soap bubble. Trees and mountainside were ploughed out of the way. Black dots of energy coruscated across the sky in approved fashion. “It worked!” Falconne gasped, just before the energies coalesced into a massive dimensional rift inside the Idiom’s laboratory. Holy Taskalak crafted a mystical shield to protect himself and his captive from the unexpected exploding city. For a moment he was blinded by the debris, tumbled about within his protective field. Finally he willed the bubble to hold still and he looked to see what had become of his inquisitors. They were all dead. The Doomherald was nowhere to be seen, but every one of the Parody Cultists had a neatly slashed throat. They had been murdered. “What?” Taskalak gasped as he began to understand what was happening here. Liu Xi plunged Annar’s carving knife into the priest’s back. She still couldn’t use her powers but she knew roughly where a human heart was supposed to be. spiffy thrust out a desperate frond and hooked himself to the heaviest object in the room, the massive reactor core that Kerry had been stimulating. Gravity had gone wild, and everything was being sucked towards a dark swirling purple mass where the backlash of the wild energies had intersected. The others in the room were falling towards it. spiffy saw Falconne topple, regain control of her flying apparatus, and grab Bev Campbell. He reached out for them both, binding them to him with another liana before Lindy Wilson’s flight harness was overwhelmed. Over on the other side of the room he saw Harlagaz grimly clinging to the metal floor with his fingertips. Ham-Boy had somehow wound strings of sausages around a console to hold his place. Fitz the Barnstorming Monkey was clinging to him, shrieking, paws wrapped tight around HB’s face. Fetish Lad had clamped himself to the mainframe in a manner that made spiffy’s eyes water. But as the fern-wielder reached out to try and grab them, Kid Produce’s carrot daggers pulled loose and he fell into the void. The Idiom lost her grip on her console and tumbled to follow him. Captain Courageous hurled himself from the niche where he’d found safety, caught her in mid flight, and tossed her to spiffy before falling into the purple blur. “No!” shouted Banjoooo, clinging to a broken spar, feet dangling over the abyss. “Where are the others?” spiffy wrenched his head around. The amplification machines and power and modulation devices were in ruins. Their occupants – Uuuukelele, Danny Lyle, Glitch, Kerry – were all gone. He did a quick head count and came up far too short. “Where are Glory and Fashion Accessory?” screamed Falconne. “Where are they all?” “Gone into yon hole,” noted Harlagaz. And he calmly detached himself and plummeted down after them. There was another eye-searing flash as the Celestian barrier reasserted itself. The remaining people in the demolished lab toppled to the floor. The people of Badripoor looked past their wrecked palace and out across a Swiss lake that had just become their new waterfront and wondered what the hell would happen next. Liu Xi was covered in blood. It wasn’t her blood. In some ways she’d have preferred if it was. Somebody put a blanket around her. “Exu?” she said. “I’m afraid not,” Xander the Improbable told her. “Drink this tea.” “Xander?” Liu Xi looked round at the familiar red-robed master of the mystic crafts. “You found me?” “Weeks ago,” he admitted with an apologetic little smile. “The Doomherald’s very good, but the parody priests aren’t as clever as they think. I am the sorcerer supreme of the Parodyverse and they did use magic to bind that collar onto you. That kind of thong leaves traces.” He reached out and broke it off her with no effort at all, then carefully placed the pieces in a bag for later. “You found me? Then why didn’t you rescue me?” Xander shook his head. The girl was trembling so he held her close as she sobbed out her fear. “I was hoping you’d manage to do something useful first,” he explained. “Then I failed. All I did was become a killer. Again.” “Well, murder is the traditional way of relating to the god of murder,” the little mage pointed out. “But you did used other ways as well.” “You know about… the Doomherald?” Xander gave her a ‘Hello? Sorcerer supreme’ look. “You could never have killed the Doomherald, and if you had done the Parody Master would have simply created another. But now…” “Now?” “Now you may have cost the Parody Master one of his top aides. That’s not a failure.” “Exu turned on the Parody Cultists,” Liu Xi realised. “Murdered them.” “Yes. He’s reverted to an older identity, I suspect.” “But he’ll be punished. He’ll be destroyed.” She looked around wildly. “Where is he? He’s all alone! He’s doomed himself!” Xander had nothing wise to say, so he just held the girl until all her tears were finally sobbed out. Next Issue: Time at last for some Mythlands resolutions; Vizh vs Camellia; Magweed and Griffin and the Wicked Witch of the South West; George and the Dragon; Miiri and the Brass Baron; things like that. Somebody’s going to be unhappy ever after in Untold Faerie Tales of the Parodyverse: Once Upon a One Last Time Dramatis Personae: Liu Xi Xian, teenage elementalist The Doomherald, primary emissary of the Parody Master Annar, Princess of the Skunk Empire, Bride of the Parody Master Taskalak, Cult Priest of the Parody Master The Junior Lair Legion Training Program and their friends: Glory, the mutt of might, newly-appointed Teaching Assistant Kerry Shepherdson, fiery-tempered probability arsonist Fashion Accessory (Samantha Bonnington), fabric transmuter Harlagaz Donarson, demihemigod of thunder Denial (Danny Lyle), reality-denying self-defined supervillain Ham-Boy (Fred Harris), the world’s meatiest hero Fetish Lad (Warren Kennedy-Rockefeller-Hearst-De Sade IV), the kinky knight Kid Produce (Jasper Stevens), the vegetable-using vigilante Glitch, girl-Transformer robot from a distant star Captain Courageous (Christopher “Kit” Kipling), the world’s politest crimefighter Falconne (Lindy Wilson), juvenile aviator in a bird suit Uuuuukelele, self-proclaimed princess of the Sea Monkeys Fitz, the Barnstorming Monkey, a barnstorming monkey The Badripoorians: Spiffy (Mark Hopkins), symbiotic fern-wielding President for Life Banjoooo, King of the Sea Monkeys The Idiom (Leticia Gahagan), counterculture scientific genius Beverly Campbell, spiffy’s aide-de-camp and girlfriend Xander the Improbable, master of the mystic crafts, sorcerer supreme of the Parodyverse 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. |
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