Tales of the Parodyverse

Subject: #317: Untold Tales of the Parody War: I, the Parody Master


#317: Untold Tales of the Parody War: I, the Parody Master

Previously: The Parody Master has risen to conquer the Parodyverse. His legions have spent across the stars, defeating all opposition. Only the heroes of Earth have managed a precarious defence, and now their time to be crushed has come. The Parody Master has already broken through the defences protecting the planet to seize the women he desires as his brides. Chief amongst his new captives is Jury, formerly the cosmic Shaper of Worlds, long the object of his desire.

Previous chapters at The Hooded Hood's Homepage of Doom
Descriptions of cast at Who's Who in the Parodyverse
Locations explained in Where's Where in the Parodyverse



My Dearest Beloved

    Now, as our union grows near, my mind is filled with the thought of you. For so long we have been apart. For so long fate has struggled to keep you from me. But I am the master of fate, the master of the whole Parodyverse, and all things yield to me – as you shall yield to me. And so I am penning these words, these thoughts, that in after times you might come to understand what I have done and what I am and love me the more for it; I, the Parody Master.

    I have loved you since first I saw you, a newly-minted Shaper of Worlds fresh to your cosmic office, reborn after your dismal mortal existence was ended in some mundane accident. You shone, reflecting that fire I first saw long before, as I shall disclose to you. You were born to judge me lord of creation; born to be my Jury.

    My first memory, my first consciousness, is of a voice, soft and wonderful, whispering to me in the darkness; perhaps the voice of the Parodyverse itself. “Awaken, protector. You are required. You shall wax strong and prepare this creation to defend itself against that from beyond which would seek its destruction, against that which would prevent the grand narrative from coming to full conclusion. Awake, protector, and remain vigilant, for the time shall come when you alone will have the might to stand against the horror that shall be sent.”

    “Who are you?” I asked the voice, but already I knew the answer. It was one who loved me. “Who am I?”

    “I am the Storyheart,” came the reply. “I am the tale and the told, speaker and hearer. For what is a story but a way to make sense of life, to express what matters, to learn what is true? And you are my champion.”

    As she spoke I was filled with knowledge. I saw the threads of narrative being woven together as the creators combined their visions in one creation. I watched them lay their themes, each seeking an answer to questions I could not even fathom, each hoping to discover that truth through the unfolding story they now set in place. I saw them nudge events to start the first tales, then retreat to watch what their efforts had wrought; to wait for Resolution.

    But there was more – a dark taint beyond those creators, an enemy that did not want those answers known. And then I knew that my destiny was to fight that enemy, and the one that enemy would send to destroy this newborn world before its destiny was done.

    “What must I do?” I asked the Storyheart. “What must I be?”

    There came no answer. That spirit of story had passed, even as the first moments of the cluster of realities we now call the Parodyverse had passed in a jumble of conflicting origins and tangled mysteries. I was alone. I would not hear that soft voice again, nor sense that fire, until first I saw my lady Jury.

    Billions of years passed as no more than a paragraph.

    I watched the new creation form as concepts became narratives and narratives tangled to plotlines. Stories require events, so time began, cause and effect. They require locations, so space and matter came to be, filled with suns and worlds. They require characters, so life burst forth in this strange amalgam of ideas and questions.

    And I was dissatisfied. This creation was imperfect. It was a jumbled mess of different visions, conflicting narratives without co-ordination or direction. Some parts of it were borrowed whole from other multiverses, blindly copied as an illiterate traces out words which he does not understand. Others were twisted reflections of greater realities elsewhere, perverted in intent and diminished by repetition. Yet others were impenetrable theologies of introverted continuity, dense collections of self-important minutiae. This creation of which I was appointed guardian was a mere Parodyverse, and so I named it, and it so was called.

    I watched with growing contempt. Out on the far end of the probability curve the Parodyverse was prey to all kinds of assaults – the elder beings who infested the narrative as the Fairly Great Old Ones, the attempted usurpation of the Void Spectre, the unsubtle intrusions of the Grim Reaper and Faite and the Byrne and countless others. I did not stop them; such was not my role. I stood guardian against but one enemy, and that enemy has not yet come.

    You know the next part, beloved. The Parodyverse itself evolved defences, like a living organism growing antibodies. The Family of the Pointless, the Celestian Space Robots, the cosmic office holders under the Triumvirate, protectors appointed by Eggo and ragged deities and time-warding Hedgehogs and all manner of ridiculous creations accrued like pus round a wound, trying to order and maintain this ridiculous catastrophe of realities. I have never had time for any of them Jury, any except for you.

    I watched as the First Imperium rose, gods amongst us, then fell when they tried to transcend the narrative, fell so far that they may never now be known. I observed the Second Oldest Race claw themselves to become a pale shadow of those that ruled before, only to be shattered in turn when their hubris broke open the Vortex and loosed the Lurkers Below to devour them for existence. I watched a billion civilisations rise and fall, futile and imperfect.

    And I was bored.

    And I spoke with the Parodyverse: “You could be so much better.”

    “Improvement is not required,” responded the Space Robots in cold precise unison. “The Parodyverse is as it should be. Interference is forbidden.”

    “Change is creation and destruction,” screeched Chaos, heaving through infinities of mindless motion without reason or need. “Better is worse. Nothing is forever. Do not try to resist the flow of events.”

    “Paradise must be earned,” droned Order, “through work and learning, for the journey is as important as the destination, and the pilgrimage prepares the traveller for the arrival. You are commanded not to disrupt the delicate fabric of existence.”

    “All that you see is naught,” hissed Galactivac, the Living Death that Sucks, Hooverer of Worlds. “Naught but fodder for greater beings. To try to correct them would be to waste time lining up ants. If you touch them you will smear them into pulp.”

    “Mess with stuff and you’ll be sorry,” warned the Infrequent Aadvark. “Just saying.”

    “I loooove you, guys,” slurred the Space Ghost. “You guys are the best!”

    The King of Stories, first and greatest of the Chroniclers, shifted on his ebony throne and fixed me with his flaming gaze. “Do not presume, guardian. Your time has not yet come. Remain vigilant and do the task allotted to you, but no more.”

    I was not impressed. “My task? My task is to defend the Parodyverse from the Carnifex, to ensure that the Resolution is achieved. My task is to prepare the Parodyverse for that horror. To that end I can call upon the very fabric of this creation, the fundamental powers that each of you graze upon in your pompous niches. Do not call me guardian. I am the Master of the Parodyverse. I am the Parody Master.”

    There was mirth amongst the powers and principalities then. They do not laugh now.

    “You have no form,” mocked Phobia. “No shape to manifest that power until the time comes when you must act. Stay chained in your kennel like a good dog until that moment comes.”

    “No form? I can tap any part of the power of the Parodyverse. Do you not think that in all of creation there are not those who will lend me form, surrender their being to me in exchange for my power – even a fraction of it? Do you not believe that there are those who could be vessels of the Parody Master?”

    The higher beings fell silent for a moment. At last the King of Tales laughed coarsely. “I’ll believe it when I see it,” he sneered.

    It took me millennia to achieve his downfall, Jury, but fall he did, first of all those who opposed me. Look now upon those mighty ones and see which amongst them still stands against my will!

    My first manifestation was very weak, of course; a mere presence at the back of the mind of a primitive warlord on a distant star now dead and gone. But under my tutelage that warrior rose to rule his nation, then his world, then a dozen worlds beyond. My talent for conquest was discovered, my genius for ruling became manifest.

    When he died – for his body was a weak, frail thing and I could extend its life no more than a thousand years or so – I moved on. There were new worlds to conquer.

    And why not? Was I not improving the Parodyverse, hardening it against the coming foe, reforming it into a harnessed hegemony that transcended the pathetic mess of its origins? Some of my manifestations were greater and some lesser, but all of them worked to my greater purpose and my power grew.

    A great general plans his victories. I laid my strategies over billions of years. Working in secret, masking one goal with another, I created my great weapons – the Singularity Riders, forged from the souls of dead planets, my Parody Cult, worshipping me as the god of gods I shall one day become, my Avawarriors, culled from the hardiest survivors of a million conquered planets, my fleet, my engines of war, the great Infinity Forge which could devour for me even the power of the greatest artefacts in the Parodyverse. I prepared my forces and honed my arts of battle and waited for the right moment when I would seize the Parodyverse as my own.

    Why? Because I can. Because I can forge this Parodyverse into a steel trap to snap shut on the Carnifex. Because I am more than the purpose for which I was created, greater than this pathetic Parodyverse which confines me. Because I am unstoppable.

    Many have tried. I have slain Heralds of Galactivac and Protectors of the Parodyverse, emissaries of the Pointless and servitors of the Constellation. I have broken Sorcerers Supreme and ground iterations of the Hollow Voyager to naught. I have slain more demons and gods than I can count. I remain supreme.

    On the current focus world, your own Earth, Jury, I have faced the Lair Legion on several occasions. They have striven to resist me with all their might, but I remain undefeated in battle against them – against anyone. What minor consolations they have gained in their strivings against me come only from deceit against lesser manifestations of my self. But I respect them as strong opponents who are worthy of the game. It was in my second confrontation with them that I encountered you, my beloved.

    I loved you from the first. You spurned my advances, denied my will, but I knew that you would not resist me forever. Soon you will be mine, your errant will broken to utter eternal obedience, and what rapture will be ours!

    From the time I saw you I have prepared for the moment of our union. No other wife can compare to you, they are all as nothing, mere trophies to demonstrate my mastery over all. But you, my beloved - I personally went back and erased your mundane first existence, your mortal life with mortal loves, that you might be whole and perfect only for me. What need has the bride of the Parody Master for earthly roots that drag her back from being a goddess? As Shaper of Worlds you wondered why your past was a mystery to you? Now you know.

    Yesterday I reviewed my troops, the greatest armed force this Parodyverse has ever seen – yet not so great as that it shall see when every power, every world, every alternate reality, every plane of existence is devoted to my war machine. It was inspiring to see my Dimensional Dreadnaughts pass by, my armies numbered by the billion, countless conquered stars shouting my praises in fear of their existence. “Where are those who opposed me now?” I asked Holy Taus, my High Priest.

    “Ground to nothing, your excellency,” he answered with his usual genuflection.

    “No,” I told him, smiting him to the ground. “Those who opposed me are on Earth. It is there that my desire rests, and there my campaign will conclude.”

    Earth will be conquered soon. I have planned the moments that follow very carefully. You will be by my side as I wreak such revenge on those who have opposed me.

    There is a document that the denizens of the empire of America call their Declaration of Independence, in their national archive. I shall use it to wipe my ass, and have their President eat it on his knees before me while the world watches. I will peel the families of Earth’s champions before their eyes so that my enemies can know the anguish of those they love. I can prevent death from claiming my captives, or resurrect them to die time and time again.

    Earth has opposed me and inconvenienced me in far greater proportion than it should have done. It has defied my will and it must become an example. This is what I plan:

    First there must come a cull. One third of Earth’s useless population must be slaughtered. For the main part I shall allow my Parody Cultists to vent their creativity. Holy Taus is excellent at devising new ways of destroying heretics. His pain choirs are infamous, wherein each victim is so finely tuned as to scream in perfect harmony, each voice adding to the chorus that proclaims my greatness. He is adept at selecting the religious leaders, the saints and prophets, to howl their penances for their heretic faiths.

    Next come the recruitments. Perhaps a million or so of the young men of your planet will survive the trials and become worthy of joining my armies, maybe one percent of those who strive. In great blood pits they will battle, crazed by the war-drugs they will be fed, brother slaughtering brother for my amusement. The failures will be harvested for their organs and life forces to be used on other, more worthy servitors. Those who fight bravely but fail will die easier than cowards and quitters, for I am a fair ruler. Some few thousand may prove worthy, may prove brutal and savage enough for the honour of being grafted into ava-armour. The survivors of the procedure will become my faithful elite Avawarriors.

    I will retain seven million females aged between fourteen and twenty-two as breeding stock for the comfort of my troops. My scientists have some interesting cross-species gestations planned to try and isolate the metagene that seems dormant in some of human kind. In any case mass rape is a proven tool in destroying the cultural identity of a people and in breaking any lasting resistance.

    A tithe of Earth’s population is due to the Lords of Hell by agreement made earlier in my campaign. For all my omnipotence I keep my bargains. The demons prefer innocents, so I will dispose of the children and babes in arms in this way. It saves the need to set up industrial processes to recycle their useless flesh. These raw recruits to the Abyss will perhaps suffer the worst of all; but I have hopes that the final fate of those that remain for my Inquisitors might surpass it. I have a message to send to the Parodyverse.

    Earth is to be destroyed. After it is plundered I shall set loose my necromancers and scientists to bind it and forge from the life remaining on its charred surface a new Doomwraith, first of those that shall replace my losses. Ch’veth the Tormented it shall be, compounded of the everlastingly tortured essences of all those who died with their planet. Even the spirits of the already-dead, of those who have fallen opposing me, shall be dragged from the afterlife to be part of the torment. I shall ordain that each linked soul be allowed to retain enough identity to understand what has been done to them and why.

    When all is done I shall blot out even the star around which Earth orbited and leave no rubble larger than my fist within three light years of that miserable fallen world. The fate of Earth shall become legend, a byword for the wrath of the Parody Master, a lesson for the ages. I have spoken.

    As for the Lair Legion… ah, what plans I have for them! You may cringe now, sweet jury, in your unenlightened freedom of spirit, but I assure you that when you are properly obedient to my will you will join with the other brides from Earth in eagerly anticipating – and even delivering – the punishments I have devised.

    The Hatman shall return from whence he escaped, to my Inquisitors, to become my Doomherald, and long will be his preparation. The CrazySugarFreakHero!’s amputated tongueless torso and head shall become my eternal footstool. Wilton shall watch as I destroy his last living kin a thousand times over and finally he shall beg to destroy her himself to save her from more pain. Whole planets have been set to researching ways of punishing the conquered Lair Legion. A thousand years from now their mad howls will still echo across the Parodyverse.

    My only regret is that my conflict with them shall be so short. Last time we fought I was diverting my power to maintain a whole plane, holding back the combined force of all the artefacts sacrificed to the Infinity Forge, and empowering the largest army ever assembled in the Parodyverse – and still Earth’s champions fell and fled before me in less than five minutes. With no such encumbrances on me this time I wonder if they will survive even five seconds against me? I hope they’ve been working hard and intend to be clever. I’ll be disappointed if they don’t have some absurd scheme or other to crush.

    Today I made my final preparations for the last battle of this Parody War, the blow which will ensure that this conflict has also been the Resolution War for which the creators of the Parodyverse set it in motion. The endgame comes nigh, and I have manoeuvred my enemies brilliantly to a corner where they can only fight to the finish.

    I met with my general staff: My Avatar, leader of the Avawarriors, greatest battle commander of my legions; Holy Taus, High Priest of my Parody Cult; Grand Inquisitor Flay; High Assassin-Mother S’Tab representing my faithful brides; Genius Protovek of my science elite; Dronon, Skree Public Accoster, representing the new loyal worlds. We came together to co-ordinate the destruction of your Earth.

    “It was a pretty problem, finding how to track and replicate the virtual shift of the Movie Gun transfer,” Protovek bleated. He is always eager to emphasise the magnitude of his technical achievements. “After all, the Movie Gun remains one of the unexplained transient phenomena of the Parodyverse. But I am proud to announce that the science elite have successfully decoded and decrypted the mechanisms and…”

    “Your new bridesss have been extracted,” hissed S’Tab impatiently. The assassin spider queen has no time for small talk. I approve. “It was one of your bridesss, Nexus 935 of the Reticulum Matrix who made it possible for your white-coated fool there to boassst of his achievements.”

    “Extracted indeed,” agreed Flay, rubbing his hands together, almost drooling at the thought of working on the Earth women in his custody. Of course, he can do naught to my chattels until I give the word. Their torments are mine to command. “We have neutralised each of their metahuman abilities and added the usual wards against escape or suicide.”

    “And Jury?” I asked. You are always foremost in my mind.

    “Separated from the rest, as you required, most high one,” Taus toadied. “What is your will regarding your new acquisitions, my Master?”

    I told him, of course; but I shall leave you to discover for yourself what is my pleasure for you and your lesser sistren.

    “All is ready for the invasion of Earth,” Avatar reported. “A thousand dreadnaughts await deployment. A billion troops stand by dimensional gates ready to jump. When shall we begin?”

    “The little ad-hoc computer matrix that maintains their virtual world is nearing its processing limits,” Protovek predicted. “I can tell you to the thousandth of a second when the process must be reversed before irretrievable entropy sets in to the dataset that maintains the Earth.”

    “They will return before that,” I revealed. “They will seek to surprise me. They will come to save their women.”

    “That is weaknesss,” scorned S’Tab.

    “That is why they shall fall,” intoned Taus in his priggish piety. “All praise our Parody Master!”

    “Praise me later,” I told him. “For now make the preparations I ordained. Each of you has a part to play, and this conquest must play out exactly as I have demanded it so that the champions of Earth will suffer bitter final defeat in the most painful way possible.” I glared at my aides as they gathered there in my war-tent. “Do you all understand?”

    One by one they acknowledged their part.

    “Then go,” I insisted.

    I returned then to the solitude of my war-tent to think of the battle to come, and of you. I write these words in the last peaceful moments before the resolution comes and I ascend to absolute power.

    How do I know? Oh, I have one captive more, recently taken, and his dying words were fascinating indeed.

    The Keeper of Borders is one of the lesser cosmic offices, one of the few who until recently evaded me. It was only after Earth’s abrupt disappearance to the virtual realm that his capture became a priority, and but three days since my faithful brides delivered him to the Inquisition. Woodbend Windyway is the fool’s name, and before he died he gave me the final key to my absolute triumph.

    “I’m the Keeper of Borders,” he gasped at last, when all his resistance was broken. A bloody scarecrow of a man, this last office holder, but by virtue of his role aware of the interfaces between all things. “I know how you came to be freed in your primal state.”

    He is referring to the ultimate incarnation in which I now manifest, devoid of the taint of host flesh, purest Parody Master in the glory of my power. “I already know how I rose to puissance,” I told him. “Answer my question.”

    He screamed again as Flay seared more of his soul away, then babbled on. “But you don’t know,” he cried. “And that makes all the difference, you see. You don’t understand.”

    “Then tell me. Reveal all you know and I will let you die.”

    My penultimate form occupied the flesh of a great galactic tyrant, one who has also sought to conquer Earth, and was shored up by the presence of the Resolution Prophecy. When the hateful Hooded Hood destroyed that shell with the Galactic Nobbler I reformed in my true flesh, finally complete.

    “You weren’t revived to fight whatever threat from beyond you were made to face. You were set loose, like a mad dog in a school playground,” babbled the Keeper. “You’re being allowed to gather power so it can be taken when you fall. I know.”

    “You know nothing,” I spat; yet this broken fool could not lie. He believed he spoke the truth.

    “I know because it was I who sundered the boundary to where you waited and gave you the chance to be free!”

    I frowned. I had assumed that the moment of destiny has come when I would conquer the Parodyverse and turn it against the Carnifex. “Why would you do that?” I demanded.

    The bloody prisoner hung in his chains and sobbed. “It was a trick. A deception. I was used by the one who wanted you to rise. I’m sorry.”

    “What one is this?” I demanded; but I already knew the answer. Only one enemy has the arrogance to seek to manipulate me to his own ends, would risk the whole of the Parodyverse in some Byzantine gambit for obscure personal goals.

    “The Hood,” gasped Windyway. “He had me set you free.”

    Rage came upon me, then mirth. The Hooded Hood is destroyed, victim of his own machinations. In loosing me he loosed his own destruction. He was ever a fool.

    “And what did the Hood hope to gain from his plotting?” I demanded.

    “The same as you, of course,” replied the Keeper of Boundaries. “That which can grant all desires, the power behind every artefact, the source of the cosmic offices, the very lifespring of this Parodyverse…”

    “The Storyheart,” I declared. “Where is it? Where was it concealed.”

    You hid that shining power source, my beloved Jury, in your last act as Shaper of Worlds. Perhaps that is why I have always seen in you the reflection of that wonder? One mere glimpse was enough to imprint you with its qualities. You hid the Storyheart from me as you have denied yourself to me, but I shall have you both. You carved the knowledge of where the Storyheart was hidden from your own mind; but Windyway was the Keeper of Boundaries, and he could know what was hidden even from you now.

    “It is on Earth,” he gasped, his heart breaking at his betrayal. “It is hidden beneath Parody Island, under the very stronghold of your adversaries the Lair Legion. That is where the Storyheart resides, waiting to be claimed.”

    “Of course,” I hissed. “How else could events transpire against me to hold me at bay from that miserable world for even a moment? It all makes perfect sense.”

    I reached out and snapped the man’s neck. I keep my bargains. I let him die.

    And so, beloved, I claim both you and your dowry, the Storyheart that shall make me supreme in the Parodyverse. Once I have absorbed it all time and space will by my campaign ground. No more shall I be confined to this pathetic ridiculous dungpile of second rate realities. I can finish toying with my Parodyverse then move on to an infinity of new universes to crush.

    A little while only, beloved, and you will be mine. I go now to war. I go now to victory. All spoils shall me mine, and you and your Storyheart last and greatest amongst them. My enemies shall be crushed to eternal torment. My victory shall resound across the omniverse. I shall be supreme.

    I, the Parody Master.

***


Next time: Jury, Dancer, Sorceress, Liu Xi Xian, Kerry Shepherdson, Rabid Wolf, Pelopia, stripped of their powers at the mercy of the conqueror of the Parodyverse, in Brides of the Parody Master, or The Wedding March. There’ll be quite a guest list. You might want to bring a present.

***


March of the Footnotes:

The Parody Master is one of the Lair Legion’s oldest enemies. In the real old days the LL’s rogues gallery was pretty much Baron Zemo, Peter von Doom, various comic-book creators, Mr T, and the Parody Master, and PM was the one to really watch out for, their first truly serious threat. Something between a renegade primal force and homicidal conqueror, he has pretty much do-anything abilities, limitless endurance and strength, the ability to reorder time and space to his liking, and an infinite army of tough drone Avatar Warriors and other military forces.

The Parody Master’s main weapon now is a soul-stealing axe. He has previously also used an enhanced Avasword capapble of cutting through anything, but this was recently destroyed.

His only weakness was that had to manifest by possessing a host body, and sometimes strong-willed hosts were able to influence his motives and methods and weak hosts caused him to imperfectly incarnate. He has now transcended that failing, being in his true and ultimate incarnation.

His role within the cosmic order remains mysterious, but it seems that he was created at the behest of the Storyheart which empowers the Parodyverse to resist some terrible external evil which will send an entity known as the Carnifex to destroy everything. The Parody Master has occasionally been summoned to uphold the edicts of the Triumverate and the Celestian Space Robots. However, he also operates independently, and tends to cruelty and tyranny. The fully-powered Parody Master is a match for really major cosmic forces like the Triumverate (Shaper of Worlds, Chronicler of Stories, Destroyer of Tales), Galactivac, or the Celestian Space Robots, and has recently overcome all of these powers in his march of conquest. However, his more human motives and sometimes petty villainy leave him more vulnerable to being thwarted than other cosmic beings.

The Parody Master’s minions are known to include:

His brides – Assassin-Queen S’Tab of the Z’Sox, Princess Annar of the Skunk Confederacy; Prime Mistress Oma of the Skree; and Nexus 935 of the Reticulum Matrix are his known surviving mates, although he intends to add Dancer, Kerry Shepherdson, Sorceress, Rabid Wolf, Liu Xi Xian, Pelopia of Order, and Jury to his collection.

His Doomwraiths or Singularity Riders – currently all but one of these are destroyed, and M’Rak remains imprisoned in the Safe on Earth.

His Ava-warriors, led by the Avatar

His Doomherald – Exu has currently defected but the PM’s planning to create a new one out of Hatman.

Holy Taus and the Parody Cult

Grand Inquisitor Flay and the Inquisition

Genius Protovek and the Science Elite

A fleet of city-sized Dimensional Dreadnaughts, armies of necro-cyborgs and war monsters and battle-technicians and ground troops and lots of other nasty things

The Shaper of Worlds role is to initiate new narrative strands in the many parallel timelines of the Parodyverse. Before the office was usurped and plundered by the Parody Master the Shaper was based in the House of Ideas on the narrative plane, served by her Goldfish of Inspiration and sculpting new concepts to loose into the worlds of mortals.

After the mysterious disappearance of former Shaper Carrington, the office was handed to a new incumbent now called Jury. Formerly a girlfriend of founder Legionnaire Jarvis she was killed in a car crash through the manipulations of Jarvis’ first wife Lo-Chi, but was preserved to take on the role of Shaper of Worlds. She maintained animosity towards those who caused her death, towards those who destroyed Jarvis, and towards Lisa L. Waltz (herself formerly a minor cosmic office-holder). Being new in her office, Jury was still wrestling with her duties, and had occasionally fallen foul of the manipulations of the Hooded Hood and the Paradox Stranger. Her major attempt to destroy the Hood almost caused the destruction of the Parodyverse and required her to recruit the Hood’s help to avert disaster.

When the Parody Master invaded the conceptual plane and captured her House of Ideas, Jury fled and was eventually evacuated by the Hooded Hood. She took refuge in Herringcarp Asylum and in the Hood’s arms. Her office lost to her she also forgot where she had sent the Storyheart, source of the cosmic office-holders powers. She burned away the last of her extraordinary powers to save the human armies trapped at the destruction of the conceptual plane.

Jury’s story is primarily told in UT#228: Bride of the Parody Master

The Celestian Space Robots are mile-high unfathomable maintenance entities working to ensure the smooth running of the Parodyverse. They are currently off-line.

Chaos is one of the five fundamental forces from which the Parodyverse is forged. Its champion is the Impossibilityium-forged CrazySugarFreakBoy!

Order is another of the fundamental forces. Its emissary is the Word of Logos, Pelopia’s father, and its champion is the wielder of Serious Matter, Hatman.

Galactivac the Living Death that Sucks is an interplanetary force of destruction, hovering away whole words. He is currently defeated and held in stasis by the Parody Master. His last free herald is the Probability Dancer, now to become the PM’s bride.

Infrequent Aardvark is the enigmatic manifestation of Loonacy.

Space Ghost is a pantsless drunk whom some allege to be one of the Family of the Pointless, manifestations of fundamental qualities of the Parodyverse. The Family of the Pointless have withdrawn from all contact with the Parodyverse.

The King of Stories is the deeply unpleasant first Chronicler of Stories, enemy of the current Chronicler and of the Dark Knight. He was last seen as the Parody Master’s tormented but unbroken captive.

Xeno Phobia is one name for the last of the Janus, beings from the dawn of the Parodyverse. Some fragment of him was recently revealed to have become Exu the Doomherald.

The Constellation were a confederation of twisted galactic beings who sought to promote the return of the Fairly great Old Ones. They are now destroyed.

The Hollow Voyager is a mysterious character whom we hear about by this name for the first time in this chapter.

Woodbend Windyway is the last Keeper of the Interfaces, a cosmic office holder charged with managing the crossovers between various powers and plotlines in the Parodyverse. It’s not like him to give in to torture, but then again the Inquisitors are very good.

The Hooded Hood is a cowled crime czar whose plots seemed to be disrupted and defeated when he and his headquarters, Herringcarp Asylum, were blown away by a narrative bomb. The information that the Hood provoked the Parody Master to his recent march of conquest is new.

***


Original concepts, characters, and situations copyright © 2007 reserved by Ian Watson. Other Parodyverse characters copyright © 2007 to their creators. The use of characters and situations reminiscent of other popular works do not constitute a challenge to the copyrights or trademarks of those works. The right of Ian Watson to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the UK Copyright, Designs & Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved.



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The Hooded Hood delves into the depths of a madman's mind - again

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