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The Journal of Sir Mumphrey Wilton and the Asil’s Diaries, Extract Twenty-Six: In which Sir Mumphrey Wilton and Baron Heinrich Zemo meet unexpected guides and go treasure-hunting in the city of the Celestians Tuesday, 11-Jan-2000 16:28:36
The Journal of Sir Mumphrey Wilton and the Asil’s Diaries, Extract Twenty-Six In which Sir Mumphrey Wilton and Baron Heinrich Zemo meet unexpected guides and go treasure-hunting in the city of the Celestians I woke up to find my head cradled in Madge’s lap. “Hello old girl,” I said to her, “Aren’t you dead?” “Of course I am you old fool,” she replied, tugging hard on my whiskers to wake me up properly. “Now are you going to get up and save the universe or not?” “Yes, dear,” I replied, and staggered to my feet. Interesting surroundings. I’d gone through the shimmering golden gateway provided by the fully-activated Sempiternus Singularum where the wicked Baron Zemo (although I didn’t know just then that it was he) had dragged my young amanuensis Asil. He might have had an inkling that the gadget we’d been pottering with led to the home of the Celestian Space Robots (really big cosmic chappies who delete solar systems that annoy them) but it came as big news to me. Madge and I were standing on the edge of a vast golden precipice overlooking a city the size of Jupiter. “Er, how exactly do I save the universe then?” Madge sighed. “You really do need a spirit guide, don’t you?” I asked her if that’s what she was. She said yes. “Mortals who enter this place are allowed an… an advisor. Anyone they want from all time and space, alive or dead. It’s rather sweet that you thought of me. Of course, you could have had Albert Einstein or Abraham Lincoln or that Ghandi chap who wouldn’t eat my meat and potato pie, you daft old bugger, in my place. But it’s still sweet.” Pointed out that given a conscious choice of every human who’d ever lived I’d still have chosen Madge. “Hmph,” she tried not to smile (Madge can never resist it when I snuffle my whiskers a bit and put a bit of twinkle in my eye). “Well, I suppose I’ll have to do. Basically the levers that operate the universe are around here, and your enemy Heinrich Zemo’s looking for them. Whichever of you gets there first gets to decide on the rules of the Parodyverse.” Made sense. The blaggard Zemo’s been after the Sempiternus Singularum from the start, so it stands to reason he’d be wanting to grab the loot here at the end. “Bit careless of these Celestians to leave their door-key just lyin’ around then, isn’t it?” I suggested. Madge explained that it had been stolen eons ago by a servitor of theirs since called the Obliterator, and it was hidden on Earth by Thugos the Devastator where its presence was masked by a much bigger Secret of the Parodyverse. Once that Secret had been carted away in a plain brown bag for relocation (thanks, I gather, to Ms Waltz and her Lair Legion and despite the interference of the late, unlamented Hooded Hood) the key called the Sempiternus Singularum (Latin for “always eternal and singular”) was much more spottable, and was duly spotted – see previous diaries. Madge suggested searching for levers to the universe and/or Zemo and Asil. Quite agreed but felt it important to stop time for at least an hour first. After all, it’s been a long time since I’ve held my beloved Madge in my arms. This is Asil writing this, in words. There is no worse villain in the world than Baron Heinrich Zemo. He has practised being evil and rotten ever since the war, and practise makes perfect. He is very scary. It was even more scary when he started crying when we got to the city of the Celestians. We were met by this young blonde woman who he seemed to recognise, and then he was hugging her to him and blubbering like a baby. And while I couldn’t hear what he was saying there was a softness in his voice as he clung to her and stroked her hair that I have never heard in him before. Eventually he turned back to me and pointed his Luger. “Come along,” he instructed in his usual harsh Germanic tones. “We shall now go and gain mastery of the universe. You will follow Heike.” I was a bit surprised by this. I understood that Heike was the Baroness Zemo, but that she was frozen in suspended animation after an assassination attempt, and that all Zemo’s efforts had failed to cure her. Doodyhead Lisa, an experienced Zemo-watcher, says that the last shreds of decency and restraint in Zemo were snuffed out when Heike was taken from him. It was only later on that I found out about mortals getting guides of their choice and so on. I was rather miffed and upset not to get one too. I would have chosen Visionary. “I shall fulfil my promise to you, leibling,” Zemo promised Heike as the two of them shepherded me through vast buildings that would dwarf any mountain on Earth. “I shall lay the whole of creation at your feet. All will bow to us.” “I never doubted you, Heinrich,” she answered. “Only swear to me that you will rule them gently and with proper kindness.” “I shall ensure they get what they deserve,” the Baron vowed. I warned the Zemos that villains never win in the end because they’re baddies. Zemo pointed out that all of timespace was locked in stasis while we were in here, and that only his own scientific genius in cannibalising some Makluan power rings and a bio-modem he had lying around had protected him from the cessation of causality. Well, that and torturing the plot out of Uatu the Observer of course. Then we marched onwards for Zemo to find the levers that controlled the universe. I was just about to despair when I realised that I’d somehow forgotten someone; and just like that the Hooded Hood’s retcon of Sir Mumphrey popped like a soap bubble and I recalled everything. Then I knew that if Visionary wasn’t able to save us, only one chap could. Wasn’t too hard to work out, really. A city the size of Jupiter wasn’t going to be easy to search on foot. Doubtless Zemo (Madge had filled me in on my unknown masked adversary now, don’t know why I didn’t put two and two together myself, must be going senile) had some fiendish knicknack to locate what we were looking for, but I was just getting massive static feedback on the pocketwatch, even ramped up in power as it was from the time-reserve walking cane. So it was clearly time for another plan. “This place isn’t what it seems, is it?” I asked Madge. “So?” she asked expectantly. There were certain things I had to ask before she could tell me; it was the rules of guiding (By the way, remind me to tell you how I warned Baden-Powell about calling his new manual on youth training “Scouting for Boys”). “So…” I considered, “So distance is illusion here. I’m just interpreting all of this through my senses to make sense of it, but none of it is really physical.” “True,” Madge agreed, “Although you did a pretty good job of simulating the physical earlier.” Gave her a friendly slap on the rump and carried on reasoning. “So if I decide what I’m lookin’ for is through that next doorway there, it is.” “Not bad for a decrepit old imbecile,” she admitted. “You appear to be not entirely senile just yet. Go on then.” I went through the doorway into the engine room of the universe. “You’ve got to stop him,” I warned Heike Zemo. “He’s a power-crazed, genocidal, wicked megalomaniac!” “I know,” she admitted, “but I love him. Besides, guides aren’t allowed to interfere.” “You are holding a gun on me, you big porker!” I pointed out. She shrugged and pulled back the safety catch. “I don’t like you,” she explained. Meanwhile Zemo was strutting around this vast panel of instruments, arms in the air, fists clenched, declaiming a long monologue about how he had finally overcome the many trials of his life, defeated every last enemy, gained control of the multiverse etc. I guess it was vintage archvillain stuff if you’re into that sort of thing. The problem is, if you’re a villain and you spout stuff like “nothing can stop me now,” you’re just tempting fate to have a hero stride in and say, “Not so fast, Zemo!” Mumphrey strode through the door and shouted out, “Not so fast, Zemo! I think you’ll find there’s still one fellow willing to box your ears and send you home with your tail between your legs! Come here and take the thrashing you so richly deserve, you bounder!” That was obviously the moment that the Hood’s retcon dropped away from the Baron too. “Wilton?” he growled. “I don’t know how a powerless worm like you managed to get here, but you have no chance of stopping me. I took the precaution of bringing along a bodyguard.” “I reckon I could take that blonde tramp,” Madge Wilton told her husband glowering at the Luger-brandishing Heike. “Too much strudel in the afternoon, fraulein?” “I was not referring to my beloved wife,” snarled Zemo. “I just happened to bring along a few portable hero-killers contained in this sealed pocket dimension in my, pocket!” He pulled open a concealed pouch on his tunic and there was a flash of dimensional energies as his warrior gated in. Anvil Man appeared as if from nowhere and targeted his rusty armoured detonation gauntlets at Sir Mumphrey. Hellfrazier appeared as if from nowhere and caught Madge’s gaze, holding her in a hypnotic trance. HuntingJustice DeathMarrow appeared as if from nowhere and disintegrated Mumphrey with twin blasts of her oversized lethal force cannons. Mumphrey |
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