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The Journal of Sir Mumphrey, Extract Twenty-Seven Kindly read this complete and corrected edition Sunday, 20-Feb-2000 07:41:56
The Journal of Sir Mumphrey, Extract Twenty-Seven In which the battle to control the universe is resolved, and everybody joins in the big fight at the end of the adventure There is absolutely nothing more irritating when one is attempting to save the universe than being disintegrated by a gun-wielding second rate supervillain. Said as much to HuntingJustice DeathMarrow as I used my Chronometer of infinity to reverse her destruction of me. “Madame,” I told her, “I suggest you spend less time playing with firearms and more time shopping for clothes that fit.” Flicked her with the Fountain Pen of Causality and dropped her somewhere in the Ozarks. Should keep her busy for a while. The other two menaces that Zemo had brought as his attack dogs both turned on me then. Big rusty armoured chap called Anvil Man was trying to work out why none of his explosions were working (I was time-stopping them, that’s why – right up to the point I used the Instruments of the Office of Timekeeper to transport all the explosions together in time and space to a point just under his helmet. That quietened him down a good bit). Then that undead hypnotist Hellfrazier chappie turned his googlie eyes on me (he’d already put Madge in some kind of trance). I was a bit distracted at the time he started talking, having just sent the ammunition in Heike Zemo’s luger about an hour into the future. Asil was taking advantage of this to plant a well-deserved kick into the Baroness’ stomach. It was a jolly good fight between the two ladies. Heike had obviously had some training, and ever since young Asil bought that leather cat-suit she’s been practising away at all those fiendish oriental arts like origami and so on, and the two of them looked like they might well be going at it all day. Heard Hellfrazier saying something to me so turned round and apologised. “Didn’t quite hear that old chap, what was it again?” “I said your will is now mine,” he grinned nastily. “Hmm, don’t think so, you pustulence,” I replied. Have had my fill of psychiatrists lately, and never did like those hoodoo mind tricks. Was taught to resist them a good century ago by Hastings Vernal. Hit Hellfrazier so hard that he literally was knocked back to the Metazoic era. Well alright, I used a little bit of the pocketwatch (as supercharged by the Staff of Temporal Flow) as well. “Never mind the minions, Mumph,” Madge (my dear late wife, here in the Celestian stronghold as a spirit guide much as Heike Zemo was for the wicked Baron), “Isn’t is about time you stopped Zemo from conquering the universe?” “Too late!” Zemo crowed from behind this massive bank of chunky manual controls (reminiscent of a steam train, I thought – the controls, that is, not Zemo. Zemo’s more like a walking knackvurst), “I control the Parodyverse. Total power is mine!” “And nothing can stop you?” suggested Madge, wickedly. “And nothing can stop me now!” This was true. Nothing could stop him now. Used the Inverness Cape of Singularity to drop back in time five minutes to when he could be stopped. Couldn’t interfere with Zemo, of course, that’d just cause a divergent reality, and Lord knows there’s too many of those already. So instead I used the Fountain Pen of Destiny to summon assistance. Then back to real time, and the Celestians arrived. Y’see, whoever put the Parodyverse together seems to have left three kinds of guardians. There are the office holders, who get to interact with the people who the stories that make up the Parodyverse wrap around. There’s the Family of the Pointless, who personify certain key themes in those stories. And then there’s the aloof giant Space Robots, the Celestians, who never interact that much and simply maintain the multiverse in the way it was ordained. They usually act at a cosmic level. That’s who I called here now. After all, in this case they were the real enemy, weren’t they? Not clear? Old Zemo was baffled as well, but here’s how I explained it to him: “You think this is about stoppin’ you, you sad old Nazi? Hmph! It’s about stoppin’ them lettin’ you win. Think clearly for a moment. That board you’re at sets the rules for how the Parodyverse works. You change it and you change the nature of the Parodyverse. They can’t allow that. You mess it all up and the only thing these chappies can do is carve you - and since they’re not too precise, the whole human race – out of existence so it never happened. And that’s what you wanted to happen, isn’t it?” I demanded of the quarter-mile high metal giants. They didn’t answer of course. Ignorant like that. But their thoughts are so big you can pick ‘em up anyway. It was all about revenge. The heroes of the Parodyverse had recently almost discovered the Secret of the Parodyverse, had almost awoken the Dreaming Celestian at the centre of the Parodyverse and ruined everything these Space Robots had been shaping since time out of mind. Of course, the heroes were quite entitled to interfere; half a hero’s job is interferin’. The other half’s blowing up the baddies’ stronghold and escaping with the girl, by the way. Anyway, these Celestians had decided that the Earth was a bit too dangerous to keep around after that, so they’d deliberately allowed their renegade servant the Obliterator abscond with the Sempiternus Singularum, the key to their domain, knowin’ that Zemo or one of his ilk would wander in here and find a way to bugger up the Parodyverse. And then they could legitimately erase the world with a good conscience. “Well done, you old buffer,” Madge smiled at me. “I knew you’d get there in the end.” Then she vanished. The Celestians had revoked spirit guide privileges. Heike had gone too. “Come back you big sow!” Asil called. “I haven’t finished kicking your ass yet!” “Heike!” moaned Zemo, as if the greatest treasure in the world had been stripped from him; I suppose in his terms it had. “You damned robots think to manipulate a Zemo? To manipulate me?! You shall rue the day you tampered with the affairs of Heinrich Wilheim Wolfgang Groppler Zemo the fifth!” A number of things became crystal clear all at once at that point: (a) Zemo intended to try and use the cosmic control panel to wipe out the Celestians, despite the fact they had set him up to try and use it so and had erased his wife as a means of prompting him to it; (b) the Celestians had helpfully suspended my office, stripping me of any kind of special abilities whatsoever; and (c) there was nobody else in the universe able to stop Zemo right now so it was up to me anyway. Ergo I dropped those instruments of office (except the pocketwatch, which is attached by a silver chain to my waistcoat and is really a part of me by now) and ran in to engage the evil Baron in the manly art of fisticuffs. Zemo, being a blaggard, pulled his pistol and shot me. Good thing I’d previously shifted his ammunition into the future as well. Caught him a good one on that purple-masked chin and we set to in earnest. I’ll say this for the cove, he’s a mean pugilist. Right from the start it was obvious it was going to be a pretty tough thing. Apparently Zemo’s in his eighties or so now, but you couldn’t tell from his physical condition. I, on the other hand, am definitely past my best, and I’d have needed to be in my prime to match up to the Baron. It was pretty clear that it was just a question of how long I could remain standing. Meanwhile Asil got to the cosmic control board and wondered what she could do to help without dooming the Parodyverse. She told me later she decided she needed help, so she chose to do two things: first she called back Madge, knowing that’s exactly what I would do. Then she called Visionary. The Visionary bit went a bit wrong actually. She got him there, but she actually accidentally also brought with him every hero and villain in the Parodyverse. All of them. “What the…” Asil’s Great Man had time to gasp before the war began. To be fair this confused the Celestians no end. There were quite a few baffled heroes and baddies for that matter. ManMan had clearly been having a shower. As for Madge, she took one look up at the control platform where I was getting thrashed by the Baron and dived for the Instruments of Office. The Staff of Temporal Flow might not have been working properly just then, but it made a very satisfying crack on the back of Zemo’s head as she hit him with it. Zemo went down like a wicket before WC Grace. All was confusion down below. I’d never dreamed there were so many of these costumed chappies, and that there were so many grudges and death-feuds between ‘em. Saw young spiffy fighting his way across the floor towards the Bone when the Devil Doctor accidentally trod on him. Spotted Starseed lookin’ more sparkly than before facing off against Dirth Vortex. Surprised to see Ms. Hastings in a most fetching red white and blue starry outfit fighting back to back with my old war chum Dan Drury against the hordes of HERPES. Over to the left Caveguy and Elsqueevio led a dinosaur charge against some sort of transforming robots. And in the far distance Dark Thugos and the Parody Master were thrashing it out in a wave of special effects that made my eyes hurt just to look at it. It got more intense by the minute. CrazySugarFreakBoy! rescued an innocent bystander in the form of the philanthropic Mr Book: “Why Mister Book, how did you get here? You’re not a hero or villain!” “I couldn’t say, my boy.” The Grim Reaper was annoyed to have been disturbed: “Who are you to interfere with my cosmic broodings! Speak your name, little hero, so I know who I am about to destroy!” “Ulp… Nats.” Others struggled to tell which side they were one: “OK, I’m Saint, and I’m a good guy.” “Green Ninja, good but twisted.” “Magnetic Techbird, a villain to the world but saviour of the mutant race.” “Lee O’Callaghan, and I just want to get out of this crazy place!” “Crying Clown… definitely a villain, and now you all die!” “Time for you to wrap it all up, Mumph,” Madge told me. “Goodbye, old girl. I’ll always love you.” “I know. Now save the universe.” “Right you are, dear.” So I took the control of the cosmic keyboard or whatever it was, and I studied the weft and warp of the fabrics that made up the Parodyverse. I found that years of working with the Chronometer had given me the experience to follow all the bizarre and beautiful weavings that the board monitored, and I could sense how to pluck a string here, make a change there, to set up different operating rules. With a single change the heroes and villains were returned home. Even the fallen Zemo and my amanuensis Asil were gone. So was my Madge. Only ManMan’s loofah remained. The whole of creation was there to be modified. The Celestians watched closely to see what I did next. I put my hands in my pockets and whistled. “What, you didn’t expect me to fall for it did you?” I asked the Space Robots. “I’m not going to tinker with the grand design so you can expunge the Earth from the Parodyverse. I happen to like the Parodyvese just the way it is.” Their thoughts washed over me, reminding me of the horror and violence and tragedy that infected our broken creation. “Hmmm, and there’s also cream teas, and sunsets, and Asil, and A Tale of Two Cities, and Mozart and children and dandelions. There’s the warmth of a lover’s smile and the light of inspiration in a genius creating, And there’s kindness, and hope, and forgiveness, and redemption, and a human race more wondrous and fantastic, far worse and far better, than you big blighters ever can be.” I chuckled at the Celestians’ confusion. “My dear chaps, if you wanted to set somebody up to muck with the Parodyverse you should have picked a supervillain or something. I don’t want to change a thing.” I checked my chronometer and felt that it was home time. “If you’d be so kind…?” I asked the Space Robots, gesturing to them to repower the pocketwatch. “Oh, and one other thing for you to think on. You chappies undoubtedly know a whole lot of cosmic stuff we poor mortals can’t get a grasp on. But perhaps there’s things you don’t quite know either, things you have to be human to really understand, like birth and death and love and hate and why little things are important and why some things are important enough to die for. Maybe that’s what links us to the power that created you. And maybe that power wanted us here at the centre of the Parodyverse for just that reason. You fellows think on that before your next plan to erase humanity. Goodbye.” Found myself back in my London office in my own chair at my own desk. Both Miss Dawkins and that oik who married my daughter Felicity had hysterics. Made a few phone calls to check that everyone was back where they should be. Bautista warned me that the Sempiternus was utterly vanished, and all record of the plans with it. That’s the Celestians taking their bat home. Asil had appeared safe and sound in America, where her Doody-Head was due to become a mum very shortly. Young Hopkins was taking a break from chasing the Bone, having apparently been nominated as Mayor of somewhere in the United States – well, he said everywhere. And apparently the Hooded Hood was dead, shot by Zemo during the cowled crime-czar’s own attempt to rewrite reality. Rewriting reality plots never work, and it wouldn’t be an improvement anyway. Wonder if the Hood understood that at the end? Which just left me and a pot of tea and some warm crumpets to toast by the fire, to put my slippers on and put my feet up and relax, with the ghost of a memory of Madge’s touch and the satisfaction of a job well done. Mumphrey Wilton KBE GCB GCMG CGVO FRS Sir Mumphrey's final chapter |
| The Journal of Sir Mumphrey, Extract Twenty-Seven (A final story from Sir Mumphrey Wilton) (20-Feb-2000 07:38:37) |
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