Previously: After his assassination at the unwilling hands of ManMan, the Hooded Hood avoided death by sending his essence to the faerie realms. The heroes of the Parodyverse now seek him there to recruit his aid against the Parodyverse-conquering Ultimate Ultzon, but have become rather separated and confused in the Many Coloured Lands – and beyond. Nor are they yet aware that Faerie has been claimed by a new master, who bears them little love.     It was another golden afternoon. They all were.     Ioldabaoth Winkelweald sat on the bench beside the gazebo and opened his first edition A Tale of Two Cities. “Hmm,” he mused to himself. “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times…”     “Declaiming to yourself again, my love?” the Faerie Queen asked, gliding down from the bower in one of her diaphanous silken numbers. “I thought you were trying to give that up?”     “Old habits die hard,” admitted the man who had once been the Hooded Hood. “This morning I found myself planning what to do if your servants forgot the jam. It involved three parallel dimensions, a coup on the Skunk Homeworld, and a reordering of some of the laws of physics before I’d finished.”     Mab kissed him lingeringly on the cheek. “I can see I’m going to have to work harder at distracting you,” she said, offering her most melting smile.     “I’m not sure how much more distraction I can survive,” Ioldobaoth confessed. “I’m not as young as I used to be.”     “Yes you are,” argued the Faerie Queen. “This is an ageless land. My land.”     “Indeed. It has been a very welcome refuge.”     Mab frowned a pretty, charming smile. “Now, Iolobaoth, you promised. No more futile attempts to take over the world or end history. A quiet retirement instead of certain death when that nasty man stabbed you in the mortal realms.”     “Knifey stabbed me just above the heart, actually,” the man in grey told her. “I’m sure it would have hurt more had he stabbed me in my mortal realms.”     “Ioldobaoth! Was that a joke? Did the solemn archvillain just say something amusing?”     “I had a late night. Anyway, Joe Pepper’s not a nasty man. Feckless and gullible, but not nasty. I once considered him for a son-in-law, but the moment passed. I don’t blame him for killing me. He’d just had a Technopolitan Behaviour Control Chip installed in him.”     The Faerie Queen blinked. “You expected to be killed?”     “No. It was a complete surprise,” admitted Ioldobaoth. “I can’t remember the last time I was surprised. It was quite refreshing, in a blood spurting from my chest kind of way.”     Mab reached down and ran a perfect smooth hand over her guest’s chest. “But now you’re here, love. With me. Here to stay.”     “Now I am here,” Ioldabaoth Winkelweald agreed.     “You had a baby?”     “Yes.”     “My baby?”     “Yes.”     “And you didn’t tell me?”     “Bry… I’m sorry! I… it was too soon. I knew you’d… I didn’t want to destroy what we had.”     “Nice plan on that. And the Order of the Observing Eye helped you hide your pregnancy from me?”     “Yes. They said they have an interest in children of potential. They said they…”     “I know what they do, dammit. They raised me as one of their ‘children of potential’. Now I’m wondering why I ever trusted those miserable manipulating…”     “Bry, it wasn’t like that! Please, calm down.”     “Calm! You give away our baby without even telling me I’m a father, like… like I don’t matter, like I need to be protected from this kind of stuff, so that you can go on playing teen Lisa!”     “It wasn’t that! I was confused… and I saw this glimpse of the future. The Hooded Hood showed me…”     “And you believed him?”     “The Hood doesn’t lie. He showed me… well, you were happy. With Beth. And I was… not happy. But it was best for you. The Hood offered to retcon the baby away so you and I could be together forever… but I said no.”     “And you lied and deceived and wrecked any future we might have together, Laurie! What the hell am I supposed to do now? Tell me that!”     “I don’t know, Bry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”     “What do I do? What can I do?”     The audience rose from their seats applauding at the sheer pathos of the two broken puppets.     “Thank you, my friends, thank you,” the manager of the Theatre of Despair told them, taking a gratified vow. “It is so delicious, isn’t it?” He turned back to his property masters. “Rewind them and play that scene again and again. It’s going to make us a fortune.”     Goldeneyed and Lisette twitched on the ends of their silver strings.     “You had a baby?”     “What are you doing with my scrying pool, my love?” Queen Mab of Fey asked Ioldobaoth Winkelweald.     “Browsing,” he answered, turning away from the sparkling fountain. “I like to keep up with current events.”     “There are no current events here, Ioldobaoth,” the Faerie Queen chided him. “There is no now.”     “Faerie is a reflection of the human soul and consciousness,” her guest suggested. “What affects it effects here eventually. Do you want to know what I saw?”     “Do you want to know what I want?” Mab smiled seductively. “Come into my bower, Ioldobaoth.”     “I saw signs of fortification. As if Faerie was preparing for a siege. Or a war.”     “That’s silly, my love. Now come to bed. Don’t you want me?”     “Old forces are awakening again,” pondered Ioldobaoth. “Of course, I arranged for some of that back when I was… before. When my Purveyors of Peril took over the planet, the British establishment loosed the ancient powers of Gramayre to counter them. That was when we made our pact, was it not, Queen Mab?”     “You know I don’t keep track of those silly bargains, beloved. I have people for that. Look, my gown fell off!”     “What are you hiding, Mab? What is it that scares you?”     “Kiss me, Iolodobaoth. Please!”     So he did.     “Is something bothering you?” the frumpy girl in the horn-rimmed glasses across the table worried. “You don’t seem to be enjoying our date.”     “No, no it’s not that,” Nats quickly assured her. “It’s great. The food, the wine, the service, those guys in the string quartet. It’s really great.”     The girl tried not to look hurt. “I know most guys try to date my sister, not me. It’s okay. I’m used to it.”     “Really, I’m fine,” Nats emphasised. “It’s just… I’m having a few problems remembering how I got here. Where I am. What I’m doing. That kind of thing.”     “So you don’t remember me?” his date frowned.     “Er, it’s on the tip of my tongue.”     “I’m Temporary Death,” she told him. “We’ve met a couple of times.”     “Urk.”     “Like when you first got the Psychostave, and it shut down your life functions so it could bond with you. And again when it transferred its psionic template to meld with its other half to become the personification of Resolution Prophecy.” Temporary Death looked down. “I thought maybe you liked me.”     “I… I see. Well, you seem like a very sweet person.”     “If you tell me I have a nice personality I shall personally condemn you to the darkest corner of Mefrothto’s domain, and don’t think I can’t do it, William Reed!”     “No. No I wasn’t going to say that. No ma’am. No.” He sipped his drink because he needed the alcohol. “Anyway, it’s Blackhurt’s domain now. Mefrothto’s dead.”     The girl looked up. “And you point is…?”     “Ah. Yes. So how did I, um, end up on a date with you this time?”     Temporary Death shook her head sadly. “You and your friends got dragged into Faerie. The Many Coloured Land has always bordered on the Realms of Death. A few of you strayed over. And you didn’t bring flowers or chocolates.”     Nats realised he was in for the battle of his life; and he really hadn’t practised enough.     CrazySugarFreakBoy! and Pelopia caught up with Iolodobaoth Winkelweald at sundown, as he and Titania watched the fireflies perform their solemn courtship dances over the lake and nymphs with lanterns glided on paper barges under the purple skies.     “Hoody! Boy, am I glad to find you!” Dreamcatcher Foxglove called out, startling the pixies and sending the fauns scampering for the forest. “You have no idea what we went through to get to you!”     If Ioldobaoth was surprised to see his old adversary there in the heart of the Many Coloured Realm he didn’t show it. “Good evening, Dreamcatcher. Good evening Pelopia. How is your father, the Word?”     “He’s… he’s fine,” the Priestess of Order blushed. Ioldobaoth raised one interested, speculating eyebrow.     “Who are you people?” Queen Mab demanded, rising wrathfully from her divan. “How did you breach our perimeter to meddle in our revels? Guards!”     “Peace, Mab. I’ve known these two for some time,” Ioldobaoth urged her, rising from his couch and staring intently at his visitors. “I’ve been looking forward to the day when they would know each other.”     “Hoody, we need you,” CSFB! blurted. “This guy called Ultimate Ultizon, who’s like this personification of this ancient Resolution War prophecy created by the Celestian Space Robots but gone totally bonkers rogue has taken over the planet in this indestructible robot body and is controlling everybody except for Yo so Yo got the rest of us free with Space Ghost’s Spank Ray and we set out to find you because the bad guys, well the other bad guys not you, seem to think you could put a stop to their wickedy plans…”     “Does this mortal ever breathe?” wondered Queen Mab.     “I wondered that too,” growled Pelopia.     “…right into Galactivac’s Vacuum Ship, which sure made Nats wish he’d brought a spare uniform and then…”     “This could go on for some time,” Pelopia warned.     Queen Mab glowered at the noisy young man who had disturbed her quiet retreat. “I could always turn him into a toad,” she hissed.     “…Old Man Willow’s tree roots could even do that kind of cursing, but sure enough just then the Wilde Huntsman burst from the ground like the Mole Man’s Moloids in FF, and…”     “Would you?” asked Pelopia.     The spikes of ice that pierced Hatman’s hands, shoulders, and feet to pin him to the glacier cave wall were cold enough to numb the pain. Only the blood loss and previous beating made it hard for him to stay conscious.     “Don’t pass out,” the pale thin creature that was running preternaturally-long fingers over jay Boaz’ forehead instructed shrilly. “There’s so much more I need to know.”     “Go to hell,” snarled Hatman, resisting with all his might. He couldn’t feel his limbs now.     “Been there. The tourist accommodation sucks,” the changeling answered nonchalantly. “Now let’s see more of this battle you were in.”     Jay struggled, but without his hats he was as powerless as any mortal.     “You and your bold companions… I can see them now,” the changeling told him. “The fallen Messenger, spiffy Fernhead, and who else? De Brown Streak, a metal man called NTU-150, and… oh yes, I can see why you like that Sorceress of yours. Very nice.”     “Get out of my head!”     “What, with all those lovely memories of you and the delicious Whitney doing such very naughty things? She looks even better stripped down, doesn’t she?”     “Get. Out.”     “Hmm. Well back to the battle, eh. So you and your companions were dropped into Tir Na Nog without warning, accompanying… is that really a Pegasus? Yes, it is. They’re quite rare these days, you know. And that one… oh, that one was being followed.”     Jay pushed his head back against the ice, hoping contact with it would be enough to activate his powers to take on then properties of whatever he wore on his head. It wasn’t.     “Followed by the Wilde Huntsman! Well, that is interesting. Your Pegasus has certainly made some powerful enemies. The Huntsman doesn’t leave his Fortress of Pain and the torment of the souls he has previously gathered lightly. Some greater power must have set him on the trail.”     Hatman tried not to think about the nine days and nights of running fight he and his companions had suffered escaping the Huntsman and his Hell-Hounds. The heroes had used every trick in the book to stop their foe, but the Wilde Huntsman seemed imperious to harm. He could call up whatever local resources were to hand to aid him, be they villagers or rock trolls, elementals or forest sprites. His spear lanced black energies that numbed the will and depleted the body.     The changeling took an image from his captive’s mind of the desperate band struggling from their last encounter. The avalanche would keep the Hunt at bay for at few hours, and allow them time to bind their wounds. spiffy’s arm was splinted where the Huntsman had shattered his femur with a single grip. De Brown Streak’s chest was tightly bound by the ragged remnants of Sorceress’ cloak to try and stop the bleeding from the hell-hound gash. NTU-150’s chest and leg armour was dented and pierced, and one side of his red-and-gold battlesuit was scorched black. None of the party was unscathed. Lacking sleep, food, and energy they pushed on because they had to.     “Makes me almost admire them,” the changeling mocked. “They should have abandoned the Pegasus like she suggested. Fools.”     “We don’t… abandon… our friends.”     “She was a traitoress. I see it in your mind. A spy. And still you fight for her.”     “Yes.”     The changeling leaned so close that Hatman could feel the chill of the creature’s breath on his cheek. “And yet they didn’t come back for you, Jay. The left you behind to die.”     “I told them to,” the capped crusader argued with his last strength. “It was my fault. I had to save them.”     Another image was drawn from his mind. The ambush they’d planned out on the icefield where the Hunt was slowed. Pegasus and NTU-150 up from under the ice beneath the Huntsman, a blizzard from Sorceress to cover Messenger picking off the rag-tag followers that had fallen under the Hunt’s enchantment. De Brown Streak getting spiffy close enough to try and capture the Master of the Hunt in his tangled fern. Hatman closing in to finish the job wearing his rarely-used Donar helm.     “It was a brave, stupid plan,” the changeling commented. “The Huntsman controls local environmental conditions. He could easily use the storm against you, and the very ice beneath your feet. Once he’d downed your Sorceress nobody else there stood a chance, even the Pegasus with the cosmic blasts.”     Hatman had seen Whitney go down in a spray of blood as the Wilde Huntsman’s spear had pierced her side. He’d known then that the only way to get Sorceress and the others to safety was for someone to stay and cover their retreat. Someone powerful. Someone responsible.     “So you told them to flee, and they let you to die.”     “I gave an order. They followed it,” Jay gasped. It was getting very hard to keep going now. “They’ll be back for me. Whitney will come.”     “Yes, I see you believe that. Remarkable. That’s why I’ve needed to copy all your memories, mortal.”     “What do you mean?”     The changeling did a little pirouette and suddenly he looked just like Hatman. “Like it? I’ve transformed myself into you right down to the genetic level. With what I know now I should easily be able to pass myself off as a superhero, no?”     Jay tried to struggle but he knew he was dying.     “I hope they do rescue me. I hope I get a chance to comfort your Whitney in my arms before the Huntsman slaughters her. I’m looking forward to the comforting part very much.”     “No!”     “And after that? Well, everyone trusts you. That offers so many opportunities for some fun in the mortal world, doesn’t it?”     “No!”     “Let that be your last thought, Jay Boaz. I’m going to have your woman and I’m going to hurt your friends, and I’m going to do it all in your name.”     Hatman could only mouth the word No.     “Over your dead body? Well not quite. Dying would be too easy, so I’m going to do you one better. I’m going to freeze you here in the ice. They do that to heroes, right? I’m going to freeze you in this ice, with that one last thought in your agonised, dying mind, and I’m going to leave you here forever.” The changeling chuckled. “It was so good of the Huntsman to leave you behind for me, but really he’s only interested in the Pegasus. The rest are toys for me.”     Hatman forced dead limbs to twitch, but he only managed to gush fresh blood from his wounds.     “Goodbye now,” the new Hatman told him as the ice flowed over him. “And remember what I told you. This is going to be fun.”     Ioldobaoth Winkelweald stood on the hilltop and stared at the stars. The constellations here matched those in the mortal realm unless someone took the trouble to modify them. And tonight there was war in heaven.     “Ioldobaoth?”     He didn’t turn round as Mab joined him. “The Celestians are locked in battle with the Constellation, in a war neither side can win nor even quit,” he noted. “The main repair and security mechanism of the Parodyverse is occupied. Neutralised.”     “Ioldobaoth, we have to talk. About your friends.”     “Those two? They aren’t my friends. My hobby, maybe. I wonder what Pelopia will tell her father about CrazySugarFreakBoy!? And what the Word will do when he finds she is with child by the Emissary of Chaos?”     “We need to talk. They can’t stay here, disturbing your mind with thoughts about other times and places. I won’t have it.     “Oh Mab, they’ll only be the first. Would you like me to speculate on which of the other heroes will break through your screen of trials, torments, and illusion to get here next?”     The Faerie Queen took a step back. “What?”     “I’m not a fool, my dear. I know when I’m being distracted, being managed.” Ioldobaoth turned to face her, his eyes grave. “Are you still puzzling why you haven’t been able to steal my powers to use in this war you’re secretly preparing for?”     A number of expressions played over the Queen’s face. Finally she settled on an amused acceptance and said, “Yes.”     “It’s the same reason I didn’t run off with our young heroes to save the world as they expect. Or one of them. I don’t have any powers anymore.”     “This mirror maze seems to go on forever,” ManMan commented.     “That’s what y’said about the hedge maze too,” dull thud pointed out. “And we got out of that alright.”     ~~You could teleport up for a look round that one~~ Cressida pointed out. ~~This one has a roof~~     “I really don’t recommend breaking any more glass,” Knifey warned emphatically. “Those things you set free damn near killed you both the last time.”     “How long have we been in here?” demanded ManMan. “Shouldn’t we be hungry or thirsty or needing a toilet break by now?”     ~~It’s Faerie~~ Cressida pointed out, ~~Time’s a kind of optional extra here. Ask Knifey, he knows.~~     “That’s another thing,” thuddy scowled. “How do you know so much about his talking knife, Cressie? Y’only grew in my stomach a couple of years ago, so there’s no way ye evir met.”     “Yeah,” puzzled ManMan. “Knifey joked you’d dated.”     “We don’t discuss our personal lives,” Knifey answered primly.     “Not wi’ us anyway, apparently,” complained thud     “This mirror maze seems to go on forever,” ManMan commented.     “That’s what y’said about the hedge maze too,” dull thud pointed out again. “And we got out of that alright.”          “Is it my imagination, or are we going round in circles?” Knifey worried.     ~~And getting smaller,~~ added Cressida.          “This mirror maze seems to go on forever,” ManMan commented…     “That’s what y’said about the hedge maze too,” dull thud pointed out again. “And we got out of that alright.”     “Thank you,” Dancer said to the Blood Giant as he lowered her to the floor and rose back to his full quarter mile height. “Now you be careful about bathing those bunions. Remember, baby oil and a little camomile. And give my regards to Mrs Skullsplitter and the young ones!”     “Graaachaargh!” growled the terror of the Dreampeaks. He was still trying to work out how grinding bones to make bread had been translated into five day journey over dragon-infested swamps carrying a tiny mortal.     But Dancer had already hurried off into the undergrowth, or forest as the little people called it. It was only a short jog up the hill to the glade where Ioldabaoth and his party were having breakfast in the gazebo.     “Hey!” called out CSFB! waving a honey-plastered English muffin.     “Hey yourself,” Shep called back. “Who else made it?”     Dream looked a little worried. “Nobody yet but me and Pelopia. I sure hope they’re okay.”     “Good morning, Dancer,” Ioldabaoth greeted the newcomer. “May I present Mab, one of the aspects of the Faerie Queen, and my hostess since my unfortunate demise a while ago.”     Mab gave Sarah Shepherdson a distrustful glance.     “Hi,” Dancer smiled at her. “So, are you joining up to save the world then, Hood?”     “Not at this point, I’m afraid,” Ioldobaoth answered her. “In your fervour to locate me because your current adversary believes I might inconvenience his plans you have neglected to consider whether I would wish to inconvenience those plans.”     “What? But you want to rule the world yourself!”     Ioldobaoth shook his head. “I already did that, thank you. It wasn’t as fulfilling as I’d hoped, and your Lair Legion helped me to perceive that I wasn’t doing the right thing. Then my daughter killed me. That was my first death, of course.”     “You can’t say you agree with what Ultizon’s planning to do though, Hoody!” CSFB! interjected, his mouth filled with waffle. “Euthanasia death camps?”     “I would undoubtedly have introduced population control methods of my own had I continued to supervise the Earth,” Ioldobaoth commented. “I suspect Ultizon’s haste is ill-advised. I would have employed a generational strategy so as to avoid the health and socio-economic upheavals of a step change, but the principle is sound.”     “No freedom of choice?” Dancer argued. “No art, no music, no poetry, because they don’t serve the cause of provoking the Resolution War?”     “Choice is oftentimes illusory. What choice does a starving war refugee have but to die? Is it truly more important to allow rich white people the right to complain about their taxes than to give that child a chance?”     “That’s not the point,” Dancer shot back. “Is it really right to sit here playing debating games in fairyland while real people are getting hurt and the universe is going to pot because of what’s happening with Ultizon when you could be doing something about it?”     Ioldobaoth Winkelweald smiled thinly. “You make a good case, my dear” he admitted, “but even a much more persuasive advocate than you would have little chance of bringing me from this place now.”     “Then it’s a good job that I’m the Probability Dancer then. Chance is my speciality.” Sarah spun away from the table and reeled to the satyr flautist’s tune. “Let’s see about a more persuasive advocate then.”     The silver gates opened to admit another visitor. “Ah, there you are, Ioldobaoth,” called Lisa Waltz. “We need to talk.”     “We have to go back for him!” Sorceress screamed. “Jamie! We have to go back!”     “She’s hysterical now,” spiffy worried about the bleeding woman in NTU-150’s arms. “We’ve gotta find a way to staunch that spear wound. I think it might be poisoned.”     “She just wants to get Hatman back,” De Brown Streak observed. “She loves him, I’m afraid.”     “Jay was very definite that we use his sacrifice as a means of getaway,” NTU-150 noted. “Sorry, bad choice of words.”     “We move on,” Messenger said bluntly. “Before this weather gets any worse, we move.”     “Who put you in charge, postman?” Pegasus asked challengingly.     “Somebody who thought for some reason losing Hatman was worth it to save your skin, My Little Pony!” snarled the grizzled vigilante. “Look, we’re hurt and we’re tired and we don’t have the firepower here to take down that Huntsman guy. We can’t fight and we can’t hide, so we run.”     “That seems kind of cowardly,” Enty suggested.     “No. We run till we find better terrain, allies, something different. Something to give us the advantage. Then we fight,” Messenger persisted. “But we have got to get off this exposed ice field before they catch up with us. And that means we don’t turn back.”     “I won’t leave Jay! I won’t!” sobbed the half-conscious Sorceress.     “We won’t be able to move that fast,” NTU-150 warned. “About half my servos are down. I don’t have flight. And you should get that leg wound looked at Messenger.”     “Sure. Next time we pass a hospital and after we’ve had a coffee. Let’s move.”     “I could go back on my own,” De Brown Streak offered. “Quickly.”     “We already lost Trickshot when we sent him scouting,” Pegasus pointed out. “Look, I can’t say how much I am touched by this team loyalty you’re showing, but the Wild Hunt is after me, and me alone. If I head off in another direction you’ll be free to turn back and find Hatman. That seems fair.”     “No,” argued Sorceress. “He wouldn’t want that. We all need to stay together.”     “Guys, this just became a moot argument!” spiffy warned. “Look!”     The snowstorm broke apart for a moment. Out across the icefield raced a black-clad man with stag antlers on his head, flanked by three dozen slavering hell-beasts. A straggle of surviving followers picked up on the hunt limped blindly behind them striving to keep up to literally their last breath.     “Crap!” Messenger spat. “We’re out of options. Clement, it’s time.”     “Okay,” agreed De Brown Streak, “but I’ve never used my powers to speed up this many people before. And although you’ll be super-fast you won’t get my endurance and stuff.”     Pegasus shifted to her equine form. “Put Sorceress on my back. I shall bear her.”     “I’m not going… not without Jay…”     “They’re closing awfully fast,” NTU-150 reported.     “Hold on then,” DBS shouted. “Here we go. The last sprint.”     And the Wild Hunt followed.     “I don’t think your girlfriend likes me very much,” Lisa noted, glancing down the glade to where Queen Mab glowered amidst her court.     “She’s not my girlfriend,” Ioldobaoth Winkelweald replied. “She’s an ancient primal force personified to bedazzle me, who offered an alternative to death and a pleasant prison while she could discover a way to co-opt my retconning powers to use in a conflict that terrifies her.”     “You soppy old romantic. So what’s your scam?”     “My scam?”     “Yeah. The deal. What are you up to? Why all this dead and retired bit? What are your secret motives and objectives this time, Ioldoboath?”     “Must I always have a hidden agenda, Lisa?”     “That’s not an answer, buster. You’re not playing with CrazySugarFreakBoy! now.”     “If you are so experienced and expert in my methods, why don’t you tell me?” Ioldoboath challenged.     “Right,” Lisa nodded, placing her hands on her hips. “Let’s see. You took over the Earth but you found that was no use. The problems you wanted to solve were bigger than that. So you took over the universe. And then when you found the universe didn’t need you you had a huge snit and tried to destroy it. Except that you left a loophole, as a kind of test to let us convince you the Parodyverse wasn’t as hopeless and horrible as you thought it was. And we won, and you died. With me so far?”     “I’m captivated.”     “Yeah. So then you were dead, except you used that as a kind of information-gathering exercise to prepare for your next campaign. You’d already set up a resurrection, and we all got roped into that when Paradopolis got transported to another planet that time. Then when you set the Legion up on that world tour and used your Purveyors to stir things up again as a distraction, you used your new knowledge to summon and reprogram the Celestian Space Robots.”     “Your heroes stopped me, Lisa.”     “Only from continuing to control them. You’d already set up the next step using them before the Legion got there. But then the fates hit back and you got distracted by the Technopolis invasion, and you were unexpectedly taken out. Right?”     “Your summary of events, though skewed and abbreviated, has some modicum of…”     “I thought so. And now you’re here in a major funk, claiming retirement. Because you don’t know what to do now you’ve conquered the universe, and the only thing left is something so scary even you don’t want to try it. So instead you’re pottering here, playing games with the fairies.”     Ioldobaoth looked at the amorous advocatrix. “That’s what you think, is it?”     “That’s what I think. So?”     “So I don’t have my powers, Lisa. I couldn’t bring them with me, or they would belong to the Fey now. That’s how Kumari got hold of them instead and caused so much trouble for the latest incarnation of the Lair Legion. Candia! Hah!”     “Oh. No powers.”     “None.”     Lisa considered this. In the distance her scruffy ginger cat stalked the sacred swans. “And your powers were what made you dangerous. Without them you’re nothing. Helpless? Yes?”     Ioldobaoth Winkelweald gave her an appreciative glace, as one master of manipulation to a mistress. “Many would say so,” he answered.     “Wake up!”     The kick in the ribs motivated Carl Bastion to open his eyes. “What the…?”     “Awake now?” his captor demanded. “Good.” He kicked him harder.     Trickshot rolled to soften the blow. He realised he was bound, his hands caught behind his back. It felt like he was in his own restraint netting from his arsenal of arrowheads, reinforced by some of the fast-setting glue from his paste arrow. He was in some ruined, burned-out building, at night.     “What the hell’s happening?” he demanded brusquely. “Try that again buddy and you’ll be shopping for new teeth tomorrow.”     The man standing over him deliberately kicked him again. In the balls. “Not impressed, bigmouth,” he told Trickshot. “I know exactly what a worthless blowhard piece of crud you are.”     Carl Bastion rolled in pain, but recognised the voice. “Huh?”     “That’s right,” his captor said, cracking open a flare arrowhead to light his face. “It’s me. Trickshot.”     The man staring down at the captive Legionnaire was a perfect double.     “Space Fandom,” Trickshot spat. “Skunk shapeshifter. Robot double. Not impressed.”     Another kick. “I’m not the impostor here, buddy,” the other Trickshot told him. “You are.” He wore a costume similar to that of his prisoner, except it was in blacks and greys. “Would it help you if I told you that now I’ve changed my name t’ Deadshot, huh?”     “No. What would help me is an acid arrowtip an’ five minutes in a dark alley with you ta thank you for the boot in the nads.”     “Geez, we really are thick, ain’t we?” Deadshot snarled. “I’m you, you clown! The real you, from the world you came to after your fake reality went belly up. The Trickshot whose life was cut short by murder, who wuz robbed of all the fame an’ success you got, you Johhny-come-lately.”     “No way,” Trickshot replied. “First off, he’s dead. And second, no way is any variation of me that big a jerk.”     The man in black and grey bent over and glared into that mirror-face. “This is the land of the dead, you bozo. You slipped inta it from faerie, and I been waiting a long time for this.”     “If you wuz really the Carl Bastion from this Lair Legion’s Parodyverse then there’s no way you’d be acting like this.”     Deadshot stood up. “Whut kin I say? Being betrayed by your new bride to be murdered by the guy you’ve spend a year fightin’ and see all you worked for destroyed kind of does something to a guy.” He shuddered. “And this place does somethin’ to you as well, y’know. It’s so cold.”     Trickshot realised he was in some phantom representation of the ruins of Professor Xalter’s academy; the place Carl Bastion had died.     “But now it’s my turn,” Deadshot boasted. “See, I’m a real good hunter. So when I found who was lurkin’ around in the realm of the temporarily dead, well I just had to bag her.”     On the far edge of the flare’s light Trickshot could now see the trussed form of Contessa Natalia Romanza – Deadshot’s widow.     “Talia!”     “Yeah. Life is good, ain’t it?” grinned the dead archer. He reached for his toolkit. “Now I got her, and I got you, and payback’s a bitch.”     Queen Mab moved guilty away from the scrying pool as the mortals approached her. “It’s time to tell us what’s going on,” Ioldobaoth told her. “What happens in the mortal world affects this one. Great psychological change there causes upheavals here. And vulnerabilities.”     “Who’s after you, queenie?” CSFB! asked plainly.     “Nobody,” Mab denied. “It’s not like that. It’s an old force. An old friend. Not an invasion, a… a visit. That’s all.”     “What old friend?” wondered Dancer. “Anyone we’ve heard of?”     “You knew his name in your cradle when you screamed with fright for your mother,” the Faerie Queen told her darkly. “Ioldobaoth, ask no more.”     “I’m afraid I must, Mab. You see, my visitors here have discovered that your old friend set up Camellia of the Fey to destroy them if they came calling, and then had you propel them all to their dooms across the many tiers of Faerie. I’m concerned that your friend may be trying to stop my own long-term project by miring me down with smaller concerns here with you. So we need to know more.”     “Please, Ioldobaoth, you don’t know what you’re asking! If I say his name he’ll know, and his people will come. Even here, they’ll come.”     Pelopia’s eyes narrowed. “This is the threat to Faerie, the takeover equivalent of Ultizon’s in our world, isn’t it?”     Queen Mab didn’t answer.     “We need to rescue the Legion,” Lisa announced. “And then we need to get out of here to free the Parodyverse.”     “He won’t let you leave,” Mab mumbled.     “Who won’t?” Dancer demanded. “Tell us who we’re facing!”     “They call him the King of Stories,” Queen Mab shuddered. “He’s here to destroy the Chronicler of Tales.” A chill wind blew through then sylvan glade. The summer was gone. A storm was coming. “He’s heard me,” Mab whispered. “He’s looking now to see what’s happening. To see who we are!”     “Who we are?” Ioldobaoth Winkelweald said in his rich Latvian accent. He reached up and drew the cowl on his shoulder up over his head to shadow his eyes. “I am the Hooded Hood.” Next Issue: While the Hood makes sense of a lot of continuity, DK, Finny and Ziles get a head start in the fight with the King of Stories and Yo, L, and the Shoggoth go to extreme lengths to find a certain possibly fake man. We may even tie up a few plots from this time around, who knows? Be here to find out with Untold Tales of the King of Stories: How I Destroyed The Lair Legion. Coming next week to a Parodyverse near you. Oh No, Run, the Footnotes are Back! The Hooded Hood’s assassination took place in Premiere #22: Old Acquaintance. Bry and Laurie (Goldeneyed and Lisette) conceived their child under the influence of Dr Loveray in #46: Untold Tales of the Lair Legion against the Carnival of Destiny, or Send in the Clowns – no wait a minute, that doesn’t sound right Part Five: Under the Boardwalk . Laurie suspected she may be pregnant in #68: Untold Tales of the Lair Legion World Tour: The Trial of the Magnetic Techbird , and the rest of the drama played out between then and her decision to conceal her baby in #94: Untold Tales of the Lair Legion World Tour: Homecoming . Bry found out about his unsuspected child from Camellia of the Fey just two issues ago in #121: Untold Tales of the Lair Legion: The Issue Before It Gets Far Too Weird . The Ancient Powers of Gramayre were loosed off-screen during the attempted takeover of the United Kingdom by the villainous Purveyors of Peril in #90: Untold Tales of the Purveyors of Peril: Reign of the Super-Villains . Gramayre is a very old name for the island of Great Britain. Temporary Death of the Family of the Pointless is Death’s younger, frumpier sister. Nats briefly met her when first acquiring the Psychostave (in an issue of Nats’ series that I don’t have ready access to), and again when he severed his mental link with the essence inside it in #117: Untold Tales of the Dead Galaxy: The Silent Worlds, or Nats vs the Universe . in a way this is Nats’ third date – and he’s still not got to first base. Mefrothto was the Lord of Fibs, a demon prince. He has since been replaced by his son and heir Blackhurt, of whom more in #131. Previous Hooded Hood Plans referred to by Lisa include the Hood’s takeover of the planet in The Hooded Hood Chronicles #13: The Hooded Hood and the Day of the Sentinoids . He took over the universe in UT#34, Untold Tales of the Lair Legion: The World According to the Hooded Hood, or Zemo Alone , and subsequently sought to destroy it in #38, Untold Tales of the Lair Legion: The Very Very Long Goodbye . The Hood gained his required information from Death in #53: Undead Tales of the Lair Legion: A Perspective from the Other Side , after Paradopolis was shifted to a distant plant in #47: Untold Tales of the Lair Legion: One of Our Metropoli is Missing. The Hood sought control of the Celestian Space Robots in #89: Untold Tales of the Save the Paradopolis Variety Theatre Benefit Concert . The Lair Legion took on Kumari when she had the Hood’s retcon powers in #109: Untold Chronicles of the Lair Legion: A Chronicler’s Tale . I hope somebody appreciates all these flaming references, because they took ages to sort out. The Trickshot from the main continuity strand of Parodyverse Earth was murdered at Professor Xalter’s Academy for Gifted Younsters in Lair Legion: Year One, part 2 – How the League of Regulars got a mansion, how Zemo got a Scourge, and why Visionary managed not to wet his pants. The Trickshot who subsequently joined the Legion arrived on the same version of Earth in #29: Untold Tales of the Lair Legion’s Greatest Battles Continued: Visionary Triumphant, and Other Unlikely Events. The King of Stories is the flame-skulled villain who has set his mind to the destruction of the Chronicler of Stories, for reasons as yet unrevealed. Much more on him next time. The Hooded Hood's Homepage of Doom Who's Who in the Parodyverse Where's Where in the Parodyverse Graphics on this page come from Original concepts, characters, and situations copyright © 2003 reserved by Ian Watson. Other Parodyverse characters copyright © 2003 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.