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| #137: Untold Tales of the Heralds of Galactivac: Countdown To Resolution |
Post By The Hooded Hood presents the long-awaited return of Dancer, and a number of unexpected guest stars Sat Jan 24, 2004 at 08:45:49 am EST |
| #137: Untold Tales of the Heralds of Galactivac: Countdown To Resolution Link to Untold Tales #136, our previous chapter  Dancer by Dancer See now the vast vacuum-ship of the Living Death That Sucks as it blots out the sun and looms over the trembling world of Ambrosia Prime. As vast as a moon it slides across the red skies, peeling off nozzle-drones ready to break down and take in the energies of a whole world. In vain the people of that planet sue for peace and beg for mercy. There is no mercy from Galactivac the World-Hooverer. The cosmic being comes forth. Striding through the air he takes his place atop the tallest structure on the doomed planet. Imperiously he gestures, scattering black energy-dots as he moves. And Galactivac speaks. “To me, my herald!” In a brilliant flash of red-spectrum colour, the Crimson Cyclist (mark II) spirals down from the blazing upper atmosphere, his feet pedalling his cosmic velocipede at near light-speed. Beware the terrible sonic lash of his little bell, the glaring radiance of his cycle-lamp! “Master,” says the reborn Cyclist, wheelying to a stop in mid air before the fundamental force that has doomed Ambrosia. “You called. I came.” And Galactivac speaks again: “Come forth my other herald!” And now from the charnel soil of the planet’s graveyards, from the hidden depths where dark things creep and blind giant worms ever gnaw, Terrorox bursts into view atop a rising column of bones. His great scythe glows with the energies of those whose lives he has drained, and he laughs as the Ambrosians who yet cling to life flee in terror at his countenance. “You called, master. I came!” And Galactivac speaks yet again: “To me, my other, other herald!” Now all reality seems to ripple and in the streets the people of Ambrosia run mad. Tearing free from the secret places of their minds comes a thing that might be a woman or might be a nightmare, oozing together and forming a body ripped from the horror buried deep in the mind. Beautiful she becomes, but beneath that silvery sheen of glamour she is cruel and deadly. Such is the nature of Undermind Obscura. “You called, Hooverer of Worlds. I came!” Thus the three servitors of the Living Death That Sucks attend their master as Ambrosia suffers its’ death throes. Yet still Galactivac is unsatisfied. And so he speaks once more. “To me, my other, other, other herald!” Now time/space rips and from the other end of the universe the fourth of the great servitors is dragged forth, toppling down towards the crumbling streets but landing cat-like in a great cloud of loosed raven-black hair. “You’ve gotta know this is a terrible, wrong thing you’re doing here, Galactivac, right?” asks the Probability Dancer. “So stop it.” Undermind hit Dancer again, sending her toppling down hard onto the throbbing metal floor of Galactivac’s vacuum ship. “Ouch,” said Sarah Shepherdson, dabbing her split lip. “Got the message?” demanded the malevolent herald of nightmares. “You are one of the servitors of the Living Death That Sucks. You do not give him false information that distracts him from his work!” “Technically it wasn’t false,” Dancer argued bravely. “It is wrong to kill people and suck up their planets.” “The Master was distracted by your babbling,” Terrorox complained. “He paused long enough for three million of Ambrosia’s inhabitants to flee the planet before it was absorbed. That’s a lot of wasted energy.” “They got away, didn’t they?” Shep asked smugly. “I mean for the Master,” answered Terrorox peevishly. “Bioforce that he couldn’t process for his own existence.” “I was able to send some of the escapees screaming into madness so they crashed back on the planet,” Undermind reported, “but many fled.” “Good,” proclaimed Dancer, unrepentant. “You people really have to get another hobby. Have you considered Scrabble?” “I don’t think you understand,” the Scarlet Cyclist told the newest herald. “Galactivac isn’t evil. He’s a fundamental force. What he does in necessary.” “Crap,” responded Shep. “Tell that to all the people on Ambrosia who just died.” “I did,” promised the Cyclist. “Nobody would listen.” Dancer folder her arms and glared at the three heralds. “Why is Galactivac necessary, then?” she challenged. “What makes him fundamental? Who decides what he does isn’t evil? I demand to see whoever made up the rules.” Undermind slithered forward and pointed one long-nailed finger at Sarah. “You will do as you are bidden and restrain your tongue lest I rip it from you. Tell her what happens to disobedient heralds, Cyclist.” The Crimson Cyclist blushed to a more ruby colour. “Um, well, they kind of get destroyed. I was, once. When I tried to defend Yo-Planet from my master. And then…” “Then Galactivac decimated your homeworld, which you had bargained to preserve so long as you served him loyally,” Terrorox chuckled gleefully. “And then he brought you back to serve him again.” “Yes,” agreed the Crimson Cyclist in a small voice. “I learned my lesson.” “Then you learned the wrong lesson,” Dancer assured him. “Shape up, Probability Dancer,” Undermind warned. “You want to know why the Master is necessary? Well you’ll see. You’ll see why he needs all four of his heralds at once.” Shep’s curiosity got the better of her. “Why?” Terrorox gestured through the vast viewing window to the disintegrating solar system beyond. “The Master is gathering more energies together than he ever has in his infinite existence. He has already taken into himself the vast power of the whole Dead Galaxy. But he needs more.” “He hasn’t considered dieting?” wondered Dancer. “This is a time of cosmic war!” hissed Undermind. “The Celestians are falling. The Constellation are broken. Who can re-establish the Great Order if not the Cosmic Hooverer?” Dancer shrugged. “How about the Chronicler of Stories? Or the Shaper of Worlds? The Family of the Pointless? Anyone who doesn’t have to munch planets to do it, basically.” “The, um, the Triumverate have been negated in this incident,” Crimson Cyclist explained. “And the Family have no, um, no jurisdiction here.” “So the Master is needed,” Undermind explained. “And he needs us. All of us. To find him worlds to consume. To attend him as he prepares for what is to come.” Dancer considered this. “No,” she answered. Galactivac, the Living Death That Sucked, was overwhelming. He was so powerful in character, appearance, and size that he could only be properly represented in a full page introduction shot. He sat now at the heart of his great vacuum-ship, absorbing the energies of Ambrosia through myriad ribbed pipes that plugged into nozzles around his ancient armour. And he looked at Sarah Shepherdson. “You are my errant herald?” he demanded, and his voice boomed in mind as well as from the gunmetal walls of his vessel. “Nope,” Dancer swallowed. The great intelligence frowned and glared at Sarah, analysing her to the subatomic level. “I never signed up to work for you,” Shep went on hurriedly. “I just got my powers delivered in this cardboard box. And the person you gave them to originally didn’t want them, or the job either.” “You will serve me,” demanded Galactivac. “Sure. Okay. You want coffee, croissants, maybe a Danish, I’m your girl. You want planets delivered up for destruction, not only am I not your girl but you don’t deserve even the croissants.” She scowled up at the overwhelming cosmic being. “What would your mother think if she knew you were out breaking worlds and killing people, eh?” The Hooverer breathed deeply, and Sarah screwed her eyes shut and waited for the annihilation bolt. “I am an orphan from a different universe,” hissed Galactivac. “How many more orphans are there after your destruction of Ambrosia, then?” demanded Sarah. “And how many worlds before that?” “I do what must be done.” Galactivac realised he was losing the initiative to a brief mortal. “You will obey and serve or your homeworld will be forfeit also.” Dancer tapped her foot in annoyance. “My people don’t give in to bullies, Mister Big-Cosmic-Menace. Sure, you could try and eat Earth, but before you do look at the long list of baddies who’ve tried to get us so far. Are you really ready to take on the Austernals and the Ausgardians and the Lair Legion? And the Hooded Hood?” “Yes.” “Ah. Well you’ll still get spanked, no matter how uber-powerful you are, and it’ll be bad for your galaxy-cred. So the answer’s still no. I get screaming nightmares over what I accidentally helped you do to Skree-Lump. You don’t get any more help finding and destroying worlds from me.” “Then I will destroy you and give your powers to someone else,” threatened Galactivac. “Or you could get that big cosmic control rod out of your ass and find another way of saving the Parodyverse.” Galactivac thought about this. “No, on the whole I think I’d prefer to destroy you,” he decided. “First I shall reclaim the power cosmic that I gave you and then…” The Living Death That Sucked paused. “What have you done with the power cosmic? I do not sense it within you?” “Ah, that,” winced Sarah. “I kind of loaned it to someone when I felt you calling me. I didn’t think it was a good idea to turn up here with it. You might have forced me to use it to hurt somebody.” “You loaned out the power cosmic?” “Er… yes,” admitted Sarah as she felt the waves of the planet-sucker’s anger washing over her. “It seemed like a good idea at the time.” She braced herself and stared up, up, up into those swirling eyes. “Look, like I said, I never wanted to be your herald – although the probability powers are cool – and I’m certainly not going to help you do to other planets what you’re threatening to do to mine. To tell you the truth I think most of the people on my Earth wouldn’t want me to either. They’re good folks at heart, and they would prefer to struggle and fight you and maybe to die than be comfortable and safe and do nothing while other people suffer.” Dancer folded her arms again and stood defiant, a miniscule blot of optimism and stubbornness before the vast Hooverer of Worlds. “And if that means you have to wipe me out so be it. Although it would be a tremendous mistake.” Galactivac had to ask. “Why?” “Because you need me,” Sarah told him. “You don’t really need a herald to go find more planets for you to suck. You’ve already chowed on the whole Black Galaxy. You just need someone to help you do what you have to do and not be frightened, to stop wasting time pottering swallowing worlds and to get on with facing whatever took down the Celestians and Constellation.” Dancer flashed one of her brilliant smiles. “That’s my job!” “You’re not annihilated,” the Crimson Cyclist observed. “Nope,” agreed Sarah Shepherdson. “Plus I’ve got my probability gifts back. All in all it could have gone a lot worse.” “We heard what you said to him, you know. Cosmic-level senses and all that.” “Eavesdropping isn’t nice, but if you were listening you’d all better pay attention, Cyclist. Do you have a real name, by the way?” The Cyclist shook his head. “The first Cyclist did, the one that rebelled. When he thwarted Galactivac he got crushed, right down to the astral bike-clips. I got remade without his qualms and consciences.” “You poor man. That’s terrible,” sympathised Dancer. “But I guess that means you can work all this stuff our for yourself, develop your own conscience and make your own choices.” “Umm…” “Anyway, the only reason you got squished and I didn’t is that big G there really needs my probability dancing right now to help him locate the big baddie. We’re about to go off to war.” “Right now? Without more preparation?” gulped the Cyclist. “Before the bad guy gets too big for his boots,” suggested Dancer. “What did you sense?” demanded Undermind as the Crimson Cyclist returned from his trans-light scouting of the Crystexian system. “You won’t like it,” the Cyclist warned the other heralds. “Along with that fleet of ships drawn from half the known civilised worlds in the quadrant was a high tech hybrid vessel with planetbusting capabilities. It got torn apart by a bad-tempered dragon occupying Crystexian bio-matrix armour and by a broken Celestial being steered by a human with a talking knife.” “Finny and Manny are here?” Dancer piped up, delightedly. “Yay!” Undermind plunged into Shep’s mind. “You know these people?” “Doesn’t everybody?” Dancer preened happily. “That were probably looking for me.” “They hijacked a Celestian!” objected Terrorox. “They probably wanted to find me pretty badly,” Shep suggested. “Within the destroyed hybrid ship was that which made it so powerful,” the Cyclist went on. “The ancient giant robotic shape of the Obliterator!” “Uh-oh,” winced Dancer. “That’s a tough fight. But Galactivac can take him, right? I mean he’s only a really old machine that nobody knows who built or why or what his real purpose is, right?” “I think we know the purpose now,” said the Cyclist quietly. “He’s being occupied, driven, by the personification of the Resolution Prophecy.” “Holy recurring nemeses!” gasped Dancer. Terrorox extended his awareness of matter and movement out across the fringes of the void where the Dead Galaxy had once been. “He and his minions are assaulting a broken rogue moon with a damaged structure upon it, presumably to delete the three thousand or so victims upon it.” “What?” objected Dancer. “Well come on then. We have to stop him.” “Us? Stop the Obliterator?” answered the Crimson Cyclist incredulously. “Well we can’t leave it all to Finny and ManMan,” Sarah told them. “Come on.” Undermind’s voice was like a steel door. “No,” she hissed. “The Master is not yet ready. Let the mortals die to keep Resolution occupied a few moments more.” “The Obliterator has just destroyed the damaged Space Robot shell anyway,” Terrorox reported. “Without really trying. Now it’s turning on the dragon.” “We have to help,” insisted Dancer. “Get out of the way, Underwired!” “Now there’s a time-space rift open on the moon,” Terrorox sensed. “A conduit to evacuate the mortals far across the galaxy. It looks like the holder of the Chronometer of Infinity is there too.” “Well stop him,” Undermind demanded angrily. “The Master needs these victims to keep the enemy busy while he assesses the field. Go kill this minor office holder.” “As you say,” agreed the master of bones with a skull-like grin. At a gesture an ossified clump of rotting skeletons rose from nowhere and propelled him into space towards the moon Volum. “No!” argued Dancer. She moved to stop him but Undermind got in the way. “Cyclist, go slow him down!” Shep commended, and after a moment’s pause the weedy-looking herald leaped on his cosmic velocipede and vanished. Undermind psionically hammered Dancer to the floor. “That’s quite enough from you, I think,” the oldest of the current heralds said maliciously. “I don’t think we need you now we’ve got here.” Undermind reached down deep into the dark places of Sarah’s mind, seeking the things that had hurt her most. Then the cruel herald used her abilities to give those nightmares physical form. Frank Thompson appeared from nowhere and smacked Dancer across the face. “You useless, stupid slut,” her ex-boyfriend told Sarah Shepherdson. Undermind laughed as Sarah cried. Sir Mumphrey Wilton concentrated to keep open the time/space portal modulated by his temporal pocketwatch and powered by the dwindling energies of a now-destroyed Celestial. Selinda Saxmendim, last of the Crystexian Matrix Guardians, shepherded the remnants of her people through the shimmering circle. “Are you alright?” the Librarian asked. “Just finding this a bit tricky, old boy,” the eccentric Englishman admitted, sweating. “Still, has to be done, what?” “Better do it quickly,” advised Ziles from the wounded Library’s sensor panels. “We have incoming spacecraft from Resolution’s fleet closing on an attack vector. Pegasus looked over the Xnylonian’s shoulder with a frown. “Hmm. It would be most unwise to engage so many vessels in combat,” she calculated. Then with a brilliant momentary grin she flew out through one of the many rends in the library’s crystalline superstructure to engage them. Amazing Guy flew before the advancing Obliterator, hammering away at it with the full array of energies at his disposal. Nothing was making even a dint. He wished he could access his full cosmic awareness, but this close to the rusty robot the jamming field was making it hard for him to drag the basic energies to him to maintain the protective sheathe around his body. And he had the nastiest suspicion that Resolution knew that as well. Amazing Guy was being played with. Fin Fang Foom wasn’t in his usual body, but the bio-responsive matrix exo-shell he occupied was designed to conform to the thought-patterns of whoever projected their will into it. The accomplished shapeshifter had immediately conformed it to his basic dragon-shape, even down to the fire-breathing capability that was wreaking havoc on the Skree and Skunk fast-attack vessels. However he was now being bracketed by some of the larger vessels in the fleet, many of them with trans-nuclear capacity, and he was running out of space to manoeuvre. “Attacking vessels, this is the Pegasus speaking,” called Penny Christadopolous shimmering into the fray. “In the interests of galactic peace and harmony I’m giving you three seconds to surrender or run away. After that you’ll be facing me.” The reorienting of destructive firepower upon the winged horse gave Finny the much-needed breather he needed to marshal his strength and fly straight at the Obliterator. “Did you really think you were worth something?” Frank demanded over the cowering Sarah. “Only the powers made you anything special. But I know you. I know what you’re really like. Weak, spineless, vain, hopeless, brainless…” Shep knew it was true, all true. Frank had told her it enough, and she hadn’t often argued because there was that little internal voice that actually agreed with him. That was why she’d stayed with him so long before getting her probability powers; she didn’t deserve better. But she’d done so much since then. Grown up. There were other voices in her head now too… “Oi, pratface!” Con Johnstantine called to Frank Thompson. As the abusive boyfriend turned round the trenchcoated Englishman kneed him in the balls. “Git!” Johnstantine told him, lighting up a cigarette before stamping down hard on Frank’s head. “Con?” Dancer asked, looking up. “Yeah, well, I was wandering around in your subconscious where that Undermind bitch was rummaging and this Frank wanker was getting right on my tits. So I thought I’d just ride your probability powers to twist Undy’s channelling and give the worthless sod a bit of a seeing to.” And he kicked Frank again. “Very clever, Dancer,” hissed Undermind, glaring at the mental personification of the insolent Englishman that was subverting her powers. “But you have worse things to worry about in there than one bad boyfriend.” Suddenly Magenta St Evil stood over Dancer, smirking. “Presenting, from Sarah Shepherdson’s darkest fears, a rogues gallery of wicked villains all lining up to do unspeakable things with the poor frightened victim.” “Oi, wait…” called Johnstantine, but suddenly he was overshadowed by the bulk of Onslaughter. “Bugger,” he breathed. Magenta announced them as they arrived. “Savagetooth. Quake. Technovore. Yellow Fever. Anvil Man. Thermonuclear Man. The Red Watchman. Blackhurt…” “Crap,” breathed Con Johnstantine just before Anvil Man hit him. The Crimson Cyclist crashed through the roof of the Main Repository and embedded himself somewhere in the subterranean stacks. Terrorox came in hard and fast to finish him off. “Hold it,” called the Librarian, folding the bone-manipulating herald of Galactivac in security force-fields. “I need to see your ticket.” Terrorox gestured to cause Lee Bookman’s skeleton to rip out of his body. It stayed where it was. “Not in a Library,” Lee. told him. “You’re not welcome here, herald.” Terrorox surged his power, blowing the last of Volux’s defence grid. “Drat,” said the Librarian. G.G., this Library’s artificial intelligence shrugged helplessly as she assessed the damage. “Hey, are you okay?” Ziles asked the fallen Crimson Cyclist down in the basements. She quickly applied some relaxor crème to seal the worst of his wounds. “Wibble,” said the stunned herald. “Right,” said Ziles, borrowing his cosmic bike clips. “I’ve never pickpocketed a herald of Galactivac before. Terrorox gestured at Lee Bookman. A thick tangle of spiked, rotting bones rose from the earth and hammered towards him like a gristly fast-growing tree. Lee tried to avoid them but he found himself pinned to the wall unable to even struggle. “I’m going to remove your skeleton one piece at a time,” Terrorox promised him. “Or,” suggested Ziles, “you could try out those cool new travel spats I’ve just fastened to your legs.” She stepped back before the Crimson Cyclist’s cosmic bike clips propelled the unprepared Terrorox in a random direction at warp speed. “Of course, I didn’t have time to read the instruction booklet,” she mentioned to the hole in the wall. Dancer looked at the circle of villains that surrounded her and tried not to panic. It wasn’t easy. “Hello again, my dear,” the Red Watchman leered at her. “This is an unexpected pleasure.” “Everyone queue up in order of viciousness,” called Magenta St Evil. “There’ll be plenty of screaming for everyone before we’re finished.” “Actually,” called Xander the Improbable, sauntering in to the viewing hall of Galactivac’s vacuum ship as if he owned it, “I need a word with Blackhurt if you don’t mind. About my daughter.” Undermind looked puzzled by this unprecedented intrusion. “Who are you?” Then she added, because she couldn’t think of anything better, “These creatures are just physical manifestations of horrors inside this wench’s brain.” “Clearly you don’t understand demons, then,” Xander told her. “This way, Blackhurt. Now.” The Prince of Fibs’ face crumpled into a leering smile. “The sorcerer supreme of the Parodyverse wants to cut a deal?” He strode off with Xander. “Hello?” called Dancer urgently after the receding plumber/mage, “What about a bit of help with the rest of the heavy mob?” “You don’t need me,” the master of the mystic crafts called over his shoulder as he vanished into the interior of Galactivac’s craft. “You know the trick now.” “What trick?” demanded Undermind, intensifying her grip on this helpless mortal’s deepest hurts. “What does he mean?” “Oh,” smiled Sarah radiantly. “Yes…” The villains closed in on her, crowding forward to hurt her. Then things happened rapidly. Anvil Man flew backwards so hard that he broke through seven of Galactivac’s bulkheads before toppling into one of the vacuum-ships energy cores. Technovore squawked in surprise before the circuitry and scrap of his current body evaporated in a cloud of molten steel. Savagetooth and Quake made gruesome little squishes as they went down. Yellow Fever was slammed into Thermonuclear Man, caustic undeath and radioactive discharge neutralising each other. Magenta St Evil took a step back. “What’s this?” she demanded of the stricken Red Watchman. “It’s… not good,” Assak Malevi frowned as he went pale. The tall, handsome form of Victor Brooke stood over Dancer and grinned wolfishly at his old enemy. “What?” asked Premiere, the last science hero. “You thought all of the old memories Sarah keeps buried would want to harm her?” He made a little come-on gesture with his fingertips. “Let’s try this again.” Resolution, occupying the body that had been crafted for him when the Parodyverse was young, surged forward and scattered his enemies. Pegasus was toppled down onto Volum’s surface by a bracketed array of assault drone missiles. Amazing Guy was hammered a quarter of a light year away by energy beams that shattered his own protective barriers and left him floating seared and unmoving. Fin Fang Foom managed to get off one attack that left deep claw-marks down the front of the Obliterator before the robot’s eye-beams shattered the crystalline dragon into billions of tiny shards. Then Resolution launched a package of planter-killer pulses to destroy the rogue moon. As they approached the surface the energies vanished. “One minute into the future,” Sir Mumphrey Wilton warned Selinda. “That’s all I could manage.” “Everyone’s through the rift,” Ziles called hastily. “Everyone but us, that is.” “We can’t just leave the others behind,” Mumph frowned. “Not done.” “We… we have to look after these innocents,” Ziles improvised quickly, picking the one argument she was sure would shift the eccentric Englishman. “Now through that portal.” “G.G., complete data transfer then shut down,” the Librarian said sadly. “And well done.” “Thank you Lee,” the AI answered softly as she went offline for the last time. Lee. hefted the last of the recovered data onto his back, took a final look at the sundered library, and leaped through the time/space rift. Ziles grabbed ManMan’s unconscious body and pulled it through as well. “I hope his consciousness catches up with us at the other side of the galaxy,” worried Knifey. “I guess even Lee’s mind is better than none at all.” As the final seconds ticked away Xander the Improbable scurried back and joined them. “Where were you?” the Librarian wondered. “Discussing family,” the master of the mystic crafts answered gnostically, and would say no more. The portal closed a fraction of a second before Volum was reduced to pebbles. Disembodied again, Fin Fang Foom could only watch as Resolution reached for the fallen Pegasus. “No! Leave her alone!” The Obliterator paid no heed. But as he prepared to crush the fallen warrioress a grey-and-black blur hammered into him with enough force to topple him back into his armada. Premiere had entered the fray. “Leave the lady alone!” called the last science hero. “I owe her an apology as it is.” The Obliterator turned the full force of his Resolution-enhanced arsenal on Victor Brooke. Premiere stifled a cry and went back in for more. “Who in the galaxy is that?” hissed Undermind staring at the lone man who dared take on a killer of Celestians – and was holding his own for a few brief moments at least. Dancer stepped over the fading fallen forms of her worst nightmares, delicately treading on Magenta St Evil’s head as she passed. “An old boyfriend,” Shep smiled reminiscently. “An old true love. You wouldn’t understand, being a harpy witch who’s due for a good thumping.” And she proceeded to demonstrate. “You’re powerful, I’ll grant you that,” Premiere admitted to the Obliterator, “but the bigger they are the harder they fall!” “Don’t pass out,” Dancer told Undermind. “Just lie there and bleed and try to reset your nose. We still need your power to keep Victor here.” But Premiere’s time was done. With a surge of psionic energy Resolution expunged all of Undermind’s projections and stunned all Galactivac’s heralds into unconsciousness. But then Galactivac was ready. Nozzles swaying like cobras, main vents opening to reveal seven-dimensional voids within, the whole energies of the Dead Galaxy crackling around him, the Living Death That Sucked came towards Resolution, and the clash of the titans began. With the heralds fallen, there was nobody aboard Galactivac’s vacuum ship to stop the grey-cowled crime czar as he strode into the heart of the vessel. He stopped beside a small, disturbingly phallic-shaped device that hung alone in a beam of energy. “Ah,” breathed the Hooded Hood as he claimed the Galactic Nobbler for his own. “Just what the well-equipped archvillain wants this year. Yes, indeed.” Next issue: Remember back on planet Earth? Vizh and the kiddies on their field trip, as sponsored by Finny-I’m-secretly-a-horny-undead-dragon-wanting-to-spawn-Fang Foom? Nats, the ex-Legionnaire? Deadshot looking for new and exciting ways to hurt Trickshot’s friends? Deep roasted Dark Knight? G-Eyed going off the edge? All this plus one of the most requested adversaries of all time, coming soon in Untold Tales of the Lair Legion: Double Jeopardy, or Let’s Get This Doppleganger Thing Out Of Our Systems Once And For All, Shall We? It’s Footnotes Jim, But Not As We Know It Galactivac and His Heralds: The Living Death that Sucks made his first significant appearance in The Hooded Hood Chronicles #11: The Hooded Hood and the Brink of Apocalypse, along with his then-herald, the original Crimson Cyclist. Poor Noggin Rodd gave his all to save the bunnies of Yo-planet in The Hooded Hood Chronicles #13: The Hooded Hood and the Day of the Sentinoids. Galactivac came to Earth in The Hooded Hood Chronicles #19: The Hooded Hood and the Day of Galactivac where he auditioned various Parodyverse characters and eventually selected Melissa, Jarvis’ then-fiancée for the task. After Jarvis’ death Melissa passed the powers into a cardboard box in Xander’s keeping, where they stayed until they were delivered by Nats to Sarah Shephersdon in UT#43: Untold Tales of the Lair Legion (well almost): Dancing in the Dark, or Good Things Come in Little Boxes, Bad Things Drive Up in Removal Vans. Our story today is the first we’ve heard about the recreation of the Crimson Cyclist, and also introduces the other heralds Terrorox the Graverobber and Undermind Obscura. Cosmic Powers That Can’t help Right Now: The Celestian Space Robots were set at war with the Constellation energy-beings as part of Resolution’s ploy to strip the Parodyverse of guardians that might thwart his ambitions, and some of them were later destroyed by the Obliterator while they were weakened. The Triumvirate of greater cosmic-officeholders consists of the Shaper of Worlds, who commences the narratives of the Parodyverse, the Chronicler of Stories who maintains them, and the Destroyer of Tales who ends them. Because these posts are filled by former humanoids they were suborned early in Resolution’s campaign, and though now free again can only act to negate their former service to him. The Family of the Pointless are conceptual personifications, but as is noted in the story this kind of situation is outside their jurisdiction. Volum’s Defenders: Amazing Guy is the appointed Protector of the Parodyverse. Sir Mumphrey Wilton holds the minor cosmic office of Keeper of the Chronometer of Infinity. ManMan, a part-time burger-flipper and local superhero, is wielder of the sentient blade Knifey. Ziles is an exile from the planet Xnylone, an empath expert in stealth and infiltration. The Pegasus is a mythological being who recently discovered that her sponsors the Constellation were an opposing prophesy for the future to the one defended by Resolution. Lee Bookman is the Librarian from the Lunar Public Library. He works in this issue with the artificial intelligence G.G. (named after the Granthex-Talvian Glorrary, the local data cataloguing method) and with the last of the tripedal silicate Cristaxian Matrix Guardians, Selinda Saxmendim. Fin Fang Foom, more usually leader of the Lair Legion, is currently a lost disembodied consciousness temporarily housed in damaged Crystexian matix-armour. Xander the Improbable, master of the mystic crafts, is the current sorcerer supreme. He is also father to Whitney Darkness, the Sorceress, about whom he presumably wished to speak with Blackhurt, the demon with which she has recently made a pact. Sarah’s Subconscious: the various manifestations from Shep’s mind all represent people she has met in the past. Sleazy Frank was her boyfriend when we first met her in the aforementioned UT#43: Untold Tales of the Lair Legion (well almost): Dancing in the Dark, or Good Things Come in Little Boxes, Bad Things Drive Up in Removal Vans. Con Johnstantine is an even older boyfriend, and their relationship is central to Dancer’s story in Dancer #28: Dancer and the Amulet of Parodies and Dancer #29: Dancer and the Overkill of Archvillains. Magenta St Evil is a Cruella de Ville-style criminal mastermind, and Dancer’s self-proclaimed archenemy. Savagetooth is a savage mutate berserker who is the best there is at what he does. Quake is a multi-powered killer from a dystopian future. Technovore is a mechanical sentience able to dwell in and control any technology. Yellow Fever is a supernatural virus able to infect living beings into its gruesome wraith-slaves. Anvil Man is a rusty-armoured demolition machine. Thermonuclear Man is a walking atom bomb. The Red Watchman, Assak Malevi, is sadistic science archvillain from the parallel world of Technopolis. Blackhurt is the demonic Prince of Fibs. All these baddies are enemies Dancer has faced off against at some point in her career to date. Just be glad Nappy Rash and Manseed didn’t show up. Premiere, Victor Brooke, is the greatest hero of Technopolis, gifted with abilities far beyond mortal men, being faster than a speeding bullet, more powerful than a locomotive, and able to leap tall buildings in a single bound. You get the picture. He and Dancer became lovers in Premiere and Dancer: Let It Be (adults only). The Galactic Nobbler is a weapon of last resort able to destroy galaxies. It’s probably not a good idea to let the Hooded Hood keep it. Finally my thanks to Dancer for the dialogue assist in Shepspeak and permission to be so horrible to her character. As always, it’s a pleasure. The Hooded Hood's Homepage of Doom Who's Who in the Parodyverse Where's Where in the Parodyverse Original concepts, characters, and situations copyright © 2004 reserved by Ian Watson. Other Parodyverse characters copyright © 2004 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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