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Post By The Challenge gets a little bit more challenging, courtesy of... the Hooded Hood Sat Oct 02, 2004 at 06:38:19 am EDT |
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#175: Untold Tales of the Transworlds Challenge: Obstacles | |
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#175: Untold Tales of the Transworlds Challenge: Obstacles Previously: The cosmic Gamesmaster’s Transworlds Challenge is about to commence its second leg of four. Earth’s plucky contestants have survived the first round but have yet to gain the points that might give them a chance of winning the vaunted prize – the Starseed! Many of the alien races that compete would be pleased to see the Terrans falter and die. And other forces threaten to ruin Earth’s chances too, which is why the Hooded Hood has recruited a misfit team to balance the odds again. Who’s Who in the Transworlds Challenge  “Now speaks the Gamesmaster. The first leg of this Transworlds Challenge is run, and the winners, awarded five points, are Broodmaster R-Pr and the Z’Sox Consortium. In second place, with three points, are the Shee-Yar Imperium Guard. In third place, with two points, are the Nakluv. The remaining four hundred and ninety-seven contestants have one point each. Those others who completed the first leg after the first five hundred may now return to the Gameship and await the conclusion of the competition, their security assured but their stakes forfeited. The four thousand nine hundred and eleven races who failed to reach the finishing line will be deleted at the conclusion of the trials.” “Now is the time for the second leg, the Obstacle Course. Contestants must move through a series of three transdimensional gateways, travelling between them by any means available to them. Opposing contestants may be counted as obstacles to be overcome – or removed. The race begins in five, four, three, two, one, now!”  Keiko shimmied along the conduit duct very cautiously. Not only was the fourteen-inch high service tunnel laced with monitors and anti-vermin traps but the naked high-tension power cables were a couple of inches above her torso. Every now and then she’d discover one of the security alarms and focus the minicam she was carrying on it, so that Blackhearted could teleport the security module out of there. It was slow, dangerous, hot work, and she’d been at it for over two hours, quietly infiltrating the Tarkadian racing yacht. But now she was in position over the command cabin and she could place the listening devices where they needed to be. Three of the most dangerous being in the cosmos stood beneath her, watching four pale, starving aliens operate the luxury vessel. Keiko made no sound. She’d been warned about the extraordinary sensory abilities of the Heralds of Galactivac. The Crimson Cyclist controlled velocity, and had an innate sense of special relationships that he was using right now to navigate the Tarkadian vessel on the second leg of the Transworlds Challenge. Undermind Obscura was mistress of the psyche, with the ability to literally manifest whatever horrors she found buried there, and she could sense fear. Terrorox the Terminator controlled dead matter on planetary scales, and might even detect a faltering human heartbeat. Keiko carefully controlled her breathing and pulse and forced herself through mental zen exercises to stay beneath the Heralds’ perceptional thresholds. The four other crew – the Transworlds Challenge teams could be no larger than seven – shuffled about their tasks. They were ragged and grubby, but they worked with desperate fervour, keeping the sleek luxury yacht weaving its course towards the first dimensional portal. From her vantage point Keiko could see their faces for the first time, wide-eyed with unseen horror and weeping. Undermind Obscura had not thought to allow them time to eat or sleep since first dominating them almost a week ago, but her will was sufficient to keep them staggering on. Keiko had thought the heralds of Galactivac, the Living Death that Sucked, to be another of the sick jokes that seemed to riddle this bizarre universe the Hooded Hood had shanghaied her to. But that was before she realised that to qualify for the Transworlds Challenge the heralds had conquered Tarkadia so as to have a homeworld. Terrorox had them eliminated every living being on the planet except for the four starving slaves who now crewed this ship and the one mystic offered up to the Gamesmaster as entrance fee to the contest. Keiko imagined what these three horrors could do to her world if she didn’t succeed in preventing this Parodyverse merging with her reality. “We have the feed,” Blackhearted announced to Killer Shrike and Sorceress. “Time for phase two.”  “Can I just say…?” Visionary winced as Aunt Sally lurched aside again, “Aaagh.” Nats yawed the Austernal exploration vessel hard round as a massive plume of burning green plasma lashed out across the silvery void where they had just been flying and seared the Joad Majanu holoship that was pursuing them out of existence. “Come to 238 by 160 by 40,” Amazing Guy called from the Navigation Console. “There’s a less dense patch over there.” A smaller tendril snaked towards Aunt Sally but Trickshot dispersed it with a gravity pulse from his weapons array. “Please tell me we’re not where I think we are,” Hatman asked Visionary. The possibly-fake man checked his instruments. “You want me to lie?” “Hey, don’t sweat it!” CrazySugarFreakBoy! called over the intercom from the other gunnery nacelle. “So we’re in the realm of raw ideas where Balefire’s corposant fire came from. Think of it like a particularly cool video game!” “Where we only get one life,” Goldeneyed pointed out. “So no pressure on me, really,” Nats winced as he twisted Aunt Sally round another clump of the searing green energy.” “I wonder if there’s some relationship between corposant fire and that green kaos energy that Count Armageddon encountered in the Technoverse?” Amazing Guy speculated. “Prefer to think about that after we’ve not been fried by the weird St Elmo’s fire,” Vizh explained. “Please?” “We’re not far from the beacon for the first dimensional gate now,” Aunt Sally told them in her prim maternal tones. “You boys had better be ready.” “Ready?” Hatman asked warily. “Ambush,” Trickshot suggested. “If I wuz the bad guys wanting ta cut down on the opposition I’d be sitting at the one place I knew everybody was heading fer and waiting for my opening.” “This just keeps getting better and better,” Vizh shuddered, turning back to his sensor panels.  “Okay, so now we know why these Heralds of Galactivac are in the game,” Blackhearted told the little group of infiltrators that huddled in one of the service closets of the Tarkadian yacht. “They’re wanting this Starseed to revive their zapped boss Galactivac, who was shredded when Pegasus used the Galactic Nobbler a while back. They want to re-form him.” “There’s more to it than that,” Sorceress disagreed. “I can sense it. There’s a miasma of evil around here.” “It could be Killer Shrike’s aftershave,” Keiko warned. “Hey, this stuff costs two dollars a bottle,” objected Simon Maddicks. Whitney Darkness frowned. “There’s something we’re missing. Some reason the Hooded Hood had us stow away on this ship rather than all the others that are intent on wiping out Aunt Sally and the Lair Legion.” “Perhaps you’re just reacting to the corposant fire all around us?” Blackhearted suggested. “It’s supposed to be the burning soul-stuff of people who’ll never be born now, so maybe that’s it?” “Oh they’ll be born,” Sorceress told him bleakly. “Just without souls. But no, I was sensing this long before the ship jumped into this balefire dimension. Massive evil… that’s almost familiar.” “Ah, I say we just frag the whole ship and put these bozos out of the game,” Killer Shrike shrugged. “I mean it’s not like they don’t deserve it, right?” “We can’t interfere until they break the rules,” Blackhearted insisted. “Otherwise there’s a penalty to Earth. Like it being wiped out.” “So we watch and wait,” Keiko concluded, still intent on the monitors. “We find their secrets. We find their weaknesses. Then we find a way to destroy them.”  Davy the Flame was a pro from way back, and he knew exactly how to make any blaze look completely natural. In an old building like the one he’d just entered it would be especially easy. The wiring was ancient, except where massive new high-tension coils had been run along the walls. Davy folded away the gadget his employers at ITC had given him to bypass the protective force fields around the old firehouse and unslung his equipment pack. It pleased him to torch an old fire station. He hated firemen and left booby-traps for them whenever possible. He didn’t look around much at the bizarre equipment of the newly formed Extraordinary Endeavour Enterprises. He wasn’t of a curious state of mind, other than “how will that burn?” He didn’t care about the business reasons behind ITC hiring him to destroy the workshop of a promising new rival. He just liked the money and the flames. Behind him in the darkness there was a low whine, like a steel cable being stretched out to screaming. Davy the Flame whirled round, an acetylene torch flaring in his hand. “Who’s there?” he demanded. “Come out!” There was another sound from the darkness, an electronic snarl that chilled him worse than anything had since his childhood days in reform school. “I’ll burn you!” he warned, staring into the darkness. “I’ll kill you.” There was another twang. “I’m already dead,” came the reply. And that was the last thing Davy heard before his eardrums burst and his heart exploded. There was an ambush at the gate site. The shapeshifting organic Skunk vessel was in the form of some giant crab-octopus thing and it had already crippled two vessels and was tearing into a third. “We can’t manoeuvre past it!” Nats warned. “It’s blocking the entrance.” “It’s got pretty strong shields too,” Trickshot warned. “Our weapons can’t penetrate them from here.” “If Aunt Sally gets closer we’ll be grabbed and ripped apart,” Vizh warned. “So we don’t take Aunt Sally closer,” suggested Amazing Guy. “Hatman, Tricky, CSFB!, get into my quantum bubble. We’re taking a trip.” “Take care,” yelped Nats as he jinked Aunt Sally away from a claw that was suddenly a bouquet of diamond-sharp tendrils. “And be quick. I don’t like that corposant fire stormfront that’s rolling down on us.” “Just get me inside their shields,” Tricky grinned. “We’re boarding them!” cried CrazySugarFreakBoy! “Yo ho ho! Hey, AG, can you do energy construct parrots?” Hatman dragged on his jets cap and propelled Amazing Guy’s energy bubble towards the Skunk vessel with blinding speed. Aunt Sally took over automatic control of her weapons nacelles to keep the questing appendages of the powerful shapeshifting ship away from her. There was a brief flare as the heroes penetrated the defensive screens around the enemy. Then four hardened Skunk warriors emerged in their most intimidating combat shapes to meet them. “Yaaaay!” cried CrazySugarFreakBoy! hurling himself amongst them and loosing a cloud of silly string. “Mighty Morphing Power Aliens vs the Worlds Greatest Heroes. I’ve had wet dreams like this. Of course, the aliens looked more like Asia Carrera.” Hatman intercepted the alien who was about to shoot Dreamcatcher Foxglove in the back and applied his Steelers hat. “I don’t know how much longer I can hold this vessel back,” Amazing Guy warned. “It’s like trying to wrestle a sackful of snakes.” “No problemo,” Trickshot promised, hurling himself off the disintegrating energy bubble into free fall. “Brer Trickshot only needs one shot.” Tumbling through the silvery void he took aim and loosed a shaft into the underbelly of the organic craft. The Skunk ship lost all interest in combat and started to morph through a series of increasingly bizarre shapes. Amazing Guy gathered up CSFB! and Hatman. Goldeneyed teleported out to retrieve Trickshot just before he fell into the front edge of the incoming balefire. “Time to leave,” suggested Visionary. “On it,” Nats agreed, lining Aunt Sally up with the portal. “It’ll be a while before those Skunks are in any position to bother other contestants again,” Hatman admitted. “What was that arrow, Tricky?” “It was my ganja arrow,” the irritating archer smirked. “The skunk-ship’s just having a bad trip, that’s all.” Then the stoned skunk vessel was blown apart by a barrage of missile-fire. The war cruiser of Dronon the Public Accoster emerged unscathed from the sheet of corposant fire. “The Skree Star Empire commends you for your diligence in cleansing the area of Skunk scum,” came a message over the comm.-channel. “For your service to the Public Accoster you may flee with your lives.” Nats called the Skree a rude word and gunned Aunt Sally through the portal.  “I have them,” reported the Crimson Cyclist. “I can see them now. They’ve just passed through the first gateway.” “About time,” hissed Terrorox. “I was starting to think you were malingering again, Cyclist.” “Objecting to you slaughtering an entire population wasn’t malingering,” the first of Galactivac’s heralds argued. “We lead our master to worlds he then destroys,” Undermind pointed out. “What’s one more planet?” “But the Tarkadians were an advanced race! They had art, culture, scientific achievement…” “That’s why we needed their ship,” Terrorox pointed out. “Even if we don’t win the prize we will fulfil our objective of regenerating the master if we can only destroy the Earth contestants. It has been agreed.” “And frankly, destroying the Earth is on my to-do list anyway,” Undermind admitted. “preferably while that Dancer bitch looks on and weeps.” “I know we have to do this,” the Crimson Cyclist admitted. “We have to do what we were created to do. But can we really trust Blackhurt, Prince of Fibs, to keep his word?” “He has to,” Terrorox replied. “Demonic pacts are immutable by their very nature. And now that Blackhurt and his cronies, those other Dead Lords of Hell, have captured and plundered the power of the Resolution Prophesy there is little they cannot do. Certainly they could restore our master.” “Wait!” called Undermind Obscura. She cocked her head on one side as if listening. “We’re being overheard! I can sense their thoughts, their sudden shock and new understanding of why we are involved in the Challenge. There are intruders aboard this vessel!” “Oh crap!” breathed Killer Shrike.  “Hey, I’ve got radio contact back with the guys on the Gameship!” Visionary reported to his comrades aboard Aunt Sally. “Or whatever the hell system they use instead of radio to allow us to talk instantly over galactic distances.” “That’d be sub-space resonance using tachyon pairs,” came back the voice of Al B. Harper from across the ether. “You see, you split a quantum particle so that each aspect has exactly the same…” “Not now, brains trust,” called Trickshot roughly. “Can your geek-o-meter tell us where the hell we are?” Now the voice of the Librarian came back to them. “You’re deep under the surface of a crystalline planetoid called Deltros IV-a,” he instructed. “It’s uninhabited and it orbits a huge gas giant that in turn spins round a vast red star. You’re about sixty-three thousand light years from home.” Visionary made an eeping noise. “Boy, postcards from here will take a pretty long time to get back to the folks,” Nats suggested. “We seem to be navigating a series of dark crystal caverns,” Amazing Guy reported. “It’s a bit like a maze. I’m having to use my cosmic awareness just to keep us from getting completely lost.” “Pretty though,” CrazySugarFreakBoy! chipped in. “Where Aunt Sally’s headlights shine on the walls there’s like rainbow sprays and fields of colour!” “It is sounding to be lovely,” agreed Yo from the Gameship. “Is perhaps to be taking some photos for latering?” “That’s what you’ll have to watch out for,” Al B. warned. “The crystals and light, not the photography. By my reckoning the moon you’re on will be coming out from behind Deltros IV in about forty minutes. Then the sun’s going to turn your crystalline planetoid into one massive lens, magnifying its rays to lethal intensity.” “Yeah, totally bad sunburn, guys,” Nitz the Bloody warned. “Your shields should suffice to keep the worst of the radiation out for another fifteen minutes thereafter,” Ebony of Nubilia added helpfully. “Where are we in the race?” Hatman demanded. “You saw the Skunks got taken out?” “In living Technicolor,” Falcon agreed. “Far as we can tell, given there’s not just one route to the next gateway, you’re maybe in sixtieth position. The Skree are behind you, but the Thonnagarians are pretty close by. The Frammistat Eight dudes are taking the lead right now.” “Cranking up the speed,” Nats responded. “I’m using my TK like a bumper cushion. These formations are diamond-sharp.” “How are you bearing up physically?” asked Miss Framlicker. “No side effects from being healed by Uhuna?” “I feel fine,” admitted G-Eyed. “And Vizh is okay too except for the motion sickness.” “Thanks Uhuna,” Nats called through the com-line. “She’s not here,” Amy Aston reported. “I guess she had better things to do.”  And in her cabin on the Gamesmaster’s gameship Princess Uhunalura bit back her tears as she carefully peeled off the bloody bandages on her arms and torso and replaced them with fresh ones. Uhuna couldn’t heal wounds, only transfer them, and this time there had been nowhere else for them to go.  “I can hear you,” Terrorox the Terminator boasted. “I can feel your bones grinding together as you cower in fear.” His words echoed around the vast dark cargo area of the Tarkadian pleasure yacht. “Do you think that darkness will hide you from me? I am the night-terror, that which commands the very skeletons you hang upon. I am the bone-lord, the charnel king, and all that is dead is mine to rule.” He shifted further into the bay. “And thus you have chosen a very foolish place to cower from me,” he explained. “The Tarkadians are dead, yes, but that didn’t stop me walking a few aboard and storing them here for recreational purposes.” At a dramatic gesture from the corpse-pale giant, twenty-five crates burst open and their dead inhabitants fought free from confinement. “Hide and seek it is, then,” Terrorox laughed. ~~Terrorox, will you kill the intruders and get back here?~~ came Undermind’s irritated telepathic call. ~~We’re closing on the humans and we want to destroy them as they emerge from the second gate.~~ “I’m coming,” growled the bone-lord. “But first I have to finish the good part. I’m sending my emissaries out right now.” “Yeah,” called Killer Shrike from his cover. “and don’t they all have snazzy necklaces?” For the first time Terrorox realised that the creatures around him were strapped with heavy packages around their necks and waists. Packages with wires. Killer Shrike thumbed the detonator. The space-yacht rocked as the plastic explosive erupted around Terrorox. The herald of Galactivac reeled but did not tumble. Then the Sorceress was before him, and her eyes seemed to glow in the darkness. “A man or woman is more than flesh and bone,” she warned her adversary. “And there are so many angry spirits trailing you wanting to remind you of that.” And with a savage twist she opened the doorway to them. Terrorox growled and tried to shrug away things that had no physical form for him to dominate. There was a flash of golden light and Blackhearted appeared before the herald. Now he was distracted it was easy to grab him and teleport him away. An instant later Bry Katz and Terrorox were in deep space where the rubble of the destroyed Skree Homeworld lay. And a moment later the exhausted Blackhearted was back alone. “Terrorox is pretty damn powerful,” he admitted, “but he’s got no way of getting back any time soon.” “Terrorox is a moron,” Undermind Obscura told them. “I am not.” Then she reached into their minds and twisted hard.  The sun edged over the rim of Deltros IV and the crystal moon was filled with blazing light. “Ouch.,” complained Aunt Sally as she turned her force-bubble canopy opaque. “The substance of this planetoid is acting like a lens. It’s already seventeen million degrees out there and getting hotter. And you don’t want to know about the ambient radiation.” Amazing Guy gritted his teeth and strengthened his own quantum construct around the vehicle. “Get us out of here,” he told Nats. “Fast.” “Take a left,” Vizh called to the pilot. “No, your other left.” “Watch out!” called CrazySugarFreakBoy! “We have incoming fire from behind.” Aunt Sally rocked as plasma weapons thundered into her flank. “It’s the Thonnagarians,” Hatman realised. “They’ve got position right behind us!” “Keep heading for the portal,” Vizh called out. “It’s less than ten miles away. Second tunnel from the bottom, Nats.” Aunt Sally rocked again. As is traditional in such situations, some of the glass console panels on the engineering deck exploded with lethal electrical discharges. Aunt Sally scraped along one wall of the crystal chasm. “G-Eyed, can you get us over to the Pigeon-ship?” Hatman called over the chaos. “Teleporting through the force fields? I can try with maybe two passengers, no more. And I won’t have the power to get us back.” “Do it! You, me, CSFB! Go!” “Get over to the engineering console,” Vizh called to Trickshot. “What there’s left of it anyway.” Goldeneyed grunted and managed to shift his burdens over to the sleek raptor vessel that pursued them. “You birdies better appreciate this,” CSFB! told the Thonnagarians as he bounced in to battle them. “We don’t usually make house calls this late.” Aunt Sally shimmered through the second dimensional gate and the raptor-ship lanced after it.  “There they are!” the Crimson Cyclist observed as he piloted the pleasure-yacht though the second portal. “Aunt Sally and the Thonaggarian vessel she’s in combat with.” The herald was right. The two ships were locked together in a dangerous spiral as they span through the deep fluids of the new environment they had entered. “They’re too close to separate,” the Cyclist regretted. “And some of the Earth people have shunted over to fight the Pigeon-warriors. I’m going to have to destroy them all together.”  The clashing ships had burst out into what seemed like an underwater region; except that the liquid they moved through was acid. Ahead of Aunt Sally and the raptor-ship a J’Minti galley sailed unwarily through one of the many ribbons of weed that trailed upwards from the ocean floor, and discovered that the plants carried a polarising charge that negated force fields. It’s protective barrier momentarily neutralised, the J’Minti vessel was washed with liquid and dissolved to nothingness in less than half a minute. “Important navigation tip,” Visionary pointed out. “Don’t hit the weeds.” “Or those free-floating bladder-things,” Amazing Guy added, sensing they were of a similar genetic structure. “Trickshot, clear us a path before we end up like the J’Minti.” “On it,” the arrogant archer called back, “but could someone please ask those Pigeon-guys to stop shootin’ us?” On the raptor-ship Hatman, Goldeneyed, and CSFB! were having just such a conversation. The Thonnagarians had fielded their finest warriors, trained to use all kinds of weapons with lethal precision, so the discussion was becoming rather physical. “Hold still and die,” eyrie master Bensun Jak demanded of CrazySugarFreakBoy! as he tried in vain to land any blow upon his opponent. “Sounds tempting,” CSFB! considered, “But on the whole I think I’ll stick to what I know and just kick your ass.” “Break off your attack,” Hatman advised the enemy. “There’s enough dangers here without this kind of behaviour.” “You humans are arrogant for such a weak species,” his opponent opined. “That is why you must perish.” Goldeneyed was having the most trouble. Still dazed from the effort of teleporting through the force screens and unable to use his powers to do more than enhance his strength and endurance, Bry was being pummelled again and again by his merciless adversary. “Nothing to say, human?” the Pigeon-Warrior Shazara Pel crowed. “Not even to beg?” The Thonaggarian was hurled back by incoming combat candy. “I finished mine,” Dreamcatcher Foxglove explained to G-Eyed. “Can I share yours? Please?” Then the Tarkadian pleasure yacht discharged a bolt of force far in excess of any it could have generated had it not been occupied by Heralds of Galactivac. The kinetic wave pounded down on the raptor-ship and Aunt Sally alike, slamming them into the ocean floor. Killer Shrike’s victims welled out of his head and began tearing at his flesh. Sorceress screamed and scrabbled away from the gory red foetus that crawled towards her. Blackhearted struggled impotently with the men who had slaughtered Lisette. Keiko ignored the attacks of all the people she’d failed and planted a katana in Undermind’s head. The Herald wasn’t killed by a blade through the skull, of course, but she was stunned enough to fall screeching to the deck and lose her concentration. Abruptly the illusions that were attacking Killer Shrike, Blackhearted, and Sorceress stopped; all but one. “Oh dear,” said the twelve-foot tall midnight-black creature with the cockroach carapace that held Whitney Darkness by the hair. “Busted!” “Blackhurt, Prince of Fibs!” Blackhearted recognised. “And not an illusion like the rest.” “You’re dead!” Whitney Darkness gasped as she realised what the malevolence she’d been sensing really was. “I destroyed you!” “And now I’m back to return the compliment,” the Prince of Fibs purred. Not that I’m going to kill you, little Whitney his voice went on in the sorceress’ mind. After all, you are working for one of our minions, the Chain Knight, are you not? But I think you deserve a little pain and suffering for all the trouble you’ve caused me. “Okay, does him being here count as cheating?” Killer Shrike demanded. “Oh yeah,” Blackhearted agreed. “Do it.” Killer Shrike hit the second detonator and began the timed countdown. “Right, teleport us to the Portal of Pretentiousness and let’s get outta here,” he called urgently. Keiko hurled a shuriken into Blackhurt’s eye. It was so long since anyone had dared physically assault him that the Prince of Fibs dropped Sorceress like a rag doll and turned to examine the assassin, hissing like a million angry cockroaches. Blackhearted dived and grabbed Keiko’s waist and teleported out just before all hell literally broke loose where she’d been standing. Sorceress rolled aside and burned off more magical power to fling Undermind Obscura at Blackhurt. The tangle of the two villains’ mutual mind-burrowing powers should keep them occupied for the next thirty seconds, she reasoned, and after that it was all going to be moot. “Where’s that damned Blackhearted?” Killer Shrike demanded, looking round for his escape route. Sorceress didn’t know. “We can’t afford to wait,” she added. “Run for the Portal.” “You’ll never make it,” the Crimson Cyclist told them, appearing in the hold. “Not unless I increase your velocity. Here.” And he gestured, changing the way Shrike and Whitney related to time. They fled to where the glimmering rectangle of the Hooded Hood’s dimension-piercing artefact awaited them. Keiko was waiting anxiously by the exit. “Where’s Katz?” she demanded. “He didn’t get back to us,” Shrike answered. “And there’s no time to wait.” The three of them hurled themselves through the Portal of Pretentiousness just before the Tarkadian pleasure-yacht exploded in a blister of flame and was quenched by a hiss of inrushing acid. Amazing Guy was unconscious across the navigation desk, stunned by the backlash of maintaining his protective field around Aunt Sally. Nats was likewise out, from his moderating of the thermal bloom that would otherwise have slagged them. Aunt Sally took over helm control and powered them out of the channel of caustic sludge they had ploughed. She moved unsteadily, trying to route her energy past damaged systems and ruptured superstructure. “Take us back,” Visionary told her. “Tricky, can you detect a fading signature of AG’s quantum construct over by the wrecked Thonaggarian vessel?” “Yeah, I got it. Sensors are pretty shaky after that blast. You okay, Aunt Sally?” “I have a horrid headache,” the sentient ship answered, “and I’m going to insist on being repainted, but I’ll survive.” “Can you grab that construct with a tractor beam?” Visionary asked Carl Bastion. “I think Amazing Guy was trying to pull our guys out of the pigeon-ship just before it collapsed. Before he collapsed.” “That energy bubble is weakening by the moment,” Aunt Sally warned. “It won’t last more than a minute.” There was a flash of gold and Bry Katz appeared on the engineering deck. “Hold it steady,” he called to Trickshot. “I’m going to try and get whoever’s in there out.” He vanished and reappeared again, staggered by the effort. He held an unconscious Hatman in his arms. “Set him down and recover,” Vizh told him. “Then you’ll have to go back for CrazySugarFreakBoy!” “No, I won’t,” Bry shook his head. “Hatman was the only one in there. CSFB!’s gone.” “Well, we made it,” Killer Shrike reported to the Hooded Hood. “Even if we didn’t take out those herald mooks they’re outta the game and they can’t cause no more trouble. And we only lost Blackhearted and he was a miserable git anyway.” “We also learned something of the force working against the Earth,” Sorceress added. “The Dead Hell Lords.” “Yes, that is interesting,” agreed the Hood. “But Blackhearted is not dead. He has merely seized an opportunity.” Keiko looked into the shimmering reflections of the Portal of Pretentiousness as it showed Aunt Sally passing the final gateway to complete the second leg in fifth position. Her gaze lingered on Bry Katz on the engineering deck, and she realised his costume had somehow repaired itself from its earlier damage. “He’s taken Goldeneyed’s place,” she breathed. “Taken back his life.” “That why he didn’t come back fer us?” Killer Shrike snarled. “Cause he wuz running off to play G-Eyed?” “Indeed. It will be useful to have an inside man,” opined the cowled crime czar. “Blackhearted may continue his charade for now.” And it was cold in the throne room of Herringcarp Asylum. Next time: While the support team struggle to patch up Aunt Sally, our heroes struggle to patch up the team after the loss of CrazySugarFreakBoy!!, and CSFB! and G-Eyed struggle to cope with being lost. Plus the usual mysterious visitors to EEE, the usual Nats getting in over his head, and some glimpses of the folks back home. That’s in Untold Tales of the Transworlds Challenge: Interlude, or Home Comforts, coming soon. Use the Footnotes, Luke: The Plane of Balefire: As revealed in UT#150: Untold Tales of the Lair Legion: Agents of Destiny, or Knock, Knock, Who’s There?, balefire (also called corposant fire, St Elmo’s fire etc) is what you get if you destroy raw potential narrative from the unused deposits of story underpinning the realities of the Parodyverse. These stories include the characters, so destruction of the silvery narrative strands somehow also sears up potential souls. This makes balefire a Bad Thing, and one of the most dangerous phenomenon in the Parodyverse. The Heralds of Galactivac prominently featured in UT#137: Untold Tales of the Heralds of Galactivac: Countdown To Resolution , which also footnoted them. Their creator, the planet-destroying Galactivac the living Death That Sucks was apparently destroyed himself in UT#140: Untold Tales of the Reunited Lair Legion: The Return of Fin Fang Foom and Other Events We Can’t Describe In the Title Because of Spoilers. This is the first we’ve heard of the Heralds since then. Visitors to EEE: This is the first and last time we’ll see Davy the Flame, but his killer has appeared in our stories before. More on this next time. Blackhurt and Other Confusions: Blackhurt, Prince of Fibs, is no relation to Blackhearted, the not-nice variant of Bry Katz. Blackhurt is the demonic son of Mefrothto, and like his father should have ceased to exist after his defeat and destruction by our heroes. Only the use of the captured Resolution Prophecy’s immense powers has pulled both of them back from the brink of oblivion to form part of the Dead Hell Lords’ confederation of evil. Blackhearted has a particular dislike for Sorceress, since after tormenting her and attempting to destroy her she turned round and ripped him to pieces (with some help and set-up from Xander, Mumphrey, Hagatha, and De Brown Streak) in #148: Untold Tales of the Prince of Fibs: Race With the Devil. It really isn’t over between them yet. The Dead Hell Lords also include the Demon Lover who has bred the Darkness Clan of witches since prehistoric times, and who was likewise killed by the Sorceress (with the help of Hagatha and Hatman) and retrieved by the Resolution Prophecy. However, Whitney is unaware of the Demon Lover’s involvement in her pact with the Hellraisers.    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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