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Post By The Hooded Hood takes you on the third leg of the race for the Starseed - whether you want to go or not! Wed Oct 13, 2004 at 11:59:34 am EDT |
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#178: Untold Tales of the Transworlds Challenge: Scavenging | |
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#178: Untold Tales of the Transworlds Challenge: Scavenging Previously: After the second leg of the cosmic Gamesmaster’s Transworlds Challenge, competitor CrazySugarFreakBoy! is presumed killed, whereas actually he, teammate Goldeneyed, and alien competitor Shazara Pel have been captured by rival the Slimy Slaver Lovetoad of Frammistat Eight. G-Eyed’s loss has been overlooked through the appearance of his ruthless alternate-timeline version Blackhearted, who has taken G-Eyed’s place without anyone realising it. And although Earth’s competitors have so far not distinguished themselves in the competition, their presence has provoked a number of races to agree on a programme of human genocide once the Challenge is done. Who’s Who in the Transworlds Challenge  The eagles had wingspans of sixty feet, and they were made of lightning. They wheeled around Aunt Sally, Earth’s vehicle in the Transworlds Challenge, and whenever they shrieked bolts of electricity shuddered through the vessel and arced down to the mountainside below. The wind speed was eighty knots, the shear was 5 seconds/-1, the vorticity 4s/-1. It was all Aunt Sally could do to avoid the side of the cliffs herself. Amazing Guy, Hatman, and Nats were all in the air, fighting the vicious winds currents, trying to keep back the enraged thunderbirds that protected this eyrie. Aunt Sally was not the first quester to come plundering so far today, and she would be far from the last. Vizh struggled to help keep Aunt Sally steady as Blackhearted – whom the team assumed to be Goldeneyed – teleported down to the unstable shale embankment with Trickshot. “Make this fast, arrow-boy!” Bry Katz shouted, but the wind stole his breath away. It said something about the shot that Trickshot paused and concentrated. There below, in a cleft guarded by the fiercest of the thunderbirds, was a natural bole filled with sparkling purple geodes. The irritating archer clipped a monofilament nylon card through the eye-loop of an adhesive arrow, instinctively judged the shifting turmoil, compensated for the vicious wind, and let fly. The arrow seemed caught by the storm, but somehow it tumbled like a straw in a hurricane to impact in the bole. “Am I awesome or what?” smirked Carl Bastion. “Lemme reel this in.” “No time!” warned Blackhearted, grabbing the archer and everything attached to him and blinking out seconds before the thunderbirds melted the outcropping they’d been on to molten rock. “We get it?” Vizh shouted to them over the howling wind. “Are all the thunderbirds in the area closing in on us to rip us ta shreds?” Trickshot answered him. Vizh called back the heroes who were forming a desperate air screen. “Get us out of here, Aunt Sally,” he called as AG, Hatman, and Nats passed through the transparent force bubble canopy to alight on the engineering deck. Two dozen thunderbirds shrieked down at the vessel. “Now!” yelped Visionary, urgently.  “That Gamesmaster doesn’t understand what he is meddling with,” sniffed Xander the Improbable as he watched the fuzzy images of the Transworlds Challenge on a tiny black and white TV in his seedy motel room at Black’s Crossing. “Thunderbirds are some of the most primal creatures of the Mythlands, far more than storm-birds. If they’re disturbed enough they could cause all kinds of unpleasant consequences.” “Will they want their pretty rocks back?” Cleone asked him. “Let’s hope not. They only collect the geodes because they’re a little like eagle stones, which the thunderbirds use to keep their life-forces safe. Still, I hope the Gamesmaster wasn’t hoping to have any good luck any time soon.” Cleone sat down with distaste on one of the twin beds in the dirty cabin. “I don’t think any of us are having much luck any time soon,” she admitted. Xander looked over at the forlorn woman in the white dress. “It must be hard on you,” he admitted, “being condemned to the mortal world where everything is gross and heavy, being unable to take your other form and fly and dive.” He paused and added, “Being bound to me.” “Yes,” she admitted. “Everything is strange and horrible, and I’m crippled. And… please don’t be offended, but my link with you is an intimacy I hadn’t expected or intended.” “You granted my wish when you gave me your first kiss,” Xander noted, “and like every first kiss there’s a cost and a link as well as a blessing and a joy. You saved my life, so I could save the lives of others, perhaps save the Parodyverse.” Cleone nodded. “And I would sacrifice myself again if I had to live it over. Even knowing how hard it would be afterwards.” “I know you would. But remember this, Cleone Swanmay; that kiss binds two, not one only, and the cost and the link work two ways. Remember this.” He laid his hand over hers, just for a moment. “I will,” he promised.  “Okay, I’m officially spooked,” admitted Pigeon, looking round the little Bavarian tourist village. There was no living thing in sight, and every inhabitant had simply vanished. “It is strange,” agreed Contessa Natalia Romanza, her fellow SPUD agent. “There is no sign of struggle, or of any packing for a mass exodus. Why would three hundred plus people and all of their animals just disappear? There are not even any insects or arachnids left within a ten mile perimeter.” Pigeon sighed and reached for her communicator. “Preybirds to Hellicarrier. Colonel Drury, you’re just going to love this one…”  “Okay,” Visionary puzzled. “Explain about this Trogdor thing again.” “Trogdor the Burninator,” sighed Hatman. “Look, it was just a song. The sound-beings of Octave wouldn’t let us have a resonance shard unless we each did a song, right? And so I did ‘Trogdor’.” “A Burninator?” “Look, I didn’t question your Henry VIII song, did I? Or Bry’s ‘Wheels of Fire’. Or AG’s “Teddy Bears Picnic’? Or Tricky’s ‘My Way’?” He glared over at Nats. “Or ‘Mandy’,“ he added in clipped tones. “I hope you liked my rendition of ‘Someday I’ll Fly Away’ too,” Aunt Sally chipped in. “I know they didn’t need me to do a number, but it seemed like such an appreciative audience.” “One good thing about that nightmare,” snickered Trickshot. “I guess the Skree an’ the S’Zox and those are gonna have some trouble pickin’ up that particular item. Heh.” “It’ll do them good to face entities they can’t force or bully,” Amazing Guy opined. “I hope they make Dronon the Accoster wear a tutu,” added Tricky. “Good thing I suggested it to them.”  Shazara Pel, fierce warrioress of the fallen face of Thonnagarians, fell sweaty and blooded on the floor of her cell and growled at her captors while trying to hold back her tears. “I am not your slave!” she told them with a desperate fervour. “I will never be your slave!” The Slimy Slaver Lovetoad of Frammistat Eight chuckled his croaking laugh and thumbed one of the buttons on his pain transmitter. Shazara doubled up as the implants they had placed under her skin transmitted agony through her nervous system. “You are the very best kind of slave,” the Lovetoad told her, “and when you are housebroken you will fetch a very high price.” Pel, Goldeneyed, and CrazySugarFreakBoy! were all assumed dead. No-one knew that they had been rescued at the last moment by the Frammistat Eight competitors and had been prisoners on their Slaveship ever since. “You leave her alone!” Goldeneyed raged from his own cage. He was no less tortured, his body a purple bruise laced with livid red lash marks. He added a few choice descriptions of the Reptiloids until the Lovetoad’s attentions turned to him, and he in turn folded in torment. “And you?” the Lovetoad asked CrazySugarFreakBoy! “Do you have any words of bravado to add?” Dreamcatcher Foxglove shook his head and huddled back into the corner of his cage, folding his arms round his knees and staying silent. “Very good,” nodded the slaver. “Then if you have learned obedience you will finally obey me and remove that ridiculous garment.” CrazySugarFreakBoy! shuddered, mumbled “Please don’t hurt me,” and peeled away the Impossibilityium silly suit his captors had been unable to remove from him. He handed the garment through the bars of his cage and cowered naked before his jailors. “Very good,” the Slimy Slaver Lovetoad told him, and whether he meant the submission or the tanned nude body he was leering at was hard to tell. “Now if you will excuse me there is another item I must acquire for this scavenger mission.” He took the silly suit and departed, leaving the three captives to their misery. “Better than you think, frog-face,” CSFB! hissed. Now his silly suit was outside the cells dampening field it could communicate with his Eerie Earring and Wowie-Zowie Walkie Talkie and get on with the business of arranging the escape.  “Okay,” worried Nats. “Does anyone speak Plxtrzarian?” “I understand what they’re meaning,” Amazing Guy assured him. “Cosmic awareness and all that. But I’m having a little trouble with the translation of English to their tongue. The concepts and words just don’t match.” “But this is a market, right?” Visionary checked, staring round the seething plaza under the crimson sky. The booths and stalls were arranged in concentric circles under bright silk flags, and thousands of people were seething around bartering and bargaining. “This is where we’re supposed to find Oomoozo Spice,” Nats replied. “Third item in our galactic scavenger hunt.” “It’s a rare ingredient,” Amazing Guy explained. “Comes from the dried intestines of…” “I don’t want to know,” Vizh assured him quickly. “I don’t need to know,” “It makes very potent curries,” AG concluded sullenly. Hatman rejoined the party without his wristwatch, but wrapped in a hooded cloak such as many of the locals wore. “No language problem now,” he explained, pulling the cowl over his hair. Whatever headgear Jay Boaz wore he took on the properties he associated with it. In a local’s hood he could speak the local tongue. He stopped a knowledgeable-looking passer-by and asked a question. “Over there,” Hatman indicated to his team-mates. They didn’t understand his words but the pointing finger was enough. The foursome pressed through the crowds, past jugglers and snake-eaters, past stalls selling bizarre clothing and stands where delicious cooked insects could be bought. Nearer the centre of the market were the most expensive booths where the best goods were on offer. “I’m getting something now,” AG reported as his cosmic awareness focussed. “The Oomoozo!” “And fleas,” Vizh worried, scratching his armpit. “I think we’re getting fleas.” “That stall there,” Hatman told them, pulling off his hood after consulting with a local flight-belt vendor. “Exotic spices emporium.” There was already a disturbance going on over there. “I am Gladeater, of the Shee-Yar Imperium Guard!” thundered the Mohawk-wearing superman in the red and purple uniform. He tossed aside the marketplace security guards as if they were nothing. “I annex this marketplace in the name of the Shee-Yar empire!”  “I have a question for you,” Keiko asked Whitney Darkness as they waited for their next call to action. The Sorceress shifted uneasily and looked at the Asian woman from another world. “What?” she wondered. “Why are you doing this? Serving the Hooded Hood? Blackhearted is dependent on the Hood for his existence, and Killer Shrike is mercenary scum, and I’m aiding in exchange for my world being kept separate from your Parodyverse. But why are you here?” “I made a promise,” Whitney answered. “A pact.” “So? Sounds like the Hood stacked the deck. I’d argue it doesn’t count.” Keiko pushed a little harder. “Or is there some other reason you need to be close to the Hooded Hood? Something he doesn’t know about?” “Everybody has secrets,” said the Sorceress coldly, and when her eyes flicked onto Keiko the Garden City ex-assassin had to fight a reflex to reach for her weapon in self defence right then and there. “Everybody has things they have to do. We make choices. We pay the consequences.” Sorceress rose and pulled her hood up over her head to mask her face in shadows. “That is all,” she concluded.  The phone rang once and then got picked up. “Lair Legion,” came a cool female voice with the slightest computer buzz. “How may we help you?” “Oh, hi,” said Dead Boy, standing at the last working booth in Gothametropolis. “Listen, I’ve got a message for the Lair Legion.” Hallie traced the number and began a voice analysis on the speaker. She couldn’t pick up a heartbeat no matter how she amplified the signal. “Go ahead.” “It’s from a guy named Chronic. He said you’d know him.” “Would this be the Chronic who committed suicide a little while back in the Safe?” Hallie challenged. She considered sending a tight-beam sonic pulse down the line to the crank caller. “Um, yeah,” agreed Dead Boy. “That’s him. I, um, I met him last night. I know that sounds crazy…” “Good. That means there’s still hope for you,” the Lair Legion’s AI told him. “And he gave me a message for you, honest. He says to warn you that he’s being sent to stop your team in the Transworlds Challenge. He’s being commanded to do it. He says to tell the Legion to watch out.” “Was this a voice in your head, or did you actually see him too?” “I’m not a nut!” Dead Boy told her. “And I know dead, okay. I’m dead myself, kind of, so when a flaming undead guitarist starts giving me warnings from beyond the grave I know better than to… Hello? Hello?” The dialling tone mocked him, and he’d used his last coin. “I hate superheroes,” Dead Boy shouted, hurling down the handset and taking out the last working payphone in the city.  “Yes, I agree,” Anihillatus, Lord of the Negativity Zone, assented, his voice the clacking of hundreds of insects. “Sol III is becoming an inconvenience and the multiverse would be a better place without it.” “Exactly,” agreed the Eyrie-Father of the Shee-Yar. “Many of us are coming to the same conclusion.” “They have provoked our wrath,” agreed the Maxellian commander. “Their CrazySugarCosmicIconocalstCollective!, their protector of the Parodyverse, their spawning of Lord Resolution and the trouble he caused…” “They are arrogant and undisciplined, mad dogs who are a danger to all of us,” Granny Grimmness of Appuffylips declared. “But if we destroy the humans,” demanded the Hierophant of Frammistat Eight, “to whom does dominion of the planet fall?” “That is a key question,” hissed Arbiter S’Trakk of the Z’Sox. “There are potent spiritual resources upon that miserable sphere. Dividing them would prove… contentiousss.” “We have long claimed their Earth,” the Maxellian argued. “If not Earth, then we would require one of the other system worlds.” “I do not believe it is necessary to leave the planet or even its sun intact,” the Eyrie-Father suggested. “If the whole area was physically destroyed, reduced down to a subatomic dust, I suggest that the spiritual resources of which you speak would simply move on, selecting other places to reside. Any or all of us might benefit.” This was code for saying that the Nexus of Unreality would shift, and that any of the holy men there might profit from its relocation to their domain. “That would be acceptable,” admitted the Hierophant. “To us too,” Arbiter S’Trakk agreed. “If you will aid us in conquering a suitable similar planet, we will accede to Earth’s destruction,” the Maxellian leader undertook. “How many worlds will support the extinction?” Anihillatus demanded. “I haven’t bothered polling the four thousand or so that will be snuffed for their failure in this challenge,” admitted the Eyrie-Father, “but of the others, over half will assist, and very few would actively oppose. These Earthers haven’t made many friends.” “They are to be making friends with Yo, though,” Yo announced, appearing unexpectedly amongst the clergy and shamen gathered secretly aboard the gameship. “Yo and the Yo-People are to be liking of the cute-humans.” “So nyah!” added Nitz the Bloody from the doorway. “I swear if they don’t kill you I’m gonna do it myself,” Falcon muttered at the Priest of Zeku he was bodyguarding. “This is a private discussion!” Granny Grimness, rising from her seat. “We shall inform you of the date of your annihilation soon enough!” “I really don’t think we want to be annihilated,” Ebony of Nubilia told her. “Thanks very much.” “And you are going to stop us… how?” hissed Arbiter S’Trakk. “We have two thousand races ready to see you ground to paste. You can hardly lift yourselves off your planet in your fossil-fuelled tubes.” “And how many of your two thousand planetings have survived Galactivac?” Yo asked them. “Or the Celestians? Or the lowering planes?” “All the more reason to snuff that irritating little planet,” the Eyrie-Father observed. “Hey, I got your number now, pal,” Nitz the Bloody warned the Shee-Yar spiritual leader. “Get in my face and you’ll be feeling my helmet on your forehead.” “You are to be having two thousand races,” Yo argued. “We are to be having the Austernals and the Abhumans, the Morshlocks, the Sea Monkeys. We are to be having the uncute Hooded Hooding! And we are to be having the Lair Legion!” The Shee-Yar Eyrie-Father smiled nastily. “From what I hear, not for long.”  Two young women walking in Off-Central Park by night were usually looking for a creative way to commit suicide, especially when one of them was an exotic beauty with elegant silver tresses braided almost to the floor. But unpleasant and permanent things had happened to any would-be assailants before they were ever approached, for Cleone’s companion mad Wendy was in a mood for privacy. “There are dead people here,” the girl reported to the swanmay. “And they don’t want to dance.” “The dimensional gateway to the Chain Knight’s stronghold his hidden on this moor,” Cleone reminded the planetary-class telepath. “He has protected it with the shambling corpses of his victims.” “They should dance, though,” Mad Wendy opined. “A gavotte, perhaps. Or a jig. Or breakdancing.” She giggled to herself. “I could make them dance.” “Best not to, dear,” Cleone advised. “We’re only supposed to be scouting the area. Xander is seeing what I see, hearing what I hear. Better if we don’t let the adversary know we are present.” “You can’t come to the party right now,” Mad Wendy spoke, and to no living person, “but later there will be tea and cake and we can all play blind man’s bluff. I promise.” Cleone led her companion onwards, into the night.  The Jokara were an ancient race snuffed for their failure in a Transworlds Challenge seventy millions years ago. Few had visited their barren desert of a homeworld, and fewer still had seen any of their eclectic applications of technology. The Ecstasy Wand, for example, was traditionally presented to young Jokarans on their wedding night, for the four young people to use in the complicated mating rituals of their people. And no-one alive had experienced the joy of having the Wand applied to their buttocks to send them spasming into unstoppable orgasm for a day and a night. Well, no one until Dr Blargelslarch rammed his archaeological find where it would do the most good on the guard to the prison block aboard the Reptiloid Slaver Ship. “Hello?” he called into the darkness of the holding bay. “Is anybody home?” “I defy you and I will kill you!” Shazara Pel called from the gloom. “That’s a yes in Pigeon-language,” CSFB! translated. “We’re over here, Dr B.” “It worked then,” Bry Katz surmised, rising painfully from his cell floor. “The message got through to you. And you came.” “Yes. This costume is amazing,” Blargelslarch admitted, handing Dream his silly suit and accoutrements through the bars of the cell. “I could study it for decades.” “I was just thinking that about what Shazara Pel was wearing,” CSFB! grinned. “I gotta get one of those paper-clip outfits for April before we’re outta here.” The Pigeon-Woman was catching on that there was a jailbreak in process. “We are being released?” she demanded. “This toad-thing is turning traitor on his people and setting us loose?” “Dr B.’s not a slaver,” Goldeneyed assured her as he pulled on his own all-black bodysuit. “He’s a scholar, and he’s worked with our Legion before.” “I don’t approve of slavery,” the archaeologist noted. “I think I’m defecting.” “I don’t approve of slavery either,” CrazySugarFreakBoy! agreed, stepping free of his cage and feeling his strength returning to him. “I don’t approve of it so much that now I’m ripping this ship apart and tearing that Lovetoad a new one.” Shazara Pel received her battle-mace with grim satisfaction. “Your plan is acceptable,” she agreed. “Proceed.”  “A bit out of your jurisdiction, aren’t you?” Hatman challenged the Imperium Guard. Apart from Gladeater he could also spot Smasher, Temptest, Nightslide, and Fangface raiding the spice shop. “Wherever an Imperiator goes, that is his jurisdiction,” Gladeater answered. “Step aside Earthmen.” “Not while there’s a robbery in progress,” Amazing Guy told him. “You know, thugs taking what they want because they’ve got the muscle to get away with it? We stop things like that.” “This is a contest of destiny,” Gladeater answered, “and the prize is for the Shee-Yar. We shall do what is necessary to win the day.” “And we’ll do what’s necessary to kick your butts,” Nats retorted, his temper flashing. He couldn’t get a good TK grasp of Gladeater but he was able to lift Smasher, Temptest and Nightslide and hurl them a couple of miles from the market. Nats was surprised how quickly Fangface got at him, and looked in wonder at the red lines blossoming across his chest and stomach. Hatman pulled on his Bears cap just in time and matched the berserker Imperiator claw for claw. “Nats is really hurt!” Visionary realised as he saw Bill Reed sink to the ground. “Vizh to G-Eyed. Get Aunt Sally here now!” “You dare resist the Imperium Guard?” Gladeater thundered. “I’ve resisted you before,” Amazing Guy answered, forming a quantum barrier that bounced the Guard’s leader away before shattering. “Last time I tossed you into a sun.” “This time I’m ready for you!” Gladeater replied, powering into and through AG’s barriers and aiming straight for his head. AG grabbed him and shifted them into the multiversal gap between realities, the vibrational substrata that separates parallel universes, the interface from which the protector of the Parodyverse drew his solid-light constructs. Neither combatant returned. There was the distinctive whirr of Aunt Sally’s anti-gravity fans and the Austernal exploration vessel swooped how over the combat zone. An electro-shock arrow took Fangface down from behind just as Hatman was about to lose his throat. “Here’s the rescue wagon!” Trickshot called down. “Let’s get that whoozit spice an’ get outta here.” “Nats is critically injured,” Aunt Sally detected. “I have nothing aboard that can treat injuries that severe. He needs hospital treatment.” “Right,” scowled Hatman. “Vizh, get us some Oomoozo Spice, fast. G-Eyed, stay behind with Nats and get him to a hospital. We need to get out of here before those other Impies get back.” “Uhuna,” Nats moaned once. “We’ll get her to you,” Hatman promised. “Our back-up team’ll be monitoring this.” “Got the stuff!” Vizh called out, scrambling aboard Aunt Sally. “But what about AG?” “We leave him,” Hatman said ruthlessly. “G-Eyed, see to Nats and then rejoin us later if you can find a way.” “Gotchya!” Blackhearted agreed. Aunt Sally wheeled away and set course for the third objective. Bry Katz watched them go. Then he leaned over to check on Nats. “Sorry, asswipe,” Blackhearted grinned down at his old enemy. “I’m afraid you’re just not going to make it.” Coming next: The brides of Yog-Frothoth! The mystery of the missing Bavarians! The secret of the EEE spectres! The origin of Aunt Sally! The revenge of Blackhearted! All the usuals and a few extra guest stars in UT#179: Tactics  You'll Believe That a Footnote Can Fly: (in memoriam, Christopher Reeve, October 11th 2004) Xander and Cleone were bound together in an as-yet-unexplained way when the former swan maiden used the magical wish bestowed by her first kiss to restore the mage to life, although the consequence was that in some ways the two of them are now sharing the same life force. The incident occurred in UT#166 - Untold Tales of Xander the Improbable: Fall of the Sorcerer Supreme. Transworlds Soundtracks: I had real trouble trying to find songs that matched the team, given by ignorance of posters' real-world musical choices, so if you think your character would have chosen something different please let me know and I'll edit it in. But the thinking, such as it is, goes as follows: Jay really did famously perform 'Trogdor' at summer camp this year, as attested by the video clip that was online for a while. Trogdor is apparently a sub-culture icon, a ruinous dragon, as described at his website at http://www.geocities.com/viggler/trogdor.html. It seemed to be the kind of thing Hat would do, since I figure in-continuity Jay has probably performed this for the kids too. Visionary equally famously performed 'I'm Henry the Eighth I Am' when put on the spot at Akiko Masamune's Karoke Sushi Bar during International Incident. Great Buffy and Angel fan Nats might elect to perform his vampire hero's favourite piece of music, Manilow's 'Mandy', one Angel himself has famously performed on a couple of occasions with equal tunefulness. And of course, the great regret of Shep's life is that they picked Nichole Kidman over her to star in Moulin Rouge (Sarah would have been better, honest!), so here her ancestor decides to perform one of Satine's big numbers for an appreciative crowd. Oomoozo Spice: Nobody knows how hard I had to resist heading off into the Dune parodies here, but if anybody feels they want to add something, go ahead. The Shee-Yar Imperium Guard are super-powered champions of the Parodyverse's other avian-themed galactic civilisation, but the Shee-Yar are now a polyglot empire of many races, of each which contributes a champion to the Imperiators to act as the ultimate enforcers of the Shee-Yar. Gladeater is acknowledged as the strongest of these, and usually serves as their Praetor, or leader. I don't have too much background on these AG creations, so maybe Scott will add something. 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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