 |
|
|
Post By The Hooded Hood resorts to a double-sized chapter to finally bring the contest to the end Sat Nov 06, 2004 at 08:31:03 am EST |
Subject
#185: Untold Tales of the Transworlds Challenge: The Finishing Line | |
|
|
Next In Thread >> | |
#185: Untold Tales of the Transworlds Challenge: The Finishing Line Previously: The Lair Legion’s chances of winning the Transworld Challenge have been grievously – and literally – cut short as Aunt Sally, the team’s spaceship, is carved in two by the warship of Dronon, Public Accoster of the Skree Star Empire. The Hood’s plan to acquire the Starseed totters as Lisa, Yo, and Dancer face off against the Gamesmaster himself – and Earth may be disqualified from existence for them learning the Gamesmaster is actually the Parodyverse’s most powerful Hero Feeder. Donar has already been erased, and the battle has hardly begun. Keiko has killed Killer Shrike for murdering Blackhearted. And Xander and ManMan’s infiltration of the Hellraisers’ stronghold has been interrupted by their unfortunate discovery by Nosferos the Undying. Who’s Who in the Transworlds Challenge  Keiko stood over the two bodies, of the man she’d just killed and of the one he had previously murdered, and watched the crimson pool spread out across the ancient flagstoned floor. “Come out, come out, wherever you are,” she said, trying to keep the weariness out of her voice. This wasn’t the time to show weakness. The Hooded Hood came from the shadows. “You knew this was going to happen,” she accused him. “You knew Shrike would kill Blackhearted for betraying us, and that I’d have to put Shrike down like a mad dog.” “It was certainly a possibility,” the cowled crime czar noted. “You could have stopped it.” “Why should I deny you the gift of choice, Keiko?” The assassin wiped her blade on Killer Shrike’s topknot. “So what now?” The Hood smiled very thinly. “Now you are ready to make the hard moral decisions.” For a moment Keiko seriously considered lunging for the archvillain with the katana as well, but her common sense prevailed. “Go on,” she replied. The Hood gestured round to the Portal of Pretentiousness. The mirror-gateway to other worlds was back in its corner, showing some scene from the Transworlds Challenge. The Earth team were down, lost inside the massive rotting corpse of a Constellation energy-being. The powerful Skree war cruiser which stood to win the Challenge if Earth didn’t finish had just seared Aunt Sally in two. Keiko watched her hopes diminishing by the second. Without Earth’s victory they would not be awarded the Challenge prize, the crystalline power-source known as the Starseed. The Hood could not call in his favour to demand it of the victorious heroes. Then he could not utilise its massive energies to prevent Keiko’s world being merged into the chaotic and terrible Parodyverse. “We have to do something,” the Garden City assassin declared. “Can you get me there?” “Interference in this case would void Earth’s race,” the Hood replied. “They stand or they fall alone.” The images shifted, and suddenly the Portal was looking at a sophisticated monitor room aboard the Gamesmaster’s gameship. Keiko recognised a number of those present from her briefings. The woman with the severe makeup and fair hair tied back from her face had to be Miss Framlicker, of Extraordinary Endeavour Enterprises, a brilliant dimensional physicist and part of the Earth team’s support crew. The girl in the denim overalls beside her who was hammering the control surfaces was engineer Amy Aston. Behind them were Ebony of Nubilia, supposed high priestess to a Lovecraftean elder being. Nitz the Bloody, self-proclaimed priest of African world-deity Zeku, and Uhunalura, former princess of the genetically-modifed Abhumans. Keiko didn’t recognise the woman wearing the wings of shimmering steel or the plump girl with too much goth eyeshadow. She identifed the shimmering golden guardians of the Gamesmaster’s ship, though, as they phased into existence and pointed long energy-lances at the group. “What’s going on?” she demanded. “Why are they…” But the Portal had already flicked onwards, showing Al B. Harper in a side room shouting down a Lair Legion comm-link even as the guardians came for him. And then another image again, as Lisa, Dancer, and Yo faced down the cosmic Gamesmaster himself at the heart of his power, the core of his gameship. “Our glorious heroes have attempted to do what you suggested yourself, to penetrate the central core of the gamesmaster’s domain. Aided by certain narrative accommodations from the Triumverate of keepers of the stories of the Parodyverse and by the probability twistings of Dancer they have accomplished something no other had ever done. Now the Gamesmaster intends to annihilate every last one of them.” “So let me go help them!” The Hood shook his head. “Again, there is little you could usefully do. I have learned to have faith in these people’s abilities to screw up the plans of any immensely-powerful adversary, no matter what the odds. No, here is your choice.” The Portal shifted again, to show an elderly man sitting at an old-fashioned writing desk finishing some kind of journal. “Sir Mumphrey Wilton,” Keiko recognised. “Leader of the Lair Legion.” “Sir Mumphrey Wilton,” the Hooded Hood breathed. “He has set all of this in motion, and shortly he is about to undertake a course of action that will deny me the Starseed – and you the outcome you require.” “How?” “Irrelevant. But the only sure way to prevent this now… is for you to kill him.” “I don’t like being manipulated, Hood,” Keiko warned. “Do you own dirty work.” “There are other factors that preclude me taking a direct approach,” the Hood explained. “No, this choice is yours. Either go and kill Sir Mumphrey and save your chance of having the Starseed free your world from the Parodyverse, or accept that what you have striven for will not come to pass.” “Why me?” “Because you are outside the system. He will not be prepared for you, and I can take precautions to neutralise his usual precautions.” Keiko folded her arms. “What’s really going on, Hood? What’s behind this?” The Hood looked almost pleased to be so challenged. “As best I can determine, there is a new and powerful force of destiny manifesting itself in the Parodyverse. At first I suspected it was the third iteration of the Resolution Prophesy that seeks to end our stories in one final spectacular event, but the actions of this destiny are not quite true to that. This is more vicious, cruel, and deliberately evil. This force has selected as tools some unpleasant and powerful beings that had formerly been defeated and imprisoned…” “The Chain Knight and his buddies.” “Indeed. But they are the symptom, not the cause. And at least some of the malice behind them is being directed at me.” Keiko almost commented that this might be because the Hood had the last of the Hellraisers, the Bloodreaper, imprisoned in Herringcarp, but she kept her counsel. Information was power. “So therefore I have to kill this English guy?” “Therefore I require a power source of similar magnitude – the Starseed – to probe beyond the obvious and counter my unseen adversaries. I have spent quite some time preparing Earth’s heroes to be fit to win this contest. I do not want Mumphrey Wilton clumsily stamping over my plans with his own gung-ho scheme.” “There are plenty of ways to stop that without killing him, or without sending me,” Keiko argued. “There are some ways that may work,” the Hood agreed, “but I can perceive the outcomes of events. The only sure way is if you go through the Portal now, with my support, and slaughter him where he sits.” The cowled crime czar looked at her challengingly. “So?”  Aunt Sally, the Austernal exploration vessel the Earth team was using in the Transworlds Challenge, gave out an anguished electronic shriek as the Skree warship carved her in two. Hatman only just leaped aside as the engineering deck was sundered. “Those bastards!” Trickshot snarled. He abandoned the now-useless gravity pulse cannon and nocked a long-range EMP arrow. Nats didn’t wait around. He grabbed CSFB! and Hatman and telekinetically rocketed them over to invade Dronon’s craft. Goldeneyed was already ahead of them, blinking across the vast internal cavity of the Constellation energy-creature and shredding the Skree forward guns that had done so much damage. Amazing Guy strained and formed an energy-sheath round Aunt Sally, grinding her severed segments together, literally bolting her to one piece; for as long as his willpower held. “Aunt Sally, are you okay?” Vizh asked desperately, and against all evidence to the contrary. “Not feeling so very good,” the ship replied. “I’m so sorry, Vizh.” “Don’t be. Aunt Sally, do you still have navigation and sensors?” The ship checked. “At about 11%, and falling.” “Right,” Vizh frowned. “AG, get us out of here.” “Out?” Amazing Guy grimaced. “I’m barely holding all of this together. I didn’t have time to get a proper…” “We have a race to win. Move us!” AG flinched and forced his energy projection to drive Aunt Sally forward. Vizh scrambled to the navigation console to find a way through the disorienting labyrinth of alien corpse. “We’re leaving the others behind!” Amazing Guy pointed out. “The rules say we win if the ship and at least one surviving crew member get across the finishing line,” Vizh pointed out. “You know what we have to do!” Aboard the Fist of Vengeance, Dronon the Public Accoster, keeper of the law of the Skree, final arbiter of justice and morals, rose to deal with the impertinent intruders who did not know the right time to die. His Rod of Importance crackled with lethal force. CrazySugarFreakBoy! bounced off his face. The other Accosters emerged from the interior, hardened elite officers trained to deal with metahuman incursion. Nats concentrated and exploded their weapons one by one. Dronon released a wide-spray burst of energy that CSFB! couldn’t dodge. “Deploy the psionic chaff broadcasters!” he commanded, and half a dozen floating discs rose up to interfere with Nats’ and G-Eyed’s powers. Bry Katz snarled as he felt his strength and stamina waning and broke an Accuser’s kneecap with a straight kick. But a second bludgeoned him down and brought a steel-toed boot to his head. CSFB! shook off the blast he’d just taken and tried to stop G-Eyed being injured more, but two more Accosters were on him, lashing out with electrified batons. Hatman pulled on his Steelers cap to match the soldier in front of him, hoping his combat training was the equal of the veteran that sought his death, knowing he had to get past to help his team-mates. Nats staggered and barely deflected an attack from the Accoster in the flying harness. “Set automated targeting suicide drones to human physiology,” Dronon commanded. “Release the drones.” A score of sleek black darts no longer then ten inches were discharged from vents along the warship. They locked on to CSFB!, Hatman, G-Eyed, and Nats and zipped towards them to discharge their lethal payloads. A series of sleek green arrows shattered the hovering psionic chaff broadcasters, and a final one blocked Dronon’s mouth with fast-setting fire foam. “What, you guys thought you wus gonna have a famous last stand without me?” demanded Trickshot with a grin. Nats turned wrathfully on the incoming suicide drones and diverted them all to the nearest Accoster. The soldier evaporated as the missiles released their high-yield low-range explosions. “Wait!” gasped Bill Reed. “I-I didn’t mean to kill him!” Nats would have died there in his moment of horror if G-Eyed hadn’t teleported him from the laser fire that crisscrossed the place he’s been standing. Bry rolled away from the Accoster who was stomping him, trying to shift the man’s boot through space to get a moment’s respite, and taking the man’s leg by miscalculation. Dronon targeted the small of Goldeneyed’s back, pointed his Staff of Importance, and fired. Hatman dived into the field of fire, intercepting the lethal beam with his own steel body. The energy seared a neat circle right through him and slammed G-Eyed to the ground. “Two down,” noted Dronon. “Three to go.” Nats telekinetically seized Jay Boaz and hurled him into Dronon. “Down, not out!” the flying phenomenon screamed. “Not out!” “You guys are great with the high-tech,” Trickshot noted to the four trooper Accosters still in the combat, “Try an EMP arrow.” “We’re shielded, moron!” one of the Accosters said just as the shaft splintered into the chink of his combat suit where a previous acid arrow had left an opening. And then he was floating in space, locked into armour that would no longer move. Hatman ignored the darkness that was gathering before his eyes and pounded at the Public Accoster. Dronon slammed one gauntleted fist into the side of his head and Jay felt his face dent. CSFB! finally managed to tangle his pair of attackers in silly string then catapulted them off the warship into the complicated tangle of dendron trailers that cobwebbed down from the carcass of the Constellation being. Then he blurred forward to trip Dronon before the Public Accoster could finish the capped crusader. “Worm!” Dronon shouted, affronted by the indignity of falling. “You shall die! Your team shall die! Your planet shall die! The memory of your race shall be eradicated from universal history!” “Way to froth!” CSFB! approved. “Cause, it’d have been more impressive without that fire foam dripping from your lips.” The remaining Accoster grabbed CSFB! by the ankle and pulled him close. “For the Empire!” the soldier declared as he activated his self-destruct circuit. Trickshot did a quick calculation. G-Eyed, CSFB!, and Hatty weren’t moving, and Nats had vanished. He reached into his quiver for a plain shaft, then slipped on a modular arrowhead from his shoulder pouch: his only adamantine tip. “It’s over Droney,” he warned, assuming a low crouch with his string fully extended. “You bozos just ain’t havin’ the prize.” The remote combat platforms Dronon commanded shot Trickshot from behind. “A big mouth to the end,” the Accoster noted. “You should not have tried to offer mercy. You should just have taken your shot.” He checked the condition of his officers. None were fit for service so he abandoned them for the good of the empire. “Computer, prepare to follow that ridiculous little ship and vaporise it.” That was when Nats ripped the main engines out of the side of warship. “It’s not about winning a battle,” Bill Reed told him, clutching his chest where it hurt so much. “It’s about winning.” The Public Accoster pointed his Staff of Importance at the flying phenomenon. “Die!” Hatman reached up and crumpled the end. The energies whined and built up inside the weapon then exploded with a retina-searing flash. After that, nothing moved at all inside the Constellation corpse.  The shining golden servitors that serviced the Gameship shimmered in from nowhere to destroy the humans in their living quarters. Intruders from Earth had offended the Gamesmaster, had determined his secret, and now all humans everywhere would die. “Ooh, shiny!” Amy Aston admitted as they entities spawned into existence. She pressed down the switch that activated the device Al B. Harper had prepared earlier. The shimmering creatures tried to hold their form inside the disruption field but exploded into little golden drops. “I feel so much better now,” Amy admitted. “I’m surmising the Legion has found a way of annoying the villain as usual,” Miss Framlicker commented. “Emergency evacuation?” “Looks like,” agreed Ebony of Nubilia. “But I don’t have a Shoggoth fragment with me after my amulet got vaporised, and I don’t know how else we can get out of here!” Shazana Pel had got hold of a huge mace from somewhere and was looking happier than the others had ever seen her. “You are making war upon the Gamesmaster? This is worthy!” Dr Blargelslarch hurried back into the monitor room shepherding the green-skinned slave girls Vizh was looking after. “If I didn’t know better I’d say someone had just activated a biofield disruption wave generator,” he suggested. “It was some kind of geek-ray,” Nitz the Bloody agreed. “Looks like the super-friends have managed to really piss the Gamesmaster somehow.” “Over here, girls,” Uhuna called to the frightened slaves. “You are under our protection.” “Is Master Visionary here?” “He has commanded us to care for you,” the Abhuman princess assured them. “Now stand over there and see to your make-up, okay? We have hero-ey things to do.” Miss Framlicker finished making the adjustments to the dimensional transportation apparatus that had brought the Earth team to the gameship in the first place. “That won’t get you out of here,” Dr Blargelslarch warned. “The gameship is proof to teleportation, dimensional travel and so on if the Gamesmaster doesn’t approve.” “We have a couple of edges,” Amy assured him, plugging in energy conduits. “Al?” Al B. Harper and Temporary Death rushed in from the lab annex. “We’ve lost touch with the people in the forbidden area of the gameship!” Temporary Death warned. “And I’m sensing quite a bit of lethal intent, by the way.” “Okay,” Al B. noted, checking the readings on the interdimensional portal generator. “That disruption field won’t hold the bad guys for long. Time to evacuate. Ebony?” The high priestess of the Manga Shoggoth rummaged in her satchel and handed a piece of rock to Nitz. “Here,” she said. “Cool,” said Nitz the Bloody. “My very own bit of dirt.” “It’s a bit of Earth,” Ebony corrected him. “You know, the Earth that’s linked to your Earth deity Zeku?” “So you can use your powers here,” Miss Framlicker spelled it out. “Moron.” “This? This is all I needed all along to be able to call on the power of Zeku?” protested Nitz. “Why didn’t you tell me?” “Yeah, cause we so wanted a mega-powered juvenile delinquent wandering round the gameship,” Amy scorned. “Activate the damn portal, buckethead, before we all get wiped out!” Nitz swallowed his anger and directed it to his spell. “Workeku!” he commanded the dimensional gate. “Workeku?” Shazana Pel objected. “That’s it? That’s magic?” The portal crackled to life, but a way to Earth didn’t open up. “As I warned you,” Blargelslarch said. “Blocked.” “What shall we do?” asked one of the slave-girls timidly. “Don’t panic,” slave #5 replied. “That’s for starters.” She looked at the humans rushing about as if they knew what they were doing. “Their women don’t panic,” she noted. “They do things. Useful things. And nobody tells them to.” Al B. lifted a small black cube from his pocket. “Like I said, we have a couple of tricks. Here’s Sir Mumphrey’s contribution. I don’t know where he got this, but it’s… well basically its concentrated time.” “Time?” Nitz blinked. “What time?” “A chronal component to allow us to shift the portal through a time when the gameship wasn’t here and there was no barrier,” Miss F snapped impatiently. “Do shut up and stop wasting oxygen.” “There’s no shortage of oxygen here,” Nitz objected. “And yet,” Miss Framlicker retorted. Al B. Harper strapped in the chronal cube, invented a half-dozen new algorithms to allow the system to handle it, and nodded to Amy to open the gateway. The arcing electricity across the wire framework intensified, changed colour, then crackled aside to reveal the EEE firehouse on the other side. “I’m suggesting you run!” Al B. warned, checking the energy reading. The golden servitors shimmered through the walls. They were larger, fiercer, and they didn’t look like they were delivering drinks. “Running sounds very very good!” admitted Dr Blargelslarch. “But what about Lisa, Dancer and Yo?” worried Uhuna. “And Sorceress?” “They’re in a different part of the plan,” Al B. replied, trying to hold the portal open despite the shorting out of circuits all across his board. “The dangerous bit.” “This isn’t the dangerous bit?” Amy winced. “Retreat then!” Shazana Pel called out, making the first servitor with a savage gusto. “I shall hold them at bay!” Uhuna shepherded the green-skinned slaves through the portal. Amy and Miss F hurried after them. “You won’t be fighting alone!” Al B. promised her. “Guys?” As the shimmering servitors moved forward to enclose the Thonnagarian warrioress a red-white-and-blue soldier slammed into them from behind. The Collie dog at his side leapt on servitors with a blood-curdling growl. “Continue the extraction, Harper,” Mr Epitome called out. “We’ve got you covered.” More of the servitors welled into compensate for the new incursion. Then the Manga Shoggoth bubbled through the gateway (although he wasn’t actually using it, just being polite since Al had gone to the trouble of fixing it up). “Hello Ebony. Could you make sure the TIVO is set for Yu-Gi-Oh Waking the Dragons?” “On it,” agreed the high priestess, diving through the portal and back to Earth. “Um…” hesitated Dr Blargelslarch. “Am I allowed…?” “We’re granting you asylum or whatever,” Al B. assured him. “You too Temp… Tricia. Get through there.” Al shepherded the last of the support team through the gateway. “Time to leave,” he called back to Epitome and the Shoggoth. “Thank them for the hospitality and get out of there before the transductive matrix destabilised completely.” Mr Epitome lofted the unconscious winged woman he’d just retrieved on his shoulder, called for Glory, and leaped for the gateway a second before it exploded. He tumbled with Shazana Pel onto the floor of the firehouse and Amy helpfully doused the flames on his back. The Shoggoth didn’t get through. The bad news was it would have to take the long way home. Bad news for the servitors, that was. The green-skinned slave girls huddled together and looked uncertainly round the strange alien building. “Welcome to Earth,” Uhuna told them. “Ah, here’s Hallie to take care of you. Hallie, these are Visionary’s slave girls…”  Xander looked very small and rumpled next to the gaunt corpse-pale Nosferos the undying. Even without the hundreds of undead servitors ManMan didn’t like the odds. “Hey, Knifey, does that guy remind you of that black and white vampire movie?” Joe Pepper checked. “Later,” Knifey suggested. “But yeah, if he could act that’d be him.” Nosferos looked at his captives with some anticipation. “I thought you died too easily, Xander the Improbable,” the undead declared. “I presume you ceded the title of sorcerer supreme because you knew what the omens portended, then reclaimed the mantle when we slaughtered that pathetic Morbo.” “Presume away,” the master of the mystic crafts shrugged. “I’d trade banter with you, only I’m busy working out who your secret sponsors are.” He pointed to ManMan. “Trade banter with him.” Joe’s blood ran cold as those beady red vampire eyes turned on him. “Hey,” ManMan said weakly. “I’ll… you know, come up with some banter soon. Just give me a minute, okay?” Nosferos ignored the knife wielder. “I further presume that the swanmay child you have running around on your material world is meant to divert attention from your incursion to our stronghold,” he said to Xander. “ManMan,” the sorcerer supreme prompted. “Yeah,” agreed the Elvis impersonator. “We figured you might notice a bit of Yurt at your gates as well.” “It was a well conceived plan,” Nosferos conceded. “But it went awry when you entered this library. The pact document is well protected with many alarums.” “It is,” Xander admitted. “More protected than any piece of paper I’ve ever seen. Layered contingency spells upon other contingency spells. Positively Atlantean in its complexity.” “Why thank you,” preened Nosferos. “And now I think I shall kill your lackey while you watch.” “I wouldn’t,” Xander advised. “Why not?” hissed the vampire. “Do you wish to plead for his life?” “No, he means Joe’s not exactly unarmed,” answered Knifey as ManMan plunged the weapon towards the undead’s heart. Nosferos moved preternaturally fast and easily caught the blade through his palm. Then he screamed. “Heh,” gloated Knifey. “I still got it. Keep going Joe!” Nosferos slammed ManMan into a bookcase as if he was a stringless puppet. The books toppled down onto Joe Pepper’s unmoving form. Knifey lay beside him, unable to move without a human to hold him. “Take this contingency here,” Xander went on as if nothing had happened, pointing to the contract he was examining. “If anyone tries to unpick the magics on the paper in a certain way, the whole document returns home to where it was created, the home of the beings that issued it.” Nosferos picked up ManMan and bared the fallen hero’s throat. “But since we want to find out who’s behind you Hellraisers, that automatic homing spell becomes a free ride, get out of jail free and collect two hundred pounds for passing go,” Xanxder suggested. Nosferos realised too late what the mage was doing. He moved faster than the eye could see, but before he could get to Xander the dweomer was triggered. Xander, ManMan, and Knifey had gone to meet the Dead Lords of Hell.  “Something is going on,” D’Rothy said, her blue eyes wide with alarm. “Something bad.” “Be calm, little one,” Selinda of the Crystaxians assured the world-avatar sacrificed by Frammisat Eight as their stake in the Transworlds Challenge. “There is nothing to be gained from fear.” “But she’s right,” the Sorceress assured her fellow games-stakes. “There is something going on.” There were over nine thousand world-avatars present on the Observation Deck, watching the final moments of the Transworlds Challenge. All but one of them would be forfeit to the Gamesmaster at the contests’ conclusion. Almost of half of them would have their races wiped out for failing in the first leg of the game. Most of them recognised Whitney Darkness, for in the latter parts of the contest Earth had come to prominence as a possible winner. “You Eartherssss are causing trouble again,” hissed Arbiter S’Trakk of the Z’Nox Consortium. “Damn skippy we are, bubba,” Sorceress told him. She gestured to the beings flanking her. “Most of you know me, from Earth. The folks with me are as unlikely a bunch as you’d ever find at my back. This is Argo, of the Clan Klayhog, Ancient Shadara of Thonnagar, and Princess Annar of the Skunks. We have something to say to you.” “The Skunks are a dead race,” Prime Mistress Oma of the Skree Star Empire mocked. “They failed in the first leg, and at long last the universe will be rid of them.” “You fiancée Dronon won’t be coming for you either,” Annar shot back. “We all saw him fail in combat with the Earth heroes, did we not?” “Almost half your worlds will be destroyed if the Gamesmaster gets what he wants,” Sorceress pointed out. “All of you here will die – and worse. Some of our people infiltrated the Gamesmaster’s stronghold, his forbidden quarters. We’re transmitting what they found to your respective governments right now.” “We are being duped,” Argo told the avatars. “Stolen away to be drained dry as batteries for a vile entity that erases worlds just to survive. Yet not a cosmic necessity like Galactivac, a mere Lurker, a parasite leaching the life out of our Parodyverse.” “And what would you have us do?” mocked Oma. “Rise up in arms and fight against a being that can wipe away our races at a whim?” “Better than to live for his amusement, toys for his games,” Princess Annar argued. “He can erase a planet at his will,” Sorceress admitted. “But not every planet at once. He divides and conquers. Against all the powers of all the worlds at once, combined? I think not.” “It took the Resssolution Prophecy rewriting our mindsss to unite usss in common casssue before,” Arbiter S’Trakk pointed out. Whitney smiled. “But this time we have nine thousand beings, each with a special link to their planet, to their people, all gathered together into one place,” she noted, “and with a kick-ass Sorceress who knows sympathetic magics.”  It was the pivotal moment of the battle. The Detonator Hippos had managed to break through the fortifications, and Commissar Kruel’s forces were in retreat. “Stay here!” Sir Mumphrey Wilton called to his wife. “I need to neutralise that blasted electrical wall or these chaps will get cut to pieces out there.” “Like hell I’m saying,” Lady Madge told him. “Get on with the derring-do, if you’d be so kind.” Mumphrey and Madge raced across the battlefield avoiding the occasional exploding hippopotamus and KGBrute and made straight for the reactor core. Sergei Pavlov Kruel saw them coming and aimed his rifle at the eccentric Englishman. He fired six desperate shots but none of them came close. Then somehow his force field generator failed, allowing the Detonator Hippos to surge forward with their Gaelic war cries. It was 1951 and Sir Mumphrey Wilton had just triumphed again over the forces of the Soviet Block. “No,” the Hooded Hood said, surprising the communist tyrant because the room had been empty a moment before. “That won’t do at all.” His eyes flashed green. “Let’s try this again.” Mumphrey and Madge raced across the battlefield avoiding the occasional exploding hippopotamus and KGBrute and made straight for the reactor core. Sergei Pavlov Kruel saw them coming and aimed his rifle at the eccentric Englishman. He fired six desperate shots… and the last of them caught Mumphrey unawares as he was using his Chronometer of Infinity to neutralise the energy field. The bullet splattered his skull. His jerking fall sent the Chronometer spinning from his hand, falling beyond its range to replay the event and give him a chance to correct events. Marjorie Wilton saw what had happened, cried out, ran to get the pocketwatch, but the press of the battle overwhelmed her and she couldn’t find it in time. Sir Mumphrey Wilton was dead. The Hooded Hood grabbed that timeline, folded it away into a small green contingency crystal he had prepared for the purpose, and pocketed the eventuality. He needed a backup plan should events work out to his detriment, and now he had one.  Mumphrey watched the final phase of the Transworlds Challenge as it was broadcast to nine thousand races across fifteen thousand worlds. Amazing Guy strained with all his will to keep Aunt Sally together as Visionary navigated the crippled ship towards the finishing line. “Excitin’ stuff, what, Flapjack?” the eccentric Englishman noted. “Getting on for time when I should…” He paused because of the sword blade at his throat. “Your servant is unconscious,” Keiko told him. “He’s not been permanently harmed.” “Jolly good,” Mumph replied. “But I don’t believe we’re been introduced.” “Never mind the pleasantries. I’m here to kill you.” “Ah, I see. Might one enquire as to why one is to be assassinated?” “You are working to interfere with the Hooded Hood’s plans. If you do that then the Hood cannot keep his promise to me.” “Hmph. What’s the goin’ rate for murder now, then?” “The re-separation of my world from this mad Parodyverse of yours. The Hood can do that if he has the Starseed.” “You’re the lady with Sorceress who rescued the Klayhogs.” “That’s irrelevant. I need to stop my world being…infected with yours. And the Hood’s the only one making the offer.” “So you trust him?” “I’m not hearing a counter-proposal from anybody else. And keep your hands away from your waistcoat, please” Mumphrey stopped moving towards his temporal pocketwatch. Of course the Hood’s agent would be briefed. “I can’t do anything but appeal to your better nature, m’dear. I can only ask that you let me get on and save those many races scheduled for genocide when this Transworlds Challenge ends. There’s nothing in it for you to let me try except trouble and loss.” “Have you a way of getting me home?” asked Keiko, “And of stopping my world and yours colliding?” “Willing to see what can be done, of course,” Mumph assured her, “Could chat with Harper and Bautista and the Shoggoth so forth, have a word with the Chronicler perhaps. But can’t offer any guarantees.” “I can’t take risks with this. I have to do what is necessary to fulfil my mission. The Hood is offering me a way to do that, and you’re in the way.” “Quite understand. And you’re absolutely sure the old bastard didn’t start your world colliding into this one in the first place, just to recruit your assistance, what?” Keiko went cold. The Hood had told her the worlds were coming together. He’d never explained exactly why. “The Hood… hasn’t said what else he would do with the Starseed. Or that he’d leave my world alone afterwards.” “Tricky blighter, ain’t he?” Keiko shuddered. “Yes. That’s why I can’t afford to cross him just now. I’m sorry. I have to kill you.” Sir Mumphrey Wilton nodded, smiled at Keiko, and vanished. He’d never touched his chronometer.  “I summons Sir Mumphrey Wilton!” called Lisa L. Waltz. “Here I am, my dear, and a very timely summons I can tell you,” the eccentric Englishman assured her. “And this must be that Gamesmaster blighter, what?” The plumb robed being looked anything but his normal jocund self. His face was twisted with race and shadows flowed from his as he moved. “You have revealed my nature to the contestants, and through them to wherever my transmissions are being broadcast.” “Well, duh,” answered Dancer. “You thought you were going to get away with your little world-sucking scam forever?” “Yo is thinking is there to be something very wronging!” Yo worried. “Yo is thinking is to be great of danger!” “What you have done is very damaging,” the Gamesmaster admitted, “It costs me a lot to turn things back so I can replay the last turn again. But I can do it.” He glared down at the Legionnaires. “All I have to do is erase you little heroes from the narrative as if you never were.” “Well before you do that,” Lisa suggested, “you might want to be watching the end of your contest. Look, they’re at the finish line!”  Blood trickled from Amazing Guy’s nose and ears as he poured the last of his will into maintaining the quantum structure that pinned Aunt Sally together. He forced the vessel forward through the last stretch of space, the heavy-gravity event horizon of a black hole. “Not far now,” Aunt Sally encouraged him. Her systems were down but her consciousness was still intact in its forward compartment. “Keep going.” “It’s hard to get any sensor readings in these conditions, and half the systems are shot,” Visionary called, “but I think something’s gaining on us.” AG didn’t answer. He was locked in his own personal endurance test, and the slightest distraction would be fatal. “Have you finished lashing me together, Vizh?” Aunt Sally called urgently. “As best I can,” the possibly-fake man promised her. “But I don’t see how we’re going to finish the mission.” “I’m afraid I do,” Aunt Sally answered. “But first we have visitors.” The Broob saucer shimmered into view on the far gravity horizon. “Reptilian parasite aliens,” Aunt Sally warned Vizh. “They plant their young in living beings.” “I don’t suppose any of your weapons systems are working?” “I’m afraid not, dear. You’ll just have to deal with those aliens yourself.” “They can only win outright if they destroy us,” Vizh calculated the points. “That does seem to be their idea,” Aunt Sally agreed. “They’re closing fast,” Visionary observed. “That’s why you have to do something clever right now,” the vessel prompted. Amazing Guy closed his eyes and crouched on the engineering deck and tried not to pass out. Vizh clambered over the wreckage of Aunt Sally’s flight deck and pulled at some of the wiring he’d used to lash her together. He climbed out onto one nacelle and hammered at the control panel. Then he jumped back, just as the bonds holding the whole pod on failed and the weapons nacelle drifted away behind them. “Well?” Aunt Sally demanded, “commentate.” “I set the gravitic cannon to overload,” Vizh answered. “They always do that on Star Trek. It can’t fire but it can…” The wreckage they’d abandoned detonated with a massive shockwave. The Broob ship was spun away and overbalanced into the black hole. Aunt Sally was toppled aside helplessly by the backlash. Amazing Guy screamed and fell to the floor.  “They’re down!” Uhunalura gasped in horror to the others clustered round the TV set in the EEE firehouse. “They’re finished.” “No!” growled Mr Epitome. “They can’t give up now. Come on!” “AG’s force field is wavering,” Al B. observed. “That means he’s unconscious – or worse. It won’t last long without him to reinforce it.” “Aunt Sally’s using her last energies to keep moving,” Amy Aston shouted, pointing at the screen. “They’re out of that gravity well, now they just have to get to the finishing frame. Go! GO!” The battered vessel edged excruciatingly slowly towards the great illuminated rectangle that was the winning line. “They are going to do it!” Shazara Pel admitted. “By Thonga and F’Lir they are going to…” Aunt Sally got to less than a yard away from the finishing post. And stopped.  “What?” the Gamesmaster demanded of the Legionnaires. “What are they doing?” “Not winning,” Sir Mumphrey told him. “Under the rules of your blasted game the Starseed gets awarded and the losers get penalised only when the race is over. They’re not finishing. The race will never be won.” “Others will win then, if your people are too foolish to cross,” the Gamesmaster argued. “Not if our people destroy your finishing frame,” Lisa pointed out. “According to your own rules they have to pass through it to finish. If Aunt Sally blows it to pieces winning is no longer possible. By anybody.” “Yo feels something wrong,” Yo persisted trying to chase the missing piece inside him/her. “Is should be someone else to be being here with us.” Dancer had spotted another problem. “Hold on. Aunt Sally’s dead in space,” she worried. “She has no weapons working. There’s no way to detonate that winning line.” Mumphrey looked grave. “Yes,” he told her. “There is.”  “Safety interlocks are all disengaged, Visionary.” Aunt Sally told him. “Push the button and we go up like a nuclear bomb.” “Well, it was nice working with you,” Vizh said forlornly as his hand came down. There was a ripple of colour as another vessel dropped out of hyperspace, and the Lunar Public Library Galactibus was alongside Aunt Sally. “One moment, please,” the Librarian called across the comms-net. “Have a moment,” agreed Vizh, leaning back with a sigh of relief. “Have as many as you like.” The chunky vehicle edged alongside Aunt Sally and Falcon emerged in a space suit. He had some kind of metal egg in his arms. “Can you catch?” he demanded of Vizh. “Not usually,” the possibly fake man admitted. “Catch this. It’s the nuke the Super-Skunk was going to fit to the Klayhog ship to blow you to kingdom come.” Visionary fumbled and caught the nuclear bomb. “We’re not allowed to use it to interfere with the race,” the Librarian explained. “Only you and Aunt Sally can set it.” Vizh grabbed a deep-space suit from the locker under his seat and hurriedly stepped into it. He had a race to stop.  “No,” the Gamesmaster declared. “It’s a very ingenious gambit, Earthlings, but I will not allow this. You, your team, and your planet will be deleted, and none of this will ever be remembered.” “Deleted!” Yo cried. “Yes! Is to be that you deleted of one of us! You are to be eating of hero in Legion!” The pure thought being couldn’t remember Donar but s/he knew something was missing that s/he needed to make her happy. “Hmph,” scowled Mumphrey, twisting the knobs on his temporal pocketwatch. “Is that so? Well you’re not the only chap that can reverse events, don’t you know? So let’s just see…” “Fool!” boomed the Gamesmaster. “You have no…” Then Mjalcolm caught him in the jaw. Donar rounded angrily on the Hero Feeder. “Foul fiend, let ring the chimes of battle and may the best hemigod of thunder win!” The Hero Feeder erased the Oldmanson with an angry gesture. Mumphrey rewound time again. Donar slammed his forehead into the Gamesmaster’s nose. Lisa concentrated. “I summons Mr Epitome!” she called. “And Fin Fang Foom! And Banjoooo!” Suddenly the Gamesmaster found himself having to try and erase three more attackers at once. “Hello boys,” Dancer called, vaulting onto Finny’s draconic back. “Time to do that universe-saving thing we do, okay?” “Beats watching it on the tube,” agreed the king of the Sea Monkeys. “Yeah,” agreed Finny. “I thought you’d never call!” Yo whispered something in Lisa’s ear. “Okay, and I also summons Starseed!”  Visionary slammed ungracefully back onto Aunt Sally’s deck. “It’s fixed. Get us away from here.” “How?” Aunt Sally asked him. “I mean, without any power or means of propulsion?” “Ah,” worried Visionary. Amazing Guy couldn’t even rise from the floor where he was sprawled. “On it,” he promised, in spite of that. Aunt Sally tumbled away by AG’s powers half a second before the nuclear blast destroyed the finishing line of the Transworlds Challenge and rendered the game unfinishable.  Hatman woke up to find he wasn’t dead. There was green goo over the hole in his chest, and it seemed to be regrowing his internal organs. “Um..?” he ventured. An alien he didn’t recognise looked round the door of the sick bay. “Ah, welcome back,” the Astravid greeted him. “We were worried about you.” Hatty saw that G-Eyed, Trickshot, and Nats were similarly goo-smothered on adjacent beds. CSFB! was already up and playing alien video games. “Where are we?” he asked. The Astrovid closed six of its eyes and gestured to the rose-coloured glass vessel. “You are aboard the Astrovid contest ship Songs of Silence it answered. “We found you drifting and… well, we rescued you. You won’t tell anyone, will you?” “You rescued us?” “Yes,” admitted the Astrovid, blushing bright blue. “We couldn’t leave the famous Earth team to die, not after what you’ve done, no matter how cross the Skree are. And we loved that fight your people had in the stadium, with all the gods. And your avatar is getting on very well with our avatar just now. We were hoping if you wouldn’t mind… you might give us your autographs.” The Gamesmaster lashed out with force garnered by eons of sucking planets dry of all narrative force. He slammed Finny, Donar, Banjooooo, and Epitome back with crushing force, and willed them pinned to the walls of his sanctum. A second spray of energies seized up Mumphrey, Dancer, Yo, and Lisa. His mouth crackled with black sparks as he spoke. “You… do not… summons… the Starseed!” “Because if he wakes up he’ll kick your butt?” Dancer suggested. “You… will never… know…” And then the Gamesmaster was slammed with a force that knocked him to his knees. It was the collective force of may worlds, the life-energies and combined wills of representatives of those planets, bound together in common cause. And none of them liked the Gamesmaster. Sorceress held together the magics of the galaxy, and laughed in glee. Somehow Yo slipped free of the Gamesmaster’s restraint, and then slipped Lisa from his hold. “To be trying again!” the genderless thought being called urgently. “Okay,” determined Lisa. “Come on Miguel. I summons Starseed” And suddenly there was a glittering crystal before her coruscating with power. “Ah,” breathed the Hooded Hood, as he saw his plans fail. The only way to prevent what was to come next would involve not only eliminating Sir Mumphrey Wilton, but Lisa and Yo as well. And the Hood was going to need Lisa and Yo. “Another day, then,” he mused, and turned from the Portal of Pretentiousness. “Starseed!” Yo called out to the glowing crystal. “Waking up!” The Gamesmaster slammed Yo and Lisa to the floor, then had to pause before destroying them to resecure Donar, Foom, Banjooooo and Epitome who were all struggling in rage against their bonds. And then there was a noise, and it sounded like this: Gaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhh!!!!! And a glowing figure stood where a crystal had been before. And Starseed looked around him, shimmering with the Gah! Force which is the birth cry of the Parodyverse. And he said, “Hi, Yo!” The pure thought being pointed to the Gamesmaster. “That is to be being the baddie!” The Hero Feeder turned all his might on Starseed. Starseed burned brighter and brighter. And then a new supernova burst into being, and everything within a quarter million miles was seared to nothing. “Ouch?” checked Dancer, experimentally. But she didn’t appear to be fried to a cinder. In fact she was feeling pretty good, and all the bumps and bruises she’d taken in the battle were completely gone. She looked around her and saw the others picking themselves off the floor, likewise restored. “Amazing thing,” Mumphrey noted, checking his temporal pocketwatch to get some time/space co-ordinates. “Whole damn gameship seems to have moved about two hundred light years away from where it was. Deuced strange.” “Miguel just didn’t want us to get hurt,” Lisa smiled, brushing her hair back from her face. “He was always thoughtful like that.” “That was Starseed?” Finny asked. “The real Starseed?” “It is to be what Starseed was waiting to be becoming,” Yo replied with a big smile. “Is pretty, yes? And now he is to be going to be big Gah! at start of time.” “What about the Gamesmaster?” Mr Epitome demanded. “Where’s he?” “We will not be having to be worrying about him again,” Yo assured them. “First he is being smacked by all the planets with cute-Sorcy, and then he is being totally Gah!ed. Is to be biggest nastiest Hero Feeder of ever time but is not to be big enough to be resisting of such story with happy ending, Yo thinks.” “In other words,” Mumphrey approved, “the nardy blighter’s been potted for good.” “I actually understood Yo better,” Banjooo admitted. “Yeah muchly,” agreed Donar. “Yon Mumphey dost speaketh most passingly strange.” “Well,” said Finny, taking charge by sheer force of habit, “we’d better be seeing to the evacuation of all these people on this gameship. Before the whole thing blows up.” He turned round to his friends. “What, you don’t believe the bad guy’s stronghold’s not going to self-destruct at the end of the story?” “Sound thinking, that dragon”, approved Mumphrey. “Make it so!” And TV screens across the galaxy dissolved into static fuzz. “So who won?” Ham-Boy asked as he headed back from the bathroom. Next Time: It’s out Transworlds Challenge epilogue, as we address a few remaining loose ends, such as our heroes’ triumphant return, the fate of Aunt Sally, Visionary’s unwanted houseguest (and no, it’s not the nine green-skinned slave girls, it’s the other houseguest), the Shoggoth’s view on slavery, dull thud’s quest for Cressida’s origins, Keiko’s next move, G-Eyed’s love life, and Sorceress’ choice. That’s UT#186: Coming Home A Giant Footnote for Mankind Hellraisers – Collect the Whole Set! From what we’ve learned so far, Sir Lucian the Chain Knight survived and conquered his tormentors, seized the fallen fortress of light he had once defended as his own stronghold, then gathered allies into a team that ravaged whole planes. His comrades were the beautiful dimension-ripping Maladomini (last seen dating unwitting Harlagaz), plague-bearing corpulent Phleglethor, ancient undead mage-lord Nosferos, and the Bloodreaper. When they attempted to invade the universe where the Lair Legion dwell they were tricked and imprisoned by Lucius Faust, then sorcerer supreme and Xander’s mentor, but at some cost. Faust has not been seen since. All the Hellraisers are now free again except for Bloodreaper, who is imprisoned in a cell beneath Herringcarp Asylum, captive of the Hooded Hood. For now. The Gamesmaster as Hero Feeder: This story establishes that for many millennia the cosmic Gamesmaster has been dead, first victim of the hero Feeder to took his identity and modus operandi to drain worlds of their narrative potential. Hero Feeders, usually parasites of the interdimensional vortex in which realities spin, gain their sustenance by preying upon tasty strands of story (and the Parodyverse is made of stories), carving characters and whole plotlines out of existence as they devour them. You wanted to know why the Parodyverse has all those unfinished stories? Blame the Lurkers. 101 Uses for a Planetary Avatar Well, two at least. The Gamesmaster demanded as stakes creatures from each world who were linked in some way to the planet of their origin. Not only did these usually-great souls make tastier snacks for him as he drained their existence over many thousands of years, but their links to their worlds made it easier for him to extend his influence and absorb the whole planetary narrative, erasing losing races from the Parodyverse. However, Whitney Darkness’ whole range of abilities come for her special relationship with the world around her, her skill at harnessing magical natural forces of her world. And much of her abilities are around principles of sympathy – if something happens to one thing it magically happens to another – on the assumption that all things are linked at some fundamental level. So all the Sorceress had to do was to link together nine thousand world-avatars, each of whom already had some kind of link to their planet, and direct the resultant joint power to the right target. And you thought Dark Sorceress was the scary one. By the way, the world-avatars who play roles in this chapter include D’Rothy, sweet young property of Frammistat Eight, Selinda, the Crystaxian warrior who helped the Librarian defend her world’s Moon Public Library before, Arbiter S’Trakk, the grandfather assassin of the Z’ox Consortium, Argo Klayhog, Yesmin’s husband and a proud new father, Ancient Shadara, last survivor of the Great Eyrie of Thonnagar, and Annar, young and dynamic Princess of the Skunks. Providing the antagonism is Prime Mistress Oma, first amongst the purebred women of the Skree, a fitting fiancée for Dronon the Public Accoster. Commisar Kruel and the Detonator Hippos This is the first we’ve heard of Sir Mumphrey and Lady Wilton’s adventures in the 1950s, wherein we find them working together and battling the evil communist plots of Commissar Sergei Pavlov Kruel and his KGBrutes. In this case we see Mumph recruiting help from the Detonator Hippos, a race of wild Highland fighting beasties with the natural genetic gift to explode parts or all of their bodies and then reform (yes, for some reason Dynamite Boy inherited their abilities). These Celtic aquatic quadrupeds are probably another of the bizarre results of Abhuman experiments during their ancient war with the Deviates (which also explains the Sea Monkeys, Versalian Apes, and the Racoon People), and have a penchant for shouting, fighting, shouting some more, and then fighting. In this section we see the Hooded Hood actually preparing a contingency to replace those that were previously used and squandered by Kumari during her brief tenure as the Hooded Hood a while back. The Hood has finally found a way to eliminate Sir Mumphrey Wilton despite his chronometer. So the LL Didn’t Win the Transworlds Challenge After All? Technically, no. They prevented anyone from being able to win it, and that knocked the Gamesmaster off his track for long enough that others could take him down. It’s a very zen thing. Sometimes you only win by losing. The Astrovids? Who the Hell Are the Astrovids? I wanted to bring in some race from completely left field to illustrate that despite it all seeming to be about the humans and the Skree and so on there were lots of others watching quietly and making their judgements. Plus, it would have been a downer at the end to just have AG, Hatman, Nats, G-Eyed and Tricky die in cold vacuum. The Final Evolution of the Starseed In the last moments of the battle against the Gamesmaster Starseed attains his final manifestation and becomes one with the Gah! Force. Not only does this allow him to sort out the already-battered Gamesmaster, but he’s able to set right the injuries and damage that’s been recently done. Then Starseed returns to the first moments of the Parodyverse to become the Gah! In other words, that’s probably the last we’ll see of Starseed unless the poster comes back or other writers have other ideas. But he went out with a big bright flash. Of course, him doing that was another of those signs and portents that the End Is Nigh regarding the Resolution War, but only the Hood was trying to prevent that in this plotline anyway. 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. |
| Echo™ v2.2 © 2003-2005 Powermad Software |
|
|
