Previously: The Lair Legion has defeated the Gamesmaster and saved the world in front of billions of TV viewers. Now they have returned form their adventures to find they have new levels of popularity and fame.

Who’s Who in the Transworlds Challenge



    Off-Central Park burst into cheering as Aunt Sally descended to ground level. Police tried to hold back the crowds but all the jostling was good-natured. There was a holiday feel in the air, and nobody was there to cause trouble. Paradopolis was welcoming home its heroes.
    “Well this is nice,” Aunt Sally commented as she was pelted with flowers. “I’m really touched.” Like her crew, Aunt Sally had been restored by the parting wave of Starseed’s Gah! Force and her red, orange, and yellow paint gleamed in the autumn sunlight.
    “Any one of these guys could be throwing a bomb not a rose,” Trickshot warned but it didn’t stop him waving at the crowd with a big cheesy grin.
    “I’m on it,” Nats assured him. “Low-grade TK field ready to deflect anything incoming that shouldn’t be hitting us.”
    “People are just glad to see us,” CrazySugarFreakBoy! beamed. “I guess they were pretty scared, and now its over they deserve a good time.”
    “And we deserve a parade because we didn’t win the Transworlds Challenge?” Amazing Guy asked.
    “We stopped the Gamesmaster, saved a whole bunch of planets, did the right thing,” Hatman pointed out. “On the whole I’m willing to celebrate a little. And we saved Whitney.”
    “Or she saved us,” Amazing Guy pointed out. “Did you know she could do that planetary thing? Just how powerful is she anyway?”
    “She has no super-powers at all,” Hatman answered. “Just a very special understanding with the Parodyverse.”
    “I don’t see why she had ta go back to the Hooded Hood though,” Trickshot scowled. “So what if that sleaze has got some kinda hold over her. We should be goin’ to rescue her.”
    “It was her choice,” CSFB! argued. “A bargain. Besides, old Hoodily won’t be doing anything really nasty with her, no matter how much he might make us think he is. He’s not that kind of archvillain.”
    “I’ll be paying him a visit,” promised Hatman.



    “Welcome back,” said the Hooded Hood.
    Killer Shrike took an experimental breath, then clutched his chest. “I’m not dead.”
    “Not now,” the cowled crime czar agreed. “That incident has been retconned.”
    Simon Maddicks reddened with rage. “That sawn-off little bitch! She…”
    “You murdered Blackhearted. She slaughtered you. That’s the end to it.”
    “But I remember…”
    “It never happened,” the Hood declared distinctly. “See your new chance as a death-in-service benefit of being in my employment.”
    “And Blackhearted? You brought him back too?”
    “No,” the Hood said darkly. “Blackhearted was not a good employee. He has been… terminated.”
    Killer Shrike absorbed this for a moment. “Okay… so what now, boss man?”
    “Now?” the archvillain answered. “Now you go home. Your contract with me is done, you have been paid in full, and you may cite me as a reference for future work. Thank you for your services.”
    It depressed Shrike how much this was a new experience to him. “Done?” he said. “Are you sure? Only, I don’t mind staying around – on retainer – if you need some muscle or something. I mean it. I could stay on.”
    “No,” answered the Hood. “You couldn’t. Things are going to get messy very soon, and you would not survive that, beyond any capacity of mine to alter your fate.” He drew his grey mantle around him and seemed to peer into some future invisible to the rest of mankind. “Go now, and live.”



    Aunt Sally rolled through the gates of the park and turned towards Parody Plaza. The crowds followed behind, seething around the heroes, still whooping. More people lined the upper windows of the buildings, hurling down ticker tape and confetti.
    “You’re awfully quiet, Vizh,” Nats observed. “Still dreaming about your nine green-skinned slave girls?”
    “The Capheans?” Visionary shuddered. “No, I was just… I’m not used to being popular. I don’t know how to react when people are cheering for me.”
    “So you’re completely over the slave-girls in your bedroom?” CSFB! checked. “Already? Boy you work fast.”
    “It’s not like that,” the possibly-fake slave owner explained. “They come from a world culture based upon slavery and ownership, where a slave takes her social status from the master she are owned by. A king's slave girl is accorded much more status and authority than a poor man's slave girl. Not to be owned at all means to be an outcast with no protection in law, no means of support, and prey to any who might want to harm or exploit them.”
    “So you’re keeping them,” Tricky asked, one eyebrow raised.
    “No, of course not. It’s just…”
    “Why did they come to you anyway?” CSFB! complained. “G-Eyed and me rescued them. We could have kind of shared them out. I mean April is pretty open on the idea of…”
    “That was a misunderstanding on their part,” Vizh interrupted quickly. “The Librarian arranged for the captives you liberated to be returned home. But these nine rescued girls couldn’t be sent back. They were legally sold, and now under Cephan law they're owned by the LL by right of conquest. So Lee sent them to our Deputy-Leader. Yo was setting up the big gods-battle thing, so of course s/he says ‘Go to be seeing of cute-Visi. He is to be knowing what to doing with you.’ Factor in that yellow coats denote high-status masters on Ceph IX and the girls decided that I must be very important indeed and probably own favoured-slave Yo and the rest of you, and my doom is sealed.”
    “So you’re gonna keep the slaves,” Trickshot repeated. “Only I hear the Manga Shoggoth has some strong views on slavery, an’ he was looking for you.”
    Visionary winced and went paler. He really didn’t want to be eaten by an elder being.



    “And thistles,” Kerry Shepherdson went on helpfully. “The master likes to have lots of thistles hidden in his bed. You’d better get onto that right now.”
    The Cephan slave girls nodded dutifully and added that to the list of chores Visionary’s house-slave was giving them.
    “This is cruel,” Lindy Wilson objected as the green-skinned women scampered off. “Those girls have been victims, they don’t know any better than what they’re doing, and now they’ve got to…”
    “Live with Visionary?” Kerry interjected. “They’re not alone in sharing that pain.”
    “All the same,” Lindy persisted, “It’s not fair to be mean to them.”
    Hacker Nine watched the Cephans working with fascination. “Didn’t your brother’s girlfriend say you had to be home by nine?” he prompted Lindy.
    “I’m not shifting from this house and leaving you here while there’s nine obedient slave-hotties prancing round in their skimpy space-wench costumes,” Lindy told him determinedly.
    “What?” H9 denied, throwing his hands up. “What did I do?”
    “Nothing,” answered Lindy. “And it’s staying that way.”
    Kerry grinned at the exchange. “Young love. Eew.”
    “What, and you’re not planning a sneak-trip to Badripoor anytime for a little spiff-one-on-one?” Lindy challenged.
    “I can easily over-ride the security lockouts on one of the Lairjets,” Hacker Nine offered helpfully.
    Kerry was considering this when the phone rang. “Dweebo’s residence,” she spoke into the mouthpiece. “How can I direct your call in the House of Fake?”
    There was a glittering of holo-imagery and Hallie formed up into her physical shape. “Hello Kerry. I just called in because the Shoggoth’s on his way over and Ebony says he’s heard about the Cephans and…”
    Zack Zelnitz dived behind the sofa, but it was too late.
    “Hacker Nine!” recognised the Lair Legion’s artificial intelligence, locking down her systems from any outside intrusion. “You’re supposed to be dead.”
    “I had a bit of a stomach ache three days ago,” H9 offered. “I think I ate too many of Vizh’s potato chips.”
    “Visionary?” Hallie blinked. “He’s hiding you here?”
    “He totally is,” Kerry jumped in. “Because, you know, so many agencies would want to like kill or exploit H9. So he’s secretly sworn Zack into the Juniors, and he’s keeping him safe in the Condo. Yes, that’s it.”
    “But he doesn’t like to talk about it,” Hacker Nine added hastily. “Top secret. Best if you don’t let him know that you know.”
    That might even have worked if the Manga Shoggoth hadn’t picked that moment to ooze out of the taps in the kitchen and form up. “Hacker Nine!” he bubbled. “You are supposed to be demised!”



    “Anyway, what about your love life?” Trickshot challenged Nats as Aunt Sally processed along Moore Avenue. “Now that your ex-girlfriend’s caught up with ya?”
    “She’s not my ex-girlfriend,” Nats snapped as the irritating archer brought up the knotty subject of Temporary Death.
    “Still current?” AG suggested. “Oh my.”
    “No! She’s just this loopy conceptual being – or I guess right now loopy unemployed ex-conceptual being – who keeps meeting me every time I die.”
    “You know, I’m pretty sure that’s a sentence that’s never been spoken before, “Vizh admitted.
    “But you already have Sex Princess Uhuna,” CrazySugarFreakBoy! pointed out. “And because Uhuna’s a healer she freaks at death anyway, and she’s double-freaking that Death, or at least her little sister, is wandering around scarfing hot dogs as a guest of EEE.”
    “And boy can she scarf those dogs,” Trickshot observed. “I figure she’s trying to audition for a new job as Famine.”
    “I can’t help that I absorbed some of the essence of the Second Oldest Race’s Psychostave,” protested Nats, referring to the alien device that had once amplified his powers and which had lodged its essence in him when it was destroyed. “That’s what she wants, not me.”
    “She wants a big thick rod,” snickered CSFB!
    “She wants to go back to her realm,” Hatman reported. “But it’s been conquered by this Chain Knight Guy that shredded the Shoggoth. We have got to find out more about that.”
    Amazing Guy agreed. “I’ve been trying to focus my cosmic awareness on it, but anything beyond the mundane multiverses gets a bit blurry. The conceptual realms are kind of off my patch.”
    “So we kick his butt another day,” Tricky shrugged. “He’s just another villain.”



    “I’m not getting much on this guy,” Indiana Gnome admitted, handing over his case notes to Cleonie. “Not really. He’s been active in the Far Realms, and he used to work with some other real hard cases, but they were all taken down a few years ago by the sorcerer supreme, Lucius Faust.”
    “The Chain Knight was imprisoned on Flanagan Island,” interjected Gunther the gargoyle. He was perched on the ledge of the Paradopolis Cathedral, watching the procession below. “In fact the Safe was built right over his cell. The whole facility was founded to accommodate what they called Prisoner Zero.”
    “We’ll keep digging, of course,” Indy promised. “But you might be wasting your money.”
    “Money’s not my problem,” the swanmay admitted. “Thank you anyway, gentlemen.” And she turned and picked her way down the rickety wooden stairs of the belltower.
    At the bottom she paused. “What is it?” she asked of the darkness.
    Keiko slid out of the shadows, overcoming her surprise at being noticed. “You’re Cleone, right? The new sorceress supreme?”
    “I am Cleone.”
    “Keiko. I’m not from this reality. I’m looking for a way home, and a way of stopping the Parodyverse absorbing my world.” The Garden City assassin looked uncomfortable for a moment. “I need your help.”



    “We seem to have picked up quite a few hangers-on this time round,” Nats observed as the procession moved past the Twin Parody Tower.
    “I don’t mind,” Aunt Sally told him. “They’re enjoying clinging under my substructure and they’re really not very heavy.”
    “I don’t mean the crowd,” the flying phenomenon clarified. “I mean all the people we’ve picked up on the Transworlds Challenge. Not only Vizh’s slave-girls,” – he shot the possibly fake man a look of pure mischief – “but also Dr Blargelslarch, that mad Pigeon-Woman, and the whole Clan Klayhog!”
    “We couldn’t exactly leave them behind,” Hatman objected. “Dr Blargelslarch is now a wanted criminal on Frammistat Eight because he turned against the Slimy Slaver Lovetoad and rescued CSFB! and G-Eyed. Shazana Pel is outcast from her people because of that weird honour code they have. And the Klayhog haulage ship got wrecked, and that’s their whole livelihood gone.”
    “But little Whitnos Keika Argo Klayhog sure is a cutie,” grinned Vizh.. “And he’s got the most unusual godmothers a young Clan-heir could hope for.”
    “Whit did a good job there,” smiled Hatman. “While we thought she was off being helpless hostage on the gameship she was out covering our backs and saving pregnant women.”
    “It was good to see Yesmin and her husband reunited,” Amazing Guy admitted. “We’ll have to find some way of helping the Klayhogs back onto their feet.”
    “Already done, my dears,” Aunt Sally chimed in. “They are nice people like you say, and they badly need a ship to get them home and back to their haulage business. Something a bit sleeker and smarter than that old wreck they were using before, I’d say. Maybe something in stylish red and orange?”
    “You?” Vizh asked. “You’re going with the Klayhogs?”
    “Why not, darlings? My adventure here’s finished and I’ve been promising myself to do a bit of exploring once my deal with the Hood was over. I am an exploration vessel you know, and the Clan Klayhog are nomads. It’s going to be a wonderful arrangement.”
    “It might be at that,” considered Hatman.
    “I’m introducing Dr Blargelslarch to Dr Day-Vincent down at Icarus Innovations,” CSFB! interjected. “Blargy’s a genius, D-V’s a genius, they ought to hit it right off. Blargy gets a job, a huge salary, a chance to pick up his work where he left off, and an opportunity to study Earth history and archaeology up close.”
    “He’ll really like that,” Amazing Guy agreed. “Nice one, Dream.”
    “And insane feather woman?” persisted Tricky. “Why aren’t we just tossing her butt in jail for attacking Falc?”
    “That was just a cultural thing,” Visionary explained in mitigation. “Shazana Pel was establishing her place in our hierarchy of warriors, and she naturally challenged the guy wearing wings. She’d been cast out from her people, because she allowed herself to be captured and dishonoured, and I think for failing the Transworlds Challenge when her team didn’t wipe ours out…”
    “So to return to my earlier question,” Trickshot insisted, “Why aren’t we tossing her feathery ass in the Safe?”
    “Because the real reason she’s been tossed out is for her blasphemy in letting an outsider touch and use the sacred Z-Alloy that lets those Thonnagarians manipulate gravity and fly,” CrazySugarFreakBoy! explained. “And she did that to save me and G-Eyed.”
    “Lee is going to look after her for now,” Amazing Guy explained. “She doesn’t want to live amongst humans, to be on Earth, so for now he’s putting her up in the Moon Public Library.”
    “Pigeons do perch on libraries,” Nats admitted. “But I’m betting we’re not heard the last of her.”
    “So that just leaves the slave-girls to find homes for,” Hatman calculated. “After the Shoggoth’s eaten Visionary.”



    The scariest thing about the ranch at Sierra Leone wasn’t the sophisticated security equipment that Cressida had been forced to neutralise. It wasn’t the fact that no local from any of the surrounding villages seemed to know anything about the place, and went somewhat blank when asked. It wasn’t even the scarecrows that looked like intruding BALD agents lashed to frameworks in the fields. It was the cows.
    The cows watched dull thud as he moved up the dusty road towards the ranch house. Every cow. In unison.
    “Oh yeah,” breathed thuddy nervously. “This is the place.”
    ~~Better ring the doorbell then~~ Cressida telepathed back. Even she sounded worried.
    thud pushed the intercom button. “Hello in there,” he called. “Is the diabolical Dr Moo at home?”



    “Welcome home, lads,” Commissioner Don Graham proclaimed to the Transworlds Challenge team, and the crowd went wild.
    “Welcome back indeed,” agreed Reverend Mac Fleetwood, thumping Hatman on the back and grinning. “We missed you.”
    “And you gave us a few scares,” agreed Lania, currently spokesmodel for Paradopolis, City of the Future. She dropped her voice and asked “Is… Finny with you?”
    “He crept off early,” Vizh explained to her. “You know he’s not big on this kind of thing. He and Banjooooo both had business to attend to. Donar was due back with Queen Annj, apparently he’d promised to be right back when he’d milked the goats or something. So it’s just us.”
    Lania nodded. “Well, when you do see the big dragon-lug, tell him… tell him I know what happened wasn’t him, and I’d like to talk to him one day, okay?”
    Don Graham was also doing a head count. “Where’s Goldeneyed?” he wondered. “Don’t tell me Jerkson’s Throw-G-Eyed-From-the-Parade Campaign actually worked?”
    “It’s not that,” Nats assured the Commissioner. “But Goldie just felt he needed to get home as soon as he could.”



    Bry Katz teleported into Beth Shellett’s flat with a desperate urgency. He was in civilian clothes. He didn’t think he wanted to wear his old black superhero uniform again. “Beth? Laurie?”
    Bethany Shellett whirled round and dropped the bowl she was holding. “Bry!” She took a step back. “But which one?”
    G-Eyed remembered that Sir Mumphrey had called to explain about the dual Bry Katz’s. “It’s me, Beth. The good one. Well, the not-so-bad one.” He stooped up to pick the broken china from the kitchen floor.
    The young teacher backed away from him some more. “That’s what the bad one would claim, too, isn’t it?”
    Goldeneyed froze. “Okay. Good point. I guess I… well, I really have no way of proving that I’m me, do I?”
    “Not really,” Beth admitted. “And anyway, that alternate version that was here before, he was you too. He didn’t say or do anything you aren’t capable of as well.”
    “He’d… had some traumas,” G-Eyed reasoned. “He’d gone a bit unstable. Lost everything, including his sense of decency. I’m not saying I wouldn’t be like that if those things had happened to me. Only that I’ll try so very hard never to let myself get that way now that I’ve seen what I could become.”
    “Good start,” admitted Beth. “Other Bry was pretty plausible too though.”
    “Beth, I’m so sorry!” Bry blurted out. “I mean it. I’d never… well, obviously I would because I did, but I didn’t want you to find out how I felt this way! I didn’t want to…”
    “Leave it all to your alternate reality evil double?” Beth suggested archly. “It sounds so ridiculous when I say it out loud.”
    “What he did to you and Laurie wasn’t ridiculous,” Goldeneyed glowered. “I don’t know how to apologise. I can never make it right.”
    Something dawned in Beth’s mind. “Bry, what do you think Blackhearted did to Laurie and me?”
    G-Eyed’s face darkened. “He seduced you. Both. Abused your trust, and your feelings.” He added, as if it would make things right, “I beat the living crap out of him.”
    “Would you want me still, then?” Beth Shellett wondered. “After I’d been ruined by him?”
    “Hell, yes, Beth. You’re the best person I’ve ever known. Kind, smart, loving, patient… there aren’t words good enough to say what you’re like. I’m desperately sorry bad-me screwed things up for you, hurt you, abused you, but…”
    Beth held up her hand. “He didn’t, Bry. Nothing happened. Well nothing much. I don’t sleep with my boyfriends. Not even you. I said ‘No.’”
    G-Eyed’s mouth formed a little O.
    “But Laurie fell for him as well,” Beth went on, looking unhappy. “She was so vulnerable, so wanting you Bry. It devastated her.”
    “Where is she?” G-Eyed pleaded. “I’ve got to talk to her too, put things straight…”
    “She’s gone,” Beth told him. “Three days ago now. About when you were in the Negativity Zone, I think. I don’t know where she is. I’ve been worrying ever since.”
    “Crap, Beth. The state she’s in…”
    “I know. I know.” Beth knuckled a tear from her eye and forced herself to stand up tall. “I don’t know whether you’re the G-Eyed I… like… or not, Bry Katz. I don’t know if I can trust you, now or ever. I don’t know how we can ever straighten all this out. But now you’re back I’ll come with you to find Laurie, right?”
    Goldeneyed nodded in relief. “It’s a deal.”



    “You’re slipping away?” Dancer asked Nitz the Bloody. “The party’s just beginning.”
    It was indeed the biggest street party Paradopolis had seen since Victory in Europe day in 1945, but the Priest of Zeku shook his head. “I just wanna go home,” he replied. “See my friends. Sleep for a month.”
    “Lots of people here want to thank you for your heroism.”
    Nitz shook his head. “I can’t cope with them. A month ago none of them wanted to know me, and now because they saw me on TV they all want to join the Nitz Fan Club? Nah, I’ll stick to the people who like me for who I am, not for what I can do for them.”
    “You could at least stay for one dance, and maybe mingle with the other heroes?”
    “N-uh. Now he doesn’t have to bodyguard me Falcon’s already looking for me to rip my head off. I’m just going to go. I don’t think anybody’s going to miss me.
    Dancer watched the metal-helmeted young man slip off into the celebrating throng. “We’ll miss you,” she promised as he vanished.



    “Not enjoying the party?” Lisa asked the Librarian as she found him lurking around one of the many impromptu outdoor kitchens dotting Parody Plaza.
    “I’m not really a party person,” admitted Lee Bookman. “I’d much prefer to curl up in a quiet room with a volume of Keats.”
    “And that’s all that’s bothering you?”
    The Librarian looked even more uncomfortable. “Some library business, that’s all.”
    Lisa didn’t give up easily though. “What kind?” she demanded. In the background her evil ginger cat was stalking a pot roast while the nearby revellers were spitting out the punch from the bowl he’d just visited.
    Lee sipped his orange juice and confessed. “There was a complaint made about me, to the IOL – the Intergalactic Order of Librar…”
    “I know about the IOL,” Lisa told him. “What complaint?”
    “By the Supreme Interference. About me stepping beyond my bounds. The same charge that got me executed before.”
    “Before the Hooded Hood sorted it out for you.”
    “Yes. Anyway, add in that I’ve just helped the Lair Legion save the galaxy on camera for the archive of every Library in known space, and you’ll see the evidence is stacking up.”
    “You think they’ll come for you again, your IOL?”
    “An Audit Fleet, at least,” Lee shuddered. “Maybe a full Inquisition.”
    “Then it’s a good job you’ve got your team-mates at your back this time, eh?” Lisa suggested. “And also I happen to be in the legal business myself.”
    “You couldn’t defend me at an IOL tribunal,” the Librarian warned.
    Lisa sipped her champagne. “Oh no…?”



    “I’d say that sponsorship deal worked out pretty well,” Jamie (NTU-150) Bautista told Miss Framlicker as they watched the dancing. “Not only does everyone know about EEE now, but they know that Bautista Enterprises was backing them.”
    “The equipment bill has come in considerably higher than we anticipated,” warned Miss F.
    “The good publicity’s come in considerably higher too,” Enty pointed out. “I’m quite satisfied. If it costs a lot I can always invent more stuff.”
    “You said you’d transfer your company’s offworld haulage needs from ITC to EEE if we finished the race, but we never actually got to technically finish…”
    Jamie smiled that handsome smile again. “Not a problem, Miss Framlicker. You won it in spirit, in fine style. Besides, I’m hearing some unpleasant rumours about the new ITC management.”
    “Such as they sent an arsonist to wipe up out?” Miss F suggested. “Can’t be proved.”
    “All the same, I’m shifting my orders to Extraordinary Endeavour Enterprises. That should help you get your equipment working again. But watch out for ITC backlash.”
    “We’re watching,” Miss F promised. “Right Al? Al?”
    But Al B. Harper wasn’t paying attention to the business dealings. Instead he straightened his pocket protector, refilled his bubble pipe, smoothed back his spiky brown hair (it went right back to how it had been before), and picked up the largest wrench he could find.
    He walked over to Amy Aston and put the tool in her hands. “Will you dance with me?” he asked her, and closed his eyes and braced for impact.
    Amy snorted, laid aside the wrench and her gin and bitters, and dragged Al B. Harper out into the crush.



    Trickshot only waited long enough to watch Nats trying to untangle himself from Uhuna and Temporary Death as they both stood by the dance floor waiting for the flying phenomenon, then wheeled away with a girl on each arm, grinning broadly. “This way ladies, an I’ll show you why they call me…”
    He found himself facing Contessa Natalia Romanza. “Yes?” she prompted. “What do they call you?”
    “Completely buggered,” the irritating archer suggested.
    “Excuse us a moment, ladies,” the Contessa said to Carl Bastion’s flanking bimbos. She stepped forward and looked Trickshot square in the face. She leaned in and gave him a kiss that very nearly set off the thermite arrows in his quiver. Then she patted him on the cheek and walked off. “Carry on,” she called as she vanished into the crowd.



    “Hey, teach!” Fashion Accessory called out as she and Ham-Boy struggled through the mass to find Visionary, Falcon and Hatman. “Have you seen Harlagaz at all?”
    “We think he’s sneaked off again to meet his mystery girlfriend,” Ham-Boy confided.
    “Don’t mention dating,” Hatman shuddered. “At least not around CSFB!”
    “I haven’t seen Harlagaz,” Visionary admitted. “I saw Glory earlier, with Mr Epitome when he was making his press releases.”
    “Aw man, we’re never going to scope the Harlababe!” objected Fred Harris.
    “We’ll just have to enjoy the party then,” FA shrugged, shifting her outfit into something slinky for dirty dancing. She glanced at Ham-Boy. “Don’t think about asking me, because a refusal often offends.”
    Visionary sighed.
    “Good to be back?” Falcon asked him.
    “It’ll be nice to sleep in my own bed again,” Vizh admitted. “Once I’ve run the minesweeper over it, of course.”
    Asil jostled her way over to join the possibly fake man. “Welcome back!” she beamed at him. “You were very heroic! I knew you would be. Now everyone will know that you are a Great Man!”
    “Well, I hardly ever screamed,” Visionary conceded. “That’s pretty good by my standards.”
    “There is one little problem though,” Asil warned him. “Hallie called to warn you.”
    “About the Shoggoth?”
    “Two problems,” Asil corrected herself. “The, um the other one’s about Kerry’s houseguest.”
    Visionary’s face darkened. “Houseguest? I’m going to geld that spiffy with my pruning shears!”
    “It’s not spiffy!” Asil told him quickly. “It’s Hacker Nine!”
    “That little punk? He’s dead.”
    “He’s not, and apparently he’s been living in the Condo.”
    “Ah…” winced FA. “We were meaning to mention that.”
    Hatman and Falcon watched Visionary run swearing towards the nearest taxi.
    “Nice to see him getting’ some exercise,” chuckled Falc.
    “Hacker Nine’s been living in Vizh’s Condo and dating your little sister,” Asil added maliciously.
    Hatman watched Falcon flying off after Visionary. “Nice to see them both getting some exercise.”



    “Is to be being of wonderful party!” Yo grinned as s/he bounced out of the dancing throng and weaved over to Sir Mumphrey Wilton. “Is to be most excellenting!”
    “It is indeed,” the eccentric Englishman agreed. “And well deserved. Jolly good show.”
    “So Ms Foxxx is alright now that her son CrazySugarFreakBoy! is home?” Mumph asked Dan Drury, Director of SPUD. “I know they had an emotional meeting earlier, and he’s promised to visit her as soon as he’s finished his, um, reunion with Ms Apple.”
    “Could be a few days then,” Drury snorted. “Or at least till they clear away those cloth-covered trestles where the chicken wings are stacked. But yeah, Meg’s fine now. She’s so proud of her little boy I think she’s gonna burst.”
    Yo looked worried for a moment before s/he recognised the figure of speech. After all, Meggan’s chest area did swell alarmingly at the best of times.
    “What about all those alien races that were wantin’ to wipe out Earth?” the SPUD director enquired. “Do I need to bother shoppin’ for Christmas presents or not?”
    “Ah, killing of Earth idea was before we are to be stopping of Gamesmaster,” Yo observed. “We are saving of over four thousand cute-races (and some not-cute ones). And also of all people who are games stakes for uncute-Gamesmaster. That is to be making an awful lot of people to be liking of us. We are even saving of whole Skunks race. Nobody will be being quick to come and be trying to get us, Yo is thinking, if they are not to be wanting of big trouble.”
    “And Whitney managed to link so many of them together through their planetary avatars,” Mumphrey added proudly. “People don’t forget a bond like that quickly. Earth-crushing’s off the agenda for a while.”
    “So the Hood set her up as the stakes so she could do that avatar-linking thing?”
    “Oh no,” Mumph told him. “The Hood had an entirely different plot. Whitney bein’ there to do that, that was an arrangement between my granddaughter and me.”
    “After all, Yo was not to be letting uncute Hoody use Whitney as stakes if to be not part of big cute LL mastering plan,” Yo pointed out.
    “The Hood’s dangerous, and too clever for his own damn good,” Sir Mumphrey Wilton opined, “but he’s going to learn not to mess with my family.”
    “And Starseed came through one last time,” Drury noted. “Always liked that kid.”
    “His ascension’s apparently a sign of the apocalypse, accordin’ to the Hooded Hood,” Mumphrey observed. “Now that’s another of the signs an’ portents crossed off before the start of this dashed Resolution War. But there’s always signs and portents. Can’t be livin’ in fear of the future, what? Not done.”
    “Yo is worrying that is to be not nice times to be coming.”
    Mumphrey Wilton considered this. “All the more reason to enjoy the nice times while they’re here, wouldn’t you say?” He smoothed his moustaches down and bowed formally. “Miss Yo, would you be so kind as to award me the pleasure of this dance?”
    “Yo would be delighted, cute-Mumphrey.”
    The Director of SPUD sipped his whisky as the eccentric Englishman and the pure thought being waltzed off into the throng.



And so ends our Transworlds Challenge series. Whew. Next Issue we launch the Hellraisers Ascendant arc with a look behind the scenes at one of the Parodyverse’s best kept secrets, the return of a long-absent cast member, and absolutely no poster characters at all (a first for an episode of Untold Tales, I think). That’s already been posted, as our Hallowe’en story, UT#187: The Stains of Evil

So Coming Next After That there’s more on dull thud and Cressida’s visit to the diabolical Dr Moo, on Shoggoth’s visit to the diabolical slaver in the yellow trenchcoat, on Falcon’s visit to his sister’s diabolical boyfriend, on a surprise diabolical guest star, and anything else we can slip in to get the word count up. Look out for UT#188: Secret Origins and Unknown Destinations.

For more on CrazySugarFreakBoy's homecoming refer to CSFB's UT#186.5: Without Words

For more on green-skinned alien slave girls read Killer Shrike's The Transporter and Josh Clements' Intermittent Adventures of De Brown Streak #8 - Now With Added Slave Girls of Various Colours

Footnotes? Are you insane? It’s a party! Go and get yourself a drink and ask somebody to dance.

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.