Saving the Future – Part 27 (first bit): I Was Framed Previously: Exiled reality-twisting alien Joey Z is on trial for the genocide of the Shee-Yar race (even though he didn’t actually do it). See Oh That Joey Z! parts 1-3 by Spaztic Child, Visionary and the Hooded Hood, part 4 by L!, #22.10: Oh That Joey Z! part 5 by the Hooded Hood. ***     Ã¢â‚¬Å“The court will rise.” Somewhere in a vast interdimensional judiciary where matters of cosmic law were examined a collection of beings tasked with arbitrating the rules of the Parodyverse came to their feet (or whatever else they stood on). At the bar the Naicluvian exile Joey Z looked around him with alarm.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Hey, what about the rest of my defence?” he objected.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Yeah, what about the rest of his defence?” demanded Arnie J. Armbruster, his attorney. “I was counting on weeks of fees for this.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Everything that needs to be said has been said,” replied Judge Wah P’Nar from the bench. “We have heard of the evidence from Auditor Noseous Org and his team. An entire civilisation has been eradicated, and this genocide was signed by the perpetrator.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Hey, I’ve confessed to the pistachio ice-cream thing but I never killed the Shee-Yar!” shouted Joey. “I’ve been framed.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“There are very few entities capable of murdering an empire like the Shee-Yar Imperium,” Wah P’Nar noted. “We have heard testimony from Exu, a god of murder, that you are one of them.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“But there are others it could have been,” objected Arnie. “We should call all of them and cross-examine them. At length. On the meter.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Furthermore, we have received accounts of your attempts to cover up your crimes by erasing the population of Sol III,” went on the judge.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Yeah, about that,” worried Snookie, Arnie’s secretary. “Is there any chance you could do some cosmic stuff and get my mom and dad back? Please?”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“I didn’t erase Earth,” Joey Z denied. “I’d hardly started playing with it yet!”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Come on!” urged Snookie. “At least tell me where I can get an application form!”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“The evidence is incontrovertible,” sniffed Noseous Org. “A confession written in the blood of the Shee-Yar Emperor: JOEY Z DID THIS SO THERE!”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“I want a second opinion,” argued Arnie. “And a third. And a retrial. And a book deal. With movie rights.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“I want a drink,” sighed Snookie. “With an umbrella in it.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“I want a new legal team,” demanded Joey Z.     Justice Wah P’Nar intervened. “The evidence has been examined for cosmic spoor and psychic imprints and every indicator suggests that the prisoner at the bar perpetrated this crime. Evidence has been laid before this court and it will now be evaluated. I am ready to pass judgement.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Balderdash!”     The court turned as a red-faced old gentleman with side-whiskers stalked into the room, shouting.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Sir Mumphrey Wilton, you have already given your evidence,” Noseous Org snarled. “Unhelpfully.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Be quiet you blathering pipsqueak,” commanded the keeper of the Chronometer of Infinity. “The grown-ups are talkin’. Anyhow, I’ve brought along an expert witness.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Good evening,” said the Hooded Hood.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Urp,” said Snookie. “Arnie… is that…?”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Alan Rickman!” gasped the attorney-at-law.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“The cowled crime czar!” gasped Org. “We have an infraction file on him that takes up several planets! We should summon the Enforcers and…”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Be silent,” commanded the tall man in the grey robes and heavy cowl. “The Hooded Hood will speak.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“In the third person, apparently,” muttered Snookie.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“The Hooded who?” asked Joey Z.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“The court recognises the Hooded Hood,” proclaimed Wah P’Nar.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Although the prisoner at the bar doesn’t,” noted Joey. “I’ve never seen this guy before in my life.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Aw, that just means you haven’t spotted how he’s manipulated you for years yet advised Snookie. “Um, wasn’t he supposed to be dead or something?”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Not seen him?” argued Arnie. “Didn’t you watch Harry Potter? GalaxyQuest?”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“You have been deceived,” announced the Hooded Hood, staring round the infinite courtroom. “The Naicluvian has indeed been set up for this crime, and you have focussed this court’s attention upon a trivial matter while cosmic crimes have been committed as you were distracted. The Void Scholar seeks to rewrite all reality and has now sealed Earth from even your interventions. Meanwhile you have been misled by a mere mischievous ploy.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Has he been sworn in yet?” demanded Noseous Org. “I don’t think so!”     Arnie accidentally punched Org in the gonads. His fist slipped. Three times.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Better listen to the Hooded bounder,” Sir Mumphrey advised the court. “You’re goin’ to be needing his help, dammit, and right now I can’t think of a deuced thing we could do to stop what’s happenin’ without it.” He glared at the archvillain. “Doesn’t mean we have to like it, though.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Thank you, Sir Mumphrey,” intoned the Hood in formal Latvian tones. “Now if I may just clear up this confusion regarding the alien Joey Z…?” he gestured, summoning the Portal of Pretentiousness which could show all times and places.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“That is an elder artefact,” realised Justice Wah P’Nar. “Do you have a licence for it?”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Am I not… the Hooded Hood?”     Noseous Org whimpered in a heap on the floor.     The Portal’s silver glass flickered, reflecting mirrored images of the devastated Shee-Yar throneroom. Emperor K’Ben lay slaughtered atop a heap of his courtiers.     An extradimensional imp popped in to borrow his blood to write an incriminating message on the wall beside the corpses then blinked out again to watch the subsequent courtroom drama on TV.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Eddie the Imp!” breathed Sir Mumphrey Wilton. “Dashed interferin’ nuisance of an oik that caused that Follies of Youth nonsense. So he’s back to his old tricks, is he?”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Eddie the Imp?” demanded Joey Z, rising from his stool. “Eddie the Imp? I was framed by somebody called Eddie the Imp?”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“He is an extradimensional meddler with a media fixation and too much time on his hands,” observed the Hooded Hood. “He also has a somewhat outré sense of humour.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Eddie the Imp!” screamed Joey Z.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Can also do damned near anything,” observed Sir Mumphrey Wilton. “Especially in his native dimension.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Oh really?” snarled Joey. “Can he breathe after I’ve ripped his lungs out of his backside? He wants funny jokes I’ll give him funny jokes!” The Naicluvian exile broke out of his handcuffs, tossed them over to Arnie, blew a kiss at Snookie, gave Justice Wah P’Nar a formal curtsey, the dropped between dimensions to hunt down a certain imp.     This meant war.     The Hooded Hood looked satisfied.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“And now to the real reason we dropped by, gentlemen,” Mumph told the courtroom briskly. *** Continued soon… *** Original concepts, characters, and situations copyright © 2007 reserved by Ian Watson. Other Parodyverse characters copyright © 2007 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.