#339: Untold Tales of the Parodyverse: Going To Extremes Go to Part One: The Inner and Outer Limits Go to Part Two: Not Meant To Know Go to Part Three: Crucibles of Decision Go to Part Four: Rise of the New Pantheon Previously: Elementalist Liu Xi Xian, Chiaki Bushido the Psychic Samurai, Anna the android and Lara Night, energy-manipulating visitor from another multiverse were trapped on the dead alien world of Shee-Yar Prime to battle the population of zombies somehow created there. After their struggles they were found by Dark Thugos who has sent three of them back to the undead world to investigate further. The staff of Extraordinary Endeavour Enterprises and their headquarters firehouse were propelled towards the mad elder being Azafroth at the centre of the Parodyverse. Archscientist Al B. Harper and a team of specialists have borrowed the SPUD helicarrier to retrieve them. Fear of a Dead Planet by Killer Shrike Untold Tales of a Dead Planet by Manga Jason The Hooded Hood's Homepage of Doom Who's Who in the Parodyverse Where's Where in the Parodyverse ***     The ancient Shee-Yar Imperium spanned ten thousand worlds and four hundred thousand years and it died in a day and a night at the hands of the Carnifex, a man sent to destroy the Parodyverse.     Somehow the Carnifex did not only kill every living being on each Shee-Yar world but eventually managed to animate them all as zombies. He set the undead denizens of Shee-Yar Prime to destroy some Earth heroes for his amusement.     Now the Carnifex was destroyed and Shee-Yar Prime was back.     The sun rose over the horizon, reflecting over the steel and glass capital of the venerable galactic empire. The Imperial Palace sparkled as the light caught its iridescent archways and graceful spires. Citizens thronged the beltways, the monorails, the grav-paths. The commerce and industry of the greatest city of the Imperium continued its daily routine.     The massive explosion came from a violent temporary time/space rip called a Doom Tube. There was a blast of hellfire heat, a localised gravity anomaly, and the exploration party from Apocalyspe tumbled out onto one of the capital’s arboreal plazas.     Anna was first on her feet but Chiaki Bushido wasn’t far behind. Neither were Large Lana, Emmazon, or Morbid Mary, the three Apocalysian Battling Bitches detailed to accompany the Earth heroes in their investigations. Liu Xi Xian was the last to pick herself up because the elemental forces of the timespace tear affected her the most.     The Chinese girl forced back her nausea and looked around. “Where are we?” she asked, puzzled. “I thought we were going back to Shee-Yar Prime?”     Large Lana powered up her Omni-Rod till it crackled with black bubbles of nega-energy. “This is Shee-Yar Prime. But it was supposed to be devastated. That sun up there was snuffed out!”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“It is snuffed out,” Anna the android reported. “Outside the atmosphere sheathe that we’re equipped with there’s no heat, no radiation spectrum associated with a Class-D star. But was can see it.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“It’s not real,” Chiaki Bushido said sadly. She walked over to a crocodile of schoolchildren riding the beltroad with their teaching drones. She reached out and touched them. They blurred like floating oils then faded away. “They’re just ghosts.”     As if that one touch had disrupted a house of cards, the illusion of Shee-Yar-as-was rippled out of existence. Bright buildings transformed back to burned-out ruins. The shining city became a scarred black charnel pit.     Some of the citizens still walked about, though. The zombies yet shuffled about their daily business. A queue of dead men patiently waited for a shuttle flight that would never come. A daily data seller silently hawked his wares on a bombed-out street corner. Skeleton avians winged overhead, their flight impossible because their feathers and wing membranes were rotted away.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Horrible,” shuddered Liu Xi. “Why are they doing this?”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“That’s what we’re here to find out,” declared Large Lana. Lana was all about getting the business done.     Morbid Mary examined one of the shambling corpses more closely. “This isn’t technological,” she reported as she checked a pinging sensor box. “I interned with Professor Pandemonium when he seeded Alviar-Durassum IV with necro-animators. Fascinating experience. He got the whole world up and worshipping Dark Thugos. He was ready to move on to convert other Imperium holdings – but this isn’t that.”     Anna frowned. “Dark Thugos was planning to raise other worlds as undead anyhow? Before he claimed all the zombies here as his own?”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Thugos isn’t bothered that the Carnifex reanimated the Imperium as undead,” Chiaki clarified. “He’s bothered that the Carnifex managed to do it before him.”     Large Lana grabbed a zombie and snapped its spine over her knee. “These zombies are weak and inferior,” she decided. “We should recommend the necro-animation programme for them anyway.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“They didn’t seem that weak when millions of them were trying to kill us,” Liu Xi objected. “Although seeing them moving around like this, following the domestic routines they had in life, cloaked by ghost images of the world they once lived in, that’s almost spookier.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“They would probably seem like a challenge to you Earth creatures,” Emmazon sniffed dismissively. “Fortunately you had an Apocalytian war-droid to aid you. That must be how you survived.”     Anna knew the Bitch was speaking of her. “I’m not Apocalyptian,” she insisted. “I was made on Earth, funded as part of a metahuman containment process under Joint Special Resolution 1066 and designed by…”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“It’s okay,” Large Lana interrupted. “Your cover is safe with us.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Anna isn’t Apocalyptian,” Chiaki intervened. “Even if she was, we’d value her for who she is, not what her origins are.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Yeah, it’s good to have a droid in the squad,” Emmazon agreed. “I used to copulate with a warbot back during the conquest of Neravat II. They have good staying power. And if you break something off them they can usually get a replacement.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Perhaps we should get on with the mission?” suggested Liu Xi. “I’m getting creeped out here.” She didn’t clarify whether it was the undead world or the conversation that bothered her. She wished that Vinnie De Soth was present. She couldn’t help but imagine how the acting sorcerer supreme would react to an entire planet of zombies.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“We should proceed,” agreed Chiaki. The Psychic Samurai examined the ruined cityscape, looking for landmarks she’d noted in her previous struggles there. “I don’t want to leave Lara alone with Thugos for too long.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Your elemental is blessed to have the attention of Lord Thugos,” Morbid Mary declared.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“I think she’d prefer not to be blessed,” Chiaki responded. “Now, see that silhouette over there? That’s the ruins of the Imperium Palace. When we were fighting the zombies before they always battled that much harder when we tried to get near there.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“So that’s the place we need to look,” concluded Large Lana approvingly. “Move out.”     The Psychic Samurai held her back. “That’s the place we need to look,” she agreed, “Quietly.” ***     The streets of GolGotham were crowded too, full of shrieking Growlies and lowly Humblies and armoured Factions and steaming Warbots and all the other denizens of the crowded spaceport city of Apocalyspe. Giant shunt engines towered over the decaying tenement mazes, their metal cooling through cherry red back to black as the forces that had lashed a whole planet across the stars powered down for now. The buildings were gunmetal grey. The alleys were shit-and-blood brown. The people were terror pale.     The crowds pressed aside in unrestrained panic to allow their absolute ruler and god to walk unimpeded down the busy street. Dark Thugos strode amongst them, the horror and power of Apocalyspe made flesh.     Lara Night walked beside him. “Do you enjoy their terror?” she demanded angrily as the people cringed.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Yes,” replied the granite-faced tyrant. “I bring them the gift of fear.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“The problem with scaring people is that sooner or later you’ll find someone who’s not scared, someone who’ll push back.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Indeed. That is my hope.”     Lara looked around at the cold muddy streets, the ragged desperate people, the crude massive machineries thrumming over their heads. “It wouldn’t take much to turn this all against you,” she warned. “One leader, a hope for the oppressed, enough power to give you pause.”     Dark Thugos regarded the visitor from another reality “You?” he challenged.     Lara realised she was being provoked, tested. “Somebody,” she answered. “Maybe sooner than you think.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“If I am not strong enough to hold Apocalyspe then another should arise,” Thugos agreed. He clasped his hands behind his back and strode off towards the High Temple of Forbidden Science.     Lara was forced to keep pace with him. “Why am I here, seeing this?” she demanded. “Why couldn’t I go with the others on your exploration mission? Why can’t I just go home?”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Your powers should have recovered sufficiently to leave any time you choose,” the tyrant pointed out.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Not without Liu Xi, Chiaki, and Anna.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“That is your choice, your weakness. But since you elect to stay then I can learn more of you.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Why me? Why single me out?”     Thugos chuckled. “Good. Like a true survivor you seek information. You search for data you can use to your advantage, turn against me.”     Lara didn’t like conceding points to the new ruler of the Shee-Yar Imperium. “Give me something to work with then. Why do you want me here? Why do you want the undead Imperium?”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“I want you here, Lara Night, so I can decide if you are my foe, and know how to destroy you if you are.” Thugos reached the door of the Temple and laid his palm on an opening plate. “What do you know of me?”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“I know you’re the cruel ruler of a bloody, brutal world where mercy and kindness are outlawed. I know you’re a worshipper of death, revelling in wanton destruction. I know you’re a son of the Hooded Hood…”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“I am not related to the Hooded Hood,” snapped Dark Thugos. “That aberration was deleted from reality. I am an eternal principle, a new god, personification of the survival of the fittest alone. I bring war, for war brings progress. I bring destruction, for destruction foments change. I revere death, for she is the mechanism by which all becomes perfect. I am Death’s champion, Lara Night, and that is why we may be adversaries.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Because I don’t want people to die?”     Thugos led Lara into the Forbidden Sciences building. The architecture here was of black marble, engraved with twisting luminous circuit lines that pulsed and thrummed. “You were called and chosen by your multiverse’s guardian spirit of life. You may be a champion of Life. If so then I need to know it.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“So you can destroy me.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“So I can corrupt you.”     Thugos and Lara emerged into a vast chamber filled with the technologies of a thousand plundered worlds. Identical bald scientists with black eye-visors scurried like ants tending unfathomable computers, a grandmother net of thinking machines set to one single calculation for half an eon.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“What makes you think you can corrupt me?” Lara asked they tyrant. “So far you’ve only managed to disgust me.”     Thugos gestured to the vast omniscopes that charted the furthest edges of the Parodyverse. “Travel far enough in the right aspects of this multiverse and you will reach an edge,” he instructed his guest. “Reach beyond even that and if you are not erased, or driven mad, or transformed into something beyond imagination, you will find a wonderwall. Written on that wall is an equation, a great formula which some believe is the question that this Parodyverse was created to solve.”     Lara glimpsed at the work being done to record and understand that question. It took her breath away. She felt herself stagger.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Yes,” agreed Thugos, “it is amazing. I have made it my task to understand this question and to seek its answer. Life is a key component and I have served evolution. Death is a vital ingredient and I have courted her favour. But there are many elements yet missing from my researches. Some will require blood, and some sacrifice. Some will require murder and war. Some will need an outside perspective.”     Lara caught her breath. “You think I… because I’m not originally from this reality I might see…”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“There were several candidates,” Thugos answered. “On Parody-Earth alone Mr Epitome, Killer Shrike, Silver Aegis, Keiko, Deathstar Druid and others would qualify. But all those worthy of use have been… denied me. Save for you. And you may even be a champion of Life.”     Lara was energy sensitive. She could feel the shapes and concepts of the equation drilling into her brain. “I won’t help you,” she insisted.     Dark Thugos chuckled again and reached out for the elemental. “You will,” he promised. ***     The Mark III transwarp beta particle conversion shunt engine was roughly the size of a car and was linked by cables, chains, and armatures to a series of gravity manipulation nodes and a collidal unification shaping modulator – a force field generator. The shunt engine was steaming right now as its lepton translation grid glowed red hot and the temperature transfer buffers gave up one by one.     The shunt engine’s engineer was steaming too, in part because she’d been constantly patching the machine for the better part of a day by now in the face of a whole repair manual’s worth of cascading symptoms, in part because she was manually holding the melting lepton translation grid in place with her fingers.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Where’s that stub-bolt sprocketer?” she shouted. Amy Aston was immune to heat but while she was holding one bit of the machine together she couldn’t fix the six other things that were going wrong. And it was only the increasingly stressed machineries of the Extraordinary Endeavour Enterprises workshop that was preventing their firehouse headquarters from tumbling down into the maw of Great Azafroth, the fairly great old one who gibbered and cavorted at the centre of the universe.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“I think it’s in Kara’s room,” called Cody Harper, dodging shrapnel from an exploding inertia zone expositor. “She was probably using it recreationally.”     The firehouse shuddered as the mad violinists fluttering around the elder god tried again to breach the logic wards that Cody and Kara had bickered into existence around their home.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Some of us don’t need sex aids,” Kara shouted back as she input the next set of n-dimensional calculations to keep the creatures at bay. “We don’t need to smuggle furry animals into our rooms.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Right,” snapped Miss Framlicker, EEE administrator. “Find that gadget Amy needs then somebody get me a shotgun.”     Annastassia, the Banzai Kitten who’d kept Cody company overnight after his birthday party, looked around helpfully for heavy weaponry.     The lepton translation grid melted under Amy’s hand. “Damn, it’s gone!” she cried. “Someone yank the proton screening frame from the chronal distortion buffer and get me a really large mallet!”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Is the chronal distortion buffer this shiny pretty yellow thing?” Annastassia asked.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Yeah, and the large mallet’s probably in Kara’s room too,” Cody offered.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Soon it’ll be Cody’s skull though,” Kara clarified helpfully.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“I really need that shotgun now,” growled Miss F. “For reasons of discipline and morale.”     The secondary phase waveform quantumiser exploded with an actinic flare, sending a spray of fireworks out over the lab. A bonsai kitten shrieked.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“It’s okay, Stassi,” Cody assured her. “Stuff blows up all the time around here.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“It’s so pretty!” Annastassia beamed, her big blue eyes sparkling.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Quick update,” Kara called, still jabbing two different keyboards with different hands. “We’re no longer keeping those mad violinist things at bay. We’re no longer maintaining our distance from Azafroth’s maw. Cody is an ass. His cat-girl is a bimbo. And I really need a 22nd century reinforced-caffeine heavy duty zappachino right now.”     A series of middle-sized detonations sent Amy spinning for cover as the disfunctions cascaded right through the intertangential matrices. “Forget the hammer. Get me a bottle of vodka now!” she called. “We’ve got less than two minutes before we’re elder godded and I’d really like to be drunk by then.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“We’re not finished yet,” Cody called. “Um, Stassia, those claws are just a bit tight there. Miss F’s got that look on her face that she gets when she’s really pissed with dad.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Damn right I have,” Miss Framlicker declared. “I activated the narrative enhancer five minutes back and there’s still no…”     The firehouse shook as the demon violinists pressed through the logic barrier. Their mournful sanity-wrenching screechings began to penetrate the sound insulators.     They exploded as they took an opening barrage of air-to-air missiles from the SPUD helicarrier.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Drury to EEE guys,” a gruff voice came from the communications array. “Wah-hoo!” ***     The Imperial Palace had been the jewel of Shee-Yar. Now it was a burned out wreck, part-demolished when the Carnifex had invaded it to murder the Emperor. Some of the people he had impaled were still pinned to the walls. Their animated corpses wriggled.     The Psychic Samurai led her small troupe through the shadows of the Hall of Many Conquests, avoiding the shattered fountains and the holes in the crystal floor that revealed the levels below. She moved more stealthily than Emmazon or Large Lana but not as quietly as she could; there was no sense in revealing her full capabilities.     They were half way towards the Emperor’s private quarters when the monsters broke cover. The creatures came at them through the walls, spraying them with shattered masonry and howling for blood. The guardians were shaped like wolves but the size of horses. Their spines were ridged and their talons were of metal. They were quite dead but very fast.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Ambush!” shouted Lana redundantly, deflecting the first attacker with her omni-rod and felling the second with a skull-smashing fist.     Emmazon caught one in her nega-net, neutralising the forces holding the beast together until it melted into a foul-smelling soup. “What the hell are these things?” she demanded. “There’s no creatures like this native to this planet!”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Do I look like Morbid Mary?” Large Lana shouted back. One of the monsters closed its jaws around her forearm so she yanked it round to pound the others with then activated her omni-rod to blow it apart from the inside.     Chiaki Bushido didn’t say anything. She somersaulted over the first attack and used the backs of the creatures as a platform. These attackers were co-ordinated, which meant there was a controller somewhere.     The creatures snapped at the Psychic Samurai but were distracted by the Battling Bitches. Chiaki caught an exposed rafter and hauled herself hand-over-hand above the combat zone.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Aaagh!” cried Emmazon as one of the beasts worried her like a rat. “These aren’t normal undead. They can hurt us!”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“They’ve got a touch of myth in them,” warned Lana. “Smear them well. Save me a pelt.”     Chiaki spotted it then, a tiny floating eye with a gory streamer trailing behind it, watching the proceedings: the controller.     She twisted down from the roof and sliced the thing in two.     The beasts went frantic but they lost all co-ordination. The Apocalyspians made short work of them.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Do you know what these were?” Emmazon demanded of Chiaki as she pounded the last one into paste.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“No. But they were powerful in life and they died hard. They were brought here from a very long way off. Deliberately set here.”     Lana examined the cleaved eye. “We’ve got somebody’s attention, anyhow,” she noted. She didn’t add that that was exactly what they wanted. Whoever was watching them wasn’t watching Liu Xi, Anna, and Mary.     As if on clue a final wolf-thing bounded from the shadows.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Don’t!” Chiaki called as Emmazon sliced it open with her wrist-blades; but it was too late.     As the creature was carved, livid red bands of arcane force slithered out from its belly. The Scarlet Bands of Saggeroth were released to hunt. They coiled around Lana first, enmeshing the warrior despite her immense strength. Emmazon’s ferocity proved useless against the arcane holding spell.     Chiaki lasted longest, intuiting the red ribbons’ movements and slipping out of their path. The bands replicated again and again, filling the space around the Psychic Samurai until there was nowhere else to dodge.     Chiaki felt the cold magic bonds folding around her, pinning her. She made a final defiant move and tossed her katana directly at the man she sensed had originated the attack.     The blade was a Masamune. It sliced through the first and second layers of her enemy’s magic defences before being turned aside by the third.     And then the three women were captured. ***     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Why would I help you?” Lara Night asked Dark Thugos. “I despise everything you stand for. And it’s not as if you’ve asked politely or given me much reason to co-operate.”     Dark Thugos held out his hand to gesture to something behind the visitor. “Because you are curious.”     Lara turned around and saw that she was no longer in the Hall of Forbidden Sciences. Somehow the gallery on which she and Thugos stood was now hovering on the extreme edge of the hyperspace curve, above the silver surface of the Parodyverse itself.     Lara almost asked “Where are we?” then didn’t. She knew.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“You’ve coasted this place,” Thugos noted, “A necessary waypoint when jumping between multiverses. Twist in one direction and you traverse the Heart of Souls, realm of the Omnisoul, the artificial place between all realities, and from there back to your home or wherever you will. Don’t twist and you move across growing oblivion to the wonderwall.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“It’s out there,” Lara sensed.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Few of those who make the journey to the wall survive. Fewer return. Some remain lodged forever, a part of the wonderwall itself, giants like the Space Robot Celestians. Others are dissolved to nothing, smeared across Comic-Book Limbo to be forgotten forever. Many more fall to horrors, for every realm no matter how abstract has its predators.”     Lara could feel the wall. It called to her. “Why are you telling me this?” she demanded.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“And a few, a very few, go to the wall and come back with knowledge. They return changed. They return reborn as new gods.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“What… what do you want of me?” Lara asked, clutching her head.     Dark Thugos laughed. “Go to the wall.” ***     Daemonic musicians exploded into green slime as eighty thousand tons of helicarrier swooped over the writhing surface of Azathoth. The greater guardians began to notice the disruption in the eternal scratchings of the inhuman violinists. The Conductors and the Critics began to claw their way over to the carrier.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Make sure not to shoot at Azafroth,” Vinnie de Soth warned Dan Drury as the Earth ship smeared creatures across its prow like bugs on a windshield. “If the big daddy of all elder beings wakes up then the stars change and all the Fairly Great Old Ones return.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“That’d be the big tentacled blob we’ve got blacked out on all the viewscreens,” the Director of SPUD noted. “Yeah, okay. He’s in the no-fire zone. But I can nuke these little &£%&ers, right?”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“I’ve got contact with the firehouse,” Hallie reported. “I’m receiving a message for Al from Miss Framlicker. Um, I don’t think I need to relay it just now.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Miss Framlicker is very clever,” bubbled the Shoggoth; or at least that part of him that still remained on the command deck. The rest of him was coating the helicarrier to protect it from the assault geometries of the violinists.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“She sure knows a lot of words,” Hallie admitted. “At least a lot of words for Al.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“She is ensuring that the ambient verbal content remains on a human level rather than bending to the song of Azafroth,” the Manga Shoggoth explained. “By expressing passionate views with mortal language she drowns out the droning madness of the Fairy Great Old Ones for now.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Or she’s really pissed at Al B,” Hallie considered.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Does it have to be one or the other?” wondered Vinnie.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Okay, we got incoming whatever the hell those are with the feelers and the hundreds of screaming baby faces,” Drury called out. “I’m guessing that a couple hundred megatons of neutron bomb can only improve ‘em.”     The carrier shook as the first of the Critics latched on and began to deconstruct it. The Shoggoth rolled over it, screeching something long and alien that included his response to the latest reviews about Higurachi When They Cry.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Right, we need to get close enough to hook the firehouse,” Al B. calculated. “Then I’ll need to drop across the space between us to latch on some tow-cables.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“That’s going to require quite a bit of calculation to prevent the carrier and the firehouse from being overwhelmed by the alien physics fields that are battering us,” Hallie said. If she seemed distracted it was because she was running the entire halicarrier computer network hot with repeated operations proving that matter existed.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Yeah, but someone has to do the jump,” the archscientist pointed out. “It’s not like we have Nats or Ham Boy or Manny to do the dumb stuff.”     The carrier shuddered as an Art Lover tried to mount it. The Shoggoth censored the vast blubbery entity, sending it tumbling back into the crowd of Traditionalists that hooted and gibbered behind the conflict.     Hallie flickered too as she had to ramp up the calculation rate. “I’m really going to need you here, Al. We’re going to have to match our existence algorithms to whatever Kara and Cody are using over there or we’ll just cancel each other out when we link up. And I don’t want to be cancelled out right now. I have plans for St Patrick’s Day.”     Vinnie raised his hand. “Um, I guess I could go,” he offered. “I mean, I’m trained so I don’t go instantly insane when I see elder stuff. I just vomit a lot, and get hives. But I could, um, jump through the hot seething reality-warped space between us and the firehouse and attach a lead or something. I guess.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“You’re the sorcerer supreme,” Al B. pointed out. “You’re supposed to be not there when it happens.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“I’m the acting sorcerer supreme. And I’m really bad at it.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Enough talk,” Drury growled. “Someone get De Soth in an evac suit and toss him outta an airlock, willya. We got maybe five minutes to do this rescue and get outta here before we’re all concerted to death so let’s move it!”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Did I mention I don’t like things covering my face?” worried Vinnie.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“You’d prefer going into hard vacuum without a helmet?” checked Hallie.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Next time we call the AAA,” promised Al B. Harper. “For now we need you to attach this tow line.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“And also ask Miss Framlicker what the following list of words mean,” Hallie added.     Drury told her.     The Studio Agents broke free of the surface of Azathoth, trailing bloody tendrils of elder gore as they rushed forward with their contracts. The helicarrier tumbled over and over as the Shoggoth boiled away under the legal barrage and the shmoozing. Al B. Harper launched Vinnie De Soth into space towards the EEE firehouse.     The firehouse launched a Banzai Kitten back towards Vinnie.     When the two met there was the inevitable timespace implosion. ***     Ã¢â‚¬Å“They’re fighting something,” said Anna. The vibrations of battle warned that the Psychic Samurai and her party had found the enemy.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“That’s the idea,” hissed Morbid Mary. “Your own assassin said so. We miss out on the killing but we find the secret of how the dead here walk. Keep moving.”     The smoke-stained hallway led off into Emperor K’Ben’s suite of bedrooms. It was clear that the last Imperator of the Shee-Yar had enjoyed a rich and varied social life.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“We’d have been better if Chiaki had come with us,” Liu Xi worried.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Like we were going to let you three wander off on your own to find the great weapon, whatever it is,” Mary scorned. “Don’t worry. I know far more about death than your assassin anyway.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“She’s not an assassin,” Anna defended Chiaki. “She’s a samurai. A warrior with a code.”     Morbid Mary shrugged. “It’s not as if I care at all.” She paused to look through a shattered window down into the throneroom below. “That’s where K’Ben died. The rest of the Imperium fell within a solar cycle, but K’Ben screamed for three days before he finally met his end.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Is that how the dead rose, then? Some kind of final curse of the royal line?” Liu Xi speculated.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“That’s what we’re here to find out,” Mary declared. “So let’s get on.” Liu Xi didn’t follow so she called back, “I said get on, Earth wench.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Are you alright, Liu Xi?” checked Anna.     The young elementalist looked worried. “I thought I heard something, Someone. Calling.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Calling what?”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Calling for me.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Low level psychic assault,” Mary speculated. “I’m reading some massive necromantic signatures here. More than you’d expect even for the torture of the last king of a dead race. More than you’d expect even for the animation of an empire of zombies. Thaumaturgic energies that go right off the scale.”     Anna examined a wall. “Did the call come from over here? Only there’s a shielded energy mechanism behind this wall. It’s damaged or else even I couldn’t have picked it up on sensors. I think it’s a hidden door.”     Chiaki suddenly didn’t want that door opened.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Open it,” commanded Morbid Mary. When Anna hesitated she added, “Our comrades may be dying to buy us this time.”     Anna prized the hidden door back to reveal a dark corridor carved from ancient basalt.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“A tunnel.” Liu Xi generated a small light in the palm of her hand to peer into the shaft.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Writing,” Mary noted, spotting the runes carved along the sides of the wall. “I’ll program the grandmother box to…”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“It’s ancient Shee-Yar,” Anna interrupted. “I downloaded it when we were making preparations on Apocalyspe. This is a very old dialect, dating back to the very start of the first dynasty. This whole area was constructed right back then.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“You can read this?” Liu Xi asked. “What does it say?”     Anna assessed the glyphs. “It’s some kind of agreement. Very complex. A pact, I think.”     Morbid Mary’s technology caught up with Anna. “It’s an infernal pact for the success of the Shee-Yar Imperium. Payment is due when the Imperium finally falls.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Is that what caused those undead then?” Anna speculated. “I thought it was that agent of the Carnifex…”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Somebody triggered this,” Liu Xi sensed. “The pact was dormant, waiting. Somebody came here and… set it going again. For the Carnifex.”     Morbid Mary shook her head. “Wouldn’t work. The pact was defunct. The deal was off.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“What do you mean?” asked Anna.     Mary tapped the side of the wall. “Look who the pact was with. He’s destroyed.”     Anna translated the runes. “The Dread Dormaggadon, Lord of the Dreary Dimension. The Legion killed him. Twice.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“No wonder Shee-Yar fell soon after,” considered Morbid Mary. “But without Dormaggadon there was no power left to cause those undead to rise. It makes no sense.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Unless somebody found a new battery,” Anna considered.     Liu Xi suddenly turned and began to run forward. She vanished into the shadows, deeper into the ancient complex.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“After her!” cried Mary.     A heavy door of solid stone blocked Liu Xi’s way. She shattered it with a gesture.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Liu Xi, what’s wrong?” called Anna. “Liu Xi!”     The elementalist caused the braziers in the room to burst alight. Their lurid flames illuminated the sacrificial chamber where the first Shee-Yar Emperor had surrendered up his firstborn and made treaty with Dread Dormaggadon. The orange light played over the bloody stone slab and the corpse chained out across it: the new power source of an undead empire.     Liu Xi raced forward to embrace the dead man. “Exu!” she cried. ***     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Listen to her cry,” admired the man who had murdered the god of murder. He turned away from his scrying glass and the mourning Liu Xi Xian and licked his lips. “The weeping of women is music to be savoured.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“So’s the sound you’ll make when I rip off your arms and stuff them up your ass!” shouted Emmazon, struggling against the mystic bonds that restrained her.     Her captor negligently gestured and a mystical ball-gag clamped her mouth. “Liu Xi Xian was a chosen bride of the Parody Master – and she managed to convince his own Doomherald to defend her. They escaped together into the nothingness of Comic-Book Limbo and rebuilt themselves with nothing to draw upon but each other. So many secrets, these two, so intimately linked.”     The Psychic Samurai didn’t bother struggling against her bonds. She knew the magic couldn’t be overcome. She chose a different battlefield. “You wanted Liu Xi here on Shee-Yar Prime,” she accused. “It was no accident that the Carnifex had us sent here!”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Of course not, my pretty little warrior-wench. It was all part of the bargain. The Carnifex released me from my captivity and provided me with the Void Scholar’s grand-daughter. That plot was sufficient to attract the attention of Exu, the GatewayTraitorGalaxyTraveller! – and specifically that fragment of him which had once been split off by the Hooded Hood to become the Parody Master’s Doomherald.”     Large Lana also knew the mystic chains were unbreakable but she struggled all the same. “You used the herald’s weakness for the girl.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“He knew that the Doomherald would be provoked and empowered by the mass murder of the Imperium,” Chiaki surmised. “Add in the motivation to come rescue Liu Xi when she was fighting for her life with us against the Carnifex’s trap…”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“You set the two aspects of Exu at war with each other, the greater chaos manifestation and the dormant god of murder,” snarled Lana. She tried to shatter her chains again, sweating and heaving to no avail except her captor’s amusement.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Until they separated once more, yes,” he agreed. He leaned upon one of the vast undead ravengenjbeasts that served as his personal guard. “And whilst the Doomherald was weakened by his divorce from his greater aspect and distracted by the delectable little Liu Xi I arranged a little ambush.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Nobody should be able to murder the god of murder,” Chiaki objected. “In fact the Doomherald tried to provoke the Parody Master to try once because of how powerful it would make him.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“The Parody Master had nigh-infinite power,” conceded the enemy. “But he was not a god. One god may kill another. It’s practically the rule. I’ve killed many in my time and I’m planning to slaughter a good deal more.” He brushed his fingers admiringly over Lana’s cheek. “You will make a fine addition to my undead cohort,” he promised the Apocalyspian warrior. “All of you will.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Over our dead bodies,” said the Psychic Samurai. “I think I know who you are now.”     The gaunt black-mantled necromancer raised an eyebrow. “Do tell, toothsome little samurai girl.”     Chiaki shrugged. “I don’t think so. Play your games with someone who cares.”     Her captor squeezed his hand into a fist. Emmazon screamed behind her ball-gag as she was wracked with agony. She began to cough and choke as maggots welled from her nose and ears.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Leave her!” Chiaki called. “There is no honour in torturing captives.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Only amusement. Name me, my fragile toy.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“You know him?” Lana asked. “Speak his name, so I can properly say whose head I’ve spitted on my omni-rod.”     The Psychic Samurai summed up. “Powerful necromancer, self-proclaimed deity, served by undead Ausgardian monsters, and a penchant for tormenting female captives. This has to be the former Lord of Miserablegitheim, Donar’s foe, the dark mage Slithis.”     Lord Slithis was mildly impressed. “Donar’s doom,” he clarified. “And do you know how I am going to accomplish the death of the hemigod of thunder, his people, his realm, and everything he ever held dear, including your ridiculous little Middlinggard?”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“I’m sure you’re going to gloat about it to us.”     Slithis told her. Slithis showed her.     That was when Chiaki really began to be afraid. ***     Ã¢â‚¬Å“What are you doing to me?” demanded Lara Night, clutching at her head. “Stop it!”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“I’ve done nothing other than bring you here to the edge of reality,” the tyrant of Apocalyspe replied. “The rest is between you and that edge.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“It’s calling to me!” Lara gasped. “Promising to me…”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“It expects a decision,” Dark Thugos told her. “Here, on the cusp of all things, where your patrons may not interfere, may not restrain, where you are finally left to make one choice all by yourself.”     Lara turned her face towards the blistering darkness of nothingness and the secrets that called her there. “So dangerous… so beautiful…”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Like you,” Thugos told her.     Lara began to perceive his trap. “If I go out there… whatever happens you win. If I’m destroyed then you’ve eliminated a potential foe. If I’m absorbed into the wonderwall you gain a new clue to solving its puzzle. If I return changed then whether I’m your ally or your foe your evolution through conflict agenda is served.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“And if you die or simply go insane then I’ll finally have a suitable empty shell to host my Lady Death should she consent to visit me,” Thugos leered.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“I could just stay here. Turn back. Never go to the barrier.”     Dark Thugos chuckled. “You could run away and hide. You could return all the way back to that pale other world you escaped from, to the man who hurt you, to the life that killed you shred by shred in its daily mundanity. You could cower back to Parody-Earth and slink on the edge of the superhero community, hoping to be noticed and patted on the head once in a while when you do something useful to them. You could continue to be nothing and to mean nothing until you fade to pointless oblivion. But you will not.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“It’s not like that. I’m not a champion of life that you have to destroy me.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“How could you be a champion of life without ever having lived?”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“I’m not your enemy. There are ways we could co-operate together, things we can do for the benefit of your people…”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Sounds mundane, Lara Night. Sounds like something you might do to avoid facing what really matters.”     The wonderwall called to Lara. It’s tug was stronger now.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“If I go there then I’ll be committed,” she realised. “Forever bound by the knowledge I gain to be a part of the Parodyverse. Sundered from my home, from those who care about me there.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“If you are reborn as a newer god then that will no longer concern you,” Thugos told her. “If you go insane, it will no longer concern you. If you die it will no longer concern you.” He leaned forward so his burning dark eyes could lock Lara’s gaze. “This is the crucible of Dark Thugos, elemental. All is burned away in conflict until nothing remains but the pure essence.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“No,” objected Lara.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“You are powerful, but you cannot challenge me yet because you limit yourself.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“No. You wanted to know what I am? Well if I’m anything it’s a champion of balance. I don’t need your extremes. I don’t need to go to the wonderwall. I don’t need to change.”     Thugos sneered. He pointed away from the edge of the Parodyverse, back into the shimmering silver interior of the multiverse. “Perhaps you need one final spur?” he suggested. “So how events cluster around your friends. See how close they are to their deaths and to the birth of abomination.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“I can help them. I can go to them.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“You aren’t strong enough to help them yet. You are not pure enough.”     Here on the edge of all things Lara knew that Thugos spoke the absolute truth. “I cannot help them… unless I go to the wall and destroy myself to become something else.”     Dark Thugos folded his arms and awaited Lara Night’s decision. ***     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Exu!” Liu Xi Xian cried, tugging at the lifeless corpse on the alter. “Exu!”     Morbid Mary checked the body. “He’s dead,” she noted. “It happens.”     Anna checked her Lair Legion database. “This is the Doomherald!” she realised. “He kidnapped Liu Xi Xian then later courted her. When she rejected him he elected to merge with an avatar of chaos and be consumed.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Exu!” screamed Liu Xi.     Anna hurried to her friend. “I am sorry,” she said. “I do not know how he came to be here, in this chamber, in this condition. But if that is really him then somebody has done the impossible and killed him.”         Ã¢â‚¬Å“It was an insult trauma,” Mary observed. “Something thin and metallic and sharp, but flexible too. He was stabbed just once, right through the heart.” She glanced over at Liu Xi ironically.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“He’s the Doomherald!” Liu Xi objected. “He can’t be murdered. He is murder!”     Anna looked around, worried. Anything that was powerful enough to do that was a serious tactical problem.     Morbid Mary looked at the carvings around the altar and shuddered. “I can’t follow even half of this runecraft. It’s sophisticated stuff, and very ancient. Someone’s adapted the old Dormaggadon pact to something new and deadly.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“They’re energy flow calculations,” Anna supplied. “I don’t understand the forms of energy described but the math remains the same.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“What - what kind of energy flow?” Liu Xi was still clutching the lifeless form of an enemy, of a friend, of what might have been the love of her life. “There are forces passing through these walls, through this whole structure, through this world and beyond, but I don’t understand them. They’re beyond the elements – but familiar somehow. I’ve encountered them before.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Show me the calculations, warbot,” Morbid Mary demanded. “Let’s see what someone is trying to accomplish here.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“I’m not a warbot,” Anna denied. “I’m more than the sum of my parts.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Justify your pathetic existence later,” Mary snapped. “The calculations.”     Anna bit back a retort and scanned a summoning circle beside the sacrifice stone. “This was used to bring the Doomherald here,” she reasoned. “Some small part of his DNA was placed into the circle and then the forces of this temple were channelled to activate the summoning.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“He’d have to allow himself to be brought here,” Mary clarified. “Why would be consent to come into a trap?”     Anna glanced over at Liu Xi but did not answer.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Interpret the rest of these arcane engraving,” Mary demanded. “Quickly.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Say please.”     While Anna was unhappily conferring with the Apocalyspian technowitch, Liu Xi shattered the chains that had bound Exu to the altar. She scanned his body with her elemental skills but found only gross matter. Whatever spark she’d always felt inside the Doomherald was extinguished now.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“You were gone,” she whispered to the body. “It was over between us. Why did you come back? Why did you let yourself die?”     Across the room Morbid Mary burst into a long stream of GolGotham obscenities. “That’s not possible! No-one can make that happen! It’s not… it can’t be done!”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“The math says it can,” Anna pointed out logically. “The released force of the god of murder’s death has animated undead across the Imperium. That in turn has made the psychic essence of the murdered Shee-Yar available to be bound together into one powerful entity.”     Liu Xi looked up. She suddenly felt very cold. “We’ve encountered a gestalt creature bound from the life forces of an entire planet before,” she gasped. “We called it a Singularity Rider. A Doomwraith.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Somebody’s been studying the Parody Master’s formula,” Morbid Mary noted. “No wonder they used the Parody Master’s Doomherald as the trigger.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Ten thousand murdered worlds?” Anna said, her voice quiet and worried. “Ten thousand Singularity Riders?”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Or one immensely powerful one,” said Lord Slithis, appearing in the doorway. He released the Scarlet Strands of Saggeroth again, catching Mary before she could muster a defence, pinning Anna despite the robot’s resistance protocols.     Liu Xi seared the red-hued snakes as they slithered through the air before her.     Lord Slithis smiled thinly and released a Doleful Haunting of Dormaggadon into the young elementalist’s mind. The foul psionic entity burrowed right past the girl’s defences and plummeted deep into her secret memories.     And then Liu Xi was a prisoner of Exu the Doomherald, spending long evenings talking in his alpine chalet hideout.     And then she was cowering next to him, weak and naked in the soul-numbing chill of comic book limbo.     And then she was kissing him.     And then they were arguing, and Liu Xi couldn’t even remember why.     And Exu was departing forever, rejected, forsaken, despairing so much that he surrendered his very essence back to his ancient namesake.     And then he was back, to save her, to die for her. A dark figure with a familiar blade was stabbing him. And then the Doomherald died.     Liu Xi broke free of the psychic fear attack and unleashed her full elemental fury on Lord Slithis.     Nothing happened. In the seconds it had taken the girl to relive her choices and remorse, Slithis had managed to craft a spell of inhibition. Liu Xi could no longer access her gifts.     The scarlet bands smothered her, jerking her up to hang like a marionette.     Lord Slithis gestured to float Chiaki, Lana, and Emmazon into the chamber. He arranged his trophies in a circle around him where he could admire them. Now he had the full set and the entertainment could begin.     Anna attempted to activate her remote assault options. Somehow the magics prevented it. She stared across at the Psychic Samurai for a lead. Chiaki seemed to be meditating quietly in her bonds.     Morbid Mary tried to speak a counterspell and found herself choked off. The god of necromancers was a long way out of her league. Emmazon still thrashed at her shackles, her own blood running down her wrists and ankles where she’d tried to tear loose. Large Lana had ceased fighting for now and glared at Slithis was a killing fury.     Slithis enjoyed the sight of so many attractive captives at his mercy. “Some of you will join my personal staff,” he told the women. “You will have to die first, of course, to ensure your loyalty; but I shall make certain that you retain your wits so that you will remember who you were and be aware of what you will do as my slaves.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“An Apocalyspian will never be your slave!” shouted Lana.     Slithis wasn’t impressed. “Apocalyspians are slaves from the moment you are born,” he scorned. “Pathetic, savage creatures little better than the ravengenjbeasts that pad at my heels. None of you interest me half as much as these creatures from Earth: the construct of steel and lightning, the warrior with the shining soul, the grand-daughter of the void, who should not even exist any more.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“What do you mean?” Liu Xi frowned. “I don’t…”     Slithis cupped her chin and admired her tearful face. “Your lineage was never conceived,” he noted. “Therefore you are an anomaly, a cosmic accounting error. Some day the Parodyverse may recognise its mistake and simply reset so that you no longer exist. But until then you are… unique and fascinating.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Get off her!” Anna shouted. She tried emergency-detaching her limbs to break free of the scarlet sashes but somehow even those mechanisms were locked in place.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Something stalks you, little elemental,” Slithis went on. “It moves in the void you believe you manipulate and it creeps ever nearer. You do not see it but it sees you and it has such… purpose for you. I can save you from that terror.”     Chiaki was ahead of Slithis. “Liu Xi Xian, don’t accept his offer,” she called out.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“What offer?” Liu Xi asked. Slithis’ touch was cold and sticky on her skin.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Exquisite,” Slithis admired.     He room became colder as he smiled.     He looked back at the Psychic Samurai. He closed his fist to wrack Chiaki with agonies. He liked the way she squirmed when she was seared with pain. “Your clever friend has discerned the bargain I will offer you.”     The elementalist was suspicious. “What bargain?”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“I am Slithis, Lord of Miserablegitheim, god of necromancers. I have raised the dead of this Imperium. I shall use them to forge the greatest Doomwraith ever conceived. I shall loose its lethal fury against Augard and the Nine Worlds and naught will stay it, not the Oldman himself. I shall slay all while Donar Oldmanson watches and weeps. Nothing can gainsay this now, for I have triumphed.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“That’s what so many say before the roof comes down on them!” Anna shouted.     Slithis ignored her, obsessed with the smooth innocence of Liu Xi’s face. “I have slain your man, my beauty, your faithful Doomherald. You have no protector now. What is his becomes mine, the spoils of victory.”     Liu Xi bit his hand. It tasted stale and poisonous. “I wasn’t his. I’m not yours.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“You will be mine forever,” Lord Slithis promised. “Donar stole my bride. Now I have found another.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Always with the bride!” Anna wondered. “Always Liu Xi! I really need to upgrade my socialising protocols.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“I won’t,” Liu Xi spat at the god of necromancers. “I wouldn’t bow to the Parody Master. I wouldn’t let my grandfather mate me with Danny Lyle. I’m not going to yield to you, kuh-ooh duh lao bao jurn!”     Chiaki spasmed in agony again as Slithis took his revenge.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“I’m a man of simple pleasures,” Slithis told Liu Xi. “Contract marriage to me or I’ll take my pleasures out on your comrades. Slowly, methodically, painfully, as only a man who has studied the application of cruelty for millennia can. I will destroy each of them before your eyes then raise them as my undead slaves in eternal tormented servitude.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Don’t do it!” Anna called. “Don’t… tzzzzzzzzz!” Her plea was cut short as Slithis gave her pain.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“How fascinating that your creators gave you the capacity to experience agony,” the god of necromancers mused.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Leave them alone!” Liu Xi pleaded. “You set this trap to catch me. I’m here. Let them go.”     Lord Slithis smiled a worn ancient smile. “Very well, my bride. Wed me and I shall allow the mechanical girl and the spirit warrior to go free. Deny me and they shall serve in my undead retinue for eternity.” He sent spasms of agony through all his captives again just because he could. “Choose now.” ***     Ã¢â‚¬Å“It looks as if your friends need help,” Dark Thugos observed to Lara Night. “From this distance there is nothing you can do to save them – except go to the wall.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“You set this up,” accused Lara. “You knew about Slithis all along. Those undead he raised obeyed you! Someone had to give him the Doomherald’s DNA for the summoning.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Slithis is adept at striking bargains,” the tyrant of Apocalyspe owned. “I get an empire of undead slaves, the full resources of a powerful Imperium ready to sweep across the galaxy and bring death in my lady’s name. He gets his chance to create the greatest Doomwraith that ever was with which to destroy the old lesser gods.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“I should destroy you now,” Lara snarled.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“You may try,” Dark Thugos granted her. “You may assault me. You may threaten or plead. You may do nothing. You may leap beyond the edge to try and gain what you need to save your friends.” He folded his arms behind his back with a grim satisfaction. “At last we shall find out who you are, Lara Night.” ***     Annastassia floated through the soft atmospheric force-sheath that maintained a breathable environment in the Extraordinary Endeavour Enterprises firehouse and doffed her spacesuit helmet. “Look what I caught!” she called excitedly, dropping Vinnie de Soth on the grating. “Can I keep him?” ***     Lara Night turned away from the wonderwall. “One day, perhaps,” she told it. “But not today. Not at Dark Thugos’ behest.”     Thugos seemed disappointed. “So you are a mere keeper of balance,” he sniffed. “And you would rather let your friends die than allow yourself to change.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“There’s nothing ‘mere’ about keeping all in due proportion,” Lara answered. “One day you might learn that, but by then it may be too late for you. As for my friends, you’re missing the point there.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“And that is?”     Lara smiled. “They don’t need my help to get out of your trap and defeat Slithis. I believe in them.” ***     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Don’t,” hissed Chiaki. “Don’t make a pact with Slithis.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Wed him,” Morbid Mary advised. “He has great power and would give that power to you!”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“We don’t want you to sacrifice yourself, Liu Xi!” Anna cried. “I’m sorry we can’t help you but you mustn’t surrender to him.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Decide,” Lord Slithis told the young elementalist. “Living bride or broken bondslave. Two allies saved or all damned. My will be done!”     The despot of Miserablegitheim threw back his head and laughed. His dead monsters howled.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Let me out of these shackles,” Liu Xi told Slithis. She gestured to the blood-red magical bonds suspending her. “I won’t answer while I’m chained like a slave.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Your gift remains inhibited by my magics,” the necromancer warned as he released his bride to be. “Now, your consent. Or shall I begin my works on your comrades?”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“If I agree to wed you then they all go free,” Liu Xi insisted. “The Bitches as well as Chiaki and Anna.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“What?” demanded Large Lana. “Why would you do that? That makes no sense at all!”     Slithis shook his head coldly. “The three she-beasts from Apocalyspe are already forfeit. The offer is for your two Earth companions. Agree now or I shall slaughter one of them before your eyes.” Frost began to form on Anna.     Liu Xi blinked back tears. “I’m sorry,” she told Lana, Emmazon, and Mary. She held out her hand to Slithis. “I agree.”     Slithis clasped his hand to hers to seal the bargain.     Liu Xi seared his hand to charcoal with her elemental gift of fire.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Aaaagh!” screamed the dark mage. “What? How…?”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“You think I haven’t had a spell of inhibition put on me before?” the girl cried out. “Xander did that to me long ago! And I learned how to bypass it! Do you think I’m stupid?”     Slithis cradled his blackened skeletal claw and hissed. “Oh, you are stupid, Liu Xi Xian! You shall be mine and regret your stupidity for a howling evermore! Your friends shall suffer to the uttermost of my devising.” The god of necromancers dismissed Liu Xi’s follow-up assaults and pinned her to the wall with the Searing Spines of the Seraphus.     Liu Xi found her powers blocked again. Slithis hit her across the face with his good hand.     Chiaki managed to reach her toes to the wall and used them to push herself away. She floated slowly into Lana and Emmazon, then dominoed into Mary until they were all more distant from Slithis.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Powerless and faithless,” Lord Slithis said, looming over Liu Xi. “But pact-bound mine now! And nothing can save you.”     At a signal from the Psychic Samurai, Lana planted a boot to shunt Chiaki in the opposite direction again. Chiaki rolled her magic-bound form into Anna and shunted the android towards the summoning circle that had brought forth the Doomhearald. Anna twisted so her mystic shackles touched the runes to complete the arcane circuit once again.     The magics holding the android shorted out, grounded into the summoning ring. Anna sprang free, only to be pinned down by Slithis’ ravengenjbeasts.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“That circle was created to summon the Doomherald,” Slithis told her. “Nothing else.”     The reactivated circle began to glow.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“That was before I transformed the sample of Exu’s DNA that you used into someone else’s,” Liu Xi spat. “I can’t usually do that but I know Exu very well. Better than almost anybody. I’ve healed him and… and loved him.”     The ancient enchantments of the Shee-Yar crypt groaned into use one last time and summoned yet another being to the dark vault circle.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“And I know his DNA very well too,” Liu Xi grinned madly as Vinnie De Soth came to her summons.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Hello,” said the acting sorcerer supreme of the Parodyverse. “What’s all this then?” ***     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Maximum warp shunt!” shouted Al B. Harper. “Over-ride the quantum vector inhibitors and route the lepton bus through the narrative phase derectifier!”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“I guess that means Al is glad to see us again,” Amy Aston guessed. ***     The Shoggoth bubbled away from the gory inverted remains of another of Azafroth’s mad fiddlers. His gelid globules ignored Newtonian physics and recomposed into one roiling biomass. “I’d like to thank all the little people who made this massacre possible,” he told the minor elder servitors. “You know who you are. Well, those of you still in existence.”     The demon violinists decided it was a good time to perform on the other side of Azafroth. ***     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Explain to me again why every gadget on this bucket is exploding all at once,” demanded Colonel Dan Drury as his command deck burst into showers of sparks around him. He found a burning console to light his cigar on.     Hallie processed another set of calculations and overwrote the helicarrier operating system for the seventeenth time that second. “I think it’s only one explosion for every dimension we’re falling through,” she comforted the one-eyed masterspy. “We’re just falling through an awful lot of dimensions.” ***     Lord Slithis tangled the young Earth occultist in the Scarlet Sashes of Sagarroth. “Fool! Mage you may be but I am the god of necromancers! No power you possess can even begin to harm me.”     Vinnie caught the sashes, folded them into his pocket, and took one careful step back.     The EEE firehouse crashed through the roof and fell on Slithis. ***     The SPUD helicarrier shimmered into view in the dark skies above Shee-Yar Prime. It really needed a new paint job.     Hallie piloted a shuttle down to find Vinnie and retrieve the others.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“You have efficient backup,” approved Large Lana.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“We call them friends,” Anna explained to her.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Nobody goes anywhere until we get this firehouse winched back out of this evil undead temple,” Miss Framlicker insisted. “Harper!”     Morbid Mary checked beneath the structure for Slithis’ remains. “No body,” she said, disappointed. There had to be some good ingredients on a dead god of necromancers. “Only these slippers.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Vinnie!” Liu Xi cried. She buried herself in Vinnie’s arms and sobbed on his shoulder. “I didn’t know if you’d come. He killed Exu!”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Wow, look at the arcane engineering in this place,” Al B. Harper whistled. “It’ll take some serious defusing to, well basically not create Singularity Riders. Cody, get to work on the inscriptions. Kara, I want the n-space arcane interfaces calculated to at least ninety thousand decimal places. Amy, get me my golf bag, but unplug it first. And don’t tip it more than three degrees. Or shake it much. Stassia, any chance of a black coffee?”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“There are billions of troubled souls pinned here,” the Manga Shoggoth gurgled angrily. He twisted in an eye-watering manner and folded round on himself. He hissed and steamed slightly. “And now there are not,” he continued.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“The dead are still walking around,” Hallie worried.     There was a crash of Doom Tube as Dark Thugos appeared with Lara. “Those dead are the property of Apocalyspe, Lair Legion,” he warned. “You trespass now upon my domain.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“We’ll be going as soon as we’ve got this winch attached to my headquarters and the Shoggoth’s done whatever mind-sickening thing he’s doing to prevent Doomwraiths,” Miss Framlicker told him.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“And we’re taking Exu’s body,” Anna insisted; but the Doomwraith’s form had faded back into chaos.     Chiaki looked at the brooding heavy bulk of the absolute ruler of a realm of undiluted cruelty. “I believe we should take our leave now. Today hasn’t worked out quite how our host expected. We have fulfilled out duty to him. Now we go.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“I’ll be glad to get home and relax for a while,” admitted Hallie. “I could use a nice peaceful day at the Lair Mansion catching up on admin.”     Dark Thugos didn’t detain them on their way back to the helicarrier. He paused only to make a tiny bow to Lara. “Your body would have made an exquisite housing for my lady,” he told her. “As for your test at the wonderwall… that will only be truly over when you face that barrier.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“I can balance until then,” the strange visitor from another multiverse answered him. “Long after you fall.”     Drury waited until the carrier was loaded, filed away the aerial satellite photographs of Shee-yar Prime for later tactical evaluatio,n and gave the order to go home. ***     Lord Slithis was in pain. Growing new bodies itched. “That didn’t work out too well,” he snarled as the Earth helicarrier transwarped away. “My beautiful Doomwraith…”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“It went well for me,” Thugos approved. “I have worlds of undead minions for Professor Pandemonium to upgrade. I have the entire resources of the Shee-Yar Imperium. I have learned the nature of more of my adversaries.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“But I got squashed,” the god of necromancers hissed. “Had you not taken me to the wonderwall and brought me back transformed into a new deity I would have been destroyed; destroyed by those maggots.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Their time will come, my ally. The fall of the Carnfex has been good to me. The strong prosper as the weak fall.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“But the Night woman will not be joining the New Pantheon.”     Thugos frowned. “Not at this time. She is not yet ready. Despair has not yet hollowed out her soul and left her ready for the future. Give her time.”     Slithis hadn’t been that keen on the candidate anyway. “There are other, better potential recruits. The New Pantheon rises.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“It rises,” agreed the master of the entropy eyebeams. “Rises to Resolution. Today is not a defeat. Not even much of a setback in the larger experiment. Earth’s defenders remain strong so Earth may survive a while longer yet.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“I suppose I do still have a lien on the little elementalist girl,” conceded Slithis. “And I managed to extract what I needed for the godplague before that horrible Shoggoth wrecked my laboratory specimens.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Then our work can continue,” proclaimed the tyrant of Apocalyspe. He raised a clenched fist. “To the destruction of the old deities! To the end of the age of heroes! To the rise of the empire of blood!”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“To the doom of Ausgard and the fall of Donar Oldmanson!” added Slithis.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“To the destruction that will cascade from the breaking of the chaos champion’s lineage!” added Thugos. “The Doomherald’s death was but the beginning of those consequences.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“To the ravaging of the Mythlands and the devastation of Faerie!” anticipated Slithis.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“To the secrets of the Parodyverse, and its dissection to discover them!” added Dark Thugos.     The third man present, the man who’d killed Exu, the new god of murder, crossed his arms over his blood-stained armour and nodded. “What you said,” agreed the Chain Knight. *** Next Time At Last: CrazySugarFreakBoy! and the Lair Legion versus Aryan Ideal and his Pogroms of Purity! – but which side is the government on? Which seven members will Herbert P. Garrick allow to stay on the LL? What are the Lair Legion Protocols and who will survive them? All this plus Citizen Z vs Silicone Sally in Untold Tales #340: Clear and Present Danger *** Original concepts, characters, and situations copyright © 2010 reserved by Ian Watson. Other Parodyverse characters copyright © 2010 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.

An extremely enjoyable chapter. The trip to the Shee-Yar homeworld has been interesting, and I like the addition of the Red Shirts er, Battle Bitches. The scene with Thugos and Lara was great. I really think you've done a tremendous job taking what's great about his inspirations (though I'm much more a Darkseid fan than a Thanos one) and applying it the Parodyverse's own little continuity. And the part at the end checking in with the EEE cast was as fun as always.

Looking forward to more when you're rested and ready.

An extremely enjoyable chapter. The trip to the Shee-Yar homeworld has been interesting, and I like the addition of the Red Shirts er, Battle Bitches. The scene with Thugos and Lara was great. I really think you've done a tremendous job taking what's great about his inspirations (though I'm much more a Darkseid fan than a Thanos one) and applying it the Parodyverse's own little continuity. And the part at the end checking in with the EEE cast was as fun as always.

Looking forward to more when you're rested and ready.

An extremely enjoyable chapter. The trip to the Shee-Yar homeworld has been interesting, and I like the addition of the Red Shirts er, Battle Bitches. The scene with Thugos and Lara was great. I really think you've done a tremendous job taking what's great about his inspirations (though I'm much more a Darkseid fan than a Thanos one) and applying it the Parodyverse's own little continuity. And the part at the end checking in with the EEE cast was as fun as always.

Looking forward to more when you're rested and ready.

Dark Thugos would be disappointed by the truth. Lara wasn't selected because she's a champion of life, it's because she's a champion of *balance*. Shema herself is the champion of life, which is why she trusts the choices of her "guardians" of whether to harm living creatures or not. He might be further disappointed when he learns how capable she is of killing (the dark side of the balance).

But...the fact that she's a champion of balance also helps her understand the formula possibly better than Dark Thugos ever will, in certain ways. Whoever created it probably did so in a way that someone who believes only in life or only in death would never understand it completely. Even if Lara tried to explain it to him, he would never understand.

As for the others, I think it's pretty obvious the Apocalypsians with Chiaki, Liu Xi, and Anna are there to sort of hold them hostage in case Lara doesn't cooperate. Chiaki probably knows that too, and is mentally preparing herself. Fortunately Anna doesn't trust them one bit, and is probably the only one with the capability to seriously harm them.

It sounds to me like Shee-Yar is getting some kind of Matrix-like fantasy projected there.

And EEE better not be too happy, it's just as likely Al B Harper and Drury will get them killed as save them.

Wahoo indeed! I do enjoy your outer-space stories, and this one had three great setting as backdrops to some very interesting character interactions. I especially liked Thugos here... he's become a much more intriguing villain as the years have gone by.

Girl's night out on Shee-Yar is pretty disturbing, even more so with the living company that Chiaki, Liu Xi and Anna have to endure, let alone the wandering dead. I think it's going to be a while before the tourism industry recovers out there. "Come back to Shee-Yar..." commercials alone won't do it.

Nice to see the EEE crew hold up so well under pressure. Actually, its a treat to see them at all, so I'm glad they've been rescued... although I'm not sure they're all out of the woods yet.

I quite enjoy the Parodyverse's merging of tropes from the mainstream comics but these days I also feel we have to try and add something so it's not just a straight rip-off. Having been responsible for introducing more than a few copies of actual comics characters in my early days on the BZL - Drury, Graham, Hagatha, et al - I feel obliged to try and move them forward when I can.




Well, "rested" was a euphemism for "when I've recovered from being called by the district nurses to drive over to my mother's house since she wasn't answering the door". Having braced myself for the worst it turned out she was just very weak and now she's back staying with us. But it's 3.15am here and I've just been up tending to her, so my sleep patterns continue to be somewhat innovative. My writing patterns are likely to be equally unpredictable.

Like all good archvillains he'll find an upside in most outcomes. The secret is to find the one where he doesn't.




I suspect that no one individual can ever really grasp the secret (otherwise why go to the trouble of constructing a whole Parodyverse full of folks to work on it?). Arguably every individual is required to get the answer.

But Thugos is right in hoping that throwing Lara at the wall would have some interesting results. They're just not neccessarily beneficial.




The Bitches are certainly prepared for serious trouble from the wardroid if it comes to that.

I've already written the next sections with this cast in it and I've had fun working with the Apocalyspians' perceptions of their Earth companions. They certainly see Anna as a warbot, one of a respected class on Apocalyspe. They suspect Chiaki of being an assassin (like Thugos' personal assassin Kwatrain, who once took half the Legion down before being stopped). Liu Xi's a bit more difficult to peg but probably would get some respect if they found out who her grandfather was.




It's a plain good old-fashioned haunting. The reason for the haunting will become clear as the chapter progresses.




The main thing to avoid is waking up Azafroth. If he waked up then all the Fairly Great Old Ones wake up. Then it's game over.

I still want to know what happened with him at the disco in Dancer #50 though.




I thought it would be fun to include a second all-girl team from the other side of the tracks. Roughly speaking Lana is the powerhouse, Emmazon is the berserker, and Mary is the spooky emo one.




The woods were in Forest Week. They're not out of the tentacles yet here.

I guess the upside is the very thing I mentioned above that he doesn't realize yet: That even without force or coercion, Lara might actually aid him with things that don't have to do with destroying the universe.

It's part of a belief of hers, that rather than let Dark Thugos obtain what he wants through destruction and violence, if she does it, it would be far more gentle.





Oh I didn't think Lara would grasp the entire secret, but she might understand the pieces far better than Dark Thugos might because he's so single minded about its purpose.





The problem is, if the results are abstracts she might understand them but have trouble explaining it to someone with more linear thought processes.





That might be where they finally learn Anna wasn't kidding about being Earth technology - she wouldn't respond to their usual kill switch commands, and will generally ignore their orders.





Anna would hate being called a warbot, she hopes she evolved beyond that. Chiaki would hate being called an assassin - she's samurai, not ninja - but she would probably ignore them calling her that. Liu Xi has been called so many thing, she barely reacts anymore.








I meant that the zombies seem to think they're still alive too.








That's going to be difficult, with all the noise they usually make.

I suspect that voluntary co-operation isn't really high on Thugos' belief list.




Thugos' limitation is that he'd probably view that as weakness.







I'd prefer to say that she'd have different understandings than the being who has devoted millenia or research to the problem.







As you'll note from section two, the consequences of an up-clse encounter with the wonderwall and its secrets range from destruction to becoming a "new god". Knowledge of this kind inevitably transforms or destroys.







That's why they're prepared for trouble - or believe they are. Plenty of Apocalyspian droids remove their override mechanisms and programming restraints. Apocalyspe isn't big on safety features.







It's partly an insult, since that's how Apocalyspians interact with each other, and its partly three people from a very alien society trying to work out how and where the Earthers fit. It's getting-to-know-you stuff.







They're mindlessly carrying out their default daily routines - a kind of undead habit.







See chapter two.

And here I thought that sailors cussed because they were stuck on a boat with nothing but hard labor and other swarthy men... Turns out it might be a defense mechanism to keep Dagon from driving them insane. I always thought those limericks could be powerful if chanted. Good thing Muffy knows the lingo.

Things grow ever more intriguing. The reveal at the end of part 2 seems like something I should have seen coming, but it was a well done surprise. The creepiness of the setting was used to good effect, and the action scenes were tense and fun. I like the inclusion of the Bitches here, as the Earth girls are all a little too even tempered of a cast to make sparks fly. The addition of a rougher element to the mix really lets them shine, though.

I really hope Lara doesn't come back as quite as much of a dick as most of the newish gods we've meet. I'm thinking it's probably best that she skip the wall thing entirely. Just because you're visiting a new place doesn't mean you have to hit all of the tourist attractions, after all.

The EEE rescue team are still an odd mix, and yet are proving to be a great deal of fun together. I really hope they don't all die. I'd say the nod to a place for round-robin continuity suggests they make it back, but it's less clear, even having read the round robin, just how sane they are when they return. Of course, that's mostly because it wasn't clear how sane they were going in...

Lots of fun... looking forward to the next part once the rest of the board wanders back around.

She's known Al for quite some time. This was probably therapeutic.




You know how I hate to have unusued characters just cluttering up the Parodyverse.




No point in throwing our heroes into an alien culture if there's no-one to culture clash with.




I suspect that seeing something ike the wonderwall changes your perspective of the little people.




You seem to have this obsessive fear that I'll kill characters. I haven't offed any cast since three issues back now.




Yes, I'm wishing there was more activity. I could use some distractions right now.

Unlike Darkseid, who has gotten kind of watered down over the years, Thugos remains a pretty spectacular cosmic badass.

Amy sure has come a long way from being a car mechanic; she and the whole EEE crew were doing very well without Al around.

Miss F tossing expletives at Al as a way to vent her emotions and hold back the madness of Azafroth was clever; she always makes the most of any situation.

I wasn't expecting Exu to show up; curious to see what kind of power still resides in him since he was powered by the Parody Master.

~Hat~

Lara might actually be patient enough to explain it - cooperation takes far less energy and time. She might even explain that she too has the ability to terrorize and torture people, but it's a lot less efficient and harder on the conscience.





The way I see it, it's like asking two people to look at a depressing-looking painting done in dark colors - one is more logic-oriented, another is more abstract/creative oriented.

The logic oriented person will study its history and tell you what the painting is of, what it's painted with, who it was painted by, and even recall the story behind it.

The abstract type, even if they've never seen the painting before, would look at it once and say, "Why was this painter so sad?"





At some point she may start to run it through her mind as something that might be really bad for the Parodyverse. As someone with her abilities, she always tries to be conscious of limiting how much damage she causes.

Though it may also be that the secret she's designated to learn from the wall would be something she already learned from Shema about the secret of creation, and the big revelation might be something that changed her already once back home.

It's partly why she's so conscious of what kind of damage she might be causing. The big secret she learned back home was how interweaved everything is, and about balance. It was something that changed her, because she started to think about how the planets and stars and elements were all related and linked.

Then again, it could be a blank reflective silk parchment like the Dragon Scroll in Kung Fu Panda: "There is no secret ingredient". Which is funny, except when you realize it's actually pretty clever - it's a clear message to whoever has the natural tendency to be able to understand it.





Anna has no safety features any longer. Except for her own conscience.





Chiaki could care less about insults. Anna might be a little offended, but she's gotten actually too good at measuring her temper. Liu Xi would insult them right back, in Chinese if she runs out of English.








Noted.

An interesting sojurn into the Shee-Yar palace. From your description of the monsters I thought they might be Apocalyspian War Hounds, but odds are Emmazon and Company would have recognized them. It seems they do have a mystical master though: could one of the Dead Hell Lords be returning? Or maybe even worse: the Chain Knight? He was Death for a while, as I recall. Quite a surprise revelation at the end as well. Poor Liu Xi. I won't say poor Exu because he was kind of a knob.

The stuff in the Center of the Universe was fun too. I noticed besides evil violin players, the heroes had to face Agents and Critics as well. Anything metatextual going on there?

Looking forward to the next part.

Finally Dark Thugos get past his long-winded hint-heavy explanation and gets to the point. The question Lara has to think about now is...does Thugos really want her coming back as a new god? That might be dangerous to him. It's a question for Lara, of course, because that means chances are he doesn't expect her to survive the trip.

If Exu is voluntarily animating those corpses, he's going to get a real scolding out of Liu Xi. Also, she's not the same fearful apprentice elementalist she was when he last met her. She's more in charge now, so he'll find it much more difficult to manipulate her. Except I have the feeling she won't get the chance, because the Bitches are probably going to execute him first.

I also find it interesting that though the Bitches are disciples of Thugos, they seem to be letting Chiaki take command by default, even though Chiaki isn't really commanding, she's just following her instincts. That hints to the possibility that though they're toughened warriors, they're really just scared, and want to follow anyone who appears not to be.

Why do I get the feeling Vinnie meeting that Bonsai Kitten is going to be another episode like Vinnie and Kerry, and Liu Xi is going to be very angry?

Now you can moan about me only giving you a one-sentence reply.

Why should I moan when I have such a creative range of torments available to me.

Have you put the washing up away yet?

Thugos doesn't seem to think in terms of danger to himself. He holds the opinion that if he can provoke someone to become stronger and more ruthless than him, even if that someone destorys him, then his work is done. Transforming Lara into a monster would be a victory.




You may have missed the import of our cliffhanger ending. Exu is dead. It's his murder that is powering the entire empire of undead. Someone else is responsible.




Well, the Bitches are detailed to support (and observe) the humans but it remains a human mission. I think they also respect strength and competence. And if Chaiki is an assassin they don't want to get on the bad side of her. They have to sleep sometime.




I have no idea.

It's a whodunnit alright. We've seen the villain before and it's not the Necromancer General (a poster suggested that Bogdan wasn't a very dangerous occult threat so I'm trying to up my game). Some of the clues are there, albeit rather arcane ones.




Only in that I'm trying to logically extrapolate what other sanity-mangling but still Parodyversian stuff might happen there. Lovecraft described blind galaxy-sized Azathoth lulled in his sleep by madly cavorting pipers; the Parodyverse tends to distort even elder gods through its unusual lens.

I don't actually have an agent and the only real critics I hear from these days post at the PVB!




I didn't write it today so there may be a delay.

I'm delighted to hear it.




I believe a good supporting cast should be able to sustain a scene or even a story without their principle.




I like my characters to be smart; especially the ones that are supposed to be smart.




Exu gains his power from murders. Murder makes him stronger.

Last we saw of him, the Doomherald had remerged with the original Exu, the JanusJunctionGatewayTraveller whom he'd diverged from at the dawn of time, and had effectively ceased to exist as an individual seperate from the orignal champion of chaos. Now it seems that the god of murder is back - and may have been murdered!

Thugos has freed himself from the tyranny of conscience.













Good illustration.







We'll try to reflect this in our closing section.




I suspect this wall is Parodyverse-specific - and may even have something to do with why the Carnifex was dispatched to the Parodyverse.







Or it could be a big number 42.







Like everyone else.







Noted.

I'm starting to see things more clearly now. Thugos believes that if he gives Lara limitless power, it will make her loyal to him, so he can use her for his evil purposes. The fault with that logic is Lara has already learned how to handle being powerful, and she hasn't turned evil yet.

In fact, it's not even guaranteed that she would take him down, because she always tries to consider the consequences first: Who depends on him for survival, and what will become of them; and what kind of worse evil would take his place.

Or I could be wrong, and the act of someone reading the wonderwall personally would cause destruction of the Parodyverse, and Thugos wants her to believe it's her fault. Or maybe he's confident she'll learn something from it that prompts her to want it destroyed.





That's an easy mistake to make, since he can resurrect as easily as anyone else who has.





Now that might be funny, because while Chiaki hates being called an assassin, she might use that to appear threatening to the Bitches so they can't push her around. Chiaki does have a bit of a sense of humor.









Is that anything like asking if the Hooded Hood planned this all along?

But not the tyranny of efficiency.





Thugos may be smart enough to figure out when he doesn't have the right kind of mindset to understand the next piece of the wall.








Noted.





That might be funny, since Thugos would never believe Lara if she reported that back.








Pretty much. And yet look how well it performs as a safety measure for Anna.

I've always liked the Al/Muffy pairing, whether they're a romantic couple or just coworkers who keep coming back to each other. There are only a handful of such long-running relationships in the PV, and I always enjoy it when we explore these two a bit more.





I think all of Shee-Yar knows that. In fairness though, it's a pretty big universe... it's not like we're always tripping over them. Or are you just trying to shorten the list for any Who's Who revision?

By the way, did I see in a reply somewhere that an update is coming? If so, I'd suggest a call out to the board to look over their own entries and see what needs updating, especially any references to supporting cast members. I believe I had a hell of a time verifying anything about CSFB's little brother Oliver for my future Griffin story.

I admit, I have trouble writing those character summations because I can never decide where to draw the line on information. Explaining Magweed and Griffin alone seems to spiral out of control.





You know I always enjoy having nasty characters around to push people's buttons. If spiffy hadn't provided me with Fleabot to provide mildly sarcastic commentary, at the very least, I doubt Vizh would have lasted nearly as long as he has.

On a side note, I was in the bookstore the other day and I saw a recent issue of Avengers where *Spoiler* Hank Pym asks Loki to join the team, which while insane, I do think could have been great fun. I still wouldn't mind trapping such a character into being a Legionnaire, officially or not.





That reminds me, I never fully finished the "Hallie regains her memory" tie-ins from Saving the Future, where I was supposed to finally reveal what Hagan keeps trying to get out of Hallie and why it scares her so.

I know you don't approve of leaving things unfinished, but I wonder if it's not better plugged into something more current and relevant now.





Not at all.

Now I just have to work all of my favorites that might be in some kind of danger in this story into that St. Patrick's Day bar scene.


By the way, I liked the little bit about Chiaki's sword cutting through some magical defenses. Desmond Djinn's people will definitely have to throw that one into a forge and melt it down for scrap someday.

That's why he has scientists ripping brains out of geniuses for his Brains Trust.

Poster-Al looked like he was getting characer-Al and Miss F together for a while back there but then it seemed to go cold again.







It doesn't work that way. Characters just get copy/pasted to the Deceased section. it only ever gets longer.

As I recall someone set up a wiki for Who's Who that anyone could update but I don't think anyone ever did.




It's on my to-do list sometime but a little way down it. We'll probably need a revision after the next two or three Untold Tales.




I generally create a link to a dedicated page where people can be as long-winded and detailed as possible.

I'm also toying with the idea of asking posters to suggest one story I can link to for each character that best illustrates what that character is like and to provide a quick writers guide for others using that character (essential info, dos and don'ts etc.). But I'll probably think better of it.




Does Dark Thugos count?




Well, there's always Danny.







I'm sure there's an elegant way to weave it into something more contemporary, perhaps as a confession to Vizh before some significant romantic advance.

Actually, what I'd really love to read (or maybe even write sometime) is a sit down girls talk between the two insubstantial guardians of Parody Isle, Hallie and Marie. I can't recall that they've ever had a really substantial scene together.

One's the supernatural ghost of a murdered Victorian. The other's a scientific ghost based on the engrams of a murdered scientist. Both have been touched by the Celestians. Both have to reside in the Lair Mansion whether they want to or not. Both have secrets they hold pretty closely. Both are going to have to deal with their Herringcarp Asylum counterpart before very long.

We'll certainly get to understand his motives in-story, but two acceptable outcomes (to him) are that Lara returns changed and empowered and either works for or against him in bringing forward evolution through conflict.




It's certainly not guaranteed that she could take him down since he's one of the toughest characters in the Parodyverse, and he's far more ruthless and experienced at weilding vast power than any newbie deity.




Noted.







There's certainly more to the story yet - a villain's extended gloat, for starters (and the villain behind this is a well-established gloater).







Kwatrain's Assassin Corps are bad people to annoy on Apocalyspe if you wish to safely eat, sleep, breathe, touch things...







Possibly.