Untold Tales of the Resolutionverse #361: The Moral Choice Previously: Untold Tales of the Parodyverse #356 #357 #358 #359 #360 Cast descriptions in Who's Who in the Parodyverse Place descriptions in Where's Where in the Parodyverse Over 1000 previous stories at The Hooded Hood's Homepage of Doom And in summary for the link-phobic: After an attempt by former cosmic power Wilbur Parody to rewrite the Parodyverse to his liking that ended with the celestial infrastructure in tatters, the Dreaming Celestian Space Robot has awoken unrestricted to fulfil his great intentions. Primarily amongst these is to conduct the Resolution War, the last great conflict of the Parodyverse that will reveal the Answer for which the Parodyverse was created. At midnight tonight, all heroes and all villains will clash without mercy – or choice – in a lethal fight to the finish. All the combatants know what is coming. None can evade it. Thereafter the survivors and the Parodyverse will no longer be required and it can be shut down. *** 34. Danny Lyle at the End of the World     Harlagaz Donarson loomed over Danny Lyle and glowered at him. “Why art mine lady Vespiir weeping?” he demanded in menacing tones.     Denial glared back at the demihemigod of thunder. “Come with me into the kitchen and I’ll tell you.”     â€œGo,” urged R.J. Clement, the Mutate Liberation Army, as he sat beside the tearful Caphan seeress. “I’ve got this.”     â€œKitchen, then,” Gaz agreed, still offering Danny the Ausgardian Whomping Stare.     They entered the cluttered student dormhouse cooking area and closed the door.     â€œGaz,” Danny blurted at once, “you’re my friend. You’ve got to kill me.”     â€œWhat dids’t thou say to Vesp?”     Danny shook his head. “It’s not that. She sees glimpses of the future, but right now all she’s seeing is hundreds of different ways that all of us die at midnight tonight. But I asked her to focus – made her focus – on me and Kes.”     â€œThou wished to knoweth what becamest of yon true love.”     â€œI wanted to know whether I killed her.”     Harlagaz paused. “What?”     â€œThink about it, big guy. You’re all heroes. Most of you Juniors are either related to big good guys or you’re patterned on them. And you’ve earned your H-cards the hard way, doing good things. I’m the son of the Hooded Hood. An alternate version of me became the Moderator and almost conquered the Parodyverse – by hunting down and draining the life out of hundreds of alternate-reality versions of Kerry. I once claimed Herringcarp Asylum, the Portal of Pretentiousness, and leadership of the Purveyors of Peril and pointed them all at the Parody Master. You know now that I murdered the leader of Young Heckfire in case he one day threatened Kes again.”     â€œI hast no problem with that one,” Harlagaz pointed out. “Yon Lord and Master didn’t need crushing like unto a squirmingickcarrion of Ukgard.”     â€œYou might not mind. The law and the Lair Legion would have a different view. But the point is I’m not on the side of the angels. I hang with you guys because you’re my pals. I fight the people who fight you. I sometimes do the right thing because that’s what Kerry would want. But tonight, at midnight, when that imperative we’re all feeling in our brains cuts in and overrides everything, which side of goodies vs. baddies do you think I’ll be on?”     Harlagaz considered it. “‘Tis a difficult one.”     â€œNot according to Vesp. I’m on Team Evil. And specifically, I’m on Team Evil aimed against the set of white hats who are most narratively interesting for me to fight. That’s the Juniors. That’s Kerry.” Danny gripped the edge of the counter top. “If you don’t kill me first, I will murder Kerry. Just like the bloody Moderator did. Only I’m better than him, so I’ll be more effective.”     â€œMayhap you underestimateth Lady Kerry for the nonce?”     â€œWhat, you mean she might take me down first? She kills me instead? Yeah, she might. But what does that do to her, huh? Say she survives this fight and the imperative goes away and she remembers burning me up. What do you think that does to her?”     â€œNaught good.” The demihemigod scratched his dirty blonde locks. “‘Tis a bafflement.”     â€œI’m probably not the only one going through this pre-Resolution War imperative-anxiety,” Denial admitted. “All those heroes with no-kill policies that they’re going to abandon at twelve. All those villains with long-term plans that will be wrecked by a big brutal final brawl. Heck, Kes and I aren’t the only couple who are or have been that’ll find itself on different sides. What about CSFB! and his baby-mama Pelopia? G-Eyed and Citizen Z? Or families that will fight, siblings versus siblings, parents against children? The Harpers are probably a small war zone just by themselves, assuming anyone can straighten out the family tree enough to decide who’s still in continuity.”     â€œThere must be some means of avoiding such clashes.”     â€œThat’s the whole point. There isn’t. I’ve been probing this imperative. It’s not pushing us to kill the opposition yet but it’s still operating in other ways. Push at it, Gaz, and you’ll see. You can’t sedate yourself, or lock yourself away, or even cripple or kill yourself. It’s not allowed. Anything you do to try and put yourself out of the coming fight is vetoed.”     Gaz was puzzled. “Why would’st I want to miss yon fight? ‘Twill be right glorious for the nonce, the final Ragnarok, wherein all felons art smitten to the uppermost into…” He caught Denial’s expression. “Ah, but other views might vary, I see.”     â€œYeah. We vary. I don’t want to fight the Juniors. You guys are really good but I know you, know just where to strike. It would be brief and it would be lethal, and there’s a good chance that I’d end up doing the one thing I swore I would never do in all of time and space: hurting my Kerry.” Danny blinked moisture from his eyes. “So that’s why I need you to kill me now, Gaz. Please.”     â€œArt that allowed?”     â€œIt’s borderline. There are already some minor hero/villain clashes happening in advance of the main event. Some villains wanted to get a head start. Some heroes like to be proactive. SPUD and HERPES are already more or less at Defcon 1. The League of Righteous Vampires is tackling the Shapeshifter’s Guild. The Xnylonians and the S’Zox are absolutely failing to find each other. So if you attacked me you wouldn’t be inhibited.”     â€œI art never inhibited when I attacketh.”     â€œAnd I’d be forced by the imperative to prevent myself from being taken out of the game early. But I can Deny that for a minute or so; just manage to suspend that tiny part of the overwhelming genetic-psychic-mystic over-ride that’s compelling us all to this insane big clash. I can free myself from the command to resist you snapping my neck long enough for you to do it.”     â€œAnd… thou art dead.”     â€œCan you see another way, big guy? To save Kes?”     â€œNo.”     â€œNeither can Vesp. This is it. So I’m asking you, as my friend, as Kerry’s friend… end me. Now, while I can still bypass the imperative.”     â€œAnd what dost I tell mine lady Kerry when she asketh why I hast slain thee?”     â€œI’ve left some letters for people, explaining. Good-byes. Thank yous.”     Harlagaz swallowed hard. “This art bravery, Danny Lyle. This art heroism. Tis far from villainy. Mayhap thou hast changed sides now?”     â€œVesp says not. That’s why she’s crying. Will you help me, Gaz?”     â€œAye.”     Danny’s eyes glowed green. “Make it fast.”     Harlagaz lashed out and snapped Danny’s neck. *** This section comes after AnimeJason’s tie-in Fair Fight     â€œWell, that was hardcore,” VelcroVixen approved. “And I’m not talking about that memorable night when I showed a Young Heckfire newbie the difference between Dollar Date or Silicone Sally and a real supervillainess. You must really like that Shepherdson girl you had to marry.”     â€œIt was handfasting,” Danny insisted. His neck hurt. “You did not take my pants.”     â€œActually I didn’t, which is why you can’t deny them back. I think Harlagaz’ Aunt Hoki has them, over in the Consequence Tent. There are some clothes over there you can wear. I even provided a Rebel Without a Cause jacket.”     Danny looked around him. He was under canvas, a small striped awning that contained only a single bed and some medical monitoring equipment. “I died,” he insisted. “Did my father retcon it?”     â€œNot this time,” VV informed him. “This is rather more complex.”     â€œSo the Hooded Hood is involved.” Danny took the complexity as conformation. “Where are we?”     The tent-flap moved aside and a woman in the sluttiest possible version of a nurse’s uniform looked in. “Hello, lover,” Suicide Blonde greeted Danny. “Welcome to the Destiny Carnival.”     â€œBambi? I thought you were dead? There were rumours…”     â€œYes. The Destiny Carnival is one of the established half-way zones between life and the afterlife. Like the Ghost Taxi Company and the DMV. Some people here are alive. Some of dead. A lot haven’t yet made their minds up. So naturally when I had a spot of bother I ended up back on the payroll.”     Danny knew a little about the dimension-wandering predatory Carnival. “I thought Colonel Destiny was pretty thoroughly stomped by the Lair Legion back in the days before mobile phones.”     â€œThere’s always a Colonel Destiny at the Destiny Carnival, lover,” Bambi Bacall insisted. “This one has had us out on some pretty distant tours. But of course we had to return for tonight’s showdown. One last performance, and a gory time is guaranteed for all!”     Danny decided that trousers were a good idea at present. He got dressed.     â€œSo am I an exhibit now?” he asked the two watching villainesses.     â€œNo. Just a punter,” Suicide Blonde admitted. “We’re doing a favour for the Hooded Hood.”     â€œWhich is why I’m here,” VelcroVixen explained.     â€œAnd Hoki, the Ausgardian god-slash-goddess of wrecking people’s days?” Danny asked.     Suicide Blonde shivered. “She’s about the nicest of the people doing their hoodoo in the Consequence Tent. That’s how you were brought back, Danny. Best not to look too closely at the detail.”     â€œYeah, that doesn’t work for me, Bambi. Why did the Hood want me back this way? It’s not like I didn’t go to a lot of trouble to avoid tonight’s killing spree. And where’s this Consequence Tent?”     â€œThe Hood wanted you back for a number of reasons, naturally,” Vicki Vee answered. “The tent is across the causeway, the black one with the miasma of evil floating around it. I strongly recommend you don’t look in there.”     Danny pulled his jacket on and left the tent.     â€œHow soon they grow up,” Suicide Blonde said to VelcroVixen sadly. ***     Denial made his way across the Carnival. Night had not yet fallen so the fairway was not open to visitors or victims. The tents and caravans were mostly closed, only their gaudy painted signs promising the wonders and horrors they contained: Mystic Morgosa’s Crystals of Revelation, Enormous Irma’s Pie Challenge, the Maze of the Mirror Murderer, Suicide Blonde’s Sensual Snakes, Hotstuff the Fire Vomiter, the Revolting Reverse-Satyr, Axo the Amputator & His Museum of Limbs, Sado and His Perilous Performing Pygmies, Wexford the Dissected Man, Vasto the Wonder Frog.     Danny frowned especially at Dr Loveray’s House of Enthrallment; Kerry had bad experiences with someone using that technology.     He was able to find the Consequence Tent very easily. Nothing else was pitched near it. Even the vardo wagons seemed to have edged away.     Danny ventured inside.     Three terrible females presided over the complicated techno-mystical diagram that filled the tent. Danny surmised that the one with the improbably horned helm – or possibly it was her head – must be the Ausgardian Hoki. Another matched the painting outside the tent of Mystic Morgosa, although Morgosa Le Fey was much more beautiful and terrible than any mortal image of her. He did not immediately recognise the one with the blaze of blue flames around her head.     â€œHi,” he said. “I have questions.”     â€œHe came!” Morgosa snorted. “That’s ten souls you own me, Vesperine.”     At the name, Danny looked more closely at the third woman with the blazing coronet. Although her skin was leached albino white, she might have been an adult version of the Caphan seeress had had left weeping a short while before. “Vesp?”     The entity that turned her attention on him was the worst of the three. She eyed Danny with bleak assessment, reading him and determining which of his possible futures would be the worst to direct him towards.     â€œOh, you recognise Vesperine, Lady of Torments,” Hoki exalted. “Oh, this should be good!”     â€œI’ve moved on a lot since I was the timid Caphan exile,” Vesperine promised Danny. “That was… such a long time ago. Before my damnation. Before hell. Before I clawed my way from supposedly-eternal torment to claim my place as a hell-lord. Before you helpfully removed my principal rival Grimpenghast for me, allowing me so much more opportunity.”     â€œYou are not future-Vesp,” Danny denied; but he felt his power shiver off that future, leaving it unchanged.     â€œYes. Let’s leave that one to fester for a while, shall we?” Hoki suggested. “Tell the boy what’s happened and let’s get on to the interesting stuff.”     There was something pinned in the middle of the glowing diagram. Danny couldn’t quite discern what it was.     â€œWhat you see here is a collection of three different mystic traditions,” Morgosa revealed. “Each of us owed a service to your father. Hoki for him aiding her escape from the Oldman’s confinement while Ausgard was shifting to Comic-Book Limbo. Vesperine for him initiating the chain of events that led to war in hell and the downfall of her opponent. Me for him destroying the King of Stories, the supposed First Chronicler, and releasing me to be what I was before I served my own term as Chronicler of Stories, a half-fey enchantress of puissant power. So, divine magic, infernal magic, and Faerie magic, each combined to achieve what none might do alone.”     â€œTo bring me back from my escape plan?” Danny objected.     â€œYour father still has uses for you,” Vesperine gloated.     â€œI’m not talking to him.”     â€œYou will now,” Hoki snickered.     Danny ignored her. He focussed his attention on the blur in the magic circle. His eyes didn’t want to rest on it. He denied that it was beyond his sight.     First he saw the chains; hundreds of them, barbed and hooked, rusting but unbreakable. He recognised them. “These were part of the Chain Knight. You’ve got his corpse here. You’re using it to bind something.”     â€œThe Heckraiser spent a period as the personification of Death,” Morgosa mentioned. “That and his proclivity for locks and bonds makes his corpse the ideal medium for this operation.”     Danny forced his denial further.     He saw the person laying in the chains. She had been mostly vivisected, her organs trailing from her body to connect to nodes of the magic lattice that surrounded her. She wasn’t dead, because she couldn’t be – at least not for long. So she hung in agony, dying over and over, as her power was bled from her.     â€œWho’s that? What have you done to her?”     â€œOh, she’s the way we brought you here, Daniel,” Vesperine told the shocked young man. “Her power is ideal for this. Unique, even.”     â€œRight now you are officially dead,” Hoki explained slyly. “Off the roster. Your imperative to fight the Resolution War is cancelled. Deceased villains won’t be invited – although a few that everyone thinks are dead will doubtless make unpleasant surprise returns. Obviously there’ll be undead and unalive in the killing spree, but not the characters who are dead dead because some of those deaths form important grudge-match context for tonight. So you’re the only player in all of this who isn’t currently in the Space Robot’s hand.”     â€œWe are not forbidden from attempting to revive more villains to add to our number when the War begins,” Morgosa went on. “That was wriggle-room enough to allow us this little… experiment.”     â€œYou should be dead, Denial,” Vesperine concluded. “Instead you temporarily died, like so many of the heroes during the recent Normalverse, and were dragged back through the special qualities of our unfortunate guest here: Temporary Death of the Family of the Pointless.”     â€œThey all retired,” Danny knew. “Coincidence, Lusting, Whinging, Glamour, Death, Temporary Death, even Space Ghost. Common Sense had long since abandoned his office.”     â€œThat’s what the Hooded Hood arranged, yes,” Hoki agreed. “Then Temporary Death was invited back by the Triumvirate of Greater Cosmic Offices – primarily to save your life. Remember?”     â€œThis is just the extreme consequence of what she agreed to,” Morgosa declared, with a mirthless vulpine smile. “She should have read the small print.”     â€œHer sacrifice might allow us to destroy the Space Robot,” Vesperine, Lady of Torments explained. “It is a sacrifice we were quite willing to make.”     Tracy, Temporary Death, writhed in agony between screams.     â€œWe should thank you, Danny,” Morgosa noted. “After all, it was the Moderator who pioneered this kind of technique. We simply improved it with better… materials.”     â€œI can deny it,” Danny insisted, shocked and horrified. “I can undo what you did, what you made her into for me.”     â€œAnd then you’d be back with fiery little Kerry,” Hoki predicted. “Alive. Ready for midnight. And you’d find that the imperative inside you had worked out your Denial trick and would prevent you trying it again.”     â€œOr you could talk to your father and see what he’s up to,” Morgosa offered.     â€œThat’s what you’ll do,” Vesperine predicted. “Once you chose to come to this Tent of Consequences, that was the Consequence you faced. You will leave poor ‘Tracy’ here to her demolition and destruction and you will face… the Hooded Hood.” ***     Herringcarp Asylum loured on an isthmus above the turbulent cold Atlantic, goading tormented waves to die on its shingle shore. Clouds boiled in the sky, painting its bleak grey walls with shifting shadows.     Danny had seen many moods of the sinister place. He had never known it crowded. Now the half-medieval half-Victorian sanatorium teemed with unpleasant people making unpleasant plans.     He edged around the current roster of New Proctology who were arguing whether they should now be called Deep Proctology. He ignored a salute from Huntmaster and pretended he didn’t hear a call from Argh!Yle, Evillest of Socks. He navigated round the chapel where Sgt. Snail had gathered the sewer-dwelling Outcasts, but so did everyone else. He ducked as HuntingJustice DeathMarrow hurled Krotch across the room.     Clockwatcher was speaking urgently to Gamona, the green-skinned mesh-tattooed interplanetary killer. Danny didn’t care. “Is he in?” he interrupted.     â€œThe Wailing Cloister,” the Hood’s secretary answered. “He’s expecting you.”     â€œThat’s because he retconned this to an instance where I turned up now,” the Hood’s son grumbled. He saw Gamona about to object to his cutting in so he handed her ten dollars. “Here. Buy underwear.”     There was desperate, agonised screaming coming from the open quadrangle where the Hooded Hood waited. The sound echoed round the asylum corridors and made Danny shudder. Despite the tightly packed villains in the other areas, the long passageway to the cloister was entirely deserted.     Danny didn’t knock. He denied the door-bolt and pressed in.     The Hooded Hood was watching Citizen Z. The purple and black clad Legionnaire was floating two feet from the ground. Crackles of swirling purple energy laced through her into the pillars of Herringcarp. She was the source of the mad howling.     â€œAre you helping her or hurting her?” Danny asked.     â€œIt’s difficult to say,” the Hood replied. “I suspect her different aspects are intending to fight on different sides at midnight. Only one can control the flesh they share.”     â€œBeth and Laurie?” Danny would have expected both to stay with the heroes.     â€œAnd the Spirit of Herringcarp. Never underestimate the evil in this place.”     â€œSo what are you doing to her?”     â€œNothing useful, apparently. Any recourse I took would weaken the Asylum at a time when I need it to be at its most deadly.”     Danny stuck his hands in his pockets. “Because of the Resolution War,” he observed sullenly.     â€œYes. I believe Herringcarp intends to attack the Lair Mansion. It is the most primitive narrative course and the Dreaming Celestian lacks an appreciation for subtlety.”     â€œYou control Herringcarp.”     â€œOften. Then there is tonight.”     Citizen Z spasmed some more, reaching out with clawed hands to grasp or fend off something only she could see.     â€œCan I do anything?” Danny wondered.     â€œYes. You could deny Miss Leyton’s ability to overcome the Spirit and Miss Shellett’s capacity to interfere.”     â€œI mean to help the good parts of your pet ghost,” Denial snarled.     â€œThat would help. The conflict would be resolved. Then those parts of her that were not dormant could sleep. It is mercy.”     â€œYou could do that too, then.”     â€œYes. But mercy is not a priority for… the Hooded Hood.”     Something was wrong with that logic. “But if you could interfere and get CZ entirely on-team for tonight…”     The cowled crime czar looked carefully at Danny. “Yes…?”     â€œBut you’re not…”     â€œIndeed. Proceed.”     â€œThen… you need Citizen Z in this state. When I asked if you were helping or hurting you didn’t say you don’t know. You said it was difficult to say. Which isn’t the same as ‘can’t say’ or ‘won’t say’.”     â€œAn interesting speculation, Master Lyle.”     The Hood’s son bared his teeth. “Maybe you just like torturing women? I’ve just come from the Destiny Carnival’s Consequence Tent.”     â€œI’m not sure one could term Temporary Death as a woman. She is more of a universal concept portrayed in human form.”     â€œYou’re perma-torturing her to keep me in the Twilight Zone.”     â€œIndeed. No thanks are necessary.”     â€œOr deserved. I’d found my out. Why did you butt in?”     The Hood folded his hands behind his back. “There are a number of reasons. One of my purposes in engendering you on Madame Symmetry of Synchronicity and then arranging for your anonymous upbringing and eventual introduction to the world of superheroes was for an eventuality such as today.”     â€œThe Resolution War? You wanted me to have a get-out-of-it card?”     â€œThe time when I require a Celestian Space Robot to be destroyed.”     â€œAnd you expect me to do that?”     â€œYou survived on the occasion I arranged for you to trespass in Galactivac’s World Ship, did you not?”     Danny’s brows rose. “That was… an audition?”     â€œA dress-rehearsal perhaps.”     â€œSo what have you set me up to do for you this time? Apart from whacking about the most powerful Celestian being there is?”     â€œThere is nothing I can ask of you, Danny. The imperative restricts any such instruction.”     â€œExcept you set me up to be excluded from it,” Denial realised. “So you can’t tell me what you want from me. But you’re made it possible for me to get it.”     â€œThe Space Robot’s imprimatur is both powerful and precise.”     â€œAnd you specialise in twisting words and splitting hairs. It’s almost a second super-power. So… you snatch me from my one glorious gesture of self-sacrifice. You carve up the last of the Family of the Pointless still manifesting. You get me de-listed from the Top Trumps bumper pack. And you meet me here in the cheerily-named Cloisters of Wailing.”     The Hooded Hood said nothing.     â€œAnd CZ is here,” Danny went on. “I can’t do anything to help Laurie and Beth but I could free the mad Spirit of Herringcarp who empowers the supernatural superhero. Because the avatar of the Asylum has a major grudge-match envy-fest going on with the Lair Legion’s Mansion.”     â€œThere are entire dungeon levels spawned here entirely because the Lair Mansion developed some beneath Parody Isle. Only the ones in Herringcarp are nastier.”     Danny realised that if his father had chosen to respond to that comment then there was good reason. “Just this week ago, Marie Murchison, the Lair Banshee, the Spirit of the Mansion, led the LL under their house and found their way to the Storyheart. So what has Herringcarp packed away deep underground that can rival or top that?”     â€œIt is difficult to say,” replied the Hooded Hood.     â€œBut that screaming wreck hanging there in the creepy visual effects is the Spirit of the Asylum,” Danny reasoned. “If anyone could guide me to whatever-it-is then it’s her.”     The Hooded Hood actually looked as if he pitied Danny. “I’m certain that the Dreaming Celestian would not wish you to pursue such a course. I must advise against it.”     â€œOf course you must.” Danny snorted. “Right. To be clear: I’m immensely pissed at you. One day there’s going to be reckoning between us. Just not today. Right now I need to… well, I’m not explaining myself to you, you old bastard. I’m just going to deny Laurie and Beth and hope I’m not dooming the Parodyverse. Oh, wait, it’s pre-doomed. So let’s go.”     Denial gasped Citizen Z’s clutching hand. His eyes flashed with eerie green light that seemed to spark through her own shifting purple luminescence.     She became uncannily silent.     â€œYeah,” Danny told her. “It’s that time. Take me to the secret under Herringcarp.”     â€œGoodbye,” said the Hooded Hood. *** Next time: Aella! Hacker Nine! Covenant Guest House! Exu the Doomherald! The Necromancer General! Gamma Ray Gary! And maybe even some actual cast that usually star in this series! All the bits I thought would be in this issue except the bits that inevitably escape to some other story in Untold Tales of the Aellaverse #362: I Want To Be Where The People Are *** Original concepts, characters, and situations copyright © 2017 reserved by Ian Watson. Other Parodyverse characters copyright © 2017 to their creators. This is a work of parody. The use of characters and situations reminiscent of other popular works are in fair-use parody and do not constitute a challenge to the copyrights or trademarks of those works. Any proceeds from this work are distributed to charity. 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.

Having himself nobly smited was quite the sacrifice, although I do still worry for the more flammable bits of Gaz. It was a great exploration of the consequences of the upcoming conflict, and some extreme but logical workarounds. Naturally, it goes off into unforeseen areas and some surprising cameos. And, well... some rather dark decisions needed to be made as well. We'll see how the karma of those work out.

I wanted to do a scene that covered the difficulties some of the "cross-alignment" characters faced due to the enforced polarisation imperative, and Danny seemed like he offered the best opportunities to follow.

At the moment I'm thinking that I'll be able to finish this story in just three more segments. Next time we have the story of kind sweet Aella, whom nothing bad could happen to. Then we pick up on some possibly-fake guy going one-on-one with the Dreaming Celestian. And then we have a conclusion.

"Choose the form of your destructor!"

I wonder what happens to all of the people who don't really have any strong allegiances.

For instance, the Psychic Samurai fits into either side due to her loyalty to both Akiko and the Lair Legion. I wonder if the only way the Celestian can resolve that is if she's hunted by both sides, and has to make herself scarce.

And Faite has very little loyalty to either side, though her human instinct is to protect her friends. Everyone should pay close attention to her, though, because if she still has her powers that indicates the Celestian may have already decided who the winner should be. Or maybe she would end up hunted by both sides, as well, because the Celestian believes she has to die before she figures out how to stop the Resolution War.

In that vein, Lara Night's loyalties would be firmly with the Lair Legion, but she also has two unfair advantages: She has the ability to spread her power across a wide area, and she has the practice to do so only to disable tech and knock people unconscious, without killing anyone. If the Celestian feels that is an unfair advantage, she might end up hunted by both sides as well (though that would turn out really badly).

It's a bit like a little boy playing a game of soldiers with all his toys. The nuances are ignored and everyone gets arbitrarily assigned. A lot of those genuinely-grey moral characters will end up acting atypically under the imperative.




She's going to get forced by the imperative to pick a side. She probably suspects it will be the good guys, since that's who she has most recently identifdied with and associated with the most. But come midnight when the imperative triggers properly, she would be fully bending all her abilities and ingenuity to eliminate anyone on the opposite side.




The Dreaming Celestain has acted to neutralise a few powers that he believes might try to thwart him. I'm deliberately skirting rounds the "ultimate power" battles because piles of "I can do anything" types clashing is very difficult to describe well and sidelines the main protagonists of this story. As I wrote into the plot a couple of issues back, the sum effect of lots of uber-powers clashing is likely to be that they cancel each other out, leaving determination of the War to the "small fry" with more mundane Earthly abilities.

As usual, it's likely to come down to our regular heroes Lining Up!




The LL have doubtless done some major threat assessments, which include some of the following thinking:

1. The bad guys' known roster includes some major energy projectors. For example, Dr Roentgen can actually cause nuclear explosions. He could nuke Paradopolis and Parody Island at one second after midnight, taking out almost all the heroes and a multi-million strong local population. Since collateral damage will no longer matter to the villains (or posibly the heroes?) he and a bunch of other mass-damage types can just cut loose looking for an early easy win.

2. The only counter for this gambit is to have any hero energy-manipulators in place to deflect, redirect, or absorb such attacks. Kerry could probably do something about a heat bloom or firestorm, for example. Lara could shield the city - or just the team if the imperative changes her priorities.

3. The bad guys are bound to know what likely defences the heroes put up, so there might be secondary attacks designed to neutralise such defenders before they can interfere. For example, there are psionic villains who might try to shut down Lara or Kerry, or magic-wielding ones who can bypass usual defences with curses, or villains capable of mass-effect biological attacks. All of those would be less easy for energy-manipulators to counter; some would "get through" to Lara's energy form.

4. The LL therefore has to use ball-game style screening and blocking tactics, with others countering such interceptions before they can work. So Sorceress or Vinnie might need to prevent magical attacks from debilitating the energy manipulators, or Al B. might need to filter out psionic attacks with some invention, or whatever.

5. But of course, the villains will be trying to bypass those defences.

6. Informing all of this might be a bunch of seer-types who can predict and counter-predict what is coming up. So Chiaki might glimpse a gambit mere seconds before it occurs, but Morgosa might then predict how the now-alerted heroes will thwart it and how to alter a different future. And so on.

The upshot of this is that the battle becomes a fleet-style conflict with a range of smaller support craft screening warships and carriers. Both sides have "big guns" operators who are therefore also big targets, so some of what has to be considered is how to keep those "big guns" in play to go after their enemy counterparts.

Tactically the problem is that the vilains rather outnumber the heroes, so they have more ways to simultaneously attack at multiple points in multiple ways.

Finally, and this is one of the hardest aspects of the imperative, neither side will be allowed to show mercy or restraint; it is all-out war to the deaths of one side or the other. Those heroes who usually have no-kill policies will find themselves compelled to end their foes, even if those foes are restrained or unconscious. Those heroes with a save-the-innocents-first approach will find it over-ridden with kill-the-baddies-at-all-costs. There are some heroes who would rather die than do that, but the imperative won't allow them to.

Being a strategist, she would probably target anyone else with a psychic gift first, so they can't manipulate her or anyone else. But since she's Samurai and not Ninja, she'd go and confront them before killing them, rather than sneaking in.





The unfair part would be when Faite starts using her power to change the battlefield itself and the circumstances to favor her friends. If Roentgen wants to nuke the Lair Mansion 1 minute after midnight, for instance, it might not be where he expects it, or it's harder to use Herringcarp as a headquarters while it's underwater from very high tide. Since that technically breaks the rules, she'd also be slowly unraveling the charade that's causing the battle in the first place.





Nuclear explosions are matter converted to energy. That means Lara could probably absorb all but the radiation and shrapnel so it ends up having the total power of a radioactive hand grenade. Since you mention dangers like that, it's quite likely Yuki would put Lara on defensive duty, especially since the Lair Mansion protections might not be working.

But if it comes down to it, she did destroy an entire city during the Parody War. She doesn't really want to do it again, though.





If they have some leadership and it's not just a bunch of chaos, they might try to hamper Lara's efforts, but they might also know if they provoke her enough she just might resort to destroying the whole city.

As I said though, she's against it, but she also holds on to a theory that maybe after everything is destroyed it will reset. So if it gets desperate enough, she might consider that.





Or the Psychic Samurai can zero in on them because she knows where they are.





And Chiaki might be after those too, so it gives her team an advantage.





The heroes have more cohesiveness and a strategy besides "kill everyone". That's why well-trained military forces can take on much larger undisciplined ones without losing badly.





The ones that will have the easiest time are the ones willing to chalk up the kills as self-defense. Chiaki is right at the top of that list. Lara would be close behind. Faite doesn't really want to kill anyone, nor does Yuki. Liu Xi is highly protective, and would kill every one of them if it saved the life of one of her friends.

And Lara would have that theory I mentioned above that destroying everything may be the answer. Because it's outside the rules, and will frustrate the Celestian who might reset things because of it. And she considers that even if the heroes win, she might *still* have to destroy everything - because she considers that the heroes might be then forced to fight to the last person standing.

There might be a tie-in where she brings that up, if I can get caught up with work tonight.

That's where things might get interesting. The other side has some significant master-planners too, some of whom have resources similar to Chiaki's. So it becomes a chess game.

And of course, the way to take out someone who can see any attack coming is to use an attack that cannot be avoided even if it is anticipated, like rendering a square mile around her to absolute zero or something. So of course, the LL needs to avoid leaving Chiaki unsupported where there's nobody who could shield her from those kind of "inevitable" assaults.




What I'm suggesting is that for every power trying to shield the heroes and disadvantage the villains there'll be a demon lord or malefic elder entity trying the reverse. That might lead to some very personal multi-dimensional clashes - the Ausgardian Oldman is likely to get physical, for example - but some for some others it will be a much more cerebral and subtle excercise. The sum effect is likely to be what happens when there's a schoolyard fight and the combatants friends each stop the other boys' friends from pitching in and affecting the brawl.

Of course, what happens after is that on a micro-scale (the superhero/supervillain fight on Earth) a clear winner would be just enough to then tip the balance in a bigger battle on a cosmic scale. A benevolent entity could use an unopposed, unencumbered LL to tip the big fight. A malevolent power might similarly promote some archvillain to start murdering usually-indestructible conceptual opponents. In that way, the result of the mortal combat is the tipping point of the larger one, just as some minor skirmish in some mountain pass somewhere can alter the outcome of a whole war.







That's a likely strategy, and there may well be "first minute", "first hour", and maybe "first day" plans for deployment. But they need to be flexible, since nobody is quite sure what attacks will come in what order.

Another clear and present problem is the opening up of dimensional portals to places like the Negativity Zone, releasing massive anti-energy, or the plane of corposant fire, releasing infinite energy. There are both villains and a couple of heroes who can do these things. There are also some non-standard manifestations of Parodyverse power like the Jarvis Cosmic and the Gah! force that remain beyond standard energy-manipulation technologies and abilities and that may be directed against "standard" energy-shifters and generators. The counter there comes from anticipating and preventing such force-deploymen, i.e stopping Peter von Doom from generating his portal or getting Al B.-tech or Shoggoth-goo there in time to counter it.

In the kind of all-out fight we're talking about there are hundreds of ways for enemies to clash and quite a few that would be narratively interesting. For once we don't have the "Superman is so powerful that nothing can realistically challenge him" problem.




There are a bunch of heroes who could theoretically unship that kind of power. Kerry can cause solar flares, for example, and Donar's weather control could doubtless destroy a fair portion of a continent. The enemy has some omega-class power types too whose neutralisation will surely be a priority. And that's not even counting what Dancer could do if she ever stopped being nice - which she will at midnight.




There are quite a few villains who wouldn't be averse to sacrificing a city to take down a major opponent, even under normal circumstances.

One resource that the villains might well use but the heroes are unlikely to is necromancy requiring half a billion deaths. Be sure that the gruesome witch-types that Danny encountered in the most recent chapter and some others like the Necromancer General will be happy to see city-wide death tolls because of the raw material that frees up.




What Lisa, Faite, and a few others might percieve is that the Dreaming Celestial has basically turned off the PV's resets. His programming seems to include tidying away the toys when he's finished with them.

With his Celestian Space Robot logic and capacity he has considered and eliminated every get-out method he can, having spent millenia calculating them.




That's part of the operation. The other parts after intel are getting a route to attack and a means of delivering the kill; all the while fending of an enemy who is trying to do the same thing to Chiaki and other good-guy intelligence resources.

Another of those borderline-deity entities that stoops to play in mundane reality is Mad Wendy, now Lord of the Nightmare Realm (she's an omega-class psychic reality manipulator with Mxyzptlk-type powers occupying the ecological niche of Frightmare, the PV's former version of Dr Strange's Nightmare). She's also a spooky little girl of about the same apparent age as Faite. She, and the Mxyzptlk-like Eddie the Imp are likely to pitch in to "cheat" against the heroes in their distinctive ways (Mad Wendy is a bit more Tim Burton's Alice and Eddie is more evil-Mork). I expect that the pair of them will slap right into white hats like Lisa and Faite.







And vice versa.







The baddies have their Council of Archvillains to co-ordinate them. That now includes tactical geniuses such as Silence of the Lambs-style manipulator Blackbird, master strategist the Word of Logos, and deep schemer Baroness von Zemo. The Hooded Hood appears to be ensuring that they co-operate.

So it's going to be close. The heroes are really facing some difficult odds; which is what a dramatic story requires - easy wins don't require heroism.







The changed priorities about the need to save collatoral lives will also trouble many of the heroes.







Noted. But remember that the imperative has ruled out suicide or assisting others with suicide.

Chiaki went up against the Zoot Suit Gang in an unpublished story - and they thought of the same thing, trying to create multiple paths of attack so she can't avoid it. They did manage to capture her, but they underestimated her ability to adapt, and they also were fooled by her constant politeness and composure. From being tied up, she managed to turn vicious on them and kill two people with her bare hands, and then corner Frankie.

Left on her own, Chiaki might try to rely on her instincts and flexibility to protect her when going after those psychics. But Yuki would have to be out of her mind to let her do that alone.

Most likely Yuki would assign someone like Nena to go with Chiaki. Yuki's strategy would be to pick someone who doesn't look like an even bigger threat than Chiaki, and who is relatively unknown to the other side. That would hopefully lead them to spend very few resources in stopping the two of them.

She would pick Nena because she only *looks* harmless. If you've ever seen Black Magic M-66, that's the sort of training she has - she can absolutely destroy an entire paramilitary force in seconds. Why not Anna? Because out of the two "sisters", Anna is the one that respects human life. Nena has a strong sense of morality, but is indifferent toward humans.





I have said before that Faite is an opportunist. She often waits to take action because she wants it to have maximum impact. If she keeps making small changes, anyone opposing her will keep adapting to counter it.

So it's most likely that Faite, unless backed into a corner needing to save the Lair Legion from utter destruction, will wait until a pivotal moment and then do something major, when it's too difficult - or better yet, too late - to counter it. Something that will tilt the battlefield firmly in her favor.





I thought about it some more, about how Yuki would plan something like this out. She would basically follow the same advice Chiaki keeps giving - to hide your true power - and push lower-power resources to exhaustion first. Keep pushing them and pushing them until the enemy believes that's all she has to offer. Just when they think they're going to win, the fully refreshed heavy hitters start to come in, and by then the enemy is exhausted and off guard.

She knows the enemy will try the same tactic; so she'll always keep something hidden, so just when they think she's out of weapons and ideas, she'll have more. Slow and steady wins the race.

The point to all of that is Lara will find it frustrating when Yuki keeps her in the Lair Mansion to "keep it safe and secure". She might keep Liu Xi Xian there as well, at first, and rely on the old school Lair Legion members to wear down the enemy first. She might even ask Chiaki to stay there too.

Faite would definitely be asked to stay put. Yuki would tell her that she has *one* job, and that's to figure out how to break the rules and stop the war once and for all.





Here's some irony for you, on that topic: Lara Night is by far the most experienced dealing with overwhelming opposition. Back home, she's not the only Guardian - there are several, and not all of them are selfless. So she's had to confront one with way more power and experience than she has. Sadly, the only way she could think to survive that encounter was to kill that Guardian quickly before he had a change to fight back.

But there was a consequence to that. The people of her Earth realized her "true power" then (the one that Chiaki keeps telling everyone to keep hidden) and they started to develop resources. Now any police agency in her world has the ability to contain and capture her. Part of the reason she retired - because it meant her world no longer really needed people like her.

So Lara might be the only super-type in the Parodyverse right now that truly understands what it's like to be an obsolete Superman.





And that's partly how I came up with Yuki's most likely strategy. She knows the old-school Legion has more in them than they've used in quite a while. She knows the other side may have organizational skills, but they don't have the ability to hold back. That's her advantage. With any luck, the primary LL attack force will take out most of the really tough villains, and leave the rest vulnerable.

She also hopes her strategy means that they'll essentially be on the doorstep of a win before she ever has to deploy the more powerful resources.

Yuki would also probably hope that she can work with Al B Harper on tech to break the rules and neutralize the villains without killing them. She does peripherally believe Faite, and hopes breaking enough rules will infuriate the Celestian.








Lara's "last resort" theory is that if things get really bad, she could destroy everything, ending the battle quickly enough that the Celestian will feel like it's not fair, and reset it back to the beginning again. It's a self-sacrifice theory, because she knows it will cause her to be kicked back home with no way to get back. She'd hope that things would go better for the heroes the next time, without her there.

Basically her theory is based on the idea that she feels the Celestian *is* like a child, and will become angry and change the rules if his toys don't cooperate.

It might not be a correct theory, but that's the best last-resort she can come up with based on what's around her.

Though on a much darker note, she also believes that it might be better for a falling Lair Legion to meet a quick end rather than suffer whatever comes next for them. She believes that there are no limits to the depths the truly evil will sink, and she imagines all the horrible things that would happen to Magweed and Griffin, for instance, after all the primary LL members are killed.

She doesn't think it would count as a "suicide attack" because she would technically survive it when she's booted back home.





Side note about Faite: She still believes the Dreaming Celesian forgot some things, and she's determined to find out everything he forgot about. The thing is, she's not aware if anyone else is thinking the same thing.

But it does mean she's going to "calculate" every single loophole and exploit it both to protect her friends, and also to follow Yuki's order to figure out a way to put a stop to it.





Part of Yuki's (above) strategy, I believe, is that she knows that they know exactly what she's doing, but they won't be able to do anything about it. They're just going to have to play along.





Faite wouldn't be intimidated by them. She knows how to keep them busy.





As I mentioned above, though, Yuki knows their one weakness: Each one of them wants the glory and the gold. The Lair Legion is more satisfied with doing their part.





This is where Yuki might quickly learn from military long-term strategy and adapt her strategy to it. That kind of strategy is when a force allows some civilian target damage and casualties in order to ultimately free them all from even greater danger.

** Insert usual comment about getting it finished and out here **




There will be some interesting choices for the entire robot community to make on which "side" to take.




The LL strtaegy - and Sir Mumphrey specifically - will want to make provision for what happens if the energy specifically target entities like Faite. After all, the way to eliminate an opportunist is to act before they have any opportunity.

What we'll probably see is the dispersal of some assets - I'd imagine the ones who aren't the obvious "punch them/zap them" types - to other asset bases that are not ground zero on Parody Island. The LL has plenty of allies across the Earth and beyond. There's no reason that Faite can't function as well from Caph or from Deep Faerie as she could from the Lair Legion Living Room.




There will/would probably be three phases: a frantic first assault where lots of pre-prepared atacks and defences clashed, a long-haul multi-platform fight (probably hours rather than months) where various localised or styolised battles resolved (e.g. a magic war, a tech war, a probability war, some physical ground battles, maybe a time war and some planar invasions etc.), and an endgame that would probably happen very quickly as one side or other gained ascent and influenced the larger cosmic-level battle. Each phase will require different kinds of planning.

Underpining all of them are some inevitable combat needs: both sides will always require intelligence, communications, support material and personnal, and leadership. Both sides will be trying to deny that to the other.




There's a debate to be had about whether forting up on Parody Island is the best idea. Other resource bases are also available, for example EEE's GMY townhouse with its formidable dimensional defences, Phantomhawl Memorial Hospital with its unexplained protection from supernatural evil, Mi Li's Laundry of Doom, or the sanity-mangling and hard-to-navidate non-Euclidean ghoul tunnels. If the enemy can be lured to focussing disproportionate effort in reducing the Lair Mansion it leaves open the possibility for rear attacks from other concealed forces.

And that is assuming that the LL elects not to do a minute-one offensive on Herringcarp and commit many assets to try and take that resource off the board up front. Any assessment would flag that as a costly win, but that still doesn't mean that it wouldn't be worth it.




Faire might be asked to stay put somewhere, but like Xander, perhaps not where ground zero physical fighting will be.

Also, since the good-guy strategists include a few ruthless bastards, there's also the possibility of using Faite or another high-value intervener as bait for a trap for some of the high-end opposition, in a set-up ambush somewhare. Again, for example, an attack near or at the Nexus of Unreality would offer some unusual terrain advantages to a prepared trap-team, when an enemy seeking a quick elimination of Faite would suddenly discover themselves shifted into a sub-plane of Primal Hero-Feeders or something.







Wouldn't that mean that some of the villain tech-types could reproduce such equipmment in the Parodyverse?




There's also the question of how "the imperative" might affect combat goals. It's not clear if the overriding urge will be "kill the baddies" or "make sure our team wins". There would be different compulsions depending on which it is.




One problem the LL faces is what to do with currently-incarcerated villains, or possibly all convicted and imprisoned criminals. Presumably the good guys will have an imperative to simply blow up all prisons at midnight.




I'm not convinced that Lara, or any one being in the Parodyverse, could destory everything. Many of them might destroy Earth, but that only shifts the fight's focus elsewhere to some other planet, plane, timeline, or alternate reality.




He's a robot so he may not have emotions. On the other hand, he is a robot that has transcended his programming.




This is true.




She hopes she would bet booted. The Dreaming Celestian appears to be pulling a lot of levers, because, as previously mentioned...







I'm sure the LL has some strategy to try and obscure their actions and planning. After all, the team has had a long time to prepare for a final clash with the Hooded Hood.

There's no guarantee such precautions are effective, of course, so its best to assume they might not be.







It is an important distinction, assuming no imperative over-ride.







The LL had some experience of this kind of hard choice during the Parody War, but this might be that kind of decision-making notched up to 11.

I actually did post about half of it last year, and then everyone disappeared and I never got around to finishing it.








Or maybe there will be 3 sides, and many of the robots will have an imperative to kill all humans.





He might not have to. Faite would have thought of that and set traps of her own.





I did consider that Yuki or Sir Mumphrey might put all of their most powerful assets someplace completely out of reach so that she can keep them in reserve without the enemies coming for them first.

But not *too* far out of reach, because Yuki in particular believes the toughest part of this battle would be recruiting. Villains who go to more grey-area allies of the Lair Legion and attempt to turn them, possibly with promises that they'll be on the winning side, or untruthful reassurances.





Yuki would only plan for what she can, and hope she will have made room for the other parts (probability, magic, etc) to do what they need to do.





They don't have to stay in one particular place, just hidden and out of the way until their time comes.





They might need way more support than they anticipate for that.





Faite also has the capability to put herself into hiding, and generally then she's operating as a ghost.





And she'll have plenty of her own traps. She's low-profile, but can be kind of a bastard when she wants to be.





They can, but they're at the wrong time for it. The place Lara comes from is out of time-sync with the Parodyverse. Essentially she's a superhero from the future.





That would be what Yuki silently fears, that come midnight the imperative will become an individual mandate instead. All planning will go out the window, and each person will try to kill every other one. If that happens, the only thing she would have left is to hope she's killed quickly before the zombies show up.





If there's still planning ability left (see above) Yuki is likely, and smart enough, to decide that imperative is not strategically important and can happen later.





She can't destroy everything at once, but eventually she can destroy everything. It's just a matter of time and dedication, and the ability to outrun the enemy. The point is less actually having to destroy everything, and more communicating with an unseen enemy (the Celestian) using way more violence than it ever anticipated. She would hope that would focus its attention on her, which might somehow end the battle.








And that's if she fails to get the Celestian's attention, and the Lair Legion is losing the battle. In that case, she believes it's a kindness to put an end to it her own way, before the villains who are left enslave them, or possibly the Celestian itself.





The Celestian might dump her into Comic Book Limbo, but she's escaped it before. If he tries to hold onto her spirit so it can't return home, her "sponsor" back home will come to claim it. So that might work in her favor. Sort of. Shema, her sponsor, is also a creator, not a destructor, so she wouldn't harm the Celestian or any of the villains. It would have to be a moment of divine creativity to resolve that one.

We do suffer from ephemeral readership these days.

It all depends on point of view. What if the robots believe this mess was caused by humans and they're doing good by wiping them out?





It depends if the selections are by popular opinion, or a person's opinion of themselves.





The meetings will take so long, they'll be going on during the attack.





Faite has a lot of practice with that - she's in her element. They're going to have an interesting time of it.





Lara would say there's no point in worrying about what hasn't happened yet. And also there's the issue of what would any of them do with Lara once she's captured? At least the police back home use it as a weapon of accountability.





The zombies or the free-for-all?





She would probably consider it losing on her own terms, if it helps.





Ah, but it's far more interesting than that - it's how Ultimate Entity Y takes something from Ultimate Entity X without harming Ultimate Entity X at all.

That would imply that all robots were of the same mind. But if we replace the word "robot" in that sentence with "black people" or "gay people" or "left-handed people" it wouldn't make sense; so I'm assuming that free-willed robots have a full spectrum of political worldviews ranging from the sensible to the wildly paranoid - like every other cub-category of sentient beings.







That's a good point. We've established already that some people seem to "know" what their side will be already and othes remain unclear on the subject.







It all serves for an interesting Resolution.







The free for all. See tomorrow's chapter for a hint of it.







I'll still stick to the things it is easier to ground - like giant space robots and planet devourers.

Like I said, it depends whether their side choice is based on their own opinion of themselves, or others'. If it's others', then it could easily become robots vs humans.





I also thought that it could go both ways. Those who are certain will choose on their own, those who are not certain or refuse to make a choice might have one forced upon them.

Or, as I mentioned before, those who refuse to choose, or choose the wrong side, or aren't sure, will be the first ones hunted - by both sides.

We already know that Tandi is on Team Good and the Machine Shop are Team Evil. Likely the distribution of know already vs don't know till midnight is the same for robots as for the general population.










One of the most unpleasant features of the Dreaming Celestian's actions is the reduction of choices to a binary decision, ignoring and eliminating any nuance and shading in favour of a simplistic duality. One might argue that this "simplification" strains out the very revelations that the Parodyverse's story was supposed to reveal, but despite his power and knowledge, the Space Robot is unaware of the value of those "wouldn't choose if they could help it" and those "wouldn't fight like this here and now" types who might otherwise uncover some answers in the margins.

Of course, we have not yet even established what "the Question" that "the Creators" established the Parodyverse for was, so its hard to anticipate "the Answer". If the Question was "What shall we have for lunch?" then its hard to see how a big final heroes vs villains killathon will help out.