Untold Tales of the Aellaverse #362: I Want To Be Where The People Are Previously: Untold Tales of the Parodyverse #356 #357 #358 #359 #360 #361 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. Meanwhile, the mermaid Aella has been revealed as the Celestian Messiah. *** 35. Aella and the Inevitable Loophole     Aella was awoken by birds, who sang differently to fishes or crabs, and whose songs she did not know. Slats of late afternoon light angled through attic shutters, across the patchwork quilt under which she had slept. The quilt was rather old, its fabrics rubbed smooth by time and use, but the blessings stitched into it were still strong.     She sat up and shook off her long sleep. She hadn’t realised how badly she needed a rest after her adventures. Home seemed a long way away now, but there were plenty of new things to explore and learn about.     â€œHello,” Aella called to the ghosts who hovered just at the edge of her perception. “How are you?” But they could not answer, being so smudged and faint that they were scarcely even echoes now of whoever they had once represented. They were timid too, and flittered back to insubstantiality when the girl called to them.     There were other things to occupy Aella’s attention anyway. Sunlight not filtered through ocean was a real novelty. For over four years the mermaid’s Curse had forced her to her sea form every sunrise and prevented her from living above water in daylight. Now the terms of that Curse had evidently been adjusted. Being able to feel the sun’s rays and breathe air at the same time was really nice.     Aella padded (on actual feet) to the washstand where an ewer of water awaited her ablutions. A dress had been laid out for her too, different from Mrs Tillinghast’s clothes. This garment was also hand-stitched, and the threads were filled with wardings of protection. Aella couldn’t read them all, because they were very complicated, but she knew they had been put there when the dress was made, well over a decade ago; she rather thought that they were mostly to stop the girl who wore the dress being noticed or bothered by boys.     She wondered why boys might want to bother a girl anyway, or vice versa. Of course, there was Zach, who had come here with her. He could be a bit annoying sometimes. But Aella rather thought that the spells could have been put on a big stick or something and that would have worked better.     She glanced around the attic but couldn’t find such a thing. Perhaps the girl whose room this had been had taken it with her? Aella knew that the girl had been called Whitney because it was written on a book of poems she had found. There were also some really good charcoal sketches of animals and birds and flowers; Aella only recognised most of the creatures from the books she had read in her lonely exile.     Whitney hadn’t done any fish or undersea flora though, so Aella decided that before she left she had better sketch a few and leave them as a thank you for borrowing the room and the quilt and the dress.     Some of the drawings had little marginal notes that described the medicinal properties of what was in the picture. It was quite instructional.     When Aella was certain that she was ready, she found the slippers that had been left out for her – she thought slippers an altogether remarkable invention – and took the creaking staircase down to the guest house kitchen.     The landlady was there, pouring a cup of herbal tea for Reverend Fleetwood. They were talking in low tones, “…pleased they’re all back, of course, but that won’t do any good when the imperative geas cuts in at the chime of midnight,” Hagatha Darkness was saying. “After that it’s all going downhill remarkably fast.”     â€œSo I understand,” Mac replied. “But I’m also told the Celestian Messiah might be able to stop all that. So young Zach seemed to think.”     â€œThat young man? He’ll be all the better for chopping the wood I set him to.”     â€œLast I heard, Zachary Zelnitz had become one of the Heralds of Galactivac.”     â€œIt won’t help him with my woodpile,” the witch of Covenant House answered smugly. “And it’ll keep him busy while we…” Hagatha didn’t turn round but she paused and called out, “Why don’t you come in and join us, young lady?”     Aella came in. “Thank you for your kindness.”     â€œDon’t thank me until you see the tally at the end,” Sorceress’ grandmother warned sharply. “Come and sit at the table with us. Tea or milk?”     Hot drinks were also a novelty, so Aella tried an elderflower, borage, and gooseberry tea. It also contained a little cantrip against mind control and something to help settle the stomach against unfamiliar foods, Aella noticed as she sipped it carefully. Also, evidently nobody who drank it was likely to get pregnant soon after.     â€œDo you know why you are here?” Hagatha asked the girl.     â€œZack told the Reverend and Mr P that my Enemy was closing in on me and we needed to get somewhere safe. So Mac brought me here.”     â€œIt seemed to be your sort of problem, Hagatha,” the minister apologised. “The magic was still gone yesterday, but you even then you know all the lore and things. and you’ve turned Covenant House into a boarding house so I figured you were the specialist to call.”     â€œQuite right,” the witch assured him. “I’d have expected you to have more moral problems with a Celestian Messiah that isn’t in your book.”     â€œThe Bible, you mean? The Seahawks aren’t in there either but I still like them. Besides, God likes to work through people and the choices they make themselves. Messiah is just a Hebrew word for ‘saviour’ so if Aella’s been set up to save us from this Dreaming Celestian and his imperative then I’m all for it. I quite like Madonna’s ‘Material Girl’ but it doesn’t mean I’ll confuse her with the Virgin Mary.”     Hagatha snorted. “You’ve been quite fortunate in your encounters so far, Aella. Molly Tillinghast who took you to the Willingham Museum, and then Spiro Papadapopolis who took you to the best-defended café in the universe. And then the only sensible preacher in Paradopolis brought you here. Your Enemy is quite frustrated by now.”     â€œThe Hooded Hood is still hunting me?”     â€œNot the Hooded Hood, no,” the witch revealed. “He has been trying to discover the Celestian Madonna for his own complicated reasons. There have been a considerable number of annoying ploys. That must be why you conflated him with your actual Enemy.”     â€œWho is that, then?”     â€œBest I don’t say yet, child. Names have power and he is hunting. Fortunately at the moment, he is troubling the Sea Monkeys, who know how to fend off that sort of attack. We must consider what to do with you.”     â€œDo with me?” Aella sipped her tea nervously.     â€œYes.” Hagatha paused. “Excuse me a minute.” She moved to the back porch just as the windows lit up with a blue glow from millions of floating, interacting numbers. The light was momentary; it was gone by the time the witch had opened the door so that Zach Zelnitz sprawled full length across the faded kitchen linoleum.     â€œZombies!” shouted the troubled Hacker 9. “And I dropped the axe!”     â€œYou did however convert them into collapsing binary statistics,” Hagatha pointed out.     â€œWell yes, but… zombies!”     â€œWhat are zombies?” Aella wondered. She peered out into the yard. “There are some little shreds of some kind of nasty magic out there, a sort of animation spell?”     â€œSo there are,” agreed Hagatha. Aella didn’t know if the others present could see the witch of Covenant House grasping the tattered remnants of the necromancies and given them a sharp vicious tug.     There was a scraping of reality and a black-robed figure with a skull-topped staff and blood-drenched knife tumbled down from mid-air and crashing into the hen coop. The birds there attacked him.     â€œAaaagh! Aaaaaaahhhh!” the Necromancer General shrieked. He fended off the hens and a very pecky rooster long enough the escape the run. He toppled out onto the dry dirt before the porch.     â€œThat’s the guy who set undead on me?” Hacker 9 demanded, trying to regain the calm and poise that a Herald of Galactivac who hadn’t watched too many zombie movies might possess.     â€œVlastimock Bogoff!” Hagatha called in a very different tone of voice to that in which she had spoken to Aella. “You think to intrude upon me? Here?”     â€œOut of the way, old woman!” the Necromancer General warned, raising his skull-staff. “The girl is…”     â€œHere, where the land is mine. Where the dust is mine.£     Vlastimock’s threat was choked off as he found it hard to breathe.     â€œWhere the air is mine?”     The Necromancer General clawed his throat. He didn’t entirely need to breathe - unless he wanted to speak to cast spells.     â€œWhere the waters and the flames are mine?” Hagatha pressed on.     The intruder began to steam and smoke.     â€œWhere the spirits and the ghosts are mine?”     Vlastimock tumbled over as if he had been invisibly kicked in the balls.     â€œWhere fate and narrative are mine?” the Darkness witch snarled.     Aella watched as very old spells that kept the necromancer alive began to unravel like torn knitting.     â€œCan you send him away?” she asked Zach urgently. “Far, far away.”     â€œOh sure,” agreed Hacker 9. “Minor locational hack, really. Watch.”     H9 saved the Necromancer General’s existence. He just saved it to Mars.     Hagatha turned on the young man. “He was mine to slay by right of conquest.”     â€œI didn’t want you to,” Aella told her. “I don’t want anyone killed because of me, even horrible people who use such horrible magic. So I asked Zach to send him away.”     â€œNix Olympus,” Hacker 9 assured the witch. “Biggest volcano in the solar system. Downside – inactive. Upside – on Mars.”     The Covenant House landlady glared at the Herald of Galactivac a moment more. “That will do for the present,” she eventually conceded. “It is troubling that Bogoff was able to trace Aella here, though. Others will surely be following, with greater resources to pit against me.”     â€œI’m making it dangerous for you,” Aella understood. “I need to go.”     â€œI can get her out of here,” H9 promised. “I already told Reverend Fleetwood.”     â€œBut not without her consent,” Hagatha sensed. “She is the Celestian Messiah. You are restricted. By whose orders?”     Mac drained his cup. “Aren’t you supposed to work for Galactivac now?”     â€œYeah. I do. That’s why I’m here. The Boss sent me to fetch Aella to him.” ***     Gamma Ray Gary, the last Equinnite, grasped his enchanted weapon Ljouis and picked himself out of the new crater he had contributed to Earth’s moon. “Is that your best shot?” he asked.     The lunar rock around him rose up like gigantic hands and clapped him between them. Images of his dead people welled through his brain, picking at his sanity. A fast moving red blur hit him ten thousand times before he could even scream.     â€œIn addition to your other faults, you don’t seem very good at sums,” Undermind Obscura pointed out to the cosmic champion. “You’re moderately powerful with your bio-technological upgrades and your borrowed Ausgardian enhancements, but we outnumber you three to one.”     Terrorox clenched his fists, commanding the terrain that pinioned his adversary to extrude jagged spiked through the captive. “You should have at least brought that spaceship of yours, Equinnite. I’ve always wanted to break that.”     Ship was elsewhere, trying to get as remote from the coming Resolution War as possible before the imperative in her AI forced her to turn back and join in the carnage.     â€œIt’s not you, pal. It’s us,” Crimson Cyclist assured the captive. “There’s not a lot that can stop the Heralds of Galactivac.”     A swift blur in De Brown Streak’s sweatband caught him by the waist and propelled him away from the fight. “You shouldn’t give opening lines like that when you’re doing your bad-guys speech,” Hatman cautioned him. “Haven’t you worked out yet how this Parodyverse works?”     A baseball bat-with-a-nail-in-it screaming with energy caromed into Terrorox’s face. Then he was run over by a goat chariot. Then he was facing Donar.     â€œWell met, boon Gamma Ray Gary!” the hemigod of thunder called greeting over the sound of him whomping the rock-controller. “We did’st receive thy call and lo, we art come. Mine thanks for sharing the whoppage of yon Galactivac minions for the nonce!”     Donar was having a frustrating day. He was happy to share it with mass murderers.     Undermind Obscura would have shredded the Ausgardian’s mind into screaming tatters had she not suddenly suffered a critical wardrobe malfunction. There were serious disadvantages to wearing spiked underwear if it somehow got twisted round.     â€œOoh, that looks painful, Undie,” the young woman in the back of the goat chariot sympathised. “That’s the trouble with posy villainware. Those straps look cool on the montage splash page but when they misbehave they can be a serious problem. Especially when they’re made of unsteady molecules or whatever Al B. calls them. Did you know that there’s actually a 0.00000000001 chance of them spontaneously combusting when they get caught in awkward intimate cracks?” The Probability Dancer winced in sympathy and ducked below the rim of the chariot.     â€œYou cannot stop us!” the Cyclist warned Hatman. “The mortal whose powers you simulate was fast. But I am the very incarnation of speed. I can…”     Hatman had switched to a peaked traffic warden’s cap. The cyclist was caught in a wheel clamp of Dr Harper’s design.     Undermind Obscura tore away her offending costume. “You think us mere mortal foes that we will fall for such trickery, fallen Herald?” she demanded of Dancer. “How much you have forgotten!”     Sarah Shepherdson’s chance powers derived from her technical role as one of Galactivac’s heralds. All attempts to remove them had failed due to extreme circumstance. “I didn’t fall so much as reposition. The gig wasn’t right. I don’t do planet-killing. It’s not me. I told Vaccy that when I quit. Frankly the whole lot of you, him included, need to take a serious look at your career paths and life choices.”     Undermind turned her attention from the errant Herald’s prattling distractions and loosed a barrage of childhood guilts to reave the mind of the Serious Matter wielder who assailed the Cyclist.     Dancer spotted a tiny chance that Terrorox might get in the way and made it so.     â€œNeeaaaagggghhhh!” screamed the bone-shifter. He clutched his skull. “No, Mee-Ma, don’t make me plextrate all the vernuculims!”     In sympathy, Donar hit him in the face with Mjalcolm.     â€œReady, team?” Hatman called. “All change!”     He came at Terrorox in his Giant’s cap, shifting size to stomp the distracted Herald into the lunar landscape. He knew that the only way to beat such powerful opposition was to keep them reeling and hit them hard over and over. He shifted to his Con Ed hat and jammed four million volts into the troubled villain.     That freed up Donar to head for Undermind Obscura. “Tis fortunate I do not usually think when in battle,” he warned the omega-class psionic. “Or out of battle.” He crashed into her and introduced her face to the crater.     Dancer somersaulted over to the Crimson Cyclist. “Are you okay, Noggin?” she asked him. “Here, have a coffee.”     The Cyclist tried to call his cosmic bicycle to him but it was still clamped and appeared to have fallen into a clump of previously unsuspected lunar thorn bushes that grew here in the artificial atmosphere of the Skree ruins called the Turquoise Area. He viewed the pressed foam cup suspiciously.     â€œI know you’re not like the others, Noggin Rupp,” Sarah scolded him. “You told me your origin story, how you agreed to be Galactivac’s Herald to save your world and some girl in an unfeasible science fiction bodystocking. You’re not horrible like Terrorox and Undermind, so please drink the frappe of peace with the cinnamon sprinkles of harmony and tell me what on Earth you’re doing fighting poor Gary there.”     â€œThe Resolution War has come,” the Cyclist said insistently, as if that explained everything.     â€œOh sure. But we don’t have to pick sides until midnight.” Shep leaned in confidentially. “I’m tending towards being a goodie. What about you?” It had occurred to the Probability Dancer that if she could convince everyone to be a goodie by the time the imperative fully activated then it would be a very short Resolution with a fantastic afterparty. She was willing to try for it.     â€œSwitch!” called Hatman, hurling Terrorox back to Donar and heading for Undermind Obscura in his Thinking Cap.     The Crimson Cyclist was about to blur back to assist his fellow Heralds but decided he needed to lift the plastic lid and test the brew in the bright container that said Bean and Donut on the side. “The Master sent us to Earth. We are to find the Celestian Messiah. She has the Key that operates the Control Board of the Space Robots. With that the Dreaming Celestian can be reprogrammed – probably.”     â€œWell that sounds like a plan,” Dancer agreed. “And the fighting Gary bit?”     â€œThe only way to locate so shielded and protected a person as the Messiah in the time remaining to us is by destroying the Earth and discovering her in the ruins. She will survive, you see. Such is the order of Galactivac.”     â€œAnd Gamma Ray Gary objected to that,” Dancer understood. “You’re really okay with destroying Earth, Noggin? We have girls in science fiction bodystockings. And a few ladies of more mature shape whom we refuse to fat-shame because it is mean. And some middle-age male cosplayers who really deserve what they get.”     She pulled the Cyclist aside as Terrorox crashed past them followed by a shouting Ausgardian who was becoming increasingly incomprehensibly Nordo-Australian as he ranted.     â€œI don’t want to do it,” the Crimson Cyclist admitted. “But you know that the Space Robot isn’t the only one that plants imperatives. I never understood how you shook off Galactivac’s persuasions.”     â€œHe didn’t buy me Guinness or tell me that I was the love of his life and he just happened to have a camera on his phone,” Sarah explained. “Honestly, if you don’t want to be a mass murderer, don’t be. Drink the fancy coffee of absolution and be sure to recycle your cup in the trash bin of new starts. And duck.”     A swarm of screaming psionic ghost-sprits welled from Undermind Obscura, seeking to rip Hatman apart. He switched to his Buffy Fan Club cap and fended them off while making perky quips.     â€œYour friends are powerful but they can’t stop us,” the Cyclist apologised.     Gamma Ray Gary introduced Undermind to Ljouis. He had finally broken free.     â€œThere’s a chance they will,” Dancer assured Noggin Rupp. “But that’s not the plan.”     â€œIt’s not?” the Cyclist puzzled. “Then what is the plan?”     The abandoned Turquoise Area was not entirely abandoned. These days it had one resident, the enigmatic Utah the Observer, whose role it was to record the universe to its last day.     He tended to get cranky when kids played on his lawn.     The fight ended as everyone was imprisoned in individual spheres of absolute containment and suspended over the broken Lunar surface.     â€œWhat?” Terrorox screamed, hammering futilely at the bubble that held him despite the full fury of his power. “You dare?”     Utah appeared, a giant Charlie Brown-headed sandal and toga-wearing Burning Man refugee surrounded by a nimbus of special effects. “I dare,” he boomed. “I… the Observer!” ***     â€œDon’t try turning me into a frog,” Hacker 9 warned Hagatha Darkness.     â€œI may be too late,” the old witch considered. “Just so you know, I was dealing with Bogoff the kind way.”     â€œYou said you were here to help Aella, Zach,” Mac Fleetwood objected. “You left out the part where you were dragging her off to a planet-devouring monster!”     Aella saw where this was going. She saw the powers shifting round the kitchen, the ancient magics of Covenant House and the cosmic shortcutting of Galactivac’s herald; it was not going to end well. “Stop it, please,” she interrupted before anyone could be hacked or frogged, or possibly Marine-wrestled onto the linoleum. “It’s alright. Zach can’t take me anywhere I don’t want to go and he can’t take my Key from me. Nobody can.”     H9 glanced over at the girl. “Right. Because of the thingie. But relax, I wasn’t going to try.”     â€œWhat thingie?” Mac asked suspiciously.     â€œHe means the destiny that goes with carrying my Silver Key,” Aella explained. “If it could be stolen or if I could be kidnapped then my Enemy would have done it long ago. But he couldn’t get mother when she had it, or grandmother before that, and he can’t get me. Not like that. It’s not allowed.”     Hagatha snatched up Aella’s teacup and then also grabbed the one that Zach had discarded earlier. “Hold on while I catch up,” she commanded, staring at them furiously.     â€œI was sent by the Living Death That Sucks to persuade Aella to go to him,” Hacker 9 confessed. “After all, I’m from the same planet as her. I know the terrain and the lingo. But I never intended to actually take her to him. I hacked past my Galactivac obedience programming ages ago.”     â€œIt’s true,” Hagatha muttered, reading tea-leaves. “He has a number of other disgusting teenage habits, though.”     â€œUm…” H9 worried.     â€œSo why did you came to meet me, Zach?” Aella wondered.     â€œYeah, well, Galactivac wants the Celestian Messiah. And since I’ve kind of gone a bit AWOL he’s probably sent his other Heralds to finish the job if they can find you. But he’s hardly the only one looking for you.”     â€œYou also have ties to the Hooded Hood,” Mac recalled. “In fact you were apprenticed to him at the point you became a Herald of Galactivac.”     â€œYeah. Only sort of. I didn’t really think that apprenticeship through as much as maybe I should have. I pissed off all my friends past the point of any number of cat .gif e-mails putting it right. It’s very possible that Ioldabaoth manipulated me into taking the Herald gig so he’d have a guy inside Galactivac’s Hoover-Ship.”     â€œSo you are working for him?” Aella accused. “My Enemy – or is he?” She scowled, apparently at the sliced loaf on the kitchen table but actually at confused memories. “Sometimes when I think back it seems like he must have been the adversary who tormented my mother and me all my life. Other times that doesn’t seem to fit.”     Hagatha set down the teacup she’d been studying. “Of course it doesn’t,” she mentioned. “You’re actually remembering things from before the retcon as well as after it.”     â€œWhat retcon?” Hacker 9 puzzled.     â€œWhat is a retcon?” Aella wondered, more puzzled.     H9 answered. “It’s short for ‘retroactive continuity’. It is ‘a literary device in which new information is added to already established facts in the continuity of a fictional work’. But it’s also the Hooded Hood’s superpower, to change some detail of backstory that can cause massive alterations to what is happening now.” He dared glance over at Hagatha. “You’re saying Aella has been retconned? When? How?”     â€œThe retcon was applied quite recently, judging by the sugar crystals,” the Darkness Witch considered. “However, it altered a point of continuity when this child was nine years old.”     Aella caught in a gasp of breath.     â€œIs that important, Aella?” Mac asked.     The girl nodded. “That was when everything went wrong. When father was lost, and mother and I had to run for our lives from the Enemy. When I received my Curse, and the Silver Key. And then the Enemy could find mother too, and he killed her, sucked her into darkness.”     â€œHold on,” H9 objected. He conjured up a complex hologram representation of Aella’s lineage.     â€œYour mother was Elyse the Earth Maiden and your father was Banjoooooo, King of the Sea Monkeys. Though you’re not an Earth Maiden or a Sea Monkey.”     â€œOf course not. I’m a mermaid. Except, after the Curse of Atargatis I could only be human after night came and only be a sea-breather by day. That’s why I had to hide out in my cave for so long and not go ashore. If I stray too far from the water people would get hurt when the tidal waves comes to reclaim me at dawn. At least until the curse was suspended and I was able to go to Willingham.”     Mac was baffled. “The curse of who now?”     H9 had the internet at his disposal. “Assyrian legend circa 1000 B.C., a goddess who also went by the name Deceto and got knocked up by a young man.”     â€œHmph,” grunted Hagatha; but what happened in the nineteenth century…     Zach went on downloading. “So she jumped into the sea and instead of being drowned she became a mermaid. The first recorded mermaid. So the Curse of Atargatis is the curse of being a half-girl half-fish?”     â€œOr of being bothered by impregnating young men,” Hagatha growled.     â€œNo, being a mermaid is not a curse,” Aella told Zach hotly. “It is wonderful. The Curse just prevents me from properly controlling it, the change, the tides, the storms, those sort of things. And it’s nothing to do with… boys,” she added to Hagatha. “A least… no-one mentioned that when I was nine.”     â€œPerhaps you should explain what you do remember?” Mac suggested. “Then we can sort out what was retconned?”     â€œBecause you said your grandmother had that Key and I don’t think it ever belonged to Laurie Leyton, did it? Or Banjoooo’s Sea Monkey Queen mother, who was…” – he checked – “nobody in the Who’s Who.”     Aella could see there was a need to clear things up. “The Key came to mother from her foster-mother, not her birth mother, and that’s why the duty came to me after. The Silver Key belonged to the line of the Mountain Princesses in the Hall of the Mountain King…”     â€œYou mean Cleone Swanmay?” Mac recognised. “Xander’s, um, familiar.”     Hacker 9 did another hasty databank check. His eyes widened. “She got exiled to Earth after some attempt to enslave her by Baron Morbo went horribly Xander. And she gave up her mantle to save the sorcerer supreme.”     â€œHe has quite a knack for getting young women out of their mantles,” Hagatha mentioned sourly. A much-younger master of the mystic crafts had encountered young Vervain Darkness, Hagatha’s daughter by Mumphrey, and now Hagatha had a granddaughter called Whitney. It was even on Hacker 9’s wretched chart.     â€œIt was very romantic,” Aella assured everybody. “But Grandmother Cleone couldn’t keep the Silver Key when she was exiled, so she gifted it to mother. It was exactly right, what was always intended to happen, just as Cleone’s oldest-mother had prophesied.”     â€œOldest mother?” checked H9. “Crap, I don’t even have a family tree for Cleone on this chart!”     â€œOf course you do.” Aella pointed. “There. That was where the Mountain Princesses traced their lineage, and that’s who retrieved and kept the Silver Key when it was dropped into existence. She kept it safe in the receptacle provided for it, the Chalice of the Secret Fire.”     â€œAaagh!” Zach freaked. “Valeria had it! Valeria of Carfax, who according to my chart has an entirely unexplored lineage we haven’t even gone into yet?”     â€œThat seems consistent with the young woman’s destiny threats,” Hagatha considered calmly. “She always had an affinity for exiles. So the Silver Key’s history is cleared up. But child, you mentioned other traumas.”     Aella looked down miserably. “While mother had the Key, the enemy couldn’t harm her. But he could hurt me, so when he found us at last, mother gave me the Key, transferred it to me, so I couldn’t be harmed…”     â€œBut she could,” Mac understood.     Aella’s brows furrowed. “I thought he killed her. But other people say she didn’t die like that, that she and father went on to… to…?”     â€œA happy ending,” Mac confirmed. “I was there to see it, at the end of the Parody War. There was a chance for heroes to, well, retire really, to be reunited with loved ones they’d otherwise have lost. A really amazing balancing of the scales. I think that must be what happened with Elyse. This wasn’t actually a Hooded Hood retcon. It was a Happy Ending overwriting an unjust one.”     â€œSo the Enemy never got mother?” Aella ventured.     â€œIf he did, she got another chance anyway. I suspect she had people looking out for her.”     â€œXander, Cleone, Banjoooo, Lisa…” H9 reeled off.     â€œThe point is, Aella, that while it was all very real and very horrible, especially for you, it wasn’t allowed to stand like that. It won’t bring your parents back to you, but they are happy.”     â€œThat seems likely,” Hagatha Darkness admitted.     â€œOh…” Aella took a moment to think about that. It was as if a chain had been lifted off her. “Then the rest doesn’t seem so bad. When the Enemy caught me there was… I suppose a sort of stand-off. He was able to confine me to my cave, where I was a girl by night and a mermaid by day, and I couldn’t venture far. But he had to keep me relatively well looked after or I’d have been able to leave, so he provided me with food and books and things.”     â€œWhole new form of self-educated,” Zack recognised. “No TV? No… no internet?” He looked at the girl with new sympathy.     â€œAnd that’s how it was for four years,” Aella went on. “I wouldn’t give him the Key and he wouldn’t let me go and the Curse kept me from escaping properly, until the storm and the day when it didn’t.”     Hagatha reached over as if to pluck a stray thread off Aella’s skirt, but she grasped a little strand of consequence instead and tasted it on her tongue. “Hmm. This Curse is borrowed,” she announced. “Your Enemy acquired it from Camellia of the Fey, back in the days when she was still La Belle Dame Sans Merci. But evidently Xander was being clever again, because he secretly replaced it with something from the Cailleach Bheur, the Old Woman of Winter who lurks in that Laundry of Doom under Mister Lye’s neutral charter for now. So instead of turning you into a ravening sea-monster with siren appetites and giant sea monkey-sized stomping fits you were cursed to be…”     â€œTo be what?” Aella asked anxiously. “What am I cursed to be?”     â€œReasonable,” Hagatha told her regretfully. “Oh my dear child, you have been cursed with common sense. There is no greater punishment in the Parodyverse. But no wonder your enemy couldn’t get to you. Every absurd attempt he made was grounded by the very Curse he placed on you.”     Zach spotted a problem. “But the Curse stopped working. It’s daytime and Aella doesn’t have a fish tail. She got away from her cave.”     â€œAnd she met you,” Hagatha agreed. “Poor girl.”     Reverend Fleetwood wasn’t letting Zach off his earlier question, though. “So did the Hooded Hood send you after Aella?”     The mermaid turned her green-blue eyes to Hacker 9. “Did he? I thought we were friends.”     â€œWe are friends,” Zack Zelnitz protested. “I mean, yes, the Hood told me to come get you. Well, he told me that Galactivac would tell me to come get you but in fact I was to convince you to go to Hoodie instead…”     â€œGo to my Enemy?”     â€œNo. The Hood’s not your Enemy. Well, not that one, with the capital E. He doesn’t go around murdering mothers. It’s wasteful. Dead people can’t be used in massively complicated multi-part plots. And if he knew where you were all these years he would have acted on it instead of spawning countless other schemes to identify Celestian Madonnas and Messiahs and sneak into the Celestian Control Plane.”     â€œThe being who spoke to you from shadows is a different creature,” Hagatha confirmed. “I could even name him now, I think, would it not draw his eye here.”     Zach’s brows rose. “Sauron?” he gasped. “Or… Voldemort?”     â€œSo Hacker 9 isn’t part of Aella’s curse?” Mac checked.     â€œYou believed the Hood was your enemy because he has been sniffing around,” the Darkness Witch continued. “Doubtless now he is aware of you he is trying to retcon himself into your story. Impertinent fellow! Between that and the Happy Ending alterations and the Curse warping your destiny it is hardly surprising that you’re having difficulties establishing your history, child.”     Aella was still regarding Zach. “But are you working for the Hooded Hood to get me?” she persisted.     Zach shrugged. “He thinks so. Just like the Living Death That Sucks thinks I’m his. But honestly, I’m Hacker 9. I never work for the Man. I might piggyback on their systems for a while but… nah, I’m after something else.”     â€œWhat?” Hagatha asked suspiciously. “Because I’ll warn you now that her dress has…”     Zach pointed to Aella and her Silver Key. “This girl has the all-access pass to the operating systems of the Parodyverse! She can get me in to the ultimate hack! I can fix the Dreaming Celestian and save everybody. And then I can fix everything else, all the injustice and misery and poverty in the whole of creation.”     â€œThat does sound good,” Aella admitted.     Mac was less convinced. “Even if we could trust you, Zach, there are many beings of great power in the Parodyverse who might make the changes, the improvements you propose. Why do you suppose that they haven’t?”     â€œBecause they aren’t as awesome,” H9 ventured. “Look, I get that I’ve not had the perfect track record before, but this is the big one. Aella is our only shot at fixing things, and she needs me to run the programs. And then…”     The hacker paused as Hagatha stood up quickly. Her black cat dived for cover faster than if Lisa’s tom had entered the room.     â€œWhat?” H9 worried. “Has Aella’s Enemy come? Or the other Heralds? Or the Hood? It’s… it’s not really Voldemort, is it?”     Mac grabbed him in a full nelson. “Sorry, Zach,” the preacher apologised. “It turns out that the imperative won’t let you access the Celestian Plane. We have to stop you.”     Hagatha raised her hand and the room turned dark. “Dead Heralds deliver no bad news!” she proclaimed in a voice like Arctic ice.     Zack repositioned Mac Fleetwood back to the Zero Street Mission with a minor geographical hack. A similar shift on Hagatha failed and made him convulse, clutching his belly.”     â€œMadame Hagatha!” Aella called urgently, seeing how the witch had grabbed into Zach’s karmic field, his life force. Hagatha had been dealing with the Necromancer General the kind way!     â€œYou should not have drunk the tea, young man,” the Witch of Covenant House told Hacker 9. “Now it is imperative that you die.” ***     â€œWe’ve come to check your security,” Silicone Sally told Rupert Morgansten, Governor of the Safe Metahuman Containment Facility on Flanagan Island of the coast of Gothametropolis York. “You know, with the big Resolution War being less than four hours off. And since I don’t like you, I volunteered to be liaison.”     The facility’s senior staff member swallowed hard. “This is a maximum security facility for hardened criminals. We can’t treat them softly here.” He glared at the flexible ex-felon. “We couldn’t treat you softly when you were here.”     â€œAnd I won’t be treating you softly in this inspection,” she promised. “Amy?”     Amy Aston, the dungaree-and-oil clad engineer of Extraordinary Endeavour Enterprises looked up from the diagnostic boxes she was attaching to the Safe’s systems. “So far so good,” she admitted. “Everything is doing what it’s supposed to do. If we’d been shapeshifters or doppelgangers or robots or whatever, we’d have been fried as we came in. If anyone tries to teleport or dimension-warp or time-travel or size-change, or any of the other regular ways of breaking in or out of places, they’d have ended up as random subatomic particles scattered over a creative variety of planes. Tech-wise the place seems up to spec. I can’t speak to the spooky stuff.”     â€œI suppose I can,” Vinnie de Soth admitted. “The wards are looking good too, Sally. This place is pretty strong with them, even the Zeku shielding against pixies.”     Governor Morgansten was still unhappy, and not just because of the murderous glares he was receiving from Sally Rezilyant. “I thought maybe you’d come from Colonel Drury with orders about Order 99,” he admitted.     â€œWe’re Lair Legion, not SPUD,” Sally insisted. “What’s Order 99?”     â€œNothing,” the Governor clammed up. “There is no Order 99.”     Amy had already pulled it out of the Safe’s operating systems. “It’s a kill-all-prisoners order,” she reported. “A final failsafe, looks like. Various systems are triggered off to terminate every inmate by some means appropriate to overcome their powerset.”     â€œWhy am I not surprised that there’s such a thing here?” Sally asked, turning her death gaze up from 11 to 12.     â€œWhy shouldn’t there be?” Morgansten responded. “Don’t you remember how much life was lost last time there was a breakout, when one of your heroes decided it was a good idea to let loose two hundred super-powered murderers? Or the time before when the worst metahuman psychopaths on the planet were only prevented from escaping because the Hooded Hood ordered them not to?”     â€œWhy not? I dunno. Because it’s unconstitutional, cruel and unusual, and beyond any judicial oversight?” the silicone superhero suggested. “I mean, I was a bad gal. I worked for Beth von Zemo. When your security precautions start to look like hers you may want to rethink things a bit.”         Vinnie looked worried. “We’ll use Order 99 anyway, at midnight,” he predicted. “We’ll kill all these prisoners in their cells, because that’s what the imperative requires.”     â€œOr sooner,” Morgansten insisted. “When the Order is issued it will be carried out.”     â€œProbably not,” Amy judged. “I’m more a hardware gal than software, but I bet if Al B. or Hallie looked at this they’d say someone kludged your system to open all the cells rather than wipe out the inmates.”     â€œWhat?” Sally and Morgansten demanded in unison.     â€œYep. I’d say this was old mods, too. Not today. Probably the same time the system was installed.”     â€œBlackbird!” the Governor spat. “It has to be. But we can still manage a manual takedown, when…”     The outer wall of the Safe crumbled as a tower-block-sized mole creature tunnelled up from below.     Morgansten yelped.     Sally stretched through a new crack in the reinforced wall for a better look. “It’s either one of the Hole Man’s beasties or something from the Wastelands,” she suggested. “It’s trying to break through the primary force fields.”     A nuclear pulse overloaded the generators. Doctor Roentgen laughed.     â€œIt’s the Purveyors of Peril!” Sally saw. “I mean, all of them. I’m counting… lots! Anvil Man, Appendage Man, Brass Monkey, Razor Ballerina, Gromm the Living Flatulence, Voodoo Vicaress, PsychoAcidPervGal!, Hellfrasier, Spacewarped, HuntingJustice DeathMarrow, Savagetooth… Aw crap, I thought Doorman was dead for sure! Wait… the Yurt?”     â€œThey had the same idea about pre-checking on the Safe!” Amy declared.     â€œNo!” Morgansten gasped. “We can’t wait any longer. We must activate Order 99! We must…”     Amy spannered him. “This is no time to panic,” she mentioned.     â€œThey’re ambushing us?” Vinnie de Soth checked with Silicone Sally.     â€œYep. They have us surrounded.”     â€œExcellent,” Yuki Shiro’s voice crackled over the LL commcards. “Amy, spin up the new force field projectors so they’re all trapped in there.”     â€œDone,” reported the engineer.     â€œEveryone else, attack!”     â€œLair Legion Line Up!” yelled Ham-Boy.     The rest of the Lair Legion decloaked– in a contained environment while the team was still unconstrained by the imperative’s kill-order or priority changes.     They had decided to start the Resolution War early. ***     The Lair Mansion had a number of cartographical anomalies; rooms that didn’t make sense and chambers that did not appear on any map. One of them was a secret turret that made a suitable hideout for Magweed, Griffin, and Samantha Featherstone. It helped that the entrance door was located in at least five places around the more conventional Mansion layout.     Griffin became visible and tumbled back onto a battered old ottoman that had been rescued from one of the Lair Attics. A cloud of dust emerged from it as he landed hard.     Magweed handed him a brown paper bag. “Breathe slowly and deeply into this,” she instructed him. “Or vomit into it, I suppose,” she added with a sigh as her brother found another use for the container.     â€œDid you get anywhere?” Sam asked him. “Is this the puke of victory or the sick of defeat?”     Griffin swilled the Diet Coke of Recovery and swallowed a Snickers of Good Attempt. “I couldn’t find Marie,” he admitted. “If she’s still around after that Normalverse stuff then she’s not in any of the Mansion’s usual hiding places. But I did find something else.”     As well as being a thirteen-year old boy Griffin was also a conceptual information spirit who self-identified as a mythological guardian of secrets. His gestation-mother was Hallie, a sentient computer program. He tended to have built-in wi fi.     â€œWhat did you see, Griff?” Magweed prompted him, resorting to the Mars Bar of Sibling Patience; well, the Mars Bar of Limited Sibling Patience.     â€œThere’s some really unusual data traffic whizzing round the superhero intranet,” the boy reported.     â€œIs CSFB! checking his websites again?” Samantha asked suspiciously. “Or… someone sent spam to the Shoggoth? That never ends well.”     â€œI mean different from that. Someone who shouldn’t be there, hacking in, strolling past Al B’s firewalls, past mom’s firewalls like they’re not there.”     â€œThat is extremely not good,” Samantha declared with a frown. “Especially today. We need to warn grandfather right away.”     â€œNo, wait,” Griffin told her. “I’m still kind of processing. This stuff mostly comes as blurred averages, as… there’s not the vocabulary for it. But I’m sifting down it, following trails and… yeah, I can see who it is now. Can I borrow your phone, Sam? This is the guy.”     Samantha checked the image and frowned more. “Zach Zelnitz, a.k.a. Hacker 9, a.k.a. The Junior Who Dropped Out To Understudy The Hooded Hood, a.k.a. The Newest Herald of Galactivac the Living Death That Sucks. He was before you guys came back from Faerie.”     â€œWe know about him,” Magweed assured her friend. “Dad always calls him ‘that little punk’ and forgets about bedtime until mom calms him down. He’s a great distraction when your Mouse Guard happen to have failed to alert your parents about the latest man-traps.”     â€œWell he’s rooting through the LL intranet right now,” Griffin discerned. “He’s looking for… EEE operating systems. He’s trying to remote activate a dimensional portal.”     â€œOoh, Miss F is not going to like that,” Sam predicted. “There’ll be staring and a large bill.”     â€œA portal to where?” Mags asked practically.     â€œI’m not entirely sure. Except he’s trying to lock on to some weird genetic co-ordinates. The nearest match the Mansion systems can find for it is Liu Xi Xian… but only since she got back today after her recent full-body makeover.”     â€œHer body materials came from Exu the Doomherald,” Samantha knew. “But he was only a temporary construction in the Demiplane where the Celestian Space Robots go for repair and instruction. He vanished when he was no longer needed to guide Liu Xi.”     â€œExcept then she would have died too,” Magweed suggested, “because she needed the materials she borrowed from him. If he stops existing then so does the flesh and blood she used to rebuild herself. So she still needs him. So he’s still out there, living in a loophole!”     â€œAnd H9 is trying to get to him.”     Griffin puzzled out more from the data he had mined. “He’s ordering up a portal for two. Hastily, I think. There’s a wicked witch who’s a bit angry at him. I mean wicked in the proper sense of really, really wise and not a good idea to cross. I think it’s Whitney’s grandma.”     â€œYes, she’s a good idea not to cross,” Magweed agreed. “She would definitely skip the gingerbread stage.”     Samantha Featherstone decided not to mention her grandfather once dating Hagatha. What happened in the nineteenth century should stay in the nineteenth century. “How did a Herald of Galactivac who is hacking into teleport systems also hack off a Darkness Witch?” she wondered.     Griffin fathomed right to the end of the datastream. “He’s ordering a portal for two. He’s not alone. There’s a girl with him.”     â€œAbout seventeen, dark skinned, athletic, goes by the name of Lindy Wilson?” Sam ventured. “H9 has past form kidnapping and teaming up with Falconne.”     â€œNo… no this girl is younger. My age. She’s got long brown hair and she’s not that tall but she’s got long slender legs. And sea-green-blue eyes that are deep and mesmer… and, y’know, eyes. Two of them.”     Magweed regarded her brother with a raised eyebrow. “Nicely done on the eye counting, Griff. And the database search to ID her?”     Griffin blinked. “Nothing. Absolutely nothing. No records, no photos, no social media, not even traffic and security cam hits.”     â€œH9 has erased her from the internet?” Sam speculated. “Is that what he does now when he steals girls?”     â€œSteals them?”     â€œAnd teleports them to another dimension, evidently,” Magweed disapproved. “We need to tell mom about this.”     â€œThere’s no time!” objected Griffin. “The EEE equipment is cycling up. Amy is using some words I’ll have to Google later. I have to save her!”     â€œDoes Amy need saving?” Sam questioned. In her experience, the EEE engineer was very handy with a well-placed socket wrench.     â€œHe means sea-green-blue-eyes mesmerising girl,” Magweed clarified. “How could we do that, Griffin?”     â€œI could piggy back the dimensional gate,” the boy explained urgently. “Take us to wherever this Hacker 9 takes his prisoner. We have to rescue her!”     â€œBecause we’re not grounded enough yet,” Mags suggested. “Dad hasn’t yet chained us to our beds.”     â€œShe’s in trouble, right? We have to help her. I’m a Gryphon! We rescue girls in trouble.”     â€œTraditionally Gryphons guard secrets and treasures,” Sam pointed out.     â€œWell she is a secret and a treasure! And I’m going to rescue her! That’s what Gryphons do now! Are you coming?”     â€œOf course we are,” Magweed chided her brother, “on the clear understanding that you are to blame for this.”     â€œSure,” agreed Samantha. “Right after I send a text.”     Griffin leaped up. “He’s operating the EEE portal. Amy is hitting something with a spanner. I’m pairing in a supplementary co-ordinate package.”     â€œCan you really do this?” Magweed checked. “I mean… he is supposed to be Galactivac’s herald of hacking.”     â€œAnd I was a data-ghost in mom’s womb nurtured by Celestian technology. And this is our system. And Gryphons go anywhere they are needed – especially when there is someone who needs to be guarded from a little punk!”     By the time the dimensional gate alarms had sounded round the Lair Mansion, the three young people were gone. ***     The ginger cat who owned Parody Island and the nearby city had also gained his indestructibility from the intervention of the Celestians. He had been a gift to Lisa from the Hooded Hood, who had arranged the feline’s special status vis a vis any kind of damage or restraint and had set him loose to further several long-term plots.     One such contingency had been if Magweed, Griffin, and Samantha managed to breach the Celestian Control Plane. The cat that accompanied them would create a small and traceable dimensional breach, allowing the Hooded Hood access to the place he had so long desired to find. In that way the Parodyverse would be his.     The cat yawned, stropped his claws on Yuki’s second-best leather jacket, and went back to sleep on the cyborg P.I.’s bed. He had no interest at all in Hooded Hood plots.     He was, after all, a cat. ***     Three Legionnaires, three Heralds, and one slightly-battered Equinnite floated above the moon’s surface in front of a cosmic Observer.     â€œYou are back then,” Hatman declared. “You’ve been pretty quiet since the Parody War. We weren’t sure if your order was done for, since you sided with the losers or were Obedience Branded.”     â€œSome of us remained neutral and persisted,” Utah revealed.     â€œThou can’st not remain neutral now,” Donar pointed out. His goats floated past him in their own bubbles, bleating wrathfully. “What side wilt thou be made to take when midnight comest?”     Utah discerned that the Lair Legion had diverted the fight to the Turquoise Area specially to get to him. And there was a king-sized mocha cappuccino stored in the goat-chariot’s locker with his name written on the side. “That choice is known only to… the Observer,” he intoned.     â€œWhich is why we’re asking,” Dancer pointed out.     â€œRelease us now!” roared Terrorox “Release us, or face the wrath of…” He fell silent as Utah made his force bubble soundproof.     â€œObserver, you’re tasked with watching events until the end of the Parodyverse,” Hatman called out. “And then preserving things, like… like an archive. The Intergalactic Order of Librarians package up the literature. Your people record events. But what’s happening now with the Dreaming Celestian, that’s not the proper ending, is it? That’s just a childish short cut, a quick fix last bash.”     â€œWe hast heardeth of a child who mightst be able to helpeth,” Donar went on. “Yon Herald caitiffs didst seek to scrobbleth her so we didst remonstrate with them to the uttermost. But she might be our chance – if you canst stop yon Heralds from making a gjarlenwolf’s breakfast of it!”     â€œWe really need you to be on our side, Uatu,” Dancer concluded. “C’mon. We’re due for a break!”     The Observer’s head turned. The stars above him were out-blazed by a multicoloured spacewarp effect and long chains of rippling black dots. An unimaginably vast spaceship arrived, that vaguely resembled an old-fashioned pneumatic cylinder vacuum cleaner with long flailing nozzles. The front opened up to release its sole occupant.     Galactivac, the Living Death that Sucks, stepped out into space for a full-page splash panel.     â€œOr we could have that,” sighed Dancer. “Utah, can you stop him?”     The Observer ducked.     Then there were two vast giants hanging in orbit around a doomed Earth. Galactivac was huge, but the blackened Dreaming Space Robot was larger yet.     The two cosmic beings faced each other and prepared to battle. *** Next Time: Galactivac vs the Dreaming Celestian (and a modicum of collateral damage)! Griffins vs Mermaids! (and a modicum of emotional damage) The clock reaches midnight! A possibly-fake legend remains surplus to destiny! The Hooded Hood does not go quietly into that good night! What the hell is a Furby? What constitutes a proper ending? All this and more in the probably-too-long-for-its-own-good Untold Origin Tales of the Parodyverse #363: The Alchemikal Honeymoon, or Six Degrees of Visionary. P.S. Can anybody think of any character who is more than three degrees of association removed from Vizh? Special thanks to Rhiannon for finding all the reference links for this chapter (and many others). Now she can go back to that masters thesis on Ovid she would otherwise have been frittering her time on. *** 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.

Sounds like the problem might solve itself if Galtivac decided to fight the Celestian Space Robot by itself. Except...if Galtivac destroys that Space Robot, doesn't the entire Parodyverse suddenly end? Don't they need to put it back into a dream state instead?

Hacker 9 is bringing Aella to Liu Xi Xian? Liu Xi might be really confused by that, because she'd most likely have no idea what she is supposed to do for them. Though in a way, it's smart, because Liu Xi will at least listen to him first. Most anyone else in the Mansion at the moment would probably punch him (or shock him, in Lara's case) first, just in case.

I tried, and couldn't think of a character that's more than 3 degrees separated from Visionary.

We know that the Space Robots collectively have sometimes warded off Galactivac. It's not clear whether one alone can, except that the Dreaming Celestian now has cheat codes beyond those his former partners had.

The problem is more likely this: if Galactivac could take down the Dreaming Celestian, that would not stop the imperative that has already been triggered; nor has Galactivac any means of stopping it. His only recourse is his go-to move of destroying planets.




It's a bit more complex than that.

Liu Xi had to reform herself a body in the Celestial Control Plane. Since that place helpfully temporarily supplies a guide from amongst the list of people whom the visitor would most want to meet there, Liu Xi was met by a temporarily-recreated Exu. He donated a fair amount of his body-mass as raw materials for Liu Xi to create a body from to save her life. This would have killed almost everyone but him, but his power allowed him to endure it.

When Liu Xi went home, the Doomherald should have ceased to exist again. Except that Liu Xi took her new body home with her and it was composed of Exu-stuff that had been temporarily created by the Celestian plane's hospitality systems. Technically, Liu Xi still needs the Doomherald or she would die (it's tough to do that body-making thing once in a day, let alone twice; if she hadn't used Exu-stuff for it she'd be hospitalised right now), so he is still around, caught in a logic glitch in the system.

The Lair mansion's scanners have noted that Liu Xi's physical matter is different from before in some ways. She hasn't yet fully processed the organics she used to make her body. It's not exactly Doomherald DNA but there is some trace of Exu there. That Exu-signature is what the EEE systems are locking on to, not to send H9 to Liu Xi (who intimidates him) but to the Doomherald!

In other words, H9 is using that Exu-stuff reading to find the actual Exu in the Celestian Control Plane and exploit a back-door to get himself and Aella there.

Are there other consequences of Liu Xi now being composed of matter drawn from the God of Murder recreated by Celestian technology on a supposedly temporary basis? Possibly. It all depends how good a story it makes, doesn't it?




Worrying, isn't it?

He might need more giants to help him.





It could wear off eventually?

Though how would destroying planets stop the imperative, aside form everyone being dead?





He might be happy about that, at least until the situation tries to resolve itself. Because for now he's not dead.





Liu Xi would find it amusing that H9 is intimidated by her, because she tries to be nice to everyone.

Lara would understand though; she's been famous for long enough back home to feel like she intimidates just about *everyone* who doesn't know her, whether she wants to or not.





He still might end up dragging Liu Xi along. Or at least attracting her attention.





The one consequence I can think of right away is it would give her power over elements that are not of Earth. In particular, she could suddenly develop a much stronger control over Void. Or maybe dark matter, or whatever abstract material makes up the fabric of the universe.

That last one might actually worry Lara a bit, because that's how she travels from place to place so quickly, by diving through that fabric and popping up at the other end.








Actually, all of the characters I tried to think of were connected through a really small number of friends of Visionary, so it might not entirely be Visionary's fault. This time.

I'm not sure we've ever really mapped Galactivac's origin or purpose in the Parodyverse.







That switch is pulled.




Indeed. Galactivac's range of options is really very limited. He could end some planets, a lot of planets, or all the planets. Beyond that he's flailing.







It certainly suggests possibilities to him.




For all his immense current power, H9 is still a somewhat socially-inept teen of about Liu Xi's age. She is way ahead of him in maturity and is a survivor of some serious traumas. In human terms, she's that girl in college who dates older guys and seems way out of Zach's experience or league. The fact that she's always been a bit detached from the Juniors means he's never had a chance to establish any sort of familiar relationship with her. Plus she's Lair Legion, the varsity.




I think H9 isn't as bothered by "older women" because he's more distant from them. They're another species. Confident, experienced females of his own age and potential peer group are much harder to cope with.







I made sure that Liu Xi and the LL are inside a force field battling for their lives against the Purveyors so as to avoid any difficulty. I want to finish this story soon! If Liu Xi, Al B., Vinnie, Hallie, or the Shoggoth had been around when H9 pulled his stunt there would be another chapter at least!










It depends on how the Celestian Plane conjures up flesh housings for the "guides" it manifests. They seem to be perfect duplicates of the original "housings" of the people called - Mumphrey was certainly quick to check out his Madge pretty thoroughly when they were reunited. Is that matter drawn from the Plane of Corposant Fire, which generally supplies that sort of raw creation material (e.g. Ham-Boy's Meat Vision)? Or is it generating new matter altogether, a continuation of the Parodyverse's creation? Or something else?

Also relevant, what is a god made of anyway? This is an even more complicated question re Exu, who was possibly the first Impossibilitum-being in the CSFB! line before taking a career change.







He is definitely the Kevin Bacon of the Parodyverse.

Usually something like Galtivac would have to be there to balance something out. At least originally, before something changed his path.





What I mean is, unless something is continuously transmitting the order, eventually the signal might fade. Or there's something continuously transmitting that needs to be shut down.





He could also smash things. That works sometimes.





It'll be tough for him to be detached and philosophical about Liu Xi keeping him alive, though.





Liu Xi would particularly find it funny that he talks so easily with Aella but is terrified of her - because Liu Xi herself doesn't feel all that intimidating. She's barely 5 feet tall and believes herself to be too quiet.





If you put Lara and Liu Xi to college comparisons, Liu Xi would be a confident freshman, and Lara would be either a recent graduate or a post-graduate. They aren't that far apart in age. The clear difference in behavior is because Lara has practically lived an entire life before she was 20, so she's way more jaded about it now.

For a real-world comparison, Lara would be like a musician or actress who was famous at 16, and burned out by 21, and is now trying to restart her career, albeit more carefully this time.





I'll see what I can do with this re-written-4-times tie-in as time allows. It's really clever, if I ever finish it.





The reason I said Lara might be concerned if Liu Xi learned to manipulate the fabric of the universe is she always thought it was something static that couldn't be messed with. She would be alarmed if someone could, even if it's a friend.

Partly because she has a strong awareness that it's like a giant rug, and tugging at it can stop space ships from working properly, knock planets or stars out of alignment, etc.





Lara comes from somewhere with a lot of powerful beings, where that question is answered quite clearly: A god is someone with the power to create; Just about anyone with power can destroy, manipulate, and torment.

Note that she has that answer in mind even as some people might see *her* as a god because she has lots of power to destroy.





Did he have giant worms dig up his house, too?

They'll only be grounded for a reasonable month as a result.

Sorry for the late reply... I was out of town for the weekend, and oddly my tablet is never able to find the PV's server when I'm away from my home internet.

I'll be back with more detailed thoughts, but I really enjoyed the scenes at Hagatha's... it was a fun cast to assemble there.

I'm curious what ISP you're using when you can't find the PV server. There seem to be a few of them blocking this server.

In this case it would be my mobile account through AT&T.

I forget when, but long ago when I used to have conversations with Kurt Busiek he once said that the secret of writing other people's characters was to put them in a new situation, have them respond in a way readers didn't expect, then show how the response was entirely in character based on what has already been established.

How I miss him on Avengers!




Grounding for a month loses some of its teeth when the Resolution War starts at midnight.




I'm sorry for the late reply to your reply. I'm really struggling with work/life balance right now, worse than in a long time.




Glad you liked it. By all means comment away. The discussion does sometimes help me to get round to wrtiing things. And since I know the next - probably last - issue will be a bastard to write I'm having trouble getting started.

In the Marvel Universe, Galactus is considered to be the balancing force between Life and Death. I'm not sure that really works there; I'm even less convinced for the Parodyverse, where life and death tend not to be the dominant poles anyhow.







That would be nice, wouldn't it?







Just ask the Hulk.







I didn't actually plan to bring him back. His appearance and his persistence were both somewhat of suprises to me. That happens sometimes with my PVB stories.







Well, Aella is 13, so she's not really in H9's "hot girl" category yet. And he thinks he knows a lot more things than her.




I'd have pegged Lara as the young TA




But she's not trying to get the band back together.







Jolly good.







I wasn't really planning on covering any ramifications of her Exu-matter. I assume that her powers eventually metabolise it to be entirely her as they would any other material she ingests or repurposes; it just might take longer because it is rather distinctive.







A God of Murder might be hard to fit into that description.




There are some other potential criteria, as well: being worshipped; being self-created; being pre-eminently cognisant; possibly being formed of belief; possibly accessing some divine power source not available to other beings.







Almost inevitably. His old Condo was half-buried after beaver attacks (I think) and his Lighthouse is infested with Doom Hamsters, so the worms will have to take a number.

He might be balancing something else.





Maybe he feels the same way, and wishes for a nice peaceful death already.





Doesn't he think he knows more than everyone?





That's around the same range I meant, but she's not the type to be a TA at all. She's way too unpredictable. What makes her look like someone who's younger is the fact that she's not very tall, and very slim, so people estimate her to be as much as 5 years younger.

Put those together, and you can see why she mocks Hatman for thinking of her as a kid. She's not that much younger than he is.





No, they've moved on, and some of them were jerks.

When she started her superhero career, she was a very mature teenager. So now, even though not much time has passed, she's both mature for her age, and also quite a bit jaded.





It would be kind of funny if she had a power she must never, ever use. The temptation would be horrible.





Exactly. She wouldn't consider him a god. Just a really powerful being.





Lara tries to make it simpler than that.





Worms usually don't take a number.

As you know, I had a mixed opinion on Busiek's Avengers run, but I do respect him as a writer. Really though, I have wandered so far away from the Marvel Universe in comics that I can't seem to grasp the current state of things anyway. It helped me appreciate the Vision series for the excellent writing it had because I didn't really have to connect the character directly to my memories of him. The hints of the larger universe I got from reading that lone book were largely unrecognizable.

The only drawback is that his daughter continued on from that series, and I'm kind of curious to see what happens with her, and yet I don't really want to dive into things. I have heard that they'll be resetting to a more recognizable version of the MU later this year (or maybe next.)




You start letting things slide because of the Armageddon, and then kids grow up without respect for boundaries.




No problem... I understand how that goes. I hope you can find the inspiration to tackle the big finish, but can be patient as well.

As I mentioned, I quite liked the scenes at Hagatha's. There was a delightful sense of history there that added to the scene without becoming exposition or footnotes. Aella's ability to "see" magic was a great addition to the character (or was it always there? It's been a while since I've read her story) and the nods it suggested to Whitney's past were fun.

Nice to see that the little punk is (apparently) leveling with them as to who sent him and why. I can't say that I'm overly enthusiastic about him being the one to reprogram the universe. If you're young and stupid enough to be excited about that responsibility, then you're in no way the one who should have it. Still, I suppose it beats mass carnage at midnight...

Fun Cameo by the Necromancer General, by the way. I enjoy that villain. He's very classic BZL.

The big fight scene on the moon was an enjoyable bit of action. It felt lifted straight from a major event cross-over where everyone needed to get a scene in some exotic local. I like the idea of appealing to the Observer... It makes sense. It's like someone's about to cancel his favorite television show and wrap it all up with a rushed and unsatisfying finale!

The Raft bit was cool too, as the Legion gets proactive and anticipates the moves of the other side. I get that they can fight now while still maintaining their own codes and values, but I imagine they'd still end up murdering all of the prisoners they've taken at midnight anyway, wouldn't they?

Aella had a really strong voice in the first chapter there. It was nicely done. Hagatha had a strong voice too but let's not go there.

I'm glad to see Hacker9 myself and fully support his plan for replacing the Parody-code with cat memes.

The battles of the Moon and Safe shall go down in Lair Legion history i imagine.

Do please continue!

Sorry for the intermittent delays in response. This is the first time I've crawled out of bed for three days. I'm supposedly "off work" for two weeks, which is just as well as I keep falling alseep.







After introducing a fair number of characters early on who were really just silly versions of comic book characters (we were all doing it), during my "middle years" writing in the Parodyverse I consciously downplayed and avoided those direct derivatives as much as possible. For that reason I never bothered to establish much backstory or rationale for them. It's only now in my "last gasp" phase that I feel comfortable dragging them out again and using them unashamedly.







He's the God of Murder, not Suicide.







Well, he is a smart teenager, so yes.










It's odd looking back at my earliest stuff, because back then Hatman and CSFB! were the newest rookies in the LL.







Like that stops most band reunions.







I agree. That's the kind of plot that can only be exploited so often, though, without becoming repetetive.







Which tells you even more about the queue of things waiting to annoy Visionary.

I devoted quite a lot of keyboard time to explaining what I thought was good and bad about his tenure. Some of it made it into the books Assembled and Assembled 2 and would have featured in Assembled 3 had the publisher not wimped out of editing a 9000-word essay (by someone other than me) that described an Iron Man story panel-by-panel.l




I've enjoyed certain series but I can't feel invested in what passes for their shared continuity these days.




I'm quite looking forwards to the TV series adaptation of Runaways.







Excellent quote.







Well, the work-life balance problem turned out to be sudden onset diabetis, so at least now I know why I'm sleeping 16 hours a day. It'll be a little while before I'm back to "normal" evidently.




Aella has probably always had the ability, but it's never been explicitly illustrated.




Yes, Hacker 9 is very pleased that he was finally able to put one over on Galactivac and the Hooded Hood.




He has a nice niche and enough ties to the wider Parodyverse to offer a bit of texture. He's really due for a bit of successful villainy to prevent him being too much of a joke, though.




Nicely put. Next issue: the alternative "fan" ending.




Yes, that is somewhat problematical still.

I quite like Hagatha. If poster-Sorcy had stayed around we'd have seen quite a olot more Hagatha-centric dealings. For example, I don't know that she's ever shared a scene with Con Johnstantine.




Well, Lisa's cat might approve. Possibly.




Well, for as long as the archives last after midnight.




Will do, but it turns out that I have diabetis, with blood sugar and insulin levels respectively high and low enough to require immediate intervention, so the medication I'm on is adding to the fatigue of the condition to the extent that replying to three PVB comments has just tired me out! I hope to get back to writing in the next day or two, and finishing this story is near the top of the list.

Is it that cold/flu going around?





I stopped using near copies as well around the time I started reading Adam Warren's Empowered, and how easy it was to make up and integrate multiple new throwaway characters.





Well, he's been dead, and then brought back multiple times, he might just want to be left dead for a while.








He'd probably get along with Lara, then. She tends to let know-it-alls be know-it-alls without arguing about it. Specifically because it's less stressful. If he can bring himself to talk to her, that is.





Making Lara short and slim enough to occasionally mistaken for a kid was inspired directly by a good friend of mine. She is often asked at stores and cons, "Where are your parents?" It's a running joke by now. Lara's issues are not nearly as extreme, but it makes it so she has difficulty being taken seriously.





It does if one of those jerks tried to have her arrested once.





It can manifest in other ways that are interesting, like certain Legionnaires might become suspicious or distrusting of her because of that new-found power. Because she gets herself in real trouble so often, and because in her past she lost her temper and set fire to a man. They might not believe she can control herself.





I'm sure if worms could see, they would have gone after the lighthouse by now.

Sudden onset diabetis, apparently, with some interesting blood sugar and insulin levels. I'm now having to educate myself about such things. Apparently the ongoing treatment includes a number of things of which I am not fond, including needles, diets, and exercise.




Well, early on we populated our stories with useful simulacrae in service of telling a quick fun tale. Later when we were in it for the longer haul we developed more complex pastiche or original characters. That's a natural progression for a developing fictional universe.

Where we are now is different again, I'm afraid. We're no longer active enough to attract new posters brigining whole new narrative strands. There are a diminishing number of readers but they are more or less "experts" in the PVB. I'd probably not have written the current UT story arc for a board that was trying to include new readers, but I think it suits the actual audience.

Speaking of UT, I really intend to sit down and write some today. As I intended yesterday, and all last week. I'm still trying to get to grips with how my current condition is affecting my creative drives. Deadlines are looming.

Are you still anything to do with the Alvaro Comic Boards, and specifically the Avengers Message Board at http://www.comicboards.com/avengers/ ?

The reason I ask is because I'm trying without success to use the Search feature there to drag up a list of postings for November 1998 (which I think is the month that "the Parodyverse" was born on that board and was peremporily exiled off so as to stop cluttering the place up with its silliness. Those very first posts of what became BZL and then PVB have never been indexed and archived; but I can't get the board to render up any results at all using the "19 years ago" setting.

Likewise when I do name searches for posts of that era by "Jarvis", "Lisa", "spiffy", "Visionary", "Vizh", "Baron Zemo", "NTU-150" etc. I'm coming up blank. Is the archive not working or is some setting on my browser inhibiting it?

If anyone has some time to spare, it would be very helpful to my story research to have a listing of posts for October - December 1998 with active links to the appropriate messages. If anyone can generate such a thing and repost it here that would help me immensely.

You'll be surprised how fast you get over needles. For the rest, think of a change of diet as motivation for trying new stuff.





It also works out better for me because I tend to get myself in trouble with many other people's characters.





We're also up against a different mentality. I've said this for a while now and it still holds true: Facebook has just about killed message boards. It eats up a lot of time, and feeds a lot of people's want/need to be famous to the point where they let everything else drop off of their radar. It's really tough to compete with.

The reason I prefer message boards for written stuff is on Facebook people share and repost it, and you lose control of it. If you wanted to make a correction? Too bad. The error will be there for all time.

By the way, this message board software did have a cross-post system to let people post both to Facebook and here. FB disallowed it pretty quickly - they WANT exclusive content, and its users are more than happy to oblige.





It took me a while to find the time, too. Then this idea struck, and I wrote it quickly before something else came along and interrupted it.





Hallie, I believe.

And if Hacker 9 can talk to Lara, he might be surprised at how much of what he does she understands. She learned a lot of really sophisticated tech from her time in a supergroup.





Imagine also that Lara is somewhat famous, which means she'll be invited as a guest at a comic con, and when she arrives in civilian clothing people say "get out of here, kid" and ask where her dad is.

And even in-costume the most common comments she gets are "You're shorter than I thought you'd be" and "You're soooo cute!"





That's why they'd really have to worry about Liu Xi. She's not proven to be unstable, but she does have quite a temper, and a lot of people constantly trying to push her over the edge.

What they might not realize is it's making her stronger and more fearsome.





And they still don't really know what Faite is capable of. Only that she's a withdrawn and a little weird.





Not that I remember...

I'll look at it, but there is a portion of archives missing due to MariaDB being badly behaved a year or three ago maybe? I'll have to check if the search is actually working correctly by seeing if any of those archives actually exists now.

She would eat him up and spit him out no trouble.




Yikes! Health always comes first so please sort out the regime with the medication etc. to get it all under control. I understand that it is possible to manage with diet and exercise modifications so wishing you all the best with it IW!

At first I was going to ask what the point of such a thing was, but then I recalled a rather insightful web column that broke down in high detail the artist's choices in framing especially being used in the Vision series, albeit not panel-by-panel. So I can certainly imagine some possibilities there, but I don't fully blame the editor either. Shame that it played a role in scuttling the project.




It sounds like that's becoming more commonplace, hence they're aggressively promising a "back to basics" approach soon to combat falling sales. Somehow I doubt that means what it would have to mean to get me back after all of this time though.





The TV side of Marvel is getting quite aggressive itself... the Netflix shows (expanded to include a Punisher spin-off now too, in addition to Iron Fist and the Defenders), Cloak and Dagger, Runaways and The Inhumans. That's an impressive line-up, although admittedly Runaways is the only title I actually read much of myself.

I wonder if they'll have Old Lace... as I understand it, the Jurassic Park raptors were mostly puppets. Maybe they can buy one second-hand for production...





Wow, that's scary... I'm sorry to hear that. Glad that you were able to get it diagnosed though, and I hope you're progressing well.





It's a good gimmick for her... gives her scenes a nice, unique flair and livened up the exposition with a bit of wonder. You know this writing thing pretty well.




He can surely throw his head back and laugh about it, confidently.




He did cut out my heart. How much success does he need to be a threat?




I look forward to it whenever you can manage it!

And it wouldn't be worth watching?







Turns out I've had it for years and didn't notice. Anyway, I'm much better now and making the demanded adjustments. Normal service will be resumed soon. For example, I have a specially-complicated triple-length Untold Tales to proofred this morning and I hope to post it later today (if I can only look up the name of Troia's childhood rival).

I never saw the article, only heard the editor's gibbering. I'm still slightly miffed that the project was abandoned after I'd put quite a bit of time into generating roughly 25% of the content.

That said, it's not the most annoying thing I've suffered in terms of wasted writing work. I have one novel that's been sitting with a publisher for coming up to five years now with no progress, and not a penny in royalties from the first novel of mine that publisher put out before that, which usally means sales so low as not to surpass production costs.

And then there was the guy who wanted to launch a series of books in a superhero universe made up of updated out-of-copyright characters from the 1940s. I agreed to write a 15,000 word story introducing the superteam he had planned out. When he sent me the cast list and the general plot he wanted I had to go back and agree a 40,000 word story instead to have any chance. Four full drafts later he was still not happy that I wanted to make any changes to his proposed plot (to address certain issues I felt it had) and it became pretty clear that he hadn;t thought through this whole "letting the characters in my head out of my control" thing. He abruptly dropped the project and I had wasted about two weeks of writing time and probably about 70,000 words of writing. Very annoying and a lesson for me in negotiating work-for-hire.







The publishing model of modern comics really precludes long-term loyalty building. There are still some interesting coherent series out there though. Astro City has just hit its hundredth issue (numbered vol 3 #47 I think) - intriguing because its characters have aged in real time.




I seem to be the only person appreciating what they're doing with Agents of SHIELD right now. Although if you're not watching it you should be, since they're covering your area of obsession, artificial intelligence sentience and rights, with a whole arc about LMDs and a strong perfomance from the actress who played the villain in Galavant as looking-for-answers-and-read-the-Darkhold-for-them robot Aida.




They'd better have Old Lace.







I'm certainly recovering, with performance varying from about 60% - 140% of what I've been experiencing these last couple of years. Sustained performance is still a problem though, and it has really affected my work capacity.

Still, I hope to get a triple-sized Vizh-centric Untold Tales up today, so there's that. With special guest star Jarvis.







The PVB is very good practice.







Surely. Nothing can stop him now.







It's not like you didn't get another one.







About two hours of proofreading and reference linkig from now, I hope. What was the name of that girl who bullied Troia as a child back on Amazon Isle?

I also apparently have to go to six weekly half-day courses on How To Have Diabetes Properly.







It can be simpler to torture your own creations. I know I do.







I've never used Facebook or other social media like it so I wouldn't know. Publishers keep telling me I have to join Faceboot and Twitter to promote my books and "develop an author platform" and so far I have resisted the call.




Yours is the only message board I've ever used that has a competent edit function, actually. Certainly Comicboards (back in the day when I used it, c 1999-2005) and Sigma.net didn't have such things.




That might ultimately be a poor business choice for them. Short-term gain over long-term integration.







It wasn't the time, it was the capacity to make effort. I'm getting back to normal now. Story up later today all being well.







If so it has slipped my mind.




Does that sort of thing happen at Comicon?




Ouch.

My son just showed me Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood (which I thought was very good). The main character there doesn't take well to those kinds of comments either.







That's what character arcs are for, to cover these kind of issues in an interesting way/




I think they probably don't concentrate on Faire because she gently steers their attention elsewhere, maybe even without consciously doing it.She's all about the little present changes, after all. "Yeah, that Faite kid... ooh, puppies!" It's a bit like how people improbably don't connect how much Dancer looks like Sarah Shepherdson.







I'm pretty sure Vizh should get off his backside and write that one. He's way overdue with a story anyhow.

Rhiannon and I probed a bit further with this and found that we could get archive results for the relevant period (July-November 1998) if we entered the search using the Month drop-down selection but not using the "x years ago" drop down selection. So I got what I needed, I think.

With the shift to strike-two.com, the links from older archived pages on the Hooded Hood's Homepage back to the PVB no longer work. So, for example:

http://www.chillwater.org.uk/HH/archive/others/2007/dancer%20-%20kerry%20and%20danny%20-%20dead.htm

is an archived 2007 story tying-in with the arc where Naari is apparently stillborn. The story has some replies under it, but they all have link addresses like this:

http://www.mangacool.com/php/show.php?rpy=parodyverse-20060402035601

How do I need to globally edit those addresses to point to the actual current addresses? I've tried just substituting the new front end for the old but that's not working.

Likewise, some newer links like this one:

https://parodyverse.strike-two.com/app/show.php?rpy=parodyverse-2017011602185689&layout=thread

don't appear to work in browsers with Java disabled (or at least in IE8 with Java and Cookies blocked) but the same pages open just fine at the same settings direct from the PVB before they are archived. Is there a fix?

HH