Previous Post The Moderator Saga: Armed & Dangerous “Oh, good,” CrazySugarFreakBoy! greeted Helen MacAllistair, Muffy B. Harplicker and Brap as they returned to the area of the underground storage facility where Flapjack and Functionary had been searching for supplies. “For a while, I was worried this was gonna be a total sausage festival,” Dreamcatcher Kokopelli Foxglove grinned at Helen and Muffy, before noticing Brap, “I mean … no offense, dude.” “None taken,” the French-accented bipedal pig bowed. “Don’t mind us,” Flapjack leered reassuringly at Helen, which failed to reassure her, “we’re just catching up on old times with Dream here.” Helen regarded the wanted former member of the New Lair Legion, who had tied the left arm of his Silly Suit around his chest, to serve as a tourniquet for the wound where his left arm used to be, which was wet with neon green blood. “You two know each other?” Helen addressed Flapjack and Dream skeptically. “Hell, I know both of ‘em,” Dream claimed between chugs of Rocket Fuel Soda Pop, using the bottle in his right hand to gesture toward Flapjack and Functionary, as Helen spotted that he’d already drained several dozen other bottles. “He apparently remembers working with us,” Functionary explained, pausing pensively before he elaborated, “as supervillains.” “Hey, all I’m saying is, I remember you hiring Flapjack,” Dream reasoned, as he tossed the now-empty Rocket Fuel Soda Pop bottle to join the pile of others on the floor, “I remember being a member of a team that you led, and I remember Flapjack working for a reality-rewriting archvillain … and besides, I already know I was a bad guy, so …” Dream shrugged, before he snapped his fingers. “Revisionary! That’s what you were called!” Helen shut her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose. “I suppose we can scarcely afford to turn down any assistance at this point,” she finally shook her head. “Besides, your newfound old friend might be able to make use of something we’ve discovered.” At this prompt, Muffy and Brap set down the stack of crates they’d been carrying, and Brap grabbed Flapjack’s crowbar to pry open the wooden side of the heaviest one, on the bottom, revealing a collection of dull gray robotic technology. “Are those … android parts?” Functionary squinted in recognition. Helen blinked in surprise. “Yes,” she nodded, genuinely impressed, “good eye. Anyway, this was one of The Moderator’s many abandoned projects. Some time ago, the New Lair Legion captured a Transformer from the planet Cybertron – specifically, an Autobot who identified herself as ‘Glitch’ – who had been sent on a reconnaissance mission to Earth. Before she escaped, we determined that she was composed entirely of Imaginesium,” here, she turned to Dream, “an alloy whose properties were strikingly similar to those of your Impossibilitium Silly Suit.” “My Impossibilitium everything,” Dream grimaced, as his right hand clutched the sore, bloody wound where his left arm had been. “I’m entirely composed of the stuff, too.” “Yes,” Helen agreed, “The Moderator knew that. He also suspected that your Impossibilitium makeup would make you harder to control, and considered replacing you with a series of clones, but ruled that out as soon as he realized that any such cloned copies would be likely to be even more unstable than the original, if only because of the degradation and loss of resolution that tend to be inherent in most cloning processes.” “So he opted to create a … synthezoid instead?” Functionary deduced. “The Moderator declined to include me in that particular discussion,” Helen conceded, pursing her lips peevishly, “but from what I was able to gather, either Muffy, Al or both were tasked with synthesizing Imaginesium alloy, with which to produce CalmSereneFlunkyBoy… facsimiles … but in spite of their most brilliant work, the damned stuff remained stubbornly … inert.” Dream burst into barking, braying laughter. “Of course it did!” he bellowed. “Nobody but an Agent of Chaos can create, discover or activate Impossibilitium or Imaginesium!” Helen smirked as she knelt down, peered into the crate and pulled out an artificial left arm. “And you’re an Agent of Chaos.” Dream’s face fell suddenly, but slowly gave way to a smile that spread from ear to ear, as he grasped the implications and reached out his right hand, gratefully accepting the substitute appendage that Helen held out to him. “Oh, yeah,” Dream called out, as it occurred to him that he needed an extra hand, literally, to untie the left arm of his Silly Suit, and unzip it low enough to slide it down off his left shoulder, “can I get a little help, here?” Brap pushed another, smaller crate over for Dream to sit on, while Flapjack removed Dream’s makeshift tourniquet with a practiced skill. “This might hurt a bit,” Helen warned Dream, wincing sympathetically as she supported his shaky right arm, to guide him in attaching the artificial arm properly to his left side. “No, it’s gonna hurt a lot,” Dream chuckled, even as he sweated, trembled and breathed deeply to steel himself, before he jammed the plug of the artificial arm into the socket of his open wound. The dull grays of the metallic left arm exploded into blindingly fluorescent oranges and neon greens, as its shiny, synthetic fibers leaped to life and expanded to envelop the day-glo yellow flesh around the area of the wound, spreading far enough to completely cover Dream’s left pectoralis major muscle in front, and his left shoulder blade in back. As Dream screamed in pain, Helen returned the tight grip of his right hand on her own, while Flapjack gritted his teeth and continued to press the artificial arm firmly in place at the shoulder. Once the lightshow had finally subsided, Functionary rushed forward to catch Dream as he passed out. When Dream’s eyes fluttered open again, he wearily rubbed his eyelids with the fingers of his left hand, then went wide-eyed with wakefulness at the fact that he had a left hand again, albeit one made up of fluorescent orange and neon green Imaginesium, rather than the day-glo yellow Impossibilitium flesh of the rest of his body. “I’d say this science experiment is a success,” Helen beamed.

The Moderator Saga #23: Check Again Previous Chapters ***     Ã¢â‚¬Å“What are you lookin’ at, Spoon?” demanded Bill Reed, the Crimson Lawnmover. His psychic blades slashed a little faster, as they always did when the sadistic doctor was grinning at him.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“I’m looking at nothing,” Dr Spoon replied with absolute precision of words. “I’m just planning what I’m going to do to you and the others when the Moderator turns you all over to me for failing in your tasks.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“It wasn’t our fault,” the Link quailed. “There was some kind of time-forcefield around that old fire station that even the Shoggoth said couldn’t be broken down. And it was the Dominator who let CalmSereneFlunkyBoy get away. And nobody knows how Flapjack escaped.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“I know,” Dr Spoon answered. “You left the hunchback with a teaspoon which he subsequently used to spring his fetters. The cutlery told me.”     /Do you think the master will be very very angry?/ worried Sigmund the Superlative Simulacrum. He glanced over at the pelts of Rocket Rabbit and Semi-Transparent Lass displayed on the wall of the Lair Tower Operations Room. Both had been part of the Moderator’s time-hopping group before they’d screwed up. /I hope my skin gets hung next to yours, Miss Link/     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Hey, I’ve been with the boss almost from the start,” the Lawnmower reasoned. “He wouldn’t do something like that to me… Would he?”     Dr Whitwell had once been a well-adjusted kindly surgeon before his world had been shattered. Now he lived only to inflict pain with his Agony Spoons. “Heroes running all over the place, disrupting plans for the final victory, absconding with gestalt bioweapons, breaking into secure storage and plundering the trophies, slipping away on alien space craft? How angry do you think he’ll be?”     The Moderator burst into the room laughing maniacally. “Good morning, everybody. And how’s my team? Wonderful. Wonderful.” He strode through the room and into his private office.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Um…?” ventured the Link. “What just happened?” ***     The Moderator sat down at the chessboard and moved his King’s Bishop to King’s Knight Six. “Check,” he declared.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“But not mate,” replied the Chronicler of Stories, sitting on the other side of the board, studying the pieces.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Not yet. Seven moves time maximum,” the Moderator predicted. “You’ve made a serious error.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Are we still talking about the chess game?” the Chronicler wondered.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“You wagered unwisely,” the reality raiding world-conqueror chuckled. “You thought I was a fool, an easy mark. I’m not.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“The wager’s still on,” the Chronicler replied. “Nothing’s decided yet.”     The Moderator sat back and smirked. “Let’s review, shall we. In order to prevent a cosmic battle that would ravage whole dimensions, you and I agreed to resolve our conflicting claims of controlling events through a simple test on this version of Parody Earth. If I could seize command of this planet and remain in control for a period of one month then you and the others of the Triumvirate would resign your offices, cede your power to me, and slink away never to be heard of again.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Your month’s not up yet.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“But it will be in two days time,” the Moderator pointed out.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“But the heroes have given you the slip. Again.”     The Moderator placed his palms against the sides of his face mockingly. “Oh no. Whatever shall I do?” His mood switched. “I know. I’ll let that pathetic hunchback escape from my tower. He’ll show me where the weak links amongst my personnel are. I’ll allow one or two of the former Lair Legion to become heroes again, to flush out the remaining power-bases that still oppose me, to be a rallying point for whatever resources the resistance still possess - like giant alien spaceships and time-meddling pocketwatches. I’ll make a few slips, seem to be struggling, commit some atrocities, encourage the uprising. That’s what I’ll do.”     The Chronicler was still studying the board. “You can try and position the opposition’s pieces, but it doesn’t always work.” He swept his queen across the board and sacrificed her to remove the offending bishop.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Am I supposed to fall into a trap now, when unexpected help arrives from unsuspected places?” scorned the Moderator. “Am I not supposed to know about Sir Mumphrey Wilton clinging to the ghost of the world that was, hoping against hope that someone on this side of reality can restore it before he runs out of chronal energy and all hope of restoration is lost?”     The Chronicler kept his poker face.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Am I not supposed to know about the elementalist girl and Faite’s latest toy hiding out with their menagerie of misfits in their hidden pocket dimension? Am I supposed to be unaware of the peanut gallery of random teenage freaks popping in and out of the plotline? Was that what the forces of regression were hoping for, Mister Burch?”     The Moderator ignored the offered queen and shifted his rook to take the dark knight.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Sometimes the best traps are the ones that you know are there,” the Chronicler answered, moving his queen to claim a rook. “But they can still catch you. It’s one thing to know that your enemies are gathering. It’s another to find them and stop them from bringing about your overthrow.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Oh, I know where they are,” the Moderator replied. “And what they are. All of them. Flapjack escaped, but he’s got Killer Flea hiding out in his clothing, transmitting on a subspace channel invented by the late, great NTU-172. Quite undetectable. Flea will lead us right to them, as soon as they’re all assembled. And I have other agents in their camp too. One with the little Chinese girl, one amongst our brave outcast rebels. Back-ups and contingencies. Who says I learned nothing from my encounter with the late Hooded Hood?” He shifted the white queen to capture the other black knight. “Check.”     The Chronicler was slightly horrified that the Moderator had such good intelligence. He tried not to show it. “You seem very confident in your information sources,” he noted. “I’m sure I’m about to find out what my great mistake was.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Your great mistake?” The Moderator snorted. “Apart from opposing me? Your great mistake was in trusting too much. Everything you know your Triumvirate colleagues know. What a shame that your new Shaper of Worlds decided to align herself with me.”     The mask slipped. “Symmetry told you all this? Betrayed this information to you?”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“She’s an ambitious being, Chronicler. She’ll retain her power and gain more when our wager is concluded.” The Moderator pointed to the board. “Are you ready to resign now?”     The Chronicler of Stories moved his own queen to capture the Moderator’s queen. The Moderator took the black queen in exchange with a simple pawn.     Two light years from Earth, the warp core shielding inside Gamma Ray Gary’s massive interstellar spaceship was deleted from existence. Less than two seconds later the vessel blossomed with nuclear fire and was gone.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“It’s all just a matter of taking the right pieces away at the right time,” noted the Moderator. “I trust the resourceful survivors will find their way back to Earth for the grand meeting. It’ll be much more satisfying that way.”     The Chronicler surveyed the chessboard. The pieces were getting thin, and they were getting corned. “What about you then?” he challenged the Moderator. “Have you actually decided on a long-range goal yet? Any motivations? A back-story? Anything to make you memorable other than the power to cut things out of existence if you don’t like them? Only the Parodyverse has a long list of would-be rulers and after a while all but the very memorable ones blur together.” He moved his king to avoid an otherwise inevitable attack from the Moderator’s knight.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“I’m pacing myself,” replied the villain. “A time for every exposition under heaven. Perhaps when the last of my enemies grovels helplessly before me in chains, begging for me to kill them, then the revelation will come.” He pushed a pawn forward to command the middle of the board.     In Argos City, Search Engineer gestured and security troopers kicked in the door of a modest apartment. “Kat Gillespie, you are under arrest for treason, for promotion of terrorism, for sedition, and for conspiracy against the state. Congratulations. You’re going to be the big attraction at a state execution day after tomorrow.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Life isn’t a chess game,” the Chronicler said. “There are no pawns. Only people.” He shifted his king again, a final defensive manoeuvre.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“That’s the kind of thinking that makes you the loser and me the winner,” the Moderator pointed out. “It’s why two days from now you will hand me the power to make permanent this reality that the Hooded Hood sent me to as his little joke. Then we’ll see who has the last laugh, shall we?”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“The Lair Legion and Earth’s other heroes have fought more desperate actions against more dangerous things than you,” the keeper of the continuities declared. “Find them, attack them, they’ll still find ways to triumph.”     The Moderator considered this. “Did I mention that they stole my Harper/Framlicker hybrid?” he asked. “Mostly Harper and Framlicker anyway. I incorporated some data processing from the Librarian and some brain interface technology from Yuki Shiro. And of course, I laced the body with the Venom symbiote, waiting for the moment I choose to trigger it. And implanted a transnuclear bomb in its chest cavity.” He looked up at the Chronicler and flashed another smile. “And I wonder what dear little Salieri will do now that dear old Mrs Meng his mother is in my custody, being shipped over to Dr Spoon? Oh, and I contacted a being called Nyalurkhoptep about taking that Shoggoth off my hands. He’s possessing Whitney Darkness right now and coming to deal with that clever little snotball.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“I… I see,” swallowed the Chronicler.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“But don’t worry. I’m sure the heroes will find ways to triumph,” the Moderator comforted him. He shifted his rook again and looked over at the Chronicler in triumph. “Checkmate.” *** Continued… *** Previously: The Moderator Saga #1 by Hatman The Moderator Saga #2: Minions for the Moderator by Killer Shrike The Moderator Saga #3: Captured is the Carpathian! by the Hooded Hood The Moderator Saga #4: Interview With the Archvillain by the Hooded Hood The Moderator Saga #5: Lord and Master of All He Surveyed by various posters The Moderator Saga #6: Mouse and Ming by Hatman The Moderator Saga, oh let’s say #7 by Killer Shrike The Moderator Saga #8: One More Day by CrazySugarFreakBoy! The Moderator Saga #9: Let’s Be Bad Guys by CrazySugarFreakBoy! The Moderator Saga #10: With his Hands Tied Behind His Back by the Hooded Hood The Moderator Saga #11: The Moderator Strikes Back by Killer Shrike The Moderator Saga #12: Acting On a Hunch by the Hooded Hood The Moderator Saga #13: Something Nasty in the Cellar by the Manga Shoggoth The Moderator Saga #14: My Little The Moderator Tie-In and More Tie-In by L! The Moderator Saga #15: New Players by Hatman The Moderator Saga #16: Meanwhile… by the Hooded Hood The Moderator Saga #17: Outlaws of the New Law by Jason The Moderator Saga #18: The Impossible Win by CrazySugarFreakboy! The Moderator Saga Part… What 19? by Visionary The Moderator Saga #20: Visiting Time by the Manga Shoggoth The Moderator Saga #21: Armed and Dangerous by CrazySugarFreakboy! *** Original concepts, characters, and situations copyright © 2008 reserved by Ian Watson. Other Parodyverse characters copyright © 2008 to their creators. The use of characters and situations reminiscent of other popular works do not constitute a challenge to the copyrights or trademarks of those works. The right of Ian Watson to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the UK Copyright, Designs & Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved.