Tales of the Parodyverse >> View Post
Post By
Rhiannon
In Reply To
10,000 words of conclusion from... the Hooded Hood.

Subj: You always wait till I'm away before writing stuff, well almost always.
Posted: Sun Mar 09, 2008 at 11:04:21 am EDT
Reply Subj: The Moderator Saga #48: Absolute Moderation
Posted: Sat Mar 08, 2008 at 02:11:31 pm EST


>
The Moderator Saga #48: Absolute Moderation
>
>
> Previous Chapters
>
> The Story So Far: The Moderator, an alternate-reality version of Danny Lyle (Denial), has conquered Parody Earth through a retcon which has left him and his “new Lair Legion” in charge of a planet grown paranoid about shape-changing Hero Feeders who look to their “protectors” to save them. Those accused of being shapeshifters are confined in a concentration camp in Iowa and eventually disposed of.
>
> The retcon is still only temporary so far, but a wager between the Moderator and the cosmic Triumvirate of Chronicler of Stories, Destroyer of Tales (Lisa), and Shaper of Worlds (Symmetry, Danny’s mother) will be resolved by day’s end, and if the Moderator still has control of Earth by then his changes become permanent.
>
> The Moderator’s plans to eliminate opposition by that time seem to be coming to fruition. The Purveyors of Peril resistance movement has been betrayed, ambushed, and mostly slaughtered. Only CrazySugarFreakBoy!, Gamma Ray Gary, and Gamona still fight on. Killer Shrike has been possessed by the body-stealing Dead Boy and is not happy about it. CSFB! has just killed the Dominator for murdering his mother Meggan Foxxx before his eyes.
>
> Fred Harris, Ham-Boy, was drafted as a Moderator minion in this new reality. After a run-in with Kat Gillespie where he decided to let her go he now seeks only to escape the Iowa compound if he can find a vehicle to get away in.
>
> Mysterious metaphysical entity Faite has intervened again to draw Yuki Shiro, the Psychic Samurai (Chiaki Bushido), Liu Xi Xian, and Lara Night out of the battle. They have been told they now have duties as “memory carriers”, to retain the information required to restore the Parodyverse to how it was before – if the Moderator can somehow be beaten.
>
> Boy genius Salieri Meng has led Visionary, Samantha Featherstone, Brap, the Sorting Hat, the Manga Shoggoth, Amy Aston, and a composite being made from Al B. Harper, Miss Framlicker, Baroness von Zemo, and Venom to the west coast site where a Narrative Bomb eradicated Arachknight City in the Parody War. This is where the Moderator first emerged. Things have become complicated by Meng discovering that if he restores things to how they were then he and his mother would be dead in that timeline; and also by the Baroness attempting to wipe out Visionary and the others and ending up sharing space in the consciousness of the Sorting Hat.
>
> Flapjack confronted Madame Symmetry, revealing the truth about the Moderator to her, arguing that there was yet another unseen force at work provoking the whole incident. Symmetry responded by evaporating him.
>
> Now all we have to do is to find out how things conclude…
>
>
***

>
>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Ouch,” complained the recently-obliterated Flapjack. “Foul!”
>
>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Indeed,” agreed the Hooded Hood, although whether he was speaking of Symmetry of Synchronicity’s sudden murder of the loathsome hunchback or of Flapjack of the Carpathians himself it was hard to say. “Good evening, Flapjack.”
>
>     The cowled crime czar’s former henchman blinked in surprise and looked up into those glimmering green eyes. “Boss? Boy, am I glad to see you!” He peered around at the absolute featureless blackness. “Um, wherever we are,” he added.
>
>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“We are currently in the realm of Temporary Death,” the Hood supplied. “I am here because I was stabbed by ManMan using Knifey when he was under the control of the Red Watchman. Careless of me, really, but fortunately I’m not unprepared to turn the situation to my advantage. You are a potential iteration of one of my futures, and are possibly the most repugnant sexual advance in the history of courtship.”
>
>     Flapjack frowned. “Are you… coming on to me?” he worried. “Only this henchman loyalty thing only goes so far. Unless the boss happens to be a hot mad scientist chick, in which case…”
>
>     The Hood silenced him with a gesture. “You were eliminated by Madame Symmetry of Synchronicity, whom in your timeline is the new Shaper of Worlds. Most interesting. But she is also a mistress of time – or at least an occasional concubine. She arranged for you to enter the realm of Temporary Death at a time you were sure to find me resident here, so that I could be appraised of the situation she required me to address.”
>
>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“She said she’d picked her side,” Flapjack remembered, “and then she slaughtered me.”
>
>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Yes,” agreed the Hood. “Quite the come-on, really. She is inviting me to shape the future by engaging in a sexual liaison with her which will result in the conception of Danny Lyle and his sister.”
>
>     The hunchback froze in bafflement. “Hold it. So you haven’t yet…”
>
>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“From your perspective my son has been born and grown to near-adulthood,” the archvillain explained. “From mine he is still a pleasurable encounter away from existence.”
>
>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“So… hold on… you could beat the Moderator just by not… encountering… with Symmetry!”
>
>     The Hood shook his head. “I need Daniel for a number of other purposes for which my former, retconned children are not suitable. He can accomplish things which spiffy, Troia, Thugos and Kumari could not.”
>
>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“But…” objected Flapjack, “all those people are still around, except maybe Kumari who you packed off to the King of Stories as a punishment. A punishment for one of them.”
>
>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“But now they have different origins,” noted the cowled crimze czar. “I believe it came as a relief to Dark Thugos at least, not to be related to spiffy in some sense.”
>
>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Yeah. I can see how that would kill his villain-cred,” admitted Flapjack before he caught the Hood’s gaze. “Um, not that spiff’s not a great guy. Did I mention he damn near conquered an alien planet a few weeks back with his outlaw city state?”
>
>     The Hooded Hood cradled his fingertips together. “I am intrigued that somebody has elected to interfere in my plans for Daniel and turned him to different ends,” he mused. “This must be why Symmetry elected to send you as emissary to me here in my portion of the timeline.”
>
>     Flapjack struggled to keep up. “You know about the Moderator? Even now, back then?”
>
>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Am I not… the Hooded Hood? More properly, I can sense the causal strands which have been manipulated to ensure his existence, now I come to look for them. Somebody has taken a good deal of time to set this up, hoping to provoke a response.”
>
>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Then he got his wish,” Flapjack replied. “It’s cosmic being central out there, with everybody from the Chronicler to Sir Mumphrey chipping in.”
>
>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“So I anticipate,” noted the Hooded Hood. “Faite, the Shaper, the Destroyer of Tales, the Void Spectre, the Hedgehogs of Time, the Limbo Scholar, the Infrequent Aardvark, all kinds of people trying to shift events one way or another. As if somebody wanted to observe how they all operate, what they can do and what their limits are.”
>
>     Flapjack looked sharply at his former boss. “That’s not you then?”
>
>     The Hood shook his head. “The Hooded Hood already possesses the information he requires for his schemes,” he admitted. “And now I know that I will be absent for a prolonged length of time at the moment when the Moderator’s saga unfolds. Useful. Interesting.” He stroked his beard and looked thoughtful.
>
>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“So, to summarise,” Flapjack noted, “I got kakked by Symmetry to invite you to go have sex with her, and so that you can plot what to do when you go AWOL in a future that’s still years ahead for you and turn it all to your advantage?”
>
>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Indeed,” agreed the Hooded Hood. “Thank you.”
>
>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“But I get brought back to life, right? This is the land of Temporary Death? Shy chick with love handles, likes to call herself Tricia? So I get resurrected.”
>
>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“If the Moderator’s future is erased then your death will never have occurred,” the Hood agreed. “If.”
>
>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“But I still remember that Link babe’s phone number, right? She so wants me.”
>
>     The Hood pondered further on the situation presented to him, his devious mind considering a thousand tactics, formulating a grandiose strategy. “It occurs to me that even this encounter may be part of an unseen adversary’s attempts to log what his potential opponents can achieve,” he reasoned. “If he seeks to understand his other opposition he will undoubtedly wish to learn the capabilities and character of… the Hooded Hood.”
>
>     Flapjack shrugged. “You are an archvillain. I guess anyone wanting to get to the top of the league has to deal with you, sooner or later.”
>
>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“He wishes to know what the Hooded Hood can do?” mused the cowled crime czar. “Then let us not disappoint him.”
>
>
***

>
>     Gamma Ray Garry shrugged off the hard radiation that was blistering his flesh and burning great black gouges across his torso. He staggered a little as the Scarlet Lawnmower’s psychic blade-storm gashed his already ribboned face even worse. He could only see from one eye now, leaving him open to Killer Flea’s savage attack from his blindside. Sigmund the Superlative Simulacrum used the atomic powers he’d copied from Atomic Bumpkin to keep up the assault.
>
>     /He really should have died by now./ opined the power-adapting android, scrolling the text across his etch-a-sketch faceboard. /Why is he keeping going?/
>
>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Heroism,” spat the Lawnmower, willing his blades to manifest inside the alien attacker, going for vital organs. “He’s too dumb to lie down, even though all his friends are dead.”
>
>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“I will… never… stop fighting…” promised Gary, hefting his Ausgardian weapon Ljouis to catch and redirect the radiation, spraying Flea and Lawnmower away from him for a moment.
>
>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“That’s totally inspiring, man,” admitted Killer Shrike, sauntering up to watch the dying hero’s thrashings. “Relax, guys. It’s Dead Boy in here doing the driving. Just keep slaughtering the do-gooder.”
>
>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“It really is time he fell over,” agreed Killer Flea. He increased his size again, becoming roughly the size and mass of an elephant, and reoriented his weaponry. “I feel he is disrespecting me.”
>
>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Does he know yet about his Flashlight buddy?” wondered Scarlet Lawnmower. “Hey, horse boy! Doorman stabbed your bestest chum in the back and left him bleeding on the ground. What d’you think about that?”
>
>     Gary forced himself forward through the cloud of psychic blades, grunting as he tried to defy the Simulacrum’s latest attacks.
>
>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“I think that was kind of amateur,” admitted Killer Shrike. “Always confirm your kills.” He reached forward and cut Scarlet Lawnmower’s throat with a neat slice across the jugular. “Like that.”
>
>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“What?” demanded Killer Flea. The robot assassin turned to Shrike but the butcher bird had already skidded beneath the giant’s legs and attached the EMP pack he’d salvaged off Partial Man’s corpse. “Did I mention that as a card-carrying bad guy I’m allowed to lie about being possessed? If I beat the psychic snot outta Dead Boy and showed him how to be properly dead I don’t have to go making noble speeches about it. Just sayin’.”
>
>     Sigismund turned his fury on Shrike. /You will be rendered to ashes!/ he promised.
>
>     Gary caught the robot by the head and slammed him into the ground. Repeatedly. Gary’s strength finally ran out and he sank to the floor gasping for breath.
>
>     Gamona stirred. “What just happened?” she demanded, rubbing her forehead where she’d been brushed by the phased fingers of Partial Man.
>
>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“We won,” shrugged Killer Shrike. “And nobody important got kakked. By which I mean me.”
>
>     The Moderator’s troops were scattering across the battlefield, on both sides of the teleport doorway that Doorman has set up to link the site of the Purveyor’s ambush with the site where the refugees’ sanctuary had been exposed to attack. A few wounded escapees still staggered across the smoking wasteland, dazed and uncertain of what to do next.
>
>     CrazySugarFreakBoy! seemed to be coming out of some sort of trance too. The lurid purple and reds of his costume shifted down the spectrum towards his more familiar orange and greens. He stared at the blood on his torn hands. “What did I do?”
>
>     A young woman in a ragged Punisher t-shirt scrambled out from the rubble. “Doesn’t matter what you did right now. What matters is that people need your help now. People who were locked up in this awful place.”
>
>     Killer Shrike crossed his arms and leered. “And why would we wanna do a lame thing like that, honeybunch?” he challenged. “We just walked into the middle of World War Four to try an’ distract the Moderator, and so far I haven’t seen anyone writing a paycheck for that one yet.”
>
>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Helen MacAllistair,” breathed Gamma Ray Gary, trying to rise despite the broken pistons in his augmented muscles, despite the searing radiation wounds that were dissolving his insides. “Did she get to the computer banks? Has she broadcast the truth?”
>
>     It was the perfect moment for the master villain to make his entrance, so he did. “Alas,” said the Moderator, “Miss MacAllistair is no more. And none of you can move.”
>
>     Gary, Shrike, Gamona, CSFB!, even Kat Gillespie found themselves completely immobile.
>
>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Game over,” the Moderator told them, stepping over the rubble and bodies of the Death Camp assault. “Thanks for playing.”
>
>
***

>
>     Samantha Featherstone used a flying rugby tackle to bring Salieri Meng to the ground. They both toppled in a heap amidst the ghostly ruins that flickered in and out in the narrative jumble where Arachknight City had once been.
>
>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Ouch!” complained the seventh-smartest boy genius on the planet. “What do you think you’re doing, you crazy girl?”
>
>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“What do you think you’re doing?” Sir Mumphrey Wilton’s grand-daughter challenged him. “Visionary’s taking on a mad monster back there and you’re running away!”
>
>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“What part of ‘boy genius’ didn’t you understand?” Meng shot back. “How smart would it be to stand around while a composite killer laced with an alien plasma symbiote is trying to slaughter me?”
>
>     Samantha caught him in a professional armlock. “Smart isn’t what counts when that happens. Right is what counts. You left Vizh to face whatever they’ve turned Miss Framlicker into on his own.”
>
>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“He’s got Brap and Aston and the Sorting Hat to help him,” Meng argued. “He could use Brap’s biogenetic subcodes to regenerate the Shoggoth. Amy could activate the destruct over-rides in the AL 36-24-36 so that von Zemo personality would have to hand over to Harper to find a counter-code. He could use the sorting hat to trigger a schizoid separation in the multiple psyches. He doesn’t need us. Anyway, you chose to follow me rather than staying to help him.”
>
>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Vizh is a lot tougher than people think,” Sam countered. “And I don’t trust you. Ever since you found out about your mother…”
>
>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“About mom and I being dead in the world you want me to restore, you mean?”
>
>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“And that von Zemo woman seemed to be expecting to meet you,” Samantha accused.
>
>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“That would be because we arranged to meet,” Meng said. “Ouch. I’m going to need that arm later. Assuming I don’t erase myself from existence as you seem to want me to.”
>
>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“So you set us up to be murdered by the Baroness,” Sam growled.
>
>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“No. I set up the Baroness to be here where we’re going to need her,” Salieri replied. “Look, something happened in this raw narrative mess. Something that allowed Danny Lyle to become the mad Moderator. Something that sent him scouring worlds, harvesting probability arsonists to ramp up his powers, pointing him at what you call your core reality like a guided missile.”
>
>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“So?”
>
>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“So if someone can meet with Lyle and do a deal in this place, so can I. Meet someone and make a deal, I mean. I’m very smart, much smarter than the Moderator, so I can do a better deal. But for that I needed a whole bunch of things.”
>
>     Sam was growing more and more suspicious. “Such as?”
>
>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Well, clearly a Shoggoth, to break down the walls of reality. An ailing Shoggoth is better yet. And the Harper/Framlicker thing. I’ll need that for later. And a girl who’s holding a Yellow Flashlight and still has ties to her grandfather’s Chronometer of Infinity, so I can use the vestigial link to calculate the right ways to manipulate this raw narrative mass.”
>
>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“You don’t actually need all your fingers intact to do this, do you?”
>
>     Meng winced as he felt his captor’s grip tighten. “Look, you wanted me to deal with the Moderator, right? I’m about to. I’m about to destroy the Moderator and restore the world and save my mother and prevent myself being killed. And then I’m going to say ‘I told you so’ and go for an ice cream sundae; because I am damned smart and damned good and I am Salieri Meng!”
>
>     Sam stared at the declaiming, frothing boy genius. “Okay,” she said.
>
>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Now let me up and I shall proceed!” announced Salieri. “By my calculations we do not have long before Visionary and the others find us, and the composite being will be right after them.”
>
>     Samantha released her grip. “This better be good,” she warned him. “I’ve been trained to hurt you by pretty much every major superhero on the planet, and a couple of villains.”
>
>     Meng massaged his arm. “I can tell. But now it’s time to stop playing in the kiddie leagues. You want to find a way to stop the Moderator?” He gestured to the figure looming from the mist. “How about him?”
>
>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“No,” Sam gasped. “That is not a smart way to go.”
>
>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Good evening, Mr Meng. Good evening, Miss Featherstone,” proclaimed the Hooded Hood.
>
>
***

>
>     Hallie did a quick systems check. Her Holographic Emitter Drone was at 20% power and the Moderator’s computer systems were not exactly waiting to welcome her. She was trapped inside a firewalled and comm-shielded basement under the embattled Iowa Death Camp, standing over the fried body of the Moderator’s right hand man, Search Engineer.
>
>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“The first thing to do is not to panic,” the artificial intelligence told herself. “Helen MacAllistair gave her life so I could live. Again. So I have to finish her mission and save the world. That’s all.”
>
>     A quick e-enquiry showed that secure automated systems were already generating a new body for Search Engineer half a continent away in the Lair Mansion. A number of other members of ‘the New Lair Legion’ were dead and awaiting denial to restore them to life as well. The fallen resistance fighters of the Purveyors of Peril wouldn’t be coming back unless it amused the Moderator later.
>
>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“First priority then,” Hallie reasoned. “Get this data about what’s really been happening out to the world. Let them see the truth behind this ‘Hero Feeder’ masquerade. Show them what’s been done to the people brought to this Death Camp. Reveal the Moderator’s plans for everybody once his grip on this world is secure after today. A whole lot of heroes have given their lives so Helen could get this stuff out in the public domain. I need to finish the job.”
>
>     She shifted her hologram form to look exactly like Search Engineer and strode out of the secure records room. “Seal that door,” she ordered the SPAM-men who were gathered outside. “Nobody goes in without my explicit permission. You’re on guard here until I relieve you. Clear?”
>
>     The building shuddered. Above ground, Gamma Ray Gary was making his last stand.
>
>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“I need to get to the surface,” Hallie told herself. “Lara and her group tried sending a broadcast to the world from some studio up there. The Moderator must have undone that, but the idea is good and everything’s set up for me now.” Of course, the downside was that there was nothing to stop the Moderator doing the same thing again if she blew the whistle.
>
>     She was almost at the elevator bank when her HED was caught in a teleportation field and shifted into the Moderator’s presence.
>
>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Here she is, boss,” Doorman told his employer. “Didn’t we already disassemble this annoying little code before?”
>
>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“She’s helpless now,” the Moderator promised, gesturing for Hallie to join his other captives. “And she’s failed like the rest.”
>
>
***

>
>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“I don’t care what Faite says!” shouted Yuki Shiro. “I’m not sitting around in Liu Xi’s dimensional waiting room for some spooky cosmic nanny to tell me when to save the world. I’ve got friends on the firing line right now and they need me!”
>
>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“It’s not as simple as that,” Lara argued. “You heard Faite. We’re holding the last knowledge of the world as it should be. If the Moderator gets us…”
>
>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“There’s no point remembering that stuff if we lose the chance to ever get it back!” Yuki argued. “We need to go back to the fight and we need to do it now!”
>
>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“There are problems with that course of action,” Anna the android warned. “When we were extracted from the combat by Faite our various damages were repaired. If we exit this place then our conditions will once more deteriorate.” She touched her neck where the Dominator had ripped her head off. Near death was anew experience to the young synthetic being and she had not yet come to terms with it.
>
>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“That would mean that Yuki’s combat computer would not operate,” the Psychic Samurai calculated. “Liu Xi’s access to her elemental abilities would be blocked. Anna’s systems would be severely disrupted.”
>
>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Just because we’d have it tough doesn’t mean we shouldn’t go,” Yuki persisted. “CSFB! and Vizh and the rest, they were up against impossible odds and they didn’t give up.”
>
>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“But they also lost,” said Liu Xi quietly. She was away from the debate, falling back on old habits, in the kitchen area chopping bread for sandwiches to care for the others. “No disrespect to them, but bravery is useless unless there is some chance of success.”
>
>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“There’s always a chance,” Yuki asserted. “Always. Never give in. Never surrender.”
>
>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“It does feel as if we are reaching a critical juncture,” admitted Chiaki. “The Moderator is playing his final hand. If we are to intervene then it should be now.”
>
>     Lara rubbed her aching forehead. “Okay then,” she agreed. “Maybe this is what Faite wanted us to choose anyhow. Or maybe we’re screwing the cosmic plan and just being human. But if we’re going to do this, we do it smart.”
>
>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“I’ve got no problem with that,” agreed Yuki. “What do you have in mind?”
>
>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“How about this?” offered Chiaki Bushido. And she told them the Plan.
>
>
***

>
>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Over here!” shouted Teen Avenger, leaping over the rubble. “Another surviving escapee!” She leaned over the trembling form of Mrs Meng. “You are so going to wish you never attacked this planet, Space Fandom!”
>
>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“I didn’t do anything!” pleaded the mother of the seventh-smartest boy genius on Earth. “Please… just let me go!”
>
>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Aw, shucks,” snorted Billy Goat, looking disdainfully down at the latest ex-prisoner to be terminated. “This one’s not even cute. She’s old. Let’s just tear her throat out and get on. I wanna find that hot Asian chick Doorman power-wiped.”
>
>     Teen Avenger preferred to do things by the book. “By the powers vested in me by the Moderator I find you guilty of conspiracy against the human race, and sentence you to summary termination,” she told Mrs Meng. “Sorry about that.”
>
>     Billy Goat turned round in puzzlement. “What’s that sound?” he wondered. “Like a vehicle approaching?”
>
>     From out of the clouds of dust covering the battlefield came a devastating hail of meat. The SPAM troopers slithered and fell in a slippery downpour of offal. Then Fred Harris, sometimes known as Ham-Boy, smashed his stolen jeep into his erstwhile team-mates. Mrs Meng blinked in surprise as four-wheeler and driver faded into view.
>
>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“I couldn’t just let them kill you,” Fred fretted. “I’ve seen what Billy Goat is like. I couldn’t…”
>
>     Mrs Meng took charge of the distraught young man. “You did what you thought was right, and I’m very grateful.” She climbed into the passenger seat. “Now let’s drive.”
>
>
***

>
>     The void folded in ways that Chiaki did not expect, tumbling her through unknown dimensions. It took all her will to catch her companions and prevent them from tumbling into oblivion.
>
>     Somebody goosed her from behind. “Aw, am I spoiling your concentration?” mocked Doorman. “Looks like you don’t have anything left to stop me doing whatever I feel like, honey.”
>
>     Lara, Chiaki, Anna, Yuki, and of them could have defended the young elementalist from her door-manipulating attacker; but all of them were dangling on the edge of void held only by Liu Xi’s will.
>
>     The evil iteration of Jay Boaz read the girl’s face. “Yeah, looks bad, doesn’t it?” he chuckled. “But on the bright side, I’ve got another five bucks for you.”
>
>     Doorman lunged at Liu Xi. She hadn’t even realised the kitchen breadknife was in her hand until she’d brought it up into her assailant’s chest.
>
>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Well crap,” Doorman said in disbelieving tones with blood on his lips. Then he died.
>
>     Liu Xi clung on to her friends as the void-storm intensified. She felt the pounding in her mind and tasted blood in her own mouth.
>
>     She had to hold on.
>
>
***

>
>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“We do not trust him,” Samantha Featherstone insisted. “We do not ever trust the Hooded Hood!”
>
>     The cowled crime czar sat on his throne-like chain and cradled his fingertips.
>
>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Really?” snapped Salieri Meng at his annoying companion. “So all those times the Lair Legion teamed up with him against Zemo and the Celestians and the Resolution Prophecy and the Hellraisers and the Parody Master don’t count?”
>
>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“And every single time he used that to further his own evil plans,” Sam countered.
>
>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“And I don’t care,” shot back Salieri. “From what I remember, the Parodyverse was running pretty well back when the Hood took over. But the point is we need to stop this Moderator dude, and you want to shift things back to the way they way, and I want to not be dead when that happens – so this is the go-to guy.”
>
>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“He probably set this up,” Samantha warned. “Did you, Hood? Did you set all of this up for some twisted reason of your own? Or reasons?”
>
>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“I am not even from this point in your timeline, Ms Featherstone,” intoned the archvillain in Latvian accents. “I am merely a victim of events, just like you.”
>
>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“You are in no way just like me,” spat Sam.
>
>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“You are indeed your grandfather’s heir,” noted the Hooded Hood. “However, in bringing Mr Meng through the timelines to this meeting you have served your current purpose. My thanks.”
>
>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“So can you do something?” Salieri demanded of the cowled crime czar. “This Moderator dude is supposed to be your kid. Can’t you give him a spanking?”
>
>     The Hood considered this. “On the whole I think it best that I not interfere,” he decided. “This scenario has been provoked, shaped by an unseen adversary who is using the Moderator as a stalking horse. He is watching to see how the players of the Parodyverse react; what we can do, what we elect to do, how our abilities work, how our minds work. He has managed to gain valuable information on most of the likely antagonists in any cosmic-level event.”
>
>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“So?” Meng shrugged. “Even if you don’t interfere he’ll have learned something about you.”
>
>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“True,” agreed the Hood. “But will it be the thing I desire him to learn?”
>
>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“You. Cannot. Trust. The Hooded Hood.” Sam insisted.
>
>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“You have to do something,” Salieri Meng insisted of the archvillain. “I came all this way, set things up so we could meet…”
>
>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Indeed. The Hooded Hood is mildly impressed. However…”
>
>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Here it comes,” warned Samantha.
>
>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“However, you may consider on reflection that all your endeavours could also be utilised in a more direct, offensive manner, if you chose to so harness them.”
>
>     Salieri was about to object. Instead, his eyes widened. “Oh.”
>
>     Sam whirled round as someone raced out of the mists. “Amy?”
>
>     The EEE engineer was running at full pelt, clutching the last rotting blobs of Shoggoth in her cupped hands. “Get moving!” she warned. “That Harper/Framlicker thing has gone wild! I mean more wild! I think that Venom creature’s in control now!”
>
>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Well, everyone else has had a turn,” noted Salieri.
>
>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“We need to keep moving,” Amy warned. “We need to… is that the Hooded Hood?”
>
>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Good evening, Miss Aston,” the cowled crime czar intoned. “We have not met since our little bargain, have we? At least not in my timeline.”
>
>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Bargain?” puzzled Amy.
>
>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“In another world,” replied the archvillain. “It may come back to you later.”
>
>     There was another scrabbling across the broken ground, and Visionary and Brap appeared through a solid-seeming wall in the ever-changing narrativescape. “Zat was not pleasant,” warned the mutated pig entity. “But needs must when ze devil drives. Or is trying to insert ze tentacles where zey have to no call to be.”
>
>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Keep going,” Vizh told him. “We have to avoid venom long enough to find…” Then he noticed Samantha and Salieri and Amy. “Ah,” he breathed. “Them.”
>
>     Then he noticed the Hooded Hood. “I thought an alien murder monster was as bad as today could get,” sighed the possibly-fake man.
>
>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Exactly,” agreed Sam. “But don’t worry, Vizh. Salieri has a plan inspired by his chat with Ioldabaoth Winkelweald. So that’s okay.”
>
>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“This plan,” Amy asked worriedly. “Does it include stopping that impossible killing machine?”
>
>     Then the AL 36-24-36 burst out of the fog and came straight at them.
>
>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“You really should not ‘ave dropped ze Sorting ‘At,” Brap advised Visionary.
>
>
***

>
>     The Moderator stalked through the ruins of his Death Camp and spoke directly to camera. “This has been a terrible day. A black day, where the enemies of Earth almost prevailed. Many good men and women have died to make this planet of ours safe again. But justice and right have won out, and the enemies of the Earth have finally been captured. Your Moderator has triumphed over all!”
>
>     Behind him Gamma Ray Gary, CrazySugarFreakBoy!, Hallie, Gamona, Killer Shrike, and Kat Gillespie struggled in chains they could never break – because the Moderator willed their confinement. They were guarded by regular SPAMmen, because almost all of the Moderator’s Legion had fallen in the battle, some merely unconscious, most dead. That could be dealt with.
>
>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“The battle has been long and hard,” the Moderator told his people, “but now we enter a new age.” He spoke now not to the world but to the Chronicler of Stories and those other cosmic office holders he intended to replace. “An age in which the Moderator is the only power.”
>
>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Free people will never surrender to tyrants,” called out CSFB! “Chaos will out!”
>
>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Yeah, shout it,” Shrike advised him. “’Cause we aren’t in enough trouble yet.”
>
>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Keep shouting,” Gamma Ray Gary urged. “Keep him distracted. I’m detecting a ripple in reality just over there.”
>
>     But the Moderator had sensed the incursion also. “Keep the cameras rolling,” he demanded. “Just another loose end to tie up.”
>
>     Yuki Shiro popped out of the fold in the void and came straight for the Moderator. “Yeah, I’m a real loose end,” she warned. “But that’s better than being…”
>
>     Her insult was cut short as the Moderator fused the brain/body interface that allowed her damaged cyborg form to function.
>
>     Anna leaped over Yuki’s body and somehow dodged whatever attack he’d been planning. She planted her fist right through the Moderator’s chest and punched out his heart.
>
>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“We cannot allow you to continue,” Anna told him. “We have glimpsed the future if you succeed in your wager and gain all power. It is not a good future. I regret that you must be terminated.”
>
>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Nice try!” grinned the master of the world, deleting that attack from history. “My turn.” He brushed his fingers across Anna’s cheek. The android’s face bubbled and melted as the Moderator channelled the stolen power of a thousand probability arsonists though her. As her internal temperatures reached those of the surface of the sun she tumbled to the ground, a sterilised melted wreck.
>
>     It all went quiet again.
>
>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Anyone else?” enquired the Moderator. “No?”
>
>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Well, perhaps me?” suggested Baroness von Zemo, manifesting her newly-granted psychic form beside her enemy and dropping the Sorting Hat onto his head. “Hat, go.”
>
>
***

>
>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Got him!” exalted Liu Xi. “It worked! Anna and Yuki provoked him into physical combat then made him pull directly on that probability arsonist power. That was the link I needed!”
>
>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Quickly, then,” Chiaki urged the elementalist. “While he remains distracted.”
>
>     Liu Xi Xian nodded, then concentrated. Folding void to bring two places together was always hard and dangerous. The journey so far had almost killed her. This final trip was going to be hardest of all. She found the place where the Moderator had drawn his power from and took them there.
>
>
***

>
>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Excellent,” approved Salieri Meng as the AL 36-24-36 raged towards him. “Rampaging monster just in time.”
>
>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Excellent in what sense?” demanded Sam, stepping forward to try and protect Amy and Salieri.
>
>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Amy,” the seventh-smartest boy genius on the planet called, “Hurl the Shoggoth at it. Now.”
>
>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Hmm, good call,” admitted Visionary as the engineer splattered the remnants of the loathsome elder being over the incoming monster. “After all, what can Shoggoth-snot do to make this any worse?”
>
>     Venom stopped in mid-assault and began spasming on the floor.
>
>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Zut Alors!” shuddered Brap. “Are zose tentacles folding through each ozzer now? It makes my ‘ead ache just to look at eet!”
>
>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Welcome to the wonderful world of Shoggoth,” breathed Amy. “What now? We run?”
>
>     Samantha glanced back towards the Hooded Hood, but the cowled crime-czar was gone. “Typical,” she hissed.
>
>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Now you need to talk to Al and Miss Framlicker, Visionary,” Salieri advised. “You know them best. You have to get them in control again, just for a while.”
>
>     Visionary carefully picked his way towards the swirling mess of writhing tentacles. “I really miss fighting Peter von Doom,” he admitted. “Hey, Al, how’s it going? Please don’t eat me.”
>
>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“What are you up to now?” Samantha demanded, folding her arms and glaring at Meng.
>
>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“I’m doing exactly what you asked me to. I’m defeating the Moderator and saving the world. Or at least making it possible for that to happen.”
>
>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“How? By cuddling up to the Hooded Hood?”
>
>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“By listening and learning and getting past my prejudices. And now you have to too. I need you to use this place, this crazy narrative swirl, to get back in contact with your grandfather. We’re going to need his help, his ability to manipulate time. You have to get him here.”
>
>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“You want me to get grandfather?” Sam understood. “Okay. That’s a team-up I’m actually in for.” She glanced across at Meng. “And you’re in for it as well,” she added.
>
>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Nice Muffy,” Vizh said in the background. “You wouldn’t tear the head off a man who’s not even had breakfast yet, right?”
>
>
***

>
>     The vast chamber was filled with dying girls, and they were all the same girl: Kerry Shepherdson, the probability arsonist, Danny Lyle’s girlfriend, culled from uncountable alternate realities, sucked dry by the machines of the Moderator to feed his enormous power.
>
>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“This is obscene,” declared Lara Night, shuddering.
>
>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Liu Xi?” the Psychic Samurai checked. “Are you alright?”
>
>     The elementalist retched on the floor. “That was a hard fold,” she admitted. “There was… stuff I had to deal with. And now I’m back where Doorman’s power closed off my access to my abilities. It’s like I’m blind, dead, and crippled. I can’t get us out of here again. I can hardly stand.”
>
>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“You did your part,” Lara assured her. “And here come some kind of shadow-guards so Chiaki can do hers.”
>
>     Chiaki Bushido unsheathed her sword. “It has been an honour to fight beside you,” she told them. She knew this was the last battle. She plunged into the midst of the oncoming sentinels and held them back.
>
>     Lara stroked the face of one of the tormented Kerrys. “I wish I could save you,” she told her, “but this place is so constrained, to shackled by the Moderator’s will. There’s only one thing I can do. One gift I can give you.”
>
>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Quickly!” Liu Xi called. “Chiaki’s wounded. She can’t hold out much longer.”
>
>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“I’m sorry there’s no way to get you out either,” Lara told Liu Xi. “But maybe this will all get reset afterwards. If not, this is a good way to go.”
>
>     Then she unloosed her powers, just released the energies within her, all the potential that she usually kept bottled up for fear of harm.
>
>     A small star exploded beneath the Lair Tower.
>
>
***

>
>     The Sorting Hat filtered through Danny Lyle’s memories. “This is who you were in other realities,” he told the Moderator. “This is who you murdered.”
>
>     The Moderator screamed.
>
>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Not bad,” Baron Ottakar von Zemo told his grand-daughter Beth via the psychic link they currently shared. “You got the attention of your sponsors.”
>
>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“I’m so glad,” replied the Baroness acidly. “I don’t suppose they thought to equip this psychic bodyform they whipped up for me with a laser pistol, did they?”
>
>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Hey, Moderator,” Danny Lyle called to his evil self. “Nobody gets away with doing that to my Firecracker, not even me!”
>
>     The Moderator screamed some more.
>
>     He called upon the power from his store of probabilities beneath the Lair Tower; but suddenly it wasn’t there.
>
>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“It’s so sad when the narrative turns against somebody like that,” the Chronicler of Stories noted, “and just as our wager is coming to its climax.”
>
>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“I am the Moderator!” proclaimed the Moderator. “THE Moderator. I will not be thwarted!” He drew on his own store of personal energies. “Not by a scrap of cloth!” he shouted, evaporating the Sorting Hat. “Not by the ghost of a second-rate has-been!” He winked the baroness out of existence. “Not by a troupe of manga-themed nobodies!”
>
>     He brought his will to bear on denying what Lara Night had just done.
>
>     Killer Shrike raked his blades across the tyrant’s chest. “How about a smart, cool, for-hire butcher bird?” he asked. “Yeah, we’re free. You’re running out of juice.”
>
>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“And now,” announced Gamma Ray Gary, “the reckoning.”
>
>
***

>
>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“It’s not enough,” Salieri Meng argued. “All that effort and the Moderator’s still going to win in the end. Unless…”
>
>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Unless,” added Sir Mumphey Wilton, now half-present in the flickering possibilities of the narrative swarm around the former Arachknight City, “we go to the root of the problem. Absolutely.”
>
>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Makes sense to me,” agreed Al B. Framlicker, swaying unsteadily beside Visionary. Vizh was now trying to coax Shoggoth goo to keep the Venom symbiote unsymbioting.
>
>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“And to me,” agreed Al B. Framlicker. “The calculations are simple enough.”
>
>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“I would ‘ave ‘elped,” offered Brap, “but I appear to ‘ave left my pocket calculator at ‘ome.”
>
>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“There’s one precise moment where Daniel Lyle digressed from his usual timelines and became the Moderator,” Salieri explained. “That’s the moment we have to disrupt. Strongly disrupt.”
>
>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Which is why you need grandfather’s Chronometer of Infinity,” agreed Samantha. “But what about the actual disrupting?”
>
>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“It’s gotta be something big,” Amy argued. “And preferably loud and hot.”
>
>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Such as a nuclear weapon,” suggested Al B. “Like the one implanted in my chest.”
>
>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“My chest,” Miss Framlicker corrected him.
>
>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“It’s definitely her chest,” Vizh confirmed. “Umm, I mean…”
>
>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“A suicide mission?” Samantha frowned.
>
>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Savin’ the world, m’dear,” Mumphrey told her. “What heroes do.”
>
>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“There’s also a 71.9% chance that all of this will be undone and we’ll be back to the normal world in our normal bodies,” the AL 36-24-36 calculated.
>
>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“And a 48.92% chance that the main players will recall their experiences here,” Al 36-24-36 added. “In which case you are so dead, Alaric Harper.”
>
>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“I’m picking up the next narrative bloom now,” Salieri announced, studying his palmtop. “Ready, Sir Mumphrey?”
>
>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Ready, lad.”
>
>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Take care then,” Vizh advised Al and Miss F. “When you, er, explode, that is.”
>
>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Now!” called Salieri.
>
>     A rift appeared before the composite creature. The Al 36-24-36 plunged into it.
>
>     There was an explosion again.
>
>
***

>
>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Fools!” the Moderator told the last ragged heroes who opposed him. “You believe you can stop me? That anyone can stop me?”
>
>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“What, nothing can stop you now?” mocked CrazySugarFreakBoy!, hammering his enemy off his feet. “Go on, say it! Then we can kick your ass.”
>
>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“That would not be the most effective form of attack,” warned Gamona, looping her razor-hair around the Moderator’s throat. “Go for the more vital organs, seeking to cause damage he cannot deny.”
>
>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Like this!” Gary shouted, bringing Ljouis down on the Moderator’s skull.
>
>     The Moderator deleted their assaults and sent them all spinning back away from his, bloody and battered.
>
>     Kat Gillespie hurled a rock at his head.
>
>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Hey, green chick, why don’t you join in the attack?” Killer Shrike called to Hallie. “You could get your toukas handed to you in a sling as well.”
>
>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“I am joining in,” Hallie replied, with a distant look on her face. “But my HED battery is at 9% so I’m fighting the fight my way. Like this.” And she uploaded all the data that Helen MacAllistair had died for all across the planet; every computer screen, every TV.
>
>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“NO!” thundered the Moderator as his world began to slip from his control. He denied Gamona life and deleted the flesh and muscle from Gamma Ray Gary and swatted Kat aside with a bone-shattering crunch and strode towards Hallie.
>
>     He was dropped to his knees as his past was cut from under him by a massive nuclear explosion long ago.
>
>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Spazzing on the battlefield is always a bad idea,” Shrike told him as he hammered a spike through his eye socket. “But you probably know that now, right?”
>
>     The Moderator slapped him away. “The cameras…” he gasped. “Turn off the cameras…”
>
>     Gamma Ray Gary was dying and he was still clinging to the Moderator’s leg, holding him back. CSFB! cast around for a way to put the villain down once and for all. “We need the Sorting Hat,” he fretted. “That was wigging Moddy out with real-time revelations. But now it’s gone.”
>
>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Insolent software!” the Moderator howled at Hallie, kicking Gary aside one last time. “Do you have any idea what you’ve done? Do you?”
>
>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Stuck a blow for truth and justice?” Hallie ventured, just before she was erased.
>
>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Okay, this is probably too late for me to reconsider my career path,” Killer Shrike decided as the Moderator turned to him, “so I’ll just have to go with my first instincts and kill you. Either I die or I get big points with my girlfriend.”
>
>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“I’m thinking right now you’re going to die,” promised the Moderator. “You, your colourful playmate, then the Chronicler of Stories, the Destroyer of Tales, the Keeper of the Chronometer, Faite, the Hell Lords, every single adversary that ever opposed me. I am the Moderator, and I cannot be stopped.”
>
>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“You can,” called Kat Gillespie, nursing her broken arm and trying to crawl with a shattered hip. “You have to be. And I know how!” She called across to CSFB! and made one last suggestion.
>
>     The Moderator deleted her.
>
>     CrazySugarFreakBoy! bounced back in and slapped him across the face with Yuki Shiro’s severed cyborg arm. “Tell it to the hand,” he told the villain, “’cause the Parodyverse ain’t listening.”
>
>     Kat had remembered that Yuki had been granted a gift by Faite in this altered reality: those she touched saw who they really were.
>
>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Aaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!” screeched the Moderator, searing CSFB! from reality by reflex. It was hard. It hurt. He tumbled to his knees.
>
>     Killer Shrike sliced off his head, then kicked it like a football far across the battlefield. “He shoots! He scores!”
>
>     The Moderator died.
>
>     Silence descended on the battlefield. Only the whirring of the cameras continued, transmitting images to a Parodyverse defined by belief.
>
>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“The end,” announced Lisa Waltz, Destroyer of Tales, taking a brief curtsey before the monitors. “That’s all folks. Go home.”
>
>     Shrike felt the world shifting around him and a horrible thought occurred. “Crap! Nobody’s gonna know I did this. No way am I getting sugar off Amy in that reality! Oh f…”
>
>     And the Parodyverse changed.
>
> ***
>
> And Afterwards…
>
> [This scene was derived from the work of Killer Shrike]
>
>     The loading bay doors to the storehouse that contained the spoils of the New Lair Legion were pried open. The bulky figure of Sigmund the Superlative Simulacrum ripped the titanium plating as easily as a person might tear off a sheet of Reynolds Wrap. To his left stood Search Engineer, his lantern lit and hanging from the end of the brakeman’s switch slung over his shoulder. He touched the brim of his cap and whistled.
>
>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“What a mess,” he drawled as he limped forward.
>
>     Indeed, the attendants of The Moderator had seen better days. Of all those who had once worked for the fallen tyrant, only three remained.
>
>     The third member of the escaped trio stirred in the Simulacrum’s arms. “What happened?” the Link asked woozily.
>
>     /The revolution is over. Moderator is dead./ Sigmund etched the news.
>
>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Then we won?” Cath Katz said haltingly.
>
>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“In absolutely no sense of the word," Search Engineer answered sourly. “If fact we’re standing now in a vestigial shadow of a reality that will cease to exist in approximately seven minutes.”
>
>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“That can’t be a good thing,” the Link admitted. “How did we ever lose?”
>
>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Post mortems can wait. Some of them literal post mortems. For now we have six point five minutes to find a way of survival.” The villain wove his way through several stacks of boxes to a large shape covered in a tarp, “Here we go. Clear a path, Sig.”
>
>     /What are we looking for? / Sigmund asked as he plowed his way up to the structure.
>
>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“A way out. The powers of the Parodyverse took a nasty fright, and now they’re going to be looking for payback. It’s only a matter of time before the Deus ex machinas start flying around fast and furious, and I for one don’t want to be here when it happens. Hold these,” Search Engineer handed his accessories to the Link and took hold of the tarp. With a flourish he pulled it away, revealing a London AEC Routemaster, “All aboard the magic bus!”
>
>     The Link watched as Search Engineer took the ring of keys from his belt and opened the door to the double decker, “This…. I remember this. This is the bus the Lair Legion used for its World Tour.”
>
>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“In another reality, yes. Which is where we’re going to be taking it. As far from Ground Zero as possible,”
>
>     Link made her way onto the bus; sitting in the chair she would need to power the vehicle for their journey.
>
>     /Miss Link, are you sure you are up for this? That is called the Pain Chair for a reason. /
>
>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“I can handle pain, Sig, if it gets us clear from all the cosmic reckonings that the Engineer says are coming. Still, anybody got a Midol?” she joked.
>
>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“First rule of long distance travel is not to drive impaired,” Search Engineer said as he slid into the bus’s driver’s seat.
>
>     /Reality seems to be getting awfully thin here./ Sigmund worried. /I am already straining those void shifting powers I copied to the maximum just to keep us from dissipating. /
>
>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Time to go then.” Search Engineer swung the door shut and turned the ignition. The bus sputtered to life. It lazily turned towards the open bay doors, gathering speed as it went. Once outside it accelerated even more, until it became a crimson blur.
>
>     Then it was gone.
>
>
***
>
>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“…Need to look at scheduling in more surveillance of the major cartels,” Hatman concluded. He looked anxiously over at CrazySugarFreakBoy! and Yuki Shiro. “Dream? Yuki?”
>
>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Mommmm!!!” screamed the wired wonder, scrambling out of the Leader’s Office as if his life depended on it.
>
>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Whoa,” murmured Yuki Shiro, rubbing her cranium. “Head rush.”
>
>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“What do you mean?” demanded Hatman. Suddenly his strategy and planning session had turned very weird. “What’s going on? Epitome?” He turned to see if the paragon of power had any better idea of what had suddenly come over his team-mates.
>
>     Dominic Clancy wasn’t there any more.
>
>     Dominic Clancy wasn’t anywhere.
>
>
***
>
>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Ah,” bubbled the Manga Shoggoth, looming up over his high priestess. “It is good to see you back again.”
>
>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Good to see you too,” agreed Ebony of Nubilia. “I was getting a bit worried towards the end there. I didn’t know you could come that close to not existing.”
>
>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“It was rather interesting,” agreed the loathsome elder being. “but on the whole I think I prefer Tenchi.”
>
>     And he reached for the remote control.
>     
>
>
***
>
>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Hello? Who’s calling?”
>
>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Is that Salieri? Salieri Meng? So-called seventh smartest boy genius on the planet?”
>
>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Yes. Who is this please? And how are you spoofing my caller line identification systems?”
>
>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Is your mom okay?”
>
>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“She’s fine, thanks for asking. Who is this? Johnny, is that you?”
>
>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Do I sound like a Johnny? Do I?”
>
>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Well… voice modification software…”
>
>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“So you’re alive. Great. Now never speak to me again.”
>
>     Samantha slammed the phone down and went off to fume.
>
>
***
>
>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Miss Framlicker,” Al B. Harper said nervously as the Extraordinary Endeavour Enterprises administrator stalked into his laboratory. “What was that ruckus in the hallway just now?”
>
>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Amy hit Shrike with a spanner for some reason,” Miss F noted dismissively. “But that’s not your big problem.”
>
>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Ah.”
>
>     Miss Framlicker reached for a dimensional fission torch and snarled.
>
>
***
>
>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Hallie!” Vizh cried out as the artificial intelligence blinked into his living room. “You’re okay!” He looked more closely at the holographic young woman. “Are you okay?”
>
>     Hallie flung herself into Visionary’s arms and buried her head into his shoulder. “Just hug me,” she said. After a while she began to cry.
>
>
***
>
>     [This scene was written by Killer Shrike]
>
>     /Where are we?/ Sig asked as he exited the Routemaster. Judging by the Brubaker Boulevard street sign, they were still in Paradopolis, albeit one that seemed deserted of people.
>
>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“I don’t know,” Link admitted, “but it can’t be an Earth I’ve been to before. My powers only let me teleport to where I haven’t been.”
>
>     Search Engineer looked around, “So it’s a new setting then. A place for new stories, er, opportunities, I mean.”
>
>     /With just the three of us?/ the Simulacrum wasn’t so sure of the possibilities, unless perhaps their number decreased by one.
>
>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Oh, I’m sure it’s only a matter of time before others show. Villains to serve. Heroes to fight,” the Engineer said confidentially. He scanned the storefronts until one particular establishment caught his eye, “Until then, I think I have the perfect place to set up shop for ourselves.”
>
>
***
>
>     Doorman stirred painfully. “Bitch,” he murmured as he clawed his way back to consciousness.
>
>     The chill mists around him seemed to suck all the heat out of him. He forced himself up to see where he was.
>
>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Aw no,” he breathed as he recognised the numinous shifting landscape. At first he’d thought he was back at the causal event caused by the Narrative Bomb; this was much worse. “Comic-Book Limbo.”
>
>     There were no doors from her for those who were trapped.
>
>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“No doors out save those I permit,” said the gaunt man in the monkish robes behind him, as if he could read Doorman’s very thoughts.
>
>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“You!” the evil alternate Jay Boaz spat. “The guy who did that deal with me, showed me how to open the door to the dead for the Moderator!”
>
>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Death is but another door,” answered the stranger. The mists seemed to play about him as he moved. “You have not served me very well, Doorman. After everything I arranged to create you, you have simply failed me.”
>
>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“It wasn’t my fault. There was this Chinese bint…”
>
>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“I’d have been better replacing you with a Space Fandom.”
>
>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“No. I’d have done what you wanted, found out who was behind the Moderator. But she killed me. Just like that. It wasn’t my fault.”
>
>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Liu Xi Xian.” The gaunt man almost smiled. “I wonder when she will realise what it is she’s manipulating when she draws upon the void?” He turned back to more immediate, serious issues. “You should be dead, Doorman. You would be, had I not diverted you here.”
>
>     Boaz swallowed hard. “So? What do you want from me now?”
>
>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“You are fortunate that you do still have uses. I shall send you to the prime Parodyverse. Your counterpart in that world is still alive, so you will not be able to survive there indefinitely unless you eliminate him. After that I will have some… tasks for you.”
>
>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“And I should do this because…?”
>
>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Because otherwise you will rot here in Comic-book Limbo, melting away until you are a tiny screaming memory, then sinking in tormented oblivion. But the choice is always yours.”
>
>     Doorman tried not to tremble. The mist was in his flesh and bones, now, clawing at his soul. “Okay, I’m your man. I’m on the case. Just get me out of here.”
>
>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“It shall be done,” agreed the stranger.
>
>     A thought occurred to Boaz. “Who are you anyway? You seem kind of familiar. I like to know who I’m working for.”
>
>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Who I was is irrelevant,” answered the gaunt man. “Now and forever, I am the master of Comic-Book Limbo. I am the Void Scholar.”
>
>     And he sent Doorman to his destiny.
>
>
***
>
>     Danny Lyle stormed out of his apartment block, jumped on his Harley, and rode. He was so furious with his girlfriend – or was that ex-girlfriend again – that he was all the way past Black’s Crossing when he stopped at a roadside bar to get himself a drink.
>
>     He didn’t notice the flickering ghosts of lost Arachknight City.
>
>     Two men were waiting for him. “Mister Lyle,” said the taller of the two.
>
>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Who wants to know?”
>
>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“That would be us, Mister Lyle,” answered the stockier man in black. “I’m Mister Skinner. This is Mister Flay. We have a proposition for you.”
>
>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“I don’t want a proposition. Just a drink.”
>
>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“This is a proposition I think you should hear, Mister Lyle,” Flay said dangerously. “It’s a once-in-a-lifetime offer.”
>
>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Whatever you’re buying, I’m not selling it,” Danny told them. “Now piss off and let me past before I get cranky.”
>
>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Power beyond your father’s. Revenge on those who wronged you. Influence to shape the Parodyverse as you wish it to be,” Mr Skinner offered. “A sponsorship deal. Still not interested?”
>
>     Danny Lyle paused, tempted; and he was lost.
>
>     A dimensional rip opened behind him and the AL 36-24-36 shambled through. “This deal is off!” shouted the composite being just before it detonated the nuclear bomb in its chest.
>
>     The blast took out all of Gothametropolis and most of Paradopolis in that version of reality. It killed the Moderator before he was ever born.
>
>     Mr Flay and Mr Skinner staggered to their feet and looked at the massive burning crater. “Well bugger,” said Mr Flay.
>
>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Bugger indeed, Mister Flay,” agreed Mr Skinner. “Our employer is not going to like this.”
>
>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Not like this one little bit, Mister Skinner. Not one little bit. He doesn’t like his plans being thwarted.”
>
>     A third man stalked through the radioactive storm. “Oh, don’t be so glum,” he encouraged them. “My plans aren’t the least bit thwarted. I got pretty much everything I was hoping for out of this game. I got to see the runners and riders, got an idea of their form. Worked out ways to eliminate them all when the time comes. Even got to meet a nice girl.”
>
>     Mr Flay and Mr Skinner made appropriate congratulatory noises.
>
>     The Carnifex grinned. “It’s good here, isn’t it? Come on.”
>
>     He led his minions off through the wasteland.
>
>     Flapjack watched them vanish from his vantage point on a distant ridge. He folded away his field glasses and scratched his nose. “Well now,” the battered hunchback said to himself, “I guess that’s what the boss was interested to know.” He adjusted his hose and limped away in the opposite direction.
>
>
***
>
> 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 #19: Time for Genius by the Hooded Hood
> The Moderator Saga Part… What 19? by Visionary
> The Moderator Saga #21: Visiting Time by the Manga Shoggoth
> The Moderator Saga #22: Armed and Dangerous by CrazySugarFreakboy!
> The Moderator Saga #23: Check Again by the Hooded Hood
> The Moderator Saga #24: Outlaws of the New Law - 2 by Jason
> The Moderator Saga #25: The Birth (and Death?) of a Hero and #25a by Killer Shrike
> The Moderator Saga Part 25-odd: Attempting to Restrain Large Felines by Means of the Flexible Appendage to the Torso by Manga Shoggoth
> The Moderator Saga #27: Too Close For Comfort by the Hooded Hood
> The Moderator Saga #28: Outlaws of the New Law - 3 by the Jason
> The Moderator Saga #27 #28? by L!
> The Moderator Saga #30: Inbetween the Lines by Hatman
> The Moderator Saga #31: Purviewing the Purveyors by Killer Shrike
> The Moderator Saga #32: Outlaws of the New Law - 4 by Jason
> The Moderator Saga #33: The Mountainside by the Hooded Hood
> The Moderator Saga #34: Something Nasty in the Crypt by the Manga Shoggoth
> The Moderator Saga #35: Outlaws of the New Law - 5 by Jason
> The Moderator Saga #36: Fred Harris, Agent of SPAM by L!
> The Moderator Saga #37: A Pair of Purveyors by CrazySugarFreakBoy!
> The Moderator Saga #38: Outlaws of the New Law - 6 by Jason
> The Moderator Saga #39: Eternal Love by the Hooded Hood
> The Moderator Saga #40: Outlaws of the New Law - 7 by Jason
> The Moderator Saga #41: Assembling the Pieces, or How To Thin Your Cast Down To Manageable Proportions In Six Bloody Lessons by the Hooded Hood
> The Moderator Saga #42: War Is Heck! L!
> The Moderator Saga #43: Outlaws of the New Law - 8 by Jason
> The Moderator Saga #44: Showdown With Brock Samson by CrazySugarFreakBoy!
> The Moderator Saga #45: Entwined by Visionary
> The Moderator Saga #46: Extremism by JJJ
> Champagne and the Moderator Saga Murder by Champagne (actually precedes most of the other stories, but we’re not renumbering again now)
>
>
***
>
> 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.