Previous Post #325: Untold Tales of the Parodyverse: On The Return of the Junior Lair Legion (and on the Return of Caph) Go straight to Part 1: On the Return of the Caphans Go straight to Part 2: On the Fate of the Sons of Thonnagar Go straight to Part 3: On the Restoration of the Lost Flowers of Caph Go straight to Part 4: On the Reunion of the Juniors Go straight to Part 5: On Some Conversations at the Party Previously: There was a Parody War. In the closing stages of it, the Hooded Hood sprang a trap on the Parody Master by luring him to the planet Caph IX in the Andromeda Nebula then arranging for Galactivac, the Living Death that Sucks, to attack the planet. The Hood manipulated his son Danny Lyle, Danny’s probability arsonist girlfriend Kerry Shepherdson, and Zack Zelnitz, Hacker Nine (amongst many others) to achieve his ambush.     Caph IX was already a troubled planet. Conquered by treachery by the last of the Thonnagarian pigeon-warriors then offered as a tribute to the Parody Master, the war of liberation was fought by Prince Kiivan, rightful Emir of All Caph, by Lord Vaahir of Viigo, warlord adventurer, Lady Ohanna of Raael, Kiivan’s best-beloved, by Shazana Pel, outcast pigeonwarrior, and by the Junior Lair Legion and their friends. It was Kiivan who triggered a time-shift acquired from the Keeper of the Chronometer of Infinity and sent the whole planet three months into the future to save it from otherwise inevitable destruction.     Now the Parody War is over, the Parody Master destroyed. For the rest of the Parodyverse three months has passed since those terrible events. For the world that has blinked forward in time, and for the young Earth champions who were shifted with it – Fashion Accessory, Harlagaz Donarson, Ham-Boy, Kid Produce, Glitch, Captain Courageous, hacker Nine, and Falconne – but a few seconds has passed.     Now the problems begin… Cast List Caph Recap Caph Lexicon For those who are really into continuity, this story probably takes place after Tom Black #1-3 and at the same time as The Compound #1-3, Shadowrat #1, and Untold Tales #323-4. Previous chapters at The Hooded Hood's Homepage of Doom. Descriptions of cast at Who's Who in the Parodyverse. Locations explained in Where's Where in the Parodyverse. *** On the Return of the Caphans:     There’s no sound effect in deep space to accompany an Earth-sized planet sliding back into timespace. But on the starship hovering anxiously two light minutes outside the outer orbit of Caph IX the noise could roughly be described as “Woot!” At least the component of the cheers that came from the possibly-fake man known as Visionary.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“It’s looking good and stable,” Mircandalee reported from the Main Stage of Mircandalee Tremensalor’s Travelling Vaudeville and Light Opera Auditorium (formerly known as the Avawarrior training ship Bloody Genocide). “I think Caph is back.”     Vizh was a little bit distracted by the sight of nine excited Caphan girls jumping up and down and clapping, but he took the time to thank the new proprietor of the space craft for the ride.     Glory, the mutt of might, was as excited as all the rest. “Can we go down and see our friends, now?” she yipped, skittering around Vizh, her tail wagging so hard that her entire hind quarters swayed. “Can we?”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“I don’t see why not,” agreed Vizh. “Is everybody ready?”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“I can’t find the leash,” Danny warned.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“I do not need a leash,” Glory objected. “I am a good dog.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“I meant for Kerry,” noted the young man. He liked to live dangerously.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Are you insulting me, Danny Lyle?” the probability arsonist demanded. “On my birthday?”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Nah,” Danny shrugged with a sly smile. “Happy eighteenth, Firecracker.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“This way!” Glory barked, leading them towards the shuttle bay. “This way, everybody!” Her sheepdog instincts got the better of her when she was this worked up.     A few of the Caphans girls were still staring at the green and blue planet they’d been sold away from so long ago. “Home?” said Sayaana, wistfully.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“At last,” agreed Philaana.     But some of the others looked less sure. ***     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Um guys,” Ham-Boy noted, tentatively. “The time-stop’s finished. You could stop kissing now if you want to.”     Kiivan of Caph held Ohanna in his arms and completely ignored the world.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Or you could, um, keep going,” HB added.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Wasn’t Kiivan dying or something?” Fashion Accessory asked. “I distinctly remember having to create great wads of compression bandages for him and Ohanna.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“It was a very subtle variation on the timeslip,” Glitch explained. “It accelerated their healing so they’re fully recovered now.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Besides,” Harlagaz grinned widely, “He hath fought the goodeth fight and so hath she. Tis a traditional ending to yon adventure, and the bestesth possible.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“But they have to breathe sometime, right?” Falconne asked curiously. “Or do Caphans get special training?”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Kiivan gave her a ring,” FA noted. “I don’t know what that means in Caph tradition, but on Earth…”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Hey, he’s just changed the law so Caphan women can own slaves as well as Caphan men,” Kip Kipling reminded them. “That’s a massive social change, laying the steps for an eventual universal enfranchisement. Caphan slaves at least have a route now to buy themselves or their families free.”     Ham-Boy nodded. “Sure. He saved the planet, became Emir of All Caph. What’s he going to do now?”     Kid Produce snickered. “Looks like he’s going to Disneyland. On the big ticket ride.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“You know,” Falconne noted wistfully, “the Caphans have thirty-seven different words for kinds of kissing.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“These two are making up some more,” suggested Ham-Boy.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Verily,” beamed Harlagaz happily. “Mayhap now we canst assist with bringing the remnants of the collaborator scum to boot? I hast boots.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“We should check on Vaahir, I guess,” agreed Fashion Accessory. “Maybe try and tear Shazana Pel off whoever she’s ripping open.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Some Thonngarians asked her to be their new leader,” Ham-Boy supplied. “She’s explaining her views to them.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“We need new data,” suggested Glitch. “A moment passed for us in that time-slip. According to my onboard sensors three months has passed for the rest of the Parodyverse, a full Caphan year. We have to know what happened in the Parody War.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“And maybe find a fire hose for Kiivan and Ohanna,” added Kid Produce.     Hacker Nine checked his comm-pad for information. “I hate to spoil the good mood,” he interrupted, “but there’s a Parody warship just come into geosynchronous orbit above our heads.”     Kit Kipling was suddenly all business. “Are any of the ground to air defences still intact? We need to get…”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“It’s sending a message.”     Harlagaz scowled. “What message?”     H9 checked his padd again. “Um… They’re asking who stole the batteries out of Vizh’s remote control?” *** On the Fate of the Sons of Thonnagar:     Ã¢â‚¬Å“So what are you going to do with them?” Vaahir, Warlord of Caph, asked his closest ally in the war of liberation.     Shazana Pel was the last of the Pigeonwarrior Elite, but she had been cast out and exiled from her people long before the remnant of them had tried to claim Caph as their new homeworld. Now that conquest had been taken from them, and the remnants of the Thonnagar invasion force was scattered, hunted, their ships destroyed and their numbers thinned with every passing hour. A half dozen tired warriors had come and surrendered personally to Pel, and the exile now had to decide their fate.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Well, I could always have them stuffed,” she suggested. “Or made into throw rugs.”     Vaahir considered this. “It can be arranged if you desire it. But I do not think that is what you truly desire.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Vaahir, you don’t understand. You have no idea what these k’vakh did to me…”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Did they perhaps betray you, blacken your name, torture and debase your body, leave you homeless, directionless, bereft, and heartbroken, then turn to you deserving only your hatred and contempt and beg you to save their future?” ventured the Warlord. “Because if so then I suspect I can begin to understand what you’re feeling.”     Pel was abruptly reminded of Vaahir’s own dark experiences. “Ah. Maybe you can.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“I know that I had all kinds of mixed feelings when you and the Hooded Hood dumped young Kiivan at my feet.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“But Kiivan was a child. He hadn’t been an adult in the society that brought your whole race’s long and glorious history into dishonour and treachery.”     Vaahir nodded. “The parallels only go so far. And really, given my record, I’m hardly the ideal person to give you advice about doing the right thing. Or the sensible thing.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“I should give them swift merciful deaths,” reasoned the pigeonwoman. “They have shamed themselves in their attack on your world, shamed themselves in their behaviour to your people when conquest was theirs, shamed themselves by being defeated when Caph fought back, and shamed themselves again by surrendering rather than by dying in combat.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“I agree with most of that,” Vaahir said,” but not that last part. To die for no reason when a fight is lost, merely to kill enemies who could otherwise return to their homes and harems, to avoid facing the consequences of what they had done and not have to strive to make amends, that would not be honour. That is cowardice.”     Pel got the feeling again that Vaahir was speaking from experience.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Consider those wretches,” the Caphan said. “Once your world was a proud, complex place, powerful and storied. In one terrible day your planet was shattered into rubble. The source of your great abilities, the heart of your religion and culture, that z-alloy which allows you to control gravity, was lost. Only one in ten thousand of your population survived. The Great Eyrie which governed your civilisation was all but eradicated.” He looked around the ruined capital. “Disaster changes a people, twists them in ways nobody ever imagined.”     Shazana Pel glared over at the miserable huddled captives. They didn’t even need Vaahir’s soldiers pointing weapons at them. “Thonnagarians are not victims,” she said fiercely.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Anyone can suffer misfortune,” Vaahir suggested. “And sooner or later everyone tastes defeat. It is what we do next that decides whether we are victims.”     Pel looked at him sharply. “Defeat with honour is but victory delayed,” she quoted. “Someone told me that once.”     Vaahir looked back at the pyre where the Thonnagarian dead were being cremated. “ That old woman in charge of them, the last member of the Great Eyrie…”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Ancient Shadara,” supplied Pel, her teeth naturally clenching at the thought of her grandmother.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Shadara, yes. She was still alive when we came out of that time-thing that Kiivan used to save us all. She spoke to some of her people, the ones tending to her.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Nothing Ancient Shadara said is of interest to me.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“She revoked your exile,” Vaahir told her anyway. “And she named you leader of their people in her stead.”     Shazana Pel shrugged. “So? Her words mean nothing.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“That was when the Pigeonwarriors stopped fighting. Now they’re just… waiting. Or running. Or dying.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Good,” said Pel. “Finish them off then. Rid the universe of this stain.”     Vaahir nodded again. “As you wish. But they serve to hear the judgement from you. Go over there and tell them of their fate.” ***     Pel looked at the captive pigeonwarriors. Stripped of their wings and their z-alloy they were just men, bloodied and exhausted and desolate. A grizzled old sergeant was in charge. All the others, three men and two women, looked far too young to wear the harness.     They stood as Pel approached them. A Thonnagarian greets friend and enemy on their feet, ready for what is to come. One of the boys had to be helped to stand by the girl beside him.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Who are you?” Pel demanded of the Sergeant.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Aroth Kor, Seventh Wing, Ninth Flight, Second Flock,” he answered, standing stiffly to attention.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“And why should I let you live?”     The old warrior looked baffled. “No… no reason at all,” he admitted at last.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“No, none,” agreed Pel. “You have been led to dishonour. You followed to dishonour.”     She could see it in their eyes. They knew it. There was a dull fury, but only part of it was at the enemy that had defeated them. They waited for the sentence to be pronounced.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“What service have you seen, Aroth Kor?” Pel demanded.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Earned my wings in the year of the Z’Sox War,” the sergeant answered. “I served in the Shee-Yar Infraction, and the Broob Invasion. I was at Celimbor, and at Kaath. Got promoted to sergeant after the brush with the Maxils. Third Skunk War, third Skree Blockade. Retired then, but got called back for the Crisis. And then…” he gestured round him, “Everything after that. All this.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“That’s… a record anybody could be proud of,” Pel admitted. She looked over to where the captives’ wings had been careless tossed in feathery heaps. One of them had pinfeathers tipped with crimson and gold. “Three Awards of Merit,” she noted.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Yes,” agreed Kor. A Thonnagarian does not beg.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“What about these others?” Pel asked, gesturing at the puppies.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“First timers,” the sergeant answered. “None of them fledged to wingship when Thonnagar went. But we had so few, we had to bring them forward fast. There were enemies everywhere, ready to peck at us now we’d fallen. Everyone had to do what they could.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“I remember,” Pel confessed. She’d been there in those terrible, desperate days, when a victory in the Transworld Challenge seemed like the only possible way for her people to endure. Back when they’d been her people.     How good must vulnerable, backward Caph have looked to those dying survivors?     One of the boys looked up. “Ancient Shadara fell,” he blurted. “You conquered her.” That makes us yours, was the unspoken codicil. Save us was what was written in each of the young faces. Save us from what we have become.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“I don’t know how to lead a people,” Shazana Pel blurted, out loud.     Aroth Kor still stood rigid. “But we know how to follow,” he answered.     Shazana Pel could hear her dead grandmother’s laugher. She could see the Hooded Hood’s thin complicated smile. She could smell the pyre of a thousand Pigeonwarriors. She could taste her own fear.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“You will swear allegiance to me now,” she told them, quickly, before she changed her mind. “In flight and rest, victory and loss, through blood and bone, honour and heroism, all the days of your existence until the last nest calls to you.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“We swear it,” said Aroth Kor. There were tears on his cheeks as he repeated his vows. The others pledged themselves after him.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Damn,” said Pel. “This complicates things.” *** On the Restoration of the Lost Flowers of Caph     It was sunset. The massive giant star Caph set over the western horizon, it’s dying beams refracted through the azure atmosphere, setting off the varicoloured nebula skies. Alacaphia, capital city of the Emirate, was painted fiery red. A few plumes of smoke rose from burned-out buildings from the fighting earlier. Other broken-topped towers marred the landscape from earlier incidents in Caph’s Thonnagarian occupation.     A vast crowd had gathered in the Great Market, thousands of people wanting to see the arrival of the most famous exiles of Caph: Deeela, Sayaana, and Philaana, daughters of Chieftain Ytirar by Iliia the Fair, Noona and Odoona of Portaa, Losiira of the Nine Songs, Miiri, daughter of Prince Kiivas out of Ekooria of Damaar, Luuma Swiftheels, and Kaara of Jaaxa, for whom Lord Vaahir had challenged a universe.     When their vessel had alighted and the Lord Visionary led them out the cheer from the throng echoed through the city.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“For us,” whispered Luuma Swiftheels, who had been sold offworld in shame from the marketplace at Luutan. She blinked back tears at a homecoming she had never expected.     Then the Emir of All Caph arrived with the band of warriors he had drawn from the stars to liberate the world, and with him Ohanna of Raael, his best beloved who had saved the treasures of Caph and nurtured its last hope in his long exile; and they welcomed home the Lost Flowers of Caph. Ohanna embraced her birth-sister and the others, and Kiivan himself gave them kisses of welcome.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Nice ceremony,” Miiri muttered to Ohanna as they hugged. “Your idea?”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“It’s a time when Caph’s debts are paid,” Kiivan’s betrothed answered. “This is one of them.”     Then the crowd observed that three of the exiles were blessed and waxed large with child. The news that Philaana, Losiira, and Luuma carried the children of the Emir of All Caph sent a second shout of joy bouncing from the minarets.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“He’s going to have a busy time with all those mera’hs,” Danny noted enviously, referring to the erotic Caphan ceremony of impending fatherhood. Kerry hit him.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“It is wonderful to see you all again!” Glory barked at her friends. “Hello! Hello! Hello!”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Great to see you guys too,” Samantha Bonnington greeted them. “Caph’s a great place to visit, but there’s no place like… Eew. Was I about to get nostalgic for Visionary’s lighthouse hovel? Eew. Eew. Eew!”     The legal question of the exiles’ ownership was settled by an announcement from the Emir. As mothers of imperial stock, Philaana, Losiira, and Luuma became property of the House of Kiivan. Miiri and Deeela chose to own themselves. The others remained honoured guests of the Emir, property of the House of Shoggoth.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“So you and Vaahir…?” whispered Kerry urgently into Kaara’s ear.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“He does not own me,” the youngest of the exiles answered. “Yet.” Her hand crept to the document case hanging from her waist-chain, wherein the Shoggoth had laid out the price that must be paid for the warlord of Caph to claim his life’s love. The Shoggoth held that nothing was valued that was not won hard.     The people of Caph had begun the day in terror and bloodshed, and few of them had thought to see the night. As the nebulas blossomed to brightness above them they remembered their loss. There in the Great Market, and reflected again in view-glasses across the globe, they fell to silence in memory of the lost. At last Prince Kiivan spoke a word to Losiira, and the beautiful woman raised her head and began the Song of Remembrance.     Kiivan clasped Ohanna’s hand as the words rang out, pure and true, and Caph wept.     At first it seemed to the humans who watched that Losiira was singing an ancient song of mourning, something that dug back to the very roots of the Caphan tribes; but as she went on they heard familiar names and places and events, and they realised that the woman was composing as she sang, expanding on the well-known start and remembering the most recent losses too. When she returned to the familiar choruses other voices joined in, and soon all in the crowd were remembering with her.     The chorus swelled to a crescendo, then silence reigned again.     For sixty heartbeats the crowd stood still. Then Kiivan nodded and Losiira sang again; but this time the beat was fast and the music happy. Wake music, a song for the living, a song that reminded people that they were alive, and that after sorrow comes joy. She shot a glance of appeal at her sisters in exile and they moved forward to accompany her, as they had so many times around their Lemurian campfire and even in the lonely confinement of their captivity before, and the music swelled and filled the place; and the party began.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Say what you like about these Caphans,” Falconne approved, “They’ve got soul.” ***     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Ohanna!”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Miiri!”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Oh, it is good to see you again, sister! There were times I thought we would never embrace again!”     Miiri hugged her younger kinswoman close, bursting with joy. “There were times I thought we’d never embrace anyone again. But we have. We are. And there’s so much news!”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“You found Naari? The true Naari? Your stolen daughter?”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Oh yes. She was half-grown in Faerie before she was restored to me, but she is safe now in the House of Visionary. And so is Griffin, her birth-brother and twin.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“A son? You bore Lord Visionary an heir?”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Griffin is handsome and clever and strong. He has his father’s heart. Naari has taken the name Magweed, and though her enemies have done her great wounds I deem she is a worthy daughter of our house and one day she may wax greater than any of us. And she is so wonderful!”     Ohanna blinked back tears. “Oh! And once I thought our line was ended, that I was the last and I faced only death!”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Turns out you were wrong,” grinned Miiri. “But what of you, o best-beloved of the Emir? I notice you have new jewellery?”     Ohanna blushed a deep green as she held out the diamond on her finger for her sister to inspect. “Kiivan studied Earth customs. There, as on some other worlds, they have a custom where two people become mutually owned by the other in a ritual called…”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Marriage,” Miiri supplied. “Yes, I understand it’s quite popular. And often symbolised by the giving and receiving of a ring.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Kiivan and I have much to discuss,” Ohanna confessed. “When he’s less busy.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Yes,” agreed Miiri, looking thoughtful. “We’ll have to do something about that.” *** On the Reunion of the Juniors     Glory had just become the most-hugged dog in that quadrant of the galaxy.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“It is wonderful to see you!” she barked again. “Wonderful!”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Great to see you too,” admitted Fashion Accessory. “We only need spiffy here shedding leaves across the carpet and it’s old home week.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“spiff’s a bit busy right now being Nabob of Badripoor or whatever,” Kerry reported. “During the last bit of the Parody War, Brains Trust here,” (she gestured to Danny Lyle) “used the Portal of Pretentiousness to project the whole city-state to another planet, to distract the Parody Master.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“It seemed like a good idea at the time,” Denial defended himself. “And I was worried about you, Firecracker.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“And while Badripoor was there it filled up with all kinds of alien refugees seeking sanctuary and so on,” Kerry explained. “And then…”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Didn’t Ms Waltz arrange for all the displaced people and terrain to be returned to their rightful locations?” Kit Kipling checked. He’d just finished reading the sealed briefing from his employers at Project: Pendragon.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Right. So Badripoor zapped back to the Pacific basin, bringing a couple of thousand random aliens with it,” Kerry concluded. “Which is why spiffy’s kind of busy just now.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“And why Herbert Garrick’s taking hernia pills,” added Danny with satisfaction.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Well, at least Switzerland’s going to be happy,” noted Glitch. Previously the rogue city-state had been displaced to a corner of that country. “Well, as happy as the Swiss can get.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“I can’t believe the Parody War’s over,” exclaimed Falconne. “I mean, really over! And we won!” She looked around her at the crowd of young people. “I’ve never been on the winning side before,” she admitted. “I could get to like it.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Tis good to be the whomper not the whompee,” agreed Harlagaz, still holding Glory in his thick muscled arms.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“I can’t believe we jumped ahead in time three months,” declared Ham-Boy “Between that and the months we spent in bottled Badripoor we’ve been away for so long that people will be wondering what happened to us. If, um, we have secret identities, where we might be expected to turn up to work and classes and stuff,” he added, lamely. Fred Harris still hadn’t revealed his real name to his former classmates.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“I’ll have missed a whole season of Desperate Housewives!” gasped FA. “I hope somebody thought to TiVo it!”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“I can get it for you off the internet,” Hacker Nine promised. “There. Done.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Hey, aren’t we missing the point here?” asked Glitch. “We’ve just saved the planet, we all survived with nothing that some bandages or a trip to the machine shop can’t fix, and we’ve just liberated the party planet of the universe. Why are we stuck in this tent reminiscing? Let’s boogie!”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Is there alcohol?” demanded Kid Produce, brooding in a corner.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“I’m pretty sure that there’s everything a young hero might desire out there tonight,” admitted Danny Lyle. “Those Caphans know how to be grateful.” He caught Kerry’s gaze. “I was going to ask them for some grapes,” he concluded. “To give to my girlfriend.”     Kerry shot him a later glare – or promise. “All those in favour of going to the party?” she asked.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Should we not check with Visionary first?” suggested Glory.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“All those in favour?” ***     The Great Marketplace had seen richer celebrations, with more lavish decorations and more elegant foods and more formal dances and music; but it had never seen a more fervent one. Celebrating their liberation, forgetting their losses, healing their wounds, the people of Caph threw themselves into the party with an unremitting passion. Hundreds of street performers and thousands of revellers mixed in the heady swirl of sounds and smells and rapid movements, lit by little paper lanterns strewn from the blackened frontages of war-damaged houses.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“You know, I could retire here,” admitted Fashion Accessory. “After a lifetime of international success and a career as the natural successor to Fashion Fairy’s designer fashion empire. As long as I’m allowed to have a himbo harem of hand-picked body slaves.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“They doth know right well how to be joyful in victory,” agreed Harlagaz. “If there wert only some fighting still it wouldst be like to a party in my native Ausgard.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“We’re present at a fascinating cultural event,” Kit Kipling told them. “We should try and make some notes for posterity.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“You make notes, I’ll find the beer tent,” growled Kid Produce.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Maybe we should just try and mingle in,” suggested Falconne, the only brown-skinned woman on the planet. “And maybe find some cute Caphans to dance with?”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“I’m not sure that would be a good idea,” said Glory, remembering all of a sudden how Dominic Clancy had laughed when she’d been so keen to take the teaching assistant position with the Juniors. “There are some cultural issues we need to be careful of here, expectations and taboos…”     Glitch jiggled past leading a conga-line of young Caphan nobles and their concubines. “Hi, guys!” she called out. “Just teaching these folks some Earth dances. And later on I’ll be showing how to do the Robot.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“The dance, right?” Kip asked desperately.     Glitch congad on. *** On Some Conversations at the Party     Ã¢â‚¬Å“So, happy birthday, I guess,” Samantha Bonnington told her friend Kerry as they queued for what passed as punch at one of the hastily-erected drinks trestles. “I did figure the time-slip right, didn’t I? You are eighteen today?”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Yes,” agreed Kerry. “Eighteen and legal. If I want to now, I can move out from Feebionary’s Lighthouse of Suck and live on my own.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Or with somebody else,” FA suggested.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Well, it’d be interesting to move into Danny’s sty,” the probability arsonist admitted, “if only to see Vizh’s face when I announced it while he was eating. But I don’t want to scotch what I’ve got going with Danny even for the joy of seeing Fleabot have to Heimlich my adopted big brother.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Danny wouldn’t be up for it, then?” Samantha wondered.     Kerry turned to her, suddenly serious. “FA, Danny died for me. Literally. When I was taken by the Parody Master, he went and took over Herringcarp Asylum, took over the Purveyors of Peril, crossed half the universe to get me. He fought the Parody Master and his Avatar for me. And he died.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Yeah, Captain Courageous mentioned that in the orientation lecture we were all too slow to avoid, before his notes had that mysterious vegetable incident occur to them,” Samantha remembered. “But Dancer brought him back, right? Or Lisa. Or someone. I was too busy laughing at Kip scooping avocado out of his shorts.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Danny got sent through this timespace thingie to his happy ending,” Kerry reported. “Everyone else who did that vanished forever. But Danny came right back out again, alive, to me.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Whoa.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Yes, whoa. Whoa, there’s a boy who would die for me and who thinks I’m his happy ever after.”     FA thought about that. “Too heavy, then?” she wondered.     A slow smile crawled across Kerry’s face. “Kinda cool,” she admitted. “So hold that thought about a change of address. One day if he asks it might just happen. As long as Vizh is eating at the time.” ***     Danny was waiting for Kerry’s return at the edge of a circle of people listening to a rendition of the Ballad of Kiivan and Ohanna. Kit Kipling hunkered down next to him and tried to find a way of striking up a conversation.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Amazing to hear an iconic song about someone you know, isn’t it?” he ventured at last. “To think that generations from now Caphans will be learning that song as part of their history.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“What’s the problem?” asked Danny, cutting to the chase.     Captain Courageous wasn’t very good at bluffing. “Problem?” he asked.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“You’re struggling with an ethical dilemma, and CrazySugarFreakBoy!’s not around to help you out,” Denial summarised. “It’s a morally murky dilemma, which is why you picked me to talk to about. You’re considering doing something villainous.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Not villainous,” Kip assured him. “Just… difficult.”     Danny caught the annoyed glances of some of the Caphans listening to the performance. “Yeah, I hate people who talk at the movies too,” he admitted. “We didn’t disturb you. So what’s the situation, CC?”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“It’s orders from home,” Kip Kipling admitted in a whisper. “The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland wants to conclude a diplomatic treaty with Caph. An exclusive diplomatic treaty and trade agreement. They want me to set it up.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“And you think that would be taking advantage of your personal relationship with Kiivan and Anna?”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“They also want to establish a line of information… some kind of espionage presence,” Kip admitted. “They want me to find some people who can spy on the Emir, to ease along any future negotiations.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“And where’s the morally tricky part?” asked Danny.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Those are the tricky parts,” Captain Courageous snapped. Sometimes Danny really got on his nerves. “Question is, do I follow orders like I should, or do what I think is honest and proper?”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Hmm. Or you could do something dishonest and improper,” offered Denial. Hey, you could have asked Gaz if you’d wanted a simple answer.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“I didn’t want to have to hit anyone,” Kip admitted.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“What would CSFB! do?” Danny challenged. “Apart from take half a dozen of the Caphs home to have sex with his missus?”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Miss Kensington and I really aren’t at the bringing Caphans home stage,” shuddered Kip. “After all this time we may not be at any stage at all. But Dream would certainly not follow orders he didn’t like. Probably very vocally. Maybe with instructions about where the orders should be inserted. Maybe practical demonstrations.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Always entertaining that, yes.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“But I’m not Dream. I know the value of rules. Of responsibility.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Yeah. I hear that comes with great power and stuff. Okay then, I guess the question is: what would Captain Courageous do?”     Kip blinked. “I am Captain Courageous.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Well yeah. But that’s not all you are. Cap’s a role you play when you put on that frankly-slightly-ridiculous costume. You’re not the first guy in the role either. It’s a heritage deal, right? You assume the mantle. You become the hero. So I ask again, what would Captain Courageous do?”     Kip thought about it. “He’d do what’s right,” he answered. “Not what he was ordered, what he knew to be right.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Well then,” Denial concluded. “That’s your answer, then. Either that or demand a percentage of the trade deal before you set it up.” ***     Jasper Stevens was huddled on a plinth in the shadow of a shattered statue of some long-dead emir on a rearing snaargh. He held the bottle of finely-aged malted lorkh close to his chest but he hadn’t yet got round to tasting it. Below him all the revellers seethed around, happy and laughing. It made him sick.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Excuseth me, mine dears,” Harlagaz told the half-dozen Caphan beauties he was escorting. “I must needs attend to a boon comrade. Waiteth for me by yon hospitality tent and I shalt be with thee in a trice. Mayhap two trices.”     He left the giggling girls to their plans and climbed up beside Kid Produce. “There art enow to share,” he offered.     KP sighed. “No there aren’t,” he answered. “None of them looks right.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“They doth looketh most fine to me,” admitted the demihemigod of thunder. “In fact I art looking forward most verily to checking them more closely later.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“None of them looks like Jackie,” answered Jasper. “None of them is Jackie.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Ah.” Harlagaz’ face grew serious. “There is but one woman, then. And she art called Jackie.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“There was,” Kid Produce said. “Jackie Roberts. A while back – a lifetime back – we were in this team together. Justa Bunch of Heroes. B-leaguers, I guess, but we saved the world a few times.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“There ist no such thing a B-league hero,” Gaz proclaimed. “Only heroes.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Back then it always seemed like there was so much time. We were just kids, on amazing adventures. So much was going on. It was never the right moment.” KP looked up. “Right up to when Jackie died.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Ah,” said Gaz again.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Yeah,” sighed Kid Produce. “Now everything seems like it’s too much bother. I’m a different person. I don’t even like myself. I push everyone away. I hate it. I hate living without Jackie in the universe. I hate living.”     There. It was out in the open.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“What wouldst she say to you if she couldst then, this Jackie of thine?” wondered Gaz.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Jax? She’d say… she’d say…” KP’s face crumpled. “She’d say don’t be such an ass, Jasper. Stop letting everybody down. Remember me but…”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“But what?” urged Harlagaz.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“But don’t just remember me. Carry on,” gulped Jasper, blinking back tears. “Look around you. All these people, they’ve lost friends and family. Lovers. They’re hurting just like you are. But they carry on. And they can’t do as much as you can, help as many people as you can.” Kid Produce looked up. “Because Jackie never gave up. Never. That wasn’t in her.”     Gaz laid a hand on Jasper’s arm. “Then mourn thy Jackie one last night,” he advised the weeping hero. “And on the morrow heed her sooth advice.” ***     Hacker Nine didn’t like parties. He did what he always tended to do, which was to gravitate to the kitchens where the music wasn’t so deafening and there was a slight chance of a decent conversation. That’s how Lindy Wilson knew where to find him.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Wow, it’s hot out there,” she admitted, towelling off her sweating torso. “Like some kind of galactic mosh pit. You should get into the crush, Zack.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“I don’t want to be galactically moshed,” Hacker Nine confessed. “One person’s ‘wow’ is another person’s ‘aaah, let me out of here!’”     Lindy sighed at her hopeless ex-boyfriend. “So you’re going to hide in here, the night you saved the planet?”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“The night you saved the planet, maybe,” Zack replied. “All I did was betray it to the Hooded Hood. It and my friends.”     Falconne sat down next to him on a big crate of some kind of green root vegetable. “About that. Just before it all went apocalyptic, back when you knew Galactivac was coming, you tried to get away. You tried to take me away.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“I got to leave with one guest,” H9 explained. “That was my deal with the Hood.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Why? Why take a deal like that?”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Because… Lindy, you don’t know what that man’s like. How he can twist you round. I went to learn from him, but the lessons were… they were so hard.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Like?”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Like how to kill. I’m a murderer now, Lindy. Like how to betray your friends.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“The Hooded Hood always seemed like kind of a classy archvillain,” Lindy admitted. “He saved me from my life, brought me to this version of history…”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“It was the Hooded Hood who shifted your brother Sam and his girl out of history, too,” Hacker Nine revealed. “Falcon got too close to one of his pet schemes and… bang!”     Falconne’s eyes narrowed. “Did he now.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Don’t bother plotting revenge. The Hood’s gone now, as well. A few of his plots are still running on automatic, like the one that nearly fed Caph to Galactivac the Living Death that Sucks, but that’s all.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“We’ll see,” answered Lindy quietly. “So you got to take one person from certain death. Why me?”     Zack shrugged helplessly. “I like you.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Zack, we were awful together. I like clubbing and dancing and MTV and you like computers and math and soduko. You do know that we’re never, ever, going to get back together again, no matter how many times you save my ass from stupid things I’ve got into?”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Yes, I know that. I still like you. So I had to save you.” H9 sighed. “Or, as it turned out, fail to save you.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Fail to save me and stick around instead to stand by me and your friends, even though you thought you’d let them down so badly they’d never want to see you again,” Falconne pointed out.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Um… I guess.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“See, that’s why I’m sitting back here with you for a while, instead of the galactic moshing. ‘Cause I wish I was smart enough and brave enough to stand by my friends like that.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“I’m going away,” Hacker Nine told her. “I’m making arrangements with Mircandalee of the Travelling Vaudeville spaceship for passage to the stars. I’m going to, well…”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Zack, have you been reading Hitch-Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy again?” asked Lindy.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Maybe.”     She laid her head on his shoulder. “Take care, Zachary Zelnitz,” she told him. “Don’t go away forever. Friends forgive.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“I’ll remember that, Lindy. You be careful too.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Oh, and always know where your towel is,” she added. ***     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Enjoying the party?” Glitch asked as she was pushed into Ham-Boy and Glory in the crush.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Mostly,” agreed Fred Harris. “Um, Glory was just helping me sort out a kind of misunderstanding.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Misunderstanding?” the autobot asked. “I’m a communications specialist. What’s the problem?”     Glory considered the question. “What is the Caphan etiquette for saying ‘Thank you for the gift of these seven pleasure slaves, but I cannot accept them and do not wish them to be dishonoured or devalued by my refusal’?”     Ham-Boy winced. “I thought she was offering me a cup of cocoa,” he explained desperately. *** Next Issue: What happens the night after you save a world? More specifically, what happens when the lights go down and darkness falls? We follow the intrigue and action from throneroom to kroth barn to Visionary’s bed to learn some answers and pose some new questions. That’s coming up next in Untold Tales #326: On Things (and People) That Go Bump In the Night - Part One - On the Transfer of Power. [On a practical note, with Jay heading off for a few days and some other posters absent, would it be better to delay starting the next chapter's daily postings until folks are back? Otherwise we might end up with a pause at a point which is dramatically unhelpful while we're waiting for readers to catch up. What's people's preference?] Tie-In: Glitch explores Caphan culture in her own way by CrazySugarFreakBoy! (not suitable for minors) *** Cast List: Mircandalee Tremensalor is of the alien race the Dramaatis, the last survivor of her troupe after the Parody War. She now owns and runs the former avawarrior training ship as a star-spanning vaudeville theatre. Visionary, possibly-fake man and headmaster of the Junior Lair Legion training programme, was formerly the accidental owner of nine Caphan slave girls, including Miiri who later mothered his twin children. Glory, the pooch of power, is a superpowered and highly intelligent border collie who works with the metahuman agent Mr Epitome. She is also the Junior Lair Legion’s teaching assistant. Danny Lyle (Denial) is a rebel without a cause, dating Kerry Shepherdson. He is also the son of the Hooded Hood and madame Symmetry, the Shaper of Worlds. Kerry Shepherdson probability-twisting pyromaniac, is the former ward and current adopted little sister of Visionary. Sayaana is a Caphan pleasure slave, one of three daughters born to the Chieftain Ytirar out of Illia the Fair, and one of nine Caphans rescued by the Lair Legion to sojourn on Earth. She and her triplet siblings are sometimes called the lost Jewels of Caph. Philaana is another of the nine exiled Caphan slaves, and is younger sister to Sayaana. Ham-Boy (Fred Harris) is an alumni of the Junior Lair Legion. The world’s meatiest hero has the ability to create and control raw meat products. Prince Kiivan, Emir of All Caph, is the rightful heir to the Caliphate and liberator of his homeworld. He escaped when Caph was invaded by Thonnagarians, trained in different times and places, and returned just over am Eath year later having grown to adulthood to save his people. Ohanna of Raael is Kiivan’s constant companion, and as the Caphans would put it “his heart’s desire and best beloved”. She is younger sister to the exiled Caphan Miiri, and arguably the most extensively offworld-trained woman of Caph. Fashion Accessory (Samantha Bonnington) is a fabric-manipulating teen catwalk model, all-round valley girl, and member of the Junior Lair Legion. Her best friend is Kerry Shepherdson. Glitch is a female Autobot from a distant galaxy, sent to monitor and protect life on Earth. She’s just discovering a fetish for human boys. Harlagaz Donarson is the son of Donar, Ausgardian hemigod of thunder. He’s also a member of the Junior Lair Legion. Falconne (Belinda “Lindy” Wilson) is younger sister of the missing-in-action legionnaire Falcon and has inherited his combat flight suit. Captain Courageous (Kip Kipling) is a young British agent of Project: Pendragon, gifted with enhanced physical abilities and cursed with an absolute sense of morality. Kid Produce (Jasper Stevens) was a member of the JBH (Justa Bunch of Heroes) until tragedy struck and the love of his life Jackie Rabbit was taken from him. Now he is a morose, brooding loner who retains the ability to generate any kind of enhanced fruit or vegetable from his magic apron. Vaahir of Viigo is Caph’s greatest warlord, Prince Kiivan’s mentor and right-hand man in retaking Caph. Vaahir’s passion for the Lady Kaara of Jaaxa is celebrated in song and story. Shazana Pel is an outcast Thonnagarian warrior who stood against her own people as an ally of Kiivan and Vaahir. Her grandmother, Pigeonwarrior leader Ancient Shadara, last of the Great Eyrie, whom Pel defeated in battle and mortally wounded, has not yet finished with her. Hacker Nine (Zachary Zelnitz) is an anarchist computer whiz from the distant dimension of Technopolis. He recently served an apprenticeship with the Hooded Hood that almost led him to betray his friends to destruction. Ancient Shadara was the last of the ruling Great Eyrie of Thonnagar before it’s destruction in the Crisis on Multiple Earths. Hers was the iron rule that gathered the survivors of the once-mighty warrior race and sought victory in the Transworlds Challenge. She was the secret initiator of her grand-daughter’s exile for failure, “softness to the enemy”, and blasphemy during that contest – apparently to test Shazana Pel’s worthiness as a successor. Shadara was the architect of the invasion of Caph, and died of wounds she took in its final rebellion against her rule. Aroth Kor appears for the first time in this story. He’s a grizzled veteran Pigeonwarrior now sworn to the service of Shazana Pel. Deeela is the third of the triplet daughters of Chieftain Ytirar by Iliia the Fair, another of the nine Caphan exiles who dwelled on Earth. She dreams of becoming a bard like her tent-sister Losiira. Noona of Portaa is the older of two sisters sold offworld to the Slimy Slaver Lovetoad and later rescued by the Lair Legion along with other Caphan slaves. She is Losiira’s lover. Odoona of Portaa is Noona’s younger sister, perhaps the most innocent of the nine exiles. She has a secret crush on Visionary. Losiira of the Nine Songs is the oldest of the nine Caphan exiles, and the only one accredited by the bardic college. Had she remained on Caph she would have been promoted to slavemistress or even housemistress by now. She also carries a child of Prince Kiivan. Miiri of Earth, daughter of Prince Kiivas out of Ekooria of Damaar, is the most liberated of the Caphan exiles. When she was no longer owned by Visionary (a fiction anyway for the comfort of the rescued slaves) she returned to him as a lover and bore him twin children, Magweed (Naari) and Griffin. Miiri no longer wishes to be owned by anyone save herself. Luuma Swiftheels, famed for her athletic prowess, another of the nine exiles, also carries a child of Prince Kiivan. Kaara of Jaaxa, last daughter of a murdered House, was ravaged and sold into slavery. The youth who strove to own her was Vaahir of Viigo, and his exploits to escape and save her are chronicled in the Tenth Caphan Saga in Untold Tales #202-212. Magweed, also known by her Caphan name as Naari, is the daughter of Visionary and Miiri. Through a convoluted set of circumstances she has accidentally become a fairy princess. Griffin is Magweed’s twin brother, and until recently he was invisible and intangible to all but her. He is somewhat disappointed to discover that he is not an actual mythological leo-raptor. Through another convoluted set of circumstances he has accidentally absorbed the internet. spiffy (Mark Hopkins) was one of the first Juniors (and also a founding member of the Lair Legion). His powers derived from a symbiotic fern. He left the group after accidentally becoming President for Life of the corrupt Pacific basin nation-state of Badripoor. Lisa Waltz, first lady of the Lair Legion, recently gained the cosmic post of Destroyer of Tales. At the end of the Parody War she used her newfound abilities to teleport Earth’s forces back home safely. Only the hunkiest 1% were temporarily lost in transit and had to stay over at Lisa’s place until she was able to help them out. Herbert P. Garrick, (Bed News Herb) is the President’s Special Advisor on Metahuman Affairs. He’s not a fan of the Lair Legion. Fashion Fairy (Sydney St Sylvain) is a retired superheroine-turned-fashion designer with whom Samantha Featherstone occasionally interns. Fleabot is a sarcastic robot flea, Vizh’s occasional companion in adventure and housemate. Dancer (Sarah Shepherdson) is Kerry’s older sister, a waitress, stage dancer, and herald of Galactivac the Living Death that Sucks. CrazySugarFreakBoy! (Dreamcatcher Foxglove) is Kit Kipling’s Seattle University room-mate and close friend. He’s incidentally deputy-leader of the Lair Legion and an avatar of chaos – as Glitch may one day be. Anna Kensington was Kip Kipling’s girlfriend before the upheavals of the Superhuman Registration Act and the Parody War. They have not met (as far as we know) since Anna came into possession of the Blacksmith combat armour and went on the run. Jackie Rabbit (Jacqueline Roberts) shared her brother Jack Rabbit’s enhanced physical abilities and was a team-mate of Kid Produce’s in the ever-changing roster of the JBH. Her murder has never been solved, and KP is unaware as yet that Jackie has risen as a vampire. *** 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.

... Pel seems to dislike most people as a whole, regardless of their species, so much that being asked to lead any group of them, in a non-wartime situation, would have to be at least a little bit like a literal Hell for her.