Revelation (W8V)

Revelation is the fifty second chapter in the Wombles Eight. If you were looking for the Wombles Two chapter of the same name, see Revelation.

“Once upon a time, in the dirt fields of the world before our worlds, there was a mud grubber named Uxas, who couldn’t wait for everything to hurry up and die. That’s right. Me. Around me there were dangerous monsters who called themselves Gods, such as Thor Odinson. He sent a lightning storm down just to entertain himself and my sister and brother-in-law were too blind to see that they should take cover instead of praying to a man causing destruction who cannot even hear them. The mortals in the dirty fields screamed. And the old Gods laughed. And laughed. And laughed. We were lucky that they didn’t crush us. My relatives said that it was due to my sister’s prayers, but I knew better. If the Gods actually heard her prayers, they’d have crushed her just for fun. They accused me of blaspheme and said that I’d bring disaster upon them. And I decided that wasn’t such a bad idea. So the younger, brave and wicked version of me climbed the forbidden mountain and stared down on the great creators and destroyers of all I knew. No one knows what gave me the power. But when the Gods sleep, sometimes nature produces a sport. Every world has one. The snake. The beast. The trickster, planting doubt and hate in even the purest of souls. So the old Gods went to war. And the mud-grubbers wept as the world exploded. And then there was new darkness. One of the Gods fell. He was ugly, large, brown and yellow-eyed. He asked me for a prayer. Told me that if I believed in him then he’d give me all I desire. I told him that was forgiveness… But I’d just take it. I lunged my pickaxe into his stupid glowing eye, and he died by my hands. No one kills a God and gets away with it. But what if you kill two? Or ten? Or all of them? The beast that was Uxas sank deep it’s fangs, and drained it’s masters of all their might. Goodbye, Uxas. Enter, Darkseid! The earth could now explode at my touch. My sister begged the so-called lord of the sky to be saved just as he was falling. He said that he could not save her, but because she remained faithful, then he would pass on one last blessing to the one she loved most. He gave her husband power similar to mine. He fought me even though we both knew he could never win. He said we were the new Gods, and begged me to join with him and fix everything. But Ixaya’s soft pleading only filled my heart with contempt. So I destroyed the world. Silence closed. A deep long silence, wrapped in massive darkness. It was this way for an age… and then… Apokolips. Where laughter has been bred out of the species. Where every soul silently marches in step. Where everyone feeds the machine- me. But that wasn’t enough for me. I needed a new people to take control of. I’m bored with the complete loyalty of the Apokoliptians, I need people who can truly suffer from me. I need to do to them what the old Gods did to me. So I hatched a plan to take over the Earth. I met with a sorcerer named Stephen Strange and asked him to tell me how I could achieve my goals. He refused to help me bring disaster so I tried somebody else. And then somebody else. And somebody else. John Constantine, Minerva McGonagall, David Occult, until finally… the man who called himself Doctor Fate. Fate wore a costume to conceal his identity from me. He had a golden helmet which covered his whole head. He claimed that the helmet gave him his powers, but he would not tell me what I needed to do. So I took his helmet. I placed it on my head to make my elaborate plan. I saw twenty-two thousand, three hundred and one possible outcomes and only one where I achieved my aim. So I went through drastic measures to make sure it happened exactly like that, starting around three years ago. I used the stolen helmet of Fate to do many things. Firstly, I brought in people who would make enemies with the MI12 and the wombles. I had heard of cruel ancestors of John Steed who had harnessed their telepathy to its full extent, who were inclined to not care how many casualties they caused in their quest to paint the world how they wanted it. I had also heard of a woman like them in the present time, Emma Susan Peel, who I did not doubt would want to continue their legacy. And finally I had heard the legend of the future heir of James Bond who would rather die than call himself by his true surname. He wanted to be privileged. He wanted to be a Steed. So I used the helmet of Fate to bring all those people into the same year, where they would meet together and become known by the names Gus, LSFS, ESP and SCS, or collectively as TODE. I was unprepared, however, for the surprise that came when they were joined by John Steed and Cathy Gale. I had needed them to be the heroes. So, using my handy new helmet, I put the idea in their heads to control Idaho Womble and Cathy Gale into starting a plan to make dear Cathy into the only human left, with wombles as the main creatures of the world. However, I needed this plan not to work. The scheme aimed to turn Cathy back to the supposed side of good, and that would hopefully in turn cause Mr Steed to follow in her steps. I, unlike nearly everybody else, was not too blind to see that he loved her. So I needed some heroes. I needed womble heroes to convince Idaho to stop his scheme. I counted on the wombles’ habit of making good use of the things that they find and I left a bag containing clothes taken from a children’s superhero costume shop lying on the common. One of the wombles, Tobermory, found it, along with Tomsk, and I was relieved as that part of my plan worked and they became vigilantes known as Wombat and Womble Wonder. And then I was glad to see Super Womble emerge. But, surprisingly, it was none of them who saved the Wombles and turned Cathy and Idaho back to their side. For Idaho it was Bungo Womble, and as the reverse of what I had hoped, for Cathy it was Mr Steed. But then I saw that neither Steed nor Cathy had truly switched sides. They were working for TODE loyally still. The other members had thought that they were controlling them after they had turned good, but they were all so surprised that they fainted when they realised that Steed and Cathy were in fact willingly killing off the other members of the team known as the Avengers. So I desperately needed to change their alliance for a second time. So I put the idea in the other TODE member’s heads to abuse Steed and Cathy. Or as I recall how Steed explained it was something like this: ‘Because’ said Steed, ‘We were treated like weeds. They threatened to kill us. They threatened to bill us. They punched us and kicked us and bopped us about. They did it so much that they made us shout!’  Are you curious to know how I know about that? Well, my dear friend Olivier Neten was there at the time and he reported to me. But then I had another misfortune. The ‘heroes’ all worked together to take down TODE at their old Dickensian mansion. So I had to create a distraction while Gus, ESP and SCS got away. I used the helmet again and made everybody except for Bungo Womble cold so that Bungo would be busy helping the others to warm up. It’s curious that nobody questioned why they were cold just after an explosion, and why Bungo was completely fine, but ho-hum. I then realised that LSFS had not got away. I used the helmet to take myself there under the rubble and attempt to pull him out, but I was unlucky again. Bungo saw the hand emerging and shot LSFS dead. So I had to attempt to bring him back. Bringing a person back to the world of the living with occult magic is very difficult, after all no spell can reawaken the dead. So while the process was still occurring I had to temporarily replace his organisation- TODE- with a new one. The helmet of Fate granted me access to time travel back a few minutes, so I did. Mrs Emma Peel, sister of ESP, had been killed by Tara Keel, so I had to bring her back to life. I then had to make sure the defeating of TODE happened in the same way, so that there was no change to history which would require another, and then I could make sure that Mrs Peel would grow a hating for Cathy Gale due to them both loving Mr Steed. And it worked! Mrs Peel found her escaped sister and teamed up with her to start an organisation known as WOOF. I was ready to let this be the final thing, Mr Steed and his new wife Cathy becoming the heroes with Mrs Peel and ESP as their worst enemies, but third time was not lucky. Mrs Peel, Tara Keel, Venus King and Dr Martin King were all dead by the end of it. I did not care about Dr King as he had no place in my plan but Mrs Peel, Mrs King and Mrs Keel were essential in turning Steed and Cathy into the heroes everybody knows today. Then I discovered Dr Jon Von Pincher and Dr Diabolical Diablo. I used the helmet to put the idea in their heads to bring Mrs Peel back to life. They invented immortality devices which worked like a charm and soon enough Mrs Peel was back from the dead, and luckily more set on vengeance on Cathy than ever before. So I then decided that I should bring Mrs King and Mrs Keel back as well. Mrs King was actually brought back by Mr Steed with the intention that she could defeat Mrs Peel but to my delight she didn’t defeat her, but rather replaced her as Steed and Cathy’s greatest enemy. So then I brought back Mrs Keel and I was glad to see that the immortality devices clearly caused a bloodlust as I then put Mrs Keel in the right place at the right time to attempt to kill Mr Chips, and she did attempt that without any real reason to. She failed, which disappointed me, as Mr Chips could possibly be my equal in power, though he seems to only help the other supposed heroes rather than fight against anybody without a prompt. But then dear Venus was buried very very very very deep under the ground, rendering her completely useless for a while. She may as well have been dead, even though she was almost immortal. So I needed to create a new enemy. I brought back an old foe of Steed and Cathy’s. Mr Edward Bruin, or as most people will know him now, Mr Teddy Bear. I gave him some power from the helmet of Fate and let him take revenge on them. Whenever he said the word bananas then Steed would not be able to control himself as he would go into a trance, bend his arms to be shaped like bananas, and knock out whoever was in front of him. The first person he did that to just so happened to be Mr Chips. Then when Steed and Cathy went on holiday I thought I was in luck. People let their guard down when they go on holiday. Mrs Peel and Mrs Keel I knew both wanted to marry Steed so I subtly let them both stumble across the address where they were staying. With a little bit more luck they both decided that they needed to kill Cathy, and they then became Steed and Cathy’s enemies once again. But with so many enemies, it seemed likely that Steed and Cathy could be defeated. So I took advantage of the fact that they had taken over London. I found Steed’s friend Purdey, who at the time I didn’t know was Cathy’s sister, and made sure that she had nothing to do in the whole of London. I predicted correctly that she would go to Grand Steed Manor to find something to do. And I predicted correctly that wherever she went, Mike Gambit would soon follow. And I subtly slipped information to Hannibal Smith that his sister was in England, and I correctly predicted that he would lead his A-Team there in the search. And I correctly predicted that with so many people visiting, Cathy would want Grand Steed Manor to be extended, so I made sure that the architect she called would be David Vincent. And I correctly predicted that Mr Vincent would stage his paranoia about the Invaders and go to the army for help. I made sure that it was Commander Bond who met him. The heroes and enemies now seemed to be balanced, as along came Baron Von Vomble. But then… EPKCT. Enemies teaming up had been what I was dreading as it gave the enemies a great advantage when I needed constant balance. I needed the heroes to remain as heroes until I was on the next stage of my plan. Emma, Peacock, Katy, Catwoman and Tara made formidable foes for the Steeds and then more and more enemies were arriving and it seemed impossible for the heroes to survive. Luckily more heroes came too, such as Batman, Robin and Batgirl, but it was still unbalanced. So I had to move on to the next stage of my plan as quickly as possible. I met up with the demon Mordax, or as he was known on earth, Frank Skinner, as I knew he would do anything for some power. I told him I knew what he really was and that I knew his Room 101 was really an entrance to hell, and I told him of my plan to overthrow the devil. And I told him that he could rule alongside me. A lie, of course, but a necessary evil, as all my evils are. And my plan worked. Obviously the man who killed all the Gods could manage to kill the devil. Mordax put a glamour over me so that I would appear to be that Lucifer and then I ruled happily in hell, now with the powers of both the Gods and the devil. I no longer needed the helmet of Fate, so I happily returned it to the good Doctor Fate, and he later used it, ironically, to save his daughter Jesy from her worst fate. But I still needed to take over the Earth. I needed help, however, and not that of someone like Mordax. I needed somebody on Earth to be helping me. I needed a rider. I spent a while deciding who should be my rider, and then I remembered that I had not come across SCS recently. And I started to think about how old James Bond was getting, without having had any children. It occurred to me then that my writing and control of parts of history could be causing SCS to be erased from existence. And since SCS was a member of TODE, he was one of the pawns on my chess board. I needed him to exist. And I knew just the way to make it happen. I sought out Bond in the sewers of Soton and took him down to hell. And then I made a deal with him to get him straight back out. I made him agree to become my rider, sucking souls out of people’s bodies every night. But I also granted him the daytime powers of making every woman who sees him fall immediately in love with him. Eventually, at some point, this will lead to the birth of SCS. But then I had another problem to deal with. Mordax betrayed me. He realised that I would never truly give him the power I had promised and he instead became loyal to Trigon, who tricked him in the exact same way I did. Trigon attempted to subdue me and take over hell like me. But I was prepared. I wrote a list under the name of Minerva McGonagall. It was really a list of the people who Cadmus were after but I slipped it to John Constantine, asking him to bring Harry Potter on the mission with him, and added a claim on a note saying that Trigon was also after them and that they would need to stop Trigon as well. He really was after Raven, which helped my lies to seem true, but I doubt he cared much for any of the others. I don’t blame him, really. I don’t care about a single one of them. But then I struck bad luck again, as I discovered the Invidia prophecy. I was sure that Invidia must be Mrs Peel as she had fulfilled everything in the prophecy, so I got my demon friend to take her here and then I granted her Invidia’s powers. Then dear Fauna came to me. She walked straight through Room 101 without batting an eye and down into hell with the most confidence I’ve ever seen in a human being. She was vain and quippy but I liked that. So I let her stroll right up to me, still in my guise as the devil, and I let her say everything she wanted to say. Fauna explained to me about where she came from and who she was. About her father and dear Mrs Peel, who I still believed to be Invidia, being her mother. And then she explained about who I was. She knew it all. Somehow, she knew everything about me. I asked her how and then she explained that she knew the real Invidia. Invidia already had her powers, and Invidia had been going in and out of hell unseen watching me all this time. Fauna explained that Invidia currently didn’t want to fulfil her legacy but that she would soon. Invidia had begun to fulfil the first half of the prophecy, so inevitably the second half would follow soon after. And it did. Dear Ginny is currently bringing chaos on the world. And now I need only one thing to complete my scheme- the Anti-Life equation. And now I can finally have it. My good servant Thanos has been watching you with a glamour over himself, and he has been collecting what we like to call the Infinity Stones. They were scattered across the world, but he actually made them. He used the anti-life equation’s remnants to make them. We originally thought that they would make a good substitute, but most of them are now missing and we can only use them in the way that we would use the equation when they are all together in Thanos’ gauntlet. So, since it was taking so long to find and obtain each stone, such as the Womble Existence Jewel, the Philosopher’s Stone, and various others you may know, we decided that instead we should try to restore the Anti-Life Equation to its former glory. And we believe that it lies inside this key.”

Darkseid turned around and then faced back toward everyone again, holding none other object than the royal key.

“How did I get it? With more planning. After discovering that dear Venus had returned, I put the idea in Mrs King’s head to want power. To want to rule. But the plans went wrong. Part of her team was defeated. I had been foiled once again… Or had I? After Katy Perry was sent down to hell, I unlocked the magic which was placed in her by that demon all those years ago. And I let her help me without even knowing she was doing it. As Venus had done, she had the slightly bigger ambition of taking over the whole multiverse, but it was still very useful. The more powerful she grew, the more powerful I grew. And eventually, I was powerful enough to just bring the key to me at will without even knowing where it was. But while I did all that, I needed Katy to be a distraction to everybody. However, I also needed a distraction for Katy. So I sent down Pennywise. Or as you call him, the Joker. Or It. I know you are burning to know how he survived being burnt to a crisp and eaten by a seahorse. That is actually very simple. His species can still reap fear when they are in peril, even if they are in human form. The seahorse’s worst fear was something inside it coming alive and killing it. So he did that and was released in his full demon form. Well, that’s what you call it, anyway. So, back to the original subject- there is a special way to extract the Anti-Life equation from this key. First, I have to take myself and the key to heaven. With the power I now have, I have easily done that. Next, I need to bring three trinities here and use their souls as a power source for the key and the equation. Firstly, the Holy Trinity, who of course are here anyway as they are always here. Then I need the Trinity of Sin. Pandora, the Question and the Phantom Stranger.”

Three people appeared, all of them looking very mystical.

“And finally, the Unholy Trinity. This trinity also consists of a father, an offspring, and a spirit. The spirit is James Bond. The Ghost Rider, the Spirit of Vengeance.”

Everybody turned to look at Bond.

“The offspring is my dear Fauna. The offspring of King Lord Sir John Steed and Mrs Emma Peel.”

Everybody turned again to look at Fauna.

“The father I believe will surprise you greatly. He is none other than Hal Jordan. Or as you may know him, the Green Lantern.”

The Green Lantern appeared and everybody turned to look at him.

“W-what?” said Green Lantern. “Oh! I’m out of Iron Heights! Where am I though? Who are all of you?”

“Well who’s ‘e the father of, then?” asked Constantine.

Darkseid laughed mysteriously. “He is the father of Hermione Granger.”