THE SCREWUP LETTERS!

And now the curtain opens to reveal the true antagonist of our foolish story.

He's a kid, really, caged in a black iron prison outside the school. The lock is so easy to break, but only from the outside. Belial despondently chews the grass and talks to a child. 'You know, people, you know, those people, who can't do the magic thing? Are you sure they're really people.' Belial wouldn't be present to see the result of that badly phrased sentence, but he certainly was pleased at its ultimate result. Voldemort, I mean. Belial was really quite brave, for showing up as a goat in Harry Potter fan fiction.

'I disagree' said John Dee, as he ate a mud pie. 'everyone knows it's the people who can speak for themselves who count, not as you would have it, the ones who can spell.'

Helena Hufflepuff walked out and eyed the goat warily. The farm animal stared back. She sighed and re-entered the school.

Suddenly a cab with dice in the mirror reared up to the goat's cage, making Dee's mud pie collapse into a mud puddle. 'Not again!' he yelped.

A man wearing a baboon suit rolled out of the cab and found himself prostrated in front of Belial.

'Yo home to Belial! YO HOME TO BELIAL!' chanted Naruku, his character derailing faster than a drunk train.

'Home indeed' breathed Belial. 'And now for our next guest.' Belial strained as though he was doing a hard sum.

The Earth yawned a huge crack and vomited frorth a giant centipede wearing a conical hat and waving chopsticks. 'Konichuwa, sinners!' Under his guttural gurgle was the faint accent of an Oxford Don, from hell! 'I am that I am and that is SCREWTAPE!'

'Sakura Tape?' commented Naruku as he kissed the bars of Belial's cage. 'I've read some of your work, I expected something considerably different.' Having been adapted to a cartoon, he should have known people come across differently in text.

'Wassup Belly Ale?' said Sakura Tape ignoring Naruku completely. 'I haven't seen you since the Blitz? Remember that the sqaunder bug? With the Hitler head! Talk about Kafkaeseque!'

'I've changed a bit since my Godwin days. My scheme, the one where I replaced the Fuhrer with a Saiyan clone, hoping to make the Man in the High Castle timeline actually happen, didn't pan out.' admitted Belial. 'These days its all about luring children to free me and somehow end the world.'

'That's the dumbest scheme I've ever heard.' barked Naruku. 'And I temped at Team Rocket!'

John Dee threw his mud pie at Sakura Tape, who ate both of them. 'I don't know.' Tape commented. 'There's always a delicious irony in getting people to screw themselves. It'll be just like Paradise Lost, you know.'

'I'm afraid you lost me on that one.' muttered Naruku, who suddenly realized he was operating in an unfamiliar cultural frame and improvised with what little knowledge he had of foreingers. 'Hey, lets gather a hundred foreskins before midnight!'

Belial and Tape ignored him.

'Who is the apish freak, Belial?' shrieked Tape. 'I thought you invited Hades for this one. Now that guy's cool.'

The goat agreed. 'Hades is an inspiration to all us villains, the perfect balance between chaos and charisma. Sadly he's embroiled in something very complicated at the moment, very heartless I'm told. I'm afraid that his participation in our little scheme risks serious story leakage. And if you've ever read my source material you know that I know what is means to be confusing. Seriously, if he was here there'd be punks with giant keys on the ground in minutes.'

Through the bars of the black cage Naruku heard the words of Belial. 'So far I've had no luck getting my cage open-' Naruku made a sudden movement. 'By a humAN! I was working on Lovegood, but he wised up too fast, and the opposition got to him. I thought I could find someone in New Sodom, but no luck. Some out-of-towners are knocking around, they seem pretty out of it… when I'm out, I'll destroy this miserable world…'

'Of course!' simultaneously climaxed Tape and Naruku.

'… and surf the crossover connections into other stories. So far I can access Harry Potter, Inu Yasha-' Naruku's heart beat with indignation. He was previously convinced his comic was called: Naruku Handsome Baboon Creep (Ladies…) 'and the Philip K Dick corpus of course, as well as Abrahamic Religion thanks to Tape here. By the end of this month I intend to breach Doctor Who, Narnia, Russian literature as well as the Tommy Westphall universe. My aim, of course, is to annihilate all escapism and turn all fiction into dreary relation dramas, so humans will find it difficult to imagine a better world. As well as controlling YOU!' Belial stared at the fourth wall of his cage. 'of course, this is all big picture stuff. First I need to get outta dis joint.'