Parus the Manipulator

right|300pxParus the Manipulator is a villainous great tit from Invasion of Bugs.
==Biography==
===Invasion of Bugs===
At one point, she conned Goldback of his shillings, and Goldback hasn't forgotten it one bit (though Parus has). She also once devoured Myotis' parents, and like with Goldback, she forgot about it over time while Myotis hasn't. 
Many seasons later, when Goldback joins Wuya the Toxic, the centipede warlord has Tubemouth fetch Parus for her fall injuries despite protests from Goldback. When Parus arrives, she does in fact have herbs for Wuya's injury, plus a sleeping potion for the nightmares the centipede's been having. Goldback intervenes at this due to their history, and while Parus didn't recognize him, she does believe him. After Scalewing finds the potion is indeed genuine, Wuya has both the butterfly and robberfly leave, despite the latter's objection. Parus wasn't bothered by Goldback's hostility, even though she can't recall their last encounter. When Wuya fell asleep, Parus spotted plans the centipede had on a table and took them, then made her way to Redwall abbey to sell them. What she didn't know is that Wuya actually expected Parus to steal something and intended the plans as bait for her.
At Redwall abbey, she arrived at midnight and spent the night there. By morning, while everyone was busy going over Wuya's plans and debating on how to counter it, Parus tries to steal the belongings of redwallers, but was caught by Myotis, who instantly recognized her from the day her parents died. A chase followed, with Myotis reminding Parus about her evil deed, but as usual, Parus doesn't recall, though she doesn't doubt Myotis in the slightest, and freely admits to having a taste for bat-brains. Myotis managed to strip Parus of her loot, then crashes her through a window, where they go tumbling outside. The commotion drew a crowd, and Myotis kept Parus pinned to the ground, but the bird finally broke free. Jala Furrel chastises her for eating bats, but Parus objects that toads and lizards eat sentients all the time. She manages to evade all the woodlanders, though was almost knocked back down to earth by a rock fired by Nomi, and when the mole fired at her again, she dodges it and escapes the abbey. Myotis and Koor go after her, but she loses them.
She was then seen fleeing far south, nursing her wound and swearing vengeance at Redwall. Meanwhile Wuya, who had watched Parus' escape, sent Bigeye to kill her for her treachery, but Parus turned the tables on the centipede as she had suspected Wuya to do this, so she left her belongings out in the open to bait the pursuer, and when Bigeye found them, Parus snuck behind and killed the horsefly with a knife. She also took Bigeye's weapons to better protect herself, and the great tit clearly gets to live to con another day.
===Parus Rides Again===
Despite getting away with her manipulation of Wuya and Redwall, she began holding a grudge against the latter, and took the life of a slaver, where she took over Castle Marl and turned it into her empire. She then began gathering many woodlanders as slaves, mainly children. She first appears marching off with her most recent capture, Kasper Thistledown, and decides now was the time to take her revenge. They arrive at Saint Ninian's and Parus has Botaurus act as a spy in Redwall. The marten Brownarm later informs the attempt was a success and by dusk Botaurus returns with confirmation that Kav Furrel is still alive, but now has a daughter named Freja Furrel, who Parus labels as target number one and has Botaurus return to allow Parus entry into Redwall, then tries to imitate Slagar the Cruel's success at breaking into Redwall and taking prisoners, reminding her crew that conning was what she does best, yet she acknowledges Xof Chopsnout's theory the redwallers may not be as gullible as Matthias' generation, and is particularly wary of meeting Myotis again. By nightfall, she puts her plan to action, dubbing themselves the "Aeronauts" with Parus herself being named "Starbuster", and upon arriving at Redwall, Botaurus succeeds at persuading the redwallers to let the slavers in. Parus and her crew do a show to keep up their act, and personally lays eyes on Freja. Eventually, she plays her trump card: she flies around trailing sleep-powder and knocks out almost everyone, the only ones she missed were the teenagers Zonder Banksnout and Ganner Grang (who were dibbuns last time Parus was in Redwall), Kav's mother Telma Furrel, and beekeeper Vakama Foeseeker, though Parus improvised by having the teens kidnapped with Freja while the adults were murdered and their bodies stashed in the woods outside, yet Parus did not know the Eurasian-siskin Spinus had also been watching and later informs the abbey-dwellers.
The next morning, she and Linda check on their newest additions, and Zonder recognized her from the attempted robbery seasons earlier, but had thought Wuya had gotten her. Coincidentally, the other heroes had assumed Parus was dead too, and realized otherwise (Myotis was particularly furious). They then march south, though during the trek, Zonder gets an erection and since he never wears pants, it was visible. Parus became concerned for it, making Zonder fearful that she'll remove it, but she has a worse fate for him: sex-slave. Xof immediately picks up the scent of another woodlander ahead of them and both look for it, eventually finding an adult male squirrel named Russell Swordmaid. They capture and add him to the slave-chain, also removing his weapon which they left behind.
The next morning, they set off again, though Parus noticed Zonder had a leakage attributed to his genitals and after arriving in a swamp, demanded he clean himself, which he does. While in the swamp, they get attacked by toads, losing the Eurasian coot Whitemouth, a casualty Parus shrugs off. She later decides to make an alliance with the toads to dispose of possible pursuers, and places Whitebelly in charge of watching the slaves while she, Spearbeak and Xof left to find the toads, and Parus herself backtracked for followers. As she thought, she caught sight of Kav, Alzbeta Grang, Myotis, Erinaceus Quill, Poove, Jaxxon Thistledown, Reggie Swordmaid, Sasha Churchmouse, Howard Axehound and a small score of guosim led by Láilá Bigboat trekking in the same direction. She then returns to the toads and sends them after the woodlanders, then goes to see the heroes die personally. While their pursuers do get attacked by the toads, virtually no one anticipated a Baryonyx to join the fray, and it took over in trying to kill the woodlanders. Parus shrugged it off as improvisation, but her happiness crumbled when Spearbeak spotted their main five prisoners suddenly loose. Undaunted, she has Spearbeak get the rest of the pack over to recapture them, and Xof takes Zonder while Russel was snared in a bolas, and they effectively recapture all five, and Parus chose to hightail rather than see the rescuers die, which they don't. After they left the swamp, Parus asks Whitebelly to talk in private, which he feared would happen. When they were in seclusion, Parus lies that she won't kill him for failing to watch the slaves, but the second he let his guard down, she does kill him, and eats his brain. 
They continue into another day to Great Inland Lake, eventually reaching it, where Parus flies to Marlfox Island to get a boat, and returns with one at dusk. She then deems her crew no longer useful and has Botaurus and Xof manipulated into turning against each other, knowing they hate each other anyway, however Linda insisted she join her to the island as an insurance policy so her family wasn't harmed, which Parus relents. Reaching the island at night, she reunites with Viqi who blabs to Linda that Parus abandons her crew after bringing slaves to the island, and had intended to do the same to Linda, who was furious and assumes Parus didn't keep her promise at leaving the ferret's family alone, and tries to attack her, resulting in Viqi defending the tit, only to be attacked herself by Russell. Parus though had noticed the squirrel and ferret take a liking to each other on the way to the island, and figured it was romantic, and she reveals it to all. While she herself has nothing against a woodlander and vermin getting together, she nevertheless puts Linda in with the slaves and has Viqi take her and Russell to Castle Marl's dungeons, and Zonder placed with the sex-slaves. 
The next morning, she checks on Linda and Russell, and had them stripped naked as torture before bringing them outside to humiliate them, and putting them with Freja and the hares, who were appalled and give Linda some of their clothes. Later, her hunters finally arrive, but Brafilius alerted her and had a trap set, however none of the vermin acknowledged the possibility that the pursuers released the other slaves, and Jaxxon summons them with his signature battle cry, resulting in a battle. Parus tried to avoid the fight, but was pursued by the redwallers, though due to being able to fly, she outruns all except Myotis, who keeps up with some help from the bloodwrath. Myotis eventually brings both of them down to the lake, but Parus escapes and flew out of the water, intending to return again someday, but her vow gets broken when a Brancasaurus chomps her up, giving her a death she could not escape from.
==Appearance==
She wears an orange-skirt, a green-blouse and a blue-veil. Her weapon appears to be a knife.
Later, she wears a green-cowl, a red-mask with black fire-shaped splotches, a yellow-coat and pink-pantaloons. She still uses a knife, but also a Blowpipe and a Bolas.
==Personality==
Parus shares a lot of personality with Slagar the Cruel and his mother Sela: she is not loyal to anyone and only cares about herself and what benefits her. She's also rather cannibalistic, since she turned Myotis' parents into a snack. Her selfishness runs so deep that she doesn't try to keep memory of those she scammed (unless they have done something to her she doesn't like), and if she happens to meet the same victim twice, she'll think they're someone else completely. She's also rather cunning, and while Wuya saw through her façade, Parus knew Wuya would hold a grudge against her should she find herself robbed, and was correct when Bigeye showed up looking for Parus on Wuya's behalf, yet this time Parus does trick the centipede by laying a trap for her lackey. She herself also is begrudging and when Wuya is out of the picture, plans to return to Redwall in a few seasons and settle a score.
Many seasons later, she becomes even more like Slagar, not only sticking to her word, but even imitates the fox's success at slavery, like dressing up as a circus to infiltrate Redwall. Volkner Streamdog suspects she's also vain, as she blames Redwall for reasons she herself caused, but never acknowledges. Another similarity to Slagar was that she was known to abandon her minions when taking slaves to Marlfox Island and turn them against each other, with the only exception being Linda, who insisted on accompanying to the island. Of course, she also shares many villains' resentment to failure, though her method of killing minions over it is more akin to Gulo the Savage, albeit more disturbing: when Whitebelly messed up at watching the main five slaves, Parus eats his brain as punishment.
==Trivia==
*Parus' name is also the genus name of her species, Parus major.
*She claims to have a taste for bat and flycatcher brains: this is surprisingly true as real great tits have in fact been reported attacking and eating both animals, however, the bats are only hunted in winter when food is scarce, while flycatchers are only eaten as spoils of victory after competing with them for nesting, whereas Parus appears to hunt both whenever she wants, and doesn't limit it to bats and flycatchers: she ate Whitebelly's brain for failure, and is implied to do this to anyone who fails her, regardless of species. 
==Gallery==
Category:Birds
Category:Invasion of Bugs Characters
Category:Females
Category:Villain Leaders
Category:Parus Rides Again characters
Category:Casualties