Tales of the Parodyverse

Post By

killer shrike
Fri Apr 29, 2005 at 11:53:42 pm EDT
Subject
Re: Part Three is new
Originally
Re: Part Two is a repost
In Reply To

killer shrike
Fri Apr 29, 2005 at 11:52:29 pm EDT
<< Prev In Thread
[ New ] [ Email ] [ Print ] [ RSS ] [ Tales of the Parodyverse ]
Next In Thread >>

The Adventures of Alcheman #17


“Pitfalls of the Profession, Concluded”


Previously: The Scourge of the Parodyverse has invaded the home of Baroness Elizabeth Sweetwater Dewdrop Von Zemo with plans to kill the mistress of the house and any villain in the fledgling arch criminal’s employ. The previously expired Expired Warranty and Razor Ballerina have already fallen. The castle’s remaining occupants, Zemo, her unalive grandfather Otto, Silicone Sally, and the supposed star of the book, now attempt to come up with a strategy to defeat a foe who has nullified the Baroness’s defenses with contemptuous ease.


Alcheman’s brow furrowed as he considered strategy, “Perhaps if your grandfather materialized in front of the Scourge as a distraction, it would afford us an opportunity to disarm the assassin.”

“Bah!” Baron Ottokar Attila Kublai Tamerlane Zemo von Saxe-Lurkburg-Schreckhausen spat at the suggestion, “You wish to send me to my doom?! The killer’s bullets contain concentrated Anti-Story. If I were to be hit I would be unmade!” he snorted, “What hero foists the heavy lifting on others?”

“Perhaps one with a low opinion of spectral Nazis who dabble in the Dark Arts and threaten to pulverize kittens in order to force said hero into submission?” Michael shot back.

Otto smiled remembering the elegant simplicity of his snare.

“It’s not like you have anything to worry about,” Silicone Sally told Alcheman as she slithered out of her chambermaid’s uniform and into something more work appropriate, “The Scourge isn’t after you. He only kills villains.”

Alcheman objected, “The man, if it is indeed a man, did attempt to implicate the Probability Dancer in one of his crimes. If it is in fact a he,” the hero had a hard time believing any male of his species could be capable of adopting the attributes of the aforementioned Legionnaire to the point of hoodwinking a courtroom of people.

“He only tried to frame her because she has a rep for helping out lame super villains. The Scourge’s whole m.o. is to wipe them from the Parodyverse,” Sally countered.

“And you know this because?”

The Flexible Felon rolled her eyes, “Duh: I read his manifesto.”

“His what?” Michael felt out of the loop. Trying to discern the identity of the Scourge was one of the things on his Superhero Short Term Goal List: along with exposing the conspiracy behind COPE and learning exactly how the Gold Coin Killer case got solved.

“Enough,” Beth announced as she picked up the dining room table’s candelabra and brought it to the room’s far wall. Her earlier concern for her well being had been replaced by a cold anger at the realization that the Scourge had chosen her as a target because he considered her ludicrous. With grim determination she took down the dueling saber set on display. After deciding it was far too heavy for any dramatic swings or swipes to demonstrate how serious she was about dealing with the threat, the Baroness turned to her subjects, “I have a plan. Follow me.”

It was time to show this gatecrasher the door.

*****


The Scourge of the Parodyverse was dressed in standard Black Ops camouflage, with the requisite infa-red goggles, ski mask, bandolier, and more pouches than a mob of kangaroos. He held her submachine gun at the ready, its stock pressed against his shoulder as she carefully navigated the Grand Hallway. There were dozens of doorways leading off the room, each one a possible point of ambush, and the Scourge eyed them all.

He should have been watching the portraits lining the walls.

Alcheman crashed through the full length likeness of Ildefons Neidhard Von Zemo and hammered the Scourge’s jaw with a diamond hard fist.

The villain killer crashed into the opposite wall but recovered quickly. She rose with the gun raised, but held his fire when she recognized the assailant. First Alcheman was hectoring the Scourge’s pawn at COPE, disrupting one component of the operation, now he was here, and defending the target.

The Scourge couldn’t kill the hero, but that didn’t mean he had to let herself get beaten to a pulp. The assassin used his commando training to flip Alcheman to the ground and pin him there by grinding her knee into the small of his back.

One of Michael’s arms was caught under his body. The other twisted behind his back by the Scourge, who was demonstrating prodigious strength. The assassin noted Alcheman’s predicament and gloated.

“Pity it’s not my job to cap lame heroes, Gem Boy, because you qualify. All a bad guy needs do to stop you is keep your hands away from the tatts.”

“That’s not exactly true,” Alcheman noted as he twisted his head. The action let him brush his nose against the chemical symbol for hydrogen. He assumed a gaseous state momentarily, hit the correct combination of tattoos to become solid steel, and struck the Scourge with enough force to send him careening down the hall.

That’s when the Baroness stepped from the hidden room behind the portrait of her ancestor and picked up the Scourge’s weapon. She aimed the gun at its owner.

“The anti-tech suppressor field only works on contact. The gun won’t fire,” the vigilante sneered as she drew a combat knife from the sheath had strapped to his leg.

“Well, then, decorum would indicate you and I should engage in a duel of hard steel,” Beth clumsily held up her grandfather’s sword.

“If that’s the way you want to go out, Blondie,” the Scourge strode towards her.

“Actually, I plan on dying in my bed, after a long productive life, surrounded by friends and loved ones, reminiscing on how my time was spent saving this planet from deluded sociopaths like yourself,” the Baroness vowed, though if she didn’t get word soon that particular scenario might be a pipe dream.

Then the familiar melody of Toccata and Fugue buzzed from her cellphone, and Beth knew victory was hers.

She leveled the Tommy gun at the approaching killer and opened fire.

The Scourge recovered from the shock of hearing the ring tone and twisted away from the hail of bullets. Literally, she stretched and curled like a contortionist made from quicksilver. He crashed through a nearby door and disappeared from view.

Alcheman barreled after her . When he made it to the room he saw the Scourge perched on the outside landing, a set of bat-like wings blooming from his shoulderblades.

“Another time,” the assassin promised as he dropped a grenade in the room, which Michael considerably fell on in order to contain the explosion.

Still, the room was pretty much a shambles from the blast, the tapestries and furniture set aflame, and by the time Alcheman put out the fires (and his ears had stopped ringing) the Scourge was gone.

*****


Sally Rezilyant brushed the cobwebs from the back of her neck, “We really need to get the cleaning staff to air out the secret passages. I must have inhaled a pound of dust worming way down to the sub-basement to cut the castle’s power.”

“I’ll set them to that after they’ve finished the mason work in the Recreational Room,” Elizabeth promised as she examined one of the Scourge’s spent shells under a metallurgical microscope. The bullet appeared to be normal steel: contradicting Otto’s claim that they were constructed of nihilistic “Anti-Story.” She leaned back and sighed, “Ah, well. At least we have that Technology Suppressor to study.”

“And I’ve found the pager number for the new Voodoo Vicar. It shouldn’t be too expensive to fly him and his chicken entrails up here to resurrect Expired Warranty. Again.”

“Excellent,” Beth grew grave, “Mindy’s condition is still critical. The sutures the hospital is using keep shredding when they come into contact with her skin.”

“Maybe we can scam that Abhuman sex princess into helping her out?” Sally offered.

Beth filed the possibility of dragooning Uhunalura Amalandriana Excelsior to aid in the cause away for now. There were more urgent matters that needed attending. She walked over to where a stupefied Alcheman was planted face down on a hospital gurney.

“Are you sure that thing you shot him with didn’t totally fry his brain?” Sally seemed skeptical.

“Eighty five percent sure. The M/ELTSER was set only to remove his recollection of the last several hours,” the Baroness exposited on the virtues of the Modification/Erasure of Long Term Stored Engrams Ray.

“So what do we do with Wooster now?”

Beth fished the keys to the Bentley, “Take him back to his house; his address should be in his mother’s dossier. Be gentle. When he comes to the only thing he should recall is overhearing about Project: Clearview.”

Sally began to wheel the stretcher in the general direction of the garage, “So we’re still going through with that scam?”

“We may,” Elizabeth Von Zemo smiled triumphantly, “Alcheman’s mind isn’t the only way open to change, after all.”


Next: We jump ahead to “The Adventures of Alcheman #19, where we get to see Michael clean up after the torching of Hell’s Bathroom, interact with Honoria’s new squeeze, and possibly get a new student. Out soon.

Footnotes:

Scourge and Dancer: The Scourge impersonated the Probability Dancer in order to get a supervillain known as Pillbug released into her custody after his apprehension by Alcheman. He later shot the criminal to death in an alley, leading to one of those classic misunderstanding battles between the Chemical Crimefighter and the Legionnaire.

The Gold Coin Killer: was a story that started as a one line Round Robin that Alcheman managed to get shoehorned into by his creator. Sadly, it’s still unfinished.

COPE: The Committee for the Occulation of Paranormal Experiences, an agency whose purpose is to help the “meta-gifted” return to mainstream society. The group’s only known member is a do-gooder named Cyrus Honig, who has times not only to the Scourge of the Parodyverse, but also the producer behind the reality show known as The Joy Corps, which broadcasts the struggles of a fledgling superhero team in Paradopolis Alcheman interviewed to join. COPE may also have ties to a covert branch of the American government called SPAM, or Special Protocols Against Metahumans, whose mandate, while murky, has something to do with the cataloguing and control of superheroes and villains.

Sound familiar?

Voodoo Vicar: I believe the original is dead, but the name is too great to keep out of circulation, isn’t it? Anyway, here are the on the first incarnation of the character:

The Voodoo Vicar
Real Name: Josiah M’Tuba
Occupation: Voodoo priest
Identity: Josiah is known to be a cult figure in, uh, cults
Legal Status: Suspected of biting the heads off chickens, but no convictions
Known Relatives: A long line of ancestors who come round for dinner occasionally and try not to drop bits of their anatomy on the carpets
Group Affiliation: The Purveyors of Peril
Base of Operations: New Orleans
First Appearance: Troia’s Birthday Thing, Part IX
History: Raised in the ancient secret traditions of voodoo, Joshua M’Tumba also houses the spirit of his dead gerbil Fluffy. He controls lots of those sinister stereotype cults that keep on having all those interesting orgies in B-movies.
Height: 6’0" without the battered top hat
Weight: 180lbs
Complexion: Pale
Eyes: White
Hair: Black and grey dreadlocks
Strength Level: Human
Known Superhuman Powers: All the usual voodoo stuff with zombies and snakes and so on. You know how this goes.


What’s with the M/ELTSER?: I included this for a couple of reasons. One, to poke fun at the mind-wipe plot point from “Identity Crisis,” which is still a good story no matter what CSFB! says  ; and two, to give JJJ a chance to go ahead with his original idea for having Alcheman getting duped into thinking Beth and Sally are planning on breaking into OPS headquarters if he wants. Looking back at this story I worry that I took too many liberties with the character, and the memory purge was used as a way to reset things if JJJ is so inclined.




cache-mtc-aa07.proxy.aol.com (64.12.116.11) U.S. Company
Microsoft Internet Explorer 6/Windows XP (1 points)
[ New ] [ Email ] [ Print ] [ RSS ] [ Tales of the Parodyverse ]
Follow-Ups:

Echo™ v2.4 © 2003-2005 Powermad Software
Copyright © 2004-2005 by Mangacool Adventure