Tales of the Parodyverse

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killer shrike
Sat Apr 16, 2005 at 08:48:54 pm EDT
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The Adventures of Alcheman #18
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The Adventures of Alcheman #18


“A Wink to Crisis”



Author’s Note: one of the characters in this story is portrayed as a broad stereotype. I just want to say this is done without any sense of malice. Some of my best friends are time travelers.

Previously: While defending one of the Lurker’s Vibrational Sporks from attack by the minions of the Cowled Criminal, Alcheman is hurled back in time to a period right before the American Revolution. Making matters worse is his companion for the journey: his mother Agnes.


For Michael Wooster, the Crisis of Infinite Parodyverses was becoming a bit of a personal crisis as well.

Earlier during the event, he had been seemingly murdered by a villainess known as Duplicate Death. Her nom de guerre was a misnomer, however, as Michael survived the assault. He instead found himself in a strange reality known as Comic Book Limbo, where the novice hero encountered several alternate (and long forgotten) iterations of himself, each drawn from a different age of history. It was through sheer force of will he managed to return to his proper place in the Parodyverse. (See “Adventures of Alcheman #14 for the skinny on that particular side trip, Sahib.)

Alcheman doubted he would be able to repeat that feat to extricate himself and his mother from their current predicament.

“Hello,” he told the costumed heroes gaping at himself and Agnes, “We come in peace. And, if my reasoning is sound, from the future.”

He assumed that they had been chronologically displaced because of whom was staring at them: two of the greatest heroes in American History.

The woman with the star spangled bustle was Livia “Liberty” Waltz. Said by some to be the illegitimate daughter of Doctor Benjamin Rush, Miss Waltz would be revealed to be one of the many proof-readers of the Declaration of Independence by the meticulous research of modern day historian Joseph Ellis. Detractors point out Ellis’s embellishment of the truth about his own past as a means to discredit his findings, but Michael thought the man had made a convincing argument that this “libertine woman” was in fact a key player in the origin of his country.

Benedicte LeBlanc stood next to her. His place in history was better recognized. Born in New Orleans to a quadroon mother and a French colonial civil servant, LeBlanc was a wharf rat who grew into one of the greatest freebooters in the Gulf of Mexico. He was too young to fight against the British during the French and Indian War, but when he had heard the English colonies were struggling under the yoke of English oppression he was more than eager to join the fray. He donned a garish costume and joined the Sons of Liberty as the ColoredColonialPatoisPatriot!, striking fear in the hearts of British Loyalists and Red Coats alike from Boston to Gothametropolis York.

These were the heroes that inspired Michael, a high school civics teacher. Men and women of average means and origins (with ostentatious taste in attire, to be sure) who risked their necks against what was then the greatest power on the planet, if one didn’t count the Abhumans and the Groper Out and Grossness and all the other paranormalities that would be exposed in the current Heroic Age.

“My word, what are you dressed for, a Republican Party fundraiser being held at Colonial Williamsburg?” Agnes glared at the two in their patriotic costumes, noting with particular disdain Miss Waltz’s décolletage, “and don’t you think you could hitch up that bodice? There is a lady present.”

Alcheman pinched the bridge of his nose, “Moth- ah, Ma’am, perhaps you should let me do the talking?”

Agnes Wooster rounded on her son and was ready with a cutting reply when there was a flash of light and another costumed stranger appeared.

“Sorry,” the man in the futuristic, salmon-colored armor lisped, “I’m afraid we’re going to have to postpone this tête-à-tête for continuity purposes.”

*****


Wink the Conqueror aimed his localized chronal suppressor at the Liberty Waltz and CCPP! and fired, effectively freezing them in place, “There. I wish I could have gotten here sooner to prevent you two vagabonds from even registering on their radar, but the old time ship is in a bit of a bad way.”

“Time ship?” Alcheman said incredulously.

“Vagabonds?” Agnes followed up dangerously.

“Stunningly dressed, flawlessly accessorized vagabonds, dears,” the man in the magenta mask frowned and gestured at Michael, “Well, maybe not you. Your costume is a bit too retro for my fancy. It needs something…. epaulets, perhaps, to accentuate those shoulders.”

“What did you do to them?” Michael noticed neither hero was so much as breathing.

“Nothing. They’re fine. I had to stop them from you all chatting to the point that the timeline was altered and there was another divergent Earth for the Cowled Criminal to obliterate because his Daddy didn’t love him. Now,” he fiddled with some dials on his girdle, “We need to be off.”

When Miss Waltz and Monsieur LeBlanc rejoined the time stream, they found themselves quite alone, with only those strange purple skies to contend with.

*****


“So you are an iteration of Wang the Conqueror?” Alcheman asked later from the comfort of the parlor built within Wink’s time ship.

“Right as rain, dear,” the man with the well-groomed van dyke poured Michael and his mother another Mojito, “Wang, Kink, Wonk, Dong. We’re all related, thematically. I’m a bit of the black sheep of the family,” he whispered in a conspiratorial tone.

“Well, Michael, it appears you have found a kindred spirit,” Agnes muttered after a hearty swig of her drink.

“Use code names, please!” Alcheman objected to his mother.

“Oh, please. The man is an intergalactic tyrant from the far future. I’m sure your secret is out by whatever year he comes from,” she gave her son a dour look, “If you haven’t blabbed it, your sisters will.”

Wink laughed, “I just adore you, Agnes: you are an exquisite bitch.”

The society matron seemed genuinely flattered. Wink went on:

“I have to correct you on one small point though. I’m not an intergalactic tyrant. Far from it. My conquests are of a more… personal nature,” Wink waggled his eyebrows suggestively.

“You said you needed my help,” Michael said in a hurried attempt to change the subject.

“Yes. I need a jump start.”

“I beg your pardon?”

Wink grinned and finished his libation, “The time ship’s chronal engines are tapped. I need an auxiliary power source if I want to make it to an era where I can make better repairs. You can be that power source.”

“How so?”

“With those darling tattoos. If you assume the properties of Uranium-235, I can slap together a way to draw off the energy you produce to get back to the future.”

Alcheman realized there wouldn’t be many other options if he wanted to get home and rejoin the struggle against the forces behind the Crisis. He nodded.

“Fabu,” Wink extolled as he reached down to shake Michael’s hand, “Let’s get you strapped in to my own version of the Procrustean bed, and we’ll be on our way.”

Michael definitely didn’t like the sound of that, but he let Wink lead him away regardless.



That’s going to be it for a while. I’ve decided I’m going to take a break from the PVB. It’s something I’ve thought about doing for a week or so, as I spend more time here than I should, and I’ve lost interest in finishing up a lot of the stories I’ve started. A self-imposed exile may get me interested again.

School lets out at the end of May, so I’m setting that up as a date to come back and see how the place is going. I might even bring a story or two with me.

Anyways, it has been a lot of fun, and hopefully you’ll all be here when I get back.


Mike/KS





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