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killer shrike
Tue Nov 22, 2005 at 09:38:34 pm EST
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The Adventures of Alcheman #23
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The Adventures of Alcheman #23


“Rebel on the Run”


“Thanks,” Alcheman gratefully accepted the ice pack from his visitor on the rooftop. It was dumb luck that he been found.

“De nada. You really need to be careful with the forehead slam maneuver. A person needs to aim low, for the bridge of the nose.”

Michael pressed the bag to his brow, “I will keep your advice in mind.”

“Also, it’s probably not a good idea to use the headbutt on powerless lefty bureaucrats in front of rolling cameras,” the visitor offered helpfully.

“Heh. I had hoped my aggressive act would expose Honig as the villain he is: a shapeshifting alien, perhaps, or at the very least an android.”

“The dramatic revelation; CSFB! would be proud,” there was a pause, “So that was your plan, huh? Sorry, most of the times the bastards running things aren’t inhuman monsters. They’re just bastards.”

“I should have been cognizant of that fact: the banality of evil is a common theme in history.”

“Yeah, and now you’ve gone and made the bad guys look sympathetic. I might not be the best person to make this observation, but from a PR standpoint you royally screwed the pooch there.”

Alcheman took the icepack away from his face and looked to his fellow hero, “Maybe. But I don’t think this battle can be fought in the court of public opinion. Most have had their minds made up about the superhumans, and to be honest, they’re right. We break laws. Physical. Societal. Its time to own up to those facts and move forward.”

“As long as we’re not moving forward to prison camps,” De Brown Streak observed, “You non-mutate types wouldn’t last a day there.”

“You sound bitter.”

“Me,” Josh Clement shrugged, “Maybe a little. It is funny that all this hand-wringing is being done over the possibility metahumans might become second class citizens. Meanwhile us mutates have been suffering through it for years. The heroes haven’t been doing enough to stop these tools,” the mutate rights activist paused, “I put myself in that category. The not doing enough part of it, at least.”

Alcheman was going to comment that Josh Clement belonged in the category of ‘hero’ as well, but refrained. The man seemed much more sober than their past encounter, when they stopped the Efficienado’s plot to destroy Canada, “I suppose that’s why I assaulted Honig. To force the issue, at least for myself. There’s no turning back for me now.”

The Sepia Speedster disagreed, “There’s still a way. You could contact the Legion. They’d help. Mumph would pull some strings, or Lisa could work her hoo-doo on the courts. Though I suppose that would just point out how much we supers play fast and loose with the rules, huh?”

“Exactly. The public is going to call me a criminal anyway; I don’t want them to say I’m a criminal hiding behind the law.”

“I get you. Believe me. And if there’s a way I can help rouse some rabble, give me a call.”

Alcheman almost instinctively objected, but then recalled who he was speaking to. De Brown Streak had been fighting authority for a long time, “I may just do that,” he smiled and shook the runner’s hand.

Josh turned to go, but paused to make one more observation, “Oh, and a word of advice: watch out for your family. They can get hurt in these identity crises, one way or another.”

Michael nodded soberly. He knew that. Who knew how his mother and sisters were going to react to recent events?

*****


“Your brother has gone mad and will doom us all!” Agnes wailed to her daughters.

“This again,” Trudi mumbled as the salon workers wrapped another layer of seaweed around her tiny waist.

“Mummy, try to relax. Otherwise this is a wasted trip,” Jenni said encouragingly. She leaned back in her lounger and wiggled her toes in anticipation of her pedicure.

“Yes, mother: don’t bring your negative karma in the day spa,” Trudi let the workers ease her bundled body into a couch next to the other Wooster women and picked up her glass of Chablis.

Agnes slapped her palm down on the marble counter-top, “You dolts! Michael has openly and willingly defied the law now! He’s going to get caught, and put in jail, and then do you know what happens?!”

“Mother, ew!” Jenni had seen enough episodes of Oz to know what Agnes was implying. Or so she thought.

“They come after us,” the matriarch of the Wooster clan said gravely, “That wooly-headed buffoon will learn your brother is rich and sue the family.”

“But Michael isn’t rich. You and Daddy cut him off years ago, after he reneged on his promise to marry Honoria,” Trudi noted correctly.

“You think that matters? All it would take is a smart lawyer and a dumb jury and we could lose everything!” Agnes wrestled her way out of the kelp that swaddled her and reached for her purse, “I’m calling Cloot again. Maybe there’s something we can do to protect ourselves.”

“No cellphones in the spa, please,” one worker said.

Agnes glared at this latest target of her ire, “Listen to me, Princess Tuptim! I’m paying $850 dollars for the privilege of being tied up in something that smells like it came out of the back end of a whale and if I wish to make a phone call and try and save my family from cataclysmic ruin you damn well better not try to stop me!”

“Mother, you’re making a scene,” Trudi warned as she surreptitiously went for her Sidehack. Mother’s scenes were worth capturing for posterity.

There was a polite knock on the Wrap Room door and another worker poked her head in, “Miss Woosters, you have a visitor.”

“No visitors at the spa, please,” the indefatigable Princess Tuptim made known another of the salon’s prohibitions.

Jenni nearly bounced in her chair from excitement, “Ooh, that must be our bodyguard.”

“What?!”

“Oh, yes. Trudi and I figured with all the anti-super sentiment out there and our own high standing in that community it would be prudent to hire someone to keep the haters away.”

“Er, sister, I thought we said we were still mulling over that decision?” Trudi didn’t like the looks of the twitch that her mother’s face was now wearing. It was unfamiliar.

“Well, in light of recent events I thought it was more important than ever for us to get some protection, so I decided for us,” Jenni said obliviously, “Send her in.”

An elegant young woman in a silk peasant blouse and chinos entered the spa. An impressive-looking sword hung by her side.

“Mrs Wooster. Miss Wooster. Miss Wooster. I am Chiaki Bushido,” the currently masterless samurai said in introduction, “I have been informed you are in need of my services?”

*****


Cole King flexed his forearm, a stimulus that prompted a trio of barbed talons to pop from their housings, “I used to be able to do this without a strap-on.” He mused.

“Dude, you said ‘strap-on’,” Bendist sniggered.

The grizzled man with the swept back hair glared across the table at his fellow member of the Joy Corps, “Shut up. You don’t know. You don’t know my pain.”

“Here we go,” the Sarcastic Elastic literally rolled his eyes.

“Shut up!!”

“A five minute soliloquy on how life has dicked Varmint over-“

“Shut-“

“-kidnapped from an orphanage-“

“up!”

“-amped up on steroids-“

“I’ll kill-“

“-given a fruity haircut-“

King lunged. Had he been in his prime, before the anti-psychotropic drugs dulled his reflexes, before the court-ordered declawing, the Varmint would have eviscerated his tormentor and feasted on his sweetbreads. As it was, the Bendist calmly stretched away from harm. When Varmint readied himself for another pounce the third person at the table gestured and compelled the gravitational forces around the feral little man to increase his weight by a factor of ten.

“Gah, this is so stupid,” Whitney Spheris, Pop Nebula, whined, “You guys, like, need to get a room or something.”

“I thought Graham said to save that for sweeps,” Bendist contracted back to his chair.

“Cut,” the director said. The team of camera and sound men shut down their machines and waited for their boss to remind the heroes of the rules, “Ben, don’t reference the show. It jolts the audience out of the atmosphere we’re trying to create.”

“Right.”

Varmint whimpered meekly from his spot on the floor, “Ooch, Let me up. I think I hyper extended my knee.”

“Well, then the day’s not a total loss: you’ve got an excuse to take some more of your ‘medicine,’” the anthropomorphization of an entire galaxy snarked as she released the former killing machine from the localized gravity well.

“I hate those pills! They weaken me, make me less of an animal. They make me – a man!”

Bendist shook his head, “Jeez, King, wait until the cameras are back on before you vent.”

Whitney Spheris stubbed out her cigarette angrily, “Is there, like, a point to this meeting? Me and George were supposed to take a crew and try to solve the mystery of who’s going to father a new universe.”

“I thought that particular mystery was solved when you married that back-up dancer in Vegas,” Bendist observed.

“Or spent that weekend in the Seychelles with that Braff guy,” Varmint added, happy that they had switched targets of ridicule.

Bendist laughed, “I seem to recall you saying that the guilty party was Jet Starscream, and you, aheh aheh, did it in the observatory with the candle-“

“Shut it!”

“The reason you’re here,” the director explained, “is to discuss the decision to track down and arrest Alcheman.”

“The guy who headbutted the other guy?” Bendist feigned ignorance. The shapechanger was well aware of whom Alcheman was; they had crossed paths before and had earned special consideration.

“Right. We got a representative from the government here to brief us and maybe even help with the field work, if you’re interested?”

“The government?” Varmint’s eyes narrowed warily.

A forty-something black man dressed in Army casual was ushered into the Joy Corps Meeting Room/SHS Soundstage. Though he was of average height and build, the man carried an unmistakable air of authority. The cameras were turned back on for the meeting.

“I’m Colonel Geoffrey Fordham from the Division of Unconventional Warfare. I’m also known as the Munitoneer, if you’re more comfortable with using codenames.”

Bendist, current leader of the Joy Corps, nodded, “OK. So, you want to help us find Alcheman?”

“Correct.”

Varmint raised his hand, “Why exactly are we going after this guy? I mean, I saw the papers, but it seems like we in the Joy Corps have more pressing things to do than track down some rogue superhero.”

Fordham stared down his fellow tax-financed superweapon, “Beats me. My guess is your backers here at the station want to get in good with the current administration after that incident at the Parody Bowl with Ms. Spheris and the exploding wardrobe.”

Whitney smirked at the recollection. She hadn’t meant to create a miniature supernova in her cleavage; she had been caught up in the moment.

“Cut,” the director said, “Sir, we would appreciate it if you didn’t mention the fact that this is a television show. It breaks the mood we’re trying to establish.”

“I don’t care about any mood. I’m not here to make you look good for the fans. I’m here because you offered support in finding the suspect and bringing him to justice. Now, do you want to prove you’re the right kind of metahuman, or not?”

There was a rush of air as Alcheman materialized in the room. He hammered Munitioneer to the ground with a textbook right cross before looking to the Joy Corps.

“I’d like to hear the answer to that myself,” he told them.


Next: Alcheman faces off against the Munitioneer, with the Joy Corps, Brick House, Smooth Operator, and Holothuroidea Lad caught in the middle. Its time for everyone to choose sides, and for the Wooster twins and their new bodyguard, maybe do a little light shopping. “Battle Lines,” out sometime this week.

Footnotes:

DBS and Alcheman: teamed up back sometime around Alcheman #15 to fight the renegade Robo-Sapien Efficienado. The Sepia Speedster is one of the few people in the Parodyverse who know Michael Wooster is Alcheman (and one of two poster characters, the other being the Baroness). Note I left it up in the air as to Josh Clement’s own status in the Legion, as it seems possible that he is no longer part of the Lair Legion.

Chiaki Bushido: is the preternaturally perceptive Psychic Samurai. She has been employed as a bodyguard in the past, though how the Wooster twins got her number remains a mystery. Maybe it was somebody’s idea of a practical joke. Regardless, as Vizh pointed out, she could be portrayed quite well by Kelly Hu (“X-Men United”).




Varmint: is a mutate orphan of indeterminate age captured by one of those top secret super soldier programs and altered to be an unstoppable killing machine. He was able to win his freedom by petitioning the Supreme Court, provided he went through counseling and medical treatments to stifle his berserker tendencies. Terrence Stamp of “The Limey” would make a cool Wolverine. I mean Varmint.



Bendist: is a post-modern, wise-ass, stretchable crimefighter who talks like people do in real life. He is more than he seems. “The Chronicles of Riddick” star Vin Diesel could play the part.



Whitney Spheris, Pop Nebula: claims to be the physical manifestation of an entire galaxy who has come to Earth in search of someone to help her parent a new universe. In addition to being a marginally talented actress/singer/dancer, she commands the four fundamental forces of the universe (electromagnetism, gravity, and strong and weak radiation). Do I even need to say who she’s based on?



The Munitioneer: is a Marine colonel given the power to duplicate the capabilities of any piece of conventional weaponry or technology used by the American Armed Forces. He is a loyal soldier who is brutally efficient when it comes to serving his country. The criminally underrated actor Joe Morton (“Lone Star”) has the gravitas to take on the role.






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