The Lucky One: Luck be a Lady (Part 1)

For those who haven't read the first adventure of Fluke, you can find it here: https://bigclosetr.us/topshelf/book/23823/lucky-one

This is my May 2023 Free Comic Book Day Challenge entry, even if I couldn't find that in the contest section . .

Well, hello there, wonderful web readers!

It is I, the Fantastic Fluke, back again with even more adventures!

(I’d say it was due to popular demand, but that goes without saying. I mean who wouldn’t want more of me?)

I got tired of waiting for my co-writer, Dorothy Colleen, to get busy showing the multiverse even more of my acts of daring-do, so here I am!

(Hi guys, its DC here, I’m being held prisoner until this story gets done)

(Now, now, we’re just having a little fun there, DC. I promise we’ll return you to your dimension as soon as we can.)

Anyway, when last DC managed to actually write about me, I had saved the world from the Norse god Loki, who had stolen the powers of a bunch of trickster gods, and was looking to turn the world into a total chaos zone.

Okay, okay. DC is reminding me the other heroes of my Earth helped, and even the villains chipped in. But that’s just a little detail.

So in the aftermath, the other trickster gods took all of Loki’s power away and sent him to the center of the multiverse, where my patron, Coyote, has a residence and can keep him company.

But there was apparently nothing they could do about the fact that Earth is kind of saturated in chaos magic, which has resulted in a number of people gaining superpowers, and more developing the potential for powers.

Considering up to that point there had been less than two dozen super-powered people, including the villains, that’s a big change.

So for a while, we heroes were a tad busy just cleaning up the mess.

Finally though, I decided we needed a break, and by “we” I meant Sarah and I.

(I hope you guys haven’t forgotten Sarah, my former landlord and now my partner in both heroics and civilian life. Thanks to hanging around me she built herself a supersuit, and goes by the code name “Rich Girl”.)

I am not going to go into graphic details, but suffice to say Sarah has taught me the difference between having sex and making love. I have had my share of sex, but making love emphasises the “love” part, and in my humble opinion, (and as you all know, I am always very humble) making love is a LOT better. I highly recommend it.

I’ll give my patron Coyote this, she/he (I’m honestly not sure. It might be “they”) waited until we were in the post sex spooning portion of events before sending us a message that we were going to be needed as soon as we could get dressed.

So, gathering our clothes, our wits, and the official guardian of the center of the multiverse, Yaddie, we went to see what the god wanted.

Once we arrived at Coyote’s place, the god explained to us that there had been cosmic consequences to the recent shenanigans Loki had caused.

Apparently, the effects reached into the Multiversal Pathway, the route we took to come from Earth to the center of the Multiverse.

As a result, Coyote wanted us to go to some other realities, and see what damage was done, and help fix it if we could.

Sarah pointed out that our own Earth was still in some difficulty, but Coyote said time passes differently in other dimensions, and so we could be gone for months and when we got back only days would have passed, if even that much time.

Sarah and I talked together for a bit, and then we both decided we would do our best to help.

We really had no idea what we were getting into. As weird as our lives had been up to that point, it was just about to get a lot weirder . . .

Coyote told us that Yaddie would be able to lead us where we needed to go, and then did something strange, even by the god’s standards - Coyote rummaged through a chest (which caused something inside of it to swear at Coyote) pulled out a pendant, and gave it to Sarah to wear, saying it was a little extra luck, just in case.

I should have been offended since thanks to Coyote I’m basically Luck incarnate, but anything that kept Sarah safe was okay with me, so we took off, heading for the first reality that was going to need our help.

It was a good thing we had someone who knew where to go, because the Multiversal Pathway is really complex, and it's the only safe area between worlds, as apparently all kinds of creatures live in the interdimensional space, and not all of them are friendly.

We got to the entrance to the first reality we were going to visit, and Sarah turned to me and said, “Time for a leap of faith?”

“Sure,” I replied, “Leap of faith to save a world”

We landed face first on a sidewalk. Well, I landed face first on the sidewalk. Sarah’s supersuit has rockets in her high heeled boots, so she made a controlled landing, and Yaddie ignores gravity anyway.

Sarah helped me up, and asked “Anything bruised?”

“Only my dignity” I replied.

“No harm then, your ego will soon inflate.” She said with a smile.

“Hey, nothing wrong with knowing how great I am.” I said.

“No comment,” she replied, and then asked, “any idea where we are?”

“Why would I know?” I pointed out.

“Wasn’t asking you, I was asking Yaddie.”

“Yaddie!” Yaddie yelped.

“An alternate Earth. Well, maybe the crowd of people coming our way will help us narrow things down.” Sarah said.

Crowd? Oh yeah, our arrival had apparently drawn some attention from the locals, and they were coming to investigate.

Now, as the Fantastic Fluke, I am no stranger to getting attention. I am often mobbed by fans, who love and adore me, and who can blame them.

This crowd was different. They clearly were curious, but also cautious. They obviously had no idea who we were, which considering it was an alternate Earth shouldn’t have surprised me, but I am so used to being famous it took me a minute to adjust.

Fortunately, before anything too scary happened a new figure appeared.

At first, it appeared to be a large bird made entirely of flame, but then, it turned into a young woman dressed in a red costume with the stylized image of a flaming bird on her chest.

Look, I’m not one to be critical of costume choices. My current outfit looks like a bathing suit, except all the bits of me from my wrists to my ankles not covered by the bathing suit are covered by sheer fabric, and while I happen to think it’s a sexy look, some spoilsports disagree. But her outfit looked like it was painted on, and since she also seemed to be under 18, that’s a bit of a yikes in my book.

Still, I bravely stepped forward, and said, “We come in peace!”

She looked at me, and then she said “You’re from another dimension.”

“How did you know that?” I asked.

“I’m a telepath.” She replied.

“Goody,” I said, and then added, “Then you probably now know I’m Fluke, this is Rich Girl, and that is Yaddie. We’re here because a chaos wave is going through the multiverse, making weird stuff happen.”

“Nice to meet you, I’m Phoenix, and it's actually been kind of quiet since I and some other heroes shut down a group of psychopaths who wanted to take over the world with computer chips they would put in people’s brains.” She said.

I facepalmed, and said, “You had to say the ‘Q’ word, didn’t you.”

She looked confused, but before she could ask what I meant or even use her telepathy to find out, an alien armada appeared in the sky.

She looked up, and asked “What the heck?”

I replied, “That’s why you never say the ‘Q’ word.”

“What do you think they want?” Sarah asked.

“Considering how armed they appear to be, nothing nice.” I answered.

The aliens must have taken lessons from the Vogons, as they made their announcement heard all over the world.

The announcement went “People of Earth. Turn over the Phoenix to us, or we will destroy your world. You have one of your Earth hours.”

“I hate it when I’m right,” I said.

“What could they want with me?” Phoenix asked.

“Well, you’re the telepath, can’t you find out?” Sarah pointed out.

“I can try.” She replied.

She became quiet, and closed her eyes, and then, after a minute, she opened them and said, “There are two alien species involved, but they represent others. Including one who had their fleet destroyed by the Phoenix before I became its host.”

“I can understand that might make someone a tad upset.” I said.

“I guess I have to go. I can’t let them hurt the planet because of me.” Phoenix said.

“Okay, but let us come with you. I have to believe this is because of the chaos wave, and so we need to help.” Sarah said.

“All right. I can use my telekinesis to carry you.” Phoenix offered.

“That’s okay. Yaddie and I fly, and I’ll carry Fluke.” Sarah said.
So we started flying up, with me in the Lois lane position. Not that I was complaining much, as snuggling with Sarah is always fun, although more fun when she isn’t wearing her supersuit. Or anything else, for that matter.

Once we got to the lead ship, we were invited in, and some introductions were made. Both of the main alien species had something in common, besides a sense of fear about Phoenix. They both kind of had a bird motif going. The one, called the Shi’ar had feathers instead of hair, and the other, who were referred to as the Thanagarians, wore helmets with a bird beak and had artificial wings.

Once introductions were done, Sarah did a reasonable imitation of a defense attorney, pointing out that Phoenix’s host, a girl named Jean Grey, was not part of what happened to the alien fleet, so punishing Phoenix would also punish an innocent person.

I don’t know if that argument was going to make a difference, but it sure confused the aliens, so I gave her a kudo anyway.

Then things managed to get even weirder. The sensors on the alien’s ship told them there was another Phoenix headed our way.

Jean managed to convince the aliens to let her go handle it, and for some reason, she wanted me with her.

Knowing my effect on people, she probably had developed a crush, but I figured I’d help out anyway, since this was probably due to the chaos wave, which made it my responsibility.

Jean said, “First, Aliens, and now, another Phoenix, probably from some other reality. This is getting weird.”

“If this is because of the chaos wave, expect things to get even weirder” I pointed out.

I was more right than usual, as we were about to find out . . .