There wasn’t enough time to stop him. His arch enemy’s Grand Evil Plot Device was about to be triggered and there was nothing he could have done… Which is exactly why he was standing in the lab of his best friend, Vance Sockstein, Good Genius, about to enter a time machine in order to defeat his nemesis before he could complete the building of his Device.

So there he went, ignoring all the known dangers of going back in time, such as the Grandfather Paradox and what-not. Therefore, he was quite surprised to run into himself. His past self was surprised too, as he hadn’t quite expected to travel back in time and meeting himself just yet. What was even more unexpected though, was the fact his past self suddenly fell through a hole that suddenly appeared beneath him.

He had to laugh, really, seeing his own dumbfounded expression as his past self hovered in mid-air for a moment before dropping down into the hole. He suddenly remembered that Vance had once told him about the dangers of time travel, sometime when he was still developing the prototype. Something about Contradictions and Plot Holes and kissing your grandfather, though he wasn’t all that sure about that last one.

So, his past self had fallen down a Plot Hole, as he’d caused a Contradiction in time… Ah well, he’d just have to go save himself, wouldn’t he? He was the hero after all. Or would be… He wasn’t sure any more. Time travel is confusing business. Anyway, on to business. He jumped down the hole and fell for what seemed to be eternity but really must’ve been about fifteen minutes or so, leaving him thoroughly disoriented to the point he thought he was falling sideways. Which is why he wasn’t overly surprised when he suddenly rammed straight through a wall before crumpling down on the floor to his left.

When he regained his sense of direction and recovered somewhat from the pain of crashing through a wall, he looked around and realised he’d just fallen through the fourth wall of his own apartment’s living room. This is where he found himself sitting on the sofa and watching TV. So, cleverly, he struck up a conversation with himself, talking about the football match that was to happen that evening. Of course, they quickly surmised that they could earn quite a bit of money betting on it, so that was exactly what they did.

Having done so, they settled down for a relaxing evening to watch the game, despite his future self having watched it already. He found it amusing to narrate what was about to happen to his past self, though, so he wasn’t all that bored. After that, however, he realised that if the last time he ran into himself his old self had vanished. When he mentioned this to his old self, he couldn’t help but burst out laughing as the same thing suddenly happened again. As if you had to be consciously aware of a contradiction in time in order for time to fix it… It made no sense at all.

But this time, he didn’t follow himself. He’d not enjoyed the trip too much last time. Or the last two times, if his old self experienced both falls before becoming who he was now… Which couldn’t have happened unless he recalled having fallen, which he did not… Desperate to shake off the incoming headache, he violently sneezed. Twice.

After having composed himself, he left his apartment to find his nemesis. Though at this time, he had no idea where to find the guy. So he did what any hero would do. He set off in a random direction and hoped for the best. Which seemed to work out all right as he found himself in a perfectly generic forest which had a strange tendency to get darker the further he got in. Along the way he found a house that looked like it were made of candy, but he ignored that. He’d had plenty of snacks and beers when watching the football match with himself. So he carried on, deeper into the forest.

It wasn’t long before he arrived at a big neon sign advertising this particular location as Evil Genius’ Lair: Do Not Enter! So, naturally, he entered and found himself in a gloomy corridor. He chose to go left, where he found a room filled with various gadgets. He looked around curiously until he found an interesting-looking one labelled Retcon Device. Next to it was a manual that looked to be roughly twice the size of the device itself. Which probably meant that it was the coolest gadget in the room. So he pocketed it and took off to face his arch enemy.

Of course, the room he was likely to be in was locked. As usual, there was a nearby ventilation shaft, which, after a bit of climbing and more than a little squeezing, he traversed until he found his way into the main room. He stuck to the shadows and sneaked closer to the Grand Evil Throne, which he found to be empty. Appalled, he looked about and quickly located a random minion clearly belonging to his nemesis. He interrogated the idiot and quickly found his nemesis had needed to go to the loo.

Settling down on the throne, he looked around the room with little interest. And did so for the next ten minutes, before he got bored and retrieved the Retcon Device from his pocket. He started fiddling with it at random, pressing buttons and flicking switches, until suddenly a creature appeared in front of him and promptly slapped him in the face before vanishing again.

In a belated response, he threw the Retcon Device at the wall, where it shattered and tore a hole in the fabric of the universe. He could tell by the fact VAnce and another version of himself were waving pleasantly at him. He walked over to the rupture in space/time and stepped through, which made him feel as if he’d just been hit on the heead with a sledgehammer. Vance cleverly threw one of his many gadgets through the headache-inducing hole before closing it with some other device.

And that was the end of it, the lair destroyed, his nemesis vanquished. Unfortunately, soon afterwards the rest of the universe exploded  as well, out of sheer shock at its own ridiculousness.