The sun rose over peaceful Westlingtonburyvilleburg. Captain-Man stood atop his skyscraper and looked down over his magnificent domain. Captain-Man had a secret identity: When not fighting crime in the guise of a superhero, he was actually fighting crime in the guise of the tough-as-nails vulgar-as-barf police sergeant Jeremy Walker. Jeremy Walker wasn’t real either, but merely a guise for mild-mannered reporter William Barnabus, who used his ideal position in the force to report on crimes as they happened. William wasn’t quite sure how it had gotten this complicated; one minute he had been minding someone else’s business, and the next he had been bitten by a radioactive ordinary guy, and granted the strength and agility pretty much every human being has. Of course, since Williams was already human, this left him with twice as much.
From that day forward, he had battled evil on the streets and strived to maintain justice for the city. His charismatic fist had charmed the teeth from dozens of mafia kingpins and drug dealers, and the war on crime had been won. Of course, no war is ever truly over, and there was one force that always evaded his grasp: The Evil Doctor Doctor. Once an ordinary children’s physician, he had rocketed to supervillain status when he was bitten by a radioactive physicist.
Now, as Captain-Man watched, Doctor-Doctor’s face appeared on every television, cell phone, and reflective surface. His voice boomed from every radio, iPod, and orphanage.
“Hello! I’m here today to make your lives worse! Or, well, that’s not true. I’m giving this speech to make them worse. My being *here* in the secret lair is just to end them. That’s uh, that’s all I had to say. Cower in fear, that sort of thing, I’ll be killing you all soon. Death Ray. I built one. It’s pretty great. Blows up an entire city per shot. Have tested it on several cities. Fires a ray of death. You’ve got about an hour. Goodbye!”
When the messaged ended Captain-Man was already flying into action. He couldn’t fly as a superpower, but he had used the profits from working three jobs to buy a small jet. Meanwhile, his sidekick, Idealism Lad, had his own idea of how to solve the problem.
Idealism Lad rushed to the news station, where he explained the situation and demanded to be put on all channels. They explained to him that the news station didn’t actually have the ability to put itself on all channels, so they were forced to improvise. Idealism Lad quickly exposed himself to radiation and then bit a lab tech. After a few moments of !!SCIENCE!! the broadcast was ready to go out.
Idealism Lad told the people of Westlingtonburyvilleburg that their hero was about to save them once again, but that this time he faced more danger than he had ever faced before, even including the time with the lava-sharks. He asked that they do everything they could to help, which was to believe in him, and pray for his success. His stirring speech stirred many, and the entire city was united with goodwill towards their hero, which began to manifest itself.
Captain-Man began to glow with shining holy light and his jet whooshed towards Doctor Doctor’s lair even faster, but it was not fast enough. The death ray was already beginning to fire, so Captain-Man flew directly in front of it.
The blast hit him like a radioactive train, but instead of granting him the powers of a locomotive, it just hit him really hard. Bathed in colorful light, he clenched his jaw and shouted: “I WILL TAKE THIS BLAST SO THAT THE PEOPLE I PROTECT WILL BE PROTECTED”
After a few seconds, it was over. Captain-Man’s tattered cape slowly floated to earth, and the people of the city were silent. They had averted total destruction, but at what cost? Captain-Man was dead. Idealism Lad’s idealism was shattered.
Everyone was left speechless for a moment, but most speechless of all was the evil Doctor Doctor. Doctor Doctor suddenly froze, his hand caught midway through stroking his evil cat Flufficus, who had gained sentience after being bitten by a radioactive catwoman.
Doctor Doctor looked at the burnt blue fabric and a tear rolled down the side of his face that was not a robot. There was a long moment, and then, softly, Doctor Doctor spoke. He said
“Fire again.”
Author
Topic: Random short story I wrote (Read 1279 times)