Nuklear Age (64 page)

“Ugh.”

“I want to be sure I’m being properly motivated. I don’t want to go in there with only half an idea of what’s going on. I need to be informed. We’re talkin’ 24-hour team coverage here. This is the big leagues, boy. I need to know if this is for peace or for liberty or for a sack of rotten potatoes or what.”

“What?”

“You see?”

Atomik Lad bat away his mentor’s hands. Nuklear Man hit the pavement with a thick and meaty
whud
sound. “You’ve got to keep fighting or we lose. It’s as simple as that.”

“Bell, I thoppothe boo hab a boint,” he said with his face on the road. “Ith thith thanatawee?”

Atomik Lad heaved him up by his cape. About an inch. “Dammit, you’re heavy.”

“Yeah, power and good looks will do that to you.”

“Erg.”

“Well, not to
you
so much as to me,” he clarified. Atomik Lad dropped him. “Oof.”

“Stop whining and fight.”

“But he’s tough.”

“You’ve fought worse.”

“Name one.”

“Um, what about that, uh. Well.”

“See?”
Nuklear Man sat up. He focused on Superion. He was a stern shadow with a rippling cape. “Besides, it’s starting to rain. We could catch a cold.”

“Yeah, you’ve got a point.”

Nuklear Man froze. “Er. What?”

“Is there a problem?” Atomik Lad asked.

“N-no. I just never heard you say that before.”

Atomik Lad shrugged. “First time for everything. Let’s pack it up and split.”

“Cool. Heh, we sure showed that Superion what for.”

“Yup. Now that we gave up and let the villain win, we’ll have lots of free time. It’s a shame there won’t be any more Silly Sam’s Cartoon Marathon-a-thon o’ Fun to fill all those idle hours.”

“Sparky. Some things just aren’t right to make jokes about,” Nuklear Man scolded. “Besides, I happen to know that the show will go on under the new name Super Superion’s Superion-a-thon o’ Worship. So there.”

“Hm. Guess you got me there.”

“Nya,” Nuklear Man answered by sticking out his tongue. It’s how he imagined most intellectual debates to be concluded.

“I wonder how many cartoons they’ll show. What with it being a propaganda program now.”

“What?”

“All about worship, makes you wonder where they’ll fit the cartoons in.”

“No cartoons?”

“But at least you get to do plenty worshipin’.”

Nuklear Man stood, his cape swayed gently. “Sparky. I’m gonna ask you to stand back for a second here. It’s for your own good.”

“Okiedoke.”

“Superion!” Nuklear Man called down the street. “You’ve gone too far.”

“I haven’t even begun,” he answered, his voice was a promise of evils yet committed.

“That’s a shame. Because it ends now!” Nuklear Man’s Plazma Aura burst into an intense golden glow as energies were seemingly pulled from the air around him and gathered into his fists in tiny white hot streaks of light. “PLAZMAAA BEAM!!!” It shot straight and true, striking Superion square in his gut.

Superion simply stood his ground, the terrific power of Nuklear Man’s attack buzzed around the Sinister Scoundrel like electrons in orbit around their nucleus. The energy spun around him as if he had control over it.

“Not bad. Now let’s see how you like it. SUPERIOR BEAMTM!!!”

The energy of Nuklear Man’s attack channeled down Superion’s limbs into a thick purple beam aimed back at the Hero.

Nuklear Man threw his arms up in defense just as the blast reached him. He was knocked back a step but quickly regained his footing as the purple energy no longer pushed at him, but was pulled into him. His Plazma Aura blazed, his cape flew madly in several directions at once.

“Back at ya! PLAZMAAA BEAM!!!” It tore at the air and again Superion took the energies for his own.

“Impressive, you have managed to deliver an even more powerful blast than I.” His Negaflux energies flared momentarily. “Let us see how long you can endure this onslaught.” Another Superior BeamTM loosed itself against Nuklear Man, bigger this time and carving a shallow trench through the street.

The Hero held out one hand, fingers spread out, palm facing Superion as though he was telling the beam to halt. It splashed against his outstretched hand and was absorbed into his Plazma Aura which instantly doubled in size. Dozens of golden points of light ejected themselves from the Aura and hung in mid-air. “PLAZMAAA STORM!!!” Each spark erupted into a beam as big around as a car and rained on Superion, completely obscuring the villain within a hundred fiery explosions. Stray shots toppled already abandoned and heavily damaged buildings in the distance.

Atomik Lad’s Field kicked in to protect him from the heat generated by Nuklear Man’s attack. “Where the hell did
that
come from?!” he blurted. The very air around Nuklear Man’s Aura had caught fire. “Dr. Menace had better get here while there’s still a Metroville to save.”

__________

“Incredible,” Dr. Menace said to herself while speeding through empty streets. “If theze Negaflux readingz are correct, then Superion could potentially be manipulating energiez of such an incredible magnitude that modern scienze haz yet to develop a system of phyzics to properly dezcribe them.” The bleak night was illuminated by a distant series explosions. Three skyscrapers could be seen falling from the Metroville skyline as the light faded. The ground shook like an earthquake as a blast of wind nearly took the Menacycle from the road. “It would be a shame if reality unraveled itzelf before I could become itz ultimate mazter. Don’t you think, my dear?” Rachel was silent and limp in the sidecar. “What? No rezponze? Oh, of courze not. How could you pozzibly anzwer me, what with being drugged by thoze pillz! Truzting fool, muwa hahahahaha!” she cackled into the night while pouring on the speed.

In the middle of her revelry of evil, Dr. Menace couldn’t hope to notice the sleeping pills emerge from Rachel’s lips as she covertly spit them into the night as they sped through the streets.

__________

Issue 47 – Ain’t Got Time for Physics

Dr. Menace cringed in time to the elevator’s muzak as it carried her, the Menacycle, and its cargo to the roof of a building that would serve as the perfect sniper’s nest for her role in the plan to defeat Superion and then her plan to defeat Nuklear Man. She pulled a small personal tape recorder from one of her many lab coat pockets. “Evil: Note to Self: When the world iz under my control, deztroy all sourzes of muzak.” The recorder had nearly been put away when she thought to add, “And then conztruct a time machine for the sole purpoze of retro-actively purging the univerze of thiz horrible travezty.”

Rachel nearly giggled her way right out of her clever ruse.

“Hm. Seems the pillz may be wearing off. No matter. Both Superion and Nuklear Imbecile shall be eliminated zoon enough and then there will be no ztopping me!”

__________

Atomik Lad stood at the edge of a crater that was now at least a block in diameter. Superion and Nuklear Man stood at its scarred and scorched center. Hands interlocked, each titan struggled to subdue the other. Even at his respectable distance at the crater’s edge, Atomik Lad had to push his powers to keep from being blown away by the residual force exerted by the two giants’ efforts. “Dammit, I couldn’t get close even if I wanted to,” he muttered.

“I’m surprised you lasted this long,” Superion grunted at Nuklear Man.

“That makes two of us,” Nuklear Man retorted in a pathetic attempt to make a witty retort.

“Bah! Enough of your prattling,” Superion spat. “I’m afraid this is farewell.”

“Really? So you’re giving up after all? Cool.”

“Argh!” He hunkered down and shoved his shoulder into the Hero’s chest, lifting him off the ground.

“Hey. This isn’t the way it goes,” Nuklear Man advised before being chucked up.

Superion snatched at the empty space in front of him and Nuklear Man came to a stop in mid-air.

“What’s going on?” Atomik Lad asked no one in particular. It was difficult to make out more than basic shapes inside the crater. Energies cascaded from it like a star.

Superion clenched his fist. Darts of purple energy shot into the villain’s vice grip and Nuklear Man was encased in a sphere of similarly colored light. Atomik Lad’s eyes squinted as he focused on his levitated mentor. “A Negaflux field? Around Nuke? What’s he trying to pull?”

__________

The elevator opened onto the roof. The rain had picked up during the ride up. Dr. Menace waddled her Menacycle through the double doors. She revved the luminous engine and rolled out among puddles, vents, and various pieces of large, generic equipment found at the tops of large, generic high-rises. The Venomous Villainess dismounted her metallic stead at the roof’s edge. Its front tire was pressed against the raised ledge that ran along the roof’s perimeter.

The sensors in her goggles suddenly spiked off their scale. With the help of the handy magnifying and night vision options built in, she instantly trained on Nuklear Man hovering above a giant crater that sat in the middle of what should’ve been a lot of buildings. She didn’t have time to dwell on the desolate juxtaposition.

“Visual confirmation,” she mumbled to herself. “With theze night vision gogglez and thiz darknezz, that Nuklear Moron’z Plazma Aura should make him appear to glow like the sun. But I can only make him out az an indiztinct shadow within the Negaflux field.” She slowly traced her gaze down to see Superion who was apparently straining to crush something in his grasp. Her eyes went wide. “No,” she uttered in a terrified whisper. She grabbed at the Menacycle to detach the Defusionzier Cannon turned Nega Cannon from its hardpoint.

Her thoughts raced,
Superion has pushed his complementary Negaflux fields beyond anything I thought possible. He iz using gravity to crush Nuklear Man by multiplying the force it exerts on him. Negaflux can only multiply a forze so much, perhaps 200 times. But this multiplier is conztant regardless of the raw force itself, whether it be the soft caress of a feather or the bone-breaking impact of a semi-truck. Judging by the inward pulses of energy the Negaflux field is experiencing, what Superion has done is begin a Nega Chain Reaction! One field to multiply gravity 200 times, then another field to multiply
that
augmented force another 200 times and so on and so on! He may finally rid me of that insufferable Nuklear Dimwit, but he will undoubtedly create a force equal to a point of infinite mass in order to do so! The entire world will be swallowed into oblivion.

“How can I take over a world that doez not exizt! Bah!”

__________

Atomik Lad noticed that the sphere holding Nuklear Man had been growing darker, like ink was being injected into it over time. “What’s happening up there?” he asked the rain as it was lashed away by his wild field. He could hear Superion’s mad ranting rise up above the growing background noise of the rain. “Enough is enough,” he told himself. His Atomik flames froze in the instant before he took flight like a crimson bullet aimed at Superion’s heart.

__________

The pulses within the Negaflux field increased their tempo, each blow brought down the inescapable wrath of a god, each wave collapsed onto the Hero with more than enough force to compress a planet into the size of a golf ball. “No!” Nuklear Man said through teeth clenched against the earth-shattering impacts that railed against him like freight trains from every angle.

__________

Dr. Menace slammed one foot on the roof’s raised ledge for balance. She wobbled slightly while tucking the cannon’s stock against her shoulder. She rest her head against the cool metal of the weapon and peered through its giant sniper scope eyepiece which was customized with some special Menace-style modifications. She adjusted the magnification until she had a clear picture of Superion. A digital pair of brackets were super-imposed over him with the word LOCK blinking in the lower left corner.
That’s right. Just stand perfectly still
, she said to herself.
Three shots charged. One for Superion, one for Nuklear Baboon, and one just in case
. “The puppet may have cut looze hiz ztringz,” one lithe finger slid against the trigger. “But they shall only zerve to bind him.”

“Not so fast, sister,” Rachel said with a certain amount of authority due to a certain gun she’d found in the sidecar and was
very
certainly pressing against Dr. Menace’s exposed temple. “Don’t try anything, either. I’ve got this thing set to Liquefy.”

Still focused upon Superion, Dr. Menace hissed, “You have no idea what you are doing, girl!”

“I know that you tried to drug me.”

“You do not underztand—”

“I
understand,”
Rachel snapped, pushing the weapon against Menace’s temple hard enough to leave a mark. “That you’re planning to kill Nuklear Man with that, that gun of yours, and you’re probably kidnapping me to use as ransom against Atomik Lad to keep him under your control.”

“Well,” Dr. Menace said with an apologetic nod. “I
am
a villain.”

“Argh! Your plans are always so original! But this? Kidnap the girlfriend? You couldn’t get any more cliché if you tried! I would’ve expected more out of you, especially considering you’re a woman too. I mean, you’re just perpetuating the subjugation of women in our society by projecting an image that we are nothing more than objects which have no meaning outside the value men attribute to us as their possessions!”

Dr. Menace sighed. “I waz short on time.”

“It’s insulting, you know. For both of us.”

“We can dizcuss the rampant oppression of women prezent in Weztern Society’s ideologiez later. However, it would be in the bezt interezts of everything within a two
million
mile radiuz for me to fire thiz cannon now.”

“You’re bluffing,” Rachel said.

“Well. No, actually, but
you
are.”

“What?”

“You’re shaking.”

“I’m, I’m just nervous is all. Never met a villain up close like this before.”

“I do not believe you. He would not love you if you were capable of pulling that trigger.”