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Captain Scotto and His Heroes To Be

Episode Seventeen

"Vicks Vap-o-Rub, this is Spearmint Gum!" I shouted as I rose aloft. "What is your location? Over!"

"My location is the corner of pinned down and getting my ass kicked!" she shouted back.

"Could you be more specific?"

There was only silence. Well, silence and the sound of hundreds of gunshots and explosions and four whirring helicopters headed directly toward me. I had to neutralize the helicopters without harming the innocent pilots at the controls, who were no doubt terrified at the fact that their war birds were no longer under their control. It was a strange and alien sensation, this feeling of "compassion" that I was experiencing. It was a feeling I usually associated with the weak-minded and the insipid, and yet here I was, worried about someone else's well-being other than my own, or people like Laurel, who were good drug connections. I wondered what other hidden powers this super-hero suit was bringing me, and briefly hoped that I might be given the gift of a clean, white smile and hair that was soft and manageable.

The helicopters flew toward me at an alarming speed. Dodging an onslaught of missiles, I flew directly through the cockpit window of the first helicopter. Suddenly unstable, the helicopter started to plummet. I ripped the pilot and co-pilot out of their seat belts and punched through the side of the helicopter, with the two of them clinging to my back for dear life. The other three helicopters had to alter their course to avoid the suddenly plunging helicopter, and as they did, I handily deposited the two pilots atop a nearby skyscraper, feeling wonderful about saving their lives. Meanwhile, the damaged helicopter plummeted through a nearby apartment building, killing hundreds instantly. At that point, I was like, fuck it, and leapt back into the air just as another onslaught of missiles destroyed the building the two pilots had been standing on. It was a bummer, man, I tell you what. I started doing midair ninja chops on the missiles coming my way, redirecting them back at their origins. Despite how bad I felt about the whole thing, I have to say, watching a bunch of helicopters blow the fuck up over downtown Seattle was definitely wicked cool. It will look great on the big screen.

"SPEARMINT GUM TO VICKS VAP-O-RUB, CAN YOU READ ME?" I shouted as I headed toward the epicenter of the mayhem. Bullets ricocheted off my super-hero suit and kind of made little "CLANG" noises as they did so. It kind of sounded like rain on a tin roof, and I marveled at the fact that none of the bullets managed to hit me in the head, which would certainly leave me looking very pathetic if not killing me outright. I guess some heroes get all the luck.

"I am holed up inside the post office on 3rd!" Laurel replied. "We're surrounded by jeeps and tanks! The only reason we're not dead yet is all of the postal workers are armed to the teeth!"

"I'll be right there!" I said, and soon enough, I had punched through the roof of the post office and landed next to Laurel. Her spider suit was torn and she had abandoned her mask in favor of being able to breathe.

"What happened to Michael Landon?" Laurel exclaimed.

"There's been a change of plans," I replied in a captain-y voice. "We need to distract Dr. Ugly long enough for Crank Boy to get Michael Landon into place."

"But YOU were the one who did all the rehearsing with Michael Landon! You're the one who is intimately familiar with his curves and contours, with the way his hips sway and his pelvis thrusts! You're the one who knows the secrets of Michael Landon's passion! You're the one who discovered the hidden orifice-"

"I don't have time to explain!" I snapped. "I'll draw Dr. Ugly's attention away from the post office. You take your squadron of postal workers and circle around behind him. Hopefully we can keep him busy long enough for Crank Boy to beat that Ms. Pac-Man game and get a cab down here. Now let's move!"

With that, I charged out the front door of the post office and lifted a humvee up into the air, tossing it into the opera house across the street. A horrific screech filled the air.

I knew that screech. It was the screech of a man gone horribly ugly.

"That's right, Percy!" I shouted. "I'm coming for you!"

I lifted another humvee high into the air and tossed it clear into Puget Sound. Then I leapt into the sky, carefully using only my peripheral vision to scan for Dr. Ugly's probable location. The rest of the Army's forces was fleeing back down the highway the way they'd come… soon it would just be Dr. Ugly against me, and for the first time, I was beginning to relish the thought. I caught a glimpse of movement to the east, and began flying slowly south toward Safeco Field. I was sure he would follow, with whatever was left of his arsenal. Sure enough, two more humvees began barreling down 3rd Avenue behind me, firing a futile barrage of bullets that bounced delicately off my stylish cape. He was following all right. I would lead him to the baseball field, where I could isolate him, and maybe bring that giant moving roof right down on his head-

"NOOOOOOO!" I heard Laurel scream over the radio. I stopped in midair. The sounds of a struggle filled the microphone, and then came the unmistakable voice of Dr. Ugly filled my ear.

"You'd better come quick if you want to see your spider girl alive again!" he shouted. "Come alone, or I'll take my hood off just inches from her face and watch her entire head melt like an ice cream cone!"

Well. Wasn't that a pisser.

I turned back around and headed back toward the post office. The humvees stopped their pursuit; the final confrontation was truly at hand. I landed on the sidewalk and prepared myself… for I knew that even my super-hero suit couldn't fully protect me from his monstrous ugliness. And I didn't have a plan either - not that would it matter, since my last two plans had been big fat failures. I was going to have to improvise. Which basically meant give up and hope it didn't hurt too much when he killed me.

I stepped through the wreckage of the front of the post office. The squadron of postal workers had not escaped rapidly enough; steaming puddles of melted flesh and bone were frantically oozing through the cracks in the floor, into the ground below. Somehow, Laurel had averted her eyes, and now Dr. Ugly's hood was back on. Laurel was on her knees in front of him, facing me, and he held her shotgun to the back of her head.

"So, we meet at last," he said with a villainous smirk.

"Actually, we meet at first, we say goodbye at last," I replied, confident that my command of English would throw him off.

"ENOUGH!" he shouted. "You have no idea how long I've waited for this moment."

"Seven years, eight weeks, four days?" I said.

He paused. "Well, I guess you have some idea. And now, NOW YOU'RE MINE!" He began laughing maniacally. It would have been really creepy and scary, except he started coughing and hacking toward the end of it, and then he reached for an inhaler, and by the time he was done, I wasn't really that creeped out or scared anymore. Laurel was obviously still scared, though, probably due to the feel of that double barrel against her skull. That's not a fun feeling - at least, that's what all those people I whacked in Oklahoma during that one drunken bender told me, but I guess people will tell you anything if they don't want you to leave them naked by the side of a highway covered in pig's blood.

My eyes met Laurel's. I tried to communicate via blinking in Morse code, but I think all I managed to tell her was that I wanted to deeply fondle her spleen, as opposed to "goodbye" or something similar.

"All those years I wondered just how my revenge would come," Dr. Ugly said, fulfilling his contractual obligation to babble a lot before attempting to off the hero. "I pictured so many different tortures - drowning you in rancid cottage cheese, rubbing your skin off with sandpaper and spraying you down with lemon juice, force feeding you sandwiches from Jack in the Box. I've even got John Tesh cued up next door, and an episode of Love Boat guest starring Marion Ross all ready to torment you. But now… now that I have you here before me… now it will all be so much simpler, and yet still so incredibly delicious."

His hand slowly reached for his hood.

"Goodbye, Mr. O. Moore," he said.

Events seemed to unfold in slow motion then. As the hood came off, I found myself unable to avert my eyes. Some insane, macabre fascination deep within me - the same part of me that kept wondering just how many hits of acid would fit into my mouth, or how many gallons of ketamine would be required to fill a hot tub - compelled me to stare as the hood came off.

And then, just as I was about to make eye contact with my doom, Laurel leapt into the air and came flying toward me, screaming "DON'T LOOK!" as she did. She managed several large steps my direction and all I saw was the determination in her eyes, before a sudden loud BOOM filled the air…

…and Laurel emitted a small cry as her chest was blown open from behind by Dr. Ugly's shotgun blast. She fell forward a few more steps and landed in my arms, and we sank to the floor together. I was stunned beyond belief, and could do no more than hold her as her eyes glazed over.

Another shot rang out, but this one bounced harmlessly off my super-hero suit. The ricochet shredded Dr. Ugly with shrapnel; he shrieked like a baby and fled out the back of the post office to tend his wounds, leaving me alone with Laurel's corpse.



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