Worst. Superhero. Ever.: and other odd short stories Read online

  Worst. Superhero. Ever.

  And other odd short stories

  By Scott Baron

  Table of Contents

  Worst. Superhero. Ever.

  One Last Fix

  The Lesbian Farmers of Quagshire

  Huh

  Worst. Superhero. Ever.

  Tyler Wilkes was having a particularly bad evening. Not lost-my-keys or clogged-the-toilet bad. Tyler was on fire, and he couldn’t seem to put himself out. Mind you, he was fireproof (at least most of the time), but a lot of good that did the rest of the building.

  “Shit, this is so not good,” he cursed as he tried to maneuver out of the jewelry store without accidentally igniting anything else with his touch.

  A lithe auburn-haired woman in a catsuit teased from a safe distance, “If I’d known you were so hot for me I would have brought marshmallows and chocolate. We could’ve made s’mores!” She wore a mask, but her eyes sparkled with amusement as she watched the bumbling hero’s plight.

  “Please, just toss me that fire extinguisher! You may be a thief, but I know you’re not some evil nutjob bent on destruction. Throw it to me, and I promise I’ll let you go.”

  “Not like you have much choice about that,” she quipped with a haughty laugh.

  “Come on, you got your shiny things. There’s no need to let the whole building go up in flames.”

  She thought about it for a minute. Doing good? Not on her to-do list, but the poor guy seemed to be having a particularly bad go of it today.

  “Oh, alright,” she finally relented, pulling the canister from the wall and tossing it to the blazing man.

  He snatched it from the air, but before he could even aim the nozzle, he was engulfed in a powdery explosion as his hands melted right through the pressurized container, releasing its contents with a dusty boom.

  Luck was on his side for a change, and the majority of the flames were extinguished in the detonation, the lingering suppressant providing him a tiny window of opportunity to get the hell out of the building, and hopefully not cause any more damage.

  He dove out the front door and hit the pavement with a thud before rolling to a stop against a parked Mercedes, which, of course, immediately burst into flames.

  “You’ve got to be kidding me!” he lamented as he pulled free of the smoldering car and dashed to the nearby fire hydrant. Unfortunately on this particular day, his super strength was a no-show yet again.

  A small shockwave and gust of wind fanned his flames when Captain Stupendous landed on the pavement beside him. All down the street, car alarms shrieked, triggered by the impact. He could have touched down gently, but that wasn’t his style. Flashy. He opted instead for the incredibly cliché superhero landing: knee and fist on the ground, an arm up in the air.

  Despite being on fire, Tyler Wilkes, aka The Protector, couldn’t help but roll his eyes behind his flaming mask.

  “Well well, it seems The Protector needs help from a real hero yet again,” the Captain said with a smirk, his pearly-white teeth glistening in the glow of the fire.

  Captain Stupendous was the most respected and successful superhero in the entire region. He was also an insufferable prick.

  “Help me!” The Protector begged. “I can’t put myself out!”

  “Powers not working again?” The square-jawed hero chuckled. “God, you’re such a loser.”

  With just two fingers, he spun the cover free from the hydrant and opened the sturdy iron valve as easily as turning a faucet. A huge gush of water sprayed out, and in short order, The Protector’s flames were finally extinguished.

  “You’ve got to get her out of there,” he sputtered, water dripping from every inch of his body. Well, at least it burned outside of my costume this time, he thought. Once he had found himself smoldering and nude, forced to streak through the city with super-speed as his costume went up in smoke, ass cheeks flapping in the wind as he raced back to his secret hideout. He was thankful to not have a repeat of that event.

  “A damsel you say? Captain Stupendous is on it!”

  “Did you seriously just say damsel?”

  The Captain took a single powerful step forward to swoop in and save the day, but stopped abruptly in his tracks when he heard the sound. A dulcet wave of a woman’s song floated through the air, just barely tickling his ears.

  Frozen mid-stride, like a magnificent, hero-shaped statue, he managed with great effort to cast an angry eye on The Protector, unaffected, as the Captain struggled with all his might to turn and flee.

  “I’m going to get you for this!” he managed to growl at the soggy hero through his frozen-shut teeth.

  “Hiya, Captain!” The Siren sang out as she exited the smoldering jewelry store. “So nice to see you again!” The dulcet rhythm of her voice floated through the air, just within earshot of the distressed hero.

  With every ounce of his strength, the mighty captain somehow forced his muscles to obey his will, and in the blink of an eye, he leapt high in the air, landing several blocks away and well out of earshot, safe from the song against which he had no defense.

  The Siren stopped her little tune and gave the drenched hero a once-over. “You gonna be alright?”

  “Yeah,” The Protector replied, slowly getting to his feet.

  The wailing of the fire trucks was getting closer.

  “Well, you’d better get going,” he grumbled.

  “What, you’re not going to try to catch me again?”

  “I gave you my word.”

  “That doesn’t stop most men.”

  “I’m not most men.”

  “True, you are rather unique. I still don’t know why my song doesn’t affect you. Of all the heroes I’ve ever met, you’re still the only one immune to it. Lucky for me, you just can’t seem to catch me.”

  “Not for lack of trying.”

  “You know, I’m starting to think you just keep letting me escape because you’re sweet on me.”

  “In your dreams.”

  “Speaking of which, it’s getting late, wouldn’t want to miss my beauty sleep, and you really should go back to your lair and get out of that soggy super suit before you catch a cold.”

  “It’s a hideout,” he sighed. “Only villains have lairs.”

  “Whatever you say. See you around, Protector.”

  “Until next time, Siren. Until next time.”

  “Aww, that’s so cute, you sound so dramatic, just like a comic book hero!” she laughed, then turned on her heel and disappeared into the night.

  The Protector waved a greeting to the firemen rushing to close the hydrant flooding the street so they could attach their hoses and douse the remaining flames.

  “Hi fellas.”

  “Should have known it was you again. Hey Captain, it’s the Protractor.”

  “Protector.”

  “Whatever.”

  “The captain will want a statement from you,” the fireman said. “I’m sure the police will want one too.” He surveyed the smoking building a moment, taking in the destruction. “Well, at least you didn’t take the whole place down, this time,” he said as he trotted off to fight the blaze.

  The captain grabbed his clipboard from the rig and strode to the hero while his crew hurriedly set to knocking down the remaining blaze, throwing annoyed looks at The Protector as they did.

  “Worst. Superhero. Ever.” the captain muttered, shaking his head in disgust.

  Tyler hadn’t always been a superhero. Not so long ago, he was just an average guy. Painfully average. So much so that if he were a color, Tyler would have been beige.

  Then, one otherwise ordinary
day in his mid-twenties, it happened.

  He wasn’t bitten by a radioactive spider, there’d been no Gamma radiation, nor massive beams of light from an alien craft. He was even too far past puberty for some far-fetched mutant coming-of-age story. Nope, he simply woke up that day and was different.

  The vision had been the first thing he noticed. Or didn’t notice, as the case may be. When he rolled out of bed still half-asleep, he slipped on his glasses and trudged to the bathroom. Only when the spattering of urine on the tile floor splashed his bare feet, did he realize his vision, and aim, were off.

  “Shit! What the hell?” he blurted as he quickly clenched up, uncomfortably stopping his morning piss mid-stream.

  He blinked repeatedly, but his eyes wouldn’t clear.

  What did I get on my lenses? he wondered as he removed his glasses to wipe them on a towel. The world immediately sharpened into focus. He did a double take. Having relied on glasses most of his teen and adult life, he was startled to find that for whatever reason, now he did not. He was lucky with his new vision; at least that one power had remained consistent. The rest? Not so much.

  He had been more than a little freaked out when he accidentally ripped his door from its hinges as easily as tearing open an envelope, while crushing the solid brass knob like it was Play-Doh. Strength had never been his strong suit, but it appeared to now be something he had in abundance.

  Until he didn’t.

  That was the problem with his powers. They had a mind of their own.

  Tyler had just been getting used to his newfound strength, reveling in the feeling of confidence it gave him, when he discovered his gifts’ fickle nature the hard way.

  It was late that night when he stepped in front of a handful of drunken hooligans harassing a woman waiting for the bus. Tyler knew he could take them easily, relishing the thought that, for once, the bullies would learn a lesson.

  He grabbed the ringleader by his shirt, ready to make an example of him. His arms strained and tugged, but he realized (with a sinking feeling) that he couldn’t budge the brawny man.

  Two words flooded his mind in tandem with his massive adrenaline rush: Oh shit.

  It took weeks for his ribs to heal from the beating.

  Other powers continued to appear over time. Not gradually, mind you, but simply springing into being without warning.

  The X-ray vision he had thought would be a cool power, but rather than seeing through women’s clothing for a cheap thrill, he found himself instead gazing at their half-digested meals.

  The laser vision, on the other hand, was just as cool as one would expect, but once he summoned it up (which fortunately required quite a bit of effort), he couldn’t always shut it off. It had been years since he last tried to use that one, the memory of the accidental destruction of a wide swath of the park (roasting the duck population of the little pond, accompanied by the wailing of the poor children who’d witnessed it) was a painful one. It would be a very long time before he’d dare try to use that power again.

  Physically, he was more or less impervious to serious damage, most notably from fire and cold, but for whatever reason, he could bruise and bleed just like anyone else. At least most of the time.

  Once, a piece of a crumbling building landed on him as he attempted to rescue a trapped child. He was pleasantly surprised to find his body intact as the massive concrete block bounced off him harmlessly as if it were styrofoam.

  He would have been a hero that day, saving a kid like that, but the building was collapsing because of him. An uncontrolled burst of super-speed had taken him straight through the entire ground floor when his powers once again betrayed him.

  He was brand new to the superhero game that day, and had just donned his home-stitched super suit for the very first time. “The Protector”, that would be his moniker, because that was what he intended to do for the people of the city.

  Eager to get started, and with the best intentions, he headed out into the night to make a difference.

  The Protector was poised to become a force to be reckoned with, but he was also a rookie, still learning what he could do with his many powers.

  Unfortunately he had about as much control of them as a fifteen-year-old virgin tossed in bed with an oiled-up porn star.

  None.

  It was only natural that on his first real outing as a superhero he was amped up and full of adrenaline. He had been in a hurry to get to the scene of the crisis unfolding downtown when he took off running, eager to help the other heroes battle the giant mutant sewer rats that had spilled forth from the pipes beneath the secret lair of Doctor Malice.

  Then he lost control and plowed into a wall. Well, through a wall, actually.

  He had waded into the big leagues that night, and as he raced to his first battle, he couldn’t help wondering why supervillains always seemed to go by ‘Doctor’ something? It’s not like they had a diploma on their wall touting their PhD in destruction. He mused it was probably just an evil version of the same reason the good guys usually opted for ‘Captain’ or ‘Commander,’ namely feeding their latent desire to belong to some fraternal order of testosterone-fueled bonding.

  Daydreaming isn’t the wisest thing when running at super-speeds.

  The newly-dubbed Protector’s collision had torn right through the foundation of the building adjacent to Doctor Malice’s lab. This led to a very hasty diversion of resources away from capturing the villain, focusing instead on the impromptu rescue operation led by none other than his super-idols, Captain Stupendous and his team of heroes.

  Mister Cool was there, putting out fires with icy blasts while The Torch melted the bent steel that was blocking the path and preventing people’s escape from the building. Then there was Bird Girl.

  If Captain Stupendous was a grade-A prick, she was the team’s mean-girl Alpha-bitch.

  She could fly, which a few other heroes could do as well, but she also had the ability to command birds to do her bidding, which on far too many occasions since that first meeting to be mere coincidence, included pooping en-masse on Tyler’s super suit, leaving him looking like a man-shaped Jackson Pollock painting.

  She swooped in the upper windows, hauling people to safety while the rest of the team ran through the structure.

  Inspired watching his heroes in action up close, The Protector tried to use his powers to help.

  Did I mention the lack of control thing?

  The fire spread when his ice blasts accidentally froze the hose of the firemen trying to extinguish the blaze.

  His telekinesis carried trapped men and women to safety, but not before going a bit wide, tearing out load-bearing chunks of the building with them in the process.

  Up until that night, he didn’t even know he could summon squirrels, but when hundreds of chittering fur balls ran into the building, the pandemonium was taken to a whole new level, especially when their fluffy tails caught fire, sending a swarm of flaming critters out into the night, lighting the better part of the neighborhood trees ablaze in the process.

  With all the chaos he’d caused, once the fires were contained and the civilians were safely out of harm’s way, the heroes had swooped in and delivered quite a beat down before they realized he was one of the good guys.

  Trying to be, at least.

  “What the hell were you thinking?” Bird Girl shrieked, as she threw him up against a dumpster in a rage. A spiraling whirlwind of crows and jackdaws cawed their displeasure as they spun in an angry mass above her head.

  “I’m The Protector. I’m the new hero in town. I’m here to help.”

  “Help? You call this help? Look at this mess!” She was losing her cool, hovering several feet above the ground. “Doctor Malice got away because of you, moron!”

  “She’s right,” Mister Cool agreed, his eerily calm voice in direct opposition to his angry gaze. Tyler shifted uncomfortably in his super suit. “You caused a lot of problems today, kid. Stay out of the way and let the professionals do thei
r job.”

  “But I can do things. I have powers.”

  “We saw, and believe me, we’re not impressed,” growled Captain Stupendous. “Come here, I have something very important to tell you,” Tyler’s superhero man-crush said.

  Rather than a pep-talk, he grabbed the newbie in a headlock and gave him a rough noogie, then shoved him into a muddy puddle by the curb. It was as humiliating as high school all over again.

  “Stay out of our turf, nerd,” he spat snarkily. “We don’t need any half-assed wannabes here. This is our city.”

  And with that, they dispersed, leaving the despondent new superhero alone in their wake.

  Tyler knew in his gut he couldn’t give up on his dream of being a superhero, but he admitted to himself that maybe they were right, at least somewhat. He’d tried too much too soon. He would protect the city from danger on a smaller scale, leaving the supervillains and their grand schemes for the other heroes, at least until he had more practice.

  The Protector began patrolling the streets by night, sticking to the shadows, ears open for sounds of distress. After only a few nights, he got his chance.

  “Help! Help!” a man’s voice called out from a dimly lit alley by an all-night Chinese take-out place, its flickering neon casting an unnatural glow as it reflected from the filthy water pooled on the ground.

  At last, he thought with excitement, running toward the sounds of a scuffle.

  “Take your hands off him!” he bellowed in his most authoritative voice. With a flourish, he jumped into the alleyway, landing with his hands on his hips in a classic superhero pose.

  If you’re going to be a hero, he figured, you should make a hero’s entrance.

  “What the fuck you say to me?” the gangbanger asked, dropping his bloodied prey to the filthy pavement as he spun toward his unwanted guest.

  “I am The Protector, and I’m warning you, let this man go.”

  “The Protector, huh? I ain’t never heard of you. You supposed to be some kind of superhero, is that it?”

  “Yes, I am.”

  “I ain’t afraid of no low-rent wannabe hero. Let’s see what you got, bitch. Come on!” With a shark’s malicious grin, he pulled a pipe from his belt and began slowly swinging it as he moved closer and closer.