New Hero in Town

Alright, I'm calmed down enough to talk about what happened earlier today. I got up early to raid the junkyard, see if I could swipe some supplies from the junkyard out on the coast. It went well enough--I held the attendant at bracer-point and filled up the submersible as best I could with old construction vehicles, a jet or two, and what might have been part of one of Mechanor's 3rd mechanized infantry. Oh well, mine now.

I got back to the underwater base (best part about being the supervillain of an artificial island, in my opinion), made a reuben, and then got an Incinerator tank ready. I finished my lunch, and then suited up. Honestly, I was feeling really good about bank robbery--it was going to be my first on my own.

A little about my armor--first, I wear a skin-tight yellow suit that covers my whole body, except my face--head, hands, feet, all of that. It's mostly slash-proof, and blocks most kinds of harmful radiation and electromagnetic waves. (And it is NOT a catsuit. I swear to whatever hellpit Rakshasa crawled from, the next time someone says "Doctor Cataclysm wears a catsuit" is getting a plasma blast to the face.) Over that, I put on a featureless silvery duranium alloy mask with a pair of red lenses for eyes. This mask functions to filter my breath, letting me breath underwater, in poisonous gas, pretty much everywhere. The lenses enhance my vision, have zoom capabilities, and can see many different part of the electromagnetic spectrum. I also put on a breastplate, greaves, boots, and leggings. The center of my breastplate has a big yellow stylized C on it. Hidden in my armor are all sorts of gadgets, like a jetpack, remote controls for pretty much everything, and my emergency teleportation rig. And it's all made of duranium alloy, so it's virtually indestructable. Last but not least, of course, are the signature of the Doctor Cataclysm brand--the seismic disruption bracers.

Anyway, at the last moment, I decided to leave the tank behind. Instead, I rode the old service elevator left over from when this place was part of the engineering crew's base, back when New Vineyard was being constructed.

From the warehouses out by the docks, I used my jetpack to zoom downtown. It was a beautiful day, and I was still feeling stoked by the time I reached the First National Bank of New Vineyard--which, really, given the city's only a year or two old, isn't much of a grand claim. It's a faux brick building, designed to look like it's old Vineyard's bank--a refuge from early 20th century architecture, but it's really made of space age ceramic and reinforced with composite metal girders--or so my molecular scanners tell me.

Now, by this time, I had a pretty sizable audience. It was lunch time, so there were plenty of people in a hurry to get their banking done as fast as possible. This also meant the city streets were heavily congested, so I didn't really expect cops to show up until I was already gone with the money. Piece of cake.

The people on the street didn't start panicking until I pointed my right bracer at the wall and triggered it--it was on a low setting and pointing away from me this time.

"Funny thing about Midwest construction." I muse to no one. The wall shakes and starts to vibrate, huge cracks running down it. "Not really constructed for an earthquake."

The wall collapses in on itself, sending pedestrians scattered and a cloud of ceramic dust in the air. Most of the patrons were knocked to the ground by the force vibrational wave. A security guard was dumb enough to pull a gun, but a shockwave from my bracer sent him flying back through a plastic plant and into a fake wood paneled wall.

"Alright," I began, using my mask's voice amplification unit to make myself clearly heard over the commotion. "This is how it's going to be. You," I pointed to a teller, who jumped reflexively, probably afraid I'd use my bracer on her. "Are going to fill up as many bags as you can with bills as high as you can. If you or anyone else tries to notify the police, or plays hero, or tries to give me ones instead of hundreds, I cause this building and all the others around me to crash down into neat little piles of rubble."

The teller started to comply, and I smirked to myself inside my mask. Like taking candy from a... My train of thought was derailed when something that felt a lot like a cannonball slammed into me and knocked me out of the sky, tumbling down and through two parked cars.

"What makes you think you can threaten these people, crook?" Asked a male voice, kind of nasal and whiney. I pulled myself out of a Skylark and glared up. Floating in the air was a guy wearing what looked to be blue low-profile body armor, your standard superhero gettup, with a white Q followed by a question mark emblazoned on his chest. He was wearing a blue cowl over most of his head, and a pair of white-lensed goggles over that. He looked moderately muscular, but nothing special. However, he did seem to be flying by paranormal rather than artificial means.

"Who the fuck are you?" I replied, nothing injured but my pride.

"I am the Quizzer, and my question still stands, scoundrel." He replied, long blue cape fluttering behind him. I could tell he was trying, and failing, to make his nerdy voice sound more gruff and masculine.

"...the Quizzer. Seriously? What, are you going to start asking me trivia? Is there going to be a test after the brawl?" My jetpack flared back to life, and I started hovering again.

"The test starts now, scum. Try my essay question!" No, seriously. That was his battle cry. I think I was too stunned by how dumb he was to block his attack...that and, for all his stupidity, Quizzer was wicked fast, and fly-kicked me right in the sternum. I was knocked back a little then, but with my armor and my near-invulerability, I was still unhurt.

I fired a blast of concussive force from my bracers, but the little bugger moved too quickly, zooming around out of the way as they shattered some office building windows and back towards me with an uppercut that I was too slow to dodge. Again, I wasn't hurt, but he was starting to get very annoying.

"Does a little nerd like you really think he can beat Doctor Cataclysm?" I laughed, starting to charge in each of my bracers. I love that sound, a low humm that just builds and builds.

"What do you think, Cataclysm?" He said smugly. I hate that smug look.

I laughed again despite my annoyance. "I think it's time for a little kinetic mayhem." I fired a pair of seismic disruption waves so massive they flipped cars on the ground as they passed and tossed civilians left and right. Windows shattered on both sides of the street, sending broken glass everywhere. I figured, if they didn't hit him, I'd at least get a clean shot at him while he struggled to save people.

Instead, his smug look became serene, and all the cars, all the glass, and all the people, froze in the air. When the force blasts hit him, Quizzer grimaced and was knocked back, but some invisible force field seemed to block it.

"Nice try, Doctor, but how's about you get some of this stuff back?" The hero said, smug again. Then, the cars and the glass shot through the air, right towards me.

The glass, that was nothing. Even at high speeds, glass isn't even going to get through the yellow stuff. But catching a Buick in the face hurt, and what's worse, it cracked my mask's lenses and damaged the optics. And while I was holding my face, his telekinesis or whatever sent a Chrysler town car into my midsection. This both knocked me out of the air and temporarily knocked the air out of me.

I started to fling the town car off me, but Quizzer nailed me with a Camry, and before I throw that off, he dumped a Rubicon and some kind of SUV on me hard enough to smash me through the street and down into the sewers. Gas was leaking all over the place, and the sewer water was full of, well, what sewer water is full of. I flung all the cars off me in a rage, and, without thinking, fired up my jetpack.

The explosion knocked me out of the sewers, rolling while smoldering on the sidewalk. The fire, of course, didn't hurt me, but the explosion had knocked out my jetpack, I was covered in sewage, and to top it off, mostly blind.

"Had enough, Doctor C?" I heard that smug, infuriating voice ask.

"Don't worry, SuperGeek, I'll be back later." I think I said as I tapped a button on my bracer and activated the emergency teleport.

Now, it's worth noting that the emergency teleport I use isn't tuned for humans. If I weren't a nearly invulnerable energy absorber, all that would be left of me when I used it would be a greasy smear. As it was, it just hurt. A lot.

I peeled off my armor and put it in the Machine to be washed. Then I took a shower that didn't seem to be long enough and nursed my wounds by watching the first half of a few old Batman episodes--you know, up until the part where the villain is about to win, then change to the next one.

The first Doctor had no superpowers, yet he was toe-to-toe with American Steel, one of the strongest superheroes of his time, nearly every time they fought. Meanwhile, I get my ass handed to me my first time out by a half-pubescent nerd with a dumb name.

I think I need some ice cream. Next time, I'm definitely bringing the tank.