Siluriformes, pt 2.

Yeah, I suck. But I have good reason to not have updated, which I'll explain once I finish saying what happened a couple weeks ago.

Okay, so my plan was that if the fish men have stuff that lets them access a global positioning network, it stands to reason that they might have networked other information, in something like the internet. So, I bought a laptop linked with my home computer to the coffee shop and had my computer find a connection and translate the information for me, so Quizzer and I could find out a bit more about the Siluriformes' inconvenient plans.

Turns out, their information network is a lot like the internet. And my computer's translator isn't always spot-on. Suffice it to say that I have seen fish porn. And I am never eating cavier or sushi ever again.

So, after I scarred myself and Quizzer (who is, by the way, a dorky redhead with glasses and questionable taste in clothing) for life, I found their version of wikipedia, and found out a bit about them.

So, apparently, there was a civilzation of fish people under the atlantic a way way long time ago. A fringe group thought that all surface dwellers needed to die, but the mainstream fish folks weren't so keen on that. There was a big war where lots of weapons of mass destruction were used, and when the smoke cleared, an island was sunk and sterilized of surface life and the fish people were nearly destroyed. The survivors of the anti-surface dwellers were exiled to a prison-colony under a freshwater lake system, where they lived and evolved for millions of years before I, um, accidentally freed them when my face hit the lake bottom hard enough to make it molten for a brief moment.

And now they're back and trying to annihilate the surface dwellers once again somehow. I'd just like to point out, before I start getting hate mail, that I had no way of controling where I impacted. Seriously. Not my fault.

Anyway, after we'd had enough of searching for random things on fishwiki, Quizzer (who, because he helped me out, will remain with his secret identity intact. For now.) and I went to the dock to see if we could find out anything more.

Now, I didn't have my armor at the time because, well, my plans were taking a bit longer than I'd anticipated, so I just had my bracers. Quizzer was fully suited up. I felt like I needed an "I'm with stupid" t-shirt.

We spent a lot of time just kind of looking around, Quizzer broadly hinting that maybe I should get my sub, me ignoring him out of spite. We'd just about had it with each other when a big thing that looked like a giant tuning fork rose out of the water. Okay, well, it looked like a giant tuning fork attached to a city block sized hovercraft covered in weapons. As we watched, the hovercraft projected this big holographic image in the air that showed Captain Deadfish himself. He gargled for a while and repeatedly pointed to my Judy with a trident and made it clear that if we did anything, no more Judy.

Of course, given that I pretty much instantly put two and two together and realized just what that thing was, I knew that Judy would have probably died anyway if we let it go off.

It was a device to pull all the oxygen out of the air for, like, twenty minutes at most. Long enough to kill pretty much every complex animal on the planet--at least, every one that wasn't aquatic in some way, shape, or form. I knew what it was because, well, I kinda have one down in the lair. Nothing as big as this, of course, mine's more for a room than the entire planet. But still, same premise.

Of course, only a Deviant Reactor could power something like this. And if that Deviant Diamond was found on the ocean bottom, that probably meant that the fishmen had this technology way back then.

And, of course, I had to explain it all to Quizzer. And then I had to explain how a Deviant Reactor worked. And then I had to put the whole picture together for him.

And then he asked me how I'd recognized it so quickly and luckily the fishmen started shooting at us before I had to make up an answer.

Now, fighting the Siluriformes was easy. Especially with my bracers. The trick was trying to figure out a way to stop the reactor and save Judy at the same time. And let me tell you, Quizzer was no help at all. I had to do all the planning, while fighting, while Mr. No-technical-know-how sat back and tossed fish left and right.

See, if you pull a diamond out of a Deviant Reactor, the reactor explodes. That's why there's that giant crater in Siberia where Devias had his lab. When Mr. Liberty pulled those gems out, boom. And it takes about a day to shut down, so even if we'd been able to start the shutdown procedure, chances were high that the remaining energy would still wipe out a lot of people.

My plan was genius and Quizzer is just to narrow-minded to see it. I wanted him to use his psychic powers, after I'd rescued Judy, to send the Oxygen Devourer to about where the prison colony is and let it detonate there. Two birds, one stone. However, he was all "morally oposed" to that. So, instead, the plan was just to send it into space with a combination my bracers and his powers. Lame.

I broke into the hovercraft, fought my way to the control center, and there I faced off with Captain Deadfish.

Well, faced off implies a fight. I just really smacked him around a bit, grabbed Judy, and got out of there.

Apparently, the explosion of the hovercraft was visible all across the northern hemisphere. Nasa is a bit pissed at Quizzer and I, though. Apparently, we broke some satellite or something. Oh well. You'd think they'd thank us for, I don't know, saving the world or something.

It was such a relief to get Judy back. And Judy was very happy to see me.

Veeeery happy. It's been a reeeeeeal nice couple of weeks, if you catch my drift.

Okay, just one more post and I'll be caught up on these things. Right now I have to go out on a double date with Judy, Quizzer, and his girlfriend.

Whew

Sorry about that. It's been a hectic, um, week and a half since I last posted. For mostly good reasons, though.

Alright, guess I should fill you guys in on what happened at the museum on Saturday. Well, the date actually went pretty well. The guy at the front gave me a little flak, but he backed down when he realized I was A, willing to pay, and B, very, very large.

We didn't go straight for the diamond. Instead, we took a little tour around the museum, saw the dinosaurs, got some overpriced churros, etc. You know, museum stuff. And then we got to the diamond.

It was more impressive than I thought it would be. The gem was bigger than my head and sea green.

It also wasn't really a diamond. I saw that too. There's a type of energy created by harmonizing certain rare gems together, called the Deviant Effect, from the golden age supervillain, Devias, that invented it. It's extremely high energy and very, very unstable, unless you have the exact number of specially made and crafted artificial diamonds to back it up. The first Doctor C studied it and tried to duplicate it once or twice, so I knew a Deviant Diamond when I saw it.

"It's beautiful." Judy, oblivious, said. I started to reply when a large explosion rocked the museum, and a troop of, well, the best way to describe them is "Catfish People". Bipedal, smooth grey skin, big whiskers, spiny bits. You know, catfish people. There's a pretty good picture of them on CapeWiki. Look under Siluriformes. I wrote most of that article, so you know it's quality. They were all dressed in these silver jumpsuits with a breather-apparatus over their gills that was hooked up to this tank thing. They all had these wierd trident-electrogun things.

Anyway, after blowing a hole in the side of the museum with some sort of artillery, killing and injuring dozens, the leader--he had a fish skull on his lapel--started ordering his men around and I shoved Judy behind me. They went straight for the diamond, and started to make off with it when my least favorite meddler in a cape, Quizzer, showed up and started tossing them left and right with that telekinesis of his. They tried their electrowhatsits, but his force field kept them at bay.

Fish Skull was starting to get frantic now, having obiously not anticipated Captain Dumbname arriving. And then he fixes his fisheyes on me--at least, that's what I thought. He gargled out some garglemesh and a bunch of his goons mobbed me--I held my own, but I didn't quite realize that I was just a distraction. Before I knew it, I threw ten of those proto-fishsticks off me only to see two of them dragging off Judy. She yelled out my name, I yelled out hers, it was all very dramatic. And then, Fish Skull pointed his trident at Judy and made a loud gargling noise, probably to get Quizzer's attention.

See, I'm obviously superhuman. So they saw this girl hiding behind a big strong superhero type (ha) and probably thought she was important. Thus, a perfect hostage. Fish Skull grabbed her, and then moved out slowly with a few minions, who happened to have the "diamond" with them.

Quizzer, thankfully being one of those goody-goody types, didn't attack and endanger Judy. However, as soon as Fish Skull was out of eyesight, the fishboys remaining started assaulting us. I tried to rush after him, and Quizzer, to his credit, tried to follow too, but the minions kept us at bay long enough that, by the time we'd gotten out and beaten them all to a sushi pulp, the only sign of them was a trail of destruction leading to and from the water's edge.

"Hey, you there! Bulldozer!" He called to me. I rolled my eyes.

"I'm not called that anymore and you know it." I yelled back, fuming at this point for letting the fishmen take Judy.

"Okay." He hovered down next to me. "Look, Cataclysm. I know we've had our differences, but I can't go under water very well and.."

I shushed him. "You want me to, what, lend you my sub?"

"...yes."

"First of all, you're not charging into their base and endangering my Judy with my sub. If they want that gem for what I think they want it..." My eyes trailed to the catfish men's bodies. They looked like they had radios. And maybe some kind of GPS system...

"Meet me at the Purple Corner Cafe in an hour, street clothes." He tried to say something, but I shushed him again.

"Don't argue. I have a plan."

That's enough for now, getting tired. Later today, I'll write about the team-up that should never have happened--Me and Quizzer.