Ah, sweet Earth. I am back again at the 'ol homeworld and it looks as ready to be dominated as ever. From orbit I can observe the gentle contours of the continents, ready to be formed to my will. Below me, unsuspecting, lay my enemies. Believing me dead, apparently. That is for the best, now I have the element of surprise.
Well, I guess except for Green Hunter. And, I suppose the rest of the Earth's Elite, if he told them. Of course he told them. If there's one thing I know about my former intern it's that he thinks whatever happens in his life is of critical importance to all of those with earshot. Gah, if I had to hear one more time about his kegger at the Delta house... So you made out with two girls at once, I get it. Geez.
So yeah, he no doubt informed Earth's most powerful superteam that I am back on the scene. So I can expect Admiral Admirable to show up any second and punch me in the face while he lectures me on the morality of my actions. Yippee. Actually, I think this is a good thing. If the media has to hear about my return, it definately adds some credibilty to me to have the Earth's Elite make the announcement. That will get me one Page one for sure. Or at least the front section somewhere, right?
Based on the destroyed wreckage of alien battle ships floating around here in orbit maybe (maybe!) I'll get bumped off the front page for whatever this mess was. I suppose "Alien Attack Defeated" beats "Master Super-villain Returns." No. You know what? I am the bigger news here. There have been dozens of repelled alien invasions, but how many times have I defeated the icy grip of the grave? Just once! Give me my headlines!
Really it's quantity vs. quality
Thanks, Dr. Hunter
So I am awakened from my hibernation by Green Hunter, as he and the Earth's Elite are having some sort of skirmish with an alien armada of some sort. I am woefully uninformed when it comes to the various alien empires. You'd think that I would know more, what with me being the (former) Scorloon Emperor for Life and all, but I never could keep all of the colliding constants straight on those names. Just mash your hand on a keyboard and you have a 75% chance of hitting on the name of one of those races. "Duygbl?" "Gytrublv?" "Lcytjvkjbhhk?" Yeah, those are all (probably) accurate. And that's before you even get to the ones who communicate telepathically. For those you need to visualize a potato dancing with an empty orange bucket in order to say "hello". That way lays madness, I say.
Anyways, in the course of their battle Green Hunter is sent sailing off into an asteroid belt and he bumps into my asteroid-y looking cocoon. This awakens me, and after I burrow my way through the (delicious) larval crust I shatter the cocoon off my body. I'm a little groggy and out of it, so I say "Innnnttttteeeeerrrrnnnn?" I'm pretty sure this scares the crap out of him, and looks at me with shock (and awe) and says, "You!? It can't be... you're dead!"
Yeah, welcome back. Thanks idiot. So I fired some energy blasts at him and then took off to get my bearings. So now I'm on my way back to Earth. Dead? What do they think of me back there? What did that stupid robot do now? Dead? Not cool, doppelganger, not cool.
Turkey, turkey, turkey
Hey! The holidays! Aren't they great? Who had turkey? Delicious or dry? Dry, huh? Yeah, it's easy to overcook those turkeys. I've heard that there is some sort of Scorloon tentacled, jelly-cow, thing that tastes just like turkey. Isn't that weird? Yeah. Were you thankful for something? Thankful for companionship? Thankful for loyalty? Thankful for dimensional travel?
Ooh! How's your holiday shopping going? It's just crazy out there, huh? The lines, the sales, the credit card debt, it's just nuts. Yeah. I''m just thinking holidays right now. I'm not even really worrying about the whole "super-villain" thing. I'm just being mellow. You know, just trying to get through it all. Boy, so many people to shop for! How can I even think about assembling an arsenal of weaponry to systematically defeat the Earth's Elite when I've got cards to write and gifts to buy? It's not weird or anything. I'm just filled with the festive spirit.
I'm just that kind of guy. You probably didn't pick up on that in my earlier posts, but I'm not going to judge. I'm onion-y. I've got layers. Nuance. I just look forward to a stocking of thoughtfully purchased gifts that can fit into a 3 inch wide sock. That's okay. Right? Yeah, that's okay.
Oh, but you know what's not okay? You know what's not festive? You know what's not thankful-ish?
Having your own goddamn minion turn on you with your own robot duplicate and drive you into hiding! Now, Z, you must die.
Always trust what you read
The teleportation rig is a go! My power set now reads: Techno-pathy, battle armor, and teleportation. It's a little eclectic, but it's a lot better than where I was at the beginning.
All day I've been teleporting stuff through my end of the wormhole. I'm not totally sure where the other end goes, but they are now the proud recipients of a Most Improved Soccer award, some spare Atom-Vortex parts, a dead rat, 3 phone books I swiped from my neighbor, and about 50 copies of the local apartment renters guide. (I swear they print 5 million of those things and no one ever picks them up.)
I haven't tried going through myself (yet), but I hope it's depositing all this crap right into the Earth's Elite headquarters. Maybe I should print up some "Green Hunter Sucks!" fliers. Then they will no doubt realize that he does, in fact, suck.
And they will kick him off the team.
And banish him to Limbo-verse.
And then disband.
And then give control over the planet to me. Yes, that would be nice.
Betrayal
Many things happened this weekend, but I'm not going to go into it right now. I'm too hurt.
Valentine, now two-time Hot Bod champ, has dealt me the harshest blow yet. She has betrayed me. Her name is not actually "Valentine"! It's "Amber" or "Amanda" or something like that. Valentine is her stripper name! First she lies to me about her name and then she misleads me about her occupation!? She claimed she was a dental hygienist! I had already planned to use her expertise in assembling metallic jaws for my theoretical army of Chomper-men. But does she know anything that would help me with that? No! Knowing how to keep $114 in one dollar bills in a single g-string is not going to help me defeat the Earth's Elite!
And don't even start with the hypocritical aspect of my own using a super-villain name rather than my real name, it's totally different. I am competing in a field where an intimidating name is going to win half my battles. Are you going to mess with someone named Complete Destruction? Or Devourous the Terrible? It's about building your super-villain brand. You need to develop your name and figure out your gimmick. Can a guy called Sandpaper Assassin have teleportation powers? No, it has to be sand-related. You are competing against guys with the craziest outfits you've ever imagined, after all. You need to stand out from the pack. This isn't that hard. Geez.
Worst of all, she was using me to get better scores in the Hot Bod contests. Who knew she would betray this town leading (okay, only) super-villain for a $50 prize? I take back the 10's and 9.7's! I never meant it!
Plan B begins
Re-assembling the Atom Vortex continues to elude my tech-minion and I. Even when I think it's fully formed, it will do nothing more than hum. Where are my beautiful green sparks? Where are my soothing blobs of super-power-dom?. Damn that Hunter! Damn him in his stupid, stupid face.
And before anyone asks, yes, I saw that Green Hunter stopped an alien invasion over the weekend. But, I mean, it was only the Scorloons. They've been thwarted before by such pitiful heroes as the guy who can throw his own hands and the girl who can form solid objects out of her love for puppies! Okay, I'm not sure about the specifics of those heroes powers, but the point is that they're lame. Just because the Earth's Elite have decided to lower their bar from being the greatest super-hero team in the world to invite Green Hunter to join them doesn't mean anything. The Elite must have some serious issues behind closed doors to even consider adding Green Hunter to their roster after such an unimpressive achievement. I mean, a high-school kid would be impressed that I can buy beer, but everyone else would see that it's no big deal. Yes, I'm equating the difficulty of defeating a Scorloon invasion with going to the store and buying booze; sometimes it's a hassle, but failure isn't really an option.
Ahem. Anyway, Zoo (?) and I are struggling with this challenge, when he makes some sort of sound that slightly resembles the word "robot." I still can't make heads or tails of what he's saying, but this coincidence gets me thinking that perhaps I'm taking the wrong approach with this. Maybe, instead of chancing that I might get deformed or annihilated in a nuclear accident, I should focus on making a robotic suit of armor!
The advantages are myriad: I won't get killed if it doesn't work, it will conceal my identity, it's upgradeable (it's always a plus when you can pull a new weapon out of your bio-mechanical hat), and it leaves open the option of creating robot duplicates! I'm already working it out in my head how some random hero will be struggling for their life against a lifeless automaton while I am safely escaping and moving on to the next phase of my scheme. Brilliant! And the look of frustration when they finally realize that all of their struggle was just against a robot. Delicious!
Zhou seemed excited as well when he finally grasped what I was aiming for. It seems that Zu is an enthusiastic aficionado of robots. Maybe he's Japanese? They love robots right?
