Fred Frederickson was having the time of his life. Sure, the San Fransokyo cape scene might be heating up, especially with all the recent protests over the SRA, and the number of mutated monsters seemed to be increasing, but that just meant there were more people for him to save! It wasn't good that so many people were in danger, but it was great that he could take them out of danger! He even seemed to be building up something of a reputation among the people of the city. Fredzilla was very well liked, and he even heard rumors about him getting merchandise! Sure he would probably have to give all the licencing money to the Kentucky Kaiju estate, but eh. He was rich anyway.
To make matters even better, he had finally managed to track down some information on his elusive nemesis Tomokiri. The mysterious villain wasn't playing by any of the rules! There had been no declaration of vengeance, no threats to take over the city, barely even an acknowledgement of Fred's own existence! Fred hadn't even heard Tomokiri speak one word to him yet, which was totally in defiance of how villains were expected to behave. The banter was half the fun!
Maybe someone could pull off the imposing silent brooding, but Tomokiri just wasn't the right type for it! The only ones who could get away with being silent throughout fights were ninjas and mimes, and the reclusive cape was neither of those. Probably.
What was Fred thinking about aga-oh right! He really should work on that whole attention span thing. Anyway, Fredzilla had finally caught Tomokiri after months of searching, heading down towards Fisherman's Wharf with some sort of large box. The box, if Fred was being honest with himself, was probably why he had found the villain in the first place, seeing as how it couldn't stop complaining. Tomokiri's suit had recently been upgraded to use some sort of cloaking technology that made it really hard to track, and the villain wasn't even a good enough sport to let Fred splash mud on it! All of their encounters had taken place far away from convenient mud puddles or water towers.
"It's dark in here!" A whingy voice moaned, causing the crate to wobble back and forth in Tomokiri's arms.
"Quiet!" The supervillain whispered, knocking an arm against the box. "You know why you're in there."
Kinda dull as far as introductory words went, but at least it had some ominous implications. Fred gave it a 6/10.
"I'm getting bored." The voice inside the crate added again.
"Look." Tomokiri sighed. "We're almost to the docks, ok? Just give me a few more minutes."
Fred blinked suddenly as the rusty gears in his brain not devoted to comic books and video games slowly ground through the evidence in front of him. The supervillain spoke in a modulated female voice. Woah. female! Hiro was right! Fred had a girl nemesis! ...was it shallow to hope she was hot?
What to do, what to do? Ambush them now when they were least expecting it, or try to follow them around a little more? This was the best lead that he'd had in months, and even Fred knew that he couldn't just throw this away! Tomokiri would probably slink back to her Evil Villain Lair and hide underground for a while.
"Where are we going?" the voice asked.
Tomokiri said nothing and pointed out over the bay to an indistinct mass of land on the horizon.
"Are you… are you pointing? I can't see!" the voice complained.
...oh no.
Fred mentally connected the dots and felt a sting of… well, not fear because he was a superhero and superheroes were fearless, but definitely caution. And dread. Maybe a little bit of worry creeping in there too.
That was okay though! That island… Akuma Island, to be more specific, was part of his origin story. It was okay for origin stories to be traumatizing, that's why they called them origin stories! So what if he nearly died? He was still alive and well and off doing hero work! And so was… everybody else.
Fredzilla sighed gently inside the mask he wore. And then he soldiered on.
---
Tomokiri 'borrowed' a speedboat down at the docks, and Fred quietly praised himself for forcing Hiro to make his suit waterborne. A pair of fire jets did the hard work of propelling him towards the island, and he arrived only moments after Tomokiri and her mysterious box touched down on the shore of Akuma. Fred was… well again, not scared, he didn't do scared, but… worried. Yeah. Superheroes were worried all the time. Fred was worried. There was only one thing on Akuma Island worth coming for.
Tomokiri lifted the lid off the crate with a huff, revealing what seemed like a puddle of purple-pink goof. A moment later a pair of bright yellow eyes opened, and the goo rose up into the vague form of a human being. Of course! The well known supervillain and aspiring purse thief Globby! So this was a villain team up situation! That boded ill.
"Finally!" Globby sighed, slithering out of the box in an odd gelatinous motion. "I've got such a crick in my neck!"
"You don't have bones, Globby."
"I know! But still!"
"The rest of this is easier." Tomokiri continued. "We just need to get the files."
"And then your boss will pay me?"
"Yes, Globby."
"And I'll get villain cred!"
Tomokiri sighed. "Yes, Globby. The good news is this place is abandoned. There's no one here to see yo-"
"Stop right there, evildoers!!!" Fred cried, leaping out of the water and landing in what was definitely a very cool pose that was not at all in any way reminiscent of a beached fish.
"AH!" the two villains cried, giving Fredzilla the moment he needed to stand back up.
"Ha-HA!" Globby laughed. "Try as you might, hero, but you're never going to stop Globby and his new pal Tomokiri!"
The other villain let out a delicate sigh. "Look. Globby, it's not like I don't appreciate the help, but you're not exactly S-tier cape mater-"
Paying his companion no heed, Globby's form shimmered to turn into something resembling a clear fluid from which great clouds of vapor began to condense. The formless blob rocketed up into the stratosphere in the blink of an eye, and then…
Wait. Was that a falling satellite or-
Fredzilla was thrown off of his feet as something crashed to the ground in a truly enormous explosion, kinda like the ones where some super-strong hero punches their foe straight down through all the floors of a building. It even left a crater and everything, and made a huge wave that was washing out to sea. The concrete of the former military site was utterly obliterated, trees were toppled over, and smoke was rising from the impact site.
It was kinda interesting how Fred's mind managed to think about all these things even as he was flung towards the- oh there's the ground.
"WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT?!" Tomokiri demanded, her modulator crackling with the sudden volume spike.
"Oh! Well, I turned myself into helium to fly up into the air, then turned myself into osmium at a really high altitude. Osmium's apparently the densest material on the planet so I built up a ton of kinetic energy on the way down!"
"Did ahnybody get tha number on that ephlefant?" Fred asked, trying to shake off the impact and managing to be only slightly less coherent than usual.
"See? I told you! Globby and Tomokiri are unstoppable! Just wait until you see what I can do with dioxygen difluoride!"
Tomokiri stood stock-still, staring at Globby for a moment. "Uh, yeah, right, sure. Listen, how about we get going right now before Fred, uh, zilla gets back up?"
"Good idea!" Globby agreed easily. "We'll leave him in the dust!" Globby concentrated for a moment, and then sent a small spout of dirt splattering over Fredzilla. "Literally! Ha!"
Ah. So that's what this was. Fred knew exactly what he was dealing with here! This was his first encounter with a new foe, which was why he got beaten into the ground so easily! It was perfectly fine for heroes to fail during their first encounter, otherwise the eventual victory would be meaningless! Maybe… maybe he'd just go along with conventions for now. He was not prepared to take another impact like that.
As Fredzilla slowly pushed himself back to his feet, Globby was already busying himself with melting through the concrete and reinforced bunker system hidden below the island's surface. Apparently he could do acid now. Cool. That was cool, and not at all terrifying.
No, wait, what was he talking about?! That was just an opening blow! He'd be the laughing stock of the hero community if he went down with one punch! "You won't take care of me that easily, villains!" Fred yelled, charging in once again.
"Ugh, come ooooon." Globbly complained, turning around even as his body shifted from an acidic green back to his normal gooey color. "Don't worry Tomo, I'll handle this!"
Fredzilla let loose a blast of flame, which impacted against Globby. The goo-man flinched back for a moment, but after confirming the fire seemed ineffective, he charged. Fred watched as he seemed to get bigger… and bigger… and bigger. Fred had just enough time to register the teeth before a giant gelatinous tyrannosaurus rex slammed into him, snapping him into his jaws.
"AAAAAaaaaaaaaaaa-oh." Fred said, as the goo jaws closed around him only to form into a single gelatinous mold. On one hand, this was awesome! On the other, it was really gross! He had a shapeshifting enemy who could turn into a T-REX, the most awesome dinosaur ever! Seriously! Its name translated as 'Tyrant Lizard King', and that was the only part of that science lesson he remem-
After realizing the bite had been less than effective, Globby began shaking his head furiously. Slowly, Fredzilla's costume dislodged from the morass, until finally the superhero went flying into the distance. Tomokiri winced as Fred landed in a distant tree.
"There." Globby said, shrinking back down to normal and 'dusting' his hands off with a movement that only saw them merging into each other a few times. "Now then." Globby shot out an arm, which hardened into concrete halfway towards his target. The limb smashed into the wall, cracking through what remained of the steel and sending out a billowing cloud of dust.
"We're in." Tomokiri said simply, walking forward purposefully as Globby slunk into the narrow halls of the derelict compound.
"So, uh, what is this place anyway?" Globby asked idly as he wandered along behind the other villain. "Some sorta secret lab?"
"It was." Tomokiri agreed. "Project Silent Sparrow."
"Project-who-what?"
"It was a joint effort between Krei Tech and the US Government." Tomokiri explained, navigating the half-collapsed hallways of the base.
"Don't you mean Bakaemono Corp?"
"No." Tomokiri replied. "This was… before all that."
Tomokiri stepped into a small terminal room overlooking a vast testing chamber. The remains of a raised track leading towards a destroyed metal arch dominated the room, not only rusted from the passage of time but looking like a hurricane had blown through.
Tomokiri walked over to the terminals, pulling out a thin dagger with a blue blade that seemed to glow even in the dim light. It sliced through the access panel over the electronics like it was warm butter, clattering to the ground in pieces. After sticking a small drive into the system, she fiddled behind the monitors, slapping something onto the back of them. A moment later the screens flickered on.
"I managed to get the passcodes." Tomokiri explained. "We get the data off this drive and we're golden."
"Okay!" Globby agreed happily. "Uh… what is it?"
"I already have most of what I need. I just need to know what went wrong the first time, and for that I need the experiment data."
"What experiment?"
"...the one that shut this place down." Tomokiri replied after a moment.
A few more seconds passed in silence as the file transfer continued. Finally, Tomokiri pulled the drive from the computer, and…
"HA! Surprise attack!" Fred called out as he dropped down from the ceiling and delivered a kick to the villain's arm. "Rule number eight of a fight- never turn your back on the hero, because the hero will always rise from the jaws of defeat!"
"Oh, come on! This guy again?!?" Globby whined. "Fine then, I'll try out my new super-effective attack! Well, I'm guessing it'll be super-effective, I've never actually tried it before."
Globby's purple body began turning a milky white, keeping its gelatinous consistency but becoming intertwined with rusty red veins.
Fred just looked confused. "Uh… what's that supposed to be?"
Globby grinned gormlessly. "Thermite and napalm! Two of the burniest substances ever, all in one perfect package! And that's not the only thing I can do! Watch this!"
With that final, terrifying declaration, Globby lit himself on fire! The two exothermic substances filled the room with a fearsome heat and the gelatinous villain's body expanded impossibly outward, swirling around the facility in what could only be described as a flaming tornado.
Fred's jaw dropped open.
Tomokiri swore.
"Now, get ready to feel the burn!"
After a fraction of a second spent in indecision, Tomokiri leapt at Fredzilla, tackling him into the next room. As the two of them collapsed to the ground, the terminal room behind them effectively exploded, computers, files, and all other evidence erased in an instant as the room was scorched apart from the inside out.
Fred coughed as he looked up at Tomokiri, who climbed off of him very quickly. She put one foot, which was either much heavier than it looked or -no, nope, it was magnetic, Fred was not moving anywhere- and looked up at the inferno even as Globby resolved out of it in a still-smouldering slouch.
"Thaaat's gonna burn for a few days." Tomokiri said, obvious notes of fear in her voice.
"Neat!"
After a moment, Tomokiri detached another disc from her armor and locked it to Fred's suit before he had time to stop staring at the explosion and plan a counterattack. The object emitted an electric whine before pulling Fredzilla to the floor with intense electromagnetic force.
"That'll hold you until we're gone." She said absentmindedly, tucking the data drive into a recessed pocket. "We're done here, Globby."
"Coolsies! Hey, what do you think would happen if I did that tornado move somewhere it was already windy?"
"Let's uh… let's talk about that later."
"Ok!" Globby shifted himself again until he looked like some sort of purple balloon, floating up and away from the inferno.
Fred watched as Tomokiri activated a jetpack and blasted off through the gaping hole in the roof, trying to hold off the thoughts swirling in his head. For the second time, a supervillain hadn't played by the rules. Already he was trying to think about what he could have done better, what if he'd tried a different angle, what…
What if he'd had help?
Fred let out a gentle breath as Tomokiri and Globby disappeared from view. For the second time, a supervillain had obtained the secrets of Akuma Island.
This was really bad.
---
Random Event Roll 1d100=10
Globby learns his full potential.
