The Mad Meteorologist and His Terrifying Weather Machine, for dark_roast | Dollhouse PG-13
Title: The Mad Meterologist and His Terrifying Weather Machine
Author:bhsbaby (pinch hitting) beta and cheerleader extraonions
Recipient:
dark_roast
Fandom: Dollhouse
Rating: pg-13(language, violence, angst)
Pairing: Victor/Sierra-sort of.
Spoilers: All of the series that's aired.
Request:Request 5 - fandom: Dollhouse
Details: My favorite characters are Sierra, Victor & Boyd. But, I like everybody. Feel free to bring in your own OC Actives and clients. No zombies for this one, please. I'd love something really cracktastic, like out of a 1950s horror movie. Or, set the story in another decade entirely. How long has the Dollhouse been operating?
Summary: A mad scientist seeks to rule the world. Will he succeed? Will the two heroes created by the Dollhouse be able to save the day?
A small man stood almost stock still as he hunched over his work table. This last moment was pivotal, and he couldn’t afford to let the booming thunderstorm outside break his concentration. He breathed deeply as he moved to put the final piece into place. With this success, he would have what he wanted. The world would lie at his feet. He would have all of the power and influence he could possibly ever dream of…he could finally move his lab out of his mom’s basement. He was startled from his reverent thoughts when a particularly cacophonous bout of thunder rolled through air. He jumped and nearly dropped the wonderforium, the last known sample in the world, and key to his future. Soon, the world would bow before its new overlord and his name was Melvin.
Shaken with the near disastrous mistake he’d almost made, he wiped his pudgy face with his free hand he took the moment to center himself. He needed to be on his A-Game here, and he couldn’t afford yet another failure. He pushed his glasses back up the bridge of his nose and again positioned himself to ready the wonderforium. Carefully, he lowered his hands, placing the fragile, glowing material into the container which would keep the wonderforium safe and convert its radioactive energy into the force he needed. He gently closed the lid of the container and pulled back his hands. Although excitement surged in him, he would not allow himself to celebrate until the machine was completely finished.
He grabbed the sheet metal that had been fashioned into a cover for his machine, some bolts and nuts, and a few other fasteners and set to work. As he assembled he ensured all of the glowing red LED’s functioned and all the exhaust fans were in working order. The water cooling system surrounding the wonderforium was in place and the tubing ran all through the metal case. Melvin knew that not only did this machine excel, but that it also looked badass while doing it. Finally, he finished ratcheting shut the case and pulled back to observe his glorious success. What he saw in front of him was a miracle beyond modern science, and it was beyond most people's comprehension that such a thing could even exist. But Melvin knew what he'd done.
It was only after he had carefully placed the machine onto the center of his worktable that he allowed himself to celebrate. Celebrating looked strangely like spastic seizures as he strutted around his workspace, extolling the virtues of his victory in building the only machine capable of bringing down nations with a mere press of a button. His weather-machine was complete. If in his celebrations he happened to knock his weather-machine into the shelf behind his workspace, well that was just an accident. The resulting avalanche in tools which rendered Melvin unconscious, and coincidentally the machine active at the same time? Well that was an accident, too.
------------------------------------------------
Adelle DeWitt was staring in disbelief at the monitor on her wall. Her attention was focused less on the client in her office and more on the raging blizzard that seemed to be claiming Los Angeles as the meeting progressed.
“-an awkward situation, as I’m sure you can imagine Ms. DeWitt, and confidentiality is of the utmost importance.” DeWitt’s attention was brought back towards the people gathered in her office. Across from her, sitting at the table reserved for chatting with clients about what exactly they expected from the Dollhouse, was Richard Sawyer- a sharply-dressed mid-thirties man, with cropped short hair and eyes that wandered disconcertingly over DeWitt as she moved. Topher was also sitting at the table with his attention rapt on the client as he explained the situation. It was rare to see Topher so enamored, and as such, DeWitt was immediately drawn back to the conversation. Boyd stood at the entrance to her office, acting as both a security officer and a calming presence for DeWitt, keeping a cautious and wary eye on Sawyer.
“Of course, Mr. Sawyer, and confidentiality you will have. I understand that your situation is unique?” Adelle was suspicious of the client’s lack of specific’s so far, and after having learnt from past mistakes with Echo, she wanted a direct itinerary of what was expected.
“You could say it is unique, Miss…DeWitt.” Sawyer leered at DeWitt to try and gain the upper hand in the conversation. DeWitt had been offered much worse by greater men than Sawyer and as such was nonplussed. Irritated, Sawyer continued, “To be blunt, Ms. DeWitt, we don’t generally work with glorified whorehouses, but the U.S. Government has found itself in a damned tight spot.”
Adelle’s right eyebrow shot up in and she shot a glance to Boyd who seemed to share her concern as he shifted to cover more of the door. She then looked to Sawyer, “What on Earth makes you think after the Ballard incident we’d be willing at all to work with the federal government?”
“Well for one, we will continue to ignore your existence if you do. What you do is prohibited by the Constitution, Ms. DeWitt, contract or no contract,” Sawyer paused for DeWitt to absorb his words before he continued with a smirk, “And we’re prepared to pay a very large sum of money for two of your ‘actives’ to work with us.”
“So basically you’re bribing us?” Boyd asked from the door.
“Seeing as my superiors know I’m here and have given me full discretion to do as I’d like, yes I think that’s a pretty accurate description of what I’m doing.”
Adelle took another moment to consider her approach and then asked, “What exactly can we do for you, Mr. Sawyer?”
“As I’ve said, Ms. DeWitt, our situation is rather unique. I’m sure you’ve noticed the weather hasn’t been exactly normal these past few days. Hell, I had to drive with chains on my tires to get here. Los Angeles doesn’t get snow, Ms. DeWitt, and that’s not all. Vancouver is experiencing flooding that’s put many cities under the water, and New York City is experiencing mudslides. The entirety of Dubai has sunk into the ocean. The peculiar global weather patterns are effecting cities all over the world. Surely you can see that there’s something strange afoot, yes?”
Adelle nodded curtly and motioned for him to continue impatiently, “Well, the UN just received a package from a man calling himself the Mad Meteorologist. He is claiming that he is responsible for the changes in weather, and that if we do not provide him with either formidable opponents or inordinate amounts of money, he will start obliterating other major cities off the map. Dubai, he says, was just the beginning.”
“And you want us to send in two actives to take him down?” Topher asked. “As uh…formidable opponents?”
“Got it in one, geekboy. We’re more than willing to arm your people with whatever they need, but the Mad Meteorologist specifically requested super heroes. Apparently he’s some kind of bizarro comic nerd gone odd.” Sawyer sighed and looked to Adelle, this time without leer, but sincerity.
“Look, if it were up to me, we’d bring out the F-22s and blow the hell out of this twerp’s house. Hell, he put his home address on the package sent to the UN. But apparently the UN does negotiate with terrorists, and holds a lot of pressure over us due to the recent events in Iraq, so now we do, too,” Sawyer’s frustration leaked into his words. “However, my superiors are gonna be damned before they let American soldiers die to this asshole. We figure you can make people better than our best super soldier anyway. Our crazy mad scientist has given us two weeks to execute his demands before the rest of the world falls to his demands.”
Awkward silence fills the room as Adelle ponders the situation, “Excuse me, Mr. Sawyer, but my two colleagues and I need to discuss the situation. We won’t be long so if you could please have a seat outside.” Adelle walks Mr. Sawyer to the door and shuts it quickly. Almost immediately, Topher threw himself at Adelle’s feet.
“Pleaaaaaaase oh please oh please oh please! Can we do this? ” he begs, “I may or may not have already created superhero personalities in my spare time, oh please.” His eyes are filled with unbridled hope and cornered, Adelle has to turn to Boyd for some reasoning.
“While my enthusiasm doesn’t quite match Topher’s, we have to look at what happens if we don’t cooperate. At best, they find someone else, and they shut us down completely. They probably won’t even let us restore actives’ memories in their haste. At worst, they fail to find someone else and the world ends. I’m not really seeing any option other than cooperation, Ms. DeWitt.”
“Your reasoning is solid, Boyd, and Topher’s keenness to participate has pretty much sold me on it. Let’s bring in Mr. Sawyer and address with him what kind of superheroes you have created for us, Topher. Quickly, before I realize what I’ve just said.”
-----------------------------------------------
Adelle DeWitt, Boyd Langton, Richard Sawyer and many representatives from other countries in the United Nations are gathered in the sitting area in DeWitt’s office, a few days later. There’s a tension set in the room, as the crowd awaits the presentation of the formidable combatants prepared by Topher. Topher himself enters the room to introduce the two heroes.
“Welcome everyone, to the reveal of planet Earth’s saviors. I’d like to thank Mr. Sawyer and Ms. DeWitt for giving me this opportunity, the Mad Meteorologist for being bug fuck crazy and threatening to end the world, and Sierra and Victor for being my lovely canvases. Ladies and gentlemen, I’d like to present to you Seraphim and Flashbang.”
A statuesque woman enters the room wearing an outfit of closely fitted Kevlar plating, leathers and a simple domino mask covering her Eastern looking eyes. Blond hair sits high on her head on her head in a tight pony tail. It isn’t until she shrugs her shoulders that the reason for her name becomes apparent. Gigantic wings unfurl behind her, made of some sort of metallic alloy. They gleam in the spotlights focused on her as she flexes and moves them with a natural grace. She pulls a sword from a scabbard on her hip that appears to be on fire and starts going through a graceful aikido routine showcasing her capabilities with the weapon. Topher takes this moment to start describing what she can do.
“Seraphim is an expertly trained close combat fighter with wings surgically attached. These wings are deadly sharp and made of an alloy that can survive temperatures up to 8000 degrees Fahrenheit, high impact events, and act as another means of destruction when necessary. She also wields a laser sword that unlike those girly light sabers, can do some serious damage. Seraphim is lethally fast and those wings can actually help her ‘fly’ in that she can glide from extremely high altitudes to her target location. We’ll probably drop Seraphim and Flashbang in tandem via that method.”
Flashbang takes that moment to make his entrance. The only similarity between the two heroes is their clothing, however. Flashbang takes the opportunity to show off a little, using a flurry of kicks and punches to exhibit his capabilities. Topher holds up his hand to pause Flashbang’s introduction.
“I’d ask our guests to now adorn the welding masks under your seats. Flashbang’s powers are a little bright, and we’d like everyone to leave here with eyes intact. We have surgically altered both Flashbang’s and Seraphim’s eyes to have internal retinal protection.”
Topher motions for Flashbang to continue when everyone has their visual protection in place. Flashbang takes a moment to ready himself and then proceeds with the demonstration. He snaps with his right hand and a flurry of light followed by a steady, extremely hot stream of fire exits his index finger.
“This is an arc welder! It’s handy for many situations, such as entering places in a somewhat covert manner, and for welding shut doors to prevent pursuers from following. Go ahead, Flashbang.”
With a twist of his wrist the welding beam is gone and a target appears behind him quickly. Flashbang turns and with a flick of his wrist downward a ball of flaming napalm launches itself. Fire explodes all over the target before adhering to the surface and burning the target down to it’s core.
“That is his, well uh, it doesn’t really have a name but it shoots fireballs that stick to and burn through things. Cool, right? One last thing, and you can remove your welding masks.” Flashbang extends a bit of wire from the pinky on his left glove and Topher continues, “This is a communications adapter. It’s wireless, but it can be adapted to upload information in pretty much any digital format in current and past use. He has what is basically a large capacity jump drive to store information in his suit, so he is the ultimate data retriever.”
Topher turns from the audience to his newly-minted heroes, “Thanks for the demo guys, we’ll get you your orders ASAP. Why don’t you wait outside while we work it out what it is that you’re needed for.” Seraphim and Flashbang nod to imply their agreement, and then walk out of the room. Topher starts speaking again after the door shuts. “In addition to what you’ve seen here as examples of their combat readiness, we’ve taken some liberties with programming. They are master military tacticians, proficient in several languages, and in taking a queue from the Spartans, deeply in love with one another. Their first priority is the mission, but seeing as these are volunteers we’d like to get back, they are pretty high on each other’s priority list as well. Any questions?”
Immediately, Sawyer’s hand shoots up, “What do we have to pay to get that technology, any of it, for the U.S. military?”
--------------------------
` Melvin worried in his mother’s basement. When he sent the package to the UN he really hadn’t been expecting them to actually reply with superheroes. When he received the missive from the UN explaining that they had in fact found formidable foes for him, Melvin panicked. It was even worse when they broke through his security- a chain-link fence with barbed wire at the top that the neighbors hated, and a righteously annoying Chihuahua named Itsy- without a hitch and parked outside his room’s steel plated door. The security camera he had set up by his door was lined on two people talking near the entrance with one another. Melvin held his other Chihuahua named Bitsy in his hand as he listened into their conversation.
“-thought there’d be more to this, babe,” the man says, “I mean, guards, nasty booby traps, something? All we got was a crappy fence and an obnoxious dog.”
The girl lowers her head in mock grief, “Poor Itsy, may he rest in charred little pieces. Look at it this way- at least our last mission before retirement is super easy. After this it’s wedding bells and…”
Melvin could feel the fury rising in his veins as he looked on at the two banter more. Make fun of his dog, will they? Well who needs Beijing anyway? He pulls his attention from the monitor and towards his machine. Which, to be honest, has been kinda on the fritz these days. Dubai was kind of an accident. Really, Melville is faced with a kind of serious problem, in that ever since the machine fell, he can’t exactly, y’know, control it. He was going to use the ridiculous sum of money to build the self-sufficient space station he had plans for when he decided to try this whole super villain thing. Every super villain needed a bitchin hangout after all. He moves to pick up the rogue weather machine but stops when he feels a sharp edge along the back of his neck. The damn monologuing gets me every time!
“You ought not touch that, mate,” a terse, Australian accented, female voice said. “My name is Seraphim. This is Flashbang and you’re going to tell him how to disarm your device.”
Melvin shakes his head, “I-I-I c-can’t do that for you, s-sister.”
The bladed edge pushes harder into his neck, “And why not?”
It’s Flashbang who replies, “Because it can’t be shut down,” he says, “Looking over it, it appears to be completely self-sustaining with the wonderforium, and it’s electrically charged. I can’t touch it to turn it off, even if he could tell us how.”
“Could we destroy it?” Seraphim asks.
“No,” Melvin says, “I-I mean, I g-guess you can, b-b-but the d-damage is d-done, s-sister, the world as we kn-now it is p-p-pretty m-m-much over.”
“You mean to say that you, Mr. I-live-in-Mom’s-basement-with-two-Chihuahuas actually succeeded in destroying the world?” Seraphim demands roughly. The blade pushes to the point of skin breaking. Melvin can feel the blood start to ooze down his neck, “You mean to say that you’re the reason why I won’t be able to marry the man I love? Or have children? Or grow old? This was our last mission you wormy little man! This was-“ he can feel the bladed edge pull away from neck and he braces himself for the impact he knows is coming. Tears start streaming down his face and his entire body shook in fear.
“Seraphim, wait, please,” Flashbang says, and for a moment, Melvin is filled with hope that they’ll let him live. “Let me do it.”
The next thing Melvin knows is pain. Hot and bright and searing through his flesh. He is alive only long enough to register that he can no longer feel Bitsy on his lap.
----------------------------------------------------
When the Kliply discovered Earth 1400 years later, and it was frozen solid, they were first uncertain that there was any life at all on the planet. They sent in a reconnaissance droid to see if the water on their planet was convertible into the substance the Kliply used as a food source. The reconnaissance droid found more than just water, but evidence of life abound. Abandoned buildings, vehicles that appeared to facilitate movement, and hundreds of different species were frozen completely in time in relatively clear ice.
The droid projected several images onto the wall for the Kliply leader, Fronsa, to examine. The images of despair and destruction tore at Fronsa’s heartstrings. The last image, and the one that haunts Fronsa to this day, was the image of a young woman with some sort of flying mechanism wrapped around herself and a male in tight embrace. The male had a finger lifted almost as if to say something. The ice had frozen their features so perfectly that Fronsa could see the aching anguish in their eyes as clear as it was on the day that their world ended. He could also see love.
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.
-Frost
Author:bhsbaby (pinch hitting) beta and cheerleader extraonions
Recipient:
dark_roast
Fandom: Dollhouse
Rating: pg-13(language, violence, angst)
Pairing: Victor/Sierra-sort of.
Spoilers: All of the series that's aired.
Request:Request 5 - fandom: Dollhouse
Details: My favorite characters are Sierra, Victor & Boyd. But, I like everybody. Feel free to bring in your own OC Actives and clients. No zombies for this one, please. I'd love something really cracktastic, like out of a 1950s horror movie. Or, set the story in another decade entirely. How long has the Dollhouse been operating?
Summary: A mad scientist seeks to rule the world. Will he succeed? Will the two heroes created by the Dollhouse be able to save the day?
A small man stood almost stock still as he hunched over his work table. This last moment was pivotal, and he couldn’t afford to let the booming thunderstorm outside break his concentration. He breathed deeply as he moved to put the final piece into place. With this success, he would have what he wanted. The world would lie at his feet. He would have all of the power and influence he could possibly ever dream of…he could finally move his lab out of his mom’s basement. He was startled from his reverent thoughts when a particularly cacophonous bout of thunder rolled through air. He jumped and nearly dropped the wonderforium, the last known sample in the world, and key to his future. Soon, the world would bow before its new overlord and his name was Melvin.
Shaken with the near disastrous mistake he’d almost made, he wiped his pudgy face with his free hand he took the moment to center himself. He needed to be on his A-Game here, and he couldn’t afford yet another failure. He pushed his glasses back up the bridge of his nose and again positioned himself to ready the wonderforium. Carefully, he lowered his hands, placing the fragile, glowing material into the container which would keep the wonderforium safe and convert its radioactive energy into the force he needed. He gently closed the lid of the container and pulled back his hands. Although excitement surged in him, he would not allow himself to celebrate until the machine was completely finished.
He grabbed the sheet metal that had been fashioned into a cover for his machine, some bolts and nuts, and a few other fasteners and set to work. As he assembled he ensured all of the glowing red LED’s functioned and all the exhaust fans were in working order. The water cooling system surrounding the wonderforium was in place and the tubing ran all through the metal case. Melvin knew that not only did this machine excel, but that it also looked badass while doing it. Finally, he finished ratcheting shut the case and pulled back to observe his glorious success. What he saw in front of him was a miracle beyond modern science, and it was beyond most people's comprehension that such a thing could even exist. But Melvin knew what he'd done.
It was only after he had carefully placed the machine onto the center of his worktable that he allowed himself to celebrate. Celebrating looked strangely like spastic seizures as he strutted around his workspace, extolling the virtues of his victory in building the only machine capable of bringing down nations with a mere press of a button. His weather-machine was complete. If in his celebrations he happened to knock his weather-machine into the shelf behind his workspace, well that was just an accident. The resulting avalanche in tools which rendered Melvin unconscious, and coincidentally the machine active at the same time? Well that was an accident, too.
------------------------------------------------
Adelle DeWitt was staring in disbelief at the monitor on her wall. Her attention was focused less on the client in her office and more on the raging blizzard that seemed to be claiming Los Angeles as the meeting progressed.
“-an awkward situation, as I’m sure you can imagine Ms. DeWitt, and confidentiality is of the utmost importance.” DeWitt’s attention was brought back towards the people gathered in her office. Across from her, sitting at the table reserved for chatting with clients about what exactly they expected from the Dollhouse, was Richard Sawyer- a sharply-dressed mid-thirties man, with cropped short hair and eyes that wandered disconcertingly over DeWitt as she moved. Topher was also sitting at the table with his attention rapt on the client as he explained the situation. It was rare to see Topher so enamored, and as such, DeWitt was immediately drawn back to the conversation. Boyd stood at the entrance to her office, acting as both a security officer and a calming presence for DeWitt, keeping a cautious and wary eye on Sawyer.
“Of course, Mr. Sawyer, and confidentiality you will have. I understand that your situation is unique?” Adelle was suspicious of the client’s lack of specific’s so far, and after having learnt from past mistakes with Echo, she wanted a direct itinerary of what was expected.
“You could say it is unique, Miss…DeWitt.” Sawyer leered at DeWitt to try and gain the upper hand in the conversation. DeWitt had been offered much worse by greater men than Sawyer and as such was nonplussed. Irritated, Sawyer continued, “To be blunt, Ms. DeWitt, we don’t generally work with glorified whorehouses, but the U.S. Government has found itself in a damned tight spot.”
Adelle’s right eyebrow shot up in and she shot a glance to Boyd who seemed to share her concern as he shifted to cover more of the door. She then looked to Sawyer, “What on Earth makes you think after the Ballard incident we’d be willing at all to work with the federal government?”
“Well for one, we will continue to ignore your existence if you do. What you do is prohibited by the Constitution, Ms. DeWitt, contract or no contract,” Sawyer paused for DeWitt to absorb his words before he continued with a smirk, “And we’re prepared to pay a very large sum of money for two of your ‘actives’ to work with us.”
“So basically you’re bribing us?” Boyd asked from the door.
“Seeing as my superiors know I’m here and have given me full discretion to do as I’d like, yes I think that’s a pretty accurate description of what I’m doing.”
Adelle took another moment to consider her approach and then asked, “What exactly can we do for you, Mr. Sawyer?”
“As I’ve said, Ms. DeWitt, our situation is rather unique. I’m sure you’ve noticed the weather hasn’t been exactly normal these past few days. Hell, I had to drive with chains on my tires to get here. Los Angeles doesn’t get snow, Ms. DeWitt, and that’s not all. Vancouver is experiencing flooding that’s put many cities under the water, and New York City is experiencing mudslides. The entirety of Dubai has sunk into the ocean. The peculiar global weather patterns are effecting cities all over the world. Surely you can see that there’s something strange afoot, yes?”
Adelle nodded curtly and motioned for him to continue impatiently, “Well, the UN just received a package from a man calling himself the Mad Meteorologist. He is claiming that he is responsible for the changes in weather, and that if we do not provide him with either formidable opponents or inordinate amounts of money, he will start obliterating other major cities off the map. Dubai, he says, was just the beginning.”
“And you want us to send in two actives to take him down?” Topher asked. “As uh…formidable opponents?”
“Got it in one, geekboy. We’re more than willing to arm your people with whatever they need, but the Mad Meteorologist specifically requested super heroes. Apparently he’s some kind of bizarro comic nerd gone odd.” Sawyer sighed and looked to Adelle, this time without leer, but sincerity.
“Look, if it were up to me, we’d bring out the F-22s and blow the hell out of this twerp’s house. Hell, he put his home address on the package sent to the UN. But apparently the UN does negotiate with terrorists, and holds a lot of pressure over us due to the recent events in Iraq, so now we do, too,” Sawyer’s frustration leaked into his words. “However, my superiors are gonna be damned before they let American soldiers die to this asshole. We figure you can make people better than our best super soldier anyway. Our crazy mad scientist has given us two weeks to execute his demands before the rest of the world falls to his demands.”
Awkward silence fills the room as Adelle ponders the situation, “Excuse me, Mr. Sawyer, but my two colleagues and I need to discuss the situation. We won’t be long so if you could please have a seat outside.” Adelle walks Mr. Sawyer to the door and shuts it quickly. Almost immediately, Topher threw himself at Adelle’s feet.
“Pleaaaaaaase oh please oh please oh please! Can we do this? ” he begs, “I may or may not have already created superhero personalities in my spare time, oh please.” His eyes are filled with unbridled hope and cornered, Adelle has to turn to Boyd for some reasoning.
“While my enthusiasm doesn’t quite match Topher’s, we have to look at what happens if we don’t cooperate. At best, they find someone else, and they shut us down completely. They probably won’t even let us restore actives’ memories in their haste. At worst, they fail to find someone else and the world ends. I’m not really seeing any option other than cooperation, Ms. DeWitt.”
“Your reasoning is solid, Boyd, and Topher’s keenness to participate has pretty much sold me on it. Let’s bring in Mr. Sawyer and address with him what kind of superheroes you have created for us, Topher. Quickly, before I realize what I’ve just said.”
-----------------------------------------------
Adelle DeWitt, Boyd Langton, Richard Sawyer and many representatives from other countries in the United Nations are gathered in the sitting area in DeWitt’s office, a few days later. There’s a tension set in the room, as the crowd awaits the presentation of the formidable combatants prepared by Topher. Topher himself enters the room to introduce the two heroes.
“Welcome everyone, to the reveal of planet Earth’s saviors. I’d like to thank Mr. Sawyer and Ms. DeWitt for giving me this opportunity, the Mad Meteorologist for being bug fuck crazy and threatening to end the world, and Sierra and Victor for being my lovely canvases. Ladies and gentlemen, I’d like to present to you Seraphim and Flashbang.”
A statuesque woman enters the room wearing an outfit of closely fitted Kevlar plating, leathers and a simple domino mask covering her Eastern looking eyes. Blond hair sits high on her head on her head in a tight pony tail. It isn’t until she shrugs her shoulders that the reason for her name becomes apparent. Gigantic wings unfurl behind her, made of some sort of metallic alloy. They gleam in the spotlights focused on her as she flexes and moves them with a natural grace. She pulls a sword from a scabbard on her hip that appears to be on fire and starts going through a graceful aikido routine showcasing her capabilities with the weapon. Topher takes this moment to start describing what she can do.
“Seraphim is an expertly trained close combat fighter with wings surgically attached. These wings are deadly sharp and made of an alloy that can survive temperatures up to 8000 degrees Fahrenheit, high impact events, and act as another means of destruction when necessary. She also wields a laser sword that unlike those girly light sabers, can do some serious damage. Seraphim is lethally fast and those wings can actually help her ‘fly’ in that she can glide from extremely high altitudes to her target location. We’ll probably drop Seraphim and Flashbang in tandem via that method.”
Flashbang takes that moment to make his entrance. The only similarity between the two heroes is their clothing, however. Flashbang takes the opportunity to show off a little, using a flurry of kicks and punches to exhibit his capabilities. Topher holds up his hand to pause Flashbang’s introduction.
“I’d ask our guests to now adorn the welding masks under your seats. Flashbang’s powers are a little bright, and we’d like everyone to leave here with eyes intact. We have surgically altered both Flashbang’s and Seraphim’s eyes to have internal retinal protection.”
Topher motions for Flashbang to continue when everyone has their visual protection in place. Flashbang takes a moment to ready himself and then proceeds with the demonstration. He snaps with his right hand and a flurry of light followed by a steady, extremely hot stream of fire exits his index finger.
“This is an arc welder! It’s handy for many situations, such as entering places in a somewhat covert manner, and for welding shut doors to prevent pursuers from following. Go ahead, Flashbang.”
With a twist of his wrist the welding beam is gone and a target appears behind him quickly. Flashbang turns and with a flick of his wrist downward a ball of flaming napalm launches itself. Fire explodes all over the target before adhering to the surface and burning the target down to it’s core.
“That is his, well uh, it doesn’t really have a name but it shoots fireballs that stick to and burn through things. Cool, right? One last thing, and you can remove your welding masks.” Flashbang extends a bit of wire from the pinky on his left glove and Topher continues, “This is a communications adapter. It’s wireless, but it can be adapted to upload information in pretty much any digital format in current and past use. He has what is basically a large capacity jump drive to store information in his suit, so he is the ultimate data retriever.”
Topher turns from the audience to his newly-minted heroes, “Thanks for the demo guys, we’ll get you your orders ASAP. Why don’t you wait outside while we work it out what it is that you’re needed for.” Seraphim and Flashbang nod to imply their agreement, and then walk out of the room. Topher starts speaking again after the door shuts. “In addition to what you’ve seen here as examples of their combat readiness, we’ve taken some liberties with programming. They are master military tacticians, proficient in several languages, and in taking a queue from the Spartans, deeply in love with one another. Their first priority is the mission, but seeing as these are volunteers we’d like to get back, they are pretty high on each other’s priority list as well. Any questions?”
Immediately, Sawyer’s hand shoots up, “What do we have to pay to get that technology, any of it, for the U.S. military?”
--------------------------
` Melvin worried in his mother’s basement. When he sent the package to the UN he really hadn’t been expecting them to actually reply with superheroes. When he received the missive from the UN explaining that they had in fact found formidable foes for him, Melvin panicked. It was even worse when they broke through his security- a chain-link fence with barbed wire at the top that the neighbors hated, and a righteously annoying Chihuahua named Itsy- without a hitch and parked outside his room’s steel plated door. The security camera he had set up by his door was lined on two people talking near the entrance with one another. Melvin held his other Chihuahua named Bitsy in his hand as he listened into their conversation.
“-thought there’d be more to this, babe,” the man says, “I mean, guards, nasty booby traps, something? All we got was a crappy fence and an obnoxious dog.”
The girl lowers her head in mock grief, “Poor Itsy, may he rest in charred little pieces. Look at it this way- at least our last mission before retirement is super easy. After this it’s wedding bells and…”
Melvin could feel the fury rising in his veins as he looked on at the two banter more. Make fun of his dog, will they? Well who needs Beijing anyway? He pulls his attention from the monitor and towards his machine. Which, to be honest, has been kinda on the fritz these days. Dubai was kind of an accident. Really, Melville is faced with a kind of serious problem, in that ever since the machine fell, he can’t exactly, y’know, control it. He was going to use the ridiculous sum of money to build the self-sufficient space station he had plans for when he decided to try this whole super villain thing. Every super villain needed a bitchin hangout after all. He moves to pick up the rogue weather machine but stops when he feels a sharp edge along the back of his neck. The damn monologuing gets me every time!
“You ought not touch that, mate,” a terse, Australian accented, female voice said. “My name is Seraphim. This is Flashbang and you’re going to tell him how to disarm your device.”
Melvin shakes his head, “I-I-I c-can’t do that for you, s-sister.”
The bladed edge pushes harder into his neck, “And why not?”
It’s Flashbang who replies, “Because it can’t be shut down,” he says, “Looking over it, it appears to be completely self-sustaining with the wonderforium, and it’s electrically charged. I can’t touch it to turn it off, even if he could tell us how.”
“Could we destroy it?” Seraphim asks.
“No,” Melvin says, “I-I mean, I g-guess you can, b-b-but the d-damage is d-done, s-sister, the world as we kn-now it is p-p-pretty m-m-much over.”
“You mean to say that you, Mr. I-live-in-Mom’s-basement-with-two-Chihuahuas actually succeeded in destroying the world?” Seraphim demands roughly. The blade pushes to the point of skin breaking. Melvin can feel the blood start to ooze down his neck, “You mean to say that you’re the reason why I won’t be able to marry the man I love? Or have children? Or grow old? This was our last mission you wormy little man! This was-“ he can feel the bladed edge pull away from neck and he braces himself for the impact he knows is coming. Tears start streaming down his face and his entire body shook in fear.
“Seraphim, wait, please,” Flashbang says, and for a moment, Melvin is filled with hope that they’ll let him live. “Let me do it.”
The next thing Melvin knows is pain. Hot and bright and searing through his flesh. He is alive only long enough to register that he can no longer feel Bitsy on his lap.
----------------------------------------------------
When the Kliply discovered Earth 1400 years later, and it was frozen solid, they were first uncertain that there was any life at all on the planet. They sent in a reconnaissance droid to see if the water on their planet was convertible into the substance the Kliply used as a food source. The reconnaissance droid found more than just water, but evidence of life abound. Abandoned buildings, vehicles that appeared to facilitate movement, and hundreds of different species were frozen completely in time in relatively clear ice.
The droid projected several images onto the wall for the Kliply leader, Fronsa, to examine. The images of despair and destruction tore at Fronsa’s heartstrings. The last image, and the one that haunts Fronsa to this day, was the image of a young woman with some sort of flying mechanism wrapped around herself and a male in tight embrace. The male had a finger lifted almost as if to say something. The ice had frozen their features so perfectly that Fronsa could see the aching anguish in their eyes as clear as it was on the day that their world ended. He could also see love.
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.
-Frost