The Puncherblog

Puncherblog UPDATE!!

2007-08-15T22:53:00.000-05:00

Jesus! It's been a long time since I've updated this thing.

Going on patrol is harder than ever because I've got my girlfriend living with me now. I have to wait until she's asleep to go on patrol, or I have to go while she's at work. Luckily I think beating Jiftofen scared any potential supervillains away for the time being. I've always had this paranoid delusion that all the supervillains in Indiana hang out together and they're all whispering about me.

"He took down Jiftofen! That guy had a BLIMP!"

"Yeah, better not mess with the Punchernaut!"

Man, that'd be so cool.

More about my girlfriend: I'm starting to lose the notion that she might be the Iris Pirate. At first it made sense, especially when the Iris Pirate started showing up in town after she moved back, but my girlfriend is always in bed when I get home from patrol, whether I saw the Iris Pirate that night or not. She can't be in two places at once...

But damned if the Pirate didn't start showing up when my girlfriend moved into town. I can't really shake it.

I'm sorry, friends, but I haven't gone on any adventures or anything. No supervillains. Even very few smalltime crooks. It's pathetic here.

I guess that's a good thing.

Even though I'm bored.

PUNCHERNAUT UPDATE!!

2007-08-14T09:42:00.000-05:00

Okay, I finally got the Jiftofen story out. Sorry it took so long, Puncherfans, but I've been so busy in the last month, I wouldn't be able to do the story justice.

The zeppelin crash-landed over on the Illinois side of the river in an abandoned field. There were no civilian casualties and the flight roster said that everybody but Jiftofen was arrested. Evidently it was a huge mess getting all those freaks into the backs of cars, and we were pulling police units down as far as Indianapolis to maintain them all. The feds even showed up! I didn't see any of it, except for on the news later that day once I got home.

I got some good press, too. Once again, I'm being hailed as a hero. Nobody knows Jiftofen was in town just to get me, so I guess I'm in the clear as far as that goes. The weird thing is, Jiftofen wasn't arrested, and his body wasn't found. Any of you familiar with your comic books knows that he's probably still alive and he'll show up again. Just like Dr. Doom. Just when the Fantastic Four thinks they got him, it was one of his damn Doombots.

My shoulder took almost three weeks to heal. Whatever he shot me with, it burned right through me. It didn't get infected, thank God. The Wabash is a filthy river, and I was scared of what I might catch, even with my superhuman immune system.

I took two of those three weeks off. I didn't even go on patrols. Finally I saw in the paper that everybody was wondering where I was, so I decided to go on patrol and let a few security cameras and civilians see me.

As far as breathing underwater goes, I did some experiments. I've now got gills on my neck. Luckily, when I'm not breathing with them, they kind of blend in with my skin and you can't see them unless you're really looking for them. I filled the bathtub while I was home by myself one day and laid down. It's incredible! It shouldn't make any sense, but I'm breathing underwater.

THROUGH MY NECK

The police are angrier at me than ever for doing their jobs for them. I love it.

In other news, in like five days I'm going to Wisconsin to pick up my girlfriend.

The girlfriend that I think might be the Iris Pirate.

She's moving in with me...

We'll see how that goes...

So until next time, Puncherfans, keep your eyes to the sky and your fists to the jaw of the unjust.

Or whatever.

I need a catchphrase.

Shatzi Von Jiftofen (Epilogue)

2007-08-14T09:28:00.001-05:00

I lost sigh of Jiftofen in the murky water. I turned to swim back to the surface, but something slammed into me. It was hot. I realized it was the engine from one of our planes. I tried to swim around it, but it was caught on my shirt.

I struggled and tried to rip my sleeve off, but it wouldn't come loose. I felt weak.

I've over-exerted myself. Transforming into a shark, time travel, transforming back, blowing up a zeppelin, crashing a Nazi biplane. I guess I'd just done too much in one day.

And the one good way to kill somebody that's bulletproof is to drown them.

I felt my arms go weak from lack of air.

I should have seen this coming.

I'm not a superhero. I'm just some punk kid from a planet far, far away, and even there nobody wanted me. I'm a menace to the authorities here on the planet where I live. And now, here in this polluted river, it's all over.

I'm through.

I thought back over all of my adventures. All of the ones that nobody even knows about. Fighting King Gator in the sewers with GURP-O.

I thought about the time Figbot and I wrestled gorillas on top of the apartment building where my best friend used to live.

I thought about the Iris Pirate and her eye of blue...

I thought about Professor Whimsey when he and I... Wait a minute.

Whimsey!!

What was it he told me?

I gasped.

Wait, I can gasp underwater?

My fingers push themselves through the water and I find on my neck three long slits, all of them sucking water in. There are three on the other side, too.

"Breathe with your neck."

If Whimsey was here, I'd kiss him.

Moments later, I'm crawling out of the river. I stop breathing with my neck and I make my way to the waiting crowd. They see me and they all start to cheer. I flash them my best superhero smile. I'm covered in mud and my shoulder is still bleeding, probably infected from that filthy water, but I feel great.

I look up into the sunny sky and I feel the heat on my flesh and I smile.

I'm still alive.

And with that thought in my head I rip up, up, up and away through the heavens, headed home.

Schatzi Von Jiftofen (Part 5)

2007-08-14T08:25:00.000-05:00

The Divine Art of the Punching Fist is a tough thing to learn.

You see, years ago, back in the ancient days before anything, fighting was invented here on Earth. The first form of fighting invented was punching.

Then came kicking, headbutting, scratching, biting, and about anything else you do in a fight.

With all these innovations in fighting, punching just got thrown in the mix for most people who fought.

But not with the Knights of the Punching Fist.

For them, punching was the only way to fight. They honed their punching skills and learned to do all things through their fists.

In short, nothing can stand in the way of a true master of the Divine Art of the Punching Fist. Entrapment, magic, disaster, nature, even death. It all just falls to the wayside.

I learned the Divine Art of the Punching Fist from Bijorik Baldursdóttir, just before I was banished from my home planet. He told me I learned faster than any other student he's ever taken on, and I'd learned more in my three years with him than anybody else had learned in a lifetime.

Even himself.

So, now, I'm faced with a problem. I'm miles above the city of Vincennes, surrounded by Nazis who are half-animals, and I'm in a steel coffin that will not only turn me into one of them, but will also make me a mindless zombie forced to fight for their cause to obliterate the human race and repopulate the Earth with real-life furries.

The Divine Art of the Punching Fist should only be used in dire circumstances.

If anybody can think of any circumstances more dire than mine, let me know.

I was holding my breath, and everybody outside knew it, "Ve'll just leave you in zhere until you haff to breaze, Chassit," Von Jiftofen told me, "It's inevitable. You vill be one of us..."

So I decided to bite the bullet and take care of the consequences later.

I took a breath.

The gas didn't smell particularly bad. It was actually kind of pleasant. A mixture between those old Strawberry Shortcake figurines and Play-Doh.

The thing I didn't like was the change I felt as soon as I took that first breath.

It started out as a mild irritation. By my second breath it was anger. By my third, it was rage. All of my bones seemed to liquefy with the fourth breath. Under all the anger and the rage and the pain of my bones rearranging themselves, I felt hunger. I was on my fifth breath when the hunger turned into this savage empty pit at the bottom of my stomach. I swung my arms and realized my fingers were all melting into one hard piece. All of the sneering faces outside the tiny window looked like prey. They were making me hungrier. I was ravenous. I wanted meat. I wanted blood. I wanted to rip into them with my teeth.

My teeth. I could feel them getting longer and pointing at the bottom. Another row was opening up behind the first row of teeth and my neck was expanding, absorbing my shoulders. I could hear myself screaming, but I wasn't scared. I was angry. It was a roar.

My muscles tensed and I felt stronger. That's when I noticed I was hitting the sides of the chamber I was in. That's when I noticed the faces outside were looking worried. That's when I noticed I was punching large holes in the sides of the chamber.

And the people outside looked absolutely...

Delicious.

My arm ripped another hole in the side of the tank I was in as I felt my eyes slide to the sides of my head. My nose was getting longer and pushing up, up, up to where my forehead should be.

"Gas masks!" I could hear everybody outside the chamber shouting, scrambling around.

With a few more well-placed rips at the metal around me, I was out. The red gas was everywhere, producing a thick fog in the room. Without thinking I grabbed the figure closest to me. It was another cat-man. I ripped into his throat with my new teeth and began devouring him.

"RELEASE THE MIND CONTROL GAS!" I could hear Jiftofen screaming, "UND OPEN FIRE ON HIM! DAT VILL ZLOW HIM DOWN!"

I tried to talk but all that came out were inarticulate growls and grunts. I threw the twitching body of my prey aside and lunged toward the source of the voice, moving like liquid.

That's when I realized what I was doing.

A superhero can't kill anyone.

I stopped dead in my tracks.

I just killed somebody... I... ate him? What have I become?

I fought down these new instincts and went back to my training. The Divine Art.

There's only one thing I can do to take this back, and it's risky.

And it may get me out of this mess.

I strode through the smoke in the room and I saw a figure dressed in black, cowering behind one of the computers.

"You're coming with me," I said as I grabbed him by his tie and drug him to his feet. I was growing accustomed to my new mouth. The back of my shirt ripped as a knife-like fin shot out of my spine.

"D-don't get hasty, Chassit," Jiftofen began, but I headbutted him with my new nose. It felt good.

"We're getting out of this." I said. "We're going back to where this all began."

"Vhat are you talking about!?" but it was too late. My fist was already moving through the air.

One of the most dangerous and most useful skills of the Divine Art of the Punching Fist is being able to punch through the fabric of time and space itself. The trick is to throw the punch before you ever even move your arm.

Easier said than done.

Luckily, I'd practiced.

As soon as I threw the punch, I felt the world around me suck away. The air was pushed from my lungs and everything exploded in violet light. I held onto Jiftofen as long as I could, then I let go, letting him spin through time.

This is so cool.

My body twisted, expanded, smashed down, imploded, spun, slammed against the walls of time itself, and I landed back in my body, a couple hours ago.

The thing with time travel is, if you go back to a time where you already exist, the body you used to travel through time with kills the body you're traveling to. You take your own place in time by killing yourself.

Pretty grisly, I know, but then you can relive past events and fix your mistakes.

I fell into my body just as I was saying, "You might want to issue a new order to your troops."

"And wha-, Wait, what happened to you? You look like... a shark?"

"OPEN FIRE!" I say and I throw my fists (fins) forward. Even now then, I can feel myself changing again. The fin on my back starts to melt. I can see my fingers splitting out of the ends of the fins I used to have. The Nazis in front of me fall back under the wall of air I created and I fall forward, sliding across the floor for the second time on my belly. Again, I flipped over and kicked the shaggy dog in the crotch. Again I swiped his gun.

This time, I took no hostages. I opened fire on the pile of missiles over in the corner.

The explosion was deafening.

The heat robbed the air of all oxygen and I felt my lungs being assaulted, but still I was changing back into my old self again.

I was thrown off of my feet, directly through the wall behind me. The flames licked over my clothes, lighting my shirt, my hair, my jeans, my shoes, everything. I let it carry me down the hallway I was lead through earlier at gunpoint and I landed, just as I knew I would, on the control deck.

I grabbed the door frame and let the fire whip past me into the control room. I could hear the instrument panels shattering and breaking. The glass in the windows exploded outward and I could feel the wind from outside rushing in.

Then, except for the sound of the fire alarms in the ship, everything was quiet.

I stood up and put the fires out on me. God, I looked horrible.

But I was human again.

At that moment, the door to Jiftofen's office swung open. There he stood, clutching his throat and gasping. Time travel is pretty rough on those of us without super powers. He had blood dribbling off of his muzzle and out of his nose. One of his eyes looked like somebody had tried to push it out from behind. His clothes were ripped and stained with his blood. One of his arms looked broken. "Vhat... Did... You... DO!?"

He rushed at me and I was ready to strike, but he dashed past me into another hallway. I chased off after him. Jeez! He was fast!

I found myself in a bay full of old German biplanes. All the soldiers inside looked confused. They were all looking toward an open bay at the far end and I saw Jiftofen getting into one of the planes and starting the engine. "Oh no you don't!" I started to say, but he was too fast. He was already out the bay door.

I have no idea how to fly a biplane, so I think it may have been a stupid idea to jump in one and press the little switch that said "IGNITION" but you know... some of my best ideas come without me even thinking of them.

I raced down the short runway as the guards in the hangar opened fire on me. Bullets dinged off the side of the plane. One hit me in the neck and I shrugged it off like a mosquito bite. I flew out the bay door and cut across the sky, toward Jiftofen. I had no idea what to do once I caught up to him, but he couldn't get away.

You know, flying one of those things for real isn't too different from doing it in a video game. I was just starting to have fun when I lost sight of Jiftofen in a cloud and heard the guns of his plane firing.

There was a headset on the panel in front of me. It was squawking. I put it on and heard Jiftofen in mid-sentence: "--losing altitude!? PULL UP DUMMKOPF! Vhat do you mean zhere is no control left!? VE ARE ZE MASTER RACE! He's NOSSING!"

"Hey, pooch!" I said over the headset, "Looks like your hot air balloon is toast!"

"YOU! You are... Zis is... FOR ZE FOURTH REICH!"

And at that moment Jiftofen burst out of the cloud I lost him in, headed right for me, both of the guns mounted on the front of his plane blasting at me. White hot, they ripped through my propellers, the cockpit of my plane, and one even ripped right through my shoulder. I clenched my teeth and flew through the plane, my engines roaring.

We were headed right for each other. Jiftofen dipped low, trying to avoid me, but I was falling anyway. I pointed the plane down and went into a tail-spin, but I was headed right for him.

"NO! NOOO!" I could hear him screaming, but it was too late. We were locked in the middle of an aerial game of chicken, and I knew that I wasn't going to back down. I didn't open fire. I didn't have to. We collided in air.

Somehow, one of our gas tanks must have lit, because I felt heat throwing me from the cockpit. I was sailing through the air, ripping through the steel pieces of airplane, even then readying my arm for the blow to come. My left hand, the one attached to the arm that had been shot, grabbed Jiftofen in mid-air by the front of his shirt. My right hand came crashing down into his jaw with brutal force. It hurt my knuckles.

"I win, you God damn mutt," I snarled at him.

"Mein Gott..." He gasped, holding his broken jaw in his hand. "Ve're falling."

"Yes."

"You... destroyed mein plane..."

"Yes."

"Und mein zeppelin..."

"Yes."

And then we landed in the Wabash River.

Schatzi Von Jiftofen (Part 4)

2007-08-11T15:39:00.000-05:00

I throw up in my mouth a little bit.

"Excuse me?"

"I zaid zat Furs are ze Master Race." He steeples his fingers (and the little doggie toes on his paw hand) in front of his nose. I don't know whether to laugh or cry.

Half an hour after a guard took my clothes away, they came back. They were full of holes, but clean. Cleaner than before I put them on this afternoon. They were even still warm from the dryer, in fact. If I can say anything for these guys, they're efficient.

After I had my tie back on, the captain of the ship, the Fuhrer, began explaining to me his mission in life.

"Human beings are lazy, ugly, und uncontrollable!" he was shouting, slamming his doggie paw on his desk. "Zey are weak! Zey cannot hear, zmell, or do anysing as efficiently or as perfectly as ve can!"

"So... you decided to base your movement on one of humanity's worst crimes?"

"Ze Nazis of Vorld Var Two vere misguided, but zey vere efficient in vhat zey did. Und remember, it vas instituted by human beings," His lips parted in a smile. It would have been cute if he was a regular dog instead of some freak in jack boots, "Ve are zuperior to humans in every vay."

"Ve vill not fail."

"Ugh," I said.

"You zeem to be havink zome trouble acczepting zis, Chassit. You yourself are not a human being. You, too, are zuperior," He stands and walks around his desk. His hands (well, hand and paw) land on my shoulders, "Dat is vhy ve suck you out, Chassit. To help us."

"In your dreams," I said and shook his hands (well, hand and paw) off of me. "I've sworn to protect those weak, and probably inherently evil beings, not wipe them out."

"Dat's vhat I was afraid of hearing..." At that moment, the door to his office opened. "Take him to ze Transformation Chamber."

I didn't put up a fight. If I did, he could level Vincennes. I had half a dozen guards around me, all of them pointing those little ugly submachine guns at me. I let them take me away down several unimpressive corridors in the ship. Nobody rushed me. Jiftofen walked in front of me with his hands behind his back. Nobody said anything.

The more we walked, the dimmer the lights in the ship got, and I had a feeling that we were a long way from the office where Jiftofen laid his cards on the table. At the end of the hallway we were in was a door marked with a biohazard symbol. Around the door was that all-too-familiar black black and yellow striped pattern that I always associate with trouble. Jiftofen himself opened the door and I was ushered inside.

The room was round. Perfectly round. The walls were lined with control panels and blinking lights. There were no windows and the only lights in the room were around the edges, leaving the center of the room in darkness except for at the center.

In the center of the room was a round bay of lights shining down on a steel container with one glass window in the door. It reminded me of those tiny submarines they explored the Titanic with, or maybe a rocket ship in an old science fiction movie. It was about seven feet tall and the door in the front was open. The insides of the steel container was lined with tiny holes.

I was looking at a one-man gas chamber.

"You look vorried, Chassit," Jiftofen said. He wasn't looking at me, but his grip tightened on his riding crop. I could almost smell the excitement coming from him, thick and acrid like BO.

"You zee, every living human has an animal locked inzide of him. Zis device, of my own design, releazes dat animal, und transforms him into," he turned to look at me finally and swept his doggie paw down his torso as if he was selling a new washing machine to me, "one of us."

"Into ze chamber!" he barked, and a rough hand fell on my neck.

Again, I didn't put up a fight. I was forced inside and the door was closed. I barely had any room to move.

I would have put up a fight if I'd heard the next words Jiftofen said before the door was locked.

"Alzo, zere is a mild sedative in ze gas ve'll be transforming you with," he smiled at me through that tiny window, "It vorks as a mind control agent."

And with those words, a mildly reddish smoke began leaking out of the holes in the walls.

I held my breath and once again wondered what I'd gotten myself into.

Schatzi Von Jiftofen (Part 3)

2007-08-11T13:46:00.000-05:00

I'm sitting in a chair with my elbows on my knees. I've got a dead anthropomorphic dog's blood dripping off of the end of my tie, pooling in a tiny puddle on the floor. Around me, chubby girls with felt cat ears on their head and other anthropomorphic dogs, skunks, cats, and pigs walk around me, chattering in either English, broken English, German, or broken German. All of them are wearing brown uniforms with red armbands.

I'm on a ship high above the fair city I've sworn to protect. It appeared here a few hours ago while I was at work. As far as I can tell, it opened fire on several buildings in the Main Street area.

And all of this was just to get at me.

I'm a popular guy with furry Nazis.

My skin is tingling all over. A little over a dozen of these creeps opened fire on me with submachine guns about 15 minutes ago. I can already see bruises developing on my arms and I can see bumps on my shoulders. Big bee-sting-looking welts. They're so fresh and so tender that even a gentle breeze sets them on fire.

This sucks.

There are four guards standing around me, each of them facing me, each of them with a machine gun pointed right at my head.

If there's one thing I hate more than being shot, it's being shot in the head with machine guns.

So I'm playing it cool.

There's an anthropomorphic buffalo standing between the two guards in front of me. "Can I offer you a drink?" he asks.

"Piss off," I tell him, and I spit on the floor, right into the puddle of the dead sheepdog's blood.

"Very well," he says. I don't look at him, but I can tell he's smiling. I'd like more than anything to wipe that smile off his face, but on the way up to the command deck, he explained to me that there are at least a dozen soldiers posted throughout the ship with their finger on a button that will reduce Vincennes to dust and ashes. He may be bluffing, but I don't think I'll take the chance.

Besides, they've piqued my curiosity.

A door on the other side of the command deck opens. "The captain will see you now," Says a feminine voice. I look up in time to see a fox in a black uniform looking in my direction before she disappears into the room she just came out of.

"To your feet, Punchernaut," the buffalo says, but I'm already standing up. I'm eager to get this over with. Two machine guns push into my shoulder blades, not unkindly, and lead me to the door. Two guards stay in front of me. The buffalo brings up the rear.

Through the door is a small anteroom. Stationed in the center of the room is a reception desk. Foxy Lady is motioning to a red leather door beyond the desk. "Right this way."

The guards in front of me stand aside and the buffalo opens the door. They all follow me inside.

The first thing I notice in the office is the dark figure silhouetted in front of a tremendous picture window that's looking out over Vincennes. The next things I notice are the short, cropped, triangular ears on top of the figure's head, sticking almost comically out from the sides of a short black cap.

The figure stands tall and proud in its black uniform, hands clasped behind its back. One hand, I see, looks deformed at first, but then I realize it's a dog's paw. Clutched in the other hairy, but relatively normal hand is a black riding crop.

The figure speaks in a deep, thick voice that for some reason reminds me of chocolate. "Leave us."

"But mein Herr --"

"Leave us," the voice is still calm, smooth, almost hypnotic, but this time there's a sharp edge on the words.

"Jawohl," the buffalo and the four armed guards say at once. They exit the room and close the door.

The figure remains silent. He stands rigid and strong, more like a statue than a man, or whatever these things are. The authority in the room is almost palpable. My eyes wander as I think of what to say. There are framed portraits all over the walls. The majority of them are marching brownshirts, screaming Hitlers, and army tanks. Others are maps and battle plans. Others are of various animals. The figure stands on the opposite side of a wide mahogany desk covered in a lacquer so thick and so clear the objects on top appear to be floating an inch or two above the surface.

"From up here," the figure finally says begins. His accent is so thick it gets jammed up in my ears and I have to let it sink in slow to understand him, "Your little town is very beautiful, Chassit."

I don't say anything. Words fail me. How did he know my name?

"You're very quiet," I can hear him smiling, "Didn't sink I'd know dat, did you? Vould you prefer I call you by your Earth name?"

My throat is dry. I manage to croak out, "No. Punchernaut is fine."

"I much prefer Chassit," he says this conversationally. He's still not looking at me, and it's driving me insane, "I've met many people in my life, Chassit, und none ever had such an interestink name..."

"Hm." The shock starts wearing off and I get bored.

"Vhat does it mean?"

"Nineteen," I tell him.

"Very interestink..."

All right, the shock is gone. I've had enough.

"Listen, bub," I begin, "I'm not here to play your little namby-pamby Nazi wargames. I'm here to send you and your glee club a-packin'."

He just chuckles.

"Shall I give ze order to level zis beautiful city? It vould be a shame..."

"It'd be a real damn shame if I sent your flea-bitten ass flying out that window," and I leap across the desk, my elbow cocked back, ready to send him on the ride of his life, when suddenly the unthinkable happens.

I don't even see him move. I feel a strange heat around my wrist, tight as a vice. He's facing me now, and I'm staring into the deep black eyes of a German Shepard. "Not zo fast," he coos. He twists my arm and I'm facing away from him. He's got me in a classic half nelson, and believe it or not, it hurts like hell.

"I could zmell your anger a mile a way," venom drips off of each syllable. The accent makes it worse, "Und I could feel ze air movink around you as you moved to attack me. You are very predictable, Chassit."

"Leggo of me you mutt," I gasp as I wrench my arm away. I'm just strong enough to do that, and I think it surprised him. That makes two of us.

"Are zere any more ztupid ideas going on in zat little head of yours, Chassit?"

If I could kill with a glare, I think this would be the one to do it. I'd be standing over a crumpled, dead, Nazi German shepard right about now. "I guess not."

"Vould you giff me a chanze to explain myself?"

"Yes."

"Zen haff a seat," He gestures with his paw toward a high-backed chair on the other side of his desk.

"I'd rather stand."

"Nonzense. Ve may be here a little vhile."

"All right, fair enough. But first you have to wash my shirt."

"Of course."

"Get the bloodstains out of my tie, too."

"Of course."

"Then we'll talk."

"Of course."

I pull off my tie and white shirt and lay them on the desk. The blood's already dried on my black t-shirt and wristbands, so I let it go.

I sit and wait to see what's next...

Schatzi Von Jiftofen (Part 2)

2007-08-11T12:35:00.000-05:00

BOOM! The air around me shakes as the redirected missile makes contact with the blimp. It may have shaken, but it could have been my imagination.

I'm hovering in air, waiting for another attack. I must have really surprised them.

So up, up, and away!

I'm tearing through the air now at an almost offensive speed. I feel like Superman.

WHOOF the air around me pressurizes around me and I land on the tread plate surface of the blimp's interior. It's dead quiet.

All around me, there are figures in brown uniforms. All of them have stopped what they're doing to turn and look at me.

All of them have a short, mean-looking machine gun on a strap over their shoulder.

And most of them... are... animals?

The one closest to me is about six feet tall. There's a hole in the back of his pants and a long cat-like tail twitches nervously in the air. Furry hands slowly clench into fists and then go limp again. Yellow eyes stare back into mine and a pink nose in the center of its face twitches almost imperceptibly. Slowly its cloven mouth splits open, revealing tiny, white, perfect, and sharp teeth. The teeth of a carnivore.

"REEEAOOOOWWWW" it says as it makes a drop for its machine gun.

I can't say I'm not surprised. It takes me a moment to react. I feel the air light on fire as I instinctively dodge gunfire. Behind me, something explodes and I see a shatter of sparks out of the corner of my eye.

A guttural voice voice roars over the machine gun fire, "YOU IDIOT! Our orders are to take him alive!!"

Another shot rings out and the Cat Man falls dead, a smoking hole in his forehead. I spin toward the source of the voice and I see a buffalo's head staring back at me. It's wearing a black uniform with a black trenchcoat. He's got a smoking Luger in his hand. Or hoof. I can't tell what it is. There's an enormous hump on its back.

Jesus Christ.

"Now, now, Punchernaut..." the buffalo says. "We've been expecting you."

"Oh have you?"

Behind him are two fat girls in Nazi uniforms. One is wearing a headband with felt cat ears attached to the top. She swipes at me and whispers sinisterly, "Nyaaooh..." The other one hisses. They're both pointing disturbingly black machine guns directly at me.

"It's the whole reason we're here, dear, dear Punchernaut," the buffalo says.

"And you expect me to come along quietly?"

"Well, seeing as how you're outnumbered..." he whistles through his teeth, which I must assure you, is a sight to see. Whistling buffalo men. What next?

In response to the whistle, I hear the clattering of at least 20 people arming their submachine guns and I see about a half dozen behind the buffalo and the catgirls pointing them my direction. Three of these half dozen are also animals. One more cat and two dogs. One has a black circle around his eye like the dog from the Little Rascals. The other three are humans. Two skinny girls wearing cat ears and one dopey, chubby boy with a skunk tail attached to his uniform pants.

What in the hell have I gotten myself into?

"Are you guys... furries?"

Everyone in the room gasps. The buffalo spits, "Swine hound! How dare you use that word!?"

Swine hound? I think he means schweinhund. For a Nazi, this guy needs to brush up on his German.

"Furries? Or guys?"

Everyone gasps again.

"We are not... I can barely bring myself to say it... FURRIES!!" The word erupts from his mouth and everyone in the engine room groans. "We are FURS!"

"Um." I say.

"Still your vile tongue before you insult us further!" a voice from behind barks. Literally barks. I spin around and it's another dog, this one in a black uniform to match the buffalo's. This one is a shaggy sheep dog with disquietingly human eyes. His tongue lolls out after we stare at each other a few seconds and he pants quietly. I turn back to the buffalo.

The buffalo speaks: "Enough! Enough of this! Punchernaut, come with us."

"I hate to tell you how to do your job, Herr Buffalo," I said, "But you might want to issue a new order to your troops."

"Oh, Punchernaut? And what would that be?"

"Open fire," and before he can respond, both of my fists shoot forward like lightning. So fast and so hard I get windburn on my knuckles. I push the air like an invisible wall and all six of the critters sitting in front of me fall backwards. I hear noses smashing under the pressure of the air and the smell of blood comes to me.

Oh, man! This is going to be AWESOME!

The sound of submachine gun fire erupts behind me, deeper. I'm moving so fast everything around me seems to be going in slow motion. I feel a few slugs rip through my shirt, but they never touch me. I land face, first on the floor, catching myself with my fists. I'm grinning like a lunatic as instrument panels in front of me erupt in white light. The buffalo is screaming "CEASE FIRE YOULL TAKE THE WHOLE SHIP DOWN" but I doubt the gunners can hear over the commotion.

My hands slide under me and I shove with both arms, sliding across the steel floor backwards on my belly. One good push and I'm right under the feet of the SS Dog behind me. I spin around and grin up at him as he looks down at me, horrified. "I hope, for my sake, you're not fixed, Rover." and I drive the heel of my Converse up where his legs meet in the middle.

He folds like a napkin and I snatch his gun. I can punch harder than a bullet ever can, but this is faster, and I'm after destroying equipment at this point.

The other gunners don't know what to do. I've got their commanding officer on top of me, and I get to my feet, dragging him up with me. I push the submachine gun under the Shaggy Dog's chin. Everybody freezes.

"Cease fire!" the buffalo yells. He's finally getting to his feet. Or hooves. I can't tell. He's wearing jack boots.

"Yeah, cease fire, alla you Kraut bastids!" I'm high on adrenaline. I start laughing, "Point those peashooters elsewhere or I'm gonna fill Biko here fulla lead, see!"

"You misunderstand, Punchernaut," the Buffalo Bill says, "I was merely concerned about more damage coming to our instruments. Herr Morgenstern is secondary to our mission."

"Open fire."

I hate being shot.

So bad.

Especially by submachine guns.

Herr Morgenstern liquefies in my arms and the bullets rip through him and into me. I begin screaming and I lose my hold on the gun I swiped. It skitters across the floor as hot blood seeps into my shirt. I fall to my knees and start scrambling across the floor as more bullets drive into me, ripping my shirt in some places, bouncing off in others, but bruising everywhere. I'm yelling a thousand curses as the Bill orders a cease fire. My hands are sticky and slippery with warm blood.

What have I gotten myself into?

"Now, Punchernaut, you have an innocent life on your hands," Buffalo Bill sneers. "Shall we lose any more of our men, or will you come quietly?"

"You drive a hard bargain, Bill," I pull myself up off the floor and almost slip in Herr Morgenstern's blood. I'm going to need to buy a new shirt.

"Der Fuhrer awaits us on the command deck," Buffalo Bill says, "And he's very anxious to meet you."

"Lead the way."

I've got a bad feeling about this.

Schatzi Von Jiftofen (Part 1)

2007-07-12T22:16:00.000-05:00

Being a superhero is REALLY hard work. Being superhuman, though, when you're not being a superhero is almost as bad.

I haven't updated in a long time, and I'm sorry friends. I'm about to go into my biggest bust on a supervillain yet, just to make it up to you.

Anyways, the reason I haven't been updating this thing is I got sort-of-kind-of promoted at work. Get this: I've got the JOB of our old night manager. I've got the PAY of our old night manager. I've got the RESPONSIBILITY of our old night manager, but I don't have the TITLE of night manager.

This gets us back to my first point. Being superhuman is HARD when you're trying to hide it. As a superhero, hell, I'm supposed to be! But as just a schlub who's ALMOST a night manager at a hotel, I'm supposed to be just pulling a paycheck.

See, my job is to set up and tear down the banquet rooms here at the hotel and make sure everything's set up. Now, a normal guy can carry like three or four of the chairs for banquets at a time pretty comfortably. I could probably lift 100 of them. The catch is, if I'm carrying six stacks of 8 chairs each, three on each arm, and somebody walks in, they're like "HES A FREAK" and I get fired and ousted and my enemies go after my family. It's the whole Spider-Man thing. So I have to pace myself and use dollies and things. It really sucks and makes the job really tedious.

The good news is, unlike when I'm working front desk here at the hotel, or when I'm the Punchernaut, I can listen to music on my iPod while I work.

That's why I missed the explosions.

They were all the way downtown, so of course the ground didn't shake. I didn't know about it until I got off two hours later.

"What do you think of those attacks downtown?" That's what my boss asked me as I walked into the office to clock out.

"Attacks?"

"Yeah, that blimp!"

"Blimp!?"

"With the Nazis!"

"NAZIS!?"

I clocked out and walked as fast as I could out to my car. I could see the blimp to the south, right about where I last fought Willie. I got my uniform and walked as fast as I could to the dumpsters. I got into the dumpster as fast as I could and changed. Then I took off for downtown.

I took my car, and scoped the news radio on the way there. That's one thing I love about my superhero costume. It's just a white shirt and tie. If I have my glasses on and my eyepatch off, I just look like a guy in a tie driving his car. I used to make fun of the whole Superman/Clark Kent thing, but it works surprisingly well. Hell, I even go with contacts sometimes. It's all in the eyepatch.

Anyway, the radio. That's where I heard the broadcast I mentioned in my last entry. This is going to be so damn cool. I'll be fighting Nazis just like Captain America! And what's more American-Hero than fighting Nazis?

So I ditch my car a few blocks away. Sure enough, there's a big Swastika on the side of the blimp. It was so huge I couldn't see the sun and half of the downtown area was covered in its silhouette. I was pumped. I jumped in the air a few times, trying to fly, but it wasn't working. I needed an audience.

So naturally, I just threw myself in the thick of things.

SWAT teams were posted all around the Main Street area, and all the guys in their Kevlar vests and riot helmets were standing around. "How the hell do we fight a goddamn blimp?" I heard one mutter. That was right before he saw me. Then he said something along the lines of "Oh shit..."

I heard shotguns being cocked and saw them being pointed in my direction. I ignored it, though, because there was some reluctance. The TV news crews were everywhere, and just like the shotguns, the cameras were all pointed on me. Time to be the stoic hero.

I surveyed the area. A big smoking hole in the old Showplace 3 Cinema to my left, another one in the street in front of the funeral home. I tucked my hands into my pockets and looked at the blimp, then over to the smoke rising up over by the Old National Bank building.

The police had set up a perimeter, and despite the fact that they'd issued an evacuation warning, droves of citizens had flocked to the area, standing behind the yellow "POLICE LINE" saw horses. Every eye was on me. I could feel their gaze tingling over my body like electricity.

This is going to be awesome.

"Punchernaut! Get your hands where I can see them!" A trembling voice coming through a bull horn.

"Take a flying leap," I spat. "I've pulled your fat out of the fryer more times than I can count and I'm about to do it again."

There was a bay open on the bottom of the blimp. I guess that'd be the best way to go in.

"I- You ass hole!" the police captain said, putting the bull horn down on the hood of his squad car, falling silent.

"Just leave this to the professionals," I wiped my hands off on my jeans. "Okay... here we go." I straightened my tie.

I hatch a plan in my head. First step, fly. Second step, land inside that bay on the bottom of the blimp. Third step, beat everyone inside up.

Sometimes with things this big, it's best to have no plan at all.

And with that thought in my head, I took off, ripping through the sky with my tie flapping in the wind. A cheer rose from the spectators below, lifting me higher and faster toward the blimp. It got bigger.

Then bigger.

Then bigger.

And about that time I realized how immense it was, and how high I was flying.

My God, I thought, I can't see anything but that blimp.

And then, a tiny white line shot out of that bay I was headed for.

A white line that grew into a white cylinder.

The white cylinder was leaving a blue-gray trail of smoke.

"Oh shit, a rocket!" I spun through the air and grabbed hold of it. I was being pulled down, down, so fast the wind was hurting my cheeks. My fingers dug into the steel sides of the rocket, my thumb digging into the middle of a sloppily painted swastika. My feet dug into the fins on the back and I kicked. The rocket upturned and flew right back at the blimp.

Direct hit. Just at the lip of the bay. Showers of smoldering metal sail past me and chunks of debris land in my hair. Another cheer from below, so far away now.

God, this is going to be awesome.

If they didn't already know I was coming, they do now.

Schatzi Von Jiftofen (Prelude)

2007-07-02T20:53:00.000-05:00

Music to my ears. Dig the newscast:

"A dark cloud has fallen over the city. A dirigible displaying a German Swastika on the side entered Vincennes airspace and machine guns opened fire on the downtown area. Citizens were given an evacuation order.

"Police are baffled and have no idea how to respond.

"What hope does the city of Vincennes have?

"Where is the Punchernaut!?"

I'm right here, baby.

Don't worry.

Totally Whimsical

2007-06-20T09:13:00.000-05:00

Being a small-town superhero sucks.

I haven't posted in a long time, Puncherfans. This is because there has been no crime whatsoever that has deserved my attention in the past FOREVER.

One day, out of costume, I stopped a fight between a bunch of fifth graders. Two big bullies with cigarettes picking on some dumb looking kid. I pulled up in my car, pulled the cigarettes out of the bullies' mouths and flicked them into the dirt and told them to beat it. The kid I saved ran away in the confusion.

Some people have got no damn gratitude.

In fact, no crimes have gone on AT ALL, but finally something I think might be worthwhile happened the other night.

I was on patrol, sitting on top of the bank building that got robbed in my last update. I was eating some peanut butter cheese crackers I'd stolen from my father's house and listening to the police scanner when I heard this... wail.

"....aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaAAAAA"

What the hell is that?

I stood up and started looking around. It was hard to get a fix on where it was coming from.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA"

Jesus Christ! How annoying!

Maybe it's coming from behi--

"AAAAAAAAAAAAGGAA--"

And right then, as I turned around to see what was behind me, Professor Whimsy, caught in a strong breeze, slammed into me at top speed. He bounced off of me and floated away like a soap bubble before landing daintily on the cement roof of the bank building.

I, on the other hand, was staggering backwards, taken by surprise. My heels backed out over th edge of the bank building and suddenly, all the weight in my body was pushed into the balls of my feet, my toes, and then I fell six stories to the parking lot below, leaving a good crack in the concrete.

"You ASS HOLE!" I yelled once I got my breath back. With one good leap I was back up on top of the bank building.

"Oh dear me!" Whimsy said. He was wearing one of those stupid velvet suits he always wore. His top hat was on sideways and he was stuffing long, puffy curls of his hair back into it. Think Willy Wonka with a black Jew-fro and little Ben Franklin glasses. "How rude, yes, quite, how INCONSIDERATE of me!"

"I've got half a mind to give you a black eye, you son of a bitch. What's the big idea?"

"Sir Punchernaut, I can't apologize enough!" He finished stuffing his hair back into his top hat and then pulled the hat off again, giving a low bow. "Gracious me, but you know how it is! Traveling on the wind and all that!" He stood up and looked me in the eye.

The next thing I knew, he was holding his jaw, a thin line of blood trickling down his chin.

Oh, right.

One of Whimsy's powers is making you relive your fondest childhood memory any time you lock eyes with him.

I must have relived one of my first fights.

This happened last time I met him, too.

"I didn't mean to do that," I told him, rubbing my knuckles. "Even though you did deserve it."

I do have to admit, though, I did feel pretty good.

"Oh, Punchernaut! It's been too long." He pulled his hat back on and then picked a tooth up off the ground. "Only one knocked out this time, I see! Well!" He flipped it off his thumb and caught it right in the gap where I knocked it out. I swear to God, his tooth sighed with relief as it sunk back down into his gums. "That's how it goes."

"You all right?"

"I always am, Chassit." He smiled at me, and sure enough, the blood on his teeth was gone and the tooth I knocked out was safely back in place.

God this guy creeps me out.

I never told him my real name, either, and this is the first time he's ever called me by it.

But, as with the last time I ran into Whimsy, I decided to just let it go.

Asking Whimsy questions was just asking for trouble.

If you ask me, he just likes the sound of his own voice too much.

"Last time we met, Chassit, you weren't wearing that dreadful thing on your face." He pointed to my eyepatch. "They say eyes are windows to the soul. Have troublesome boys been hurling rocks through the windows of your condemned soul?"

"No, last time I had my bionic eye in, I was in street clothes, and you almost blew my cover, Whimsy."

"Oh right! Again, I can't apologize enough, of course!"

"It's fine. Look, I've got other things I need to be doing," which was a lie. "What do you want?"

"Want? I want nothing, Sir Punchernaut, Sir Chassit of Iceland. I go where the wind deems my presence necessary. You know how I operate more well that most, I suspect. I've come here with some warning for you."

"A warning?"

"Yes, or advice, or some such. Divination has never been my strong suit, I'm afraid. Of all the things a Professor is good at, he must have at least one at which he fails. Where did I put that note? I wrote it down so I wouldn't forget, and of course, I forgot where I've put it." He was digging through his pockets, his walking stick tucked under one arm.

That's when I noticed the wind picking up.

"Whimsy, you better hurry."

"Oh dear, you're right!" Panic was creeping into his voice. More frantically than ever, he was digging through his pockets, throwing things out. A deck of cards, a brown frog, a box of Mike & Ikes, a copy of the Necronomicon.

"Come on, Hurry!" Somehow, Whimsy has a way of imposing his feelings on those around him. I was starting to panic, too, even though 30 seconds ago I couldn't give a damn about this warning he had for me.

Suddenly, with a flourish, he produced a sheet of paper, yellowed and ancient. "Aha!" he said, "Here!"

I took it from him. It was a recipe for a truth potion.

"What am I going to do with this?"

No sooner had the words left my mouth than his feet left the ground. He was being pushed along by the wind, waving his walking stick in the air above him "ON THE BACK, PUNCHERNAUT! ON THE BACK!"

I flipped the paper over, but was interrupted by Whimsy's frantic screams as the wind carried him off.

"BE WARY, PUNCHERNAUT! AND REMEMBER! BREATHE THROUGH YOUR NEEEEEeecck...."

And that's just when he was out of earshot and out of sight.

I flipped the paper over.

"PUNCHERNAUT BEWARE THE DOGS OF WAR! Or more accurately, the Dog of War. He will come upon you from above, threatening to steal our freedom to be."

And below that, in smaller letters:

"Who could have thought a SHARK could defeat an EAGLE."

And in even smaller letters below that:

"Or was it BEAGLE?"

I should have known.

Gibberish.

And "Breathe with your neck"?

Give me a break.

I go back to my crackers and the police scanner.

It's been a long month.

BANK ROBBERY!!

2007-05-17T20:52:00.000-05:00

Oh yes! OH YES! I was off yesterday and a bank robbery came in over the police scanner!

Even better: It was a CRIMINAL ORGANIZATION doing the robbery!

There's a group here in town of two-bit thugs called The Bad Guys. They run around town wearing stupid cartooney burglar suits. You know what I mean. Black mask, black pants, striped shirt.

They were hitting the Old National Bank on 2nd street. Of course, I got off my butt and got into action!

I don't think I've ever made it downtown so fast. The cops were surrounding the building, yelling through megaphones, just like in the movies. I was so freakin' jazzed! One of the Bad Guys was hanging out the front door of the bank with a shotgun pointed under the chin of a little blonde lady. "I'll send one of 'em out every time one of your cars takes off!" he was yelling.

Oh sweet! It's a bank robbery GONE WRONG that's turned into a HOSTAGE SITUATION!

The police didn't even notice me until I used one of the cop cars as a springboard and dove through one of the office windows on the second floor.

I love the sound of breaking glass!

In the office was a scared, balding man. The bank's president. He was dusted with broken glass from my grand entrance. "Oh, God! It's you!" he said.

"It's me!" I said as I rushed out of his office.

Oh awesome, a BANK ROBBERY HOSTAGE SITUATION! That's all I could think!

I rushed downstairs and came out into the lobby.

This is where things get hairy.

In the room were maybe 10 Bad Guys armed with sawed off shotguns. A few of them were holding old-fashioned tommy guns. Half of them were looking up at the ceiling. They heard me coming in. The others were looking out the windows because the cops were screaming "Punchernaut, stand down! This area is under control!"

About that time, one of the guys running crowd control wisened up and saw me. He pointed his tommy gun at me and opened fire.

Have I mentioned how bad I hate getting shot?

The only thing I hate more than getting shot is getting shot with a machine gun. It's like when you get in the shower and it's too hot. You sort of panic and start trying to get away from the hot water and cower in the back of the shower until you calm down enough to reach out and turn the heat down.

BUDDA BUDDA BUDDA BUDDA BUDDA

"AAH! AAAH OH SHIT OW OW OW!" and I'm scampering across the lobby of the bank, swatting my hands at the bullets. One jams the ring finger on my left hand and breaks the nail down to the middle almost. OW!

"GET IM BOYS!" one of the Bad Guys shouts and then they're ALL shooting at me. The poor patrons in the bank cower against the walls with their hands over their heads and I jump back where the tellers are cowering under their counter.

I've got about 100 holes in my shirt and bruises are already forming under some of them. "Son of a bitch!" I shout. The Bad Guys cease fire and I can hear them coming my way.

One of the tellers is looking at me, terrified. "Well..." she says, "Do something!"

I frown at her.

There's no pleasing some people.

And I'm taking getting shot by 10 guys with tommy guns and shotguns a lot better than she would have.

And with that on my mind I jump over the counter and into the spray of gunfire.

The tommy guns BUDDA BUDDA and the shotguns KA-CHK BLAM and I take out the two guys who came over to finish me off. Two more are headed for the back door, money bags under their arms. I slam their heads together, oldschool Superman style. I throw them at their friends and knock two more of them down. The rest are on their way out the door, toward the police, and I let them go. The police can deal with them from there.

Then it hits me...

How the hell am I going to get out of here!?

Cops are all over the place, I don't feel like I can fly, and I REALLY don't want the cops to shoot me because I've had my fill of getting shot for the day.

I stand there out of breath as the two guys I knocked over crawl out from under their fallen friends. Cops are on their way in to clear the place out. They four cops in the front get the fleeing robbers in headlocks and wrestle them to the pavement but there's a legion of more policemen behind them, all of them wearing SWAT and riot gear.

I'm about to rush them when, all at once, I turn invisible.

I had no idea I could turn invisible.

It is a really weird feeling to blink and still be able to see. You really take that half second of darkness for granted.

You don't know what you got till it's gone.

Silently, I slip past the police as they enter the building, and I walk down the block a ways.

This is seriously way too easy.

My finger is throbbing, so I change out of my costume a few blocks away and I stop by WalGreens to get some bandages for my split fingernail.

I guess the point of this story is, I totally foiled my first bank robbery.

It was even a hostage situation!

AND I TURNED FREAKING INVISIBLE!!

All in all a pretty successful superhero day, wouldn't you say?

Evansville vs. The Punchernaut

2007-05-11T23:11:00.000-05:00

After the movie I was JAZZED

And I mean just CRAZY for a fight.

The Spider-Man movies have always done that to me. Spider-Man is my kinda superhero. He's just an ordinary schlub in an ordinary town who has an ordinary job and an ordinary girlfriend, but at least once a day he puts on a skintight suit and jumps around saving people and beating the crap out of bad guys.

Peter Parker! Poor photographer by day, Spider-Man by night!

Or by day sometimes, too.

So I get myself away from my friend and my mother and I get my costume on and I took to the streets. My first stop was downtown Evansville because the buildings there are TALL! The tallest building in Vincennes is like six stories. The tallest building in Evansville is 18. Still, not as high as other people, but for me, WOW! Ever jump off an 18 story building, trying to land on the slightly lower building close by? TOTAL rush.

I didn't bust any crimes or anything. I was having too much fun building jumping like The Tick.

So nothing really happened.

I can't wait to move to Orlando.

The Sun Trust Tower is 441 feet tall. HOOYEAH!

So Much Boredom, So Much Time

2007-05-06T11:42:00.000-05:00

I'm not getting any fun stuff to do lately. After I went on that little spree, the worst danger I've been in was a 72 year old man threatening to beat me up.

And I wasn't even superheroing. I was at work and a customer had a complaint.

I've been prowling around town, looking for the Karate Kid so I can beat him up without him cheating with his stupid poisoned darts, but I can't find him anywhere.

I stood by the river and called Willie's name, but he never came out.

I briefly considered breaking The Grim Creeper and SREAM-O out of prison so I could see if I could fight them both at the same time, but then I realized if I helped two supervillains escape from prison, the cops might think we were in cahoots. The last thing I need is a bunch of other superheroes coming after me.

No more sightings of the Iris Pirate here in town, either. I checked around with some people and others saw her during those two and a half weeks when my friend was in town...

I'm almost positive they're the same person, but I don't know how to go about asking her...

It doesn't matter.

I'm going to go see Spider-Man in Evansville tonight, and I think, if I can get away from my friend, I'll go on a quick patrol in the BIG CITY just for kicks.

Okay! Hup ho and awaaaay!

Fragments of a Superhero's Return

2007-04-26T16:51:00.000-05:00

"THIS IS MY TOWN!" I bellow before exploding out of the sky, back down toward the city.

I smell trouble.

-----

WHAM! Something bounces off the side of a semi trailer .

The two men with flashlights that are robbing the truck depot look up from what they're doing and both of their cries of fear are cut off by strong, authoritive hands covering their mouths.

Moments later they stumble into the road, their hands bound behind them with bent tire irons. Their pants are down around their ankles. Something triggered the alarm in the depot office, signalling the police.

The police see something streaking across the sky just as they pull up in front of the two pantsless thieves.

-----

Two kids, no older than 11 are on the playground at Washington Elementary, sitting on the swings, lighting cigarettes one of them pinched from his mother's purse.

They cough on the harsh smoke as they gasp in surprise when the Punchernaut crashes into the jungle gym. As he untangles himself from the bars, he curses and spits, frustrated.

They're frozen as he marches up, pinches the cigarettes from where they hang from their loose, surprised lips. He throws them into the asphault and steps on them.

"Quit that," He says, "It makes you look stupid."

And with that he's ripping straight up and out of sight.

One of the boys, wide-eyed, whispers, "Cool."

-----

A meth lab bust on the north end of town goes awry when the operator makes a break for the back door. He leaps the fence and the cops are too slow to follow.

The officers scramble over the fence in time to see the Punchernaut holding the guy's head under the water of the neighbors' kids' wading pool. Their flashlights fall over the Punchernaut's face and he looks at them like a deer caught in headlights before vanishing again.

Within seconds the perp is in handcuffs and on his way to the back of a squad car.

-----

Along highway 41, an old couple is pulled aside to the shoulder, desperately studying a map in the dim dome light of their 87 Olds.

A strange man in a dress shirt and tie literally falls out of the sky and hits the pavement, head-first. He stands, shakes his head, and then looks at them. Desperately they

Choked with fear, the old couple lock the doors. They're starting to roll the windows up, but before they know it, the man is at the window. He has an eyepatch on.

"Looks like you're lost," the mysterious cyclopian stranger says, "Where you headed?"

The old man in the driver seat says in a quivering voice, "W-we're trying to get to Oaktown..."

The man in the tie gives them directions and then runs off down the road before taking to the air again.

They didn't even have a chance to thank him.

-----

A dog wanders into the street at the wrong moment.

A car full of teenagers, passing around a bottle of Grey Goose speeds down the road.

The driver, a girl of about 17, screams and slams on the breaks, but it's too late.

Or so she thinks.

She hits a man instead, that was not there half a second ago. His hands drive into the hood of the car and his legs slip under the car. Everybody piles out of the car, a cloud of shuffling feet and "Holy shits".

The man is gone.

The dog is gone.

Huge hand-shaped dents are made in the hood of the car.

At that moment, a police siren breaks their stunned silence.

The kids scatter.

-----

Jessica Turner, age 9, sits on her back steps. It's well past her bedtime, but Molly, her basset hound, had disappeared hours before.

"Excuse me."

She turns to her left and sees the man from the papers standing there in his tie and his eyepatch. He's holding Molly in his arms.

"Excuese me," he says again, "But is this your dog?"

Without saying anything the Jessica Turner, age 9, rushes to the man and to the dog and takes the dog from him and twirls as Molly licks happy tears from the girl's face.

By the time she turns to thank him, he's gone again.

-----

The Neighborhood Watch car pulls up at a red light.

Dark eyes stare through dark glasses at the dark intersection.

There's a sound like machine gun fire and the man with the dark glasses lays down across the front seat, covering his head, waiting for the inevitable sound of shattering glass, but it's not a rain of bullets. Something else is hammering into the side of his car.

Braying, cackling laughter interrupts the dangerous silence.

The man called Duke gets out of his car and inspects the damage.

A whole carton of eggs has been splattered against the side of his car.

He catches a glimpse of the Punchernaut as he takes to the sky.

"LATER JERKS!" the "hero" cries.

Duke's ancient lips pull themselves into a humorless smile.

What? I can't be good ALL the time.

Fragments of a Superhero Breakdown

2007-04-26T02:57:00.000-05:00

The more I thought about her possibly being the Iris Pirate, the worse it got.

I hate the Iris Pirate.

But I don't hate the girl.

That means I love the Iris Pirate...

I've never been more attracted to anybody in my life.

And I've never hated anybody any more, either.

-----

The boy is young.

He's a bit chunky.

He's wearing his white shirt and pink tie. His blue blazer is over his lap. The tips of his black leather shoes tap on the floor as he kicks his legs, still too short to completely touch the floor. The rubber on the bottom of his shoes makes little black scuffs on the floor.

Red blood under his nose and over his lips stands out against the white of his shirt and his blue jacket and shorts.

The school nurse is in hysterics, almost crying.

"Let me get this straight," the dean says. The boy can hear his voice, and the guy has to be trembling like a leaf, "He took his hand and made a fist..."

"AND HE HIT ANOTHER BOY!" the nurse screams, "HOW MANY TIMES DO YOU WANT TO FORCE ME TO SAY IT!?"

"He hit him... With his fist?" The dean swallows so loud the boy can hear it from the hallway outside the room, "Like somebody hitting a nail with a hammer?"

"YES HE HIT HIM!" the nurse dissolves into sobs.

"And the other boy... Hit him back?"

The nurse just wails.

In a world of scientists, dreamers, and inventors, nobody had invented fighting.

Not until now.

The boy smiles with bloodstained teeth.

-----

Maybe she's out there. Maybe it's not my girl at all. The Iris Pirate. Maybe the Iris Pirate just moved to a different town.

No.

No, it can't be a coincidence that they both showed up at the same time.

That's impossible.

I look at myself in the bathroom mirror and I take off my eyepatch.

Patrol can wait another night. Just one more.

-----

"They made us!" The sick gray thing yells, "And this is our destiny!"

It's been a year. The boy with the bloody nose is older now.

"They didn't make us to do this!" The boy screams. He stands amidst the destuction and he looks helpless and lost.

"Chassit," The boy's name is Chassit, "If this isn't what you're supposed to do, then WHAT!?"

"I'm supposed to stop guys like you," Chassit says.

Then they're rushing toward each other, fists drawn back.

Like the hammer of a gun.

These fists are Iceland's first weapons.

No, the boys.

The boys are Iceland's first weapons.

The first and the last.

-----

Laying on the floor with the costume on. I'm close to the door. I could go on patrol.

But what if I run into her?

Do I fight her?

Do I tell her I know?

Even if they're not the same person...

I think I love the Iris Pirate.

Either way, I think I love her.

-----

The worst part is hitting the ground, he thinks.

Not the feeling as much as the sound, wet and thick.

If he was anybody else, he'd have been dead 100 times over.

Chassit climbs from the hole, dazed and confused. His pink tie is loose around his neck and his white shirt is on fire. He pats it out and looks up at the stars.

They sent him away...

He saved them and they sent him away...

He hears something coming.

Some sort of hovercar, but with wheels. There are lights on the front.

Wait, wheels?

Wheels!

Whoever heard of wheels on anything but a child's toy?

The aliens inside stop closeby and get out of the car.

"My God, Mike... it's a boy," The woman alien says.

-----

I haven't put the tie on in a week.

The eyepatch... I don't even remember where it is.

I take my eye out twice a day to clean it, but that's it.

The shirt lays crumpled on the floor.

I hear sirens and I start to get up.

I sit back down.

Let the cops get it...

-----

Chassit has amnesia. He doesn't know where he came from.

That's what he tells everyone.

But Chassit knows what he is.

He rolls his sleeve up in his new bedroom, years later, and he traces his fingers over the symbol there.

XIX

"How could they give a child a tattoo?" Dwana (Mom) had said.

Mike (Dad) just shrugged.

-----

Chassit goes through the schools on Earth and learns very little other than the planet's culture.

On his planet Iceland, he lived in the City of Inventors, Sector 17, Workers' District.

On this new planet Earth, he lives in America, Indiana, Vincennes, just a mile from the district called Downtown.

He fights very little, for fear he'd destroy these weak things that call themselves human.

He grows older and stronger and, when he turns 16, the sick gray thing appears again in a public bathroom between here and somewhere.

Nowhere.

He may have saved the world again. A different world, but a saved world all the same.

The papers call him a hero.

The police call him a menace.

And there in that place between places, the Punchernaut was born.

Chassit had found his place.

Here a fighter was not an abomination.

A fighter was a hero.

-----

In the bathroom mirror again.

The eyepatch was down in the couch cushions. Now it's where it belongs.

The tie is knotted perfectly.

Open palms slap the white fabric over a strong chest.

"I'm a machine!" The Punchernaut yells.

SLAP!

"I'm an animal!"

And he bursts out the front door like a torpedo.

He rips through the air so fast it burns.

He grins that maniac grin like when little Chassit invented fighting on the playground in grammar school on the tiny planet Iceland. The lights from the city below create their own perfect little galaxy.

"THIS IS MY TOWN!" The Punchernaut bellows.

Half the town hears and they all look up from what they're doing.

The paper reads the next day:

"PUNCHERNAUT: BACK IN ACTION"

Could It Be?

2007-04-14T15:47:00.000-05:00

Has the Punchernaut had the wool pulled over his eyes?

No... No, she couldn't be...

I haven't seen the Iris Pirate since my ladyfriend left.

Oh no.

I'll Kill Her

2007-04-09T14:42:00.000-05:00

Oh god.

I woke up last night after the girl visiting me had gone to sleep. I was really restless and bored, so I decided to go on a short patrol of the city to entertain myself. Also figured I'd make a few more appearances in my new duds.

I was out for an hour, wandering around in the North End, when I heard a ruckus at Cutter's Way, a small bar on Second Street. I ran out there to see what was up and a body flew out the window.

I went in to see what the commotion was, hoping for a supervillain of some kind when I saw her.

The Iris Pirate.

She was right THERE.

Oh my God. OH MY GOD!

I lunged at her, but she saw me coming and threw me into the jukebox. It literally, LITERALLY exploded. Pieces flew everywhere. I was covered in chunks of broken jukebox and quarters, scrambling to my feet. The change slipped me up under my shoes and I nearly fell.

I was PISSED, and wouldn't you know, I see the Iris Pirate making a break for the door, so I took off after her.

Damn, she's fast!

I chased her all over town for the good part of two hours. Finally, at about 4:30, she lost me, SOMEHOW. I was FUMING. I looked all over town, but finally gave up and went home at about 5:15.

My ladyfriend was up when I got home, so I changed back into my regular clothes in the yard and then came in. Told her I had gone for a walk.

The Iris Pirate is in my town.

I'm going to find her.

And I'm going to kill her.

NOBODY WEARS AN EYEPATCH BUT ME!

AND THIS IS MY GOD DAMN TURF!!

Dark Suit Punchernaut vs. An Old Nemesis

2007-04-08T10:03:00.000-05:00

I went on a date the other night with the young lady who came to visit me. Nothing fancy. Dinner and a movie, with a stop by a comic book shop.

Thing is, we dressed up for it anyway, despite the fact that we were just going to a movie and then to Denny's. I was wearing black pants, a black shirt, and a silver tie.

The date went well. Great movie, even better company, all that. When she and I got home, she went to the bathroom to wash off her makeup. I settled back on the couch and flipped on the TV to see if anything good was on.

In a fashion that is true to my luck, the second I got interested in Ninja Warrior, the screen went black and there was a piercing tone. Then, black letters appeared on the screen reading "EMERGENCY BROADCAST SYSTEM."

"WARNING! The following is an alert from the Vincennes and Knox County Police Departments. Residents are advised to remain in their homes until further notice. The downtown area of Vincennes, Indiana is off-limits due to blah blah blah who cares."

Downtown area off-limits? That can only mean one thing, and I really should show my face down there.

One problem, though

My costume is in the bathroom hamper.

My ladyfriend is in the bathroom washing her makeup off.

Crap.

It's not like I can knock on the door and say, "Honey, hand me my top secret superhero uniform. I need to go fight a monster downtown real quick."

Crap, crap, crap.

No time to wait for her and sneak out, either. I loosen my tie, undo the top button on my shirt. I'm pulling my eyepatch on as I'm going out the door, yelling something about how I forgot my wallet at Denny's and I'll be right back.

On the way there, I realize I look pretty cool. I'm like Spider-Man when he wears his black suit. Maybe I should switch it up and wear this sometimes when I go out on patrol. Makes me more mysterious and creepy. Plus, the all black with the silver accent is pretty cool.

I almost run into a parked car because I'm too busy checking myself out in the rearview mirror.

Come on, Punchernaut. Time to focus.

I drive downtown and park a few blocks away from the roadblock the police have set up. I can see what's going on from here.

Looming over the downtown skyline is a great, furry beast. Even from this far away, leathery paws shake the ground beneath my feet. I can hear the constant sniff-sniff-sniffing as the beast pushes his nose against the windows of buildings, and I can hear the muffled screams from the people inside. The beast bats a paw at one of the stores on Main Street, shattering glass with just the slightest of nudges, crumbling bricks as though they were a child's building blocks. It picks at the crushed stone with its teeth, chomping and gnawing. The beast then pulls its head up and, with a mouthfull of crunched up bricks and cement, causes the air to tremble with an ear-splitting roar.

"HURRFF HURRFF!"

It's Willie the Giant Dog.

Willie is, obviously, a giant dog. A chocolate lab, I think. Maybe some kind of mutt, but he looks like a chocolate lab. Nobody really knows how he became a giant dog. He may have just started out that way. I don't even really know how he got to be called Willie, but he answers to it. All I really know about Willie is this: He's about 30 feet tall and he and I have been in a few scuffles before.

Willie isn't bad. He's just a dog, and dogs are... well, dumb. I mean, I've got two dogs myself, and I love them to death, but ask anybody. Dogs are pretty stupid. Willie is no exception.

As far as I can figure, Willie is some kind of mutant, because he lives in the river that runs along the outskirts of town. Once in a great while he'll come out and start goofing around in town, and of course, everybody freaks out because they think he's a monster. He's just curious. I think he might still be a puppy. It's hard to tell how old something is when it's 10 times taller than you are.

I sneak off down the narrow alley between buildings, making my way to Willie. Approaching sirens tell me that more squad cars are on the way. The majority of the city police are blocking the streets to downtown, so these are probably state police.

I hate state police.

Despite that, I don't want them getting hurt. Mostly for Willie's sake. If he hurts a cop, they'll paint a big target on his head, and they'll probably have him killed.

I love dogs.

So, once again, it's up to me to show him who's boss.

I step out from the shadows of the alley and into the parking lot outside of the Old Towne Tavern. Willie is gnawing on a tree in the little recreation area the city uses for public events and bazaars. One thing I can say for the local news: They've already got a chopper in the air. They're circling the area, shining a light down on Willie, who casts a wary eye at the light once in a while. Twice, the light shines on the ground and Willie lets go of the tree and tires to bite the light shining on the ground. Twice, he comes back empty handed (mouthed?) and confused before going back to gnawing on the trunk of his tree.

"Willie! Hey!" I shout. The dog stops and looks at me from the side of his eye. He spins and does a play bow, his butt in the air, his tail wagging. He remembers me. It's kind of cute. I walk right up to him and pat him on the nose. "What are you doing, big guy? You gotta get out of here. The cops are coming, and they're not as nice as me."

Willie licks my face. Well, tries to. His tongue is so big it gets most of me and almost knocks me off my feet. "Hey hey hey, cut it out! Come on, man. Just get back in the river." The sirens are getting closer and Willie's ears perk up. He's looking at something over my shoulder. Oh, God, they're here.

With an excited bark that rattles my eardrums, he stands and runs past me, almost crushing me with one of his massive feet, directly at one of the approaching state police cars. He's got his nose to the ground, and his tail trails in the grass. He's not going to hurt those cops. I say a little apology and I grab him by the tail and yank. He digs his heels into the concrete and I drag him back.

"WILLIE STAY AWAY FROM THERE!"

Almost too fast, a giant head flips back at me and bites at my arms. If he'd have gotten me, I'd have to change my name to the Kickernaut. I let go and he's after the car again, his tail in the air this time.

I'm running past him just as he starts pushing the car around with his nose. The cops inside are yelling, trying to get out, but every time they go for the door, Willie's massive snout presses against it and knocks the car around the street. He's going to flip it.

I get to the trunk of the car and take the bumper in both of my hands. I'm pulling it away from Willie, but he just follows. He thinks I'm playing with him. "WILLIE! Willie, LEAVE IT! No!"

Then the cop does something stupid. He opens his window and fires a single, blind shot from his 9mm into Willie's neck.

Willie.

Goes.

CRAZY!

I'm hit with a wave of dog breath, balmy and thick, as Willie opens wide and chomps down on the hood of the car. A low growl comes out through his clenched teeth and he starts to lift the car. I grip the bumper so tight the steel bends, leaving handprints in the car. I hear the doors of the cop cars behind me opening and leather shoes hitting the concrete.

"Stand down!" one of the cops yells at me through the loudspeaker on his car.

"Oh for God's sake." Willie lifts the car with his teeth and I hang on for dear life. He has his front heels dug into the pavement, pulling it up like loose carpet. His butt is up in the air again and he's inching (footing?) backwards with his front legs, trying to wrench the car from my grasp. I jerk on the car and his teeth just rip through the hood of the car and the engine like we're playing tug-of-war with an old sock, rather than a police vehicle. The doors open and two bewildered and terrified-looking police tumble out into the street. They crawl on all fours away from the car, back behind me to their comrades.

Nobody's saying anything now. I shake my arms wildly, trying to wrench the car from Willie's grasp. The bottoms of my sneakers feel like they're going to rip out, and I can hear the pavement I'm standing on cracking as I dig my heels in and pull harder.

Shaking the car was a mistake.

You know what happens when you shake something while you're playing tug-of-war with a dog.

I realize my mistake about 60 feet in the air. I'm flipping end-over-end, the bumper of a police car still in my arms. I hurl the car into the river and wait for gravity to pull me back down to Willie. He's already sniffing at another car. I feel myself slowing and I feel that sinking feeling in my gut just as I slam into the WTWO Channel 2 News Team Action Chopper, or whatever the heck they call it. Surprised, the wind knocked out of me, I grip at the runners at the bottom of the chopper as it rocks back and forth in the air like a boat on troubled water. Frantically, I scramble to keep from falling. I know I'd survive the fall, but I really don't want to fall 60 feet. I hear gunshots down below, and I hear Willie barking. This is bad.

But at least now I have a plan.

I claw my way into the chopper and I'm greeted by a stunned pilot, some faceless field reporter I've never seen before and a cameraman.

Flustered, the reporter begins, "I-I-We-We've just been j-joined here in the chopper by, um, the, um, P-Punchernaut, and um --"

"Hey, shut up." I turn to the pilot and pull one side of his headset off. "Can you land this bird on top of the tavern?"

"You bet I can," and already, he's steering the copter that way. "I'm a big fan, by the way. They say you're a menace, but my kids love you."

"I get that a lot."

"So what's the plan now, Punchernaut?" The reporter shoves a microphone in my face.

"The plan now," I say as the helicopter delicately touches down on top of the tavern, "Is you shut up for a minute. And you," I point at the cameraman, "Keep that pointed at me. Mr. Pilot, kill the engine." He does and everybody piles out onto the roof of Old Towne.

"And what now?" the reporter asks. He's nervous.

"I told you to shut up." I pull the back rotor off the helicopter and drop it on the roof. It was spinning so fast it hurt my hand when I stopped it. That might leave a bruise. I snap my fingers at the cameraman. "Hey, Jethro. Point the camera at the dog."

He does as I tell him. "So what now?" he asks.

"I make you three stars." And with that, I grab the helicopter by the tail skid and leap off the roof, swinging it high above my head. Willie's got another car flipped over, and he's ripping the pipes and things out of the bottom fo it. Other officers are firing round after round, shouting, pleading with him. I think one of the guys up front might be crying. I can hear the officers inside the car screaming. Willie's shrugging the bullets off like they're nothing. I bend my knees and grit my teeth as I sail through the air, closing the distance, the tiny helicopter held over my shoulder like a club.

Willie flips his head back, tossing the axle of the car over the back of his head, just as I swing the helicopter and bust him across the nose with the bottom of the helicopter. The helicopter rips in half like a cardboard tube and pieces go flying every which direction. The blades on top break off and fly in different directions, one smashing into the building Willie smashed in earlier, two of them landing in the river, the fourth hitting the dirt at Willie's feet like a javeline. I land on my feet right next to it. I point an accusitory finger at Willie.

"NOO!!" I roar at him. "BAD!"

Willie recoils in horror and backs off.

"BACK INTO THE RIVER, WILLIE!" I point at the river and stamp my foot, glaring at him. He breaks eye contact and whimpers, reluctantly walking toward the river. I follow him, stamping my feet and puffing my chest up, making myself look bigger. I bark at him: "GET IN THERE NOW!"

Willie steps into the water and casts one look over his shoulder, as if apologizing. I cock my head at him and scowl. He looks away and slowly, tail between his legs, head down, he descends into the murky depths from wence he came.

I make my way back to the car Willie was just destroying and I pull the door open. Inside is a familiar face.

"Hey. You're one of the assholes who shot me last week!"

"I-I didn't me-mean anythi--"

I slam the door and then kick it, breaking the handle mechanism. "Better call the fire department to get him out of there," I say as I shove past the gaggle of cops who've come around to gawk at the destruction. I get past them and I crouch, then I take to the air.

I love flying.

I hate landing.

I bounce off the hood of my car and hit the sidewalk.

God I hate landing.

SCREAM-O

2007-03-28T12:06:00.000-05:00

Okay, sorry for keeping you all in the dark so long. My company is here and I've not had much time for patrol or for writing.

I found Nicholas, completely by accident.

Saturday night, I was out doing the patrol/detective thing and I was coming up with nothing. I'd been ding-donging around town for three hours and was starting to get depressed due to the lack of action when I noticed a banner outside of one of the bars downtown. It was karaoke and open mic night. Since I wasn't going to get my name in the paper for saving anyone, I might as well get my name in the paper for making a spectacle of myself, so I barged into the bar, intent on singing something ridiculous like "Love Shack" or "What's New Pussycat?".

Wanna hear a great joke?

Ever heard the one about the super hero who walks into a bar and trips over a corpse?

Well, not a corpse yet. The guy was still breathing. I was being dramatic.

My shoes slide in blood on the floor and I almost fall. I grab the door frame and I'm suddenly aware of a very shaky, unpracticed version of Malaguena coming in over the bar's speaker system.

The floor is littered with a multitude of young people. There are the farmer boys in their trucker caps with the big fish hook on the bill. There are gangly, skanky girls in low-cut tops. There are college kids in polo shirts. People are slumped over the bar. They've all got one thing in common: Their ears are bleeding.

The music stops and a voice comes from the other end of the bar, light and smoky and infinately sad:

"Did you come to hear me play?"

My eyes fall upon a young man, my age, with his hair down in his eyes. He's sitting in a stool with his black Converse All-Stars hanging over the edge of one of the footrests. His shirt and his pants are both a size too small and he's got an electric guitar on his lap.

"They all came to hear me play... SHE came to hear me play... But they all ended up the same way..."

"Are you Nicholas Freeman?"

He sighs at the end of every phrase, every sentence, and each one ends like he's got something more to say after that, "I was... But not anymore..."

He stands from the stool and lets his guitar slip down from his lap. It hangs on a long strap, to just above his knees. "I'm not Nicholas Freeman anymore..."

"I'm SCREAM-O."

"You know, I fought a gloomy kid not too long ago," I tell him, "And you both had really stupid supervillain names."

"That hurts..." His voice seriously almost breaks my heart. I'm about to apologize when he fiddles with one of the knobs on his guitar and strums a chord. My teeth rattle in their sockets. My bones feel like they're shaking apart. My head lights on fire and I feel something hot rushing down the sides of my neck. Jesus Christ, it's his guitar! The reverb on the amp keeps the feeling going, but it fades away soon enough and I get my bearings.

You can't punch sound.

I've got my hands over my ears and SCREAM-O is wearing a humorless smile under his wild mass of dyed-black hair. "That was just E-Minor... Imagine if I played a major chord."

"I'm not going to give you the chance." Imperceptively, my foot slides so I can spring at him if he tries to strum again. I'm not taking any chances.

"You should hear me sing," His arm goes up and I spring forward. I draw my fist back and I spin through the air at him like a missile.

The guitar roars to life again and his voice erupts out in a disgusting whine, "SO CUT MY WRISTS AND BLACK MY EEEEYYYESS!!"

Instantly I'm blind and searing hot pokers slap across my wrists, I'm distracted and I slam harmlessly into the wall somewhere near him. I can hear his footsteps as he's moving away from me. I force my eyes open as I'm getting up. The feel swollen. I look down at my arms and blood is quickly collecting in my armbands.

Oh, this is bad.

"So I can sleep tonight..." he continues and my eyelids get heavy. It's crunch time, Now or never.
Lazily my hand wraps around the base of a steel bar stool and I rip it out of the bolts in the floor and hurl it at him. I'm so tired I just fall to the floor and hope.

"Or d--" The cracking sound I hear, I think, is his jaw. I claw myself up off the floor, holding onto the bar and I look at him, and sure enough, he's screaming, his hands on his face, the bar stool on top of him. He can't get to his guitar with the stool there, so I dive at him, trying to shake the sleepy cobwebs. I'm too slow. The bar stool rolls off and he hits the guitar again, not strumming any notes. I'm knocked out of the air. It feels like a train just hit me.

I'm not feeling sleepy anymore. Whatever this kid does, it doesn't last long, but these people on the floor aren't superhuman. I need to get the guitar away from him, but I can't get close enough. Desperately I scramble across the floor and hide behind the karaoke DJ's booth. I need time to think.

SCREAM-O has gotten to his feet. In the confusion, I think, he's lost me. He's spinning around, looking for me. I catch the cord on his guitar. It runs from the guitar... to an amplifier about 15 feet away. That's all I need. I kick off of the wall and slide across the floor on my back. He hears me and his fingers slide up the neck of the guitar. He takes a deep breath and his right arm goes up, all the way to his shoulder. My hand stretches out toward the amp. If he strums now, I'm dead. His hand crashes down into the strings and I slide past the amp, yanking the cord out and his guitar makes a sad, impotent little plunking sound.

I feel nothing. "M-MY AMP!" he yells. I'm on my feet before he can do anything and I yank on the cord. His guitar strap pulls him to the ground and I reel him in. He kicks and screams all the way across the floor. I drop to my knees, landing right on his chest.

"Curtain call, kid," I say and my fist is ripping through the air, just when he screams right in my face. My head snaps back like a balloon on a string hit by a hard breeze and I'm thrown off of him, doing a backwards somersalt in air. I hit the wall and slide, upside down to the floor where I land directly on my head, crushing my neck. I can't breathe. He's crawling across the floor now, his guitar clattering on the hard wood between his hands and knees. He grabs me by the collar of my shirt and pulls my face up to his. He inhales for another scream just as I headbutt him in the teeth. He pulls his hands over his mouth as he screams and I roll out of the way. I see his fingers bend backwards with the force of the scream and break.

That about does it for his guitar playing days.

I roll far enough away from him that I'm behind the DJ booth again.

This is when I have an awesome idea. That amplifier is the key to all this...

I stand up and go to the computer console that controls the Karaoke machine. I type in the name of a song. I unplug the computer from the DJ's amp and cross the floor in long strides to where SCREAM-O is wallowing on the floor, trying to rub his hands together for comfort, but it's just making things worse. He's screaming so loud I can't think. The building is shaking and holes are being ripped in the walls as he twists his head this way and that, screaming through what's left of his bloody teeth.

I plug the computer into SCREAM-O's amp and I go back to the computer console. I hit play.

Trumpets...

It's powerful. It builds. There's a fanfare. I jump over the table and pick up a stray microphone off the floor and I pray that it still works. I take a deep breath and as the fanfare peaks, I sing, as loudly and as best I can:

"YOUNG MAN! There's no need to feel down!
I said, EVERYBODY!! Pick yourself off the ground!"

Everyone in the bar starts moving all at once. It's working. The bloodied and bruised people start getting up, looking around as though they just woke up from a bad dream. Suddenly all eyes are on me. I get a little bit of stage fright as they all stand up, including SCREAM-O, all as one.

"I said, YOUNG MAN! 'Cause you're in a new town
There's now NEED!"

"TO"

"BE"

"UNHAPPY!"

Smiles spread through the crowd and everyone starts to get in the groove.

Well at least everyone agrees with what I'm doing.

I'm really playing the crowd now, singing, waiting for the chorus to make my move.

"... You can stay there! And I'm sure you will find
Many ways."

"To."

"Have."

"A GOOD TIME!"

ONE TWO THREE FOUR FIVE!

"It's fun to stay at the Y-M-C-A!"

Everybody's doing the dance, including SCREAM-O. His broken fingers flop worthlessly at the ends of his hands and he's smiling wider than he probably has ever smiled in his life.

"IT'S FUN TO STAY AT THE --"

SCREAM-O's arms go up over his head for the Y and that's when I make my move. I fly across the bar and I slug him in the throat with the microphone still in my hand. He makes a weak rasping sound and he hits the floor, grabbing at his throat. The microphone explodes in my hands and instantly everyone stops dancing and just looks horrified.

With any luck I ruptured his larynx, and he'll never sing again.

Then, above the music, I hear sirens.

That's my cue to go.

I shove through the crowd and get out the back door of the bar and waiting for me is an awful surprise.

Three squad cars.

"FIRE!" screams one of the policemen, and then there are gunshots.

I hate, hate, HATE getting shot. Bullets rip through my shirt and pound into my skin, not doing much more than scratching or bruising me, but GOD it sucks. I charge the nearest car and jump right over the officers' heads. I jump in the air, trying to fly, but I can't, so I just run, run, run until I'm downtown.

I spend a few hours hanging out under the bridge that goes to Illinois, catching my breath, looking myself over.

I'm a total mess...

But thank God for the Village People.

SCREAM-O (Prelude)

2007-03-25T07:37:00.000-05:00

What is it with gloomy high school kids that want to kill me?

First the Grim Creeper and now SCREAM-O. I can't believe this crap.

I hate getting shot.

Ow ow ow.

Ow.

My wrists are too sore to type much right now. My eyes are almost swollen shut and I can barely see the damn computer screen. It hurts to breathe because I have a bruise the size of my face right over my heart. Damn that cop was a good shot.

Ow.

Rest assured, for those of you who hate suspense, I found the Nicholas kid, and he WAS a supervillain.

Karaoke saved my life tonight.

But now I have to sleep so my healing factor will kick in and I can get rid of all these telltale bruises and wounds before I have to pick up my friend at the train station at midnight. I've got about 17 hours to get this crap done with.

Crap crap crap.

Ow.

Investigation Details and Poisoned Darts

2007-03-21T13:03:00.000-05:00

So I'm out on patrol last night, taking it easy because I had to work the dayshift today, and a growing super hero needs his sleep. I didn't come across anything, or anything really noteworthy, as far as that goes. I broke into the high school and I checked out the kid's records. Low attendance, lots of visitors to the counselour, minor scrapes with other kids. I checked the kids out that he got into scrapes with and the majority of those kids are thugs and bullies.

My guess is he's somehow acting out against past violence or something. Boo hoo. I'll show him violence.

Anyways, I'm leaving the school when something hits me in the back of the neck. Instantly, I'm furious. I reach back to see what it is, and it's a freaking DART! One of those little ones with the feathers on the end. I tug on it and it feels like it's stuck in the bone.

Great.

"PUNCHERNAUT!" A voice shouts, "YOUR TIME HAS COME!"

"Oh for pity's sake," I yank the dart out with a grimace as a dark figure jumps off the roof of the high school, sails over my head, and lands in the street in front of me. One of the lamps from the parking lot illuminates a young man, my age or a little younger, with olive skin and thick, dark hair. He's wearing some kind of ridiculous Kung Fu getup. He's got one of those Rising-Sun headbands over his eyes like a blindfold.

His voice is calm and steady, "You've disgraced my master, and I'm here to collect your head."

I get a bit of a headrush. I feel drunk. I'm rubbing the little dot on the back of my neck and frowning. "Disgraced your master?"

"You turned down his tutleage years ago, and since that dark day, he's trained his best fighers to be strong enough to compete with you. That day has come, and I am to be the one to end you." And just as I figure out what he's talking about and remember that "dark day," the kid rushes me.

The drunken feeling starts to feel like fire ants running through my veins. This sucks. So uncomforta --The kid slams into me and tackles me into the pavement. Well, my reaction time's considerably slowed down, but I'm not too badly hurt as a result. Probably got some dirt on the back of the unif -- I've got a knee in my groin and the Kung Fu Kid smashes both fists, hammer-style, into my ribcage. Ow. Right, slowed reaction time.

Thankfully, my jeans are baggy enough he misses anything important with his knee. My head shoots up off the pavement like a battering ram and I crack him in the chin. This knocks him off balance and he blinks his eyes fast. His hands come up to his chin and he cries out in surprise. My fists grab at the fabric of his shirt and I kick my legs up, throwing him over my head. I suppress the urge to grunt, "Ally-oop!" and he crashes into the flagpole behind us.

I have a lot of trouble getting to my feet, and when I do, I have that unsteady feeling you get when you're walking on your bed. The slightest shift in balance can send you sprawling, but unfortunately for me I'm not going to be landing on a pillowtop mattress. I'll be landing on concrete with a wild Kung Fu guy who wants to beat me up. The world distorts and wavers like looking through the haze over a fire and my eyes feel like they're cro -- The heel of Kung Fu Kid's foot connects with the small of my back. Slowed reaction time.

Before he can bring his foot around, I twirl around and grab him by the ankle. With another spin, he's airborn and flying across the parking lot. He crashes into the semi that the marching band transports their instruments and equipment in and falls like a ragdoll to the pavement. The momentum I get from spinning around sends me crashing to the ground again. The pavement actually cracks. I crawl around for a minute before remembering how to stand up. I'm in no shape to fight, so running is the best option.

The details of my escape involve me falling down more and a couple stumbles into thorn bushes, but are otherwise completely uneventful. Kung Fu Kid didn't chase me. I finally find my way home and lay down on the floor in my room. It's everything I can do to get my costume off before I fall asleep. No sense in mother walking in on me and discovering a drugged-out super hero laying in the floor. I shove my white shirt, tie, and eyepatch under the bed and take my bionic eye out of the case in my back pocket. I push it in and then I'm out like a light.

The next morning I wake up with the taste of raw sewage in my mouth. This is worse than the day after my 21st birthday...

Why is something I did 200 years ago coming back to haunt me?

A New Challenger Approaches!

2007-03-18T02:38:00.000-05:00

So the night after I had some stimulating conversation with an old friend, I was going through local news. I always check the police beat section, for obvious reasons, and I came across this little gem.

The other morning, a young girl was found in the bedroom of her boyfriend, Nicholas Freeman, dead. She had blood coming out of her ears, nose, and mouth. The paper from yesterday said that the autopsy revealed her brain had essentially been expanded, then like, melted.

Crushed into goop, almost.

Nicholas was missing, and has been since. The only thing he took with him before he disappeared was his electric guitar and his amplifier.

I don't know much, but I do know a new super villain when I see one.

I've been going on patrol the last few nights, and haven't come across any leads. I helped an old woman get her bedroom window shut, and I gave a middle school bully a noogie for picking on some fat kid.

Don't pick on the fat kids, especially when the super hero in your town was the fat kid that got picked on in school.

So anyway, I'm out on patrol tonight, and I'm getting a little chilled, so I swing into the Huck's on 15th street to warm up and maybe grab something to drink. Walking into a business late at night in costume is one of my favorite things to do. I grabbed a can of Soup At Hand and a Red Bull and threw the soup in the dingy microwave over by the coffee pots.

The cashier is this guy about my age. I've been in here tons of times out of costume, and he's always really cool about things. I always think he's flirting with me, though, which is cool. I mean, to each his own, and female or not, it's always flattering. He's staring at me with his mouth open, gawking at me like I'm some kind of six-armed space octopus man. Come on. Haven't you seen a man with an eyepatch before?

I love this way too much. I try to hide that I'm grinning. I bet he's scared out of his mind.

The microwave beeps and I take my soup up to the counter.

"That going to be all for you?"

"Yeah."

"You're not..."

"I am."

"Should I um... I don't know... Be worried?"

"No, I'm just getting something to warm up."

"Yeah, freezing out there... are you like... worried about me calling the cops?"

"Think it would do you any good? I'd just knock you out and steal this stuff instead of paying for it."

"I wasn't going to call anyway. I think what you do is, like, pretty cool."

I suddenly hear sirens approaching. That bastard!!

"You didn't trip the silent alarm, didja?"

"N-no! I said I wasn't going to call the cops!"

I'm starting to get mad, but lucky for the cashier, the squad car whizzes by the gas station without slowing down.

"Oh! That's my cue! Keep the change." I slam a 10 down on the counter and take off before he can say anything else to me, running, but not so fast I spill my soup.

It's really cold out here.

The squad cars stop outside of a house in the North End. The cops I followed in were just more to add to the four cars that are already here. Something big's going down. Among the cop cars is a firetruck two ambulances. I'm sitting on the roof of a house down the block and across the street, drinking my cream of broccoli and sipping Red Bull. My police scanner tells me it's a suicide. Cops pour in and out of the house. I overhear one saying "Damndest thing, we can't find what he did it with."

I notice a light shining on the tree in the back yard, so I quietly move to a house across the alleyway, keeping my distance until I'm there.

Two officers are standing in the bedroom in the back. Band posters line the walls, most of which I've never heard. All the people in the posters have long black hair and tight pants. That's why I haven't heard of them. That crap sucks.

One cop says to the other "You haven't touched anything?"

"Nothing, man."

"He had to use something. I mean, he didn't CHEW through his wrists, did he?"

The two clueless heroes kick around in the room for a while as I formulate my own theory. This was no suicide.

It was murder.

And how did I come to that conclusion?

I can hear the cops so well from outside because the bedroom window is open. When the officers talk, I can see their breath come out in plumes of steam.

I've got a lead.

Eat your heart out, Batman.

Being A Super Hero...

2007-03-16T00:37:00.000-05:00

Skipped patrol tonight. Just had some fun with my friends.

This post is going to be short. I don't want to go into too much detail.

It's just that sometimes you don't need to wear a costume to feel like a super hero.

Sometimes all you need are good friends, a heart-to-heart talk, and a singing cat puppet.

Duke

2007-03-15T04:50:00.000-05:00

Okay, I realize the Neighborhood Watch is supposed to be a good thing. It helps out large communites with a lot of crime. It's kind of a nice feeling, knowing your fellow man is watching out for you.

It is not a requirement in Vincennes.

Granted, we have our share of super villains, but seriously, all the Neighborhood Watch would do is this:

They get this little police radio and they go "Dispatch, Neighborhood Watch has sighted suspected super villain activity in the viscinity of Gregg Park. Neighborhood Watch on scene."

Then, they put on this goofy little amber-colored light and park a safe distance away and wait for the police to show up. Then I show up and they get back on their radio and squawk "SUPER HERO SIGHTED!" and start talking about how they're "Requesting backup" because they saw Bobby Goren say that on Law and Order.

The cops show up, get beaten, I beat up the super villain, and then the Neighborhood Watch runs away while the paramedics take away the injured cops and the super villain.

They basically just snoop around and then puss out at any sign of trouble when the cops show up.

But there's one Neighborhood Watch guy who I think might also be a super human.

They call him Duke.

Duke drives around in an ancient Cadillac. I've seen him all hours of the day and night, cruising around with the big NEIGHBORHOOD WATCH decal magnet sign stuck to the door. I don't think he sleeps.

Duke stands well over six feet tall. He's maybe 60. His face is long and his mouth is always scowling behind his jowels. His hands are enormous. They almost wrap around themselves when he's holding the wheel of his car.

He's always wearing a flat-bill trucker hat that reads "#1 Grandpa" and he always wears mirrored aviator sunglasses: State cop style. He even wears these at night.

Duke and I have butted heads so many times, I've lost count. Despite this, I've never seen his eyes. I imagine he's got that intimidating squint like Clint Eastwood, though.

Tonight, he interrupted me intervening in a domestic dispute.

One thing that really gets my goat is when man is beating around on a woman. I mean, there's no excuse for it. Granted, I'm a super hero, and I probably have better things to be doing, but every hero needs to rescue the occasional damsel in distress.

So I'm out on patrol in a fairly nice little neighborhood and I hear yelling. Naturally, I jump over back fences and through lawns and stuff until I get to the house. A tall, slender woman charges out of the house. There's something very business-like about her, despite the fact she's wearing flannel pajamas - pink with duckies - and no shoes or socks whatsoever. She's walking so fast her blonde hair nearly sticks straight out of the back of her head. In her arms is what appears to be an entire load of laundry.

"I knew I should never have trusted you!" she's screaming. Parked in the street is a brand new Scion. She throws the door open and then stuffs the clothes into the back seat.

As she's doing this, a smart-dressed man follows her out of the house. He's got a strong jaw and dark hair. He's got one of those stupid dress shirts on. One of those blue ones with the white collar. Something about those things just naturally pisses me off. A blue tie hangs loose around his neck. On the white collar is a telltale spot of lipstick.

Busted.

"Diane, just listen to me!" he protests, "It's not what you think." He sounds drunk.

He grabs her by the shoulders and he spins her around. She tries to shove him off, and that's when he rears his fist back and he hits her. His fist makes a sickening thump against her skull and she tumbles out of his arms and falls over the hood of the Scion. Her eyes go wide and her mouth works up and down like a fish out of water.

He looks at his hand and he looks at her, "Now look what you made me d--"

I know it's rude to interrupt, but I hate when guys say that after he slugs a chick. So, as politely as I could, I dislocate his jaw with a left hook.

He spins like a top and falls into the car, right next to his wife. I grab him by the front of the shirt and I shake him.

"STUUHH," he pleads, "STUUHH!"

"I can't understand you," I say. Then I grab his jaw and roughly relocate it. He wails like a cat and holds his face. His wife is now standing away from us, hands clasped over her mouth, watching the whole scene. The guy starts trying to stumble away from me, but as confused and drunk as he is, he trips over the curb and lands face-down in the grass. His wife makes a desperate moaning sound, and I realize how scared she must be. I decide a good clock to the jaw is enough for the guy. One good turn deserves another, I guess. Besides, I don't want to scare this poor woman any more than I have to. I'm supposed to be saving her, not terrifying her into a coma. I cautiously make my way over to her, holding my hands up to show her I'm not a threat.

She just stares at me, catatonic almost. I move her hands away from her face and turn her head by pushing on her chin with my fingertips. She's got a big red spot on her cheek bone that might turn out to be a pretty good bruise.

"You're the Punchernaut..." She says this in a shaky voice, barely above a whisper.

"Mmhmm. You okay, ma'am?"

"You... You saved me."

"Yeah, you all right?"

"He... He hit me and you... you hit him."

"I figured I could probably get the job done better than you. You all right?"

She kisses me on the cheek.

This happens a lot when you rescue a shell-shocked wife who just got slapped around by her husband.

I give her my best super hero smile and I back up into the street, ready to fly off, because I feel like I can. Super heroes always fly off after they rescue a pretty woman.

It's almost too late when I notice the flashing amber light and the roar of an engine. I brace myself just before Duke's Cadillac slams into me and I roll up over the hood and into the windshield.

I spin so I can look the old bastard in the face. "Evening, Duke." I nearly have to shout over the roar of the engine.

"Punchernaut." He slams on the breaks and I slide down the hood of the car and roll into the street. I hear him chattering into his car radio: "Dispatch, Duke. I've spotted a domestic disturbance on Parkinson and 15th with super hero intervention. Subject in question is the Punchernaut, over."

The police dispather squawks something back, and just as I'm getting to my feet, Duke puts the pedal to the metal. The old Cadillac roars and tears down the street toward me, but I'm ready this time. I jump up and kick my feet out so that I slide over the hood and through the windshield.

This is the third time I've done this to Duke's car. It's a game we play.

The police department always pays to have it repaired, so I don't feel too bad.

"What in the SAM HILL are you doing, boy!?" Duke swerves into somebody's yard, swatting broken glass off the front of his shirt with one hand. He takes out their mailbox which bounces over the hood and into the cab with us. Once we've stopped, he starts to say something else into the radio, but again, I interrupt. Once more, as politely as I can, I rip the CB radio out of the car and toss into the street where it practically explodes into pieces.

We stare at each other for a minute and then we get out of the car, both of us fast, and somehow he's able to keep up with me. Once we're out of the car, we slowly make our way into the street, side-stepping and moving backwards, eyes locked, waiting for the other to make some kind of move.

"You got a lot of nerve, kid." He steps past his ruined radio backwards, and his old cowboy boots somehow find their way around any of the bigger chunks he might trip over. This guy is incredible.

"And you don't? I was in the middle of something."

"That ain't nothing the police can't handle."

"I didn't see any police around, old man."

"I was around."

"Like I said, pops. No police."

"You got a lot of nerve, kid."

"We've been through this."

We stare each other down, both of us standing in the middle of the street, about 20 paces apart. Any minute now, a tumblweed should roll between us to complete the scene. The only noise is the steady crescendo of police sirens, coming from the north end of town.

"You're lucky, pops," I say. "I'm not in the mood to embarass an old man in front of his police buddies by knocking the living crap out of him."

"You knock the crap out of me? Son, I've scraped better than you off the bottom of my boots."

The sirens are too close. I can see the lights in the fog. Time for me to split. I don't feel like getting shot tonight. "Hate to leave good company, Duke, but I better get out of here."

"One of these days, Punchernaut..."

"One of these days, Duke..."

I run at him. I get within arm's reach and pull my fist back like I'm going to slug him, but instead I just take off, flying right over his head.

He never flinches.

What is this guy?

Strange, Troubling Dreams

2007-03-12T10:58:00.000-05:00

I'm in the bathroom. Some rest stop between here and somewhere. So technically I'm nowhere.

I step out of the bathroom stall. Some other guy is at the urinal between me and the sinks.

I'm washing my hands when he clears his throat and he says: "They call you the Punchernaut..."

I'm not in uniform. I turn to him. I can't see his face. He's hidden behind one of those cheap aluminum privacy walls between urinals.

"Who are you?" I shake the water off my hands.

"They call you the Punchernaut," he says again... He zips his jeans and then he steps back and I see his face.

He's me.

He's me, but he's a sick gray-green color. There are stitches going down the side of his face, down his neck, and under his shirt. There are stitches around his wrists. Something about him smells wrong. He's got that odd, comforting smell of fresh dirt. That smell that's somehow old and dirty, but clean and refreshing at the same time. His voice sounds the same, dry and scratching and forgotten for ages.

"So, Punchernaut... So let's see how you punch."

My hands clench into fists, and so do his, and then we're running at each other.

Before my fist connects I wake up, the sheets clinging to the film of cold sweat that covers my entire body. My right arm jerks forward so fast, there's a sound like a whip cracking. I'm out of breath. My eyes go wide and scan the room.

Why am I dreaming about that again?

I don't like this.

Media Attention, Iris Pirate

2007-03-11T00:44:00.000-06:00

There was seriously a video of me on the news and I missed it. It's a video of me FLYING. All Superman style. I wish I'd have seen it. Somebody at work was talking about it.

This is the first time I've ever been on television. I mean, it was just the local news, but the PUNCHERNAUT IS ON TV!!

After I heard this, I spent the rest of the evening looking up stuff about the Iris Pirate on Google, just to see if she was getting better press than me. I found some stuff in the Post-Crescent, their local newspaper.

She stopped a damn BANK ROBBERY! I've never stopped a bank robbery! I just fight super villains and shit! I stop the occasional mugging or liquor store robbery, but never a BANK ROBBERY!

Oh that burns my biscuits.

When my friend from Appleton gets here, I'm going to drill her on this eyepatched floozie calling herself a super hero.

I'm a super hero! Not some fancy girl waving her butt around in front of news reporters!

Total attention whore. TOTAL.

I AM THE ONLY ONE WHO CAN WEAR AN EYE PATCH

Haven't had time to go on patrol lately. Getting home too late to spend the night out. I'm off tonight, so after I take my cousin home from work, I think I might go on a midnight run.

Well, it's after midnight, but you know what I mean.

God damn Iris Pirate.

Ridiculous

2007-03-09T19:41:00.000-06:00

I was running late for work and forgot to grab my costume on the way out. I've got my eyepatch in my pocket, though. That's SOMETHING, and I guess it's all I need.

Normally it's not such a big deal. I've gone on emergencies from the grocery store in a t-shirt and jeans tons of times. As long as I've got the eyepatch, I'm solid.

But today I'm wearing this horrible Hawaiian shirt and a lei. If I have to run out of work to save the world, or at least the town, I'll look absolutely ridiculous.

It's too early in my career to be a laughingstock.

For once in my life I'm hoping I don't have to fight.

Anybody who'd want to figh me tonight probably wouldn't need it.

They'd just die laughing.

Mahalo.

Recovering

2007-03-09T01:53:00.000-06:00

I've been taking it easy on patrols the last few days. The scratches on my back have closed up, but I'm still a bit tender back there.

Right now I'm worried. I've got a girl coming to visit me. I'm interested in her, she's interested in me.

The problem is, she doesn't know I'm the Punchernaut. She just knows like... the real me. The regular me.

I can't just neglect my duties while she's here, but I can't let her catch me, either.

She's from pretty far away, so she's probably never even heard of the Punchernaut. She does seem interested in super humans because sometimes she mentions the super hero in her town.

The Iris Pirate.

She showed me a picture of her once. The Iris Pirate. She wears an eyepatch.

I friggin' hate that. She probably doesn't even need it. I hate ANYBODY in the super hero business that wears an eye patch.

If Nick Fury were real, I'd rip his other eye out.

If I ever go to visit this girl... I'll hunt down that Iris Pirate and make it so she DOES need that eyepatch. I'll suck her eyeball right out of her head and pop it with my teeth.

I HATE OTHER HEROES WITH EYEPATCHES!!

I am strong!!

The Grim Creeper (Part Two)

2007-03-08T01:10:00.000-06:00

The following is a continuation from my previous post. If you haven't read it yet, I suggest you do, because you won't know what the heck I'm talking about.

-----

He stands and straightens his dark coat he's wearing over his NIN t-shirt (I swear to God, a new supervillain wearing a Nine Inch Nails shirt), and says, in his best Bela Lugosi impersonation, I'm sure, "They call me... The Grim Creeper."

Daintily, he wipes a spot of chewed meat off his lip with his thumb...

I wait for him to laugh, and he doesn't.

"You're... you're serious?"

"Serious?"

"You call yourself the Grim Creeper?"

"What's wrong with that?"

I laugh, "What comic books do you read?"

"None."

"It's obvious! You realize if I were Spider-Man, I'd have some pun about that, right?"

"You're not Spider-Man," he says.

"You're right," He barely has enough time to look surprised before I close the 15 feet between us and my fist collides with his sternum, "I'm the Punchernaut!"

His ribcage bends like a plastic coat hanger and he seems to spring off of my fist, flying back with his arms and legs flapping in front of him like little pale flags with black fingernail polish on them. He smashes through a concrete wall and into the slaughterhouse refrigeration room. I follow him, taking my time. He's going to need a minute to stand up.

Two bare lightbulbs hang from thick black cables in the cooler. They're swinging from the building shaking as the Creeper broke through the wall. Huge sides of beef hang from hooks, all of them swinging. It's almost too late for me to throw a punch when I realize one of the swinging cows is flying at me.

My fist hits it just below the ribcage. It vibrates like a drum before exploding into hamburger. I've got beef juices all over my shirt. Why do I have to wear white?

On the other side of the beef, I see no creeper. Shadows of cow carcasses dance on the walls and then I hear a single footstep behind me. I spin around just in time to feel those black fingernails rip into my cheek. I curse and pull back to throw a punch, but he's not there anymore.

Behind me again. I don't have time to spin around. Clawed fingers rake down my back, ripping my shirts, tearing into my flesh. The claws go in deep, all the way to his fingers. Then I'm not being cut. My flesh is just being ripped. After a confused yalp, I'm stumbling away, swinging my fists in any direction, looking around, hoping I hit something.

That's when I notice a shadow that shouldn't be there, slipping around on the walls and along the floors.

The bastard can move in shadows.

Again, he's behind me. I spin around with my arm out and luckily for me, I catch him in the shoulder, just as he makes a swipe at my neck. He spins on his heels so he's facing away from me. I give him a stiff kick right in the ass and he sails through the door to the cooler and into the other room. Before he hits the floor, he flattens out and melts into the shadows, vanishing again.

That's when the lights go out.

"KHSSSS," he says, "I'm not just strong and fast," he's whispering, but it's loud enough to hurt my ears. I make my way out of the cooler and I feel the gashes in my back scabbing over. Gotta love that healing factor.

"Not just strong and fast..." He's repeating himself.

"I control shadows!" He says.

I've seen a lot in my time as a super hero. I've faced a lot of scary stuff. Giant dogs, Frankensteins, loved ones in big trouble, madmen in robotic suits. That kinda stuff turns blood to steel. Not a lot scares you.

But when a man made of shadows is talking to you in an ear-splittingly loud whisper in a dark room, I dare you to tell me you're not shivering a little.

I'm about to tell him to shut up when something dreadful happens. I'm sure you've been punched in the face before, dear reader. Imagine that happening, suddenly, over every square inch of your body. Now imagine it's Superman doing it.

I squish.

I SQUISH.

It lets up and something bubbles up my throat and out of my mouth. I hope I just threw up.

"Brute strength..."

SQUISH - I fall to my knees. I'm trying to get up.

"Might work with those thugs you usually deal with..."

SQUISH - I'm on my hands and knees and more hot liquid falls out of my mouth. It tastes and smells like old pennies.

"But tell me..."

SQUISH - My arms give out and I'm face-down on the floor. My legs fall under me and I'm gasping for air. I try to inhale.

"You can't punch a shadow..."

SQUISH - The wind is knocked out of me again. If it wasn't already dark, things would be getting that way.

"Can you, Punchernaut!?"

SQUISH - That's enough.

Kids, here's some advice from your old pal, the Punchernaut. When things are as bad as they can be, with death being the only thing worse (Like say, you're in a slaughterhouse covered in beef juices and your own blood as a living shadow crushes the life out of you), things can only get better if you just try. That's right, kids, never get up.

SQUISH - I get up to one knee. I wait.

"CAN YOU!?"

SQUISH - This guy's good at super villain banter. I'm on my feet. I pull up my right arm. I wait.

"TELL ME!"

SQUISH - Suck it up. You can take it, big guy. Let's do this.

It's time to turn on some lights.

Super strength was somethign I was born with. The circumstantial badass power was something I was born with. My fighting skills I had to learn.

You can learn karate, tai kwon do, and jujitsu from a dojo.

You can learn Jeet Kune Do from watching too many Bruce Lee movies.

You can learn Bushido by watching the Seven Samurai.

But you can only learn the Divine Art of the Punching Fist from Bijorik Baldursdóttir of Iceland (Not the one on Earth. Long story).

My right arm fires straight downward so fast that the friction from the air around it burns the hair right off my arm. There's a sound like a gunshot and the bloodstained concrete floor below me bends like pudding. I'm standing in a hole. I feel another SQUISH coming on, but it lets up. I'm pushing back now. The shockwave from my arm has a (very cool) delayed reaction. The walls around us quiver and shake, just as I was seconds ago, and then they crumble like dry brownies.

The glass in the windows shatters to dust.

The ceiling catches the wind and it's gone.

I'm now standing in a hole in a concrete floor in the middle of a field, next to a cow pasture. All around me are piles of sand and pebbles that were once walls and bits of ceiling. Various instruments of slaughter are laying about, most of them pushed about 20 yards away in a near perfect circle from where I'm standing.

10 yards away from me is a very confused goth kid with a stupid haircut.

50 yards around away, arranged in a neat semi-circle, are city and state police cars, blue and red lights still flashing. Behind each car are several very confused police officers.

Aside from the wind, the only sound is my angry panting, and the confused stuttering of the Grim Creeper.

Finally, he breaks the relative silence with "THE LIGHT!"

"THE LIGHT IT BURNS!"

He begins clawing at his face, looking for somewhere to hide. There's no smoke coming from his skin. He's play-acting. I march straight up to him, stepping out of the hole I've made for myself, every muscle in my body aching from strain, and from the desire to knock this kid's lights right out.

Which is what I do. He sails the distance between us and the police cars. He crashes into one of it and flips like a rag doll over the top, ripping the lights off with him.

He's incoherant now, babbling about light and burning. He's crawling along the grass now, hooting like an idiot.

Within seconds, I'm pushing my way through the throng of police officers crowding around the boy. I grab the kid by the back of his coat and haul him to his feet. I spin him around and look him in the eye before cold cocking him right in the jaw.

I hit him hard enough that he sails up over the heads of the surrounding officers and lands on the hood of a squad car. It buckles like wax paper and steam hisses out of the running engine. I shove through the cops again to see what I've done to the kid.

His eyes roll aimlessly in their sockets, opening and closing at different times. I might have caused brain damage. His head lolls to one side and he spits out two teeth, mottled with blood, before throwing up on the hood of the car. It rolls down the bent steel and gets all over his jacket. He looks at me lazily and his eyes widen.

"Remember this face, Grim Creeper," I say. "And when you get to prison," I grab his shirt and pull him up so we're nose-to-nose "Tell them the Punchernaut sent you."

I headbutt the kid for good measure, smashing his nose like it's made of Play Doh, and he's out like a light.

The police are now standing behind me, wide-eyed, open-mouthed.

One with a shinier badge and a big hat puts his hand on my shoulder from behind. "You better get out of here, son. We called for more backup."

I don't look at him. "I'm not under arrest?"

"You escaped in the confusion. Right boys?"

The other cops nod dumbly. I see them in the reflection of the squad car's windshield. One says, "Yeah, Captain. Escaped."

Another says, "Holy shit."

Without another word, I launch straight up, the Captain's hand still on my shoulder. He jerks it away and they all watch me as I expode across the sky.

I didn't even have to run to fly.

Awesome.

The wind is fast today, and I'm flying faster. The sun's bright. It's a little brisk, but I'm shaking with adrenaline, and I barely feel it. I feel alive. I throw my hands out in front of me, Superman style, and I let out a feral roar.

"HELL YES!"

I'm brought down from this high as I crash in my back yard, rolling ass over applecart along the grass, through some dog poop, and into the big tree in that stands in the middle of the yard. My dog comes over and curiously cocks his head to one side as he sits and licks my chin just once.

I pat him on the head as I get up.

I sneak through the back door and go to my room to clean up.

Mom and I are going to a movie in 20 minutes.

The Grim Creeper

2007-03-06T22:34:00.000-06:00

I went on a brief midday patrol this afternoon. Told my mother I was going to straighten some things up at work, took off in my car, ditched it downtown, then took to running rooftops.

Long story short, I end up in a fight with an aspiring supervillain in a slaughterhouse.

I swear I can't make this stuff up.

The call came out over the police scanner and I took off toward this slaughterhouse and butcher shop way out in the county. What he was doing there, I have no idea, but apparently sides of beef have made contact with policemen and police cars.

Yes, a madman throwing meat.

This is my favorite type of fight. Battling another dude with super strength always gets me in a great mood because I just love to brawl like hell.

Luckily for me, the best entrance was to fly in over the cop cars, so I was able to fly. This is always great for me. Since, for some reason, everything in my life goes back to video games, I have to run really fast for a little bit. Then, invariably, my feet lift up off the ground, EXACTLY like in Super Mario Bros. 3. I always imagine as I'm running that at some point there's a high-pitched trill and I have a raccoon tail.

The few people who know who and what I am always ask me what it's like to fly. I describe it as such:

Imagine being eight years old and you wake up on the first day of winter break and you realize it's been snowing all night. Good, solid, wet snow. The first thing you do after your mom makes you eat breakfast is you throw on your boots, your coat, and your hat, and you rush outside toward the biggest hill in town. At the top you throw your sled down and dive onto it, belly first, letting your momentum push the sled down the hill.

It's a lot like that only it's not always cold, it's not always wet, and you're going up instead of down, and also you're not laying on anything.

So I'm flying above the city of Vincennes following the cop cars out because I forget exactly where the abbatoir in question is. I spot the squad cars in the distance and speed up because now I know where I'm going. One car is nearly bent in half and there's a big hunk of meat sticking out of it.

This is going to be awesome.

I'm starting to descend in my flight now, and I think it's time to come back to the sled analogy.

The biggest hill in my town is an old Indian burial mound, and I've been sledding on it many times in my life. It's pretty steep, and I'd say a good 20 feet above regular ground level.

The ground does not level out gradually. It's pretty abrupt.

Imagine you're on your little plastic sled, speeding down the side of the Indian mound, and you're getting close to the bottom. The wind is whipping through your hair and the cold stings your cheeks and you're hooting and hollaring and carrying on like kids do. Suddenly you get to the bottom of the hill and the sled stops. Again, your momentum works on you, but not in your favor this time. You fly off the sled and hit your head and decide to just go home because that REALLY sucked.

That's what landing is like for me. I don't know how it is for other super heroes, but for me, I can only fly when I have to. That means I don't get much practice landing.

I can hear an officer shouting through the loudspeaker in his squad car, "Put down the meat and come outside! We aren't going to hurt you. We just need to take you into custodWHAT THE HELL IS THAT !?"

I'm probably flying about 80 miles per hour as I whip over the heads of the police and crash through one of the factory windows of the slaughterhouse. I hit a concrete wall on the other side and crash onto a table covered in saw blades.

I'm so glad super strength comes as a package deal with resiliance. I think I'd have broken my neck otherwise.

I shake off the cobwebs (literally) and the concrete dust and get to my feet. There's some odd noise somewhere nearby and I start poking around. This is what I came across:

On the floor is some goy crouched on his haunches with his legs akimbo. He's greedily shoving things into his mouth. His hair is styled in three vertical spikes and for a moment, I fear it's the vengeful spirit of Klaus Nomi.

I do not want to fight an undead 80's pop/opera singer.

Otherwise he's dressed all in black with a coat that's got little dips in it like Batman's cape.

He didn't hear me break the window or crash into the wall, so I clear my throat and say "Before I pound your face into hamburger, you should tell me what you want to be called so they can get it right in the papers."

Then (again, I can't make this stuff up), he spins around to face me. He opens his mouth wide, revealing rows of filed, sharpened teeth behind black-lipsticked lips. He's got heavy eyeshadow on, and under one eye he's painted the Eye of Osiris. I'm unnerved by his eyes for a moment before I realize they're those expensive yellow cat-eye effect contacts.

Then, I swear to God, he hisses at me. Like a vampire in a bad movie. Here's an artist's (my) depiction of the scene:

He didn't say that last thing, but it wouldn't have surprised me.

In front of him, the stuff he was eating, is a pile of ripped and torn meat with bones sticking out of it. He stands and straightens his dark coat he's wearing over his NIN t-shirt (I swear to God, a new supervillain wearing a Nine Inch Nails shirt), and says, in his best Bela Lugosi impersonation, I'm sure, "They call me... The Grim Creeper."

Daintily, he wipes a spot of chewed meat off his lip with his thumb...

(TO BE CONTINUED!)

"I'm the Punchernaut, Bitch!"

2007-03-06T04:19:00.000-06:00

I swear to God I yelled that at a guy tonight.

For a small town, you'd be surprised at how many people try to work their way up the crime ladder to supervillain status. I mean, it's small-town Indiana. You'd figure the most evil folks around here were mean drunks with shotguns.

I should be so lucky.

I said I'd describe my powers a little better, so I better get that out of the way before I go into some of my adventures and stuff. I don't want any lame surprises. Here's the best way to put it. I'm always strong. That's my main thing. I can punch the hell out of things, which is why I call myself The Punchernaut. I can kick things and headbutt things pretty hard, too, but "The Punchkickheadbutternaut" doesn't have the same ring to it, and the "-butternaut" part of that sounds like some expensive German candy I'd get for my Grandma for Christmas.

I'm pretty fast, for a fat guy. I mean, I outrun speeding police cars most of the time. That's just because of the strength in my legs, though. I crack concrete sometimes. I feel like the Hulk.

And speaking of which, the angrier I get, the stronger I seem to get. It's probably adrenaline, but I think there's seriously a connection. I also get stronger during and after I take a good beating. It's perfect because I have a talent not only for punching, but also for being punched.

A lot.

By big guys.

I've got a little bit of Wolverine going on, too, because I heal faster than most people should. Not as fast as Wolverine, I mean. He's like, immediately. I take a few days. Once, a couple years back before I got the superhero gig, I fell down a long road on a very steep hill at band camp. At the bottom my head bounced like a basketball off this big concrete gutter that went down the side of the hill. Big gash, blood everywhere. The camp nurse said I was lucky to be alive. That was the third day of camp. By the end of the week, when we were packing to go home, my buddy Tony pointed out that all I had left was a white line.

Two days later and even that was gone.

But then, aside from the superhuman strength and the handy Marvel "healing factor," I've got this other power that's totally circumstantial. If, for some reason, I absolutely need to fly, I can. And I do. But if I don't NEED to, I can't.

It also depends on this: If it's cool to do at the time or not.

For example, it's always cool to walk through fire and come out unscathed. Herr Explodiert blows up an oil rig going through town? Guess who dives through the flames and tackles him into the gutter before knocking his Kraut brains out?

That's right. Me.

I'll even be on fire, but I don't feel anything. Makes an awesome picture in the newspaper, too. Me standing there in my tie looking all stoic with my shoulder on fire. People eat that crap up.

But say I'm lighting a candle in my office at work, I can burn myself with the match. It's a mad world.

It's a real bitch, but I guess it's my gift...

And my curse.

I love being cheesey like that. They should make comics about me.

Nothing's been happening on my patrols lately. There was a liquor store robbery last night and the cops found two very confused men with money stuffed in their mouths thrown up into a tree.

No need to thank me.

I'm just your friendly neighborhood Punchernaut.

Patrols and a Photo

2007-02-27T23:37:00.000-06:00

Basically, since it's such a small town, I go on patrols almost every night. I wander around on rooftops or in shadows. All that Batman kind of bullcrap.

I also keep my ear on a police scanner that I stole from a place I used to work. It clips to my belt, so it's really handy.

Patrols tonight were boring. There was a rowdy party going on, but nothing illegal was happening, and I don't mind that stuff anyway. Mostly it's crimes against other people I care about.

Ever since I fought Willie the Giant Dog, things have been really quiet around here.

Willie the Giant Dog is one of my enemies. Long story.

Here's a picture of me. I know I shouldn't post it, but eventually, some jerk is going to get a photo of me when I'm not looking and they'll hog all the credit. I'd rather leak a good photo myself than let some other stooge get all the glory.

Should I get a MySpace?

The Commission Can Kiss My Ass

2007-02-27T04:00:00.000-06:00

So, I guess I'm the Punchernaut.

Being a superhero carries a lot of responsibility, and it's a lonely life. The best way to get these things out is to talk about them, but being a superhero, and having to keep my idenity a secret, I don't get much of an opportunity to do it.

There are only a few people who know I lead this double life. I can't tell you who they are, because then you'll be able to find out who I am. One is my best friend, one is my therapist, and one is a girl I used to love. Then like, it'd be like Spider-Man stuff. You'd go after the people I love and all that crap, and I don't have time for that.

My powers? Hard to describe, really. I'll let you pick up on it as you read, because I doubt you want to go through some itemized list of all the things I can do. I've heard a lot of people say I'm just good at being a badass. I guess that's a decent super power.

My motivation for fighting crime? Well, being a vigilante is easier than being a villain, for one. People like a vigilante. Gives them some kind of hope, I guess. Plus, being a vigilante, I'm still technically a criminal. Don't get me wrong, I'm not some namby-pamby mama's boy like that wuss Superman. What a joke.

I guess boredom factors into it. Most nights I don't have anything better to do than to cruise around looking for people to save.

Not that the roofs are all that high around here. I live in a small town. Vincennes, Indiana, to be exact. Not much call for a super hero around here, but I've made the papers more than once. I'm a natural at moving just as my picture is taken, so all the photos they get are blurry. I'm totally a pro at this.

Up until about a week ago, I was Captain Punchernaut, but I got a message from the Super Human Commission stating you can't have "Captain" in your superhero name unless you're actually a ranking military official. You know, like Captain America. That guy's worse than Superman. A shield? Really? Keep hiding, Steve. Maybe you'll get a couple licks in.

So I just took "Captain" out and replaced it with "The." The Punchernaut sounds stronger anyway. I'm the only one. THE Punchernaut.

Why Punchernaut? Because I punch things. I'm good at it. The -naut part is like "juggernaut." I was going to call myself Captain Juggernaut, but I don't want to rip off X-Men. If I start doing that, people won't take me seriously.

"Oh honey, that comic book nerd is at it again. Sticking his neck out for people."

I guess the -naut part can also be like "astronaut" because I'm from space, but I don't like to talk about that.

Things went bad at home before I left.

So that's enough of an introduction, I guess. I sound like I'm full of myself.

Tomorrow I might let you know what goes on in a typical night for me. I skipped patrol tonight because I got off work late, otherwise I'd tell you tonight.

Sleep well, citizens.