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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Piratecat" data-source="post: 3382763" data-attributes="member: 2">Round 3, Match 1: Piratecat vs. Rodrigo Istalindir[title]BanterBy Kevin Kulp (Piratecat)[/title]You’re 12 years old again and crouched underneath your bed sheets. It’s stuffy under here, and your dim flashlight creates the illusion of a flannel cave. Your parents won’t notice, though, not tonight. So you sort through the pile and gradually pull out an issue of Titanic Team-Up #171. You hold it under the light.The cover doesn’t show any bad guys or ray guns or giant gorillas. Instead it shows a close up of a particular hero’s face. He’s normally an extremely handsome black man. But not now. Now he’s staring in horror at his own hands as the melting flesh begins to peel away. It’s clear that he’s in the process of dying. Behind him a beautiful raven-haired girl in a skintight red power suit is lunging to save him – but it’s just as clear she’ll be too late! What could have done this? Who could have done this to him? The only hint is the lurid title emblazoned at an angle across the front of the book, in huge yellow letters…The Flesh is Weak! Featuring the titanic team-up of Rubber Band and Loophole in their most dangerous adventure ever – with a villainous ensemble like none you’ve seen! Monolith, the Octobomination… and the diabolical Architect of Flesh!You flip open the cover, flip past some Sea Monkeys and an ad where a skinny young man is getting sand kicked in his face –And so we begin.Outskirts of Crescent City, MississippiThousands of cars stood idle in the gloom of a gathering storm. The sulfurous glare of their headlights illuminated Rt. 211 better than any street light could. Somewhere in that line of cars were three escaped criminals. Riot police patrolled the snaking column and checked each car. The police wore flak jackets and carried sidearms; everyone knew that the Fratelli brothers were dangerous.No one noticed the horse and wagon.It rumbled slowly across newly tilled fields a good three hundred yards from the road. The police were all looking for the Italian sports cars that they knew the Fratellis favored. No one thought to look for something that didn’t even have a motor. The wagon veered back onto a side road three miles past the roadblock, and the brothers laughed harshly as they high-fived one another. “Idiots!” said Vinny, a thick-browed man with a heavy gut. “Killing the farmer was absolutely worth it.” “We were already in for murder one,” said Al. “What did it matter? And tomorrow we’ll be in Jackson, and then Chicago. Then we’ll gack those stumblebums who put us in jail in the first place.”“First things first,” mumbled their elder brother Joe as he twitched the reins. A lone car raced around them and vanished into the coming dusk. “The doc sprung us, and I got the package he wanted us to carry. First things first.”The road stretched out before them, <a href="http://www.enworld.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=28044" target="_blank">a dotted white line leading into a stormy future.</a> Vinnie lit a cigar. “I’m looking forward to this.” The stream of greasy smoke trailed behind the wagon.Joe coughed, then opened his pale eyes enough to glance around. “Hey,” he mumbled, “anyone else besides me feel like we’re bein’ watched?”Then there was a snap like a stuttering bolt of lightning as something blue and yellow came out of nowhere to slam into the side of the wagon. The horse gave a desperate whinny of fright and tried to run. The wagon had tipped, though, and the mare just reared up on its hind legs and pawed at the air. The giant ball rebounded from the wagon’s debris and bounced to a stop thirty feet away.“Man,” said Rubber Band as he unfolded himself, “do I make a good entrance, or what?” He stretched, and his arms extended a good twenty feet. “You see that, girl? That oughta be on a lunch box.”“I saw it,” said Loophole. Her tight red costume was covered by shifting discs of solid blackness. Her face couldn’t be seen behind the rotating black discs. “I couldn’t help but see it. I’m the one who got you here.”“I can’t even do that well when I’m bowling,” said Rubber Band with a laugh. “Strike!”  One hand undid the horse’s traces as his head stretched out to take a look at the three mobsters lying in a muddy ditch.  “What we got here? The Fratelli brothers, huh? There’s about fifty police men back there who’re just about dying to make your acquaintance.”“They ain’t the only ones who’re dying, bub,” said Joe bitterly, and all three of the mobsters went for their guns. Pistols barked into the evening air, just as a ripple of thunder rolled across the fields. All three brothers aimed at the stretchy strongman looming in front of them, but they were too slow. Loophole was there first.“I don’t think so,” she said, and a two-dimensional black disc materialized in front of Rubber Band’s chest. Bullets that should have killed the hero disappeared into darkness and reappeared instantly on the far side of his body. Her teleportation disc wasn’t quite big enough, though. Rubber Band grunted as one stray bullet distended his belly backwards like a trampoline. Then his belly snapped forward again and the bullet came screaming back towards the Fratellis. It took Vinny in the knee, and he let out a cry of pain as he tumbled to the ground.“You know,” said the rubbery man as he waved away the haze of gunpowder smoke with a fan-shaped hand, “that? That was a damn stupid thing to try. I take it personal when people shoot at me. No wonder you in jail.”  His looping fists caught the two unhurt Fratellis under their many chins, and both brothers fell backwards like hewn trees. Rubber Band looked down at Vinny and extended one finger to tap him on the forehead.“Yo. Who broke you outta jail, Vinny? Who owed you that favor?”“My knee,” groaned Vinny. “Package. Doc… doctor…” He swooned into unconsciousness.“We better get him to a doctor,” said Loophole reluctantly. A prison doctor – in a jail that’s actually secure. Want me to do the honors?”“Sure do,” said Rubber Band. “Meanwhile, I’ll bounce back with these two and tell the cops that we got their boys. They must have gotten this cart from somewhere. The police’ll want to check it out.”“Sounds good to me,” said Loophole. “You grab that package he mentioned. I’ll meet you back at the Fortress.”  She stood next to Vinny, and black discs began to orbit her body. “One other thing, though.” She had a twinkle in her eye. “You get to round up the horse.” With a crackle both she and Vinny’s unconscious form dropped through a hole and out of the world, leaving Rubber Band alone with the other two thugs. He paused, looking back at the way the horse had run. “Well, damn,” he said. He wrapped up both Fratellis and their gear inside his stretchy body, shaped himself like a huge superball, and used his arms like slingshots to catapult himself back towards Crescent City.-- o – Peter Hondas was not like any other shopper at the Foodimart. He had a secret. Peter pushed his shopping cart with the balky wheel up and down the narrow aisles, waiting for old ladies to get out of his way in the deli line, and he didn’t one of them up to fling through a wall.  Why? Because he was biding his time.He was waiting.<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Two boxes of chocolate donuts.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">A box of Twinkies.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Two loaves of Wonder Bread.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Some of them hamburger buns. It was almost grilling season.</li> </ul>It had been three years. Three long years since the boss had been killed by those bastards in spandex. But nothing could kill the boss, he knew that, and so he did what the boss had told him to do. Lay low. Be loyal. The money from the last couple spectacular robberies was starting to run out, and Peter wasn’t sure what he’d do when it did, but he’d cross that bridge when he came to it. If the boss could he’d be back already, and all Peter had to do was stay patient and keep low. His loyalty would be rewarded. <ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Case of soda.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">A box of sugar-frosted cereal without a superhero on it</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Three bags of chips.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">New bottle of ketchup.</li> </ul>But would the boss ever return? Peter had seen it. That scrawny little bitch had teleported Peter halfway into steel-reinforced cement, there weren’t nothing he could quickly do about that and he was sure the Boss knew that, and the stretchy jerk in the yellow spandex had held some high-tech gizmo up just as the Boss had turned his deli… delicatess… deliquiss… flesh-slurping ray on him. The ray he’d been working on in the secret lab for weeks, saving it for something special. And instead of melting down into a big puddle of goo like the cops at the Third National, the ray rebounded. It had bounced! And Peter had watched as the Boss turned into that same sort of puddle. They’d been fighting at the zoo, some sort of caper involving an endangered pregnant whatsit worth millions to China, and the boss’s flesh-goo had drained into the zoo sewers, and right then Peter had known that he had to break free right then and there if he didn’t want to see life imprisonment in some sort of nuclear containment suit, so he ripped himself free and tossed teleportin’ Slutstar there into Rubber Band’s head as hard as he could and had made a run for it. Made it, too. And now here he was, planning for a barbecue instead of flinging nosy heroes at one another. But at least he’d gotten away with the giant panda. It’d been pretty tasty, too. But what was he gonna do for a new job if the boss never showed? All the super-criminals in Crescent City were losers. <ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Jar of pickles. </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Couple onions.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Six pack of beer.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Three porterhouse steaks.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Two pounds of ground hamburger. </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">And the hamburger had a face.</li> </ul>Sure, he could hire out as muscle for a crime boss like the Fratellis, but that was like working fast food after you’d cooked for the Taj Mahal or something. Peter knew that…Wait, a face?The old lady next to him in the aisle glanced into his cart and screamed bloody murder. Doubtful, Peter pushed aside the steaks and picked up his shrink-wrapped hamburger. <a href="http://www.enworld.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=28043" target="_blank">Yeah, that was definitely a face.</a> There was no hair, only flesh, as if some insane butcher had carved off the front of someone’s head. He held it up.“Monolith!” the face hissed, barely audible through the shrink-wrap. “I have returned, and I need you. Gather eight flunkies, competent or not. Come to the old sanctum in the swamp.” The unnatural lips pulled back in a rictus of triumph, and the hiss rose to into a scream like a dying cat. “It is time for revenge!”Peter smiled. The screaming lady had called the cops, but he just threw his shopping cart at her and then hit the cops with their own car. Then he bounded away. He was sorry to lose the groceries, sure, but everything was going to be okay again. He didn’t have to be Peter Hondas any more. Now he was Monolith.The boss was back.-- o -- “Shhh,” said Rubber Band, waving her down. “I love this part.” He was stretched back on the couch, his feet resting on a divan eleven feet away. The television showed a movie in black and white. It was very late.“RB,” said Loophole patiently, “We’ve got to talk about what you found.”“Later,” he insisted, and waggled his fingers to shush her. “Movies from 1913 aren’t gonna watch themselves, you know.” Loophole sighed, let the black discs melt away, and flopped down on the old sofa. Her fingers dug into the bag of popcorn that RB offered her, and she stuffed a handful in her mouth. “Uck,” she offered, “butter-flavored.”“I love this part,” said Rubber Band. “See, that’s Ford Sterling on the phone. He replaced Hank Mann. See that guy on the right, leaning in?  That’s Fatty Arbuckle. They’re all trying to listen. But Fatty leans too far, trips, and then every single Keystone Kop goes down like a stack of dominos. Wait for it… wait for it…” He held up one long finger to orchestrate the moment. “Now!” Loophole started to laugh, spewed popcorn across the room from her mouth, then laughed some more. Rubber Band joined in and drowned her out.The room grew silent other than the tinny sound of the movie’s added soundtrack.“I thought I lost you there for a second,” she said finally. “I missed two bullets.”“Only one.”“No, two. One actually missed you. Al was a crummy shot.”“Man, girl. You’re slippin’.”“Shut up!” She punched him playfully on the arm, and her fist rebounded. “I’m serious. That was sloppy of me. I just wanted to say sorry.”“Don’t worry ‘bout it.” His smile was relaxed. “It hurt like crazy, but it didn’t kill me. What you should be apologizing for is making me catch that damn horse. Took me an hour to find it in the rain. It wandered up to the swamp.”“Hey, you wanted the fame. I just wanted to stay dry. The portal suit gets all clammy when it’s wet.”“Wuss.”They watched in silence for a few more minutes while Rubber Band got himself a beer from the kitchen, then Loophole spoke again. “And another thing. How come our Fortress is your sub-basement?”“Convenience. Who wants a crime alert where you have to fly to some satellite to get your supergear? Leave it for those big shots up north. This is handy.”She arched an eyebrow. “I’m a teleporter, you know? You remember? That whole ‘fall through a portal and be somewhere else’ gig? We could have a secret headquarters in Atlantis for all it matters. It’d take us just as long to get there.”He shook his head. “No way, girl. Then you’d leave me for some dumbass undersea prince fish-controller merman type, like they got two of down in Miami, and I’d have to go swimming every time I wanted to change my costume. Lousy idea. As is, this keeps you where I can see you.” Loophole pushed herself up on the couch and turned to face him, her voice sounding suddenly hurt. She pushed a lock of jet-black hair away from one eye. “Oh darling, that would never happen!” Rubber Band nodded suspiciously, waiting for the other shoe to fall. “Glad to hear it.”Loophole nodded with as much sincerity as she could muster. “Oh sure, I’d leave you in a heartbeat. Who wouldn’t? But for a fish guy? Ha!” Her tone turned conspiratorial. “You know, no one could guess it from my current boyfriend, but I do have some taste.” She stuck out her tongue at him, he went to grab it, and instead grabbed the back of his own head as his fingers slipped through the portal that materialized in front of her face. She peeked her head out from behind the swirling black disk and winked. “Movie’s still on. You’re missing the finale.”“Fine,” he grumbled, and then laughed. “Oh, almost forgot. Wait ‘til you see what the Fratellis had in that package. We’ve got some sleuthin’ to do in the morning.” He reached into the next room and brought back a brown paper bag. Loophole opened it and stared down. Her voice was incredulous.“This?”-- o --  The swamp came alive with the dawn. Monolith loved this part of the day. <a href="http://www.enworld.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=28041" target="_blank">Chilly and nervous and soaked to their skins,</a> all eight of the new recruits sat amidst the colossal plants and waited for something to happen. Early morning sunlight played across the still water of Devils Bayou. Hidden defenses kept this part of the swamp exceptionally private, and there were no strangers to hear Jordy Perkins whine.“Pffft. He’s the Archetype of Fish, more like it. Come on. You guys don’t take this seriously, do you?”  His voice reminded Monolith of a particularly troublesome mosquito.There were uncomfortable glances from the other seven lowlifes gathered around the makeshift conference table. Eyes flickered back and forth. A badly scarred woman cleared her throat and shifted the Standard Henchman Contract still sitting in front of her. No one said a thing.Jordy let out a short, barking laugh.  “I don’t believe it! You DO! Some strange guy dresses up in tights and hires us for $500 each and tells us that we’ve got to sit up to our waists in a freaking SWAMP to join up with a supervillain who died three years ago, and you’re so scared that you won’t even say boo!” Perkins slapped at a mosquito on his forehead, noticing with distaste the blood smeared on his hand.  “This is stupid. They can’t even afford a real table, they gotta use some plant. If it weren’t for the loot, I’d be outta here inna heartbeat.”  He slapped the giant water lily in front of him for emphasis.Monolith sucked in a deep breath and held his temper. He tended to throw things when he got mad, and the boss wanted these morons alive. “You signed the contract, buddy. The boss said get eight flunkies. You’re about as flunky as they come. So shaddap and siddown.”Perkins leapt to his feet, refusing to back down. “You might have them scared, big man, but not me! If I deign to join some crime gang, it’ll be as an equal. Not as a flunky. And I guarantee they’ll have better gear than some crummy giant water fern.”“Is that so, Mister Perkins? If you ‘deign’?” The voice was silky and terrifying  and apparently came from nowhere. “You are sitting at a Victoria Amazonica, the largest water lily in the world. It is the greatest of its kind, and so it pleases me. It is function serving form. I only surround myself with things that are perfect at their function, such as Monolith here. Anything else I change or destroy.” The voice paused. “And I must say, Mister Perkins, that you displease me.”  Jordy whipped his head around and splashed in a circle. He looked under the leaf, but saw only water. The other seven people seemed to be holding their breath. The mocking voice continued. “You, who have taken my money and sworn an oath of loyalty, would defy ME? In my own secret sanctum within the Devils Bayou? Idiot. Your fate was sealed the moment Monolith brought you here.”“You talk big,” blustered Jordy, still pinwheeling around to try and see the speaker. “You going to back that up?” “I already have. I’m just savoring the moment. Look at your compatriots, worm. I am improving their form to match their future function. I am turning them into the perfect killing machine.” Jordy looked closely at the other seven people at the table, the seven flunkies, and sour bile rose in his throat. They were merging. Like Siamese Twins in reverse, their flesh was joining and adhering. In seconds all seven of them had grown together, and horrified screams filled the air. Then the screams choked off abruptly as filaments of flesh grew over their mouths. Jordy took halting steps backwards through the water, unable to tear his eyes away from the slurping seven-headed horror wallowing at the other end of the giant lily pad.“Where… where are you?” Jordy was almost pleading.“Why Mister Perkins,” said the voice in a little whisper so very very close to his ear, “I’m right inside of you. Surprise.”The drying mosquito blood on Jordy’s hand began to bubble, and he staggered backwards as he felt something on his forehead begin to grow. He caught a quick glimpse of his face in the reflective water beneath him, and was revolted to see that there was some sort of growth erupting out of the exact spot where the mosquito had bitten him. The tumor looked cancerous, a rippling and bursting of flesh that bent his neck backwards with its unnatural weight. Jordy’s feet went out from under him and he slipped backwards into the water of the Mississippi swamp. The back of his head buried itself in thick mud at the bottom of the swamp. Jordy looked up through the watery distortion as the growth sprouted upwards, upwards, and suddenly the alien growth shifted and took the form of a skinless human man. The weight on his head changed as the tumor detached and became a solid foot. Ripples of skin rolled up from Jordy’s body onto this abomination of sentient meat, leaving Jordy partially flayed and in utter agony. He opened his mouth to scream, and water rushed into his throat to end his life. Then the foot moved from his forehead, and a huge fist grabbed Jordy and pulled him upwards into the light. “Gotcha,” said Monolith.“You weren’t scared, before,” the naked stranger said. His tone was detached and mildly inquisitive. “Are you now?”“Yuh… yes!” managed Jordy, and he mewled in terror.“Good,” said the naked man, apparently satisfied. “Then you shall lead them.” Monolith shoved Jordy’s skinless body into the seven-headed monstrosity, and the flesh parted with a wet sucking sound to welcome him. The Octobomination shifted on its own for a few minutes afterwards, eyes sliding across skin and arms repositioning themselves, but by then the naked man had sunk into the water at the head of the leafy table. He looked self-satisfied.“I’ll say one thing for ya, boss,” said Monolith appreciatively, “Ya haven’t forgotten how to make an entrance.”The man looked up, eyes blazing. “Of course I haven’t, my lethiferous lickspittle. I have spent three excruciating years regaining both my form and my power. I am more powerful now than I ever have been before, in ways you can not possibly imagine. I draw now power from you, them, this plant, the entire swamp –” His voice had risen to a howl. “– but so long as the man who defeated me still lives, I will not be able to rest. He will die, and then ALL will fear me.”  Monolith frowned. He had caught about half of that, just like normal. “Boss, so what about we…”“Silence. The trap for him is already laid, Monolith, and we must make haste before he springs it. Gather the Octobomination, and prepare yourself. For by my hand, before the end of this day, Rubber Band shall die.”  He leapt to his feet.“So I swear. For I am Doctor Vivios…”  He raised one fist high, and the swamp itself trembled before him. “THE ARCHITECT OF FLESH!”-- o --  Loophole looked up, eyebrow raised in not-so-polite disbelief, and sipped her coffee. “It’s a Betamax tape,” she said. “for a football promotion. ‘Meet the Green Bay Packers.’”“Exactly!” said Rubber Band with satisfaction. “It got given to the Fratellis when they escaped. It’s what we professional crime fighters call a ‘clue.’”“Thank you, Professor Condescending.”“Isn’t he out of Boston?”“Shaddap, you. A clue, huh? How do you figure?”“Well, there was a rubber band wrapped around it.” She looked at him expectantly, as if waiting for a punch line when the joke was already finished. “A rubber band? You know? It’s a message.” He sounded peevish. “Probably to lure me into some sort of diabolical trap.”“Uh huh.” Loophole cocked her head. “I know you’re more experienced than I am at this crime-fighting thing, because it hasn’t been all that long since I inherited the portal suit from my uncle, but don’t you think it’s more likely that you’ve secretly been struck by some sort of alien ego ray that makes you say incredibly stupid things?”“Could be,” he said straight-faced, “which must be why I got me my own line of toys and a Saturday morning cartoon show, and why everyone thinks you is some sort of cost accountant.” “It’s a Local Cable Access show, RB. Done by college students.”“It still counts on a technicality, thank you very much. Hmmph. And it never hurts a hero to jump to conclusions. Let’s think about this for a second. ‘Meet the Green Bay Packers.’”“They want us to come to the football stadium? To Wisconsin? To a cheese shop?” She shrugged.“No,” said Rubber Band as he rubbed his rubbery chin, “too obvious.” Ignoring her sarcastic snort, he continued thinking out loud. “Meet the Green Bay Packers. Meet the packers… meat packers! Of course! The Crescent City meat packing plant on Greene Street! The one with the modern sculpture out front!” Loophole stared at him. “You can’t possibly be serious.”RB had the good graces to look slightly embarrassed. “Of course I am. Get moving, girl.”“You really think that…”RB sighed, his stretchable chest moving like a bellows. “Of course I do. It’s standard villain logic. You just have to think like they do.”“You scare me. You know that.”“Uh huh.”“You think the heroes up in Freedom City have to put up with this sort of nonsense?”“You have no idea.”She wrapped her arms around him, held him tight, and they slid through a portal into blackness.-- o --“I’m so glad you’re here!” said the secretary in the low-cut dress. “There’s something weird going on in the slaughter house. I tried to call the police, but our phone line is dead. All the guys ran for their lives about twenty minutes ago. I’m sure they called for help, so I’ve been hiding in here.”Rubber Band turned to Loophole. “I told you – ”“DON’T SAY IT.”Rubber Band looked disappointed. “But that’s half the fun!”“Say it, and you better hope ALL your superballs bounce when something kicks them.” She gave him a look.“All righty, then.” He turned back to the secretary and tried not to look down the front of her dress. It was harder than it sounded; the woman was exceptionally well built. “We’ll look into it, miss.” “Eyes front, RB,” said Loophole with a grin. “Time to scout.” She had opened up a small teleportation portal in front of her. Rubber Band extended one of his eyeballs and squeezed it through the portal. It reemerged on the main floor of the meat packing plant.“It totally ooks me out when you do this.”“Ooks YOU out? You know how hard it is to blink when your eye is nine feet long? I have to reshape my lens and cornea just to be able to see anything!”“And what DO you see?”“I see meat hooks. And a giant meat grinder. And sides of beef stuck on the meat hooks. And,” he swallowed, “dead people stuck on the meat hooks. Not all the employees made it out alive.” His face still at the portal, he turned slightly towards Loophole. “I think we’ve got a—” and he screamed. “Something just caught my eye!”“What? What? You saw something? Who cares? Pull back!”“No,” hissed Rubber Band through pain-gritted teeth, “something is pulling on my eye!” And as he said it, his head actually began to slide forwards through the narrow portal. Whatever was on the other side must have been incredibly strong. The hero’s skull made nasty popping sounds as it was dragged through the tiny portal inch by inch.Loophole grabbed RB’s body and opened the portal wider. His body snapped forward, and she was carried right along with it.The unnatural monstrosity on the other side was incredibly strong; as strong as eight people, in fact. The Octobomination had over ten hands wrapped around Rubber Band’s eyeball and was pulling as hard as it could. Sixteen legs braced it. And as the Titanic Team-up slammed into it, eight mouths sent up an unholy chatter of voices.“hE hAs cOMe! wE May kIlL Him aND wE May rESt!” One sentence from many voices. The amalgamate slobbered with all its mouths as the hands seized and held Rubber Band. Teeth snapped.“I don’t think so,” said Loophole, but something unseen smashed her on the back of the head hard enough to blacken her vision and weaken her knees. She tried to turn her head and couldn’t; someone with a grip like iron had her by the throat, brutal fingers poised to crush her larynx if she so much as twitched. Maybe I could teleport oxygen straight into my lungs if my throat gets crushed? She hoped she wouldn’t have to find out. She couldn’t teleport herself free, that was for sure; she had to step into a portal for that, and right now she was caught. “Don’t move,” said the secretary’s voice, but it was changing in pitch. Sinking deeper.Rubber Band snapped his face back to normal, but he was thoroughly pinned by the sixteen armed monster. No matter how much he twitched or bent, he couldn’t get any leverage at all. “Ew. You got monster drool all over my eye. That’s just plain unsanitary. Who are you people?”“Don’t you recognize me, Rubber Band?” rumbled the voice behind Loophole. “We met before. Before I ate the panda.” “Monolith? You ate Ling-Ling? You know, fella, the zoo isn’t normally a take-out.” Rubber Band squinted in his direction, blinking furiously. “<a href="http://www.enworld.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=28040" target="_blank">But all I see is one damn ugly transvestite</a> who has my partner by the throat. You might want to think about asking her for some beauty tips or something while you got her. ‘Cause wherever you gettin’ yours, it just ain’t cuttin’ it. That dress is not you.”“RB,” whispered Loophole through the pain, “now’s not the time for mocking…”“Oh, yeah. That.” Monolith wiped off the makeup with one hand, even as he shook Loophole with the other. “I was disguised,” the man-mountain rumbled in annoyance. “See, it was a trap. To lure you here.”“Well, that lipstick just isn’t your color. You’re more of an autumn.”“Not funny.” Loophole’s world went gray as Monolith briefly tightened his grip on her neck. Even Rubber Band heard Loophole’s neck creak. “But someone wants to speak with you.”Monolith fell silent as a mouth sprouted from every single side of beef – and human corpse – in the room. “And who do you think made Monolith’s disguise so perfect, my rebarbative foe?” The dreadful speech came from everywhere.  “A lovely secretary in appearance, yes, but behind the all too transitive flesh lay the most lethal strongman this world has known! Mua ha ha! Tell me, who could possibly fool you that completely? Who could create that Octobomination that holds you captive in your last few fleeting minutes of life? Who will you worship before he slides you into a meat grinder that can kill even you? SAY MY NAME!”Rubber Band paused. “Exterminator? That you?”“What? NO!”“Captain Calamity, then? Eidolon? The Famine? No, no, don’t tell me. I’ll guess. Glamer? The Scarlet Scythe? Master Impaler?”“NO!”“I think it’s The Preener,” hazarded Loophole. “He’s got that same sort of self-absorption.”“Yeah, that must be it! You The Preener?”“Monolith,” said the voice very quietly, “feed her into the meat grinder. Octobomination, keep him immobilized. I have something special in mind for him.”Monolith had flipped on the industrial grinder by the time Rubber Band relented. “Nah, I’m just joshing with ya!” he shouted over the rising howl of clashing gears. “I recognize your voice. Doctor Vivios, I presume?  How you been? Poorly, I hope.” He grimaced as the monstrosity holding him began to twist his form and tie his body in a knot. “Much better. Hold, Monolith. But I am no longer simply Doctor Vivios, insect, for now my power extends to all flesh living OR dead. I no longer need a device to accomplish my goals.”“So, you’re saying you’re some kinda, what? A meatomancer, or somethin’? That getting you dates on those lonely Saturday nights?” He glanced over at Loophole and her captor. “Course, when you can turn Monolith over there into a Missilith, I’m not so sure that…”“Stop your yammering.” The furious voice echoed around the room from a hundred different mouths. “Pay attention, hero. I have learned from what you did to me. I have ascended. You may now address me as Doctor Vivios… THE ARCHITECT OF FLESH!”  Vivios paused in his moment of triumph, to drink in their rightful worship. He had dreamed of this day.Trapped or not, both Loophole and Rubber Band started snorting with laughter.“The Architect of… Flesh?” Rubber Band couldn’t control himself. “You go to special school for that? All the vegan crooks are gonna be pissed.”“Look at me,” whispered Loophole as she dangled helplessly over the meat grinder, “I’m an architect of flesh! I built me a meat house!” She started giggling uncontrollably.“You got a meat house for your secret lair, Doc? Does that make you a hamburgler?”“And I thought our secret lair was lousy,” rasped Loophole. “I hear you’re building a new office building downtown. It’s probably a porkscraper!” Her laughter redoubled, even though she could barely breathe.“Silence!” raged Doctor Vivios from a hundred mouths. “SILENCE!  This was not how it was supposed to be! Monolith, I command you. Silence them! Kill her! Make them be silent!” Neither hero was surprised when the furious Monolith threw Loophole at Rubber Band instead of dropping her into the meat grinder. Old habits die hard, and Doctor Vivios had given his commands in the wrong order. Loophole hit Rubber Band as hard as Monolith could throw her. She heard a bone break as she bounced off him into the wall, but she flipped a portal up just in time to avoid worse injury. The impact was enough to jar Rubber Band loose. The Octobomination had been twisting him, and now the hero unraveled like his proverbial namesake. The monstrosity that held him was knocked backwards towards the huge meat grinder, its many legs quickly finding purchase on the slippery floor.“mUsT kilL!”“Not today, freako. Hey Loophole, what has eight legs and flies?”“Not now, honey. It’s too big for me to port, and Monolith is trying to kill me. <a href="http://www.enworld.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=28042" target="_blank">You remember Fatty Arbuckle?</a>”Rubber Band grinned. “I do indeed. Wait for it…! Wait for it…!” He arched his body over the massive meat grinder, beckoning the shambling amalgam towards him. Meanwhile, Loophole turned towards Monolith, who had run after her. His restored muscles had ripped the ill-fitting dress. Loophole shook her head in dismay.“He’s right. You do make one ugly woman. Kinda a shame you can’t reach me from there, huh?”“Says you,” rumbled Monolith, and ripped a two-ton chunk out of the factory wall. With practiced ease he flipped the masonry piece overhand. There wasn’t a chance he could miss her. Loophole spun up a portal with perfect timing. “Now!”The chunk of stone reemerged right next to the Octobomination, which was leaning just a little bit too close to the meat grinder as it tried to grab Rubber Band. It was just like the Keystone Kops. Monolith’s throw knocked down one side of the bloodthirsty atrocity, and as it lost its balance a second torso fell to the ground, which cascaded into a tumbled disarray of arms and legs and melded torsos squirming on the factory floor.  “Uh oh,” said Monolith. “Never!” screamed Doctor Vivios. “Clean-up on aisle nine,” quipped Rubber Band, and reformed his body into a giant scraper. With one swift motion he swept Doctor Vivios’ prize creation into the mouth of the meat grinder. The noise was quite appalling. The remnant of Jordy’s scream was the last one to fade.Loophole caught Rubber Band’s gaze and they shared a brief glance of shared triumph. That meant she was looking right at him when Doctor Vivios stepped out of hiding just long enough to fire a beam from the tips of his fingers. The flesh-deliquescing ray caught Rubber Band square in the chest. It didn’t bounce off.“Noooo!” screamed Loophole, but it was already too late. RB’s handsome features sagged and melted in seconds. He tried to reach out a hand to her, but the arm drooped and fell apart into fleshy goo that spattered like rain. His essence splashed down into the churning meat grinder, which choked and coughed and ground to a sudden halt.“Now that,” said Doctor Vivios’ satisfied voice, “was how it was supposed to go.”Loophole turned, eyes blazing. Doctor Vivios was nowhere to be seen, but Monolith was laughing.“Now you know how it feels, little girl,” he rumbled, and hoisted another chunk of masonry. “How ‘bout I just beat you to death with this one?”“How ‘bout you don’t,” answered Loophole, and concentrated. A portal opened next to Monolith. “Haw haw,” he said, “ya miss—” But the other end of the portal had been opened 500’ beneath the surface of the Gulf coast. The water pressure knocked Monolith off his feet and across the room. Slipping on congealed blood and confused fish, Monolith tried to regain his feet, but the floor slipped out from underneath him. He looked down. He was in the air! He was flying!He passed a seagull. Aw, nuts, he wasn’t flying. He was falling. Apparently about a thousand feet above Crescent City’s bay.  Eight hundred, five hundred, less. Lotta water down there, he thought. The boss’ll flesh-shape me again. Gimme wings. And how hard could water be, anyways? I’ll be fine. He won’t let me down. He never has before. He was still waiting when he hit.-- o --  “You’re still here,” said Loophole. Her hair hung in her eyes, and her fingers were clenched into fists. Her broken arm ached. She stood in the center of the factory floor, cow carcasses swinging slowly on huge steel meat hooks around her.  “I can sense it. You killed Rubber Band by surprise. You think you can do the same to me?”“Frankly,” said the Architect of Flesh, “yes.” He stepped out and fired. Loophole redirected his ray back into him, but it didn’t faze him in the least. “I’m immune to my own powers, you scabrous stripling. And I can project these at the speed of light.” He eyed her from across the hall. His chuckle was thin.“Shall we see who’s faster?”It was a near thing.The side of beef behind Loophole extended squirming ligaments to coil around her limbs. She tore free before she could become entangled, but then Doctor Vivios was there with his flesh-deliquescing beam. Ignoring the pain from her broken bone, Loophole dashed between hanging carcasses and used her portals to deflect anything that came close. Noisome rivulets of liquid flesh rained down behind her. She was a flash of red and black in the dimly-lit meat-packing plant, and Doctor Vivios flung horrible death at her as she ran. Finally she dropped into a portal and disappeared from sight.“You can not defeat me, you know,” called out Doctor Vivios. “You have no offensive powers unless I attack you…”  A portal opened right in front of his face, and Loophole’s fist came out to punch him right in the nose. The fist withdrew and the portal vanished.  “No offensive powers of any merit,” he amended in annoyance. “And I am immune to my own power. I simply reform my body’s cells to avoid melting. You can not say the same. I can do that even now to heal.” He gestured, and his nosebleed stopped instantly.From where she crouched on a cat walk, Loophole suddenly saw the obvious. Time, she thought. I need to buy time. She silently reached for a nearby meat hook.“Or you can flee,” continued Doctor Vivios, “and I shall reanimate your partner’s sludge and send it shambling after you with murder in its heart.” He laughed in genuine amusement. “Wouldn’t that be fun?”“You know what would actually be fun?” called Loophole from her hiding place. Doctor Vivios raised his hand in anticipation for a final kill. “THIS.” Around him, two dozen portals all opened simultaneously. Loophole’s hand came out of every single one of them, and every single hand wielded the same razor-sharp meat hook. They dug into Doctor Vivios’ flesh from every possible direction. Then they were gone, bloody flesh with them, and he heard the crackle as she teleported to somewhere else in the building.“Charming,” he said through gritted teeth. “You will pay for that. But I know a way to avoid it from happening again.” He flexed his mind, and suddenly the air was rent by the wails of a hundred newborns. Vivios stood there encased in an armor of infants. “Girl! Surely you possess some sort of maternal instinct? These are all real children. Foreseeing this day, I walked through the maternity wards of a dozen hospitals, absorbing any infant I saw into my form. Strike me again, and you kill or maim a new-born. Surrender, and I will trade the absorbtion of your form for all of these infants. Surely you count yourself as a ‘hero.’ Surely this is the sort of Sisyphean challenge, the sort of noble sacrifice, that your type could not possibly deny?” He stood there, <a href="http://www.enworld.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=28045" target="_blank">and the hundred infants writhed and wailed around him.</a>He turned and smiled coldly when Loophole stepped humbly out from behind the meat grinder. She looked broken, haggard. “Do…” she gulped. “Do you know what I think?”“No,” murmured Doctor Vivios in his final moment of triumph. “Nor do I care.”A black disc suddenly descended around his head, and he was shocked to see that his body was standing in the middle of the factory floor, while his head was emerging from a teleportation disc right next to Loophole and behind the meat grinder. “She thinks,” said Rubber Band, “that you REALLY shoulda worn a baby hat.” He snapped his arms forward from where they were braced, and there was a horrible crunch as a meat hook took off the top of the Architect’s head.The portal dropped, his body dropped to the ground, babies detached themselves and fell screaming, and Loophole rushed into Rubber Band’s wobbly arms. “I knew it!” she said. “You have total control of your body’s cells. That’s how you’re able to stretch. When he melted you, I finally guessed that it would just take a bit of time before you could reform yourself again.”“I gotta tell you, though, I don’t feel real good.” In fact, he looked awful. “I think I got my spleen lost up in my tuckus somewhere, and a big chunk of my lungs are still missing, and I’m not remembering things real good. I’m gonna need some sleep. What are we gonna do with him? He’s already healing, even as we’re sitting here.”Loophole pondered, then smiled. “He needs flesh nearby. There’s a modern sculpture out front – three huge steel cubes piled on top of one another.” She turned, focused a portal, and their foe dropped out of sight. “He’s now trapped inside the top one. No other meat nearby, nothing to work on – and he’ll be stuck there until the cops can figure out a way to keep him in prison.”Together, they limped over towards the babies. “A stop at the hospital for all of us, I think. And then the police station. And then home.”“I hear that.”  Before she could teleport them, Rubber Band cupped Loophole’s face in his hand. She looked up at him, eyes wide. “Look,” Rubber Band said, “I just want to say…”Loophole swallowed. She couldn’t stop looking at him.“I totally told you so about that Green Bay Packers clue with the rubber band. Didn’t I tell you? I did!”Her voice was faint over the crackle of her portals. “You know, I warned you what I’d do if you said that.”“Honey,” Rubber Band’s voice trailed away as the teleported out, “after what I just went through, I got to find them first.”-  x -THE END</blockquote>

Verification