The Teller
King of Half-Truths
This story was okayed by Firebrand and hey, even though it's PG-15 for now, I even got JX Valentine to okay it as well! Hello, everybody! This story, and any future chapters included in this thread, is inspired by Firebrand's story, The Amazing Hawlucha Man! So, you should totally go check that out when you can, because this story takes place in the same continuity, same setting, and uses some of the same characters (c'mon, you know what a "fanfiction" is by now, right?). Everything's amazing and you should totally read everything. Like I said, PG-15, and this is due to a high body count, cursing, and just general terrorism, ya know? So there's that. Let me know how I did! This is probably one of the longest entries I've posted on here, and I'm really proud of it! Anyway, enjoy the show!
The Daedalus Proclamation
I looked down Bradley Avenue and took in a deep breath through my nose. So nostalgic. Casey’s Chili Dogs wafted through the air, the smell of greasy fast food from a long-established diner filling my senses with glee. A scent only a native Avenbrooker would recognize. The dusk sky brought about all those flickering street lights down Bradley. The fourth on the right and the seventh on the left were about to go out permanently. The traffic lights turned green at only the most inappropriate of times, causing the usual late afternoon traffic. People walked along the sidewalks, faces glued to their phones, refusing to make eye contact with one another, only using their voices to talk to someone on their phone. Everything was so…familiar to me, so routine. It was comforting, really. As I walked north of Bradley, I reached into my coat pocket and pressed a button on a device, and Casey’s Chili Dogs blew up spectacularly. A message had to be sent.
Later that day, in a completely different part of town, I was caught thinking to myself again. There isn’t enough room in this town for two vigilantes. Sure, it was fun playing the villain to the Ronin for a little while, doing a couple bank heists here, a couple kidnappings there. You know, small stuff. Mr. Anti-Hero was a fun little playmate, a good way to pass the time. He didn’t play like you’d think. He would use excessive force, take the law into his own hands, and f*ck with authority, sort of like that mysterious Crobatman I heard that operates on the other side of the country. I liked that. Makes it way less predictable.
But now…now he’s gone and inspired people. People less fun than he is. People who are more interested in playing by the rules and being too goody-goody for their own good. People who are willing to try to stop me, make my life more miserable. People…like this newly christened “Amazing Hawlucha Man.” Word on the street is that the Soothsayer was stopped by a brand new superhero, one who fights with his muscles rather than his gadgets, someone who fights with their Pokémon hidden out of sight until the time is right, and someone who is quite chummy with the Eleventh. Another cog in the machine that I freed myself from a long time ago. Was he artificially created by the police force, painted to look like a freelancer vigilante while completely enveloped by their payroll? Was he just more of a sidekick who thinks he can play in the big leagues? Well, either way, I don’t feel like playing multiplayer in this co-op the Ronin and I are engaged in. I will be DAMNED if this city falls prey to a “new age of superheroes!” I need to nip this problem in the bud now before it starts to spread uncontrollably. If I leave this “Hawlucha Man” be, he’ll just start to inspire more and more young, fledgling superkids, and pretty soon it will be impossible to make a buck around here. I need to kill this f*cker now, spread the message: “If you try to be a hero in this city, you’re going to wind up dead.” Hawlucha Man will be the perfect example to set.
I needed to step up my game. Kids’ stuff won’t be enough anymore. If this new hero wants to be a real hero, he’s going to need to go up against a real villain. Fortunately, I had weapons galore in storage, courtesy of some ill-gained measures (sorry, St. Maria’s Orphanage!) and help from like-minded fellows. Though I had used them sparingly before in my play dates with the Ronin, I figured now was the time to dig deep into the weapons closet and pull out all my tricks and traps. One or two poison pellets weren’t going to cut it this time around. I rather liked the explosion I caused earlier, and I had a surplus of explosive weaponry at hand, so I decided to mold myself into a mad bomber of sorts.
I stopped. Would it be wise to fashion myself after one type of supervillain? Would it hinder my plans to restrict myself to one type of attack? Perhaps being a more versatile villain was in order.
No, the bigger picture here needs to be accounted for. This boy focused only on his wrestler theme, and the Ronin, fun as he is, has a theme he plays to as well. Others would invariably stick to a shtick as well, along with all the supervillains running about. If I want my message spread loud and clear, I needed to become a character as well. This story doesn’t conclude satisfactory with a perfect, all-powerful villain lazily winning. Now if only I had a tailor…
Later that night, as I admired my new suit, I immediately began to notice microscopic flaws in the design. Such is the price to pay for being a perfectionist. I did not ask to be a perfectionist though. When one’s dancing partner is the Ronin, one is demanded to become a perfectionist. The red was not quite the shade I had asked for, though I suppose if I was to operate at night, no one would notice the difference (and if they did, well, they’d be dead long before word would get to anybody important). The mini-television continued to broadcast the news.
“…explosion on Bradley Avenue earlier this afternoon at Casey’s Chili Dogs, a renowned staple of Avenbrooke. Multiple casualties have been confirmed, with seventeen in critical condition and ten dead. Authorities confirmed that they had found five Voltorbs scattered around the restaurant, alongside with bits of scrap metal that forensics determined was not normally found in the restaurant.”
“Please…I did what you asked…” said the tailor, trembling on the floor.
“BE QUIET!” I yelled back. “You did not do everything that I asked. There are so many design flaws in this suit, that I should just kill you right now.”
He flinched, curling himself up tightly, instinctually, tears rolling down his face.
“But the suit is otherwise in working condition, and I’m in a good mood today. After all, I just got myself some new threads.”
I walked over to him and leaned down.
“So I’m going to let you live, provided you don’t tell anybody of what you did today. Think you can do that, old man?”
Despite my chipper words, there was no smile on my face. Always fun to throw them off their game.
He nodded furiously. I thought his head would fall off. Save me the trouble.
“Good. Then I’ll be going, and YOU…should probably find a new region to live in.”
I took my suit and casually walked out the store. Almost immediately, I stepped in some Furfrou sh*t. I froze, looked down, confirmed my suspicions, and looked back at the store. The tailor had seen everything, eyes wide open.
“Voltorb…” I shouted.
One of my Pokémon rolled down the stairs of the store, the one I had placed up there earlier in the day before making a “surprise visit.”
“…Self-Destruct.”
“VOLTORB!”
Before the man had even the time to scream, the whole store was engulfed in an explosion, all the windows blown out (along with brick and mortar), and a roaring fire started right up. I’m sure the fabrics in the store would help keep those flames going for a long time.
I thought it was funny. I was going to kill him anyway.
By the next day, although the police should’ve figured that the two explosion incidents were connected by now, I needed to make sure Hawlucha Man knew that this would keep happening until he found me. I stood atop a tall building, overlooking Milton Boulevard. It was in the middle of the afternoon, where traffic would be at its highest. Normally I don’t intentionally go for murders, and certainly by doing this I was risking the Ronin coming after me when I wanted this to be a private waltz between Hawlucha Man and I, but this was the fastest way. I was on a time budget. Just earlier today I had heard news of a new hero operating over in Ridgewood. They called her Cavalier.
Goodbye, simpletons. It was nothing personal. Well, not against you, anyway. I pushed a button on my control device which transmitted a frequency wave out to all my planted Voltorbs and Electrodes along the buildings lining up Milton, and…hey, did you ever see that one scene at the end of Fight Club where they hold hands?
Oh, I hope that my time and place card survives the fire.
So it’s late that night, and I swear that this Solitaire game is rigged to always be in its own favor. No way a simple game like this could yield a 15% win rate! Of course, it didn’t help that I was wearing latex gloves, making it harder for the phone’s touch screen to register my finger movements. No, I wasn’t using my OWN phone. I was using a burner phone, purchased just for this specific purpose. Nothing on my person could identify me in case I needed to flee and leave anything behind. Like I said, no more games.
I had arrived much earlier at the Firebrand smelting plant than I expected Hawlucha Man to arrive so that I could inspect every last square inch of this place. There would be no surprises on my end, and I could better plant all my Pokémon in places he could not anticipate. To account for him possibly using his Hawlucha to scout the place out ahead of time, I brought a Xatu with me, hid it someplace inconspicuous, and told it to read the minds of any Pokémon that wanders into the building and report back to me when it does. A bunch of Joltik were scattered around the outside of the building, becoming my eyes and ears. A device in my helmet would produce and receive a different frequency wave unique to the Joltik, enabling me to see what they see, albeit in a form of something that looked like heat-vision on my end. This whole building was mine. Not even Arceus Himself could breach it!
The front doors to the building busted open. Xatu didn’t warn me of a Hawlucha attack, so it must’ve just been him. I checked the phone’s watch. Right on time. Hmpf, at least he knows how to be punctual.
“Nice digs you got here, Mad Bomber,” he shouted to no one. “Do all the stairs have wheelchair ramps installed on them, too?”
Arceus was he grating, a sniveling little sh*tstain who thought he could match the likes of the Ronin. I almost felt like setting off Voltrob #42 underneath his feet right away and not have to hear his voice again, but thankfully, my more sadistic side wanted to personally squeeze every last drop out of his throat, the same way I’m sure he does to all the boys he entertains. I decided to make myself known, but not present just yet.
“Boy,” I replied back, putting on my best “old man” impressions, “back in my day, if we wanted to go up a flight of steps, we’d just destroy the floor that we’re on and had the floor above us come to us!”
I was a floor above where he was, eyeing him from behind cover. Various Joltik confirmed that he was there, though I doubt that he was the kind of person to have a Pokémon use an illusion of himself in his place. Where was his Hawlucha? Either the boy was underestimating me, thinking me to be a beginner-level supervillain, or his Hawlucha wasn’t on site yet. Perhaps waiting in one of the surrounding buildings?
“The Eleventh told me about your love letter, old man. Addressed to me and not even that cryptic? You know, I prefer my dates to have a little bit of intelligence to them.”
“You’re not even pretending to take this seriously!” I found myself shouting before the act registered in my head.
He turned his head my way, following my voice. Sh*t, I had gotten too invested. Forgot why I was doing all of this. Oh well, time for some theatrics, to get him to think I play by a set of rules. I jumped down to meet him.
“So sorry for that, but you do have to admit, when you go parading around dressed like THAT…” I said, gesturing to his ridiculous outfit.
“Says the man dressed like poor man’s Master Chief.”
Not knowing who he was talking about, I admitted that my costume design was intentionally a bit cartoony. A full body black onesie with (again, slightly off-colored) red highlights down the sides, with black army boots with a steel toe covering, and light body armor covering most of my body, latex gloves on, and a high tech helmet that I had slowly evolved over the many years I have been personally intimate with illegality. Around my waist was a utility belt, lined with explosives of all kinds and empty Poké Balls (brightly colored to draw his attention to them, making him subconsciously think that all of my Pokémon were on me and not yet released).
“So tell me why you called me all the way here and why I should care before I start beating your ***, Mad Bomber,” he said, assuming some fighting stance.
I took out one of the Poké Balls, enlarged it, and held it up to his face.
“Little boy, if you were ever going to make it out alive tonight, you could’ve told everyone at your little peewee superheroes club that Daedalus is coming for them.”
Time to monologue, get him to think that he can interrupt me mid-speech by drawing out that Hawlucha of his, so I can blast it out of the sky.
“I’d ask you if you knew your Greek mythology, boy, but something tells me you spent most of your school years reading comic books and watching TV. You, and all your little superhero friends who think they can just spring up at any time and compete in the big leagues alongside the Ronin, you are all flying too close to the sun, boy. And I, Daedalus, am here to warn you all not to fly too close, and yet, one of you needs to fall in order to be made an example of. And lucky you, I picked you!”
I stepped closer to him. He didn’t step away. Cute.
“Let me take a wild guess as to why you don’t want us to ‘fly too close to the sun,’" he said. “Was it because then it’d lead to capturing all you psychos and sociopaths far easier than it’s ever been before?”
“That’s a good beginner’s bravado quip, boy. But it also highlights why we’re both here tonight. You see, it was fun when it was just me and the Ronin, playing cops and robbers. Everyone had their roles and they played them perfectly. But now…now he’s gone and inspired YOU kids to become shabby superheroes, a mockery of what I fight, like you don’t even take our roles seriously anymore. Now anyone thinks that they can be a hero. Now anyone thinks that they have what it takes to stop me. And quite frankly, boy, it’s really starting to piss me off. So I have to nip this New Age, hippie, everyone-is-special problem in the bud, and that means taking you out.”
He still hasn’t launched a move yet, nor called his Hawlucha. Is he waiting for me to make the first move? Gauge what I’m capable of? Study my tactics? Fine. He won’t be alive long enough to come to any sort of conclusion. And besides, I’ve gone toe-to-toe with the Ronin multiple times, and he doesn’t exactly go easy on his opponents.
“You call me ‘boy’ one more time and I’ll beat you black and red,” he said, readying his stance. “I’m the amazing Hawlucha Man!”
“Ready to dance, boy?!”
I dramatically threw the Poké Ball at him and yelled “Golem, use Explosion!” As expected, his eyes followed the ball and I ran straight at him. I threw a punch right at his face, but he noticed at the last second and blocked with his arms. Damn, he has good reflexes. I threw a second, weaker jab at his side and it connected, managing to make him flinch for just a moment before he used his hands to push me back. The Poké Ball clanked onto the ground, opening up to reveal nothing inside.
“You fight dirty, Mad Bomber,”
“And you fight like a Wobbuffet, boy.”
I rushed back up to him and tried using a flurry of punches all around his body, rapidly twisting myself around his body to launch an attack there. His fists couldn’t cover himself everywhere, all at once. Every fist he thought he caught would just twist right out of it like a greased up Ekans. And even his arms that had blocked all the attacks are sure to get sore soon. When his arms parted themselves enough that I could launch a headbutt through, his came first, sending the both of us back. Though that HAD to hurt him somewhat, I was more concerned with all the technologies I put into that helmet. A brief analysis showed everything working operably, so I quickly scanned to find the brat.
Suddenly, I felt a sharp, powerful kick in my back, sending me several feet forward and onto my face. How was he that quick? I looked around the area again.
“Where arrrrrrrrre you, boy?” I said/sang, not finding him. And then I said in a much lower, quieter voice, “Execute: Voltorb: 13.”
Suddenly the thirteenth Voltorb I had hidden in one of the rafters above us exploded. All the shocks build into my suit meant that I would be relatively unharmed, but the boy…
“You’ll take this whole place down upon yourself if you keep acting like this!”
“I have plenty of Barriers set up so that you can’t leave, and the police can’t enter. Execute: Voltorb: 89.”
An explosion could be heard on one of the much higher floors than we were on.
“STOP THIS!”
“Fight me without that bird of yours! Show me your own true strength and I will show you mine!
“Fine then!”
He dropped down from where he was hiding.
“I WILL stop you and save the day, because I’m….Hawlucha Man!”
“Just dead drop already!”
We ran at each other and threw punches and kicks. If I threw a straight punch, he would counter with a grab. If he used a kick, I would sweep below it and counter with jabs across the abdomen. However much padding was in each of our suits, it certainly wasn’t doing enough to block all the pain.
I laughed.
“What’s so funny, Mad Bomber?” he said, between labored breaths.
“Hah…if I had used those moves against the Ronin, I’d be dead now. And yet, here I’m standing. I guess that makes all you guys, and especially you, boy, irrelevant, obsolete.”
There was an explosion above us. Some of the previous explosion must’ve made some of the machines here explode on their own. This place was going to collapse soon.
He was getting tired. Probably wasn’t used to a foe that can stand more than a couple punches from some boy in a luchador’s outfit. I turned to him and walked coolly towards his still-living body, thinking which explosive I was going to shove down his throat.
“Don’t tell me you’re giving up already, boy! It’s time for our encore dance!”
Xatu gave me a warning that Hawlucha was approaching. Just then, Hawlucha crashed through the highest ceiling and landed perfectly next to his master.
“Lucha!”
What good that did, Xatu. Remind me never to use one again. And as for Hawlucha…
“Go, Electrode!”
I summoned, from one of the actually functioning Poké Balls I had on me, my most powerful Electrode.
Hawlucha charged towards it without orders.
“Electrode, Plan: Beta!”
Hawlucha launched a punch at Electrode quick as lightning, but Electrode was quick as light. He was already on the other side of the room, charging up for a maelstrom of electrical attacks. This would also have less of an impact on me due to the electric-resistant fabric I had woven into the clothing.
I scanned for the boy with my Joltiks but couldn’t find him. I saw his fists first. Then I felt his fists on my stomach. Then finally, as I was brought down to my knees, I felt his fists slam into the side of my head. I looked up and saw Hawlucha punch Electrode with such ferocity that it KOed in one hit. Looks like the plans are down the toilet for today, but like any good villain, I’ve always got a trump card up my sleeve.
“I’m taking you to early retirement,” he said, huffing between his words.
“Strange…” I said back, barely containing the smile on my face. “I was thinking the same thing about you…”
“What you do…”
“EXECUTE: ALL!”
I laughed between gasping in pain as I looked upon his face to see the terror of being inside a building that’s about to explode, with his partner no less. My suit would render me alive, though with a few months of recovery, but he would most certainly be dead. One explosion would fling me outside, worse for wear, but nothing would save him.
…
…what was going on? Was my helmet not working? Why weren’t all my Pokémon exploding?!
“Looks like we got here just in time,” came a new voice.
I looked over to see an older man walk into the building with a Houndoom. He surveyed the scene.
“Captain Anderson! What are you doing here?” said the boy.
“Saving your ***, it would seem.”
“But the exploding Pokémon…”
“Sir, we’ve neutralized all the hidden Voltorbs and Electrodes in the vicinity!” said another new voice.
In walked yet another man, younger.
“Detective Reyes! You got roped into this, too?”
The good captain walked over to me and brought my hands behind me and cuffed me with…were those fuzzy Liepard print cuffs?
“Good to see the Eleventh is finding this all as hilarious as the boy does,” I spat.
“He’s not a boy, you know. He’s the amazing Hawlucha Man. Now then, you should know this by now. You have the right to remain silent. Every-”
“Why don’t you be a good boy and tell me how one of the worst police departments in this city can defuse 100 bombs in a minute?”
A Wooper walked underneath him.
“Cute, huh? Part ground as to be immune to electric attacks, no matter how powerful, and a handy Damp ability that prevents exploding things from exploding. Also small enough to transport en masse and replace all those Joltik you littered everywhere.”
Anderson tried to remove my mask, but that just set off the security measure, which meant that HE was facing a painful amount of volts. Not enough to kill him, but enough to dissuade him from trying that again.
“A magician never gives up ALL his secrets,” I said.
“Take him to the truck and head straight for Tarta Penitentiary!” Anderson said.
My whole plan…so thoroughly ruined. I gave that boy the thrashing of his life, and he only won because of police intervention. The police! The Ronin would never cooperate with the police. They should be putting both him AND the boy in that car alongside me! How is vigilante justice any different from mine?!
As they loaded me into the car, I turned my head and looked at a bruised and battered boy hero and flashed my most winning smile (though I later came to realize he couldn't see it due to the helmet).
“I SO look forward to our next last dance, boy. Remember the Daedalus Proclamation!”
Reyes closed the door on me and soon we were off.
It was even later that night that the alarms kept blaring and I wished I knew where they were originating from. I took the dead guard’s severed hand and pressed it up against the hand lock, keeping my eyes wide open for any guards who thought they could be heroes tonight. The machine read “my” hand and the door to the cell opened. A woman sat up in bed and peered at me, perhaps recognizing me from one of my many waltzes with the Ronin.
“Get up, Soothsayer. We’ve got work to do.”
The Daedalus Proclamation
I looked down Bradley Avenue and took in a deep breath through my nose. So nostalgic. Casey’s Chili Dogs wafted through the air, the smell of greasy fast food from a long-established diner filling my senses with glee. A scent only a native Avenbrooker would recognize. The dusk sky brought about all those flickering street lights down Bradley. The fourth on the right and the seventh on the left were about to go out permanently. The traffic lights turned green at only the most inappropriate of times, causing the usual late afternoon traffic. People walked along the sidewalks, faces glued to their phones, refusing to make eye contact with one another, only using their voices to talk to someone on their phone. Everything was so…familiar to me, so routine. It was comforting, really. As I walked north of Bradley, I reached into my coat pocket and pressed a button on a device, and Casey’s Chili Dogs blew up spectacularly. A message had to be sent.
Later that day, in a completely different part of town, I was caught thinking to myself again. There isn’t enough room in this town for two vigilantes. Sure, it was fun playing the villain to the Ronin for a little while, doing a couple bank heists here, a couple kidnappings there. You know, small stuff. Mr. Anti-Hero was a fun little playmate, a good way to pass the time. He didn’t play like you’d think. He would use excessive force, take the law into his own hands, and f*ck with authority, sort of like that mysterious Crobatman I heard that operates on the other side of the country. I liked that. Makes it way less predictable.
But now…now he’s gone and inspired people. People less fun than he is. People who are more interested in playing by the rules and being too goody-goody for their own good. People who are willing to try to stop me, make my life more miserable. People…like this newly christened “Amazing Hawlucha Man.” Word on the street is that the Soothsayer was stopped by a brand new superhero, one who fights with his muscles rather than his gadgets, someone who fights with their Pokémon hidden out of sight until the time is right, and someone who is quite chummy with the Eleventh. Another cog in the machine that I freed myself from a long time ago. Was he artificially created by the police force, painted to look like a freelancer vigilante while completely enveloped by their payroll? Was he just more of a sidekick who thinks he can play in the big leagues? Well, either way, I don’t feel like playing multiplayer in this co-op the Ronin and I are engaged in. I will be DAMNED if this city falls prey to a “new age of superheroes!” I need to nip this problem in the bud now before it starts to spread uncontrollably. If I leave this “Hawlucha Man” be, he’ll just start to inspire more and more young, fledgling superkids, and pretty soon it will be impossible to make a buck around here. I need to kill this f*cker now, spread the message: “If you try to be a hero in this city, you’re going to wind up dead.” Hawlucha Man will be the perfect example to set.
I needed to step up my game. Kids’ stuff won’t be enough anymore. If this new hero wants to be a real hero, he’s going to need to go up against a real villain. Fortunately, I had weapons galore in storage, courtesy of some ill-gained measures (sorry, St. Maria’s Orphanage!) and help from like-minded fellows. Though I had used them sparingly before in my play dates with the Ronin, I figured now was the time to dig deep into the weapons closet and pull out all my tricks and traps. One or two poison pellets weren’t going to cut it this time around. I rather liked the explosion I caused earlier, and I had a surplus of explosive weaponry at hand, so I decided to mold myself into a mad bomber of sorts.
I stopped. Would it be wise to fashion myself after one type of supervillain? Would it hinder my plans to restrict myself to one type of attack? Perhaps being a more versatile villain was in order.
No, the bigger picture here needs to be accounted for. This boy focused only on his wrestler theme, and the Ronin, fun as he is, has a theme he plays to as well. Others would invariably stick to a shtick as well, along with all the supervillains running about. If I want my message spread loud and clear, I needed to become a character as well. This story doesn’t conclude satisfactory with a perfect, all-powerful villain lazily winning. Now if only I had a tailor…
Later that night, as I admired my new suit, I immediately began to notice microscopic flaws in the design. Such is the price to pay for being a perfectionist. I did not ask to be a perfectionist though. When one’s dancing partner is the Ronin, one is demanded to become a perfectionist. The red was not quite the shade I had asked for, though I suppose if I was to operate at night, no one would notice the difference (and if they did, well, they’d be dead long before word would get to anybody important). The mini-television continued to broadcast the news.
“…explosion on Bradley Avenue earlier this afternoon at Casey’s Chili Dogs, a renowned staple of Avenbrooke. Multiple casualties have been confirmed, with seventeen in critical condition and ten dead. Authorities confirmed that they had found five Voltorbs scattered around the restaurant, alongside with bits of scrap metal that forensics determined was not normally found in the restaurant.”
“Please…I did what you asked…” said the tailor, trembling on the floor.
“BE QUIET!” I yelled back. “You did not do everything that I asked. There are so many design flaws in this suit, that I should just kill you right now.”
He flinched, curling himself up tightly, instinctually, tears rolling down his face.
“But the suit is otherwise in working condition, and I’m in a good mood today. After all, I just got myself some new threads.”
I walked over to him and leaned down.
“So I’m going to let you live, provided you don’t tell anybody of what you did today. Think you can do that, old man?”
Despite my chipper words, there was no smile on my face. Always fun to throw them off their game.
He nodded furiously. I thought his head would fall off. Save me the trouble.
“Good. Then I’ll be going, and YOU…should probably find a new region to live in.”
I took my suit and casually walked out the store. Almost immediately, I stepped in some Furfrou sh*t. I froze, looked down, confirmed my suspicions, and looked back at the store. The tailor had seen everything, eyes wide open.
“Voltorb…” I shouted.
One of my Pokémon rolled down the stairs of the store, the one I had placed up there earlier in the day before making a “surprise visit.”
“…Self-Destruct.”
“VOLTORB!”
Before the man had even the time to scream, the whole store was engulfed in an explosion, all the windows blown out (along with brick and mortar), and a roaring fire started right up. I’m sure the fabrics in the store would help keep those flames going for a long time.
I thought it was funny. I was going to kill him anyway.
By the next day, although the police should’ve figured that the two explosion incidents were connected by now, I needed to make sure Hawlucha Man knew that this would keep happening until he found me. I stood atop a tall building, overlooking Milton Boulevard. It was in the middle of the afternoon, where traffic would be at its highest. Normally I don’t intentionally go for murders, and certainly by doing this I was risking the Ronin coming after me when I wanted this to be a private waltz between Hawlucha Man and I, but this was the fastest way. I was on a time budget. Just earlier today I had heard news of a new hero operating over in Ridgewood. They called her Cavalier.
Goodbye, simpletons. It was nothing personal. Well, not against you, anyway. I pushed a button on my control device which transmitted a frequency wave out to all my planted Voltorbs and Electrodes along the buildings lining up Milton, and…hey, did you ever see that one scene at the end of Fight Club where they hold hands?
Oh, I hope that my time and place card survives the fire.
So it’s late that night, and I swear that this Solitaire game is rigged to always be in its own favor. No way a simple game like this could yield a 15% win rate! Of course, it didn’t help that I was wearing latex gloves, making it harder for the phone’s touch screen to register my finger movements. No, I wasn’t using my OWN phone. I was using a burner phone, purchased just for this specific purpose. Nothing on my person could identify me in case I needed to flee and leave anything behind. Like I said, no more games.
I had arrived much earlier at the Firebrand smelting plant than I expected Hawlucha Man to arrive so that I could inspect every last square inch of this place. There would be no surprises on my end, and I could better plant all my Pokémon in places he could not anticipate. To account for him possibly using his Hawlucha to scout the place out ahead of time, I brought a Xatu with me, hid it someplace inconspicuous, and told it to read the minds of any Pokémon that wanders into the building and report back to me when it does. A bunch of Joltik were scattered around the outside of the building, becoming my eyes and ears. A device in my helmet would produce and receive a different frequency wave unique to the Joltik, enabling me to see what they see, albeit in a form of something that looked like heat-vision on my end. This whole building was mine. Not even Arceus Himself could breach it!
The front doors to the building busted open. Xatu didn’t warn me of a Hawlucha attack, so it must’ve just been him. I checked the phone’s watch. Right on time. Hmpf, at least he knows how to be punctual.
“Nice digs you got here, Mad Bomber,” he shouted to no one. “Do all the stairs have wheelchair ramps installed on them, too?”
Arceus was he grating, a sniveling little sh*tstain who thought he could match the likes of the Ronin. I almost felt like setting off Voltrob #42 underneath his feet right away and not have to hear his voice again, but thankfully, my more sadistic side wanted to personally squeeze every last drop out of his throat, the same way I’m sure he does to all the boys he entertains. I decided to make myself known, but not present just yet.
“Boy,” I replied back, putting on my best “old man” impressions, “back in my day, if we wanted to go up a flight of steps, we’d just destroy the floor that we’re on and had the floor above us come to us!”
I was a floor above where he was, eyeing him from behind cover. Various Joltik confirmed that he was there, though I doubt that he was the kind of person to have a Pokémon use an illusion of himself in his place. Where was his Hawlucha? Either the boy was underestimating me, thinking me to be a beginner-level supervillain, or his Hawlucha wasn’t on site yet. Perhaps waiting in one of the surrounding buildings?
“The Eleventh told me about your love letter, old man. Addressed to me and not even that cryptic? You know, I prefer my dates to have a little bit of intelligence to them.”
“You’re not even pretending to take this seriously!” I found myself shouting before the act registered in my head.
He turned his head my way, following my voice. Sh*t, I had gotten too invested. Forgot why I was doing all of this. Oh well, time for some theatrics, to get him to think I play by a set of rules. I jumped down to meet him.
“So sorry for that, but you do have to admit, when you go parading around dressed like THAT…” I said, gesturing to his ridiculous outfit.
“Says the man dressed like poor man’s Master Chief.”
Not knowing who he was talking about, I admitted that my costume design was intentionally a bit cartoony. A full body black onesie with (again, slightly off-colored) red highlights down the sides, with black army boots with a steel toe covering, and light body armor covering most of my body, latex gloves on, and a high tech helmet that I had slowly evolved over the many years I have been personally intimate with illegality. Around my waist was a utility belt, lined with explosives of all kinds and empty Poké Balls (brightly colored to draw his attention to them, making him subconsciously think that all of my Pokémon were on me and not yet released).
“So tell me why you called me all the way here and why I should care before I start beating your ***, Mad Bomber,” he said, assuming some fighting stance.
I took out one of the Poké Balls, enlarged it, and held it up to his face.
“Little boy, if you were ever going to make it out alive tonight, you could’ve told everyone at your little peewee superheroes club that Daedalus is coming for them.”
Time to monologue, get him to think that he can interrupt me mid-speech by drawing out that Hawlucha of his, so I can blast it out of the sky.
“I’d ask you if you knew your Greek mythology, boy, but something tells me you spent most of your school years reading comic books and watching TV. You, and all your little superhero friends who think they can just spring up at any time and compete in the big leagues alongside the Ronin, you are all flying too close to the sun, boy. And I, Daedalus, am here to warn you all not to fly too close, and yet, one of you needs to fall in order to be made an example of. And lucky you, I picked you!”
I stepped closer to him. He didn’t step away. Cute.
“Let me take a wild guess as to why you don’t want us to ‘fly too close to the sun,’" he said. “Was it because then it’d lead to capturing all you psychos and sociopaths far easier than it’s ever been before?”
“That’s a good beginner’s bravado quip, boy. But it also highlights why we’re both here tonight. You see, it was fun when it was just me and the Ronin, playing cops and robbers. Everyone had their roles and they played them perfectly. But now…now he’s gone and inspired YOU kids to become shabby superheroes, a mockery of what I fight, like you don’t even take our roles seriously anymore. Now anyone thinks that they can be a hero. Now anyone thinks that they have what it takes to stop me. And quite frankly, boy, it’s really starting to piss me off. So I have to nip this New Age, hippie, everyone-is-special problem in the bud, and that means taking you out.”
He still hasn’t launched a move yet, nor called his Hawlucha. Is he waiting for me to make the first move? Gauge what I’m capable of? Study my tactics? Fine. He won’t be alive long enough to come to any sort of conclusion. And besides, I’ve gone toe-to-toe with the Ronin multiple times, and he doesn’t exactly go easy on his opponents.
“You call me ‘boy’ one more time and I’ll beat you black and red,” he said, readying his stance. “I’m the amazing Hawlucha Man!”
“Ready to dance, boy?!”
I dramatically threw the Poké Ball at him and yelled “Golem, use Explosion!” As expected, his eyes followed the ball and I ran straight at him. I threw a punch right at his face, but he noticed at the last second and blocked with his arms. Damn, he has good reflexes. I threw a second, weaker jab at his side and it connected, managing to make him flinch for just a moment before he used his hands to push me back. The Poké Ball clanked onto the ground, opening up to reveal nothing inside.
“You fight dirty, Mad Bomber,”
“And you fight like a Wobbuffet, boy.”
I rushed back up to him and tried using a flurry of punches all around his body, rapidly twisting myself around his body to launch an attack there. His fists couldn’t cover himself everywhere, all at once. Every fist he thought he caught would just twist right out of it like a greased up Ekans. And even his arms that had blocked all the attacks are sure to get sore soon. When his arms parted themselves enough that I could launch a headbutt through, his came first, sending the both of us back. Though that HAD to hurt him somewhat, I was more concerned with all the technologies I put into that helmet. A brief analysis showed everything working operably, so I quickly scanned to find the brat.
Suddenly, I felt a sharp, powerful kick in my back, sending me several feet forward and onto my face. How was he that quick? I looked around the area again.
“Where arrrrrrrrre you, boy?” I said/sang, not finding him. And then I said in a much lower, quieter voice, “Execute: Voltorb: 13.”
Suddenly the thirteenth Voltorb I had hidden in one of the rafters above us exploded. All the shocks build into my suit meant that I would be relatively unharmed, but the boy…
“You’ll take this whole place down upon yourself if you keep acting like this!”
“I have plenty of Barriers set up so that you can’t leave, and the police can’t enter. Execute: Voltorb: 89.”
An explosion could be heard on one of the much higher floors than we were on.
“STOP THIS!”
“Fight me without that bird of yours! Show me your own true strength and I will show you mine!
“Fine then!”
He dropped down from where he was hiding.
“I WILL stop you and save the day, because I’m….Hawlucha Man!”
“Just dead drop already!”
We ran at each other and threw punches and kicks. If I threw a straight punch, he would counter with a grab. If he used a kick, I would sweep below it and counter with jabs across the abdomen. However much padding was in each of our suits, it certainly wasn’t doing enough to block all the pain.
I laughed.
“What’s so funny, Mad Bomber?” he said, between labored breaths.
“Hah…if I had used those moves against the Ronin, I’d be dead now. And yet, here I’m standing. I guess that makes all you guys, and especially you, boy, irrelevant, obsolete.”
There was an explosion above us. Some of the previous explosion must’ve made some of the machines here explode on their own. This place was going to collapse soon.
He was getting tired. Probably wasn’t used to a foe that can stand more than a couple punches from some boy in a luchador’s outfit. I turned to him and walked coolly towards his still-living body, thinking which explosive I was going to shove down his throat.
“Don’t tell me you’re giving up already, boy! It’s time for our encore dance!”
Xatu gave me a warning that Hawlucha was approaching. Just then, Hawlucha crashed through the highest ceiling and landed perfectly next to his master.
“Lucha!”
What good that did, Xatu. Remind me never to use one again. And as for Hawlucha…
“Go, Electrode!”
I summoned, from one of the actually functioning Poké Balls I had on me, my most powerful Electrode.
Hawlucha charged towards it without orders.
“Electrode, Plan: Beta!”
Hawlucha launched a punch at Electrode quick as lightning, but Electrode was quick as light. He was already on the other side of the room, charging up for a maelstrom of electrical attacks. This would also have less of an impact on me due to the electric-resistant fabric I had woven into the clothing.
I scanned for the boy with my Joltiks but couldn’t find him. I saw his fists first. Then I felt his fists on my stomach. Then finally, as I was brought down to my knees, I felt his fists slam into the side of my head. I looked up and saw Hawlucha punch Electrode with such ferocity that it KOed in one hit. Looks like the plans are down the toilet for today, but like any good villain, I’ve always got a trump card up my sleeve.
“I’m taking you to early retirement,” he said, huffing between his words.
“Strange…” I said back, barely containing the smile on my face. “I was thinking the same thing about you…”
“What you do…”
“EXECUTE: ALL!”
I laughed between gasping in pain as I looked upon his face to see the terror of being inside a building that’s about to explode, with his partner no less. My suit would render me alive, though with a few months of recovery, but he would most certainly be dead. One explosion would fling me outside, worse for wear, but nothing would save him.
…
…what was going on? Was my helmet not working? Why weren’t all my Pokémon exploding?!
“Looks like we got here just in time,” came a new voice.
I looked over to see an older man walk into the building with a Houndoom. He surveyed the scene.
“Captain Anderson! What are you doing here?” said the boy.
“Saving your ***, it would seem.”
“But the exploding Pokémon…”
“Sir, we’ve neutralized all the hidden Voltorbs and Electrodes in the vicinity!” said another new voice.
In walked yet another man, younger.
“Detective Reyes! You got roped into this, too?”
The good captain walked over to me and brought my hands behind me and cuffed me with…were those fuzzy Liepard print cuffs?
“Good to see the Eleventh is finding this all as hilarious as the boy does,” I spat.
“He’s not a boy, you know. He’s the amazing Hawlucha Man. Now then, you should know this by now. You have the right to remain silent. Every-”
“Why don’t you be a good boy and tell me how one of the worst police departments in this city can defuse 100 bombs in a minute?”
A Wooper walked underneath him.
“Cute, huh? Part ground as to be immune to electric attacks, no matter how powerful, and a handy Damp ability that prevents exploding things from exploding. Also small enough to transport en masse and replace all those Joltik you littered everywhere.”
Anderson tried to remove my mask, but that just set off the security measure, which meant that HE was facing a painful amount of volts. Not enough to kill him, but enough to dissuade him from trying that again.
“A magician never gives up ALL his secrets,” I said.
“Take him to the truck and head straight for Tarta Penitentiary!” Anderson said.
My whole plan…so thoroughly ruined. I gave that boy the thrashing of his life, and he only won because of police intervention. The police! The Ronin would never cooperate with the police. They should be putting both him AND the boy in that car alongside me! How is vigilante justice any different from mine?!
As they loaded me into the car, I turned my head and looked at a bruised and battered boy hero and flashed my most winning smile (though I later came to realize he couldn't see it due to the helmet).
“I SO look forward to our next last dance, boy. Remember the Daedalus Proclamation!”
Reyes closed the door on me and soon we were off.
It was even later that night that the alarms kept blaring and I wished I knew where they were originating from. I took the dead guard’s severed hand and pressed it up against the hand lock, keeping my eyes wide open for any guards who thought they could be heroes tonight. The machine read “my” hand and the door to the cell opened. A woman sat up in bed and peered at me, perhaps recognizing me from one of my many waltzes with the Ronin.
“Get up, Soothsayer. We’ve got work to do.”