Tagged: superhero
The Unsettling Escapades of Captain Birthday
Flash Fiction Month 2023, Day 31
“Help!” shouted the old lady in the burning building. “Help!”
“Oh no!” said a random bystander, clapping his hands to his face Macaulay Caulkin-style. “Is there nobody who can help?”
“This looks like a job for Captain Birthday!” announced a spandex-clad hero, appearing out of nowhere to strike a dramatic pose beneath the window. “Stand back, citizens!”
Then he whipped out a gun and shot himself in the face. Continue reading
The Idea Has Legs
Flash Fiction Month 2023, Day 26
“Gimme your wallet!” shouted the mugger.
“Uhhhhhhh…” His victim pointed down the alley behind him.
The mugger suddenly became aware of the sound of feet—lots and lots of feet—approaching at speed.
He turned. “What the…”
There was a meaty “thwack” as he was delivered a mighty uppercut.
“That’s right!” cried the newcomer, cracking his knuckles. “The city has a new hero—with the proportional strength of a centipede!” Continue reading
A Flying Visit
Flash Fiction Month 2023, Day 9
“Okay!” announced X-Ray Ted, the diabolical supervillain. “All you posh types put your jewellery and wallets into this big sack. And no holding out on me—I’ll know!”
“Uh-oh!”
X-Ray Ted scanned the crowd—inside and out—for whoever had spoken. Strangely, it was not one of the socialites at the Fourteenth Annual Please Don’t Rob This Garden Party Garden Party. It was one of his own henchmen.
“What?” he asked. “What is it?”
Then he noticed the nun dangling from a trellis. He was absolutely positive she was not armed, though she did look rather grumpy. Continue reading
Swing In for a Slice
Flash Fiction Month 2022, Day 22
“It is I!” announced the masked man who had just burst into the restaurant. “Fruit Ninja!” He swished his katana around for effect.
“Excuse me, but isn’t that name already trademarked?” asked some guy swiping on his phone in the takeout waiting area.
“Only in the context of computer game programs, and even if it applied more widely I’m here to do crime, so…” He quickly sheathed his katana and did a little shrug.
“Wait,” said Frank of Frank’s Chicago-Style Pizza. “You’re robbing me?”
“No.” Fruit Ninja’s eyes narrowed behind his hood. “What I’m about to do is much more diabolical.”
“What are you—” began a woman in a booth by the door.
“Pineapple pizza!” yelled Fruit Ninja, expertly hurling a handful of yellow chunks onto her fresh pizza pie.
“What?” she asked. Continue reading
A Sound of Blunder
Flash Fiction Month 2022, Day 13
“Aha!” cried Bread Skull. “When I pull this lever, my grand scheme will come to fruition, and the world shall bend to a new power!”
“You wouldn’t dare!” shouted Corporal Canada.
“I was created by the combined efforts of a Nazi super-soldier program and a Vichy France boulangerie,” announced Bread Skull. “Don’t tell me what I would or wouldn’t dare to do!”
And with that, he pulled the lever.
The machine slowly ground into life, vast rings of steel turning and wheeling as sparks flashed across the room. Corporal Canada hurled a maple-leaf-shaped throwing star at the control panel, but Bread Skull batted it away with a baguette that he had frozen until it was very hard. The machine continued to whirl faster and faster, causing a fierce wind as the surrounding air was drawn into its core. Continue reading
Just One Weakness
Flash Fiction Month 2022, Day 5
Challenge #2: Write a story that begins in medias res and contains exactly two characters.
The lab was so quiet you could have heard a pin drop. In fact, that was precisely the sound to break the silence.
“Peekaboo,” said Doctor Baby, hurling a rusk grenade from behind a shattered machine.
The hero whipped round, cape snapping smartly, and sent it sailing back with an expert roundhouse kick.
Doctor Baby lunged for the shelter of a nearby pillar, reaching it just as a burst of crumby shrapnel put pock-marks all across his newly painted walls. He dearly wished that Goon was here to take care of the grunt work: he hadn’t spent four years on his PhD in Maniacal Diabology (minoring in Child Psychology) to spend all day going to-to-toe with superpowered ruffians. Continue reading
The Devil’s in the Detail
Flash Fiction Month 2022, Day 3
“Hands above your heads!”
Everybody in the bank turned to stare at the spandex-clad criminal. He wore a purple bowler hat and there was a similarly striking interrobang printed on his chest. Slowly, the customers complied.
“I said above your heads!” yelled the robber, jabbing an interrobang cane at an old lady near the door. “Not just shoulder height—get ‘em right up there!”
Everybody’s hands shot into the air, except the old lady’s—she just lifted them a smidge more.
“I don’t think I can do this for very long,” she said.
“That’s alright.” The robber strode to the counter. “I’m the Quibbler! I’ve planned this heist to the last detail! I’ll be in and out in ten seconds flat!” Continue reading
At Loggerheads
Flash Fiction Month 2021, Day 29
Challenge #13: Write a superhero story featuring an unconventional mode of transportation and an apathetic sidekick.
“In ocean wet, in briny deep, when evil’s near I shall not sleep!”
“Sorry,” said the foreman, setting down his chainsaw. “Is the back of that pickup filled with water?”
“Yes.” The woman sitting in it gave a demonstrative splash with her mermaid tail. “We’re a long way from the coast.”
“And you’re here…why?”
She huffed. “I would have thought the rhyme was a pretty solid explanation, but fine. It is I—the Green Lamprey! And at my side, the loyal…”
There was nobody at her side.
She slapped the roof of the pickup truck. “The loyal…”
Nobody appeared at her side.
She gave the roof a few thumps with her fist. “The loyal…”
Another young woman emerged from the driver’s seat. “It’s me, the loyal Kimmy from JobGopher, yaay.” She gave a lacklustre one-handed wave, not looking up. The other hand was busy texting. Continue reading
The Power of Suggestion
Flash Fiction Month 2021, Day 26
“Sir, could you please step back? We have a hostage situation inside.”
“I know.” The sharply dressed newcomer elegantly limboed under the crowd barrier. “That is why I—the Great Persuad-o—have come to render my services!”
He pushed open the doors of the bank and stepped inside.
“Stay right where you are!” yelled the gunman and the hostage negotiator, simultaneously.
“Jinx!” The Great Persuad-o smiled. “But seriously, don’t worry. I’m here to ensure that the situation is resolved peacefully.”
“Hey, that’s my job!” whined the hostage negotiator.
“And you’re doing great. But just to save some time…” The Great Persuad-o turned to the gunman, took a pocket watch from the breast of his suit, and began to swing it back and forth. “You don’t want to rob this bank. You want to be a dancer.”
“I…” The gunman set his pistol down on the counter. “I want to be a dancer.” Continue reading
Clowning Around
Flash Fiction Month 2021, Day 19
The doors of the museum burst inwards with an inexplicable fart noise, causing everybody at the event to look in that direction and one particularly sensitive socialite to faint immediately.
A cloud of evil purple smoke swirled inside, and out of it stepped a sinister clown-faced figure. “Wait ‘till they get a load of me,” he said, twirling a cane.
He was soon followed by a small crowd of goons and what appeared to be a hyaena wearing a crop top and hot pants. Continue reading
Damon L. Wakes 