by Seth Jacob
We made it out of the museum and onto the street, but it didn’t really matter. They were already there waiting for us.
Funny things go through your head when you realize that you’re living your last moments.
“They’ll probably call this the Museum Massacre,” I thought as one of Master Boson’s irradiated throwing stars lodged in my shoulder.
“Or maybe The Last Stand of The Millennials,” I thought, and The Immaterial Man surged out of the collapsing building behind us. His furious, disembodied howls echoed everywhere like the wrath of god. The hurricane winds of his body forced me down to my hands and knees.
I looked up, and The Punster was standing over me. I glanced to my left and saw my teammates fighting for their lives, but they weren’t going to win.
“Nobody can go to Jupiter,” I thought.
I looked back to The Punster. He raised one of the Specialist’s proton accelerator pistols towards me, and his look of frustration, it was almost like he was disappointed that it was this easy.
“I had a really great pun prepared for this but…my heart’s not in it,” he sighed, and tried to make eye contact with me, but I was distracted by something up above him. A glint of light in the sky caught my eye.
“What?” The Punster asked, and he looked behind him and up at the growing flashes of color descending from the bright noon day sun. It took me a few seconds to register what they were, but once I did, I started laughing, and I couldn’t stop.
“Oh, fuck me,” The Punster said. It was the Superb 6.
They were flying in triangular formation straight at us with the sun behind them. It was hard to look directly at them with the glare of the sun silhouetting them, and I almost convinced myself that they were a mirage, a spandex-clad oasis in the desert conjured up by my soon to be dead brain. But no, they reached the peaks of the buildings around us and peeled away from their arrow shaped formation in individual directions like trained fighter pilots executing a dog fighting strategy that they’d rehearsed thousands of times, and they couldn’t have been more real.
Beyond Man soared by The Punster and me, his blue and white cape close enough that I could have reached out and tugged on it, and the wake of his flight threw The Punster to his feet. He dropped his gun, it slid away from him, and he lay there dazed and twisting in pain on the ground. Queen Quantum hovered above the street and bottled up The Immaterial Man in fluctuating uncertainty fields. She chained The Whimsy to the street by entangling the molecules of his feet with the asphalt, and she disabled the chemical process that Mistress Gorgon’s snakes used to generate fire with a flick of her index finger.
Supra was all over the place, moving fluidly through the crowds of henchmen so quickly that my superhuman eyes were barely quick enough to track her, and she was just beating the shit out of henchmen with martial arts so sophisticated that I don’t even have names for half of the complex moves she was executing. Anhur and Sleight of Hand were standing back to back and working together like a well oiled machine. Sleight of Hand covered Anhur, sweeping his wand back and forth like a conductor masterfully leading an orchestra. Weapons disappeared from henchmen’s hands, and blasts of energy transmuted into butterflies and snowflakes. Anhur, the Egyptian God of War, the Slayer of Enemies, he was pummeling The Abnormalite with blows that unleashed shockwaves and shattered all the windows for blocks around. And as Anhur knocked out that pink skinned, four armed, eight eyed son of a bitch, I couldn’t help but cheer.
The way that the Superb 6 worked, turning the tide of the battle in less than a minute, fighting so well together that the six of them were like the parts of one big machine, the relentless efficiency of their attacks, such perfect form and accuracy, such elegance and grace while in complete control of boundless power…it was beautiful.
“We got your call,” Ultra Lady said as she touched down in front of me and extended a white gloved hand. I took it, and she helped me to my feet.
“Call?” I asked, disoriented and exhausted and badly wounded.
“The emergency signal. From the satellite,” Ultra Lady said. She turned away from me, pursed her lips, and blew a gust of Ultra-Breath at a mob of henchmen stupid enough to think that this just might be their chance to rush us. They lifted up and away from us like they were lighter than feathers.
“The signal. In the satellite. That actually worked,” I said, and I started cracking up again, overcome with relief as I watched the Superb 6 handle the army of henchmen and supervillains like they were a bunch of unruly children.
“Don’t go into shock, Spectacle. We’re not out of the woods yet,” Ultra Lady said, and she flew away from me as she noticed Mistress Gorgon jumping onto a rooftop and trying to make her getaway. I looked back to where The Punster fell. He was gone.
“We’re gonna make it, I can’t believe this, we’re actually gonna fucking do this,” Joe Metal said mostly to himself as his heavily damaged armor carried him to my side. His exoskeleton was dripping hydraulic fluid and leaking smoke at the seams and making awful grinding noises with every shift in position.
“Where’d The Punster go?” Insight asked me as she floated to my other side. She telekinetically flipped over a parked car in front of us to provide cover from the stray energy blasts flying everywhere.
“He couldn’t have gotten far, he’s like a thousand years old,” Mr. Mercurial said. He was starting to recover from his amorphous brawl with The Immaterial Man, and he shakily got to his metallic feet.
“Let’s finish this,” I said to my teammates.
We moved out from behind the flipped over car. The streets were overflowing with panicked henchmen running in every direction. The Superb 6 were an unstoppable force of nature. They were effortlessly keeping the throngs of henchmen confined to the block around the demolished Kirby Museum of Superhero History. The Abnormalite was comatose on the street with half of his fangs knocked out of his mouth. The Immaterial Man was swirling inside of Queen Quantum’s uncertainty fields and shrieking as he struggled to free himself. Ultra Lady carried Mistress Gorgon by the limp black snakes on her head back to the street, dropped her into a dumpster, and welded it shut with a glare of her heat vision. And The Millennials, we tore through those last henchmen, and it was a pleasure. While it lasted.
Joe Metal forced his grumbling, failing armor to its limits as he thrashed henchmen by the dozen. He waded through the swarms of Henchasaurs, Syllabullies, Harpies and Goons and just emptied out everything in his arsenal, tiny tranquilizer darts and EMP pulses and ricocheting rubber bullets and taser wires and blasts of propulsive energy from octagon shaped ports in his armor. Insight was zipping around the air like a purple firefly, telepathically putting henchmen into trances, and leaving them standing dull eyed and drooling. I hunted for The Punster. I knocked out Goons with tired, sloppy punches, and I roamed the battle torn street, searching for any sign of that pun obsessed motherfucker in the chaos.
“Spectacle,” he said. I turned around, and The Punster was pointing that pistol at me again and breathing heavily. I tried to reach for his weapon, but I was too weak and sluggish.
“Set phasers to…pun!” The Punster cried, and he pulled the trigger.
It all happened so quickly. I heard Mr. Mercurial shout. I saw my own reflection, my dopey, surprised face gaping back at me. Mr. Mercurial had stretched his mirror-like body in front of me as a shield. Silvery liquid exploded everywhere like chrome fireworks. There was a gaping hole in Mr. Mercurial’s elongated torso, and through it I saw The Punster’s psychotic smile and the smoking tip of his pistol.
Mr. Mercurial belly flopped onto the asphalt. He was shaking violently. His stretched out body shriveled down until he was his normal height. He tried to get up, he started retching, and then he threw up blood mingled with silvery fluid. The Punster ran and watched this over his shoulder with delight. I dropped to my knees and cradled Mr. Mercurial’s head.
“Come on, buddy. Pull yourself together.”
“Not…not…nau
ghh,” Mr. Mercurial said. His metallic head was dripping through my fingers as I held him.
“Pull yourself together, Mr. Mercurial. Come on, goddamn it,” I said, and now his entire body was melting like an ice cube on a hot sidewalk. Shiny metallic fluid poured through my hands. I could barely hold onto him as he slipped away.
“You always pull yourself together,” I said.
Mr. Mercurial looked up at me, and his eyes were big, so big. I put a hand on his forehead. He was so afraid, and then he was gone. Completely dissolved into puddles of silver draining away into the gutters.
I stood up, dripping with silver and my own blood, and I saw The Punster across the street. The old man had managed to keep his head down and avoid the attention of the Superb 6 as they cleaned up the last of the costumed criminals. An old guy in a purple turtleneck isn’t exactly a high priority compared to all those powerful superhumans. He was fleeing through the super-battle devastated street and about to duck into a little toy store called Amaze Toys.
I couldn’t believe that he was getting away. After all of this. After all the senseless destruction, after all the needless loss of life, after he slaughtered one of my best friends, I couldn’t believe he was just fucking walking away, and I was filled with rage. I’ve never been angrier in my life. I ran after him, all of the pain and exhaustion evaporated under the heat of my anger, and I saw red.
Chapter 18: Into the Labyrinth
“Punster!” I yelled, and I ripped the front door of Amaze Toys out of its frame and tossed it aside.
“Sorry about your friend, Spectacle. That was a bad way to go…poor, pouring Mr. Mercurial,” The Punster laughed at his own stupid pun as he ran through an aisle of Superb 6 action figures and towards the back of the store. I chased after him, pushing my way through the bikes and shelves that he had knocked over to slow me down.
“I guess you could say I really tested his metal!” The Punster shouted. He had reached a door at the back of the store that looked like the entrance of a storage room. He opened it with a key, and charged down a flight of stairs. He was just a few yards ahead of me, and I followed him down, gaining on him with every step, until he reached the bottom and opened another door with another key. He opened it and slammed it behind him before I could grab him.
The door was locked. I yanked on the doorknob and it came off in my hands. It wasn’t a normal door. It was a thick, metal hatch, clearly built with superhuman intruders in mind. I threw myself against the door, ramming my shoulder into it over and over until it felt like I would dislocate it, but it didn’t budge. Then it swung open for me like The Punster had built some kind of remote motorized opening device into it. I fell forward into a dark room with all the extra momentum of my ramming, and then the door slammed shut behind me.
“Amaze Toys? Get it, Spectacle? ‘A maze’!?” The Punster said over a speaker system. Dim lights in the ceiling came on, and I found myself in a long dark hallway with no doors.
“That toy store upstairs is yet another little business that I’ve purchased with all the money you watched me steal while you drank yourself into oblivion. It was a perfect front for constructing this, my greatest achievement. My masterpiece,” The Punster said. I started slowly walking down the hallway, cautiously and unsure of what might be at the end of it.
“Pun’s Labyrinth,” The Punster said with obvious amusement at his wordplay, his obnoxious voice echoing out from speakers I couldn’t see. I reached the end of the hallway. It opened up into a new hallway that forced me to make a choice between left or right.
“You know, I could always tell that your father was at least mildly entertained by my puns. You don’t even seem like you get them. Then again, you’re not your father, are you?” The Punster said. I turned left, and I smelled something funny. Fine mist was drifting up out of air conditioning vents in the floor.
“We have the young Dr. Delusion to thank for this feature of my labyrinth. It’s a modification of his special SUHP compound mixed up with some other drugs of my own choosing into a nice hallucinogenic cocktail. It won’t enhance your superhuman abilities like regular SUHP, but it also won’t leave you a drooling vegetable like Dr. Delusion’s brand of weaponized SUHP vapor. You’ll love it, son,” The Punster said, and already I could feel it hitting my system. The hallway in front of me stretched out a thousand miles. The gloves on my hands started leaving little trails of neon light. The fog of drugs blanketing the floor pulsated and throbbed as I passed through it.
“It’s just a little party favor, Spectacle,” The Punster said, and now his voice didn’t seem to be coming from speakers, but from out of the fog on the floor, and out of the walls, and shining down from the dim lights in the ceiling, and even from inside myself. I tried to shake it off, and kept moving.
“You’ve got no idea how much work I put into this maze, son. I’ve been designing it for decades. Before you could read, I had entire notebooks filled with ideas for my labyrinth. I even had The Specialist outfit it with top of the line, super-sensory deprivation technology…if any of your friends, or even the Superb 6, look at it with their super-senses, they’ll just see a storage space filled with toys. This was supposed to be for your father. It was supposed to be the setting for our final battle. Jack Titan descends into The Labyrinth to face The Punster, one last time. Winner take all. It was supposed to be the big finish, Spectacle. It was supposed to be the climax of a lifetime rivalry between Jack Titan and The Punster, it was supposed to be what my whole fucking life was leading up to. It was supposed to be…” The Punster trailed off. He was starting to let his bitterness and anger out, but he caught himself.
“But your father took that from me,” The Punster said, and now his pleasant, grandfatherly tone had returned. I had reached the end of the hallway with the SUHP tainted fog coating the floor, and there was a corner that forced me to turn right. I turned the corner, and what I saw made me trip over my own feet.
It was another hallway, but every surface was a screen that displayed moving black and white mazes. The floor, the ceiling, the walls, they were covered with flat screens that were seamlessly connected, and endless networks of black and white mazes rotated around the corridor in unison. Combined with the drugs, it was extremely disorienting.
I stumbled into the hallway, bracing myself against the walls as I walked, and the spiraling, snaking corners and bends and pathways spinning around me made me sick to my stomach. The tangles of geometric shapes organically split and divided into more and more branching pathways, into jungles of growing twists and turns and dead ends, and I could no longer distinguish between the effects of the drugs and what was the insane reality that The Punster had built here.
“Another word for pun is ‘paronomasia’. Paronomasia. Maze…get it?” The Punster said. I made it to the end of the hallway of gyrating mazes, and my head was swimming. I saw interconnected grids of black and white mazes when I closed my eyes. I had the option of going left, right, or forward. I took a deep breath, and pushed forward.
“Did you know the word ‘clue’ comes from ‘clew’, spelled c, l, e, w? A clew is a ball of thread, which is how Theseus found his way out of the labyrinth in classical Greek mythology. Not quite a pun, but still. Interesting word,” The Punster said in a whisper that was soothing and almost hypnotic.
I moved through the next hallway which had detailed paintings of a beach landscape on every surface. The forced perspective of the photorealistic paintings was done in a way that created an optical illusion that made it feel like I had stepped onto the beach. There was blue, cloud freckled sky above me, there was an ocean horizon in front of me stretching out to infinity, there was sand on the floor that made walking even harder. I even felt, or thought I felt, a gentle breeze and smelled the sea and heard the crashing of the waves.
“See, that’s what it was all about, Spectacle. Words. Everything the Punster did. Words were at the root of everything,” The Punster said, and a chasm opened up in the little sand dunes. I stopped
before I fell in, waving my arms and wobbling on the edge of the void, and inside there were these little plastic birds looking up at me quizzically. They were like miniature penguins but with longer, pointier beaks and fluorescent blue webbed feet. For a brief moment, I thought that the funny birds were conjured up by my drug soaked mind, and I hesitated.
The birds fired at me like little winged missiles. I spun out of the way, and most of them shot past me and stabbed into the wall. They stuck there in the painted wall, messing up the immersive effect of the photorealistic ocean horizon, their black beaks buried deep in the dry wall, their fluorescent blue webbed feet pointing out behind them, and I looked down at my leg and saw that not all of them missed. One of them buried its sharp beak in my thigh. It looked up at me and waggled its eyebrows up and down. I yanked it out of my leg and blood spurted out of the wound.
“Booby traps. Booby is a type of sea bird,” The Punster murmured over the speaker system. I ripped up part of my costume jacket and tied it around my leg to stop the bleeding, and I stepped over the pit in the artificial beach.
“Are you even paying attention, Spectacle?” The Punster asked. I said nothing, and I staggered forward to the end of his simulated beach. The sand and the paintings and the smell of the ocean ended, and the hallway forced me around a 180 degree bend.
“Words are important, Spectacle. Words have meaning. They are how we order the world and understand the senseless chaos of this universe. Without words, without language and symbols and ideas, what is there? There’s no meaning. There’s nothing,” The Punster said, and I entered a long hallway that was completely white from the floor to the ceiling to the blinding lights. There were several white doors lining both walls of the hallway that barely stood out from the rest of the whiteness. It was like I had walked onto the blank nothingness of a piece of white paper.
“Your father, he called himself ‘Jack Titan.’ He chose that. He called himself a Titan. And what is a Titan without monsters to fight? The media, they called him ‘The Man of Myth.’ And how can you have a hero of myth without a road of trials and temptations and dragons to slay? And a devil to face at the end of it all?” The Punster asked, and I didn’t answer. I said nothing, and stood there in the nothingness, preparing for whatever fresh hell The Punster had ready for me.