by Joshua Price
Captain Rescue frowned. “Why does he get the super powers?!”
Before anyone could reply, the hero screeched as he felt something tickle his pant leg. He glanced down and saw a miniature Ralph rubbing against him affectionately.
“Buddy!” Captain Rescue cheered, “You made it! You’re safe! And you’re… small!” He reached down and picked up the cat-sized dinosaur then cradled it in his arms. The hero turned away from Ralph, afraid that the dinosaur would hear his following words. “He’s not stuck this size is he?” Captain Rescue whispered to Greg.
“Not permanently, no,” the genie replied.
The hero breathed a sigh of relief and then looked down at his dinosaur. He shot a glance to Greg, and then back to the dinosaur, and then back to Greg again.
“Out with it, you retard,” Greg growled.
“Could you… possibly… change his color? To something… not pink?”
The genie grumbled, “What would you like?”
“His natural color will do just fine!”
Sarcastically, the genie pointed at the dinosaur and then made circles with its finger. Greg yanked his hand away, pulling the dinosaur’s pink hue along with it, which evaporated like a small pink cloud.
“I thought I said his natural colors,” Captain Rescue said, visibly annoyed. In his hands, Ralph had shifted to a dark red dinosaur with a blue underbelly.
“That’s Ralph in his natural glory.”
“I don’t believe you.”
The genie shrugged. “Believe it or not. I could take you back to the Jurassic period if you wish to check for yourself.”
“No… no, I kind of like it, he looks sharp,” Captain Rescue said as he set Ralph down, who wandered off to mark his territory.
Within a few seconds, the hero had turned his attention to the vending machine that had indirectly sent them here in the first place. “So, uh, where we headed?” he asked as he wandered over to it.
Captain Rescue leaned in and inspected the buttons, trying to decide which vintage soft drink to enjoy this time around. One by one, his fingers softly caressed each rectangular block of plastic. Just before making his decision, the entire machine went dark. Dazed and confused, Captain Rescue glanced around and eventually found Dr. Malevolent leaning against the golden curved wall of the lamp twirling the plug for the vending machine.
“We’ll have none of that this time around,” she said.
“Fine, then I need to get some fresh air,” the hero whined.
“You’ve been in here for five minutes.”
“I don’t see your point.”
“My point is you don’t need fresh air, your lungs haven’t gotten used to the air that’s in them yet,” Dr. Malevolent elaborated.
“What have my lungs got to do with this?”
“Okay, can we please let him out?”
“Yeah, can we please let me out?” Captain Rescue repeated.
Charlie twitched. “You don’t wanna go out there.”
“And why not?”
“Well, and I’m not certain on this, but I don’t think there’s anything to go out to.”
Greg nodded irritably, snapped his fingers, and conjured portholes along both sides of the lamp. Outside, the twisting nothingness of trans-dimensional space glowed and pulsated in beautiful colors and designs. Captain Rescue stared wondrously at the array of designs encompassing every color imaginable—and many that were not. At the genie’s command, the lamp could instantly appear in any time or space, or it could hover here in the infinite prettiness for as long as desired.
“Pretty,” the hero’s words left his mouth lethargically as he stared through the porthole, lost in a trans-dimensional daydream. “How long till we get back home?” he asked.
“Oh, we can show up there at any time you want, but I don’t think you’ll like what you find,” the genie replied as he fiddled around with some console.
Captain Rescue snapped out of his lethargic daze. “What do you mean?!”
“Well, if you’re that interested, let me show you.”
An ominous melody, hummed by Freight, played through the magical lamp as Greg pressed the necessary buttons on the control console. The twisting colors that Captain Rescue found so enthralling drifted away immediately, replaced with dark skies and grey clouds, which zipped by at ridiculous enough speeds to make their pint-sized craft practical. The view outside the portholes appeared anything but normal, definitely not the world they lived in, fought for, and, in Dr. Malevolent’s case, tried to take over.
Captain Rescue, wide eyed and pale, backed away from the porthole. “Did we take a wrong turn?”
“No,” Greg said, fiddling with the controls, “this is the right time and place.”
The hero slammed his forehead against the porthole. “Oh God, we broke it, we broke it!”
Charlie, while not exactly an expert on the repercussions of space-time manipulation, but still versed in their many subtleties, added with a hand upon his bunny chin, “I don’t believe we’re to blame for what’s happened here.”
At speeds that would make a hummingbird jealous, their wee little vessel whisked through a world in ruins. Decimated by some unknown catastrophe, snow covered much of the ground and impenetrable clouds hid the skies. Buildings in every direction lay in rubble, knocked down by a mighty shockwave, and only a few shattered husks remained. Within a few minutes, they reached the epicenter’s border, a vast crater spanning as far as the eye could see.
“How could such a thing happen!?” Captain Rescue cried as he slammed his fists against the porthole, tears welling in his eye. “How?!”
“According to the diagnostics,” the Genie said as he ran his gaseous fingers across the controls for dramatic effect, “this is a disaster of… dolphin proportions!”
Dr. Malevolent scratched her eyebrow and winced. “Your lamp can detect these ‘dolphin proportions’?”
“Actually no, but that can.” The genie pointed outside the window to a statue on the cusp of the great crater—a statue of a dolphin standing triumphantly. Greg flew the magical lamp closer, so they could get a better look. Upon it, an engraving read:
Operation: “Blow Them Humans Sky High” Successful.
“Those bastards!” Captain Rescue cried out, spewing tears and mucus all over the porthole. “We have to do something! We have to fix this!”
“Well, I wouldn’t go that far,” Greg started, “it does look nice now… peaceful… quiet. I could get used to this.”
“I don’t want to get used to it!” the hero said, still quite broken up about the end of civilization.
“I guess we could go farther back and time and try to prevent the bomb from going off; that’s our best bet,” the bunny suggested.
“Let’s do it!” Captain Rescue cheered.
“We just have to figure out when that was, the bomb going off.”
Proving that she lived up to her name in some degree, Dr. Malevolent said, “Can’t we use all this destruction to somehow determine when this explosion happened?”
Captain Rescue began drooling. “That sounds hard.”
“Well… yeah, but I bet Greg’s magical lamp can pull it off somehow? Can’t it?”
“Damn it! You filthy meatbags, I’m a genie, not a scientist,” Greg replied almost jokingly.
“Well, be proactive and ask your lamp!” Dr. Malevolent argued.
The genie, thinking himself the clever sort, knelt down next to the control console and began speaking at it, “Computer, when did this explosion happen?”
“Fifty years,” a voice replied.
Greg sprouted a pair of legs and stumbled backwards, awestruck. “I did not know it could do that.”
“What do you mean you didn’t know? It’s your lamp,” Dr. Malevolent mocked.
To which Greg replied, “I uh... I might have stolen it.”
“How does a genie steal a magical lamp, pray tell?”
The genie’s posture straightened, and he collected h
imself. “That’s really a story for another time.”
“A genie that steals magical lamps,” Captain Rescue cheered, “that sounds fantastic!”
“Yes, well, let’s save the world first.” Greg laughed to himself as he knelt down next to the console, “Uh… computer, take us… one hour before this explosion.”
“Understood.”
Chapter 20: Last Detour, Promise
Captain Rescue stared out the portholes once more, distracted by the dazzling colors and beautiful designs outside. The thoughts of his sundered home quickly left the hero’s mind and were replaced by pleasanter ones—ones that made him giggle and clap like an adolescent schoolgirl. He pouted as those beautiful colors faded, replaced with a world fifty years in the past. Their fair city’s layout appeared roughly the same—a few less buildings, a few more trees, but it was theirs.
“I don’t see any dolphins,” Captain Rescue said, sure that he would be able spot them with ease.
Greg shrugged his orange shoulders. “This is where the bomb’s going off in an hour, so this is where they have to be.”
“They won’t just drop it down a portal when the time comes, will they?” Dr. Malevolent questioned.
“I hope not,” Freight clutched Courtney tightly, “that would make our job a lot less fun.”
Greg chuckled, “Computer, can you detect where this bomb is going off?”
“One hundred and fifty meters underground,” it replied.
“And how are we going to get down there,” Captain Rescue sighed.
The self-guided lamp was one step ahead of him as it darted towards the ground. The hero closed his eyes and yelped as it went straight through the dirt as if the ground was not there. Captain rescue opened his eyes, watched the earth around him, and slowly came to understand the definition of “magical lamp”—that it could do anything it wanted. The tiny lamp traveled through the absolute darkness of the compressed soil for some time, but that darkness soon gave way to a large chamber, perfect for hiding a doomsday explosive. A series of electric lamps illuminated the chamber and those within. At the center, six apes stood guard while a pair of suit-wearing dolphins tinkered with a device that could only be the bomb.
Captain Rescue tipped backwards, fell to the ground, and in dismay said, “There are too many of them, we’ll never stop the bomb!”
“Just let them get a taste of me,” Freight said with utmost sincerity.
If the bigfoot guards had taken the time to actually stand guard, rather than staring aimlessly at the dirt, they might have seen the small golden lamp or the reflections of it upon their foreheads. After buzzing through the air for a few seconds, the lamp found a nice and comfortable corner of the cave to set down in and plan their next course of action.
“Let’s get this show on the road,” Freight said as he stood near the concave edge of the lamp, waiting for a hatch to appear.
Dr. Malevolent turned to Freight and spoke slowly, “You just want to go out there and hope for the best?”
“I won’t just be hoping. I will be achieving.”
***
The lights within the magical lamp dimmed and a white screen unfurled from mere nothingness. Everyone gathered around it, unsure of its meaning. Within a few seconds, the screen glowed brightly and a movie began to play. It began uninterestingly enough: the magical lamp as seen from the outside hiding in the corner of the cave. On screen, the hatch swung open and the heroes emerged from their tiny craft and expanded to their full size. They darted through the cave and took poor cover behind the electrical lamps—their arms, legs, and much of their torsos quite visible.
Freight stepped out from behind one of the lamps with Courtney in his hands. The shaky camera jerked to the apes, which could see the huge man clear as day. Freight dove into a roll and hopped to his feet, but before he had the chance to show the bigfoot what he was made of, they found out for themselves as a series of lasers hit the giant man and made him explode like a gerbil in a microwave, enticing a gasp and a whimper from real Freight.
“Just come out,” the bigfoots said, “we can see you behind there.”
Dr. Malevolent shoved Captain Rescue and he stumbled out from behind a lamp.
“You idiot,” she said, “I told you the lamps would make for terrible cover, but you were like ‘no, the bigfoot are narrow sighted’.”
“I thought they were,” he replied.
“Get up,” the bigfoot commanded as they fixed their laser rifles upon the heroes.
They got to their feet just as the bigfoot fired a barrage of lasers upon them. Before any exploding transpired, the movie cut to black.
***
“Is it safe to come out yet?” Captain Rescue whispered from hand-cupped face.
Dr. Malevolent patted his shoulder and spoke solemnly, “Not yet.”
He kept his face buried in his hands and wept uncontrollably. Dr. Malevolent just looked towards the others and shrugged her shoulders.
Eventually, he regained his composure and looked up once more, red faced and with swollen eyes. “Why would you show us such a terrible prophecy?!”
Greg chuckled, entertained by mortals and their mortality. “That’s just one possible future, a future that will transpire if you people run out there like idiots. It also makes what I’m about to do a little more understandable.”
Captain Rescue wiped his eyes. “What are you going to do?”
“Give you pitiful creatures a fighting chance; it did take you a dinosaur to kill the last ape.”
“It wasn’t just the one. Sure, he was big, but there were lots!”
Charlie stepped between the two. “What do mean ‘give us a fighting chance’?”
“This,” the genie said pointing at Captain Rescue.
The hero, enveloped within an orange aura, floated into the air and giggled. “This tickles!”
With an agape mouth, Dr. Malevolent stammered, “I see what’s going on here, but why him?”
Greg answered as Captain Rescue fell to his knees, “I think he’s the most interesting person to accept such a gift. And, really, he’s the only one of you with that hero mentality, but sadly, it’s muddled behind all of his idiot mentalities too.”
The newly endowed hero got to his feet. “Gift? What did you give me? I don’t feel any different. Is it a disease, one of those sexually transmitted ones?”
Greg cringed. “You are thick.”
“What do you mean?” the hero asked suspiciously.
“Let me spell this out for you: I. Gave. You. Superpowers.”
Captain Rescue just stood there trying to processes what he just heard. He patted himself up and down in search of any outward signs of superness. As he ran his hands over his body, he noticed a district influx of muscles and a distinct outflux of fat. As it turned out, the hero’s temporary super powers had chiseled into a fine specimen of masculinity. He flexed his muscles and made quite the spectacle of himself as he struggled to kiss his pecks.
“My God,” Dr. Malevolent shivered, “what have you done.”
Greg just smiled and made the hatch magically appear on the side of his stolen magical lamp. “Go punch something, you buffoon.”
Barely able to contain himself, the hero sprinted towards the hatch in a manner peculiar enough to scare young children. With his legs moving at a different speed than the upper half of his body, he reached the hatch as the middle half of his body caught up with the other parts. Captain Rescue lunged out of the magical lamp and ballooned to his normal size in the blink of an eye. One of the bigfoot guards noticed Captain Rescue and nudged the ape standing beside him to take notice. His friend glanced up, and upon seeing the hero, they both raised their rifles and snarled. The hero just stood there with his hands upon his waist, chest jutting out, and faintly glimmering from his gift.
“What did you give him?” Dr. Malevolent asked as she watched the story unfurl from the safety of the small lamp.
“I really have no idea, there aren’t labels or
anything,” Greg answered, “I just did a little hocus pocus and that was the result.”
“So there’s no telling what exactly he can do?”
“Not exactly, but it won’t be anything too ridiculous.”
“Could he get hurt?”
“Maybe, depends on how stupid he is.”
She sighed.
***
“If you know what’s good for you, you’ll lay down your weapons and back away from the bomb,” Captain Rescue commanded.
The two dolphins in the background tinkering with the explosive paid no attention to their antagonist as their ape guards looked at each other, figuring out what exactly to do with a belligerent superhero. They decided the only real choice, and a good one at that, was to kill him—with lasers. In unison, the guards shrugged their shoulders, pointed their rifles at him, and went to town. As Captain Rescue outstretched his arms like Moses parting the Red Sea of lasers, the energy-borne projectiles flooded around him and went into orbit like a protective shell. The apes stumbled backwards in awe of the lightshow. The lasers swirled in the air, hissing as they crossed each other.
Captain Rescue conducted the lasers like a pint-sized army of bees. The swarm swam around the hero, and then one single laser left the pack and aligned itself vertically in the air. Another laser left the fray and stacked upon the last, and then another, and then another. These lasers eventually formed an entire word, and those words formed a sentence, the most poignant sentence in existence: Dolphins are bad.
Coincidentally, the bigfoot had not bothered reading to the most poignant sentence in existence. In the time it took Captain Rescue to figure out how to spell the three words, they had killed themselves out of sheer boredom and the hero did not notice, nor could he see out of his laser swarm anyway. Rather than spending his time in school learning, Captain Rescue spent it dreaming of being a superhero, and now, that dream had come to fruition.
Captain Rescue dropped his hands, and the lasers fell with him, leaving scorch marks as they hit the ground. The displeased dolphins finally turned around to face their antagonist. After a few seconds spent staring angrily at each other, the dolphin’s giant tripod-toed feet advanced on Captain Rescue. He held up his hands in a fighting stance, warning the dolphins that he would use these weapons if he had to. The dolphins looked at him curiously, and then started to rotate their exoskeletal chassis inward to look at each other. Captain Rescue put his tired arms down as the dolphins nodded and then began their slow rotation back out.