Octoboy

To be frank, Octoboy was a loser. A SUPER loser. Of all the villains on my potential list, he was the only one who had never, EVER beaten a superhero in a fight of any sort. Even street punks got lucky from time-to-time and managed to land a shot that knocked out a more minor hero so they could get away but this guy? From super-heavyweights like the Egyptian Demi-God Basette, to Super Martial Artist Dragon Orchid, the Boxing Bunny TKO, and even just the cowgirl with a gun Debbie Darrindanger, there was no heroine who had not gotten the best of him at some point.

Come to think of it, he did seem to exclusively get matched up with the female heroes. But ANYWAY...

I almost considered him not worth the effort, given that catching someone on his level had to be super easy mode and not really something that would make a newbie stand-out and catch the eye of a hero hottie. What changed my mind, as I took a quick glance at his history, was one thing of note: Even though he always lost, he never spent more than a day in jail at the most. Somehow, he always managed to come to and slip away before the police arrived or disappear from his holding cell before they ever fully processed him. So catching him might not do much for me, but making sure he STAYED caught would probably get some attention.

So that was how I found myself outside an old, abandoned aquarium on the edge of town. It only made sense that, since if you are going by the name "Octoboy", you are going to stick to some kind of aquatic theme. As I sneaked further in, I heard a strange sound. It was a squishy, wet noise that echoed through the corridors of empty fish tanks and as I followed it I realized it was coming from the arena where they once put on shows involving seals and dolphins. Keeping to the shadows, I sneaked around the upper level of said arena as I spotted my target in the drained show pool in the center of the room.

The first things I noticed about him in person was his appearance. His skin was a dull grey color from head-to-toe, which I could see all of as he seemed to not be wearing any clothing but weirdly, he also had no visible genitals so I did not feel like I was seeing something I should not be. Seven tentacles extended from his back, two holding him up higher in the air like stilts, four moving some football-sized and shaped green and blue-veined objects from a large crate to the center of a circle being drawn with chalk by the seventh. He was muttering something under his breath that I could not make out even with the acoustics of the room magnifying his voice and when he turned around to check his work on the circle I finally got a look at his face. Surprisingly, he was kind of good looking. Not really my exact type but he had that kind of slender prettiness combined with large, dark eyes and tousled, dark green hair that lightly fell over one of said dark eyes that gave him a "vampy teen heart throb" appearance even though I knew from his records he was well into adulthood.

He was still muttering whatever it was he was saying under his breath and when I followed his eye line to get a better look at what he was drawing with his seventh tentacle I saw he was writing strange markings around the borders of the circle. Was this some kind of magic ritual? If so, what was it for and what did the kind of fleshy looking pods he was moving into the center of the circle have to do with it? Whatever it was, it was something a hero could not allow to be completed so it was time for Nova Girl to officially make her debut!

First, you had to intimidate and surprise a villain! Show them your power and confidence in the first moments you arrived! To that end I sneaked my way down to the pool area, Octoboy too distracted by what he was doing to notice me, and hopped over the railing to land on the floor of the shallow end in my best Super Hero Landing Pose. "Hey, Squid Kid!" I shouted, standing back up and pointing at him, "You're under arrest!"

My initial gambit worked! Not having expected anyone to be there, Octoboy jerks in my direction, the coordination of his tentacles momentarily being thrown off as the one holding the chalk drops it to the ground, the ones holding the pods juggle them in a **** attempt to not have them fall as well, and the ones holding him up in the air buckle and **** him to lower himself to his actual feet.

Next is...