Truck-kun NOOOOoooo~!!

Searing light and overwhelming sound are your whole world for what must be an instant but feels much, much longer. It's as though some malign universal overseer decided it was your turn to take a spin in the soul blender of the gods before pouring you out into a vaguely man-shaped existence somewhere that sounded like a damned war zone was having angry hate-sex with a morning radio disc-jockey's soundboard.

You might have preferred the truck, if you were being honest. Being run over couldn't have hurt any more than whatever the hell THAT was... where was that screaming coming from??

Finally cracking an eye open which you just realized you had squeezed tightly shut in anticipation of truckly impact and you look down at the source of the endless caterwauling. On the floor to your right is a large thuggish man dressed in black slacks, a horizontally striped black and white sweater and ...is that a mask? It is a mask!... stretched across his brutish visage is a simple black mask, a thin black band of fabric that barely covers his eyes giving him the appearance of a particularly swole raccoon. A screaming, swole raccoon. A screaming, swole raccoon cradling a clearly broken arm amidst the wreckage of a recently trashed machine by the looks of the gears, circuits and wiring he was thrashing about in.

Holy shit, that guy is a goon! The striped sweater, the redundant mask, all he was missing was some overstuffed bags with dollar signs printed large on the exterior. A true to life old-timey, comic book goon! A thug, a baddie, a henchman! ...or is that henchperson these days? Wait, is that a bone sticking out of...

You snap your eyes away from the sight of copious blood and pain as your gourge threatens to rocket up your throat and straight out of your mouth to make more of a mess all over the poor fellow. This really frees up the ol' peepers to really take in what is sheer chaos playing out dangerously close to you.

Where the hell am I and what the FUCK is going on?! Get it together Nick, time to put on your Big Boy Panties.. wait, what?

Before you; a ballet of , blinding visual effects and frankly surreal behavior was playing out and things were quickly falling into place for even a dolt like yourself.

Scene: Current time unknown on what is presumably still Thursday. Cue still-overly windswept protagonist standing like a dumb-ass in the... alcove (?) of some trashed machine looking out onto the large open space of a... laboratory? Maybe? Where battle rages between... between... dare you say it? Yes! Goddamn Superheroes!!

You have some inkling that labs in your world ...OK, squirrel that thought away in the "Unpack Later When Not in Immediate Mortal Danger" folder... probably did not consist of large, open domed chambers the size of a grand ballroom littered with boxy steel machines covered in blinking lights, glaring read-outs and an over-abundance of obligatory switches and dials. Labs in your world certainly didn't have people dressed in elaborate costumes duking it out in the conveniently large and open space in the center of the brightly lit room. Certainly they didn't have the Device ...capital "D" Device... that took up prize of place the back end of the room like a massive inverted crystal chandelier dwarfing everything around it.

The thing loomed as ominous and foreboding as a ticking time bomb as the costumed lunatics before you fight right in front of it as though on a prepared stage. How could it not steal your entire attention? ...or was this some sort of shock reaction to whatever snatched you out from under the truck and squeezed you into this world through what felt like a wire strainer? It doesn't matter as the Device fills your whole view as you look up, and up and up at it. It is a monolith of shining steel, snaking cables and weirdly incongruous crystalline protuberances that glow with a sickly green light. The whole mess of technology towering twenty feet tall and thirty feet around and emitting a low, bone-tremoring thrumming noise.

Wait... are those shapes suspended in the green crystals... people?!

BRRRAAAAAAWP!!

A searing red energy beam that leaves an afterimage in your blinking vision strafes through the air before bouncing off something and blasting a ten inch hole in the wall a few steps to your left. ...Oh yeah, shit! The immanent danger thing is still happening... Ducking low and moving in an awkward crouch-run you head for the biggest source of cover you can see before you. Get to cover then you can sort out your next move and the biggest source of cover would appear to be the Device.

The "Laboratory" is trashed, sporting blast holes and burnt trails of energy weapons fire as well as the overwhelming destruction brought on from simple brute . Rubble is artistically scattered across the otherwise featureless expanse of white floor along with spent shell casings and the detritus of more smashed machinery. The smell of ozone and cordite assaults your innocent olfactory along with the coppery taste of blood.

Please don't be a bomb, please don't be a bomb, please don't be a bomb!

Scuttling across the floor like the world's most panicked crab you manage to get behind cover and stand up panting as though you had run a marathon rather than the short distance from Mr Scream-y over there to Please-Don't-be-a-Bomb Device over here. ...Good, progress achieved now who the FUCK is that?!... Your new cover has brought you face to face with one of the huge chunks of glowing green crystal and more importantly; the person trapped within it like a mosquito in amber. Seemingly asleep but more likely, knocked out is the face and form of a young man in a superhero costume. A familiar superhero costume that tugs at your memory hard.

By Tina Tankbuster's glorious tits, it's Kid Chimera! From Wonder Comics issue #42 of the Junior Justice Squad! Wait a minute...

Crushing down your screaming sense of self-preservation in favor of your senseless curiosity, you shuffle as quietly as you can to the peek around the edge of the Please-Don't-be-a-Bomb Device to get a look at the lunatics still fighting in front of it. You needn't have bothered sneaking as these blood-thirsty maniacs are deafening in their screaming, thumping, yelling, blasting, shooting and yes... monologuing at each other.

"...too late to stop me! Now that I have mastered the secrets of Shvarthian alien crystal technology, my plans have finally come to fruition!"

That's impossible... that's Professor Perfidious! Man, but he has seen better days...

Floating above the fighting in the futuristic love-child of a speakers lectern and a war chariot is none other than Professor Perfidious, a B-list mad scientist villain from the Golden Age of Wonder Comics. The madman was the O.G. of super science, the template from which all the stereotypes there-after had sprung and it showed. Pushing eighty years old and stooped with age he still wore his signature silver lab coat with his X-ray goggles pushed up into an unmanageable shock of snow-white hair that explodes from his head in every direction. His face a mass of wrinkles and sagging skin, he sneers and points a shaking, gnarled finger down towards his current opponents as he is clearly plunging straight in full fledged villainous diatribe mode.

"Now that I have Kid Chimera and the rest of the Junior Justice Squad under my control..."

Whoa, are you teenagers now Prof?! Be careful or a title like "" might be added to your other 'P" names.

"...will be restored to my former vim and vigor then become of the most powerful villains in Libertine City!" With that grandiose statement he looks down at his floating podium, reading from a glowing display projected onto the lecterns surface, "Or at least I will in about 60 seconds once it's warmed up... so... um... Bwahahaha!! Stall them for me you fools!"

This last order, delivered after a particularly lack-luster evil laugh, is directed at the mob of henchmen ...henchpeople? Damn this is going to bug you all day... already battling the three superheroes in what is quickly becoming the ruins of a super-science laboratory that would have no place in your world. Eyes wide you immediately begin putting comic book names to the very real looking people who are engaging in an impossible melee right in front of you!

For instance; the guy over there was Centurion Cyborg. Clad in his shining suit of electrum power armour and seemingly set on blasting Professor "" out of the air with his patented shoulder mounted energy cannon.

BRRRAAAAAAWP!!

However the good Prof is on top of his bad guy game today and has erected a power repulsion field that deflects the flashing crimson beam to one side. Away from you this time thankfully.

...and is that DJ Discmaster flipping about with his phat beats blasting from his helmet speakers and his signature MC Battle fighting technique? Learned from ancient Tibetan Club DJs in their distant Himalayan temples? No way... how is this even possible?!

Your eyes are dragged from the graceful twists and kicks of the green spandex clad Superhero and over to the sight of the final Super battling three more of the goon-type of ...henchsapients? At 6 foot 5 inches and weighing in at 300 pounds of pure muscle Brutal Ballerina was a sight to see with her blonde crew cut, skimpy Soviet red ballerina tutu, with the hammer and sickle tattoos on each of her massive bulging biceps as the bronze age heroine picks up two of the masked thugs while simultaneously crushing the third between her powerful, bare tree-trunk thighs. That was until she was smashed into from the side by an equally large bipedal Rhinoceros person in modern-looking plate armour. This one was harder to place as you mind flips through the list of countless characters in the Wonder Comics Universe that you had read about for most of your life.

Rhino... Rhino... you want to say Rhino Crash? That one is a deeper cut, usually just a sideline henchsentient with extra strength and an animal gimmick. So not really worth a backstory you guess. Wait- WHO is THAT?!

A spike of green lancing towards DJ Discmaster drags your eyes back to its source; a pink haired knock-out in a caricature of a maids outfit in the same silver and white uniform colours of Professor "" Perfidious. She couldn't be over 5 foot 5 inches and her curvy figure has been squeezed delightfully into a sexy silver maids dress with ruffled skirts ending just above her knees leaving an expanse of smooth, thick thigh exposed. A white apron trimmed in lace is barely containing a more than substantial bust with heavenly cleavage pushing up and threatening to spill out of the cups of the costume. She's not even wearing a mask; just that outrageous maid outfit with white knee high schoolgirl socks, black flats on her small feet and a very big futuristic weapon held snug to her hip as she lets forth another volley of green blasts.

Her ice blue eyes are wide with excitement as her full lips pull back in a half-mad grin of vindictive pleasure as she tries to gun down the singing, dancing double threat of a Super and you are simultaneously both unsure why, and a bit uncomfortable with the fact you are at half-chub just from watching her work.

"Fifteen more seconds! My final victory is nigh!" Cackles the geriatric Professor "" as his flying lectern slash chariot docks at the top of the Please-Don't-be-a-Bomb Device, sliding audibly into position with a heavy mechanical clunk.

Oh shit, alright Nick think it out. You appear to be in Libertine City; home to the Almighty Superhero Solar as well as a mess of other Heroes and Villains who are at each others throats every other day- oh this is bad! You are in a classic Wonder Comics situation; evil villain about to unleash some manner of super-weapon and no Solar in sight. Where are you Pajama-man?!

As if it could hear your thoughts the Please-Don't-be-a-Bomb Devices' bone deep thrumming begins to grow in intensity, reaching for some climactic final level of power. ...fuck it, where is the guy who chased Tina Tankbuster down the street in hurricane winds? Where is that stirling hero?... Strongly feeling the loss of your long gone comic book and sprinting with uncharacteristic energy back to the crystal containing Kid Chimera you look for a way to get him free. He got put in there right? There had to be a way to free him from it's jade confinement.

No such luck, the large green faceted gemstone is set back into the infernal machine at a forty five degree angle and is horrifyingly free of any latch or seam that would indicate a means of opening it. grabbing the two wrist-thick cables coupled to either of the offending crystal you drag your way up onto it, resting on your knees looking down at the face of the teen crime-fighter below you.

"FIVE SECONDS!" Screams Professor "" Perfidious in unrestrained glee, a hurled goon bouncing harmlessly off his field as Centurion Cyborg makes one final, last ditch effort to stop him. Your own head is pounding and your heart is going like a racing thoroughbred's as you can feel the raw power in the air threaten to crush you like the insignificant bug you truly, deep down, always suspected that you were...

Wait, the cables! Break the connection to the crystal and you create a broken link in whatever fucked up circuit this madman has built! Fucking A+ thinking for once moron!

It takes a moments glance at the coupling housing to realize that if you twist like this and then pull like this... the cables both separate in a shower of green sparks and a victorious cry from your own lips ...you did it, you are a hero!... you can only imagine how great you look right now. Kneeling atop a darkening green gemstone, hands raised above you holding the mighty cables over your head as green sparks spilling gloriously down over your body. OK, that last bit hurts a little but still bad-ass right?

"ZERO!"

Huh?

THUMP!!

All the power that had been building up in the room seems to condense down into a single mighty burst that is channeled with soul rending, gut wrenching, purest elemental power through the Device's alien circuitry and in turn, as you are the only link between the dislodged cables and the crystal receiver below, through you. It locks up your muscles and joint making you feel like the world's dumbest lightning rod ...and that's saying something... as for the second time today your world becomes brightness and pain.

There's that screaming again, it's getting kinda annoying.

You come-to another brief eternity later laying on your back with a cheeky piece of rubble trying to snuggle into your kidney, it's quite uncomfortable. With a groan you manage to sit up and brush the offending lump of debris aside with a glowing green hand.

Wait, a what now?

Lifting both hands up to your face you are just in time to see the glow fade and hear Professor "" Perfidious losing his shit up top.

"NO! NOOOoooo~! What happened? That's impossible!" He cries out the cliche with all the passion you would expect from a consummately professional loser that he is. Over sixty years in the Biz has to be worth something after-all. Then, as if on cue, the ceiling rumbles then bursts as a glowing figure smashes down through it and lands in the classic hero pose on the floor, cratering it beneath the of his entrance. Down on one knee, one fist extended down below him with the other cocked up against his side Solar; the Almighty Hero of Libertine City looks up at Professor "" Perfidious atop his monstrous creation and gives him a dazzling smile before standing.

Oh dear and fluffy Lord, Those shining teeth, that impossibly square jaw, those dazzling eyes, that perfect shoulder length hair the colour of spun gold... THIS is Solar?! Wait... You are fairly sure that you might be in more than a little bit of trouble right now and oh FUCK, that is definitely Solar!

Brutal Ballerina manages a surprisingly graceful pirouette for a woman of her size and bulk, ending with a kick that sends the Rhino-man across the room and straight into the psycho, ray gun wielding science-maid with their namesake crash, leaving them both in a tangle of limbs. It doesn't look good for them but they are now largely ignored as the blonde brick-house of a ballerina turns to Solar with a mild glare of irritation.

"You are late, Darling" She says in a deep voice resonating with a sexy, if baritone, Russian accent as she steps up to him and lays a ham-sized mitt on his perfectly sculpting chest. Right over the emblazoned stylized emblem of a shining sun.

"I am sorry B.B." He says in a calm apologetic tone, his voice deep and rich as poured molasses "I got a little tied up battling a inter-dimensional incursion by the Grult Hivemind down in Peru. I got here just as soon as I could."

This seems to mollify the massive woman who turns to join Centurion Cyborg and DJ Discmaster in gathering up the left-over goons for arrest. With a ruffle of his golden flowing cape Solar rise effortlessly into the air soaring toward the sweating and swearing Professor "" Perfidious.

"It's over Professor, no one can stand against the power of the Sun!" He says in a masterful tone that screams finality and has you quaking in your sneakers "Now let's get you back to the Sunset Retirement Wing of the Thomas Island Supermax. You'll feel better once you are back on your meds."

Well THAT felt condescending, even if the old guy had a penchant for teens.

You look about for a handy means of escape, preferably one that keeps you off of Solar's maybe-not-too-metaphorical radar while you sorted your shit out, only to spot a flash of pink pigtails and hint of bubbly ass disappearing through a large ragged hole blasted in the rear wall.