with Superkid on top and then Dr. Red.
Just then, the front door burst open with a loud bang and a grating voice commanded, “FREEZE!” A force of law enforcement officers pointed their guns at Superkid and the evil doctor.
Superkid leaped to his feet and backed away from his nemesis. His nemesis climbed to his feet with his hands raised.
Then he seized our hero with a thick arm around his neck and yelled, “Drop the guns or this kid gets it!”
They did as they were told. Then Officer Pamerin said, “Now let the kid go.”
The malevolent doctor grinned. He gave the fearless kid’s neck a squeeze, making him gasp in pain, and then dropped him before charging at the police.
The officers attempted to scatter, but they weren’t quite fast enough to avoid being bowled over. With all of them now on the ground, the evil Doctor Red made his getaway.
“After him!” cried Officer Pamerin as he reached for his gun. He had to pull it out from under Officer Chuble and by the time he had it and was on his feet, Dr. Red had vanished.
“Well,” he sighed, scratching his head with a grim look on his face. He turned to the three boys who had come outside. “Probably the best thing to do now is to hide you all.”
“Hide?” Superkid cried indignantly. “I’m not hiding! In fact, I’m going to follow him and beat the snot out of him some more!”
“But how?” Officer Pamerin cried. “He’s already gone!”
Superkid pointed to a strange metal fragment on the road and replied, “We just follow the trail.”
After finding another shirt--one that didn’t smell like sewer—Superkid led the way on bicycle while the cops followed in their cruiser. He was following the trail of metal fragments and flakes of paint on the road left by Dr. Red’s dilapidated home-made vehicle.
Dr. Red wasn’t aware of the pursuit nor of the unintentional trail he was leaving behind, but he also wasn’t so naïve to believe he was flying free just yet.
“That little creep... actually humiliated me… and enjoyed it too! Enjoyed it so much he’s going to chase me down to humiliate me some more,” he snarled. His temper wasn’t much improved by the wood chips protruding from his face. He was plucking them out one by one. Not very comfortable.
He continued to vent his frustration. “He probably thinks he’s going to take me by surprise! But he’ll be very mistaken because nobody messes with the evil Dr. Red! Not even that little nuisance called Superkid!”
He jerked the wheel onto a lonely road that led to his secret lair and added with a snort, “Superkid… what kind of a superhero name is that?”
Our fearless hero skidded to a stop at an intersection where the trail of metal scraps and paint flakes changed course. Planted inside the angle was a sign:
LONELY ROAD
The police cruiser pulled up next to him. The cops leaned out the window and read the sign as well. Officer Pamerin murmured, “Well, what do you know? If I’m right, there should be an old, abandoned warehouse just down here. That might be where that villain is hiding.”
“Typical,” our hero replied. He took off, calling over his shoulder, “Meet you there!”
The evil doctor screeched to a halt, causing scraps of metal from his rattletrap to hit against his hideout with brain-rattling clangs. He leaped out of the vehicle and hurried into his lair, his lab coat flying behind him.
“I must prepare for Superkid’s arrival,” he said to himself, “a nice warm welcoming.” He headed straight for his cupboards.
“A little of this…” He grabbed a tube full of sky-blue liquid.
“And a little of this…” He pulled out another test tube, this one full of gray powder.
“Oh, and let’s not forget this…”
He pulled out tubes, bottles, beakers, and even a rusty old soup can and then dumped them all onto the table.
“Now we pour some of this in…” A strange yellowish goop like curdled milk went into an empty jar. “And some of this…” Gray powder was sprinkled in, causing the yellow goop to erupt into a chorus of burps. Next was added the sky-blue liquid, which caused that foul mixture to emit an eerie giggle like a little girl in one of those horror shows.
More potions and powders were added and a few zaps from a spoon-like gizmo went in too. A sprinkle of red mist from a pencil-shaped gadget and the final result was a green liquid with tiny purple bubbles clinging to the sides of the beaker. That diabolical doctor gazed in awe.
“Looks a bit like soda,” he commented and laughed. From his breast pocket he withdrew a syringe.
“Time for the doctor to give the patient his shot,” he chuckled and stuck the needle into the deadly concoction. When he had filled the syringe, he pulled it out and examined it in the light.
He was startled when the door clanged open and a small figure stepped in. Dr. Red wheeled to face the intruder, hiding the syringe behind his back.
“You came sooner than I expected,” he said calmly.
“Yeah, well, your check-up is overdue,” Superkid replied.
The evil doctor made a face. “Maybe you’d better leave the doctor wisecracks to me from now on.”
“Fair enough. I’m more of a butt-kicker anyhow,” said Superkid, walking towards him.
Dr. Red tensed for action but forced calm into his voice. “How’d you get here so fast?”
“I biked. I couldn’t let you get away, so now I’m finishing up.”
“What do you mean by that?”
Superkid explained, “I’ll beat you up, tire you out, and then the cops can come in and take you away.”
“Oh yeah? Let’s see about that, shall we?” The mad doctor shot an arm for him but Superkid dodged to the right and threw his shoulder into Red’s side. The evil doctor grunted and stumbled but quickly regained his footing and lunged again.
Superkid slapped his arm away, jumped backwards, and taunted, “What’s the matter? Not as evil without your weapons?”
“I’m about to show you just how evil I am,” said the doctor with a chilling smile.
“With what? I destroyed your weapons,” said Superkid, dancing dangerously close. “So what are you going to do?” He topped that with a lunge meant to tease his nemesis.
It was just what the evil doctor was waiting for. “This!” he cried, snatching the fearless kid’s arm and stabbing him in the back with the syringe.
Superkid gasped in pain. Dr. Red smiled as he pushed down on the plunger, forcing the toxin into Superkid’s bloodstream.
Dr. Red stepped away to watch the twelve-year-old die. “You have just been injected with an interesting poison. It is a toxin that instigates the formation of CO2 bubbles in your bloodstream, preventing oxygen from reaching your heart and brain. Eventually, this will kill you.”
Superkid didn’t answer—couldn’t answer, busy as was coughing and gasping weakly—clutching his throat—falling to his knees.
“My, my, how much we’ve learned from each other in only one day,” Dr. Red sighed. “I must admit though, I didn’t expect this to end so soon.” He grinned down at the suffering kid. “Maybe we should have waited. Not just for your costume but for training as well… ah well… pity.”
“I’m sure they’ll have some nice things to say at your funeral,” he continued. “Such as ‘he was brave, loyal, willing to risk his life for others, had a cheerful disposition…’”
Superkid’s coughs began to sound like choking sobs.
“But he threw away his life,” the doctor continued, “by challenging the evil Doctor Red. Who will protect us now? Who?” He threw up his hands in mock despair.
Then he laughed, “Goodbye again, Superkid!”
Superkid took one last gulping breath and then…
BUUUUUUURP!
Superkid looked surprised. He smacked his lips. Then he grinned, “Wow, that feels much better!”
Red’s mouth dropped open. “Impossible!” he roared and lunged at Superkid, who countered the lunge by head-butting him in the stomach.
“Oomph!” Dr. Red doubled over and fell on his end. Superkid grinned down at him, amazed at how good he felt despite the “poison” coursing through his veins. Maybe it wasn’t poison after all.
“You should be dead!” Dr. Red hissed. “That poison should have killed you!”
Superkid shrugged. “Maybe you got the ingredients mixed up.”
The evil doctor growled, “But it must have done something to you! Do you feel strange at all?”
“Maybe a little bit stronger,” replied our fearless hero, flexing his arm. “Maybe you gave me superhuman strength by accident.”
“Let’s find out then!” The villain grabbed the hero by his shirt, hauled back and punched Superkid square in the face. Whatever that potion did, it didn’t seem to have increased his pain threshold. It still hurt like heck so Superkid recoiled, cradling his face and trying to push away from Dr. Red. But the villainous doctor yanked him back and buried his fist this time into the hero’s stomach.
“Ungh!” Superkid gasped, his wind knocked out of him. That very wind blasted onto Red’s face. And the reason I point that out is because it caused the evil doctor to react violently. He clutched his own face and yelled in pain, “Your breath! It’s burning my face!”
Superkid took the opportunity to scramble away though he couldn’t let that offense slide. “I brush every day! It can’t be that bad!”
“No! I mean your breath is like a furnace blast! I think you burned off my eyebrows!” Now if you remember, Dr. Red was immune to minor burns so that breath that Superkid had blasted onto his face must have been cooking!
Superkid was