The Create-A-Post Thread

[Eddie Brock]

Damn, Andy. It's stuff like this that makes me personally consider you one of the finest Superman writers the Hype has ever seen. You just "get" the larger-than-life scale of the character.

 

[Andy C.]

III:​

"You have no idea how long I've wanted to be able to do this, Smallville," Lois says, every cell in her body brimming with the stellar energy of an entire galaxy. This the very flashpoint of existence itself, the whole of reality hanging in the balance....and she still can't keep herself from smiling.

I guess being able to do what I can do is something I take for granted. Still, I can't risk her losing focus on the fight ahead.

Doomsday stabilizes itself, recovering from the last blow somewhere just outside of the Pleiades. It lets out a howl of rage-- not a sound that would have no way of traveling in the vacuum of space, but a distortion of time-space that burns away all matter within a hundred light years of its physical form.

"Follow my lead, Lois," I say, working out a plan of approach for our attack. "We need to keep that monster off balance, keep it from regaining its bearings and being able to fight back."

"Keep bouncing him around between us, right?"

"More or less."

Lois laughs in spite of herself.

"Remember when we went to the Queensland Boardwalk, and I kicked your ass at pinball in the old arcade?"

"Of course."

"Knowing what I know now, you let me win, right? Well now, let's see who can get the high score for real!"

She speeds ahead of me towards Doomsday, and I strain to keep up with her.

The monster swipes a clawed hand at her, tearing swaths in a thousand potential timelines, but enraged and feral as Doomsday is, Lois ducks beneath it, and comes up with an uppercut that sends the creature rocketing up out of the galactic disk.

Chasing after it, I determine Doomsday's trajectory and head into an intercept course, time and space warping around me as I speed past him. Clasping my hands together, I catch the monster with an axe-handle blow that diverts its course into a supermassive black hole.

Doomsday struggles against the distortion of infinite gravity, slowing him enough that Lois and I are able to catch him with twin blasts of Heat Vision, four solid beams of thermal energy equivalent to the heat of the Big Bang.

I look at Lois and can't help but share her hopeful smile. Between the two of us, we just might be able to defeat this monster.

Behind us, the shimmering golden light of the Creation Sphere begins to fluctuate, slightly at first, but more and more violently with each passing moment. Something's happening from inside, possibly something going wrong with Luthor's artificial multiverse.

"Lois, I think there's something wrong," I say. "Is the Creation Sphere supposed to act like that?! It looks like the sphere is ripping itself apart!"

"Brainiac 5 told me about this," Lois says. "The new multiverse is establishing its constants-- the strength of gravity, the speed of light, all that. The laws of physics are being set in stone. Until it settles, the radius of the Creation Sphere is a one-way door; you can get in, but you can never come back out!"

A thousand light years away, Doomsday is recovering, beginning to tear itself from the singularity of the black hole.

"I see."

I look Lois in the eyes, those beautiful piercing amethyst eyes, so much brighter now that they're super-charged with stellar energy.

"....what? Why are you looking at me like that, Clark?"

I sigh.

"Lois Lane, I love you," I say, accepting what I'm about to do. "No matter what happens...I will love you until the end of time."

"Ohhh no," she says, angrily. "No no no, you are not doing this to me, Smallville. I know what you're thinking; throw me back into the Sphere for safety and fight Doomsday all by yourself? Not happening. I'm just as strong as you, Clark, every bit as fast, and I'm not going to--"

She's right. She is every bit as strong as me-- always was, and that had nothing to do with muscles or Kryptonian DNA.

She's every bit as fast as me, too, with every bit as powerful senses, Heat Vision, the whole works.

But she's not as experienced as I am, or as trained. She doesn't know the various pressure points of the human body.

A few quick taps with just enough pressure in the right places, just enough to induce unconsciousness.

Lois goes limp in my arms, and I gently kiss her on the forehead before sending her back into the Creation Sphere. I'm sorry, my love. I hope that you can forgive me for it, if you remember me at all.

As she passes through the radius of the Creation Sphere, the golden light beings to pulse blue, and red. Flashes of our past-- our pasts, in fact, since our timeline together divides between the new multiverse-- bubble outwards.

"So what's the 'S' stand for?"

"It's not an 'S'. On my world, it means 'Hope.'"

"Well, here, it's an 'S'. How about....."​

SUPERMAN.


Doomsday is free from the black hole. It doesn't so much speed towards me as it simply wills itself to my location, the bone-like spurs in its fist instantly digging into my face.


DIE.


Now it's just me and him. The new multiverse is still forming, the radius still open for him to get back in and destroy everything.

I grit my teeth, and answer his cataclysmic blow with one of my own, the shockwave dispersing star clusters.

"I don't think you're getting it through your head," I say, shaking off Doomsday's last blow and then delivering an elbow to the gut that makes the monster vomit a cancerous Fifth Dimensional aether. "I'm not dying any time soon. And I doubt you are, either."

The Creation Sphere bubbles again.

"And let's get something straight, I did not work my buns off to become an investigative reporter for the Daily Planet just to baby-sit some hack from nowheresville! And another thing, you are not working with me, you are working for me. I call the shots, I ask the questions. You are low man - I am top banana and that's the way I like it, comprende?"

"You like to be on top. Got it."

"Don't push me Kent, you are way out of your league."​

"They used to say a lot of things about me, Doomsday," I say, wrestling with the monster, trying to keep away from those fists which can deliver apocalyptic destruction. "A lot of bombastic spiel, mostly-- 'Mysterious stranger, Powers and Abilities Far Beyond Mortal Men,' that sort of thing. The one thing that always stuck with me, no matter how the times changed, how the trends changed, how the world itself changed, was one phrase. 'A Never-Ending Battle for Truth and Justice.'"

Getting past his arms, I cinch around his waist in a bear-hug, and put every bit of energy I have into my speed.

"That means I'm in this for the long-haul," I say, pain exploding through my body as Doomsday rains down fists onto my back, but I don't let go. "Let's see if you are, too."

Spearing into Doomsday with my shoulder, I keep my grip as tight as I can, and make a break for the very edges of reality itself. The Source Wall. If I can make it there, the new multiverse can keep expanding until it stabilizes, and Doomsday will never manage to get inside. It'll just be him and me for the rest of eternity. Like I said...a never-ending battle.

"Easy, miss. I've got you."

"You--....you've got me? Who's got you?!"​

Galaxies, entire galactic super-clusters, flash past us as I hurl myself and the monster through the very limits of space and time. Picking up speed, we warp through the Fourth Dimension, an infinite number of possible timelines unfolding like flowers designed by MC Escher, in the limitless field of probability that is the Fifth Dimension.

Breaking through that, all possible configurations of time, space and probability lay before us in the Sixth Dimension, and then an infinite plane of different universal constants warping even those in the Seventh and Eighth Dimensions.

All of these sets, all of these potential multiverses, emerging like bubbles in a great cosmic wash, churn through the Ninth Dimension.....

....and holding it all in, the barrier of everything that is, was, ever will or ever could possibly be. The Tenth Dimension. The Source Wall.

DOOMED WORLD.

DESPERATE SCIENTISTS.

LAST HOPE.

KINDLY COUPLE.​

Doomsday shatters my spine, but I barely feel it. At this stage, we exist in every possible mote of reality, the entity that wishes for nothing but to destroy it all, and the entity that will stop at nothing to save it. Physical pain means next to nothing here.

FASTER THAN A SPEEDING BULLET.

MORE POWERFUL THAN A LOCOMOTIVE.

ABLE TO LEAP TALL BUILDINGS IN A SINGLE BOUND.​

The Source Wall looms larger and larger. Doomsday's claws rend into me, ejecting star-stuff into the dimensional membrane. I push harder still, picking up speed--or whatever passes for speed here.


So close now. Nearly there.

Must......keep......going.

LOOK! UP IN THE SKY!


IT'S A BIRD!


IT'S A PLANE!


IT'S--​

 

[Andy C.]

She wakes up.


Her morning routine is the same most days. Get out of bed, fifteen minutes of yoga, followed by a quick, cold shower to invigorate her for the day ahead. A pot of black coffee and some scrambled eggs-- she was never a particularly great cook, but she can make do with the basics-- and a few minutes of catching up on the news and social media.

Then, she cries. It's part of why she never lets anyone stay the night; she doesn't want anyone to see her like this. But every morning, she cries. Some days it's barely anything, little more than dewy eyes. Some days she sobs so hard she can barely breathe. Like there's a piece missing from her that she can never find. Today it's one of the bad days, where it's all she can do to keep from screaming.

Finally, she pulls herself together. She gets dressed, puts on her makeup, and takes on the world.

She takes the subway to her publisher's office, ready to spend the morning arguing over revisions to her latest novel. This one's too sentimental, he'll say, where's your edge, where's your teeth? In your throat if you don't remember who makes you your money, she'll say, and it will go on and on like that for hours until they break for lunch, and she uses her frustration to knock out five or six thousand words before the evening.

She gets off the train one stop before the closest to the office. There's a small park she likes to stroll through, which helps her to clear her head. The fresh air and the exercise does her some good right before going a few rounds with the publisher.

Across the street from the park is a small comic book shop, decorated in gaudy primary colors and cardboard stand-ups of men in spandex. It's there as long as she could remember, but she never goes in-- that sort of thing is for the skinny, pimply boys who never worked up the courage to ask her out in school. Still, she always finds herself crossing the street just to walk past it.

As she passes by the dingy old shop, the door swings open, and out spills a gangly young man with his arms full of books in neoprene bags. Not seeing her there, the two collide, spilling his books and the contents of her purse all over the sidewalk.

"Oh my God, I am so sorry!" he says, desperately scrambling to sort their belongings out and hand her the things she'd dropped. "Stupid, man, so stupid, what's your damage--"

"No, it's all right," she says, only mildly annoyed. "Just, y'know, be more careful. The next person you run into might not be as nice as me."

"I gotcha, sorry, Miss--"

For a moment, the two look up from their belongings and stare at each other.

The young man is skinny and a little pale, with bright red hair. He doesn't appear to be that much younger than her, maybe only a couple of years, but the difference in maturity is vast. She could swear he knows her from somewhere.....

"I'd better get going," she says, uneasily. "My publisher's going to jump up my ass if I'm late."

"Oh no way, you're a writer too?" he says, his eyes lighting up. "I mean, I guess you write 'real' books, though. Not me, though-- this is where it's at."

"You write comics?"

"Well, not officially," he admits, sheepishly picking up his scattered books. "I'm still doing amateur stuff, practicing on fiction sites, writing on web forums, but it's totally going to pay off, because one day I'm going to get noticed and-- ......anyway, I'm going to just shut up now. Umm, have a good one."

She gives him a pitying smile, closes up her purse, and begins to walk away.

"Hey Miss, wait! I think you dropped these!"

Breaking into a short run, the skinny red-haired man catches up to her, deposits something into her hand, then, his face already red with embarrassment, runs the other direction and back into the shop.

"Hold on, these aren't...."

In her hand is a pair of thick, black, coke-bottle glasses. The kind that seem to be ironically cool these days, but were always the province of nerds and squares before that. These obviously aren't hers, but if they weren't the red-haired kid's.....


....she knows that somebody she knew wore these glasses. And not just this kind, but this exact pair. She'd seen them a million times, but can't put her finger on it. It's right there, on the cusp of her memory.

Shrugging, she puts the glasses in her pocket. Sooner or later, she'd run into whoever it was who wore these glasses. Hopefully he'll be glad to see them again.

In the meantime, there's a day to be seized....and a life to be lived.

 

[sabetoonth]

Right in the feels Andy. Right in the feels.

 

[Morden Man]

​

A battered jeep tears across an arid New Mexico plain. In the passenger sits one Dr. Erik Selvig and in his hand is a device of his own making designed to pick up forms of radiation. Beside him in the passenger seat is Jane Foster, a look of incredulity on her face as she begins to process what the readings on Selvig’s invention might mean.

“Get Mr. Luthor on the phone.”

“You’re sure?” Jane uttered cautiously. “You remember what he said last time. If this is another false alarm we’re done, Selvig. Years of research poured down the drain with nothing to show for it.”

Erik Selvig had been a well-respected scientist once. He’d worked closely with Lex’s father and had been considered one of the most promising minds of the twentieth-century. That was before his breakdown had ruined him. Lex had humoured Selvig’s continued existence out of what little sense of duty he had and for it had earned Selvig’s loyalties. Jane wasn’t sure that was a good thing.

“Believe me, I remember what he said better than you do. But these readings, there’s something to them, there’s something out here. We need to find whatever this thing is before SHIELD does. Whatever’s out there, it’s powerful.”

The readings on Selvig’s device grew louder as he careered the vehicle through the desert at a blistering speed. They needed to beat SHIELD there if they had any hope of keeping this thing. Beside him Jane’s doubts were beginning to grow. Her loyalties were with science first and Lex a distant, distant second. It was Selvig that she believed in, Selvig she trusted, and her employment at LexCorp had been more than a little reluctant.

“And you want Luthor having it? Are we so sure this is a good idea?”

“I’ve known Lex since he was a boy, Jane, beneath all the bravado there’s a decent man. The pressures of his position have changed him for certain but he paid for our research when no one else would. He supported us when others laughed us out of the room.”

There wasn’t much she could say in response. Everything that Erik had said was right. That didn’t quell the feeling of dread in her stomach at the thought of Lex Luthor having something of power in his hands. America might admire him but Jane had seen Lex behind closed doors, she’d seen the thinly veiled rage beneath his determination, and it scared her beyond her wits.

“I’m not sure about this.”

Those few feeble words were all she could muster by way of protest. She’d suppressed her moral obligation to LexCorp and Lex’s dealings for far too long to allow them to impede their research as they neared a breakthrough. And Selvig wouldn’t allow it. Not only did he need to believe in Lex and the work they were doing, his reputation needed it too. Whatever lay out there in the desert was Selvig’s salvation – professionally and personally.

“Whatever this thing is the world deserves to know about it. If SHIELD gets their hands on it, it’ll end up behind closed doors and locked away for decades. Is that what you want? After all we’ve worked towards?”

“Maybe that’s a good thing,” Jane said. “Maybe there are some forces out there too powerful for us to handle.”

For almost a half second a look of hesitance appeared on Selvig’s face. It was as if the man that Selvig was appeared if only for a moment and then receded back into the recesses of his mind as the alarm sounded on his device.

“Just get Lex on the phone.”

The alarm was sounding continuously now. Whatever they’ve found was within waking distance. Selvig brought to jeep to a halt and Jane and he exited it and began to walk slowly. Erik held up the device so as to block out the sun and pick up the readings he needed simultaneously.

“I need to speak to Mr. Luthor.”

A look of annoyance flashed across Jane’s face.

“I don’t care if he’s in a meeting and, believe me, neither will he once he hears what I have to say.”

Several moments passed as the pair made their way across the dessert on foot. The heat from the sun was almost unbearable out here. It was dry, there was no shade, and in their excitement they had given little thought to bringing water with them but the thought of finding something out there drove them on. Selvig coughed viciously as the dust seemed to bother him but Jane laboured on unbothered, the phone still pressed against her ear waiting for Lex’s voice to sound from the other end. Eventually it did.

“Oh, Miss Foster, I do so hope for your sake that you’re calling me with something a little more worthwhile than last time. Especially since you saw fit to interrupt my acquisition of the Roxxon Energy Corporation.”

There was a playfulness to Lex’s voice that Jane knew was anything but. Selvig and Foster had failed him before and cost LexCorp a great deal of money and reputation in doing so and since then Lex had been anything but playful. He’d assured both of them that were they to cause the company to lose face again he’d make sure neither of them worked again. It wasn’t an empty threat. Despite the assuredness of the readings there was a moment’s hesitation before Jane could bring herself to utter her response.

“We’ve found something.”

There was a mocking exhalation from the other side of the phone.

“Something? I’m afraid you’ll need to be a little more specific after the last time.”

Before Jane could respond Erik gestured to a crater on the horizon. There was a particularly steep descent before them that the pair would need to make in order to get there. Foster wasn’t sure whether a man in Selvig’s condition could even make it. Hell, she wasn’t sure that she could.

“Whatever it is it’s down here,” Selvig said as he began to make the descent. “Be careful.”

Jane nodded and carefully placed the phone into the back pocket of her jeans. She watched as Selvig climbed down first and then followed after him. With each step she took down the ledge and each foothold she reached for she could feel her heart pounding in her chest. Were it not for the dry heat she would have been soaked through with sweat but it seemed to evaporate before it even had a chance to reach the skin. Eventually she made her way to the bottom of the descent and pulled the phone from her back pocket once more.

“We’re almost there.”

Selvig’s device was so loud now it was almost singing. With each step they took it grew louder and louder until the pair stood a mere few feet away from it. As they reached it Selvig dropped the device to the ground out of shock as a look of recognition cross his eyes. He knew what it was. It took a few seconds for Jane’s mind to catch up to Selvig’s as she began to process what it meant.

“Holy mother of ****.”

From the other side of the phone the sound of Lex Luthor’s voice cutting through the silence broke Foster out of her shock. As she began to speak she noticed Selvig fall to his knees before it and tears begin to well up in his eyes. It had been the best part of four years of research for Jane but for Erik what lay in that crater was the culmination of two decades of work. They had called him delusional, they’d called him insane, and before his eyes was Selvig’s vindication.

“What’s going on? Foster? Selvig? What’s happening? What is it?”

http://cdn.****************.com/wp-content/uploads/Iron_Man_2_Thors_hammer.jpg​

“It’s a hammer.”

The hammer crackled with energy as Selvig and Foster watched on. Its head was short, squat, and brutal but at either end of it were the most beautiful inscriptions that Foster had ever seen. She wasn’t sure what language they were in but they looked remotely Nordic in nature. Its handle was long and thin and at the bottom there was a looped lanyard, all seemed covered in a leather that neither Selvig nor Foster recognized. Selvig knew what it was, he’d studied the old gods for years when piecing together his theory, but he didn’t know why it was here. What had brought it here? Why now? With every second that the pair spent in its presence it seemed to grow in power, the energy it emitted grew more beautiful and frenetic, as if it could feel their eyes upon it. It was mesmerizing.

Once more Lex’s voice cut through the silence and the energy the hammer emitted disappeared, almost as if it sensed something in the voice that it disliked, an unworthiness of it.

“I’ll send an extraction team to your coordinates.”

From his knees Erik looked round at Jane and the look of wonder and amazement on his face began to dissipate as if he began to understand the gravity of the situation. The hammer was a weapon of great power, of that there was no doubt, but it was also something more than that, something older and purer than just a weapon. It was meant to preserve life, not to destroy it. Having seen the hammer in person it was as if all of Selvig’s selfish motivations for having found it began to float away and he understood what he needed to do. Lex couldn’t be allowed to have it.

“We can’t let him have it,” Selvig muttered. “We have to stop him.”

Erik leapt to his feet and slid down into the crater towards the hammer. Before Jane had a chance to shout a warning towards him Selvig’s hands were wrapped around the hammer and he was attempting to lift it. No matter how hard he tried and what direction he pulled it in it wouldn’t budge. The veins began to bulge out of his neck and his face grew red with exertion as he tried with all his strength to make the hammer move.

“It’s too late, Erik.”

Jane pointed off into the distance as a row of LexCorp helicopters appeared on the horizon. That same feeling of dread that Jane had felt earlier began to creep over Selvig as they drew nearer to their position. The hammer wasn’t meant for someone like Lex, Selvig thought to himself as the helicopters closer and closer to them. It was too late, there was nothing either of them could do anymore. Erik’s face, still flustered with effort, became a picture of shame and fear as he glanced up at the helicopters.

“What have we done?”

 

[Andy C.]

​

Dick Grayson slept, exhausted after a long day of training. The tragedy took his parents' life drove him to pursue justice, propelled his spirit even when things seemed hopeless, but in the still of the night, in the comfort and safety of his bedroom at Wayne Manor, it seemed a distant memory.

Dick dreamed of his family, of Mister Wayne and Alfred, of Commissioner Gordon's cute red-headed daughter......

......only to be pulled with a shock from his sleep with a loud WHAM as the Batman kicked down his door. Stumbling into the bedroom, Bruce's voice slurred as he spoke.

"Robin! You gotta come on. Jus'... You gotta come with me."

Dick rubbed his eyes incredulously.

"What, Bruce? What’s going on?"

"I got a surprise for you, Robin."

"It's the middle of the night. What are you talking about?"

Stumbling, Batman sloshed the half-empty liquor bottle around, spilling most of it on Dick's bed.

"Come on, I got a surprise for you. Come on, hurry up."

Dick was equal parts confused and terrified as the drunken Batman grabbed him by the ankle and began to drag him out of the bed and into the hall.

"Ow! Ow! You're tugging me too hard!" Dick protested as Bruce mumbled on.

"We gotta go, gotta get outta here, come on. Got a surprise for you, Robin."

"What do you think of this... flying vehicle, Robin?" Batman asked as they soared high over the looming heights of Gotham City. "I built it outta stuff I found in the Batcave."

"Yeah, Bruce... I-It's great," Robin stammered, looking in awe at the twinkling city skyline below them. "Is this the surprise?"

"Robin. I had to... I had to do it," said Batman, a cold, vacant look in his booze-addled eyes. "I had- I had to- I had to make a bomb, Robin. I had to create a bomb."

"What?! A bomb?!"

"We're gonna drop it down there just get a whole fresh start, Robin. Create a whole fresh start," he slurred.

"T-t-that's absolutely crazy!" Robin blustered. "Y-you don't kill people!"

"Come on, Robin. Just take it easy, Robin. It's gonna be good," Batman said, drool dangling from his lower lip. "Right now, we're gonna go pick up your little friend Barbara."

"Barbara Gordon? From Gotham Academy?"

Bruce nodded, and slung an arm over Dick's shoulder in a sloppy, inebriated attempt at being 'fatherly.'

"When I drop the bomb you know, I want you to have somebody, you know? I want you to have the thing. I'm gonna make it like a new Adam and Eve, and you're gonna be Adam."

"Ohhh…."

"And Barbara's gonna be Eve."

"Whhhh-wha?" Robin sputtered.

"And so that's the surprise, Robin," Batman said, satisfied with himself.

"No, you can't!" Dick said, pushing Bruce away. "Barbara doesn't even know I exist! But- but, but forget about that, because you can't blow up Gotham City!"

"I-I get what you're trying to say, Robin. Listen, I'm not..." Batman trailed off, spilling beer all over the cabin of the Batwing. "You don't got… Y-You don’t gotta worry about me trying to fool around with Barbara or mess around with Barbara or anything. I'm not that kind of guy, Robin."

"What are you talking about, Batman?"

"You- you don't have to worry about me getting with Barbara or anything. She- sh-she- she, she, she's all for you, Robin," he continued, adding "unless Bruce Timm is involved in this somehow."

Losing his patience, Dick blurted out "I don't care about Barbara! Y-Yyyyyyyyyyou—"

"You know what, Robin? You're right," Batman interrupted, throwing an empty bottle into the back seat. "Let's forget the girl all together. She, she's probably nothing but trouble, anyways."

With that, he pressed a big red button on the Batwing's center console. A computerized voice stated, ARMING NEUTRINO BOMB......

Robin had seen and heard enough. "That's it… that's it, Bruce. I'm taking the wheel."

Unbuckling his seatbelt, Robin leapt out of his seat and began trying to wrestle the controls away from Batman.

"Get off of me, Robin!" Batman grunted as the two pushed and slapped at each other to take control of the bat-shaped jet.

"I'm taking charge of this situation, buddy!" Dick declared, kicking at Batman's face as he grabbed the wheel. "I'm put—I’m, I'm, I'm, I'm puttin’… I-I’m, I’m, I’m not gonna stand around like some sort of dumb…dumb person and just le-let you ruin the whole city!"

"Come on! What’s gotten into you? If you love Gotham so much why don’t you marry it?" the drunken Batman said through gritted teeth before finally pushing Robin off of him. "Alright, Alright, Robin! Alright. I'll- I'll land. I'll land. I'll land. I'll land the thing. I’ll land the thing. Big tough guy all of a sudden."

Touching down on the top of Wayne Tower, Bruce opened the door to the Batwing, and tumbled out onto the concrete, buried in a pile of empty bottles and cans that spilled out with him.

"Oh thank God," Robin said, relieved.

"You know what? That was all a test, Robin," Batman mumbled. "Just an elaborate test to make you more assertive."

"It was?" asked Robin, startled by the reveal.

"Sure. Why not? I don’t, I don't know. Y-you know what, Ro-"

Before he could finish his sentence, Batman passed out, a puddle of drool spreading from his mouth on the roof of the building.

Dick looked down at his guardian and mentor with confusion and fear, before hearing the digital voice again.

NEUTRINO BOMB ARMED.

"Ummmmm......"

"Robin, oh, you really d-did a number on *urp!* your legs right now," said Batman, looking at his sidekick's mangled and maimed legs as he lay twitching on the floor of Lex Luthor's cavernous secret laboratory complex. "You know, you got to turn the memory-cloth glider cape on, Robin, for it to work. Yeah, look I turned mine on. I had no problem getting down here. It was a leisurely breeze."

"I'm in a lot of pain, Batman!" Robin yelped, delirious with agony.

"Yeah, I can see that. But do you think you'll still be able to help me collect my Kryptonite, Robin?"

Incredulous, Robin sputtered with anger.

"Are you kidding me?! That's it, Batman! That's the last straw! I can't believe this! I'm sitting here with both of my legs broken, and you're still asking me about getting Kryptonite?! Ooh! Ow! Oh! Y-y-you're a monster. Y-you're like Hitler, but but even Hitler cared about Germany or something."

"Okay, hold on just a second, Robin," Fumbling around with his utility belt, Batman produced a vial of exotic-looking purple fluid, loaded it into a syringe, and injected it into Robin's thigh.

After a few seconds of sickening crackling noises, Robin's bones knitted themselves back together, and his mashed-up legs were good as new.

Ooh, Ohh, Ooh. Wow, Batman. That stuff just healed my broken legs instantly. I mean, I've never felt so good in my life. Thank you."

"Don't worry about it, Robin. Just come help me get that Kryptonite, all right, buddy?"

"Sure thing, Batman," Robin said as the two searched through the LexCorp lab.

"Not that you asked, Robin," Batman began with annoyance, "but what just happened there is one time I traveled to Paradise Island, an Amazon land with such advanced medicine that they had broken-leg serum at every corner drugstore. The stuff was all over the place, Morty."

Wow, that's pretty crazy, Batman," said Robin, looking at row after row of anti-Superman weapons the mad billionaire had designed.

"There's just one problem, Robin, one little hang-up," Batman continued. "The island I visited was so advanced, that *urp* they had also halted the aging process, and everyone there was young, Robin, and they had been forever. I was the only man there, Robin. *urp* It was like I was some sort of, you know, celebrity, walking around. I-I was fascinating to them. There were a lot of attractive women there, Robin, and they they they they all wanted time with me. I had a lot of fun with a lot of young ladies, but I spent so much time there, I let the Batwing run out of juice. It's as good as garbage, Robin, it's not gonna work anymore."

"Oh, geez, Batman, that's not good. W-what are we gonna do? I-I have to be back at school right now. How are we gonna get back home?"

"There's ways to get back home, Robin. It's just it's just gonna be a little bit of a hassle," Batman said, grabbing the Kryptonite samples as alarms began to sound. "We're gonna have to call the Justice League to teleport us outta here and up to the Watchtower. So you're gonna have to do me a real solid."

"Uh-oh."

"When we get to the Watchtower, I'm gonna need you to take these Kryptonite rocks into the bathroom, and I'm gonna need you to put them way up inside your butthole, Robin."

Robin went wide-eyed with shock.

"In my butt?" he asked.

"Put them way up inside there, as far as they can fit."

"Oh, geez, Batman. I really don't want to have to do that," he whinged.

"Well, somebody's got to do it, Robin," Batman demanded. "Th-this Kryptonite isn't gonna get past Superman's X-Ray Vision unless it's in someone's rectum, Robin. And they'll fall right out of mine. I've done this too many times, Robin. I mean, you're young. Y-y-you've got your whole life ahead of you, and your anal cavity is still taut, yet malleable. You got to do it for Gotham, Robin. Y*urp*-you've got to put this Kryptonite inside your butt."


"......oh man......"

"Bruce, how could you make your adopted son miss an entire semester of school?" Wonder Woman asked with indignant anger, as Superman stood behind her, arms crossed with stern disapproval. "I mean, it's not like he's a hot girl. He can't just bail on his life and set up shop in someone else's."

"We're moving you to Arkham Asylum," Superman said, with as much authority as he could muster.

"Arkham Asylum?" Batman said incredulously. "What are what are you, nuts? I'm a genius. I fight murder-clowns and invent single-use robot suits for fun."

"Well, now you can build baskets and watch Paul Newman movies on VHS and mentally scar the boy scouts every Christmas."

"What does that mean?"

"It's personal."

"Superman, Wonder Woman, come on. Bruce just needed my help is all," Robin pleaded.

"Robin, stay out of this. You are obviously not capable of judging these situations on your own," Clark dismissed him.

"What are you trying to say about Robin? That he's stupid or something?"

"Oh, don't high-road us, Bruce. You know fully well that Dick is the last child that needs to be missing classes." Diana interjected, trying to sugar-coat it as much as she could.

"I-I-I don't know what you mean by that," said Bruce in a mock surprise. "Can, can, can you be a little bit more specific?"

"Oh, for crying out- he's got some kind of disability or something. Is that what you want us to say?"

"Aw, geez, Superman. Y-you know, that's a lot to drop on a kid all at once," Robin said, looking down.

"Robin, t-tell Superman the square root of pi," Batman blurted.

"1.77245385... Whoa!"

"What the hell?"

"Holy crap. He's right."

"Robin, tell Wonder Woman the first law of Thermodynamics."

" 'The increment in the internal energy of a system is equal to the increment of heat supplied to the system.' Wow! I'm so smart!" Robin shouted with joy.

"But-"

"I told the both of you school is stupid. It's not how you learn things," Batman said, patting Robin's shoulder. "Robin's a gifted child. He has a special mind. That's why he's my little helper. He's like me. He's gonna be doing great stuff later in his life. He's too smart for school. He needs to keep hanging out and helping me."

"Clark, I don't want whatever's happening here to stop," Wonder Woman said to Superman.

"No, I-I understand. Uh, maybe we overreacted," the Man of Steel said, embarrassed. "But he has to keep going to school."

"Okay, Clark. You drive a hard bargain, but what am I supposed to do? Say no? You you really wear the pants around here," Bruce said with next to no enthusiasm.

Looking at each other with tentative optimism, Superman and Wonder Woman flew up into the air, out through the Batcave's tunnel entrance and off into the sunset.

"Holy Szechuan Sauce, Batman. I didn't know hanging out with you was making me smarter," Robin said, smiling from ear to ear.

"Full disclosure, Robin, it's not," Batman answered. "Temporary superintelligence is just a side effect of the red Kryptonite radiation, and there was a little bit still lodged in your rectal cavity."

"Aw, man," he said, dejected.

"Yeah, and once the radiation wears off, you're gonna lose most of your motor skills, and you're also gonna lose a significant amount of brain functionality for 72 hours, Robin," he said, checking his watch. "Starting right about now."

Right on cue, Robin fell to the ground, convulsing and twitching, as Batman looked over him.

"I'm sorry, Robin. It's a bummer. In reality, you're as dumb as they come and I needed that Kryptonite real bad, and I had to give it up just to get Clark off my back, so now we're gonna have to go get more."

Robin began to foam at the mouth, his entire body seizing up. Batman didn't even seem to notice as he rambled.

"And then we're gonna go on even more adventures after that, Robin! And you're gonna keep your mouth shut about it, Robin! Because the world is full of idiots that don't understand what's important, and they'll tear us apart, Robin, but if you stick with me, I'm gonna accomplish great things, Robin, and you're gonna be part of them, and together, we're gonna....run around, Robin. We're *urp* gonna do all kinds of wonderful things, Robin. Just you and me, Robin. The outside world is our enemy, Robin. We're the only friends we've got, Robin. It's just Batman and Robin. Batman and Robin and their adventures, Robin. Batman and Robin forever and forever, a hundred years! Me and.....Batman and Robin running around, and....Batman and Robin time. All day long, forever. All--....a hundred days. Batman and Robin forever, a hundred times. Over and over, Batman and Robin Adventures Dot Com. All *urp* hundred years. Every minute, W-W-W Dot Batman And Robin Dot Com......"