I’m sure none of you out there are thinking to yourselves, “You’re so awesome, Revis. Why aren’t you a superhero?” Well, nobody, that’s an excellent question. The honest answer is also the simplest: It’s too much of a hassle.
I tried to do the hero thing once and all I got for it was grief.
The following is a true story about the time I saved a city….
Ok, maybe I didn’t save a whole city. But I did do some good, dammit!
While Matticus had Goldfish distracted with his attack, Revis ran to retrieve his thrown daggers. Just as he closed his hand around the hilt of his second one, he heard Matticus cry out. He looked over in time to see the Jester slump to the ground. Whatever had happened between the two also threw Goldfish backwards.
She landed hard on her back, the air blasted from her lungs. Revis rushed towards her. He knew he had to get to her before she recovered and put her defenses back up. The Knight swung both daggers at her head, hilt first, hoping to knock the sorceress out.
By this time, Goldfish had regained enough of her wits to see the attacks coming and tried to block it. One dagger was deflected enough that it missed her head, although the blade did cut her arm. The other dagger’s hilt struck her just above the temple, but her blocking attempt had slowed the strike down enough that it didn’t render her unconscious.
Just as Revis had started swinging his daggers a second time, the sorceress spoke a word that sounded like gibberish to the Knight. Suddenly, he was flung away from her by some unseen force. He hit the floor just before he hit the wall and managed to roll enough to avoid some of the damage.
The two combatants rose from the ground at the same time, eyeing each other all the way.
“You are no match for me, Knight,” Goldfish spat. The pain in her head quickly faded away and the wound on her arm closed as her magic returned her to full health, and speaking the necessary words, she rose from the ground to hover menacingly over the Jester. “Together, you might have managed to get the better of me. Alone you have no chance. Give up now and I’ll let your family live.”
Revis seethed, but said nothing. His eyes darted around the room looking for something, anything, he could use to his advantage. He needed to find a weakness in her defenses. He needed another distraction to catch her off guard so he could strike again. But, his rational thoughts were fading as anger at the threat to his family slowly consumed him.
Time was running short. He knew that Goldfish was probably already working on casting the spell that would either take his or Matticus’ life. Thinking of the Jester he let his eyes fall to where Matticus lay on the ground, where he was surprised to see the Jester’s eyes open. When their gazes met, Matticus winked at him, and Revis found his smile. His anger cooled and his mind cleared.
“I think I’m more than capable of defeating you, merwitch.”
“Let’s put that claim to the test,” she laughed. Without taking her eyes off of Revis, she waved her hand in the Jester’s direction. Matticus slowly began to rise off the ground. After he was levitating a couple of feet in the air, Goldfish snapped her hand towards the doorway. The Jester flew out into the hall, the doors closing behind him.
Once his feet were on solid ground again, Matticus ran to the door. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t get the doors to budge. Cursing, he turned around, trying to figure out a way to get back into the room.
As he did, the Jester saw that he was not the only one that the sorceress threw out into the hall. Jaded was right in front of him. She was awake now, and, from the look on her face, she was very angry.
“When I first started helping Goldfish,” Jaded began, “I was only doing it because she told me to. Now that I’ve tasted some of the power she wields, I refuse to go back to the way it was. If you want your Kingdom back, you’ll have to take it from me. And, this time, you don’t have your Knight to save you.”
Matticus drew his sword, spoke the words to spark its flame to life, and replied coolly, “And you don’t have the sorceress protecting you this time either. You are no longer a vampire. You are mortal. I am not as clueless as I usually appear. Do you think the Queen would have married me otherwise? Do you think the people of the Kingdom would have put up with me if I was nothing but silliness all the time? Think on that very carefully, Jaded.”
In response she snarled and glared, but she knew that the menace behind those actions was gone. She lacked the strength of her prior vampire self. Her fangs no longer held any threat or power. The realization that she probably she turn and walk away incensed her into action. In blind fury she rushed the Jester, her hands reaching for his neck, wanting to tear him limb from limb like she could have done easily before the Knight’s potion “cured” her.
The Jester saw her coming and had plenty of time to end her, but he took pity on her instead. He knew that they had changed her life irrevocably. They hadn’t meant to, and she might have deserved some sort of punishment for her role in the plot to overthrow the kingdom, but he wasn’t sure taking her life was the right thing to do. As she reached him, Matticus sidestepped and used his right boot to trip Jaded. Her momentum sent her sprawling head first into the magically locked door, once again, knocking her unconscious.
Time was not on his side. He knew he needed to act quickly. Looking around, he tried to find something to tie Jaded up with. They couldn’t afford for her to keep causing them problems. After extinguishing the blade, he used his sword to cut strips out of a nearby rug. It was one he had never liked anyways, so he didn’t feel too bad about it when he used the strips to bind Jaded’s hands and feet together. Then, remembering that Goldfish had said that Jaded possessed magic items, he took all of the jewelry off her and stuffed it into one of his pouches.
Now, all he had to do was find a way back into the throne room. All of the doors were magically locked, but there was still one hope. Right after his wedding to the Queen, she had shown him a secret passageway that connected to it. She had shown it to him in case they were ever attacked there. It was meant to be used as an escape tunnel. He was using it invade the room.
Matticus ran down the hallway that would take him to the secret passage. Because he was rushing, he neglected to keep his noise to a minimum. It ended up almost costing him when two sparkly vampire guards came around a corner in front of him. They were poorly trained as swordsmen, however, and the Jester cut them down so quickly that he barely had to break stride. Making his way through corridors that only he and his wife knew, he quickly came to the doorway that led to his destination. First, he uncovered an eyehole and looked to see what was happening in the room.
From what he could see, it appeared that Goldfish and Revis had yet to start fighting. She remained hovering by the throne and the knight hadn’t moved either. They seemed to be waiting for the other to make the first move and perhaps be open for a counter-attack. Beads of sweat appeared on both their brows as the seconds passed. It was look on his Knight’s face that finally clued Matticus in to the reality that the fighting had already begun. Goldfish must have engaged Revis in some sort of mental battle and the Knight was slowly losing. His features were growing pained. His face had drained of color.
As quietly, and as quickly as he could, the Jester eased open the hidden doorway and slipped into the throne room. He needed to sneak up behind Goldfish and knock her unconscious before she noticed him. He hoped that Revis could hold out long enough for him to cross the space. He took his first step into the room, the sorceresses eyes snapped onto him with red rage, and Revis cried out in pain.
The portal shimmered, revealing a brilliant flow of colors. Those colors swirled until they turned into a blurry image of the dungeon cell where they had left Jaded.
Jaded slept in the corner. A loud sound echoed through the hallway, waking her up. She watched as a shadowy figure walked up to the bars. No, not walked. It glided up to the cell’s bars. There were no feet or legs coming out of the shadows to touch the floor.
At first, Jaded smiled as the figure came closer. Then, when the shadow got next to her, Jaded lunged, trying to grab the figure through the bars. “You never told me that they’d turn me human,” she spat venomously, her voice sounding strange coming from the portal.
The shadow laughed. “I told you they were more formidable than you’d give them credit for. You still did good to get them to go through the portal. How long have they been gone?”
“How the hell should I know? I’ve been locked in here since they left, and there are no watches in this universe.”
“There’s no time to lose. Take this,” the shadow ordered, holding out a vial of red liquid. “Throw the liquid on the portal and it will keep them from being able to come back through.”
Jaded scoffed. “The last time I did as you ordered, I got turned into a human.”
“I can change you back…”
“Don’t lie to me.”
The dark figure did not respond beyond a further offering gesture with the vial. Jaded took a step back, her eyes flicking between the vial, the cell bars, and the face lost within the shadows. It was obvious from her body language that she was tempted by the offer. Even if she no longer trusted her cohort, the prospect of no longer being human appealed to her.
Revis and Matticus exchanged a nervous glance.
“Should we jump through before she makes up her mind?” Matticus whispered, unsure if his voice would carry through the open portal.
Revis didn’t answer right away. His gaze was fixed on the unfolding scene, waiting, watching, trying to decipher what the right move was. He certainly didn’t want to get trapped forever in Twindaddy’s world. The thought terrified him so greatly he almost lunged through instinctively. But, his training kept him from following through on the impulse. He needed a plan.
The Knight sensed Matticus growing restless beside him. If he didn’t think of something, or at least answer quickly, the Jester might do something stupid. He shifted his gaze from the portal to see Matticus chewing on his lip. A bad sign. A very bad sign.
Jaded grabbed the vial out of the shadow’s hand and removed the lid. Revis immediately grabbed Matticus’ arm and dragged him towards the portal. The two men hit the portal just as the red liquid did. A powerful force hit them both head-on and they felt themselves being thrown backwards. Roughly, they hit the ground.
When they opened their eyes, they saw that they weren’t in Twindaddy’s closet anymore. They also weren’t back in the Kingdom, either. Looking around, they saw that they were in a forest at night. Although, there were some of the horseless carriages from Twindaddy’s world not far away. There was also an impossibly tall metal fence.
Suddenly, an ear-splitting roar filled the air. Revis grabbed Matticus’ arm and signaled him to remain still, and quiet. They watched as the metal fence came down. A strange looking dragon came crashing through, attacking the carriages. It had no wings and short arms. The dragon attacked one of the carriages, pushed it over the side of the fence, and ran off.
“Wait a minute,” Matticus said once he was sure the dragon was out of earshot. “How is there a now huge drop off right where the dragon came running two minutes ago?”
“Stop pointing out plot holes in other stories,” Revis commanded. “If you do that, people may start finding them in ours.”
“Like what?”
“Like how we’ve been to a few universes different than ours and we all just happen to speak the same language. Seriously, how long are the odds that would actually happen?”
“I hadn’t thought about it like that. Yeah, that is weird… Also, I have no idea what you are talking about. What stories?”
“Never mind.”
“Fine,” Matticus responded petulantly. “So, now what?”
“Well, we should probably get out of this rain, and find some shelter before that dragon comes back, because it will be coming back. And then we should figure out how to find another portal.”
Matticus furrowed his brow, and looked skyward, noticing the rain for the first time. “I suppose you have some kind of plan for that? Something from your magical bag of tricks?”
Before Revis could answer, the dragon let out a mighty roar that caused the hairs on their arms and the back of their necks to stand on end. They couldn’t help but swivel their heads the direction of the sound. It sounded close, and hungry.
A moment later there was a loud thumping noise, accompanied by a percussion impact in a nearby puddle. Matticus looked at the tremors in the water quizzically, and then, as understanding settled in, his expression turned to one of terror. He turned to Revis to ask the obvious question and his Knight was already on the move.
“Time to go.”
The Jester did not need to be told twice. As soon as he got up to full speed a bright light burst in front of him. Now that he had been blinded, he tried to stop. Instead, his foot found a small hole in the ground and he tumbled forward. When his vision returned, he expected to see the dragon standing over him, about to strike. Instead, he found that he was in a completely different forest.
It was now daytime. It was no longer raining. There were no horseless carriages.
Revis grabbed him from underneath his arms and began lifting Matticus to his feet. There was blood running down from the Knight’s forehead. “I found a tree after the light blinded me,” Revis explained before the Jester had a chance to ask. “I’ll be fine.”
A noise off to the side caused them to duck. They saw a man in armor, a man in priest robes, and a dwarf walking. The man in armor said something that they couldn’t hear. In apparent frustration, the dwarf grabbed the armored man and spun him so they were face-to-face. “If you don’t stop asking questions, I’ll cut your tongue out and shove it up your nose,” he threatened.
The light flashed again. Now, they were standing in a room with a bed. The only other thing in the room was a woman, who acted like she didn’t notice them.
“Isn’t that Drun’s stalker, Zoe,” Matticus asked.
Revis nodded his head. Zoe, still not noticing that two people had magically appeared in her room, went about her business. She reached into her pants and scratched her butt. Then, she pulled her hand out and sniffed it. Before the men could voice their disgust at her behavior, the light burst once more and they found themselves standing next to a pair of metallic looking rails laid over wooden slats that stretched towards the horizon in both directions. A little ways away, there were two men talking to each other excitedly. They couldn’t quite make out the conversation, but the younger one kept calling the older one, who had shock white hair, “Doc.” There were two of the horseless carriages resting on the strange tracks. The young man got in the smaller of the two, and the old man got in the larger, then smoke began to pour out of chimney looking thing and the two carriages started moving down the track.
Revis and Matticus turned to each other, eyebrows raised, and then the light flashed once more. As their vision cleared they lost their balance and stumbled onto a bench of some sort. A man there, dressed in all white, held out a box to them and asked, “Would you like a chocolate?”
That sounded pretty good to Matticus so he reached to grab a piece, but the light flashed again and his hand passed through nothingness. His curses were lost in the transfer, hurtling forever in the unknown void between the infinite worlds.
Captain Procrastination walked into the room. You could tell that he was having trouble seeing in the dark. “Dave,” his voiced echoed. “I got your message. I’m glad to finally hear from you again. It’s been awhile. I thought you were mad at me.”
Only silence answered him. He was beginning to get angry. “Look,” he announced, “I came because you said you had por….I mean, adult entertainment. If there’s none here, I’m going home.”
The light turned on, causing him to momentarily shield his eyes. Directly in front of him, but was covered by the darkness, was Skidmark. He was tied to a chair, with his mouth gagged. Captain Procrastination pointed and laughed for a minute before making any movement that could be considered helpful. Continue reading
After doing my post participating in Matticus’ Tug-of-War, it put me in the mood to read comics again. While I got rid of most of my comics years ago, when I stopped collecting (I just didn’t have the room for them anymore), I still have some of my trade paperbacks. To get my comics fix, I looked through those.
I noticed that I only have books from two characters now. It’s one character from each DC and Marvel. From DC, it’s Nightwing. From Marvel, it’s Daredevil. While I loves me some Nightwing, I had to grab one of the Daredevil books because…well…. Marvel.
Welcome to a special edition of Versus. My writing partner, Matticus, has issued a challenge to the blog-o-sphere. He wants us all to take sides in the DC vs. Marvel debate. I have already given my answer to this topic on a couple of different occasions on this blog, but I will do so again for his benefit.
Also, be sure to stop by the Kingdom to view his challenge (along with all of the other awesomeness he has going on over there.
Continue reading
(Narrator’s Note: Welcome back, dear readers, to another adventure of your hero, Captain Procrastination. Your hero would like for me to tell you that he was NOT watching pornography in the last episode. In his mind, that would be an undignified thing for a hero to do. I’m tired of covering for him, however, so I will not be telling you that. I will no longer be wasting my time playing spin doctor for that fat piece of shi…Hey, what are you doing?….Ow. Give me that microphone back…OW! MY NIPPLE!)
(And stay out! Captain Procrastination’s Note: Due to technical difficulties, the rest of the Narrator’s Note has been lost. I apologize for any inconvenience that this may have caused. Now, onto the adventures of your hero! Continue reading
33 Grams of Blog 