Vagrants. Disgusting, dirty, disease-infested tramps.
Photon shooed a few away. Whatever material made his hideout’s main portal bomb-proof and laser-proof and impenetrable, even to the entire nucleolectro-rod wielding robots of Planet Zangroc 5, apparently contained some sort of hobo-magnet. There were three of them, all oily-looking and slouching from malnourishment and sleeping on concrete.
One of them said something, something Photon couldn’t hear nor fathom; hobo-speak, he figured. Some secret code of uncleanliness. Even though he hadn’t touched any of them, he checked his super-suit out for smudges, as if somehow the hobos could secret a few dirt stains to his impeccable, quite heroic yellow-and-red costume. He made a note to clean his hands.
Just his luck, to be duped into a hideout that would be home to…well, homeless people. He closed the portal.
“Don’t I fight crime? Am I not the defender of this fair city?” He asked, his voice echoing through the abandoned subway tunnel under
“You would think, that after all I’ve done for this city, someone, maybe…I dunno, perhaps, Mayor Duffy? Mizzz Brooks? George Westwing, someone! Someone could elas…
Photon looked at himself in the windows of his Photonobile that
“What would happen if the call of Justice were made,” He continued, setting a few stray hairs aright, “and I had to zoom out of here in the Photonobile and the doors of that portal opened up and fwoosh!!! I would no doubt injure some helpless dweeb looking for a handout. AND I’d ruin the paint job.”
*Zap!* *Zap zap zap!*
Photon looked at the back of
*Zap!*
Why, Photon thought, staring at Harvey’s back and watching that acrid cigarette smoke linger in the air, couldn’t someone recognize that he deserved a little more? Photon took out The Yellowjacket, no thanks to Mixing Girl, or Mixolo…whatever her name was. Didn’t he deserve something else? Maybe an assistant who was a little easier on the eyes? Like that girl he saved from the mechanical bull at Daisy Dukes? Yeah, he thought, a scientist chick that could do all the work
There was a blast. Muffled through distance, but still big enough to throw Photon against the Photonobile and down to a knee. Dammit, he instantly thought, I got my knee dirty.
“What the hell was that?” He looked to
“I don’t know,”
“Of course I did,” Photon said. “Have you ever heard the noise it makes?”
“Yeah, yeah, keep our pants on.” Photon said, again wishing for a better-looking assistant. He jumped into the car and started it with a great rumble of horsepower, the sound made all the more imposing due to the tunnel they were in.