The only thing standing between Dr. Malevolent and her salary was the large brick wall of The Bank that held it. Yes,
The Bank
. Despite such an intimidating name, it was nothing more than a clever marketing ploy—one that worked perfectly. Everyone and their mothers flocked to The Bank. Regular Joes put their money in, and criminals took it right back out again. In retrospect, the founders should have named their bank Cletus’s Farm Depot, but then, of course, nothing would have flocked to
The Bank
except hillbillies.

Its name, among many other reasons, was why Dr. Malevolent chose to knock off this bank, but it was not just a heist with the sole goal of getting rich. She did have her own criminal organization to manage. One that employed dozens of hardened criminals, liars, cheats, and a few flat out crazies. That money had a noble purpose; being a super villain wasn’t an easy life. Dr. Malevolent needed to eat semi-regularly, and trying to devise a means of blowing up the world had its costs too. Sure, this meant that sometimes the super villain had to rob banks or rip candy from the hands of shrieking babies, but that was just how these things worked.

With The Bank’s succulent benefits ripe for the reaping, her lackeys were in position to breach its walls. Right on cue, the city’s clock tower struck 3:00 in the afternoon—the perfect time for a bank robbery.

With an air of embellished arrogance, the good doctor turned to her lead goon, Boris. “Place the charges and let’s do this!”

“Sure thing, boss,” he replied through a feigned Russian accent.

Boris was, after all, from the great state of Iowa. His parents had given him the birth name of Cecil DeWitt and he, among other things, loved to role-play. On weekends (or weekdays that he felt he just needed to get away from the stresses of super villainy), Boris went by Charlie, a very tall and quite fuzzy blue bunny rabbit on a quest to find his one true love. He was not fussy though, any animal would do; it did not have to be another rabbit. He would have been just as happy with a fox, or a raccoon, or even those cute twins who ran around in a pantomime horse.

Dr. Malevolent glanced over to her second in command. He showed all the signs of being lost in one of his furry fantasies. Not that it took mastery in the subtleties of the human face to point them out. Among other things, Boris’s eyes glazed over and his tongue rolled out of his mouth. She reminded him that there were no furry animals within the bank’s vault (that she knew of) by slapping the back of his head. He had other concerns, like the door frame he had lined with nothing less than a metric ton of C5 (C4’s big brother); an amount fit only for a super villain like Boris, who enjoyed things in excess, from explosives to furry animals. However, this much C5 would not only allow them access to the building, but could possibly level a few square blocks of the city in the process.

With a scamper and a skip (they have a flair for this sort of thing), the small group of criminals darted around the corner of the bank. Once in place, everyone slid their fingers into their ears to shield themselves from the forthcoming blast—a blast that had a high chance of liquefying their brains.

“Hit it!” Dr. Malevolent yelled to Boris, who did not budge. Clearly, the old finger-in-the-ear trick worked wonders for noise cancellation in this backwards little universe.

“Hit it!” she repeated.

“What?” Boris yelled with his fingers still plugged into his ears.

Dr. Malevolent sighed and plucked one of them from its humble abode. With hushed annoyance, she practically whispered, “Blow up the damn door.”

She and Boris reinserted their fingers into their ears, and then Boris tried as best he could to press the switch using something other than his hands. He eventually devised a way to nudge it with his elbow, and the ensuing shockwave tore through the city, shattering glass and causing babies in every direction to cry. After the ringing in her and Boris’s ears subsided, Dr. Malevolent and her little gang of lackeys scurried out from around the corner and approached the door, only to find it still standing. The wall surrounding the door, however, had been completely decimated. Dr. Malevolent sighed as she watched a section that had been dangling from the ceiling fall to the floor. The establishment apparently spent millions fortifying door only to leave a paper-mâché wall surrounding it. When presented with an indestructible door, Boris did the only thing he could think of, and he reached forward to pull open the latch. Sure enough, it wasn’t locked. Dr. Malevolent’s right hand man chuckled and gave it a forceful push. The door spun around on its hinges and collided with one of Dr. Malevolent’s lackeys.

The evil genius glared at Boris and uttered one word in compliment, “Smooth.”

His lips morphed into a wide smirk and they entered the bank.

Chapter 2: The Man of the Hour Approaches

What would a super villain be without her superhero counterpart? A lot happier. If super villains dreamed of one thing at night, it would be a life without the incessant battling back and forth with their superhero foil. Of course, that would mean that any super villain would have free reign to do as he or she pleased, something nobody wanted. On top of that, without super villains, superheroes would have to get a real job. Speaking of valiant superheroes, the guest of honor was running a little late. Normally, this would be due to traffic, but this time those scrambled programs on cable television just happened to distract him. Fear not, like any not-so-great hero, he appeared just when needed the most, just when the fate of mankind seemed to hang in the balance—as any hero did.

In the meantime, a large gaping hole resided rent-free in one of the walls neighboring the bank vault. With work on the doorway completed, masked men poured into the room. Although because masks covered their faces, there was really no way of telling what they were, and since this was not the time to jump to such blatant conclusions, these masked “men” could have easily been masked women, or zombies, werewolves, aliens, vampires, or even pantomime people with chimpanzees hiding within. These masked—beings—poured into the vault, bags embroidered with the cliché money symbol upon their face at the ready, but since these bags were round, they did not exactly have faces to begin with. Face just refers to the side with the money symbol. Actually, since round objects don’t exactly have sides, this wasn’t correct either. Screw it, the man of the hour arrived, so this needless rambling can end as abruptly as it began.

Perched on a rooftop’s ledge, a man wearing a black domino mask stood alone, dark mascara around his eyes (this was not normally part of the ensemble, and was left over after lady’s night at the bars). A purple spandex outfit covered his body and rode into God-knows-where. This suit came equipped with a pair of glossy black gloves and matching boots, as well as an extremely ornate utility belt that would have made even the darkest knight jealous. To complete this look, a simple black cape extended just past his buttocks. The superhero’s hands rested triumphantly upon his love handles, his head held heroically upwards ever so slightly.

As the beacon of hope stood atop the ledge, the solitary doorway stories below (looking just as heroic), he came to a sudden realization: he was deathly afraid of heights. This ledge may not have been the wisest of decisions for an observation point. Nevertheless, a hero must do what a hero must do, and this hero must flee from the rooftop before he hurled all over the heads of the bank robbers below. An act that, if anything, would rob him of the element of surprise—one of the few elements he had within his superhero repertoire.

What methods or gadgets would an amazing hero such as this have for descending the six stories from here to the ground? Well, aside from the ever-popular face plant, valiant defenders of truth and justice have a multitude of means in which to scale such great heights, realize they’re deathly afraid of them, and then come screaming back down. The one he planned to demonstrate for us today was easily (and quite secretly) the most popular. With that, he made a beeline for the stairwell, his cape billowing in the wind. That’s right, kids, true heroes used the stairs.

Back at the scene of the crime, the coterie of criminals had begun loading their getaway van with everything held inside the bank vault, including money, jewelry, and vials of strange green liquid that were certainly no good for anyone. From atop its roof, Dr. Malevolent oversaw the loading of the van, which had the words “Getaway Van” painted elegantly upon its sides, and yes, the roof was a particularly odd spot to oversee anything. Dr. Malevolent did have a flare for the dramatic, either that or she just wanted to give her hard working employees a free peep show. After all, there was an ample amount of leather underneath that simple white lab coat, which framed her voluptuous breasts perfectly.

In her hand, she waved about an inanimate carbon rod. It was her signature weapon and third in command next to Boris. Most super villains had something to make them unique. Some had weapons like hers, others had disfiguring scars, and yet others were, well, totally nuts. Usually, in the case of signature weapons, most villains usually opted for something more intimidating than a simple rod. Needless to say, it was probably time for an upgrade.

Just before the lackeys loaded the van with the last of the stolen goods, a booming voice echoed out, “Well, what have we here!”

The bank robbers instinctively dropped what they were doing and snapped their heads towards the voice. The source of which was none other than the masked man in purple. He stood on a pile of rubble near the solitary door. A door that stood as a testament to doors everywhere that if they wanted to succeed and be awesome, all they needed to do was simply believe in themselves (and withstand a metric ton of C5).

Dr. Malevolent snapped back at him, “Why if it isn’t Captain Rescue! What we have
here
, you two-bit imbecile, is your undoing!”

“I’ll show you just whom will be doing the undoing!”

“It’s just who, stop trying to sound smart. You’re not.”

“There’s nothing wrong with trying to speak good.”

Dr. Malevolent cringed. “Boys, take care of him.”

The hero cracked his knuckles and then took a single step forward. At precisely that same moment in time, the loose rubble he had been standing on decided to stop cooperating—it was bound to happen eventually. As it slid out from under him, Captain Rescue lost his footing and fell flat on his back. During this tumble, he decided that in the future it was best not to make heroic entrances from atop unstable piles of rubble.

Dr. Malevolent’s lackeys swarmed the hero before he had the chance to get back to his feet, which left him in one dilly of a pickle. Fortunately, the mild-mannered defender was quite a fan of those delightful kosher treats. As six men scrambled to subdue him (a job that could have easily been carried out by just one), his mind drifted to those green wonders and the situation became a little more bearable.

“Look boys, we caught ourselves a little toy!” Dr. Malevolent said while grinning wickedly at Captain Rescue. She knelt down to look him in the eyes, then drew her rod back and slapped him across the jaw.

“Your hair smells pretty,” the hero said in a daze, clearly suffering from a sudden onset of Stockholm syndrome. He spat a little blood from his mouth and then leaned in slightly, almost expecting a kiss. What he found was the rod as it made another pass.

“Tie him up! We’re taking him on a little trip,” Dr. Malevolent ordered as she straightened herself, kicking him in the gut with her boot.

“Perfect! Play right into my hands, why don’t you!” Captain Rescue said.

His white teeth sparkled as he smiled to the various lackeys who were busy tying his arms behind his back. After they finished wrapping up their present, the men hauled Captain Rescue to the van and tossed him in with the stolen goods. The hero had read somewhere that that whenever faced with a hostage situation to remain pleasant to the captors. He had some serious misgivings about this idea as his butt bounced painfully against the cold steel of the van. The back doors closing ominously reinforced these doubts further as he found himself shut in with the crooks. Nevertheless, he continued smiling through the darkness—even if nobody could see.

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