Super Sheep: Origins

Whenever the Madgician casts a spell, there is a loud boomf sound that Captain Atomic finds very distracting.

“I’ve seriously had enough of this shit.  Come here.”

“Teleport!”  Boomf.

“Goddammit.“

The whole of the Madgician’s Playhouse is wreathed in glowing purple smoke, the byproduct of wild energies harnessed in the spells.  Or something.  Captain Atomic really should have done his research.  This is annoying.

“Either get down here, or I’m going to blow up this whole place.  I don’t even care.”

“Irreversible Polymorph!” shouts the Madgician.

Boomf.

“Get baaa here,” says the sheep in the puddle of Captain Atomic’s outfit.

His Powers Are Wool-Related

“Hellagrow, the Barbaric Botanist, has struck again!” blares Joe’s wrist monitor.

“Yeah,” says the Kid, spitting out leaves.  “We know.”

The office building is more jungle than cement: vines burst from outlets, the walls are dark with moss, insects nest in the shells of flourescent lights.  Unstoppable Joe and the Kid Stupendous are trapped in the mailroom by Hellagrow’s Terrible Grass.  It creeps over the counters, its long blades glistening.

“This is incon-” Joe starts, and then his allergies kick in and he sneezes through a wall.

“Don’t worry.  I called for backup.”

“Who?”

“Baa,” says Super Sheep, already munching.

At the Icy Bastion

The Winter King sits on his throne of ice and sweats a little. It’s too hot here. It’s too hot everywhere.

His crystal monitors dance like auroras, showing him the warm-blooded world. A new kid swaggers on a rooftop. Virginia’s strung up between two satellite antennae, looking nonplussed, and Joe’s winking at her, ignoring the new kid’s monologue.

The Winter King sighs. These amateurs never know what to look for. The Kid Stupendous slips along the outside of the roof, and the new kid is flanked without knowing it. There’s something to him, though, that makes the King smile.

Hostage Girl

This isn’t going the way Arthur expected.

“Just put the rope down,” Virginia sighs, folding her legs like only a true damsel can.  “It’s not going to help, anyway.  At this point, I can untie the Gordian Knot with a fake nail.”

“Silence, woman,” Arthur tries to boom.  “Your life is-”

“First: I need a sandwich, skipped lunch, had a deadline.  Second: do they even know I’m here?”

“I thought I’d let it slip in an introductory fight or -”

“No, no, you’re going to want me in the background or something.  Some dramatic tension.  Forget it.  I’ll just call them.”

Arthur

There’s a numbness, and a ringing in his ears, and dust everywhere. Nothing hurts. His head feels clear.

He brushes the rubble off, hefts the girder off his leg, blows the smoke away, but it’s not till he counts the hairs on the legs of a fly on the roof across the street that he realizes something is different. He finds his glasses crushed by a steel door, and his ID (Arthur Wemple, Lab Assistant. Chad had changed it to “Wimple” with a Sharpie.)

Arthur feels great. He breathes deep and flexes. All he wants to do is break things.

Meanwhile, In His Secret Base…

The kinds of radiation that are happening in here, he should be melting or transforming or shifting through time, but this is a goddamn solid suit he’s built, and instead the Professor’s actually quite cool thanks to the personal AC.

Everyone thinks making villains (like making heroes) is a matter of timing, but it’s really a matter of restraint. Here, he’s handling more force than he could possibly measure, boundless energy ready to go off in a classic explosion that will leave survivors shaken but changed, and he’s stuck waiting for the hapless reporter or lab assistant to stumble in.

Just Another Day

The Lair has enough tech to theoretically micromanage every molecule in the sun, but, honestly, Joe doesn’t know how half of it works. When he comes down he makes a beeline for Stupendous, in his wheelie chair.

“What’s new?”

The Kid adjusts his glasses. “Not much. Looks like Stopwatch might have jumped off stream, um, the navy arrested U-Boat again. Otherwise, nada. Nemesaur’s got a commercial now.”

“What?”

The Kid does his thing, and Nemesaur’s head is huge on the monitor. “AFTER A LONG DAY OF CRUSHING INFIDELS UNDER MY HEEL, I LIKE TO RELAX WITH AN ICE COLD NEMONADE!”

Mentor

“I sleep in the chair now. Better for my back. If I crawled inna bed, might never get back out.” He shuffles towards the kitchen, his slippers whispering against carpet.

“Need help?” asks Joe.

“M’alright Joe, you worry ’bout yerself.”

The Kid leans over and says, too loudly, “This is the guy?”

“Shut up.” Joe doesn’t take his eyes off the old man, and tries to ignore the heavy sadness in his chest. Once, when he was a kid, he watched Mister Unbelievable throw a house at a meteor. Now, he’s watching his hero struggle to lift the water jug.

The Capes

“TREMBLE, PUNY HUMANS!” roars Nemesaur. “I HAVE -

“Whoa,” says Unstoppable Joe. “Dial that back. You’re not Spinal Tap.”

“Yeah,” says Kid Stupendous. “Who?”

“Seriously? You don’t know -”

“THE AGE OF GIANTS RETURNS!”

“Give us a minute Nemmy.” Joe stops, looks at the beast. “Wait, is that new armour?”

“IT IS A CHROMIUM-”

“You look like a Zord,” says the Kid.

“That was Power Rangers.”

“Of course.”

“You couldn’t have done Transformers, at least?”

“Sorry gramps, but -”

Nemesaur stomps, gnashes his teeth. “I WILL FEAST ON YOUR MARROW!“

Joe says, “Shut up for a second,” and throws a car at him.