Chapter 18: Electric Defeat

“Wow, those are some intriguing powers. What do you call yourself?”

“Actually, as you can probably imagine, with my unusual powers, finding a corny super villain name to go along with my powers is quite hard.”

“I see your point. Boy, you sure are in a pickle.”

“Aha!” He exclaimed. “The Pickle Hoarder!”

“No,” said Zapblapoman, “no. That most indubitably does not work.”

“Aha!” The Unnamed Villain exclaimed. “Captain Indubitable!”

“No,” said Zapblapoman, “no. It doesn’t work like that either. You see, ‘Captain’ is a super hero prefix. How about Doctor Indubitable?”

“No,” said The Still Unnamed Villain, “no. I can’t do that, Doctor Rock owns that prefix in Edmonton.”

“Aha!” Zapblapoman exclaimed. “You are in league with Doctor Rock!”

“No,” said The Still Unnamed Villain, “no. I’m not in league with him… yet.” He thought for a moment. “Aha!” The Still Unnamed Villain Who Just Might Have Figured Out a Good Name for Himself exclaimed. “I’ve got it! Surgeon Indubitable!”

“Yes,” said Zapblapoman, “yes. That just might work. Now that you have figured out a good name for yourself, it is time for you to die!”

Rather than diving towards Surgeon Indubitable like a n00b super hero, Zapblapoman took some energy from a nearby bus line and flung it at him.

Surgeon Indubitable hid behind a car. A mailbox exploded behind where he had once stood. Zapblapoman took another ball of energy, but this time, before he could do anything with it, Surgeon Indubitable jumped from his cover and looked perpendicular to Zapblapoman. A beam of laser grew in has ear and shot out towards Zapblapoman. It managed to hit him in the upper right arm. Zapblapoman screamed in pain. He stumbled backwards and ran into the wall of the Coliseum Inn. He fell to one knee grasping his shoulder.

Surgeon Indubitable took this moment to run up to Zapblapoman and knee him in the stomach. Zapblapoman was too stunned to generate a spark to protect himself and took the full force of the blow. Being hit in the stomach for the second time that day, he could not help letting out a small cry. He fell to his knees and one hand, the other hand was still gripping his upper arm. Surgeon Indubitable kicked him in the side of the head. Zapblapoman flew a metre and then skidded across the ground on his right arm. Two cops came around the corner, both wielding shotguns.

“Step away from the super hero and we won’t shoot,” one of the cops said.

Surgeon Indubitable looked away from the cops and took careful aim. A laser beam splashed across the other cop’s shotgun and even managed to lick parts of his hand. Areas of the shotgun melted away and third degree burns appeared on the cop’s hands. The cop screamed, fell to the ground, and sucked on his hands in the hopes that it might somehow help. The first cop had no choice but to shoot. The bullets merely bounced off of Surgeon Indubitable’s skin. “Did I mention that I am also Shotgun resistant?”

Zapblapoman slowly picked himself up. “That’s impossible, nothing is shotgun resistant.”

“Then how do you explai-” This time Zapblapoman was able to release the ball of electricity. Surgeon Indubitable flew backwards and landed on his ass.

Zapblapoman looked towards the remaining cop. “Take your partner and get out of here.”

“There is no way that I will leave you alone to fight this guy.” The cop said back to Zapblapoman, still training his shotgun on Surgeon Indubitable.

“Look, you know there is nothing that you can do. I can take care of myself. You need to get your partner some medical attention. Go!”

The cop, finally seeing the logic in what he was being told to do, grabbed his partner and ran to his car. Zapblapoman started charging up his left fist as he walked towards Surgeon Indubitable. The reason that he was charging up his left rather than his right was because he was in no mood to use his right. Just as Surgeon Indubitable got to his feet, Zapblapoman swung with his left fist at him. It connected with Surgeon Indubitable’s cheek and left it feeling numb. Surgeon Indubitable retaliated by swinging wide at Zapblapoman’s right side. Zapblapoman was able to block it by sweeping his electrified left arm and deflecting the blow. The blow left the Surgeon’s arm completely paralyzed. He then changed the direction of his arm and smashed it into the side of the Surgeon’s face causing him to stumble. Surgeon Indubitable grabbed his left hand in his right and swung them both at Zapblapoman. It connected with Zapblapoman’s head, which caused him to fall to ground. The Surgeon ran up to Zapblapoman and spat on him. The lollypop stuck to Zapblapoman’s upper back like a sticky lollypop, probably because it was a sticky lollypop. The acid in the lollypop began to burn through Zapblapoman’s suit. Before much of it reached his skin, Zapblapoman seized the stick of the lollypop and threw it at Surgeon Indubitable.

The sucker stuck to the Surgeon's eye. He screamed in agony as it burned through his eyelid and melted off his eye lens. He ripped off the lollypop and then in a rush of epinephrine he charged Zapblapoman, bowling him to the ground. Zapblapoman smashed his head on the cement. Before Surgeon Indubitable could do anymore damage, and before everything went dark for Zapblapoman, a large creature landed a few metres from the scene. What happened next is bit of a mystery, because everything suddenly went black for Zapblapoman.

*

Zapblapoman woke up. It was beginning to be quite a common thing for his head to be hurting when he wakes up. He looked down and found that his upper suit was off and dressing had been applied to his injured upper arm. He looked around the room and realised that he was in the basement of Grant MacEwan. Flurada seemed to be gone at the moment. Zapblapoman rolled out of bed and fell on the floor. He then picked himself up and slowly walked over to the kitchen. There were plenty of things in the cupboards, but the one thing that he was looking for was some ibuprofen to ease his headache. He didn’t suspect Flurada would keep such a drug in his possession, but it was worth a try.

For those of you who don’t know what ibuprofen is because you are used to referring to it as one of the many trade names that are associated with it, ibuprofen is the actual name of the substance that is used to relieve symptoms of fever, arthritis, or most any type of inflammation.

As was to be expected, there was none. Zapblapoman would just have to man it out and maybe try to find something good to eat. One thing about mornings for Zapblapoman is that for some reason eating any type of breakfast-like food right after he wakes up makes him sick to the stomach. However, if a particular type of cereal that is available just so happens to be decently sugared and one that he has not had the delight of tasting, then he might be able to manage to force it down. There was none of that here though. He managed to find some bread, butter, and strawberry jam, so he decided to make a sandwich.

To Zapblapoman there was nothing better than a strawberry jam sandwich, unless this said sandwich was being dipped in milk. It is understandable that you, the reader, may believe that the only thing allowed to be dipped in milk is a cookie, but maybe you should think again.

At this moment, you should put down whatever you are reading and go into the kitchen. Once there, make yourself a jam sandwich, you can either fold both slices in half or put them together and cut them in half. After that, pour yourself a big glass of milk.

With those two steps completed, dunk one of your two halves of jam sandwich into the milk, be careful because the milk drips more freely from the bread than it does with a cookie and can thus be rather messy, and enjoy. For added joy, you can toast the bread, in fact, that’s actually a recommendation!

Zapblapoman did all of those steps, except for the first one, and then went back to bed as he waited for Flurada to show up. It wasn’t long, maybe a half an hour of staring up at the ceiling, before Flurada came into the door. “Ah, I see that you are awake. Did you have a nice sleep?”

“Yeah, I guess,” answered Zapblapoman, “what happened?”

“You smashed your head on the cement and went unconscious.”

“I think I remember that, but what I mean is that the last thing that I remember is being on the ground and Surgeon Indubitable charging towards me to finish me off. What am I doing here? Why am I not dead?”

“I landed near you and the Indubitable guy about the time that you landed on the ground. I saw you lying motionless on the ground, and charged towards the other guy. I managed to grab him right before he reached you. As I flew with him in my arms, weird energy beams shot out of his ears in his attempts to hit me. He almost did, that is when I let go of him and allowed him to continue going under his own momentum. He hit a car door and fell to the ground. Somehow, even after all of that, he was still all right. He got up and ran away. I considered chasing him, but realised that getting you to safety was more important.”

“I thank you for saving my life.”

“You are welcome, but you should not just be thanking me. The energy that came out of that guy’s ears…”

“Surgeon Indubitable.” Zapblapoman said, realising that Flurada didn’t quite catch his name.

“Surgeon Indubitable’s ear beam, had enough powerful to melt the metal on the side of car doors and damage street lamps. I do not know what your suit is made out of but somehow it was able to not only stay in tact, but also to shield your skin from most of the heat giving you only a minor second degree burn. I googled up second degree burns and found out that minor ones can be treated just like first degree burns; and that is what I did.”

“What about the back of my suit where the acid lollypop started to eat away at the costume and even a bit of my skin?”

“Acid lollypop?”

“Yeah, he had laser ears and was able to spit acid lollypops.”

“What is he going to do? Spit out an acid lollypop; give it to a baby and then watch as the kid’s head dissolves? Honestly, that is sick. Now I feel bad for not chasing after him and getting him off of the streets. I might have even sent him to a room in Panoka that was secure enough to hold him.”

“It’s okay,” said Zapblapoman, “I’m sure that you are just over reacting a bit.”

Flurada got up and grabbed a glass of water from the fridge. He turned to Zapblapoman, “I have a few questions to ask you about Ned.”

Zapblapoman was a bit startled by this. He had not expected Flurada to say anything like that. “Sure, go ahead.”

“Okay, how long have you known him?”

“I met him in the beginning of Grade 10. I didn’t really know him that well. He was in my computer class. I asked him for help a few times. He knew a lot about computers. He definitely wasn’t technologically stupid like me.”

“That is very intriguing,” said Flurada. “And when did you first meet Doctor Rock?”

Zapblapoman jumped out of his seat, “What are you getting at Flurada?” His head exploded with pain and he was forced to sit back down.

“ZBO-Man, as you can remember, I am trying to track down Doctor Rock. In order for me to do this, it is vital that I get all the information I can. Now, please answer my question.”

“Ugh, Doctor Rock showed up at the beginning of the second term. Ned was a few days late for term two, but he eventually ended up in my Science 10. He seemed to know a lot about Physics, but he generally did well in all aspects of the course.”

“Interesting, Interesting; and what does Doctor Rock look like?”

Zapblapoman glared up at Flurada. “He definitely does not look like Ned, if that is what you are insinuating. He is tall, or at least he is taller than Ned, he is about the same height as me. He has dark black hair. He is very muscular.”

“I see,” said Flurada. “What I find most intriguing, is the description. What you have described seems nothing like what I remember him to look like. Whenever I think back to him, for some reason I always see Ned’s face. Although, now that I really think about it, it seems that his hair is slightly darker than Ned’s; and he does seem to stand a bit taller than him.”

“This may sound a bit far fetched, but maybe Doctor Rock is Ned’s brother.”

“I suppose that is possible,” said Flurada.

There was a silence when both Zapblapoman and Flurada were deep in their own thoughts. “What time is it?” Zapblapoman finally asked.

Flurada looked to the clock. “Almost seven o’clock.”

“Oh shoot! I better go, man. I appreciate all that you have done for me, but I have got to get home, so I can do homework and then get ready for bed.”

“Why are you going to bed so early?”

ZBO-Man shook his head in subtle confusion, “well, I’ve got to get up early for school tomorrow.”

“Did you not say that you do not have school on Saturdays?”

Logic seemed to fail ZBO-Man and somehow it looked like even a beaver couldn’t do anything to help him. “What do you mean?”

“You have been unconscious for two days now; it is Friday; tomorrow is Saturday and you said that you do not have school on Saturdays and Sundays.”

For those of you who are doing the math in your heads and going, “he went to school for two days and missed two days, therefore it should be Thursday right now and tomorrow should be Friday,” don’t worry. Monday was the first Monday in September and thus it was Labour Day. No school. Zak’s first day of school was on Tuesday. I forgot to put that in earlier so I decided to put it in now.

ZBO-Man’s face went limp. He tried to speak, but nothing coherent came out. Flurada brought him some water in which he hastily drank. “I missed school? I don’t miss school unless I’m sick and when that happens I phone in. They’re going to think that I cut school. What am I going to tell them on Monday?”

“I am sure you will be able to come up with something.”

“And what about patrolling? I wasn’t able to do me rounds.”

“Do not worry, I did the patrolling for you. That is why I was not hear when you first awoke.”

“But you’re supposed to be dead, slain in fact.”

“I kept to the shadows.” Zapblapoman’s stare was painted with disbelief. “Relax, the only people who saw me were those who were committing the crimes in the first place. No one will believe what they are saying. They will probably think that the crooks were hopped up on some sort of hallucinogen.”

Zapblapoman looked back at the clock. “Whether I have school tomorrow or not, I need to get back home and fix my suit.”

“I could fly you home.”

“Works for me.”

Zapblapoman got home and fixed his suit as well as a few other super hero type stuff. That Monday he managed to come up with some brilliant excuse explaining why he missed class. A few weeks passed. Zapblapoman got accustomed to his new life, and his new life got accustomed to him.

The next chapter will begin right after the passage of these few weeks.