GREEN ARROW
Green Arrow at high speed draws six armor-piercing arrows and shoots them three at a time through the sparking brass antennae crowning the green figure in an attempt to break all the antennae and dislodge them.
To Starman, Conner Hawke says, "The zen master Ki-no-Li once said that things are not always what they seem. They are usually weirder."
The green chalky fellow stops staggering and stands firmly, for once, with his brain-electrodes shot off.
"Great friend! You have saved me! Now no die among the atoms of your really quite remarkable and pleasant Earth!"
And he triggers his ray-gun, which emits a warbling sine wave of silver distortion, and swings it toward Green Arrow. There are but fractions of a second to act!
Starman, as Green Arrow observes, angles his Gravity Rod to yank the gun out of the weirdo's hand. He'll probably succeed in preventing Green Arrow from not dying among the atoms of the Earth.
Just then, from out of the darkness comes a golden lasso, which heads for Green Arrow. The Shade (who had acquired the lasso from his mother) is attempting to lasso the Green Arrow and pull him out of the way of the blast.
Green Arrow is saved from the ray gun!
"I hate the boxing glove arrow! It makes no sense!" he exclaims, compelled by the Lasso of Truth.
Starman recovers the ray gun and points it at the ground.
"Let's try that again," he says to the green guy. "Who are you, and what do you want?"
"Me am BIZARRO-BRAINIAC! Me am imperfect duplicate of Brainiac. Me copy cities from planets and give them to other planets! This city definitely not from Qward, the Weaponeers' homeworld. Nope, not Qward, you bet!"
"Now me not going to copy Opal City and drop it on New Mars! But without copying gun, this will be easy to accomplish!"
"Me no need any help, and especially not from me arch-enemy Lightseid. Me use antennas to contact him, because they work great and are no broken!"
"Good! Wait -- good. No broken means broken. The antennas are broken," says Starman, reasoning his way cautiously through Bizarro World.
ReplyDelete"And this," he says, displaying the multi-sphered ray gun, "is the copying gun, apparently. Which could have been worse."
"Okay, Bizarro-Brainiac, what now? Are you gonna put this robo-village back where you got it from?"
"ALWAYS!"
"Always means ... never. Aw crud. You're gonna do this the hard way, aren't you?"
Bizarro-Brainiac shakes his head fiercely, then runs away, back into the brass mechanical wind-up city.
The windup people shoot him just as resolutely as they have the heroes, but Bizarro-Brainiac runs on, trying to reach the big power station/cathedral/library/whatever in the center. You know, the one that has all the stolen electricity running to it.
But Green Arrow cut the power line, you say! And yes, he did.
But suddenly the mechanical beehive-like structure comes to brilliant electric life, whirling and flashing and emitting signals of green coherent light!
"Waaah! Gasp! Sob!" laughs Bizarro-Brainiac. "Me am in trouble now!"
Actually, he IS in trouble now.
Because a gold-and-copper disc ship drops down from the heavens, links up with the robot city in a visible rainbow of green energy data, and opens its rim. Mechanical bees flood forth, in torrential numbers, seizing and binding and lifting Bizarro-Brainiac, hanging him from a convenient gargoyle in a web of sticky golden wires.
The alien disc ship revolves, lands, and lights up. A teleporter cloud crackles into life, and out steps a blank-eyed War Drone with stinger cannon and web carbine, looking around dully at Opal/Robo City and its defenders.
(Though not the Shade. Can't see him!)
"You," buzzes the War Drone. "Human in green clothing with bow and arrow. Take me to the one called Green Arrow, or lose your will forever to the Drone Toxin."
He hefts his stinger cannon as additional War Drones begin materializing, one by one, from the disc ship.
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ReplyDeleteMonkey King appears suddenly and punches the Bizarro-Brainiac. Assuming he is the oppose of the evil giant capture demon machine, races his brain for what Brainiac was good at. Force fields! that's it!
ReplyDeletehe then says "okay super smart well-functioning maniacal marvel, how about you keep taking the buildings of this city and I will hit you again!"
Then he relishes that Brainiac has already lost and flouts there looking foolish
"Yay!" gasps Bizarro-Braniac as he goes down. But he bounds right up again, green fists clenched!
ReplyDelete"Me am easy to clobber, because Brainiac no have glass jaw!"
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ReplyDeleteTHE SHADE:
ReplyDeleteThe Shade will quietly untie Green Arrow and slip away into the shadows...more.