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War of the Craigs
canadascott
Posts: 1,257 Arc User
“Sorry Inky,” Craig said as he wiped his hands on the front of his tunic. “I’m afraid I busted your cosmic nano-bot death machine. It’s now a cloud of sub-atomic particles bound for the sun.” He sighed, while the cosmic imp (and prankster supreme) gaped at the hero. “Okay, let me figure this out. Today, I’ve beaten your jello monster with the voice of Bill Cosby, that troupe of super-powered penguins…”
“Penguins of death. The Penguins Delorum.”
“The penguins of death, and your space death machine.” Thundrax counted the evening’s combats. He had been even busier than usual!
“You forgot the giant kangaroo.” The imp protested.
“Well. to be honest, I thought the Balmy Boxing Behemoth was beneath you,” Craig said. “Now can we call it a rest for today? Please?”
“You’re begging for mercy?” Incubus gasped.
“I kinda am, yeah,” Craig admitted. “Not out of fear mind you, just fatigue. It’s been a long day, and I’m tired as all get go. Can we save the next romp for another day? I’ll even say please.”
“Oooooo!” Incubus shouted, jumping up and down with rage. “I hate you, Thundrax!”
Craig Carson shook his head, examined the surroundings – not too much damage, for a change -- and looked down on his foe. He was the most powerful of his enemies - virtually omnipotent in fact - and certainly the most annoying. Though Incubus always carried the fight against Craig via intermediaries, or with odd transformations. For his part, Craig had never thrown a punch at the guy.
“Fine,” the hero said. “We’re not best buds. But surely you can wait a few days before the next challenge? Think up a really good one for next time.”
“I could destroy the earth!” Incubus exclaimed.
“Oh don’t do that again. That’s just tacky.” Craig moaned. "You're not a common thug, you know."
The imp stewed in the face of defiance, crept close to Craig, and poked at his chest with an index finger.
“You laughing at me? You think this is some sorta game?"
"Is it?" Craig asked, throwing the question back in the imp's face.
"This ain’t over, bub.” Incubus said. Craig burst out into a chorus of "We've Only Just Begun". "Jerk," the imp spat. Humiliated, Incubus retreated back to his thinking dimension in a puff of smoke. Craig breathed a sigh of relief. He, too, returned to his daily routine, while Incubus decided he needed to spy on his enemy. So he began to watch Craig.
Six hours later, after the third droning business meeting, Incubus was ready to throw things. He turned off his Cosmic Camera in disgust. “That guy must have known I was watching. Why else would he lead such a boring life? I’ll have to go to other means to find out everything I need to know to defeat this chump. I know – comics books! They ain’t boring, and they’ll tell me everything! Everything’s always right in comic books!”
And so, the diminutive cosmic villain headed for the closest local comic book shop. Ignoring a nerd who was dressed in a god-awful imitation of Defender and was making the lamest anti-geek parody jokes imaginable, Incubus looked for the Thundrax comics. He found a gold leaf anniversary issue with Thundrax vs. Thundrax on the cover. A lightbulb went off over his head, literally.
“I know!” Incubus exclaimed. “I’ll put Thundrax up against a more powerful version of himself! He’ll never be able to win that fight!” He turned to the shopkeeper. “Yo! Nerd boy! Get your head out of your mom’s basement and answer some questions.”
“What!” the neckbeard answered, annoyed.
“What comic has the most powerful version of Thundrax?”
“Pretty sure that’s gotta be Anime Thundrax. The real Thundrax can only lift a few hundred tons, but anime Thundrax pushed the earth out of the way of Dr. Ultimate Destructor’s cosmic nova matter train, then pushed the train into a black hole. And then there was Dr. Make War, Not Love’s planet cruncher, which had to weigh…”
“That’s perfect!” Incubus declared. “I’ll take the entire collection!”
“We don’t have all the issues,” the comic store owner protested, only to find a stack of the requested manga next to him. They were marked “free to Incubus”. The owner shrugged, decided that incurring the wrath of comic devils was not in his job description, and stuffed them all in a big paper bag adorned with a picture of Ironclad.
“Yuck!” Incubus said. “What an uggo. Why couldn’t it have been Sapphire?”
“Ran out,” the clerk said, stuffing the bag. “It was either him or Kinetik. And no one chooses Kinetik.”
“Fine!” And Incubus chuckled to himself. “The big lug won’t know what hit him. This time there’s no escape.”
And so, Incubus read the entire collection. Five times. “Who would have known that Thundrax came from the Planet Thundraxia!” he told himself as he read his origin yet again. “The noive of that guy! He ain’t even human! Oh well, that’s gotta beat coming from Vancouver!”
With that, he reached his hand into the page and seized hold of the hero as he was doing his daily routine of flexing.
“Hey!” the Thundraxian shouted. “Exercise is the route that takes us closest to human perfection, our attempt to approach the divine. When you interrupt that, you interrupt my search for the divine, and the thing that makes human beings greater than our mortal selves.”
“Huh?” Incubus wondered.
“Though it may tax me beyond limit, still I will tap into the infinite power of the human spirit and become greater than I’ve ever been. For the indignity of interrupting my daily prayer, you shall receive the ultimate punishment. Canadian Rocky Avalanche pun--!!”
“Wait!” Incubus shouted, throwing up his hands. “I called you here for help!”
The Thundraxian sighed, in the most manly way possible, and continued to drone. He placed his huge hand on Incubus’s shoulder. “Oh, my friend!” he exclaimed. “If only you learned to help yourself and embrace the ways of peace and beauty, what a better world this would be! For what greater cause is there than this? And what more honorable cause is there to fight for than peace! This is why I hone my body into the ultimate weapon, to aid with all my unmatched might to bring beauty, truth and justice into a world that others would make ugly!”
“Jeez,” Incubus muttered. “Maybe I shoulda summoned silver age Thundrax instead.” He turned to the hero, still soliloquizing as he posed, the aura of muscle and truth flaring about his body. “Look pal, there’s an evil Thundrax running around here, and only you can stop him."
“Oh?” the Thundraxian said, removing his hand to scratch his chin. His eyes widened to an impossible width. Even Incubus found it disconcerting. “What proof do you have of this?” the Thundraxian said.. “Because it is the way of evil to deceive men’s minds, and trick the champions of truth and brotherhood so they wage heinous wars against each other, in which only the innocent suffer! How wrongly have evil-doers attempted to turn my matchless might into a weapon against good, not realizing that the ultimate superhuman victory move is… love!”
As discretely as possible, Incubus turned around, pulled out a vomit bag and emptied the contents of his stomach in a long unending stream. “Uh, he paints his toenails?” he finally said.
“The bastard!” Manga Thundrax said. Incubus turned to the side and chortled. He had the chump. Composing himself, he turned to the anime bruiser.
“And he’s defaming the good name of Thundrax. Why he’s claiming he’s not even from Thundraxia!” Incubus declared.
“Then he must be an imposter, and must be dealt with!” The Thundraxian roared. So much for his talk of peace and love. Or pretty much any part of his previous soliloquy.
“You better follow me,” Incubus said, still chortling. Oh, this was going to be sooooo good!
**********
Craig Carson tried to relax in his hot tub, struggling to enjoy the early autumn day in Millennium City. He was, despite the very welcome diversion that Incubus had provided, in a melancholy mood, and the aloneness of the world acerbated the feeling. He had lost people, lost friends in the worst way possible, and felt a bit of a wall rise between himself and the people who still remained. He wanted to be alone, but he knew that was the worst thing he could do. On such days, the actions of a cosmic imp, comically overreaching in vengeance, were far better than quietly brooding alone with his thoughts. His thoughts were crueler.
Incubus sometimes put him through Hell. But it was a better Hell than the one he was currently living in.
And suddenly, there was a poof, and Incubus appeared next to… Thundrax?!
The new Thundrax’s eyes quite literally bulged out of their sockets, and strange lines and an exclamation point appeared above his head. Craig's ( that is to say, the original’s) mouth dropped, though not in a comically anime exaggeration.
“I finally found someone who can beat you!” Incubus announced. He grabbed Craig by the ankle and yanked him out of the water to display his foot. “See! Painted toenails!”
“Incubus, would you mind not dunking me in my own home!” Craig snapped. He looked up at the new Thundrax, who was scowling at him. “So what dimension did you pluck this guy from?”
“Would you mind explaining your painted toenails?” the Thundraxian said.
“It was a college prank from Ravenspeaker in the late 80s,” Thundrax explained. ”I got drunk at a kegger, and I made a homophobic slur at some guy in a pink tank top. It wasn’t my proudest moment – I was a dumb kid – but Billy decided to teach me a lesson.”
“By painting your toenails?” the Thundraxian asked skeptically.
“We were dumb!” Craig shrugged. “Really dumb! But I learned a lesson that I needed to learn. Now, assuming you’re a magical duplicate, clone, or dimensional doppleganger, you’re also me. So feel free to change into your swimsuit and join me in the tub, and we’ll talk through whatever issue you have with me. Unless you’re really jonesing for a fight, which is pretty much par for the course for the week I’ve had, beating myself up literally for a change.”
“Oh, if only you would embrace the ways of peace and kindness, and forsook the path of violence for violence’s sake, what a better world this would be!” the Thundraxian lamented. “Oh this is madness, yet there is method behind it. Evil method! Would that I was not fated to pit my matchless strength against such unworthy foes!”
“Hey! Who are you calling “unworthy”?” Craig asked. “Inky, where the hell did you dig this guy up?”
“He’s anime Thundrax!” Incubus announced. Craig facepalmed. Then he looked up at the Thundraxian, and he double face palmed.
“Of course,” Craig sighed. “Who else could it be?” He had read the man’s adventures in the manga Max had given him years earlier. They were ludicrous, bordering on the insane. The planet Thundraxia? The thundering moose magnet? Restoring his lost powers by eating timbits? Taking the thunder train from earth to the thunder asteroid? And those villains! Crazy Love… Brutality Beaver…. Maniacal Mind and Manic Mind… Hell, Dr. Destructor, a thinly disguised Albert Zerstoiten clone with a penchant for creating monsters of madness, was the most normal of the lot!
“This guy moves whole planets!” Incubus shouted gleefully. “There ain’t no way you’re going to take this Grade-A specimen of muscle and storm!”
Craig turned and examined his doppleganger,who was grinning like a sheepdog.
“Tell you what,” Craig said. “Why don't we have ourselves a little competition? Instead of the usual lame-**** fight scene, let's compete against each other in a little decathlon of superheroics instead. Ten events, and whoever scores the most points gets to keep the name Thundrax. We each choose five events, Kivioq scrambles them and announces them at random. You game?”
“I never refuse a challenge. For it is only by challenging ourselves, our cunning minds, our matchless strength, our endless capacity for compassion that we…”
“Great!” Craig said, interrupting his soliloquy. “So it’s Thundrax vs. Thundrax! May the best vessel of the Living Thunder win!”
“This is going to be sooo good,” Incubus chortled. “I’ve really got this bum this time!”
“Penguins of death. The Penguins Delorum.”
“The penguins of death, and your space death machine.” Thundrax counted the evening’s combats. He had been even busier than usual!
“You forgot the giant kangaroo.” The imp protested.
“Well. to be honest, I thought the Balmy Boxing Behemoth was beneath you,” Craig said. “Now can we call it a rest for today? Please?”
“You’re begging for mercy?” Incubus gasped.
“I kinda am, yeah,” Craig admitted. “Not out of fear mind you, just fatigue. It’s been a long day, and I’m tired as all get go. Can we save the next romp for another day? I’ll even say please.”
“Oooooo!” Incubus shouted, jumping up and down with rage. “I hate you, Thundrax!”
Craig Carson shook his head, examined the surroundings – not too much damage, for a change -- and looked down on his foe. He was the most powerful of his enemies - virtually omnipotent in fact - and certainly the most annoying. Though Incubus always carried the fight against Craig via intermediaries, or with odd transformations. For his part, Craig had never thrown a punch at the guy.
“Fine,” the hero said. “We’re not best buds. But surely you can wait a few days before the next challenge? Think up a really good one for next time.”
“I could destroy the earth!” Incubus exclaimed.
“Oh don’t do that again. That’s just tacky.” Craig moaned. "You're not a common thug, you know."
The imp stewed in the face of defiance, crept close to Craig, and poked at his chest with an index finger.
“You laughing at me? You think this is some sorta game?"
"Is it?" Craig asked, throwing the question back in the imp's face.
"This ain’t over, bub.” Incubus said. Craig burst out into a chorus of "We've Only Just Begun". "Jerk," the imp spat. Humiliated, Incubus retreated back to his thinking dimension in a puff of smoke. Craig breathed a sigh of relief. He, too, returned to his daily routine, while Incubus decided he needed to spy on his enemy. So he began to watch Craig.
Six hours later, after the third droning business meeting, Incubus was ready to throw things. He turned off his Cosmic Camera in disgust. “That guy must have known I was watching. Why else would he lead such a boring life? I’ll have to go to other means to find out everything I need to know to defeat this chump. I know – comics books! They ain’t boring, and they’ll tell me everything! Everything’s always right in comic books!”
And so, the diminutive cosmic villain headed for the closest local comic book shop. Ignoring a nerd who was dressed in a god-awful imitation of Defender and was making the lamest anti-geek parody jokes imaginable, Incubus looked for the Thundrax comics. He found a gold leaf anniversary issue with Thundrax vs. Thundrax on the cover. A lightbulb went off over his head, literally.
“I know!” Incubus exclaimed. “I’ll put Thundrax up against a more powerful version of himself! He’ll never be able to win that fight!” He turned to the shopkeeper. “Yo! Nerd boy! Get your head out of your mom’s basement and answer some questions.”
“What!” the neckbeard answered, annoyed.
“What comic has the most powerful version of Thundrax?”
“Pretty sure that’s gotta be Anime Thundrax. The real Thundrax can only lift a few hundred tons, but anime Thundrax pushed the earth out of the way of Dr. Ultimate Destructor’s cosmic nova matter train, then pushed the train into a black hole. And then there was Dr. Make War, Not Love’s planet cruncher, which had to weigh…”
“That’s perfect!” Incubus declared. “I’ll take the entire collection!”
“We don’t have all the issues,” the comic store owner protested, only to find a stack of the requested manga next to him. They were marked “free to Incubus”. The owner shrugged, decided that incurring the wrath of comic devils was not in his job description, and stuffed them all in a big paper bag adorned with a picture of Ironclad.
“Yuck!” Incubus said. “What an uggo. Why couldn’t it have been Sapphire?”
“Ran out,” the clerk said, stuffing the bag. “It was either him or Kinetik. And no one chooses Kinetik.”
“Fine!” And Incubus chuckled to himself. “The big lug won’t know what hit him. This time there’s no escape.”
And so, Incubus read the entire collection. Five times. “Who would have known that Thundrax came from the Planet Thundraxia!” he told himself as he read his origin yet again. “The noive of that guy! He ain’t even human! Oh well, that’s gotta beat coming from Vancouver!”
With that, he reached his hand into the page and seized hold of the hero as he was doing his daily routine of flexing.
“Hey!” the Thundraxian shouted. “Exercise is the route that takes us closest to human perfection, our attempt to approach the divine. When you interrupt that, you interrupt my search for the divine, and the thing that makes human beings greater than our mortal selves.”
“Huh?” Incubus wondered.
“Though it may tax me beyond limit, still I will tap into the infinite power of the human spirit and become greater than I’ve ever been. For the indignity of interrupting my daily prayer, you shall receive the ultimate punishment. Canadian Rocky Avalanche pun--!!”
“Wait!” Incubus shouted, throwing up his hands. “I called you here for help!”
The Thundraxian sighed, in the most manly way possible, and continued to drone. He placed his huge hand on Incubus’s shoulder. “Oh, my friend!” he exclaimed. “If only you learned to help yourself and embrace the ways of peace and beauty, what a better world this would be! For what greater cause is there than this? And what more honorable cause is there to fight for than peace! This is why I hone my body into the ultimate weapon, to aid with all my unmatched might to bring beauty, truth and justice into a world that others would make ugly!”
“Jeez,” Incubus muttered. “Maybe I shoulda summoned silver age Thundrax instead.” He turned to the hero, still soliloquizing as he posed, the aura of muscle and truth flaring about his body. “Look pal, there’s an evil Thundrax running around here, and only you can stop him."
“Oh?” the Thundraxian said, removing his hand to scratch his chin. His eyes widened to an impossible width. Even Incubus found it disconcerting. “What proof do you have of this?” the Thundraxian said.. “Because it is the way of evil to deceive men’s minds, and trick the champions of truth and brotherhood so they wage heinous wars against each other, in which only the innocent suffer! How wrongly have evil-doers attempted to turn my matchless might into a weapon against good, not realizing that the ultimate superhuman victory move is… love!”
As discretely as possible, Incubus turned around, pulled out a vomit bag and emptied the contents of his stomach in a long unending stream. “Uh, he paints his toenails?” he finally said.
“The bastard!” Manga Thundrax said. Incubus turned to the side and chortled. He had the chump. Composing himself, he turned to the anime bruiser.
“And he’s defaming the good name of Thundrax. Why he’s claiming he’s not even from Thundraxia!” Incubus declared.
“Then he must be an imposter, and must be dealt with!” The Thundraxian roared. So much for his talk of peace and love. Or pretty much any part of his previous soliloquy.
“You better follow me,” Incubus said, still chortling. Oh, this was going to be sooooo good!
**********
Craig Carson tried to relax in his hot tub, struggling to enjoy the early autumn day in Millennium City. He was, despite the very welcome diversion that Incubus had provided, in a melancholy mood, and the aloneness of the world acerbated the feeling. He had lost people, lost friends in the worst way possible, and felt a bit of a wall rise between himself and the people who still remained. He wanted to be alone, but he knew that was the worst thing he could do. On such days, the actions of a cosmic imp, comically overreaching in vengeance, were far better than quietly brooding alone with his thoughts. His thoughts were crueler.
Incubus sometimes put him through Hell. But it was a better Hell than the one he was currently living in.
And suddenly, there was a poof, and Incubus appeared next to… Thundrax?!
The new Thundrax’s eyes quite literally bulged out of their sockets, and strange lines and an exclamation point appeared above his head. Craig's ( that is to say, the original’s) mouth dropped, though not in a comically anime exaggeration.
“I finally found someone who can beat you!” Incubus announced. He grabbed Craig by the ankle and yanked him out of the water to display his foot. “See! Painted toenails!”
“Incubus, would you mind not dunking me in my own home!” Craig snapped. He looked up at the new Thundrax, who was scowling at him. “So what dimension did you pluck this guy from?”
“Would you mind explaining your painted toenails?” the Thundraxian said.
“It was a college prank from Ravenspeaker in the late 80s,” Thundrax explained. ”I got drunk at a kegger, and I made a homophobic slur at some guy in a pink tank top. It wasn’t my proudest moment – I was a dumb kid – but Billy decided to teach me a lesson.”
“By painting your toenails?” the Thundraxian asked skeptically.
“We were dumb!” Craig shrugged. “Really dumb! But I learned a lesson that I needed to learn. Now, assuming you’re a magical duplicate, clone, or dimensional doppleganger, you’re also me. So feel free to change into your swimsuit and join me in the tub, and we’ll talk through whatever issue you have with me. Unless you’re really jonesing for a fight, which is pretty much par for the course for the week I’ve had, beating myself up literally for a change.”
“Oh, if only you would embrace the ways of peace and kindness, and forsook the path of violence for violence’s sake, what a better world this would be!” the Thundraxian lamented. “Oh this is madness, yet there is method behind it. Evil method! Would that I was not fated to pit my matchless strength against such unworthy foes!”
“Hey! Who are you calling “unworthy”?” Craig asked. “Inky, where the hell did you dig this guy up?”
“He’s anime Thundrax!” Incubus announced. Craig facepalmed. Then he looked up at the Thundraxian, and he double face palmed.
“Of course,” Craig sighed. “Who else could it be?” He had read the man’s adventures in the manga Max had given him years earlier. They were ludicrous, bordering on the insane. The planet Thundraxia? The thundering moose magnet? Restoring his lost powers by eating timbits? Taking the thunder train from earth to the thunder asteroid? And those villains! Crazy Love… Brutality Beaver…. Maniacal Mind and Manic Mind… Hell, Dr. Destructor, a thinly disguised Albert Zerstoiten clone with a penchant for creating monsters of madness, was the most normal of the lot!
“This guy moves whole planets!” Incubus shouted gleefully. “There ain’t no way you’re going to take this Grade-A specimen of muscle and storm!”
Craig turned and examined his doppleganger,who was grinning like a sheepdog.
“Tell you what,” Craig said. “Why don't we have ourselves a little competition? Instead of the usual lame-**** fight scene, let's compete against each other in a little decathlon of superheroics instead. Ten events, and whoever scores the most points gets to keep the name Thundrax. We each choose five events, Kivioq scrambles them and announces them at random. You game?”
“I never refuse a challenge. For it is only by challenging ourselves, our cunning minds, our matchless strength, our endless capacity for compassion that we…”
“Great!” Craig said, interrupting his soliloquy. “So it’s Thundrax vs. Thundrax! May the best vessel of the Living Thunder win!”
“This is going to be sooo good,” Incubus chortled. “I’ve really got this bum this time!”
/
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“You’re history, you bum!” Incubus said. “I’ve got you by the short hairs this time, Carson!”
“The first event is flexing.” Kivioq announced. “Gentlemen, lose your shirts!”
“This is pretty ridiculous,” Craig said, removing his shirt and going into a double bicep flex. “After all, we have the same height and physique. This has gotta be a draw…” and then Craig’s jaw dropped as muscle lines exuded behind the Thundraxian, and he glowed with an anime muscle glow. Lightning bolts flashed around the flexing behemoth.
“Ultra-muscle thunderstorm!” the Thundraxian shouted, in a voice like He-Man on the old cartoons, but much much manlier. And he grew two feet and very, very, massive. His pecs and biceps swelled, making Craig look like the proverbial 98-pound weakling by comparison. If there had been any sand on his property, it would have been kicked in Craig’s face. And suddenly bikini-clad women appeared at the swole brute’s feet, kneeling and worshipping him.
”Oh, for pity’s sake.” Craig moaned.
“Round one to the Thundraxian!” Incubus said, and he stuck out his tongue at the annoyed Craig.
“And the second event…” Kivioq announced. “Junior auxiliary sidekicks!”
“Huh?” Craig asked. “But I don’t have….”
Almost immediately the Thundraxian popped up a gizmo on his wrist and bellowed into a communicator. “Junior Thunder Corps assemble!"
Suddenly a portal opened in the field, and out stepped five masked kids in very odd uniforms, emblazoned with lightning bolts. “Reporting for duty, sir!” they proclaimed with one voice.
“Junior Thunder Cadet Thunderbird, report!” one shouted.
“Junior Thunder Cadet Thunderblade, report!” shouted the second.
“Junior Thunder Cadet Thunderbolt, report!” shouted the third.
“Junior Thunder Cadet Thunderhammer, report!” shouted the fourth.
“Junior Thunder Cadet Thunderstorm, report!” shouted the fifth.
“Together we are the Lightning and the Storm!” they shouted together, making some odd motions like a martial arts kata. “Junior Thunderforce team, go!”
“Who forms the head?” Craig wondered aloud.
“Well done, pupils!” the Thundraxian shouted, and he dismissed the teens back to their home dimension. He turned to Craig, smirking. Do I really have that smug expression, he wondered.
“Your turn,” the extra-dimensional challenger said.
“Kivioq, put me through to the Progeny,” Craig said, calling the Protectors' teenage team, whjo were under the tutelage of Razira and Captain Adamant . He heard a click as a connection was made. There was what sounded like party music in the background. Thump. Thump. Thump.
“Hello, Lash speaking,” he heard Lash’s voice say. “Who is this?”
“This is Thundrax.” Craig said.
“Oooo! Oooo! How are you doing, Mr. Carson?” he heard Terrific Tiger’s voice in the background, followed by a shushing sound.
“How can the Progeny help you, Mr. Carson?” Lash asked.
“Well, I kinda need you to make an appearance at my penthouse. It’s a little competition….”
“Is it a life and death situation?” Lash asked.
“Lash!” Tiger objected, and he was shushed again.
“I am not interrupting the last party of the summer just for this jerk. He never spends any time with us… why should we do him a solid?” she spat at her teammate in a low, hushed tone, then raised her voice to speak to Craig. “Well, sir?”
Craig sighed. “I guess it’s not really important,” he said. “You just have a good time, okay kids?”
The line was disconnected without even a goodbye. Craig lowered his head in defeat. The worst part about it was that she was absolutely right, Craig never did spend time with the kids. The Thundraxian again performed his victory flex, complete with his muscle halo. Craig's jaw dropped. He was clearly in the presence of a flexing master. If he could be as flexible in sex as he was in showing off his muscles... no Craig, don't go there, he thought.
“Round two to me!” the living embodiment of flexing and more flexing shouted.
“Yay!” Incubus cheered. “Ha ha, you jerk!” Craig fumed, and muttered obscenities under his breath.
“Third event: Man’s best friend!”
Craig nodded, and they went to a section of the ranch where Craig’s German Shepherd Hobo was playing in the field, or would have been if he hadn’t been busy sniffing for rabbits. He looked up at the two Craigs and was indeed bewildered. Two masters? Does this mean twice as much food?
“Here boy! Here boy!” Craig called out. Hobo turned his head, looking at his master. This one was in the bag.
“Uh, come here, dog,” the Thundraxian stammered. He was not at all good with animals. But then again, when a huge juicy porterhouse steak suddenly appears in your hand – courtesy of a butcher named Incubus – you don’t need to be very good. Hobo turned and bounded at the other Carson as if he were Ryan O’Neal in Love Story.
“Betrayed by my own dog!” Craig spat bitterly as Hobo, in the highest of the high heavens – “Dog with a steak” heaven – rapturously savored his prize.
“Ha! Ha! Ha!” Incubus guffawed once again, merrily. “The score is My Boy 3, Loser zippo!
“No more interference, or the bet’s off.” Craig snapped.
“But I’m having so much fun cheating!” Incubus protested. Craig stood his ground, scowling, interrupted by the shirtless Thundaxian yet again flexing. Lightning appeared behind him, making a dramatic silhouette.
“I guess even an animal knows the genuine article,” the Thundraxian said, once again flexing his plump muscles. “For it is the simple creatures of this world that most relish the brutal yet refreshing honesty that an honorable soul brings to life, sensing in their innate being the honor that is in the heart of champions, honor that keeps us pressing onward in the bleakest…”
“Shuuut uuup!” Craig snapped intensely. “Okay Kivioq, what’s the next event?”
“Feats of strength.” The AI announced.
The pair relocated to the ranch’s gymnasium, where Craig’s cosmic weights were currently being stored. He had obtained them from a cosmic gym long ago. While most of them had been dissected in the name of science, a few of them had been left intact for Craig to use in training. He could alter the gravity field around the weights so they effectively weighed thousands of toons, more than his capacity to lift. Craig, still shirtless and in full vascular splendor, started near his limit, just over 500 tons.
“Your turn,” he huffed, slapping the Thundraxian on the back. The other Craig smiled and set himself into position.
“Atomic Thunder Strength!” he shouted. " Maximum Muscle!” And the Thundraxian pressed well over ten thousand tons overhead, crying: “Supreme Thunder Strength Omega!”
"What the Hell--" Craig stammered, dismayed and yet a little bit impressed.
“Not bad!” the Thundraxian smiled, and he sniffed the air. “Ah, the pungent smell of manly sweat!Truly the perfect tonic. Bracing, is it not, worthy but overmatched opponent?”
"Stupid overpowered over the top manga..." Craig muttered to himself.
Incubus again roared with laughter. “Hey Craig-o, how about changing your name to Captain Loser? Or Thunder Failure?”
Craig was in the blackest of black moods. “Next event.” Craig growled, ignoring the imp.
“Thunder Control.” Kivioq announced.
The result was the same. Craig had just begun exploring uses for his thunder powers in the last three years, whereas the Thundraxian had “Glorious Thunder Gamma” and “Stormwatch Hyperstorm” anime modes. Surrounded by storm and fury, the dimensional storm star lit up the region from Millennium all the way to Toronto got treated to one of the most spectacular lightning displays it had ever seen, signing "the Real Thundrax" with his last bolts as the storm ebbed.
“5-0.” The Thundraxian chortled, high-fiving Incubus and flexing. “It’s a good effort, Mr. Painty Toes,” he told Craig patronizingly. “But when it comes to matchless might, my heart and my muscles have no rivals across the dimensions. That is the way of peace, and all good...”
“Let’s just finish this.” Craig sighed.
"One more event," Incubus rubbed his hands gleefully. "One more, and no more Thundrax, Carson!"
"We'll see," Craig snapped back at the imp.
“Next event: wrestling!” Kivioq announced.
“Oh great!” the flexing Behemoth gave it an extra flex. “MY event.”
“Not without a fight, Blundrax.” Craig smirked, using one of his old villains’ favorite put downs.
“Bah!” Incubus said.
They moved the competition to the big ring at Carl’s. The Thundraxian donned a costume that resembled more like a posing pouch or a jock strap than actual tights. Craig simply shrugged.
“Destroy him, Thundraxian!” Inky shouted. He pulled out a folding steel chair and handed it to the confused Thundraxian. He set it down and invited Incubus to sit down. The imp facepalmed.
"Guess the big dork ain't seen real wrestling." Incubus muttered.
The two men locked up, the Thundraxian’s supreme confidence matched only by Craig’s supreme determination. The ring thundered as they tossed each other around like ragdolls, Atomic Thunder Driver! Jet Turbo Rocket Spin! Manitoba Grizzly Bear Chinlock! Paladin Superplex from the top rope! Moss Handled Three Handed Family Gradunzle! The Thundraxian was winded by the third hour. He was not used to wrestling such a skilled opponent – he easily outclassed Craig in strength, but not in focus, skill, or endurance. By the fourth hour he was badly sucking wind – and Craig had him. Spitefully, after five defeats and a dog betrayal (no more snacks for you this week, Hobo!), Craig drew out the punishment. Moose stampede lariat! Tasmanian Torture Rack! Tokyo Monster Neckbreaker! Spider-King backbreaker! Indomitable Armbar!
“You give up?” Craig asked, finally putting him in a BC dogwood legbuster cloverleaf.
The Thundraxian screamed and cried a river of anime tears.
"I said, do you wanna give up?" Craig repeated.
“Are you kidding?” the Thundraxian replied between sobs. “This is the most fun I’ve had in years! What a match!!” And then he started bawling again. Craig almost laughed. His opponent meant it too! After all, he was still Craig Carson at the core of his anime being, and loved a good fight. So Craig continued to give the big guy the time of his life, torturing him for another twenty minutes, grinning now that it was his turn to beat up Incubus’s champion. The cosmic imp was hysterical, openly sobbing. “My monster! My monster!” he shouted.
Craig finally set him on his back, rested a pinky finger on the Thundraxian’s massive pecs, and pinned him for the three count. “Guess this is my comeback,” the hero said. “Next competition?”
"Uh, wrestling again." Kivioq said. "I guess you both picked it!"
"Not again!" Incubus moaned.
"Oh well," Craig said, and he grabbed the Thundraxian and tortured him for two more hours before ending his screaming and crying by pinning him again. The challenger returned to his dressing room, coming out in a full body cast. "Guess I'm on a roll." Craig said.
"Oh no you don't," Incubus said, and hes handed the Thundraxian a vial labelled "super thunder tonic". "Not against the rules," Incubus snorted as the other Craig flexed out of his bandages. "Not on the list of banned substances." The real Craig shot the imp a dirty look that could've slain Grond on the spot. "He still needs just one more victory, loser," the imp chortled.
“Event Seven: Charity work,” Kivioq said.
“Who thought up that stupid category?!” Incubus complained. Craig grinned.
The two men gathered to have a contest to do good deeds. Craig picked up his phone and made a call. Meanwhile, the Thundraxian flew outside and came back with a kitten in his arms. “Rescued this cat from a tree,” he said, holding up a very annoyed black Persian shorthair. Craig scratched it on its head. “What did you do?” the Thundraxian asked.
“Donated a hundred million to the Millennium children’s fund.” Craig answered.
“Winner: Thundrax…” Kivioq said. The Thundraxian lowered his head in defeat. Craig slung a big arm around his doppelganger’s shoulders.
“Actually, Kivioq.” He said. “That one was a draw. No act of kindness, no matter how small, should make any man a loser.” He chuckled. “Especially helping out such a frisky little darling kitty. You’re a winner in my book, Craig. Not to mention a heckuva wrestler.”
“Aw…” the Thundraxian said, blushing. And when anime characters blush, they [i]really[/i] blush.
“But Craig, if that competition’s a draw, it’s mathematically Impossible for you to win the contest.” Kivioq said.
“Then I guess the big guy here is Thundrax.” Craig shrugged. “Your work’s done here, pink toes,” he told the man. “Now go home and be the best Thundrax you can be!”
“Golly,” the Thundraxian said. “I guess the lesson we can learn today is that, no matter the color of your toenails, men of peace and brotherhood can unite to overcome the forces of darkness! Men of might and good intention can overcome even the wickedness of this cruel world gone mad…”
“Shuddup, you bum!” Incubus said, and he shoved the Thundraxian through the suddenly reopened portal, still soliloquizing.
“Bye!” Craig said. “Thanks for everything Thundrax!”
“You got bigger fish to fry.” Incubus said. “You have to pick a new name now that you can’t be Thundrax anymore. Now what’s it going to be, Craig-o? I suggest Loser McChumpStain.”
“Nope. I’m still Thundrax!”
“What!” Incubus shouted. “You gave your word! We had a deal!”
“The deal was the winner kept the name. We said nothing about the loser losing the name.”
“But—but.”
“Never assume. Inky.” Craig said. “Because you make an **** of you and me!”
“Why you smug bastard!” Incubus roared, so angry he was unable to think of anything horrible to turn him into. “You got anything else to say, Carson?”
“Yeah, actually the most important thing of all.” Craig replied.
“Oh yeah? What’s that?” Incubus snapped.
“Thank you.” Thundrax said. Incubus’s jaw dropped. “I’ve had one of the worst weeks of my life,” Craig explained. “I lost a very old friend in the worst possible way imaginable.” He shook his head, remembering how the elder worms had warped the man who set him on the path of justice long ago. He could perpetuate his legacy, but not with self-pity, but by being kind in his place. He set a hand on the ump's shoulder. “All this silliness was the best distraction I could hope for. I tend to be melancholy, giving into grief very easily. You kept me from wallowing in pain and suffering. And if I'm to learn anything from "Manga Thundrax", it's not to take myself so damn seriously. The guy was a riot. I owe you a lot for that, Inky.”
“I helped you?” Incubus asked.
"You sure did." Craig said.
"Golly," Incubus said, shocked. He should be mad at his archenemy, but suddenly all that anger had evaporated. No one had mood swings like Incubus."
"You know, you're a pretty good friend, all things considered."
“Uh, gee Thundrax, no problem, I guess…”
“Now if you could head back to your home dimension, I probably should be alone. Figuring my next move, getting back in the fight. But you and I aren't finished. Think of something special for the next time we have one of our romps.”
“Uh, sure,” Incubus said, and he vanished.
Craig Carson sat alone in his apartment, listening to the quiet, struggling to find peace. He’d have to rejoin the Protectors soon of course. His battle had not ended. But a few moments of peace and solitude at the right moment, that was something that made life worth living.
And Craig couldn't help himself. He flexed into a mirror, a double bicep pose, then burst into laughter.