Grantblings

Wednesday Words – Defeat

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Note on this piece:  One of my WIP is a story focused on a group of super villains.  Today, while pondering what to write, I figured I’d write a short story of one of them, The Blinding Skull.  Who knows, this may wind up in the finished thing or just be a fun “extra.”  Enjoy!

Defeat
By Grant Baciocco

No one realizes this, no one ever even thinks about it, but when you’re a superhero and you’re flying at super sonic speeds, it is really hard on your eyes.  Think about it, the wind is whipping against your eyeballs at 786 miles per hour.  That is rough on the eyeballs no matter who you are.  It makes it hard to see where you are going and it dries out the eyes incredibly fast.  Again, no one ever thinks about this kind of stuff, but The Blinding Skull did.

He had been sitting around pondering on how exactly he could make a name for himself in the super villain game by taking out Suprema, the most powerful hero in Daily City, when it had hit him.  He was examining every scrap of paper he could find on Earth’s Mightiest Woman and it was a packing list that he’d procured from the inept doorman at the Tower of Good that gave him his first clue.  The packing list, addressed to Suprema, read simply:

• EyeClear Eye Drops – 2,000 bottles

“What on Earth could she need 2,000 bottles of eye drops for?” He asked himself aloud.  His skull glowing a bit brighter as he thought it out.  “Perhaps that windbag Santa Ana had escaped from prison again.  His hot wind power would certainly dry out one’s eyes.”

A quick search of The Impound’s prisoner manifest revealed that Santa Ana was still locked deep inside from the last time The Mighty Ranch Hand had captured him.  So if that wasn’t the answer why, again, did she need 2,000 bottles of eye drops?  He made a list…

• Allergies? – Suprema has no known allergies.
• Contacts? – Suprema is ‘the perfect human’ bad eyesight would make her less than perfect.
• Dry eyes due to crying? – Suprema is Earth’s Mightiest Woman?  What could she be sad about?  Heartbreak?
• Dry eyes due to ???

He was coming up empty until he looked over her stats on her Wikipedia Page.  It read that Suprema was capable of ‘supersonic flight.’  She uses the drops because her eyes get dried out at the end of every supersonic flight!

His Skull grew incredibly bright now as his synapses began firing at full velocity.  He sensed a possible chink in Suprema’s armor!  Suprema’s only know weakness was a mineral called Red-Barrel.  A gem so rare there were only two known pieces of it in the known world.  Bother were in a lead lined safe in the Tower of Good.  But there was a third.  A third small piece was unknown to the world.  It belonged to The Blinding Skull.  It wasn’t enough to hold up in front of Suprema and make her lose her powers, but it was small enough to be ground down.

“Suprema needs eye drops because of her supersonic flight!  If I ground down this Red-Barrel and slip into into eye drops and Suprema uses them, I’ll have defeated her for good!”  The Blinding Skull cackled with delight and rushed to the elevator to his lab.

The hours ticked by, as did the days, as The Blinding Skull worked.  Grinding, refining, pounding the piece of Red-Barrel into a size small enough to  slip, unnoticed into a bottle of eye drops.  Finally he was ready.  He had an amount a he knew would do irreparable harm to Suprema the moment she placed a single drop into her eye.

He was still as he opened the eye dropper bottle and placed it near the small pile of fine Red-Barrel.  He slowly, carefully, delicately, pick up the small piece of filter paper the Red-Barrel grounds were on.  He slowly, carefully, delicately moved the paper towards the mouth of the bottle careful to not loose a single grain to the wind of movement.

Then, he sneezed.

He thought nothing of his sneeze until his nose was clear and he looked back at the now empty piece of filter paper in his right hand.

Then, he cried.

The Characters of The Blinding Skull, Santa Ana, The Mighty Ranch Hand & Suprema are ©Grant Baciocco/Saturday Morning Media