Mr. Epitome Super Villain Special Part Two


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killer shrike
Fri Jul 11, 2003 at 09:46:10 pm EST
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Mr. Epitome Super Villain Special Part Two

“Who is….Musk Ox”

He had lost more than just track of time. Bovus 18, the Musk Ox, had forgotten what time was. His higher order thinking skills had all but shut down, his brain on auto-pilot. There was only one simple command Musk Ox willed his massive form to do.
Dig.
Dig through the solid rock that entombed him. Dig until he broke free and his body could get the oxygen it needed to restore its more complicated brain functions. Until then he worked, more of a great shaggy golem than a man, haunted occasionally by fleeting memories to remind Musk Ox of how he fell into his current predicament.
*****
There was the day he did the unthinkable and left the Peaceable Kingdom. No citizen had ever dared confront the Low Evolutionary before Bovus 18. Musk Ox, however, made his intentions clear.
“I hate this place. It’s boring.”
The Evolutionary’s armored face could not reveal any emotion, though his tone did. He lectured the giant with the voice of a tired father, “That is because you have chosen the wrong path, Bovus. You have ignored all that is good in the society we’ve built here.”
“Whose fault is that? You bred me to be a warrior, but there’s nothing to fight.”
“I created a thinking being, not just a warrior. The other members of the Kingdom’s Guard have found happiness in more aesthetic pursuits. Tamari 7 has become quite the sculptress,” the Low Evolutionary gestured at the black marble statues that flanked his throne. They were of the master geneticist himself, one holding a microscope, the other a book.
Musk Ox looked one of the figures over casually. Then he drove his cloven foot straight through its mid-section. The sculpture shattered to the ground.
“This is what I think of the Terrible Tamarin’s art,” Bovus picked up the largest fragment of the statue’s head and ground it to powder between his callused hands, “And you.”
Pachyria 3, the Low Evolutionary’s major domo, rushed into the chamber. He pulled a curved blade from his robes and charged to defend his liege.
Musk Ox released his pheromones. The throne room filled with a foul stench, forcing the elephant-man to his knees. Bovus 18 strode over to rip out Pachyria’s right tusk and disembowel him with it.
The Low Evolutionary had seen enough. He concentrated, and Musk Ox’s heart stopped beating. Then he used his mastery over his creations’ genetic material to increase the strength of Pachyria’s immune system a thousand-fold. Soon the anthropomorphic elephant was on his feet, trumpeting with rage.
“Leave us, old friend. Bovus can not harm me.”
After Pachyria departed the Evolutionary restarted Musk Ox’s circulatory system. The bull/human hybrid coughed and struggled to stand.
“It would be child’s play to use my power and compel you to stay, Bovus 18. Or simply reduce you to your base amino acids. However, that is not my way. I believe in free will, and the opportunity for redemption.”
“What does that mean?” Musk Ox wiped a thick, ropy strand of saliva from his mouth.
The Low Evolutionary clasped his hands behind his back, “It means I will let you go. If you wish to travel to the world of the Homo sapiens you may,” he paused thoughtfully, then asked, “You will attempt to challenge their superbeings?”
Bovus nodded, a smile creeping across his face.
“I assumed as much when you and others in the Kingdom’s Guard adopted those fanciful aliases. Musk Ox. The Terrible Tamarin. Mocktopus. The humans’ influence on our culture is inescapable. Remember, Bovus, they are powerful and dangerous. It might not be so obvious now, but when you finally meet them, you will see.”
Musk Ox snorted with disdain. The Low Evolutionary ignored him.
“Your memories will have to be altered. No one must be able to learn the location of the Peaceable Kingdom from you.”
“Hey, you can clear my mind of this entire place. There’s been nothing but bad times here.”
“No, I think not. You must be given the chance to return to us if you so desire.”
Pachyria 3 entered at this point, prompted by one of the Low Evolutionary’s telepathic cues.
“Have an escort take…Musk Ox to the Kingdom’s eastern borders. He wishes to make a journey to the human world. We will oblige him.”
“You are a fool, Bovus,” Pachyria 3 sniffed as he piloted the magna-tram to the edge of the hidden city, “The Homo sapiens are going to catch you and lock you up like all other ‘super villains’ who break their laws.”
“Any cage they put me in would be preferable to this one, you fat-assed toady,” Musk Ox replied, using an impenitrium ingot to sharpen his horns to a razor edge.
*****
There came a day when Musk Ox regretted that declaration: his last battle with Mr. Epitome.
Deep in the Himalayas was where the Paragon of Power finally caught up with him. Ox had just left his job as an enforcer for Count Fokker’s crew in Thailand, and was trudging back to his mountain retreat when Epitome came calling.
His first attack was an accurate toss of a boulder the size of a city bus. Musk Ox shrugged it off and faced his enemy.
Mr. Epitome was wearing some kind of reinforced bio-hazard containment suit over his usual costume. Obviously he had been planning this.
“So you finally showed up,” the bull-man shouted over the harsh winds.
“I wasn’t going to fight you in downtown Bangkok, Ox. Too many people could get hurt. And I figured you would eventually get bored, leave the HERPES cell, and head to whatever god-forsaken hole you call home. You made my job a lot easier doing that.”
“Chatty today, aren’t we? Must be nerves,” Musk Ox charged up the hill in an attempt to gore Epitome. The much smaller man easily side-stepped his attack, and kicked the off-balance Ox in between the shoulders, sending him sprawling.
The two had fought three times in the past and each battle ended without a clear victor. Musk Ox was stronger and had a further reach, while Epitome had the advantage of speed. That could be nullified a bit by Ox’s pheromones, a nasty bio-toxin that could kill normal humans and weaken even the Exemplary Man. But the suit took away that part of the mutate’s arsenal.
Even knee deep in snow, Mr. Epitome was able to outmaneuver Musk Ox. He would dance in, buffet the giant with punches, and then retreat out of the way of any counter attack.
“Those little love taps don’t even register, Epitome. Eventually you will have to stop flitting around like Tinkerbell and try to do some real damage. Then I’ll rip that outfit off of you and we’ll finish this once and for all.”
Mr. Epitome slammed the heel of his hand into the Ox’s flat nose repeatedly, “Now who’s trying to talk themselves up?”
Musk Ox lunged again, this time grazing Epitome’s shoulder. The hermetically sealed suit tore. Epitome gagged as the debilitating particles found their way into his lungs and skin.
That distraction was enough to let the Low Evolutionary’s most powerful creation gain the upper hand. He hammered Epitome about the face and chest, demolishing the remains of his costume and knocking him to the hard ground. Then he smashed his hoof down on the back of the winded man’s neck, pinning him.
“Guess I should have told you the boys from HERPES found a way to amp up my funk, huh?” Musk Ox drove his other foot into Mr. Epitome’s kidneys, “Any last words, hero man?”
Epitome pulled something from one of his pouches, “Avalanche,” he said through gritted teeth, activating the detonator that would send half of the mountain down on the soon to be abandoned Musk Ox.
*****

The rock to Musk Ox’s right suddenly gave way, the hard granite transforming to sand as though a switch had been hit. The mutate’s brain barely registered the phenomenon, even when the debris shifted and settled, flooding the tunnel with oxygen.
It took a telepathic command to get his attention.
“Musk Ox, stop. Come down the way I have created for you.”
The thoughts combined with the precious air to stir Ox’s consciousness. He stopped pounding on the earth before him and instead waded through the strange new passage. It stretched a good quarter mile, opening into a much larger tunnel. This one had circulated air and overhead lighting and seemed to continue in both directions forever.
Floating several feet above the floor of the tunnel was a hover platform. Three figures stood upon it.
Two were identical in appearance: tiny, gaunt, and sallow. Their huge eyes were white and vestigial.
The third was human and female. Not much taller than the creatures that cowered behind her, she had long platinum blonde hair tied into twin braids that fell to the small of her back. She wore a heavy parka and an air of unmistakable confidence.
“You’ve been digging parallel to this tunnel for nearly a month, Musk Ox. Good thing we found you.”
The Musk Ox spoke, his voice creaky from disuse, “I’ve been buried for a month?”
“Closer to nine months, actually. And to answer your next several questions: I am the Mind’s Eye, these are Holoids, servants of the Hole Man, and your raging pheromones are not killing us because I am telekinetically keep them at bay.”
Musk Ox grinned, “I must be pretty ripe, huh?”
“Indeed,” the elfin beauty agreed. A second disc, perhaps half the size of the one his rescuers stood on, detached from its bottom and floated down to the hirsute super villain, “My partners and I have an offer for you, Musk Ox. Something that will make you very rich and I suspect very happy.”
Musk Ox eyed the flimsy-looking machine he guessed was supposed to bring him to the woman’s partners, “If your offer involves tearing that shit Epitome’s head off, I am so in.”
Not coincidentally, it did.




Next time: “Who is……Factor X?”


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