Superhero Adventures, UK Style

LockerVLOGS YouTube channel: latest video entitled “Failure Auto-Tune Remix!”

<<YouTube video begins to play. The usual introduction animation ran with scrolling sponsor logos and faded highlight footage playing over a loud and energetic dubstep beat. The shot zooms out to show in a large, bold font, “LockerVLOGS”.>>

There was a moment’s pause and then the logo faded into a solid black display instead of the now usual green screen. There was no sign of Locker, though his usual catchy drumming track theme tune played. Then that music sync’d into an auto-tune remix set to the same melody as “Sweet Brown – Ain’t Nobody Got Time For That”, as the screen featured several quick cut clips of Locker saying exasperated phrases such as “Awh, Come-on!”,  “No way!”, “(this came with an FX of infuriated noises)”, “God-damn it.”, “You can’t be serious?”, “Surely that’s Racist!” (a note on screen suggested this latter comment was in response to Dalton’s Defenders stated policy of not employing non-Metas as members of their teams), and ended with the overlay of several FX sound effects of loud slaps overlaying a quick POV clip of a helpless Locker being smacked by Death Metal. The shot was immediately cut short, before repeating another couple of times.)

The song ended and again faded to black before suddenly and disconcertingly, Locker abruptly appeared in front of the usual green screen.

“Why do we fall?” he frowned, and gestured gravely. “So we can learn to pick ourselves up again.” he quoted.

“I think that’s right, anyway. I can’t remember the film exactly!” he chuckled. “So, Lockerinos, it’s been a rough couple of weeks. Now, I’m in need of a little pick-me-up; so write in the comments below some achievement you’d done or something you’re proud of to win this week’s giveaway, the best contribution will win this week’s mystery box of goodies! Oh, and RuffRider, you’re our giveaway winner for last week.”

So, first it’s no secret and those of you in-the-know will already know, I’ve been plain flat-out rejected by the HCP-authorised Meta teams London Watch and Premier Response (or should that be Première Réponse?)” He faked a bad French accent for that last bit. “Still as one door closes, another door opens I always say and if there isn’t a second door?”

<<Sudden cut clip of Locker repeatedly punching a hole through a brick wall as an FX of incoming small-arms fire played in sync.>>

“You make one!” he chuckled, but there was an animated sadness in his eyes edited in. “I aced the tests, so worry not law-abiders. I could take on almost anyone in the ring. But they straight up said that I ‘couldn’t be a true hero’ because of ‘conflicting motivations’.”

There was an awkward pause.

“Don’t folks know a modern workforce is positively influenced by diversity? Pah. Who needs’ ‘em anyway? Their loss. I still got my licence. Rising stars out there let this be an early lesson for you, this stuff ain’t easy and it can be difficult to get your foot in the door. It’s easy to give up when the man throws barriers at you, but you can’t let them douse your fire, baby!”

Locker held up a couple of sealed envelopes. “Still, there’s more than two teams out there. I’m sending these out right now. Locker may be showing up in a town near you, viewer!” he pointed Uncle Sam style. A collage of cityscapes including Wessex, Cardiff and Edinburgh spiralled across the screen as he tossed the letters behind him nonchalantly.

“Now for the other elephant in the room -” a still image of Death Metal appeared in the top corner of the screen, which expanded to fill the green screen behind him. He pointed to the picture and sighed slowly. “Thank you all for the emoji flowers and nice messages, but the reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated as you can see. I was in A&E for an hour, tops just for a routine check-up – that’s all! I swear!” he coughed embarrassingly.

“I was unhurt, so was she and she’s still at-large. If you see her – report it immediately. But it was a real classic nullifier takedown.” he chuckled and grinned, “I won’t tell you the details, but you can be sure I was real pissed off, that’s for sure. Nobody’s fault but mine. I took her on because I was angry and had something to prove, but lesson learned – don’t take on the Paper to your Rock, solo.” he demonstrated the result using hand gestures of the simple playground game before turning the gesture into a Bao Quan / fist wrap martial arts bow to camera.

“Well, that’s all we have time for this week folks. Not the best news, but that’s how you know it’s all for real. “He looked at a non-existent watch. “Oh, look at the time! It’s time to suit-it-and-boot-it! See you on the streets fans and foes. Laters!”

<<Instead of his usual live product endorsements, Locker went to a pre-recorded segment obviously taken from a previous Vlog. The usual credits roll and the outro music played until the end of the video.>>

Annie checked the usual security checks before bundling the file to the team inboxes. She couldn’t help wondering just how bad his encounter with Chelsea, AKA Death Metal had been?

A quick Google search by Frankie revealed an independent witness video caught on someone’s mobile and several various reports of the encounter, on Castle Street of all places for goodness sake. An unarmoured Death Metal, seemingly acting peacefully and lawful at that moment, had been walking casually on their way to somewhere when Locker had launched an unprovoked surprise attack on her from above. Death Metal reacted instantly, holding him aloft mid-air with her magnetic powers for a short time. She then grinned and squinted before letting Locker down gently, his exo-skeleton slumping to the ground, inoperable. He looked up at her as she slapped him hard across his face. “Rude!” she muttered as she followed it with a kiss on the cheek leaving a bright red lipstick mark on his face before she walked away leaving Locker swearing, his suit  seemingly paralysed, on the ground.>>

Annie smiled as she zoomed in and enhanced the quality of the mobile recording. That made more sense. It seems in reality, Death Metal had detected and immediately removed Locker’s wired jack connection to the exoskeleton and his suit’s control system. The removal was harmless, just depowering his suit. She then ‘tightened’ the armour and helmet slightly while it was in the air, not enough to seriously crush him but it must have been painful and of course, it left him trapped inside his armour and unable to get up until the first responders arrived. She suspected that the damage to the equipment was minimal though she bet his pride had been badly affected.

Annie smiled, “Note to self; make a cryptic comment on his channel recommending he changed his control connections to fibre optics with solid gold connectors.” She wasn’t sure what his body armour was composed of but being commercial it was likely the clasps at least were metal. He needs to either change them to non-metallic ceramic clips or upgrade the whole suit.

Despite this, she was starting to like this kid.

A ping sounded and she picked up one of several mobiles sitting on her workbench. Yes! The sale had gone through and she was the proud owner. She then checked her purchases on Ebay and saw that the brass plaque was due to arrive in a few days. She did wonder how Akira would respond to the news but… It had been his choice after all.

She looked at the application letter that had arrived via the dead drop that morning. It would have to wait, the new team was just settling down, the last thing they needed just now was another new team member added to the mix.

Shame really, with the right encouragement this kid had potential.