Ask the Captain Special: Christmas!

Editorial Note: Yes, technically, it’s August, but I was reminded recently of an old story I’d written featuring the Captain, and I thought I should share. There’ll be a proper Christmas column later, I promise.

The Malevolent Med-Student was having an attack of the clevers. He sat hunched over at his desk in his secret lair, writing in abnormally tiny and freakishly neat letters as he jotted down his latest brilliant idea. When he’d finished, he admired his handiwork for one moment, and then yelled for his minion. “Candystriper! I need you!”

She lazed in as she usually did, her face fixed in its usual loopy smile. “Hey, boss?” Candystriper mused dreamily. “How come you’re not a doctor?”

“What?” the Malevolent Med-Student asked.

“Like, most supervillains in the comics are doctors. Dr. Doom, Dr. Horrible, Dr. Light…but you’re not Doctor Malevolent. How come?”

His dark blue-gloved fists clenched as he struggled to control his rising wrath. He could have sworn he had delivered this monologue to her before, but apparently she had missed it. She did that sometimes; Candystriper was not the most mentally-together minion ever. “Because I believe the whole classification of villainy is profoundly unfair! Everyone is always a doctor, or a captain, or occasionally a general. But no one ever spares a thought for the other ranks. No one ever asks why there isn’t a Nurse-Practitioner of Evil, or a Lieutenant of whatever country. No, it’s always the doctors or the captains. Well, that is why I dropped out of my villain-clinicals and struck out on my own! Supervillainy needs less organization and more initiative! We need to be daring and dramatic, to cast aside the rules and do whatever we please! That is the whole point of being evil! Evil doesn’t require doctorates! Evil requires only panache! And, my dear pharmaceutically-challenged minion, I have panache!”

“Like, groovy, fearless leader,” Candystriper said with a giggle. “So what’s today’s evil plan?”

The Malevolent Med-Student smiled fiercely. “I shall inform you on the way. We have to depart now if we hope to make it there on time!”

“Make it to, like,  where, exactly?”

“Why, to the superhero Christmas celebration, of course! Quickly! To the Malpracticycle!”

Moments later a motorcycle in garish red and white roared out of the secret lair and tore away down the road, throwing up dust and gravel in its wake as it sped off towards Edison City.  Candystriper, clinging to the edge of her seat in the Side-Effect Car alongside, couldn’t resist yelling “Wheeeeee!” as they rode. In between her “Wheeeeee”s, the Malevolent Med-Student went through the details of his villainous, villainous plan.

Meanwhile, in a banquet hall in the mansion of the area’s wealthiest superhero, Mr. Superlative, Edison City’s caped and cowled protectors gathered together for their yearly holiday party. They had long since worked out a truce of sorts with the city’s villains not to attack on Christmas Eve; it was an old tradition that every villain, even the hardcore ones like Thunderdomestic or Professor Cthulhu respected. That meant the heroes felt safe attending the party and leaving their kids in the capable hands of Babysitter Girl. (She had considered identifying herself as “Sitter Girl” to avoid the obvious problem raised in The Incredibles of going around wearing a big “BS” on her shirt, but then she decided that she didn’t care what other people thought because she was the best freakin’ babysitter in the whole darn state. She had command of the Elemental Power of the Nap, and the ability to neutralize the powers of every child she was taking care of. What did she care if some people read her initials as a bad word?).

The party itself was going along swimmingly. The Phenomenal Four, Audrey, Natalie, Trina, and Lucy, had formed an acapella group and were regaling the crowd with their version of “The Twelve Days of Christmas”. (Audrey, being a telepath, didn’t sing, so she projected subtitles instead).  Captain Happily Married and Super Soccer Mom were over by the Christmas tree sorting through the Secret Santa gifts. Organizing a Secret Santa exchange for supers can be rather a challenge, especially for telepaths like Audrey or people with X-Ray vision like Radiological Man, but between lead-lined wrapping paper and a strict pledge not to ‘path the presents, they were managing to pull it off somehow.

The good captain glanced over to a sprig of mistletoe hanging in a nearby archway, and noted, not terribly surprised, that Jill Polarity and Mr. Ecosystem had already positioned themselves under it. Captain Happily Married saw Mr. Ecosystem’s hand slip out of his pocket, holding a small squarish red box, and he smiled. “Ah,” he declaimed dramatically, “Christmas is truly the most wonderful time of the year.”

“Right,” Super Soccer Mom agreed distractedly. “God, I wish people would write neater. I can’t tell if this is supposed to go to Gaseous Girl or Screaming Banshee.”

“I hardly think Screaming Banshee would have participated in our Secret Santa gift exchange,” Captain Happily Married said. “Such things are expressions of gratitude and Christmas cheer, not villainy and depredation!”

“You can tone down your monologue-voice, you know,” Super Soccer Mom gently chided him. “And besides, Banshee’s always been a bit on the antihero side anyway. Remember that mess with Charity and the kids?”

“Ah, yes, I had forgotten.  Well, perhaps you should ask Audrey to-” But the Heroic Defender of Matrimony never got the chance to complete his sentence.

Outside the banquet hall, crouching beneath a window, Candystriper was a bit perplexed. She knew vaguely that it was Christmas Eve, and she also knew that villains and minions alike didn’t bother the heroes overmuch on Christmas Eve. It just wasn’t done. Lady Wagnerian’s most recent attack had been early on in the season, and even then it skirted the bounds of propriety. Now the Malevolent Med-Student had asked her to break that long-standing truce. “I just don’t know what to do, Marcie,” she commented to the tiny blue manatee floating in the air above her shoulder. “Something just seems off about this, you know? I think we’re, like, forgetting something.”

“Listen to your heart!” Marcie squeaked. “And always let your navel be your guide!”

“Question.” Candystriper said. “Are you sure you got that last part right? You’re supposed to be my conscience, tiny shining manatee friend.”

“Of course!” Marcie assured her. “I’m totally not a hallucination, I’m your conscience! Now, what guidance does your bellybutton offer in this trying time?”

“Um….” Candystriper paused, earnestly contemplating her navel. “I think…I think it’s saying….I think it’s saying I should go for it! Because I’m a minion, and minions totally break the rules when their villain tells them to!”

Marcie clapped her little blue fins together in excitement. “Exactly! Your navel is on fire!”

“Mi ombligo esta quemando, si!” Candystriper rejoined, using the only Spanish she knew, other than how to locate the bathroom. Then she flexed her medically enhanced muscles and launched herself through the window, landing right next to the Nativity scene near the tree. She snatched a tiny figure from the scene and held it dramatically aloft. “Nobody move,” she yelled, “or Baby Jesus gets it!”

“Holy picture-prints from Currier and Ives!” Captain Happily Married exclaimed. “You’re messing with Baby Jesus! No one messes with Baby Jesus!”

“Well I am!” Candystriper said, waving the figurine around enthusiastically. “And I’ll smash it to bits if anyone does anything uncool!”

Mr. Ecosystem raised his hand; he was not in a good mood, given that Candystriper had just interrupted right before Jill Polarity was about to give her answer to his most important question. “Okay, three things. One: that’s not Baby Jesus, that’s a figurine of Mr. Bean that got put in with the shepherds by mistake. Two: you’re violating the Christmas Eve truce, where, on this one night of the year, you villains agree not to attack us and we agree not to go after you. No one’s broken that truce, until now. Three: one reason why no one’s ever broken it is because we didn’t think anyone would be that stupid. You do realize there’s at least thirty superheroes in this room right now, fully capable of kicking your tail in the time it would take for Mr. Bean to hit the floor?”

Gaseous Girl flamed up. Lightning crackled from Lucy’s fists. Trina went invisible. Natalie lifted up the grand piano and took aim. Clone Phil’s duplicates flashed out to line a whole wall. The Sporkster leveled his mystical weapon, the Sporksaber, its prongs glowing in red wrath. Candystriper chuckled weakly. “Ah, heh, heh…oops? My bad? How about I put lil’ Beanie here back down and go away quietly, and we’ll just forget this ever happened, okay?”

“Oh, no,” Mr. Ecosystem said grimly, “because we all know you’re a minion, and you work for the Malevolent Med-Student, so if you’re here…where is he?”

Audrey had closed her eyes all this time, trying to ‘path into Candystriper’s brain. It wasn’t easy, all pink-elephants and talking bellybuttons and endless replays of “Baby One More Time”. Then, finally, she pushed past a Rockette’s chorus line and arrived at a memory of Candystriper’s ride on the Malpracticycle. Audrey let out a mental gasp. “The Malevolent Med-Student is attempting to kidnap our children!” she ‘pathed to the assembled crowd.

Candystriper had expected to see shock, horror, fury, maybe even tears. What she did not expect was amusement. “Oh no,” Natalie snarked. “Whatever shall we do.”

Even Captain Happily Married, who normally had very little consciousness of irony, had trouble keeping a straight face. “Holy sugar plums,” he said, “our children are…in…danger!” Then he burst out in a peal of mighty laughter that was rapidly echoed by the others, slightly less mightily.

Candystriper looked confused. “Like, this isn’t a problem?”

“Yeah, girl, listen,” Lucy said, unclenching her fists and letting her lightning subside, “after that thing with Charity last year, we got ourselves a better babysitter.”

“Yeah, I know, Babysitter Girl can neutralize the kids’ powers, Mal-Meddie told me this already,” Candystriper said, indignant at not being taking seriously.

“Did he tell you she can also absorb the powers of the kids she’s sittin’ for? All of ’em? At once?”

“…what?”

At that moment there was a flash and the Malevolent Med-Student materialized right above the punch bowl, then promptly crashed into it. This was a good thing, actually, since the punch helped to cool his smoldering bits of hair. He emerged from the wreck of the punch-bowl table to a round of sardonic applause, wavered, tried to start a monologue, then collapsed in a heap. A projection of Babysitter Girl materialized above him. “Sorry about that, you guys,” she said. “Don’t worry; the kids are all fine and went down for their naps a couple minutes ago. They didn’t even wake up when this clown attacked. I’ll let y’all deal with him.” Then she flashed away again.

“Oh, poop,” Candystriper said, just before Trina knocked her unconscious from behind, “I knew I shouldn’t have listened to that manatee!”

Villain and minion were packed off to the police in a twinkling, and the party resumed shortly thereafter. Once again Christmas had been saved. Because, as Tiny Tim would have observed if he were in this story, no one messes with a tiny figurine of Mr. Bean that was put in with the shepherds by accident.

The normal edition of Ask the Captain will resume next week: if you’d like to submit a question to be answered by Captain Happily Married or one of his friends, comment below! To read a story I wrote featuring further adventures of the Captain and Co., go here. For more adventures of the superheroes and regulars in Edison City, subscribe below!