The Inevitable Appearance of a Superhero

"hey, danny boy! what's on the menu tonight?" cardigan walked into the pub, hanging his coat up at the door.

"tomato-ricotta tart," blake replied.

"smells good. set me up."

cardigan walked over to join sierra, marian, and a strange man dressed in a long, black leather coat, jeans with light brown leather chaps, a high-necked white-spandex top, and dark sunglasses under a spiky white crewcut. "um, hello."

"gavin, this is dat rhaymes. he does research for us at the paper." marian made the introductions.

"dat has decided to be a superhero," sierra explained with a wink. "but he needs help coming up with a name."

"he needs help all right," blake muttered as he dropped off a generous portion of the tart along with a bass ale. he paused, looking carefully around the pub, before heading back behind the bar.

"uh huh." cardigan sampled the tart, then gave blake a thumb's up across the room. "do you have any special powers?"

"a blowgun," rhaymes explained, holding up a slender, long black tube with a wide silver mouthpiece that extended several inches off either side, curling elegantly back slightly toward the middle.

"a blowgun? how far can you shoot that thing?"

"about 15 feet for accuracy," rhaymes answered.

"um, that's not very far." cardigan stated. "so, you have to find a bad guy doing something wrong, then run up to within 15 feet of him, then bring that thing up to your mouth and blow a dart at him?"

rhaymes look mildly defensive. "the agent is very fast-acting. it disorients them, so i can easily trip them with the hooks here when they try to run away," he explained, indicating the silver ends of the mouthpiece.

"i see. and what if they run toward you instead of away from you? with a knife or a gun?"

"then i can swing it to knock it out of their hand, then hit them on the head to knock them out," rhaymes replied casually. "obviously. also, i can have different darts that can make them sleepy, or sick, or temoporarily paralyze them. the possibilities are endless."

"you could be Blowhard," cardigan offered.

"how about The Huffer?" Mysterious Lurker suggested, waving at blake and holding her hand up with thumb and pinkie extended to indicated she wanted a beer. blake was facing the door and it took a moment for him to see her, which caused him to glower.

"i was thinking The Puffer," marian exclaimed.

"that sounds like a stoner, not a superhero," sierra mused. "how about The Black Darter?"

"hey, i like that!" rhaymes said excitedly. "as you know, the 'darter,' or 'snake bird,' has a long beak that it uses to spear its prey. it's able to go underwater to fish because its feathers aren't waterproof."

"unlike the furr on a corgi," sierra pointed out instructively.

"oh! you should get a waterproof partner called The White Corgi!" marian grinned.

"and what would a waterproof superhero do?" blake asked as he placed a beer in front of the Lurker. "shake liquid acid off himself onto a burgler?"

"grab his pants leg with his teeth to hold him in place long enough to get shot with a dart?" cardigan offered.

"he could fetch the darts that miss and bring them back," said the Lurker.

"maybe he could carry supplies in a little barrel on a collar around his neck like a st. bernard," marian giggled.

"i'm very amused by this," sierra noted, watching rhaymes storm off indignantly and trip over his blowgun.