When evil rears its ugly head, when all hope is lost and doom seems inevitable, into the breach flies Future Girl, defender of the right and protector of the innocent, to save the day and punish the wicked!
None who looked upon her would suspect that mild-mannered paralegal Linda Lester is, in reality, Future Girl! Yes, Future Girl! Who fights crime with the aid of her astounding Future Suit, given to her by a mysterious time traveling fugitive from a dark future ruled by evil. Future Girl! Who knows not how or when she will be called upon to change the course of history and prevent the grim future of the strange visitor's prophecy, but who has solemnly vowed to fight all forms of tyranny and injustice in the hopes that her actions might save the world! Future Girl! Whose astonishing Future Suit, forged of woven Duranium and powered by advanced Gizmotronics beyond the ken of Earth's most brilliant minds, absorbs any attack leveled against its wearer, then returns the blow ten fold upon the attacker!
And now, another exciting episode in the Adventures of Future Girl!
This week: The thrilling conclusion of: The Gauntlet!
As we rejoin our heroine, she has just infiltrated the secret hideout of the nefarious Doctor Malevolent, mysterious crime boss and evil genius, whose face no one has seen and lived to tell the tale! Future Girl has come here to answer a challenge leveled by the insane scientist: successfully overcome his deadly gauntlet, and he will willingly surrender himself to face justice for his many crimes. But if Future Girl should fail, it would mean the end of her and the doom of humanity! Now, let's watch!
Future Girl strode through the round vault door that served as the entrance to Doctor Malevolent's hidden, underground lair. Getting here had not been easy; the first challenge in the mad Doctor's gauntlet had been following a series of increasingly obscure clues laid out at the scenes of the villain's crimes. But Future Girl, having thwarted Malevolent in the past and not being an amateur at the hero business, had managed to both stop the crimes in progress and follow the clues to the demented Doctor's door.
Future Girl surveyed the room she now found herself in. Well lit by fluorescent light, the room was notable for its lack of features. Smooth white walls blended into the ceiling and the floor, and the only apparent exit from the room was the door she had just passed through. A mighty CRASH! sounded behind Future Girl, and she whirled about to discover that the vault door she had entered through had just closed and was now securely locking itself. At the back of her mind, Linda Lester felt the tiniest twinge of fear, a primordial remnant of her old life before becoming Future Girl. But she quickly shoved it aside as she reminded herself of her years of experience and the awesome power of her Future Suit. Whatever Doctor Malevolent had in store for her this time, it was nothing she couldn't overcome.
Future Girl took a moment to check herself and make sure everything was in place for the challenges that lay ahead. Her Future Suit was a brilliant silver and clung to her curves like a second skin. On her chest, the letters "FG" were embroidered in a brilliant blue logo that she spent more time designing than she would care to admit. A matching blue belt encircled her trim tummy. She wore a blue domino mask to protect her identity that, in her opinion, well-complimented her blue eyes and wavy, shoulder-length blonde hair. Blue knee-high boots, blue gloves that came almost to her elbows, and a blue cape that fell to just below the bottom of her perky posterior completed the ensemble. Future Girl looked good, as usual, and all of her suit's systems appeared to be in working order. It was time to get to work.
"Malevolent! I followed all your silly clues, only to find that your next challenge is a doctor's office waiting room? Where's the much-vaunted doom you promised me?"
A hidden loudspeaker crackled to life. "Ahh, Future Girl! I hadn't expected you to follow my string of bread crumbs quite so quickly! Unfortunately, I'm not quite done setting up, if you can believe it. But then, I've always been a bit of a procrastinator. I'm sorry to keep you waiting, but let's see if I can't keep you entertained while I finish preparing my hall of death traps."
As he finished speaking, two doors, previously invisible, slid open to Future Girl's left and right. Out of each door came three black-clad toughs, some holding metal bars, others brandishing brass knuckles. They moved to surround Future Girl, then slowly closed the snare.
"Ah, good, I was hoping for a warm-up!" said Future Girl as she rolled her neck, cracked her knuckles, then assumed a fighting stance on the balls of her feet.
CLANG! The henchman straight in front of Future Girl ran forward, swinging his iron bar sideways so as to hit Future Girl full-force in the gut. The bar flew backwards out of the henchman's hands with equal force as the invisible shield projected by Future Girl's Future Suit repelled the blow, absorbing its kinetic energy.
ZOIT! The Future Suit converted the force of the blow into potential energy, then its advanced Gizmotronic technology went to work amplifying that energy. Future Girl smiled; she was right in her element. The confused henchman looked back across the room at his lost bar, then turned to Future Girl, a wince crossing his face as he anticipated the pain to come. CRACK! Future Girl struck him with a left hook across the jaw, the force of the blow lifting him up off the floor and sending him flying across the room into the wall. He struck head-first and was knocked unconscious. He was lucky; he got to sit out the remainder of the blood bath.
ZOIT! WHAM! ZOIT! BIFF! ZOIT! SOCK!
In short order, the six henchmen lay sprawled out around the room, none of them in any condition to continue the fight.
"Is that all?" shouted Future Girl, "I'm not even sweating!"
"Never mind them, they're not important," the voice of Doctor Malevolent replied. "Now, prepare yourself for the real challenge!"
The two doors the henchmen had entered through had disappeared during the fight. Another door, across from the vault door through which Future Girl had entered, now slid open. Future Girl strode through confidently; that fight had given her just the ego boost she needed and had vanquished any doubts that she could handle whatever the mad Doctor threw at her.
She found herself in a narrow corridor with about five small holes at chest level on each side. Future Girl wondered what they could be, then decided she might as well walk on through and find out. After all, she could count on her Future Suit to protect her from any harm.
WHOOSH! The first set of holes shot out continuous jets of flames as she approached.
"Hope that suit's air conditioned, because you're about to get uncomfortably hot!"
Future Girl just rolled her eyes. She walked straight through the flames as though they weren't there. And, indeed, for her, they weren't! The shields on the Future Suit absorbed the brunt of the heat, leaving Future Girl to feel only a pleasant warmth.
"Ah! You know, I'd have to pay good money for this kind of thing at a spa!"
Her suit's mighty ZOIT was almost an afterthought. She marched through the flame jets and came to the other end of the corridor, only to be faced by a sturdy wooden door. Well, this would be no problem! Future Girl struck a pose for the benefit of Doctor Malevolent, left arm on her hip, right arm pointing at the door. With a mental command, she instructed her Future Suit to unleash the pent-up and multiplied heat from her fingers.
WHOOSH! A mighty fireball shot out and engulfed the door. In half a second the wood had been reduced to kindling.
"Is that as good as you can do?"
"Don't get too confident, Future Girl, the worst is yet to come!"
Future Girl continued on. She found herself in a round, metallic room. A small hole was situated in the middle of the ceiling. A sealed grating sat in the middle of the floor.
"Hope you know how to swim, Loser Girl!"
Future Girl smirked. The Doctor only resorted to lame name-calling when his plans were starting to unravel. She could already guess what was coming. Anticipating a torrent of water from the pipe above, she quickly sent her Future Suit a mental command to enter liquid matter absorption mode.
FWOOSH! A blast of water emerged from the pipe above. Future Girl casually walked to the middle of the room, right under the water. Yet Future Girl remained dry as a bone! The water seemed to disappear just as it was about to touch her, absorbed by the suit.
"It's a shame, a shower might have been nice." Future Girl pouted. "And," she added with a sly wink towards a small hole in the wall where she imagined Doctor Malevolent's security camera to be, "I'm sure you wouldn't have minded watching me take a shower, you creepy perv!"
"Bah! Slattern! Even to suggest such a thing! Well, you may no longer be in danger of drowning, but how will you escape this claustrophobic little prison?"
Future Girl shook her head. Clearly the drain in the floor was designed to remove the water once she had drowned. She mentally switched on her suit's matter duplicators. ZOIT! The duplicators came to life and multiplied the water she was absorbing ten-fold. She wasn't sure where all that water was stored when she used her suit's matter absorption and duplication functions. She remembered the user manual said something about a pocket dimension. All that was beyond her; she was by no means dumb, but science had never been her strong suit, let alone crazy future science.
Future Girl stepped back off the grating, placed the heels of her palms together, fingers outstretched, as though holding a ball, and pointed her palms toward the grate.
WOOOOOSH! A mighty river gushed from her hands, crashing into the grate and blasting it backwards down the drain. Future Girl finished dispensing her absorbed water and turned off her suit's matter absorption, then knelt down to inspect the hole. The pipe was more than wide enough for her to fit into, and seemed to curve forward about six feet down, so the drop shouldn't be too bad. She carefully swung her feet down into the hole, sat on the edge, then pushed herself off as though riding down a slide.
Future Girl allowed herself a smile as she rode down the curves of the pipe. This was like a water park! Forgetting where she was for a second, she let out a brief "Whee!" as she slid through the darkness.
