บท 64: Chapter 64 The Mighty Mole Man!
*Author's Note*
Do not drink milk while reading this chapter. You were warned!
Chapter 64 The Mighty Mole Man!
Prince T'Challa was the first to speak, "Who do you think you are?"
Even as they waited for an answer, an endless stream of Ani-Men entered through the window and walked through the door into the hallway, filling the U.N. and looking for more people to capture.
The pale humanoid said, "I am Crys the Moloid, a subordinate of the ruler of Subterranea."
T'Challa asked, "Subterranea?"
Harry answered, "Subterranea is one of the massive, country sized spaces that exists below the surface of the Earth. Specifically, the one that is closest to the surface. However I was not aware they had a ruler."
The Ancient One told Harry a few things about Subterranea as it was the location of the Fountain of Youth. The Ancient One found it a few hundred years back and though Harry knew of Moloids and Lava Men, he'd never heard of Ani-Men and certainly didn't know about a Ruler. Relatively speaking that meant this Ruler had only come into power recently.
Crys said, "The Ruler came into power and united Subterranea many years ago. You will be taken to him." The Moloid took out a raygun looking weapon, "Come peacefully. Or not." He said with a vicious grin.
The guards and Prince exchanged glances and T'Challa said, "Lead the way."
Another two Moloids had already entered the room on the backs of Ani-Men so there wasn't much of a point in killing them. Outnumbered is outnumbered and the effects of those rayguns were not known.
The sound of screams, shouts, and panicked gunfire echoed through the halls as they were escorted down the stairs. Harry wondered if the Moloids had a map of this place but figured it might be another sense. The halls were filled with Ani-Men and minutes after the assault the occupants of the U.N. were already outnumbered ten to one and that number was rising with each moment.
Harry got out his cell phone and texted Jean and the rest. [I'm being kidnapped by mole people and taken to the underground Kingdom of Subterranea along with all the world's leaders. ~Smiley Face~]
A moment later he got a text back from Jean. [What the fuck?!]
Harry texted back, [I got a Quest which implies if I do nothing, we'll be rescued. The quest was to do as many pranks as possible before we get rescued so don't interfere. I want time for more pranks and you'd rescue us too fast.]
[Fine. We'll watch the news. Stay safe Harry!]
The Prince noticed that Harry was on his phone and that the Moloids apparently didn't care. T'Challa took out his own communicator and after frowning said, "I don't have a signal down here."
Harry turned back and smiled, "Then you don't have a Brilliance Inc. Phone."
T'Challa and his guards noticed that a number of other hostages already had their phones out and were making calls and texting without issues. It was obvious they did have such phones and T'Challa seemed a little aggravated about that.
It wasn't entirely his fault. Most signals are sent parallel to the earth and unless it is specified to do so. Harry figured those phones had some Vibranium and maybe worked with a satellite, but such phones would only work in this hole if the satellite was directly above the hole the U.N. sank into. Otherwise there was no line of sight.
Harry's phones on the other hand sent signals through the Astral Plane and were not impeded by such things.
Moments later Harry got another message, though it was not a text so much as a pop-up on the phone screen. [Are you being Kidnapped? If Yes, click here and your phone will go into Surveillance Mode. The rear camera's feed will be enabled and streamed directly to Authorities to be used to assist the Rescue Effort. While in Surveillance Mode, please keep conversations to a minimum and hold the phone forward or place it in a forward facing pocket.]
Everyone of the hostages with a working Brilliance Phone got the message from what Harry could see. T'Challa had no idea what was going on, so Harry showed the screen to the Prince and his guards before clicking on the confirm icon and placing the phone in his front pocket in a way the camera would stick out.
There was a small child-like face with pointy ears wearing a green cap in the corner of the message which told Harry who the sender was. Link, the AI which was born in Harry's server apparently caught on to the situation and since he was monitoring Harry's text messages and knew Harry was waiting for someone else to rescue him, Link decided to take some initiative for himself and set this up.
Link had quite a lot of authority under his belt so it wouldn't surprise Harry if some of the Squib employees of Brilliance Inc would likely be dispatched to the U.N. and set up a command center which would give all the Intel of what was going on to whoever was in charge out there. That would certainly make for good publicity later.
Once they were out of the U.N., the group saw two massive monsters. One of them was green and about three stories tall with a head similar to that of a gapping frog with an enormous mouth and massive claws at the end of its arms. The second looked like a cross between a Hydra and a Drake. It had two massive wings on its back and three, dragon-like heads extending from three necks. It was even taller than the first monster.
A number of screams were scattered across the groups as each saw the pair of massive monsters. Many people pointed their cameras at the pair to make sure whoever came here knew what they were up against.
The Moloid leading them said, "Do not hope for rescue. Thousands of Ani-Men will stay here and guard the path while Giganto and Tricephalous will lead us to Subterranea."
Harry had magically conjured a stack of paper which were each spelled with a color charm he used to imprint a message on the paper and a powerful Notice-Me-Not targeted only towards the Moloids.
One by one, Harry removed a sheet of paper at a time and stuck it to the backs of the Ani-Men. The signs said 'Kick-Me.'
The Wakandan Prince exchanged bizarre glances with his guards who each had their own thoughts on the matter. Most of them revolved around, 'DuFuq is this guy doing?' and 'Did he already have those ready when he came to the U.N.?'
Harry noticed Victor Von Doom being 'escorted' to Harry by a lone Ani-Men. From Harry's senses, this particular mushroom man was actually dead, and Victor had inserted some kind of mechanical frame inside it to puppet it. As long as it was near him, the Moloids wouldn't question it much.
The Moloids weren't difficult to influence with Telepathy as long as the command did not counter their loyalty to their ruler so Harry made the group watching them ignore the fact that Harry left their group and walked over to Doom.
Doom showed Harry the pop up on his phone and asked, "Is this your doing?"
"No, someone at my company decided to take some initiative. I'll get them a fruit basket later."
Harry walked by Doom's side as they were escorted further into the tunnels. Doom asked, "What's your plan?"
Harry tapped his chest to point out that his phone's camera was on and the conversation would be recorded. "Wait for rescue and have some fun."
He tagged another four Ani-Men with Kick-Me signs under the eyes of hundreds of Ambassadors and guards, most of which could only stare bug-eyed at Harry's antics. The Ani-Men weren't the target of this prank, it was the witnesses watching Harry do something so ridiculous.
Once they reached a large, main tunnel, Harry took out a large handful of marbles from his inventory and banished them down into the depths of the tunnel. No one saw him pull them out, enchant them, or send them away so what happened next would not be connected to him.
A number of moloids walked near the walls, the front of the group, and the back of the group and carried lit torches which illuminated the passages. Most of them. Those in the front could only see the massive back of Giganto who led the group and those in the back dared not turn around and face the three heads of Tricephalous who tailed behind them.
Suddenly, several small mounds of dirt rose up eliciting shrieks of terror from those whose nerves were already strained.
What emerged from the ground was, unsurprisingly, groundhogs.
Each one poked its head out from the dirt and looked around. In the next moment, they started screaming with the voice of an adult male in frustrated rage. "ARRRRaaarrgh!"
This freaked out a number of people and got the Moloid's attention. Harry used the chance to post more 'Kick-Me' signs.
"AaaaaaaAAAGHH!" A random groundhog popped up nearby and shouted with more air than such tiny lungs could possibly hold. The tunnel acted as an echo chamber and many held their ears. The Moloids looked particularly pissed and started running over to the screaming groundhogs and stomp on them. However right before the foot hit the ground, the groundhogs would quickly duck into the safety of their hole.
Thus began the Historical Event streamed to many sources of the Moloid's first Whack-A-Mole Game.
The speed of the group was almost halved as the Moloids would be too distracted by the screaming groundhogs to effectively corral the humans.
After a few more minutes they passed the entrance to a side tunnel. Next to the Tunnel was a wooden sign that said, [Goblin Dungeon. Recommended Level, 5~15]
No one wanted to try to sneak through there.
After a few incidents, Harry figured out what those Rayguns did. Apparently they caused blindness. Harry didn't know if it was permanent or not, but those who attacked the Moloids were directly blinded and bound by the Ani-Men and carried down the tunnel.
After another ten minutes they come to a massive intersection of tunnels. Giganto stopped and the Moloids shouted, "What's wrong?"
The massive monster pointed forward and the torch bearing Moloids walked ahead, illuminating the path. They found that the intersection was currently filled by animals crossing the path.
Hundreds of Dodo birds and Pandas were slowly walking down the tunnel from one end to the other, preventing them from getting through to the other side of their own path.
The rest of the group had caught up and saw the massive migration of hundreds of extinct birds and nearly extinct Pandas calmly walking through the tunnels and none of them could think of anything to say.
"AAAAaaaAAGH!" Except the groundhogs who were still following them of course.
After a few minutes, the line of Pandas and Dodo birds crossing the path ended and the last of them walked into the distance. This was probably the largest, most complex illusion Harry had ever cast and he couldn't keep it up forever of course. The life energy in the marbles would hold the Transfigured groundhogs for a while so they'd be fine, but other illusions were not so easy to maintain for such long durations.
The company started moving once more. Almost two hundred Ani-Men now had Kick-Me signs and most were wondering where Harry was keeping all that paper.
Harry already confirmed through technopathic communications that his feed along with many others was being directed to the makeshift command center set up by army personnel near the edge of the crater. Apparently they were having difficulties because sending reinforcements down a four hundred foot vertical hole in any meaningful way was not something they had practice with. Although they were being given all the information on numbers, maps, and directions, they were still basically waiting to set up a pulley system that could send down tanks. 400 feet was not enough to deploy a parachute so they couldn't just drop the tanks in from that height unless they flew a cargo plane over the hole, and even then they couldn't guarantee the accuracy of the landings.
They were considering dropping napalm but that was instantly vetoed because it would destroy the U.N. headquarters where they had already confirmed some had successfully hidden from the Moloids and the blast could follow the tunnel and kill the U.N. Hostages or collapse the tunnel itself. The best they could do was helicopters but they had no way to drop off a large amount of personnel with helicopters while those Ani-Men were down there since they'd already confirmed bullets did nothing to them. Because they had to take the remaining personnel hidden in the U.N., the collapsing of the tunnel, and these strange bullet proof brutes into account, every plan they could rely on in the past was useless.
A large number of military personnel, heads of various agencies, and even reporters were watching the feeds from the various cameras trying to come up with one plan after another. A collective sigh of futility was shared by all every time they saw Harry stick another Kick-Me sign on an Ani-Men. At first they were confused. Then they were irritated. Now they were already weary of the insane antics of the world's youngest Professor.
The fact that Harry apparently came to the U.N. with a massive stack of Kick-Me signs was already a topic of debate for banning him from the premises for life, but it wasn't something people really cared for at the moment.
"AAAAAaaaAHH!" The groundhogs were also getting on the viewer's nerves but as the act of trying to whack them slowed down their progress so they could only give up. Thankfully a program was already made which lowered the volume during the screams so the intensity of the screaming would not affect those monitoring everything.
Then there were the strange things they encountered along the way. There were less than two thousand pandas in the wild yet hundreds of them, along with Dodo birds, randomly crossed their path and delayed the group for a period of time before they moved on. Several experts were called in and showed the video, but none of them could come up with an answer that made any sense.
They passed several more side tunnels with signs which read things like Undead Dungeon, Troll Dungeon, and Demon Dungeon, each with Recommended levels higher than the last. The so called experts had no idea what to make of those. This was real life! Not a game!
Of course, those weren't the only peculiarities found. Many Ambassadors with Brilliance Phones did not turn on Surveillance Mode but they could be seen by those around them who did. Every once in a while, one of them would slip on something and land flat on their backs. When the camera zoomed in on what they slipped on, it turned out to be a banana peel. Every. Single. Time.
What some noticed but few mentioned was that each of those who repeatedly slipped were Ambassadors from corrupt nations or regions who got their positions through less than noble means. The footage of them slipping on a banana peel would be pirated directly to their country later and used to discharge them for incompetence. But that was a tale for another day.
After almost an hour of walking the group finally came to a massive chamber.
Sitting impatiently on a stone throne room chair was a somewhat short, large framed human in a green suit with a metal pole in his hand. He wore what appeared to be glasses but had only a thin slit for an opening making others wonder how much he could see.
As they approached a manic grin revealed itself and the man spoke, "Greetings surface dwellers. I am Harvey Elder, or I once was. Now, I am the Mole Man. Ruler of the underground Kingdom of Subterranea."
Harry wanted to pull out some popcorn but that would be a bit too suspicious, even for him.
Over fifty different men groaned with pain and were simultaneously slammed to the ground by the Ani-Men around them. Each a security guard of some kind with a gun in their hand.
From his throne, the Mole Man said, "Pulling your weapons in my presence is not so easy. Why do you think I didn't care to remove them? In the surface world, you sun-baked morons lord above all. But below the ground, I am the Ruler. I am Power Incarnate! I am the Mole Man!"
"You are nothing!" A pair of heavily built guards who didn't pull their weapons rushed forward at the throne. Harry thought they looked Russian.
The Mole Man pointed his metal pole at them and said, "Kneel."
Harry felt the staff interact with gravity through a pulsing field and both Russians fell to the ground on their knees as they struggled against the massive increase in gravity which afflicted them.
Of course to those who don't have energy senses it simply looked like the two Russians rushed forward and quickly knelt down.
He waved his staff and a concussive blast shot out from the edge and blasted the two men all the way back to where they started. Both men were groaning on the ground in pain.
That caught Harry's interest. He was not familiar with any technology capable of what he just witnessed. It also answered his question of how the entire U.N. was descended. The Mole Man used some technology which increased the gravity of the ground beneath the U.N., causing it to sink.
The Mole Man got up from his throne and said, "Is there anyone else who wishes to challenge me?"
Harry shouted out, "Not a challenge, but a question, what's behind that door?"
Harry pointed to a wall near where they entered that had a sign on it that said, 'Mole Man's Secret Stash.'
This threw the Mole Man off. "What? There is no door there!"
He marched forward to the wall and under the eyes of countless world leaders he opened the door.
A massive pile of magazines fell out, reaching to his knees before they stopped spreading.
The obviously poor sighted Mole Man picked one up and held it close to see it. Then he dropped it and had a hint of a blush on his face.
Not everyone had such poor eyesight in the room. All the people near the door could see exactly what kind of magazines those were.
A large but fit middle aged man in a red suit with spiky white hair tired in a pony tail behind him grinned and said aloud, "I see you are a man of culture."
The Mole Man immediately refuted, "These are not mine."
The pervert's smile only widened to the Ruler of Subterranea's displeasure.
The Mole Man walked out of the pile of pornos as if he decided to ignore their existence and said, "Leaders of the world. You have a decision to make. Surrender the surface to my armies or I will kill you all as an example and destroy the surface world!"
A majority of those watching him from the streaming feed agreed that the impact of his speech was lacking when he was still standing a few feet from the adult rated pile.
The crowd's silence actually caused the Mole Man to smile. "I hoped you would refuse."
He returned to his throne and ordered some Moloids to bring out a massive map of the Earth. Within it were hundreds of lines crisscrossing beneath the crust.
Mole Man pointed at the map and shouted, "Now, before I slay you all, Behold my Master Plan! See this map of my Underground Empire! Each tunnel leads to a major city! As soon as I have wrecked every atomic plant, every source of earthly power, my mighty Mole Creatures will attack and destroy everything that lives above the surface!"
Harry couldn't help but ask, "Are you monologuing?"
The Mole Man sneered and said, "You can die first. Bring him to me!"
Eight different Ani-Men walked behind Harry and shoved him forward to the throne. The Mole Man pointed his staff and Harry and said, "Any last words?"
Harry's pocket started ringing. Harry raised a finger in the universal, 'give me a moment,' gesture and pulled out a second phone and answered it.
Harry nodded a few times and said, "It's for you."
The Mole Man figured someone wanted to bargain for Harry's life and had a Moloid bring him the phone. Harry had already put the phone on speaker.
He put the phone to his ear and said, "Yes?"
[Are you Harvey Elder?]
"Yes. What do you want?"
[We've been trying to reach you concerning your vehicle's extended warranty. You should've received a notice in the mail about your car's extended warranty eligibility. Since we've not gotten a response, we're giving you a final courtesy call before we close out your file.]
The Mole Man hung up the call and tossed the phone away.
Harry shrugged at the Mole Man's glare but before the execution could continue, a strong current of wind erupted from behind the Mole Man's throne and flowed back out the tunnel the captives were led through.
Harry pulled out his phone and a video started streaming on it. It showed a feed from above of a camera pointing down the crater where a cyclone of fire was rising up from where the mass of Ani-Men were gathered around the U.N. building.
Giving it a closer look one would notice that a bright figure was circling the U.N. Headquarters. The heat generated seemed to be incinerating the stationed Ani-Men and drawing the air from the tunnels.
The Mole Man shouted for some Moloids who ran over and said a few things in his ear.
The bright figure on the screen then stopped circling and entered through the main tunnel. A few moments later, a hover car piloted by a young man, a young woman, and an orange rock entered into the four hundred foot deep hole and flew after flying fire down the same tunnel.
The Mole Man said, "It seems the surface dwellers have seen fit to send a rescue party. No matter."
He pointed his staff and Harry once more. And nothing happened.
Harry pulled out a gizmo looking device from his pocket and said, "Yeah, zero point energy weapons aren't going to work on me. I calibrated this when I noticed how your staff magnifies the center of gravity of your target. A simple isolation system renders it useless."
The Mole Man looked unperturbed. "Unfortunately for you, I have more than one trick up my sleeve. Ani-Men! Kill him."
Harry was slowly surrounded once more and the Mole Man said, "And you accused me of monologuing."
Harry smiled back as the Ani-men raised their arms to crush him and said, "It's great as a delaying tactic."
A streak of fire shot out from the entrance and slammed into one of the three headed drake's faces as Harry ducked beneath the strike of the Ani-Men and ran for it.
The crowd all ran to the walls as a flying car swooped in and let off its three other passengers.
It was of course Reed and the rest. The fact that Reed already had a flying car didn't surprise Harry in the slightest. He just didn't know if the man built it this week or prior to the launch.
The Mole man shouted, "Go, Giganto and Tricephalous! Destroy the surface dwellers!"
Johnny, who appeared to be using his flame aura as a form of propulsion, was sloppily flying around the three headed dragon while Ben charged at the massive frog-mouthed monster. The latter swiped it clawed hands against Ben but the razor edges merely skated across Ben's exterior.
Susan was unsurprisingly nowhere to be seen and Reed stretched over to the Mole Man. He wrapped an arm around one of the Ani-Men and pulled it towards him and then flung it around to smash the others surrounding Harry.
Richards shouted, "It's over Mole Man. I heard everything and we know exactly what you've planned. You intended on using Zero Point Energy to destroy power plants on the surface like you used it to sink the U.N. right? As long as I get a copy of the frequency modulation Harry used to negate your staff, I render an energy sequencer to counteract the charge of the negative gravity, I can inhibit all systems which use Zero Point Energy near the earth's surface."
Reed's fist stretched in size and was flung at the Mole Man who quickly struck it with his staff and circled it around Reed's outstretched arm like a fork around a spaghetti noodle. He shouted, "Then it's a good thing you won't be leaving here alive! I am a master of Holey Moley Bojutsu and you cannot defeat me!" He continued twirling his staff which pulled in Reed's arm while sending blasts of concussive energy Reed had to stretch from side to side to dodge.
Giganto was large and slow and his claws could not hurt Ben but his size and strength both far exceeded Ben's own. The massive green monster was obviously not the intellectual type, but it only took a few exchanges for it to figure out that Ben could be smashed into the ground, forcing the latter to dodge more than attack.
Tricephalous was actually using fire breath against Johnny. It didn't harm him but it did blast him into the wall which looked like it hurt all the same.
While Reed was trying to get himself out of the Mole Man's grasp, the latter quickly jumped and spun around, knocking an invisible foe to the ground. This opening allowed Reed to unravel from the staff but Susan appeared to have suffered some damage.
"You sun baked fools! I am the Mole Man! I do not rely on sight to fight my battles. I can feel the presence of all around me and your invisibility is useless. You will all die here today."
Reed helped Susan up and said, "No, we are going to stop you and save everyone here!"
The Mole Man gave a sarcastic sneer and said with spite, "You really think you four are so fantastic do you? Well, Mr. Fantastic. What are you, that invisible girl, that thing over there, and that human torch gonna do?"
Susan shouted, "We're gonna win! Now Ben!"
Ben answered back, "Right!" He pulled off the elastic bands around his wrist and suddenly started growing in size. Moments later he nearly matched Giganto in height. Ben shouted, "It's Clobberin' Time!" and smashed Giganto's face in. Ben's massive form stepped in and dealt a barrage of blows staggering the monster back with each step. When the enormous monster appeared dazed, Ben reeled back and slammed his fist forward, smashing the monster into the air and to the other side of the cavern far behind the Mole Man's throne where it struck the back wall and caused the entire cavern to shake.
Johnny braced himself in the air and when all three heads fired at him, this time he was not pushed back. Instead, his fire glowed brighter and brighter, showing he was actually absorbing the heat of the flames. Soon the drake's breath reached its end and Johnny pushed his hands forward and shot a white beam of pure heat.
"My Eyes!"
The hundreds of Moloids commanding the Ani-Men shouted in pain at the presence of the intense sun fire like light that illuminated the cavern.
The Drake's scales were burned and melted through, forcing the three headed dragon to flee for its life. Johnny kept up his intense illumination which caused the Moloids to run away after the back of Giganto and the fleeing Tricephalous.
The cavern started rumbling and the Mole Man looked up with a hint of fear. He looked back over to Reed and shouted, "You may have won here but this is not over. I will have my revenge against you insufferably Fantastic Four!"
As the Mole Man turned to run away, a dozen gunshots echoed through the cavern from guards who decided now would be a great time to kill him. However the green jumpsuit the man wore went over his head from the back and seemed impervious to gunfire.
The cavern continued to rumble and half the hostages had already starred running back the moment the Moloids started running away.
Harry noticed that one of those who stayed back to watch the fight was Victor Von Doom. It seemed he watched the whole thing from start to finish before he started running back himself.
Part way through the run back, parts of the tunnel started collapsing. Ben had already put back on the wristband to return to a smaller size as his weight while running through the tunnels could have destabilized them further.
A large boulder fell from the ceiling. Before Harry could do anything, he saw a barrier emerge for a second and shatter the rock before vanishing. He and a number of others turned and saw Susan's hand in the air. This event repeated a dozen more times along the way, with Susan creating a barrier to block the rocks from crushing the world leaders on the way back.
When they reached the U.N. once more, the army had already set up pulley lifts to get everyone to the surface. Harry was sure he could work out something with Reed to get the U.N. back to the right height, he just had to figure out how much to charge first.
*Ping*
[Quest Complete: Lord of Pranks!
Reward: Apple of Discord]
Harry smiled. Apparently he must have rated quite highly in the Quest because this was the holy artifact of pranks. He wondered what he should do with it.
*Author's Note*
99.999% of the time I do a quest, I have no idea what reward I'm going to give later and usually just wing it. As a fan of the Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy, the Apple of Discord was the first thing to come to mind when it came to artifacts of pranking. It was either that or Loki's spell book but that is something that should be saved for later so Apple is it. No idea what to do with it but I'm sure I'll figure something out.
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