GODLING # 27: King Winter Strikes!

GODLING # 27: King Winter Strikes!
by J. Vandersteen


– GODLING – THE ONE MAN PANTHEON: KING WINTER STRIKES!

Godling is standing up to his knees in snow in the center of New Troy
City. It is still snowing heavily. He looks tired.
"I wish it would stop snowing. It's wearing me out..."
It started 24 hours ago. It became very cold and it started to snow
like it had never snowed in New Troy before. After 6 hours a tape was
sent to the press.
A masked man who called himself King Winter said he was responsible
for the weather and would only stop it when he was paid 20 million
dollars by the mayor. Unfortunately, New Troy was still having trouble
paying for all damages Master Destiny's supervillains had caused.
They didn't have millions to spare.
Godling thinks, "I have to go on, though. Old people are dying in this
cold, the local economy is coming to a standstill... There's a lot of
accidents... I have to get to King Winter's headquarters..."
He is surrounded by four snowmen who seem to be alive.
"I won't let you monsters stop me!" Godling says and a ball of fire
appears in his right fist. He throws the ball into a snowman who
melts.
Slowly the other three lumber towards our hero. He smashes a mighty
fist through one of the snowmen's head, throws another fireball at
another snowman and kicks right through the last one.
Panting, covered in the snow of his slain enemies The One Man Pantheon
stands victorious.
"I can't run at Hermes speed, the snowstorm makes it hard to fly and
these blasted snowmen keep popping up... But King Winter will find out
that nothing stops Godling!"

*
Tokyo, Japan. The airport.
Wade Hudson is looking at the monitors. Behind all flights to New Troy
it says CANCELLED.
"This is insane. All flights to New Troy and surrounding cities are
cancelled because of snowstorms? What's going on over there?" he
thinks.
"I want to get back home. Not only do I miss Monica, but I'm eager to
try out my new suit..."


*
Monica Sawyer's appartment.
She is looking through the window. She heard all flights to New Troy
had been cancelled...
"Snow everywhere... These crazy living snowmen walking around wreaking
havoc... And Wade's not here to protect the city. That leaves it to
Godling, I guess... Maybe I should be happy Wade can't be here. That
means he can't get hurt fighting these things."


*
Officer Janson is standing against her patrol car, battering at a
group of thugs with a nightstick.
"Damn looters... As soon as the crap hits the fan these bloodhounds
pop up..."
Her partner, a redheaded young cop fires his shotgun in the air. "And
these dirtbags had better put their hands up or I will shoot them
where they stand."
The looters put op ther hands and surrender.
"You guys are despicable, using the chaos to rob hardworking folks of
their possessions," Jansons says while she puts the handcuffs on one
of the looters.
The looter turns his head and says, "What's it to you? With all the
crazy stuff happening in New Troy I figure it won't be long the whole
city is destroyed anyway."
"Not as long as we have Godling," Janson assures him.


*
Godling is standing in front of a huge medieval looking tower made of
ice. Circling it is a dragon made out of snow.
"So there it is, King Winter's lair," Godling says. "Now to get in
there and put King Winter on ice..."
There is one window in the tower, way up high. Godling flies over
there but the dragon attacks. The creature flies towards him, and
tries to hit Godling with his tail.
The hero barely manages to avoid it. "I can't fly and defeat this
thing at the same time. That's the problem with only being able to use
one superpower at a time. I will have to do some fancy flying to get
inside."
Maneuvering several times over and under the snowdragon Godling
finally reaches the open window and flies through.
The inside of the tower seems like a medieval chamber made out of ice.
There's two crossed axes of ice against a wall and furniture also made
out of ice. In a throne of ice sits a man wearing blue en white
spandex and a mask that covers most of his face but not his mouth and
jaw. He wears a crown.
"King Winter, I presume?" Godling asks.
"Well, well... The One Man Pantheon, what an honor," King Winter says.
"I knew I would have to face you if I was planning on blackmailing
this city. But if I defeat you there won't be ANY city that will dare
to stand up against me."
"Defeating me is not an option," Godling says and attacks.
King Winter raises a hand and three snowmen appear from a pile of snow
on the floor. They surround Godling.
"These snowclown really won't be able to stop me," Godling says. He
takes one of the axes from the wall and using the fighting skills of
Ares dismembers the snowmen.
"Let me cool you off a bit," King Winter says and fires a freeze ray
from his hands. "Master Destiny really gave me one of the coolest
powers, didn't he? HAHAHA!"
Using the power of Hephaestus, God of Fire our hero creates a wall of
fire in fron of him, turning the freeze ray into steam. He walks
toward King Winter.
"Stop!" King Winter says. He raises a hand and suddenly hail stones
appear from it, like shotgun pellets they bombard the One Man
Pantheon.
A few of the stones draw some blood before the hero manages to become
as invulnerable as Achilles.
"Haha! Is that blood? Am I making the big hero bleed?" King Winter
cackles.
"By Zeus, you supervillains are a cocky lot," Godling says, making his
way through the hailstorm. "You really think you almost beat me? THINK
AGAIN!" He switches from invulnerability to Hermes' superspeed and
catches the hailstones from the air.
Then he throws them back at King Winter who has to take cover behind
his throne against his own projectiles.
With the strength of Heracles Godling kicks away the throne. King
Winter holds up his hands in surrender...
"In the end you aren't much tougher than the other superthugs I've
defeated, Winter. Maybe a bit more ambitious, but as stupid and
helpless against me as all the others," Godling says. "Let me turn out
the lights for you, you will wake up in Tartarus II."
With one punch the hero takes down the supervillain. As soon as King
Winter is unconscious all the ice and snow starts to disappears. That
includes the tower, so Godling has to switch to his flight powers to
prevent himself from falling down to the ground. King Winter is thrown
across his shoulder.
He flies over New Troy, watching with satisfaction to see all snow
disappear...

*
On the ground, clad in trenchcoat and wearing a fedora stands the Eye-
Patch Godling. He watches Our Godling fly and shakes his head. "You're
really starting to think you're ready for anything, aren't you. Just
wait till the Reality Bombs explode..."



NEXT ISSUE: WARPED REALITY!