Blow Up

Bozo dodged active coasters as he flew through the sky, watching the crowds dwindle as he and the six cars following under him, containing his team, approached the location of the star attraction of Venge City KY.

In the backseat of car three, Oda shivered.

“What do you think’s going on?” The rookie, Julie, asked her.

“I don’t know… but if anything happens to the Missile Man, this park is done for.” She whimpered. “That’s… why most people still show up in this place. Nobody likes the comics. Hardly anyone buys the merch. That ride, it’s… that’s our heart.”

“Ey, show some friggin’ backbone.” Wilton shot. “Nothin’s happened yet. Whateva’s goin’ down, we’ll be here ta stop it.”

“I hope you’re right…”

Through his binoculars, Arsene Hatter spotted the flying businessman’s imminent arrival. Turning to the explosive squad hunched over the ride’s tracks, he issued his orders over the sound of the billowing wind this high up in the sky.

“Kyrie! Spider! Are you done setting the charges?”

“Been done, sir!” Responded an arrogant Spider. “We were waiting for you to tell us when.”

“Well, “when” is now. Everybody off.”

“EVERYBODY OFF!” Kyrie echoed to the rest of the team as they immediately headed towards solid ground, eager to climb down the steps back to the city and get the hell out of there.

“Is that everybody?”

Outside of a tall apartment building, Frankie was overheating with anxiety. After screaming over its intercoms to shoo everyone out, she was panting by the front door of the now hopefully empty establishment, right next to her “evacuation squad.”

“Should be!” Anita chimed optimistically.

“I don’t need “should be,” I need an answer.” She responded darkly to her comrade.

“I’m pretty sure we got everyone…” Katie thought back to everything.

“Nobody’s left.” One of the squad members confirmed, holding a heat signature reader Spider lent them as well as a loaded handgun that Frankie couldn’t stop glaring at underneath her mask. Not long ago, he’d pointed that thing at children just to get them to run faster. 

“B-better not be.” Frankie threatened mindlessly. “If- anyone gets hurt during this, I swear I’ll-“

Katie hugged her arm.

“Hey. It’s gonna be alright, Frankie. He said so. Soon we’ll be out of here, and we can forget this ever happened. Then we can go find our dreams, yeah?”

“…Yeah.” Frankie uttered, praying that’d be the case. Either way, she wasn’t sure how she’d sleep tonight.

Suddenly, Kyrie ran up to the large squad.

“We’re set! Are you clear?”

“All clear!” A legionary asserted.

“Good. The charges are armed. Come on, this way!”

Kyrie led them back out through the alleyways all the other villains had retreated through. Frankie still felt like she was in a dream. Through the brick corridors, they suddenly turned a corner to be jumped at by Spider, all on his own.

“Ah!” Kyrie shook. His following laughter hardly penetrated the tension of the team.

“Oh, I got you good… got you so good. he cracked up, having stayed behind from the rest of the team seemingly just to prank her.

“What’re you doing?” Kyrie snapped into seriousness, staring down at him. “We have to get out of here. Aren’t you the one with the remote?”

Spider Hood suddenly recalled the entire reason he was there, not really caring for the mission. The mechanic reached into his supplies.

“Huh? Remote? Yeah, got it right-“

He pulled the hasty scrapped-together controller out of his bag, thumb held down on the button as he lifted it.

“…here.” A bit of the humor dropped from his face as he saw the depressed activator underneath his finger.

“Shit!” Kyrie yelped, pushing everyone around her down as she immediately curled up into a ball and pressed her hands to the back of her head.

Everyone’s eardrums burst simultaneously as fire lit up the sky. Not even a second later, they heard as the giant metal chunks of the attraction began to hit the buildings and litter the ground in rubble.