“fer fuckshake…” I mumbled as the giant rock monster gorilla thing stomped through the rubble towards me.
Getting thrown through a building hurt. Getting thrown through three, only to collapse in the rubble of a fourth? Yeah, let’s just say I’m not a fan. Rubble shifted around me as I pushed myself back to my feet. I grabbed one of the many flasks from my utility belt, which was really just a Home Depot tool belt I spray-painted black (don’t judge; it’s the only thing I could find that can survive a trip through the twelfth floor of three point five skyscrapers) and took a long pull. The harsh bite of the moonshine helped clear out the cobwebs a bit. What the hell was this thing, anyways? “Donkey Kong” popped into my head, but no, that wasn’t right.
Off to my right, a startled office worker stared at me, a blank look on her face. Her cubicle had survived largely unscathed. I purposefully ignored the suspicious dark stains and collapsed cubicle partitions under me. Best not to think of it.
She probably recognized me from the news. I’m kind of a big deal, being a real-life superhero and all. She was cute. I wondered for a moment if she was the groupie type. But that would have to wait, as I had more important things to deal with at the moment.
“Hey!” I slurred, “Hey, d’you know whassa nama a dat… Dat… Dat monkey in that game with godzo-godze-the big fuckin lizzard?” Instead of answering, she screamed.
Typical.
An enormous, white fist, shedding flakes of shale flew at me out of no-where. “Wagh!” I shouted as I ducked, barely in time. The thing knocked a support column clean in half with the miss. Shit. What the hell was that thing? Shit. I lost my flask. That was three down in just the last twenty minutes. Suddenly irked, I rushed the giant rock monster gorilla thing (Giant Rock Monster Gorilla Thing… GRMGT… GRoMonGorT? Gromongort? Holy fuck, that sounded dumb. Okay, definitely not calling it Gromongort), crossing the ten feet between where it’s fist just barely missed my head and it’s flinty, flaking torso in the blink of an eye.
I threw punches into the thing’s rib cage, arms pumping fast enough to cause a couple of sonic booms. Now, I’m not bragging when I say I’m strong. Superhero, remember? I once punched through a military-grade, North Korean, nuclear-bomb-proof bunker door. Nuclear-bomb-proof, maybe. Definitely not Drunk Stan proof, though.
I had every reason to believe I’d blast the Gromongort’s (FUUUUCK?!?! Why did I ever think up that stupid, stupid name? Okay, just stop using it. You can do this, Stan…) torso into splinters. But to my surprise, all I did was knock some extra shale off. The beast roared in surprise (and hopefully pain), and brought it’s arm around in a backhand that I could feel the weight of before it even hit me. This time, at least, I was ready for it.
I turned into the blow and threw my own fists out. I did a double punch straight up as I dropped into a crouch. I’d been watching Drunken Master and that was finally starting to pay off. My fists impacted the Gromongort’s (oh for fuck’s sake….) forearm and deflected it up. Barely. Damn, what was that fucking gorilla’s name? You know, the one that knocks down buildings?
I tried to build up to a big strike on the thing, really give it my all. But in my stuporous, adrenalized state, I’d forgotten that the thing had not one, but two arms.
‘Silly me,’ I thought as I went sailing yet again. I giggled right before I hit the second support column and stopped. At least this time, it was just a glancing blow, else I’d have gone clean through that second columns, and probably a few more. Plus walls, and possibly hapless civilians.
“Dafuck even are you?!” I shouted as I -once again- picked myself out of the rubble. There were more suspicious stains. Oops.
The Gromongort (sigh… Why do I even bother fighting it?) stalked towards me. This time, I decided to let discretion be the better part of my valor, and beat feet to a shattered window. I leapt out into the void, and turned on the gas, zipping through the air in my usual flying pose. Which is to say, peeking through my fingertips like a scared kid alone in a theater showing a horror movie. Hey, the wind makes it hard to see while I’m flying. I’m aware it looks stupid, nothing I can do about it.
I should buy some goggles.
With that flash of brilliance -coming in five years too late to salvage my reputation- I saw what I’d been looking for. My not-really-secret weapon, my shot of superhero nitrous. The Liquor Store.
The Gromongort had tracked me across the city at least twice tonight, so I knew this was but a brief respite. Luckily, it hadn’t caused too much damage while tracking me. Well, not until I actually started fighting back, anyways. That’s when things got ugly and suspicious stains started appearing in suspicious piles of rubble. Suspicious stains are always a bad sign, because it meant the news was going to whine about “collateral damage” instead of giving me the slightest credit for saving the survivors. Ingrates.
I’d never come across anything so damn tough as this thing. I’d already locked up plenty of villains, like Gator Man, the Indomitable Bulk, and even Kraven the Killer Klown (though the edgelords on the internet all hated me for that one). Sure, some of them were far stronger than a normal human. The Withering Gaze even had lasers that shot out of his eyes. Burned my pants right off. But I’d never fought anything that could just shrug off five or six of my punches and then punch me right back.
I needed fuel.
I barged in through the door. The guy behind the counter knew me, I think. At least he looked familiar. What was his name again? He groaned and then started yelling at me in some foreign language. Fucking Hadji co-. Shit, no, that’s racist. Fucking dude couldn’t see that I’m trying to save his city? Cut me some slack. Besides, his stock was probably insured.
Probably.
I grabbed two of the biggest bottles of vodka and started chugging, as I eyed the rest of his goods. There, in the back. As soon as the two bottles in hand ran dry, I grabbed the one that caught my eye. It was meant for making fancy cocktails, or maybe cooking. I dunno, and I dun care. All I cared about were the big words on the side, a bit blurrier now than when I’d first noticed them. “190 proof”.
Yeah, baby. Come to daddy.
I chugged the bottle as quickly as I could, while Samir (Ha! I knew I’d been here before) continued to probably curse my whole family in whatever fucking language he was speaking. Shit, was that racist? I hope not. Samir’s good people. I grabbed another bottle as my enhanced hearing (getting better with every passing minute, as the alcohol seeped into my bloodstream) picked up the first of the distant screams, honking horns and crashes. the Gromongort was on it’s way here.
I got three more bottles into me, and was weighing pouring the fourth into one of my flasks when the crashing grew so loud that I knew it found the right street.
“Thanks, Samir. I really needed this to help me tonight. I’m good for it, I promise!” I said, as I stepped outside to meet the Gromongort (wait.. Grom? Gor? Shit, what was that monkey’s name from the game?)
(I later learned that what Samir heard was more like “thucksamor… neededhulp. S’good? S’good.” followed by a raspberry and a suggestive wink.)
The whole city seemed to warp and sway around me. It was almost as if this foul beast were using some mind-rending or reality-warping powers against me, now? But nope. I was just shitfaced. I giggled. Masculinely. It was a very manly giggle.
I locked eyes on the beast, three hundred yards down the street. “I don’t know what the fuck you are, but I’m about to find out what you’re made of!” That was the translation I later gave to reporters, after I’d sobered up a bit. The guy from the bar next to Samir’s shop was recording the whole thing on his phone, and he swears I told the Gromongort (Godzilla was in the game, too. And a giant werewolf, I think…) to choke to death on my dick, and then promised to fuck it until it’s corpse got cold. I don’t think I said that, though. It doesn’t sound like me. I’m a family friendly superhero!
It gave a bellow that they would probably feel in China in a few hours and charged. With all the alcohol coursing through my veins, however, I was unstoppable. Even my thinking had cleared, though I was still slurring my speech, and I still couldn’t remember that damned monkey’s name…. It was something incongruous. Like Greg. But not Greg.
I rocketed towards it, fists out ahead of me. The wind didn’t bother me anymore, and I could see (more or less) clearly as the buildings around me blurred into a tunnel, pointed right at the thing’s heart.
I slammed into it with enough force that the shockwave blew out the first floor of 6 buildings around us. Jesus, I hope there was nobody in there. The buildings collapsed with a series of rending crashes. But, for the first time since this thing had come after me, I felt something give inside of it. A massive snapping sound emitted from it’s chest, like god cracking his knuckles, and I heard a sonorous “Oof!” from the Gromongort’s mouth, above me.
Nowhere close to being finished, I brought myself upright, floating in the air in front of it and stomp-kicked the thing into the still-collapsing rubble behind it. It flew through, rubble flying everywhere, and didn’t stop until it hit the granite outcropping down by Third Street. I flew towards it, drunk with power (and booze, but mostly power, I swear) and let loose with a little trick I’d picked up from the Withering Gaze.
The beams from my eyes bored into the thing as it howled and leapt back up. It swung a massive fist towards me, but I simply glanced it that direction and sheared it’s arm off at the elbow. A quick look down cut both of it’s legs off at the knees. Now it was down to one arm, and it couldn’t stand. Since Third Street bounded the City Park, there was no-one around us. Well, okay, there were some people, but they were running away pretty fast. Hopefully, nobody was sleeping off a bender in the bushes, because It was time for me to get back in there and take this thing down for good.
I waded in, easily dodging it’s clumsy swing and brought a hammer fist down on it’s good shoulder. I heard it crackling and felt it collapse under my hand. The Gromongort swung the stump of it’s other arm at me, but I ignored it, and it bounced off my hip. I grabbed the thing’s massive head in my hand and started to squeeze. The hate in it’s eyes turned to something like panic, as it felt the pressure I could exert with a BAC that could be expressed in whole numbers.
I pushed as hard as I had ever pushed in my life. I could feel the booze in my blood burning up as it dumped it’s magic into my muscles, straining and heaving like never before. The first crack came suddenly, but the second soon followed. The beast rained panicked, ineffectual blows one me from one stump and one limp arm, but I continued to ignore them. It’s head began to give way, and I redoubled my efforts.
Right as I felt the final bit of resistance melting away, it finally occurred to me. The game was Rampage, and I used to play it on Nintendo when I was a kid. I roared with triumph and shouted the beast’s name to the heavens as I crushed it’s head in my hands, ending the threat for good.
“GEORGE!“
They found me about six hours later. I was naked, and dragging around the remains of the beast. Of George (sooo much better than Gromongort). Apparently, I’d made good on the promise that guy with the video claimed I made. It seemed that way. My dick was shredded and the thing had a suspiciously dick-sized hole somewhere in the vicinity of one flinty butt cheek. I dunno. I can’t remember much of anything after I crushed the thing’s head. I thought I remembered a flash of getting my freak on. So I guess I kinda hope I followed through on George, because if I hooked up with some random woman in that state, I’d have killed her.
They bundled me off to my apartment, because of course the EMTs knew where I lived. I always sucked at maintaining a secret identity. I guess it doesn’t help when your superhero name is the same nickname you’ve had since that time you passed out on Keith Alderman’s front lawn in tenth grade. Oh well. at least I can respond quickly. No need to find a phone booth to change outfits. No need for a costume in any case, except that I think it kinda looks cool, so I wear it whenever I remember.
So that’s my life. My powers come from the bottle. It’s not so bad as it might seem. A little lonely sometimes, but there’s always a groupie to be found to keep me warm on those nights when I’m sober enough not to accidentally kill her.
I’m Drunk Stan. I’m not the only superbeing in the world, but I’m damn sure the only superhero in the world. Wanna buy me a beer?