About Captain Chivalry

I just put up a story unrelated to my Sam Dennis ongoing tale. Captain Chivalry versus Doctor Dragon is a story I wrote something like twelve or thirteen years ago, but I never really did anything with it. In a way, it could be said to the first AbatwaX story, so now it is here.

Also, I used a lot more semi-colons back then, apparently.

Captain Chivalry versus Doctor Dragon

Captain Chivalry stood on a rooftop. People on the street below looked up. Mothers whispered to their children, “He saved the city,” “He stopped the explosion,” “He fought the aliens.” The children didn’t understand; such threats were unimportant to them. One man thanked God that the Captain was there to save the day whenever trouble should arise.

Above, the Captain looked out upon the city. Millions of people, he’d saved them all, more than once. He looked down. A crowd had formed at the base of the building. They looked up and pointed and cheered. He leapt to a building across the street. From there he jumped to another. He stopped when he saw smoke rising from a nearby shopping mall. He heard sirens approaching and hesitated, but did decide to react.

Captain Chivalry arrived on the scene. Doctor Dragon and his henchmen were in the mall. A fire had started when Doctor Dragon torched a security guard, nearly killing him. The fire was out now. The henchmen had gathered hostages and were demanding money. They wanted five million dollars in exchange for the thirty-nine lives they held in their hands.

When the Captain appeared one of the henchmen emptied his weapon trying to defeat him. They usually tried this, despite the well-known fact that bullets wouldn’t cut it against the Captain. The superhero fired a blast of force at the attacking henchman; it knocked him unconscious. The criminal would later tell his mother that being knocked out by the Captain’s force had felt like being awakened, startled from a dream.

The Captain had less trouble from the other henchmen; they surrendered the moment they saw him. This was the man they had, as children pretended to be on the playgrounds during recess. This was the man who had saved the lives of their family and friends. This was Captain Chivalry.

Only Doctor Dragon was left unimpressed. He spat fire at the superhero, whose cape burst into flame. This only stood to make the Captain appear even more awesome as he flew across the room and landed a punch in the lizard-man’s scaled face. Doctor Dragon was hurt, but quickly struck back. It took a lot of willpower to keep from wincing in pain as his fist shattered against the hero’s chest.

The two superhuman champions were quite alike. Both despised the abilities they possessed which set them apart from the average person. Both stayed awake at night wondering how being superhuman could make you so much less than human. Both Captain Chivalry, the magical protector of the Earth and Doctor Dragon, mutated, hated petty thief, were alone. If they didn’t disagree on how their powers should be handled, they could have been good friends.

With one more punch the Captain defeated his foe. The police had been present for the clash’s finale. They too were impressed by the sight of Chivalry as he saved the day. The Captain however did not believe he had done such a good job. As he leaped away, his cape reduced to ashes, he prayed that Doctor Dragon would realize the error of living a life of crime. He prayed the henchmen might become more respectful members of society. He scorned himself for not attempting to save these real victims of the crime. If he were the hero the world believed him to be, he would spend less time fighting dragons and aliens and more time fighting evil.