Fantasy Phantom

The End of the World​

It was nothing personal.

All right, it was intensely personal.

The Penguin was set on destroying the world. A world which had mocked, serially abused him, and then rejected him utterly.

It was only fair.

But the Penguin had nothing personal against the other officers in Bunker Number Four. As he walked around, shooting each man with his standard issue compression pistol, set on maximum (of course!), he realized he felt no malice towards the other Nova Missile Officers in Bunker Number Four.

None at all.

The Penguin had actually managed to kill three of the officers before the other two became alerted. There were always six officers to a bunker.

And the Penguin was number six.

Officer Number Three cried out, and that alerted Number Four, who cried out, "Shooter!" and ducked below his console, drawing his weapon.

Officer Number Five was not nearly so quick, and the Penguin caught him gaping with his mouth open, still processing the sight of seeing one of his fellow officers gun down another of his fellow officers.

The Penguin blew a fist sized hole in his chest with a compressed energy bolt.

Officer Number Four stood up and, aiming carefully, blew a hole in the Penguin's chest.

The Penguin looked started for a moment. He looked down at the hole in his chest. Then it slowly started to seal up.

Now it was Officer Number Four's turn to let his mouth drop open. But not for long. The Penguin disposed of him with a single shot.

As the Penguin sat down at a console, he ignored the blares of alarms. They would not get down here in time. He studied the procedure he had sucked out of the minds of one of the Nova Command officers, who had briefly been his hosts for at time, and started operating controls. Within moments, a new protocol sounded, and a computerized voice said, "Warning. Missile Bank Four in final stages of launch."

"Yeessssss," the Penguin said, with a sultry smile. He checked the holoscanner, and made sure he was in the right command menu, and then he saw it.

The holographic LAUNCH button.

"Goodbye, cruel world," The Penguin chortled, and slammed it with his fist.

And then....

Nothing happened.

Nothing at all.

The alarms continued to blare. The missiles sat in their silos.

For you see....

The Penguin was full of malice.

The Penguin was full of hatred.

The Penguin wanted to destroy the world.

But the Penguin never bothered to take the time to learn that two officers were required to launch the Nova Missiles.​