The light shown green through the haze. The foreman peered up at the sky and all he could see was green. He peered at Frederic Schist. "So when're these packages due to arrive? It's like a damn oven out here."
Frederic Alexander Schist looked at his watch. "Mr. Ronan said they'd be here any time now. I trust him to be as good as his word. Roxxsanto Corp. doesn't take lightly to contractors who don't live up to their promises."
The foreman looked up again at the sound of a helicopter ... it swooped down low, dropping the package which crashed through the treetops and landed in the small clearing the Roxxsanto employees had carved out.
Schist approached the box rubbing his hands gleefully as the workman tore into it, released the machine it contained. The foreman looked at the complicated instructions. "What's this thing supposed to do again?"
"Nanomachines. Billions of them, and even more as they create duplicates of themselves. They will pore through the Amazon rainforest. Every one of the undiscovered plants, insects and animals will be broken down into its component parts, genetically analysed, and copyrighted by Roxxsanto!
His name meant, "The Rising and Advancing of the President," and once his life consisted of exactly that. Shang Prez, The Master of Kung Fu, whose presence once dominated the Oval Office, sat meditating in the small, bare room he now occupied.
He opened his eyes, alerted by the sound of the man approaching the door before he knocked. "Come in," he said, just loud enough to be heard.
A Native American woman peeked her head through the door. "Prez, it's some sort of attack in the Amazon rainforest. It's horrible ... it's gobbling everything up."
Prez shook his head, "I no longer seek these battles out, I'm afraid. I am retired from public service. But there must be some recourse. Let us contact the Judgement League."
She furrowed her brow. "Who?"
Prez shook his head, momentarily disoriented. "I ... I'm not sure. Odd. What sort of super heroes do we still maintain correspondence with?"
The woman consulted her electronic address book. "Most of them are no longer active. Wait ... there is one ... the son of the 1940's villain, Silicon Man."
Prez nodded, "Contact him ... and see if he can bring his allies."
The foreman went through the trucks, checking off each one as his mechanics approved them as being in running order, after their long treks back and forth to Roxxsanto headquarters, carrying valuable genetic samples. He rubbed his eyes and called the chief mechanic over. "Yes sir?" the man said.
"The invoice is all wrong ... there's supposed to be 15 trucks here and there's an extra one. Did someone not make the scheduled run? You know how time-sensitive this operation is."
The chief mechanic shook his head, "No, I've been keeping track of the drivers, I ... say, what's that one by the end, with the funny red and black striped paint job? Is that one of ours?"
They approached the truck, and as they did so it started to dissolve into sand ... soon reconfiguring into a man as a crowd of bizarre figures emerge from the back of the truck. "You brutes! Polluters!" shouts an angry voice. "This is just a typical Roxxsanto trick ... polluting the environment so you can get to people's KIDNEYS!" The Gold Kidney-Lady strode forth, waving her cane angrily.
"Good lord!" shouted the foreman. "Get Schist, *now*!" He jumped back in shock as a silver cat riding a surfboard flew over to him, hovering, then howled as a disgusting-smelling two-headed dog bit him on the behind." Siliconman shouted, "Bingle-Burry, Silver Streak, *heel*!"
Rex the Moon Boy, the dog-faced boy, shouted down at Siliconman, "See? Detective Dinosaur's hunch was right!" He hugged the deerstalker cap-wearing dinosaur whose neck he rode upon, "He knew where Roxxsanto's operation would be!"
"Whoop whoop whoop!" shouted the Absorbing Bug, "I've never absorbed a nanomachine before!"
The mechanics fled as the Kitty Cosmic unleashed her power, disintegrating the rest of the fleet. "You, you can't do this!" shouted the foreman, then "yeucccch" as Bingle-Burry threw up on his shoes.
Siliconman poured over to the foreman, his face changing into an even more horrible version of one of Bingle-Burry's. "Where's Schist?" He scowled, "Tell me now, or you don't even want to *know* what *I'm* going to do to your shoes."
The foreman, his hands shaking in fear and disgust, pointed to the command center ... just as Schist appeared from inside it, to face down the team. "Ahh ... the Judgement League Abnormals ... I've been expecting you."
Siliconman's jaw dropped down to his knees. "You *were*?"
Schist laughed, "Yes, and I've come prepared ... behold!" And from the center strode an army of costumed figures, which the reader may recognise as Kid Armpit, Kid Around, Kid Stuff, Waco Kid, Wacky Kid, Kid Knee, Buck Nekkid, Kidda Kidder, Kid Kalamity, Kid-U-Not, and Kid Zarrus.
The Gold Kidney-Lady gasped, "My Kidnoids! Unhand our junior auxiliary, you fiend!"
Schist cackled and guffawed, "They are mine now, old woman!" He manipulated the alien machinery, drawing the still-active nanomachines towards the hapless Kidnoids, until the absorbed the very essence of the rainforest.
Absorbing Bug whooped, "That looks like a kick, can anyone join in?" and ran from Kidnoid to Kidnoid, picking up their abilities until he grew to a size equal to Detective Dinosaur's. "Raar" shouted the resourceful reptile as the pair of them tag-wrestled the Forestoids.
The Gold Kidney-Lady shouted, "We're going to filter those nanobots out of my Kidnoids the same way kidneys filter the blood of waste ... and then we're going to excrete *you*, Schist!" She waved her cane at the mutated children, activating her high-pressure spray-gun at its base which served to coat one of the Forestoids in a fine sheath of gold, temporarily immobilising him.
Silconman shaped his head into a military officer's cap. "We're outnumbered here! Abnormals, retreat and regroup! Yaaaaaaaaaah!" and was forced to reform himself after Silver Streak plowed right through his center, being chased by a barking Bingle-Burry into the rainforest. "Heel, blast it, heel!" he shouted after them as they disappeared.
Schist snickered and chortled, "And, with your most powerful member gone, you are at my mercy!"
"Oh, shut up, Schist," Siliconman said, clamping a sandy limb over Schist's face.
Through sheer weight of numbers, the Forestoids started to overcome the heroes. "Hey boss," Rex the Moon Boy shouted, "We need help here."
Siliconman made a breathing hole for Schist. "How do we turn the machine off?"
Schist gulped hard. "I ... I don't know! Mr. Ronan said the program would end automatically once the rainforest was completely analysed!"
The Gold Kidney-Lady stood over the alien mechanism. "I can't figure out this damn kidney-poisoning machine! I don't even think it's from this planet! Who knows if aliens even *have* kidneys!"
"You'll have to do better than that, Schi - Yaaaaaaaaaah!" Silconman shouted again, as Silver Streak burst through him from behind. Bingle-Burry, slowing down and out of breath, looked in despair as the metallic feline soared off into the rainforest again. The dog wobbled over to the nanomachine generator and, after making a series of gut-wrenching noises, glarfed all over it.
Sparks flew as the generator started to short out, and the nanomachines started to retract. The Kidnoids slowly returned to human form.
Siliconman looked balefully at the Bingle-Burry. "Another successful case, solved by the Judgement League Abnormals!"