The Invulnerable Uranium Man

The rubble still lay across the site, Haz-mat tape surrounding the perimeter where it once stood. Broken beakers, melted equipment, fried power lines and tattered dreams were all that stood now in the broken landscape. A lone figure stood staring across the broken building, a hulking form of a human and yet no longer. The figure was at disproportionate, 8' broad shoulders, a good 9' tall. Standing still in the gusting wind, deep in contemplation or listening to something on the wind. He stood, remembering a day in the past when he had aspirations of grandeur and normalcy. He remembered what it was like being a normal kid.

Daniel ran down the corridors of his school, rushing to his next class. A frail looking teenager of 15. Glasses hung just in front of his green eyes. He always ran to class, anything to avoid Matt Anderson, the high school track star and the school bully. They had once been friends, but that felt so long ago. He approached the class and saw her there, Jennifer Anderson, his high school crush. She always caused him to choke up, already feeling the lump forming in his throat. He was determined to talk to her this time and moved forward before falling face first to the ground. His face hurt he remembered, the contact with the floor left him with a dull throbbing pain. He looked behind him and saw Matt with a smirk. He remembered feeling embarrassed and angry and scared all at the same time. Until she put her hand out to help him up. She and he had always been close friends and matt hated that.

It was years later that when Jennifer and him were at MIT that he finally confessed and that scared feeling welled up in his body. The exhilaration when he found out she loved him. The feeling of complacency that set in while they were dating and the connection they had when they made love. He remembered it fondly. How she had encouraged him to take that job doing research and the long hours away from home but she always made him feel right. He wanted to give her more than he possessed. She always made him feel better. A burglar broke into their home one night while he was working. He did horrible things to her, he remembered the police recounting the atrocities one by one. She held on waiting for him to arrive. He held her hand, feeling so afraid and angry for being away when she needed him. And when she died, he felt cheated and alone and so guilty. He should ahve been their to protect her and failed. The thief was never caught. His work was all he had and it cost him so dearly. He could not let her die for nothing. And the time would come for him to find the scum that took his happiness away.

He spent years developing it, the first stable uranium sample. It could change the world. He remembered how he wished she was there to see him triumph that day. When terrorists broke into the lab demanding nuclear material, he made sure that they would not discover the sample. He had the sample inside his lab coat carefully stored close to his body. He didn't care about his life but he cared for his co workers. When the terrorists released his co- workers he tried to stop them and struggled with one. A ricochet breached the reactor's safety net causing a catastrophic chain reaction and in an instant later the lab was engulfed in a huge fireball. The blast blew most of the cops and national gaurd off their feet and over turned nearby cars. When the dust and debris settled a few minutes later, the lab was nothing but a pile of concrete rubble and mangled iron girders.

For a full day, he lay unconscious as rescue teams and Haz-mat personnel combed through the remains of the lab. Buried under tons of rubble, he was probably irradiated by doses of radiation so lethal that he wouldn't live for more than an hour he thought. Then he heard that voice again, her voice. He had remembered hoping he was dead and could move on. He remembered reaching out and touching her again. The feeling of happiness returned. But she whispered softly to him, saying he was not dead and their time together was not now. She told him to get up and help the innocent, to save those who needed him. To help them and love them as she still loved him. She gently took his wandering spirit back to his body and brought him back to consciousness. A final kiss was the last thing he remembered of her.

Feeling ran back into his body. He could see the tons and tons of rubble above him, a mangled iron girder lay across his chest. He felt so strange now that he could feel again. He could not feel the tremendous weight on his body. He moved the tons and tons of ruble easily and was in the middle of it all. Haz-mat teams, fire fighters and police, even national guard and military personnel. Everyone was startled by his presence and in the reflection of a near by fire engine, he remembered seeing what he had become for the first time. The Hulking figure, so huge and covered in those plates of dull green metal like the sample he created, reflected in the mirror. An accident with the reactor and his sample must have done this. He remembered that feeling of being unafraid for the first time in his life. He felt the strength course through his new body. Somewhere in the distance, he remembered her voice trailing off in the wind and the stars above.

From out of the distance, a scream and panic arose. The round shook as it approached, an immense mecha, the pilot driven mad be the terrorists failure. The monstrosity was a tool of the terrorists, still demanding the nuclear material and killing the helpless people. It smashed armor vehicles and cars easily. Until it reached him. He knew what he had to do. The mecha stomped down hard on his body, driving him down. The blow buried him deeply in the ground but he arose from the hole. He felt no pain, even tho a normal person would be paste on its foot. Again it tried to stomp him, but this time he caught the foot with his monstrous hands, feeling his fingers crushing the titanium as he grasped it. He knew he had to be careful. With a mighty lift, he easily lifted the monstrosity off the ground and slammed it down, stunning the pilot momentarily. A second later he tore the machines left leg off, sparks flying from the severed power cords before depositing the leg a few yards away. Missiles flew from the left arm, striking him dead on. The explosions pushed him back into a nearby fire engine. Keeping his balance, he managed to hold the mangled engine from tettering and crushing the people behind it. With a mighty leap, he gave the machine's head a double handed punch and the machine's head bounced along the ground. He saw the pilot and rage boiled in him. He remembered the feeling of rage as he ripped open the body like he was tearing thin sheets of paper and saw the frightened and stunned man inside. He pulled the shocked man from inside the monster and flung him to the authorities in cover nearby. The man's body bounced on the hard ground a few times before he came to a painful rest. He was a hero now, his body was impervious to almost any attack that could be conceived. He would become known as The Invulnerable Uranium Man, a concept of a local reporter who interviewed him shortly after the incident.

Over the years, he became more accustomed to the hulking mass he had become, the vulnerabilities and short comings, the strength and weaknesses. They almost seemed to come out of the wood work these days. But he couldn't give up, too many people depended on him now. His friend, Major Glory, had offered him that job but it didn't seem right to take it. Though Striker Island was a villain's final stop, every villain had to be put there first, now more than ever. He had a brief stint with the avengers, as disastrous as that had gone. Still, he didn't give up. His will to help would never become unresolved, no matter how long it took. Besides, there was one criminal in particular that he hunted for.

Now he looked on where it all began, the site of the lab and the explosion. It felt so long ago and yet he remembered it like yesterday. He came here though not to remember the battles since, but times before, of shattered lives, broken hearts and aspirations of glory. His coat fluttered in the wind, a gust coming off the coast. He listened to the breeze, hoping to hear a familiar voice in the air. He looked high in the sky and felt the longing growing in his heart until there it was. He smiled and closed his eyes, intently listening to the voice on the wind. He opened them a moment later and turned to walk away. He walked slowly down the path, his head looking off into the distance. His mighty bulk made soft booms as he walked, leaving deep impressions in the ground. His heart seemed to be lifted every time he visited the site. The thudding faded into the distance as he walked back to the destiny he now lived. A gust of wind blew the concrete dust around making it swirl in patterns and briefly formed an image of her before the image faded into the day.

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A short story and background about a RPg Hero i made and played for sometime.

Heroes are born from overcoming adversity. Villians are made from sucumbing to them.