Dateline: Wednesday, July 8, 1981, 2:34 PM, Pacific Daylight Time.

Rocket knew he had no choice but to face Floodgate. Python had told him that it would be no big deal. Easy for her to say, he thought, she didn't see what this clone is capable of!

Perhaps I should explain why Rocket ran from his opponent in the first place. Well, like his sister, Rocket actively searched for Floodgate. He found her in the food court. She caught sight of him right away.

"Funny, I was expecting to fight with Liquegirl," she said.

"And I was expecting you to be attractive," Rocket countered. "I guess we're both wrong!"

"Oh, you're going to wish you had never said that, girly man!"

With that, Floodgate reshaped her arms into axes. She chopped a few tables in half to show that she meant business. Then, she formed a shark's head out of her midsection, and with its teeth gnashing, she charged at Rocket. Rocket had never seen anything like this, and it scared him so much, that he almost wet himself. Almost.

So, like any super hero, he did what he does best, which, unfortunately, was running. Alas, Floodgate gave chase. She pursued Rocket in the form of a tidal wave twelve feet high. It was all he could do to escape the crush of contact that would inevitably follow. When Floodgate crashed into the ground, he dashed in a million different directions, trying to lose her. When he did, he ducked into a sporting goods store for safety, which brings us back to where I started.

Anyway, after getting a thorough dressing-down from his big sister, Rocket stepped back into the hall to face Floodgate.

"Remember, Dash," Python called out, "every villain has a weakness! Find it and exploit it!"

"Gotcha!" Rocket turned on his heels and saw his opponent two inches from his face. She snarled like an angry pit bull, and he almost lost his nerve. Again, I say, almost. "Whoo!" he said. "Ma'am, a Tic Tac would not kill you!" In retrospect, that probably wasn't the smartest thing for him to say, as it only made Floodgate angrier.

She morphed her hands into curved blades like scythes and swung at Rocket. But she didn't anticipate that his super-speed also begot lightning-quick reflexes. Rocket ducked and dodged every last one of her slashes.

"Can't you just stay still?" Floodgate growled.

"Yes, I could. I just don't want to. If you don't like it, then bite me!"

"Saaaaay! Now there's an idea!" Floodgate reshaped her midriff into the shape of a wolf's head, like that guy from that Electra movie. Rocket recoiled, but he didn't lose his cool. She caused the wolf to make convincing barking noises. Rocket delivered a swift kick to the wolf's nose. He could have sworn he heard bone cracking as he did. Floodgate was sent spinning, and landed on the ground with a sickening splat.

Rocket grunted with satisfaction. But, his happiness did not last very long. The MagiClone (patent pending) got up.

"All right, punk, this is the part where I destroy you!"

Rocket wasn't fazed. "You can't destroy what you can't catch!" he teased. With that, he took off running. The evil clone ran after him, until she heard his voice behind her. "Yoo-hoo!" he said. Floodgate spun on her heels and ran the other way. Then… "I'm over here, doofus!" She ran to her left. "Are you leaving already?" She ran to the right. This went on for quite some time, despite the many desperate pleas of the part of Floodgate for Rocket to "quit messing my head! You're giving me a headache!"

Finally, dizzy, frustrated, and drained of just about all her energy, the evil MagiClone (patent pending) collapsed onto a bench. "I was not artificially produced for this kind of aggravation," she moaned to nobody in particular. Just then, Rocket zipped up next to her.

"Unfortunately, I have it on good authority that you were, in fact, produced for just this kind of aggravation," he said. "That is your only purpose in your life. Sucks, huh? If you want, I could bring your life to a painless end. I bet you'd like that. A nice little…hulahk!"

That 'hulahk' was Rocket's windpipe getting pinched shut, when Floodgate lifted her hand and grabbed him in a chokehold. Suddenly, she felt strong enough to take him out for good. Rocket felt, eh, not so much. He tried to pull the clone's arm away from his neck, but she had made it intangible while still holding on tightly. An evil grin creeped its way across her face.

"Always attack when they're babbling about nothing," she said. "One hundred superheroes can't be wrong, right?"

Rocket kept trying to get Floodgate to loosen her grip on his neck, but she kept liquefying her hand away. In that moment, he had an idea. He lifted his feet, putting all of his weight in her hand. He knew that while her hand was liquid, it couldn't hold his weight. (She probably couldn't hold his weight anyway, but that's beside the point.) He slid out of her grip, just like he planned. What he didn't plan on doing was landing on his house key, but he did. Ignoring the searing pain in his backside, Rocket got up and assumed a boxing stance.

"I promised myself I wasn't going to use my magic option," Floodgate said, "but you've left me no choice!"

"Magic option?" Rocket asked.

"SNAILIUS!" she screamed, pointing. Rocket was thrown backwards when a burst of yellow light struck him. He got up and tried to rush her at super-speed. But when he ran as fast as he could, he found that he ran much more slowly than usual.

"What the hell have you done to me?" he demanded.

"Oh, nothing, just a little spell I learned from my master, the Witch Queen," she explained. "It makes a normal person move no faster than a snail, but on a speedster like yourself, all it does is reduce your speed to a more tolerable level. Now that you're on a speed limit, this will finally be a fair fight, and at last I will…" She never finished. Rocket, even at this reduced speed, managed to punch her unexpectedly.

"Well, you disgusting slime," he said, "if it's a fair fight you want, then a fair fight you shall get!" Rocket resumed the boxing stance and dared Floodgate to make the first move. She charged at him and swung a crosscut, which he blocked. Rocket delivered a jab right to her face. His fist went through her skull like Jell-O.

"Hey!" Rocket protested. "I thought you wanted a fair fight!"
"This is a fair fight! Well, fair for me, anyway!" answered Floodgate.

"So, even when you say you're fighting fair, you're really cheating, huh? Well, there's a big surprise!"

"Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm bad. Bad MagiClone (patent pending)! Now, let's end this!"

"Mighty big words coming from someone who's ticklish!" Rocket teased.

"That sounds like fighting dirty to me. You'll never do it, no super hero would!"

"Never say 'never', fool!" Rocket tackled the evil clone and started tickling her. She began to laugh uncontrollably. She tried to escape by liquefying, but he wouldn't let up. Floodgate tried to call for help, but between laughing and gasping for air, she just couldn't. At one point, she rolled over onto her stomach. That's when Rocket caught sight of the pin in her neck. He stopped tickling her long enough to pull the pin out.

"Oh, damn it all to hell!" Floodgate moaned. "You know, by destroying me, you're destroying Liquegirl in effigy. That can't be could for your marriage, can it?"

"Save your breath, MagiClone (patent pending). I love my wife, and there's nothing you can do about that!"

"You want a…" POOF! Floodgate was gone. Nothing left but the unique odor of nutmeg.

After this, Python stepped out to congratulate her brother on a well-fought battle. "How did you know that she was ticklish?"

"I didn't know for sure, but I figured if Kim was ticklish, she would be also. Looks like I was lucky this time, huh?"

"Hmm, guess so."

"So, when is this stupid snail spell supposed to wear off?"

"I think it wore off when Floodgate went poof."

"All right. So, what do we do now?"

No sooner did Rocket say that than the radio crackled to life. "Blind Tracy calling, in serious need of back-up here! YAAHH! QUICKLY, PLEASE!"

"This is Python, hang in there, Trace, we're coming! Over and out!"

"Why are my questions always answered by external events?" Rocket asked nobody.

(A/N: I'll be getting out of school soon, so you guys can expect more frequent updates! Until I see you again, review!)