Welcome to the first chapter of my submission to Stormchaser90's Heebie Jeebie Hullabaloo Halloween Story Contest. I hadn't planned on entering initially, but Eddy13 gave me a great idea that I decided to run with after all. So sit back and enjoy this throwback to those classic sci-fi 'B' movies of the fifties, KP style. Standard disclaimers apply. And leave a review, and I promise a reply. But only if you dare…

Attack of the Giant Naked Mole Rat!

I.

It was a dark and stormy morning. The predawn sky had cleared just enough to reveal a brilliant full moon, bracketed by an unusual planetary conjunction of Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn. As Dr. James Possible navigated the rain slicked road on his way to the Middleton Space Center, he supposed that Bob Chen was in seventh heaven over the celestial display, and was probably still at the observatory in spite of the inclement weather. Also auspicious was the fact that it was Halloween, although as scientists neither he nor Bob had much patience for the world's fascination with the paranormal holiday, preferring instead the comfort that true science provided.

"Yeah, give me a nice solid rocket any day of the year over mythical ghosts and goblins," he mused. "That's real science, dealing with cold hard facts. Besides, Halloween was hijacked by the candy companies and costume manufacturers for their own greedy gain anyway."

His mind began to wander as he fantasized about what he'd like to do to a few of those companies for promoting the faux holiday, as well as all those superstitious folk who blindly wasted their time and money to make it all possible.

"Too bad I couldn't pack the whole lot of 'em into a missile and send them all on a one-way trip into the nearest black hole," he mused.

Suddenly, a person on a motor scooter appeared out of the mist, forcing him to swerve in order to avoid a collision. But in doing so, his car rather forcefully collided with the curb, James painfully hitting his head on the steering wheel and nearly blacking out.

"Good gosh golly! Where in world did he come from?"

The scooter's driver was deeply concerned and immediately screeched to a halt. The blond teen raced up to the car window and frantically knocked on it.

"Hey, Mister! Are you okay?"

Rubbing his bruised head, James rolled down his window and looked up at the familiar face. "Ronald?"

"MrDrP! Wow, that was a pretty close call. You alright?"

"I think so. Banged my head pretty hard, but I seem to be ok otherwise. Sorry about that, I should know better than to let my mind wander when I'm driving. But how about you?"

"No problemo, MrDrP. But that bump on your head looks pretty bad though. You should get it checked out right away."

Rufus climbed out of Ron's pocket for a closer look, chittering in agreement.

"No, I'm in kind of a hurry. Rocket launch with a limited launch window this morning."

Ron looked dubious. "Welllll, okay, but I wouldn't wait too long, just to play it safe. And let me check out that tire just to make sure your car's still drivable."

As he bent down to look at the tire, he whispered, "Rufus, I think you better go with MrDrP and keep an eye on him. You know these Type A personalities, always pushing themselves too hard and not taking care of themselves."

Rufus quickly agreed. "Just like Kim-Kim!"

Ron smiled back, "You got it, little buddy." Getting back up, he assured James, "Tire looks all right to me. But about that bump: why don't you just take it easy today? You wouldn't want MrsDrP to lose her cool for not getting that looked at."

James winced. "Words to the wise, Ronald?"

"Something like that," he replied, while Rufus snuck into the back seat of the car. As James started to drive away, Ron waved goodbye and thought to himself, "I'll have Kim check in on him later. He wasn't looking too good there…"

II.

"Well, that's it."

James pounded his desk in frustration. Throughout the morning, the weather had failed to let up sufficiently for the planned rocket launch, and now the launch window had come and gone. Even worse, the next window was days away, and there was nothing he could do about it. He rubbed his aching head and reached for his pain medication, silently cursing his earlier inattention behind the wheel. He looked down at Rufus, who had finally made his presence known, now staring back up at him with concern etched on his tiny face.

"Hmm, I suppose I should take Ronald's advice and get this bump checked out, shouldn't I?"

Rufus nodded vigorously and replied, "Uh-huh! Uh-huh!"

"All right, you've convinced me. But I'm really tired at the moment. So first a little snooze, then I'm off to the hospital."

He lied down on the tiny couch in the corner of his office, closed his eyes, and was soon fast asleep.

III.

After what seemed like hours later, James awoke from his nap to find Rufus peering into his face with a worried look. But he felt fine by now, the pain finally gone and the swelling on his head having disappeared as well. He sat up with a smile and stretched his arms out in relief.

"Well, Rufus. Seems like I'm feeling much better now, so I think I'll skip that trip to the hospital. But with all this unexpected time on my hands, I'll need to find something to keep me busy for the rest of the afternoon."

A grin began to spread across his face as a devilish idea popped into his mind. "Yes, and I believe I have just the right project to tackle. And you can help, too, Rufus. In fact, I don't think I can do it without you."

Rufus perked up instantly, now intensely interested in what James had in mind.

"Follow me..."

With a jaunty spring in his step, he walked down the hall and into the robotics department, Rufus scurrying close behind. Unlocking the door to a highly classified area, James gestured toward his top secret project. Rufus gasped involuntarily at the incredible device. Before them stood a twelve-foot high cybertronic battle suit, painted in a brilliant candy-apple red and polished to mirrorlike brilliance.

"Back when I was a grad student in college, I built a much smaller battle suit for my pet lab rat, Pinky Joe Curly Tail. Armed with a basic plasma blaster, the little scamp laid waste to most of the campus almost before I knew it. Fortunately no one was injured, but I did end up getting high marks that semester for original thinking."

He hooded his eyes as his smile spread into a wolfish grin. "However, I always dreamed about ramping up the basic design with an even more powerful plasma weapon, giving it a nuclear power source, and designing it with electrostatic reactive armor able to deflect any weapon up to the size of a 120mm Abrams tank shell."

His eyes softened as he let out a sentimental sigh. "I had hoped to give this to Kim as a high school graduation present, since I've always been rather protective of my Kimmie Cub, due in no small part to all those dangerous missions she's always going on. But the requisite amount of plutonium to give it sufficient power was naturally hard to come by, and besides, the whole thing was rendered obsolete after Wade created his own battle suit for her, the little genius."

Rufus commiserated, "Ohhh, poor MrDrP… "

"So I was thinking that I might give it to Joss instead when she was old enough, especially since she's familiar with cybertronic devices like Slim's robot horses, but that's still quite a few years away. So at the present time my invention is all dressed up with no place to go… until now."

Rufus gave him an inquisitive look. "Huh?"

"How'd you like to take it out for a test spin, just to see how well it operates under, shall we say, real world conditions?"

Rufus jumped up and down as his eyes brightened in anticipation. "Goody!"

"Wonderful! I was thinking earlier today about how much I dislike Halloween, with all its unscientific and frequently evil connotations, so I have some perfect targets picked out for you in the Tri City Area. There's just one caveat: you're not to hurt anyone, but you can cause as much property damage as your little naked mole rat heart desires. Does that sound fun to you?"

"Uh-huh! Uh-huh!" was the mole rat's overjoyed reply.

James rubbed his hands together in evil glee. "Drew Lipsky, eat your heart out! You're not the only one in Middleton who can play at being mad scientist!"

He tried to let out an evil laugh, but it was underwhelming to say the least, and Rufus merely shrugged and wagged his head in dismay.

James sighed. "Hmm. Needs a little work, I take it?"

Rufus sadly agreed. "Sorree…"

IV.

After a short training course in the battle suit's operation, Rufus was finally prepared to begin his mission.

Speaking through the two-way radio, James began, "All right, Rufus. I've preprogrammed each target for you in turn, so all you need to do is fire the blasters once you're in range. But if anything goes wrong, all you need to do is hit the manual override and the suit will revert back to your own personal control. And if all else fails, just hit the fail-safe switch, and the battle suit will immediately power itself down. I'll be in constant radio contact with you, and I have a TV link-up as well so I can directly follow your progress. Good luck."

Through the bulletproof Perspex dome on top of the battle suit, Rufus gave him a cheerful thumbs-up and powered up the massive device. He next attempted to squeeze through the door, but at twelve feet in height, the mechanized behemoth was too large for the doorway. So giving a tiny shrug, he merely activated the plasma blaster and promptly blew a hole in the laboratory wall large enough to exit. Free at last, Rufus set course for his first target of the evening.

TBC…