It was a rather quiet day at Titan's Tower. Starfire had taken the rest of the team out for a little training regimen and allowed Lincoln and Lucy to have the place all to themselves. They didn't think they would ever get used to living in a place as grand as this, but here they were now, living the dream. The best part, Lincoln believed, was the fact that they had a GIANT flat-screen TV that went all the way up to the roof in the Living Room. He figured that he would get to enjoy a lot of time watching his favorite shows on the grandest of High Definition Televisions. While he was doing that, Lucy was on a tablet, looking through a list made up of their father's Rogue Gallery.
"Lincoln, are you aware of how many strange enemies that our father has faced as Superman?" Lucy asked as she scrolled down the list, which would be about several pages long in real life. "Some of these people are rather strange, some are considered highly dangerous while others a considered villains."
"Yep. Such is the life of a superhero." Lincoln remarked, not even peeling himself away from staring at the TV. "You got pretty cool villains mixed with lame villains."
"According to father, they're all equally dangerous once you understand what he's been through. Many equal him in strength and power. Others have Kryptonite or different means of facing Superman."
Lincoln then turned to Lucy and said "I don't think you have to worry much about all these guys, Lucy. Some of them are probably behind bars by now and what are the chances of either of us facing one of those creeps any time soon?"
There was some awkward silence for about a few seconds between the two of them after Lincoln said that.
"...I just jinxed us, didn't I?" He said with sweat coming down the side of his head.
Lucy joined him on the couch as she replied "Well, maybe you're right. We don't worry too much about it."
Her older brother smiled in appreciation as he turned up the TV. Much to his surprise, what turned up looked to be a parody of their father, Superman, in a cartoon universe. And the villain he was dealing with was putting him through some crazy, cartoon-like situations. We're talking Looney Tune stuff, such as giant hammers, getting flattened, splattered across the road, spun around in mid-flight, and of course, a LOT of explosives. This person looked to have been an Imp-like-creature, due to his short stature, and was wearing a purple and yellow suit with a green bowtie and a purple derby hat; he also had a pair of white hairs sticking out the sides of his head. The moment the kids saw him, they felt disturbed as if he knew they were looking at him. Lucy's eyes, under her bangs, widened in horror as she realized who that was.
"Lincoln..." She said, and he could tell she was scared. And that scared him. "I think that's one of dad's enemies."
"You're..Are you sure?"
"Positive." She replied. "I think it's that guy who's name is nearly impossible to pronounce without slowing down."
"Ugh. Here we go again, with the name thing."
Both kids turned to see the man sitting right next to them on the couch with his legs crossed and his hands behind his head. It was Mr. Mxyzptlk.
"Just so it's clear, and say it with me." He then turned his head into a blender "Mix-" then the cover a record "yess-" then turned his head back to normal "sspit-" he spat in the kid's direction and they dodged it before looking back at him "-llick."
"What are you doing here?!" Lincoln asked, keeping Lucy behind him as they tried to shuffle away from the guy.
Mxy smiled slyly before jumping off the couch and...began walking on thin air. "What I do best." He said. "You kids already know how I hate your daddy. To be honest, I almost forgot why...maybe it's because he's a glory, attention-stealing hog who will do anything to stay in the spotlight!"
He suddenly turned big, red, and angry, forcing Lincoln and Lucy to get away as he smashed up the center of the room...but then, he and the room turned back to normal as it never really happened.
"Or maybe, it's because I just like a challenge." He said with a smile as the kids kept their distance from them. Mxy continued to walk about the room as he talked "...When I heard that Superpuss had kids, I was blown away. I could never get by in outwitting him. Showing that I'm much better than him in more ways than one...then I figured, if I could never get by with him, then I might as well stick to the next big thing." He then stood in front of the TV, facing the kids with his arms crossed. "Let's see if you could put as much of a fight as your daddy."
The TV then turned on to show a huge white screen, and before they knew it, Lincoln and Lucy found themselves getting pulled in with Mr. Mxyzptlk following through.
There was a bright light, and the kids found themselves in a warped, cartoonish-looking version of Metropolis. The same way it looked in that cartoon that Mxy apparently made.
"Welcome to my world, kiddies!" His demented voice could be heard all around before the Imp revealed himself...now huge and overlooking the two. With a sinister smile, he raises his fist, and at unimaginable speed, smashes down on the platform. The two seemed barely able to get away as they regained themselves. They then heard laughter close by and looked to see the Imp, now in normal size, laughing his head off...literally. It fell off his shoulders when he leaned back too much, and then just poofed back on. He then faces the two kids.
"Sorry, sorry. I never had a taste for that sort of thing." He said. "But I need a laugh. You should've seen the looks on your faces."
Lincoln glared before using his own superhuman speed and punched Mxy in the face. The Imp reacted like he felt, blinking in surprise as he wiped some nonexistent blood from his lip. He smiled as he looked to the son of Superman.
"Guess your daddy didn't teach you anything." He said with some venom in his tone before he floated above both the kids' heads. "...This is definitely gonna be fun."
With his anger building up, Lincoln brought up his powers again and sped after the Imp, trying to lay on him a barrage of punches, only for his fists to be met with an invisible barrier. Mxy just "stood" there, arms crossed as he even broke out a yawn. And he did a classic looney tune move, putting his thumb into his mouth and blowing on it, making his head inflate until one big hand, which he made into a fist, using it to slam the boy away.
Lucy watched as her brother tried to put up a fight, but now it was futile. Mr. Mxyzptlk was a magical being with reality-warping abilities, and they were in his domain. They were literally out of their element here as she thought back to what his file had to say. Beating him was never easy for their father, he had to do some quick thinking to get this guy to go back to his home dimension. And that's usually Lincoln's department.
Speaking of which, the white-haired boy was smacked away from Mxy with a giant, cartoonish baseball bat...which transformed back into the Imp himself.
"Had enough, shorty?" Mr. Mxyzptlk remarked as he shifted his hand into a giant hammer. "'Bout time I put you out of your misery."
But before he could flatten Lincoln, Lucy used her own speed to get her brother out of the way. She had him on the ground, sitting while she got a look at him to see if there was any damage. When there wasn't, she was relieved and then whispered to him.
"I know how to beat him, Lincoln." She said. "His own weakness is his mouth. We need to get him to say his name...backwards."
Laboring his breathing, Lincoln replied with content "...You're kidding, right? How can we do that...when we can't even say his name right?"
"Oh, please, it's really not that hard to say." Mxy said as he was walking around the two. "And just for the record, your daddy was way more quiet than you two." He points to Lincoln. "And you stick me as a man with a plan. But here you are, throwing yourself at me like a bag of rocks, kid. You really should rethink your strategy a little, junior. 'Cause you're outta your debt the way things are."
Lucy helped steady her brother as he got up and cracked his neck. Mxy's smile never left his face as he enjoyed the torment he was giving the son of Superman.
"Yeah...points to you." Lincoln growled. "But with the little slice of info I got about you...I know how to defeat you."
"Oh yeah? Go ahead then, son." Mr. Mxyzptlk remarked gesturing the boy to come at him. "See if you can outsmart."
With a smile of his own now growing on Lincoln's face, both Kryptonians looked at each other and nodded. They sped around the Imp, who looked around, keeping a close eye on them before Lincoln pulled a Flash on him and got in the face in but a second.
"Bet you can't mimick our abilities!" He said before getting back into a blur around Mxy.
"What? You're little alien powers, boy? Don't tempt me." He said, getting a little infuriated. Then, it was Lucy's turn to show up in his face.
"You have all this power, yet can't even do the simplest of abilities." She said.
"Don't play with me! Not even your daddy could take me on in a fight!"
Lincoln then showed up behind him, startling even the Imp as he said "So you say. But then, again you've always been a loon. Even with the powers you have, you have never proven to be better than Superman."
Now Mr. Mxyzptlk was getting pissed, he was letting these kids get to him, just as they wanted.
"You think I can never be better than Superman?!" He yelled in anger. "Well, I show I can better! I'll be a better Superman than that alien punk will be! LET ME PROVE IT!"
That is when the Imp used his powers to transform himself, giving him a muscular body that was similar to Superman's, and the siblings cringed at the sight of it. But they knew they had to move fast the moment they saw Mxy's eyes glowing red as he soon fired his own set of laser eyes at them. This is what they needed as they dodged the beams, having them follow them all around the platform they were on, cartoonishly using them to trace something on it.
This went on for a good minute until they stopped and Mr. Mxyzptlk came down to tower over them as they stepped back.
"Well...how do you like me now, brats?!" He exclaimed loudly.
Both Lincoln and Lucy held smiles on their faces before the boy said to the magic freak "...You might wanna look down."
And with that, Mr. Mxyzptlk looked down and widened his eyes in horror to see that in all the confusion and frustration the kids had put him through, he written something down with the heat vision that he had,
"Kltpzyxm" his own name, backward.
"Oh no...not again." He groaned as suddenly, the dimension they were in was starting to break apart. Even his physical form was starting to get engulfed in light. All the while, Lincoln and Lucy were smiling triumphantly.
"You played me! I can't believe I fell for another stupid trick!" He yelled as his powers left him and he himself began to dissipate.
"Can't believe I spent all this time fighting you when you made it easy for us." Lincoln remarked.
"It's been fun...but we gotta go." Lucy said as she and her brother flew away from the disintegrating Imp as the dimension fell apart around him.
"I'LL. GET. YOU. FOR. THIIIIISSSSS!" Mr. Kltpzyxm yelled out his final words before everything turned white.
Lincoln and Lucy's eyes adjusted to find themselves back in the Living Room of the Tower. The TV was on, playing a random cartoon, yet nothing like that Imp made before. Mxysptlk was gone and everything was back to normal. Yet it was something the two would not soon forget as Starfire and the rest of the team came up from the elevator behind them.
"Hello, Lincoln, Lucy." Their mentor greeted them as she came around to see their eyes were widened in surprise. This left her concerned. "Did...anything while we were away?"
The two siblings looked at each other before Lincoln grabbed the remote control and pointed it at the television.
"We just...watched a little too much TV today." The boy said before pressing the button and the screen went black.
