The Harvestman

Placing his hand flat against the side of the tower block where he knew kidnappers were holding the Millionaire heiress Velma Moonstone hostage; Harvestman used his ability to see through vibrations to search all of the rooms in the building until his head became filled with a vision of an attractive young blonde woman dressed in designer clothes, gagged and bound to a chair while, round about her, three grim faced men stood wielding revolvers and scowling.

One of the men pulled down the woman’s gag.

“You won’t get away with this”, she said, “My brother, Cedric is very powerful. He’ll get you for this”.

“Don’t you get it yet”, said one of the men, smirking, “Your brother is the one who wanted us to kidnap you. He wants you out of the way so that he can inherit your fathers company; he’s not paying your ransom, he’s paying us to kill you but he wants to make it look like a kidnapping”.

The woman shook her head,

“No I don’t believe it”, she said, sobbing, “I don’t believe he would do such a thing”.

“The fourth floor”, said Harvestman to himself as he leapt agilely onto and began crawling up the side of the building, “Apartment 42A”.

Velma sobbed, staring blankly ahead of her. She felt like there was nothing else she could do now but cry. Nothing made sense anymore.

Just then, however, she thought she saw something outside the window of the room.

“What was that?”, she thought, “Like a blurred photograph of a man, almost invisible but not quite, outside the window like it was hanging onto the wall”.

But then suddenly, there was a loud crash as whatever it was leapt through the window, then the room was filled with a noxious green cloud of gas and while the men were coughing and gagging the strange figure, that she now saw was wearing some kind of skin tight brown and black costume, grabbing hold of two of them knocked their heads hard together, knocking them both unconscious, while spraying some kind of sticky, glue like substance over the eyes of the third that momentarily blinded him long enough for the costumed man to knock the gun out of his hand and, grabbing him by the shirt front, lift him up off the ground and hurl him across the room.

“What are you, some kind of superhero?”, asked Velma, astonished.

“I’m called Harvestman”, the man answered, proudly, standing in a super heroic pose with his hands on his hips

“Harvestman? You mean you’re like a wheat powered superhero?”, asked Velma.

Harvestman shook his head and groaned with annoyance,

“A harvestman is a type of Arachnid, miss”, the hero explained.

“Oh you mean like a spider?”, asked Velma.

“No”, said Harvestman, irritably, “Not like a spider”.

“Well do you spin webs?”, asked Velma as Harvestman, kneeling, started to untie her ankles.

“No, I do not spin webs. Havestmen do not spin webs”, he said, “They’re not Spiders but they do do lots of other cool things. Like see with vibrations and make themselves invisible by vibrating their bodies”.

“Oh so that’s why I couldn’t see you properly, outside the window, I mean”, said Velma.

“Yes”, said Harvestman, “That was me vibrating and Harvestmen excrete glue too, to trap other creatures and spray noxious gas”.

“Oh, like a skunk”, asked Velma.

“Kind of”, said Harvestman, embarrassed before, becoming defensive, he added, “Anyway can a Spider make itself invisible? Can it? Web spinning is such an overrated talent”.

“I suppose so”, said Velma, getting up and stretching her arms and legs, smiling,“Well thank you for saving me, anyhow”.

Just then, however, a sharp blade went whizzing past Harvestmans head cutting off his right arm that fell to the floor and seeing the bloody limb on the floor Velma screamed then, turning round to face his assailant Harvestman saw what looked like a Ninja, his face covered by a black mask but then ripping of the mask he saw that the face underneath was that of Cedric Moonstone, Velmas brother.

“You’re a Ninja?”, asked Harvestman, backing away from the sword.

“Sulsa”, said Cedric.

“Pardon me?”, asked Harvestman.

“Sulsa. It’s a Korean warrior. Master of Hwa Rang -Do. Ninja’s are Japanese”, he explained.

He turned towards his sister scowling.

“But never mind what I am”, he said, “The point is, in a minute, both of you are going to be sushi”.

“Cedric, you bastard”, yelled his sister, defiantly, “You won’t get away with this. People will find out. You’ll go to prison and you won’t get one cent of my Fathers fortune or his company”.

“No one is going to find out, little sister”, he said, grinning evilly and raising the sword above his head .

But then, just as he was about to bring the sword down upon his sisters head they both heard a gunshot; a bullet, that must have been fired from behind him, bursting out through the front of his chest before whizzing over Velma’s head, then suddenly, lowering the sword, her brother slumped dead on the floor.

“What just happened?”, asked Velma, stunned and confused.

But then, to her amazement, crawling along the floor almost like a snake, she saw Harvestman’s dismembered limb clutching the gun that it had just picked up and shot her brother in the back with.

“How the hell did you do that?”, asked Velma, shocked and even a little horrified.

Harvestman, laughed apologetically, “Uhh..It’s another thing that Harvestmen can do. It’s called autotomy, shedding a limb that keeps on moving. I can control it from a distance”.

“Wow”, said Velma, her face brightening up,“I guess Harvestmen really are as cool as Spiders”.

“I like to think so”, said Harvestman, proudly.