The Terrific Tigerman

Isamu glanced shyly at Koneko, her beautiful golden skin; her large brown eyes; her long, flowing, glossy black hair and sighed.

She was so beautiful, he thought. If only he had the courage to tell her how he felt about her but he was only an office boy and she was the bosses daughter; why would she be interested in him?

If only he had the courage of Tigerman, his super alter ego.

Whenever he transformed into Tigerman’s striped suit, mask and clawed tiger gloves, he felt like a different person; able to defeat giant robots, plagues of flying locust men from outer space and even radioactive dinosaurs  but without his suit and mask he was just Isamu the office boy; a no one.

Just then, however, Isamu heard something, like screams of panic; it sounded like it was coming from close by but Isamu knew that it was something happening ten blocks away, that it was just his super Tiger hearing that allowed him to hear it.

His right eye transformed from a normal eye into a blazing, amber coloured tigers eye as, through it, he saw amber visions of a giant crab clawed cyborg that was attempting to rob a bank.

Suddenly diving into a nearby office supply cupboard, Isamu emerged only a moment later, dressed in his white, orange and black striped Tigerman costume before suddenly and with a thunderous Tiger roar, in a blur of white black and orange he leapt like a Tiger out of an open office window.

Fast as a streak of Summer lightning, propelled by the sound waves of his Tiger roar, Tigerman flew over the Tokyo skyline.

But then, looming into view, the striped Superhero saw the giant crab clawed cyborg walking out through a hole in the wall of the bank with an entire bank vault on his armour plated shoulders.

Seeing the giant, half human; half robot crab villain emerge from the bank, passers by started to scream and run around like frightened ants but this only seemed to make the cyborg robber laugh.

“Ha! Ha! Ha!”, he said, “That’s right. Run, puny people. Run from the power of the mighty Robber Crab”.

But then, startled, the crab noticed something; something flying towards him like a white, orange and black striped interballistic missile.

“Tigerman”, growled the Crab, laying down the bankvault he was carrying on the sidewalk with a crash before picking up a parked car from nearby, seizing it in giant metal crab claws and raising it over his head, “I’ll teach you to spoil my fun”.

Then, throwing back his crab clawed arms and drawing upon all the power that his cyborg suit could give him, the villain hurled the car towards the Tiger skinned hero with all the force of a siege catapult.

Fortunately, seeing the car hurtling towards him, Tigerman reached out one of his gauntlet like tiger gloves and claws of blazing lazer light shot from his fingers then, with just a swipe of his right hand, Tigerman sliced the car into pieces that then fell harmlessly to the ground.

“Tiger, tiger blazing bright; fighting evil with all my might”, said Tigerman, “And my claws of laser light till not one villain’s left in sight”.

Then, suddenly, like a titanic fist of iron, crashing into the crab clawed criminal,Tiger man knocked him backwards into the wall of the bank so hard that he left a foot long crack across the concrete.

Stars and tweeting birds dancing around the dazed supervillains head, he lumbered back onto his feet.

But the Robber Crab, grimacing and glaring with hatred suddenly, bending his knees of steel, catapulted himself upwards through the air, hurling himself, boulder like, towards Tigerman who was circling above.

“You got me with a sucker punch”, said Robber Crab, “But I’ll give you something to suck on; my steel crab claw”.

But Tigerman was as agile and graceful as his ferocious feline namesake and, with a tiger roar, leapt over the Giant crab clawed crook then, the villains eyes growing saucerlike with fear, he realised that now, rather than heading towards Tigerman, he was on a collision course towards the side of a glass plated sky scraper and before he could react, his large chunk of a head went smashing through several layers of plate glass before becoming lodged in a window frame.

Now, rather than a robber crab, the clawed criminal looked as helpless as an overturned turtle.

But he was not stuck for long before he felt Tigermans incredibly strong hands grip hold of his feet and pull.

“Thank goodness you don’t have claws at both ends”, said Tigerman as then he started to swing the cyborg crab robber by his feet hurling him in the direction of the nearby river.

Landing with gigantic ker-splash in the river; suddenly, panicking, Robber Crab realised that, in his robotic crab armour he was too heavy to float.

“Help!”, he pleaded, in a cowardly whimpering voice, “Help, please. I’m sinking”.

“I thought that crabs liked the water”, said Tigerman, coming to land on the nearby harbour bridge that overlooked the river.

“You’ve got to help me, Tigerman or I’ll drown. Please”, begged Robber Crab, his words turning into a gargle as his mouth suddenly sank below the rivers surface.

Leaping with cat like elegance from the bridge, Tigerman dived into the river then, his laser claws burning as hot as welding torches, he started to cut the sinking criminal out of his crab clawed suit of armour before, pouncing with a roar, from under the water and carrying the now shell-lless robber crab in just one Tiger clawed hand, he leapt back up onto the bridge.

“Wow”, said a voice from behind him; a voice that he immediately recognized and which made his heart flutter; the voice of his beloved Koneko, “Tigerman, your awesome”.

Turning round, the hero suddenly felt overwhelmed with a feeling of shyness and awkwardness; so much so that he even loosened his grip on Robber Crab and the villain fell several inches onto the sidewalk.

“Aggh!”, said the Crab as he landed flat on his face, “What d’you do that for?”.

“Uhhm”, said Tigerman, trying to pull himself together, deepen his voice and look more superheroic as he answered Koneko, “Just doing my duty miss”.

Koneko kissed the side of his Tigermask.

“Well”, she said, pressing a piece of paper with her phone number on it into his hand, “When you get some time off, give me a call”.

Seeing an opportunity to escape, Robber Crab tried to make a dash towards a nearby subway entrance but then, with Tiger like reflexes, Tigermans left hand shot out and grabbed hold of the bank robber by the back of his collar and then, suddenly, with another thunderous roar, Tigerman leapt up into the air dragging an unhappy Robber Crab with him.

“Perhaps, I will miss”, said Tigerman, waving to Koneko with his other hand before, becoming a blur of white and orange and black, he shot off at supersonic speed across the blue Tokyo sky.

“What a man”, sighed Koneko, clutching her heart, “If only I knew some men like him rather than those jerks at the office”.

“Oh Koneko”, thought Tigerman secretly as he dropped off Robber Crab outside a nearby police station, “Will I ever have the courage to tell you how I feel? I suppose only time will tell”.