The Final Boss Makes His First Appearance

It was a beautiful day. The sun was shining down on all the busy men and women. The birds were chirping their love songs to one another from the tops of buildings. The local heroes were on their patrols; wielding batons and balloons and anything they deemed a weapon. It was a perfectly normal day in Z-city.

Until there was a loud explosion, and the sound of a woman screaming.

The local 7-11 had seen better days. Days where it wasn't currently on fire, for example. In his panic to escape, the owner of the shop, a small, balding Indian man, tripped on his way out the door. And from behind him, wandering out of the smoke, came a monster.

He stopped to look down at the man in front of him; a wicked grin spreading on his face. In his arms were a number of ingredients, such as eggs, flour and butter. Bending down, WAFFLEHANDS was sure to speak loud enough for the owner to hear him.

'Ha ha ha. I'll be taking these...WITHOUT PAYING! Soon, my evil plan will come to completion, and you'll see just what happens when you make me, WAFFLEHANDS, lose a contest. With my newfound power and abilities, no one can stop me from making waffles, no one! And I can make them faster than ever before! I'd like to see someone try, I'd knock them down!"

Rearragning the items in his arms so he wouldn't drop them, Wafflehands stepped out onto the street, where several people were currently running away in terror. A couple were even screaming 'monster' at the top of their lungs. Not that it mattered. Wafflehands was invincible! And soon, soon, he would gorge himself to his hearts content.

Well, this was just great.... Not even in Z-City for a few hours and Renzo was already lost. His tail swinging back and forth in annoyance as he tried looking for directions on his phone. Normally, getting lost wouldn't have bothered the former human since half the fun in getting lost was finding your way back, but this was a serious matter. Renzo was on a mission of the utmost importance!

Something so paramount that it dragged him all the way from his apartment in Q-City.... A timed sale.  

And before anyone thinks that's ridiculous, it wasn't just any timed sale, it was THE TIMED SALE. A sale so legendary that it comes once in a blue moon with prices so low that you'd think you were stealing their stuff! He definitely wasn't going to miss this opportunity. Only thing was... Renzo had no idea where this store was.

"Crap... Where is this store." He muttered, still trying to navigate his way from his phone. "If I'm here... Then the store is that wa---" But before he could even finish his thought, something that he really, really wished, of all days, hadn't happened ... Happened.

Renzo didn't have to have heightened hearing to know the definite sound of an explosion and terrified screaming. "Oh, c'mon, really?!" A grunt of even more annoyance escaped his lips as the Jaguar quickly made his way to the source.

Okay, okay... He could salvage this. If he found and stopped whatever was wrecking stuff up in ten minutes, he'll have at least six minutes to run to the store and buy what he needs before the sale ends and everyone's happy... Well, except for whoever is causing trouble.

Speaking of which, it wasn't long before Renzo found himself face to face with... A waffle man? Well, he assumed this was a waffle man. This guy certainly had the imagery of a waffle, and were those waffle irons on where his hands should be? And he's stealing groceries? Okay...

Not the strangest that Renzo had seen but it was new. "Alright, Waffle guy... I don't know what your deal is but I'm on a tight schedule here. So, you got two options... The easy way, in which you return the stuff you stole and go on your merry way... Or the hard way, I put you in a anaconda vise until you go from yellow to purple." Renzo really hopes he goes for option one.

A new voice captured Wafflehand's attention, pulling him away from his current action of laughing manically into the sky while licking his lips. Something which is much harder than you'd think. He was just so excited to be a single step closer to his evil plan. Gripping his items tighter, Wafflehands turned to face the newcomer.

At first, he was concerned that the speaker was a hero, come to stop him from completing stage one of his plan; but as he looked over the creature, Wafflehands slowly relaxed. It was a large, bipedal cat-person thing. Not that strangest Wafflehands had seen. The creature was smaller than Wafflehands, but carried a sense of hidden power in his muscles. He was unsure, but it didn't appear to be a costume, as was typical of the heroes he'd seen on the television, which left only one option.

He was a monster as well. But why would a monster want to hurt him? Unless...

Placing his ingredients on the ground, Wafflehands laughed. "Ha ha ha. Don't worry, friend. There's plenty of food to go around. We don't need to fight. I'm sure there was even some meat back in the store, pre-cooked for you. We can rob the store together; then we could definitely beat any heroes we meet. Or...or do you want waffles? Cause I could make some waffles, right now, watch, watch."

Reaching down, Wafflehands pulled a container of waffle mix out of the bag; hastily dumping into onto his left hand and closing the top. The delicious smell of cooking waffle filled the air. Looking down at it, Wafflehands nodded to himself softly. "Yea, just give it four to five minutes. You'll see. I can do that now, even since my TRAGIC BACKSTORY!" He shouted.

Wait a minute, did this guy think Renzo was a monster? Sure, he couldn't be really defined as a "human" anymore, and a C-rank hero to boot but he didn't think his reputation was so low that even monsters had no idea who Renzo was. Hmm, he'll probably have to work on fixing that later. If a monster could mistake him for one of their own, what's to say a civilian couldn't do the same?

"Umm, look... I hate to burst your bubble, but I'm not a monster." The suited jaguar corrected as he tried to ignore the rather delicious smell of waffles wafting through the air, a task especially more difficult since nowadays everything smelled three times as strong as before... Garbage day was a living hell on his nose.  

"I'm Grapple Jaguar, a hero and I got like..." He quickly took a peek at his phone. "Eight minutes before I miss my window for the timed sale of the century." Oh, if he missed that sale, somebody's gonna end up buried in the pavement. "Other than the fact that you both robbed AND set fire to that convenience store. An act on any other day, I'd gladly suplex you into the wall for, you don't seem all that bad. So, I'm willing to let you off easy, if you do what I ask and go the easy way." The jaguar asserted with a little growl, probably not helping his whole "I'm not a monster" case but it added the right omph.

And sure, trying to resolve this peacefully might catch him some flack later but as long as Renzo resolve the situation without anyone getting hurt, he's sure the Association won't really care.

Wafflehands moved to place his hand on his chin, forgetting that it was now several pounds of metal. Instead, he accidentally slapped himself across the chin, recoiling slightly. Righting himself quickly so as not to appear incompetent, Wafflehands shrugged instead, loosening his grip on the ingredients.

"You're a hero? Sorry, friend, I don't keep track of things like that. Not since my HORRIFIC ACCIDENT!" He shouted again, before listening to Grapple Jaguar again. "Oh no, see, the fire was an accident. I didn't start it. Well, I mean, maybe I did. Technically. If you have the time, let me regale you with the story of what occurred here."

Leaning back, Wafflehands stared into the sky. "Yes, I remember it like it just happened a moment ago. I'd just undergone my transformation, caused by my TRAGIC BACKSTORY, and felt the need to celebrate. But alas, despite having the tools of the trade, so to say, I had no ingredients to cook with! So I traveled to this store here, you see," Wafflehands said, pointing behind himself, "to purchase some ingredients quite legally, when my appearance frightened a young lady. In my attempts to calm her, I accidentally broke the handle off of a propane tank, causing the building to fill with gas! And to my dismay, this gas reacted to my super heated hands, causing the entire building to go up in flames around me! Then this man," Wafflehands pointed at the small shop owner, "Ran out of the shop without me!"

Slumping his shoulders, Wafflehands shrugged again, "So now you know the truth. I figure after all I've been through, I deserve a little compensation in the form of cookery ingredients. Surely you would agree, friend?"

Was Renzo hearing this right? He wasn't imagining this, was he? No, he was quite certain that during their entire conversation, this waffle guy had tried to drum up interest in his backstory three times now. He got it, the waffle man wanted Renzo to ask what caused his transformation and probably on any other day, he would've given the living waffle a listen then proceed to pile-drive him into the dirt, but listening to a story like an origin story was just a time-killer that Renzo didn't need right now.

But the Jaguar was getting off track, he needed to keep his eye on the task at hand, which was a super sale and to a lesser extent, a waffle man. After listening to the waffle man's side of the story, one would think it was all a misunderstanding that escalated way too fast, and Renzo would've thought that too... If not for one thing.

"Yeah, I'd be inclined to agree with you...." He started off. "If you hadn't asked me to rob the store with you when you thought I was a monster." It didn't take a genius to realize something was up with the waffle man's story, especially right after asking someone to join in his antics.

"Alright, I think I've let this gone on for longer than it should've." Renzo stated as he began to loosen his already loosened tie a little more. "I had hoped we could've ended this all civil-like and gone our separate ways with minimal property damage, but you just had to lie, didn't you?" It's not like Renzo had any issue with liars, sure he didn't like liars, who did? But time was getting scarce and if the man with waffle irons for hands was going to lie, Renzo might as well put an end to this.

"Now then... Let's go." The Jaguar simply said as he cracked his knuckles.... He wasn't much big on battle cries outside a ring, he needed to work on that.