Octopi Bleakly Corners

For National Hero Day and National Octopus Day, a story involving both...

Image by Vecteezy.

I.

Normally, I’m not bothered by the type of stuff my job requires me to do. As an elementary school student, and a “little” girl at that, you might think I was a pushover and that you could take me easily.

But you’d be wrong.

I’m also a superhero, and I can deal easily with what normally makes the pulses of my peers go stone cold. But even I can get fearful sometimes and find it hard to deal with some things.

Like octopi. They used to give me the creeps. But not so much now- since I made friends with one and he helped me smash the plans of my nemesis- even though he used to work for her.

But I’m getting ahead of myself here. Let me tell you what happened....

II.

My “real” name is Gerda Munsinger, and I’m the child of two aliens- the extra-terrestrial and the immigrant kind, just to be clear. My parents’ homeland had heavy gravity, and Earth has light gravity, so those of you in the know know what that means. As a result, I have strength, agility and speed far above those most kids my age have, but I keep them in check when I’m outfitted as Gerda. Flying, which I also can do, of course, is also on the Q.T. The only exception is when Bleakly Corners, Manitoba, my home town, needs me to do something or other for them or save them from such and so or what have you, at which point I become my mighty, magnificent and all-around beautiful and charming alter ego: MUSCLE GIRL.

(Aha, you must be saying! So that means that Gerda and Muscle Girl are...well, no, we’re not! And anyone who says otherwise will get dismembered by yours truly, regardless of which one overhears you at the time!)

Well, in any event, you want to know about me and the thing with the octopus, don’t you? You do? Okay, I’ll tell....

It was early afternoon, and Gerda Munsinger (i.e. me) had just returned home after a typically exhausting day. Her parents were still at work, and she was looking forward to some time to herself before they did. Chiefly trying to catch some Zs. She had that- for about ten minutes.

Then the phone rang, and she was awakened abruptly, with a vicious urge to kill someone. Preferably the being at the other end of the line!

She-oh, all right, I- woke up and grabbed the nearest phone with the expected abruptness of someone faster than the speed of light and sound put together.

“Munsinger residence,” I said in the feigned, overtly “feminine” voice I use for my secret identity. “Gerda speaking.”

“Well, hello there, Mun-Singer!” the all too familiar voice at the other end said, purposely saying the name wrong to get my goat. “Is your rough and tough pal in? Or did she leave- after beating you up again?”

Briefly, I took the phone away from my face and uttered some un-ladylike curses in my normal, slightly deeper voice.

For I knew exactly who was on the other end, and also exactly what she wanted.

She was my nemesis- Petra O’Leum!

Petra is about the same age as me, and her family comes from the same corner of space as yours truly, so, naturally, she’s got powers like me, too. She calls herself “the girl made of rock” ‘cause of the origins of her name- and because she is supposedly as invulnerable as I am.

Naturally, I have a hard time dealing with her, seeing as how she’s nearly my equal in size and strength. But there’s another problem, too: her family is loaded, so she can easily afford to equip herself with enough dangerous weapons and things to prevent us having to even go toe-to-toe. A lot of times when we fight, she nearly kills me without even throwing a single punch. Add the fact that she’s (only slightly) prettier than me, with flaming red hair and wild black eyes, to her muscle power, weapons and sense of entitlement, and you can see why I want to wring her neck every time we meet- and vice versa.

I decided, however, that I’d just let Gerda take this message and let Muscle Girl deal with her later.

“She wouldn’t beat me up,” I said, as Gerda, to Petra. “She’s my friend!”

“I suppose you’re right,” Petra answered snidely. “As her enemy, I see her a bit differently than you, of course. Listen, Gerd’, can you give your bosom buddy a message for me?”

“Don’t call me ‘Gerd’!” I snapped, forgetting myself only briefly. “I hate that!”

“Too bad,” said Petra unrepentantly. “Just tell you friend, Gerd’, that I’m gunning to turn Bleakly Corners into my own personal amusement park- and, if she isn’t as yellow as her hair is, she’ll come and try to stop me!”

She hung up, leaving me stuck with the dial tone ringing in my ear. I put the phone receiver down- because I knew full well what I had to do.

I went to my room, shucked off the wool sweater, jacket, blouse and skirt I wore as Gerda, and quickly donned the pink shirt and tights and the white shorts and cape I wore as Muscle Girl, complete with the “MG” monogram on them- along with MG’s reinforced silver steel platform shoes. Then, after checking the velocity of the wind so that I’d be flying in the direction and at the speed I wanted, I was off!

III.

Given who I am and what I can do, it wasn’t long before I spotted Petra O’Leum’s dreadnought off the coast of the Bleakly Corners harbor. You’d recognize it if you saw it: a solid black steel Rubik’s cube shape with a small, token sail attached. The thing was made out of a reinforced type of onyx available only on her- sorry, our- home planet. Naturally, it was something so strong that no Earthling’s hands or weapons could penetrate it. But yours truly was and is no Earthling, so it didn’t pose a problem to me.

With my enhanced 3D vision, I searched for a way into the cube through the outer layer (there usually is one because the workmanship was shoddy in spite of the money Petra sunk into it.) When I found it, it was simply a matter of throwing my fist forward and punching my way through, until I got into the plush interior of the cube. Soon, I was face to face with Petra O’Leum herself, and, as usual, she wasn’t pleased to see me.

Petra was done up in a black leather cat suit and pumps plus an eye patch, an affectation designed chiefly to scare her underlings into doing her bidding. I just think it makes her look like a pirate- and an unthreatening one, at that! She had cut her hair short enough so it didn’t get in her face, but it was still long enough for me to pull it if I needed to when and if the inevitable cat fight between us resulted.

As soon as I crashed through the ceiling and vaulted to the floor, her hand shot out and grabbed a black whip to protect herself- as if she needed that.

Or as if it could harm me, which it can’t.

Anyway...

“Well,” Petra snarled as I advanced towards her, “if it isn’t the bull dagger of Bleakly Corners! I thought you’d make an appearance sooner or later!”

“And a good afternoon to you, too- BITCH!” I spat back.

If she was going to cast aspersions on my sexuality, I had every right to tell her what she really was.

Furious, she forgot herself and brought the tail of the whip up, as if she intended to cut me in the face with it. However, I acted fast enough to grab the tail with both of my hands. With Petra clutching the butt and me the tail, we played tug-of-war with the whip. She nearly pulled me out of my shorts with a vicious tug that made me groan in pain before I gave her a taste of my strength at the same volume, which gave her some pain in turn. Then, the whip finally broken, we were thrown to opposing ends of the room like broken dolls.

“I got the biggest half, Pet’!” I said, getting to my feet first. “That means I get my wish- that I get to take you to jail!”

“You won’t get your goddamn “wish”, you female Charles Atlas!” Petra snarled as she righted herself. “You forget we’re from the same home world, so the things that can hurt me can hurt you, too!”

“What’s your point, O’Leum?” I snapped, hands on hips. “It better be good!”

“I mean this,” answered Petra. Then she bellowed into an old-fashioned walkie-talkie:

“OLIVER! Get in here! Now!”

I couldn’t resist a chuckle at that one.

“What is so funny, BRAT?” Petra growled humorlessly.

“Do you really think a boy is going to stop me?” I said. “You forget that I’m stronger than any old boy! Especially Earth ones!”

“Oliver is not a boy,” retorted Petra. “At least, not a human one! He is, in fact, my trump card over you. The one way for me to show you who really wears the panties in our relationship!”

“Okay....eeewww!” I said, with some audible revulsion. “Even if I liked you, Pet’, it wouldn’t be that much! But you haven’t answered my question yet. Who- or should I say what- is OLIVER?”

The floor shook beneath us as soon as I finished speaking.

“You’re about to find that out now, MG- to your great displeasure!” Petra cackled.

I was- and I did. The cube’s retractable roof opened, and, peering through the openings, dripping wet, was the largest and most vicious looking octopus I had ever seen in my life!

IV.

Now, you can imagine that this was not your average Earth octopus. This was a giant breed only seen on my home world, a mammoth marine creature that made Moby Dick look like a leprechaun. I still remember seeing one of those suckers for the first time, in a book about my home land, and how I yelled and screamed in my sleep for long nights afterward. My parents finally had to reassure me that, even though there were octopi on Earth, they were nowhere near as fearsome as the ones from the homeland, and I stopped being scared.

Until that moment.

Because my parents didn’t know about Petra.

They also didn’t know how rich Petra was, or the lengths that Petra would be willing to go to destroy me.

At that moment, I stopped being a superhero and retreated to being a scared little girl. I certainly remember screaming like one as I shouted in fear at the octopus.

“Get away!” I shouted, covering my face with my cape. “Get away from me! Don’t eat me!”

“Hah!” Petra laughed. “The mighty Muscle Girl- afraid of a mere octopus! So precious!”

That hurt me, and I tried to get my composure back- although it wasn’t easy with Oliver glaring down at me like that.

“It’s not like you’re not afraid of anything, Petra!” I snapped back. “Remember how you panic every time you see a spider...”

“You’re grasping at straws, Muscle Girl!” she retorted. “This octopus can do far greater damage to you than one of those creepy arachnids could ever do to me, and you KNOW it! So- are you prepared to surrender now?”

“I don’t surrender to evil,” I replied, “and you know THAT!”

“Fine,” she said. Snapping her fingers to get the beast’s attention, she shouted at him:

“Oliver! KILL her!”

There was a brief pause while the giant creature glowered at me menacingly and I trembled in my platforms. But he didn’t actually do anything- yet.

“What are you WAITING for, you cephalopod?” Petra fumed. “I said KILL HER!”

Another pause. I was thinking maybe the old boy hadn’t heard her, given octopi don’t have much in the way of hearing. But he heard the next thing she said for sure.

“Kill her,” Petra ordered, pulling a gun out of her pocket, “or I kill you!”

She fired the gun in the air, like a robber first announcing his presence in the place he’s going to rob.

Oliver got the message.

He pulled his eight arms inside the opening in the roof, and launched himself into the cube, landing with a thud. Opening his gaping, toothless mouth, he uttered a keening screech that disabled my inner equilibrium and caused me to fall to my knees. Then, before I could make another move, Oliver roped one of his massive tentacles around my waist, making me his prisoner. I tried to free myself, but to no avail. Even I was helpless against this creature who hailed from the same part of space as I did.

“You see, Muscle Girl,” said Petra, “whilst thou and I are invulnerable to any form or injury or illness on Earth, we are not to those of our home world. It took me awhile to figure this out, but I did. I, as you know, was injured by one of these creatures before I arrived on this planet. And I reasoned that, if I could merely be hurt by one of these beasts, it would be the ideal thing to tear you apart! It can be done- I know what they can do to fish, and, to him, you’re just another type!”

“You won’t get away with this, Petra!” I growled with what was left of my strength. “I...”

But before I could say anything, Oliver squeezed me and I screamed as pain engulfed me. Then I completely blacked out.

V.

When I woke up, with a rush of blood to my head, I found that I was being held upside down by my platforms over water- because that slimy octopus still had me in his clutches! I could see what I thought was the soulless bestiality in his eyes. I also could see that the cube was gone, Petra having clearly abandoned me to my fate. Which was to be alone with an octopus clearly intending to have his way with me, like some perverted King Kong of the ocean.

But, even though I was still scared to death of him, I wasn’t about to be anybody’s toy- especially not his.

“Put me down, you jerk!” I shouted. “I don’t belong to you- or anybody else!”

Unfortunately, he was as unresponsive to me as he’d been to Petra, so I had to resort to force as she did.

“Okay, buddy!” I snapped. “You asked for it!”

I squirmed and tried to free myself from his iron grip on my foot, but it was useless. Clearly puzzled at my actions, but knowing what I was trying to do, he whipped a tentacle around my waist and actually spanked me with another one on my butt. (Bastard!) To “punish” me further, he let me fall, and, too weak to fly away, I crashed into the water with a giant splash, and, though I surfaced immediately, he cornered me right away. With all of his tentacle arms poised to reach down towards me and tear me apart!

VI.

It was then that I figured out what I needed to do. And I cursed myself for not thinking of it earlier.

Along with my physical powers, I’m also a telepath. This comes in handy when I have to deal with fellow aliens who don’t possess the power of speech. And Oliver the octopus was about as alien as you can get. So, especially as he was about to kill me, and he obviously didn’t respond to spoken English, it was the only chance I had to save my butt. So I took it.

I put my hand to my head and thought what I needed to think, beaming it right at where I thought his brain was.

“OK, pal,” I “said” to him in my parents’ native tongue through my brain waves. “We need to talk. Let me know if you can hear me.”

I wasn’t expecting an answer, since I didn’t whether or not I could even talk to him this way, but, much to my surprise, I got a response.

“You...understand me?” he “said” back to me in surprise.

“Of course I can, Oliver!” I said. “I can communicate with all the animals in the universe this way if I want to. Especially ones from my home planet, like you.”

“So, you are from the homeland, too?”

“Didn’t I just say that?”

“Sorry. But I had no idea of your origins. The red headed girl said nothing to me of this. But then, she says nothing at all but her verbalized commands. She seems to lack your ability to communicate this way.”

“That’s not the only thing she lacks. My name is Gerda, by the way. But when I’m in this garb, they call me Muscle Girl. Understand?”

“Yes. But why should I trust you and not the red headed one? It is because of her that I am here, after all...”

“Because, even though we have the same powers, she uses hers for evil and I use mine for good. Often times, I have to use my good powers to counteract her evil ones. Understand?”

“What do you mean by “evil” and “good”? I do not understand...”

That shocked me. But only for a moment.

He was, after all, “just” a “dumb” animal (if you’ll pardon the expression) and, thus, everything beyond basic things like getting his next meal, fighting sharks and shacking up with a girl ‘pus was beyond his thought processes. So I gave him a quick lesson in what good and evil were to humans, and how and why I came to be good and Petra evil. It wasn’t anything that would have impressed St. Thomas Aquinas or any of the other philosophical thinkers on the subject, but, for my purposes, it worked.

“You got it now, Olly?” I asked when I finished. (He didn’t mind being called that, by the way.)

“I believe so, Muscle Girl,” he said. “But I feel so...what is the word you would use?”

“Betrayed?” I suggested.

“Yes,” said Oliver. “The red haired girl called you my enemy and trained me to destroy you . But I see now that you are not worthy of destruction...”

“But she is,” I said.

Having regained my strength and agility over the time I was talking with Olly, I flew up out of the water and towards his face.

“Listen,” I said. “I have an idea about how both of us can get revenge on Petra for what she did to us. But I’ll need your help- I can’t do this alone.”

“I am indebted to you for showing me the error of my ways, so I will do as you command,” said Oliver.

“Never mind that ‘command’ crap!” I responded. “I’m your pal, not your damned Queen! And Petra isn’t your Queen, either. Remember that. From now on, Olly, you think for yourself. All I was doing was making some suggestions of what you could do- that’s what pals do for each other.”

“You are kind to me, Muscle Girl,” he said.

“I always am- to my friends!” I said. “I only give hell to my enemies. Now, listen, will ya?”

I put my hands to my head, and started talking again.

VII.

We parted temporarily, and I went off, flying again, to confront Petra O’Leum. This time, though, I wouldn’t come in full throttle but take her by surprise instead. Make it easy on myself, for once.

The cube was a little farther up the harbor than last time, but still no problem for me. Once again, I found a weak spot in the cube’s construction, but, this time, I made my way through a convenient duct that was opposite from the way I came in. I snaked my way through it until I caught sight of Petra, getting some air on a deck between the cube’s sides. I punched a hole in the duct, jumped down, and silently slunk up behind Petra until I was directly behind her. With a barking cough, I commanded her attention, and she spun around in shock.

“You!” she snarled. “How did you escape from the...?”

“By making him my friend,” I answered.

“Your friend?” she repeated.

“Yeah,” I replied. “You know, somebody who cares about you and wants to see you do well in life. Something you’ll never have!”

“I don’t need friends to destroy you,” she said. “Especially not that rotten aquatic turncoat!”

“Don’t talk about him like that!” I said. “Not unless you want a punch in the face!”

“Don’t think that’s not what I want you to do!”

“You asked for it, then!”

I threw a punch, and she blocked it. I threw another one and she blocked that, too. Fed up with that, I reached for her hair and caught her on the arm. We began wrestling, our muscle power making the deck shake to its foundations. It seemed like I would win, at first, but then Petra cheated, like I knew she would. She brought one of her big feet down on one of mine, making me yell in pain, and then used the other one to knock me off balance. Then, she pulled me up by my shirt close to her face, a look of triumph clearly on it.

“Ready to die now?” she said.

“Not quite, “ I growled.

Putting my hand to my head, I called out a command to Oliver, who, unknown to Petra, was under the water next to the cube.

“NOW!” I thought.

Oliver jumped out of the water and, his power on full display, jumped onto the cube. With his strength concentrated in one tentacle, he swatted Petra and knocked her against the railing, making her drop me in the process. He picked her up and held her aloft, turning her around to face me so I could read her the riot act.

“Olly is my pal now,” I said, “so you treat him with respect, you hear?”

“NEVER!” Petra snapped.

Olly wrapped a tentacle around her, trapping her like he had once done me.

“Remember,” I said, needling her, “he comes from our home world, so he can wreck you- just like you tried to make him wreck me!”

“Like I care about....AAARGGH!”

The octopus shot her away from the cube with an epic toss, while she vowed to gain her revenge against me for his actions.

No matter. She’s said that before, and it usually doesn’t amount to much.

VIII.

Olly and I teamed up to destroy the cube. With our combined power, it didn’t take long. Then I asked him if he needed anything else.

“No,” he said. “I believe I can sustain myself well in these waters. A lot of fish and other things of that nature are here.”

“Okay,” I said. “Just don’t take too much. The other critters have to eat, too.”

“Certainly. But do let me know if you need my assistance. Particularly against the red haired one.”

“Can do.”

And so, after I gave him a hug that nearly strangled him, for once, we parted.

But I knew I actually had something that, even with all of my powers, I never had before.

A friend.