A Sterling City Adventure.
(Fun superhero romp. Inflation, Burping)

Cops took shelter behind their squad cars, bullets thudding into the metal chassis. A lone shooter remained perched in the clock tower, sending down another hail of bullets as he ranted and raved. One officer had been downed, crawling for safety. The shooter took a moment to reload, lining up his next shot....
In a blur of green and blue, the downed policeman was gone. The camera swung over to spot him curled up behind a parked ambulance, paramedics already tending to the bullet in his leg.
The holder of the camera swivelled back to the tower the shooter was firing from. There was the brief sound of a struggle and a few gunshots, then a cry of horror as the gunman was sent flying from his roost. There was another blur of movement and the shooter disappeared from the spot of pavement he was about to collide with. The camera swivelled again, trying to track the action and finally zeroed in on the lean figure that had skidded to a stop in front of the now upright police officer. He was clad in a dark blue, padded outfit streaked with trims of white and orange. An opaque visor on his helmet masked his eyes, but figuring out the mysterious speeder's identity would be as easy as finding the only snow leopard in town who's fur was bright green. The outfit would have looked very sleek and subtle, were it not for the clustered myriad of brands and logos festooning his shoulders and arms, centred around the circular “FizzBang Energy Drink” logo stamped on his chest in place of a personal insignia. The ad-plastered green cat was handing the quivering gunman, who had been wrapped head to toe in police tape, over to the somewhat bewildered commanding officer. He offered a toothy grin, a quick salute and promptly belched in the sergeant's face.

Sara paused the video on her smartphone.
“There now. Can you tell me what you did wrong?”
The mysterious man from the video stood before her, as neon green as ever but now unmasked and clad in a half-buttoned dress shirt and grey suit pants. He shrugged.
“I mean, I could have gotten there a little quicker.”
“No...” the woman holding the smartphone grimaced. If she was capable of becoming flush with anger, the red scales on her face would be growing deeper in hue with every passing second. “Try again.”
“I mean, you stopped the video early. You missed the bit where I handed over the bad guy, waved for the camera and zipped off to help in a car chase.”
He was starting to look visibly uncomfortable.
“Yes, and before that?” Sara's heavy tail was curling across the floor like an irritated snake.
The green leopard leaned back. “I...didn't.... mention the newwwwwww.... cherry flavour?”
Sara exploded.
“YOU LET OUT THE BIGGEST, LOUDEST MOST FRAT-BOY, ASININE, UNEMPLOYED ALCOHOLIC-ASS BELCH IN THE FACE OF A DECORATED POLICE SERGEANT!”
The leopard was rubbing the back of his head now, ears flattened in submission “I mean, I apologized right after. It kinda just came out”
Her anger spent, Sara returned to kneading her snout. “Casey, could you please, as a favour to me, try to go one day without making a complete ass of yourself in front of somebody's cell phone camera? Or at least have the good sense to destroy the evidence? If not for me, then for the BRAND.”
Casey shrugged again, at a loss. “Look, Ms. Bello. I'm really grateful to FizzBang for everything. The suit, the apartment, the car...you know, they can have the car back, I never actually use it. And I'll totally tell everyone about the 'Razztastic' line that's coming out next June. See? I remembered the date this time and everything! I'll try to do a little better, okay?”
Sara groaned. It took conscious effort to stay mad at someone like him.
“Can you PLEASE just keep the burping to a minimum?”
“Gotta burp, Ma'am.” Casey shrugged. “All that super-speed running around I do is like shaking up a can of soda. If I don't vent it...well....” He held out his arms and puffed up his cheeks to simulate a ballooning physique. “That gas has gotta go somewhere.”

Sara reached into her purse, pulling out a small pill bottle.
“About that. Our corporate overlords wanted me to give you these to help deal with your....emissions. They should keep you civil throughout the interview.”
Casey winced slightly at the innocuous white tablets.
“I dunno Ms. Bello. I was in sports all through my school days. I've learned to be a little scared when a coach or manager offers you some pills they say will help you....”
“Oh for heaven's sake.” Sara rolled her eyes “They're just antacids! Look-” She cracked open the bottle and swallowed one herself, washing it down with the martini that she had all but drained since entering the room. Sara found that a healthy supply of vodka was integral to dealing with Casey Delaware.
“See? They're just here to keep you from burping through your speech.”
Casey let out a long grunt of indecision before finally taking the pills from the lizard's outstretched hand. He knocked them back with the fluorescent beverage he had been slurping and smacked his lips.
“Egh. Are we ready?”
Sara responded by holding out a necktie. Casey politely took it from her, and in an instant, was across the room, fiddling with it in front a mirror.

“Don't see why I gotta dress up” he griped, his hands moving in a blur “Can't I wear my costume to these press dates?”
Sara was recovering from the sudden draft that accompanied Casey's bursts of speed. “NBA players need to wear a suit, so do you.”
“I was on the swim team...” he griped. It took him almost twenty tries to get his tie on properly, in the space of about four seconds.
The colourful agama's blue tail thrummed against the floor again as she held out her charge's suit jacket. Another blur of movement and he was back in front of her, putting it on. And nary a whiff of gas to be had. Those antacids certainly worked fast with a metabolism like his.
“Well?” he inquired, finally fully dressed.
“Presentable.” Sara nodded. “Now get your tight green ass out there and sell some soft drinks.”
Casey adjusted his belt and jetted past her down the hall. “Heh.” he smiled to himself as his surroundings zipped past him “She likes my butt.”

The small conference room was packed with reporters and cameras even by the time Casey got there. Flashes erupted from the numerous recording devices as he waved for the public, taking a seat as the rest of the group filed in. Sara squeezed in nest to him as Keith Millar, a local spokesman, took the podium. The red-blue lizard noticed Casey's attention already fading, provoking a jab from her elbow. He snapped back upright.
Sara returned her own gaze forward to the hazy blur of journalists rendered mere shadows by the glare of the stage lights. This was just your bog standard press conference. A little bit of spin and damage control from a respectable marketing major with a winning smile, then a quick sizzle reel talking about how great this noxious beverage was, then a final blitz of distracting hyper-colours by way of Mr. Delaware.
Ever since the ordeal with the ribbon cutting of the new Football Stadium last month, Sara had insisted on staying alongside Casey in public appearances, along with the handful of police officers that were posted near the exits, purely as a precaution.

Casey's knee bobbed impatiently at paces usually reserved for hummingbirds. Ever since he gained his powers, it could feel like time was passing at a fraction of it's normal speed if he didn't have anything to focus on. But right now, jammed into a plastic seat and being throttled by this starchy necktie, he felt like he was in a room filled with statues. His eyes ping-ponged in his head, trying to identify the various reporters and their affiliations; Sports Network, Sports Network, Sports, Sports, Sports, RAD TV, Youth Party Channel, Buzzword, Blog, Blog, Blog..
He glanced over at one of the more casually dressed police officers standing close to the far wall, and felt a small flare of kinship; they probably both had places they'd rather be. Then his ears perked up as he saw the detective reaching for his phone....

Sargeant Muniez was grateful for the call. It was from his captain, meaning that somewhere, something important was happening and he'd have an excuse to duck out of this asinine live infomercial. He answered immediately.
“Muniez...” the voice on the other end began. There was some minor disturbance from the crowd. But he ignored it, listening intently. “A silent alarm has been tripped at the Partridge Metalworks. Get a squad over there and maintain perimeter. We don't have all the details yet, so keep your distance until we can confirm the situation. Await orders.”
“Sir.” Muniez responded. He was about to hang up when he suddenly became aware of someone standing directly behind him.
The officer whirled, realizing that a bright green leopard was standing behind him, listening in on the conversation. Even as he opened his mouth in anger, the speeder was gone again and now standing by the podium, arms on the current speaker's shoulders.
“Gotta go!” was all he offered before his image melted into a green blur headed for the exit.
And then, he was gone. His dress shirt fluttered through the air like a detached flag and landed in a heap on the floor. Sara blinked and looked down. Casey's sloppily secured tie was around her own neck. She growled, whipped it off and turned to Millar. The bright red lizard offered a plastic smile. “Duty calls?”

Keith composed himself and turned back to the expectant audience, the wheels audibly churning in his head as he started to stretch out his initial speech. Sara whipped out her phone and swiftly updated Casey's official blog with some crap about looking forward to making his big appearance. She lay down the phone and resisted the temptation to hold her head in her hands. Maybe if she was lucky, he'd actually get himself killed.


The inside of the foundry had descended into bedlam in the space of a few minutes. Plumes of multicoloured gas curled through the air, illuminated by the glow of the still active forges and disturbed by the flailing limbs of prone figures. The occasional shriek of automated machinery mingled with the cries of helpless terror. Masked figures moved through the smog like hooded wraiths, shoving past the gibbering laborers as they clawed at the air, eyes focused on nothing. One of the unaffected men regarded a fox as he flailed, voice hoarse from shouting. Safe behind his hefty gas mask and hooded coat, he grabbed the closest limb of the incapacitated man and dragged him into an enclosed office off the main floor, throwing him in along with everyone else.
“That's that last one.” He said through his mask, locking the door.
A nearly identical masked figure stood nearby, looking in at the convulsing employees through the glass.
“What do you suppose they're seeing?”
“Whatever nightmare they can conjure.” An amplified voice sounded out from the catwalk. The two henchmen looked up at their employer as he addressed them from his elevated position.
Clad in a thick, hooded fireman's coat and festooned with tubes and canisters, the heavy set man's face was similarly veiled by a heavy gas-mask, complete with a winding tube that led from his snout and disappeared into his jacket. When he spoke, a speaker in the mask boosted the volume of his voice and added a hollow, electronic quality to it.
“This compound doesn't put specific images in your mind, just panic, hypertension and your least favorite phobias thrown back at you. Now pick up the pace. We only have an hour before it starts to lose potency.”
One of the gun-toting goons nodded, turning to her companions. “Start cutting into the vault. Boss wants...” She took a second to dig a piece of paper out of her pocket. “Trichromic-triochromac....Trichemic-”
“Trichromicoxypepnium.” The one in charge yelled down to her. “It's a unique, dull silver alloy. You should find it floating in vials once you get ins-” He paused. “Actually, just tell me when you get inside. I'll grab it myself.”
He personally just didn't feel comfortable letting these street hoods handle such an essential and rare  component of his planned experiment. At least they didn't have to do much heavy lifting. This particular neurohallucinogen had a nearly 95% success rate, so all his team had to do was haul the unlucky staffers out of the way and give him access.
The sound of clanging metal hit his ears. He swiveled in it's direction, spotting a hunched over figure limping away from a fallen shelving unit, and sighed in a rush of static. Well, maybe it was closer to 85% effective.
He pointed to one of his men that had a bushy raccoon tail poking out from under his coat. “You, deal with the one who's still on his feet.”
The ringtail broke off from the others and pursued the hobbling figure. Sensing someone behind him, the possum that had managed to stay lucid broke into a painful run, still clutching the respiration mask against his face that had saved him from the initial assault. He rounded the corner and came face-to-visor with the looming man from the balcony. He jerked backwards as the masked man briefly aimed and fired a dart into his chest from a wrist-mounted device. The possum collapsed to the ground like an unmanned puppet, twitching slightly.
The ringtail caught up to the scene. “Looks like the foreman, boss.” he grunted. “He managed to trip the alarm.”
The one in charge scowled. “Our time table just shortened considerably.” He swiveled away “That muscle relaxant should keep him down, but I'd rather not take any more risks.” The shot caller started making his way towards the vault and offered a final order over his shoulder. “Kill him.”

The possum could only grunt through numbing lips as his executioner shrugged, checked the safety on his pistol and lined up the shot.
“Short straw buddy. I'll make it quick.”


The head of the robbery was still watching his men cut through the final lock of the huge steel door on the back wall, when he realized that he hadn't heard the sound of a gunshot.
“Did you GO somewhere?” he yelled, turning back. “I'm not paying you to-”
It only took a few steps for him to find his absentee gunman. The raccoon was lying against a shipping container, stone cold unconscious with the separate components of his disassembled weapon scattered around him. The foreman was nowhere to be seen.
A sudden flash of panic gripped the criminal as he quickly dove for cover behind a machine block and started adjusting valves on his outfit. If the police got here before they were finished, he had contingencies in place. If it was something else.....

One of the goons camped out on the upper catwalk sensed the metal grating vibrate underneath him. He barely had time to turn before a fist collided with his jaw at enough velocity to take him off of his feet and send him crashing to the floor, down for the count. His partner saw the blue-green blur that had done it, but barely had time to shout “SOME-” before a similar impact sent him skidding across the floor.
The blur of movement made several circuits of the upper level and one after another, the large windows lining the factory floor were thrown open. The hazy green image of a person in dead sprint could vaguely be glimpsed as it continued to to run laps round the assembled crooks, generating a vortex of wind that whipped up the gas filling the room and forcing it out the open windows. Within a minute, the room was clear and the speeding force came to a stop.
A few of the robbers recognized the bright-green cat above them from his viral videos and adverts. He offered them a quick toothy grin.
“It's RUSH!” One of them yelled, and opened fire. The spot he was aiming for was devoid of a target before he even managed to pull the trigger.

Finally, Rush was in his game. His surroundings streaked together as he started to run again, everything but he was aiming for dropping to the sidelines of his perception.

Cross the scaffolding, down the stairs, take out the shooter. Okay, now one more lap to make sure that all the civilians are outside. Great. Ha, I'm calling people civilians now, cool.
Focus. Huh, uniform's feeling a little snug tonight.
Someone firing. Duck to the side, plant one in his jaw. Down. How many left?
One two three. Wasn't there four? Welp, three now, he went down har-WHOA!

Rush skidded wildly, rolling to the side as a hefty smelting cauldron crashed onto the floor in front of him. His legs windmilled for purchase as he looked upwards, spotting the crane that had just tried to drop it's payload on him,  and the henchman at the controls.
A crane. Someone was trying to kill him with a crane. Free of it's usual hefty burden, the metal arm cut through the air in swift, jerking movements like a massive sword. The large hook at the end of it's cable swung wildly at Rush, forcing him to duck and weave. He slid at an angle, grabbing a large wrench off the ground and whirling in place, directing all of his momentum into the heavy piece of metal as he whipped it directly at the control cabin. His aim proved true as the man inside dove for cover, the high velocity projectile shattering the window of the cabin. The goon missed the rungs of the ladder and went toppling, but in a flash, his trajectory was redirected before he made contact with the floor. Rush held the trembling crook in his arms.
“You okay?”
“y-yes...”
“Good” the hero smiled, before shattering the lenses of his mask with a single punch.
He grunted. His costume DEFINITELY felt tighter than usual. Looking down, he was greeted with the sight of a plush, swollen belly stretching out the patterns on his costume. He gave it a poke, feeling the fizzing gas shift and react, bloating ever so slightly.
Build-up usually wasn't a problem for him. All he had to do was belch it out.
But he couldn't remember the last time he burped. And even as he attempted to clench his gut and force something up, all he could manage was the slightest “urk” of gas.
Rush was broken from his self-diagnosis by another gunshot and the ring of a bullet glancing off the pillar to his left. He broke back into high gear. Fight now, worry later.
The shooter had his legs swept out from underneath him, and even as he hung in midair, Rush doubled back and slammed his head into the floor. The last one was viciously waving a blowtorch through the air as Rush ambled towards him. The young hero could feel his thighs rubbing together and his belly bobbing with every step, but one last burst of speed and he was behind his attacker. A quick flurry of machine-gun punches and the last one went down. Casey dusted his gloves off and scanned the area.
He spotted a straggler making for the exit.

“Hey!” he said, squeezing out from under the scaffolding to confront the one he had missed. This guy was wearing a more intricate variation of the “Mask, hood, coat” ensemble, which in the hero's experience, meant he was the one in charge.
The hooded man was reaching for something on his wrist, a weapon, probably.
“Maybe you haven't heard of me...” Rush smirked, making a beeline directly for the last crook standing. His new girth slowed him down more than he would care to admit, and before he could reach the straggler, they disappeared in a blast of opaque white vapor that shot from their sleeves. Rush barreled straight through the cloud and hit nothing but air, coming out the other side. He whipped his head around, trying to find where such a stocky guy could move to in such a hurry. There. Somehow he had managed to get behind him. The bulky runner grimaced and darted right at him again. This time he made contact, but only with the far wall as the masked man disappeared again.
“Who ARE you?” Casey grumbled, his middle continuing to swell with all this excitement. This was starting to seriously affect his mobility. He pounded at his gut again, only managing to elicit a feeble little burp.

“I suppose everyone needs a title these days.” The hooded figure replied in that electronic voice from his new place across the room. “Mine is...Narcosis. Chemical warfare in the flesh.”

“Urk. And people say I'm full of myself.” Rush replied. He ambled back into the open, feeling his bloated chest rub at the inside of his arms and an unfamiliar dizziness grab at his head. He needed to end this. Quick.
“Certainly full of something....” Narcosis observed, but not the one Casey was looking at. He wheeled around, spotting a duplicate of the sinister chemist on the other side of the room. Picking out the one who had just spoken, Rush stumbled into a head-on sprint and watched the image of his opponent evaporate in front of him, accomplishing nothing but shaking himself up even more and producing more carbonation that had nowhere to go. His ballooning chest rose into the bottom of his vision and his arms began to stiffen, bouncing off of his huge round belly, the curve of which had begun to spread to his back, robbing him of even more range of motion.
Casey waddled in place. The room was filled with identical images of his enemy. Every time he blinked, they flickered and moved somewhere else.
“Does this...normally happen to you?” One of them inquired.
It didn't. Normally he could burp away all this gas and keep himself nice and svelte. Something must have changed. Something like...
The gear clicked in Casey's head. Something like taking a pill to specifically keep him from burping.
Casey Delaware was pretty sure that antacids weren't supposed to work like this, but who could tell with an anatomy like his? All he could work with was that his body was producing gas, and he couldn't get rid of it. And he was in the middle of a very serious fight.
Rush waddled in place, watching the numerous iterations of Narcosis close in on him.
“It's an ethanol-based hallucinogen, in case you wonder why you're feeling a bit tipsy.” the chemist explained “Not as potent as the compound I used on the workers, but it can certainly keep an idiot busy.”
Casey swiped at one of the images, which dispersed into scattered flecks of colour under his assault.
“You're attacking afterimages.” Narcosis droned ”A lingering mental picture that sticks to your vision from when you inhaled the gas.”
Rush grunted, a familiar fizzing in his gut preceding another lurch of growth that caused his thickening legs to adopt a wide stance. His huge blue orb of a gut utterly masked the lower half of his body, even as he could feel his titanic buttocks strain at the fabric of his pants. This was getting bad. He was starting to verge on true helplessness.
“Is that carbon-dioxide?” Narcosis inquired as Casey felt a poke at his huge backside. He wheeled in a circle, greeted by another half dozen mocking masks staring back at him.
“It would have to be, I suppose....ah well. Let's see here...”
Rush didn't like the sound of that. At the very least, his vision was starting to clear. The multiple Narcosis projections were beginning to waver and fade, except for one on the far right that-
The solid entity threw out his hand, dousing Rush in the face with a watery black substance that reminded him of noxious pool chemicals. He unsteadily bobbed backwards, hacking and sputtering as an unpleasant pressure started to build in his midsection. He could barely bend his arms to grab at his voluminous belly as its inflation accelerated, forcing his limbs into an awkward spread eagle and pushing his chest up against his chin.
“What, did you....do to me?” Rush grunted, trying to advance on the super villain. If he could just try to pin him against the wall with all this bulk, he could buy time until the cops arrived...
He welled up his energy and pushed off the ground with his ankle and all the speed he could muster, the rest of his leg too bloated to move. To his shock, the bulbous cat hung in the air for a second or so before drifting back down on his other foot. He attempted the lift off again as he felt his truck-tire sized thighs begin to merge with the orb of a belly that was taking up his body, and was rewarded with even more airtime.
The inflation continued unabated, until his distended crotch managed to make contact with the ground. Casey yelped as the mere force of his wide undercarriage pushing against the floor was enough to propel him slowly upwards into the air like an under-filled...
“Balloon?” Rush remarked, having achieved enough buoyancy to hang several inches off the ground. “You're filling me with....Helium?”

Narcosis made a snarling sound of dismissal. “Helium is a noble gas, you twit. It's nonreactive under normal circumstances. I imagine if you were filling with helium, your voice would be a lot squeakier”
Rush had to admit he had a point there, even as he flailed his nearly non-existent limbs in a panic.
“The catalyst you just cooperatively imbibed is reacting with all that gas in your gut and producing exponential amounts of HYDROGEN.” He continued. “A great deal lighter than helium, and rather spectacular in it's own ways.”
He pulled a line of cord from his belt and wrapped a length of it around Rush's twitching foot as the now fully spherical super hero rose higher and higher.
“Whuf...kinda spc'tcle....” Rush grunted as his cheeks began to swell with gas and muffle his speech.
Narcosis tugged on Rush's string, leading him through the factory like a kid at a fairground. He had been reduced to a children's distraction in the space of a few minutes.
“Oh shut up.” the chemist shot back. He left Casey outside of the burned open door of the vault while he disappeared within, returning a second later with his prize gripped in his stubby hands.
Casey was starting to feel his side brush at one of the catwalks lining the factory floor. There was no telling when he'd grow big enough to be squeezed against both of them, but that threshold seemed to be approaching at an alarming pace.
Narcosis led Rush back into the centre of the room, tauntingly jerking at his string a few times to watch the bloated ball bounce in the air against the upward pull of the gas within him.
“Oh and if you were wondering, I'm partial to hydrogen because of how FLAMMABLE it is”
Rush could barely make out the distant form of the supervillain as he produced a lighter from his coat and flicked it to life.
“H'w....flamm'ble?” Casey moaned, fear fully written across his face.
“Ever hear of the Hindenburg?” Narcosis replied icily, lighting the end of the string tied to Casey's leg.

The smouldering flame began to travel up the long rope as Narcosis let it go, a wick counting down to the hero's explosive demise. Rush flailed wildly as he rose unbidden, head rolling in alert panic as the impending firebomb attempted to find a way out of the death trap he had become.

“You know...” The villain reflected. “I was considering just lighting this place on fire on my way out, but this is a much more creative way of covering my tracks. So I appreciate your assistance. Ta.” he turned and began to stroll towards the back exit.

Casey was almost incapable of movement, save the flapping of his hands and feet.
Think Casey, think! You're not about to go up like a flaming blimp!
Blimp. How did those big zeppelins move around back in the day? The hydrogen balloon wracked his over stressed brain. They had engines, little propellers.
And so do I, he realized.

A hastily composed plan began to form in his mind. It was haphazard, mostly dependent on chance and might just fail utterly, but he'd be damned if he didn't try. He swivelled his head as best he could against the resistance of his basketball-sized cheeks until he saw his destination, the shattered open cockpit of the crane.  It still lay above his rising form and far from reach. But that was about to change.
Summoning up all the energy he could, Casey began to kick at the air with his foot, even as he felt his bloating body press at his ankles. He kicked harder and faster, until his lone right foot was a blur of movement. Ever so slightly he could feel that minuscule force of propulsion begin to push his ball of a body closer to where needed to go.
He gulped as he began to list again, flailing his right hand in response. It vibrated at a similar frequency to his foot, batting at the air with enough intensity to course correct himself, and causing him to orbit at an odd axis.
He was so close now. His head now at an odd diagonal towards the floor, he could crane his head to look down and see the flaming end of the wick swinging perilously below him, the space between him and it growing smaller by the second.
Redoubling his efforts, the rising blimp summoned another burst of propulsion from his overtaxed foot to push himself towards the control console of the crane, swinging upside down in the process.
There, he could make out one big blue lever rising from the array of buttons. That had to be it.
Angling himself as best he could, Rush aligned his left hand with the lever and used every other vestigial limb to push himself towards it, vibrating intensely in the steadily deepening divots they were being sucked into. He could feel the rope of the wick drum against his taut body, the flaming end swinging perilously close to his face.
Just a little closer...
Visibility was impossible at this point, but Rush could just feel the tips of his fingers brush against the rounded knob of the lever. He pumped his vibrating feet as his ankles burned with the stress, the edges of the fragmented cabin window pressing into his stretched out skin....
After an eternity of instants, Rush felt his fingers wrap around the handle. Wrenching with all of his might, the balloon felt the mechanism give way and click into a new position. Casey let go, rebounding away as the entire crane began to shudder to the sound of grinding metal.

Narcosis had a hand on the doorknob when he risked a look over his shoulder.

The huge metal arm of the crane swept through the air at speeds it was never made for, slamming into the wide form of Rush's inflated body and carrying him through the air until he slammed hard against the far wall. Rush let out a winded gasp as his body squeezed over the narrow metal arm, fighting to regain it's round shape. He heaved and clenched. Just a little more pressure....
Some seal within him broke. Whatever chemical barriers the antacids had built up crumbled in the face of this assault and the metres upon cubic metres of gas within the over-inflated hero finally sought the path of least resistance.
“BBBBUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUURRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPP!”

Rush shot around the room exactly as a rapidly deflating balloon should, zipping about in a twisting aerial display and filling the air with enough flammable gas to make the forges in the metal works sputter.  The malevolent chemist kept watching, mesmerized by the airborne gasbag even as his shrinking form started to barrel towards him.
Casey liked to think that he had just enough control over his trajectory to ensure that he impacted with Narcosis, sending the both of them tumbling across the floor in a heap of limbs.
The oh-so important alloy hit the floor and rolled out of sight in the chaos.

Rush lay spread eagle on the floor, cackling, panting and burping as his body regained it's former dimensions. His throat felt like it had been blasted by a power washer, his lips were burning and the rest of his face was numb, but hey, he was alive. He blearily attempted to sit up, but every one of his stretched muscles yelled at him to lie back down. Several metres away, a dizzy and mildly concussed Narcosis shakily picked himself up, still trembling from the impact of the high-speed collision. Wrathful, robbed of his prize and denied the satisfaction of watching his opponent messily explode, the super villain could only yell and curse as he loaded another charge of ethanol gas into his emitters. The most he could hope for now was a distraction while he made his getaway.
“How!” Narcosis fumed as his hallucinogen shot out of his gauntlets in a jet of gas. “How could you possibly manage to manipulate that equipment? How did that even WORK? What kind of dumb luck could possibly keep an idiot like you alive?”
The frazzled hero grimace, rising to his feet at last.
“I'm smart enough to know that alcohol burns, numbnuts.”
He held the still burning end of the rope up to his lips, and let loose a belch.

Narcosis barely had time to throw his hands up as a massive cloud of flame erupted from the snow leopard's mouth, consuming his own gaseous conjuration and throwing him across the room, where he collided with a sizable pallet of stacked iron girders.
The fireball dissipated and Rush merely smacked his lips, trying to banish the taste of soot from his tongue and surveying the damage. There were one or two minor fires that he could quickly pat out, and the groaning, smouldering form of Narcosis, lying in a heap on the ground. The hero sped over to a nearby fire blanket, wrapping it tightly around him and tying it firmly to a nearby support pillar, stopping for a moment to scribble a note for the police and pin it to his forehead, which read:
“Gassy Dingus. Watch out for poisons”
Dusting off his hands and surveying the still or grunting forms of the would-be robbers, Casey could only smile as the sound of sirens reached his ears. Job well done, as far as he was concerned.

Job.
Oh crap.
He might still be pretty nauseous, barely capable of standing upright and exhaling highly flammable gas, but if Casey didn't make it back for the cameras, Sara would spend the next week tearing into him. He was out the doors and three blocks away before the police even made it inside.


Sara thought she was doing remarkably well under the circumstances. Keith had stretched his opening speech significantly with a somewhat fabricated history of FizzBang Energy Drink, and the juggler had gone over better than expected. But if that hyperactive idiot didn't show up in the next minute or so....Sara fantasized about the scathing indictment she could write up to finally free herself from under the belching, lemon-lime cloud that her career had positioned her beneath.
A sudden breeze and the sound of skidding rubber soles told her that her asset had finally shown up. She wheeled around and the withering remark she had prepared died in her throat.
Casey was....a mess. He was still in his costume, or at the very least, what was left of it. His fur was bedraggled and slightly blackened by soot around his face and he looked as though staying upright required a lot of conscious effort.
“Were you....hit by a truck?”
“S'fine, just a little- urp, winded.” He smiled. “Saved the day, nearly died, stopped the bad guy.”
“You nearly....What?” Sara tried to course correct three times. “What did you even accomplish?”
“Saved a foreman.”
“ONE person?”
A rare expression crossed Casey's face. It took the exec to realize that he was actually taken aback.
“Does the number matter?”
Sara found herself averting her gaze. Casey's smile returned in an instant as he swayed slightly. “Now watch me kill it out there.”
The bright green snow leopard ambled up to the podium, his overstretched outfit billowing around him like a sail.
Dishevelled, slightly singed and reeking of some chemical odour, Casey blearily gripped the podium, leaned into the microphone and managed to utter a single syllable before he let out a long, low belch.
“BBRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAP!”

The entire crowd froze, mixtures of of shock and reprehension painted on their faces as the sound of the gaseous emission echoed through the speakers surrounding them. Casey hiccuped slightly and promptly collapsed like a falling tree.
Sara was still glaring at his prone form when her phone beeped. Of course, it was a text from her corporate overlords.

<Is the conference on schedule?>

She pondered for a second, sighed and responded:

<Minor technical issue with the sound system. Asset Green behaved himself>

The handler returned her gaze to Casey Delaware and offered a a rare, dry smile before signalling for a stage hand to grab him. She returned to her phone again and started sending texts, determined to spin this before it started trending. It was nothing new.
All in all, this was probably one of his better press appearances.