#fridayflash The Prankster's Apology

I didn't aim to become a supervillain. I just wanted to take that Mr. Fantastic down a peg or two and it just so happened that my powers of invisibility allowed me the means and the opportunity to achieve my motives. For whatever reason, I just couldn't stand that self-satisfied, smug look he had on the nightly news when he was interviewed for nabbing another cat burglar or pickpocket. Maybe it was because my old man did the same thing every night for thirty years and he never once got on the news, but I guess superhuman speed gets better ratings.

I started out small, just enough to annoy the guy. Itching powder in his stupid looking spandex tights, prank calls to his Mr. Fantastic Hotline, tying his shoe laces together while he was staking out a meth lab, nothing major. That last one had me laughing so hard I accidentally went visible. If you'd seen that cocky mug of his hit the dirt at super speed, you would have laughed too. After he spotted me, I figured the jig was up and that would be the end of my little jokes. He obviously didn't have a sense of humor, or a sense of perspective for that matter, because he tracked me back to my “lair” (my rent-controlled one bedroom apartment on the bad side of town) and challenged me to fight him man to man. I tried to explain that I was just having a laugh, but he swore he would have his revenge and stormed out with a melodramatic flip of his cape.

He publicly declared me his arch-nemesis and gave me the name The Prankster. If I'd have known I was going to get stuck with something so obvious and unoriginal I would have come up with my own supervillain name. But like I said, I wasn't aiming to be anybody's arch-nemesis. He stopped catching criminals and focused on “bringing me to justice.” I don't know how things escalated so quickly, but before I knew it I was kidnapping his girlfriend and constructing death rays. Its silly, I know, but once the gauntlet was thrown, I couldn't back down. Its the Irish in me.

I stand before you today not as a supervillain, but as the son of a cop who somehow wound up on the wrong side of the law. I know it was wrong to contaminate the city's water supply, but in my defense I never meant to kill anybody. I just wanted everybody to lighten up. Things just got so weird and dark, I figured we could all go for a laugh. I guess I got the recipe wrong or added too much and for that I'm sorry. I throw myself on the mercy of the court. I know I don't deserve forgiveness, all I ask is for a little understanding.