(This was supposed to be out last night but then my Windows decided to shoot itself.)
Doctor Doom entered the Gym and was displeased to find only trash in front of him.
He isn't referring to the garbage cans, either.
Doom ignored the uninspiring trainers and set his sights on the rows of cans in front of him. Doom surmised this was some sort of meager challenge to impede lesser trainers from reaching the leader. Doom was not impressed. Before Doom could vocalize his lack of approval a voice cut through the air.
“Yo Champ in the making, welcome to the third gym on your way to the top!”
Doom turned towards the man in shades that he had now encountered three times. The last time they had spoken this little man had known his full name, something that no one should have been able to find out. This man was a mystery to Doom. Mysteries tended to die in Doom's presence.
No matter which way you interpreted that last sentence you were right.
“Doom told you the last time we met that we would have a talk,” Doom said ominously.
The man chuckled. “So you did! But I for one know that Doc Doom doesn't waste time on small fries like me, much less small fry temporal inconsistencies which if pried into could rip a hole into the fabric of the multi-verse. Let's just focus on getting you those badges! To get to Surge you are going to need to locate the switches at the bottom of the trash cans. Be careful though, if you trip a false switch the pattern will reset.”
It says something about both Doom's great intellect as well as his life experience on the whole that the part about switches on the bottom of trash cans piqued his interest more than anything related to time anomalies.
Doom lived through the whole of history and finished the tour remarkably unimpressed.
“Be careful you say? Doom does not need such warnings! It is everyone else who should be careful of Doom! I care not for this insult levied against me. You think Doom is unworthy? That Doom must solve your puzzle? Doom does as Doom pleases!” With a sudden burst of energy from his gauntlet Doom blew the steel door that barred the path to Lt. Surge off of its hinges.
As the smoke cleared from the blast a very bored Lt. Surge could be seen looking at Doom. His eyes flicked from the man down to his now defunct door. “Y,know,” he said, “You could have just knocked.”
--
"What I'm saying is mind over matter only works when there's not much of a matter to mind. " - Lopen
The Cult of Personality.