In the sand, Shin-Man raged. He was mostly alone now, with only two bored henchmen guards keeping him company on the beautiful beach paradise. Cannoli had walked off to do evil overlord things. He was probably working on the Doomsday-inator, or whatever it was called.

Internally, he frothed and raved with growing anger.

Cannoli wanted to destroy his socks!

This couldn't be permitted. Cannoli needed to be stopped.

Shin-Man's conviction rose, and he felt strength returning to him in droves.

From the sand he burst, flinging grains everywhere. He flew high into the air, did a flip, and then landed in a superhero pose.

"Who wants some!" He shouted.

Unfortunately, no one was capable of answering him. Some of the sand flung from his escape had ended up in the two guards' eyes and mouths, and now they were writhing on the ground in pain.

Shin-Man briefly felt embarrassed before remembering his sock.

He began running across the beach paradise and over to the door that led to the rest of the evil lair. One kick of his invincible shins was all it took to smash open the steel door.

Keeping his forward momentum, he crashed into a white hallway. A convenient map sign helpfully told him he was in the basement hallways of ELV.E corp. The sign didn't tell him where they kept the Doomsday-inator though, so he had to find that out himself.

He began running to each room, breaking in and checking it for apocalypse machines.

Alarms blared. Guards rushed him, and were promptly kicked for their trouble. Many doors were broken.

Eventually though, he found it.

A mighty kick blasted another metallic door apart, and behind it was a massive school gymnasium. Inside was a giant circular contraption wreathed with flickering blue lightning. In the center of the circle, laid a single innocuous sock.

His eyes widened.

"My sock!" He exclaimed, and rushed forwards.

Unfortunately, the ground before him exploded, and he had to jump to the side to dodge.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.

"No so fast, Shin-Man. I'm too close to success to let you ruin it all!"

It was Don Cannoli. He was wielding a strange cane that glowed in a very sci-fi way.

Shin-Man simply growled and hurled himself at the spiffy villain, legs gleaming menacingly. The two engaged in a brutal melee, cane vs shins.

Lightning flashed wildly from the cane, electrocuting all nearby in an attempt to hit Shin-Man. Waves of force blasted from Shin-Man's kicks, as he used his Lenin family secret technique "Legs of Doom" against the supervillain.

There was a lot of collateral damage. Henchmen lay nearby, electrocuted, knocked out by blunt-force trauma, or burned from the cane's explosions. The walls were thoroughly dented and bashed by the forces the two adversaries were throwing (or kicking) around.

They were rather evenly matched, but eventually, the tables began tilting.

"Look! A flying chimpanzee!" Shin-Man shouted, pointing somewhere behind Don Cannoli.

Don Cannoli, unable to restrain his curiosity, turned around. Indeed, there was a flying chimpanzee. Or rather, a falling chimpanzee. It was unfortunate enough to be in the room when the two started fighting, and a stray explosion had blasted it into the air.

Shin-Man took Cannoli's momentary distraction to direct a particularly powerful kick at the man's hip. Unfortunately, Cannoli had begun turning back to face Shin-Man again, and instead of hitting his hip, it hit his groin. Wind blew from the force of the kick, and when it stopped, all was silent.

Cannoli fell forwards, clutching his crotch. Shin-Man watched coldly.

"You... have de... feated me." Don Cannoli managed to groan through the pain.

Shin-Man said nothing. He simply stepped over Cannoli's body and made his way over to his sock, still prone in the center of the doomsday machine.

He had underestimated Cannoli's determination though. Even through the pain of a thousand suns, Cannoli managed to direct the tip of his cane at Shin-Man. There was a blast of lightning, and Shin-Man went down.

He had been facing away from Cannoli though, and Cannoli's arm was tired so his aim was slightly lower than normal. Instead of hitting Shin-Man in the back, the powerful electric pulse hit him right in the rear, causing him to arch his back and screw up his face in pain.

"YEOWCH!"

Cannoli chuckled weakly from his place on the floor.

"A... thousand years... of pain... for you!"

Then the villain finally let his arm drop to the ground, defeated at last.

The next few minutes were spent with Shin-Man writhing on the dirty, shoe-germ-covered floor, doomsday machine humming in the background. It was only after the pain had worn off sufficiently that he managed to get up and make his way over to his sock.

The pain made him walk funny though, and he ended up tripping over a loose coil of wire.

The coil was nudged out of its earlier alignment, sending the whole machine into chaos.

"WARNING. APOCALYPSE-INATOR DESTABILIZED. SELF-DESTRUCT IN TEN. MINUTES. PLEASE EVACUATE." Blared a robotic voice.

Well that couldn't be good.

Shin-Man scooped up his sock, and hobbled over to the exit as fast as he could. He left the basement, then the base, and out into the sunlight.

He was free. He had foiled Cannoli's plot, and recovered his sock.

And all it took were five-thousand dollars, the lives of various henchmen, massive infrastructure damage, and a very tender backside.

A small price to pay, for his sock.

Lovingly, Shin-Man removed his boot and put his sweaty, calloused foot into the sock.

Bliss.

The boot was put back on, and he finally headed home.

Behind him, the EVL.E base exploded into a conflagration of fire and plasma. Many injuries and deaths would result from it, but...

It was a small price to pay.