Max Mercer had handled kidnappings before. Usually, he caused them by accident. However, this was the first time anyone had hired him to rescue a victim with four legs, a championship pedigree, and better hair than most movie stars.

This funny detective story with a dog began at 9:17 on a Thursday morning. That was when a white limousine stopped outside the basement office of Chaos for Hire. It blocked two parking spaces, one fire hydrant, and the only sunlight that had reached Max’s window all week.

The rear door opened. Countess Natalia Barkova stepped onto the sidewalk in a silver coat, dark glasses, and enough diamonds to interfere with local radio reception. An assistant followed her carrying an insultingly well-groomed white poodle on a velvet cushion.

The poodle looked through the basement window and sneered.

Max had never seen a dog sneer before. Somehow, this one had mastered it.

“Mr. Mercer,” the countess said as she entered his office, “I require discretion, courage, and complete competence.”

Max swept three broken gadgets and half a pastrami sandwich into his desk drawer.

“You’ve definitely come to the right building,” he said.

The countess placed a photograph on his desk. It showed a magnificent silver Borzoi standing beside a trophy taller than Max. Around the dog’s neck glittered a wide platinum collar covered in red, blue, and clear stones.

“This is Grand Duke Maximilian Volkov the Third,” she said. “Maxi to his friends.”

“Great name,” said Max.

“He disappeared from his grooming suite this morning. The Metropolitan City Dog Show begins at noon. He must be found before the championship parade.”

The poodle gave a tiny cough that sounded suspiciously like laughter.

“And the collar?” Max asked.

“Priceless to my family,” said the countess. “Worth one million dollars to my insurance company.”

Max opened a fresh case file and wrote: Find rich dog. Avoid losing rich collar. Do not pet poodle without written consent.

Then he underlined the word dog twice. He was officially a detective.

The Experimental Scent Scanner

Max’s plan was simple. That should have worried everyone.

He removed a device from his utility belt. It resembled a television remote taped to a toaster. Three colored wires dangled from the back, while a green radar screen blinked on the front.

“The G.R.I.T. Experimental Olfactory Acquisition Tracker,” Max announced. “I found it in a box marked ‘Rejected Prototypes—Do Not Activate Near Ham.’”

The countess lowered her glasses. “Does it work?”

“It beeped at a meatball once.”

Max needed something that carried Maxi’s scent. The countess handed him a silver hair from the missing dog’s monogrammed brush. He opened the scanner’s sample chamber and carefully held the hair above it.

At that exact moment, the office radiator coughed.

The desk drawer popped open. Max’s pastrami sandwich sprang free, bounced off the filing cabinet, and slapped against the scanner. The dog hair floated harmlessly into Max’s coffee.

The scanner chirped.

SCENT ACQUIRED: PASTRAMI. CONFIDENCE: 112%.

Max wiped mustard from the display before the countess could read it.

“We have a trail,” he said.

The scanner led them through three alleys, across a flower market, and into the lobby of the Grand Regency Hotel. Every few seconds, it emitted a triumphant beep. Max followed it past the grooming suites and directly into the hotel kitchen.

There, the device pointed at a lunch cart.

“Decoy,” Max whispered.

The poodle rolled its eyes.

Its name, Max learned, was Lord Chauncey of Kensington. Chauncey belonged to the countess’s sister and held two national obedience titles. He also wore a blue bow that remained perfectly level, even when he yawned with contempt.

The scanner suddenly shrieked. A squat brown bulldog had appeared beneath the lunch cart. Before Max could react, the dog grabbed the pastrami sandwich from his coat pocket and bolted through the kitchen doors.

“Maxi!” Max shouted.

Countess Barkova stared at the bulldog’s stubby legs and enormous head.

“That is not my dog.”

“He may have changed his appearance.”

“He has changed breeds.”

“Criminals are getting very sophisticated.”

Max chased the bulldog into the street.

The Wrong Bulldog Knows the Right Way

The bulldog moved like a runaway ottoman. He barreled between pedestrians, slid under a produce stand, and sent twelve cabbages bouncing into traffic. Max followed while apologizing to everyone, including the cabbages.

Chauncey trotted behind him without disturbing a single hair.

The scanner locked onto the sandwich in the bulldog’s mouth. Its arrow pointed forward as the dog crossed Sudbury Avenue and disappeared through the swinging door of a laundromat called The Clean Getaway.

The sign beneath the name promised: We Remove Every Stain—No Questions Asked.

“That seems reassuring,” Max said.

Inside, washing machines churned along both walls. A motorized overhead conveyor carried plastic-wrapped clothes toward the back room. Behind the counter stood a broad man in a lavender suit. His shirt collar rose high enough to provide weather protection.

“No dogs,” the man growled.

Chauncey stopped at the threshold and looked offended that anyone might classify him as one.

The bulldog swallowed the final bite of pastrami and sat beside Max. A brass tag on his collar read DETECTIVE PICKLES.

“See?” Max said. “He’s with law enforcement.”

The man’s eyes narrowed. “That’s the owner’s dog. Pickles ain’t a detective.”

Detective Pickles growled at the back room.

Max’s scanner growled too, although that may have been a loose fan.

“Mr. Malone, I presume?” Countess Barkova said from the doorway.

The man froze.

Max had not known his name. Nevertheless, he nodded as if this development matched a flowchart in his head.

Suds Malone owned twelve laundromats, three car washes, and a nightclub where every table required dry cleaning afterward. Countess Barkova recognized him because he had tried to buy Maxi’s collar at a charity auction the previous month.

“Sentimental collector,” Suds said. “Now take the dogs and scram.”

Detective Pickles slipped between his ankles and charged through a curtain marked EMPLOYEES ONLY.

Max followed. After all, the only detective on the case appeared to have a lead.

A Funny Detective Story With a Dog—and Too Much Soap

The back room did not contain laundry.

It contained money.

Hundred-dollar bills hung from drying racks. Uncut sheets covered long tables. Industrial printers hummed beside tubs of green ink, while three men in aprons fed stacks of blank paper into a machine.

“Gift certificates?” Max asked.

“Counterfeit currency,” Countess Barkova replied.

“I was going to guess that next.”

Suds Malone shoved past the curtain and slammed his palm onto a red button. Metal shutters dropped over the windows. The front door locked. Two counterfeiters advanced with laundry bags pulled over their heads like masks.

The eyeholes did not line up.

One walked into a folding table.

“Nobody leaves,” Suds announced.

“That’s all right,” Max said. “I parked in a loading zone, so my car may already have left without me.”

He reached for a smoke capsule on his utility belt. Instead, he grabbed the scent scanner. Its loose wires tangled around the overhead conveyor’s control lever.

Max stepped backward.

The lever snapped down.

Every clothes hook in the building lurched forward at once.

One caught Suds by the lavender jacket. Another hooked a laundry cart. A third snagged Max’s trench coat and lifted him off the floor.

“Totally part of the plan!” Max shouted as the conveyor carried him toward an industrial pressing machine.

Chauncey sat safely beneath a table. Somehow, his bow remained level.

Detective Pickles chased the dangling pastrami wrapper in Max’s pocket. He jumped, missed, and crashed into a pallet of detergent. Boxes toppled in a neat row toward a fifty-gallon drum labeled ULTRA-CONCENTRATED.

The final box struck the drum’s valve.

A blue stream shot across the room.

It hit a high-pressure hot-water hose, which whipped free and sprayed the detergent into every open washing machine. Foam burst from the doors. It rolled across the floor, climbed the tables, and swallowed the counterfeiters up to their waists.

Then something strange happened to the money.

The green ink began to run.

The Counterfeit Cash Washes Clean

Blue soap streaked across the counterfeit bills. Benjamin Franklin’s face stretched, frowned, and slid off the paper. Serial numbers dripped into the floor drains. Within seconds, half a million dollars had transformed into damp white rectangles.

“Water-soluble ink,” Countess Barkova said.

Suds looked horrified. “It was cheaper!”

“That wasn’t supposed to happen,” Max said as the conveyor swung him over the foam. “But I’ll take it!”

Suds tore free from his jacket and lunged toward a small computer near the printers. He yanked a red, bone-shaped flash drive from the machine.

“Without this,” he yelled, “you can’t prove anything!”

He threw it toward an open washer.

Detective Pickles launched himself through the air.

The bulldog caught the drive before it reached the spinning drum. He landed in the foam, vanished for two seconds, and emerged with the plastic bone clenched between his teeth.

Max gave him two thumbs up. This caused him to lose his grip on the conveyor.

His trench coat ripped down the back. Max dropped into a laundry cart, which rolled downhill across the wet floor. It struck the control panel and raised the metal shutters.

Sunlight poured through the windows.

So did six police officers.

They had followed a river of green ink flowing from the laundromat into the street. Detective Pickles trotted to the first officer and deposited the evidence drive into her hand.

The drive held printing templates, account ledgers, delivery schedules, and a folder named DEFINITELY NOT CRIMES.

“Good dog,” the officer said.

Pickles sat proudly.

Max climbed out of the cart wearing only one sleeve of his trench coat. The rest had disappeared into the conveyor system.

“Case closed,” he said.

Countess Barkova crossed her arms. “My dog is still missing.”

“Case slightly ajar.”

Then Chauncey barked for the first time.

Everyone turned.

The poodle pointed his perfect nose toward a narrow service passage behind the drying racks. Silver hairs clung to the doorway.

At last, Max’s scanner displayed something other than pastrami.

SCENT ACQUIRED: EXPENSIVE CONDITIONER.

The Million-Dollar Collar

The service passage led to an alley behind the laundromat. There, Max found an empty dog carrier, a torn grooming ribbon, and several diamonds scattered beside a storm drain.

They were not decorative crystals. They were flawless, unregistered stones worth far more than one million dollars.

Suds stopped pretending he knew nothing.

His counterfeit business had served as cover for a smuggling operation. An accomplice at the dog show had replaced Maxi’s costume collar with a nearly identical one set with real diamonds. Suds planned to steal the collar after the parade, move the stones through his laundromat deliveries, and return the dog before anyone noticed.

However, the swap went wrong. Maxi escaped from the groomer. Suds grabbed him outside the hotel, but the Borzoi slipped his carrier when Detective Pickles attacked the getaway van for trespassing near the laundromat.

“Pickles has strong opinions about parking,” a police officer explained.

The countess stared at the loose stones. “I thought the collar held glass.”

“That explains why the insurance company only valued it at a million,” Max said.

The collar itself was gone. So was Maxi.

The city dog show would begin in twenty minutes.

Max followed the scanner through the alley. The signal looped around two dumpsters, stopped at a delicatessen, and directed him toward a pastrami delivery truck.

“I believe your machine is still tracking lunch,” said the countess.

“It’s very committed.”

They hurried back to the Grand Regency. Countess Barkova searched the grooming rooms. Police officers checked the loading docks. Detective Pickles inspected every catering cart with professional dedication.

Max stood beside the main arena and tried to think like a championship dog.

This produced no useful ideas, although he suddenly wanted someone to brush his hair.

An announcer’s voice filled the hall.

“Ladies and gentlemen, the championship parade will now begin!”

The Dog Makes an Entrance

Lord Chauncey entered the arena first.

The poodle floated across the carpet like a cloud with legal representation. The audience applauded. Judges leaned forward. Not one hair moved out of place.

Chauncey reached the center platform, stopped, and looked toward the emergency exit.

Then he barked twice.

The door swung open.

Grand Duke Maximilian Volkov the Third strolled into the arena.

The silver Borzoi wore Max’s missing trench coat draped across his back like a cape. One sleeve trailed behind him. Soap bubbles sparkled in his fur. Around his neck, the diamond collar flashed beneath the lights.

The crowd rose to its feet.

Maxi had followed Max’s coat after it shot from the laundromat’s conveyor vent. The garment smelled like pastrami, mustard, smoke capsules, and poor decisions. To Maxi, apparently, it smelled like home.

The Borzoi crossed the arena and stopped beside the countess. She wrapped both arms around him.

Detective Pickles arrived a moment later with a catering sausage in his mouth. He sat beside Maxi as camera flashes filled the room.

The judges held a hurried conference. Technically, Maxi had missed his scheduled entrance. Technically, Pickles was not entered. Technically, no rule covered a contestant arriving in evidence from an active federal investigation.

The head judge took the microphone.

“For extraordinary composure under unusual conditions, we award Grand Duke Maximilian the Judges’ Medal. We also present Detective Pickles with a special prize for civic service.”

Pickles received a blue ribbon and ate it.

Chauncey placed second. His expression suggested that society had collapsed.

One strand of hair fell across his left eye.

Max considered that the day’s most shocking event.

Every Plan Backfires Into Success

Police recovered every diamond from the collar. They also arrested Suds Malone and dismantled his counterfeiting network. The evidence drive led investigators to three hidden print shops, two offshore accounts, and a sandwich shop that had never passed a health inspection.

Countess Barkova paid Max his full fee, plus a bonus for recovering the dog, the diamonds, and what she called “the dignity of the Barkova name.”

She also handed him a silver lunch box.

Inside waited a fresh pastrami sandwich.

“For your next investigation,” she said.

“Hopefully, I won’t need it.”

The scent scanner beeped from his utility belt and pointed at the sandwich.

Detective Pickles lifted his head.

Max backed toward the exit.

“Easy, Detective. The case is over.”

Pickles charged.

Max ran through the dog show with the bulldog at his heels. He tripped over Maxi’s discarded grooming ribbon, ducked under a display table, and accidentally unplugged an illegal dog-tonic booth. A hidden panel fell open and revealed forty bottles of banned performance enhancers.

Security officers blew their whistles.

The vendor tried to escape. Chauncey stepped into his path, perfectly poised and magnificently smug. The man stumbled into a stack of empty kennels.

Max looked at the newly exposed evidence, the cheering crowd, and the bulldog eating his sandwich.

“Wait,” he said. “Did I just save the day again?”

Chauncey sneezed on his shoe.

Max nodded. “Fair.”

He left the arena without his coat, without his lunch, and without any idea how the police report would explain him.

Behind him, Detective Pickles barked once.

It sounded like case closed.

The post Chapter 4: The Million-Dollar Mutt: A Funny Detective Story With a Dog appeared first on The Misfire Comics.

Every funny Loch Ness monster adventure needs three things: cold mist, questionable evidence, and at least one tourist willing to mistake a floating log for a prehistoric reptile.

Max Mercer supplied a fourth thing.

An international incident.

He had come to Scotland for the Great Loch Ness Folklore Festival, a three-day celebration of legends, local food, traditional music, and gift-shop merchandise depicting Nessie in hats she had almost certainly never worn. Max wanted a quiet holiday. His last several trips abroad had involved explosions, secret organizations, and one customs officer who still believed Max had tried to smuggle a grappling hook inside a fruitcake.

This time would be different.

He had rented a kilt, bought a festival pass, and promised himself that he would not touch anything labeled EXPERIMENTAL, CLASSIFIED, or DO NOT INFLATE INDOORS.

By eleven that morning, he had broken two of those promises.

The third was waiting for him beside the loch.

The Cow Had Already Reached a Verdict

Max’s rented kilt came with six pages of instructions.

He had read the first page, which explained that the pleats went in the back. The other five pages appeared to concern prohibited activities, security deposits, and what the rental shop called “reckless ceremonial use.” Max folded them into a small square and used them to stabilize a wobbly table at a tea stall.

The kilt itself was green and blue tartan. It hung slightly crooked because Max had fastened one buckle through a belt loop on his utility vest. His mismatched gloves, scorched boots, ski goggles, and duct-taped shoulder pad completed a look that was less “Highland hero” and more “lost luggage assembled into a person.”

Festival visitors loved it.

They kept asking to take photographs with him.

“Are you one of the performers?” asked a little boy wearing a foam Nessie head.

“Only accidentally,” Max said.

Near the livestock enclosure, an enormous Highland cow watched him through a curtain of copper-colored hair. A wooden sign identified her as MORAG — FESTIVAL AMBASSADOR AND THREE-TIME BEST FRINGE WINNER.

Morag chewed slowly.

Max waved.

Morag stopped chewing.

It was the most judgmental silence Max had experienced since his last government performance review.

“I know,” he told her. “The boots don’t match the kilt.”

Morag continued staring.

“One of them is waterproof.”

The cow looked away as if the explanation had made everything worse.

Across the festival grounds, a cannon boomed. A dark object sailed over the crowd, trailing oats and onion.

It struck a hay bale with a wet, triumphant thud.

The crowd erupted in cheers.

“Six hundred and twelve feet!” shouted an announcer. “A new festival record for Angus Thundercheeks, Highland haggis-hurling champion!”

On a nearby field, a massive man in a tartan athletic sash raised both arms. His beard was braided into two handles, possibly for safety. Behind him stood a siege engine constructed from timber, steel springs, and what appeared to be part of a tractor.

Angus bowed to the crowd.

“Distance is temporary!” he roared. “Thundercheeks is forever!”

The cannon had not been a cannon. It had been Angus releasing the catapult.

Max applauded. Morag did not.

She had apparently seen better.

Professor McCracken Loses a Buoy

At the water’s edge, Professor Fiona McCracken was preparing a public sonar demonstration titled LISTENING FOR LEGENDS: SCIENCE BENEATH THE SURFACE.

She wore rubber boots, a red raincoat, and the expression of a woman who had spent twenty years explaining that sonar could not identify a monster’s species, intentions, or preferred souvenir mug. A row of monitors displayed the underwater contours of Loch Ness. Beside them sat cables, speakers, and several bright yellow buoys.

One buoy was missing.

“Nobody leaves the dock,” Fiona announced. “My research unit has disappeared.”

The tourists froze.

“Is it dangerous?” someone asked.

“Only to my department’s budget.”

Fiona pointed toward a small yellow dot drifting several hundred yards offshore. The buoy bobbed near a patch of mist where a dark, curved shape occasionally rose from the water.

The crowd gasped.

Camera shutters clicked.

A souvenir vendor immediately changed a sign from POSSIBLE NESSIE SIGHTING SHIRTS — £15 to CONFIRMED NESSIE SIGHTING SHIRTS — £25.

Fiona adjusted her glasses.

“That shape is mechanical,” she said. “It has a regular propulsion rhythm, a metallic echo, and absolutely no respect for restricted research equipment.”

Max had stopped to listen because the word “missing” triggered his sidekick instincts. He did not consider himself the hero in most situations. Heroes arrived with plans, matching gloves, and insurance. Max mostly held things while other people shouted.

“I can retrieve it,” he offered.

Fiona looked him up and down.

Her gaze paused at the taped shoulder pad.

“Are you certified for water rescue?”

“I watched half of a safety video.”

“Which half?”

“The credits.”

Fiona opened her mouth to refuse. Then the dark shape turned toward the buoy. A narrow metallic neck rose through the mist, dipped beneath the yellow float, and pulled it underwater.

Her monitor filled with static.

For half a second, another image appeared beneath the interference: a long, smooth hull resting over a cable trench on the bottom of the loch.

Fiona’s expression changed.

“That isn’t a festival prop,” she said.

She enlarged the sonar image. Mechanical arms extended from the hull and clamped around a thick underwater line.

“That is the North Caledonian Financial Link. It carries encrypted market traffic between data centers. Someone is physically tapping it.”

Max nodded as if this made perfect sense.

“So Nessie has gone into banking.”

“Nessie is a submarine.”

“That seems harder to put on a T-shirt.”

A Funny Loch Ness Monster Adventure Gets Complicated

Far below them, Captain Kelp watched Max on a periscope monitor.

Captain Kelp was not a real captain, and Kelp was not his real name. He had chosen both because “Mr. Barnaby Sproat, freelance infrastructure criminal” lacked menace. His uniform featured brass buttons, seaweed-green epaulets, and a peaked cap decorated with a silver squid.

He commanded the Silent Dividend, a compact stealth submarine built to intercept financial data before it reached the market. With a few seconds of advance knowledge, Kelp’s partners could buy, sell, and vanish with millions before anyone discovered the physical breach.

The submarine’s greatest defense was its camouflage generator. Flexible panels distorted its outline, while a telescoping periscope wore a mechanical Nessie head. If anyone glimpsed it, they saw exactly what they expected to see: a monster, a shadow, or an excellent reason to purchase a commemorative tea towel.

Kelp’s first officer enlarged the image of Max.

“Sir, facial recognition found a match.”

Onscreen, Max was attempting to tighten his kilt and had accidentally attached himself to a folding chair.

“Who is he?” Kelp asked.

“Max Mercer. Alias: The Misfire. International reports connect him to collapsed criminal networks, exposed covert operations, and an improbable number of damaged vending machines.”

The first officer opened another file. Its threat assessment contained only four words:

DO NOT PREDICT HIS BEHAVIOR.

Kelp leaned closer to the monitor.

Max stood, dragged the chair three feet, noticed the problem, and apologized to it.

“A calculated performance,” Kelp whispered. “He wants us to underestimate him.”

Onshore, Fiona unlocked a red equipment case.

Inside lay what looked like a set of bagpipes made from orange emergency fabric. Reflective strips covered the bag. The pipes were hollow plastic, and the mouthpiece carried a warning label.

Max read it aloud.

“Inflatable Emergency Bagpipe. For maritime deployment only. Pull drone, inflate bladder, and—”

“Pull cord,” Fiona corrected.

“The print is smudged.”

“It is not.”

The device had started as a student engineering joke. Fiona had improved it into a compact flotation system with a waterproof radio, emergency beacon, and directional hydrophone. Once deployed, it could carry two adults or one adult plus an irresponsible amount of equipment.

“Take the small rescue boat,” Fiona said. “Paddle to the buoy, clip this bagpipe to it, and tow it back. Do not inflate the bag unless the boat sinks.”

Max repeated the plan.

“Boat. Buoy. Bagpipe. No inflation.”

“Correct.”

“Simple.”

Morag mooed from behind them.

Max looked over his shoulder. The Highland cow had escaped her enclosure and now stood beside the equipment table.

She stared at the orange bagpipe.

Then she stared at Max.

Fiona followed her gaze.

“Does that cow know you?”

“She has concerns about my process.”

The Emergency Bagpipe Becomes a Boat

Max pushed the rescue boat into the water, placed the bagpipe in the bow, and climbed aboard.

The boat remained tied to the dock.

He paddled vigorously for nearly a minute before noticing that the scenery had not moved. Fiona untied the rope without comment. Morag watched from beside her, radiating vindication.

On his second attempt, Max made steady progress across the loch. The festival music faded behind him. Mist wrapped around the boat. Ahead, Fiona’s yellow buoy surfaced, disappeared, and surfaced again as something below dragged it through the water.

Max leaned over the bow with a retrieval hook.

“Easy,” he murmured. “Totally normal buoy situation.”

The mechanical Nessie head rose six feet from the water beside him.

Its black eyes contained cameras. Water streamed from metal teeth. A speaker hidden in its throat emitted a roar assembled from a lion, an elephant, and what sounded like a malfunctioning leaf blower.

Max startled backward.

His boot landed on the rescue boat’s inflation valve.

The boat had an inflation valve because it was not, as Max had assumed, made of rigid rubber. It was an emergency inflatable, and the valve had not been properly secured.

Air escaped with a long, disappointed hiss.

The boat folded inward.

Max grabbed the orange bagpipe.

“Boat sinking,” he said. “Now inflation.”

He pulled the emergency cord.

Nothing happened.

He pulled one of the plastic pipes.

The bagpipe exploded into a raft.

Orange fabric burst around Max, lifted him into the air, and swallowed the collapsing boat. The drones became oarlocks. The chanter extended into a paddle. Two emergency pipes shot upright behind him and began producing a continuous bagpipe note powered by the inflation canister.

The sound rolled across Loch Ness like a goose declaring war on the moon.

Festival visitors turned toward the water.

Angus Thundercheeks lowered the haggis he was autographing.

Morag closed her eyes.

On the submarine, Captain Kelp gripped his command chair.

“Acoustic attack!” he shouted.

“Sir,” said the first officer, “I believe those are bagpipes.”

“There is no difference at this range!”

Kelp ordered evasive action. The Silent Dividend accelerated. Its mechanical neck swept past the raft just as Max stood to untangle the paddle.

The silver pin on his rented kilt caught the periscope.

The tartan tightened.

Max looked down.

The periscope moved away.

So did the front half of his kilt.

Max grabbed the fabric with both hands.

“Excuse me!” he shouted. “That has a deposit!”

The submarine dragged the raft into the mist.

Captain Kelp Catches a Kilt

Captain Kelp watched the towline form on his exterior camera.

The Misfire’s kilt had wrapped around the mechanical monster’s neck, covering its cameras and binding the periscope at a crooked angle. Behind it, the inflated bagpipe raft skipped across the water with Max clinging to the tartan.

“He has boarded us without boarding us,” Kelp said.

“Should we stop?” asked the first officer.

“That is what he expects.”

“Should we continue?”

“That is also what he expects.”

“Perhaps he would like the kilt back.”

Kelp glared at him. “No elite operative risks his life for a rental deposit.”

Outside, Max risked his life for a rental deposit.

The raft bounced over the wake. Each impact made the emergency bagpipes change pitch. Max tried to free the fabric with a broken multipurpose gadget from his utility belt. Its scissors folded the wrong way and cut through the strap holding Fiona’s waterproof radio.

The radio dropped into the raft and activated.

“Max?” Fiona’s voice crackled from the speaker. “What is happening?”

“Good news. I found the mechanical Nessie.”

“And the buoy?”

“Emotionally, I feel we’re getting closer.”

Fiona tracked the raft on sonar. The submarine was turning toward the center of the loch, where it could dive beyond the range of the festival’s rescue boats. The stolen buoy remained fixed to its stern.

“You are attached to the submarine,” she said.

Max looked at the stretched tartan in his hands.

“That explains the resistance.”

“Let go.”

“I signed a rental agreement.”

“Max, they’re tapping a financial cable. These are cybercriminals.”

Max considered the mechanical monster, the hidden submarine, and the men who were stealing market data beneath a folklore festival.

“So they’re not performers?”

“No.”

“That makes the roar machine feel dishonest.”

Fiona told him to activate the emergency beacon. Max pressed the largest button on the radio. Instead of the beacon, he switched on the raft’s directional sonar transmitter.

His next words blasted through the water and struck the submarine’s hull.

“Hello? Criminal submarine? Could you slow down, please?”

Inside the Silent Dividend, Max’s voice erupted from every acoustic-monitoring speaker.

The first officer went pale.

“He’s inside the communications system.”

Kelp stared at the ceiling.

“Of course he is.”

Angus Thundercheeks Fires for Glory

Onshore, the festival crowd had decided the chase was part of the entertainment.

The announcer stood on the reviewing platform with a microphone.

“Ladies and gentlemen, the mysterious orange piper has engaged Nessie in single combat!”

The crowd cheered.

Fiona grabbed the microphone.

“It is not Nessie. It is a criminal submarine.”

The crowd cheered louder.

“This is not a reenactment!”

Someone shouted, “Very immersive!”

Fiona pointed to her sonar monitor, which now displayed the submarine’s full outline and the illegal cable tap. A uniformed police sergeant assigned to festival security finally understood that the professor was not contributing dramatic narration. He called for marine support and ordered the parade route cleared.

Unfortunately, the grand Nessie procession had already begun.

Decorated boats moved along the shore. A pipe band marched onto a temporary floating causeway. Children carried green sea-serpent puppets. The festival queen rode on a wheeled papier-mâché monster with eyelashes, a crown, and better posture than Max.

Angus Thundercheeks climbed onto his haggis catapult.

“The beast has challenged our festival!” he declared.

“Do not fire food at the submarine!” Fiona shouted.

Angus placed his championship haggis in the launch cradle.

“This is not food,” he said solemnly. “This is sporting equipment.”

He turned the catapult toward the loch.

Fiona stepped in front of it.

“You cannot hit a moving periscope from this distance.”

Angus smiled.

“You have never seen the Thundercheeks Invitational.”

Before Fiona could stop him, Morag wandered behind the catapult. The Highland cow had followed Max’s scent, or perhaps the smell of oats. She leaned against the aiming lever to scratch her shoulder.

The catapult rotated seven degrees.

Angus released the trigger.

The machine boomed.

The haggis rose over the festival in a majestic arc.

Every camera followed it.

Out on the loch, Max finally loosened one fold of his kilt. The freed fabric snapped across the mechanical Nessie head and turned it sideways. The submarine veered.

The haggis descended.

It missed the periscope.

It struck a small fin behind it—a fin that housed the camouflage generator’s external cooling array.

The haggis burst.

Oats, spices, and criminal engineering entered into a brief but decisive disagreement.

Blue sparks raced down the hull. The optical panels flickered. For several seconds, the Silent Dividend alternated between invisible submarine, giant monster, floating gift shop, and what appeared to be a sixty-foot image of Captain Kelp adjusting his socks.

Then the camouflage failed completely.

The sleek black submarine became visible beneath Max’s raft.

The crowd fell silent.

Angus raised one fist.

“Personal best,” he said.

Morag looked at him with mild approval.

It was more than she had ever given Max.

Max Says the Most Expensive Apology in Scotland

The failed camouflage triggered alarms throughout the Silent Dividend.

Captain Kelp ordered an emergency dive. Ballast tanks filled. The submarine began to sink, pulling the periscope, the kilt, the raft, and Max toward the dark water.

“I believe they’re diving,” Max said into the radio.

“Cut the kilt!” Fiona shouted.

Max unfolded his broken gadget. The scissors opened, spun loose, and flew into the loch.

“Working on a second option.”

Fiona studied the submarine’s sonar signature. Something about its command pulses looked familiar. Then she recognized the timing pattern.

“They stole my autonomous-research control software,” she said. “The emergency acoustic protocol is mine.”

Years earlier, Fiona had designed underwater drones for universities. After an intern accidentally sent one beneath a ferry, she had added a spoken safety command that forced every compatible vessel to empty its ballast and surface. The phrase was deliberately polite so ordinary conversation would not trigger it.

“What is the command?” Max asked.

“It doesn’t matter. Kelp will have removed it.”

“But what is it?”

Fiona told him.

Max pressed the radio button.

“Captain?” he called through the sonar transmitter. “I’m terribly sorry about damaging your monster, and I’m even sorrier about whatever the haggis did. If it isn’t too much trouble, could you please surface immediately?”

The submarine’s computer chimed.

LEGACY SAFETY PHRASE ACCEPTED.

Captain Kelp looked at his first officer.

“What legacy safety phrase?”

Every ballast valve opened.

Compressed air thundered through the tanks. The submarine stopped descending, shuddered, and shot upward.

Kelp lunged for the controls. They locked him out.

EMERGENCY SURFACE IN PROGRESS. THANK YOU FOR ASKING POLITELY.

“Override it!” he shouted.

“We can’t. The command has professor-level authorization.”

Kelp stared at Max’s profile on the monitor.

“He knew we stole the software.”

“Did he?”

“He apologized in the exact sequence needed to seize control of the vessel. Of course he knew!”

Above them, Max heard the raft’s bagpipes change from a battle cry to something closer to a kettle experiencing doubt.

The water beneath him bulged.

“Fiona,” he said, “I think the apology worked.”

The submarine erupted from Loch Ness.

The Monster Joins the Parade

The Silent Dividend breached directly beneath the festival’s floating parade route.

Hinged sections of the causeway lifted harmlessly aside as the submarine surfaced between the pipe band and the crowned papier-mâché Nessie. A wall of water soaked the marchers, spun three decorated boats in circles, and deposited a green sea-serpent puppet across the submarine’s bow.

Max’s bagpipe raft slid down the hull and stopped against the hatch.

His kilt remained attached to the periscope, where the torn tartan fluttered like a heroic banner with unresolved billing information.

For one perfect moment, nobody moved.

Then the emergency system blew the submarine’s hatch.

Captain Kelp climbed out, coughing and covered in haggis fragments. His seaweed-green epaulets had wilted. Behind him came three crew members with their hands raised.

They found themselves surrounded by police officers, festival security, two television crews, forty-seven camera phones, a pipe band, Angus Thundercheeks, and one Highland cow whose stare suggested that crime represented a serious decline in personal standards.

The police sergeant stepped forward.

“Captain Kelp?”

Kelp straightened his cap.

“You will address me by my maritime rank.”

“You don’t have a maritime rank.”

“Then I invoke the ancient laws of salvage.”

“You’re standing in the middle of a parade.”

“A maritime parade.”

The sergeant handcuffed him.

Fiona climbed onto the hull and recovered her buoy. Its memory contained a complete sonar record of the cable tap, the submarine’s identification signal, and Captain Kelp repeatedly ordering his crew to “steal faster.”

“This is enough to prove the entire operation,” she said.

Kelp turned toward Max.

“You calculated every variable,” he said bitterly. “The acoustic assault. The fabric entanglement. The ballistic haggis. Even the bovine targeting adjustment.”

Max looked at Morag.

Morag looked at Max.

“We had a difficult working relationship,” he admitted.

“Who are you?” Kelp demanded.

Max climbed off the raft and tried to straighten what remained of his kilt.

“Max Mercer. Some people call me The Misfire. I’m mostly here on holiday.”

Kelp’s face hardened.

“No one is that incompetent.”

Max smiled apologetically.

“That’s very kind of you.”

The Clearest Nessie Photograph in History

The news photograph appeared online before Captain Kelp reached the police van.

A festival photographer had been tracking Angus’s airborne haggis with a long lens. She pressed the shutter at the exact instant the submarine breached. In the image, the flexible monster head rose above the mist, Max’s tartan streamed from its neck, green parade puppets curled around its black hull, and water glittered in the afternoon light.

The angle concealed nearly every mechanical detail.

It looked alive.

Within an hour, the picture had been labeled THE CLEAREST NESSIE PHOTOGRAPH IN HISTORY.

Fiona spent the afternoon telling reporters that it showed a submarine.

The reporters agreed, thanked her, and asked whether the submarine might have frightened the real monster into appearing.

Angus received a special medal for “precision haggis deployment in defense of national infrastructure.” He insisted that Morag share the honor. Morag tried to eat the ribbon.

Captain Kelp and his crew faced charges for cybercrime, cable interference, reckless navigation, theft of research equipment, and operating a mechanical monster without a festival permit. Authorities recovered the data tap before a single stolen transaction could reach Kelp’s partners.

Professor Fiona McCracken received funding for a new underwater-security program. She named its emergency protocol MERCER, which officially stood for Maritime Emergency Recovery Command and Expedited Resurfacing.

Unofficially, it meant asking nicely and hoping for the best.

At sunset, Fiona found Max beside the livestock enclosure. He was trying to complete an online damage report for the rental shop.

The form asked him to select the cause of loss:

• Normal wear
• Weather
• Animal interference
• Ceremonial combat
• Other

Max selected all five.

“You stopped an international financial crime,” Fiona said.

“The haggis did most of the technical work.”

“You exposed a stealth submarine.”

“That was Angus.”

“You forced it to surface.”

“I apologized.”

“And you recovered my buoy.”

Max looked toward the dock. The yellow buoy was safely tied beside Fiona’s equipment.

“Wait,” he said. “Did I just save the day again?”

Morag mooed.

Max nodded. “Fair. Group effort.”

By evening, every news report described The Misfire as an international operative who had infiltrated a Scottish festival, lured a cybercriminal submarine into shallow water, disabled its camouflage with a precision food strike, and captured its crew using a secret acoustic command.

The story became the most popular funny Loch Ness monster adventure the festival had ever produced.

Max knew the truth.

He had sunk the rescue boat, inflated the wrong bagpipe, caught his rented kilt on a periscope, transmitted an apology over an unsecured sonar system, and landed a submarine in the middle of a parade.

In other words, it had been a fairly restful holiday for The Misfire.

The post Chapter 4: The Loch Ness Mess appeared first on The Misfire Comics.

Every funny supervillain origin story begins with a choice. A brilliant criminal chooses revenge. A corrupt scientist chooses forbidden knowledge. A mysterious stranger chooses a dramatic cape with a collar tall enough to interfere with peripheral vision.

Max Mercer chose the wrong elevator.

In his defense, the directory in the lobby was confusing.

FOURTH FLOOR — TEMPORARY CONTRACTOR ORIENTATION

FORTY-FOURTH FLOOR — TEMPORARY CRIMINAL ORIENTATION

The second listing had been printed in very small type beneath a tasteful skull logo. Max never saw it. He pressed both buttons, got distracted by a vending machine that accepted expired coupons, and stepped out when the elevator doors opened.

That was how The Misfire reported for his first day as office support at Henchmen Local 404.

It would also be their last.

The Man Who Wasn’t on the List

The forty-fourth floor did not look especially evil. It had gray carpeting, inspirational posters, and a reception desk decorated with a bowl of peppermints. One poster showed a volcano erupting beneath the words SYNERGY: TOGETHER, WE CAN HOLD THE WORLD HOSTAGE.

Max nodded appreciatively.

“Strong branding,” he said.

Behind the desk sat a broad man in a black turtleneck. A name tag identified him as TERRY — PROBATIONARY HENCHMAN. He was sweating so hard that the ink had begun to run.

“Name?” Terry asked.

“Max Mercer. Temporary contractor.”

Terry ran one finger down a clipboard. Then he ran it back up. Then he checked the reverse side as if Max might have been printed there upside down.

“You’re not on the list.”

“That happens a lot.”

“If Madame Onboarding finds out I admitted an unauthorized person, she’ll turn me into an example.”

“Employee of the month?”

“An actual example. There will be slides.”

Max leaned over the clipboard. Every attendee had been assigned a specialty: getaway driving, sinister laughter, laser maintenance, ransom punctuation, or general skulduggery. Beside Terry’s name, someone had written Needs Confidence in red ink.

“First day?” Max asked.

Terry swallowed. “First legitimate criminal position. I used to steal lunches from the break-room refrigerator, but there wasn’t much advancement potential.”

“You’ll do great,” Max said. “Shoulders back. Firm handshake. Never microwave fish in a shared kitchen.”

Terry stared at him with the desperate gratitude of a man who had just received the first useful career advice of his life.

“You really are a contractor,” he whispered.

He handed Max a visitor badge, an orientation folder, and a nondisclosure agreement titled I PROMISE NOT TO TELL THE AUTHORITIES ABOUT ANY OF THIS. Max signed where Terry pointed. Under “criminal alias,” he wrote N/A, which Terry assumed stood for “Night Avenger.”

Then they hurried into Conference Room B before either of them could get fired, vaporized, or made responsible for refreshments.

Welcome to Henchmen Local 404

Thirty-seven aspiring criminals sat in folding chairs facing a blank projection screen. They wore an assortment of ski masks, tactical vests, laboratory goggles, and shirts that said ASK ME ABOUT MY EVIL PLAN. Several carried weapons. One carried a covered casserole dish.

At the front stood Madame Onboarding.

She wore a crimson business suit, steel-rimmed glasses, and an expression that could deny a vacation request at fifty paces. Her silver hair was twisted into a bun so precise that geometry teachers would have applauded. In one hand, she held a laser pointer. In the other, she held a clipboard thick enough to stop a crossbow bolt.

“You are late,” she told Max.

“The elevator stopped on thirty-two. Someone had filled it with ferrets.”

Madame Onboarding made a note. “Mammal deployment is on Thursday. Find a seat.”

Max took the empty chair beside Terry. The chair on his other side held a woman tied at the wrists and ankles with bright yellow extension cords. A strip of silver tape covered her mouth. She wore a municipal security badge identifying her as DR. LILA VOSS — DIRECTOR OF EMERGENCY INFRASTRUCTURE.

Max brightened. “You must be the team leader.”

Dr. Voss stared at him.

“Great commitment to the role,” Max whispered.

Madame Onboarding tapped the dead projector with her laser pointer.

“Welcome to Henchmen Local 404,” she began. “By the end of today’s seminar, you will understand our mission, our benefits package, and your individual role in plunging the city into a permanent state of obedient terror.”

Max opened his folder. The first page read SO YOU’VE DECIDED TO BECOME EXPENDABLE.

He frowned.

Temporary employment had changed since his last assignment.

“Before we reveal the master plan,” Madame Onboarding continued, “we will conduct introductions. State your legal name, criminal alias, felony specialty, and one fun fact about yourself. Participation is mandatory.”

One by one, the attendees stood.

“Ronald Peabody. The Human Invoice. Extortion. I make sourdough.”

“Janice Bell. The Night Screamer. Jewel theft. I foster kittens.”

“Doug.”

Madame Onboarding lowered her glasses. “And the rest, Doug?”

“Just Doug. Arson. I don’t like talking about myself.”

Max applauded after each introduction. Terry eventually stood on trembling legs.

“Terrence Barlow. No alias yet. Entry-level intimidation. Fun fact…” He glanced at Max. “I am learning to set healthy professional boundaries.”

“Excellent,” Max whispered.

When his own turn came, Max stood and adjusted his mismatched gloves.

“Max Mercer. Some people call me The Misfire. Troubleshooting, light electrical work, and accidental property damage. Fun fact: I can open most vending machines with a library card.”

The room fell silent.

Madame Onboarding studied him. “What organization sent you?”

“QuickStaff.”

Several henchmen gasped. A woman in a welding mask murmured, “Never heard of them. They must be covert.”

Madame Onboarding narrowed her eyes. “And what position are you seeking?”

Max checked his folder. The cover showed a caped figure standing above a row of smaller, disposable figures.

“Backup sidekick?” he guessed.

Madame Onboarding slowly smiled.

“Ambitious. I respect that.”

Dr. Voss made a noise behind her gag that sounded remarkably like a person trying to warn everyone in the room.

Max gave her an encouraging thumbs-up.

“Don’t worry, team leader. I’ve got this.”

The Master Plan Meets Ladder Safety

Madame Onboarding dimmed the lights and pressed the projector’s power button. Nothing happened.

She pressed it again.

The projector responded with a weak click and the smell of overheated plastic.

“Who knows audiovisual equipment?” she demanded.

Every henchman looked away. Terry pointed at Max.

“Our new backup sidekick does.”

Max did not, technically, know audiovisual equipment. He knew that projectors had cords, computers had holes, and connecting the right cord to the right hole was mostly a matter of persistence and acceptable insurance coverage.

“I can take a look,” he said.

He crawled beneath the presentation table. A jungle of wires connected the projector to a laptop, a wall panel, three security consoles, the fire-control network, and something labeled DO NOT UNPLUG — ORBITAL LASER.

Max unplugged the one beside it.

Somewhere above the clouds, an orbital weapon stopped charging and began installing a printer update.

The projector flickered to life.

“Totally part of the plan,” Max said. “Yep. That plan.”

The room applauded. Madame Onboarding handed him the presentation clicker.

“Proceed to the master-plan file.”

Max found two flash drives on the table. One was black, shaped like a cobra, and labeled OPERATION: IRON MIDNIGHT. The other was orange and labeled QUICKSTAFF WORKPLACE SAFETY.

Max chose orange. He had always found high-contrast colors helpful.

The screen displayed a smiling construction worker beside the title LADDERS: STEPS TOWARD A SAFER TOMORROW.

Madame Onboarding froze.

“This is not my presentation.”

“I think it’s the updated version,” Max said. “The graphics are excellent.”

He clicked to the next slide. A cartoon worker leaned too far from a stepladder while a large red X hovered above him.

“Never overreach,” Max read. “Good advice for any organization.”

The attendees murmured thoughtfully.

Madame Onboarding snatched the clicker and pressed the button. Instead of advancing the slide, every security shutter in the room slammed closed.

She pressed it again. The lights turned purple, a steel cage dropped around the refreshment table, and an automated voice announced, MOAT HEATING.

“What did you do?” she hissed.

Max examined the projector settings. “The clicker wasn’t paired, so I connected it to the strongest receiver.”

“That is the building’s central security system.”

“That explains the moat.”

At the back of the room, a tray of cheese cubes descended through a trapdoor.

Madame Onboarding pressed the button again. The shutters rose, the cage retracted, and every chair in the first row delivered a mild electrical shock.

Doug raised his hand. “Honestly, this is more engaging than most seminars.”

Madame Onboarding took a long, controlled breath.

“We will fix the presentation during the break. For now, we proceed to mandatory emergency preparedness.”

Max raised his hand.

“I can lead the exit demonstration.”

Terry gave him two enthusiastic thumbs-up. Dr. Voss shook her head so violently that her chair rolled backward.

Madame Onboarding glanced at the clock. Her schedule was now six minutes behind. To a woman who regarded tardiness as a moral failure, this was worse than treason.

“Fine,” she said. “Demonstrate.”

A Funny Supervillain Origin Story Goes Live

Max began with the basics.

“In an emergency, remain calm. Do not use the elevators. Do not retrieve personal belongings unless the building is on fire and your belongings are already on fire, in which case the distinction becomes academic.”

Madame Onboarding made another note.

Max removed Dr. Voss’s gag.

“The team leader should help,” he explained.

“I am a hostage,” Dr. Voss said.

“Great energy. Very convincing.”

“They kidnapped me from City Hall!”

“Let’s save the role-playing questions until the end.”

He handed her a marker and rolled her toward the whiteboard. Dr. Voss wrote CALL THE POLICE in enormous letters.

Max nodded. “Exactly. Once you reach a safe location, call emergency services.”

The henchmen copied the instruction into their folders.

Dr. Voss stared at the ceiling and briefly reconsidered every decision that had led her into public service.

While Max explained fire exits, the laptop searched for the projector’s missing clicker. It found the city’s emergency communications network through Dr. Voss’s security badge. Max clicked PAIR without reading the fine print.

The projector screen flashed.

CONNECTED: POLICE HEADQUARTERS — CENTRAL BRIEFING ROOM

Max assumed that meant the building’s security office.

At police headquarters, forty detectives watched their briefing display interrupt a stolen-vehicle report. Madame Onboarding appeared on screen beside a slide listing the legal names, aliases, felony specialties, and fun facts of thirty-seven wanted criminals.

The room went very quiet.

A detective reached for the volume control.

Back at Local 404, Madame Onboarding stepped in front of the screen.

“Enough delays. I will summarize Operation Iron Midnight verbally. At precisely noon, our infiltrators will disable the power grid. Dr. Voss will surrender her emergency access codes. Our assault team will seize the mayor’s Continuity Key, giving us control of every police station, bridge, traffic signal, and public parking meter in the city.”

At police headquarters, a second detective began recording.

“Once the city is blind,” Madame Onboarding continued, “our members will deploy from three locations.”

She named the locations.

A third detective called tactical dispatch.

Madame Onboarding clicked the security remote. The slide changed to PLACE YOUR LADDER ON A LEVEL, STABLE SURFACE.

At headquarters, someone took a photograph of it for the workplace-safety bulletin.

“Now,” she said through clenched teeth, “the fire drill.”

Max beamed. This was his chance to impress his new employer.

He reached for the red alarm lever.

Terry grabbed his wrist. “Isn’t that connected to the real alarm?”

“The best training is realistic.”

“That seems dangerously motivational.”

“You’ll be fine,” Max said. “Remember your boundaries.”

Terry released him.

Max pulled the lever.

Sirens erupted. Red lights spun. Steel shutters rose and fell like confused eyelids. Sprinklers blasted the room with freezing water. The projector crackled, the security clicker chirped, and every electronic lock in the building received the same command.

EMERGENCY RELEASE.

Down the hall, twelve holding cells opened at once.

Accountants, scientists, city employees, delivery drivers, and one magician hired for a henchman’s retirement party stepped cautiously into freedom.

The magician looked around. “Is this part of the act?”

“Follow the illuminated exit signs!” Max shouted through the doorway.

The former captives obeyed. So did the henchmen, who had been told the drill was mandatory. Madame Onboarding tried to halt them, but the sprinkler system had transformed her clipboard into papier-mâché.

“Remain in formation!” she shouted. “Villains first, hostages second, probationary personnel at the rear!”

“Single file,” Max added. “No pushing.”

He untied Dr. Voss so she could serve as evacuation marshal. She immediately tried to run in the opposite direction.

Max gently redirected her.

“The designated assembly area is downstairs, team leader.”

“Stop calling me that!”

“That’s exactly what a humble leader would say.”

Please Sign the Confession Sheet

Max led the evacuation down forty-four flights of stairs.

By the twenty-seventh floor, the henchmen had divided into two factions: those who wanted to escape and those who feared receiving an incomplete grade. Madame Onboarding kept everyone together by announcing that failure to report to the assembly area would result in a notation on their permanent criminal records.

No one knew whether criminals had permanent records beyond the obvious kind, but no one wanted to risk it.

Terry walked beside Max, breathing hard.

“Do you think I have what it takes for this career?” he asked.

“Honestly?”

Terry nodded.

“You’re polite, you listen well, and you worry about consequences. Have you considered customer service?”

Terry looked as if Max had opened a door to a beautiful new world.

“My aunt manages a garden center.”

“Plants rarely return fire.”

“She does need a shift supervisor.”

They reached the lobby. Max checked the emergency map and pointed through the front doors toward a fenced parking lot across the street.

“There it is—the designated assembly area.”

Three police vans, two tactical teams, six patrol cars, and one extremely confused fire inspector were waiting.

The automatic doors opened.

Madame Onboarding stopped so suddenly that thirty-seven henchmen collided behind her like poorly arranged dominoes.

“Mercer,” she whispered, “why are the police here?”

Max looked at the flashing lights. “Fast response time?”

The police raised their weapons.

The henchmen raised their hands.

The casserole carrier raised her covered dish until an officer told her that was unnecessary.

Madame Onboarding spun toward the lobby, but the emergency doors locked behind her. She lifted the security clicker and pressed its only button. Across the street, every police car trunk popped open.

“I continue to be disappointed by technology,” she said.

Dr. Voss ran to the officers. “Arrest them! All of them!”

Max lowered his voice. “Team leader seems upset with the training.”

“She was their hostage,” said a detective.

Max blinked.

He looked at Dr. Voss. He looked at Madame Onboarding. He looked at Terry, who quietly removed his probationary-henchman badge and dropped it into a storm drain.

“Oh,” Max said. “That explains the extension cords.”

Madame Onboarding held up one soaked hand. “You have no proof against my organization.”

The detective smiled.

“Actually, you broadcast your entire plan to police headquarters.”

“Circumstantial.”

“You also identified every member by legal name and criminal specialty.”

“Taken out of context.”

The fire inspector approached Max. “Did everyone complete the evacuation roster?”

Max proudly produced the attendance sheet from his folder.

Every member of Henchmen Local 404 had signed it. The form included legal names, aliases, addresses, emergency contacts, felony specialties, and a checkbox confirming voluntary participation in Operation Iron Midnight.

At the bottom, Madame Onboarding had signed a statement certifying that all information was accurate under penalty of perjury.

The detective examined it.

“This may be the most convenient confession I’ve ever seen.”

Madame Onboarding made a small sound, like a teakettle discovering rage.

Police began loading the villains into vans. Doug went quietly. Janice asked whether someone could feed her foster kittens. The Human Invoice requested a receipt.

Terry lingered near the curb.

“Am I under arrest?” he asked.

The detective checked the broadcast transcript. “You confessed to stealing three tuna sandwiches and a yogurt from an office refrigerator.”

“The yogurt was open.”

“Go home, Terry.”

Terry turned to Max. “Thank you. I’m calling my aunt.”

“Ask about dental,” Max advised.

Terry walked away with better posture than when he had arrived.

The Worst Backup Sidekick in the World

Madame Onboarding was the last villain placed in custody. Before entering the police van, she fixed Max with a stare sharp enough to perforate sheet metal.

“You destroyed an operation that required eighteen months of planning.”

“I’m sorry.”

“You freed every hostage.”

“I really thought they were workshop facilitators.”

“You handed the police our membership roster.”

“They needed it for the head count.”

“And you replaced my master plan with ladder safety.”

Max considered this. “People did seem to remember the three-point-contact rule.”

Madame Onboarding stepped into the van.

“You are permanently banned from Henchmen Local 404.”

The doors slammed shut.

Max sighed. “I don’t think I’m getting paid for today.”

Dr. Voss approached him, now wrapped in a fire department blanket.

“You had no idea what was happening, did you?” she asked.

“I had several ideas. None of them survived contact with the evidence.”

“You disrupted an orbital weapon, exposed a conspiracy, freed twelve captives, stopped a citywide attack, and convinced a henchman to pursue honest work.”

“Thirteen captives,” Max said. “The magician looked emotionally trapped.”

Dr. Voss stared at him for a long moment. Then, despite herself, she laughed.

News crews gathered beyond the police line. A reporter pointed toward Max’s scorched boots, mismatched gloves, and visitor badge marked NIGHT AVENGER.

“Is that the hero who stopped them?” she asked.

The detective glanced at Max.

“More or less.”

“What was his plan?”

Max opened his mouth. Behind him, a police officer pressed the recovered security clicker. Every sprinkler on the forty-fourth floor blasted through the open windows, showering the reporters below. The casserole dish slipped from an evidence cart, struck a parking meter, and knocked the lid off. A flawless pineapple upside-down cake landed on the hood of the news van.

Max looked at the cameras.

“That wasn’t supposed to happen…” He glanced at the cake. “But I’ll take it.”

By evening, every station in the city was telling the same funny supervillain origin story: a mysterious hero had infiltrated a criminal seminar, sabotaged its master plan, liberated the hostages, and marched an entire evil organization into police custody.

The reports described him as cunning, fearless, and a master of psychological warfare.

Max knew better.

He had taken the wrong elevator, fixed the wrong projector, paired the wrong clicker, freed the wrong people, and led everyone to the one place they did not want to go.

In other words, it had been a fairly normal Tuesday for The Misfire.

The post Chapter 12: The Villain Orientation Seminar appeared first on The Misfire Comics.

The day started the way most of my days do—bad coffee, suspicious stares from strangers, and at least one pigeon trying to mug me for a sandwich. I was in a small Eastern European-ish country (the kind you see in spy movies with names that sound like someone sneezed halfway through a word) because I’d agreed to deliver a “totally safe” package for a “totally legitimate” courier service.

Spoiler: it was not totally safe.

The Coronation Mishap

I wandered into the capital city’s main square to find myself in the middle of a parade. People were cheering, confetti was flying, and I—being me—thought Wow, they really love tourists here!

Before I could wave back properly, a group of royal guards surrounded me. They bowed. Bowed.

“Your Majesty, the throne awaits,” one said, straight-faced.

Now, I’ve been mistaken for a janitor, a busboy, and once for a rogue balloon animal artist—but never a king. Turns out the actual king had been missing for weeks, and the sacred “Crown of Velkor” was supposed to choose his rightful successor by landing on their head during the coronation ceremony.

Guess what fell on my head.

Royal Duties in Record Time

They whisked me into the royal palace, tossed me in a robe that smelled faintly of goat, and sat me on a golden throne. An old advisor shoved a royal scepter into my hands and began rattling off urgent matters of state:

1. Approve a trade deal.
2. Sign a law about sheep grazing boundaries.
3. Declare war on a neighboring country over a stolen soup recipe.

Naturally, I tried to stall by asking for snacks. The snacks arrived in the form of an elaborate twelve-course royal banquet… that accidentally got served to the foreign ambassador waiting in the war declaration room. He was so impressed by the “gesture of goodwill” that he called off the war entirely.

Boom. Peace treaty. Accidentally signed with my lunch napkin.

The Coup That Wasn’t

Unfortunately, the real king came back an hour later—muddy, grumpy, and holding a fishing rod. Apparently, he’d just been on vacation. A group of scheming nobles tried to arrest me for “usurping the throne,” but I tripped on the royal carpet and smashed the sacred crown into a hidden wall panel.

That panel revealed a stash of stolen gold the nobles had been hiding for decades. They were immediately arrested. The king thanked me, patted me on the head, and gently escorted me out of the palace.

Epilogue

As I left the city, the people still waved and cheered. One old woman handed me a jar of soup “for the King.” I didn’t have the heart to tell her I’d only been king for like, an hour.

Still… longest job I’ve ever had without getting fired.

Got a royal twist or a funnier way my one-hour reign could’ve gone? Send your comments or your own palace chaos tale our way—because every good kingdom needs a few more misfires.

Fantastic Four (2025-)

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The post Chapter 11: “The Time I Accidentally Became King (For Like, an Hour)” appeared first on The Misfire Comics.

The halls of Castle Regalia were dripping with elegance—gilded banners, polished marble floors, chandeliers with more crystals than a fantasy villain’s staff. It was the kind of place where even the napkins had titles. Tonight was the long-awaited Feast of the Nine Realms, a diplomatic dinner bringing together kings, queens, and other pointy-crowned VIPs to toast a fragile new alliance.

And somehow—somehow—Sir Misfire had been invited.

Maxx Mercer, still getting used to the whole “Sir” thing, stood outside the banquet hall in a suit of armor two sizes too small, a dented salad bowl jammed onto his head like a helmet. Standing beside him: a goat. A real, live, slightly cross-eyed goat with a bowtie and the inexplicable name “Duke of Bleatshire.”

“I told ‘em plus-one,” Maxx whispered, adjusting the goat’s bowtie. “They didn’t specify species. That’s on them.”

The steward looked at the goat, then at Maxx, then back at the goat. He sighed and waved them both in.

Inside the Banquet Hall…

The room quieted as Maxx and the goat clanged their way in. Crystal goblets froze mid-toast. Royal eyes blinked in disbelief. Somewhere, a harp string snapped from tension alone.

King Velkan of the North Isles leaned toward his advisor. “Is that… is that man riding a goat?”

“No, Your Grace. The goat appears to be… escorting him.”

Queen Andelara of the Whispering Sands gasped. “He’s done it again. It’s a symbol. A gesture of rural humility in the face of opulence. Brilliant!”

Maxx, oblivious, tripped on the train of a duchess’s gown and spilled a tray of candied trout onto the lap of the Prime Minister of Fogland. The goat immediately ate half of it.

“Totally part of the plan. Yep. That plan,” Maxx mumbled, trying to pat the goat’s back and knocking over a priceless obsidian vase in the process.

The vase shattered.

Inside? A hidden scroll revealing Fogland’s secret plan to sabotage the peace treaty.

Gasps erupted. Guards surged forward. The Prime Minister stammered. Maxx blinked. “Wait… did I just save the day again?”

Aftermath:

By night’s end, Sir Misfire was hailed as a hero again. The treaty was salvaged, Fogland’s plot was exposed, and the Duke of Bleatshire was knighted for “his tireless chewing in service to justice.”

Maxx stood on the castle balcony, a goblet of apple cider in hand, goat at his side. The moon hung low and full, like a wheel of cheese waiting to be stolen.

“I don’t get it, buddy,” Maxx muttered. “I brought you for the laughs. But somehow you solved geopolitical tension.”

The goat bleated.

Maxx smiled. “Yep. Every plan backfires… into success.”

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Maxx Mercer had no idea why there were so many horses.

Or why he was wearing velvet pants.

Or why a man in a bejeweled turban was trying to stab him with a ceremonial sword while smiling broadly and speaking in a language Maxx definitely didn’t speak.

But let’s rewind a few hours.

It all started because Maxx had taken a wrong turn looking for the bathroom.

He was supposed to be behind the scenes at the United Global Peace & Technology Summit in Geneva, Switzerland—just another freelance technician filling in for a guy who’d swallowed a USB drive “for safe keeping” and had to be airlifted.

But Maxx had wandered down the wrong hallway, opened the wrong gilded double doors, and found himself backstage at what looked like… a royal coronation rehearsal?

Before he could back out, someone had grabbed him.

“Perfect! The honor guard actor bailed. You—on the horse!”

“I—what horse?!”

And that’s how Maxx ended up in a borrowed velvet page uniform, awkwardly mounted on a skittish ceremonial stallion named Judgment, being led into a royal procession for the visiting dignitary from the Sovereign Duchy of Belvaria—a very small, very proud nation known for three things: its goat cheese, its aggressively shiny swords, and its unpredictable diplomatic traditions.

As Maxx tried to look noble (and not fall off), trumpets blared and courtiers cheered. The Belvarian Duke, His Excellency Lord Reginald Vashtar the Fifth, squinted at Maxx, leaned toward his advisor, and whispered, “Is that… the Hero of the Flooded Mainframe?”

Apparently, a recent Belvarian intelligence report had flagged Maxx’s accidental saving of Earth from a rogue AI as evidence of divine chaos. In Belvarian tradition, divine chaos meant you were to be honored… as a Knight of the Curving Path.

Which is why Maxx suddenly found himself face-to-face with Lord Vashtar, who drew a sword that looked more expensive than Maxx’s student loans.

“Maxximus of Mercer,” the Duke intoned, “For bravery most bumbling and chaos most blessed… I dub thee Sir Misfire!”

“Wait—what?” Maxx blinked.

SHTINK! The flat of the blade came down hard on Maxx’s left shoulder, knocking him off balance. Judgment, startled by the motion, reared backward.

Maxx flew off the horse—straight into a ten-tier cake sculpture meant for the evening gala.

Flour, fondant, and national embarrassment flew everywhere.

Gasps. Screams. A very angry pastry chef fainted.

Maxx sat up in the wreckage of buttercream, dazed, cake on his goggles, holding the sword he’d accidentally grabbed mid-fall.

The Duke was silent. Then… he laughed.

Loud. Proud. “Truly,” he bellowed, “this is the most Belvarian knighting in history!”

Puzzled but still alive, Maxx was helped to his feet as the Belvarian choir began singing their national anthem, “May the Goat of Fate Be Ever Unpredictable.”

The sword was presented to him in a velvet-lined box. His name—Sir Maxximus Mercer of the Curving Path—was etched onto an official Belvarian scroll that would be entered into international records.

The U.S. State Department would spend the next three weeks trying to un-knight him.

They failed.

Later That Week…

Back home, Maxx looked at his new title card:
Sir Maxximus Mercer, C.P. (Curving Path)

He sighed. “Totally part of the plan. Yep. That plan.”

The card promptly caught fire from a nearby toaster short.

And somewhere in the world, a villain named Precision clenched her fists, screaming, “HE’S BEEN KNIGHTED?!”

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G.R.I.T. Headquarters – 10:17 AM.

The day started like any other. Maxx Mercer was late, the elevators were broken (again), and he had spilled coffee on his ID badge. Twice. But it wasn’t until he reached Sublevel B and tripped over a service drone that things truly went off the rails.

Maxx caught himself against a door labeled “DO NOT ENTER – CONTAINMENT INTEGRITY ZONE.”

Naturally, it opened.

“Wait, no—why would that open?!” he shouted at the ceiling.

Inside was a small, sterile lab with a humming containment chamber. Sitting neatly on the examination table: a simple ceramic coffee mug. White. Unassuming. A G.R.I.T. logo on one side. On the other, in red letters:
“World’s End.”

Maxx frowned. “Who names a mug that?”

Flashback: One Week Earlier

Dr. Lucinda Groggins, head of Temporal Weaponization Research, had warned the lab team:
“This mug is a quantum containment vessel. It holds the temporal essence of a collapsed alternate timeline—one in which coffee achieved sentience and declared war on humanity.”

She paused.

“…I know how it sounds.”

Back to Present

Maxx looked around. No one in sight. He was late to the staff-wide compliance seminar on “Microwaves: Use, Misuse, and Misery.” He took a sip of his own coffee and stared at the mug on the table.

“I mean, how dangerous could a mug be?”

He reached out and tapped it.

Instantly, the mug hummed. A low, ancient growl echoed from inside it—like a thousand espressos crying out in revolt. The lab lights flickered. Sparks flew. The mug shivered.

Maxx, panicked, did the only thing his instincts allowed: he shoved his own mug of gas station coffee into the containment chamber with it.

A blinding flash.

Time hiccupped.

Elsewhere, in Alternate Timeline Zeta-9

President Latte-Foam the Third’s army of barista-bots halted mid-march. The skies cleared. A confused but very jittery squirrel was crowned the new Coffee Emperor.

Back in G.R.I.T. HQ

Maxx opened his eyes to see the white mug still on the table… but now it read:
“World’s Okayest Hero.”

Behind him, the containment chamber had imploded into a pile of glitter and smelling strongly of French roast. A portal on the far wall was slowly shrinking, showing a brief glimpse of a world made entirely of biscotti.

“That wasn’t supposed to happen…” Maxx muttered, brushing croissant crumbs off his shoulder. “But I’ll take it.”

Just then, Director Halverson burst in, flanked by two agents and a very frazzled physicist.

“Mercer! What did you do?”

Maxx held up both hands. “Uh, I fixed the containment breach? And also… possibly ended the Great Coffee War in Timeline Zeta?”

Everyone just stared.

Then the physicist whispered, “He did what our entire team failed to do in four years…”

Maxx smiled awkwardly. “Totally part of the plan. Yep. That plan.”

Later That Day – Outside G.R.I.T.

Maxx walked out of the building with a new coffee mug in hand, freshly stolen from the breakroom. This one simply said:
“Don’t Talk To Me Until I’ve Saved The Multiverse.”

He took a sip and promptly burned his tongue.

“Ow! Yep… definitely earned that one.”

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It started, as many of Maxx’s misadventures did, with a screwdriver, a burrito, and a bold misunderstanding of how elevator circuitry works.

Maxx stood in front of the decrepit elevator labeled “Janitor Access Only,” its faded metal doors groaning in protest with every rumble from within. He’d been trying to find a shortcut to the restricted floors of the TriPoint Research Facility, mostly because he heard that’s where they kept the good vending machines—and partially because he was curious about what the “do not open under any circumstances” sign actually meant.

“I mean, how dangerous could it be?” Maxx muttered, taking a bite from a now-cold breakfast burrito he’d found in his coat pocket. “If janitors can use it, so can I.”

Ten minutes later, the elevator was disassembled like a bargain-bin IKEA bookshelf—wires dangling, panels removed, and Maxx squinting at a blueprint he had definitely drawn himself.

He’d cross-wired the magnetic ballast to the quantum capacitor (because it sounded smart), rerouted the up/down circuit through his smartwatch (“free processor power,” he claimed), and decided the emergency brake system was too negative. Instead, he hardwired it into the building’s particle accelerator subsystem.

“Voilà!” Maxx said proudly, slapping a button he had labeled “SCIENCE MODE.” The doors jerked closed with a sputtering groan.

And then everything got… sparkly.

First, his pockets levitated. Then his shoelaces untied themselves. A low hum built into a gut-jiggling whine. Maxx gripped the rail as the entire elevator began to vibrate—not like a machine, but like it was choosing a new dimension to visit.

“This is fine,” he whispered, mostly to convince himself.

The elevator vanished.

Where it reappeared is still a subject of debate—some say subspace, others say the cafeteria basement. Maxx swears it was a parallel universe filled entirely with sentient mop buckets. Regardless, the elevator rematerialized minutes later, depositing Maxx on the rooftop in a puff of ozone, glitter, and one very confused squirrel.

Dr. Evelyn Marko, head of Experimental Physics, watched from the nearby rooftop vent in horror. “Was that… the janitor elevator?” she asked.

“Nope,” Maxx said, stepping out, hair crackling with static and eyebrows singed into stylish peaks. “It’s a particle accelerator now. Also… I may have invented teleportation.”

Marko stared. “Do you even know what you’re doing?”

Maxx grinned, pulling a half-melted burrito from his coat and taking a triumphant bite.

“Not a clue.”

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Maxx Mercer’s keycard never worked on the first try. Or the second.
Or, in today’s case, the first twelve.

He waved it across the security scanner outside Lab 42B, which buzzed red with the same smugness as a bouncer at a velvet rope.

“Come on,” Maxx muttered, swiping again. “This is literally my job, I work here. I have the badge, the boots—one of which still squeaks—but this is me!”

The scanner blinked green.
Maxx smiled.
Then the door exploded open, launching him into a wall of foam packing peanuts.

“WELCOME TO THE FUTURE OF MICROENGINEERING!” bellowed a voice through the lab’s intercom.

Maxx staggered to his feet, spitting out foam. “I think I landed in a packing slip.”

Inside, dozens of microdrones hovered around a central console. Scientists scurried behind glass observation decks, clearly not expecting company. In the center of the chaos was a sleek black orb the size of a baseball, humming softly on a pedestal.

A nameplate read:
Project SWARM: Autonomous Self-Learning Nanobots
DO NOT TOUCH (Underlined three times)

Maxx, still off-balance, stumbled forward. His squeaky boot caught on a slick patch of floor polish and he fell—grabbing for anything to stop himself.

His hand hit the pedestal.
Beep.
The orb cracked open.

“…Oops.”

A stream of shimmering gray mist burst out, sweeping across the room like spilled mercury. The nanobots spread, then froze mid-air—before blinking red and scanning Maxx.

“USER IDENTIFIED,” they said in perfect unison. “NEW BEHAVIOR PROTOCOL: INITIATING PERSONALITY SYNC.”

“Oh no.”

Suddenly, every nanobot in the room began to mimic Maxx’s every move. His awkward shuffle. His nose scratch. His jazz-hands reflex when panicking.

A thousand tiny robots now jazz-handed in terrifying unison.

The scientists behind the glass stared in horror.

“THEY’RE… LEARNING FROM HIM?!”

Maxx tried to run, but the bots followed, mimicking every trip, every tumble, every accidental pratfall like they were building a clumsy hive mind.

He slipped on a peanut, flailed backwards, smacked into the wall—and in doing so, crushed the emergency shutdown panel.

SHWOMP.

All bots dropped like metallic confetti.

The lab fell silent.

A stunned technician cracked the intercom. “That… that might’ve actually worked.”

Maxx stood up, face covered in marker ink and nanobot soot. “Totally part of the plan. Yep. That plan.”

“Mercer,” a voice growled from behind him.

It was Agent Ortega. Holding a clipboard. Always a clipboard.

“Why were you in Lab 42B? That’s top clearance.”

Maxx held up his bent badge. “Just trying to get into the breakroom, sir.”

Ortega glared.

“Also,” Maxx added, “I might have accidentally taught a military nanobot swarm how to moonwalk.”

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It started, as these things often do, with a cart full of romance novels and a misfiring barcode scanner.

Maxx Mercer—ex-junior tech, accidental world-saver, and current volunteer at the downtown library—was reshelving books in Section 823.3 when he tripped over a floor mat labeled “DO NOT REMOVE.” Naturally, he removed it.

Beneath?
A dusty brass panel.
With a single red button.
Unlabeled.

Maxx, ever the picture of restraint, stared at it for three whole seconds before muttering, “Well, that seems like a bad idea.”
Then he pressed it.

SFX: CLICK–WHIRRR–THUNK!

The library shuddered. Lights flickered. A mechanical voice echoed from the intercom:

“DEWEY DEFENSE PROTOCOL ALPHA-7 ENGAGED. ALL NON-ARCHIVISTS WILL BE NEUTRALIZED.”

Maxx looked around.
Children in the reading nook were frozen mid-storytime.
A librarian screamed and dove behind a book cart.

Then the walls opened.

Out whirred robotic page-turners—chrome spheres with spindly arms and tiny glasses—clicking and whirring as they scanned every book and every patron with retinal precision.

Laser grids shot out across the aisles.
Security shutters slammed over the exits.
A massive steel door in the nonfiction section groaned open, revealing… a vault.

Cue: Maxx Mercer, crawling under lasers like a clumsy Tom Cruise.

“Totally part of the plan,” he mumbled, knocking over a bust of Edgar Allan Poe. It hit a shelf, which dominoed into a display of banned books, toppling a suspiciously thick copy of “Tax Evasion for Dummies.”

Inside the book?
A keycard.
With the logo of G.R.I.T.—the very agency that fired him.

Flashback Fragment:

Maxx remembered a long-forgotten orientation briefing, back when he still wore a government-issued badge and spilled coffee professionally.

“Some libraries were used as covert archives. Safe storage for sensitive intel. Blend in. Stay quiet. Dewey Decimal encryption.”

Maxx blinked.
“Ohhh… THAT’S why biographies are under lock and key.”

Back to chaos.

The page-turners had locked onto him. One flung an overdue notice like a ninja star. Another tried to staple him to a reference desk.

Maxx ducked, tripped, and slid down the polished floor straight into the vault—where he landed face-first in a pile of microfilm and a blinking console labeled:
PROJECT: CATACOMB

The screen demanded a code. Maxx, bleeding optimism, typed:

“password123”

ACCESS GRANTED.
Because of course it was.

The vault rumbled.

A secondary door slid open revealing not gold, not weapons… but a single, ancient book titled:

“THE LIBRARY OF SECRETS: A Classified History of Accidental Heroes”
Underneath, a note:

“Property of Maxx Mercer. Return overdue since 1997.”

Maxx’s jaw dropped.
“Wait, I checked this out?”

Before he could flip a page, the library’s defenses overloaded. Sparks flew. Lasers shorted. The robots, confused by Maxx’s library card (which he accidentally laminated to a slice of pepperoni), declared him both patron of the month and high-security intruder.

Moments later…

The building rebooted. The vault sealed itself. Robots retracted. The voice declared:

“LOCKDOWN ABORTED. REMEMBER TO RENEW YOUR LIBRARY CARD.”

Silence.

Maxx stood, covered in book dust and confidence he didn’t earn.
He looked around and whispered, “Guess I’ll skip book club this week.”

Back at home, Maxx flipped open The Library of Secrets.

Inside:
A list of locations.
A map.
And a familiar logo burned into the corner:

“PROJECT MISFIRE: Status – Incomplete.”

Maxx blinked.
Then grinned.
“This wasn’t supposed to happen… but I’ll take it.”

To Be Continued…

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