UNIVERSE BOWL IX: PROLOGUE III

Royal Highness Locker Room. . .

Reed Richards stands before his teammates.  Silence grips the locker room.

Reed Richards:

On Friday evening last I received from the owner of the Royal Highness the mission to find Batman. It was the evident will of our owner and our teammates that this should be conceived on the broadest possible basis and that it should include all parties.

I have already completed the most important part of this task.

In this crisis I think I may be pardoned if I do not address our team at any length today, and I hope that any of my friends and colleagues or former colleagues who are affected by the missing Dark Knight will make all allowances for any lack of ceremony with which it has been necessary to act.

I say to this team that stands before me, as I said to the owner,  I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears, and sweat. We have before us an ordeal of the most grievous kind. We have before us many, many hours of struggle and suffering.

You ask, what is our policy? I say it is to wage war by land, sea, and air. War with all our might and with all the strength we have been given, and to wage war against a monstrous tyranny never surpassed in the dark and lamentable catalogue of human crime. That is our policy.

You ask, what is our aim? I can answer in one word. It is victory. Victory at all costs - Victory in spite of all terrors - Victory, however long and hard the road may be, for without victory there is no survival.

Let that be realized. No survival for the Royal Highness, no survival for all that the Royal Highness has stood for, no survival for the urge, the impulse of the ages, that we shall move forward toward our goal.

I take up my task in buoyancy and hope. I feel sure that our cause will not be suffered to fail among men. I feel entitled at this juncture, at this time, to claim the aid of all and to say, Come then, let us go forward together with our united strength.

 

The Royal Highness combatants erupt at Richards’ dynamic motivational speech. High-ness! High-ness!! High-ness!!! HIGH-NESS!  HIGH-NESS!!  HIGH-NESS!!  HIGH-NESS!!!