Xavier does his thing

I looked up at the 20 foot tall cement wall facing me just across the start line of the obstacle course. Then I looked down at my wheelchair. This might be tricky.

The wall had a stenciled sign on the front. "Abandon All Hope," it said. I knew I could take the wall out with my hover chair's mini-Sidewinder heat seeking missiles, but that would be the end of my bag of tricks.

A loud, piercing scream from far behind me caught my attention. I swiveled the chair around and saw in the distance a large load lifter lugging the exo-skeleton armors from last week's challenge to the repair yard. An ideas tarted to peculate in my little bald skull.

You see I have actually had some experience with these kinds of armors. I've taken over Tony Stark's mind once or twice while he was dressed up as Iron Man. Purely for educational purposes, I assure you. I reached out telepathically and made the service technician bring me the least damaged suit. Turns out it was Svetlana's. I could still smell the lingering scent of fresh Twinkies.

After hauling myself inside and adjusting the inner body suit to my shape, I looked over the controls. Svetlana's armor resembled a giant purple Armidillo. It's primary weapon seemed to be a giant flashlight. That should be extremely useful. I did find the secondary weapon controls, however.

Put the armor's head down, I charged forward, smashing the 20 foot cement wall into shards. With a thrill of victory, I spun around a few times and thrust my hips back and forth.

Running at top speed, I blew through the wimpy "Flame Throwers of Doom" and "Man eating Plants of Munchiness." Not a scratch on the armor. After I had jetted over the "Bubbling Lava Pits of Flambeing," 5 man-eating tigers jumped out of the bushes at me. I tried to suppress a laugh as they lunged on top of me and did their best to gnaw on the duro-plate of my exo-skeleton. A few minutes later, with rather puzzled looks, they gave up and skulked back into the bushes.

I ran through the course at top speed. By the time I hit the "Field of Blaster Caps" I was practically skipping. Unfortunately I skipped right onto a land mine.

My armored suit was blasted high into the air and crashed hard right onto another mine. By some truly unfortunate coincidence, I continued bouncing from mine to mine until I was thrown clear of the field.

I slowly lifted my dizzy head and tried to focus my eyes. Was that a pinkie in front of me? I hoped it wasn't mine. What was I saying? Of course not. Hauling myself to my feet, I ran a quick diagnostic and found the suit was still mostly functional. At least it worked well enough for me to limp through the "Flowerbed of Aromatic Pistols." I'm not sure what that one was about.

Regardless, I managed to cross the finish line. Then I had the service technician bring my chair around. As I climbed out of the armor, the strangest craving for a Twinkie came over me.