Tales of the Parodyverse

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CrazySugarFreakBoy!
Tue Oct 19, 2004 at 05:16:27 pm EDT
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Follies of Youth: The Man that the Boy Becomes ...
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“You people are all a lot smaller than I remember,” remarked the mellow voice from the doorway. The man who said those words was lean but fit, with faded fluorescent orange hair that was an almost luminous white at the temples, and close-cropped to minimize the effects of his slightly receding hairline and small bald spot on the back of his head. The pale day-glo yellow skin of his weathered face was crinkled with crows’ feet around his gentle neon green eyes, and laugh lines around his softly smiling mouth. The muted colors of his Silly Suit matched those of the rest of his form, and he moved forward with what looked like ease and exhaustion all at once.

“Dream?” wondered Jay Boaz, the still-adult Hatman, even as most of his currently de-aged teammates in the Lair Legion stared blankly at the stranger in their midst. “But … why aren’t you 16, like all the other active-duty members of the Lair Legion?”

“Oh, you mean some as-yet-unexplained phenomenon had an unexpected and entirely idiosyncratic effect when it interacted with the Impossibilitium that makes up my Silly Suit?” Dreamcatcher Kokopelli Foxglove remarked dryly. “Heh. What are the odds of that?”

“Okay, smartass,” Jay conceded grudgingly, unaccustomed to such understated humor from his usually unrestrained friend. “So, um … how old are you now, anyway?”

“56 years old,” Dream grinned gradually, as he registered the undisguised reaction of shock from his frequent costumed crimefighting team-up partner. “I’m a teacher at Pantheon Prodigies, and I’ve personally trained what feels like at least a dozen different generations of would-be superheroes at this point.”

Jay glanced at Dream’s hand, as the currently much-older man ran his fingers through his thinning hair, and noted the wedding band that was clearly color-coordinated to complement the rest of his outfit. “And you’re married.”

“With a grown-up daughter to boot,” Dream sighed in a tired but contented tone, slowly massaging away what appeared to be some minor soreness or stiffness in the back of his neck. “So, as you might imagine, showing up in this stretch of history again is something of a drastic adjustment for me. I’m still quick enough on the uptake to stay in the game, but I’m a lot slower than I used to be. When I suddenly found myself here, I had to take some time just to get my bearings, before I could even think about rejoining the rest of you.”

“As if we even need you anyway,” called Dominic Clancy, the temporarily 16-year-old Mr. Epitome, as he strode forward to challenge the former CrazySugarFreakBoy! “We handled ourselves out on the field just fine without you as a chaperone, grandpa, so why don’t you make like a tree, and get outta here?”

“Yeah, and I was especially impressed by the part where you all nearly got yourselves killed, until Mumphrey saved you by being the only one on hand to turn on his brain,” Dream countered in a calm drawl, his amused smirk never wavering, even as his expressive eyes narrowed into guarded slits. “Hello, Biff. Good to see you’re just as mature as ever. Think you might see your way clear to letting Al out of that locker you stuffed him into?”

Dominic’s frown faltered as he adopted a more defensive posture. “I dunno what you’re talking about,” he asserted defiantly, although his demeanor was much more uncertain.

Dream closed the gap between himself and Dominic with swift strides, and as his eyes bored into Dominic’s own, the reduced volume of his voice simply served to add a layer of intensity to his words. “Yes, you do. I saw you slamming the locker door shut when I walked in here. So stop being an idiot, and let him out. And no, that’s not a request.”

“Oh, yeah?” Dominic snorted. “And who’s gonna make me? You?”

“The only person in the world who can make you do anything is you,” Dream shrugged casually. “So, you can either behave as the morally superior man of character and principle that you’ve always presented yourself as, or by your own actions, you can admit to yourself and to everyone else in this room, including me, that you’re nothing more than the mean-spirited, small-minded bully I always knew you were, deep down. So, you know, yeah, go ahead. Do whatever you want, and prove me right in the process.”

Dominic scowled and balled up his fists, but marched over to the portable wheeled scientific equipment locker and popped open the door, releasing Al B. Harper from its confinement. “There,” he sneered. “Happy now?”

“Very much so,” Dream flashed a genuinely good-natured grin. “Thank you, Dominic.”

As Dominic stormed out of the room, his barely suppressed temper simmering as he realized how effortlessly Dream had manipulated him, Jay exhaled briefly in relief. “Man,” he exclaimed under his breath. “For a second there, I actually thought he might try to take a swing at you.”

“He might have tried, yeah,” Dream smirked mischievously. “But trying and succeeding are two very different things.”

“Even as a teenager, he’s still powerful enough to fistfight guys like Harlagaz to a draw,” Jay cautiously reminded him.

Dream chuckled quietly. “Jay, I’ve been a full-time, active-duty superhero ever since I was 21 years old. That adds up to about 35 consecutive, uninterrupted years of experience as a costumed crimefighter that I’ve accumulated by now. Even if Dominic wasn’t living out his second childhood at the moment, it would still mean I’ve been doing this job almost as long as he’s been alive at this point.”

“You’re not the only one who’s going to need some time to get used to this,” Jay groaned, shaking his head in disorientation at the seemingly out-of-character persona being worn by this possible future version of a peer he’d always known as a wild-eyed post-adolescent. “I don’t suppose you have any ideas about what might have happened to cause all of this?”

“Not even a clue,” Dream admitted happily. “And for the time being, I’m honestly not that worried about it. Until we learn enough about this enigmatic weirdness to hash out some informed theories on it, we might as well just sit back, relax, and appreciate the ride.”




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