Posted by The Hooded Hood presents this little interlude which may be of interest to those who like to stay abreast of events upon the board on July 09, 2001 at 11:43:08:
“Comes Great Responsibility” – a CrazySugarFreakBoy! Episode
“He was here, but he left,” Troia 215 told the capped (and now clothed)
crusader. “He actually slammed the door as he went.” “Hi G-Eyed, Hatty. The usuals?” waitress Sarah Shepherdson asked as the
superheroes teleported into the Bean and Donut Coffee Bar. CrazySugarFreakBoy! and the Hooded Hood stood in an alley in Seattle and
watched the rats gnaw at uncollected garbage. “Would you care to tell me what
has perturbed you, Dreamcatcher Foxglove?” asked the cowled crime
czar. “Hokay, Ziles checked the hospitals, Exy checked the stations, and I checked
the massage parlours,” Trickshot reported. “Still no sign of the kid.” “It was a good try, Word,” the Hooded Hood admitted, speaking to the emissary
of order Mr Book, “but you underestimate his persistence, and that of his heroic
ideal.”
Hatman leaped out
of the bathroom wearing his Bulls hat – nothing but his Bulls hat actually – and
leaped at Whitney. The Sorceress glided to one side, leaving Jay to topple onto
the bed and fall off the other side, wrecking a lamp and tangling himself in a
duvet. “Not now, lover,” she told him. “We have a visitor.”
“We do?” Hatman
worried, staring around the bedroom and seeing nobody.
“Yes. A spirit. I’m
just talking with her now.”
“Her?” Jay grabbed his Bulls hat and hastily
relocated it elsewhere on his anatomy.
“A ghost. Or maybe just a psychic
projection. It’s hard to tell,” explained Whitney, watching her boyfriend
retreat into a vase and then sidle into the bathroom. “She’s called Izzy. She’s
got a message for you.” Sorceress listened. “Two messages for you, but I don’t
think I’ll pass the second one one,” she giggled. “Seems that Dream needs you
right now. He’s down in Finny’s office.”
“I’ll get right on to it,” Hatman
promised. “As soon as I find a robe, that is,” he added.
“CSFB!? Has the Aryan
Avenger been shouting about people Dream knows again?” Hatty wondered.
“No,”
Fin Fang Foom scowled, striding out of his office holding a piece of lime green
paper with orange highlighter on it. “He’s quit the Legion.”
“Quit? What do
you mean, quit?”
“Left. Resigned. Walked out. Given up and gone home,” Finny
clarified. “Quit.”
“But he loves being in the Lair Legion,” gasped Troia. “He
says it’s the… well it sounds really good when he says it about pantheons and
stuff but I don’t usually listen. He says it’s the varsity of superherodom. And
stuff.”
“He says he’s quitting being a superhero too,” Foom
explained.
“Being a superhero is his life!” Hatman gasped. “There isn’t
anything else. Well, there’s the D&D and the porn and the cartoons, but all
of those are kind of natural extensions of him being a superhero.
Honestly.”
“What could possibly have caused CSFB! to just… give up like
that?” Troia puzzled.
“Uh, hi guys,” Nats grinned sheepishly, peering his
head round the door. “Um, Finny, does our insurance policy include people
putting their firsts through computer monitors?”
“No, I’m afraid we have a
Donar televisual damage exclusion clause,” Finny answered suspiciously. “In fact
it attributes all property damage by Donar to act of god. Why?”
“CSFB! was on
my computer looking at Marvel.com and then he just screamed and kicked the hell
out of it,” Nats explained.
“Not just
now, thanks Shep,” Goldeneyed thanked her. “We’re looking for
CrazySugarFreakBoy!”
“He left his comm-card behind,” Hatman said in a
dismayed, subdued voice. “And his action figure collection.”
“We’ve tried the
usual places,” G-Eyed continued. “His mom’s, his friends, the comic shop. He’s…
he’s cancelled all his standing orders.”
“No!” gasped Sarah. “I hadn’t
realised it was that bad. He was in here a while ago but he, uh, he
left.”
“Did he say where he was going?” Hatman asked quickly. “I’m worried he
might do something stupid.”
“He already did,” Shep warned them. “He left here
with the Hooded Hood.”
“Forget it, Hoody,” answered CSFB! sullenly. “It’s not fun anymore.
I’ve quit. I’m not going to be a superhero any more.”
“Indeed. And what has
prompted this sudden coming to your senses?”
“You know already.”
“Tell me
anyway.”
CSFB! slumped on a garbage can. “Spidey. He’s the greatest character
in the world. My inspiration. And they… those… them…”
“You are presumably
reacting in a negative manner to the biographical data upon the arachnid that
now appears at the Marvel Comics website which lists your hero’s marriage in the
past tense,” surmised the Hooded Hood, “a development which you have
vociferously objected about on numerous occasions, and which you feel precludes
future enjoyment of the animated exploits of your fictional
icon.”
CrazySugarFreakBoy! swore like a sailor for several minutes.
“I
imagined that would be the situation,” the Hood noted. “That is why I brought
you to this alley.”
“Huh? I don’t get it.”
The Hood shrugged. “It seems
suitably symbolic as a place to mark the end of a worthy adversary. You are
abrogating your role as a CrazySugarFreakHero!, are you not? Well there is a
garbage can. I believe the usual form is that you crumple your costume up and
hurl it in there and walk off into the shadows.”
“Yeah,” Dream admitted.
“You’re right. Why not? It’s not as if this gig is fun any more. Everything’s
spoiled and sour now.”
“Absolutely,” the Hood agreed. “So toss
CrazySugarFreakBoy! away and walk away into the real world. This is the perfect
location for it.”
CSFB! looked up suspiciously. “Why?” he puzzled. “I’ve
never even been here before.”
“True,” the cowled crime czar agreed. “Your
mother has been, of course.”
“Mom?”
“A long time ago now, Dreamcatcher. I
believe the men who raped her deposited her somewhere over there where the black
bags are. She lay in the filth for quite some time sobbing and finally managed
to drag herself home and clean herself up before you came home from
school.”
CSFB! stared in horror at the glass-strewn filthy pavement.
“Of
course, such things are unlikely to happen to your mother now,” the Hood
continued. “And if it happens next time to a stranger then that is no concern of
yours.”
“That’s… that’s not true,” CSFB! denied.
“Yes it is. You have
given up being a hero, remember. The suit is going in the trash can. You are
walking away. The innocent can save themselves or simply suffer. Evil can
triumph.” The Hooded Hood turned his glowing green eyes upon Dream. “The next
time a life is threatened, or a liberty is curtailed, or a young woman gets
dragged into this alley, it is not your responsibility any more.”
CSFB!
glared. “It’s not fair! Peter wouldn’t give up on MJ. They’re ruining a
legend.”
The Hood turned away. “What about the legend of
CrazySugarFreakBoy!?” he asked. “Do they get to ruin that too?”
“I’m… I’m not
going to let anybody get hurt if I can help it,” Dream admitted.
The Hood
looked back. “Why ever not?” he challenged.
“Because…” It was clear the
archvillain was going to make him say it. “Because with great power comes great
responsibility.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
“So you are not going to abandon
your crusade against evil and turn your back on your friends,” the Hooded Hood
noted. “Damn.”
“This
isn’t good,” Hatman worried. “We’ve got to do something. We’ve got to…”
“To
get the gang together and deal with the Botherhood of Evil Mutates that’s
tearing up Pierce Heights?” CrazySugarFreakBoy! suggested, bouncing in,
recoiling off the wall, and landing in the capped crusader’s lap. “I just heard
about it on my Eerie Earring. The world’s in danger. Let’s go!”
“Dream?”
Sorceress checked. “You’re back?”
“Yep.
Notimetotalknowtho’,cityindanger,innocentstosavedamselstodistressandallthat!
Let’s go!”
“Fire up the Lairjet!” Fin Fang Foom commanded.
“But what about
Spidey, dude?” Nats asked CSFB! cautiously.
“First we nail the Botherhood and
save the innocents, then we nail Jemas and save Spidey,” Dream answered with a
grin. “Let’s kick butt!”
“Next time, then,” the Word suggested. “It is only a matter of
time.”
“I await the resolution with interest,” the cowled crime czar
admitted.
It was nice to have a hobby.