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episodic - part 5

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Summary: The show’s about to start– it's time for the marathon.

A/N: april fools. the real 'joke' to this is that this will be the cliffhanger for a long while.

i’m most likely going to drift back to working on the comic or other projects, fanwork or otherwise in the meantime before the next installment. most installments going forward... are probably going to be multichapter? there are a few plots in the backburner for years at this point, and if i want to actually get to them there’s most likely going to be less one-shot type fics going forward.

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Benjamin Krupp let out a choking noise as he hit the ground. Feeling his own heart in the middle of a quickened beat was bad enough, but it was narrowly beaten out by the pain of impact. It felt like skipping a step on the stairs.

Speaking of– he had been at the center stairs of the school, and now–

He had almost thought he was back in his own house, because where else would he be lying face down in sticky notes? But, no– that was wrong. Most of them were blank, and those that weren’t were written in a hand that was neither his or the other guy’s chicken scratch. Stranger than that, they were deliberately attached to the floor in a way they never were in his house.

He tried getting up. Or rather, thrashed, as his arms couldn’t support him on account of being tied up. All he accomplished was crumpling the sticky notes under him. Between the strain and embarrassment, his face must be as red as the stupid curtain the other guy insisted on wearing.

“Did you–” His jaw clenched harder than it already was. He was breathing heavily. “Did you skip class for this?!”

Every surface of his office was covered in sticky notes. The walls, the ceilings, the lights.

George shrugged. “Hey now, anyone could have done this– this is a classic prank. Plenty of kids are mad at you.”

He let out a deep huff. Another sticky note fluttered away from him. He glanced towards his desk– even from this angle, he could see even the underside was covered in the thing.

They were thorough, he’d give them that.

“You think plausible deniability is going to save you?” He shook his still-bound arms to emphasize his point. “What’s this really about?”

Harold shot an incredulous look. “Take a wild guess.”

“I’ll show you a– a wild guess!–”

He started flailing again towards the direction of the door. He could barely see the light coming through the glass. He wasn’t even sure what he was going to do next, only that he needed to get out of here now, now, now.

Shouldn’t Anthrope have come in? Surely she should have heard this. Then again knowing her, she ‘stepped out’ again–

The room was dimmer than it should be, making it look more unnerving– more flatter, more vast than it should be. It was hard to tell where the edges of the floor and wall met. It was all that same pale yellow.

Meanwhile, the boys made no real effort to stop him. He didn’t know whether that was better or worse.

“Ugh, can you stop freaking out?” George said in a bland tone. It was reminiscent of the kind of voice kids had whenever they were bargaining to have five more minutes. “All of this can go away if you take everything back.”

That stopped his mad crawl to the door. “What.”

It made him think of how ridiculous the past month has been.

“All of us had enough of you!” Harold said. “So consider this a taste of your own medicine.”

How everything he had worked towards had been uprooted with the carelessness of– of– two brats who didn’t know when enough was enough–

“Are you kidding me?!” He slammed his body against– it must be the cabinet, from the handle now poking him at his side– and forced himself to stand with the help of extra support. “You hogtie me and you think you have the right to demand anything from me, you little–”

Snap.

---------------------

Coming back mid-yell was always strange for Captain. He could feel the word in his mouth, could vaguely remember the vague shape and meaning of the word if he were fast enough. But the thing about that was that it was like dreaming: it faded and you were wondering why you woke up scared in the first place.

It may be the closest thing to direct contact he’d ever have with Principal.

More than that, he felt off. Like when the ink on the page is slightly misaligned, leaving everything to look shakier than it should be.

“Oh! Did it work?” he said, perhaps a bit too quickly. “Did we Free The Children?”

His sidekicks, still crouched back from fear, looked up at him with disappointed expressions.

His smile strained at the edges. “…Is that a maybe?”

George shook his head.

“Oh.”

He kicked his feet and peeled a few sticky notes off the ground in the process. The blue-grey tiles underneath felt like a breath of fresh air after seeing all this yellow.

“Hey, hey, don’t worry– we got plenty of ideas,” he reassured.

They left the room behind. His sidekicks led the way down the still-empty hallway, with the superhero following in a low hover.

“Everyone’s still in class,” George said.

Captain looked through the glass of one of the doors. It was a class for littler kids, and all of them were bored out of their minds.

One of them looked at… something above the door before their gaze locked on him. They gave a shy wave. He waved back– or, tried to, considering his tied-up arms.

This made the kid frown.

He jolted back slightly before Harold dragged him from the window by the cape. He gave a similar sort of frown at the jump rope he had tied to him.

“You could just rip it apart if you wanted,” he said.

“I could, but it’d be rude.” He wiggled his arms some more and just barely made the loops of rope loosen.

After the third attempt, Harold pulled at one end of the rope and all of it fell to the ground with little fanfare. Captain nursed one of his wrists in his other hand, as the rope feeling gave way to a pokey feeling. Super strength can get you pretty far, but it couldn’t save you from pins-and-needles.

They turned a corner and were met with a hallway-turned-obstacle course. Part of one, anyway.

“What do you think, Captain?”

He lit up, the brief moment from before put aside for now. “It reminds me of something I saw while channel surfing. Though, it was more jungle-y.”

“Well, consider this the concrete jungle,” George quipped before cracking open a nearby storage room. “Now, come on– we gotta do the finishing touches.”

He poked his head in. The room was filled with old unused or broken supplies. Blackboards on wheels, excess desks and chairs, broken rulers– the works. It almost reminded him of the Closet back at Principal’s Lair.

“Catch!” George yelled.

The thing in question flew into Captain’s face before falling into his hands.

“Chalk?” He blinked the dust out of his eyes.

“Yeah!” Harold wheeled out one of the chalkboards. “Now come on, we gotta place ‘em before we start drawing all over them.”

Preparing the hallway was easy work when you had a superhero on your side. The hallway looked like a makeshift obstacle course. The boys explained how it would have three distinct areas: the winding blackboard path, the slippery middle, and the maze with Mystery Cups.

“It’ll be a laugh riot seeing Krupp navigate this–”

“It’ll be like the ones on TV!” Captain marvelled at their handiwork, putting the last touches on his drawing. “I’ve even decorated like you said to. I’ve drawn something to scare the pants off him!”

The boys looked at the drawing in question. It was supposed to be the Thing he remembered from the first time he slept, since he was sure that it was a nightmare.

“Uh– is this like… abstract art?” Harold asked, tilting his head. “The– what even are these scribbles and squares?”

“How many blackboards have you drawn this on?” George questioned, his expression unsure.

“Abs-what?” The Waistband Warrior tilted his head in kind. “No, no. It’s like… I guess you had to be there. It's scary!”

“If you say so.” George replied. “Maybe we should lean more into stuff that’d get under his nerves, instead of stuff that makes him nervous.”

Captain nodded slowly and took their lead as they went further in to decorate.

---------------------

“What–”

Krupp let go of the chalk he was holding in both hands and the clench in his jaw, feeling immediately drained.

He was stuck in the middle of a tight square of rolling chalkboards. On it was a familiar chicken scratch. Scribbles and spirals and squares of different sizes were on most of the makeshift walls.

The last one had a crude drawing of himself sitting on the toilet.

He rolled his eyes. “Couldn’t get any new material, huh?”

A squirt gun retreated from underneath the rolling chalkboard in front of him and started laughing in a Harold-like way before it too disappeared.

Have it their way then.

He shoved the blackboard in front of him aside, only to be met with more blackboard walls funneling him through a winding path. All of them had similarly insipid chalk drawings, some more coherent than others.

Crude drawing, squares.

Some even had words. It looked like an attempt at mocking him or the concept of writing lines on blackboards. It would have been effective, had the sentences not awkwardly wrap at the edge because they ran out of room.

Crude drawing, scribble, ‘I will not write to–’, spiral, spiral, spiral–

The path opened up at a relatively unpartitioned part of the hallway. The path of blackboards forked into two narrower paths.

He stepped forward… only for his feet to slip out from under him. He fell on his back, his breath knocked out of him on impact. Now that he was closer to the floor, he could smell the scent of vaguely floral soap around him.

This day could not get any worse.

With the strength of a newborn calf, he managed to get himself upright with minimal faceplants. A part of him hoped that the soap he could feel cooling off the back of his head counted as water.

With as much force as he could muster without falling over, he shoved one of the blackboards in front of him down the hall. It started a chain reaction causing the rest of the maze blackboards to topple like dominoes. A cloud of chalk dust billowed in its wake.

“Oh, come on, that took like a million years to set up!” George yelled incredulously.

The day proceeded to get worse as several of the classrooms’ doors opened. Kids slowly peeked out into the hallway. He instinctively held the curtain up to hide himself.

“C– Captain Underpants–” a kid stuttered. “Are you alright–”

“Get back!”

The kids startled and stepped back. That, at least he was familiar with. He averted his eyes from their concerned expressions; he didn’t know if he hated the fact that they saw him like this or hated seeing how they looked at the other guy.

The boys were running away. Everyone continued to look at him. Even the teachers, in the middle of bringing the kids back in line, were looking at him. He knew he was heaving too loudly. The fluorescent lights were too bright in this hallway.

The bell rang, and no force on earth could keep a kid in a classroom for any longer than they needed to.

“I– ugh!”

Not the time, he forced himself to repeat. The school board would have his head if they heard about the whole thing with the soapy hallway.

Step, step, left, right, stop– he was at the nearest supply closet. He pulled out a WET FLOOR sign, and stomped onto the pile of fallen blackboards.

Krupp refused to make eye contact with the other kids.

He could barely see whatever thing with cups they planned for the last third of the hallway maze, now demolished under the blackboards he was using as a bridge.

Left, right, left, right. Turn. George and Harold were there, waiting for him.

“We can do this all day,” George said.

“Every day, actually, until you take everything back,” Harold added.

There were more kids in this part of the hallway now. They began murmuring, and he could vaguely hear the words ‘fight’ and ‘promotional stunt’ and ‘next issue’ in confused whispers.

He hastily took the curtain off and put it around himself like a towel. That elicited a smattering of laughs. But most of it was still murmuring. ‘Promotional stunt’ was slowly being overpowered by concerned whispers of ‘forreal’.

In lieu of a response, he narrowed his eyes at the both of them.

Snap.

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(The singular sticky note placed at eye level felt like a challenge. He never put up that kind of effort before. It reminded him of a narration bubble, panelled against the wall.

Revenge? How unbecoming of a hero.

“It’s not revenge.” Captain shook his head. “Excessive, maybe.”

Hate is a strong word for what he was feeling, but Captain did not enjoy being questioned by this man. And while he knows he shouldn’t listen, Principal had a way of picking apart his genre that made him pause. It would be one thing if he was using Principal Logic, but this– right now– nearly makes sense. And he didn’t like it.

“I’m a superhero, helping those who can’t help themselves is what I do. That’s just how these plots work,” he continued.

Speaking of plots, this plot– the one he’s been in– had long spiraled out of control. He had wanted to stop Principal from terrorizing his sidekicks and the local children, but at this point he was no closer to his goal after everything he had gone through.

He pointed a glance in the general direction of The Closet At The End Of The Hallway. It added a snag to everything, adding a backstory to this whole mess. And not even a complete one.

Splash. Snap.

The note was in his hand. He waved his hand quickly like a bee had landed on it. They were both yellow with black inky stripes.

Then what do you call whatever the boys are doing? the note said. You said so yourself. It's excessive.

“I did say that,” he mumbled to himself. The foreign feeling of irritation gave way to another feeling just as foreign, but at least Captain knew it was coming from himself.

Caution was not an innate skill to him. These conversations had forced him to learn. It felt like how a robotic ruffian from issues ago pulled his arm and twisted it behind his back; when it finally let go, he could feel the fading strain where back and shoulder met. But now, he was both himself and the robot– he could feel himself strain against something deeply ingrained in him.

More often than not, it led to him tripping on the execution. Not that he was aware of it, or doing it on purpose. But it was simply How Things Were Meant To Be. Like how a fight must happen before a defeat. Or how a set-up must include a punchline.

It took a lot of work not to invoke a punchline.

“They don’t even have powers,” he said finally. “And they’re doing it to help free the children, you– you… villain.”

Captain winced. Splash.)

---------------------

It would be approximately ten minutes until Ms. Ribble and Mr. Rected would walk around and mark everyone’s projects in alphabetical order by surname. For this impromptu assessment, both teachers have agreed to combine the class times together to maximize efficiency with marking the students. The cafeteria was abuzz with the sound of chatter, and in some cases, panicked murmuring at their malfunctioning projects.

Melvin expected there to be a high frequency of certain science projects:

Demonstrations with static electricity. These were the easiest to implement with limited supplies and time, though half the projects he saw picked out materials that wouldn’t be conducive to demonstrating the point of the experiment.

Model solar systems. This had a bit more production, with having to paint ping pong balls or whatever material was accessible. In many cases, they looked more like baby mobiles than any proper scientific model– with just as much scientific content, to boot.

Baking soda volcanoes. The actual creation of the volcano itself statistically took the most time, which was ultimately the undoing for some students. Several projects started and ended with the spectacle, and was left floundering on trying to explain what it was meant to demonstrate– plate tectonics or chemistry.

As he made his way to the Warp-Weft-O-Tron 2000, he saw a taller figure hovering near the controls. His brain immediately panicked, as that meant that it was an adult, which meant it was a teacher, and he dashed off. As he came closer, he sped up despite his lung’s protests– he’d rather not have the lunch lady mess with it before the teachers had a chance to see the demonstration.

“Don’t–” It took everything in him to not double over. Once he caught his breath, he caught his own words; he was still talking to school staff, even if said school staff wasn't a teacher who could impact his grade. “Please refrain from touching it.”

Ms. Edith Schunn blinked– and thankfully took a step back. Her gloved hands were up. There was no noticeable grease or any evidence of her tampering.

“Oh, of course, I just–” She looked around the table. “What’s this doohickey plugged up to? I don’t see any wires.”

Strange. He was expecting a question of what it is before specific particulars.

“The Warp-Weft-O-Tron 2000 has its own power supply,” he explained, knocking on the side of its chassis as he opened it. “The demonstration won’t be too long, so I doubt that it would deplete in any significant percentage.”

He scanned the hardware and took out a screwdriver. He had thought about using leftovers again– whether through the generator or infused in the fibres it used– but even he had to admit it would be overkill. He didn’t need the textile simulations to last.

Ms. Schunn was still there, from the sound of her contemplative hum. “What’s this stuff scrolling up on screen?” she asked.

“Programming code.”

“I figured as much but–” A pause. “It just seems like a lot of code for just– I dunno, picking out the stitch you wanna use.”

Under the cover of his head still buried in machinery checking the motherboards, Melvin couldn’t help but roll his eyes. It wasn’t just simple coding for a basic sewing machine. It had to process different kinds of input, have an internal database of objects, and each object had to have its own internal programming to act–

He twisted a pair of connecting wires with a bit more force than necessary.

He poked his head back out and closed the port. “This should be a conversation I should be having with the teachers who are supposed to be marking this assessment.”

“Oh.” After a long pause, she seemed to realize something. “Oh, of– of course. Uh– I guess I’ll be goin’.”

Melvin didn’t respond.

“Good luck! Seems like they’re startin’ their rounds.” And the lunch lady was gone.

True enough, both teachers were already at the far side of the cafeteria and quickly zipping through the redundant projects. He couldn’t help but let out a groan. Even with a conservative estimate, he’d only have enough time to do a check of either the sewing machine or program modules– not both. And even then, it wouldn’t be as thorough as he’d like.

The conversation, however brief, threw him off from his planned maintenance.

Speaking of plans: he gave a brief scan to the swaths of students. None of them met his gaze, but that was fine. They weren’t the ones he was looking for.

While he wasn’t expecting much from George and Harold, he was still… curious about what they had in store, considering they suggested this whole assessment in the first place. Why they haven’t showed up yet didn’t make sense, with that in mind.

It would be easy enough to translate a few of their little pranks to something more scientifically minded. Paper airplane tests, egg drop experiments, slime– if they used about a third of their creativity in this project, they’d certainly scrape by with a passing grade, that he was sure of.

At the very least, it would have been different. This was something he was just as sure of.

---------------------

Krupp was upside down. That’s different.

The novelty quickly wore out as he realized what was close to his head. If soap didn’t count as water, then he doubted slime was any different.

He unclenched his jaw. This may literally be the dumbest thing he had to think about.

Speaking of which: with the way they were ramping things up, the amount of prep time they needed only grew. It was… difficult, trying to grasp how long this prank-torture marathon was supposed to be. It could be anywhere from five minutes to five hours, and he’d be none the wiser. Between certain parts needing to have been planned in advance and the other guy helping them, it only muddied the waters.

It may as well be a few seconds ago these two miscreants were at least making an attempt to sound justified. It might be the fatigue or the blood rushing to his head, but he couldn’t help but let out a sharp cackle.

“Are you two having fun?” When their expressions grew more guarded, he couldn’t help but lean back into old lecture standby phrases. “I’m expecting an answer from you two.”

Harold looked him dead in the eye. “By the time this is done, Captain’s got no reason to be scared of you and whatever stuff you’re making him go through.”

He blinked. He had to look up at them at this angle, and this close he was reminded of the fact that these were just ten year olds. Ones that ruined his life on a whim, but ten year olds all the same. It was difficult to be fully cowed by what they’re saying.

Krupp couldn’t help but let out a sharp cackle. And another. His chest tightened. A wave of unpleasant heat flushed through his body and nearly made his eyes water.

“He’s finally snapped,” George mumbled in disbelief.

“Is that what he told you?” The words come out more choked than he’d like.

“He doesn’t need to–” Harold narrowed his eyes. “We’ve heard that recording, making him feel like he’s– he’s not a real person.”

“So you think this will help him?”

“He’ll be happier.”

He narrowed his eyes in kind. “You don’t sound sure.”

The feeling of joy was few and far between in his line of work, but even he knew what the other guy felt wasn’t that. It was moreso a ragged sort of energy to move forward than anything else, and it had the familiar undercurrent of something else.

Something that made the other guy clench his jaw for most of this.

“W– well, how would you know?” Harold shot back.

George, quicker on the draw, blurted out: “He’s still talking to you isn’t he? Willingly?”

“He’s a grown man-child,” he said derisively. It was a small relief that they didn’t know about the emotional bleedover. “He can make his own decisions.”

“Clearly not, if he keeps talking to you.”

He blinked.

“What?”

“Nothing. It’s just that he says it's to ‘Free The Children’.” His voice went up a mocking octave at the term.

George looked shocked for a moment. “Which it is.”

“No, what you said now was that this may be for the other guy.”

“First of all: it is. Second: it's both,” Harold cut in.

“At this rate, I think it’s neither.”

“O– oh yeah? Who cares what you think?” The words come out of Harold’s mouth unpracticed. From the kids that had the gall to say that they wanted him gone, it was pitiful seeing him fumble the most mundane jabs.

“You do, clearly.” His chest was tight. “I think you’re just mad your favorite plaything isn’t working like he’s supposed to.”

“Stop it!” he yelled. “Or we’ll– we’ll keep doing this!”

“You have to explain a bit better than that.” His grimace turned to something more smug. “Clearly, you needed those extra English assignments–”

Snap.

---------------------

George pulled the superhero into an unused classroom. When the superhero peered out to wave at whoever he waved to earlier, Harold pulled down the hand in question.

“Oh! Is this the next prank a– a quiet one?” He looked around, trying to find where the preemptive punchline was. “I’m afraid I don’t understand this one.”

“No, no–” George shook his head. “Just… sit tight, alright? We need to take five before the next wave of pranks.”

Captain let out a loud exhale before kicking himself up into a floating position. It looked like he was reclining on an invisible beach chair. Meanwhile, Harold was further in the classroom, pacing between the desks.

“What do you think?” George said quietly.

The other boy gave a strained smile… before dropping his face in his hands and letting out the most exasperated sigh. He gave a sympathetic pat on the shoulder.

“Yeah.”

Between being accused of suggesting the fourth grade pop science fair and being seen ‘fighting’ ‘Captain Underpants’ earlier, the other kids were getting uneasy.

“What do we do?” he shook his head. “If we don’t run out of pranks, we'll definitely run out of supplies eventually. And what if Krupp doesn’t back down by then? What if he just keeps saying that we gave the suggestions to make the school worse for kids and adding onto it? What if–”

“Harold–” George began shaking him by the shoulders gently. When he was just as frazzled as the other boy, it was still rapid. “That won’t happen. Between me and you and Captain, we’re going to ride this out and beat him at his own game.”

The other boy stared at him before slowly nodding. “Yeah– yeah, OK. But–”

The both of them took a quick glance towards Captain. Neither of them exchanged a word. The fact that not only was he still talking to the principal– he talked about their plans with him, it was the nightmare scenario. One of them, anyway.

“I don’t think he knows too much, but–” George gave one shake of his head.

Harold nodded in response.

“Sidekicks, um–”

The Waistband Warrior floated over to them. He still had the same look as before everything started. If anything, the frown deepened.

“What is it, Captain?”

“Are you… alright?” It looked like he was struggling to find the right words. “You don’t seem to be having fun these last few pranks.”

“Whaaaat?” Harold drawled out, propping an arm onto a nearby desk to lean on it. “Of course we’re having fun!”

“Oh! OK, then. I was just… checking.” He flipped himself into an upside-down floating position. “I thought– well, the other kids have a similar–” He waved a hand in their direction, circling their heads. “– So does that mean they’re also having fun?”

The room was silent. In the distance, they could hear the quiet din of kids outside. But here they were: in a little classroom, wiling away the hours trying to escalate the bit.

“After these next few pranks… yeah, definitely.”

“And if nothing else, the school’s going to get better.”

“Well, there’s nowhere to go but up.”

The boys laughed. Their fit of giggles were dampened as Captain glanced back to the sliver of glass looking out into the hallway.

“That’s good,” he replied. He was distant and contemplative again. It was still weird that it was happening. “Then, it’ll be worth it, if the school becomes more fun for everyone.”

Harold made a big show of stretching his arms to break the silence, as abrupt as it was. The silence, he decided, was overstaying its welcome. It reminded him of not-so-great days. Of the reason why he drew up the first iteration of Captain.

“Well! I think I’m fully rested. How about you?”

“Harold,” George gave him an uneasy glance. If you’re sure, the Look appended at the end.

In return, he gave the equally stubborn, yes I’m sure Look. The other boy nodded and matched it in kind.

“Come on, Captain,” George ushered them out the door.

---------------------

(He knew how to get down to someone’s level. Explain concepts in smaller chunks. Use simpler words. Use something they were familiar with to help. It was something he was taught how to do back when he was a teacher. That being said, he also knew that stooping down to someone’s level wasn’t ideal. He had a reputation to uphold, after all.

And as much as Benjamin hated to do it, leaning into comic logic was the most efficient way to get that idiot to listen to him.

Would you hesitate taking a villain out? He wrote, resisting the urge to cross it out immediately. If you had the opportunity to get rid of me and never use it, what would that mean?

Snap. Splash. His furrowed brows relaxed.

“You didn’t deny being the villain that time,” the cassette player crackled.

Benjamin let out a soft exhale. He took the last note and circled the second half. The underlying message was unmistakable: answer the question.

Snap. Splash. The headache in his temples slowly dissipated.

“‘Get rid of’ sounds so… dastardly,” the other guy hedged. “I stop villains. There is a difference.”

I doubt it, he goaded, appending the comment on the original note.

Benjamin shouldn’t care about the semantics, but he could still feel the headache in his temple. A cynical part of him thought the other guy had thought himself into short circuiting their temporarily shared brain. That was the troublesome part about feeling the other guy’s emotions, even if it eventually faded.

He was stupidly larger than life that way.

Snap. Splash. Benjamin couldn’t help but touch his own throat, feeling the dwindling strain left there.

“Villains are– they stay only for a span of an issue. Two, if it's a big event. I stop them. And then they’re gone.”

He was expecting more, but there was something uncomfortable in how final it was. He allowed himself to think back to previous issues he definitely never read, and the other guy had a point. It was either jail, or ‘defeat’ with all its nebulous sidestepping.

But there were no loose ends. At most, a cliffhanger those two never bothered to follow up on.

“But you–” The so-called superhero made an uncanny-sounding noise. “You’re… recurring. You keep doing things I've never seen any other villain do, and these long-form plots are beyond me. B– but my sidekicks know this! They have to!”

He sucked a breath through his teeth.

“And I need to trust them.”

Click.

He shouldn’t care. He didn’t. Still though. There was something there. The headache, the frenzied feeling the other guy put under his skin, heck, even the specific word choice–

Desperate, Benjamin thought to himself, ignoring how achingly similar the other guy dug his heels. He’s desperate.

‘Truth, justice, and all things pre-shrunk and cottony’ was a half-baked parody. Anyone could tell it was a half-baked reference. But to the other guy, it must be everything. Something foundational, maybe. And here were his 'dearest sidekicks', shaking at its foundations.

Then, in writing: You still haven’t answered the question. If you had the power to get rid of– scratch the last three words– If you had the power to do it, would you? What kind of hero would you be if you didn’t?

Scratch the last sentence. Too much.

Benjamin’s hand shook. His fingers were ready to snap, but he had never switched over to ask properly. He wasn’t sure what would be worse to hear.)

---------------------

He came back to his heart thrumming so so fast. And left just as quickly. He wanted to ask his sidekicks what was happening. Their answers were shorter now. His help became less and less.–

---------------------

– The sensation made his skin prickle. He wanted to twist himself away from what was coming, he–

---------------------

– could feel it, the colors misaligning in him, he could feel it–

---------------------

– spiral and on and on–

---------------------

– it goes, until–

Captain Underpants came back to a cold feeling in his chest and a burning feeling everywhere else. If he was steaming, he wouldn’t be surprised.

“Sidekicks–” He stopped; he wasn’t expecting his voice to come out so gravelly. Whatever burning thing that was in his throat fizzled to ashes and choked him. “What did you do?”

“Don’t worry about it!” George chirped, pulling him up to his feet. “Now come on.”

Captain brought himself up to a low hover. He had been through enough to know that the latest ones needed papers to keep track of. He had also been through enough of them to realize that his sidekicks were not telling him their plans anymore.

“What, um–” A cough. “Is it this time, sidekicks?”

“Well let’s just say, the next few will be a super-hot streak of pranks,” George replied.

On cue, Harold pulled out a tubberware and opened it. In it were spicy red peppers and onions. He could feel his throat close up at the mere sight of them.

“I think we’re getting close, though, I can feel it!”

Captain glanced away. The actual feeling from The Man In His Head was… messy. It was like someone printed every page of a comic on one page– it was unreadable and so full of ink it would tear apart at the slightest pressure.

He must have made a face, because both of them frowned. They pushed the cases of veggies off to the side.

“Captain, we gotta ask–”

“Not to worry, I’m still in well enough shape for the next few pranks.” He gave a little wave. It was not a lie. Unless the next few pranks involved him speaking a lot, in which case it was inconvenient.

“No, it's…” Harold hedged.

“...What did you tell Krupp?” George narrowed his eyes.

A pause.

“What?”

“We know you told him about Free The Children,” Harold looked stricken. “What else did you talk about?”

His mouth moved, but no sound came out. Another attempt. Finally, he settled on: “It's not something I feel… OK telling.”

Not a lie. He felt like jumping out of his own skin.

“And why’s that?” George’s face scrunched up.

“I don’t know.” Also not a lie. He knows telling them should be alright, but something stopped him.

“What do you mean, you don’t know?!” Harold yelled.

“Because it's not my story to tell.” Captain began to shake his head.

“This is–” George sighed. His next words come out slower. “You know how important this is, right?”

Captain nodded.

“Which is why we need to know what you said to him.”

He thought back to previous conversations. The swaths of little papers surrounding him like hard borders, or gutters. To the Closet At The End Of The Hallway. To the quick flashes of bleedover whenever he came in.

And at the center of all these disparate panels was a specific scene: his sidekicks holding the cassette player.

“Don’t…” He hesitated for a moment. “Please don’t make me tell.”

He felt close to… something, but he didn’t have the exact words for it.

The closest he could come to was that he did not like this scene. It felt wrong. Superheroes did not argue with their sidekicks. And even if they did, it was always for the greater good.

And this? It–

“Are you still mad about the whole thing with the cassette?”

The careless tone made something terrible in him flare up. He must have landed at some point because he could feel something crunch under his heel.

“Yes!” His face was hot. He was– this was just so–

“What does this have to do with Free The Children, anyway? Who is this even for?”

“It's for all of us,” George hedged.

“Then where’s everyone else?” He spread his arms so wide he could feel the strain on his shoulders. “We’ve barely seen any kids all day. We ran from the ones we did.”

“You don’t get it–”

“Of course I don’t!” He could feel a headache pulse behind his eyes, in time to his heartbeat. “Nothing about anything makes sense, and I have to stop and think about–”

“That’s the problem!” Harold yelled. “You keep thinking too hard!”

Everything stopped. It felt like time stretched on so far he could see the panel in his mind’s eye taking up pages worth of silence.

His voice felt small in that expanse. A single word on a splash page. A single sticky note on a blue wall.

“What?”

“You keep thinking and thinking and– changing,” Harold managed. “Things used to be so much easier when you weren’t so miserable all the time! Superheroes have to– you're supposed to be there when we need you, and you can’t even give us this one small thing! What kind of superhero are you? You’re not supposed to be like this!”

This world didn’t seem to get something Important was going on here. There was still the sound of distant footfalls of other kids thundering in the hallways.

“Oh.”

This feeling was worse than wearing Principal’s dreaded clothes. It was the latest in a long string of Bad Feelings that he didn’t know where it started or ended. It just was, all squished in grawlixes so dense it may as well be solid rock.

(Haha, rocks, his mind not-so-helpfully added as a horrid little brick joke.)

He tried taking a deep breath. The grawlixes stopped him. His chest hurt. “I– I’m sorry.”

The word felt off. It seemed right in his head, but it felt like raw onions sitting in his mouth. He didn’t even know what he was apologizing for. But a small part felt like he should be.

(The large part, however– never mind that one.)

His sidekicks stepped back.

“Captain–”

“I’m–” He turned away, trying to grasp at the right words. And failed. “I will fix this. I promise.”

Not a lie. He knew what was wrong. His sidekicks told him that much. He just didn’t know how to fix it.

The entire school shook. Kids screamed.

“Whoa, what was that?!”

Finally, something he can grasp. And maybe throw it to the wall, exploding into smithereens.

“I will fix it after this,” he amended.

He came up to a proper hover and zoomed off. Faster than a speeding waistband was still faster than either of their legs could take them at a full sprint.

His sidekicks’ cries became a distant thing. The world was a waterlogged blur as he went to the source of the chaos.

There was a nagging part of his brain that wanted him to stop. To wait. To joke. To make himself a punchline. But before anything else, he was a superhero.

And what kind of superhero was he if he couldn’t fix this?

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