The Return of Superboy Part I
-or- "BLORDGE CINNAMON! BLORDGE ECLAIR!!"
Emitted by Batman
Starring Superboy and Impulse
June 5 2000

Loitering outside the former entrance to the old fairgrounds -- where, if
you follow them back into the woods, you'd eventually hit the Habitat --
Impulse is finishing off a milkshake. No earthquakes, no DEO goons (for
the moment), no spaceships landing and disgorging spaghetti-headed
musicians, no nothin' for the moment - it makes for a really swell
evening, really. And this is a great place to watch passers-by.

Look! Up in the sky! It's a bird! It's a plane! No it ain't the big guy in
blue and red PJs, it's the Superkid. Finally home after his little (read:
long) hiatus, Superboy has returned to his roost to get in good with those
he left behind. And lookit! Lookit! There's one now. Pulling up short in
midair, he turns so that he is in a nose-dive headed right at Impulse. As
he speeds along, a small grin comes to his face. Yeah, Bart's gonna be
real surprised.

A few of the nighttime pedestrians do the trademarked Metropolis Gawk
skywards as the Kid of Steel swings past overhead. There is a little
commotion from a squealing teenaged girl far below, but she fades into the
distance as Superboy flies over to the fairgrounds.

Impulse's eyes widen - yeah, surprise - then narrow. He doesn't scramble,
doesn't move. If the Kid of Metal Alloy wants to dive into him, well, he
can certainly -try-. He casually slurps out the rest of the milkshake,
then tosses it into a nearby bin and crosses his arms.

Dive into you, Imp? Nah. Supes just wants to make sure you know he's
there. And to show off, of course. At the last moment, well, not really
the last but before he would hit Bart, he pulls up and alights onto the
ground. "Hey Imp. Miss me?" he asks as the corner of his mouth pulls up
into a grin. Of course he 'knows' the answer, but he wants to hear it from
Bart's lips.

In the far distance, there's the faint sound of an alarm. Nothing worth
taking notice of, really.

"No," says Bart flatly, looking Superboy over. He shoves himself off the
post on which he was leaning, uncrosses his arms, and dusts off his back.
"Where were you this time? No - you know what? Tell me /after/ we find out
what's just been set off." He takes off, looking for the source of the
alarm, all scowly.

Superboy looks a little taken aback. "Spring Break, of course. I mean..
Come on, Imp. Hawaii... Spring Break... I'm only human, you know." With a
grin he lifts off the ground and turns to face where the alarm went off.
"Sure. I'm up for some bad guy stomping." Taking off, he calls over his
shoulder back to you. "Race ya!" before he's gone, a little blue streak of
light.

As the pair of youthful metahumans race off towards the alarm, they're
both aware of the fact that there's a rather healthy sized group of people
racing -away- from the alarm. There's shouts of "Its out of control!" and
"Where in God's name is Superman!?" Further ahead, there's a curious
greenish glow.

Being entirely about image to the good people of Metropolis, Bart shouts
back, "Who needs Superman -- Tomorrow's Magnificent Seven are here!" No
matter that, well, there're only two of them. Well, there're never seven
anyway, so who cares. And -- race /Impulse/? The only person faster is,
well, Wally. Come on.

Superboy doesn't plan to win. Heck, technically he shouldn't even place as
Bart could make the run a half dozen times before he could do it once.
"Yeah, who needs Superman! You got the cooler Superperson right here."
Rather than land as he pulls up near the danger zone, the Kid stays high,
surveying the scene from a 'safe' distance. "Okay, Imp, any ideas?" Oh
no... Asking Bart for ideas? This should be interesting to say the least.

Impulse notes the relatively slow turning, twisting shape of a semi-truck
that is currently airborne. The side of the tanker is emblazoned with a
large smiling cartoon cow logo. The thing jackknifes through the air with
curious grace - if you're perceiving things in superspeed. If not, then it
just looks like a dangerous dang vehicle that shouldn't be airborne even
on a bad day. Which is how it looks to Superboy. Hey, look - a gaggle of
wide-eyed bystanders in the milk truck's path!

"Yeah. You get the truck, I'll get the rubberneckers," says Impulse
shortly, only pausing long enough to answer the Kid -- and he moves to
remove the onlookers, at the same time trying to see what's causing the
glow. Crazy glow! What is it, Green Lantern on LSD? Kryptonite? Jade
having a bad day?

"Consider it gotten." Twisting in the air, Superboy heeads toward the
truck at just under the sound barrier. Wouldn't want to hurt some ears.
Those slack-jawed yokels who are watching the truck coming at them get to
watch as all of a sudden it's just hanging in the air. "Hey folks.
Superboy towing company to the rescue," the Kid tells them as he lifts
higher, revealing himself beneath it, holding onto one of the axels.

As they save the bystanders from death beneath several tons of lactose,
Impulse and Superboy are confronted with the source of the problem - a
large pile of goop that is glowing an irradiated green. A nearby garbage
truck that lies on it side seems to confirm the source of the neon-green
blob, as there's a trail of glowing ichor tracing from it to the tail end
of the ten foot tall shambling mess. It raises a shimmering, quivering
tentacle that drips plopping spatters on the pavement around its
sauropodian appendages. "Blordge lives! Blordge crush!"

Burning heels-rubbing in a spectacular skid, Bart just stands there and
stares for a second. An eternity, to him. "Uhm. HEY!" he yells at the
tentacled thing. "You related to Cthulhu?" He has to know. He has to know
if this thing is what his pet squid would've turned into if they hadn't
killed it when it took over the upper floor of the headquarters. He also
has to get some more people a little further away from the monster -- say,
oh, a couple blocks? Who knows what else it'll throw. So, you know, he
does this in between waiting for an answer.

Ah nerts. Radiation. It had to be radiation, didn't it? Well as Bartboy
gets the crowd to a safe distance, it'll be up to Superboy to hold this
sucker off for a while. Looking between the beast and the truck in his
hands, the Kid lowers to the ground so the driver can get out before
spining in the air once and hurling the truck at Blordge. "Got milk?"

There's a horrible rending sound of metal and milk being torn forth as
Blorge takes the smiling cow face right in his (?) slimy uppermost
appendage-face-type thing. He emits a squeal more akin to a stuck pig than
a deadly radioactive monster as he starts to absorb the broken scraps of
metal, tires. The milk sizzles away sourly.

Wrinkling his nose as he stops somewhere below and to the right of the
Kid, Bart shakes his head. "That's gross. No, really. It's really gross."
He kicks a rock at the monster, then raises his eyebrows, hands clasped
behind his back, leaning forward. "Yo! BLORGE! I asked you a question --
but I've got a better one. It's great you live. But what are you DOING?"

Well that didn't work... But now the Kid's got backup. As Bart keeps
Blorge busy, Superboy reaches into his jacket and pulls out his specialty
made goggles and slips them over his head. Time to get nasty, biznatch. "I
think what he's doing is rather obvious, Imp... Making a mess, that's
what."

Blordge gives slimy pause, emitting a series of blorts. "Blordge must
coagulate! Blordge crush!" With this, the blob of glowing goop emits a
series of rapid flatulent sounds that are followed by two large glorpulent
man-sized balls og slime that it targets are our heroes.

"Yeah, well, generally it's not /completely/ purposeless destruction if
they can at least say 'Blorge lives, Blorge crush'," replies Impulse, a
fountain of knowledge gleaned from his endless experience. Yeah. "Duck!"
he yells as he scrambles out of the way, then continues from his new
location, "See? This guy's got a great vocabulary. He can say 'coagulate'!
Go get some sand or flour or something, maybe cornstarch. I'll keep him
busy!"

Superboy does indeed dodge, not really needing the coaxing. As he careens
to the left, a blast of energy escapes the goggles, directed at the blob
of yuck that is coming his way. Just to see if they'll actually do
something. "Where the heck am I going to find that much cornstarch? Sand
maybe.. Any mines around?" Yeah, he's been away far too long to remember
something like that. Like he would've anyway.

Blordge ambulates in a jelly-like fashion up the street, apparently tired
by the conversation. He makes way towards a dougnut shop on the corner.

An old man peers out of a parked car nearby. "Great gosh amighty! He's
gonna take out the Dunkards!"

Giving S.B. an exasperated glance, backpedalling to keep abreast of the
big monster, Impulse shakes his head. "There's a beach about half a mile
that way," he calls, pointing, "and a guy in a car right there who'll be
really unhappy if Blorge eats tomorrow's breakfast! I'd go but you can
carry more, go go go!" All right, this is starting to look like a cartoon.
Bart stands in front of the giant glowing slimeball (no no, not our
President, mind on the subject matter, people) with his hands on his hips.
"NONE SHALL PASS!"

The gelatin wall of ooze advances, apparently heedless of Bart's presence.

Superboy looks down at Bart and then zips off. "Who died and made Bart
Robin?" he mutters to himself as he goes, again just below yon sound
barrier. Should take him a whole second and a half to go half a mile. Not
as fast as Bart, but not too shabby.

The beach is as unoccupied as you'd expect in the middle of the night.
There's lots of sand and gravel and a picturesque view of the bay.

They always say you should never ask questions you don't want to know the
answer to -- a couple of people've died, and died and come back to life,
since the last time Superboy paid attention to his...wow, they were in New
York last time he had much to do with the team. Plenty's happened.
Regardless, the superfast teenager stuck with the radioactive monster
(man, it sounds like a comic book! Er, wait a minute) blurs for a second,
and is suddenly carrying a big bundle of rocks, which he starts whipping
at El Slimey.

The rocks pound messily into the lugrubious form that is Blordge. He turns
and starts to ooze around the windows and doors of the emperiled (albeit
closed) Dunkards Doughnuts.

"Grife," grumbles Bart, dropping the rest of the rocks, blurring again.
This time he comes back lugging a hose from the back of the doughnut
building. He puts his thumb on the nozzle and directs a jet of water at
the monster. "How about this? You like this? Huh?! How'd you like this,
Blorge?! Try coagulating NOW!"

Perfect. All deserted like, just what Superboy wanted. Hovering a few feet
above the ground, the goggles on his face glow for an instant before that
light burns out of them and into the ground at an intensity to melt the
sand into some glass. One big glass cone, to be exact as he circles the
area. Of course it'll take some time to cool before the Kid can carry it
back, though.

Blordge indicates his discomfort with being slashed by a water hose by
spitting out three pumpkin sized slimeballs at Impulse. His other section
continues squeezing through the cracks of the windows and doors, the glass
buckling and spiderwebs forming under the stress and blob's pressure.

Daffy Duck-like, Bart gahs in annoyance, then yells, "No no NO!" He ducks
the slimeballs, hoping they don't make too much of a mess of the street,
then turns the hose on Blorge again. He focuses on the parts of the
monster that're trying to get into the donut building, pressing down
harder on the nozzle so the jet is sharper. "If you don't like it," he
yells, "come and get me! MAKE me stop!"

Blordge retorts with "Blordge consume!"

Superboy touches the glass and jumps, shaking his hand. "A bit more time,
yet..."

One window of the doughnut joint shatters and green glowing sludge slides
in like a small, nasty waterfall over a booth table and starts across the
tiled floor towards the section behind the counter.

"Blorge is a CAPITALIST TOOL, then!" yells Bart, then straightens and
flexes. "Come on, speedster tastes a lot better than building! Or even
doughnuts! I know a big ugly nasshead like you is no vegetarian...!" He
turns the hose on Blordge again. *SPLIZZZZZH*

Blordge doesn't seem to notice the spouting water on his sticky hide - he
seems fixated on the display behind the counter. "Blordge cinammon!
Blordge eclair!"

Okay, time for the gloves, or in Superboy's case, the jacket to come off.
Slipping his leather wrapping off, he covers his hands and reaches for the
glass once more. Though hot, he can just handle it enough to lift the cone
out of the ground. Hopefully the flight will cool it enough to be handled.
"Help is on the way, Imp!" he calls into the night as he takes off back to
Blordge, going as fast as he can without spilling the sand all over the
place.

"You know, it would really SUCK if the sand didn't work," growls Impulse,
blurring again. When he's back, the hose is gone and Bart is scanning the
sky. All of a sudden, he glances at Blordge again. "Hey, can you get me
one of those glazed crullers?"

Blordge sets about blorting all over the dougnuts, seeming to be in
rhapsody as he begins to consume enormous healthy of long lived
shelf-display dougnuts and pastries. If he were not a big fat blob of
glowing slime already, the display of gluttony would still bring tears to
any decent person's eyes.

Blordge says "Bloorrrrt..."

And what does Bart see when he looks up? Why Superboy of course! The
cavalry as it were with a large cone of sand. "Superboy landscaping..
Gotta love it.." Turning toward Blordge, the Kid whistles loud and shrill
in an attempt to get the things attention. "Hey tall, green and slimey!
Catch!" With that, the cone is hurled, round part down so the least amount
of sand falls out, at the creature.

The cone drops in slow motion, befitting the dramatic tenseness of the
situation - will Blordge reach the creampuffs on the second shelf? Alas,
it is not to be. He is engulfed in a cone of sand and, true to Bart's
predictions, it is one of the slime pustules weaknesses. The grit begins
to co-mingle with the gowing green gelatin, slowing the blorting menace
and his feastings to a crawl, and then a standstill. He emits a sort
bubbly 'blort'.

Impulse -ews-, and starts cracking up. "That's...that is /still/ so
unbelievably gross. Okay, this is the DEO's job now. Let's get out of
here."

"What? No pictures with the adoring public?" Superboy asks as he hovers a
few feet above the remains of Blordge. Scanning the ground, he spots one
fan he wouldn't mind getting his pic taken with, and he's sure she feels
the same way. Why wouldn't she?

Impulse shoots Superboy a *look*. "No. We don't want the spotlight right
now, okay? Come back to the HQ and I'll explain why," he says quickly,
already starting to jog away. He's nice and doesn't add anything like 'If
you were here you'd already know' -- after all, he just helped kick some
butt.

Superboy nods as he begins to follow after Impulse, blowing that fan a
kiss before turning to look at wwhere he's going. So far he hasn't caught
on that anything is wrong, even having missed the look. An empath he is
not.