100 Fanfics/Where?
From Homestar Runner Fanstuff Wiki
"Homestar Runner
Really great!
Homestar Runner
I forget!
Spin my buzzer
Pom Pom stew!
Homeschool Winner
Witch's brew!"
That sounded about right, thought Homestar. He stopped singing and started to wonder where he was going. Then he got bored with wondering that, and started thinking about what he'd had for dinner the night before. Marzipan had made it, whatever it was supposed to be, so it hadn't tasted any good at all. After he'd said so, Marzipan had kicked him out of the house for the fourth night that week. Or was it the eleventh night that week?
"Victor?" said a voice, which Homestar ignored. "Victor!"
Someone grabbed his thing. His arm. That was the word. Arm. Homestar looked around and was confused for a second, until he remembered that things looked different now.
"Oh, hey Pom Pom," he said. "Um... Does Strong Bad hate you? I forgot."
"Victor, I'm worried about you," said Pom Pom. "I think you need professional help."
Homestar laughed.
"That's funny, Pom Pom," he said. "You're a funny guy."
"I'm serious," said Pom Pom. "And stop calling me Pom Pom."
Homestar concentrated. For all of three seconds.
"Doesn't Strong Bad hate the King of Town?" he wondered. "Maybe I should go talk to the King of Town!"
Pom Pom hesitated.
"Let me take you to him," he said, leading Homestar into a nearby house.
"Thanks, Pom Pom! You're a real friend!" said Homestar.
Belatedly, he became suspicious.
"Hey... Wait a minute!" he said. "The King of Town lives in a castle!"
"Of course he does," said Pom Pom soothingly, taking Homestar into the living room. It had a picture hanging on the wall with "Thank you" written on. It also had Marzipan sitting on the couch, looking annoyed. She still had legs. Homestar couldn't stop staring.
"Uh..." he said. He knew he should be apologising for something he'd done, but he couldn't remember what. He never could. "I know Strong Bad hates you!"
"What?" said Marzipan, looking angrier than before.
"Who is Strong Bad?" said Pom Pom.
"You know!" said Homestar. "That one email guy!"
"I think Daniel Strong used to call himself Strong Bad when he was a kid," said Marzipan.
Pom Pom looked thoughtful. Homestar yawned, and decided that now was a good time to start detecting like Strong Bad had told him. Normally, being told to do something by Strong Bad was no reason to do it, but this time Homestar thought Strong Bad knew what he was doing. Which was more than Homestar did.
"So, Marzipan, have you ever experienced a, um, an unsettling... memory?" he said carefully.
That sounded pretty good.
"Do you think that Dan is playing a prank on him?" said Pom Pom.
"Yes, I think he is," said Marzipan. "Remember when Dan and Carlos and The Cheat told Victor the sky was green?
"The sky's not green?!" said Homestar, then remembered what he was doing and turned to face Pom Pom. "How about you, Pom Pom?"
"Yes, Dan has done things like this before," said Pom Pom.
Marzipan nodded.
"Do either of you have any me-mor-ies of being, like, a broom or a... big fat yellow guy?" said Homestar.
"Did D— Strong Bad tell you that, sweetie?" said Marzipan.
"No!" said Homestar indignantly. "I told me that!"
"And what did Strong Bad tell you your name was?" said Pom Pom.
"Uh... I think he said it was Edgardo or something," said Homestar. "But I know my name is Homestar Runner!"
"No, that's your position on the team," said Pom Pom. "Your name is Victor."
"Oh, I think it's still Homestar," said Homestar. "Homestar Runner."
Pom Pom sighed and shook his head.
"Okay, so where are we going?" said Strong Bad to The Cheat, as the three of them walked down the seemingly endless streets.
"Bubs'."
"All right!" said Strong Bad. "I actually like that guy! Uh, most of the time."
"I know," said The Cheat.
They kept walking. A few minutes passed uneventfully. Strong Bad wondered how anybody could possibly live in such a boring town.
"The Cheat, is there any green in this place?" he said. "Like, at all?"
He was no tree hugger, but all the suburban development was getting to him.
"RAH?" said Strong Mad, and pointed to the scoreboard of the athletics field, which was just visible over the roof of some house.
"Other than the athletics field!" said Strong Bad.
"Nope," said The Cheat cheerfully. "There's this empty lot we hang out in, but it's—"
"It's Strong Badia?" said Strong Bad. "Tell me it's Strong Badia!"
"No, it's just an empty lot!" said The Cheat.
"Okay, whatever," said Strong Bad, not interested in the idea of hanging out someplace that wasn't named after him.
They stopped in front of a shabby little building with its windows broken. It was located in a whole street full of shabby little buildings with their windows broken.
"We're here," said The Cheat.
"Whoa," said Strong Bad. "Bubs' Concession Stand got a whole lot more down-market."
"He has one of them too," said the Cheat, for some reason in The Cheat. "But most of his stuff doesn't fit... what?"
Strong Bad and Strong Mad were staring at him.
"I CAN'T HEAR YOU!" said Strong Mad.
"Don't... do that," said Strong Bad. "It's creepy."
"Do what?" said The Cheat, in English. "What're you being crazy about now?"
"Never mind!" said Strong Bad angrily.
Strong Bad wasn't crazy. More like, The Cheat was crazy... Crazy guy...
They went inside. The shop was dusty, filled with junk, and looked as though nobody had set foot in it since 1987. Or maybe even 1986.
"Hello?" Strong Bad called. "Bubs?"
His voice echoed back at him.
"You sure this is the right place, The Cheat?"
"Meh," confirmed The Cheat.
Strong Bad peered over the dusty counter just as a big, rumpled looking man with an untucked shirt came up from behind it.
"Wah!" said Strong Bad, jumping backwards.
"Now what can I get you gentlemen today?" said the man cheerfully.
"Bubs?" hazarded Strong Bad.
"That's me!" said Bubs.
Strong Bad chose his words carefully.
"So, Bubs..." he said. "You wouldn't happen to have any sort of a... plot device, would you?"
People in this place seemed to have no idea they were cartoon characters, but it couldn't hurt to ask.
"Lucky for you, I got one in just yesterday!" said Bubs unexpectedly.
He produced a remote control and pressed the big red button. A robot that had been sitting against the far wall leaned in their direction.
"Hello," it said. Then it shut down.
Strong Bad stared at it. It didn't look like it was going to be starting up again any time soon.
"Uh... I was kinda thinking of something a little more... useful," he said.
"I've got just the thing!" said Bubs. He placed a bottle full of pink liquid on the counter. "The very latest in virus protection software!"
Strong Bad opened the bottle and sniffed its contents.
"Yeah, this is just melonade," he said.
"AND it's a dihydrogen monoxide supplement!" said Bubs. "That'll be twenty bucks!"
"What?!" said Strong Bad.
He didn't have twenty bucks, unless he'd become a fiftyaire while he was turning into some guy with hair and fingers.
"You smell it, you bought it," said Bubs.
"How about... Five bucks?" said The Cheat suddenly.
"Twenty-five!" said Bubs.
"The Cheat..." whispered Strong Bad.
"I know what I'm doing," said The Cheat.
"Okay Victor, I need you to draw a little picture for me," said Marzipan, giving Homestar a sheet of paper and a crayon.
"What for?" said Homestar, laughing. "That sounds really lame."
Marzipan just looked annoyed again. Homestar took the crayon and yawned. He searched for something for something interesting to look at. Detecting was turning out to far too boring, especially after Pom Pom had gone home. Out of boredom. Homestar was just about ready to give it up when he saw someone. Homestar was sure he hadn't been there before.
"Hey, hoodie man!" said Homestar. "How long have you been standing there?"
"Uh... ten minutes?" said hoodie man.
"Oh, hey Strong Sad," said Homestar unenthusiastically, recognising his voice.
Now things would get even more boring.
"What?" said Strong Sad. "That's the second time today!"
"I invited Tristan over because he knows a lot about being pranked," said Marzipan, trying to sound happy.
"That's pretty much the story of my life..." said Strong Sad.
"And I couldn't get through to a psychiatrist," added Marzipan.
Homestar tried to think of a way to escape while they were talking words.
"Uh... I think I'm late for my TV show," he said, looking around for a clock.
"You don't have a TV show," said Strong Sad.
"Yeah I do," said Homestar. "It's called, The Shoooooow. I even had the Geddup Noise on it a few times!"
Strong Sad looked at Marzipan. Marzipan shrugged.
"You know!" said Homestar, starting to get annoyed. "I won that whateveritwas I gave you for our anniversary from it!"
"You didn't give me anything for our anniversary," said Marzipan.
"Oh, right, right," said Homestar. "Well how about that other whateveritwas I gave you for Valentine's Day?"
"You didn't give her anything for Valentines day!" said Strong Sad.
"Oh," said Homestar. He was sure he had, but he was sure of lot of things that turned out to be wrong. "Well... Bye!"
He stood up, intending to run away, but Marzipan grabbed his arm and forced him back down again.
"You're not going anywhere, mister," she said.
"Aw..." said Homestar, hanging his head.
"How'd you get Bubs to accept pencil shavings as payment?" said Strong Bad suspiciously, clutching the bottle of melonade.
The Cheat shrugged. Then he grinned and pointed to a poster, which depicted a bunch of familiar looking people standing around and holding big guns.
"You know who those guys are?" he said.
"No," said Strong Bad.
He really didn't care, either.
"They're my heroes," enthused The Cheat. "I'm gonna join them when I'm old enough."
Strong Bad squinted at the poster, slightly curious. There was writing on it, but it was tiny, and very difficult to read. The font size had probably been reduced to make room for bigger guns. He thought it said, "DO YOU HAS?", but he hoped it didn't. Bad grammar still made him want to grit his teeth and make fun of the bad... grammarian. It took a few seconds, but he thought he'd figured out who these people were normally.
"Are they... the Cheat Commandos?" he said. "Since when did those guys use guns?"
They were dressed almost like the Cheat Commandos. The one that resembled Fightgar, for example, was wearing a t-shirt, jeans and shoes, along with a headband and an ammo belt. As Strong Bad didn't see a date or any actors' names on the poster, he thought it was either real, or a very crappy movie poster.
"They're an elite fighting force, sworn to protect the world from terrorists!" said The Cheat.
"Terrorists, huh?" said Strong Bad. "Then what are they doing here? This place is a dump. I mean literally. It's a dump."
He indicated a burnt out car on the other side of the road.
"Never thought about it before," said The Cheat. "Hey! It's your boyfriend!"
He pointed across the street, at the man who was just extracting himself from the burnt out car.
"What?!" said Strong Bad angrily. "I'm not dating no guy!"
He realised that the man The Cheat was pointing to was an ugly, dumpy guy with a beer belly and a comb-over. The man was now walking towards them and dragging a plastic bag behind him.
"Woah! Is that Senor Cardgage?" said Strong Bad.
Apparently Senor Cardgage was real here as well, something Strong Bad had never been sure of back in the real world.
"Hello, Lianessa," mumbled Senor Cardgage, when he got close enough. "Won't you kind girls take a few candy bars off my gloves?"
He offered Strong Mad a partially melted chocolate bar, which Strong Bad snatched. He dimly registered that Strong Mad was running away screaming, but he was focused more on unwrapping the chocolate bar with boxing gloves on. Fingers were way more useful than he'd realised.
"Carlos?" said The Cheat. "Carlos, come back!"
"Uh, The Cheat, would you open this for me?" said Strong Bad, giving The Cheat the chocolate bar.
The Cheat gave it back.
"We gotta find Carlos... Strong Mad," said The Cheat. "Then I'll open your creepy candy bar."
"Yeah, I guess that guy can't survive on his own for very long," said Strong Bad distractedly. Who would have thought that boxing gloves could hinder him so much?
Author's Notes
- If you know where the robot that Bubs had is from, then... You're cool? I loved that show-which-I'm-not-going-to-name. It was awesome.
- The scene with Bubs was far too much fun to write.
- The scenes with Marzipan were far too hard to write. Is it just my writing, or is she really hard to keep in character?
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