Sleep Fighter

Hi, this is Cripto once again. It has been confirmed by all sources that my superpowers, both from the D-19 and from the CNG effects, now working together to create one mighty force, as well as the fact I have been chosen as one of the seven princes of heart, has made me more than just the most powerful tiger in the world; I am the most powerful tiger in the whole universe. Some find it ironic because Chuong’s friends determined what I have really as Asperger’s syndrome, but do I let it stop me? Absolutely not! Besides, it is because of the high-functioning autism and not in spite of it that I can do some of things I can do so well. Thus, I am willing to take on any challenge in order to prove myself that I am up to it. I may have a whole lot on my plate, given the fact I am the sole superheroes (at least in the G-52 organization) that doesn’t have two identities, but three: my rocker self, my superhero self, and my cowboy self.

It’s been rough at times, because I’ve taken blows that hurt, but I’ve always healed and I’ve always come through. I think, though, that because I wear the typical superhero garb, it’s to be expected of me, although the world still worried whenever I got hurt, especially if it was a nightmare that was attacking me, and they’ve given me some pretty bad hurt over the months and years I have been active in the superhero biz. Thus, when Zanta had assigned me the vacation in Starlight Town to help me relax and learn to not push too hard since I’m not the only G-52 (and I was out of excitement of gaining my new powers at the time, having just recently before been given the dream by Gamma), the world cheered for me. He even cleared it with my band’s record label, since they were to come along for the ride.

Chuong’s friends have stated, though, that the true idea of a superhero is truly abstract. Scout Conway, one of our British allies, thinks of soldiers as superheroes since they fight for their countries against the forces of evil. Anyone can be a superhero in the sense that they have shown they will do whatever it takes to fight the forces of evil. I just have a theory that because I wear the typical superhero’s uniform, and Leo the Patriotic Lion has his own unique battle armor instead (as well as being the one everybody fears because of his voice, and I’ll be the first to admit it even scares me at times), the world cried more over him taking a hit in the head than they ever did over me pushing too hard or taking massive blows from those nightmares.

Do I think it helps to actually have a challenge in the form of smart villains? Yes, I think it does. It actually challenges us to have to plan things out or improvise as we go along, and logically figure out how to stop the forces of evil. These terrorist groups are letting us do just that; the Glaswegian Devils and Bendraqi have fallen into a rut, and dealing with them is becoming one big practical joke. Not to mention the fact, it’s so boring at times, I could be defeating him in my sleep. In fact, that’s what was happening to me the other day.

Bendraqi captured me in the middle of the night as he always did, and dressed me for battle. But as he was trying to drag me out of my house, I, in my sleep (because I was dreaming I was fighting a karate championship match), began to punch and kick, making it difficult for him to do anything. By the time I finally woke up, I realized I was Bendraqi’s prisoner, but his whole hideout was a mess. “You rotten skull!” he fumed. “You were just sleeping with your eyes open! Look what you did to my control room!” I had damaged all the controls and made it impossible for his beam to work, all in my sleep. I didn’t want to believe it either, but it was the case.

“That’s impossible; my eyes were closed!” I protested. Bear in mind I was telling the truth; Bendraqi’s the liar. Naturally, he thought he was right and I was wrong. He stomped off in a huff back to his control room after locking me in the cell. I used my X-ray vision to watch him throw a tantrum as he was continuing to be the big baby he comes off as all the time. “Wow,” I said to myself. “I did that all while asleep and I didn’t even know it. I guess that’s another victory on my résumé, since it’s ruined his beam for all time. All I have to do now is warp out of here.” I waved my hands to create a portal, and then stepped through it. Next thing I knew, I was back in my basement. I then changed back to normal clothes and took some time to get myself fully awake before I took my morning shower.

When Bendraqi returned to gloat over me, he screamed in seeing I wasn’t there. “IMPOSSIBLE!” he shouted. “NOBODY CAN JUST VANISH LIKE THAT! ARRGH! I WILL GET HIM FOR THIS IF IT’S THE LAST THING I DO!”

“Poor choice of words, fatso; you had better watch what you say because you may be sealing yourself,” Super Leo said to himself while on patrol, as his super-hearing had noticed Bendraqi’s temper tantrum. He flew down to the hideout and broke in, engaging in a one-on-one with old nutso fatso, except he was awake. Whatever Bendraqi tried, Super Leo had the perfect counterattack.

Meanwhile, I had gotten out of the shower and got a notification from Super C that Super Leo was fighting Bendraqi, but it was me he was glowing over. As soon as I got dressed, I hit the call link button so that he and I could see each other’s faces as we spoke to one another. Super C was airborne, though; he was on patrol himself and discovered Super Leo was dealing with Bendraqi, all over me. “I was dreaming I was in some karate championship, and I don’t even practice the martial arts in real life,” I said. “Yet because old nutso fatso was trying to capture me again, it seemed I was making it more difficult for him; it took him twice the amount of time it usually does to take me back to his hideout.”

“So that explains it,” Super C replied. “Bendraqi claims he’ll kill you for escaping if it’s the last thing he does. Poor choice of words. And he’ll get no approval from the other forces of evil now. It’s too bad for him that they’ll never work with him again.”

“I know. They’re better off without him, anyway. Even the Glaswegian Devils are breaking alliances with him. He’s on his own, now. At least he can do one thing right; well, two, actually. One is escaping from prison, and the other is capturing us in the middle of the night. That may actually be his Achilles heel in the end, because we always foil his plans. I’m interested in the criminal mind’s workings, because like many other villains, namely Batman’s enemies, Bendraqi likes to gloat over us and brag about himself, and one way to do that is telling us what his plans are. It often leads to their downfalls, sometimes because they trap themselves in their own words or actions. If Super Leo does this correctly, Bendraqi will be stumbling on his own pride.”

The Cat of Steel didn’t know the half of it. Bendraqi had been gloating over what he thought was a success since he managed to trap Super Leo in a containment unit, but in the midst of all his bragging and gloating, he began randomly slamming button after button that was causing him problems. The blue button he pressed led to the self-destruction of his own beam, and being the stupidest man on earth, he kept saying the gods were punishing him. Super Leo dared not say a word, though; he just waited for old nutso fatso to slam the yellow button, which is what freed him and allowed him to escape. When the hated mad scientist, now in panic, now bumped into the red button, that’s what caused the self-destruction of the hideout, although Super Leo grabbed him and escaped with him before it exploded.

“You numbskull!” Bendraqi screamed. “Why did you save me? Why didn’t you let me die?”

“I had no clue you wanted death,” Super Leo replied. “But your time to burn in the underworld has not come yet. You shall live to see the consequences of your actions.”

“Can’t we talk this over? I’ll give you anything! Anything you want; just name it, lion! Name it!” Bendraqi protested.

“What I want is for you to go back where you belong,” Super Leo replied, dropping him back into Alcatraz, and watching to see that the prison guards escorted him back to his cell. As soon as they locked him in his cell, he yawned, tired from his actions, and so he decided to take a nap. He didn’t dream about anything, though; this was a nap, not him going to bed. Anytime he ever did have a dream, it was a nightmare, and it wasn’t necessarily because Archie of the Noah faction was giving him bad dreams with his instrument (like he once accidentally did with Leo the Patriotic Lion, but we cleared that out, and he didn’t have another bad dream from that point until Bendraqi’s nightmare beam gave him the dream of Wildcat City separating into its own stand-alone nation, which people in real life were worrying that it would still happen).

When the two heroes met me outside my house, we cleared things up with each other. They allowed me to wave my hands as well and change their wardrobes back to causal wear, with their uniforms neatly tucked away in their closets. Super Leo, naturally, had a U.S.A.F. t-shirt on.

“I’ve always been puzzled by the mystery of dreams,” I said, “but that’s the very first one I had to proved to be beneficial. I’d hate to be dreaming I was a WWE wrestler, because I could really do some damage, whether to Bendraqi or even to you or an innocent bystander. In the past, doing things like that made me want to hang up the cape forever, but I’m sworn to Zanta and to his parents I’m not doing it.”

“So are we,” Super C replied. “She had me show her the new policy in writing. Of course, Leo would’ve been why I wanted to end it, because all the bellowing was not only getting him into trouble but making the rest of us look bad.”

“He chose me to be his superhero counterpart because he and I shared a great sense of justice,” Super Leo added. “My voice can’t come even close to the volume his can; it must be the CNG effect that initially got him. Yet I’m satisfied, because while we’ve seen that the world fears them, they also respect him for who he is and what he believes, and they welcome him with open arms. We saw that the day you and him won the Nobel Prize, Cripto.”

“We did,” I nodded. “It was the fact I was giving huge amounts of cash to the world that helped me win it. He won it for, well, just being himself. Didn’t he? I can’t remember sometimes.”

“That’s okay,” said Super C. “It was a combination of that and his positive influence on the world. Everybody looks to him as a great role model, because he is, in spite of all the bellowing he’s done before. The fear comes from the fear of him bellowing, but let’s be honest, the world was doing things that gave him reasons to do so, so they almost deserved it.”

“That’s a possibility.”

“In the meantime, mind if we come in?”

“Go right ahead.” I led the two back down to my basement so they could take a sit-down break, although later Super Leo was playing against me in a game of 9-ball while Super C bowled a few frames. After getting a turkey to conclude, he waited for Super Leo to sink the 9-ball and win (which he did) before he said to me, “Oh, by the way, I wanted your basement to be considered part of the G-52 H.Q. alongside Dark Wolf’s underground area of the castle he lives in, which connects to here. We spend a lot of time down here with you anyway. I wanted your approval or rejection of that idea.”

“No, I don’t reject it; I approve it,” I said. “I enjoy having friends over here; I love to talk to them and hang out with them. I guarantee you I wouldn’t enjoy a solo career in the music industry; I’d rather be one of six as I am with Furry Fury. I don’t know if you’re interested or not, but we just released our first greatest hits album, and people are buying it for the included new bonus track, which has me duet with David Satterfield. He was pumped up for that.”

“I usually buy your albums,” Super C replied, “so I’ll be on the lookout for that.”

“I’m more of a blues type,” Super Leo added, “but you sometimes do blues tunes, so I’ll definitely buy it, too.”

“Great.”

“I’m still impressed you defeated Bendraqi in your sleep. Nobody’s ever done that before.”

“I’m still not sure how I did it. There may be times where I can fake being sleep, but this was genuine. Has it ever happened to you?”

“Nope, not us. We’re always awake when fighting Bendraqi. I’ve had crazy dreams, though; the weirdest one had Maximum Mighty Melt putting tollbooths at every entrance and exit, and charging people to enter and leave. It didn’t stop people from shelling out the cash to eat there.”

“That is a weird dream,” Super C agreed. “I often wonder how our imaginations come up with those. Luckily we won’t have to pay a toll to go there, and it’s naturally where I was going to suggest we meet.”

“Sounds good to us,” Super Leo and I agreed. We contacted the others, some of which had returned from their own superhero duties, and they agreed; it’s our favorite place to go, and the public even deems it the “official restaurant endorsed by the G-52s.” We’ve done that before.

Our smiles never left us as wet met to eat lunch at the city’s fast food phenomenon that was quickly becoming a global one, and was bound to leave McDonald’s™ in the dust.

THE END

---

UN1024s and all associated belong to  chuong and used with permission
D-19 and all associated belong to  16weeks and used with permission
Noah and all associated belong to  zakavatarz and used with permission

Batman (C) DC Comics