I wandered down Nall, talking to myself. I was coming back from Casey’s 1st Not-So-Annual Halloween Costume Party, and wasn’t tired for what time it was...2:30 AM. I was pretty used to being up that late and walking around. I do it a lot when I’m not fighting crime, and going around as Hoj. There were few cars out this late, and the ones that did happen to drive by swerved a lot, and there was always this low hum, that sorta had a beat. I donno what it was, probably engine trouble, but that was Engine Man’s job to deal with, so I left it alone.
I looked up at the moon, and wondered where Adam could be. Then it hit me, I didn’t have a sidekick anymore. Adam is off somewhere, being controlled by Creatures form a planet other than Earth, and Condiment Cow got abducted by Cow Defender. I grabbed my phone out of my belt, and pulled my phone book out of another part of my belt. I looked around for a little bit, and found what I was looking for.
Sidekick Hut
When your regular sidekick has been
controlled by Creatures From a Planet Other
Than Earth, and your reserve got abducted by
Cow Defender, We’re here to help you out.
1-800-KICK-HUT
I quickly pressed the number into the phone, and an answering machine type thing answered the phone. It asked me to press numbers a whole bunch, and a lady finally picked up.
“Thank you for calling Sidekick Hut, will this be delivery of carry-out?”
“Umm...delivery.”
“You’re address.”
“Five, four....hey!! I’m not telling you where my secret hideout is. Just drop him off by the sewer at about...125th and Nall.”
“What are you? A Ninja Turtle!”
“Of course not! I am Condiment Man. I give condiments to those that need them, and defeat those that have many, many condiments, and won’t share.”
“Oh, OK,” she said, while trying to hold in a laugh, “so what would you like?”
“The best you got, one that can hold his own in a fight. One that won’t get taken by CFaPOTE, and...ummm...has’ta have his own superhero outfit.”
After a long pause, “Uhh...we’re all out of them. The best one he have that fits what you’re looking for is the costume part. But he has his own theme song!”
“I guess that’ll have to do.”
“K, that’ll be $12.95, and he’ll be there in about 50 minutes. If your sidekicks late, you get your next one free.”
“Thanks a bunch.”
I stood there by the sewer, waiting, waiting for Sidekick Hut to bring him. There wasn’t much to do, except stand there and watch the cars with engine trouble swerve around the road. It was pretty fun.
Then a car came by that wasn’t swerving, but had the loud rhythmic humming. It came up to the sidewalk, and this guy with a sock tied around his head got out of the back seat. He had on a regular tee-shirt, and jean shorts, a tie on backwards, and a necklace with a quarter on it around his neck. The driver of the car got out, and I gave him the money I owed him. He hoped back into the car, and drove off.
“So...nice necklace.”
“IT’S NOT A NECKLACE!! It’s a pendant...makes me invincible.”
“Uhh...sure. So...why do you have that tie on backwards?”
“Tie? I’m not wearing a tie”
“Yeah you are,” I point at the tie around his neck, “its right there!”
“Ha ha ha. Your pretty dumb for a superhero. It’s a cape.”
I started having doubts about the quality of the sidekick I had bought from Sidekick Hut, but I didn’t have much of an alternative. Although this new sidekick wasn’t quite as smart as Adam, he didn’t get taken by Creatures From a Planet Other Than Earth, and that’s always a plus.
“So what do you call yourself?”
“Stupendous Boy. I got a theme song if you wanna hear it. It’s called Stupendous Boy’s Theme Song, and it goes something like this. Stup-”
“Hey, this really isn’t the time, we really should get Adam back.”
“OK, I guess we could, but remind me later, you need to hear it.”
We started heading over to the KC Mart, which is about 3 miles away, to see if the CFaPOTE left any kind of neat Stuff behind from the time we fought them there. We arrived about a half hour later, and looked around the busy place. We checked everything out outside, finding nothing important. Only some maps of constellations of stars I had never seen before, and a hovering saucer. I decided that we look inside, and found an open door. As it turned out, they had a show of new kitchen appliances going on. We looked around the crowded room, and all of a sudden, I saw The “Waster”. He was selling, well, something, for the unbelievably low price of $39.95.
“Stupendous Boy!” I said in a loud whisper. “Look at that.” I pointed at The "Waster"'s booth. “He’s up to no good, I can sense it.”
“Let’s go check it out.”
“Hey, I’m the superhero around here. I tell you what we should check out. You say ‘K’ like a good sidekick, all right?!”
“Yea-”
“Grrr”
“Err..Uhh...K”
“So, how bout we go check out The “Waster”’s booth?”
“K”
“Sounds good, I’ll go in from the right, you come from the left, we’ll meet in frontof the boot, OK?”
“K”
“You’re getting the hang of it.”
We closed in on The “Waster”. People around me were thinking I was crazy, ducking behind boxes, peaking around corners, and doing somersaults across the intersections of the pathways. I guess all the people around me screaming, staring, and jumping out of my way let The “Waster” see Stupendous Boy, because he jumped onto his booth, and shouted, “Condiment Man! I have sold my invention to thousands of restaurants, fast food places, and common people tonight. They think it’s a new kind of microwave, that cooks food fast, but doesn’t have the drawbacks of a regular microwave.” He runs over to me, ducks down low, and whispers into my ear, “But it’s really just a neat looking microwave that sends out a condimentwave that makes all condiments in a twenty mile diameter (Note from me, Hoj. I put in the diameter thing because I’m tired of people always using radius. If you like radius more, replace “twenty mile diameter”, with “ten mile radius”.) be vaporized!! Mwa ha ha ha!!!”
I jumped to my feet, and clenched my fists. “You are so evil!!” I whipped out my trusty radio thingy, and radioed Alfredo. “Alfredo, Alfredo, come in Alfredo.”
A few seconds later, a worried Alfredo answered. “Yes Condiment Man, what can I do for you?”
“Call all news stations, fast food places, and restaurants. Tell them that The "Waster" has sold them a condiment killer, disguised as a really good microwave. Tell them not to use it.”
“Will do Condiment Man.”
The “Waster”, a little mad that he just let me tell Alfredo to get every place he sold his condiment killer to not use it, jumped up and shouted to the whole crowd, “If you want to see a superhero get his butt kicked, go to the top of the parking garage in ten minutes!”
The “Waster” walked off, probably to get his army of guys, and I stood there, thinking how I was going to fend off all those guys, when Stupendous Boy came over to me. “Why didn’t you follow the plan?”
“Because with you walking all normal over there, he saw you, and when he saw you, he knew I was here. Jeez, why’d ya do that?”
“But...”
“No. What’s done is done. We’ve gotta be on top of the parking garage in...five minutes.”
“Why’s that?”
“For the fight with The “Waster” and his minions.” “K”
We went to the top of the garage, and headed to the middle of the large crowd that was gathered there. I soon realized half of the big crowd was The “Waster”’s minions. This wasn’t going to be an easy fight. The crowd parted as The “Waster” stepped out in front of his group. I pushed Stupendous Boy out of my way, and struck a heroic pose. As I looked at our opponents, The “Waster” started counting down. “5....4....3.... 2....1...FIGHT!!!” He motioned for his minions to charge us, and I was immediately fighting about 15 guys. Stupendous Boy got one. I punched one guy in the face, then 14 guys punched me in the face. Then I punched one guy in the face, then 13 guys punched me in the face. I soon realized this was getting me nowhere, so I did a really neat looking backflip, and landed on the hood of a car. The guys ran at me, I didn’t know what to do.
When all of a sudden, it hit me. The Condiment Move That Can Knock Out 13 Guys Charging At You While You’re Standing On The Hood Of A Car, or The CMTCKO13GCAYWYSOTHOAC for short. I did some kind of flip thing, got myself sideways in the air, and spun long ways at their heads. When I hit them, they all hit the ground, knocked out. I hit the ground, dizzy.
By the time I got my balance back, The “Waster” was gone, Stupendous Boy knocked out his minion, and shouted, “I am invincible!” He walked over to the crowd, saying “Raise da roof, raise da roof baby!” while doing the thing with his hands.
“Hey, Stupendous Boy!”
He spun around, “What?”
“We’re outside, there is no roof.”
“Well...uhhh...oh.”
“C’mon, we gotta follow The “Waster”, he already got away from me once, I can’t let it happen again.”
“Well, I guess so. Did you see which direction he went off in?”
“No, I was kinda busy fighting those 15 guys.”
“Well then it’s a good thing I saw, he went that way.” He pointed to the west, and a little bit north, and a little bit down, right toward Japan.
I called Alfredo as we started to head back home, and told him to ready the Condiment Plane for another trip to Japan.
When we got back home, the Condiment Plane was all fueled up, and parked in the driveway. We climbed in, and took off for Japan. We got up to our crusing altitude, and I laid back in my chair, and tried to rest up a bit from our fight, and to get ready for the one that was surely approaching. I was almost asleep, when I heard the most horrifying sound. It sounded like the plane was tearing apart at the seams. The sound was coming from back in the condiment storage area. I jumped out of my seat, and ran back to the condiment storage area door, and whipped it open. Stupendous Boy was sitting back there, looking at all the condiments back there, and his mouth was moving. He stopped moving his mouth, and looked at me with a surprised look on his face.
“I thought you were asleep.”
“I was, until there was this horrible noise, it sounded like the plane was coming apart. Scared the crap outa me.”
“Huh, I didn’t hear it, guess I was singing too loud.”
“That’s what it was! It must’ve been your singing.” “Well that’s good.”
“No, its really not.”
After a few hours, we found a field close to Two Hand’s base and landed the plane. We stepped out, put the plane into inviso mode, and snuck over to The "Waster"’s base. We walked around, trying to find a good place to enter. We passed by some glass that slid to the side when it was approached, that would have been a good place to go in, but there was some more glass a bit behind that, so we continued on. After a bit more walking, we found an air vent a few feet above the ground.
“How are we gonna get all the way up there?” asked Stupendous Boy.
“Easy, I’ll just unscrew it with my trusty Condiment Flat Head Screwdriver.” I climbed onto Stupendous Boy’s shoulders, and started unscrewing the vent. After a few minutes, I decided I needed my Condiment Phillips Head Screwdriver...which I left back at home. So, I kicked threw the silly thing, and jumped inside, pulling Stupendous Boy in after me.
We crawled through the vents, looking into the different rooms, trying to find a vacant room to pop out into. After looking into 5 or 6 rooms, one finally didn’t have anyone in it. I kicked the vent out, and jumped down into someone’s office. I helped Stupendous Boy down, and took a look around. There wasn’t much in the office, a desk with some papers, a few chairs, some pictures of landscapes on the walls, and a window with a great view of a brick wall. I went over to the door, and was getting ready to open it, when I heard some talking outside. My palms started sweating, and my heard started pumping faster. I locked the door, and looked out the peep hole. A Japanese guy in a suit knocked on the door a few times.
“Uhh...who’s there?” I said nervously.
“It’s me, Goliath.”
“Goliath? Goliath who?”
“You don’t remember me? Then you should Goliath down, you’ve probably got a fever.”
“Uhh...yeah, that’s probably it. Tanks.”
I watched his walk off, and let out a sigh of relief. It’s a good thing the world switched over to English, or I would’ve been screwed right there. After I was sure he was around a corner, I opened the door, and motioned Stupendous Boy to follow behind. We crept through the hallways, looking for Two Hand’s office. We came to an intersection of two hallways, and went left, we took a couple of steps, when someone behind us yelled, “Halt!”
I froze, and slowly turned around. There was a cop quickly walking up to us.
“What are you guys doing?”
“Uhh...looking for the bathroom.” I said.
“Oh, well it’s back this way, follow me.” We followed the cop down the other hallway, to a door that had a pair of hands ingraved on it. “Uhh...it’s a secret bathroom. On a desk in there, their is an expensive looking hat that would surely be ruined if urine hit it, but it’s really a urinal.”
“Wow, I used to have an expensive looking hat that would surely be ruined if urine hit it, that wasn’t a secret urinal. I came home one day and found it ruined with urine all over it. I asked Adam if he knew what had happened, and he told me that some cop told him that it was a secret urinal. Sidekicks, geez.”
“Ha ha, yeah, sidekicks, ha ha.” he said sarcastically.
“Well, thanks.” I said as I walked into the secret bathroom with Stupendous Boy close behind.
“Uhh..CM, I hafta go.”
“All right, well take the expensive looking hat that would surely be ruined if urine hit it, but is really a secret urinal into the closet over there, and hurry, we hafta find The "Waster".”
“K”
Stupendous Boy walked into the closet, and relieved himself, then came back out with a ruined expensive looking hat that would surely be ruined if urine would hit it.
“Umm...CM...I don’t think this was a secret urinal, I think it really was an expensive looking hat that would surely be ruined if urine would hit it.”
“Hmm...I think you’re right. Put it on the table, and lets get out of here.”
Stupendous Boy was doing just that when someone grabbed the door handle. I jumped and rolled behind a plant, and Stupendous Boy put the ruined hat down, and started running over to another plant in the room when the door swung open, The “Waster” stepped in, took one look at the hat, and called his minions to take Stupendous Boy to the torture rooms.
“Condiment Man,” The “Waster” shouted, “I know you’re around here somewhere, come out now, or Stupendous Boy will die.”
“He can’t die, that necklace he has on makes him invincible.”
The “Waster” grabbed a radio out of his pocket, and said, “Before you bury him, take his necklace off.”
“It’s a pendant! *smack* Yes sir.” said the radio.
“I’m warning you Condiment Man, come out now, or your pathetic excuse of a sidekick will be buried up to his ankles in my personal torture chamber.”
“Yeah, that’s a real threat, he can just walk out of that death trap.”
“He will go in head first of course.”
“Oh, well, then I guess I hafta surrender.” I stood up, so my upper body was above the thin tree. “Come and get me.”
He walked over at me, and I stood there, waiting. When he was a few feet away, I pushed the thin tree over at him. The top of the tree brushed his legs, and a few leaves fell to the ground. The “Waster” got a confused look on his face, and turned his two hands into two fists, and swung at me. The foot that went forward landed on the tree, making him lose his balance, and fall on the floor. He appeared to be knocked out, so I stapled his shirt to the wall, and ran after Stupendous Boy.
I found him over a hole, dangling from a rope by his ankles, with a few minions filling the hole in with dirt around him. I told them The “Waster” has been defeated, and that they should surrender it they don’t want their butts kicked. Just then, a The “Waster” guided armored golf cart rolled past me. A side door opened, and the minions climbed in, leaving the tied up Stupendous Boy dangling there. “Mwa ha ha. There are explosives set up all over this place, you only have enough time to save your sidekick, or catch me. It’s your choice.” The “Waster” drove off, and I followed close behind. I was only a few feet away from catching him when we left the base, The “Waster” gave the wheel to a minion, and popped his head out of the sunroof with a puzzled look on his face.
“He was only a rental!!” I screamed to him.
He pulled out a remote looking thing, and aimed it at a guy about to eat a hot dog, smothered with ketchup. I grabbed on to the bumper, and was edging my way up, when he pressed the button. The ketchup on the guy’s hot dog disappeared, and The “Waster” started laughing maniacally. I looked over, and gave up running after The “Waster” to get ketchup on the guy’s hot dog, just in the nick of time. Then, the base exploded, and Stupendous Boy was everywhere.