The Moderator Saga: Showdown With Brock Samson

“She could still come back to life,” the Dominator proposed to Dreamcatcher Kokopelli Foxglove, even as Meggan Foxxx’s headless corpse collapsed onto the ground. “The Moderator could choose to delete your mother’s death –”

“But only if Dream makes a deal with the devil, and switches sides,” Yuki Shiro correctly guessed the rest of the Dominator’s proposal, as Dream continued to stare, wide-eyed and slack-jawed, at his mother’s lifeless body.

The Dominator nodded curtly to the SPAM Agents standing directly beside Yuki, and she suddenly found herself swarmed by them and their teammates, whose superior numbers she could have overcome handily, if only her systems had been fully online and functioning optimally. “I just didn’t want you to get distracted,” the Dominator smirked at Dream, as Yuki fought to free herself from the grip of the dozen or more SPAM Agents who were dragging her away.

CrazySugarFreakBoy’s! lower left eyelid began to twitch. “I have an offer of my own,” he mumbled, nearly inaudibly, in a numb voice, his face still blank and unreadable.

The Dominator sighed impatiently. “This is not a negotiation –”

“And this offer is not for you,” CrazySugarFreakBoy! finally lifted his head to meet the Dominator’s gaze, before switching to his best broadcast announcer’s voice to address the dozens, if not hundreds, of SPAM Agents who had their weapons trained on him. “Everybody who throws down their weapons, and walks away? Gets to live. Everybody who comes at me, or comes between me and the Dominator? Dies.” The bright colors of his Impossibilitium body and Silly Suit almost appeared to be … darkening … deepening … shifting to the more extreme ends of the spectrum. “And that’s my offer,” he shrugged. “That’s my promise.”

“Bullshit,” the Dominator scoffed, even as the SPAM Agents closest to CrazySugarFreakBoy! took a step back and cocked their guns, and CrazySugarFreakBoy’s! colors continued to change, until fluorescent orange had darkened to blood red, neon green had deepened to bruise purple and day-glo yellow had shifted to raw pink. “You’re outmanned, outgunned and outclassed. Unless you accept the will, authority and order of The Moderator, there is literally no chance that you will leave here alive.”

“Well, then,” CrazySugarFreakBoy’s! eyelid twitched more heavily, as he tapped at the touchscreen face of his Walkie-Talkie Watch, “I guess all that’s left is to cue up the soundtrack.”

And then Muse’s “Map of the Problematique” started playing.

CrazySugarFreakBoy! ripped the smiley-face symbol off the back of his Silly Suit and whipped it at the SPAM Agents’ heads. The Frisbee-shaped Dizzy Disc moved with a speed and unnatural trajectory straight out of TRON, leaving wide, blinding light-trails behind as it sliced through the necks of a dozen SPAM Agents in an aerodynamically impossible arc, and returned to CrazySugarFreakBoy’s! outstretched left hand before the decapitated SPAM Agents’ heads had time to slide off their shoulders.

“OPEN FIRE!” the Dominator yelled, suddenly taking CrazySugarFreakBoy’s! threats very seriously, but by the time he finished shouting the words, the SPAM Agents had already started shooting at CrazySugarFreakBoy! in a blind panic. Not that it would have mattered if they’d aimed perfectly, because CrazySugarFreakBoy! was blurring between the bullets, which were flying at him as hard and heavy as a horizontally-falling hailstorm, and yet, not a single one could touch him. It was like watching him dance between the raindrops of a hurricane, without getting wet.

CrazySugarFreakBoy! flung his Go-Go Yo-Yo at the head of the nearest surviving SPAM Agent, winding its string around his neck like a lasso, as rapidly as a whip-snap, to swing him through the air with a strangling yank, causing his trigger-finger to tighten reflexively, spraying his surrounding teammates with a lethal shower of bullets. Another tug of the Go-Go Yo-Yo string twisted off the SPAM Agent’s head with a squelching sound.

CrazySugarFreakBoy’s! next victim barely had time to blink before he’d been snared by the Go-Go Yo-Yo and spun around to face his teammates, so that CrazySugarFreakBoy! could vibrate his left hand into the SPAM Agent’s back, grab his heart, and vibrate both hand and heart through the front of his chest. CrazySugarFreakBoy! then charged forward, using the SPAM Agent as a literal human shield, letting the body get blown apart by the other SPAM Agents, while his left hand grabbed his victim’s gun hand to return fire.

“In a distant time … and far away place … the planet of New Texas floats deep in space,” CrazySugarFreakBoy! hummed to himself, flinging the dead body off of his left arm as he reached around with his right arm to snap the neck of the SPAM Agent who was rushing him from behind. “Sky of three suns … land of precious ore … the Kerium rush brought outlaws by the score!” he growled, forcing another SPAM Agent to swallow a packet of Pop Rocks and a bottle of Rocket Fuel Soda Pop at the same time, then kicking him toward his teammates in time for them to be shredded by the candy shrapnel from his stomach-rupturing belch.

“Then one day, a lawman appeared … with powers of hawk, wolf, puma and bear,” CrazySugarFreakBoy! snarled as he sang, casually tossing homemade grenades of Rocket Fuel Soda Pop bottles and rolls of Mentos into the fray, scattering the already scrambling SPAM Agents into completely demoralized chaos. “Protector of peace, mystic man from afar … champion of justice, Marshall BraveStarr!”

The latter lyrics gave CrazySugarFreakBoy! pause, as he surveyed the field of a battle that was all but won. He’d kept his word. He’d killed everyone who had shot at him, or stood between him and the Dominator, but the ones who had dropped their weapons and fled, he’d allowed to leave unharmed … collateral damage notwithstanding, anyway.

“I must have been one hell of a supervillain,” CrazySugarFreakBoy! shook his head in hollow satisfaction, before turning to catch the Dominator’s fist in his left hand. The Dominator screamed in pain, as CrazySugarFreakBoy! slowly struggled to force him to his knees, by breaking the bones in his hand.

“GO AHEAD!” CrazySugarFreakBoy! shouted through clenched teeth. “FEED ME MORE ENERGY! After all, it worked so well the last time! This time, you might boost my power enough for me to CRUSH YOUR SKULL, like you did my MOM!” It was a total bluff, since CrazySugarFreakBoy! knew that trying to recreate his previous feat would probably cost him his other arm, but the Dominator’s shoulders nonetheless slumped in resignation.

“You won’t kill me,” the Dominator sneered, still defiant in spite of his defeat. “I’ve read The Moderator’s secret files on you, ‘good guy.’ You’re a card-carrying hero. Okay, so seeing your mom’s murder made you throw a little temper-tantrum -”

CrazySugarFreakBoy’s! left hand snatched the Dominator up by his neck and squeezed his throat. “And what makes you think my temper-tantrum is DONE?” he demanded dangerously.

“Because you’ve beaten me,” the Dominator spat out, even as he struggled to breathe. “Because you’re already starting to calm down, and think about what you’ve done … yeah, I can see it in your eyes.” CrazySugarFreakBoy’s! hardened mask of a scowl fell, and the Dominator pressed his perceived advantage. “And the ones who gave up? The ones who didn’t get in your way, or give you any trouble? You could have gone after them … but you gave them a pass. You did it because … it was the RIGHT thing to do.”

CrazySugarFreakBoy’s! resolve faltered, and he released the Dominator, who threw up his hands in mock-submission. “So, this is me, surrendering,” the Dominator declared with smug confidence. “You won’t kill me … because you’re a hero, and you could never live with yourself if you did.”

After a few silent seconds, CrazySugarFreakBoy! suddenly punched a hole straight through the Dominator’s skull with his left fist, then leaped onto him and began pounding at his chest and shoulders with both hands, before the body could even hit the ground. “I don’t need you to tell me who I am,” he finally addressed the corpse a couple of minutes later, his trembling breathing as loud and deep as a bellows, after he’d finished beating the body and howling out his hurt, “and I’m learning to live with a lot lately.”

“… Dream?” Yuki called out, having finally fought her way back to his side.

Dream wearily lifted his head to meet Yuki’s horrified, gaping gaze, as his extreme shades of blood red, bruise purple and raw pink shifted down, closer to the center of the spectrum, back to his characteristic hues of fluorescent orange, neon green and day-glo yellow.

“You missed the party,” Dream chuckled ruefully, before averting his eyes. “How long have you been watching?” he needed to know.

“Long enough,” Yuki winced sympathetically, patting Dream’s shoulder before she pulled him back up onto his feet. “Come on, space cowboy,” she led him by the hand, through the self-perpetuating series of explosions that he’d helped to set off in the first place. “We both have promises to keep, and miles to go before we sleep …”

Now the question is whether Yuki touching Dream's hand caused him to remember anything, or whether he remembered it all himself. Of course being all chaos all the time, and always deep in his own imagination, he may not be certain whatever he got from it was a dream or real. Faite can be annoying that way.

I guess it's up to him now to save the Lair Legion...

This one hit me like no other piece of your writing ever has. CSFB walking a tightrope between hero, villian and grim avenger!

Man. I'm still shivering...

A frightening display of power and the will to use it by a self-proclaimed supervillain. I wonder at what point does it stop becoming a misunderstanding on his part? Are we to take the SPUD agents as knowing accomplices of the Moderator, or simply as loyal forces protecting their nation as best they know how? Lots of opportunities for this to haunt Dream...

Impressive stuff... You usually focus strongly on dialog, but you can write full blown action and prose with a great deal of talent.

I see Dream's reaction as being more like classic Superman who had to kill in Moore's "Last Superman Story" than becoming the Punisher. There needs to be a scene where someone convinced Dream no to do the equivalent of walking into a closet of gold kryptonite.

There's a big difference between using the Phantom Zone Projector to kill an insane omnipotent imp about to destroy all of creation and offing cannon fodder before murdering the guy who killed your mom.

I'd say CSFB! had his "USAgent vs Watchdogs" moment.

Sometimes certain characters need to be absent for certain stories to be told, and had Doorman actually turned out to be Hatman I don't know if events would have played out like this. Nice job.

~Hat~