Strong Bad woke up slumped against the keyboard.
"Huh?" he muttered, trying to get his bearings. Then he remembered.
He'd been searching for an email that wasn't total crap to use on his email show. These days, the looking took hours. Today there'd been nothing but emails asking how he typed with boxing gloves on, what his parents looked like, how awesome it would be if he drew Trogdor again... And only one was punctuated correctly, and that one had managed to spell "your" as "ur." It was enough to make a guy bash his head against the desk until he passed out. So he had.
Strong Bad groaned, and started to type again.
strongba
He stopped. Something about his gloves felt strange. He glanced down.
"Wah!" said Strong Bad, falling off his stool. "What happened to my gloves?"
His gloves were gone. Instead, he had flesh coloured hands with four fingers and a thumb. Strong Mad hands. And now that he was staring at the ceiling, Strong Bad realised that he could see far more detail than usual. There was a bug trapped in one of the lights, and the ceiling looked dirtier than usual.
Strong Bad stood up slowly and carefully, then angled his computer screen so that he could see his reflection more clearly. He saw a totally unfamiliar and frightened looking young man - a young human - with short, dark hair and green eyes.
Strong Bad looked around wildly. He was still in his computer room, which looked pretty much the same as normal. The biggest difference that he could make out was that The Cheat's lightswitch was missing.
He ran for the door, but it was opened by some guy in a hoodie before he could touch it.
"Who are you?" said Strong Bad, on the verge of panic.
"Uh, I'm Tristan, remember?" said the stranger, in Strong Sad's voice. "Have you been drinking soy sauce again?"
"Tristan?" said Strong Bad, staring at him. "Strong Sad, is that you?"
"Wow, you haven't called me that since we were kids," said probably-Strong-Sad. "Does that mean you're not gonna smear mayonnaise all over my CDs and put dog food in my breakfast any more?"
"No... Weiner," said Strong Bad, feeling a little more comfortable. He was still totally confused and a little scared, but his stupid baby brother was still whinier than... something really... whiny. "Would you mind telling me what's going on?"
Strong Sad sighed irritatingly.
"What's going on is that we're going to be late for practice if you don't hurry up," he said.
"Huh?" said Strong Bad. "No, I mean, why am I not a hot, awesome guy with boxing gloves for hands and a wrestling mask for a face?"
"What?" said Strong Sad.
"And why aren't you a fat grey loser with elephant legs and soft serve flip?" continued Strong Bad.
"Geez Dan, you sure have an active fantasy life," said Strong Sad.
"Dan?" said Strong Bad. His name was Dan now? This was too much. "Shut up! Leave me alone!"
"Okay, fine," said Strong Sad, turning to leave. "But Coach Z says you and Carlos are off the team if you miss another practice."
Strong Bad watched him go, thinking hard. Was he just going crazy? He'd hit his head really hard earlier... If that had really happened. His head still ached, so it probably had.
"Maybe I should go to that practice thing," he muttered. "Coach Z might..."
He stopped talking to himself when he remembered that Coach Z never knew what was happening. After a bit more thought, Strong Bad decided to go anyway. Didn't sports teams have like, cheerleaders and stuff? He was sure that there were cheerleaders in towns with more than one girl. Going sounded like a good idea on those grounds.
-
Strong Bad surveyed the disappointingly hot girl-less field in front of him. Walking through the streets had been a surreal experience for him. Normally, Free Country USA had no streets. There wasn't a lot of point when there were only three houses that existed the whole year round. But on that walk, Strong Bad had seen more houses than he had in his life. Not even Downtown Pantsburg or Historic Over There had been that suburban looking. The construction worker who'd stared at him until he was out of sight had worried him as well. The man had looked suspicously like the Poopsmith. Still, at least the athletics field looked the same, if Strong Bad ignored the houses clustered around it. And it stank the same, too. Or maybe that was just Strong Mad.
Strong Mad was Carlos, apparently. He didn't seem to remember the way things should've been either, but with Strong Mad, who could tell?
"So uh, what sport are we supposed to be playing here?" Strong Bad asked him.
"THE SPORT!" replied Strong Mad, then repeated himself in case Strong Bad hadn't heard. "THE SPORT!"
"Uh, okay," said Strong Bad.
There were a few other people standing around, all of whom looked like idiots. There was a guy with a familiar star shirt and a familiar idiotic expression, a bored looking girl wearing Marzipan's dress, a little weirdo who defied description, and a muscular guy Strong Bad couldn't figure out the identity of. Pom Pom probably. Who else would hang out with those losers?
"Seriously, you guys, I think this is gonna be the best game ever," said Homestar.
"Do you even remember what position you play?" said Pom Pom, not in bubbles.
"Yes," said Homestar indignantly. "Obviously. I play, uh..." he lowered his voice. "What position do I play again?"
"You're the Homestar Runner, remember?" said Marzipan.
Figured.
"Okay then," said a man who was definitely Coach Z. Strong Bad hoped that nobody else would wear a tracksuit in that shade of green. Or manage to pronounce "then" as "thorn". "Let's uh, let's get started."
"Hey, Coach," said Strong Bad, tapping him on the shoulder. "What the crap is going on?"
"Oh, hey Dan!" said Coach Z, turning to face him. "I didn't see ya there."
Not him, too.
"Look, my name is not Dan," said Strong Bad, clenching his fists. "I don't know why you guys think it is, but—"
"Well, what is it this week?" interrupted Strong Sad. "Sir Hotbod Handsomeface? Professor Tor Coolguy?"
"No!" said Strong Bad. "It's Stron— Look, this is obviously a really crappy dream, so I'm just gonna... sit over there until it finishes."
Strong Bad started to walk away. Then he stopped.
"Oh, wait."
He punched Strong Sad in the gut, then walked away.
"What's the matter with him?" said Coach Z.
"He's a sight for a three legged chimney sweep!" said Homsar.
"Shut up, little man," said Homestar.
-
Strong Bad sat on the curb and yawned.
"Gotta wake up so I can do that exciting... email thing... I do... that's exciting..." he mumbled.
He slapped an ant that had crawled onto his leg, and waited to wake up. He was starting to wonder if it he really was dreaming. his dreams usually had many more hot ladies, and much less Strong Sad and Coach Z. Turned generic. Strong Bad turned around to look at Homestar, who was doing what he did best and prancing around like an idiot. If he was dreaming, Homestar should be spontaneously combusting right about... now.
Homestar continued to run around like a moron. He wasn't even on fire. Or smoking a little. Well. Maybe Strong Bad wasn't dreaming. Maybe he'd made up the way things were before and somehow come to believe it. It wouldn't be the first time. And besides, he realised now that it wasn't possible to type with boxing gloves, or pick things up with no hands, or for Strong Sad to still be alive after that incident with the blender... And what kind of a name was "Strong Bad," anyway? It sounded like something from a poorly translated video game. His name was Dan. Yeah.