I AM COFFOLIO!
(Disclaimer: Impulse, Young Justice, and the JLA belong to DC Comics. I think Beavis and Butt-Head still belong to MTV.)
(A/N: this is the long-awaited sequel to Beaned. Inspired by watching some of my old Beavis and Butt-Head tapes.)
"I AM CORNHOLIO!" Beavis screeched.
Robin turned the sound down. "Tell me again, Kon, why we're watching this?"
Kon-El shrugged. "Cause I like Beavis and Butt-Head!"
"Yeah, but . . ." Robin looked over at Impulse, who was watching Beavis' antics with an eerily rapt interest. "Impressionable minds, you know?"
"Ah, he's okay."
Bart finished off the Sugar Crunchies—the whole box in one gulp.
"Uh, Bart, I don't think you should do that . . ." Robin tried to warn him, but he wasn't quite fast enough. The sugar hit Bart's bloodstream in one big rush.
He grabbed Kon's Starbucks cup and chugged 26 ounces of mocha latte without even pausing to breathe.
"Bart, don't do—" Robin said, trying to take the cup away from him. Once again, he wasn't fast enough to beat the Fastest Teen Alive.
Bart's system went into overdrive, which was not a good thing.
"I AM COFFOLIO!" he exclaimed in a voice which sounded uncannily Beavis-like. "I NEED COFFEE FOR MY COFFEE CUP!"
He jammed the cup upside down onto his head. A little mocha rivulet trickled down his face. He licked at it with his tongue.
"Bart," Robin said, in what he hoped was a soothing voice, "put the coffee cup down."
"ARE YOU THREATENING ME?"
If only the girls were here, Robin thought. They might be able to calm him down. But nooooooo, Mr. Maturity here has to bring his annoying cartoon collection! No wonder they couldn't wait to get away from this place.
Robin looked at Kon helplessly. "Do something!"
"Whaddya want me to do?"
"Well, turning that off would probably be a start," Robin said, nodding to the TV.
"I'm watching—"
"I GO TO FIND COFFEE!" Cup still perched atop his head, Bart raced off to who knew where.
"Oh, God," Robin groaned.
Kon had finally found the remote, and hit the STOP button. "He's gone?"
"We've got to stop him!"
"How? We don't even know where he's going!"
"I know where we're going." They got in the Super-Cycle and headed for Manchester, Alabama.
Unfortunately, that wasn't where Bart was at that moment.
He had decided to go visit his cousin Wally. Even though they didn't always get along, he knew Wally had coffee, and it might be easier to sneak it from him than to raid the local Starbucks.
What Bart didn't know was that the JLA were having their monthly meeting in Wally's basement. (Their moon-based Watchtower was being fumigated for space weevils.)
" . . . so that concludes this month's business," Superman was saying. "If no one has any further—"
"I AM COFFOLIO!"
"What the . . .?" They all looked up at Bart, out of uniform, his T-shirt pulled up over his head like a hood, standing at the top of the stairs and twitching like mad.
"Bart?" Wally said. "What are you doing?"
"I NEED COFFEE FOR MY COFFEE CUP! I KNOW YOU HAVE COFFEE! GIVE MY COFFEE CUP COFFEE OR I KICK YOUR—"
"Okay, that's it," said Plastic Man. "No TV for a week!"
"DO NOT ANGER MY COFFEE CUP!"
"Can't we just kill him?" Green Lantern asked.
"Not after the whole Marvin and Wendy thing," Superman said. "We can't have any more sidekicks disappearing without explanation anymore."
"Awwwwww!"
"I know how we can take him down," Batman said quietly.
GL turned on him. "I'll just bet you do! Don't think we've forgotten that little episode!"
"Bart," Wally said, "let's go upstairs and talk."
"GIVE ME COFFEE OR DIE, BUNGHOLE!"
Wally turned back to the rest of the team. "This is gonna take a few minutes."
He walked Bart into the living room and took the coffee cup off his head. "Okay, Bart, do you want to tell me what this is all about?"
Bart just sat there twitching, his eyes on the coffee cup. "I NEED COFFEE FOR MY—"
"Yes, I know, Bart," Wally sighed. "For your coffee cup. Care to explain why you're on another coffee binge after what happened the last time?"
"I MUST HAVE COFFEE, BUNGHOLIO!"
"That's it, I'm calling Max." Wally grabbed his cell phone.
"ARE YOU THREATENING ME?"
"You bet I'm threatening you! You're drinking herbal tea till you calm down!"
"NO WAY! THE GREAT COFFOLIO DOES NOT DRINK TEA!"
"He does if he wants to get out of this house alive."
"YOU HAVE OFFENDED MY COFFEE CUP! WE GO IN SEARCH OF MORE COFFEE!" Bart grabbed the coffee cup and took off.
Wally sighed. Well, at least the kid wouldn't be disrupting the meeting any further. He still had to call Max, though.
Wouldn't you know it, the line was busy?
"You call him," Kon-El said to Robin. "He's still mad at me for the last coffee-related incident."
"Me? You're the one who left a coffee cup out loose for him to get hold of! You should have known better—"
"You guys aren't fighting again, are you?" Kon and Robin both turned to see Secret hovering in the air behind them.
"Please don't fight!"
"Uh . . . it's like this." Robin explained the situation to her. Secret hadn't been around for the previous coffee incident, but she had heard plenty about it. Bart and caffeine did not mix. "Bart was watching 'Beavis and Butt-Head' and Kon left a coffee cup out loose where Bart could reach it. So he drank it, and went nuts. Oh, and did I mention he ate a sugar-loaded cereal before the coffee?"
"Sugar too? That's not good," Secret said.
"And now we have to catch him before he does some real damage out there!" Robin sighed. "The first thing we need to do is call Clark and ask for his help . . .."
"I AM COFFOLIO!"
"Bart?" Cissie King-Jones stared at her friend and former teammate as if he was totally insane. "What are you talking about?"
"SHOW ME YOUR BUNGHOLE!"
"My what?" Cissie was convinced that this was Inertia—that was, until she pulled at Bart's hair and confirmed it was really his own. "Bart, what's wrong with you?"
"I MUST HAVE COFFEE FOR MY COFFEE CUP!"
"Excuse me?"
"ARE YOU THREATENING ME?"
"Bart, I don't know what's going on, but I think I should call Max . . ."
"DO NOT MAKE MY COFFEE CUP ANGRY!"
"Kon," Cissie muttered to herself, "you are going to die for this!"
To Bart she said, "Let's get you some nice herbal tea so you can calm down . . ."
"I GO TO FIND COFFEE!"
"No, don't—" She tried to stop him, but he was too fast for her. (Especially after all that coffee.) "Oh, God."
"Okay," Clark said, trying to get the meeting back on track after that unfortunate interruption. "Next order of business is—"
His cell phone rang. "Sorry," he said. "Probably the wife wanting me to pick up a carton of milk on the way home." He pressed the TALK button. "Hi, honey."
"Hello, sweetheart," Kon-El said. "Look, we don't have time for sweet talk. Bart's on a coffee rampage!"
"I know."
"You know? How do you know?"
"He's been here already."
"Where?"
Clark told him.
"Oyyyyyyyyy . . ." Kon groaned. "That kid's gonna get himself killed—or us!"
"You can say that again," Clark said.
"Shouldn't he be running out of coffee by now?"
Not a chance. Bart was now hitting every coffee house on the East Coast, shouting "I NEED COFFEE FOR MY COFFEE CUP!" And if they hesitated for a second, he would add, "DO NOT MAKE MY COFFEE CUP ANGRY!"
"ARE YOU THREATENING ME?" he demanded of one shop owner who refused to give him a latte. (The fact that Bart had no money may have had something to do with it.)
"I will be if you don't stop harassing me and my customers right now!"
"THE STREETS WILL FLOW WITH HERBAL TEA!"
The owner grabbed him, but Bart vibrated out of his grasp and rushed out of the shop in search of more coffee.
"Kids," the owner sighed.
"THE GREAT COFFOLIO MUST HAVE COFFEE!" Bart shouted as he burst into the next shop.
A dozen uniformed police officers at the counter turned their attention to this hyperactive newcomer. "You okay, kid?"
"I AM COFFOLIO! I NEED COFFEE FOR MY COFFEE CUP!"
"No, you don't." It was Kon and Robin, who had finally caught up with Bart and were behind him with an emergency supply of herbal teas.
"ARE YOU THREATENING ME?"
"No, but Max will be pretty upset if you don't come home right now," Robin said. "Now put down that coffee cup and come with us . . ."
"DO NOT MAKE MY COFFEE CUP ANGRY!"
"I think now would be a good time for us to go," Kon said, grabbing the back of Bart's shirt and pulling him out of the shop.
Robin's arm pried Bart's mouth open and forced a Thermos bottle of herbal tea down Bart's throat. The taste of the vile mixture almost made Bart throw up—he hated herbal tea! "Hey!" he protested when Robin gave him a second dose. "What's that for?"
"In case the first dose didn't work," Kon said. "Now let's go home."
There was quite a group waiting for them at the YJ hangout. Cissie was there, tapping her foot angrily. Max just looked disappointed.
And there in the shadows stood . . . the entire JLA.
"Yipe," Bart moaned. He was in trouble now. Big trouble.
"Hi, 'Coffolio'," Max drawled, looking like he wanted to hit someone.
One guess who that someone was.
"Uh . . . I can explain . . ."
"Show me your bunghole?" Cissie snapped. "What's wrong with you, Bart? You never act like this!"
"Two words," Robin said. "Beavis and Butt-Head."
"That's three words," Secret pointed out.
"Whatever. Anyway, Bart, you need to calm down. Let's get you some more herbal tea . . ."
Bart flinched and tried to hide from Max, but it was no use. The herbal tea went right down his throat before he could stop it. He gagged on the taste, but couldn't get rid of it no matter what he tried. "Ewwwww!"
"Now," said Max, "let's talk about your punishment."
"Punishment? For what? I didn't do anything!"
"Oh, no? Let me see . . ." Max ticked off the violations on his fingers. "Unauthorized coffee drinking, taking off without letting someone know where you were going, threatening people who didn't give you coffee . . ."
"Don't forget disrupting a JLA meeting," Wally added.
"I still say we should kill him," GL whispered to Wonder Woman.
"That, too." Max looked at Bart, who was slowly beginning to realize how much trouble he was in. "Well, Bart? What have you got to say for yourself?"
Bart didn't know what to say. "Uh . . . give me coffee?"
"Try again, Bart."
"Give me lots of coffee?"
"Try something that has nothing to do with coffee," Green Lantern prompted threateningly.
Bart swallowed nervously. "Uh . . . sorry. I can't think of a thing to say."
"Big surprise," Batman said.
"Come on, Bart, just drink the herbal tea and get it over with," Robin said. "Then we can all go home, OK?"
"But I HATE herbal tea—urrrrk!" A shower of herbal tea streamed down Bart's throat. He gagged on it, but that didn't stop Max from giving him a second cup, which, if anything, was even worse.
"YUCK!" Bart felt like he might throw up.
"Now then, Bart, do you have anything to say before we give you your next dose of herbal tea?"
"Yeah . . .THIS SUCKS!"
A dozen pairs of eyes glared at him.
"Uh oh."
THE (HEH HEH) END
