Principal Skinner goes to Winslow part two: Willie versus Hookwolf
Hookwolf took a great deal of pride in his work. He might not have been the strongest neo-Nazi around, but he was motivated, he was loyal, and he was damn good at killing people. Sure, he couldn't pronounce Reich like Krieg could (Reach? Rake? Rike?), but he was the best damn Empire cape on this side of Captain's Hill.
Which meant that when the other lieutenants teased him for running a sloppy, half-assed clown show, he took that personally.
"Goddamnit, Timmy, you're two hours late! What happened?"
"S-sorry, sir," Timmy said, catching his breath. "Got detention. Got here as fast as I could."
"Detention?" he repeated. "We're supposed to put gang wars first, education second! Just drop out like I did."
Well, he had been expelled, but he had earned that expulsion fair and square.
"I can't do that!" Timmy protested. "Mom will kill me! Besides, Krieg always says that education is important! I gotta think about my future and get into college!"
He ground his teeth. Krieg? He swore that Krieg said those things just to screw with him. "You don't learn a damn thing in college, boy. It's just partying and drunken sex for four years straight."
Timmy nodded. "Yes, I know. That's the future I'm thinking about."
Hookwolf thought about that, and realized he could have phrased it better. You know what, screw Krieg. What would Kaiser do in this situation? The answer was obvious. "Look. You're a neo-Nazi, got it? Do you know what the original Nazis were famous for?"
Timmy hesitated. "Genocide?"
"Organization and discipline." Well, technically those were two things. "Hitler learned those things back when he was a humble train operator, and you can bet that he always made the trains arrive on time." The man had been famous for that, from what he had heard. Apparently, trains were a lot more important back then. "He carried those skills with him when he was elected president of Germany, and made the Third ... Rike ... the military powerhouse that it is today."
Timmy nodded. "Yes sir."
To his side, Stormtiger and Cricket exchanged a look that Hookwolf didn't quite miss. Alright, maybe Kaiser and Krieg were better at making motivational speeches than he was, but he had his own strengths to bring to the table.
"You've already missed Madmob Monday, but we're counting on you to get here on time for Racewar Wednesday, got it? Otherwise you'll be holding back the whole gang."
Timmy hesitated, and gave him a pained look. "Sorry, sir. Got detention the whole week. Gotta write, 'Molotov Cocktails are not a part of my cultural heritage' a hundred times before they let me out."
"Of course they're a part of our cultural heritage!" he snapped. "Where the hell did they come from, Asia?" Wait, had they? Didn't matter. "Look, why don't I have a ... talk with your principal, explain that you have obligations that you can't miss."
Timmy's face brightened. "Really? You'd do that, sir? Oh, Hookwolf, you're the best!"
Hookwolf smiled slightly behind his steel mask. "You're goddamn right."
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The school bathroom is not my own personal Guantanamo Bay.
The school bathroom is not my own personal Guantanamo Bay.
The school bathroom is not my own personal Guantanamo Bay.
Sophia wasn't even halfway down the board, her hand was already cramping up, and she still didn't know what the big deal was about waterboarding.
"This is bullcrap," she muttered. Didn't the principal know how things worked around here? She was a goddamn superhero. She didn't have time to write lines on a chalkboard doing detention.
Besides, being in the Wards was detention enough, with all the autograph signing and posing for pictures with some of the most disgustingly cheerful people on this miserable planet.
She heard a door slam down the hall, and that was enough of an excuse to put down the chalk and do literally anything else. Outside, she saw ...
Oh my god, that's Hookwolf!
She couldn't believe it! Hookwolf was in her school, walking around in broad daylight! She'd had dreams about exactly this sort of scenario, where one gang or another would show up at school and she would have to change into her costume and beat the crap out of every single one of them. It was the sort of fantasy that got her through math class. And English. And history. And lunch.
She didn't have time to waste. She had a spare costume nearby for emergencies, and this counted. She just needed to get there, change, and get back before the Empire's favorite serial killer murdered anyone. Or ... after he murdered someone. That worked too. Yeah. Considering who was even left around here after school was over, there wasn't really any need to rush.
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"Look," Principal Skinner said, not bothering to look up from his stack of tardy slips. "If this after school job is so important to him, then he shouldn't start fights in school. It's not that complicated."
"It's not a job, it's a race war."
"They run races on the track team, too. That doesn't give them a pass to skimp out on discipline." He looked up at the man. "And discipline is a trait your son could benefit from."
The large, shirtless man gave Principal Skinner a look behind his mask that he couldn't read. "Son? I'm not his father, I'm his boss."
Skinner raised his eyebrows. "You are? That's great, actually. It means you won't be at the next PTA meeting." He might not be able to handle parents, he certainly couldn't handle the superintendent, and even students gave him more trouble than he wanted to admit, but he could deal with your run-of-the-mill fast food manager. "The door's right over there. Have a good day."
The man didn't move. "The last person who sat in that chair knew how things worked in this city."
"I'm not convinced of that," he said, moving to the next stack of papers. He had seen nothing to suggest that she knew how a school worked, let alone a city.
"You don't know who I am, do you?"
Skinner sighed, rapidly losing patience, and looked him up and down. "Judging by the fact that you've forgotten to put on a shirt this morning, I'm going to guess that you are either a homeless man or you're in a band." He reached into his pocket and flipped a coin off his chest. "Either way, have a nickel."
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Groundskeeper Willie had just finished mopping up the foulest puddle of puke that he'd ever laid eyes on when he saw Principal Skinner get thrown out of his office and pounced upon by a wretched beast made of blades and razors.
"Groundkeeper Willie!" The Principal called. "There's—ah—there's a wild animal in the school! I need you to—gah—deal with it!"
Finally. Willie tossed aside the mop, ripped off his shirt, and bodychecked the beast into the wall. It bit his shoulder and he headbutted it in the face. It clawed at his chest and he punched it in the gut. He finally had a way to vent his boundless rage.
"Is that all ye got, ye wee pup of a blender? Ye wouldn't've made it as a toy poodle back in Glasgow, ye shiny, pointy-faced son of a bitch!"
Principal Skinner pulled himself up off the floor and straightened his torn suit coat. "Well, it seems you have the situation well in hand. I'm going to see if I can still tie a tourniquet the way I used to. Oh, and if you can, get back the nickel I gave that homeless man. I won't be able to balance the school budget without it."
Right. Nickel. Like that mattered so much. Willie focused on holding the bladed beast in a headlock and tried to choke it into submission, because if there was one job more worthy of a son of Scotland than mucking out puke, it was tearing apart crimes against nature with his bare hands.
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Shadow Stalker pulled on her costume, a process that took much longer than it did in the movies. Cape, mask, boots, crossbows, check, check, check, check. Now to get down to business!
She phased through the door to the fake janitor's closet and prowled through the Winslow hallways. There was broken glass around the principal's office, but the old man was sitting at his desk doing paperwork as though there wasn't a literal supervillain in the school.
It was for the best. He would only get in the way. Though ... had something happened to him? His suit looked ripped in a few places that she could see, and he was wearing a really stupid looking bandana around his head that had a dark stain on it.
Principal Skinner glanced up from his desk and caught sight of her. "Hey! I thought you were serving detention, young lady, not galavanting around playing dress up with deadly weapons!"
"Hey! When I'm in costume, you don't know me, Skinner!" God, why the hell was the faculty put on the need to know list for her secret identity? It was worse than the PRT telling her mother.
"No, but I do know that you have lines to write! Now get to it!"
Shadow Stalker gritted her teeth and clenched her fists. "Sure thing." Idiot.
She looked down and followed the trail of blood and ... shards of metal? She followed the trail from his office, down the hall, and through a recently broken window.
Outside she heard the sound of fighting, and someone yelling in a thick Scottish brogue.
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"Ye lilly-blooded pipsqueak of a lamb-hearted poodle sniffer!" Groundskeeper Willie smashed his rake into the bladed face of the creature. "Why don't ye stop dancin' like a deranged terrier and make this a challenge fer me!"
Pieces of metal broke off from the creature, but the rake broke as well. Willie tried to shove the wooden handle down the thing's throat, but it barreled into him, scratching him up and knocking him away.
Panting for breath, he pushed himself to his feet and raised his fists. "Is that all ye got, ye blender faced badger? Come to Willie ... and I'll ..."
Take yer own advice, Willie, he thought, and stop dancin' like a deranged terrier.
"Ach, ye're right, ye ugly Scotsman," he said wearily, and he climbed onto his lawnmower.
The creature lunged, claws tearing up the grass, metal limbs grinding against metal.
And Willie ... Willie mowed him down.
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Shadow Stalker followed the fight, right up until she found Hookwolf—in the process of getting run over. The lawnmower made a terrible noise that was one part nails on a chalkboard, one part a cat being skinned alive, and one part Taylor Hebert's dead mom's flute being shoved down the garbage disposal.
Then the lawnmower expelled a vaguely human shaped pile of ground meat, and puttered out.
Groundskeeper Willie hobbled over toward it and looked down. "Ye still alive?" He was a bloody mess, but he was still on his feet, unlike the other guy.
It whimpered.
"Ye wanna keep fightin'?"
It whimpered again.
Willie nodded. "Thought not," he said, and he sat down on the ground next to what was left of Hookwolf and pulled out a flask of whisky.
"Wait, did I just miss the whole thing?" Shadow Stalker demanded, stepping forward. And did Kaiser's right hand attack dog just get his ass handed to him by the school janitor?
"Ach, don't be so surprised, lassie," he said. "I've been wrestlin' wolves before you war a wee bairn, and this wee pup won't be the last." He took a swig of whiskey and glanced toward her. "Ey, you finish yer lines? Ye cannae go home till thay're done."
"Oh my God, does this mask mean nothing to you people?"
Hookwolf made a sound that was probably a groan, but Shadow Stalker couldn't help but think of it as a chuckle. She turned and stomped away. This was turning out to be the worst detention ever.
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A/n Edited by Exiled. Skinner being confronted by the mob for holding one of their members in detention was something that happened on the Simpsons. He just yelled at them and they left. I hope I wrote Willie's accent right. I'm pulling a lot of it from all the Redwall books I've read growing up.
