In this chapter, Homestar Runner is going to get arrested! Oh no! It looks as if somebody framed him.

That person happens to be Homeschool Winner. And yes, he's kind of an obscure Homestar character. Still, I figured I would use him as the villain. Because why not?

Chapter 4: Homestar Prisoner

It was a seemingly peaceful night, and it was a full moon outside.

Strong Sad slept in bed, dreaming about Strong Bad giving him one of his comic books.

That of course would probably only happen in his dreams, as many comic books that his older brother possessed.

Strong Mad was also sleeping. For once he wasn't...mad.

As he slept, he snored.

Strong Bad was dreaming about him being the strongest man in town...which wasn't exactly the truth.

Coach Z slept in his bedroom...there were posters of basketball players in his room.

One of them was the late Kobe Bryant. How he missed him.

Unfortunately, this particular night, something bad would happen to the King of Town.

Homeschool Winner dressed up as Homestar Runner and went to the King Of Town's castle.

The King of Town was getting ready for bed.

"I'm sure that nothing bad will happen to me tonight! I'm sure, I'm sure!" cheered the king.

Homeschool Winner had a wide, evil grin on his face.

"I would love to see the look on Homestar Runner's face when the cops come to him..." remarked Homeschool Winner.

He would let out an evil chuckle...but that would increase the chances of him being discovered.

Homeschool carefully sneaked his way past the Poopsmith, who was shoveling a pile of manure...as usual. Sometimes Poopsmith wondered if he should get a better job. But the King of Town at least seemed to respect him.

Fortunately for Homeschool, he did not step in it.

The man wondered for a moment if he had heard something.

But he assumed it was only his imagination...which was a mistake.

Afterwards, Homeschool used his password cracking device on the king's safe.

The password in question happened to be Butter.

"How did I know that was going to be the password?" asked Homeschool Winner. The King of Town ALWAYS put butter on his toast, and he loved buttermilk pancakes. Perhaps he didn't even need that password cracker.

Now that there was nothing stopping him from entering the King's vault, he pulled out a massive loot bag and began to loot the king's treasure. He was lucky that the king of Town didn't have the best security systems...even though the amount of gold in his vault was simply astounding.

He left, again being careful not to alert the Poopsmith.

It was a good thing he was strong as he was or he wouldn't be able to carry the loot out of the castle.

Fortunately for him, he still didn't know what was going on.

The next day...

The King Of Town woke up from his slumber. He had dreamed about participating in an eating contest.

In the process, he almost ate his own pillow after mistaking it for a marshmallow...but since he thought it was delicious he didn't care about that.

What he DID care about was what had happened while he was sleeping.

Just as he was looking at himself in the mirror, the Poopsmith burst into the room.

"Poopsmith? What is it? Are you here to see my underpants?" asked the King of Town.

Poopsmith shook his head.

"Well then, why are you here?" asked the king.

Poopsmith pulled out a note. He didn't want to break his vow of silence...but he also wanted to tell the King of Town the horrible event that had occurred.

The King of Town read the note.

His jaw dropped.

"What? Somebody robbed me? Why?!" shouted the King Of Town.

He checked on the grill where The Cheat lived in, but he realized that he would not have a place to hide the stolen treasure. And with his small size, he would have a very hard time carrying the amount that had been stolen.

Unfortunately, the Cheat had been sleeping at the time of the robbery.

"Poopsmith? Do you know anything about who did this? And you have an alibi?" asked the King Of Town.

Poopsmith handed him another note.

"You were shoveling manure at the time of the robbery? Well, I suppose that's a credible alibi." noted the King Of Town. He hardly ever saw him leave that pile.

Unfortunately, that meant that he did not know who it was.

The King Of Town then remembered that he had a surveillance camera in the event that somebody attempted to steal from him. He was always worried that somebody would empty out his fridge.

So, he examined the footage.

"Time to figure out what cold-hearted criminal did this." said the King of Town.

The results surprised him.

"What? Homestar Runner did this?!" shouted the King of Town.

He could scarcely believe it. Homestar Runner was renowned for what a nice guy he was. And he happened to be friends with him.

And yet, he had video evidence proving that he did it.

What made Homestar Runner snap? Was he jealous of the King of Town for all the money he got?

Well, while it pained him to do so, he was going to have to call the police.

Homestar Runner would have to answer for his crime.

Currently, Homestar Runner was taking a snooze in his bed.

Suddenly, Babs barged in.

"Whoa!" exclaimed Homestar Runner, his hat flying off his head for a brief moment.

"You're under arrest, Homestar!" exclaimed Babs, who was dressed in a police officer's outfit.

"What? But why?" asked Homestar.

"For robbing the King of Town's treasury! You've been caught red-han-er...you know what I mean." shouted the man.

"Funny, I don't remember doing that..." noted Homestar.

"Hmm, where should I put these handcuffs? You don't have hands!" exclaimed Babs. Perhaps he didn't think things through. Though in his defense, he had only been informed that Homestar had robbed the treasury recently.

"I don't know, maybe my feet?" inquired the runner.

Babs shrugged and put handcuffs on Homestar's legs.

He tripped.

A short while later, Homestar was put in a circle with an arrow pointing to it saying "DO NOT CROSS".

"What if I need to use the westroom?" asked Homestar.

"You'll get bathroom breaks every now and then...but don't try to escape or we'll whip out the baton." warned the guard.

Homestar gulped.

Strong Bad heard about what had happened on the news. He wondered how Strong Sad got to be a newscaster. Personally he was surprised that somebody would hire him in the first place due to his lack of confidence.

"Fortunately, the person who robbed the King of Town has been discovered. However, the person responsible may shock you." said Strong Sad.

Strong Sad pulled out a tissue.

To Strong Bad, it was a very pleasant surprise.

"Homestar's in jail?!" exclaimed the boxer.

He began to throw a party.

Balloons appeared all over the house.

"It's almost as if it's my birthday!" exclaimed Strong Bad.

"It's my birthday, but you never celebrate that." remarked Strong Sad.

Inferna showed up.

"Why are you celebrating?" asked Inferna. Last time she checked, it wasn't Christmas.

"Homestar's in jail!" exclaimed Strong Bad.

"Well, he was rather annoying..." noted the demon. Why didn't Homestar ever go to school?

She decided to join in.

For a while, it seemed that it was the best day ever.

However, the party was interrupted by the sound of crying.

Strong Mad was upset that Homestar was locked up.

"Why did he do such a thing?" asked Strong Mad. He thought that he and the King of Town were friends. Why would he ever try to rob him?

What was he going to do now that his friend was arrested?

Marzipan was looking depressed as well. She didn't take the news that her boyfriend was in the King's dungeon too well. While she had been sometimes irritated with his stupidity, he had never mistreated her.

Strong Bad attempted to make moves on her during Homestar's absence, but she always turned him down. Strong Bad was disappointed because Marzipan was the only girl in Free Country.

Oh wait, that was right. Things had changed.

Strong Sad was also crying, which surprised nobody.

The King of Town was upset, though this probably had to do with the fact that the treasure that had been stolen still hadn't been found, even though the culprit had been (apparently) apprehended.

Coach Z was playing sports much less enthusiastically than normal.

The more he looked around, the more he thought Free Country, USA was worse off without Homestar. Free Country no longer seemed so sunny.

Personally he found him annoying...but perhaps maybe he shouldn't be hating on Homestar after all.

However, it was unlikely that the King of Town would release him from jail, regardless of how much his absence affected the country. He had done something very bad, so he was justified to keep Homestar locked up.

Meanwhile at Homeschool Winner's lair...

In his fancy chair, Homeschool Winner was relaxing by the fireplace.

With him were his minions Preshy and Rafferty.

"How did it go?" asked Preshy.

Looking around, his lair seemed to be filled with expensive portraits that wouldn't be out of place in an art museum. And there was also a golden carpet in the room.

Perhaps they already knew the answer.

However, Homeschool Winner answered their question anyway.

"Excellent! The King of Town fell for my ruse hook, line and sinker! That fat idiot doesn't suspect me at all!" exclaimed Homeschool Winner.

"That's great! I'm so happy that Homestar is behind bars!" exclaimed Rafferty.

If you asked him, he thought he had it coming.

Homeschool Winner let out an evil laugh.

"Soon I shall become famous! And that loser Homestar will fall into obscurity!" exclaimed Homeschool Winner.

"But...won't he still be famous for robbing the King?" asked Rafferty. This is the first time in history that had ever happened, regardless of what the King of Town's security systems were like.

Winner sighed.

"Well, at least he'll be miserable." noted Homeschool. And he still wouldn't be as famous as him.

He sure wouldn't want to be in the King's dungeon, that was for sure.

Meanwhile as Strong Bad realized what a negative impact Homestar's absence was having on Free Country, Inferna showed up.

"Hey, Strong Bad. Why the long face?" asked Inferna.

"As much as Homestar annoys me, I'm starting to think that Free Country needs him." noted Strong Bad. Without him, Free Country was just Sad Country.

"What happened?" inquired the demon.

Strong Bad played a tape of Homestar Runner robbing the King of Town. Due to how popular Homestar was. the King of Town had played it to everyone to prove Homestar Runner's guilt.

Strangely enough, the loot hadn't been recovered. The Poopsmith was looking for it...which was a better job than normal for him.

He had checked Homestar Runner's house...but there was no sign of the treasure.

It made him wonder that Homestar Runner had done it.

But he had been caught on the surveillance camera, hadn't he?

"Funny, don't you think it's a bit odd how much planning went into this crime?" asked Inferna.

"Now that I think of it, it is! Since when was Homestar a criminal mastermind?" inquired Strong Bad. Yesterday he had yelled at him for trying to eat his piggy bank, which to Homestar tasted like bacon.

Could it be that Homestar was innocent?

If that was the case, who would want to frame him for the crime?

Based on how sad everyone was that he was gone, there weren't a lot of suspects.

And though Strong Bad didn't like Homestar, he knew that he wasn't the one responsible for framing him. At the time of the robbery he was busy playing video games.

Likewise, Inferna had been hanging out with the ghosts in the haunted house, so she had a decent alibi as well.

Could it be that Homsar was responsible?

He did happen to look like Homestar, so it was possible that the King of Town had mistaken Homsar for him.

However, he wasn't any more intelligent than Homestar was, putting some doubt in that theory.

Still, they decided that they would pay a visit.

When they interrogated Homsar, they discovered that he had been an eating contest at the time of the robbery. And yes, people had seen him there.

Furthermore, Homsar hadn't suddenly gained a large amount of wealth.

It looked as if Homsar was innocent.

Was there another individual resembling Homestar that would want him locked up?

Shrugging, they decided to watch TV.

They discovered Homeschool Winner was on TV.

Though Strong Sad was still upset about the recent turn of events, he was still hosting the news.

Apparently, Homeschool Winner was now very wealthy, and was becoming famous.

He now resided in a mansion.

Strong Bad found it suspicious that he got rich so suddenly, and around the same time that the King of Town had been robbed.

And now that he thought of it, didn't Winner look like Homestar?

"You don't suppose he did it, do you?" asked Inferna.

"Now that I think of it, Homeschool DOES look like Homestar. And neither of them have arms." remarked Strong Bad.

"That must suck. I wouldn't know what to do if I couldn't scratch my own back." noted Inferna.

"Probably does." agreed the boxer.

Inferna nodded.

"Either way, I don't think Homestar's going to survive in the King's dungeon!" exclaimed Strong Bad. There were some nasty crooks in there.

"Stop it! That tickles!" exclaimed Homestar to the rats that were tickling him.

"Good point. Perhaps we should investigate his mansion and see if we can find any evidence." noted Inferna. It could prove useful to acquitting Homestar.

"Doesn't Homeschool have security guards?" asked the boxer. Something told him that he did.

"Can you beat them up?" inquired Inferna.

"Of course I can!" exclaimed Strong Bad.

Inferna shrugged. She sure hoped that that was true.

The two of them set out towards Homeschool Winner's mansion.

Fortunately, due to the size of it, it wasn't hard to find.

Inferna wondered why Homeschool Winner was so greedy.

Didn't he know that money didn't buy happiness? Granted, King of Town seemed rather happy, But that probably had to do with all the food that he ate.

Perhaps he wouldn't understand that...

The only question was whether they would be able to find what they were looking for.

And unfortunately, it appeared to be guarded.

They were going to need to find a way to get in.

Yes, me making Homeschool Winner the villain was inspired by Pom Pom's Eleven. But his plans to get rich are somewhat different. And he won't be stabbing Homestar in case you were wondering.