My First Adventure [Reminiscence Edition]

ACHOO! ... Yup, that was me.. I'm sick with a cold today.
You'd think that with instant healing abilities I'd be immune to this kind of stuff, but strangely, that's not the case. Granted, I recover from it quicker and it never seems to get as bad with me as it does with other people, but I can still catch it and give to someone else.
I actually graciously ended up sharing with my germs with my whole family just by breathing! I must be the nicest person ever.. *sarcasm* ACHOO! ...

Shout out and a helpful hint from the villains:

"Do NOT go crime fighting when your sick! We don't want to catch whatever it is that you got."

Sick heroes reply:

"Then take the day off.. Otherwise me and my army of germs are coming after you!"

You know, this actually reminds me of the last time I had a cold-- Not the last time I was sick, mind you, just the last time I had a cold.. I seem to recall it being a good 7 or 8 years ago. 

-QUE FLASHBACK-

Though I was sneezing and sniffling up a storm that day, I was eager to try on my new home-made super suit. Imagine for a moment: A brand new hero of 11 or 12 years- No powers yet, but a very shiny blue suit, happily wandering the sunny streets of Gotham City looking for trouble... It goes without saying that I found it pretty quickly. To be precise I was almost run over by a laughing lunatic in bad makeup, going 80MPH in a School Zone... What a dork!

I only just make it out of the way, thanks in part to a force which sprung from the other side of the street and knocked me over, screaming: "LOOK OUT!". We fell pretty hard on the sidewalk, in safety for the most part, but we ended up skinning three of our knees and a eyebrow, plus an elbow.

"Are you alright?" The black haired boy asked, looking at me. He was as dirty as Aladdin with twice the street-rat feel, but cute and about a year older then me. So despite having been well educated in 'Don't talk to strangers', I replied with a "Thanks for saving me, but my knee hurts."
I thought 'stangers' only applied to grown-ups... Oh ho ho ho..

Silly me. Kiddies, let me clarify: 

Don't talk to anybody you don't know, no matter how old, unless your parents are present and paying very close attention. 

(Rule not only applies, but triples in Gotham City)

You'll live longer, suffer fewer broken hearts, and even less social mishaps where you make bad friends and end up getting arrested. Why am I stressing this? Because Jack seemed like a cute enough kid; Harmless and handsome.. What I didn't know at the time was he was a foot solider for some gangster guy named Yellow Jacket. Very bad, bad, bad guy.

Anyway, back to my story:

The boy stood up with ease and offered to help me up, introducing himself as Jack. Not yet having a code name, I introduced myself by my real name- A name which I shall not reveal on the internet. The pain of a knee that has hit a cement curb pretty hard is one I have not experienced in a long time, but will not soon forget. I didn't want to stand on it. Jack let me brace myself against him as I limped my way up on one foot and resisted the urge to cry.

"Maybe you should get to a hospital." Jack suggested.

"No, I'd rather just go home." I moaned. Pain and a green nose are an awful combo!

"Okay, where do you live?" Jack asked. I pointed in one direction, but the first hobble that way made me realize that walking home was not going to happen.

 "Do you have a phone?" I asked Jack. 

 He shook his head, "No, but I know where a pay phone is."

"I don't have any money." I sniffled, feeling my nose start to run. As a little kid, I began to worry that I would be hurt and lost forever.

"I do." Jack said. What happened after that is pretty foggy because it was so long ago, but we did a lot of talking on our way to that phone- Which, I think, is when I figured out he was an orphan struggling to make ends meet by playing gang-foot solider. I don't think I took that as seriously as I should've. I mean, I knew it was bad, but I didn't freak out. I actually recall making a very innocent and childish offer:

"I'm a super hero, you know. I'm gonna have a team and headquarters of my very own someday. Why don't you become my second-in-command and live there with me? We'll fight crime together!"

Probably not in those exact words, but something like it... He was pretty little himself, so he agreed.

That's when the trouble started. 

Mr. Yellow Jacket's cronies found us and chased us around the city! Between Jack and I, we managed to outsmart them: Between pushing barrels on them, sneezing in the face of one guy who thought he had us, jumping over parked cars, and tripping another dude into the drink while we were passing it... We eventually ended up hiding in the phone booth we'd been looking for:

....Just kidding. While it did look pretty weird, it didn't look like that at all.
If we had found that one though, it might explain why my only friends are a bunch of aliens... Hmmm.. *shifty eyes* Jack passed me the first coin and I slipped it into the socket, waiting for the operator to pick up, but instead, a maniacal laugh sounded on the other end.

"Congratulations on finding my secret stash! You now have 24 hours to figure out what to do with this little gift, or else, bye-bye city!" It cheered.

And boom! Millions of silver coins spewed out of the slot and buried the two of us. "Hey ---! I think we're rich!" Jack cheered after getting over the initial shock. I grabbed one of the coins and turned it over in my hands. It was thicker then a coin should be, and had the Joker's face on it instead of a US President. 

"Hey, I've seen him before... He's the guy who almost ran us over." I said.

Jack leaned over and took a good look. "Oh yeah, he is." he said.

"So who is he?" I asked.

"He's called The Joker.. He's one of Batman's enemies." Jack explained.

"Perhaps it was stolen from the bank." I said, turning the small coin around in my hands. 

"Maybe we should return it!" Jack suggested.

"Good idea!.. They'll be so happy." So we gather all the strange coins into a wagon and start hauling it toward the bank. An alley cat saw us and yowled, then darted away as we passed. We didn't think much of it then, because it wasn't until years later that I realized:

-QUE BRIEF OVERVIEW-

ACHOO!!! As it so happens, that was actually the very first time I met Batman. You see, I tried to give the Joker Coins to the banker. He handed over us as many bags of gold as he could get his hands on, then fled in a cold panic. Being children, Jack and I figured that the Joker Coins were actually worth millions, so we went around the city paying people with Joker Coins- They all reacted with the same kind of excitement the banker had... We thought we really had hit the jackpot !
 I suddenly had enough to buy my expensive mansion and Jack, no longer needing money for food, announced to the whole world that he was quitting his work with Yellow Jacket.

What we were unaware of  was that earlier that morning, the Joker had challenged dear ol' Batman to a game of hide-and-seek. He hid millions of really tiny bombs in a certain place and had given Bats 24 hours to find and disarm them.. Batman had been searching for our Joker Coins all afternoon. He later discovered Jack and I had them and probably came to kindly confront us about it-- But when we saw him, we fled like guilty little robbers... Especially since we had been graciously distributing the Joker's Coins all over the city, in a way, doing the Joker's dirty work for him.

What?
Batman is a scary guy! And his serious ways of getting what he wants translates as cruelty to a young mind.
In those years I thought of Batman as nothing more then a straight-faced meany with a huge ego who kissed every single girl he came in contact with.... Catwoman (who Bats is inlove with), Poison Ivy (who kisses folks to kill them)- It made no difference to me. I was convinced that he wanted to kiss me.

-QUE IMPATIENCE & DESIRE TO END BLOG ENTRY-

Long story very, very short: He chased around Gotham City for a long time with unknown intentions as we ditched the coins at every possible turn we could, thinking perhaps he wanted them because they were so valuable.. It's humorous when you think about it.
In the end, the Joker was very sore at us for spoiling his prank [Trust me on this, he told me so much, much later].. but he could never find us.
We escaped never once coming in contact with Bats, who in turn got and disarmed all the Joker Coins. ACHOO!

Ironically, Bats and I would meet a few years later after I started the superhero biz officially, and the long complicated love-hate relationship between the always laughing, hyper-active, clutzy, small town teen and the stiff-upper-lip, "better-then-thou", dignified, city vigilante would begin...
But that's quite a different story.. And one you're gonna have to wait for.
I'm sorry this one didn't have more details, but I AM under the weather and it WAS a very long time ago.. I remember the next one much better.
Till then- ACHOO!!

Lloyd out!