Authors notes: I just want to say that the opinions expressed by the characters in this story do not reflect my own, thank you.

EDITS 12/11/2018: I've come back to this story because I've realised my grammar was utterly awful and it was riddled with spelling errors. So I hope to clean it up chapter by chapter in the coming days.

Enjoy

Plot: When a giant beaver dam is blown up in Springfield it releases an object that has been trapped since the beavers built the structure, a green, wooden mask. The Mask has found its way to Springfield where Homer buys it as a last minute birthday present for Bart but he doesn't know what he's letting Springfield in for because anyone who wears the Mask gains almost unlimited power and the drive to do one thing only, to cause mischief.

The Simpsons/The Mask

Things to do in Springfield when wearing the Mask

By TimeLordParadox

(aka Ross Pickering)

Prologue

Mr. Channel Six also known as Kent Brockman sat waiting for his signal to begin speaking to the public of Springfield. He put on his most cheery face which didn't really look that cheery. It's not as if any of those idiots out there care what he said he thought, most of them just want the sports results or if any celebrities showed themselves up in public recently.

He glanced down at his notes again, reading through them so he didn't have to glance down at them all of the time. The Springfield Isotopes had lost to the team from Shelbyville, he couldn't remember what they were called because after all, no one in Springfield cared about Shelbyville. Springfield Elementary is in trouble again due to lack of funds, no surprise there. Drunk driving is up 15% and the price of beer is set to skyrocket.

The last thing on his list was the destruction of a dam, beavers or platypuses whichever were the ones that built dams had built a massive one across one of the small lakes next to Springfield River. This meant the environmentalists were bad mouthing again. They were arguing that the dam shouldn't be destroyed for one reason in particular. Not because it might destroy beaver habitats or that it might cause a flood but because the dam actually helps the environment by blocking all the pollutants which came out of the local power plant.

'The Springfield river has never been cleaner then it has been for over ten years' they argued, while the boss of the plant local multi-billionaire Monty Burns said it ruins his so called 'eco-friendly' solution to the waste problem. Instead of hiring trucks to come in especially to take the radioactive material away, which would cost a fortune in fuel and would cause global warming, he said he'd hire mother nature to do the cleaning for them.

This gave an all round of cheers from Burn's supporters and to some environmentalists who's leaders were no doubt being paid off by Burns to shut up. But as a newsreader Kent Brockman wasn't allowed to say that, and why should he? It's not as if he'd get any more money for saying stuff like that.

The assistant began counting down as he finished reading the last of what he was supposed to say. The news opening music started. 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 and he's on. The lights became brighter so those viewing in TV land could see him.

"Kent Brockman, Channel Six news" he always started like that, "Tonight we look at the Springfield's Isotopes unlucky defeat against Shelbyville, also coming up! Shocking news as drink driving is up 15% and Springfield Elementary is in trouble again. But first…" He decided to get this bit over and done with. "… Local multi-billionaire tycoon Monty Burns is to oversee the demolition of the Springfield Giant Beaver dam which has made Springfield River cleaner then it's been in the past 10 years since the nuclear power plant first opened."

A picture showing the Springfield nuclear plant faded into view to the right of Kent Brockman's head. "The Giant Beaver dam was, up until now an area of special scientific interest to environmentalists since its appearance coincided with the appearance of the famous Green Headed Mad-beaver."

An artists' interpretation of the Green Headed Beaver appeared. It looked normal in every way a beaver should, or at least its body looked normal, because its head was green and a little too large for its body and sticking out of its eye sockets were two red eyes which bulged out as if they were too big for its skull. Its front teeth were also massive and jagged. The picture looked more like a caricature rather then an actual living creature, but that's what eye witnesses described about it.

Kent continued on with the news story "The Green Headed Mad-beaver appeared in Springfield a year ago when log removal companies tried to cut down the forests north of Springfield. It reportedly terrorised workers and eye witness described the creature as actually eating the tires of their vehicles. Some believed the creature was a mutation from the nuclear plant, others say it's a brand new species, others say it was just mass hysteria and everyone who was involved in the attack has since been placed in a mental institution. Yet the explanation of the dam was that the Mad-beaver created it to save its habitat from the hand of man."

"Booooring!" came a dull drone.

The TV was quickly turned over so instead of the channel six news the TV now showed a pile of crashed cars which were being run over by a huge monster truck, this was more like it!

Homer J. Simpson, a large, rounded –I hesitate to use the word fat- man is sitting down on a sofa, the remote in his hand, and an orange hard hat on his head. He looked bored but perked up when he saw the monster trucks on TV.

"OOOOoooh, monster truck mayhem" he cried.

"Hey Homer" came another voice, this one a little lighter "Aren't you supposed to check the safety things for the dam destruction?"

Homer gave a bored look and said, "Nah, I'll do it when I get there, Lenny"

"We 'are' there" said Lenny peaking through the hole in the tent where Homer was, all the action was going on outside and Homer was sitting in the construction workers tent watching TV and eating do-nuts "The dams going to be blown up any minute. Burns needs to know if you've done your safety checks?"

"Yeah, yeah, yeah, safety checks done" he said idly leaning in closer to the TV

Lenny unlike Homer was tall and thin, also unlike Homer he had a head of hair, while Homer was mostly balled with two strands of hair combed over as if no one would notice. Homer also had a small amount of hair above his ears which together looked like an M and a G which some found odd, but Lenny never asked personal questions like that.

Lenny left the tent and walked up to his colleague, Carl, an African American man to use the politically correct phrase, wearing an orange safety hat.

"Did he do the checks?" Carl asked.

Lenny shrugged "He said he's done them, that's all Burns asked for." He said as he placed his own hard hat on top of his head.

Homer was of course supposed to be the safety inspector for the plant and he must be doing a good job, because Burns wanted him to oversee the safety inspection for the dam break up. Though at the time Burns also muttered something about being cheaper and more expendable, whatever that meant, they didn't know all three were only half listening when he said it.

Carl and Lenny walked up to the podium where Monty Burns was ready to push the plunder that would detonate and destroy the beaver dam. In the far side of the clearing was a group of angry protesters who were still against the destruction of the dam despite them not being able to do a thing about it.

Next to the podium was the lake, a green lake that environmentalists always insisted was green because of the power plants toxic waste, Burns always insisted it was 'young hooligans relieving themselves in the river' and everyone seemed to accept that, especially when they saw a different sort of green waved in their faces.

Further onward was the beaver dam soon to be destroyed, it was a massive structure reaching for two stories into the air for no apparent reason. It was almost as if someone had started it and decided to simply keep going for the heck of it. This had caused the lake to swell to massive proportions to become more like a reservoir then a lake, and it was so well made that no water leaked from it until it overflowed.

At the opposite end of the lake over a small hill there was the power plant, its cooling towers steaming away. A pipe led down to hang over the lake. Glowing green slime leaked from its rim and splashed into the lake. The source of the pollutants the environmentalists had insisted.

Homer once went inside believing the ghost Slimer was hiding in it. "Ghosts have rights too you know!" Homer had insisted "he need a place to stay and the Ghostbusters went out of business years ago. I'm gonna invite him home for a beer."

Homer never found 'Slimer' in there but he did come out covered in green goo, which he thought was ectoplasm and would enable him to pass through walls. Though every time he tried, he'd hit a solid wall. He kept leaving a green slime trail everywhere he went, to his wife's annoyance. Some insisted he went to see a doctor, but this was two weeks ago and he seemed alright, though some claimed when Homer said "Talk to the Hand because the face don't wanna hear it anymore" there was actually an ear inside the palm of his hand.

Lenny climbed a short set of steps to the podium and informed Monty Burns that all was ready. Burns was a thin man with no chin, a massive over bite, a balled head and a body like Gollum from Lord of the Rings, but taller.

"Excellent" said Burns tapping his fingers together at the news. Standing next to him was Mr. Smithers his assistant who was always with Burn no matter where he was, Smithers was also Burns' carer because he did everything Burn's couldn't do himself, as well as the things Burns could do himself, but chose not to.

Burns turned to the crowd of onlookers stuck behind the chain link fence, some wore Green Peace T-shirts and carried slogan signs to demand they stop this at once. He'll have to pay someone to dispose of them at some point Burns decided.

He turned back to the green lake. The E.P.A. had said 'clean this place up or they shut the plant down', but they didn't specify how to clean it up. He smiled darkly, it was much too expensive for him to get a clean up crew to do all the work, he could afford it naturally but he was a great believer in 'the cheapest ways are always the best', because it meant you spent less money. It was much easier and cheaper to destroy the dam and let Mother Nature take his waste away. After all it's all she is good for these days, handling humanities waste.

He reached out for the plunger and got ready to press it down. "And now the moment we've all been waiting for" he said revelling in the screams of protest from the crowd behind the fence. He put all his strength into it and pushed. But the stubborn thing refused to move. He tried harder, but no it still won't move. Come on, you stupid thing, he thought to himself "You think you can do this to Monty Burns you have another thing coming." He tried climbing on top of it, still nothing. Even jumping up and down wasn't moving it.

Panting and out of breath, Burns gave up and gestured to his assistant Mr. Smithers to push the plunger for him. Which he managed with little effort. As the plunger went down a soft escape of air from the plunger box told them it had been pressed all the way down… but nothing happened.

BANG!

An explosion rang out but the dam was still standing in place. Everyone looked at where the explosion had come from. There was a small crater where a couple of trucks containing spare sticks of dynamite had been parked up. Burns looked down at the plunger and saw the wires that connected it to the dynamite. He watched the wires disappear over the podium and snake their way over to where the trucks had been. His face went from surprise to genuine fury.

"Who planted those charges?" Burns demanded.

From the construction tent Homers head appeared. "WILL YOU KEEP IT DOWN!" he shouted "PEOPLE ARE TRYING TO WATCH TV."

Burns looked wide eyed as Homer disappeared back inside the tent. "Smithers, who was that man?"

"Homer J. Simpson sir, one of your employees from sector 7G" he replied.

"Simpson, eh?" Burns replied "What's he doing here?"

"Simpson was supposed to perform safety checks sir, on the site"

"Hmm. You do get what you pay for," his voice took on a more dark tone as he said that. A couple of trucks may have been destroyed but that was no big loss "At least the dam is demolished" he added.

"Sir, the dam didn't blow up"

"Didn't it?" Burns said looking surprised at Smithers.

"No only the dynamite trucks exploded" he explained "The dams still standing."

"Oh, curse these damn cataracts!" he said rubbing his eyes for a moment.

When he was satisfied he could see more clearly he went over to the dam and vented his fury on it, kicking it and slamming his arms into it, and even went as far as to try to lift one of the heavy logs away. all to no avail his aged old body was much too weak. Burns took a few steps back and turned panting to Smithers.

"Smithers" he said as he lay down on the floor clearly out of breath "Carry on."

"Yes, sir" Smithers said but before he could do anything he noticed a small stone had fallen from the dam to the wet ground. He looked up at where it had come from, at first nothing. Everything was calm, except the birds in the trees had suddenly decided to fly away all at once and small woodland critters scampered away to safety. A low rumbling had started up, then the entire dam started to shake apart. The logs began parting and the green lake started to come through.

Everyone below started running away as the dam fell apart and the water broke through. They all climbed to higher ground as the raging torrent followed them, they just made it.

"That was a close one sir" said Smithers dusting down his aged boss.

But one man hadn't made it, he came floating across screaming for help. His body began changing shape in the toxic waste, his nose grew to seven times its size and multiple arms sprang from his torso. Eyes also began appearing everywhere over his body.

"Smithers" Burns said turning to his colleague.

"Yes, sir?"

"Send that man an apology card?" he said "In fact no, don't send it to him, I'm not paying those postage prices. In fact forget the card just leave him a note with the word sorry at his work station"

"Sir, I don't think he'll survive this" Smithers said looking on.

"Eh, well forget the whole thing then, save us the paper."

With the show over everyone turned to leave, all the debris from the dam would float down into the Springfield River and from there it was out of their hands and into someone else's.

Small bits of rotting wood were covered in glowing gunk from the lake as they were carried along by the river. But if anyone looked hard enough they would see a piece of wood which wasn't glowing at all. It had once been part of the dam, sealed away from man for so long, but now it was loose again.

The object was in the shape of a mask, a mask with flaking green paint on it and a metal bar running down the centre of its face, it was also the only object to be covered in the green gunk and not glow. The odd artefact floated down the river with the rest of the debris, down towards the town of Springfield.

To Be Continued...