them, though,” he continued, indicating the walking war-crimes.
“I can take ‘em,” said Timmy.
The Horsemen were successful in murdering the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. After a meteor strike ended the world for the seventh time, it became apparent that they had been significantly less successful in actually stopping any apocalypses. This made the Horsemen mad.
“Are you fucking crazy?” asked Catrina.
The Horsemen weren’t actually supposed to be capable of anger, but, due to a misplaced one in the Horsemen’s coding, they were able to work themselves into a rage on the same level as an old-money douchebag with an overdeveloped sense of entitlement forced to wait in a line of perfectly reasonable length.
“Nope,” replied Timmy. “Just awesome.”
The Horsemen went on a rampage and murdered half the world’s population. They were only stopped after Japan built a team of brightly-colored robots shaped like jungle cats. The Japanese robots actually failed to stop the Horsemen the first three times, but then they were reconfigured to connect into one other and given a great, big sword and then the world was saved. Well, eventually it was. The battle actually sank Japan and ended the world for the eighth time. But then, then the world was saved. For, like, a month.
Seventy-Six: It’d Take a Miracle
“OK,” said Chester A. Arthur XVII. “Billy, you take the scientists and go with Phil.”
“Sure thing,” said William H. Taft XLII.
“I don’t know what good… scientists are going to do against… righteous, riled-up writers and poets,” replied Phil.
“That’s why I’m sending Billy,” said Chester A. Arthur XVII.
“I… fail to see how that adds anything to the mix.”
“Let me clarify: That’s why I’m sending Billy and his rocket launcher.”
“Oh,” said Phil. “Right, then.”
“Hey,” said Judy, putting her hand on Chester A. Arthur’s shoulder and spinning him to face her, “who says you get to call the shots?”
“I do,” replied Chester A. Arthur XVII coolly.
“OK, then,” she replied, removing her hand from his shoulder and nodding her bag.
“Let’s go ‘talk” to these assholes,” said William H. Taft XLII, hoisting his rocket launcher.
“Can you try… not to kill them… if you don’t have to?” asked Phil.
“No promises.”
“Some of them… are my friends.”
“Man, that’s your problem.”
The president, the philosopher, and the scientists left the other president, the queen, the god, and the girl, and walked towards the encroaching horde of liberal arts majors and drug dealers.
“Alright, now, Timmy…” said Chester A. Arthur XVII, turning his attention toward the Horsemen.
“Already gone, bitch,” replied the telepathic squirrel from half a mile away.
“Right, well, good luck then,” thought the president in return.
“I don’t need luck, chump.”
“If you say so. When you’re getting stomped on by ten foot tall robotic sadists, don’t blame me.”
“Says the non-scientifically-enhanced human tasked with taking down an ancient, insane, robot-smashing god.”
“I was trying not to think about it in terms quite like that, so, you know, thanks for that,” answered Chester A. Arthur XVII. “Get out of my head.”
“With pleasure,” replied Timmy.
“Why is he just standing there?” asked Thor, pointing a thumb at Chester A. Arthur XVII.
“Maybe he’s strategizing or something,” offered Catrina.
“That’s not his strategizing face,” said Queen Victoria XXX. “That’s his ‘I can’t believe I’m being taunted by a rodent’ face.”
“He has a face specifically for that?”
“Yeah,” replied the queen with a sigh. “There’s also one for particularly contentious cacti.”
“This happens so much more than it should,” she added.
After a few more moments of arguing with the genetically-modified squirrel, Chester A. Arthur XVII spoke aloud again.
“OK, there are four of us and one of him…”
“That’s his strategizing face,” said Queen Victoria XXX.
“…so if we spread out, each take a compass direction, we should be able to track him down with a fair amount of ease.”
“Although,” he continued, “the giant robots aren’t his.”
“The giant robots blowing the living crap out of everything,” added Catrina.
“That’s also assuming he hasn’t just bailed entirely,” said Queen Victoria XXX.
A trio of burning prostitutes ran past.
“Shouldn’t he be holed up in a castle or something?” asked Thor.
“I think you’re thinking of Super Mario Bros., Thor,” replied the queen.
“No,” said Thor, “I’m pretty sure I read something somewhere about how they always made their lairs in castles or something.”
“They?”
“You’re thinking of a dragon,” said Catrina.
“Right…” said Thor, failing to see her point.
“He’s not a dragon, Thor.”
“Yeah, I know, but, he’s like a dragon.”
“OK,” said Chester A. Arthur XVII, “anyone who isn’t Thor have a suggestion?”
There was a loud bang from the side of the street—specifically, from a direction that did not appear to involve giant robots or a philosopher/scientist showdown and, in turn, probably should not have been making loud banging noises. Catrina, Chester, Thor and Victoria turned toward the source of the sound simultaneously, just in time to see Quetzalcoatl fly through the dust of a collapsing hotel and alight on the highest turret of the Excalibur casino. A casino that just happened to be shaped like a castle.
“Well, I’ll be damned,” said Chester A. Arthur XVII.
“Not unless Satan decided he was tired of not existing, too,” replied Catrina.
“That motherfucker just took down an entire building by himself,” said Queen Victoria XXX. “We are so screwed.”
“Probably,” said Thor, grabbing a flamethrower from the helicopter. “Let’s go find out.”
Seventy-Seven: Olive Branch
“Gil,” said Phil, approaching the militant crowd of philosophers and poets, “what are you doing?”
“Honestly,” said Gil, looking at the two-by-four he was carrying, “I don’t even know anymore, man.”
“Quetzalcoatl, like, he told us to kill you, man,” said Lil.
“Well, actually,” clarified Hil, scratching her head with the tire iron she was holding, “he told us that he already killed
“Or else he’d kill us,” added Jill.
“It was just bad juju all around, man,” said Gil.
