“World peace,” said one member of the congregation.
“The dismantling of the patriarchy,” corrected a second.
“Puppies!” shouted a third.
“Exactly,” said Quetzalcoatl. “And I know some of you are also questioning just how and why things got so violent in the general areas I was inhabiting at any given time. The thing about that was, it wasn’t. You’re simply not opening your minds to their… openest. It wasn’t violence at all; it was performance art! The flames you see engulfing this city are the literal interpretation of our ideas setting the world on fire.”
“But,” said Hil, “isn’t that exactly the opposite way a metaphor is supposed to work?”
“Well, they’d clearly be expecting that, wouldn’t they? Metaphorical burning is so played out.”
A large portion of the crowd began nodding in approval. The ones who didn’t—Hil and Jill included—furrowed their brows instead. Quetzalcoatl noticed this mass furrowing and addressed their concerns directly.
“If that still doesn’t convince you to do what I say, just remember that I will kill you all without even a second thought.”
The furrowed eyebrow to raised eyebrow ratio shifted significantly.
“Where are Bill and Phil?” asked one particularly swift and observant member of the Quetzalcoatl fan club.
“Not here,” replied Quetzalcoatl. “Turns out neither of them could fly.”
The raised eyebrow percentage skyrocketed, as did the angle of the raised eyebrows in question.
“More importantly, though, gentlemen and ladies, is that gathering of people not on fire over there,” continued Quetzalcoatl, making his way to the far side of what passed for a room and pointing through the broken wall in the direction of the Eiffel Tower.
“That is a state of being that needs to be corrected.”
Seventy-Four: Probably Not, No
“That’s great and all,” said Thor, “but how do we kill Quetzalcoatl?”
“Violence?” suggested Phil. “I don’t really know.”
“Seriously, man? That’s your answer?”
“You’ve been at his side this entire time,” added Chester A. Arthur XVII, “and that’s all you’ve got?”
“Quetzalcoatl told me he once… destroyed a continent, but didn’t die. Then he drowned… without actually drowning. Immediately after that… he drank himself into a coma… without actually going into a coma,” said Phil.
“But, then, that was only his own… recounting of his history,” he continued. “All I know with… certainty… is that last week, no more than ten feet from me, I watched him die… at the sharpened metal hands of a squadron of murder-drones. Only Quetzalcoatl didn’t die. Instead, he… metamorphosed into… the winged snake god of a long-dead civilization.
“So, yes,” Phil concluded, “nothing is all I’ve got.”
“This is insane,” said Queen Victoria XXX. “Everyone’s got some kind of weakness, something that can be exploited. No soft underbelly? Allergies? He have a girlfriend or a daughter we can kidnap? A favorite teddy bear we can set on fire? Anything?”
“Even when he was being… straightforward, it sounded like he was speaking in riddles. Quetzalcoatl has no… allegiances, no… vulnerabilities that I’ve ever witnessed. I honestly don’t know what else I can tell you.”
“Uh, guys,” interrupted William H. Taft XLII, “Can you argue faster? I think Quetzalcoatl just found us.”
He pointed to the incoming waves of angry liberal arts majors and hobos crowding the avenue and stretching back to the horizon. It was like a protest march for animal rights, only instead of signs, everyone was carrying axes and guns and weaponized pieces of murder-drone.
“Phil?” asked Catrina, facing the other direction and backing up into the center of the group. “When did you guys get killer robots?”
She pointed to the dozen truck-sized automatons marching in from the other end of the street.
“We didn’t,” said Phil, eyes growing wide.
“Oh, this won’t end well,” said William H. Taft XLII.
Seventy-Five: Five Weeks, Tops
After the world was ended for the sixth time—back when the occasional society-decimating cataclysm was still considered a problem—a team of Army engineers set out to end the end of the world once and for all. After performing several months’ worth of math in several days, and drinking several dozen gallons of military-grade coffee, they concluded the most effective way to stop any future Armageddons was to hunt down and kill the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.
To do this, the engineers created twelve Horsemen of their own, each the size of a large Army personnel transport and resembling a Minotaur—assuming the viewer was either an eight-year old with an overactive imagination or eating mushrooms.
The Horsemen were over-armored, loaded with two of every weapon known to mankind, and programmed with a stripped-down, African-warlord version of the standard murder-drone programming. They were put through a rigorous, dedicated training regimen, but kept veering off-program and targeting live kittens instead. A few of the more even-headed engineers considered scrapping the program entirely prior to launch, but they were all mysteriously set on fire.
“I think I can… talk the philosophers out of this,” said Phil. “I don’t know what you’re going to do about… 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.