Ty had been unable to get a full night’s sleep the night before. He barely had enough energy to get dressed that morning. This was only worsened by the fact that he couldn’t get his caffeine fix. He looked like a mess, with his hair uncombed and his tie crooked, but he didn’t really care. He tapped the touch-screen on the table, bringing up his email inbox. To his dismay, the inbox was flooded with new messages. Ty really didn’t want to answer any of them. For a second, he considered just going back to bed.
Just then, Ty’s communicator rang in his ear. He pressed the button on the earpiece.
“Ty, you there?” Deejay’s voice asked.
“Yeah,” Ty said groggily. “What is it?”
“What the hell’s goin’ on? Are you seeing this?”
“Seeing what?”
“Go look out your window.”
Ty stood up and walked over to the window. Outside, he saw hundreds of bizarre alien spacecraft hovering around the Citadel. The entire sky seemed to be full of these ships, and they all had their weapons trained on the Citadel.
“…Shit,” Ty said, bewildered.
“Yeah, that’s what I said,” Deejay responded. “You know what they want?”
“No idea. I’ve never seen ships like that before. They haven’t tried to make contact yet, have they?”
“I dunno.”
“Well, come up here to the boardroom, and tell Malus to come, too. Let’s figure out what they want.”
“’Kay. See you in a minute. Peace.”
Deejay ended the call. Ty sat back down at the table and looked at his inbox again. He realized that most of the messages were about the strange ships. Ty sent a short global message to everyone in the city:
Stay inside. I’ll take care of it.
Best Regards, Ty
He sighed and began massaging his temples.
“How did I know today was going to suck?”
Deejay came back to the boardroom a minute later, along with Malus. Malus was wearing his black gakuran jacket, his demonic wings folded up underneath. He had gotten into the habit of wearing the jacket whenever he might be meeting someone new, as most people found the wings a little unsettling. Similar to his shirt, he’d put a white Chinese dragon design on the back of the jacket. No one had the heart to tell him how ridiculous it is to put a Chinese dragon on a Japanese jacket.
Once the three of them were assembled in the boardroom, Ty tried sending a message to the ships outside. The message was a radio signal with the phrase “Welcome to Utopia. Please state your reason for visiting,” translated into a few different languages; some human, some distinctly alien. The three sat at the table in uneasy silence, waiting for a response.
A minute later, one of the ships nearest to the Citadel began broadcasting an alien voice. The voice spoke in some alien language. Ty set up a translation program on the desktop to translate the voice into English text. The text read:
On behalf of our Lord Gorefury, we do hereby annex this land in the name of the Empire of the Shadow. You are ordered to surrender your land and beliefs, and adopt the teachings of our superior culture. Will you comply?
“Oh, great,” Ty said sarcastically. “Imperial warmongers.”
“And they call themselves the Empire of the Shadow?” Malus said, laughing. “Well, there is little to no chance that I’ll take them seriously now.”
“I’m with you on that one. They’re all talk.”
“You sure about that?” Deejay asked. “There’s still a hell of a lot of ‘em out there.”
“That’s all the more reason not to worry,” Ty said coolly. “They’re trying to make a show of their military might to intimidate us. If they were really dangerous enough to be a threat, they wouldn’t need hundreds of ships to scare us, they’d just have one really big one with a massive doomsday weapon. Didn’t you ever see Independence Day?”
One of the ships outside fired a warning shot. A single laser beam hit the Citadel wall, but had no effect. The energy shielding on the exterior of the Citadel just absorbed the blast like a sponge.
Ty laughed. “Wow. That was pathetic. I hope that wasn’t meant to scare me.”
The message broadcast again. On behalf of our Lord Gorefury, we do hereby annex this land in the name of the Empire of the Shadow. You are ordered…
Ignoring the rest of the message, Ty typed his own message in reply and had the translator play it back to the aliens in their language. On behalf of myself, I hereby order you clowns to get the hell out of my airspace. Will you comply?
After a few moments, all of the ships outside opened fire on the Citadel. Dramatic as they were, all attacking as one, their weapons didn’t seem to do much. The laser beams were all absorbed by the shielding, and the smaller projectiles just dropped to the ground, losing their momentum to the energy shield. The larger explosive weapons made a lot of noise and kicked up a lot of dust, but didn’t seem to pose much threat either.
“Oh, darn. I think I insulted them,” Ty said casually.
“Diplomacy is out of the question now. I suppose we have only one option left.” Malus smirked, then stood up and headed for the elevator. “To the arms room.”
“Looks like all that time you spent playing videogames is finally going to pay off.” Ty started toward the elevator as well.
“You guys are gonna blow them out of the sky?” Deejay asked eagerly. “Cool! I wanna watch.”
Deejay jumped out of his seat and ran to catch up with the others before the elevator doors closed. Ty pressed a button labeled ‘ARMS’, and the elevator began to rise.
The arms room was dark, lit only by the computer monitors along the wall. In sharp contrast to the rest of the Citadel, the computer equipment in the arms room looked like it was all taken straight from the 1980s. The left wall was dominated by a large closet with heavy metal doors. The words “ARMORY: For Emergency Use Only” were printed across the doors.
Deejay went to the main monitor at the middle of the far wall. He blew some dust off the keyboard and quickly typed something. Meanwhile, on the roof, two large panels slid open at opposite ends of the platform, revealing a pair of large metal Gatling guns. Each massive gun had a camera mounted on its sights, which fed live video down to the monitors in the room below. The main monitor then switched to a wide view of the area around the Citadel. Deejay then hooked up a pair of special control pads to the computers on either side of the main monitor. Ty took a seat in front of one, and Malus took the other.
“Hey, how about we make this interesting?” Ty said, turning to Malus.
“You have my attention,” he replied.
“I’d be willing to bet I can shoot down more of them than you.”
“Well, I always love a good challenge. What are the stakes?”
“The loser has to clean up all the wreckage afterward by himself.”
“Excellent. I accept.” He picked up the controls and took aim at one the ships outside. “I just hope you have no illusions that you will defeat me.”
“Funny, I was about to say the same to you.” Ty took aim with his own controller. “Ready?”
“I was born ready.”
“Good attitude, but bad cliché. Next time, just say ‘yes.’”
Both of them opened fire. The Gatling guns sprayed bullets into the crowd of ships. Before the invaders had a chance to react, they had already lost half a dozen ships, and more fell every second. The bullets shredded the smaller ships like tissue paper, and even the larger armored ships couldn’t take the continuous stream of projectiles without their armor cracking. Many of them caught fire and exploded.
Panicking, the ships ceased fire and began taking evasive maneuvers, looping and circling around the Citadel, but Ty and Malus had little trouble keeping up. A few ships started to retreat, but most stayed and tried to fight. Meanwhile, Deejay pulled up a chair in front of the large main monitor and watched the battle unfold.
The “battle” continued in the same manner for a good two minutes. The enemy ships were dropping like flies, but still refused to pull back. Many of them tried to fire back at the Citadel’s guns, but the guns were shielded just like the rest of the building. Meanwhile, Ty and Malus kept firing, while their computers tracked how many they had shot down. They seemed to be about even in their competition.
Suddenly, two of the larger ships fired their explosive rounds in unison at Ty’s gun. The shots hit their mark, and the gun was rocked by a large explosion. It wasn’t damaged, but the force of the blast shook the gun violently as it was still firing, causing it to jam. Downstairs, Ty still held down the trigger, but no bullets would fire from the gun. Realizing what happened, Ty threw the controls down in frustration.
“Dammit!”
Malus laughed wickedly. “Oh, your gun isn’t working? That is such a shame. It looks like I won’t even have to work for this victory. Good luck cleaning up all of that wreckage later.”
“No way.” Ty stood up and stepped away from the monitor. “I’m not losing that easily.”
“What’s wrong? You’re not going to stay and watch? How am I supposed to rub my imminent victory in your face if you leave?”
Ty walked back to the large metal doors and threw them open. He stepped inside, then stepped out a second later carrying an enormous rocket launcher on his shoulder. The weapon was taller than Ty was, and almost two feet wide. He walked back to the elevator and got on. The elevator almost wasn’t tall enough to hold the rocket launcher, but Ty managed to fit it through the door with little trouble.
“Whoa,” Deejay said, watching Ty leave. “Where’s he going with that?”
“With what?” Malus asked. He hadn’t turned away from his screen the whole time.
A moment later, they saw where he’d gone on the main monitor. The elevator doors opened on the roof, and Ty stepped out onto the platform, carrying the enormous weapon on his shoulder.
“Dude!” Deejay exclaimed. “Is he nuts? It’s a war zone out there!”
“He can’t do that!” Malus said furiously. “That’s cheating! Ty, get back in here immediately!”
A few of the smaller ships took notice of Ty’s presence and opened fire on him, but weren’t very accurate. Ty ran as fast as he could to his jammed gun and took cover behind it. Once he was sure he was out of the line of fire, he set the launcher down and checked inside. There was a rocket already loaded. He pulled the bulky rocket half-way out for a moment. He took out a permanent marker from his pocket and wrote the following on the side of the rocket before sliding it back into the launcher:
Best Regards,
Ty
Ty stepped out from behind the Gatling gun, resting the rocket launcher on his shoulder. He took aim at a large ship near the center of the swarm. The launcher beeped rapidly as it locked onto its target, and then gave a final affirmative beep. Ty braced himself and fired the weapon. The rocket shot out of the launcher toward its target, leaving a stream of off-white smoke in its wake. Ty tossed the launcher aside and ducked back behind the Gatling gun.
The rocket struck its target and exploded on impact. The explosion engulfed the entire alien ship and sent out a massive shockwave that reached almost a quarter mile in all directions. All the ships caught in the shockwave shook violently, their windows shattering. Then, the ships rapidly caught fire and exploded. From the impact point he had chosen, Ty had managed to take out all of the remaining ships with the single rocket.
Ty stepped back out from behind the Gatling gun and smirked as he watched his handiwork. Flaming debris was raining from the sky all around the Citadel. Downstairs in the arms room, Deejay and Malus watched the main screen in disbelief. Deejay tried to count the wrecked ships as they fell past.
“1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14…” He quickly lost track of all the ships falling past the camera. “Uh, I don’t know exactly how many that was, but I think he beat you.”
“You have got to be kidding me,” Malus said, flabbergasted.
A few moments later, Ty came back into the room, carrying his rocket launcher triumphantly.
“So, Malus,” he said, “when are you gonna get started on cleaning that mess up?”
“What in the Seven Hells was that?!” Malus growled angrily. “What is that weapon?”
“Just a little something Deejay helped me make. It’s still just a prototype, so we haven’t decided on a name for it yet. In the meantime, I think we’ll just call it ‘the most kick-ass weapon ever.’”
“That was my suggestion,” Deejay said happily.
Ty walked back to the armory and put the launcher away as he spoke. “The rocket sends out an EMP shockwave on detonation that fries electronics, causing them to combust; and quite viciously, I might add.”
“That’s not fair!” Malus snarled. “You can’t use something like that in competition! It’s cheating!”
“How is it cheating? As I recall, the bet was that I could shoot down more ships than you. I never said we had to use the Gatling guns.”
Deejay laughed. “He’s got you there.”
“You stay out of this!” Malus yelled. His eyes glowed bright blue, and a wave of invisible force knocked Deejay out of his chair. He went flying across the room and slammed into the wall. He sort of hung there for a moment, and then slowly slid down the wall to the floor.
“…Ow…pain…” Deejay said weakly.
“Ty, you did not beat me fair and square,” Malus continued. “I am not cleaning all that up by myself.”
Ty sighed. “Fine, you big crybaby. I guess I can try to get some people from the city to help out, and I’m sure Deejay would be happy to help you. Right, Deejay?”
“…Sure… no problem…” he said, still lying on the floor.
Malus took a deep breath. “Fine. But from now on, I am never going to make another bet with you without very specific guidelines.”
“That’s fine with me,” Ty said. “Anyway, I guess I should go inform the populous about what just happened. Why don’t you head out there and get started on the clean-up?”
“I would really prefer not to, but if you insist…”
Ty and Malus both made their way to the elevator. Ty turned and looked back at Deejay, who was still on the floor.
“Hey, are you okay?”
“…Fine...” He started to slowly rise. “Just… gimme a sec…”
Deejay got to his feet and slowly joined the others. Ty held the elevator for him.
“Nothing broken,” Deejay said, entering the elevator with the others. “I’m sore as hell, though. Mal, did you really have to do that?”
“Yes, for your information, I did really need to do that,” Malus replied as the doors closed.
“Malus, one of these days, we need to get you into an anger management class,” Ty added.
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