2012 U.S. Presidential Election

[Gavin Luper]

Misc, 2013

The sky is black and filled with smoke. The once-peaceful world of Misc has been razed, now a battleground strewn with bodies and rubble and burning vehicles. In the distance, the charred remains of Mt Moon can be seen, some survivors still picking through the rubble for any undamaged spam.

At the centre of Misc, two duellers, Dark Sage and Roy Karrde, remain locked in fierce combat, a mysterious, glowing thread suspended in the air between them, each of them manipulating it to attack the other. A weary crowd watches on, occasionally bearing the brunt of an attack as the thread sparks with electricity, occasionally retaliating with one of their own. Though the thread retains vestiges of beauty and utility, it is a shell of its former self, now dull and frayed.

The mods look on from the fringes of the mob.

“We can’t let this go on anymore. This thread has to go!” says everyone.

“Yes, enough of this thread!” cries Dark Sage passionately. “We must destroy it!”

A brave misc punter steps forward from the crowd, her face bloodied and beaten from months of battle.

“I will destroy it!” she cries, lunging for the thread.

“NO!” scream Dark Sage and Roy Karrde, gesturing their hands wildly to manipulate the thread: a streamer of electricity sizzles out and strikes the punter squarely in the chest; she is blasted backwards and lands unceremoniously on a pile of corpses, her body limp and broken.

“Enough!” cries a misc member.

“Yes, enough! End the thread, close it, we must!” shouts Roy earnestly.

“I will destroy it!” bellows a stoner-looking gent, lumbering forward. He seizes the thread between his meaty hands, but as he does so, Roy fires a spark of lightning at him from the thread; he reels backwards, his hands singed.

“It has to end. This isn’t healthy, or sustainable,” says a misc mod. “Look at what they’ve done to misc. Look at what we’ve become.”

But even as he speaks, the mods around him appear to have been beaten by their weariness. Their battle-worn faces regard the thread no longer with contempt, but interest.

“Perhaps we cannot fight it any more. Perhaps ... we should embrace the thread.”

“Yes ... embrace it ...” the mods repeat, shuffling forward. They take the thread between their hands and wield its power, firing off beams of deadly light at each other with mounting glee. Luper and a small cluster of other mods and members remain, grimly surveying the sight before them.

“No! Not them too!” cries a misc member.

“Destroy the thread!” bellows a feisty young man from the shadowy ranks of members.

“Yes, destroy the thread!” Dark Sage cries, grabbing the thread with both hands.

“Get rid of it, destroy the thread!” concurs Roy Karrde, wielding the thread like a lasso.

“Yes, destroy the thread! Destroy the thread!” chant the mods, grasping it ever tighter.

Luper holsters his gun and lights a cigarette, his face ashen and drawn.

“There will be no destruction,” he sighs to the embattled spectators. “Misc is doomed. It will never end.”