Hellfire Jones and the Angel Invasion

Chapter 9

MITCH 2.0:

The doors slid open and Hellfire Jones, green from his wild elevator trip, stumbled out, throwing up all over the place. This completely agitated my chill vibe.

April and Faizan followed, which restored my feelings of awesomeness. I sat up from my lawn chair trying to muster the energy to get up to hug them.

I could tell they were still trying to figure out what was going on. We were all in a brightly lit empty room somewhere in the depths of the White House. Behind me was a house-sized flying saucer hovering about a foot in the air. It looked exactly like something from an Ed Wood movie. This confirmed what I always believed. He was the greatest and most prophetic movie director of all time.

A more immediate question was how I survived. The truth was that I hadn't. My friend's brains were spinning with possibilities. It could have been a clone that died and not me. Or maybe my evil twin was killed in my place. I could possibly be a replica from a distant multiverse. Or maybe a robot version of me. Possibly a hologram, though that was a little far fetched.

"Mitch, is that really you?" Faizan asked.

"Blecchhh!" Hellfire Jones said, not adding much to the conversation.

"How...How?" April, at a rare loss for words, asked.

This arguably didn't add much either but it did get to the heart of the question. How was I now resting comfortably on a lawn chair sipping some frozen drink made of papayas or pomegranate or some other fruit that began with 'p' that wasn't pineapple. I would have known pineapple.

"Why are you blue?" Faizan asked.

"Turquoise," I corrected.

"Grey," April gasped. A tiny gray alien skipped over to where I was reclining to offer me another P drink. Passionfruit maybe.

April, who was pretty short to begin with, got on her knees so she could be at eye level with the tiny gray alien. Or maybe she wanted to worship it. Probably both.

"I just knew you existed," she said. "Did they hurt you? Do you speak English? I know a little Vegoran. Vgob vlua vnoba."

The alien looked just like you'd expect. Humanoid Tiny body. Big head. Huge eyes which took up most of its face. I don't know why the eyes were so big. The aliens were color blind and had awful night vision.

The alien held up its hand in greeting. "Vsol vsol vegrl."

"What did the alien just say?" Faizan asked.

"It was a standard greeting and they don't like the term alien," April said. "They prefer 'visitor' or 'sojourner.' You wouldn't like it if someone called you an alien, would you?"

"Vsdo," the visitor agreed.

"They make the greatest fruit slushies," I said sitting up from my lawn chair. "Oh, and they killed me."

"What?"

"I was going to be all kinds of dead anyway after the angel and demon shot me, so it's all cool," I explained. "The aliens-I mean visitors- used their teleportation machine to beam me down here. The machine tore up all my molecules and created an almost exact duplicate of me down here, since teleportation machines don't really teleport. And there were some technical difficulties so I'm a brilliant shade of turquoise."

The visitor shrugged. These things happened.

"So you are still dead but you're now what? A replica of you?" Faizan asked

"Who cares? We're all going to die and...I think I'm gonna be sick again." Hellfire Jones, obviously.

"No, dude," I continued with the exposition. "Because the prophetic recipe says that I'm going to stop the angel/demon war and bring peace back to the planet. It doesn't matter if it's real me or teleported me colored a bright shade of Smurf. My good vibes, especially after enjoying these most excellent fruity drinks, will create a peaceful equilibrium that will end the bloodshed."