Apocalypse LLC

The Town Improvement Plan

A voice spoke softly, followed by an evil cackle, “Everything is proceeding as planned your evilness.”

Somewhere far away, in the northern lands, amidst a desert, a small town went about its peaceful existence.

In a wardrobe of a random house within said town, a creature ravaged the sock drawer.

“TheseOnesTooPink,” he spoke fast, so incoherently fast that it’d require a god of time, or an ungodly amount of very potent drugs for an ordinary person to be able to understand him.

“Too pink, too tight, too yellow, too,” he paused, sniffing an old, crusty sock, “EW!”

“Coffee need more coffee coffeecoffeecoffee,” the creature shrieked and squealed and then poofed out of existence, only to reappear in the kitchen of the house he was thieving in. After a brief commotion, the scent of a freshly brewed espresso cancelled out the stench of the old, crusty sock.

“Betterbetter, goodgood.”

His body jittered like an old rag in the wind. He was back to rummaging the sock drawers.

In the back alley, surrounded by piles of garbage, an old man heaved and huffed. Heavy breaths echoed through the alley as the old man continued to stroke, back and forth, faster with each stroke.

“Come on my darling, come out, I know you can do it,” he groaned.

The simple, metallic teapot he was polishing buzzed. From within it a yawn echoed.

“I’m yaaaaup,” spoke a deep voice. A head popped out of the teapot and glanced at the man.

“You, sir, are in violation of intergalactic law, section 137985 article B42 subsection 07, when a genie sleeps, one shall not disturb his slumber, especially while making such noises.”

The old man recoiled, surprised by the sudden appearance of a purple-bluish-ghostly head.

“Whoaaa! It worked?”

“Well, no, this is, in fact, not a magic item, and thus, per dimensional and interdimensional law, I am not obligated to fulfill your wishes, I was just taking a nap here.”

The man glanced at the pot in his hands, then sighed. It was just an old, slightly rusted, metallic teapot that indicated no magic, only a wishful old man, wishing for a wish-granting miracle.

“Gah, fine,” the genie popped out of the lamp fully, then stretched himself up to be the same height as the man before him, but forgetting to stretch out in other dimensions, he just ended up looking like a thin blue line with very thin appendages. The man gasped, dropping the lamp and stepping back out of fright of the monstrous-looking something before him.

“Ahhh, I wish you didn’t look like that.”

The genie squinted, thought about the wish long and hard, then morphed his appearance into a garbage can, “This?”

The man stared at the now garbage can that spoke with its lid.

“No, uhm, normal.”

The genie turned into a copy of them and shrugged, “Granted. Next?”

“I get more?” the man exclaimed happily.

“No, but try me anyways.”

The man glanced around. Dust and sand particles beat against his skin, “Man, I wish it’d be cooler here, tired of the yellow and brown, I wish for white.”

The genie grinned excitedly, “Section 57, wish shall be granted exactly as described.”

It began to snow the same instant.

In the middle of the town’s marketplace, just as the snow inexplicably began to fall from the desert sky, the farmers of the town murmured in confusion as they stared at a blackboard before them, and a creature with crimson skin, wearing a neat black suit and tie.

The creature adjusted his glasses and tapped on the board.

The town began to plunge into chaos. Someone’s cart froze to the ground, goats bleated out of confusion for the sudden cold, and farmers murmured.

“I have been hired by the town’s chief executive, erhm, chief. He states that the farming has been lacking in productivity, so we’ll start with the basics,” began the presenter. The presenter was a horned creature. Despite the neat suit, which farmers had never seen before, its spikes and spine tore through the fabric more and more with every move.

“So, greetings, town’s valuable assets. I am Kara the Great Burnout.”

The demon introduced himself and stomped his hooves on the stone street to get the farmer’s attention, “HEED TO ME LEST YOU DESIRE TO LOSE YOUR HEAD.”

Silence befell the group of farmers as the demon adjusted his suit, only further tearing the fabric.

“Ahem. The agricultural output has been lacking, so I’ll start with a burn-down chart of your performance, and then we’ll move on to individual performance evaluations; those who are found to be underperforming, well, will be forced into eternal overtime, unpaid of course.”

“There’s been a severe lack of water,” one of the farmers spoke up.

“We can’t grow much in drought.”

The demon threw a death glare at the farmer, “Feedback noted, I’ll pass it along to the executives. In the mean time–have you considered your personal responsibility in this situation? Have you tried rain dancing?”

Strategic Beginning of the End

The ground trembled beneath their feet, as if a mild earthquake off in the distance. Kara continued the lecture. The small creature disregarded it, continuing to rummage the sock drawers of unsuspecting townfolk. In the dark alleys surrounded by garbage, the poor genie continued to grant wishes of a man who couldn’t quite formulate a single wish properly that wouldn’t backfire, as his list of intergalactic offenses and citations grew longer and longer with each word he spoke.

“We’ve unleashed the hoard of our monstrous creations,” spoke a creaky voice from the shadows of an evil lair, a tower in the middle of nowhere, where the evilness lurked, and devilish plans were put into action. Where the apocalypse was brewing.

“Good, let them suffer for what they have done,” replied a soft female voice, followed by slam of a fist on the table. In the flickering light of a candle, there lay a well-done steak with a picture of a ram beside it, a very cute, large-headed ram with big googly eyes.

The tremble increased in its intensity. A roar came from the hills, as if a thousand hooves marching to the beat of war, if the beat was chaotic trample with no rhythm to it what-so-ever. Bells began to ring as the confused villagers, amidst the sudden snowfall, began to scatter around and hide in their homes.

“Well well, looks like the deliverables will have to wait,” Kara spoke softly, stepping over the first row of distressed farmers and then through the next row. The trembling and frightened farmers took their chance to scatter like frightened chickens.

“And don’t forget, tomorrow we’ll work on optimizing the workflows, and we’ll have our synchronized torment planning session where we’ll achieve absolutely nothing but spend 8 hours discussing it to come up with action items.”

“That would be a violation of the work-ethics interdimensional law 281 section B27,” spoke a confident voice before materializing next to the demon.

“Oh no,” the demon gasped, “Why is the legal department here?”

The genie blinked at him a few times and then disappeared, only to reappear a few meters away, shuddering, the only thought on his mind ‘not the HR.’

First came the rams. Small bodies, big heads. Akin to the bobbleheads, they had big cute eyes and heads almost the size of their entire bodies. They stampeded through the city’s log-walls with ease, crashing into buildings and wreaking chaos amidst the city’s center, though they lost some of their menace due to the sudden snowfall, as it caused their hooves to slip, and their powers to diminish in turn–can’t ram hard if you have no traction.

Like new-born deer sent onto an ice-ring, they slipped and fell as their over-sized heads threw them off balance. One particularly ambitious ram charged head-first into a cottage with the full intent to obliterate it and show its evil nature to the townsfolk inside, to show what happens to those who turn its brethren into steak. As it got a running start, it slipped, losing traction, and began to spin in circles at the town center, crashing headfirst into a fruit cart.

As fruits flew around like confetti during a festival, the goat bleated. Kara watched a distressed farmer dive for cover behind a fence, just to get jumped on by an oversized squirrel from above. A distress yelp escaped him. A massive, human-sized squirrel sat innocently atop the squished farmer beneath it, its head swiveling side to side, searching for nuts, not victims, just nuts.

It spotted the ruined fruit cart, leapt over the fence with the grace of a special agent on a mission. Like an action movie star, it did not look back at the explosion, or rather—a collapsing building behind it as another out-of-control ram spun itself like an ice-skater into the building. A building collapsed atop the suit-wearing demon.

From the dust and rubble, the demon emerged unscathed, dusting off.

“Finally, new employees who are showing initiative and drive. I like them. You there, take notes, this is the can-do attitude I expect from you all,” Kara spoke to the farmer who fainted after the squirrel wrestle-jumped atop of him from the roof of the building.

“Pathetic. You can’t even maintain productivity and pace while being wrestled by a squirrel? At HellCorp we expect more.”

To say that silence befell the once-peaceful town would be wrong; chaos on the other hand, is a more suitable phrasing. The rams continued to do as their name would imply–ram, and squirrels proceeded to squeeze like some cartoon characters, through the small windows of the houses

A squirrel lowered itself, preparing to leap through the 2nd floor window of a small cottage, but sudden found itself hanging by the tail, “Your invasion violates the trans-dimensional sovereignty and independence act 1890, I must ask you to stop this nons-” began the genie, but the squirrel he was holding suddenly disappeared, or rather–got blown away, only a chunk of its fur remained in his grip.

There were overly-energetic shouts coming from the direction where the squirrel was sent flying, “ListenHereYouStupidGlove thoseSocksBelongedToMeMeMemeMeMy youGetitnow?”

Kara, the demon, suddenly grabbed one of the squirrels who was baffled by what just happened, and threw it in the same direction, “No time to observe, go learn from your more experienced colleagues, hands-on exercise.”

Genie watched it and facepalmed, “You’re not supposed to throw employees around, that is a violation of the HellCorp employee handbook section C, 37-treating employees with due respect.”

Kara glared at the genie.

“These rookies are underperforming; it is my sole duty to make sure they perform up to par with our high standards.”

Genie raised his finger up in protest, but the demon ignored him, walked past him, grabbed another squirrel by the shoulders, turned it around, then snapped his fingers to spawn a clipboard and proceeded to lecture it on house-destruction protocols.

“No no, first you frighten the civilians inside by banging on the doors and peeking through the windows, THEN you smash the windows and try to claw at them, and only after that do you proceed to tear the walls.”

Genie sighed and disappeared from this reality, only momentarily. For an ethereal creature with no bindings to space-time dimension, he could phase in and out of existence for entire centuries and return in but a second, and that’s precisely what he did while proposing a new inter-dimensional law to the supreme dimension ruling court.

“Ordinance 442 section W correction–invading monstrous creatures dispatched by an evil entity shall not:(A) trample more than 2 citizens per minute.(B) demolish structures without filing for a Noise Pollution permit.(C) weaponize its cuteness to throw off the unsuspecting human children who adore their big cute eyes, before trampling them to death.”

As is usually the case with legalities, bureaucracy, and all things inter-dimensional, this new ordinance took centuries to pass. Still, at last, it was ready, and the genie proudly reappeared amidst the chaos of the small town, holding out a paper, “Per interdimensional ordinance 442 section W correction, you lot are found to be guilty. Disperse immediately or else,” he continued but then paused when he heard chewing noises.

One of the big-headed rams was intently staring into his soul while slowly and methodically chewing the papers he was previously holding, the very new ordinance he had just spent centuries working on to pass.

“You cursed little,” the genie growled. Kara grinned madly, “Excellent performance. Do remember–lunch break is unpaid and you only get 10 seconds, so get back to work soon, little ram.”

At the same time, somewhere far far away, in the shadow-shrouded room, in a tower in the middle of nowhere, a letter was received.

“My liege, we’ve received a cease and desist from the intergalactic court,” the sly, creaking voice spoke from the shadows.

“They sure work fast. Very well, adjust our strategy.”

And so the rams no longer rolled into the buildings or headbutted them, instead they sat upon the roofs until the roofs gave in and the buildings collapsed. It wasn’t their ‘fault’ that the buildings were collapsing now. A clever loophole to bypass the noise pollution permit.

As the genie spawned another scroll of ordinance, a squirrel shredded it faster than a corporate shredder would.

“Section 502 violation, unauthorized destruction of a non-tax-fraudulent document. You are going into the courtroom right away,” as he was about to snap his fingers, he heard a voice coming from elsewhere deep inside his mind.

“I wish for health and safety for myself and those close to me,” the voice echoed and resonated deep inside his mind.

“Granted,” the genie proclaimed proudly. He himself and those within 5-meter radius of him suddenly felt rejuvenated, healthier than they had ever felt before, and safe. So safe infact, that the squirrel he was about to snap out of existence into the courtroom now found itself inside a nuclear-proof bunker, in absolute safety. The rams around now wore full-body power armor, making them practically unstoppable war machines.

“Ahem, attention please, according to-” the genie begun again, trying to gain everybody’s attention just to find himself holding nothing but thin air in his hand.

“GreatGreatNewSocksSockswarmwarm coffee? I wish for a nice cuppa coffee, hot, dark as the soul of a demon lord, strong enough to awaken the world-eater ancient deity from his eternal slumber,” spoke a small creature that was busy folding the genie’s recent paperwork spawn into a pair of origami-socks.

“ Firstly—violation, section 70012: unauthorized use of official documentation as clothes. Secondly— granted,” the genie replied. A small cup, small enough for a raccoon to enjoy it, conjured itself out of thin air onto a tiny plate. It had but a single drop of fluid so black it may as well have been anti-matter. The drop of black fluid proved so potent that the moment the imp drank it, without averting his gaze from the intricate origami-socks, he imp-loded with a spectacular shriek and a puff of smoke.

Only to reappear a moment later in the same spot, but jittering so hard he was phasing out of existence every other millisecond, and duplicating himself. It was no longer a single imp, but more like a merge of multi-dimensional omni-present sock gremlin that is seeing every reality unfold simultaneously in front of itself.

Every time it spoke now, its voice echoed through the dimensions and timelines, “That’s go-goo-goo-goo-good socks sockssockssocks.”

The voice was the past, the present, and the future. It had been, has been, is being, and will be.

The rams, who were now wearing power-armor, found themselves safe and healthy, but incapable of moving as the power armor had no power. Giant brooms appeared out of thin air, sweeping them like oversized dust bunnies into snowballs. Kara snapped his fingers, jotting down, “Excellent response time of the janitors.”

Genie, on the contrary, was finding himself overly stressed.

“Unsolicited cleaning supplies, violation of the work-safety act of this reality,” Another set of paperwork, stolen and folded before the unbound by the time entity even realized it had happened. The imp had now folded the entire work-safety act binder into a set of sock-soldiers.

“BEHOLDMYPOWERS! YouUnworthySuckShreddersSquirrelsYouShallFeelMyMightAndWrath,” the imp shouted, posing proudly in front of his army of tens of thousands of little socks with rifles. On one foot he wore a fluffy, squirrel sock, on the other–the ordinance the genie was so proud of.

Final Stage

In the shadowy room, in a tower in the middle of nowhere, an ultimate evil, a chaos incarnate, was drowning in paperwork.

“Applications, appeals, notices of violation, what is all of this?” complained the great evil one.

“My liege, I believe such is the price of planning an apocalypse,” replied a creaky voice of an old evil one.

“We weren’t even at full scale,” cried out the great evil one.

“This was but a proof of concept that our plan would work, how did it co-” she began but then a portal opened and another stack of letters fluttered down onto her, like an ice-bucket challenge, but it was a different kind of horror and torment—more paperwork.

The ultimate evil one slumped over her desk with a deep sigh, “We were supposed to end the civilization,” a single tear dripped from her cheek as she stamped another form ‘B42-cuteness abuse appeal’.

“My liege, I fear our plans have been, reclassified,” replied the creaky voiced one while reading one of the new letters.

“RECLASSIFIED?” protested the great evil one.

“Yes my liege. Per the intergalactic and interdimensional supreme court, all further world-ending attempts must await the quarterly performance evaluation.”

There was a lengthy silence, that soon was broken by a faint sound of someone chewing on something loudly and sloppily.

“Socksockssockssocks yummyevilsockss,” followed by even louder slurping noises as the voice drew nearer. The great evil sighed, “Cancel the apocalypse, we’ll come up with new means of destroying this world.”

As the squirrels and rams retreated back into their portals, Kara handed out ‘performance review,’ and ‘fired’ letters to them in accordance with their observed performance.

THE END