who was totaling up his points. The Pope had kept careful score and the Minotaur looked like he was satisfied with his clear victory.
“Did we win?” Satan shouted to him.
“Minotaur win big!” the happy Minotaur snorted back.
Satan smiled.
“Sir?!?” Nero said.
“Relax, Nero,” Satan said. “It’s all under control. They’ve forgotten just what it was that got me thrown out of Heaven in the first place.”
“But they’re going to take Hell,” Nero said.
“Don’t worry about it,” Satan said.“And tell Minos to stop panicking. They may get to Hell, but I don’t think they’re going to want it.”
“Onward, Christian soldiers!” Gabriel called as the Heavenly Host smashed into Hell’s Vestibule.
The vanguard of the avenging Heavenly Host were led by Michael and next to him was Gabriel. A little further back, Barachiel brandished his twenty-foot sword of fire. Phanuel hung a good way back, more of an observer than a participant this time. And then the flying column of angels ran smack into the mountain of cargo containers. They fluttered in disarray for a moment as more angels poured down behind them and began to jam up the Vestibule.
“What are those?” Gabriel asked.
“Care you not!” Michael proclaimed. “Destroy them in the name of the Lord!”
He raised his mighty sword and brought it down on the containers, and such was the power of his will that it split the first door in two, cleaved the second and then the shockwaves of his willpower burst the locks on all the rest. As one, all two hundred doors opened and a smelly tide poured forth.
At first the angels were confused. They fluttered and flapped backwards instinctively recoiling from the avalanche of jeggings, pomade and body odor that seemed to spill out in an unending flow. And then they saw what Michael had accidentally unleashed.
“Hipsters!” Gabriel screamed, in a panic. “Don’t let them touch you.”
What is it about the hipster that inspires such panic in the hearts of angels? Perhaps it is their devotion to all that is ugly and cheap? Perhaps it is their trendy cynicism or their inattention to personal hygiene? Those may all play a part, but really it is much simpler than that: hipsters are a negation of God. They worship a false idol called Trendiness, and their god is the God of Emptiness. The God of Nothing. The God of Plastic. Why is there a Creation? Why is there something instead of nothing? If the hipsters had their way, there would only be nothing. They are poison for all that is holy. Their very existence is a slap in the face of God. They are the darkness. They are unclean. They are horror.
And here was a horde of them. A human avalanche of hipsters, none of whom believed in God, all of them angry and maddened at being locked in tractor-trailers for so long, all of them dead. Zombie hipsters, hand manufactured by Death and his minions in their final act of loyalty to Satan. A boiling, writhing, churning sea of hipsters rising up to drown the Heavenly Host.
The angels were separated from one another, they were pushed back and the bulk of them panicked and tried to flee. The sky was filled with feathers set alight by flicked American Spirit and Parliament Light butts. Barachiel laid about him with his sword but he was overcome and they held him down and gave him a fauxhawk and pierced his nose, rendering him ridiculous even to himself. Phanuel tried to escape but hipster hands dragged him down and turned him into a wagon wheel coffee table. He spun and chimed desperately but to no avail. Michael saw Gabriel just make it out of the Vestibule before a hundred hands with ironically applied black nail polish dragged him back by his wings.
“No,” he screamed. “Nooooo.”
The hipsters had no respect for authority. He felt them ripping his wings from his back.
“I’m going to mount these over my absinthe bar,” he heard one of them say. “Near the rack from that ten point buck I bought at Goodwill.”
Michael struggled mightily, but no one could stop the hipsters. They were merciless.
It was a total rout. And somewhere in the confusion, Satan slipped away. Nero, Minos, Mary and the rest would not see him again for some time.
Hell’s victory celebration was just like every other party since the dawn of time. It started with refreshments and blender drinks and some awkward standing around, and then someone shoved someone else, and there was a fight, and the food ran out