[center][img]https://i.imgur.com/R2AzKCs.png?1[/img][/center] [hr] [b]Earth #3311[/b] [b]The White House[/b] President J.J. McGuillicutty checked his watch for the third time in the past ten minutes. The sound of the ticking clock seemed almost deafening to him. Besides the clock it was completely silent in the Oval Office. For the first time in over twelve hours he was completely alone in the room. McGuillicutty ordered the gaggle of science, political, and military experts out while he took a seat behind the Resolute Desk. “There’s a button under the desk,” President Dolbert had told him two years earlier. It was just before McGuillicutty’s inauguration. Dolbert stared at McGillicutty with his beady eyes and showed no hint that this was some kind of joke. “You only press that button once in a lifetime. Only in an extreme emergency.” “Like a national collapse?” “No,” said Dolbert. “A global nuclear war?” “Kids stuff.” “Bacon shortage?” The soon to be ex-president shook his head. “Not even then.” “Then when do I use it?” asked McGuillicutty. Dolbert placed a beefy hand on the president-elect’s shoulder. “When the time comes, you’ll know.” And the old bastard was right, thought McGuillicutty. It took him a while to remember Dolbert’s cryptic warning, but after he did he quickly shooed his advisors out of the room and found the little button beneath the Resolute Desk. After debating for almost ten minutes to do it or not, he whispered a prayer and pressed the button. The president heard a soft whirring as something shifted beneath the desk. It took McGullicutty a moment, but he realized the button itself was moving. It scuttled across the surface of the desk before it took its place in front of him. It pulsed a soft yellow and a tinny, chipper voice began to emit from it. [i]“Thank you for contacting Peck Property & Casualty Insurance, this is Bobert and I need to inform you that this conversation is monitored for quality assurance. How may I help you?”[/i] “Bobert?” McGuillicutty asked. [i]“Yes, how may I help you today?”[/i] McGuillicutty struggled to find the right words. “There’s an… invasion, I guess? Men from outer space.” [i]“Oh, no,”[/i] Bobert said sympathetically.[i] “That must be real inconvenient for you. Let’s get some information out of the way first before we continue. Am I speaking to the policy holder.”[/i] “I’m the president of the United States,” McGuillicutty offered. “Does that… help any?” [i]“Yes it does,”[/i] said Bobert. [i]“You are the de facto policy holder for your planet’s coverage and… I am pleased to tell you that, in fact, alien invasion is covered by your homeworld owner’s insurance. This claim is processing. Please standby, a Peck Property & Casualty Insurance agent will be touch with you shortly with an update on your claim. Did you need anything else from me today, sir?”[/i] “Help?” [i]“Help is on the way,”[/i] Bobert said, in a voice so soothing that McGuillicutty actually felt a fuzziness in his chest. What McGuillictty did not realize was that the warm feeling in his chest wasn’t due to Bobert’s exceptional customer service. It was due to a narcotic spore Bobert had released from the button. Bobert’s programming, because Bobert was in fact an AI and not at all a real person, was to lightly tranquilize claimants during times of extreme duress. “Cool,” said McGuillicutty. The president looked around the Oval Office and his eyes widened in amazement. “Wow…. there’s no… corners. It’s so… round. So... ovally... is that a word? Gotta make an executive order making it a word...” McGuillicutty leaned back in his chair and laughed as both Howard and Bruce Banner appeared in front of him in a flash of light. The president took in the sight of an anthropomorphic duck in stride, Howard thought. In his experience most sapiens had extreme reactions to seeing him. That’s when Howard heard the collective sound of many guns cocking. He and Banner slowly turned to see a small platoon of soldiers and generals, each of heavily armed, standing at the door to the Oval Office and ready to blow them away. “They’ve infiltrated the White House,” one very decorated five-star general barked. He pulled back the hammer on a massive revolver. “Die, alien scum.” Before the general could squeeze the trigger a massive emerald arm snatched the gun from his grasp. The soldiers collective took a step back at the sight of the Incredible Hulk looming above them. He growled and the military men prepared to fire again. “Hold your fire,” Howard shouted. “We’re here to help!” “Help, I need somebody,” the president mumbled from his chair. “Not just anybody…” Howard reached into his suit jacket, slowly, and produced his I.D. card. It showed that Howard T. Duck was in fact a licensed interdimensional insurance agent for Peck Property & Casualty Insurance, specifically for the Life, Fire, and World Destruction Division. The soldiers scrutinized it while the Hulk played hacky sack with the general’s gun. “The commander-in-chief back there filed a claim,” said Howard, his thumb pointing back toward McGuillicutty. The president was clearly doing an air guitar solo of Foghat’s “Slow Ride”, which was in this world the most popular song of all time. It become so popular that a group of fans in 1980 incorporated the First Universal Church of the Slow Ride. Their motto, naturally, was “Take it Easy.” Contrary to their motto, however, the FUCSR were incapable of taking it easy. They currently sat at #1 on the FBI’s list of most dangerous criminal organizations. Even when set to the bitchin’ tunes of Foghat, a vast network of gun running, meth production, and tie-dye t-shirt smuggling was still illegal. “I’m here to investigate the claim,” said Howard. “So can someone please explain what’s going on?” One of the generals pointed at the Hulk. “He doesn't look like an insurance agent.” The green giant took the revolver in both hands and bent it into the shape of a poodle. “You're right. He’s my intern.” [hr] “At 0300 hours a collection of twenty-six portals all opened up at various points across the globe. From those portals spaceships poured out. Massive motherships with a full fleet of fighters and bombers inside their holds.” Howard sat at the conference table in the Situation Room with the rest of the president's cabinet and watched the scientist at the front give his briefing. Bruce had transformed back and was sitting next to Howard, wearing a pair of borrowed sweatpants, crocs, and a baggy shirt that read “It’s Always Five O’Clock In Margaritaville.” “So far they have yet to make a strike on anything,” said the scientist. “But they have been playing their demands across every media platform. It took us some time to interpret it.” The scientist pulled a remote from his labcoat and pressed a button. A high-pitched screeching noise filled the situation room. Bruce put his hands over his ears to muffle the sound, but Howard listened intently. He could pick out the rhythms of the sound and knew it was some language. It seemed very close to another alien tongue Howard had heard before. But he couldn't quite place it. “Best as we can figure, they are saying they wish for a complete surrender before the end of the solar cycle or they will destroy the world.” “And the nukes won’t work,” said one of the generals. “There’s some kind of goddamn forcefield on the things and the missiles just bounce off.” “And ricochet back to earth,” the Secretary of the Interior said testily. "Where people live. “I did us all a favor,” the general spat back. "Is anyone here actually going to miss Muilwakee?" “Can you just keep it down,” President McGuillicutty said from his seat. He had on sunglasses and held a half-empty bottle of Gatorade. “My head is pounding.” While the president and his cabinet bickered among themselves, Howard had his head in his lap. The tablet in his lap displayed a list of clients and details on them. The readout displayed this current version of Earth and what exactly made them different from the other realities in the infinite multiverse. A smile appeared on his face as he looked up. “I have a plan,” he announced. “I need a few things: the armed forces of the world to prepare all fighter jets for aerial combat, a list of the highest grossing films of 1996, an Amazon Prime account, and most importantly… the actor Michael T. Weiss.”