Herve's Shiny New Year

[New Year's Day in the Space/Time Continuum. Herve Villechaize, quantum agent and adventurer, finds himself standing in a dark chamber, with a single spotlight illuminating him from directly above. Suddenly before him, 2 hologrammed and almost inhuman faces appear from nowhere. Herve shrieks - it shall not be transcribed here because it's rather girly.]

Cosmos: Argh! Not so loud!
Herve: What are you doing?!
Chronos: Tone it down, we're hung over!
Herve: So am I! [pause] ARGH! [holds the sides of his head]
Cosmos: That's what you get.
Herve: Why the hologram schtick? You're normal people.....well, normal enough.....that I see all the time.
Cosmos: We're......really hung over.
Chronos: And we can't find our clothes.
Herve: ARGH! [holds the sides of his head]
Chronos: You're still hung over, dummy.
Herve: It wasn't because of THAT!!
Cosmos: Never mind this. We have a mission for you.
Herve: Wait, me? [looks around] Where's Piett?
Cosmos: He's still passed out. Or on his honeymoon again. Or someplace in the timeline that isn't here.
Chronos: That isn't important! What is important is this mission.........BEHOLD!

[Suddenly a TV screen appears over Herve's head. He bounces back as an image flickers into sight: RUDOLPH'S SHINY NEW YEAR.]

Herve: You want me....to watch TV? Well, shit, I coulda been doing that already. Although I did miss this on ABC Family this year.
Cosmos: NO! We don't want you to watch it.......we want you to destroy this!!
Herve: What?!
Chronos: Your mission, Herve, is to enter, destroy and kill everything associated with this stop motion animated classic!
Herve: You want me to kill Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer?
Chronos: Yes! But mainly, we want you to kill Father Time and the Baby New Year!

[Long pause]

Herve: WHAT?!?!?!

Cosmos: Father Time is a lie! Baby New Year, a lie! The Archapelago of Last Years, a lie! The entire reality this TV special presents is a violation of the governance we maintain! It's an aberration of the Space/Time Continuum and a false representation of the passage of space and time, and it must come to an end!!
Chronos: Every time people watch this, it weakens our reality and the reality of all things. If enough people believe in it, the fabric of the universe unravels.
Herve: This seems like an impossibly huge development in our continuity, and also an implausible one that is being addressed in what seems to be a quickly written one-off story.
Cosmos: And it's why you must do this alone! No distractions, no witty banter that complicates matters. Go to the Archapelago of Times, destroy all that live there, and then finish the job at the Castle of Father Time and kill everyone and everything that tries to stop you!
Herve: Rudolph, Ben Franklin, that old knight and the caveman dude.....and even Santa?
Chronos: Santa's an asshole who doesn't give mostly latently gay people like us the gifts we want!!
Herve: Jesus, dude...
Cosmos: Ok, that's harsh even for this story.
Chronos: Well, I didn't get that Sega Genesis once!
Cosmos: Sega Genesis?! You're basing a hatred of Santa on a product of the '90s that has since been rendered outdated by far superior video game technologies?
Chronos: I really wanted it!!
Cosmos: You could've manifested one for yourself! You're like the supergod of time! We do that kind of shit all the time!
Chronos: THE POINT STILL REMAINS!!!
Cosmos: Wait, where did Herve go?
Chronos: Probably just left to go kill everyone. I mean, he *likes* doing that. Of the two of them, he's the much easier one to convince to kill others for little reason. Wasn't that why you picked him?
Cosmos: No.

[Pause]

Cosmos: Well, all things considered, this went well.
Chronos: Yeah.

[Pause]

Cosmos: We don't have a decent exit, do we?
Chronos: Nah. It usually pans over to them doing whatever it is we sent them off to

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[Meanwhile, in--

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Chronos: Do! Don't cut me off, you bastard!

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--ok. Geez.

[Meanwhile, in the world of Rankin-Bass Productions outdatedness and yet also awesomeness, Herve - who sadly is not a stop motion character (we don't have the budget for that) - arrives on the first island of the Archipelago of Lost Years.: 1776.]

Herve: Huh. I thought there were years for the cavemen and Columbus before this one. [pause] Wait, those things suck when compared to the Revolutionary War. [another pause] Guh, Walsh is such a nerd. Let's do this.

[Herve walks through the streets of what is apparently colonial-era Philadelphia. He arrives at the Pennsylvania State House and stops at the front steps. He pulls a chainsaw out of his coat - how it got there only he knows, but it makes sense he'd always have one on him, now doesn't it? - and enters. Moments later, there is much screaming and sawing and tearing and then the windows go all red. Then silence. Herve exits soon after, covered in blood. He activates his transporter and leaps away, as stop motion crowds of bystanders and soldiers and crime scene investigators (or whatever their early American counterparts were called) flock the area.]

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Cosmos: Did....did Herve just murder the stop motion version of America's Founding Fathers?
Chronos: He certainly just did.
Cosmos: That's dark.
Chronos: And pointless, I reckon. Man, Piett's really the brains of the outfit. I mean, I expected uber-violence, but this.....well, let's see how this affects things.

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[Herve appears almost simultaneously at the Castle of Father Time, at the moment when Rudolph and his friends are delivering Baby New Year. But there is no happiness, no celebration and certainly no one present who can govern this reality's passage of time. Where the castle should be, there is a ravaged and abandoned construct. Herve peers forward, and sees several people within. Several exit - they are Arabs, cloaked in robes and branishing machine guns. But also crudely animated. Another exits behind them. It is a likewise badly animated Osama bin Laden. Herve nods, then disappears into the vapors of time and space, before the al Qaida types can react to him.]

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Chronos and Cosmos: *mouths agape*
Cosmos: Fuck. Me.
Chronos: Did he just.......what.......how.....
Voice from behind them: It was simple, really.
Cosmos: Herve! What did you--
Herve: I stopped the problem.
Cosmos: You murdered the Continental Congress, and somehow......wait, what happened here?
Herve: I stopped the problem that afflicted you. America.

[Pause]

Herve: Really? [sighs] Look, without America there would be no stability in the world. Evil people would presumably wreak havoc and institutions & entities like Father Time and the Archipelago of Lost Years couldn't exist the way we'd think they would. I mean, Father Time lives in the desert......just like al Qaida. That can only end well for Osama and pals, without America swooping in and kicking terrorist ass. And, maybe more importantly to the task at hand, without America there would be no Rankin-Bass Productions. So really, no Rudolph saving the Baby New Year, no silly characters helping out and populating this fun happy little world......because there was never any fun happy little world. Without America.

Chronos: You're just....sadistic.
Herve: And effective.
Cosmos: And vicious.
Herve: And effective.
Chronos: And very propagandist.
Herve: Hey, I'm just full of surprises, ain't I?
Chronos: Well, I just take back most of the negative things I've ever said about you.
Cosmos: Yes. And this eclipses most everything else I've ever seen, and anything that could happen in the near future.

[Suddenly Piett runs in.]

Piett: Holy shit, guys, check it out! [reveals a fistfull of research papers and several vials of liquid] I just cured cancer!!!

[Pause]

Cosmos and Chronos: Eh.
Herve: WHAT?!?

[Piett swiftly turns to Herve.]

Piett: WHAT. DID. YOU. DO.
Herve [gulps]: I....I murdered America in order to kill Father Time and the bay New Year?

[Pause. Piett looks at all his work.]

Piett: They're right. Eh. [throws that science and smart shit away]
Herve: DARK.

*fin*