Shaking his head to clear it of shock, Ivan slowly rose to his feet. He faced the Dark Lord Gore, his table-based weaponry still braced for battle. Then Ivan threw down his weapons. Gore did the same, although when his sword hit the ground it made a miniature explosion that chased the reenactors further away.

   Ivan and Gore stepped closer. And then they embraced in the heartiest handshake to take place this side of the Mississippi River since Davey Crocket welcomed the company of the Grim Reaper.

   “Impressive maneuver,” Ivan conceded.

   “Impressive bravery. For a mortal,” Gore conceded.

   The two warriors had a hearty laugh that was completely lost on Steve. “What!” Steve shouted.

  “Ivan thinking horn man worthy opponent,” Ivan said.

   “I have only a marginal desire to crush your skull with your thighbone,” Gore said, which was the greatest compliment he’d ever given a human being.

   The two exchanged another laugh as Steve fought to keep his whole body from collapsing in anguish.

   “Come! Ivan make you sandwich now,” Ivan said.

   “Excellent!” Gore declared.

   “Wait, wait. This was all to force Ivan to make you a sandwich?” Steve asked.

   “The table man would not accept a rematch. So I formed a ruse that would force him into one.”

   “Was good ruse,” Ivan said. “Too good, Ivan thinking.” Ivan chuckled as he pointed at his army. They had left Ivan and Gore behind, continuing their charge toward the slowly approaching army of hell.

   With unwavering shouts to welcome their deaths, the reenactors roared and unleashed further volleys of blanks and stunted arrows. Amidst the war cries and stompings of a thousand cheap leather boots, Steve heard a sound so utterly alien to the nearly commencing battle as to divert his entire attention. Steve looked up into the darkening sky, and swore he heard laughter.

   “Ivan should probably tell army to stop charging,” Ivan noted.

   “And Gore should probably tell the army of hell to go away,” Steve added.

   “Don’t worry. They’re on a slow march. And they know the army they’re facing is harmless and not worth engaging,” Gore said. “I shall reopen the pit in front of them and return them to damnation.”

   But as Gore gathered lightning around his sword once more, a tank rolled forward on noisy steel treads, turned its turret toward the army of hell, and fired. An explosion ripped into the hell knights, blasting the demons into a thousand pieces.

   “Der, then what was that?” Steve asked.

   “What?” Gore and Ivan shouted.

   The guns of the Civil War rifles burst and lead shot rang into the hell hounds’ brimstone-laden flesh. Cannons roared with fire as explosions erupted along the evil army’s line. Trebuchets reeled from the effort of hurtling flaming projectiles that burst with Greek fire.

  The army of hell had not been expecting to actually fight anything. They’d been told explicitly not to fight upon being summoned. After all, this had been a ruse to get Ivan to make Gore a sandwich. But now they were watching their demonic comrades burst to pieces from machine gun fire and cannon balls. Their fury rose and their evil souls demanded blood.

  Demons and hell knights and hounds and skeleton warriors answered the coming charge of the reenactors with a battle cry of their own, and raced to meet their attackers.

  The medieval reenactors were still at the front of the charge. They still had their plastic and foam weapons. But as they neared the army of darkness, a being of light and laughter flew down from the heavens.

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  Wings flapped. A chorus and silver horns heralded his approach from a choir sitting in puffy white clouds. And with uproarious laughter, Jack the angel swept down from the sky and passed in front of the charging medieval reenactors. With the passing of his angelic presence, the reenactors’ plastic and foam weapons shone bright and golden, edged with the white light of purity.

  “Hah!” Jack shouted as he banked up and away from the now golden army of reenactors. “I just Ephesians six-tened all up in here!”

  With the laughter and trumpet cries of the angels at their backs, Ivan’s army met the hell knights. Golden swords sparked against evil blades. Hell hound teeth met golden armor. Skeletal warriors clashed with men wearing shimmering armor and blinding weapons that crushed the bones of their enemies. All throughout the line the guns kept firing, with lead bullets and tank fire alike striking home in explosions of demon-crushing power.

  “What is happening!” Steve shouted.

  “This is not going to make me any friends,” Gore noted.

  “Is actual battle? Is actual battle! What, what…” Ivan said, his eyes wide as he tried to make sense of what was happening.

  Three Sherman and two panzer tanks charged the hell-spawned dragon. They fired armor-piercing rounds that exploded against the dragon’s scales. The creature roared and breathed fire upon the metal beasts, but their now shimmering angelic armor deflected the flames and let the tanks continue to shoot their main cannons. The flames did, however, knock off the tanks’ aim.

  Six blasts of armor-piercing, explosive guns fired at the dragon, and missed. The rounds arced wildly, sailing through the sky before landing square in the middle of Ivan’s tent.

  “No!” Ivan shouted as his tent and still and all his tables and wood-working tools exploded in a massive fireball. Ivan fell to his knees in furious despair. “How will Ivan make table now!”

  Steve and Gore didn’t care much about Ivan’s tables. They did, however, plainly see Ivan’s refrigerator explode. Steve imagined pieces of what might have been the most delicious sandwich ever tasted raining down amongst the burning shrapnel.

  Jack the angel laughed as he flew over the battle, watching demons fight for their lives against the blessed army of reenactors.

  “Ivan kill you!” Ivan shouted, baring his table leg. “Ivan kill you all!”

  Though Jack had not blessed his weapon, though his armor and shield were still literal tables, though he had nothing more than anger at his side, Ivan ran toward both armies with a cry for blood. And Steve felt sorry for whoever got in his way.

  “This… didn’t go as planned,” Gore conceded.

  “You think!” Steve replied.

  “How was I supposed to know an angel would come down with a battle-winning miracle? That hasn’t happened since Constantine!”

  Over the din of clashing steel, Dawn’s voice suddenly rang out with a, “Hey, look what I found!”

  Steve turned in the direction of the shout, and saw a German tank barreling toward him. His first instinct was to run, or to take cover from the inevitable turret-blast. After he gave the tank a second look, however, Steve tilted his head with a mixture of confusion, humor, anger, worry, and so many other thoughts he was paralyzed from the sight.

  Dozens of white bunnies saluted from various posts aboard the oncoming tank. Dawn sat daintily on the side of the tank’s turret, smiling as the vehicle came to a stop in front of Steve and Gore.

  “Apparently a swarm of bunnies is scary enough to chase people away and let me steal their armored car. Who knew?” Dawn said, and hopped off the stolen panzer.

  “Who’s driving that thing?” Steve asked.

  Burney popped his head out from inside the tank, and screamed.

  “I nearly got trampled by angels. Good thing my bunnies helped me get out of there,” Dawn said, and patted a nearby fuzzy bunny on the head. “Now go off and have fun. I’ll be by to pick you up in a second.”

  Dawn giggled as the bunnies hopped off the tank and raced back toward the battlefield. Like a child’s dream, or nightmare depending on said child’s upbringing, the swarm of bunnies raced back to the fray roaring whatever the equivalent was to a bunny war cry.

  “They’re going to get trampled to death down there,” Dawn noted after the bunnies had left. “Angels coming down to bless people really throws off the balance of good and evil. Gonna take a lot of dead bunnies to fix that.”

  “I’m glad you’re safe, Dawn,” Steve said.

  Burney, in reply, screamed.

  “You too, Burney,” Steve added. “But we really should get out of here as soon as we can. Where’s my car?”

  “Down there,” Dawn said, pointing toward the battlefield.

  Dmitri drove the chair-armored compact through the lines of hell beasts like a redneck in a demolition derby. The car was already covered in pieces of mangled demon parts, and collided with the charging lances of hell knights and their steeds.

  The dragon, weakened from so many tank shells, saw the car approaching. It couldn’t react in time, however, for the charging car rammed into its side. Like a spear traveling at sixty miles per hour, the weaponized chairs in Steve’s car skewered the dragon front to back. The colossal hell-summoned creature let out a terrible cry of pain and fell dead atop Steve’s car. With a strangely soft crunch, the Japanese compact flattened in a burst of glass and aluminum.

  “My car!” Steve said as Dmitri, waving that he was okay, exited the crushed vehicle.

  “So… we have a problem,” Dawn said.

  “Forget that,” Steve said, and climbed aboard the tank. “Burney, drive.”

  Burney screamed compliance and hit the tank’s accelerator. Gore and Dawn also hopped on. And so the four demons escaped the battlefield atop a stolen tank, the cries of victoriously blessed soldiers and trampled bunnies fading in the distance.