I warned Ned that this next battle would be hard. Greed had taken the body of a resilient old man; one who anybody would think should have died long ago, but still he managed to live. Greed lived alone in a mansion, although his assistant did spend a lot of time there. We drove up to the mansion, and saw that he was not there. But we knew where his other perch was; the extravagant office in the Springfield Nuclear Power Plant. So we found him quickly. I pulled him over, with his assistant looking in shock at me. "Let him go!" he cried, pounding on me, which worked—showing that he too was a devil in disguise. But that battle was to come later.
"Oh, it's quite alright, Smithers…" Greed said, so very calmly, "I just need to crush my inferior and then we can get back to business!"
Greed took and warped us to a golden vortex. "My name is Montgomery Burns and I AM GREED!" was his first hissing call. He said, "Look at all the things you can buy with money!" Suddenly, lovely things started appearing around us. An image of the left-handed store where Ned worked showed first normal, then an extravagant emporium. A flash-forward of his sons as teenagers, getting all the pretty, good, and absolutely not naughty girls in town due to their exorbitant sports cars showed. A statue, standing tall, made of pure diamond, except for the mustache and hair which were pure gold, of Ned showed. "Money is the most important thing in life…" Ned was grinning at the prospect of the sports cars, although he did seem thoroughly unimpressed with the offer of the impractical statue. But he shook that grin off his face.
Ned looked angry. "There are kids out there who feel dejected and left out because all their classmates have the coolest new stuff and they can barely afford clothes and food. And what kind of man would I be if I couldn't let them have a little happiness. I'm sorry, but I'm giving at least a portion of my diddily-dough to char-diddily-arity!" Greed looked shocked, and I thought he was defeated.
But he wasn't. "It's going to take a little more than an empty promise to sway Greed. Remember, I'm a businessman!" Suddenly he warped the sports car in front of him, and put in a parallel to it, a burly ten-year-old. "Now, you must CHOOSE! You can give this money to the child, or you can keep it and spend it on a BEAUTIFUL sports car."
The child, Ned insisted, was one of the kids who teased his neighbor at school. But if he really was needy, that would explain why. Ned looked sad, and handed the money to the child. The child looked as though he was going to have a heart-attack. "I've… I've… I've never seen this much money in my LIFETIME!" He began crying, after which he said, "Don't tell the guys at school about this, okay?" He drifted out of the vortex with no memory of what had happened, with the money in his hand. Greed's worst enemy, philanthropy, had won.
"NOOOOOO!" shouted Greed. We were immediately warped back, and there on the ground, was Montgomery Burns. The spirit of Greed drifted out and a pure soul replaced it. Montgomery Burns had been set free.
"Sir?" asked the assistant, clearly worried as all get out.
"I'm dying…" he said bluntly, "But before I die… I want to give all of my billions to charity."
The assistant said, tears welling up in his eyes, "As you wish, sir." He wrote a check for the entire bank account, and drove to the nearest charity, where he donated the money.
"Wow, how'd you get all that money?" asked the person accepting the donation, and the assistant told him the sad story. Running back as quickly as he could without being stopped by the police, he managed to reach Montgomery Burns before it was too late.
"Smithers… I hope you're not disappointed in me…" Montgomery said, looking at the grim and heartbroken expression on his assistant's face. "Because you sure never disappointed me… my one love…" And at that moment, Montgomery Burns died.
Smithers cried himself dry. "God, why now sir? Why not before? Why not… why… why… why??" Then he looked back at us, with an expression of TOTAL anger. "You killed him!"
"I… knew I would never be as important to him as his material possessions, but still, I liked to hope… I loved him, god I loved him so much. But I was never his first priority, until he… he…he…he died! I hope you're happy for killing him!" he yelled.
Ned put his hand on Smithers' shoulder saying, "That couldn't be further from the truth. It was never my intention to kill anyone; I was just trying to remove the gree-diddily-eed from his body."
"Then…" Smithers said, "Remove my impurities too!" His face was streaked with tears and his eyes were so red they made my hair look blue. He was miserable, and the only way we could possibly make his life a little easier is if we took his advice and removed his impurities… his impurity of Envy.
"Can we do that vor-diddily-ortex thing again? It's sure a fun time!" Ned said, upbeat enough to sicken the heartbroken man.
"Whatever…" he said as he warped us to a green vortex. "Now you have to resist the urges to show your jealousy of anyone. Such as your neighbor, whose wife is still alive… unlike MY BOSS!"
"Aren't you going to intro-diddily-duce yourself, like Greed and Lust did?" Ned asked.
I nudged him gently and said, "Ned… he's heartbroken. We should be thankful he's humoring us at all…"
"Okay fine!" he sighed, "My name is Waylon Smithers and I am Envy. Happy?"
Ned said, "Well…"
"Neither am I so shut up!" he responded. "Now back on the topic of your neighbor's wife… aren't you jealous she's still alive, unlike yours?"
"Of course I'm a little jealous, but it's nothing to be spiteful over. I mean, he's my neighbor, and I'm happy if he's happy."
"At least you're constantly being jealous of a friend… me, I had to be jealous of money, of the plant, of employees who didn't work nearly as hard as I did but got perks anyway, of women, and of every person I knew with a life partner!" Envy shouted.
"Well I'm certainly not envious of that…" Ned said, looking sympathetic. He then said, frankly, "You were too shy."
"W-what?" asked Envy, shaking at that conviction.
"Instead of going and getting the one you loved and longed for, you stood back and watched as money, a job, other employees and women consumed him away from you. The reason you are jealous… is because you can't face the fact that you might be rejected, and therefore, shy away. But if you really want to live life free of envy, you should start by being strong and heading after what you desire… then you can truly achieve it…" Ned spoke, and Envy smiled softly.
"Thank you," he said, "For removing my soul… from this innocent man… away I go."
We were warped back and I saw Waylon Smithers coughing softly on the ground. The spirit of Envy had been removed and replaced with a pure soul. Waylon Smithers had been set free.
"I must say, I'm impressed with you, Ned. Most modern Christians think that the story of Sodom proves that people like him should not have a right to love… but you, you think clearly. Are you sure you're human?" I asked him.
"Yeah, but… it was love. True love. Not lust, in fact the sexual draw if there was any, was hard for me to see under the blanket of affection…" he said poetically, "But I'm not saying there wasn't any sexual draw… in fact there most likely was, but all I'm saying is that was not his motive. His motive was pure."
As we left the office, he still cried over Montgomery Burns' body. He was racked with regret that he never got a chance to share his true feelings, but he decided to turn over a new leaf. The next man who came anywhere close to the level of Montgomery Burns' beauty, he would ask out on a date, and the two of them would bond. He was no longer afraid of rejection, and could now go ask for what he really wanted.
Note from my superior: There was another meeting today. Here is what happened.
Pride sat at the head of the table and said, "I'm so glad that old fossil and his bitch are gone. After all, this is supposed to be a meeting of the Deadly Sins, not the Ancient Gay Sins."
"Deadly, mm… yes…" said Wrath, sharpening his knife on Gluttony's Nintendo Entertainment System.
"HEY!" he shouted, "And whose idea was it anyway that we weren't allowed to eat in here? Seriously, my metabolism is frail enough that if I don't eat 4000 calories a day or more, I'll collapse right here and now. That's vintage, Wrath! And it DID still work, although, now I don't believe it will anymore."
"It must have been Greed's," said Sloth. "He's so skinny he must be agoraphobic. I think…"
"More like, anorexic, stupid," Wrath growled. "But if Gluttony needs that much food, perhaps we should give it to him."
Pride said, "What, give in to the Passive Sins? What kind of Active Sin are you, Wrath?"
"I don't know…" mumbled Wrath, "The kind that feels sorry for Envy?"
"You feel sorry for Envy? But just two days ago you were trying to kill him for being homosexual. Continuity error!" shouted Gluttony.
"Continuity error? Oh why is everything about fiction for you, Gluttony? Some of us actually have lives!" Pride wailed, "And aren't morbidly obese geeks like you!"
Gluttony looked sadly down at his sagging skin-fold and showing belly. "Perhaps you're right, Pride. But in all honesty, you are the worst. Leader. Ever."
Wrath said, "I know what it's like to be abused… and he was abused. Greed abused him all the time, but he put up with it for love. I was trying to put up with it for fans, but I caved. I turned to anger! And that was because my soul was inflicted with Wrath. Envy was right all along. I don't WANT Sideshow Bob to suffer any longer."
Gluttony and Sloth both started cheering. Pride said, "Quiet! We don't want any forfeiting done! We can still beat Ned Flanders… and you, Wrath, you better not put up an easy fight like Envy did. We'll erase your name from the hall of fame too."
Wrath got a devilish smirk (although since he is a devil, that's to be expected) and said "Hall of fame? Well I don't actually NEED to be there, do I?"
The quickest route now would be to fight Wrath next.
