"NATION!" President Colbert announced briskly to every American who owned a TV, "as you know, for the past 36 hours, New York City has been the site of a massive, battle between two utterly bizarre combatants. Well, we have made contact with them, and they say they are fighting to the 'Queen Goddess'," he said, doing air quotes, "and are waging war against the 'wizard world'." (Also air quotes) "However," he continued, "obviously this is a bunch of bullshit. So therefore, I have concluded that New York has become the latest combat zone in a war between drug cartels! Thus I am expanding the War on Drugs, and will stop at NOTHING to make sure that these people have been banished from our shores, and sent back to Mexico where they belong!"

At this moment, the entire United States military (which had previously been heading for Iran) was converging on New York, fully armed and ready to take back the great American city.

The wizards and the gods and the Starcrushers were still fighting, when suddenly the Skullsquishers entered the battle.

"Great Scott!" said Twenty-Two, "Commander, the wizards appear to have hired to Skullsquishers as mercenaries!"

"I was afraid the war would take this route…" Commander Forthwith said. "Continue the fighting and be on the lookout for any attacks from the Skullsquishers."

The Starcrushers were known for their very clean, efficient manner of fighting, which typically involved only destroying/killing what/who they absolutely had to destroy/kill, and when they did so, it was typically by way of vaporization, which was painless and left no mess, since it simply scattered the atoms. The Skullsquishers, meanwhile, were an entirely different story.

They preferred to kill by squishing, and they preferred to destroy everything and everyone in their path by firing dumb bombs and crudely built lasers wildly. And when they really needed to destroy something, they would fire one of the many nuclear weapons they kept on board at it.

As the Skullsquishers blasted their way through New York, they knocked down buildings left and right, seemingly trying to cause as much destruction as possible. Then they spotted the Starcrushers.

Captain Nightshade growled viciously, and ordered the other Skullsquishers to begin firing everything they had at their enemies, hoping to take them out of the skies. But Commander Forthwith was wise to their tactics, and ordered the Starcrushers' ship' s shields be activated to deflect the Skullsquishers' death rays and dumb bombs.

Then the American military arrived.

The soldiers, tanks, planes, ships, artillery launchers, and every other weapon the superpower had at its disposal started firing at both sides. This frustrated the gods.

"Oh great," Odin sighed, "a two-front war."

"What should we do, cousin?" asked Zeus.

"Swat their plans and flick their tanks out of the way, but for the most part just ignore them and focus on the wizards. We must extinguish their forces." Odin said.

Meanwhile, Mercury called up.

"Commander Forthwith," he said, "I have new orders for you."

"What are your orders, Mercury?" Forthwith asked.

"Do whatever you can to send the American mortals packing, so we can fight this war more cleanly." Mercury commanded.

"We will do our best." Forthwith said, hanging up. He then got the American general on the line.

"Greetings, American military commander," Commander Forthwith said professionally.

"That's General Griswold to you, flyboy!" the General replied angrily.

"Now, now, American military commander," Commander Forthwith said, "There is no reason to be angry with us."

"What are you talking about? There is EVERY reason to be angry with you—namely the fact that you're destroying an American civilian settlement!" General Griswold shouted, furious at Commander Forthwith's cavalier attitude about the situation.

"We habour no resentful feelings towards you or your settlement, American military commander," Commander Forthwith said, calm as ever, "we are simply acting on orders from—"

"Yeah, I know, you and your damn fuckin' 'Queen Goddess' or some bullshit." General Griswold fumed. "Listen up, if you don't—" but before he could finish, the Starcrushers blasted him with their teleporter beam, zapping him to the middle of Nebraska. "—whoa! What the fuck!? Where the am I!? What'd those yahoos do? Am I in fuckin' Kansas or something!?"

Meanwhile, in New York, the war raged on.

"Brother!" Jupiter called to Zeus, "We are throwing everything we have at them, and yet the wizards still are holding us off!"

"I know, brother!" Zeus replied, "But just keep fighting, we will wear them down eventually. They have to rest or give up sometime!" And they wired in to Mercury to send Thor and Loki in for backup.

"I'LL MAKE QUICK WORK OF THIS!" Thor whaled, swinging his hammer wildly, knocking down building after building, finally hitting Russo Tower, which housed Alex.

"OH MY GOOOOOOOOOOSSSSSSSSSSSSSHHHH HHHH!" Alex screamed as she dove for cover as Thor's hammer came at her building, smashing it like a pile of flimsy glass and sending it collapsing to the ground in a ruined heap of rubble.

"Councilman BenZoltar!" wizard commander General Ivan Ivanofski yelled, "They've struck Russo tower!"

"That's a major part of our societal infrastructure!" BenZoltar yelled, horrified.

"They're too powerful, councilman!" Ivanofski shouted, "We can't repel them anymore! What do we do!?"

"There is only one thing we can do..." BenZoltar said darkly.

"What!?" Ivanofski demanded

"We have to level all of New York." BenZoltar said.

"But sir," General Ivanofski said, "millions of people—both wizard and muggle—live there!"

"A million is a statistic, General," BenZoltar said coldly, "and this is war."