Unbeknownst to its primitive inhabitants (who were at the moment otherwise engaged with the act of obsessing themselves over pale bloodsuckers sparkling in the sunlight), the planet Earth was expanding at a rapid pace. If any of the aforementioned inhabitants had noticed the occurrence of such an uncommon phenomenon (and chanced to wipe away the fluid of shame that had streamed out of his/her mouth as a result of said obsession), and stopped to think about its cause, there would be many possible conjectures he/she could have come up with. Global warming was naturally the first to blame for any problem, followed by alien invasions, and the existence of the Cookie Monster came in as a close third. However, no matter how hard they racked their pea-sized brains, no human could ever realise the true cause of the enlargement of the third planet from the Sun.

In very much unrelated news, the Holy Triumvirate was currently situated three hundred metres below ground-- at the bottom of the South China Sea. A sociable oversized shark swam past and waved, saying, "你好！欢迎来到南中国海！"

Herculehastings returned the greeting, inquiring politely whether the shark was supposed to be here.

“我也不晓得耶。” The shark admitted. “科学家对南海生物的研究并不深入。” It swam away, baring its teeth in an amicable smile.

The Holy Triumvirate had decided to take a trip to China in a bid to fruitfully use the monetary offerings they had received from their devotees meant for victims of the meteorite collision at the distant planet Vergo (of which non-existence was one of their special traits). However, while vacationing peacefully in Guangzhou, all of them had simultaneously experienced a Hallucination Of Delicious Lies, and had dived recklessly into the South China Sea in search of the cake that had beckoned tastily to them. And now, they were stranded underwater with little hope of returning to the surface, and herculehastings and Wstfgl were picking a fight.

"Oh yes." This reminded herculehastings. She turned towards the turtle, saying, "We haven't decided on a topic of conflict yet. I suggest that it should have something to do with Timey standing annoyingly at a corner chewing on popcorn."

TimeDragon888, who had shamelessly requested to be mentioned in this recount even though he played no part in its proceedings, waved annoyingly from behind a bunch of coral reefs. A clown fish bounced out of the pink reefs and whipped its forehead with its tail.

"We haven't decided on a topic of conflict yet. I suggest that it should have something to do with Timey standing annoyingly at a corner chewing on popcorn." herculehastings said. Wstfgl duly turned to scowl at TimeDragon888, whom appeared to be enjoying himself immensely.

"Well, how about we fight over who gets rights to kick him in the face, then?" Wstfgl suggested.

"Sure," herculehastings replied. Okay, time to make my move.

He quickly scanned the surroundings. Hmm... sharks... fishes... coral reef...misplaced penguin... dead whale... car tyres... stray popcorn... remains of World War 2 Japanese battleship... Ah! He had a cunning idea, noticing the dead whale sinking ponderously behind HH. He pointed at it and exclaimed, "LOL!"

Immediately, HH turned around to look at whatever he had pointed at, just as the whale exploded into a massive shower of blood, gibs and inexplicably enough, flowerpots. Wstfgl grinned, and watched. The purpose of the attack wasn't to ruin HH's clothes with blood stains, or even to concuss her with the flowerpots. It was somewhat more nefarious...

Immediately, the school of giant sharks swimming aimlessly around some distance away caught the scent of blood, and promptly went into a berserk frenzy, rushing straight at her and snapping at whatever that happened to be in the way, somehow managing to scream "杀! 杀! 杀!" as they did so. That included a rather surprised TimeDragon888, somewhat ruining the point of the fight, but it wasn't as if anyone would notice.

KILL! KIIIILLLLLLLL!!!!! A little voice in Wstfgl's head screamed out. Apparently, his subconscious also wanted a cut out of the bloodshed.

Shut up, Eric.

China had always fascinated TimeDragon888. Or at least, ancient China did. This was probably one of the reasons why Time had agreed on taking a trip to China. Strangely enough, halfway through the vacation, a sweet smell of cake wafted from the sea beside him, causing him to irrationally dive into the murky waters, followed shortly by Wstfgl and herculehastings.

Upon being unable to locate the cake in the sea, Time had settled on summoning a box of waterproof popcorn instead, and was currently savoring its sweet goodness in a corner, while HH and Wst were arguing over something he couldn't quite hear very well.

They looked at him unexpectedly, so he waved back. What was even more unexpected was a clown fish appearing out of nowhere, lightly slapping his forehead with its tail. Annoyed, Time flicked his fingers, causing the fish to explode comically. In the distance, Wstfgl pointed at a rather conspicuous dead whale, causing it to explode as well, in a much more violent manner. This was shortly followed by several sharks the size of skyscrapers suddenly attacking Time.

"Hey, watch the popcorn!" He cried as one of the sharks attempted to bite off his arm.

As he swam around frantically, trying to keep the popcorn out of the sharks' hungry mouths, an object floated calmly out of his short sleeve. Time quickly grabbed the Golden Snake Sword and waved it threateningly in the sharks' faces.

... Or what would have been the sharks' faces, if they haven't swam away already, charging straight towards Wst and HH. Time had a vague recollection of forcibly expelling the intestines of one of the sharks, but that timeline seemed to have vanished, most probably due to Wst's interference.

Thus, Time simply watched (in a rather amused manner) as HH tried to deal with the sharks.

"Talk about hospitality. We're tourists here!" herculehastings grumbled loudly as the sharks charged at her bloodthirstily, enveloping herself in a green aura bubble. The bubble enlarged, knocking the sharks out of the way, but also knocking Wstfgl aside in the meantime. Once the sharks had been fully enlightened by the power of green and had made the right choice of fleeing, she released her blow.

"Where were we? Oh yes, fighting. I say let's just battle without any purpose," she decided, wondering why Wstfgl was sprawled at a corner. She fingered the packet of ready-made LOL!-cubes in her pocket, which were sharing space with a creased photograph of DayDreamer, her personal Royal Smiter. They were definitely assuredly of trusted origin and not made of illegal dragon urine, as rumours had circulated.

"Now, please accept my challenge!" she declared to the turtle god, who was ponderously getting to his feet. She could hear TimeDragon888 crunching noisily on popcorn. We need a referee. And on a completely unrelated note, I've managed to cough up more than 10 lines on a post without progressing the plot much!

HH didn't seem to be a pushover, contrary to whatever an average passerby (or perhaps TimeDragon888) would have expected -- she had managed to effortlessly repel the horde of berserking sharks, leaving them to maul each other instead of her.

Then, Wstfgl got knocked head over heels by a rather indeterminate bolt of green energy, sending his head spinning. She said something rather unintelligible due to his dizziness. However, he had very certainly caught the last part -- "-accept my challenge!" Well, you think you're very tough, aren't you? And I'm definitely sure you didn't give me a chance to dodge that, you little cheater.

"OF COURSE! WHO THE HELL DO YOU THINK I AM?!" Wstfgl bellowed in response, somehow managing to do so despite his mouth being filled with water. Then, he pulled out his favourite weapon from out of his pockets -- the Dies Irae. It was a shoulder-mounted gatling cannon almost as large (and as heavy) as a large truck, making it possibly the most powerful hand-carried weapon in existence. Unfortunately, he didn't have very many chances to use it, but one seemed to have presented itself to him.

He pointed it in herculehastings' general direction, and pulled the trigger, muttering "LOL!" under his breath. There was an ominous whirring sound as the motor of the gatling gun started spinning. Out of nowhere, a bunch of disembodied floating heads suddenly started singing "Ode To Joy" in an overly dramatic way.

DAKKADAKKADAKKADAKKADAKKADAKKADAKKADAKKADAKKADAKKADAKKADAKKADAKKADAKKADAKKADAKKADAKKA.

An area the size of a small city had been completely obliterated by the burst, and a thick cloud of pulverized coral, sand and wreckage obscured HH's former position. This was the sort of weapon that made supporting characters in anime films yell things like "HE COULDN'T POSSIBLY SURVIVE AN ATTACK THAT POWERFUL!". Unfortunately for HH, Wstfgl had also learnt that said victims of such an attack often emerged completely unharmed. Thus, without waiting for the smoke to clear and reveal HH, he fired the plasma cannon bolted onto the Dies Irae straight into the centre of the cloud.

Immediately, an enormous sphere of blue-white energy engulfed the area, dramatically expanding in slow-motion as the chorus of floating heads started chanting even more ominously than usual. Wstfgl grinned. Whether it hurt her or not... now that's just awesome.

With extraordinary speed for a weapon so heavy, Wstfgl whipped out a gatling gun, immediately firing it at the area where herculehastings stood, expecting her to stand still like a mannequin. Herculehastings wanted to tell him just how ridiculously foolish that thought was, but decided that showing was a better method than telling (also that if she wasted time telling him about the foolishness of his idea, it might turn out to be less foolish than she thought).

Water slowed bullets down. Or maybe it sped perfect goddesses up. Either way, it took little effort for herculehastings to maneouvre herself away from the smoke caused by the collision of metal on coral, sand and assorted dirt. Clouded by the fumes produced, she watched idly as he launched the plasma cannon straight where she had stood previously, obliterating a few centimetres of hair on her right.

Wstfgl was watching intently the distractions produced from his blows. The green maiden made sure that he was focused on the chorus of noisy floating heads before throwing a LOL-cube while obscured in the thick smoke. Who knows how much air pollution is in these waters this very moment, all thanks to a water reptile. The LOL-cube was inconspicuously-sized, being only about three centimetres in length, breadth and height if any reader happened to want to contest. It dropped a few metres away from her intended target due to her poor aim (the smoke! She blamed the smoke!), half-buried in the sand. She waved away the last remnants of fumes from her field of vision and activated the small but potentially lethal weapon (did she happen that it could also be used for cooking? Try LOL-cube scrambled eggs today!) with the codeword, "ack!"

Instantly, the cube opened itself to reveal, with a flash of stunning green light, a giant insect. The stagbeetle took a few moments to orientate itself before scuttling towards Wstfgl on its six black legs, making curious sucking noises as it moved.

A stag beetle. That was possibly the dumbest weapon Wstfgl had ever seen used against him -- and he had once fought a loony with a rocket-propelled afro. (That had incinerated the poor sod's head, as expected.) What made it even lamer was the fact that it was making rather comical sucking noises as it ponderously ground towards him. There were some creaks and groans as its insect-proportioned joints, too flimsy to take the greatly increased weight of the giant beetle, strained dangerously.

That was the dumbest thing about giant monsters; bugs might be able to lift hundreds of times their own weight at normal size, but didn't necessarily act that way when scaled up. Wstfgl glared at it, muttering, "LOL!" Immediately, it became a few kilograms heavier as a bunch of lead weights mysteriously appeared in its stomach.

Its joints creaked tortuously, groaned, then gave way under the strain, causing the beetle to collapse spread-eagled on the ocean floor. That was pretty lame. But then again, what do you expect from the Green Goddess?

Just before he was about to unleash another blistering round of DAKKA at HH, he realized something. The bullets he had been firing were too slow to hit anything, being encumbered with so much water in the way. That made its accuracy abysmal, to say the least. Well, that leaves something to be remedied. Looks like I'll have to try something completely different, then, since boiling the oceans and turning the planet to slag looks rather undesirable at the moment...

He pointed his gun, and pulled the trigger. Rather unexpectedly, he fired the rounds straight downwards into the ground, allowing the recoil to send him floating over HH at a considerable speed. Then, he muttered the sacred word, "LOL!", and immediately started plummeting straight downwards at her like a meteor. He pulled back his left hand, closing it into a fist, which promptly started crackling with energy. "My hand burns with an awesome power!
Its burning grip tells me to own you! TAKE THIS! MY INSANITY, MY LATENT HOMICIDAL TENDENCIES, AND ALL MY INCONSEQUENTIAL EMOTIONS! ALL THAT AND MORE FOR $19.95 WITH A FREE GIFT!!! SHINING! FIST!! HAMMER!!!!!

It was corny, but perhaps that would distract her for long enough...

Okay, so maybe the stag beetle did not last as long as herculehastings had hoped it would. That did not detract from the appeal of the LOL-cube though! (It was still good for cooking) Before herculehastings could turn around and demonstrate the culinary techniques of the LOL-cube to her viewers (wait, since when she on television anyway?), Wstfgl began plummeting towards her with a fist stuck out and calling at the top of his voice about something costing nineteen dollars and ninety-five cents. She raised her head disinterestedly, the look on her face roughly equivalent to two equal signs separated by a full stop in the written form.

Faced by such a ghastly look, the water that had been propelling the turtle at a high velocity towards her suddenly froze. The water currents were completely still for that instant, forcing Wstfgl to endure the full intensity of the Equal Sign-Full Stop-Equal Sign Look. To allow readers (so now we have readers as well as viewers, what is this, a drama?) to experience the terror he must have felt, this writer presents the Look to you.

=.=

"So you want money?" she murmured, not letting off with the =.= expression. "I'll give you money then! Behold the... ZIMBABWEAN DOLLAR." She flashed a green five-hundred-dollar note at his awestruck face, following which she muttered incantations that sounded like "foreign currency" and "exchange rate". Soon enough, a whirlpool of symbols formed around the god's body, all of which corresponding to the currency symbol of a particular country. He was trapped.

Immediately, HH made a very, very stupid-looking face at him. Bah, I'm not impressed. Seen worse than that, especially at anime conventions... Then, she mumbled something inaudible and he was suddenly surrounded by thousands of floating monetary symbols, mostly of completely worthless currencies. Immediately, a little voice in Wstfgl's head that somehow reminded him of calamari told him, "It's a trap!"

Way to go, Captain Obvious...

He looked around him; he was completely surrounded by the annoying monetary symbols. Well, looks like I'll just have to break through them the hard way. He unleashed said SHINING FIST HAMMER into the wall of swirling symbols, hoping that it would break through. Very unfortunately, the attack bounced off the impervious barrier, causing nothing other than a loud thunk. He swore under his breath. I'll get hit by her next attack for sure.

Then, he realized that HH wasn't actually doing anything other than staring at him through the wall of notes. "Excuse me!" he yelled. "Aren't you going to attack me?!" HH didn't seem to respond. Then, a realization struck him. "Oh yeah, it's my turn now. Well, well...Time for something completely different..."

He muttered "LOL!", propelling a large blast of seawater backwards at a high speed. The jet acted like the blast from a rocket engine, sending the entire globe of symbols with Wstfgl inside flying at HH like a cannonball.