The dust & smoke slowly vanished from the asteroid’s surface & he crawled out from the cave he had been hiding in with all the kids in tow: The Martian twins, a human teenager who was not a sculptor, three shell-shocked wolf-human toddlers, and a byzantium-colored gypsy somewhere from the Cartwheel Galaxy.

He held firmly onto his Uzzi while he surveyed the land. Craters, bomb-shelters, ash, weapons, & streams of liquid metal covered the ground. No sign of life.

The gypsy stood at his side as she expertly snapped handcuffs onto her own wrists and said, “Are we going to the asylum now or after we find your soldiers?”

He grimaced with the paper towels gripped tightly in his right hand, “Depends on who won the Ink War.”

The human teenager cackled, “You think someone won? Look at this place! Nobody won this stupid war. And you can’t clean every mess with those paper towels, sir. Even if it is true that you never run out of them.”

The Martians whispered in unison, “All of this for the last tank of ink.”