Arch-Nemesis

Jesus flew.

It was a nice feeling. Even cooler than walking on water, and he was pretty sure nothing was going to top that. Well, raising the dead was cool too, but this flying thing was sweet.

He was flying over the desert. He'd been out here the better part of a month, and it was cool of the Custodians to let him use the armor. It was so light that he barely felt it, but impervious to just about anything. Plus it had lasers. He'd never even heard of those before, but he sure did like them. He blew the top off a small mountain with one just for the sheer fun of it.

He settled down onto what was left, and surveyed the wasteland before him. The armor was doing a nice job of keeping him cool in the desert heat too, which was nice. And he'd told those jackoffs that kept following him around that he had to make this trek alone, some crap about spirituality, he forgot exactly what he said. The upshot was, they fucked off and let him go alone. Which was really great, since the only alone time he got any more was when the Custodians sent him on missions.

He really thought he was getting the hang of those, too. The monster on Alpha Centauri was rough, but that was mostly just getting used to the armor. Since then, he stopped an asteroid from colliding with Earth, apprehended an interstellar gang of slave-traders and prevented a mad scientist from turning the Vega star prematurely nova. And once he told Mary Magdalene about his new job, she dumped that schmuck with the hammer and got back with him. Yeah, life was looking up. He even managed to cure some lepers and enlighten some people after he got back from the mad scientist thing, so his dad was happy. He'd gotten grudging permission from the old man to keep up the galactic defender bit, so long as his "hobby" didn't interfere with his "real job".

Just then, the armor's internal sensors beeped, and he barely had time to dodge as hellfire blasted down onto the spot where he'd just been standing. He rolled, spun and fired a few blasts from his lasers.

"MUAHAHA!" A hideous laugh came from behind him. "You'll have to try harder than that to defeat the menace of... DR. SATAN!"

"Oh, fuck me," Jesus thought, turning around. It was his father's old assistant. He'd been fired ages ago, but still kept hanging around trying to start trouble. And what was this Dr. Satan crap? Jesus asked him.

"It was just something I thought I'd try out," Satan said, looking a little hurt that Jesus wasn't more impressed. "You don't like it?"

"Not really, no. Kind of stupid, truth be told."

Satan pouted, looking down at the ground. "Fine. I'll just stick with 'Satan', then."

"You do that. What do you want, exactly?"

"Nothing." Satan kicked at a rock, looking uncomfortable. "It's just, now that you're doing the hero thing, I thought you could use an arch-nemesis. So... y'know..." He looked up at Jesus, hopefully.

"What? No!" Jesus shook his head. "First of all, what do I need an arch-nemesis for? Second, why on earth would I want it to be you? What would you even do, anyway?"

Satan shrugged. "You know. Rob money-changers, plot global domination, kidnap Mary Magdalene and tie her to one of my doomsday devices..."

"You have a doomsday device?"

Satan looked at his feet and shuffled them. "Well... no. Not as such, but... I could get one."

"Yeah... listen, thanks, but, I think I'll pass. I--" Jesus paused as his armor beeped. "Crap. A rogue planet is on a collision course with a scientific observatory in a nearby binary star system. I gotta go." He laid a hand on Satan's shoulder. "But listen, buck up. Something will happen for you soon. You'll see." With a final pat on the shoulder, Jesus leapt from the mountain, heading into deep space.

"So, I'll just wait here then, okay?" Satan called after him. "Okay? Jesus?" Sullen, he sat down on the mountaintop.

"Crap."