Two Days Before the Day After Tomorrow
On December 21st, 2012 the ancient aliens returned to the earth, their enormous motherships encircling the world and hovering over every major city. The aliens had the heads of animals and furry humanoid bodies, much as the gods had been depicted in the art of Egypt, Babylonia, and a number of other cultures thousands of years ago.
"Well gang," summarized a jackal-headed alien sent in a delegation to the planet surface, "it's been fun, but we've come back to kinda wrap things up, and not a moment too soon from the looks of it, since you yard apes have messed things up royally!"
"What do you mean?," asked an earth political leader.
"Duh!," answered the jackal-headed alien. "Don't you watch the History Channel? We mixed our DNA with that of Homo erectus to develop slave labor to enable us to build the pyramids and other great monuments around this rock that otherwise you primates would never have been able to construct at that time!"
"This is what we call a 'genetic harvest' project," elaborated a fox-headed alien.
"I really like foxes!," interjected another earth political leader.
"Your ass will be spared," allowed the fox-headed alien, pleased.
"Did someone say, 'ass?,'" inquired a donkey-headed alien.
"So anyhow," continued the jackal-headed alien, "you naked apes just wait quietly for the planetary destroyers to arrive, and we'll vaporize you quickly and painlessly without any fuss."
"Wait a minute!," interjected the Governor of California, speaking with an Austrian accent. "Wouldn't you superior beings at least like to give us a fighting chance? - -Have a little entertainment?"
"Entertainment?," questioned the jackal-headed alien, intrigued.
"Yah," continued the Governor, making his case. "We put one of our best men in with one of yours in a huge cage, and they fight to the death. If you win...well, our race was going to perish, anyways. But if we prevail, you allow both the planet and the human race to continue!"
"What are the rules?," asked an owl-headed alien.
"There are none," answered the Governor quietly. "Two men enter, one man leaves!"
With that, one unidentified human voice in the room began chanting, "two men enter...one man leaves!" The chant quickly spread and was carried until all in the room were swept away in the excitement and joined in the muttering.
"I dunno if I'm caught in a re-make of Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome or an Arnold Schwarzenegger movie," puzzled one politician.
"By the way," added the Governor of California, "I've just signed a bill to decriminalize possession of marijuana."
"You know," declared the jackal-headed alien, "there might be hope for you pinkies yet!"
Not long afterwards, a rhino-headed representative of the aliens met in an enormous dome-shaped steel cage with a cowl-wearing representative of Earth. Spectators both human and alien hung on the metal framework of the cage to observe the upcoming death match. Assorted weapons of varying degrees of lethality were attached to the walls. Anticipating an easy victory, the rhino-headed alien snorted, sprang to the wall, extracted a wicked-looking hunting knife, and brandishing it charged at the much-smaller, cowled figure. The smaller hooded figure dodged adroitly, vaulted to the ceiling, and retrieved a .44 magnum Super Blackhawk, deadly as hell. For an instant, the rhino-headed figure paused, regarding the cowled figure silently; then it bellowed and sprang forward, knife raised high to deliver a killing blow.
In the confines of the domed cage, the blast of the .44 was deafening; there was a frenzied howl. The rhino-headed alien gripped its midriff, and the cowled figure could hear fluid pattering to the ground as terrible wounds in the alien's chest and stomach flowed with blood. Incredibly the rhino straightened, fixed the cowled figure with angry red eyes, and leaped with a snarl of rage and hatred. The hooded figure fired a second time directly into the rhino's face, the force of the massive bullet stopping the figure in mid-air, jerking the head back and whirling the body sharply to one side. The smell of alien blood and cordite filled the air.
The alien thrashed heavily in the dust, whirling and jerking in a frenzied dance, bone and unidentified matter glinting wetly from the ruins of his head. Small jets of arterial blood rose in an erratic cadence. A low furious cry gurgled in its throat. After a long time came silence.
Standing over its shattered foe, the cowled figure drew back its hood at last, revealing a visage unmistakeably canine, Canis latrans. "Sometimes the best man is a furry, and the only defense left us is to play the coyote, the trickster," he commented sadly. "At last, the cycle is finished!"
The jackal-headed alien waved dismissively with his paw. "Yeah, yeah, you got lucky," he sighed. "But we'll come see you again at the end of the next great cycle, say in another six thousand years or so! We honor your infrequent victories, as you would seem to have recognized from your 'Predator' movies. Next time, no more Mr. Nice Guy!" With that, the aliens silently teleported themselves into their motherships and departed the terran system.
"They'll be back," commented the Governor of California, donning a pair of sunglasses and pondering whether he should return to films when his term of office was over...