Ned vs. the Seven Deadly Sins

Seven avatars will fall from the sky: The avatars of Lust, of Gluttony, of Sloth, of Wrath, of Envy, of Pride, and of Greed. And only one man may take them on. One man with a good wholesome Christian upbringing. One man with good wholesome Christian values. One man with a bushy brown mustache… wait, what the hell? A bushy brown mustache? Are you sure that's part of the prophecy?

"Yes," said my superior. "It is always written that the man who may take on the avatars will have a bushy mustache. And it must be a brown one too. Without it, no man has ever been able to stop the avatars. The avatars that have come down are all there now. And so is the man of the prophecy," he continued. And on the screen down below was a picture of a man with neatly combed brown hair, big round glasses, a green sweater, and the bushy brown mustache. He was driving his kids to Sunday school, and his kids were praying in the car. Their cherubic appearances were more than simply skin-deep, and that's when I realized, he was my man. So I came in the form of a young woman, just his type. With red curly hair and standing tall. And that began the journey of my prophecy.

He was shocked by the initial view of me at first. He said, almost too awestruck to move, "M-Maude?"

"No," I answered, regretfully, "My name is Anastasia, and I am an angel."

"An… an… angel? But you guys haven't been leaving heaven since Jesus Christ! What's the occasion?" he asked, probably rhetorical, and probably disbelieving me. But I was bound to answer.

"You see, you are the man that all prophets have predicted would someday defeat the Avatars of the Cardinal Sins. And we have reason to believe that all the avatars are living in this town," I answered, and he just looked shocked at me.

"No, really? Ned Flanders is a prophecy boy? Well, I must say diddily-didn't expect this!" He was quite surprised actually, that even though he was studying the rules of the Bible, he was chosen for such a serious mission. The seven sins were somewhere in this town. I knew it. I knew exactly where to look for them.

I had to be careful about Lust, for Lust had a doppelganger, who was just a normal person. If I caught her by mistake, there would be hell to pay. Literally. Satan bet me 500 dollars that I couldn't find all the sins on my first try. I told him I didn't gamble, but he made me anyway. Devils…

Gluttony and Sloth would be harder to figure out. There were plenty of fat people in the town, but Gluttony and Sloth were only two. I heard Gluttony was very passionate about some things and cared not at all for others. Sloth was apparently stupid but that still didn't narrow it down enough for me, for there were plenty of fat stupid people in the town.

I did have one clue though. Apparently Sloth and Envy both worked for Greed. And Greed shouldn't be that too hard to find either. The real question now lies, who is Envy? Those jealous tend to hide their feelings strangely well to those not already seeing something in advance, and what was Envy envious of? Of Greed's money, or of Greed's acceptance of Lust, or of something that was not related to Greed whatsoever.

And Wrath and Pride were apparently both felons, even in a society where the Cardinal Sins are ignored. Wrath was caught, convicted and has not been released since, but somehow Pride always manages to get away.

As Ned and I pondered the possibility, he came to the rushed conclusion that there had been some mistake. That he knew the names of all the townsfolk and none even resembled the names of the avatars. I told him, "Devil avatars are very dangerous, and they must come up with their names on their own. Some come up with long, embellished names, others clever anagrams of ulterior motives, some with drastically different common-levels between their first and last names, and some can't even think of names at all, and go by names they're sure people will call them anyway eventually."

"Oh, god…" he said, pondering that his neighbors could possibly be devil avatars in disguise. "Oh, god, I've been so forgiving all this time, and some of the people I've been forgiving aren't even human at all, but rather, Devil Avatars!" Yes, he had finally believed that I was an angel and was telling him the truth and was correct. And soon the fights would commence that would cleanse the town of the deadly sins.

Note from my superior: the deadly sins had a secret meeting today. Here is what the avatars did. Pride sat at the head of the table. Greed complained, "Oh, come on! In normal life I get to be at the head of the table. I'M the rich one."

"Oh come off it," said Envy, "I could tell you were staring at Lust, sir."

"Well, since she IS the only female present, it doesn't make a whole lot of sense for me not to…" Greed complained, only making Envy's condition worse.

"Wrath…" Sloth muttered while waking from his sleep. "Stop trying to kill my son."

"He's not really your son! He's just a guy who got me in trouble," Wrath insisted, "And I think I should be ALLOWED to kill him."

"Should have been your son, though. The process is quite fun," Lust said, looking at Greed.

"If you don't stop staring at Greed I'm going to throw a fit!" shouted Envy.

Pride said, "Shut up, this is supposed to be a secret meeting about how to beat Ned Flanders and all it is is Greed's man-wife yelling at his mistress. I could have watched this on daytime TV. Sheesh." The term man-wife caused Envy to blush, but Greed was simply mad.

"Hey," noticed Wrath, "That's MY job, Greed. And at least I have an EXCUSE to be mean, Pride!"

Gluttony emerged from his inertia just to say, "This is the worst. Secret meeting. Ever."

"Oh, come off it," Sloth said, "What do you want to do, agree with the enemy? Active sin?"

Greed and Lust kept staring at each other, and Envy ran away saying, "Why must Greed and Lust be so good together? It's never Greed and ENVY, no."

"Oh for crying out… you know I don't condone homosexual behavior!" shouted Wrath, pulling out a knife and attempting to attack Envy with it. Greed stopped it with his bony hand.

"That's quite enough! I'm an old tired devil, and this is taking WAY too long," Greed said, "And for your information, Envy just happens to think I'm cute. There's nothing wrong with that."

"Remember not to blow our cover like that in public, sir. As far as everyone's concerned, you're clueless about my feelings," Envy said, embarrassed.

"Oh I wouldn't, Envy. You have actually been the most respectful this time, with the notable exception of myself."

"That's 'me', sir, and you're acting like Pride. You're Greed! Your main goal is monetary gain, not self-affirmation!"

"Nag, nag, nag. It really does seem like you're my wife, Envy. Honestly."

"Even though I wish it so, it cannot come true, since the day it came to play, I've been in love with you," Envy said, as if he had written those lines already.

"Sloth," Wrath advised, "You're living NEXT DOOR to the target. It shouldn't be very hard at all to distract him."

"But I'm dumb as a post. You all know that," Sloth whined, but Gluttony pushed him forward.

"Then he'll never suspect malice. Just like how hard it was for Kirk to believe Spock had committed mutiny in The Menagerie, although kind of backwards because Spock is incredibly brilliant, and you're so dumb you make Ensign Chekov look smart," he said, and with that managed to confuse the heck out of the other six devils.

"Excellent…" Greed said, tenting his fingers, "So this plan will commence soon enough?"

"Yes, sir," Envy answered, making sure Lust wasn't eyeing him again. She was, but fearing Wrath's well… wrath, he did not act upon his well… envy.

The news had made me quite frightened, especially for Ned's sake. Was he really the man of the prophecy? And even if he was, could the prophecy be wrong? A human so delicate would have a tough time beating seven devils, especially on his own, so what was the harm in me helping him? My superior told me that if I helped him during the fight I would break the prophecy, but he never said I couldn't help him train.