“Just in folks, the swing states are reporting they’ve concluded their count. The results are in and…Mr. Guerra has won the election in an upset victory over the incumbent President Davies!”

In the White House, a man fell upon his desk, resting his head in his arms. The advisors around the room looked at the floor, gritting their teeth.

“Sir…I’m…”

“...thank goodness.”

“...Sir?”

“It’s over! The nightmare is finally over! I’m free!”

President-Elect Guerra burst through the doors, walking right into the Oval Office, laughing the entire arm.

“Muahahahaha I’ve done it! Prepare my office, Mr. President! I’ve won and you’ve lost!”

President Davies stood from his desk, strolled around to face his incoming successor…

And grabbed the man’s hand with both of his, shaking them up and down.

“Thank you! Thank you so much!”

“Huh?”

“You’ve know idea how worried I was when your party couldn’t decide on a candidate. I had to record and leak a bunch of controversial tapes and those dang swing states almost voted for me anyways!”

“Um…”

“But you made it in the end. Well done.”

“...you um, know you lost right?”

“You’re absolutely right. I worked very hard for this.”

“Um…why aren’t you…upset?”

President Davies raised an eyebrow.

“Upset? Why would I be upset?”

“That you lost? That I beat you?”

President Davies just let out a sigh and motioned towards his desk. The two men took seats on either side of it.

“Mr. Guerra, do you know what this job entails?”

“We all do. Being the most powerful man in the world. Ruling the most powerful nation on Earth. Becoming the leader of the free world. Been taught that ever since grade school.”

“Wrong. All wrong.”

“I mean, I know it’s a lot more complicated but…”

The President rested his elbows on his desk and crossed his hands in front of his chin.

“It’s to be the world’s punching bag.”

“What?”

“We lost a supercarrier because an actress decided to build a Death Star and then actually succeeded. NATO’s still complaining to me about those lost missile silos the Atomic Herald somehow recovered before our own military. And everyone assumes I covered it up. I didn’t even know about those! They were lost long before I took office! But nooooo it’s the president’s fault.”

“Um…”

“And everyone blames me for the supervillains! It’s not my fault some bank is handing them massive loans like they’re Costco samples yet somehow still staying just legal enough we can’t do anything about it. Yet somehow it’s the president’s fault some rich jerk is playing the system.”

“That’s…”

“And then the military. Oh god, the military. The military’s gone completely off the deep end! Ten. Ten scientists who promised super-soldiers then died or became villains by using their haphazard and entirely untested procedure on themselves! One just straight up irradiated himself, yelling about gamma or something! And I had to go to his funeral instead of calling him out as an idiot. I get an entire stack of papers every single day consisting solely of stupid wonder weapon projects I have to shut down! Why would we spend billions building death rays if the Army lost the last five it built? Why would I approve of radioactive spiders? Like, really?! Who in my command staff thought it was a good idea to bathe spiders in radiation?! What possible tactical or strategic benefit would there be to that idea?!”

President Davies took a deep breath.

“And you know what they said when I asked what they’re doing with all the tanks, jets, and nukes we already have? They said they’re building an AI to take care of all the ‘increasingly obsolete hardware.’ They wanted to put our entire military in the hands of a bot programmed by the lowest bidder! I had to sign an executive order mandating they do their actual jobs!”

“Um…”

“Oh it’s classified but you’ll get all this soon enough. Now shut up and listen, I’ve been waiting a whole term for this! Like, giant robots? Really? The military hasn’t even developed a new tank in decades, why would I trust them to build giant robots? And the CIA…I’m 90% sure the CIA’s being run by villains. They wanted to use those super drugs from Mexico that I’m half-certain they developed in the first place, and on children of course. My god man, please spend at least two seconds considering the publicity consequences of your actions, since you sure don’t care about the moral ones! They had an entire program planning to abduct and torture children. Not even starving orphans, or terminal patients. Actual, normal, healthy, American children from regular American families. And then they were going to replace them with faulty clones that would die a horrible death, and then subject those abducted children to deadly genetic and cybernetic procedures. Like what the actual crap you guys?! It’s like they’re trying to one-up the villains! And then they wonder why I let the ILS operate on our soil!”

“...”

“And that’s just the morning paperwork! Then I have to go and endure everyone complaining to me about the ILS all day! Well what do you want me to do, people?! ILS are the only ones I trust! No, we’re not putting them under military command. No, we’re not going to make them a utility. No we are not proposing they do an IPO of all things! Like, seriously! I know how the game works but for real?! Can you at least try to hide your blatant envy and greed?! Just shut up and let the ILS work and ask a hero to do a commercial for you or something. The UN already talked about this and even agreed on something for once! Just open your eyes people, Aurora Legion’s all minors! It literally only works because we’ve done everything we can to turn a legal blind eye to it! And now you want a piece of the child-soldier pie?! We can’t even prosecute half the criminals because of crap like that! So stop complaining to me like I’m running the show or something! All I do is call the ILS like any other citizen and hope Director Green has time for me!”

“...um…”

“Like, you guys want to do something about all this? Why not take a look at my proposal to address the socioeconomic conditions that are creating all these villains in the first place? Why can’t we just recruit some supers to our normal forces instead of dragging every dang special recruit we get to some super secret and extremely morally degenerate hit squad? Why not open up lines of communication to coordinate with the ILS? Why not give the BSI an actual budget? But noooooo Congress can’t be bothered to think about this situation, the military can’t be bothered with reasonable ideas, and the CIA can’t stop being evil for five minutes!”

“I think…maybe I should go…”

“And that’s not even the worst of it! Despite the fact that I’m basically just Director Green’s shield at this point, for some reason all these villains have an unhealthy obsession with me! I’ve been kidnapped five times in the last year alone! Two of them just hooked me up to convoluted death machines for God knows what! Didn’t even give demands!”

“Most powerful man in the world, hah! I’m probably not the most powerful man in this building at this point! But it’s ok! It’s over! It’s finally over! The nightmare is over!”

“Um…about that…”

“Now get out. I need to plan my well-deserved vacation. My son wants to meet Captain Hot Devil and I need to arrange that while people still care who I am.”

A few minutes later President-elect Guerra was walking alongside his campaign adviser.

“How was your meeting with the President? Satisfying to show him up, right?”

“...can we sue for a recount? I’m pretty sure I lost. No, I definitely lost! Please, save me!”

“Huh?”