An excellent source of potassium

A Story by Bree Mctanner

Unconventional methods have their apeel.

The year is 3014, and you are on an intergalactic out to protect your planet. During your final battle, you cross paths with the leader of the opposing forces. It ends with the two of you in a sword fight, only problem is instead of swords you are both using (fill in the blank).

It was the ultimate showdown. Years of battle, incalculable lives and time and money had all been spent to lead up to this moment. I had been trained from the day I was born for this, and now it was time. My ultimate opponent. My true enemy. The force behind the alien race we had set our lives up against for three years. And I was facing him with a banana.

This was not by my choice. In all of my simulations, I usually had some kind of weaponry. Swords, guns, knives, even a hastily converted blender during a particularly interesting coding failure. But never a piece of fruit. And it wasn’t like I couldn’t kill Zhorg, I was capable of ending the Gragh scum in 18 ways with just my bare hands. But there was still the principle of the thing. He seemed a bit confused too, if the gentle waving of tentacles were any indication. Not that I blamed him. I was a legend to his people, the infamous Z, he was probably expecting more from me than smoothie ingredients.

“Shhraghraphat?” He asked, politely. I rolled my eyes.

“I know, I know, this is completely unprofessional. I swear I had like, three different katanas and a megablaster when I landed on this stupid island.” I lost them in the various bodies of his foot soldiers, and had grabbed the closest thing I could find in the heat of the battle. Zhorg made a gurgling sound, and I sighed.

“If I had a competent weapons director then maybe this wouldn’t be a problem, (in my headpiece, I heard an apology and stifled laughter) but I just got a highschool dropout with a welding torch because my boss is an a*****e and-” I cut myself off to duck the tentacle that suddenly swung at my head- “Right, sorry, mega important battle, we’ve been building up to this for years, I’ll get into it.” Shaking my head against the unfairity of life, I rolled out of the way of a couple laser beams and ducked behind a tree to examine the thing I was fighting with.

It sat in my hand, bright and yellow, with just a few brown spots to indicate its aging. According to the little sticker, it was the chiquita brand, though I had no idea how that would help me. I could just drop it, grab a stick or a rock or something and use that instead, but by now I felt bonded to it. It wasn’t the banana’s fault it was useless, it didn’t know it would be thrust into a pivotal battle. I had to at least attempt to use it, for the sake of its dignity if nothing else. So I got up, spun around, and chucked it as hard as I could at Zhorg.

Turns out Graghs have a deathly potassium allergy. Go figure.