The awful reality of the situation sank in rather quickly. Those tasty sheets of acid we'd been eating? Weren't going to see those for a while. Those illicit scripts for Vicodin she'd been getting by pretending to have a severed arm? Out the window. Her handy ability to know exactly when the drug stores were getting their shipments and when the night watchmen were in the bathroom masturbating? I mean, those kinds of skills aren't learned, they're innate.

Her blood was starting to leak into my lap, staining my stylish suit, so I had to jump up suddenly as I grieved, letting her lifeless husk hit the floor with a tidy little WHUMP. I considered closing her eyes, but then I started thinking about the money we could get if I could just get those eyes to a doctor fast enough. Then common sense kicked in, as I realized I had left my dissection kit at home. And to think, in all of our years together, I had never, ever, not even once, told her how much I loved her. This was, I realized, due to the fact that I didn't love her so much as enjoy the way she kept other people even worse from hanging around us.

I began to sob uncontrollably. Laurel's death somehow affected me at a primal level, reminding me that I too was mortal, and that there but for the sake of an impervious alien super-hero suit went I. Then I started laughing for a while, and kind of dancing around doing the "I have an impervious suit and you don't!" dance, before starting to sob again, as Laurel's cold dead eyes started to remind me of a bunny rabbit I'd once stepped on accidentally and crushed. That poor rabbit… I don't think I ever properly grieved for that rabbit. Then I remembered that it was actually my brother who stepped on the rabbit and not me, and I started laughing wildly again. What a wacky world! Then I started sobbing again, because I remembered that Laurel was the only one who knew how to program the VCR to tape Buffy every week.

I couldn't just leave her here like that, all shot up and dead and stuff. I had to take action. I had to show Dr. Ugly just who was boss, and in the absence of actually having an idea about who was boss, I had to convince him it was me. Plus, I was already starting to miss Laurel. I was starting to miss her smile, for instance, and even when I pushed her lips up into a feral smirk and held them there until rigor mortis set in, it still wasn't the same. Not without her witty one liners that she had stolen from hit sitcoms like Mama's Boy and Saved By The Bell. Not without the way she sometimes shimmied along to songs on the radio until you started to think she wanted to make sweet, sweet love to you right there on the floor – oh wait, that was Crank Boy actually, never mind. But still. I missed her, and a fury started to rise up in me. I was not going to be beaten by Dr. Ugly, not here, not now.

It was clear to me there was only one thing left to do. I was going to have to fly very, very fast in orbit around the planet, hundreds and hundreds of times, until I traveled far enough back in time that I could prevent Laurel's senseless yet plot critical death. I don't know what made me think this would be a good idea; I guess it was just one of those hunches you get when everything's at stake, and your best friend is dead, and your hometown is on the verge of absolute annihilation. Or it might have been something I saw on the tube once, I can't really remember.

I leapt into the air and smashed another hole in the ceiling on my way out right next to the hole I'd made on the way in, primarily because it felt really good to destroy government property like that, and then launched right up into the upper atmosphere. Man, I was flying around the world so damn fast, it was like there were these bright white lines behind me showing the trails of where I'd been. You could see the orbits just piling up, and I just kept flying and flying, with a steely determination in my gut, or maybe indigestion from the mushrooms, but whatever, same diff.

Suddenly a weird alien spacecraft the shape of a big burning cigar pulled up along side me. A stern, nasty voice shouted at me as we flew back in time together.

"WHAT THE HELL DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING, YOU COLOSSAL NITWIT? YOU CAN'T JUST CHANGE ALL OF EARTH'S HISTORY TO SAVE YOUR LITTLE DRUG BUDDY! YOU'LL RUIN THE ENTIRE FUTURE! YOU MIGHT ACCIDENTALLY ERASE THE INVENTION OF DONUTS, OR YOU MIGHT CAUSE THE BEATLES TO STAY TOGETHER FOR SO MANY YEARS THAT THEY BECOME HOLLOW, PATHETIC SHELLS OF THEIR EARLIER SELVES, OR YOU MIGHT CAUSE MADONNA'S FILM CAREER TO ACTUALLY TAKE OFF! THINK ABOUT THE CONSEQUENCES, SCOTTO! THINK!"

Unfortunately, thinking was the last thing on my mind.

"Sorry, E.T., but I've got a date with destiny," I quipped. I was really proud of myself for that one. It's the simple pleasures in life that really matter, after all.

"YOU DON'T EVEN HAVE A PLAN! YOU'RE JUST BLINDLY DIVING INTO THE PAST WITHOUT THE SLIGHTEST CLUE HOW YOU'RE GOING TO PREVENT LAUREL'S DEATH!"

"Well you could do more than just heckle and act all belligerent," I shouted back. "Don't you have some kind of fancy outer space computer that can figure out what to do?"

"SORRY, THAT COMPUTER'S TIED UP PLAYING GALAGA AT THE MOMENT."

"Well, then SCREW YOU AND THE INTERGALACTIC SPACE CIGAR YOU RODE IN ON!" and I increased my speed to the point of no return. The suit was even faster than the space ship, probably because my suit only contained me, whereas their space craft likely contained an armada of hulking, nasty, space monsters.

"FINE, BE THAT WAY," the aliens responded. "BUT DON'T SAY WE DIDN'T WARN YOU."

"You didn't warn me!" I shouted.

"I SAID DON'T SAY THAT!"

I laughed maniacally. Ever the rebel, I.

The space cigar flew off back to where it came from, and I continued on my relentless course into the past. Before this trip was over, Laurel would be returned to me, Dr. Ugly would be eliminated, and I would be rich from all the Microsoft stock I was going to buy with the remainder of the quarters in my coin purse.