The U.S. was completely unprepared for the Systemless Squad’s attack. Stretched thin across the multiverse, their primary military forces are far away and cannot be disengaged for all the war they are already engaged in. And with no other nations willing to actually support the U.S., there simply aren’t enough forces around to beat us back.

California is ours. The whole West Coast will soon be part of our freedom forces.

Santa Barbara is of course not technically part of California anymore, but we already know that and can avoid mentioning it directly because it is too obvious a fact.

However, if the U.S. military did not notice us before, they most certainly do now. We are traitors to world peace, the news announcements say. We are to be eliminated so that order and free trade can be established.

But the news already begins to falter as the state mouthpiece. Anchors quit on-air. Opinion journalists start to pen angry screeds, without explicitly violating the American Decency in Communications Act of 2024 passed just before the war. And, best of all, Reuters renames itself Systemless Reports.

Protests erupt around the world. In the Old World, charismatic leaders in the European Union opposition overthrow the current regime in a brutal smackdown of parliamentary maneuvering and utilization of obscure rules. The Egyptian government lines the Great Pyramids with dynamite and extorts the U.S. out of great sums of money. Citizens in Hong Kong enact the Pink Revolution.

The Pink Revolution spreads even further than East Asia, however. More and more, users on Vine and Music.ly begin to openly praise us. And a new dance move known as the Solbourne Style, adapted from my clone’s amazing stuntwork in his many film appearances, goes viral across the internet. I myself practice this move many times to try and get it right. It is all for the fans.

It is not perfect, this movement against the U.S., however. Cable news in particular hews very closely to the government line. A Tucker something goes on an unhinged rant about the evil youths who are accepting this gay devil of a hero as their icon, and demonizes the fanart of him they draw on Deviantart.

I do not know what a Deviantart is or how to procure one, but I am glad for all the support I receive. It is a surer sign than ever that we shall succeed.

***

In Santa Barbara, the beginning of something really excellent.

The Beaver Hopper Clan, for the first time in the history of their group, has begun to share some secrets. Apparently, the surfers of Santa Barbara have fallen in extremely good favor with them.

The Goddess has worked extensively with the beavers on their world hopping abilities, trying to harness them without them directly telling of their hidden secrets. Their powers will soon allow us to travel between worlds without needing to access the entirely off-limits The Goddess’s Domain.

But for now, it seems their secrets may be spilling out to exactly the right group to make things even more interesting.

I am not sure how related this is to the war effort. It may be entirely separate.

But it is fascinating, to be sure.

Apparently, once the secrets of world hopping are procured, just in part and not in whole, one can travel briefly outside the spheres of the worlds and into the spaces between.

Such a feat will only last for a few seconds, and is thought to be entirely too dangerous for mortals to attempt. But with a certain well-calibrated device, a skateboard tied to a paraglider, one can harness the waves of the etherflow itself to get what my Santa Barbarans call “mad wicked flow.”

Thanks to cooperation between the races, a brand new extreme sport has been invented here in my nation. I hope one day I can learn it for myself. After the war. After things finally become peaceful.

It will be, as my people say, hella rad.