Awesome Bowl XXXII. Freyton City. The home town Diesels were up 5 points on the Harbor City Renegades with 7 seconds left in the 4th quarter. The crowd roared in frenzied anticipation as the Renegades lined up their offense 3 yards from the endzone and a winning touchdown, giving every ounce of energy they could to the unorthodox two-man defensive front of the Diesels. But this peculiar defense boasted a stat line that would put any other championship team to shame. One that had broken every sack, tackle-for loss, and roughing the passer record the sport had ever known because they were led by the two greatest linemen to ever play the game.

DeAngelo Fenswick leaned over and grabbed a handful of sod in his mighty hand, taking position just to the left of the football. The offensive line gasped and one pissed themselves on the spot as his hellish eyes blazed with evil intent, boring to the very pit of their souls and finding only cowardice at the core.

“These fools ain’t gettin’ past us, Deshaun,” Fenswick said, as his partner in pain lined up to the right of the ball beside him.

“HELL NO, D-FENS!” Deshaun Linear agreed violently, causing the tackle he was facing to puke in terror. “D-Line and D-Fens own this house, y’all hear, so there ain’t gonna be no parties up in here tonight!”

“Except the one where we’re drinkin’ Crystal out of you fools skulls, before we catch a plane to Disney World!” D-Fens bellowed. Even the rest of the Diesels quaked, remembering Awesome Bowl XXXI with horror.

As the two jawed, a massive figure rose off the Renegade’s bench. The form was barely human, more muscle than man, and poured into a set of pads far too covered in rusty spikes to be game legal. But the refs made no move stop the loping, 8 foot monstrosity. It was Russian phenom running back, Gridenko Irensky. The crowd hushed as he jogged onto the field and lined up behind the quarterback.

“Who the hell is this?” D-Line asked, curious, but also severely pumped up to get a chance to tackle a worthy opponent for once. The tailback gave a stock-Russian “heh, heh, heh,” in response, but DeAngelo was more forthcoming with information.

“I think it’s that crazy Rusky the commies call ‘Grid Iron,’ loved by Marxists everywhere, but hated by every red-blooded American for his dastardly ways,” D-Fens offered surprisingly verbosely, fitting as much talk as he could into a rapidly dwindling play clock. “But he shouldn’t be here; his spine was shattered in the NFC playoff game last week – and he was at least 250 pounds lighter last time I saw him.”

“Heh, heh, heh,” Grid Iron interjected, whoring for attention.

D-Line chuckled right back, “Well, only ‘Grid Iron’ I know is the one I’m gonna bury this fool under when I tackle him into orbit, uh…and then back into the ground so that he’s buried.”

“I hear that!” D-Fens crowed.

“OH SNAP!” yelled line judge 38.

“Hike!”

The ball was snapped, and DeAngelo and Deshaun cast aside the offensive line like they were threshing wheat that was made out of people in football uniforms. The quarterback managed to hold onto the snapped ball, some portion of his higher brain functions clinging to sanity as reptile survival instincts kicked in, facing such carnage before him. He managed to fall backwards, gibbering like a startled baboon, and fumble the ball into the waiting hands of Irensky.

Gridenko leered the first smile of his life, but not one of happiness, for his spirit, the very fabric of his being, was more frigid than the Siberian tundra that raised him. It was a smile of malevolent purpose and confident victory. He flashed to his right, straight at DeAngelo and smashed into him with the sound of a thousand Freyton freight trains going off the tracks at once and colliding head-on into Freyton city’s famous “largest fireworks and dangerous explosives emporium,” all of which would, of course, explode, including the passengers who are all screaming “OH SHIT!” while listening to their ipods turned to max volume – probably to something like Megadeath or Bon Jovi. D-Line immediately knew his friend was dead.

“D-Fens, NO!” Deshaun yelled, running to his fallen comrade, now motionless on the ground. He stooped over him, kneeling by his side and checked for a pulse. As he expected, there was none.

“Ye gods, by what rights has fate seen fit to cast down from on high one so noble and pure as DeAngelo Fenswick? I will see you avenged, my brother, and revenge is a dish best served with a skull full of Crystal.”

Then, tears in his eyes, D-Line howled a great “NOOOO!” and cast the corpse of his friend into the bleachers, where two long time fans were injured, one critically. But there was no time for such concerns. It was time to win a fifth Awesome Bowl. Defying temporal and spatial logic, Grid Iron was bearing down on Deshaun full speed, ready to jump into the endzone and win the game. D-Line set himself and pumped his feet like a bull about to charge.

“Here comes the ‘Sack Attack!’”

And with that they met full on. Linear had never tried to tackle an opponent so strong, so powerful as Irensky. Such brawn certainly couldn’t be human? He thought to himself, couldn’t be NATURAL?”

He held with all his might, but with another catastrophic crash Grid Iron was through and into the end zone – the Renegades had won, it was all over. D-Line stayed in the grass where he had fallen, all his might drained from that epic confrontation. How could this be? How could I not tackle him?

He watched, in a trance of blood loss as Gridenko jumped up and down shouting in victory, Russian accent as thick as a phonebook full of paper-thin clichés.

“I am the best ever. This victory is for mother Russia and communism and evil! All children should be taking the Super Steroids like Grid Iron for to grow up big and strong and get hooked on communist drugs! Long live space race!”

Super Steroids! D-Line thought as he slipped into unconsciousness, should have known.

15 Minutes after Awesome Bowl XXXII

Deshaun Linear walked out the gates of an empty stadium, head hung low, chin on his massive chest. Occasionally a passerby could make out a string of profanities interspersed with repeating themes of ‘Grid Iron’ or ‘Super Steroids’. He meandered to his car and pulled forth his keys to open the door, when a bright flash startled him. The keys tumbled from his hand as an astral form coalesced in the air before the All-Pro defensive lineman.

“D-Line!” the apparition said, in a suitably ghost-like, but very manly and marketable, voice, “I am the Ghost of Brett Favre!”

“OH SHIT, it’s a goddamn ghost!” D-Line cursed, swinging his arms crazily, causing them to pass through the spirit.

“Yes, I am a ghost, I just said that, and stop putting your arms through me, it’s super ANNOYING!” Ghost Brett Favre (or GBF for short) stated creepily, before he lost his patience and sort of girl-screamed the last bit.

D-Line titled his head, interrogatively, “But Brett Favre ain’t dead.”

“Shut up.” GBF interrupted. “I’m here to tell you that Grid Iron used EVIL PERORMANCE ENHANCING DRUGS to become huge and defeat you today. Stop!”

GBF pointed at D-Line before the massive man could say anything else, “I know what you are going to say, I know you already know that, but I’m here to help you with this magic helmet.”

“Say what?” Deshaun asked, “Look, I don’t want your bitch-ass helmet Brett Favre, get the hell off my car, I have to go drink away my shame.”

“But D-Line, it will make you hella strong, hella strong enough to defeat Grid Iron, avenge your friend, and protect the streets from evil dangers like PERFORMANCE ENHANCING DRUGS which have been linked to such major athletes as Barry Bonds, Shawn ‘Lights Out’ Merriman, and Roger ‘The Rocket’ Clemens.”

D-Line picked up his keys and almost placed them in the lock, before he paused to consider, scratching his shaven head. “Hmm that sounds pretty cool I gotta admit, if I’d be even more hella strong. Would it make my Sack Attack even more powerful?”

“Totally,”

“But wait, isn’t usin’ magic sorta’ like usin’ the drugs to get stronger? I mean it’s pretty much the same thing, right? Like cheatin’?”

“Uh…” GBF wavered in a confused ghost voice, “no…no of course not, hey just shut up and put on this helmet!”

“Wait!” D-Line yelled, but GBF had already put the helmet on him, making him hella strong and other magical stuff, and thereby creating:
D-LINE, MOST POWERFUL MAN IN THE UNIVERSE!