Written with help from Catrina.
 

Heh, I can see looking back how much fun I had with this finale!

HE is still lurking in the background- Catrina's ex, and He has a nasty surprise waiting for her as well. We don't see either in Finale part 2. It focuses on a huge brawl pitting KOKOL and a couple of Penguin Mafia against the Jester King of Beasts, Grillhamo and a bunch of the other Knob Goblin army members. Grillhamo finally shows up for this bit, although he isn't yet into the actual fight.

Oh, and check out the big move from Feena! You'll love it if you're a fan of the bunny.. Raw Hide's the jerk again here, as he usually is... Read onwards!

The sound of battle now rung out loudly throughout the mountains as the figure cloaked in plot-convenient shadows stalked the pray.

The mysterious figure kept downwind of the fight to avoid any scent being picked up. "Odds are," the stranger observed silently, "I could snap most of their bodies between my jaws, if it down to it!" Hopefully, it would.

The whole scenario actually bored the spectator at first, until the action picked up. The self titled "Jester King of Beasts" annoyed our mystery guest from just their brief time together, but he had his useful moments. Like now.

Despite that, the Jester King of beasts was definitely on the "Kill when no longer useful or he becomes too annoying" list.. .

==-----

Grillhamo brought his mighty black panther, Ebonia, to a sudden halt. Being a general in the Knob Army for several decades, he'd learned to trust his instincts. Unfortunately, instincts could be quite confusing on their own. Still, he could tell from the feel in the wind something big was going on lower in the mountains. He wasn't quite sure if the amateurs sent to hold the battle down south could handle it, even if they were lead by an Elite Seven.

Grillhamo's deep frown grew at the thought of the Elite Seven member who was in charge of interception. A certain amount of respect was expected from the others, as Grillhamo was the first of the Elite Seven, and above that, the one who birthed the concept. Yet, this Jester King chose to show few, if any, respect. Indeed, the only one the Jester King showed any semblance of respect to was the Goblin King.

The situation with the Penguins was critical to the growth of the Knob Goblin empire, however. There was little time to question the King's motives, even if Grillhamo had a misguided, suicidal desire to question his leader.

He clearly didn't. Although there were incidents that made him question this. The attack on Mystia for the jewel .. . . Grillhamo's thoughts were destined to go unfinished, however.

"Sir!" One of the Goblin Elite guards cried out.

Grillhamo had helped form the Elite Guards as a mere teen, in the hopes of gaining honor denied to him in his young life. Yet, more and more of late, that goal seemed to be a dream meant only to taunt and elude him, even after he'd formed the Elite Seven.

<Sir,> the Goblin asked, now in their own tongue, <Mean you to go up the hill, whist we hurry forth towards our pray of destination? Can we dare to slow our pace?>

<Badly translated from Goblintsh, one of the dozens of tongues spoken in Degrassi Knoll.>

[No,] Grallhamo replied in his own native dialect, South Los Knobspeakian. Another difficult to translate language. Especially when you're lazy or going for effect. [In light of shizzle, let you galavant on without me, for I shall be infusing O.G. into our allies assistance, to ensure I know what is up with their bad individual selves. I sense a bad omen in the air, omen in the air. I sense a bad omen in the air. Tally forth up to the phat loot, whilst I determine if I shall need to bust skulls.]

"Yes, sir!" The Goblins replied as one. One big dumb group dummy. They continued their journey up the hill, or rather, they began to.

The head of the forces started down, alone, then suddenly turned. "Gwenchlan The Vaguely Cute, Roxcrak the Brutalian, you're with me! The rest of you should be able to handle the bird transportation with no problem!"

Two of his most talented fighters fell in line for what he sensed would be an unexpected twist down the mountain. . .

==-----

The sounds of the battle certainly were varied. Catrina's roars, Raw Hide's battlecries, and the sound of sword on shield as Catrina and Sebastian Dash pressed the offense against the Knob Goblin warriors. Feena didn't much like the noise, although it could have been worse. TheChad could have been there yelling.

The Jester King of Beasts, as unaware of the others of events transpiring, safely perched on a tree branch above the fight. Both the swordsusers had proven frustrating, but that catgirl was downright annoying. Even as she fought off the Goblins and JKotB's monsters below, she'd steal a glance at him, obviously ready to finish him off for good.

So barbaric, so delightfully barbaric. He'd keep throwing beasts at her til she fell, or til she was weak enough for him to finish the job personally.

Jester King clutched the tree as it shook violently. He glanced down to see Raw Hide had just slammed a bar into the side of the tree. Raw Hide tore into the bar with murderous rage. As bar blood spattered on the tree, Jester King mentally scolded himself for allowing his attention to fall solely on the "catgirl." Catrina, as the others had called her.

Juster King jumped to another tree, letting himself go insubstantial, so that he was lighter than air. It allowed him to glide over trees with much greater ease. Once he'd found a new spot to perch on, watching the action from a good twenty five feet up, perched on one of the many snow mountain tree branches.

Jester King could see the backup making its way in the distance from his vantage point. He smiled, eager to show off his conquest to whichever of the Knob Goblin fools dared to think him incompetent of handling these band of foolish adventurers. Idiots.

Jester's eyes scanned the fight, suddenly worried he'd overlooked something. Catrina was thrown roughly back by a couple of Knob Goblins. She got to her feet as, in the background, that annoying little hamster creature was defending that bunny person. Raw Hide and the penguin mafia might have been the most dangerous forces, had they moved as one, but they weren't. They showed even less teamwork than the catwoman and her fellow swordsman.

The penguins were still dangerous on their own, though. More than a few more dangerous looking beasts had fallen to their kneecapping sticks and - wait. Where was he?! The swordsman had vanished from sight. If he'd gone up the mountain, he might be able to figure come up with a plan to stop the Knob Goblins!

Argh, this wouldn't do. This wouldn't do at all. The Jester King of Beasts started to roar defiantly, but the roar was cut off with a thump.

He found himself kicked from the perch! Turning around as he fell, trying to get his wits about him, he saw the swordsman. Dash, Catrina had called him during their failed attempt. "Looking for me?" Dash taunted, with a hint of a grin tugging at his lips. Jester King expected the feline might have been able to scale the trees with ease, if he hadn't kept her busy. Apparently, this one had snuck beneath his radar, and scaled the tree. Impressive. For a human.

He could have broken his fall by phasing out into semi exitance and gliding down on the winds. Jester King, however, couldn't be bothered. Instead, he twisted his skeleton like body backwards in an impossible angle, allowing him to catch the nearest tree limb. Using his fairly light body to his advantage, he swung himself via the tree branch towards the tree itself, twisting his body so his feet hit the tree first. He bent his legs, than shot off with arrow like speed, sending himself right at Dash.

The Jester King immediately rolled his body into a ball. Dash hardly had time to blink and brace for impact. Dash staggered back as the ball uncurled into the Jester King. He stood inches away from Dash and laughed manically as Dash struggled to keep from falling. "Tag, you're it!" The Jester King taunted. He took a lazy swipe at the offbalanced Dash, expecting him to go soaring to his doom. Despite not having his balance fully yet, Dash ducked under it. He planted his feet on the thick branch, and launched into an upper cut on the Jester King!

Catrina watched the two battle, considering weather she had time to scale up the tree to help Dash.. Er.. to get her own swipe at the Jester idiot. Maybe she could force him to tell her where He was. Him. . . . her mind went numb at the prospect of HIM getting his hands on Fluffy, or Feena.

She'd have to finish this joker off, then tend to that fulsome creature from her past. She sensed something trying to get an advantage on her from behind, and ducked the pounce. She saw a giant quadapede fly over her! Gross. An oversized centipede but with only four legs. Kind of like a big bug dog, Catrina figured.

Her blades made short work of the creatures, although as they did, one of the Knob Goblins rammed it's back into her, sending her katana flying forward, out of her hands. Catrina barrelrolled with the impact, grabbing the lost katana midair as she did, and rolled to her feet. She roared at him, furious. He turned and ran for his life.

They weren't exactly the bravest beast Catrina'd ever starred down. Elsewhere, Raw Hide finally got the better of a couple of nasty looking bugbears being employed by the Knoblins. Although tougher than your usual bar, and smarter, Raw Hide still proved to be more than their match.

Feena finally moved, as Fluffy finished defending off the animals that had the two surrounded. Fluffy took several deep breaths, then crawled around looking for a good nap spot for the two. Nearby, a handful of Knob Goblins squared off with Forsten Giuseppe and Mario Monophycesco of the Penguin Mafia forces, who'd been sent to help Raw Hide.

"Get ready for a big expense," Forsten challenged a Knob Goblin beancounter. "Blood! Blood's the big expense!"

"That's-a right!" Mario Monophycesco agreed.

The beancounter sneered in response. "HA! I hope you're prepared to pay a Knob Goblin tax on that expense! Are you?!"

"Don't ask me about my business, 'kay?" Forsten shot back! "You wanna waste my time, OK? You wanna play rough?"

"It's gonna be chaos!" A Knob Goblin Sub-Assistant Knob Mad Scientist cried out. "You're gonna get to go the distance! You're gonna get fifteen rounds with the Knobs! How's it gonna feel?!"

"Adrien!" Forsten cried out in automatic response, as he rushed at the Knob Goblins with his kneecapping sticks!

"You'll never take us!" The third and forth Goblins cried out. "We got you out numbered four to two! I got two words for you: Im-possible."

"Nothing is impossible!" Mario insisted. "Improbable, maybe. Unlikely, but never impossible."

Enough movie quotes. The two sides tore into each other with an intensity not rivaled by anything within five or six feet of it. About that far away, Konall tossed another defeated Knob Goblin to the side, roaring in victory. This only served to highlight the absurdity a second later, when a goose-moose hybrid from the Knob Goblin laboratories ran Raw Hide down!

Feena shook her head, trying to get her bearings. She glanced over towards Catrina, as Catrina started to climb the nearest tree, only to have a beast of 9 eyes rip her off the tree, even as Dash and The Jester King battled above. The beast threw her around, getting it's disgusting aura slime over her. Catrina slashed out with a mighty claw swipe, forcing it to release her and jump back in pain. Catrina's eyes burned with battlelust as she jumped forward.

Behind Feena, Spencer Sciformigu was in trouble. Whilst fighting off a drunken goat, he'd allowed himself to be bit by a sabre-toothed goat, and separated from his weapons, the kneecapping stick and the iron chef spoon. Moreso, those goat horns really packed a wallop! Spencer planted his fins into the ground to stop his slide after being rammed hard by the drunk goat.

"You goats wanna mess with me?! You ain't nothin!" Bravado on Spencer's part, maybe. After all, he'd spent most of his time til recently as a mafia chef. But it was gonna take a lot more than a couple of goats to send this penguin to his jewel crusted, wedge shaped coffin!

Dash fought valiantly above, trying to use his speed to find an opening. Unfortunately, the combination of the Jester King of Beast's own inhuman agility and his ability to phase into a mist to avoid attacks made him more than Dash's match. More than a few times, Dash planted his feet and launched himself at the trickster, only to pass through. Dash kept at it, though. It seemed to be a strain to have to phase out of existence like that.

There was also the matter of Dash having to make sure he grabbed the tree before he fell. No easy task. A couple times, he'd resorted to sinking his broadsword Bad Bats into the thick red oaks to stop what very well might have been a deadly fall.

That, unfortunately, had also left him open to a counter attack the second time. Dash heard the maniacal laughter as he held onto the sword, a few dozen feet above the ground. Using the sword for leverage, Dash flipped himself up and out of the way of the Jester King, avoiding his attempt to dislodge Dash and send him flying to the ground.

The sword was jammed in deep in the tree. The flip helped Dash avoid Jester King's attack and put him in position to give a powerful push with his legs, dislodging the sword and sending Dash flying forward to the safely of a lower tree.

Unfortunately, the Jester King somehow managed to lash out at Dash as he leapt forward. The kick caught Dash in his ribs. The air rushed out of Dash's side, as he instinctively reached for his ribs with one hand. The effect on his momentum was immediately obvious, too.

The air stretched past Sebastian Dash's ears in a high whistle. It might be trite to say everything slowed down, but it could fairly be stated Dash was totally focused on the moment- and his survival. Dash lashed out at the branch, trying to grab it, but the kick from JKotB had screwed him his momentum too much. The tip of Dash's fingers found the branch, and immediately slipped off under the pull of gravity.

The momentum carrying Dash's body forward into the tree, but there was nothing to catch into below the branch Dash had aimed for. His body slammed off of it, and twisted mid air as he fell.

The ground rushed at Dash, as maniacal laughter taunted him from above. Dash's arm and ribs hit the tree hard before his plunge. He might have hit his head. He wasn't sure. Dash only knew he was in serious trouble.

He'd started to wonder if he'd survive when he felt himself snatched out of mid air. Dash struggled to recognize the feel of two very furry arms around him, as his momentum was expertly redirected. They landed with a bone jarring impact, but it was much better than the death fall Dash thought he was condemned to.

Dash then found himself rather unceremoniously dumped to the ground.

Dash looked up as Catrina grabbed his sword mid fall. She planted it in the ground directly in front of him, letting out a quiet growl. "Don't think I'm not still pissed off at you, but I'm not into abandoning my friends." She then snarled, maybe to emphasize her feelings that's what Dash had done to her.

"Cover me with the idiot animal patrol!" Catrina demanded of Dash. "It's my turn to dance with this idiot!"

Dash forced himself up, throwing his weight into a raging goat that was raging directly towards Catrina. Before she could pursue the Jester King herself, she starred down a formidable goat. She knew he represented a modicum of danger from his incandescence eyes that hit like one's significant other.

Catrina charged forward at the goat, and leapt onto it's back, and sprung-board into one of the clusters of trees where Dash had his crack at the Jester King of Beasts. Catrina's turn, and she was much better at this type of thing than Dash. She'd need to use her momentum and speed to her advantage. Springing up, powerful legs to her advantage as she sunk her claws into the trees, scaling the tree. When she'd gotten reasonably far up, yet still low enough it didn't seem possible to reach him quite yet, she sprung to the next sturdy branch she saw.

She put all her strength and determination into the leap, which carried her, quite unexpectedly, towards him like a missile. Unable to believe what he saw and therefore fade away, he fell easy pray to her katana slice across his body. She didn't connect with a lethal blow, unfortunately, but it was enough to send him spiraling down.

On the ground, Dash wrestled with the raging goat, as Feena finally started to shake the daze off. Fluffy had fallen to sleep, leaving her a bit puzzled at what was going on. Her mind tried to sort out the logic of the penguins being on their side, but it wasn't quite cutting through the haze yet.

Meanwhile, Spencer Sciformigu had managed, through great effort, to finally regain his iron chef spoon. Every time he'd even move in the direction of a weapon, either the drunken goat would stumble up to him and nearly fall on him, or the sabre-tooth one would take a bit outta crime. Crime meaning Spencer's fin, obviously.

Or did that go without saying?

Spencer got a solid whack in on the sabre-tooth of the aggressive goat, causing it to stumble backwards comically. That still left him open to the drunken goat throwing empty bottles of beer at him. The kind with heavy, thick glass.

That hurt! The being rammed by a drunk goat's horns also hurt. Having it happen four more times hurt six times total.

Spencer was in some serious trouble. Fortunately, Presperious Penguin jumped to the rescue, slapping it under two knee caps with two kneecapping sticks! The poor beast went down under the burden of it's own drunken weight. Presperious tossed Spencer the kneecapping stick.

"Bout time!" Spencer whined.

"Quit yer bellyachin," Presperious countered. "We about done with these idiots?"

"Nope." Spencer pointed tentatively to a half yeti half bar. "This one might be rough."

"A-Ahhh," Presperious stuttered, "You think?"

"Aha! Now's my chance to be a somebody! I'm a contender, not a no body!" One of the tougher looking Knob Goblins ranted and raved to himself. As Feena cowered, trying to muster up some tenacity, the Gnob shoved her aside and snapped up Fluffy in a plastic hamster ball! Oh no, Feena thought to herself! She wasn't sure how long Fluffy slept, but apparently, he can sleep through hamsternapping.

This wouldn't do! A princess of the FMS should rarely if ever allow an innocent sentient (as Catrina had called her) to be hamsternapped when she was on duty. She was definitely on duty now, and this was definitely not one of those rare exceptions! Summoning up the boundless courage of spaghetti stringed memories and pasta flavored courage, she let forth a mighty ray of .. something!!

That something ended being a ray of pr0n, which struck the fleeing Goblin, causing him to fumble the hamster ball, with the sleeping Fluffy in it to be dropped. Feena dove, catching it, and gently laid it down on the ground. She then turned, and fried the Goblin with a random ray, which ended up being greased graese-fire.

Feena felt the power flowing through her like it rarely had before. Her mind moved faster and faster, kinda like that overdrive mode on those ones games. Above her, Catrina reigned the punishment on the Jester King of Beasts, even as Dash continued to fight off the beasts their 'Jester King' sent to fight. Lyons, the most dishonest of all lions, Bars, and even a shadow tiger, summoned from the mists of "Ohmi," better known as KOL's munchkin filled levels of the underworld.

Despite the Jester King's agility, he was taking too much of a pounding far above the trees to focus enough to phase out. Catrina roared with animalistic fury. This was the one putting her new friends at danger. The one who, moments ago, had nearly killed her Dash. Dash, she mentally corrected herself, as she connected with a wild kick to the JKotB's chest mid air. Most importantly, and most infuriatingly of all, this one the ones keeping her paws off Him.

A second kick to the chest, even more powerful, sent the two in opposite directions. Catrina bounced off the closest tree and immediately sprung back towards the Jester King, catching him as he slammed chest first into another tree branch. Catrina roared with fury. "Nothing to say?! Maybe I can JAR a little something out of you!" Catrina wrapped her leg and arm around the tree, trapping him between her, as her powerful claws sunk into the tree bark. She had him trapped, and an iron tight grip on the three. She used her free hand to take the JK's head and SLAM it into the tree! His body shook from the mighty impact.

"Where?!" She slammed his head into the tree a second time. "Is?!" And a third. "He?!" Catrina was in a rage, as each thud became louder than the previous. The third might have very well cracked the Jester's skull, if he hadn't faded into his phantom like state at the very last second. Catrina's hand continued, unabated, slamming into the tree, as the Jester King floated though.

Catrina held her fist, letting her body slide down the tree. Her katanas had been scattered during the fight, thanks to the Jester King, and she intended to have them back.

Suddenly aware of something awe inspiring going on the ground, Catrina stopped her descent. All around her below, the elements themselves seemed ready to rise up in awesome fury. There were now dozens and dozens of beasts surrounding both her clan mates, and the unexpected presence of penguin mafia as.. allies, she guessed. Temporary allies, she further guessed.

The split second of time seemed to stand still in her mind. Dash stuck holding off three goats with his broadsword, over the body of a forth goat. Raw Hide was holding his own, in the middle of body slamming a minibar while a bunch of it's ilk (dressed in silk, sold in bulk) were gathering around for their shots at Raw. Meanwhile, the Knob Goblins and the Mafia Penguins of the Penguin Mafia were re enacting a gang scene from West Side story, while Fluffy slept at Feena's feet.

Funny thing. As Fluffy napped, Feena was letting lose a spell of amazing power. All around the combatants, hot oil began to swirl with odorous, molded cheese, while ghostly tentacles balanced bits of goat pr0n center-folds and icy cold streams of living frozen soda. (So cold, so cold.)

As Catrina watched, the elements surrounded the battlefield with the haste of a lightning bolt, seemingly carefully controlled by Feena, either consciously, or subconsciously. The various elements combined in strange, unpredictable ways, as they lashed about against both the Knob Goblins and the Jester King's beast. It was vicious, brutal, and even seemed to try to seek the Jester King himself out.

Sentient, and beautiful waves of every single element (except the two that don't count) lashed out like an intelligent beast.

It's power and fury were only surpassed by it's control, which itself was only surpassed by the devastation it wrought on the enemies of the KOKOL. Catrina dropped down as the others recovered from the chaos.

Dash rushed to catch Feena as she fell, already unconscious from the amazing display of power. The others looked around at the frozen, spooked, sleazed, burnt, and stunk up Goblins and beasts, with a general sense of awe.

"Heh," Raw Hide hid his sense of awe. "Dumbbunny did all that by herself? Not bad."

Catrina shot Raw Hide a murderous glare as she rushed under Feena's other arm. "I got her Dash. Let go.. Let GO, I said!"

"I'm just trying to help keep her from falling," Dash answered, annoyed.

"She doesn't NEED your help! Get LOST, swordboy!" Catrina scooped Feena up in her arms, effectively 'stealing' her from Dash's grip.

"We don't have time for this fighting," Dash responded as Catrina looked for a spot to lay her down. "We've still got a mission to finish."

Raw Hide shrugged. "We beat up an Elite Seven loser and his army. You'd think that'd be good enough for a day."

Dash glared at him. "We need to either find the Toot Oriole, or figure where he is."

Fluffy yawned. "Ahhhh, we gotta be close by now! I mean, Feena blazed through their army. What're we gotta do? Beat up a general? Easy as peanut and twig stew!"

Fluffy licked his lips with an indeterminately small hamster tongue.

Catrina sniffed, glancing upwards on the mountain. "Feena's going to need rest."

"I'm fine," Feena mumbled, although she obviously wasn't, since she was still leaning on Catrina to stand.

"Bull," Catrina responded. "But I don't see a choice. We can't leave you."

"You could stay with her," Dash offered, as Raw stood there, looking impassively and impatiently over the Penguins, who were off to the side, recovering and possibly plotting.

Catrina ignored her- and him. "Come on. We need to get to the top of this mountain."

"You heard her!" Raw Hide yelled at, well, everyone. Including her. "Get to it! Move those asses! Double speed! Hup, hup!"

The others ignored him and started up the mountain.

"You guys think we'll make it in time?" Fluffy wondered, even as he scampered up Dash's legs, and onto his shoulder for a better view for his free ride.

"Guess we'll find out," Feena and Dash offered at the same time.

A short distance in front of them, Grillhamo of the Knob Goblins and two of his best warriors lie in wait.

Beyond that, at the top of the mountain, his troops were walking into an ambush of their own. . . .
As all this happened, the stranger continued to watch our heroes, keeping just a bit too far to be detected . . .