And we're off with the mission Finale!

The series took long enough to get done, but the trade off is a ton of content. I like to think of it as well written content. This is a prologue. Actually, this is a bunch of prologues, kicking off the Finale part of the story for a number of active participants in the mission. As you might notice, I take special care to do my best to match the styles of each individual part to their handler's writing style.

It's that time once again, AIL'ites! You've waited long enough- now it's time for the exciting, pulse pounding finale! While the party was about to get started in Seaside Town, the battle already raged on in South Degrassi!

The Jester King of Beasts had imposed his presence in a rather obnoxious way. Red and black leather straps covered Catrina Whiteclaw's body, with a prominent red ball stuck in her mouth. Sebastian Dash was swept up in a mob of Knob Goblins, leaving Katherine Swift alone against the mysterious Jester King himself. She seemed utterly confused as her whip wrapped around his waist, and went straight through his wrists as if it were air. As she looked on, puzzled, the Jester King jumped at her with uncanny speed, slamming his hallow but powerful, boney knee into her ribs. He threw her effortlessly to the side, turning to watch the carnage raging around him.

Catrina found herself a bit shaken and distracted by her new outfit. She barely noticed the Knob Goblin behind her until it blindsided her. The Knob Goblin drove its forearm into the back of her head, then lifted a large wooden club over his head.

Catrina's annoyance at being stuffed into a submissive fetish fuel outfit turned to anger as she caught the Knob Goblin square in the chest with a stiff kick, forcing the air out of it. A pair of Catrina’s claw swipes across his face. She then simply grabbed and threw him, head first, into the nearest pile of books, burying him in a heap.

Dash continued his own offense. Though often loathe to kill, he'd accepted that this situation might require lethal force. They were badly outnumbered, with a member of the Elite 7 behind it all. Seeing Catrina humiliated and Katherine facing down with the Jester King of Beasts was enough to throw Dash into a mad rage.

And as Dash flew into a rage, trying to cut down the Knob Goblin warriors between the Jester King of Beasts and himself, stories were unfolding all around the Kingdom, possibly roughly at in the same time frame (or not.)

 
=-----------------

 
Meanwhile, or possibly not meanwhile, but definitely elsewhere....

 
Blahking sat, unmoving, in the small undecorated throne behind his desk. Something of a combination of a traditional throne and a really plush office chair. The secretary was out to lunch, and the "do not disturb under penalty of lethal magic" sign was up. With the curtains drawn to keep out the harsh spring sunlight, only a single candle, the wic cut as short as it could be to keep a low flame, kept the dreary blackness of the office away from Blahking.

KOKOL's long reigning Prince drilled his fingers over the highly polished oak wood table. Half heartedly, he read over his latest stack of reports. Progress on the Chrono mine was making excellent progress. That cracked through the layer of Blahking's indifference, at least momentarily. He could sense the potential for that mine could be huge for the Kingdom of KOL.

What other news was there? Still no word on Konall Bearsmasher, and Fluffy Hamster was still busy supposedly researching how to extract KOKOL's lost souls from Hay Daze, apparently without any results at all.

Oh.. the carnival! Blahking almost shoved the notice aside, but an irresistible feeling guided his hand. A sensation.... odd. To his disappointment, there wasn't very much in the area of confirmed activates. A couple of clan members had registered for a berry pie and juice exhibition. Oddly, they'd requested meat pies, paper and crayons. Still, hopefully the pies could be used for an eating contest as well. A Smackdown regular named Bruce Bixner had requested a public tusslin' throwdown, whatever that was, but from the way things were worded, Blahking figured he should send some security.

Someone named Gary or Hairy or something (it was hard to tell due to the handwriting) was giving a lecture on "How to Survive being set on fire and pushed down a flight of stairs," a few hobos were giving lessons on how to taser bounty hunters. Oh, if only there were some way to ensure that idiot Shamus ended up as the guest of honor for that one!

Blahking wanted to dismiss the lack of overall events with a sense of indifferent, but he found he couldn't. A couple more decent events would really push this thing over the top, he figured. Blahking got to thinking, and decided maybe he could host a magic display contest. And he was sure he could get Fluffy Hamster to run an event, as long as it involved downtime for naps.

Yes.. a little magic would go a long way towards putting, well, the magic into the event!

 
=-----------------

 
Catrina sighed with relief as the spell finally wore off, her outfit snapping back to its original form. She growled at Jester King of beasts, who made an elaborate hand gesture at her. Out of nowhere, she found herself struck in the head by an absurdly large scratching post, which sent her tumbling to the ground growling.

On top of having an Elite 7 member along, the Knob Goblins were downright tough in their own right.. at least, for Knob Goblins. It was quite obvious the Jester King had handpicked the best he could find for his personal mini army. While this alone made them challenging enough, Jester King of Beasts was a formidable enemy, adapt at changing the rules of the fight almost at will. His ability to become immaterial was unknown to Dash's ally, Katherine Swift- but she was quickly starting to understand the concept behind it.

Catrina was still outraged, tearing into the enemies with her trademark calculated viciousness. Even the toughest of the Knob Goblins found themselves second guessing the orders to fight her. Ah, but loyalty to the King - and a greater fear of disappointing the King- drove them onwards, with a vicious determination of their own. Better dead than tortured at the hands of an Elite 7 and then handed to a mad Knob Scientist to be made an example of - for other would be dishonorable cowards.

Yet, if the Knob Goblins held anything above loyalty to the crown, it was simply being alive, and fighting Catrina could reduce one's lifespan to minutes if not seconds. Dash fought with his own sense of honor, yet many an evil had found out how lethal his heavy, sharp broadsword could be. Including the more dangerous of the Knob Goblins.

One of the thugs produced a large club seemingly out of nowhere and proceeded to attempt to bash Catrina's skull in. Only the reactions of a fine tuned predator allowed her to get her twin katanas up for a deflecting blow. Still, the effort left her arms sore. Another Knob tried to sneak up behind her, only to be met by a powerful feline kick that had the poor slob Goblin doubled over in agony.

Catrina turned towards the Jester King of Beasts, and was rewarded by her efforts with a flying trout to the face. Where'd it come from? Well, that is a mystery. Meanwhile, Dash ducked under a pair of elephant tusks expertly handled by a Knob Goblin Beast tamer. Dash took the beast tamer out with a simple right cross to its jaw. Dash turned around, only to be choke slammed by a deadly looking Giant Knob Goblin Guard, that towered over Dash at the better part of six and a half feet tall. Dash rolled out of the way of a treasure chest one of the Knob Goblins tried to drop on Dash's chest. Sebastian Dash immediately found himself between three Knob Goblins, having to fight off each one, and there was a good chance one would get a killing blow in on Dash sooner than later, if he didn't find a way out.

Everything was working against Catrina, from the weird random happenings to the stench of the Knob Goblins. She tossed the fish aside, ducked under a spiked hammer wielded by the Jester King of Beasts himself, and tried to charge the Jester King, hoping to take it by surprise. It phased out, allowing Catrina to run head first into Katherine, who'd tried to ambush it from behind.

At least she wasn't in that horrible outfit anymore. Katherine and Catrina glared at each other, but quickly realized there were more important matters to tend to. . . .

 
=-----------------

 
As it had turned out, not only were Samus XTreme and the Guacanator intent on winning the Meat car competition, but Lapine, Vixen and Todd Blackpaws had decided to go for their own entry.

Hm.. which of those three stories to start on?

Let's start around three hundred miles per hour.

He might have started a potential guild war in his quest to speck out his rocket powered meat car, but Guacanator was enjoying the fruits of his labor. So to speak. Yet, there were definitely.. issues.. to be dealt with. Aside from the ache in his barely healed just broken arm.

Then there were control issues. The thing didn't really seem to have lower levels of speed. Which didn't lend itself to how well the thing turned. Still, it was a sturdy design and less likely to kill someone by accident than on purpose.

Not that Guacanator was planning to necessarily kill anyone on purpose, well as far as we know, but you get the idea.

As he roared back towards the Gnomish camp, the world seemed to turn to a blur around him. This thing would need some definite upgrades if it was going to compete at the highest level.

He zoomed across the nearby plains, unaware of three ratlike eyes managing, barely, to keep their beedy little eyes on him. . .

 
=-----------------

 
Bunny eyes starred into two mismatched foxlike eyes.

Lapine and Vixen, hands on hips, inches away from each other's furry bodies, were not getting along at the moment. Each pair of eyes held that special type of passions turned critical look that only girlfriends turned ex'es could muster for each other.

Despite their little shoving match seconds ago, neither was backing down.

"Why do you have to be so stubborn, Arc?!" Lapine asked, her temper burning.

The two hadn't come to blows yet. Civility had prevailed so far- but only just barley.

Vixen glared. "Don't. Call. Me. That. The name is Vixen. Got it, you stupid little bunny?!"

Lapine threw her paws in the air. "You used to LOVE it when I called you that!"

"No I didn't," Vixen responded coldly. "I only put up with it because you obviously weren't smart enough to know any better."

"Stop calling me stupid, stupid!"

"Fine."

"Fine!"

"FINE!"

"Whoa, ladies, what's the problem?" Todd Blackpaw asked, finally making his way back to the sight of the argument. "If it's about who gets to sit up front with me, don't worry. You can just sit in each other's laps."

"SHE thinks the Meat car should be painted teal green," Lapine hissed.

"And this IDIOT wants it chrome white!" Vixen said with a snort. What, you've never heard a fox snort? Well, have you ever heard one talk?

You have? Oh, nevermind then. But yeah, anyway, this one snorted.

"Girls, I don't think this is worth fighting over. Why don't we just all go take a nice calming bath and. . . " Then he noticed they'd turned their very deadly sight on him. "Er, I'm sorry, I meant a picnic. No? Sit down feel good?"

"I think you just need to decide the color of the car, meatbag," Vixen spit out.

"Yes, honey, tell her you're siding with me!" Lapine coo'ed sweetly, hoping to use their advantage to her favor.

"Don't you DARE!" Vixen said with a growl.

"Relax, relax, I'm not going to let my relationship get in the way of my judgment," Todd said, backing off slowly.

"Good, so we're going with my color choice," Vixen assumed.

"No, we're not!" Lapine said, rather upset that he hadn't taken her side on instinct.

"Girls," Todd said, ready to run if required. "We can do one of each!"

He was ready to take off running, but the two anthropomorphic females just looked at him and let out simultaneous, "Hmmmmm's."

 
=-----------------

 
Some days earlier. . . .

 
"¿Que pasa?"

Samus and Inu blinked, totally confused.

“¿Estas bien? ........ ¿Donde eres nacida?"

"Why are we in Little Canadia?" Samus asked, confused.

"We're South of the Border, Oh He with the brain of a thousand malfunctions," Inu the comma, comma, comma chameleon asked, clearly annoyed.

"Why are they speaking Francian, then?" Shamus asked, thinking what a stupid comment that was.

"It's NOT Francian, it's Borderspeak, you nimrod!" a clearly annoyed Inu answered.

"Why would they be speaking Borderspeak in Lil' Canadia?!" Shamus threw his arms up, annoyed. "Besides, that would mean we drove all the way down.. well.. south, instead of going where we needed to be."

"And this surprises you?" Inu asked, not at all surprised herself. “I mean, YOU were driving!”

"I guess not really," Shamus admitted. "Wanna get some tacos before we get back?"

Inu just glared at him. "I hate you. You’re a failure at life, and I hate you so! Also." She smiled slightly. "Sounds great. You're buying!"

"Awww," Shamus whined as they turned to get out of the South of the Border village.

"Hey, tourists, wait!" The odd Borderish man said as the two hopped in their meat car and took off into the distance. He then caught himself. "¿Quieres chicle?"

But the two were already out of hearing range.

 
=-----------------

 
More or less the present....

 
That Becky Joy, she got knocked right down the ground!

Zanther Wolf looked at her, and let out a quiet, guilty cry. After all, this Shelly person had taught him all about his new abilities, and explained why he went through the changes. Most of all, she'd told him it would take him and Becky some time to get used to Wolf's recent change, and that was okay. But, she'd also warned Zanther to be calm and careful when he saw Becky so he wouldn’t risk frightening her. Zanther figured out that it might look scary to have big ole' Zanther charging right at that Becky when the winged wolf looked so different!

At first, his fur had become more of a pure charred black than its previous very dark midnight blue. It had gradually started to regain its previous color, but his markings were still glowing. They had stopped glowing not long after he'd been rescued from the nasty, mean Knob Goblins, and they'd never glowed quite like they did now. Ever since that fight Zanther had in Hey Daze.

Shelly also mentioned he might have actually gained a layer of physical mass from the ordeal.

But that all flew out the window, when he heard the youthful infectious voice of his Becky girl hit him like a ton of sunshine when he was close to the meeting spot. He could smell her coming way back, but when he saw Becky running at him, it was a lot like old times.

Well, a bit. Instead of her catching him, he'd kinda knocked her to the ground. Wolf buried his nose under his paws, sad that she'd be mad at him before she'd even said hi, but nope! That ole Becky Joy just sat up, giggling and then kneeled and held her arms open, telling Wolf, "Whoa, you got'ted strong!"

Wolf let out a happy squeal, this time slowly walking up to Wolf and sitting by her for hugs and cuddles.

"Hey Wolf! We gotta get going! I started working on our berry and juice stand, oh, and Fluffy Hamster helped me some's, and a guy named Janos helped, and oh, oh! Lots of people were helping me find berries and we got a stand, isn't that nice of them?"

Wolf just nodded, happy to be back and be in his 'pet human's' arms, heehee.

Shelly walked up, watching the two with a satisfied smile. "Becky, can we speak for a few minutes before you go?"

Becky got worried and hugged Wolf tight to her chest. "Oh.. okay.. but you don't gotta take him more, do ya?? I just got him back and I missed him and I missed my brother, but if you need to, that's okay, too, I guess. If it's okay with Wolf."

"No, no," Shelly clarified. "I simply wish to discuss a few things with you before you depart. There's some things you should know- and I believe Zanther has been given a very special gift.. for a very special reason..."

"Oh... okay.. then let's chat chit it up!" Becky said, just happy to know Wolf really was back with her. Finally!

 
=-----------------

 
Working suddenly as a team, Catrina and Katherine turned towards the large mob surrounding Dash, who'd just dodged out of the way of a mysteriously un-comic anvil which nearly fell onto his head, only to find himself barely able to dodge under a pair of familiar katanas! They looked just like a cheap and inferior version of Catrina Whiteclaw's own katanas, only handled far, far less expertly.

No problem, right? Only, as soon as Dash dodged it, he was under attack from a bigger Knob Goblin who slammed her fist into Dash's ribs, stunning him. Seriously, she was like 6'6 or something.

If only someone would get around to inventing basketball so she’d have something productive to do with her talents and size.

Dash found himself surrounded by four of the Knob Goblins, and in serious trouble, when Catrina and Katherine charged to the save!

With the ambush from behind, though, it was the Knob Goblins' turn to be in trouble. Within scant seconds, Katherine, Catrina and Dash had found themselves amidst the injured, dead and dying army of the Knob Goblins.

They turned to each other, silently coming to an agreement, and quickly rushed at the Jester King of Beasts, ready to finish this off.

Several shadows appeared over them. Catrina sniffed, then Katherine looked up, shouting warnings at the other two.

Several large objects were over their head, mere milliseconds from landing on the trio's head. Dash gasped as he caught a glimpse of the sheer amount of objects- meatbikes, a small one room house, a large statue. They'd be nearly impossible to avoid- and very, very lethal.

Not exactly the ending he'd always envisioned for himself.

 
The next one is mostly Catrina/ Dash/ Katherine, with a bit of Shamus's story to keep things interesting and mix things up.