Ironically, Becky runs into horrific luck in the 13th piece of the mission. (Wait, is that irony? Or just fitting?)

It's not one of my best Becky stories, but it's still enjoyable. I hope.

Actually, since it won an award- see bottom - maybe it isn't so bad after all.

 
Opening takes place during Licking Their Wounds from Becky's perspective.

Becky paused for a moment when Cattaras basically told her to go back to bed.

She couldn't blame him. She'd just taken a beating, along with Jen and Cattaras, in their failed attempt to rescue Catt's sister Catrina and her friends Dash and Aleena (or Queen Kitty, Dashie and Aleenie, to use Becky's preferred nicknames.)

"You're probably right," she admitted. They might not have survived the fight if it wasn't for Fumblies coming to their rescue, basically at the last minute. Becky didn't remember that part; it all happened after she'd been knocked unconscious by the Black Paladin. Now the Fumblies Command had quickly set up a camp around them, small and sparse. The tents could be deconstructed quickly so they could get moving again with little notice, Becky noted. She glanced at Fumblies, Jen and Cattaras. Becky started to walk to her tent.

Becky listened absentmindedly to the sound of snow crunching under her boots as she walked, mixed in with the ambiance of the wind blowing through the nearby forest and Third Faction (Blood Clan) members chatting in the background.

Realizing there could be more trouble to come, Becky glanced back at Cattaras and added, "But wake me up when ya find something," before turning to see Goblina. Maybe she was coming to see how they were doing like Becky was.

Goblina, noticing Becky had to rest, instead escorted her back to her tent. Becky had to admit, resting her sore body sounded pretty good at the moment.

"Don't worry," Goblina assured the quiet Becky.

"Huh?!" Becky's ears perked up. "Why would I worry?! Is some'fin wrong?!"

"No," Goblina assured her. "Nothing's wrong that I know about, I mean, aside the mission. I just mean that I think you should rest and not worry about it too much. You'll be back on you feet in no time, as soon as you recover."

"Oohhh," Becky said, relieved. "Okay, that's good. Why didn't you just say so?!"

"I thought I did!" Goblina replied, causing Becky to giggle which made her giggle as well.

Becky had another coughing fit as they reached the tent. Goblina comforted her.

"I'll be okay," Becky said. "I just need a lil rest."

Goblina smiled. "I was just gonna say that too."

Becky said, "Gasp! You need rest too?!"

"No, silly!" Goblina giggled at Becky's silly misunderstanding. "I mean you, of course. I heard you were pretty roughed up in the battle. But you'll be okay, thanks to the healers here."

Becky just nodded as they walked toward her tent only to notice some commotion just past the tent. She went over to get a closer look.

Goblina lightly chastised her. "Shouldn't you get to bed?"

"Yup!" Becky answered, grinning. "Right after we see what's going on. Come on."

"Well, okay," Goblina said. "You're the boss, Becky."

Becky turned to her, sounding serious. "Yeah, I'll rest soon as I can, promise."

"Well," Goblina said. "Okay. I think I see Red and Green."

Goblina pointed to a small group where Green was shivering, although Goblina couldn't say if it was because of the cold or something else. Green's brother Red stood there, with Red and his mighty moustache as the center which the others gathered around. Two Knob Goblins and a few ninjas stood there, mostly talking to the obese Red.

Goblina and Becky heard various snips of conversation as they walked up. "What fine grooming." "Wow, I bet he eats a lot." "I love mushrooms, too!"

"Hey guys!" Becky said, happy to see the brothers again. "How are ya guys doing?!"

"Why, hello Misses Joy!" Red said, bobbing his head. He ran his grubby hands over his dull red overhauls, sweeping away some of the snow which had accumulated on it. "How are ya doing there, missus Boss lady?!"

"Pretty great, wait," Becky said, catching herself. She frowned. "Actually, not so great, cause I got beat up."

Green frowned. "Yeah, we heard! You look pretty beat up."

Goblina elbowed Green who jumped back. "She doesn't look that bad, be nice."

"Yeah," Red agreed. "But poor Becky."

"So what're going on, guys?" Becky asked. She coughed and then turned to the others. "Oh, hi! I'm Becky Joy! I know Red, and I know Green. I also know Goblina, and.. and.. hi!"

"Hi dere," one of the Goblins said. He looked pretty worn down too, Becky noticed. "I heard about yew but ain't think I never saw ya up close b'fore. Ya don't look doo bad."

The other Goblin, tall and lanky, fake coughed to draw attention to his words. "You will hopefully pardon my associate. It seems being blunt is his default nature, so to speak. We've had something of a rough trip up here, I'm afraid."

"Yeah," Goblina said sympathetically. "It was a rough trip up here for us, too."

"We were ambushed," the ninja with blond hair and a red bandana said. He looked young. "Unbelievable. Were you ambushed too?"

Becky shrugged. "Kinda. We were saving Dashie, Queen elf Aleenie and maybe-a-Queen Catrina from being ambushed. Well, we tried, and tried really hard, but when we got here, some jerks jumped us! So no, wait, yeah, I guess we did get ambushed! Isn't that funny? But not like 'haha, that's so silly.' More like, 'Ahhhh, that hurt' funny! Which.. isn't very funny at all, actually."

Becky pouted but immediately cheered up.

"I'm still not quite sure what happened," Goblina said, rubbing Becky's shoulder sympathetically. "It sounded like those Elite 7 goons got you."

Becky frowned. "Yeah, those Elite jerks got us good, but they just got lucky!"

"Elite 7, huh?" the young ninja blond with the blond hair and night blue jumpsuit said. "Unbelievable!"

"Sounds like it," Red said. "You'll'a whoop'em next'a time, misses Becky!"

"Yeah!" Becky said and Red's brother Green cheered.

Goblina turned to the ninjas. "Did you get ambushed by the Elite as well?"

The older looking ninja shook his head. "There were no Elite involved in ambushing us, thank the great spirit of the ninja star bender, other than the elite assault of the icy assassins known as snow ninjas, who descended upon us, a flurry as white as the nova sun, deadly as an enraged yeti and as endless as the Degrassi sausage buffet on a Sunday morning. We were split up and only just now found our companions."

"Well," Green said with a hopeful smile. "I'm glad you're all here safe, no one was left behind and that horrible chapter of all of our lives is now over. Phew! How lucky! Well, let's go, Red!"

"Most of us, anyway," one of the Goblins answered. "Quick Ninja here was just telling us how a couple of them don't seem to have gotten past the snow ninjas. But thank you for your concern."

"So we left two behind?!" the young blond ninja asked, facepalming. "Unbelievable!"

The better spoken Knob Goblin spoke up next. "We intent to return to aid them once we secure military assistance from Sir Fumblies."

"Well, that's good," Green said as his mitten-like hand swept a bit of light green slime-sweat off his skin. "I guess we can go cower behind. . . errrr I mean ahhhh, crowd around someone else now."

"Except," Goblina noted as she looked around. "Something's already going on. Everyone's starting to rush around. I hope everything's okay."

"Whatever it is," the young blond ninja said, noticing how busy the camp had gotten, "I think we might be on our own if we want to get them back. Unbe..." He paused and rethought his choice of word. "Unreal. But if we gotta go back alone, we might as well get going."

"Ohhh!" Becky said, holding her hand up like she was at school. "Can I help?! I'll help and.. owww." Becky paused to hold her side, still sore from the battle.

"Sorry," Goblina said, putting her arm around Becky to steady her. "You're too hurt, and you were told to relax, remember?"

"Yeah," Becky said, nodding. "You're probably right." She started towards the tent with Goblina, to Green's relief. But after a few steps, she turned around, looking at the group of Goblins and ninjas and sighed. "But they need my help, so nap time is gonna have to wait!"

"But, but.." Goblina rushed to keep up with her. "You were ordered to rest!"

"Yeah," Becky said. "Cattaras might be a sheriff, and Sir Fumblies might be a Fumblies sir, but they're not my bosses! Besides," she said, looking at the newcomers to the camp. "Who'd be better to deal with an ice attack than me? Plus, I'll rest when I get back."

"Well," Goblina started. "If you're sure. You're the boss, after all. At least, our boss."

Becky nodded and grinned. "But you don't gotta go wif if you don't wanna. You can wait here if you want."

"Good idea!" Green said, but Red gently slapped him over the head. Green changed his tone, giving a dejected sigh. "I guess we're going with you, Miss Becky."

"If you are sure of this," the head ninja said. "Then we would be honored to have you go with us."

"Sure am!" Becky said, smiling. "We'll go grab them ninja buddies, make sure they're feelin' okay and head right back into camp, lickity splittidy!"

"If you're sure," Goblina repeated.

"Yup!" Becky smiled. "It's okay, it'll be a quick fun run with our new buddies. I'll be back before I notice I'm gone.. wait what?!"

Goblina just giggled.

"How unbelievably lucky!" the young blond ninja said, as if that isn't already getting annoying. "Let's go then!"

Becky and the familiar looking blond ninja took the lead as the others headed out of camp, barely noticed among the growing chaos. Things were surprisingly quiet as they made their way down the hill, with the blond ninja and the better spoken Goblin leading the way to where the ambush took place. It turned out to be quite a walk, too. It took them south, away from the camp at Mt. Noob, and closer to Mr. McLargeHuge. Not surprising, since that was the mountain upon which the snow ninja's base stood. Green walked with the two in the lead for a while then suddenly jumped back, yelped, "B-b-blood!" and hid behind his obese brother Red and Becky.

The others gathered around, viewing the scene. Blood spotted the ground here and there, along with a couple broken katanas. Little surprise, then, when one of the ninjas announced, "This is where the battle took place. Or rather, this is where we were ambushed by the snow ninjas."

Becky looked around, shivering. Oddly, this part of the mountains were even colder than usual. And was it Becky's imagination, or did it seem like it was oddly dark compared to just five minutes earlier in their journey? Even the scent of the mountains suddenly felt off, though to be fair, it was hard to tell with her nose having been nearly broken earlier. Even the post-battle healing hadn't gotten it fully back to normal yet.

"Where do you think they went?" the young blond ninja asked, shivering. He was using his chi to generate some magical heat, but with the cold intensifying, it was barely keeping up in the face of this dark, ominous cold.

Red shivered extra hard. "P-p-probably up the big, big large mountain. Would'a be our luck."

Green just nodded and picked an icicle off of his exceptionally thin mustache. The others searched around.

"This could be hard," one of the other Goblins commented.

"I see them!" said the young blond ninja, pointing to a cave up ahead.

"Or not so hard after all," the same Goblin said, looking up to see a couple figures coming out of the cave, heading to join the group. One walked with a limp. The other's arm was in a hastily made sling. Nevertheless, the two figures walked towards the group with a certain desperate intensity. The temperature dipped as the chill in the air intensified. The sky darkened a shade further without adequate reason. The scent of the mountains seemed to turn even less pleasant than usual. The overall effect was foreboding. Red, Green, and the young blond ninja moved to aid the injured pair as they rejoined the larger group. The returning ninjas looked absolutely terrified.

"Good," the well spoken ninja said. "You're both able to walk."

"We must retreat with all due haste!" the ninja with the injured arm screamed, desperate to be heard about the rising howls of the wind.

"Yes, fall back!" called one of the extra Knob Goblins whose name was unknown to Becky. "Before we come under attack again."

"You don't understand!" The other wounded nina grabbed his arms. "We're already under attack!"

As if on cue, something seemed to shake the mountain on which they stood. The others glanced back uphill and, to their shock and horror, saw a solid wall of snow blowing, forming to the left and right. Behind it, only darkness could be seen, unnatural and ill fitting to a mid-evening. The wind sounded like whispering in an ancient and unspeakable language, sounding rotting and dead and angry and unpleasant.

Several snow ninjas seemed to form out of the wall of snow, standing in front of it.

"Fall back!" the young blond ninja called. "NOW!"

The group turned to move, but a wall of wind and snow slammed into the group, sending two of the ninjas over the cliff before they realized what was going on. Becky responded with her own assault of icy winds to counter it, even as Red and Green moved to help the other Goblins barely avoid falling off the ledge. Another Goblin slammed into the side of the mountain with bone breaking force.

With Becky using her ice magic for cover, they made their retreat, but when they tried to return to the camp to rejoin the others, they continued to find their way blocked off by similar walls of snow, ice, howling winds and deadly snow ninjas. With the young blond ninja no longer in the party, the only option was to make their way down the mountains and away from where Becky wanted to go, making the trip grueling, exhausting and dangerous.

Next up: Sassy Snake and Dinner at Father Crimbo's!