Disclaimer 1: That '70s Show copyright The Carsey-Werner Company, LLC and Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment, LLC. The 10th Kingdom copyright Babelsberg International Filmproduktion GmbH & Co. Beitriebs KG and Hallmark Entertainment Distribution, LLC. No money's being made through this story. Simply written out of the love for the two series.

Disclaimer 2: I have taken great pains not to reproduce any of the narrative from The 10th Kingdom novelization by Kathryn Wesley. The narrative (i.e. the words) of this story are mine with the exception that some of dialogue has been retained from The 10th Kingdom for the sake of story clarity.

CHAPTER 26
WINNERS AND LOSERS

"Three beautiful girls," the Judge said, "and three beautiful lambs. This is the hardest competition to judge so far by a long chalk."

Kelso nodded. He completely agreed except for the chalk part. He didn't see any chalk—long or short—but Jackie might have finally met a rival worthy of her. That Sally Peep had to be the hottest chick in all the Nine Kingdoms, not to mention her family owned the whole of Little Lamb Village.

Jackie, Sally, and Mary Ramley were all standing on the stage with their sheep. The Judge stepped in front of Mary first, and her boring white sheep bleated at him.

"I give Mary eight-out-of-ten," the Judge said, "and a well-earned third place."

The audience applauded, and Kelso clapped, too, but Mary lowered her head. She was devastated, poor kid. But he knew what would cheer her up: Kelso Lotta Love.He'd find her after Jackie won the mirror—or, if Sally won, after Hyde stole it.

The Judge was now standing in front of Jackie's pink sheep and Sally's gold sheep. "Both these lambs are so beautiful..." He glanced back at the audience. "How do I make a decision?"

"Just pick the pink one!" Kelso shouted, and Donna punched his shoulder. "It's called subliminal messaging, Donna. Damn!"

"I've got to give Sally peep ten-out of ten!" the Judge said.

Sally squealed like a pig—a shrieking, ear-piercing pig. Kelso had to take away five "hot" points for that, but what did it matter? She'd just gotten all the points she needed to win that mirror.

"Oh, come on!" Eric said beside Kelso.

"I know!" Donna said. "What are we going to do?"

"I can tell you what I'm not gonna do," Kelso said. "Sally Peep. Jeez! If she screams like that over a stupid contest, imagine what she'd sound like when I—"

Donna punched him again, harder than before, and Kelso rubbed the aching throb that used to be his shoulder.

"How could I lose?" Jackie said. "I never lose..." Her breathing became staccato. Kelso could hear it from where he stood. It was the first sign that she was about to cry, but the Peep family—especially Larry and old Wilfred—laughed in delight. And the audience seemed to be happy, too. It was cheering and clapping louder than ever before.

"But then," the Judge shouted over the crowd's racket, "I also have to give Jackie Burkhart ten-out-of-ten as well!"

"Oh, my God!" Jackie covered her mouth.

"Burn!" Kelso shouted, and the crowed cheered even louder.

"A tie?" Larry said. He climbed onto the stage and spoke in the Judge's face. "We can't have a tie!"

"Someone has to win!" Wilfred said.

"I have to win!" Sally banged her crook on the stage. "Peeps always win!"

Jackie patted Sally's arm. "How about if you get the trophy, and I get the mirror?"

"They're both mine!" Sally said. "She shouldn't even be allowed to take part. It's not fair!" She was in full-out tantrum mode, and it looked cute on her, but Kelso wasn't going to share that opinion with anyone. His shoulder hurt enough.

"Why are you giving an outsider ten-out-of ten?" Larry Peep said. He looked like he wanted to knock the Judge's teeth in, but it was Wilfred's demeanor that made Kelso take a step back.

"She's a dirty cheat." Wilfred was speaking low, like a growling dog. "Give the prize to my girl."

Larry stepped even closer to the Judge.

"Back off!" The Judge pushed Larry away. "Back off, I said!" Then he got off the stage. "Look! This is a shepherdess competition. We set up an obstacle course, and whoever guides her sheep to the pen in the shortest time is the winner, using only sheep dogs and commands." He was staring directly at Wilfred and Larry now. "Sound fair enough?"

"Yeah, all right," Wilfred said.

"No!" Jackie raised her crook. "I don't have a sheep dog."

"'Spect I'll win then, won't I?" Sally said. Wilfred and Larry both laughed.

Jackie looked over at Kelso, but he didn't have a dog to throw her.

"Damn! Where are gonna find a sheep dog?" Kelso said.

"Excuse me, man." Leo was standing next to him. He smelled like he'd bathed in a huge stash.

Kelso put a hand on Leo's shoulder. "Not now, okay? I'm trying to think here."

"You've got a dog, man," Leo said.

"We don't have a dog," Eric said.

"Yes, we do." Donna patted Fez's golden back.

"I don't know if you've noticed, Donna," Eric said, "but Fez is a freakin' statue!"

"No, wait, this could work!" Kelso pulled Leo into a hug. "You're a genius!" Then he started to roll Fez away.

"Kelso, where are you going?" Donna called after him.

"To get Fez back!"

Fez went into the harness above the Peeps' diverted well without argument. He really was easier to deal with all gold and stiff, but Kelso missed hearing his needy, foreign voice inside his head. They'd made it to the Peep's barn in under fifteen minutes, and they probably had fifteen more to get back to the competition in time. The obstacle course wove itself through the whole village.

Colorful sparkles drifted into Kelso's face as he lowered Fez into the water.

"Magic wishing well," Kelso said, "please use your magic stuff—uh, water—to bring my dog-friend here back to life from his golden body. And maybe throw him a bone, too. Give him a really big di—"

"Oh, no. Not another one." The well's voice still sounded sexy. "The last two were bad enough."

"Hey, baby," Kelso said, "I'm nothing like those two. I'm freakin' gorgeous."

The well didn't say anything more, but its waters did start to churn. Kelso smiled in satisfaction—oh, yeah, he still had it—and he stood back and waited.

Jackie and Sally stood by the pen at the end of the obstacle course, and Jackie kept glancing behind her as if, by some miracle, a sheep dog would magically appear.

"You've seen the course," the Judge said. A large, wooden stop clock sat behind him. "Each girl can only use her shepherding skills with her dog. Sally, are you ready?"

The skank nodded.

"Starting now!" The Judge pushed a button on the clock's housing, and the timer started to run.

Sally whistled loudly and with different rhythms. These had to be commands, but Jackie couldn't see the golden-fleeced sheep or Sally's sheep dog yet. Even so, it was only a matter of time.

Jackie glanced behind her again. Where the hell was a Fairy Godmother when a girl needed one?

Kelso hoisted the rope attached to Fez's harness. "Come on," he said. "Don't be gold, don't be gold, don't be—"

Fez was still gold.

"Damn it!" Kelso lowered the harness to the barn floor. Then he kicked a broom straight into Wilfred Peep's straw throne.

Jackie cursed. Sally Peep's mutt had chased her golden-fleeced sheep to the end of the obstacle course.

Sally shut the gate. "Pen's closed!"

"Done in a splendid count of eighty-five!" the Judge said.

The audience applauded. The Peeps all cheered, and Sally tossed Jackie a look that said, "Beat that, bitch."

Jackie cursed again. Oh, how she wanted to beat that bitch.

Kelso crouched in front of Fez's still-frozen body. "Come on, boy. Come on!" He grabbed a sliver of wood off the floor, "Look Fez," and hurled it across the barn. "Fetch!"

The gold of Fez's front paws shimmered. Then it turned to dust and revealed brown fur underneath.

"No way!" Kelso watched excitedly while the rest of the gold fell off Fez's body like dandruff. "All right!"

Fez shook his doggy head as if he'd just gotten wet.

"Welcome back, buddy!" Kelso opened his arms for a hug, but Fez ran at him and chomped his shin. "Ow!" Kelso toppled onto a pile of straw and cradled his wounded leg.

"You idiot," Fez said. "Why did you turn me into gold?"

"I didn't mean to! I was trying to save you from those Trolls!"

"You were?"

"Yeah!" Kelso rolled up the leg of his jeans. His skin was bleeding but not too badly.

Fez nuzzled against Kelso's side. "Oh, Kelso. I could never stay mad at you."

"Fez, I know we're close and all, but do not start licking me." Kelso scratched him behind the ears. "Oh—wait! I need your help."

"If it involves candy," Fez said, "then I am in."

"And if it doesn't?" Kelso said.

"Eh. Still in."

"Time starts now!" The Judge started the timer.

"Come on, lamb!" Jackie shouted. She couldn't whistle like Sally, and she couldn't see her sheep either. "This is Jackie Burkhart speaking to you. I order you to go inside the pen!"

She sounded pathetic; she knew it. And she knew Sally knew it, too. She kept trying anyway.

"Come on, lamby! Come on!" Jackie stomped her foot. "Get your fluffy ass in that pen. Now!"

No sheep. Wilfred and Larry Peep were laughing at her.

"Going up to thirty!" the Judge said.

She continued to yell even though it was hopeless. She tried every kind of voice she had: her pouty one that used to work so well on Steven; her commanding one that still worked on Michael; the coaxing one she used on Daddy in childhood; and finally, the desperate, pleading one she'd used on Steven before she left for Chicago.

Still no sheep. That last voice hadn't worked on Steven either.

Jackie began to whistle, weakly.

"Aw, tough luck," Sally said next to her, "or cheese. Looks like Sally is the winner."

"Coming up to fifty!" the Judge said.

Jackie looked at the sky to keep from crying, but the bright blue of it reminded her of Steven. She returned her attention to the course and caught a flash of pink. Her eyes widened.. Her pink-fleeced sheep was running towards her—and it was being chased by a chocolate lab.

"Fez?" She gasped. "Oh, my God—Fez!"

"Where'd he come from?" Sally's voice was a whiny squeak.

Jackie clapped her hands. "Go, Fez, go!"

Her sheep sped away from Fez the way girls usually did, but Fez pursued it nimbly.

"Coming up to seventy!" the Judge said.

Fez and the sheep rounded a corner. Only a short stretch of ground was left between them and the pen.

"Count of eighty," the Judge said.

Jackie stepped beside the pen's wooden gate.

"Eighty-one."

Fez nosed the sheep's butt, and the sheep scooted inside the pen.

"Eighty-two."

"Pen's closed!" Jackie said.

"Eighty-three!" the Judge shouted. "Jackie the Shepherdess is this year's winner!" He smiled as widely as Jackie felt herself doing. The crowd's applause hurt her ears, but it was a good pain—the pain of victory.

Jackie clutched her crook and jumped up and down. She looked over at Donna and Eric, who had grabbed each other and were also jumping up and down.

"No! No! No!" Sally squealed behind her.

Jackie knelt down and pet Fez. She had never been so happy to see him.

"Come and get your prize, lass," the Judge said. He held out a silver trophy. The smile on his face hadn't left him.

Michael appeared from around a corner of the obstacle course and gave Jackie a cheesy grin. Then he and Eric walked to the Judge with her. Jackie took her trophy, and the crowd continued to cheer while Michael and Eric picked up the mirror.

"Thank you, Little Lamb Village!" Michael said.

"It was a team effort," Eric said. "No one person could do it. See ya later." He and Michael carried the mirror away.

"Congratulations..." Donna squeezed Jackie's shoulders in a one-armed hug, "Jackie Shepherdess."

Jackie gazed at her silver trophy. "I really do win at everything!"

"NO!" Sally stomped up to her grandfather Wilfred, probably to complain about her devastating defeat.

Jackie rolled her eyes. She'd made less of a fuss when she lost Miss Dairy Princess—and that was saying something.

Hyde had gone from farm-to-farm in search of some tail, but his head was still so foggy he couldn't remember if he'd gotten any. He wanted to say yes. He was definitely tired enough to justify that assumption, and yet he didn't feel satisfied. As it was, he didn't know what farm he was on now or whether he'd hit it already.

He leaned against an apple tree and switched his answer to no. The apples were huge, man, like red balloons. Why hadn't the tree floated into the sky? It had so many balloons, man! If he ate one, would he float into a cloud? Or was he a cloud? His legs did feel kind of—crap.

That Dwarf moss was screwing with him bad.

Hyde shut his eyes and took a few deep breaths. Then he rested his hands on his belt buckle, only there was no buckle. Or belt. They were gone. His fingers were clutching at open air.

Maybe he really had gotten some action. He tried to remember, and...

He couldn't, and... he still couldn't. Especially not with that flushed-face chick crying near him. Sally Peep.She was trudging across the field as though she'd just lost a sheep. She needed consoling. And what was the best way to console a hot, pissed-off shepherdess?

Hyde waited until she passed by his tree. Then he—he... damn it. He was so freakin' tired, man. He slapped his cheeks a few times, but that only made the fog in his skull grow more dense. Leo should've warned him better.

Sally was getting away—screw it. Hyde pushed himself off the tree and followed.

Steven wasn't waiting for them at Fidelity's barn like Jackie had hoped. And no one else seemed to notice. They were all focused on the mirror, which Eric and Michael had put against a beam.

"Come on, come on, come on," Eric said and tapped the mirror's glass. "Why isn't it showing Wisconsin?"

Donna shook her head. "I don't know."

"I was talking to Fez... Kelso?"

"He says because it's not turned on," Michael said. Then he pushed Eric out of the way and gazed at his own reflection. "Hey, baby." He was pursing his lips like Mick Jagger and speaking in that voice he thought was so sexy, but so wasn't."How about you and me take a roll in the hay?"

"Kelso," Donna shoved him aside, "I don't think that's what Fez meant. There's got to be a switch somewhere." Her hands inspected the tarnished mirror frame. "How'd you get through in the first place, Fez?"

"He says he fell on it," Michael said.

"Okay, it can't be that hard to find a switch." Eric tried to get in front of the mirror, but Donna wouldn't let him. "Hey, didn't you fail Switches 101 in college?"

"Eric, will you shut—" Donna turned a piece of the frame shaped like a Celtic triskele. A bright light rippled across the mirror's glass and then dissolved away into—"That's Mount Hump!"

The images became sharper, and Jackie felt a warm ache inside her chest. She hadn't realized how much she missed Point Place, despite what was—or wasn't—waiting for her there. She reached toward the mirror. Then someone screamed.

Wolf! Wolf!

It was a woman's scream. Jackie's stomach clenched, but she dashed out of the barn with Donna and Eric.

A farmer ran halfway down the road across from them. "Sally Peep's been murdered!" he shouted. He was breathing heavily, turning this way and that as other villagers gathered to his side.

Behind him, a crowd of people—mostly Peeps—were hauling someone toward the village square.

"We've got him!" someone said. "We've got him!"

Whoever they were dragging was in rough shape and getting worse by the second. Farmers kept punching him and kicking him, and they beat him with pitchforks.

And then Jackie saw his scruffy face. Steven.Steven was the one being pummeled. He fought against the Peeps' hold on him, but he didn't have a chance.

"Burn him!" a villager said. "Burn the wolf!"

"Get away from him!" Jackie shouted. She wanted to charge into the crowd, to get to Steven, but someone—Donna—held her back. "Get off me!"

Jackie elbowed her and got loose, but the crowd had swelled with so many farmers and villagers that she couldn't see him anymore. They all seemed to be carrying a pitchfork or a plank of wood—anything they could find to hurt her Steven.

"Caught him red-handed!" a farmer shouted. "The murdering bastard."

"Burn the wolf!" someone said, and others joined in. "Burn the wolf! Burn the wolf!" It became a chant.

Jackie glimpsed Steven's face again through a small gap in the crowd. His sunglasses were missing. His eyes were naked, and she saw them only briefly, but they told her enough.

Steven Hyde was afraid.