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THE FINALE

ITEX

Tessorori tore his eyes away from the sleeping – unconscious, out, drugged? – form of his mutated son to face the Director.

"Looks like your precious Epsilon failed," she said, somehow in a mixture between a snarl and a calm yet angry drawl.

"The Erasers did, too," said Werner disappointedly. "Damn! I thought I'd programmed the one with the turret to be more, I dunno, proactive."

"Do you have any idea what that word means?" Kidd asked.

Tessorori looked down at the line of Erasers, strapped to gurneys as well. There were only a few, one for each job. There was a pilot, a gunner, a commander, and a pawn. The neural transformers had been programmed to multiply their numbers.

"Couldn't ve have made more of zese creatures?" Ter Borcht prodded an Eraser with his pencil and grimaced.

"It would cause an overload of the system," Tessorori shook his head. "We were maxed out already."

"Not to mention their brains would probably be fried from too much separation," Diesel added. "Not that it would matter."

"Well, it'd be a pity to waste any specimens," Werner reasoned. "They cost good money."

"Stop it with the excuses," the Director snapped. "Just admit it. You guys failed. Miserably. You were entrusted to this experiment, and you goofed. Would you rather be fired or assassinated? Take your pick."

"You're joking, right?" Jackson giggled nervously. "She's kidding, right?"

"The experiment didn't fail," Tessorori said. "We learned a lot about the failed experiments. I'm starting to think they aren't such failures after all."

"Are you crazy, guido?" the Director asked bluntly. "I take it back. You get no choice. Assassination it is."

"Just listen," Tessorori said. "I'm not saying in their current state they're any good, because they're not. They're obviously a threat to us and to the world. But with a little brain tweaking, it could work. Their clones all failed because they have no experience and they started to have identity crises - "

"But the original group are for the most part flawlessly designed, except the blind one of course, they're off-the-charts smart, and even the youngest has more life and combat experiments than most other models combined," Diesel finished.

"This experiment wasn't about the avians," the Director reminded them. "It was about Epsilon."

"Maybe the avians could become the new Epsilons," Kidd suggested. "Again, with a little tweaking. The clone idea was a good one, but Max II was far too soft, far too weak."

The Director paused for a while.

"I won't be increasing funding of this," she said slowly. "You're going to have to make do with what you've got."

"Yes!" Werner fist pumped. "No assassination for me, oh no siree! Hey, that rhymes!"

"You have two months, tops," she finished coolly. "Don't disappoint me, or I will be testing those new recombinant platyrrehines on you. Agreed?"

"Agreed," said the whitecoats in unison.

Max

The day of Aragorn's coronation was sunny and warm. It was also smelly. In the movies they don't really portray the whole poor-people-are-stinky thing, but it's true. They don't really get to bathe that often and it's not a very nice aroma. Not that the Flock will be winning any awards for cleanliness, but we're six people. Even the fifteen ick-icks of the Fellowship weren't that bad. But there were hundreds – thousands of people at the coronation, and the BO was almost overwhelming to my bird kid senses.

But anyways, let's not dwell on the negative. It was a beautiful day, the birds were chirping, the people seemed relatively happy, Gazzy and Iggy hadn't blown anything up in three whole days, and Nudge was completely healed. Of course, there are always some negatives.

"How long until it starts?" the Gasman whined for the gazillionth time. I sighed.

"I don't know, Gasser," I said testily. I as then struck with a brilliant plan. "Look, how about I go ask!" Without waiting for a reply, I turned and leaped into the sky. Luckily we were close to the aisle, being honored guests and all, so I had room to take off. I ignored the gasps and squeals from below me, and turned my head long enough to shout "Fang's in charge!"

I bet Fang hates me now. LOL!

I darted up towards the palace, so as to convince my Flock of my intentions, and then circled back around and settled myself down among the crowds. Ah, here in the land of peasants it smelled even riper. Lovely. Slowly, a hush began to gather over the crowd. I stood on tip-toe and was able to see over everyone's heads pretty easily. Way back when everyone suffered from malnutrition and therefor were mostly short, so I was at an advantage. It wasn't exactly a clear view, but I could see Gandalf, Gimli, and Aragorn standing there.

"Now come the days of the king!" Gandalf said loudly, clearly, then muttered something and placed a crown on Aragorn's head. It glinted, silver, in the sunlight. He turned, nervous, but beaming, to face the crowd, which became unnaturally hushed. He took a deep breath. There was a "WOOP!" that I'm pretty sure came from either Gazzy or Iggy, and then he began.

"This day does not belong to one man, but to all. Let us together rebuild this world, so that we may share these days of peace," he said.

Great speech, I thought sarcastically. Honestly, does that even count? Speeches are supposed to be so long you can't even think afterwards.

All the same, the audience erupted into applause, and I guess I wouldn't have done any better on front of mobs of people. I imagined what my acceptance speech would be like at my coronation.

"Yo, everyone. Max here. This is, you know, cool. Especially since apparently I'm incorruptible. I guess that means I'll be a pretty decent leader. So. Brush and floss every day, live long and prosper, peace in the Middle East. Well, Middle Earth, I guess, since this is… oh, never mind."

…yeah.

Well, so I was feeling happy (and proud. I'm such a loser mother hen that I have motherly feelings towards people decades older than me. Fail) when he just had to go and ruin it with a song. And let me tell you, that guy should not be a singer. It was in elvish, translated into Medieval language, so I won't even bother trying to relay it to you. I'd butcher it, plain and simple.

Rose petals floated out of the sky from nowhere and showered the audience as Aragorn walked down the aisle. Out of my view, something happened, and then the crowd positively came alive with cheers. I pushed myself off of someone's shoulder to get a look and saw that Aragorn was making out with someone… who was it? Oh yeah, that elf chick from before… Wren? Arwen, that's it.

They grow up so fast, said the Voice.

Oh yeah, I'm totally tearing up, you know, I agreed somewhat sarcastically, and then registered what it had just said. The Voice had absolutely no sense of humor so that one had gone right over my head. Wait, did you just make fun of me?

Anything's possible, the Voice reasoned.

"Well, hot damn, don't they make a purdy couple," said a voice (not the Voice) from beside me.

"Uh-huh," I agreed, and glanced to my side.

Then my brain started to work.

That voice. It was familiar. One more look. That face was familiar, too.

"Boromir?" I hissed. "What the hell! You're dead, man! And why are you talking all weirdly! Or normally, or whatever."

Well, I guess anything is possible.

"Well, the wizard came back to life, why can't I, too?" said Boromir casually. And then, "Dang, that guy really shouldn't become a singer."

"You're joking!" I threw my hands up in the air. "Doesn't anyone die here? What's the point of killing a character off if you're just gonna bring 'em back a sequel or two later?"

"Don't ask me, it's your brain," he shrugged.

"Wait, what?" I said, but my attention was drawn by something else. People were screaming panicked screams. My heart jumped into my throat. Something was happening. I shoved a few people aside and saw that there were more than just two people in the aisle. Apart from the lovebirds there was a giant wolf with a slavering maw and a familiar scar over its right eye.

"Ari!" I gasped. How could he be alive? He's dead! "You're dead!"

"So am I," Boromir reminded me.

"But I don't care about you!" I snapped.

"Miss me, Maxi?" Ari snarled. There was something up. He wasn't normal. He was like he was before, before he died. Evil.

I was interrupted from my stewing angsty thoughts by a loud voice in my ear. Another familiar person, this time very vaguely so, was standing next to me, shouting.

"Hello!" he yelled. "Billy Mays here to sell you OxiClean!"

"What?" I shoved him away. "You're dead, too! And I don't know you! Fang, get over here!"

I spotted him from across the crowd, looking just as confused as me. Suddenly, someone burst into an extremely accurate acapella version of Beat It by…

You've gotta be kidding me.

Prancing down the aisle, in all his sequined, girly, white glory, was, yep, you guessed it, Michael Jackson.

Ooookay, this is all a bit too weird for me, I thought.

I have to say I'm thoroughly stumped on this one, the Voice admitted.

I pushed my way towards the aisle, crossed it, knocked aside some more people.

"Fang! Ig! Nudge!" I shouted. "Gasser! Angel!"

I couldn't find them. They'd disappeared. They were… gone.

My head was spinning. I was dizzy, sick, confused. I wanted to scream. I unfurled my wings and shot into the sky.

And then I woke up.

X

BECAUSE I CAN.

Oooh, cliffy. And guess what? IT'S OVER! Ouch, I suck, don't I? Don't expect the sequel to surface for a couple weeks, Imma plan this one out a little so hopefully I can release chapters faster. I'll put a new chapter up on this story once I've finished, so you don't have to Author Alert me if you don't want to.

But. You know.

Oh, and I REALLY REALLY REALLY want some critique on this story in general. Flames are cool, even. I don't want to screw up the sequel. That seems to happen a lot. I want to make the sequel even better – but I can't do that without knowing what you guys want to see from it. So yeah. Review! Thankyousomuch to everyone who has been reading :3 I LOVE YOU ALL!

BY THE WAY, I might post some other unrelated fanfics that I've been sort of working on whenever this one wouldn't come… so check them out if you have a chance. Writing this got me on a kind of Tolkein kick, so don't be surprised if there are a couple LOTR ones… ahem…

Stay tuned B) Love ya'!

Tex out ~