The flock of birds carried me back to the roof. Along the way, I spotted Officer Harris, scaling the wall by means of his spider pal and a cartoon rope. He still had a spike.

"Hey!" he yelled to me. "You look like someone who wants to save the planet!"

He threw the spike at me. "Catch!"

I didn't. The spike fell.

"Oh must I do everything!" I heard a familiar voice shouting.

A yellow-white bird that looked like Holli swooped down after the spike, catching it in her beak.

She flapped back up, placing it in my hand.

"There. Go stuff that turkey!"

A crow flitted up beside her. A crow with swirling black hair that...kinda looked like dad. "Make us proud, son."

I concentrated and turned into a rat bird.

I did this only because I didn't know how to use the spike and didn't think it would work. My only thoughts had been, `I need my Kung Fu skills' and `I have to control these birds.'

I appeared to be male, with a beak and tail feathers, to fulfill the `bird king' requirement, but I was brown, fuzzy, in a colorful Mandarin outfit with an embroidered dragon, and I had on one of those little Chinese caps, with a pony tail. I was a bird emperor. I thought about getting myself a long flowing beard, but I knew Flo would only use it to yank me around.

It was like I had the power of the wind at my disposal. When I clenched my fist with that ring on my finger, I zoomed up through the air, high above the building, doing a dramatic superhero-esque landing that made a crater in the roofing tiles.

As I rose from the traditional kneeling position, I noticed the sound of weapons clashing.

It seemed my previous failed attack on Flo had given Dane just enough time to get to her feet and come at the reptile with her ax.

Seeing Jessica's staff on the ground, I quickly snatched it up and rushed to the girl's aid.

Me and Dane made a pretty good team. We knocked Flo backwards, Dane chopping her on the side as I blocked the trident, or me striking as Dane blocked.

Unfortunately, Flo had two spikes on her person. She did a super jump, landed behind us, and I got knocked off my feet by a blast of light. My staff went flying off the side of the building.

Dane and I groaned as we struggled to our feet.

When I turned around to face my enemy, I found Flo's trident pointing threateningly in my face. "Last chance, Drew. Give me a quick lay, and I'll forget this whole thing ever happened."

I stepped back in a fighting horse. "I'm the Bird King, lady. My hens do all the laying!"

"Then you will die." She blasted me with the weapon.

Nothing happened.

"That power doesn't belong to you," I said. "It is the rightful inheritance of the bird people."

"They are no people!" Flo roared in outrage. "They are only birds! I thought I understood what Cupcake saw in you during all those mind probes, but I was wrong! You're nothing but a scrawny bodied stick in the mud who prefers the company of his sister and a bird brained queen to a real woman!"

"Excuse me. Did you say there was a real woman around here somewhere? Because I'm looking straight ahead and I don't see any."

You know how a horse feels its oats? I was feeling my ring.

"Fine," she growled. "I'll just skewer your tender all white chicken breast!"

She reared back to do just that, but when she thrust her weapon at me, Dane came in with her ax, knocking it away.

Flo pounded the roof with her trident and screamed, causing a huge flock of birds to bowl us backwards across the tiles. Evidently, Flo still had some power over the bird kingdom.

I smashed open the door to the emergency stairs, intending to run away.

Groaning, I staggered to my feet, only to get thrown down those stairs by another wave of birds.

I didn't want to flee anymore.

Enough is enough, I thought angrily.

I rushed back through the door, letting out a war cry as I held out my ring.

The birds obeyed me, flying me closer to Flo, blasting her backwards.

It would take more than that to defeat this reptile. Flo came back with her own swarm of birds.

I countered her flock with mine, and for a moment we resembled a scene from one of those Green Lantern comics, or maybe Harry Potter.

A large black and purple bird flapped down in front of me, my staff in its claws.

"Take it, Bird King," it said in Jessica's voice. "It contains a spike. You're our only hope now."

"Dane's here," I said.

She shook her head. "You're our only hope."

Jessica pecked my cheek and flew away. I decided I liked her better as a bird.

I spun the staff, charging at Flo, my signet ring glowing as I willed birds to fly ahead of me, machine gun style.

Utilitarian as this may have been, I understood their beak pain more than anyone. They weren't hurting their beaks to make clocks, they were doing it for their freedom.

Our weapons clashed, and so did our respective clouds of birds.

Dane tried to help, but Jessica was right. She wasn't much help. She soon became a stylized Gothic comic book crow that perched on my shoulder and pecked ineffectively at my enemy. Sometimes I would catch her admiring her new body.

I had ninja skills, but Flo seemed to have them too, on account of the spikes. I fell back, tripped over a bathroom exhaust pipe, and fell on my back.

"The staff has extra features!" Jessica hissed in my ear. "Push the buttons on the side and twist!"

I did what she suggested, and the staff came apart, leaving me clutching a glowing samurai sword, with a spike inside the handle.

Grinning, I leapt to my feet, flying at the reptile with speedy flashes of steel.

Of course, we were both animated, so I couldn't just chop her head off. She blocked my attacks with her trident like a black belt in Ninjitsu.

A long, drawn out Kung Fu and bird battle ensued, reminding me of that double staircase fight sequence in the second Matrix movie, the one where you hit fast forward because nobody really accomplished anything productive for more than five minutes and you got tired of the repetitive music.

Flo was a complete doodle. I from time to time turned noid, which meant I also got tired.

I watched with horror as Flo knocked my sword off the roof.

I rushed to the side, willing a bird to retrieve it for me, but Flo swung at me several times, and I had to run away.

Now I was recreating a different type of cartoon. The one where Bugs Bunny runs through a castle while a maniac tries to chop his head off. All I did was dodge and run a lot. I guess I could have used the spike to will weapons into existence, but I didn't know how to do it. Whenever I tried, I ended up making flower bouquets and bird seed and other useless gags.

Flo hit me in the head, then knocked me flat on my back.

She would have speared me through the skull too, had I not been wearing the ring. A dome of feathery birds shielded me from attack.

"Drew San," I heard a gruff sounding little brown bird chirping at me. "Ask yourself! What is the meaning of ka-ra-te?"

"I don't know," I said. "Kicking butt?"

"No, Drew San. It means `open hand.'"

"Open hand..." I muttered. "That's stupid."

But then I thought about it a moment. "Open hand! Of course!"

I focused all my thoughts on being powerful, bursting from the feathered dome in a brilliant explosion of light.

The shockwave from the blast threw Flo onto the shingles, but she got up quickly, rushing at me with her trident.

Instead of charging, I stepped back into a horse stance, raising my open palms.

When the spear came to run me through, I struck with a hard rotary parry.

Her weapon shot out of her grasp with a crack, whipping over the side of the building.

When she dove after it, I jumped up on the ledge, knocking her the opposite direction with a wheel kick.

My birds came to my aid, pelting her with their little bodies...and her birds too, since she didn't have the trident anymore.

Still, we fought, hand to hand.

The evil reptile jumped back, whipping out a glowing pentagram on a chain.

"Demons of the Shadow Realm!" she called. "Come to mine aid!"

Storm clouds darkened the sky above us, great boiling clouds like the mansion scene in Fright Night.

Thunder rumbled, and a huge lightning bolt came down from the sky, electrifying the pendant.

One of these days, someone is going to have to explain to me why demonic power in all these cartoons and movies comes from the sky.

The roof cracked open, as if an earthquake had hit it, which also didn't make sense, because a hypothetical demon would still have to take an elevator to climb through the crack.

I guessed there was a secondary crack in the basement or something, unless this was a crack in the fabric of space/time or the building had become the Shadow Realm. I suppose the glowing light inside the crack did hint at one of these possibilities.

A thousand monsters of various shapes and sizes crawled out the whole, growling and cracking their knuckles as they leaped at me.

"Give up, Drew," Flo said. "You're outnumbered and outgunned."

"I still have a spike," I said.

"So do I! And I'll have yours, the other two, and the one on top of that sign in no time!"

"There's only one of you," I said. "And I'm going to make sure you go down before I do!"

"Kindred!" she barked to her army.

The demons growled and turned towards me. A pair of giants had already moved.

In seconds, they would `castle' Flo, and I'd have no chance of destroying her.

I clenched my fists, steeling myself for an offensive.

Ka-boom!

A tremendous explosion rocked the entire building, flooding the sky behind us with dazzling light.

"My trident!" Flo screamed. "No!"

All around me, light flickered as people and other beings were released from the spell.

The lucky ones hit the roof, or hurriedly flapped to a landing, or flitted around close to the ground below.

The others I could hear screaming all the way down, car windows shattering from the impact of their bodies on the metal rooftops, horns blaring, alarms going off.

And then I found myself in the possession of a small army.

Vikings.

Post apocalyptic gunwomen.

Dad, Amanda's mom, and the head of Cool World PD.

Jessica, Misty, Whiskers...

Not to mention the freaking Ninja Turtles, and Mr. "I have always liked cowabunga."

"Funny," I said. "I don't feel outnumbered."

Amanda locked and loaded a rifle.

"Or outgunned."

Although Flo had numbers, it was hardly a fair fight. I had roughly twenty two allies with me, more or less, plus some animated birds that were not Flo's creation. That meant we only had to slaughter about forty five generic looking demons and we'd save the world.

Actually, less than that, with some turtle teamwork, and the spikes.

The turtles clotheslined demons, grabbed one of their teammates and spun him around with weapon extended, knocking the monsters off the roof, then picked up a smaller demon and used him like a bowling ball against a group of larger ones.

Splinter, of course, was amazing.

Extra pecked the thugs off the roof, Amanda shot the enemy, Sneezer clubbed them, the Vikings went berserk, and Dane had her ax.

Jessica, apparently, had found the glowing samurai sword, and was slicing through dozens of demons like paper.

I treated my demons to a little Kung Fu action.

While doing this, I must have turned back into a female rat, because Splinter kept staring at me. Someone hit him in the head, and he didn't even notice.

Forcing myself to ignore him, I kicked my way to Flo.

"What's the reason for the sex change?" she asked as I came near.

"You scared me away from the opposite sex." And I hit her with a flurry of Kung Fu moves.

Crack. A demon staggered backwards as a police officer shot him.

When I glanced that way, I saw a squadron of them. Nevada's finest. I suppose all the transforming and dead bodies and demons alerted them of the need to do something.

I heard someone shout as a cop shot him. Not a demon, but animated. The cops couldn't tell the difference, apparently.

Flo capitalized on my distraction, striking me in the face.

I kicked and punched her backwards, toward the sign, with all its sparking scaffolds.

I swept her feet out from under her, and when she fell, dad popped up behind her, yanking the spike out of her outfit by extending his arms like a cartoon character.

When she turned around to attack him, I stepped in front of him and gave Flo something from both fists.

The demons tried to stop me, barging in the way, attacking from the side, but, well, Splinter had my back, and Sneezer filled in when sensei was occupied, hacking them with a sword, occasionally sneezing them into gnomes or blowing fire out of his nostrils.

I didn't want to admit it to myself, but I liked having two men trying to impress me. I guess it was being a damn female doodle for so long, but I couldn't exactly help it. I did my best work as a kimono wearing Kung Fu rat.

The gun shots abruptly stopped, either because the demons killed all the cops, or the cops ran away. I hoped for the latter.

I kicked Flo back, and as I did, a flock of doodle birds swarmed around her with animated rope.

It was the glowing kind like Wonder Woman used, so she couldn't easily snap it...or lie, if it were literally Wonder Woman's lasso.

I marched up to her, arms crossed behind my back, chest puffed out. "So."

I was about to tell her to stand down, to send her demons away, but I didn't get to.

Jessica pushed her way past Master Splinter, slicing Flo's head off her body with her glowing sword. "Nothing personal, Flo, you just really pissed me off."

One by one, the demons exploded into black ash, the crack in the roof slowly closing up.

"There!" Jessica said in a satisfied tone, sheathing her sword in the back of her bikini. "Now we can all go home!"

I sighed in relief as I watched more demons scream and explode. "Yeah. Let's go home."

Of course, that was a problem, in and of itself.

I'd just drank the `blue Kool-Aid', ruining the effect of the cure we had been working so hard to achieve.

Also, my apartment door was damaged, its interior looted, and my car was sitting on four rims in Dane's driveway.

Extra fluttered up to me with a spike in his beak, the spike that had previously been inside Flo's trident.

"Thanks," I muttered.

Whiskers took it from me. "We first need to put these spikes back in their rightful places."

"I'd hardly call some of those places `rightful,'" Jessica replied. "Reanimated Disney? Adolf Hitler's death weapon?" She shook her head.

"I know some abandoned fallout shelters and other strategic locations we can use to permanently dispose of the spikes," Whiskers said. "Give them to me. I'll take care of them."

Jessica nodded. "Good idea. I'll help."

We looked at her funny for a moment. After all, her blundering with the spikes had nearly caused the end of the world.

"I'm a changed bird, I mean, girl. Changed girl. Flo has convinced me, this is too much power for anyone to have. The sooner we have these things buried under concrete, the better."

Chad had come out of hiding, bouncing his baby. "But Jessica! What about Misty's weapon? What about Master Blaster?"

She shook her head. "Honey, this debacle has made me see the error of my ways."

"It hasn't made me see mine!" Misty cried behind me.

She was still an alien bird, wearing the crown.

"Misty!" Jessica hissed. "No! We're changed now!"

And she nodded towards the spike in my dad's hands. "Really changed."

Misty frowned. "Oh...I suppose we've all changed."

"Tell you what," Jessica said to Whiskers. "How about I accompany you, you know, help you bury the spikes?"

Whiskers shrugged. "That sounds fine, I suppose."

"She did help me stop Holli last time," Dad admitted.

And so he handed her the spike.

"Dad," I said. "I don't think that's such a good idea."

"It'll be fine," Whiskers said to me. "I'll be watching her the whole time." He pointed to the one tucked in my belt. "We should bury yours as well."

Swallowing, I handed it to him. "Be careful. Watch her like a hawk."

Whiskers laughed. "Please. No bird metaphors. But I'll be careful."

He reached into his coat, pulling out a little device that looked like a toaster with a Sega Saturn controller stuck into it, plugging the spike through the center.

A shimmering portal opened in the air.

"Home awaits, my doodle friends! But you must hurry! We have pressing business to attend to!"

Dad patted me on the back. "You did a great job, son...daughter. I'm proud of you."

He stepped through the portal.

Holli gave me a nod. "You're a good man, just like your father. I'll continue working on the formula to cure you."

I smiled. "Thanks, Holli."

Harris shook my hand. "I gotta hand it to you, Deebes. I thought you were an asshole, but you proved me wrong. I guess, when you really think about it, some of the best men in the bible committed incest, and they turned out to be just as...good."

"Thanks," I groaned. "I guess, coming from you, that, uh, means a lot."

He clicked his teeth at me and stepped into Cool World.

His spider friend also shook my hand. "Great job, Sketch."

"It's Drew."

"Oh. Right." He tipped his bowler to me and left.

"So you say my boyfriend is in there somewhere?" Dane asked.

"Yeah," I said. "Go find Master Blaster."

I didn't have to tell her twice.

"We'll go get the car," Riffraff said. "Be with you in a minute."

I furrowed my brow. "How are you going to get it up here?"

He shrugged. "We'll figure something out."

Sneezer wrapped Cupcake up in a blanket. I'd have to do something with her eventually, I figured.

Cleo smiled at me. "You're a better guy than I took you for...but I like you better as a girl. Maybe if you stay that way we can have a little fun sometime?"

"Um..." I stammered.

She laughed. "Think about it."

She and Riffraff marched past the portal, into the hotel.

Jessica put a hand on Chad's shoulder. "You should go home too, honey. It's been a long day. You need rest...and our babies need you."

"What about you?" he asked.

"I'll be along in a little while. We'll have these spikes taken care of in no time."

Chad nodded. "See you back at the suite, passionflower!"

He and his baby vanished.

Everyone else stayed.

"Very well." Whiskers made an adjustment to the device. "If anyone else wants to leave now, say so before I shut it off."

"Splinter?" Leonardo asked his sensei.

Apparently reluctant to share his feelings, apparently, the rat simply said, "I...am staying."

The turtles agreed to stay with him.

Whiskers reached for the shutoff switch. "Then let us make haste to bury these blasted things."

"Wait," Jessica blurted. "I need to get something real quick!"

Whiskers nodded. "All right, but make it snappy. The longer we stay here with such immense power in our hands, the more chances there are for the power to be stolen and misused!"

The moment he had said the part about immense power, Jessica was already rushing up the scaffolding.

I watched with horror as she climbed up on the hotel sign, yanking the spike out of the letter I.

Black ooze erupted from its interior like a geyser.

With spike in hand, Jessica sped back down, ripping the fifth spike out of the professor's device with a mischievous "Yoink!"

She grabbed Misty by the arm, and the two leapt through the portal just seconds before a colossal tidal wave of black ooze blanketed the roof in a massive flood.