The day of the contest deadline finally came, and when Pirestorm woke the entire house up at midnight to celebrate with a dance party, Nirestorm somehow managed to refrain from stabbing the Pyromancer in the face.

A reasonable hour finally came, and no one woke up until almost two thirty. Nirestorm slept in longer and was late to her doctor's appointment, having been rudely awoken at an ungodly hour, and Pirestorm went to her zumba class after having drunk what appeared to be a full gallon of coffee.

The contest was quickly forgotten as the three authors rushed around the town, running their errands and working on various projects that simply had to be done. The day ran its course, and then another passed. Before they knew it, a full week had gone by, school had started once again and the contest had barely been thought about.

Early in the morning on Sunday, the three authors were seated in their writing room. Nirestorm was grouchy as usual, sipping occasionally from a cup of coffee as she wrote angsty fan fictions. Direstorm had her mug of tea, planned out the week and organized her desk while simultaneously planning out the next chapter of her novel, and Pirestorm was bored as usual. (She had also been banned from the coffee by Nirestorm, which didn't help matters much- it only made her slightly cranky in addition to bored.)

"Direstooooooorm, I'm bored! I don't have anything to work on!" the Pyromancer complained, her aching head covered by a pillow.

"Hold on and I'll check your planner," the Diviner replied, shoving aside her work and rummaging through her backpack.

"Not so loud. Owww, that hurts my head!"

"Sorry," Direstorm replied more softly. She pulled the red planner labeled "PIRESTORM" from the tidy backpack and flipped it to the current date. "Did you … write the introductory letter for Grandmaster Theurgy?"

"Most of it."

"Sure you did."

"Okay, fine, I only wrote half of it, but it isn't due until Friday and it's borrrrring!"

Direstorm rolled her eyes. "How about your Pyromancy homework?"

"What was it again?"

"Sign the forms for your Grandmastery test, if you decide to take it, sign the field trip rules for your trip to … ooh, you're going to Avalon to meet Sir Lamorak? That's pretty cool. Oh, and you have to write an essay about the Dragon Titan and answer the odds in your multiple choice packet. Sheesh."

"Did the questions," Pirestorm muttered. "Signed most of the forms. Wrote an intro for the essay. All boring. Not due yet," she added for Direstorm's benefit.

"Have you updated your fan fiction chapters for this week?"

"Yes."

"What about the cover for that new one? Did you draw it?"

"Sort of."

"Okay … well, there's nothing else on your list, Pirestorm."

"What about that contest we were supposed to judge last weekend?" Nirestorm suggested from the couch. "My brother wants to know." She tilted her laptop screen so the others could see her current chat with her brother.

"Oh, yeah!" Pirestorm sat bolt upright. "I forgot all about that! Can we edit that now? Can we? Please please please please please?"

Direstorm glanced towards Nirestorm. "Would he be able to come over with this little advance notice?" she wondered.

"Sure. Why not? He only lives a couple blocks away." The Necromancer shrugged as she typed in a short reply to her brother. "Said that he'd be here in just a few minutes."

-V-

Ten minutes later, there came a knock at the door. Pirestorm sprang off the couch, but Nirestorm beat her to the door. "I don't want you scaring him away before he's even in the house," she warned the Pyromancer, who slunk back to the couch. The door swung open to reveal Nirestorm's brother.

He was similar to her in terms of facial features- the same sharp cheekbones, the same small eyes, the same narrow nose- but his hair was several shades lighter and much more brown than black. Nirestorm's brother had a few inches on her, and he wore the robes of a Transcendent Pyromancer.

"Hello, little sis."

"Hello, Shorty. L.E., Pirestorm and Direstorm." The Necromancer indicated each one. "Guys, Lord Energy. He's my younger brother, but don't ask me how he got to be a higher level and taller than me. I have no idea." She rolled her eyes.

"You're the shorty," was the only reply that Lord Energy could come up with as the Necromancer shoved him in the direction of a vacant chair. She reluctantly gave up her laptop so her brother could move all of the stories into separate documents, thus ensuring that there wouldn't be any bias.

"Okay … who are the authors I'm supposed to look up?" he asked, busily typing away.

"Rebecca Ripple and LexiLopezi had to drop out," Direstorm informed him. "They didn't have time to work on the contest."

"Aww … well, maybe next time," Pirestorm stated.

"Yeah. BuBuWinter's registered, and both Di Knight and waywardprincess expressed an interest- neither of them officially registered, though," the Diviner told Lord Energy, who nodded.

"I'll go check the profiles of all three, then, and see what they have up." The Pyromancer check first one profile, then another, and then the third. He frowned. "Well, it doesn't look like Di Knight or waywardprincess ended up writing anything for the contest. That just leaves BuBuWinter's entry, which is called 'The Illiterate.' Do you still want me to copy it into a new document?"

"Don't bother," Nirestorm replied. "We'll read it right on the website, since there's only the one."

"I guess it's partly our fault," Direstorm mused. "We kinda forgot about the contest during the writing period, and we should have posted updates now and then to remind everyone to register."

"Which should have been in the first document anyways," Nirestorm pointed out.

"Yeah, that too. Maybe, if we decide to do another contest, we should make it be a shorter project, maybe a oneshot or something."

"Yeah."

"Hey, Ni, here's your laptop. If you guys don't need me, I'm going to head home."

"Okay. Thanks for your help, L.E.!" Pirestorm waved to him as he stood and headed out the door. "So now what do we do?"

"We judge BuBu's story as if there were a dozen other entries," Nirestorm replied. "Now get over here and come read this." She scooted to the center of the couch, angling her laptop screen so the other two wizards could read the story.

-V-

"That was really good!" Pirestorm stated, hopping up from the couch and doing a spin.

"Shh!" I haven't finished yet!" Direstorm shushed her.

"Hmph. I suppose it was pretty good," Nirestorm grumbled, reluctant to deviate from her usual grouchyness.

Finally, Direstorm stopped reading, and the other two waited for her thoughts. While Nirestorm was in charge of writing, and Pirestorm loved to draw and come up with fun ideas, Direstorm was the best when it came to judging books and stories- their chief reviewer.

"I agree with you two- it was a well written first chapter. The character development is excellent, and I especially like how the accents are used. Repeating that theme of hunting and prey makes her character seem less human, too, which is also really good." She nodded. "I think we have our winner. What do you guys think?"

"Yeah!" Pirestorm exclaimed.

"I guess," Nirestorm agreed.

"Then that means that the first place winner of Le Contest is BuBuWinter!" All three of them clapped, and Pirestorm cheered while doing a strange dance.

"What's she win again?" the Pyromancer asked, pausing in her dance.

"If she wants them, a story request- probably a oneshot or a short story- and a cover drawing for the story of her choice," Direstorm replied.

"Okay, cool! But … what about second place?"

"What do you mean?"

"Well, there was supposed to be a first place winner and then a second place winner, right?"

"Yes …"

"So who's going to win second place, if only one person put up a story?" Pirestorm tilted her head to the side curiously.

Nirestorm shrugged. "I dunno. Why not give second to the two who registered but had to drop out because of time constraints? I mean, they wanted to enter. It wasn't their fault that they didn't have the time to write their stories."

"I like that idea!" Pirestorm nodded vigorously and then clapped some more.

"Stop that," the Necromancer growled. "I'm in a nice mood today; don't ruin it."

"Alright- so if that's what we're going to do-" Direstorm glanced first at Pirestorm, then at Nirestorm, who both nodded- "... then LexiLopezi and Rebecca Ripple win an honorary second place!" Once again, the three wizards clapped.

"And they win either the story request or the cover picture, right?"

"That's right. Which one they pick is entirely up to them."

"Yay!" Pirestorm continued her dance. Once again, though, she soon paused. "Are we going to do another contest after this?"

Nirestorm clicked on her fan fiction profile. "According to the poll right now, we have two votes yes and no votes for no, so … I guess so?"

"Yay again! Let's just add the next contest to this story right here- it will keep everything in one place all nice nice."

"Sounds good to me," Nirestorm stated shortly, pulling up her angsty fan fiction chapter once again.

"You know, I think we should have a contest about Christmas," Pirestorm decided dreamily, thinking about Christmas and how excited she was for it.

"Ew. That would involve happiness and fluffy disgustingness. If I'm exposed to too much happy, it ruins my complexion," Nirestorm replied with a shiver of disgust. "I think we should have a competition for the best death scene."

"But that's so depressing! I hate when things are depressing!"

"Well, I'm not the biggest fan of your happy stuff!"

"Will you two quit arguing?" Direstorm sighed in exasperation. Neither the Pyromancer nor the Necromancer paid her any heed, and so on went the argument- but that's a story for another time.

A/N: Yayyy I finally wrote this thing! :D Sorry if any parts of it are especially bad- I wrote most of this at 1 am O_o Like our three special friends said, BuBuWinter won first place, and Rebecca Ripple & LexiLopezi tied for second place since they attempted to enter, but had time constraints. :( I'm still not sure when the next contest(s) will be up, but two people said that they wanted me to do another one, and so I shall- eventually. I promise nothing- school has been slightly hectic O_O