[Feanor of the Peredhil]

Alli stumbled over herself yet again, uncertain of the alcohol content of her blood. She blinked a vision of Illamatar surrounded by stars from her tired eyes. Let this end, she thought wearily. Just let me end.

She thought of Mardil, married in Gondor, and the frequency with which he had saved her life once upon a time. She thought she had been in love. Falling in with Aimè had changed nothing, though she would never have said it aloud. She thought of Roggie ruling Mordor without the aid of his best friend.

Who would spend lazy nights curled before blazing fires if not those two?

Alli missed her private home in Ithilien, but she thrived on her position as official know-it-all. She missed relaxed mornings spent writing in bed, snuggling, and playing with a cat she may never before have mentioned. But now she too missed her drafty office with Lola and her three-pile paper sorting system. She missed the castle and casino gossip.

The weather waged on in its own private battle for good (warm front) and evil (cold front). The werecreatures gathered (with conviction). The subplots combined into one large climax (with the hesitation the werecreatures lack).

When Alli stumbled, Tom caught her and she met his eyes and saw in them mixed emotions. Gravity and a random edge or two of her gauntlets pulled the Inaudibility Cloak completely from his person and life was suddenly a bit more verbal.

Seeing the silvery folds of Inaudibility fall about him, Tom realised that his entire, vital, speech had gone entirely to waste. He ran his hand through his gorgeously pale locks and then said, rapidly:

"Alli, there are werewolves coming, as you can hear. Despite my best efforts, we are quite doomed."

"Totallement!" barked Fenrir Greyback as he hoved into view, still happily mauling the French language.

"I passed through the fire and the chasm," the beast growled, "and am Fenrir Greyback no longer! Now I am Fenrir Whiteback!"

"Actually, since the thunderbolt singed off your fur, you're more a sort of pinkish-brown," Tom commented, stepping straight towards the wolf.

"You'll regret this, Mudblood, renouncing your destiny as a Malfoy and a Werewolf..." the creature spat. It now became clear that he had a cohort; a smaller wolf, with an unpleasant red cap and a long-chewed cigarette in its mouth, had approached from another direction. Alli looked not so much frightened as exasperated at the sight of him, but, taken up with Fenrir, Tom did not spare the newcomer a thought.

Alli gasped at Tom's until-now-unknown identity. She wondered suddenly if he'd known she was the Seer. She wondered how the quiet meeting of friends that had never occured would have gone if it had ever managed to happen before now. She wondered if Mardil knew. She nearly sizzled with rage. And Mario. Mario! How bliddy many times was she going to have to kill the little monster?

She screamed frustration and yelled for Aimè. If Mario spoke, Tom could turn on her. Incredible and attractive fighter though she was, three werewolves jumping her was not her top choice of ways to spend her evening or die. She wanted to fall asleep one night in the unforeseeable future and never wake up.

As for Tom, he continued to concentrate fiercely on Fenrir Pinkback. "Come and eat me," he said nonchalantly.

"If you insist," Fenrir leered. He sprang forward, clasped the Kensington lad in his claws and lurched his head forward for the final, decapitatory bite.

"Fenrir," Tom observed, "haven't you noticed that I have long, blond, hair? Golden house of Finrod, anyone?" Then he shrugged and plunged his fairly pitiful body weight into the bald wolf's mass, appearing to feel no pain as the wolf's paws slashed at his back. The werewolf, on the other hand, writhed and recoiled and steamed and melted, in accordance to the Oldest Cop Out that Goodies Melt Baddies.

Tom turned to Alli, a horrendous mess, blood and ex-wolf slime smeared all over him.

"Thus," he said weakly, "has Tom Feltonagund redeemed his oath."

"You didn't swear any oath! And you're covered with slime! Don't come near me, wolf! Aimè, where are you!?"

"Don't worry...about...me," Tom gasped out. "My...agent...will...cast me...new role...thinking...about...stage acting..."

Then he collapsed and his spirit departed from Arda, but probably returned to Kensington. Wolf-Mario stood by watching the proceedings, smoking boredly.

"Alli, Alli, you have to see this" whispered Aimé loudly. Scurrying through the maze of the crypt, he felt like he was trapped inside somewhere that only closely resembled reality. And he had a strange, unrealistic prize to show for it—a huge slab of gold.

He ran towards the flickering candlelight, but tiptoed the last few steps: an eerie atmosphere was all around. Plus, there were loud shouts and screaming coming from just around the corner. Aimé peered round.

"Aimé!" yelled Alli.

"You!" yelped a wolf wearing a red cap and smoking a cigar (probably the strangest wolf Aimé had ever seen).

"...urgh..." gurgled what appeared to be corpse, somewhat familiar-looking...

"Yeah, uh, hi" offered Aimé, too puzzled to be confused.

The wolf did a bizarre little agitated jig on the spot. "I will have my vengeance!" it hollered with a slightly spoof-Italian accented howl (probably the strangest wolf Aimé had ever heard).

Who is this freak? wondered Aimé. "Alli, I'm glad to see you! Look what I found!" He held up his golden prize.

"What is....is that?....MWAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!" bellowed the wolf. "What fortune! What wonder! It is the Golden Coin! It is the Sixth Golden Coin!" He chuckled manically.

"All, please tell me what this... creature is" said Aimé, very slow on the uptake.

"I am Mario!" And with that, the wolf suddenly grew to four times his original size. Then seven seconds later, he returned to normal, apparently unchanged. What a lame superpower.

Alli stopped short and looked at Mario quizzically. For somebody with such impressive longevity, he was boring.

He suddenly darted and she cried out, never expecting him to answer, "What are you doing?"

And he called out, "Taking a shortcut."

"A shortcut to where?"

"To the mushrooms!"

And with that, Mario took advantage of the darkly moist soil of the cemetery and grabbed a handful of 'shrooms of all colors, as well as an herb or two. He chomped away at them, wolf-drooling spittle and Alli and Aime watched in horror as multiple tranformations took his already lupine shape and distorted it more.

Their longest lasting enemy grew to twice his former height and changed color schemes. He grew the tail of a raccoon and felt suddenly much warmer.

Alli dove on instinct as a fireball destroyed the patch of ground on which she'd been standing.

Mario was a flamethrower.

He suddenly spun his tale quickly and levitated. She swore.

Mario could also fly.

"Aime, we have to get to the mushrooms!" she screamed.

He said, "Okay."

Veering on impulse and ducking highly heated air, Alli began to sweat attractively. Her pale skin took on a dewy glow and her outfit (mostly leather, all custum-made) made men swear many oaths. She tucked and rolled, wincing as her own gauntletted wrist and fist crushed into her stomach.

She grabbed the only mushroom left behind and laughed as Mario froze in midair, his tail spinning, a fireball forming between his jaws.

"Look what I found, buddy. Bet you thought I didn't know!"

"Not the poison mushrooms!" he shrieked.

"Aime, now we know how he kept coming back. He had a secret supply of 1-up mushrooms. Extra lives! And he's a thief, we knew he was a thief in the prequel! He's been pillaging places for gold coins! For every hundred, he gets another life. It's why we can't kill him. He gets another replay every time!"

She turned on him, throwing the rarer fungus at him. He tried to incinerate it and missed. When it hit him, his tail disappeared and he fell to the wet ground. The rain had stopped. The world was oddly quiet.

She plucked several more and shouted, "It's time for GAME OVER!"

And so it was that, with the help of her perfect aim, Alli Umfuil, Spymaster of Mordor finally took down Mario-wolf. She pegged him with poison 'shrooms until every superpower disappeared and he lay snivelling before them. She considered calling Hookbill the Goomba to touch him... she knew Mario would die on contact. She decided it wasn't worth the effort. It would require a save and a conversation she was too lazy to have.

"Aime? Would you like the honor? You are the hunter."

And so Mario died.

Alli heard a gentle baa of approval in her non-corporeal ear.

Suddenly Alli and Aime were in a different part of the graveyard. Smilog and Co. stood beside them, and the Blue Wizards were towering ominously.