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Any medieval world seemed to be ripe with pointless celebrations and meaningless ceremonies that didn't actually affect anything, but thanks to the lack of greater education and the way that people adhered to such strict guidelines, the vast majority of the population would often believe that if a certain ceremony was skipped over, it would spell doom for the entirety of a kingdom.

Lionopolis was exactly the same way, and even the wisest members of the royal court weren't immune to being insanely dumb every now and again.

"Ball! Ball!"

Of course, when a myriad of different canines was often found running around the castle and the courtyard outside, it was hard to tell when they were actually panicked about something, or when they were actually just chasing a ball around.

During the winter months, most of the Great Knights of Furope were allowed to relax. Some even made the long trips home, back to their respective lands, where they would spend time with family and regale their relatives with the stories of their proud and incredible exploits. Christmas was always spent at the castle, and Bluemoon The Overbearing was always in charge of cooking up an amazing spread, with meals that were fit for a king; even a king more worthy than High King Nbowa, himself.

Slow roasted turkey that had a perfectly crispy skin, and yet, was still ripe with moist meat was often the centerpiece of the meal, surrounded by billowy, whipped potatoes, macaroni and cheese, a green bean casserole that was layered with onion strings and seasoning, and baskets of freshly baked rolls with a simply captivating golden-brown surface.

Shockingly, the Christmas meal went off without a hitch, that year, and no one even made an attempt to try and ruin things for the kingdom. Everyone was playing nice, as was often the case during the holiday season, and though there was always an air of concern hanging around large celebrations, everyone made it to sleep that evening with full bellies and wide smiles.

"OhmyGodohmyGodballballball!"

In the days to follow, things went on as normal, with snow falling on Lionopolis and forcing some of the less hearty creatures to retire to their homes early. Preparations were already underway for the grand party to take place at New Year's Eve, and Bluemoon The Overbearing was truly outdoing herself. She required items from all across the countryside to make this feast even greater than the Christmas dinner, and so far, the other Great Knights were doing a fantastic job of bringing them to her.

There was one item completely unrelated to dinner that had gone missing, however, and it was the reason for the panic of a certain border collie, as he ran around in his 307th circle of the castle's grand hall.

See? I was coming back around to that. That exposition was totally necessary.

"You're going to run yourself to death, Diz!" Lykanos The Wolvenmurr cried out after his shape-shifting companion. Currently in his normal state as a border collie, the once infamous Diz was completely preoccupied with the task of chasing a ball around the grand hall, even though he easily could have been doing something to help set the place up. His priorities were about as orderly as the myriad of changes that his body underwent, however, and no matter how Lykanos the Wolvenmurr tried to calm him down, it seemed that Diz was likely to chase the ball to the point of vomiting, when he finally exhausted himself.

It wasn't just an ordinary tennis ball, however, as the former villain was about to find out.

" BALL!" Diz cried out, as he dove forward and finally, his paws kicked something up from the floor that had the same, off-yellow coloration and seams as a typical tennis ball. It flew up into the air, and Lykanos the Wolvenmurr, deciding that it was the perfect time to interject, reached out and caught the ball in his paw.

A quick, curious squeeze revealed that it didn't have all of the soft, bouncy properties of a normal tennis ball, however, and though the lupine knight fancied himself to be almost as intelligent as High King Nbowa himself, he couldn't figure out why Diz had such a fascination with it. "Uh...huh. This is clearly an ordinary tennis ball, Diz! You're being silly, I do declare!"

I don't know why he's talking like that. I really don't.

Diz didn't take kindly to people stealing his toys when he was having one of his more embarrassing canine moments, but this time, rather than making the empty threat of cutting Lykanos with a chef's knife, his eyes went wide with a panicked horror as he lunged upward with all of his might, trying to knock the ball from Lykanos the Wolvenmurr's paw.

"Put it down, you idiot! You don't know what you're doing!" Diz yelled out, and though he didn't seem to know what he was doing, either, Lykanos the Wolvenmurr took it as Diz wanting to play a game of fetch, which was both insulting to Diz, and insulting to Lykanos the Wolvenmurr's own intelligence.

If he'd only listened to Diz, the New Year's Eve celebration might have gone off without a hitch, but naturally, he took the idea of putting the ball down way too far.

"Heh, okay, okay! Go get it!" Lykanos the Wolvenmurr yelled back as he gave the ball a tight squeeze in his palm, before cocking his arm back and whipping it across the grand hall. His throw was too great for the size of the room, and Diz chased after the ball before it was even tossed, hoping that he might be able to stop it from bouncing off of the wall.

Crack! The tennis ball was clearly not a tennis ball at all, as you likely figured out by this point, and yet, somehow, Lykanos the Wolvenmurr totally missed it, despite the powerful energy that radiated from the shell of the object, and the way that Diz was chasing after it as if his life depended on it being protected.

Diz knew something that the smelly wolf didn't know, and his fears became reality as he looked down at the tiny, withering body of a baby bird, laying in the broken portions of the egg that once remained around it.

Dude...are you really gonna make me write about Lykanos killing a baby bird? That's just sad...like, really sad. I'm not sure that I can do this...without making Lykanos look really, really mean in the process.

A man who had a fascination with anything that had anything to do with birds, it was no surprise that Diz was chasing the ball so diligently, and now that it was too late to save the child inside, the poor border collie slid to a stop next to the shattered remains of the egg that once protected it. Tears welled up in the corners of his chocolate brown eyes as he stood over the barely breathing infant, and faster than we could get sued for the reference we were about to make, he began nuzzling his nose against the tiny creature, hoping that it might come to.

"Bird...wake up! We...we gotta go h-home!" he tried to speak without crying, unaware of how difficult it was for the author to write this portion of the manuscript without crying himself, as the humor that he tried to insert into the moment failed to take away from the fact that Lyaknos the Wolvenmurr just killed a friggin' baby phoenix.

Seriously, Lykanos. The fuck?

"Wait a minute. Do mine ears deceive me? Did you say bird?" Lykanos the Wolvenmurr asked, tainting his voice with a sense of concern that was greater than the one he actually felt, as his lupine brain made him feel an utter lack of sympathy, and a hunger pang at the idea of eating something so exotic as a baby phoenix. "I didn't know that was an egg! Why did you call it a ball in the first place?"

"An egg can be a ball!"

"A very oddly shaped ball, if that!"

"Doesn't change the fact that it's a ball!"

"Also doesn't change the fact that you just killed a baby phoenix, you idiot!"

Lykanos the Wolvenmurr crossed his arms over his chest and gave a quiet huff. "I don't really see what the big deal is about that, anyway. It's just a stupid bird."

There were many traditions among the wolves, and in his homeland, Lykanos the Wolvenmurr lived too far from the walls of Lionopolis to know the gravity of his actions. Most wolves were stupid to a fault, and the majority of them didn't pay attention to the fact that there even was a calendar in the first place, so naturally, he had no inclination to the significance of the new year coming.

He had even less inclination to the importance of the baby phoenix, and the way that it tied into the coming of the new year.

"You call it a stupid bird, but you have no idea what terrors you've wrought upon Furope, Lykanos!"

Because the plot demanded that he needed to explain something, Lan or Gren appeared in a flash of brilliant light, but even that died out behind him as a thick and terrible darkness spread around and swallowed the very light, as if it were a creature, consuming the brilliant energy for survival. "The coming of a new phoenix is essential to the rebirth of the world upon the new year, Lykanos the Wolvenmurr! You've really done it this time!"

"Oh, hey, BC!"

"My name is Lan or Gren."

"No, you're BC!" Lykanos the Wolvenmurr continued foolishly addressing the former guardian of the Excalifur by the wrong name. "We've met before, remember? We did that show up in Canada?"

"You must be referring to Catada, the land I hail from!"

"No, I meant Canada."

"Truly, you have lost your mind!" Lan or Gren declared, as he grew frustrated with Lykanos and his wolven shenanigans. "Perhaps that is why you so foolishly handled the egg of the new phoenix and doomed us all to death!"

Woah. Woooooooah there. Death? This chapter is dark...like, really dark!

"I've done no such thing!" Lykanos the Wolvenmurr blindly protested, all in front of the defiled body of the poor, dead fire chicken. "Surely, Diz is the one to blame! He was the one who called the egg a ball!"

Lan or Gren shook his head or neck. "You've all tortured and beaten on Diz for many years now, but he was fulfilling the most sacred duties of the Order of Shapeshifters!"

"This...this sounds like it's going to carry a lot of backstory."

"It normally would, so let me shorten it up for you: The greatest of the Order of Shapeshifters is the Phoenix, because it burns out and leaves an egg behind. It's the same bird, but it's going through a huge transformation, and in doing so, it refreshes the world, and go figure, this happens every year at New Year's Eve, and it's up to the other members of the Order of Shapeshifters to protect their matriarch when she's trapped in egg form."

Lykanos the Wolvenmurr still looked confused, as his ears folded back to his head and his eyes carried a bit of concern, though not nearly as much as the situation called for. "So...you're saying the poor birdy is dead?"

"...Yes, Lykanos the Wolvenmurr. That was the one thing you were supposed to take away from all of this; not the fact that you've literally doomed the entire planet."

Very soon, the proverbial ball would drop, and the old year would come to a close, but without a phoenix to cast their mighty spell and refresh all of creation, the planet was surely finished. The crisis would begin in Lionopolis, but from the tall, protective walls of Castle Lion, the chaos and carnage would spread as the lack of a phoenix would cause untold destruction across the world when the ball dropped.

Or...this could all have been superstition, passed down from generation to generation, and everything would be absolutely fine, and people were just really, really into phoenixes. I mean, I can't really blame them. I'd be kinda bummed if there was only one phoenix left, and some dumb, smelly wolf went and killed it.

"Do you guys hear that?"

"Lykanos the Wolvenmurr has gone mad! He hears voices in his head, he creates wanton destruction, and in his twisted games, he has taken away the last chance we had at making it through another year!"

A thundering set of paws came down into the hall where Lykanos the Wolvenmurr and Diz the Indecisive were playing, as High King Nbowa made his way down the stairs, disturbed by all of the noise when he was trying to fit in one of his many naps for the day.

His expression was riddled with a blend of frustration and heavy, tired eyes as he glared upon the three people that were disturbing the peace in his castle. "...Whoever has a good explanation for this gets to live. The other two get to die for waking me up."

"A completely fair and just punishment," Lan or Gren cut in, as he pointed an accusing hoof at Lykanos the Wolvenmurr. "One of your great knights has done the unthinkable, and killed the baby phoenix! Already, the darkness is consuming all of the light that it can find, and time is running out!"

Darkness swallowing light sounded like a wonderful thing to High King Nbowa, who wanted nothing more than to go back to sleep without having to handle the situation. A tall, thick cloud of darkness was indeed standing behind Lan or Gren, however, and it was actually waving at the High King, and displaying surprisingly great manners, considering his disposition to literally destroy the world.

"I...uh...h-hello, darkness," High King Nbowa addressed the growing shade as it widened out and filled the room a bit more fully. "Are we sure that Lykanos the Wolvenmurr is to blame for this? I'd be more inclined to believe that Diz the Indecisive is somehow at fault."

"He was just doing his job, really."

Lykanos the Wolvenmurr crossed his arms over his three-wolf-moon t-shirt and huffed with despondence. "Do I even get a chance to defend myself, here? I'm so innocent, I might as well be a fox!"

"Guilty."

It seemed that High King Nbowa heard everything that he needed to hear, as he pointed the mighty Excalifur at the defenseless canine. Without his Masamurr to defend himself, Lykanos the Wolvenmurr could only shrink back against the wall and look for an escape, as he tried to think of a way to defend his innocence.

He didn't really deserve the chance, because he was totally guilty, but it was actually Diz the Indecisive who came to stand between smelly-shorted king, and his own subject.

"Stand down, Diz the Indecisive! I must deliver a swift punishment upon this fool so that I can go back to bed!"

Diz the Indecisive shook his head, but he shook it with purpose. "It's true, it is his fault that we're in this mess, but killing him won't solve anything. I'm going to need his help...and the help of all of the great knights of Furope, if we're going to make this right."

A small chorus of groans could be heard from the sleeping chambers of the Great Knights of Furope as Diz the Indecisive made a surprisingly decisive statement, but his ears flattened at the lack of enthusiasm.

"Okay, fine. I might not need all of you, but I'll definitely need a few of you, or else...y'know, we're all gonna die. I don't think Darkness has much patience left."

Darkness was, in fact, leaning up against the wall and glancing at his pocket watch impatiently, as if he had other places to be. "You guys are definitely pushing the envelope. I mean...tomorrow is the first of the new year, and I know you guys aren't gonna have this sorted out by then."

"Can you give us some more time?"

It turned out that Darkness was quite the reasonable force of evil, as if the author of the story was commanding him to be polite and offer time to the heroes so that they might be able to come up with a way to defeat him.

Perhaps the author just didn't have a compelling reason for anything really bad to happen, and couldn't decide if the phoenix dying was a bad thing or not.

"Is it a bad thing?" Lykanos the Wolvenmurr asked, as he was clearly hearing voices in his head again, and even Darkness gave him a weird look as he spoke, apparently to himself.

To answer your question, yes. It's like, the worst thing ever that the baby phoenix died, and you should really feel terrible about what you did, because there aren't quite enough words left in this story to resolve the conflict, and that can only mean one thing.

Lan or Gren pulled a small scroll right out of the air in front of him and grinned wide, as he gazed over the brilliant words upon it. "Perhaps, there is a way that we can survive this disaster!" he declared, drawing High King Nbowa's attention just long enough for Lykanos the Wolvenmurr to slip away from his blade. "But it won't be easy, and we'll need even more time!"

Darkness rolled his eyes and looked at the royal calendar on the wall. "I'll give you guys until April 15th."

"Tax day?"

"That's what this is all about. You guys need to pay your light tax...normally, the phoenix gives off a brilliant, restorative light on the first of the year, and it counts as a standard deduction for all of creation, but since you guys screwed that up...well, I sure hope you've got the best accountants in the world, because the IRS ain't got shit on me."

Lykanos the Wolvenmurr and Diz the Indecisive shared an uneasy handshake as they knew that they had to put their differences aside...for the benefit of all of Furope, and perhaps, the entire world...or else, they'd all be really, really upset when they didn't get a tax refund.