Last time, our intrepid Pioneers kicked in a door and found themselves confronted by three deadly foes - Amelia Fold, Max Pitbull wearing the body of Boomer Pitbull, and the goddamn Nagayaga! As they brace themselves for a deadly fight, suddenly time slows, and they hear a cough from above them.
They look up, and see a pair of golden eyes in the darkness. The eyes get closer and they can see a snoot as well. It looks like a gigantic dog's head is looming over them. Specifically it looks like the head of a Transylvania-Hound.
The strange being says that it was the one that asked them to CLEANSE THIS PLACE when they first got to the castle. It says that it can't help them as much as it would like to, due to "that cat-snake thing," but it can do something, whereupon it leans down and licks them all. They all feel revived and refreshed, and then time restarts, and the battle is joined!
Dire Newfoundland gestures at Peppa Papillon and encases her in a sanctuary, protected from harm and attacks. He then points at "Boomer" and calls upon the magic of Man, yelling "GET DOWN!" Boomer flops onto the ground, growling but unable to resist the command.
Boomer - the real Boomer (OK, from here on out, the real Boomer is "Boomer" and the fake one is "Max", though last night we took to calling them "Boomer Max" and "Boomer Prime"; sadly there was no "Boomer Plus") rages, draws the longsword he's carrying, and charges over to Max, stabbing him in fury. Petunia Pibble calls upon magic and increases gravity in the area, crushing Max to the ground and further immobilizing him (and the Nagayaga, just due to proximity).
Amelia Fold appears from the shadows and hurls fire at the Pioneers, scorching them a bit, but Gelert Sausagedog runs over and hurls a dagger at her - and then, thinking quickly, throws his bag of Pawprint Powder at her, seeking to keep her from disappearing into the shadows again. The Nagayaga stares deeply at Dire, trying to instill fear, but since Peppa cast a protective spell just before the battle began, the attempt fails!
Boomer continues whaling on Max with his sword, and Peppa calls up her spirit Yorkies (since the spell doesn't target anyone it doesn't interfere with the sanctuary) and steps forward, letting them chew up Max and the Nagayaga. Amelia casts another spell, this one dousing the Pioneers in ice. Petunia slips and winds up on her tail, and her gravity spell slips, allowing the Nagayaga to act - but with Dire in its face, all it can do is claw at him ineffectively. Dire lashes out with his warhammer, striking the cat-snake soundly, while Sausagedog closes with Amelia and slices her up.
Max, now free of the gravity spell, pushes himself to his feet, trying to rage, calling upon the immense strength of this stolen body...but Boomer doesn't let it get that far. He whirls the longsword around...and decapitates his own body. Max' - Boomer's - head goes bouncing away, and Boomer, still raging, scoops up his maul and goes after the Nagayaga. He doesn't register what the death of his body means. If his body is dead, they can't use the Inversion Wheel to reverse this!
Of course, Peppa can raise the dead, so long as no more than a minute passes. The Nagayaga seems to realizes this, too, and slithers past the dogs to grab the head. But Dire figures out this strategy and grabs the snake's tail, and yanks it back, away from the head! Amelia snarls and throws a thought storm, paralyzing everyone except Peppa (including the Nagayaga), and then runs over and stabs Boomer with her hooked swords. The paralysis doesn't last, though, and soon she's facing off against several very angry dogs. Dire crushes the Nagayaga's skull with his warhammer, and Amelia realizes the danger she's in. She calls up a wall of stone that pushes them back (but traps her on the same side of the wall as Sausagedog).
Meanwhile, Petunia arcane lassos the head ("ew") and runs back to the body and holds it in place, and Peppa runs over and casts revivify.
Boomer's body lives again! But now Max is back in control. He rages and pushes himself to his feet, grabbing his longsword off the ground. He hacks at Boomer, for all the good it does. Dire runs over and punches him in the snoot, knocking him out again. Petunia lassos Boomer over the wall to get at Amelia, but Amelia unleashes a barrage of seeking stingers and Boomer falls, dying. Sausagedog strikes at Amelia, and she looses a second round, dropping Sausagedog as well! As she steps up to finish Boomer off, Petunia pops around the wall and casts beast mode, turning Amelia fold into a harmless, non-uplifted cat.
Dire grabs it and wraps it in a cloak, and everyone takes a breath. Petunia takes a moment to figure out how to work the wheel, and then they strap Boomer and Max in and yank the lever!
Boomer feels his mind and soul yanked from his body and pinned up against the wheel, until his body spins around to it and snaps into place. They unstrap him and he clears his throat - he's got a nasty scar around his neck from where he cut off his own head. Max, for his part, is back in his old body and still strapped to the wheel, unable to muster the strength to move. And Amelia is still wrapped in robes, yowling and spitting.
The spirit of the castle appears, and asks that they take the Inversion Wheel away ("it's sectional, you can break it into four pieces"). Dire is in favor of smashing it, but Peppa reminds him that as Pioneers, they're meant to preserve these kinds of things, so they can get help to return it to Pugmire. The castle-spirit informs them that although they've killed the Nagayaga's body, even now it gestates within the dreams of an unfortunate victim, and will be reborn if they don't stop it. The spirit has no idea who this person might, though.
The Pioneers go back down to Houndton and turn both Amelia Fold and Max Pitbull in to the authorities (Dire notes that they could just huck them off a cliff, but Petunia and Peppa both point out that there's a difference between killing someone in battle and just straight-up murdering them; Dire might not entirely agree, but he's committed to being a Good Dog). Amelia is convicted of multiple crimes, including consorting with the Unseen, and is likely to be sent to Pugmire and/or the Monarchies to face further justice. Max...well, here it's not so simple. He's obviously done some awful things, but he's also the head of House Pitbull, and that grants him some juice. Without an heir apparent, he might go free.
Boomer, though, feels that he's died enough and that maybe his place should be here, undoing the damage that Max has done to his family name. He takes over the Pitbull Manor and, with his influence, Max remains in jail. Boomer thanks his friends for the grand adventures they've shared, but retires from the Pioneers. He also renames "Maxville" to "Snacksville."
A few months later, a younger Pitbull approaches Boomer with a book and shows him that Max kept records of all of his progeny, even the ones he said didn't have the "eye of the warrior." Max Pitbull was Boomer's biological father! "But then who's my mother?" he asks.
The book does have that information. Her name was Rhea Staffordshire. She fled with Boomer after Max declared him unfit to survive, and there's no record of what happened to her, although the records do show that Max sent a hunting party after her. Boomer nods sadly.
The Pioneers return to Pugmire with the Inversion Wheel, and get ready to begin their next adventure together - to find and truly destroy the Nagayaga!
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