Comics by Shaenon II

Radcliffe actually stood there for a second. That thing had taken away his guns. His hands clasped together on the air that should have been holding his guns.

"Awl He'll No!"

(And Frederic probably warned him about my stuff...Good thing we didn't go too long, I might not have had any tricks left. But before we try anything tricky...)

As Al started throwing his chains around Radcliffe began to pull guns out of his jacket. Loads of them. They were some of his best guns. While the bullets might not kill a cloud of magic. If you put enough holes in anything-it's at least annoying.

The ammo feeds led back into his jacket. He smiled. The machine guns launched into the air. Hauled around on the feeds and with the triggers taped down the guns launched around the pit wrapping themselves around Al's chains and fighting for control.

Radcliffe was at the center. Coordinating the giant mess. Releasing guns as they heated up and swinging each independently with calculation.

His mind was awash with numbers. The calculations moved through his mind like bullets.

"Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee Hawwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww!!!!"

Fredric watched from above, as close as he could get to the pit. Wat was Radcliffe... oh.

Holy...
He wasn't blushing. No, he wasn't. And even if he was, it was just his stupid Jager hormones, anyways. Yep. He was just watching carefully to make sure his Creation did well.

And anyways, he diddn't think it would do much good...
...impressive, though.

Down in the pit, the hail of bullets sunk into Allan, making him wince a little.
"Hey!" he yelped, putting up his tiny hands as the bullets sunk into his particle cloud... without coming back out again. Instead, a slow little flurries of grey dust appeared where they hit...

And and Al slowly *grew*. It did seem to hurt him a little, though.

I dodge the chains, frowning. "Sorry, I really don't know anything about magic- I'd never even heard of it until Fredric started talking about it." I shrug. "I guess it's just an idea to play with- I can't really do anything with it, but I figured you might be able to think of something." I dodge again. It's fast. "Anyway, since this is the last monster, I'm just going to have some fun."

At that moment, the Guy starts shooting rapidly. Grrr... Well, he's not going to distract me from my fun. I pull out a few explosives and throw them around, causing them to kick up large amounts of dust and obscuring visibility. I run toward Allan before it settles.

"Hi! I'm Claire, a friend of your creator." Ordinarily I would tackle-hug him, too, but after the incident with the sentient jello I'm a bit wary about tackling things that can absorb me. One of the chains manages to wrap around my leg. I grin, throwing some of the slightly larger explosives we were given. A large area of ground is destroyed, centered where he was standing.

It's almost the end of the competition, and the area's going to be destroyed immediately afterward anyway... I ready a few more explosives. How much trouble am I going to get in if I destroy the pit? It's technically collateral damage, and that's allowed, right?

And if, purely by accident, I blast the Guy into the stratosphere, Mistress probably won't get me in *that* much trouble...

-Michael-

"Huh." He tilted his head and looked over at Frederic's monster. "In all honesty, I would have expected something bigger. In all honesty I should probably fight against it, but I'm TECHNICALLY Frederic's hench right now, and it doesn't really give me much of an incentive to defeat it. I suppose I'll just sit back here and watch it kill everyone else whi-"

David suddenly grabbed him. "Quick! That thing is causing chaos! I need some help and Sarcastic and Elleb aren't around!"

Michael blinked as David dragged him. "Wait, I'm not going to be involved in some crazy pla-"

David shoved him onto the pile of old Mad Sci electronics and pulled out a small yet functional welding torch. "I just got the idea for a super suit of armor that I'm going to seal you in so you can fight against that thing like some kind of... IRON MAN... does that sound right?" He tilted his head. "Oh well... onto the building!"

Michael blinked. "Hey, wait!" He raised his arm as David began his work.

"OOooh- look! They're building Armor! So Cool! Hiya, I'm Allan Adric!" he babbled cheerfully to Claire, as his chains snapped onto her legs firmly. The bubbles- now finished- made a dive for Prime, enveloping clouds of nanobots- attempting to contain him.

Al lost intrest in the chains- anyone who hadn;t been caught by them wouldn;t be... so...

"CLOUD OF BEES!" he announced, dissolving any Chain not holding someone into just that- armed with electricity, to boot.

"Awwwwwh! C'mon. Freegin' Bees!" shouted Radcliffe. "Yer jus' trying to mess wit me."

(Yellow-Black, Yellow-Black,Yellow-Black,Yellow-Black,Yellow-Black,#FFFF00-#000000, #FFFF00-#000000, #FFFF00-#000000...Gnnr.)

"Min'scule Targets. Moving Qu'ckly."

The machine gun feeds fell from his hands and dropped to the ground with a rattle. Two machine guns are in his hands. He fires at the bees.

The guns overheat. He drops them, grabs two more, and keeps going.

"#%&$, $@^%, and 1/0!" he screams.

Half of the cloud of magic-electro-bees were destroyed, turning back into floating sparkles in the air. The evaporated dust ran back to Al, who sparked and frowned.

"Hmm... a Guy... Well, no futzing around, then." With a shimmer he switched from Chibi to full size- ending up about an inch shorter than Micheal, and somehow familiar looking...

"Allright, let's dance! EXTERMINATE!" he barreled at Radcliffe, tackling him from teh air.

Chains. How irritating. I ignore them for a bit, continuing to entertain myself by blowing up parts of the pit. Although I guess it is dangerous to let myself stop moving. Where is that...

A-ha! I pull out some incredibly strong acid I found earlier. Careful not to spill any on myself- this is strong enough that it would probably injure me, and it would *definitely* eat through my clothes- I dump it onto the chains holding me. I'm not sure how well it will work- he's just a cloud of particles... although I think he can control electric fields too...

Maybe a big electromagnet? I'll need to make a battery- I'm running low on zappy- but I've got acids and metals for that... and there should be enough wire over there... I tug irritably at the chains. If they the acid weakened them enough, one big jerk should let me break free...

(Gah!)
"Gah!" said Radcliffe.

Flip
Toss

He threw Al back as he rolled to the ground. The bees are no longer a threat. Radcliffe got to his feet pulling out two more guns. He shoots where Al should be.

Al rolled faster than anyone with an actual body made of meat could, giggling as he dodged. He brought his hands up and suddenly light flickered in his palms, forming into... clear blue firearms? Only made out of hard light.

Years ago, Fredric had allowed himself to be imbued with the powers of a Sentient Shade of Blue, but after leaving the universe of Pure colors he lost the ability to use those powers. Only now that he had the very essence of a Magic Artifact wired into his being was he assessing them again... and, with his blood in his creation *made* by magic...

Allan Adric floated up into the air, surrounding himself in a blue forcefeild for good measure.

"Come and get me."

Andrew looked at Chic and shrugged.
"Shall we give it our best shot? There must be *some* weakness..."

David grinned. "It's finished! The Iron Battle Suit I've developed is complete!"

Michael, inside the suit, frowned. "I'm very happy for you... except for the fact that I can't seem to MOVE!"

David tilted his head. "Huh... apparently I forgot to add servos so that it could move. That was silly of me. Ah well...I'll just build something else to help fight Frederic's monster." He reached around for some other parts.

"Oh yeah! Don't worry about me! Sure, I'm encased in an immobile suit of armor with no way out, but I'll be fine!" Michael momentarily lost his cool, until David clanged the head of the suit of armor. For some reason he felt like teasing this person...

"Relax, you. I'm building something that'll allow you to move in there... it'll only take a few minutes, as long as I'm not interrupted."

*SNAP*

*CRASH*

Ok, so now I'm free of the chain. I also seem to have tugged a bit to hard and crashed into a pile of metal beams when it broke. And then the end of the chain hit me. This hasn't been the best of days, for some reason. Maybe it has something to do with using poor combat strategies to fight a bunch of monsters created by skilled Mads.

No, that's ridiculous. Besides, it's not like I'm broken yet, so onward! Pile of stuff, I need this and this and this...

I hurry over to Mister Tinker, carrying the things I found. "The explosions don't seem to be doing much-" I double-check, tossing a few more. There are a couple of small craters, and the walls of the pit have taken a serious beating, but that's not really relevant. "So I don't have that many ideas- if bullets don't work, I doubt knives or swords would. Anti-matter's only good if we have some way to get far enough away to properly appreciate the explosion- for that mass, it would be miles, and there's no good viewpoint- and I don't really know how magic works enough to figure much out." I drop the things at his feet. "But I do kind of want to try the energy sink idea... just using magic as straightforward electricity, with copper and all, maybe? I mean, if you aren't busy... If you have a different idea, I'll help with that..." I trail off a bit sheepishly, realizing that I shouldn't keep asking him to build me things... Besides, he's probably got a million ideas of his own. After all, he *is* Mad. And a really good Mad at that. "Um... Sorry... I guess I get a bit carried away sometimes..."

(Powered up...and I'm still distracting it. Someone had better get on destroying it. Eventually I'll run out of tricks.)

"Na' yet tho'," Radcliffe says under his breath. (The blue stuff is protecting him. That must be stopped. And pink makes horrible ammo too. Black lines then.)

Radcliffe pulled the holo-guns from his pockets then. "Le's get this gig goin' then."

He fires the holo-guns and begins to paint broad black lines to try to cage in the blue.

Andrew nodded, considering the idea.
"I think you might be right- what about... rowan wood? I seem to recall rowan wood being able to store magic- and I think I recall a few crystal types off hand as well. As the Lady Heterodyne once (in a fairy tale book) said: 'Any sufficiently analyzed magic is indistinguishable from science!'"

HE had to cheat a little- the Notebook was whipped out and used to force a Rowan tree to grow on the spot, as well as a selection of crystals.

"As for a battery- salt in a water solution? Holy water? More crystals? Damn that boy- he *would* have to pick a specialty more esoteric than even pasty mechanics." he turned to Claire with an expectant grin, rolling his eyes at his son.

From above Fredric smirked, a little proud of himself. But go figure that dumb Guy would know about Pallet Tech. Stupid Guy....

Teh lack lines cut neat slices out of his armor, even as he sped toward the Guy. It was almsot gone as he tackled him again, diffusing most of his mass to bind him to the arena floor.

"Ha! Gotcha!"

I pick through the crystals, sorting some out. "I think these were the kind in his tectill- so they should be good for storage. The battery... uhh... I guess we should just try more crystals..." I really need to steal Fredric's notes on magic at some point... He'd probably know exactly what to do...

I pull one of the branches off the Rowan tree and try to bend it like a wire. It breaks in half. I frown. "The rowan isn't very malleable... and how am I supposed to solder? Solder isn't going to stick to it *or* the crystals..."

Prime paused in its actions, thinking.

<magic-type user/cloud//defeatstrategy?//dissociation?/destruction?//cancelingagent...??//searching...>

Without further delay, the AI acted. For a fraction of a second, space-time in the Pit separated into multiple copies, intersecting and rippling as they snapped back together. When it was complete, "Adric" was a cloud of separated dust.

And Prime was closing in...

Allan Adric was stunned for a minute, but he recovered quickly. Stupid robot man! What did he think- his conciousness was seperated by the particles?!

He whirled, and suddenly the drifting golden dust was a roaring, formless mouth.
It closed with a snap, encasing Prime in a solid bubble- seperate bubbles that had been floating around suddenly closed on any stray particles that were in the pit, adding them to the main mass.

Allan seperated off from Prime, leaving him in a bubble.
"That's IT! No more softball.... Separate/Movefile---Timedelay\20 cyclesColorCODEYellowyellowBLUEaquamarine." he rattled off, and suddenly the bubble of golden glassy stuff holding So It Begins went grey.

He hadn't put him in a demi verse, or even just tried to destroy him- he;d just moved him twenty minutes or so into the future.... unfortunately, half of his *mass* was now twenty minutes into the future, and it had drained 50% of his total allotment of raw magical energy, but it was worth it.

"Alright... who ELSE want's a piece of Adric?!" he demanded, slowly re-forming into a ghostly humanoid.

Andrew grinned, and opened his notebook.
"Oh, THAT I can fix for you sweetheart. It's just the reverse of Mecha- remember, Chic? Convince a lot of Metal that it can grow like a seed... the same theory should let me convince this tree and those crystals that they *really* want to be metal. Go back far enough, and all matter remembers being other matter." he wrote quickly, speaking softly to the trees and crystals.

The tree rustled, young mind filling with thoughts of metal... molten and cherry red, flowing and hissing at the core of all. Again, molten in fire, against the anvil... or in the beautiful symphony of the factory, where metal became little chips and pieces for magnificent machines...

The crystal was even easier- diamond and quartz already had places in machenery, all he had to ask them was to become malleable enough to be worked together.

"Try it now, Claire!" he said, giggling as teh broken branch in her hand became... *springy*. Leaves curled into bits of wire, and the odd wood-metal was almost affectionate in her hands.

"Hmm...I wonder if this'll work." David pressed a button as Michael suddenly found he could move. And that he couldn't STOP moving... the suit of armor jerkily rose on it's own power.

"Hey! If you were going to operate it remotely why did you insist on putting me inside it?" Michael snapped at him.

"Because I didn't have any parts to put on the inside and I needed something to hold it together!" David moved a joystick on a little remote control. "In any event, I remember Elleb freaking out once when she accidentally picked up an old Iron ice cream scoop for me. It hurt her or something. The fists in that thing are made of iron too... maybe it'll work on this big lug!"

"You're sending something like this into combat based on just a hunch? Just because you suspect that ALL magic might be vulnerable to iron? That's lunacy, Uncle!" Michael struggled against the armor suit somewhat ineffectually as he lurched towards Adric, making a mental note to develop something to get him out of situations like these next time.

"I'm working with limited information here!" David shouted out at him, as Michael's metal fist lifted up and swung at Adric's spectral form, fire shooting out tiny jets on the knuckles of the suit.

Chic grins at the mayhem. "Iron's not a bad idea-I remember reading a story, about the heroine facing down the magical baddies with a cast iron skillet...hmm..."
Chic quickly gets to work. Soon a bomb is concocted, made of iron fillings, rock salt, bits of Tinker's rowan....let's see, he's at least partially made of gold particles and glass, so a chemical agent specifically designed to dissolve gold....heated glass just melts, and is reformed, cold glass shatters....what the heck, make it a freeze bomb, too. The bomb is launched, and explodes in the midst of Aldric.
Running water-some magic can't cross running water? Calling a storm and lightning is child's play-just calling water from the clouds even easier. Soon a loop of continually flowing water surrounds Fredric's creation. The loop expands to a flowing, hollow ball made of rapidly moving h2o. Eh, can't hurt-and stranger things have worked.
Chic murmurs to Andrew-"What about disbelief? Or does that just effect fairies?"
Hee, this is fun!

I blink at everything Miss Chicgeek does, then quickly get back to work. Wow, now it's really nice to work with. "This is great, Mister Tinker! Just give me a few minutes!" This goes here, connect this in series, this in parallel, loop this around here... Ooohh, I wonder what happens when you try to make someone zappy with magic... oh, wait, none of the crystals are charged at the moment. Aww...

I *really* need to steal Fredric's notes on this stuff- none of it makes sense. Running water? Does the water act as a Faraday cage? How does water vapor fit in? Why would iron damage magic? What on *earth* does belief have to do with anything if you aren't a Reality Warper? Maybe perception- like Heisenberg? Or maybe it's all completely different...

I concentrate on the energy sink again- I'll leave the theory to the Madboys, and then ask them about it when they figure it out. Besides, the crystals and the metal tree branches are really neat! Now that Mister Tinker's given me all the raw materials, it's not to hard to build. I remember the basic design pretty well, after all. This connects to this, wire this across here, bolt a rail gun on right here aaaaaand attach it all to some sort of long staff-like thing. The entire structure doesn't need to be that big- the crystals are the largest part of the design- and if the wood-metal conducts magic, this way all I have to do is touch him with the end.

Of course... "Mister Tinker? Um... I think this might work, but whoever's holding this thing at the time might get blasted... what does a magic blast do, anyway? And do you know anything to insulate against it? Normally I wouldn't worry about it... but I know what happens when I get blasted with a lot of electricity or heat and the whole 'magic' thing's really confusing..."

Andrew frowned, crossing his arms.
"It's impossible to day- Magic, uncontrolled, has a randomized effect as far as I can tell. You could explode, turn green, get attacked by a beaver- think of it as being like getting hit with a Chaos Theory Ray." he explained, taking a cut of the Rowan to plant back home.

Allan Adric turned, diffusing around the fist just in time.
"Ow! Hey, that kinda stings!" he yelped, rolling away from the suit. Iron?! Hmm... it felt like it made it a little harder for him to hold together...

He put his hand together and shot a huge blast of flame at the suit, hoping to weld it intoo a statue.
"Insert Wicket Witch quote here!" he said simply, before the bomb suddenly hit him.He dissolved, froze, and *burned* all at once before he was suddenly cut off from sight by the ball of water.

Inside of it he was basically a pool of melted, broken metal and glass, with lumps of wood and crystal stuck in. But his consciousness still held... slowly, he dredged up his power, trying to re-form... he diddn't have enough mass...
A tendrill reached out for the water, slowly draining the kinetic energy available from the constant motion. Slowly a humanoid form drifted together, all molten gold and shards of glass- and now, crystal bits. But he wouldn't be able to move for a few minutes.

"Oh... that's no good..." I frown, thinking. "Well, I guess that means no one should be touching it when it hits him." This wire should be long enough... a few more connections... the staff-thing is already about the right weight...

I hoist it like a javelin, then hurl it straight into the middle of the bubble of water. It'll either work or it won't... but even if it doesn't, whatever Miss Chicgeek did seemed to work pretty well...

The javelin stuck in Al as he struggled to maintain a shape, the rowan-wood sinking into his semi-solid state. He grasped the staff, quickly realizing his time was at hand. He couldn't get out of this... not easily. He diddn't...

It would have to do.

He screamed and Let out a burst of unrefined heat, bursting the water into steam and, for just a moment returning to his sparkly, solid form. He thrust one hand up into the air, gathering a ball of unsteady power.

"This isn't over! I won't let it end this way!" he yelled, even as he slowly lost his edges- dissolving back into molten metal as the battery began to drain him.

"I. Will. Have. My. Revenge! If I had only had more time... but THIS will be my victory." the ball of energy solidified as he raced the draining battery, beginning to show some sign of solidity, of purpose. He was racing to put together the right sequence, line by line, maybe he could just-

Suddenly the crystal battery glowed, and with a crackled drained him in one, massive flash. The color flooded out of him, as he slowly looked down at the glosing, sparking thing lodged inside of him.

"Damn... now I'll never know if I was right." he said quietly, just before he just... fell apart, breaking into a million little pieces.

But the energy in his hand remained, floating unsteadily. With what seemed like a *shrug* it sank into the battery, overloading it- a huge purple and gold explosion rocked the pit, coating everyone in a sort of *glue* that smelled like lilacs, and randomly painting silly things on people's faces.

Up above Fredric sighed as he watched the last little golden sparkle fade away, shrugging slightly. Oh, well...

"I-I didn't mean to kill him... he was Fredric's-Fredric's..." I take out my zap-gun and blast the area where he disappeared, repeatedly, until I run out of charge and the zap-gun clicks uselessly in my hand.

Not that I believe Allan's dead. OhIhopehe'snotdeadIdidn'twanttokillFredric'smonster- No, he can't be dead. The magic-sink drained him, yes, but only until he couldn't sustain his form anymore. At that point, the staff fell out and he's still *there,* he just doesn't have enough energy to reform.

Which is what the display with the zap-gun was for. Worst-case scenario, he reforms and we repeat the process. Best case scenario...

Well, the MSO *did* plan to collect everyone's monster and they said the Mads weren't allowed to take them home... Which reminds me, I still have Mistress's bunny. Which MSO agent's going to try to collect it, I wonder?

He can't be dead. He was right in the middle of swearing revenge...

I sigh. "Oh, well. I guess they *did* say we would have to defeat all the monsters. What now?"

Fredric turned away from the cameras and reached into his pocket, finding a little star-shaped badge. It was blue, with a gold edge, and to most people it would have just been a odd little trinket. For Fredric... it was an*important* little trinket.

'aww... I lost...' said a faint voice, that only Fredric could hear.

In the pit, a few little bits of matter shifted, and Frdric hissed quickly.

"Leave it! I'll make you a new one..." Okay, so *maybe* he was well aware that he had copped what little he knew about Prime for the design. But a lot of it had been *his* theory.... mostly involving what little data he had been able to gather. But there *was* a neat bit about matter transfer and aural structure....

Now, it was all over but for the scores.

Chic wrinkles her nose at the lilac smelling 'glue' coating her and the others in the pit. Hopefully it'll shampoo out easily-eh, it could've been worse. She looks at Andrew and giggles-he has random squiggles and the word 'kilroy' scribbled on his face!
Andrew looks back at her, rasing an eyebrow. "What?" He asks mildly, wondering when she'll realize she has the first few lines of the philosopher's song written on her forehead. And...he grins broadly.
Jess somehow manages to keep a poker face. She debates surrepstitiously handing Prim a mirror-naaah...Better keep her post on the sidelines until the judging is over. Fredric's monster sure went out with a bang. And Jane turning them-even briefly-into cuddly widdle pets...
Heh. Most fun Prix in years!

(The Prix thread is regenerating! Watch this space!)

(stares intently at a pile of cinnamon) Mmmm.... OK, now what?

Ok, now mix it in with some melted chocolate, and add a dash of vanilla....

Ok, seriously. I just meant that we're working on deciding who wins and who loses, smart lass.

-The Prix Restarts!-

And then, it was over. MSO agents began to help the people in the pit out of it, and Unkillable Eddie began to take the stage. "Ooooook! It's been a wonderful Grand Prix! You've all done very well, really!" He reached out as an Agent handed him a white envelop. Abruptly, he ducked as a bolt of lightning blasted out at him. "In any event, can you all settle down and power down your weapons of destruction?" A variety of continuous hums, clicks, and beeps silenced themselves. Unkillable Eddie grinned wildly and began to open the envelop. Eventually, he withdrew a slip of paper out of the envelop and grinned. "While everything's been going on, we've had our crack team of judges evaluating your every move. And we're ready to announce the winners!" He chuckled and lit a cigar. "Now then." He looked down at the sheet of paper.

"The 4th Place winner of the Frankenstein Grand Prix this year is...."







"..."






"Dr. Andronicus! Come on up here!"

There was a loud burst of applause as Dr. Andronicus made his way up to the stage. A MSO Agent approached, with a gleaming bronze medal, which he slid over the Professor's head. Unkillable Eddie exhaled smoke as he waited for the noise to die down, and bent down to the microphone again.

"Ok... The 3rd Place winner of the yearly Frankenstien Grand Prix is..."






"..."






"...So, It Begins! Mr Begins, come up here on stage!"

There was another loud burst of applause (As well as a few projectile weapons discharged in Mr. Begin's general direction) as SiB approached the stage. As he stepped in front of the audience another MSO agent walked forward, presenting him with a tiny silver statue of Frankenstein's monster and a coupon for year of free meals at .GIF (Genetically Improved Foods! Your source for Mad cuisine!) Unkillable Eddie took a deep breath and waited for the sound to die down. "Ok, ok! Tension's building now."

"The official Second Place winner of the Frankenstein Grand Prix is..."






"..."






"...You know, this line is a bit smudged. Who printed this out? They need a new printer!"






"...Aw, I'm just kidding. This year's 2nd Place winner is... Frederic Tinker! Young Mr. Tinker, come on down!"

As Frederic made his way to the stage, there was loud laughter, several congratulations, and a few holy hand grenades chucked at the kid. And as he got up on stage, an MSO Agent presented Frederic with a Golden Gyroscope, and a check for $4,000 dollars. Unkillable Eddie patted Frederic on the back and congratulated him, and then stepped back up to the microphone. "Ok, ok. For those of you listening, it should be pretty obvious at this point what's next. The first place winner of this year's Frankenstien Grand Prix is, by process of elimination... Jane Narbon! Miss Narbon, come on down!"

As Jane stepped forward, the din of applause and cheering was almost matched by the oooing and awwing of the crowds. As Jane joined her fellow winners on the stage, a MSO Agent presented her with a Titanium trophy almost as large as Claire was, as well as a small Tiara (for male winners it was a crown) and a purple, regal style robe. Unkillable Eddie smiled as he walked forward, holding a large piece of cardstock paper. "Miss Narbon, as the winner of this year's Grand Prix I am proud to present you with this oversized check for $25,000 dollars in prize money! Congratulations and enjoy your winnings!" There was a moment of silence, as Unkillable Eddie reached into a quickly forming hole in the fabric of space and time, and withdrew another large slip of cardstock paper. "And, as the spokesperson for MSO, I am also now legally entitled to present you with this oversized bill for all the damages you and/or your Henchwoman caused during the Grand Prix, both to people such as poor Timmy, and to buildings and structures. The expenses total about $85,095.67 dollars! You have within a month to pay before we press legal charges, as is standard policy." He turned to smile back towards the crowd, holding a microphone up to his mouth. "Now, we move onto the traditional Closing Ceremonies for the Grand Prix! Traditionally, after handing the awards to each of the four winners, we typically have to have a celebratory speech from the winner of the first place... Miss Narbon, if you would do the honors..." He gently urged her up to the center microphone, with thousands of people watching her and hanging on her every move.