Well, here is the very last chapter of Gladiator!

Chapter 24: Homecomings

The next day, everyone stood out in the courtyard, waiting for Katz to appear and finally send them all back to their own worlds. "Zell, are you sure that you don't want to come home with me?" Squall asked his bouncy blond friend.

"Are you kidding? I get paid to goof off here, and I get all the hot dogs I want! I'm staying here forever, man!" Zell replied. "I would like it if you give my regards to the others, though."

The group waited in silence for another hour or so, and then Katz finally showed up, looking as if he had been up all night doing…stuff. "Did you have fun?" Sephiroth asked with an evil twinkle in his eye.

Suddenly, Princess Muumuu sneaked up on the One Winged Angel and whacked him with her giant mallet. "That's none of your goddamned business!" she shrieked.

Shaking his head, Sesshomaru asked, "Katz, we get to go back home today, right?"

"Yeah, the spell I'm casting will send everyone back to their respective worlds."

"What about all the time we spent here, won't we have to explain where we've been for the past two months?" Yugi wanted to know.

"No, you guys will appear to show up around three seconds after the arrival of anyone else I sent back, except for you, Auron, since there is no time in the Farplane," Katz explained.

"Whatever," the guardian replied. "Just send us back already!"

"All right!" Then the wizard's eyes filled with tears, and he said, "It's been fun, and I'll miss all you guys a lot!"

"Really?" Kilik was surprised.

"Yeah, yeah! Don't get all emotional!" Muumuu snapped, "Katz is an evil wizard now, and he'll probably go on a quest to conquer the universe before long, and you guys will have to come stop him or something stupid like that! Anyway, it's been real, but you're all starting to get on my nerves, so just go the fuck home already!"

Everyone split up into their respective groups, except for Squall, Auron, and Sesshomaru, since they were the only ones in their categories, and Katz raised his hands for one last spell. "SNOOTCHIE BOOTCHIES!" he roared, as bright yellow lightning flashed overhead.

When the light faded, the wizard's unwilling gladiators were gone, sent back to their own worlds, and a single tear rolled down his cheek. In an unusual display of affection, his bitchy wife drew him into a hug and said, "Don't worry; you'll see them again someday."

…

In the Gaea Crater, the members of the mercenary group, AVALANCHE, stood around in confusion, wondering what happened to their two friends and their arch-nemesis. Suddenly, a yellow light flashed, and Vincent appeared next to Cid. "Goddamn it, Vincent!" the foulmouthed captain yelled, dropping his just-lit joint. "Don't fucking do that! You know its surprises like that that got me smoking weed in the first place!"

"Where did those flying monkeys take you?" Red XIII asked, ignoring Cid's tirade.

"You don't want to know," the ex-Turk replied. Then, he pointed down into the crater, where Cloud and Sephiroth's battle had previously taken place. "Look!"

The two swordsmen stood there, only this time they were looking around in complete bewilderment. "Cloud, don't just stand there!" Tifa shouted, "Do something!"

Then the ground shook violently as Meteor drew closer to the planet, and the bartender slipped and somehow managed to give herself a black eye with her impossibly large breasts! "Oh shit!" Barret yelled, helping her to her feet. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah, I'm fine. Cloud, kill that stupid son of a bitch so we can get the hell out of here!"

Finally, the spiky-haired hero remembered what he was supposed to be doing, whipped out the Ultima Weapon, and plunged the crystalline blade straight through the still confused Sephiroth's chest. "Ha! I win, bitch!" he exulted as the silver haired villain coughed up a large amount of blood.

"Goddamn cheap shot making bastard!" Sephiroth croaked before disintegrating into a bunch of small greenish-white lights.

…

At the old orphanage in Centra, the Kramers sat with the rest of their SeeDs, worried about what happened to their missing comrades…except for Irvine. "I wouldn't worry about them too much," he told everyone. "They probably just realized that they're no match for my stunning good looks and…"

Suddenly, Squall fell out of thin (fat?) air and landed on the cowboy wanna-be, squashing him flat. "Woohoo, you're back!" Selphie shouted.

"Where in Hyne's name have you been?" Rinoa demanded.

"And where are Seifer and Zell?" Quistis added.

"Seifer's in Hell, and Zell got a job," the SeeD commander replied.

Everyone in the orphanage, except for the now-unconscious Irvine, stared at Squall with openmouthed looks of astonishment. "Zell got a job," Edea said.

"Yup."

"Our Zell: the blond haired, tattooed, hot dog scarfing, rubber ball on speed…HAS A JOB?" Selphie shrieked.

"Yes."

Everyone in the room danced around in sheer delight at the wonderful news, and Squall said, "Doesn't anyone care that Seifer got sent to Hell?"

"Oh, fuck that loudmouthed prick!" Cid snapped irritably. "The little bastard had it coming to him anyway."

…

In Domino City, Tristan, Mokuba, and Téa followed an extremely angry Joey around, while he muttered dire plots under his breath. "Do you think he'll be okay?" Té a asked, concerned for her friend's mental health.

"I really don't know," Tristan replied. "He was kidnapped by flying monkeys, and that can be a traumatic experience for anyone."

"I just hope that Yugi and Seto are okay!" Mokuba said.

Just then, a light flashed, and the two duelists appeared on the sidewalk in front of the worried group. "Hey, you're back!" Téa cheered, hugging both Yugi and Kaiba. "We're all so glad to see you!"

"I wouldn't be so sure about that," Yugi said, staring at Joey with a look of undisguised horror.

Joey stood away from the rest of the group, glaring at Kaiba with a mad light in his eyes. His face twisted into a demented grin, and a thin stream of drool trickled down from one corner of his mouth as he said, "Kaiba, is that really you?"

"What the fuck do you want, Wheeler? Do you finally have rabies and need to be put down?" he asked belligerently.

Instead of answering, the blond duelist let out a terrible yell and rushed toward Kaiba, his fingers twisted up like claws. "DIIIIIIIEEEEEE!" he shrieked in his insane rage.

At the last minute, the hacker used his martial arts expertise and hurled Joey over his shoulder, but sadly, the lunatic landed in the street, where he was promptly run over by a bus. "Holy shit, you killed Joey!" Yami yelled, taking over a stunned Yugi and trying to comfort an inconsolable Téa.

"You heartless son of a bitch!" Tristan shouted.

"It was self-defense!" Kaiba protested. "The asshole attacked me, and I defended myself!"

"Yeah, well you'll have to tell it to the judge now, son," said a huge cop who looked like he should be in professional wrestling.

As the police hauled Seto Kaiba off to jail, Mokuba kicked a nearby Coke can at the now-dead Joey's head and sighed, "Goddamn it! It just sucks to be me!"

…

Auron reappeared in the Farplane and was surprised when he found it empty. "Where is everyone?" he wondered aloud, looking around at the unpopulated scenery.

"Where the fuck have you been?" demanded a familiar voice from behind.

Turning around, it was all the guardian could do to keep from falling over when he saw Jecht and Braska standing there in pink, blue, and yellow cheerleading outfits with the letters YRP emblazoned across the front. Suddenly, it became too much for Auron to stand, and fell to the ground, laughing like a maniac all the while. "Stop laughing!" Braska shouted, throwing one of his tri-colored pompoms at the swordsman.

"This ain't funny!" Jecht growled, but it only succeeded in making Auron laugh even harder.

Eventually, the guardian managed to regain his composure, and he gasped, "Why…are you…wearing that?"

Just then, St. Peter appeared and said, "Well, while you've been gone, we reincarnated Seymour as a shoopuf, and Yuna, Rikku, and Paine saved Spira from a big machina weapon called Vegnagun."

"Okay…what does that have to do with the outfits?"

"Well, YRP had to fight it here in the Farplane, and Braska and Jecht wanted to go cheer them on, so I made them wear those outfits, and they're pissed off because you were supposed to have to wear one, too, but you weren't here. I had to impersonate you, but it wasn't all that hard, really, since we were just talking to them and they couldn't actually see us."

"They couldn't see us?" Braska asked.

"Nope."

Jecht's face turned red. "Then…WHY IN BLOODY FLAMING FUCK DID WE HAVE TO WEAR THESE STUPID OUTFITS?"

Auron saw that the situation was deteriorating, so he decided to change the subject. "Jecht, where's the boy?"

"Who, Tidus?"

"No, Wakka…yes, Tidus, you idiot! I told Katz to send him back here, and that was the last time I saw him!"

"Oh, well, somehow he missed the Farplane and ended up back in Spira," St. Peter explained. "Last time I checked, he's supposed to be marrying Yuna or something like that."

"Oh…"

"Hey, Auron…" Braska began.

"Yeah?"

"Who's Katz?"

…

A bolt of yellow lightning flashed on a distant mountaintop, and Kilik, Nightmare, and Mitsurugi reappeared. "Woohoo, we're home!" the knight cheered.

"Yes, now we can go back to our normal lives," the monk replied. Then he stopped and stared at the samurai, who was bawling over a skinned knee. "Well…almost normal."

Eventually, Kilik managed to get Mitsurugi to stop crying, and then he finally realized that the three of them were not alone on their little mountaintop. Whipping around, the monk saw a tall, white haired woman in a purple dominatrix outfit standing behind them, a self-satisfied smirk on her cold features. "Yay, its Auntie Ivy!" Mitsurugi crowed, running to hug her.

She accepted the hug, and then said, "I finally did it, Kilik."

"Did what?"

"I found a cure to your 'nephews'' madness."

"Really? Then what is it?"

"I don't think it will matter now, though," she told him, her smile widening.

"Why?"

Ivy pointed to the valley behind him. "It won't matter because you have to go catch them again."

Kilik quickly turned around and saw that Nightmare and Mitsurugi had somehow gotten off the mountaintop and were running across the valley, giggling like the children they had become! "Goddamn it! It never gets any easier, does it?"

…

In feudal Japan, the little orphan girl named Rin stood beside her master's two-headed dragon-horse, still wondering where he could have gone, when he magically popped into existence. "Lord Sesshomaru!" she crowed, happy to see that he was unhurt. "Did you have a good trip?"

"Yes, Rin," he replied as he started to walk away. "It was…interesting, to say the least."

"What happened to Master Jaken? Why isn't he with you?"

"The little bastard failed in his duties too many times, and suffered the consequences. Now you can be my new vassal."

"Really? Oh, Lord Sesshomaru, that makes me so happy!"

…

Somewhere, in the dusky gloom of his castle, the "evil" wizard lurked, watching his former victims in his magic mirror. "Soon," he gloated, his half-demon eyes glowing in the darkness. "Soon, I shall wreak my evil havoc across the universe, and all of you will have no choice but to see me again! BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA…ack…"

The "evil" wizard suddenly choked, and had to reach for a glass of water to calm his fit of coughing. Once he recovered, he chuckled again, and said, "Soon, but for now, I think I'll go pay my wife a little visit!"

"Katz, quit making me wait and get your ass in here!" yelled Princess Muumuu.

"Yes, ma'am!"

That's all for Gladiator! I don't own the phrase "Snootchie Bootchies" nor do I own Coke cans, and while I like Tifa, her boobs are just too damn big! Anyway, I want to thank the Powers Above, my various evil muses (collectively known as The Neighbors), my brother James, the creators of the various characters I used, and most of all: you, the fans. I hope you all enjoyed this story, and that you'll continue to read the ones I write in the future!