Insanity Claus, Part 2

Here it is folks, the second part of my bonkers Christmas story finally retyped for your reading (dis)pleasure… just in time for Pentecost!

Lyrics from the song “Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer”, by Robert L. May, is copyright of The Rudolph Company, and are used here for fair use/fair dealing parody purposes only.

Any references to real life persons or organizations are for the purposes of fiction/entertainment/humour/parody purpses only and are in no way intended to defame or otherwise reflect them in real life.

Content warning: contains a few swear words and comic-ish violence.

“Well perhaps you should try and figure out a way to get in,” yelled Marieka, tip of her longsword pressed against Mary’s throat with an amount of precision the murderous grenadier would not have thought possible from some fur-clad ruffian. Yet, for someone whose fighting style amounted to (it seemed) little more than flailing around with the thing in a mad rage, she certainly had the art of only just not penetrating the skin honed to, in utterly pun-tastic fashion, a fine point. Fine enough that you knew quite well that one deft push would, should the amazon’s thin reserves of patience run out, leave a rather nasty rupture in your windpipe before you had the chance to reach down for your ultility belt and pull the pin out of anything. As such, Mary had little choice but to consider defences of a more verbal nature mere fractions of a second before the inevitable “After all, she’s your sister!” came in as a follow-up attack.

“If you hadn’t spent the past two years trying to kick in a gate which is made out of tons of unobtainium steel and fracturing your leg every time, instead of going to find Marcia like I suggested…” Mary cut herself short with the knowledge that the sword point was being applied with just that bit more pressure than before.

“Hmmm, now if I just drive this blade just a little deeper…” Marieka mused, “…maybe then you’ll stop talking shit. Or talking. I mean I only try to kick the bloody gate after I’ve tried to scale the damn walls – whatever it is they’re made from – or find something bigger and better to ram the bloody gates. I mean it’s not like I go kicking in obviously un-kick-innable gates out of sheer curiousity is it? Well, not anymore anyway. All while you go on going round raiding every bloody shop for toilet paper- I mean what do you need that stuff for anyway? Clump of moss or leaves or failing that your hand if you need to wipe your arse, works for me! Not like it’s going to cure this bloody Corono-whatsit is it?”

“Now, now, ladies, play fair,” boomed the voice of a bearded fellow in a red fur coat who was casually ambulating round a corner of the wall. “I thought that ladies were supposed to be the gentle sex but you two… Oh, I’m jst an old man, out of touch. Only been around for 1700 years, what do I know? Of course I blame these modern third-wave feminazi suffragette SJ-whatever pinko commie whatyoucallems, just like everyone seems to be doing on the interwebs…”

“Don’t blame us, blame the Author, cursed be His name. We were just wrote this way…” muttered Mary. Marieka relaxed her grip on her sword and made to aim it towards the bearded fellow.

“I might just see if I can ram this sword up your arse and then we’ll see who is the gentle s-” she yelled before being interrupted by several polybolos bolts fired from a sentry tower behind the walls that somehow had failed to be there a moment ago, thunking into the ground just in front of her feet.

“Yoo Hoo!” came a voice from atop the tower which, given the heretofore established proclivities of the author (who also likes to use big words he doesn’t necessarily understand) was naturally female. Like Mary’s, it carried a distinctly Yorkshire twinge but with just a hint of posh and belonged to a medium-sized but fairly well-built woman, with dirty blonde hair tied back into a neat ponytail, who was standing behind a large crossbow-type device, the aforementioned polybolos or repeating ballista. Mary recognised her instantly: it was her sister Wendy, the Monster Slayer, whose attention they had been trying to get all this time, in order to complete their quest to push the Temporal Reset Button and restore sanity to the universe- or at least what used to pass for it. It was supposed to have taken just a few days. Instead, it had taken almost two years, largely down to the fact that the Author (cursed be His name) had, much like any would-be deity worth His salt, largely foresaken them in the intervening time. Since then, the world hasd been plagued by orange-faced monsters from across the sea, deadly viruses that threatened to turn anyone who didn’t wear a mask into a zombie, and if there wasn’t enough monsters already, a Monster Raving Loony government more interested in turning the motorways into giant cycle paths than any lunacy like making a deal with the European Union. If the world needed a Monster Slayer more than ever, it was now. But ever since the Elvis Incident, which of course they wanted a word with her about too, she had been in hiding, locked up inside the curiously and somewhat ironically named Wendy House, which in fact happened to be a vast, imposing multi-storey edifice in mock gothic style, surrounded by 50-feet walls made from the shed skin of the dread World-Serpent Tiamat Herself, as slippery as they were impregnable and whose only entrance was a massive 6-foot-thick gate of reinforced unobtainium steel. Which made it all the more odd that their apparent only defence was a rickety mobile sentry tower fitted with a contraption which looked as if it hadn’t been cutting edge since Roman times.

“So glad you tried to pop by, Mary pet, but I’m afraid I’m rather busy cataloguing t’collection, you know how it is, eh? So if you’ll kindly, well, piss off and take your barbarian friend and old Kringle there, I’m sure it wouldn’t be too much trouble, WOULD IT?”

Mary responded with bullets before resorting to words, which felt rather more approprate to the situation. She’d have tossed in a grenade for good measure but for once, as she had to remind herself, her wanting to kill her sister would have to remain a mere figure of speech for the time being. After the two rounds which remained in the clip had finished arcing just wide of the tower and hitting some unseen pane of glass on the other side of the wall, making a satisfying shattering noise, she shouted back:

“Erm, actually it would, Wend! We’ve been trying to get hold of you for two whole years and all you do is sit behind that wall and not care that there’s a time-space continuum that needs saving and we need your help!”

“I’m doing what I’m supposed to be doing- staying home, protecting the NHS and all that shite, whilst you’re out nicking all the bog roll and don’t think I didn’t see you on TV…”

“I was trying to build a papier mache mound to climb over the top of that bloody wall of y-“

“Out of TOILET PAPER?“

“Well you try to find enough old newspaper now that print media is dying…”

“Ahem,” interrupted Santa. ”When you ladies have quite finished arguing, we have things to discuss!”

“No ‘we’ don’t, Kringle,” Wendy shouted back in determined tone, as the sound of something clanking and mechanical could be heard coming from her general direction. “The only thing I have to discuss is the terms of your departure! Either back down the B9857 or down the highway to hell! I’ll give you three seconds to make your minds up. One…”

CLANK!

“Two…”

CLANK!

“Three… ohshitohshitgrenadebloodyMareee…”

BOOM!

“…eeeee…”

CRASH! An additional noise of shattering glass could be heard as Wendy plunged from the frag-riddled remains of the tower and disappeared behind the wall.

“What does she keep behind there, bloody greenhouses?” muttered Mary to herself.

“Well that was clever you stupid bint,” scolded Marieka. “Now your famous monster slayer sister’s dead and we have to do what we have to do all by ourselves. At least now we can get on with it…”

“Errr… I don’t think she’s dead,”

Rather unexpectedly, just as this moment or thereabouts, the intercom next to the gate crackled to life. A rasping but perfectly intelligible voice made an unexpected reply:

“That’s right, bitches… GASP!…I’m not…urrgh… dead… GASP!… and I can hear every…GASP!… word you, urgh, say! And if you think… urgh… I’m going… GASP!… to open the gate… COUGH! COUGH! COUGH!… so you can give me… GASP, GASP!… ‘medical attention’… urgh… don’t… urgh… bother! I have… my own… help! The Wendy House… is closed! COUGH! Now piss off…”

A faint “Are you alright, Miss Wendy?” seemed to confirm the second last claim. The intercom buzzing off, as if the invite those listening to do the same, confirmed the last. This was still, however not enough for a determined, irate Mary.

“Miss Wendy? MISS Wendy? By that girl’s getting too big for her bloody boots.” Pressing furiously and repeatedly on the intercom button, yelling “YOU ANSWER THIS THING RIGHT NOW YOU BITCH, I DON’T CARE IF YOU’RE DEAD!” before just as furiously reloading her pistol and emptying an entire clipload into the offending device.

By the time Santa and Marieka had stopped covering their ears, they both turned to each other, looking quizzical.

“What exactly went on just there?” Marieka asked.

“You mean Mary and Wendy being Mary and Wendy? Those two zarking smegheadesses have been on the Naughty List for years! No love in their hearts! I mean even Black Peter stopped going after Mary turned s-“

“No, I mean how is Wendy still talking through that thing, you div!”

“A remarkably resilient young woman, is Wendy…”

“Right after she just fell?”

“I dare say she has a phone… a toughened, shatter proof phone, perhaps? And that intercom can connect to it via the Internet of Thingies or whatever it is they call it.”

“Sounds like a lot of shattering going on to me,” remarked Marieka, whose barbarian upbringing and frequent accidental travel through time and space and planes of existence had left her confused and ignorant as to the pace of technological change.

“My dear girl, I’m not as ignorant of modern technology as you seem to be. I know at least we carry things like that in stock. For the really good kiddies, that is. A reinforced WhyPhone TuffPhone, let me se, XGS-40? I did have one in the bag a couple of years ago…”

“What are you blathering on about you fat old git?”

“Smartphones? Mobile phones? My dear girl where have you been?”

“More places than you can imagine,” Marieka retorted with determination. “And by the way…”

“What?”

“Call me ‘my dear girl’ one more time and your head gets impaled and stuck right next to that gate.”

Mary, meanwhile, heard none of the previous discourse. She was too busy kicking, banging, headbutting, throwing gravel at and doing whatever she could to impenetrable, unmoving gate, all the while shouting endless, unanswered demands to be let in “RIGHT NOW!” and uttering obscenities even your humble Author (cursed be His Name) dare see not fit to type. She had been at it for so long that Marieka had taken to hurling several javelins and a spear at the gate mere inches from Mary’s head. As each tip ricocheted off it with a reverberating “THWANG!” it was roundly ignored, or met with a brief, angry scowl. It was no good. Mary simply used the blunt end of the spear to keep on ramming the door and hurling further oscenities, it being all she had left to do it with besides bloodied fists and driveway gravel. Her utility vest, usually replete with hand-grenades and spare ammo clips now carried nothing. Marieka, fed up with of even trying to get Mary’s attention, had gone into the woods to relieve herself and Santa, long since having despaired of the entire situation, had gone off to find his reindeer, it being about feeding time. Now you might well be asking at this point: why, if Santa still had all his reindeer did he not simply rig them to a new sleight and fly over the wall, saving two years of frustration? But alas, due to the unfortunate mishap you will no doubt remember from part 1, in which Mary ended nearly accidentally brutally murdering Santa et al. with a rocket propelled grenade and missing, the universe had just started going haywire. So haywire, in fact, that not only had very unlikely coindicences started happening, be they Elvis nearly making a comeback to the Monster Raving Loony Party winning the general election, to coup attempts happening in previously stable first world countries (erm… maybe that last one isn’t all that unlikely) – not only, in other words, was the incident leaving very awkward creases in the fabric of reality that needed to be ironed out – they had played havoc with the supernatural; in short, magic was not working as it should. Be it Christmas night or any other, neither the red-nosed one (who ought not to be named for copyright reasons nor all the other reindeer would ever fly again whilst circumstances persisted.

But I digress. Let us now return to the narrative, and what shall we see? We shall see Mary, the infamous hard as nails, grenade wielding psycho killer from deepest, darkest Yorkshire, sat on the ground, her torn jeans caked in mud, in front of a 45ft. impenetrable gate, her raw, bloodied hands covering her face, crying. Eee by gum. Who’d have thought it? But, in spite of all expectations, this is what we find. After two years of frustration, of trying any means to get in, being refused entry, trying numerous ingenious schemes to scale the wall, being refused entry, nearly killing the rest of the party, catching one glimpse of her sister only for it to end in pointless bloodshed that for once actually mattered, and to cap it all, being refused entry (surprise surprise!) If only there were some way – any way- to breach that gate or get over that wall. Every helicopter, jetpack, and even biplane in the country had been commandeered for the war effort against Turkmenistan. Battering rams were useless. Explosives were useless. Santa’s reindeer were useless. Toilet paper mountains were useless. Normally, Mary would not care if her sister were lying in a pool of her own blood in the middle of some unexplored trackless forest. But now, when she needed her the most, was she willing to nearly get herself killed trying not to be disturbed? WHY? Was it really so hard to grow up and accept responsibility for the death of Elvis instead of hiding in that fortresscataloguing her collection of stuffed wyverns? If only Marcia were here, along with whatever superweapon she was developing these days. She would have it sorted in no time. But alas, the love of her life had deserted her. Two whole years she had been missing. Not at the bunker, not sneaking in the back entrance of some top secret laboratory to procure what she needed from her contacts, not even round at her Mam’s. Some beer-swilling, fur-clad savage who was frankly twenty years her junioranyway was no substitute. She needed Marcia, desperately. Her loins ached for her. If only… if only…

As a herd of flying pigs grunted ominously in the dull grey haze of encroaching twilight, distant lights appeared over the hill, accompanied by the clanking of metallic feet crunching against the surface of the B9857, heading eastbound. As they got closer the two-legged, faceless monstrosities producing them, arms and head bristling with assorted hi-tech weaponry, almost scared Marieka half to death as she came out of the forest, causing her to drop both the sword and the firewood she was carrying under her spare arm. She who had fought with giants and demons was thoroughly unprepared for such a sight as these, knowing that, deep down, they would kill her in an instant before she could think to reach for one of her trusty javelins. Neither sword nor spear nor arrow would pierce the hides of these great metal-shelled behemoths, any more than the tanks and armoured personnel whatsits she’d seen on a diversionary trip to that military museum. The ones which snorted fire and great metal lumps of snot from their snouts. These… these were far more fearsome. Faster, more agile, better armed, and could even walk on two legs. What were they? As soon as Marieka regained her composure, she decided that she didn’t want to know. She bade as hasty a retreat into the woods as her legs would permit. The machines, which hadn’t even noticed her, stopped, made a sharp left and stopped in front of the Wendy House’s gate. The lights, Highway Code-defyingly bright even for the dead of night, pierced into Mary’s tear-encrusted eyes, dazzling her half to the point of near blindness. She arose from her misery, awkwardly dusted herself off and did her best to stare defiantly at the things, damn their dazzling brightness, their missile launchers and rotary cannons and whatever the hell else they had.

“Go ahead, yer bloody punks,” she yelled. “Go ahead and blast me to Kingdom Come again, see if I care. You know you’ve always wanted to. You always do you bastards. What are you waiting for? It’s nearly Christmas! Haven’t you got families to go home to? Or are they all in Tier 4 areas? Eh?”

There was a clanking of locks and a whirring of motors as a hatch opened to reveal a smallish, pink jumpsuit-cladded female figure sat inside the cockpit. The figure pulled up her visor to reveal an all-too-familiar face.

“Now why would I do that you daft bat?” she exclaimed. Mary stood aghast.

“M-m-Marcia? Is it realy you?” After all this time?”

“The very same, you silly old cliche. Captain Marcia Williams, 1st Mechanized Division of Her Grace’s Own Northumbrian Amazon Regiment, and the inventor of these fine machines, at your service. And yes, that means I’m a Pinkshirt. And yes, you can stop sounding like the heroine in one of those mushy romantic movies I know you hate, when her lost love finally returns after so long.”

Mary was unsure whether to be overjoyed, confused or return to her default state of hard seething rage, on having this surprising yet ironically predictable revelation thrust upon her.

“But… but… TWO BLOODY YEARS!” Two bloody years of frustration, of misery, of heartache… bloody hell that sounds terrible… trying to prevent reality from collapsing all around us, and where were you? Nowhere! I see nothing of you for al that time and now you suddenly show up! I mean… at least I’m bloody impressed with what you’ve been doing but you didn’t even let me know you were alive! And… a Pinkshirt, really?“

“That’s right, standing ever ready in the service of Her Grace the Duchess, to free the North from patriarchal oppression and the maniacal rule of Howling Lord Dickhead and his cronies in Westminster! Oh, and to melt that ther gate down. Stand well back, this is going to be one hell of a lightshow and Goddess do I sound cliched. COMPANEEE… Assume formation!” As the other machines clanked into place in double quick time, the hatch closed and Mary did as she was bid, glad to be reunited and all was right with the world once more. But ye gods, she wasn’t one of those nutters, was she?

The plasma cannons mounted on the right arms of the machines sputtered to life, burning into the thick unobtainium of the great gate. Slowly, but surely, they melted away.

A brightly painted gypsy caravan pulled by a team of reindeer looks a very odd sight anywhere, let alone the rolling English road. Yet here it was, meandering along, the red-nosed one in front allowed to guide it assisted by a pair of mounted headlights as the rest worked steadily behind, the familiar red-coated fellow in the driving seat bellowing and chortling to himself in a manner uncanniliy like a Brian Blessed who had been hitchhiking round the galaxy, binoculars around his neck, with which he occasionally interrupted his concentration with to peer through along the valley ahead.

“Whatshisname the red nosed reindeer,” he sang, “had a smegging shiny nose, and if you ever saw it, zarking Belgium those plasma cannons glow…” Suffice to say, making the improvised lyrics scan was not high on his list of priorities. Even further down, though, were the lights and sirens approaching from behind, interrupted by a booming megaphoned voice:

“THIS IS THE ROYAL MILITARY POLICE! STOP YOUR VEHICLE NOW!”

“Oh, dingo’s kidneys! Woah, reindeer, woah!”

Santa pulled up by the side of the road and son found himself surrounded by cars and half a dozen red-bereted officers all pointing guns at him.

“I’m going to need you to put your hands in hte air and step off the vehicle, sir,” said one young fellow who must have been the commander. The reindeer, spooked by all the commotion, were about to start before being reassured:

“Easy, Dancer, easy, Vixen. I just need to speak to these fine military policemen and we’ll be on our way, eh?” Samta cautiously let go of the reins as the animals calmed down and did as he was bid.”

“What… erm… seems to be the problem, Officers?”

“That’s Sergeant to you, Grandad,” said the man. “The problem, matey, is you. Specifically, you’re in a designated combat area without authorization. Contravening the National Security Enablement Act 2019 as well as the CoronavirusProtection Regulations (No. 7) for unauthorized travel and non-wearing of mask!”

“By, I knew the Loonies would end up sad pathetic smegheads when they got in,” Santa muttered to himself. “No fun like their manifesto, but then, politicians…”

“I’m going to need you to speak up, sir,”

“Never mind.”

“Right, I’m going to need you to explain why you were travelling in a restricted area, and also some ID. Wait, don’t tell me, you’re Father Christmas out delivering presents to all the little kiddies in lockdown. In a gypsy caravan. What’s wrong, Grenadier Mary blew up your sleigh, right?”

“That is exactly correct, Sergeant. Don’t tell me you don’t believe, eh?”

“As a matter of fact, I don’t no.”

“Smeghead.”

“I beg your pardon, sir?” inquired a flabberghasted Sergeant.

“I said smeghead, you military meathead. Smeg, head. S-M-E-G…”

“I KNOW HOW YOU SPELL IT! I’m… just surprised an old bloke like you looking all jolly comes up with such language…”

“Well when you’ve been through what I’ve been through…”

“Yeah, yeah, sure thing fella. You’re under arrest. You have the right to… well, actually you don’t have any. You can tell it all to the tribunal before they lead you out with a blindfold.”

“Ho ho smegging ho. So much for British Justice… zarking foetid dingo’s kidneys…”

A spotlight from the overhead airship which none of them had managed to notice hitherto swung round and illuminated the scene, shortly before the military policemen were all dispatched with a hail of machine gun fire. Shortly afterwards a determined, almost girlish female voice boomed out of yet another megaphone from the airship:

“You’re free to go old man. You are instructed to rendezvous with us at the Wendy House at oh-six-hundred sharp, so get a move on!”

“Yes, Miss,” Santa muttered angrily.

Mary could only watch in amazement as actualy functional examples of Marcia’s beloved plasma cannons went through the heavy unobtainium gate like the proverbial hot knife through butter. Without melting and incinerating everything else, for once. This had to be more than impressive. Nowhere near as impressive as the eedy polybolos that greeted Marcia’s mecha on the other side, shonking half a dozen bolts into its impervious armour at roughly half-second intervals. Genuinely impressive were the built-in rocket thrusters with which the mecha, one by one, navigated the spike-filled pit that lay just over the other side of the gate. How typical of Wendy, to build such an imposing fortress and protect its insides with nothing more than a few rubbish traps from cheesy ’80s adventure movies. That said, no rocket thrusters for her, only laborious improvisation. Grabbing the explorer’s pack Marieka had conveniently left lying up against the wall, Mary fished out a rope and grappling hook, tied one end of the rope to the hook, the other to the also-conveniently-left-there spear, drove the spear point into the ground and, not having Marieka’s considerable dungeoneering experience, took multiple attempts to try and get any purchase on the ground on the other side of the pit with the hook. It was just as well she didn’t have to see if it would hold her weight, or her four years working as a tightrope walker for Barney’s Circus didn’t have to be put to the test, after all this time, as the cattlegrid-like cover for the pit conveniently closed over it, allowing her to walk across. It look enough attempts to try and pull out the spear, though, which was stuck fast. How did Marieka do it? Mary wondered.

“Come on, get a move on,” came Marcia’s voice via megaphone. Same old snarky b-…

Marieka, on the other hand, was staying well put in amongst the cover of the trees. Occasionally taking a stealth peek at the happenings across the road did little to quell her instinctive fear of the unknown. The ringing of sleigh bells and a certain familiar chortle from up the road was likewise little comfort. As much as she had reminded herself: You are Marieka of the Clan Renavam. You are an amazon. A daughter of the mountains. You have fought with giants. Not some prissy little city miss who shrieks at a mouse. What are you afraid of? it was no help. Sneaking up to the edge of the forest, she finally realised the coast was finally clear… and the gate had… melted? Nothing more than frozen rivulets on the driveway. Treacherous if you didn’t avoid them, but passable. A black metal grid on the other side might prove dangerous- not only to trip on but because they usually hid something nasty. And beyond that? A big crossbow? But no-one to fire it. Still, there was bound to be a tripwire of pressure pad or that strange magic they called ‘infer red censor’. She wanted, desperately, to just steel herself and run in screaming out a warcry. But a seasoned adventurer who’s been whacked by or fallen into one too many traps eventually learns from the experience. The surprises of this world, too, would prove too much even after years spent in it. So Marieka did something she hated to do… proceed with caution.

The courtyard looked every bit as imposing as the house and the walls themselves. Not simply for the fierce-looking Tyrannosaurus rex skeleton (and whatever had been done to it, it certainly didn’t look like a fossil…) that appeared to be the centrepiece, or the rather off tendril-spewing mass of plants whew in any saner such space would have been ornamental bushes. There were the huge statues in strategic places of grotesque creatures that appeared to watch you with such keenness that they might just as well be planning to pounce on you and rip out your liver any moment as just sit staring in ominous, bleak silence. Crisscrossing all of this was an intricate network of rails along which had run the now-remnants of the mobile sentry tower from which Wendy had tried to ward them off, perched up against the wall alongside the remains of a section of greenhouse into which she had evidently tumbled. Out of these remains seemed to sprawl yet another indeterminate mass of vegetation. A whole row of greenhouses of various sizes followed the line of the wall which curved around the house and grounds into what might has well have been forever. Last but not least, the hige ‘ornamental’ ponds… out of which Mary was sure something large and snakelike appeared to slither before disappearing back into the depths. In other words: enter who dares.

“Fan out, suround the house, watch out for nasty surprises and…”Marcia piped up in commanding tone before pausing to think how to phrase one rather important detail.

“Err… yes ma’am?” a subordinate chimed in, expecting the inevitable.

“Yes, Lauren, no blowing anything up which might contain nasty surprises. We’re supposed to be acting all diplomatic and whatnot.”

“’DIPLOMATIC’?!?” yelled Mary. “’Diplomatic’ with half a dozen superweapon-loaded mech-“

“Errr… Mary… may-be you might want to let me settle things my way for once? You know, without criticism?” Marcia retorted. “Megaphones off, ladies, radio contact only!”

“DON’T YOU DARE LEAVE ME OUT OF MY OWN BUSINESS YOU BITCH! JUST YOU W-“ Mary was prevented from carrying on further by Marcia’s mech nearly stomping on her, forcing her to dodge. Regaining her composure, she went right back to yelling:

“WHEN ALL THIS IS OVER I WANT A DIVORCE! DO YOU HEAR?”

“Err… you’re not married to one of those monsters?” asked a familiar voice from behind. Mary couldn’t think up a response before all of the mecha, which had been gradually and carefully moving towards the house up to that point, were suddenly ensnared fast by a thousand suddenly whipped-up tendrils.

“Like we didn’t see that coming, Mary muttered to herself. “But who’s going to do the ‘Mwuhaha I have you now!’ speech?”

“Looks like they trapped your wife good and proper eh?” said the voice, which happened to belong to Marieka. “Oh, and by the way, don’t do that to my spear again if you don’t want sticking with it.” A sharp poke up the backside seemed to give credence to that threat. Marieka didn’t make those lightly.

“So,” shot out a high-pitched voice coming from the direction of the house. “You trespassers think you can come for Miss Wndy, do you? Well I won’t let you kill her! She’s brave and she’s smart and she’s beautiful and-“

“Knock it off dimwit, we don’t want to kill her, we just want to talk to her!” came in Lauren over her megaphone.

“Will you be quiet, soldier! That’s an order!” shouted Marcia.

“Oh, could it be any more cliché?” muttered Mary. “Can’t the Author (cursed be His Name) come up with some better dialogue?”

“So,” said Marieka, quietly, “why’d those things speak with women’s voices?” Mary could feel the spear tip poking her for attention and she didn’t like it, and one hand was on her gun in readiness to end the annoyance known as Marieka of the Clan Renavam once and for all… except damn, it was empty.

“They’re just like cars on legs with lots of guns and stuff you gristle-brained cavewoman,” she replied through clenched teeth. “The voices are the drivers…”
“Enough of this, Tanya!” Marcia went on. “As my subordinate blurted out without authorization, we are here at the behest of Her Grace The Grand Duchess of All Northumbria, Including the Forgotten Scottish Bits, to assist her in her quest to destroy the Temporal Reset Buton and end the obsolete patriarchal capitalist imposition that is Christmas! There will be of course a great number of fearsome monsters to be defeated and we trust we can count on your mistress’s expertise. Of course the renumeration for this mission will be considerable…”

“Sorry but Miss Wendy is indisposed right now, Plasma Lady, and besides she doesn’t negotiate with trespassers and terrorists! Beast Guardians! Smash them to pieces and rip out their livers!”

At once the fearsome looking statues began to move from their positions…

Will our assorted cast of heroes, antiheroes, villians and ne’er-do-wells, whichever they all are, resolve this tricky situation? Will Wendy’s statues rip Marcia and her Pinkshirts’ livers from their ribcages, or will the Wendy House disintigrate in a hail of missiles? What are Mary and Marcia going to do about all of this? What happened to Santa whilst all this is going on, and just who exactly is the strange girl with the airship? As the fateful hour of six approaches, don’t miss out on our next horribly long-winded installment whenever the Author (cursed be His Name) can be bothered to write it, even if it is in fact before Christmas 2021!