An Outertale Christmas Special
T'was the days before Christmas; all across the lands
All the people were roaming, including Sans
Full of cheer and joy that drives many bonkers
Christmas is a time for all: humans and monsters
Frisk and their family; their first Christmas together
And they'll make it the best, whatever the weather
They'll pull out the stops; tinsel, trinkets and confetti
Turkey, chocolates, pudding, and Papyrus's spaghetti
With festivities a plenty and the clanging of the bells
All souls are jolly, except Asriel's
His soul has been rekindled, yet a fear still persists
What if his name disgraces all the naughty lists?
An opportunity arises to help quell his blues
Santa Claus himself, but bearing bad news
A villainess is afoot, bearing an evil scheme:
To have Christmas all to herself, that is her dream
Now Christmas must be saved from utter termination
And our heroes may need more than sheer determination
And despite, all else, Asriel's eternal attaint
He may, very well, become Santa's own saint
So embark with us all on a story most sublime
And don't expect it all to rhyme
Chapter 1
You Better Not Shout
Christmas Eve. Or rather, the dying minutes before Christmas Eve.
The night marked the twenty third day of the twelfth month; the big day was only two days away. The twenty third of December, rapidly approaching the twenty fourth – Christmas Eve.
How many other holidays had an 'eve' mark the day beforehand? There is Christmas Eve and New Year's Eve, but you don't say Easter Eve or Thanksgiving Eve or Halloween Eve or Happy Eve Birthday, and Boxing Day Eve already had a name.
But the writer digresses.
We begin this tale on a cold night, in the final minutes of the twenty third day of the twelfth month. The stars in the sky are obscured behind a dense covering. They shone nonetheless, hoping that maybe, just maybe, their millennia old light will pierce through an opening and make their existence present to a person moving quick to escape the cold, pulling their gloves tight and their coat tighter. A soft falling of snow purified the world in a clean, pristine white wherever it landed; on ground, on roof, on the barren branches of trees. Somewhere, somehow, a few chords from a famous Christmas jingle will play from a passing car or from a sensor activated Santa Claus left by the window.
With Christmas, the imagery of crackling fires to the scent of chestnuts, stockings lining the mantle and presents crammed under the tree are conjured. However, we set the scene outside a mall; it could be your mall, my mall, or any other mall, with a shop for every purpose, as well as those therapeutic tanks full of fish. A place one could get lost in for hours.
At this time of year, the outside was packed with cars while the inside suffocated in a cascade of bodies; an endless swarm of effigies crammed in like sardines, searching for the best deals or for anything not tied to the ground. However, at that hour, there is nary a soul in sight.
A pair of blue eyes inspected the structure's exterior, soaking in its size from across the empty parking lot. It stood clear in the halogen lights, a festive banner of red glittery bells and ribbons above the main entrance, and yet the figure saw something else. Something forgotten. Something so spellbinding that it dulled them to the cold, to the snow, to the murmur of engines.
The figure glanced over to the right as three white trucks passed on the main road. In a single file formation, they trundled down the slick road before taking a left, one after the other.
A long, long time this person had waited. With a pop of the clutch, it was show time.
A lone security guard, with his belly flopping over his belt, patrolled the halls, shining the way with his trusty flashlight. Many a nightshift he had spent in that mall and yet its eeriness never truly faded, especially during the festive season. The decorations, meant for the daylight, did not help either as they took on an ugly shape of their own when drowned in darkness. Giant snowflakes, baubles and bells dangling from the skylights became giant spiders which were banished by the light's beam. The tinsel wrapped around the pillars resembled venomous serpents ready to snap out and ensnare anyone dumb enough to draw close. And let's not talk about the fifty foot reindeer statue and Christmas tree between the inert escalators in the main plaza; both having always appeared between shifts as if they just come out of thin air. It remained a mystery as to how they were able to go up so quickly, or where they were kept for that matter. It wasn't like they could just force the giant reindeer back into its box, reseal it with masking tape and shove it up in the attic until next year.
The guard examined each grated gate and tested each lock as he passed. Tis the season to be jolly, but crime was always in season. His sweep of the area revealed nothing unusual. No broken windows or forced open shutters or mannequins left in humiliating positions. All was quiet and well.
He ducked down a well-lit service hall and followed it to the security room where his work colleague for the night, Hoffman, was sat well back in an adjustable chair, feet up on the desk, sipping coffee and helping himself to another donut from a box packed with the doughy treats – all topped with icing and sprinkles. Twenty screens to his right surveyed the mall from twenty different areas, and one screen – on The Late-Late-Late-Late Show with Mettaton and Friends and Burgerpants – surveyed the killer robot from twenty different angles.
"Not a creature was stirring," the guard entering said to Hoffman as he slumped down in a vacant chair. "Not even a mouse." He could tell his colleague had not even glanced at the video feeds since he had been away, being more drawn to the fabulous endeavours of that fabulous robot.
Hoffman bit into the glazed dessert. "The only time when nothing is," he mumbled his reply, the piece of donut being reduced to mush between his teeth. He washed it down with a mouthful of boiling brew.
The first guard – let's call him Jarvis – grinned. "Glad I'm here now and not then. I feel sorry for those chumps who gotta stand watch tomorrow, when this place becomes a war zone."
Hoffman worked up the effort to pull away from the screen, at least for more than a second. "You got any last minute shopping to make?"
Jarvis shook his head while helping himself to the nicest looking donut from the box, although he surmised that there existed a nicer one that his partner had gobbled up long ago. "Finished my Christmas shopping well early, three weeks ago."
"Three weeks? That's still pretty last-minute. I finished mine three months back."
To this, Jarvis let out a chuckle. "That iPad'll—" he took a bite of dough and icing "—be two versions out of style by now," he finished, getting crumbs on his shirt. Eating while talking was one of the many bad habits these two shared. Like two peas in a pod, they were. Still revelling in his wit, nodding with delight, he decided to swing around to the row of grainy, monochrome screens. Altogether, they casted a light greater than that of Mettaton's flashy display. All was still and lifeless in the black and white night vision as he scanned them from left to right, then right to left.
Before Jarvis could take a second bite, he stopped.
"Wait a…" He rose from his chair. "Did you see that?"
"Yeah," Hoffman said. "Who'd have thought a robot could be that flexible?"
"I meant the cameras. Did you see that?"
Hoffman turned toward the two rows of monochrome screens. "See what?"
After taking steps up to the monitor, Jarvis pointed at a third screen from the end of the bottom row, at the grainy image of a pillar caught in what the night vision revealed from camera eighteen. "I saw something right there."
His partner focus of the spot, seeing nothing, seeing the image partly sway.
"There it is again." Jarvis pointed to another monitor. "Did you see that?" Hoffman turned a split-second later to camera five, which was aimed down an empty row of shutters.
"How much coffee you had?" Hoffman asked, squinting.
Jarvis unclipped the walkie-talkie from his belt and thumbed the button. "Dan, you seeing anything on the cameras?" he relayed to the second security watch team on the other end of the mall. His own voice, delayed by half a second, came out of the second device attached to Hoffman's belt. He waited for a response. Ten full seconds passed. "Dan, do you read me?" Another ten seconds. "Dan?"
Sweat formed under his hat. Something was wrong, and this was more than just a raccoon scratching around the lingerie department.
"I'm going back out there," Jarvis said as he pushed the door open. "Got a bad feeling. Keep close eye on the cameras."
Heaving a tired groan at the thought of actually having to do his job, Hoffman shuffled upright and rolled his chair before the monitors. His front was caught in the sleepy blue glow before his colleague took flight down the hall.
He took a left, then a third right, having walked that maze of white-painted cinderblock too many times. The door closest to camera five neared. A featureless, thick barrier, with the words 'staff only' visible not from his side. Not a single speck of light peeked out from under or over it. Officer Jarvis slowed from a jog to a walk, then from a walk to a crawl as he neared, stopping just before it. Placing his ear against the door and listening carefully picked up only the silence.
Half of his senses told him he was seeing things, and the other half was on high alert. One hand held his flashlight while the other reached for the handle. His heart raced, worried not by what he might face, but who he would be leaving behind if the worst came to pass.
He pulled down on the handle until a brief click disengaged the lock, then nudged it open, streaming light across the tile flooring. He poked his head out, aimed the flashlight down the hall and… Wham!
The door to the security room creaked open.
"No luck? Figured as much," Hoffman said, bleary eyes refused to budge from the monitors; them having put him under their spell. The glow, the way the images seemed to flutter, they made his eyelids sag. "Do you want another coffee?" he asked. "We got some nice beans straight from Columbia tonight. That stuff—"
He had no time to relish in that thought before a solid force impacted on his skull, turning his remaining thoughts into darkness. Hoffman slumped forward, smacking his face on the desk; his hat bounced off and rolled to the floor.
Towing above, holding a blackjack, was a large, burly man with a long thick coat, gloves, and a balaclava. He smirked and chuckled, all of this being too easy. He gestured toward those behind him to enter; one skinny guy went straight up to the monitor controls while two other men carried the unconscious Jarvis in and sat him down in the other chair. With a pocket full of nothing but zip ties, the guards had their wrists strapped to the armrests, then their ankles tied together. If anything, it would serve to slow them down if they awoke too early. The goons even took the liberty of relieving the knocked out guards of their walkie-talkies and keys.
The massive man who was obviously the head honcho gave the hacker an impatient look. "We don't have all night," he said in a gruff voice that perfectly matched his appearance. One could only tremble at what hid behind that woollen mask.
"Just a sec…" With a few buttons presses, the skinny guy leaned away from the keyboard and clapped once. "There. I've rigged the recording to loop the last ten minutes. By the time they figure it out, we'll be long gone."
The head honcho pulled out his own handheld device and almost broke the transmission button on his thumb. "Cat, the cameras've been dealt with. Is everything clear on your end?"
Cat was a codename, clearly. He wasn't fond on it, it sounded like something the monsters would use, but he sucked it up and rolled with it. Either that or they do something else more clichéd, like name themselves after billiard balls or letters of the Greek alphabet. A bunch of bank robbers did the same thing some months back and look how well that ended for them; they got busted by the Shadowy Saviour.
Two seconds later, he got a response by the one called Cat: "The guards here won't trouble us tonight, Mouse, and all the alarms have been disabled."
Yep, he was on Team Mouse. That made him leader of the mice: Honcho Mouse. Not the greatest name, but it would do for tonight.
"Then let's getting cracking, boys." After Honcho Mouse said that, he turned to the twenty camera feeds. Even though he couldn't see it, he imagined those empty passages filling up the rest of his buddies as they straddled the floors, scaled the idle escalators and went to work forcing open shutters like Christmas presents, smashing displays, and tagging the walls. A nearby digital clock read 23:59, then switched to all zeroes; Christmas had come exactly one day early.
"Oh, sweet, Mettaton," one of the guys, fixated on the television screen, said. "I love this guy."
"You can watch him in prison if you want," said the leader. "Now hurry up. Let's get this done and go before more cops show up." The four filtered out of the security room, Honcho Mouse leading with the hacker on his tail. The guardd were left to sleep off their dazes and deal with the inevitable headaches the next morning would bring. As the two men who dragged in the knocked out guard stepped out, they came face-to-face with him. "You two, check these inner rooms and make sure nobody else is around to cause trouble. We ain't gonna stay for longer than half an hour tops. You ain't at the trucks by that point, you get left behind."
The pair from Team Mouse nodded and went to it, moaning all the way. The rest of their buddies had the best job, pilfering through all those luxuries while they padded those rooms used by the staff, full of sweaty clothes, stinky shoes, sugary pick-me-ups and empty cans of energy drink. They would be lucky if they found an actual mouse while snooping around back there.
Honcho Mouse and scrawny hacker retraced their steps back to the shopping complex, missing one turn before doubling back. Kicking the door ajar revealed the rest of the team already loading up bags and armfuls of shinnies from the jewellery stores, the latest phones and laptops from the electronics stores, designer shoes and expensive labels from the clothing stores, remote control drones and fitness watches from the gadgets store, video game consoles and DVDs, heaps of bills from the ATMs, anything and everything of value.
All these wonderful treats to take and nobody watching them. Paradise.
Little did the gang of thieves know, however, was that they were indeed being watched. From the skylights, a portly figure observed the people below like they were ants picking and gathering anything they could carry, forming little highways back and forth between the shops and their getaway vehicles, and causing general chaos.
"What am I looking at here, Albert?"
The intercom in his ear crackled to life: "Accessing surveillance systems now." Albert had a charming accent that not even the radio static or his own fingers against keys could tarnish. "Appears they were smart enough to loop the recording, but not enough to stop me from tapping in. I'm counting twenty men in total."
A flush sounded, followed by pouring water, the gushing of hot air, and finally a single goon emerged from the restroom.
"Make that twenty one, sir."
"Twenty one?" the man repeated. He scratched his beard before pulling up on his belt. "And here I thought this was going to be a challenge."