SUMMARY: What do you get when you combine monstrous vegetation, not one but two undead armies, and a bit of smut? No, it's not an Ursula K. LeGuin novel—it's a Soul Eater Christmas tale!

With another winter holiday season in Death City, the Spartoi 7 take on unconventional pairings to finish Christmas Eve preparations. While Patty tries to find the best Christmas tree possible and put the finishing touches on a gift for Tsubaki, Soul finds a surprising partner in Liz in order to fulfill Maka's Christmas wish. Meanwhile, Kid assigns Black Star an important mission, one that if he and his new holiday partner fail to accomplish could make this the world's last Christmas.

Rated T for language, potentially gory fight scenes, sexual subtext, and a small portion in which a character writes and reads smut fanfic. (How meta can you get!)

My disclaimer is that his story is cracked: it will not appeal to all readers. It has headcanon-filled exposition. There are bits of sentiment included: some SoMa, some depth to Liz and Patty's back story, and some emotional beats for Black Star, Tsubaki, and Kid. I even managed to include a few Death Scythes and one character often mentioned in the manga and the anime but never seen in canon. However, the humor to this piece may not be appealing to all: by the time you read the fight scene in Chapter 2, based on the opponent facing Maka and the rest, you will know whether you want to keep reading.

Thanks for checking it out—you may leave remarks here or at my Tumblr (soul-dwelling).

o-o-o

CHAPTER 1

"What are you getting me?"

"A clue."

"No, really."

"It's about the only thing to fit in your stocking that would actually help you at all."

Agent Knight's eyebrows lifted. "That's just mean," he drawled.

"Accurate, though," Agent Carter said, her eyes focused forward on their opponents. She whispered to her meister, "Christmas Eve drills: damn, that woman is a hardass."

"You say something, Carter?"

Upon hearing her commander's call, despite being 20 feet away from them, Carter stiffened. "No, Commander, Sir!"

The commander eyed Knight and Carter. "Take this exercise seriously, soldiers," she began. "You are in the DWMA Charon Division to handle the missions not usually assigned to Academy graduates."

"Then why are we stuck prepping before what is a mall run, literally?"

The commander turned to the muscular man standing behind him, his weapon at his side, her arms behind her back. "Because with increased cases of madness around the world, I have the unenviable task of turning around C-level DWMA graduates"-she glanced at a frowning Carter and a smiling Knight-"and elite soldiers with terrible personal skills"-she returned her look to the man and his weapon- "for a range of missions including black ops and PR marketing, since the DWMA is not exactly the most warm and cuddly operation out there, especially when some jackass Death Scythe and his mad scientist buddy let the Kishin out."

She paused. "Now," she added, "you two ready? Or should I put a Santa suit on you now, send you to the mall, and call off this exercise?"

The muscular man sneered. "No, sir. A little bit of fighting over cosplaying is preferable."

The commander studied him from head to toe, then marched away, keeping herself equidistant to both meister-weapon teams. She arrived at a point in the dirt, where she dug her heel and began to create a nearly perfect circle around the two teams.

"You read the files, right?" Carter whispered back to her partner.

"Yeah. Hurwitz there is a monster: I heard he ripped apart a witch with just his bare hands."

"Hyperbole-it was just a very powerful salamander, not a witch."

"Like the little lizard things?"

"Amphibian, actually."

"Huh." Knight's innocent smile widened, as he placed a hand on his worried weapon's shoulder. "Relax. I did the reading on these two," pointing to Hurwitz and his partner. "That woman and Hurwitz will not be any trouble for a meister and weapon like us, right?"

Carter rolled her eyes. "We're going to die today."

"That's the spirit!" Knight said, his wide-eyed optimism filtering out anything negative his weapon had to say.

"I'll just transform already," she replied, as she lit up and left in Knight's hands a stunning golden sword. "Just make this an interesting battle at least, okay?" she said, looking at him from the blade's reflection.

His innocent smile remained. "Don't I always?"

"Soldiers!" the commander called out, as she exited the circle she had made in the sand of the Mexico City construction site. "When I give the call, you may commence." She took another 40 paces away, as she stood next to a boulder at the construction site, lest she be caught in the line of fire.

"Begin!"

Knight took off running-and was promptly punched down into the dirt by Hurwitz's partner. "Terrible footsteps," she said, lifting her heel into the air to knock down into Knight's head. The youthful soldier barely had time to roll in the dirt to dodge the attack.

"Knight!"

"Yeah, Carter!" he cried, as he ran away from both soldiers running at him.

"You forgot me!"

Knight then realized why his hand felt so light-he had again left Carter sitting on the dirt.

"Shit!" he shouted, as he dodged a punch from Hurwitz and a kick from his partner. Knight managed to cartwheel away, assuming an embarrassing gait as he dashed back to retrieve his weapon. The commander had to stifle a laugh: these freaking kids, she thought-as bad as Spirit and her when they were that young.

While still in weapon form, Carter rose by the tip of her blade, easing the recovery for Knight to take her by the hilt as he dashed past.

"Ready to resonate?"

"What do you think I've been doing while you were gallivanting around?!" Carter replied, concentrating on how to match Knight's usually frantic resonance rate.

"Come on," he said, holding the blade out as he assumed a better gait and leaned forward to swipe at both Hurwitz and his partner. "The two of us, the Shining Knight and his partner, the…" he hesitated, as he parried and thrusted at the unarmed opponents, all the while trying to think of a clever nickname for his partner.

"Less talk, more fight!" Carter returned, a flash of energy exploding from the blade's edge as it got closer to the female opponent.

"Careful," Hurwitz's partner replied. "I think you are a little hot under the collar."

Knight backed up, struggling to find a gap in her defense while still dodging Hurwitz's punches, which already had torn holes in the cement littering the construction site. "Just keeping our cool for the right moment," he said, as he signaled to Carter to implement their plan: the sheen from her blade exploded into light, her resonance channeled into illumination that temporarily blinded Hurwitz and his partner, allowing Knight to kick both to the ground.

"All finished?" he said.

Hurwitz, though his eyes closed, still managed to collide his head against Knight's chest, knocking the air out of him. "I can still track your dumb voice, kid!"

"One meister against two?" Knight tightened his grip on his weapon, as he gave a worried sigh. "Hardly seems fair."

"Who said I was a meister?"

Knight glanced at Hurwitz's partner, as he set the tip of his blade to the dirt and leaned on it. "Besides your incredible fighting skill?" Hurwitz rolled his eyes at Knight's consistent friendliness. "Your file. 'M' for meister."

A groan echoed from his sword. "Knight! You read the file upside down again?!"

Knight looked to his weapon, as her face appeared in the blade's reflection. "No. I read that Agent Os was a meister."

Hurwitz's partner was nonplussed. "My name is So, not Os."

"Ooooh," Knight said, extending the syllable. He looked back at his weapon with a smile. "Sorry, Carter! Me and my attention to detail, I guess."

"You moron!" His smile was replaced with a grimace, as he backed away from the sword, causing her to stumble again onto the dusty ground. "One task-one fucking task-and you screw it up!"

"Sorry! I'm sorry! But trust me, we can still win this!"

Knight then felt a sharp pain shoot through his back, as his chest collided with the ground, separating him again from his weapon. He lifted his chin off the dirt to turn and see Hurwitz had slid and elbowed into him.

"No. You really can't. So! Transform!"

From her weapon space, Carter could see Knight get back on his feet, as So exploded into fire-not light, as with most weapons, fire itself-that crawled across the floor, up Hurwitz's left leg-not even singing him-and into his hands. The ball of fire expanded into a cylinder, then hardened into a solid beam of light that crossed Hurwitz's back, re-forming into a flamethrower and cylinder case of an inexhaustible gasoline substance-So's very soul, liquefied with a high rate of combustion.

Carter's face dropped. "Well, shit."

Hurwitz's smile curled into a sneer. "Burn."

The flame exploded from So's nozzle, as Knight took off running-and left his weapon behind. Carter screamed, more from the feeling of heat on her weapon form and the assault onto her very soul, rather than any actual burning to her human form. Meanwhile, Knight managed to outrun the flame, having hopped over a nearby boulder and sit behind it, as the flames exploded around it. He sighed, smiling-until he saw the flames continue yards away, then snake around to head back at him.

"Oh, come on!" Knight shouted, as he hopped over one snaking flame, landed on his back, spun on it, then kicked himself back onto his feet, and darted to where his smoldering weapon sat and retrieved her.

"Nice to see you again," Carter said. "Now can we get back to fighting, or do you want to roast marshmallows on me?!"

Knight gasped. "Really?!"

"No!" His childish smile faded, as he ground, and picked up Carter by her hilt.

"I don't see what you're so sore about-it's not like even a soul flame can burn you."

"I wanted to be assigned to a nice, chilly location for the winter, but no, you had to screw up the paperwork and get us sent down Mexico way!"

"You act like it's my fault."

"It is your fault-you held the map upside down!"

"If I had kept going, though, we could have been in Chili-I heard it's cold there."

Carter sighed, then did a double take through her blade. "Knight? Your hands on fire."

Knight blinked, then glanced to see that the heat from Carter's hilt-a pain he had up to now ignored-had somehow ignited his glove. "Shit!" he cried, dropping Carter yet again as he ripped the fabric off his hand, and started stamping it with his foot. Heaving and breathing, Carter gripped his knees. "Could this get any worse?"

His answer came in the form of another kick to the back.

"Knight!" Carter cried, as she too was kicked, as she transformed midway through the air, landing on her meister's stomach.

Hurwitz approached the downed meister and weapon, aiming So's flame nozzle at the duo. "You lose."

He squeezed on the trigger.

Knight and Carter shut their eyes, anticipating their deaths.

Then they felt wet.

A stream of water had sprayed across the dusty ground, knocking Hurwitz into it, So transforming back into her human form as the two were knocked further and further across the dirt with each new spray from the fire hose. The person holding the fire hose shut it off, and dropped it to the ground.

"Pathetic," the commander said. She was a tall woman, her muscular forearms on display as she stood in her tank top and jeans. Her black boots with white straps kicked up dirt as she approached the four supine soldiers. "Hurwitz, get that madness under control, or I'll ship you back to the Academy."

"Sir, yes, sir!" the man shouted, already back on his feet.

"So, keep that grunt under control."

"Yes, sir," the taciturn weapon muttered.

"Knight, pay more attention to detail."

"Yes, sir," he talked into his chest, as he sat up from the ground.

"Carter, your resonance rate is off-see me on Monday for more lessons."

Carter was silent, as she had stood already, helping her meister off from the ground.

"Hurwitz! So!" the commander called to the more victorious meister-weapon team. "Hit the showers-you already got your assignment, so get to the coordinates after you check in with Ana."

"You mean the mall?" Hurwitz chided.

"Yes. And kids expect you to be a jolly Santa, so wipe that sneer off your puss and be friendly!"

The commander turned to the defeated meister-weapon team, her sneer replaced with a much kinder smile. "Seriously, though: good work, you two."

Knight and Carter blinked, then glanced at each other. "Uh, sir?" Knight began. "I think you meant to compliment the two pyromaniacs over there."

The commander chuckled. "Those two rest on their laurels, man. I'm more appreciative of a team that at least tries." Then her stone-cold glare returned. "Still, you two are not where you should be at this point in your careers. Leaving behind a weapon was bad enough, Knight, but stop favoring on your left. Just because you have some immense luck and evidently fire-proofed hands"-she gestured to his merely calloused palms-"will not save your butt forever. Carter, as I said, your resonance is off-see me Monday for more lessons."

Both the meister and weapon saluted their commander, then upon her turning her back to them, slumped down, knees hitting the ground.

" 'See me Monday,' she says," Carter whispered to her meister. "She acts like I'm still a student. Hell, based on her age, it's more likely I was a year ahead of her."

"Just one year?" Knight tested, earning him a punch to the arm. "See, that's why the resonance is off, you can't take a joke."

"My sense of humor is fine," Carter seethed, as she rolled her right shoulder. "It's just being confined in weapon form most of the afternoon, then having a mission on top of that." She looked askance at him, keeping the commander in her field of vision.

Knight, noticing the intensity of her look, just had to ask: "Don't you find it odd that the commander is so adamant about Christmas Eve training?"

"No. Based on what I know about her, she has a history of such intensity, being one of the youngest meisters to create a Death Scythe."

The man studied his colleague, his eyes widening. "Hold up-no wonder her last name is so familiar-she's the wife of the North American Death Scythe."

"Ex-wife."

"Yet she kept the name?"

The woman risked glancing back. "I think that is the most she kept following the divorce."

"Agents Knight and Carter!"

The man and woman leapt from the dirt, straightened their backs, rotating to face their commander, who had rounded them yet stood yards away. "Yes, Commander Albarn, sir!"

She tossed packages at them.

"Merry Christmas. Your orders and materials are contained in these boxes. Suit up and head out!"

Knight struggled to read the red ink on the brown box, while Carter saw hers easily:

"Mrs. Claus?! Commander, please, not that!"

"Are you disagreeing with an order, agent?" Commander Albarn did not need to raise her voice: her steady gaze and tight mouth communicated her frustration.

Carter steadied herself, holding the costume box under one arm. "Sir, no sir!"

Knight finally wised up on the wording. "Oh, it says 'Elf'!" He rubbed the back of his neck in embarrassment. "Silly me, I thought it said 'Bif'! Couldn't figure that out for the life of me-"

A pebble knocked him down upon impact with his forehead. Commander Albarn tossed a few more in the air. "Less yakking, more packing, kiddos. Knight and Carter, head out."

"Sir, yes sir!" the duo said, Knight having already cobbled to his feet, taking after his colleague into the tent to trade their uniforms for their seasonal wear.

Kami Albarn smirked, congratulating herself on organizing a thus far smooth operation. These kinds of drills had the visual and audible shock to frighten any threats in Mexico City, while letting everyone else know that the DWMA would not let any more of the remnants of Arachnophobia to occupy the city. In the wake of the Kishin Revival, as commanded by Lord Death-really, Kami knew, as commanded by Azusa Yumi-public relations had suffered so badly that any bit of work to make the Death Weapon Meister Academy look better to the public could only help keep the people's faith in the Grim Reaper and his army. Thinking about all of this, she sighed: it was worth it, even if that meant parading elite black ops meisters and weapons as elves, reindeer, and multiple Santas and Mrs. Clauses.

Not that Kami accepted the plan blindly: other continental lieutenants would acquiesce to orders from Lord Death, Death Scythe Yumi, maybe Death Scythe Albarn, but she was too experienced and, as she would admit, too prideful to not test how far she could tailor their plans to her own goals. Upon learning from Yumi about global madness having particularly acute effects around Mexico City, she strong-armed her ex-husband into assigning her to the southern DWMA offices, on the pretense of prepping agents for glorified Santa visits to schools, malls, and community centers. With this pretense, she could personally direct those agents to find all that they could regarding three wanted souls previously affiliated with the now fallen Arachnophobia: Bradbury, Herzog, and Santa. Kami pressed a finger to her chin: that last pseudonym had to be a reference to the jolly old fart, but really, after losing their beloved witch Arachne, were the remnants of Arachnophobia so stupid that they could not imagine a less thematically obvious fake name? It'd be like naming themselves "Rudolph," "Jack Frost," or "Scrooge." If you just have to be thematically appropriate, at least stretch a bit: name yourself "Olive," or "Dickens." Call yourself "Bill Murray," "Rowdy Herrington" or "David Bowie," anything but the same old clichés.

Kami congratulated herself for what she thought were better names, as she sauntered to the tents to confirm that Knight and Carter indeed were in their outfits and ready to join the remaining agents at the mall.

"Kami." A gruff voice caught her ear.

She stopped. Odd—she should have picked up on a soul approaching if he managed to get that close behind her. Well, it was that time of year, so that narrowed down considerably the potential souls who could sneak up on her.

"Rupert." Sure enough, she realized, as she turned to see a man, less than four feet high, standing behind her. He held an envelope under his arm. His pressed grey suit looked good. "Loving the tan. Been going somewhere with a little more sunshine?"

His eyes held no humor. "I get enough sunshine enough months of the year based on where I'm stationed—which, if you were smarter on your geography and climate, you would know that."

She smirked. "Still friendly, too. Huh. Didn't think you'd leave the Big Guy alone today of all days, especially when I'm having to hunt wanted soul who's impersonating him." She paused. "So, must be serious, then?"

"Isn't it always," the short man with the gruff voice said, handing the file to her.

She made one quick swipe at the envelope with just her finger, and after a second, the top of the envelope flew off, hitting the dusty floor as it was blown towards the tent nearby. She removed the papers and photographs.

"Would be nice if you brought me new info, Rupert," Kami said, skimming the documents without looking at him. "I already know about Bradbury et al."

"But not their latest location."

Now she looked up.

"Thank the old man for that."

She smirked. "Indeed-pass along my thanks to Kristopher."

"Right-o, Kami," Rupert replied, his gruff voice clashing with the otherwise saccharine tone to his response. "Actually, I'm on my way right now to see him."

"Won't it be difficult to catch up?" She finally looked concerned. "He should be flying past Berlin by now at this hour."

Rupert rubbed the back of his neck. "We...have had a problem with the transportation."

"Reindeer ate something they shouldn't?"

Rupert paused. "How did you know that?"

She smirked again. "Your boss isn't the only one who is perceptive." She crossed her arms. "It also helps that I have a Death Scythe on my side who is one of the best all-seeing weapons out there. Yumi let it slip before she gave me her mission."

"How is Azusa?"

"Doing alright. Evidently she lost a bet to Spirit, though: not only does she have Death Chamber monitor duty now through the end of the year, but she has to do it in uniform."

"Uniform?"

"Actually," Kami said, "Spirit's bet gave me an idea for how to get our soldiers undercover throughout this area, should Bradbury's gang try anything." Rupert looked behind Kami, to see meisters and weapons emerging from the tent, dressed in all sorts of outfits to resemble holiday characters: elves, snowmen, reindeer. Rupert particularly grimaced upon seeing certain members dressed in fake white beards and red suits. "Indeed," he replied.

"I take it you are getting Kid to help out again this year?" Kami added.

"Yes." Now he smirked. "While I'm in the city, want me to pass along news to your ex?"

She stopped smirking.

"Or your daughter?"

Kami was silent for a moment. "Spirit got sent to the northwest-to follow up on whatever happened to Kid when he was stuck in that book for those months." She turned, and started marching to the tents. "Knight! Carter! You better be dressed and out!"

"Commander, this isn't an elf outfit-it isn't even a Bif outfit! I can't fit into these antlers, Commander!"

"Forget the antlers!" she could hear Carter reply. "This suit smells like rotten eggs!"

Kami quickened her pace back to the tent, yet Rupert called out, "I thought you moved back to Death City to be around her, especially at this time of year."

She stopped mid-step, and said loud enough for him to hear, "I did. It's just...been too many years to try to have a Christmas together now."

"Parental guilt," Rupert grunted, as he removed a pocket watch from his suit jacket. "Whatever. I have a schedule to keep. Be careful getting to the Avenue."

She forced a smile. "Aren't I always?"

"No." Rupert replaced his watch, then marched to his steed that he had left waiting for him. Even Kami was surprised to see the creature: someone as experienced as her should have noticed that animal earlier.

"Sir, I really find this humiliating," she heard behind her, as she heard Knight scratching at his uncomfortable Rudolph suit, and adjusting the blinking red nose. "Hey, is that a reindeer over there?"

Kami said nothing, as she and Knight watched Rupert hike himself onto that animal's saddle, kick its sides, and fly through the air, heading due north for Death City.

Kami glanced at her slack-jawed soldier. "Close your mouth, Knight-the air will dry it out at this rate."

"Y-yeah," he muttered, as he walked back to the tent to retrieve his weapon. "At least no one is riding me this evening."

"Carter might!" Kami shouted, and felt rather proud that she made the soldier blush up to his neck. With that final statement, Kami marched off the construction site, crossed the street to the bus depot, and waited for her ride to the Avenue of the Dead.

o-o-o

WRITER'S NOTES

Thanks for reading this chapter. Again, if this one is not working for you, I hope you at least check out Chapter 2—by that point, given how odd are the humor and the sentiment to that chapter, you'll know whether you want to keep reading onto Chapter 3 to find out what exactly this Rupert guy is up to. (It's a Christmas fan fic—you probably already know who his boss is.)

I finally attempt to write Kami Albarn. For simplicity, I kept the fanon name: while it is based on a mistranslation, I did not want to make some attempt to re-imagine some new name for her. And it's not like that has to be her original name or whatever name she goes by should she ever appear within a Soul Eater canonical work, based on the liberal name-changing policies at the Academy. I tried to draw upon a few interpretations of the character that others have written up to this point-Z-Raid's seems very badass, KamiScytheMeister's is more playful, and you can check out both of their interpretations at their Tumblr pages-so I combined those traits with a bit of inspiration drawn from people I have known personally, men and women, parents and not parents, in characterizing Maka's mother. I imagine Kami as thinking she is always right, having a bit of arrogance because she has the success rate and skill to back up what she says most of the time—and hence when she does screw up badly, she has others humble her. I imagine that before she divorced Spirit, she was much more flexible; once she decided to divorce him, however, she became more intractable. But if she ever saw anything in a guy like Spirit, I have to imagine she either had a sense of humor or developed one from her marriage to him that persists up to this day, hence why she gets a kick out of mocking Rupert and Knight. Her interactions with some main characters in later chapters were a lot of fun to write—so, um, spoilers: yes, she'll meet up with Maka soon (it isn't really fair for a Christmas story to not have the two hang out for a bit of time).

The Avenue of the Dead is a real place, about 40 minutes by car from Mexico City. Otherwise, the details about Mexico City have a lot of artistic license here and will in the upcoming chapters. The names Bradbury and Herzog are significant allusions related to something else in Mexico—you can search online to figure out what will happen next, and just what Kami is going to encounter at the Avenue of the Dead.

Sorry for the heavy dialogue and potentially poorly written action scenes, as well as for the focus on original characters. Chapter 2 focused extensively on canon characters, and I hope you enjoy the tree hunting shenanigans therein.

There is nothing like fan fiction to let you play around with headcanon. This chapter introduces to the overall story the idea that Death Scythes assign lieutenants to specific parts of their continents. In this case, Spirit gave one of those jobs to his ex-wife because she was quite persuasive. My wider headcanon is that pretty much every one of Spirit's North American lieutenants is someone with whom he flirted extensively; then again, I also imagine that Justin's lieutenants were all musically inclined, and all of Tezca's are cosplayers—so that's an idea I'm playing wth. I have plans for introducing some other lieutenants in the North American and European divisions, but I don't want a pile of original characters sitting around with nothing to do with them. Furthermore, while elite weapons like Death Scythes can tackle multiple problems at once, part of me anticipates that a bureaucracy like the DWMA needs to thrive on numbers: as quickly as these people can travel worldwide, I imagine that there are additional missions that are handled at the local level. With so many E.A.T. meisters and weapons graduating from that Academy yet not staying on as teachers or ascending to the rank of Death Scythe, I imagine that they stay on in some capacity as soldiers. Plus a little bureaucracy can help add some problems in the plot for future stories: tensions between the Death City headquarters and local units (after all, the Death Scythes from South America and elsewhere did not come to Death City despite Lord Death's order after the Kishin Revival arc).