*Fastens jumper cables to Chapters 1 and 3* Aright, let's get this thing started!
Faith wiped her forehead, sighing. Harvesting was brutal work, and it had been a long day. Her back ached, her arms and legs ached, she was definitely winding up for a headache to boot . . . Oh, and let's not forget hunger pangs.
Looking around, she saw that the other Hunters were starting to flag too. She bit her lip. They really should keep working as long as they had some daylight—the longer they left grain in the fields, the more would spoil in the cold. But she really didn't want to force her Hunters past their limits either.
Old Redskull came panting by, dragging a burlap sack. He was surprisingly good at gathering grain blind. After tossing the sack onto a wheelbarrow, he dusted off his hands and paused, looking thoughtful.
"You know, I've just remembered something else about winter!" he called. "Christmas!"
"Kris what?" The Hunters paused their work.
"Only the most wonderful thing to happen all year," said Redskull. "Hah! I can't believe I forgot it! Gather around, everyone, this deserves a story."
Faith stiffened, indignant. They should be harvesting—
"Just for a few minutes," said Redskull, turning his hooded face towards her briefly. She blinked, wondering how he'd read her mind. "Just a nice quick rest. You're going to love this!"
The Hunters all gathered around eagerly, some of them settling down on the cold ground. Parents pulled children into their laps to keep them warm, while some rubbed their hands over their arms, trying to force a little heat into their muscles.
Faith decided she'd rather keep working. Still, she listened with one ear as Redskull talked.
"When I was a boy, Christmas would always come in the winter," he said. "It was a great celebration. Everyone would be so excited, more excited than anyone ever got for the dragon battles. We put special decorations on our houses to make them look nicer. We would have a feast, with all kinds of special food. Sometimes we would give each other gifts, even!"
From nearby Faith squinted, bewildered. Redskull must definitely be mixing things up in that old head of his. Why would the Hunters have a feast during the winter, exactly when food stores were the most critical? Why would they waste time and energy on beautifying houses and giving gifts, when just surviving was already hard enough?
The other Hunters were listening with rapt attention, though.
"Why did you do all that?" said Jet Jack. "The gifts, and everything."
"To make each other happy," said Redskull dreamily. "To show that we cared about each other. That was the best thing about Christmas. It was supposed to be a time when everyone was happy and peaceful. We all tried to be extra kind, to forgive others and not fight with them, to do good deeds, to spend extra time with our families . . . It was called 'Christmas spirit.'"
"Sounds mushy," said Chew Toy suspiciously, folding his arms.
"And everyone actually liked this?" No-Legs was skeptical too.
"Absolutely." Redskull gave a small, sad smile. "Things were gentler before Iron Baron took over."
The Hunters murmured amongst themselves, discussing. Faith was busy drowning under a sudden wave of nostalgia. Why did this all sound so familiar? All this sloppy stuff about peace and forgiveness . . .
Ohhhhh. The ninja, that's what it reminded her of. This sounded exactly like their kind of thing. Did they have this . . . Christmas . . . too? She was willing to bet they'd be all over it. The impractical saps.
Not like . . . not like she sometimes missed them, or anything.
Meanwhile Redskull clapped for attention.
"Well, that's all I have for now. I'll tell you more when I remember it! For now, the rest of you need daylight to harvest, don't you? Do we still have daylight right now?"
The Hunters scattered back into the fields, already more lively now that they'd had a short break. Faith sighed, relieved, and made a note of that. Old Redskull knew what he was doing.
"Kris mass . . . " Jet Jack tested the word on her tongue. "What did you think of that?"
"It's pretty," said Faith noncommittally. "A nice story."
"Do you think . . . we could try it?" said Tsippa, one of the female Hunters. Faith looked up, startled. Since when did the Hunters show interest in a sissy-sounding tradition like that? She would have expected the moon to fall from the sky first.
"It might be interesting to decorate houses," said No-Legs thoughtfully.
"And I do think I have a book of Christmas recipes in my hut, if someone could help me find it," said Redskull.
"Or we could invent new ones!"
"Can we? Could we?"
Multiple hopeful faces turned to Faith. She fumbled, bewildered. Redskull's description had sounded nice enough in theory, but the thought of actually practicing it was strange. She could see the ninja liking it, but her Hunters weren't like the ninja. They were used to brutality, they knew the cruelty of life, they didn't waste time pretending they were nobler than their basic animal instincts. What did they want with a celebration of being gentle and generous and forgiving? It seemed so . . . weak.
But there wasn't really anything wrong with those things, was there?
Ah, it was a moot question anyway. Faith shook her head.
"It sounds nice, but right now we need to worry about harvesting our grain and saving up food. We might have to stay on starvation rations if we're going to survive the winter, we can't afford to have a feast. And we should focus on making our houses warmer before we start making them prettier. The cold comes in through every crack and chink right now."
Some dejected murmurs. Nobody protested, though—they knew she was right.
"But we could still do the . . . what is it, 'Kris-mass spirit,' couldn't we?" said No-Legs.
Faith looked at him for a moment, trying to figure him out.
"I guess," she said at last. "If you wanted to."
If Santa's reindeer had been more popular than Santa, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Zane-deer left the jolly old man in the dust. The kids were in awe. Zane had to be very careful not to let their eager little fingers pull off his nose or derange his antlers; that would really ruin the magic.
PIXAL was still unhappy about all of it. As another set of kids scampered off, asking to see the photos their parents had taken, Zane looked back to her wearily.
"Do you want to resign? Maybe you could find someone else to wear the elf costume . . . "
"No." PIXAL rearranged fake tools on the workbench grumpily. "I signed up for this job, and I will see it through to the finish."
"I hate that you're so unhappy, though," said Zane gently. PIXAL shrugged.
"I have to admit, I don't understand," continued Zane. "I know that lying to impressionable children is particularly unkind, but . . . why does it bother you this much? I don't mean to judge, but . . . you've done quite a lot of lying yourself. Nobody knew you were Samurai X for over a year. And you did that to make me happier yourself, didn't you?"
He braced, expecting PIXAL to get angry. Instead she looked up and said, "Exactly!"
Zane blinked.
"Now I really don't understand."
"I hated it," said PIXAL, staring down at the workbench. "It felt so wrong lying to everyone. Especially to you. At first I . . . honestly, I was angry. I was so fed up with being tra—with being—with . . . "
"With being stuck in my head," said Zane, his voice quiet with guilt.
"Yes," whispered PIXAL. She shook her head roughly. "So at first I thought I'd just disappear and not tell anyone where I was, and it . . . it would serve everyone right." She avoided Zane's eyes. "Then for a while I told myself I really was keeping my identity secret to protect you. But I knew that wasn't really it; none of you keep your identities secret. Once I had calmed down, I thought about showing you who I was. But I knew you would ask me why I had left and . . . I didn't want to tell you I'd been unhappy."
"PIXAL . . . "
"So I just kept on keeping it a secret," said PIXAL, shrugging resignedly. "But all the time I felt awful. I was programmed to value truthfulness, just as humans do. I worried you would find out my identity by accident, and you would be angry I'd lied to you. Or you would lose all your trust for me."
"PIXAL, of course I trust you—"
"And after that I promised myself I would never lie again," interrupted PIXAL earnestly. "Especially not to make people happy. Especially not to shield them from unpleasant truths. I felt so much better once you knew I was Samurai X, I can't even describe it, and I don't want to go back to lying again."
There was a bit of silence. PIXAL wrapped her arms around herself and scowled resolutely down at her feet.
"I suppose that's silly," she mumbled.
"No, no." Zane finally found words. "I think that's wonderful of you."
" . . . You would." PIXAL tried to hide her smile.
"All right, so I may be biased." Zane grinned back. "But honestly, PIXAL, I get it now. You know I'm not angry with you about Samurai X, but you're right, I would have liked to know sooner. If you don't want to lie anymore, you don't have to."
"Appreciated," said PIXAL quietly. "I do realize this situation with elves and Santa is different, but . . . I'd rather figure it out on my own terms. Maybe I'll understand it better next year."
"More than fair," said Zane. "But then, you won't mind if I keep up the act myself?"
"I suppose it's fine," said PIXAL. "The little ones do seem to enjoy it."
"I'm glad to hear that," said Zane, eyeing an approaching family. "It seems our Santa really is rather terse with children, and I need to do damage control."
"Oh dear. Should we talk to him?" said PIXAL.
"That might just make him angrier . . . "
So damage control is what they did. Zane was still a big hit, and PIXAL was participating more now, greeting families and wishing them a good Christmas. She was still careful not to say anything that suggested she was a real elf, however.
Things eventually progressed to a crisis, though. Zane was holding up a three-year-old girl for a photograph when she got a little over-excited and tried to hug his head. The antlers had always been a tad loose; now they broke clean off and clattered to the floor.
The little girl went stiff, her mouth open and tears already starting to pool in her eyes. For all she knew, she might as well have snapped off Rudolph's leg.
"Oh—" Zane sputtered, caught off-guard. "Don't worry, it's all right—it's—"
"It's normal for reindeer to lose their antlers," interrupted PIXAL blandly, leaning over the workshop fence. "They shed them every year so they can grow new ones."
"Exactly." Zane relaxed, shooting PIXAL a look of eternal gratitude. "Thank you for the help, actually. I was having trouble getting these to come off, and I was really ready for the new pair to start growing."
The girl relaxed as well, pacified.
"That didn't hurt?" she said.
"Of course not." Zane chuckled gently, setting her down. "Thank you for asking."
After the family had moved on, Zane glanced back to PIXAL and raised his eyebrows.
"Everything I said was true," she said serenely. "Reindeer do lose their antlers."
Zane gave her a knowing smile.
"And she was about to be traumatized," said PIXAL, looking away. "That was an emergency."
"Mm-hmm . . . "
"Don't be smug." PIXAL huffed.
"I'm not smug. I'm very grateful." Zane squeezed her shoulder. "As long as you don't feel morally compromised?"
She sighed, then abruptly turned around and hugged him over the fence. He managed to get one arm around her, relieved that their first fight had resolved so quickly. For a second he thought he heard a muffled gagging sound from Santa's general direction, but he decided he must have imagined that.
"Hmm, they were right," said PIXAL, nuzzling into his shoulder. "You're exceedingly fuzzy."
Zane sighed, though it tapered off into a resigned laugh.
"Not you too . . . "
Lloyd was starting to get a little freaked out. He'd been searching the mall for hours, but there was no sign of an escaped prisoner. There was no sign of civilian panic either, which was good, but he was still getting worried. Who had the guards lost, and where was he hiding? It's not like Kryptarium's prisoners were easy to miss.
Stopping to gnaw a warm pretzel at the food court, Lloyd considered telling the others. Between the seven of them, they'd be sure to find the escapee much faster.
After a moment he shook his head, deciding against it. No way was he gonna risk ruining everyone's holiday spirits. They had already seemed so half-hearted about decorating and doing Christmas preparations, and he'd already worked so hard to cheer them up. The guys didn't come all the way back from the First Realm to get their Christmas ruined, come on! And Nya and PIXAL deserved to be happy too, they'd been through so much.
Lloyd stuffed the last of the pretzel into his mouth, chewing resolutely. Time to get back to the search. What the heck was he worried about? He'd led a tottering Resistance against forces of unspeakable evil, he'd lived days thinking his friends were dead, he'd watched the city crumble into despair and nearly crumbled with it. Both he and the city had crawled back onto their feet. Compared to that? Finding some bumbling skeleton or safecracker should be easy.
Compared to what was coming . . . oh boy.
He pushed that thought away desperately and turned to order another pretzel. One for the road.
Firstbourne sighed with relief as she approached the dragon cave. She had taken the long way home (passing through several other realms) to catch some extra-nice prey for her kids. They did their own hunting too, of course, but they were forbidden from crossing realms unsupervised and the First Realm could be a little sparse.
As she landed in front of the cave, she saw Ice pacing back and forth at the entrance. Seeing Firstbourne, the younger dragon came bounding out to meet her, squalling urgently.
Groaning, Firstbourne dropped her prey and hurried into the cave. What was it this time? Had Earth and Lightning finally done each other permanent harm? Had Fire gotten himself sick eating fish again? Had Wind snapped somehow?
Inside the cave, she found her other children in a state of chaos. Earth and Lighting were at the far side of the cave, vigorously trying to hide behind each other. (This made sense in only one of their cases.) Wind was crouched near the entrance, oddly intent. Instead of hiding from all the noise her brothers were making, she was stretching her neck out, lashing her tail and peering intensely at something near the center of the cave.
Fire was most daring. He was right at the center of the cave himself, gingerly pacing circles and examining—
—Firstbourne nearly had a heart attack. There was a tiny green form dragging itself across the floor.
Her eyes leaped around the cave, taking in the scene. There were crumbled golden eggshells up in the alcove. There was a slimy trail of yolk across the floor. This was way earlier than she'd expected the egg to hatch! What if something had gone wrong, and her not there to supervise? This was awful, what a terrible way to begin.
Fire glanced up, saw Firstbourne charging his way, and hastily skittered aside. The dragon mother bent tenderly over her newest offspring, licking off the last traces of yolk. The baby squeaked in protest, squirming. She was a little female (little by dragon standards anyway), sleek and lustrous green, her shape most similar to Fire's. When Firstbourne rolled her over to keep cleaning, the baby snapped her tiny jaws and blew out a spout of sparkling green light.
Firstbourne snorted, amazed. Green energy! A complex element—not what she would have expected, for her first egg in such a long time. Thank goodness she seemed to have hatched all right . . .
The older dragons were slowly getting over their "OH MY GLOB WHAT IS THAT?!" frenzy. They gathered around, watching solemnly as Firstbourne kept licking and nuzzling the new baby, encouraging her brand-new heart and lungs, learning Energy's scent, teaching her own scent to Energy. Fire and Wind drew the closest, fascinated. Firstbourne considered warning them to back off a bit, but decided not to. Good for them, being interested in their new little sister.
Finally Firstbourne finished the first bonding ceremony and pulled back, rumbling blissfully. She had missed caring for younglings. She could remember how all her previous children got so feisty after their first cleaning; they would hop right up, stumble their first few steps, then go bounding off across the cave, eager to escape before Mom decided to wash them again. Then they would spend days exploring every corner of their home, and it wouldn't be long before Firstbourne had to sleep across the entrance to keep them from toddling off into the lava pits just outside . . .
. . . She tilted her head, puzzled. Energy hadn't gotten up yet. Instead she had just rolled onto her side, spreading herself limply on the cave floor.
Huffing encouragement, Firstbourne leaned in to nuzzle her again. Energy kicked irritably under her mother's attention, but went limp again the minute Firstbourne stopped. Firstbourne gave a more urgent bark now, a command to get up. Squeaking drowsily, Energy lifted her head and stared up at her, her wide wet eyes trusting and curious.
But she didn't get up. After a moment her head drifted back down to the floor, as if it was too much struggle to hold it up for long. Firstbourne's heart clenched.
Something was very wrong.
Lloyd was really starting to get nervous. The mall was going to be closing soon, and he couldn't find those guards anywhere. Was the prisoner still inside the mall? Had he escaped somewhere? If he was still here, Lloyd wouldn't be able to keep the problem a secret from the others anymore. They'd want to know why he was staying behind searching a closed mall. And gosh, maybe it was selfish, but he'd been hoping to enjoy some time at home with everyone . . .
Meanwhile the prisoner himself was dying of boredom. Either people weren't as interested in the mall as Mr. Beasley had hoped, or word had gotten round that the mall's Santa was creepy this year. Either way, families had stopped coming to visit hours ago. Not that Garmadon enjoyed talking with all those little brats, but at least it had been entertaining to growl "Well, I don't think you're getting what you want this year!" after hearing every kid's list. Now he had nothing to do except think about how much his beard itched. How did his brother manage one of these? And his lower arms were killing him; they really weren't meant to be a substitute plump belly.
Worse yet, the Nindroids appeared to have reconciled. Yuck. Although at least they were now too lost in each other's company to pay any attention to him.
Sighing, he slid down in his chair and glared at the small TV some bright soul had installed near Santa's throne. It was supposed to keep kids entertained if there was a long line, and also distract Santa-phobic kids long enough for their parents to take a picture. The endless loop of Christmas cartoons was muted, thank goodness, but the constant swirl of bright, happy colors made Garmadon sick.
Still, it's not like he had anything better to do. It beat watching those two tin cans batting their eyelashes at each other. He glowered at the TV for a while, wondering if he could burn a hole in it with his eyes.
Soon enough he found himself actually paying attention to the show. It had a very strange premise. Some children had built a man out of snow . . . it took a while for Garmadon to realize that was the same stuff he'd seen coating the ground outside the prison bus . . . But then they put a top hot on the snowman's head, and he came to life. And then he seemed to run around causing quite a lot of mayhem.
Garmadon frowned, watching as Frosty had his tribulations getting to the North Pole. The world certainly worked in very strange ways. You could bring things to life by putting hats on them? He'd thought you could only bring things to life with the purple magic he used to have . . . like he'd done with the Colossus . . .
Inspiration struck him like a ton of road salt. What was he sitting here for?! There was his new evil plan, right there! If you could bring things to life with hats, he didn't need his purple magic anymore; he could build another Colossus!
Mr. Beasley came scurrying up to the mall workshop about fifteen minutes later, all out of breath.
"Oh my goodness! You're still here?!" he said to Zane and PIXAL. "I'm so sorry, I didn't know you'd be waiting all this time!"
"Waiting?" said Zane, puzzled.
"I got distracted, I completely forgot to tell you," said Mr. Beasley, mopping his forehead. "A few hours back we got a call from the guy who was supposed to play Santa. His car got totally wrecked by some vandals, he wasn't able to make it here today. I didn't know you guys would keep trying to run the workshop all on your own!"
Zane and PIXAL were staring at each other blankly.
"Then . . . who was . . . "
They turned to look at their Santa—and got another shock. He was stark gone.
"He was right here!" cried Zane.
"Who was?" Mr. Beasley eyed them worriedly.
"The mall Santa," said Zane. "Someone arrived here hours ago . . . He wasn't very good with kids, but we thought . . . "
"Oh no." Mr. Beasley had gone very pale.
"What's wrong?" asked PIXAL.
"That's why I was looking for you in the first place," Mr. Beasley groaned, holding his head. "I thought we might need some more backup. Lloyd's been spending the last few hours searching for an escaped Kryptarium prisoner."
Zane and PIXAL exchanged another, utterly horrified look.
"Oh no."
Lloyd, Zane, and PIXAL were all holed up in the employees-only room, having a crisis meeting.
"We're so sorry, Lloyd," said Zane, his guilty expression contrasting unfortunately with his Rudolph nose. "I can't believe we didn't realize."
"It's . . . it's okay, Zane," sighed Lloyd. "I guess that's not what you would have expected. Heh, no wonder the ankle monitor kept saying the guy was still in the mall . . . "
"We should have looked closer," said PIXAL. "I should have scanned him. To think! We let so many children go up to him!"
"Ugh." Lloyd winced, while Zane and PIXAL hung their heads miserably. "Well, it's too late to change that now. And at least nobody got hurt! . . . I think. Yet." He shook his head, trying to find a bright side. "But it's fine! You guys can help me search now. It would be really handy, those guards I talked to at the beginning have really been making themselves scarce. Wouldn't even tell me who was missing, either. Last I heard, the guy was still in the mall—"
Just then the door opened, and Mr. Beasley stuck his head in.
"Bad news," he said thinly. "The folks from Kryptarium just told me they tracked down the guy's ankle monitor. He broke it off somewhere on the city outskirts."
A groan went up from the three warriors.
"He could be anywhere now!" said Lloyd. "Oh mannn . . . I guess we'd better start searching the city. And maybe I'll phone Kryptarium, ask who they're missing. It'll be easier to find the guy if we know who we're looking for."
"We can't apologize enough, Lloyd," said PIXAL softly.
"Hey, hey, don't worry!" Lloyd held up his hands. "It's gonna be okay, we'll find him. We're not gonna let this ruin Christmas, right?"
PIXAL and Zane exchanged a glance, then nodded resolutely.
"Oh, and hey," said Lloyd, as they headed out. "Maybe . . . let's not mention this to the others? It's not an emergency just yet, we don't need to get everyone all stressed out. It's Christmas."
"Their help searching might be useful," said Zane uncertainly.
"Guys, c'mon! Please? If we don't find the guy in one day, then we can tell them. But there's no use ruining the Christmas spirit early, is there?"
Zane and PIXAL snuck each other guilty looks, knowing that if Christmas was ruined it would kind of be their fault.
"All right," said Zane at last. "I suppose we can keep it a secret for one day."
"This lying to make others happier business is getting to be a habit," sighed PIXAL under her breath. "I knew it."
Still, they followed Lloyd quietly out of the storage room. It was only a good quarter-minute later that Lloyd suddenly stopped in his tracks, then whirled around to stare at Zane as if he'd never seen him before.
"Wait. Zane, why are you wearing a clown nose?!"
