I Own Nothing
Merry Freakin Christmas!
A small town in a vaguely European setting.
Alex hummed Joy to the World while finishing the 3489th snowman he was working on at the moment. This spring the story he had chosen as his first target would start, he was intent on making sure things went quite differently in this version of the tale.
A brief time later he had finished the five thousandth snowman and was ready for phase two. Animating stone or mud was simple, and flesh golems were extremely easy to make since they were composed of matter that had once been living to begin with, snow on the other hand was difficult. A water elemental could do it easy, and while Alex could have summoned one he didn't think that those who would be awake at the time of year he was in would be happy with what he was doing; it wasn't really important though, Alex had figured this sort of thing out centuries ago.
The ice coated snow golems turned and marched toward the town, all the while singing Jingle Bells as loud as they could.
"If this doesn't traumatize any kids I will be very surprised." Alex had already set up a surveillance system to catch the event so that he could re-watch it later, maybe run it at a few holiday parties or something. The snowmen headed for their main target first, the oaf wouldn't know what hit him. "No one screams at the sight of Snowmen like Gaston!" Alex mimicked the blowhard before vanishing.
This is because even when I was a kid I wanted to smash Gaston's teeth out with a sledge hammer.
Metropolis: The home of Lex Luthor: Christmas Eve
Lex just stared at the man sitting at the end of the table eating a whole turkey by himself, that wasn't the strangest thing about the situation though, no that honor went to the fact that Luthor hadn't had any intention of celebrating the holiday in his own home, so it was rather odd that not only did he have a guest he had never seen before, but that the man was sitting at a table Lex did not own eating a feast Lex had not ordered.
"Who are you?" Luthor chose not to call security, yet. He wanted to know what was going on.
"Mercer. Alex Mercer." Alex smiled a smile that would make a zergling proud "Not Alexander though, even if he had been alive when I was born I don't think we would get along."
"What are you doing in my house?" Lex ground out through clenched teeth. Alex just smirked at the mans irritation.
"I am here because it is Christmas at this moment in time and I felt that since you, this you anyway, had been a fairly decent person for the last few months I should give you a Christmas present." Alex sent a wave of specialized energy across the room, it didn't appear to do anything on contact with it's target.
"What was that? What did you do!" Luthor didn't even notice that his guards weren't responding to the alarm he had just triggered.
Alex continued smirking. "Didn't you have cancer a minute ago?"
Luthor stared at Alex for almost a full minute before responding. "Wha?"
"Merry Christmas, and a bit of advice; if you really must carry that kryptonite around maybe you should keep it in a lead box. Maybe next year I wont kill you as a present to Supes if you keep up your good behavior." Alex disappeared, leaving the food and the table it was on where it was, along with the impression of his zergling smile.
Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. December 24th, 11:00 pm. 1989
Albus Dumbledore glanced curiously around his office, none of the portraits seemed to notice anything odd and Fawkes was obviously asleep, not even the phoenix had reacted to the presence of the man sitting in the headmasters chair. Perhaps he had gone senile, or simply crazy, but regardless of his state of sanity or lack of it the old wizard decided to speak to the stranger.
"And you would be?"
"Father Christmas?" The man said in a questioning tone, asking if Dumbledore would believe what he had suggested.
"I'm sorry, but I find that quite unlikely."
The man smiled. "Well that's good, you aren't completely stupid. No I am not Father Christmas, and while you wont be seeing me again I don't feel like being rude at the moment, so my name is Alex Mercer; just Alex, not Alexander."
"Ah. Well Mr. Mercer, to what do I owe this visit."
"Honestly I really wouldn't object to just ripping your skeleton out through your left ear, but given that that wouldn't really make any difference other then you being dead, and boneless, I wont do that. Instead I would just like to suggest that if you hear any more prophecies could you please pay attention to them a bit more closely? A self-fulfilling prophecy should be easy to spot even for a resident of this particular world." Alex gave an exaggerated sigh before continuing. "Anyway, Merry Christmas."
Albus felt a small prick on his neck, like a mosquito bite.
"I wonder how someone your age is supposed to explain being twenty again. Well good luck." As Alex vanished every staff member of the school, no matter where they were, felt a prick on their neck like the bite of a mosquito, by morning they had all made the same discovery as Albus Dumbledore; they were twenty years old.
Happy Harbor: Mount Justice. December 24th. (Note: Who named this place?)
No alarms had sounded, nothing was seen on the surveillance tapes, no one had detected anything odd, but standing in the middle of the living room the young heroes had just walked into was a man in a black jacket and blue jeans; he was decorating a pine tree and humming different parts of Christmas songs at random.
"Connor could you hand me that box, the one with the glowing star shaped ornaments." The man gestured at a stack of boxes to his left without looking away from the tree he was focused on. Superboy responded in a predictable manner, he charged forward and lifted the man off the floor, turning him around in the process.
"Who are you!" Connor's over-reaction didn't surprise anyone much.
"Wow, no need to get violent, I just asked for a little help." The man then stepped through Connor and walked over to the stack of boxes ignoring the clones attempts at hitting him. "Here you go, put these on the walls okay." The man turned and handed a box of lights to the confused Kryptonian.
"Okay, stop everything." Artemis spoke up, annoyed that she had no idea what was happening, not caring that she wasn't the only one. "What's going on here? Who are you?"
"The grim reaper according to the last people I visited, but that's not anywhere near true, Death couldn't hire me even if we both thought it was a good idea, The First said no direct interference by Absolutes in my business and no one wants to break the rules that one sets. Anyway Meghan could you put these on the higher branches." The man handed the martian girl a box of decorations in the shapes of various heroes emblems before walking back over to stand in front of the tree. "As for what's going on..." The man spun around to the still confused heroes. "It's almost Christmas and you kids didn't do anything to make this glorified hole in the ground a little more festive, so I'm doing it for you; but since you're all here you can help out a little."
None of the teens could really figure out how it had happened, but in less then four minutes they were all setting up decorations and occasionally getting roped into singing with the man who still hadn't introduced himself.
"Okay, that's better. Try to get along and just enjoy the holiday, I've decided to give all heroes a break so you don't have to worry about any villains pulling anything for the next week or so, they should all be on their feet by then, a bit groggy but alive. Anyway, see you all later, maybe, I haven't decided whether or not to come back here, so we'll see." The man smiled and disappeared, the smile was a bit shocking, teeth that looked like what steak knives wanted to grow up to be were not normal for any of them to see.
Wally was the first to find his voice. "What just happened?" The rest of the teens just shrugged.
Apokolips
Darkseid's eyes narrowed as the doors of his throne room were shattered by the Furies flying through them, a being that appeared to be human walked into the room seeming not to notice Kalibak rushing towards him.
Alex shifted his location two feet forward and put his hand on the so called gods back. A glow spread from where his hand rested on Kalibak's back, covering him completely in only seconds. Alex removed his hand and continued walking toward Darkseid, Kalibak exploded.
"You would seek to challenge Darkseid? Make no mistake, I am not so weak as these fools you have defeated so far."
The LWMD grinned. "I'm not here to challenge you Uxas. You see, in about two hours it will be December the twenty-fifth on the planet Earth, that means nothing to you, but on Earth that day is a holiday, an important one in the present time. I am here to give the Justice League, the people of Earth, and the universe in general a Christmas present; the complete and total destruction of Apokolips, and the final end of Darkseid." Alex opened a breach in the fabric of the world between himself and Darkseid just as the Omega beams were reaching the halfway point between them, the other side of the portal opened two feet from Darkseid aiming straight at his chest.
"You will need more then tricks to defeat me!" Darkseid was on his feet again only seconds after being knocked flat by his own attack. The punch he threw at his opponent met no resistance until it contacted the side of his own head.
Alex opened one Rift after another, transmitting the tyrants attacks back at him without ever moving from the spot he was occupying. After allowing Darkseid to pummel himself for ten minutes Alex triggered the charge he had left in the framework of the palace.
Darkseid found himself buried under a pile of rubble with no memory of anything having happened to place him there. Alex drifted down and landed in the crater that no filled the space the palace once stood on as the would-be universe conqueror pulled himself out of the rubble that was all that remained of his fortress.
"I'll be honest, I have nothing against you on a personal level, though I really don't object to knocking fools off their thrones when they get a big head and start thinking they can be all powerful, I've met most of the Absolutes and I know that no matter how powerful I become I could never be their equal; if I can't reach that level what makes you think you can? Well, anyway, let's get this over with." Alex's eyes began to glow, the air to his left warped and seemed to spin.
Darkseid prepared to fire the Omega beams again, cause they worked so well the last time, but he never got the chance; a beam of red light struck him in the chest causing him to stumble and lose focus, it was followed by another.
The air warped again and again in different locations, each spiral of gathered power firing on the stunned tyrant; Alex continued to focus his psionic power into the air around the crater, the distortions it caused being the only warning of the impending attacks. Finally Alex stopped as Darkseid fell to one knee.
"I'm not usually so harsh about this sort of thing you know, but I thought that it would be a better present to everyone who sees this if I made you feel weak and powerless, the same way you do to others, kind of a poetic justice sort of thing you see. So, nothing personal." Full output Thermal Lances blasted Darkseid across the crater, leaving a trench in his wake. Alex walked across the crater while maintaining the explosive beams of energy on their target, it would take hours to kill Darkseid this way, which was okay since he wasn't ready to end it just yet.
Alex stopped his calm walk forward and cut the beams, they were about to have company. The walking nightmare put the wounded dictator in a barrier before rising into the air. "Stay there a minute, I have to deal with your so called army." The viral monster shifted into what appeared to be a giant black bowling ball minus the holes and covered in blood red streaks.
The army of Parademons and other troops saw the ball rise out of the crater, for a moment they were unsure what to do, that changed when the ball of hardened biomass sprouted a uncountable number of spikes which began to glow before being fired at random in all directions, except straight up. If a charged playing card can take down a Sentinel it should be easy to imagine what a charged four foot spike of super dense bone can do.
The rain of explosive spines continued until what little remained of the army was fleeing with no intention of ever returning. Alex morphed back to human form and floated back down into the now thoroughly battle scarred crater, when he landed he brought down the barrier around the tyrant who was not doing well in his attempts to hide the fear that he had began to feel.
"Now where were we? Ah! Right, I remember." Alex duplicated himself ten times and surrounded Darkseid. "I was going to drag this out a little longer, but I have other stops to make before heading home, so I'm just going to end this with a bang okay." The replicated monsters eyes began to glow, ten pairs of full power Thermal Lances struck Darkseid simultaneously and focused there for thirty seconds. When the smoke from the consecutive explosions cleared Darkseid was barely holding on to life.
Alex threw the former dictator against a nearly vertical chunk of debris, while morphing his right arm into a drill. This weapon was made of five segments with each of them able to spin in either direction, all five segments were equipped with four miniature short range Prismatic Beam generators, the widest segment of the drill had roughly the same width as a large dinner plate. The drill began to spin, the tip going clockwise with the remaining segments alternating, the second going counter to the first the third going clockwise, while the forth went counter with the fifth going clockwise.
"You...can't...defeat me..." Darkseid feebly attempted to fire the Omega beams but was unable to accomplish the feet.
"Oh I think I just did." Alex drove the drill forward, Darkseid's screams cut off after only a second as the drill completed it's passage through his chest. "Disappear into Oblivion." Alex forcibly sent Darkseid's soul into the void, given his personality he would cease to exist in seconds.
"Now, I need you to take this to Earth." Alex dropped Lashina out of the bubble he had placed her in.
"Why...would I...help you?"
"I'm not asking you to do anything, you have no choice in the matter, I'd take it myself but that wouldn't have the same impact." Alex tossed the disc containing a recording of what had happened since his arrival on Apokolips to the woman who would soon be the only survivor of Apokolips, the drone that was recording the events was still transmitting everything to the disc. Alex opened a Rift to Earth, right outside the childhood home of Clark Kent who was visiting his family for the holiday, and projected the sound of a Boom Tube at the arrival point, he then casually tossed the injured woman through the portal.
"Now to get rid of this glorified lump of dirt." Alex knelt down and placed one hand on the ground, a pale glow spread from the point of contact, rapidly covering the crater and moving out over the rest of the planet, Alex sent the charge down to the core of the planet as well. Alex looked straight at the Observation Drone and smiled. "Happy Holidays!" With that the ultimate weapon disappeared, moments later Apokolips exploded. The drone finished it's recording, cut the link to the disc and Blinked back to Eden.
Okay, there was supposed to be at least twenty trips in this thing, but I got distracted and then I couldn't get to the computer, so this is all I've got; I also meant to post this yesterday.
If you have questions or complaints about anything here then just review it and if I can answer or respond then I will in the notes on the next chapter I post.
Hob the Festive Robot
