What an Ice Night

Cyrus had survived some pretty brutal fights before, and it was pretty rare for him to escape from battle completely unscathed. Abigail had taken to sitting outside and reading while waiting for Cyrus to show up, since the magic mirror teleported back to the exact same spot every time.

Of course, the she leapt from her seat and grabbed her medical kit the moment she saw all the blood, and rushed to Cyrus' side and applied medical aid as quickly as she could, making sure to apply a tourniquet to what was left of his right leg.

Of course, all the ruckus brought everyone out to see what was going on, but Abigail was too busy trying to patch up Cyrus to really respond to their panicked questions.

"Is he going to be alright?" Hell, Abigail wished she could answer that question. She started to pour a healing potion down his throat. Normally, she preferred to let the body heal naturally, as healing potions were stopgap solutions for healing in the middle of a fight, but this was urgent.

How could such a dainty girl cause so much damage? Acid burns and an impromptu amputation all in one fight? Of course, the armor was ruined, although Abigail cringed when she thought of how bad the damage would be if his armor was weaker. She really needed to get on his case about always getting the best possible armor before a fight, before he got himself killed.

Abigail vaguely wondered if someone else could design a prosthetic for him (it's not like they weren't lacking in experts in that department) but quickly got back to treating Cyrus. A prosthetic leg wouldn't be any good if Cyrus wasn't alive to use it.

After Cyrus's condition was stabilized and he wasn't in danger of bleeding out on the floor, he was carried to the sickroom along with their newest addition to the town, the green haired girl that had put up such an incredible fight.

Later that night, everyone in town with the exception of Cyrus and their strange new guest, were awakened when the relative silence of the night was shattered with a terrible scream in the distance.

"Is everyone alright?" Out of everyone, Abigail had reacted the fastest, medical training bringing her to high alert the moment she heard screaming.

Everyone else was a little less aware, but a series of murmured yeses left them all wondering the same thing: who screamed?

"So, does anyone have any idea where that scream might have come from? Everyone's here, so no one could have gotten attacked while they were out or something..."

"It totally came from the dungeon, dude."

"What makes you think that, Veronica?"

Veronica gave a smile and the ears on top of her head gave a gentle twitch. "Super sensitive fox hearing, bro!"

Abigail sighed. "So I suppose we'll have to investigate the dungeon sometime soon? Normally we'd send Cyrus for this sort of thing, but that scream sounded urgent, and he's going to be busy healing…"

"I volunteer to search the dungeon in Cyrus' stead." Francisca stepped forward, and Abigail cringed.

Knowing when a battle was unwinnable, she turned to their resident tailor. "Lacrima, you know your way around the dungeon, don't you?" Lacrima nodded. "Then please, keep Francisca from doing something stupid."

The dungeon was already a dangerous place on a good day, and being sleep deprived made it worse. Lacrima probably would have bumbled herself to death if Francisca wasn't there tearing apart anything that looked at her funny and casually blocking darts and traps with her metal arms.

It almost made her feel obsolete- in the same way that Francisca's previous boss form was a direct improvement when compared to Lacrima's old form, Francisca was more competent in a fight than just about anyone around her, with the possible exception of Cyrus. Meanwhile, all Lacrima could really do was sew well, and for all she knew Francisca had a sewing machine tucked away in somewhere. Of course, it wasn't Francisca's fault for being supremely competent, and Lacrima didn't blame her, but it also didn't make her feel much better.

Even her knowledge of the dungeon felt out of date now. The mysterious screams emanating from the depths of the dungeon had accompanied major changes in the enemies that prowled those terrible halls. The skeletons which patrolled the place had only grown fiercer and more well armed, and great haunted skulls floated through the walls to ambush them from behind.

Suddenly, there was a terrible cracking sound from behind her and she turned to see that Francisca had caught one of the skeletons in a literal vice grip before she threw it into a wall with a enough force to dissolve whatever forces kept the skeleton together. Francisca didn't even stop to check that the job was done and instead lunged at a particularly heavily armed skeleton, chainsaw roaring. Of course, this meant she didn't notice the strange spirit that rose from the bones of the dead skeleton, but before it could enact its vengeance on Francisca, Lacrima dispatched it with a flaming skull.

That was certainly new. The spirit, whatever it was, left behind a strange sort of essence that glowed light blue in the dark of the dungeon. Cautiously, Lacrima bottled the substance and went to follow Francisca.

The next door they found opened into a vast room, although only one enemy stood in the room waiting for them: a great figure in a massive suit of armor, gleaming gray with golden trim, and it carried a shield and hammer to match the armor.

Every step it took echoed through the brick halls of the dungeon, and in spite of the sheer size and presence of whatever was wearing the armor, there was nothing but inky blackness on the inside, darker than deepest cave and just as impersonal. The dungeon was already generally cold, dark, and damp, but something about the emptiness staring back at her from that helm… it sent chills down Lacrima's spine.

The ghostly Paladin lifted its hammer, and threw it with a speed that stunned Lacrima. If it was aiming for her, it probably would have landed, and Lacrima almost felt a little offended that the Paladin immediately decided that Francisca was the bigger threat. The hammer crashed into the wall with a terrible crunch, fragments of masonry flying through the air as Francisca leapt to the side, kicking off of a table and sending it skidding as she dashed towards the Paladin.

She turned her charge into a leap, hoping to throw the enemy off balance but the Paladin stopped her in her tracks with its massive shield, and Francisca barely managed to roll out of the way as the rim of the shield slammed down with tremendous force inches behind her. The Paladin lifted its hand, and Lacrima moved to the side as the hammer shifted its way out of the wall before soaring back to its wielder's gauntlet.

The Paladin's slow movements belied a terrible strength and speed, especially when wielding its weapons, and Lacrima experimentally sent a flaming skull towards its back. She knew that her skulls had more effect than normal weapons when it came to armor, but it still surprised her when it simply ate through the gleaming metal armor and exposed more of the inky black inside. Of course, the Paladin noticed her attack and turned to throw its hammer with tremendous speed. Lacrima dove out of the way and turned the motion into a roll as the Paladin let out an unearthly keen as its weapon flew back to its hand.

She summoned another skull into her hand as Francisca recovered on the other side of the room and charged for the new hole Lacrima had punched in the creature's armor. Together, they could probably win this.

After a particularly well placed shot by Francisca managed to land a bomb inside the Paladin's armor, the creature was done for, and as the set of armor fell to the floor, it left behind a tremendous hammer and a massive shield.

"So, what exactly do we do with these?"

Francisca stroked her chin, apparently deep in thought, and Lacrima idly wondered where she picked that particular quirk up from, or if it somehow came pre-programmed in?

"Both seem useful. Perhaps we could make use of them in future." Lacrima tried to lift the shield, key word being tried, before conceding and letting Francisca carry both as they traveled deeper into the dungeon.

The deeper they went, more spirits sprung from the remains of the defeated creatures, and Lacrima made sure to gather more of the ectoplasm they left behind- it might be useful for something, after all. Other than that, there wasn't much of interest in the dungeon other than the terrifying new enemies, and they still hadn't made any progress on finding the source of that mysterious screaming.

While pondering what could have possible caused all that noise, Lacrima was interrupted from her thoughts by the very same screaming as before, and she dashed towards the noise… only to find one of the many ghostly skulls that had started wandering the halls recently. After dispelling the creature with one of her own flaming skulls, Lacrima realized that the screaming was probably just one of these skulls who got a little too close to the surface.

It was a surprisingly simple answer, although she was still bitter that everyone (with the notable exception of Cyrus) had lost sleep over something so stupid.

Of course, nothing put a damper on on Christmas celebrations quite like a horrific mauling, but everyone tried to make the best of things in spite of that. It was something of an open secret that one of the gifts Cyrus would be receiving would be a prosthetic of some kind to make up for the loss of his leg, with both Judith and Meredith locked away to work on the thing.

The room that they had commandeered for said project was a complete mess, covered in whatever bits and bobs they thought might help create a substitute. Despite lots of talking with Francisca, Asta, and Tina, the resident experts on living with prosthetics, the way it was looking the leg wasn't going to be a perfect replacement in the same vein as the ones the ex-Mechanical Bosses had, and it seemed like Cyrus would be at a disadvantage in most upcoming fights unless he could stay in the air.

At the very least, Cyrus' new wings remained largely undamaged by the fight, although they certainly made him take up a lot more space in the sickroom. Medulla had apologized profusely once the full extent of the situation was realized: the wings were, at least in the short term, stuck on Cyrus, as they required conscious action on his part to take off.

They turned out to be something of a pain, even if they weren't melting onto the bedsheets. They made maneuvering around Cyrus a tremendous pain for rather obvious reasons, and if you tried to fold them up they made his back inaccessible. While the ice certainly made the wings look unique and almost ethereal, they also made the room much colder, and they had to pile blankets on top of Cyrus to keep him from getting too chilly during his recovery.

Lacrima was the village's main provider of clothes (other than perhaps Harold, but he had a little bit of everything) and she was proud of that, but she also liked experimenting with new designs. It was a shame that all of Cyrus' armor had to be made of metal, which she wasn't capable of working with. Brigandine or a gambeson, something where the armor integrated fabric elements, that was possible, but something like plate? No way.

Of course, that didn't stop her from giving it a shot. If you really tried, there were very few things you couldn't make armor out of in this world, and Lacrima was interested to see what she could with the strange ectoplasm that she recovered from the dungeon. It felt almost magical, and while her attempts to combine it with her silk failed, she felt that it was only one ingredient short from something interesting.

Her experimenting was interrupted when the door flew open and Francisca walked in without even knocking.

"Gahh! Could you please knock?" Francisca turned and rose her hand to knock on the opened door as Lacrima sighed. "You're supposed to knock before you enter a room, please try to remember that."

"I will endeavor to knock in the future, Lacrima. Are you in need of assistance? I find myself without much to do."

Lacrima sighed. Francisca really was right in that she didn't do much on the home front, and now that she thought it over, a helping hand wouldn't hurt, right? "Sure. Sit down, and I can show you the ropes."

"What ropes? All I see is fabric. Are you attempting to make it into a rope?"

"It's an idiom, meaning to teach someone how to do something." Francisca nodded and sat next to Lacrima, but when Lacrima turned back to her work she noticed that something strange was happening to her fabric and the ectoplasm. Seemingly aggravated by Francisca's presence, the fabric began to move by itself, forming a box-like shape as the ectoplasm burrowed into the silk, dying it bone white. When the process finished, something like a present sat before them, although the skull on the front certainly made it less cheerful.

Francisca looked to Lacrima. "Can you teach me how you did that?"

Lacrima groaned and held her head in her hands.

Eventually, the young woman who was once Plantera woke up to see Abigail and Bea sitting by her bedside, and she sat up as she looked around an unfamiliar room (that not she was familiar with any rooms) and noticed the curtains cordoning off a large portion of the room and the faint silhouette of wings within.

"Where, where am I?"

"You're currently in what passes for a hospital in this town. I'm Abigail and this is Bea. Could you tell us your name?"

The green haired girl managed to stand up on shaking legs. "I'm Aria." She gave a small smile which was partially hidden by her long mane of wild green hair, which fell down past her shoulders and matched the color of the long pleated skirt she wore, which came all the way down to her ankles.

Abigail took one look at her hair and sighed. "Let me introduce you to Roxanne…"

Aria objected fiercely to any attempts at cutting her hair, but did concede when Roxanne offered to braid it. With her grass green hair no longer a chaotic mess, Abigail gave led her out of Roxanne's little salon to give her a tour of the village.

As the pair left, Roxanne squinted as she looked at Aria's gently swaying braid. "Are those… flowers? I'll be damned, I certainly don't remember weaving any in…"

Aria practically wilted when walking between buildings in the cold, although the sunlight seemed to do her a lot of good. She quickly called dibs on the room with the biggest set of windows she could find.

"So… who else was in the sickroom with me? I mean I couldn't miss the curtains and the mysterious silhouette, you know."

Abigail cringed. "Do you remember what you were before you woke up in that bed?"

"I was… some sort of plant monster, I think? Then I got into a fight with someone…. oh. Oh."

Abigail nodded. "You'll meet Cyrus eventually, I'm sure. He keeps on getting knocked down, but always stands back up. It would almost be inspiring if I wasn't the one who had to stitch him back together."

Aria smiled. "So, are there more like me? I mean from what you said…"

"Before you, we had twelve different girls who came from as many monsters, although the Twins were a sort of package deal… Now that you're here, that makes a full baker's dozen of monster girls. There are also a few… well normal seems a little offensive to you girls, doesn't it? Mundane villagers wondering around town as well."

Especially once Aria had moved out, you could always find someone in the sickroom waiting for Cyrus to wake up, although who it was varied from day to day. Medulla would spend her time reading, usually alone, but sometimes she would drag someone along with her to discuss her reading with. Usually this someone would be either Cthylla or Annelida, but sometimes she would talk Lacrima's ear off while the other girl stitched away.

Whenever Annelida came into the room, eventually Ditra would find her way in as well, and the relationship between the two stayed chilly. Occasionally one of the Twins would rush in on an errand for Meredith and Judith and would start taking measures of Cyrus's stump before Abigail shooed them away.

Occasionally Visca and Regina would check in, usually together, and while the former would focus on Cyrus' injuries, the latter would focus on his wings. Even if they weren't quite as natural as her own pair, Regina couldn't wait to have someone else to talk to about flight (well of course there was Bea, but… a girl needed an excuse to start a conversation, right?).

For quite a few days, the strange present that Lacrima had made simply sat at her workstation, a consistent malignant presence that pushed Lacrima to find other places to work, like say the sickroom, even if she couldn't give a conscious reason for her choice.

If the present lingered at the back of Lacrima's mind, it slipped Francisca's mind completely, who focused on improving her skills in combat as much as she could. Sure, she could sense that there was something… off about the present, but it never really occurred to her that it was something unusual about that particular present. Who was she to say that all wrapped presents weren't actually evil? Besides, if it really was a problem, then someone would have handled it, so Francisca shrugged it off entirely.

Meanwhile, the present itself seethed with a foul aura, an aura that only grew stronger as the moon grew full and fat in the sky.

As the full moon approached, the town wasn't expecting much out of the usual. Board up the doors and windows, make sure to put Veronica somewhere where she wouldn't hurt anyone (or wreck the decorations) in her werefox form, although she proved to have a remarkable sense of self control in her animalistic form.

Of course, any chance of it being a normal night faded as the present finally gathered enough energy and burst with a sound like terrible laughter, and the Frost Moon rose, snow white and terrible.

Cyrus woke up and felt a chill. Of course, part of that was probably the giant icy wings strapped to his back, but there was a strange coldness in the air that sunk deep into his bones even if the room was well heated. Looking around, he saw Abigail walking over to check on him, even if she was fiercely shivering from the cold.

"Cyrus, it's good to see that you've finally woken up. You're going to have to stay in bed for quite a while longer, especially considering your…" She looked down at the foot of the bed.

He followed her gaze. "My what?" Looking down, he could see piles of blankets around his lower body, and he could follow the faint outline of his torso to the hips, but at the legs… it was like one of them was gone. He gasped as he remembered his fight with the strange plant monster of the jungles, and realized that the loss of his leg wasn't just some hallucination brought on by the heady jungle fumes.

"My leg! What happened to my leg?"

"It's gone, Cyrus, and the other one is so damaged by acid I can't say that you'll ever walk quite like you used to. In the short term you might even need a wheelchair to get around."

Cyrus had grown to expect that his mobility would only grow over time: from his first steps in the forest, to rocket boots and eventually wings, Cyrus felt he was constantly getting faster and stronger with time, and having that snatched away from him was terrifying. If one bad fight could- no, did actually manage to cripple him, how could he say he was well prepared to face whatever came next?

Looking outside, Cyrus could see that it was snowing, and while that certainly wasn't surprising given the time of year, there was something strange about the snowflakes, and as they twirled through the air he could almost see faces glaring at him, and he wondered for a moment if it was some trick of the light when an arrow sunk into the window sill, mere inches from soaring into the room.

Both Abigail and Cyrus froze, and they could faintly hear shouting from outside, along with the distinctive sound of Francisca's chainsaw. Cyrus tried to lift himself off the bed, but nearly fell over, unused to his body's new distribution of weight.

"Cyrus, you can't go out, you can barely walk!"

Cyrus gave a grin and pulled out his hook. "Then all I have to do is not touch the ground then."

"Don't you dare-"

Cyrus threw the hook and it sunk into the wall just above a window on the opposite side of the room, and Cyrus braced himself as the hook dragged him through the window and out into the cold night air. He could feel pain where shards of glass cut into his skin or the ice of his wings, but he recovered quickly and flew up to get a better view of the situation.

The town hadn't descended into chaos (at least not yet) but it was clear they had some unexpected company: shambling corpses dressed like Christmas elves, miniature elvish archers (presumably the source of the arrow that nearly flew into the sickroom), and even giant gingerbread men. It was like a strange parody of the Christmas holiday, although it landed somewhere between comedic and horrifying.

Obviously, Cyrus couldn't use his stormbow in the middle of town unless he wanted to spend the next few days repairing the roofs (or worse, trying to talk someone else through the process) and as such he drew Excalibur, tucked his wings behind his back and dove.

Almost like a falcon, Cyrus dove from the sky, eventually becoming a bright blur that swooped down into the ranks of holiday themed monsters and made a bloody tear in their ranks before flying high again. His armor certainly wasn't in proper condition to fight on the ground, and even in the sky he had to remain cautious in order to avoid arrows from the ground.

Back in the sky, he could see Francisca fighting a… was that a giant nutcracker? Cyrus was so stunned by that particular visual that he nearly got hit by an arrow, but shook his head and got back to dive bombing the holiday hordes terrorizing the town.

Suddenly, Cyrus' nostrils were filled with the scent of pine needles, and he could see a massive tree prowling the streets of the town, great branches serving as its arms while two bright red tree ornaments served as its eyes. For the second time in… well Cyrus didn't know how long he had been unconscious, but at least to him it felt like it had been mere minutes since he had fought another angry plant.

Cyrus dove, Excalibur gleaming in the air behind him, and struck with enough force to cut one of the creature's arms off. It turned with incredible speed, and Cyrus started to swerve to avoid the tree's raking claw when it was turned into ash by a flaming skull courtesy of Lacrima. Seizing the advantage, Cyrus delivered a flurry of blows with Excalibur, sending branches and Christmas baubles flying through the air. Eventually, after a significant trimming, the tree collapsed in on itself to reveal… a girl. Of course. Cyrus could only catch a few glimpses of her- long brown hair, a long green cape that covered most of her body, a pine bough in her hands- before he scooped her up in his arms and flew towards the nearing building with a flat roof. After carefully depositing her on the roof and shouting to the girls about her location, he got back to the fight.

The helicopters were definitely an inconvenience for Cyrus, given his dependence on flight for his combat strategy, but Cyrus dispatched most of them the moment he got close enough for Excalibur to do its work.

A more major threat to his air superiority came when he saw a massive figure, like a mix between a tank and a mech coming from the distance. It took a few moments for him to realize what exactly he was looking at, and he decided that this was a terrible introduction to Santa Claus, all things considered.

The Santa tank (Santank?) let out a spray of bullets at Cyrus, like some sort of anti air gun, and as he flew to get out of the way he could all sorts of terrible weapons on the thing's back. Racks of gleaming red missiles and throwers for presents (which Cyrus already knew were bad news, even if he couldn't tell what exactly was dangerous about them).

Of course, with all those long range weapons… it would be a shame if someone got too close for them to be effective, wouldn't it? Cyrus grinned and dove in close, putting all his weight and speed from the dive behind a massive strike to the mechanical monstrosity's face, although he definitely didn't expect the entire thing to sheer off, revealing a metallic skull that glared at him with amber eyes.

Cyrus stuck close to the creature, striking at its treads and joints to slow down the already sluggish machine, making sure to dodge the occasional spiked ball that bounced off the ground. With such a small distance between them, dodging its ranged weapons became a non issue, and Cyrus managed to whittle away at the thing until it collapsed as well.

The girl inside the tank-mech thing fell into a snowbank which cushioned her fall and also happened to match the color of her hair perfectly. She wore a long red dress with white trim (almost like one of those Santa hats the girls had gotten their hands on, but as a dress) that was very, ahh… low cut. Cyrus picked the girl up and dropped her off on the same roof as last time, wondering if he was fortunate enough to only face two bosses tonight.

Of course, Cyrus never knew when to stop testing his luck, and he groaned when he saw the newest enemy he would have to face. She (because it certainly seemed like a she) was formed entirely from ice with a mostly human looking body from the waist up and strange sort of crystalline structure forming her lower half. She had wings, although they were attached to the arms almost like a sugar glider as opposed to the more birdlike wings that Cyrus had.

She was incredibly fast, moving across the sky in confusing patterns while sending great gouts of ice cold wind into the air. Cyrus' icy wings weren't quite a match for whatever magic propelled the creature through the air, but his hook made up for it and let him dodge of out of the way of the cutting blasts of air. It was hard to keep up, but every once and while Cyrus' hook would land and he would be able to pull himself in to strike.

Eventually, the town started to shrink below them as Cyrus and the Ice Queen continued to ascend into the air, and Cyrus was definitely the worse for it- his breathing quickened to make up for the thin air and his wings beat hard to keep him up in the air, but the Ice Queen was bleeding now, a thin bluish fluid that froze in the air, sending crystals flying through the air.

Eventually, he struck the creature down, and the body disintegrated into a great plume of snow, leaving behind a pale-skinned girl with hair and clothes like blue ice. Immediately, she started to fall, and Cyrus dove to catch her before trying to get his descent under control, managing to turn a dive into a great gyre that circled the village and gave Cyrus the scenic view as he carried the girl down to the ground.

Cyrus dropped their newest guest into Francisca's waiting arms and started looking for the nearest bed, knowing full well that Abigail would force him to get some rest if he didn't get to it himself.

Dramatis Personae:

Cyrus: the player character, harem protagonist

Cthylla: ex-Eye of Cthulhu, in relationship with Cyrus

Annelida: ex-Eater of Worlds, in relationship with Cyrus

Medulla: ex-Brain of Cthulhu, in relationship with Cyrus

Visca: still insists on being called King of the Slimes

Bea: ex-Queen Bee

Lacrima: ex-Skeletron, clothier replacement

Andrea/Andi: ex-Wall of Flesh

Asta: ex-Spazmatism

Tina: ex-Retinazer

Francisca: ex-Skeleton Prime

Regina: ex-Queen Slime

Ditra- ex-Destroyer

Aria: ex-Plantera

Nissa: the Dryad

Veronica: the Zoologist

Meredith: the Mechanic

Abigail: the Nurse

Judith: the Steampunker

Roxanne: the Stylist

So why is Plantera named Aria? It's ya boi Taxonomy back it again. Snapdragons, a plant that bears a remarkable similarity to Plantera, were once in the family Scrophul-aria-ceae. Veronica would have also worked due to different reasons, but that was the Zoologist's name so RIP. I'm imagining Aria's outfit as something like a seifuku, a Japanese school uniform, but of the long-skirted, sukeban/delinquent girl variety.

So that's all the buildup for that classic, the Christmas special. I hope to get it out before the holiday itself. After that, the next trope I really plan on indulging in is the beach episode, which is going to be around Fishron. It's going to be soon, but I might fit in a Golem or Empress chapter first.

As always, tell me what you think!