It was dark and cold outside, but the streets were kept lit up with the decorations outside the houses on the streets.
It was the Christmas season, and everyone was out and about, getting ready for the holidays.
Of course, tonight, the streets were almost empty, with a few people in the houses, one of whom was a young Glaceon in the living room.
Kim Lockhart was a relatively nice girl who loved Christmas, mainly because of all the snow around during the season.
Her family was incredibly wealthy, so they lived in a big fancy house, where they contained her grandfather's big fortune, destined to be given to her once he passed.
The previous day, her husband went out to the next town to help his friend find the perfect Christmas tree for his friend's family, but later, she got a call from him saying that there was a huge blizzard that blocked off their path home, so it would be a few days until they could get back home.
This meant Kim had the house to herself for a while, which she was fine with.
She often spent some time in the house watching TV, and tonight, she was watching one of her favorite childhood movies: Home Alone.
The film told the tale of a young boy who is accidentally left home alone by his family (hence the name) during the Christmas season, leaving him to defend the house from two bumbling crooks.
Experiencing the film's events in real life wouldn't go as well as the film, but she loved it, especially the third act, which saw the crooks fall into a series of traps that left them with hilarious injuries.
She was laughing her way through said act when she received a notification on her phone…
[SYSTEM DEACTIVATED]
Kim was shocked, she didn't do any of this, so who did?
Looking out the windows, she saw the cause of everything: a van parked outside, with a Lucario, a Zoroark, and a Gengar standing near it.
The three of them were known by the media as The Phantoms of the Night, real names, Henry Dugan (Lucario), Lester Ramirez (Zoroark), and Walter Scott (Gengar), a trio of criminals who reportedly robbed 15 houses across the country, and now they were here, and chose her house.
"Oh Arceus, this can't be good," Kim thought to herself, "They must've learned about Grandpa's fortune!"
She wanted to call the cops, but she was afraid that since the crooks outside her house hacked her phone to turn the security system off, they might leave her unable to call 911 too.
While trying to come up with a plan, she looked back at her TV, and saw the moment in Home Alone where the kid struck the two crooks he was dealing with in the face with paint cans.
This made her realize something: she could do the same to protect her house from the Phantoms!
If the kid could do it, she could too!
Of course, the traps he used only worked because the crooks were stupid, but the Phantoms were smart, so she would have to get smart too.
She spent a couple of minutes preparing traps, and once she had everything taken care of, the Phantoms were at the fence outside.
It was time.
Standing outside the fence, the crooks were trying to scout an easy way into the house.
"Okay, what if we take the windows?" Henry suggested.
"Nah, that seems a bit obvious," Lester said, "I scouted the place out a few days ago posing as a newspaper salesman, and I noticed that the front door is electronically locked,"
"Perfect! We can just go in there!" Walter declared, "We hacked the system, anyway,"
"Smart thinking, Walter," Henry said.
What the three didn't realize was that the fence had an electrical wire tied to it, and it could easily be switched on from the house by Kim.
All this, combined with the fact that the crooks were clutching the fence with their hands meant that they would be electrocuted if the wire was switched on.
Surely enough, that's exactly what happened.
After the three of them recovered from their initial shock, they wondered what might've happened.
Eventually, they forgot about it and hopped a wall around the back, before heading to the front door.
Surely enough, Walter's hacking skills made going through the door as easy as running downhill.
Once they were in the main hall, they formulated a plan.
"Alright, Lester, you and I will search the kitchen, Walter, check the living room," Henry said, before the Phantoms split up.
Walter made his way towards the living room, and when he reached the door leading to it, he started to turn it.
What he didn't know was that on the other side of the door was a live electrical cable with the wires exposed, and it was propped up near the conductive metal doorknob, which had 5 inch iron nails welded to it.
When Walter turned the knob, the nails made contact with the exposed wires, completing the electrical circuit, and shocking Walter, who collapsed to the floor in a daze.
Henry and Lester walked to the kitchen, and noticed two doors, one leading to the dining room, and the other leading to another hall.
"Alright, two paths to take here," Henry noted, "And I'm not seeing anything valuable here,"
"We should split up," Lester suggested, "You head to the dining room, I'll head into the hall,"
They both went their separate ways for now, not realizing the traps awaiting them.
Looking through the cameras in the safety of her bedroom, Kim saw Lester approach a part of the hall where she set up a remote activated fan, with a rope tied around one of the blades, connecting it to a large pot of boiling hot water.
When she activated the fan remotely, it turned, pulling off the pot, just as the unaware Zoroark walked right underneath the shelf, causing him to get hit in the head, and doused with scalding hot water.
His screams of agony could be heard from Kim's room, just like Henry's screams, as he just got hit in the head with a bucket of water that was wired to a car battery, drenching him, and shocking him as well.
Once Henry recovered from his shock, he met back up with the burned and wet Lester, and returned to the dining hall, where Walter had arrived.
"Henry, Lester, what happened?!" Walter asked, "I heard you screaming!"
"Well, I got hit with a pot of boiling hot water!" Lester told him, "Look at me!"
"Yeah, I got hit with a bucket of water, but it was electrified," Henry said.
"Well, you're not alone there," Walter told his allies, "Someone electrified the front door, and I got shocked,"
As the trio were explaining what happened, they failed to notice a small helicopter flying into the room.
The helicopter was Kim's favorite childhood toy, having gotten it for Christmas when she was 8.
She was good at flying it, and was always careful, but now, all the safety warnings were about to be disregarded, as the Phantoms never saw the helicopter until Henry received a cut on his arm.
The helicopter flew all across the room, dive bombing and harming the Phantoms, who did everything they could to avoid the toy, with no such luck.
Eventually, after a couple of attacks, the trio managed to destroy the helicopter with their crowbars.
Playing with that helicopter was a lot of fun, but it looked like those days were over.
Regardless, Kim had a stash of fireworks with her, and she knew how to use them.
She took a firework from the box, and a lighter, before making her way to the stairs.
Looking down them, she could see into the garage, where Lester was in, the walk-in closet, where Henry was in, and the walk-in freezer, where Walter was in.
She was eager to do some firework actio, but didn't want to start a house fire, so she decided to fire the rocket at Walter, as since he was in the freezer, it wouldn't start a fire.
She lit the fuse, ran back a bit, and…
[KABOOM!]
The firework went off, and struck the freezer, causing a mass explosion that got Walter.
From what the horrified Henry and Lester saw when they ran into the freezer, Walter was badly burned, and part of his body was blown off by the explosion.
What's worse is that some icicles dropped down from the ceiling, and struck Walter in some of his wounds, and when Henry and Lester tried to speak to him, he never responded.
In other words, Walter was dead.
"Oh Arceus! Walter!" Henry cried when he saw Walter's corpse.
"Seems like someone's still here," Lester said, "We have to find them!"
"What?! Lester, our friend was killed! If we try to fight fire with fire, we're gonna die!" Henry said.
"Relax, the defender can't possibly have any more fireworks with them," Lester said.
"Yeah, I guess you're right," Henry said.
The two remaining crooks rushed upstairs, where Kim was waiting for them, armed with her husband's Airsoft pistol.
She fired metal ball bearings at the two of them, causing them harm when the BBs struck them fast and hard.
"What on earth?! What's with the gun, lady?! You could have shot an eye out!" Henry yelled at her.
"I heard that line enough times from A Christmas Story to know that, but at least I was careful!" Kim said, before running further upstairs.
She ran into the hall, firing more BBs at Henry and Lester when they arrived, forcing them into a walk-in closet.
When they ran in, they slipped on a pile of peanut oil left on the floor, and slid across the closet, right into a cabinet with three bowling balls on top of it.
The balls fell down, and the crooks sustained some bad injuries, but still, they pressed on.
"Alright, where are you, you maniac?!" Lester called out.
"I'm up here!" Kim called from the attic, prompting the duo to climb the ladder and head up there.
When they arrived, Lester noticed something on the floor.
It was a hinge glass type cabinet with a lock on it, and inside was a pillow, with a large ruby on top of it.
"Henry, look!" He said, directing the Lucario's attention to it.
"Woah, is that a ruby?!" Henry asked.
"Yep, it is!" Lester said, walking towards it, only for suspicion to arise from Henry.
"Hold on, that Glaceon is up here, remember? What if that's a trap?!"
"Relax, I'm sure she wouldn't dare do anything reckless with a ruby," Lester insisted, preparing to remove the glass with a screwdriver.
What he didn't realize was that the pillow and ruby were covering up something else: a bear trap that Kim's husband owned.
As a result, once Lester got the glass off, and reached in to pick up the ruby, he accidentally triggered the trap, which tore into his arm.
The two crooks panicked as Lester unwittingly tore off part of his arm trying to get free.
As he was shrieking in agony, waving his bloody stump everywhere, he stumbled back towards the hatch, and fell down into the hall again.
His leg got caught in between some steps on the ladder, and he fell eight feet to the ground, and hit his head.
The red mane of fur on his head didn't help soften the blow, and he left his bag of tools on the floor when he went up.
As a result, he was killed by serious brain damage, sending him on a one way trip to Hell, where he belonged.
Of course, Henry never got a chance to see if he was okay, as Kim stepped out of the shadows, armed with a weed killer torch, which she fired in his direction.
The flames didn't reach him, but it still horrified him greatly.
"Alright, that's it! I'm not staying in this place anymore! I'm getting out of here!" Henry cried, before running towards the attic window, and climbing out.
What he didn't know was that the ledge he was standing on was sawed into by Kim, and when he stepped on it, it broke off, and he lost his grip, resulting in him falling several stories to the ground.
The police arrived at that moment, ready to arrest the crooks, not realizing their fates.
A quick search of the house allowed the cops to find the Phantom's bodies, with Kim not realizing that they were dead.
Plus, Henry had landed right on the stairs outside, and hit his head, putting him in a coma.
As the bodies were taken away, and Henry was rushed to the hospital, Kim was arrested for two murders, and attempted murder.
That's what happened to her, or at least that's what I was told.
I've never really learned the truth behind these prisoner's stories, what warden would even do something like that.
THE END