Marinette rose from her crouch, hands balled in to fists. She was angry. She was afraid. She smiled.
"Gabriel," she said, taking a step towards him. "May I call you Gabriel?" She didn't wait for him to reply.
She glanced back at Adrien but he lay there looking for all the world as though he were fast asleep.
"You see, Gabriel, you just made a fatal error. See my partner there? The one you just knocked unconscious? Well that was your mistake." She stepped forward again, her yo-yo clasped in her fist. "Because you can hurt me, but if you hurt him, then I will not stop. I will keep fighting until I have defeated you. And I will defeat you. You can count on that."
Then she flew into action. Using her yo-yo as a shield against the whip she ran forward. Every training session with her mother came to mind. Every mistake she made that had her flat out on her arse, losing her shield, losing her weapon, all of it was because she had no confidence in herself. She never thought that she could win and so she didn't. But now, she didn't need to have confidence in herself. Adrien did. Adrien trusted her to have his back. She was still afraid but mostly she knew that if she fell now it wasn't just her that would end up battered and bruised. She wouldn't be the only one to suffer. She had to fight. Fight for Adrien. Fight for the children. Fight for Christmas.
Back and forth like a dance they attacked and defended. Marinette leapt and flipped with a grace and dexterity she didn't know she was capable of.
"You're a fool, child," he called. His face contorted angrily as again and again he lashed at her, the whip coming in too close for comfort more than once. She wouldn't come out of this fight unscathed but neither would he as she hit him again and again.
A groan sounded behind her. It was soft, almost undetectable but she heard it, her eyes darting over to Adrien once again and in that moment she let her guard down.
The whip came around her ankles and she hissed at the sharp sting and when he pulled it back towards him she crashed to the ground and cried out in pain. The wind was completely knocked out of her and her head was swimming, the room around her spinning. She fought for breath and then he was there. So much for her grand speech.
He had her. There was nowhere left for her to go. She was completely alone. Pinned to the ground he had one arm across her throat, cutting off her air. She could hear the blood pumping through her veins, the beat of it loud in her head. Gasping, she grappled with his arm but it was a steel vice. She couldn't move it. She cursed herself for making such a foolish mistake. She was always making mistakes.
Giving up on the arm she reached instead above her head where her yo-yo lay on the floor. If she could only get it then maybe...
From her vantage point she could just make out Adrien's prone body. His hand twitched. Or maybe she was just seeing things.
"Adrien..." she wheezed, black starting to creep into the edge of her vision. He twitched again.
But then the pressure on her throat eased off slightly. Or was this dying? The gradual relief from pain until there was nothing left?
She took a gasping breath. Alive.
"Adrien!" she called again, louder this time. And now there was no mistaking it, the Krampus pulled back. His arm was still across her, it was almost impossible to move but she was no longer struggling for breath.
"Adrien," he muttered, his eyes no longer on her but on the blonde boy by the tree. Crap. She had used his real name. The Krampus looked confused, his eyebrows furrowing, his slitted pupils dilating a fraction. Adrien groaned, his head rolling to the side. The gash there from earlier looked painful but at least it had stopped bleeding.
Looking between them now, an idea came to her.
"He has his mother's eyes," she said and his head whipped down to look at her. It was almost as if he forgot she was there. "Her smile too. Such a beautiful smile, don't you think?"
Somewhere outside church bells began to ring. Their cheerful chime cut through the tension and Adrien started to stir. Midnight. It was Christmas Eve.
"You know, ever since I was a child, I've known that I will someday be Santa." The Krampus' eyes widened and then narrowed but he didn't say anything. "I've sometimes thought about what it would be like, if I could have just been a normal girl without anybody's expectations. If I could have had a carefree childhood and done what I wanted to do with my life. I think Adrien was like that, too. And that's why he wrote a letter to Santa. He's not a child any more and still, he wrote to ask to become an elf. It was something that he wanted, free from expectation."
He looked back over at Adrien who's eyes were starting to open now but he stayed laying still. She hoped he was listening, too.
"But I've realised now that you can't run away from your responsibilities. That doesn't mean I have to stop doing the things I love, though. Adrien, he's destined to be the Krampus some day, just like I'm destined to be Santa. Our fates are intertwined. But is this what you really want for him? To be filled with hate, obsessed only with punishment, no joy in your life? Choosing this, letting your grief over your wife and losing your son dictate the kind of person you are going to be? You should have loved him more instead. Children will always need to find themselves separately from their parents. You shouldn't punish Adrien for wanting that. You need to let him go so that you can keep him. Otherwise he might never come back and you will have lost the only people in your life, forever."
He stepped away from her now and she sat up just as the last bell chimed. Purple lights surrounded him and when they cleared there was a man stood there. He had silver hair and was impeccably dressed, his back ramrod straight. Adrien stood up as well, carefully, touching the side of his head where a lump was beginning to form.
"Father?" he said, taking a staggering step forward.
Gabriel's poker face crumbled slightly.
"Plagg, claws in." Adrien was awash in green light. An exhausted Plagg flew over to Marinette and she held him carefully. He immediately fell asleep in her hands.
Adrien stepped forward again, limping slightly but stopped when Gabriel reached out towards him.
"How could you do this, father? I'm sorry that I can't be the perfect son that you always imagined and I'm sorry that you can't control everything and everyone in your life like you want to. I'm not you. I will never be you."
A flash of pain went across Gabriel's face but he controlled it, the mask slipping into place once again.
"I can't let you keep hurting people. We're going to take the elves back to the Pole and Christmas will happen with every child getting a gift. One day, I'll have to become the Krampus. Maybe it'll even be next year. For now, I'm going to be an elf." His leg buckled beneath him and he staggered but he flinched away when Gabriel reached out a hand.
"One day I might forgive you. One day I might even come back home, but it isn't today."
Gabriel stood stock still with nothing to say.
The light of the moon stuttered and Marinette dived at Adrien, knocking him out of the way as glass rained down from the smashed sky light. Ropes dropped down and a team of elves lowered themselves to the floor. They surrounded Gabriel, taking up stances.
Sabine stood facing him directly.
"Your time is up."