Icon of Santa
Pepper's eyes went wide with horror as the chains restraining Krampus twisted and deformed until they snapped. The Doom Slayer however had not frozen in place and danced around the satyr-like demon in a deft and dazzling display firing off his super-shotgun over and over again. Pepper could see rivers of blood emerging from beneath the dense brown fur of the angry demon who turned on the Doom Slayer with fire in his mouth.
A plume of brilliant blue flame leaped from the demon's mouth cascading forward toward the Slayer or rather toward where the Slayer had been. He was always on the move but even as he dodged each fireball, even as every swing of Krampus clawed hands came up empty, the Slayer was losing more and more ammunition and seemingly barely putting a dent in his opponent.
Pepper looked up high above the arena to a bunker-like structure. That was where Mrs. Claus sat in comfortable safety watching the blood-sport below as the demonic crowd cheered on their champion. The once loyal half-elf wife of Santa himself had masterminded this whole thing, betrayed her husband and the spirit of Christmas and become something truly hideous. She had to be stopped.
As the Doom Slayer spun around her she glanced up at him. She could see the blue fire reflected in the soldier's visor and found herself forced to keep pace with the towering man as the scorching heat of the fireball filled the air around her. The shockwave blasted the both of them forward, tumbling uncontrollably across the arena.
Pepper dusted herself off.
"I have to get to her," she said offering the Doom Slayer a hand and struggling to help the man up – he seemed to weigh a ton, "She's the one controlling all of this. I think I can find a way up there but I need you to handle things down here."
The Slayer nodded and cracked his knuckles. The Slayer walked back into the fray as Krampus howled, rattled his chains, stomped his feet.
Krampus' display of strength and ferocity did nothing to dissuade or strike fear into the heart of the Slayer. He had defeated foes far bigger than this one. He had faced hordes of impossible numbers and come out on the other end. Krampus growled deeply and whipped his chain forward nearly hitting the Slayer but still he strode forward. The second chain came for his face and the Doom Slayer caught it in his hand. Krampus screamed with rage pulling the chain whip tight and launching the Doom Slayer toward his waiting sharp-toothed maw.
With no ammunition the Doom Slayer did the only thing he could as he hurtled uncontrollably toward the demon's foul breath and razor teeth, he punched forward. His armored fist struck the mouth first shattering a tooth painfully as the rest of his body hit. Even as he yowled with pain Krampus chomped down on the Doom Slayer but the scaled armor did not break or budge. Half way in the creature's mouth the Slayer pounded away at teeth and gums eventually chipping off a sharp enough fragment of tooth to use it as a sort of blade.
Krampus was angry and in that anger the Doom Slayer realized he might have sealed his own fate as he watched a single indigo spark of flame growing at the base of the creature's throat. Soon he found himself expelled, flying through the air once more followed by a wall of azure fire. The Slayer tumbled feeling the heat distort his visor. He could feel the heat cooking him even as the fire around him dissipated. He stood but soon found himself on the ground as a heavy chain knocked him over the head.
Now he was pissed. He dodged the next chain swing and the next readying his weapon of choice. The whole arena cheered and gasped as the weapon sang its song, a song that had filled many demonic hearts with fear. Krampus chuckled, an almost painful guttural sound. The demon was bleeding from a dozen shotgun blasts and now blood ran down its mouth from missing teeth and lacerations. Even as the Slayer's armor still steamed from being blasted with fire he believed he had the upper hand and as Krampus chain wrapped around his ankle and pulled him toward the beast he knew he had it.
The slayer used one hand to spin himself around. Even as the chain whip lifted him off the ground and slammed him into the ground on the other side he was using his body to wrap the chain around him. Krampus claw came out to hit his face, the Slayer's chainsaw removed those claws and the fingers they were attached to. Krampus howled with agony as the Doom Slayer tried in vain to cut the chain that bound him around the waist.
Krampus whipped the chain up into the air coughing up a fire ball. The demon looked up feeling the chain snap tight as the fireball engulfed the man. The smug snarling face of Krampus soon turned into one of absolute terror as down through the flames the man descended and the demon's face was met with the mechanical teeth of the chainsaw. Soon the demon;s fierce growl was reduced to a dying whimper as the chainsaw ate through bone splitting the skull in two. The lifeless body of Krampus twitched one last time before falling to the arena floor with a deafening thud.
The crowd fell silent and looked upon the Doom Slayer with fear. He had defeated their champion, with steam still rising from his scorched armor and not a single bullet left for his shotgun, he had been the victor.
Pepper used the silence moving into the observation chamber and making short work of the first two elf-demons to attack her. More moved to intercept as she unleashed her peppermint plasma onslaught dodging projectiles and physical attacks alike. She fell back on her shotgun as the plasma rifle overheated blasting the head from a demon's shoulders as it scratched her deeply on the arm. Another one managed to get in close biting her on the side, causing blood to gush from her as she stabbed it repeatedly with a sharpened cane-knife.
Down on one knee she heard something from the chamber beyond, an order was barked loudly followed by the sound of spider-legs scuffling. She steeled her nerves as the door hissed open and the mutated maw of Mrs. Claus clamored into the room carried not by an adorably plump set of legs but by the eight grotesque spider-like appendages.
A siren of seasonal bells stole the silence of the arena. Ironically as the Christmas bells chimed dozens of doors around the arena were swinging open with demons emerging from every one of them.
Spectral pinky demons, imps, and lost souls came screeching out first forcing the Slayer into an early retreat as he dodged their projectiles. The lost souls were the worst of all, screaming skulls possessed of demonic energies that burned in the form of phantom flames and which, when unleashed in a forward charge of rage and fury, caused them to explode on impact.
Other demons were lumbering into the fray now, including several Hell Knights no longer constrained by the height restrictions of the elven tunnels and one very angry demon at the center with a demonic mark burned beneath it. A Summoner.
The Doom Slayer had to act quickly. He shimmied past the Specters stopping to bash the skulls of two imps together as he deftly dodged the fireball of another imp. He danced around a Hell Knight managing to get it burned to a crisp by the green elemental energy of another massive combatant to come stomping into the arena. Crashing it's way through the walls of the arena and other demons alike the Baron barreled forward headfirst.
The Slayer let the distraction aid him as the Summoner teleported to a point behind him somewhere, trying and failing to burn him with a wave of demonic energy. The ancient marine turned then hearing the scream of a lost soul resound behind him. Instead of diving out of the way he leaped as high as he could in the air and grabbed at the bony surface of his demonic foe. The fiery skull burned his armor sending shockwaves of pain through his nervous system as he got to his feet.
The Doom Slayer surfed the explosive skull as it took him to his destination, the snarling maw of the spellbound Summoner who shrieked as it tried, and failed, to teleport away in time before the lost soul exploded. The Slayer leaped just before the blast, which, despite leaving him deafened for a moment, did very little true damage to the Summoner. It didn't matter, the Slayer already had his weapon up and was moving. The Summoner was trying to phase out of reality, to teleport away from danger, but the Slayer was already flaying it, carving through chest, neck and shoulder until it's upper body fell lifelessly to the Colosseum floor.
Something hit him then, he felt a tusk digging powerfully between his armor plates as the Pinky drove it's porcine face against his back. Now he was being pierced by those tusks, they lifted him off the ground as the creature threw him across the arena to where an angry Hell Knight waited. After a few fists to the face from the Hell Knight the Slayer wasn't sure where or who he was and the third punch, a powerful uppercut, actually caused him to lose consciousness for a few seconds as he hurtled through the air.
He collapsed into the stands with a loud crunch listening as the crowd around him cheered and moved in readying themselves for the final blow. It would never come. He stood up with visor cracked and armor oozing blood and lifted the secret weapon from his back watching it unfold in his hand from the size of a simple chocolate chip cookie into a sinister smoldering weapon with a barrel as long as his entire body.
Pepper peppered the spider-demon with a few quick bursts of the plasma rifle narrowly avoiding another barrage of seemingly endless snow-globe grenades. Glass shrapnel and bright flashes made most of the room around her deadly but she'd managed to set up several safe spots as the two played cat and mouse in the relatively cramped quarters.
She was sheltered behind a metal table and fiddling with her plasma rifle, she knew there must be more to it than a conventional weapon. A spider-leg slammed into the table thrusting it aside and leaving her exposed as she finally figured it out launching the secondary fire and leaving Mrs. Claus twitching and stunned allowing her to get off several more shots on her weak points.
Pepper acted quickly then, catching sight of a glint of light, an non-detonated snow-globe. With Mrs. Claus beginning to regain her ability to move Pepper grabbed the grenade and rolled beneath the bloated thorax of the demonic Mrs Claus leaving the globe behind and turning with expert academy accuracy to shoot the snow-globe as she dodged out of the way of leg-swipe.
The Slayer was glancing up then, noticing the explosion, followed by a scream coming from the observation booth and several smaller explosions. Within his helmet the Slayer smiled. He pulled the trigger then, watching the energy pulse collate the end of the weapon, arcing and spiraling with red and green energy before launching forward into the arena below.
A hush fell over the crowd then, followed by a sudden and violent rumbling, the arcs of jade electricity mixed with the crimson ones, like deadly tendrils they decimated the demons in the arena below before chaining together and climbing out into the demon-elves that made up most of the crowd. They started running but for some it was too late. Soon the night was silent.
From above the Doom Slayer saw Mrs Claus, bleeding from a dozen wounds, as she leaped from on high and landed in the arena below not to find a mass grave of gore-soaked demon parts but instead to find a foot of freshly fallen snow. Several of her legs were injured but she rose up all the same, revealing the twisted cybernetic creature's true form, her skull had grown massive, brain matter protruding from it as she lurched toward the Slayer.
"You two think you can just end Christmas? You think that impotent husband of mine can really keep the mortals in check with promises of toys and candy? Even now they cause a mass extinction that threatens even us! The forces of Christmas must have allies, we must wage war, we must-"
The Doom Slayer pointed the Big Fucking Cookie right at her face as Pepper burst into the arena. The tiny freckled elf was clearly hurt as she limped forward and began charging the secondary fire of her plasma candy-cane.
"Tell us how to undo this you bitch!" Pepper shouted, "These elves were my friends, they had families, some of them were centuries old and you threw it all away for more power? For a war we could never win against beings that are not our enemies!"
"Santa was the first to make a deal with them," Mrs. Claus tried to plea.
"He was a fool," Pepper nodded in agreement, "but you? You are a monster. Now!"
"No!" the Mastermind screamed, one of her half-functioning spider-legs swept out to try to kill Pepper only for it to hit the young elf's face as an icy puff of snow as the red and green energy bolt disintegrated her.
"It's kind of festive," Pepper remarked as the last of the energy danced colorfully through the frosty air, "If a bit anti-climactic."
"I hate to cut the victory party short," a voice suddenly blared over the intercom, "but we're not out of the woods yet."
"Harold?" Pepper asked searching for the source of the voice.
"I've been doing some hacking from this tomb you guys saw fit to lock me in. I think I've figured out a way to reverse the hell wave and get some of our people back, although the transformations won't all be very pretty. And it looks like I might have found out where he is, the big man I mean and you're not gonna like this."
"Let me guess," Pepper smirked sardonically, "You're about to tell us to go to hell."