Superhero Adventures, UK Style

The team arrived back in England on the 23^rd of December.

The first thing they became aware of next morning was that they had become a marketing success in their short absence. Only the action figure ranges have made it into production on time for this Christmas, but they have proven to be a last minute hit. Their manufacturer had come up with the idea of creating a Superior Rex bad-guy figure by modifying an existing T-Rex figure in their 1:18 range already in production by attaching a cape to its back and painting the face and body so it (sort of) resembled the creature.  It gave the team figures a unique villain to battle, which increased sales.

Action figures had been produced in both 1:6 scale (12” fully articulated figures) and in the highly popular 1:18 (4”) scale, which proved to be a surprise hit. The plushies had hit production problems and would not be available on the toy stands until next year. It also meant that Sam’s plushie was the only one currently available in the UK.

They decided they would like to see the range for themselves. The nearest major toy-chain was E.B. Nezzer’s Toyland Store, which also had the largest toy store in the Country, at St. Hughes Shopping Precinct, in the Castle District of the city.

Although the store’s owner, Sir Stephen Crudge was unwilling to pay for an appearance, he made it clear that he would be happy to allow it and their figure manufacturer would love them to attend.

Sam did notice that he’d received a reply from his message he’d sent to the Bundesgarde about the missing German school children but decided that, since it had already waited this long, it wouldn’t be an issue if he contacted them back later and anyway, he really wanted to see their action figures.

The team made their way to St. Hughes, seeing adverts for the Wessex Experience and the Carpathian State Circus as well as lots of unique shops and stores, as well as Toyland on the way.

Although Toyland was the largest store and took up over a fifth of the shopping precinct, St. Hughes was renowned primarily for being built on top of the Wessex Experience, a world-famous museum and visitor attraction. This consisted of the well-preserved remains of some of the timber buildings of the Anglo-Saxon settlement of “Oxenaforda”, along with workshops, fences, animal pens, privies, pits and wells, together with durable materials and artefacts of the time that had been uncovered there, such as pottery, metalwork and bones. Unusually, wood, leather, textiles, and plant and animal remains from the period around 800 AD had survived, after being preserved in oxygen-deprived wet clay. In all, over 40,000 objects were recovered from the site. The trust subsequently recreated the excavated part of “Oxenaforda” on the site, peopled with animated figures, sounds and smells, as well as pigsties, fish market and latrines, with a view to bringing the Anglo-Saxon city fully to life using innovative interpretative methods. Unfortunately, it was now closed until the New Year.

When they walked through the precinct and saw the sheer size of Toyland they were amazed, though as soon as Akira saw the signs for the circus, he began joking that he could get his Kiki the Clown identity out again! Sam pointed out that anything Carpathian left him feeling nauseous and claiming their last encounter had left him with post-traumatic stress disorder. Akira still kept up his plea to see the Circus… This banter continued as they walked through the crowds who pointed, giggled or occasionally asked for autographs.

There was a small but very vocal protest outside the entrance to the store; the team approached one of them who explained that the reason for the protest was that Sir Stephen Croudge had originally advertised that 25% of his profits from the store in December would go to a local children’s charity. However earlier this week he had declared that he was unsatisfied with the level of publicity the donation agreement was producing and has withdrawn the offer.  Since this had never formally been agreed, despite it being heavily publicised, the charity didn’t have any means of enforcing the agreement.

Akira decided there and then that he would donate all of his profits from the merchandising sales to the charity and the team, after a short discussion, agreed to approach Bethany and Jimmy the Fish about donating the 1/3^rd of their fees already set aside for charitable purposes to them.

Perhaps they could also arrange to have a talk with Sir Stephen?

Inside Toyland, was some sort of Christmas grotto, though signed ‘Bad Santa’ – who was apparently Santa’s Naughty brother Cedric Claws and the queue of children and harassed parents seemed to be overseen by clown-like elves. Behind them, set on the roof, in the middle of the store was a giant antique automaton of a clock. obviously manually wound from the top floor, above a massive tower of toy robots!

The store had a large selection of superhero merchandise; with the Protectors and London Watch action figures being the most popular. Their merchandise range included a villain’s gallery, animated videos and calendars. Their own section, though the range was small, seemed to be doing remarkably well. Mace on her grav-bike was a top seller as was Sam, but the other figures were obviously selling well with teenagers in particular buying the 12” Banshee in full roar.

However, the most popular toys appeared to be a Fun-Time range made famous by the villain Toy Boy and produced by E.B.Nezzer Products Ltd. The toys were only available through their dedicated stores.

Fun-Time Toys was the manufacturing firm belonging to the Toy Boy from several years ago. Mary in particular remembered a Toy Boy on her world, a man cursed with a genetic disorder that left him trapped in the body of a child and who turned to murder before being arrested and finally dying in prison. Had the same happened here? She remembered that after his death there had been an attempt to try to cash in on his murderous artefacts only for the directors to be horribly and mysteriously murdered. The others remembered that Toy Boy on this world had been a murderer with height deficiencies who died in prison a couple of years ago but due to Akira and Sam’s lifestyles, their memories from that time were extremely vague.

Akira joked that perhaps Sam wanted a ‘toy boy’ for Christmas.

Many of the toys looked cheaply made and checking the labels confirmed that they had obviously been purchased with a large mark-up from China.  Sir Stephen was obviously keener on his profit margin than he was about quality, unlike their merchandise.

This line of toys were based on some of Toy Boy’s more infamous designs and exploits, which has received a lot of admittedly bad publicity for encouraging naughty behaviour in children. The gruesome toys were proving to be extremely popular and a major hit with the children in the store.

These ‘must have’ toys had been made to resemble Toy Boy’s most famous creations.

These included the Blinder winder which resembled a slinky that lashed out at the children when the timer activated, the Kidnap Archie (who threatened to kidnap and kill all of their little sisters Barbie’s), exploding train sets complete with fall apart, injured and maimed passengers, chocolate exploding dog poo, acidic puke (designed to only dissolve plastic). The most popular of all was the Deceptioncon robots that converted from a robotic-looking Santa into a killer robot that was supposed to ‘explode’ when a timer in their belly went off.

They approached the customer service desk and asked to Speak with Sir Stephen but were told that although he was in his office in the store, he was apparently too busy to meet with them today; perhaps they could make an appointment? Say, for the end of January or early February?  They seemed unaffected by the team’s status.

As they wandered around, they realised that unlike the normal Santa grotto, and in a blow to tradition, Sir Stephen Croudge had employed a “Bad Santa” and his evil clown elves for each of his stores this year. Despite protests from some, a lot of children and their parents were queuing up to be assaulted with water pistols and nerf guns by the mini clowns and then insulted by Santa’s naughty little brother, the naughty, potty-mouthed Cedric Claws before being given presents that had obviously not been big sellers over the previous year.

Sam joked, “Akira, do you want to go and see Santa?” Akira admitted to not believing in Santa to which Sam starting saying they needed to head to the North Pole for Akira’s sake. Then they starting joking about doing a visit on Sir Stephen with Akira disguised as Christmas Past, Sam as Christmas Present and Banshee as Christmas Future! It was left to Mace to point out that as Sir Stephen was selling their figurines he might not be so easily fooled. She was also worried about the team being commercialised.

They decided to approach Bad Santa and the grotto staff first and Akira was persuaded to use the Illusions of Idolon to change his appearance into that of Sir Stephen, though since he had no idea what he sounded like he decided to act as though he’d lost his voice and communicate by notes. Sam went into Chameleon mode so he could eavesdrop. Akira pushed through the crowds; the clown-elves stopping their attacks on the crowd until he passed and there in front of him, scrawling on a throne was a fat man with a scrawny beard and wearing a string vest, Santa trousers and scuffed knee-high boots – Cedric Claws! Akira, as Sir Stephen, explained about the lost voice and ‘asked’ how everything was going.

The actor immediately demanded to know what Sir Stephen was doing about the threatening note he’d received. Sir Stephen wrote that he wanted to read it ‘again’ and the obscenity of a Santa handed over  a piece of crisp, pristine parchment which read, “Claus, my dear old friend, you are a thief, a traitor, a slanderer, a liar, but worst of all you are a mockery of everything for which I stood. You have sung your last ho, ho, ho, for I am coming to take your head. I am coming to take back what is mine, to take back Yuletide…”

Akira wrote in reply, “The Balance is in the building.” The actor replied, “have you employed them to protect me? I personally think this threat is serious, that someone is out to get me for this idea of yours to market Bad Santa’s… I’m genuinely scared!”

Akira again wrote, “Don’t get your string vest in a knot, these guys are amazing.” That seemed to calm him down and again Akira ‘asked’ how everything was going and was told that they’d have some really naughty children in, including one who wasn’t happy at the gift he received on leaving Santa’s Grotto and tried to stab his mum with a potato peeler. After a short ‘discussion’ about how the store had reacted Akira ‘asked’ about the profits… which almost gave the game away as ‘Cedric’ was surprised that he wasn’t asking his floor managers for the information instead. The talk quickly changed to talking about the children’s presents before Akira headed back to the Balance.

They discussed who might have written the threatening note and Mary remembered that Toy Boy in her world had a bit of a fixation about the holidays. In the meantime, Akira used his abilities to try and get a reading from the note itself. He got the strong impression that this needed to be taken seriously, that the writer was someone who really felt that Christmas was being murderously distorted by the Bad Santa’s; not the actor personally, but at the way they were portraying and betraying Christmas.

After some discussion, and several alternate plans, the decision was taken for Akira to disguise himself as Bad Santa as a call came through the Comms from Inspector Marcus Tolliver.

He wanted to know if they were busy as they had a weird incident and could do with their assistance and a second opinion, as he was worried that the incident might be meta-related.

Sam asked, “does this relate to Toyland stores?” “Not directly, though we are getting reports coming in of children going missing, but we’re not overly concerned yet as children wander off all the time in shopping precincts; especially at this time of the year. No, what I need your assistance with is that several top financiers from Marley Loans; a notorious money-lending firm that specialises in Christmas loans, went missing following an end of year bonus party between midnight and 6am today.  Not the whole party and no-one left the floor during that time, the rest were off their heads on cocaine and champagne. The only clues I have were Christmas stockings filled with coal! Can you make your way here?”

Sam stated that he thought it might be related to what they were currently investigating and mentioned the threatening Santa letter. Marcus admitted that he was aware of the letter but didn’t take it seriously, however he was putting a major police presence into the precinct because of the missing children. He’d love to close the Shopping Centre but Sir Stephen has used his political influence to prevent that though he has agreed to allow Police to patrol and try and find the missing children. He just wanted assistance in finding out how seven people could vanish from what was effectively a locked room.

The decision was taken by the team to split up with Sam and Mace investigating the missing financiers and Akira and Mary electing to stay at St. Hughes.

Once the two of them arrived at the Loan Company’s head office, Marcus filled the two of them in on the background. All of those present at the party had just received massive bonuses for successfully marketing a 1500% APR Christmas loan campaign designed to make parents on low incomes feel bad about not buying expensive toys for their children. One of the missing people, a Zeke Jacobs, had designed a secondary campaign to persuade children to nag their parents for expensive gifts and remind them that if they really loved them they’d take out a Christmas loan from Marley Loans to pay for it. The toys the campaign targeted were all Fun-Time merchandise designed to fall apart after a few days, forcing parents to buy expensive replacement parts. The campaign was subsequently banned and the company fined but whilst it ran, it made millions for the company and put thousands of families deep in debt.

What was clear was that the bonuses and gifts of the missing seven had gone missing and instead Christmas stockings had been left for them filled with coal; very clean, shiny coal. It didn’t look like the type of coal you might put in a fire, it was composed of a very fine form of graphite, natural in form but left no coal dust. Sam checked them with his enhanced senses and realised that this was like nothing he’d ever seen before. The coal was effectively carved to look like coal from solid graphite and had impressions of a fern-like fossil that he’d never seen before… Time for the two of them to do a little internet exploring.

Back at St. Hughes, Banshee and Akira decided that the safest way of dealing with their situation was to impersonate Sir Stephen again. He would then send the actor playing Bad Santa home to safety. Akira would then alter his illusions to disguise and then substitute himself as Bad Santa whilst Banshee hid herself nearby.

For the next couple of hours he sat there. Most children visiting were nice though some were obviously creeped out to see a crude Cedric rather than a Saint Nick but simply passed through the grotto however, some of the visiting children were downright obnoxious and naughty with many demanding they receive a Deceptioncon or else. Nothing else happened though Akira took the opportunity to throw up a force field around himself, just in case.

He did notice that the Deceptioncon’s weren’t as well made as they should be for that price and a queue was forming at the complaints counter and he still have a couple of more hours before the store closed. Mary remained in hiding throughout carefully watching Akira/Bad Santa and everyone approaching.  At one point, she elected to try to calm the crowds by playing calming music while she waited.

Meanwhile back in Marleys, Mace and Sam checked out the doors and windows but there was no way anyone had left through them especially as they were 30 storeys up. Given what the partygoers had been up to, they hadn’t wanted anyone walking in on them. They confirmed with Marcus that their best theory was that they’d been taken by a teleporter. He admitted that he thought so too. Mace scanned the traces of fern and managed a chemical analysis, which they sent through to Pseudo-Annie. ‘She’ was able to trace it to a specific mine in the Black Forest of Germany, near Baden-Baden. This coal was specifically sold as souvenir Christmas presents ‘for naughty children’.

When they told Marcus, he wondered if anyone at the German Christmas Market in the town centre might be importing it for sale and immediately sent officers off to check. Sam and Mace briefly considered a trip to Germany when Sam remembered the call from Germany’s Bundesgarde. They’d been investigating several pupils kidnapped in Berlin from a boarding school a year ago and something about a clue leading them to the Black Forest.

This crime had a touch of the Pied Piper about it, Mace thought.

Sam used his tablet to call them. The female, Rätsel (Enigma) answered, and thankfully spoke excellent English.  She admitted they were currently looking into a couple of incidents, cold cases from a year ago, literally to the day and wondered what the Balance’s interest might be.

Sam sort of sidestepped the question but admitted they also had children going missing here as well and Mace mentioned that they had a specific type of graphite that had turned up at one of their crime scenes. Rätsel was extremely interested in that development. “The graphite, was it in the form of coal? Left in a Christmas stocking?” They confirmed it was. Sam explained “that particular calling card had shown up here as well, but not connected to children, but to financiers.”

After a short discussion, Rätsel explained that last Christmas Eve, several pupils had been kidnapped in Berlin from a boarding school for young gentleman; Der Berliner Schule für Junge Herren. The school had just been on a special trip to the ‘Spaß Zeit Spielzeug‘ (Fun-Time Toys in English) toy store in Berlin to allow the children to treat themselves. They had then returned to the school for dinner and afterwards the children had gone to bed. There was thirty children staying in the school over Christmas. Sometime between 10pm and 3am seven of them vanished.

The only connecting factor was that the kidnapped children were all renowned for their selfish or bad behaviour. There were no ransom demands made and the children were never found.

The Bundesgarde followed a Christmas-related clue to the Black Forest region; coal left in their Christmas stockings, a unique type of graphite coal, which only comes from a single mine deep in the Black Forest; a coal only sold as souvenir presents for ‘naughty children’.

They investigated the mine but found nothing. While they were talking, Sam and Mace  got a call from Akira that they had also discovered children had definitely vanished from the shopping precinct and in the background they could hear Marcus swearing and demanding they shut the store down now.

Back in the store Mary and Akira became aware that none of the children that had gone missing had been found. Store detectives and Santa’s evil clown helpers remembered each of the children who vanished as being spoilt and/or obnoxious. The number of missing children had grown to seven, all aged under ten. Only common denominator was that all of them had visited Bad Santa’s Grotto and one of the clowns remembered that at least two of them were really spoilt kids with really bad attitudes. Checking with others, all of the children were considered spoilt and bad tempered. The word naughty came up several times in connection with each of the missing children.

Sam realised that it wasn’t the Bad Santa they needed to watch, it was whoever was watching the Bad Santa and mentioned this to Mary.

The children had gone missing over a period of a couple of hours, their disappearance not initially taken as serious because these children  frequently ran away when they didn’t get what they wanted. It was only now that their parents had begun to get concerned. Akira, exhausted after playing Bad Santa for a couple of hours, joked that, “given how naughty they were, perhaps there disappearance wasn’t any real loss!”

Turning back to the tablet, Sam continued, “Ah do you remember the registered owner of the toystore?” Rätsel remembered that E.B. Nezzer Stores took over the company from the estate of Desmond Lettam; better known as Toy Boy, quite recently after the kidnapping. There was a theory that someone fascinated by Toy Boy, a copycat, might have been involved but nothing ever came of it.

At the time, there had been another theory but she was reluctant to mention it; there was also a major attack in Berlin the same night, an explosion that killed a Magda Ostermann & Hans Jaeger. The explosives were subsequently found to have been hidden inside Christmas Decorations.

Sam interrupted, “that sounds like it might be the work of Toy Boy, or a copycat killer at least, alright.”

Rätsel continued, “Actually suspicion initially fell on Magda’s previous fiancé, Oskar Weihnachten who had been jilted at the altar by the couple the Christmas before and Weihnachten had a fixation with Christmas. Oskar’s ex-fiancée had left him at the altar after confessing she was sleeping with his best man and co-worker. Worse, the pair had first hooked up at Oskar’s “11th Annual Christmas Extravaganza” party the previous year. An altercation with his now-ex’s lover resulted in him losing his job and spending Christmas in jail.  He was fired on Christmas Day 2015 from his job at Spartan Manufacturing.

His alibi was that he was attending a Christmas service at the local Cathedral and local Christmas market in Baden-Baden all that day and his presence was confirmed by numerous witnesses throughout the day. What linked the two cases was that ash remnants from coal were discovered under the remains of the tree, however as the explosives lacked a timer, just a short-range detonator, and the bomber had to have been close nearby when they were set off, he was dismissed as a suspect in that case.

The Bundesgarde did initially suspect the same man might have been involved in the Boarding School kidnappings since one of the children kidnapped was the only son of his previous boss but he had been subsequently tested and confirmed as a non-Meta. In addition, he had his cast-iron alibi.

The Team were keeping an eye on him anyway, and he was currently in his house in Baden-Baden. He hadn’t left it all day.

She continued there were instances related to this Toy Boy after his death, were they aware of the rumours regarding the sale of his company?

Toy Boy used Fun-Time’s resources and facilities as part of his initial career as a super-criminal. Control of Fun-Time passed to its other stockhold­ers after Lettam’s arrest, incarceration and death in prison. They installed new management, and Fun-Time managed a slow crawl back to an even keel until someone had the bright idea of trying to cash-in on Toy Boy’s reputation by selling off some of his designs, and she thought that had been to a Sir Stephen Croudge. Several of the directors were killed under mysterious circumstances and in very nasty ways and the company was ruined. There were rumours that Toy Boy had somehow faked his own death. They had nothing on their side of the Channel but they were about to head to Baden-Baden anyway, just to confirm.

Akira remembered hearing of a Spartan Manufacturing, part of SpartaCorp who make the Spartan armour used by AEGIS; high powered, high tech equipment for security forces. Turned out Oskar had been a weapons designer for them but had been fired and hadn’t worked since, apparently.

Before the call ended, Rätsel mentioned that there had been a connection to the UK. One of the children had bought a unique hand carved Christmas decoration that had come from Wessex – apparently from the toy store, but their investigation revealed that the store didn’t sell that type of decoration and the child supposedly hadn’t been anywhere else where he could have bought it. It was another mystery. It may not be related, but in light of their own disappearances?

Over the team Comms, Akira explained that he planned to change his illusion to that of a naughty child to set himself up as bait while Sam considered dressing up as the Bad Santa, momentarily forgetting he was in dragonkin form. Instead, he again went back to the store then turned on his Chameleon mode and concealed himself in the background while Mace became a female Bad Santa (but without the string vest). For a couple of hours they tried and failed to ‘persuade’ the kidnapper to try and take the disguised Akira and in the end he changed tactic and instead he cast the All Revealing Light spell to look for illusions but the spell revealed nothing. There was nothing mystical at all in the store (other than themselves) as far as he could tell.

Several hours passed, as it got closer to closing time. It was clear the Police were furious that political power had been used to keep the shopping precinct open despite the seven missing children.

Mary tried to dowse for the one of the missing children from Santa’s grotto using one of their jackets to get a feel for the child’s life force. It seemed to indicate something exactly where she was.  Whether this was resonance from where the child had been previously or the presence of all of the other children somehow frustrating the situation, Mary couldn’t be sure. Sam also tried using the coat to try and track the child by scent but there was just too many children confusing the trail.

Just before closing, a message came over the store speaker system, that Sir Stephen had apparently had a change of heart and had agreed to donate the remaining stock of Deceptioncons to anyone able to get one ‘by hook or by crook’ before the store closed in the next few minutes.

Pandemonium broke out in store as parents and children rioted trying to get a free Deceptioncon robot costing £100 from the mountain of robots stacked beneath the clock just behind them. Sam decided he had to get one for himself and flew up and grabbed one off the top of the pile. Success!

Meanwhile the store staff were in shock. This was so unlike Sir Stephen to give anything away, never mind this years’ bestseller.

The store filled with rioting customers with everyone trying to get their hands on a free toy! Mace, as Santa, was pushed out of the way while the shoppers tried everything they could to get one of the remaining robots.

The Balance realised there had to be a reason behind Sir Stephen’s decision, a Youtube advert possibly? Could Sir Stephen be the Toy Boy copycat? Was this a way of diverting attention away from himself, possibly whilst he moved the kidnapped children elsewhere?  Just then, a call came in from Marcus wanting to know what happened to the actor playing Bad Santa. It was possibly unrelated but his wife had received a call from him saying he would be coming home early only for him not to arrive. Last time he was seen in the store, talking to some young children dressed as elves. Perhaps he was sitting in the pub or park? It was hard to focus on it with everything else going on.

By now, staff had finally rallied and were explaining to families that they were only allowed to take one per family and were busy restocking the robotic mountain with the confiscated boxes from the greedy families, closing the store down and cashing up.

Then there was another announcement; staff were being given the chance to go home early and as it was Christmas next day there was no need for staff to stay and restock the store. Staff didn’t need telling twice, they left as soon as they possibly could. The Balance explained to Marcus that they planned to hide and stay inside the store with Akira extending his invisibility to hide Mace.

Marcus again come over the comm-channel, he’d just had a call that there had been an explosion outside the store in the parking lot. He said it may not be related and promised to call them back.

Sam elected to go out and check anyway while Mary decided to turn insubstantial and head through the floor into the Wessex Experience. Mace and Akira, still invisible were left in the store with only Sir Stephen apparently in his office above.

Outside in the carpark, a car was on fire. The mother was screaming in anger because after she’d accidentally dropped their new Deceptioncon it had malfunctioned and exploded setting fire to their car as they were about to leave. Sam used his wings to put the flames out then spoke with Marcus who was now sending his officers into the store to search it properly.

Mary meanwhile dropped through the roof into the Experience and found herself surrounded by a number of Anglo-Saxon relics, This was the display area that visitors passed through when leaving the animatronic “Oxenaforda”. The hall was completely dark, with no lighting on anywhere. She turned into Mary intending to use a light spell when she heard over her earpiece, the store panic alarm from Sir Stephens’ office.

Outside both Marcus and Sam heard the alarm, turned and began to run back inside and towards the store. Getting to the office, they found it locked until Sam kicked in the door. Sir Stephen was missing but on the desk lay a Christmas stocking filled with coal! The store lights went off and the fire alarm rang out and then stopped dead and a spooky, slightly Germanic voice came over the store speaker system;  telling everyone including the Police to leave the store immediately before they were judged by the Krampus.

Sam quickly googled the Krampus – Research on the internet turns up pages on demons and demonic possession, medieval witchcraft, ancient pagan tradition and ritual, role as punisher for St. Nicholas, various folk celebrations, some with suspiciously dark hints and the role of Krampus as punisher of wicked children (and adults).  Images of what Krampus looked like showed a satyr-like creature with goat legs, horns and a basket on its back to take away the naughty children.

Some Police officers began searching through the store for the voice’s owner. Then screams and shouts filled the shop floor, as something appeared to ambush them.

Mary heard the screams and immediately headed back up. Sam headed for the ground sales floor only to see with his night vision what looked like a small creature with pointed ears throw something like a Christmas bauble at a running Police Officer. Suddenly, and to Sam’s utter horror, the bauble exploded causing ice to form around the officer’s feet and begin to advance up his body until he was completely encased in ice! He was in the process of freezing to death.

Initially Sam considered getting out of the way. He was terrified of being targeted and frozen himself. However, he quickly rallied and rushed in to gently melt the ice with his fiery breath and rescue the officer from a frozen death though he was now unconscious from hypothermia and almost being suffocated. As more and more officers reported in that they were under attack, Marcus decided that this had to be meta-related and asked if the Balance could cope if he withdrew his people.

With the Police gone, the only lighting was from the toy displays, some of the toys that hadn’t been switched off when the staff had left and the emergency lighting. They could just about see shapes, including small figures darting about in front of them, figures with elongated ears… Elves?

It was too dark to make the figures out but they were small and agile. Beneath the clock on top of the remains of the Deceptioncon ‘tower’ stood a taller (slightly taller than a normal human in fact), figure with large horns on his head and goat-like legs; it was the Krampus come to life!

Akira shouted, “He’s all yours Sam, take him out!” Just as a giant 10-foot tall creature resembling a Gingerbread Man came clambering through the aisles towards them! The smaller elf-shaped shadowy figures began to giggle at its appearance. Sam handed over the unconscious officer to Marcus to finish the evacuation and moved down onto the sales floor.

Sam saw the lumbering gingerbread beast and shouted to the others, “He’s more my speed, I’ll have him, just not the iceman.” The creature moved clumsily through the store almost like a giant 1950’s tin robot, its moves badly co-ordinated as it smashed its way towards them.

At the front of the store, a now invisible Mace and Akira could see that the power outage had affected the entire precinct, including stores that hadn’t yet closed and still had customers inside. Mace sent up a flare bolt into the store, activating mid-flight and temporarily lighting the main chamber up but still leaving thousands of pockets of darkness across the store.

Krampus stood next to the mountain of Deceptioncon robots, several cables could be seen running from the clock into the pile of robots for some reason and the clock time had been altered so it no longer read 7pm and now read 5 minutes to midnight instead.

They could also see a number of child-like figures each armed with what looked like Christmas decorations. Close by, a stack of artificial Christmas trees seemed to vibrate, then the vibration changed to a spinning movement as, like giant spinning tops, they began to spin and swirl towards them; the branches and tinsel slicing through the shelves and toy displays that lay between them and the team.

Sam flew towards the lumbering Gingerbread man. As he passed over, the demonic-looking Krampus managed to leap towards him, the red-glowing, snake-like whip in his hand lashed out on its own accord to entangle itself around his legs. The hanging figure was heavier than he’d expected and he had to kick the whip away causing the Krampus to drop back down towards the ground and then bound towards the top of the robotic mountain once more. He quickly confirmed there were cables running from the ornate clock into the pile of robots. He reported what he saw when he elected to return to the others.

Akira suggested firing an EMP bolt at the clock to stop it, only to realise that it probably still worked off its original clockwork mechanism though someone was apparently using it as a timer for something. Was it the mountain of Deptioncons still in the store, the massive number of robots ‘given’ away or both?

If the robot toys were to explode, he’d need some form of detonator inside them set off by a transmitter nearby. That most likely would be electronic in nature and if Mace could somehow use her EMP bolts to drain the batteries of their charge she could stop this threat.

She manually rigged several of the specialist bolt heads together, onto a single bolt and unleashed it at the Deceptioncon pile; they hit with a fizzle and several nearby lights also went out, Had it worked?  The clock still continued to tick towards midnight. Despite being invisible, one of the spinning trees was heading towards them both. There was child-like giggling as the tree passed them, slicing through the grotto like a whirling buzzsaw. Akira could see the Gingerbread creature lumbering in its wake and tried to capture it in a force cage. The creature however was too strong and shattered through the mental construct before it could be fully formed.

He could swear that he heard muffled swearing coming from the creature.

Banshee unleashed an aura of fear at the elf-like creatures and was rewarded with screams and running followed a second or two later with some sort of buzzing sound and further screams.

Then still in her insubstantial form, she watched as a second whirling, slicing tree spun through her and cascaded into the pile of Santa gifts, ripping them to shreds.

If the store had still been filled with Police Officers, these trees would have been deadly rather than just an inconvenience.

Turning her attention to the Gingerbread Golem she unleashed a shattering shriek aimed at the legs and was rewarded when one of the legs broke completely off, causing the creature to fall to the ground. To Banshee’s amazement, inside the gingerbread ‘skin’ lay a mechanical robotic leg. Again, a scream and muffled swearing could be heard emanating from inside it. A robot with tourette’s syndrome?

The Krampus jumped from the tower down to the Sales Floor. Sam grabbed Mace and flew up. After a quick inspection for booby-traps, they broke and burnt the cables that ran from the clock into the pile of robots. The little elfish figures, which Sam could now see were just very young children with artificial pointy ears and blinking metallic collars (shock collars?) shouted something in German and started to throw their decorations at them. Their throwing wasn’t that great, thankfully they didn’t teach Cricket in Germany, so their throws fell short of both of them, hitting, shattering on and freezing the pile of toy robots turned incendiary devices instead.

As the clock struck Midnight and the figure of Santa rolled out, nothing happened, they’d apparently stopped the detonation. They just had to hope that the robots that had been taken home had also failed to detonate!

It also meant Sam’s own Deceptioncon had survived as well, he happily reported.

The Gingerbread Robot tried to get up on its hands and one remaining leg and skittered across the floor towards the door on its three limbs. Swearing definitely coming from inside the body as whatever was inside was banged around.

The Krampus, realising his plan to detonate the pile of robots had failed, started to bound in giant leaps across the store, following the robot. It had apparently decided that taking on the Balance was secondary to either escaping or activating another aspect of its plan as the Kinder (the kidnapped German children now somehow brainwashed or compelled to obey the Krampus) unleashed a selection of Christmas themed weapons at Banshee and Akira. Crackers, exploding like grenades landed nearby smashing the displays whilst tinsel, snake-like slithered across the floor towards them and icy decorations created barriers and ice walls. Stockholm Syndrome or not, Sam hated the idea of being hit by any of the icy weapons and asked Mace to take them out.

The rest of the team had by this point arrived and Mace went to ready a bolt. Using an experimental homing bolt she fired hitting Krampus in the head leaving him dazed and causing him to tumble to the ground .

Akira threw a mystical blast at the figure as he was getting up from the ground, leaving him staggered as he continued to head towards the entrance to the Experience.

Mace elected to fire a sleep bolt at the nearest ‘elves’ and took out one of what she now realised were children. As he fell the shock collar obviously activated but thankfully the child was already unconscious. Meanwhile Krampus had bypassed the lumbering robot, reached the entrance to the Wessex Experience and jumped down the stairs. Akira picked up the robotic creature with his TK and slammed it down the stairs into the entrance, head first. He was rewarded with the sound of a loud smash and even more swearing. Whoever was inside was definitely bruised and battered.

Banshee realised she needed to end the fight with the remaining children, most of whom were still trying to attack Mace and Sam, as quickly and as safely as possible. She decided to target their ‘slave’ collars with another of her shattering shrieks whilst Mace was with Sam in the air and effectively above the blast. As such, she was unlikely to be affected by her howl’s devastating effect on equipment. Aiming at the cluster of children, she unleashed her blast and was rewarded when the collars shattered and fell from the children’s necks. The children, unsure exactly what had happened began to cry and shouting in German as they pulled their collars off. Sam placed a call for Marcus to send in officers to rescue and gather up the hysterical children, explaining that these were those kidnapped in Berlin a year before.

Sam then set off, with Mace, at speed down the stairwell following the Krampus’ scent and headed passed the initial exhibits. He dropped Mace down to the ground at the entrance and suggested he’d follow her in before setting off again following the scent.

That’s when he realised that this was a full sensory experience including numerous authentic smells and someone had activated the exhibits. He did however, get a number of human scents, including fear, coming from deep inside.

Mace saw the twitching remains of the gingerbread robot and what looked like someone hidden inside. It continued to try and crawl after its master, though one human leg in a badly torn trouser leg was now hanging out through a crack in the chassis. She quickly unleashed another of her EMP bolts into the shattered back and overwhelmed its circuitry. The robot went into a form of electronic epileptic seizure, violently twitched multiple times and finally collapsed inert to the ground for one last time. The chest piece fell open, its electronic lock no longer functional revealing a badly bruised and bleeding but still swearing Sir Stephen, hands still bound with twitching animated tinsel.

He dragged himself out and clear before collapsing exhausted by the remains of his prison.

Akira rushed passed her and into the Experience, until he met up with Sam. Not far in came the sound of muffled screams from the latrine. They moved towards the wooden ‘outdoor’ structure and pulled the door open to reveal their missing Bad Santa, screaming and shouting for help as he hung tied upside down with his head inside the latrine itself. Although this was just an exhibit, not a functional toilet, the stench of human excrement was being pumped out of the hole and he’d obviously vomited several times whilst he’d tried to use his now exhausted arms over the last couple of hours to keep his overweight body clear of the source of the stench.

Sam took a snapshot with his tablet before ‘liberating’ him by shattering him loose from the animated tinsel whilst Akira tried to read his immediate past. He could ‘see’ the actor being approached by a group of children as he left the store and stunning him; the next thing he ‘remembered’ was waking in the latrine, upside down with Krampus laughing at him and promising to return after midnight to punish him for desecrating Christmas. Akira briefly considered waiting to see if the Krampus would return, meanwhile he could possibly use his illusions to change the smell from the latrine into that of roses… Then realised he needed to focus.

Banshee elected to become insubstantial once more and drop through the floor into the Experience where he headed to join up with Sam and Akira. That was when they heard the sound of vomiting coming from the centre of the Experience and nearby, children screaming. They headed toward the children screaming and found a display of animated traders apparently dragging a group of slaves on board a ship, each of the animatronic figures connected together by chains and collars. In the middle of this display were seven young, crying and screaming children chained in between the mannequins. Unleashing a shattering shriek, the animatronic figures sizzled and malfunctioned as the shock collars around the children’s necks stopped working and, as before, the electronic locks opened. The children threw off the collars and immediately began to run in all directions. Banshee sighed and decided they would round them up later. There was still much to be accomplished, as a shout was heard from someone, “no, not again!”

Sam flew, following the scent of the Krampus, Shouting out, “Krampus, Krampus… Marco..?”

Ahead, he saw with his dark vision the Krampus near seven men in ruined but obviously expensive suits scrabbling on the ground apparently being forced to mine and eat coal and vomiting as a result. Sam quickly took another photo. “Hold that pose, Krampus” he shouted as he then landed in the diorama of a mine now occupied with the missing financiers who were being forced to dig for coal and then eat it or face the shocks from their slave collars. “Krampus, you could surrender peacefully you know, we don’t have to continue with this.”

The Krampus stared at him and shouted, “You are an enemy of Christmas, you are as bad as the Santa who was not good. You help ruin the spirit of Christmas and must be punished.” Sam smiled, “That is not the point Krampus, Christmas should be about love and joy.” “And they have ruined Christmas, they do not deserve to live.” Krampus raised his whip, the tip of which seemed to move of its own volition like the cybernetic tinsel and began to glow from its normal red glow to an intensely bright white.

The Krampus took the sack off his back and threw it onto the ground. As it hit, it seemed to activate some sort of portal; a bright light appeared above it in the shape of a door-like frame. He looked through and began to swear in German. Sam was shocked, He’d assumed the Krampus would be supernatural, a force of nature, of religion but this construct went against that analysis; anyway can you arrest someone from folklore?

Mace meanwhile had moved towards him and activated her holographic hypnotic gyroscope in her glove. Despite his apparent mystical nature, it seemed to have some sort of effect on him leaving him momentarily entranced. On the other side of the apparently non-mystical looking portal there seemed to be movement and several German voices shouting from the other side.

Sam had an idea and on hearing someone speaking German he flew directly through the portal to block the Krampus from escaping, only to come face to face with Rätsel and the other members of the Bundesgarde in an excessively festively decorated basement of a house. Decorations were everywhere. Sam spoke first, “Guten Tag, Ich heisse Sam!“

Rätsel replied in perfect English, “Welcome Sam, I see you have discovered Oskar!” Together they stood by the portal in order to prevent his escape.

Back on the other side of the portal, Mace asked the Krampus “I need to know are you trying to punish and kidnap or save these children?”

The Krampus muttered, “They are bad children and do not represent the spirit of Christmas. This is their punishment, they do not deserve to grow up and spoil Christmas for others like these schwein” pointing at the scrabbling financiers on their knees before him.

Mace continued, “But the child can be saved!” Krampus shouted back, “That decision is not for you to make but the spirit of Christmas to do! They deserve to be punished! They all deserve to be punished, they are on the naughty list! As are you on the naughty list now.”

Sam shouted through the portal, “I was born on the naughty list!”

Akira moved beside Mace and unleashed a mystical blast. It hit and shattered what appeared to be his costume, causing the demonic head which they now realised was a helmet to crack in two revealing a long faced man who looked vaguely familiar to everyone but Mace. Hadn’t they met him when they were dealing with the Silver Storm back in April? A German tourist they’d rescued from some stormers… A tourist wearing an overloud Christmas jumper that Chrono had subsequently ‘confiscated?’ He swore at them in German then recognised them, “Twice you have been naughty now, first you took mein most favourite Christmas jumper and now this. You people are twice on my naughty list, twice…”

It was now obvious that the Krampus disguise was in fact a suit of advanced armour. Banshee arrived and ended the threat by unleashing her shattering shriek causing his suit to fragment, rendering his suit inert and trapping him inside though the whip seemed to twitch and move on its own volition. Unable to move, he began to shriek hysterically that they were on his “naughty list forever more and deserved to be punished, for all eternity…”

Back in Germany, Sam explained that although they would get their children returned promptly, that Oskar would face court proceedings for kidnapping of the children and financiers and his terrorist activities as well as trafficking of the German children in the UK first. Of course, they’d be welcome to obviously apply for extradition and really should come over for the court proceedings as he handed them one of The Balance contact cards.

On the other side of the portal, the cybernetic whip kept on twitching on the ground and Akira had to be persuaded to not take it as a souvenir in case one of them woke up with it curled round their neck one night.

It was then that they realised that although it was still acting as a viewing portal, as soon as the Krampus suit had been damaged, the portal had frozen, rendering it useless for transportation. Sam was now stuck on Christmas Eve in Germany! He muttered something about having to see them sometime in the New Year. While the team worked out a solution, Banshee changed back into Mary and began to use her harp magic to calm everyone down in the Experience whilst the Police arrived and sorted out freeing the remaining captives, rounding up all of the children, both British and German, and taking Oskar into custody.

As they were about to leave, a call came through from an unexpectedly excited Jeeves requesting Sam make his way back to the BASEment as quickly as possible. Sam explained about being in Baden-Baden and Jeeves immediately asked for a location and told him that Adam would be dispatched straightaway to collect him and bring him home. He tried to protest but the call was cut short.

Adam refused to answer any questions on the trip back but kept on smiling widely and humming the tune to “I wish you a merry Christmas”. When he arrived, everyone had gathered but refused to answer any questions and told him he needed to go to his room immediately/ He couldn’t figure out why everyone had soppy smiles plastered across their faces.

What was going on?

He rushed through the base until he arrived at his room and opened the door. Inside the lights were dimmed but he could see the Annie hologram wearing nothing but a large sheet of wrapping paper and a big red bow. Then it struck him. Annie smiled, “Am I welcome?” Annie? This wasn’t a hologram, this was Annie made real. Annie had returned and now had a body? How..? Annie explained that she now had an android body, one that allowed her to be ‘human’ and she had asked for it to be in the image that had brought her the most joy, that of a tall red haired Annie who could touch, feel, kiss… Sam knew this had to be an android body but it felt so real, so human…

The door shut on Sam’s perfect Christmas present. Akira muttered as the door closed, “That’s amazing I can’t wait to see what Jeeves’ got me..!”