Inspired by an adventure by Steve Kenson
By Ant L. (Team Archivist)
The big day had arrived! No, not someone’s birthday – Christmas Eve!
Well, it was a big day for Brian, at least.
The Balance had got the call, and the three of them had arrived at E.B. Neezer’s Toyland Store in the St. Hughes Shopping Precinct in Wessex’s Castle District. They were there to officially launch X-Ray’s new 12-inch action figure, and to help to reinvigorate The Balance series of figures in general, though it never hurt to show their public-friendly faces from time-to-time. As they walked through the main doors into the precinct they were met with a healthy gathering of fans, and the team was almost mobbed, though instead of screaming hysteria the crowd was rather polite and demure, shaking hands with the superheroes and getting the team to sign their character boxes. It was good to see the people having fun, but Brian quickly realised that it was mainly adults who were into collecting the action figures.
As the press of bodies thinned out, Brian found himself looking out into the crowds of shoppers milling around the rotunda of the shopping centre. A stunningly beautiful blonde woman caught his eye; she was staring at him with a sultry ‘come-hither’ look in her eyes, their piercing blue seeming to shine across the distance between them. She was dressed in a stylish black trouser-and-waistcoat ensemble, with a white blouse that sported a ruffled neckline, and three-inch black high heels. Over her shoulder she carried a beige woollen coat, proof against the chill of the December day outside.
Brian winked at the woman, and she smiled coyly back, blowing him a kiss in return. Ah, it was good to be married. Stacy was his rock, and he knew that he was the luckiest man in the world to have her by his side.
As the last of their adoring public drifted away, the team was able to take a better look around the shopping centre. As well as housing the large toy store, the St. Hughes Shopping Precinct was also the site of their “snow globe” charity fundraiser, held in the large central rotunda: a circular vertical area three stories high, ringed with balconies and stairs. Over to one side of the centre of the rotunda stood a massive twenty-foot-tall Christmas tree, at the foot of which had been built “Santa’s Village,” a play area for children, including props for photo-opportunities, and several people dressed up as Santa and his elves. The whole thing spread out across the space at the bottom of the rotunda, a spacious area full of mirth and magic.
Another eye-opener hovered in mid-air a little way off to one side of the Christmas tree – in the dead-centre of the rotunda a single cable held a giant transparent “snow globe” containing donated money, the banknotes swirling around in a breeze generated by internal fans, with donations for the needy feeding into the globe from attached hoses connected to the balconies above.
Parents and children alike seemed in awe of the spectacle; everyone was smiling, a queue had formed of children waiting to meet Santa, and his elves were busy handing out sweets and mince pies. The team smiled. This was good fun, in the spirit of the season, and was proving to be a popular and successful fundraiser.
At this point, the magic happened.
Banshee pointed to a group of undersized people in the crowd, each of which were dressed like one of Santa’s elves, but who was also the spitting image of a bygone film star: an extremely youthful Steve McQueen, John Wayne, James Stewart, William Holden, Humphrey Bogart, Gary Cooper, Takashi Shimura, a young Charlton Heston, Gary Cooper, and Cary Grant. They were making their way through the crowds towards the village play area and Christmas tree at the bottom of the rotunda.
X-Ray took a good look at them with his telescopic vision. To his surprise the faces were real; smaller than the real actors’ faces, and slightly odd to look at as they mapped the shape of the smaller heads, becoming more compact, but they were real.
Akira sensed something amiss and his eyes scanned the area around them. A distinct mystical local absence was apparent to his mind, and he locked eyes with an attractive young woman who was standing, completely and surprisingly unnoticed, in the area beneath the charity snow-globe.
She was striking, to say the least.
The first noticeable feature were the huge ornate horns that spread out from the sides of the silver, ruby encrusted headdress clearly defying the laws of gravity that she wore over her shoulder-length white hair.
After that came the universe-blue bodysuit that hugged her lithe frame like a lover, the surface alive with constellations and nebulae, a living map of the heavens that danced across her body as she moved. Thick silver rings adorned her wrists and ankles, and white fur adorned her costume.
He then saw her hands, noticing with surprise that she had five fingers and a thumb on each hand.
Finally, Akira noticed her piercing pale blue irises, black eyes, and playful smile, a sense of the mischievousness betraying her face.
Akira checked his mystical senses again, expecting the woman to radiate magical power – instead, she and her elves were devoid of any aura but, to his great shock, the shopping centre Santa radiated a powerhouse of energy!
Suddenly the large glass ceiling above the rotunda shattered, sending a shower of sharp glass shards towards the floor below, threatening the gathered crowd of bystanders. At the same moment in time the ‘film-star’ Krewe produced rod-like gun devices seemingly out of nowhere and headed at a jog towards the area beneath the snow globe.
In a heartbeat, Akira arced his hands above his head, producing a force dome across the central space of the rotunda. The falling glass bounced on the invisible shield, slowly falling off in a circular pattern, like raindrops from an umbrella.
Shoppers were screaming and ducking instinctively, parents holding children close to them, screening them from harm. Amongst the chaos, no-one seemed to notice the woman, even as she raised her arms up into the air. As if on cue, the charity snow globe began to lower itself from on high, tearing itself free from the donation feeder tubes on the upper balconies. Money, both notes and coins, cascading down like drunken moths in search of light.
X-Ray looked around, secretly hoping that everybody was okay, and no-one needed his help right now – this was magic, wasn’t it? The only magic he wanted to deal with today was the type that Stacy used to wrap the presents without swearing or running out of sellotape.
He caught sight of Santa looking at the woman; he could see her? So why couldn’t everyone else? X-Ray looked back at the woman, raising a hand to wave at her. She waved back, that playful smile still on her lips. He shifted his vision into the infra-red portion of the EM-spectrum, but the woman did not register a heat signature. If that was strange, then the next sight was utterly bizarre – looking at the actor-elves showed a heat signature that was bat-shaped! Humanoid bats, with bow-legged stances, large taloned feet, and leathery wings with an additional clawed hand on each pinion. Brian rolled his eyes; this was going to be a bad day, he could tell.
Akira approached Santa, more for the comedy value than out of any hope for useful information. “Excuse me, Santa, is that girl with you? Do you recognize those elves, at all?”
“No to both, young man,” said Santa, in a voice that was both serious and yet infectiously jolly, “I don’t recognise either.”
The actor-elves had reached the centre of the village. As Banshee watched, the elves surrounded the startling, mysterious woman, and it became apparent that, whoever she was, she was the boss-lady, and these were her goons. The elves formed a circle around her, beneath the snow globe, within touching distance of a number of bystanders, their strange slender guns still evident.
Banshee wasn’t about to wait for something bad to happen; she opened her mouth, and let out a shattering shriek against their rod-like guns. Instantly, eight of the devices broke into tiny pieces, rendering them useless and shocking the elves that held them.
X-Ray considered using his gravi-kinetic power to lift the remaining two armed elves into the air, but decided that it risked catching some of the bystanders as well, and so he quickly created a high-frequency EM cage around them both, hoping to simply keep them trapped until the public were out of the way. The two elves instead decided to fire their weapons at the EM field, which caused the energy to bounce back at them. The first side-effect was that the guns exploded, again shocking the elves; the second side-effect was that their forms shifted briefly, revealing them to be the small bat-like figures that X-Ray had seen by using his infra-red vision. A second later, they reverted back to their illusion of being classic film stars, but at least Akira and Banshee had seen it happen.
During all this, the six-fingered girl just stood there and watched, as the snow globe continued its slow descent.
The actor-elves move away from the strange woman, some grabbing children from the crowd. As The Balance make a move towards the woman, the huge Christmas tree begins to shake and wobble and, with a loud twang, one of its support cables snapped. The tree began to topple forwards, its trunk visibly damaged as though by an axe.
“I’ve got this!” said Akira, waving his arms above him. His telekinetic powers were amazing, and he deftly caught the tree as it reached an angle of about 45°, with people running and crouching in fear all about it. He tried to steady it, but the trunk was too damaged to take its weight. Slowly and carefully, Akira rose into the air, bringing the tree, baubles, tinsel, and all, with him. He and the tree vanished through the now missing glass roof, to the cheers and applause of many of the public.
“Keep your eyes on her,” said Banshee, pointing at the woman, before rising into the air and becoming insubstantial. X-Ray watched her fly above the snow globe and look around, checking the safety cables, which were still attached. Banknotes still fell from the severed feeder tubes higher up the rotunda, but it seemed safe enough. Banshee phased inside the globe, hearing the mini-fans that blew more money around, but saw nothing else out-of-the-ordinary. She hoped that no-one downstairs was stealing any of this donated cash; E. B. Neezer was going to match the total raised by the public, and it would be a crying shame if the charity lined up to receive the money, the Tiny Tim Orphanage, were shortchanged by this… stupid mess of a day!
Standing below, ankle deep in several thousand pounds’ worth of money, X-Ray used his infra-red vision again, trying to scan the area for any other strange creatures or invisible beings. He noticed the bat-shaped heat patterns again, but still could not register the woman’s presence, and saw no other unusual signatures in the crowds around him.
He looked up, seeing Akira floating back down through the rotunda, waving briefly at Banshee as he passed the snow globe.
“I don’t get it,” he said to Akira, as the youth landed next to him, “that woman does not have a heat signature. Is she a hologram, do you think?”
Akira shrugged, “Why don’t you cop a feel, see if she’s real?” he offered, not entirely in jest.
X-Ray seemed taken aback, then realised that it wasn’t actually a rude suggestion. He strode towards the woman, but was blocked by three of the elves – not wishing to start a brawl in the still crowded village, X-Ray instead used his array of visual abilities to examine the woman’s face, coming to the conclusion that she was, indeed, real, but living by different rules than him.
Some little way behind the woman stood Stacy. She waved at Brian, snatching his attention away from the woman; she pointed a finger in a downward motion, and Brian followed with his eyes, noticing one of the elves struggling with a parent who was holding onto their young child for dear life. She then formed a fist and moved it downwards quickly towards the actor-elf’s head, then looked at Brian and shrugged dramatically. Years of marriage made the message clear, and Brian nodded with a smile. He never failed to be impressed when Stacy shifted into her diamond form and, just for a couple of seconds, her skin glinted in a multitude of rainbow colours under the glare of the shopping centre’s lights, before she bopped the nasty elf on his bonce and reverted to her human form again. The elf staggered as the blow landed, reverting into his bat-form, wobbled slightly, then vanished into thin air! The parent thanked her for her help and picked the crying child up, consoling the girl and making for the exit.
With a wink, Stacy picked up her shopping bags, and headed towards another family who were being threatened by another elf.
Brian smiled. “Lord, I love that woman.”
Despite X-Ray’s inner bliss, the centre was in uproar, and the actor-elves were trying to grab children away from their parents all around Santa’s village. Akira summoned a multiple mystical bolts that struck one evil elf in the back, before careening off. The other bolts struck four others in close proximity. Each one screamed in pain as the bolts hit them, shuddering as they assumed their true bat-forms before vanishing into nothingness. Some of Santa’s elven-helpers dashed forward to grab several crying children that the actor-elves had been threatening, scooping them up into brightly-coloured striped arms. One young lady gave Akira a thumbs-up as she ran past him, “Merry Christmas” she said, smiling.
Even with Akira’s awesome display of power, there was still one more child in the clutches of the bat-elves.
Banshee took that moment to float out of the snow globe, turning substantial and grabbing the remaining hostage-taker by the shoulders. A blackness began to spread across the material of his outfit, the fibres splitting and shrivelling as the Fae’s corrupting touch did its work. A brief scream escaped the creature’s mouth before he shifted into bat-form and vanished, as completely as his comrades has seconds earlier.
Another of Santa’s elves ran in, picking up the child that had been in the actor-elf’s foul hands and returning the poor unfortunate to his parents, who hugged their little one for all they were worth.
With only a couple of the evil bat-elves remaining the mood of the crowd changed markedly; no children were currently at risk, and that emboldened the shoppers. Seconds later, led by Santa with a mighty, “Ho, ho, ho!”, his elven helpers and members of the public descended upon the evil bat-elves with a flurry of candy canes, fluffy snowmen, shopping bags, and even one of X-Ray’s new action figures which, Brian noted with righteous satisfaction, caught the bad elf right in the eye. When the carnage subsided, the nasty bat-elves were gone, no trace of their previous existance remained in the shopping centre.
Still ignored by the public, the mysterious star-clad woman stood, as before, a smile on her face, her six-fingered hands waving at Santa and The Balance. In a flash of rainbow-coloured light she also vanished, a shower of fire flies indicating where she had been standing, before they rose, heading through the broken glass ceiling and into the sky.
The crowd look around them and, realised that they had helped to defeat the danger, broke out into a massive round of applause and cheers for the Balance, and Santa.
Almost as suddenly, the applause and cheers die away as many of the children in the crowd fell silent and then crumpled to the floor in a faint. Stricken parents rushed to cradle them and set them down gently, calling their names, trying to rouse them.
The kids didn’t respond, lying unconscious as parents began to weep, some of them looking to The Balance for help. X-Ray knelt down by a nearby child, quickly checking the child’s vital signs – alive, seemingly in deep sleep.
“The children,” a voice said, close by, and The Balance tore their gazes away from what was unfolding around them to see the Shopping Precinct Santa Claus standing beside them, sadly shaking his head. “The children are in danger. Here,” he reached into the sack he was holding, withdrew a drawstring bag, and thrust it into Akira’s hands. “You’ll need this,” he said, “You’re the ones to help me to help them.”
He nodded towards the kids. “Help them…”, then he too fainted, falling to the floor gently, held by some of his elves.
X-Ray stood and looked around; most of the victims were young children, possibly under eight years of age, but one or two adults had also been affected, including a woman with Down’s Syndrome. Some of the parents were becoming hysterical with grief; some other people took the opportunity to grab the fallen money, though most were deterred by a handful of security guards and Banshee’s baleful stare.
Akira peered into the bag that Santa had given him; it contained a couple of handfuls of dried seeds in a rainbow of colours.
Akira and Banshee both sensed that the seeds were enchanted. They emanated magical energy, and lots of it.
Akira used his Airts of Ahgrazul to ‘read’ the bag of seeds in an attempt to find out something of its past – the vision began with just the bag, but quickly changed into a vision of a snow-covered Norwegian-style village seconds before the store Santa handed the bag to him. However, the vision ended with the sight of a striped pole with a ‘North Pole’ sign on it in the middle of the village.
Emergency Services began to arrive, though the Police quickly summoned more medical assistance as they assessed the numbers of people affected by the sleeping sickness.
Frankie told The Balance that the sickness was not just affecting those people at the shopping centre, but also people across the district and spreading.
X-Ray’s brain was working overtime. He approached a female parent whose child was unconscious and asked her, “Madam, does your child believe that Santa Claus is real?”
“Yes,” she replied through tears, “Yes, she does.”
“Thank you, madam. I sincerely hope that everything gets better soon. We will do our best to sort this out, I promise.”
Frankie was feeding news reports to The Balance all the while. The strange sleeping sickness had spread across the whole of Wessex in minutes, with its epicentre there at the shopping centre.
X-Ray had said goodbye to Stacy, who was now heading home to check on Chris, as well as some families who lived near to them with children of their own. Now he stood with Banshee and Akira amidst the rescue operation, helpless as more and more ambulance crew arrived every minute.
“You know I don’t do this magic lark, but I believe this thing is affecting people who believe in Santa, for whatever that’s worth.”
Akira wore an expression of mock-shock, “I still believe! But I’m not asleep.” He said, playfully teasing X-Ray.
X-Ray raised an eyebrow at the young wizard. “One could argue…”, he said, smiling.
X-Ray took a seed from the bag and went back to the woman he had spoken to a few moments ago. With the parent’s permission he placed the seed in the child’s mouth, hoping it might reverse the effect somehow; he quickly removed it when the sleeping child began to cough, but noticed that there seemed to be some small movement sprouting within the seed.
Having seen this development, Akira and Banshee went outside the precinct looking for a patch of earth or a flower tub; they found some earth around a nearby tree and planteda seed in the soil, watching in fascination as a plant grew very quickly, reaching up over a foot in just a few seconds. Suddenly, the plant began to glow, but inside the shape of the plant they could see a snow covered village. The duo could sense the magical energy from the seeds, but were now able to see that it was a conduit to the dream world. However, they also sensed that one seed was not enough, sprouting just enough to feel the cold and wind.
The ambulance crews began taking the stricken children from the shopping precinct to hospitals far and near but, Frankie told them, it appeared the strange “sleeping sickness” that began there was spreading: there were reports of children falling into comatose states not only throughout the city but throughout the country – and it appeared to be spreading further afield!
Doctors were baffled, as initial tests showed the afflicted – mostly young children – were unconscious and unresponsive, but otherwise unharmed. Still, if something could not be done to treat their condition, or to stop it from spreading further, every pre-adolescent child in the world could fall asleep and never awaken.
Human medical science was largely helpless, as there was no pathogen, toxin, or other detectable biological agent involved. The comatose condition was entirely psychic; the cause of the “sleeping sickness” appeared to be a concerted telepathic attack on the part of the creatures.
Electroencephalograms turned up neural activity consistent with the victims being in a powerful dream state, but there was no indication of what was causing it. It soon became apparent that there was no conventional scientific explanation for the condition.
“We could send some of these seeds to the Challenger-Wildeman family for analysis,” said Banshee, “they may be able to figure something out.”
“What!?” exclaimed Akira, “They will never be able to solve this with science.”
Careful examination on Akira’s part revealed that while the seeds did, indeed, look like normal dried seeds to the untrained eye, it was actually “psycho-material,” artificial matter formed out of solidified ectoplasm and psychic energy. So was the bag that they came in.
Akira went on, “So, in essence, the “magic seeds” are dreams made real in the physical world. Although that in itself is astounding, this is not an unknown ability. The psychic energy bound up in the seeds can serve the Balance as a conduit to the dream world.”
Buoyed by his success with his examination of the seeds, and the rapid plant growth outside, Akira cast the remaining seeds on the floor of Santa’s village.
X-Ray watched, awe-struck, as plant-like tendrils grew all around them, forming leaves and flowerheads that began to tower above them. “Wow! I have got to get used to this stuff…”
“Come on,” said Akira to this teammates, “it’s time to save the children!”
When The Balance interacted with the magic seeds with the intent of helping the children, their minds were linked to the dream world and transported there, while their physical bodies fell into the same sort of comatose state as the kids.
In the shopping centre, they collapsed to the tiled floor, surrounded by the newly-formed garden.
In their new reality… They all experienced dizziness and a sudden swirl of snow and mist, though it took Banshee to shout at X-Ray before Brian came to his senses; despite being caught up in the chaos of another magical experience, his subconscious still rebelled against the unclassifiable.
They found themselves standing in a snowy landscape of low rolling hills covered in snowdrifts. Around them, scattered copses of evergreens were frosted in white. The air was cold and crisp, and the sky was leaden, covered with dark clouds portending even more snow to come. The only sign of warmth and ‘welcome’ in this frozen landscape was the light coming from some buildings far in the distance.
“That doesn’t look too far away,” Akira said, pointing ahead to the lights, “let’s head for the pub!”
Feeling the cold, they started walking, with X-Ray producing a heat-field around himself to provide some warmth; however, Brian soon relayed that his powers were failing, and they could do with getting to the village in the distance fairly quickly.
A few moments later, they saw squadrons of children’s toys that had been twisted, warped into weapons of war. Stepping to one side to take a closer look, X-Ray tread on what he feared could be a landmine – thankfully, whilst it did turn out to be a pressure-plate, it activated a wild fireworks display of explosions and flying sparks for an extended distance around the area.
With an eruption of snow, a horde of cat-sized “Lil’ Monsters” animated toys burst out of the snow to attack the Balance en-masse. Each toy was a different fanciful looking creature and very quickly the miniature horde had surrounded each member of the team, trying to bite their ankles, although the little critters were unable to inflict more than the occasional nick or scratch, nor gain any purchase on their large, mobile targets. Keeping them at bay quickly became a nuisance for the heroes until Banshee unleashed a terrible shriek at them – as one, the Lil’ Monsters squealed, turned, and ran away, terrified by their otherworldly opponent.
Some distance further on, they espied a colourful wind-up box large enough to fit a person in, sitting in the snow. As The Balance approached it suddenly began to play “Pop Goes the Weasel”.
Akira cringed visibly, “Ugh, I hate this song, “he said, “it drives me crazy!”
With that said, the lid flew back and a spring topped with a large bat-like head popped out of it, an evil grin painted across its face. A flash of light exploded from the bobbing head, crashing into The Balance with a thunderclap that seemed to echo around their skulls. Akira was the worst affected, possibly because he was closest to the box, “Ah, that wasn’t nice! It was some kind of psychic attack. Anyone else having trouble with their powers?”
X-Ray nodded, “It’s getting more difficult to maintain my heat-aura, as though this…place…is sucking the energy out of me, somehow.”
Once they were past the still bobbing jack-in-the-box, Akira was able to verify that the village they were approaching was the same village seen by him in his vision. Banshee tried to fly on, but she barely managed to stay airborne for more than a couple of seconds before landing heavily on her feet. The team was losing its powers, and it seemd to be getting worse the closer to the village they got.
“Don’t worry,” said Akira, “it’s only a dream.”
The team trudged on, drawing nearer to the village, now able to see the houses, painted in red and white, their windows illuminated from within, the pole in the village square with the sign that read “North Pole”.
Only a dream! X-Ray began to realise what Akira meant, and how it could be affecting them. “We had better speed up or we could freeze to death out here!”
As if on cue, a group of animated snowmen rose up out of the snow on the final approach to the village; one, with a crooked carrot-nose, lunged at Banshee, who was able to dodge around it without being claimed by its cruel twig-like hands.
X-Ray took a few steps back, wary of the snowmen’s abilities whilst he himself was nearly out of EM energy. Akira, on the other hand, had one more trick up his sleeve. Waving his arms with practiced ease, Akira used his Illusions of Idolon to transform himself into an image of Santa, with a hearty “Ho, ho, ho! Come to me, I have toys aplenty, enough for all, my sack is full. Ho, ho, ho!”
Banshee wondered whether Akira knew what effect his transformation would have on the evil snowmen as a group, five strong, slid towards him. Several feet away, another snowman tackled X-Ray; summoning his willpower, Brian punched away at the frozen monster, his hands glowing dimly in the night, large chunks of melted snow sloughing off as he connected.
Banshee took a few steps towards the village, and the snowmen chasing Akira sank into the surrounding snow, only to pop up in front of Banshee, where they began to meld together, forming a wall of ice, carrot, striped scarves, twisted branches, and lumps of coal.
Akira threw his arms towards the merging snowmen, but his mystical bolt merely sputtered and fizzled out in mid-air. “Blast! Oh, well, I gave it my best shot. Run!”
Akira ran at the wall of snow and rapidly freezing ice with all his might, smashing through in a shower of snowflakes and coal. Banshee quickly followed suit, breaking through the same gap. Held up somewhat by his fist-fight, X-Ray was slower, using his shoulder to charge into the gap and the last of his heat-energy to weaken the snow, even as the ice flowed over the space in an attempt to close it completely. He got part-way through, but a large, frozen hand grabbed his upper arm fast; with a technique taught to medical staff for breaking free from angry patients who grabbed them, Brian spun, raised his other arm in the air, and brought his hand down in a karate-chop movement, severing the snowman’s arm at the wrist. The hand relaxed its grip as he pulled free, falling off as he ran to his teammates.
The Balance staggered into the village square, breathless and weary. Akira checked his pocket; the dream-version of the bag of seeds were still there, safe and sound, but he was back in his usual robes, the Santa illusion having stopped working. They could see faces at some of the windows; children. Lots of children.
They were next to the North Pole sign, in what could have been a cobbled courtyard, covered in deep, soft snow. As they looked around The Balance saw that the village was a charming collection of houses, workshops, sheds, stables, and the like, painted in red with white trim and hung with decorative holly.
As they stood there, a handful of children emerged from several of the buildings, and still more followed them. As they got closer, the pale moonlight lighting their faces like cold spectres, The Balance could see that some of them were the children from their initial encounter at the shopping precinct. All of them seemed scared, and lonely.
One young lad stepped forward, “Are you here to help us? Against the aliens?”
Unable to change into Mary, Banshee knelt down, the boy showing no fear even if the face of the Fae’s terrible visage, “What aliens, dearie? Can you tell me what they look like?”
The boy shifted uneasily. “Like gremlins…”
“Bats!” said another.
“With fangs and big wings!” chimed in a young girl.
Akira stepped forward, a warm smile on his face, “It’s all just a dream, young ones. No need to be afraid. Now, can anyone tell me where these aliens are?”
“We are here!” hissed a cruel voice in the crowd, and suddenly ten of the children shuddered, their bodies changing into Gremlins, their bat-forms just as they were in the shopping centre, complete with their slender guns
“Surrender!” yelled one of the shapeshifters, his gun aimed at Akira.
“Later!” said Akira. He raised his hands to unleash a mystical bolt, only for nothing to happen. His powers had gone; he was helpless. He continued to raise his hands above his head, and his comrades followed suit.
“It’s a free world,” Akira said, as he was led away, “if these guys want to identify as Gremlins, who am I to argue?”
The Balance and the children were escorted to a workshop that had been converted into a prison of sorts. The long building seemed to stretch on much further on the inside than seemed possible from the outside, and was filled with hundreds of children, from toddlers to tweens, most of them scared but still trying to look after each other. A handful of adults were present, no more than that. The doors were locked and the windows shuttered and barred, leaving the only light coming from lanterns hanging from hooks on the walls and ceiling.
Some of the kids recognised the Balance and called out their names, some holding up their favourite Balance action figures, but their excitement at seeing them quickly faded when they realised The Balance were prisoners of the Gremlins as well.
“They captured you, too?” one of the children asked, looking tearful. “Then who’s going to help us? Who’s going to help Santa?”
Banshee was hugging a small girl; X-Ray was playfully rubbing the hair of a young boy; both were trying to cheer the children up anyway they could, leaving Akira to do the hard work.
“Where is Santa?” he asked.
At the mention of Santa a couple of figures, the size of some of the kids, emerged from the crowd. They were dressed in green and white, and were wearing pointed shoes, long caps, and had prominent pointed ears. X-Ray studied them closely. ‘Elves’, he thought to himself, ‘Okay, I’ll bite.’
The elves looked gravely at The Balance. “We’ll take you to him,” they said, and the throngs of children parted to let them and The Balance through.
Lying on a wide, padded bench deeper inside the workshop, they found an old man with a full, white beard. He was wearing red woollen long-johns, and was partially covered by a coat of red velvet, trimmed in white fur, made into a crude blanket. An old woman in a bonnet and long dress sat on a stool beside him, clutching a shawl around her shoulders. The old man stirred slightly as The Balance approached him.
The old fellow opened his eyes, a twinkle in their depths, though his eyelids seemed heavy and he looked worn out. He was clearly weak, but he managed to sit up a bit with the assistance of the woman at his side, giving her a nod and smile of reassurance.
“I see you got my message,” he said, a faint smile on his lips, “I knew that you would. Listen carefully, as we don’t have much time. They’ve used me and mine as the means to invade…the children’s belief in me, that is…and we need you to stop them. You have to…”
Before Santa could complete the thought, the doors to the workshop flew open in a swirl of snow blown in on an icy wind, framing a group of armed Gremlins standing there. The leader in front was backed up by a number of armed soldier Gremlins and flanked by sneering infiltrators in their normal, alien forms.
“So…” the leader said, “instead of us having to capture them on their home planet, the great Balance of Earth have come to us instead. What a…gift…this is! Now we won’t have to go to the trouble of having your own younglings hunt you down for us.”
With a wave of their guns, the Gremlins herded The Balance back outside into the snowy night, crowds of children flowing out of the open doors to watch, dumbfounded, as the events unfolded. Some were silently weeping or suppressing quiet sobs, which the bat-like invaders ignored.
Standing behind the Gremlin soldiers, barely noticeable in the snowy gloom, was the alien female from the shopping precinct. Seemingly impervious to the biting chill, she appeared exactly as she did earlier that day, the universe silently sliding across her body as she watched the proceedings.
With The Balance surrounded in the courtyard of the Workshop, near the North Pole itself, the Gremlin leader addressed them.
“Human belief is such a…curious thing,” the creature mused, veins pulsating, one brow raised. “For example, this seasonal surge in belief, especially among your young, served as the ideal psychic bridge for our matchless minds to reach across the dimensions and infiltrate the dream-strata. From here, we can crush all faith in this so-called ‘spirit of giving’ and reprogram these humans,” he gestured towards the children, “with unwavering loyalty to the Aité Ascendancy.”
Akira and Banshee recognised Aité’s name; she was the Greek Goddess of mischief and ruin, whose mother was the Goddess Eris, the goddess of trouble and conflict. Her father was supposedly Zeus, bane of Titans and the ruler of Olympus.
“All that is needed is to extinguish their pathetic beliefs. While the elimination of their focus, in the form of that ridiculous old man and his mate, should be sufficient, how much more effective will it be to destroy their so-called Balance in front of them?” The soldiers all raised their rod like weapons, as they powered up with the hum of barely restrained power.
“Any last words…?” the Gremlin leader sneered.
Banshee seemed to audibly snarl at her potential executioners, whilst X-Ray pondered how difficult it was to think of last words when suddenly presented with the option of unavoidable death.
Akira had been thinking of a plan whilst the Gremlin leader monologued. He used his connection to the Medallion of Modrossus hanging round the neck of his physical body to try to cast a spell of nullification, hoping to neutralise the spell that was draining their powers.
[The Medallion of Modrossus is part of the regalia of Earth’s Master Mage. It is a powerful talisman of light and truth against the forces of darkness and chaos. When willed, it emits a pure blue-white light able to blind, read thoughts, or banish creatures of supernatural evil. Its power is limited, however, by the arcane knowledge and skill of its wielder. Akira was only in possession of the medallion until a new Master Mage was chosen; The Balance were only holding it in trust until then.]
A sense that what will be flowed over Akira as he realised that there powers were neutralised by doubt; in themselves and in their powers and could be reversed by strengthening the children’s belief – in Santa and in The Balance…
Unfortunately they were out of time and the gremlins were anxious to remove them as a threat.
AS they took aim, a child’s voice called out from somewhere in the crowd. “You can do it! We believe in you. Save us!”
More voices started to join in. “Yes, we believe in you. The Balance are brilliant. You can win!”
Dimly, The Balance began to glow with an icy-blue light. As one, they felt their powers surge within them, powered by the belief of the children.
“NO!” shouted the Gremlin leader, pointing towards the Balance, “Destroy them now!”
Akira’s appeal through the Medallion caused the Gremlins weapons to malfunction and smoke, the soldiers holding their hands in pain, unsure what was happening. Aité stood there, her smile even wider.
Several of the Gremlins deliberately targeted some of the screaming kids. Banshee summoned her bo-staff and started laying into the aliens, stunning one and fending off another.
The crowds of children began cheering as they saw the tide turning. A mob of kids jumped on their Gremlin captors, tripping them to the ground. Although Brian wanted to see the kids get their revenge, he knew that there was too much risk involved to leave them to it. With a thought, he manipulated gravity around them all, separating the children from the Gremlins, holding the aliens helplessly in the air, their wings flapping uselessly as X-Ray increased the gravitational field to pin them to the freezing walls of the nearby houses.
Akira revelled in his regained powers, blasting the Gremlin leader with a mystical bolt, blowing the alien backwards, green ichor-like blood spraying from several wounds. He landed at the feet of Aité, and she reached down to touch him; in response it, he folded up and vanished. Akira tried his luck against another Gremlin but misses his shot.
With the Gremlin soldiers in disarray with the disappearance of their commander, Banshee had the opportunity to change into Mary; she brought forth her harp and played a joyful tune that caused everyone, Gremlins and children, Santa and Mrs Claus, even X-Ray, to dance a jig whether they wanted to or not.
Brian laughed as he danced. “I believe in Father Christmas!” he yelled, slamming more Gremlins this time into the snowy ground. The heightened gravity pushed the creatures down below the surface, screaming and writhing, leaving bat-shaped holes behind them. A young boy stood near the hole, mouth open, jaw dropped in awe, as he watched the Gremlin sink into the earth.
“Whoa! So neat!”
“That made an impression!” Akira’s jokes could be terrible, but right now, that one had X-Ray in stitches.
“It’s his own fault,” Brian replied, chuckling, “he’s on the naughty list!”
Suddenly they heard a hearty “Ho, ho, HO!” booming into the air from behind one of the Gremlins. The unfortunate alien turned around, just as Santa Claus, and the redoubtable Mrs. Claus, both clocked the alien with roundhouse punches.
With their numbers dwindling, the remaining Gremlins run back to Aité.
Her troops defeated, Aité applauded the rag-tag army in front of her. The psychic tide turned against the aliens as the children stood their ground, massively empowering both The Balance and Santa with their belief. The Gremlins all cried out as one and then collapsed, folding in on themselves, disappearing into nothingness with her. One final wave, and she was gone.
The victory over the Aité Ascendancy immediately restored Santa to his full vigour once again, and the Jolly Ol’ Elf spent some time fixing damage to the workshop before reinvigorating The Balance with a wave of his hand; an icy sparkle of magic warmed them through and put a new spring into their step.
“Now it’s time to get all of these good boys and girls home,” he said and, with another wave of his hand, all of the kids appear to fall asleep. Their eyes close in deep sleep, and their forms were drawn into the sack that Santa was holding until it bulged and they had all vanished. He turned to look at The Balance with a mischievous twinkle in his eye. “This is a lot of deliveries, even for me,” he said. “Care to lend an old man some help on Christmas Eve…?”
Like a trio of children, Akira, Banshee, and X-Ray were all smiles, agreeing with a cheer. “Oh, yes, please!” said Akira, eyes wide with wonder.
“I am definitely up for this!” said X-Ray, not quite believing what he was saying.
“This is going to be so much fun!” said Banshee, rubbing her hands together in anticipation.
And so The Balance discovered that, in the dreamscape, Santa delivers the spirit of giving rather than physically delivering presents. Throughout the night, The Balance were passengers taking a sleigh-ride with Santa around the world, returning the psyches of the children to their rightful bodies, witnessing the joy on the faces of grateful parents as their children awoke, none the worse for their ordeals.
“Brian! You’re awake!” Stacy had never looked more beautiful, and Brian held her for a long time before he leaned back in the hospital bed where he lay. “Then I woke with a yawn in the first light of dawn, and I saw him and through his disguise,” he said, quietly, almost to himself.
Stacy looked at him quizzically. “What?”
He looked up at her, love shining from his eyes. “I believe in Father Christmas,” he said, and he smiled, “I love you.”
Was it all a dream…?
MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYBODY!
Superhero Adventures, UK Style 