Santa Claus Is Missing: A Christmas Harem Gamelit

by Sean Shake

  I turned to find—

  “Rue?”

  “Shut up and fight! There’s more coming.” She had the replica saber, which she’d just used to slice the ass-biter off me.

  “Where’s Alexa?”

  “I couldn’t get her. The Yule Lads are too powerful for me.”

  “They—”

  “Fight dammit, then we’ll worry about saving her.”

  So I did.

  With the three of us, the tides shifted quickly, and we’d soon dispatched all of them.

  At least, all the ones around us.

  “Where’d the rest of them go?” I asked. I felt giddy for some reason. I’d never realized how much I’d liked fighting until now.

  “Ran away when I rescued you,” Scarlett replied.

  Rue glanced at the destruction-loving troll, then at me. “Couldn’t help yourself, could you?”

  “She saved my ass. I think I might make more when this is all over. Looks like I wasn’t the only one who made something. I saw your reindeer. You made them while I was gone?”

  “Don’t sound so surprised. What, you think we just sit around and do nothing when you're not with us?”

  “Well, yeah.”

  Rue grunted at this.

  We seemed to be all alone now, other than the demon corpses at our feet.

  “What happened?” I asked Scarlett. “One second I was standing there, the next you were hitting me in the head.”

  “That tit demon titted you, stole your outfit.” She scrunched her face up. “Made you give it to her actually, so stole might not be the right word. Seduced? Yeah, that’s it.”

  I looked at the corpses, realizing I hadn’t seen her since I’d been hit in the head.

  She had called me to her, and then…

  Oh, no. Oh God. The image of my penis sliding out of her flashed in my mind.

  I’d had sex with her.

  I shuddered. That knocked my enjoyment down a notch. “What happened to her?”

  “She ran off right after I knocked some sense into you,” Scarlett informed me.

  “Where’s Alexa, the elves, and the reindeer?” I asked Rue.

  “The Yule Lads have them all.”

  “They ran away too. Off into the woods,” Scarlett said. “Couldn't go after them. Too many demons. And I had to save you from that tit demon.”

  “Well they’re dead now, so let’s go.”

  Rue grabbed my arm. “We can’t just go running after them. The Yule Lads are tricky. And they’ve got demons on their side now.”

  “It worked before, didn’t it?”

  Rue opened her mouth to object, then closed it. “I guess it did.”

  I nodded. “Come on, let’s kill us some Lads.”

  “Do you want to put some clothes on?” Scarlett asked, following me.

  “No,” I replied, and headed into the woods.

  66

  We went through the forest following the spectral paths the demons had left.

  The trails were everywhere, ghostly lines crisscrossing over the ground and through the trees, paths going every which way.

  But they were all going in a general direction.

  A direction we followed.

  “Your plan is just, go and attack them?” Rue asked.

  “Pretty much.”

  “All you have is your North Pole. Literally. You’re not even wearing any clothes.”

  “Yeah and I have to get my Santa suit back too from that succubus bitch Ovariea. Don’t exactly have time to go dig around for something else to wear. Besides, the three of us can take them out.”

  “You’re awfully confident,” Rue said.

  Maybe, but I had to be. I had to think positive. Plus, the fact that they ran from us showed they were scared, that they thought now that there were three of us, we could win…

  Against a hundred…

  I frowned, my sure pace slowing, becoming less certain.

  That was strange that they would run from just the three of us.

  And hadn’t they wanted the North Pole?

  Why would they run away from it?

  Unless they knew I would be bringing it right to them.

  I stopped.

  “What is it?” Rue asked.

  “I think you might’ve been right.”

  “Of course I was.” She frowned. “About what?”

  “About charging in.” I looked at the saber in her hand, then at the one in mine.

  “I think I’ve got a better idea.”

  67

  I walked through the forest naked as the day I was born with nothing but my wits and my saber.

  And a bit of magic.

  I hoped they’d be enough, and I hoped my plan didn’t get us all killed.

  A branch cracked from my side and I caught the briefest of movements.

  But that was fine, because the rest of the way the only sounds were of my own footfalls on the frozen soil.

  I followed the spectral trails and eventually they led me to a clearing.

  A clearing that was no longer clear at all, but one that was filled with demons.

  That must’ve known I would come from this direction, because they were all facing me.

  Behind them was the largest portal I’d seen yet.

  “Well well well,” Gastly said, standing at the front of the crowd of demons. “Look who decided to show up.”

  “Give me back my friends.”

  “All you have to do is give us the North Pole, and we will. You’re the one making this tough on yourself.”

  I looked down at the saber, considering.

  Then I looked up and charged at the demon.

  “Get him!” Gastly cried, and demons descended upon me.

  I slashed them with my saber, dodging and rolling, trying to push through them.

  Because a portal wasn’t all I’d seen. I had seen Alexa and the elves, being watched over by the Yule Lads.

  I fought my way through the hordes, using the fact that they thought I was trying to kill them rather than push through them to my advantage.

  I was just reaching the last row, about to break free from them and have nothing between me and Alexa, when one of them latched onto my arm and bit hard.

  Without my armor the teeth sank into my flesh and I screamed.

  Holy shit, that really hurt.

  I let go of my saber, hoping it would buy me an extra second.

  It did.

  The demon went nuts and unlatched from my arm, lunging for the saber.

  I rolled and then I was out of the horde of demons, not a hundred feet from where the Yule Lads had Alexa and the elves.

  My elves. My wife.

  We locked eyes, and I saw now that what she was gagged with was a red apple.

  Behind me the demon that bit me let out a triumphant roar. “I have the North Pole!”

  Gastly flew over to him and slapped a large open palm across his face, grabbing the Pole from him. “Good job,” he muttered.

  I looked to Gastly. “So you’re going to give me my friends now, right?”

  Gastly laughed a ghastly laugh. “Of course not. We’re demons, idiot.” He shook his head, which was equivalent to shaking his whole body, his floating disconnected hands the other thing remaining still. “You new Santas. I don’t know why it keeps ending up being humans who become Santas.”

  “The last one wasn’t bad,” Ovariea said from beside him.

  I hadn’t even noticed her before, but now that I had, I tried not to.

  “Don’t be stupid. They’re all bad.” He looked at me. “Now it’s time we finish you off once—”

  Yes, I was naked, I had nothing at all, not even my saber anymore.

  Except that wasn’t true, because I had my wits.

  And my HUD.

  And…

  My magic.

  68

  The demons may have been resistant to my magic.

  But the Yule Lads, on the other hand…

  I could hear th
em laughing, joking with each other

  I turned to face them, Gastly’s words cut off at my sudden dismissal of him, and Alexa locked eyes with me once again.

  She was still in that ridiculous dress, gagged with an apple as though they were planning on roasting and eating her.

  Who knew, maybe they were.

  It filled me with a fiery rage I itched to let out.

  “Duck!” I yelled, and Alexa went to the ground. I breathed in, tasting ashes, smelling smoke, and then threw my hands out before me, putting all my energy into them, hoping I could span the gap.

  Gouts of flame burst from my open palms and rushed toward the Yule Lads.

  Their laughing smiling ways quickly fell away as they saw the flames rushing toward them.

  But it was too late.

  All thirteen Yule Lads were engulfed in flames and began running around madly, slapping at each other, rolling on the ground trying to put each other out, trying to put themselves out.

  But these were magic flames, and they weren’t going to be going out any time soon.

  The demons, too, didn’t seem so amused anymore.

  They were about to be even more disappointed.

  I spun to Gastly, floating where he had been, a look of comical surprise on his over-large features, the saber still in one of his disconnected fists.

  He activated it, extended the spiraling, chasing beams and raised it as though to fly toward me and use it on me.

  Yes, the demons were resistant to my ice and fire magic, but the Yule Lads weren’t.

  And neither was something else. Something which had been rushed in the making.

  A glass cannon.

  I breathed in again, this time feeling moisture fill my lungs, icy particles forming in my nostrils, and then lashed out, throwing a chill toward the demon, focusing it in a narrow beam.

  He laughed as ice tried to encase his arm but failed to, melting away at his resistance.

  “You really don’t learn, do you? Didn’t you listen before? Your magic can hurt us.”

  “Oh,” I said, “I’ve learned to listen. And I listened very well. It’s not you I was trying to hurt.”

  Then I summoned the spirit of air, feeling it like I had the fire and ice, feeling it build in my shoulders, feeling a vortex exit my lungs as I breathed out, then threw my hands forward and cast at the demon.

  But instead of Gastly calling out in surprise as the saber was knocked from his grasp, I was the one surprised as I felt my feet unceremoniously hoisted off the ground and my body hurtled toward the floating specter.

  I collided into him, just missing being impaled by the saber my plan had revolved around, then punching at his hand.

  In addition to taking myself by surprise, I’d taken him as well apparently as this blow was enough to knock the saber out of his grasp.

  It spun through the air as it fell toward the earth, then landed on the hard, frozen soil, shattering into glass.

  Not exactly how I had planned things, but hey, it’d worked.

  Gastly and I toppled to the ground and I tried to pin him there, but he was a slippery bastard and we had fallen awkwardly, so he was able to push himself out from under me and fly up into the air again.

  Then he let out a high-pitched shriek deserving of a nine-year-old when he saw the shattered North Pole remnants.

  “What have you done! You’re mad.”

  Mad as hell, I thought, and not going to take it anymore, unsure sure where the quote came from, but feeling that it fit quite well.

  “Retreat,” a demon cried, and I saw that it was Ovariea. Her voice was no longer Alexa’s.

  I looked over to where the Yule Lads were, and saw that they were all now just blackened corpses on the ground.

  The sight filled me with grim satisfaction.

  I’d warned them. They hadn’t listened. Now they’d paid the price. They’d gotten off easy, burning to death. I’d wanted to do a lot worse, but I didn’t have the time.

  The demons rushed toward the portal as my backup plan that I hadn’t needed—Scarlett—came out from where she’d been hiding in the woods.

  She was quiet for a troll, or maybe all trolls were. True, I had heard her once as she stepped on a twig, but I hadn’t heard a peep after that.

  “Your plan is working so far,” she said as we watched the demons rush toward the portal.

  “Let’s hope that the rest of it works. I’m sick of these bastards. I don’t want to give them time to regroup, gather who-knows-who-else to their cause.”

  We already had spent enough time dealing with Grýla and the Yule Lads, and we still had the demons to deal with.

  We couldn’t afford to waste any more.

  Not until we got Christmas saved. And we were running out of time. Soon, very soon, Christmas Eve would turn to Christmas Morning, and if we let the demons go, they might come back with backup, perhaps Leppalúði, Grýla’s husband and the Yule Lads’ father.

  Yes, if they told him of his dead sons, I was sure he’d join their cause.

  Even if he didn’t, there was still whoever it was who’d tried to ruin Christmas in the first place, whoever it was who had Nick, Alexa’s father. Assuming they did have him and his wife and the elves and reindeer, and they hadn’t just slaughtered them all.

  But I couldn’t think like that, I had to think positively.

  This was made easier as I watched the demons reach the portal, Gastly in the lead.

  He slammed into it and was bounced back—much like the werewolves had been—letting out a cry of pain and surprise.

  I felt a smile spread across my lips. “You’re not going anywhere, you little counterfeit Pokémon.”

  69

  “Get out of my way,” Ovariea said, pushing past the other demons and running for the portal, not having seen Gastly or not caring.

  Then she slammed into it as well—her large tits cushioning the blow—and bounced back with a satisfying sound as she sprawled undignifiedly onto the ground, tits bouncing with anime levels of jiggle.

  She pushed herself up, looking around. “What’s going on?” she asked, fear and confusion in her voice.

  Alexa had gotten the apple gag out of her mouth and had somehow gotten the bad juju binding from Erica, and the two of them had almost finished freeing the rest of my elves.

  Just then, Rue came out of the woods, a broad smile on her face, her antlers having seemed to have grown even more, her eyes that flat-yet-deep metallic-blue, glittering mischievously.

  I’d never seen her so happy.

  Alexa and Erica stayed with the elves while Rue joined Scarlett and I, the demons now all turning their attention to us.

  “You’re not going to be going anywhere,” I told the demons. “It’s time for you to die.”

  I had given Rue the actual North Pole, and taken the replica she had made to use as bait for the demons.

  Now, with the North Pole ensconced in Alexa’s childhood home, the Northern Realm were protected once more, unable to be entered without permission.

  Or, more relevantly in this case, left without permission.

  Permission I had no intention of giving these bastards.

  “Kill!” Gastly shouted.

  He was so single-minded.

  The demons screeched and charged toward us.

  It was only now, a horde of demons descending upon me, that I realized I was weaponless against them.

  Shit. I didn’t have a North Pole, and they’d resisted all my magic.

  I did have the spirit of air, but that would just throw me into them.

  Oh well, it was better than nothing.

  Besides, I had enjoyed fighting them. And with Scarlett—and Erica, I saw now, as she rushed toward us, entire body aflame—by my side, we should be able to take them all out.

  I hoped.

  It was a good thing we had Erica, she was an ace up my sleeve.

  Her firepower—literally—was extremely high, perhaps high enough to overwhelm their resista
nce. It’d felt hot to me when we’d had sex, and she wasn’t even trying to hurt me then.

  From fifty feet away she leapt into the air, floating there, then cast a massive spray of flame onto the charging demons, diverting them away from us in a shrieking mass.

  Except for Gastly. He dodged around the flame, and kept coming right for me.

  I got the feeling he didn’t much like me anymore.

  “I guess you don’t want to be frien—” I began, but then he slammed into me and we went flying back all the way into a tree.

  Crack.

  It was so loud, I imagined someone back in Florida heard it.

  He’s broken my back, I thought, then the tree crashed down and I realized that he had also broken the tree.

  I fell to the ground and pain jolted through me.

  If my back was broken, would I feel pain? Maybe.

  I tried to wiggle my toes.

  They wiggled, doing a stupid little spastic jig.

  But they moved, and that’s what I cared about.

  I got to my feet groaning, my back sore, but thankfully not broken. Then I put up my fists, facing off against the demon as behind him Scarlett and Erica fought off his friends, ripping them to shreds and lighting them on fire, not always in that order.

  At the sight of my fists Gastly let out a ghastly little laugh, purple smoke coming from his nose-area. Then he flew at me.

  I ducked and threw a left hook, slamming into the side of his bulbous form.

  He didn’t seem particularly injured, though he did seem stunned.

  So was I.

  He flew at me again, and again I dodged, this time throwing an uppercut that sent him spiraling up into the air like an untied, deflating balloon.

  I laughed. “Is that all you’ve got you stupid Pokémon?”

  Gastly got himself stopped and locked his fiery gaze onto mine. “I,” he said, rushing down at me. “Am. Not. A. Pokémon!” He slammed into me, this time predicting my dodge and adjusting, and we went to the ground, clods of frozen earth spitting up around us as my bare ass skidded, heels kicking trying to dig in, hands up, as he pummeled me with his disconnected fists.

  We skidded to a stop, but his punches kept raining down on me, and I couldn’t get out from under him without risking him slamming his fists into my head.