by Sean Shake
Air, I thought.
It had worked before, though unintentionally.
I focused again on it now, tried to replicate it, felt it in my shoulders.
I flew suddenly out from under him and up into the air, before crashing back down to the ground.
“Ugh,” I groaned. I needed to pra—
Gastly roared furiously and I saw that he was already flying at me again.
Remembering Scarlett’s conversion into a troll, that weird way she had pushed herself up from the grass in Erica’s backyard, I tried to mimic the same thing, hoping my efforts were more controlled this time, feeling the spirit of air at my shoulders, then directing it to pull, levering me to my feet.
It worked, shockingly.
Unfortunately, it worked just as Gastly reached me and he socked his stupid fist right into my face, sending me flying ten feet backward and sprawling to the ground again.
My poor sore tailbone.
I let out a moan and let my head roll to look at the rest of the battle that was going on.
Erica and Scarlett were doing a number on the rest of the demons, while Alexa and Rue stood with the elves, Rue looking ready to actually gore anyone if they dared come near.
But the demons didn’t seem to have any interest in that, they were focusing all of their attention on Scarlett and Erica, who were doing quite a bit of damage to them.
Maybe I—
Something slammed into my balls and I let out a sickening cry.
Gastly laughed ghastlily as I curled into a ball, clutching my genitals.
After this, I was going have spare suits made, and I was stashing them everywhere. Or at least cups.
Running around naked was too enticing for demons. They just had to go for the balls.
Maybe because they didn’t seem to have any, they couldn’t have any sympathy for how much it sucked to get hit there.
It could’ve been worse, I thought, he could have bit off—
I clamped down on that thought and used the spirit of air to flip myself into the air.
I landed on my feet. And then fell right back onto my ass again.
Another jolt of pain from landing on the frozen ground went through my battered tailbone, and I was reminded of snowboarding as a teenager too early in the season, and falling on my ass in the icy snow, and being sore for days afterward.
I suddenly remembered that my feet used to get cold when I snowboarded, and as I got to them once more I wiggled my toasty warm toes. No heated socks needed here.
Despite the sickening pains now dulling in my stomach, I was still kind of having fun. Maybe it was messed up, but I was pretty sure we could defeat them, and that made it hard to be down.
Getting punched in the balls went some way toward feeling down, but not far enough.
As long as they didn’t go for Alexa and the elves, everything would be fine. And with Erica and Scarlett, they wouldn’t get a chance.
The only one I was really worried about, was this Gastly character.
He seemed dumb, but not dumb enough. And he was definitely strong.
He was watching me, and I put my fists up again. “Is that all you’ve got?”
“I’m just getting started,” he said and flew at me.
This time I let him fly right into me, taking the hit so I could wrap my arms around him. I called on the spirit of air to quickly spin us around and send us slamming into the ground, him beneath me.
I braced my knees in the gap between his fists and body, and was only somewhat surprised when it pinned him there.
I briefly considered teabagging him, but decided this was a bad idea on account of his large, sharp teeth.
Instead of putting my balls on his head, I started putting my fists there.
He tried to block with his disconnected floating hands, but his ‘arms’ weren’t long enough.
I dug my knees harder into those invisible arms, or whatever was attaching his fists to his body.
Which was when I discovered an unfortunate thing.
Though it felt like my knees were pinning his arms down, they apparently weren’t.
Because he stopped trying to block and reached out, stretching, then grabbed my butt cheeks.
“Uh-oh,” I said.
Then he started pulling, and I called on the spirit of air quicker, I was sure, than any Santa had ever called on it before and flipped myself up—shivering in disgust as Gastly’s fingers skipped across my butt cheeks—and then ended up going far too high, landing in the treetops.
But anything was better than what he had been planning on doing.
I fell through the trees, thinking of a particular saying about an ugly tree and all the branches I hit, and then saw the ground approaching.
I threw my hands out before me, like I had many times snowboarding, but this time I surprised myself by sending a gust of wind from my hands so that when I finally did collide with the ground, it was rather soft and gentle.
Or as gentle as colliding with frozen soil could be.
I stayed conscious at least, so that was a good thing.
I summoned the spirit of air again, flipping to my feet, this time actually doing a full front flip.
I laughed. I was getting the hang of this.
About fricken time. And I didn’t even have to sleep on it like I had with improving at snowboarding.
Despite getting nutted and having a demon try to do something very demented to me, I was enjoying myself.
My plan had worked. I had defended my friends, saved my wife, killed the Yule Lads in a satisfying way, and now Scarlett and Erica were dispatching the rest of the demons.
All I had left to worry about, was Gastly.
A strong and persistent demon, no doubt. But I knew I could take him.
Smiling, I put my fists up again. “Come on you dirty bastard. You want a piece of this ass?” I briefly dropped one fist to slap said ass. “Come get it.” Maybe not the wisest taunt, but I never claimed to be the wisest guy.
He roared in anger and charged.
I smiled as I ducked, letting him fly over my head and slam into a tree behind me.
I popped up and spun to face him, my still-sore balls giving a little protest at the jostling they were receiving.
He groaned as he pushed himself up from the ground, then floated back into the air lazily like a half-filled balloon. He tottered side to side, then shook his head, which was equivalent to shaking his entire body except for his hands, and focused on me again. “I’m going to eat you. And then I’m going to eat you again.”
“Ew. You eat your own feces?”
“I don’t poop!” he cried and before I could reply to this, charged me again.
I ducked easily and he tried to adjust, but he was too slow and went slamming into the frozen ground.
I popped up again, feeling spry, and ran over to him before he could get up, then kicked him like a football toward the portal, which he slammed into and bounced off of.
I held up my arms. “Goal!” I shouted.
There were only thirty or so demons left, and those didn’t look too enthusiastic about fighting.
I saw now that some in fact were actually trying to run away, but Erica swiftly cut them down with flames before they managed to escape.
As I watched, the others seemed to decide that their only way of escaping was killing the fire goddess, and now started swarming her, Scarlett’s attacks pretty much going unrequited.
I wondered if I should—
Gastly slammed into me again and we went to the ground.
Damn, I had been so distracted watching Erica’s fight, I hadn’t noticed him get up.
Then his hand went for my nuts.
“Oh no you—”
Oh, but he did.
He got his large hand wrapped around my package and then his long middle finger trailed upward and started exploring.
No! I thought with such force that we actually rocketed up into the air, propelled by the spirit, lifting us h
igher than I’d ever gone, pushing us through the tree branches and into the chill dark sky, the two moons of this place lighting the sky, one of them still full, hovering in the distance over the lake, the other now just a waning crescent that would soon turn new.
I latched on to the demon, his hands still on my balls, but his finger no longer exploring thank God, and spun us around so he was beneath me and sped us back toward the ground.
“What are you doing!” he cried in horror, hand still locked around my package.
“I’m squishing you like the bug you are.”
“You’ll die too.”
“It’ll be worth it.”
“You’re insane.”
We were almost back to the treetops now. “Bye-bye, Gastly.”
Then we broke through the canopy and the demon let out one last, almost pitiful cry, before letting go of my balls and flying away.
Okay, balls safe. Now to save the rest of me.
I started to direct all my power toward the ground to, you know, not die when I crashed, but then remembered the elevator to Alexa’s secret hideout, the day I met her.
How we had gone weightless. How my shirt that she’d been wearing had floated up, enticingly revealing a good deal of underboob.
And suddenly I felt light.
I slammed into the ground, then simply bounced off of it, as though I had no mass at all.
I let out a joyous cry as I spun through the air weightlessly.
Gastly hit the ground as well, and like the half-deflated balloon he was, bounced similarly.
Now we floated fifteen feet away from each other, face-to-face.
“So this is what it’s like to be a discount Pokémon, is it Gastly?”
“Why do you call me Gastly? My name is Salakktus.”
I put my hand up, shaking my head. “Nope. You’re Gastly forever and always. Don’t try to confuse the matter, Gastly.”
“My name is Salakktus! And you will show me some respect. I am a greater demon. Do you know how long I’ve been alive?”
“Nope. Don’t care to, either. I can tell you how much longer you’ll be alive for, though.”
He scoffed. “The Santa isn’t psychic.”
“This one is.”
I looked at my wrist at a nonexistent watch.
It was for effect, obviously.
Though I didn’t know if demons had watches so, maybe the act was lost on him.
Oh well, I enjoyed it. “About thirty-five seconds.”
“What?”
“That’s how long it’s gonna take me to kill you.”
He sputtered and roared. “I’ll show you who kills you!”
I laughed at the nonsensical phrase.
But instead of charging me, my old pal Gastly started doing something I didn’t much like.
70
“Well shit,” I said. Guess I’d gone and pissed him off too much.
I watched as the “greater demon” sucked in all the lesser demons, growing with each one he consumed.
Maybe his threat to eat me twice hadn’t been idle.
“Don’t let him transform!” Alexa shouted from where she stood with Rue and the elves.
Everyone was looking at us now, the battle between Erica, Scarlett, and the other demons having momentarily halted as one of their own had turned on them.
The demons didn’t seem too pleased about this and grabbed onto whatever they could to avoid being sucked in.
Erica turned her attention to Gastly and cast a stupidly large fireball at him.
But without even looking he threw one of his fists at her and it locked around her head, pinning her to the ground and apparently knocking her unconscious, the fireball she had hurled dissolving in midair before it reached its target.
“Erica!” I shouted.
I looked at the now one-handed demon, the demon who was growing legs and arms.
And horns.
A demon who was starting to look nothing at all like a Pokémon.
Despite this, I didn’t feel dread. I felt good.
Joyous was the word that came to mind.
This made me think of something, and I called up my spirit levels.
My joy was now not only not negative one, not zero—but eighty-five. Higher than any of my other spirits.
Did I really enjoy fighting that much?
I must have.
But what good would the spirit of joy do me?
It wasn’t like I could use joy as a weapon against demons.
Or could I?
Demons were technically the antithesis of joy.
So what would happen if I attacked them with joy?
One way to find out, and all my other options were rapidly vanishing.
Hell, had vanished. Unless I wanted to try throwing the North Pole at him and hoping he popped.
A single Gastly I was confident I would’ve been able to defeat, or at least keep occupied long enough for Erica and Scarlett to finish with the others and start in on him.
But a superpowered giant Voltron-Ultimate-Oh-Shit-Evolution Gastly?
That I wasn’t so sure about.
And so I summoned up all my joy and happiness at saving my friends, at my plan having worked, at defeating the Yule Lads and rescuing Alexa, my beautiful wife, at fighting Gastly and even the stupid immature pleasure at the frustration I’d elicited from him by calling him Gastly instead of whatever his name was.
I looked at my fists, which were now glowing intensely, glowing a…
A happy rainbow color?
Oh well, I still felt like a badass.
Then I yelled something that sounded like the gentle laugh of a little boy and poured my sparkly rainbow-colored joy into the growing Voltron demon.
He laughed at first—somehow still sucking up demons as he did—then surprise crossed his large features. “What are you doing?”
“I’m making you happy!” In my mind I shouted this in a deep, manly voice, but it came out in a silly little giggle.
“No!” he screamed, and finally stopped hoovering up the other demons and tried to fly away.
But I didn’t relent, pumping more joy into him, a bright mirthful laugh erupting from my lips.
His purplish flesh, or ichor, or whatever it was started brightening, turning white as he expanded with joy.
Then he started shrinking again, his other demons popping out of him.
“You pooped!” I yelled, laughing maniacally.
Damn, joy could be a scary bitch.
Bolts of rainbow joy started spewing from him, chasing down the other demons like a father reaching out to tickle his children.
Until they laughed so hard their guts ruptured and they cried tears of blood.
Gastly roared his ghastly roar, clearly not very happy at all the joy that was entering him.
I would have been positively mirthful.
But then again I was Santa, not a demon.
I pumped him full of joy until he could stand no more, and suddenly he exploded into a cloud of rainbows.
It was like that Oprah episode except instead of cars, everyone got rainbows.
But I didn’t stop to enjoy the site. There were still other demons left.
I didn’t know if any of them could transform like he had, but now that the idea had been put into their little—and large—demon heads, I didn’t want to let it take root, and so I pumped my joy into the others, filling them with rainbows.
Joy turned to superjoy as the rainbows shifted becoming pink and purple and violet and it flew through the other demons like chain lightning.
Then they started popping like a unicorn’s zits, rainbow puss filling the air.
I collapsed to the ground, uncontrollably giggling.
The demons were gone, the area before the portal filled with explosions of color that had once been demons.
I saw no dust this time as my giggles turned to hiccups, so maybe that was how you killed demons once and for all: make them happy.
Scarlett
ran up and went to her knees next to me, wrapping her arms around my head and squishing my face not unpleasantly into her breasts.
“You did it!” she said excitedly.
I hugged her back, my cheeks burning from laughing so much, hiccuping again.
Then Erica came over to me, free now that the demon was gone, but with a mark where Gastly’s hand had been on her face, and hugged me as well, her skin hot against mine.
Now I had boobs on two sides of my head.
“No!” a voice cried.
It was Rue’s.
I quickly got up and turned toward the sound.
Just in time to see Rue leaping in front of Alexa as Ovariea—she somehow had survived—went for her.
“Out of my way little deer,” Ovariea said and slashed a hand across Rue’s throat, a gout of blood spraying onto her tits as Rue fell to the ground.
“No!” I cried out, mimicking Rue’s earlier cry.
Then Ovariea grabbed Alexa by the neck, yanking her in front of her, putting her between us.
She put a hand that I saw had now grown claws to Alexa’s neck, pressed in to the soft flesh.
“Ovariea!” I shouted, angry and surprised.
She smiled wickedly at me.
Without thinking, before the last of it could be robbed from me, I pumped joy into her.
She laughed.
And then kept laughing.
Which was not what I was expecting.
“Don’t you remember, young Santa? I absorbed your Santa suit. It protects me from your joy. Unlike those other idiots, I didn’t rely simply on magic. I’ve absorbed a lot of technology over the ages. Technology that comes in handy.”
“Let her go Ovariea.”
Still gripping her neck, she nestled her nose into Alexa’s hair, sniffing, then licked her ear. “Oh I don’t think so. I can have so much fun with her.”
Using her other hand she slashed at the gown that the Yule Lads had put Alexa in, then tore it off her. She didn’t stop there, cutting into and then ripping off Alexa’s bra and panties.
The middle finger of Ovariea’s other hand, the one not on Alexa’s neck, grew long and sharper, and she used it to caress Alexa’s breast, trailing her fingernail across her nipple, a line of blood appearing as Alexa screamed in pain.
“Stop it!” I cried.
“I’m not going to stop until you go get the North Pole and bring it to me. Until then…” She trailed her now overly large finger down Alexa’s chest and stomach, a trail of red behind it, going all the way down to her crotch, and then flicked her finger, a little bit of blood flinging off, before pushing her finger inside Alexa.