Naughty and Nice

Cynthia Meyers smiled as she found herself humming “I Saw Three Ships” while she stood at her post aboard the cargo ship Wenceslas. The Longbow agent wished she could be with her family over the holidays, but that was offset by the feeling of pride she had in her current mission: Helping the proceeds of Statesman’s international toy drive reach the children of Paragon City.

She looked up as her partner Carl Jenkins returned from his trip to the galley, a cup of alluring-smelling coffee in his hand.

“Hey there,” Cynthia said, “Got a cup for me?”

“Sorry Cynth, killed the pot with this one.”

“Eh, that’s alright…” as the Longbow agent leaned back against the bulkhead, she suddenly realized that it was not alright. She had been skipped over for promotions time and again, had been stuck guarding a bunch of bloody toys over the holidays, and here this idiot couldn’t even get her a damn cup of coffee…

Finally, she snapped. Standing up with a snarl she hauled back and slammed her fist into that coffee-hogging bastard’s face. Carl, who didn’t even have time to blink, obliged her by dropping in a heap with his coffee staining her red and white uniform. Cynthia stood over him, grinning a bit. Suddenly her satisfaction melted into bewilderment, her grin disappearing. What the hell had possessed her to do that…

Before she could straighten her head out, she felt something small and light strike her in the back. Cynthia shrieked as rough, wooden vines inexplicably coiled around her and held her immobile. The whole thing was too surreal to take in.

“Nicely done you two,” a young female voice said smugly as Cynthia heard multiple approaching footsteps. She let out a gasp as four figures stepped into her field of vision. It was all too clear what they were: Villains.

“Many thanks, Angie,” one of the four said, a lithe, attractive woman if not for her odd bright pink skin. Cynthia recognized her from Longbow's files as Trix St. Germaine, an expert thief with psionic powers. “It’s always fun tricking 'Bows into fighting each other.”

“Indeed,” another of the bunch answered, another woman but with green skin and hair. She looked at the trapped Longbow agent with pure malice. “Now, on to the killing.” She took a step toward Cynthia, a vicious wooden spike growing out of her forearm.
“Not so fast, Deathleaf,” the one Trix called Angie said sternly. Despite her terror Cynthia couldn’t help but blink as she noticed she was just a girl, sixteen at the most. That, and she had a trio of skeletons standing behind her obediently.

Deathleaf shot Angie a venomous glare. “Why should we spare these vermin?”

“Simple, my dear homicidal dryad,” the girl answered confidently, “while Grandpa Longlegs may be insane enough to steal from this toy drive just to humiliate States, I doubt he’d appreciate the international scandal resulting from us killing for them. Besides, survivors are key: without them our reputations wouldn’t grow.”

“Too true, and in our business reputation is everything," said the fourth villain, a hulking figure in high-tech green armor. Despite his brutish appearance the voice issuing from the helmet sounded intelligent and refined.

“Well said Bertilak, well said,” the teenager chuckled before looking down at Carl, “got that one secured, Trix?”

“Bound and gagged tight, Angie,” the pink mutant responded as she finished tying up the unconcious Longbow.

“Then let’s be on our way. We have toys to steal,” the white-haired girl gave one last smirk to Cynthia, “Merry Christmas”.

The four villains laughed as they continued down the corridor, leaving the restrained Longbow agent in dread.

* * *

Angie Summers smiled as she caught herself humming “Grandma Got Ran Over by a Reindeer” as she and her villainous compatriots approached Hold C-19. According to Arachnos’ intel, this was where the toys were, ripe for the stealing.

“Bertilak? Would you do the honors please?” she asked sweetly, pointing at the heavy door blocking their way.

“Certainly, my dear little mastermind,” the man in the green power armor said with a chuckle and a dramatic cracking of his fingers. Taking a large windup the cybernetics expert turned hired muscle dented the door with his first punch and knocked it off its frame with the second.

“Ho ho ho, here we go,” Angie chuckled, her skeletal minions grunting in sycophantic approval.

“Good, let us end this idiot’s mission quickly then,” Deathleaf said with a sneer.

“Does anyone else find it a little odd how easy this was?” Trix asked as she reflexively looked around, above, and behind herself.

“Well, these ARE toys Trix, not nukes or Rikti weapons,” Angie said, directing her skeletons to start picking up the presents, “Longbow wouldn’t go too far to protect these…”

As soon as the words escaped the young necromancer’s lips, the present her skeletal crony had picked up exploded in a burst of wrapping paper and ribbons. The four villains could scarcely react as the skeleton fell backwards in pieces and a hearty if slightly mad laugh rang out. Springing from the present’s remains stood a man in a leather jacket, jeans, and a Santa hat. He looked rather normal except for the really big gun in his hands.

Angie scowled as she recognized this unwelcome surprise. “Marty Rallner… only you’d be insane enough to try something like this…”

Marty held up a finger to silence his archenemy. “Only I’d be insane enough?” At that, three more figures burst from presents: Valerie "The Snowleopard" Tarrine, a professional martial artist, the axe-wielding paladin Kala Dawnslight, and the technologically-minded swordsman Jim Higashi. “Longbow may be idiots when it comes to camoflauge and fashion choices,” the grinning gunman continued, “but even they know when Arachnos is likely to try something and guard it properly.”

The four heroes formed a line in a classic showdown formation as Marty leveled his gun at the villains. “Now, we can do this the hard way or the easy way. Personally I’d prefer the hard way, but that’s my oh-so-humble opinion,” he added with a crazed wink that could have been a nervous tic.

Bertilak leaned over to whisper in Angie’s ear, his voice tinged with nervousness. “He’s not really this insane, is he?”

Angie scowled again, both at being tricked like this and at her comrade’s fear. “No, he’s not… he’s an idiot, not insane. Now, let’s collect these gifts and four capes to hang by the fire with care.” With a snap of her fingers she ordered her remaining two skeletons and her three fellow villains forward.

Each of the heroes sprung forward to engage their own personal enemies. Jim lept at Bertilak, parrying the brute’s energy-sheathed fists with his katana, Codeslicer. Kala and Deathleaf went at it tooth and nail, the dryad’s wooden spines glancing off the knight’s armor. Tarrine deftly sidestepped Trix’s psychic blasts as she rushed inside the mutant’s range, shooting her old college roomate a feral grin.

Amongst all this chaos Marty engaged Angie’s undead minions, forgoing the use of his rifle and swinging his trusty old baseball bat. The vigilante grinned as the bat connected with a ribcage, scattering bone shards everywhere. His team was doing well; if this all worked out they could take out four dangerous criminals, ruin Arachnos' day, and throw a heck of a celebratory holiday bash back home. That optimistic thought was smothered as Marty suddenly got smacked in the face by a glob of inky blackness. Angie grinned as her spell caught that deranged twit dead-on, and the blinded ex-Marine stumbled before hitting the deck.

As Marty worked to clear his vision the rest of the battle had also taken a turn for the worse. Jim zigged when he should have zagged and caught a backhanded strike from Bertilak, tossing him against a bulkhead. Kala meanwhile was struggling to avoid being entangled in Deathleaf’s summoned vines, while Tarrine was locked in a battle of willpower with Trix, resisting the invading urge to start tap dancing. From the way her feet were beginning to move she was starting to falter.

Marty finally succeeded in ripping away the blob of darkness from his face – at the cost of half an eyebrow – and quickly surveyed the scene. Realizing the good guys were in danger of losing, he nimbly rolled away from a stomping skeletal foot and got himself upright.

“SWITCH!”

At that command the four heroes suddenly shifted their focus. Marty ignored Angie completely to shoulder tackle Bertilak from behind, distracting the armored villain long enough for Jim to dash forward and hack Kala free of her leafy prison. Kala nodded her thanks and proceeded to advance on Trix, causing the petite psychic to retreat in fear and relinquish her mental hold on Tarrine. Once free Tarrine completed the chain reaction with a roundhouse kick to the last of Angie’s skeletons, removing its head from its shoulders.

This sudden shift of tactics caught the villains off guard. Bertilak flinched as Marty opened fire on him, even as the bullets deflected off his armor’s protective shields. That hesitation cost him as Marty advanced, tossing his jacket over Bertilak’s helmet to blind him and then drop him with a judo trip. With the walking tank down Marty took his bat and smashed the visor of Bertilak's helmet, which convinced the brute to stay down. Deathleaf howled in fury as Jim slashed through her vines and roots like a blue weed-whacker, even shearing off several of the wooden spines on her arms. She hissed and swung at him, but the former programmer was a blur as he dodged before rocking the dryad with a mean hook to the solar plexus.

Trix probably had the worst of it, having a rather intimidating woman with a godalmighty big axe bearing down on her. In her fear she backed herself into a corner. Thus trapped she finally moved to use her powers, but Kala raised her axe. “To quote Clint of the East Wood, this could take your head clean off. Do you feel lucky, punk?” Trix’s pink skin almost became white at the grim thought and opted to cower instead. It was undignified, yes, but it was better than being hacked to pieces.

Angie let out a slew of obscenities at her fellow villains’ incompetence as she tried tagging Tarrine with dark energy blasts. The Snowleopard's armored vest shrugged off whatever shots she couldn’t dodge, and with a forward flip landed right in front of the young mastermind.

Angie was defiant even as the taller woman grabbed the front of her shirt and lifted her to her tiptoes. “So, you’re the one Rallner is drooling over, eh? Always figured his standards were low.”

Tarrine simply smiled. “Indeed. Look at his choice of enemies,” she said before ending the conversation with a headbutt, leaving Angie to see stars.

“Well, that’s the last of them,” Kala observed as she finished binding a compliant Trix up, “Both Longbow and the Ziggurat will be glad to have these four back where they belong.”

“Oh, we aren’t tossing them back in jail,” Marty said with a smile. The other three heroes looked at him like he was turning into a big spider.

“You’ve gotta be kidding me, Rallner,” Tarrine muttered. Jim looked at the grin on Marty’s face and tilted his head quizzically. “Marty, I sense there’s some manner of evil percolating in that tiny little diabolical brain of yours.”

“You sense right, Jim,” Marty said as he opened up an undisturbed present, “we’re going to give Arachnos a little holiday surprise…”

* * *

Operator Gupter leaned back at his station in Fort Darwin’s medical center, idly humming "Silent Night" to himself. All of His Lord Recluse’s pet villains on Mercy Island were screwing around in their own perverse forms of holiday fun, but none of them were getting in enough trouble to warrant a medivac.

                Gupter was just about to shut his eyes for a little holiday nap when his console started yammering. Bolting upright he checked the incoming signal. “Well, that’s odd…” he said to himself as he reached for the comm, “Lady Kalinda? Operator Gupter here in the medbay. We’re getting a signal from the latest Operation Scrooge group. No, their vitals seem okay, but their request for medivac is at priority one…”

As the Arachnos technician worked to bring the villains in Lady Kalinda strode into the room. While her opaque, cylindrical helmet betrayed nothing, Gupter swore the Fortuna seemed confused.

“Bring them in, Operator,” the Fortuna commanded in a ghostly tone, and Gupter swiftly complied.

                What appeared on the teleport pad was four rather sorry looking villains: Angie Summers, Trix St. Germaine, Deathleaf, and Bertilak. All four had been disarmed, bound, and gagged, novelty reindeer antlers placed on their heads. In Summers’ lap was a bulky stocking. Kalinda wasted no words and stepped forward, picking up the stocking and shaking it out.

Angie and her cohorts groaned from embarrassment as lumps of coal fell out of the stocking and clattered over the metal floor. Gupter had to fight back laughing out loud as the coal just kept coming. Finally the black cascade ended and a folded piece of paper fell out. Kalinda discarded the soot-covered stocking and unfolded the page.

“Merry Christmas from Paragon City! Try this again and we’ll be giving you a shovelful from the bottom of the reindeer stables next year! Love, Marty Claus”

Kalinda slowly looked up from the letter to the four bound villains. She couldn’t wait to hear the excuse for this one.