"Ooh it's nearly the holidays(ish), we so have to decorate the Library! I have lots of tinsel stacked up and all ready to go. Bring on December!"
Jess had just come up with the idea of decorating the Library for Christmas, and the other Agents had taken well to it.
"We do need to decorate the Library. I'll bet Adrian's never bothered celebrating Christmas before now, so we should make this one good!" Tash pulled out her cell phone and Adrian's credit card (which she had taken to pilfering recently). "Plans require pizza, what does everyone want?"
"Cheese please," said Tyler, almost not registering the question at all. Instead, he went into a room and emerged with enough ornaments to decorate a small dragon.
"I'd like pepperoni, I'll help decorate." Jared then went over to Chevila, ripped out one of its tires, and hung it up as a wreath on his lab, adding a few batteries for holly berries. He then took to spraying things with fake snow. "Oops… I hope that book wasn't important…"
Tyler was busy munching patterns into silver paper.
"Spicy Meat Feast please, Tash!" called Jess, also hanging up lights around the room. "And make it extra large, Leonard'll want some..." She unsteadily turned to the basement.
Tyler paled at the mention of Leonard while Jared sang the Redneck Twelve Days of Christmas. Then Jared had an idea.
"You know that mutant tree we fought the other day? (A/N: This is a long story ^.^) "We should probably get that thing out of the basement, which will be a real project seeing as how I half-buried it when we fought it."
Tyler and Jared thus went into the basement while Tash brought the pizza orders, along with the other things Domino's always brought. Charis, who had helped decorate, clicked a button. Red and green lights turned on everywhere. "Yay! It's almost Christmas!"
"One month to go!" Jess emerged from the basement, with Leonard peeking out of the bag. "I found this one sitting in the basement. I dread to think what he was trying to do..."
Tyler and Jared returned from the basement, and as Jared painted the tree green and put tinsel on it, Tyler placed an angel on the top. "There! A mutated Christmas tree!"
As Tash appraised the tree, a thought formed in her head: We need to get presents under that tree…
-
…and that was how Tash came up with the idea for the Secret Santa.
Each Agent drew from a hat (Harriet called it "The Hat of Fate") that decided what person each Agent would be required to give a gift to. (Giving gifts was voluntary. The Secret Santa gift was required.) As each Agent drew…
The hell? thought Ben. I got myself…
I got Jess, thought Tash, looking at Adrian's clear printing on the paper. Well, everyone knows what she wants…
I got Cristoph! thought Rhia, in shock. How on earth am I going to tackle this! Especially after recent events…
Now what am I going to do? thought Cristoph. I… got Lady Rhia…
"Um, Tash," piped up Chrys. "This… well…"
"Yes?" said Tash.
"This wouldn't be so much of an issue if Christmas wasn't tomorrow."
"Oh," said Tash. "Well, good luck!"
-
"Where are Chrys and Aster?" asked Adrian, looking around.
"Their universe," replied Tash, not looking up from her work. "They're frequenting shops to go buy presents. Although how they're going to find presents when she's practically broke beats me…"
"Hm," said Adrian. "It's nice to know they're not interfering with the decorating. It's already hectic around here."
Their conversation was interrupted by a loud shout.
"OOH, YOU GET BACK HERE NOW! YOU GET BACK HERE WITH MY CIDER OR I WILL – "
"Jess sure is scary when she's drunk," said Adrian.
"Well, you're going to have to get used to it, because there's going to be eggnog tomorr- !"
"Hm?" said Adrian, not liking where this "great idea" was going to go…"
"Let's do karaoke tomorrow!"
Suddenly, Adrian went very, very pale.
"No," he said. "I don't sing. Get it? You're not making me sing. Over my dead body."
"Oh come on!"
"Absolutely not."
"Do it for me? Please?"
"No."
Tash thought about it. "Well, if you don't sing, we do need someone to hand out the eggnog."
Adrian registered this.
"Oh, no," he said. "You are not making me – "
-
" – the bartender."
Adrian grumpily sat at the bar, not enjoying this new development. Tash and Harriet were excitedly putting up the karaoke machine, while the rest were giving out their Secret Santa presents (and looking quite awkward, too). Adrian had already given Chrys her present – the rare Bomberman B-Daman Bakugaiden manga she had always wanted…
…the problem was, before it had even left Adrian's hands, it had spontaneously burst into flames.
"I – I – what?"
Adrian had to settle for giving some other manga to Chrys.
Chrys in turn gave a present Tyler – a box of various sweets and tarts, which he took well to. Tyler had given a present to Drake, a three-by-three-by-three inch block of chocolate.
Drake had given Tash a book entitled 101 Ways to Properly Snuggle with a Kitten, which would have been fine had Tash not already owned the book.
Tash had gotten Marcus, so she had given him something special: some more of the Talisman copies from the Jackie Chan Adventures fandom. To be exact, the rat (bringing inanimate objects to life), the dragon (DRAGON BLAST) and the rooster (levitation). She of course hadn't gotten all of them, as that would give him a little too much power (especially the dog, which would make him immortal, and that had the potential to be Stuish beyond belief). She'd actually given the dog to Nook, seeing as not only was he a dog, he was somewhat getting on in years and energy (and everyone did seem to take somewhat a of a liking to Nook).
Marcus had given Aster a present – and a quite odd one.
"Please read the line below this. It is very important." Aster blinked at the paper Marcus had handed her. She scrolled one line down. "Please read the line below this. It is very important." She continued until she got to the bottom of the page, which read, "Please turn the paper over." She did (the other side of the paper had exactly what was written on the front).
Adrian, seeing what had happened, gave Marcus a small smack on the head.
"What?" said Marcus. "It's not just a present for her, it's a present for everyone too!"
Indeed, Aster was distracted enough that she didn't really bother anyone that day. She had given Adrian her present earlier – it was the only thing she could really afford…a sort of "unmeltable ice" she had made before. The properties had been modified so that the small ball of ice wouldn't melt at all. Albeit being rather cold and somewhat useless, it was kind of pretty.
Harriet had gotten Jess, so she'd given Jess a very large pack of cider. Jess had gotten Charis, so she'd bought her a ton of wires and parts and other stuff a techie usually needed (you could never do without too many raw materials). Charis had gotten Karissa by chance, so she'd smuggled Karissa a gift box and told her not to open it in front of everyone (apparently it was something not only Karissa wanted, but everyone else did as well, which would lead to everyone chasing her).
Karissa had gotten Michael, so she'd bought him another straw hat (Michael's little excursions as the Gary-Stu Gutter often brought damage to his wardrobe) as well as a small pocket flashlight (the Darkness complained that he wasn't getting a present). Michael had gotten Claire, so he'd showered her with a ton of gifts that the other Agents wondered how he was able to even afford them. Claire had gotten Pete, and since she and Jess had been discussing what to get, she gave Pete the same thing Jess had given Charis.
The list went on and on. Of course, some people felt more inclined to give extra presents to their favorite people…
Karissa had given Charis a present as well, and she'd gotten another secret box. Aster and Chrys had given each other presents, Aster giving a huge vat of chocolate and Chrys giving a large barrel of apples. Tash and Adrian had given each other presents as well – Adrian had given her a few nifty minor spells and a hairpiece while she'd given him a large china set and one of those self-ear rubbers. (Of course, it didn't do the justice compared to Tash rubbing them.) Claire had given Michael another ridiculous load of gifts.
Adrian had also given Phoenixia something – everyone had seemed to assume that Phoenixia had everything she wanted, but Adrian knew it would be nice to give her something too. So he had given her some flowers (she liked flowers).
"Rare orchids," she said, "and blue tulips. Why thank you."
Anyway, as Tash and Jess completed putting up the karaoke, Tash stepped back and admired the work.
"There," she said. "A karaoke machine with help from Charis and Pete that takes information from all the sheet music in the Library. Any song from any language and dimension conceivable is here."
She smiled.
"Let the singing begin!"
There was an immediate scramble to start ordering songs. As there were too many songs to flip through a book and order by number, they had to run a search using an alphabetic remote, somewhat like a search engine. Tash immediately started by ordering seventeen songs, five of which were by t.A.t.u.
"Don't overexert yourself kyaa~ Tashさん," said Aster. "Whenever Chrys and I go karaoke-ing, ordering too many songs tires out our voices."
"Nothing will tire me out!" said Tash as she continued singing.
Adrian was busy serving eggnog as he sat and listened to Tash singing. Karaoke wasn't about even trying to sing well, so of course Tash didn't even intend to properly hit the notes. She had a great time.
As she finished her first song, she waited for the karaoke machine to show her score.
It didn't.
It showed the phrase "24 hours in one day, 365 days in one year".
"What?" said Tash, confused. "The…"
"This is the Society," said Charis. She shrugged. "I programmed the scores to show normally…"
The insanity continued. As Tash continued singing, the scores got more ridiculous, showing things like "3.14159" and "east of Nairobi".
"'A HAPPY TIME IN BED AT NIGHT WITH FUN FUN FUN' IS NOT. A. SCORE!" she yelled.
After Tash's spiel, Tyler began to sing with gusto, which also involved not even trying to sing properly. His scores included "e = mc2 and "i".
"'i'?" said Tyler, confused. "What the hell is i?"
"The imaginary number," said Adrian, laughing. "i is the square root of -1."
"So I guess it's trying to say your singing is imaginary?" said Drake.
Chrys went up next, singing a combination of American and Japanese songs that baffled others – if she was actually keeping track of both American and Japanese pop culture, something had to be wrong with her. And so with her combination of songs that varied from the Bakugaiden anime theme songs to Owl City she sang. And she tried to do it properly. Of course, whenever she tried to sing the high notes, she ended up squealing, which made everyone cover their ears.
She also emitted desusparkles everywhere, which made people cover their eyes, too.
"Argh," said Aster. "Chrysちゃん's at it again. She's trying to sing Roshin Yuukai again…"
"What's wrong with that?" said Adrian.
At that point Chrys hit the phrase "tobikonde mitai to omou" and Adrian found out the reason for Aster's complaint.
"I didn't exactly think she could squeal like that," he said.
"Bleh," said Aster. "Get me a cocktail please."
Adrian narrowed his eyes. "Are you old enough to drink? What's the legal age in Japan?"
"18," she said. But then she looked around nervously. "Who knows! I might be 18. Then you'd be depriving me of my alcohol."
Adrian sighed.
"Look, I have a better idea." In front of Aster's face, Adrian poured chocolate milk into a glass. He slowly handed it to Aster…
Then Chrys in less than 0.2 seconds got off the stage, got the milk, drowned it in one sip, and went back to catch the microphone while it was still in midair. The song continued normally.
"A-a-a-ah…" said Aster.
Adrian gulped.
Chrys's score was the sound of glass breaking. "Hey!" she complained.
Ben was up, and his next song was full of heavy metal and rock somewhat reminiscent of "Knights of Cydonia" except with even more metal. Jared was about to go up right after Ben (whose score was 2480.23263235.235235), but Chloe took him and strapped him to a chair before he could even get the remote.
"We are not about to hear your little country spiel," she said.
Aster was drunk. After begging and pleading Adrian had finally obliged and given her a cocktail with a small amount of rum in it. He hadn't expected her to continuously request more, however, and after her fifth cup she was drunk and on a sugar high. Harriet was sitting next to her, having guzzled down beer.
"I thinks…" She took a breath. "I wonders if… Tash… but I…"
"There is no end to that!" said Aster nonsensically.
Beth, who was the third drunk girl, had suddenly got an idea.
"I want Meg to go sing!"
Everyone stared in shock, but Beth insisted, and she had Meg the collie go up to the microphone to sing "Who Let the Dogs Out?" Of course, Meg couldn't really do anything besides bark, and the score came up as a cat.
Meg barked.
Aster went into an anime reverie, her drunken words slurring and her grammar fluctuating between English subject-verb-object and Japanese subject-object-verb. Occasionally she even threw in English words. To top it all off, she translated all of the English phrases in the songs (such as "on the lonely rail") into Japanese.
The picture came up as a picture of drunk red-faced Mikuru from one of the later episodes of Haruhi.
Jess sang from her favorite band, Nightwish, as her score came out as "OTL". She had a strong desire to yell at the machine.
Cristoph declined to sing – he didn't really know any songs that interested him. Chrys sang again, this time adding a few Vocaloid songs to the mix.
Adrian continually refused to sing. Several of the drunken girls had gone up to him and begged him to sing a song or two, but he firmly refused and gave them orange juice. It didn't help their drunkenness.
Marcus had a bit of fun singing, but he wasn't nearly as amused when his score came up in Greek.
"What does it say?" he asked.
"'Zeus was the king of the gods'," replied Adrian.
Doug, who had gotten a little bored after the eighty-second song, was playing around with the lights on the mutant tree. He looked around at the tinsel and wondered how Maddie was spending her Christmas… come to think of it, he wasn't having an ordinary one…
-
Three floors below, the Sues were sighing in their cells.
"Hey, June," said Holly. "Remember the Christmases we used to have? The ones with Willowe. She used to make pancakes."
"That was when I thought Santa existed," said Juniper. "I always left out a plate of cookies for him, as well as a carrot for the reindeer."
"Willowe was Santa," said Ashley.
"I remember how naive Pa-"
Suddenly Aspen fell silent. Saying the words "Palm Tree" was now a taboo.
"I only wish we could celebrate Christmas…"
Then suddenly something happened.
Presents started to appear in the cells – each Sue got one present. They found the things they had at least wanted before – perhaps a toy, something electronic, something nifty to keep them company in the cells.
Holly stared at the things in awe.
"I guess Santa really does exist," said Holly.
"I doubt it in Real Life," said Juniper, "but this is the fictional world… Anything can happen…"
As all of the Sues marveled at what happened, Holly stood up and made an announcement.
"Guys, let's not be bitter for the next five days. Let's revel in cheer. The New Year is coming, and we should all be happy, no matter how brutally the Society is treating us. Christmas is a holiday."
The other Sues nodded in agreement.
-
Meanwhile, in the Twilight fandom, a woman stared up at the sky as snow started to fall on her face. She was clutching a box tightly.
"Merry Christmas," she said.
-
The other Agents started to turn in, disregarding the large number of boxes that had suddenly appeared under the tree.
"Whew," said Tyler, lighting the next candle on the menorah. He wasn't Jewish, but his Author was, so he had it up. "What a night."
The Agents finally were all in except for Tash and Adrian. Tash stretched.
"Hey, Adrian," she said. "Are you sure you don't want to sing a last song? Just for me? I won't tell."
Adrian looked at her. He finally considered it, and nodded.
Ordering a song, he finally sang a romantic song, one of the best ones he could think of. Tash could sense the passion in it – he really meant what the lyrics said.
As he finally finished, suddenly his score appeared on the screen.
It was one of those Italian babies with pasta all over his face and body.
"What the – What was that for?"
He then suddenly realized why the scores had been rigged this whole time. Of course! Who had the ability to manipulate such things?
"PHOENIXIA!" he yelled at the top of his voice.
He heard a giggling in return.
Jess had just come up with the idea of decorating the Library for Christmas, and the other Agents had taken well to it.
"We do need to decorate the Library. I'll bet Adrian's never bothered celebrating Christmas before now, so we should make this one good!" Tash pulled out her cell phone and Adrian's credit card (which she had taken to pilfering recently). "Plans require pizza, what does everyone want?"
"Cheese please," said Tyler, almost not registering the question at all. Instead, he went into a room and emerged with enough ornaments to decorate a small dragon.
"I'd like pepperoni, I'll help decorate." Jared then went over to Chevila, ripped out one of its tires, and hung it up as a wreath on his lab, adding a few batteries for holly berries. He then took to spraying things with fake snow. "Oops… I hope that book wasn't important…"
Tyler was busy munching patterns into silver paper.
"Spicy Meat Feast please, Tash!" called Jess, also hanging up lights around the room. "And make it extra large, Leonard'll want some..." She unsteadily turned to the basement.
Tyler paled at the mention of Leonard while Jared sang the Redneck Twelve Days of Christmas. Then Jared had an idea.
"You know that mutant tree we fought the other day? (A/N: This is a long story ^.^) "We should probably get that thing out of the basement, which will be a real project seeing as how I half-buried it when we fought it."
Tyler and Jared thus went into the basement while Tash brought the pizza orders, along with the other things Domino's always brought. Charis, who had helped decorate, clicked a button. Red and green lights turned on everywhere. "Yay! It's almost Christmas!"
"One month to go!" Jess emerged from the basement, with Leonard peeking out of the bag. "I found this one sitting in the basement. I dread to think what he was trying to do..."
Tyler and Jared returned from the basement, and as Jared painted the tree green and put tinsel on it, Tyler placed an angel on the top. "There! A mutated Christmas tree!"
As Tash appraised the tree, a thought formed in her head: We need to get presents under that tree…
-
…and that was how Tash came up with the idea for the Secret Santa.
Each Agent drew from a hat (Harriet called it "The Hat of Fate") that decided what person each Agent would be required to give a gift to. (Giving gifts was voluntary. The Secret Santa gift was required.) As each Agent drew…
The hell? thought Ben. I got myself…
I got Jess, thought Tash, looking at Adrian's clear printing on the paper. Well, everyone knows what she wants…
I got Cristoph! thought Rhia, in shock. How on earth am I going to tackle this! Especially after recent events…
Now what am I going to do? thought Cristoph. I… got Lady Rhia…
"Um, Tash," piped up Chrys. "This… well…"
"Yes?" said Tash.
"This wouldn't be so much of an issue if Christmas wasn't tomorrow."
"Oh," said Tash. "Well, good luck!"
-
"Where are Chrys and Aster?" asked Adrian, looking around.
"Their universe," replied Tash, not looking up from her work. "They're frequenting shops to go buy presents. Although how they're going to find presents when she's practically broke beats me…"
"Hm," said Adrian. "It's nice to know they're not interfering with the decorating. It's already hectic around here."
Their conversation was interrupted by a loud shout.
"OOH, YOU GET BACK HERE NOW! YOU GET BACK HERE WITH MY CIDER OR I WILL – "
"Jess sure is scary when she's drunk," said Adrian.
"Well, you're going to have to get used to it, because there's going to be eggnog tomorr- !"
"Hm?" said Adrian, not liking where this "great idea" was going to go…"
"Let's do karaoke tomorrow!"
Suddenly, Adrian went very, very pale.
"No," he said. "I don't sing. Get it? You're not making me sing. Over my dead body."
"Oh come on!"
"Absolutely not."
"Do it for me? Please?"
"No."
Tash thought about it. "Well, if you don't sing, we do need someone to hand out the eggnog."
Adrian registered this.
"Oh, no," he said. "You are not making me – "
-
" – the bartender."
Adrian grumpily sat at the bar, not enjoying this new development. Tash and Harriet were excitedly putting up the karaoke machine, while the rest were giving out their Secret Santa presents (and looking quite awkward, too). Adrian had already given Chrys her present – the rare Bomberman B-Daman Bakugaiden manga she had always wanted…
…the problem was, before it had even left Adrian's hands, it had spontaneously burst into flames.
"I – I – what?"
Adrian had to settle for giving some other manga to Chrys.
Chrys in turn gave a present Tyler – a box of various sweets and tarts, which he took well to. Tyler had given a present to Drake, a three-by-three-by-three inch block of chocolate.
Drake had given Tash a book entitled 101 Ways to Properly Snuggle with a Kitten, which would have been fine had Tash not already owned the book.
Tash had gotten Marcus, so she had given him something special: some more of the Talisman copies from the Jackie Chan Adventures fandom. To be exact, the rat (bringing inanimate objects to life), the dragon (DRAGON BLAST) and the rooster (levitation). She of course hadn't gotten all of them, as that would give him a little too much power (especially the dog, which would make him immortal, and that had the potential to be Stuish beyond belief). She'd actually given the dog to Nook, seeing as not only was he a dog, he was somewhat getting on in years and energy (and everyone did seem to take somewhat a of a liking to Nook).
Marcus had given Aster a present – and a quite odd one.
"Please read the line below this. It is very important." Aster blinked at the paper Marcus had handed her. She scrolled one line down. "Please read the line below this. It is very important." She continued until she got to the bottom of the page, which read, "Please turn the paper over." She did (the other side of the paper had exactly what was written on the front).
Adrian, seeing what had happened, gave Marcus a small smack on the head.
"What?" said Marcus. "It's not just a present for her, it's a present for everyone too!"
Indeed, Aster was distracted enough that she didn't really bother anyone that day. She had given Adrian her present earlier – it was the only thing she could really afford…a sort of "unmeltable ice" she had made before. The properties had been modified so that the small ball of ice wouldn't melt at all. Albeit being rather cold and somewhat useless, it was kind of pretty.
Harriet had gotten Jess, so she'd given Jess a very large pack of cider. Jess had gotten Charis, so she'd bought her a ton of wires and parts and other stuff a techie usually needed (you could never do without too many raw materials). Charis had gotten Karissa by chance, so she'd smuggled Karissa a gift box and told her not to open it in front of everyone (apparently it was something not only Karissa wanted, but everyone else did as well, which would lead to everyone chasing her).
Karissa had gotten Michael, so she'd bought him another straw hat (Michael's little excursions as the Gary-Stu Gutter often brought damage to his wardrobe) as well as a small pocket flashlight (the Darkness complained that he wasn't getting a present). Michael had gotten Claire, so he'd showered her with a ton of gifts that the other Agents wondered how he was able to even afford them. Claire had gotten Pete, and since she and Jess had been discussing what to get, she gave Pete the same thing Jess had given Charis.
The list went on and on. Of course, some people felt more inclined to give extra presents to their favorite people…
Karissa had given Charis a present as well, and she'd gotten another secret box. Aster and Chrys had given each other presents, Aster giving a huge vat of chocolate and Chrys giving a large barrel of apples. Tash and Adrian had given each other presents as well – Adrian had given her a few nifty minor spells and a hairpiece while she'd given him a large china set and one of those self-ear rubbers. (Of course, it didn't do the justice compared to Tash rubbing them.) Claire had given Michael another ridiculous load of gifts.
Adrian had also given Phoenixia something – everyone had seemed to assume that Phoenixia had everything she wanted, but Adrian knew it would be nice to give her something too. So he had given her some flowers (she liked flowers).
"Rare orchids," she said, "and blue tulips. Why thank you."
Anyway, as Tash and Jess completed putting up the karaoke, Tash stepped back and admired the work.
"There," she said. "A karaoke machine with help from Charis and Pete that takes information from all the sheet music in the Library. Any song from any language and dimension conceivable is here."
She smiled.
"Let the singing begin!"
There was an immediate scramble to start ordering songs. As there were too many songs to flip through a book and order by number, they had to run a search using an alphabetic remote, somewhat like a search engine. Tash immediately started by ordering seventeen songs, five of which were by t.A.t.u.
"Don't overexert yourself kyaa~ Tashさん," said Aster. "Whenever Chrys and I go karaoke-ing, ordering too many songs tires out our voices."
"Nothing will tire me out!" said Tash as she continued singing.
Adrian was busy serving eggnog as he sat and listened to Tash singing. Karaoke wasn't about even trying to sing well, so of course Tash didn't even intend to properly hit the notes. She had a great time.
As she finished her first song, she waited for the karaoke machine to show her score.
It didn't.
It showed the phrase "24 hours in one day, 365 days in one year".
"What?" said Tash, confused. "The…"
"This is the Society," said Charis. She shrugged. "I programmed the scores to show normally…"
The insanity continued. As Tash continued singing, the scores got more ridiculous, showing things like "3.14159" and "east of Nairobi".
"'A HAPPY TIME IN BED AT NIGHT WITH FUN FUN FUN' IS NOT. A. SCORE!" she yelled.
After Tash's spiel, Tyler began to sing with gusto, which also involved not even trying to sing properly. His scores included "e = mc2 and "i".
"'i'?" said Tyler, confused. "What the hell is i?"
"The imaginary number," said Adrian, laughing. "i is the square root of -1."
"So I guess it's trying to say your singing is imaginary?" said Drake.
Chrys went up next, singing a combination of American and Japanese songs that baffled others – if she was actually keeping track of both American and Japanese pop culture, something had to be wrong with her. And so with her combination of songs that varied from the Bakugaiden anime theme songs to Owl City she sang. And she tried to do it properly. Of course, whenever she tried to sing the high notes, she ended up squealing, which made everyone cover their ears.
She also emitted desusparkles everywhere, which made people cover their eyes, too.
"Argh," said Aster. "Chrysちゃん's at it again. She's trying to sing Roshin Yuukai again…"
"What's wrong with that?" said Adrian.
At that point Chrys hit the phrase "tobikonde mitai to omou" and Adrian found out the reason for Aster's complaint.
"I didn't exactly think she could squeal like that," he said.
"Bleh," said Aster. "Get me a cocktail please."
Adrian narrowed his eyes. "Are you old enough to drink? What's the legal age in Japan?"
"18," she said. But then she looked around nervously. "Who knows! I might be 18. Then you'd be depriving me of my alcohol."
Adrian sighed.
"Look, I have a better idea." In front of Aster's face, Adrian poured chocolate milk into a glass. He slowly handed it to Aster…
Then Chrys in less than 0.2 seconds got off the stage, got the milk, drowned it in one sip, and went back to catch the microphone while it was still in midair. The song continued normally.
"A-a-a-ah…" said Aster.
Adrian gulped.
Chrys's score was the sound of glass breaking. "Hey!" she complained.
Ben was up, and his next song was full of heavy metal and rock somewhat reminiscent of "Knights of Cydonia" except with even more metal. Jared was about to go up right after Ben (whose score was 2480.23263235.235235), but Chloe took him and strapped him to a chair before he could even get the remote.
"We are not about to hear your little country spiel," she said.
Aster was drunk. After begging and pleading Adrian had finally obliged and given her a cocktail with a small amount of rum in it. He hadn't expected her to continuously request more, however, and after her fifth cup she was drunk and on a sugar high. Harriet was sitting next to her, having guzzled down beer.
"I thinks…" She took a breath. "I wonders if… Tash… but I…"
"There is no end to that!" said Aster nonsensically.
Beth, who was the third drunk girl, had suddenly got an idea.
"I want Meg to go sing!"
Everyone stared in shock, but Beth insisted, and she had Meg the collie go up to the microphone to sing "Who Let the Dogs Out?" Of course, Meg couldn't really do anything besides bark, and the score came up as a cat.
Meg barked.
Aster went into an anime reverie, her drunken words slurring and her grammar fluctuating between English subject-verb-object and Japanese subject-object-verb. Occasionally she even threw in English words. To top it all off, she translated all of the English phrases in the songs (such as "on the lonely rail") into Japanese.
The picture came up as a picture of drunk red-faced Mikuru from one of the later episodes of Haruhi.
Jess sang from her favorite band, Nightwish, as her score came out as "OTL". She had a strong desire to yell at the machine.
Cristoph declined to sing – he didn't really know any songs that interested him. Chrys sang again, this time adding a few Vocaloid songs to the mix.
Adrian continually refused to sing. Several of the drunken girls had gone up to him and begged him to sing a song or two, but he firmly refused and gave them orange juice. It didn't help their drunkenness.
Marcus had a bit of fun singing, but he wasn't nearly as amused when his score came up in Greek.
"What does it say?" he asked.
"'Zeus was the king of the gods'," replied Adrian.
Doug, who had gotten a little bored after the eighty-second song, was playing around with the lights on the mutant tree. He looked around at the tinsel and wondered how Maddie was spending her Christmas… come to think of it, he wasn't having an ordinary one…
-
Three floors below, the Sues were sighing in their cells.
"Hey, June," said Holly. "Remember the Christmases we used to have? The ones with Willowe. She used to make pancakes."
"That was when I thought Santa existed," said Juniper. "I always left out a plate of cookies for him, as well as a carrot for the reindeer."
"Willowe was Santa," said Ashley.
"I remember how naive Pa-"
Suddenly Aspen fell silent. Saying the words "Palm Tree" was now a taboo.
"I only wish we could celebrate Christmas…"
Then suddenly something happened.
Presents started to appear in the cells – each Sue got one present. They found the things they had at least wanted before – perhaps a toy, something electronic, something nifty to keep them company in the cells.
Holly stared at the things in awe.
"I guess Santa really does exist," said Holly.
"I doubt it in Real Life," said Juniper, "but this is the fictional world… Anything can happen…"
As all of the Sues marveled at what happened, Holly stood up and made an announcement.
"Guys, let's not be bitter for the next five days. Let's revel in cheer. The New Year is coming, and we should all be happy, no matter how brutally the Society is treating us. Christmas is a holiday."
The other Sues nodded in agreement.
-
Meanwhile, in the Twilight fandom, a woman stared up at the sky as snow started to fall on her face. She was clutching a box tightly.
"Merry Christmas," she said.
-
The other Agents started to turn in, disregarding the large number of boxes that had suddenly appeared under the tree.
"Whew," said Tyler, lighting the next candle on the menorah. He wasn't Jewish, but his Author was, so he had it up. "What a night."
The Agents finally were all in except for Tash and Adrian. Tash stretched.
"Hey, Adrian," she said. "Are you sure you don't want to sing a last song? Just for me? I won't tell."
Adrian looked at her. He finally considered it, and nodded.
Ordering a song, he finally sang a romantic song, one of the best ones he could think of. Tash could sense the passion in it – he really meant what the lyrics said.
As he finally finished, suddenly his score appeared on the screen.
It was one of those Italian babies with pasta all over his face and body.
"What the – What was that for?"
He then suddenly realized why the scores had been rigged this whole time. Of course! Who had the ability to manipulate such things?
"PHOENIXIA!" he yelled at the top of his voice.
He heard a giggling in return.
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