"There, the program's ready!" Jared said, hitting the execute button on his compiler program. "All LPGB personal report to the training pod!" Jared announced to the lab.
"You heard the man, get to it!" General Idea shouted as the minute military men each lined up in there individual pods connected to Jared's Laptop via the USB port.
"Hey there Jared, how's it going!" Chloe said, poking her head through a conveniently placed hole in the wall. "Mind telling me where this came from?"
Jared scowled, "There was a Christmas wreath there, but it was apparently infested with wall-eating mog toad larvae."
"I didn't think there was such a thing..." Chloe mused, twirling a candy cane whimsically between her fingers.
"I didn't either until I saw a whole bunch of them chewing through my wall... I currently installing an upgrade in the LPGB that will allow them to track them down." Jared said, "Would you like to come inside? It's a bit strange seeing just your head."
"Actually, I was just sent down to come get you... they need your help setting up the sound system for the Christmas party."
"I can't, if this firmware upgrade gets interrupted the consequences could be disastrous..." Jared said, shrugging.
"Jared, they really need you... how much trouble could they possibly get into while your gone?"
"Well, I suppose I could tear myself away for a few minutes... who knows, maybe I'll find the mog toads for myself."
"That's the spirit!" Chloe said, retracting her head from the hole in the wall.
Jared walked out into the hallway and joined his former lab mate.
"Nice dress your wearing." Jared stated.
"Really, you like it?"
"Yes, it really compliments the drywall bits in your hair..."
-
The door to the science hall exploded as Dave crashed through the door.
"Out of the way!" he shouted at a surprised Charis as he leapt down five steps at a time.
Charis didn't even have time to ask Dave what was going on when a passing brown and polished blur made her question a moot point.
"Jared you gotta help me!" Dave yelled, damaging the hinges on Jared's door as he violently forced it open.
"Get back here, you're only delaying the inevitable!" Shirley roared. Just far enough behind that Dave was able to seal the door to the lab before she could cross the threshold.
Six inches of reinforced steel proved no match for the stick as she closed in on her prey. The hinges literally shattered she forced her way into the room.
Four streams of white goo arched through the air, burying Shirley beneath a pile of white gunk.
"Hopefully Jared doesn't mind me using his wood glue..." Dave muttered, dropping the sprayer and walking over to inspect his work. He was a little alarmed when the pile shifted.
-
"The glue does nothing!" Dave shouted, running through commons room, with a gelatinous white blob in hot pursuit, picking up things like furniture, book shelves, Christmas decorations and Tyler as it progressed. Jared and Chloe looked up from there work just long enough to see a recliner on the tail end vanish through the exit.
"I've never seen furniture go bad like that..." Chloe said, awestruck.
"Well, if you don't arrange it just right, the fueng schway can get get out of whack, leaving it vulnerable to demonic possession." Jared offered.
"I hope this won't delay lunch..." Tyler stated, chewing on a bit of Christmas tree branch from his position in the glue wad.
-
Meanwhile in Jared's lab, confused army men and smashed laptop pieces lay scattered everywhere. Despite the extreme damage it received in the crossfire of Dave and Shirley's battle it managed to make a brief coughing report of 'download incomplete' before blue screening.
General Idea stood up and held his hand to his head.
"Man, I haven't felt this bad since the time the Admiral forgot I was in his pocket and sat on me..."
"Is anybody injured?" A light headed plastic surgeon asked woozily.
"Yes, my thighs appear to be embedded in my spleen..." said a horribly deformed Major industry.
"Are we on a mission now? We usually only receive firmware upgrades before we are deployed." Asked Captain Crunch as Surgeon began pulling Industry's legs out of his torso.
"Yes, the admiral has given me specific instructions that we are to track down..." Idea's head jerked to one side with a shower of sparks as his processer ran into a block of corrupted data.
"AYESWHEREWASTHATTROUSERNOW...10100110 AAFF44 seg dual boot firmware... THEcakeISaLIE#DEBUG 00x999921 Got it!" Idea said, "Oh lord, I don't know if we're ready for this..." he said trembling...
"What is it?" Commander Follower asked.
"We are being ordered to capture the biggest communist of our time," Idea said darkly, "Gentlemen, we are going after Santa himself!"
For Tyler, Christmas couldn't be going any better. Despite the fact he was currently attached to an ever growing mass of angry Shirley, Dave's flight seemed to be taking him by a whole stash of delectable Christmas goodies, of course he usually only had seconds to grab them as they charged by.
-
"Hi Tyler." Ben said from atop the glue wad.
"Hey Ben, what brings you here?" Tyler asked.
"Dave ran under the ladder I was standing on while hanging lights, I kinda fell onto the pile. I got off easy when compared to Avak though."
"Where's he?"
"Under the pile..."
"Mfhhh wog!" Came Avak's muffled cry as he was dragged across the floor.
"Do you think we'll be hear long?" Tyler asked.
"From what Jared told me the glue dissolves in three hours, so until then you're literally stuck with me."
A hideous shriek burst forth from the center of the mass, as if to say 'I'll deal with you later'.
-
A sparking mass of malfunctioning LPGB sat in audience of General Idea at the podium. An old slide projector sat in the corner, emitting a flickering picture of Santa Claus onto one of Chevila's doors.
"The person you are now witnessing is none other then Santa Claus himself, the earliest known communist we have on file... Herttzzzz I AM ERROR! Fuzzy Wuzzy LEEERRROOOYYY!" Idea shouted as sparks burst out of his head.
Without even pausing to recognize his malfunction Idea resumed his briefing.
"There have been debates over whether or not Claus is actually an Red agent, but consider the facts: Claus is in charge of a legion of helpers who instead of wages exist in a state of servitude in exchange for community shelter and food, this is the strongest supporting detail in the case."
General Idea punctuated this sentence by spasticly waving his right arm around like a windmill as a shower of sparks erupted from a motor-server.
"For the most part he has not been the aggressor, choosing instead to spread his ideology by giving the youth of foreign countries toys, however if his network of spies identify a child who is strongly anti-Soviet, he has been know to inflict moral damage by depositing coal in there stockings, or clogs if you are in Sweden. But recently his pacifist demeanor has taken a violent turn."
Idea clicked his remote and the slide changed to a black and white aerial surveillance picture of an old woman walking down the street.
"On December 24th, 1983 at 21:34 hours in a small rural community in Ukraine undercover CIA Agent Elenore Jones, designation GRANDMA was close to making a breakthrough in finding out the secret location of Santa's workshop bunker when she was suddenly attacked by one of Santa's trained deer on her way home from a local pub. On his flight Santa noticed that she was significantly intoxicated from an abundant intake of eggnog, and he decided to make an attack of opportunity. Although she survived the attack, Jones was severely shell shocked for years. When she finally returned to duty she forced to take a desk job. The CIA lost a damn good field agent that day." Idea said, wiping a non-existent tear from his eye.
"How will we get to Santa sir?" One of the LPGB infantrymen asked.
"We can't, recent intelligence places Santa's bunker in a remote region of the North Pole, harsh weather conditions makes it practically invisible to radar, it is practically a fortress. Fortunately we have a lead."
Idea changed the slides.
"Her name is Natasha Rojenko Chugainov, or more commonly known as Mrs. Claus; we get to her, we get Santa!" Idea announced.
"That is all the briefing you are going to get, Operation Ho Ho Ho Chi Minh begins in 1 hour."
Meanwhile, in a more "stable" part of the Library.
"Well, how is everybodies holiday going?" Karrisa asked from her new position at the front of the glue wad.
"Full of sticky situations!" Dave shouted between pants a few feet ahead of the pack.
"Gumph!" Shouted Avak.
"I've had better I must admit..." Kyle replied from his awkward position of being glue to a lampstand.
Dave sprinted around the door and ran by Rhia's kitchen, Rhia herself chose exactly the wrong moment to step out side.
"Hey, does anybody want any Christmas cooki-!" she shouted before getting swept up.
Cookies launched into the air, falling ungracefully to the floor despite Tyler's every effort to dislodge himself to catch them.
"Hey Dave, I need to check my E-mail, think you can run by that laptop over there?" Ben shouted.
"Sure, not a problem!"
-
When Jared returned to the science hall he had a vague feeling something was wrong, the first rad flag seemed to spring up about the same time he was witnessing a mog toad chomping his way into Charis' lab.
"Funny, I thought Idea would have taken care of that by now." Jared thought to himself as he blasted the toad with earth magic, the creature dissolved into Mog Dust.
The second red flag went up when he saw the smashed in door of his lab.
The third red flag went up when he heard the scream from Charis' lab.
"What the heck is going on here!" He yelled, breaking through the door's lock with a swing of his hammer.
"This is your last ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-chance! Tell us where we can find Chugainov before I start getting angry-y-y-y-y-y!" Idea sputtered at the tied up form of Charis.
"I ordered you a long time ago to leave Charis and her sister alone, now stand down and return to base for furthur disciplene!" Jared ordered to the startling effect of a total non reaction of the LPGB.
"What in the blazes! Did you not hear me? I ordered you to stand down!" Jared shouted.
"Jared, I think there's something wrong with them, they're acting strange even for them!"
"Alright, have it your way. Gentlemen burn the lab!"
Before the LPGB could set fire to anything Jared quickly pulled out his emergency overide remote and punched the shut off button, absolutly nothing happened.
Many of the LPGB began striking matches, Jared pulled out his Boomhammer. As much as it pained him to do it, he was going to have to destroy his beloved creation, it would take him months to put them back together but if he didn't Charis would never speak to him again. With one mighty swing the deed was done.
Silence reigned as Jared untied Charis, together the two of them swept the broken plastic pieces into a dust pan.
"All that hard work building them, now I have to start all over!" Jared said, pulling out individual memory coils so that they could be salvaged.
"Actually Jared, I don't think rebuilding your army will take as long as you think." Charis replied.
"Oh?" Jared replied skeptically, as Charis swiped the coils out of his hand.
"I was going to wait till the party to give this to you, and I almost reconsidered doing it at all after what just happened... but in the spirit of Christmas and forgiveness I'll show you your present!" Charis said, opening a drawer.
Jared's jaw dropped.
"Charis, that's amazing!"
"It's my way of saying thanks for getting the LPGB to leave Karissa and I alone, of course you have to fix whatever is wrong with their AI program before I let you have them..." Charis said, pulling out rows of heavily outfitted army men painted dark green bearing modern weaponry. Jared noticed the new insignia on their sleeves.
"I guess now I better get started programming interface drivers for my new... Little Plastic Marine Corps!"
-
It had taken awhile, but Shirley had finally managed to catch Dave, fortunately for him "caught" simply meant that he was attached to the exterior of the glue was roughly five feet away from Shirley's closest threatening appendage.
"When this glue dissolves you and Ben are going to get it!" Shirley shouted, although from inside the wad it sounded more like the sound of a fat man sitting on a rotten pumpkin then actual speaking.
"Does anybody know the best way to remove glue from very curly hair?" Ben asked.
"Ah... It's a wonderful life!" Chloe sighed from her spot next to Chrys on the left side of the Shirley wad.
"You heard the man, get to it!" General Idea shouted as the minute military men each lined up in there individual pods connected to Jared's Laptop via the USB port.
"Hey there Jared, how's it going!" Chloe said, poking her head through a conveniently placed hole in the wall. "Mind telling me where this came from?"
Jared scowled, "There was a Christmas wreath there, but it was apparently infested with wall-eating mog toad larvae."
"I didn't think there was such a thing..." Chloe mused, twirling a candy cane whimsically between her fingers.
"I didn't either until I saw a whole bunch of them chewing through my wall... I currently installing an upgrade in the LPGB that will allow them to track them down." Jared said, "Would you like to come inside? It's a bit strange seeing just your head."
"Actually, I was just sent down to come get you... they need your help setting up the sound system for the Christmas party."
"I can't, if this firmware upgrade gets interrupted the consequences could be disastrous..." Jared said, shrugging.
"Jared, they really need you... how much trouble could they possibly get into while your gone?"
"Well, I suppose I could tear myself away for a few minutes... who knows, maybe I'll find the mog toads for myself."
"That's the spirit!" Chloe said, retracting her head from the hole in the wall.
Jared walked out into the hallway and joined his former lab mate.
"Nice dress your wearing." Jared stated.
"Really, you like it?"
"Yes, it really compliments the drywall bits in your hair..."
-
The door to the science hall exploded as Dave crashed through the door.
"Out of the way!" he shouted at a surprised Charis as he leapt down five steps at a time.
Charis didn't even have time to ask Dave what was going on when a passing brown and polished blur made her question a moot point.
"Jared you gotta help me!" Dave yelled, damaging the hinges on Jared's door as he violently forced it open.
"Get back here, you're only delaying the inevitable!" Shirley roared. Just far enough behind that Dave was able to seal the door to the lab before she could cross the threshold.
Six inches of reinforced steel proved no match for the stick as she closed in on her prey. The hinges literally shattered she forced her way into the room.
Four streams of white goo arched through the air, burying Shirley beneath a pile of white gunk.
"Hopefully Jared doesn't mind me using his wood glue..." Dave muttered, dropping the sprayer and walking over to inspect his work. He was a little alarmed when the pile shifted.
-
"The glue does nothing!" Dave shouted, running through commons room, with a gelatinous white blob in hot pursuit, picking up things like furniture, book shelves, Christmas decorations and Tyler as it progressed. Jared and Chloe looked up from there work just long enough to see a recliner on the tail end vanish through the exit.
"I've never seen furniture go bad like that..." Chloe said, awestruck.
"Well, if you don't arrange it just right, the fueng schway can get get out of whack, leaving it vulnerable to demonic possession." Jared offered.
"I hope this won't delay lunch..." Tyler stated, chewing on a bit of Christmas tree branch from his position in the glue wad.
-
Meanwhile in Jared's lab, confused army men and smashed laptop pieces lay scattered everywhere. Despite the extreme damage it received in the crossfire of Dave and Shirley's battle it managed to make a brief coughing report of 'download incomplete' before blue screening.
General Idea stood up and held his hand to his head.
"Man, I haven't felt this bad since the time the Admiral forgot I was in his pocket and sat on me..."
"Is anybody injured?" A light headed plastic surgeon asked woozily.
"Yes, my thighs appear to be embedded in my spleen..." said a horribly deformed Major industry.
"Are we on a mission now? We usually only receive firmware upgrades before we are deployed." Asked Captain Crunch as Surgeon began pulling Industry's legs out of his torso.
"Yes, the admiral has given me specific instructions that we are to track down..." Idea's head jerked to one side with a shower of sparks as his processer ran into a block of corrupted data.
"AYESWHEREWASTHATTROUSERNOW...10100110 AAFF44 seg dual boot firmware... THEcakeISaLIE#DEBUG 00x999921 Got it!" Idea said, "Oh lord, I don't know if we're ready for this..." he said trembling...
"What is it?" Commander Follower asked.
"We are being ordered to capture the biggest communist of our time," Idea said darkly, "Gentlemen, we are going after Santa himself!"
For Tyler, Christmas couldn't be going any better. Despite the fact he was currently attached to an ever growing mass of angry Shirley, Dave's flight seemed to be taking him by a whole stash of delectable Christmas goodies, of course he usually only had seconds to grab them as they charged by.
-
"Hi Tyler." Ben said from atop the glue wad.
"Hey Ben, what brings you here?" Tyler asked.
"Dave ran under the ladder I was standing on while hanging lights, I kinda fell onto the pile. I got off easy when compared to Avak though."
"Where's he?"
"Under the pile..."
"Mfhhh wog!" Came Avak's muffled cry as he was dragged across the floor.
"Do you think we'll be hear long?" Tyler asked.
"From what Jared told me the glue dissolves in three hours, so until then you're literally stuck with me."
A hideous shriek burst forth from the center of the mass, as if to say 'I'll deal with you later'.
-
A sparking mass of malfunctioning LPGB sat in audience of General Idea at the podium. An old slide projector sat in the corner, emitting a flickering picture of Santa Claus onto one of Chevila's doors.
"The person you are now witnessing is none other then Santa Claus himself, the earliest known communist we have on file... Herttzzzz I AM ERROR! Fuzzy Wuzzy LEEERRROOOYYY!" Idea shouted as sparks burst out of his head.
Without even pausing to recognize his malfunction Idea resumed his briefing.
"There have been debates over whether or not Claus is actually an Red agent, but consider the facts: Claus is in charge of a legion of helpers who instead of wages exist in a state of servitude in exchange for community shelter and food, this is the strongest supporting detail in the case."
General Idea punctuated this sentence by spasticly waving his right arm around like a windmill as a shower of sparks erupted from a motor-server.
"For the most part he has not been the aggressor, choosing instead to spread his ideology by giving the youth of foreign countries toys, however if his network of spies identify a child who is strongly anti-Soviet, he has been know to inflict moral damage by depositing coal in there stockings, or clogs if you are in Sweden. But recently his pacifist demeanor has taken a violent turn."
Idea clicked his remote and the slide changed to a black and white aerial surveillance picture of an old woman walking down the street.
"On December 24th, 1983 at 21:34 hours in a small rural community in Ukraine undercover CIA Agent Elenore Jones, designation GRANDMA was close to making a breakthrough in finding out the secret location of Santa's workshop bunker when she was suddenly attacked by one of Santa's trained deer on her way home from a local pub. On his flight Santa noticed that she was significantly intoxicated from an abundant intake of eggnog, and he decided to make an attack of opportunity. Although she survived the attack, Jones was severely shell shocked for years. When she finally returned to duty she forced to take a desk job. The CIA lost a damn good field agent that day." Idea said, wiping a non-existent tear from his eye.
"How will we get to Santa sir?" One of the LPGB infantrymen asked.
"We can't, recent intelligence places Santa's bunker in a remote region of the North Pole, harsh weather conditions makes it practically invisible to radar, it is practically a fortress. Fortunately we have a lead."
Idea changed the slides.
"Her name is Natasha Rojenko Chugainov, or more commonly known as Mrs. Claus; we get to her, we get Santa!" Idea announced.
"That is all the briefing you are going to get, Operation Ho Ho Ho Chi Minh begins in 1 hour."
Meanwhile, in a more "stable" part of the Library.
"Well, how is everybodies holiday going?" Karrisa asked from her new position at the front of the glue wad.
"Full of sticky situations!" Dave shouted between pants a few feet ahead of the pack.
"Gumph!" Shouted Avak.
"I've had better I must admit..." Kyle replied from his awkward position of being glue to a lampstand.
Dave sprinted around the door and ran by Rhia's kitchen, Rhia herself chose exactly the wrong moment to step out side.
"Hey, does anybody want any Christmas cooki-!" she shouted before getting swept up.
Cookies launched into the air, falling ungracefully to the floor despite Tyler's every effort to dislodge himself to catch them.
"Hey Dave, I need to check my E-mail, think you can run by that laptop over there?" Ben shouted.
"Sure, not a problem!"
-
When Jared returned to the science hall he had a vague feeling something was wrong, the first rad flag seemed to spring up about the same time he was witnessing a mog toad chomping his way into Charis' lab.
"Funny, I thought Idea would have taken care of that by now." Jared thought to himself as he blasted the toad with earth magic, the creature dissolved into Mog Dust.
The second red flag went up when he saw the smashed in door of his lab.
The third red flag went up when he heard the scream from Charis' lab.
"What the heck is going on here!" He yelled, breaking through the door's lock with a swing of his hammer.
"This is your last ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-chance! Tell us where we can find Chugainov before I start getting angry-y-y-y-y-y!" Idea sputtered at the tied up form of Charis.
"I ordered you a long time ago to leave Charis and her sister alone, now stand down and return to base for furthur disciplene!" Jared ordered to the startling effect of a total non reaction of the LPGB.
"What in the blazes! Did you not hear me? I ordered you to stand down!" Jared shouted.
"Jared, I think there's something wrong with them, they're acting strange even for them!"
"Alright, have it your way. Gentlemen burn the lab!"
Before the LPGB could set fire to anything Jared quickly pulled out his emergency overide remote and punched the shut off button, absolutly nothing happened.
Many of the LPGB began striking matches, Jared pulled out his Boomhammer. As much as it pained him to do it, he was going to have to destroy his beloved creation, it would take him months to put them back together but if he didn't Charis would never speak to him again. With one mighty swing the deed was done.
Silence reigned as Jared untied Charis, together the two of them swept the broken plastic pieces into a dust pan.
"All that hard work building them, now I have to start all over!" Jared said, pulling out individual memory coils so that they could be salvaged.
"Actually Jared, I don't think rebuilding your army will take as long as you think." Charis replied.
"Oh?" Jared replied skeptically, as Charis swiped the coils out of his hand.
"I was going to wait till the party to give this to you, and I almost reconsidered doing it at all after what just happened... but in the spirit of Christmas and forgiveness I'll show you your present!" Charis said, opening a drawer.
Jared's jaw dropped.
"Charis, that's amazing!"
"It's my way of saying thanks for getting the LPGB to leave Karissa and I alone, of course you have to fix whatever is wrong with their AI program before I let you have them..." Charis said, pulling out rows of heavily outfitted army men painted dark green bearing modern weaponry. Jared noticed the new insignia on their sleeves.
"I guess now I better get started programming interface drivers for my new... Little Plastic Marine Corps!"
-
It had taken awhile, but Shirley had finally managed to catch Dave, fortunately for him "caught" simply meant that he was attached to the exterior of the glue was roughly five feet away from Shirley's closest threatening appendage.
"When this glue dissolves you and Ben are going to get it!" Shirley shouted, although from inside the wad it sounded more like the sound of a fat man sitting on a rotten pumpkin then actual speaking.
"Does anybody know the best way to remove glue from very curly hair?" Ben asked.
"Ah... It's a wonderful life!" Chloe sighed from her spot next to Chrys on the left side of the Shirley wad.
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