Post by redsycorax on Feb 2, 2021 1:57:33 GMT
Many folk myths within the Multiverse tell of a kindly old red-clad man who distributes presents to children on Xmas Eve, in a flying reindeer-propelled sleigh. Unfortunately, this is not the story of that kindly old man. It's about his disreputable and evil counterpart who survived one of the recurrent demolitions of Earth-Three, Anti-Claus. For some reason unknown to even students of advanced multiversal hyperphysics, he ended up on Earth-12/55 and pursued his own agenda, diametrically opposed to that of his altruistic counterpart. For some idea of what he's like, look at this warning song about his misbehaviour:
++
You'd better watch out
You'd better not scream
You'd better not run away
I'm warning you now
Anti- Claus is coming to town
He's making a list
Going over it twice
Gonna find out who can be bribed or corrupted
Anti-Claus is coming to town
He spies on you when you're sleeping
He knows if you've escaped
He doesn't care if you've been good or bad
So run away for goodness sake!
You'd better watch out
You'd better not scream
You'd better not shout
I'm warning you now
Anti-Claus is coming to town
He spies on you when you're sleeping
He knows when you've escaped
He doesn't care if you've been bad or good
So try to escape for goodness sake
You'd better watch out
You'd better not scream
You'd better not shout
I'm warning you now
Anti-Claus is coming to town
Yeah, he wants a melee
He's got lots of weapons in his sleigh
Old Anti is coming to town
FREEDOM BRIGADE SATELLITE:
"Trouble. There seems to be a hypersonic sleigh en route from the most easterly point on the globe." Black Vulcan pointed to the black line steadily violating the international airspace of several countries.
"Not him again!" Bat Woman exclaimed.
"Uh, who do you mean?" asked the Mighty HermAphrodite.
"Oh, that's right, Toni and Butch, you weren't members when Anti-Claus turned up last time. He's an incredibly annoying anthropomorphic manifestation of a diabolical inversion of Old Saint Nick."
"What, so he gives coal to children and steals toys and presents?"
"I wish it were that simple. He actually used to construct weapons for assorted global dictatorships and every fifty second day after New Years- around February 21, he hurtles around the globe distributing them to everyone who's been fiendish and repressive during the year. Using elf slave labour. He deliberately malnourished them and kept them small in stature." Mr Might pointed to the Humanity International report on top of their conference table.
"So what are his abilities?"
"Exactly the same as those of Father Xmas- charisma, immortality and hyperspeed. Be careful- he's also exceptionally good at knife play and that coal contains anti-empathic properties." Mermaid pointed to the rogues gallery readout from the FBUS Computer, with a mugshot of an elderly bearded ruffian, sporting an eyepatch and clad in black with ermine ruffs on his cuffs and above his boots.
"Why does he behave like that?"
"He has a deadly rivalry with the Halloween Bunny, the ruthless and evil antithesis of the Easter Bunny. The Halloween Bunny apparently hired Arn-Uld 9000 the Sex Robot to terminate Anti, but Arn-Uld was distracted by a 'sexy' forklift and proceeded to have coitus with it, meaning that the Halloween Bunny had to duke it out with Anti-Claus himself. Anti won, decapitated the Halloween Bunny and shot his flying magical pumpkin. Although the Halloween Bunny did massacre thousands of his elves." Mermaid recounted the sorry tale of Kristopher Kringle aka Anti-Claus.
Green Trashcan's smell o ring had detected the steady trail of mayhem and chaos and pinpointed its location:
"I've locked onto his cheap Cuban cigar fumes. Clint?"
"The problem is, his sack of badness is dimensionally transcendent and he has problematic supplies of all of my one weaknesses."
"And my Lasso of Kinky Submission doesn't work on him because he's an anthropomorphic manifestation and therefore technically a figment of someone's warped imagination- and my lasso only subordinates beings that actually exist. For the same reason, Lady Liberty's spiked tiara won't work on him either. It goes right through him. Because he's linked to the Quickforce, Captain Swift can use his superspeed against him." Princess Power explained.
"Man, if only this group weren't so ofay and whitebread. Apache Chief and Samurai could have helped mop this up. But no, they were killed off conveniently in the Crisis on Stereotyped and Unrepresentative Earths." Black Vulcan moaned:
"What about you, Pierce?" Bat Woman asked
"Well yeah, he is vulnerable to my lightning, but the problem is, he recovers too quickly from being hit."
"Is he five dimensional, by any chance?" Bat Woman persisted.
"We tried that, but writing his name backward didn't work either, so he's obviously not one of those bloody nuisances from Zrfff." Mr Might sighed.
"He must have some weakness."
THE SLAY RIDE:
"Nyahaha! On, Blitzkrieg! On Death Dance! On, Donner Pass Accident! And Reinhart, your radioactive nose will light up our way!!!"
"Radioactive nosed zombie reindeer, Anti-Claus? Whatever next?" Anti-Claus frowned as Bat Woman, Captain Swift, Mr Might and the Eye materialised in his way:
"Look, you interloping metahuman busybodies, I'm more than a match for you. Remember, my dimensionally transcendent sack here includes all of Mr Might's recorded 'one weaknesses.'"
Bat Woman smiled grimly: "One slight problem, Mr Kringle. My Bat Girls. All one hundred of them. Grab him, girls!" And with that, a melee of epic proportions started as Bat Woman's faithful subordinates began to kick, pummel and otherwise outnumber him. In the ensuing conflict, Captain Swift accelerated in and grabbed Anti-Clauses Sack of Badness and sped away with it, leading to the incineration of the aforementioned prop. This left Mr Might free to land the final blow. Meanwhile, the Eye was working out the dimensional coordinates as the Bat Girls trussed up the angry, cursing malignant elderly gentleman and deposited him in the transmatter alcove.
"Oh bugger..." said Anti-Claus, as he and his zombie reindeer were abruptly teleported across the void of intrauniversal bleed space to their native Earth-3, where, due to some pinpoint microsurgery, te ad abruptly forgot he'd ever been exiled on Earth-55. No doubt this is a frothy, lightweight and highly suspect narrative in terms of its overall sophistication, but one doesn't expect Tolstoy or Dostoevesky from stories set in this holiday interlude milieu, so I plead generic constraints.
THE END.
TO BE CONTINUED
++
You'd better watch out
You'd better not scream
You'd better not run away
I'm warning you now
Anti- Claus is coming to town
He's making a list
Going over it twice
Gonna find out who can be bribed or corrupted
Anti-Claus is coming to town
He spies on you when you're sleeping
He knows if you've escaped
He doesn't care if you've been good or bad
So run away for goodness sake!
You'd better watch out
You'd better not scream
You'd better not shout
I'm warning you now
Anti-Claus is coming to town
He spies on you when you're sleeping
He knows when you've escaped
He doesn't care if you've been bad or good
So try to escape for goodness sake
You'd better watch out
You'd better not scream
You'd better not shout
I'm warning you now
Anti-Claus is coming to town
Yeah, he wants a melee
He's got lots of weapons in his sleigh
Old Anti is coming to town
FREEDOM BRIGADE SATELLITE:
"Trouble. There seems to be a hypersonic sleigh en route from the most easterly point on the globe." Black Vulcan pointed to the black line steadily violating the international airspace of several countries.
"Not him again!" Bat Woman exclaimed.
"Uh, who do you mean?" asked the Mighty HermAphrodite.
"Oh, that's right, Toni and Butch, you weren't members when Anti-Claus turned up last time. He's an incredibly annoying anthropomorphic manifestation of a diabolical inversion of Old Saint Nick."
"What, so he gives coal to children and steals toys and presents?"
"I wish it were that simple. He actually used to construct weapons for assorted global dictatorships and every fifty second day after New Years- around February 21, he hurtles around the globe distributing them to everyone who's been fiendish and repressive during the year. Using elf slave labour. He deliberately malnourished them and kept them small in stature." Mr Might pointed to the Humanity International report on top of their conference table.
"So what are his abilities?"
"Exactly the same as those of Father Xmas- charisma, immortality and hyperspeed. Be careful- he's also exceptionally good at knife play and that coal contains anti-empathic properties." Mermaid pointed to the rogues gallery readout from the FBUS Computer, with a mugshot of an elderly bearded ruffian, sporting an eyepatch and clad in black with ermine ruffs on his cuffs and above his boots.
"Why does he behave like that?"
"He has a deadly rivalry with the Halloween Bunny, the ruthless and evil antithesis of the Easter Bunny. The Halloween Bunny apparently hired Arn-Uld 9000 the Sex Robot to terminate Anti, but Arn-Uld was distracted by a 'sexy' forklift and proceeded to have coitus with it, meaning that the Halloween Bunny had to duke it out with Anti-Claus himself. Anti won, decapitated the Halloween Bunny and shot his flying magical pumpkin. Although the Halloween Bunny did massacre thousands of his elves." Mermaid recounted the sorry tale of Kristopher Kringle aka Anti-Claus.
Green Trashcan's smell o ring had detected the steady trail of mayhem and chaos and pinpointed its location:
"I've locked onto his cheap Cuban cigar fumes. Clint?"
"The problem is, his sack of badness is dimensionally transcendent and he has problematic supplies of all of my one weaknesses."
"And my Lasso of Kinky Submission doesn't work on him because he's an anthropomorphic manifestation and therefore technically a figment of someone's warped imagination- and my lasso only subordinates beings that actually exist. For the same reason, Lady Liberty's spiked tiara won't work on him either. It goes right through him. Because he's linked to the Quickforce, Captain Swift can use his superspeed against him." Princess Power explained.
"Man, if only this group weren't so ofay and whitebread. Apache Chief and Samurai could have helped mop this up. But no, they were killed off conveniently in the Crisis on Stereotyped and Unrepresentative Earths." Black Vulcan moaned:
"What about you, Pierce?" Bat Woman asked
"Well yeah, he is vulnerable to my lightning, but the problem is, he recovers too quickly from being hit."
"Is he five dimensional, by any chance?" Bat Woman persisted.
"We tried that, but writing his name backward didn't work either, so he's obviously not one of those bloody nuisances from Zrfff." Mr Might sighed.
"He must have some weakness."
THE SLAY RIDE:
"Nyahaha! On, Blitzkrieg! On Death Dance! On, Donner Pass Accident! And Reinhart, your radioactive nose will light up our way!!!"
"Radioactive nosed zombie reindeer, Anti-Claus? Whatever next?" Anti-Claus frowned as Bat Woman, Captain Swift, Mr Might and the Eye materialised in his way:
"Look, you interloping metahuman busybodies, I'm more than a match for you. Remember, my dimensionally transcendent sack here includes all of Mr Might's recorded 'one weaknesses.'"
Bat Woman smiled grimly: "One slight problem, Mr Kringle. My Bat Girls. All one hundred of them. Grab him, girls!" And with that, a melee of epic proportions started as Bat Woman's faithful subordinates began to kick, pummel and otherwise outnumber him. In the ensuing conflict, Captain Swift accelerated in and grabbed Anti-Clauses Sack of Badness and sped away with it, leading to the incineration of the aforementioned prop. This left Mr Might free to land the final blow. Meanwhile, the Eye was working out the dimensional coordinates as the Bat Girls trussed up the angry, cursing malignant elderly gentleman and deposited him in the transmatter alcove.
"Oh bugger..." said Anti-Claus, as he and his zombie reindeer were abruptly teleported across the void of intrauniversal bleed space to their native Earth-3, where, due to some pinpoint microsurgery, te ad abruptly forgot he'd ever been exiled on Earth-55. No doubt this is a frothy, lightweight and highly suspect narrative in terms of its overall sophistication, but one doesn't expect Tolstoy or Dostoevesky from stories set in this holiday interlude milieu, so I plead generic constraints.
THE END.
TO BE CONTINUED
