• Samurai Santa

    By: Jason Ward

    We have all heard of the man, the legend, the empire of Santa Claus. But what has he had to do to retain his ever-popular rank?
    “Ho! Ho! Ho!” in a dark menacing voice.

    I

    We see a large building surrounded by falling snow and freezing night winds. Four little people in varying patterned clothing walk toward the shop. Three have green with white trim and only one has mainly red clothes with green trim. As the last one enters, he closes the large wooden door behind him.
    “Now you’ve all done wonderful tonight,” a thunderous voice echoes even to us in the barren cold. “Everyone gets an extra cup of hot chocolate tomorrow!”
    We hear countless tiny voices exclaim in yells, cheers and whistles.
    “Now where are my cookies? Ho! Ho! Ho!” the deep voice copies the cheery joy of the other small ones.
    Seven shadows pop up on the roof of the “work shop”, equaling the size of the four we saw earlier. They scurry along the top line to what appears to be a chimney. The wooden door suddenly opens, showing the outline of a much taller round man. The person begins to step out into the snow.
    “Who goes there?” he booms into the darkness, looking toward the roof.
    “Oh crap,” a shadow whispers in a high-pitched voice as the group freezes in position.
    “Plan D!” the front shadow whispers. “Plan D!”
    Two small people scurry from the side of the building toward the bearded man. One is in a light pink suit and the other carries a small camera.
    “Santa! Santa!” the one in the pink suit squeaks out in a female’s voice. The camera’s light clicks on brightly.
    “Oh, geeze,” Santa says under his breath, “the press again.”
    The shadows on the roof begin to move again.
    “Ho! Ho! Ho! Merry Christmas little one, “ Santa says in his loud, cheery voice.
    The obvious reporter just looks at him. “Yeah, O.K.” she slightly sarcastically says back.
    “What?” Santa asks. The small shadows disappear down the smoking pillar. “I’m Santa; I do that kind of thing.”
    “Whatever helps the cookie go down,” she replies still not impressed. “Is it true . . .” she begins to ask.
    “Aw crap,” Santa whispers to himself again. A line of silhouettes scampers along the windows of the top floor.
    “. . . that you don’t require any past training or testing for your workers?” she finishes her question.
    “No,” Santa replies.
    “You don’t have to follow union regulations due to the North Pole residency?” she continues.
    “The elves have formed their own unions,” Santa answers annoyed. The outline of a huge sack teeter totters back and forth on the top level. Santa begins to look up.
    “Do you use illegal immigrants for your cheap labor?” the reporter hurries out.
    “What?” Santa’s attention snaps back to her.
    “Eh, boss . . . “ A pointy hatted elf pops out of the door speaking in a slight Latino accent.
    “No ahora, Enrique!” Santa says to the interrupter. He looks at her stare with a nervous smile as Enrique closes the door.
    “Do you like little girls sitting on your lap Mr. Claus?” she asks, still staring at him. (If looks could kill, he would have a miniature heart attack.)
    “Ya know what? Get off my ice before I kick you off!” Santa says in his frustration.
    “Little boys?” she adds with an evil smirk.
    “What do you think I am? A Catholic priest? Get off my land! Now!” Santa yells.
    The seven shadows finally push the big bag through the chimney and are running across the roof. All seven are underneath their package carrying it.
    “Geeze, well aren’t you a jolly old soul this year,” the reporter says. Santa slams the big wooden door in their faces.
    Something whispers against the wind and hovers beside the workshop silently. The seven shadows throw the bag into the craft as the reporters climb a ladder into it as well. The seven shadows begin to hop into the ship.
    “NO!” Santa yells from inside the complex.
    We hear the shadows snickering as the yell echoes. The aircraft lifts up and rotates facing us.
    “Where’s my bag!” Santa booms again. The dark mass flies right through us, blacking everything out.

    II

    Seven elves in pitch black with all but their eyes covered flash at the lower steps of a throne. They all kneel before the dark suited man in the golden chair.
    “You’ve brought it then?” the man says emotionlessly.
    “Aye, Sir Clause,” the forward elf replies, still looking at the man’s feet.
    The doors behind the group creak open. Six other elves in grey rags pull the large red sack, with golden rope holding it closed, on a flat cart. They stop feet away from the (ninja) elves.
    “That old fool was easily distracted and stripped!” an elf in the back of the stealth group brags.
    “Really?” the man on the throne asks, standing from his seat. The elf who yelled watches him walk to the bag and reach inside. “Let’s unwrap this present and see what we got for Christmas,” Clause says just before pulling a silvery white orb from the sack. “Here!” Streams of silver flows at the elf flash freezing him where he stood. “Merry Christmas,” Clause says, empty and cold. The orb sparks away in his hand as Clause turns back to his seat. A white curl forms in the front bangs of his jet-black hair.
    “He who has the bag,” Clause says, retaking his seat, “has the power.” His manic smile grows as golden trails of energy spread out from his fingertips. “Inform my slaves, start the generators and extend the transmitter,” Clause orders a large person in a pointed hat behind him. “We’re going global.”
    We hear Clause’s psychotic laughter as gruesome forms of the large person pull levers down in countless numbers. Machinery kicks on humming all around us. The laughter echoes more with the hissing and growling from these “elves” (or think ugly cousin who was crisped at your last family barbeque).

    III

    We flash between houses where presents appear magically under the lighted Christmas trees. The calendar shows it is far too early to be from Santa, but nonetheless, they are there.
    As the excited children rush down stairs or across the floor, dazed and confused parents ponder what in the world is in the bright red box with green-white ribbon that they had never seen before. The parents begin to open the gift checking what might be in there. They pull the festive ribbon off unleashing a flash of pale green light.
    The pulse fades but everyone and everything in the home is frozen in time and place. We see in a view from space (shweet!) all across the country, the world in fact, billions of similar colored flashes spreading and covering the globe.
    The only places where there wasn’t a flash were the poles (oh and North Korea, they’re just weird like that.)
    “Darn it!” Santa yells in disgust at his computer chair. “No matter how many times I delete them, there are always more emails from Kim Jong Ill asking for more hidden WMD’s.”
    A younger, slim Mrs. Claus steps in carrying a plate of cookies. “Aw big guy,” she says sympathetically. “Does someone need a cookie?” Santa grabs two chocolate chip cookies.
    “Ya know,” Santa says biting off some cookie, “I miss his father, Menta Lee Ill. At least that guy had some humor and height.”
    Something suddenly flashes on his computer screen with a siren (like the last seconds of self-destruct of the Enterprise). Santa spins his head toward the screen.
    “What?” he almost yells. “Entire population frozen in time and space!” Santa reads off the screen as his key strokes click inputting the request for location of origin.
    “Holy gingerbread house, Santa!” Mrs. Claus panics.
    “To the Santa mobile!” Santa jumps up out of his seat.
    A candy cane with a spinning background moves toward us (think Batman, oh yeah!). We see them still standing there.
    “You mean the sleigh, right?” Mrs. Claus asks as Santa drops his shoulders a little.
    “Yes, the sleigh,” he answers. “Ruin my Batman intro why don’t you.”

    IV

    A small elf in dark grey uniform steps towards a door with two similar elves in black clothes. One of these guards is holding a miniature assault rifle and the other hold a staff with an axe head that is longer than he is.
    “Wassup Bob?” the one with the gun says in a friendly tone of his squeaky voice.
    “Oh the boss just wants more freakin’ fruit cake. God, I wish one of the ‘cherries‘” (the little guy actually uses his fingers to do the quotation marks around cherries, he’s so nineties huh) “chokes him one of these days”, the grey elf replies with disgust.
    Both of the guards just look at him with blank confusion (like “O..K.., stepping away now). The axe guard opens the larger black door between him and his fellow guard. The grey elf steps into the storage room.
    “Be back in a bit Tom,” Bob says closing the door behind him. A few moments pass with some rustling sounds from within the room.
    “Oh look, its Rudolph.” Bob’s words are muffled by the door. “He’s always reminded me of a flying Bambi.”
    The sound of a muffled step echoes out followed by a low growl. Both guards look at each other.
    “Aw crap,” Bob says. “Oh God, I think he has rabies!” Bob yells in fear and pain through the door.
    Sounds of things crashing and banging hum through the door. Tom and the guard with the staff look at each other like “what the hell?” is running through their heads as the sounds get louder.
    “That is not a carrot! Don’t bite there!” Bob yells in pain as thrashing, banging and growling sounds intensify.
    All the commotion suddenly stops. Both guards jump to where they are facing the door. As they stand there, a small burp is heard.
    “You know Dasher and Dancer and Prancer and Vixen. Comet and Cupid and Donder and Blitzen”, a voice menacing and dark sings through the door.
    The guards stand there slightly shaking.
    “But do you recall,” the voice continues, “the worst one of them all?” A short pause. “Thrasher the Psycho!” Santa burst through the door, slamming it on the guards.
    Santa stands there in his blood red suit with snow white fully trim. Light shines off the silver sunglasses blocking out his eyes. There is a small blue bag on his back and what appears to be a large candy cane on his left side. A large group of elves in grey form in front of him.
    “Ho!” Santa says darker than his usual cheer. “Ho!” just as menacing as his right hand moves onto the curved part of the cane. “Ho!” He pulls on the cane releasing the blade from its sheath (the curve is its hilt.)
    “Oh Jeebus!” an elf screams out.
    “It’s Samurai Santa!” another follows.
    “Run, scatter, flee, flee, flee!” one says as the group begins to shift away from Santa.
    “I’m about to get jolly on y’all’s naughty arses!” Santa yells just before jumping into the air flipping in the middle of it. He lands right in front of the elves’ only escape.
    Sir Clause steps onto the upper balcony on the opposite side of the room.
    “Santa!” he roars like an animal. “Elf jitsu!” Sir Clause orders.
    Every grey elf changes from scared to a stance ready for battle. (Aw, ain’t the midgets cute!)
    “Take him down! I want his jolly ole arse in my furnace by nightfall,” Clause orders, leaving the balcony.
    The elves begin to walk toward Santa slightly growling and preparing to pounce on him. Santa begins to back up against the wall.
    “Can’t we just talk about this a little,” Santa says, still backing up. “I mean, come on, I’m Santa Claus. What would Christmas be without me?” His nervous smile remains as his little destroyers corner him. Santa thuds against the wall.
    “Want a cookie?” he squeaks out.
    As the front elves jump, Comet (the reindeer, of course) dashes by tackling them off course. Two others land beside Santa. Comet stands to Santa’s right, Blitzen at his left. The deer in front of him steps forward a little, raising his nose. A flash of extremely bright red light explodes from its nose.
    The elves start to slowly stand back up, staggering and confused. Santa sheathes his sword and reaches into the blue bag.
    “You’ve all been very naughty this year!” Santa yells, pulling what seems to be a large cannon (I’d officially start running if I saw a big man pull out an even bigger gun).
    He pulls the slide on the side with his left hand, cocking it.
    “Boys, let’s rustle ourselves up some fruitcake!” Santa yells.
    The reindeer charge at the elves, keeping them in Santa’s sights and Santa begins firing fruitcake projectiles. The shots do one of two things - either knocks them completely out or encases them in small mounds of fruitcake (finally a good use of fruitcake).
    “Say ‘ello to my not so ‘lil friend!”, Santa yells, taunting the enemy elves in a Latino accent. (Scar face fans rejoice. Santa knows your ways.)
    One elf pops up. “Hello!” he waves. (Obviously he’s a bit dee-dee-dee.) A massive shot of fruitcake plasters him to the near wall.
    “Ho!” Santa yells, shooting another blast. “Ho!” again followed by a shot. “H-!” Before he can finish his catch phrase, he’s cut off by a huge being crashing in front of him.
    The pitch-black ball absorbs all the immobilized elves, twisting and reshaping itself. Massive muscular legs form at its base followed by similar abs (not a six-pack, more like a case). Defined arms stretch out from apparent shoulders followed by a rounded head forming on its new neck. Dark green shorts appear over half of its thighs to its waist. Across its shoulders and chest, a tight shirt forms in the same color. From its claw like hands, a pointy dark red hat is placed on its head.
    Santa raises his cannon looking at the monstrous sight. The creature smiles showing its full mouth of silver fangs. Santa lowers his head slightly focusing on him as a slight smirk grows on his face.
    “So what do you want for Christmas this year?” Santa asks, low with a threatening undertone.
    The beast raises its hands and throws them back roaring.
    “Let’s rock then,” Santa says just before launching the cannon straight into the beast’s mouth. Santa runs extremely fast behind it drawing his blade. He jumps into the air as the missile makes contact.
    “Merry Christmas!” Santa yells.

    V

    Santa bursts through the roof of the building straight up. The dark creature rockets up behind him.
    Santa stalls and begins to fall back toward his enemy. He throws a flurry of cookie shaped discs serrated on the edges. Each “star” is absorbed by the creature’s black flesh. The beast launches its right arm at Santa, extending it rapidly.
    Santa runs down the arm slashing and cutting everywhere he can. Every attack heals just as it is completed.
    “Arrgh!” Santa yells, nearly reaching the creature’s neck with his blade raised.
    The monster grabs Santa with his left claw and pulls him toward his mouth. The ground is rushing up to them from behind, the cold snow blowing all around them in the grey sky.
    Something above them hisses in twirling wind and snow as Santa stabs the creature’s hand then stomps on its face flipping off it.
    An extremely tall, pale blue furred creature flies out of the clouds rocketing straight down on the monster feet first. The force pulls the wind down, bringing Santa down faster.
    The black beast hits the ground in a thunderous boom. A huge ape-like being fluently flips off the beast. As his feet touch dirt, his left hand catches Santa, moving him safely down.
    “Cousin of yours, Abominable?” Santa asks drawing his sword and standing next to the blue fur ball (talk about heavy reinforcements).
    Abominable growls showing his fangs as the dark giant rises to his feet, equaling his height. The dark “elf” stands in front of Sir Clause’s very own throne room.
    “Ready?” Santa asks before rushing at the nearest wall. As Santa moves, the beast charges him but Abominable blocks him, punching him back. Santa jumps off the wall toward Abominable.
    “Steady!” Santa yells, landing in his ally’s flexed belly.
    “Jelly power!” Santa yells as Abominable pushes his gut forward, launching Santa at the beast and his prize.
    The beast charges toward the jolly human projectile in slow motion. Santa spins like a drill with his sword in front of him. Santa passes straight through, taking a circle of the monster with him (which heals of course, blasted blob...elf...creature...thing...whatever it is).
    Santa somersaults to the ground right into a window. The creature lunges to grab him but Abominable beats him to it, throwing the monster away roaring.

    IV

    Santa breaks through the window as the blows between Abominable and the beast thunder from the courtyard. Santa rises to his feet faces a group of large figures all in dark green elf clothing, tight on their muscular bodies.(Fan-service for the weird people out there.) All five stand there growling at Santa appearing to be more animalistic then anything else. The unit stampedes Santa. In a split second before contact, Santa swipes his blade in a flash of silver. All five fall in front of him before he stands back up from his left knee.
    A huge mass of these soldiers gather in the hall. Snow collects at the edges of the window blowing in from the wind.
    "Aw crap," Santa says. "Why can't you all just go on a cookie break when I want you to? Geeze."
    All of them roar loudly at him. Santa raises his right eyebrow over his sunglasses. He crouches down pulling some of the snow into a pile as the small army charges him. He whistles as the legion gets closer. Santa pulls a green and black scarf from the blue bag on his back. He spins the scarf around the snow pile just as the "super" elves close in on him. A snow man with a goatee, that dark green scarf, and matching vest and hat appears from the snow. All the goblins stop dead in their tracks. His right stick arm pulls a silver Uzi machine gun from his back. An evil smirk forms as a furled brow forms on his forehead. He slides the slide back cocking his gun. All the bad guys’ eyes widen.
    "Who's been takin' cookies from the cookie jar?" the snowman asks in a sinister way as he smiles with equal intent.
    "Aw crapola," a soldier in the back says in the silence.
    The bullets tat in rapid succession as the flashes of fire illuminate the shadows. Sounds of yells and screams are heard through the flashes as we see Santa cringe every now and then.
    We hear the snowman's voice say still looking at Ole Saint Nick, "No, don't you run from me!" Another short series of shots. "Here's your coal," another burst of bullets. "Here's yours," similar but in a different direction. "Oh, and don't worry I have enough for all of you," a long stream of lead. The snowman laughs shooting every which way it sounds like as Santa covers his eyes with his left hand. He splits his index and middle fingers apart to keep watching.
    "That's not right amigo," Santa says as the clink of a clip falls to the ground. "That's so not right," moving his hand away.
    Trying not to gag, Santa runs to the wall and rushes through the large wooden door. He runs straight past the shadows and into the lighted circle in the center of the domicile. Santa stops seeing the golden throne with his bag sitting in it.

    VII

    Santa walks up one of the throne steps reaching for his lost, priceless treasure. From the shadows of the corner, Sir Clause flies out with a sword (similar to Santa’s) in front of him. Just as the tainted blade is about to strike its jolly target, a loud clash of metal rings and sparks fly. Both Clause and Santa have locked their swords together crossing them pushing toward the other’s neck.
    “Been a while fat man,” Clause says in intense anger.
    “Indeed,” Santa pauses for a moment ”...Francis.” An evil smile grows on Santa’s face.
    “Don’t you dare call me by that name!” Francis yells pushing Santa back with a charged blade. He charges the ole saint with destructive intent. Santa spins around in a flash deflecting the attack. Francis charges at Santa spinning his blade toward the old saint. His blade appears to glow a silver color as his fluid attacks glide through the air in an effortless fashion.
    “Ho, ho, ho,” Santa laughs cheerfully dodging and weaving each of Clause’s anger driven strikes. Our jolly hero somersaults away from the final strike that slices a large gash into the floor. A little old elf in all green steps in behind Santa. Santa jumps straight into Francis clashing their blades once more. Now it’s Clause’s turn to go on the defensive as Saint Nick’s blade thrashes into Francis’s. Santa’s sword starts to glow red as his strikes speed increases. Santa pushes his enemy back in a flurry of sparks.The yule tide adversaries land back on their feet for a split second before recharging at their opposite.
    “ARRRRRGH!” they both yell together as they slash the glowing blade in their hands toward the other.
    A burst of energy is unleashed when the weapons make contact forcing them both far back in the blinding light. Francis slams his sword into the ground to boost himself back to his feet. The old elf helps Santa replant his boots square on the floor.
    “Come on, stop holding back old man,” Sir Clause tauntingly says smiling finally (but why does it look like Freddy when he gets some new gardening tools?). “I can take it,” he adds as a beam of dark energy zips up his blade sizzling.
    Santa’s brow lowers as a blank focused look forms on his face. He flicks his entire arm holding his weapon of choice out from him. In the flick his silver piece of noel justice is encased by red energy crackling similar to Francis’s.
    “Use it Santa,” the old elf says in a weird accent. “Strike you must,” he continues. “Use the for-,” the green elf is cut off by Santa’s boot in his face.
    “Shut up dude,” Santa says. “Do you have any idea what George Lucas could do to us for this right now?” Santa whispers toward the unconscious little person.
    Francis walks toward Santa swinging his black (light) saber around him with a whooshing sound. Santa spins his red sword forward crashing it into Clause’s with the opposing energies crackling. Francis brings his double handed tool of destruction down forcefully and begins to strike from any and every direction he can attempting to strike down Santa Claus and claim his throne of power. Santa single handedly twirls his saber into Clause’s bending and twisting away from the anger filled attacks.
    Francis brings his blade straight up for one final blow as Santa is bent back away from him. Santa throws his blade up spinning it into its dark counterpart. As the flash of their contact cracks, Santa snaps up filling Clause’s face with nothing but the black, leather glove of his right fist.

    Black out.

    IIX

    Francis holds his forehead with his left hand as he groggily shakes his head sitting on the floor. He slightly moans slowly opening his eyes. A blurry outline of a round man in a red suit fills his vision. He closes his eyes one more time trying to readjust to the light. His eyes snap back open seeing Santa Claus drawing his blade back. A look of pure panic and fear flash over his now pale face before clenching in on itself bracing for impact. The sword whooshes as it spins in the air. The sound of impact clinks as we only see Santa still in his thrown position.
    Francis opens one eye keeping the other clenched shut. Both open looking at the silver of a sword slammed into the wall next to him. He looks down the edge, down the hilt, all the way back to Santa.
    “Why didn’t you kill me?” his question filled with confusion. Santa throws his bag onto its rightful place, his back.
    “I’m Santa Claus. It’s what I do,” he replies smiling placing his sunglasses on the throne revealing his rosy red cheeks and the rest of his white beard. “Hey?” he adds after a few steps away turning back to the panicked Francis.
    “Yeah?” still confused Francis asks back. Santa reaches into his big red sack searching for something.
    “Didn’t you ask for this one year?” Santa asks pulling out an authentic G.I. Joe. Francis’s eyes widen as Santa tosses it to him.
    “Kung fu grip...” Francis trails off playing with his toy as his eyes tear up a little. Santa steps out. An evil smirk grows onto his face. The toy leaps onto Francis’s neck choking him. Santa’s smirk grows even more as the choking sounds of Sir Clause fades. Comet, Blitzen, and Rudolph walk in front of Santa from the side. An elf wearing shades walks in as well holding a boom box playing some up beat, intense rock song as the group walks away. Santa pulls the bag more onto his shoulder shrugging his shoulder.
    Of course, with Sir Clause and his misuse of magic defeated, all the homes across the world fell back into the natural rhythm of the universe finding a teddy bear where the evil gifts once were. All the elves, and the beings, that Francis once enslaved were then freed (to plunder, pillage, and steal your holiday coupons and work for the DMV all across the globe).
    Well boys and girls sitting at home, this tale makes ya wanna leave some extra chocolate chip cookies for Santa this year, huh?
    　
    　
    　
    　

    IX

    The yule tide enforcement group turns a corner almost exiting the foul building of anti-holiday spirit manufacturing. From the shadows, someone clicks on a tape recorder. Through its speaker we hear Santa‘s frustrated voice, “What do you think I am? A Catholic priest?” followed by the sound of rosary beads dangling in a person’s hand.
    “Ho,” Santa says turning his head. “Ho,” completing his turn of attention towards the sound’s origin. “Holy crap.”

    Happy New Year’s Everybody