Chapter 114:

  (SPECIAL)

  All I Want For Christmas, is You

  "I am not complaining, but why did I get a gift again?" Midna asked.

  The gift was actually bigger than the Zorua herself. A square-shaped box, wrapped in colorful wrappings.

  {It's simple,} Luna said dismissively. {A human guy with psychic powers died 2000 years ago in Dust's world. To celebrate, we get presents.}

  The Kirlia carefully lifted her box above her head, trying to estimate its weight.

  "That sounds gruesome." Fay murmured. "I mean, should we really be celebrating that?"

  I facepalmed. "Luna, your summary is horrible."

  "I think it sounds fun." Midna cheekily smiled. "What better way to celebrate a murder, than by sending body parts to people."

  "There are body parts in these things?" Fay's eyes widened. She gave her own present a distrustful look. "What part of the human body did I get?"

  "You know what, scrap the entire Jesus storyline. Let's just say Santa gave you these presents."

  "Who is Santa?" Midna asked Luna, a mischievous smile on her face.

  Luna answered with a smile of her own. {So in our trainer's home world there is this fat human who rides 8 Stantlers during the night and jumps down chimneys.}

  "How?" Fay blinked. "And why?"

  {Because,} Luna sighed, as if it was something obvious. {He gives small children who he deemed worthy toys. He does this every year. He even has a workshop filled with human-fairy type hybrids who make presents.}

  "So…" Fay gave the present a confused look. "What does that have to do with giving body parts?"

  "Well my dear Fay," Midna rubbed her tail against Fay. "Where do you think those toys are made out of? You got to do something with the bad kids."

  "Dust, I don't feel so good," Fay admitted. "I think I would rather not receive any body parts."

  "Midna and Luna. You both are morons." I scowled.

  {You told me that was the story behind Christmas!} Luna said, seemingly offended. {How am I a moron?}

  I shook my head, trying to get into the Christmas spirit again. Maybe, just maybe, bringing Christmas to a world without Christianity wasn't that logical. But I'd be damned if I skipped my family's tradition.

  "You guys get the story completely wrong." I sighed. Technically they were pretty accurate. I wasn't completely 100% into the Christmas lore but I knew it was originally based on a Roman festival surrounding the dude who ate his children. But I don't care!

  "Look, I got you guys these presents."

  "Where did you get the body parts from?" Fay asked, horrified.

  I groaned. Wishing I could scream super loud without the people down in the Pokécenter lobby getting worried.

  "Look, I am just trying to set the mood here, could you please entertain this lonely dimension hopper with this? There are no body parts. It's all play and pretend. We PRETEND this gift came from Santa. Do not question the logic of the process. Just roll with it and pretend to enjoy it."

  "Aaahhh." Midna awed. "I get it."

  "You do?"

  {Completely!} Luna nodded.

  "I don't get it." Fay softly spoke. "But I'll pretend to get it." She smiled brightly.

  "Great!" I threw my arms in the air. "Progress!"

  "Okay, so now we have that covered. We can do the poems an-"

  "But how does that explain the tree you decapitated and brought into our room," Midna asked.

  {I brought it into our room!} Luna said proudly. {I teleported it!}

  "It's a Christmas tree," I explained.

  "No it's not," Midna countered. "It's a Pine tree."

  "It's a Christmas tree!" I almost started yelling. "Look at the orbs, and the star on top of it!"

  "Just because you decorated it with weird ritualistic symbols doesn't mean it's not a regular Pine tree."

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  "It's tradition."

  Midna gasped. "You guys decapitate trees and decorate their corpses every year," she smiled wickedly. "Your home world must be filled with monsters."

  I rolled my eyes. "Sure, you made your point. You are very clever and funny. Now do you want me to take away your present-"

  {Can I get her present in that case?} Luna interrupted me.

  "Wait, why is she getting Midna's present?" Fay said, "I was the one to decapitate the tree!"

  "No one is getting my present!" Midna barred her fangs. "You'll have to kill me first!"

  {Is that a challenge?}

  "Wait, really?"

  "NO YOU IDIOTS!" Midna barked.

  Meanwhile, I counted to ten in my head, while trying to keep a smile on my face. When I finally reached the number 10 I gently said, "You know what, let's just skip all of that and everyone open your presents. It doesn't matter why I threw fake snow in our room, why we are wearing Christmas hats, or why we have hot chocolate. It's snowing outside and I felt like it. Now, chop chop."

  The three Pokémon chilled down a little and sat down again. They cautiously studied their gift, as if it was a bomb or something.

  Luna's present was the first one that opened. Hers barely took a second to unwrap itself, and to be torn to shreds. Against psychic powers, the cardboard box was simply no match.

  {Wow,} Luna paused to loudly gasp. {I got another box!}

  "Look at the image on the box," I explained. Luna twisted the box to look for the front.

  {I see waffles on the cover?!} Luna tilted her head.

  "It's a waffle maker," Midna sighed. "Can't you read the text?"

  Luna started to beam.

  "A waffle maker," I explained. "I can use this to make waffles wherever we go. As long as we got milk and flour I can make you breakf-"

  {Thank you so much!} Luna teleported right in front of me and assaulted me with a bear hug. Putting her entire weight behind it and causing me to fall backwards.

  {Thank you thank you thank you!} Luna started to rub her head against my stomach. It was really cute to see.

  "Hey, don't thank me, thank the fat imaginary dude!" I laughed.

  Luna looked me straight into the eyes and said. {Thank you Santa.}

  Yeah, she still didn't get it.

  Where Luna had opened her present with psychic abilities Fay had instead chosen for uncovering her present with surgical precision. For some reason, she didn't want to tear through the wrappings and instead she opted to remove all the pieces of tape.

  It took a little bit longer because of that.

  Midna had hers opened before Fay.

  "Dust," Midna said, looking down at her gift. "...why?"

  I scowled. Wondering if I had fucked up with Midna's gift. "Why? What's wrong with it? You don't like your gift?"

  "You think I am into badly written teenage romance novels?" Midna asked me sarcastically.

  I managed to keep my expression straight while answering. "Yes. You totally do."

  A grin appeared on Midna's face. "You must be the worst trainer ever. Giving your Pokémon books like these."

  "Well, I can still trade them in for other ones." I threatened.

  "Over my dead body!" Midna threatened before jumping towards me.

  I caught the fluffy Zorua and started petting Midna. She started laughing in response but made no effort to stop me.

  Finally, Fay had unwrapped her present. In her paws, she held two boxing gloves. Fay carefully scanned them over until- Her eyes widened. She gasped when she saw the signature on the left glove, and by whom it was signed.

  "Are these the official Bea Boxing Gloves?" Fay asked.

  "Yup."

  "I don't know what to say." She murmured.

  "Thank you Santa." I said.

  Fay copied me, a big smile on her face. "I actually don't know how to repay you for this."

  "Don't worry, you all pay me enough by just being the best team one could wish for." I answered. I wasn't even lying. I really hit the jackpot.

  "Actually we can repay you." Midna softly spoke.

  {Go ahead!} Luna clapped.

  "You two really wanna go through with this?" Fay hesitantly asked.

  "Wait, did you three?"

  With a sudden flash, an object was dropped into my lap. It was rather heavy. Curious, I started removing the wrappings. They had been done rather roughly. and without any precision, only stuck together with an excessive amount of tape.

  I removed the final layer and was met with a set of pencils and a notebook. On the front of the notebook was written. "The road to greatness.".

  "What is this?"

  "It's a diary," Fay murmured. "You write inside it and-"

  {And you can write down all the things we did and will do, in one place!}

  Midna rolled her eyes, clearly disagreeing with the other two. She fixed her eyes on me. "Your diary is called The Road to Greatness because we believe that's what is coming for you."

  That's...

  "Wow," I said. "That's so sweet."

  I pulled in Fay and started hugging all three of them. Just really happy to celebrate Christmas with Pokémon that are so sweet. Even though they had no attachment to the holiday at all, they still did this for me.

  This continued for quite a while until Midna said something strange.

  "What about the last present though?"

  "What the last present?"

  {The one under the tree?} Luna interrupted her embrace to point at the decorated Christmas tree. Indeed, underneath, it was one small gift.

  "Is it for me?" Midna asked,

  "..."

  Fay scowled. "Who is it for?"

  "You three are playing with me, right?" I asked hesitantly.

  "No?" Fay answered. "Wait, isn't the final present for us?"

  "I only made 3 presents," I stated.

  {Then who is it for?}

  Midna moved closer to the present. A tag was attached to it. "It says it's for you."

  "For me?" I asked. "You left this for me?"

  "No." Midna scowled. She carefully studied the box. "I didn't make this one." She turned to Fay. "Did you?"

  "N-no?"

  "Well, that's fucking weird." I calmly said. Though I was starting to feel a bit on edge. I hate it when reality stops making sense.

  {Well open it,} Luna said. {I now want to know what's inside.}

  That sounds like a horrible idea. Opening a random package sure sounds like a death trap. On the other hand. I was really curious about what was inside it and who left it for me?

  Hylla? Barry? Chelsea? One of my countless other friends in this world?

  Slowly I picked up the small box. It was packaged just like my gift was. With excessive use of tape and paper.

  Like a bandaid I started removing the layers. Slowly but surely. Dreading what would be inside.

  "What the hell?."

  "What is it?!" Fay asked. She was jumping up and down, barely containing her excitement. If that was even the right word.

  "It's a ball of ice." I took the ice ball in both my hands. It was roughly the size of a football and seemed to be a completely solid orb of ice.

  {Wait, scratch off the snow.} Luna moved closer and rubbed her hands over the ice. Making the ice clear again.

  "Well shit." I muttered, feeling a sick feeling in my stomach boil up.

  "Huh," Midna spoke. "I knew there were body parts involved."

  That would have been a really funny joke. if it weren't for the separated hand stuck inside the ice orb. I hoped it was a fake one but...well, you can't just fake that kind of stuff. I could see the blood, the cleanly separated wound and all the lines on the hand. All of it captured inside this literal snow globe.

  "Ah fuck." I sighed.

  Scratched onto the ice was written:

  I Still Want U

  Merry Xmas

  A soft humming came from outside the window.