'Twas the Fight Before Christmas!

Chapter Two

December 24th 2011, Gotham City, Finn and Jake's tree house

'Twas the night before Christmas, and throughout Gotham city, very few were awake, save for our heroes, Finn and Jake…'

"Hey, Jake."

"Yeah?"

"Pass me that Danish."

Jake did so, though he nearly knocked over the cup of coffee placed dangerously close to the keyboard. He stopped it just in time and placed it a good distance away, smiling nervously at his unimpressed brother.

The surveillance monitor room was small, cramped and still beset by the winter cold like the rest of the voice. Both were wrapped tightly in scarves, hats and thick coats, yet they kept shivering and their breath puffed out their mouths and noses like smoke from a chimney. It did not help either that it was almost entirely pitch-black in the room, the only light emitting from the several monitors Jake and Finn were sat down in front of.

Finn and Jake had spent the last two days not just decorating the tree house and stocking up food for Christmas, but spending vast amounts of cash on surveillance equipment and setting up the monitor room and on new weapons at Al's. At the latter, they were not as successful, only finding a few bullet and knife-proof vests (which both were wearing right now) and some of the more basic handguns and knives for a practical capture of this unknown enemy. That and some of the bazookas and the displayed BGM-71 TOW were too expensive. Still, after that seasonal splurging, the two now felt comfortable enough to take on this menace, but that did not mean both were particularly happy with it.

"Man, this sucks," Jake grumbled, crossing his arms bitterly. "I was gonna spend Christmas Eve with Lady Rainicorn, not freeze my butt off in a little dark room!"

"Come on, Jake," Finn said, leaning forward and pressing a few keys to examine the different areas around their tree house where they had set up surveillance cameras. "We vowed to justice, your cute face and Christmas. We made a commitment and we gotta stick to it."

"No, YOU made a commitment. I said nothing. Christmas this year is super balls!"

A grin then appeared on the human boy's face. "Oh, well if that's how you feel, then I guess you wouldn't want your present, huh?"

"Present?" Jake livened up a bit, rubbing his hands. "Hey, screw whatever I said, bro, I'll take the present."

Finn reached underneath the desk for something seconds later, he pulled out a gift that was poorly wrapped up in shiny red gift wrapping paper. "Ta-da! Merry Christmas, Jake!"

Jake took the gift and tore off the wrapping like an excited little kid. He gasped at what he pulled out from the cardboard box.

"Golden knuckles with detachable spikes! Awwwesome saaaauce! And speaking of which…" Jake slid the golden knuckles on his hands and whipped something out from behind his back that he had somehow managed to keep hidden from Finn all this time. "Surprise! Merry Christmas, dude!" It was a long, rectangular shaped present wrapped in orange gift wrapping paper.

He slapped his cheeks in shock and tore away the paper, throwing the shreds up in the air and letting them fall like snowflakes. When he opened the box, all Finn could do was slowly gasp out, "Oh…my…gosh!"

It was sword, but not just any sword. This sword dwarfed Finn's regular sword in size and at first glance, it seemed sharp enough to slice through human flesh like tissue paper. Its hilt was black and decorated with a little golden skull.

"That my friend is an Elvish blade…carved by a village of elves, naturally."

"How'd you get it?"

"Oh, I killed them."

"Okay then, that makes sen-wait, what?" He stopped marvelling his new sword for a moment and stared at his friend, doing a double take.

"Yeah. I killed them. All of them."

The human boy now looked increasingly horrified. "Even the children?"

"Especially the children!"

When Finn was about to say something else, they heard a sound. They froze and their heads slowly rotated to its source. It came from the monitor. What they saw made their jaws drop.

There, on the middle monitor recording the snow covered rooftop of the tree house, the bottom half of a red one-hose open sleigh had slid onto the roof. Moments afterwards, the duo spotted a pair of black and gold buckled boots crunching against the snow.

"He's here."

"Welcome to the party, Cringle!"

In the living room, something crashed down the chimney shoot and onto the extinguished fireplace. When the dust cleared and it coughed a few times to keep said dust out of its throat, the big, round and red something got up and stepped out from the fireplace.

Chris Cringle dusted the soot from his red and white fur lined suit and the edges of his great white beard and he hauled his heavy red sack from inside the fireplace and set it down by the Christmas tree. He searched around and found the set of milk and mince pies on a table by the fireplace from which he entered the tree house and polished them off quick.

When he was done with that, Cringle turned his attention back to the tree and his sack of wonders. He opened the sack up and proceeded to take out the specially wrapped gifts and set them carefully under the Christmas tree for two young lads who had been especially good this year, although a bit misguided, Finn and Jake.

That is until…

"Chris Cringle!"

He stood up and turned around to see Finn and Jake standing there, looks of anger on their faces and standing like they were prepared for a fight.

"Ah, Finn and Jake, I had a feeling both you boys were awake," Cringle said with a deep, English accent as he crossed his arms, looking at the boys' action possess unimpressed.

"How'd you know our names, Cringle?" Jake demanded, adjusting his golden knuckles and the spikes on top. "What, you've been spying on people all year round? Looking for secret data?"

Finn wielded his new sword high, ready to clash with this villain. "It doesn't matter now. Cringle, how DARE you try to undermine our capitalist system by giving out FREE gifts! You make me SICK!"

"And that red outfit's a pretty big give away, in case you haven't figured that out already, "Comrade!""

However, Cringle had been expecting some trouble with these two lads this year, his elves having informed him of the trouble brewing Gotham. "Now hold on, boys, don't be headstrong," he reasoned, putting his gloved hands up defensively. "I assure you, you and the city have got it all wrong! Look, the thing is-"

But Cringle could not finish his sentence, for whilst he was trying to explain the situation, he had let his guard down and did not notice in time Finn and Jake running up to him and tackling him to the ground! Finn got on top of him and punched him square in his holly jolly face!

"Tell us who you work for!" Finn punched him the face again. "The Chinese? The North Koreans? The Cubans? The Vietnamese? Stop me if I'm just guessing!"

"He sounds British, man! The Europeans are probably in on it, too!" Jake deducted from little to no concrete evidence and delivered his own gold-encrusted blow to the big guy.

"I knew it!"

Cringle struggled to break himself free from the grasp of the brutes and cried, "What is the meaning of this? Are you both mad? You're supposed to be on the side of good, not bad!"

Unfortunately for him, neither Finn nor Jake was through, far from it even. "Now let's see who you really are underneath that stupid beard disguise." The yellow dog then did the unthinkable and started yanking as hard as he could on Cringle's beard.

Although Finn followed suit, he could not help but ask his brother, "How'd you figure it's a disguise?"

"Oh, come on, man, nobody has a goofy, retarded beard like this anymore, especially if they're a communist agent. Now pull harder!" Yet no matter how hard they pulled, the beard would not come off. It was as if it were stuck to the old man's face with super glue.

Suddenly, the two found themselves flung off from the man and landed several feet across the living room. They looked up to see Cringle standing up, rubbing his sore chin and glaring furiously at them.

"How dare you! I tried to reason, but you attacked! So instead of presents, you both get Jack!" And with that, Cringle and his sack of wonders vanished, turning into dust and flying up the chimney without a trace.

Back up on the roof, Cringle stomped across the rooftop, flinging his sack onto the sleigh where the reindeer were waiting up front and grumbling angrily under his breath. The nerve of those two. He had tried to explain, but they just would not listen and assaulted him. Well, to hell with them and their "good deeds" this year. Hopefully, by next year, they will have improved their behaviour and pulled their heads out of their asses.

"Leaving so soon, Cringle?"

Cringle spun around and there he saw Finn and Jake, sword and gold knuckles in hands. It would normally have stunned Cringle how anyone could have got onto the roof almost as fast as him, but right now, they did not seem at all important, especially considering the intent in the lads' eyes.

"You're not going anywhere," Jake informed darkly as he and Finn marched towards him, making the latter back up against the chimney. "Either we're either taking you in, or taking you out. Your choice."

Before Cringle could say or do anything, one of the reindeer went wild. It saw its master threatened and acting defensively, broke from its reins and lashed its hooves at the Finn and Jake, who jumped back just in time to avoid them. And wouldn't you know it? They jump to another farfetched conclusion here, as well.

"You monster!" Finn roared, pointing his sword at the deer, though he was addressing Cringle. "Using non-anthromorphic animal labour to carry out your sick missions! Is there anything you communist's won't do?"

"I will liberate you, brother!" Jake, his hatred of Cringle now bolstered tenfold by his abuse of the dog's animal brethren, launched himself onto the reindeer's head and quickly himself riding the creature like a rodeo bull by hanging onto its large antlers. This went on for less than a minute, when SNAP!

Cringle gasped in horror and the grabbed the sides of his head. Jake had just (unintentionally) snapped the antlers off the reindeer's head! The reindeer whimpered and held the stubs where its antlers used to be and Finn and Jake (the latter who had climbed off the reindeer) just stared at them confused.

"Wow, these things look pretty real," Jake commented, examining the antlers. "I'm impressed."

"So you've been using hot glue to stick these antlers to deer's heads!" Finn shouted at Cringle, who was now marching up to the two with smouldering eyes and clenched fists. "Only you could act so lo-"

POW!

Finn toppled backwards and collapsed on Jake, trying the latter in a sandwich between Finn and the snow. Finn groaned disoriented and held his throbbing eye. Before he could recollect himself, Cringle's sleigh was already taking off into the Gotham skies.

"Oh no, Cringle's getting away!"

"Not if I've got anything to say about! Hold on, Finn!"

Up above, Cringle never felt more relieved to leave a house he had visited on Christmas Eve night, even more so than the houses of bad children. He decided then and there that Finn and Jake would forever be placed on his permanent naughty plaque.

The sleigh jolted, making Cringle jump and the reindeer to become startled. It felt like extra weight had suddenly added itself to the back. Cringle peered over his shoulder and was dumbstruck by what he saw.

"CRINGLE!""

Finn and Jake were clinging onto the back of the sleigh, or more specifically, Jake was clinging on via stretching a long distance to catch up with the sleigh and Finn was riding on his back.

"Get back here and fight me!" Finn screamed brandishing and waving his sword about like a freaking maniac.

Now this was the point where Cringle simply had had enough. These miscreants had punched him in the face, tried to rip off his beard, snapped the antlers of one of his reindeer off and now they were stalking him. His Christmas cheer dried up like Dead Valley, Cringle pulled out his reindeer whip and began lashing the stowaways with it, trying to get them to let go.

"Nerts to this jolly shtick, I'm gonna waste you little shits!" Cringle bellowed, cracking his whip over and over again. On his fourth of fifth attempt, Finn raised his sword and caught the cord around the blade and yanked it forward. "And nerts to this freaking rhyming!"

The force of the pull nearly took Cringle off the sleigh, but he let go of the whip just in time and it slid off Finn's sword and into the depths of the city below. The sleigh was now flying deeper into the city and thus, a maze of tall grey buildings.

Seizing the opportunity, Finn launched himself at Cringle and tackled him onto the seat of the sleigh. He raised his sword and brought it down screaming on the large man, but inches away from his face, Cringle took out what seemed to be a candy cane and Bzzzt! A green beam shot out the end of the candy cane and block Finn's sword. He got back up on his feet and broke the sword lock.

"A lightsaber? How the blubbins did you do that?"

"It's called Christmas Magic, you fraud!"

A sword fight between the two broke out of pretty subpar proportions. I mean, yeah, it's Finn vs. you-know-who, but they're confined within a sleigh, it's not like they can take their fight anyway else. Why, to ask an exhausted writer who wants to get this done before Christmas to push the envelope with this fight scene would simply be criminal!

So yeah, Cringle eventually got the upper hand and knocked the sword out of Finn's grasp and kicked him into the seat of the sleigh. Before our "hero" knew what hit him, he found his sword and Cringle's lightsaber held up to his neck in a scissor hold.

Glowering down at his prey, Cringle no longer looked like the holly jolly fellow who had come down Finn and Jake's chimney. Seriously, he genuinely looked prepared to scissor Finn's head clean off its shoulders. He had been pushed to his utmost limit and he only had one thing on his mind now: vengeance.

"Before I kill you, I must know…where did you acquire this magnificent blade?" Cringle could not help but be impressed by Finn's sword. He expected it to shatter upon contact with his lightsaber, yet it survived their duel without a scratch.

Jake's voice came from behind the sleigh, "Oh, that's my Christmas gift to Finn! Elvish blade, man!"

"Elvish blade! You mean, the all-powerful blade from that destroyed elf village?" Realisation hit him and burning hot fury filled his face. "You mean to tell me YOU were the one who slaughtered the elves of that village? Some of which were relatives to my grieving workshop elves? Just for some…some…CHRISTMAS GIFT!" Flames burned in his eyes and spittle was flying out his mouth as he barked like a rabid dog.

"Heh heh…yeah."

Cringle arched his back and roared so monstrously and fuelled by so much anger, it actually coincided with a thunder and lightning strike.

"THAT'S IT! YOU ARE SUCH…FUCKERS…" Cringle was now hyperventilating, for he was so beset by rage. He looked like an escaped madman. "…YOUR PUNISHMENT…IS…DEEEEAAAATH! AND I'M STARTING WITHYOU, FINN! MERRY FUCKING CHRISTMAS!"

Yet luck was on Finn's side tonight. Before Cringle could make his move, Jake the dog sprung up from the front of the sleigh between the reindeer and dove at the not-so-jolly Cringle. He wrapped himself over Cringle's head, cutting off his vision and pounded his fist repeatedly against the man's head.

"Get off me, you mutt!"

"Not one cuts Finn's head off but ME!"

Cringle lost his balance and tripped to his right and this led to, you guessed it, him falling right off the sleigh, taking Jake with him. Taking Jake with him, that is, until he stretched out his hand and Finn caught it just in time. He helped his brother back up into the sleight and they embraced each other, but looked over the sleigh when they heard the scream.

Cringle plummeted to the earth, or rather Gotham Lake, his arms flailing and screaming as he did, cursing the day of Jake and Finn's births and swearing vengeance on the two. "WITH MY LAST BREATH, I CURSE FINN AND JAAA-" KA-SPLASH! And so he sank, and kept sinking deeper and deeper into the darkness of the lake, never to resurface…

A few second passed, and Finn and Jake cheered and high-fived each other.

"We did it, dude," Jake patting his brother on the back. "We saved Christmas!"

"You bet we did!" Finn shot his fist into the air like guns. He then leaned over the sleigh and yelled bellowed, "Say 'hello' to Kim Jong-il for me, ya freak!"

"Hmm…" Jake looked around a bit, feeling puzzled. "Strange…"

"What's up, Jake?"

"I've only just noticed something…we're flying through the city on a sleigh driven by reindeer."

"Yeah…so?"

"Well, it's just that…you'd think by now we'd have crashed into some-" They froze and their heads creaked in their forward direction. Jake could not have brought up this point at a worse time. The sleigh was heading…straight into the City Mall!

"AAAGG-!"

Inside the mall, the Ice King was sitting down at his desk in his office at the back of his store, counting his profits over the last six months. Naturally, his profits had sky rocketed over the last two months, thanks to his cash cows, the 'My Little Goblin: Kinship is Magic' playsets. With the net profits he was making, he would easily be able to afford both that boat and log cabin in Alaska. This activity and those comforting thoughts were enough to take his mind off the problem he was facing with Finn and Jake taking on this Cringle fellow. If they succeeded, then he would be forced to cut his prices tremendously and the mere thought of losing money ran the risk of him getting a heart attack. Yet he assured himself again and again how no one had ever captured, let alone seen Christ Cringle before, so what chance did those two bozos have? Yes, his profits would surely be safe.

He stopped running his magnifying glass over the documents. He heard a noise from outside his office window. Getting up from his desk, he peered irritably out the window. What he saw made him want to scream in terror. He just did not get the chance to before…

KA-BLAM!

When the Ice King came to, he found himself laying facedown against the marble floor of the mall. He was aching all over, from his head to his toes, but summoned the strength to bring himself to his knees. After regaining his focus of vision, Ice King noticed an orange glow behind him. When he saw what it was, this time had plenty of time to scream.

The 'Frozen Planet' had been completely destroyed! All that was left were rubble, burned and destroyed products and a crackling fire that engulfed both. It was gone. The store, his livelihood, everything he worked for in this damned country was all gone.

"My STORE! My beautiful, beautiful STORE! NOOO!" he screamed, pulling at his beard and slamming his head against the marble floor. His grief converted to righteous anger when he saw who were marching out from the wreckage all tough-like, not looking behind at the aftermath of the explosion like in an 80s to 90s action film.

"FINN! JAKE! You've destroyed my business! You've ruined me! RUUUINED MEEE! So now I'm going to ruin yo-"

Jake's golden knuckled fist smashed Ice King around the jaw, sending every tooth in his foal mouth flying out, appropriately spelling for a millisecond in mid-air, 'FUCK YOU'. The Ice King dithered for a moment and collapsed on the ground, twitching.

"Mark that up," Jake remarked bitterly, dusting off his knuckles.

Suddenly, the doors of the mall flew open and in poured a crowd of citizens dressed also in their warmest clothing. Why they were not asleep at this hour on Christmas Eve is beyond me, but let's just roll with it.

"Hey, they did it! They killed Chris Cringle!"

"Christmas is saved!"

"HOORAH!"

They surrounded the dynamic duo and a group of raggedy orphans lifted them into the air and carried them off out of the mall, celebrating their new heroes. Some of them made sure to step on and kick the Ice King a few times.

As their informal procession took to the streets of Gotham, some folks cranked up the radio and they started dancing to the New Kids on the Block, 'Hangin' Tough'. Jake turned to Finn and yelled over the cheering, "So whatcha say, Finn? Best Christmas evah?

"BEST. CHRISTMAS. EVAH!"

Ugh. Just…just ugh. I told you this went fucking insane! Ugh…anyway, as you imagined, Finn and Jake were from then on honoured as heroes of Gotham City. Suck on it, Batman, you hack, we got Finn and Jake! As for the Ice King, with his business destroyed, in lieu of slashing his prices, he was forced to work hard labour and earn enough money so that every child in Gotham could have at least one My Little Goblin Playset. As for Chris Cringle, well, no one has ever seen or heard from him again, not even his free gifts, so it's safe to assume for some that he's gone for good. Although I wonder, sometimes, that he's still out there, plotting his next move…

Anyway, for you folks at home, do have a Merry Christmas and blah, blah, blah! Just don't do what these idiots do! Now…bartender, bring me another Strongbow here! Oh, and to finish off, folks, here's the New Kid's on the Block to sing us out.

Oh Oh Oh Oh Oh

Listen up everybody if you wanna take a chance

Just get on the floor and do the New Kids dance

Don't worry about nothing cause it won't take long

We're gonna put you in a trance with the funky song

Cause you gotta be...

Hangin' tough

Singing tough

Singing tough

Are you tough enough?

Hangin' tough

Singing tough

Singing tough

We're rough

Oh Oh Oh Oh

Oh Oh Oh Oh

Everybody's always talking about who's on top

Don't cross our paths cause you're gonna get stopped

We ain't gonna give anybody any slack

And if you try to keep us up we're gonna come right back

And you know it...

Hangin' tough

Singing tough

Singing tough

Are you tough enough?

Hangin' tough

Singing tough

Singing tough

We're rough

Oh Oh Oh Oh Oh

Oh Oh Oh Oh Oh

Oh Oh Oh Oh Oh

Oh Oh Oh Oh Oh

Get loose everybody cause we're gonna do our thing

Cause you know it ain't over till the fat lady sings

Check it out!

December 27th, Gotham Lake

In between the sheets of floating ice on the lake, a dishevelled, lacerated hand dressed in a tattered black glove emerged from the dark freezing waters and grasped the largest sheet it could find, dragging its nails down the biting cold surface.

This was not over.

The End...or is it?

(a/n) Merry Christmas!