It was almost an hour of card games before Freddy said it was safe. Grimjack did learn an important lesson during their time in hiding. Freddy cheats. It was a good thing he decided not to bet anything on the various games they played. Jangle however, well she wasn’t quite so lucky. She lost most of her last paycheck.

Now, with the barrel of cymbal monkeys gone, the quiet felt foreboding. It had been so loud for so long, and now it was so quiet even the sound of breathing seemed loud. Freddy motioned with his round paw to follow him as he walked out of their shelter.

Luckily, they managed to avoid further interruptions, and only saw a few ominous shadows in the distance as they skulked through the narrow streets. The door Freddy stopped in front of looked exactly like the hundreds of others they had passed by. Even the street looked the same. It was like the whole place was a cheap hologram made out of a single pack of premade assets.

“After you.” Freddy bowed slightly towards Jangle.

She sighed and instead of knocking simply stretched up and opened the door. Whisps of smoke slowly escaped out the door. Grimjack’s sensors may have been having trouble here, but even they could tell this place reeked of alcohol. Looking in, it was like a thick fog making it hard to see more than a foot around you. Jangle coughed and waved her hand in front of her masked hood as she stepped through the threshold. Grimjack and then Freddy followed her in. Freddy seemed completely unaffected by the smell; though that probably had more to do with him being a rejected Teddy Bear and not any built up tolerance.

Freddy slammed the door shut, causing Jangle and Grimjack to jump. “Hey old man! You’ve got visitors! Wakey wakey!”

“Hmmm? Visitors? Bah.” A creaky, ancient voice called out from deeper through the smoke.

“Nines, it’s important,” said Jangle in a gentle voice. “We’re sorry to disturb you, but it’s about Santa.”

Freddy’s ears twitched when she said Santa, and a small smirk spread across his face as he leaned onto his candy cane.

“What? That ancient fossil hasn’t had the decency to die yet and pass things on?” There was clear bitterness in the voice.

Thwack!

Grimjack had walked straight through a wall. It was pretty thin, so it didn’t even manage to slow his gait. Though, as he entered a different room, he saw a hint of yellow. He didn’t want to dance around anything, so he jumped for whatever it was. As he reached his hand out, he tried to grab it, but was surprised when he found it was completely smooth. Like he had just tried to grab the side of an Zenonite Dome. Then, it rolled away from him. The small bit of yellow went with it. It was too late, he had a target, and he made sure to update Jangle over a subvocal com.

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

“I found something yellow, round, and smooth. I’ll detain it and bring it to your location.”

“Wait, don’t do anything rash!”

He knew he couldn’t stop her from accessing his com, so he drowned her out with some future punk. All he had to do was crank up the music internally and lower his vocal pickups. Sure he’d miss out on some lyrics, but the rhythm and feeling of the music would be there.

This was perfect, because Grimjack lived for moments like this. Being able to just zone out and live on instinct. From under his arm, he pulled out a small blue band. With the flick of his wrist, it sparked with electricity and grew to a few feet wide. From what he had felt in his hand, he figured this would be just large enough to fit around whatever that thing was.

He moved towards where it had last been, looking for any glimpse of yellow or movement. He caught on quickly. It was just a few feet away, but when he turned to move towards it, it moved just out of his reach. This dance kept up, and so Grimjack started to add in feints, but wherever he actually moved it somehow managed to just avoid him.

Jingle jingle.

Grimjack paused and cracked his neck. He didn’t want Jangle to overcomplicate things when they just needed information from this guy. So, it was time to get more aggressive. He pulled out five more bands and tried again. This time he threw all of the bands out and pulled his hand into a fist. Now instead of just him, it would have to avoid seven different places. Somehow, it managed to do it the first time, but Grimjack wasn’t going to let up. He grabbed two before they fell and threw them out before grabbing more and more and throwing them two by two towards his target. It dodged every single one.

Jingle jingle.

He knew time was short, but he’d already won. Whatever had avoided all the bands was now surrounded by bands lying on the ground. If only they were better at planning further ahead. He twisted a knob on the back of his hand, and electricity arced from band to band, creating a dome of electricity for a moment before shrinking down and fully encapsulating the target that had managed to avoid him up until now.

Jingle jingle.

“Dang it Grimjack!” Jangle was suddenly in front of him and even though only her eyes were showing, it was obvious she was irritated. “We need his help.”

He shut off his future punk. “43.71 seconds. Could’ve been better.” He muttered more to himself. “And you’re wrong. We don’t need him; we need his information.”

Freddy let out a low whistle as he walked in and surveyed the scene. “You sure know how to pick ‘em Jangle.”

She sighed. “Look, just release him, will you?”

The bands and their game of cat and mouse had cleared out a decent amount of the smoke from this oddly barren room. It gave Grimjack his first real look at his new prisoner. Turns out it was a ball. A five-foot tall, off-white ball with a thick yellow stripe in the middle. But, on one side of that stripe was a strange circle. It almost looked like a portal straight into the inky blackness off deep space.

“I’m not releasing them until he talks.”

Jangle sighed again while Freddy chuckled and shook his head. “What, can’t use your elf moves to free him yourself?”

“Not without risking hurting Nines too.” She looked at the ball and pleaded, “Nines, just tell him you’re not a threat and you’ll help us, okay?”

The inky blackness twisted and shifted slightly until a small blue triangle lifted to the front. On it was a wrinkled face. “I could’ve handled him myself if I was back in my prime.”

“Cut the banter and tell us where this Santa cosplayer is.”

The ball’s face squinted at Grimjack. “I hold no love for that fossil, but he is the genuine article, and believing that would do you some good young shadow killer.”

Grimjack rolled his eyes so hard his entire head rolled too. “Wha…hey!” Jangle had somehow gotten onto his arm and opened the manual control. Before Grimjack could do anything, she had deactivated his force cage and freed Nines.

“You should listen to him. Faith has a lot of power, especially here.” She said as she flipped off of him before he could swipe at her.

Nines rolled around, revealing a large number nine opposite of his face. He seemed to be reveling in his freedom again. “Very well then. I shall help you this time Jangle, but only for your father’s sake. Now, speak my child. Tell me what exactly happened.”