Caedes and Yaaroghkh sped up the stairs. They had wasted too much time on that random woman, and still had to find the executives. They ran up stairwell after stairwell, the sounds of shrieking demonic cultivators and outgrabing goblins echoing up around them. Outside the songs of the symphony orchestra were getting increasingly wild.

The stairs went up without end, a physical testament to the expansionist aims of Das Gleiche. There were weird clatters and howls from various rooms, and once a goblin wearing an animal mask with snakes for arms walked out of a door and dragged a screaming demonic cultivator away. (It was, the goblin said, entirely inappropriate for the poor sod to be alone on the most important holiday of the year - Groundhog Day.)

At last they had nearly reached the top of the building, with only one floor till they reached the top. By now they were in the executive suites, a handful of gorgeously appointed rooms immediately preceding the top floor.

And here they stopped, for their way forward was no longer free. A woman blocked off their path, arms crossed, smirking at them. Mirabelle cocked her horned rim glasses, sneering at the gallant pair.

“So, you finally came. Do you even know how much trouble the two of you caused me?”

Caedes and Yaaroghkh looked at each other. Neither of them even knew who she was.

This didn’t trouble Mirabelle in the slightest (or even occur to her), as she continued her villainous monologue. “I was absolutely humiliated when you destroyed my homunculi, and for a while I contemplated vengeance, but you know what occurred to me? That you didn’t target my homunculi because they were bad - you targeted them before they were in your way, which is to say you thought they were a threat. In other words, it’s not that I failed, but that I was essential - and unappreciated - in the first place. The homunculi are a crucial part of our villainous plan.”

And he laughed as the two looked on in confusion. Then something occurred to Yaaroghkh.

“Now that I think about it,” Yaaroghkh mused, “what is your plan anyways? I know that you’re planning to attack and destroy Santa’s workshop, but it occurs to me now that I don’t know how you think you’ll win, or even why you’re doing it.”

“What?” Mirabelle asked, stark confusion plain on her features. “You… you don’t know why we’re trying to destroy Christmas?”

“Nah. Not really important, though, when you think about it, eh?” Yaaroghkh said. Caedes nodded.

“It’s not going to affect what we do. Well, not all that much - we probably wouldn’t use, I don’t know, the Macaroni and Cheese Escape Technique, if we knew they were involved in Militant Lactose Intolerancism.”

Yaaroghkh’s eyes widened - a ghoulish affair - as he considered this. “By Santa’s Beard, I hadn’t even considered that. All this time I thought they hated Christmas specifically, but what if they only hate the milk and cookies? Could the elves have been right all along?”

Mirabelle’s jaw dropped as the hideous abomination before her managed to be stunningly and absolutely wrong.

“No, we’re aiming to destroy innocence and whimsy itself.” She said, stupefied.

Yaaroghkh considered this, his distorted and flagellated facial features unimpressed.

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“Hmmmm. And you’re sure you’re not involved in Militant Lactose Intolerancism?” Yaaroghkh said.

“Absolutely sure.” As she made this reply, her tone filled with self-confident snark, his eyes narrowed.

“That sounds like a denial,” he whispered loudly to Caedes. Caedes also had his eyes narrowed.

“You’re darn right. I proposed that as a joke, but maybe it’s true. This might go deeper than we thought. Who’s funding you?”

“Funding me - you mean Das Gleiche?”

Caedes shook his head. “No, I mean the League of Lactose Legionnaires behind you. Who are they? How many of them are there? How widespread does the conspiracy go?”

Mirabelle drooped. She always looked down on her opponents, and wanted them to know she looked down on them. But in this case, what was there even to look down on?

“You know what? Screw the banter. Let’s just fight,” she said, and sprung for them.

“Language,” Yaaroghkh returned, as her demonic qi whizzed harmlessly through his body. “It’s not polite to use those sorts of words.”

Caedes hung back as the elf and the demonic cultivator went at it hammer and tongs. He’d taken the woman on the stairs, so the elf got this one.

Mirabelle was waving circles of demonic qi around, creating a vicious lattice of energy entrapping the elf. Yaaroghkh was ignoring this, his vile form flickering in between her spheres as he tried to grab her with a colossal pair of icy tongs, and then whack her with a candy cane-striped hammer. (As I said, they were going at it hammer and tongs.)

Eventually Mirabelle gave up trying to trap Yaaroghkh, and coated her body with the spheres until she was wearing an armour of demonic purple. Then, smashing through the icy tongs, she took a swing at the elf’s torsos.

Her fist smashed into the elf, who gave a little under the blow, then swung back like a pendulum and got her with a mighty headbut. There was a crash as she went flying, smashing through the walls of the private offices. Drywall and dust filled the air as she finished careening backwards, pulling herself up out of a shattered desk. (Fortunately, it had belonged to Judy, who wouldn’t be using it anymore.)

She spit drywall out of her mouth, and strode back towards the elf with her hands on her hips. “You really think that will even faze me, you… you whatever you are.”

Yaaroghkh blinked, two dozen lidless eyes flickering in a wave. (Caedes occasionally wished he’d make up his mind about whether his eyes should move as one or not.)

“I’m an elf.”

And then Mirabelle froze. “Wait…what did you say you are?”

“An elf. A Christmas elf, to be more specifical, not to be confused with a forest elfs, cave elfs, or cheese rind elfs.”

Mirabelle started to laugh, wheezing and snorting. “You’re joking. You can’t possibly expect anyone to believe that.”

The elf blinked lethargically (this time, the eyes moved as one). “I don’t much care about what you believe. It’s true - as you can see for yourself, I am wearing an elf Christmas sweater, and have a pointy elf cap - and that’s all that matters. Not like truth needs to be believed to be true.”

Mirabelle snorted harder, bent nearly double. “Oh man, you guys are a real pair of idiots. If you wanted an excuse, it needed to be better than that. But no matter - let’s finish this.”

Yaaaroghkh blinked, his eyes moving discontinuously, and resumed his fighting stance. Mirabelle went to go on the assault one last time… and then paused, staring in horror down at her chest.

Blooming out of the middle of her chest, its petals crimson, was the horn of a unicorn.

“Wh-” Mirabelle started, and then the unicorn realised that she was not among the Pure of Heart, and its horn pulsed with a crystalline light once. Mirabelle keeled forwards, dead.

The unicorn, which had become separated from the goblin king somewhere near the seventh floor, didn’t even look down at her as it cantered over her body, presenting its nose to Yaaroghkh for snuzzles.

Yaaroghkh, of course, obliged, and gave it an apple to boot. Content with its lot in life, the unicorn cantered on its way.

“Well then,” Caedes remarked, after a short pause.

“Indeed,” Yaaroghkh added.

“As expected,” came a new voice, and the form of Braun emerged from the shadows, staff clacking on the ground.