"SANTA!!!" The boys shout in unison as they rush to his side.
"...Ha! Serves you right… old man…" Knecht Ruprecht huffs. "When I have… recharged my energy… you boys are next!" With the last bits of his energy left, the villain teleports himself away.
"What kind of sicko attacks Santa Claus!" Jungkook cries.
Jin crosses his arms. "I regret laughing at that guy's name."
Meanwhile, Tae and Hobi have checked Santa's vitals. Jimin falls to his knees and grabs Santa's hand. "Is he… dead?"
Taehyung shakes his head. "He's still breathing."
"But what are we supposed to do now!" Hoseok gets up and wipes his face. "If Santa dies now—"
"I don't think you can kill magical creatures that easily," Namjoon does his best to cheer up the situation. "As far as I understand, they are physically immortal, at least to some degree. It wouldn't be logical if Santa dies from such an attack."
The ocelot known as Yoongi jumps from the shelf and wails, "meeeeeeow! (Bro, I got morphed into a wildcat! I think we all agree that logic is out of the equation!)"
"But Hobi is right," Jin sighs. "We need to do something. It won't be long until this Knecht-guy has replenished his magic, and we can't hide in our sustainable battle suits forever."
Everybody looks at Namjoon who closes his eyes and takes a deep breath. "First, let's take care of Santa. We can't let him lie here on the cold, hard floor. Let's take him to his bedroom."
With the aid of a forklift it was no trouble at all to carry the 200-pound-man out of the warehouse. But to carry him to his bed, the boys had to use all their strength combined. In a matter of minutes, they have dropped Santa in his king-size bed.
"I hope…" Jimin huffs, "...we get… extra presents… this year."
"We can't even be sure whether anyone gets presents at all this year!" Jungkook scolds him.
"Shht! Be quiet!" Tae motions for the two to stop arguing. "Santa wants to say something!"
"Look for… the bell…" the man whispers, before falling unconscious again.
"The bell?" Hobi furrows his brows. "What bell?"
"Let's do what he said!" Upon Namjoon's command, everyone splits up to search the room.
"I feel awful rummaging Santa's private stuff," Jungkook mumbles and closes the drawer containing underwear with Christmassy motives printed on.
"Right?" Jimin agrees. "I just found a catalog for cookies in his shelf. Now I feel like I'll be on his Naughty List forever."
"I've found lots of Christmas baubles in the shelf, but not a single bell." Tae coughs and pats the dust of his hands.
"Perhaps we can take advantage of Yoongi's animal senses." Jungkook crouches down and speaks in a childish voice to the ocelot. "Yoongi-lot! Search the bell! Search!"
Striking his paw in Jungkook's direction Yoongi hisses, "meeeeow! (Cut the crap! I'm an ocelot, not a bloodhound!)"
"Yoongi-lot?" Hoseok mimics Jungkook's stance and rubs the wildcat's head. "I think he needs a name that's more gangsta. Like… SUGACAT or Da Lot."
"Meeeeoooow! (All of your names are stupid!)" Yoongi purrs while mockingly punching Hobi's cold hands.
"See, he likes my idea!" Hobi misinterprets.
Namjoon's gleeful laughter attracts everyone's attention. Holding a portrait of Rudolph the Reindeer in one hand, he rings the bell with the other. "I found the it!"
"Awesome!" Jin cheers. As he inspects the bell, a question arises. "But… what now? It looks like an ordinary bell to me."
"The shape looks kind of weird, right? More like a drop than a bell," Jimin notices. "Could that be of importance?"
Jungkook gets up and walks over to the desk that he had searched minutes before. "The dent in the middle of the desk has also the shape of a drop. Let's put the bell in here and see what happens."
The moment Jin puts the bell into the dent, a life-size holograph of Santa appears in the middle of the room.
"I knew this day would come soon," Holo-Santa says in a sad voice. "If you see this message, it means that Knecht Ruprecht has escaped from exile and vanquished me. Now the fate of Christmas lies in your hands. You should know that Ruprecht isn't able to use magic powers of his own. When I sent him to exile, I took his magic powers from him so he couldn't free himself. However, he must have gotten his hands onto an alternative source of magic. If you happen to destroy the source, Ruprecht will lose all of his power again and his spells will fade away."
"Whoever receives to this message," Holo-Santa continues, "please do everything that is in your might to stop him. It's not just the lives of my family, but also the hope for a better world being at stake."
The holograph fades away, leaving the boys speechless.
"Perfect!" Jin breaks the silence. "All we need to do is destroying Knecht-guy's energy source! That sounds doable!"
"Unfortunately, we have a little problem," Taehyung crosses his arms. "We don't know where or what this energy source is, not to mention how to destroy it."
Namjoon nods in agreement. "And he'll probably protect it like his eyeball. Knecht Ruprecht might be emotionally unstable, but he's not stupid."
"That means," Hobi swallows, "Christmas is doomed?"
"No, it's not!" Jungkook shouts. "You've heard what Ruprecht said—he needs seven pure souls to transfer Santa's power onto him. That means he needs us."
"So?" Jimin shrugs. "That doesn't help the situation."
"True, but… maybe we can take advantage of that." Jin puts his healthy hand onto his chin.
Yoongi-lot jumps onto the desk. "Meeeooow? (Did you forget that Knecht Ruprecht is the one who is clearly in advantage here?) Meeeow-oww-oww! (That guy and Mary can use fricking magic, and we're just some normal guys dressed in cardboard!) Meh. (Well, at least most of us are.)"
"Don't cry, Yoongi-lot. I'm here for you." Hoseok takes the struggling ocelot into his arms and waves his toy tiger in front of its face. "Look! I brought you a cat friend."
"Hiss! (Other cat! Yoongi-lot doesn't like other cats!)"
"As far as I see it, we only have two options here," Namjoon speaks up. "Either we do nothing and watch Christmas go down the drain… or we get our act together and save it!"
"But how are we gonna do that?" Tae asks.
Namjoon smiles. "All we need is a bulletproof plan."
*4 Days Left Until Christmas Eve*
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