Christmas Special

by =YuseiDarkUmbreon

Please be warned before reading these specials that they contain characters that are alive and introduced before or during the chapter I'm writing at the time the special is typed. Not many spoilers will be given off, usually only name, species, gender, and sometimes relation, but that's it. Well, sometimes my specials will have an event usually totally unrelated to the story, but if it is related to the story, it will be posted within a month of the chapter being posted or some time after. You have been warned. Do not come to me complaining that I spoiled some major plot element for you. Also, if you ask about any characters that are not introduced in posted chapters of the story, I will not give details. Again, you have been warned. Also, I try to make specials longer than the average chapter, but one file only contains 17 MS Word pages (the total number of pages for my prologue and first 13 chapters).

Special 1: Christmas Special

I woke up early, with an alarm set in a little headset I built with Yusei. For some reason, that Umbreon just loves tinkering with machines, although he doesn't like how he has to do it…
"Whatcha building?" he inquired one time.
"A little MP3 player, with a wireless headphone set. Want to help?" was my response.
"Sure!"
He raised his paw and was about to put it down where I was building it when I said "Whoa, wait. Paws are too big for this. You'll have to do it with Psychic. Truthfully, that's more accurate than I can be with tweezers!"
"What are tweezers?" he asked. For an Umbreon that loved building things, he didn't really have much knowledge about existing things. I pulled out a pair.
"These are. They help me reach into smaller things and pinch smaller things. I just squeeze here to open up the pinching end there, and put the object I want to pinch between them…" I held it so that he could feel the tips on his fur. "…and then I let go!"
It came down on him. "Hey!" He batted at me like a cat would {My special! I'll decide if an Umbreon is a cat or a dog!} except that his claws weren't extended.
I pinched the middle of the tweezers and pulled them away.
"You know," he began, "Psychic is very tiring. Focusing on each different object, sometimes at an atomic level, is difficult. Manipulating it requires a lot of energy. If only I had a toolkit with many functions to do this for me…"
Being careful not to disturb anybody, I walked into our front room. There was an evergreen tree made of plastic and covered in a string of multicolored lights. Underneath it stood many, many colorful boxes with ribbons going around each side and bows on top.
So I looked over at the presents under the tree. I examined a relatively flat one for my Umbreon. This is that tool. I got up, grabbed a bag of berries, and walked into the kitchen.
There, I lit the stove. On top of it went my Poffin pot. In went a berry, maybe two, at a time, out came some Poffin. I also had long plastic sticks. I put one on a large, circular, metal base, and then started cooking. I put five brown Poffin on it. Then, a wheel (minus the rim) with 16 spokes came out. It went on top of the five brown Poffin.
I continued making Poffin. This time, they came out as the five basic ones, with the occasional sprinkle. I covered them with green spray-on icing, then stuck them onto the end of the spokes of the wheel. Then, I made two Poffin and set them above the wheel and placed the next one on. Rich, Mild, or Overripe would be colored brown (spray-on icing) and placed on the stick going up the middle. Anything else, with those having exactly two flavors being 1 out of 10 of "Anything else", would be colored green and placed on the wheel's spokes.
I made only two Mild Poffin. One went as the "tree bark", and the other became the star. It stayed yellow, and I made this one thin and hollow, with holes, and placed a candle in it. That went on the very top of the tree.
All of the tiny Poffin went on the "tree" of Poffin that I had made, to look like the lights. And the perfectly circular ones went back in the remaining batter with a few of my leftover berries, and I expanded on them. They came out very reflective and spherical. I looked at my reflection in it, then stuck it to the tree while it was still warm.
I rolled the tree out to the living room, my annual signal for time to open presents. I decided that this would wake everyone up, and those who've had Christmas with me before-only about half of the people here this year-would actually come out to the front room. The rest of them, I decided, would have to be told. As expected, only Yusei, Yugi, Christine, Kudon, and Sanja came out. "If you're still awake," I said, loud enough that anyone awake in the bedroom would hear me but nobody else would be awakened, "then come out to the living room without waking anyone else. I know who's awake right now, and whether or not you woke someone else up, so don't bother." I was only kidding, of course, but I made myself sound serious. A few minutes later, when nobody came, I said, "Just kidding!" and came in and woke everyone up. "It's time for presents already!"
For about two seconds after waking up, each person or Pokémon was angry at me. Only two seconds. Then they ran to the front room. They were all childish. Everyone was, myself and Cynthia included. There's no mistaking that look in your eyes even if the rest of your face hides it.
"How should we sort the Poffin tree bark this year? I made some for everyone, humans included. For those of you who haven't had Christmas with us, I try to make sure you'll like it. The tree closer to me is made entirely out of Poffin on plastic skewers, and a candle inside the star. The 'trunk' is Rich, Overripe, and one Mild. Whoever gets the Mild will get to do presents first.
"But before we begin any of that, I think I'll hand out the green ones. No, they aren't all Bitter. I just sprayed some green icing on."
I handed out several plates and put a few green ones on each. I put the brown ones on plates around the base. "I've already determined the order you'll pick in. I'll go last, since I know which one is the Mild one. Yusei, you first."
He picked one. Then Yugi, Kudon, Christine, Sanja, Brink, Spirit, Cynthia, and Kelva. In that order. (And that's only about half of my characters by the middle of chapter 16!)
Brink got the Mild Poffin. He got an Evolution Set, custom made with ways for all seven Eevee evolutions to be obtained. A Fire Stone, Water Stone, Thunderstone, those were the easy part. I actually went to Eterna Forest with a chisel and took part of the mossy rock, went north to Route 217 and took part of the icy rock, and made special cases that don't allow their radiation to escape, just for this set. The moon dust on the Lunar Ribbon was imported. It had the dust of the moon, concentrated and smoothed so that it would form a mirror and had the radiation to go along with it. And yet another special case. And the Solar Ribbon was hardest of all, but I finally found a material that will activate in moonlight and give off light and radiation similar enough to sunlight. I found willing participants for testing. unlike Team Galactic.
I had put a number of hard spots in the Overripe and Rich Poffin to determine the order of who would go. Cynthia had one hard ball in an Overripe, so she was second. Her gift was from Kelva. It was actual footage-not a reenactment-of her battle against the League Champion before her.
Then it was Yugi's turn. She got a Psychic Training Kit. It had a TwistedSpoon, some pebbles-they're heavier than they look, mind you-and a bit of other stuff.
Christine came next. She got a Candlefuse game. It's a game in which a candle's fuse is lit, and you have to light other fuses to trigger things to stop it. "For outdoor use only," I told her.
Then it was my turn. Yusei had built me an electronic Rubik's Cube game.
Then it was his. I had built him that psychic toolkit he always wanted. It had a welding tip, a pair of tweezers, and a whole lot of other things.
Kelva was next. She didn't want the footage of her battle, so someone got a picture of her and Brink together.
Sanja didn't get anything under the tree. When it came time for her turn, though, she said, "Just wait for this morning's paper," which came pretty much just after she said that.
I looked at the headline. "World peace? Was that your wish for this year?"
"Yes. 'I wish that all these stupid wars would end, if only just for Christmas Day.'"
~~~~~ In Belgium, not a single cannon was fired. There wasn't even anyone there. The two sides had met right between the cannons. They were holding a signed peace treaty that expired at 12:00PM on December 26. It was signed at 12:00PM on December 24.
~~~~~ Kudon, however, wasn't happy. "What's wrong?" asked Yusei.
"You should know," said Kudon, "it was the biggest battle of our life."
"Oh yeah, that. How many times must I remind you, if it weren't for Team Galactic, we wouldn't have met Evan. That is a plus…"
"IF IT WEREN'T FOR THEM, WE'D STILL HAVE PARENTS AND GRANDPARENTS!"
"What happened two years ago?" asked Cynthia.
"That was the day all four of the evolved Pokémon you see here, Yugi excluded, were forced to evolve," I said, "and I couldn't stop them."
"Well, look at the good things you have Team Galactic to thank for. Because of them, you met everyone else here. Because of them, you can talk that language only Pokémon can hear. Because of them, you can defend your team yourself."
"I would throw those away a million times to see my other team and family again."
Kelva didn't want anything at all this year. Not a thing. When she opened up a package that contained a recording of her battle, she tossed it out the window.
"Kelva, calm down! Why did you just toss that out the window?" I asked calmly.
"Why would I want a recording of the very battle that almost killed my first Pokémon?" she snapped back.
A couple minutes later, I realized something. "Oh! Right! I have a small job to do. Kudon, Sanja, Christine, Yugi, Yusei, come on!"
Outside, it was still dark and warm. I had a coat slung over my right shoulder.
I went towards the circle at the end of my street. Gathered around the circle were plenty of trainers with all their Water-types, and a few wild ones too. On the circle was a circular metal trough, and inside that circle stood everyone's Fire-types. On the houses around the circle, every Ice-type in the area was perched, waiting with anticipation for something.
"Blizzard!" was the something. Some of the trainers who were also on the roofs of the houses told the Ice-types to use that move to freeze the air above the circle. A nicely sized cloud formed. "Flamethrower!" said some of the trainers around the circle. The fire-types created a giant circle of light as they shot fire at the bottom of the metal trough, heating it up. It glowed yellow. Now people could see detail in faces due to the extreme amounts of light this gave off. "Water Gun!" instructed the other trainers. All of the Water-types shot water directly into the hot trough. It created steam. The hot steam rose up into the cold cloud. "Psychic!" was the last command. Anyone that wasn't busy with Blizzard, Flamethrower, or Water Gun used Psychic. The cloud finally burst. A huge amount of snow came out. And just in time, too. The sun rose, which caused a rainbow to appear in the snow. The tropical summer scene suddenly and quickly changed to a snowy winter.
~~~~~ "Pokémon that can turn summer into winter," said a skinny figure with red, long hair, a white shirt that doesn't go down to her hips, and matching white pants.
"Da boss'll like dat!" said the Meowth next to it.
"But how do we get it?" asked the girl.
"It seems like they have a plan," said a purple-haired boy next to the two. He was pointing at a couple of people walking up the street who looked like spacemen.
~~~~~ I was having such a festive time. "Let the Winter Storm Festival begin!"
"No, it's not happening this year." said a voice in the crowd. "Because we're taking it."
"And who's making a threat they obviously can't follow up on?" I asked.
"You should know. After all, you escaped from me more times than I can count. But this time, it's not happening." Galactic Commander Saturn pulled out a little black device labeled "Arcade Roulette". He watched icons scroll from the bottom of the screen to the top, and when a red "ZZZ" was in the top, he pushed the button on the device. A green light shot at the crowd. I closed my eyes and jumped for it. But the light was so warm, my body fell asleep before it even hit the ground.
~~~~~ "Poor kid," said Saturn, putting a pillow where Evan's body was going to land, and another one where his head was going to hit the ground after he landed.
Everyone was asleep. A fog machine created an enshrouding cloud so that the area couldn't be seen. Team Galactic wasn't leaving any of this up to chance!

For the rest of this story you'll have to wait. It's a two-part special.