A Festive Apocalypse
The Alps were quiet that night, blanketed in deep snow. Krampus sat on a rock outside his cave, chain-smoking and flicking ash onto a pile of broken toys. His horns cast long, sinister shadows in the moonlight. He hadn’t terrorised a child in decades—not since Santa turned Christmas into an industrialised farce. Once upon a time, he was feared. Now? He was just another washed-up myth with a nicotine habit.
That’s when Greta arrived, stomping through the snow like she owned it. Sixteen years old, blue hair, sharp-tongued, and angrier than a vegan at a steakhouse. She had never received anything but coal from Santa and was pissed.
“You’re Krampus, right?” she said, sizing him up. “The demon goat who puts bad kids in sacks?”
“Used to be,” Krampus grumbled. “Now I just sit here, waiting to die or get a call from some hipster who wants me to endorse artisanal coal.”
“Well, you’re going back to work,” Greta said, pulling out a tablet. On the screen was a live feed of Elfazon HQ, Santa’s sprawling tech fortress. Conveyor belts stretched for miles, spitting out algorithm-approved presents with the soul-crushing precision of a dystopian wet dream. “This guy,” she said, pointing to Santa’s bloated figure on the feed, “has ruined everything. Christmas is a sham. And you’re going to help me burn it to the ground.”
Krampus exhaled a long plume of smoke, staring at the screen. “Kid, you’re insane.”
Greta smirked. “Maybe. But aren’t you bored?”
By midnight, the unlikely duo was barreling toward Mistleton in a stolen sleigh. Greta had rigged up a few upgrades—a turbo boost, cloaking device, and a sound system blasting punk rock at a volume that made Krampus’s ears bleed. “This is your sleigh?” he yelled over the music.
“Stole it from some influencer elf,” Greta shouted back.
They crashed into Elfazon HQ through a window on the 17th floor, landing in the Naughty-or-Nice Department. Greta pulled a crowbar from her bag and started smashing servers like a tech-savvy Thor. Krampus, meanwhile, found himself face-to-face with a robotic elf, its LED eyes glowing red.
“Unidentified intruder,” it chirped. “Please remain still while I initiate lethal—”
Krampus didn’t wait for it to finish. He grabbed the bot by its plastic head and hurled it into a stack of gift-wrapped Pelotons.
“Nice work, goat boy,” Greta said, tossing him a baseball bat. “Let’s wreck some Christmas spirit.”
It didn’t take long for the alarms to go off. Sirens wailed, drones swarmed, and somewhere in the distance, an automated voice calmly announced, “Containment breach. Naughty Level: Critical.”
“Here comes the big man,” Greta muttered, nodding toward the elevator. The doors dinged open, and out waddled Santa Claus himself. He was bigger than expected, not just fat but huge, his red suit stretched tight over a gut that could have its own postcode. His beard was immaculate, though, perfectly trimmed—a vanity that betrayed just how much he cared about his image.
“Krampus,” Santa boomed, his voice like a late-night ad for diet pills. “You’ve got a lot of nerve coming here.”
Krampus lit another cigarette. “And you’ve got a lot of nerve calling this Christmas.”
Santa’s eyes narrowed. “Do you have any idea how hard it is to run a global gift empire? Do you know what kind of margins I’m working with here?”
“Do you know what kind of soul you’ve sold?” Greta snapped. “Kids don’t even write letters anymore—they fill out online forms. You turned magic into logistics, you fat bastard.”
Santa took a step forward, his boots thudding like boulders. “Magic doesn’t pay the bills, little girl. You think reindeer fly on wishes? They eat, and they eat a lot.”
That’s when Greta hit him with the crowbar.
The battle raged through Elfazon HQ, a glorious mess of broken drones, smashed conveyor belts, and one incensed Krampus using his chains to lasso Santa like a deranged rodeo clown. Greta hacked into the central database, her fingers flying across the keyboard. “I’m rewriting the algorithm,” she called out. “Every kid gets a lump of coal this year.”
Krampus grinned, his sharp teeth gleaming in the flickering fluorescent light. “And what about the adults?”
“They get worse,” Greta said, her eyes glinting with mischief. “Cancelled streaming subscriptions. Socks. Self-help books.”
Santa bellowed in rage, struggling against the chains. “You think you’re saving Christmas? You’re ruining it!”
“Good,” Krampus growled, tightening the chains. “It’s about time someone did.”
By dawn, Elfazon HQ was in ruins. The gift data had been scrambled, the drones reprogrammed to drop flaming coal into suburban swimming pools, and Santa himself left tied to a chair, forced to watch as Krampus and Greta broadcast their message to the world:
“Christmas is cancelled. Go outside. Talk to your neighbours. Be weird. Be naughty. And for the love of all that’s unholy, stop asking for iPads.”
As their sleigh soared into the sunrise, Greta turned to Krampus. “That was fun, what mischief is next?”
He lit another cigarette, the glow illuminating his crooked grin. “Now? We go and knee cap the Easter Bunny. The guy's a pick and he has been skating by for far too long.”