Word from the author
People say I’m plagiarizing because there’s already a book about this, so I did some research. Apparently there is. But I continue writing this because it’s not plagiarizing if you do it without knowing you are, so for those of you who would like to sue and make me pay a lot of money, not happening, because now I’ve given credit so, yeah… HAHA!
-Kai Tschopp (aka the author)
Prologue
Far, far out in the South Pole howling winds could be heard. The snow blizzard blocked a beautiful structure composed of stone bricks, white glass pane, and quartz. Inside, even louder then the wind, howling laughter could be heard… echoing past every hallway in the entire building.
“MWAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! shouted a figure from his throne.
The figure looked surprisingly like Santa, but he wore all blue.
“I will bomb the North Pole! My twin brother will die, and all the children in the entire world will be sad. And while they’re so sad, I will take over the world!!!”
Chapter One: Nuke!!
Luke Marrow’s head banged on the floor.
“Ow… that hurt,” Luke said absentmindedly.
He stood up from the floor and sat on his bed. Suddenly, a message blared from the intercom at Santa’s secret base at the North Pole:
“Attention, all elves report to Santa’s throne room!”
Luke paled.
“Oh, no I need to get to the throne room now!”
Luke raced down the hall, zigzagged across the stairs, and finally ended up in the spacious throne room alongside hundreds of other elves. Luke looked over at Santa. His gray eyes seemed so sad, and his long, long beard drooped. Sure, he was 2,000 years old, but he always seemed so… upbeat, but today not so much.
Santa raised his wrinkled hand for attention: “My fellow elves, I have an announcement to make! My evil twin (who is nothing like me!) is planning to nuke the North Pole!” Santa exclaimed.
Several elves gasped. Three or four elves even fainted.
“Yes, he is! And he is launching the nuke now!”
He snapped his fingers, and a projector projected an image of someone that looked exactly like Santa but was wearing all blue! Elves gasped. Wearing blue was just about as bad as swearing in front of a three-year-old to the elves. The man in the screen turned around and laughed maniacally as he pressed a red button on his control panel and smoke rose around the screen.
“Mwaahahahahahahahahahaha!” the blue man yelled.
“The Drakon nuke will destroy the North Pole, and I will get my brother back for accidentally misplacing my teddy bear and sending it to someone across the world!”
Santa turned red. The elves turned their eyes to Santa.
“Hehe… continue elves… I didn’t do that… Yes I did… ” Santa added quietly.
Luke turned back to the screen. So did the other elves. Smoke was still rising from the nuke. Suddenly a voice appeared from the nuke: “Countdown for Drakon nuke model #3459 in T-minus: Ten… Nine… Eight… Seven… Six… Five… Four… Three… Two… One… Blastoff!”
Blue quickly took cover and watched in awe as the nuke slowly raised in the air.
“In ten hours exactly the nuke will strike the North Pole and blow up everything!” Santa announced.
“And say thank you to Andrew the spy who hijacked the camera viewing this from the South Pole. Now… run as fast as your butts can carry you!” screamed Santa.
Several elves screamed. Some cried. Another even begged for mercy. Luke felt the blood drain out of his face. Blue could not do this to the North Pole. Luke would not allow it. But Luke felt helpless to do anything. It’s not like he could just storm the South Pole and demand that Blue surrendered. The South Pole was built like a fortress. He couldn’t do that… Could he?
While Luke was trapped in the tornado of his own thoughts, his home that he had been born in was being abandoned… No! Luke couldn’t let this happen! He had to stop Blue! Suddenly, someone tapped his shoulder.
“Hey, I know it’s hard, but you have to leave. Otherwise you’ll get destroyed alongside the North Pole. You can’t do this” pleaded Luke’s friend, Kat.
“Please… ” whispered Kat.
Luke shook himself and awakened himself out of his trance.
“You’re right. We can’t let Blue do this… ” said Luke to Kat.
“But… I don’t know how we are supposed to get to him,” continued Luke.
“I know! We could borrow the planes that Santa uses!” exclaimed Kat.
“Great idea, Kat!” exclaimed Luke.
“To the artillery!” shouted Kat.
“And… let’s get out of here before we’re nuked!” replied Luke unenthusiastically.
“Yeah… ” whispered Kat.
Luke and Kat stormed out of the room, raced down the halls, and followed the signs pointing to the artillery. One of the signs read:
To the artillery guns, bombs, planes, retired reindeer, and rockets. Please be responsible with tools!
(Sidenote from author) Hold on a minute. You thought Santa still rode reindeers? This, my friend, is the 21st century and people do not ride reindeers. They ride jets, cars, planes, and Santa’s personal favorite, the Boeing 777. This is the latest fashion, and it will be for quite a while. Thank you, and now keep reading your book. Now. Please. Thank you.
“We will… ” Luke said to one of the signs sarcastically.
Finally, after what seemed like forever to Kat and Luke, they arrived at the artillery. They raced around old reindeer slowly walking for their lives, the newest model of a gun, and even an old cannons, but they ignored all that stuff. It seemed that a lot of elves had the same idea as Luke and Kat and had snatched up the jets, airplanes, and Boeing 777’s before they could. They tried to hitch a ride with other elves, but they didn’t exactly seem in the “Christmas spirit.” Finally, the only thing left was an old helicopter.
“Let’s go!” yelled Kat.
They jumped into the helicopter and Luke pressed the ON button. The blades started whirring. They spun into the air.
“Do you by any chance know how to fly a helicopter?” Luke asked.
Chapter Two: To Antartica!
Kat stared at Luke.
“What? You don’t know how to fly a helicopter?” screamed Kat.
“I thought you said jump in!” retorted Luke.
“But you pressed the button!” screamed Kat.
“So?” asked Luke.
There was no time for arguing, and they both knew it, so they just faced the controls. It seemed pretty simple. There were a few buttons with titles like: Eject, Guns, ON/OFF, and things like that. There was a lever that was labeled: Altitude. And lastly, there was a joystick labeled: Steering. The controls seemed simple enough, so Kat and Luke sat down in the two seats. Luke took the steering joystick, and Kat had the altitude lever. Kat looked out of the window and suddenly pulled the lever up as hard as she could. Luke felt as if his stomach had fallen out of his body one hundred feet below.
“What was that for?” asked Luke.
“There was a mountain that we were about to crash into!” explained Kat.
Sure enough, when Luke looked down, he saw a snow-capped mountain just twenty feet below them.
“If this is what our ride is gonna be like, I’d have stayed at Santa’s place!” said Luke, his face green.
“Errrrrr… in that case if I was you… ” said Kat.
And that was what the ride was like all the way down to the South Pole (not including stops at Greenland, Alaska, Canada, San Francisco, Mexico, Costa Rica, Colombia, and Chile, and not to mention avoiding being spotted by humans). At last, one cold, snowy day, Luke spotted a cold, snowy mountain… They had arrived at the South Pole.
“We have to ditch the helicopter now, or Blue’s forces will spot us!” said Luke.
“I heard that Blue sends troops out to alert him if there is an invasion, so that forces people to travel in small groups to avoid being caught. And even then, they can easily be wiped out in his fortress if they manage to somehow avoid being caught.”
“Oh boy,” said Kat, unenthusiastically.
Kat slowly cranked the Altitude lever downwards, and the helicopter slowly descended. Luke steered in a circle, and so the landing wasn’t too bad, but Luke and Kat were still terrible pilots.
“Ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow… ow,” wailed Luke.
“You are a terrible pilot, Luke,” replied Kat, holding her shoulder.
“Oh, let’s just get on with it!” retorted Luke.
So, Luke and Kat wandered and wandered around in hopes of finding the fortress, staring at the empty whiteness that looked like an empty canvas. They suddenly came across some elves dressed entirely in blue, marching south.
One elf said, “Wow, I can’t wait to pull off my mittens and sit by the fire and have a nice warm cup of hot chocolate.”
Kat and Luke looked at each other. They had just found their ticket to Blue’s fortress…
Chapter Three: Into the Fortress
Luke and Kat slowly followed the marching troop that they hoped was leading them in the direction of Blue’s fortress.
“We can’t keep following the troop. They’ll spot us. We need to steal their clothes and be disguised as them!” said Luke quietly.
“Are you kidding me?” whisper-screamed Kat.
“Is it a good idea to take off your clothes in Antarctica?” she continued.
“Well, we’ll just put them over our clothes. Happy?” replied Luke, a little miffed.
So Kat and Luke ran up to a soldier elf quickly and quietly, so as to not be seen or heard, and tackled one soldier while holding his mouth shut. The soldier fell on the ground with a thump.
“Sorry, this might be embarrassing,” Kat told the soldier, and he let out a shriek when he realized what was happening.
Luckily, no one heard. Then, they started working. The soldier screamed to much, so they stuffed snow in his mouth. Since elves had been given the gift of heat from the snow lords (let’s not go into elf religion, here) they could not freeze to death. Elves only wore clothes so that they wouldn’t be naked.
“Bye, bye,” whispered Luke.
Then, they repeated the process. Soon, the rest of the troop was about 200 meters ahead.
“We’ve got to catch up to them,” Kat told Luke.
“Yeah,” agreed Luke.
They left the two naked (but warm) elves buried in the snow and hurried after the elven troop.
Luke started gracefully running to catch up with the troop while Kat started sprinting full out. The snow made a crunch-crunch sound when they stomped in it. They ran and ran and ran until they finally caught up.
“Are you excited to have hot chocolate, Robert?” asked one hulking elf while looking in Luke’s direction.
For a second, Luke thought, Who is Robert? Then, he looked at the way the bulky elf was looking at him and almost said, “Ummm, am I Robert?” But, Luke came to the conclusion that he was Robert and said, “Um, yeah totally.”
Kat shot Luke a dirty look that said, If we get caught, it will be all your fault.
Luke tried again. “Definitely, I’m really excited to have that hot chocolate,” Luke said excitedly and tried to hide the fact that he didn’t know what hot chocolate was.
“Good, so am I,” the elf said.
The other elves nodded in agreement.
As Luke and Kat walked toward the palace, they were both thinking different things. Kat was thinking, I hope Luke’s not gonna be an idiot and give us away. And Luke was thinking, Did I just give us away?
They were both startled when there was suddenly shouting
“Hooray for hot chocolate! We are here!” one elf shouted.
“Yay,” another elf shouted.
“Ummm… ” said Luke quietly.
“Well, let’s go get some hot chocolate!” shouted a small elf that had a very loud voice.
“Yay!” everyone said, except for Luke and Kat.
As they stormed into the palace, someone declared that they were as loud as rioting monkeys screaming for bananas. Kat thought about what they were doing. Suddenly, with a shock, Kat realized the ugly truth… They didn’t have an actual plan beyond getting in the palace. Kat walked up to Luke.
“We have a problem.”
“What? Nothing could be wrong while you’re drinking hot chocolate. This is as good as… as… ummm… a police officer!” Luke exclaimed.
Kat broke the bad news.
“We don’t have a plan,” she said.
As this registered in Luke’s pea-sized brain, Kat sat down and tried the hot chocolate.
“So… that’s bad?” asked Luke, puzzled.
“Yes!” whispered-screamed Kat, exasperated.
“Oh,” said Luke sounding very depressed.
“So here is my plan,” said Kat, pulling out a piece of paper.
First, she drew a stick figure and labled it Blue. Then, she drew two people with a dotted line behind them. First, they walked into a room and grabbed what seemed to be a big bomb. Then, they snuck around guards and into Blue’s throne room. The stick figures threw the bomb at Blue. And there wasn’t a picture for that, but you can just imagine what happens next…
“Perfect,” said Luke. “Now, just try some of this hot chocolate!”
Kat sipped the hot chocolate.
“Wow, this is good,” Kat exclaimed.
The two adventurers were so busy sipping their hot chocolate that they didn’t notice…
(Ahem, hi, guys! Kai here.) This is the part in a story every good writer has to have. A twist. The part of the story where the reader thinks, Oh, they’re going to do it! And then the writer adds something just to annoy you. If you noticed the words “the two adventurers were so busy sipping their hot chocolate that they didn’t notice… ” then you could have maybe predicted this. Now I can annoy you. Yay.
… two elves reading their paper. Then, they looked up. Rage filled the elves’ faces, but they could not act erratically. The two elves had to play this smart. The two elves walked up to the elf guard on duty and whispered into his ear. They quickly spread the message in this manner. So then, just as Kat put her mug down, the guards threw a bag over Luke and Kat’s chocolate covered faces.
Chapter Four: Bombs
Luke woke up in a cold, damp room. What happened? Luke wondered. Then, as if his wish had been answered, a guard came up to him.
“Trying to bomb Master Blue, eh?” the elf asked in a mid-westernly sounding gruff voice. “That ain’t gonna get ya anywhere. Master Blue has got at least 15 soldiers surrounding him at all times. Dat guy has got some serious safety problems.”
“Yeah, I guess… ” said Luke quietly.
“Hey, tell you what, you seem like a good lad. If ya promise not to do anything bad, I will think ‘bout giving you the keys. Eh?”
“Um… yeah, okay” Luke said, even though he felt bad lying.
“Good,” the guard said and handed him the keys.
Luke opened his cell and in a flourish, stood up and looked around. The dungeons were miserable, and he looked at the cells next to him. They were all empty and wet except for one. And it housed Kat. Luke quickly opened the lock. It opened with a satisfying click.
“Kat, Kat, can you hear me? Kat wake up!” Luke said softly.
“Hi, Luke,” said Kat.
“Listen, I have the keys. We have to get out of here right now!” Luke said in a commanding but nice tone that made him sound really dumb.
“Really?” Kat said in a voice that made her sound slightly insane.
“Yes, really, now! We have to go!” Luke whispered-not-whispered.
“Okay, okay fine. Wait — you’re completely right. We have to go now!”
The two friends sprinted out of the prison by following signs that were placed conveniently all around, leading up some stairs to a circular room. There were five doorways leading to a cafeteria, a lobby, an armory, barracks, and a nuke bunker. Luke chose the door with a sign marked armory. He and Kat raced down the hallway and around a corner when Luke’s eyes met the most beautiful sight ever. The armory. It was filled to the brim with tanks, the latest technology guns, fighter jets, bombs, and best of all, nuclear bombs. If you wanted a weapon of mass destruction, this was the place in the palace to find it.
“Hey, Kat, can you come over here and help me pick a bomb?” Luke asked.
“Sure, Luke. We could use grenades because we can carry lots of them and throw them easily, but we could also try to sneak in a bomb for the full effect and a big boom. We could also try small bombs which we could arrange into a pyramid for the fun of it.”
“Good idea, Kat, let’s try the big bomb. Let’s try to find one with a big timer that says fancy things like: you will die in approximately T-minus 2:00.000 minutes. Beep, beep, beep. That would be cool,” exclaimed Luke.
“Sounds good to me!” agreed Kat.
And so our two unlikely heroes went on a mission to find a bomb. Luke was looking around for a bomb when he noticed the most beautiful thing he had ever seen. The biggest, scariest, and most awesome bomb he had ever seen.
Luke felt himself tearing up just by looking at the bomb and then regained his senses and yelled, “Kat, come over here and look at this bomb I just found!”
Kat immediately ran over to the bomb, and she too felt in awe at the greatness of the bomb.
“This is the one! We need to do this with this bomb. It’s sort of an inner feeling. Like we absolutely have to do this,” announced Kat earnestly.
“Yes, I agree. You should feel honored to be in this godly presence,” replied Luke.
“Now, to destroying Blue,” Kat said.
The two adventurers lifted the bomb and started staggering out of the room. Kat and Luke finally lifted it out of the room. They set it down, exhausted, and rested their hands on their knees and panted.
“That pant — was pant — good. Keep pant — Going pant,” panted Luke.
“Yes pant — ” agreed Kat.
The two adventurers then put their hands under the bomb and lifted and lifted, and slowly the bomb lifted. Then, the two adventurers staggered down the hallway and finally to the throne room door, which was filled to the brim with at least twenty tons of rubies, diamonds, emeralds, gold, silver, copper, piles of hundies and most importantly, Blue himself.
They shoved the bomb through the door, then, the two dove headfirst under a giant pile of dollar bills. If you were there, you might have heard a slight beep, beep as our heroes had preset the bomb. Then, you might have heard the bomb speak its message of doom, but it was muffled by the dollar bills. But Blue was too distracted playing with his riches and didn’t hear.
“All is good — wait, how are we going to get out of here in time?” exclaimed Kat.
At that very moment, there was a loud crash and a boom, and Luke and Kat heard, “Like this — Ho ho ho!” someone said in a familiar voice.
“Santa!” Luke said.
“Hop in!” Santa replied.
“You horrible traitor! You freak!” Blue shouted.
Luke and Kat hopped into the sleigh, and they sped off. Everything whizzed past and Luke realized suddenly, hey, this is how Santa delivers all those presents.
“Wait, are those your reindeer? I thought they didn’t fly!” Kat asked, startled.
“Oh, they do. They just like to rest and be lazy,” Santa said in a teasing voice.
So this is how our two heroes found themselves speeding along in Santa’s secret sleigh at top speed. In less than an hour, the party were gliding over the North Pole over a dark, jaggedy mountain.
“Wait, wasn’t this place wrecked?” Luke asked.
“It was, but it so happens that I too have a little bit of magic,” Santa replied.
The sleigh came down towards a jet black strip of concrete… the landing strip! The sleigh slowly lowered down, and Luke and Kat covered their heads and tucked into a ball around their knees. This was going to be a rough landing. Boom. The sleigh crashed to the ground with a sickening crash. The reindeer took off running, pulling the sleigh and going slower and slower until they finally arrived at the foot of a mountain. Most people thought that this mountain was just a mountain, but in reality, it was the secret entrance to Fort S or Fort Santa. The Fort could only be accessed by elves whom Santa trusted. Santa pulled a garage door opener out of his pocket and pressed it.
“Activating sequence open door. Do you want to do this?” a hidden speaker in the button asked.
“Yes,” Santa said, enunciating clearly.
The mountain then rumbled as a part of the cavern door pulled in and put to the side by powerful pistons. The party sleighed through. They passed hallways, displaying monitors, art, and technology that neither Luke nor Kat had ever even heard of. Then they entered a large room and finally slid to a stop.
Suddenly, there were elves jumping out from behind furniture and at the top of their lungs yelled, “Surprise!”
There were various shouts of “We love you!”, “Yay!”, and “Thank you for stopping Blue!” It was a surprise party. Kat and Luke had never felt so overjoyed. They were surrounded by the elves they loved, who were all cheering their little elven hearts out for them. It was the best feeling in the world.
Now, my reader, my job as a writer is done. I have finished the book. You now know the story of Luke, Kat, Santa, and Blue. It was a joy writing for you all, and I want to thank you for reading this book. Thank you. Now I must go. I really never wanted to say these words, but:
The End