8-Legal Disclaimer of stuff. I don't own Kim Possible. I don't own Christmas. But, then again, neither do the people who own Kim Possible, so Ha!
A Very Drago Christmas
Author's Note: [] denote speaking in Russian.
"Merry idiotic greed Holiday, Mom! Hehehe. ; )
This is your ever-awesome daughter of course, here to tell you all about what's been going on in my awful, boring, and tedious corner of Go this holiday season. Not that there's much to tell. Nothing nearly as cool as your last letter, at least. As usual, there isn't anything I could say can compare to you stealing those paintings for that rich Mediterranean weirdo, and kicking the crap out of that annoying redheaded hero-poser in Florida.
On that note, you have got to stop going easier on her, you know? I guess it's cool to string her along like that, making her think she's got chance in hell. But it'd be even cooler if you just dropped all pretenses and gave her a nice million degree facial. It'd look great on her smug ugly face, hehehe.
Which, by the way…
WHY THE HELL DIDN'T YOU TELL ME YOU WERE IN GO CITY LAST MONTH!?
I mean seriously, it's been like, seven years since you were here! I know you and Grandma have a lot of problems but… you're like the best sneak ever. You couldn't have just… I dunno, really… I guess with all of you dealing with your idiot brothers and that birdbrain douche nozzle, and then your boss, you probably just didn't have the time. I get it.
No big deal."
Agni sighed and put her pen down beside the carefully crafted letter in progress. She looked up at her window and sighed, watching the snowflakes drift past the glass panes lazily. It was a record cold in Go City that year, with snowfall higher than the city had seen in fifteen years.
Sighing again, Agni mumbled aloud to herself, "No big deal."
The words tasted bitter, but she pushed it aside. No need to get all emo at mom for something neither of them could control.
'I just wish idiot Hego had told me so I could have followed him…! What a kick in the guts.'
She leaned back into her chair and stared at the ceiling to order her thoughts. Christmas with her family was always a brief and hassling affair. None of the Dragos were particularly religious, so the theological side held little appeal to them. Usually they'd simply gather on Christmas Eve at the family house, have dinner and exchange gifts before parting.
Grandma Roza was almost wholly absent during these "festivities." Usually, she only appeared once or twice during the night, and more out of duty than out of any sense of family.
Agni leaned forward and was about to put pen to page again when she heard knocking at her door. Glaring, she turned to face the offending noise and bit out harshly, "What!?"
Ignoring her clearly ill mood, which was easy since it was her default mood and he had grown accustomed, her Grandfather's deep scratchy voice shouted out, "[Kitten, it is time for the Snowman Hank cartoon! Come and join Grandpa!]"
Shuddering in response to the entreaty, Agni tried to psychically send her annoyance and disgust through the door towards her grandfather, but he was denser than lead, far denser than the door, so it was a pointless exercise.
She hated those stupid holiday specials… With all their manufactured joy, heavy-handed morals and worst of all; bad writing. The Six Tasks of Snowman Hank was by far the worst offender of them all. But just her luck, her grandfather loved it. Why? She had no clue. His English was so wretched that she'd be surprised if he could even understand half of what was said in that waste of stop-motion animation.
But somehow, someway, watching that awful cartoon with her Grandpa Dmitri was one of the very few traditions she was stuck with. Refusing wasn't an option since Roza insisted on this concession to holiday spirit, and of course, used Agni to fill the quota of family togetherness in her place.
Scratching her pointed nails through her hair, Agni growled out at Dmitri, "[Fine fine, gimme a minute, Gramp. I'll be… right down.] Jeez… who did I piss off in a past life, huh?"
She muttered and slid away from her desk, making sure to grab up her pen and memo pad. At least she could still get some writing done as the animated snowman tried it's best to drive her out of her prepubescent mind.
"I so hope that there isn't any trace of these brain-rotting Christmas cash-in cartoons where you are in Belize, Mom. Although, I bet you'll be too busy laying around on one of those fancy beaches of yours to find out. ;)
You know, I don't think I'll ever understand what you see in all that. Just lying there on a bunch of sand… five minutes of that and I'd go stir crazy. But, it certainly beats sitting here watching… Snowman Hank with Grandpa…"
Agni looked over at where Dmitri sat, excited as a little kid at… well, Christmas. Not at all looking like the forty-something-year-old he was. She just hoped he wasn't going to try to make her sing along with the claymation snow-jerk like he was sometimes want to do.
'I will not fry my grandpa, I will not fry my grandpa, I will not fry my grandpa,' she repeated her mantra over and over again in preparation for the coming pain.
Grabbing up her pen, she quickly wrote down, "Don't think I don't know how you were subjected to this punishment when you were still living here. I will get you for this, Mom! Don't think I wont!"
Rubbing her face, Agni looked over at the antique grandfather clock. Her lips tugged downward into a frown, and she turned back at her overly enthusiastic grandfather. "Uh… [Gramp? This is way too early for the annual showing. You misread the guide again, didn't you.]"
'One of these days, someone's got to give the goof good English lessons. Hell, make it a Christmas present. We'd all benefit,' Agni thought, crossing her arms and giving her grandpa the stink-eye.
Dmitri shook his head vehemently, denying any mistake. "[No no! I checked and rechecked, and asked Grandma. 4:45 definitely listed Snowman Hank.]"
"[Okay okay, whatever!]" Agni scoffed, holding up her hands. Better she just deny any interest entirely. Let him be wrong for all she cared. And she really didn't.
Agni began to think of what to add to the letter regarding any actually positive recent events in her life. The sudden intruding pabulum that was the theme song of Snowman Hank blew away all possibility of positive memories, however.
Shooting another glare in her caretaker's direction, Agni looked for a throw pillow to jam against each side of her head.
"…so put away those petty problems, and embrace your fellow man…" Hank's saccharine voice sang through the speakers, jamming an icicle of pain into Agni's head with each sentimental verse.
"How the hell is a fucking snake in a cowboy hat surviving in the tundra…" she muttered through grit teeth.
"Hey wait, this is… [Grandpa, you moron! That's just a promo! A freaking commercial!]" She snapped. Before Dmitri could respond in his weak defense, the promo narrator spoke over the guitar-playing snowman.
"For twenty years, The Six Tasks of Snowman Hank has warmed the hearts of children everywhere… BUT NOT ANYMORE!"
Agni had to rub her wide eyes in disbelief as a mob of snowmobiles smashed through the Snowman Ranch, sent Hank's quirky animal friends scattering in terror, and shattered the stop-motion snowman in a spray of fifty-year-old Technicolor Styrofoam.
"Take a powder Snowman! 'Cause this year; Christmas is a turbocharged collision of cool! Live from the North Pole it's X-treme Xmas!" the action-movie announcer intoned in a gruff voice.
Agni blinked and, after a pause, blinked again. "[Did they just kill Snowman Hank?]"
Certainly no stranger to imagining violent and horrible ends for the clay snowman, Agni was willing to accept the possibility that this was a fantasy of hers taken too far. But it looked so real…
She looked over at her grandfather who sat paralyzed and pale as death, his eyes threatening to roll out onto the carpet. A rare grin spread wide across Agni's face, made only wider by the precious look in Dmitri's eyes.
Shooting to her feet, Agni jumped in the air, thrusting her fists high, and shouted, "They just KILLED Snowman Hank!"
"You'll never believe what just happened. I'd ask you to guess, but over correspondence that'd unfortunately take way too long. So, you know that awful Snowman Hank cartoon Gramp Dmitri loves so damn much? Well… the network just killed it! Even had a commercial where they ran old Hank down B&E4 style! It's been replaced by what looks like a really stupid "Xtreme" sports show at the North pole, but who cares? Hank's dead!
So far this is the best Christmas ever!"
Agni frowned and contemplated that last sentence for a moment, before quickly scratching it out and rewriting;
"So far, this is the best Christmas since you were here!"
When the tween heard the front door open, she suppressed a groan and hid her face behind her note pad as the telltale heavy footsteps of her mother's brother Hego echoed down the hall. Soon followed a second set of softer footsteps that could only have been Mego's Patten leather boots.
Agni glared up from behind her letter at the pair. Hego, just like last year and the year before, was wearing one of those Christmas themed sweaters displaying a grinning Saint Nicholas giving a thumbs up. Each year, the Bueno Nacho Corporation would send them out to their branch managers as seasonal gifts. Really crappy, tacky, tasteless, and embarrassingly insulting gifts. This year, Santa held a Taco in one hand and his sleigh's reigns in the other.
Once the door was shut and locked behind them, Hego reached down to his pocket and flipped the switch on his secret light refraction matrix, returning him to his natural blue coloration. He'd taken the intricate little device from a defeated villain calling herself the Illuminatrix several years ago, but unfortunately, no one had the technical skills to reverse engineer it for the rest of the team. Of course this left Mego purple, the Uncles Wego permanently sunburned, and her and mom... well…
'One of these days I am so gonna steal that thing,' Agni swore. 'Then you can be the one slathered in body makeup like a hot buttered roll, Uncle Doofus.'
"Merry Christmas father… and little Agni," Hego finally greeted in that excessively valiant tone of his, placing his bags beside the closet as he put away his coat. "Is everyone enjoying this wonderful Holiday cheer?"
The big man frowned when he was greeted with his dejected father and his perpetually unpleasant yet grinning niece.
"Yeah, what Vik said," Mego muttered. He shoved past where Hego stood to gain access to the closet, before turning to cast his sour purple gaze towards Agni, which was met in kind.
"Uncle Blueballs, Uncle Mullet," Agni deadpanned. She placed her writing utensils on the arm of the couch and crossed her arms over her chest, "Also, I am not little anything."
"The holiday season never fails to bring out the best in you, you little slime ball," Mego snapped back, "And for the hundredth time, I do not have a mullet! I have stylishly feathered hair."
"Says you, little boy," Agni dismissed outright, shooting him a smirk which reminded the two brothers very much of their estranged sister in a diminutive form.
Ever the peacekeeper, Hego moved between the two of them, holding his hands up. "Come now, you two. Christmas Eve is no time to bicker amongst ourselves… [And father, um… are you okay? You look a bit upset]…"
Dmitri looked up for the first time in several minutes, before running up and pulling Hego into a tight hug, "[Oh Viktor, it's horrible! Awful! Terrible! The Snowman Hank Cartoon. They-]"
"[Canceled it,]" Mego interrupted dismissively. "[Yeah, I was one of the first to hear. There was press release on it that I personally edited last night. I had to correct four typos! Four! Like an orangutan had scribbled it out. That paper would be sunk if it weren't for me, but do I get any recognition, huh!?]"
Dmitri blinked and looked over at Mego for the first time since he came in, "[Oh, Sergei. Merry Christmas, son. When did you get here?]"
"Argh!" the purple son cried out, pulling at his hair. "With Hego! Just now! We took the same bus! We. Came. In. Together!"
Agni was about to drive a vocal nail into her purple uncle's forehead, but she was suddenly pulled into a tight hug by two pairs of red flannel clad arms. She cried out in shock, but quickly reoriented and returned the gesture half-heartedly. She wasn't much for hugging, even for family that she actually liked.
"Merry Christmas, littlest' Sis," the twins spoke out in unison. Without fail, Agni's green cheeks darkened to more of an olive complexion at the affectionate title.
"Whatever," Agni muttered, twisting away. "So Uncles Wego. What's up?"
One Wego turned to the other and frowned, "She called us Uncle again."
"Yeah, you know what that means," the other agreed, before both turned to her with wicked grins on their faces. Agni's eyes widened in horror when she realized her slip, and almost she bolted away. But she hadn't reacted fast enough to escape her hellish fate.
"Wego noogie!" both declared as the twin's knuckles suddenly assaulted Agni mercilessly across her scalp.
"Owowowowow! Argh! Stop it, idiot Wegos! Grrr, Stop it now! I'll burn you worse than the ham if you don't stop! [Stop it or I'll tell Grandma about your dates!]" Agni decried between desperately trying to escape, and to not light up in the house in the process.
"Aw, save it," Both Wegos smirked, not at all impressed by the diminutive girl's threat. "You'd never turn on us… right?"
But despite their confidant tone, both immediately ceased their punishment, releasing the green tween. Agni stepped back a bit for her space, straightening out her t-shirt. Turning back to her twin uncles she added, "You better have gotten me some pretty awesome presents, Wegos. My silence is expensive."
The twins grinned and shrugged, "Maybe we did, maybe we didn't. You'll have to wait though. Santa's army of elves aren't allowed to spoil the surprise"
"Whatever," Agni murmured, hiding her smirk.
"I'm glad to see all of you could attend," came a rough feminine voice from the hallway, instantly commanding the attention of all of the living room's occupants.
Roza, as per usual, had forgone any Christmas themed clothing in favor of her usual attire of a blouse and slacks. Most of the family doubted she had a festive bone in her body. The cold season irritated her throat, and made her voice even rougher than usual.
Roza's ice blue eyes traveled across the room over her husband, granddaughter, and sons. As usual, there wasn't any trace of cheer to be found on her face, only a slight softening of her usual intense expression.
She turned to regard each of her sons as she addressed them. "[Viktor, Sergei, Ilya, and Andrei, thank you for joining us. I'm glad to see everyone,]"
'Not everyone,' Agni bitterly thought.
"Hi mom, Merry Christmas," both Wegos said with only slightly forced cheer, stepping closer to one another.
Hego immediately straightened his posture, and cleared his throat, trying and failing to maintain eye contact with his mother, "You know I'd never miss Christmas Eve with you, and father. No good son would. How have you, um… been?"
'Suck up,' Agni and Mego thought in unison.
The Drago family Matriarch dismissed the question offhand, "As well as can be expected."
"You and dad get those article clippings I emailed you?" Mego interjected. "Pretty impressive how I caught those mistakes, huh? I'm like a legend over at the Times."
"I'm afraid I've yet to get around to those, Sergei. I haven't the time. You should send those to your father," She answered and, turning to look at Dmitri, either missed or ignored the dejected look on Mego's face.
"[What is wrong?]" The slender middle-aged woman probed her husband of some years.
Dmitri smiled weakly and shrugged, "[Oh, it's nothing, Dear. Just that the snowman cartoon was canceled. What a shame.]"
Roza's eyebrow twitched slightly, "[How… unfortunate. Either way, I'm about to set out dinner. It should be ready in a few minutes.]"
With that she turned to leave. Dmitri quickly mentioned that he'd help her set the food out, quickly following after his wife. All five remaining occupants in the room visibly relaxed once Roza left.
"I bet she'll just spend the rest of the night in her office," one of the Wegos muttered morosely, the other nodding his agreement.
"Now now, our mother is a very busy woman and we should all know and respect that by now," Hego said resolutely, perhaps more for his own benefit than to his niece and siblings.
Mego scoffed, "Yeah, plenty busy. Way too busy to open an email I sent over a month ago… As usual. I bet she'd have open it if you sent it."
"Well mother already knows the rest of us are not ones to contact her just to shove our more insignificant accomplishments in her face for some attention." The largest Drago snapped out in a rare show of irritation.
"Insignificant!?" From there the two fell into their usual Holiday argument, with the Wegos trying to break them up, and likely getting pulled in to it like the event horizon of a black hole.
Agni shrugged and ignored the usual sight. The tween slumped back onto the couch, pulling her notepad back onto her lap to add more. After several minutes she noticed the silence and several eyes focused on her.
Looking up in irritation, she snapped out, "Somethin' interesting over here I don't know about? Stop staring at me. It's creepy, even for goobers in spandex!"
"Well, you're writing Big Sis, right?" both Wegos asked in synch. "Tell her Merry Christmas from us."
"Oh, yes that's a great idea. Please tell our wayward sister we wish her a Merry Christmas. Perhaps the seasonal joy will help her to rethink her… career choices," Hego added, trying to sound magnanimous, but really just coming off as pushy superior.
Rolling his eyes, Mego added, "Well if you do, make sure she knows I said so too, specifically. Don't forget!"
Agni glared at Hego and Mego and was about to tell them to write their own damn letters; but of course, they didn't know the address she'd been given. Also, maybe it was the somewhat genuine look in their eyes, and the fact that it was the twins' initial idea. But in the end, the small girl scoffed and stated, "Fine. But you all totally owe me for this."
Quickly, and tersely she added in; "Your brothers say Merry Christmas. And yeah, they really are idiots."
Dinner had been a relatively moderate and uneventful affair that offered little-to-no surprises for any of the Drago family. Dmitri had done most of the cooking, which accounted for mashed potatoes, a casserole, rolls, Dmitri's special gnocchi, and a glazed ham, which was a bit on the burned side.
The latter dish's charred state was thanks mostly to Roza who had once again proven that while she was a shrewd and professional woman with a remarkable eye for details, she had absolutely no place in the kitchen beyond making tea or sandwiches.
Aside from the aforementioned ham, the food was acceptable, even leaning towards good, but over years of conditioning, Agni knew better than to over indulge. Roza was unmoving regarding everyone eating absolutely everything one put on their plate. Agni was not going to end up sitting at the dinner table two hours after dinner trying to shovel through a bowl full of stew she had absolutely no more room for. She'd made sure that her eyes were no larger than her stomach when it came to banquet meals.
The Wegos never had that problem, and seemed able to pack away twice their collective bodyweight at any given meal with no concern, although Hego usually could give them a run for their money if pressed to it. Mego was incredibly picky and more pecked at his food like a drinking bird than actually ate it. His mouth was much too busy complaining about how much he hated ham this afternoon.
Luckily, aside from Mego's naysaying, which actually would have been unsettling to do without, the family managed to get through their meal with very little dialogue, aside from some aborted attempts Hego made at having an actual conversation with Roza. Agni went through her usual dinner routine of keeping her head down and methodically slicing up working her way through her food. Ironically, her eating habits mirrored her grandmother, but she never noticed, and her uncles didn't feel any drive to bring that quirk to their niece's attention.
The one taboo at the Drago holiday table was the "no power" prohibition. One for which Agni, and her mother before her, had suffered smacked hands when trying to utilize their plasma abilities to reheat some dish or another. This year, however, the youngest Drago was able to avoid any prematurely cooled entrees.
Around halfway through dinner, Roza finished up her plate and apologized to her family. Predictably, she had things pending upstairs in her office, and she couldn't put them off any longer.
'Wow, sure didn't see that coming,' Agni thought cynically, noticing the dejected look on the Wegos' and Hego's faces. Mego simply turned his nose up and "harrumphed," but he was as transparent as the rest of them.
She thought they were pathetic, mining for affection that just wasn't in there. As far as the tween was concerned, Gram was probably carved out of a block of unfeeling stone and animated through some disturbing virgin sacrifice. 'That's the only way to account for her being such a stone cold bitch… Or maybe I'm over-complicating it. She could just be a robot. Occam's Razor and all that.'
Although on some level Agni could empathize. After all, she had her own fair share of parental issues to deal with on a daily basis. But that kind of sympathetic thinking was always the furthest thing from her mind as possible.
Instead, she busied her thoughts with wondering what kind of questions she should ask her own mother in her letter. She did so as she went about washing her used eating utensils at the sink once dinner had ended, and it was finally time to cap off the evening with the best part about Christmas in her self-important opinion: Presents. These were, of course, the second biggest perk to Christmas aside from the school break.
After all, maturity aside, Agni Svetlana Drago was very much a ten-year-old girl, regardless of how often she tried to fit the mature-beyond-her-years mold pressed on her by family and school.
"To be honest, Mom, there's really not much for me to say about… well, me. Christmas break is pretty much the high point of the Holiday for me. But, really, any excuse to get out of the Go Academy for Stuck Up Debbies is a good excuse. I have got to get out of there, or I'm gonna pop, I swear! The kids, the teachers… sometimes I feel like they can actually see right through my makeup. They can just tell I don't belong there. Which is really just a fancy way to say they think I'm a freak…
And you wanna know the worst thing? I told you how they don't serve chocolate milk, right? What kind of fancy-ass private academy doesn't stock chocolate milk!?
Been practicing a lot though. Reading those books you mentioned, and have been trying to get through that physics book on plasma but… Well, I'll figure it out eventually. Lately I've been trying out that electromagnetic burst you mentioned to me a few times, but… I'm not really getting it. Well, that's not… totally true. There is a reason that Gramp needed to buy a new TV… ; ) But it's so freaking tricky! If you were here, I'm sure I'd get it in a second.
Oh, and guess what. I once again defended my high score on Kung Fu Revolution: Extreme! Jerk thought a kid couldn't take him, but I laid down the law, hehehe. Soon I'll be able to kick the crap out of that loser carrot-top right along with you, if she's even still breathing by then!
And then I won't have to hear about her from you anymore."
Agni paused and reconsidered that last line. Maybe that was a tad too harsh. She did love getting details on her mom's life. She could enjoy just about anything Shego wrote her. But lately, it seemed like at least a third of each letter was spent talking about having to deal with that Kim Possible, the bitch. Almost all of it was negative and bitter complaining, laced with bravado.
But Agni was beginning to detect a note of… admiration, in some of her mother's letters. It's very possible that it was just her reading too deeply between the lines since it was the only communication at all from her mom and she reread every letter often, but the thought still troubled her.
'Be better if mom just took her out, ASAP,' Agni thought, but quickly shrugged off the consideration in favor of the small pile of gifts sitting in front of her under a pile of shredded wrapping paper. The obnoxious voice of new X-Treme Xmas announcer blared in the background.
Hego had, as usual, given her a few trade collections of those vintage comics he pretty much dictated his life by. Most of them were Ultraguy collections, but there was a random Fearless Ferret trade here and there, also. All in all, it wasn't a bad present. The writing in these old issues was really stupid, predictable and the art was only passable. But there was a sort of kitsch charm to them that Agni could appreciate.
On the flipside, Mego's gift was a definite miss. It was a cheesy self-help book entitled "How to Gain the Respect of Your Peers in Seven Easy Steps." It figured all too clearly why Mego would read that kind of rubbish. But honestly, Agni was had a strong suspicion that Mego had just given her this to piss her off in a way even more juvenile than her age bespoke. He succeeded, of course, and now Agni was considering all manner of ways to properly repay his generosity.
The ten-year-old smirked and looked over at the gift her Uncles Wego had given her. Possibly as a way to offset Hego's obsession with golden-age comic books, the twins had given her several of Japanese manga and DVDs. She wasn't particularly familiar with that form of entertainment, but one of the covers had a bloodstained high school girl in uniform with crackling energy around her hands. That alone was enough to whet her appetite for a soujourn into the unknown east and backwards books.
Agni looked over when she noticed her uncles making their way to the closet and retrieving their coats. All four of them were likely going to catch the 8:00 bus, so they'd need to leave together. Of the four of them, only Hego owned a car, but it was rare for him to ever actually use it considering Go City's notorious kamikaze drivers. It was simply easier to flag a taxi or go to the bus or subway.
The big man turned her way and nodded lightly, ever at a loss for how to act around his niece, "Well, little Agni, we should get going. Tell mom we said goodbye. We don't want to disturb her."
'Tell her yourself,' she thought. "I told you I'm not little, Uncle Pea-brain."
After a petulant moment she looked away and mumbled out, "Erm… and… thanks for the comics."
"Hey, what about my gift?" Mego demanded, placing his hands on his hips and glaring at her.
"What about your gift?" Agni scoffed, sticking her tongue out at him. She heard the Wegos laugh, causing Mego to turn an even darker shade of purple.
The skinny mullet-man turned towards the door, shouting at Hego, "Well, you comin'?"
The eldest brother looked over at Mego and nodded, "Oh, um… yes. Let us be off. Merry Christmas little Agni."
"I am not little, Brain-donor!" she shouted after him angrily. Any further cursing towards her oldest uncle was cut off when she felt two pairs of arms pulling her into a tight hug. The tween sighed melancholically; sad to see her youngest uncles leave. She didn't see them often enough as was.
"Enjoy your haul, littlest Sis," one Wego said, with the other adding, "And have a Merry Christmas for us."
"Yeah yeah," Agni muttered. To hide her blush, she demanded, "Just come back soon, got it! I'll make you pay if you don't!"
The twins smirked and nodded, finally releasing their niece and moving towards the door. Both Wegos waved and left with a parting, "Stay out of trouble," enjoying the irony of that statement.
And once again, it was just her. Yet another Drago family Christmas had come to an end. All things considered, she'd had worse Holiday experiences. Way worse, like that turkey incident two years ago…
But as good as this one had been, it was also inherently incomplete. Her letter was about as close to her mother as she could be this Christmas, and any Christmas in the foreseeable future. Thus was the limited nature of their relationship.
Agni sighed and leaned back, looking out the window at the steady snowfall. 'All I want for Christmas is to see my mom. That's the only gift I need.'
"Oh! That's extreme! Are you ready to be Extreme?!" blared the Xmas show host with way too much enthusiasm, made only worse by his thick Australian accent.
'That's it, enough of this bullshit,' Agni scoffed, standing up and moving to the TV to finally turn off the offensive program.
Right before Agni's finger pressed the power button though, a second voice spoke out through the speakers, shocking her frozen.
"Yeah, extremely annoyed. I need a snowmobile," spoke the smoky feminine voice. A voice Agni had locked tight in her memory. Looking down at the screen, she saw a shapely, familiar woman in her harlequin green and black uniform, wearing a coat and helmet.
Slowly Agni sunk to her knees, inches away from the screen. Her green eyes were held open as wide as saucers. "That's…"
"We're using 'em to be extreme," the annoying host explained to the woman, who ignored him outright. When a participant on a jet board zoomed past the two, the woman's hand lashed out and grabbed him handily, twisting the boarder around and sending him flying off screen.
"This'll do," the woman smirked, before jumping onto the newly acquired jet board and rocketing off.
"Whoo! Now that's extreme! Follow her," exclaimed the host, but Agni wasn't registering a word he said, being far too busy processing everything she had just seen. But once she found her voice, the whole house knew.
"THAT'S MY MOM!" Agni shouted ecstatically, grabbing the top of the television and watching as the camera crew desperately tried to keep track of the green flash Shego left in her wake as she expertly maneuvered the expensive vehicle along the North Pole's perilous snow drifts and ice.
Agni didn't have a clue what Shego was doing anywhere near the North Pole when she'd been told her mother was supposed to be enjoying the sun at a Central American resort. But right then, she couldn't have cared less if she tried. She was seeing Shego being the badass mercenary thief Agni knew her to be, in real time! She was even talking on a cellphone in the middle of it all. How cool was that?!
Out of the corner of the screen, a second figure suddenly landed gracefully from the air, sliding across the snow on her own jet board and moving in parallel to her mother. Agni's eyes narrowed as she tried to figure out who the interloper was as, Shego and the new girl appeared to be speaking to each other.
Then she caught sight of the new girl's red ponytail swinging wildly in the tundra winds. Her eyess flared up brightly when the realization dawned, "That redheaded cockroach stalker! Fry her, mom! Blast her ass her back to the burbs!"
She tightened her little fists and watched the events with an intensity that had absolutely no place in a girl her age. Her eyes closely followed her mom, and her mom's sworn enemy as they maneuvered around each other. The camera was barely able to keep up with the two of them.
Both women had to separate, though, when a big fat polar bear suddenly came up over the horizon blocking both women's path. The criminal and the heroine disappeared over a ravine moments later, leaving the camera crew at a loss for how to get across and resume their pursuit.
Agni growled out in frustration, and shouted impotently at the screen, "C'mon you losers, get the lead out! We're missing on Mom kicking Miss Ego's ass!"
Finally, the crew managed to get around the ravine, just in time to catch several quick bursts of green light. A sight the tween was intimately familiar with. Both the women were punching, kicking, and slashing at one another. Neither of them seemed at all hindered by the difficult footing that the snow provided, the cold temperatures, or their winter clothing.
"This is the coolest thing I have ever seen," Agni grinned from ear to ear. She now had her hands gripped around either corner of the TV, and was almost trying to pull herself through the screen to get more of the action.
The ten-year-old was so distracted by this display of highly skilled combat, that she didn't notice her grandmother watching the screen from across the room. Roza was leaning against the wall with her arms crossed, her expression as unreadable as ever as she watched over her daughter fighting her nemesis at the top of the world, along with her granddaughter.
Agni frowned when she noticed exactly what Shego and Kim were fighting around. It was a giant snowman shaped vaguely like…
'Why the hell is there a snowman of Snowman Hank on the North Pole?' she thought in annoyance, 'And what's that big garbage can thing behind it?'
Much to her annoyance, the Aussie announcer again blocked the camera view with his vapidly excited mug, while shouting excitedly, "A battle royal fought in the snow reaches of the farthest north. Extreme! Okay... and fight!"
But a second, much more nasally voice cut the host off, pushing him aside. From his blue skin, spiky black hair, and the scar under his left eye, Agni recognized him as his mother's employer, Drakken. Although why her mom worked almost exclusively for the off-color nutjob was well beyond her ability to fathom.
"Nonsense," Drakken dismissed, stunning Shego and Possible into a stupor, "We were just about to sit down to dinner."
"Dinner's not extreme!" protested the host, but Drakken ignored him, walking up to the two women, and putting his arms around their shoulders. Both of them seemed too unsettled by the interruption to shrug him off.
"Yes it is. I made cupcakes," the inventor proudly proclaimed, leading the two towards the oversized garbage can. "After you."
After the group disappeared from sight, the crew of X-Treme Xmas looked at a loss for words. Eventually the host cut the signal in frustration, leaving a message displaying Snowman Hank holding up a sign that said; "Sorry for the technical difficulties."
Agni stared at the screen for a good five minutes as she tried to make sense of it with her ten years of experience. But that was really just too weird for words. And there was no way she was going to figure that scene out without asking her mother. It was just too… weird.
Reaching over, she switched off the TV finally. Noticing a shadow out of the corner of her eye, Agni quickly turned around. One look confirmed she was alone in the living room, however. Sighing, she stood up and stretched, feeling more tired than she'd expected, possibly due to the stress of seeing her mom in an actual fight, short-lived as it was.
As she left, she noticed another package leaning against the wall. It was wrapped in plain brown paper, but her name was on the front. Agni picked up the package and took it up to her room with her notepad, and other presents.
Once the door was shut, she sat on the edge of her bed and quickly looked over the foreign object, noticing a card taped to the back. Opting to open the card first, Agni noticed a hundred dollar bill fall onto her lap. The card simply read; "To Agni, from Roza and Dmitri."
'Oh, this is from Gram and Gramp,' she read. 'But what the hell is it?'
She finally decided to bite the bullet, and easily shredded through the paper covering the package, only to find… a framed charcoal drawing with matte, set in glass. One of the few hobbies her Grandmother actually claimed to. As for what it depicted…
'Is that… me?' she realized, looking over the heavily shadowed contrasting black and white picture of a young girl with her arm over the side of the couch, staring out the window.
'That's… actually pretty cool,' Agni grudgingly admitted, looking over the detail involved. Her grandmother could have easily done this professionally if she wanted to. 'But why not just give this to me in person like the others? I'll never understand her…'
Agni ran her nails through her hair, and chewed her lip as she gathered her thoughts. Finally she grabbed up her notepad and pen.
"I saw you on TV last night! You have got to tell me what was going on with you being at the North Pole, and just what your crazy blue boss was smoking when he invited you and Possible to cupcakes. What the hell?! One of these days, you've gotta tell me why you work for such a loser…
But really… I'm happy I saw you tonight. Seeing you here was fun. Well, you weren't really here but… gah! You know what I mean! It was just nice. I've got to find a copy of that tape. You were really kicking her ass! XD
All things considered, my Christmas this year has been pretty cool. Got some nice stuff, Snowman Hank got run over by a snowmobile, and I got to see you on TV. Maybe next year… you could come for real? Maybe?
But whatever. You just enjoy your Christmas vacation in Belize or the North Pole or wherever. Just don't forget to tell me about it soon, kay? :P
Much love and Merry Christmas,
Your awesome adoring daughter, Agni.
P.S.: Thanks for that melting clock painting. I just have to find where to hang the thing. ; P"
Merry Christmas, and a Happy New Year.
This fic is dedicated to my beta, Eoraptor, who took time out of his Holiday to make this fic legible. I really cannot thank him enough. And it is also dedicated to you, my readers, for enjoying my stories and sticking with me all this time. Merry Christmas everyone. ^_^