Jangle was about to punch Grimjack when he yanked on the Christmas lights, pulling Freddy back out of the portal. She hesitated a moment, and then slugged his leg anyway, but not strong enough to knock him over again.

Freddy seemed discombobulated. He shook his head and put his paw on his face. “Well, that was unexpected.”

“What did you see?”

“Yeah, what was so unexpected about it?”

“Oh, there was nothing crazy about that. Just like walking through a door. What was crazy was suddenly being flung forward so violently.” He shook his head and clicked his tongue. “Why poor little me! I thought my stuffing was going to go flying everywhere.”

“Yeah! You can’t just go throwing your friends around like that.”

Grimjack ignored them and strode through the portal. “I told you, all I care about is results.”

Freddy was right. Walking through the portal felt no different than just walking through a doorway. He was hit with a wave of warmth and his sensors started to become overwhelmed with information. The raw energy in here was too much for his equipment when he had it all turned up for how hard it was to sense things in the blizzard. He brought his arms up to cover his visor as he staggered back and quickly adjusted everything to within tolerable ranges.

By this time Jangle and Freddy had joined him. All three of them were standing in a cheery meadow with bright blue skies and not a cloud in sight. Beautiful flowers of every color imaginable were scattered throughout the knee length grass. Freddy and Jangle were both nearly completely obscured by it, while it barely seemed noticeable on Grimjack.

“Alright,” whispered Jangle. “We just need to find the other portal and get out of here as soon as possible.”

Grimjack nodded. “Can either of you tell where the other one is?”

“So you can throw me through it too?” said Freddy as he feigned like he was hurt.

“Just looking out for myself,” remarked Grimjack.

“That’s not very in keeping with the Christmas Spirit. It’s a time to think of others especially.”

Grimjack rolled his eyes. “We’re getting off topic. Focus. We need that other exit.”

“Just…keep it in mind. The holidays are very important.”

“Exit. Dangerous extraplanar space. Fat guy kidnapped. Seriously, get your priorities straight. Focus on the mission Jangle. You can worry about my Christmas spirit when we’re done.”

“Not that I don’t love listening to your little spat, but I think we might want to speed things up a bit.”

Grimjack took the hint and looked around. Off in the distance he saw a shadow moving closer. Like the dark side of a moon, completely overshadowing everything. Except it wasn’t just shadow, he looked closer, and all the flowers, grass, and everything else died as soon as the shadow passed over it. There was even a small bit of frost over the shriveled remains of the plants.

Grimjack sprang into action and ran forward. Dangerous super being or not, he didn’t know how dangerous that shadow could be. The being was completely unknown, but he could see that the shadow at least brought death. His suit could withstand a lot of different kinds of death beams, but there was always something stronger. Especially with the overwhelmingly powerful readings the area itself had; he figured the odds were in favor of his suit being useless.

“Oh gingersnaps!” squeaked Jangle as she stumbled a moment before matching her pace with Grimjack’s. “Freddy, any ideas on the other portal?”

“I doubt it’ll be as undefended. My suggestion would be for our soldier boy to look for a bald spot. A place without a ton of this energy in it.”

Knowing what to look for made it easier to focus in on his search. He managed to find two spots. One off under the cover of the shadow, and another straight ahead of them. “Looks like it’s straight ahead. Let’s hurry.”

“What’s the spot look like?” asked Freddy as he struggled to keep up; being pulled by the Christmas lights more than actually running with the two of them.

“Two-hundred meters straight ahead.”

“What? No other reference than a direction? No pitch-black obelisk?”

“Sure. It looks like it’s right under some flowers and grass.”

“Guys, why don’t we focus on making it there before that darkness gets to us.”

“My thoughts…” Grimjack’s instincts kept him sprinting forward, but he was stunned silent as he saw the other ‘bald spot’ as Freddy called it moving in the shadow. It was a creature, massive, at least twice his size. It was hard to make out in the darkness, but it seemed to be covered in rippling muscles. The thing that threw him off most of all was that even in the shadow he could tell it had a bright red Santa hat on.

Grimjack let out a surprised grunt as he fell straight into the other portal, and in doing so pulled both Jangle and Freddy with him. The three went straight through and into a free fall. It seemed this portal was on the ceiling of a large cylindrical chamber made of shiny, smooth metal that went down hundreds of feet from where they entered.

As they plummeted, Grimjack turned to glance back at the portal to see if they were being followed, but it still looked bright and cheerful on the other side. That reassured him, as he was worried that time might work faster in that strange place. At least with how the shadow was moving they should have enough time to leave before that creature could follow them if that was even its plan.

Freddy howled in fear as they fell, while Jangle rolled her eyes. She grabbed one end of Freddy’s candy cane and maneuvered him onto Grimjack’s back. Grimjack landed with a crash and left quite the imprint on the formerly smooth floor beneath them.

Freddy slid off and landed with a light squeak on the floor as he panted in exhaustion. “Next time…huff huff…you’ve got to…huff huff…carry me…”

“If things go well, there won’t be a next time.” Snorted Grimjack.

“Don’t say that.” Wheezed Freddy as he struggled to catch his breath. “I know you’ll come to miss my winning personality if you’re torn away from me.”

“The only thing I miss is working solo.”

“Ah, your words cut deep warrior, but I know you agree we at least make an effective team. Why without me, you wouldn’t even be in here right now.”

“Granted. Now let’s find the guy and get moving.”

Grimjack saw a door and dragged them towards it whether they wanted to go or not. This felt a lot more comfortable to him. The lab was good, but this felt like any heavily secured spaceport. It was especially nice after the weird flower meadow with the light and dark. He’d even dealt with this specific kind of door before and knew the perfect way to open it.

Bang

Bang!

BANG!

Three well placed kicks later and the door creaked forward as it clattered on the ground. The sight was comforting yet again, as a barren metal corridor greeted them. He turned to the left and began to sprint down the hall. In his experience, maintenance would usually be to the right while front facing jobs tended to be left, including labs. Feeling especially emboldened he picked up the pace and cranked up his leg’s servos into overdrive.

Freddy’s voice sounded warbled as he was bumped up and down. “Hey, slow…down…whoooaaaa!”