December 2021 Christmas Holidays Story Contest Entry

Big thanks to MonicaS for their continuous and valuable help in the writing of this story.

For years, the H.M.S Ubiquity had hung in the air, maintaining its quiet vigil over the Brecellian Deadwoods, but now, after more than three decades of constant service, its mission would change. A very important component of the dark blue cube had fallen overboard, in the late afternoon of one of the longest and most miraculous nights of the year.

That female-looking piece, the Brain, was, like the rest of the ship, made of adamantine, and would have been still shipworthy after a very long drop to the end of the sky. But this wasn’t an accident. She only dropped a few feet below the roof before spreading her wings and disappearing in a flash of light.

And so Ubiquity was ousted from her Body, leaving it to the machinations of a foreign invader and an uncertain future.

A few minutes before…

On the roof of that blue flying city, called “Sanctuary” by its citizens, a birthday party was happening, making it the roughest and most colorful of the cube’s faces, which, as typical of somewhere high, and in the north of the country, was fairly covered in snow, but the party was dead obvious to anyone looking, as it was dead center and very round, like an “8” with its bottom facing north. At the center of dead center was a warm ten foot circular patch of adamantine, surrounding the rooftop access building, a riveted blue cube jutting out of the winter ground, about eight feet tall, with double doors facing north.

But unlike the rest of the year, the rooftop access wasn’t the most obvious feature on the roof. Two feet from its doors was where another circular patch of metal intersected with its own, but this one was much larger, about ninety feet wide, and holding the majority of the color, what with containing five round wooden tables, along with some people sitting at those tables and others just standing around.

Sitting at one of those tables, safe and sound, a red-headed Repairman worried. He served the dozen dozen denizens of this last populated holdout of Brecellia, and like everyone else seated, sat on a beautiful floral-themed wooden chair made by his wife’s handmaiden, the mother of the girl whose twelfth birthday it was. Unfortunately, the girl’s parents had to watch her birthday from a small portal in the air due to being given a very important mission by his wife, the captain of their colossal ship. She was sitting beside him, blonde hair falling down her back as they held hands and touched their white wings, facing out into the center, quietly watching their Wingless citizens celebrate.

Although he looked calm, the Repairman’s heart beat faster with every tick of his pocketwatch, waiting for the fulfillment of the prophecy. His wife had predicted that someone would need him and his medicine bag at the party.

All the birthday girl's friends were out there, his grandchildren and his apprentices included. Everyone was watching the birthday girl open her present.

Suddenly, everyone was blinded by a brilliant golden flash.

Far far below the other occupants, at the bottom of the ship, a black-haired demon sat under the soft white light of the ceiling in the city’s single elevator car, all other potential monster dens dismantled. He had his warrior wife at his side, her pale rounded ear against his tan pointed one, her soft hand in his armored claw and her white wing on his back, spending their youngest daughter’s birthday looking out of the open doors into the darkest and most dangerous floor of the blue metal city they called home.

The couple paid it no mind and just looked down into the small portal in-between them, watching their youngest daughter open her birthday present.

Then she turned into a pillar of golden light that speared through the portal and colored the room.

Her parents were unharmed, but had fallen over in surprise. Taking stock of the situation, her father didn’t stop to right himself before cupping his claws before him and pulling the portal into them, displacing both entrance and exit in order to shut off the pillar.

He would have immediately enlarged the portal to carry both him and his wife to their child, were it not for how the lighting of the elevator was now stuck on that new soft gold instead of the original white.

And then the ceiling darkened and the doorway glowed gold instead when a boom rang through the elevator car.

The couple inside the elevator immediately located the source of the sound, what with the angry gynoid right outside the doorway. She was very very blue. Her nearly black blue hair was in neat ringlets and she was dressed in a flimsy plain light blue robe, making her stand out from the walls even though they were both made of the same blue adamantine.

They didn’t have time to notice much else before she made another booming punch, and the elevator’s light shifted to block just like the first time.

But the last thing they noticed was the symbol on the gynoid’s forehead, an angry red skull and crossbones.

She was pirate hunting.

After the second punch, whiteness returned to the room, being emitted from the right wall. And standing there was a girl.

“Mom? Dad?” she said to the couple in the elevator. She was blonde and wearing plain gold plate mail covering everything except her head. Behind her, a pair of butterfly wings flapped gently.. But she wasn’t standing in the elevator car, but was displayed on its emergency video wallscreen, standing in a featureless white space.

Another boom cut in before the couple could say a word, and the girl shouted “Rude!” in reply. Her presumed parents had nothing to say, as they were still taking stock of her. The girl looked like their daughter, except their daughter’s hair was blue, not blonde, and this girl didn’t have their daughter’s unique blue horn, instead, her head was adorned with a butterfly motif crown.

A fourth boom was heard and seen, right before the elevator doors started to close.

That apparently was the signal for the gynoid to try harder. The booming punches sped way up and a booming kick was seen before the view of the doorway was obscured by the overlapping flashes into just a bright yellow pane of light, hiding the gynoid form, while also causing the ceiling light to die. Disorientation set in as the elevator got so loud, no one inside could think.

And so, without anyone hearing it, the doors continued closing, slowly hiding everything from view. As the booming continued, the emergency screen turned black, making magic the only source of light in the room, coming from both the barrier over the door and the still-open and now shaking portal in the demon’s claws, before yellow text appeared word by shaky word on the center of the wallscreen in very large font.

It’s me, Ami. I think my presents Changed me? I’m a Queen Butterfly now?

And then the words scrolled up to reveal a vague description of what a Queen Butterfly was.

And that “death” timer was clearly counting in seconds.

The constant booming and shaking stretched out the three seconds it took for the elevator to finally close. And then it started to rise, and with it, the booming faded away. That meant the elevator’s shielding was taxed no more, so its light returned to the scene. The ceiling light instantaneously resurrected itself to full yellow brightness, and less than a second after, the butterfly girl reappeared on screen, where she resumed speaking to her parents with her voice again, now that she could be heard.

“I guess this was the mission that Aunt Sacred sent you on? So I’d be here to stop Ubiquity from reaching the elevator? But how did I get in here? Oh, wait, there’s a video!”

While their daughter was busy reviewing that, her mother blushed as hard as her namesake flower when she realized why her best friend and Captain had reminded her to “Stay on guard!”, even as she sent her down to watch a still, empty, boring, floor, from the safety of the shielded elevator, given what would’ve been on video otherwise. But she apparently had gotten her face under control by the time her youngest daughter spoke again, since no comments were incoming.

Her father on the other claw just took the opportunity to shut down his portal.

“So you were watching me, and then I came through in a beam of light, sorry for that, by the way. Then I hit the light, and ended up in here? In this weird space? So now I’m Administrator instead of Ubiquity. But why are we going up? Let’s see…”

While she was analyzing something her parents couldn’t see, they tried to think of how to interrupt with their questions and concerns, but the moment didn’t last long enough.

“Oh, that’s really lucky… Or Aunt Sacred predicted this… If you were outside, you would’ve been trapped when the elevator tried to save the Administrator! And speaking of trapped, how do I get out of here?! And in less than four minutes? AND what’s that racket‽

Given that it was a sound only their daughter could hear, her parents assumed it was some technological thing, and were soon proven right, given her next exclamation.

“Someone keeps trying to teleport in!?”

Given recent events, there was no doubt that was Ubiquity, which meant she had beaten them to the top, somehow.

On the top floor, the red-headed Repairman and his red-headed apprentices were standing before a bright gold blob, translucent enough to see the horned humanoid figure it encased, and that Analysis had revealed to be the former and still alive birthday girl, with no trace of her presents to be found.

<Name: Amicitia Adoraflora>
<System Color: Blue>
<Age: 12 years old>
<Species: Chrysalis Unicorn>
<Class: Bondswoman>

The extremely loud booming coming from the small displaced viewing portal above them concerned everyone, then it stopped booming and started rising until it couldn’t be spotted anymore, but the captain’s lack of concern had indicated that there was nothing to worry about.

Questioning of Dangerous and Merry Bargain, the birthday girl’s siblings, had begun. They were the ones who had bought the presents and only they knew what they were, being a magic-boosting crown, a shirt that gave the wearer wings, and a non-magical book. That, and Amicitia’s new species pretty much guaranteed that the bright gold blob was a chrysalis of some kind, and the golden light they all saw was magical.

But while discussing the analysis and thoughts on how to get Ami out of her chrysalis, the investigators were interrupted by more booming, much louder than before, and this time it was coming from inside the rooftop access, but more concerning was how the ground was shaking from whatever was making that sound.

Before anyone could do more than turn their attention to the building’s doors, a small beam of yellow light shot down from the sky and struck the chrysalis, which immediately started glowing before it suddenly cut out.

The figure inside had disappeared, and the booming had stopped.

Then the rooftop access doors slammed open, revealing a blue metal gynoid in a flimsy robe, and an angry red skull and crossbones on her forehead.

She paid her audience no mind as she jumped and landed right in front of the golden blob, before staring straight up.

The captain waited a bit, processing everything that had happened in less than five minutes and squaring it with everything she knew.

The yellow lights probably had something to do with Amicitia, who’s apparently some kind of Magical Hacker/Pirate, since set off Ubiquity. That hacking was likely why something her parents are riding the elevator up instead of teleporting, and that latest flash of light matches Ami’s own teleportation. Lastly, she probably went up.

And she can still shoot, if the beams of magical yellow light raining down from the sky were any indication. But given how they were being dodged by Ubiquity… But more accurately than before, thankfully.

And no one’s broken a leg yet. Good.

While her ship’s AI was being shot at, the captain just waited for her handmaiden to return.

“Well, she’s several dozen miles up, and falling slower than normal. I’ll bet she’s flying on butterfly wings.”, came the voice of Redwood, her husband’s male apprentice.

“Oh that’s wonderful! That means it worked!”, Merry Bargain said with the pride of a well-made purchase.

“Yes, but what about the ship? Ubiquity can’t dodge for much longer, since my present worked too! … Oh, I see. You predicted this, didn’t you, Captain?” Dangerous Bargain asked with measured calm.

“Enough.”, the captain said, clearly referring to the veracity of her predictions.

“So…”, Dangerous dragged the word out until Ubiquity jumped off the ship. “What do we do now?“

“Dinner.” she said, before continuing. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to mourn the sacrifice of a friend for the future.” before turning and walking to where Ubiquity jumped off, while her husband entered the Mini-Sanctuary, and returned with the dinner trays on carts, being helped by her handmaiden and her handmaiden’s husband.

“Mom! Dad!” cried the Bargains, who went to hug their parents, leaving the serving duties to the Captain’s husband, and his apprentices.

After being hugged, the birthday girl’s mother noticed someone missing and started looking around. “Where’s Ami?”

Her son’s hand brushed past his hair, as tan as his father’s skin, as he pointed upwards in the right direction.

“What? How?”

“My wing shirt!”, Merry joyfully stated. “Well, hers, now.”

Their father, experienced magical flier that he was, activated his own wings and gathered dark magic in his claws. “So, when will she come down? And how long does it last?”

The “Oh.” that answered him was everyone’s signal to step back as he gripped the air and tore open a portal to swallow him up, sending him high above, in the hope of saving his daughter.