Generation Antihero - Shorts

You're a mean one, Mister Grinch

Two days later, their night lacked of jobs. Henry took a look out the window: "Could it be that the networks are just down because of the blizzard?". Zigz almost had his certification as he tapped around his phone display aggressively: "Phone lines are dead for sure! Can't even talk to my daughters!". Ilus offered once more: "You have my full approval to take the next days off and visit them". Zigz immediately refused: "No way! My little unborn is supposed to be born in the coming weeks! I won't miss out!". "There are still four weeks left", Henry objected. "Listen. In my family line we always were born earlier than the doctors expected. There is no way in hell I am going to take that risk", he remained stubborn. From the phone sounded with an awful rustle: "Da-...ad?". "Yes, Rachel, my honey bee. I'm here. Our connection's terrible", nervously he walked across the room.

Dexter suggested: "I don't mean to cut your income, but how about we drop the work for tonight? It's too dangerous anyway to be driving on the streets. We wanted to bake cookies and start a snowball fight". "Guess you're right", Ilus mumbled, "It's not the most comforting thought to just cut off work, but-". Koi objected loudly: "Work ist extremely important, Chef". Henry fought against that by putting his arms around Ilus' body: "Leaning back together is way cuddlier...". Puffing Koi punched the table: "That's not fair!". "If you want to, then you can keep trying to gain missions. Seattle has a different climate than Los Angeles, we all need to get used to that still. Nobody forces you to do anything. But for the rest of us, we're headed for the kitchen. Baking-time, boys!", Ilus called out and they carefully jostled past the mistle toe.

The main hall fell almost dead silent. Koi was the only one left sitting there. Lucky observed him from the stairs. In a sour tone Koi snarled: "I know you're there. I'm fine. Just join the others". "Instead of beating each other up with fists, shall we throw snow at our faces for a change?", he spoke past it. -"I'll pass". He came downstairs and walked up to the empty pine tree. Afterwards, he grabbed an ornament from the box and hung it up on a branch.

In the following, he turned to Koi and raised another ornament: "Isn't it boring like that? How about something DIY, not bought?". "Knock yourself out", Koi stared at his laptop screen. After a short trip to the kitchen, Lucky returned with a long thread, needle, popcorn and cranberries: "When I saw this for the first time here in the USA, I thought it was pretty ridiculous. Instead of hanging up tinsels and angel figurines, families decorated their trees with popcorn-cranberry strings and sugar canes. But I got the fun behind it. While crafting you also get to eat". He started tinkering the string together sitting beside Koi and flicked some popcorn into his mouth. "Wanna help? Might take a while", he asked. Giving in Koi joined Lucky.

As a while had passed, their own-made tinsel was long enough to be hung up on the tree. Koi picked up an ornament and threw it into the air multiple times: "You tryna convince me now to finish this thing with you?". "No, I want to convince you to stand up in a merciless snowball fight against me", he grinned at him. "Fine", he sighed and they walked outside, where Lucky didn't waste a second to attack his best friend. The fight got so serious that they even built actual protection walls and used real strategies. After an hour, Henry looked out of the window and noticed the battlefield. Before they were able to decorate their cookies, they had to cool down. So Henry called asking: "How about a cooling break?".

The men put on their jackets and ran outside to join the war. Through it different groups formed, which all fought against each other. The smallest one was "Wildcat", since that only consisted of Ilus and Henry. Not that many soldiers also had "Disney's Gummi Bears", made of Shark, Zigz, Dexter and Vanilla. Koi and Lucky were still enemies, both having members from second and third rank in their teams. Though Koi and his team "Battlecookies" had an advantage with Arrow, they also had Shota as an unexperienced disadvantage. While the "bombs" were flying, Lucky shouted: "Do the Battlecookies want to build an alliance with the Striker-Squad now?". For the fourth time Koi rejected: "Up until now and furthermore, I am going to yeet a snowball filled with rocks into your nuts!".

Disney's Gummi Bears leader Dexter came up with a plan: "Vanilla is going to take down both Wildcats. They practically don't go into offense at all and act like cowards. They either have to leave their hiding spot or surrender". Shark asked: "What if she goes down on field?". "She's fast, trust me", with those words he ordered his dog to run over Henry and Ilus. Both hid behind a car, their "munition" quickly ran out on the asphalt. Henry saw Vanilla running up and tricked her. The dog couldn't have understood what the situations was about. So she didn't deny being scratched by the Teddy. Ilus burst out laughing, picked her up and showed her triumphantly above the car roof: "We've aquired the dog! Thank you Dexter~". The owner felt defeated: "It was worth a try". Shark cracked his knuckles: "I don't think so". He built himself up and stormed the hideout of the Wildcats. Just seconds later screams were heard and Henry announced: "We've fallen!".

But Shark didn't return either, he was hit. Zigz put his hand on Dexter's shoulder: "Now it's just us two against the others. We have to think of something smart". Unexpectedly a shadow laid over them. Kiki smiled with a bucket full of snow: "Perhaps you need some refilling, start with this". From the Striker-Squad came complaints: "That's rigged! Pregnants aren't allowed to ally!". Zigz jumped up in defense: "You go get yourself a wife first and then-". He got a snowball right into his face and was therefore out. Dexter eyed him viciously: "Thank you for your long lasting support".

In this moment of distraction Shota wanted to risk it all and ran down the rampart of Striker-Squad with a load of snowballs. Lucky remained with T-Bone left in his team, after getting Shota out last second. "Dude, you killed my brother!", Koi accused him. Shortly Lucky jumped out of hiding and stuck his tongue out: "Suck it up!". Just in time he ducked down from an attack. T-Bone looked at Lucky trusting: "Now it's all or nothing. I'll have to try the same as Primer did. You can put your trust in me, Commander". Lucky put a hand on his own chest and nodded proudly: "We hardly worked for men like you". They saluted each other.

The Battlecookies looked around on edge. Arrow slapped his knees: "They're plotting something evil right now, darnit!". Koi clenched his fists: "Then we'll try to look through them. Improvise. Adapt. Overcome". The ones who fell in the war, went back inside to garnish the cookies. At some point Teddy heard from outside T-Bone shouting: "Attaaaaaaack!". He ripped down Battlecookie's rampart and most of it's fighters. Arrow just barely dodged and could run. But they knocked each other out simultaneously.

That was also the way it was agreed, almost. Koi unnoticeably disappeared into the other direction. And actually he thought that Arrow had managed to defeat Lucky as planned. So he jumped up in victory when the battlefield went silent. Just at that he was hit by Lucky with a snowball to his heart. Over-dramatically he touched his chest and first crashed to his knees, then fell on his back. Grinning and with his hands on his hips Lucky stood right above him: "You really think you could win against someone who's served in military? You may be as smart as you want, but at the end of the day I made the experience".

Weakly Koi reached his hand out to him: "You're right, I can't beat you, my dear friend". In honor Lucky accepted his hand: "I pray for the snow-goddesses of Valhalla to embrace you kindly". Though Koi smirked mischieviously: "I may not be able to defeat you, but somebody else is". Right after Dexter hopped onto a car's roof and shot one snowball right at Lucky's back head: "A true soldier also doesn't forget the very last enemy on the field! Revenge for Disney's Gummi Bears!".

Conquered Lucky closed his eyes and huffed. At least it made Koi laugh. Lucky made him an offer of peace: "You wanna go eat some cookies now?". He pulled him up from the ground and Koi patted the snow off his clothes: "Alright".