With the Dragon pursuing me down the time tunnel, Mark faced the reality that his bold plan had just doomed Mankind even worse than it had already been doomed. God, what was I to do?
Keep fighting. He did not hear the words, but they came to him anyways. And, while it was his nature, as the Hidden Miner, who never gives in, still, it was reassuring. Better still was the physical event that happened next as its easier to trust what you see than what you should.
"Ho,ho, ho! I'm back." Santa cried from next to Mark in the front seat and the Sleigh mended itself, and sped faster.
"What? How?"
"You've travelled back in time before I evaporated off to the Silver City. So I'm at the North Pole, and I sense my Sleigh in my garage, and off doing something weird, and I want to be there, and so I am. Christmas magic, don'tcha know? And once I get here, I remember what happened. Which means I'm in three places right now. On the Sleigh travelling back in time, on Earth, and in Heaven. Ho, ho, ho!" He boisterously laughed, and they both heard Zirmondo the Dragon roar behind us in apparent outrage at this turn of the cards.
Mark sorrowfully Santa about the mistake, and with a twinkle in his eye, Santa rubbed Mark's head with one mittened hand.
"Not to worry." And then he cries, 'On Dasher, on Blitzen, on Comet, on Cupid..." And Mark saw as he smiled that the eight reindeer are back. They have travelled far enough back in time before the reindeer were killed. With them, the sleigh and its three riders streak even faster, and they hear the Dragon's panting breath dropping furhter behind as it struggles to keep up. He is bleeding magic, and straining muscle and sinew, but with eight reindeer the heroic tro can go eight times the speed of light, which relates to travel in a time tunnel in a way that passed Mark's comprehension by a lightyear other than to say that it means they are much faster than the Dragon.
"Get in the backseat with Biggie." He ordered, and so Mark did. Biggie looked perplexed to see Mark stand on him, but it did not bother the iron elemental whose skin could shrug off bullets with calibres that began with four.
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"Now for a little fancy driving." They went up, and Mark could see the whole curve of the Earth below us. The Dragon strove mightily bleeding off experience points to catch them, and suddenly the Sleigh left him far behind. The trio whipped around Europe, and over Asia in less time than it takes to tell it, and Mark realized Santa had been flying slow to keep the Dragon on them. They soared in orbit past the Pacific, and came up behind Zirmondo who had finally reached orbit.
"Lightblast him." It was not Mark's greatest spell, but it did have range. So he sent his stored Lightblast V at the Dragon, or more specifically at where intuition thought his face would be once he turned to look back at the Sleight as they were slowing dreadfully. Radiant energies of a small star gathered about his right fist, and then FLASH. Hopefully I had not triggered a nuclear war by freaking out the people below us. With the Nail with me, he could avoid oscillating time loops of the Youngian variety, but that also meant he could significantly rewrite history for the worse.
Zirmondo did as expected. Brilliant photons in their trillions sliced into the right side of his face, and dumped energy into his optical nervous system so that his whole body spasmed. The Sleigh zipped past, and Biggie threw out some more spell mines which Mark had gifted him to get the +10% Santa's Gift Bonus at Zirmondo before they heard Santa pray.
"Bootlegger turn, O God of Mercy, let...." He spun the Sleigh, and without more ado, both Biggie and Mark were flung out of the back seat as Christmas magic no longer held them in. Falling backwards, the duo saw the Sleigh skid all over the section of sky, and the reindeer nearly tangle themselves up in three dimensions before it all got straightened out, and with a great shout, Santa roared past the Dragon, and headed toward the Moon. The spell mines went off, causing more damage, and a somewhat battered Dragon with a roar of hate set out after the Sleight. Leaving Biggie and Mark behind unnoticed as they fell backward into Earth's gravity well.
