Maids of Might

[Mikachu Yukitatsu]

MAIDS OF MIGHT

Maids of Might is based on a 50-paged cartoon drawn by Mikachu Yukitatsu in 2004. In turn, that's based on Mikachu's own fantasy world that developed inside the head of the writer since 1999. That world reminds of J.R.R. Tolkien's fantasy world, except that for instance dragons are in a bit more centered role and it has plenty of influences from Japanese pop art as well. According to the back cover text of Maids of Might comic, ”Maids of Might is located in a fantasy world, where castles reach up to skies, magic has no limitations and the names of characters aren't controlled by even the grammatical rules of Finnish or Japanese.”.

Chapter 1



Lüxiong threw three dice and got 24 as a result. ”Champions attack and deal 3290 damage!” she quickly calculated. ”Well thrown, Lüxiong! The rest of Royal Griffins die!” praised Hanakasumi. Lüxiong took the Champions, Royal Griffins and the rest of her playmarks from the battle game board. ”What does Atsunami-chan say now? Savonlinna belongs to Russians now!” she asked. Atsunami, Hanakasumi's little sister, had a relaxed approach to the defeat. She knew that one lost city in the strategy game ”Heroes of Ruåtsi-Suomi” mattered nothing when you considered the entire map.

”I'll be there shortly, with Väinämöinen and her Gold Dragons...” Atsunami said. Huangying, Lüxiong's little sister, joined the three girls. ”One hundred may be enough for Russia, but what about the Darkness itself?” Huangying commented. ”That game of ours is nothing compared to those wars that have raged on these lands, too!” she kept on.

Hanakasumi and Lüxiong had read history the furthest, as the oldest of the group. They knew to tell that men, elves and dwarves had always warred not only against each other but also against a common enemy. Atsunami and Huangying could see the mountains, castles, meadows and waterways of Keskustan Maat, when they listened to the tales of their elder sisters.

”1206 years ago, on the 8th year of Empress Miaochen's era, a battle was fought in the west, on the other side of Itämeri. A battle called 'Kaikista Karkein Taistelu'.” Hanakasumi quoted a history book she had read. "The evil fled from Keskustan Maat back there, but now it has risen again. The Dark Lord Morkoth of Hämärä Kingdom grows orcs and other creatures to his said and more and more are rising from the hopeless lands."



"Maybe Morkoth could lose his ability to fight if we two marched across Tuhka Mountains all the way to Dark Towers and bewitched the Great Eye with our gorgeous beauty!" Hanakasumi joked leaning to Lüxiong.

But in the girls' homeland, Auringonnousu Mountains, there had been seen creatures, that really weren't on the side of men, elves, dwarves or orcs. All of them confronted dragons time after time, not knowing that these creatures suffered from neverending wars, too. But Morkoth wasn't afraid of using the means to get wicked men or other nations on his side. He could even capture smaller dragons and then blackmail their parents.

[Mikachu Yukitatsu]

Chapter 2



In any case, it were Atsunami, Huangying, Lüxiong and Hanakasumi who already at a young age encountered dragons in Auringonnousu Mountains and realized one could make friends with them. Dragons weren't enemies unless they were hurt first. During the following four years the girls grew up to be maids and trained 12 dragons. On one autmn day, Atsunami and Huangying chose the dragons Feng and Yun and prepared to set on a journey across Itämeri to Keskustan Maat, in order to join the troops fighting against the Hämärä Lord.



Lüxiong and Hanakasumi hugged their sisters for goodbyes. "Take care of yourselves and each other!" Lüxiong said. "Thanks! You and Hanakasumi are the best sisters to us - and the only ones!" answered Huangying.

On the following day, also Hanakasumi and Lüxiong went on different ways. Lüxiong would stay and teach training dragons where they lived and Hanakasumi would head towards the Eastern wilderness. She promised to return next spring with a dragon from Ylittämätön Mountains with her.

Lüxiong looked as Hanakasumi flew Yue the dragon to the horizon. All of a sudden she heard a supernatural voice from the nearby forest. It was as if all trees had an ability to speak to her. Lüxiong remembered an ancient tale according to which the world was controlled by four elements Wood, Fire, Metal and Ice representing the four main cardinal points of the compass. But she didn't have time to think more.

A big tree near the girl extended its branches towards her and stripped her upper dress. Lüxiong tried to fight back punching and kicking, but when one branch was bent or cut, another grew instead. Then the branches surrounded the maiden, whose black hair, extending all the way under her bottom already, grew about six times as long and was colored white. Next, Tree gave the maiden a divine green kimono and a sword about two times as long as a regular sword. Lüxiong did have practiced fencing with the other girls but a sword like this could only be used by a goddess. "Now you are a Goddess on earth!" The voice of the Tree claimed. "One with all the trees, Lüyong Chunxiong!"

[Mikachu Yukitatsu]

Chapter 3



Chapter 3

A battle was about to begin in the plains between Tuhka Mountains and Teräs Mountains. People were fighting against the army of Hämärä Lord, which mainly consisted of orcs. All of a sudden, one young soldier noticed something, "Two dragons in the eastern horizon!" he informed. "I wonder whose side they are on?" he added. "Klagaest, Dör and Hurunf are in special missions in the north! Sorcerer Lingär took Thoomt to the west and Conwë, Longbää and Emgas died when the elves tried to defend Himgrond! We have never had more of them!"another fighter could tell. "Ready the spearthrower!" yelled somebody.

Also the orcs paid attention on Feng and Yun. "Seems like two dragons attacking in our rear from the northeast!" one of them shouted. "Lämring and Gundeena are in Dark Towers, and I haven't been informed that Zobrik could battle anymore! Our lord has never got more to his armies!" another one told. "Ready the catapult!" an order was heard.

Atsunami and Huangying flew high in the sky, both of them on their own dragon. "The orcs have only six catapults!" noted Huangying. "That's enough for shooting us down and those can be reloaded quickly! We have to keep an eye on that folk so they won't predict our moves!" warned Atsunami. When they arrived about in the middle of the battlefield, they started to fire the girls from both directions. "Why are they firing us from northewest, too?" wondered Huangying.

Some of the soldiers fighting against the orcs were confused as well. "I could swear that the orcs are bombing those dragons too!" said one of them. "Emperor Mingtian did say that he'd send help..." said another soldier. ""But Lingär visited Auringonnousu Mountains in 1020, and didn't find a tameable companion to Thoomt!"



Then a spear pierced Yun the dragon and it dropped Atsunami from its back. "Yun! Atsu!" Huangying shrieked. "Let's save Atsunami, Feng!" she commanded her dragon and they hooked down. But Huanying could never catch her target because a catapult bomb hit Feng and it couldn't fly properly, as for now. The rain of arrows. spears, bombs and stones continued from below and Feng left to wander towards west with Huangying still on its back.

Atsunami fell right into a vulcano, which suddenly errupted and threw lava. The qipao (a type ofchinese costume) Atsunami was wearing burned to ashes and also her sword melted, but the maiden herself didn't get a single burn on her body. On the foot of the mountain, there was a crack, where she came out along the flow of lava. "How on earth did I survive from that ocean of fire?" Atsunami wondered. "You fell into a vulcano and survived, because soon you'll be fire yourself, too, Atsunami!" the voice said. Right there, fire and lava rose from the lake of fire directly to the maid and a kimono was dressed on her and her hair got enormously longer and was colored blue. The voice kept on. "You're an invincible warrior of fire, Atsunatsu Namiminami!"

[Mikachu Yukitatsu]

Chapter 4

The wounded Feng wandered towards Misti Mountains with Huangying on its back. A sharp-eyed party of two wizards and two elves noticed the dragon. "A dragon in the northeast within quarter hour!" an elf informed. "Apparently it has been had from a catapult!"

"Can we stop it, Master Wege?" asked one of the wizards, named Karuman. "Yes,we can, all we have to do is to be EXACT! s = vt!" replied Wege, produced pen and paper and began to tell one of his tales.

"It's like this... we just count the time and place from which the ray must be shot. Have I told about Smaug before? Have I told about Smaug? Bilbo Baggins who visited its mountain. But Smaug yelled at him. Later, when I spoke with Bilbo, he said: 'I won't go to a dragon's cave another time!' That's how he said!" chatted Wege, who had distinguished himself in teaching mathematics and physics.



"They are the laws of Newton that rule here." Wege lifted his magic wand. "Then you cast a spell like this, this here, this here!" The beam hit the dragon and Huangying was dropped. "Kalle the third-year-old knows this magic too!" But then the elf noticed something. "I think I'm hearing a voice of a woman! Did that dragon have a passenger?" He wondered. "This is not what was supposed to happen! Cast an invulnerability spell, Karuman!" Wege commanded his comrad.

But Karuman just couldn't. "No, not that way! No use!" Wege criticized. He aimed a beam at the falling Huangying. "But the invulnerability spell is not worse than this!"

[Mikachu Yukitatsu]

Chapter 5

Huangying, the target of the invulnerability spell, was puzzled. Wege's magic always had some side effects. All of a sudden the maid started feeling as if she was in a phyisics or a mathematics lesson and complex formulas were thrown before her. But at the same time there was a homey and safe feeling, as if an old friend told funny stories. Also, an odor of shaving lotion was felt strong in the nose.

Then, Huangying reached the ground falling into a pile of rocks, but didn't die. Not even a scratch. Huangying rose from the base of the pile and left for investigating the surroundings. Suddenly she felt somebody grabbing the maiden's neck. The one who grabbed was one of two ogres, who had been following her. "Höhöö! You're busted!" said the ogre who had grabbed the maiden, named Köts. Köts had a dagger in his left hand. "Öö... hey?" Huangying tampered. "Play nice, so we won't kill you!" One of the ogres started. "Or at least we could have some fun with you while you're still alive!" The other completed.



"Ahaa, you two are those Misti Mountains ogres!" Huangying figured out. "You got it right! Now, Goch!" Köts adviced. Laughing, Goch tore off the qipao-like cloth Huangying was wearing. "Boys! We didn't even have time to get to know each other!" Huangying exclaimed. The maiden dissolved the ogre's grip. "I'm so sorry, but I'm not sure if I can please you enough!" Huangying said. "Hähää! Sweet breasts!" commented Goch. "Thanks for the compliment!" said Huangying and kicked Goch. "I bet I have other nice places, too, which you'd like to taste! OK, there you go!"

The girl hit and kicked both of the ogres on the ground. Then an ogre mage arrived. "Appease that Amazon!" Köts yelled at him. The ogre mage drew a small, poisoned sword and stung it through Huangying's pelvis! "After this sting you'll first scream for quarter hour and then you'll die!" the mage told. But that didn't have an effect on the maiden, and Master Wege's invulnerability spell probably did have worn off. "Shouldn't you have become paralyzed from pelvis downwards?" wondered Goch. "Well that's exactly what I'm wonding, too!" admitted Huangying. "Just as if this steel assimilated into me!" Then the maiden fell on the ground. "In fact, it's like all the metals of the mountains assimilated into me!" she noticed. "Aluminium, gold, iron, silver, copper, uranium, titanium, platinum, every one of them!"

And then Huangying got a beautiful kimono and a sword at least two meters long. Her dark hair rose 12 times as long and changed their color to yellow and a voice was heard. "You're an Immortal Metal Maiden! Huangjin Qiuying!"

[Mikachu Yukitatsu]

Chapter 6

Without knowing of this all Hanakasumi explored the wilds of Ylittämättömät Vuoret frontier. She had just discovered a hot spring. The maiden decided she's deserve a bath in the spring, took off her clothes and went swimming. "Isn't the water warm! I feel like reborn!" the maiden stated.



All of a sudden, the sun set and northern lights appeared in the sky. Northern wing started blowing and even the heat of the hot spring began to cease strangely. Hanakasumi was just in time out of the spring before it froze over. The wind captured the maiden and she rose towards northern lights crying from the cold. But soon she didn't cry anymore. Hanakasumi's short hair crew at least 24 times as long as it was and was also colored red. She received a blue kimono and got a sword in her hand, almost 2 meters long. "From this on, you'll be the Priestess of Ice - or rather a Goddess!!" declared a voice. "Fuyuhana Yukikasumi!"

[Mikachu Yukitatsu]

Chapter 7

Two ships sailed across the northern Itämeri. The commander, a maiden elf dressed in a pink kimono, discussed with other officers. "Commander Hailan!" she was addressed. "Summer clothes? This cargo is supposed to be delivered to the dwarves of Pohjoisnavan Linnake?"

"I guess that's so!" admitted commander Hailan. "But during my whole career of 200 years I have never got a stranger commission from the traffic council!" Right there, entire icebergs appeared ahead the ship. "Icebergs! We haven't seen those things here before!" yelled a lookout. "Course back!" ordered Hailan.

In one forest near the coast swarmed an assorted bandit gang. "So nobody will really notice when we cut these trees and move them away?" a small orc wondered. "Yes, but we'll be far away then already!" another orc replied.

But when the first tree was cut, also the troll who cut it was cut. In her green kimono, Lüyong Chunxiong walked among the gang brandishing her long sword and hitting bandits. "Don't you know that the trees are hurt when you cut them without waiting?" she asked.

One of the bandits, a sturdy ogre, raised a tree at least 10 times bigger than himself, along with its roots from the ground and threw it towards Lüyong. But the goddess directed her hands towards the flying tree and began growing its branches with her magic while it was flying at her. The extra branches obeyed Lüyong's handsigns and the tree landed so that the branches didn't hit the maiden.



At the same time, Hailan's troop arrived in the forest; they had heard the orcs roaring all the way to the bank. The orcs tried to escape but the men of the traffic council stopped them. "You'll be sent to a prison camp for disgracing the forest of sacred trees!" one warrior informed. Lüyong Chunxiong disappeared in the shades of the forest.

[Mikachu Yukitatsu]

Chapter 8



Kännalf the wizard had received a call to the elf queen. He bowed before the talking queen. "The dragon Master Wege stopped turned out to be cooperative. This could prove itself as a new twist in the war. You, wizard Kännalf, We have a joy to explore the mines ogres took over from dwarves and the possibilities to win them back!"

"Thy most modest servant, O the most beauteous of elven queens!" said Kännalf. So he strolled to the mountains and unsealed the ancient gate of the dwarves. It was pitch-dark inside the cave, and he went deeper and deeper. Kännalf figured out the ogres were somewhere deeper celebrating something, since he didn't spot a single one. But soon a hobbits' pipe-weed was smelled, which our wizard felt very peculiar.

But soon it turned out from where the smoke came from. In one corner, there was sitting a tiny hobbit smoking a pipe. "Good morning, wizard!" the hobbit, also known as a halfing, greeted, and offered his other pipe. "Erm... wouldn't you happen to know where the ogres are hiding?" Kännalf inquired from the hobbit. "I just got separated from my gang when we were running away from them, and I completely lost my sense of direction!" the hobbit complained.

"A real labyrinth! I'll continue my journey!" the wizard confirmed. "Okay, so shall I as well!" the hobbit stated, being left there smoking the pipe.

Kännalf kept on wandering, strengthening himself with a song.

Je suis le vieux druide mysterieux
I'm the mystical old bard
En mon voyage à travers l' obscurité
On my journey through the dark
Beaucoup de chansons j'ai ecrit...
Many songs I have written...

He didn't have time to finish the stanza, but stumbled upon rocks and swooped into an underground lake. The wizard swam to the shore and noticed a familiar fellow in the distance.



The hobbit, already met by Kännalf, was now sitting and playing cards with a slender, ragged, big-eyed creature. It was Lollum, who was a halfing once. "Kas! Kännalf! Well met!" shouted the hobbit. "Who's there, my precious? LOL! It shall join in with us, if it's not a friend of ogres!" Lollum mumbled. Kännalf walked closer.

"LOL! I grew hungry when hitting cards!" Lollum stated, and Kännalf's expression changed to hasty. "Calm down, Lollum eats only..." the hobbit began. "What comes to my mind! LOL!" Lollum interrupted him. "Alive without breath, as cold as death," Lollum said. "...fish!" the hobbit managed to finish his statement, and that was also the correct answer to Lollum's riddle.

"Now the hobbit asks? LOL! What will it ask, precious? What askss?" Lollum was curious. "What do I have in my pocket?" asked the hobbit. "What does it have in its pocket! Easy! The ring of power! We lost it. But it isn't safe to be with it in the pocket. LOL! If the ogres capture you, no good!" Lollum warned. Right there, Kännalf stopped the game. "The ring! That's enough! Hand the ring to me or else...." he threatened the hobbit and Lollum. "Be careful! Ogres may hear!" warned the hobbit. "They may come well!" Kännalf menaced. "I'll kill them all, so that the dwarves may continue mining!" Then Lollum remembered something. "Oh, so it was." he said. "Here lives a fellow... cute, but impetuous. Says that gold and other metals belong here, dark, beneath the mountains..." the creature told. "There it is already! LOL!" Lollum pointed at the passage.



Indeed, the passage was filled with light, due to the goddess, with a blade almost 2 meters long and a violet kimono. Kännalf raised his voice.

"Kas! Behold! Vihulainen! An enemy! Une ennemie! The queen only ordered me to explore, but her proud attributes have overcome her words to me, thus, shall I dive to the path of victory earned with pain and defeat bittered by blood! Here I stand, Kännalf, a great wizard, and CETTE LUTTE-CI, ELLE EST COMMENCÉ..."

"Well... en fait, à qui est-ce que tu parles? Who are you actually talking to?" the hobbit felt. "LOL! Strange!" Lollum said. "And doesn't 'commencer' use 'avoir' in perfect tense?" it wondered.

"...PAR MOI!" stopped Kännalf the sentence and hit ground with his staff. "Ahaa! He's using the agent passive!" Lollum realized and run below the stones with the hobbit. Kännalf's magic spell blew up a few mountains around them.

"I wonder if I got too excited..." wondered the wizard, when something fell before him among some rocks. "Haa! The Ring Of Power!" Kännalf took the ring to his hand. "This should probably be taken to DOOM-Mountain... but I would still like to test what powers it has... some rings of power turn their bearers invisible, while others..." until the ring half-accidentally slipped into the wizard's finger.

Kännalf felt like he was thrown into another reality. Before the wizard, a black wall was opened, a wall with blue and white text within rectanglular boxes. In addition, above everything, a big text was glowing: "RINGFORUMS!" and a smaller text. "Welcome back, Kännalf, you have 0 PMs." Kännalf noticed he could move the cursor reminding of an arrow and clicked one of the rectangles with it. Kännalf pressed his way to the thread or topic, if you will, where folk was discussing Peter Jackson's LOTR movies.

A user named Toleration had written a long article about his opinions and another notable member was Mikachu Yukitatsu, who had 1809 messages. A user named Erebor Smaug, on the other hand, had a funny dragon avatar and he had a short comment Kännalf liked. Kännalf decided to answer and pressed the button Post Reply. "Cool! I can write my opinions for thousands of people to read!" the wizard rejoiced. Soon he got his first message posted.



"LOLz well said, Erebor! Indeed " Below there was a handsome signature, a picture of Kännalf with a ring of power in his finger.

"LOL! 1337!" Kännalf was away with the fairies. "What a feeling of power! 1337! Must post more! ROFL! LOL! Must post! 1337!!!! LOL!" But then he saw a message "Internal Server Error" and the ring slipped out.

Huangjin Qiuying crushed the ring with her sword. "The ring has been destroyed! I've been banned! I'm no longer a slave of the ring!" Lollum rejoiced.

Meanwhile, in the dark towers of realm of Hämärä, Hämärän Hallitsija Morkoth and his advisor negotiated which one of them should go out to give a speech to the orcs. Morkoth decided to go, but he faced his doom outside. An elven warrior was awaiting there and shot him with a bewitched bow and arrows. "Now I'm the new Hämärän Hallitsija!" the advisor celebrated. "It doesn't matter that Kännalf, Lollum and Huangjin destroyed the rinf!! I have these ones to share!" he continued and he had at least six power rings per finger in his hand.



"But it will still take hundreds of years before I can start the greatest, final battle, where I crush Keskustan Valtakunnat and Auringonnousun Keisarikunta!! Before that, I'll have to gather enormous armies! The ice desert has spred during the last ten years widely, and my nearest enemies will get stronger, when northern nations will have to leave their cold homes, northern nations like first and foremost... the dwarves of Pohjoisnavan Linnake!"

[Mikachu Yukitatsu]

Chapter 9

Indeed, in the north pole, a white fortress was located with its blue-peaked towers.



Just now, a couple of dwarves were sitting inside one of the towers. "Nights are colder than before. On the same night, when Vähävuoret were struck by that awful blizzard and the late frost took the crop from our fields, our scouts raported they saw something odd in the mountains!" one of them started.

"They were too freezing to tell you more precisely, but later it turned out that they had seen some maiden dancing on the snow! It was a human or an elf and she was wearing a kimono! So not one of local folks!" the other kept on.

"So a woman... I hope it's not a which again! Like that... Niiskunoita!" one was afraid already. "Yeah! She wasn't a nice aquitance!" the other agreed. Niiskunoita spoke only Swedish.

Dö nu! Som i Stockholm, där äter svenskar alltid korv och dricker mineralvatten!
Die now! Like in Stockholm, where Swedes always eat sausages and drink mineral water!
Men varför är ni so rädd? Vart kan ni åka?
But why are you so afraid? Where can you go?
Varför lyssnar Sveriges Riksdag på statsminisrtern?
Why does the parliament of Sweden listen to the prime minister?

Thus had Niiskunoita yelled at them.



In any case, one of the dwarves strongly thought that the accident should be investigated, no matter the cost. He managed to gather an expedition and their way went through a forest towards the mountains. The sleet turned into snow and though the dwarves were deep in the forest, the wind just felt stronger and stronger.



Then they saw Fuyuhana Yukikasumi. The cold radiated from the maiden and when she turned over to look at the dwarves they shivered even more. "She certainly is a sorceress, who turns us all into icicles!" shouted one of the dwarves. So the dwarves attacked the maiden. But nobody managed to do a single scratch on Fuyuhana, who, in turn, constantly hit the weapons out of the numb dwarf hands, and dodged attacks smoothly. Eventually, one of the dwarves came up with using a primitive flamethrower they had brought with them. The dwarf directed that at Fuyuhana and the maiden fainted.

The dwarves stopped the fire and noticed much to their surprise that Fuyuhana still radiated cold although she just was in flames. "Let's dress her up with this so she won't grow numb!" a dwarf who was carrying a kind of quilted kimono, notified.



The blizzard ended, however, and the dwarves took the unconscious maiden to the fortress. Later, blizzard started again and it was tickening again when the dwarven king was asking his henchmen about the condition of the maiden. "How's the maiden doing?" the king asked. "She's waking up, but still can't talk." a dwarf replied. The king asked him to fetch the girl.

"Where am I?" asked Fuyuhana Yukikasumi, seeing the dwarven king. "Welcome to Pohjoisnavan Linnake!" the king informed. "I'll present my apologies! We could go for a walk in our kingdom, if it wasn't so cold!"

"Cold?" wondered Fuyuhana. Suddenly, the king started to feel enormous cold and thought it was due to a poor central heating, while the maiden felt almost too hot. The heat kept rising, as the king offered the girl a cup of hot chocolate. "N-no thanks!" the maiden stammered. Then the king went and hugged the maiden in order to warm her with his body. "But you are icy! Servants! Come here to put more fur on her! HRRR!" the dwarf shivered. "Nnnooo!!!!! I feel so hot!" the maiden wailed in turn.



Servants came to the room to get the maid dressed. However, warm clothes burned Fuyuhana like fire and she darted out. The strong wind blew inside the tower and froze over the dwarves. Fuyuhana, on the other hand, felt a gentle cool breeze and took off the unnecessary winter clothes the dwarves had given to her. A white dragon flew in the frozen sky and the maiden spotted her sword. It had been in the hand of a guardian, already frozen.

[Mikachu Yukitatsu]

Chapter 10



A great battle had begun in Teräsvuoret. 510 years had passed since Emperor Mingtian died and both Hämärän Hallitsija and the free people of Keskustan Valtakunnat and distinguished themselves in dragon training. A few thousand dwarves, a couple of ten thousand elves, over 10,000 men, hundreds of wizards from different nations, hundreds of thousands of orcs and ogres, lots of nameless different creatures, hobbits, and of course, about 300 dragons on both sides.



Young warriors belonging to the men of western nations, Fölkhy, Juppei and Pottari would get their baptism of fire in this battle. They had almost a nonchalant attitude to the upcoming effort and did some chit-chat, which irritated the commander of their battallion, Dumle, a great deal. "Quiet in the row!" Dumle shouted. It didn't seem to work.

"I had a drean about a motorcycle last night!" Pottari told. "What on earth is that?" Fölkhy wondered. "I dreamt of Hypno last night. It's a Psychic Pokemon. In addition I had Reshiram in the dream, a legendary Dragon/Fire type Pokemon." Fölkhy boasted. "Pokemon don't exist!" Dumle said. "I had a dream of Father Christmas. It's a pity that we have to fight on Christmas time." Juppei told. "Father Christmas doesn't exist!" Dumle was able to say, but at the same time, he noticed that at least Juppei was hinting that he knew something about the battle.

When the battallion arrived, the fight was already in action. Dragons toasted each other and spit ice over each other, and other beams, depending on what type they were, and of course, also the land forces got their share, whatever the dragons threw from their mouths. Dwarves yelled in their own languages and the eleves sang when the heads of orcs and wicked men flew. There was about the same amount of men on each side and there didn't seem to be an end to the slaughtering.



All of a sudden, a voice was heard from the sky. "Is there some nice orcs around here?!?" A mysterious man was standing on a giant airship pulled by reindeer and the man was dressed in red, and he had a long beard, a megaphone and a telescope. The deck of the airship was swarming with creatures resembling Christmas elves, gnomes or gremlins dressed in blue and red. "Usually naughty people won't be given presents in Christmas, but perhaps we could hand those people at least something!" Father Christmas stated. "Jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle all the way, the white flakes of winter, they keep raining happily" he was singing.

A small present package was dropped from the airship right in front of Juppei. Juppei got excited and ripped up the packet. But it was a trap. Juppei was kicked by a spring boot and also a grinning elf toy jumped from the package. "Commence the present rain!" commanded Father Christmas.



The Christmas elves obeyed the orders and poured bagfuls of presents on the armies. More armed Christmas gremlins hatched out of the packages. "Come here, we aren't afraid, gremlins are gonna whack you!" they sang.

Next, catapults of the airship were launched and bigger and bigger present packages flew in the air. On the ground, in the middle of all that chaos was standing, however, one long-bearded man who wasn't afraid.



"Enough!" the elderly person shouted. "Although I have a white cape and a beard, I'm nor Gandalf, nor Saruman..." he kept on. "But the REAL Father Christmas!" he declared and threw the white cape away. Also this Father Christmas was wearing a red uniform but it was a lot more elegant than the one of the commander of the airship. The more elegant Father Christmas picked one of the packets that were dropped, opened it and there was a jetpack. Laughing, Father Christmas ascended towards the airship.



"Gnomes! Listen to me! That man is an imposter!" Father Christmas shouted as he boarded the ship. "You fake!" he yelled and pulled off the beard of the fake Father Christmas. "Alright! The Christmas Eve is short, and we still have lots of villages to visit!" The real Father Christmas commanded the elves. "Draw inside the reindeer legion, check the time-slower device and ignite the jet engines!"

[Mikachu Yukitatsu]

Chapter 11



70 years had passed since 'The Battle Of Red Gremlins' and the leaders of men, elves and dwarves were having a meeting. "The enemy has again gathered an army, bigger than ever before." Blaz, the king of Aanort, started. "We do have a big and powerful alliance, but is that enough? In case we'll have a surprise attack by Hämärän Valtakunta, shall we be able to counter?" Kibbää, the admiral of Lekhie, was worried. "The armies are scattered and far apart, and we won't be able to gather sufficent troops quickly enough!" Fëadir, the elven queen of Bomrod, stated. "We do have powerful weapons, that enable even a large scale defence within a short notice, too!" Fëadir's colleague Goldeg calmed the folk down. Then one man stood up, resting his hands on the table.

"No! We must have reinforcements!" That was Svaragorn, the ruler of Dondor. "I'll get auxiliary troops from Tuonela!" he proclaimed. "But nobody has returned from that road alive!" Zias, the dwarven king sitting beside him, remarked. "I'm not asking just you to come with me, dwarf!" Svaragorn shrieked. "I'll only need 50 men, elves and dwarves for a search party!"



A couple of days later Svaragorn's troops already found the gate of Tuonela in Zanta desert. They all had heard what it would be like in Tuonela, eventhough nobody had come back. Afterlife would be dismal and inconsolable, they said. But a peculiar sight met Svaragorn, as his troop went through the gate.



Skeletons danced all kinds of dances from waltz to hip hop, skeletons played all sorts of instruments from trombones to keyboards and all the skeletons had dressed up colorfully, eventhough the clothes were quite ragged. "L' amour est un squelette..." sang one skeleton and a skeleton king, who looked like a rockstar, greeted Svaragorn.

Svaragorn greeted back but went straight to the point. "Er... could you help us in the battle against Hämärän Valtakunta?" he asked. "As if we should!" the skeleton king refused. "We have damned hard eternal party in this undead Tuonela!" he argumented. "We couldn't be less interested in your toy wars!" continued Matala Neiti, who sat aside the king.

[Mikachu Yukitatsu]

Chapter 12



Svaragorn and others never came back. Dondor fortress was about to be lost to the troops of Hämärän Hallitsija. "There's so many of them!" the men yelled at each other. "We'll have to retreat back to the castle! Mages and wizards, cover the back!" yelled Major Mayuri, who was fighting in the meadow in front of the castle.



One of the wizards was Mikayuta, dressed in a blue cape. He was shooting orcs and other monsters with magic spheres and bolts together with a red-haired sorceress he loved, MaaREIth.

"So we'll have to wait for reinforcements? How on earth shall we deal with those? Our bolts aren't effective enough!" said MaaREIth. "What about if we united our powers?" asked Mikayuta. "It won't quite succeed..." doubted MaaREIth. "Everything can't go as you want in life!" the girl kept on. "You will surely find someone one day!" he said to Mikayuta. "But I won't find someone just like you!" Mikayuta said. "Our magic spells alone are quite insufficent against the enemy sorcerers, but I still can sense some hidden power and determination in you!" the wizard kept on. "Should we try on second thought?" the red-haired beauty submitted. "If you allow me..." Mikayuta suggested.



In the middle of the battlefield, Mikayuta and MaaREIth, surrounded by enemy orcs and their weapons, hugged. A power field appeared around the couple, from which all the enemy arrows, swords and halberds, as well as other weapons, were yielded back. A while later, the power field widened and enemies began flying apart in the air. Next, powerful beams separated from MaaREIth and Mikayuta's field, destroying great armies. This was a change in the battle and as Alesk, the king of men, noticed the orcs were withdrawing, commanded the troops to pursuit.



The army of good elves, men, dwarves and dragons drove orcs and others all the way back to Hämärän Valtakunta, towards which the resistance, of course, tightened, worsened and hardened, though. Hämärän Hallitsija didn't give up and it seemed as if he had just lured good men, elves, dwarves and dragons into a trap between the mountains Tuhkavuoret.



All of a sudden, one vulcano began to act strangely. The erruption was massive and Atsunatsu Namiminami rose from the flames dressed up in a kimono. The figure of the maid spit fire and fire stones and growd, both orcs and men, fell like hay.

King Alesk got an idea. They gathered a small unit from the mightiest warriors and sent it with dragons to the towers of Hämärän Hallitsija. The fire maiden, in turn, continued her journey to the east, and at the same time, also Huangjin and Fuyuhana drew near to Auringonnousun Vuoret mountains, where Lüyong was waiting already. The maidens started fighting each other.



In the meantime, dragons reached the towers to notice that the towers endured dragon fire. The elite troops had to enter without them and inside, they saw that Hämärän Hallitsija had grown so big that he couldn't fit out of the door of the tower.



The maids kept on fighting, but all of a sudden, something returned to their mind across centuries. "It cannot be!" Hanakasumi dropped her sword. "Lüxiong, Huangying and Atsunami!" she cried out. "Impossible! As if I woke up from a thousand-year-dream!" said Atsunami and set down her sword. Also two other maidens got their memories back and they gave up their arms.



"We could have killed each other!" said Lüxiong as the four girls hugged for the joy of reunion. "I had forgotten everything, you, myself as well! The only word what circulated inside my mind, was 'Metal'!" Huangying described. "But now everything's well again!" rejoiced Hanakasumi.

Meanwhile, inside the Dark Towers, Hämärän Hallitsija exploded after battling for a while. The good troops and why not orcs as well had to hurry away, since the whole Hämärän Valtakunta was buried under the waves.



"Hämärän Hallitsija has been destroyed! Where shall we have the triumph?" one soldier asked. "Although we aren't dead, they said in Tuonela that we can do an exception tonight." one witch replied.