Lucas gawked in disbelief as the sasquatch launched himself at the wall of snow, mounting on top of it. A bunch of dark elves threw themselves at him. They latched onto his legs and arms, trying to pull him down. 

With a boisterous roar, he shook himself,  scattering the dark elves. They fell down the other side of the wall. 

Beating his chest, the sasquatch jumped after them, leaving the view of a dumbfounded Lucas. 

Fiona was still unconscious. He slid to her side, kneeling to examine her forehead.  There was a nasty bruise desecrating it. 

What do I do?

“Fiona, Fiona, can you hear me?”

No response. 

“I've got to take her back to the Claus Estate. Mrs Claus might know what to do.”

He paused for a moment, holding his breath, half-expecting her to wake up and chide him for thinking she was unconscious. But no such luck. 

“Somebody's got to pay.” He grunted. No one hurts Fiona and gets away with it. 

He gazed upon the wall, separating him from the dark elves. He imagined it crashing down.

Stretching his hand to the wall of snow, he bellowed.  “Mundum sic mutar! This wall crumbles down!”

A piercing sound tore through the air, and Lucas felt zapped of energy.  Before his eyes,  the snow wall rumbled and came crashing down. 

Compared to the creation spell he cast back at the Himalayas, this alteration spell left him with more energy. He conjectured that he probably had sufficient energy to cast another one.

Pushing himself off the ground, he advanced to the scene before him. Clyde and the band of dark elves surrounding him had paused for a moment to figure out what just happened to the snow wall. Clyde was the first to recover, smacking two distracted dark elves into the sky. Two on his left lunged at him, the power of their lightning-fast punches sent him stumbling.

Lucas still didn't know what to say to Clyde. He thought there were no more secrets between them. It pained him to be wrong. 

Clyde regained his bearing and caught the two dark elves in mid-air with his large sasquatch hands. Barring his teeth, he pummeled them into the snow.

In the nick of time, Lucas spotted one last dark elf some metres behind Clyde about to fire a gift-wrapped bazooka with an open muzzle.

Without thinking twice, he imagined the dark elf in a block of ice. 

“I mutare mundum sic,” he stretched his hand toward his target. “Freeze!”

A piercing sound ripped through the air and instantly,  the dark elf was encased in ice so thick, it was barely transparent.

Clyde turned around to witness the aftermath. His eyes landed on  Lucas. “Thanks for the save.”

Lucas felt like walking spaghetti again. His voice was mingled with fatigue. “No need to thank me, it's what friends do.”

Clyde surveyed the environment. When he confirmed all dark elves were unconscious, he clenched his fists and was enveloped in a greenish glow. The light died down to reveal Clyde the human. 

He shoved his hands in his pockets, eyes unable to meet Lucas.  His tone was apologetic. “Yo,  sorry for not telling you this earlier. I swear I was planning to tell you today after—”

When Lucas tried to step forward, his legs gave out and he fell on his knees. The dizziness he was experiencing hinted at how close he was to passing out.

“Lucas!” Clyde rushed to his side. He swung Lucas's left arm over his shoulder and helped him up. “We need to get to the snowmobile.”

“Why…why does casting spells drain my energy?”

Clyde supported his weight as they moved with uneven steps towards the Metaphysical Backroom Door.  

“As a mystic, mana is fused to your energy. So when you exert manna, you also use up energy. Come on,” 

They crossed the MBD, re-entering the mortal plane. Clyde leaned Lucas against their ride before reaching into the snowmobile to grab Mrs Claus's box of cookies.  

He tossed Lucas one and took a bite from another. 

The more Lucas munched, the more energized he felt, until his body was agile like that of someone who just had a power nap.

“What–” he said between bites. “What is in this cookie?”

Clyde swallowed before replying. “It has magic sweeteners.”

“Magic sweeteners replenish mana?”

“This is not an RPG, bro. This is reality. Food replenishes energy—whether ordinary or magical.”

“Oh,” Lucas scratched his hair with a finger. “I won't lie, that was a bit disappointing.”

His eyes widened.  “Fiona!” He raced back into Elf HQ. Clyde followed behind.

They rushed to her crumpled form. Lucas was the first to reach her. 

“Do we take her back to the Claus Estate?” He asked Clyde without taking his gaze away from Fiona. He noticed the wound appeared to have shrunk.

“No need to worry,” Clyde pointed at the shrinking wound. “Our Protector’s medallions have regenerating properties. Comes in handy when battling Forces.”

Fiona's eyes fluttered open. The bruise had become barely visible. 

“Ugh…” She sat up, looking between Clyde and Lucas. Her eyebrows furrowed. “Please don't tell me I got knocked out by an elf.”

Clyde averted his gaze and feigned a cough. 

Lucas wore a goofy smile. “What if you were?” He was tempted to hug her, to let her know how worried he was. But he couldn't bring himself to do it. Something about her angry pout suggested she wasn't in the mood for a hug. 

She pinched between her eyes and muttered. “This is so embarrassing.”

“I thought the snow wall was pretty cool.” Lucas rubbed the back of his head while offering his other hand to her.  
 
She gave a smile that said ‘no thanks’ before springing up. “There's not even a trace of the snow wall. How is that possible?”

“Oh, ahh… kinda had to bring it down.” 

Respect lingered in her gaze. “Not bad, magus.”

Clyde crossed his arms. “Do we still take a look at the factory?”

Fiona stared at the dilapidated megastructure.  “The answer is obvious, isn't it?”

***

Dangling florescent lights, shards of glass, a litter of bricks, patches of fire; these were constants at every turn the Protectors took within the factory.  

Fiona led the way, snapping her fingers at every flame she spotted and causing them to be doused by a rush of snow.

The partial darkness kept them on high alert, anticipating an ambush. Their careful steps echoed as they advanced. 

“Is that why Santa called you a hybrid back then?” Lucas asked Clyde. “Because you can turn into a sasquatch?”

Clyde opened his mouth but was cut short by Lucas's follow-up question. “Why didn't you feel the need to tell me?”

Fiona whipped her head around. “I'll go on ahead. Looks like you guys need some space. But Lucas, he and I agreed to tell you our secrets today. I'm sure he was getting to it before you found out.”

With that, she continued on while Clyde and Lucas paused by a broken window. 

Clyde let out a sigh. “Like I said, I was planning on telling you today. But you gotta understand that this… this is my deepest darkest secret. Only very few people have seen me transform.”

Lucas felt like a jerk for a moment. He shouldn't have been mad at his best friend in the first place. Especially when the secret was something sensitive. His tone was lower, curious. “Very few people?”

“I discovered my second nature when I was around twelve. I just transformed all of a sudden and didn't know how to change back. I was in the living room with my parents at that time. The screams they made still unnerve me till today. They called me a monster and deliberated reaching out to Fantasio Inc. I sprinted to my room and on the way, somehow transformed back. Out of fear, I stayed in all day, sobbing. Until my parents knocked and called me with tender voices and asked what made me cry. I reminded them of their words, their threat; the incident. But they'd already forgotten due to the naked-eye effect. They said I must have had a bad dream.”

Clyde stared out through the broken window. “I was scared that you might treat me differently if you knew I was part monster. That's why I got better at my resting-bitch-face, so nobody could ever tell when I was nervous about transforming.”

“In all my three years of knowing you,” Lucas stood akimbo. “This is the wrongest you've ever been.”

“Grammatically incorrect,” he mumbled. 

Lucas ignored that. “You're like Beast Boy—with bonus archery skills. Honestly, this just made our friendship cooler.”

A chuckle escaped Clyde. “Dude, you're the best person I've ever met. C'mon, let's catch up with Fiona.”

They followed the trail of snow piles, taking turns and then going up the creaking steps. 

“For the record, Beast Boy is still cooler than me,” Clyde said. “The guy has way more than one transformation.”

The next turn they took landed them in a broad passageway. Fiona was in sight, pressing her ear against a door. When she spotted them, she pressed her finger to her lips. Then she moved her other hand, and snowflakes blew in through the shattered window, clumping together to form a string of words in mid-air. 

‘I heard a noise from this room.’

Clyde readied his bow and arrows. In harmony, he tiptoed with Lucas till they were standing behind Fiona. 

She raised three fingers and dropped each one in a countdown. On one, she kicked the door down and ducked to give Clyde a clear shot.