My Girlfriend is Santa Claus & Together We Must Stop the Christmas Apocalypse Based on a True Story

Iumika rummaged through the sledge supplies, turning over every flare, emergency ration, camping stove, crowbar, and bundle of skis until she found a large black blanket. With the blanket thrown over her shoulders, and accompanied with her white attire, she did somewhat resemble a penguin, albeit a very leggy, skinny, floozy penguin. With the disguise complete, she strutted too and fro across the ice. Not like a penguin at all, more like a runway model.

“Oh yeah, I bet you can’t get enough of my hot penguin body,” she said proudly.

Iumika spun on her heel dramatically and looked over her shoulder towards the penguin subjects. They stood silent and frozen, blinking dumbly, and a few shook their heads as if trying to wake themselves up.

“Was that your whole plan?” Peter asked.

Hear the mighty laugh of the Penguin Queen! “Mwa! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha!” Like a four-foot-tall evil overlord of weaponized cuteness, lacking the pipes to hit any note deeper than an alto. Who wouldn’t want to be subject to her tax policies?

“Not so easy being queen, is it?”

“Penguin Queen,” Peter said. “I’m sorry—” Yuzuka whispered to him not to apologize, as that would be an admission of guilt. “I can see how dear your penguins are to you. Your compassion is… uh...”

“Endearing,” Yuzuka said.

“So I promise, from hereon out, no one at the North Pole will ever use penguins as target practice again.”

“Not good enough!” the Penguin Queen shouted. “Henceforth you are forbidden from killing any penguins for any reason! Under penalty of death!”

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She pointed dramatically to her right hand man— or bird. A tubby ball of fluff flapped its flippers. His rotund head was hidden under a burlap executioner’s hood. Furrowed eyebrows were stitched into the fabric to give it a menacing appearance.

“So he’s an executioner penguin?” Peter asked.

“I don’t get it. Does he have an axe or something?” Iumika asked. “How does that work exactly?”

“Penguin flambé is my favorite food,” Yuzuka said. “It’s a North Pole delicacy and part of our culture. So these terms and conditions are unacceptable.”

“What if we only kill what we can eat?” Peter asked.

The Penguin Queen stomped her boots in a childish fury. “No! No! No! Penguins are not for eating! They are for hugs and cuddles and sometimes amazing nature documentaries!”

Peter’s phone chimed. He took it out and saw a message from Santa. She had texted him a photo of none other than the Penguin Queen in her igloo, chowing down on a deep fried bird thigh, a bucket before her reading ‘Kentucky Fried Penguin.’ Peter showed the photo to Yuzuka, and her eyes figuratively popped out of her head, “Oh shit!”

“Penguins are not for eating?” Peter showed the photo to her.

The Penguin Queen shrieked, grabbed the phone and hurled it off into the stratosphere. Luckily Iumika’s owl swooped in and plucked Peter’s phone out of the sky before it shattered into a warranty-voiding oblivion.

“How did you get this photo? That’s a deepfake! It was a momentary lapse in judgment!”

“Surely we can reach some sort of agreement,” Peter said.

The Penguin Queen stewed in a rage and gnashed her petite teeth together.

“You are allowed to hunt the asshole penguins who don’t obey me,” she growled. “But… we demand reparations for the wrongs you have committed against us!”

Peter looked at Yuzuka and Iumika and they both shook their head no.

“Okay,” Peter said. “Reparations. What do you want? Money? Fish?”

The Penguin Queen looked at Peter blankly, then she crouched down and huddled with her tuxedoed army. She spoke in Penguinese and they quacked and sang back to her. The deliberation went on longer than Peter would have liked, as he started to get bored with the whole situation. At last the Queen rose to her feet and announced, “We demand…” The Christmas elves leaned forward during her dramatic pause. “Ten thousand suits of orca-proof penguin armor! Upon delivery, all will be forgiven!”

Peter texted the request to Santa and some Christmas magic later, within a few seconds Santa’s sleigh was overhead, eight reindeer kicking their legs across the sky. Wooden crates parachuted down and the penguins scurried to avoid being flattened. Peter plunged a crowbar to the boxes and out spilled armored breastplates of mithril and helmets of adamantine— all heat-treated until they glistened all the colors of the rainbow like bismuth crystals.

The Penguin Queen gasped. “Such extravagance!”

The Queen called over Bengt, her favorite of the flock, and buckled him into his newly minted armor. In his princely outfit, his tubby feathery hide became chiseled and shelled. His dumb, vacant expression, like a stuffed animal, became stoic and fierce. The Penguin Queen giggled and, although kneeling, danced happily in place. She cooed questions in Penguinese if it was too tight on him, or too loose.

“So all is forgiven then,” Peter said.

The Penguin Queen stood up, recomposed herself, and cleared her throat.

“Thank you for the armor…”

“I’m Peter. And this is Yuzuka and Iumika.”

“Thank you for the armor, Peter. However, we will never forgive you for what you did! Not until you give us… more reparations!”

“We just gave you ten thousand suits of magic penguin armor!” Yuzuka said.

“And now we demand one hundred thousand plates of Michelin star sushi!”

Peter took out his phone and texted Santa again. Another jingle-bell airdrop pried open with a crowbar, and the Penguin Queen shared beautiful platters of nigiri sushi with her famished subjects who happily gobbled it up.

“My penguin army thanks you for the sushi. However, we will never forgive you for what you did! Not until we get… a nuclear submarine!”

Some Christmas magic later, a ballistic missile submarine, like a subaquatic, titanium hulled, football field launched itself out through the ice and came crashing down in an avalanche of death. The Penguin Queen cheered and scrambled over to her new mode of transportation as if it were a sweet sixteen for a warlord, followed by her hoard of armored birds.

“Thank you for the submarine. However, we will never forgive you for what you did!”

For hours the demands continued, and the reparations amassed around the Penguin Queen like a mountain of treasure. A gold filigree crown upon her head, a damascened tuna knife on her hip, penguin themed magic rings on every one of her fingers, two dozen sapphire necklaces dripping around her neck, several moonphase Rolex watches up and down her arm, a Lamborghini Countach with snow tires, a personal teppanyaki chef, a diplomatic passport— Swedish, the best passport, Astolfo’s magic horn, a mint condition Pikachu Illustrator card, and the golden Karlsschrein housing the jewel encrusted bones of Charlemagne, were just some of the reparations she received until at last Yuzuka spoke up.

“You can’t just keep giving her reparations. She’s just going to ask for more and more.”

“Okay,” Peter said. “I think we’re done here. Are you going to head back to the South Pole now?”

“No! My penguin army and I will remain in the North Pole to ensure you uphold the ceasefire! And we will never forgive you for what you did!”

The Penguin Queen hopped into her nuclear submarine, laughing as she closed the hatch. With a thunderous roar the titanic vessel plunged deep below the ice into the darkest trenches of the ocean. The colossus penguin followed after, growling like a living earthquake. Then the normal sized penguins splashed away in pursuit, armor and all.

“I can’t believe you gave her a nuclear submarine,” Yuzuka said.

“I think the healing has begun.”

So target practice was canceled for the day, and the trio returned late to the workshop without committing a single heinous act of murder.