The next day, Ao had devised a plan for Reese to talk to Ben. After they managed to finally leave the cozy trap that was Reese's apartment, they set off on their mission.

As they wandered the mall in search of gifts, they began to see the effects of Santa's recent death. No one was really out and about buying presents last minute, and the Christmas songs didn't even play sometimes, and the decorations looked as if their color was fading. Not only that, but the friendliness of people was diminishing. The second they had set foot in the mall, they had received ugly looks, even from babies...

"The lack of Christmas cheer is starting to affect the humans," Ao whispered. "I'm worried that being out here will make you Joyless."

"It'll take more than some Christmas gloom to bum me out," Reese assured her with a smile. "But let's still be on our way and get Ben's presents."

Several minutes passed as they explored stores in search for the perfect gift for Ben. They paid a visit to Godiva to get chocolates, got a nice affordable ring from an accessory store, and a plush toy of a dog (that one wasn't for Ben, Ao admitted later on). Gradually, Reese was beginning to question the items they were getting. "This is turning into some romantic makeup..."

"That's the point," the brunette chimed. "You've gotta win him over. Now, tell me, should we even think about Spencer's?"

"Spencer's?"

"You know. For reasons."

Reese blushed and grumbled, "No, we are not getting anything from that place."

"I mean, you never know when you might need to—."

"Nooo."

"Ugh, fine," Ao surrendered. Her yaoi fantasies would have to be fulfilled another day.

"Alright," she continued. "All we need is flowers. Does the mall have a flower shop?"

"I think so.."

"Hmmph, this map doesn't help me much. It's so confusing now with the new renovations..," she complained. While she tried to decipher the mall map in her hands, she accidentally bumped into someone else.

"Ah, my bad. I'm sorry," she started immediately. The young Proxy smiled sweetly to make up for her accident, but the smile quickly went away. Her blood ran cold, the color drained from her face, and her limbs froze still. Terror set in.

It was the old woman from the other day...!

The old woman sneered at her and muttered, "Wait a minute."

"Uh, look at that, I-I've gotta go!" she stammered but her desperate attempt to flee was thwarted by the old woman catching her by the shirt.

"You're that brat I beat the shit out of last time over cookies!" she snarled.

"I don't know what you're talking about...! Reese? Can you please tell this woman that she has the wrong person??"

Reese furrowed his brow. "Huh?"

Ao shot him a sharp, pleading look and hissed through her teeth, "Tell. Her. She. Has. The. Wrong. Girl...!"

"How would I know if she does?"

"Reese...!"

"You want me to lie to the elderly?"

Ao pinched the bridge of her nose. "For the love of god..."

"I don't play like that Ao. I'm an asshole in two ways: either I don't give a shit, or I give the honest truth no matter how brutal it is. Therefore, following that ideology, I can't say you're not the girl this clearly insane old woman is pissed off over. I also can't vouch for the possible fact that you are indeed who she thinks you are. I also can't say that what she thinks is only thought, as she could be correct in believing you're the girl she beat up for cookies and I cannot since I wasn't present at the time of this referenced altercation. What I think and what she thinks could both be right or wrong, as thought is subjective to each individual person, and the truth is seen differently from different perspectives depending on if people want to take in the truth or remain ignorant. So with that, I say......wait, what were we talking about?"

"You suck Reese," Ao managed to say before she was aggressively dragged away by the old woman.

"Have I got a thing or two up my sleeve for you," the old woman hissed.

"Let me go!" Ao demanded, trying to wriggle free from her, but she forgot that despite the old woman's appearance, she was fuckin' strong.

"Lucky for you, I just switched out my bowling ball today. Guess how many pounds it is...!"

"Reese, help!"

By the time Reese heard the call, Ao and the old woman had disappeared into the current of shoppers. All he did next was continue walking with the shopping bags in hand, like his friend wasn't just kidnapped right before his eyes.

Meanwhile, in another section of the mall, Ao was trying to fend off the old woman. As it turns out, she did switch out her bowling ball—for a heavier forty pound one. That's not possible, is it?

Ao was running as fast as she could to the nearest exit, but she was still confused by the mall's layout. On top of that she dropped the map not too long ago and was not willing to backtrack for it. It was like a horror movie with the old woman's maniacal cackling haunting the Proxy as she tried to make an escape. She eventually found a hiding place within a men's cologne kiosk. The employee running it gave her a strange look as she crouched below the counter, anxiously taking peeks around the corner every now and then.

Just when she was off the hook, Ao witnessed the kiosk employee suddenly fall unconscious. Next thing she knew she saw the old woman perched on top of the counter with her bowling ball weapon.

"Oh my god, I think you killed him..!" Ao exclaimed, eyeing the fallen employee.

"Eh, he'll be fine."

"You smashed a bowling ball against his head!"

"No I didn't," the old woman replied. "I just sprayed some of my perfume in his face and he knocked out."

"Well, old lady perfume is pretty nasty."

"Why do you think we buy it? Now COME HERE!"

"NO!"

Ao ditched the kiosk (and the poor employee) and ran towards other safety. She tried going into a clothes store and hiding in one of the fitting rooms, but somehow the old woman busted through the wall in the room next to hers and nearly caught the young Proxy. Next, Ao tried to distract the old woman by grabbing a coupons tray from another store and throwing it at her. It worked for like a split second, until the old woman saw that the coupons were for a desserts shop and she bellowed, "I need to watch my bloOD SUGAR!!!"

"Shit!" Ao hissed.

Ao tried again and again to get the old woman off her scent (and she literally thought she was getting tracked by scent because there was absolutely no way that old coot could see through walls...unless she can?) but nothing seemed to work out for her in the end. It came time that Ao's stamina was running out, her endurance slowly fading after running around in circles, zigzags, dodecahedrons. She had one last option, and whether it was because she was incredibly lightheaded and tired, or because she was that desperate, she went with it anyway.

The old woman stopped in front of another clothes store, leering her narrow eyes around and sniffing her nose (huh, guess she does use scent). It seemed as though she wouldn't find Ao, until she spotted the brunette's blue cardigan out of the corner of her eye and charged into the store.

Behind her, in the window the whole time, was Ao, who had switched clothes with a mannequin and was pretending to be the mannequin. Once she saw that the old woman was preoccupied with bashing in the head of the mannequin with the forty pound bowling ball, the young Proxy quietly slipped out of the store with her frilly dress and bonnet hat. The moment she was completely out of range, she booked it back to where she last saw Reese (she had a very clear layout of the mall now thanks to the chase).

Things were going well. Ao was hurrying along in her new Mary Janes and was getting close to her original spot. She would waste no time with buying anything else from here and would leave with Reese as soon as she saw him. She also wondered if the Joylessness had gotten to the old woman as well, but deep down she felt that the lady was just plain fuckin' crazy anyway.

Her original spot was in sight, but Reese wasn't. Ao groaned at the thought that he may have went off to look for her and was now somewhere else in the mall. She couldn't leave him here, not with that old woman still on the loose.

The second she was about to ask people if they saw where he went, a bony, wrinkled, strong hand grabbed Ao by her frilly shoulders and yanked her away. It was the old woman!

"Thought you could pull a Scooby-Doo on me did ya?!" she growled.

"I mean, it worked, didn't it?"

"Don't be smart with me! Now I'm gonna finish what I started, but because you made things so difficult, I'm gonna have to take it slow."

"Huh?!"

Suddenly, she was thrown into a photo booth where the old woman planned to bash Ao's head in for good. In such a cramped place and in such bothersome, frilly clothes, Ao had nowhere to run. The old woman raised her bowling ball high above her head with a yellow toothed grin. Ao could see her reflection in the shiny, polished black surface of the bowling ball, could see the petrified look in her eyes. This was it. The end of the road. Christmas would be lost all because of some old woman who doesn't know how to let go of a grudge.

At the very last second, to Ao's relief, someone pulled back the photo booth's curtains and thrust forward a magazine of a female model posing in an extremely skimpy bikini far too thin-looking to really be a bikini. The old woman hissed and covered her eyes, screaming, "Ah, corruption of youth and the gradual decline of female modesty! No! Get it awaaaaaay!!!!"

The old woman stumbled out of the photo booth through the other side, allowing for Ao's rescuer to pull her out. As the old woman wailed something about her eyes, Ao looked up to see that Reese had saved her from a bloody fate.

The blond boy eyed her up and down and said, "What the hell are you wearing??"

"Now's not the time to talk about this, we gotta go—!"

"AGAGAAHH!" the old woman hollered as she popped out from behind the curtains. Reese and Ao screamed in unison and began running.

When Ao wanted to go one way, Reese insisted on another. The young Proxy shook her head and said, "We're gonna get trapped that way!"

"Just trust me," Reese urged.

The old woman was gaining on them. Ao shifted her gaze between her, Reese, and where she had wanted to go. With too little time, she grabbed a hold of Reese's hand and went with his route.

They were coming up on a Macy's. If they could take the exit at the back of the store, they might make it. But, to Ao's surprise, Reese stopped in front of the massage chair section and waited patiently. Ao tugged at his jacket and said, "What are you doing? We gotta go!"

"Wait a sec."

"We don't have a sec! That old, homicidal maniac is going to beat us to death with her bowling ball!"

"Just one more second."

"Reese—!"

"There you are!" a shrill voice hollered. Ao whipped around to see the old woman sprinting towards them. Fear rattled her nerves and she helplessly tugged on Reese's jacket, but she couldn't bring herself to leave him behind no matter how badly she wanted to escape.

"Almost..." the blonde boy murmured under his breath.

"What are you doing..?"

"Aaaaaand....now!"

Out of nowhere, two young kids ran out from a toy store, one of them having set down a hoverboard and chasing after it. At the right moment, the old woman stepped onto it and she was sent forward against her will. Without any knowledge on how to control it, she came in fast towards Ao and Reese. Reese pushed Ao out of the way, side-stepped, then stopped the hoverboard with his foot, causing the old woman to fly into a massage chair. Before she could get up, Reese quickly put money in the slot and set it to ultra.

"You little traitor, you—oh, that's nice...," the old woman swooned and immediately relaxed in the chair. Once she was fully under its spell, Ao cautiously came up and asked, "H...How...?"

"I paid those kids to set off a hoverboard," Reese explained. "Also, I purposely helped her to find you."

"What? Why??"

"So that you'd unknowingly lead her into my trap. I planned it the whole time since the moment you ran. It worked out really well, actually! Thanks for your assistance."

Ao gaped in awe. "How'd you learn how to..."

"I was watching the Home Alone movies before you came yesterday."

"Ah."

"Anyway, there's one last thing to do," he added. He reached into one of the shopping bags and Ao couldn't help but snicker. It was fuzzy handcuffs.

"This is the only thing I got from Spencer's," Reese hissed defensively.

"Mhmmm.~"

"Stop."

Reese quickly handcuffed the old woman to the pole of a charger station that was right next to her. Now with the old woman preoccupied with the massage chair, Ao and Reese could finally leave the mall.

"I've already called the police. No more crazy lady with a bowling ball," Reese stated.

"Thank you for everything."

Reese glanced at her as they walked. "Don't you think you should find your clothes again?" Reese asked.

"Eh, I'm warming up to this," she replied.

"You look like a really bad Southern Belle."

"I can make it work."

Reese eyed her with a grimace but allowed her this freedom. She did get chased by a crazy old woman throughout the entire mall after all. But now they had another problem to deal with next, and that was Ben.

...

They would have been incredibly cold standing out in the snow, but fortunately and unfortunately a giant ring of green flame had surrounded the mansion. Ao and Reese stared wide-eyed at the bizarre phenomenon.

"Was it like this before?" the blonde teen asked.

"No.."

"How are we going to get in?"

"I could teleport, but I'm not sure if I could withstand the heat," Ao murmured.

Reese took a moment to think. "I think I have something," he said.

A few seconds later, Reese was standing outside holding a boombox above him.

"Where'd you even get that?" Ao questioned.

"No time to explain. Blast that shit," Reese ordered and nodded to his phone in her hands. She nodded and pressed the play button on screen.

The intro to Brittney Spears' Toxic began playing loud from the boombox. There was no reaction during the first ten seconds, and Ao was growing nervous at the thought that the song wouldn't work. Has the Joylessness gone too deep into Ben's heart?

Suddenly, right at 00:17 seconds, Ben came out of the front doors, screaming along with Brittney, "BABY CAN'T YOU SEE."

"Got him!" Reese shouted and Ao turned off the music on cue. The blonde teen tossed the boombox aside and walked closer to the border of green flames. Ben walked up too with arms crossed, glaring daggers into Ao, "What's going on? Why is Reese here?"

"Ben, we're here to help you," she admitted.

"Help? For what??"

"The Joylessness of a dying Christmas has gotten to you. You're not yourself. We need to bring the real Ben back out," she explained.

"Haha, and how will you do that?" he scoffed, eyeing the green flames he made.

"With these," Reese said, and revealed the gifts he and Ao got at the mall for Ben. Ben's cold expression faltered for a second, but Ao caught it before it went away. There's still a chance.

Standing stalwart, Reese said, "You don't need to have all this bitterness in your heart, Ben. I've always known you to be the coolest, happiest person ever, and that's even in your dark times. I want to see the Ben I know and...uh...yeah...I-I want him back again. And I wanna have a wonderful Christmas with you, but we can't have that if the Joylessness has a hold of you. So please, come back to me, Ben. I miss you."

Ben shook his head, grimacing, trying to fight Reese's words. "You're just saying that because of Ao. Otherwise you wouldn't have known about this in the first place."

"Okay, you're right, I wouldn't have known, but I'm glad she came. And she may have brought me here but the words I'm saying are all my own. If I didn't care, I wouldn't be here. I wouldn't have bothered with all of this. But I do care. I care a lot."

Ben huffed. "I thought you didn't want to talk to me anymore after what happened last time."

At the mention of their feud, Ao piped up, "Reese, you never told me what happened."

"You didn't tell her?" the elfin wraith grumbled.

"Uhhhh."

"Go ahead and say it," Ben spat. "Tell her what happened to piss me off."

"You got pissed off? What about me?" Reese countered.

"Guys," Ao said, but she was ignored.

"You didn't have to get pissed off! You didn't have to take the argument further than it should've!" Ben yelled.

"You didn't have to go and start it in the first place!"

Ao tried again. "Please, let's just—."

"Shut up, weeb," Ben muttered. Reese didn't help at all when he shoved Ben's gifts into her arms instead.

"Maybe if you had admitted I was right, we wouldn't be here!" the elfin wraith hissed.

"You are not right! That was a stupid thing to say and you know it!"

"It's true!"

"No, it's not!"

"What the hell are you two talking about?!" Ao hollered over them.

Ben finally confessed in a fit of rage, "That he's a fuckin' twink!"

"Excuse me."

"I am NOT a twink!" Reese protested.

"You are the perfect description of a twink...!"

"No I'm not, Ben!"

"Listen," Ben growled, and took out his phone, "it says here in Urban Dictionary that a twink is 'an attractive, boyish-looking, young gay man. The stereotypical twink is 18-22, slender with little or no body hair, often BLONDE'—."

"Urban Dictionary isn't a real dictionary, asshole," Reese said.

"Uh, it says dictionary in the company name," Ben replied. "Also, pre-order an Urban Dictionary mug with a definition of your choosing and get a second mug free this Christmas, limited time offer only."

"Are you advertising? In a fuckin' bullshit Christmas special on Wattpad??"

"Yes, Reese! I have to get money somehow! Adpocylapse is sucking me dry here—like someone should be doing..!"

"Oh, so you're gonna go that low, huh?!?

"Yeah, like soMEONE SHOULD BE DOING!!!"

"Oh my god," Ao groaned and covered her face.

"Just admit that you're wrong!" Reese argued.

"You're a twink, Reese! Accept it!"

"You're the twink! You're twink-squared!"

Ben gasped. "I ain't that much of a hot piece of ass, unlike you!"

"You're the hotter, better piece of ass!"

"BITCH, you wanna fuckin' fight me on this?! I'll fuckin' GO. I've got a stock pile of aggressively wholesome meme reaction pictures!!!"

"Well, I have aggressively wholesome meme EDITS! HA!"

"FUCK YOU."

"Jesus Christ," Ao muttered and held her temples.

"Listen, you and I both know that this wall of edgy, green flame isn't going down until you fuckin' admit you're a twink!" Ben said.

"Never!"

Ao grabbed Reese and shook him violently. "For the love of all that's holy, just admit it and stop fighting already!"

"No!"

Ao held his face and growled, "Admit you're a twink so that Ben can go back to normal and we can all save Christmas! The fate of humanity depends on this! Say it, Reese! Say you're a twink to save the god damn world!"

Reese stood there with a hard gaze and pressed lips, heavily conflicted with the current situation. On one hand, he could admit he's a twink and save the world and restore happiness within humanity with just that single word; on the other hand, he could maintain his pride but allow the world to die off in a coagulated shitstorm of sadness, rage and insanity in the process. Damn, that's a tough one.

"Ben won't give you the good succ if you don't," Ao threatened.

"I really won't as much as the thottie in me would want to," the elfin wraith agreed.

"Okay fine! Fine! I'm a twink! Okay?? I'm a twink!" Reese yelled.

Suddenly, the green flames vanished, and not gradually. They literally just popped away out of existence, leaving behind a much happier, friendlier Ben. Ao sighed with relief while Reese looked away with the defeated look similar to a child.

Ben practically leaped over to his beau's side and wrapped his arms around him. He placed multiple kisses across Reese's face, cooing, "I missed you, my peanut butter twink.~"

"No—don't—say that," Reese grumbled, but the blush on his face was telling of his enjoyment from Ben's unwavering affection.

Ao sighed with relief and adored the sight of the two having made amends—albeit in a very strange way. "I hate to ruin the mood of the moment, but we need to work together to figure out how we'll save Christmas."

Ben let go of Reese and nodded. "You're right. Thankfully, I did start with that plan you wanted, but the Joylessness caught me before I could finish."

"That's good. We can work on it together," Ao chimed lightly.

Ben rubbed his neck and smiled nervously. "The thing is, the plan might prove difficult in the end."

"Why?"

"Well...it involves finding Ellie."

Ao's smile dropped and so did her alleviation. "Oh boy."

From the forest, Smile and Grinny came running back out, this time fighting with handguns. One of the stray bullets hit Ben in the shin and he whined as if he got a pinch to his skin. As they ran off back into another direction of the forest, Reese shifted his eyes between Ao and Ben.

"Seriously," he said, "what the fuck is this?"

Neither Ao or Ben reacted in anyway.

"Really? Nothing? Did you even SEE that?! Hello?? What the...what the fuck."