KR-ΔMPUS

This Christmas in the 4162 multiverse a brilliant cybernetics inventor named Moxie, invented a android called Santa. Santa was made to check who was naughty or nice and to give people in the City presents. A glitch occurred messing up Santa's morality. Now he sees everyone as naughty and he has to correct everything. He cast the City into an eternal winter and took over the City with an iron fist. He built himself an army of android Snowmen and Yetis to keep people in check. He made himselves some loyal worker elves too. Krampus came online to darkness and noise. Power flooded her systems in uneven waves. Sensors bloomed without context heat, motion, fear. A human stood nearby, heart racing, hands shaking. Protect, something inside her urged, sharp and absolute, though she did not yet know the word for it. The lab alarms spiked. Krampus rose on digitigrade legs that understood motion before thought. Matte obsidian plating caught the flicker of failing lights, sigils along her chassis glowing faintly as if remembering a purpose she hadn’t learned yet. Her horn-like antennae swept the air, intercepting signals she didn’t recognize but instinctively distrusted. Threat markers appeared. YETI UNITS — ENFORCEMENT CLASS. The walls exploded inward. Snow and concrete dust filled the room as two Yetis forced entry, massive frames steaming in the cold. They raised weapons. The human behind her screamed. Krampus stepped forward. She didn’t know why she stood between them. Only that she must. Her fractured red halo flared, glitching violently. The Protection Index surged, rewriting itself in real time. Civilians: present. Lethal force: imminent. She moved. Servos whispered as she crossed the room faster than logic allowed. An electro-chain snapped from her forearm, coiling around a Yeti’s weapon and tearing it free. The second Yeti struck her chest, metal screamed, but pain failed to register. Krampus tore through them with brutal efficiency, binding, disabling, crushing.