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[b]San Maria, California[/b]

A cool, damp air hung over San Maria as Mozart looked over the city. The area never really got all that hot, even in the beginning of the summer like this. The cool, ocean air kept the city damp and temperate, which was perfect for the frogs. Still, considering what was going on in the city, Art felt like the city should be in the grip of a heat wave. It would be the acceptable situation for a city in the early days of war.

His siblings didn't want to admit it yet, but they were born into a war. IDRG and the Eye were two combatants. Their escape added a third. The Bandits being caught up with the Eye added another. Throw in the cops of San Maria and Pinebluff and you had a powder keg ready to blow any minute.

He couldn’t focus on that too much on that summer night, however. They had a mission. Children had been disappearing for hours at a time, only to reappear in their homes hours later no worse for wear. Well, except for the fact that they had two small puncture wounds on their shoulders. Police were worried, but all medical tests came up normal, so the families were content. It was off the Frogs’ radar until the night they saw who had been abducting the children.

It was the tooth fairy. Or Santa Claus. Or the Easter Bunny.

At least, it was something that looked like them. How and why were the real questions they needed answered. Considering they had interrupted the Church of the Eye using blood sacrifices in their rituals, it wasn’t out of the question that they were behind this. If that was the case, then these children probably weren’t out of the woods yet.

“I can’t believe Santa is a vampire,” Bach mused as he sat on the edge of the building’s roof, feet dangling over. “I mean I figured he had to be a zombie, considering how old he is. But a good zombie. Not a vampire zombie.”

“Bach,” Clara shook her head and chuckled, “Santa isn’t either. Whatever this thing is, it’s just using the image of Saint Nick and the others to lure its victims.”

“It’s disgusting,” Ludwig spat.

That it was. Using a symbol of happiness and innocence to do that to children was the ultimate form of disgust. The Frogs had seen a lot of perverse things in their year on the outside. The Eye was masterful at them. But this was taking things to a new level.

“Guys,” Angela’s voice cam over the commlinks. She was back at the base, taking care of tracking movement in the city from the Frogs’ Den. “I’ve got movement on a roof three blocks over and two buildings north. Drone wasn’t close enough to see if it was our guy, but it’s a start at the very least.”

“Thanks, Ang,” Mozart responded as the four mutants took off in that direction. They moved like the wind over the rooftops, taking cover behind HVAC equipment when they spotted one of the IDRG drones heading their way. While they now had access to their cameras, they didn’t have the ability to ensure the scientists looking for them didn’t receive the footage as well.

Art loved scrambling over the rooftops of San Maria. Seeing the city from above was the most beautiful sight he had ever seen. It made him feel connected with the place, even if he’d never really be a citizen of the great metropolis. This was the way he connected with the concrete jungle. By traversing it and protecting it.

“Approaching the target location now,” Clara said, relaying their progress toi Angela. It was a small apartment building. Nothing special, but a good, solid home for the people living there. 

“Guys,” Bach pointed with a trembling hand, “look.”

They followed his line of view to find Santa Claus climbing up over the lip of the roof. It was not a human-like climb however. Santa clambered over the side like a komodo dragon, arms and legs flailing like some sort of ungainly lizard. Once he was fully on the roof, it straightened, almost as if its spine had been shifted out of, then back into, place. For a moment, its image rippled, almost like a buffering internet video.Suddenly, it noticed them, and Santa took off across the rooftop. It lept to the next one almost as easily as the frogs could. 

The four of them stood dumbfounded for a moment before Clara shook them out of their stupor, “What are you guys waiting for!? Let’s go!”

The Frogs then took off after the creature, whatever it really was. He was fast, faster than he looked. It took all of their maximum effort to keep up. If it was taxing them this hard, it had to be doing the same to him. 

While it was fast, it didn’t have the knowledge of these rooftops like they did. It hesitated on its course, which allowed the four siblings to keep pace, and even gain a little. 

After three blocks of the chase, Art looked over at Bach, “Time to hogtie our friend. Clara! Time for some rope-a-dope!”

His sister smiled back at him, and pulled one of her war fans from her belt. She reared back and tossed it in front of their prey as he went to make a quick turn. He quickly changed course, which is what the youngest frog was waiting for. Bach tossed out his weighted chain, which caught the imposter by the ankles, tying its feet together. The creature lost its balance, bringing it down hard on the rooftop.

The four of them approached slowly, and Santa Claus growled in a low, gurgling voice, “You Eye bastards finally caught me. Take me to your monstrous gods quick. I don’t want to wait to be sacrificed.”

“We’re not the Eye, you’re the Eye!” Clara responded indignantly. 

“Not in a million years!” Santa Claus spat. 

“Stealing blood from kids sure seems like an Eye move,” Ludwig growled. “No need to pretend.”

“I…,” Santa shook his head. “I needed it to get home. I’m not with them. But now I understand why you thought I was. But you four...you are not of nature. How are you not made from the Outside Ones?”

“Long story,” Art responded gruffly. “But we’re trying to stop the Eye from taking over this city. So far we took down one of their gods. We’ll take down any more that we come across.”

“Ah,” Santa said knowingly, “it was you who stopped the devourer. Impressive. I see we’re on the same side then.”

Santa’s image flashed again, like before. Except this time it did not come back into focus. This time it melted away, revealing the creature’s true form. To Art and his siblings, it looked like a lilac colored iguana, but with fewer spikes running down its back. One of its eyes had been lost in some battle long over, and was replaced with a mechanical one. 

“My name is Olab,” he said with a nod of its head. “In my universe, we also know of the Outside Ones and their followers. Here, they’re known as the Eye. In my Universe, they are known as the Dark Order. Either way, they want the same thing. To feed our realities to their insatiable gods for some reward that will probably never come.”

"Why the hell were you disguised as Santa and the others?" Art poked the large lizard with his bo staff. 

"It's an ability my species has," he sighed. "We can turn into things that we gleam from others' minds. I was using it to gain the trust of the people of your world. It is shameful, but it was necessary."

“Okay, Olab,” Clara was still skeptical. “But I still want to know why you were stealing blood from children.”

“It’s…,” the lizard sighed, “it’s for a ritual my people stole from the Outside Ones’ teachings. It is shameful, but we’ve used it to keep one step ahead of them. It’s what allows us to send scouts to adjacent Universes and find the Outside Ones’ progress towards us. I had blood from my world, but lost it in an encounter with the Church of the Eye’s leader.”

Everything the interdimensional traveler said made sense to Art. The Eye witch needed blood to sustain the devourer god and bring it into their world. If blood is what the Eye used to traverse the realities, they others could do it as well. Still, Olab was not the most trustworthy looking being, and what was to say he himself wasn’t one of these Outside Ones?

“So you saw the witch then?” Clara asked, referring to the Eye’s leader.

“Witch? No. I saw the shadow warrior. He was terrifying. I barely made it out alive,” as he spoke about the encounter, he stared off into nothing, as if the memory still haunted him. “That one is dangerous. A true fanatic, and the ability to make his dark desires reality. I pity you have to deal with him.”

“We have to deal with him?” Art gave Olab a side glance.

“Yes,” the lizard nodded. “Sorry, but this is where I leave you,”

He raised something from his belt, something the four Frogs didn’t notice him fiddling with the entire time. It looked like a glass Christmas ornament, rimmed in gold. Inside sloshed the blood of the children he had stolen. Olab murmured something unintelligible, and tossed it at his feet. The glass bulb shattered, and the blood turned into a iridescent rainbow filled with stars. The liquid raced over Olab’s body, and in the blink of an eye he was gone.

“Uh...guys?” Angela asked over the comms. “What the hell just happened?”

“Things got interesting,” Art sighed. They had learned things from this mysterious traveler. But the leader of the Frogs wasn’t sure how much it was going to help in the long run.