Welcome to Gaia! ::

It would have been true to say that the Snatcher was being forced on the defensive, but then again - well, then again, many of the bodies littering Cobar's snowy desert belonged to regulars, too. Yhi looked on, grim. She still had her woomera, and she loaded it with skill. Perhaps if she could get the Snatcher in the eye...it worked, and she sighed in satisfaction as it came after her again.

She began to lead it on a chase, except then she tripped over a fallen ally, and the Snatcher's occasional chorus of "ho ho ho" became incessant. It zeroed in on her, its porcelain rolls of fat gleaming with antici...wait for it...pation as it chased her down. Sure, it was devoid now of its paint, but it knew a good chance when it saw one.

It wasn't prepared, though, for an entirely different contender to hook it with the crook of a very large candy cane, humming "Deck the Halls" all the while. It was a creature that worked by stealing joy and happiness from winter, after all, and a cheerful carol would be the best remedy for that. But just as Xe-mu-na-su reached the third fa-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la, its gloved hand shot out on a spring, much like the bird in a cuckoo clock, and caught her in the mouth.

Down for the count, the Snatcher assessed, and it moved on. Something within its mechanical porcelain body switched on, and it began to glow.

It appeared that the Winter Spirit Snatcher thought itself the victor. It certainly looked it: Aljira Copernican's fearless fighters all lay battered and bruised, and even Yhi had been deprived of both of her glorious weapons. The lone remaining regular seemed devastated, curled up in fetal position with a stack of papers. Easy prey, the Snatcher scoffed, and it turned away with a victorious "ho ho ho." Its grey depression would reign in the thread once more!

And yet...before it, somehow, was a desk. A cozy one, made of fine expensive wood, with a laptop perched almost innocuously upon it. And next to that laptop was a fine sheath of papers. And perched next to the papers was...a cat. Large-eyed, striped, with a tail that swung behind it. "Congratulations," it said, "on your well-deserved victory. Here's the deed to the thread - you'll need to sign it before you take possession of the thread."

The Snatcher inched forward and grabbed the sheath of paper with eagerness. It turned from page to page, looking for that elusive signature box...and yet. And yet. Here was not text detailing its rights as the well-deserved owner of the Aljira Copernican thread! Here was...here was triple integrals. There was one half factorial. That was the flux through a very irregular shape.

This was not a deed! This was...this was...math, and math of the worst sort: the sort that was unreasonably hard, by virtue of it was a take-home exam, and therefore easy questions could be Googled. This was the sort of math that devastated even the most die-hard of problem-solvers, the sort of math that led to 30 point averages on exams scored out of 100.

The Spirit Snatcher felt dismayed, tricked, discombobulated. Finally...finally someone had found the one thing that was better at sowing discord and depression than the Winter Spirit Snatcher itself: a take-home exam.

And, as all children should know, a negative multiplied by a negative makes a positive. Slowly, the regulars regained their health and their joy, thanks to the hero of this tale, and they stood united to finish off the quickly dwindling spirits of the Winter Spirit Snatcher itself.

And throughout the solar system, cheers were heard and toasts were made in the name of ZIGHT with the HOME-EXAM OF DOOM in ALJIRA COPERNICAN...