"BACK IT UP! GET OUT OF THEIR RANGE!" Jace yelled at the Academy fighters, shooting as he did so at the advancing Octarian forces. "GET MOVING!"

With the added force of his words, Jace's fighters slowly started to retreat, falling back past the rock formations lining the Octo valley. Octarians had been moving a small unit up the valley for days and Jace's units were chosen to drive them back. It should've been a relatively simple trap and kill operation, but the Octarians had support from some artillery that was hidden behind their lines.

When Jace had set his trap with his units, it wasn't long at all until they had a nasty surprise: flying Octarian ink bombs.

Their aim was just barely off, thankfully, so instead of melting the majority of the Academy fighters it only injured a few. Their friends carried them back when Jace yelled for the retreat.

"What to do. What to do." Jace mumbled as he shot at the Octarians, a blast of ink slammed the ground nearby to him and he stumbled to one knee, cutting it on the sharpened ground. A glance backwards at his troops showed that they were almost all the way under cover. The Octarian forces were too close for comfort, so Jace filled an ink bomb and tossed it at his feet. Switching into his squid form, Jace swam to the nearest cover, a stone pillar.

"RETURN FIRE!"

And the squids launched their counterattack against the Octarians. The Octarians at the front, foolish ones itching for battle who believed themselves invincible, fell with wounds too great to overcome. They got in the way of their compatriots who were advancing as well, making some Octarians trip and fall into the Inkling ink and die. Jace himself took down five of the twenty front line Octarians himself, with five well placed .52 shots.

Jace spun from the pillar, firing as he went, and dove under the fire coming from both sides. Rolling out of the dive he placed two shots between the eyes of two different Octarians and ran for his defensive lines.

"Cover his run!" Jace heard one of his Unit captains say to his men. Their Splatling gunners proceeded to lay into the enemy with everything they had, wasting all their ink to let Jace get back to their ranks.

From their cover, the Octarians were forced to move their artillery up, and by the time they had the strength to do so most of their force had been removed from existence. The artillery workers ran from their guns, abandoning their posts and any of the force who was still alive.

Jace turned his attention from the running Octarians to his men, "casualties?" He asked his captains.

"Jamie and Redd," one of them said, "They died from wounds after the artillery strike. Other than that, there was no casualties."

"It's just like these Octarians to attack us on Christmas Eve." Jace groaned to his captains, "Take our guys back to the Academy, I'll meet you there."

While his units headed back to the Academy, Jace stayed at his current position for a bit... just watching. If the Octarians attacked again, he wanted to be ready. Thankfully, the Octarians seemed to have no other attacks planned, and Jace was able to head back up to the Academy after an hour.

The Academy was decorated like nothing Jace had ever seen before. The outside was red and green, striped like a candy cane, and lights hung from every which way. Off of ink cannons hung mistletoe, and over the door was the largest wreath anybody had ever seen. The inside was equally lit, warm and happy, in the foyer was a tree rivaling that of the massive tree put in Inkopolis' plaza every year.

Ora was waiting for him there under the tree.

"Where have you been? You didn't come back with the other units, I thought you'd been killed!" She ran over to Jace, hugged him, slapped him, then hugged him again.

Jace chuckled, "Sorry." He put his .52 Gal down and hugged Ora back.

"You idiot. You scared me sick... to think that you didn't come back from a simple mission like this... and on Christmas Eve too."

"I said I'm sorry."

She bonked him over his head, "If I didn't love you, I'd smack you senseless."

"Love you too."

Christmas at the Academy was always a time to enjoy. All the teachers and instructors would spend the night at the Academy having a party til the following morning.

Callie and Marie led Karaoke for the whole group, culminating in them singing their favorite songs. There was a darts competition between the snipers. And they also decided to play a game of "pin the tail on the Octarian" using DJ Octavio and his adorable little bubble. Octavio was threatening them the whole time they did so, saying that if he ever got free the winner would die first.

Then Agent 3 shook his bubble and left him staggering around like he was drunk.

There were massive Christmas Crackers that exploded in all colors of ink, leaving the loser drenched in any shade of the rainbow.

And Evan stopped by with food... instantly becoming the most popular person in the whole Academy.

At around midnight, everybody came together for a full contact game of musical chairs. Some of the squids put helmets on just in case... past experiences made it necessary. The last round was between Cap'n Cuttlefish and one of the parkour teachers. The Parkour teacher ran for the chair as the music stopped, but Cuttlefish swooped in and took the chair out from under his butt, leaving the parkour teacher flat on his back and the crowd in tears.

Agent 3 walked up to the teacher and put a red reindeer nose on him as he lay on the ground.

They sang Christmas songs together.

They ate.

And after all that came the best part. The gift exchange.

Under the tree in the foyer was all the gifts the staff had gotten for each other. Some of the teachers put on santa hats and began handing out gifts to their recipients, making their way slowly through the massive pile under the tree.

Once all the gifts were handed out, Agent 3 decided to speak up.

"Before we open these gifts, I have a gift to give to somebody who's very special to us all." He snorted, obviously trying to contain laughter, "Hey, Octavio. I got you a snowglobe!"

Octavio was still staggering inside of his little bubble like he was drunk, but upon hearing 3's words, he glowed bright red with hatred. "3, when I get out I'll tape you inside of a snowglobe! You slimy little no-good underground piece of-"

That was when somebody rolled Octavio's bubble away from the party, back to the office in which it belonged.

After gifts came white elephant. Where Jace stole a drone from Ivy, who'd stolen the drone previously from Azure, and now both of them hated Jace for stealing it the second time and locking it. Ivy had a hand on her Luna Blaster and Azure had a hand on her Splattershot... Jace took the time to take cover and let the game go on before the two girls painted him up like a Christmas tree.

And speaking of the tree, when everything was said and done... they opened fire on it, turning the tree into an explosion of multi-colored ink.

"Merry Christmas, Academy" Cuttlefish told everybody as they went to bed that night.

AN: Just a little fluffy Christmas special. Nothing fancy, nothing big... just some fluff and fun. Merry Christmas, Everybody.