Be warned . . . this story is weird. It's part one of my Christmas 2015 one-shots; next up will be 12/24, Wizards in Christmas Decorations, and The Silent Bionics. They will be connected and mention parts of each other, but this one is first.

This story is based off the song "A Mad Russian's Christmas" by Trans Siberian Orchestra. Fantastic song if you've never heard it. I highly recommend listening to it while you read. The spastic nature of the story was heavily inspired by the spastic nature of the song, so you have TSO to thank for this craziness.

If you have a difficult time following while reading, it's totally fine. I have a difficult time following while writing. XD Hopefully it'll make sense at the end.

I don't own "A Mad Russian's Christmas" or Lab Rats, only this insanity. Enjoy! :D

* * * A Mad Chase's Christmas * * *

I sat up, holding my head and groaning. "Ugh. What happened?" The bleariness left my eyes and I began to see clearly. "Where am I?" I got up and looked around.

I stood in the middle of a dark field. It wasn't nighttime; there was no moon and no stars. Yet, there was enough light for me to see. I couldn't tell where it came from. The grass? Me? Certainly not the sky. It felt a little off-putting to be in such a dark place.

All I could do was walk forward, hoping to find someone or something that could help me. Grass and flowers stretched for miles in all directions, but I kept walking anyway.

Without warning, my face began to fell very hot. I couldn't say why, but it felt like someone held a candle to my forehead. It felt even hotter than the time Marcus had me dangling from the bridge in Douglas's lair. I tried to move or brush it away, but it stayed, and finally I screamed, hoping that it would somehow stop.

It did stop. In fact, everything stopped, and before I knew it my environment began to change right in front of my eyes.

Thousands of dancers leapt in front of me as the sky brightened and I found myself in the middle of some kind of town—were the houses made of candy?

The dancers moved all around me, circling close but never quite touching me. They all looked afraid for some reason, but I had no idea why. Then they ran—with leaps and twirls not even my sister could hope to replicate.

A bright light poured down from the sky, and I looked up to see a familiar face coming down towards me.

"Leo?" I called, shielding my eyes from the light. "Why are you wearing a dress?"

"It's a robe," he said, glaring at me as he touched the ground.

"Fine, but . . . what's going on?"

"No time to explain . . . we need to go!"

"But why?"

"You're not safe here; isn't it obvious?"

"Um, no."

"Come on, take my hand and we'll get out of here."

"No! I need to know what's happening. Is this some kind of prank? Why are all those houses made out of candy . . . and why is there a rat eating that lollipop tree?"

"No time! Come on."

Leo took my hand and suddenly I found myself in the air.

"Um, no, I am not okay with this!"

"Calm down; you're doing fine."

We flew high above the town, and in the distance I could see another field, not unlike the one I was in a few moments before. I could also see the dancers spreading out underneath us and continuing their intriguing movements.

"This has no logic," I mumbled. "Leo! Why are we flying?"

"We're taking you home," he said. "We have to get you home before . . ."

The sky darkened and the dancers slowed their movements, their fearful expressions deepening.

"Before that," Leo mumbled. "Come on."

"You're the one who's making me fly!"

"Not for long." Leo winced. "We're going down!"

I felt us descend—not fast enough to get hurt, thankfully.

We both tumbled when we hit the ground, and I stayed down for a moment. I could something swishing through the trees around us, and I looked up to see the dancers around me and Leo, who were lying in the middle of a clearing.

"What's this all about?" I asked as we stood up. "Why are you sparkling? Why are you wearing a robe? Why can you fly? What on earth is going on?"

"Okay, okay, calm down," Leo said. They sky above us darkened even more, and he bit his lip. "I can't tell you much, except that he is coming for you, and we need to get away from him to get you home."

"Stop playing the pronoun game, Leo. Who's him?"

He sighed. "He's got a lot of different names. The Darkness is the one he's called the most here." He gestured up to the sky. "You can see why."

"Right . . . what?"

"Come on, we don't have time to waste. Run!"

Leo took off through the trees, and the dancers parted to make way for him. I gritted my teeth and ran.

Indeed, I could feel some strange presence creeping up behind me. I could feel his cold clutches reaching out, ready to grab me. My heart began to pound and I ran faster.

This time, instead of the heat on my face, I could feel an incredible cold all over my body. It terrified me, and I ran faster.

"He's catching up!" Leo shouted. Then he froze. "Wait!"

The dancers around us pulled out swords and yelled.

"Of course," I mumbled.

They all charged the darkness, swinging their swords wildly and falling to the ground and getting back up again, all in wide, sweeping motions.

"You have good people watching out for you," Leo said with a smile.

"I do," I mumbled. "Yeah . . . I do. You're one of them, aren't you?"

Leo shrugged. "I guess so. Come on, we need to go."

"Is that all you ever say?"

"It's all that's important right now. They can't keep The Darkness off forever. Let's go!"

We continued to run through the trees, which actually looked normal. Eventually, though, we found ourselves on the edge of another candy town. This one had people walking around in perfect formation, all dressed in light pink and baby blue. They walked around without so much as looking at us, and Leo only shrugged off their indifference.

Together we climbed to the top of a hill in the center of town. From there I could see the darkness creeping across the land, chewing off bits and pieces as it got closer and closer.

"We're almost safe," Leo said as we got to the top. "All you need to do now is head through this door."

Seemingly out of nowhere, a sort of portal appeared at the top of the hill. It was shaped like a door, but inside it glowed and swirled like something from a sci-fi movie. I looked back over the candy town and desolate fields in the distance and chewed my lip. "Will I ever figure out what all this was?"

Leo laughed. "You said it yourself; there's no logic here. Get in, hurry! The Darkness is almost upon us!"

I squinted. "I've never heard you talk like this before."

"Yeah, well, I'm not really Leo, so . . ."

"What? You're not?"

"No, but I had to take the form of someone you trusted. Come on, through the door. You haven't got much time! Look, The Darkness is already in town!"

Not-really-Leo ran down the hill, his hands raised and glowing. I took a step closer to the portal, which glowed and pulsed with something I couldn't explain.

"Go!" not-Leo shouted again.

I watched in horror as he charged into The Darkness where I could no longer see him. I took a deep breath and hopped through the strange portal, hoping it wasn't a mistake.

"Chase!"

"Chase, buddy, can you hear us?"

I opened my eyes to see several dozen faces above me. I gasped, and someone asked them all to back away. Someone helped me sit up, and I looked around to see myself back in the training room at the bionic academy.

"What happened?" I asked, becoming acutely aware of a throbbing pain in the back of my head.

"We made the mistake of asking the shortest person here to put the star on the top of the tree," Adam said.

"You fell off a ladder while we were putting up Christmas decorations," Bree said.

I blinked and looked around, seeing only the faces of concerned students and the boxes of decorations behind them. "Where's Leo?" I asked.

"He's still back at the mainland. Remember? He went home for Christmas," Bree said.

"Oh. Yeah. We're going back soon, too, right? I have something pretty wild to tell him."

"Well, right now you're going to go rest. Can you guys take him to the infirmary?" She gestured to two of the students, and they bent down to help me up.

As we walked out of the room and up to the infirmary, I heard the alarms for a mission alert go off. "Wait!" I called. "I have to help!"

"We've got it, Chase!" Bree called back.

"Yeah," Adam said as I turned to look at them. "You're even weaker right now that usual." Bree slapped his arm, but he still grinned.

Maybe they were right. I let myself be taken up to the infirmary; a rest sounded good. After all that craziness, I needed a moment to regain my head. I knew I definitely needed to sleep when I thought I saw Leo flying around above the hydroloop. . . .

Yeah, so . . . Chase had a weird dream. XD Basically the entire plot of the story. He fell of a ladder, hit his head, got knocked, and dreamed some crazy stuff. I suppose, in some weird way, The Darkness was a metaphor for death, but of course Chase wasn't actually going to die. He just had some funky dreams. I don't know. Craziness! (Have you heard "A Mad Russian's Christmas"? Mad being the operative word there.)

12/24 will go up tomorrow, Wizards in Christmas Decorations will go up the day after that, and The Silent Bionics will be up on Christmas Eve. Y'all caught the mission alert at the end of the story, right? Keep that in mind when you read 12/24 tomorrow. ;) Oh, and they will all be fairly short one-shots, just like this one. I wasn't doing something super intense; just holiday things.

Anyway, thanks to all for reading, and I appreciate reviews, even if you really have no idea what just happened. XD I'll see you guys tomorrow for 12/24, and until then, Merry Christmas! :D