‘Twas the Feast Before Christmas (Patreon)

The second Christmas offering, this one for Crowbar, with his character Archie filling up Santa’s reindeer!

Archie still wasn’t entirely sure how he had allowed himself to be roped into this. Was getting on the naughty list for life really that bad? Who was Santa Claus anyways, to judge him? He accidentally left out some of his spiked cookies for the jolly old elf, and now Santa was roughly the size of a house. Was it really that bad if all those brats spent one Christmas without presents?

Well, yes, apparently, yes it was. Now the kangaroo had been forced into a red jumpsuit and Santa hat, and had to make the run or Christmas would be ruined- more importantly, the elves had threatened to get Archie “lost” in the North Pole. Peace on earth and goodwill towards men, indeed.

The kangaroo was muttering angrily to himself as he stomped over to the stables, where the sleigh and reindeer were being prepared. Archie was spotted, and soon a tall, broad shouldered reindeer marched over, waving chipperly at him. “Hey! You’re Santa this year, right? I’m Comet, I’ll be leading the sleigh tonight.” The fit deer struck out his hand, which Archie hesitantly took.

“Hi. So… what exactly do you guys do for the run? Isn’t the sleigh magic?” Archie asked.

Comet waved it off. “Oh, well, that’s a common misconception- the truth is, we’re the magic ones.” He grinned, and flexed his impressively built arm, well-toned muscle bulging up. “Santa had us on a bulking program all year- turns out, the more of us there is, the more magic, faster the job gets done.” He turned back to the rest of the reindeer. “Isn’t that right, boys?”

The seven other reindeer nodded and grunted in agreement. All of them were in phenomenal shape, built up with lean muscle that made them all look like bodybuilders.

Archie’s brow jumped at that. “No kidding.” Then, he smiled. Archie had got an idea. An awful idea. Archie had a wonderful, awful idea. “Well! Lots of whining and crying from all those little tykes if we don’t get started. Why don’t you boys get all harnessed up, and we can get started?”

As the reindeer got into position, hooking themselves up to the sleigh’s harness. The touch of the reindeer alone was enough to send a jolt of magical energy humming through the sleigh, and Archie could feel it hovering off the ground as he climbed into the driver’s seat. Maybe this would be a Merry Christmas for him, after all. “Alright, how’s it go? Uh- on Dasher, on Prancer, on Comet and… Vixen? Bambi? John? Ah, screw it.” He snapped the reins. “Let’s get busy!”

The reindeer’s hooves pounded against the wooden floor, but soon, the sleigh shot off into the cold northern sky, and Archie could begin what he planned to be a Christmas filled with weighty consequences for the North Pole…

The official Santa Claus hand guide said that the route started in the Pacific, just past the International Date Line. Archie lulled his team into thinking this would be fairly routine; hitting Australia and New Zealand, the kangaroo slipped in and out of houses, with his handy stun gun always ready to zap away any curious kiddies. Then he reached Japan, where he was going to make use of a unique Christmas tradition…

“Alright! Time for a snack break,” Archie declared. Under his arms were half a dozen buckets of fried chicken.

“...Snack break?” Comet tilted his head. “I don’t follow… Santa doesn’t let us eat when we’re on the job.”

“Well, I’m Santa tonight, aren’t I? And I say, I’m more concerned with the guys keeping me up in the air being awake and energized.” He passed out the buckets between the reindeer, jumping down one more chimney to grab two more sets of fried chicken for the other two reindeer- a twelve piece bucket for each member of the team. “Here in Japan, American-style fried chicken is a Christmas delicacy- and you guys need lots of protein, right? Right, of course you do.” The kangaroo forced a huge breast into Comet’s mouth before he could question things further. He dug into his pockets as the reindeer happily gobbled up the chicken for a small device that looked like it was halfway between a pocket watch and a smart phone. He didn’t know all the details of Santa’s operation, but the kangaroo knew the big guy got all around the world in a single night thanks to some cookie-powered magic of his own- the sleigh and reindeer did only half the job. Archie, however, had a better solution. 

The little device he held in his hand was his latest invention, and he had been agonizing over how he could use it to make someone gain weight. What good is a time displacer that could fold space-time if he couldn’t use it to turn a new victim into a gluttonous blob? But now, as he watched his team of reindeer greedily chow down, he had his answer. Climbing back into the sleigh, he quietly set the device into motion, time subtly warping around them. He would get everything done in one night, that much was certain; at least, that’s how it would seem to the rest of the world. But by bending time, Archie was about to subject the reindeer to a several weeks long binge of cookies, Christmas hams, turkey, and whatever else he could find along the way. As the reindeer finished up their buckets, patting full bellies and getting back into position, Archie snapped the reins. “Alright gang, let’s keep it moving! It’s going to be a long night!”

Now, Archie was meticulous. He had all the time in the world, and he made sure that every present was delivered, but more importantly to him, he made sure every treat, every last cookie crumb and drop of milk, was eaten. With the Pacific Asian coast behind them, the sled ploughed through China and then on to Russia, where some of the reindeer were beginning to notice the changes in their physiques. After a few hundred million homes visited, the weight was bound to pile on.

“Uh, boss… we’re starting to feel a little funny…” Comet rubbed the back of his head. The lead reindeer’s arms and chest were still fairly muscular, but for the rest of him… he had gorged on fried chicken, mochi, and moon cakes, resulting in a butterball belly that hung off his torso. His harness was cutting into his flesh, lovehandles oozing out, and his augmented rear was taking up more and more space at the front of the team. 

“Oh? Well, we can take a little break…” Archie landed the sleigh near an unused barn, where the reindeer filed in. Each of them was sporting a belly similar to Comet’s, stuffed and round as a beach ball. The kangaroo hid his hungry looking smile as they all slowly dozed off to digest their meals, then he got to work. Grabbing eight carrots, he coated each of them with one of his formulas, and woke the team up after a few hours. It should have been around dawn by now, but as far as the reindeer could see, it was still the dead of night. 

“Alright, let’s get moving!” Archie clapped his hands. “Presents don’t deliver themselves! And I’ve got healthy snacks to keep you all moving.” Passing out the carrots, he was quick to rally the pudgier deer back into formation; they weren’t going to get any fatter here.

The sleigh flew off into the night, hitting Moscow and St. Petersburg. It being Russia, the pickings were slim, but after that, the team hit Europe, with English cookies, French pastries, and German strudel, and a quick trip down to Turkey for some Turkish Delight. Roofs were beginning to groan under the combined weight of eight obese reindeer. Vixen found that out the hard way in Paris, as the reindeer’s weight buckled the foundation. The reindeer’s wide hips and overgrown posterior wedged him in the hole, and it took the rest of the team to pull him out. Archie surveyed the damage. By some miracle, no one in the house had woken up.

“Alright, so… we’re just going to mark that off as a freak accident and move on,” the kangaroo said.

Vixen, however, was beside himself. He was close to crying, his chin trembling and making his two other chins jiggle. “I- I’ve never done that before… I’m so sorry, Santa, I ruined Christmas!”

The kangaroo sighed. He really wasn’t good at this sort of thing. “It’s, uh, alright, Vixen. No harm done.” He patted Vixen’s back, teasing the wobbling fat hanging off his frame. “Here, have a cookie.”

Thankfully, that seemed to do the trick. Vixen’s eyes lit up, his stomach growling as he snatched up the cookie. “You’re right, Santa! We still have a job to do,” Vixen grinned, dimpling his cheeks.

Archie raised his brow. These reindeer were some of the most impressionable people he ever worked on. At least that made things easier for him. The trek across Europe continued, and by the time they took a break in western Spain, Archie surveyed his work, passing out churros to the reindeer.

“Uh, boss… Cupid’s harness burst, and we think it fell off somewhere over Madrid…” Comet mumbled. The lead reindeer’s belly had swollen up to the size of a cauldron, his chunky thighs wobbling wherever he walked. His little stub tail was slowly being eaten up by his rear, now the shape of two oversized Christmas ornaments. “His was the last one.”

“And? You guys were supposed to be bulking, so it’s not a big surprise. We’ll get you new ones when we get back to the North Pole.”

“But, Santa, we’ve been eating a lot… maybe we should…” Comet trailed off as Archie held up a churro, hovering it under Comet’s nose. His fat belly gurgled, and instantly, he gobbled it up. “Sorry, uhm, I lost my train of thought, there.”

“No problem, big guy. Just make sure you eat up- we’re flying across the Atlantic next.” Archie gave Comet’s belly a fond pat, sending ripples across the reams of fat.

Greenland and Canada were next, but then, Archie hit the jackpot of fattening foods and Christmas treats- the United States. The reindeer didn’t stand a chance. After knocking out the Western Hemisphere, the sleigh, now overshadowed by the eight truck sized blobs leading it, lurched to the ground as the team rolled out of formation. 

“Santa… we need… a little…. break…” Comet wheezed, puffing out his already snow globe-shaped cheeks.

“Oh, I know,” Archie chuckled to himself, plopping down in the snow. With all these huge, warm bodies around him, he’d be plenty warm. Like eight hills surrounding him, Santa’s reindeer had eaten billions of treats between them all, ballooning into massive boulders of fat. Their short, coarse fur traversed over piles of backfat and nearly useless limbs so swaddled in blubber they were wider than they were long. Their cheeks and rings of multiple chins billowed out wider than their antlers, and their sausage fingers rest lazily on doughy chests as big as Santa’s sack.

“You boys did good tonight,” Archie said, gazing over his handiwork. Comet had plopped down beside him, rolling over on his side. He was weighed down and dominated by his enormous middle, while that gargantuan avalanche of lard still gurgled, hungry for even more. The red-clad kangaroo looked over to the side, where all he could see of the decidedly pear-shaped Vixen was his enormous ass, each cheek the size of a small house. The rest of the reindeer had managed to flop down on their own prodigious rears, able to sit up as their bellies spread out across the frozen ground. “Believe me, I’m very impressed. Santa would be so proud of you. I know I am.”

“It was… fun, boss…” Comet huffed. “Think there’s time for one more snack break?” The reindeer asked, mashed against his own wobbly cheeks.

Archie smirked wide, pulling out a cookie from his jacket. “For you, Comet? Of course I do. Merry Christmas to all, and to all some good eats.”