A.N.—Okay, here is the start of my Christmas story! I hope you like it! :D

Chapter 1: Prologue

Santa Claus gets off of his sleigh as soon as his team of nine reindeer have paused in the snow. "Excellent work, everyone." He says as he begins to unhitch them. "At this rate, we'll be more than ready for the big flight this year!"

The reindeer each nod in a grouped reply. "Yes, sir!" They say and Santa, pleased at how their flight had gone, walks off to the workshop to check up on his elves and to check his lists one more time. The reindeer wait until Santa has gone into his workshop before they stand up on their hind legs and look at each other.

Dasher wipes off his face with the side of his foreleg above his hoof. "There's no way that we'll be ready in time." He says. "There's only a week until the flight and we're way out of practice."

"Stop being such a downer, Dasher." Rudolph says as he walks over and pats Dasher on the shoulder with his hoof. "We'll be ready." He reassures.

Comet looks at them. "We HAVE to be ready! We can't let down all of those kids and animals!" He says. "They're counting on us!"

"Agreed!" Cupid chimes in. "If Rudolph says we will be ready, then we must!"

Donner nods as he listens to them. It was practically the same exact conversation every year. He has gotten pretty bored of always hearing it and he looks towards the practice field. "Come on, everyone. Let's go down to the practice field and work on everything some more...Iron out any certain problems you seem to think that we're having, Dasher."

"There are more problems than any of you seem to be noticing!" Dasher stubbornly says and crosses his forelegs in front of him.

"Suuuuuurrrrrreeee there are, worry walrus." Blitzen jokes. "And Donner had a good idea, let's go!" The rest of the reindeer all nod, except for Dasher, and they all trot down to the field and dump some of the magic flying dust upon themselves from a box hanging upon the fence around this field. After doing this, the reindeer pair up as if they were hitched once again to Santa's sleigh and take to the skies.

Rudolph turns around while they're up there and looks at the other eight reindeer. "Okay, everyone, formation 12-24C and follow it up by 12-25E!" The red-nosed reindeer instructs the others. The other reindeer nod and assemble themselves into the first formation. Rudolph himself gets back into the reindeer ranks and continues to give instructions from that spot as they fly. Suddenly, a dark fog rolls into the sky around them. They cannot see where they are, who is next to them, or even how far below the ground is anymore. Several of the confused and terrified deer scream.

"Mwahahahahaha!" Something deep within the heart of the fog laughs. Three of the deer manage to find their way through the fog and crash land hard in the snowy practice field. Slowly, the pull their snow covered selves up from the ground and shake themselves off.

Dasher is the first to regain enough thought to speak. "What-What in the name of Father Christmas was that?!" He exclaims.

"I-I don't kn-know…" Cupid nervously says as she looks up at where the dark fog had been, but it is already gone with most of their friends. "Where are the others?"

Comet looks around the snow. "That's a good question, Cupid…" He says. "I think they are wherever that cloud went…" He then says a couple of moments later as they still have found no other deer from their flight.

"Oh snowflakes! This is not good! Not good at all!" Dasher begins to panic, putting his hooves to his head and starting to run around.

Comet steps one of his hind legs out in front of Dasher and trips him. He lands face first in a snowbank. "Stop panicking, Dasher. We'll go tell the boss. He'll know what to do for sure." He says.

Cupid nods worriedly in agreement with him. "Right, Comet." She says and looks at the clear blue sky. "I hope they're okay, wherever they are…"