Christmas
Ratchet walked down the hall towards Jeremy's dorm, tapping his pencil thoughtfully against his chin. He didn't quite know why almost all of the students had left the school; something about a "winter vacation," he heard. Still staring down in confusion at his text book, he tapped on Jeremy's door. He didn't even register the light sound of laughter and music from within. As he was granted entrance, he opened the door. "Hey, Jeremy, I'm having a bit of trouble on getting this one problem..." He looked up, seeing Jeremy on his swivel chair, Odd sitting on the floor, and Ulrich, Yumi, and Aelita sitting on the bed. He tilted his head at the curious spectacle. The room was decorated with red and green. A small tree, pine, if he remembered right, was set on the desk, tiny orbs hanging on its branches and a star on top. "What...?" He watched them quietly, confused by their strange cheeriness. What was it that caused this, he wondered.
Aelita smiled at Ratchet. "Merry Christmas, Rixon!" Ratchet's brow furrowed in his further confusion. Merry Christmas? What on Veldin did that even mean? "Is something wrong, Rixon?" The others were looking at him now, almost concerned.
"No...no, nothing's wrong," the Lombax replied. "I just came to ask Jeremy for a bit of help. I'm working on quadratics."
Odd looked at him funny. "Why are you working on school, Rix? It's Christmas!"
Ratchet blinked. "Christmas? What's that?" He had never even heard of such a thing during his adventures. The jaws of every human present dropped. Rixon didn't know what Christmas was? It was only the most popular holiday all over the world! How could he not know? If the holo-guise had been turned off, they would have seen Ratchet's ears fall back as he bit his lip. "Did I say something wrong?"
"You're joking, right?" Ulrich asked. Ratchet shook his head dumbly.
Jeremy's fingers laced together as he looked at Ratchet intently. "You really don't know what Christmas is?" Again, he shook his head. "You never celebrated it with your family or anything?" Another negative.
"Well, that's interesting," Yumi commented. "You've never heard of Christmas before… Who knew?"
"Sorry…" Ratchet muttered sheepishly.
"It's nothing to be sorry about, Rixon."
"Aelita's right," Jeremy supported. "If you don't know, then-"
"We'll just have to tell you!" Odd said enthusiastically. Jeremy let the interruption go unchecked. "Come on in, Rix. Have a seat!" Ratchet did as he was told, placing his pencil in the text book and setting it on the floor by him. Soon, the humans began their explanation.
So here's a (sorry, really short) one shot for Chronicles of Internet Earth. I would have put it in the actual story, but we're not that far yet, so I went with this instead. May not be accurate to the games, but whatever; I had fun writing it. Hope you liked it; feel free to leave a comment. ^.^ Merry Christmas, everyone!