The sunlight was barely in his office when Santa stirred from his quarters. He looked around quite blindly, wondering if he had slept the whole day and it was nighttime again. Alas, that wasn't true. Checking his clock, he knew the chef elves wouldn't be up at this time, and he was dying to get a rousing cup of eggnog.
Guess he had to do it the old-fashioned way.
He hoisted himself from his seat, which he had been passed out on since yesterday when thinking of a new plan. Real reindeer weren't going to work, and Saint 'Nik had quickly ordered his Moto Bugs to herd them back to who-knows-where before Omega could cause any more damage.
The fat man really thought he was going to win with those reindeer.
So last night, he toiled over Plan B, which probably was more realistic and should've been worked on earlier: rockets attached to his sleigh. It was a bit more difficult than just slapping rockets on the hind of his sleigh and sending it off; he had to continuously give the rockets fuel to keep burning and the sleigh was the perfect producer of fuel.
But he'd better watch himself because his famed sleigh was now highly flammable.
He had no doubt that this would beat the hedgehog. Who could be faster than high-powered rockets built by none other than the genius himself? Whatever, he thought as he entered the kitchen gruffly, I'll just talk to that hedgehog about it later in the day.
"Hey, you're awake! Didn't know you'd be up at this hour. Want some eggnog?"
He froze at the words.
Slowly, Santa looked up in horror at Sonic, who had a cup of eggnog in his hand as well. That hedgehog—! Stealing his time alone no doubt. He probably knew that the fat man liked eggnog and most likely camped out here until he came in here.
It was a clever ambush, he had to admit.
"Why are you...?
"Awake?" Sonic shrugged, "Eh, I'm a morning person."
The blue hedgehog offered a seat, and Santa took that and a drink. "Being a morning person isn't good, considering if you have to stay up late to deliver presents on Christmas Eve," he countered, making sure he said 'if.'
"Can't I be both? Hedgehogs are naturally nocturnal, y'know. And I thought you knew everything." The conversation ricocheted back as quickly as Santa blinked.
Sonic chuckled at the inability to counter and sipped his eggnog. His eyes grew wide, and he pulled it away in a split second. "Hot, hot!"
The fat man observed the hedgehog as he wiped his tongue against a napkin decorated with little mistletoes. Saint 'Nik was used to being the wittiest one with his robots trying to pick up on his humor and indignant orders. Now Sonic was pulling jokes on him that sometimes took him a minute after to get. It was weird to be chatting with something so...alive.
Of course, he had chatted with something alive before, and it wasn't very long ago...but this felt different.
Sonic put his eggnog down, a moustache appearing on his muzzle. "Oh, hey, I've got facial hair like you."
Santa 'Botnik snorted and stood up. "Please, don't insult me with that fake, protein-made stain on your face. This," he stroked his orange moustache, "is quality work."
The blue hedgehog cocked his head to one side. "So why don't you ever let the kids of the world see that beauty, huh?"
Stopping in his tracks, the fat man gazed at Sonic. "Are you trying to get me to break the rules?"
"There are rules?" Sonic asked all too innocently.
He knew he had gone too far. "Er, get out of here. I don't need to explain myself."
"C'mon, Mister Claus, can't we have a normal little chat, mano gordo a, uh...hedgedeer?"
Santa hesitated. "Well, there is one thing I need to ask you," he said slowly.
At that statement, the hedgehog brightened. "Ask away!"
"Where did you hear about me? Why did you come here? And don't give me the 'I knew you needed help' excuse," he edged in before Sonic could say a word.
This stopped the hedgedeer for a second. He was actually visibly mulling over on something before he opened his big fat trap. A true Christmas miracle. "Well, I—" he stopped that sentence, and then a new idea seemed to enter his head. "You know what, I'll tell you. If you let me be the reindeer that guides your sleigh on Christmas Eve."
It was all looking good before he said that. "What?! That's-that's—"
"Brilliant, well-thought out? Thanks," Sonic teased, "But seriously, you need some sort of assurance that you'll deliver all the presents to the world before Christmas. That's where I come in. Admit it; you need help."
"Bah, I can do these things myself! I don't need your help," Saint 'Nik retorted, heading to the kitchen doors, "In fact, I have rockets already built to do the guiding for me. Admit it; you can't be faster than that!"
"Oh, really? How 'bout a race then? To see which one is faster?"
Santa flung his arms out exaggeratingly. "Deal!" he cried, swinging out the doors and exiting. He stomped down the hallways until his foot met a two foot robot. He watched it crash into the wall when he got an idea. "Hey, you!" Picking up his minion, the fat man smiled at it, "Find the location of the last reindeer. When you find it, report back to me as soon as possible."
If this blue reindeer wasn't going to give him the answers, Ivo most certainly would find them out himself.
"Rargh! I hate snow!" Saint 'Nik bellowed, tightening his belt. Why did he let himself be out in this dreadful weather so often anyway? Oh, yeah, because of that pain-in-the-neck hedgehog!
"Then why'd you choose this location for your workshop...?" Cubot trailed, puzzled at his boss's behavior.
Growling at the cube-shaped elf, he muttered, "Don't even ask that question."
Orbot leaped up excitedly in the ever-increasing snow. "Isn't this exciting? Another race! I can't wait to see Sonic cross the finish line first—" he froze, noticing the seething fat man's sharpened glare. "I-I mean, it's going to be close!"
Santa smacked a gloved hand against his forehead as he climbed into his sleigh. Was it really going to be such a blowout? He believed not, especially with his wonderfully-made rockets and sleek sleigh. His transport was decorated in the usual holiday colors, gold, red, and a hint of white, but this sleigh was the most aerodynamic he could possibly make it while its still being a sleigh.
Sometimes Christmas Eves past were cut down to the wire because of a poorly-timed eggnog break, and so he needed as much speed and balance as possible.
His steel rockets gleamed in the afternoon light at the end of his sleigh. He made sure Orbot stayed far away from the end of it to prevent him from being burned up (though a small part of him wanted him to be, in the current situation). The rockets were his craftsmanship after all; the fuel would certainly leave long trails of flame at the back of his sleigh.
"Say, Mister Claus, are you ready?" Sonic called, prancing up and down in his stretches with his sleigh's reins attached to him. Santa believed he deserved the real sleigh, and Sonic deserved the makeshift one, which was slightly heavier than the other one. One could say it wasn't fair, but was life ever really fair?
"Ready to take you down, that's what," Saint 'Nik shot back, getting comfortable in his vehicle.
The goal? The first one to get across the expanse of colossal, icy mountains would win. Cubot already made his way over there, so it signaled that this would be a very short course as well.
Sonic raised his head back and laughed. "Oh, we'll see about that," he said with a grin, his unwavering green eyes refocusing on the mountainous path before him.
"Ready, set, go!" Orbot called, waving his arms as if he were waving two flags.
At that moment, Santa pressed the button on his sleigh, and the fuel was released to combust in the air by the rockets. He was sent forward faster than he thought, and he was soon flying above the mountain peaks. "Yes! Yes! Yes!" he said between triumphant laughs.
The mountains were near to impossible to navigate oneself through. Forget hauling a giant sleigh, it would be a miracle for Sonic to get out of there in one piece.
He was eager to reach the finish line until he saw out of the corner of his eye a blur of some kind. Upon closer inspection, without steering his sleigh the wrong way, he sputtered in disbelief at the hedgehog jumping from peak to peak. His makeshift sleigh seemed perfectly fine, not damaged at all nor flinging wildly as he did this. It was like some perfect holiday movie.
This wasn't a Christmas miracle; this had to be some sort of cheating!
Santa put more and more pressure on the button, desperate to get an inch ahead of the hedgehog. But Sonic seemed to get farther and farther away. How he could haul a heavier sleigh and haul it faster than his rockets could, the fat man would never know.
Sonic disappeared over the last line of mountains as Santa's sleigh followed right behind him. But he knew who won anyway.
"You were faster than rockets, Sonic! Rockets!" Cubot exclaimed on the hedgehog's shoulder.
Merely shrugging, the hedgehog turned to the fat man, who was grumbling over his new inventions. "Yeah, but those rockets were some pretty tough competition. To build anything that could go that fast is certainly a huge feat," he said, looking over with a smile.
Santa kicked one of his rockets angrily. "Don't flatter me. You wouldn't be doing that if you lost, so don't be like that at all."
"Aw, c'mon, Mister Claus, I'm being as genuine as I possibly can. Why don't you wanna be—"
"Says the hedgehog who refuses to tell me how and why he came here," Saint 'Nik said bluntly. He then turned away and began walking back. "I've got some business to handle. After all, it's the Eve of Christmas Eve and Santa needs to tie all the loose ends before the big day."
The sarcastic tone dwelt in his voice in the last few sentences as he left the three standing in the snow. He wished they would all not move and freeze in the blizzard, but he knew they weren't as dumb as rocks. Or real reindeer, for that matter.
Once he reached the workshop—which was quite a long stroll, mind you—he was huffing and puffing, cheeks as red as his suit. With more force than needed, Saint 'Nik pushed the front doors open and they slammed into the walls, causing all the elves to look up from their work and stare at him.
"Get back to work!" he bellowed, his voice scaring them back to toiling furiously, "It's the Eve of Christmas Eve, and I don't want any more distractions, interruptions, or pathetic miscommunications." He nearly tripped over a tiny two foot robot elf. "What do you want?!"
"The last reindeer's location. He is found."
Well, this was certainly a turn of events.
Santa found himself re-buttoning his coat and putting on his red and white hat. "Well, tell me the coordinates, little one. Now."
For sure, he'd get some answers.
Part of Saint 'Nik liked to think right about now that his minion gave him the wrong directions or something. He never liked traveling to populated areas, especially people that knew of him. Of course, he could've gone incognito, but he didn't want to look like a complete fool either.
This huge mall, where his last reindeer supposedly was residing, was usually packed with people, and it was one of the largest malls in the world.
Luckily, he needn't worry about the crowds since it was way past closing time—it was now around midnight, to be exact—so he would have to blunder around the large, empty shopping center lit only by the moonlight shining through the glass windows above.
He was thankful that he was given the exact location in this mall, or he'd been wandering around here forever. Santa tiptoed silently, still afraid that there might be some mall cop to bust him for breaking curfew, until he came across the fourth floor's escalators.
Finally.
Timidly but growing more confident, he approached them and quietly headed to the back of one to see a tall, gaping shadow trailing behind. It was so murky black that he felt he had the wrong escalator, but he knew this reindeer was great at blending in with the dark.
"Shadow?"
Deathly silence hung in the air for five, ten, fifteen seconds. Then the shadows under the escalator morphed until he could see black spines jutting out like knives in the moonlight. Red eyes flickered into being in the yawning darkness, and a familiar scathing, low voice scratched on Santa's ears.
"It's you."
"Yes, it's me. It's very good to see you again, Shadow the Hedgehog. Tell me, why are you at the mall when it's clearly past closing time?" he asked, feeling like that kind idiot Sonic.
"I don't need to explain anything to you!" Shadow burst; then his temper waned. "Why are you here? I thought I told you to never see me again."
Santa wondered to himself why the mall cops wouldn't kick him out at this late of night. Then he figured how scary Shadow must look in the dark and his serious anger problems and he couldn't blame them for leaving him here.
"Coming to visit you, of course," Saint 'Nik said quickly, "Looking for any gifts in this mall?"
His red eyes looked distant. "Everything in this place is useless, superficial. There is no gift that could restore what I've lost." His red eyes flickered to him, fire dancing in them dangerously. "Nothing could ever restore what I've lost because of you."
The calmness in his last reindeer's voice was starting to scare him; it was reminding him of the last time Shadow and he talked. He needed to get to the point quickly. "Well, Shadow, since you left me at such a terrible time, I have come across another reindeer. A hedgehog ironically."
Shadow's crimson gaze fell to the ground. "Is that so?"
"Yep! And he even beat your record time in the reindeer course," Santa boasted, already feeling a surge of pride flow through him at that jab. "It's strange that he's a super fast hedgehog just like yourself. Maybe you know each other. Perhaps when you left, you recommended the job to him, and perha—"
"You're suggesting that I brought him to you?!" Shadow roared unexpectedly, causing Santa to fall backwards and hit the wall. The black hedgehog approached him venomously. "Why would I ever help you, old man? You turn giving gifts to kids into a selfish thing centered around you. You always refused help, thinking you could do it your blasted self." Shadow was out of the darkness and into the moonlight, exposing his crimson streaks that matched the blood red rage of his eyes. "And that's what killed her, blast it! You killed her with your pride, with your selfish pigheadedness, with your inability to accept her help. She was only trying to help!"
Santa fought the fists that were attempting to get a crack on his skull; it was slowly proving unsuccessful. "I'm sorry. I couldn't get there in time, Shadow! I'm just a man like everyone else—!"
Shadow relinquished his fists and backed into the shadows a little more. "So now you admit it," he said darkly, "Listen, this new reindeer, this new 'Rudolph' will figure that out soon, that you're nothing like what he's been told. I swear it. You're going to think that you can do everything yourself, and it's going to cost you." He melded back in the shadows with the last words, "I hope it does, old man."
Saint 'Nik lay there, paralyzed with numbing fear, as he slowly tried to get his heart rate back to normal from seeing those rage-filled blood red eyes again. He'd prove him wrong; the past was in the past after all. It was just a mistake he made and he learned from it. The fat man pushed himself to his black boots and stared down the darkness, not intimidated any more. "I'm sorry you're this way, Shadow. Who knew you relied so much on my cousin?"
Shadow said nothing more, and, knowing their spat was over, Santa walked away from the escalator with a sickening feeling. Revisiting the past never felt good.
There you go, some hints of darkness to it! We're at the halfway point through this story, so I'd like to thank everyone again for their feedback. Hopefully, I can post another chapter today, so be on the look out for that. Thanks again!
-JD
