Christmas Angel

Disclaimer: I do not own digimon, the digiestined or Santa Clause. I do own Rachel, Frostmon and the plot. Oh and the Christmas Angel was based on something that doesn't belong to me but I own it in this story.
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I can't say I never believed in Santa Clause. Seriously, I thought he existed. That was, of course, because my parents and big brother, Tai, loved pulling off the act. Every Christmas eve Tai would drag me off early and put me to bed. I also hated it but he said that the youngest children of the house had to go to bed early or Santa wouldn't come. Then he would explain that he was only going to put out some Egg Nog and cookies for Santa. Before he left I would remind him to put out carrots for the reindeer.

Well before Tai would come back I had convinced myself that I was tired and fell asleep. When I woke up my big brother would be lying in bed looking like his regular lazy self. I guess I could have a kind little sister and let him sleep but I always (and I mean always) blew my whistle and woke him up. Which would end up in a furious chase around the room for a couple of minutes until Mom would come in.

"Come on Kari! Come and see what Santa left!" she would say so sweetly I would jump for joy and run out of my room. Actually, more like stumble because I was so young.

It would be then, that in the living room, I would see the biggest and greenest Christmas tree ever. It was always covered by lovely silver and gold decorations with an angel on the top and lovely lights. Seeing as how young I was I never noticed that the decorations were always the same as last year. But then I would notice all the presents under the tree and start giggling.

"So which one you going open up first?" my dad would ask, sitting on the couch next to the table that would have an empty glass and a glass with crumbs on it.

"All of them!" I would cry out, jumping toward them.

"Hold up! I want you to open this one," Tai would always say, handing me a present with a pretty pink bow on it.

But then the whole Digital World thing happened and it almost seemed like Santa didn't come. Yeah we still got presents and stuff but my family didn't do the elaborate decorations and stuff like that. No matter what, though, I kept on believing in Santa. I just convinced myself that he knew that I was old enough to believe without silver and gold decorations.

Then one day, as I walking home from school this older kid walked up to me and sneered. He was one of the kids Tai complained about a lot. One of those bully kids. What he wanted with me I couldn't have guessed, I just wanted to know when Tai was going to show up.

"You're the Kamiya girl, ain't you?" laughed the guy.

"My name is Kari," I said. Before the Digital World incident I would have just said something stupid like "I have to go home," but I gained some courage over the years.

"Good for you. Tai tells me you still believe in Santa Clause," continued the bully guy. I became confused.

"What's that got to do with anything?" I asked.

"Well I have something to tell you, little girl. He don't exist. He's just some story parents made up so little kids would be good all year long. No fat dude goes down the chimney every year and put no toys under your Christmas tree. You're going to have to grow up!" laughed the bully.

I just stared at him. In all my life I never imagined anything like that. Anything that would hurt as much as being told Santa Clause wasn't real, that I had been living a lie. My silence seemed to convince the guy that his job was done because he laughed heartily and strode away. Not much long later Tai showed up.

"Kari! Sorry I took so long…" he started. "Hey, you okay?"

I nodded not wanting him to know that I knew about his secret because it was clear that if my parents were lying about Santa, Tai surely must have as well.

"Let's go home Tai," I whispered walking off.

For a while I seriously didn't think I would get over it. I thought I would hate Tai and my parents for the rest of my life. But then I got over that. It still hurt because I found out Santa didn't exist but I didn't blame my family.

That Christmas, however, I couldn't keep it in any longer. I went to bed and bought Tai's lie about just putting cookies and Egg Nog out for Santa. I managed to fall asleep, though not until after Tai had returned. In the morning I woke Tai up, but nicely. Mom came in and told me to come out. Dad asked which present I wanted to open and Tai made to hand me a present with a pretty pink bow on it. There was the empty glass and the crumb covered plate.

It just all overwhelmed me and I started to cry. There was no way I was going to stop for a very long time. But as I stood there crying it almost seemed like everybody standing there knew why I was crying. Mom tried to comfort me with a hug but I had enough. I went back into my room, slammed the door and threw myself down on my bed.

That day was never brought up again. Neither was Santa. We still celebrated Christmas, it was just all bit more stiff. I soon got over it but it still hurt every once and a while. Slowly I grew up and went to High School. Christmas came around yet again and T.K. did something most unexpected: he asked me out.

Actually it wasn't that unexpected. Most of the digidestined were getting dates. Sora and Tai. Mimi and Joe. Yolei and Davis (yeah I was a bit surprised too). Even Cody picked up a date with this one American girl. She was okay. I think Ken was a bit jealous of Davis though. Anyways, we were to all go to Matt's dance concert. Luckily they had recorded a lot of CD's so Matt wouldn't be busy singing all the time. It had been a long time since all of us digidestined had been together. Besides our last Christmas party at Ken's house had been cut off but Tai's call about digimon attacking at Matt's concert. Yeah we were kind of hoping the same thing wouldn't happen again. But just to be safe we were dragging out digimon along as well. Okay, that was our excuse. We were really just allowing them to hand out as well.

Though T.K. asking me out was nice and to be expected it still surprised me. I, of course, said yes but only after turning ten different shades of red. I was lucky Davis was over me otherwise we would never get any time alone at the dance. Mimi helped me pick out a cute pink dress to wear gave me some of her high heel boots to wear as well. Gatomon mentioned me looking like a Christmas angel but I think she was just being polite. Besides they didn't exist, just like Santa didn't.

T.K. and Sora showed up to pick Tai and I up. I found it a bit odd that the girl was picking up the guy but it was a bit more convenient as Sora said. T.K. hadn't really dressed up but that was okay. Guys don't like to dress up that much and he looked cute in his green outfit and white hat. I blushed several times as I took his arm and walked with him to the party.

Once there Cody introduced us to his friend Rachel. Immediately she reminded me of a younger version of myself. And somewhere in the back of my mind I wondered if she still believed in Santa. If she would get hurt too because some bully told her he didn't exist. But I didn't have much time to wonder because T.K. dragged me onto the dance floor. We were literally the first ones there which I could tell was freakin' Tai and Matt out. The music had only just started.

Cody and Rachel were as comfortable about the whole dancing thing. They were young and only friend. But that had been what it was like T.K. and I. Then helped me quite a few times as we fought evil digimon in the Digital World that I couldn't help but like him. Though I was a bit difficult to judge if he liked me too. Yolei constantly told me that it was obvious he liked me but I didn't see it. I guess I was just looking to hard. It was kind of obvious. It was me who hadn't been obvious.

After eight different dances T.K. and I got tired. Davis and Yolei took our places on the dance floor and we went outside to get some fresh air. As we stood there staring at stars I started to shiver so moved closer to T.K. He smiled and grabbed my hand causing me to turn as pink as my dress. Then he pulled me toward him and…

Well our digivices chose that time to start beeping. We both moaned and looked at them. Izzy rushed out to grab us saying that there was something wrong in the digital world. So us digidestined ended up leaving the party (except for Davis and Yolei because we could get them to stop dancing/kissing) and rushing to the closest house. It just so happened to be Matt's, go figure. It was then that we realized that Cody still had Rachel with him.

"Um, you can't come…" muttered Sora, trying to be nice but still get the girl to go.

"Oh but Cody's told me so much about the digital world!" cried Rachel. I flinched. She seemed almost as excited as I use to on Christmas. "And he says I got a digivice too! See!" She held up one of the older versions of the digivice and explained that she got it when Malmyotismon was trying to suck all the energy out of the earth and control it and the Digital World. That had been the only connection she had had with the digimon.

"I say just let the girl come," said Matt. "We'll let Kari and Cody take care of her."

I nodded my agreement as Izzy finished loading up the computer and turning on the digi-port. T.K. stepped forward with his green digivice and pointed it at the screen.

"Digi-port open!" he cried, getting sucked into the computer. The rest of us soon followed.

Once in the digital world we looked around and noticed that it had been snowing. All the digimon frowned. It only snowed in places where it's frozen year round. The digital world didn't just suddenly get covered in snow. Not that Rachel seemed to mind. She giggled and started playing in the snow. If she had seen Santa Clause I don't think she could have been any happier.

"Don't go too far," I warned her.

"I won't!" she giggled.

The others were discussing what to do as Cody and I watched Rachel run around. To think the two were the same age and so different. The saying 'opposites attract' popped into my mind. Then Joe looked over at us.

"We're going to split up and search for this digimon. Matt, Sora, Izzy, Ken and myself are going off in that direction. Tai, Mimi, and T.K. are going with you three," explained Joe. I nodded my understanding as the first group walked off. Rachel seemed to realize that things had become serious and had stopped her laughter.

We started off in the opposite direction as the first group. We made little, if any progress in finding what had caused this sudden change in the Digital World. I was starting to worry and stopped watching Rachel. Suddenly a rustling came from the bushes. We all stopped and stood on guard. But out of the bushes came stumbling…

"Santa Clause!?" cried Rachel.

I really couldn't believe it. Standing there in the red suit was none other that Santa Clause. But it couldn't be true. He didn't exist, everybody knew that except for those lucky ignorant little kids. Like Rachel. Santa laughed but it wasn't his normal "Ho, ho, ho" that you hear about that shook his belly like a bowl full of jelly. Instead it was a low cold laugh that chilled your blood and bones like ice.

"Naïve child, I am not Santa Clause," laughed the fake Santa. Though his laugh still chilled me, my blood was starting to boil from anger. "Santa doesn't exist. Instead there is Frostmon!"

In a way the red suit melted away leaving behind a skinny man that was almost completely made out of ice. He even held a ice staff. But despite all that and Patamon's warning on him being an ultimate digimon I was still mad. And the hurt look on Rachel's face was enough to break my heart.

"You're such a jerk!" I screamed.

Everybody was quite surprised, including myself. But this caused the digimon to laugh as if this were some joke and he knew he was too powerful for me to be able to do anything to him.

"It's people like you that cause the last bit of a child's innocence to melt away! It's people like you that cause little kids to start crying because they found out that Santa didn't exist. It's people like you that make me sick! I can't stand you! A child should learn something that delicate when they're ready and not before. It causes what belief they have to shatter!" I shouted.

"Are you going to do something about it or just scream at me?" asked Frostmon off handedly. "And I don't get your problem. You're all grown up. You shouldn't be believing in things like Santa Clause anymore."

"Yeah, well there's a little girl right here who did. And you had to ruin that for her!" I cried, my shaking hands in fists. I seriously couldn't take it anymore. It was more than I could bare. Rachel had started crying and Mimi was comforting her the best she could. But it wasn't helping because this beyond a simple hug and "It's going to be okay." The girl needed to be told that her belief hadn't been for nothing. Santa may not exist but it didn't mean things like digimon didn't.

When I realized that my digivice started to glow. I didn't realized that, not even after Tai called my name. Apparently the glow and moved to myself, making me disappear in this glow of pink light. And I grew wings. Don't ask, I didn't understand it myself. I pretty much kept my clothes style though my dress got a bit longer and my shoes disappeared. But I wasn't cold because it was almost as if I could live in the snow.

"I am going to do something about you Frostmon," I laughed, holding my hands out in front of my, palms facing each other. Between them a snowflake appeared and it slowly grew until it was a ball of energy. I didn't realize it, but I was floating in the air. "I'm going to destroy you."

With those words a beam of light shot out from my snowflake and hit the digimon straight in the chest. He cried out as he disintegrated and finally disappeared. Then I reverted back into me, Kari Kamiya and landed lightly in the snow. Nobody said a word, not even after the snow disappeared. Then Gatomon smiled.

"I told you, you are a Christmas angel!" she said.

"No way!" said Tai. "I believe in angels but Christmas angels? They were created along with Santa Clause…"

"What makes you think Santa Clause doesn't exist?" I wasn't going to dare to believe it but I did anyways. I turned to look and found myself staring straight at Santa. Rachel started to smile then to laugh as she rushed forward and hugged him.

"When I get back to the real world I am going to strangle that bully who said Santa Clause didn't exist!" I said viciously.

"Don't do that! You want to get Christmas presents tonight don't you?" Santa said.

"If you don't mind me asking," said Cody. "If you truly are Santa Clause and do go around and give out presents how come we never got presents from you before?"

"That's a good question. That would be because Frostmon locked me away and slowly drained me of my power," explained Santa. "None of the digimon could kill him because then I wouldn't have any power. Only a Christmas angel could destroy him."

"No way. That sounds way too cheesy to be real," said T.K.

"Why not? I always believed in Santa Clause, my crest is that of light and Gatomon digivolves into an angel. Why can't there be a Santa Clause and why can't I be a Christmas angel?" I wasn't too sure of what I was saying myself but it seemed like it was true.

"You have got to be kidding me," said T.K.

"You were one of those kids that didn't grow up knowing Santa Clause, weren't you T.K.?" I asked sadly.

"Something like that…" muttered T.K.

Right then I got the most splendid ideas. I smiled and stepped closer to T.K.

"That's kind of sad," I whispered, getting up on my tip toes and…

Well Tai had to be mean.

"Woh, woh, who!" he cried, waving his arms about. "None of that!"

I ignored him. T.K. ignored him. We kissed anyways.