Kingdom Hearts; The Dark's Keeper

Chapter XXVIII; Gifts From The Heart

They followed the skeleton through a door in a tree to another part of this world. They landed face first in a pile of snow. X shivered as he stood up glancing around. He frowned as he saw the others had changed outfits. Sora still wore all black, but now he wore a Santa getup worthy of the skeletons. Donald had become a snowman, with a blue pail for a hat. Goofy was a reindeer with a glowing red nose.

X, unfortunately, was still a cat. The scarf that had originally been purple was now red, with a hood lined in white fur. There were bells at either end that jingled whenever X moved. The bell around his neck had been fixed as well, and there were bows with bells on both of his tails. X frowned flicking his tails, the simple action was accompanied by a sweet ringing sound that grated his ears.

"Hey, now you can't sneak up on us," Sora said playfully. X glared at him, making his smile falter. X frowned looking away and crossing his arms. Now he had to figure out how to make the stupid bells stop. He pushed the thought aside as the group made their way to a workshop, eventually dropping the presents in front of a plump man wearing red that X assumed was Santa. He was going to have to be sure Y never found out or he'd never hear the end of it.

"Oh! Wherever did you find these?" Santa asked. He took a present from the skeleton's hands looking at it in confusion.

"In Halloween Town. You'll be needing them for Christmas, right, Sandy?" the skeleton asked.

"Of course. But these are just a few of the Christmas presents that were stolen," Santa said.

"Stolen!?" Sora yelled in shock. X turned to look at the skeleton, who scratched the back of his head. X didn't know much about this world, but it seemed this skeleton was a bit of an oddity. Did he steal the presents?

"Oh, Sandy, you don't think it was me?" the skeleton asked in shock.

"Still wearing the outfit, I see," Santa replied calmly.

"I just thought I'd dress for the occasion. But if you don't believe me, then we'll just have to find out who really did it!" the skeleton said. X made note he'd have to ask Jiminey for names here too. Calling this skeleton what he was was getting old.

"Very well, I'll leave it to you," Santa said turning away from them. It seemed odd he'd give them free rein over something so important, but X supposed they had weirder too.

"All right, Sora, Donald, Goofy, X! We're off!" the skeleton said.

As they were leaving the workshop, they heard crashes from above them. They exchanged quick glances before running up the stairs to a factory-like room. In the room was a group of three children, each dressed in costumes. One was a devil, one a witch, and the last a sort of skeleton.

"These kids?" X muttered to himself.

"No!" the witch said as the two boys searched through a mound of toys. The devil tossed aside a sailboat as the skeleton picked up a stuffed bear.

"This looks good," he said.

"No!" the witch said dismissively.

"Boooring!" the devil agreed. The skeleton shrugged and tossed the bear away.

"This one?" the devil asked.

"No!" the witch said.

"No way!" the skeleton said in agreement.

"Hey!" Donald yelled. The three stopped in their tracks turning to look at the group in the doorway. 

"So you three took them!" Sora said.

"Took what?" the witch asked in confusion.

"You stole the presents, didn't you!" the skeleton dressed as Santa said angrily. The group of kids looked at each other in confusion.