This was bad.

Very, very bad.

Using all his strength, Saint 'Nik thrust the hedgehog against the brick wall and sprinted down the sidewalk. A thick 'thud' echoed, but Santa didn't bother looking back. He got to the building atop where his sleigh rested and, without thought, grasped onto the coarse, jagged edges and began to climb.

"Why does this always happen to me?" he muttered while lugging his weight up the structure, "And why does that blasted hedgehog that Maria liked have to be right about everything?"

Sonic must've hit the wall hard, perhaps knocking himself out for a bit. Because, despite the speed with which Saint 'Nik scaled the building, it took more than a couple of seconds for the fat man to heave himself onto the roof. Blindly, Santa ran to his sleigh. "Orbot, Cubot! Blast it!"

Where were they?

Luckily, he saw them—a small, bright speck at first, then gradually increasing in size. He barely stepped out of the way when they made a deafening entrance onto the roof, grazing more than just a bit of the top of the building.

"Sorry, boss! We didn't mean to make such a racket with the rocke—"

"It doesn't matter!" Saint 'Nik leaped into the sleigh, making sure the gift sack was secure in its place. "Hurry, strap the rockets on, and hop in!"

"But what about—"

"Saint 'Nik!"

"Move!" the fat man bellowed, shoving the two robots under his feet. Quickly, he got the rockets burning, and they flew off in a matter of seconds, just in time before Sonic almost boarded the sleigh in a daring leap.

Santa chuckled at the luck as Cubot stared out over the edge. "Why're we leavin' Sonic behind? And why did he look so mad?"

"Things got complicated. Change of plans: we'll have to deliver the presents now," his brusque answer came. He swung the sleigh sharply, resulting in the two robot elves yelping in surprise.

"But boss—" Orbot said.

"Not now. I promise I'll explain it later. We're already behind schedule for the rest of the world as it is."

"But boss, he's comin' back!"

Santa looked back to see a blue streak following right behind them in the streets of Station Square. He groaned. He did not need this right now. They just needed to get out of city limits and back on the path of delivering presents. Maybe the buildings would prove to be unstoppable obstacles for his pursuer. Whatever, he could deal with the nuisance when they were in the middle of nowhere, so people wouldn't be awakened by the commotion.

The city flew underneath them and soon they were soaring over wintry blankets, the hedgehog tailing them doggedly. A storm of snowflakes began to pelt the sleigh and hinder its flight.

Bracing himself, Saint 'Nik turned around and called to the hedgedeer, "Why are you trying to stop me? I'm delivering gifts to good little boys and girls around the world, and you're trying to prevent me from committing such a good deed."

"I don't want all the little boys and girls to believe in such a phony like you."

Sweet silver bells, this hedgehog was persistent.

Being bombarded by the blizzard, Orbot shook his head as he kept his hold on the pile of presents. "I don't know which hedgehog is worse now—Sonic or Shad—"

"Take him through the mountains!" Santa 'Botnik bellowed, steering the flying sleigh north. This had to stop him. Slowly coming in sight was the mass of jagged peaks through the fog of the storm. He was too focused on the mountains to notice a dark object hurtling speedily at him.

It smacked him straight him in the head. "Argh! What was that?!" In his hands landed a gift-wrapped box. He peered down at the blue hedgehog, who had a handful of presents in his arms. "How did he get those?"

Saint 'Nik barely put his hands up again before he was assaulted with Christmas presents. They were already above the thick of the mountains, but if Sonic could haul a heavy sleigh above peaks like these, there was simply nothing he could not do.

"I-I trusted you!" Sonic cried, flinging the boxes at blinding speeds, "I can't believe I ever did; I should've seen it before. You're no magical, jolly gift-giver. You're a miserable obese man who can't even get his own robots to respect him! How could you ever lug your own weight quick enough to deliver all these presents? That's right; you can't because you're a fake!"

"Orbot, catch the falling presents!" Saint 'Nik ordered as he urged the rockets to press on. Normally he wouldn't be hindered at all by Christmas presents being thrown at him. But if they were thrown at speeds Sonic could rival, that was another story. And those sharp corners... He hoped the blue hedgehog didn't get a lucky shot or something and mar his beautiful face.

He glanced backwards to see Cubot holding a rope. Looking further down, Orbot dangled from that rope, catching as many presents that hit the bottom of the sleigh as possible. At least his most competent workers weren't all rebellious.

"I think I got them all, boss!" a mechanical voice called from below.

"Ah, excellent!" His celebration was short-lived when a clang sounded from his sleigh. Sonic was still down below, keeping speed and still throwing gift-wrapped boxes at them. "How on Christmas Eve does he have a never-ending supply of weapons?"

One more glance towards the back of his sleigh caused Saint 'Nik to growl. Cubot had left the pile of gifts unmanned and allowed them to spill out the sleigh, allowing for Sonic to catch them and chuck them back at over five hundred miles an hour.

"You imbeciles! Man the present bag!"

Cubot slowly grabbed the bag and pulled it back into the sleigh while carefully keeping Orbot from plummeting to his death. The mountains proved to be no match for Sonic, but Santa and his robots were in luck, as they traveled into a dense winter village.

The hedgedeer was having trouble avoiding several homes; unlike the city, there weren't straight roads for him to follow. In fact, he was actually struggling to keep up. Sonic's frown deepened. No, he couldn't let this go. He couldn't this man go. His stomach was twisting into knots of worry as he tried to kick it up a notch. Tears flowed from his green eyes. He wasn't going to let this man go.

"Look, I'm sorry, Sonic," the red-clothed man attempted to say, "I was too late." This was the only resolution Saint 'Nik could think of. But Sonic shook his head vehemently.

"Sorry's not gonna bring Tails back! You're not getting away, fat man!" he cried through gritted teeth. With box in hand, he tripped unceremoniously. Furiously, Sonic chucked the present as hard as he could while he hit the snow facefirst.

He heard a deafening groan, and the hedgehog smiled inwardly. Looking up to see the damage, his face morphed into a clear expression of horror. His present had hit one of the rockets, and now that rocket was teetering precariously from its original position.

Sonic could only watch the sleigh soar away as he attempted to get up. He would never get to that falling rocket in time. "No!"

A surge of victory went through Saint 'Nik's veins at the fast-disappearing hedgehog. They were escaping him!

"Boss, boss—"

"I know, I know! That dastardly hedgehog is gone!"

"No, boss, one of the presents hit one of the rockets and damaged it. Sooner or later, we'll be spiraling out of control!"

Well, admittedly at that time, he didn't know everything. "What?!"

He looked over to see that Orbot was right; the right rocket was irreparably ruined and spouting only sparks. But this wasn't what made him widen his eyes in fear.

"The rocket's coming loose!"

"I know! I know!" Saint 'Nik's heart pounded in his chest. He snatched the rope from Orbot and wrapped it around himself.

He threw the rope to his two robot elves who stared at him in confusion. "What are you doing?!"

"Just hold on to it!" he barked at them.

The rocket was on its last hinges. An unearthly screech sounded, like something was dying. Then the fuel-burner fell from the sleigh straight for the town below.

In an instant, the fat man dived for the rocket. The rope grew taut around his waist but not before his thick arms wrapped around the steel of the rocket. A tsunami of heat washed over him. It took him all his energy not to drop the nearly-boiling piece of metal onto the general populace under him. Sweat poured over his eyes. Now he wished he had pulled his moustache into some sort of strange ponytail so it wouldn't have the chance of combusting.

He could barely see through the waves of perspiration the town flicker out of sight underneath him and white appearing in plentiful amount. The contraption in his arms sputtered; finally, it had run out of fuel.

"Are we good?" Saint 'Nik bellowed.

"Let 'er go, Sir Claus!"

It only took a millisecond after he dropped the rocket down into the snow to realize what that meant for him and his robots.

"Boss, the sleigh's off balance now. We're going to crash!" Orbot cried amidst Cubot's mechanical yelps of terror.

"Pull me up!" Santa ordered frantically. He did not want the rope to be burnt off by the other rocket, so he would plummet to his snowy doom. Fortunately, his loyal robot elves were able to drag him up onto the holiday transport.

Unfortunately, right after that, the sleigh began to spin in a downward spiral. Santa gripped the sides of the sleigh as his robots clung to him like lint. "Brace yourselves!" he said. Well, this was it. Goodbye, fully-functioning, benevolent limbs, he thought, wincing, Say hello to permanent physical handicap!

Santa felt the sleigh jolt violently as it crashed into the snow. He nearly flew forward, but he kept his death-like hold on his beloved aircraft. The fat man would hold onto it even if it flipped over and crushed him.

But that didn't happen, to his surprise. Finally, all movement seemed to cease, and he opened his eyes (which had been closed the whole time, he didn't realize).

They weren't dead.

"If something were to get me to believe in Christmas miracles, this event would certainly be the one," he mumbled, raising hesitantly from his seat.

A faint whimper came from underneath the sleigh. Quickly, Santa's black boots crunched into the snow as he peered below the transport. "Sonic?!"

It was indeed the hedgehog who had been pursuing them. He lay there on his stomach, and his legs were pressed under the weight of the sleigh. Meekly, Sonic turned his head to the fat man. His ears wilted upon seeing Saint 'Nik. His face was a mess of tears and pain.

"Sonic!" Cubot exclaimed. "Did we just run over you?"

"No, I think he was trying to stop the sleigh, Cubot," the orb-shaped robot corrected, "Otherwise, he would've been smart enough to get out of the way."

"Hush! Both of you!" Saint 'Nik scolded angrily. He instantly softened when he looked back at the weakened hedgedeer.

Sonic opened his mouth and vomited out a mound of snow. It would've been quite humorous, if not for what he said afterwards. "What have I done? I never wanted to hurt anyone."

This made Santa 'Botnik's eyebrows furrow. "But you didn't."

"I almost did," he said, his eyes sorrowful, "And that's close enough. I want to make people happy and smile and enjoy life. And I would've taken that away from them because of my own personal agenda, if not for you. I can't believe how selfish I've become." He wouldn't even look at the fat man.

Saint 'Nik sighed heavily. "Sonic…"

"I understand now, Mister Claus."

"What?"

Now staring straight at him, the hedgedeer declared, "I understand you now. And I see you want to help. And…I want to help, too." Sonic attempted to move in a dramatic way but couldn't. He smiled weakly. "Uh…a little help, please?"

He could still hardly believe his ears. Instead of bellowing in rage, Sonic was now compliant to helping? He wasn't refusing to understand, but now he completely comprehended? Was he hearing this right?

Santa shook his head in disbelief as he pulled the blue hedgehog out from under the sleigh. Fortunately, Sonic's legs seemed to have suffered no injury. "No, I'm different, hedgehog. I…I've hurt people because of my fears. You almost hurt people because of your anger at my mistake."

"Because of my desire for revenge," Sonic clarified, "And revenge is never good. It's malicious." Silence ensued for just a second. "And I forgive you."

"What?"

"For Tails. You could've never known that he would've…y'know."

"….So soon?"

This question made Sonic grin. "Of course, Mister Claus, we've got to learn to let these things go. I'm still gonna be sad for Tails, but I'm not gonna hold it against you any longer," he said lightly, "Huh. Maybe you need to learn a thing or two from me." The hedgehog bounced up and onto the sleigh, slipping on the holster that was connected to the reins. "Now, c'mon, midnight's comin' and we've still gotta whole bunch of presents to deliver! I'm not gonna disappoint a whole ton of other kids on my watch now and neither are you!"

Saint 'Nik was simply baffled. "I…wha….huh?"

"I think he wants to join us in delivering the last of the presents, boss," Cubot chimed in.

"I know that!"

"So?" Sonic winked. "Whatcha' waiting for?"

Santa stared at him for a second in mute astonishment. This hedgehog was simply something else. "Let's get a move on then," he ordered, climbing into the sleigh.

Sonic jumped off and landed in the snow. "Finally!" He heard him cheer.

Orbot and Cubot sprang onto their boss' shoulders. "This is going to be so fun!" the cube-shaped robot said giddily.

"No need for that rocket anymore!" Orbot declared.

From looking back at the lone fuel-burner, an idea popped in the fat man's head. "Can you two ride on one rocket?"

The robots' enthusiasm deflated as quickly as a balloon would. "We're not going with?"

"I need you to check on one thing back at Station Square. One…fox," Saint 'Nik said in a quieter voice, "It's an important part to this Christmas. I can't do it and neither can Sonic. Only you guys can go and check to see if he's okay. Now will you guys do it?"

"Well…" Orbot seemed keen on debating the importance of it, but Cubot thrust an arm around his fellow robot elf.

"We'll do it!"

Once the two geometric-shaped robots flew out the scene, Saint 'Nik grasped the reins he had held so tightly hours before. "Now, c'mon, hedgehog. We're about three hours behind schedule. It's gonna take a lot of speed and a little bit of a Christmas miracle to get caught up and deliver all the presents. Do you think that we can do that?" he asked.

Sonic laughed. "Think? I know we can do that!" he declared, his antlers' bells jingling. "And it's hedgedeer, Mister Claus. Get it right!"

Santa 'Botnik rolled his eyes before snapping the reins and letting the hedgehog run at full speed through the snow. The fat man didn't really look ahead to where they were going, but his eyes kept coming back to the hedgedeer.

"I hope this works out, so I can do something for you, just as you've done for me," he muttered, his eyes then drifting up to the semi-dark of night. He really hoped it would work out.

And I really hope that this weekend will work out so I can finish this story. XP Can't believe it myself that I finished this chapter. If you're still following this, please review! The concluding chapter is up next!