Santa Claus Is Missing: A Christmas Harem Gamelit

by Sean Shake

  But I really think she’d excused herself to take care of business. I hadn’t known her very long, but I got the feeling her red nose and cheeks weren’t just to light the way of Santa’s sleigh.

  That perhaps, that was just a side effect.

  Her backside had been uncovered, and I’d gotten a nice view as she’d hurried off.

  “Yes,” Alexa replied, confirming I was in fact the Santa Claus now. “But you do not yet have all his powers. And you still need the North Pole.”

  “Powers?” I asked. “You mean like, what, the powers to preside over weddings?”

  She shook her head, which turned into her rubbing her nose against me. She giggled, then looked up at me. “That was nice, what we just did. I’ve never done it before. I’d heard a lot about it, but it was more fun than I thought it would be.”

  I ran my thumb over her cheek, her lips. I knew I’d only met her last night, but I was really falling for her. Of course we had just had sex, and it was pretty easy to feel like you were falling in love after you’d just been inside a beautiful girl.

  But this felt different for some reason.

  I supposed a lot of that reason might have been the fact that I was in another world, perhaps another dimension, with Santa Claus’s daughter. And now I was the Santa Claus.

  That might’ve been the difference in why this felt special.

  Or it may have just been that she was super hot and I really was falling in love with her. Not just her looks, but the whole package.

  Whatever the case was, being the real Santa Claus was a lot better than being a fake Santa Claus.

  As long as children didn’t have to sit on my lap and fart on me all day, I would be happy.

  “So what are these powers then?” I asked.

  “The Santa Claus’s job isn’t just to deliver gifts to children on Christmas. Christmas is what it culminates in and what it’s for, but a Santa Claus has many duties. And so has many spirits to help him perform those duties. Maybe you would call them magical powers. Or maybe technical powers. I’ve read a book from your world about technology and magic and how they confuse you.”

  “I don’t think that’s exactly the quote.”

  “Your powers will help you defend us, and defend Christmas. And,” she went on hopefully, “once we save Christmas, perhaps help us find my parents. I miss them. I’ve never been without them. It’s hard, and scary. I just wanted to drink myself silly, but now I’ve met you, and everything’s changed.” She looked into my eyes again. “It’s like destiny.”

  I didn’t believe in destiny, but there was absolutely no way in hell I was going to say that to her right now and ruin this moment.

  Instead, I pulled her up to me and kissed her deeply, my chest tightening with yearning for her, an overwhelming desire to care for her, protect her, keep her safe, and give her everything she wanted in this world, or any other.

  13

  “That is the North Pole?” I asked, staring at the thing in Rue’s hand.

  The three of us stood in a kind of workshop accessed through one of the many doors in the labyrinthine secret hideout. A workshop that I got serious James Bond vibes from.

  I was back in my new Santa suit, Alexa was wearing a new dress, this one equally as short as the one she’d left back at my apartment, but thicker, like it was made from the same material my suit was.

  Rue was out of her toga thing and wearing shorts and a blouse that showed off a sliver of her firm stomach.

  “Yes,” Alexa replied. “Why?”

  “Well, I was expecting something… different, I guess. I don’t know. But not a candy-cane lightsaber.” Instead of just one beam, there were two, one red, one white, spiraled around each other.

  “Lightsaber? Are those those toys?” Alexa asked. “Because they based those on our North Pole.”

  “George Lucas knew about Santa when he was making Star Wars and stole the idea for lightsabers from your North Pole?” I asked incredulously.

  “Who?” Alexa asked

  “He’s talking about Georgie,” Rue told her, deactivating the saber.

  “Oh!” Alexa exclaimed. “I like Georgie. He was just here the other year.”

  “The other—” I shook my head. “You’re kind of weird, but I like you.” Deciding to put off asking about ‘Georgie’ for now, I asked, “So, what do we do with that?”

  “This is your weapon,” Rue said. “Now that you’re the Santa Claus, you should be able to keep it safe from those who would try to steal it.”

  “It’s a weapon I have to keep safe? Doesn’t seem like much of a weapon then. It’s supposed to be the other way around. Who do I have to keep it safe from?”

  “Well if we knew that,” Rue said, “we wouldn’t need you, would we?”

  “I think we would still need him,” Alexa said. “I would need him anyway. In my bedroom.”

  “Jesus”—Rue glanced around nervously again—“you get a little taste of dick and you turn into a harlot.” She looked at me. “Here.” She held out the North Pole for me to take. Rather unceremoniously, I thought. “There’s a holster on your right thigh. Move the Pole near it.”

  I took it and did as she said, and impossibly a holster popped out from the tight suit.

  “Whoa.”

  “Alright Keanu, put it in the slot.”

  I looked up at her with a grin, and she rolled her metallic eyes.

  I put it in, and it retracted away, appearing to go into my thigh. “How—”

  “You also need these,” she interrupted.

  She took a small case, the size of an Altoids tin but more curved on top and bottom, from a nearby table and handed it to me.

  “What’s this?”

  “Go ahead and look.”

  I opened it and inside found what looked like two contact lenses.

  They weren’t stored in a solution or anything, just sitting there on pieces of dense foam in the shape of eyeballs.

  I looked up at Rue. “What are these for?”

  “They’re for your eyes.”

  “I can see that—because I have eyes—I mean what do they do?” The James Bondness intensified, and I had flashes of Q giving Mr Bond some awesome technology.

  “They’ll help you adjust while you get used to your powers.”

  There was that word again, ‘powers’. I still wasn’t exactly sure what kind of powers I was supposed to have now as the Santa Claus. I certainly didn’t feel any different. Other than being able to tolerate more heat than I thought I should, that is.

  Was that my power? Ability to withstand chimneys? It would fit.

  “What kind of powers?”

  “You don’t listen silly,” Alexa teased. “She just told you.” She pointed at the contacts. “Those will tell you.”

  Sighing, realizing I wasn’t gonna get any elucidation from either of these two women, I plucked out a contact lens and balanced it on the tip of my finger. “I just put it in my eye?”

  “That’s generally what you do with contacts,” Rue replied.

  I grunted and then lifted the contact toward my eye.

  I’d never worn contacts, so wasn’t exactly sure how to do it, but I did have a friend—Chad, he of the bloody virgins—who wore them, and I remembered spending the night at his house when we were younger and a few of those times seeing him put them in in the morning. It’d always made me cringe, watching him spread open his eyelid and touch his eyeball.

  But I tried to mimic him now, using my left hand to open my right eye wide and then raising my right finger all the way until the contact touched my eyeball.

  To my surprise, I didn’t feel any desire to blink, and then the contact seemed to melt away.

  “Crap.”

  “What is it?” Rue asked, sounding worried. “What do you see?”

  “I don’t know. I think I messed up. It dissolved.”

  Rue put a hand to her chest. “Don’t scare me like that. Thought you saw something—” But she stopped herself. />
  “Saw something what?” I asked.

  “Never mind. Put the other one in.”

  When I had the other one in, I blinked and a display popped up in my vision, like a HUD.

  I was suddenly reminded of the Black Mirror episode where the characters wore those digital contacts. Though I couldn’t remember exactly for what purpose. Had it been video cameras?

  Yeah, something like that I think. To record their lives. But I couldn’t now remember why they would want to do that.

  Then I thought back to about twenty minutes ago, and my time with Alexa, and suddenly saw why someone would want that ability.

  “Whoa, there’s like… stuff in my vision.”

  “That stuff,” Rue said, “are a list of your powers—and other things—that you’ve been so eager to learn so much about. So why don’t you review them while Alexa and I go plan on how to save Christmas with a brand new, untrained Santa in the next twelve Earth days.”

  14

  They left me alone in the workshop and I started going through the interface.

  It was actually quite easy to navigate, even if I wasn’t sure exactly how it worked.

  There was a sprocket, and on each cog was a word, POWERS, STATS, CONTACTS, MAPS, and more.

  I focused on POWERS, and a long list appeared.

  Christmas Miracle

  Obtained by ALL previous Santas

  Spirit: Christmas

  Cost: ALL points

  May be used once per year, on Earth, for the benefit of others, and only during the twelve days of Christmas.

  May not be used after Christmas.

  Does not accumulate.

  Hmm, that was strange. I’d have to ask Rue who wrote this interface. And what exactly it was interfacing to. Were these powers within me, and the contacts were just accessing them? Or were the powers in the contact lenses themselves?

  I scrolled—the HUD somehow knowing I wanted to—and examined the next one.

  Bone Morphing

  Obtained by ALL previous Santas

  Spirit: Christmas

  Cost: 1 point

  A Santa Claus must fit in many tight spaces. Modern chimneys are not what they used to be.

  Not all homes even have chimneys.

  This allows a Santa Claus to bend and stretch his bones and organs and body, and conform to any shape in order to pass into a residence with his gifts in tow.

  May not be used during sex.

  No exceptions.

  That sounded kind of like Rue.

  Though I didn’t know how she could’ve known I would be the one to read this.

  I scrolled to the next power. It looked like there were quite a few.

  Unknown Power

  Power not unlocked.

  Check again when power unlocked.

  I scrolled through the list but all the rest were like that.

  Strange, I wasn’t sure what that meant.

  I continued exploring the interface, looking for other things that it might allow me to do.

  I noticed that at the top right corner of my vision there was a little ragdoll of my Santa suit.

  When I pressed my finger into my chest a small pale red dot appeared on the doll where I was pressing.

  As I pressed harder the red deepened and intensified.

  I opened the screen labeled STATS, the ragdoll persisting even as another list appeared.

  STATS

  Points

  Available: 125

  Generation rate: 10 per Earth hour while sleeping

  Max capacity: 125

  Progress

  Unique Gifts: 0 created, 0 planned

  Total Gifts: 0 created

  Households Remaining: 2.1 billion

  Percent Complete: 0%

  Resources

  Sleigh: N/A

  Reindeer: 1

  Elves: 0

  Workshops: 0

  Headquarters: 1, hidden

  Spirits

  Spirit of Christmas: 1

  Spirit of Ice: 0

  Spirit of Fire: 0

  Spirit of Air: 0

  Spirit of Joy: -1

  Spirit of Time: 0

  Huh, interesting. I wondered what the points were for. And the spirits. Hadn’t Alexa said something about that? Were those my powers? And why was joy at negative-one? I was joyful, especially after my time with Alexa.

  Resources were obvious, at least. Those were what we’d need to build—and… find? in the case of elves and reindeer—if we were gonna save Christmas.

  In twelve days.

  I didn’t see how that was possible, but I was Santa Claus. The actual Santa Claus. Or an actual Santa Claus. So who knew.

  I wondered if Alexa had any of these things. She was Santa Claus’s daughter after all. And the spirit of air would explain, or sort of explain, why she could float in the elevator.

  And it had been marrying her—and consummating that marriage—that had apparently given me these powers.

  I checked the MAPS section.

  It was empty. Except for a big red TODO.

  Great. So useful. I’d have to ask about that too.

  I went through more of the interface, but what I mostly found were more TODOs.

  Despite this, I was satisfied for now that I had a basic understanding of the interface and how to use it. Plus, I was wondering what Alexa and Rue were up to, so I went looking for them.

  15

  It took me ten minutes of wandering around their maze-of-a-hideout to find them.

  They had a digital map hovering between them, but I didn’t recognize the area the map covered.

  When Rue saw me approaching, she quickly closed it.

  Alexa smiled brightly at me. “Hey there. You go over everything?”

  I nodded. “I think I’ve got a good understanding of it.”

  Rue snorted. “I doubt that.”

  “As good as anyone in my situation can hope to have right now. Some things seemed to be missing from the interface.”

  “Don’t worry,” Alexa assured me, “we’ll give you a bit of training before we have you fight some demons.”

  “Wait, demons? I thought we were saving Christmas.”

  “We don’t know if it’s demons,” Rue scolded.

  “She’s right,” Alexa said, “we don’t. It might not be demons. It might be Straggele, or Perchten, Grýla, or even werewolves.”

  “I thought it was Krampus,” I said.

  “Like I said earlier, I’m not so sure anymore.”

  “That’s because you have a soft spot for the old monster,” Rue said.

  “Just because he looks like he does, doesn’t mean he’s a monster.”

  “What about the note he left?” Rue countered.

  Alexa shrugged halfheartedly and looked down at the table.

  I put my arm around her and pulled her against me, kissing the top of her head.

  There was that tightness, that swelling in my chest again, making me want nothing me than to protect her and make her happy, and I hugged her tighter to me and kissed her a second time.

  She let out a little giggle.

  “What were you looking at?” I asked, nodding my head at the space where the map had been floating in the air.

  Rue studied me suspiciously.

  “Hey, you’re the one who brought me here.”

  “She’s the one who brought you here. I’m just making the best of a shitty situation.”

  “He’ll make a great Santa,” Alexa said. “I know.”

  Rue sighed. “Well, I guess you would know. He was your father—” She looked guilty. “Is your father.”

  Tears started forming in Alexa’s eyes.

  Rue came around the table, pushed me away from Alexa, and then hugged her. “It’s okay. We will find him. He can take care of himself. He’s not gonna go down that easily. He’s been around for a long time, and he’s still going to be around for a long time yet.”

  Alexa nodded and sniffed, then wiped the tears from
her eyes as Rue let her go.

  Then Rue looked at me. “So you want to see what we were looking at? Know what we’re planning?”

  “Yeah. If we’re gonna save Christmas together, I kinda need to know what our plan is.”

  Rue brought up the map again.

  I studied it, but still didn’t recognize where it might be.

  “This is the Northern Realm,” Rue explained. “It’s what you would think of as the North Pole; what was protected by the North Pole.”

  “That doesn’t look like anyplace I’ve ever seen. That’s what’s on our poles?”

  Rue shook her head. “It’s not on your planet. If it were, it would have been discovered long ago. It’s in a different realm from the one you inhabit. Just like this place.”

  “So it’s in this realm?”

  Rue again shook her head. “There are many realms, this one is a hidden one. We discovered it when Alexa was a child. It’s been our secret ever since.”

  “We used to play here,” Alexa said, nodding. “Then as I got older, we transformed it into this. Rue has always been a bit paranoid.”

  “Yeah, and look, I was right.”

  “Yeah you were,” Alexa said sadly.

  Rue scowled, though she looked like she was more angry at herself for upsetting Alexa again.

  She seemed to have a problem keeping her thoughts to herself.

  “Anyway, what we know so far, is that while Alexa and I were here in secret, planning her father’s birthday party for the day after Christmas, something happened in the Northern Realm. Everything was taken. Nick, Veronica—”

  “Veronica?” I asked.

  “My mother,” Alexa said. “I suppose your mother too, now. Although, that seems weird to me. Wouldn’t that make us siblings?”

  “Uh, I don’t think that’s how it works.”

  Rue waved dismissively at Alexa. “Ignore her, she’s not really familiar with your world. She only gets bits and pieces.”

  “Hey,” Alexa protested. “I know enough. I got there on my own didn’t I?”

  “Yeah and what was it you were telling me a few minutes ago that you did when you got there?”

  Alexa didn’t answer.