A Salvator Christmas
by 100series
No copyright infringement intended, and all that.

Notes: This is Xenosaga III crackfic. No major spoilers, but you might as well be warned anyway. This is not in any way "for serious." It was written for Xenolegacy's fanfiction contest.

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The Salvator faction's base of operations was unusually festive this afternoon as one orange-haired female URTV unit walked down the industrial sized hallway trying to remember exactly what religion she was. They definitely weren't Atheist, with the whole "killing god" bit. She wondered for a brief moment, considering her brother's cleverly chosen numerical assignment, if they were Satanic. Dad could easily pass as Satan, dress up as Santa, and that would make for one very interesting anti-Christmas. But just to be sure, she decided to ask Dad to make things clear.

She found him hovering around Sellers-who was more literally hovering-decking his floating La-Z-Boy in red and green lights. Sellers was wearing a Santa hat himself, and programming a music pattern into the lighting scheme of the complex to try and copy that amazing video of the guy who rigged his lights to flash to the tune by Trans-Siberian Orchestra.

"All you do is copy brilliance!" Yuriev taunted him, while plugging in the lights.

Sellers wailed in emotional agony. "WHY MUST I LIVE IN THE SHADOW OF ANOTHER MAN'S GREATNESS?" he bawled, and skidded down the hallway. The light cord ripped out of the socket and trailed clattering behind him.

"Oh-kay," Citrine mumbled as she watched the crippled scientist fly away on his hover-chair, then she approached her father. "Dad," she said. "Can I talk to you?"

Dmitri Yuriev pushed his glasses higher up onto the bridge of his nose and scowled back at her as usual. "Yes, what is it? Can't you see that I have decorating to do?"

"That's just it, Dad," she said. "Why are we decorating? Do we even celebrate a holiday? We're not really religious..."

"Well that's just it, honey-pookins," he replied. Citrine threw up in the back of her throat a little and somehow managed to force it back down. "Holidays very rarely have any real religious significance. I mean, Christmas was only put in place to assiilate a largely peagan culture conquered by the Roman Catholic Church, Christ was actually born in spring or summer time! And it wasn't a major holiday until advertisements discovered the appeal of Santa Claus! Now it lasts for like three whole months!"

"So... we're doing Christmas?"

"No," Yuriev replied. "Not exactly. Citrine, have you ever known me to run out of oil?"

"What... oil? What the hell would we use oil for?"

"The point is, I have some. And it has lasted a long time. Therefore, I am also god of Hanukkah."

Citrine groaned. "I don't think that's the hole story, Dad..."

Dad was not listening. He raised his arms in the air and cackled. "And nobody knows what the hell Kwanzaa is, so I can just make something up! The masses will bow before my holiday spirit!"

"And that's why we're decorating...?" Citrine asked grudgingly. "Oh God..."

"Yes dear?" he answered.

"I wasn't talking to you, Dad!"

"Well," he continued, coughing into one hand to clear his throat. "I don't see what you're so surprised about. We do this every year, don't you remember?"

"No..." Citrine replied, cautiously. "I don't remember anything like that..."

"Oh, Citrine!" he sighed. "Don't you remember the good old days when all six hundred and sixty six of you would dress up as elves and labor each year for eighteen hours a day on an assembly without food or rest to make toys for all the good little boys and girls of Miltia?"

Citrine furrowed her eyebrows in deep though. "Actually dad, I think that's one of those memories that I blocked..."

"I love how children just block out all those potentially incriminating memories," Dmitri replied, with a dreamy sigh and a starry gleam in his eyes. "Now go put on your costume!"

With that, he shoved a packaged elf suit into her arms. "No, Dad. Just No."

Dmitri raised an eyebrow. "Is my little biological weapon defying her creator?"

Citrine groaned and took the costume. "Fine..."

Citrine emerged a few minutes later in a green mini dress with black boots reaching up to the thighs, rimmed with fluffy fur at the top. She wore a green hat with a dangly white puff ball at the end. When she saw her father again, he was dressed up like Santa Claus.

"Oooh," he crooned, getting an eyeful of the costume Citrine was now grudgingly wearing. "Daddy likes!"

"Please don't ever give me tat look AGAIN," Citrine mumbled. "Now what?"

"Get your brothers on the phone, we need more elfs and their hair colors are already Holiday-oriented."

"Uh... Dad," Citrine began to protest as respectfully as she could. "Albedo is pretty dead right now, Rubedo is trying to kill us, and Nigredo is YOU in case you forgot."

"We just need to reel in Rubedo with some cookies and presents," Dmitri instructed her giddily, "he'll make the very best elf!"

"Presents and cookies?" Citrine scoffed.

He handed her a fistful of cash and scowled. "Go buy your brother a present and bake some cookies."

"I don't know what the hell he wants, and I don't know how to bake either!"

"What?" Yuriev spat in shock. "You have Y-gene mtDNA don't you? You should know how to bake cookies, just like your dear old mom!"

"I'm a CLONE of you. You're my dad AND my mom."

"And?" He looked at her challengingly.

"I'll get him Candy Land..." Citrine muttered as she turned to leave.

"Don't be so old fashioned!" Doctor Yuriev called after her. "Kids are playing these video entertainment systems these days!"

So then little Citrine, her heart heavy with sorrow; set out to buy a great gift for Christma-Hana-Kwanzaa tomorrow. She browsed Talk To Me! and she browsed Star Toys, but nothing was fit for twenty-seven-year-old little boys. It was nigh upon midnight, the clock struck twelve, and she'd bought not a thing for the potential boy elf.

"Fck this," Citrine mumbled in a gruff sort of way. "I Don't know why I bother, anyway."

Suddenly, a light appeared with a magnificent swirl, and when it resided, there was a golden-haired girl. Citrine stood back and tapped her foot in chagrin, she hadn't been scripted to see Nephilim.

"Don't give up, Citrine," the flaxen -haired girl said. But before a long-winded speech about humanity began, Citrine shot her dead. Just one shot from her little gun, and this god-awful rhyming scheme was finally done.

"I just owned your ethereal ass," Citrine gloated to the dead ghost girl, who laid bleeding from her mortal head wound into the snow on the ground. "Hey, that's a good idea! I'll just give Rubedo this gun! I bet he'd like a gun that you can shoot unearthly presences again."

So on the Durandal the next morning, Jr. got an invitation in his e-mail. It told him to come to the Salvator faction's main base for a party. Cookies and presents, it said. How could he say no? He decided to leave MOMO and the others behind for their protection. Not because he wanted to eat all of the cookies himself. It was just too dangerous.

Citrine was mystified to find that he'd accepted her invitation. Jr. showed up on Christmas day, ready for presents. "You're the stupidest URTV dad ever made," Citrine said as he entered.

"Yeah thanks," Jr. replied. "Wheres the cookies? And why are you an elf?"

"You blocked that out too, huh?" Citrine replied.

"Yup," he agreed.

Yuriev popped out of nowhere, scaring the bejeezus out of Jr. He held out a tray of fresh, warm, gingerbread men and sugar cookies. They were decorated with icing to have red, white, orange, black, and green hair, and they all had little three digit numbers in the 660's assigned to them.

Jr. examined the plate with great scrutiny. "Who the hell is the green one?"

"Greenbedo," Dmitri replied. "Didn't I ever tell you about him? He completes your festive color scheme. Now, get your costume on!"

"Dad," Citrine groaned. "It's a miracle we got his stupid ass to show up, don't make him wear a-"

"I get to wear a costume?" Jr. exclaimed with over-exuberant childish glee. "SWEET!"

So, Jr. scarfed down a few cookies and got dressed in his elf costume complete with green tights, and was giddy for the chance to do so. Citrine was reminded of the fact that he and their father really WERE related as the two of them pranced to the giant Christmas tree. "Awesome!" Jr. squealed. "This tree is HUGE!"

In fact, the tree was being housed where they were supposed to keep Proto Omega. It had been moved rashly to the garage to make space. At the top of this tree, there was a heavenly angel figure. With a white cloak. And a mask. And a stupidly familiar voice.

"Hark the Harold Angel siiiings," the mysterious figure belted from atop the festive tree, covered in lights and ornaments. "Glory to the newborn Kiiiing, aka meeee because I'm awesoooome, and I'm totally not Albeeedoooo."

Jr. put his hands on his hips and looked up at the "ornament" with an eyebrow raised in curiosity. "Huh... Is that a Christmas pinata?" he asked.

"Sure it is!" Citrine answered. The Not-Albedo-Angel began to sweat. "Time for you to try out your new present, here we go!" She dropped her gun into Jr.'s hands.

"A gun? AWESOME. I really like those!"

"Great choice, Citrine!" Yuriev commended her, with a pat on the back.

Citrine nodded sagely. "It kills dead people."

"That sounds ridiculous!" Jr. scoffed.

"You take turns hitting people and little numbers come out of their heads, but you think this is stupid?"

"Good point," he said, withdrawing from the argument. "Let's test it! I want that pinata candy!"

"I'm and ORNAMENT dammit!" Not-Albedo howled, but Jr. shot him in the ass and he fell over. He kept shooting, trying to get some pixie sticks to fall out, but nothing happened.

"Ha haha!" they laughed. "That wasn't a pinata at all!"

"Wait, I think we just screwed up the time line," Jr. noted.

"Who cares!" Dmitri cheered and hugged them both. "It's ChristmaHanaKwanzaa! And we're going to rule the universe!"

"Get your hand off my ass," Citrine groaned.

"Uhh... mine too," Jr. whimpered.

And then the fic ended.