Officer Jeffery Evans leaned against the balcony railing, taking in all the sights and sounds of Ditto Town during Christmas. Beautiful white snow was falling, lights were twinkling and off in the distance you could hear the faint sound of carolers echoing off the pavement. He had just finished putting the final decorations up for the party and was enjoying a cup of hot chocolate as a reward.

The scene was picture perfect, almost as if had been pulled from a post card, aside from all the renovations going on of course. From this side of the mansion, he had a perfect overlook of the Town Square, in the middle lay the Fountain in all it's glory, it was all but frozen over, a thick layer of wet slush laid on top the water's surface. It was peaceful. Tranquil even. Alas, this was Ditto Town and atrophy would always rule the day.

That's exact moment is when the miniature reindeer came bursting out of the water, a whole herd of them, scared and stampeding. Jeff dove behind the railing to save himself, the deer were the size of smallish dogs, but there were dozens of them and all had razor sharp antlers. Not to mention they could fly. They crashed through the glass behind him, shards flew everywhere.

Tiny reindeer flooded into the mansion, calming as they were warmed by the heat of the roaring hearth. Eventually they would settle down, but for now he had a window to fix. Being the practical minded individual that he was, Jeff decided that the most prudent method would of course be to use festive wrapping paper to seal the gap. Soon the glass shards were gathered up and hole was patched with a shoddy job of ducttape and tissue paper. Hopefully the soon-to-arrive guests wouldn't notice.

There wasn't much Jeff could do about those reindeer though, the creatures seemed to be completely wild. They did fit with the motif, however. So he was willing to let them be.

Rya carefully took one step after another to keep her footing in the freshly falling snow, while also avoiding all of the construction equipment lying about. For some reason, it seemed like everyone in Ditto Town had decided to renovate their businesses all at the same time! It made the prospect of visiting said businesses once they were done intriguing, but for the moment, all she was concerned about was not slipping and falling on her back. The snow did make an impromptu snowman tempting, but she had baked goods that she needed to protect.

The Mansion seemed to be the one building in town that wasn't under renovation, but since everywhere else was, the rumor was that they'd had trouble finding all the treats they wanted in time for the party, and that products from home would be appreciated. Rya never minded a chance to do some baking. She was kept warm by the constant smell of her freshly baked gingerbread and frosted sugar cookies, baked in the shapes of all the classics - angels, stars, reindeer, and of course the letters of "DITTO", alternatively baked separately and as one long chain.

Rya's phone buzzed in her pocket. She decided not to check it now; she was so close to the Mansion now, and the last thing she needed to do was to drop her load while on the home stretch. She had a feeling she knew who it was anyways - she had a couple of friends who were debating making it as well, if they could make their preparations in time. Rya grinned; the party was going to be great this year, she was sure.

Almost as if on cue, Rya opened the door to the Mansion, but as she called out, "Hello!", the last syllable barely escaped her lips before she saw the dozens of tiny reindeer darting around the entrance hall, running wild, leaping across the decorations. Her mouth dropped in surprise and she gaped for a good five seconds, before groaning and muttering, "Well, the party started early this year, it seems."

The invitation arrived in an unusual manner.

Mel lived north of Ditto Town, far enough up in the hills that visitors were rare, and she had not made it down to the Square recently since she was busy hibernating. With the first hint of snow she withdrew into an enormous mound of blankets and rolled up like a cinnamon bun. Mail tended to collect in the mailbox until spring, which was why Mel's mailbox was a giant barrel set upright next to her cave.

It was a nice day--for winter--and Mel had stirred just enough to accept the talking mirror's challenge to a card game. The pack of cards sat on the bookshelf, seemingly undisturbed, and Mel picked them up and padded back to her blankets. Shuffling is tricky business even when you aren't a St. Bernard without opposable thumbs but she was pretty sure the mirror cheated. After all, mirrors don't have ANY limbs at all. When both sets of cards were dealt, the game began.

"Would you like to concede?" asked the mirror.

Mel looked carefully at her cards. It was an unexceptionable hand, but could be a winning one if played right. "No, thank you. I think I'll see this one out."

"Don't say I didn't warn you." The talking mirror laid down the first card, and Mel laid the second, and so on and so forth. When it came to the final card--it wasn't a card at all, but a bit of cardstock with bright red printing.

DITTO TOWN HOLIDAY PARTY!
Spend your Christmastide with friends at the event of the year
Games and fun galore!
(Bring treats to share)

Mel pawed at the invitation, and found it had been stuck to her last card. While the mirror chuckled over the idea it could have won by default, she examined both sides of the invitation. It wasn't one from the last holiday party, saved for nostalgia, but brand new!

"You should go," said the mirror. "It'll be fun."

"I suppose," said Mel. Her tail started to wag at the idea of seeing old friends and making new ones. She fluffed out her fur coat, and set out for town with a box of Christmas goodies. Snow fell, speckling brown fur with soft white flakes, while her enormous paws acted like snowshoes and made the going easy.

Rya was on the steps to the Mansion when Mel arrived, and she hurried to close the last few yards between them. It was so much easier when someone else managed doorknobs. They came through the door at the same time, but Mel misjudged the transition from stairs to polished entry floor and instead of stopping to greet everyone she ended up slipping and sliding across the floor like an out of control hockey puck--if hockey pucks were large and furry and had tails.

"Whooaaaa!" Mel yelped as the reindeer scattered. She hoped she hadn't hurt any of them in her dramatic arrival against the far wall. "Sorry about that! Uh-- Merry Christmas, everybody!"

"Oh hey there!" Called Jeff from across the hall, his voice could barely be heard over what was truly becoming quite the raucous din, who knew that thirty miniature Rangifur Tarandus's and their tiny hooves could make such a ruckus. He picked his way carefully across the floor, making sure not to step on any wayward creature on his way to greet the first visitors.

"Merry Christmas, welcome to the party. I don't believe we've met, my name's Jeff. Say, you don't happen to know where these little fella's came from now do y'ah? If I were a betting man, I'd reckon that there's a group of mama reindeer looking for their collective kiddos right about now."

“Cookies, coats, kids. I think we’re ready to go!” Daniel Baxter looked around the room at his little family, grateful beyond words for all of them.

“Can Candy come too?” At the sound of her name the little corgi puppy barked and wagged her tail.

Angie Baxter looked at their invitation again – it was identical to the one Mel had received but it had come in a much more mundane fashion – and shook her head. “Sorry, sweetie. No mention of dogs.”

Ten-year-old Grace gave an adorable pout. “Will there be any kids there then?”

“I don’t know. But there will be games and food.”

Angie looked out the window. “It’s snowing harder. You sure she’ll be warm enough?”

The couple looked at the little baby carrier, pulling the blanket covering it aside to see their daughter’s smiling face. “It’s not too far, and it’s not very cold. She’s bundled up and should be fine.”

“Can I carry Emma, Mommy?”

“You better leave that to Daddy and me. But you can carry these cookies, all right?”

“Only if I can eat one now.”

Angie had expected this tactic from her daughter and agreed. Moments later they were out the door and making their way through the piles of construction materials that littered the central part of town.

Why is that window covered with duct tape? Dan wondered to himself. But then he saw some reindeer and what looked like a large St. Bernard dog go into the Mansion.

Well, I don’t think we’re going to be bored this year, he thought as Grace ran toward the door, eager to see more of the reindeer and maybe play with the large dog.

(Author's note: We originally met the Baxter family back in the days of the Supernova RP. They're back for the holidays, with a few changes).

"Uh... hey, nice to meet you." Rya was used to some strange goings on in Ditto Town, but that made running into them no less difficult to wrap her brain around. Before she could respond to Jeff's question, though, Mel suddenly slipped past her and went sprawling across the far wall. Without thinking, Rya handed her cookies off to Jeff and quickly darted across the room after her - thankfully, she had more or less cleared a path through the miniature reindeer....

"Oh, are you all right?" Rya helped Mel back up onto all four of her feet. Mel had been carrying a box of goodies, and Rya quickly scooped it back up. "I hope everything inside is okay. Here, let me find a place to put it." Rya looked around and noticed an open table, which had a small assortment of punch and goodies already, but it could certainly use some filling out. She set Mel's box down, and turned back to Jeff... who was still holding her boxes, and still looking around at the reindeer. Meep.

"Sorry, sorry!" 'Just once, can I go out and not act like a total airhead?!'
She snatched her boxes back and set them down on the table. "Okay, right, reindeer, back to Mama. I don't suppose you have a net or anything, do you?"

Just then, a family of four arrived - parents, a ten-year-old, and a baby in a baby carrier. Rya vaguely recognized them from around town as the Baxters, though she didn't think she'd been introduced to them properly yet. However, importantly,
as the door opened again, some of the reindeer began to run in and out randomly. "Agh! Tell you what, I'll try to corral the ones outside, at least get them out of the way!"

Less than two minutes, and she was already running around like a chicken with its head cut off. Well, there were traditions to uphold, after all.

Commotion was normal when arriving at parties. Usually, one could greet it from an upright position and with wagging tail, but Rya was quick to help Mel back up on all four paws and to position Mel's box of orange balls and shortbread bones on the table with the rest of the holiday goodies.

"Thank you!" Mel barked after Rya, who was already throwing herself into helping Officer Jeff corral the excited reindeer.

Mel had Collie cousins who excelled at organizing crowds, but she was better at finding people. Or people were better at finding her, she thought as she spotted a young girl heading her way. Perhaps the most helpful thing she could do at this point would be to keep an eye on the kids while the reindeer were rounded up.

"Come on, we're going to be late!" Maeve called to her sister, who was lagging behind her. The latter stuck out her tongue, and moved slower. "Seriously?"

"It's a Ditto Town party."

"So? You like parties!"

"Yeah, but...I sense despair," she finished dramatically.

"I sense someone in a grumpy mood. Come on, it'll be fun. As per usual."

"As per usual, people tend to die in the Mansion."

"No one's died yet at a holiday party. It's a tradition--it's the only event that doesn't have significant things go wrong. Besides, it's cold."

"Well, why don't you build yourself a fire?" Kaelin grumbled, tromping past Maeve and up the Mansion steps. "I'm here, I'm here. Let's get this over with."

The sisters pushed inside, and, mere seconds after closing the door, were greeted by the sight of reindeer...everywhere.

"...maybe this was a bad idea," Maeve said after a moment. "Want to go?"

"Depends," Kaelin grabbed one of the flying boogers and started petting it. "Can I steal this one and keep it as a pet?"

"No."

"...let's stay for a bit. This might be fun."

Ainsley-Marie Kellner wasn't one to work under contract, she typically preferred the flexibility and independence of free-lance work to the guaranteed cash of actually working for someone. However, when that certain someone is O'le Saint Nick, you don't say no. The job was fairly simple, a whole batch of young reindeer had escaped their pens and had gone wild.

Her mission was to track, capture and return the younglings back to the North Pole, easy enough right? There was of course a stipulation, the mama reindeer were on strike until their children were returned. This was an issue, to say the least. Santa needed his reindeer back and she was the best tracker this side of the Andromeda galaxy. Besides, pretty much everyone else in her field would be home with their families during this time, Santa seemed to have known that she would be open for business.

Honestly though, she was a little overqualified for the job. The snow made it a fairly simple task, simple enough until they disappeared into a small pool of water about twenty five miles south of the workshop. At first she feared the worst, but then she realized that the water was only a foot or so deep. That didn't make any sense at all, so she tossed a pebble into the pool.

The rock disappeared without a ripple. Ainsley was aware of the so-called teleporting pools scattered randomly across the multiverse, she'd personally utilized a more than few of them in the past. There really was only one way to find out if this otherwise non-descript pool was something more than its appearances. So in her desperation, she did the only logical thing she could think of and proceeded to promptly take a swim.

Instantaneously, she found herself in a familiar place. It was called many different things in many different languages. She knew it as the sleepy place, because if you weren't careful you'd end up taking the best nap you'd ever had, akin to the food coma that hits you after thanks giving. Luckily, she had experience in fighting the magical affects of the place, otherwise she could very well have succumbed to the slumber that was beginning to tug at the edges of her consciousness.

Unsurprisingly, that's exactly what she found her first reindeer doing. The poor fella was snoring loudly, snuggled up next to a tree. The ground surrounding the adjacent pool was visibly disturbed, it appeared that most, if not all of the reindeer had entered this one particular pool. So she tied the snoozing caribou to a nearby tree and continued on her way.

Seconds later she emerged in the middle of Ditto Town's town square. She was home, exactly the place she had avoided throughout most of her adult life and the last place she wanted to be during holidays. There were too many memories here, good and bad.

Ainsley brushed aside these harsh thoughts and took moment to observe her surroundings. The town was changing, construction equipment lay scattered throughout the square, the only building in town that seemed unscathed by the renovations was the Mansion. Yet the town was festive, covered in decorations and holiday cheer. It all stood in very sharp contrast to her dark get up and armed disposition.

Upon quick inspection, the hoof tracks disappeared one or two feet from fountain, for a moment thought that she had lost them. Her worry was short lived though, as a small herd came rushing out the front door, followed shortly by a humanoid female, who appeared slightly frazzled. It was painfully obvious that this woman did not expect to encounter a stampede of reindeer at her holiday party. Ainsley drew her net gun and fired, capturing two or three of the critters before they could fly away.

"Where are the rest?" Asked Ainsley of Rya, her voice even and calm in the face of absolute chaos and hilarity.

---

Jeff grinned at the absolute awkwardness of this entire situation. These goofy occasions were what he lived for, its what made Ditto Town special in the multiverse. Where else could you meticulously plan a holiday party, only for it to literally be crashed by dozens of tiny reindeer. He snatched up one of the critters and slung it over his left shoulder before striding over to the two newest guests.

"These little guys are pretty cute, yeah?"

"Ow!" Kaelin exclaimed, dropping her current cuddle victim, who took advantage of this to scoot away. "It kicked me!"

The two adults watched as she dashed after it, light on her feet.

"That made them even cuter," Maeve chuckled, scratching the chin of the calf Jeff was holding. "Yeah, they are. I'm surprised they can move that fast, given that their legs are all still wobbly."

The calf stared at her for a second, then let out a soft "meaaaah", before wiggling its tail oddly.

"...did it just....?"

"Yeah, I guess that just happened, you know what? I didn't like this ugly Christmas sweater anyhow." Jeff set the calf down and quickly removed his festive swag, revealing the plain white t-shirt he had underneath. With surprising accuracy he smoothly tossed the soiled piece of clothing into a nearby trash can.

"The name is Jeffery Evans, it's a pleasure to meet yinz."

"Maeve, and the one chasing the escapee is Kaelin," she replied. "You're not going to be cold that way?"

"Yah!" Rya jumped when she heard the whoosh of the net gun, and she whirled around to face the source. She saw a woman, decked in dark colors and clearly armed, though the only weapon she had out was the net gun. Rya had lived in Ditto Town to almost be used to this kind of thing... just so long as they didn't sneak up on her.

"The rest? Right. As far as I can tell, the rest are inside the Mansion." Rya pointed towards the door. "I don't think that many got out, but I'm not really sure how they got in, either. Oh! But there's some talking animal around here, the only one's we're having problems with are the reindeer." She suddenly realized she'd been blathering, blushed a bright red, and extended her hand. "Sorry, skipped right past introductions. I'm Rya, nice to meet you."

“See spectacular Ditto Town” the brochure said over a photograph of a magnificent village draped in lights. “A Holiday paradise to behold.”

A young man with a thin face and just a bit too much combed hair drooping over one eye squinted at the brochure, then looked up at the disaster area he was now seeing. He reached in his shirt pocket and pulled out a pair of glasses to inspect his surroundings more easily. Either a winter tornado had recently hit this supposedly picturesque Christmas town, or the marketing firm hired to make the brochure for the Ditto Town tourism bureau had overactive imaginations. His money was on the former.

The young man had always dreamed of visiting Ditto Town, ever since he first... uh... well... saw a brochure about Ditto Town. That was at least seven or eight years ago now, and he decided that now was the time to do it. (That, and he lost a bet in a game of Whist, but that’s another story.) He had prepared for the visit very carefully. He’d read a blog on all the local customs and he had a dictionary of Dittonian words in his pocket for easy reference. (Truthfully though, the only phrases he’d memorized were the greetings and how to ask where the restrooms were.)

He looked for the hotel he was planning to stay at, following a map he’d printed out from the web. He found a building that he thought might be it, but there was no sign saying what the building was and the place looked to be under construction, or possibly quarantine, as a small sign in the window read “Closed for the season.” “Should have called ahead” he said to himself, tired and weary from a long journey.

He trudged on through the snow, thinking only of Turkish Delight and hot baths, and wondering why he didn’t bother to get a rental car. Soon a light caught his eye, and music caught his ear, while a tree branch caught his hair. He untangled himself and then looked in the direction of the activity. One mansion in the town still seemed to be alive. He decided to walk towards it in search of lodging.

Within five minutes he was in the yard. This was more like it! A mansion all decorated for the holidays! He could see people now. How exciting! The locals seemed to be engaging in some sort of local reindeer-catching ceremony. One young lady seemed to be particularly engaged in the sport, trying to capture a pair of reindeer which were dashing and dancing and generally prancing around the yard, while another female stood nearby reloading a net into a firearm. The first lady (not to be confused with the First Lady) at that moment took a flying leap forward, successfully catching one of the little vixen, but unfortunately landing face-first in a snowbank. “What a dedicated player,” he thought. “I was always too scared to even slide into first base... or play baseball at all, really.”

He knew that this was the first Dittonian he wanted to introduce himself to. As she pulled herself out of the snowbank, holding a feisty calf, he walked boldly up to her saying, “Tango-Mouse!”

“What?” She said, confused and turning a color. -Either blue or red, he couldn’t tell which.

“Ugg, Ding-a-ling! Or should I say ‘mortify’? That was a nice catch, godmudder. But I’m sure you’ve had years of practice. What a fun tradition. This place is absolutely Distopia.”

She stared.

“Before there are any awkward Abraham Lincolns, I should introduce myself. My name is Aristotle, but you can call me Totle... or Aris...or Stot. Or maybe Risto? There really isn’t an easy way to nickname me.”