Christmas 2: Uber Christmas

"Tell me again why we're going to fight this youma?" Serena was the one who asked but they all kind of acknowledged that her point was valid and wondered that themselves.

It wasn't even really obvious that it was a youma. Most of the shoppers at the mall just thought it was an elf. The only reason the senshi, ie Amy, thought it was a youma to begin with was because it was because instead of the usual Santa ringing the bell at one of those charity containers, or even Mrs. Clause or one of the regular dressed folks with holiday cheer, it was... an elf, with pointy ears, a glittery face and turned up toed shoes with bells. It was wearing green and had white tights. The only thing really odd about it was the red skin and that it was female with a huge bust. Other than that... nothing... not really at least.

It was giving out candy to all of those who donated money. The candy wasn't even really doing anything to the people, they were a little more tired but that was it. That could have easily been swept under the rug as they did their Christmas shopping and waited in line to see the show and Santa at the end. Not to mention the dozens of displays set out for people to 'ahh' and 'ooh' over.

"Are we sure?" Mina didn't look too impressed by Amy's data. "I mean cause if we're not we're going to ruin a lot of people's days."

"Can't we just leave the little guy even if she is? I mean she's not hurting anyone." Lita piped in.

"She's feeding our enemy energy." Amy stared at them as if they were nuts. "If this continues then our enemy will get stronger and we'll have tougher battles ahead, maybe even the big guy."

"Yeah but she's not getting much energy and in a week she'll be very out of place and people will stop believing that she's working for a charity and will then stop giving her money and stop getting candy." Serena argued a bit more.

Raye shrugged. "She's got a point. Why waste our energy when it's own shtick will get it tossed out anyway?"

"But-but-" Amy looked around at the faces she was with, looking for someone to back her up. "Luna?"

"I agree with Amy?" Luna said but not very convincingly.

"Artemis?" Amy asked, looking for another voice of reason to give her side weight. If she was nearly half then they'd have to agree. She could even call Darien to lend her credence. His first priority was protecting Serena at all costs, even if she didn't think it was a danger, if Amy did, then he'd agree, better safe than sorry.

Yet Artemis betrayed her. "I'm with the other girls here, let the enemy gather peanuts of energy, while we know this youma is here, they won't send another and we don't have to go looking for it. We can keep an eye on this one and make sure it doesn't do anything upsetting. Until then, we do nothing."

Amy huffed and thought they were all nuts. Sure her first priority was to protect the princess and if she wasn't in any danger then why provoke an attack, but her second priority was to the people of Earth and they were slowly losing their energy, temporarily sure, but that energy was being taken.

Finding herself thwarted she decided to deal with the enemy herself. The girls all went off to shop, leaving Amy to observe the youma first, not thinking she'd do anything to it. Usually when she lost, she was a bit more gracious about it.

She couldn't outright attack it. So instead she went down there and stopped in front of it with her arms crossed. "I don't think you're really an elf. Prove it and them I might donate some money."

The elf looked at her with a calm expression on it's face. "How would you like me to do that?"

"Where are you from?" The youma had barely asked its question before Amy asked hers.

"The North Pole."

"No one lives at the North Pole." Not anymore, they killed everyone who had.

"You're thinking of the South Pole." The youma replied gently. "No one lives there. Santa, my elf friends and family and the reindeer live at the North Pole."

"Do you really believe what you say or are you just that good at lying?"

"I believe what I say."

"Ah so they programmed it into you. Very interesting. Very smart." Amy tapped her chin, thinking. "What is the temperature there?"

"Not entirely sure because we don't go outside much in the winter and I'm not there today but usually it's around -50 plus windchill and humidity making it feel colder."

"Very good programming." Amy sighed. "I'm not going to get anywhere with this line of questioning." She titled her head. "If you're an elf, what are you doing here collecting money?"

"Well we elves are good at making toys but the homeless and needy need food more than they need material items and so we collect money for them too so they can get food, a blanket, a roof, whatever they need."

"And if I were to stab you with an icicle?"

"Not sure why you would want to do that, but it would be very painful and I'd probably bleed and depending on where you stabbed me, I'd probably get really hurt or die. I'd also probably cry and scream." The elf shrugged. "Anything else?"

"Come on, move along, you're holding up the line." People behind Amy started jostling her though there was plenty of room to go behind her, they all wanted access to this pot.

Amy pulled out some change and added it to the donation. Maybe she was wrong, maybe it wasn't a youma. The elf gave her a piece of candy and Amy tossed it into the pot as well. It started smoking. "What the?"

"Why did you go and do that?" The youma's calm demeanor was starting to slip away as the smoke got heavier and darker. "If you didn't want the candy you should have just thrown it in the trash! Do you know how much work it is to clean this out of things that don't belong?"

The youma got taller as its voice got deeper. It went from tinny and a bit high pitched to seductive and the body only got more seductive and voluptuous. "That's not Christmas at all." Amy mumbled to herself. This youma was reminiscent of that famous 'you won't like me when I'm angry' quote.

"Amy, what did you do?" Raye demanded when Amy scooted backwards and got to the safety of the second floor.

"It wasn't like I planned it!" Well- she had but not the way it had happened. "I guess it's better than it happening when we weren't here." Someone was bound to toss the candy into the donations, eventually.

"Time to transform." Raye quipped as the rest of the girls joined them. Sure there would have been logic to going in first as a duo but there was logic going in this way.

"Really?" Serena whined. "Just when I thought it was safe to let people play with a youma." She pouted but they all transformed anyway.

It didn't register for Amy at first that there was something different with her fuku, she glanced around and didn't see what was wrong for all of two seconds as everything was mostly the same. It was only when she looked at Moon and her complete step away from regularity that Amy finally noted that all of their fukus were different.

The colors were still there, she was still in blue, Raye red, Lita green and Mina gold. Well... maybe Mina's was a bit more gold than before. Theirs were all the same, just perhaps a big richer in color and the material was now velvet and they had furry white trim along all of the edges.

Serena though was decked in silver, red and green rather than her traditional red, blue and white, her legs were covered in stripes of green and silver but her red boots remained, in fact what was white was now silver and what was blue was now green. The only additions were the tights and a few extra sparkles making her look like a real elf or Christmas fairy.

It took Serena less time to realize what happened. "Oh my god! This is so cool! We're Christmas Senshi!" She squealed and danced around a bit, gaining quite a few eyes, including the youma. "Do you think we have Christmas attacks as well? That's be sooo rad!"

"Uh, Moonie-" Jupiter had shrugged off the costume change, it happened often enough.

"That's Christmas Moonie!" She did another twirl. She became serious all of a sudden. "No, no, that will never do, I'd have to be called Christmas Moon because that's a thing, did you know? It actually exists."

"Whatever." Mars hissed. "We've bigger issues to think about." She looked purposefully downstairs at the now red youma. Perhaps green was passive and red was angry? Was it possible to return it to it's previous self?

Mercury was loathe to be rid of these costumes herself. She quite liked the extra length and material. It was so plush and if she didn't have toasty warm gloves on she'd run her hands over her skirt for hours.

"Do you think we'll have these fukus for the rest of the Christmas period?" Venus asked hugging herself, obviously thinking along the same lines as Mercury. "I mean we haven't had an enemy yet this season and so we don't know if we've had them before or not. Or is it just because it's a Christmas youma?"

"That's stupid." Mars snapped. "We don't have mermaid costumes when we deal with sea creature type youma."

"That'd certainly make it harder for us." Mercury agreed with a straight face.

"Or bird fukus or wings when we deal with planes or animals of flight." Moon sadly acknowledged. "Though it would be cool to be a mermaid."

Mars groaned as she realized what she'd started. "Enough!" Her yell caught even more attention and she winced. "Youma?" She waved towards the creature that still wasn't doing anything, just fuming and no longer in disguise.

"Fine." Moon took off her tiara and tried to send it at the youma. It ended up falling at her feet. "Huh, weird." She picked it up and looked at it. It was no longer gold but silver and red striped. She turned it and turned it again. "Candy Cane Toss?" She asked it and it jumped out of her hand and landed with an echo down below, just short of their youma. "Woah, totally cool." A beat of silence and then Moon was jumping and screaming in happiness. "Christmas attacks!" She caught herself. "That sounds so bad..."

"Whatever." Mars pushed the dumb blond aside and held out her hand. "Yule Time Fire!" A ring of fire surrounded the youma and she held out her hands in order to warm herself up with Mars' attack.

"Chestnuts Roasting?" Jupiter rained chestnuts down but all they did was land in the flames created by Mars. "Yuletide Logs?" Logs joined the mess below and caused the fire to grow.

"Christmas Crackers!" Venus crowed with delight and started pulling them apart, firecrackers started appearing out of them and only lit up the stage.

Mercury couldn't help her laughing and waved her arms at the production they were putting on. "Christmas Snow Flurries!" Snowflakes and puffs of snow fell around the rest of the scene and fizzled out when it touched the fire but landed within and further out from the circle.

"That's such a mess they're going to have to clean up." Moon bemoaned her Christmas Wonderland.

"Ooh, maybe this will be another one of my attacks!" Venus held out her own hand and sent it towards the youma. "Garland Wrap!" Yards upon yards of decoration shot out and wrapped around the youma who had only looked on in wonder. Now she was angry and ripped the garland from around her and what once was candy that only took a bit of the people's energy, now shot out from her and pelted people, like hail, causing bruising and if it stuck, and they were sticky, then it eroded whatever it touched. In fact a good portion of the floor they were standing on was just covered in the candy and some of the support beams.

"Ah crap." Mercury grabbed Moon and jumped away from the balcony, the other senshi followed quickly behind and where they had been standing crashed to the floor below, thankfully not on anyone. "Icicle Freeze Spray!" Shards of ice flew at the youma as if riding a wave and pinned it to the wall temporarily, injuring it in the process as well.

It busted through the icicles and sent a wave of hot soup at them, they could see it smoking as soon as it left her.

"Oh crap." They weren't fast enough to get to Moon and save themselves, sometimes being in the center had its drawbacks. They would have flung her out of the way if they could have reached her. Moon shrieked and tried to fall backwards so she could go under the wave of steaming hot soup but hands caught her under her armpits and they went up rather than down or sideways. He had the speed and adrenaline going for him.

He would have words with the senshi later about what they did here, but for now, he held her close and wrapped his cloak around them. Moon didn't stay in his arms long, he was panting in fear and effort but she was too curious to soak up what she usually wanted most of all and this was the time he'd give it.

"Ha! I knew it!" Moon jumped around yet again with happiness. He was in a dark green tuxedo with a badass red and silver cape. It was huge and almost overpowering and sweet. "It looks like a Christmas version of John Snow's cape!"

He groaned and shook his head. "Youma."

"I think you should keep the look and style of this cape." She picked it up, it was a little heavy and hid his fabulous bod but it was so... dark warrior/vampire/bat but red and silver. A very, very light silver that looked almost white, but had a shinier quality to it than the girls' fukus' trim. "Even if you go back to the black and red one." She tilted her head. "I'm kind of surprised you didn't keep the black tuxedo and cape and have red trim or a red cape with black trim."

"It's not like I chose this costume anymore than any of you." He responded dryly.

Moon shrugged. "The girls kept their colors. I suppose you'd be different because I'm different."

"Speaking of being different, did you know you're the only one not fighting the angry youma?"

"Oops?" Moon turned and vaulted over the side and he had to rest assured that she was fine if she didn't cling to him and was only interested in his new outfit. Obviously she hadn't gotten scalded at all.

"Hot Choco Blast!" The youma started sending cups of the hot liquid at them, this they could easily avoid. Or at least better at doing so.

There was one cup that almost hit Moon square in the forehead but Kamen shot a red flower down at it. Except it wasn't his usual rose, it was a poinsettia instead. Didn't have quite the same impact or slice to it but Moon was saved and she looked up at him with hearts in her eyes over the seasonal flower. He shooed her on to deal with the youma finally, sort of embarrassed by the flower change to scold her verbally.

She nodded and gave him a cheeky salute and turned her attention and her candy cane staff towards the youma. Kamen dropped down next to Mercury. "I thought her tiara turned into a candy cane?"

"It did but if you notice this one is pink and red rather than silver and red." Mercury shrugged not knowing for sure what would happen.

"Cranberry Wreath"

"And Decorative Bow!"

"Tree Lights!"

Moon, Venus and Jupiter all attacked the youma at once and it cried, literally cried when it was being dusted, but the weird thing was that they were tears of joy.

"This is just... weird." Kamen shook his head. "Moon, when you finish, come find me!" Then he disappeared, anything to get away from what he'd just witnessed and unfortunately had been a part of.

Later that night, Serena was asking to try on his cape, which was ridiculous because he was a good foot taller than her and it would only pile up around her feet. He told her no because it was gone, it was just for that one youma.

He never told her that he hung it up in his closet and pulled it out on nights he felt emasculated, just so he could throw it on and look in the mirror and remind himself about how badass he looked in it, even if the rest... well wasn't quite so stellar. He couldn't have everything all the time.

EAN: Yeah I know I use American English language and names but fuku, senshi, Kamen and youma but I can't help it, I hate using the English version of those words. Also because they're 'dub' versions of themselves they're supposed to be acting like that, which is totally different than many other ones you'll see here.