2229/Festive lights!

Festive lights!
Date of Scene:	16 December 2016
Location:	Uminari City - Shopping Strip
Synopsis:	Tokyo is bedecked with lovely festive holiday lights, some of which try and kill Kyouko and Naru. Because of /course/ they do.
Cast of Characters:	Naru Osaka, Kyouko Sakura

---

Naru Osaka has posed:
Ring Christmas bells, sweet silver bells..

At least that's the general idea of Christmas in the city, although it's less sweet silver bells and more honking and cash registers and dodging people who inexplicably stop dead in the middle of the sidewalk for /no damn good reason at all/. There has been shopping, by no means /all/ the shopping, but at least a dent has been made into the plan to guess by the bags that both of them hold.

Now, it's the coffee and pastry part of the excursion, the part that makes this somewhat less of a homicidal excusion by keeping the sugar and caffeine levels high.

The city has been decorated for the holidays, with greenery and lights /everywhere/. Tangled around lampposts, twined into trees along the sidewalk, designs on wire frames over the streets, making nighttime into a sparkly magical time.

Kyouko Sakura has posed:
    Kyouko seems to be in a pretty good mood, as she trudges along with bags in both hands. It feels good to be able to buy presents for people- something she has not had the facility to do in past years, especially not on a wide scale. It makes her feel.. generous, even! And she likes that, because she's not used to thinking of herself that way.

    So Naru gets to see a particularly beamy and cheerful-faced Kyouko, annoyances of last-minute holiday shopping notwithstanding. And she's also looking forward to coffee and pastries too. "Thanks for comin' with me, Naru. This isn't somethin' I'm generally very good at."

Naru Osaka has posed:
"I don't /love/ shopping, but I enjoy it well enough." Naru turns to face Kyouko, taking a few steps backwards as she does. The puella's beamy and cheerful countenance is met with a bright grin from Naru, that sort of happy really does beget more of that sort of happy. "And we found some good stuff."

This chunk of sidewalk is, a touch surprisingly, fairly clear all in all. There's not a lot of other shoppers hurrying their way from point a to point b along it. Which does mean that there's really not a lot of people who have to disbelieve the reality of a lamppost's worth of Christmas lights that are divesting themselves of their lamp post in an attempt to lash out and snare Naru from behind, with little flashes and zots of light and electricity as they grab at her.

Because what's Christmas without a holiday themed youma.

Kyouko Sakura has posed:
    Kyouko has a highly-developed danger-sense- she knows something is up the moment it begins, and the faint narrowing of her eyes as they begin to dart here and there, searching for the source of the uneasy feeling, comes just a moment before the christmas lights actually come to life and try to grab Naru as she walks past.

    "Oh, you've got to be kidding me.." The Puella mutters, before shouting more audibly, "Naru-chan, look out!"

    There's a bright flash of crimson light, and a moment later she is in her Puella outfit, spear materializing out of thin air already in her grip, and already spinning in a blur of wood and metal to sever the snaking skein of lights before it can close around Naru..

    Unless of course the lights have some other trick up their sleeve.

Naru Osaka has posed:
"What?" Naru's sense of self preservation isn't nearly as honed as Kyouko's, but she turns to look behind her just about as Kyouko is transforming. She is getting a whole lot quicker, darting out of the way of that first strand that was coming for her.

There's a veritable octopus worth of tangly lights, however, and even as Naru slips with almost uncanny lack of fuss from mudane winter wear into henshin'd poofy skirt, ther'es another strand of lights flicking out liek a whip to snare around her ankles, looking to yank her off her feet.

The strand that Kyouko has around her spear rips away with a crackle of sparks and little bursts of electrical zots, and more snake out to replace that strand from the central motif high over the street.

Myth confirmed, Christmas lights really do multiply and tangle.

Kyouko Sakura has posed:
    Kyouko.. actually hadn't seen Naru in henshin before, but any novelty that might have developed on account of that is rapidly displaced by the fact that these Christmas lights are apparently not going to go quietly.

    Kyouko's spear simply vanishes, letting the torn wires fall to the ground, then re-appears a moment later- she doesn't want to risk getting tangled. She spins in the same moment, and her spear breaks into sections of wood connected by chain. Doing an admirable job of impersonating the lights themselves, she sends the spear-chain out like a whip, right towards Naru..

    Attempting to wrap around the other girl's waist and yank her back towards Kyouko, out of the way of the reaching lights. "Everybody wants a piece of Naru-chan!" She grits through bared fangs. "You're gonna make me jealous with how popular you are!"

Naru Osaka has posed:
Ideally, there will be time enough in a few minutes to appreciate the new outfit. Without extra lighted decorations.

"I could do without this level of popularity!" Naru protests as she becomes a tug-o-war toy between sparking lights and a puella's whip. She has her hands free, at least, and reaches inside her jacket to pull out a sketchpad and a pencil, flipping quickly through the pages and then trying not to drop said sketchpad when the lights yank her off her feet in reponse to the pull of the chain around her waist. "Just yank, Kyouko, I can feel it struggling to keep hold." She advises, keeping reaction to the little zots of electricity from the lights out of her voice.

Another set of lights snakes it way out, reaching to try and 'sneak' around and grab for Kyouko.

Kyouko Sakura has posed:
    Kyouko grits her teeth again as Naru is pulled off of her feet in the midst of an impromptu tug-o-war between herself and the Christmas Lights- now that's a phrase she'd never think to have to say. But she does as the girl advises, and pulls hard.. her spear-whip coiling up like a scorpion tail and whipping Naru back towards her.

    Of course, just about then one of the other light-arms tries to grab her. She feels it brush her leg a moment before it really grabs, and curses, dancing away which may have unfortunate results for the Naru which she had been planning to half-catch. She gets a little zapped by the lights, but manages to avoid being entangled.

    Instead, she stamps her foot, and little spearblades shoot up from the ground, tearing through the wires by her feet. "Leave us alone, I'm shopping!" She shouts, as she once again tries to get Naru by her side.

Naru Osaka has posed:
There are a lot of phrases that seem to come up that no one ever dreamt of saying, not the least of which involves semi-sentient Christmas lights. Naru is yanked, and the lights manage to keep their grip on her, but snap further down, writhing with sparking ends. Naru ends up where Kyouko was, but dance classes haven't been for naught as she barely lands before she's also darting away from grabby lights and little spearblades up from the grond.

"If I draw something, can you hook it to two live ends without getting yourself electrocuted?" Naru asks as she already starts drawing, regardless of the answer. "I'm not sure this'll work." She admits. Drawing while avoiding a sparkly light hydra is not the easiest art she's ever done.

The wires are no match for the spear, crackling and sparking and sending out more tendrils from the main fixture the more that get destroyed. They do seem to have a finite reach, however, waving just a few inches from where Naru and Kyouko are.

Kyouko Sakura has posed:
    "I can try but I ain't no electrician." Kyouko mutters, as she spins her spear in lightning-quick little strikes every time one of the tentacles tries to get a little bit too close. She protectively manuvers herself between Naru and the lights while the girl draws.

    "Of course, my spear if half wood, and technically an illusion on top of that, so it may not be the best electrical conductor.."

    Her eyes are drawn up to the central mass of decorations overhead, her lips turning down into a scowl. That does seem to be where they are coming from.. if Naru's plan doesn't work, at least she'll know what to stab.

Naru Osaka has posed:
"Neither am I." Naru admits as she sketches quickly behind Kyouko's protection. "Wood's a good insulator at least, which is good. You being the conductor is bad. This is the conductor."

Naru draws out of her sketchbook what looks like an set of jumper cables. "I tried to pay attention in the electricity section of physics class, but it wasn't my best grade." She offers it to Kyouko and there's a quirk of a smile. "Alternately, I can try and make it electricute itself, and you can stab the almighty living crap out of /that/ bit of it." She gestures up towards the central wire figure with it's jaunty spray of holly drawn out in lights, where Kyouko is already looking.

Kyouko Sakura has posed:
    Kyouko fends off another jab of wire-and-light with a quick, almost casual back-hand spin of her spear, before half-turning and taking the jumper cables from Naru. She eyes them for a moment, then shrugs and offers the girl a lopsided grin. "Well, worth a try."

    She eyes the tentacles for a moment.. then waits for one to snap out towards her. When it does, she actually extends her arm, letting it wrap around her forearm, but then bracing her spear aaginst the sidewalk and pulling back the other direction, stretching it taught. "Hook one end up to a live wire, quick!" She says, holding the cable back out towards Naru. "Then gimme the other end and stand back!"

Naru Osaka has posed:
Because how could this /possibly/ go wrong. Naru takes the cables back from Kyouko, her sketchbook already tucked away safely as she moves quickly to not have Kyouko get electrocuted for /that/ long. Those lights are not comfortable! Not deadly, nto with one strand, but one strand glomming onto Kyouko's arm is raising the interest of other strands and the starts to snap and crackle with interest in her direction.

Naru hooks one end to a live wire as it passes by, plucking it out of the air really, the sparks and zots trying to get at her too. Two /is/ better than just one and then she passes it in a smooth movement over to the waiting Kyouko.

Kyouko Sakura has posed:
    Kyouko is old friend with pain- at least minor pain doesn't bother her that much. The little zaps of the strand wrapped around her forearm are an annoyance at best.. although the rest of this might not be, honestly.

    Naru hooks up one end of the cable to a live, hissing wire as it snaps past, then passes them back. Kyouko sucks in a breath.. then clips the other end to one of the bits wrapped around her forearm.

    *ZAP*

    There's an astoundingly bright flash of light, and a moment later Kyouko is sitting on the sidewalk, with little tendrils of smoke rising from the singed corners of her outfit and her short red hair sticking up in all directions. She coughs slightly. "O-ow."

    The lights, at least, are writhing weakly on the ground. Before they can recover, Kyouko leaps to her feet and just chucks her spear like a harpoon- with the tendrils stunned, hopefully there's none to block it as it spears right through the apparent 'heart' of the monster.

Naru Osaka has posed:
Naru may have skipped the 'stand back' part of that directive, and the usual pristine white of her outfit has gained a few more splotches of black than usual, thanks to the resounding ZAP and the flash and the minor explosion.

Perfectly /fine/.

"Are you alright?" Naru asks, braced and watching as the spear takes out the main chunk of the decoration.

*zap*

It's a smaller explosion, taking out power to a few homes and street lights.

Transformer, clearly. Nothing to see here.

Kyouko Sakura has posed:
    Kyouko coughs, reaching out to steady herself on Naru's shoulder. The contact produces a minor static spark which makes her wince. "Ow. Um.. yeah. No problem." She shakes her hand slightly.

    "I'm not sure that was the best way we could have handled that but um.. I think it's dead." SHe kicks at a strand of lights.. then de-henshins in a flash of red back to her street clothes.

    Her eyes widen. "The presents!" She goes to quickly gather up the dropped bags and make sure the spoils of her hard shopping have not been damaged by an inconsiderate youma.

Naru Osaka has posed:
"Possibly not our most elegant solution. I didn't envision you holding on." Naru explains as she reaches to steady Kyouko a moment, static charge or not.

The presents are in a bit of a heap of bags, but waiting patiently for them. Naru is back to normal Naru as she joins Kyouko to ensure the presents are fine. "I think we might need two pastries at this rate."

Kyouko Sakura has posed:
    "Well I had to make sure the lights held still to get zapped, now didn't I?" Kyouko responds, as she gathers up the bags. Everything seems in order. She sighs. "Ah well, don't let anybody tell you you aren't exciting company, Naru-chan."

    She grins. "Two pastries sounds like the perfect cure for mild electrocution." She eyes the now-limp strands of Christmas light. "And they say it's the happiest time of the year.. hah." Then she turns to walk with Naru towards the cafe.