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 Posted: Fri Dec 10, 2010 9:26 pm
We three kings of Orient are
Bearing gifts we traverse afar
Field and fountain, moor and mountain
Following yonder star We Three Kings was name of the holiday song that was being played faintly through the churches outdoor speakers. Sailor Scylla was watching the nativity scene curiously, as one of the camels was lying on its side, battered and dented in the middle of the road. Another of the camels was on the roof of the stable, and the third camel seemed to be grazing happily in the gravel of the driveway. Each of them had clearly been abused, and each of them was clearly unhappy about it from the fact it seemed that their eyes had been turned to black dots with a magic marker. Joseph was 'standing' on Mary's lap instead of next to the cradle, the crook of his shepherd's staff keeping him upright; The three wise men were nowhere at all to be seen. Baby Jesus appeared to have lost his swaddling clothes, and was wrapped in toilet paper instead. This was agitating; Jada was hardly a deeply religious girl, but she did believe in respecting the religious beliefs of others. That was, after all, what America's founding beliefs were based on. The camel on the roof seemed to slip, drifting to the right side of the stable.
Jada should probably find baby Jesus some proper clothing, as his current state was probably very chilly for him. Not that a babydoll minded; and back in those days there probably hadn't been such a thing as global warming. Winter might have been much colder 2000 years ago. That was still neither here nor there. She just couldn't stand the thought of the absolute disregard for the holiday. Nearby, the Christmas tree was devoid of lights and garland, though the tree topper still stood proudly atop the tip. It could be that no one could have found the ladder to get so high, or no one wanted to mess with the angel Gabriel, who seemed to be blessing the nativity from on high.
On the roof, the camel shifted, sliding down about a foot, and Scylla sighed, moving toward the manger to try and collect Baby Jesus. Maybe she could wrap him in her flannel pants, until she found a cloth for him. Anything was better than T.P.
((We had this happen once at a church out in the Cove. It was very sad.))
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Posted: Fri Dec 10, 2010 9:47 pm
"This," observed Sailor Europa, clicking her tongue in disapproval, "Is why we can't have nice things." She wasn't so sure how she felt about founding beliefs - when your grandmother used Thanksgiving dinner as a filibuster to talk about the abuses heaped on your ancestors by a bunch of old white guys, you got disillusioned with the US of A pretty quickly - but vandalizing a nativity scene struck her as just plain juvenile. The scout approached the manger and carefully set Joseph beside his wife.
She then turned and frowned at the stripped tree. "Who steals Christmas decorations from a Church, anyway?" she asked, frowning. Christmas lights were five dollars for five yards at Pick-n-Save, and this wasn't exactly the ghetto. If people wanted decorations for the sake of decorations, they could afford to go out and buy them. No, this was vandalism and a lack of respect, period.
"Where do you think the three kings of the Orient have gone off to?" she asked Scylla, frowning as she adjusted Joseph's staff.
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Posted: Fri Dec 10, 2010 10:21 pm
"This is true." Scylla agreed with her companion. "Well, I can have nice things, but I don't vandalize churches. Keep an eye out for any youma snowmen, or a giant Santa balloon, okay? Who knows what we're going to get up to when it is just you and me." Europa, Scylla had decided, was one of the most interesting senshi to patrol with. Between garden gnomes, ice cream machines, and turkeys, there was never a dull moment. Though there were almost always dull aches and pains the next day.
She watched Europa move Joseph, watched a car moving by them almost run over the camel- again. "Maybe I should get that out of the road." She said, tone thoughtful, but she made no real move to go do so. Why should she, when chances were good that Europa would do the heavy lifting if she didn't? "Who knows about the lights," she said finally, glancing at the tree. "Maybe ruining Christmas for the believers is the new coming of age event for teeny-bopper Scrooges."
Jada lifted the Baby in her hand, tugging off her flannel pants with the other. It felt really strange doing so, but they weren't exactly part of her uniform in the first place. She would still be properly dressed even when she shared her clothing with the doll. "The three wise men have probably decided to go home, and are on their journey to the west for the next ten years, or until they reach their kidnappers house." she shook her head. "Why they took the wise men, I'll never know."
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Posted: Sat Dec 11, 2010 5:53 am
"It'll just have to be a christmas mystery," sighed Europa, shivering beneath her puffy jacket. Down fill didn't do very much when you were still wearing a leotard and rainboots underneath: she had icy wind blowing right up her butt. "At least we can narrow out negaverse involvement," she shrugged, going to retrieve the much-abused camel from the street.
She may have spoken too soon.
Europa backed nervously away from the camel, watching as it struggled to right itself on its own. "Scylla?" she asked nervously, frowning at the apparently youmafied Christmas ornament. It did not look happy.
"Scylla," said Europa, tripping a bit as she stepped onto the curb, "I hate to ruin your night but we've got a live one."
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Posted: Sat Dec 11, 2010 8:42 am
"What?" Scylla turned to the sound of Europa's voice, blinking as the camel that she had thought was thoroughly deceased struggled to his feet in the middle of the road. It did not look happy. Nor, actually, did the youma that had been grazing in the gravel. His head was now up, like the heads of the other two, and pointed in their direction. "Are you kidding me?" she asked baby Jesus, still tucked in her left hand. He didn't answer, or move, or-
Oh s**t. There was a youma on the roof of this mini-stable, wasn't there? Well, not anymore. It fell, its heavy body blocking her way out, wicked markered-over eyes gleaming. It opened his mouth and she prepared for acid, or fire, or something else equally ridiculous, only to get hit in the stomach with a poorly-aimed, hard-packed snowball. It felt more like a baseball, actually, and she would have sworn Mary, Joseph and baby Jesus snickered as she doubled over in pain.
"Watch out!" They spit," she called to Europa loudly. Ow, this really fu- effing, sorry, no cussing in front of a Baby- hurt. The next one took her in the kneecap, the camel apparently not able to aim well. "Snowballs!"
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Posted: Sat Dec 11, 2010 8:53 am
Europa was in the middle of discovering this very fact the hard way when she heard Scylla's warning. It coincided with the impact of a gravelly snowball with her lower back. "Dammit!" she gasped, doubling over and turning to glare at the offending camel, just as it fired another snowball. This one hit her in the shoulder, and Europa staggered back with the impact.
"You know," she groaned to Scylla as she dodged a third snowball, "I think I'm sensing a running theme here."
She took a slippery leap towards the formerly-grazing camel, knocking it onto its side and sending it sliding across the gravel. The only solution, of course, was going to be to destroy the poor creatures. Considering this was already the World's Saddest Nativity Scene, she felt pretty bad about it.
"Maybe the kings had the right idea," she quipped. "Getting out of here while they still had a chance."
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Posted: Sat Dec 11, 2010 9:34 am
Europa was yelling something from outside, but as Jada was squeezing herself behind Mary and Joseph for a place to hide from the youma spewing snowballs similar to one of those baseball-throwing machine-things, she didn't hear much of it. She was, however, hearing the rhythmic thud of snowball on wood, followed by the thud of snowball on Joseph, before the camel let out a strangled noise, hoof striking out and taking out the baby's manger.
Oh, hell no.
She couldn't see outside to try and use her power on it, and he was ruining the inside of this little scene. Hiding behind Joseph and Mary might keep her safe for a little while, but eventually the stable would come down around her ears. She stood, partly, scooting around and wishing she could curse up a storm as the camel took full advantage of her being out from behind the statuettes to tenderize her. Baby Jesus was dropped, warmly wrapped in her pants, into Mary's arms; and she tackled the youma-statue, grunting. It didn't exactly move. Well then, that had failed, but she could see a bit around it, over his sagging back, and quickly cried out, "Scylla's hunger!" A single limb erupted from the snow and whipped toward her assaulting youma, only to be met on its way by a snowball. Go, distraction! She started kicking at the camel's legs, cursing that they were shorter and stubbier than a real camel's would be. "Europa!" she wailed. "I'm under manger arrest!"
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Posted: Sat Dec 11, 2010 9:33 pm
"On it!" shrieked Europa, leaping away from the camel she was engaged with and running towards the manger. "Hey, Slobbers," she called, yanking on Scylla's assailant's tail. The camel turned around and chewed menacingly at her, magic marker eyes rolling in their sockets. Europa let go of its tail just as the camel pulled back its lips to show enormous plastic teeth.
"Oh, s**t," swore the senshi of the deep, scrambling backwards, tumbling head over heels in the snow. The camel advanced on her.
"Scylla," said Europa, "Scylla, you've got your distraction, please come help me-"
She tried to kick ineffectually at the approaching camel. All this got her was a snowball fired artfully at her face from six feet away. That was going to smart tomorrow.
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Posted: Sat Dec 11, 2010 11:09 pm
She was free! Scylla could have sung Handel's Hallelujah Chorus all by herself in honor of Europa as she flung her body out of the stable and launched herself bodily onto the distracted camel. The tentacle, which had been about to do much the same, paused, as if in confusion before continuing on its way. Maybe Scylla should have been paying more attention to what her arms were doing. Maybe that would have saved her the fall as the solitary limb grabbed the camel by its plastic tail, lifting it up and into the air, and smashing it into the manger roof.
"NO!" Scylla wailed, seeing the sad little roof look even sadder. "NO!"
She turned around, to see that Europa's scrambling was taking her right toward the road. With the zombie camel! Speaking of zombies, another crash came from behind her, and she saw that the Kraken had double-tapped with the manger roof. In fact, it was mostly just going at the youma camel, which was weakly hissing and spitting snowballs at it.
.... Was Mary frowning? Scylla couldn't tell in the dim light, but she'd bet money that she was. Or maybe it was Scylla's wishful thinking.
On the positive side, she reflected, watching the zombie camel limpingly approach from the street, she thought she could see one of the Wise Men stuffed in a bush over there.
.... Where was that third camel, anyway?
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Posted: Sun Dec 12, 2010 9:16 am
Scylla had taken care of her attacker, but suddenly Europa found herself pelted from the side. Turning to face the oncoming camel, she flung a hand out and cried, "Europa deep ocean pressure!"
The camel froze mid-step, lips pulled back in a comical grimace. Europa seized the opportunity to charge it, knocking it over and bringing her heel down on its head. Another car zoomed past, momentarily catching the senshi in its headlights, before blaring its horn and speeding off down the icy street.
"Terrorists deface manger," grunted Europa, giving the struggling camel-youma another kick. "That is exactly what we need on the front page tomorrow morning."
She glanced from her camel to the one Scylla was rapidly dispatching and frowned. "Hey," she called. "Weren't there three of these?"
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Posted: Sun Dec 12, 2010 10:30 am
"No way they'll say we did it!" Scylla protested as her opponent turned to dust, finally smashed to 'death'. "They have to have security cameras here, or at the gas station across the street or something! They'll know we were bystanders, innocent and... assaulted. By... By Camelus Polyethene. These guys should be recalled, you hear me?" It was sheer and complete indignation which made her cheeks flush pink and red. Not the cold having an effect on her comfort level and making her irritation even more pronounced, not at all!
Europa's call pulled Scylla away from her stewing. Three of them... "You know, that was what I'd been thinking too." Scylla said finally, moving towards her companion. "Three wise men, three camels; speaking of the wise men, I think one of them is in those bushes." She moved past Europa, looking both ways before bolting across the street and over to the small cluster of trees. "I thought I'd seen him over..." She reached out, then paused. Gingerly, she kicked the wise man statue; he came up looking plastic enough. Good! "One Wise Man, found!" she called, and collected him, turning to drag him back over to the church.
Silently, behind her, a camel head rose from the bushes.
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Posted: Sun Dec 12, 2010 10:45 am
Europa's camel stopped moving shortly after Scylla's did, and while the other girl went to collect the wise man, she began the search for the third camel. On on the roof, two in the street... where had it gotten off to? It couldn't have gone far - it was a battered plastic camel with stubby little legs!
Slowly, her eyes were drawn to the space above the bush where the camel now peered from, grinning like a cheshire cat in the moonlight. It took aim at Scylla and opened its mouth.
"Scylla, look out!" shrieked Europa, diving for the camel.
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Posted: Sun Dec 12, 2010 11:21 am
Look out?! Scylla stared at the wise man in her arms, only to take a rock-hard snowball to the back of the neck. Why didn't I see that camel? She wondered, as her body fell forward slowly. She tried to use the wise man to keep herself upright, but ended up instead taking the plastic King along with her on her fall into the snow. Ow. That meant, she noticed gratefully, that the next snowball, which would have taken her midback, shot over her head. At least now she knew what use it had been putting its grazing in the parking lot to; the snowballs were packed with gravel, at least from this one.
Europa was almost to the camel; it ducked, and churned through the woods on stubby plastic legs, looking for a new ambush point. Quiet, however, it was not.
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Posted: Sun Dec 12, 2010 11:34 am
Europa gave chase, following the camel into the snowy woods. She was so close- another leap and she wrestled it to the ground. "Eat fist, youma!" she exclaimed, delivering an uppercut to its jaw.
The camel grunted, then turned around, opened its mouth, and fired a snowball point blank at the scout's face. Europa shrieked and tumbled backwards, and it continued its escape attempts.
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Posted: Sun Dec 12, 2010 11:44 am
Scylla stumbled to her feet, setting the wise man upright on the ground and straightening his box of... whatever it was. "I'll be right back," she told him reassuringly, and patted his cheek. Then she was off, following the crashing of Europa and Camel. She could see them, and she ducked in their wake, avoiding tree limbs and small stumps that littered the ground. It was only when Europa landed the uppercut on the youma that Scylla finally managed to get in visual sight of the camel.
Europa came tumbling backwards and Scylla almost tripped over her, not the fastest stop a woman had ever come to; but as she went tumbling over the other senshi, she did at least manage to yell out the name of her attack. "Scylla's Hungaaaaaar!" Not quite what was supposed to be yelled, but it worked. Blocking the camel's path were three large, angry-looking arms.
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