A bullet grazed her arm as she ran, heart racing as she turned a corner. The footsteps grew louder and louder, her face growing paler and paler as she glimpsed back and saw the men chasing her. It would have been harder to see them in the pitchest black, were it not for the bright red eyes boring into her. She swallowed down her screams and kept running through the city, taking every twist and turn to try to lose her pursuers.
But there were only so many turns she could take, before she reached a dead end in an alleyway. Her eyes widened in fear, wildly darting around for any way she could escape. As they closed in, she looked up towards the bright, starry sky, and saw the distant blue sphere that some people called "impure".
"Gotcha now, Santa," said one of the men, her attention ripped away from her escape route plans. "It's over. Just give up, nice and easy, and we won't hurt ya."
"I... I can't," she squeaked, voice barely audible, hardly keeping eye contact with them. "I won't! The people need their gifts! I... I have to-"
Santa gasped as a bullet lodged itself in the wall, dangerously close to her face. She saw the gun still smoking as the men stepped forward, glaring.
"Stop yapping and get over here. Won't say it twice."
Everything seemed to close in on her, heart threatening to burst from sheer fear, but she clenched a hand around her chest. She closed her eyes, shutting out the entire world, just focusing on a single wish...
In a blink of an eye, a reindeer appeared with a sleigh, grunting as it plowed through the men like a bull in a crowd. Santa was a little surprised the sleigh had a huge sack of presents already: was it THAT close to Christmas time? Regardless, she hopped on and grabbed the reins, urging her reindeer onward. With another grunt, the reindeer rushed not ahead, but upwards towards the sky, towards that blue sphere. Santa sighed in relief, so certain that the men couldn't hurt her now.
A certainty that was thrown out the window as, when she got so close to her goal, a barrage of danmaku crashed into her sleigh. Her reindeer neighed, panicking as the sleigh rocked behind it, Santa hanging onto dear life. Worse yet, she squeaked as the sack of presents opened up, gifts pouring out and floating into space.
"N-no! Wait, come back! Rein, we gotta get those-" she said before several more danmaku barrages slammed into her ride. She looked back, barely making out the red-eyed men through all the blasts, but turned back and urged Rein go go faster, faster! Even faster!
But one last barrage did it, blasting her out of her sleigh, Santa flying off and clinging onto her reindeer for dear life. All those presents tumbled out, left at the mercy of both those men and space.
It was all too much for her to handle, her whole world fading to black amongst the chaos.
--------------------------------
Christmas time. A perfect time to buy boatload of gifts for friends and family alike, enduring long lines and endless replays of redone Christmas classics as they went about shopping. Where sales were aplenty, and the last-minute rush was real.Where everyone patiently waited for the cheerful reactions of their loved ones.
A time many enjoyed, but Kisha? Well, as she sat in a pair of sweatpants and a baggy shirt, staring at scant amount of funds in her bank account? It was the perfect time to feel guilty. She stared at the huge amount of Steam games she collected in a blink of an eye, as her online friends bombarded her with gift after gift after gift. Hell, some actually went farther, her wallet filled with gift cards to restaurants and clothing stores, her room going from rather plain to full of plastic dinosaurs and cute plushes.
Kisha sighed, brushing her hair back with a hand, silvery strands glowing in the light amongst all the brown. "How the hell am I gonna repay them for all this?" she said as she shifted her attention to Discord, watching a flood of excited messages pour in between just two people in the server. "I can't just go without, can I? I mean, it's Christmas!"
Guilty thoughts of her closest friends looking upset flooded her mind, with questions like, "Why didn't she get me anything?" and "Oh, business as usual, I guess." She sank in her chair as they weighed her down, desperately trying to concentrate on her friend's hype for a Spinosaurus instead of all her self-generated negativity.
Negativity won out in the end, Kisha pushing herself away from her computer and laying down on the couch instead, staring at the ceiling with her eyes half closed. If only there were more odd jobs about. Stuff that she could handle, like fighting a giant mechanical dinosaur gone rogue in the museum and knocking its lights out. Or modeling for an Ugly Christmas Sweater enthusiast. Or maybe just wrestling. God, the sheer thrill of piledriving the biggest heel in Manhattan's wrestling circuits after he beat her to a pulp, hearing the crowds cheer and cry as she pinned him down for the count... She'd relive that just for the excitement, nevermind the dosh. She tried to find these opportunities and more, yet the well was dry this time of year. Add that to the fact she never went to college and got experience for a normal job, and you had the perfect recipe for barely scraping up rent from kind donors.
She barely had time to mope about this when something CRASHED through her window, startling her out of her funk as it plopped onto the floor. She looked down at it...
Wait, crap, that's a girl. A pretty battered girl from the look of it, her purple hair a mess. Some weird Santa cosplayer given the outfit, and... bunny ears?
Strange, but Kisha didn't really think too much on it as she got off the couch, plucked the girl up, and set her down on it. She was pretty bruised up, cut where she crashed through the glass. Must have gotten into a fight, Kisha figured. Kisha took a deep breath and held her hands above the Santa cosplayer, hands glowing a soft yellow as she touched the cosplayer's hand. The aura spread throughout the cosplayer's body, light dancing around the wounds and stitching them back to normal, bruises shrinking until they were barely noticeable.
Slowly, the cosplayer opened her eyes, Kisha taken aback by how red they were. Her eyes darted about as if looking for an exit before they finally settled on Kisha, seeing the aura enveloping her as she used healing magic.
"Hey, you're awake!" Kisha said with a small smile. "You doing alright? Anything outta place or-"
Kisha did not expect the cosplayer to grab at her shirt and pull her in, eyes watering up with tears as she blurted out, "Christmas! Th-they're stealing CHRISTMAS! Please, you have to help me! Christmas is...!"
"H-hey, wait a second, what the hell-" And of course, before Kisha could question her further, the rabbit girl let go and passed out again, clearly overwhelmed with emotion. She looked down at her, baffled for a bit, before she sighed.
"Guess Christmas is going to be preeetty interesting, huh?"
Already, a spark of excitement lit up in her heart, almost eager to find out what kind of incident was behind all of this.
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