Unbiased Giving: A People's Non-Profit Charity Drive

((Basic details of the Event are listed Here, for those not interested in reading the frivolities.))

Another empty setting, white on white, in some unused corner of the net, and a handful of softly speaking voices.

"None of the others want their mugs on air for this? Hmph. Can't say I'm surprised. Whose idea were these outfits anyway?" The first voice was female, high-bred and business-like, and she sounded mildly impatient and put out already.

"Who do you think? Creepy McPerv put them together. Typical none of the big brave men wanted to get dressed up. Cowards. If it wasn't for the public opinion and motivation something like this can garner, I'd be thrashing you senseless for even suggesting it, you hear?" Also female, the second voice sounded like it came from a smaller woman, but was far less refined and more overtly unhappy with the situation. the latter part of her words sounded like they were directed at someone else. A male voice jumped in to respond, sounding amused and laid back as he responded. There was a sense of quiet laughter in it.

"Hey, eye candy motivates, doesn't it? I'm doing you a favour. You know the biggest slice of the audience likes seeing women in sexy costumes - I've got the numbers but even you two don't really need to see them to know it's true. Can you imagine little old me in bright red tight-pants and a Santa hat anyway?" He laughed, but it was followed by a sound of disgust from the other voices.

"Hardly."
"I wish I couldn't!"

"Exactly. So just loosen up, you two, and have some fun with it. Besides, we hooked a couple of other volunteers to help out, so best keep it chummy. Probably the standard do-gooder type looking to support charity and such. I expect they'll play nice, probably won't be too sharp either. Having the outsiders gives us a bit more credence, you follow? So smiles, both of you. They'll probably be here soon. Speaking of... You want to give us a picture, old man?" There was no audible response this time, but the empty space began to change.

At first there was little more than an old stone building, on a far away hill. There was a bell-tower at one end and the windows were lit up to show artfully stained glass images of figures giving each other gifts and sharing food. There was a winding path down from the building, leading gradually down the hill through banks of piled up snow, towards a village that was nestled in the valley below. The snow was falling gently, but the blanket was already thick over the hills and narrows, and piled high on the roofs of the many little houses with lights in their windows. There was only one main street in the village, though it branched into many side alleys and culverts, but at the near end was a larger hall, and the sounds of merriment could be heard coming from it. A great wide chimney was visible at one side of the hall, venting smoke into the night sky; the fireplace below must be very long indeed.

"Really? You're going to make us walk through the snow?" The posher of the two female voices could now be seen to belong to an elegant and well-proportioned woman with wavy brown hair and deep blue eyes that were glaring uncharitably out at the falling snow. She was dressed in a traditionally red velvet Christmas hat with white fur trim and a fluffy white pom-pom on the end, followed by a red velvet top with sleeves that reached her forearms and ended just below her breasts in abroad black belt with an overly elaborate buckle. The ends of the sleeves were cuffed in white fur, and the front of the top had a broad peak-style lapel that cut all the way down to the belt, also in white fur, which showed off a reasonable amount of cleavage for her size. The top left her entire midriff exposed from the end on the belt, just below her breasts, to her hips where a second black belt marked the top of a matching skirt. The skirt was pleated neatly, but was dangerously short; any position other than standing perfectly upright would almost certainly end up flashing her matching red velvet panties in one way or another. She was also wearing a pair of knee-high stockings that were a dark tan and topped out with a similar white fur ruff, designed to give the impression of boots, while still ending in classy red stiletto heels. One might assume that such an outfit was not ideal for Christmas weather, no matter how it looked.

Beside her, the other woman was notably shorter, though a portion of that had to come from the posh woman's tall heels. The shorter girl had a much younger and less womanly appearance, though compared to her normal attire her seasonal outfit did its best to upsell her femininity. Against her companion's Santa-themed outfit, hers seemed to be shooting more for 'Christmas elf' instead, with a peaked green cap that ended in a curl and did a poor job of hiding the wayward strands of her short red hair - though perhaps that was intentional, since the scruffy look added to the general impish aesthetic. Sorely lacking in the chest department, the girl instead had a green felt bandeau-style top that, by virtue of being a garment that normally restricts anyway helped disguise how little there was to actually restrict in the first place. It had a simple, flat top, leaving her arms and shoulders bare and exposing a lot more of her pale skin than her partner's costume, while still being more modest. Below her breast line, the top had a loose fabric fall away at the front that reached down almost to her navel and ended in a traditional pixie triangle cut. There remained a stretch of skin exposed anyway, though, because the matching skirt was an ultra low rise cut that bordered on modesty-risking from the top rather than below. It did, however emphasise the girl's hips as her most womanly feature, and extended at least a little bit further than her companion's. Like her top, it was a plain green fabric with no embellishment, and ending in the same triangle cut around her upper thighs. With the triangle cut creeping upwards, it actually wasn't much better than her colleague's skirt at all. The outfit concluded with knee-high, cuffed boots made of a green leather, which had pointed toes and a large spiral curl at the ends.

"Maybe it'll make you appreciate getting indoors all the more, huh?" The male voice still had no visual presence, though whoever had painted their scene had left the two women standing in an area clear of snow, on a small hill not far from the large hall. The snow continued to fall all around them, and the air felt cold, but it didn't touch the circle they were currently standing in. The shorter woman reached a hand out to catch a snow flake, and confirm that their little bubble of safety had no intention of moving with them. "Anyway, the feeds will track with you guys, if you decide to wander around, but they aren't live yet. I'll wait until the others get here and you've done a meet and greet, and got your game faces on, before we start sending it out to the rest of the world, ok?"

"I'm still going to murder you when this is done, you perv." The shorter girl was glaring down at her own costume, and had faint spots of pink in her cheeks already... though that might be the cold.
"Worth it."
"Freak."

They fell silent after that, apparently still waiting for other volunteers to show up before the cameras and video feeds actually began.

The group of two (visible) would soon be joined by additional girls from factions that they'd reached out to. The first to show up was the one best know as "the face of doing unintentionally titillating things for charity events," Holly of the NetMafia, recognizable to the other navis from times past. "Hey there!" she called out, having beamed down in the snow by accident. "Brr... Hold on a moment, I think I see you guys," she called out, heading for where the two girls were standing in the distance. As she approached, her features became apparent: she was about average height, putting her somewhere between the tall brunette and the shorter red-head in terms of stature, with well-filled proportions and a rosy complexion, though a bit on the soft side compared to the other two. That might be because, for her, dressing up in a costume and looking pretty was the mainstay of her work, rather than anything that required a firmer touch. Her hair was light brown, curled just a bit at the ends, poking from beneath a Santa cap similar to the one wore by the tall girl. Her big, blue eyes and smiling face were a perhaps pleasant, perhaps overly peppy contrast of agitated, grumbling features of the other girls, despite the snow Holly had just beamed down into. Her costume was one she'd ordinarily consider at least a little sexy: red and white-trimmed velvet mittens, boots, tube-top, and skirt made it up, with a black Santa belt, complete with a gold buckle. Of course, her skirt reached to below the middle of the thighs with no special cuts out of it and her tube top hid the line of her breasts pretty fully, so hers was just office-party sexy and not stripper sexy. Green holly sprigs dangled here and there, fastened to the gloves, boots, and to a white, cloth choker at her neck.

Her pretty eyes scanned between the two girls a few times before her cheerful smile turned a bit awkward. "Er... Oh... I didn't get the memo so... H-Hopefully, this outfit is good enough?" she asked, seeming ironically a bit self-conscious that she'd warn too much. "I'm Holly, with the NetMafia Creel Family. Don't think of me as part of the Mafia today, though; I just love any opportunity to get out there and do charity work! When it has a Christmas theme, that just makes it all the more apropos! Thanks again for inviting me," she beamed, clasping her hands together at her skirt. Whatever wariness she'd had about the two girls dressed thus in the middle of dense snowfall had quickly passed and any discomfort associated with interactions between different factions had never arrived in the first place. "Say, is anyone else still coming?"

As if in answer, another navi beamed down nearby; this one was significantly better dressed for the cold, but nonetheless less excited to be stuck in it. "Hello? Is anyone else here yet?" she called out from the relative darkness. Holly answered here, as was courteous to do, and the new girl approached. Her clothing was less "sexy Christmas costume" and more "attractive Christmas apparel", being the only outfit so far that someone could wear without looking like they were trying to get a rise out of guys... to some extent, anyway. This girl was about the same size as Holly but perhaps a bit thinner, with a more conventionally attractive, slightly more athletic body; perhaps the body of someone who'd been doing some physical labor recently. Her hair was deep-purple, glossy, and somewhat slick, veiling one eye slightly with loose strands and reaching down the nape of her neck in a short cut. Her skin was a bit paler than Holly's, but not terribly different. Her sharp, brown eyes scanned those assembled a bit more warily than Holly had, especially once she got a look at what they were all wearing. She, on the other hand, had dressed in an over-length gray, knit sweater, patterned with white snowflakes that were a bit ironic given that she was warming herself with small rings of fire produced from the palms of her bare hands. The sweater reached to her upper thighs, where black leggings could be seen underneath, covering slender legs before ending in high-top, gray winter boots. The red scarf around her neck didn't seem to be providing her the protection from the cold she wanted, although she was the most dressed person here by a considerable measure and also the only one with hands capable of acting as portable heaters.

"Sorry if I'm late... And over-dressed," she announced, looking between the others (but not offering to dress down to meet them). "I'm Skywriter, from the Neo-Shogun Empire... I'm with the um... air defense squadron?" the new girl added, unsure of whether she should be offering up that information to other factions. "I just got off another mission, so I was free and they sent me here... The Empire never wants to miss a chance for one of these inter-factional charity events, after all. N-Not that we ever want to miss any charity events," she coughed, realizing she wasn't exactly an expert in up-selling her cause, especially next to a business broker, a revolutionary leader-of-men, and a public relations expert. "If you all are cold, I can help out... or... maybe we should just go to the town down there?" she offered, pointing towards the village in the distance, which may or may not truly exist given that everything around them was basically a fabrication, an illusion even more artificial than the net tended to be (but perhaps not as artificial as the average illusion tended to be).

One more navi arrived past the others, proving immediately more vocal about her distaste for the cold. "ZUT ALORS!" the navi cried, a metallic jangle ringing out as the beamed down into the snow. "Who would design a homepage to be so inhospitable?!" the voice loudly questioned in a thick accent, while the owner of the voice began a dash towards the lights of the cozy village, not spotting the other navis or the open space in the snow a short distance behind her. Skywriter, realizing that she was perhaps the one best equipped to go out into the snow (and perhaps to move quickly as well), zipped after her and attempted to coral her in the right direction. When the girl finally showed up, her nose already looked a bit runny. At first, her height appeared pretty comparable to Skywriter's, but a closer look would reveal that her armor was probably making her look a bit taller than she actually was. Most of her body was clad in shiny, silver armor that could be called "light" as far as armor went, but was actually a good bit heavier than what anyone else here was wearing. Ordinarily, it might make good protection, but in this environment, it would only be a hindrance due to the cold and snowfall. On her head was a light blue beret and over one shoulder a matching half-cape, which fluttered here and there as she shivered. While most of her body was armored, the portion that wasn't showed a light blue undersuit beneath, made of a tight, thin fabric. White frills were visible at the collar and forming a skirt beneath the tassets of her armor; between the shin-guards and that skirt, her legs were mostly covered. A musket and rapier clamored noisily at her side, where they were knocking against her waist's armor while she attempted to warm herself up. Her eyes were big, somewhat child-like, and blue, but there was nothing child-like about her body: she had the widest hip and bust of any of the girls that had just shown up... although also the thickest thighs and softest muscle. Despite her sword, she didn't seem to be in great athletic shape. Her long eyelashes fluttered as she blinked her eyes rapidly along with the chattering of her teeth; the extreme curls of her blond hair bounced up and down at her cheeks.

Most notably, nothing about her outfit looked Christmas-themed. Seeing the other girls' outfits, she smiled awkwardly, immediately sensing the question on everyone's minds. "W-Well! Salut! It is I, Garde, of ze NetPolice Public Safety Division! The NetPolice does quite enough in terms of charity z'roughout ze year, but I'm here to keep an eye on all of you and make sure everyzing you are doing is on ze up and up!" she announced, grinning in a haughty way before sneezing all over Skywriter. The other girl promptly gave Garde some distance and cleaned herself off, frowning as she was forced to use her sleeves. "Oh, I received your message about dressing up sexy, but zere is no need for zat! My dashing figure in armor will be the envy of everyone present! I did not forget the date or fail to make ze costume or anyzing like zat," she chuckled, placing both hands on her hips. "Nono, nozing of ze sort."

"That's funny... I was sort of assuming we might see 'Waltz' show up again," Holly murmured, tilting her head and smiling, as if remembering something amusing.

"Yes, I zought she might wish to attend as well, but it's ze strangest 'zing... I searched ze NetPolice roster and across all departments, zere is no mention of a 'Waltz' existing in any department! Zey must have outsourced her from somewhere else in past years!" Garde concluded, crossing her arms and seeming proud of having done her due diligence. "Well, all zat matters is zat I'm here! Now, with ze five of us, we should be ready to begin!" That, too, was also an incorrect assumption; a few more navis had yet to show.

Indeed, Garde was not the last of the group. Two more Navis beamed in, not too far from the others...

"Dios mio! Who was so foolish as to give this place the feel of the north pole, as well as the look?!" ...But at least one wasn't too happy with the environment. Her features weren't readily available, however, as aside from her head, neck, and feet, she was entirely covered with a shimmering blue cloak; this was saying something, considering she was nearly 6 feet tall. If anyone bothered to look through the snow, they'd see she was at least practical enough to wear white snow boots. Her face was a mystery, however, as it remained hidden behind a blue wrestler's mask, with only her eyes and mouth visible, the latter in a bit of a frown from the cold.

"Oh, I don't think it's that bad." The other Navi, simply put, dwarfed all the others, standing well over 8 feet in height. His most notable feature was undoubtedly his chest, which containing a rather large opening blocked by black cast-iron bars. They didn't block the view inside, revealing that on the inside was a roaring sea of flames. Aside from that, his torso was plain orange. His lower half was entirely black with orange boots, and his arms were similarly colored. Rising up from the heater body was an approximately 6 inch smoke stack, with irisless eyes on the front near the base. Strangely, he wasn't wearing anything that might be construed as Christmas themed, though he was carrying a rather large sack over one shoulder. "Granted, I may be alone in that..."

"Among the two of us, si, you are quite alone in that. ...And why do you not have anything on resembling Christmas? If I am willing to change even my usual mask, you could at least put on a Santa hat!"

"Ah, I gave that a lot of thought. But then I realized...isn't sitting around a fireplace rather Christmaslike? So I shall simply serve the role of the fireplace!"

"...You would be receiving quite the talking to about now, if time was not growing short. Come! We must introduce ourselves to the others!" Not waiting for an answer, she walked forward, erasing her frown into a more neutral expression. "Greetings, all! I, Luchadora, have come to aid in this charity endeavor!" There were several tiny movements underneath the cloak as she spoke, but they couldn't really be seen through it. "...Though, whoever thought making this place as cold as it looks was a wise idea will be broken in two after the festivities conclude!"

"If it bothers you that much, just stand in front of me. That oughta warm you up a bit." The rather large, obviously fire based Navi also walked up, setting down his bag once he was in the snow-free zone. "Hello, everybody. I am FurnaceMan. Let's really bring the donations, eh? Speaking of which, I brought a bunch of fresh baked cookies for everyone. They're in this sack. Please, help yourselves."

"Perhaps I shall later. Now, can someone please tell me this will be conducted indoors, and not here?"

As the others began to arrive, the shorter of the two waiting women narrowed her eyes slightly and tilted her head.

"Mafia..." she murmured quietly, eyes on Holly as she spoke to her companion before anyone else was close enough to hear. The other woman hid a grimace.
"Don't tell me you missed that, Cryptic..." Her voice was equally quiet, increasingly so as Holly drew closer. The voice than answered in a more normal volume, and would likely be the only one that any of the newcomers actually heard.

"Good news, ladies! Some of the big-wigs from the major net factions heard we were running out little event, and they wanted in on it! Isn't that great? Just think about how much more generous people will be when they know there are such other, attention-grabbing names behind us, right? How could I say no to that? We'll have a few more than planned, but I'm sure you'll all get along great!" The red-clad businesswoman glowered down at the ground in response, then smoothed her features and put on a smile for the creel family rep as she came into the snow-free circle.

"Welcome! Season's greetings! I'm Zennocracy, it's nice to meet you!" She extended a hand for a very professional shake. "I own a number of business conglomerates, but I like to do what I can for the disadvantaged and needy whenever possible, so since I hadn't heard about any of the factional charities this year, I thought I'd run my own. I hope you don't mind!" She flashed her teeth as she smiled then gestured to her friend with her other hand. "This is my good friend, Uprising. She's more of a people person than me, so I thought we'd make excellent company together for the show!"

Uprising also offered her hand to shake, though it was clear she wasn't smoothing over her irritation at things quite so flawlessly as Zennocracy was. Even so, she clearly knew of Holly and didn't seem to bear her any ill will in particular. She shook with a firm grip, and for once didn't have to raise her eyes very far to meet looks with the other woman.
"Don't worry about the costumes. I think our designer got a little bit too... festive... while he was making them. I'd really rather not draw attention to it, if possible. We should be waiting on just a couple of... others..." her voice tailed into silence as the others began to follow. The other two offered more nods and smiles for Skywriter as she introduced herself, and Uprising was quick to assure her that she was not overdressed at all.

"Despite whatever our friend might have said..." Uprising couldn't keep the displeasure out of her voice. "This was never intended to be a racy or over-sexed event. Zenny and I just didn't have any Christmas costumes and we let him design them. I'm regretting it more and more."
"Well I think you both look... charming. Perfectly acceptable." Zennocracy was, it had to be said, not the best at offering compliments to others that she wasn't directly trying to butter up. "We'll get out of the cold once everyone's here and we get started. the genius who wrote out event planner decided it would be quaint to start out the broadcast with us all outside in the snow, and then head in to where it will be more pleasant. Our set designer could have left out the snow being actually cold, too, of course..." There was still a small note of disdain in her voice as she said the last. "But he doesn't believe in that kind of thing."

When the third arrival appeared, also somewhere out in the snow rather than within their sheltered area, Zennocracy raised an eyebrow.
"I begin to think he gave you all links that would do that on purpose. Petty jokes for amusing petty people. Please do forgive him." Despite these words she made no attempt to head Garde off from her rambling, and it was left to Sky to go and collect the armoured guest. By the time they both returned, Zenny was ready to introduce herself with an offered hand, though uprising was notably cooler towards the police officer than she had been towards anyone else. It was probably a good thing she wasn't dressed in her normal anarchist attire, and that her navi emblem itself wasn't showing up anywhere.

"Not quite yet miss Garde. We're still waiting on two others... unaffiliated citizens who wanted to lend their support to a worthy cause. We'll wait a few more minutes for them before we get started." She didn't seem thrilled by the idea of waiting any longer, despite her words. While the two least dressed navis were hiding it well, there was no denying that the cold was, well, cold. Uprising's stance was firm and still, and she gave no sign of cold, but her skin had pebbled and she was shivering, if only barely visibly. Zenny had folded her arms across her chest as much for warmth as modesty, and both of their breaths were frosting heavily in the air.

The final two guests made their arrival clear with much exclamation, and Zenny, at least, looked relieved to have the last of their number accounted for. Their conversation could be heard clearly as they made their way across the snow to the safe zone and introductions were made. When Uprising offered her own greeting to Luchadora, it was with a slightly grim smile.
"Don't worry. I intend to give him a good thrashing when this is all said and done..." she muttered darkly; it was quiet enough that only those directly closest her would hear, but it seemed that if anyone was going to put in a word about not threatening violence on each other today, it wasn't going to be the rebel. She did end up edging unconsciously closer to the largest source of heat in the increasingly crowded snow-exclusion zone, though it was unlikely she would admit to doing so.

There was enough time spare for everyone else to make their own introductions and greetings wherever they wanted, but the two organisers were content to wait for everyone to settle before Zennocracy cleared her throat and unfolded her arms.

"That's everyone now, unless certain people have any more surprises to spring on us? No? Good. so, as I said to some of you earlier, the idea was that we'd start out here when the feeds go live, then move inside, where we can talk more about the charity event and how it'll run. Something about homely aesthetic or the like. The main town hall down there will suit for all of us. Though I'm not sure how we'll manage with you." This she directed with an up and down glance to FurnaceMan before continuing. "You can save on-camera introductions until we're out of the snow. We'll go in, get settled, all say out hellos and then uprising and I will tell everyone how it'll run, and we'll get to reading charity submissions after that. All clear? Any questions? No? Good." She hadn't waited to see if there were, though a charitable person might forgive her for wanting to get out of the cold quickly. "We're clear, Cryptic, let's get this rolling."

"Right you are. Ok, boys and girls, let's see those smiles. It's for charity, after all. Feeds are all going live in ten, nine, eight..." his count went silent after that, but it would be easy for people to track in their heads. At what should have been 'one', their safety zone of no snow abruptly ceased to exist, and the flakes began to fall on them without mercy. It really did feel like the chilliest peak of a winter night. A moment later a voice-over echoed through, coming from a deep, sonorous male voice that sounded maturely aged.

"To those left out in the cold this giving season, even the smallest sign of well wishes can go a long way. The tiniest gift can feel like hearth and home to those without either, so please, give generously."

The voice-over lasted long enough for everyone else to get over the initial shock of being suddenly snowed on - any unfortunate amounts of cursing or seasonally inappropriate thoughts wouldn't be heard by the broadcast feeds as long as the voice was talking. After that, though, Uprising kicked her way forward of the group through the snow, which really was seeming more like a blizzard now. the lights of the stone building on the hill, and those of the main town hall were the only ones visible to them.

"I see a light down there! Maybe they'll give us shelter!" The small woman called over the wind. it was no doubt the cue line for them all to head down, though now that things were live, everyone was free to ad-lib however they felt.

Provided no-one actually wanted to stay out in the worsening snow, of course, the rest of the village would come back into view as they approached, and they would find the door to the large hall invitingly open to them. Zenny and uprising were quick to rush inside. Up close, it seemed that the temporary white out had allowed Logos to make a small alteration to the building, scaling up the door ever so slightly - FurnaceMan would likely still need to duck or crouch to get in, but at least he wouldn't need to cause any untoward property damage now.

Inside, the assorted crew would find a wide, empty hall waiting for them cosily decorated with festive wall hangings and thick carpets. There was a long table laden with food, and at the far end, the broad fireplace was well stocked, although it seemed to be curiously unlit. There was an assortment of furniture in the hall: several long couches with plush red cushioning, and a few single person armchairs that would never the less be large enough to seat a couple of navis if they didn't mind getting extra cosy. Zennocracy immediately took one of the armchairs near the fireplace, settling herself in the middle much in the manner of a cat taking ownership of a space far larger than it needed, and crossed her legs in a deliberately modesty-preserving fashion. It was quite a miracle to move and sit without flashing her festive panties to the world, or the other guests, but she managed it, for now.

"Well, that's much better! Seasons greetings to one and all, and welcome to the Unbiased Giving Charity Drive!" She sounded much more in her element now that the snow was safely outside and the door closed. Uprising had been looking over the table of food, but turned to wave as well.

"This is a non-profit charity event run by the people, for the people, so please help us out and give what you can to help navis in need!" She looked around at the notably larger gathering of people than they'd originally planned for. "When the other factions heard what we were doing, they all came together to pitch in as well, in the spirit of community and togetherness! So it doesn't matter who you normally support... tonight, we're all doing this together!"

With that said, the floor was opened for anyone else to introduce themselves properly to the viewing world, and say what faction they represented if any, and if they wanted to. Uprising herself stepped away to inspect the fire place. she still seemed a bit cold, and had clearly been expecting it to be lit, and bend to examine it. Unfortunately, it seemed that unlike Zennocracy, the rebel had forgotten her less than modest Christmas outfit, so as she looked for lighting materials and checked that the place was properly stocked and set up, she ended up giving off a series of brief flashes of the green and white striped knickers that were hidden underneath her too-short pixie skirt. At least they wee an all-covering and modest cut. Uprising didn't seem to be aware of the accidental exposure. She also seemed to have temporarily forgotten that one of their guest navis would do just as good a job as any crackling fireplace could.

Eventually, once everyone else had chatted through whatever other introductions and comments they wanted to make about the event, Zenny spoke up again from her throne by the fire.

"Now, I'm sure many of you will be familiar with charity drives that have been run inthe past, and this one will be similar. Just donate a chip of your choosing to the address that you'll all be seeing now, and know that it will be going towards helping a navi in need. As a thank you for your generosity, we will be matching your donations, by offering a thank you gift of another chip back to each individual that donates, so really, you lose nothing by sending in a chip. The more you give, the more we give, it's that simple! Throughout the event, we'll also be running some incentives to help keep the donations flowing, and anyone can participate! The events may change as we progress, so stay tuned. to begin with tonight, when you donate a chip to the cause, why not give us an answer to a simple question when you do, and if you feel like it, tell us about your answer! If you're lucky your response might get read out and answered by any of the guests here with us tonight!" Slowly, almost teasingly, Zenny recrossed her legs, somehow still managing to do so without giving anyone an up-skirt. It was either well practiced, or deep magic.

"The first question is: "If one of the primary factions had to all dress up in Christmas outfits for the whole season, who do you think it should be?" Anyone watching the show would se the question repeated in bold text on their screen as well.

"You can just give us a one word answer if you like, but we'll read out the most interesting ones, so why not explain your choice to us. If you're feeling really daring, of course, you can also design a Christmasy outfit as part of your answer, and some of us here tonight will try it on for you, just to demonstrate." She paused and glanced down at herself, then across to where Uprising was still occasionally showing off flashes of her panties without realising. "Because the sooner some of us can get out of these ones, the better! The addresses are all open, so please donate generously now!"

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-=ABOUT THIS EVENT=-

This event will run through to the end of January. (Extra time may be allotted if anything unexpected happens). Please send chip donation emails addressed to any of the hosts, at the event email address, from your navi, operator or both, with their return email clearly visible.

Attach the chip you want to trade to the email, and answer this simple question:

"If one of the primary factions had to all dress up in Christmas outfits for the whole season, who do you think it should be?"

Answers can be as short or as long as you like. If desired, you can include your own Christmas-themed outfit design to be modelled by one or several of the hosts.

By doing this, you will trade one of your chips for a new chip! Players can initially enter once per navi/op pair.

Merry Christmas and happy holidays!

Example Template:

Quote ()

To: (Host of Choice).UnbiasedGiving@roaming.cld
From: (Navi, Operator, or both's name with e-mail address)
Answer: (A short description of your answer to the question, why you chose this answer. Post outfit designs here too if you make one.)
Chip: (attached chip that you are sending in for trade)

Something other than surprise flashed in Holly's eyes. She didn't recognize the little revolutionary, but the other woman, Zennocracy, was immediately identifiable by her name. She was at once surprised that a rich business mogul would put themselves out in the cold, dressed in little more than festive lingerie, and defensive, realizing that she'd probably stolen from Zennocracy's holdings at least once in the past, as was her sworn mission, giving from the rich to the impoverished. It would surprise her if Zennocracy wasn't aware of her work to some extent as well and, as a result, Holly acted a little wary of her.

Garde, for her part, detected a bit of animosity from Uprising, but misinterpreted its source. "Oh ho ho ho! Do not worry, you are very sexy in zat outfit! Zere is nozing so great about having big boobs anyway, I assure you," she giggled, sounding utterly tickled about having the size advantage among most of the girls who'd revealed themselves so far. The three factional navis introduced themselves again to each newcomer as they arrived, while Holly and Garde exchanged confused glances, seeming to understand that FurnaceMan didn't exactly fit the usual picture of a participant of one of these events. Skywriter thought nothing of it, though, and despite having her own methods of heat production was more than happy to get close to FurnaceMan for an extra boost. When Holly and Garde's eyes met, the latter squinted hard. "Oh, I know you, now zat I look at you! Oooh, you'd better be happy zat I must preserve ze peace of zis broadcast, or else, I would certainly be hauling you away in chains, ma chere fille!" Holly somehow doubted that, after her many years of evading capture at the hands of authorities, Garde would be the one to bring her in, but she kept that opinion to herself.

Chuckling, Holly waved off Zennocracy's concern about FurnaceMan's size and what it might mean for navigating the town below. "On the contrary! I think that without him, we might not manage to make it down there at all! If we have to knock any walls out, I'll help rebuild later!" she promised, giving him a thumbs up.

Despite her good mood, the blizzard seemed worse once there was no longer a promise that someone was safely standing in a blind spot of it. Holly was used to the cold and Skywriter could both move quickly and keep herself warm, but Garde unleashed a flurry of blustering curses into the howling wind, all of them thankfully hidden by the weather and in an archaic language besides. Her armor wasn't made for navigating the snow and she would either be late arriving behind the others, or otherwise, slow down whoever helped her move, if they did so any short than lifting and carrying her.

Once the girls were all safely inside, shaking off the snow (and in Garde's case, pulling off pieces of her armor one-by-one to shake the snow out, then refastening them), Zennocracy began the next part of the introduction. Holly waved and put on her best, beaming smile, being the trained show-girl of the group. Skywriter caught on and gave a meager wave towards roughly the direction that Uprising had waved in. Garde ignored the cue entirely and continued swearing under her breath as she waggled one gauntlet in the air, spreading snow across the floor. Here, another round of introduction was called for. "Holly here!" the mafioso began, flashing a peace sign towards the camera. "I'm always all-in for a charity! This year's no different! I hope I'll be able to warm everyone's heart and spread some joy!"

"I'm Skywriter," the purple-haired girl muttered, looking this way and that as she tried to decide where the "hard camera" was that she needed to face. "I'm a rookie in the Neo-Shogun Army right now... But we're interested in charity too." She fidgeted uncomfortably with her scarf, experiencing some stage fright.

Garde continued cursing for a bit as she sat on the arm of one of the chairs and dumped snow from one of her separated boots. Finally realizing it was her turn, she swung her head around with a broad flick of her curls, then adopted a grinning face that contrasted her previous emotions; she wasn't an expert at dealing with this sort of attention, but she was desperate for it. "Ahem! Officer Garde, at your service! The NetPolice have supported charities for years and years! We're more than willing to set aside whatever factional division may exist for the sake of this night, where all deserve to be happy! Paix sur terre!" she chuckled, sounding a bit full of herself, as she usually did.

As the explanation continued, Skywriter found herself watching Zennocracy nervously, thinking that any given motion might be the one where the hostess flashed the crowd. As it turned out, that was a silly concern; Uprising already was doing it. Discretely, Skywriter nudged closer, politely attempting to block the view of whatever camera might be giving viewers an eye-full of the little girl's festively decorated bottom. Her face showed some alarm when she heard the uniform proposal, which strangely seemed to lessen once she heard that the extent of it might be modeling outfits. "Oh, phew... I was going to say, Yasu's really strict about uniforms. There's no way she'd allow us to change all of the NS uniforms for a whole season," she laughed awkwardly.

Holly smiled along, but showed another hint of confusion once the call to donate was through. "Wait a minute... You're asking people to specify what factions should wear uniforms, right? That reminds me... what factions do all of the rest of you belong to? I know Garde and Skywriter here, but I haven't heard the others," she murmured, crossing her arms with a thoughtful smile. "Surely you want some advertising too, right? There's no shame in that! As a Creel family member, I'm well aware of how valuable that sort of thing is! I also think it will be a bit hard for the audience to recommend you try on anything if they don't know who you're actually representing... It'd be silly for someone unrelated to a faction to try on a uniform suggested for a specific faction, after all."

Having finally removed all of the snow from her armor and not really paying attention to what Holly was saying, Garde wiggled her fingers and turned to FurnaceMan. "I believe someone mentioned cookies, no?" she asked, looking especially childish as she eagerly awaited her holiday snack. As it turned out, messages were already beginning to come in. The girls would have to multitask between introductions, cookies, and answering some e-mails, at least, once it was explained to them how they ought to do the final of those tasks.

"Mmm. I cannot say I blame you. The Whazzapian desert can grow cold at times, but this is utterly ridiculous." At around her approval of Uprising's future plans, Luchadora began to noticably shiver. Either she was really unused to this sort of cold, or whatever she was wearing beneath her cloak didn't provide much protection. "Now may we PLEASE move along?!"

"See, this is one of the great things about having a furnace for a body. You never really get cold." Fortunately, any ill will that might come from him rubbing in the fact he was plenty toasty was probably negated by FurnaceMan's existance raising the immediate temperature. Though it also created some vague problem, according to the one lady. He had a pretty good idea of what it was, though; it wouldn't be the first time it'd have happened. "Don't worry, it'll work out. Worst case, I can just jack out and back in, directly inside the building." That said, he appreciated Holly's enthusiasm about him, and returned the thumbs up. Too bad smiling was out of the question.

And so the event began. The revolutionary (the most obvious one, anyway) led the way, though this confused the fiery Navi. "Uh, you know, if I took the lead, I could just melt us a trail over there...no? Have it your way, then..." Instead of a clear path, the masked wrestler Navi went in front of him, for entirely obvious reasons. Luckily, it wasn't an overly long walk, and everyone made it inside. Even certain extra large Navis, though he did crouch a bit as he entered.

Unsurprisingly, the apparently faction unaffiliated Navis were relatively snow-free compared to the others, what with one being too hot for snow to remain on, and the other staying near him. The latter focused her attention on the greetings, and more specifically, where they were looking at when they did so. The former went over to the fireplace, noting it was all place and no fire, though it had plenty of flammable materials in it. That'd be a piece of cake...but Uprising entirely failed to realize this, instead flashing her underwear on an international broadcast. He stopped and confusedly stared at her for a moment, though whether it was out of desire or just wondering how he was so easily forgotten was extremely unclear, but soon snapped out of it and approached her. "Need a light? This'll be a piece of fruitcake for a Navi of my talents!" Of course, he spoke not of terrible puns, but of a more basic ability. He gave her a moment to step aside, the placed a hand around a bar on each side of his chest, and opened the grate covering the hole. A fireball shot out into the hearth, getting a nice warm fire started. "See? Easy." After closing his chest, FurnaceMan turned to where everyone was greeting the viewers. "Hey there, everyone. My name's FurnaceMan. And I represent...well, no one. I just caught wind of the event, and wanted to be a part of it, so here I am. Here's to a day of record setting donations!" He raised a fist at the camera, though fortunately not trying to punch anything simply as providing dramatic effect to his words. ...Speaking of dramatic effect...he looked over at his comrade, who had been uncharacteristically quiet since going inside. "Feel free to introduce yourself..."

Luchadora quietly nodded, and walked towards the apparent camera location. Everyone else had said hello, it was time for her to shine. "Hola, viewers. Many of you from Whazzap probably know of my identity, but to those in other lands...I am...Luchadora!!!" As she revealed her name, so too did she reveal her outfit, removing her cloak from her body. Not unsurprisingly for a wrestler, she was wearing a sleeveless leotard, mostly blue like her mask, but white from the waist down. Sticking up from it in regular intervals were small snowman silhouettes, and some white snow specks dotted the rest. Apparently, she also didn't get the memo on outfits not needing to be sexy, as there was a snowflake shaped cleavage window. Completing the ensemble were white thigh high boots (with noticably no real heel) and blue elbow length gloves. The entire thing was skin tight, to the point that the only evidence it wasn't just body paint was the lack of certain features on certain feminine areas. Speaking of which, the revelation removed any doubts on who was the curviest of the lot..."And I wish to welcome all to this charity event!" She dramatically placed her hands on her hips, almost as though she was ready to body slam someone.

The exclamation made the burning Navi turn towards her, though his only response was to shake his head. "Well, THAT just caught the eyes of a few channel surfers..."

As it turned out, there was a question posited to the donors. Certain showboating wrestlers saw an opportunity to take center stage for a little bit. "A fine question! But, it would be rude to ask...without us providing our own answers!" Halfway through the sentence, she raised her arms as if victorious; if she noticed her chest heaving with them, she showed so signs of it. "I believe we should start with the one responsible for organizing the event. Which is to say, her!" She exaggeratedly pointed at Zennocracy, once again letting her breasts swing with the motion. "Yes, you!...Your name eludes me, as you have not actually graced me with it since my arrival. But I ask you first! What faction would YOU wish to see in Christmas outfits?"

FurnaceMan, meanwhile, folded his arms, and looked over at Holly. "Do we really need everyone doing faction advertising? This is supposed to be a charity event, not a recruitment drive. Might give some people the wrong impression if you start flag waving. Besides, if anyone sends in an outfit, does it really need to match up with the wearer? It's just a demonstration, after all..." Garde's request kept him from going on, and instead reached for the sack on his shoulder, and set it down on one of the few spots on the table empty enough for it to fit. He reached in, and pulled out a christmas tree shaped sugar cookie with green icing decoration, with a yellow star shaped piece of candy at the top, and various round candies for ornaments. "Made these myself before coming over. Hope you like 'em. They should still be warm from being in that bag, too." He handed the hungry Navi the cookie, and anxiously awaited the taste test.

Nearby, while other more important matters were being dealt with, Uprising had stood up again once the thermally gifted navi in the room reminded her of his presence. She reached a hand back to tug down self-consciously at the back of her skirt while she stood back for him to start heating things up; it was clear that she was oblivious to the fact that her outfit had already failed her modesty in brief flashes.

"Nice! Nothing like a roaring fire to make things feel more cosy!" She turned in again, putting her hands out to the now roaring grate, though thankfully she wasn't quite leaning in enough to show anything else for now. She grinned up towards FurnaceMan and rubbed her hands together for a moment. "Although, now that you mention it... I could really go a slice of fruit cake right about now." The hardness had begun to melt from her voice to an almost uncharacteristic level, to those that knew her, and it caused Zennocracy to cast an eye in the girl's direction. "If there's one thing I really like about this season, it's the Christmas fruit cake! It's so hard to get it out of season, though. I'm always tempted to buy an extra one, and store it." Taking a moment to glance around, she shifted over to the side of the fire place, and FurnaceMan a little bit, then waved Skywriter over towards her as though inviting her to come stand by the fire; she didn't really have anything in particular to say, right away, but it was easy to tell that sky was a little nervous and the rebel apparently disliked others in discomfort around her.

That said, most of the lingering effects of the cold outside had already faded away, and it seemed that with two potent sources of heat in the room the danger was actually going to be that things would get a bit too cosy before long. Maybe less rugging up would actually be the wiser choice soon, though if that were the case Luchadora had revealed her contender status with flair. Zenny raised an eyebrow as she looked on and uprising rolled the fingers of one hand with a snap; the gesture looked more like habit than anything, and would probably make more sense if she had been holding something.

As it turned out, another thing on the list of things Zennocracy wasn't used to worrying about was telling people who she was. Even in normal circumstances, she usually bore a smart little name plate, and engraved matching stationary for that matter... but there were no such luxuries in this evening's more scanty number. She hadn't paid any obvious heed to Holly's wariness, though it might be premature to assume she hadn't noticed; for now she flashed a grin to Luchadora.

"Well dear, tonight I'm everyone's darling secret Christmas Santa, it would seem, so let me think... you know, I think it would be just marvellous if the police all had to exchange their uniforms for festive versions, just for a little while. I wonder what it would take to arrange it..." Her tone drifted from smiling hostess into predatory and contemplative for a few moments, but snapped back again quickly. "Now let me try one of those..." she uncrossed her legs but kept them neatly together as she leaned forward in her chair enough to receive a cookie of her own, with a reaching hand, provided FurnaceMan was still handing them out.

"Let's not go overboard with the advertising at any rate. Tonight is about coming together and sharing what unifies us, not what sets us apart." If no cookie had been forthcoming by this point, she was apparently prepared to stand up and nip across to the sack herself to claim one before returning to her seat and recrossing her legs skilfully. A small bite brought an appreciative nod towards FurnaceMan. By the fire, Uprising tilted her head slightly towards Sky, though when she spoke it was in a quiet voice that would nevertheless the be easy for everyone to hear.

"Don't worry, it really should just be trying on whatever people write in for us. I doubt anything is going to get much worse than what that—" she caught herself from describing the designer of her costume in a non-family-friendly way. "That man who created ours, has given us. Most of us are just every day navis, no faction or anything. We just want to help people, so I think the plan is that whichever of us feel game will try on what gets sent in. No pressure."

"Unless you or your faction are specifically requested of course." Zenny's voice drawled, interrupting the reassurance; unlike Uprising, she seemed amused by her other co-hosts' moments of discomfort. "We've got to give our wonderful donators what they want, after all." There was a pause while Zenny finished off her cookie. "Well then, ladies and fireplaces, let's get started then shall we? Excellent cookies, by the way FurnaceMan, quite a treat. You've all got access to the donation address now, so feel free to answer whatever you like. Let's try and leave ones directed to specific hosts to them, though, alright?" She said the last with an air that suggested she thought doing so would spare her having to read very often.

Despite this, she began to flick through a series of small message screens in front of her, idly resettling and recrossing her legs with apparent casualness, though still it was all done without any wardrobe malfunctions... one might even accuse her of deliberately teasing now.

"Donations are already coming in, thank you everyone, so let's see...." She flicked over one, then another, then a third, then pursed her lips softly and turned over a fourth and a fifth. At last she paused. "Ah, here's one..." She cleared her throat softly.

"SierraSiestaSonata writes: 'I don't know much about the factions, so I'll just say Police, but really, more than anything, I am a big fan of Luchadora! Please try this on, it would make my day!'" She took a few extra seconds, apparently reading the contained data for herself, then grinned and raised one eyebrow towards the bustier woman. Holding the email out for a moment, she flicking it across to her once she was sure she had the other woman's attention. "Think this one is for you!"

As suspected the extra heat of both the fire and FurnaceMan in the room was swiftly raising the temperature. Rather than search for a letter of her own to answer, Uprising decided it would be best to shift herself away from the most immobile fire and instead made her way over to the feast table, to begin looking through it for fruitcake. She did take a cookie while she searched, though, chewing a corner of it thoughtfully.

Garde's chipper, self-absorbed smile temporarily turned into one of jealousy and defeat as she realized she'd lost her award for biggest boobs in the room, a title that Bayonet usually stole from her whenever the two were assigned together and one which Luchadora now swiped from her. She cheered back up once cookies came into the equation, taking hers in three fingers and eating it with no hesitation, utilizing the kind of bite and gulp that made one wonder if she'd even tasted it at all and did a bit to explain the softness of her figure. "Mmm! Ze only zing it is missing is just a bit of honey. All confectioneries are best eaten with honey," she praised/criticized, thinking herself an expert in cookie tasting, if not necessarily cookie baking.

"A... A wrestler," Skywriter murmured with a tone of wonder. Part of her wanted to go block the relative indecency of the newly revealed outfit, as she had done for Uprising, but she didn't think Luchadora would want her to do that in the first place and, furthermore, she didn't actually have the breadth of body to hide the Whazzapian wrestler fully if she wanted to.

Holly smiled sadly in response to FurnaceMan's question; she wanted to tell him, "Yes, I really do want every good, generous person who can somehow be persuaded to join a mostly criminal organization to do so, so that I can change the character of the mafia from within, a task so difficult that I need events such as this to recruit others," but to announce that would only make the task harder by jeopardizing her own status within the organization. "I suppose it doesn't, but after years of factional charity drives themed after holidays where the costumes went straight to the recipient named, the viewers might get a bit confused," she responded. "We'll just have to explain it ourselves, if there are any questions!" In keeping with another tradition from those shows, she'd also brought cookies in her bag for all of the other girls, but she decided not to bust them out... she couldn't help but harbor a high opinion of her cookies and she wanted to let FurnaceMan have the floor for the night. Holly normally gave them out year round to all sorts of people, so she figured one night off wouldn't hurt.

Skywriter felt a bit silly utilizing another navi's warmth, given her own abilities, but she smiled and shuffled over to join Uprising all the same. "I'm trying to lay off sweets right now myself... For whatever reason, my operator gave me reactive metabolism, so if I eat too many snacks, I'll get fat," she murmured, unconsciously shifting her eyes towards Garde a few times. "So now I only want to eat sweets if I'm eating out with a bo- er, a brother in arms, I mean," she corrected herself, staring into FurnaceMan's fire as though that were a direction to avert one's eyes without actually looking at another person. Holly and Sky politely abstained from cookies while Garde ate her share and theirs. Uprising tried to calm Skywriter's nerves again, but, if anything, it had the opposite effect. "R-Right!" she agreed, but the thought that she might have to try on something as bad as what Zenny and Uprising were wearing was bad enough for her. She hadn't considered that she might be put into anything worse...

The other hostesses nodded along with the sentiment that they ought to give donors their chips' worth, so to speak; the former hoped to encourage Skywriter into a forthcoming mood with a show of her own confidence, while the latter just liked thinking about making guys drool with saucy Christmas outfits. Garde chuckled, waving one hand in a nonchalant way. "Do not worry, ma cherie! If you get one zat's too showy, simply pass it over to me! I've been training my body all year for zis season! Well... more for ze summer season... but zis season will also do!" she reassured Skywriter. "I do not zink you all will have much to worry about, 'zo... It is not every day zat ze populace gets ze chance to ask me to model fashions for zem! I'm likely to be highly in demand," the cocky Public Safety officer chuckled, holding one curled hand to the side of her mouth coquettishly.

Skywriter followed Uprising over to the desert table, glaring hungrily at various items and trying to find one that wouldn't ruin her figure too badly, while Holly moved over to Zenny and watched over her chair and Garde continued snacking and boasting alternatively. Reading over the messages, Holly encouraged Zennocracy to give her a few so she could help. "Want to hand me some to go through? I'm a vet at this sort of thing!" she announced with a cheerful wink; hopefully, her stressing that point wasn't beginning to feel overdone yet. "Here's a couple of big ones! Hm... This one's from... 'SexyJennyDreamGirl@DCLMail.Net'... Hoo boy!" she laughed, assuming someone would only pick a name like that if they were intending to be promiscuous. "The sender's navi recommends that the Mafia and Neo-Shogun Empire dress up, since we're the 'shadier', 'not-quite-the-law' figures, so why don't I start? The costumes included, touched up by the operator herself, are 'Sexy Pirates!' It might interest you to know there are actually a lot of pirate crews out there that can be considered factions of their own... Maybe we'll invite one of those next year?" she joked.

"Now now! It's hard enough to resist arresting you, let alone a bunch of pirates!" Garde commented, saying what probably ought to be a joke with an air of real seriousness.

"We of the Neo-Shogun Empire aren't exactly 'shady,'" Skywriter defended. "We help people, if anything... I mean, we do help people," she revised.

"Of course," Holly waved the two off, seeming to find both of their suggestions equally silly. "Let's see what sort of costume they designed... I'll let Zennocracy here hold down the fort on playing Santa! Although... Jimminy Christmas! This is some detailed GMO... It's a lucky thing we have an expert costumer to convert it from message to data!" She overrode her current GMO with another equally festive, but considerably more piratey one...



"Oh ho! Or should I say, 'oh ho ho ho!' It's so cute! I wonder if I should keep this as a gift to me? I can use Christmas outfits all year, after all, but this one's also a Halloween gift!" she pondered, turning this way and that to inspect the dress. It was actually a bit more covering than her other outfit over all, with the possible exception of up top, where it offered a bit of a glimpse at where her breasts pushed together. She didn't seem to overly mind. "If I could get all of the Mafia in these, CourseMan, we'd definitely be a happier bunch! Thank you for this and, more importantly, your donation to charity for those in need."

"Ho ho! That outfit is just fine for someone wiz'out my vivacious hips, but let's hope I get something a little more attirant, no?" Garde taunted. Skywriter gave a sigh of relief, thinking that the outfit was indeed cute and not something she'd be embarrassed to wear. "Now, show us yours, Luchadora! For tonight, vous êtes mon ennemi!" she challenged, waving a cookie in an undoubtedly imposing manner, as though she was pointing a small dagger.

As he admired his handywork in the fireplace, FurnaceMan looked over at Uprising, a little surprised at something she'd said. "Really? Huh, if I'd known someone liked fruitcake that much, I'd have made one..." He almost looked disappointed, but shook out of it quickly and commenced handing out cookies to everyone that desired them. They came in shapes besides trees as well; ball ornaments, snowmen, and reindeer heads were also given, each appropriately decorated with surprising intricacy. It was sort of amazing that they hadn't been ruined inside the bag. "Sure you don't want one, Luchadora?" He then nodded solemnly at Skywriter's declining of sugary goodness. It wasn't the first time a Navi was unable to eat something he'd made...and, of course, there was the cruel irony of him never being able to enjoy his own treats.

"For now, yes. And I agree with the sentiment that faction promotion should be on the back burner. Also..." She shifted her gaze back at Zennocracy for a moment, and pointed at her again, though notably less enthusiastically this time. "You never actually did answer my initial question. What is your name? I shall decline to answer the question until you provide it to me!" Instead, she was provided with an e-mail, which she snatched out of the air after a twirl. "How wonderful! It is always excellent to hear from a fan! Of course I shall try it on!" She extracted the GMO data from it, and activated it, causing her to completely glow white for a moment as her clothing changed...



Once more, FurnaceMan completely failed to have any reaction about the wrestler Navi substantially increasing the amount of exposed skin on her body, beyond raising an eyebrow. "I think we now know why that person's a fan of yours..."

"Indeed! Truly, their breath is taken away by the vibrant colors of my normal attire!" She held her cape as she posed in a T shape, though she did puff her chest out slightly. The lower window, thankfully for the censors, revealed nothing but skin. "This isn't quite the shade of green I use, of course, but it is otherwise quite excellent! Nothing superfluous to prevent me from utilizing my full abilities in battle...including my legendary Golpe Espiral! Alas, I would give a demonstration, but there is not enough room."

"The Golpe Espiral? Isn't that the one where you..." The fiery Navi trailed off, but if his memory served...

"Do not ruin the surprise for those who do not know, FurnaceMan! Perhaps later I will get the opportunity, after all!"

"Er...right. I'm going to go ahead and check out some e-mails..." FurnaceMan opened up a window, and started to flip through some of the stuff. "Hmm...uh-huh......yeah, not surprisingly, I'm not really getting any with a GMO. I'm kinda...harder to dress than you ladies. That's just stating the obvious, of course."

"Do not despair! I am sure that out there is an e-mail that wishes for you to model something!" Luchadora spun around to face the lone male Navi, nearly destroying her current outfit when it almost snagged on the corner of the table. "Though, it is quite rare for a Navi of your...proportions, to host an event like this! Perhaps they are simply shy about making them for you?" The flame Navi gave the wrestler a slightly incredulous look, that just screamed 'You're talking about shyness while you wear THAT?', but he remained quiet, and after a few moments, resumed going through e-mails. She shrugged, and looked over at Holly, whose outfit change caught her eye. "Ah, muy bonito! Though, I feel as though pirates are...not normally ones for such festivities." At least, the one she knew most definitely was not.

Between finishing off her cookie, Zennocracy's eyes widened in shock for a brief moment as Luchadora changed outfit without hesitation. She'd read the GMO details before, but still looked surprised that the other woman had put it on so readily, when something like that really had no business being on public viewing, at least in her own mind. She covered the look swiftly, but apparently that appearance crossed the line from naughty but still classy, into the downright scandalous. It was fortunate that Skywriter was temporarily distracted by finding a non-fattening alternative to Christmas treats with Uprising, given her want for protecting modesty on others so far.

On the bright side, if there was any particular treat she felt was safe enough to try that could still be counted Christmassy and festive, she would almost certainly find it somewhere on the table of plenty. Uprising came up with a slice of fruit cake, grinning triumphantly, though between bites she also surreptitiously swiped another cookie from FurnaceMan's stash. She turned forward again, jumping up to sit on the edge of the table, in a place that wasn't occupied by various dishes, and brought up a few more letters to look through.

Back by her place near the fire... and the fire... Zennocracy looked like she might actually be beginning to sweat a little. A part of that might be the two heat sources so close to her, but there was also a good chance that some part of it, at least, was her worry over having to don something as dangerous as Luchadora's outfit. Reaching for letters had begun to feel like Sharoan roulette now, between the naughty design, like Luchadora's, baring far more than they should, or the nice, like Holly's snazzy Christmas... pirate... thing. She stood again, and strode over to take another cookie, without really seeming to realise that she was doing it. Even as she bent slightly to claim another tasty treat, there was just enough bend in the knee and movement of the feet to deep anything from showing. One might begin to wonder why a business woman who spent all her time dressed formally would be quite so adept and movement in dangerously revealing skirts. If her avoiding of the wrestler's pressing was any guide though, getting an answer form her would be difficult. In between looking at emails she glanced at the substantially more scantily dressed woman with a small smile.

"Weren't you listening, dear? The..." she looked down at the email in her hand, then across to Holly, still smiling... though by the time her gaze reached Holly it was something more like a cat's grin. "Mouse who likes to nibble at my gingerbread... said it just a few moments ago." Still grinning, she passed the letter to Holly, just so that the other woman would understand her reference, though it had been forwarded to all of them individually too, for some reason. "That writer seems to have gone quite overboard with her submissions. There are six different outfits attached to it..." He eyes went to FurnaceMan and she gave a small wave that was really just a quick curl of the fingers on one hand. "I'm sure you'll find something to try on in there, if nothing else grabs your fancy first." She left it to others to actually answer the letter itself publicly, flicking through to another one instead quickly.

"Hmmm... Miss Ante.exe writes in with hopes that we can all keep things classy tonight, and says that she feels the NetPolice really ought to keep to their standard uniform. Nevertheless, she encloses with her donation a very elegant-looking design, which it would be my pleasure to try on."

Still holding the email, Zennocracy stood and stepped forward, then gestured over herself once. there was a brief flurry of virtual zenny about her form, which quickly settled to reveal her new attire.




Zenny took a moment to turn about in her new dress for a moment, making sure to show it off for viewers as she looked down at herself.

"Thank you very much for your donation, miss Ante, and for the lovely gown. I must say, it feels like there are a lot of layers going on her. I feel.... gift wrapped. Don't worry, dear, all the talk about factions dressing up is just in good fun and holiday spirit. Most of us are simply charity minded philanthropists, after all, we cannot make any of them actually do it." She paused then arched an eyebrow to look at the actual faction representatives in the room. Her cheeks were surprisingly flushed by this point; it wasn't from embarrassment or any such emotion, but rather because the room felt particularly warm now that she was dressed up in more layers and the corseting was just a little bit tight.

"Unless of course... some of you decide you'd like to actually take the plunge and go for it! I'm sure the public would greatly enjoy your festive spirit if you did!" Rather than take her seat again, Zenny began to move around the room slowly, gliding over to the table, then pouring herself a glass of wine from one of the pitchers and taking a sip. Condensation was already forming on the various drinks; the room was quite warm already, thanks to the additional furnace. "Now, Uprising my dear, what have you got for us?"

Nearby, still seated on a clear corner of the table, Uprising had watched Zenny change, and looked all the more as she sipped her wine. the smaller girl seemed uncertain about whether to pour herself a drink as well, or not. In the end, apparently, her desire for something chilled won out and she hopped down from her perch. this action proved less than fortunate, since sliding off the corner first pulled, then tugged up sharply on her already too-short skirt. There was a brief flash of green and white stripes as she jumped down, followed by a much more pronounced one as the girl uttered a surprised sound, and a quieter curse while she quickly un-stuck the back hem from where it had hitched. Pink-cheeked, she was quick to pour herself a glass of the same wine, now, and take a solid drink from her glass before responding to the other hostess.

"Right. Got a couple here... Naomi and her navi, Shuri, say that they arne't too attached tothe season, but would vote for the Net Police, because they think seeing the other two factions doing their thing in Christmas outfits would look a bit ridiculous!" She managed a small laugh. "Well you might be right, Shuri, but sometimes a little bit of ridiculous doesn't hurt too much: you've seen what I'm wearing, haven't you? Thank you very much for your donation!" She flipped through to another message, pressing the back of one hand to her cheek, seemingly surprised by how hot it felt.

"Oh, this one was forwarded direct to me, let's see... Exorcist and Mary write..." her eyes darted quickly over the email, mentally tweaking it for PC phrasing. "That they are happy to donate to a good cause, and are pleased to see people from many different backgrounds working together for some of the good goals we all share. They say they would like to see the Shogunate members dressing up, and are enclosing an outfit that is cute but modest, and good to keep you both warm and fashionable!" She smiled brightly, then her eyes read lower. "Or... not, as the case may be... I..." she paused, then frowned, shaking her head. Another moment before she winced.

"Alright, alright, I'll read it.... Mary also writes: 'I've taken the liberty of re-designing you a costume that should work to your advantage here. Trust me from experience... There's nothing that guys want more than to unwrap their special someone on Christmas!'" Uprising was growing increasingly hesitant as she pushed on. "'It's an oldie-but-a-goodie, as they say. I know Burt would want you to be the one to have this, but I'm sure he'll be happy no matter who models it.'" She looked upwards and took a breath. "Well, whoever you are Burt, Merry Christmas. Thank you all for your donation! Now, let's see what we've got..." Uprising finished her glass of wine and set it down before making a small flourish with her hand. The outfit shifted over her body, but it really seemed like much more was coming off than going on, and considering what she had been wearing before, that was saying something.



When the GMO had finished applying itself, Uprising looked fairly stricken. Everything might well have been covered... more or less, mostly... but it certainly didn't feel like it was. the ribbon covering her chest was a snug fit; in one sense this was good, since if it hadn't conformed to her measurements tightly, any looseness would have led to slippage. The down side, for some at least, was that the snugness almost did a good job of making her already minimal swells look virtually non-existent. Of course, those who happened to like flat-chested petite figures would probably be enjoying her new costume a lot. For her part, Uprising was being careful to keep her back towards the wall while crossing her arms over her chest protectively. she was trying to put on an annoyed expression to go with her body language, but there was no hiding the fact that her cheeks had darkened several shades.

"This.... is not clothing..." She muttered to no-one in particular, then scowled as an unheard voice apparently answered her. "Oh fine..." She stepped forward with a small sigh and opened her arms, turning about slowly once to show off the entire costume. this, of course, meant that everyone got a good look at the parts of her that weren't really covered properly at all, as well as a chance to check out exactly where the critical tie points on the ensemble were.

"Zenny... remind me why I agreed to this?"
"By the people, for the people, dear... isn't that what you say?" For her part, Zennocracy looked like she was enjoying the other girl's suffering a bit too much.
"I say I need more wine..." This last bit came out as a grumble, and Uprising was swift to make good on the statement, pouring herself a second glass.

Garde smirked as Luchadora tried her first costume on for size; once she was done changing, it was questionable as to whether it had been her size to begin with. "Sacrebleu! Shots fired!" Garde announced, spitting cookie crumbs and striking a comical pose of surprise.

The mafioso in their midst smiled in a wry, "saw this coming" sort of way, the kind one gets after years of recognition from holiday horndogs. Still, Luchadora's first encounter was a rough one and not only that, but her reaction was surprisingly fearless, perhaps even worryingly nonchalant. That set a dangerous bar for the rest of the night... At least by the time Holly and Waltz had been 90% nude, they were wrapping up the festivities on their chip giveaway. "Oh dear... I'm all for generosity, but this might be a little much," she laughed quietly.

Skywriter's reaction was no less dramatic than Garde's, but less of 'challenged' and more 'threatened;' her diet became the least of her concerns as she came face to face with the dark spectre looming over the donation drive. The first costume had dropped her guard but the second had hit during the opening. She pondered momentarily running over to hide Luchadora, but again, that seemed impossible... and furthermore, Luchadora seemed to be in pretty good spirits besides, so perhaps she was the type who didn't care? "I-I guess it's flattering... In a way... to be picked to wear it," she murmured, pressing her hands over her breasts either out of a creeping intuition that she needed to protect her modesty or a brief bout of body envy. All of a sudden, she thought that maybe watching her diet and continuing her military lifestyle might pay off in the end.

She tilted her head and feigned innocence as Zennocracy lobbed a veiled accusation at her. The business mogul hadn't spoken very loudly, but in a room where the only NetPolice threat was Garde, she was bound to keep a close eye on her closest rival throughout the night. "Now, now, I'm only interested in keeping cute costumes! Everything else I take I give back to someone," she laughed, not stating exactly who she typically gave back to. "Let's read this one... It's from a navi called Pirouette, who is very enthusiastic about both Christmas and the Nutcracker! It's a classic ballet, enjoyed every Christmas around the world-"

"Casse-Noisette!" Garde interjected from across the room, spewing more crumbs.

"... Yes. Well, along with her Christmas greetings, Piroutte suggests that all of the factions should change our uniforms, so it's fair. As a matter of fact, I believe that the many GMOs she's included in this package are her way of encouraging us all to do so..." she mused. "Gingerbread soldiers for the NetPolice... Mice for the NetMafia... and sugar plums for the Neo-Shogun Empire. Well, I'm firmly in the 'mice are cute' camp! I don't care what anyone says," she giggled, sticking out her tongue at Garde, who was shaking her head vehemently to show she was not in that camp.

"Gingerbread is much nicer! It figures Pirouette would make you a rat. She has a good head on her shoulders, obviously!" the NetPolice officer taunted, thinking that the NetPolice gingerbread GMO must be a sign of factional support.



The immediate changes of Holly's costume, at least to her shape, might make one think that she'd gotten quite lucky and picked another conservative costume from among the many racy ones. As it turned out, she might have still picked a classy one, but saying it wasn't at least a little risque would be a lie; Holly had chosen to go all in with the GMO, meaning that where the jacket failed to cover the front, nothing else picked up the slack. That left the jacket hanging with a little gravity power and a prayer, covering up her well-formed, unfortunately jiggly bosom. "Whoopsie... I might should have kept a bra," she giggled, seeming not overly perturbed. "I like the tails and the whiskers, though! So cute..."

"Ah ah ah! You're trying to show off, aren't you? You're trying to show your big boobies!" Garde complained childishly. "Hand me the next letter! You got two already and I haven't gotten one at all!"

While Holly prepared to do that, she admired Zennocracy's new dress. She thought about saying that being dressed better than those around her suited Zennocracy, who was probably used to the finer things, but that would be pretty condescending, so she held her tongue. "Pretty," she commented in a noncommittal coo, while handing her rival faction co-host the next envelope. "Oh, and for those interested, Pirouette probably left us a nice backlog of extra costumes to try throughout the night, should we find the time!"

Skywriter was starting to feel spirited again... both of those costumes were pretty encouraging, even if the jacket was a little racy on Holly. She thought she might be able to pull something like that off with her modesty in tact... especially because she didn't have quite the breadth of bosom that Holly did. Not that she was lacking, but it would help the jacket do its job better to sport a thinner figure. She even allowed herself a glass of wine alongside Zennocracy, thinking that she would get her spirits up further. Uprising unfortunately experienced another wardrobe malfunction around this time, one Skywriter was too slow to stop. "Sorry," she gasped, barely avoiding accidentally tipping her wine onto Uprising to complete the humiliation. Soon enough, Uprising would have much worse public embarrassment to worry about; the next costume succinctly brought to an end the pleasant streak that was being built up with a decidedly injudicious use of present wrapping. Well, somewhere elsewhere, watching the Christmas event unfold very intently through half-spectacles, was probably enjoying it quite a lot. "O-Oh no! No no no!" she gasped, covering her face and blushing feverishly. "Uprising, you shouldn't put on a costume like that!" she warned, though that was far too late to have effect. "U-Unless for... um... a b-boy.. Brother at arms!" The attempted defense of her character was more pathetic than the first time, somehow.

"Now now, Skywriter... The donation drive won't be effective if we leave certain readers out in the cold," Holly soothed her, giving her a gentle pat on the shoulder and handing her an envelope of her own at the same time.

"Nooo! Don't turn around! Don't show your butt!" the Neo-Shogun rookie groaned, clasping both hands over her eyes as if scared to look.

"Au contraire, you have a cute tushie, little girl! But to zat tushie I say touche! You will marvel at the fabeled cuteness of my tushie and the new costume I will now demonstrate it with!" Garde boasted, swishing her skirt playfully with a quick dance, swaying her hips briefly as she moved away from FurnaceMan to give her upcoming wardrobe some room to breath. "Let's see... Zis message is from Bruce... it is... a challenge!" she scoffed, pressing one hand to her chest in a look of shock. "He has included a little bikini and a challenge from his navi! Ze navi dares one or more of us to put on ze bikini and stand outside in ze cold... Whoever does it the longest wins... Well! I am nozing if not ze winner, so I will accept!" she announced proudly, before diminishing the whole of her armor in a burst of light...



Now clad only in Santa accessories and the immodest bikini, she gave a quick pose, thinking it only fair since Uprising had done so. She glamorously lifted her arms above her head, smiling coquettishly, then pouted her lips and turned, placing one hand on her not inconsiderable booty. Even if Luchadora won the award for best body or largest breasts, Garde would probably win the award for fattest butt... if that was something to be proud of. "Fetching, no? I am fiery Santa!" she announced, pumping her fist into the air enthusiastically. "And now, I accept ze challenge! Away!" she cried, running for the door and escaping, after a brief struggle to open it, due to the pounding blizzard outside.

Skywriter and Holly watched for a while, each a little worried, before Skywriter turned back to the task before her. "Alright... It's addressed to me, so I'd better open it myself," she sighed, then took a brief sip of wine while opening up the letter. "The letter is from Lyn, who writes... oh! It's from another girl," she sighed, thinking that was a sign of safety and apparently having missed Mary's gift earlier. "She writes that her navi is a fan of mine and loves designing fashions, so she sent this outfit. That's nice! She also says that she would have made one for Holly, but Holly is already cute," she smiled, leaving out Lyn's trademark nastiness of tone. "Now, let's see the costume while I write a response..."



Skywriter's sweater was replaced with another sweater, though of slightly shorter length and of a different style, while her leggings vanished entirely, a process that wasn't really clear until it had finished. Left seemingly only in socks and sweater, Skywriter exuded "perfect girlfriend appeal" to such an extent that even Holly felt slightly stricken by it. The shapely Neo-Shogun soldier tugged down the sweater a bit, until it nearly had an adverse affect up top; once she realized that, she stopped doing it. "W-Well... It's cute," she admitted, smiling bashfully and pushing the hair out of her eyes for a moment. "A-Am I supposed to... Well, I'll just..." she murmured, turning so the audience could see both sides, though the back didn't reveal much the front hadn't already. Her long, smooth, semi-tanned legs were probably the staring point. She suddenly adopted a small frown... then went to one corner with her wine glass in one hand, using the other to discretely peek beneath her sweater by stretching out the breast window. "Eep," she murmured, growing a bit more red... but smiling.

"That's a good reaction," Holly teased, ribbing her new acquaintance.

"Ah! I was just thinking this is the sort of thing that my b-brother in arms would really appreciate!" Skywriter squeaked, wringing her hands together bashfully. "... If I had one..." she added, staring at the floor and taking the time for another longer draw of her wine to embolden herself.

Just then, Garde burst back in, clutching her arms around her breasts and shivering madly. "Si froiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiid!" she bellowed, doing a baseball slide over towards FurnaceMan and hugging onto his legs for warmth; she'd have accidentally fed herself to the fire if she'd been a little higher on her dive. "T-T-T-Turn up ze heat, p-p-pour l'amour de D-D-Dieu!" she begged him, not thinking of what ill consequences that could have for those wearing comfortable wool or silk right now, rather than bikinis or Christmas gift wrapping. "I wiiiiiin... I'm z-ze hot Ch-Ch-Christmas queen!" she rasped in a quiet voice, before burying her face into the carpet beneath FurnaceMan's feet for extra warmth.

A bit intrigued at the idea of an e-mail that'd actually let him join the festivities, FurnaceMan walked over and took a look at it, going over the designs for men. "Let's see here...I'd melt that one in about two seconds...that one's ruined because I don't have a face...and what's a shrug? I don't wear something that I don't know what it is. Also, any of these that resemble actual fabric would get burned pretty quick. ...Unless someone sends something heatproof, I'll probably just stick with being me the entire event." He was almost disappointed...almost.

Speaking of disappointment, Garde's comment made Luchadora glare over at her. "Hey, HEY! Factional taunting is no bueno today! All rivalries will. Be. Put. Aside. Am I clear?!" Sne snagged another e-mail addressed to her, and started to check it out. "Let's see...this person suggests the NetPolice put on outfits to aid in their recruiting, but he also has no issue with the others joining in. The more, the merrier indeed! It would indeed be nice to see factions come together for a common cause...right?" She didn't turn to look at anyone, but it was quite obvious which girls she was addressing. "Ah, and it comes with a GMO. I apologize, my fan, but it seems my time with your outfit has come to an end!" She wasted little time in switching the two, and looked down once it was complete.



"Ah, I see it is indeed quite angelic!" She placed her hands on her hips to pose dramatically. Notably, her mask had returned to the original blue coloring she'd entered with...not to mention the fact she had kept it despite the GMO not including it. "It is as though I could herald the divine one himself!"

"You can most certainly herald something with that." The part that blew the fiery Navi's mind was that, by putting on the lingerie, Luchadora had managed to cover more of herself than the earlier outfit. "Though, taking a good look at it, is it really all that Christmas-like?"

"Hmph! No less than some that have already been mentioned!" Before she could get properly indignant, Garde suddenly changed her attire, then...ran outside? "...Did I miss something? I do believe that made literally no sense..."

"If you did, I missed it, too..." FurnaceMan thought about going after her (since he was the only one fit to do so), but decided she probably wouldn't be out there long wearing that, so he remained and watched other outfit changes. Lots and lots of ribbons, and a sweater with no pants. He was starting to understand why so few men did these events..."If it's any consolation, I think you all look quite lovely in your outfits, each in your own way." He nodded to himself, right as the NetPolice officer ran back in, just as chilly as he expected her to be. "See, this is why the whole temperature lowering thing wasn't a very bright move on the creator's part. Ah well..." The sound of a roaring flame could be heard from inside his body, and the area by him started to heat up even more. "This oughta defrost you in no time."

Luchadora reached over to get a feel for the heat, only to withdraw her hand surprisingly quickly. "Si! That makes the Whazzapian desert at noon feel shame!"

The mixed bag of costumes continued, displaying a dangerous pot-luck between decent, suspect and downright scandalous. FurnaceMan and Luchadora weren't the only ones momentarily surprised by Garde's sudden desire to be outside in her new costume, if it could be called such. The other two unaffiliated hosts both stared at the door for several seconds after she fled, unsure what to say about it, Uprising even seeming to forget her dire wardrobe predicament for a few moments. She took another sip of her wine and leaned over to the flustered Shogunate girl.

"I'm just hoping someone sends me a different one soon, before out tech guy gets any ideas. If you end up in something 'just barely' safe, keep your eyes open..." It was more of a murmur than anything said aloud, and most likely a piece of advice offered because the ribbon-dressed one could see how uncertain Sky was becoming.

The build up of heat in the cosy Christmas space only ramped up further when Garde returned, understandably frosted, and FurnaceMan in his good-natured way cranked it up a bit more to help warm her back up. Those who hadn't been outside in the snow a few moments before would probably be feeling the temperature in the room going from 'cosy against the cold' to 'really rather warm'. Uprising, for her part, wasn't actually doing to badly, given her distinct lack of warm clothes. Even so, the blush on her cheeks hadn't abated and the girl was looking distinctly flushed all over her face and even partway down her neck as well.

Zenny was less fortunate, in her elegant gown comprised of a surprising number of precautionary layers, and without really thinking about it she paused to fan her face slightly with one hand. If anyone was specifically watching the depository of FurnaceMan's cookies, they might be momentarily startled to see a slender hand with too many fingers creep up into sight from behind and delve in. The hand looked to be costumed in fuzzy green fluff, all the way to the wrist. As the hand searched for a cookie, however, it became clear that it wasn't an ordinary arm. Rather, it seemed more to be a hand attached to a long, prehensile, almost tentacle-like limb. It found a cookie and retreated again, snaking back out of sight accompanied by the sound of a mirthful giggle.

One easy distraction from this small occurrence was Luchadora's next costume which drew a raised eyebrow from Uprising and the ghost of a smile from Zennocracy. The former had finished her second glass of wine and, after taking a small wander around the table and selecting another slice of fruit cake, returned to Skywriter with a grin. The Neo-shogun girl had done better with her costume, but the rebel didn't seem to resent her for it. For her own part she was still folding whatever free hand she had across her chest, to help make sure the protective ribbon there kept doing its job.

"Well, she's more covered than the last one... barely. Let's see what else we have in store tonight." the girl was still being cautious and careful of herself, but seemed to have moved on from being mortified, at least for now. She began to read another letter "Hmm... ResQ and their operator seem to be at odds for why they think the Police should dress up, but they both agree that they should! Thank you for your donation!" She waved the email once then took another bite of her fruit cake. Across the room, Zennocracy had moved quite far away from the increasing heat source and was inspecting one of the shelves of hard-back books casually, but turned back to open an email of her own to read.

"Ms Heart-Payne writes in with a charitable donation, and her well wishes for the underprivileged. HPP is known for their own charity work, so we thank you for writing in to us with a personal donation of your own, Dharma!" Zenny paused to flick her eyes to the document again, still smiling. "Her navi, Phero, also adds her own well wishes, and in the name of spontaneity has included designs for an outfit she says that her operator seemed to enjoy wearing greatly, just recently! I'm sure it will be my pleasure to model it all for you now. Let's take a look shall we?"

Zenny didn't seem to have actually taken the time to read the attached .GMO, apparently trusting in the decency of an outfit gifted from one refined business woman to another. This turned out to be a rather dangerous assumption to make. Another whirlwind of virtual zenny shrouded the woman while she switched over from Ante's classy gown, into:



When the visual effect cleared, Zenny looked down at herself and visibly flinched, baring her teeth. This was not her usual grin, but more of a held-back snarl. Despite the fact that the woman had shown good aptitude for dealing with over-short skirts and the like, this outfit really didn't give much hope for maintaining any kind of class or decency. There were a few moments while Zennocracy closed her eyes and calmed herself, then looked up again.

"Well, Miss Phero, I'm not sure how a cowboy themed swimsuit counts as Christmas, and I'm equally unsure that Ms Heart-Payne would have enjoyed wearing something like this in any situation that you should be sharing with the general public, but Merry Christmas to you both anyway, and thank you for the donation." Rationalising the undergarments simply as a swimsuit, with some extra clothes over the top, seemed to be how Zenny was dealing with the outfit in her mind. She glanced down again at the monogrammed badge, perhaps pondering the letters. "Well, I did say I would be everyone's Secret Santa tonight, didn't I?"

For her part, Uprising had forgotten her own plight temporarily in the face of this change, and had stopped covering herself to put a hand to her mouth instead. She was staring quite openly, and it sounded like she was stifling a giggle. The moment of distraction gave opening for something else, however: another of those many-fingered fuzzy green hands snaked out from under the food table, silent as it rose up behind the girl, until it grabbed mischievously at the back tie point and pulled hard, undoing the knot. It fled immediately, pulled back out of sight, though the fingers held onto the end of the ribbon it had pulled. Uprising gasped as the tug turned her around, but didn't manage to get her free hand to the right ribbon in time to prevent the strip being pulled from her body.

"Cryptic you—" The others heard a series of particularly forceful curses and expletives come from the diminutive woman, but thankfully those watching at home got only a soft censoring tone. She had dropped her win glass, thankfully empty now, with both fists clenched as she shouted at the empty space where the had had been, so the bleep wasn't the only censorship that would be needed. Pity it was a live airing. After a moment she spun about again, wrapping both arms across her chest protectively. The good news for Uprising was that her hands and arms alone were perfectly capable of providing her modesty cover, perhaps more so than the ribbon had, just so long as she didn't have to use them for anything else. The string of insults ended abruptly as Uprising looked down at the ground instead, clutching herself tightly and grinding her teeth. Her flush was pure crimson at this point, reaching down her neck and across the top of her chest. Zennocracy cleared her throat.

"Seems we've got a naughty grinch playing tricks on us tonight, everyone. Be careful now." The explanation seemed to match the fuzzy green dress-up on the hands, but it was quite obvious that Uprising, at least, hadn't been in the loop on this entirely, let alone any of the other guest hosts. The smaller woman was quickly flicking through emails with the fingers on one hand, doing her best not to move it form her chest any more than she needed to.

"Must be another one in here somewhere... Ah-ha!" When she spoke, her voice moved a little bit faster than normal, and it seemed like she was, understandably, rushing to get through the email so that she could change costume into something that actually covered her, before certain parties tried to steal any more of what she was currently wearing. "Jocelyn and her navi Sleuth write to us this time. Jocely says that she enjoys playing Santa at her mall, and thinks that junior employees should always be happy to change their outfits at the request of their superiors. As of right now, I can't say I agree with that sentiment, Jocelyn. I hope you understand, but thank you for your donation! Her navi, sleuth, offers what she claims are fancy holiday knickers. Whatever they are, I'm sure they'll be more appropriate for live audiences than this, so, let's try it on!"

She had to lift one hand to make the transition flourish, apparently, and those watching for it would get a last, brief, peek at what she was struggling to cover on one side, before the outfit shifted and changed on her body.



When it settled, Uprising looked herself over cautiously. Under any other circumstance, the outfit might be classed as minimalist, but despite its immodest design, Uprising seemed to find it more suitable than what she had just changed out of. It may have been relief at having what felt like proper covering compared to the last, but the girl actually seemed to relax a little bit, despite showing off enough of herself to an unknown public number to normally make her cry out or hide. Maybe a part of that was the wine, too. As she modelled the reindeer lingerie, turning about once, she paused to pour herself a fresh glass of wine with a new glass, and even wiggled her tail a little for the viewers as she did.

"Asking ze NetPolice and ze NetMafia to put aside zeir rivalry is like asking wine to pair well with brussel sprouts! It does not happen," Garde scoffed, twirling her hand in a nonchalant way. "Holly understands zat as well! In fact, if I recall correctly, it is part of her job to have animosity towards an officer like myself and part of my job to arrest a criminal like herself! My very being here and not raising a fuss is almost a scandal itself!" It was hard to tell if she was joking, but with or without justification, she didn't appear to be afraid of Luchadora's threat. She looked over Luchadora's outfit for a moment longer before she ran outside. "Hm... you seem to have a lot of fans so far! But I haven't lost yet! In fact, my winning has only just begun!" she announced, raising one finger in the air dramatically before she hurried out.

"Did the sender really just give you underwear?" Skywriter asked, thinking that picking non-custom lingerie for the wearer was somehow more offensive than wrapping them in Christmas bows. She held her tongue from saying anything more, thinking it would send the wrong message to berate those sending in letters. She smiled to FurnaceMan, meaning to thank him for his sympathy, but she sort of found herself wishing she could ask him to reign in the heat a bit. Garde had burst back in and with her had come the need for a sauna-like level of temperature that made even her pantsless sweater feel like a bit too much. The smile vanished from her face and she gulped as Uprising gave her an ominous warning about the tech guy. "There's a guy here?" she whispered back, momentarily forgetting that FurnaceMan might count as one. Suddenly, the events of the night felt more suspect to her.

Properly warmed, Garde was just about to grab another cookie, when the sudden emergence of a hand startled her. "M-Monsieur! S'il vous plaît , monsieur , notez qu'il ya une main dans vos cookies!" she warned FurnaceMan in her impossible dialect, pointing in fear and suddenly losing her appetite for sweets. "O-o-oh! It's like in ze Christmas Carol! Jacob Marley!" she cried, seeming afraid of the ghost rather than the message he was usually associated with. "We're in that scary story!"

"I think you have the wrong Christmas story," Holly teased her, though she also went over to cradle the girl's back in a way that seemed overly familiar, yet strangely was not rejected by the police officer, despite her earlier oath of rivalry. She'd spied the hand from a distance away, mostly because she was watching Garde to ensure the bikini-clad girl didn't have a wardrobe malfunction, which seemed likely given that she'd just done a baseball slide after coming in from a strong blizzard. She hadn't, although Holly thought the officer really ought to be covering her chest just for decency's sake, since at certain angles... Well, best not to stare, and if she didn't, perhaps nobody else at home would either.

Skywriter hadn't seen the hand at all and remained pretty calm, hanging out with Uprising over at the snacks, which she was now partaking of without thinking. Zennocracy's next couple of messages seemed to imply that things were going to calm down now, with one innocuous message following another, but when it came time for Zenny to swap her outfit, they all got a surprise. "O-Oh no! It's a stripper outfit..." Skywriter murmured, covering her face again and remaining unaware that in some ways, the one Zenny had just lost was also a stripper's outfit. While everyone was still pondering what sort of color commentary to add to that revelation, another revelation occurred; the worst possible scenario had happened and Uprising had found herself going from 1/20th of an outfit to about 1/40th. Panicking, Skywriter began to fire up her hands. "I've got it! Smokescreen!" she announced, creating a blast of smoke that would hopefully hide Uprising's important parts from the viewing audience, though she was, indeed, just a little too slow. If only she had her squadron commander's speed... At any rate, once Uprising had replaced her costume, she seemed to be in good spirits again... Surprisingly so. "I'm not sure I would have rebounded that quickly," Skywriter thought to herself, smiling delicately as she watched her friend model the outfit. "It is kind of cute..."

"Now ze color of your nose matches 'zat of your face!" Garde joked, having gotten her hand back into the cookies and seemingly forgetting that another ghost/grinch might be waiting in there for her. "Wait, zere's no red nose? Tut tut! Ze costume is not complete!"

Holly shrugged, causing the flaps of her vest to move tantalizingly outward from the center for a moment, only to fall back into place with a gentle sway. "There are other reindeer besides Rudolph, you know, Garde? Now, speaking of variety, let's proceed to the next letter! I'll take this one," she chuckled, opening it and reading carefully. "HYDE- that's in all caps- writes that she's whipped up some quick costumes to go along with her donation; she's only disappointed that she didn't have less time to prepare. That said, there's quite a selection! They're broken down into factions, so why don't I model the NetMafia one for us?" she suggested, activating a new costume to replace her nice mouse gear...



... "These are..." ... "... This is..." ... She managed to keep her smile on, but that was it. From the moment the giant pajamas were on, Holly found herself wishing she was wearing anything else. "A bit toasty?" she finally commented. Sure enough, it actually felt like she'd be in danger inside the suit; even if FurnaceMan dropped the heat at this point, it would take the room too long to cool down and she might pass out. "O-Oh dear... A little help, Garde?"

"Me, help you? Ha!" Garde laughed. "I will, but only because I am so generous! You need me to-?"

"I need you to cut me out," Holly stressed in an urgent whisper, trying not to upset the viewing audience any more than they might already be. "Quickly."

Nodding, Garde removed her fencer's foil and grabbed a big lump of the fabric at the back of the snowman head. She began to saw through the fabric, experiencing some difficulty and tearing into it like a person clumsily opening an envelope. She discarded giant balls of fluff and down as they came out of the stitching, scattering them around the carpet in an awe-inspiring quantity. "I zink I've almost got it!" she announced proudly, reaching down into the suit to retrieve Holly.

"Woah there, not necessary-!" Holly announced, just as Garde pulled her up and out of the pajamas, such that she was sitting on all fours in a pool of stuffing. It was immediately apparent by the large amount of flesh tone that Holly was naked, her butt hidden only but Garde's positioning and the modesty of her upper body preserved only by the suit that was still clinging to it like a parasite. Bits of stuffing covered her body here and there, as well as clinging to her hair. The mafioso looked side to side for a moment, then went red in the face, flattening herself back out. She made a grasping motion with one hand for Garde to hand her the envelope again, but the results weren't much better this time around...



"Ooooh, dear, that's bad," Holly cringed, smiling in stupefaction with a face that might have said, "God, why have you forsaken me?" She immediately found herself itching, trying to adjust the suit to fit in a way that wasn't awful. Garde held up her fencing foil, offering to cut it off again, but Holly shook her head. "Th-This one doesn't come with underwear either... Eeeech... I'm too scared to try the last one at all," she half-laughed, half-sobbed. At this point, she was so bothered by the outfit that she had no time to think about the flap at the butt of her suit, which threatened to come open at any moment.

With Garde in her completely out-of-place bikini, Zennocracy dressed like a stripper, Holly having some truly awful luck twice in a row, Uprising going from a wardrobe malfunction to another set of underwear, and Luchadora modeling the latest in undergarment fashions, Skywriter was feeling very bad about her chances. Thankfully for her, the next letter didn't come with any costume at all. "It's from... MachMan! To me!" she announced, sounding like all of the worry had just faded from her mind. She tore it open quickly, then perused it with unguarded interest. "MachMan says that all of the NetMafia should dress in festive attire so that it would be ironic... and Aera and I are going to have a shopping trip!" she announced, holding it over her head excitedly like that ought to interest someone else in the room. Holly smiled, just to be friendly, while Garde returned a confused expression.

Realizing she was making a goof out of herself, Skywriter quickly set the letter down, to try to play it cool, and opened another. "Ahem. This next one is from Rayner.EXE. He sounds excited about all of the lovely girls and asks us to spread cheer... which... I guess we're doing already," she laughed, looking around the room at all of the silliness going on. "The operator, Joan, says 'wasn't that time on Dentech Net enough for you'...?" she read aloud, before realizing that she ought to have omitted that part, since nobody would understand the significance; she didn't think she did. "A chip is attached too, of course. Thanks to all of our viewers for their donations so far."

Holly was trying to keep quiet for the others, but she couldn't help making a scene now, squeezing her legs together and scratching both arms in unison. "Please... if anyone finds another costume in one of these letters, please pass one on to me?" she pleaded desperately. Garde was feeling like the situation had calmed down enough now for her to enjoy another laugh at Holly's expense, so she did.

"Oh ho ho ho! I like ze sens de l'humour zat Hyde has! Zat's ze most genuinely entertaining you've been in a long time," the blond girl giggled, reaching out for another cookie from FurnaceMan's plate. As she took it and placed it into her mouth, she tried to speak at the same time. "Luchadora!" she called out, realizing she was probably still bugging the masked lady and hoping to pick a fight. "If you really want me to play nice with Holly, you will have to do no less than defeat me in a game! I won't go down wi'zout a challenge!" she taunted her supposed rival, smirking confidently while chewing her thirteenth or fourteenth cookie. "You name ze game and I will whip you at it!"

"That was not a request. Stop acting like children, or else people will be turned off by a failed attempt to come together for a common cause, and in turn, turn off this program!" Unknown to anyone else in attendance, Luchadora had considered joining the NetMafia for a time...this sort of thing was making her very happy she hadn't. She actually had another word or two for Garde, but she was gone before she could continue. She sighed, and shook her head. Why would anyone go out there willingly, unless they were a living furnace?

"Generic underwear, by the looks of it. Not the most festive of choices..." FurnaceMan gave Skywriter an odd look after she apparently forgot there was already a highly visible male Navi in the area, but at the request of a certain frozen Navi, looked over at his remaining cookie supply just in time to see a hand snag one and bolt. He seemed mostly unfazed, though. "Relax, that wasn't a ghost. Wouldn't be surprised if that was the tech guy. No wonder people need to be wary." And sure enough, a young lady's outfit was soon partially removed by an identical hand. And once more, he only got a glimpse as he turned to see what the fuss was about. "Seriously?! You're gonna do that to them on live television?! Try it again, and I'll fry your circuits!" The room momentarily because incredibly hot, as the sounds of fierce flames echoed inside the blazing Navi. He regained his composure soon enough, though, and the room cooled down...relatively speaking.

"As a friend of mine in the wrestling business once told me, it is not a true party until someone's top is ripped off! Though, I cannot say I am entirely sure this was not one already..." She folded her arms across her chest, and tilted her head as she observed the scene. A part of her wished to be part of the increasing amounts of mayhem, but this wasn't about her. This was about the charity event, and they were doing a good enough job keeping people's eyes glued to the show without her. This viewpoint was only strengthened by Holly's pajama fiasco...suddenly, generic underwear almost seemed modest.

"What a mess this has become..." The fiery Navi made a sighing motion (despite lacking a mouth and lungs to sigh with), and grabbed a new e-mail to read. "Let's see what this one says......yeah, that sounds about right, the way this is headed...hmm, sounds like this Navi's really down in the dumps. I say we cheer her up and try all of these on! She did make them all special for us, after all. You all got copies of this one, it seems, so look for an e-mail from a Navi called Lyntael, and try on the GMO! We're going to bring cheer to her, or else I'm going to burn every piece of fabric in this entire building to ashes!" This completely ignored both the message's plea, and the very real chance that wouldn't be the only thing he'd set on fire as he did that. "Here, I'll try mine on first, to give everyone an idea of what they're like. Yeah, I get one too." The largest of the Navis glowed for a moment, as he finally got to engage in a little dressing up...



"Huh, neat." FurnaceMan took a moment to check out his suddenly clothed self, since naturally he seldom wore anything. "Everything's nice and heat resistant, too, so I can keep on wearing it. That's pretty thoughtful of her." As a bonus, the outfit was blocking a decent amount of his heat, cooling the room a bit. "Huh? Hey, I've got that propeller-like thing on my head." He reached up and gave it a casual flick. "Heh, even that works! She thought of everything!"

"Oh, that is quite precious! Very well, let me bring up this e-mail...now let us see what mine is!" Without bothering to check what it was first (again ruining Lyn's message), Luchadora activated her GMO, anxious to see what was inside...



"...I cannot say I am entirely thrilled with being a snake...but that aside, it is so adorable, is it not?" She puffed out her chest a bit, undermining her own opinion a little (unless someone viewed large breasts as adorable) as she turned to the other. "Come now, ladies! I cannot believe this creativity was all used up on mine and FurnaceMan's! Try yours on! Prisa, prisa!"

The evening was going about as well as anyone in the know for these sorts of events might have suspected. Even so, Between adventurous sneaky hands, FurnaceMan's heat, Garde's desire to be helpful, and the costumes themselves, it seemed like they were all diving towards the empress' new clothes territory with alarming speed. From where she was standing, Zennocracy got a slightly better, if unintentional, view of Holly's 'rescue' from the claustrophobic snowman outfit ,and had to smother a small, startled cough behind finishing her glass of wine. She tactfully refilled it, averting her gaze while the Mafia girl got herself covered.

For her own part, Uprising didn't seem to be feeling quite so mad now that she'd gotten all her cursing out at the 'playful' hands, and was wearing something that covered her, even if it was highly questionable. Sexy-reindeer wasn't really that bad, after all. The petite woman was also on her fourth glass by now, and it was a fair guess that her flush wasn't entirely from embarrassment any more. As a result, she actually ended up putting a hand to her mouth to stifle a giggle as holly struggled through one treacherous costume after another, rather than getting worried for her. The bells on her costume jingled as she did. Behind her, two of the sneaky grinch hands crept up and grabbed hold of the 'reins' on her back, whipping them once and making the bells ring again. Uprising didn't seem to notice. Instead she pulled up another email with one hand and another slice of fruitcake with the other.

"HangMan.Exe says that they don't much care for factions at all, but they still wanted to make a donation to our charity drive, so thank you very much for that!" Her voice still sounded quite level and clear, despite the wine, though she did sound a bit... bubbly? Whatever it was, it was a far cry from her usual stern, serious demeanour. She looked over to where Holly was struggling not to make a scene with her sudden itchiness. "No GMO, sorry Holly!"

FurnaceMan hit upon an email with costumes for all of them, though, so hopefully Holly would soon have something to change into. Before she could, though, another quiet giggle seemed to come from nowhere in particular.

"Got an itch there? Here... let me help you..." While Holly struggled to deal with the insane scratchiness of her Pjs, a pair of similarly green-fuzz-clad hands snaked out from under the low table just near the Mafioso, coming at her swiftly. They started benignly enough, scratching helpfully at her back and shoulders. this was, until two additional many-fingered hands darted inside the hanging flap at the back of her outfit and could be seem visibly writhing around under the fabric, scratching at her middle, mostly. They didn't behave for long, sadly, and soon darted upwards inside the pyjamas to work on places that Holly probably didn't want uninvited foreign hands, no matter how itchy they were... though it'd probably take her focus off the itching itself, it didn't seem inclined to stop there... the hands itching and massaging Holly's back and shoulders curled back on themselves to begin taking care of the horrible itching she must surely be feeling on her behind, rupturing the remaining button in the process. One hand slipped inside the one-piece garment to join the others, but this one reached down instead of up once it had slipped around her waist to the front. There were just so many places with itches that needed rubbing, right?

Fortunately for all involved, there was nothing to actually see, since it all took place inside Holly's all-covering PJs, and fortunately for Holly herself, the limbs weren't particularly strong or sturdy - if she tried to pull away from the source of the hands and yank them out of her clothes, she'd be perfectly able to. The only difficulty was that she had only two hands of her own, against what was now five 'helpful' itchers.

"Now now, play nice, you naughty Grinch!" Zenny's voice sounded chiding, rather than outright scolding, and she certainly didn't make any move to actually help Holly with her predicament. Instead, she opened another email.
"Hikari and her navi, Divina, also wanted to send us a donation, despite not knowing many faction-involved navis. Don't worry about that, you two, this is a charity drive for everyone, regardless of their affiliation. Even if you don't normally support anyone, this is the perfect time to show your heart and give to those in need! Thank you very much for your donation!" She looked across towards FurnaceMan's snazzy new costume and smiled. "I'll be sure to try on her design for me soon, FurnaceMan, I promise, but first I had set aside this one to try on." The business woman retrieved one that she'd glanced at a little earlier, and now addressed it.

"Daybreak.Exe and their operator write in with their donation and a costume that they say is best worn on a sunny day. They seem to think that every one of us is up to something sinister, but have still enclosed a donation and this nice-looking outfit. Thank you, Daybreak!" In a brief shower of virtual currency, Zenny changed her costume again, saying goodbye to her Clusterbucket apparel, and hello to:



"Hmmm, quite classy, I like it, in its own way." She reached down to adjust the belt slightly, then settled again, content. Uprising, who was still trying not to giggle and was refilling her glass, Opened the email that FurnaceMan had pointed them all to.

"Well, I'll try on mine!" She flourished her hand - which happened to be the one holding her wine glass, causing a small spill down her wrist and landing a few drops on the white table cloth.



When it settled, Uprising paused and blinked a few times, then looked down at herself.
"Oh..." The outfit seemed to quiet her and she set down the wine glass carefully. Without really seeming to think about it, she ran her hands down over her waist and hips for a moment, and cupped her chest, then let her arm rest outwards so she could turn about once and glance over her shoulder as well. "Um... wow, I..." One finger played with the small star at her neck for a moment, and her features were scarlet. "It's hard to think this is me under here..." Her voice had gotten quiet as well, and she ducked her head. "Thank you, Lyntael, for your generous donation, and for the lovely designs!" After another moment, she cleared her throat. "I've got an email here from Vincent Miles, and his navi Phase. He writes that he has little knowledge of the virtual factions, but enjoys it when the neighbourhood watch gets into the Christmas spirit. We hope you don't get in trouble for using your work email as well! Thank you and Phase, both, for your donation!"

In between the other distractions, and additional mischievous hand seemed to think that Skywriter was getting off too easy so far tonight; it peeked out from under the centrepiece on the food table and curled silently towards the NS representative, waiting until her attention was elsewhere before ducking under her over-sized sweater from behind to pinch... something. It wasn't anything like the fun they'd been having with Holly, but it was still uninvited.

Garde was probably the only one who was still thinking about it, but she was nonetheless stunned that her request to duel Luchadora had gone entirely disregarded. "Vous coward! You know zat means I win, don't you? Yes, I'm ze winner if you don't play with me!" she announced proudly, pressing one hand to her chest and sounding especially childish as she toted her victory by opponent forfeit.

For her part, Holly was still itching uncontrollably and did not have the mental faculty to devote to either chiding or consoling her sometimes rival. "This really isn't too far off course for the regular when we host charity drives," Holly informed FurnaceMan, to ease any concern he might have that viewers weren't getting what they wanted out of this event. "Except for the itching. That part's new!" she added, squirming her legs and scratching her back feverishly. In the excitement over new costumes, FurnaceMan and Luchadora weren't exactly offering her a timely replacement. Perhaps, given the various states of undress, being hideously itchy wasn't seen as such a bad thing? Uprising wasn't really worried either and Skywriter didn't seem to understand the dismay the itching must be causing. Truly, Holly was suffering alone on this one.

Skywriter did notice another pair of hands take the reigns on Uprising for a moment, but it seemed less like the owner of said hands intended to do anything dirty this time around and more like it just couldn't sit still after seeing the reigns hanging there. Nervous again, she took another sip of her drink cautiously.

Even Holly wasn't optimistic enough about the good lurking within the spirit of all things to believe that the mysterious, disembodied hands that had pestered Uprising earlier had found their way to her with just the intent of scratching her back. "No, thank you, I can handle it on my own until I have a new costume," she responded through clenched teeth, but whoever the perpetrator was, they wouldn't be sticking their hands through her costume's butt flap if they were interested in respecting her wishes. She reached her hand behind herself to find where the arms were sticking out and try to pull the appendages back through that way, but once the squeezing, rubbing hands made their way from her middle up towards her bosom, her needs became more immediate prevention. Each of them grasped hold of what they were looking for, but she uprooted them again with the full strength of her arms.

In the mean time, the other two hands from earlier decided to converge upon her bottom, scratching with enough vigor to pop loose her other button. Having a portion of her butt revealed would ordinarily be embarrassing, but was far from a concern in Holly's mind right now. What was a concern was another fifth hand, which snaked its way inside the widened opening and tried to work its way towards her legs. The long fingers got just far enough to feel what they were looking for before the red-faced and panting mafioso switched her attention from those on her chest to that reaching down below, using both hands to make sure it didn't get any farther, while surrendering her upper body to the whims of the hidden party guest.

Seeing as her challenge wasn't being answered, Garde would turn her attention back to her old nemesis, who looked to be in need of help once again. "I've got it!" she announced, whipping out her foil again and posing dramatically, aiming her foil briefly down the guide of two fingers. "Stand very still!"

"Can't," Holly answered briefly, squeezing one eye shut as various parts of her were assaulted.

"Oh, well, do not worry! I shall use finesse et de soins!" Garde added, before unleashing a flurry of fencing thrusts upon Holly's terribly itchy pajamas, presumably with the intention of stabbing various hands and encouraging them to withdraw or defend themselves. When she relaxed her arm, instead of the hands falling away, the pajamas did, leaving Holly again disrobed with just two hands over her breasts and one extending its fingers over her lady parts, the view of which was also obscured only somewhat by her legs squeezing together.

"Not helping!" Holly retorted, still doing her best to pull the hand away from her lower body despite the fact that it was more or less tasked with preserving her modesty at this point. It wasn't held on very tight and would probably come off if she kept yanking it full force.

"I-I had to cut it off to see ze perpetrator! Now I'll get zem!" Garde defended, now taking swipes and stabs at the various hands, intending to discourage them from their pursuit.

Knowing this could only end worse than it started, Skywriter jumped in to help as well, creating a smokescreen out of her palms to hide Holly's form, which would presumably be naked after this. Still yet, no one had actually given Holly another GMO yet, instead activating several for themselves. "Maybe they've given up on trying to get out of embarrassing things now? Or... or maybe they're actually into it?!" Skywriter thought to herself, as she raced over to acquire contents from the e-mail FurnaceMan had opened. She tossed one each to Holly and Garde, who both activated theirs immediately (the former more urgently than the latter).



Thankfully, Holly finally got some modesty out of her new outfit; being the magnanimous person she was, she managed to spare some words of thanks as she wiped strands of loose hair from her face, those having been displaced as she thrashed about earlier. "A fantastic gift, and so festive! It's lovely for Christmas time," she praised the piece, taking a moment to examine the charm at her belly, which had been attached by clip rather than by piercing. "I think Lyntael's passion for Christmas may rival my own, with all of these nice costumes!" One had to be amazed Holly could have any passion left for the holidays at this point. She took a moment to look around and make certain she was free of extra hands again, those hopefully having been at least momentarily repelled by a combination of fencing thrusts and smoke.



Garde was just as pleased with hers, but for different reasons. "Oh ho! You see zere? The precious girl understands zat zere is little improving upon perfection, so she has made a modification of my armor to suit ze season! Tres magnifique!" Garde applauded, modeling her outfit enthusiastically despite the fact that it fit her about the same as her original. She glanced at the lights circling her armor and frowned for a moment. "Pourquoi ont-ils allument pas?" she asked, momentarily nudging the string with the length of her rapier. The tap of sword to shoulder pad caused the lights to all come on. "Ah ha! Fabuleux!"

At least until the next onslaught, Garde and Holly would be happy for a bit. Skywriter, feeling happy to see them happy, took the time to read over another e-mail, having moved to stand near Uprising again, despite the possible hazard of having wine dumped on her. She watched the drink warily, trying not to make it too obvious lest she be pulled into informing the little girl that she seemed to be going at the drink a bit too hard. "I'll try another e-mail... This one is from another, different Vincent, based on the address. Either the navi or the operator writes that they have friends in the Shogun's empire... Now I feel bad about not recognizing them. The writer suggests, funnily enough, that we in the Empire ought to try on some festive Christmas outfits, dressing us as Christmas trees and the like, with 'nothing naughty.' It seems like the ship's sailed on that one, though," she sighed, taking another sip of her drink.

Just then, she ended up spitting the drink over her partially exposed cleavage as another hand took it upon herself to give her bottom the first pinch of the evening. "Aaah! Shoo, shoo!" she warned however it was, then opened fire on where she presumed the enemy would be, namely, behind her. Open fire in this case was literal, being that she shot a stream of jetfire from both hands, lighting the rug beneath the table on fire and presumably hitting no one. "Oh, crap!" she further exclaimed, wishing that her hands were capable of shooting out fire extinguisher jets as well; smoke and fire were the only options, though, and they were already going to have both of those in abundance shortly. "Can someone put this out? Can the tech guy do it?" she asked, hoping that fixing the room would be as easy as making it.

Garde was especially concerned, seeing that an arrangement of fancy cheeses she'd been eating was about to turn into grilled cheese. Anyone with a vested interest in continued snacking, past FurnaceMan's cookies, would probably need to give the fire immediate attention. Rushing over, Garde attempted to put it out by throwing her cape over it, which turned out to be a terrible idea; not only did the cape burn, but with the additional Christmas lights and wiring, a tremendous crash of pops and sparks flew up and the fire grew stronger. "Ma faute! My fencing skills cannot deal with fires," she informed the others, who were certainly on the edge of their seats waiting to see how she'd stab the fire into submission.

As she continued to enjoy her latest outfit, Luchadora frowned as Garde simply refused to let things go. She was going to have to say something, wasn't she? "Only a true coward would bask in such an empty victory. If you wish to be so petty, then do so, but I shall not indulge you on such a matter!"

Meanwhile, FurnaceMan's threat was called, as Holly proceeded to be the victim of handed tentacles. He...did not especially care for that. "Oh, that burns it! Prepare to be charred!" ...But he couldn't. At least, not without hitting someone else. Or setting something on fire. They were just too thin to take the brunt of a flame attack. Instead, Garde tried to forcefully remove them by...cutting off the pajamas? He wasn't quite sure about the logic there, and stood confused until things managed to (mostly) sort themselves out and return to normal.

But normal simply would not be allowed to exist in a giveaway of this sort, and soon there was a fire in the building. Not caused by FurnaceMan. Even he would've had to admit he didn't see that one coming. Luckily, the wrestler Navi wasn't one to shy away from the heat of the moment. "FurnaceMan! I hope you are hungry!"

"What? You know I can't...ah. Gotcha. Yeah, I'm ready."

"Bueno! Now then...everyone may want to get away from the table now. ...Yah!!!" While dressed as an Anaconda, she most certainly was not one, as she charged the table, and dropkicked it as she approached it, sending it sailing away. The not SnoBlow responded by opening his gates, grabbing the flaming rug, and shoving it inside of himself before it could spread. "There, problem solved!" ...There was a new problem, however, in that everything on the table didn't magically go along with it, and was now scattered all around the place. "...Well. I am certainly glad that we are not responsible for cleaning afterward!"

"Yeah, if we had to do that, I'd just make everyone else leave and burn this place to ashes myself."

"...Well, tentacled man? Are you happy at what your antics have resulted in?" Seeing the area become a disaster zone really wasn't getting her into the spirit of things. "How do you expect us to continue in these conditions?"

"Actually..." A small window had appeared in front of FurnaceMan, which he looked at intently. "We don't have a ton of time remaining. We had a set time allotment for the giveaway, after all...maybe we oughta wrap things up."

"Mmm...perhaps. A shame we must end on such a relatively dour note...but that is life, sometimes." Luchadora looked over at Zennocracy, seeing as how she was basically running things. "Care to close us out? If this lasts much longer, who knows what could happen to us."

In the moments of panic that followed the latest invasion, Holly became the victim of another wardrobe dissection; one had to wonder whether cutting Holly's clothes off her wasn't somehow a secret desire of a certain NP rep. Regardless, the Mafioso herself didn't have a hard time pulling the groping hands away from the delicate parts of her body; a calmer, more attentive person might realise that, for all their outnumbering her and the speed of their reaching, the hands weren't 'overdoing' it, the excessive limbs replacing each other only about as fast as Holly could yank them off, and no faster. In particular, she was fortunate in the case of the lower-reaching hand - unwelcome as it was, it still seemed only interested in covering and rubbing slightly, and nothing more invasive. Even so, it was an exceptionally marginal consolation, probably on the same level as the consolation that, while the hands were doing their thing, they were also covering Holly's bits from view.

Small slips were inevitable in between the frantic removal of the groping hands, of course, but once the situation reached the height of panic they relented into being 'fought off'. There was a yelp of pain from somewhere as several of the hands got poked and stabbed (and potentially had fingers crushed if Holly was feeling particularly vehement - the hands themselves were actually quite delicate), but if anyone had been hoping that the mysterious 'Grinch' had actually been wounded, they might be disappointed to recognise the cry out as the more comical type of 'stage' exclamation - the bad guy being sent packing in humorous style. Regardless, they all withdrew smoothly, pulling themselves out of sight again quickly just as soon as Holly got her important areas covered again.

They had tried again with Sky, but the neo-shogun girl was having none of it, creating a second loud cry of stage-theatrical pain as she flamed the pinching fingers and caused them to slither away quickly. The fire was a problem on its on, however, and the situation degraded with worrisome speed. Uprising found herself jumping back from the table sharply, gliding a couple of feet across the floor with her hands coming up into a combat-ready pose as Luchadora employed her own forceful mode of fire containment. If she hadn't been five glasses of wine down, the smaller woman probably wouldn't have reacted like she was under attack, but at the same time, it was a sharp display of precise and controlled reflex, even with that amount of wine in her. Even so, she struggled to relax again while looking at the shambles that their setting had become. Some part of her was still clearly caught up in looking properly feminine for once, because her features had returned to softness quite quickly, rather than her usual harder expression.

Across the room, the fire and excessive light sources of the past few moments had been having a different effect entirely on Zennocracy. There was enough time for her to make a concerned sound, before her classy attire shifted and altered itself on her body, apparently against the businesswoman's will. Much of the outfit collapsed into falling ashes, leaving something rather more sinister in its place.



Zennocracy froze, transfixed as the restrictive, yet barely covering... gear... settled on her. It was obviously too tight on her chest, with the bat shaped front pressing and the metallic band cutting in on her chest tightly. The first action the woman took after this, was to snarl in a very unlady-like fashion, and take a small step back to put her back towards one of the room's bookcases. She had gone from demure, presiding lady, immune to the wardrobe disasters of the others, to a woman who looked both caged, and maybe violently dangerous, in a matter of seconds.

"This had better be some kind of joke... and I am going to fire whoever's idea it was." She ground out the words through clenched teeth. If FurnaceMan radiated heat, Zennocracy was suddenly seething a chill fierce enough to crack glass. Uprising put a hand to her mouth, stifled a giggle, failed to block another one, then finally burst out into a shower of giddy laughter, and then clapped her hands. It was a sound that anyone who knew Uprising was probably aware that she more or less never made, but somehow the wine, the dress, and seeing Zenny get turned on her head, had all come together to make the girl's night, despite everything that had already happened. She took a step or two to pick through the wreckage of the table and its various foodstuffs, and picked up a tin that still had its lid on. Popping it open, she found shortbread, and took a slice.

"All in good fun, right Zenny?" She called, still grinning. "For charity? You should keep that one on for a while. It suites you!" Casually, she offered the tin to Sky with a small wink, then pulled up another email, humming to herself. She paused with a glance for Luchadora, finding the other woman's eye after she was done with her fire-fixing moves.

"We're running out a bit, yeah, but there's still some time left. I'm sure we can get through the rest before we have to cut off. We'll just go a bit quickly. Hey, hey, besides... this one was made for you!" She pulled out an email, reading it over quickly.

"It's from Kabuki and her operator Hideyoshi. It's nice to hear from you again, Kabuki! I can't say I was exactly 'wanting' to be exposed like that, you know, but I did agree to it, and I'll stick it through. Besides, look at this! I don't think I've ever worn anything like this, hehe." Even Uprising seemed to realise that giggling like that was very unusual for her, and she put a hand to her mouth. She passed the letter across to Luchadora. "I'll let you read out whatever bits you want, and Kabuki says you don't have to try it on if you don't want to, because she thinks her operator might have been naughty with it." She flipped over a few more emails in her hands and she wandered about in her outfit, arriving next to Holly close enough to lean in and whisper that her latest outfit looked really cute. Turning back to her mails she continued more audibly.

"ZephyrMan and Arial, Martia and Leslie, and ClampMan and Jack all wanted to donate to our drive, though they didn't have any particular faction answer for the question or costumes for us to wear. Thank you all for your kind donations, and merry Christmas!" She seemed completely unconcerned that they were now occupying a thoroughly trashed room, and took another piece of shortbread from her tin.

Zennocracy was less pleased by the turn of events, but alas for those hoping that her suffering would last, she was rarely without contingency. In this case, contingency was the fact that she had delayed in trying on the other costume made specifically for her, and shortly after Uprising quieted, there came a flurry of virtual zenny from her corner of the room as her restrictive vampire-prison was over-written by a new GMO.



Zenny stretched and turned, then breathed a sigh of relief as she took in her now completely covering and utterly safe outfit design, then stepped away from where she had been crowded against the bookcase. The number of bows and ribbons on the outfit, along with the individually wrapped parts of the abstract design might have seemed a little excessive to begin with, but given the tone of events so far, Zennocracy didn't seem about to complain about it. Instead she nodded and began flipping through more mails. She nodded slightly to Luchadora as well while she searched.

"Uprising is right, my dear. The evening is running late indeed, but we should have enough time left to give our generous viewers a few more acknowledgements. Let's see... Alda, and her navi, SmogMan, think the Shogunate should change their stripes for the season, while HunterWoman... seems to be having trouble with ordering her thoughts, but still makes a donation that is very much appreciated. Thank you both very much for your generosity!"

Having been stabbed and burned from their previous efforts, the mischievous hands clad in their green fuzzy costuming crept out from the space behind the bookcase this time and made a grab for the many ribbons on Zenny's costume. They tugged and pulled at ribbons, undoing various ties, but this proved to be a mistake. It was hard to follow exactly, but when she felt the first tugs, Zennocracy spun about and made a motion with one leg. The motion was very quick, but the result was another comical cry of pain and Zenny standing with her hands on her hips, and two of the hands pinned to the ground by the point of her stiletto heel. She had not been gentle - it looked like her heel had actually pierced the two hands in her effort to pin them down. The rest had withdrawn while the stuck two tugged vainly.

"I've—" About to reprimand their mischief-maker, Zenny paused as a dark-sounding laugh cut through the room. It actually sounded a lot like her own voice, modulated somewhat, and her outfit shimmered. It probably drew the voice byte from the wearer itself.



She paused to look at herself. Two surprise-changing outfits in a row seemed like a strange coincidence, but this one at least drew a briefly approving nod from her before she continued, grinding her heel slightly.

"I've had about enough of your antics, master Grinch. You've gone a little bit too far tonight. I don't want to see your fuzzy green hide again unless you mend your ways, am I understood?" The hands gave a few more twitches and spasms, then ruefully tapped out on the carpet beneath her heel. Still with her hands on her hips, Zenny gave a small, satisfied sound, and pried her heel point free of where it had, in fact, pierced even the carpet. "Off with you then." Suitably chastised, the remaining hands slithered back out of sight. Zenny breathed a short sigh of relief, then turned back to the others. "Well, I think we've only got a few left to go through now. The lines closed a few minutes ago. Anyone have any other costumes they'd like to try on? I know I feel like I've done some good tonight." She seemed somewhat more aware that they were broadcasting from a thoroughly destroyed shambles of a room than Uprising was, but even so, the general atmosphere from the two co-hosts at least, seemed to have brightened up considerably now that everyone was more or less respectably dressed.