Quote:
Takes place after this solo of Tress' (Poinsettias from the Past) and this solo of Ginyami's (Pesky Poinsettias Require Research) and alludes to the 2016 Destiny City Botanical Garden’s Holiday Extravaganza
2025 Winter Holiday Prompt
Winter Star Poinsettias: (6) : Poinsettias are common during the winter seasons, so it isn't unusual to see them decorating windowsills and local establishments. What is unusual are the unique Winter Star Poinsettias that seem to have accidentally mixed into the bunch. They look like ordinary Poinsettias reflecting a bit of glow from nearby lights--only, the leaves themselves are emitting a soft, silvery glow. They look like they are covered with a fine morning dew, only with fine silver glitter peppered in to give it a unique sparkle. They seem to have gone unnoticed by most of Destiny City and the landscapers, and it's not clear how these plants were selected, but anyone with a keen eye might recognize them as the catastrophe of Destiny City Botanical Garden's 2016 Winter Extravaganza. Thankfully, these variants are far less dangerous than their counterparts, however, these plants have a strange pollen that acts like an allergen and can cause agitation, oversensitivity, and sneezing to anything with much of a strong smell. Anyone who comes into contact with these plants may also find themselves suffering from flu-like symptoms such as fever, coughing, fatigue, and nausea and no medicine will relieve it, but the symptoms gradually fade. The leaves of the poinsettia are sharp and can sting like a papercut, so be careful! ...If you're worried about an all-out attack again, it might be a good idea to destroy these poinsettias--if you can manage to do so without getting caught.
Ginyami pulled into the front parking lot of a Destiny City library when he thought he caught sight of someone taking a potted poinsettia around to the back. Curious, Ginyami decided to follow them as discreetly as he could in his car and found out that the plant-holder was a ginger-haired woman. He parked his car in the back parking lot a little ways from what must have been the woman’s car as she took the poinsettia and set it down in the car’s open trunk. From his place behind her, Ginyami thought he could see some books and a laptop playing a video also visible in the trunk of the car.
As he watched, the woman looked around - causing Ginyami to duck down in order to avoid being seen - and then went inside her car to do something. When she came out again a few minutes later, her attire had completely changed. It looked much more military-esque. Had she potentially powered up…? Was she a Negaverse agent like himself?
Deciding to find out for himself, Ginyami ducked down in his car again to make his own quick transformation into Lieutenant Actinolite before sitting back up to observe the woman. He tried to get a read on her energy signature and, sure enough, she was a Negaverse agent. What was more was that she was a low-ranking lieutenant like himself. Perhaps that was why she had been what Actinolite perceived as being so careless in her activities, not bothering to really hide what she was doing. Well…maybe it was about time he let her know she had really ought to have been more discreet with her business if she had meant for it to be private.
Forsterite startled a bit when she heard a car door slam some distance behind her and whirled around instantly to find a very finely-dressed, smiling man in a dark business suit with pale green accents and smoke patterns. At first she feared he was a civilian, but after quickly taking a moment to check his energy signature, she realized he was a Negaverse lieutenant like herself. What was he coming up to her for, though?
Then her gaze passed over the poinsettias in the front seat of his car. Could he have come to the Destiny City library to research the same point of the city’s history that she meant to? It didn’t seem unlikely.
"Hello," she greeted a little stiffly, still unsure how to treat the stranger. His smile seemed friendly enough, but something about it put her on her guard. It was too practiced; too used to being worn as a default expression. She didn’t trust anyone with a smile as cheerful and friendly as his as their default expression. "Can I help you?"
Aware by her body language that the woman was wary of him, Actinolite chuckled softly at her greeting, putting his hands in his pockets. "No need to be concerned. I was only curious as to what you were doing," he explained, strolling up to her until he was about a foot away. He nodded toward the contents of her trunk.
"You seem to be conducting quite a bit of research. Might I ask what about?" At her hesitation, he added, "I could be wrong, but it looked to me as though you were as suspicious of these poinsettias as I was. Is there something about them you know that I don’t?" In all honesty, he hadn’t known the first place to start looking when it came to researching the flora. He hadn’t even realized they had been that much different from the other poinsettias until he had purchased them and started to take them home, so he hadn’t thought that they might have been a different breed, much less that that particular breed might have had a name or history within Destiny City.
Well, however unnerving the man was, he was also polite, at least.
"Yes, I was researching these poinsettias," she confirmed, gesturing to the plants without touching them. "Specifically, the Winter Star Poinsettias. They were first introduced as a new hybrid to Destiny City at the Destiny City Botanical Gardens in 2016. There was actually a huge event that occurred for their unveiling - one that went horribly wrong," Forsterite explained.
"But before all that…I’m Lieutenant Forsterite. I came to Destiny City shortly after that whole incident regarding the introduction of the Winter Star Poinsettias which is why I was aware of them. I hadn’t seen them in years and had thought they had all been destroyed. At least until I recognized them at the grocery store today."
She raised a brow. "And you are? Not to be rude, but I’m not one to beat around the bush. Who are you and what’s your interest in these plants?"
"Ah, my deepest apologies, Lieutenant Forsterite; I forgot to introduce myself," he said, bowing at the waist. "I am Lieutenant Actinolite. I’m grateful you know so much about these poinsettias because I’m quite new to this city as well as the Negaverse organization, so of course I wouldn’t have been aware of such an event that occurred with these particular kinds of poinsettias nine years ago," he admitted. "That’s despite being a plant lover and something of an expert due to my family owning a chain of plants shops in Japan."
The Japanese man took a hand out of his pocket to gesture with it. "I only know I mistook them for the ordinary kind this morning only to realize on the way home that they are actually quite the nuisance." His smile faded and the skin between his brows pinched in consternation. "Would you mind me asking what else you’ve found out about these plants and how much you know? May I aid you in your research?"
Lieutenant Actinolite. Forsterite silently committed the name to memory among the others of the Negaverse whose owners she had met. "You may," she answered his question. "I don’t trust my memory of what I’d heard and seen from so long ago, so I decided to look up what news articles and videos of the event that I could. There was an immense amount of media coverage, so I have a lot to work with, but it’ll be a big help if you can assist me in sifting through all of it to get the facts we need about the poinsettias themselves."
Taking out a USB flash drive, she offered it to him. "Here are some of the clips of news reports and footage regarding the event. Some scanned articles are in there, too. If you could look through those and start making a list of your findings, we can compare what we’ve both found out later and culminate a report based on both of our research."
"That’s all very well and good," Actinolite said, accepting the USB drive, "But why, if I may ask, did you power up just now? Was that really necessary simply to do a little research?"
Forsterite fixed him with a hard stare. "You might understand once you read more about these things and realize what, exactly, we’re dealing with, here. I didn’t want to take any chances after what I’d heard about what had happened at the Destiny City Botanical Garden’s 2016 Winter Extravaganza."
Deciding to trust her better-informed judgement, Actinolite stayed powered up as he took the USB drive he had been given back to his car, got out the laptop he carried around with him for work and university, and plugged the drive in.
He and Forsterite spent the next several hours in the parking lot of the library reading through articles, watching videos, listening to podcasts, and absorbing as much information on the event and the plants as they could. They took notes down and eventually made a comparison so they could write up a cumulative list of the information they had gathered once they had finished reviewing all the material they could find covering the subject.
What they came up with was the following, written mostly by Actinolite who wished to have a deeper understanding of the series of events that occurred by writing the report:
Report on the Winter Star Poinsettias
The Winter Star Poinsettias were a new hybrid plant first introduced to Destiny City at the Destiny City Botanical Gardens in 2016, though it was not known who discovered or created them, how they were discovered or created, or for what purpose. After the introduction event that included the new hybrids attacking guests at the gardens, all the Winter Star Poinsettias were thought to have been destroyed. Either some had survived or were regrown in order for them to make a new appearance and be sold once again during the winter season of 2025.
The 2016 Destiny City Botanical Garden’s Holiday Extravaganza started off as a calm nighttime event that occurred at the Destiny City Botanical Gardens with students encouraged to attend to write reports and press covering the new Winter Star Poinsettias. The plants were being sold to the general public for $10. All proceeds were supposed to go towards maintaining the gardens and the research of the existing and new plants. It was said at the time that the plants were ‘available first-come, first-serve’, and ‘would not be sold after that event’. There was a purchase limit of two per person.
Upon purchase, one could receive a receipt and a ticket stub, the latter of which could be exchanged at any of the stalls set up with individual, planted poinsettias whenever the buyer was ready to take their plant home. This ensured that guests could enjoy their evening at the Holiday Extravaganza without having to carry around the plant they had purchased. In addition to the stalls of individual plants, a display nearly 20 feet tall and shaped like a Christmas tree had been set up center stage to show off the Winter Star Poinsettias.
The characteristics of the Winter Star Poinsettias at the time were:
- A vibrant, rich red color of the uppermost leaves called bracts that pretended to be petals
- A soft, silvery glow that looked like morning dew, only with fine, silver glitter that gave it a unique sparkle
- A softness described as being ‘softer than a rabbit’s fur’
- A warmth to the shrubs despite the winter chill
There were some reports that said the more people that gathered, the more poinsettias seemed to sparkle. A certain amount of people may have been the trigger for the changes that occurred in the shrubs soon after.
As the night went on and more people attended the event, the characteristics of the Winter Star Poinsettias began to change:
- The silver glow of the poinsettias would discreetly turn pink, and then drift back to silver in most instances.
- Eventually, one began to glow a vibrant red that made the one next to it glow the same and then the one next to that until they were all glowing the same, vibrant red.
- Once glowing red, the poinsettias moved - leaves wriggled first, then they twisted and writhed.
- Small but strong vines shot out from the plants.
- Every poinsettia began to reach toward the nearest living people or animals.
- Some poinsettia shivered and then twisted so vigorously that they pulled themselves out of their pots.
- Their roots spread like limbs and they seemed off-balance at first, but after a few attempts, each plant learned how to move.
- When coming into contact with a living creature, the poinsettias wrapped their vines around their victims and began to glow as they sapped energy from them, often causing them to become lightheaded or dizzy.
In response to this transformation, the guests attending the event either ran and hid or tried to fight the shrubs off with their bare hands. Some were more successful than others. Though it wasn’t immediately apparent what the poinsettias’ goal was or what they were doing, they didn’t appear to be hurting anyone at that point in time. However, they did wrap their vines around anyone they could reach and glowed as soon as they made contact, absorbing energy from whomever they touched.
Upon absorbing energy, the characteristics of the Winter Star Poinsettias began to change again:
- As the victims of the poinsettias had their energy absorbed and grew pale, the bracts or specialized leaves often mistaken for petals also grew pale until they turned white.
- As they absorbed energy and the bracts grew white, at the center of the bracts where the true, tiny poinsettia flowers were, a strange, silver ball began to form that was presumably composed of collected energy.
- The silver orbs of collected energy grew to about the size of an egg before they detached from the poinsettias that had collected them and floated toward the Christmas tree-shaped display of poinsettias.
The Christmas tree-shaped display of poinsettias seemed to be an entire entity all its own. The poinsettias making up that tree formation seemed to transform in a different way than the others:
- The Christmas tree-shaped display of poinsettias was different from the individual shrubs in that it didn’t move from its place or out of formation to gather energy.
- Instead, the vines of the poinsettias that were part of the Christmas tree-shaped display shot out twisted together to link all the plants of the display.
- Once the white orbs of energy floated from the energy-gathering poinsettias toward the Christmas tree formation, the leaves of the poinsettias that were part of the tree formation became stained a permanent white.
- The softness of the leaves of the tree formation poinsettias also disappeared immediately as a result of absorbing the energy and their ‘petals’ or the bracts became razor sharp - sharp enough to cut through skin and fabric.
- Once the tree formation poinsettias’ leaves had changed to white, they no longer glistened.
- Instead, the tree formation poinsettias’ leaves just had a slick, white texture and razor edges.
- At this stage, the tree formation poinsettias were thought to have gathered all the energy they could and were using it to attack the guests of the event for unknown reasons.
- The tree formation poinsettias were said to seem angry and hostile; attacking without mercy, wrapping vines around anything they could, and slashing with their newly-sharpened leaves.
By then, even more people had decided to run and hide, but more people decided to fight back the plants, too, and even enlisted the aid of weapons to help them fight back. Guests everywhere were getting swarmed and attacked quicker than ever by energy-draining poinsettias and then also by angry, sharp ones as well that sliced, slashed, cut, and pricked.
It is important to note that though the leaves of both kinds turned from red to white as soon as they received energy, there were two kinds of poinsettia attacking: the energy-drainers and the hostile, razor-sharp attackers. The poinsettias that were not part of the tree display continued to only drain energy. However, the poinsettias that were part of the tree display absorbed that energy from the energy-drainers to become hostile and attack with razor sharp leaves instead.
Eventually, most of the Winter Star Poinsettias seemed to have gathered their energy quota, causing them to turn a ghostly white while the aggression of the plants that were part of the tree formation peaked. They came in full force and it seemed like there was almost no end to them.
Furthermore, there was a new change that began to take place:
- The tree formation poinsettias were all brimming with energy as determined by how they pulsed with the light of the energy they collected.
- An electric hum filled the air so loudly that the noise was described as being almost ear-splitting.
- The whole tree display of Winter Star poinsettias shifted and wriggled, moving as one.
- All of the poinsettias, even the ones not part of the tree display, seemed to sway with the rest.
- At that point, poinsettia sap was also everywhere.
- Poinsettia pollen also made it hard for many people to breathe.
People were still attacking the poinsettias as best they could - both the ones that were part of the tree display and the individual shrubs. Many were cut up, light-headed, dizzy, and finding it hard to breathe. Still, many guests sensed that it was time to take a stand because it was clear that the poinsettias that were part of the tree formation were going to do something drastic. Some people played dead, but no one hid any longer. However, no matter how many of the poinsettias were felled, it didn’t seem to be enough.
At the climax of the event:
- The tree formation of poinsettias seemed to be growing.
- The orbs of light that consisted of gathered energy were collecting at the top of the tree formation.
- The tree formation looked like it was about to fire a beam of energy right into space.
Just as the tree formation seemed ready to fire its beam, a new series of happenings occurred:
- There was some sort of electrical crackle in the air.
- All the poinsettias went rigid at the same time; stopped fighting, stopped moving, and began to twitch.
- All the poinsettias glowed brighter than ever before.
- Then the Winter Star poinsettias all began to explode, raining leaves, dirt, sap, and glittery pollen down on the guests.
- Although it was noisy, the explosions themselves were nearly painless even for anyone unfortunate enough to have been surrounded by the shrubs.
- The ray of energy exploded, sending a blinding white light across Destiny City.
When the light from the explosion faded, the sight that met everyone’s returning vision was that of Destiny City’s Botanical Gardens covered in snow-like sparkles. While it wasn’t clear what unnatural occurrence had just happened or why, it seemed to finally be over.
There were several side-effects left in the Winter Star Poinsettias’ wake or as a result of the event as a whole:
- Many guests that were drained still felt physically weak and off-balance. Some of them felt like the world was spinning so much that they were tempted to empty their stomachs.
- Winter Star Poinsettia sap was sticky and left an uncomfortable rash in its wake.
- Winter Star Poinsettia pollen had a strange smell.
- Some people complained that the bright lights affected their vision.
- Many people were bleeding and had sustained injuries from the sharp-leaved poinsettias.
Paramedics were dispatched and sent to tend to the injured and otherwise affected survivors of the attack. Fortunately, there were no casualties and guests were free to enjoy what remained of the gardens or to go home or to the hospital.
There was no sign of any powered beings from any faction during the entirety of the event, so no powered faction could be definitively considered innocent or blamed for the attack because powered beings of all factions who were in attendance were targeted equally as the poinsettias’ victims. Though the Winter Star Poinsettias seemed to absorb energy similar to the way that the chaos factions of the Negaverse and the Dark Mirror Court seemed to, there’s no evidence against the concept that this may have been the White Moon Court’s method of doing the same and absorbing energy for themselves.
Regardless of who was responsible for the events of the 2016 Destiny City Botanical Garden’s Holiday Extravaganza, plants fitting the same description of the Winter Star Poinsettias were discovered to be for sale around Destiny City once more in the year 2025.
The poinsettias of 2025 have the following characteristics:
- A soft, silvery glow
- A fine, silver glitter that looks like morning dew
- Leaves sharp enough to cut and sting like a papercut
- Pollen which causes symptoms that no medicine can cure
Despite the fact that the 2025 variety have not yet been reported to move, grow vines, absorb energy, turn hostile, or attack people, the fact that their leaves are already sharp rather than soft like the ones from 2016 is concerning.
Worse, however, seems to be the effects of the 2025 variety’s pollen which causes a number of symptoms that are unable to be alleviated or cured by any medicine.
The strange pollen:
- Acts like an allergen
- Can cause agitation
- Can cause oversensitivity
- Can cause sneezing to anything with much of a strong sense of smell
Furthermore, coming into contact with poinsettias at all does not cause ones’ energy to be drained as far as one can tell, but the person who comes into contact with them may suffer the following flu-like symptoms:
- Fever
- Coughing
- Fatigue
- Nausea
It is important to note that while no medicine is known to relieve or cure these symptoms, they will gradually fade with time.
If the Winter Star Poinsettias of any kind are found, it is encouraged to dispose of them as quickly and thoroughly as possible to prevent a possible recurrence of the events of the 2016 Destiny City Botanical Garden’s Holiday Extravaganza Winter Star Poinsettia attack.
The 2016 Destiny City Botanical Garden’s Holiday Extravaganza started off as a calm nighttime event that occurred at the Destiny City Botanical Gardens with students encouraged to attend to write reports and press covering the new Winter Star Poinsettias. The plants were being sold to the general public for $10. All proceeds were supposed to go towards maintaining the gardens and the research of the existing and new plants. It was said at the time that the plants were ‘available first-come, first-serve’, and ‘would not be sold after that event’. There was a purchase limit of two per person.
Upon purchase, one could receive a receipt and a ticket stub, the latter of which could be exchanged at any of the stalls set up with individual, planted poinsettias whenever the buyer was ready to take their plant home. This ensured that guests could enjoy their evening at the Holiday Extravaganza without having to carry around the plant they had purchased. In addition to the stalls of individual plants, a display nearly 20 feet tall and shaped like a Christmas tree had been set up center stage to show off the Winter Star Poinsettias.
The characteristics of the Winter Star Poinsettias at the time were:
- A vibrant, rich red color of the uppermost leaves called bracts that pretended to be petals
- A soft, silvery glow that looked like morning dew, only with fine, silver glitter that gave it a unique sparkle
- A softness described as being ‘softer than a rabbit’s fur’
- A warmth to the shrubs despite the winter chill
There were some reports that said the more people that gathered, the more poinsettias seemed to sparkle. A certain amount of people may have been the trigger for the changes that occurred in the shrubs soon after.
As the night went on and more people attended the event, the characteristics of the Winter Star Poinsettias began to change:
- The silver glow of the poinsettias would discreetly turn pink, and then drift back to silver in most instances.
- Eventually, one began to glow a vibrant red that made the one next to it glow the same and then the one next to that until they were all glowing the same, vibrant red.
- Once glowing red, the poinsettias moved - leaves wriggled first, then they twisted and writhed.
- Small but strong vines shot out from the plants.
- Every poinsettia began to reach toward the nearest living people or animals.
- Some poinsettia shivered and then twisted so vigorously that they pulled themselves out of their pots.
- Their roots spread like limbs and they seemed off-balance at first, but after a few attempts, each plant learned how to move.
- When coming into contact with a living creature, the poinsettias wrapped their vines around their victims and began to glow as they sapped energy from them, often causing them to become lightheaded or dizzy.
In response to this transformation, the guests attending the event either ran and hid or tried to fight the shrubs off with their bare hands. Some were more successful than others. Though it wasn’t immediately apparent what the poinsettias’ goal was or what they were doing, they didn’t appear to be hurting anyone at that point in time. However, they did wrap their vines around anyone they could reach and glowed as soon as they made contact, absorbing energy from whomever they touched.
Upon absorbing energy, the characteristics of the Winter Star Poinsettias began to change again:
- As the victims of the poinsettias had their energy absorbed and grew pale, the bracts or specialized leaves often mistaken for petals also grew pale until they turned white.
- As they absorbed energy and the bracts grew white, at the center of the bracts where the true, tiny poinsettia flowers were, a strange, silver ball began to form that was presumably composed of collected energy.
- The silver orbs of collected energy grew to about the size of an egg before they detached from the poinsettias that had collected them and floated toward the Christmas tree-shaped display of poinsettias.
The Christmas tree-shaped display of poinsettias seemed to be an entire entity all its own. The poinsettias making up that tree formation seemed to transform in a different way than the others:
- The Christmas tree-shaped display of poinsettias was different from the individual shrubs in that it didn’t move from its place or out of formation to gather energy.
- Instead, the vines of the poinsettias that were part of the Christmas tree-shaped display shot out twisted together to link all the plants of the display.
- Once the white orbs of energy floated from the energy-gathering poinsettias toward the Christmas tree formation, the leaves of the poinsettias that were part of the tree formation became stained a permanent white.
- The softness of the leaves of the tree formation poinsettias also disappeared immediately as a result of absorbing the energy and their ‘petals’ or the bracts became razor sharp - sharp enough to cut through skin and fabric.
- Once the tree formation poinsettias’ leaves had changed to white, they no longer glistened.
- Instead, the tree formation poinsettias’ leaves just had a slick, white texture and razor edges.
- At this stage, the tree formation poinsettias were thought to have gathered all the energy they could and were using it to attack the guests of the event for unknown reasons.
- The tree formation poinsettias were said to seem angry and hostile; attacking without mercy, wrapping vines around anything they could, and slashing with their newly-sharpened leaves.
By then, even more people had decided to run and hide, but more people decided to fight back the plants, too, and even enlisted the aid of weapons to help them fight back. Guests everywhere were getting swarmed and attacked quicker than ever by energy-draining poinsettias and then also by angry, sharp ones as well that sliced, slashed, cut, and pricked.
It is important to note that though the leaves of both kinds turned from red to white as soon as they received energy, there were two kinds of poinsettia attacking: the energy-drainers and the hostile, razor-sharp attackers. The poinsettias that were not part of the tree display continued to only drain energy. However, the poinsettias that were part of the tree display absorbed that energy from the energy-drainers to become hostile and attack with razor sharp leaves instead.
Eventually, most of the Winter Star Poinsettias seemed to have gathered their energy quota, causing them to turn a ghostly white while the aggression of the plants that were part of the tree formation peaked. They came in full force and it seemed like there was almost no end to them.
Furthermore, there was a new change that began to take place:
- The tree formation poinsettias were all brimming with energy as determined by how they pulsed with the light of the energy they collected.
- An electric hum filled the air so loudly that the noise was described as being almost ear-splitting.
- The whole tree display of Winter Star poinsettias shifted and wriggled, moving as one.
- All of the poinsettias, even the ones not part of the tree display, seemed to sway with the rest.
- At that point, poinsettia sap was also everywhere.
- Poinsettia pollen also made it hard for many people to breathe.
People were still attacking the poinsettias as best they could - both the ones that were part of the tree display and the individual shrubs. Many were cut up, light-headed, dizzy, and finding it hard to breathe. Still, many guests sensed that it was time to take a stand because it was clear that the poinsettias that were part of the tree formation were going to do something drastic. Some people played dead, but no one hid any longer. However, no matter how many of the poinsettias were felled, it didn’t seem to be enough.
At the climax of the event:
- The tree formation of poinsettias seemed to be growing.
- The orbs of light that consisted of gathered energy were collecting at the top of the tree formation.
- The tree formation looked like it was about to fire a beam of energy right into space.
Just as the tree formation seemed ready to fire its beam, a new series of happenings occurred:
- There was some sort of electrical crackle in the air.
- All the poinsettias went rigid at the same time; stopped fighting, stopped moving, and began to twitch.
- All the poinsettias glowed brighter than ever before.
- Then the Winter Star poinsettias all began to explode, raining leaves, dirt, sap, and glittery pollen down on the guests.
- Although it was noisy, the explosions themselves were nearly painless even for anyone unfortunate enough to have been surrounded by the shrubs.
- The ray of energy exploded, sending a blinding white light across Destiny City.
When the light from the explosion faded, the sight that met everyone’s returning vision was that of Destiny City’s Botanical Gardens covered in snow-like sparkles. While it wasn’t clear what unnatural occurrence had just happened or why, it seemed to finally be over.
There were several side-effects left in the Winter Star Poinsettias’ wake or as a result of the event as a whole:
- Many guests that were drained still felt physically weak and off-balance. Some of them felt like the world was spinning so much that they were tempted to empty their stomachs.
- Winter Star Poinsettia sap was sticky and left an uncomfortable rash in its wake.
- Winter Star Poinsettia pollen had a strange smell.
- Some people complained that the bright lights affected their vision.
- Many people were bleeding and had sustained injuries from the sharp-leaved poinsettias.
Paramedics were dispatched and sent to tend to the injured and otherwise affected survivors of the attack. Fortunately, there were no casualties and guests were free to enjoy what remained of the gardens or to go home or to the hospital.
There was no sign of any powered beings from any faction during the entirety of the event, so no powered faction could be definitively considered innocent or blamed for the attack because powered beings of all factions who were in attendance were targeted equally as the poinsettias’ victims. Though the Winter Star Poinsettias seemed to absorb energy similar to the way that the chaos factions of the Negaverse and the Dark Mirror Court seemed to, there’s no evidence against the concept that this may have been the White Moon Court’s method of doing the same and absorbing energy for themselves.
Regardless of who was responsible for the events of the 2016 Destiny City Botanical Garden’s Holiday Extravaganza, plants fitting the same description of the Winter Star Poinsettias were discovered to be for sale around Destiny City once more in the year 2025.
The poinsettias of 2025 have the following characteristics:
- A soft, silvery glow
- A fine, silver glitter that looks like morning dew
- Leaves sharp enough to cut and sting like a papercut
- Pollen which causes symptoms that no medicine can cure
Despite the fact that the 2025 variety have not yet been reported to move, grow vines, absorb energy, turn hostile, or attack people, the fact that their leaves are already sharp rather than soft like the ones from 2016 is concerning.
Worse, however, seems to be the effects of the 2025 variety’s pollen which causes a number of symptoms that are unable to be alleviated or cured by any medicine.
The strange pollen:
- Acts like an allergen
- Can cause agitation
- Can cause oversensitivity
- Can cause sneezing to anything with much of a strong sense of smell
Furthermore, coming into contact with poinsettias at all does not cause ones’ energy to be drained as far as one can tell, but the person who comes into contact with them may suffer the following flu-like symptoms:
- Fever
- Coughing
- Fatigue
- Nausea
It is important to note that while no medicine is known to relieve or cure these symptoms, they will gradually fade with time.
If the Winter Star Poinsettias of any kind are found, it is encouraged to dispose of them as quickly and thoroughly as possible to prevent a possible recurrence of the events of the 2016 Destiny City Botanical Garden’s Holiday Extravaganza Winter Star Poinsettia attack.
Once both Actinolite and Forsterite had looked over the report several times and were satisfied with their work, Actinolite said he would turn in the report based on their research to their superiors in the Negaverse the next chance he got. Forsterite agreed that would be best and offered to take care of Actinolite’s Winter Star Poinsettia along with her own by finding a way to destroy them.
"If I may," Actinolite said, taking Forsterite’s shrub from her trunk instead, "I think I have a solution to our problems right here."
Placing both their Winter Star Poinsettias side by side on the parking lot asphalt, Actinolite took his lighter from his car and set fire to both plants, watching them along with Forsterite as the harmful things burned to cinders and ash.
"You said you’re new to Destiny City," Forsterite said, powering down as the last of the cinders finished smoldering. "And that you like plants. My civilian name is Tress Gervene. I am also an avid lover of plants and a gardener." Smiling, she held out her hand to him. "Pleased to meet you, mister…?"
"Ginyami Midorimori," Actinolite replied, powering down as well. "But please, call me ‘Yami’. All my friends do and it’s much less of a mouthful." He smiled, shook her hand, and bowed. "Thank you for your help, Miss Gervene. It was a pleasure working with you."
"Just ‘Tress’ is fine if we’re going to be on a first-name basis. And the pleasure was all mine, Yami. Thank you for your help as well," Tress answered, bowing slightly back, as she wasn’t quite accustomed to it. "Now that that’s taken care of, let’s hope nothing more comes of this, hmm? Take care and I hope to see you around."
"Same to you," Ginyami said, beaming as he raised his hand in farewell. Then he got in his car and drove off while Tress did the same.
