A/N: A little short something to celebrate for you all. Did you know that Halloween originated as a celebration for the dead, as All Hollow's Eve? I think it's sweet to remember stuff like that. Especially with the chance it presents to visit dead members of the family while dressed up as a ghost or something. Anyway. Happy Halloween, and I hope you like this non-canon skit.
-Crystalwatcher
-/LINE BREAK WILL BE WITH YOU SHORTLY\-
"Hey, Anastasia, you ready?!"
"Almost. Just getting the petals on." You stuff your hair into the rim of the headpiece.
"Hurry up then, we're all going to be out in the motor pool when you're done!" And with that, you hear Sega clomp off through the October mud. The chill from the tent entrance rolling swiftly across your back.
Standing, the petals of your headdress shudder and sway through the air. The rest of your skin tight costume making it rather easy to keep said petals out of the way, even with the awkwardness of the pincer mittens on your hands. The rainbow-colored petals were large enough they sagged around your beaming face like they were depressed.
It's cute, you think.
Fully dressed up, you quickly scurry from the tent yourself and out into the chilly air of Firebase Momo.
Most of everyone was dressed up in one costume or another, even the soldiers currently stuck on duty instead of enjoying the Halloween celebrations. Thanks to magic, there were floating jack'o'lanterns, fake will-o-the-whisps, and even cheesy ghosts floating around as well. With a bit of explanation, even the Fairy, Elf, and Angel encampments were joining in on the festivities, dressing up their own camps similarly to the Human base.
And by the base motor pool, dozens of mechanics were working together to make a make-shift haunted house out of tarps, smoke machines, and the parked rows of tanks. Last you saw him, even Commander Mason was helping out with it all.
"Nepgear! Over here!" You turn, and find your group gathered beside a collapsible table set up next to Rei's hummer.
Said overpowered Magical Girl is dressed in an elaborate kimono dressed up to look like a burial gown. Beside her, Ichi and Ni are setting up a massive selection of pies and treats across the table with a bit of help from Ni's skeletal Spawn, one wearing a large carved pumpkin on it's head.
James, Sam, and Mike are all dressed like necromorphs from that new space-horror game that never got a sequel thanks to the War. Gabriel is working with Lucky to dress up the hummer with Halloween paraphernalia, the Angel with her wings temporarily died black, with a lot more makeup making her look as if massive portions of her body were ready to rot off at any second. Your Fairy companion on the other hand had decided to dress up in the most over the top fairy costume you've
ever seen: Extra glitter on her wings, soft -almost sheer- green mini dress, with fluffy wig and antenna hairband.
From there is your sister and Rev, both dressed up in matching Witchblade costumes that barely covered anything, and talking excitedly about something. Uni, beside them, is dressed up like a dark elf bandit from Dungeons & Dragons and trying to diffuse whatever plan your sister was getting up to. Alex and San, the last two, were setting up some punch on a second table you missed during your first pass over. Alex is dressed in a cheesy witch costume that made her seem almost three times 'bigger' then she actually was -which was saying something- while San in turn had dressed herself up like Storm from the X-Men.
You blink, "Wow. I almost feel like I have the worst costume here." You give Rei a quick hug as she pulls you over to join the mass of femininity and manliness that was your family and friends. "Am I too late?"
"You're not." A new commanding voice draws everyone's attention as Commander Mason swaggers - literally swaggers - up to you all. The man has most of his muscular body painted blue, with darker blue pants held up by a red sash and brown shoes. He grins with white teeth, "You all know your roles?"
Gabriel jumps up, throwing a hand into the air. "Oh, oh! We're supposed to be the guides through the Haunted House, right?"
"Correct, you're in pairs. The path through is going to be pretty simple, just two turns. If anything goes wrong, there's short cuts out of the path." He points out the openings in the slowly growing plasterboard walls. "Any questions?"
"Nah, we got it." Sega gives him a thumbs-up. "Nothing will go wrong with us here!"
You facepalm.
-/
LINE
BREAK
IDENTIFIED
(Like my Halloween Costume?)\-
Everything starts going wrong almost immediately.
First is Sega and Rev's group. A collection of male fairies, and another Magical Girl you don't know, dressed up as a clown. No one tells you exactly what happened, but after twenty minutes of them not coming out of the five minute haunted house, some other soldiers go in after them to find out what happened. There was a lot of screaming, a shout from Sega that sounded something like
"Perverts!" And an explosion that ended with almost a dozen unconscious fairy mages.
Some quick repairs, and then Lucky and Gabriel are next: This time leading a mixed gender group of various elves, humans, and a single Angel into the 'house'. You learn quickly that someone forgot to mention that Magical Girl-based scares were forbidden due to Lucky's...
experiences. You learn this when Lucky's inarticulate high-pitched scream proceeds the sudden formation of a micro-twister that literally blows the roof off the makeshift house, and sends everyone inside sprawling over the motor pool.
After Some Quick Repairs 2.0 and the removal of the trigger scare, Alex and San lead their own group in.
When San is the only one to come out after the run, without any clue as to what happened to the rest of her group, it leads to another 'rescue' mission into the 'house'. Where you discover that Gaia had somehow managed to join the group and add her own magical touches to the haunted house, expanding the space within into a maze of illusionary scares that left a good half of the tour group gibbering wrecks talking about 'the walls have bleeding eyes', and how 'Ulyoth is coming for us all!'. Alex on the other hand somehow struck up a friendship with the fake Slaeenesh. No one wants to contemplate how that would have ended.
A bit of effort from Lucky and Sam to... undo most of Gaia's additions, leads to him, James and Michael leading in their own group.
No one noticed most of the tour group were female Angels until the three of them escaped with most of their costumes torn off and covered in kiss marks, followed by a herd of squealing angels.
Thankfully since there was no other damage to the actual house, you and Uni manage to get your own group in without any delay. The other Magical Girl leading from the front as you follow, clicking away with your fake claws as she steadily leads them through the expanded maze, and through nearly a dozen rather tame scares. It's near the exit when your problem rears it's ugly head.
A leftover enchantment from Gaia somehow animates a statue of some angel that you had all passed. The problem? It was dressed up like familiar stone angel statues from a show that you had once upon a time watched almost religiously with your older sister. A show with a little blue box that was bigger on the inside. So when your improved hearing caught onto the slight scraping sound of stone against asphalt behind you, your reaction to turning around is somewhat reasonable...
ish.
BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM
-/
LINE
BREAK
IDENTIFIED
(Like my Halloween Costume?)\-
"I'm sorry... I ruined it for everyone." You sit, curled up, on a folding chair as Sega tries her best to comfort you. Someone else, likely James knowing him, would have been there to help out, but the rest of the group had been pulled away to help put out the remaining fires from you blowing the haunted house literally sky-high, and rendering the entire portion of the motor pool into a literally smoking crater.
Gaia's avatar is rolling across the ground laughing her magical ass off at the results of her 'prank', likely only because no one had been seriously hurt by your reflexive doom blast of the fake weeping angel. Rei wasn't helping much either, having joined the consciousness of the Earth in laughing herself silly.
"No, it's not your fault. Besides, with the way everything was going, something like this was bound to happen sooner or later. Either by design or luck." Your sister gives the best warm hugs. "It's just bad luck it happened with you. That's all. We can try again next year."
The inferno spreads to another tank, lighting off the gas tank -somehow- and causing it to explode as well. Thinking over her words, you nod before leaning into her hug.
"That would be nice." Michael's plastic necromorph claw bursts into flames, from where he strays too close to the fires. The poor man shakes his arm in a panic, trying to put it out. "We can invite everyone then!"
