'Sup ya'll. The annual onslaught of Christmas specials has started on TV, so I figured I might as well post this. I actually wrote this last year (the day after Christmas... heh) but I didn't post it here until now because... I didn't feel like it, I guess?
If you clicked on this and you haven't read my other story, Magical Appuruchan, DO IT DO IT DO IT.
T'was two days before Starry Night and on Voice Farm, Kyona was sitting and she had an arm.
… Shut up.
The mayor was visiting for a chat, and he was doing so at the table with Akari. Zack was in out on a walk with a dog he had befriended and taken in as a pet. Kyona was in the living room, lazily flipping through a volume of a manga she had taken interest in.
"By the way, Kyona, what do you want 'Santa' to bring you for Starry Night Festival?" the mayor asked, having finished his discussion with Akari.
Not long ago on Castanet, the Starry Night Festival simply meant a night for gazing at the stars with a love interest. In an attempt to emulate other towns and improve morale, however, the mayor declared that the night before Starry Night, "Santa Claus" would deliver presents to all the good people of Castanet. Provided they had a sock hung, that is.
"Mm?" Kyona grumbled. "Oh," she quickly stood up and took a deep breath. "I want a Sparkle Laser Hearts gun. A toy replica of the weapon Loli Princess uses." The mayor blinked. He paused for a minute, trying to comprehend her request.
"You'll shoot your eye out," he finally said, dismissively.
"But… but… it doesn't even fire real ammunition! It just shoots pink Styrofoam balls!" Kyona protested, but it was clear Mayor Hamilton was not listening. She huffed and stomped up to her room, being sure to slam the door behind her.
"Can you believe that!" Kyona said. "'shoot my eye out'… feh! He just doesn't want to spend money on me. He'll probably give me a gold ore or something lame like that. I bet he's giving everyone else awesome gifts!" Gary flew up from the bed, where he'd been napping.
"Shall I cater to your selfish desires?" He asked, sarcastically; in case you couldn't tell. Kyona smirked.
"Why, yes, you shall. Now you're getting how it works around here," she replied, obliviously. "If I can't have what I want for Starry Night, no one can! Have what… they want, that is."
And Gary was reminded of why he hates his life.
Kyona worked into the late hours of the night, making her costume for her plan.
The next night, on the eve of Starry Night, as the clock struck eight, she was ready to set out.
A ghostly light appeared in her room. She looked around to see Tom.
"'Sup?" he said.
"Uh, hey, Tom. Didn't you pass over to the other side, or something?" Kyona asked.
"Yeah, but your dad's boss asked me to deliver a message," Tom explained.
"Oh. Well, what is it?" Kyona asked. Tom cleared his throat and spoke in a booming, threatening voice.
"KYONA! TONIGHT, YOU WILL BE VISITED BY THREE GHOSTS." He said.
"What? But why?" Kyona asked.
"SHUT UP AND LISTEN. ANYWAYS, AT NINE, YOU WILL BE VISITED BY THE GHOST OF CONTINUITIES PAST. HE'S KIND OF HARD TO UNDERSTAND, BUT I THINK YOU'LL GET THE POINT," Tom began.
"Wait, wait, wait, continuities? Shouldn't I be visited by the ghost of Starry Night past?" Kyona asked.
"THEY'RE BUSY. SOMETHING ABOUT AN OLD MISER GUY. AT TEN, YOU WILL BE VISITED BY THE GHOST OF CONTINUITIES PRESENT. DO NOT ASK FOR A GIFT FROM HIM, IT'S NOT THAT KIND OF PRESENT." Kyona was picking her ear, hardly paying attention to this. "AT ELEVEN, YOU WILL BE VISITED BY THE GHOST OF CONTINUITIES YET-TO-COME. I DON'T REALLY HAVE ANYTHING TO SAY ABOUT THIS GUY, JUST WOW. HOLY SHIT. That's all. Bye!" And Tom disappeared again.
Kyona sat for a moment in contemplation, then shrugged it off and went back to work.
"No," Gary said, flatly.
"Aw, come on, Gary. Santa can't fly without her reindeer!" Kyona whined.
"No," Gary said again. "I am not having any part in this, and I'm not wearing that… thing. You do realize that reindeers have two antlers, right?" Kyona groaned.
"Fine. I'll do it myself," and so, she set off.
As Kyona walked along the snowy path, she saw a light with no evident source. In it, there appeared what seemed to be a wild man, dressed in a loin cloth, with slicked-back spikes for hair.
"Me Ghost of Continuities Past," He said.
"Uh… yup. Kinda figured." Kyona replied.
"Ghost of Continuities Past show you Starry Night of yester-year. Unless you have fish? I leave you alone if you give me fish," the ghost said.
"Um, nope. No fish," Kyona said. The ghost frowned.
"Oh well. Ghost of Continuities Past not supposed to take bribes, anyway. Come, we travel to past," The ghost grabbed hold of Kyona and whisked her away in a flash of light.
The next thing Kyona knew, everything was black and white. Because that's how the past is; black and white.
Kyona saw herself as a little girl, dressed in a simple dress, standing in Flute Fields.
"This before Starry Night change. You see, you happy back then," the ghost said. The little girl was dancing, trying to catch a star in her hands. "But then next year, everything change." In a flash, they went a year forward. "Your dad give you lots of gifts, get spoiled rotten."
Little Kyona was now sitting at a table, in front of a large pile of expensive-looking presents. She was giggling.
"I still look happy. I'm not seeing the problem," Kyona said.
"You only happy because you get gifts. Would have thrown a fit if not gotten them," the ghost said. "But before, you happy without gifts. You need learn to be happy without presents again." Kyona yawned.
"Are we done here? I'm on kind of a tight schedule," she said.
"Ghost of Continuities Past show you all he can. You go now," with another flash of light, Kyona was lying in the snow.
"… Did I fall asleep?" She wondered aloud. "Oh well."
Kyona hid in a bush as Hamilton closed one of the doors behind him.
"Psh, Santa. Who does he think he's fooling?" She muttered. She chose a side window and pried it open. She stepped in softly, and looked around in the darkness. She could just barely see four socks hanging over a fireplace.
But just as she set to work on the socks, there appeared little Angelica, who was no more than a month old. Which in this game's universe made her, like, two years old.
"Santa? Why are you taking our Starry Night socks?" she asked, in her tiny one month/two-year-old voice.
"I was… uh… just gonna take it to the North Pole… yeah. There's a hole in them… all of them," Kyona replied.
"Oh, okay," Angelica said. And then Kyona gave her some water and sent her to bed.
"Heh heh, kids are stupid," Kyona chuckled, plopping each sock into her empty bag.
But just as she was done with that obstacle, another appeared in its place, for just as Angelica was gone, a ghostly light shone in the room, and amidst it, a mysterious man with white hair, dark skin, and vaguely middle-eastern garb appeared.
"Who the heck are you?" Kyona demanded, shielding her eyes from the man's light.
"I am the ghost of continuity present," the man said. Kyona's eyes lit up.
"Present? Gimme gimme gimme!" She said, stretching her hands out, greedily. The man slapped them away.
"Not THAT kind of present, dammit," he said. "I'm going to show you the people whose Starry Night Festival you are going to ruin." He snapped his fingers and in a flash of light, they were at the house of the general store/photographer/archeologist family. They were all sitting at the table, enjoying a late night feast for Starry Night. The ghost pointed at Heath.
"See that boy there?" He said.
"Uh, yeah. That's Heath," Kyona replied.
"Yes. Little Heath, you see, is very, very stupid," the ghost continued.
"Well, duh. I could have told you that," Kyona said.
"But, you see, it's worse than you think. The boy needs an operation. An IQ transplant. Without it, he may not live long. I mean, he'll probably get his head stuck in a hornet's nest while exploring, or something. He's THAT stupid. But his family can't afford the operation. This could be his last Starry Night. Do you really want to ruin it for your own selfish desires?" The ghost said.
"Hmmm…" Kyona thought for a moment. "Yup!" she finally said. The ghost sighed, irritated, and snapped his fingers again.
"Then there is no help for you," his voice echoed as she returned to the house of Angelica's family.
Kyona woke up on the floor.
"Huh?" She said. "Did I fall asleep again?" She looked at the clock and saw that only five minutes had passed.
She left the house and continued on her way, stealing the socks from all of the dark houses. When she was done, she heaved her large sack to the top of Mount Ignis, and laughed like a mad woman.
"Now no one can have a happy Starry Night Festival!" She shouted. "They will all be as miserable as me!" Meanwhile, Ignis sat on his throne, bored, picking his ear, trying to ignore Kyona, not giving enough of a damn to do anything about her misdeed.
A light shone behind Kyona and she turned around to see what now.
Before her, a hooded figure stood, floating above the snowy ground and glowing with an eerie light.
"Let me guess, the ghost of continuity yet to come?" Kyona asked, dryly. The figure nodded, and extended a bony hand to her. Kyona sighed. "Let's just get this over with," she said, as she took its hand.
In a second, she found herself at the grave yard, though it was filled with more graves than before.
The ghost pointed at a grave nearby. Kyona bent over and wiped the snow off of it.
It read "Here lies Muffin, a noble cow." it was the grave of Akari's cow.
Kyona looked at it and smirked.
"HA! Joke's on you, I'm immortal, bitch!" She said, triumphantly. The ghost smacked its forehead and pointed again at what it had really been pointing at before.
It was a figure, hunched over and shivering, muttering something. She was an adult, dressed in brownish rags, and had red hair. As Kyona came closer to her, she could hear what the figure was saying.
"Mine, all mine, it's mine, all mine, it's mine, all mine," over and over again. She was clutching a bag, the same bulging bag filled with socks.
The ghost spoke for the first time.
"If you do not let go of your selfishness, learn to care for others more than yourself, than this is the future that awaits you," it boomed in a deep voice. "You will have no friends. Your family will cast you away. You will have nowhere to live, nothing to do, but clutch your treasures as you see now."
"But… that means I can't watch TV anymore!" Kyona cried. "Nooooooo!" The cemetery distorted around her, the figure faded away, and Kyona found herself once again asleep, this time atop Mount Ignis, next to her bag of treasures.
"I have to give it all back!" she said, and she picked up her bag and set off back to the houses of Castanet.
As dawn approached, Kyona fell, exhausted, through her house's front doorway. Akari and Zack were already up, and had already received their Starry Night presents.
"Kyona! There you are," Akari said. "You're dressed as Santa! That's so cute! I'll have to take your picture."
Kyona could hardly hear her, for sleep was overtaking her, and as she drifted off into her dreams, Akari spoke again.
"Oh, and look what you got for Starry Night Festival!" In Kyona's sock, stretching the garment to its limit, there was a pink plastic rifle.
"The Sparkle Laser Hearts gun!" Kyona cried with joy, instantly awake. She bolted to it, snatched it up, and ran outside to shoot things.
"Evil creature, I will bring cuteness into your life!" Kyona shouted at a tree, in imitation of Loli Princess's catchphrase. She fired the gun and a Styrofoam ball shot out of it with unexpected force. Kyona fell back and the ball ricocheted off the tree, bounced off the roof, and hit Kyona in the eye.
Kyona sat in the snow and rubbed her eye. At the very least, she had a black eye.
"… It shot my eye out!" She said, baffled.
If you're thinking "wtf that is not Amir" it's because I didn't actually know what Amir was like when I wrote this. I've never played Grand Bazaar. I just grabbed a character from a present continuity. :'D