All Hallow's Eve
Chapter One: A Scary Prank Goes a Long Way
person: It's only September. It's too early for Halloween
me: *sips on a pumpkin spice latte while aggressively listening to This is Halloween remixes in my skeleton costume as I write Halloween themed fanfics* Okay, sure.
Sucy has a plan to scare Luna Nova for Halloween. Akko agrees to help out. Little do they know, their prank is about to turn very real and Diana will be stuck cleaning up their mess. Part one of the seasonal Diakko adventures.
"I don't know if this is a good idea," Lotte started timorously, fidgeting with her hands as she looked on at her scheming friends and roommates with a worried look.
"I'll be fine!" Akko assured. "It's just a fun harmless little prank! Just a scare to get everyone into the mood of Halloween!"
"You mean All Hallow's Eve. Halloween is just something that non-magical folk celebrate," Lotte pointed out. "All Hallow's Eve isn't about scaring folks and trying to see who gets the most candy. It's about honoring the spirits who have passed onto the next realm."
"That's what we have the day of the dead for," Akko said. "It's one of Sucy's favorite holidays, so I would know."
"Yes, but All Hallow's Eve is the start of that," Lotte pushed up her round rimmed glasses as she continued talking. "And it would be disrespectful to do something so childish and riotous on such an honorable day, especially what you have planned! Witches who misbehave on this day get snatched up by a horrendous monster!"
Sucy rolled her eye at this while Akko softly eeped, "a monster?"
"It's just a little fun. We won't do it during the ceremony just before it," Sucy appeased, lifting up the mask that Akko had painted beforehand. It was a white mask with red stripes broadly across it, with scary eyes and sharp broken pieces of wood sticking out of the open mouth that acted as the teeth.
It was a great source of pride for Akko who had spent laborious hours making this mask and the rest of the costume that went with it. It was essentially the mask on a backdrop of a clothed figure all in black dreary garbs. Sucy had spent the rest of the time gathering the props needed to make the monster more believable. Things like frogs, spiders, fish eyes, and cobwebs, would be strung around to announce the monster's appearance.
"Oh, I don't know," Lotte worried. "Akko already got into a lot of trouble this week just for her silly pumpkin trick, does she really need more trouble?"
Akko had worn a jack o' lantern head to class in the early spirit of Halloween. She had carved the face out herself and even planted candles on top of the pumpkin head but she'd gotten in too much trouble for it, as the professor's said it was very rude and disrespectful to the spirit of the great Pumpkin King, whoever that was, to imitate his image. They had been learning about him in history class but Akko hadn't been paying attention, head filled up with thoughts of how much sugar she could collect from this year's trick or treating. Of course that delusion had been ruined when it turned out that witches didn't go trick or treating and that Halloween was just an appropriation of their culture by non magical beings. Whatever that was supposed to mean.
"We won't get caught," Sucy assured with a shark toothed smile. "Besides, I've been looking forward to this for a while. It's time to give Diana and her friends a good scare for the trouble she's given us and especially Akko."
"So this is about revenge?" Lotte squeaked out.
"Yea, why do we have to come after Diana specifically, I thought this was about fun," Akko paused, because she hadn't been privy to this when Sucy had approached her about the idea to first do this sort of wide scale prank to get everyone into the Halloween spirit.
Sucy shrugged. "I thought you might want to Akko, given all the trouble she's gotten you into."
Akko waved her hands around frantically. "That's fine. It's nice you'd wanna help me out, but I don't think scaring Diana will help with anything. It might just make things worse between us." Recently Akko and Diana had come to an impasse. With school work increasing, both girls were too busy for their usual behaviors. Akko had cut back on the shenanigans, Diana was too busy to snoop around everywhere and thus their paths rarely crossed. They weren't exactly friends but they weren't exactly at each other's throats anymore either.
And on this sort of neutral ground they were on, Akko found it hard to remember why she and Diana didn't get along so well. It's not like Akko didn't try to be nice and friendly to Diana. Diana was just...a hard person to reach. But Akko wouldn't stop trying. She was certain there was a way that they could become friends somehow.
"Suit yourself." Sucy jumped off her bed and tossed Akko the mask. "You ready? The festival is going to start at six pm today and we need to start early if we don't want to interfere with it. Lotte, are you going to help?"
"Sure," she wrung her wrists worriedly. "If only to make sure you guys don't get into trouble. Deep trouble," she corrected when she realized just who it was she was talking about.
"Good," Sucy smiled her shark toothed smile again.
"How come I have to be the monster?" Akko asked as she pulled the mask on. It was hot and stinky inside it.
"Because your magic isn't the best and we need good magic to pull this off," Sucy said as she gathered up some pots containing the other props and shoved half of them into Lotte's hands. The shorter girl tried hard not to grimace at the collection of beasts there. "We're going to have smoke and fog and scary explosions to announce your arrival."
"Amanda's also helping out," Sucy added as they left the dorm room in a single file.
"Are you sure that's a good idea?" Lotte said in a small voice. "She's very...rambunctious and she might take the prank too far."
"We need someone that can fly so the prank is a complete success." Sucy was already imagining Amanda flying around and raining down frogs and spiders onto unsuspecting Luna Nova students.
"This keeps sounding more and more like a bad idea with each thing you add," Lotte commented and sighed heavily. "But, I'll still end up doing it no matter what because you're my friends."
"That's the spirit!" Akko exclaimed. "Besides, what can go wrong with a simple harmless prank?"
Lotte gave her a knowing look.
"Okay, so that can go wrong," Akko said with a little broken laugh as she stood in the middle of the hallway of Luna Nova, with Lotte, Amanda, and Sucy by her side. A hallway, that was currently filled with screaming girls all running in the other direction. A hallway, where at the end was a ginormous monster with billowing robes and a white and red paint streaked face. It's hair stood out funnily straight up while razor sharp teeth filled it's gaping mouth.
"Come back little girlies," it bellowed as clawed hands raked across the walls as it tried to make its way through the tight arched entrance way it had gotten stuck in.
All three girls stood there, wide mouthed, wondering just what the heck they had gotten into. Sucy was smiling and knowing exactly what they had gotten into.
"What is that? How did it get here?" Amanda asked, hovering over the ground on her broom. They had been just having fun, Amanda throwing frog legs down on unsuspecting girls before Akko popped out of corners and screamed at them. Lotte had merely held the pots containing the props, shaking her head in disappointment while Sucy did her own thing off to the side. Twice they had escaped Diana's notice, the girl trying to hunt them down for their annoying behavior. She was busy with helping set up the festival and luckily for them, she couldn't spare too much time chasing them down. And now, this giant monster was here, looking highly pissed off.
"That's one of the most evil and vile spirits of All Hallow's Eve. No one celebrates it because it's so evil!" Lotte fretted. She cast a quick look at Akko's askew mask, grabbing it roughly in her hands. The band, still attached on Akko's head, dragged her closer to Lotte as the smaller girl studied the mask.
"That's the evil spirit painted on it! I must have not noticed before because you did such a bad painting job Akko!"
"Hey!" Akko pouted. "It's not that bad." She had worked long and hard on that costume. "And I've never heard of this guy before. I thought it was just some guy Sucy made up."
Lotte had a sneaking suspicion that Sucy had something more planned than just a simple prank. And given the way she was smiling, it was confirmed.
"Sucy! You made Akko draw that mask on purpose didn't you?" Lotte snapped the mask back harshly and it hit Akko in the face. She stumbled backwards from the motion and tried to pry the mask off of her face but failed to do so, it somehow stuck on her. While she struggled Lotte and Sucy went at it. "And this whole prank- yes, how could I have not seen this before. The frog legs, the spiders, the scaring of the witches, this was all a part of a disrespect for Yardin, the ghost that comes and punishes misbehaving witches on All Hallow's Eve who don't respect the spirits! He's notorious!"
Lotte had heard stories of him as a child but thought they were just stories. "Be nice and respectful and quiet," her parents would warn, "or Yardin, the protector of the lost souls will eat you up." She thought it was something they said to make sure she wasn't loud or running around the house and to this day she would remind others of him, but only because it was something she was used to hearing and having said not because she completely believed it. She should have known better. A shiver ran down her back. "And you even had Akko paint his face in such a crude manner! He's really going to eat us!"
"Yea, notorious," Sucy blinked at him as he snarled and got closer towards them. They were the only ones in the hallway now. She pulled out a pen and pad so he could sign it for her. "I didn't think he was actually real! Kinda cool!" She hadn't planned on summoning him but hey, if he showed up then all the better scares for the school on Halloween. Unfortunately no one else seemed to be too happy by his appearance.
"No, not cool," Lotte countered, grabbing Sucy by the shoulder. "We need to leave and get the professors help."
"No way," Amanda shook her head fervently. "We're only gonna get into more trouble. We should deal with this ourselves."
"What is going on here?" a loud voice demanded behind them and they turned to see that it was Diana along with Barbara and Hannah who had arrived.
"So much for not getting in trouble," Akko sighed out, finally pulling the mask free.
"I-is that-?" Hannah started in shock, craning her head up at the creature still struggling to get out.
"That is Yardin, the protector of the lost souls," Diana filled in, looking cool even under all this pressure. "He comes to punish witches who do not have respect for the dead."
"Yea, we know that. How do we stop him?" Akko cut in.
"We need to do a ritual. And by we I mean me. You have done enough damage as it is. Report back to the headmistress and tell her what you've done," Diana's voice was steely and Akko gulped. So much for not being rude to her.
"Hold up here, we can soooo help out with this. We brought the issue here, so we might as well fix it," Amanda added, swiveling her broom to face Diana and her friends.
"I don't think so-" at that moment there was a tremendous roar and Yardin finally broke free, taking down the arch way with him.
"Run!" Amanda screeched out and took off on her broom while the girls took to their feet.
"I'm going to eat you up!" snarled Yardin. "One by one while you watch!"
"AHHHHH! What do we do Diana?" Akko cried out.
"Everyone, we need to make a plan and act now!" Diana announced as they tore down the halls.
"Okay, than what's the plan?" Amanda shouted back.
Diana hated having to think on the run, but she didn't have any other option. She needed to come up with something and fast. She didn't want to endanger the other students of Luna Nova's lives so she had to lead Yardin somewhere away from them where she could carry out the ritual.
"Amanda and Lotte, use Amanda's broom and steer Yardin away somewhere from the school."
"Got it!" both girls intoned, Amanda reaching out a hand for Lotte to grab onto. The smaller girl hopped onto the broom and they veered off to the right.
"Hey, big ugly, come after us!" Amanda stuck out her tongue, infuriating the beast more.
"I will crush you for your insolence!" He raced after them.
"Akko and Sucy, go alert the teachers of what has happened. They need to keep the students safe just in case. Hannah, Barbara-"
"No way!" Akko cut in. "I want to help with the ritual. I'm not going to just sit by and do nothing."
"You've already done enough damage as it is, so sit this one out." Diana and her friends raced off somewhere, splitting away from Sucy and Akko.
"That's not fair." Akko pouted. It was solely her fault this had happened. It had been a team effort that had brought Yardin here and it would take a team effort to send him back.
Sucy flashed a mischievous smile. "Since when do we listen to Diana?"
"You're right!" Akko fist pumped, now motivated. "Let's do our own ritual if Diana won't let us join hers." With that the two of them ran off to the library to do some quick research.