P3: Fright Night by Wordsworthy
Disclaimer: I obviously do not own The Shin Megami Tensei series since obviously Atlas does. This is, after all, just a fanfiction written for the sole purpose of entertainment and no profit motive whatsoever. So please just enjoy the story and do not sue me for this. If you wish to know more about the series, please support the companies producing them directly and purchase their merchandise if you like.
In a certain classroom in a certain school most people should be very familiar with…
"Yo! It's finally here! Halloween! Aren't you all psyched and ready for-"
"Ah, Junpei-san… you might want to – "
"Ah… Ah choo!"
"Eww… gross… Minato snot…"
A certain brunette sighed at the mini situational comedy routine just one table away from her.
"Will you please settle down Junpei? You've been hyper all day ever since the dorms. And Aigis, please stop babying Minato-kun? Let him wipe his own a-… mucus. Honestly, pampering him too much will just make turn him a dumb child."
"Yukari-san, I'm not…" Aigis paused in the midst of her incriminatory action, a handkerchief currently having its way with the latter's nose. "Ah…"
Withdrawing her arm sheepishly at the "yes, you are" looks directed at her from all around, Aigis gave a painfully obvious mechanical cough in an attempt to redirect the conversation to less awkward matters.
"Junpei-san, I believe you were saying something about Halloween?"
"Sou! It's finally here! The afterschool Halloween party that we petitioned the student council for! The first in Gekkokan High's history! And it's a costume theme party! How can anyone not be psyched about that?"
Shrugging off the little nasal mishap from before, the lanky second year student pumped his fist into the air before capping it off with a celebratory guts pose.
"How did things come to this…" lamented Yukari lightly while she shook her head.
"Junpei-san, Ryoji… and half the school who put their name down in the petition…" offered Aigis helpfully, although a withering look pointed her way signalled that the question was really mostly rhetorical.
"Junpei-kun's in fine form today, isn't he?"
"Ah, Fuuka-chan. Sup?"
The green-haired girl from the neighboring class smiled fondly at her friends before explaining her foray into their class.
"Actually, it's regarding the afterschool party later. Mitsuru-sempai has to be at the venue earlier to coordinate things, and she had roped Akihiko-sempai in to help out. She thought it would be a good idea for the rest of us to go together."
"So it's a foregone conclusion that all of us will be attending then?" sighed Yukari dramatically, half in exasperation and half in fatigue.
"Eh? But your costume looks so cute on –"
"Fuuka!" the brunette cut in a tad too late to prevent her friend from letting slip a tease-worthy fact.
"Oho!? Yukari-chan's costume eh? My interest is piqued? So what is it? Somehow, I have the feeling it is something pink… could it be you'll be attending as a Powerpuff girl?"
"Powerpuff this!"
"Ughwah…"
The mouthy boy's long death wail trailed theatrically through the air after the brunette connected a praiseworthy uppercut cleanly to his solar plexus from her seated position, earning a bout of random laughter and a smattering of applause from the others in the class.
"Stupei will be Stupei it seems."
"Stingy! Everyone will be bound to see it later anyway and wait, haven't your tsukkomis been getting harsher lately?"
"Shut up! If you know, then stop being such a boke!"
Leaving the bickering pair to smoulder and growl at one another, the boy with midnight blue hair who had been enjoying their ruckus and company silently all this while raised his hand to get some attention of his own.
"Erm, I think I'll be giving the party a miss…"
Oddly enough, Yukari and Junpei broke off from their little argument and said the following in eerie synchrony.
"What? Why?"
"Minato is running a slight fever right now. To be exact, he has an average bodily temperature of thirty eight point six three degrees Celsius, although his lower body is slightly hotter than…"
The said slightly feverish boy sighed, his temperature now just that much higher than before. His blonde guardian angel android had taken to answering for him lately for some strange reason, although he would have liked for her to gain a tad more tact and common sense.
"Long story short, I would like to avoid a full blown cold so close to the next full moon…"
"Ah…"
"…"
The navy haired male student grimaced inwardly when the light carnival-like atmosphere evaporated and grew sombre at the mention of their next upcoming scheduled ordeal. It would mark their first since the recent passing of their comrade, but also potentially their last. However, that was something to worry about later, so there was no actual reason for the others to not enjoy the costume affair. It was, in fact, a welcomed distraction.
"In any case, don't mind me. Enjoy the Halloween party enough on my behalf. Also, do me a favour and take this one with you." continued Minato encouragingly while pointing to the blonde android.
"But Minato-"
"No buts. Go with the rest of the team. The last thing I need in bed is a pair of eyes watching me…"
"But Minato…"
"Like I said…"
Noticing that the conversation was about to go cyclical, the blonde android raised her hand to emphasize she had something different to say.
"I don't have a costume."
A moment of silence fell before everyone went "Ah…" together.
"Mmm… that's… a valid point…" conceded Minato with a nod.
The group spent yet another moment thinking before Fuuka gave a good suggestion.
"Well, I'm sure we can still find something with Mitsuru-sempai's connections… as long as we have a concept or theme to work with…"
"Oh, I know! How about you go as Ironman? Since you're all high-techie and everything, I'm sure Mitsuru-sempai can get you a laser beam on your arm or something…"
"Can't you see that she's a girl Stupei? How can she go as Iron-MAN?"
"Then we can just call her Iron-LADY then. It's just a name."
"What? No way. If we're doing this, we're doing this right!"
The blonde android turned to Minato with a blank expression while the usual pair bickered, the one she employed when she had no idea what references the others were making allusions to.
"Iron lady?"
"You don't know? It's a nickname given to a certain British Prime Minister in the late twentieth century."
"I see… yes, I believe she was a blonde too…"
"NO!"
Even Fuuka couldn't help but giggle happily when Junpei and Yukari tsukkomied the deadpan boke pair of Aigis and Minato this time. You could really tell that they were a great team in the oddest of times.
"How on earth could a costume of Margaret Thatcher exist anyway? I mean, what would it look like, or how could it be distinguishable from other middle-aged women?"
"Yeah! If we're going by hair colours, then Aigis might as well go as Mayu or Kagamine Rin from Vocaloids!"
"Or as Chobits' Chii, Freya or Elda! I can just see Aigis in Gothic Lolita!"
"…"
"Pfft… Hahaha…"
Somehow, between the affluence of meme-worthy reference, the otaku-like glaze in Yukari and Junpei's eyes and the blank expressions shared by the hopelessly oblivious boke pair, the usually polite Fuuka finally broke and went into an uncharacteristic mini-laughing fit.
"Hahaha… Why don't we just have Aigis go in her usual battle gear?" offered the green-haired girl in between laughs, having felt compelled to join in on the S.E.E.S. manzai routine.
"NO!"
Some time later…
"Yo Junpei!"
"Sup, Kenji? And what the hell are you supposed to be?"
"That's my line mutt."
"This coming from an overgrown broccoli."
The two boys looked each other over once more before doubling over in laughter. After all, Kenji was wearing a pair of tacky purple berms, a green t-shirt with a six-pack drawn on them and green face and body paint on whatever skin was left exposed. Junpei, on the other hand, was wearing the usual Gekkokan High uniform but with a hairy wig, a headband with doggy ears and bits of fur stuck on the back of his hands and neck.
"Werewolf?"
"Yeah. Hulk?"
"Yeah…"
After the bout of guffaws at each other's expense, the two boys sighed in comical synchrony as the gag rush left their system.
"Sucks to be poor huh?" lamented Junpei indignantly as he eyed a few fully outfitted Star Wars characters come through the school entrance while scratching his neck off-handedly.
"Yeah… bloodsuckers, all of them." agreed Kenji wistfully, making a pun out of the cost of costume rentals in the city and the few Twilight groupies that happened to file in.
"Haiz…"
The two in home-made costumes who wished they had rental ones sighed once more for good measure.
"Oh yea, where's Minato and the others from your dorm?"
"Minato's sick. The sempais are busying managing the event I think, while Yukarin and Fuuka are getting Aigis outfitted somewhere downtown. They might come a bit later since it's a last minute thing."
"Ooh~ I don't know about you, but I'm looking forward to those three in costumes."
"Between us guys, me too."
"Shall we go in and laugh at other people then? It's almost seven and the party's getting started anyway."
"Yeah, good idea."
After an hour of milling about and messing around with the blokes in the huge gym-turned dance hall, a certain commoner werewolf found himself checking his cell-phone for the umpteenth time in case any messages came in.
"Don't tell me they decided to ditch…"
"The girls from your dorm ditched?" echoed Kenji of the other boy's concern as he handed a cup of punch over to him.
"Thanks. No idea. I hope not."
It was a nagging what-if of course, but the girls were probably just caught in traffic or something. His phone chose that time to give a soft beep and vibrated a little.
"Oh, they're at the monorail. It looks like they'll be here soon." revealed Junpei with a sigh of relief.
"Great. By the way, why are you scratching the back of your neck so much? You've been doing that all day. Fleas?"
"Eh?" the DIY werewolf caught himself doing exactly what his friend was talking about with light surprise. "Mmm… I guess the stick-on fur wasn't that great of an idea… or maybe it's that glue..."
"Hahaha, good luck getting it off later. Ever seen the show forty year old virgin?"
"Leave me alone! And don't say such random probable prophetic things on Halloween!"
"Hahaha. Whatever you say."
"Haiz… I think I'll go to the toilet to take some of the fur off. Maybe the itching will stop."
"Oh, in that case, you might want to try the gents near the faculty office. I think there's a long line for the one nearby when I passed by earlier." offered Kenji matter-of-factly.
"Thanks, I'll do just that."
"Man… some people really went all out for this… I wonder how much they spent on the costumes…" commented the lanky lycan wannabe on his way to the faculty office area.
Quite a few people had actually showed up for this Halloween dance party, and a fair part of them had really dressed to the nines for the occasion. Perhaps it was due to it being a novel thing and a rare concession on the student council's part, but the fact that so many people were here and having fun filled the male student with gratification, despite his gripes about costume rentals. It made his effort in pushing for the petition worth it on hindsight.
"Mmm… that's strange… the foyer's all dark…"
Granted that most of the action was in the gym, it was odd for this part of the school to not be illuminated. Shrugging his shoulders to no one in particular, Junpei went over to the switches and tried to flick them back and forth to see if the lights would turn on.
"Maybe it's a power outage… but…"
The tall boy took another look at the school entrance. The eeriness of the unlit hallway reminded him rather strongly of that other time he had been in school this late.
"… it looks kinda like that time we rescued Fuuka… wait wait wait… why the hell am I getting all paranoid here? It's barely even eight pm yet…"
Suddenly, a series of loud clashes startled the half-spooked werewolf from the stairwell leading to the classroom wing.
"What the…"
The noisy commotion perplexed Junpei for a while until two dark figures ran out from the darkness and into being. With a trademarked 'Bbzzshoo' sound, a column of blue light and a similar one of red light suddenly appeared in their hands, as well as the famous ambient hum as they swung the light sabers at each other while descending the stairs.
"Obiwan never told you what happened to your father."
"He told me enough. He told me you killed him."
"No. I am your father."
"No… that's not true. That's impossible! No…!"
Junpei sighed with relief. It was just two melodramatic idiots dressed up as Darth Vader and Luke Skywalker messing around with their light sabers. For a moment there, he had thought that the Dark Hour had happened without him noticing it for some strange reason, but the presence of other people around made it unlikely.
"Phew… for a moment there, I thought something weird was going down…"
The werewolf's words drifted off when a volley of light beams came from the classroom wing… and were subsequently smacked down and everywhere by the Jedi.
"Wha-"
Taking advantage of the distraction, the guy in the big black helmet threw his hands out and somehow propelled the other guy with the blue light saber off the stairwell and crashing down into the stationery shop without even touching him. Two Storm Troopers appeared from the classroom side just a bit later and stood behind their leader with their laser rifles pointing towards the fallen Jedi.
"Join me Luke, or die!"
"I will never join you!"
Something is very wrong here! screamed a certain person's very overcharged mind.
"Hadoken!"
A large blue fireball flew just past that certain person before it impacted on something invisible just in front of Darth Vader and dispersed into wisps of blue flames.
"Well said Skywalker-san. Shall we even the odds with a three on three tag match, Wolf-san?"
A shell-shocked Junpei looked to his left and found one of the Judo-club's third year sempai standing beside him, clenching his fists expectantly. He was wearing his white Judo-gi and a red band on his head.
"Shimodai-sempai?"
"Shimodai? I think you have me mixed up with someone else. My name is Ryu."
"Wha-"
"Your assistance is much appreciated, my friends."
"Wait wait wait…" The werewolf waved his paws frantically in a bid to find some pause to think, or at least to ease the pain in his aching head.
Wait… paws?
The werewolf finally realised that instead of his usual hands, he had much larger ones now, complete with black matted fur and dangerous looking claws.
"Wha-"
This time, he frantically found and pasted his face to a nearby reflective surface to find that he now had fully mobile wolf ears, crimson eyes, a wet nose and a full set of sharp canines. A quick glance outside the window revealed a familiar oversized sickened greenish moon, compelling a much clichéd line and a convenient bay at the moon.
"Na- Wha- What the hell is going on?! Hauuwwhooo!"
Chapter 1: A Halloween Howler
A/N: Just something fun and full of crack for Halloween. I'll add on later if reception is good.