Halloween Thirteen

Author's notes: The theme of Halloween was given as a challenge, and the game was played fast and loose. At the moment, 7 of 13 short snapshots of Halloween themed short stories with Final Fantasy XIII characters were created during October for the Muse's enjoyment, whom has a liking for all things dark and sinister at this time of the year. Hopefully a full tales will make the story complete by All Hallow's Eve. A plentiful supply of dark music to match, gifted by Muse fueled the author's mind and fingers, and a few specific songs may be mentioned. Famous lines, storylines, lyrics, and Halloween-appropriate characters were lifted with abandon from all over the place, and hopefully the spirit of fun will rise in the reader as well. ( Cheesy pun intended, er, um, uh…).

Again, the business of full disclaimers also arises: Absolutely no intent of profit is intended, the stories are for amusement only. Please note there are adult themes, language and situations in some of the stories, so this is rated M for good reason. Full credits to the following authors/musicians/films:

All characters of Final Fantasy are Square Enix

The Sixth Sense

Edgar Allen Poe ( The Fall of The House of Usher)

Bram Stoker ( Dracula)

The Illustrious Race of the Irish ( The legends of the Seelie and their Changelings)

The Bedouins ( Legends of the Djinni)

The Rolling Stones ( Sympathy For The Devil)

Lynch Mob (Wicked Sensation)

Cat People

The Lost Boys

Ozzy Osbourne (for all general intents and purposes always ; P )

Chapter One

Hope was frightened, more frightened than he'd ever been in his 14 year old life; he had just seen half the travelers on the purge train get shot by PSICorp. They'd all heard the cries and screams right outside the window, figures that crumpled to the ground in oddly disjointed heaps, like his little marionette he got last Holiday; faint shrill voices begging for mercy, the word NO engraved into his mind in a thousand different cut glass shards of pain & fear until he was shaking and shivering. He broke into a cold sweat as he heard heavy thumps at the door to the passenger cabin; he tried to squeeze himself into the corner, making himself even smaller, praying it would make him less noticeable to the soldiers when they finally broke through.

He couldn't see his mom in the crowd of people trying to pile up luggage and tear out seats to block the door and started to cry, then slapped a hand over his mouth to stop it; Etro-damn it, I'm not a baby anymore, this is real life, I am gonna die if I don't do something! Please, please if anyone is out there, help me!

He sank down between the seats in a pathetic little puddle of crinkly white plas-cloth sheeting, the symbolic badge of shame for any L'Cie on Cocoon; he moaned as the heavy pounding grew louder & more metallic on the door; the soldiers were sure to break in at any moment now. Suddenly a flash of blue between the seats startled him; he whimpered, almost as shrill as the voices outside, then it died in his soft pale throat as the blue sparkled and winked at him; it was an eye, the prettiest eye he'd ever seen, peeping back at him between the seats.

"Psst! Hey kid! C'mon, look here!"

He stared and hestitantly spoke:"Uhhh…W-who are you?"

The eye crinkled in good humor, strangely at odds with the tension in the cabin: "Lightning. Guardian Corps sergeant at your service. Helluva place to be right now, eh? Look, PSICorp will bust through in about a minute and start pulling everyone out – it's an execution. I am going to get out of here, and if you want to live, come with me."

"N-NO! my Mom! What about her?"

"She'll be right behind you, little man. Hey, what's your name?"

"Hope. Hope Estheim."

"Ok, Hope. Here's what we do. When they bust the door, duck. Get under these seats, lay flat. And when I tap your foot, start crawling, fast…but quiet. No sound, got me? There's a mechanic's hatch at the end of the car. Now, you gotta be a real soldier for a few minutes, Hope. You are gonna be a little army of one, just like ol' Lightning here is. You're in front, so you're point man, ok? Look at the floor while you're crawling and if you see boots stopping, then you STOP, and don't move a muscle. Move when the boots move, and you'll get to the hatch, easy as pie. When you get to the hatch, do the same thing. Wait for a noise, make sure boots are moving, so no one hears the hatch opening. Then get out and run like hell to bottom of the platform. There's rebels there. They'll help you. Now. Last thing ya gotta do as a soldier: Get a weapon. You MUST have a weapon. I gotta gunsaber, a Blazefire. You know what they look like? "

Hope nodded, his silver locks falling over a leaf green eye, now bright with interest: "I know. The Blazefire kicks ass, Lightning!"

"Good. If you can find one, grab it. Just grab it by the pistol grip, swing hard as you can to the right to unlock the blade- it'll snap in place, you'll hear it – then raise it like a rifle, and start shooting anything in PSICorp Yellow. You gotta do this, promise me? Promise?" Her tone took of a flinty hard edge, almost desperate in its intensity.

PSICorp was almost through the door, and Hope ripped off the purge robe and wriggled under the seat towards the lean figure lying flat on the floor of the car, in Guardian Corps brown & white; he slid forward and got a good look at her face. He was astonished; it was a girl, no, a young woman, a goddess impatiently waiting to charge; the sparkling azure eyes were set off by a mess of icy rose hair, set in a lean face, elegantly set with high cheekbones, a delicate nose and lovely arched brow, now rather sardonically cocked at the stupidity of the PSICorp soldiers, who'd still not been able to blow the main cabin doors. Matching icy rose satin lips quirked in a smile, briefly lighting the cramped space with a radiance that made him smile complicitly too.

Then the door opened, and the soldiers pouring in. Hope trembled and looked at her: "Lightning, I don't know if I can do this…"

"It's not a question if you can or can't, Hope. There are some things you just have to do."

She smiled again and jerked her head silently towards the hatch. Hope started to scrabble forward on his belly, doing exactly as she said: Look at boots. Stop. Wait. Move with boots, keep moving, almost there, no! Stop. Wait for boots to move, now, move, keep crawling, ignore the dirt on the floor, ignore the screams above you, keep moving to that hatch. Then, he was there, his hand clumsily patting the red and white striped metal. He looked for his rear guard, and she shimmied into place beside him, her uniform warm and soft, smelling of some sweet flower; she silently glanced at him, full of admiration, proud as his mother, eyes crinkling in good humor once again; he blushed, but this time kept his eyes steady on her, adoring, totally beginning to develop a crush on her, despite the tense situation. Her eyes took in the expression on his face, then they softened into two lakes of the most limpid blue, welling up with an unknown emotion crossing her face; then before he knew it, he was crushed into her body in a fierce embrace, the rose satin lips kissing his own darker rose and he was kissing her back, hands fisting in her roseate hair, bucking closer to the warmth of her lean body; then she pushed him away, hand over mouth to keep him silent. She gently mouthed in his ear, her voice dropping to the very nadir of her throat in a beautiful husk he never forgot: "Damn if you aren't cute as all hell. Wish times was different, I do. Now. Go get 'em. I'll be right behind you with your mom, Hope. I got your back."

Then he pulled the hatch as the full auto guns started to fire in the cabin and dropped out, quick as a skittering squirrel, then ran like hell toward the bottom of the platform. Weapon, I need a weapon, Dammit I need a weapon! Look! LOOK! Don't look at the faces, ignore the black stains on the ground, just look for a weapon and pick it up. Oh Etro, is that a hand? He swallowed his bile and kept moving past the dismembered body, past the blood, past smoking bits of things he didn't want to know about.

He saw a heap of bodies, brown and white, ahead: Soldiers! Guardian Corps! One MUST have a weapon! He shuddered at the maimed, burnt and bleeding bodies carelessly piled; there were weapons, but there were too many bodies on top; he almost broke, he almost ran away, but then an arm flopped loose and a body rolled off the heap, landing in an untidy bundle of rusty brown and white on him; he tripped and fell across the soldier, tears starting to his eyes, then with an explosive jolt, he saw a slim hand clutching a Blazefire gunsaber; he began to pry the fingers off the pistol grips, then grunting, pushed the tall lean form over to get leverage to pull it from the deathgrip of the dead sergeant; at first it wouldn't let go and he growled, a feral sound of determination he'd never had in his voice before: "Let go, I need I weapon! Damn you, she told me I need a weapon! Leggo!"

Then suddenly the hand relaxed and he fell again, the gunsaber clutched in his delicate too-small hands, his face landing next to the dead soldier's face.

Too shocked to scream, he stared back into the blank bluer than blue azure eyes and tumble of untidy roseate hair of his soldier girl, his Lightning, lying there dead and slit ear to ear at her pearly throat, staring complicitly back at him with a secret smile on her pale rose lips.

I've got your back.