A/N:
It's finally here! I've been working on this for a while now, a fan series based upon, but not a crossover with, one of my favorite games~ It's rated T instead of K+ because...well, it's going to get a lot crazier after all of the Cures complete the team. It's a series about love, after all, and that's why I called it "Datte DATE!" in the first place /shot
I hope everyone enjoys either way~!
-Cure Alumi
A world separated from Earth… A world under the moon's light… A world only accessible to those considered "monsters." This was how one would describe Hallow's Eve, and despite the fact that monsters reside here, they all seem to get along quite well with one another. It almost seemed like...a paradise; of course, anyone can tell you what happens to those so-called paradises.
And that's what would soon happen to Hallow's Eve.
That fateful day was rather foggy, setting up the deadly scenario that would forever change the lives of many. It might be because it only remained alive thanks to the humans' belief in spirits and the usual, but one particular human's destiny to hunt down so-called "real monsters" mysteriously gave him the ability to enter the haven.
But why?
No one knew, and his arrival especially threw the queen into panic.
"P-Please," she began to beg, almost crying when she saw him. "We've never done any harm to you…"
Her request was ignored, as she saw the monster hunter, completely dressed in black, begin to attack the citizens, almost as if he wanted to use them for other, malicious, reasons. Suddenly, he slowly walked over to the queen, obviously soaring over her, but instead of finishing her off, he had one question to ask:
"So? We've never harmed you until now either, have we?"
Clearly, it was going to be impossible to gain any kind of power over him. There was only one last resort.
As she turned around, however, "they" were gone. Was the reason for the attack to take "them" away from her? She had to find out, one way or another, who this monster hunter really is; like any fairy tale, it would take a magical encounter.
The five newborns that had just entered the world only days ago were not going to be killed off so easily, considering a baby's innocence. The portal to Earth was still open, and the only option to hopefully save Hallow's Eve was to transfer her magic into the most prized artifacts, the Misty Charms, and send those, along with the newborns, to this mysterious new world. If she was caught in the midst of this, though, she might be attacked immediately, dooming her home. She had to take a chance, regardless if she must cost her life.
Just as expected, she was attacked, right as she completed her final "mission."
(OP: DokiDoki Squared❤Datte DATE! Pretty Cure)
It's been about 14 years since any of that shenanigans occurred, and there was no sign that anyone was about to be harmed soon. Besides, it's not like Hiroko knew what was happening when she was sent to Earth with the other baby monsters, right? All she can do is relax and enjoy the chill br-
"Oh, right," she mumbled to herself upon waking up.
She had forgotten that today was the day she and her "family" were moving from their old, suburban town because, truth be told, there are other cities nearby that had open banks, and the nearest one from this town was about 5 minutes. There was no real need for the business to stay here.
But the simple fact of moving to a new land was not what Hiroko was worried of the most. It turns out that keeping her true identity a secret, especially from her adoptive family, was much more difficult than she anticipated. And this is going to be much more challenging in such a huge environment.
The car ride was already unpromising, with her "parents" using the car's built-in Bluetooth, answering phone calls, and arguing whether the person calling at that moment even has enough money in their account to withdraw. Something like that was almost impossible to check.
And of course, young Hiroko was stuck listening to it because her father accidentally packed her earbuds that could have drained this sound out. She wasn't even old enough to understand how banks really worked.
And to top it all off, she was still in her pajamas...
"Look, calm down," her "mother" started up again, trying to naturally speak over an angry customer. "We're actually moving to our new headquarters-"
"I needs this money NOW!" the voice on the speakers interrupted; clearly the person was impatient and would rather just drive to the headquarters themselves. The lies began shortly after: "The only money I have is stored in my account," and "We're poor; 20,000 Yen?! This is so stupid! And we don't have any more to add! We need HELP!"
The fussing continued, and Hiroko slumped into her seat with her pencil and diary next to her. The only logical thing to do was to vent her feelings there, since she didn't want to anger the others.
As she continued to scribble around on a single page, the pure discontent in the voices in front of her became louder, trying to calm the current caller down.
"Could you give us about an hour? We can't check up on your bank account while we're driving."
"We need more money now!"
"Sir, that's not how bank accounts work."
"I don't care. We're so poor with what we have and we need free-"
The caller suddenly hung up afterwards, without completing their final statement. At this time, the two received another call, this time asking about depositing into their new account.
"Thank God that this customer's actually being honest!" the "father" tried to whisper to his fellow passengers (which came off a bit too loud; the other person on the phone didn't mind though.)
Hiroko, too, was also wrapping up on her diary entry. Instead of actual writing, though, it turned out that she just drew herself as a vampire. Before she slept for the next hour, she wrote one last note:
"Don't let anyone find out."
The visually bland, empty landscape suddenly morphed into a busy city, and Hiroko's heart jumped when she saw the sign welcoming her to Momoyama, a large city overlooking a mountain range. Already, the traffic was jammed up to the welcome sign, and for the next few minutes, they were going to have to wait for tourists to either find an alternate route to the mountains or find some other occupation to keep everyone busy. The latter, of course, seemed to be the more likely of the two, and Hiroko returned to her diary, lying her head on the page she had been working on an hour ago.
When the family finally arrived to the apartment complex they would be staying in for the next few months, a blonde woman in a bright pink uniform stepped out of what they assumed to be a check-in station.
"Welcome to the official Momoyama apartment complex!" she joyously greeted them, shaking their hands with a cute smile. "You must be the Suzuoka family if I recall?"
Hiroko desperately wanted to tell the lady that she was adopted, and that she was a "Chisawa" rather than a "Suzuoka," but she decided that it was too suspicious sounding, and played along with the elders. "Y-Yes, and we own an independent bank company," she responded.
"Thank you so much," the father added. "We've been having so much difficulty finding an actual house to move in to, ironically enough, and we were relieved to find out that there was still room in this complex."
"It's my pleasure to make sure you are content," the woman continued. "If you have any problems after moving in, just press the bell button, which is located next to the front door on the inside, and one of our staff will be there as soon as possible. It will be of a yellow color, so it shouldn't be too difficult to spot~." After a quick giggle, she pointed to the apartment the family would stay in as she described how to call for assistance. "And if you have any other questions, feel free to stop by the check-in booth over there. I will likely be the one to assist with that, but I don't work alone here, so that's not a guarantee. Regardless, the other staff members are more than happy to help you with anything!"
She reached into her pocket to give their apartment's key to them. "You will be staying on the second story in M2-12. You might be able to see the mountains up there actually, which is something that makes this complex stand out. Hope you enjoy your stay!" She walked back to the same place she had entered from, leaving the three to do whatever was needed.
The time between unloading everything into the apartment and then heading back to the car was almost immediate, and this meant that Hiroko was about to suffer through the worst part of moving: grocery shopping. Turns out that keeping food unrefrigerated for so long was harmful to it, so a 5-minute drive to the nearby store was necessary to find fresh milk, salads, meats, and whatever else (she didn't really care for the others.) What was more surprising, however, was what happened as they drove up into a parking space awkwardly close to the building itself.
Just before exiting the car and heading through the automatic doors, she found herself holding a few 1000 yen and 2000 yen notes that probably shouldn't be in her hands. Turns out her "father" was the one who pushed them into her hands. "Look, I know moving has been a challenge for you, but I want you to find snacks for yourself," he began. "You deserve to have a treat. If you happen to finish before us, which will probably happen, just wait next to the checkout center until you see us, okay?"
Hiroko nodded in agreement, then split ways with the couple.
In a flash of seconds, she was already finding herself deciding on which brand of cereal she wanted - she loved chocolate, but the generic brands never sat well with her in the mornings. "Maybe, just maybe," she thought, "they will have Choco Crispies…" She continued to look through the aisle, hoping that the non-generic brand would be hiding behind one of the boxes.
Eventually, she found a fresh box of Choco Crispies sitting next to White Crispies, which felt off-putting to her, considering that the two cereals were always separated by color in her old town. Perhaps someone had misplaced it, so she decided to go about and try to find something else for the apartment. She was in a new, large city anyway, so she hoped the store would have those new pizza rolls that she would always have to ask to order online or travel hours just to find them.
Unsurprisingly, there was only one left when she finally found them. A brunette headed girl of her age, clad in a fitting yellow sweatshirt and brown leggings, was also walking in that direction. She didn't give off a pleasant aura when she arrived, though, and Hiroko threw the food into her shopping bag and started walking off.
The other girl took it for herself after catching on to what Hiroko was trying to do, though.
The fight for the last box almost became a tug-o'-war, and the two were almost on the floor begging for them...except Hiroko noticed a bruise on the girl's knee. "H-Hey, are you okay?"
The latter casually got up, trying to keep strong: "I'm just here for the rolls, no need to get into a fight with me for something stupid, ya hear?" She began to leave, but Hiroko noticed that she must have hurt her and wanted to apologize.
"I-I'm sorry ma'am! I'm just a big fan of those and...and…I'm not a local here. I never get the chance to enjoy these." She was about to break into tears. In front of everyone. But she felt that way, and she didn't exactly know how else to express herself.
The only response she received in the distance was, "Well stop whining! They'll put more in stock later on, so just stop being such a brat."
Her fit caught the attention of the other, unexpectedly, who stared at her wide-eyed, albeit frowning still. When she came to grab Hiroko's arm, the latter was alarmed, thinking her apology went in a "cruel" direction; seeing themselves in the bathroom was the least expected place she would be dragged to, and the feeling that she was about to be beat up immediately crossed her mind.
"To be honest," the stranger started, not noticing how concerned Hiroko looked. "I was hoping that you wouldn't see the injuries on my legs. It's a long story." She looked down at her legs, rolling both of them up to reveal how bruised both of them really were. "I thought you were actually a kind lady when I saw how you reacted to me, and I want to apologize myself."
This response shocked her instead of bringing a sense of relief to her face. "B-But...why did you have to bring us into a fight and not have a-any concern?"
"Okay, listen. If anyone in that store saw me with an act of innocence, they would almost certainly make fun of me," she resumed. She didn't want to admit how "popular" she was with the people at school since she was looked down upon by most of the elders, even though there were a few students who absolutely adored her. But with the pure and friendly Hiroko in front of her, she almost felt as if she needed to calm her down...the only problem was that there was no easy way to explain what she had just said. "Innocence" and "make fun of me" should not be used in the same sentence, and Hiroko's face conveniently showed that.
"W-Why would they make fun of you?" She was clearly still shaken by the past few minutes, and it didn't seem that this was leaving her mind anytime soon.
The stranger, frowning, seemed as though she was unwilling to talk about her outside life, as if she had just felt a sense of deja vu. "I'd rather not," she started again, reaching into her own shopping bag to pull out the box of pizza rolls. "But if it makes you feel any better, you can take the pizza rolls instead. I feel that you were...well...such a kind girl, and you deserve my respect."
She got up and started for the exit, looking one last time at Hiroko. "I'll see you soon, I hope."
Going through the checkout line was an experience she would rather forget, and the words she had heard exactly an hour ago resonated back into her mind: "Just wait next to the checkout center until you see us." She was gonna be stuck in the store for a while, since the couple would probably take another hour or so until they found every item needed for the apartment. It wasn't very comfortable inside either, and it was rather chill outside, so maybe getting fresh air would give Hiroko a chance to think about something else, and not about the awkward meeting that had happened in the same day.
That, however, was a rather "unfortunate" move.
Not only were dark clouds rolling in, signaling that there was going to be a powerful rainstorm for the remainder of the day, but one of the clouds had an out-of-place feel to it. Close attention to detail revealed that the cloud directly above her had a hole in it, and it wasn't even a perfectly circular hole. It had a strange shape to it, and Hiroko could have easily guessed that it belonged to a bird or plane. A few seconds later, she noticed an oddly-shaped silhouette falling from directly below it, and-right upon Hiroko's face.
The thing that fell was alive, as she could feel its heartbeat, but her vision was completely covered up by it. As she screamed in panic, the creature on her face also screamed, although she eventually managed to tug it off and look at what had just "ruined" the moment.
It didn't get much better from there, and she let out one more screech.
"What are you, where did you come from, and why are you here?!" she questioned it. It wasn't every day that someone would come across a...she didn't really know what to make of it. It was a sort of turquoise color, and looked more like a squid-bear hybrid than anything she could think about. Just the fact that she was holding a creature with slimy tentacles almost forced her to drop it, but she couldn't seem to harm it.
"Of course you wouldn't know who I am," the creature responded, with a slight know-it-all tone to its feminine voice. On further inspection (especially after looking at her face), she seemed to know something unique about Hiroko, as if they had known each other in a past life. But that was only part of the magical direction the conversation was about to go in. "I was sent here by the queen of Hallow's Eve, actually."
The only response Hiroko could give was a blank stare.
"Oh, right! You may not know much about where you came from," the creature exclaimed.
"N-No…? What's Hallow's Eve?"
For the next minute, she was going to sit through a hefty description of the place she didn't know about: her homeplace. "Well, Hallow's Eve is where I used to live, and so did practically any monster that you've heard of. Some time ago, when you were a newborn, our world was attacked by a man who had some kind of grudge against us. The queen sent the newborn monsters down to Earth as protection, and ordered me to follow and eventually find them." She put one of her tentacles up to Hiroko's chest, where her heart was.
"And I finally found one of them!"
How did this thing know that she was a monster? She must have been an intelligent being to have assumed so, or maybe this was a planned event the entire time and young Hiroko could not have predicted this.
She began to back away a bit, even with the creature being small in comparison, simply because she was afraid that it was about to do something to her. Something that wasn't pleasant to her at all. She just didn't know exactly what it was about to do.
"Maybe I shouldn't have come out here… Or, maybe this is just some weird fever dream and none of this…"
"What the hell are you talking about?" a familiar voice called from behind. Upon looking over her shoulder, she found that the girl from earlier had also finished shopping, with several bags in comparison to her one, the latter which the creature had taken the opportunity to hide in.
"U-Um, I thought I s-saw something," Hiroko explained in a way that she would understand, hoping that she had had experiences with those "imaginary friends" as a child. All she saw was the other rolling her eyes in disbelief; she wanted to find a way to poke at her some more, but she couldn't get herself to say more than "Really?" Suddenly, the stranger collapsed after feeling a sharp pain through her chest, and a glowing white object exited her body.
"Get out of here!" the voice from the bag called back to Hiroko, who listened as soon as she realized the situation at hand.
"You forgot something…!" She quickly hurried back to grab the bag and ran back into the store, storming into the same bathroom where she had met her other friend. She was relieved to find that only one of the stalls was taken up, so she waited for the woman to leave the room before locking herself up; she'd rather not have anyone else think that she was having delusions.
Hiroko looked as if she was going to cry when she noticed the pair of eyes peeking through the front handle of the bag, and she picked it up before lashing out.
"What did you do to my friend?!"
"Just calm down for a moment, I'll explain more. I'm Felicia, a former friend of the Queen, so I would obviously have nothing to do with the disaster that has happened in the past years. So now that I've found one of the monsters she sent, I can give you a little gift!"
Out of the bag, she took out an orange frilly device and shoved it into Hiroko's hands, not caring what she thought about the sudden object. As anticipated, her first reaction was to stare at it in surprise, but quickly noticed that there was a hole in the middle. "What is this for?" she tilted her head in question.
"Yeah, figures you would eventually ask that," Felicia added, now digging into the bag and pulling out a small circular charm, which somewhat resembled a fang. "Why not set that inside and witness the magic of Hallow's Eve~?"
"Wait what now? O-Okay I guess," she stumbled upon her words, obeying what Felicia asked for her to do.
"Now, awaken my vampire! Hurry and start the transformation by saying 'Boo'!"
"A-Ah why do I have to revert myself into a vampire again? I've been enjoying my day too…" Hiroko muttered with a frown.
"Just do it!" Felicia strictly begged in return.
Stuttering slightly, and with her other friend and family in mind, she gathered herself and stuck the charm inside the device.
"Boo! Cure-ful Haunted Spectacle!"
A pink ray of light immediately sprayed out and engulfed Hiroko's body, time freezing around her. While most of the light simply replaced the color of her skin, a fraction of it turned into a set of wings that appeared behind her. She started freaking out over the bizarre situation she had been thrown into, but the wings "hugged" her, which magically changed her current outfit into a dress with a black top, complete with a pink bow and buttons, and pink skirt. Her pink boots and gloves appeared shortly afterwards, and as the wings faded away, it left behind a cape attached to her bow. If this wasn't enough to make her shiver, she saw a shadow form in front of her.
"Get away from me!" she yelled to the shape.
It didn't listen, and seemingly fused itself with her, giving her a heavy makeover: purple skin, a set of fangs which somewhat hurt as they grew, and magenta hair tied into two low rings.
Landing feet first, she gave an introductory cry before striking a final pose: "Cunning like a vampire! Cure Count!"
Before she could react to the transformation, there was a crash outside the store, audible and noticeable, as the ground gave a bare shake.
"Hooray! You must go out there at once!" Felicia alerted the newly-born heroine.
Her friend's life was at stake, and the once startled girl made sure no one was looking near the bathrooms before running out, surprisingly much faster than she normally would, to investigate. Eventually, Count and Felicia made their way to the same place where they met to find the unconscious stranger barely breathing, and her bags gone.
"So it was an act of thievery," Count initially concluded, kneeling down to make sure her friend was not completely dead. "Good, she still has a bit of a pulse. But why did you summon me at a time like this?!"
"SASHOSHARAAAA!" a deep growl could be made out in the distance, the figure approaching to reveal itself to be a monstrous version of the same bags that had gone missing. Standing somewhat next to it was the woman who Count had met earlier in the day, giving off a slight smirk as she watched the being capture whatever it wanted.
And Felicia realized something odd about the woman's outfit; it was a pink version of the uniform that the man from back then had worn when he attacked Hallow's Eve, which could only mean that, "He has followers now?!"
"Hmph," the woman noticed. "So you must remember Master Blake's siege on your homeland all those years ago."
Felicia hesitantly nodded.
"Very well then. Let me introduce myself," she continued. With a rather seductive pose, she introduced herself to the two: "You may call me Lorelei, one of his newly recruited followers."
While Felicia watched in shock as this "Lorelei" person and the large bag monster continued their havoc, Count watched in disbelief. Was this evil Lorelei really the same lady who worked at the complex? There's no way, right? The lady had been so light and welcoming, but this one was much the opposite.
"Excuse me!" She mustered up the courage to finally figure out this mystery. "You work at that apartment-" but quickly got stopped by Felicia, warning her that, "Revealing your identity to anyone that could pose a threat is not a good idea, Miss Count. You have to be careful with what you say or you could get into a lot of trouble, okay?"
"Miss" was probably too much of a title for her to handle, but she wasn't too bothered by such a minor issue in comparison, so she simply gave her partner a quick thumbs up before running off towards the shadowy being in front.
Before Count could throw a punch or kick against the monster, it started to suck up the air surrounding it before closing up, slowly leaning towards her in preparation to open back up and forcefully blow her away. She noticed the suspicious behavior, covering herself with her cape just before the bag opened back up, thinking to herself that she was about to get killed.
But she didn't actually go anywhere.
"Miss Count! Miss Count!" Felicia called out to her. "You never realized that your cape has always held special properties?"
"Oh...so that's what's going on," Count realized as she uncovered and found herself in the same place that she had been seconds prior. Looking at her cape, however, she found it was slightly beaten up, most likely due to the pressure from the wind that had been released.
"Well...it's not guaranteed to be of help all the time...so just give it a rest and finish it off!"
The Cure gave a wide-eyed look as she heard those words.
"The Spooky Scepter…? You understand?" Felicia sighed at her somewhat airheaded partner.
"Uh, well, I can try?" she answered, and attempted a vocal stunt that seemed like the obvious.
"Sp-Spooky Scepter!...?" she yelled with her right arm in the air, a bit unsure if anything was going to happen. As intended, a decorated staff appeared in front of her hand, and she took grasp of it. "Oh, this is pretty, Felicia!"
Felicia let out another sigh.
"Just. Purify it!" She clearly had had enough with Count's incredible talent of getting caught off-guard.
Count didn't exactly know what she was doing, and started shaking the staff in every possible way to no avail. But even in her frustration, she suddenly shouted the words "Pretty Cure!" and...kissed the circular segment near the top.
"Tricky Temptation!"
She aimed the Spooky Scepter at the monstrous being, and a powerful beam came out, successfully hitting the monster. The only thing that had been left behind was a charm that looked similar to the one she had transformed with, the only difference relating to the bright glow that the new one produced.
Looking around, she also found that Lorelei had mysteriously retreated from the scene.
Felicia hurried over to pick the object up and rushed it back over to Count. "Put this on that girl," she quickly commanded. "Her life force is stored in this!" She paused for a moment, realizing that Count had not de-transformed. "You should probably revert back to normal, too."
Felicia moved back to Hiroko's bag, and dived into it before anyone else saw her.
The first thing that the stranger saw was a quick flash of light, then everything went completely black again. Upon opening her eyes, she saw Hiroko looked like she was about to cry.
"Oh. It's you again. Why am I on the floor anyway?"
How was she supposed to respond? She couldn't just say that the girl had been attacked by a monster and went unconscious or anything like that. There was only one lie that she could make at the time.
"You're okay, thank goodness! Someone accidentally ran into you I think. I didn't see exactly what had happened or who knocked you down, but did they hurt you?" She pulled up the sleeves of her sweatshirt to make sure there were no bruises, but the other pulled them back down.
"D-Don't be such an idiot!" she shouted at Hiroko, but fell into a burst of laughter afterwards, with Hiroko herself following in right after.
It wasn't even a satirical laughter, to the girl's shock.
It was genuine.
"Well I guess I'll see you around in the future," she told her before heading into the parking lot, presumably with her family.
"W-Wait! I still have to tell you something!" But she was already too far in the distance to hear her.
Hiroko looked at herself, then at the car backing out and returning to the main road, and then at her bag. As if perfect timing, her parents had finished checking out, and walked out of the automatic doors as they opened up.
But she didn't say anything. She just wanted to learn more of the friend… Was it really friendship? Or was it something else?
(ED: 3-9 Wonderful Night!)