HALLOWEEN WORLD: TIME LAPSE PHOTOS
AUTHOR'S NOTE: This is yet another contribution to Spaceman's story Halloween World, written with his permission. This takes place over the course of several years leading up to his War arc. Special thanks to Storyseeker for beta-reading this story.
The Halloween of 1997 didn't go as planned for anyone. Instead of Ethan Rayne's spell altering a few people in one small town for a night, the entire world was changed, forever.
OOOOOOOOOO
Feb. 15, 1998:
Betsy Braddock came awake suddenly, her mind clear and focused. There was no hint of a hangover, and the events of the preceding day were crystal clear.
She just wished they weren't.
What the Hell did I do?
She turned her head and found just what she knew she would find. Jamie was lying beside her, emitting a soft buzzing snore.
She steeled herself and glanced beneath the covers. Yep. Not a stitch between us.
This was going to be awkward.
OOOOOOOOOO
Cole Turner's eyes sprang open, and he looked around in confusion.
That can't have been real? Right?
He glanced over at the tousled head of brown hair and felt the warm body pressed against his.
Who would have guessed Fara was a snuggler?
He remembered everything perfectly, but it still had the quality of a dream for him. Even by the standards set in a post-Halloween world; that had just been bizarre.
OOOOOOOOOO
Katherine Pryde, AKA Shadowcat of the X-Men, stood under the hot spray from the shower scrubbing herself vigorously.
Why him?
Pulling open the shower curtain an inch or so, she risked a glance back at the bed where she'd just awakened. He was still there, his face hard to read as he sat on the edge of the bed.
The long, coal-black hair framing the pale, narrow face and strange reptilian eyes made him unmistakable, and she wondered how someone like that had gained admittance to any colony.
She knew her situation as well as anyone else who had once been just a costume until that night, she knew she wasn't from this world originally, and she occasionally spared a pitying thought for the girl who had worn her costume.
Kitty knew that things were rarely what they seemed, but the stories were known even in her world. It seemed to be something her home reality and this one had in common. A TV show, specifically an anime about a ninja.
Kitty knew the character even if she hadn't been a fan of the series, and the thought that, even under a spell, she'd have anything to do with him made her skin crawl.
OOOOOOOOOO
Tiffany's eyes popped open, and she glanced about fearfully. What a nightmare! That thing she had seen was even uglier than one of those disgusting two-legged ninja reptiles. She didn't know what it had been, but she was glad it hadn't actually happened.
Safe, she thought. I'm safe in my own house, even if the world has gone crazy and I miss my Burnsy and… EWWW?!
That was when she finally noticed the smell, like a landfill on a hot day. She didn't know how she had not noticed it immediately. She froze as something that wasn't her moved under the blanket.
Fearfully, hoping t was just a stray cat that had found its way inside; she lifted the edge of the covers and peeked under.
"Was good for Blunk! Good you, too?"
Tiffany started screaming.
OOOOOOOOOO
Similar scenes were occurring all over the colony of Winnsboro, and very likely, all over the world. Reactions ranged from shocked revulsion to enthusiastic repetitions of the previous day's events.
MAR. 12, 1999:
"Hold still," Tom Majors scolded his son, as he tried to get a clean diaper on to the squirming infant. He glanced around furtively. There was a way, he knew, to keep the baby still while he worked, and one hand began to form the seal even as the thought crossed his mind.
He deliberately stopped himself. What am I thinking? Even if it wouldn't do the baby any harm he felt a little sick that he'd even consider using a jutsu on his son. Cursing the memories and latent personality that sometimes influenced him; he turned the gesture into something innocent, just in time, almost.
"Don't you dare!" His wife was glaring at him out of the mirror, and he took an involuntary step back.
"I thought Jamie married the mind reader?" he complained, and then hastily pushed on even as the glare intensified and Kitty stepped through the bathroom wall. "You know I wouldn't do that!"
The murderous look on her face faded, and she nodded. "I know. Sorry, Tom." It was still sometimes hard to separate the young man she'd quickly come to love from the person he'd dressed as for Halloween.
The thought still made both of them shudder. A Halloween party with a super-villain theme had seemed a great idea at the time. There had been a Doctor Doom, a Lex Luthor, a Bizzarro, two Apocalypses, and a host of other minor and major bad guys.
Tom had chosen to forego traditional mainstream comic book costumes and pick someone he felt no one else would consider. A character from a popular anime, his choice was, he felt, the equal of any of the others in terms of sheer evilness.
So he had gotten himself a black wig, some appropriate clothes, and a pair of contacts that looked like snake eyes to finish the job. A few people had recognized the character and applauded his inventiveness whereas most of the others had asked, 'who the heck is Orochimaru?'
OOOOOOOOOO
The Colony Council had gone into an emergency session on Feb. 15 of the previous year that had lasted for almost two days.
No one was sure what had happened or why. Consultation with other colonies was still iffy at that point, but they learned enough to know that although the 'Valentine Event' had not been a worldwide phenomenon, it had affected a number of colonies.
There had been talk of more chaos magic, perhaps a love spell amplified in the same means that the original spell had been done in, but in the end, no one had been able to localize it. Whoever knew the truth was keeping very quiet about it.
They turned their attention to the consequences instead. A dizzying array of new couples had been formed, mostly without any prior planning. In some cases, the couples weren't that big a surprise, and the resulting pregnancies had actually been welcome.
For most, however, the Valentine Event caused problems ranging from mild embarrassment to violent altercations to, in one case, a colony threatening catastrophe. Aslan had intervened in that instance, leading many to wonder how far out of hand the 'tiff' between the former couple would have gotten.
After a year, the situation was being dealt with as well as could be expected. Everyone breathed a sigh of relief when there was no repeat of the previous year's chaos, just as everyone had relaxed when October 31, 1998 had passed without incident.
They still had almost 200 new babies to look after though, as some of the ladies had ended up having multiple births.
JUN. 5, 2004:
"Brian! Megan! Get back here, and clean up this mess!" Betsy shouted after the twins in consternation, as they raced out of the house laughing. The two five-year-olds were back a moment later, each one tucked neatly under one of their father's arms.
"Lose something?" he asked, as the two children giggled.
Betsy sighed and nodded. "Nicely done." She led them back inside and set the kids to work.
The house was small, but it never seemed crowded, and Jamie smiled as he watched his family.
The colony had expanded somewhat since its founding in late '97. Valentine's Day had seen to that, and it had grown in other ways as well. The town had become a hub of sorts for travelers moving between the larger colonies.
To some enterprising individuals, that meant business opportunities. An impressive number of businesses aimed at providing for the needs of travelers sprang up.
They also continued to take in refugees, though fewer as the months turned into years, and the number of Halloween survivors living outside the protection of a colony had dwindled.
Brian and Megan were healthy and happy; something for which both parents were grateful, and the kids still had both parents, something for which they were also grateful.
There were too many examples of the less fortunate available to them. Betsy worked at the Crèche, one of the changes necessitated by the Valentine Event.
Not all of the couples had worked out, and not all of the children had been as lucky as the twins had been. The Crèche served orphans and children whose parents, for one reason or another, were incapable of caring for them.
Sadly, there were places like that in every colony, and many were full to bursting, especially since the war had begun.
Dec. 12, 2006:
Jamie ducked under a cero energy blast and hurled his hunting bolo, still a little disconcerted that this kind of activity came so naturally to him. Normally, so simple a weapon would not have bothered his foe, but the weapon had been specially made in the Holy Forge in Sunnydale.
The Arancar's blade should have passed easily through the cord, but it did not. The bolo wrapped around the weapon gave off a burst of spiritual energy that reacted very badly with the Arancar's sword.
Parted from its weapon, it became an easy target for Cole, whose enhanced demon powers easily blew apart the creature. The bolo returned to Jamie's hand just as it had been charmed to do. They then moved onto their next enemy.
Their mission was to rescue survivors from a remote Elvish colony in what used to be Arkansas. Elves tended to be recluses, but they did have need to trade for some goods, and many of those goods flowed through Winnsboro.
Early the previous week, a message had arrived from the colony reporting that they were under attack by a mixed group of dark creatures. Three powerful Arancars led a variety of undead creatures, and what appeared to be Golems, against them.
Several nearby colonies sent aid, including Winnsboro, but they had found only ruins by the time they arrived.
The attack had been swift and merciless, and at first they thought there had been no survivors. But Jamie had picked up the trail of a small group, and led a part of the Winnsboro contingent to them. Two other teams, led by other trackers, had headed off chasing similar leads.
Finding the group of survivors had been relatively easy compared to what came next, which was surviving the fight they currently had on their hands.
The enemy patrol was small, fortunately. A group of Golems, strong but not very bright, were being directed by a minor arancar.
The party Cole led consisted of Jamie, Doc Sampson, Izume, and four of the Naruto Militia. A larger group hadn't been considered necessary, as the four Narutos could easily become 400 if the need arose, but at the moment there was no need.
Doc Sampson, the gamma irradiated psychologist, was easily a match for the Golems they encountered, his strength being roughly ten times that of the living stone creatures. He shattered each Golem that came at him with a single punch.
Attempts to reform themselves were foiled by Izume, who used her alchemy to transmute the remains into sharpened spikes that she used to tear apart the remaining Golems.
Edward Elric's former teacher had begun searching for her husband and wayward students almost immediately upon awakening on Halloween. No sign of them had been found in Canton, OH, where she had first arrived, so she had moved around, eventually finding herself in Winnsboro where she had decided to stay for a while. The town was becoming a crossroads, catering to travelers from all over, and it had seemed a good place from which to conduct her search.
She had arrived four days before the Valentine Event. No one had been more surprised than Izume herself when she had found herself in bed with a Shinobe she had only met the previous day.
She had been as angry with herself as she had been with him over that, but it hadn't stopped her reaction upon waking up from sending Hatake Kakashi running for his life.
He had been long gone by the time she discovered her pregnancy, not that she considered him a loss. Izume had settled in Winnsboro, deciding that her reasons for coming to the colony in the first place were still valid.
The four Narutos pouted over their lack of action. The first, a green-clad Naruto who had taken the name Naruto Yuhi, had been placed on Team Eight under Kurenai's tutelage in his world. With excellent instruction and a caring teacher he had blossomed into an exceptional ninja.
He was one of the few members of the wandering band of mercenaries to have family ties, having settled down with a version of his team mate, Hinate, he had encountered.
The second Naruto was a quiet reserved boy dressed in a dark grey variation on an ANBU uniform. Unlike many other Naruto's, Naruto Daisuko had been placed with a family rather than being turned over to an orphanage. His foster parents were both ninja who served in the ANBU.
They had never let on that he was anything other than their son, and at their request the secret of his birth and his status as the Kyubi's jailor was kept a closely guarded secret, allowing the boy to grow up more or less normally. In some ways, this made him the envy of the Militia.
The third Naruto dressed in plain brown robes and wore a polished metal cylinder at his belt. Naruto Kenobe's first attempts at summoning, under Jiraya's tutelage, had gone very wrong. He blamed the old fart for throwing him off a cliff to motivate him. The botched summons ended in the boy himself being pulled into an alien world.
He had almost died in the desert before being found by a hermit, living on the edge of the Dune Sea, called Obi-Wan Kenobe, a Jedi living in hiding.
He took the boy in and, upon learning of his situation and abilities, reluctantly began to teach him the ways of the Force. His memories of his last student, and his failure, had kept him from proceeding at the rate Naruto would have wished, but the training was complete by the time Naruto reached his 21st birthday.
The fourth Naruto was Naruto Troi, who was the son of the fourth Hokage and an alien woman named Lwaxana Troi, whose ship had crashed on the ninja world after a close encounter with a spatial anomaly. His telepathic abilities through the guidance of his mother, who had survived his birth, had turned him into an unusual, but highly effective addition to Konoha's ninja forces.
The Golems and their master were finished in under three minutes. Rather than risk running into more, Cole opted for as quick and as stealthy a retreat with the handful of survivors as quick as possible.
Through Naruto Troi, he attempted to send messages to the other two teams from Winnsboro. One had linked up with a group from the Eastern Alliance and had rescued almost 100 survivors between them. Of the other team, there was no sign.
Troi did, however, pick up the thoughts of several wizards from the Dark Council's forces. The details were sketchy, but it became clear that the last group had encountered an enemy force that it could not match.
Reluctantly, with the primary mission accomplished, they withdrew without seeking to avenge or recover their dead.
July 3, 2010:
Cole Turner sighed in frustration as his youngest son, once again, set his crib on fire. The little boy clapped and giggled, as his parents moved quickly to put out the blaze.
"You said you had made it fireproof, this time," Fara reminded him with the certainty of total recall. At 11 months, Jake Turner was the youngest of four children, and apparently he would be the hardest to manage.
"I thought I did," Cole said in exasperation, baffled by the failure of the magically protected crib. "I don't know how he's doing it."
"We'll just have to try stronger enchantments," Fara sighed. "I'll send a message to Magia. Perhaps a specialist could recommend something."
Cole nodded,too frustrated to have his pride hurt at that point. All of the Turner children had abilities, being part demon, but for some reason Jake was exceptionally strong.
He wasn't sure whether that was good or bad for the future of the colony, but he did know that his son, that all of his children, were just another indication that the Human race, as it had been, was gone for good.
Each of the children born so far, at least all of the ones he knew of, had some ability that set them apart from mainstream Humanity. It wasn't something he allowed himself to think on too much.
When he did reflect on it, he knew it shouldn't be a surprise. Halloween had changed many ordinary Humans into mutants, meta-humans, robots, androids, aliens, demons, angels, demi-gods and just plain Gods… not to mention a bewildering assortment of crossbreeds.
Those that hadn't been changed, or had been changed into characters that were just ordinary people, tended to get eaten by something or ripped apart by something or stepped on by… Cole cut off that line of thought as unproductive.
The past couldn't be changed. They just had to deal with the situation as it was. Fara shouted in alarm from the next room, and the other children could be heard laughing. Speaking of situations… He glanced at the crib. Sure enough, Jake had shimmered to the next room to visit mommy.OOOOOOOOOO
Michael Majors moved through the hand signs confidently and pushed Chakra into the technique under his father's watchful eye. Three exact duplicates of him rose from the ground to stand beside him. Then, they changed.
One became an exact replica of his father; another assumed the form of his friend Hikuri, and the last assumed the form of Cole Turner, one of the colony's council.
Tom nodded approvingly, and gestured for him to continue the exercise. The oldest of three kids, Mike was the most proficient with ninja skills, the others, twin girls, Jean and Sarah, took after their mother, demonstrating mutant abilities despite having not reached puberty yet. They were currently helping their mother in Winnsboro's Elven section.
Coordinated attacks by Dark Council forces several years before had destroyed all but the strongest of the independent Elven colonies. No one knew the reason for the apparent attempt at genocide, but it had led to small enclaves popping up in many of the colonies.
The one in Winnsboro was about 130 strong, and despite their small numbers, they remained as standoffish as ever, something that occasionally created tension with the other residents. There had been some trouble the previous week when…
Tom shook off those thoughts. This was supposed to be quality time with his son, and instead he was thinking about politics. He focused on the training exercise instead.
Mike and his mud clones had begun to move through the basic Taijutsu drills, each moving in perfect sync with the others.
They each dropped a smoke bomb, and when it cleared, all were perfect copies of Tom. As one, they dove into the ground, three of them using underground movement techniques, and one using Kitty's phasing power to become intangible.
Tom easily spotted the difference and tracked his son to where he emerged.
"Nice try," he grinned, "but your clones can't phase."
Mike nodded, looking dejected over making such an obvious mistake.
"I'm glad to see you trying to integrate all of your abilities into your combat style, but always keep your opponent's abilities and knowledge in mind. It was easy to pick the real you out of the group after you phased. Come on. We'll try again."
OOOOOOOOOO
Jamie Williams watched his kids play with Izume's son Hikuri and Blunk's son. He was glad to see they were making a good effort at including the gawky green-skinned boy. He was, to Jamie's knowledge, the only human-passling hybrid in existence, something that wouldn't have been possible if the Valentine Event hadn't erased so many boundaries, making incompatible species suddenly very compatible.
Blunk's son was a lot like his father, with the same muddy-green skin, orange eyes, and sweet nature. Unfortunately, he also had the same hygiene problem. Those who got to know him didn't find it off-putting.
Blunk and his son looked a lot alike, with the only major differences being the boy's full head of blonde hair and his 5' frame, both of which he had gotten from his mother. Fortunately, he hadn't inherited anything else from his mother.
It had been a surprise, years ago, when Tiffany hadn't had the baby aborted, given the way she had reacted to Blunk, and for all Jamie knew, she had tried. The only thing he was certain of was that as soon as she was able, the high-strung screechy-voiced blonde had quit Winnsboro for parts unknown, and no one, Blunk least of all, missed her.
Blunk was happy, and Jamie was happy for him, but he wasn't the only one who would have happily strangled who ever had suggested to Blunk that he name the kid 'Gollum.'