Captain's Report: No division because Pops can delegate paperwork to whoever he wants. (as is his propagative as Captain.)

Location: Docked at Arachmore, Erie Town (Do you think they did that on purpose? I think they did)

Time: The Witching hour, (mwahaha!… I don't know that time that is.)


Holidays were not universal in their world; they differed drastically depending on where you were born and where you grew up. Ace personally had celebrated Natal, New Years and All Soul's Day after he'd met Sabo and later Luffy. Before then the holidays of Dawn hadn't much mattered to him, he hadn't liked celebrating alone after all. After Luffy came into his life things had changed and suddenly joining in had become far more important to him. To the point where he'd been genuinely upset to learn many islands did not honor the same holidays that he had, or that they didn't even know what his holidays were in the first place.

Once he had his own crew Ace had decided to celebrate anyway, even if the island he was moored at didn't. No matter the weather or environment of the islands they ended up on. Though celebrating Natal while docked that on a summer island had been a bit odd; especially since that particular island celebrated Yule instead, even with a lack of snow.

Then Ace joined the Whitebeard crew things just got weirder. The crew was so vast, and their members were so varying that there was always someone who celebrated some holiday or another. Their family was welcome to celebrate their own holidays, religions, and traditions with judgment. Ace didn't take much advantage of this at first mostly since he'd only observed Dawn's holidays because of Luffy. After explaining this to his brothers, they decided to introduce him to their traditions in an attempt to make him feel welcomed. Ace, therefore, became familiarized to more traditions than he ever knew existed.

Personally for Ace, in the October/November timeframe, he and Luffy had celebrated the All Soul's Day… mostly; Ace didn't like remembering his father but did like remembering his mother. On top of that, on Dawn Island the holiday known as Halloween hadn't existed. So that first year he had joined the Whitebeard crew Ace had been quite firmly introduced to a holiday he later came to adore. Honestly, costumes, scary stories, and candy, what wasn't the love?!

That October was also special according to Marco because they would be stopping at one of their allied islands, Arachmore and well… things got strange from there.

"Arachmore?" Ace asked following Marco as they patrolled their sleeping home. Technically speaking Ace wasn't supposed to be on duty then. Watch duty was done by one division per night, from first one night, second the second, third the third and so forth. Each division would select around ten people on a rotating list to guard the ship, though watch duty was also a punishment and a way to really mess with someone. Thatch had a habit of getting members of his own division in trouble so he could dump watch duty on them when his name came up. Marco more often than not volunteered for the watch when his division came up because he felt responsible as the highest ranked officer and first mate to their family. Ace meanwhile occasionally joined Marco for his rounds, purely out of boredom. Regardless Ace had decided to join that night and felt the need to badger Marco about their next stop and more importantly, the holiday they would be celebrating there.

"What's so special about Arachmore?" he continued as they looked out across the darkened waters.

"Well…" Marco glanced his way smirking slightly that just screamed 'I-know-something-you-don't-know' "It's more commonly referred to as the Spider-island."

Ace arched a brow at his partner wondering what exactly that meant.

"As in…" Marco extended his hands and spread his arms as far as they would go, "spiders larger than this, larger than my wingspan in fact." Ace made a curious face wondering what hunting something like that would be like. Big mammals were one thing, but insects that size was another thing altogether. Marco meanwhile continued saying: "Arachmore domesticates them for the most part, they deal in a variety of silk, poisons, and chitin."

Marco continued walking making a loose circle passing by a few other members if his division. They both waved to the suspiciously alert members who were no doubt only alert because Marco was near and would catch them sleeping.

"It might be because of the spiders, but they take 'horror' seriously there yoi. Every year for October they cover their buildings in webs and silks, it's a great location for Halloween. The crew prefers it to any other place, except a few, they can't handle horror… or giant-sized spiders" Unsaid, of course, was that Thatch was publicly and obviously unable to handle anything scary. He would spend much of the trip cowering in his rooms and refusing to leave. He and the others that disliked to be frightened would avoid the rest of the crew like the plague; they wouldn't be seen for days.

"Are you easily scared Ace?" Marco asked with a slight tease to his voice.

"No," he deadpanned thinking of the constant attempts Sabo and Luffy had made years ago to frighten him. They'd failed every time, but to be fair, his brothers weren't all that frightening. Luffy had been positively adorable in his toilet paper costume when he'd tried to pretend to be a mummy.


Marco dragged Ace into the Mess Hall on Halloween gaining a front seat to the chaos about to unfold. Later many of the crew would be venturing the haunted houses, and the parties celebrated on the island. Later when the sun set Izo and a few volunteers would be on the docks with huge buckets of candy to hand out to visiting children in costume. Marco meanwhile fully intended to drag Ace off into private because his chosen werewolf costume left very little to the imagination, though Ace was quite firmly of the same opinion to Marco's 'mad scientist/doctor' outfit.

That would be later.

Now though they would be sitting around for their yearly story telling. Where everyone would sit in costume, where the mess hall would be decorated in webs, and ghosts and blood and the crew would tell stories to scare each other. Or scare Thatch who'd been dragged into the room to cook and couldn't escape despite his increasingly desperate attempts.

Ace being one of their newest crew members was offered the chance to go first. So swallowing down his nervousness since this was his first Halloween, he stood and attempted to come up with the best attempt at a scary story. Unfortunately for him, he was actually not that good at 'scary,' for all that his glare could send people running for the hills.

"Luffy and I remained in the tree-house knowing full well there was no one there. But somehow the window rattled, and the lights flickered" Ace glanced around at his audience "then lightning flashed, and I saw it. Standing at ground level was a shape, a being with too many arms and too many legs cloaked in shadow. It moaned as it was uncovered and slid forward in a way that screamed it had no longs. I watched as it grabbed at the ladder and started to climb up, soon, too soon to be normal it was at our door. It slid across the ground reaching out for us and-" he paused for effect "-the lights went out!"

Someone in the back shrieked, no doubt Kazuto who was easily scared but insisted on coming to the storytelling. While Thatch burst into tears hiding his face in a dish towel and humming loudly to tune him out.

Haruta laughed a bit amused, and he called out: "but did you die?!"

"Yup," Ace nodded agreeably, "I did! For when the lights came on, it had ripped off my head, and I knew no more."

"Ace is dead!"

"He's a ghost come to get us!"

The crew teased playfully, happily shoving at each other. Ace bowed a bit and took his seat beside Marco who leaned his way to ask: "What was it really?"

"Just Dogra and Magra, they were afraid we'd get hurt in the storm, so they came to get us. It startled us pretty good though, we attacked them and knocked Dogra out for the night."

The rest of the night continued with their tales, from Izo speaking of a music box that after receiving enormous damage still played music and looked unharmed in the light of day. To Haruta who preferred jump scares and used his division to scream abruptly during his tale to scare them. While Jozu told of a story of a faceless creature that if you saw it, you would be instantly killed, but as long as you didn't see it, you were safe.

Then Pops took his turn.

"Perhaps a decade ago I stopped at this very island before it was mine." Pops voice was haunting Ace thought, smooth and aged in a way they made his words echo around them. Ace rather suspected their father was using a bit of haki in his voice to add in the 'haunting' vibe of this tale. "I met a young woman there who liked to raise goats, the youngest of her flock had ventured into the forest, and she asked, begged, me to find her goat for her. Curious about the woods I agreed, and after packing a small bag, I ventured forth.

"As I walked deep into the woods I realized the light of the morning began to wane for the thick webs above me had slowly and surely blotted out the sun. Eventually, it became so dark I was uncertain how long I had actually been walking for I no longer had the sun to tell me if it were night or day. Regardless I continued sure of my safety for I had yet to see the spiders the island was famous for. So deeper I went.

"Eventually it began to bother me, was it still daylight? Was it night? I could no longer tell how long it had been since I had eaten and I thought 'would I run out of food eating it too quickly? Would I forget I had used my supplies and suddenly discover I had none?' Concerned with that very idea I quickly grabbed my pack to see if I had food, in my relief I realized I still did… but was the amount less? I didn't know. I didn't remember eating it… had something taken it? I was alone in the forest so that couldn't be possible.

"Concerned I leaned against one of the nearby webbed trees. My finger brushed along its sticky texture, and my hand was caught, stuck there, but I dared not pull it free. I knew the size of the spiders, I knew they were massive enough to eat me whole and I knew they would be alerted to my presence should I pluck at the strands there. I could not pull free and send vibrations of my actions to alert the entire forest itself. Frozen there, I found myself trapped… and that was when I heard it. In the distance a soft voice on the wind, crackling, crinkling it laughed, taunting me and my folly.

"Closer it came 'Horo-horo-horo,' childish and high pitched it approached. 'Horo-horo-horo,'" he looked around at them seriously, "then I felt it, all the skin on my body rose at once - something was behind me. I looked back, and there it was the beast. Three times my size with eight legs and a stinger the size of my very arm. So caught up in the laughter I had failed to notice it, and by the time I had, it was too late. Its stinger was already inside my neck, it's poison inside my veins, and the world around me faded as I lost consciousness.

"I did not expect to wake, but wake I did. It took me only moments to realize that I could not move, nor not see, nor hear. I was trapped in spun web thicker than steel that constricted my breathing. But I knew I had to escape, I refused to die then, I had my sons to return to-" he glanced toward Marco "-but how could I escape.. and- I heard it, just behind, a breath at my ear despite the webs and a laugh-"

"Horohorohoro," said a voice in Ace's ear. He yelped swinging around and released a fire coated punch because that had come from just behind him. His hand was casually caught while the flames on his fist were absorbed by Marco's who was laughing at him, all too pleased with himself for the temporary heart attack that had rocked him.

"Sorry yoi-" Marco wiped his eye clearing tears of laughter, "-I couldn't resist, Pops tells us that one every year and you looked so serious."

"Mean!" Ace swatted his boyfriend while his heart rate steadily returned to normal. He didn't want to give away how off-put he had been especially considering Ace was fairly certain he'd quite accidentally burnt the floor when Marco spooked him. With forced innocent that fooled absolutely no one he turned to Pops and said: "What happened then?"

Pops to Ace's displeasure didn't have much further to the tale and gave mild shrug: "I used haki to escape the spiders, and I found the goat hanging beside me. Never found out who owned the laugh though, once I escaped the webs it's owner was long gone. It remains one of the many mysteries of the grand line."

"So lame, you could at least make up a good ending Pops," someone complained. "Like it was a ghost of a dead child and her corpse was hidden in the woods never to escape!"

"It doesn't need that ending!" Thatch snapped stressed out at them all.

"Nah, he has a point the story isn't scary!"

"Oh! I know Marco tell that one about the time you met Moria, the zombies are the best!"

"Ohh yeah, Marco tell the zombie one!"

"Yeah," agreed Ace a bit happier as he smothered the burning wood under his boot, "I wanna hear it."

"Sure you can handle it?" Marco teased bumping Ace "mister, 'I don't get scared.'"

Ace scoffed and jerked a finger at Marco "I'm fine! Tell your story!"

"Okay okay." Marco held up his hands defensively even as he looked obviously away from the wood and the smell of its burn. He was aware the damage was mostly his fault since he'd been the one to scare - startle - the fire logia user. Already he was plotting to bribe Fossa to replace that particular spot, so no one was the wiser.

"This was back when I first joined Pops and…"