Jace looked down at the calander in his room.
"Hey, Ora, I completely forgot but it seems to be Thanksgiving."
The Octoling looked at her husband in shock, "You forgot Thanksgiving?" She put a hand on his and smiled, "You forget everything important."
Jace knew that she thought it was cute, but it didn't disguise her annoyance at his chronic forgetfulness. "I forget everything, except when it involves you, y'know. Since it's Thanksgiving, weren't we going to do the annual Academy Staff Thanksgiving dinner?"
"Yep, and I bet you forgot that you offered to help Evan cook it."
"Evan is coming over?"
Jace looked at the clock on his bedside dresser, it was 9:00 in the morning. "Shouldn't he already be here?" Jace heard Ora sigh and the bed shook a little as she flopped over.
"He's been here since last night. You'd better get dressed and help him out, he'd be in the kitchen already."
Jace hustled out of bed and out of his pajamas, getting his clothes on as fast as possible. Ora watched him the whole time, giggling slightly as he struggled with putting on a button-up shirt.
On the first floor of the Academy, there was the mouth-watering smell of food in the air already, Evan was busy ordering around his kitchen staff.
"Come on already, we don't have all day. Put the turkey in the oven already and get it slowly cooking."
Jace knocked on the doorframe as he walked in and Evan turned to greet his friend, "Jace! Oh man, long time no see. Holy smokes..." He paused, "You're growing a beard." Evan pointed out the scruff that Jace had been trying to grow out.
"Ha, only trying, my friend." Jace clapped Evan on the shoulder with one hand and shook his hand with the other. "Do you want any help out down here? I'll do whatever you need."
"What I need? Hmmmm... I think I'll need some more stomachs to feed, to be honest. With the amount of food I'm cooking, it'll be too much for the teachers and staff to eat on their own, why don't you invite the students and their family's?"
Jace nodded and left the kitchen for his office.
There was an emergency message system in place to reach the students/fighters should the Octarians ever attack. The transmitter for it was located in Jace's own office. It was a simple type-message, so Jace put in the words 'Please join us for Thanksgiving feast hosted by Evan. More than enough food for everybody and their families.'
He knew that once he put in the message, most of the squids will freak out, thinking that the Octarians would be attacking. Hopefully most of the students would show up, Jace knew that if Evan said he could feed the hundreds of students, their families, and the staff, then he would most definitely be able to feed all of them.
Once back in the Kitchen, Evan had Jace help out with cutting vegetables into small slices.
"You planned out that you'll have this much food for everybody, didn't you?"
Evan laughed. He'd thickened out a bit in recent years, and he had a booming laugh that echoed through his whole belly. "The whole way. We won't let the students go hungry today, they'd be jealous that they missed out."
The staff and students began arriving around 1:00, showing up and sitting wherever they wanted. The whole bottom floor was filled with hundreds of squids sitting down in the classrooms, the cafeteria, the lobby, the hallways, anywhere they could.
The families of the students were especially intrigued, no squids other than students and staff were allowed inside of the Academy until the students either graduated and moved into the Academy's fighting units (the graduation took place inside the academy), or the student died in action and the family met with Callie to talk about how it happened.
Some of the squids put on a show, a play, in the battle-parkour classroom. They used all the different platforms and other obstacles as best they could, spinning a funny tale about a squid who couldn't tie his shoes and kept trying to follow his friends. The highlights of that play included a touching moment where one of the first year squids tried doing a parkour roll out of a fall and accidentally rolled into a girl (who happened to be the love interest of the play).
Too many students to count came up to Jace today, saying that they were thankful that he was their teacher, and that he had saved them so many times.
Ora joined Jace to watch the play, but got dragged off by a student shortly after who wanted his parents to meet her.
Evan came on the intercom "Everybody, the food is ready! Come on in to the cafeteria and dish up!" which prompted a mad dash among the students to be the first in line to get food, nobody was going to miss out on Evan's five star cooking.
It was joyous and merry, filled with laughter and stories. Stories of laughter and friendship, stories of fighting, stories of teaching, it didn't matter what stories so long as there was one to tell. Callie even got in the mix, telling her story of when she and Marie first fought Jace and Celine, and their first excursion into Octarian territory to recover Ora's friends. She had the largest crowd around her, as her stories were brilliantly told.
Jace smiled as he watched everything from his seat. One of the students had asked Jace for his story of when they had first saved the city, which was a story that he was always being asked to tell, but never tired of telling, and he was sitting back to relax and get a drink.
"You know what, Ora?"
"Hmm?"
"I'm thankful that Celine and I tried to prank Agent 3. I'm thankful that you got knocked out after you attacked me. I'm thankful that we carried Rose and Delfinia back up to the surface. I'm thankful for our friends, and I'm thankful that no matter what, we've made it through every single attack. I'm thankful that we have days like these, and I'm thankful that we will always have days like these."
"Happy Thanksgiving, Jace."
"Happy Thanksgiving, Ora."
Author's note: Happy Thanksgiving, everybody. I figured that I might as well post this chapter today just to wish everybody a Happy Thanksgiving. I'm thankful for all of you and all that you've done. I'm thankful that many of you are writers, ready to shape the way we read and write in the future, and I'm thankful for all my friends on . Happy Thanksgiving, from Dlahm. And I don't remember if I said this or not, but thank you to all who made the fan art, it warms my heart to see it. I think my favorite one is from Kit-The-Wandering and SirCrackLaptops, and I'll be using it as the cover art for this story. Another thing, I want to make some small specials for this, even though the real story is over. Christmas, thanksgiving, and all that, maybe some short stories... but Idk if anybody would be interested in reading them. If you would be interested in reading some holiday specials or short stories involving Jace and Crew, please say so, cause even if I only get one person saying yes, I'll do it.