A/N: This Halloween-themed oneshot was requested by Souperal! Hope you enjoy!
One thing you should know, just in case you haven't already guessed, was that it was nearly impossible to scare Laney Penn.
No kidding, this girl was literally fearless. Ghosts? Don't give her any trouble. Werewolves? She'd treat them the same way she'd treat a puppy. Creepy clowns or monstrous puppets? Heck, those things are scared of her. And don't even ask about public humiliation; when you're in a band like Grojband, you get used to standing up and being cringey in front of your entire town.
Normally, this would be a huge plus. She could front and be tough when the boys got the living daylights scared out of them, something that happened more often than they'd like to admit, may I add. She was known as the hot-tempered, danger-can-bite-me redhead who could absolutely beat your sorry butt at the drop of a hat. That was a pretty good rep to have, if you asked me.
But this admirable element to her character became quite annoying once October rolled around. Her calm and nonchalant persona made it stupid hard to get a frightened reaction out of her, no matter what the male members of the band tried.
"I don't get it," Kim grumbled as he flopped onto the couch, staring daggers at Laney, who was perched on the edge of the stage with her bass in her lap. "How come we can never scare you?"
The bassist shrugged. "I dunno; maybe it's because you, Kon, and Core pull these stunts every year? Did it ever cross your brainiac mind that I expect this type of thing now?" She plucked a string on her instrument, as if to add emphasis to her point.
"Umm, no?" Kon shrugged, looking just as annoyed and bewildered as his twin felt. "Who would expect a surprise monster to jump out of their bass case?"
Ah, yes, the infamous "surprise monster attack." Yeah, that didn't work on Laney either. It was almost like she had a sixth sense for spotting out oncoming jump scares, and therefore can prepare herself to not flinch and scream "like a girl," as Kon put it.
"This is pointless," Corey whined, "nothing scares Lanes. And I should know! I've known her since we were, like, five."
Laney giggled, affection clapping Corey on the shoulder as she leapt up off the stage. "Yeah, you guys should just stop wasting your time and focus on scaring kids instead." Unlike Laney, the children of Peaceville were excellent targets for Kin and Kon's (and sometimes Corey's) hijinks. "Well, I'm gonna head out."
"And do what?" Kin asked, a hint of annoyance in his voice, although he kind of always sounded like that. "Derail a bunch of other peoples spooks? Heckle a horror movie because, surprise surprise, it didn't freak you out?"
"Very funny," the redhead responded dryly, picking up her case. "No, I have to help my sister with her Halloween costume, because apparently it's something so awful that Gigi and Emma don't wanna help her out." This comment, of course, sparked an interest amongst the boys. "Something about a tuxedo dress, top hat, and feathers," Laney elaborated, "so possibly a magician."
Laney bid her friends formal goodbyes and left. But just as her tiny frame had disappeared from view, a lightbulb went off in Corey's mind. A very dangerous and risky lightbulb, but a lightbulb all the same. With this sudden burst of an idea rattling off inside his head like a firework, he jolted into a stiff sitting position, attracting his keytarist and drummer's attention.
"Guys, I've got a crazy plan that just might work," Corey revealed. Oh, sweet catchphrase; you never get old.
Kin and Kon blinked expectedly. "Well? Tell us!"
"Okay," Corey grinned, "why do our attempts to scare our dear Lanes never work out?"
"Because she always expects them, therefore they are pointless?" The twins guessed, quoting their bassist word for word.
"Exactly! Laney also said her sister was dressing up as a magician-"
Kin cleared his throat. "Allegedly." He corrected.
"Shh, whatever!" Corey exclaimed; Kin's corrections on his phrasing and word choice were unnecessary right now, no matter how right he might have been. So long as they understood his point, it was fair game. "What are magicians best known for?"
The twins shared a side-eyed glance, one that said, "is he seriously asking us this right now? It's in the freaking name, my dude."
After waiting for a few moments and receiving only weird stares back, Corey answered for them. "Unexpected entrances!"
"Okay, where exactly are you going with this, dude?!" Kon asked, tapping one of his drumsticks against his stool. Sometimes, Corey just took a little too long to get to the meat of his ideas. They were generally good ideas, but seriously, dude; you don't need to go on a tangent to make us understand, just spit it out.
"If you'd let me finish, I would've told you by now!" Corey said sarcastically, just a little too enthusiastically for it to mimic his best friend's signature, salty tone. After eight solid years of trying to make Laney jump out of her own skin (all of which had failed miserably), three of those years being chock full of her insisting that Corey couldn't frighten her and that he should just quite while he's ahead, he finally had a foolproof plan to make her freak out, one that Laney's sixth sense wouldn't be able to detect.
"I've got an idea that would give Laney a terrified run for her money," Corey confessed, smirking.
An evil grin spread across Kin and Kon's faces as soon as the words left Corey's lips. "What did you have in mind?" Kin asked, drumming his fingers together in a similar fashion to Mr. Burns from "The Simpsons."
"We're going to pay our lovely bassist a little surprise visit, one that's so out of character and unexpected for us, she won't know what hit her," Corey tipped off as he began to explain his devious plan.
This October, Laney Penn was going to be shaking in her old, beat up combat boots...
"Alright, is this what you wanted?"
Laney stepped back from her sister, needle and thread still in hand. After half an hour of going over her sister's sketches (twenty minutes of that time chunk being her trying to remember how to even sew in the first place) and another half hour of sewing and hot glueing feathers and sequins onto her dress, Chloe's magician (she'd never bothered to tell Laney what she was actually supposed to be, so the younger redhead was gonna stick with that) costume was looking pretty snazzy.
Chloe placed the glittery top hat neatly on top of her messy hair and turned to look at herself in the mirror. A wild grin was splashed across her face and she struck a dynamic pose, so Laney knew she had done a job well done.
"This looks awesome!" Chloe whooped. "Thanks!"
"Happy to oblige," Laney replied, sarcastically taking a bow. "You're still totally gonna owe me for this, though."
Chloe rolled her eyes; by the way, I forgot to mention that the "Penn Eye Roll" had become a huge joke at both of their schools. It was the one thing they were best known for, besides being in Peaceville's best rock 'n' roll band (Laney) and getting the only two goth girls in town to date (Chloe).
"I know, I know," she reassured, taking the top hat off of her head and beginning to gather up her craft supplies and placing them back in the large, pink plastic bin that they came in. Seriously, she had a lot. "How was band practice?"
"Hilarious," Laney replied quickly, flopping onto her sister's bed. "Core, Kin, and Kon were wildly confused on why their repeated attempts to scare me haven't worked."
Chloe chuckled. "Oh, come on, I'm sure their attempts aren't that bad."
Laney shook her head, a wide eyed look splashed across her pale face. Chloe had been blessed with the privilege of not hanging out in the Riffin's garage everyday. When the calendar rolled around to the colder October month, Corey became a menace. The blue haired boy had his heart set on scaring the crap out of Laney, and he was desperate to succeed. One time - he must've completely run out of ideas because this one was stupid, even for him - out of pure need to get even a tiny reaction out of her, Corey had randomly chucked a plastic spider at Laney while she'd been reading over some sheet music. That day had been the day where Grojband found out that it was, in fact, possible to give someone a black eye with a plastic toy.
"No, they're bad." Laney informed. "Like, grade-A awful."
"Well, that should be fun to deal with. Halloween is still two weeks away." Chloe said, looking through her closet, trying to decide what shoes would look best with her costume.
Laney sighed, and you could practically see the dark lines of dread that would've appeared on her forehead if this show was an anime. "Unfortunately." She hopped off of Chloe's mattress, stumbling over to the door, which was decorated with posters of old Disney shows (and a little photo of her with Laney and the rest of Grojband) from the nineties. "Lemme know when dinner's ready?"
Chloe nodded, and Laney left, skipping off to her room and immediately picking her bass back up and plugging it into her amp. For going to a band rehearsal seven times a week, they sure didn't do much practicing. Every session just ended with them either trying to save themselves from Trina or just goofing off. So Laney took it upon herself to take an hour or two out of her day to actually practice. Gotta keep those skills in tune if she wanted to keep her reputation of being bassist in (what was soon to be) the greatest rock band in history.
While she was practicing, she heard a faint tapping noise coming from the window. Laney looked over her shoulder, and at first, she couldn't see anything. It had gotten dark and..was that fog? That's weird, she hadn't remembered it being foggy when she was walking home.
She ruled it as nothing, just her mind playing tricks on her, and went back to her bass. But just as she was about to play another chord, the tapping sounded again, this time more loud and persistent. Annoyance and curiosity beginning to get the best of her, she actually stood up this time and walked across the carpeted floor to her window, that of which was slightly ajar. Laney hesitated, waiting to see if the tapping came again while she was standing so close. She didn't exactly have a game plan if it did; maybe she'd send Chloe to go check it out or something.
"Hello?" She mumbled, inching closer and closer. "Is anyone out there?"
All was silent for a brief moment, and for a split second, Laney thought that everything was fine, but suddenly a white gloved hand slammed against the glass, making the smaller girl jump back in surprise. Her breathing became significantly heavier as the mysterious hand lingered, and the ajar window suddenly seemed a lot more dangerous than when she had cracked it open.
What was the logical thing to do here? There was some random stranger outside, banging on her window now, her parents weren't home, and Chloe seemed to be deaf because she couldn't seem to hear it.
"Whoever you are," Laney shakily warned the banging hand on the window, carding through the fog, "if you don't stop, I'm going to call the police!" She hadn't fully decided on whether that was going to be left an empty threat or not.
Was this what being frightened out of your mind felt like? Because if so, Laney was glad that she had missed out on it for a couple years. Her heart was beating out of her chest, she was panting like a dog, and no matter how badly she wanted to, she just couldn't tear her eyes away from the rapidly moving hand on the window.
And if that experience wasn't scary enough, the young redhead nearly had a heart attack when a masked face popped up in behind the glass and growled out a deep "BOO!" Laney shrieked, stumbled backwards and fell, and was just about to scramble for the door when a familiar chuckling voice leaked through the mask.
"Relax, Lanes!" Corey called from outside, removing the plain mask from his face so his bassist could see that it was just him. "It's only us!"
Laney's emerald eyes narrowed in fury as she caught her breath. The angry fire only grew as she saw Kin and Kon's faces pop up next to Corey's. Of course they were there.
"What the heck is wrong with you guys!?" Laney hissed, opening her window and roughly pulling the boys inside, much to there discomfort; all three of them totally got a windowsill to the gut. "I almost called the police!"
Corey sheepishly laughed. "Yeah, but you wouldn't have."
Laney crossed her arms over her chest. She nearly had steam coming out of her ears, that's how mad she was. "You three have five minutes to explain yourselves before I throw you back out the window. Starting...now."
Quickly, the boys came up with a decent reason to why they showed up at their friend's house unannounced and scared her half to death. It wasn't that hard. "You were scared, right?" Corey prodded, a hopeful look beginning to illuminate his face, even though he should probably be fearing for his own well-being.
Laney shrugged. "I mean, kind of. That was really freaky."
Corey smirked. "Well, that's why we're here."
"We were so sick of you never getting scared," Kin continued to explain, "so we figured we up the ante a little."
"And apparently, it worked!" Kon finished. The three teens looked satisfied with their accomplishments, and Laney was left feeling pretty stupid. Stupid irritated, that is.
"Well, congratulations," she huffed after a moment of quiet. "Do you wanna know what your prize is?"
Oh, teen boys; so oblivious. "Duh! What is it?"
"Getting thrown into the tree outside my window."
And that night just reinforced common knowledge, that of which being: don't mess around with Laney Penn.
A/N: First Halloween oneshot of October! I haven't written anything "scary" in a while, so I hoped it turned out okay! I have a huge headcanon that Laney is secretly the toughest in the group, and I will go to my grave saying that. I have another Halloween themed oneshot coming soon, so make sure to check back for it! Have a good rest of your day!