Author's Introduction:
Just a little something fun I thought I'd throw in to celebrate my favorite holiday--Halloween. *grins a fanged grin.* I'll be roaming the city streets, painting the town my favorite color in leather and buckles and my tiny Millennium Puzzle charm *smiles* but with a pair of fangs for good measure. 'Tis the season, right?
Happy Halloween, everybody!
**
The First Interlude: Vampires Will Never Hurt You
**
And now the nightclub set the stage for this
they come in pairs she said
We'll shoot back holy water like cheap whiskey they're always there
Someone get me to the doctor, and someone call the nurse
And someone buy me roses, and someone burned the church
We're hanging out with corpses, we're driving in this hearse
Someone save my soul tonight, please save my soul...
(Vampires Will Never Hurt You)
(My Chemical Romance)
**
"What'd you get?"
"Sora" rummaged in his plastic pumpkin and fished out a Charleston Chew. "Aw, man. I hate these things." He turned to his friend. "I'll trade you for your Snickers."
"No way!" "Riku" held his bag high above his friend's head. "You can't have it!"
Joey Wheeler pouted, swinging a cardboard Keyblade at his friend. "You owe it to me. How come I had to be Sora?"
"Because Riku deserves to be played by someone cool," Tristan Taylor answered, adjusting the two belts that crisscrossed his chest. "And you're totally goofy enough to play Sora!"
"That does it!" Joey raised his cardboard Keyblade high, aiming for Tristan's blue wig. "You're gonna get it now."
"Guys!" The final member of the party--Yami, as Kairi--threw herself between them as usual. "Come on, cut it out, or I'm taking both your bags of candy."
Immediately the boys straightened up and promised to be good. Yami knew all the best threats.
"How much longer should we go?" Tristan asked, pawing through his bag. "My bag's almost full."
"And I'm freezing to death in this costume," Yami added, shifting her weight from one sandaled foot to the other and shivering in her white tank top and purple wrap skirt. "Sora, Riku and Kairi lived on a tropical island, but we don't!"
"Let's go a little longer," Joey petitioned, adjusting his Mickey Mouse shoes. "I keep getting Twizzlers."
"You can trade them to me when we get back to my house," Yami said, shaking a plastic container that looked like Chibi Moon's Lunaball. "I've got lots of Snickers."
"Rock!" Joey cheered, pumping his fist into the air.
"Wanna try that house up there?" Yami pointed a long, tanned bare arm towards a house down the block. A grinning carved pumpkin flickered on the front porch. "It has a jack o'lantern out front."
In true Riku fashion, Tristan started jogging down the block towards the house. "Come on, I'll race you!"
"Hey!" Joey yelled. "That's not fair, I wasn't ready!"
Yami followed, her sandals clacking on the sidewalk. "That makes the score ninety-nine to zero. Advantage: Riku!" she giggled.
"No FAIR!" Joey bellowed, putting more steam on, but suddenly Tristan stopped running abruptly.
Joey smacked into Tristan from behind, not having enough time to skid to a stop in his enormous shoes. Likewise, Yami smacked into Joey, and like the Scooby gang they all tipped over onto what had made Tristan stop short.
"It's a kid!" Tristan exclaimed, crawling out from under Yami and Joey and adjusting his wig.
"What?" Yami rolled off of Joey and saw that it was true--a little boy sat sniffling on the concrete, rubbing at his eyes with his small fists.
"Huh?" Joey got up from his knees. Yami stayed on hers and inched closer to the boy. "What's the matter, pal? Are you lost?"
The boy turned his face up to Yami, huge violet eyes shimmering with tears beneath a shock of thick black hair.
"Are you oka--huh!"
Without warning, the boy had lunged forward and hugged Yami, clinging tightly to her. Joey and Tristan immediately dove onto him and tried to pry him off of Yami.
"What are you doing to my friend?" Joey demanded, gripping the kid's shoulder.
The boy gulped and turned to Yami. "Please! You've got to help me. There's this creepy guy chasing me and he won't leave me alone! I'm scared."
Joey and Tristan, buoyed by their chance to be heroes for a night, changed their minds about the kid. "No prob, pal," Joey boasted, slinging his cardboard Keyblade over his shoulder. "We'll watch out for ya!"
"Yeah!" Tristan said, making a fist. "No one'll mess with you if you're with us."
"See?" Yami smiled, patting the boy's shoulder. "It's all right. We'll take care of you."
The boy smiled and sniffed, wiping at his eyes. "Thanks. You guys are so nice."
They got to their feet and started walking down the block, trick-or-treating forgotten. "What's the guy who's after you look like?" Tristan asked.
The boy took a deep breath. "Well, he's tall, and I couldn't see his face because he was wearing a mask."
"What kind of mask?" Yami asked.
"It looked like--" Suddenly the boy's violet eyes went wide and he pointed. "--That!"
As one, Yami, Joey and Tristan all turned to see a figure leap out of the bushes, brandishing a chainsaw. The boy dashed away from Yami's side, little legs carrying him quickly out of the circle of light from the streetlamps.
"Hey!" Yami cried, reaching for him, but it was too late. He was gone.
The sound of the chain saw roaring to life brought everyone back to the situation at hand. Yami saw herself reflected in their attacker's metallic hockey mask.
"Back off, man, or I'll put the big hurt on ya!" Joey threatened, holding his Keyblade at the ready.
"Joey," Tristan hissed. "That's cardboard."
"Oh, yeah." Joey looked at the Keyblade, and then at the man in the hockey mask, who held up his chainsaw and pointed at it.
Yami, Joey and Tristan all looked back at the Keyblade, then nodded at each other.
"Aiiiiiieeeeeeeeeeee!!" all three teens screamed, clutching their candy and sprinting past the houses, back towards the Kame Game Shop. The sound of the saw was not nearly loud enough to drown out their cries of panic, which could be heard for blocks. The chainsaw man raised his weapon to the sky in a victory stance, tall beneath the half moon.
When the three teens were gone and their howls could not be heard, a chuckle trickled from under the mask as the chainsaw man turned to the bushes. A rustle was heard and the young boy climbed out, brushing leaves from his jeans.
"Get anything?" the younger boy asked.
"Nah." The words were slightly muffled by the mask. "They didn't drop their bags. Wheeler left this behind, though." He touched something on the sidewalk with his toe--Joey's cardboard Keyblade.
The younger boy snorted. "Some heroes! They couldn't protect their way out of a paper bag!" He picked up the Keyblade and twirled it absently, then grinned up at the chainsaw man, who pulled off his mask and shook his head like an animal freed from a harness. The little boy began to walk at his side. "You sure scared them, though! You were great!"
"Well, I have been called Heartless in my day." Seto Kaiba grinned down at his younger brother, and they set off for home.
**
Author's Notes:
*grins.* Just a little fun I thought I'd throw in there.
Some references:
The Lunaball that Yami carries her candy in is an actual purse I once saw on a little girl. Ever since that day I've been searching for something similar with no luck.
Lately I've been obsessed with Squaresoft's "Kingdom Hearts", and I thought I'd pay homage to it in this chapter because I'm very fond of all the characters and the storyline, as well as the fact that I've been having a bit of a rough time lately, and this game cheers me up immensely. And don't mind Joey complaining about having to be Sora--I love Sora just as much as I love Riku, Cloud and Squall!
Lastly, a similar incident to Yami, Joey and Tristan's turmoil actually happened to me one Halloween--the year I had dressed up as Alice in Wonderland, a favorite costume of mine. I was eighteen, and while I was roaming the streets enjoying the night with my friends, a little girl in a fairy-princess costume came flying at me out of the dark and begged me to help her, that a scary man was chasing her and she didn't know what to do.
Immediately I told her never fear, I was here. Feeling heroic, I told her I'd take care of the creep lickety-split if he tried for her. My friends, meanwhile, were telling me I was crazy and an idiot. "You're going to get killed," one hissed at me from behind her harem veil.
"Nonsense," I said as a black van pulled up behind me. The little girl screamed as a guy dressed like Michael Myers from "Halloween" came out. My friends scattered like rabbits. The little girl ran, and I said, "Hey, wait!" and chased her. The man chased me, and he ended up cornering us in a driveway, a dead-end. I put up my fists and prepared to fight, saying, "Bring it, sicko."
Suddenly there's laughter behind me--the little girl. She walks around me and high-fives the guy, and they get into the van and drive off. My friends found me still in the driveway sputtering with rage that the little spore had tricked me! *grins.*
And thus, remembering that, I was inspired to write this interlude. Happy Halloween, everyone!
Stay tuned for more monsters next chapter--the second stage of Shadi's game!