"Please, zir, take your seat. My servants vill bring ze food soon."
Jr. smirked. "Servants, eh?"
"Yes, zey are very faithful to me." Hauptbahnhof took his seat at the head of the long table and clasped his long fingers together. "Now tell me, little ones, vhy is it you haff come to me tonight?" Jr. looked at Anna, who was sitting across from him, then to Nina, who was at his side, then cleared his throat.
"Well, see, Mr. Hauptbahnhof-"
"Please, call me Viktor," Hauptbahnhof said with his rumbling accent. Jr. flashed a wan smile.
"Viktor... I make it my duty to have dinner with the head judge of the costume contest."
"Not to mention my predecessor vas a female, ya?"
"No, no," Jr. blushed, "I just like to eat dinner..."
"Vell, I cannot turn avay such lovely guests the night before All Hallows Eve. I say ve eat in honor of ze night to come."
"Yeah..." Jr. said as he glanced around.
"Mr. Hauptbahnhof," Anna said quickly, "are you all right? Your red blood cell count seems awfully low!"
"And I sense a lack of heat in your body!" Nina added, looking palely at her companion. Mr. Hauptbahnhof shook his head and waved the two's comments off.
"Ah, I am an old man, children. You haff no need to take worry." He clapped his hands once, and a pale woman in a maid's uniform waltzed into the room, handing Hauptbahnhof a wineglass full of dark red wine. She kissed him lightly on the temple.
"For you, Viktor," she mumbled before she walked back into the darkness, rubbing her neck. Hauptbahnhof swirled the wine in his glass and made a satisfied noise.
"Erika is my newest servant, as you vould see." He drank deeply and made a long sigh. Jr. raised an eyebrow.
"Sir, you're... dripping..."
"Ah!" Hauptbahnhof quickly grabbed a napkin and wiped the viscous liquid from his chin. "Thank you, child."
----------
"Eek! Watch out!"
Ziggy looked over his shoulder to see Shion with his fingertips on her lips. Ziggy was about to make the first cut into the pumpkin, and his blade was barely pricking the pumpkin's skin. MOMO turned to stare at Shion as well. Ziggy, ever so slowly, raised an eyebrow.
"Shion," he said, as if speaking to a child, "I'm not going to hurt the pumpkin. It's already dead." Shion threw her fists to her side and stamped her foot.
"No! You were about to slice MOMO in half!" She pointed violently at the girl, who Ziggy had made sure was stationed safely five feet away. Now MOMO was beginning to question Shion's sanity.
"Trust me," Ziggy assured the woman, "I would never do anything that would endanger MOMO's life. I'm just carving a pumpkin."
"I drew on the pumpkin, Shion!" MOMO said with glee. Shion took her eyes to the orange skin of the pumpkin, and drawn in permanent marker was the face of the U.M.N. bunny scrawled with childish lines. Shion had to admit that it was cute, despite her recent loathing for the creepy bunny. Ziggy cleared his throat.
"May I continue, or are you not in the safety zone?" Shion detected sarcasm in his voice, something she was sure that he was not apt to. Arms akimbo, she stuck out her bottom lip, a sign that she was not happy, but he could carve as he wished. Sighing, Ziggy plunged his blade into the pumpkin and began sawing out the shapes.
"GAH! Get back, MOMO!" Shion shouted at last, reaching out for MOMO's arm as Ziggy's elbow jutted out in her general direction, albeit five feet away. MOMO stumbled backwards under Shion's grasp, and Ziggy halted again.
"Shion, she is perfectly fine where she was standing. I placed her there so that she could see the pumpkin being carved, but be in a position of optimum safety." His tone was low and growling.
"He is correct, Shion," droned a metallic voice from behind. Everyone turned to it to see a wave of blue hair. Shion exhaled in relief.
"Oh, KOS-MOS, I'm so glad that you're here!" She dragged KOS-MOS to stand next to Ziggy. "Tell him how dangerous this is, especially with a child around!"
"I'm not a child..." MOMO said sadly.
"Shion, Ziggy is correct in his statement. It is illogical of you to calculate the correct distance of safety without the correct equipment, which you do not have installed. MOMO's distance was indeed the precise location for premium safety and the emotion known as joy." She turned to the Realian. "You may return to the location you have previously occupied." MOMO did so, skipping and smiling. Shion fumed.
"KOS-MOS..."
"While it is illogical to carve a vegetable in such a fashion, I assume that it is part of human custom to carve large, orange vegetables on the night of the 30th of October." KOS-MOS blinked her red, owl-like eyes. Shion, exasperated, waved her off.
"This is gonna be the most beautiful pumpkin ever, Ziggy!" MOMO chimed from her Spot of Ultimate Safety. Ziggy almost smiled.
"Ziggy," came Shion's voice. Ziggy's almost-smile dropped before it was there. "Watch where you're cutting! Don't cut through the middle of the eye!" Ziggy finally lost his patience.
"Shion, please stop being a back-seat carver! Either stop complaining or get your own pumpkin!" Ziggy furrowed his brows and continued to saw at the fleshy pumpkin. There was silence. Finally, MOMO put her hands to her mouth and giggled.
----------
"Oh, this is bad," Hammer mumbled as he wrapped his coat around himself. The moon was hiding behind a cloud, and all three of them could see their breath in the frigid air. Tony shot him a glare.
"What's so bad about it? I like the fall. Not too cold and not too hot." He said this as he pulled up the collar on his borrowed down jacket. He had rifled through the closet in Gaignun's room, only to find a rather flamboyant pink down jacket. Hammer and Allen had stopped coming up with witty comments about five blocks back.
"This place is evil," Hammer said quietly, glancing sideways at a dark alley. It was almost true: this was a part of the Foundation that was seldom visited, and had grown disused and uncared for. Fires in old tin barrels crackled as poorly-garbed individuals huddled around them. A particularly old hag watched the three well-dressed newcomers with growing interest. Allen looked away from her quickly and sped up his steps until he was side-by-side with Hammer.
"What are we doing here, anyway?" Allen asked. Tony grumbled, unwilling to reply. Hammer snorted in Tony's direction, then turned to Allen.
"Down past these slums is where the old judge used to live. She might know where to find where Jr.'s gone off to." He gave a shifty glance around him, then lowered his voice. "Ms. Freeman is the only person in these parts who isn't desperately poor. Sometimes she rents her house out to the bums."
"Well, that's nice," Allen chirped. Tony grunted.
"Shut up, you lout! We don't wanna mess with the wrong people in this place. We just need to find Little Master and get this over with."
"I CAN HELP YOU!" A loud, shrill voice filled the darkened street, and all three of the men jumped and spun on their heels to face the voice. It was the old hag, stooped with age. A knobby stick was clutched in her hand as she hobbled toward the men. Hammer was clutching his heart in shock.
"Lady! You don't have to shout!" Hammer cried piteously.
"You nearly gave me a heart-attack!" Allen added.
"What the hell do you want, old woman?" Tony asked. The woman put a wrinkled finger to her even more wrinkled lips.
"Quiet, little ones. I am Rowena, the gypsy of this city. We must not speak here, for yours is a quest of most evil things not for mortal ears to heed!"
"Then why are you shouting?!" Tony yelled, his hackles raising. Nearly all of the underprivileged were listing now. Rowena grabbed all three of them and shoved them into a particularly black alley. Their only company was a rather thin rat. Rowena hunched even lower, as if that would improve their ability to hear her whispers.
"The man you seek, this Hauptbahnhof, you must not approach him!" Rowena said in a harsh whisper. Suddenly, their interest was piqued.
"What do you mean?" Allen asked.
"This Hauptbahnhof is a servant of evil. He steals life from those near him to sustain his own! He dines on the lifeblood we hold so dear!"
"....Wait, what?" Tony asked. He raised an incredulous eyebrow. "I don't believe in gypsies, so why should I believe the crock you're tryin' to sell us?"
"I speak not of crock, young man, but of THE TRUTH!!" On these last two words, she raised her voice at least five decibels, and struck a pointing finger into the cold air. Hammer threw his hands over his ears and Allen winced. Tony was unmoved.
"Geez! Lady!" Hammer whined.
"Hush, little one!" Rowena crooned. "I give you this warning, and this warning alone! Do not approach this Hauptbahnhof without the weapons you are in need of. You will surely DIE if you are not prepared!!"
"What exactly are you talking about?" Allen asked.
"Why, my dear boy.... A VAMPIRE!!"
----------
"So, uh," Jr. started, tearing his eye away from the Hauptbahnhof family crest hanging above the head of the table, "what d'you expect from the Halloween parade tomorrow? Think anyone will win?" Hauptbahnhof finished off his third glass of wine. He hadn't touched the chicken platter in front of him. Anna and Nina had finished entirely, and were trying to find a napkin anywhere.
"Oh, there vill be much competition this year, child. No vone in particular stands out in my mind yet." He dabbed at the corners of his mouth with what seemed to be the only napkin in the house. His eyes traveled to Jr., and he raised an eyebrow. "And vaht is it you vill be trussed up as, little one?" Jr. cleared his throat and gave a sly grin. This was his chance to really milk it for all it was worth.
"Oh, I have it all planned out. I'm gonna be a vampire!"
Hauptbahnhof nearly choked on his wine.
"Vaht vas that?"
"A vampire! Gaignun found the realest fake blood they sell on the Foundation! And there's this really wicked cape that Shelley found, I think it's a little long, but she said she could take the hem up a little bit. Plus, there's this ad we saw on the U.M.N. info structure about real vampire teeth! They put this neat little tooth thing on your real teeth, and I was thinking about putting some of that fake blood on them..." Jr. trailed off as he saw the strange look that had suddenly taken on.
"There is no zuch thing as Vampires, my little friend." A cruel smile filled his wine-stained lips.
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AN: Tah-dah! If I'm lucky, I'll get this whole fic up by Christmas! WOO HOO! Anyway, heh, sorry for taking so long on this, folks. I'm glad that people are still reading it despite the horrid over-late-ness of it. Also, as a side-note, I'm training to be the DM of my D&D group, so that's gonna occupy a lot of time too. Happy Holidays, everyone!