Disclaimer: If you recognise it, it's not mine.

A/N: Virtual cookies to anyone who spots the crossovers. Concrit welcome.

The Halloween event affected various parts of the world differently. In the USA, the chief result was legions of people who were transformed into their costumes or just characters that they had the mixed fortune of resembling in some way, with the products of folklore and forteana taking second place. In the UK, the time difference meant that there were very few people in costume when the spell was cast, not to mention that the day had rather lower significance in British culture. There were still those who were transformed, for one reason or another, but they were greatly out numbered by things which owed their origins to history and legend. Britain's long and often bloody history, as well as a rich and complex folklore transformed the once green and pleasant land into a haunted isle, where ghosts filled the cities and the beings of folklore and Celtic mythology ruled the countryside. London was torn to shreds, as the setting for countless works of fiction of all varieties its fate was sealed, even without the numerous ghosts and supernatural horrors, the Below suffering slightly less then the Above.

In the north of England, the city of Lancaster found that it's past reputation as 'Hanging Town' came back to haunt it quite literally, a large number the terrified population taking refuge in its numerous churches. But not even hallowed ground was entirely safe from the horrors that filled the never ending night. Further east, the city of York found itself to be in much the same condition as its old rival, while the coastal town of Whitby found itself terrorized by one of the changed worlds many incarnations of Dracula. In the novel he'd moved on to London after his arrival in the port, but the association between the two in both people's minds and the town's identity was enough to keep this chaos created version where he was. Other works of fiction and various bits of local folklore added to the mayhem, a phantom coach and horses thundered through the streets, a headless spectre haunted Fitzsimmon's steps, and a mischievous spirit known as Hob made his presence felt in the country lanes around the town. On the side of light, St Hild, the first Abbess of the now ruined Abby and a focus of local legend for centuries was returned to life, her presence providing a small measure of protection and a rather greater source of hope.

A little way to the north, in the county of Cleveland, things were somewhat quieter, something which was due to the area being relatively insignificant until the Industrial Revolution during which the population increased drastically, and consequently the county was associated with little other then industry. It still had its own share of horrors, there was just slightly fewer of them, and this fact was more then enough to make the area a magnet for refugees.

In the Cleveland town of Guisbrough, a funeral was in progress. A shelter had 

been attacked two days earlier and while the attackers, a pack of huge, fanged, vaguely humanoid beasts had been killed fairly swiftly, a dozen people had lost their lives.

There were few people attending the service, while the majority of the deceased had family not many were willing to leave the relative safety of the shelter. The only ones present were the vicar leading the service, a handful of mourners who were willing to risk leaving the shelter, the man who operated the small digger that had dug the graves and a trio who were acting as guards in case anything dangerous showed up. Two of these were also mourners and stood next to each other. Neither of them would've been easy to lose in a crowd. The taller and slightly older of the two was well over six foot and well built, with blue eyes and a shock of white hair, which given that the man looked to be about nineteen or twenty, wasn't due to age. His right arm was in a sling, a detail that would've made someone wonder why he was on guard duty, until they noticed the large revolver within easy reach of his left hand and the improbably huge sword on his back. The expression on his face was an odd mix of anger and boredom, the former due to his failure to protect those being buried, the latter due to his utter disinterest in the service.

His companion was a boy in his mid-teens, and, technically, his stepbrother. Shorter and slighter then his sibling, he would have been the less remarkable of the pair if it wasn't for his hair which was of a colour more suited to the contents of his arteries. Jaw clenched, he kept one hand on his shotgun and glanced around for trouble.

Prior to Halloween they'd been John and Kieran Brand. Their parents had married when John was six and Kieran two. Although the two had grown up together it was obvious that they weren't biological siblings, the tall, blond and athletic John contrasting sharply with the short, geeky Kieran, but despite the difference the two of them were close. Three years earlier, John's father (and Kieran's step-father) had died of cancer and despite his grief, the then fifteen year old John had done his best to take over as man of the house and look out for everyone else. Kieran on the other hand, dealt with the loss by escaping through his imagination, something which eventually led to him taking up writing, although he'd be the first to admit that it wasn't very good, mainly because his characters usually ended up being far too unemotional.

When the spell struck, John had been on his way home from a Halloween party at a friend's house. Two days earlier he'd injured his right arm playing rugby which necessitated it being in a sling. Never the less, he'd gone to the party, although he'd left getting a costume till the last minute and had improvised by wearing normal clothes with the addition of a toy sword and gun left over from when Kieran was younger and still played with them, and telling anyone who asked that he was a monster hunter.


The spell had struck just as John was walking through the front door, the combination of his appearance, the toys and sling, and what he's told everyone he was resulting in him being largely replaced by a demon killer by the name of Nero. The chaos magic was unaffected by the timeline, with stories and characters that wouldn't have been thought of for years having as much influence as those that existed at that moment. The game that Nero was from would've come out in 2008, although the Event now meant that would never happen, but never the less the character merged with a young man who greatly resembled him, retaining some of his memories but replacing much of the original personality, something which Nero was less then happy about since to his mind possession was a decidedly demonic thing to do. A highly capable fighter, it didn't take him long to decide to act as protector for John's family, a role in which he had until two days ago been doing a good job of doing, although there were a few things which he tried to hide, the main one being his arm. Although it was in the sling, this wasn't due to injury. Instead the limb had a demonic appearance and was a formidable weapon in itself, more than capable of tossing a monster twenty times his size around like a rag doll. It was in the sling for the simple reason that people tended to take one look at it and get the wrong idea, so it generally made things easier if he kept it hidden.

As for Kieran, he'd spent Halloween stuck in bed with a cold, but hadn't let that stop him from continuing his literary endeavours and had ended up nodding off with the notebook in his lap. Although not in a costume, the connection between him and the character he'd been working on for over a year resulted in the two of them being mixed together. Physically the character was the more dominant influence so he'd gone from being a short, rather scrawny fourteen year old to a wiry sixteen year old standing at a respectable 5"10, with a shock of improbably red hair. Personality and memory wise it was pretty much a 50/50 mix, something which resulted in him having a bit of an on going identity crisis since the two sides often contradicted each other. He wasn't as good a fighter as Nero, but he was working on it.

Their mum had been unsure what to make of her altered sons. Of the two, Kieran had been easier for her to accept since in a lot of ways he was still the boy she's brought up, if somewhat less emotional. Nero had taken more getting used to. She'd finally started to get accustomed to the idea when the shelter was attacked. She'd been helping out with the latest influx of refugees when it had happened and although Nero had done his best to protect her, the fact was that he'd been pretty much the only decent fighter there, there'd been a lot of attackers and he couldn't be two places at once. He'd thought that she was out of harms way and didn't realise otherwise until it was too late. He'd wiped out every single one the monsters but it wasn't enough, he still felt like he'd failed. Kieran, while grief stricken, proved to be surprisingly understanding and kept assuring him that it wasn't his fault.


Staring down at the grave in front of him, Nero's attention was caught by a rustle in the bushes. The vicar stopped speaking as everyone waited to see what it was, and, if necessary, run for it. The rustling stopped, only for something firmly ensconced in the 'nasty' category to leap out a moment later. Its leap was cut short by two bullets smashing through its skull and knocking it backwards to land in a crumpled heap. Nero waited a moment then, when there wasn't so much as twitch; decided that it was dead and re-holstered his double barrel revolver, an action which the vicar took as his cue to continue.

It didn't take much longer. As soon as the final committal was over, the other mourners and the vicar made a swift retreat back to the vehicles they'd arrived in. The man in charge of the digger started it up and set about filling in the graves. The de facto brothers stayed where they were. Kieran was the first to break the silence.

"So what do we do now?"

Nero shrugged.

"Go back to the shelter. There's still a whole load of weird shit out there and I'm pretty much the only person here who's any good at kicking its ass. "

"True."

Kieran walked forwards and crouched down at the edge of his mother's grave. Picking up a clod of earth, he crumbled it in his hand and tossed it onto the cardboard coffin.

"Bye Mum. Hope things are better where you are."

Standing up, he looked out over the cemetery's fence and froze.

"Hey Nero."

"Yeah?"

"We've got company."

The thing that had barged in during the funeral must've just been well ahead of the pack. There was another half a dozen of the things approaching over the field that backed the cemetery. They weren't particularly big but that didn't really matter since a large percentage of their size consisted entirely of teeth. Nero groaned.



"Oh great."

"Need any help?"

"No. You make sure nothing else gets the drop on the normals. I'll take care of the pest problem."

With that he grabbed his gun and jumped the fence. Two of the uglies were riddled with bullets before Nero even hit the ground and the rest were hacked to bits before they had chance to realise that they were under attack, something which resulted in the ground getting splattered with foul smelling unidentifiable gloop.

"Gross."

Flicking a bit of green goo off his sword he put it back on his back and rejoined his step-brother who was leaning on a Range Rover.

"Let's get going. The normals are getting more nervous then usual."