[Chapter 4.25: Once Upon A Time In America]
"Hey, Aki, out of curiosity, do you celebrate something called Halloween here?" Ainz asked as he walked into the kitchen.
"How do you even know what that is? Don't you come from a different world or something?" the devil hunter asked back.
"Oh you know how it is. A traveller comes by and speaks of a place called Earth and its traditions, and you just retain such trivial knowledge."
Aki took a sip of his coffee, grimacing as the bitterness spread over his tongue. Ainz reached into his inventory and threw him a small pack of sugar, knowing damn well who was responsible for the shortage.
'Why am I like this? I have an inventory and I store goddamn groceries in there. Well, I guess it is better than a fridge.'
His flatmate graciously accepted the gift, catching it midair. "To answer your question, we don't in Japan, and in most other nations." Aki said, now slightly more satisfied with his coffee.
"Let me guess: it strengthens devils?"
"Something like that. I don't know, we just never had a very strong tradition of it, at least probably not in the sense you are thinking of. You're probably thinking of the very American style. They still celebrate it, but they also have a nation-wide hunt each Halloween for the Halloween devil."
"The Halloween devil? Didn't Kishibe deal with a fiend like that recently?"
Aki shook his head, "The Halloween devil only appears in the United States on Halloween night."
"I see…"
"Why did you even ask about Halloween in the first place?"
"Well, I was wondering if you, Power, and Himeno wanted to go take a day off and do something on Halloween night. Maybe then I would even be able to walk around in my normal outfit."
"That would involve us going all the way to the United States."
"We both know that is not the problem we have in mind."
They sighed in unison: damned if they took her, and damned if they left her. There really was no winning with Power around.
"How bad do you think she will be? And more importantly, can all of you speak English?"
"Think so, and fiends just seem to be understood by everyone, so I don't know how it works." Aki said, shrugging, "And she'll be herself."
Ainz shuddered, "By everything holy… Is there no like… fiend babysitter we can get? Can't Makima get a hold of her for one day?"
"And what do you think will happen when she hears of what we did without her? I, for one, do not enjoy dodging bloody boobytraps on the way to my own room."
Suddenly, out of Ainz's room, their saviour came. "I can keep her in check. My humanoid form should not arouse too much suspicion if my lord bestows me with a cloak." Vesicar's hollow voice echoed.
Aki glanced at the Overlord, who merely shrugged, "We can trust him. He's level headed to the point where Power won't be able to drag him into any mess if we bring her along."
"Why can't we just keep the two of them here then?"
"I'd prefer if my contracted devil remained at least on the same continent as me." Ainz deadpanned.
"Fair." Aki answered, finishing what was left of his coffee, "I'll give Himeno a call and –"
The doorbell rang. At 9 AM. On a saturday at that.
Aki cautiously walked towards the door, knowing that there existed a non-zero possibility it was the Yakuza out to get them. He swung the door open and froze in his tracks.
"Heeeeey! Wanna go do something fun on Halloween night tomorrow?" came the voice of Himeno.
"We were actually just discussing that." came the voice of Ainz, Himeno dashing directly to him.
"So we're flying first class right? You must have a ticket or two stuffed away somewhere there." she said, about to poke him in an exposed rib, only to pull back once Vesicar, still in his small, vulture-like form, pecked at her hand. "Stupid bird." she muttered.
Ainz took a step back from the devil hunter, saying, "I will simply teleport us there."
"You can do that across such a distance?" Himeno asked, taking out a cigarette and lighting it.
"Easily."
"In that case I'll see you tomorrow afternoon!" she said, disappearing as abruptly as she came.
ᘛ⁐̤ᕐᐷᘛ⁐̤ᕐᐷᘛ⁐̤ᕐᐷ
"Really? No costume?" Himeno asked, looking over at Aki.
"No."
"Ooh, I get it, you want to pick up girls after the whole Makima thing, so you need to look good, right? But girls like a little character, you know?"
"And how exactly does your costume have character?"
Shock. Pain. Anger.
Himeno's face cycled through every negative feeling known and unknown to man. "I'll have you know that men love slutty outfits like these! I even got the cat-ears to move somehow!"
Ainz averted his eyes from the display, the question of how Himeno would be able to withstand the November chill being something she would have to figure out on her own. Judging by the slight sway to her walk, she already found the solution.
Next to the Overlord stood Vesicar, in his humanoid form, covered by a black robe, and with only part of his skeletal beak sticking out.
More concerningly, Power stood next to him. She was dressed in an outfit similar to Himeno's, probably convinced to dress in such a manner due to her affinity for Meowy. Still, if some young man was bewitched by the fiend, his only hope was the decaying devil that would guard her.
Or more likely guard society from her.
"So what city are we going to visit?" Ainz asked the group, having already scouted out the main areas for a [Teleport] earlier.
"Isn't it obvious? New York! The city that never sleeps!" Himeno immediately called out.
Ainz chuckled, "I knew you'd say that. Times Square, here we come. [Mass Greater Teleportation]."
The second the group appeared at their destination, gunfire rang out.
"[Triple Widen Magic: Wall Of Skeleton], [Widen Magic: Wall Of Skeleton]!" Ainz quickly called out, surrounding the group with some amount of protection, "Is everyone alright?"
Everyone nodded, only slightly jumping as one of the skeletal walls shook, presumably from an explosive.
"Just what the hell have we gotten ourselves into?" Himeno asked.
"Whatever it is, if my lord wishes for them to be gone, that can be arranged." Vesicar chimed in.
"It's probably the division that is hunting the Halloween devil." Aki said, "It's already weird for us to be on US soil, but teleporting here? We'd give them the same welcome back home. Question is, how do we get out of here without killing them?"
"Without killing them?" Power asked, the bloody mallet in her hand falling to the ground, "Isn't this what we came here for?"
"No, we came here to party! And we are not teleporting back sober!"
"Himeno, have you considered that two of us physically can't drink?" Ainz asked.
"You'll find a way." she answered, "Now get us out of here somehow!"
The Overlord sighed, "This'll require some precise timing… Just trust me."
He cancelled the spell forming the walls around the group, gunfire erupting the moment the barriers turned to dust.
'[Time Stop].'
The world lost its colour, and Ainz breathed a sigh of relief. According to his best estimates, Himeno was just a centimetre or two away from a spent resurrection charge.
He looked around, finding that the group of armoured men was indeed packing quite the armoury. Mounted turrets, automatic weapons with what he guessed to probably be armour-piercing rounds, and even snipers on the roofs.
Dealing with them could wait, as currently his mana was being drained at a pace he was not comfortable with. First he picked up Aki and Himeno, hoisting them over his shoulder the way a fantasy lumberjack may do with timber.
Finding a nearby alley, he made his way over there and put the two down, returning for his two inhuman companions and doing the same with them.
Once everyone was gathered in the alleyway, he timed two extra spells just for good measure. "[Delay Magic: Silence], [Delay Magic: Illusionary Landscape]."
He waited a second, letting time flow once more just in time for his spells to kick in. It was quite an advanced technique, but he had the experience to pull it off consistently.
"We should be safe here." he said, brushing off the dust that accumulated on his robe.
"And how exactly did we get here?" Aki asked, "This happened too quickly for you to just teleport us."
"A good mage never reveals his hand." Ainz answered, "And there are more pressing matters. You and Himeno can go around and be fine, since you are human. The three of us… Well, I suppose we're off to find this Halloween devil."
Himeno grabbed Aki by the arm and began pulling him further into the dark alley, "Come on, you heard the magical boss! Let's go get hammered~!"
ᘛ⁐̤ᕐᐷᘛ⁐̤ᕐᐷᘛ⁐̤ᕐᐷ
"My lord, why exactly did we travel to this place?" Vesicar asked as he looked through another set of files.
"Hmm? Oh, it's just that I expect the CIA has something on the Halloween devil, and probably me." Ainz answered, correcting the glasses on his skeletal face.
'They always seemed like the type, at least in the stories Punitto told me.'
Having charmed the surveillance operators, the trio could go through the underground archives in peace, or at least as long as Power was appeased with sweets by Ainz. Bribery, it seemed, was a much easier way to calm her down than force.
He flipped through another set of pages, finally finding something of interest.
"So they have a piece of the gun devil in here? And it is… to be deployed alongside the Soviet's pieces in an attempt to… deal with Makima?" he read outloud, flipping to the next page, "And me!? What did I do!?" he yelled, his emotional suppressor kicking in.
"Change of plans." he said, putting the files back and turning to Power and Vesicar, "We are going to get rid of the American's gun devil tonight."
ᘛ⁐̤ᕐᐷᘛ⁐̤ᕐᐷᘛ⁐̤ᕐᐷ
"Another whiskey sour!" Himeno called out to the bartender. While her drink was being made, she turned around to see how Aki was faring. To her dismay, there were several nurses surrounding him, trying to convince him that he was very sick and in need of their attention, even though their uniforms were not up to medical standards.
To add onto her misery, not every man in the club had learnt their lesson yet, another one slid over to her, whistling as he did so. "Hey, how you doin'?" were the first words out of his mouth, his hand sliding over to Himeno's thigh.
Before he could even realise what was about to happen, her high heel collided with his femur, nearly cracking the bone in two. "Fuck off." she said, and the man at least had the common sense to do so.
She looked over to Aki once more, finding the fact that he seemed to be entirely uninterested in the girls swarming him to at least be some comfort. He was her prey, and Lord in heaven knows she wouldn't let anyone else have him before her, especially now that he was free.
Finding that the alcohol had dulled her senses a little too much for her current liking, she went to the bathroom to sober up.
The bathroom was empty, and thus she decided to simply do the line of coke next to the sink. After all, how could one be in New York and not try their most treasured product?
"That's the stuff!" she yelled, wiping away what was left of the white powder. The kick from this stuff really was something. Shame that the Yakuza that smuggled such goods into Japan was probably after her… Maybe Ainz had something like this or better?
As she pondered such vital matters, another girl seemed to enter the bathroom. She wore a costume that left little to the imagination – something Himeno would've typically approved of – and seemed to be based around pumpkins. Overall, it was very Halloween.
But the girl's makeup was streaming down her face alongside her tears as she sobbed and made her way towards a sink next to Himeno.
And who was Himeno to not help out a sister on a night such as this?
"Hey, what's wrong?" Himeno asked, looking over at the girl, recognising the moment she turned that she was a fiend or a devil, her eyes akin to jack-o-lanterns. Still, what kind of devil would be crying in the bathroom rather than terrorising people on a night such as this? And besides, Power seemed to be an alright girl, sometimes.
"This is exactly the problem!" the devil yelled, burying her face in her hands, "No one is scared of me anymore! I get one night a year, and I can't even trick people!"
Himeno patted the harmless devil on the back, "Come on, one night? Surely you have a few more than that, right? Unless…"
"I'm the Halloween devil! I don't get more than this! But because of all these stupid army guys, I can't even scare anybody!" the girl lamented, hitting a nearby sink and not causing even the smallest crack or dent to appear.
"Well, you did commit that massacre a few centuries ago, right? Makes sense to suppress you, and frankly I should be killing you at the moment." Himeno casually said.
"Then do it already! That wasn't even me! It was some other stupid bastard masquerading as me! Why would I kill people?!"
"Well, you're a devil for one."
The devil pouted, "Maybe, but I don't embody just some stupid fear! Do you know what people are afraid of on Halloween? Tricks! That's what I do! And I can't trick those I kill! And I can't trick them if my previous trick killed them!"
"So what you're saying is that you want to pull off a big trick, right?" Himeno asked, to which the devil rapidly nodded, her head nearly falling off. The devil hunter smiled, "Then I know just the man for the job!"
She grabbed the devil by the arm and pulled her back into the centre of the bar, calling out to Aki, "Get me in touch with Ainz! I have something I think he'll be interested in!"
Unfortunately, she didn't have a fancy ring like her junior, but matters of jewellery could be set aside for now. There was, after all, much fun to be had partying with a devil.
ᘛ⁐̤ᕐᐷᘛ⁐̤ᕐᐷᘛ⁐̤ᕐᐷ
'This is the famed Halloween devil?'
The girl in front of him looked… like a girl. Pretty, with an elaborate costume, but really nothing more special than that. The archives he poured through in this DC compound made the Halloween devil out to be some great threat. Well, not as much as the Communism devil, but what else did he expect from the CIA?
"So… you want me to help her pull off some big trick? Is that what you're on about?" he asked, perplexed by Himeno's… everything to be quite honest. She was just in another league of insane, and perhaps that was why she was such a good hunter.
The huntress nodded, "Come on! It'll be fun! And you can tie it into whatever you wanted to do before we came! And you did want to find the Halloween devil as well!"
"Please Mister Ainz! I've been so useless for so many years!" the devil pleaded on her knees, grabbing Ainz robe.
"Why should we help a stupid weakling like her? Can I just eat her?" Power asked, "I didn't get to eat anyone all night!"
Ainz put his hand into his inventory and withdrew a honeyed set of frost giant ribs, throwing it to Power and nearly crushing her body, since a single rib was the size of the fiend.
With the blood fiend presumably sated for a good fifteen minutes or so, he said, "You know what? I believe I have something in mind, and a way for you to restore some of your power, or maybe even gain a lot of it…"
Aki raised his eyebrow, Himeno smiled, Visecar was… alright, Power chewed her way out from beneath the mountain of meat, and the Halloween devil's eyes lit up with hope.
"Told you he'd have something." Himeno smugly said.
Aki's expression meanwhile was serious as always, even more so than usual even, a slight creese visible in his brow. "Just what do you have in mind?" he cautiously asked.
"Let's just say that these archives revealed an interesting little tidbit, a treat you might say." Ainz said before extending his hand to the Halloween devil, "But this will require a contract. You will become my subordinate, forever. In exchange I will help you pull off the greatest trick in devil history, and help you gain power. Do you accept that deal?"
The girl stared at his skeletal hand for a moment before grasping it with all her might, "I accept!"
Ainz pulled her up to her feet, "In that case, how would you feel about eating twenty percent of the gun devil?"
"""What?!""" yelled the two humans and the Halloween devil.
"I scouted out this place for a potential infiltration mission a while ago, and as it turns out they keep that thing here." Ainz said, turning to Aki, "Do not worry, you'll surely get to kill another fragment of it. This one, however, belongs to…"
'Oh shit, I have to give her a name. What's that other name for Halloween? I might as well run with it.'
"Eve. You don't mind the name, right?" Ainz asked, hoping the choice wasn't as cringey as with his other devil.
"N-No, thank you. I actually like it." the girl said, her smile as enchanting as the night of All Saints' Eve.
"Okay, that's all fine and dandy, and I'm all for having a fun Halloween buddy, but what do we do about the security in here? Actually, where is the security?" Himeno asked, just now noticing how they were standing in the middle of what probably was a secret blacksite without getting shot at.
"Unconscious with Power's help. Their brain haemorrhages were non-lethal… mostly." Vesicar said, glaring out of his hood to the now-visible Power, who merely flipped him off. The cold aura that began to radiate off of Vesicar disappeared the second Ainz spoke.
"You know the way, right? Lead us, and we'll follow." the Overlord commanded.
"Of course, my lord!" the devil said, beginning to walk down the metallic corridor.
Ainz walked by Power, grabbed what was left of her meal and stuffing it back into his inventory, ignoring the spear of blood that tried to impact the side of his skull. At least it didn't dirty his clothes…
ᘛ⁐̤ᕐᐷᘛ⁐̤ᕐᐷᘛ⁐̤ᕐᐷ
"Is it… asleep?" Eve asked, looking through the glass into the container of a fifth of the gun devil.
It was an abominable sight, its two arms composed of various firearms, chains of bullets being below its waist instead of legs, countless skulls made up its torso, and the head of the beast had yet another gun sticking out above its gaping maw.
The creature was huge, at least twenty metres long, and enough to make Ainz curious as to just how such a thing was knocked out. However, in the end it didn't matter.
"It will be dead in a moment." Ainz said, teleporting the group within the enclosure. A conventional blade wouldn't cut it here, and thus Ainz pointed at the neck of the beast, "[Maximise Magic: Royal Execution]."
The blade of a guillotine, painted red and hanging on by a magical thread, materialised far above the devil's neck. Ainz motioned downwards with his hand, and the devil's head was cut clean off.
Just in case the thing proved more resilient than it reasonably should be, Ainz silently cast [Death] upon it. As expected, the devil did not rise up and blast everything in its surroundings to pieces, remaining firmly on the ground, dead.
"[Twin Greater Create Item]." Ainz said, creating an oversized knife and fork, and tossing it to Eve, "Enjoy."
The girl gulped, "But there's so much of it…"
"I can always help!" Power said, lunging forward at the pile of meat.
Ainz felt a bit of his mana be drained and a bone materialised out of nowhere, piercing through Power and pinning her to the wall. "Do not go against the master's will." Visecar hissed.
The Overlord merely shrugged. If this is the kind of force Visecar had to use to keep her in charge then so be it. Power would recover, such was the nature of a fiend, though hopefully such violence would remain limited.
"I'll manage, I think." The girl slowly began cutting up the devil and eating the creature, but with how huge the being was, the others gathered got to talking.
"You said we'd deal with the gun devil soon, but I doubt this is what you had in mind, right?" Aki asked, ignoring the sound of flesh being torn in the background.
"Not really. I was expecting to deal with perhaps half the entire devil at once, since the Soviets seem to also have it out for me and Makima, but this happened to be a valuable opportunity." Ainz said, shrugging.
Himeno tilted her head and put her index finger to her cheek, "The Soviets? What do they have against you of all people? You've been around for like a few weeks,"
The undead mage shook his head, "If only I knew. Sadly, I don't. I only know, thanks to this little excursion, that they deem me, and more so Makima, to be enough of a threat to send out the gun devil."
"So we should still expect a fight, right?" Aki asked, clenching his fists.
"Indeed. Though if I may be honest for a moment, Aki, I have no idea how you expect to face that thing and live." Ainz said, pointing to the corpse of the gun devil, "Even if that thing doesn't have some ludicrous ability to materialise bullets in your head or something, just that amount of guns will take you out."
"Can't you buff him up or something with your magic? Surely you have something in store." Himeno countered, "You already gave him that shiny sword, after all."
"Maybe I could, maybe I couldn't." Ainz answered.
"So you're not willing to do that…" Aki muttered, staring at the Overlord with barely veiled anger.
"Aki, come now." the undead mage said, putting his hand on the devil hunter's shoulder, "I'd like to consider us friends, colleagues at the very least, but some things are simply not meant for mortals."
"At least let me do something during the battle." the man demanded.
Ainz put a finger to his skeletal chin and thought for a moment, "That… can be arranged."
The trio fell silent, taking the opportunity to glance back at the corpse of the gun devil, finding that it was gone. Eve seemed to be out cold, in a post-meal coma.
A sigh echoed out as Power managed to free herself from the bind Vesicar had put her in. "She ate all of it…" she lamented, "I'm gonna go eat one of the guards then!"
She ran towards the door, kicking it open without a care in the world. The second her foot made contact with the door, its metallic hinges giving way to her fiendish strength, alarms began to blair.
"ALERT: UNAUTHORISED BREACH IN CODE-G'S CONTAINMENT UNIT. RELEASING EXPERIMENTAL SHOCK TROOPS!"
"Experimental shock troops?" Ainz wondered out loud as openings appeared in the metal walls of the containment unit.
Out of it came humanoid beings of metal and flesh, fiendish both in nature and design.
"Mechanised fiends!? What the fuck are the American's thinking!?" Aki yelled, unable to comprehend the hubris and wicked creativity that led to the existence of these creatures.
"It's the CIA, what did you expect? Frankly, I think it's a cool idea." Himeno said, summoning the ghost devil to her side.
"The matter of whether it is cool is irrelevant. Protect Eve." Ainz said, silently thinking that they were in fact quite cool.
As the group bundled together and got ready for the monsters to lunge at them, a horrid sound of flesh and bone contorting echoed out. They all turned to see Eve's body violently contorting.
"Is that supposed to happen?" Ainz asked, to which Vesicar shook his head.
But before he could worry, the flesh of the girl split open in a bloody explosion, realising some horrid force. The mechanical fiends surrounding them were turned into mincemeat and scrap metal, a tornado of gore filling the room and painting everyone inside red.
Something cut through metal and bone as if they were butter, turning the very room to ribbons alongside them.
It took only a second or two for the storm to die down, and for the painter behind this horrid scene to be revealed.
Floatinging in the air was a devil, its head covered by a hood, only two orange flames visible within. Its body seemed to be mechanical, as if it was a wickerman made out of discarded metal, the hands of the thing being made of blades. Oddly enough, all of it had an orange hue to it, and Ainz could spy a few odd pieces lodged in it, such as a fake tombstone or set of orange lights.
"Eve?" Ainz asked while the others remained dumbfounded.
Contrary to its terrifying appearance, the devil appeared to enthusiastically nod, its voice still that girl from before, "Yep! Did I do well, Mister Ainz?"
"Of course you did! That was epic!" Himeno yelled before Ainz could answer, "And I think there's just one thing you need to do before we leave."
Everyone turned to her as she explained her brilliant idea, nodding in unison once her explanation was over. Psychological warfare was, after all, vital.
ᘛ⁐̤ᕐᐷᘛ⁐̤ᕐᐷᘛ⁐̤ᕐᐷ
This was a horrid day for the president. Apparently all the products of Project: Hellish Chimaera were gone, and he needed to see what happened in the gun devil containment chamber with his own eyes, otherwise he would never believe it.
He trudged down the corridor, his sluggish steps betraying his reluctance to face the music.
Eventually he made it, finding the room to be nothing more than ribbons and blood. However, there was just one detail that was not mentioned in the report.
Upon the wall, carved into it somehow, was a simple message.
"Happy Halloween! – Eve"
Edited by Korak324
Pa tr e on DOT com / EdgyTheWriter
(AN: Here's something a little fun for Halloween, with all the other stories getting a special such as this as well, so go check out [Re: He Who Is Beyond Sin] and [Runners]! As always, more to come and I hope you've enjoyed the story so far!)