Chapter 7

Halloween Begins

A few days later, Kris woke up with a sickening feeling in their stomach. It had been a while since they had these kinds of cold, sweaty, gut-twisting feelings. Pure dread. Something was very wrong, but they couldn't quite put their finger on what it was. The closest they could think of anything was when the Player had controlled them.

They bolted out of their bed, heart racing. Kris checked their chest and found that nothing was off. Still, the feeling would not abate. Rushing to flick on the lights, Kris quickly took stock of their room. The window was closed and locked. Nothing on Asriel's side of the room was messed up. Well, they had put it back together after the last time Susie had visited.

Stains on the floor in the corner were the same.

Pictures of their friends were still on the walls.

The ball of junk they normally carried around was still there beside the bed…

Wait! Where was Hodo? The little napkin ghost was conspicuously missing. Kris quickly checked the floor under their bed and didn't find it. A quick sweep across the whole room yielded nothing.

Their skin crawling, Kris grabbed a flashlight and bolted into the hallway. They did their best to move around quietly as they checked the carpet, behind the potted plants, and in the bookshelf to find Hodo. There was no reason to wake up Toriel over this. Well, explaining about more Dark Worlds and what was coming on Halloween to their mother would only complicate things. The friends had all agreed to not tell the adults to help avoid a mass panic about the curse before Halloween night.

Kris finally found Hodo resting on the upper edge of the bookshelf. That was certainly not where they had placed the little napkin ghost before. Something was very fishy about this.

When they picked it up, a vision flashed through Kris' mind…

XXXHVXXX

Kris and Susie were collecting candy on Halloween night. They went to a house offering candy apples. Susie was over the moon about it! However, the apples were poisoned, knocking them both out. And while they were unconscious, three shadowy figures slipped into the Dreemurr house to ransack it.

Kris wished they could glimpse who the invaders were, but Hodo's vision was annoying lacking in those kinds of details. Toriel was taken captive by the intruders, who bound and gagged her. They turned the house upside down, looking for Gerson's manuscript. They eventually found it and began reading the words contained within the book.

The vision then took Kris outside. A vortex of incredible magic and lightning formed above the Dreemurr house. A pillar of darkness stabbed down and demolished the whole home. Toriel vanished in a blast of white light. The three shadowy figures then grew to tremendous size, becoming as great as the Titans.

They reached out their massive hands pulled down castles and armies from the stormy skies. The fortress crashed onto the school, church, and town hall, flattening them. With glowing, red eyes, the armies swept through Hometown. Wicked, barbed blades cut down Kris' friends and neighbors.

Lastly, Noelle found Kris and Susie. She wept over them before getting cut down herself. But the soldiers kept the couple alive. Unfortunately, Ralsei was not so lucky. He was impaled on the end of a great speat and posted right over them so that way he was the first thing Kris and Susie saw when they woke up.

And then the greater nightmare pounced.

XXXHVXXX

Kris came to, feeling absolutely sick. They muttered to Hodo, "That is not how this is going to play out."

An alien thought came unbidden to their mind: This is precisely what would happen unless Kris and Susie split for the night. It was of paramount importance that their strength was spread out among the friends in their class so that they could better support the defense of Hometown.

This elicited a shake of their head. Kris was going to stick to Susie. They were an unbeatable duo! They had proven that time and time again. Also, Kris did not want to give Drake a single chance to be alone with Susie and get chummy. Honestly, it was a safety protocol for the dumb dude. To say nothing of how it satisfied Kris' jealousy.

Hodo radiated concern and an urging for Kris to reconsider.

"Sorry. No can do. Now, I'm getting some sleep!"

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Kris made sure to let everyone know about their vision. Well, everyone except for Drake. There was no reason to give that guy any more encouragement!

They all agreed that something was very clearly up, however their opinions were split on the three little shoulder ghosts. Catti didn't like or trust them in the slightest. Monster Kid was a little wary but said that whatever helped them was necessary. Snowy was indifferent. Jockington and Berdly were totally cool with them and said that they wanted their own shoulder angels or ghosts. Temmie wanted Drake to be her shoulder ghost. Noelle was nervous and had a hard time crafting an informed opinion.

She wanted to meet with them in the Dark World. The whole class, again minus Drake, went to Ralsei's kingdom to greet Draego, Orgo, and Hodo. But the meeting did little to sway any opinions, except that Jockington and Berdly wanted more vocal shoulder ghosts; the three little angels weren't very talkative, emphasizing only that they were supposed to serve the three heroes. Although Draego did press for the party to reconsider their three groups' compositions.

Susie emphatically overruled her shoulder angel.

And so, Halloween finally arrived. Many in Hometown worried if there would even a celebration, let alone Trick-or-Treating. The storm still kept up and the worries about the shadows continued to grow. However, their numbers had thinned somewhat. Kris and Susie had caught glimpses of Sans and Papyrus working together to fend off the beasts invading their village.

It was comforting to know that they weren't really alone in this mission. With the magical and mysterious skelebros at their backs, Kris and Susie grew more confident of their victory. All that remained was to get dressed up and go and do!

Everyone came to school in their Dark World costumes. It was comforting and invigorating to see everyone dressed as their alter egos and ready for a battle. They needed to be ready because right when school let out, the teens needed to go and assume their positions across Hometown.

"I-I-I can't believe th-that we're letting all you k-kids bring fake weapons onto campus," Alphys muttered.

"Special permission from the mayor's office," Noelle said in a sing-song voice.

"How did she even manage that?" Susie whispered to Kris.

"She… Slipped the form… Into her mother's… workload," Catti explained.

The dragon laughed and slapped her thigh, "Kris! We should apologize to Noelle. I think we've thoroughly corrupted her!"

Kris agreed. But there was no reason to apologize. It was great to see Noelle spreading her wings more and more and finally acting like a proper teenager, looking for mischief where appropriate. Besides, these foam and cardboard weapons weren't really going to be potent until the Halloween curse was at its height.

Speaking of which, the storm finally let up. It was still super dark and overcast outside. The wind had died down, but the clouds were thicker, heavier. They were so low to the rest of the town that frigid mists had started to form. Kris figured it was just a matter of time before the clouds burst and unleashed the worst part of the storm.

However, the weather was the last thing on Susie's mind. She glared at Drake as he entered the classroom. True to the prank they pulled on him, he was dressed as a court jester, but the guy didn't even have the good graces to act embarrassed!

"Hey there, everyone! You're all looking amazing!" Drake cheered as he walked in.

"Thank you," Temmie purred. "I tried mah best!"

"And your best us greater than the rest," the dragon dude said with a big wink. "Catti, looking rad! Jockington, that's super impressive! Berdly, do you have a license for that halberd?"

"I was born to wield it!"

"Excellent! And Susie! That getup makes you look especially fierce and sexy!"

Susie glowered while Noelle blushed slightly. Kris flushed with apparent anger. This guy needed to be put in his place. They resolved that immediately after Halloween and breaking this curse, they were going to have a very serious talk with Drake. And it might just end with him covered in ketchup and thrown into the lake.

"I'm ready to put my axe into someone's face," Susie warned. "And your face looks particularly smashable."

"Ooo! I like the sound of that!"

"Sooz, don't hurt Drake!" Temmie shouted.

Monster Kid did give Drake a curious sideways glance and muttered something under his breath.

"P-P-Please everyone! Put your props away and take your seats!" Alphys insisted. "We need to st-start class!"

Snowy on the other hand mulled over the words, "What about slashable? Mashable? Susie's axe is definitely heavy enough to crush bones. So maybe crushable? Crunchable? But how do you make a good joke out of that!?"

"Just say he looks like a chopping block," Berdly interjected.

"No is chopping, smashing, or cutting anyone else!" Noelle said. "Come on! Don't get us in trouble with a fight, Susie."

"He started it," she growled back.

"And I was just trying to compliment everybody," Drake said, feigning innocence. "I don't see why we can't all just get along and have a really great time together!"

The high energy of seeing everyone in their costumes was quickly lost as the cleric, druids, cultists, warriors, and jester all took their seats. Alphys was dabbing away some nervous sweat. Despite how the students sometimes regarded their teacher, she was more aware than they gave her credit for. Alphys had been watching how Drake made some of her students feel. Susie was openly hostile and for good reason. The new guy was incredibly persistent in trying to steal her away from Kris. But Drake was smart enough to not openly antagonize Kris, because doing so could cause him to look like an absolute jerk to all the students who knew the quiet, strange human for far longer.

The politics of being the new kid was always hard, no matter how handsome or cool a teenage boy was. But his persistence was grinding on some of the other students. Eventually, Drake was going to brush up against the breaking point, and it seemed as though that time had come.

Alphys made sure to cut off any potential disaster. She set up her projector presentation and launched right into her lecture.

"Halloween is a celebration of ancient origins! But it wasn't always about the costumes and the candy, though those surprisingly played a role even thousands of years ago…"

As Alphys lectured, Susie and Kris tried to not let Drake get to them. The curious information about how Halloween began got their minds tumbling and turning as they contemplated what kinds of worlds and beings they might find themselves encountering during the Trick-or-Treating adventures. It all started blending together

Modern Halloween was the amalgamation of centuries of cultures and traditions, constantly changing their appearance as kids changed their costumes every year. Once it was a celebration that honored the dead and invited them to come back to the world of the living for a great feast and enjoy the harvests. However, the twilight hour invited all kinds of supposed spooks and spirits that might try to pretend that they were the souls of the dearly departed. And they were dangerous. So the people celebrating would dress themselves up as different creatures to blend in with other spirits.

Bright lights, bonfires, and warding Jack-o-lanterns would provide some extra protection and keep the evil spirits and unknown monsters at bay while the costumed people would enjoy dinner with their dead families. Or in some theories, historians claimed that the celebrators allowed themselves to become possessed by their ancestors so they could enjoy the feast.

"Well, which is it?" Berdly demanded to know.

"I-I don't know," Alphys answered, flustered. "I guess we can all choose what we prefer to believe."

Kris thought about how suspiciously close the beliefs of ancient Halloween were to the curse squeezing Hometown. But they were dressed up as well, and they wondered if that might mean that they have an easier time navigating all the monsters and entities crossing over in the shadows. Susie certainly hoped that wouldn't be the case.

"I think you'll all like how we get to Trick-or-Treating though!" Alphys said hurriedly.

She quickly described how the monsters brought over their Halloween traditions and intermingled with the humans. The humans thought that this festival was supposed to be one of reckless abandon. Their earliest Halloweens quickly gave way to human teenagers going around towns and cities, pulling apart people's homes and front lawns to set up massive bonfires that would light up the town and city centers, thereby driving away the shadows as they stole food to eat.

"Oh, I'm loving the sound of this!" Susie said excitedly.

"Wait, how come we are still celebrating Halloween if it got that bad?" Noelle exclaimed.

"Because it's… awesome…" Catti replied.

"Fur da candy!" Temmie cheered.

"Well, kind of," Alphys admitted.

The teacher explained that in order to save the entire country during the time of Halloween, community leaders pulled together their best ideas to save the holiday and prevent any further vandalism and violence. It was decided that when the human teens would come to attack people's homes, the homeowners would bribe them to leave with treats. The monster children saw this going down and wanted to be a part of it as well.

By this time, the centuries had long ago dulled the more superstitious beliefs of Halloween, and the promises of copious amounts of candy were too much to pass up. Humans and monsters dressed up in a rare show of equality and solidarity to enjoy a fun spooky night. The parents of both sides agreed to provide plenty of sweets and chaperone the children as well to make sure things never got too far out of hand.

This led to the modern tradition of Trick-or-Treat. The children and teens were not so much begging for candy as they were threatening to destroy private property if wasn't handed over. In order to save homes and apartments, the candy was forked over and the costumed teens and kids would move. And with parents everywhere to keep an eye on things, the threats were never fully carried out beyond simple pranks.

As a result, Trick-or-Treating became far more benign and most kids and teens no longer knew the wild history and violence that once ruled the night of Halloween. All of the students in Alphys' class began exchanging significant looks with each other. The poor teacher was completely in the dark about what this meant and began sweating profusely.

"A-A-Again, I will emphasize that you shouldn't do anything like ripping apart someone's house and lighting bonfires if they don't give you enough candy! You don't to ruin your fun night by spending it in the slammer!"

"Though you certainly might," Snowy muttered under his breath with a grin.

"Speak up! What was that?"

"But what if anyone gets possessed by spirits and the likes?" Noelle asked suddenly. "Did the ancients have any ways of dealing with that?"

Kris rather hoped that she had asked such a question a year or more ago. Why was Alphys holding out on all of them for so long if there was an answer!? Unfortunately, the flustered educator didn't know of any answer. She began speaking to herself about how she should have just found another book for them to read from and then given them a quiz.

"Ah, y-yes! A quiz! We're now going to do a quiz on my lecture!" Alphys shouted, hurriedly improvising.

Luckily enough, everyone did just fine. When the subject was fun, engaging, and relevant to the teens, they always did super well.

Faster than anxious teens expected, school came to an end, and the cloud began to leak their freezing raindrops. The wind picked up as well, but the storm hadn't broken just yet. More so than before, the world was taking a deep breath and waiting. But the dam of anxiety and anticipation was about to burst.

"Alright, I'm taking Catti and Jockington to go down to town hall. Drake, you should come with us if we want to balance our parties," Noelle said.

"Nu-huh, Drake shoold come wit us!" Temmie insisted. "Our party will be beeger, meanin' that we cuhn protect him better."

"Protect me from what?" Drake asked. "The spirits that will come out at twiliht and try to attack or possess us?" He chuckled. "Can they even come out when there is no twilight? I don't think that the storm is going to away any time soon. Actually, it would be nice if it did so that way Halloween won't be called off!"

"Twilight happens… Whether you see it… Or not," Catti said simply.

"My mother wants everyone to feel at ease after a very weird month," Noelle explained. "She says that come heck or high water, we are going to Trick-or-Treat! At least unless some constituent endangering storm does break. The police are going to be out in force toi make sure that everyone is safe."

"And Undyne is so energetic and fast that she's going to be everywhere all at once!" Monster Kid exclaimed.

"Ah, yes… She will be," Alphys said dreamily.

Ignoring her, Susie commented, "Remember that the other night the weird shadow came out and attacked me and Kris. It won't matter if the cops are out, we need to finish our Trick-or-Treating fast so we can end this curse!"

"Oh, so it's a quest?" Drake said eagerly, his jester bells jingling.

"Definitely a quest!" Berdly said, striking a heroic pose and hoping that Susie was looking. Sadly for him, the dragon girl was already ushering Kris towards the front doors.

"Come on, dorks! We need to get going! She called to her friends.

Drake beelined right to her side. Susie and Kris both threw dark looks that could cut like daggers. The new guy brushed off their ocular assault as if he was waving aside a nasty fart. Drake them a winning grin before turning to face the rest of their class.

"I'm going to go with the lovebirds! I want to meet this Ralsei guy! Besides, we're all meeting up later, right? We'll have plenty of time to hang out! Besides, I'm not going to cramp Noelle and Catti's style!"

Catti and Noelle surprised everyone by suddenly blushing crimson. But Susie was undeterred as she growled, "You're cramping our style, bud. Get. Lost!"

Ignoring her protests, Drake called out to Temmie, "I promise that we're going to hang out at QC's when we all get together. And then we go and take downtown for all its worth, right?" He snapped and did finger guns at Jockington and Monster Kid.

Monster Kid gave a half-hearted response as Jockington cheered, "Right on, dude! I'm okay with that idea!"

"Then we are in agreement," Drake said, draping his large arms around Kris and Susie. He steered them out the front door and out into the cold. "Alright guys, I know we've had a lot of bumps and divots on our road together so far. It's clear that you don't like me, so let's change that by having a good time tonight!"

"You keep trying to make passes at me," Susie snarled, shrugging him off. "Look, I know I'm dense a lot of the time, so if I can figure it out and I don't like it, then I want you to stop!"

Kris nodded emphatically with their girlfriend's assertion.

Drake let go of Kris and held up his hands. "Okay, okay! I get the message, but then that means that we have all the more reason to get along together. Let's bury the hatchet tonight with a fun time Trick-or-Treating!"

"It's not as easy as going out and having a good time tonight," Susie muttered, looking away from him. She swung her axe around, irritated. "We're going to be doing a lot of stuff tonight that is pretty dangerous. And it's not like those pranks Ms. Alphys was talking about. More like the weird ghost stuff she brought up."

"Then isn't it better to be in larger groups?" Drake reasoned.

Kris didn't like how persistent the guy was being, but he was already headed towards their house. If Toriel got there in time to intercept the group before Kris and Susie could expel the pest, she and very likely Ralsei would insist on bringing Drake along. They tried to put on the speed and get around the big dragon teen. He somehow guessed what was on Kris' mind and thus a race for the Dreemurr house began.

The three teens raced across Hometown, veering northwards and climbing to Kris' house. The wind began picking up, buffeting them. Random, freezing droplets of rain splashed their faces, reminding them of the storm that was about to break. Younger kids and families were already out and about, getting ready and hoping that the storm would hold back until later in the night.

It was Halloween time!

But Kris needed to shake Drake, and unfortunately, dark shadows were already wrapping themselves around their home.

No! What are those doing there?

The answer was immediate: The door flew open and Ralsei spilled out along with lancer Roulx and all the other citizens of the Dark Prince's kingdom.