Chapter 25: Halloween Truce

(Sunday, October 31st, 2123)

Playa strode through the streets of Southside, watching with a tiny smile on his face as children in costumes rushed about, begging for candy from adults.

Halloween had come, and it was a joy to see so many people out and about. According to Johnny and his other lieutenants, Halloween in Stilwater for the past five years had been a somber, stilted affair, as nobody had wanted to risk running afoul of the gangs that roamed the city.

Even though the Trick-or-Treat Truce was in effect back then, gangs like the Sons or the unlamented Brotherhood hadn't exactly cared much about enforcing it.

As for what that was, the Trick-or-Treat Truce, also known as the Halloween Truce, was an old bit of Quirk history with a grim, sorrowful origin dating back to the end of the Quirk Wars and the rise of heroes and villains in the United States. Before the Truce was put into effect, children dressing up as their favorite heroes (or even villains!) during Halloween had been targeted by unaware villains or heroes, either on purpose or accidentally, resulting in several dozen bloody incidents across the country as trick-or-treaters were hurt or killed.

This resulted in massive retaliation from both sides, until a nationwide 'Unwritten Rule' was put into effect by both the hero and villain community, which stated that October 31st was off-limits. Nobody would do anything related to heroics or villainy on that day, save perhaps a few meet-and-greets from the heroes.

Anybody stupid enough to violate this truce would be punished severely. Heroes who acted too harshly during Halloween would get sidelined or receive little to no support, financially or otherwise. A single stupid act on a single day could ruin entire careers. Had ruined them, in fact.

As for villains, they were dealt with harshly in-house. If they belonged to a gang, said gang was responsible for 'taking care of business' immediately, or face the wrath of the others. Unaffiliated criminals who pulled something on Halloween were just straight up tracked down, cornered, and murdered in the streets. Or, if caught by heroes, would get punished in prison by the other inmates.

It was brutal, but it worked more often than not, and resulted in one day a year that had next to zero crime nationwide. Not even the Christmas Truces were as effective.

Of course, in crime-heavy cities like Stilwater, just because the Truce was in effect didn't mean it was safe. Before his coma, the foreign drug cartel Los Carnales had been utterly uncaring of the Truce, and the Rollerz and Vice Kings had been uninterested in enforcing it against them.

This was partly why Julius had formed the Saints. Playa knew from Johnny that the founder of the gang had lost family to Los Carnales breaking the Halloween Truce.

'Another thing me and Julius shared,' Playa thought morosely. His own parents had been murdered by the Los Carnales during a raid on a pharmacy gone wrong, and his mother and father had been unfortunate bystanders caught up in the chaos. Stray bullets and shrapnel were just as deadly as a mismanaged Quirk, in the end.

'That's enough dredging up bad memories,' Playa scolded himself. 'The past is the past and it's Halloween. It's not the time to be sad.'

Deciding that the best way to get happy was to get a nice sugar rush going, he stopped by a street cart vendor selling candy apples and bought one. It was nice and tasty, and just what he needed.

"Spare some change?" an older man in rags asked as he walked by, and Playa, feeling charitable, dropped a hundred-dollar bill into his hat.

"Thank you, sir! Bless you!" he babbled happily, and Playa just nodded back. He had plenty of the Brotherhood's dirty money to burn, and giving it to the less fortunate seemed like a nice way to spite Maero's ghost.

The economy had gotten wonky during the Quirk Wars. The destruction of several cities and countries, the formation of new ones, and a whole host of other issues had seen the dollar suffer hyper-inflation, massive deflation, and even being temporarily usurped by Cryptocurrency as the dominant monetary system, before settling down.

Right now, one US dollar in 2123 money was worth about as much as a US dollar from the 1990's, so the homeless man could get a decent meal and some warmer clothes with that much cash.

"Stay safe old timer," Playa urged as he continued on his way, heading to a local park.

Located in the Chinatown district, Serenity Gardens Park had gotten cleaned up properly once the red-clad Neo-Nazis had been dealt with by being ousted from the place. Already the grass looked greener without all the cigarette butts, used needles, and Brotherhood graffiti littering the area.

The people seemed to think so too, as there were dozens of families out and about enjoying the cool but still tolerable autumn weather.

There was one person who stood out, though, and whom the parents were making sure to keep their distance from.

Sitting on a bench with a twelve pack of beer was Johnny Gat, his purple shades and popped collar a dead giveaway even if his face wasn't on wanted postered scattered across Stilwater. There was even one on the tree next to the bench, which Playa found hilarious.

"Yo, Playa!" Johnny greeted, waving at his friend.

"Hey, Johnny. What's the haps?" Playa asked as he fist-bumped his Second-in-Command.

"Not much. Got beer. Thought we could try and get the ducks in the pond drunk," Johnny said.

"I'm surprised you agreed to show up when I called. I would have thought you and Aisha would have something planned," Playa admitted as he sat down.

"Nah, Halloween is the one time of year Aisha gets to walk around freely without having to worry 'bout being recognized. Everyone thinks she's just wearing a great 'Aisha' disguise. Even won a costume contest, and she wasn't even dressed up!" Johnny chuckled. "She also loves handing candy out to kids, so she'll be doing that for a couple hours."

"Guess we got time to chill, then," Playa said, happy to have some time with his main man. "How about you pass me one of those beers?"

"Heads up!" Johnny replied, tossing his boss a can.

"Heck yeah!" Playa cheered as he grabbed it and popped the tab while Johnny took one for himself. The pair of them then leaned back as they sipped at their drinks, enjoying the twilight while it lasted.

"Ugh, I feel like a caveman trying to catch up with modern civilization," Playa groaned as he looked at several people in costumes for cartoon and video game characters he didn't recognize.

"Eh, you didn't miss much. At least you got to skip the pox," Johnny said with a shrug, cracking open a new can of beer.

"The pox?" Playa asked, disturbed.

"Yeah, back in late 2119 to mid 2121 there was a damn mess called the Brazilian Pox that spread around for a bit. Caused nasty rashes that came with swelling and vomiting. Lethal, too. Originated in the Amazon Rainforest or some shit," Johnny explained, sipping at the beer.

"Christ on a pogo-stick," Playa muttered. "Okay, I guess there was some upside to sleeping in for five years!"

"Apparently, every century there has to at least one major global pandemic," Johnny continued. "Happened in 1917 with the Spanish Flu, and again a hundred years later in 2018 with Covid. Some egg-head on I-Island said it might be due to some sorta genetic drift or evolutionary pressure? Didn't really understand the techno-mumbo-jumbo. But it killed a bunch of people before a cure was found. Science-guy called David Shield made it."

The gangster rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "You know, the pox was probably why it was so hard for the cops and heroes and other gangs to fuck with the Saints. Business was really slow those two years. I only got caught after the pandemic was over, after all. Of course, I didn't think I'd fail to kill that rat-fuck Troy, so I didn't plan an exit strategy, so that's all on me. But still."

"Well, we're here now, and the Saints are recovering," Playa said, toasting Johnny with his own can of beer. "Soon, we'll have the city back to normal. Nice and gang free."

"Yeah. One day. That's the dream," Johnny agreed, knocking his can against Playa's.

They then went back to people watching. The two men observed a few kids show off their Quirks over by the pond, and nearby, a couple of parents were watching them to make sure they didn't do anything reckless. Seeing that sight made both men sigh, for similar reasons.

"You know, my parents were Quirkless," Johnny said after he took another sip of beer, breaking the silence. "So am I. Did you know I used to lie to my classmates throughout elemental, middle, and high school? Said I had a Quirk that was really dumb, that's why I never used it. I think I waffled between super-sticky snot but only on Sundays, or being able to see through sunglasses at any time of the day. I eventually settled on the latter."

"Ah. I had a classmate in middle school who had one like that. He could negate radio waves. All radio waves. Even Wifi! Couldn't use a cellphone or laptop, the poor guy. Had to use a landline to call people and ethernet to connect to the internet," Playa said sympathetically. "He got teased a lot. As much as me."

"Yeah. Shit was really fucked back then," Johnny muttered. "You know, watching the rugrats run around has got me thinking. What if Eesh and I have a kid? Will he or she also be Quirkless? They say 80% of the population has Quirks, but that still leaves 20%. Over two billion people still don't have Quirks and they get shit on every day for it. I don't want that for my hypothetical kids. I don't want them to go through what Aisha and I did."

He then crushed his empty can in his fist and tossed it towards a trashcan. Then, he leaned back on the bench and continued to people watch, though his gaze almost always drifted back to the smiling, laughing children in costume that roamed the streets, free as a bird with nary a care in the world.

Seeing Johnny watching the kids with a melancholic expression made Playa introspective as well.

His comments about lying about his Quirklessness hit Playa hard. Having a weak, useless Quirk was better than not having one as far as the modern world was concerned. They treated the Quirkless like they were disabled, mentally as well as physically, and discrimination was ever present.

Completely ridiculous, since like Johnny had said, there were two billion humans on Earth without a Quirk, but they were mainly from the older generations. According to more recent literature on the topic, it was nowadays closer to one in a hundred thousand chance for somebody to be born Quirkless.

'Even if the discrimination is completely stupid, it still exists,' Playa thought with annoyance, taking a swig of his own beer. Yes, some companies were more likely to hire you if you had a certain type of Quirk. Construction companies prioritized Geokinetics and people with super-strength or size-changing abilities after all, but anyone could learn to drive a truck or weld or use tools. And office jobs didn't give a damn if you could turn into an otter or you had six eyes.

In many ways, the modern era was both the best and worst time for Quirks to emerge. Had they appeared before the 21st century, even around the early 20th century, Quirks would have destroyed the world. Caste systems would have formed, and countries would have reverted to feudalism with powerful Quirks at the top as pseudo-nobility. Hell, that very scenario had happened in a few countries!

The modern era had advanced tools and technology that rendered a lot of quirks superfluous. You can turn your fingers into Philips head screw drivers? Neat, there's a guy down the block who has a power tool that comes with nine different screwhead attachments. You can spit glue? How is that better than using a bottle of regular superglue from a hobby store? Or buying a roll of duct tape? You can shoot fire from your fingertips? Neat. Here's a gun. It fires faster and further than you ever could.

The point was, people didn't need Quirks. Just tools. But Quirks existed, and so people needed to be able to use them. The National Enforcement of Power Regulation Act in 2055 had tried to restrict who could use powers, as well as when and where. It died a brutal death as people protested it via riots.

The emergence of vigilantes had happened pretty early on as well, but the whole Hero and Villain system of modern times was pretty old as well, it'd just only gotten properly codified and organized in the last couple of decades.

The world was still a mess, and it was only in the past twenty-ish years that things had finally begun to settle down peacefully.

And it was all thanks to All Might. Twenty years ago, he'd begun his heroic debut in the United States, and punched crime to piece all across the country. Then, a few years later, he did the same to Europe. Then Africa. The Middle East and Asia. In ten years, All Might singlehandedly brought down organized criminal organizations, warlords, and countless other villains, stunning the world. For the first time in literal decades, there was peace.

Then, job done, he returned to his home country of Japan, which was on the verge of literal anarchy, and once again saved it. He then stayed there and let the rest of the world recover on its own.

And Playa wouldn't be able to thank that man enough.

Playa could remember the villain drills in elementary school. The terrorist attacks on the news. The heroes, who were little more than an extension of the military at the time, conducting 'surprise' inspections and arresting people without warrants or killing innocent people in the streets if they resisted said arrests. And he knew his parents remembered those dark days as well.

Pundits and armchair historians liked to claim the global instability of the emergence of Quirks ended in 2089 with the end of World War Four and the dissolution of the polities Grand Russian Republic, Korean Hegemony, and Neo-Babylonian Caliphate, alongside the arrest and disbanding of the Meta Liberation Army and the Order of Purity, but the truth was the end of the world had lurked beneath the surface for years afterwards, simmering and waiting to erupt once more until All Might stepped in.

But even with the Symbol of Peace's actions, there were still villains. The children of the world still had their futures threatened by monsters. All Might had bought the world some time. Now it was up to the heroes to make that peace stick.

And there on that bench, Playa silently renewed his vow to cleanse the streets of crime and injustice, even if he had to become a monster to do so.

"Sometimes, you just have to fight fire with fire," he muttered under his breath. A grunt of agreement from Johnny was his best friend's only contribution. But it was all that needed to be said. They were in it till the end.

"You know, that saying never really made sense," somebody said as they walked up to the bench. "Fire Fighters don't set other buildings on fire to stop a blaze, after all."

"I think it's more metaphorical than anything," Playa said reflexively, before blinking up at the newcomer. "Oh."

"Hey there," Steel Sponge, Stilwater's Number Two hero, greeted with a grin. "Mind if I take a seat?"

"What the hell are you doing here?" Johnny demanded, glaring at the tanned young man who'd sauntered up out of the blue.

"Ease up, Johnny. He's not here to cause trouble," Playa assured his second-in-command. "Halloween Truce, remember?"

"Yeah. No way I'd ruin this night for the kiddies by getting into a fight," Steel Sponge – no, Simon Reeve – replied, before gesturing to himself. "Plus, no costume! I'm off-duty tonight!"

Johnny grumbled but sat back down, though he didn't take his eyes off of the hero as he plopped down onto the bench, sitting on Playa's left side.

"You know, Phil, I never honestly thought we'd meet up like this after all these years," Simon said after a moment of silence.

"Yeah, can't say I expected my life to turn out this way, either," Playa replied with a nod.

"You two know each other?" Johnny asked incredulously, looking from his boss to the newcomer in surprise.

"Sure do. Thick as thieves, the two of us! We grew up in the same apartment complex. Went to elementary and middle school together. Wanted to be heroes together, but only Simon here was able to make it," Playa said as he nostalgically recounted the past. "He got into a nice Hero-Prep high school down in LA. Then, he went to Miami for college on a hero scholarship. Me? I stuck around Stilwater. Didn't have the kind of Quirk that would let me pass the practical tests to get into Hero-Prep courses for high school, or the smarts to get into the Support Course. And me and my family sure as hell didn't have the cash to afford me going to college anywhere outside of Stilwater U. Simon and I drifted apart after that."

"Still pissed I had to find out that you'd gone villain from the news, though," Simon replied, causing Playa to snort.

"And what was I supposed to do? Call you up and say, 'Hey, Simon, guess what, I joined a gang after they saved my ass from becoming Swiss cheese!' Yeah, that'd go over well."

"Fair enough," Simon said. "But just remember that once this truce is over, we have to go back to me being a hero and you being a villain."

"Just try and catch me, copper," Playa shot back with a grin.

"Oh, I will. My pride won't let anybody else be the one to apprehend you, Phil," Simon declared.

"Well, glad to hear it. I suppose if anyone is going to catch me, it might as well be one of my friends," Playa said.

"If you two are done verbally French Kissing each other, we should go hit up Tee'N'Ay," Johnny declared, tossing another empty beer can away. "They've got a special Halloween event going on."

"Oh, yeah, I heard about that one. All the strippers with names like 'Candi' or something like that will be putting on a show," Simon said.

The two men shared a look before giving each other nods of respect.

'Ah, nothing like boobs or the prospect of seeing 'em to unite men at each other's throats into brothers,' Playa thought to himself with an eyeroll.

"Alright, fine. But they better have a discount on their nachos!" he said aloud, agreeing to go with them.

All three of them laughed happily as they walked off to the strip club. It was a nice night to party with friends. They could worry about being heroes and villains tomorrow.

111 &&& 111

Author's Note: Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays, everyone! Thanks for reading!