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As Halloween drew closer and closer, the school began to appear spookier and spookier as the days ticked by. Fake (although sometimes they ended up being real, such as when Kang Ling accidentally stumbled into one and was met with fragile threads rather than rough cotton) spider webs dotted the corridors and plastic spiders and bats hung from the ceiling. Shibusen was really getting into the holiday spirit, and Rainer couldn’t blame the school.

With the designated day nearing, there were also the usual Halloween-themed rumors that plagued the school. With Caine and Rainer’s technician still being new, it was their duty to separate fact from fiction.

The trio lounging at their two-bedroom home, Kang was busily wiping the tables with a wet rag while Caine dozed on half of the couch, Rainer watching television as he sat in the other half. Pausing mid-stroke, she turned to look at her partners. “Hey . . . i-is the r-rumor o-o-of a-a p-party t-t-true?” she inquired.

Rainer curiously craned his neck toward her, looking clueless. “Party?” He paused before his eyes widened and he jumped off the couch, making a beeline for the pile of mail innocently lying on the counter. “I nearly forgot!”

Drowsily opening his eyes, Caine sat up and sleepily stared at the Chinese girl. “In other words, it’s true.”

A triumphant cry and the blond teenager bounded back into the main room, holding onto an already-torn-open envelope. “The invitation!” he hollered and eagerly gestured for the other two to come forward and read it themselves as he busily dived for the phone. “We’re going even if you don’t like it!”

“What a bother . . .”

“W-What w-w-will I-I g-go a-as?”

Zoe looked at Red with wide, innocent eyes and the poor weapon flinched. "NO." he answered as she waved the gold credit card in front of him. "No. It's a goddamn costume party. What do you expect us to wear?"

Her eyes brightened. "Is that the problem, then? Because you don't know what to wear?" she giggled as she ran her fingers through her hair. "Little red riding hood and the wolf... you can be Red!" her eyes gleamed. "Tweedle dee and tweedle dum? The mad hatter and the hare?" she paused. "Or something sexy. Like pokemon."

... "Pokemon is sexy?"

Mytha, smiling to herself, had always preferred going through her mail alone; in case there was something from back home, she could write back right away.

... Yes, email would have been quicker, but Mytha's mom always insisted that a digital letter would never be as good or as personal as a real one. Since Mom's letters were always accompanied by a package of cookies or jam or fall leaves or other forms of loot, Mytha was inclined to agree.

This day, she received no packages, but she did receive an odd note. Her brow furrowed slightly; had they been talking about this at school? It wasn't like her to notice these things, so...

'I wonder if Tristan wants to go... ?'

Not that she thought that Tristan was the partying type... maybe... but it sounded kind of fun; plus, she was sure that she could ask for the night off. But going alone would be... Especially since she hadn't really met anyone else.

Mytha was chewing lightly on her lower lip when her phone rang, causing her eyes to flicker upwards in surprise.


Tristan was tapping his foot impatiently, not really knowing why; it wasn't a school day, and it wasn't like he had anything else to do, god bless the needlessly wealthy. On the other hand, Tristan had never liked waiting, so as he half-consciously counted off the rings of the phone, he toyed idly with the invitation in his other hand.

Well, you never knew when an opportunity might come up.

When Mytha answered, her voice saying, "Hello? This is Mytha Grenville," Tristan answered "Yes, that's why I'm calling." Mytha went silent, and Tristan reflected that this probably wasn't the best way to start out a conversation of this type. Let's try this again.

"Sorry... It's me, Tristan. Did you hear about this Halloween party at NEVEH?"

"Yeah." And now Tristan was surprised, because he didn't think that Mytha paid attention to those kinds of things.

"Well, how about going, then?" A pause, which threatened to become awkward, and Tristan added, "You've got to get out sometime, you know. Can't just spend all the time at school."

"... Okay."

"Should we... I dunno..." Tristan had no idea what he was saying. "Most of the other teams are probably matching their costumes too..."

Giving his head a quick shake, as though to shake some sense back into himself, Tristan interrupted his own sentence, saying quickly, "Never mind, dumb idea. Just make sure you're in some kind of costume where you show up, all right?"

There was a silence on the other end, and finally Mytha said, voice prodding, "I have no idea where Club NEVEAH is."

Resisting the urge to facepalm - obviously she wouldn't, Mytha wasn't exactly the partying type... probably... Tristan managed to sound vaguely exasperated (as opposed to embarrassed) as he said, "All right, I'll come get you then. Where's this boarding-house of yours... ?"

Wendell glanced through the mail he just recieved and blinked at a rather formal looking letter. He wondered what it was, after all he and Annabelle hadn't been paired all that long so it couldn't be a mission just yet. Opening it up he read it paled, he had to hide this quickly. Searching around he tried to think of a place to keep this.

"So what's that?" a voice over his shoulder confirmed Anna had snuck up on him again.

"NOTHING! N-n-n-nothing at all. From my parents. Just a family thing. Its nothing!"

She narrowed her eyes. "Gimmie," she held out her hand.

He sighed, there was no saying no to her now.

"TOTALLY AWESOME!!!!!!" Annabelle was squeeing in delight after reading the invitation. Running around the room she was already coming up with ideas for costumes. Ideas for herself but more so for Wendell.

"But I don't want to be any of those! Especially a cheerleader! Besides who says I want to go?" The emo/goth technician frumped on his bed as his weapon continued to run around the room talking about much she loved costume parties.

"But Weeeeendeeeeeeell! I love costume parties! They are the one time we can dress up totally off and no one can say anything about it! It's so cool!" She had stars in her eyes. "And OF COURSE we are going! It will be totally awesome and you are so creative that we could come up with the most awesome costume pair!"

Wendell sighed, he could never argue with her when she wanted something. Normally because it was never an argument that was worth fighting. She had been telling him for days that he needed to be more social with the other tech/weapon pairs and this was a good way to do so. A party was a social event and he could dress however he pleased and it wouldn't be weird. Not that he really cared about other people's opinions.

"So we are gonna go riiiiiiiiiight?"

Wendell sighed, "Yeah sure, we'll go."

"YAY!!! I am totally gonna rock this party with a kick a** costume! And we need it to be a pair costume!! So like it will make sense! That's why i said you should be the cheerleader and I'll be the football player!"

"But why can't I be the football player??"

"Cause you refuse to mess up your hair with a helmet."

"..........shut up"

"hehehehehehe!"

It was a lazy day in Dominique and Isztivans apartment, as where most days after school without any given homework. Dom was cooking, as per their agreement that he did that in return for Isztivan doing all the cleaning, it was a somewhat one sided agreement. As Dom busied himself in the open plan kitchen as Isztivan shuffled through the mail, most of it junk mail for various fast food places nearby. Aside from one addressed directly to both of them, ironically the first of it's type.

A grin flashed up on his face as he read it.

"Dom" he called as he approached him in a annoying sing song voice. "Take a look at this"

"Hmm?" Dom was immediately presented in the face by a letter inviting him to a costume party for Halloween.

"A-a costume party?" He squeaked, suddenly flustered.

"Yep" He beamed, as Isztivan gave him a mock punch in the arm.

"Soigneux!" Dom cried as he stumbled forward nearly crashing into the boiling pan of water. He gave Izstivan a look that he'd learned all too well he should feel very guilty about that. He continued to smiled regardless.

"It'll be fun, you'll like it, I've already got an idea of what we can go as"

"Wa-what?" Dom said hesitantly, still tending to the cooking food.

"You'll see" He chimed returning to the living room, a sly grin on his face.

Both of Eva's brothers were staring at the envelope.

"Who's it for?" the first one asked.

"Looks like it's for April... and Eva," replied the second one.

"We shouldn't open Little Miss Muffet's mail," the first one shook his head and started to sort the rest of the mail with a grin, knowing how his brother would respond.

"But it's also Eva's, and it's our duty as her older brothers to--" There was a sound of paper ripping as Eva snatched the envelope from her brothers' grip. A corner was torn, but not enough to call the letter ruined.

"Jerks," she spat before she trampled up the stairs with all the grace of a hippopotamus.

~~~

"You could just go as you normally go. It's intricate enough for a costume!" Eva gestured to April's outfit-- they seemed to be getting more and more complex as the days went by.

"That's not a costume..." April retorted in a calm voice.

"Listen, I already know what I'm going as!" Eva laughed, "I can't wait to show it off. I'm going to be Dragon from Alley Warrior IV! Hey, Keith's costume is pretty simple if you want our costumes to be themed. All you need is a red jacket and some slacks..."

April looked at Eva with a cocked eyebrow.

"What if I said that I wanted to be Xaou Lee instead?"

Talu set the small end table down on the floor next to the couch, whipping the sweat from her brow. Her and Diemos had been moving stuff around, it having been mostly Talu's idea. Talu plopped herself down on the couch, resting her head against the back. She closed her green eyes to take a small break before opening them again and grinning.

"Having ourselves a break, are we?" Diemos raised an eyebrow, arms crossed over his chest.

"Just a little one. " Talu smiled. "We've been moving things all over the place since this morning!"

"That's because you wanted to make sure that every thing looked okay, in case we had guest." Diemos retorted as he gently dusted the book shelves that held mostly his books more than Talu's.

"Very true. I did want to." She sighed as she flung her arms over the back of the couch, being wary of Diemos.

Talu then hoisted herself up off of the couch and turned around. "I'm gonna go and check the mail, kay?" Talu smiled, Diemos not looking but waved as an indication for her to go for it.

She smiled a little more before turning and heading towards the front door. Diemos looked back after Talu closed the door behind her, smiled a little and shaking his head before going back to his chore. Talu hummed and bobbed her head a little to a small beat that she had in her head as she walked down to the mailbox, the sound of the cement beneath her bare feet. If Talu didn't have to wear shoes, she normally didn't. It never really hurt her but she felt relaxed when she was barefooted.

"Let's see..." Talu opened the mailbox lid, reaching her arm in and grabbing the small amount of mail they had. She flipped through the letters and such. "Junk, junk, junk... Ooo, letter from dad, more junk... Huh?" She opened the latch to the front door with her elbow as she stared down at a little black envelope among the many slightly larger letters.

"Hmm?" Diemos had just gotten done with dusting and was putting the duster away in the hallway closet.

"We got a little black letter." Talu set the rest of the mail, aside from dark letter. "Wonder what it is?... Neat! It's addressed to you and me." She beamed at the letter as she opened it.

The paper was very crisp to the touch and the lining was really delicate and metallic. Only it was orange. Talu's bright emerald eyes scanned the paper, reading it in her head. Diemos raised his usually eyebrow and tapped his foot lightly. Talu looked up and smiled sheepishly.

"Sorry. It's an invitation to a Halloween party!" Talu grinned, already having an idea for costume in her mind. "Wanna go?"

Diemos plucked the invitation from Talu's hand, looking the invite over for himself before looking over the top of his with his blue eyes looking down at the excited girl before him. Diemos sighed lightly before bringing the paper down a bit more. "Alright... But there is no way I'm letting you pick my outfit." He set the letter down on the dinner room table.

Talu jumped up, arms in the air. "Yay! I'm gonna go as a Victorian woman. So you can be my vampiric escort." Talu grinned, chuckling slightly, walking off to her room to put together her clothing for the party.

"I thought I told you, I'm going as what I want to go as, Talu." Diemos sighed, knowing that she didn't hear a word that he just said. But she was good at figuring out what he was going to be without him having to tell her. He had the fangs for it so it seemed to fit him better. "Just hope she doesn't mind the fake blood that I'm going to be having on me." He smirked as he headed into the kitchen to cook up some lunch for them, it being his turn to make lunch.