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***Bob Schroeck*** · 2016-10-31: Hallowe'en in Another Reality

Hallowe'en in Another Reality
or
A Mingling of Misplaced Souls

by
Brent Laabs
Rob Kelk
Robert M. Schroeck

with
James Bostwick
Dartz
Inquisitive Raven
and other current and former posters to the Drunkard's Walk forums

Chapter 1. The Invitation

A place that would be seen by three-dimensional beings as the Yggdrasil control room
October 16, 2016

Out of necessity, all physical actions in this realm are being described as if they were their three-dimensional analogues.

"... We already lost the reality that was home to Bella and Edward^[1] before anybody was displaced from it, and things are only going to get worse in the short term as mortals measure time," Peorth concluded her status report.

Urd nodded grimly. "Thank you, Peorth. Losing even one reality is a shame for us all; we need to do better. Belldandy, how are the displacees handling their time in Refuge?"

She smiled and spread her hands apart in a gesture that showed her reply would be mixed. "Some are doing well, some are doing poorly, and a few simply don't care."

"How can they not care?" Skuld asked.

"They don't know. There's one... dude?"^[2] Puzzled, Belldandy double-checked her notes. "... 'dude', who's still bowling every week; he simply abides in a different version of Los Angeles. There isn't much that we can do for him or the others like him."

"That statement implies that you want to do something for the others," Urd didn't quite ask.

Belldandy nodded. "These people have what is to them a unique chance to meet people whom they consider to be fictional characters, and learn firsthand just how little they knew about these people from their stories. While we can't bring everyone together because of language barriers and space constraints, we can still let groups of them meet and learn about each other."

"That's a great idea!" Skuld said with a grin. "Getting them to meet each other in a relaxed atmosphere would be a good preparatory step before they need to work together in a fight, too. Where do we start?"

"We should begin with the English-speaking displacees," Peorth suggested. "They have been spread across two continents and some notable islands off the coast of a third; they're our single largest refugee group."

Skuld said, "You're talking about people who have been gifted with fluency in English, right? They're a big group, yes; there's literally hundreds of them with more arriving every week. Where can we get them all together right now?"

"That isn't an issue," Belldandy replied. "My husband and I live in a residence that can hold them all."

Peorth looked worried. "You aren't seriously considering gathering all of the displacees together, are you, ma cherie? We don't really want mortal enemies in the same place at the same time, do we?"

Skuld chuckled. "The fight might make for good entertainment. We'd almost definitely get a few einherjar out of it."

"We're too busy right now to indulge in your Valkyrie hobby of collecting fighters," Urd pointed out.

"It isn't a hobby!"

"Ladies!" They both turned to face Peorth. "We don't have time for this. And I begin to understand why you want to have a party, Belldandy."

"Is it that obvious?"

"Only to somebody who knows the three of you well. Each of you are working harder than the rest of us are, and it's beginning to show in your work. The three of you need to relax for an evening. As for how you relax, I think most of us agree that a fight to the death between displacees would be a bad thing at this point, no matter how many einherjar we would gain before Ragnarök. That still leaves hundreds of refugees who can meet without trying to rip each others' guts out of their bodies, and I think we're all agreed that this is a good idea for them to do so. It's also a good idea for them to have a chance to meet you socially."

Skuld smiled. "And imagine how many of them would be happy to meet the real Sailor Moon."

Belldandy sighed. "That poor girl will be run off her feet just meeting everyone. We'll need to be especially nice to her."

"She'd probably like having her boyfriend back in her life," Peorth suggested. "We'd best hold this get-together soon, before the guest list gets too long. When's the next holiday in the English-speaking world?"

Urd grinned. "Hallowe'en."

"You just like dressing up," Skuld muttered.

Belldandy ignored her younger sister. "I'll let Keiichi's building managers know that we want this to happen. Now, what do we do for the French-speaking displacees, or the Polish-speakers?"

"Same thing, different places," Peorth suggested. "And that would give the trainees and me our own chance to get away from the office for an evening."

"Why not?" Urd agreed.

Douglass Gardens Apartments
Somerset, NJ, USA
October 16, 2016
1:00 PM Eastern Time

"...Okay, then, let us know what works for you and I'll make sure that it syncs up with everyone else's schedules," Bob said, his cellphone at his ear. As his wife Peggy watched, he nodded, although the other person in the conversation wasn't there to see it. "Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Cool. In that case, let me let you go. Take care, and let Aunt Linda know I said 'hi!'." He took the smartphone away from his face and stared its the screen just long enough to find and swipe the "end call" button.

"Well?" Peggy asked as the phone went black and he laid it down on the tabletop next to the remains of his lunch.

Bob smiled. "Uncle Arthur said he and Aunt Linda will be happy to come by the next time they're in the area and workshop with the bands."

"'Workshop'?" Peggy raised an eyebrow.

He laughed. "His word, not mine. Which is a lot more than I actually asked him to do."

Peggy nodded and sipped her coffee. "And when will they be coming?"

"They're not sure," Bob replied, shrugging. "No more than a few weeks was the best he could tell me right now. Before Thanksgiving at the latest. He'll check their schedule and get back to me." He grinned wickedly. "And then I tell the girls that I've arranged for a multiple-award-winning composer and arranger to work with them on their music."

"Yui'll go nuts," Peggy chuckled, then took another sip.

Bob gave her a flat look. "Yui would go nuts if you gave her a cracker with cheese on it." Peggy only barely avoided snorting into her coffee as he continued. "I'm coming to love that girl like a daughter, but she's the single most indiscriminately happy person I've ever met."

"Yeah, she is, isn't she?" Peggy said with a grin of her own.

Before Bob could reply, though, the phone on the "manager's desk" in the part of the first floor of their apartment that served as their office rang. Glancing at the clock on the wall, he jumped out of his chair and dashed over to the desk, where he picked up the handset and hit the "talk/on" button. "Douglass Gardens Apartments," he said brightly — he answered outside calls so infrequently that it wasn't a chore. "How may I help you?"

"Good afternoon, Bob! It's Belldandy." And indeed it was — there was no mistaking her voice, and Bob smiled. He could listen to her speak all day.

"Hi, Bell!" Peggy set her coffee down on the dining room table, tilted her head and raised an eyebrow at him. "I see by our caller ID you're not ringing us from your place, so I'm guessing this is a business call?"

She laughed. "Yes, and no. There's been some discussion here in the ... home office about getting as many of the displacees together as possible to meet each other. We think it will be an experience that most will appreciate, and it will also help with morale."

Bob saw where this was going and chuckled. "Let me guess. You want us to get out the guest linens and air out the spare room."

She laughed again, a silvery arpeggio. "Something like that, yes. We'd like you and Peggy to host a Halloween party for as many of the English-speaking displacees as care to attend."

"Aha! I knew there was a reason you saddled us with this monster complex! We're nothing but party central to you guys, aren't we?" He made sure his tone was light and teasing. Still standing at the door to the kitchen, Peggy tilted her head and raised an eyebrow. He hit "mute" and said, "Belldandy's asking if we'll host a big Halloween party for all the displacees."

"Find out if they'll be paying for it," she replied with a frown. "We can't cover something like that out of our budget."

"Right." Bob released the mute button. "Sorry, Bell, Peg wanted to know what was going on."

"Oh, that's all right," Belldandy said. "Well?"

"Well. I think we're okay with that." He glanced at Peg just to be sure, and she nodded once. "Yeah, I think we can do that for you. I'm just concerned about what it'll cost, and if maybe it's more than just two people can set up."

"Oh, of course. Well, we can help with the funding," she said, "and I'm sure Keiichi and Megumi will be happy to lend a hand."

"If we're asking them, we might as well as send out an all-call for volunteers to the entire complex," he mused. "It'd only be fair."

"Well, then," she said happily, "in that case it sounds like you've got the start of a plan!"

Bob laughed. "Oh, I wouldn't say that, yet. But we'll get there soon enough."

"Very good, and when you do, let us know what you'll need to cover costs."

"Will do. Is there anything else you wanted from us?" he asked.

"Oh, no, that's all. Thank you ever so much, Bob," she replied.

"All part of the service. And you know we could never say no to you, Bell."

She giggled. "In that case, I'll try not to abuse the awesome power at my fingertips. Good-bye, Bob!"

He rolled his eyes. "G'wan, get out of here, you troublemaker." She was still giggling when she hung up.

Bob put the handset back on the charger and looked over to Peggy, who was waiting patiently, cloth in hand. "Tag, we're it," he said. "We're the lucky winners of a Halloween Party, all assembly required."

"We've only got two weeks," she pointed out.

He nodded. "First things we need to do is round up volunteers and hit up all the other residences to see who's going to want to come. Then we can figure out what we need in the way of ... well, everything."

"How're they all going to get here? Charter planes and buses?"

"I haven't the faintest."

One of the advantages of Douglass Gardens having a modern PBX telephone network is that every apartment automatically got its own voice mailbox. From the master console program it was quite easy for Bob to send a message to every mailbox on the system, announcing that Belldandy had asked the managers — and by extension the residence as a whole — to throw a party, and requesting volunteers to help with setting it up.

While they waited for what they hoped were droves of willing and eager helpers, Peggy and Bob did some quick brainstorming. It would be insufficient to call the other residences and say "party on the 31st, no details yet", so they quickly established some specifics. A costume party on Halloween was pretty much a given. And after some discussion, they decided that making the party a potluck cut down substantially on both costs and effort, and would self-adjust for the number of attendees. Not to mention giving the attendees an extra reason to mingle and talk to each other. Peggy made a note to post a thread on the managers.yggdrasil discussion board where the attendees could sign up for specific dishes.

That settled, Bob printed out two copies of the latest list of residences, freshly downloaded off the managers' server. He mused at the necessity — the arrival of interdimensional refugees was practically a daily affair now, and it seemed like a new place opened up every week to house them. By the time they actually threw the party, there'd probably be two entire new households they'd need to invite at the last minute. Peggy sat down at the table in the dining area next to the "office", and Bob stepped over to hand her one of the sheets. "Here... you take everything from the Hangar on down, and I'll call everyplace above it."

She nodded, and dug out her cell phone. "Okay."

Before they could start calling, though, the doorbell rang. "Hi, Mr. Schroeck!" Ui chirped when Bob opened the door. She peered around him and waved at Peggy. "Hi, Mrs. Schroeck!" Looking back up at him — he wasn't a tall man, but for all that they were practically full-grown women, the Hirasawa sisters were tiny — she continued, "I got the message about volunteers for the Halloween party and wondered if you needed anything right away."

"Hey, Ui, come on in," he said as he stepped back and waved her in. Closing the door behind her Bob added, "Oddly enough, we could use another hand right now — we're calling the other residences and inviting them. Sit yourself down at the desk, take part of the list, and be your usual charming self on the phone."

He smiled as she blushed, and led her over to the desk which was the centerpiece of the "office" portion of the ground floor. A minute later they'd redistributed the numbers. He and Peggy still had the beginning and end of the list respectively, like before, but now Ui had the middle half-dozen residences. With three callers, the job should be a fast one.

"Mr. Schroeck," Ui asked on looking at her assignment, "is this telephone number supposed to have so many digits in it?"

"Huh?" Bob said. "Let me see." He looked over her head at the first entry on the sheet. "Ah, yeah, that's an international number — they're somewhere in Southeast Asia near Thailand, I think."

"Ah, okay," Ui said, nodding. "Okay, I think I've got this."

"Cool. And thanks for helping." With that Bob parked himself on a stool in the kitchen with his cellphone in hand, while Peggy had already seated herself at the table in the dining area. With the three of them separated widely enough that none of them would be inconveniently audible on the others' calls, they got to work.

Bob had his own international number to start his calls with. Consulting the printout in front of him every few digits, he slowly punched "011 353 089 011 0701" into his phone, and a few moments later he heard the distinct double-"brrrr" of the UK phone network's "ringing" sound.

7 Henrietta Street
Dublin, Ireland
6:20 PM Irish Standard Time

At the sound of the ringing phone, Meg raised an eyebrow. She rose from her seat and crossed to the side table where the phone — a near-antique hardwired land line — rested on a small table that pressed up against the water-damaged oak wainscoting.

"Seven Henrietta Street," she said upon lifting the receiver to her ear. "Meg Deckard speaking."

"Hello, Meg." A man's voice, with an American accent, vaguely familiar. "This is Bob Schroeck from Douglass Gardens. I hope I didn't interrupt your dinner."

Ah, that was why his voice was familiar — the various teleconferences over the past few weeks as they'd started thrashing out some manner of organization between the residences. "Hullo, Bob. No, we won't be eating for another hour or more, so you're fine. What brings you to call?"

"Well, at the request of the really upper management, we're going to be hosting a Halloween costume party for all the displacees, and naturally, you and yours are invited," he said briskly.

"In the U.S.?" she asked. "How would we get there?"

"I'm assuming the megami are handling that or having it handled," he said. "We were just asked to provide the venue."

Meg hmmm'ed for a moment. "Well, I'd need to check with everyone to be sure, but I think you can put us down as a 'yes'."

"Great!" There was a brief pause during which she heard the rustle of papers. "Oh, one more thing — it'll be a potluck. Once we're done with the invites we'll post something on managers.yggdrasil to work out who brings what."

"Grand," she replied. "I'll keep an eye out for it." Meg smirked as a thought struck her, and impishly added, "This isn't going to be a Buffy the Vampire Slayer-style Halloween, is it?"

"Jinx us, why don't you?" Bob shot back. "No, not if I have anything to say about it. Any more questions?"

Meg laughed. "No, I think that's it."

"All right, then, let me let you go." He chuckled. "I've got plenty of invites to make before the day is out. Take care and we'll see you in a couple weeks."

"Ah, and bye then."

"Kickstand Cottage"
809 SE 8th Avenue
Okeechobee, FL, USA
1:21 PM Eastern Time

Even though they'd been moved in to the house for over three weeks now, the sound of the phone ringing was still a surprise big enough to shock everyone into silence. Hane hopped out of her seat on the big couch in the family room and trotted over to the end table where a wireless handset sat in its charger.

"Helloooo!" she chirped as soon as she had it to her ear.

"Hi, this is Peggy Schroeck from Douglass Gardens."

"Hi, Peggy, it's Hane!" She cupped her hand over the receiver and hissed to the rest of the room, "It's Mrs. Schroeck from Douglass Gardens in New Jersey." Returning to the phone, she added, "What's up?"

"Oh, we just wanted to let you know we're holding a Halloween costume party on the 31st and everyone there, including the Ritters, is invited. Can we expect you?"

"Hold on." Hane turned to the rest of the room. "The Schroecks are inviting us to a costume party on Halloween. Do we want to go?"

The rest of the room burst into a chorus of approval, with Onsa's shout of "Oh yeah!" while pumping her fist in the air, being loudest. A moment later, a curious Hayakawa looked in, wiping his hands on a kitchen towel. Hijiri quickly explained, and he nodded.

Hane grinned and returned triumphantly to the phone, "We'll have to ask Tom and Ellie later, but in case you couldn't hear that, everyone here thinks that's a great idea."

The Black Lagoon
Gulf of Thailand, 11° 56' 8.7288" N, 102° 35' 45.51" E
17 October 2016
12:22 AM Bangkok Time

Revy snarled her way to an unwanted wakefulness at the sound of the cell phone ringing. Dammit, she'd just barely gotten to sleep. She grabbed the phone from its charger, brushed her thumb across the "answer" button and brought it to the ear that wasn't still buried in her pillow. "You better have a damned good reason for calling at this hour, whoever you are."

"Um." A girl's voice, hesitant, tremulous, came through the phone. "Ms. Revy? This is Ui Hirasawa at Douglass Gardens Apartments in New Jersey."

"Yeah?" Revy growled. "The hell do you want?"

"Um... we're going to be holding a Halloween party, and we wanted to invite all the displacees at your residence to come?"

What the fuck...? Revy lifted the phone from her ear, stared at it for a moment, then replaced it. "Hell, no. Our idea of a party is nothing like yours, little girl. Go away and let me sleep." She disconnected the call and threw the phone across the cabin before burrowing back into her covers.

The Anything Goes Cafe
Antigonish, Nova Scotia, Canada
October 16, 2016
2:25 PM Atlantic Time

"Funtom Property Management, Antigonish building. What can I do for you?" Epsilon's voice, trained by years of telemarketing work, sounded polite and friendly.

"Hello, Aaron. It's Bob Schroeck calling from Douglass Gardens."

"Oh, hello, Bob!" Epsilon's voice immediately lost its professional tone, sounding more human instead. "What can I do for you?"

"We're going to have a Halloween party here, and Belldandy-sama has asked us to invite everyone in the other residences."

"Belldandy," Epsilon replied flatly.

Bob realized that he'd made a mistake; during the weekly managers' meetings, Epsilon always asked someone else (usually Rob at Blossom) to deal with Belldandy in his place. "But they aren't organizing the party. This is something that we're putting together ourselves."

"I suppose we... excuse me." The phone wasn't on mute, so Bob could hear one end of the interrupting conversation in Nova Scotia. "No, I gave the business licence to Cologne the day before yesterday. ... Aren't you the expert in restaurant management here? ... Try the Xaverian Weekly; they accept ads and everyone on campus gets a copy. I am in the middle of a call. ... No, you're busy. I'll make something later, thank you." Then there was silence for a short moment, followed by Epsilon's voice at full volume again. "Sorry about that, Bob. Shampoo wanted some help."

"That's all right. We're here for them, after all. I was about to ask whether you and your residents would be coming to the party on Halloween."

"I want to come, but I've just been reminded that we can't. Cologne, Shampoo, Mousse, and Ukyo are starting an Asian fusion takeout restaurant and they're still building customer goodwill." It sounded to Bob like Epsilon was making an excuse, but it was a good excuse. "And do you really want the others to show up without supervision?"

"Wouldn't Kasumi be able to supervise the Tendos and the Saotomes?" Bob asked.

"Kasumi," Epsilon replied, using the same tone that he'd used to refer to Belldandy earlier.

"No, I suppose she couldn't," Bob said quickly. What was it with Epsilon and characters played by Kikuko Inoue, anyway? Bob didn't have time to ask about it just then, and he didn't think it was his business anyway. But he had to wonder if Epsilon would have the same problem with Lobelia from Sakura Taisen or Baita from Bakuon!! "Maybe you'll be able to attend next time."

"Maybe. I'm sorry that we're too busy, Bob." There was what sounded like a small explosion at the Nova Scotia end of the conversation, followed by Epsilon muttering, "Which wall has Ryouga destroyed this time?"

"You sound like you've got your hands full. I'll let you go."

"Thanks. I'll talk with you at our next meeting. I have to go." And with that the cell connection abruptly dropped.

Blossom Apartments
Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
October 16, 2016
1:44 PM Eastern Time

Rob Donaldson looked at the call display on his cellphone, then tapped the speakerphone button. "Hi Bob! You're on speaker, and Mii-san is here."

"Hello, Mr. Schroeck!"

Contrary to expectations, Bob Schroeck's voice did not fill the room. Instead, they heard a rather pretty but not completely confident female voice. "Hello, Mr. Donaldson. Mr. Schroeck asked me to call you. I'm Ui Hirasawa. I hope I'm not interrupting anything important." She almost sounded like she was in a call centre; Rob could hear Bob and Peggy talking on calls in the background.

"That depends on how you define 'important', Ms. Hirasawa," Rob replied, using the same level of formality that she was using. "Mii Konori and I are finishing off some paperwork for Funtom Property Management Canada."

"That sounds important. Maybe I should call back...?"

Rob thought that this didn't sound like the self-confident Ui Hirasawa he knew of from watching K-On!, but her voice sounded like Ui's in the anime. And his contract said he was hired to help the displacees, so if Ui had a problem, then it might be his responsibility to help. Maybe. "Talking with a displacee, any displacee, is more important than my paperwork, Ms. Hirasawa. Is there anything I can do to help you?"

Mii whispered, "Should I leave?"

"Not yet," Rob whispered back.

"Thank you for asking," Ui said more confidently than she sounded before. "You're much kinder than Ms. Revy was."

"Revy? Of the Black Lagoon? You called Revy?"

"Just before I called you, yes."

"Oh, my," Rob said. "Who let Revy pick up the phone? She's the least personable person aboard that boat. Ms. Hirasawa, I promise you that I will not react the way that she did."

"Thank you!" Ui said with obvious relief.

Mii quietly made a note to avoid speaking with this "Revy" person if at all possible.

"Now, is there a problem at Douglass Gardens that Bob can't help you with?"

"Actually, I'm helping Mr. Schroeck," she replied. "And it isn't with a problem. It's an invitation. We're having a Halloween party."

"That sounds like fun," Mii said. "Why are we being invited to it?"

"Mr. Schroeck said that Belldandy-sama insisted. We're inviting everybody. Belldandy-sama also insisted on that. I've been told that she wants everybody to get to know each other. Would you want to come to the party? All of you, not just Mr. Donaldson?"

Rob nodded in agreement, not that Ui could see him. "So it's our turn to grant Belldandy a wish? Sure, why not? Speaking for myself, I'd love to attend. And I'm sure that at least some people at other residences would love to meet Usagi-chan in person while they have the chance."

"'Usagi-chan'? Tsukino Usagi-san? Sailor Moon?!"

Rob chuckled. "It sounds like you're one of those people, Ms. Hirasawa. Yes, Sailor Moon."

"I'd like to meet everybody, too," Mii added. "We'll need transportation, though. It is a school night."

"Mr. Schroeck hasn't told me how that will be arranged, yet."

Rob shrugged his shoulders. "Well, if necessary, the ladies can take two days off school and I can drive six hours each way on I-81 if I have to." Then he had a thought. "Considering that involvement by the megami means there's already a supernatural element to the party, I have to ask: This isn't going to be a Buffy Halloween party, is it?"

"What's a Buffy Halloween party?"

"One with supernatural shenanigans that inconvenience the party-goers."

"Oh, I hope not."

"So do I. Let Bob know that Mii and I will tell the other girls about the party, and I expect we'll all be there."

"Certainly, Mr. Donaldson. Oh, we're planning on it being a potluck."

"We have a pastry chef in training resident here. No doubt Mako-chan would love to make some sweets for you. And before you ask, yes, she's Sailor Jupiter."

"I'll mention that to Mr. Schroeck. Um... what you said earlier..."

He heard the hesitation in her voice, and assumed that the call had gone from being about the party to being about the caller and a possible problem. "Yes?"

"Is it strange for a resident to help a building manager?"

"Not at all," Mii replied before Rob could. "I'm a resident here, and I'm helping Rob-san. He's helping me with tuition here, so helping him is the least I can do."

"It's more like your working here part-time is a justification for me paying you. I'd still help out as much as I can, but this makes it easier to explain to the upper management." Or lower management, in the case of the demons, but Rob thought that Ui didn't need to know that part of the arrangements. And with that thought, he turned his attention back to the call. "Ms. Hirasawa, I do have one more question."

"What is it?"

"It's an interrogative sentence designed to elicit information," Rob said. "But that's not important right now."

Ui giggled. "Mr. Donaldson, are all of the residence managers like you and Mr. Schroeck?"

"No, Ms. Hirasawa. Bob and I have known each other for years, so some of our personality traits have rubbed off onto each other."

"Ah, I understand. What's your question?"

"Will we have a chance to hear Wakaba Girls play during the party?"

The line was silent for a moment, then Ui asked, "You want to hear us play? Wakaba Girls? Not Hokago Tea Time?"

"Well, I'd like to hear them play too, but I do want to hear your band play, please."

"I'll ask the others, but I think we can do that, Mr. Donaldson. Thank you for asking! Oh, but I should be calling other residences, not continuing to talk with you. Good-bye, Ms. Konori and Mr. Donaldson."

"Until we talk again, Ms. Hirasawa."

Once the call ended, Mii said, "That was kind of you, asking to hear her play. They're an amateur band, you know."

"I know. But the poor dear needed a confidence boost after speaking with Revy, and I do want to hear their band's music at least once."

Douglass Gardens
1:43 PM Eastern Time

"Bob, is this a joke?"

"Huh?" Bob looked up from the next number on his list of residences. Over at the desk, Ui looked up as well. "Is what a joke?"

Peggy waved her list. "Is Jenny Everywhere's number really 867-5309?"^[3]

Ui looked confused. Bob sighed.

Live Oak Manor
Vicksburg, Mississippi, USA
October 16, 2016
1:45 PM Eastern Time

Jenny Everywhere snagged the phone just before it rang. "Live Oak Manor, Jenny speaking."

"Hi, Jenny! It's Peggy Schroeck at Douglass Gardens,"

"Hey, Peggy, nice to finally meet you, kind of." Jenny settled herself into the closest chair and got comfortable. "What brings you to call?"

"Oh, we're hosting a potluck costume party on Halloween," Peggy said. "We got voluntold by Belldandy," she added with a chuckle. "I'm surprised you guys don't already know and have all your costumes already, what with being time travelers and all."

Jenny laughed. "Oh, it doesn't work like that, unfortunately. The Celestials have us locked down to keep us from messing things up worse than they already are."

"I suppose that makes sense," Peggy mused. "So anyway, we're calling all the residences we know of to invite everyone. Can we expect you?"

Jenny nodded to herself. "I'll have to double check with everyone here, but put us down for a strong tentative yes."

"Great!"

"It's not going to be a Buffy Halloween party, is it?" Jenny added impishly.

"Huh? Let me ask Bob," Peggy replied, and before Jenny could tell her it was a joke, the line was muted. A few moments later, it unmuted. "Bob says no, and why are so many people asking?" Peggy sounded genuinely confused.

Jenny couldn't help herself — she laughed.

Appartements Mont-Royal Sud
Montréal, QC, Canada
October 16, 2016
1:49 PM Eastern Time

«3487 rue Parc. Allô!» Cassiopée said into the receiver.

«Allô,» a man's voice responded. «Um, voici Bob Schroeck chez, um, de Douglass Gardens en les États-Unis...»

"Oh, hello, Bob," she said, switching to English.

He sighed in obvious relief. "Hello, Cassiopée. Thank you for sparing both of us my badly-remembered high school French."

Cassiopée laughed. "Gladly. What brings you to call?"

"Ah, at the request of certain persons who shall remain Celestial, we're going to be holding a Halloween costume party for all the residents in the network. And of course you and your band of merry pranksters are invited. Oh, and Grahame, too, of course."

"That sounds delightful," she said.

Callahan's Bar
Rocky Point, NY
1:51 PM Eastern Time

Mike pulled the cordless handset out from under the bar and thumbed it on as he brought it to his ear. "Callahan's, Mike speaking."

"Hello, Mr. Callahan!" The sweet voice of a teenaged girl came across the line. "This is Ui Hirasawa calling from Douglas Gardens in New Jersey." This early in the day the Place was only sparsely populated, and there was no background ruckus to drown her out.

"Well, good afternoon, Miss Ui. What can I do for you?"

"Our residence is going to be throwing a Halloween party — a costume party — on the 31st," she chirped. "And we wanted to invite you and your family. Do you think you can make it?"

Mike sighed. "Unfortunately we're far too busy on a night like Halloween to get away for a party. But thank you for thinking of us."

"Oh, that's too bad." She sounded sincerely distressed, and Mike smiled at the empathy in her voice.

"Now don't you worry about us, young lady," he reassured her. "I run a merry place here, and we'll be celebrating in our own way. And I'll see to it that we keep you in mind while we do."

Phantomhive Manor
Lamberhurst, Tunbridge Wells
Kent, UK
5:56 PM Greenwich Time

The telephone barely had had time to ring before Sebastian had lifted the receiver from the hook. "Phantomhive Manor," he said briskly and professionally. A butler who can't properly answer his employer's phone isn't worth his salt, after all.

"Good afternoon, Sebastian. This is Peggy Schroeck from Douglass Gardens Apartments in the United States."

"Hello, Mrs. Schroeck," Sebastian replied. "May I inquire what brings you to call the Manor this pleasant Sunday afternoon?"

"Ah, well, we'll be throwing a costume party on Halloween, and we wanted to invite you and Lord Phantomhive."

A small but pleased smile crossed the demon's face. "I do believe my master's schedule is free that evening. I will confirm with him, but unless you hear otherwise from me, you may count on our attendance."

"Oh, good," crackled over the transAtlantic connection. "Now, the party is a potluck, but we wouldn't expect Lord Phantomhive to have to bring a..."

"Nonsense!" Sebastian interrupted her. "Let me know where and when to choose a contribution. Rest assured we will arrive with something to share with everyone."

"Oh, thank you, Sebastian!" Peggy's smile was audible. "We'll be putting a signup on the managers' board shortly."

"Excellent. In that case, unless there is anything else, allow me to bid you good-bye and good evening."

"And to you, too, Sebastian," Peggy replied. "We'll look forward to seeing you."

Aria House
Venice Beach, California, USA
10:57 AM Pacific Time

Bob wasn't expecting the sweet voice who answered, "Brent's phone, Alicia speaking."

"Oh, um, hello. You must be Alicia Florence, right?"

"Right." She glanced at the name on the phone. "Do I know you, Bob?"

"I'm Bob Schroeck, co-manager of Douglass Gardens Apartments. I have the same job as Brent."

"Ara, of course!"

"Can I speak to Brent?"

"Well, he's a little bit buried in sand at the moment – let me see if I can get the phone down to him."

Bob explained, "Well, I just wanted to invite you all to a Halloween party here in New Jersey."

"Oh, that sounds lovely. We're having a little party of our own right now, but it would be nice to meet you all. Ara, it looks like he's getting out of the hole."

Tomo's yell made it across the phone line, "IT'S A SAND MONSTER, RUN FOR YOUR LIVES!!!"

Alicia spoke, "Hold on just a minute, please."

A few seconds later, Brent Laabs was on the line. "Hey Bob, what's up?"

"I was just about to ask you if you wanted to bring everyone to a Halloween party here in Somerset. You know, let our tenants get to meet other people like themselves."

"Cool. But how are we going to travel there, deep in the heart of Jersey?"

"Where the city rats run in big packs, deep in the heart of Joisey?"

Brent chuckled. "Heh, you like that song, too."

"Oh yeah, it's a classic. Uncle Floyd for the win."

"I probably heard it because you posted it on the forums, didn't I?"

"Probably."

"Great tune, bad it isn't a answer. Flights from LAX to New York for everybody won't be cheap, and then we'd have to rent a van to get the rest of the way there."

"You don't want to do that. Go to Newark Liberty. It's only half an hour away. If you arrive at JFK or LaGuardia, you'll have to spend at least a couple of hours just driving across most of New York City — and not the scenic parts," Bob advised. "Considering the goddesses want this party to happen, though, I'd be surprised if they weren't making arrangements for everybody."

A few cheers were picked up on the phone's mic.

"Sounds like we're coming."

Bob spoke, "Great, I'll see you there. I'll email you the details."

"Before you go, I do have one question though: It's not going to be a Buffy Halloween, is it?"

"Now why is everyone asking me that question?" Bob grumbled in jest.

Gulfside Rest
Pensacola Beach, FL, USA
2:00 PM Eastern Time

The phone rang while Harley was finishing up the dishes from lunch. He slid a damp sandwich plate into the drying rack, slung the dishcloth over one overlarge shoulder, and snagged the wall phone from where it hung on the opposite wall of the kitchen. "Yo," he said. "Harley here."

"Mr. Waters? This is Ui Hirasawa from Douglass Gardens in New Jersey."

"It's just 'Harley', Ms. Hirasawa," he corrected gently. "'Mr. Waters' is my father."

"Oh, I'm sorry!" she squeaked.

"Nah, 's okay, you didn't know," he replied. "So what can I do you for?"

"Er... I'm not sure I understand..."

Harley chuckled. "That's just a spoonerism that some of my friends say on purpose. What can I do for you?"

"Oh, right! I'm calling to let you know that Douglass Gardens is throwing a potluck costume party on Halloween, and that you and your tenants are all invited."

He ran his free hand through his beard. "Sounds like fun, but how are we going to get there?"

"Well, Mr, and Mrs. Schroeck were asked to throw this party by Belldandy," Harley's eyebrows rose in surprise, "so we're assuming she's got something in mind." She paused a moment in an almost audible shrug. "We just don't know what yet."

Harley nodded to himself. "Well, then, Ms. Hirasawa, assuming there's a way for us to get there that doesn't involve a few thousand dollars in airfare, I think we'd be happy to attend."

The Banzai Institute for Biomedical Engineering and Strategic Information
Somerset, NJ, USA
2:03 PM Eastern Time

When the phone rang, Eunice closed the copy of Microsoft Office for Dummies she had been reading for the last couple hours, lifted the phone's handset and hit the blinking button for the inbound line. "Banzai Institute," she announced in a practiced cadence. "Mrs. Johnson speaking. How may I direct your call?"

"Hello, Mrs. Johnson, this is Bob Schroeck at Douglass Gardens, just down the street from you." There was the briefest pause, and he added, "Don't tell me they have you working on a Sunday afternoon."

She laughed. "Oh, no, I'm not working — but I am in my office catching up on new software. And when the main line rings, it lights up on my phone here."

"Fair enough," Mr. Schroeck said. "So, the reason I'm calling is that we'll be throwing a costume party on Halloween, and we wanted to extend an invite to Team Banzai and the members of the Institute."

"Oh, I'm afraid we'll have to decline," Eunice replied instantly. "The Cavaliers are booked for a show that night."

"Ah, of course. Well, in that case I'll let you get back to what you were doing."

She shrugged, even though there was no one to see her. "Sorry, I'm sure we would have had fun. Good-bye."

"Later," he said and the line dropped. Eunice set the receiver down in its cradle with a thoughtful look.

Douglass Gardens
2:06 PM Eastern Time

Ui checked the next number on her list and confirmed she'd read the address correctly. "Mr. Schroeck?" she said when she saw he had just hung up.

He looked up at her. "Yes, Ui?"

"What time is it in..." She glanced down at the sheet again. "Adelaide, Australia?"

"Mm. Let me check," he said, turning his attention to his cell phone. A few fingertaps, and he nodded. "It's about 3:30 AM there right now," he said without looking up.

She bit her lip. "Maybe we should wait to call them?"

Bob looked up. "I don't think that you need to worry about waking anyone up — there's supposedly someone on duty around the clock who can answer the phone."

"Oh, okay, then!" she said with a smile.

"The Hangar"
Adelaide, South Australia, Australia
3:38 AM Australian Central Daylight Time

Night watch in a facility that has yet to see anything close to action is one of the more boring duties a soldier can undertake. Kurz Weber and Melissa Mao were sharing the duty this night — their compatriot Sousuke Sagara had school in the morning and thus was spared the task — and they had reached the point of maximum boredom (for Kurz) and annoyance (for Melissa, with Kurz). While she cleaned her sidearm at her desk in the office that overlooked the Hangar's large open maintenance floor, she glared at Kurz, who had his feet up on his desk, leaning back in his chair with his arms folded behind his head.

The unexpected ringing of the external phone line was like a jolt of caffeine, shocking them both to a higher state of alertness than they had possessed a moment before. With a devil-may-care casualness that grated on Melissa's nerves, Kurz reached out and smacked both the the "answer" and "speaker" buttons. Folding his arms back behind his head, he announced, "Madman Omar's House of Iniquity, Omar speaking."

"Kurz!" Melissa snarled, and he shot her a grin.

"Um, what?" what sounded like a confused teenage girl said on the other end. "Is... is this the Hangar?"

"Yes, this is the Hangar," Melissa said in a softer but still professional tone. "Pay no attention to the idiot there."

Kurz clasped a hand to his chest. "Mao! I'm hurt!"

"Not yet you aren't," she hissed at him, "but keep it up and you will be!"

The unknown girl giggled nervously at the exchange before tentatively saying, "So, um, hi? This is Ui Hirasawa at Douglass Gardens in the United States."

"What can we do for you, sweetheart?" Kurz smarmed, and Melissa wished she was close enough to kick him.

"Um..." Melissa scowled. Whoever the girl was, she didn't have any defenses against Kurz's lech act, and it was audible in her voice. "I'm calling to invite everyone there to a Halloween costume party at Douglass Gardens?"

"Really?" Melissa asked. "You're inviting people halfway around the world from you? How are we supposed to get there?"

"Well, Belldandy asked Mr. and Mrs. Schroeck to throw the party, so we think she has something planned for that."

Belldandy, huh? Melissa had been in the military long enough to recognize an order disguised as a suggestion, and if a goddess was having a party thrown, attendance was no doubt required. The Captain would almost certainly agree. "In that case... Thank you for the invitation, Ms. Hirasawa. The two of us here can't formally accept it — we'll have to pass it on to Captain Holder for that — but just between us I think it's likely we'll all be coming, so it's probably safe to mark us down as a tentative yes."

"Just so long as it's not a Halloween like on Buffy the Vampire Slayer!" Kurz added.

The girl on the other end laughed. "It seems like everyone's asking about that!" she said with a little giggle in her voice. "No, we're pretty sure it's not. Anyway, thank you! Good-bye now!"

"Good-bye," the two of them replied and the line dropped.

Melissa glared at Kurz. "Buffy the Vampire Slayer?" she demanded.

"Hey," he replied, "It was funny. And apparently something other people were actually worried about." He gestured casually. "Don't get on my case. She wasn't offended or upset. I mean, just imagine if Sousuke'd picked up the call — she'd have been traumatized and he'd have been completely baffled."

Melissa rolled her eyes, but she couldn't help but give a small chuckle at that. "Oh, yeah." She pitched her voice lower. "'Is this a mandatory training exercise? I do not understand the purpose of this gathering.'"

Kurz added, "'Are these strangely-dressed individuals valid targets? I do not recognize what force they are part of.'"

Melissa laughed and nodded. "We're going to have to make sure he's as disarmed as we can possibly get him."

The Steeple
Philadelphia, PA, USA
2:10 PM Eastern Time

Heather Raven put her bottle of cold brew iced tea down on her desk and started going through her paperwork for Funtom Property Management. The paperwork for the van was particularly messy. She needed to arrange for the adult Takamachis to get their driver's licenses so she could put them on the insurance.

She was wrestling with PennDOT's website when the phone rang.

Heather snagged the phone on the first ring. "Steeple. Heather Raven speaking."

"Hi, Heather. This is Peggy at Douglass Gardens. How're you doing?"

"I'm doing all right," she admitted.

"Good!" Peggy replied. "I'm calling because we're throwing a costume party on Halloween and you and your residents are invited."

Heather raised an eyebrow. "Please tell me this isn't going to be a Buffy the Vampire Slayer Halloween."

Peggy laughed. "Well, given how many other people have asked..."

"Well, how many of them were interviewed by a character from Buffy?"

"Really? Who?"

Heather considered how to explain her situation. "D'Hoffryn, lord of the Vengeance demons. His servants specialize in Monkey Paw wishes. No, wait. Monkey Paw wishes are safer."

"Yeah, I guess you have good reason to worry. But no, this is happening at the request of Belldandy, and we're pretty sure she's not going to let anything like that happen."

Heather allowed herself to relax. "Well, that's a relief."

Peggy chuckled. "So, that dealt with, I need to tell you that it's a potluck."

"Okay... Mrs. Takamachi's a professional chef."

Heather's cat climbed into her lap and attempted to move from there to the desktop.

"Cool. If she's willing to help out, then you're covered," Peggy said. "No need to worry about exactly what you'll be bringing yet... we'll put a sign-up sheet on the managers' system once we're done with all the invites."

Heather thought for a moment as she removed the cat's front paws from her keyboard. "Okay... There's a brew supply shop nearby where I can probably get a giant tank of CO2 and attach it to my SodaStream to keep us in carbonated drinks for the teetotalers."

"That's going to be at least half of the guests, so that's great. Don't forget to add it to the sign-up."

"I won't," Heather said.

"I'd ask you if you had any more questions, but that's about all the answers we have at this point."

"I was about to ask about getting there, actually," Heather offered. "I mean, we're in Philadelphia so getting someplace in Jersey isn't too hard, but I might need directions."

"Well, we can get you directions, but we're figuring that the goddesses have something in mind, given we're inviting everyone including the folks in Australia. Don't plan on driving just yet."

Heather nodded, even though Peggy couldn't see her. "Gotcha."

"Well, that's about everything then... I have one more to call to make, so I'll let you go."

"All right, I'll see you later."

"Yeah, in person finally! In two weeks! Bye now." Click.

Heather made a note on her calendar and returned to the PennDOT website after once more removing the cat from the keyboard.

Ben Rose House
Highland Park, IL, USA
1:13 PM Central Time

Oh, hey, readers. Ferris Bueller here. It's about time the authors got back to us folks in Chicagoland. I mean, six short paragraphs in Everyone's a Critic? That's hardly even a cameo. But I get it — they're juggling more than seven hundred people, and not everyone is going to be center stage all the time. (Although if you ask me, the girls at Blossom Apartments are getting more than their fair share of stories...)

Anyway, Cameron, Sloane and I have finally started settling in since we arrived not quite two weeks ago. Lately we've been feeling out our new roommates Bean, Rally and May, who just showed up on Thursday and are still getting used to the idea of Refuge, let alone sharing a house with three strangers. Yeah, everyone is getting used to everyone else. The last thing any of us were expecting at this point was an invite to a party, but... I'd shrug here but you wouldn't see it.

So it was right after lunch and we were cleaning up when the phone rang. I was closest to the kitchen phone, so I dropped my dishtowel on the countertop and picked it up. "Ben Rose House," I said, overriding my natural impulse to say "Frye home". "Ferris Bueller speaking."

"Oh! Hi." An older man, sounding somewhat surprised. "Wasn't expecting you to pick up. This is Bob Schroeck, one of the managers at Douglass Gardens in New Jersey."

"Hi, Bob," I said and grinned at the memory of a certain drinking game. "Douglass Gardens — that's where all the musicians are, isn't it?" Sloane and Cameron were giving me inquiring looks, so I covered the mouthpiece and whispered, "It's the manager from New Jersey."

"Yeah," he said as I shifted my attention back to the call. "And comic book artists, and magic knights, and psychics. You know, just everyday folks."

I chuckled. "Right. Just like us here."

"Hey, you said it, not me," he replied with a chuckle of his own. "Anyway, I'm calling because we're throwing a costume party on Halloween, and you and your housemates are invited. Can we expect you?"

"Hold on," I said. "Let me ask." I put my hand over the mouthpiece again. "We've been invited to a Halloween party in New Jersey. Want to go?" I asked the room at large

"Oh, definitely," Sloane squealed. Cameron nodded his head slowly and thoughtfully before declaring "Yes".

I glanced over at the table where Bean, Rally and May still sat. "How about you guys?"

Rally and May traded looks before saying "Yes" together.

Bean shrugged and said, "I suppose."

Lifting my hand from the mouthpiece, I said, "Looks like we're all up for it. Six of us just in case you didn't hear that we got three new people a couple days ago."

"Got it," Bob said. "Marking that down now. As for getting here, well, we're doing this at Belldandy's request," I raised an eyebrow at that, "and we're assuming she's making arrangements to get everyone here and back again, even the folks in Australia."

"Well, that's good to know," I said. "Is that it, then?"

There was a pause on the other end, and then Bob said, "Nah, that's it. We'll see you in two weeks. Later!"

"Bye!" And he hung up. Good. For a moment there I thought he was going to ask about you guys, and then what would I say?

The Masaki Home
Coquitlam, British Colombia, Canada
11:16 AM Pacific Time

As the refrigerator door shut behind her the house phone rang. Garnett snagged the receiver with one hand while setting down the miso Sasami had requested on the counter next to the other ingredients for lunch. "Masaki Home for the Romantically Entangled. Garnett Iwasaki speaking."

"Good morning, Ms. Iwasaki!" A girl's voice, bright and cheery. She sounded a bit younger than Garnett. "This is Ui Hirasawa at Douglass Gardens in New Jersey."

"Good morning, Ui. You're one of the K-On! girls, aren't you?" Garnett slid down the counter to give Sasami more room to work. "What's up?"

"Oh, yes, I am! I'm helping out Mr. and Mrs. Schroeck — Belldandy asked them to throw a party on Halloween, and we're calling all the residences to invite everyone. So... you're invited? All of you?"

Garnett chuckled. "Well, thank you, and thank the Schroecks for me. I don't want to speak for everyone without checking first, but I think it's likely we'll all want to go." Washuu strolled into the kitchen and poked her head into the refrigerator, clearly looking for a snack.

"Oh, good!" There was a pause, then, "Okay, so, it's going to be a potluck, and they'll be posting a signup sheet on the managers' board by tonight. Oh, and it's a costume party, too."

"Sounds fun," she said with a smile. "So, how are you getting people there? I mean, we'll probably have Ryo-Ohki fly us over, but..."

"Are you talking about the Halloween party?" Washuu had pulled her head out of the refrigerator and was now looking at her with eyebrows raised.

"Hold on, Ui," Garnett said, then put a hand over the mouthpiece. "Yes, we just got invited." She frowned minutely. "How did you hear about it?"

Washuu waved a hand breezily. "The goddesses contacted me and asked me if it would be difficult to set up portals connecting all the residences to Douglass Gardens. Pfft! Like it's a challenge!" She spun on her heel and wandered out the kitchen, taking big crunching bites out of whatever it was that she'd found in the fridge.

Garnett blinked, then removed her hand from the phone. "Did you hear that?"

"Um, no?"

"Washuu says the goddesses asked her to set up portals to connect all the other residences to yours for the party."

"Oh! That'll be handy!" Ui chirped happily, then shifted gears abruptly. "Mouuuu...."

"What?" Garnet asked.

"That means we have to call everyone again to let them know!"

Douglass Gardens
2:20 PM Eastern Time

"Good news, everyone!" Ui announced as she hung up her most recent call.

Bob and Peggy looked up. "What?" Bob asked.

"Washuu says she's been asked to set up portals connecting everyone to us for Halloween."

Bob glanced at Peggy. "Well, that solves that problem."

"What, do we have to call everyone back now?" she asked, frowning. Ui nodded solemnly.

He shrugged. "If you want, but mentioning it when we post the signup sheet for the potluck should serve just as well."

Warehouse 13
Boston, Massachusetts, USA
2:21 PM Eastern Time

Robert Thompson hit the speaker button almost as soon as the phone began to ring. "Warehouse 13. Kestrel speaking."

"Hi, um, Kestrel? This is Peggy Schroeck from Douglass Gardens."

He smiled to himself and leaned back in his chair. One thing to say for this job, they understood that a programmer needed a really good chair to work in. "Good afternoon, Peggy, nice to speak to another of my fellow managers."

"Oh, yes, nice to speak to you, too," she said.

"What brings you to call?"

"Well, we've been asked by Belldandy to throw a Halloween party for all the displacees and managers," she explained, "and we wanted to invite you."

He sighed. "That's kind of you, Peggy, but I don't think that's going to work out. You have to understand, I'm not so much a manager like you and Bob as a prison warden. Most of my 'residents' can't be trusted outside the Faraday cage that lines the entire building. And even if they could, most of them are pretty much immobile and can't interact in the physical world anyway. The ones that can are the ones I'd never let do so." He shrugged, even though she couldn't see him. "So thanks, but we'll have to take a pass."

"Even just you yourself can't get away?" she asked, a little plaintively he thought.

He sighed again, shaking his head with a rueful smile. "Like I said, Peggy, I'm the warden. Some nights I can sleep in my own bed, but other times it might be days before I can go home. It depends on how much trouble my... inmates are making. I don't want to plan to be away for any length of time in case they take it as a cue to try something."

Peggy didn't say anything for long enough that Kestrel started to wonder if they'd gotten disconnected. "That sounds... unpleasant," she finally said.

"It is what it is," he replied matter-of-factly. "And it's not all bad. Strange as it sounds, I love what I'm doing. It's just that I can't let my guard down. Maybe someday — in a few months, a year — but not this Halloween, no. Thanks, though."

"All right, then, I guess I'll mark you guys down as 'no'," Peggy said reluctantly. "You have a good Sunday afternoon, Kestrel."

"You, too, Peggy." The line dropped and the phone automatically hung up. Kestrel took a deep breath then leaned back in his chair and studied the bare brick of his office walls.

Douglass Gardens
2:25 PM Eastern Time

Peggy crossed out Kestrel and Warehouse 13 on the sheet in front of her, then looked up. Ui she knew had finished her calls, and Bob looked like he had, too. "We're done?" she asked.

"Yep," Bob said. "I left an invite on Artie Duncan's machine, more for politeness' sake than anything, since the Artery's had posters up for their Halloween bash for a couple weeks now. Far as everyone else is concerned? Well, we're still waiting for some tentative yesses to turn into confirmed ones, but we at least have a ballpark number of guests to work with, and we can start figuring out what we need in the way of ... oh, I don't know. Do we need some kind of permit from the town for an outdoor party this size? It certainly won't fit in the community center." He shook his head. "Tables, chairs, tents, those foil Sterno-heated trays for food... Those propane-powered outdoor heater things." He frowned. "More stuff to figure out."

"Oh!" he continued. "And before I forget... Ui, I'm sorry — I should have paid more attention to what I was doing and not included the Black Lagoon on your list."

Ui's face was blank with surprise for a moment, then she launched herself from behind the desk to wrap Bob in a hug. "That's okay! Anyone can make a mistake," she declared. "And I'm sure that whoever called, she still would have yelled at them." She released Bob and stepped back.

Bob shot a look at Peggy, then shrugged. "If you say so, Ui. But I wouldn't blame you if you were still upset."

"Oh, I could be," she chirped. "But I'm too busy looking forward to all the people I'm going to meet in two weeks!"

Bob grinned. "Honestly, Ui? So am I."

While almost everyone was fairly enthusiastic about attending (and meeting other people in the same situation as themselves), a few individuals saw fit to decline their RSVPs. Touya Kinomoto more regretfully declined to attend, as he had part time work scheduled, bearing silver platters of hors d'oeuvres at a fancy Hollywood party. Yukito Tsukishiro decided to stay behind and hand out candy at Aria House, though pretty much everyone knew that it was just an excuse to get more time alone with Touya.

And at Aria House, Tomoyo Daidouji's sewing machine was worked so hard by its owner making costumes that she nearly drove it to destruction.

The character of Jenny Everywhere is available for use by anyone, with only one condition. This paragraph must be included in any publication involving Jenny Everywhere, in order that others may use this property as they wish. All rights reversed. — Steven Wintle

Twilight and the characters thereof are copyright © 2005-2008, 2015, 2020 by Stephanie Meyer, and are used without permission.
The Big Lebowski and the characters thereof are copyright © 1998 by Working Title Films, and are used without permission.
RMS: For our younger readers who may not recognize the reference or understand why Peggy thinks this is a joke, "867-5309/Jenny" was a huge hit in 1981 for the band Tommy Tutone.

Vulpis · 11-28-2024, 11:03 PM

I have no idea if they've been included at the setting, but I could imagine an omake for this story:

Bob took a double-take at the last name on his list, and sighed. This one, he wasn't looking forward to. With trepidation he dialed the number, and when it was picked up said, "Hello, Ms Summers?" :-)

**robkelk** · 11-29-2024, 07:10 AM

(11-28-2024, 11:03 PM)Vulpis Wrote: I have no idea if they've been included at the setting, but I could imagine an omake for this story:

Bob took a double-take at the last name on his list, and sighed. This one, he wasn't looking forward to. With trepidation he dialed the number, and when it was picked up said, "Hello, Ms Summers?" :-)

We did mention the Scoobies in the very first story... but nobody's seen them yet. <evil grin>

Vulpis · 11-29-2024, 08:02 PM

(11-29-2024, 07:10 AM)robkelk Wrote:
(11-28-2024, 11:03 PM)Vulpis Wrote: I have no idea if they've been included at the setting, but I could imagine an omake for this story:

Bob took a double-take at the last name on his list, and sighed. This one, he wasn't looking forward to. With trepidation he dialed the number, and when it was picked up said, "Hello, Ms Summers?" :-)

We did mention the Scoobies in the very first story... but nobody's seen them yet. <evil grin>

Hee. I just thought about how everybody kept asking if it would be a Buffy Halloween...and then inviting Buffy herself..

***Bob Schroeck*** · 2016-10-31: Hallowe'en in Another Reality

Chapter 2: The Setup

Douglass Gardens Apartments
Somerset, NJ, USA
October 18, 2016

The next few days were a mix of frantic brainstorming and somewhat less frantic telephone calls. More volunteers made themselves known, and within a day Bob, Peggy and Ui were joined by Minami Makimura, Keiichi Morisato, Kazuki Sendo and Madoka Ayukawa (who had only arrived in Douglass Gardens the day before with five other displacees from Kimagure Orange Road) to officially form the Party Planning Committee. And the Committee's first order of business was to piece together a master list of everything needed to throw a party for two hundred (!!) people outdoors at the end of October.

"First thing — tables and chairs," Peggy said. "For serving the potluck, for eating at, for sitting and talking or whatever."

"Speaking of the potluck," Minami said, "Where do we stand on that?"

"Good question," Bob replied. "I posted the signup sheet yesterday after dinner. Just to make sure we got enough of everything, I split it out into categories: finger food and snacks, main dishes, side dishes, desserts, drinks and incidentals. And I marked each of them with 'we need at least this much'."

"And?" Madoka asked.

"When I last checked about an hour ago, we were already approaching minimum required levels for every category. I think we're set there."

The other members of the Committee visibly relaxed. "Good," Kazuki said. "One thing we don't need to worry about."

"Just a million others," Madoka added, laughing.

"Anyway," Bob said with a chuckle. "Along with the tables and chairs for two hundred, I'm thinking that we need pavilions and tents to put them all under." He suppressed a grimace. "The end of October in New Jersey is usually dry, but you don't count on it."

"It's also going to get cold before the party's over," Peggy pointed out.

Bob laughed. "Not like it's going to be terribly warm even at the start. It was only five years ago we had a major snowstorm on the 29th, after all."

"Can we do some kind of heaters?" Ui asked. "You mentioned something like that yesterday."

Bob nodded. "There are propane-powered outdoor heaters," he said, "Like the bars in New Hope^[1] have?" he added, looking at Peggy, who frowned then nodded back. He turned back to Ui. "Good idea. We can probably rent them wherever we get the pavilions."

Ui preened for a moment, then turned her attention back to her notes. "Mr. Donaldson said he wanted to see us perform," she noted. "We're going to need a stage of some sort, aren't we?"

"Yeah, and maybe more sound equipment than just your stuff," Peggy noted.

Minami nodded. "You're going to want a PA system separate from anything any of the bands use, for announcements and to play music when you're not performing."

"Oh, yeah, good point," Bob replied. "Maybe a DJ?"

Kazuki shook his head. "No need. There's a lot of musicians among the displacees, and not just the ones living here." He inclined his head toward Madoka and Ui. "We can ask around to see who'd like to play a short set, like fifteen or twenty minutes."

Ui tapped her pencil against the table top. "Mm, yeah, if we get enough people willing to play, no one will get stuck on stage too long." She looked up, grinning. "Unless they want to be, of course!"

"And in between we don't need a DJ," Keiichi noted. "Just a player and some mix tapes or CDs."

"I guess that works," Peggy said. She glanced at Bob, who nodded.

"Oh! Oh!" Ui suddenly exclaimed. "We're going to need a dance floor."

Bob and Peggy shared an uncertain look. "I would imagine we can get something at the same place we'd get a stage," he said. "I'll have to ask around."

"Where are we going to set all this up?" Peggy asked. "Especially a stage and dance floor?"

"Hm." Bob pulled a map of the complex out of the stack of papers that sat at his elbow. "We're a garden apartment complex. It seems obvious that we set up in our green spaces. Softer on the feet than asphalt, after all." He frowned at the map. "Except maybe the stage and dance floor — we're going to need a flatter surface for them." He laid the map in the center of the table, and as the others leaned in to get a better view as he gestured to it with the pencil in his hand. "So, I'm thinking we put most of the party space right behind our second rank of apartments, the area surrounded by buildings three through eight. We'll have to maneuver around some of the trees, but it's the largest pair of open spaces we have outside of the lawns right on Hamilton Street."

Peggy nodded. "And we don't want the party right on the street."

The other members of the committee chuckled. "No, that would be a bad idea," Keiichi said, grinning while rubbing the back of his neck.

"Yeah," Bob said. "The stage and the dance floor... Hm. Maybe we want those on asphalt and not grass."

Madoka leaned in even closer. "There's no one living in buildings 7 and 8 yet, right? Or further back? Why not put the stage right in the street between them?"

Peggy and Bob exchanged a look. "That might work," she said. "It's close enough to be a visible part of the party, but not in the middle where it could overwhelm everything else."

Bob frowned. "The only problem I see is noise. Putting it there would channel the sound right down Annette and out onto Hamilton. If I had my druthers, I'd tuck it away into one of the parking lots, just to give us a bit of a soundproofing. But Peg's got a good point. Put it too far away from the rest of the party and it won't be a part of the party." He sighed. "Let's do it. Hopefully the park across the street will absorb enough of the sound that we won't disturb the rest of the neighborhood too much."

Peggy patted his hand. "Putting it there also leaves the front two parking lots open for portal access as well as parking for anyone who doesn't use a portal — or does and brings something like a motorcycle with them."

Ui giggled. "Like Hane and her friends." She glanced across the table. "You'll like them, Keiichi-san — they're a high school motorcycle club." She giggled again. "Well, most of them are high school, anyway."

Keiichi's eyebrows rose at that, but before he could respond Bob replied, "Yeah, exactly. If they don't show up pushing their bikes through the portal I will be very surprised."

Kazuki asked, "And does anybody expect Lord Phantomhive won't be showing up in a limousine?"

"Of course he'll arrive in luxury." Bob nodded, then looked around at the rest of the Committee. "So... stage in the street sound okay to everyone?"

A small chorus of agreements sounded, and he nodded his head. "Okay, then," he said, "At least that's decided. Now comes the rest."

The next morning, a notice went up on displacees.yggdrasil calling for displacee bands to play at the party. Not long after, Ui showed up at the managers' apartment with Yui, Azusa and Akira in tow.

Half an hour later, the party had its first hour's worth of live entertainment booked. And, at Yui's suggestion, an open mike option.

An hour after that, Bob was on the phone to the township, trying to find out if a permit were needed for the party, and just what department would issue it.

He gave up at lunchtime after far too long playing phone tag and listening to muzak. Then he remembered that Minami did this sort of thing for a living and decided to ask her to help with the paperwork.

By dinnertime, the potluck sign-up sheet had filled up to the point that Bob and Peggy were sure there would probably be leftovers for two hundred when the party ended. Peggy added plastic containers to the party shopping list.

Douglass Gardens Apartments
October 18, 2016

Not long after dinner, Bob's cellphone rang. He glanced at it, and when he saw who the caller was he picked it up and accepted the call. "Hi, Uncle Arthur!"

"Hi, Robert, I'm finally returning your call."

"I hope you've got good news for me."

"I do," he said.

"Well, don't keep me in suspense," Bob said with a grin.

Arthur chuckled. "So, as it works out, Linda and I will be in NJ over the Halloween weekend — we can drop by to hear those bands you emailed us about."

"Okay, great!" Bob replied. "Fair warning, we're hosting a big Halloween party on the 31st, but if you come then, you can hear the girls — and a few other folks — perform."

"We don't have to dress up, do we?" he asked.

"Well," Bob hedged, "it is a costume party, but it's not fair to make you two scramble for costumes and then lug them coast-to-coast — or worse, try to find something local at the last minute. So don't worry about it, okay?"

He laughed. "If you say so. Then it's set — we'll see you and Peggy on Halloween."

"It's a date," Bob agreed.

Almost as soon as he had hung up, Bob started worrying. Uncle Arthur and his family were science fiction and fantasy fans from way back — the reason Bob knew anything about how to work the mixing console in a recording studio was because back in the late 1970s Bob's cousin Shem and he used to improvise Battlestar Galactica audioplays and then spend hours in Uncle Arthur's basement studio layering in all the sound effects necessary to make them sound "real".^[2]

As far as Bob knew, his Uncle Arthur and Aunt Linda weren't into anime, so he didn't think they were likely to recognize most of the displacees. And in fact, he'd been counting on that when he'd originally asked them to visit — he'd been certain that there was pretty much no chance that he'd recognize the girls from K-On! But now with the party... Some of the confirmed attendees — the Doctor and Rose, the Firefly folks, and maybe even Harold Shea — they were likely to recognize. Then there were the ones out of general pop culture like Ferris Bueller and Bill and Ted. On top of that, he doubted that they would ignore the nonhuman attendees, like the ponies or the talking cats.

Oh, and the portals were probably going to be a big giveaway, too. With a sinking sensation, Bob realized that he might have made a mistake. He stared at his cell phone where he'd laid it down on the desktop after talking to his uncle, and knew he needed to make another call while at the same time dreading it and looking for a way to avoid it.

Bob sighed, picked it back up, unlocked it and opened up his contacts list. The number he wanted was right there at the top of the "Favorites" section, and he opened it. His fingertip hovered over the "dial" button as he procrastinated just a few more seconds. He continued to hesitate, but his finger drifted too close to the screen and the phone registered it as an intentional tap.

He'd barely had time to feel a jolt of surprise and fear before the other end picked up. "Yes, Bob?"

Bob swallowed. "Bell, I may have caused us a problem."

It only took a sentence or two to explain, after which Belldandy didn't say anything for a long moment, long enough that his anxiety began to mount. Bob had started to imagine he and Peggy were about to get fired for his indiscretion when Bell finally said, "I'm not sure I see the problem here."

Bob's racing thoughts hit a brick wall. "Wait, what?"

"I don't see a problem with your aunt and uncle learning about the displacees," she elaborated.

"You're okay with letting them in on the secret?" he asked, confused.

"Secret?" Belldandy sounded genuinely puzzled. "There is no secret."

"What do you mean, there's no secret?" Bob leapt from his chair and began stalking around the apartment/office. "The whole displacee thing. The residences? Isn't this all a secret?"

"Not at all," she replied. "How could it be? There are hundreds of displacees that we know of, and nowhere near all of them are in the residence system. How could we possibly hope to enforce any kind of silence on their part?"

Bob stopped in front of the sliding doors that opened onto the patio and stared out blankly at Hamilton Street and the park beyond. "I don't know... can't you just do something like a Harry Potter Fidelius using the Ultimate Force?"

"And override the free will of so many mortals?" Her tone had grown gently chiding. "We do not do that kind of thing."

"But..."

"And even if we could, you're familiar with at least the first few dozen chapters of the story that Keiichi and I appear in." It wasn't a question. "We decided to keep my celestial nature secret, but Megumi suffered more than once because of that decision. And we've known since September 27th that not all of the displacees are benign — or even known to us. You have a saying here: Forewarned is forearmed. If you believe that your relatives need to know about the displacees, and can accept knowing about the displacees, then by all means tell them. But do not think that their ignorance is mandated by either Heaven or Hell."

"Uh, well," Bob said after a moment as he tried to adjust to the sudden demolition of his assumptions. "In that case... um. Sorry to waste your time, Bell."

"Oh, no, not at all," she chirped. "It was a valid question, and I hope my answer addressed your concerns sufficiently."

He chuckled, somewhat ruefully. "It did... just not in the way I expected. Thank you, and I'll let you get back to more important matters."

"Oh, Bob," she replied, "questions like yours are important matters. Please don't forget that."

He shook his head. "I won't, now. Thanks again, and good-bye, Bell."

"Good-bye, Bob". And with that the cell connection disconnected.

He stared down at the phone as the call screen reverted back to his contacts list, then back out the sliding doors. "'Forewarned is forearmed'? Guess it's time to be half an octopus."^[3]

Franklin High School
October 20, 2016

"That was fun!" Atsuko declared as the gaggle of displacee girls left the music room, where Ms. Yamanaka prepared for her next class.

"I've been telling you — you've got a great singing voice," Ui said. "You sound so much like Megumi Hayashibara."

Atsuko lowered her voice. "Well, Papa-san did tell me he sampled her voice to make mine," she confided in a near-whisper.

"Well, that makes sense, given she's your voice actress here," Jun said, nodding.

Nao chewed her lip thoughtfully. "Now I'm wondering — do you have the voice you do because she's your seiyuu, or is she your seiyuu because you have similar voices?"

"Which came first?" Ui asked philosophically. "The chicken or the egg?"

Jun rolled her eyes. "Who knows?"

"Belldandy-sama might," Sumire pointed out.

"Are you going to ask her? Because I'm not," Jun shot back. "If she's around to ask, that means she's destressing and spending quality time with Keiichi-san, if you know what I mean," she added with a smirk. "I'm not getting in the way of that."

Ignoring the by-play behind her, Azusa leaned closer to Atsuko. "When we get home we're gonna be practicing for the Halloween party," she said. "You want to come sit in, maybe sing a song or two?"

"Sure!" Atsuko chirped enthusiastically.

Douglass Gardens Apartments
October 24, 2016

"Okay, now that everyone's here, let's get started," Bob said. "Minami?"

It was a week before Halloween, and the Party Planning Committee had met for what was expected to be the last major planning session before the party proper. Bob wasn't so sure — things had been coming together so well over the past week that he'd started worrying that they'd overlooked something big and important. Preventing that very situation had been the ultimate purpose behind the Committee, and he knew that they had covered every contingency. But his anxiety, usually well controlled, didn't care about reassurances or logic.

Hopefully the meeting would put it to rest.

Minami absently tapped the papers in front of her into an even neater stack than they had been. "Okay, first and foremost, if we need a permit to hold the party, no one in the Municipal Building knows it. I spent several hours on the phone this past week getting bounced from department to department, and no one could give me a straight answer. Then I physically went over and walked the building from one end to the other looking for anyone who could tell me." She huffed and shook her head. "No luck. I even went to the police department and asked them — and they sent me back to the front desk of the Municipal Building, who didn't know anything the first time I talked to them."

"I guess that means we don't need one," Bob said, shaking his own head. "If we did, someone would be willing to charge us for it."

"Did you document everyone you talked to?" Peggy asked.

Minami chuckled. "And then some."

"With luck that should be enough to cover us if the cops show up and ask questions," Bob said. "Anything else?"

"Yes," she replied. "I also spoke with Funtom and confirmed that their insurance will cover us for anything that might happen during the party. Or, specifically, between the first portal arrivals on Halloween and the last departures the next morning."

"Oh, good!" Peggy said.

"God, I didn't even think of that." Bob grimaced. "Thanks, Minami."

She smiled brightly. "It's what I do, but you're welcome."

Bob nodded, and shared a quick glance with Peggy. "On the subject of things that cost money, Peg and I have made all the arrangements with Friendly Rental Center..."

Madoka laughed. "Really? That sounds like an outfit from a sitcom."

Keiichi chuckled. "Yeah, and when the cast uses them, everything goes wrong."

"Yeah, that's really what they're called," Bob said with a grin. "They've got stellar reviews on Google, Yelp and Angie's List, and the Better Business Bureau's given them a great rating. So I think we can rely on them. Plus," he added, "if they do screw things up, I fully intend on asking Belldandy to unleash her weapons-grade disappointment on them." The other committee members laughed. "So," he continued, "they're providing everything we need — tents, tables, chairs, lights, linens, patio heaters, the PA system, the stage and dance floor, even a bar, along with the manpower to set everything up and take it back down afterward. They'll show up on Halloween morning and have everything in place by mid-afternoon."

"Good," Kazuki said. "That's like, the biggest part of the preparations locked down."

"Well, that and the food," Ui agreed. "About which, well, most of that's covered by the potluck. But Peggy and I will be making our contribution, all kinds of crudités, hors d'oeuvres and other finger foods. We've also set up an order with Hamilton Street Liquors for beer, liquor and soda." She glanced down at the paper she held. "It's a big order, with a couple kegs, and they don't deliver, so we're going to need both vans to go over there and get it all on Halloween."

"They recommended a professional bartender willing to work the party," Peggy added. "After we talked to him, and talked to a few people he's worked for, we hired him for the party."

"Oh, god," Kazuki laughed. "Imagine the stories he's going to be able to tell the next day."

"Not that anyone's going to believe him," Madoka added with a grin.

"Bob," Peggy asked, "how much beer do you have left from the last time you brewed?"

"Oh!" He nodded. "I've got something like four gallons of Copper Pipe left from my last batch."

"Copper pipe?" Keiichi asked.

Bob grinned. "I make my own beer. 'Copper Pipe' is what I call my signature recipe. I'd just bottled a batch right before Funtom hired us." He glanced back at Peggy. "I've only gone through a couple bottles since it finished conditioning, and I'd be happy to contribute the rest to the party."

"Okay, great," Peggy said. She leaned over to Ui and pointed to something on the sheet of paper in front of her, which Ui dutifully scratched out. She looked up and added, "Oh, and Ui and I hit BJ's and picked up enough plastic cups, plates and utensils to cover our guest list and a bit more."

"And we also picked up foil chafing pans and stands and lots of Sterno," Ui added. "Along with plastic serving forks and spoons, and tongs. Oh, and lighters, too, for the Sterno." She grinned. "We're more than set for the potluck's buffet tables."

"My turn," Madoka said. "I grabbed a few people and we went out and got decorations. Did you know that some stores are already putting 'after season' prices on Halloween stuff? We got some great deals. It's all stashed upstairs in the Community Center for now. We'll put some up before the rental guys show up, and the rest when they're done. We also got everything we need for the haunted house, but we still need an apartment to set it up in."

"Right. Hang around after we're done here and we'll get you a key," Bob said. "And since you brought up the Community Center, here's how using it for the party is shaking out: The kitchen is reserved for supporting the potluck, of course. The home theatre on the second floor is going to be video central, with lots of Halloween-themed movies like Hocus Pocus, Beetlejuice and whatnot. The recording studio is going to be locked and off-limits, but the practice rooms are going to be our 'quiet zone' for folks who can't take the party at full intensity."

Ui nodded. "Makes sense, given their soundproofing."

"We're also putting our first aid station just inside the door of the first room," Peggy added.

"Shall we start a pool on how many times it'll be needed during the party?" Minami asked with a small smile.

"Not where we know about it," Bob said.

"Spoilsport," Madoka muttered, but smiled as she did.

"Anyway," Bob continued, "the rest of the Community Center is going to be given over to playing tabletop games. We're getting extra tables and chairs from the rental place to use for more playing space, and we're seeding it with several dozen games from our collection. I've also contacted most of the other managers to see who can bring stuff we don't have, or duplicates of popular games."

"What games do you have so far?" Keiichi asked.

Bob chuckled. "You really want me to list them all? Sure!" He took a deep breath and began to sing. "There's Knightmare Chess and V&V and Cards Against Humanity... Ow!" He glared at his wife, who had just swatted his upper arm.

"Don't get him started!" Peggy warned Keiichi. "He spent the entire afternoon we were bringing games over to the community center putting their names to the Major-General song from Pirates of Penzance, and then he wouldn't stop singing it." She returned Bob's glare. "I've had more than enough of that, thank you!"

Snickering, Keiichi held up his hands. "Question withdrawn," he said with a broad smile as the other members of the committee chuckled.

"Don't worry," Peggy added in a less irritated tone. "We'll have more than enough to keep anyone who wants to play something satisfied."

"Ui, where do we stand on the entertainment?" Bob asked, rubbing his arm. "You more or less took that over from the first."

"Oh, right!" she perked up. "We have at least nine bands or singers who want to perform. Right off the bat almost everyone here in Douglass Gardens — Hokago Tea Time, Wakaba Girls, OnNaGumi, Gorillaz and even Miss Asahi will be performing. Sawa-chan-sensei said Death Devil's music wouldn't fit the party, though." She aimed a ridiculously exaggerated mock pout at Madoka. "And then somebody else turned me down when I asked."

Madoka wrinkled her nose at her. "I'm not comfortable doing a solo set yet. Back someone up, sure, but go out there all by myself? No, thank you."

Ui giggled. "No, that's one of Hokago Tea Time's songs."

Madoka rolled her eyes.

Still giggling, Ui continued, "Rei Hino and Minako Aino from Blossom Apartments each are going to do a set, and 33-Stars from Dublin, too. And Miss Tomoyo from Aria House is going to sing, with Mugi-chan accompanying her on piano. If they each do fifteen minutes, that's more than two hours of live music. We've also got a couple karaoke blocks in the schedule," she added.

Bob grimaced. "I forgot to request a karaoke machine from the rental company. I'll do that after we're done here and I get Madoka that key." A thoughtful expression crossed his face, followed by an evil grin. "Do you think we can get Sakura Kinomoto into an 'Annie' costume and have her sing 'Tomoyo, Tomoyo, she's only a door away'?"

"Oh, Bob," Peggy groaned. "That's terrible. That's almost worse than the games song."

He waggled his eyebrows at her before growing serious again. "I think that's everything? Is there anything we've forgotten?" Bob asked. "We still have a week to take care of anything that's gotten overlooked."

The committee members looked back and forth between themselves. A chorus of "no"s sounded across the table.

"In that case, I'd say we're done here," he concluded. "Everyone keep going with what you've got, and if you think of anything at all we still need to do, let us all know so someone can jump on it, okay?"

And with that the meeting concluded.

The next week sped past. Defying Bob's intermittent bouts of anxiety, no great problems or critical forgotten needs made themselves known at inopportune times. Starting with the stage and dance floor as the party's central anchor, the committee finalized the positions of the various tents and their contents. Madoka and her team completed setting up the haunted house in apartment 44A by Wednesday. On Thursday, Bob and Peggy teleconferenced with Washuu to establish what she needed for her portals.

"First thing," Bob said when the opening "hello"s and "thank you"s were dispensed with, "are we talking about one portal or more? We're a little confused on that."

"Which do you want?" Washuu's image on the screen shrugged carelessly. Her voice still surprised him; it sounded far more childlike than KT Vogt's performance in the English dub. "I'll be using systems I've already got in place^[4] , so a dozen portals aren't really any harder to open up than a single one."

Peggy and Bob shared a look. "Do you need to monitor the portals or something?" Peggy asked.

"Well," Washuu mused, "if it's just the one portal, I'd have to manually switch the far end from residence to residence."

"You can't automate..." Bob began only to be interrupted by Peggy.

"So if, say, someone needs to run back to their place at some point..." she asked.

The redhead nodded. "They'd have to come find me to redirect and reopen the portal." Her image's focus switched to the other side of the screen. "And I could, but that's a lot of unnecessary work just to get people to and from a party."

"Mm," Bob responded noncommittally.

Peggy frowned in thought. "How much trouble is it to just leave a bunch of portals open and running?"

"Pretty much none," Washuu confirmed. "Once I set a portal up, it's stable until I dismiss it."

"Well, why don't we do that, then?" Peg asked. "You open up a portal to each residence where's there's someone coming to the party, leave them open, and go enjoy yourself until the party ends and we have to shut them down for the night."

"And spin them back up the next morning to send everyone home who stayed overnight," Bob added.

"Yeah, I can do that easily," Washuu said appreciatively.

"Cool," Bob said.

"Okay, with that settled, where do you want me to open them on your end?"

Bob and Peggy traded glances again. "If we can trust the Tenchi anime," he said cautiously, "your portals don't need to be anchored to anything, like a wall. Is that correct?"

She nodded. "Yeah, that's right."

"Then the parking lot behind our building?" Bob asked Peggy. "Close to the party proper, and if we place them properly they won't be visible from Hamilton Street. One parking space per portal."

"Yeah," Peg agreed.

"That works." Washuu looked off-screen for a moment while her hands made keyboarding movements below the bottom edge of the window. "Okay, I have the list of residences that need portals. Aaaaaand I've just gotten the lot's latitude and longitude from Google Maps. Handy, that. Sending a nanoprobe through now to confirm — is this the right place?" She swiped one hand across the field of view and dragged a picture-in-picture image onto the screen. In it, a slowly panning camera showed what both of them recognized as the far ends of buildings 2 and 4, the parking lot between them, and the fence and trees that separated the lot from the backyards of the houses on the next street over.

"Perfect!" Bob declared.

"Great!" Washuu swiped her hand across the screen again, banishing the smaller image. "I'll set up the portals for the last few spaces on each side, and we'll be ready to go at the touch of a button."

"Oh, before we forget," Peggy spoke up. "The girls from Aria House want to bring their van over so they can do a road trip back. Their portal needs to be big enough to let it through."

"And preferably located somewhere on their end where they can drive into it," Bob added.

"No problemo." More keyboarding motions below the edge of the screen. "Done." She looked back up at the pair and grinned. "We're all set."

"Fantastic," Bob replied with a grin of his own. "I'm starting to think this thing is actually going to happen."

The last few days before the party were, to everyone's relief, mostly calm and uneventful. The planning committee met once more, just to confirm that the planning had done its job and everything was on track. The weekend was actually relaxed, with whatever near-final preparations were scheduled for Saturday and Sunday were handled quickly and easily.

This is not to say there weren't any complications, but extra time for unanticipated problems had been factored into the overall plan by Minami — and it proved both necessary and useful. The belated realization on Saturday morning that they needed some way to block off the complex from Hamilton Street to discourage random passers-by from slipping into the party necessitated a quick trip to Home Depot for a couple sets of traffic barriers. And the unexpected appearance of Mamoru Chiba, Chibiusa and the mooncats on the morning of the 30th might also have thrown a monkey wrench into the party preparations, but instead it was handled with, if not aplomb, then efficiency and a minimum of excitement.

Monday the 31st dawned clear and chilly, and not long after breakfast the combined might of the decoration team and several truckloads of burly men from Friendly Rental Center began transforming the complex. Pavilions (complete with walls to hold in the output of the propane-powered heaters) sprouted around the trees in the green spaces between the second and third ranks of apartments, while the stage was erected in the street between the buildings of the third rank. The dance floor was laid down in front of it, sheltered by its own pavilion — this one open on all sides. As the rental company's men finished in one location, the decoration team swooped in and gave the plain white tents a festive, seasonal makeover. Another group — aided by Mamoru, who admitted to feeling uncomfortable just watching everyone else working — unfolded chairs and tables, and set them up according to the master plan.

In the community center kitchen, Ui (who was "home sick" from school) and Peggy set to work with a third team of volunteers to prepare the complex's contribution to the potluck. As most of the group worked on cutting and laying out a variety of vegetables into attractive patterns and arrangements on a collection of large platters, the remainder prepared dips and sauces. This part of the group was made up of Ayame Yoshida and Chibiusa; the latter took to the task eagerly, stirring and mixing with the tip of her tongue ever so slightly protruding from the corner of her mouth as she concentrated on the ingredients and recipes laid out before her and her partner.

"Oh, Chibiusa!" Peggy suddenly called from the other side of the kitchen.

The girl looked up from the bowl in front of her. "Yes, Peggy?"

"Before I forget, save one container of sour cream and one package of onion soup mix." She smiled. "Bob likes his onion dip freshly mixed — he says it's better when the onions are still crunchy and the flavors haven't melted into each other yet."

Chibiusa considered this. "So I should mix them right before we take everything out?"

Peggy nodded. "Yep. Believe me, Bob will appreciate it."

The little girl smiled brilliantly. "Sure!" Then she very carefully selected one tub out of the stack of sour cream before her, and one foil packet of soup mix, and carried them both over to the refrigerator, where she placed them on the highest shelf she could reach. "There!"

Peggy and Ui shared a smile with Ayame. "Thank you!"

Chibiusa grinned impishly and curtseyed. "You're very welcome!"

As Chibiusa went back to work with Ayame, Ui leaned toward Peggy. "That was nice of you, making her feel like an important part of everything," she whispered.

Peggy shrugged. "I'm practicing for when our niece Vivienne gets to be her age," she replied with a slight smile.

"I think you've got it exactly right," Ui said, nudging her gently.

Meanwhile, attendees elsewhere were making their own final preparations...

Blossom Apartments
Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
October 31, 2016
7:10 am Eastern

Usagi Tsukino was getting tired of her history homework. She'd fallen asleep at her desk (which Rob-oji insisted she get the previous weekend after one too many calls from her teachers about her homework) last night and slept on it, literally.

When was she going to need to know Canadian history? She was going to become Neo-Queen Serenity and rule the world ... and it might be a good idea to know something about the people she was going to lead, so yeah.

Assuming that she was going to become Neo-Queen Serenity on this Earth. She wasn't in her home universe any more, and it didn't look like she was going home any time soon. "Maybe one month" had already stretched into two.

She missed Mamoru. And her family; Kenji, Ikuko, and Shingo. And Mamo-chan. And Luna and Artemis. And Mamo-chan. And Naru, her closest friend who wasn't a Senshi. And Mamo-chan. And her daughter from the future, Chibiusa. And especially Mamo-chan.

Usagi sighed deeply, then got up and changed her clothes so she'd be presentable for breakfast. Being sad was not a good enough excuse for missing breakfast. Besides, she had friends here – some from back home, some from another world altogether, and some from this world – and it wouldn't be polite to make them worry about her.

Then she noticed the parcel on her bed – a parcel that hadn't been there the previous evening, she was sure. Had Kuroko teleported it into her room? She left it alone, intending to mention it during breakfast.

Douglass Gardens Apartments
New Brunswick, NJ, USA
October 31, 2016
7:43 am Eastern

"Who do we have to thank for these costumes?" Mamoru asked Reiko while holding up a rather distinctive black outfit from a 1986 movie.

"Nobody in Team Ikkatsu made that one," the cosplayer replied. "We're still finishing off our own costumes. We barely had time to make that bodysuit for Chibiusa. And none of us have any idea how to make something for a cat."

Mamoru looked at the outfits for Luna, Artemis, and Diana, and didn't point out that they were all for the human forms of each Mau. Then he noticed the note pinned to his costume. "This matches your girlfriend's ballgown. Be sure to wear it. Washuu."

Reiko read the note at the same time. "Somebody's setting up a show. Better practice your lines for it."

Mamoru shook his head. "I think it would be best if I said nothing, at least to begin with."

Los Angeles, California, USA
October 31, 2016
6:45 am Pacific

Tomoyo quickly washed her face, then put the towel back on the rack. She didn't have time to get breakfast, though – Sakura's costume wasn't finished yet, and they were leaving for Somerset right after school. She needed to work as hard as she ever had just to finish the work that she needed to do.

She absolutely refused to let Sakura Kinomoto appear in front of the other displacees looking anything short of her best. Her own costume... was good enough, even if it could use some work. And she had finished Shaoran and Akari's costumes last night. But what was she going to do about Mira's costume? The full effect would be lost if they weren't all costumed according to the theme they had chosen.

Her television switched itself on. "Hello, Daidouji-chan!" Surprised, she gave it her full attention, to see Urd looking out at her, the Yggdrasil system vaguely visible behind her. "Belldandy says you're working yourself to exhaustion. Don't worry about Mira's costume – just leave the TV switched on to this channel when Sakura-chan summons her."

"Oh, of course! Thank you, megami-sama!"

"You're a good girl. Don't hurt yourself over something that we can help you with. And you're welcome."^[5]

Pensacola, Florida, USA
October 31, 2016
3:34 PM Central

Jayne Cobb gave Kensuke Aida a good look. The teenager had almost begged to be allowed to dress as Jayne for the party, which amused and flattered the man. But if the kid was going to be dressed as him, the kid had better look the part.

"Jayne, are you sure it's supposed to ride like this?"

"Yeah, it's supposed to 'ride like this'. Don't be a wuss. Live with it."^[6] He reached over and grabbed the hat Kensuke was wearing, pulling it off his head (almost pulling his glasses off at the same time) and handing it to him. "And you have to wear this right. Not so far back on your head." Then he took a look at himself in the mirror – if the kid was going to go dressed like him, he might as well go dressed like the kid, he figured. "Huh, I almost look wholesome like this."

"Almost," Rei replied in passing. She had found out about the whole "Rei Ayanami expy" thing and was carrying a North High School uniform that she'd received in the mail a few days ago. "Has anyone seen Inara? She promised to help me get ready."

Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
October 31, 2016
4:46 PM Eastern

"It's ... gorgeous." Usagi held the dress up and looked at herself in the mirror. "And it's my size, too! Who left it here?"

"You can't fight in it, though," Makoto complained. "Look at the size of those shoulders, and how wide the skirt is."

"It's a ballgown," Rei pointed out. "It's supposed to be elegant."

"And impractical."

"I don't care," Usagi declared. "I'm wearing this to tonight's party. If we have to fight at a party, then something's gone terribly wrong. I wonder who I'm supposed to be, though?"

Makoto held up a card. "This says it's a dance gown worn by somebody named Sarah in a movie that I haven't seen.^[7] It also says that we have a certain genius in Vancouver to thank for it."

"Oh. We'll have to do something nice for Washuu-chan in return, then. I wonder when she got my measurements?"

"Three weeks ago, when she did everybody's checkups," Rei pointed out.

"Oh, right! Will you help me with it, please?"

Makoto Kino and Rei Hino did so, sharing a private smile where Usagi couldn't see it. Once they had finished helping Usagi into her dress, they headed off to get into their own costumes.

"You look good in a suit. But why the sunglasses?"

Rob smiled. "I am this building's first, last, and only line of defense against the worst scum of the universe."

"Whatever you say, Agent R," Mii replied while wondering how well Rob would fare against a Predator... or, for that matter, against Luna and Artemis.

"You're wearing that?"

Mii smiled back at Rob. "I thought you might like it."

"You thought I might like it." Rob carefully avoided showing his true feelings about that statement. After all, they'd both signed a consent form saying he was her guardian, and he was much older than her.

"Do you?"

"You certainly have the build for it. You know you're going to draw the eye of every heterosexual male at the party, right? Although I expect some people are going to complain somebody dressed like that shouldn't be wearing glasses."

"Just call me Gloria."^[8]

"Oh, so you do know at least that much of the history. Just take a coat along; it wouldn't be good if you caught cold."

As Rob walked over to one of the other groups of girls, Mii Konori wondered whether he was noticing her at all, that way. If her wearing a Playboy Bunny outfit didn't get a compliment from him, what would?

"I feel ridiculous." Mikoto Misaka tried pushing her skirt down. Again.

"The skirt isn't any shorter than our school uniform skirt, onee-sama."

"Yes, it is - you can see my shorts under it."

"How many times have I told you that you shouldn't be wearing shorts under your skirt? You aren't a child any more."

Just then, Makoto knocked at Mikoto's door and walked into the apartment. "Oh, there you are! You look good in my Senshi uniform, Mikoto."

"Aren't you a little old to be a Tokiwadai student, Makoto?"

As both electrokinetics giggled, Kuroko Shirai wondered (not for the first time) what had possessed them to attend the party dressed as each other... and, for that matter, why people were bothering with costumes at all. They'd just been dumped into this universe a month ago, after all – she thought that what they usually wore back home should be costume enough.

Rei Hino stepped out of the shower, carefully pat-drying her hair so that the temporary hair colour wouldn't come out, walked over to her bedroom nook, and looked at the outfit on her bed. It may have been an "internet special", but it was a good off-the-rack costume. A few minutes later, once she was in the short-skirt-and-blouse-and-jacket-and-very-long-boots outfit and her temporarily-dyed hair was in twin tails (and she'd checked in the mirror that the twin-tails were symmetrical), Rei noticed that Kazari Uiharu had done a more thorough job than she expected – the wireless headset she was about to put on had the heft of having actual electronics in it.

And Rei had found the sheet music for "Ten Thousand Stars",^[9] which she had practised over lunch at school for the last week. She was confident she would get it right this evening.

Los Angeles, California, USA
October 31, 2016
1:46 PM Pacific

Mira quietly thanked Brent – being in her "The Mirror" card form, she couldn't actually say it – for suggesting that she read that particular Discworld novel,^[10] turned her awareness inward, and started looking through the mirrors that were her namesake. She saw flashes of activity – Rei Hino pat-drying her hair, Rei Ayanami putting on a sweater, Rin Tohsaka carefully closing the clasp of a jeweled bracelet, Makoto Kino walking in on Mikoto Misaka with each wearing the other's uniform, Last Order moping, Akari Mizunashi carefully smoothing a wrinkle out of her leggings, Shinji Ikari putting on a North High school uniform, ... ah, there she was!

"Take a good look!" Of course Urd knew that Mira was looking at her, even without turning her attention away from her work at Yggdrasil. "I told Daidouji-san that I'd help with your costume."

Thank you, thought Mira.

"You're welcome."

The Steeple
Philadelphia, PA, USA
October 31, 2016
5:05 PM Eastern

Miyuki smiled as Nanoha and Fate modelled their Halloween costumes. "You two look so cute! But are you sure you should be dressed like that?"

"It's too late to change our costumes now," Nanoha pointed out. "Besides, we both wanted to show respect to the people who we're dressed as, but we didn't want to copy their Barrier Jackets. Not that Kinomoto-san has a standard Barrier Jacket, so I had to dress like this," she added with a grin.

"Also, you called dibs on the track suit," their brother Kyouya added.

"Nanoha uses magic to fight. You and I use swords."

Nanoha nodded quickly, agreeing with her sister. "Yep! So it makes sense that you should dress like The Bride. But doesn't Douglass Gardens have a strict 'no weapons' rule?"

"It's a 'no firearms' rule," Kyouya corrected her as he put on his usual jacket. Turning from Nanoha to Miyuki, he added, "But, unless you can guarantee that none of the two hundred other guests will be able to take your sword away from you, it would be best to take a bokken instead."

"Hai, sensei," she replied formally. Switching back to English, she added, "I'm more worried that somebody will get drunk and try to take it away from me, and I might hurt them when I stop them. Either way, it's poor manners to bring live steel to a party unless you're expecting trouble." Sotto voice, she continued, "Even if it would be funny to use my swords to fight off wedding crashers and then ask if anyone else had an objection to the marriage."

Nanoha looked puzzled for a brief moment, then asked, "Is that something out of one of the stories about us in this universe?"

"It is, yes."^[11]

"It doesn't really matter," their father Shirou said as he and his wife Momoko walked in, the two dressed like Masuo and Sazae Fuguta from Sazae-san. "This world appears to be more peaceful than our own, so we don't need to take live steel. Bokkens are all right."

"What about this bullwhip?" Yuuno asked, holding it in one hand and a brown fedora in the other.

"Best to leave it behind," Shirou suggested, "unless you know how to use it. Besides, Indy didn't always have a whip when he was young." He turned back to Nanoha and Fate. "And our families' Intelligent Devices should stay in standby form."

"Yes, sir!" Bardiche replied as Fate attached him to her own outfit where a brooch would otherwise go.

And that brought everyone's attention to the young blonde who was wearing a Juuban middle school uniform. She took the opportunity to ask, "When will you be getting into your own costume, Kyouya?"

"I'm already wearing it. I'm going as a ninja."

Everyone else in the room who was named Takamachi nodded sagely. Thanks to their family's fighting style, they believed that a ninja who looked like a stereotypical ninja was no ninja at all.

He continued, "Is Alph ready to go to the party?"

"She has to wear two costumes," Fate pointed out. "I helped her put on her black cat suit and crescent moon forehead mark while she was in animal form. Now she's putting on her yellow and purple dress and crescent-mark in her human form."

"So she finally agreed to the two of you going in themed costumes," Momoko commented.

"And here I am!" Alph entered the room in animal form and walked over to Fate. "That dress is very fancy and I don't want to ruin it before I get to Douglass Gardens."

"I was hoping you'd be able to help carry our contribution to the party," Momoko said. "We have a dozen cakes and pies to deliver to New Jersey."

"The four of you ladies can take one cake each," Shirou suggested. "Kyouya and I will take the pies, four each."

"Take three each," their apartment manager, Heather, said from the doorway. "I'll take the other two. They are in boxes, aren't they?"

"Of course they are," Momoko said.

"Then it's settled," Heather announced as she put on her plague doctor mask, completing her own costume.

"By the way," Miyuki asked, "has anybody seen what Lindy, Chrono, and Amy are wearing to the party?"

Douglass Gardens Apartments
Somerset, NJ, USA
October 31, 2016
5:10 PM Eastern

"Thanks again for helping out," Bob said to Mamoru as the pair wrestled the last traffic barrier in place across Annette Court between buildings 1 and 2, some twenty yards or so from the intersection with Hamilton Street.

"You're very welcome," Mamoru replied. "I just felt like I needed to do something to repay your hospitality."

Bob snorted. "You didn't have to, believe me. But it's appreciated." He brushed his hands together as though to wipe dust from them, although the newly-assembled barricades were anything but dusty. "Now that we have these in place, we just need our guards."

"Guards?" Mamoru asked with a raised eyebrow.

"That's what I'm calling them," Bob said with a shrug. "A few of our residents have volunteered to man the barricades — I feel like I should make a Les Mis joke here," he added with a grin, to Mamoru's complete bafflement. "Anyway, they'll keep trick-or-treaters from slipping into the party. We've set up half-hour shifts, so no one misses too much of the action, and that only until a half-hour after the township curfew at 8."

"So the trick-or-treaters are out of luck?" Mamoru asked with a smile.

"Not completely," Bob began, but before he could explain further a car turned into Annette Court. It stopped at the barricade and the driver's window slid down.

"Hi, I'm Tom Palaczek, I'm your bartender for the evening?"

"Oh, hey. Bob Schroeck," Bob said, sticking out his hand, which Tom clumsily shook through the car window. "Welcome. And thanks for being available."

"Not a problem," Tom said with a grin. "I'm always happy to pick up a few bucks. Where's the party and where do you want me to park?"

Bob nodded. "Right! Let us move the barricade out of the way, and you can just park in the lot on the left. The party's in the green spaces past the next set of barricades, behind those buildings." He waved at building 3 and 4. "Just walk on through and ask anyone you see for Peggy — she'll get you situated. Oh, wait a minute, here she comes," he added as two figures appeared around the end of building 1: Peggy, carrying a folded card table, followed closely by Chibiusa, who was clutching a plastic bowl almost too big for her to put her arms around, in which were bags of candy.

"Hey, love," Bob called. "Our bartender just arrived." He gestured at the car.

"Oh, cool," she said as handed the card table to him. "Here, take this. You can set up the candy table." She peered at the car. "Hi, Tom, wasn't it?"

"Yep," he replied. "And you're Mrs. Schroeck?"

"Peggy," she corrected gently. She poked Bob. "Let him in," she said imperiously.

"Yes, dear," Bob grinned. "Whatever you say, dear." He smirked at Mamoru. "You heard Her Majesty."

Mamoru chuckled. "Yeah, I know that tone of voice. I have my own Her Majesty, after all."

Laughing, the two quickly pivoted the sawhorse-style barrier and allowed Tom's car in. After pecking Bob on the lips (prompting an "Ewwww" from Chibiusa), Peggy followed his car around the end of building. Bob and Mamoru replaced the barrier, then Bob turned to the girl. "Are you our designated candy carrier, then?" he asked.

"Uh-huh," she replied, nodding vigorously enough that it threatened to spill the bags of candy from the bowl. "I've been helping Peggy all afternoon," she added, looking at Mamoru.

"Did you have fun?" he asked.

"I did!" she replied. "But this candy is heavy, can I put it down?"

"Right," Bob said. "Let's take care of that right now." As Mamoru relieved his future daughter of her burden, Bob picked up the card table from where it was laying on the ground and unfolded its legs. "One way we're going to keep the pedestrians out of the party is to provide them with a distraction." He set the table on its legs, and waved grandiloquently at it: "Gentlemen, behold! The Candy Table!"

Chibiusa giggled, then she turned to Mamoru, pointed at Bob, and in her best impression of a World War II gremlin said, "I like him. He's silly."^[12]

Bob leaned down to her and in a stage whisper said, "You're absolutely right, but no one else knows. It'll just be our secret, okay?"

"Okay," she said, still giggling. Mamoru couldn't help but smile at the exchange.

"Now let's get this set up," Bob continued, standing up again. "Where's that bowl?" He glanced around, pointedly ignoring Mamoru except to give him a wink.

"Right here! Right here!" she shrieked happily, almost tearing it from Mamoru's hands. He let it go, scooping the bags of candy out as he did. Chibiusa spun around and held it out to Bob. "Peggy said I could have a chocolate bar, any kind I wanted, for helping."

"And so you shall," Bob agreed as he took the bowl from her and placed it with exquisite care in the geometric center of the card table. "Candy?"

Mamoru stepped forward with the bags, and the bowl was quickly filled to overflowing. After a moment's consideration, Chibiusa fished a Kit-Kat bar out of it as her payment. Bob scritched the top of her head between the "bunny ears" of her hairstyle. "There you go, Cuteness," he said. "Thank you for the help."

"You're welcome," she replied as she examined the wrapper for the best way to open it. "Why'd you call me that?"

"What, 'Cuteness'?" he asked, and she nodded.

"Uh-huh."

Bob glanced at Mamoru and decided the least amount of detail was probably best. "It's what Harry Potter calls you in a story that someone here wrote about you and Usagi."

Her eyes grew wide. "Harry Potter? Really? Is he in a residence, too?"

Bob laughed. "Not that we've heard, yet, but hey, maybe Hogwarts is out there somewhere, just well hidden." He peered curiously at her. "How do you know about Harry Potter?"

Chibiusa finally managed to tear open the wrapper. "Duh. My 21st-century literature class back in Crystal Tokyo." She took a bite of the Kit-Kat. "And I just might have all the movies, too," she admitted.

"Huh. I wonder..." But before they could find out what Bob was wondering, another car turned into Annette Court and pulled up to the barricade. Bob grinned when he spied the driver. "Uncle Arthur! Aunt Linda!" he called out as he trotted across the street and hopped over its narrow, flowered median divider. Curious, Chibiusa followed, with Mamoru close behind.

"...move the barricade and then you can park in the first free spot behind the building on the right," Bob was saying through the car window to an elderly white-haired man with a square, still-handsome face. He seemed to sense them coming up behind him and glanced back over his shoulder before moving slightly to the side. "Uncle Arthur, Aunt Linda, this is Mamoru and Usagi Chiba, a couple guests we've been hosting," he said. "Mamoru, Chibiusa, I'd like you to meet my uncle and aunt, Arthur Schroeck and Linda November. They're coming to the party, too."

"Hello," the older man said, and a cheery, female voice from further in the car called out, "Hi!"

Mamoru bent down to look through the window and spied a slender blonde woman with sharp but attractive features looking back. She seemed close to Arthur's age; not a trophy wife, he thought. "My pleasure," he said.

"It's nice to meet you!" Chibiusa chirped, then took another bite of her Kit-Kat.

"I see someone's gotten a head start on trick-or-treating!" Linda said with a chuckle.

Bob smiled. "Cuteness here has been helping Peggy and me with some of the final preparations for the party. She's earned every bite of that chocolate bar!"

"Uh-huh!" she agreed, nodding, around the candy in question. In the car, Arthur and Linda laughed.

"Mamoru, if you could please help me with the barricade one more time?" Bob asked. "Then you two can get dressed for the party."

Mamoru smiled. "Of course."

As Bob was leading Arthur and Linda into the party zone, they ran into Hikaru, who after introductions volunteered to go fetch Peggy. A few minutes later, Peggy joined them, and after an exchange of greetings and hugs, she and Bob began to show off the party preparations. After the fifteen-minute tour had concluded, the four settled in at a table in the main dining tent. The propane heaters were already running, the interior was comfortably warm, and Tom the bartender had provided them all with drinks. In the background someone had started up the party music.

"This is an impressive layout you've got here," Arthur said, swirling his glass slightly.

"The apartment complex, or just the party?" Bob asked with a smile.

"Both, actually," Arthur said with a laugh. "But you look like you're set up to host a couple hundred people here."

Bob nodded. "That's pretty much it, exactly. Counting our tenants, we're expecting about two hundred guests, give or take half a dozen."

Arthur shook his head in amused disbelief.

"So many of your tenants are Asian," Linda noted.

"We have a lot of... well, exchange students is the best way to put it," Peggy answered.

"The ones who aren't going to Rutgers are almost all going to the local high school," Bob added.

"It's not just students, though," Peggy noted. "We have whole families as well — the Kasugas and Natsumes, for instance."

"But they're all Asian?" Arthur asked.

Bob nodded again. "Japanese, yeah. For the moment, at least. After all, we're nowhere near full." He shrugged. "We have no idea who'll get sent to us next."

Linda and Arthur shared a puzzled look. "That's an... odd way to put it."

Bob and Peggy traded glances of their own, and she shrugged minutely. "Ah, yeah, well," Bob said, "We're not a... we don't advertise for tenants, or take in applicants off the street. We're part of network of apartments, set up for a special purpose."

"A special purpose?" Arthur frowned.

"Does this have anything to do with all the strange hair colors some of your tenants have?" Linda asked. "I mean, fire engine red, magenta... bright pink like that adorable little girl? They're not wigs, and if they're dye jobs they're incredibly good; at first glance I would've sworn they were somehow natural."

"Yes," Bob said slowly. "It's all tied in together." A soft beeping sounded from his picket, and he pulled out his battered gold smartphone. Glancing at its screen he nodded, apparently to himself, and dismissed whatever he saw there with a swipe of a fingertip.

"It's time?" Peggy asked him.

"Yeah," he said, then looked back at his aunt and uncle. "Our guests are about to arrive," he told them. "I think it'll be easier to explain what we're doing here if you join us while we welcome them." He stood up, and grinned at them as Peggy stood, too. "Trust me, you don't want to miss this."

Curious, Arthur and Linda followed Bob and Peggy through the growing twilight back to the parking log where they had left their rental car, past it and almost all the way to the far end. There Bob and Peggy stopped and stood in the middle of the lot, where a young woman waited next to a card table, lit by a pair of streetlights to either side of her. She wore an obvious wig of long black ringlets, and a black bodysuit with what looked like grey armor plates on the torso. When she turned at their approach, light glinted off the glasses she wore. On the table next to her sat what looked like a fair-sized lockbox.

"Hey, Minami," Bob said, then gestured to Arthur and Linda as they stepped closer. "This is my Uncle Arthur and Aunt Linda. Uncle Arthur, Aunt Linda, this is Minami Makimura, our indispensable right-hand woman while arranging this whole shindig." She was, they were not surprised to note once they were close enough, yet another young Japanese woman.

"A pleasure to meet you," she said in perfect, unaccented English; she twitched, as though stopping herself from bowing, before holding out her hand to shake theirs.

"Likewise," Arthur said, and Linda echoed him.

"Are we set to hand out apartments?" Peggy asked.

Minami waved at the box. "I took the liberty of bringing out keys for unassigned apartments and a logbook for noting who is where."

"We don't pay you enough," Bob said with a grin.

She returned the grin. "You don't pay me at all."

"Like I said," he shot back.

Puzzled, Arthur ignored their exchange and peered at the end of the parking lot toward which they were all facing. It was closed off by a fence, along with several good-sized trees. "I don't understand, Robert. What are we waiting for?" he asked.

Bob pulled out his cellphone and checked it again. Then he looked at Arthur and Linda and grinned. "You'll see in just under a minute."

Douglass Gardens Apartments, Somerset, NJ, USA; The Steeple, Philadelphia, PA, USA; Blossom Apartments, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada; and Appartements Mont-Royal Sud, Montreal, Quebec, Canada
October 31, 2016
6:01 PM Eastern

7 Henrietta Street, Dublin, Ireland
October 31, 2016
11:01 PM Western European Time

Ben Rose House, Chicago, IL, USA; Gulfside Rest, Pensacola, Florida, USA; and Live Oak Manor, Vicksburg, Mississippi, USA
October 31, 2016
5:01 PM Central

Aria House, Los Angeles, California, USA; and the Masaki residence, Coquitlam, BC, Canada
October 31, 2016
3:01 PM Pacific

Adelaide, South Australia, Australia
November 1st, 2016
9:31 AM Australian Central Daylight

In Coquitlam, Washuu Hakubi, the universe's self-proclaimed greatest scientific mind – who, at the moment, looked like she was ready to sing about the Good Ship Lollipop – pushed a button on her screen, and portals simultaneously appeared at eleven locations around the world — and eleven more appeared in a parking lot in New Jersey.

Somerset, NJ, USA
October 31, 2016
6:02 PM Eastern

As Arthur glanced at Linda with raised eyebrows, a faint, high-pitched hum suddenly filled the air. It rose in intensity, accompanied by a subtle crackling noise. Caught by surprise, both looked around themselves, trying to locate the source of the sound beyond simply "ahead". A moment later it culminated in a deep, pulsing chime like a basso profundo bell, as two parallel lines of pitch black disks appeared, six on the left side of the parking lot and five on the right. They were all slightly embedded into the asphalt, and the closest of the six on the left was much larger than the others. Over each one white letters floated in midair — Arthur could clearly read "Venice Beach" hovering above the large disk to the left, "Coquitlam" over the nearest one on the right.

And before the deep ringing tone had finished fading away, people started walking out of the disks.

Linda clutched at his arm. "Arthur?" she whispered. He just shook his head. The first group to appear through one of the disks had already almost reached where they stood with Bob, Peggy and Minami. At their head was a pair of redheads. One was tall and shapely with a shoulder-length mass of ringlets, in white slacks and a peppermint-striped blouse with massively puffy shoulders. The other was petite, almost tiny, with her hair shorter and in looser curls, and wearing a short-sleeved, red and green plaid dress with white collar and cuffs and a black tie, and black maryjane shoes over white ankle socks.^[13] Beyond them was a small crowd that included several men dressed as what Arthur recognized as various incarnations of The Doctor, a tan woman in a full-body "Easter bunny"-style costume, an Asian version of Audrey Hepburn from Roman Holiday, and two more little girls: One with ankle-length cyan ponytails, a strange multicolored uniform, and something that looked like a cross between a cricket bat and a magic wand in her hand. The other was in an elaborate and detailed costume in brown fur that made her look like some kind of animal — although what, Arthur couldn't guess. Two of the men were carrying large, foil-covered trays.

"Garnett! Washuu-chan!" Bob called out, and he and Peggy surprised Arthur by bowing respectfully to the Shirley Temple lookalike. "It's an honor to meet you." he continued.

"Thank you again for providing the portals," Peggy added. "They're fantastic."

"Eh! It was no big deal. I had everything in place already," the ... child? ... said with a dismissive wave of her hand, but still seeming terribly pleased at the praise. She looked around with a massive grin. "So! Where's the food and fun?"

Bob grinned back and gestured behind himself. "Straight ahead, and turn right at the end of the building." He turned to the taller woman and held our his hand. "Great to finally meet you in person," he said as they shook.

"Likewise, and great to be here," "Garnett" replied as she then shook hands with Peggy. She looked around at the parking lot and the buildings to either side. "Huh. I was expecting it to be warmer, but it's about the same temperature back home."

Bob shrugged. "What can you do?" Behind them, Arthur numbly noted a white van with blue stripes appearing through the largest portal. It slowly pulled forward a couple more yards before stopping and shutting off its engine; a collection mostly of teenaged girls poured out of the black disk behind it as the van's occupants disembarked. Bob seemed to notice the growing crowd behind her for the first time. He held up a finger. "Hold that thought."

"Ladies and gentlemen!" Bob then called out, indulging his impulse to be a large ham and using all his long-ago high school drama club experience to project his voice loud and clear. "Children of all ages!"

"Like 20,000 years, right?" Peggy inexplicably whispered to Washuu, who erupted in a bark of high-pitched laughter and gave her a friendly nudge.

"Welcome to Douglass Gardens Apartments!" Bob received a swell of responses from everyone already through the portals. "Sorry about the chill, but that's New Jersey in October for you. At least it's not the blizzard we had five years ago. It's a pity we don't have a big enough location someplace warm like Texas, but, well, we have to make do with what we've got, right?"

Peggy touched his arm and murmured, "Keys, remember?"

"Right," he murmured back, then announced, "If you're planning on staying overnight, or you just need to change into your costume yet, please see Minami here to get your apartment and key." He pointed at the woman, who waved her hand over her head as a line spontaneously formed in front of her. Then Bob gestured behind himself again. "The party space is straight ahead and to the right — just turn at the end of the building and look for the tents and lights. Or follow the music! There are heaters set up all over if you're not enjoying our brisk, invigorating Autumn weather. Including in our gazebo, if you want to be outside but not cold."

"The food tent's got a sign on it," Peggy added, her higher voice not projecting quite as powerfully as Bob's. "Take your potluck contributions there."

"There's a bar set up in the dining tent for those of age — that's 21 here in New Jersey," Bob went on, "and we have sodas and other soft drinks for younger folks."

"If you're performing tonight," Peggy called out, "there's a program posted in the tent behind the stage, which we're using as a 'green room'. Please check it for the time you're playing."

"We'll also be having karaoke in between the live acts," Bob said. "Don't miss your chance to embarrass yourselves in front of friends both old and new! Ow!" he added when Peggy elbowed him in the side, and the party-goers closest to them laughed. "And as you can hear there's recorded music playing right now for those who want to dance right away."

"In addition to music and dancing," Peggy said, "we have a haunted house in apartment 44A. We also have gaming in the community center for those who want something indoors and a bit warmer."

"That's unit 19A, first door on the second building to the left behind me," Bob clarified. "We also have cartoons and Halloween-themed movies up in the home theatre on the second floor. And if you need it, we've also set up some quiet spaces in the community center, as well as our first aid station." He glanced at his wife. "Is that everything?"

"Trick or treating," Peg said.

"Right." He raised his voice again. "Oh, and for our younger party-goers, there will be a trick-or-treating expedition in a little while, to give you all a chance to harvest this year's bumper crop of wild candy!" There was a higher-pitched but smaller set of cheers. "Now is that everything?" he asked in a softer tone.

"I think so, yeah," Peggy murmured.

He nodded. "Okay, then! I officially proclaim it Party Time! Come on in, join the fun, and meet our residents!" A cheer rose from some two hundred throats, and the crowd began to flow forwards around them, save for those few who still needed to change.

Arthur hissed with surprise when, with a sound not unlike the arrival of the black disks, a pale figure with long, stringy black hair in a white kimono suddenly appeared floating in the air next to a young man dressed as the Second Doctor. She wrapped her arms around his shoulders, not caring if it made it harder for him to carry the foil-covered tray that he held in front of himself. In a pouty voice she said, "Tennnnnn-chi, I wanna dance." She stroked his cheek with one long and black-painted fingernail. "With you."

"Geeze, Ryoko, not until I drop off the food, okay?" he replied in an exasperated tone. On the other side of the small group, "Audrey Hepburn" scowled and audibly growled.

"Oh, Garnett," the ghost-girl then said in a considerably less pouty tone, "I finally dragged Kevin through the portal, but I think he's still standing there." She grinned. "He seemed just a little bit stunned. You did warn him what he was in for, didn't you? Anyway, you may want to go get him."

"Yeah, I should," Garnett replied, clearly surprised. "Thanks, Ryoko." Turning to Bob and Peggy, she said, "I'd best go collect my boyfriend before something happens to him. I'll catch up with you guys in a bit, okay?"

"Sure," Peggy said, and Garnett took off for the "Coquitlam" disk as the rest of her group — except for Washuu, who joined the queue for Minami's services — moved on past them toward the party.

"Robert," Arthur said softly as they watched the line form in front of Minami, "I think we're ready for that explanation now."

As Bob kept an eye on the guests streaming past, he said, "Okay, executive summary: The multiverse is collapsing. While Heaven and Hell scramble to keep all existence from disappearing, refugees from damaged or destroyed universes end up in ours. Peg and I run one of a network of residences set up to house the refugees until things are fixed." He waved at the horde of arrivals. "All these folks are from other universes."

Arthur studied his nephew for a moment. "You're serious," he finally stated, his disbelief audible in every word. Linda glanced between the two of them.

Bob turned to him. "Uncle Arthur. You have just seen eleven teleport gates, for lack of a better description, open and discharge two hundred people."

"And one van," Peggy added, smiling.

"Yes, Peggy, thank you," Bob said with a twitch of his lips. "And one van. If you want, you can pick a portal, walk through it, and find yourself in a completely different part of the world, like Australia."

"Where it's half-past nine in the freaking morning!" said a young man with shaggy blond hair and dressed as James Kirk from the recent Star Trek films as he passed them.

"Kurz!" growled the woman next to him, who was dressed in a black bodysuit and shiny black knee-high boots. A moment later, they were gone.

Bob laughed. "Right, where it's 9:30 in the morning. Beyond that, well, you just saw Ryoko teleport and fly only a few feet away from you. I know extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof, but I think we've already made a good start on providing that proof."

Peggy grinned. "We could ask Belldandy or Novalis to talk to them."

Bob nodded thoughtfully. "That'd work." He glanced back at his uncle and aunt. "As a side effect of..." He made another vague gesture encompassing everything around himself. "...all of this, Peg and I are on a first name basis with a few deities and archangels. They can definitely prove what we can't."

"Deities," Arthur said, and at almost the same moment Linda asked, "Archangels?"

"Our bosses." Bob smirked.

"Nuh-uh!" Peggy waved a remonstrative finger, but she was still grinning. "Novalis is boss-adjacent, remember?"

"Right," Bob replied.

"Deities and archangels," Arthur repeated. "How is that supposed to work?"

Bob shrugged. "Far as we can tell from the bits of info they've let drop, God is God, regardless of the pantheon. Jehovah, Odin, Zeus... all the same being, just different names. Everyone else — well, it seems like it's just different departments and a matter of nomenclature."

"Belldandy, who's the Norn of the present — a Norse goddess," Peggy explained, "doesn't seem to be all that different a kind of being than Novalis, who's the Archangel of Flowers."

"Archangel of Flowers?" Linda asked. "I'm pretty sure that one isn't in the official list."

Her nephew chuckled. "That's the other thing you learn quickly — nobody mortal has the full picture. Heaven — and Hell, too — are a lot more complex than any religion knows. Or guesses. They're like one of those carvings that cast shadows of three different letters depending on the angle you shine a light on them."

"Only with infinitely many lights and shadows cast," Peggy added.

"Yeah," Bob said, nodding. "Has something to do with how everything on that level operates in twelve dimensions, not just three. The big picture is bigger than we can possibly conceive."

"When you think of it that way," Peg noted softly, "it's surprising just how... human they are. You'd think the gods and demons would be these incomprehensible, alien things, but they aren't."

"Bob!" a voice suddenly shouted over the crowd which had finally begun to thin.

"Hold that thought," Bob said as he craned his neck in search of who had called. "We can talk more about this later if you want. Maybe with Bell sitting in to fact-check us."

Peg patted Linda's arm. "C'mon. I need to get into my costume. Why don't you and Arthur come to the apartment with me and I can tell you more while I change? After that, we'll go join the party, get some drinks, and find a table near the stage. You did come to hear our girls' bands, after all."

Linda nodded slowly. "I think that's a good idea. Artie?"

Arthur turned and looked toward where the mass of partygoers were making their way between the two buildings. "Yes," he murmured, then glanced back at them and nodded. "Let's do that."

Peggy smiled at him, then turned back to her husband to give him a brief kiss. "See you in a few?" she asked.

"Yeah," he said, and returned the kiss. "Got some folks to say hi to, first."

"You do that, and tell'em I'll see them in the party," she said, then gathered up Arthur and Linda. Bob watched them go for a moment.

He was still looking after her when a familiar voice said, "Hey, stranger," almost in his ear. He looked up to see several faces he had only ever seen on a computer screen before now.

It was an almost stereotypically motley band who faced him: At its center was a stout man well in excess of six feet, with his full beard and shoulder-length hair both clearly spray-colored gray; he was dressed in grey wizard robes and carried a staff. Next to him was a Tuxedo Mask a couple inches shorter than both his wizard companion and the real Tuxedo Mask with his own hair dyed midnight black. On the wizard's other side was a petite woman with the bearing of a fashion model, with long, dark curling hair and wearing the trademark white gown and fur-collared cape of the Mary Tamm incarnation of Romana from Doctor Who. Bringing up the rear was a slightly taller woman with wild red hair, dressed like a rocker ready for the stage.

"Harley! Brent! Cassiopée! Meg!" Bob called out. "It's good to finally meet you guys in person."

The five building managers shook hands in turn. Harley Waters from the Florida group (AKA Gandalf), asked, "So how is life treating you?"

Bob grinned. "Oh, you know how it goes, a broken faucet here, a lost master tape there."

"Been meaning to ask," Brent Laabs from the L.A. group said as he tucked his prop rose into the breast pocket of his tuxedo, "Three in the afternoon our time is kind of early to start a party." He glanced up at the twilit sky and narrow sliver of a crescent moon that was just beginning to disappear behind the treeline to the west. "Come to that, six o'clock here is still kind of early."

"Ah," Bob said. "Blame the township. Curfew on Halloween in Somerset is 8 PM. So we had to start early if the youngsters wanted to get any trick-or-treating in."

"Gotcha," Brent replied, nodding. "Need a hand with that?"

"Sure!"

Cassiopée Bright, Montreal's representative in the managers' group and the Romana clone, turned to Brent. "Why did you bring a van? Do you have Autobots at your building?"

"Heh, no. The idea is that the Aria Company has a couple of weeks before their gondolas arrive and they start their business, so they wanted to take the long way back. They're going to drive through to Chicago and then drive the length of Route 66."

Bob smiled. "Free travel. I can live with that." Before he could say more, he was distracted by a small band of girls he recognized as being from Rob's place in Ottawa. Three of them were pressed up against Minami's card table, chattering excitedly.

"You have an apartment 221B? Come, Saten-san, the game's afoot!"

"I think that should be my line, Shirai-san."

"But you rarely leave the office, Uriharu-san. You're more like Mycroft."

Bob chuckled at the Academy City girls' byplay. "Minami," he said, "If someone else hasn't already taken it, let them have it."

Minami chuckled softly. "Nope, it just wasn't the next apartment on the list."

Bob turned back to the trio. "There you go, girls — you get to sleep there tonight."

"Thank you!" they chorused, and dashed off with keys in hand to inspect their quarters before joining the party.

Smiling, Bob shook his head. "It's so easy to forget how young they really are," he said to no one in particular. "And then they act like that."

"Don't you have some pre-teens of your own?" Brent asked.

"Yeah, a couple," he replied, "but they act their ages far more often than not."

"Well, maybe they'll all act their ages during the trick-or-treating," Brent suggested lightly.

"We can hope," Bob said absently as he watched the three dash between two of the portals and run up the steps leading to their chosen apartment's back door. "Considering how much crap most of them go through in their stories." After they disappeared inside he shook himself, and glanced around. The line for keys had vanished, and the only people left in the parking lot were the other managers, Minami and himself. He turned to Minami. "Everyone taken care of?"

She snapped the latch on the keybox and placed the logbook on top of it. "Yes," she said with a little smile. "I'll just put these back in the office and join the party myself."

"You do that, and thanks again," he said.

She looked up and gave him a wink. "We're not done yet. This is just the middle." She handed him the keybox and log, folded up the card table with quick, efficient motions, then took them back. "You'll need me tomorrow, too. For now, though... time to skitter off and have fun." To Bob's surprise she leaned in and pecked him on the cheek, then turned toward the office.

"Hold on a moment, Minami," Bob said, and she paused. "That," he then said to the other managers, "is my cue to get into my own costume. I'll see you all again in a few, okay?"

In the green space on either side of Annette Court, between the second and third ranks of buildings making up the apartment complex, the party had commenced. While the hosts retreated to get into their own costumes, recorded music continued to play, and displacees from nearly a dozen residences had begun to mingle and (in some cases) squee at meeting each other for the first time.

Others were somewhat... differently focused.

"A gazebo? Where??" Tomo Takino pulled a wooden sword from the bag she had brought with her and started waving it around. "Have at you, foul fiend!"

"Idiot." Yomi Mizuhara grabbed Tomo's bag with one hand and rapped Tomo on the head from behind with the other.

"But somebody has to defend everybody from the dreaded gazebo! Especially if it's a fire-breather the way Mr. Schroeck said!"

"Do you even know what a gazebo is?"^[14]

"Do you remember me telling anyone that the gazebo was a fire-breather?" Bob, dressed in a tuxedo that managed to hide the more portly parts of his figure and a black wig that hid the balder parts of his blond pate, asked his wife as the two of them finally joined the party, followed by his still somewhat shellshocked aunt and uncle.

"Who was that?" Peggy, dressed in a flowing white gown in a floral design with a matching scarf, asked.

"That was Tomo," Brent said, then held out his hand. "Peggy, great to finally meet you in person."

"You, too, Brent," she said.

"Who are you two dressed as?" he asked.

Bob smiled. "James and Tracy Bond." Gesturing at Brent's white domino mask, he added, "Having spent the afternoon with the original, I don't need to ask who you're dressed as."

"Yeah, it's a bit obvious, isn't it?" Brent said with a smile, then raised an eyebrow. "Tracy?"

"Bond's wife, played by Diana Rigg in On Her Majesty's Secret Service," Peggy said.

"She gets killed at the end of the movie," Bob said in a stage whisper, "but don't tell Peggy that." She rolled her eyes as Bob waved the older couple with them forward. "And this is my Uncle Arthur and Aunt Linda."

"Nice to meet you," Brent said, shaking their hands. "Welcome to the nuthouse. Shall we head to the gazebo?"

"Likewise, and certainly," Arthur said. "You're another of the residence managers Bob told us about?" he asked as they began walking slowly down the concrete walk that ran down the middle of the "lawn" between the buildings.

Brent nodded. "I run the place in Venice Beach. California," he appended. "I ride herd on a bunch of crazy schoolgirls from Japan circa 2002, and a band of undines — gondola pilots — from 24th-century Mars. Oh, and I'm the point of contact for a magical girl and her family, who don't actually live in my residence."

"Gondolas on Mars?" Linda looked intrigued.

Brent nodded. "Yeah, in their timeline Mars got thoroughly terraformed, with big oceans. Then someone built a replica of Venice, Italy there."

Linda nodded. "I see."

Brent smiled. "They're looking to restart their business in Venice Beach, once the gondolas we've got on order show up."

She glanced at Arthur, who chuckled and nodded. "We live in Las Vegas," she said, turning back to Brent, "but we visit L.A. regularly. When they're finally in business we'll have to come by and take a ride."

"I'm sure they'll appreciate having at least two guaranteed customers," Brent replied with a grin as they came to a halt next to the gazebo. Having had to navigate around one of the party tents, they couldn't see it until they were practically on it — at which point they realized that it was already full of teenage girls, some of whom Bob and Brent recognized despite their costumes.

"Ahoy, sailors!" Bob called. "May we come aboard?"

Laughter rang through the small crowd occupying the structure, made up mostly of the Sailor Senshi and some of the undines. "It's your gazebo," said Usagi Tsukino from where she knelt on one of the benches that ran around the gazebo's interior, watching the other partygoers with great interest but heedless of the wrinkles it was putting into her voluminous ballgown of gem-encrusted iridescent pale cream satin and lace.^[15]

"Which I have bravely defeated!" shouted Tomo from somewhere in the middle of the group. "Ow!"

"Idiot," Yomi's considerably quieter voice drifted out of the crowd as the others laughed again.

"Your tuxedos are great, Mr. Schroeck, Mr. Laabs, but not as good as my boyfriend's," Usagi said, ignoring the byplay behind her. "I do love your dress, Mrs. Schroeck."

"Thank you," Peggy said. "Usagi, right?"

She nodded vigorously, sending her hair — done up in a massive waterfall of curls instead of its usual twintails — into a cascade of motion. "That's me." Another undine approached the gazebo. "Oh, I love that 'Alice' costume!" Usagi gushed. She continued people-watching, calling out to more partygoers whose costumes she appreciated. "You look lovely, Ayanami-san, so much like Nagato-san. And – MAMO-CHAN!!!"

As Usagi raced over to Mamoru, Bob chuckled and Minako turned to Ami. "Okay, who had 'As soon as she saw him' in the pool?"

Ami pulled out the Mercury Computer and double-checked its display. "All four of us, Ruiko-san, Tomoyo-chan, Tomo-san, Sakaki-san, –"

"Really?"

"I suppose she's a romantic at heart. Chiyo-chan, Sasami-chan, Mihoshi-san, Kaji-san, Kaname-san, Chihiro-san, and of course Washuu-chan. Oh, and Rob-oji."

"So we get favors from everybody else?" Minako Aino grinned. "I know what I want from Tenchi-san ..."

More than a football field's length away, past several tents and the stage, Aeka and Ryoko both felt their "romantic rival sense" tingle. Identical scowls appeared on their faces, and simultaneously they swiveled their heads to glare in the direction of the unknown, unseen person who dared lay a claim on their Tenchi.

Back at the gazebo, Minako was seized by a sudden feeling of impending doom. "... but I think I'll think of something else instead," she finished hurriedly.

The sense of doom vanished as Aeka and Ryoko shared a satisfied nod and returned to their usual bickering.

"Tenchi-san didn't play," Ami noted blandly.

"Oh. I guess that's a good thing," Minako replied with the distinct feeling that she'd just dodged a bullet.

Yomi grumbled, "The one time he doesn't make a dramatic entrance, and it had to be today."

Ignoring her, Minako plucked up Artemis into her arms and gave him a big hug. "There you are, you tomcat you! I missed you. What have you been up to all this time?"

"All this time? It's only been a day for me."

Linda leaned in to Bob. "Did that cat just... talk?"

Bob nodded. "Yeah, it's a whole thing."

"So that's your excuse, huh?" Minako relented, "Oh well, that Setsuna-san, never around to explain when you want her, right?"

"Actually..." Artemis started.

"She's right behind me, isn't she?"

As Setsuna tried to explain to Minako what she knew of the displacement process, Ami walked over to Luna and squatted down to be closer to her eye level. "It's good to see you again, Luna. If Usagi didn't have eyes only for Mamoru, I'm sure that she'd tell you that she missed you."

"Oh, she has her priorities straight," Luna replied slightly wistfully. "I'm sure she'll talk with me soon."

"Luna," Ami said, "It's been nearly two months since I last saw you. I missed you, too."

In the middle of the hubbub, the human and the Mau quietly hugged each other.

"Another talking cat?" Linda asked Bob.

"Yeah," he said. "There are three of them here tonight." He frowned for a moment. "That we know of."

Another reunion wasn't nearly as quiet. "Puu!" (At the other end of the party, a small white creature not unlike a large animate marshmallow with rabbit-like ears, dressed as Pikachu, looked about in confusion for a moment.)

"Small Lady!" Setsuna squatted down to be at Chibiusa's level... and ended up tackled by her hug.

"See, Peg," Bob said, patting his wife's hand where it rested in the bend of his elbow. "You have nothing to worry about. No one thought you looked strange, and Usagi even complimented your costume."

"If you say so," she said doubtfully, then took a quick look at the rest of the group from Ottawa, searching for the one person she'd recognize but seeing only teenage and preteen girls. "Say, where's Rob?"

"He stayed behind to hand out the treats. He'll be along when they run out," Mii Konori replied. "I'm happy to meet you in person, Peggy."

"Hello, Mii. it's good to meet you in person as well." They shook hands.

"You know, why don't we leave them to their reunions, go get some drinks and something to eat," Peggy said to her husband and his relatives, "and find a table near the stage?"

"The live music will be starting in a little bit," Bob added, "and that's why you're here, right?"

"I think I'd like to sit down, yes," Linda said.

"Okay, then." Bob turned to Brent. "We'll see you around, okay?"

Brent waved them off. "Sure. Have fun!"

"Us? Have fun? Good god, man, are you mad?" Bob replied with a grin, before the four walked off in the direction of the food tent. "And everyone, don't forget there's even more party on the other side of the stage!" he called back over his shoulder. "Don't everyone all just hang out over here!"

As they walked off and the Senshi and their allies were getting re-acquainted, Kazari Uiharu quickly made her way to the Montreal group. "It's good to see you again, Rin-san," she said loudly to Rin Tohsaka with a smile that rivalled Akari Mizunashi's best. That broke the ice; the displacees who had been holding back for whatever reason started mingling.

Except for two of the youngest visitors from L.A., who were standing still, rapt in wonder. "Hooeeeeeeeee..."

"I know what you mean," Shaoran Li said to Sakura Kinomoto while they both looked at... no, stared at Usagi.

"Is that Sailor Jupiter? Oh my God!" Kaorin came to a sudden stop behind Sakura and Shaoran, which caused Osaka to bump right into her.

Osaka emoted, "Oopsie."

In fact, all of the Inner Senshi were in the gazebo. The rest of the California group walked forward to meet everyone else, but Kaorin remained a wallflower to the extent that you could almost see her roots growing.

Tomoyo went up to Kaori and started in a secret conversation; the only audible part was the point where Kaori declared, "No, it's too much!"

Brent was star-struck by the lunar guardian, too. He'd quickly gotten over the idea of meeting fictional characters, but meeting one who was a bona fide messiah was a different idea entirely. But he'd somehow made it through meeting Belldandy in one piece.

Usagi had already noticed that she was the centre of attention and had (reluctantly) let go of Mamoru, so he went up and offered his greetings anyway. "Nice to meet you. I'm Brent Laabs, manager of the apartments in Venice Beach."

"Hi, I'm Usagi Tsukino, age 15, tenth grade. Nice to meet you too," the odangoed one returned. It was the exact same speech she gave at the beginning of the first season of Sailor Moon, plus a couple years. She omitted the "I'm a clumsy crybaby" part, which was probably an improvement.

"So uh, nice moon you got up there. Very useful at night," Brent said, moonily.

Minako raised an eyebrow, but Usagi laughed graciously anyway. "It's still hard to get used to everyone knowing my secret identity."

"Yeah. Try to live like a normal person for as long as possible. It's what Serenity would have wanted."

Behind him, Tomoyo approached; Kaorin's hand was in her grasp, the child pulling the shy adult along with her.

"I'm very pleased to meet you, Tsukino-dono. I humbly introduce myself, Tomoyo Daidouji. If it pleases you, may I introduce my honored friend Kaori Aida." Tomoyo proved it was possible to speak keigo^[16] in English.

Kaorin blurted, "H-h-h-hello M-miss Tsukino."

"A pleasure to meet you both. But my friends can call me Usagi."

"Friends?" Kaorin looked like steam was about to come out her ears.

"Please, feel free to call me Tomoyo." She and Usagi made polite conversation over the next two minutes, discussing popular topics like the weather and travel.

Kaorin finally piped up, "Um, um... Are Haruka and Michiru here? I want to meet them." Tomoyo's face lit up a little, while Usagi's grew a little sadder.

"I'm sorry, we don't know where they are right now. We're trying to find them, if they made it to this world."

"Oh, well. If you see them, tell them that they mean a lot to me. Michiru is so beautiful and graceful, and Haruka – Haruka is just the coolest!"

Off to the side, Yomi noted, "Sounds like you have competition, Sakaki-san."

Sakaki opened her mouth, but didn't know what to say.

Kaorin filled the gap in the conversation, babbling, "Uh no, I mean, it's just a figure of speech!"

"I'll be sure to tell them when we finally meet in this world, Kaori," Usagi said.

Tomo took this opportunity to push her way to the center of attention with her usual aplomb. Yomi mumbled, "Oh, here we go again."

"Yo, I'm Tomo Takino. Nice to meetcha, Usagi-chan!"

"It's nice to meet you, too, Tomo-chan. And thank you for defending us from the gazebo."

"So I hear that you're going to be a queen in the future, right?"

"Maybe, but I'm not really worried about that now. I'm just trying to get through Canadian History right now!" Usagi laughed.

With a grand gesture, Tomo went down on one knee. "Neo Queen Serenity, I hereby pledge fealty to you as my sovereign from this day forward, and swear to work towards love and justice. Also, can you make me a daimyou?^[17] A duchess would be fine, too."

This earned Tomo a quick karate chop to the head from Yomi which set Garnett Iwasaki off on a prolonged laugh.

"Nice form," Jayne commented. "But too weak in the delivery."

"I believe that's the ancient Japanese practice of tsukkomi," Shepherd Book replied.

"Who are you calling ancient?" Hikari Horaki and Ruiko Saten asked indignantly. They looked at each other... then giggled.

"Actually, aren't we technically the daimyou in the future?" Ami asked, rhetorically, with Luna riding on her shoulder.

"I don't think she's another Sailor Senshi, but I've been wrong before," her passenger replied.

Tomo withdrew an elaborate pink pen with wings from her pocket and raised it above her her head.^[18] Posing dramatically, she yelled, "Eris Power MAKE UP!"

Everyone stood silent for ten seconds, and nothing proceeded to happen.

"Meh, guess not."

At which point the entire group in and around the gazebo broke out laughing.

"Did that just happen?" asked Ruiko.

Brent confessed, "I'm actually disappointed that didn't work."

Ryoko materialized right behind him. "I bet you're disappointed. A transformation can be so ... revealing."

"Unless you turn on the sparkles," Mizuki Takase pointed out.

As Tomo realized what Ryoko meant, and oh-so-slightly blushed, Usagi decided her answer. "I'm sorry, I don't think we can do that. We don't even have a country, we're just high school girls."

"Awwww," Tomo whined.

Comments continued to circulate throughout the group. "Eris is the tenth planet in the system," Washuu explained. "Most humans don't even know how many planets they have in their home system."

"Not that I'm bitter about being demoted to the same status as Ceres," Setsuna muttered.

"There, there," Hotaru whispered as she patted her foster mother's hand gently.

"Oh, I see!" said Chiyo Mihama. "It's a planet named after the goddess of chaos and discord, then."

Tomo pressed her case with Rei Hino, "Can I just be like Earl of the Sacra Mensa, then? I'll be like totally helpful to you."

"May I ask why?" Rei pressed back.

"Mainly, I want these Martians to call me Tomo-dono!"

"Not happening."

"Aw c'mon, Rei-chan!" Venus teased. "Sounds like fun to me."

"Noble titles are forbidden!" concluded Aika Grantchester.

"Oh, do I have to change my name?" Cassiopée asked before smiling.^[19]

Fifteen minutes later found Bob, Peggy, Arthur and Linda ensconced at a round table big enough for eight, located to the side of the dance floor and close to the stage. Each had a drink and a heavy paper plate filled with an assortment from the potluck. Arthur and Linda seemed to be losing their shell-shocked expressions to a sort of stunned wonder. For Arthur in particular, an encounter with Mal Reynolds and Inara Serra (dressed as Matt Dillon and Miss Kitty from Gunsmoke, respectively) had been a turning point; Bob was sure he was seeing his uncle's long-sleeping inner fanboy re-awaken.

"...after Hokago Tea Time, we've got OnNaGumi," he said, running a finger down a copy of the set list. "They're a punk power trio, and technically better musicians than Hokago Tea Time. Then after them is Wakaba Girls, probably the weakest band of the three from K-On!. They've just finalized their lineup and they're still working on their sound, but they've got a good songwriter/producer. Nao really wants to meet you," Bob added, looking at his uncle.

Arthur took a sip of his drink, "Like I said, Robert, I'm happy to work with all three bands. Getting to hear them all first just gives me more to work with."

"We're happy to work with them," Linda corrected with a smile.

"There you are!" a woman's voice cut across the (fairly low key) crowd noise. Bob and Peggy looked up to see a tall, heavyset woman dressed in black slacks, black frock coat, a purple satin shirt and a grey striped bow tie. The entire ensemble was capped off with a black silk top hat with a purple band that made her seem even taller than her already significant height. Accompanying her was a shorter man, dressed simply in a black T-shirt, jeans, denim jacket and a ball cap; his dark mustache was surrounded by graying stubble.

Bob and Peggy leapt from their seats as Arthur and Linda watched. "Hey! You made it," Bob said.

At the same time Peggy said, "Helen, Attila! Come here, sit down."

"Hey," Attila said as he took a final drag off a cigarette, carefully ground it out on the nearby curb, then stashed it in an Altoids tin he drew from his pocket.

"This is my uncle Arthur and my aunt Linda," Bob said. "Our friends Helen and her husband Attila."

Helen smiled. "I remember meeting you both at Bob and Peggy-chan's wedding."

"Of course, yes," Linda said. "It's good to meet you again." She studied Helen's ensemble. "I don't recognize your costume."

"Ah. You probably wouldn't. I'm dressed as Japanese rocker Atsushi Sakurai."

Bob turned to Attila. "No costume for you?"

"Hell no," he spat. "I ain't done that shit since I was a kid."

"No problem. Not like it was mandatory." Bob gestured to the table. "C'mon, sit down."

"Sure." Attila slouched into one of the open chair, and glanced around. "So, big crowd tonight."

"Not surprised or shocked by anyone here?" Bob asked

"Nah. I figured you two were telling the truth — you couldn't bullshit Helen to save your life, and Peggy wouldn't try," Attila replied.

The rest of the table laughed. "Yeah, you're probably right."

"'Scuse me." Bob looked up to see Brent, resplendent in his tuxedo and mask.

"Oh, hey, Brent. Helen, Attila, this is Brent Laabs, the manager from the Venice Beach residence. Brent, our friends Helen and Attila."

Brent leaned in and shook hands with both. "Bob mentions you guys every once in a while on his forums. Nice to meet you." He turned back to Bob. "So... trick or treating? Got a bunch of eager kids waiting."

Bob nodded. "Right," he said. Grabbing the briefcase which was his costume's one prop he hopped to his feet. "If you'll excuse me, we have to escort the young'uns on a candy hunt. A party host's work is never done." He shook his head, then bent down and kissed Peggy. "I'll be back in an hour or so, I guess. Hold down the fort."

"Have fun!" Linda said.

As they walked off, Brent asked Bob, "So, what's the plan?"

RMS: New Hope, Pennsylvania, a small artsy town right on the Delaware River. No few of the establishments along its main street are bars and restaurants with big outdoor dining/seating areas, which they use well into fall (and sometimes beyond) by virtue of such heaters.
RMS: No, I'm not making this up. Somewhere in our music collection I still have an early-1980s-vintage cassette tape with a couple hours of this stuff. Assuming its contents have survived the last few decades, I should probably look into how to transfer it to digital. You never know when I might want to embarrass my cousin with it. <grin> Yeah, the product of a misspent youth, that's me.
RMS: "Forewarned is four-armed".
As seen in Tenchi Muyo! Ryo-Ohki OVA 8 "Hello Baby".
RK: Urd would never make an offer like this to somebody who isn't one of the Tzadikim Nistarim.
BL: Had Mr. Humphries been at Gulfside Rest, he would have advised Kensuke not to worry — it rides up with wear.
RK: Sarah being the protagonist of the movie Labyrinth. There's a photo of the scene here.
RK: Gloria Steinem, who worked as a Playboy Bunny in 1963 for long enough to write an exposé of the working conditions at the Playboy Club in New York.
RK: One of Hatsune Miko's songs, from one of the "live" concerts that the Vocaloid programmers and illustrators give on occasion. Watch a 2016 performance of it here.
RK: Witches Abroad - mirror magic, including using mirrors to scry, is an important part of that novel.
RK: Miyuki's been in Refuge for less than two months and she's already read at least up to chapter 5 of The White Devil of the Moon. It must have been recommended to her by somebody on the in-universe "displaceees.yggdrasil" forum.
RK: Considering one of our writers uses the screen name "Looney Toons", how could we pass up the chance to include a Looney Tunes reference?
RMS: Don't believe the colorizers. The dress was not blue. Washuu did her research. As did we.
BL: Moments like this I really feel sorry for Yomi because it's hard to tsukkomi when the world is, in fact, crazy. It's also why Tomo's star rises and Yomi's falls early in the story.
RMS: You can learn more about this gown than you probably ever wanted to know here. And I suppose it goes without saying that Washuu forewent the shortcuts and compromises made by the Labyrinth costume designers — like plastic jewels and using a layer of cellophane to get the iridescent look.
RMS: Exquisitely formal (and archaic) court Japanese.
BL: Daimyou were the top tier feudal lords, under only the shogun or emperor. Each one controlled a clan and a roughly a prefecture's worth of land. Actually, Brent thinks the Silver Millennium government was a little more similar to the Holy Roman Empire, with each of them having a literal sphere of influence. Patrons of planets, such as Princess Venus, would be akin to prince-electors, where other senshi of minor planets like Vesta are the other princes, grand dukes, and counts.
RK: Usagi isn't thinking that far ahead yet. Wait until Yuuno-kun, Fujitaka-san, and the other archaeologists find her throne in the ruins of the Silver Millennium on the Moon.
BL: Buying a prop in advance for a joke I might be able to use in a month or two is a thing I've done in real life. Unlike Tomo, I spend my own money.
RK: Yes, "Cassiopeia" is a royal name, not a title. Cassiopée isn't a scholar in ancient languages or Greek mythology. (She has Caster and Rider for that.)

Vulpis · 02-05-2025, 11:25 PM

Small point of order as I read through...you have access to Washuu, and you're worried about soundproofing? The lady covers for Mihoshi's 'landings', much less Ryo-Ohki's antics, on the regular..I don't think a party would be much of a stretch. ;-) Not to mention Skuld and Bell..but as someone else in the story points out, they'd be there to relax, not cast sound wards. ;-)

**robkelk** · 02-06-2025, 08:10 AM

(02-05-2025, 11:25 PM)Vulpis Wrote: Small point of order as I read through...you have access to Washuu, and you're worried about soundproofing? The lady covers for Mihoshi's 'landings', much less Ryo-Ohki's antics, on the regular..I don't think a party would be much of a stretch. ;-) Not to mention Skuld and Bell..but as someone else in the story points out, they'd be there to relax, not cast sound wards. ;-)

Washuu is busy working on more important things than soundproofing (including, as mentioned in this story, keeping some people from dying in less than a year). Not to say she won't help out with something else later in the story, but it'll be something she can grab "off the shelf" instead of something she'll have to put some new work into.

***Bob Schroeck*** · RE: 2016-10-31: Hallowe'en in Another Reality

And as Washuu notes, she's not creating a new portal system for the party, but is doing a quick-and-dirty repurpose of her existing technology -- which doesn't take too much time away from her real priorities.

***Bob Schroeck*** · RE: 2016-10-31: Hallowe'en in Another Reality

Chapter 3: Trick-or-Treating

After the night was over, the encounter felt like fate. But in fact, it all began with a simple question, when Brent asked Chibiusa, "Are you going to join the trick-or-treating?"

The pink-haired small lady was perplexed. "What's tricker treaty? Bob and Peggy both mentioned it."

"It's when you walk around to all of the houses in the neighborhood to get a bunch of some candy."

Chiyo clarified, "It's an American custom where kids go from house to house in costume on Halloween night. They say 'Trick or treat' to ask for candy, like an oni demanding tribute. I've always wanted to try it; it sounds like a lot of fun."

Kagura started thinking about oni holidays. "Not if they throw beans at you!"

"That's Setsubun^[1] — not Halloween," Yomi corrected.

Brent reassured, "It's just candy here. Really."

Osaka looked worried. "Won't that hurt if they throw konpeito^[2] at me?"

"No, no. That's why it's soft candy, like marshmallows." Osaka relaxed after hearing Brent's "explanation."

Tomo said, "Going to houses demanding candy? Let's do this!"

"It's kinda for kids, Tomo."

Yomi said, "Don't worry, she's often confused for a child." Tomo's half-lidded eyes darted over to Yomi. "You know what, let's go. Someone needs to watch the kids, and make sure they get in the correct amount of trouble. You want to come with us, Chibiusa?"

"Yeah! It sounds like lots of fun!"

Brent noted, "Well, make sure you ask your... um... ask Tsukino-san and Chiba-san first."

"Okay!" She ran across the tent to talk to the younger versions of her parents. "Mamo-chan, Usagi-chan, can I go tricker treating with Chiyo-chan and get some candy?"

"Well," Mamoru began, and shared a meaningful glance with the older Usagi.

Minako Aino interjected, "Trick-or-treating sounds lovely! I haven't done it in years, since I was in England. May I come along?"

"Sure!" Chibiusa said.

"Okay, have fun," Mamoru assented.

Minako winked, "Same for you."

Meanwhile, Tomo and Yomi went around asking the other partygoers if they wanted to join a group for trick-or-treating.

Yomi had to explain the concept of trick-or-treating to the younger undines, who weren't really familiar with it. The holiday had never really made its way to Aqua along with the Italians and Japanese who built Neo Venezia. After she finished, she offered, "So, want to come along?"

"That sounds like something for little kids," Alice Carroll balked. "Pass."

On the other hand, Akari Mizunashi was immediately and predictably enthralled. "Really? It sounds amazing to me! Goblins and ghosts and all sorts of costumes, like a children's Carnevale!"

Aika said, "We won't get a chance to experience this as children again. I'll come with you, Akari."

Akari stared at Alice with expectation. Aika stared at Alice with amusement. "I guess I can keep you two company," Alice conceded.

"That sounds like fun! Can I come along?" a high-pitched, childlike voice said from somewhere near the vicinity of Yomi's left hip. She turned and looked down to see a small bright-blue pegasus with a rainbow-striped tail and mane looking up at her with huge, slightly crossed, yellow eyes. Not a pegasus costume — an actual pegasus.

"Um," she managed to get out while her brain rebooted.

"Sure!" Tomo declared enthusiastically. "The more the merrier, right? And I love your Rainbow Dash costume!"

"Who?" Yomi asked.

"You do? Thanks!" said the pegasus. She gestured at her face (which Yomi thought looked more like a primate's^[3] than an equine's) with a foreleg that was far more flexible than Yomi thought it had any right to be. "I was worried because I couldn't find contact lenses in the right color that were big enough for my eyes." The pegasus seemed to have a minor speech impediment, Yomi thought irrelevantly, a little difficulty pronouncing her "r" sounds.

Tomo shook her head with a dismissive smile. "Nah, that's fine. Your coat — that blue carries it all. It's perfect. Forget about the contacts. Planet full of humans, nothing for ponies, what can you do? Am I right?"

"What?" Yomi asked.

"C'mon, Yomi, catch up!" Tomo demanded. "Our little pony here is done up as Rainbow Dash of the Wonderbolts." She leaned down and stuck her hand out at the pegasus. "I'm Tomo. This is Yomi."

"Oh, hi!" The pegasus stretched out her foreleg again and somehow hand and hoof managed a shake. "I'm Derpy! I'm staying at Live Oak Manor. Where do you guys live?"

"Venice Beach, in California." Yomi had managed get her brain back online enough to answer that question. Tiny blue pegasus. Right. Party now, freak later.

"In the lovely Aria House!" Tomo declared. "Live Oak Manor, that's in Mississippi, right?"

"Like you know where that is," Yomi muttered.

"That's right!" the pegasus — Derpy — chirped. "It's really pretty — we have lots of trees and a river nearby and a big yard where we keep the STABLE, the TARDIS, the phone booth and the Delorean."

"The what?" Yomi asked, although some of that sounded familiar.

"That's so cool," Tomo enthused.

"So... like, how much candy are we talking about? Do I need something to carry it in?" Derpy asked.

Tomo and Yomi exchanged looks.

By the time they had invited everyone interested (and Derpy had gone off in search of something to tote her candy in), the sky had already darkened to the point that you could make out Minako's demesne in the western sky if there weren't clouds in the way. They retreated to the door of the apartment they'd been assigned for the night, where Tomoyo was already waiting for them, bearing a folded travel bag for dress clothing. "Ah good, you're here!"

Yomi unlocked the door, and once inside they found the closest bedroom. Tomoyo unzipped the luggage atop the apartment's bed. She held two hangers up above her head, saying, "It's not much, but I hope you like them."

"Wow, these are the costumes?" Tomo's eyes were set on 'extra-wide'. "Super-cool!"

Yomi said, "Does mine have to be so frilly?"

"Of course," Tomoyo said.

"Come on, try it on! You'll look like a proper Rose Bride in no time." Tomo continued on to her own gear, "Oh wow. This is even better than the bokken I brought." From the bag she drew a European-style long sword made of a pale wood, with an elaborately carved hilt and quillions. Almost reverently, she ran her free hand down the smooth surface of the "blade". "Y'know," she said absently, "I've always wanted a real sword."

"Why? So you could use it to defend us from rampaging gazebos?" Yomi asked, apparently rhetorically. Tomo, of course, started flailing it through the air. "Put that down before you hurt someone, and get dressed already."

A few minutes later, Tomo emerged in her garment, a strange combination of a black school jacket edged in red, with large ruby epaulettes, a golden cord, and a layer of white flounce on the bottom. Below this were bright red bicycle shorts, red socks, and shiny black and white spectator shoes.

Yomi showed off her garment, a long crimson dress spread across the floor. She wore a matching waistcoat piped in white with celadon frills and its own set of golden ball epaulettes. It was sleeveless, but managed to include detached cuffs. Beneath her dress, she wore red flats – there was no need to make her prince for the night look even shorter.

In short, they looked like a pretty good image of the anime characters Utena Tenjou and Anthy Himemiya.

"Ah good, no need for adjustments." Tomoyo had every inch of Sakura's measurements memorized, but she wasn't quite so confident making clothes for others.

"Of course not, not from Daidouji-sensei!"

"I guess the diet is working, then." Yomi mumbled.

"I think you two look very cute together! Well, I had better hurry and don my own costume now. Luckily it's fairly simple. Please excuse me."

"I'll come help with the makeup when we're done," replied Yomi.

Tomo drew a bindi on Yomi's forehead using a red eyeliner pencil, and crowned her with a five-peaked gold-foil tiara, made from half of a Christmas cracker's paper hat.

"I still can't believe you convinced her to make these costumes for us. They're exquisite," Yomi declared, looking at her own reflection in the mirror. She turned around, and let the dress flow through the air. It made Koyomi feel pretty – an unusual, almost uncomfortable feeling for her. The feeling like she was only waiting for the other shoe to drop.

"I don't know what I did. Usually when I ask people for free stuff, they don't just agree right away. She's weird."

Yomi concurred, "Yeah, weird."

By the time they got back outside, most everyone was ready, milling around the Douglass Gardens parking lot in their costumes.

Tomo bluntly assessed, "From what I could see through the trees when we arrived, the area around here seems kinda run-down. Anywhere rich out there we can get good candy?" She wasn't as sure of that as she sounded, but it couldn't hurt to see if they could get richer pickings.

Bob, all dressed up to play baccarat at the Royale-les-Eaux casino,^[4] couldn't object to that blunt assessment. "Well, it's an older neighborhood. And we're right on the edge of an area with a lot of places that rent to Rutgers students, whose landlords don't feel the need to keep everything a hundred percent. But if you want something better, we could go to where Peggy and I used to live. It's not all that far away..."

"Let's go!"

"Let's see, how many do we have?" Bob counted heads: youngsters Ascot, Ryunosuke Natsume, Chiyo Mihama, Sakura Kinomoto, Mira Reed-Kinomoto, Tomoyo Daidouji, Shaoran Li, Sasami Masaki, Nanoha Takamachi, Fate Testarossa, and Yuuno Scrya; companions (who could switch to animal forms and sit on laps) Kerberos and Alph; and adults... well, grown-ups in some cases... Tomo Takino, Koyomi Mizuhara, Fujitaka Kinomoto, Minako Aino, Ami Mizuno, Akari Mizunashi, Aika Grantchester, Alice Carroll, Brent and himself. And a bright blue fun-sized pegasus with a My Little Pony backpack hanging from her neck by one strap. "We're going to need to use both of our vans."

Brent volunteered, "Why don't you drive one van and I just follow behind in the Aria van? I'm used to driving it."

"Well, if you really want to."

"We should save space to fit all the candy we're going to get," Yomi reasoned.

"Wait for us!" Chibiusa came running out of the party space, one hand holding her headband in place and Diana clinging for dear life in the other. "I'm sorry we're late!"

"Don't worry, you're not late, Chiba-chan." Brent replied. "You look charming in red," he added. "Is that Hikaru's outfit?"

Chibiusa nodded once. "Uh-huh! From Angelic Layer, not Rayearth. Sorry for not dressing like you, Hikaru-neesan." The only ones not puzzled by her aside were Brent, Tomo, Bob, and (because she had asked about the costume the day before) Hikaru Shidou. "I know I need some help when I fight, so I thought I'd dress up like somebody who always gets help when she fights."

"So, how'd you know about Angelic Layer? You've only been in this reality for, what, a day and a half?"

Chibiusa looked up at Tomo, and in a tone that other people used to explain blatantly obvious things to youngsters, told her, "I saw it in my History of Television class in Crystal Tokyo, of course. I had to write a hundred-word essay on Studio CLAMP's influence on 21st-century anime. Mama and Sailor Mars insisted."

"Okay everyone, let's be careful out there," Yomi instructed the assembly of trick-or-treaters,^[5] heading off any displeased reaction or joke Tomo might have to being lectured by a nine-year-old, and more importantly so that they stopped wasting time that they could be spending collecting candy before the local trick-or-treat curfew. "We'll be meeting a lot of different people out there, so don't talk about yourself too much. The last thing we want is to be recognized from some TV show and have to answer a lot of questions."

Tomo countered, "Come on, no one would ever think that we look like anime characters here."

Yomi lifted her dress on each side, showing the white frills underneath. "Then why did you make me dress in this getup?"

Tomo felt a tug on her jacket and looked down to see a concerned pony. "What about me?"

"You're not an anime character, Derpy-chan," Tomo replied breezily. "So no worries!" She turned her attention back to Yomi. "Have I ever steered you wrong on Halloween?"

"You took us to the Yamaguchi-gumi^[6] when we were ten!"

"Exactly!"

"They're yakuza, Tomo. Ya-ku-za!"

"And they have the best candy, too. I remember you wouldn't stop talking about the Belgian chocolate."

"Just promise me that you're not going to get us into trouble."

"Pinky swear!" Tomo held out her smallest finger, offering it in the ancient Japanese custom of yubikiri.^[7]

And then the Rose Bride karate chopped her prince on the head.

"Elegance, Lady Anthy," Brent reminded Yomi as Bob snorted, "elegance!"

"They sure are close friends, aren't they Sakura-chan?" Tomoyo opined.

"Un," she affirmed.

"Come on everybody! Let's get these shoes on the road!"

Yomi sighed at the malapropism. "Minako-san... you know what? Never mind."

As the crowd was marching out to the vans, Sakaki asked, "Where's everyone going?"

"Oh, we're just going trick-or-treating." Yomi clarified, "You know, kids knocking on doors, asking strangers for candy, showing off costumes."

"Ah," she said, stoically.

"We're just going along to keep track of the kids. So don't worry, you don't have to come along."

"Well..."

"Yomi! C'mon!!" Tomo hurried, leaning out the van's window.

"Coming!" Yomi rushed over to keep up with the rest of her party, which now numbered twenty-six costumed revelers. The engines roared to life, and a pair of vans rolled out of the lot towards the interstate.

Left behind, Sakaki muttered, "But I..."

She sighed.

Sakaki moved aimlessly around the party space a bit, looking for Kagura, if only to have a Lovely Angel Kei to accompany Sakaki's Lovely Angel Yuri, and make her feel less lonely in the crowd. As she did, though, she came across a tall blonde woman in a full-body bunny costume carrying a 20kg sack of carrots. One misstep later and the tall blonde woman had crashed into Sakaki, falling to the ground carrots and all.

"Owies!" She picked herself off of Sakaki, in such a way that all of the carrots tumbled out of the bag and onto Sakaki's chest. "Oops, sorry!" She stood up, and pushed her mop of wavy blonde hair from her face. She was a skinny young woman whose costume did nothing to hide the length of her legs; its white faux fur^[8] was a brilliant contrast to her mocha skin. Despite the goofiness of her costume, Sakaki thought she must be some kind of fashion model.

Sakaki pushed a few carrots back into the bag as she stood up, at just the right level for her own purple eyes to stare at the blue eyes, while she remained silent.

On the other hand, the woman's high-pitched words just tumbled out, "Oh sorry, that sack is so heavy. Would you help me carry it? I need to feed Ryo-Ohki."

"Feed? Okay, sure." Sakaki gracefully hoisted the sack onto her back, and followed her into a corner of the green space that was unoccupied by other partygoers for the moment, where she joined the blonde in sitting on the front steps of one of the apartments.

"Thanks so much. I was sure lucky to run into you, I mean, it wasn't, but I was. Oh hey Ryo-Ohki, dinner time!"

A small furry animal ran forth and chomped on the first long orange vegetable she could find.

Ryo-Ohki looked something like a small house cat in size and build, furry and gray, with white paws. But on second glance, she looked something like a rabbit, with a short, bushy tail and oversized, if pointy ears. And then there was the red gem set in her brow. "What kind of animal are you?"

"Nya~"

"She's a cabbit. You know, part cat and rabbit."

Ryo-Ohki downed a carrot, and started begging for another one.

"I guess she's not a carnivore, then."^[9] Sakaki reached down to pet the cabbit.

"Well, no, but she's still dangerous."

And Sakaki's hand came to a stop. But it was no matter, as the cabbit jumped into her hand and nuzzled against her arms. "So cute!" she whispered while her cheeks blushed.

Sakaki fed yet another carrot to the critter. She realized she hadn't introduced herself all this time, "Ah! I'm Kozue Sakaki. Pleased to meet you." She bowed to the animal and again to the woman.

"Meow!"

"Nice to meet you, Sakaki-san. I'm Mihoshi Kuramitsu, at your service."

"Thank you for introducing me to this splendid creature, Kuramitsu-san."

"Call me Mihoshi. I have a really big family, and it all gets really confusing after a while," she understated.

"You know, when we met, didn't I look angry?"

"Did you? You didn't remind me that much of Aeka-san. Or Ryoko-san. Were you angry?"

"No. Just surprised." Sakaki opened her mouth to say something, then closed it again. No need to ruin it. She did have one question though, "How does she keep eating the carrots?"^[10]

"Oh, well, she's a spaceship, you know. Bigger on the inside."

In comparison to everything else that had happened in the past few weeks, it didn't seem too weird. Sakaki started thinking about cute furry animals traveling the stars, a reverie that was only stopped by some insistent begging. She offered up another carrot. "Here you are, Ryo-Ohki."

She purred, then chomped down the carrot as if it was a stick of Pocky.

"I'm studying to be a veterinarian. Can you tell me more about her anatomy?"

"Huh, where to start. Well, she's actually holding a whole spaceship wrapped in an 8th-dimensional quantum loop.^[11] It works pretty good to hide her, that's why she was the galaxy's most feared pirate ship. And she has big floppy ears with a transdimensional gate to her sensor array. And cute little white feet, they're my favorite part."

"Mine too."

"Oh, yes, I definitely had to mention the feet in my Galaxy Police report. Her favorite food is carrots, which might explain why her phaser beams are orange. Or are they red?" Mihoshi continued on this way, omitting no details over the next half hour. But with Sakaki sated on knowledge and cuteness, and Ryo-Ohki sated on carrots, it was quite a happy way to pass the time.

Somerset, NJ, USA
6:30 PM

Chiyo-chan declared, "These are some nice houses," as she ran up the street alongside her friends, golden pompoms glittering in her hands.

This was quite a pleasant section of Somerset, with broad sidewalks bordering wide streets, and all sorts of mature trees sheltering the open front lawns of the houses. There were only three or four basic styles of house here, evenly split between one- and two-story homes. Making it more interesting, the streets weren't laid out in a regular grid, but instead turned and twisted and intersected in T junctions at odd intervals, with the occasional cul-de-sac. They hadn't seen a simple crossroad since entering the neighborhood. Oddly, streetlights were few and far between, but lamp posts and front door lights from the houses — plus the occasional motion-triggered floodlight over a garage — lit the street well enough.

"Does it make you homesick a little, seeing nice places like this?" Yomi asked.

Chiyo squinted, "Um, not really. It looks more like Kyoto to me, with all the meandering roads."

"What about Tomoyo? We haven't been keeping you in a manner to which you're accustomed?"

"Oh, me? Wherever my family is, that's home for me."

Tomo remarked, "You're not going to get anywhere with these goody-two-shoeses."

"Where's a bratty rich girl when you need one?" Yomi complained, unaware that she should be careful what she wished for.^[12]

"Do you have a problem with your accommodations, Miss Mizuhara?" Brent observed, weaving out of the way of a short sheet-wearing ghost and a Freddy Krueger passing the other direction.

"Oh, nothing. It's just not exactly the beach resort we were promised."

"I think wearing a princess dress has gone to your head."

Tomo interjected, "I think she's just cranky because her blood sugar is low. So let's go get some candy!" She paused to consider, "But wait! Which house has the best candy? We need to make a strategic plan to amass the greatest hoard!"

"Any old house with a light on will do. Let's go," Yomi said, and the scarlet princess clasped her prince in black by the hand and dragged her towards the door.

"So, you said this used to be your neighborhood?" Brent asked Bob as the first wave of their little mob besieged a front door.

Bob nodded, just barely visible "Oh, yeah — right up until Funtom hired us."

"Really?" Brent took a slow turn to look at the yards around them. "Whereabouts is your old place?"

Bob chuckled and waved at the house they'd parked in front of — a sage-green ranch with brick-red shutters and garage doors. A pair of maple trees still bearing the last of their autumn foliage flanked its driveway at the sidewalk and a wall of bushes hid the windows overlooking the front yard and street. "Right here. Funtom's renting it out for us, and we'll be getting a nice check every month after they take out the mortgage, upkeep, taxes and their ten percent."

Brent laughed. "When you said where you and Peggy used to live, I guess you meant it a bit more literally than I expected."

Meanwhile, the siege was going well. The trick-or-treaters were met by an older man with graying hair under a three-sided black hat and an eyepatch. Staying back on the street with Fujitaka, Brent remarked to Bob, "Hey, a pirate."

Bob reminded him of the Pastafarian teaching, "We all have to do our part to fight global warming."

The man at the door had no problem giving out some candy to the girls, even if they were a little bit too old – with the one dressed in a ballgown and the other for some reason paired a sword with bicycle shorts. They had obviously dressed as something, but he couldn't really keep up with what kids were doing these days. Though in this case, even his teenaged son sitting on the couch inside couldn't figure it out either.

The next wave of displacees made it up the driveway to the door, crying, "Trick or Treat!"

"What are you all?"

"We're gods and goddesses," replied Sakura.

Shaoran brandished his cardboard hammer and said, "I'm Thor, and these are the Norns."

"With costumes like that, I can just about believe it."

"I'm not a god or goddess," Derpy said as she wormed her way to the front of the crowd. "I'm Rainbow Dash!"

The homeowner blinked his one visible eye a couple of times as he peered curiously at Derpy. "That's one he-heckuva costume, young lady."

"Oh, thank you!" she replied. "It's mostly just a simple dye job, but I had the hardest time getting the colors right in my mane and tail."

"Your mane and...?" He frowned in confusion for a moment, then shook his head and dropped a couple of tiny chocolate bars into the backpack hanging around the pegasus's neck. After a moment he added a whole handful. "You deserve a few extra for that outfit."

"Gee, thanks!" Derpy replied, and was echoed by the others.

The three undines came up next, and the owner of the house, despite still being bemused by Derpy, could easily guess which classic characters they represented.

Their buckets filled, they made way for the stragglers of the group to beg their turn for candy. There was a skinny girl in a form-fitting white suit with two large clips in her chestnut brown hair, a short Japanese girl in a pink cheerleader getup, and a girl's head poking out of a papier-mâché tree. Right behind them was a pair of girls, one auburn-haired and the other blonde, in some variety of uniform with white middy blouses and blue skirts; they weren't identical, though, having different collars and ties. He shook his head with a smile; more costumes he didn't recognize.

When the tree returned to her friends, she commented, "They didn't throw the candy at us. That's surprising!"

"Why is that surprising?" Aika asked. She would have been much more surprised if someone had thrown candy at her.

Osaka tried to clarify, "You know, like the beans."

"What?" Nearby, Derpy flicked an ear toward them, a confused look on her face.

"Maybe they'd throw it real hard if we were dressed in tiger skins."

Aika gave up, "Why do I even talk to her? Every time, she says something insane."

Alice noted, "The definition of insanity is repeatedly doing the same thing and expecting different results."

After Yomi got back from her fifth house visit, one all decorated with glowing carved pumpkins on the doorstep, Brent asked her, "Aren't you a little old for this? What happened to watching the kids?"

"The way I think of it, it would simply be wasteful to not show off Tomoyo's costumes," Yomi explained, before unwrapping a piece of candy and popping it in her mouth.

"And the candy?" Tomo asked.

"Because we're walking, we're burning more calories, so it's all good," Yomi justified. "The candy is very valuable form of cultural exchange."

Tomo countered, "I'll culturally exchange you these Smarties for your Snickers bar."

"No deal."

Minako looked at what was in Tomo's hand and frowned. "When we get back, remind me to give you some Canadian Smarties."^[13] Then she grabbed her phone and texted Rob back in Ottawa, not caring about international roaming charges,^[14] asking him to save a box of Smarties for Tomo.

"I got a lot of candy at that house. See!" Osaka found another person to show off her treats to, causing everybody to look at their own goodies.

"I got a box of choco-mints!"

"I got a pack of Twinkies!"

"I got some licorice whips!"

"I got a roll of Smarties!"

Bob moved to look in his bag, remembered he wasn't carrying one, and looked inside his briefcase instead. Completely deadpan, he said, "I got a rock."^[15]

Brent rolled his eyes and turned back to Osaka. "I bet you're glad you decided to come."

"Oh, well, I didn't really decide to come. I just saw a bunch of y'all walkin' off, and then I followed, and then the next thing I knew we were all here!"

Brent shrugged. "Yes, of course you did."

While the grownups were distracted, the dressed-up Sailor Venus whispered to the dressed-up Sailor Mercury, "I just realized that we need to keep an eye on those two."

Ami looked in the same direction as Minako. "Sakura and Mira? Why?"

"Isn't it obvious? There's food energy in these candies!"

"From the sugar, yes."

"And Mira's gathering that energy for her mistress."

Ami realized where her comrade-in-arms was going. "The Sakura Cards are not Cardians, Mina-chan."

The crew traveled through street after street, amassing supplies of phat loot, enough sugar to last the winter.^[16] Or at least for the next week. The neighborhood was indeed good for candy. A few generous souls had provided full-size candy bars, but for the most part they received the so-called "fun" size treats. Quite a few houses were hosting their own Halloween parties, even on a Monday.

Over time, the party of displacees stretched out into little groups – this made their visits a little more fun to each house than a giant group all at once. And after all, the community seemed pretty safe, even if it was a little dark.

The lead party of the group rounded a corner onto yet another street, where they came upon a scuffle that was just about to break out.

A ten year old boy wearing a icy blue dress with a sheer snowflake-patterned cape was being pushed into a corner, surrounded by older boys. "Look at this little faggot, thinks he's a little princess." The tallest boy pushed the princess to the ground. He fell on his butt into a patch of mud left from the previous evening's rain, caking the bottom of his dress in dirt.

"He doesn't look so pretty now, does he?"

Shaoran reacted first, his muscles tensing up for a fight. He looked at the scene for a moment, gathering situational awareness. There were three high school boys surrounding a boy in the dirt dressed in a princess costume. The houses behind them were completely dark, which made keeping track of the combatants a bit harder.

Minako reached her hand into her purse, and felt the cool metal of her transformation pen against her skin, as she contemplated dispensing punishment.

Sakura's mouth was agape in horror, and her arm drifted towards the magical key on her necklace.

Derpy launched herself upward into the darkness.

But none of them could match the speed of Tomo charging into the middle of the fray at full tilt,^[17] her wooden sword lunging forward.

"Maybe he really is a girl, he's crying?"

"Oh wow, what a freak."

Tomo stumbled into the conflict, "Stop this right now!"

"Who the hell are you?"

"I'm Prince Tomo. And as a prince, if I see anyone hurting Elsa, I'm not gonna let it go." Her epaulettes gleamed in the light of one of the infrequent street lamps.

"Another queer, huh? Step out of the way."

"No."

He raised his fist to strike at her. Shaoran started to move to intervene, but Tomoyo put a hand on his shoulder, simply saying, "Watch."

Tomo raised her sword to counter the strike, and her assailant's hand barely missed being sliced by wild slash of the wooden blade. He tried to wrest it from her grasp, but Tomo spun away to the right.

The third high-schooler, who wasn't participating in the fight, warned, "C'mon, she's Chinese, she probably knows kung fu."

"I'm Japanese, and it's sword fu!" Tomo said defiantly, assuming a kendo starting pose she had learned from anime.

"Fine, let's just leave these freaks alone." The apparent leader started walking away, in an imitation of nonchalance.

"Yeah, walk away now, but your backs will be the first against the wall when the revolution comes!" Tomo taunted. A branch suddenly dropped out of the night sky, crashing onto the sidewalk behind them; the boys yelped and took off at a run. Tomo chortled as they fled.

Yomi rushed out to meet up with Tomo, but Shaoran made it to the scene first. He asked the boy sitting in the mud, "Is everything okay?" Derpy dropped down out of the darkness into the only space nearby big enough to land in, just out of the young boy's peripheral vision; she glared at the fleeing bullies, her head down and her wings mantled.

The boy looked back at Shaoran, and started to frown. He said, "No," and began crying.

Tomo sighed, and said to Shaoran, "I'll handle this. Tell Sakura get The Bubble ready." She took a couple steps, then knelt down beside the boy in a princess costume. She held out her hand and grinned, "Everything will be all right now, I promise."

The boy slowly laid his blue gloved hand in hers, and she yanked him up into her arms. Tomo declared, "If girls like me can be princes, then boys can be princesses, too. Right?"

He stopped crying and looked up to Tomo. He^[18] said weakly, "Right."

"What's your name?"

"M-Mason."

"I'm pleased to make your acquaintance, Princess Mason. I am Prince Tomo of Venice." She kissed him on the forehead. "Would you do me the honor of accompanying me on this night of trick-or-treating?"

He was so shocked by this turn of events, he didn't even notice the magical bubbles working at the back of his dress, quickly dissolving the ruddy dirt. In a few seconds, the dress was back to its original sky blue color.

"Yeah, but my friends..." Two other kids came out from the bushes they were hiding behind. Aiden was wearing a Ninja Turtle costume, which was surprisingly still a thing in 2016, and Isabel was a witch, or maybe a bruja. Both of them were the same age as Mason, and wouldn't have made much of a match for the teenagers either.

And both were staring wide-eyed at Derpy, who folded her wings and smiled at them.

"That's okay, they can come too," Sakura piped up. "We'd be happy to have you along!"

"If that's okay with you, Princess Koyomi? I wouldn't want to leave you feeling left out."

Her answer was a simple plea, "Please, come with us, Mason."

"I'd love to have another princess as a friend!" Derpy declared from where she still stood just behind Mason. He turned at the sound of her voice, then froze at the sight of her.

"You..." he breathed. "You're..."

"I'm Rainbow Dash!" Derpy replied, nodding and smiling encouragingly.

Mason took a step toward her with one hand stretched out, and ran his fingers along the line of her shoulder, between her neck and her wing. "...you're real."

Derpy tilted her head curiously at him. "Of course I'm real! If I wasn't real I wouldn't be here!"

His face lit up, as did those of his friends, and Bob could see it in their eyes — somehow, against all expectations, a night that could have been terrible had become, instead, a magical one.

"So," Tomo held out her hand to Mason, "will you come with us?"

He glanced around at all the members of their group, then traded looks with Aiden and Isabel, who nodded shyly. "Sure!"

And as they walked down the streets of the neighborhood, Tomo took it upon herself to entertain and lead a pack of ten-year-olds she had never met before. Indeed, she took it as her privilege to serve as their escort and entertainment in the most gracious way possible. House after house, she stayed with them. Even when Aiden showed off his less-than-impressive "ninja moves", she cheered it on joyfully. It was, to the casual observer, the height of chivalry.

To an observer who actually knew Tomo, it was downright bizarre. Brent asked Yomi, "Did Tomo get a brain transplant while I wasn't looking?"

"It's like she's too selfless," she concurred. "It's kinda freaking me out."

Tomo must have heard this, as she turned around and offered Yomi a chocolate from her bucket. "Here, you can have this. I don't really like sweet things." Yomi held out her hand, grabbed the candy, letting Tomo turn her attention back to Mason.

"See what I mean?" Yomi stuffed the candy into her mouth.

"Are you a real prince?" Isabel asked. "Like Rainbow Dash is a real pony?"

"I'm just as much a prince as Mason is a princess," Tomo answered. "Which is a lot, principally. And I'm a very principled prince. Tell your school principal."

"Hehe, you're funny."

Brent stage-whispered to Yomi, "Nah, she's still in there, fighting to get out."

The group of magical kids was now following behind, where Shaoran could keep watch. That one time he wore a dress in public had been terribly embarrassing for him, but he just couldn't stand to see another person bullied for it.

But watching from behind, Sakura just got more confused. It was going well enough, but there were still people who had a funny reaction to Mason appearing at their door — at least until they noticed Derpy, who often had to hover to be seen over the taller children. Sure, they were polite enough, but something still felt off for some of them. When the confusion got too much, Sakura asked, "Papa, I don't understand. Why were they attacking Mason?"

"That's a hard question," Fujitaka began patiently. "I've studied all kinds of cultures from around the world.^[19] One thing that a lot of them have in common are gender morés, rules of how men and women should behave. Quite a few cultures think boys and girls always should dress differently. It can be very important to them. And if you break the rules, people may start to bully you. It's just how they choose to live."

"Oh, okay. I guess not everywhere is like Japan. But it's still wrong!"

"Of course. Mason can't be himself, even on a costume holiday. It's hurtful. But Sakura, do you think the bullies know they're wrong?"

She was about to blurt out "How can they not know?" but was stopped by a stray thought. A stray thought which eventually grew into a whole theory. "Maybe not... Not if everyone their whole life told them the bad rules. They just think they're stopping the rule breaker."

"Smart girl! You answered your own question."

"Ah! I did!" The answer didn't exactly make her happy, but at least the night made a little more sense. And her world made a little less sense. Silently, she wondered what it would take to get people like that to understand each other.

As the time approached the 8 PM curfew, Prince Tomo insisted on walking her new friends home. It was just as well, as half of the crowd would have followed anyway. Through it all, Derpy walked alongside the trio, occasionally draping a wing around Mason's waist as she chatted with him, and with Aiden and Isabel. They walked a bit off to the south in the maze of twisty little roads, all alike, where the houses were a little less nice, escorting the kids back to their home street.

"Will I ever see you again?" Mason asked after they had dropped off Isabel and Aiden at their respective homes.

Tomo smiled warmly. "If you can make it to Venice Beach, my kingdom by the sea will welcome you with open arms. I'll make sure of it."

"I bet you will!" he laughed.

Derpy rose up on her rear legs and wrapped her forelegs around him in a hug made slightly clumsy by the backpack hanging from her neck. "My real name is Derpy! If you're ever in Ponyville, I'll introduce you to the other princesses I know, okay?"

Mason beamed as he hugged her back. "Okay!"

"If you never lose your courage and nobility, you will make a fine princess one day," Tomo declared confidently. "Farewell!"

After more hugs from the other children in the group, he ran up to the front steps of his home, where his parents were peering out through the storm door at the assortment of strangers their child had fallen in with. "Thanks for everything," Mason called back, before stepping into his house.

Tomo sighed as the door closed behind him and the porch light blinked out, and let her shoulders slump, "...And scene."

"Hoe?" asked Sakura.

"Oh man, I think I did that great, huh, Yomi? I totally nailed it, right?"

Yomi just started laughing, hard. "Sometimes you are just too much!" Yomi said, then continued laughing.

And Brent stopped holding in his chuckles too. "Unbelievable!"

"Was that pretty good, Brent? Huh? Huh?"

Brent pitched his voice high, "Kyaaan~ Utena-sama!"

"Great job, Tomo," Bob added around his own laughter.

"Sweet!" Tomo had the biggest grin ever plastered on her face for at least the next two hours.

The others started laughing, too – Fujitaka, Minako, and Tomoyo out of understanding, and everyone else because Tomo was acting weird and laughter is just infectious.

Shaoran went up to Brent and asked, "What was that all about?"

"That's called a long walk. And an anticlimax, too."

"So..."

Tomoyo chipped in, "Doing your best to give joy to the people you like is the greatest happiness in the world. That's what Tomo did."

"And letting Mason know he has friends who like him for who he is," Derpy added, wiping a tear from one enormous yellow eye with a hoof. "And don't want him to change just to be like everyone else."

Most of the group was all smiles. But when Minako heard Tomoyo's comment, her mien turned pensive.

"Okay folks, let's get to this party!" Tomo cheered.

"Fashionably late!" Brent enthused. "Actually, if we're going to be fashionably late, we might as well make an entrance. Sakura?"

"Hai?"

"I have an idea."

BL: Setsubun is a annual Japanese holiday where oni are cast out with soy beans. A culturally inaccurate depiction of this holiday can be found in the pages of Urusei Yatsura.
RMS: A kind of hard candy, shaped like bumpy spheres.
RK: They've appeared in many anime and games, including Spirited Away, Bleach, Stellvia, Hamtaro (where they got an entire episode), The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword, and Animal Crossing: New Horizons. While you can make them yourself, it takes weeks to make them properly.
RK: Not the bishops, the other sort of primates. Well, okay, the ecclesiastical primates are also examples of the other sort of primates.
Casino Royale and the characters thereof are copyright © 1953 by Ian Fleming, and are used without permission.
RMS: She's probably not quoting Hill Street Blues, at least not intentionally.
BL: The Yamaguchi-gumi in real life are well known for their Halloween giveaways to the community. Yakuza can simultaneously run criminal enterprises and be pillars of the community, protectors of the downtrodden.
BL: The term "pinky swear" originally comes from Japanese language as "yubikiri" 「指切り」, literally "finger cutting". But the implication Tomo makes is of yubitsume 「指詰め」. In the yakuza, one of the main punishments for failing to live up to one's obligations is cutting off of fingers in ritual penance. As expected, there's a social stigma against having missing fingers in Japan, to the extent that ex-yakuza – or even normal people who had accidents – often need prosthetic fingers to get hired to jobs.
RK: No, Mihoshi isn't dressed like a Playboy Bunny; she's the other sort of bunny tonight. And that's a good thing, because Mii Konori is dressed like a Playboy Bunny, and two people wearing the same costume to a Hallowe'en party would be a disaster.
BL: Cats are obligate carnivores; the majority of their diet must be meat to survive. Ryo-Ohki survives just fine on carrots.
RK: You put the carrots in her mouth, and Ryo-Ohki chews and swallows them. Silly Sakaki, not knowing how an animal eats. ?
BL: 8th-dimensional vehicles are more common than one would expect.
BL: And maybe give thanks that you don't have one... yet.
RMS: For our American readers, Canadian Smarties are basically extra-large M&Ms. The candy Americans know as "Smarties" are called "Rockets" in Canada.
RK: Because there won't be any. Minako and SI-Rob got two of Skuld's phones, so the texts go through the displacees.yggdrasil server instead of through a mortal phone company.
RK: Riffing off of It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown, of course.
BL: And change "phat" to "fat".
BL: Canon: Tomo's sprint speed is the fastest of the Azumanga cast, so long as it's for a very short distance.
BL: Ugh pronouns. Imma keep it cis for now.
RK: Sure, keep it cis. Transvestism does not automatically mean transgender.
BL: Fujitaka is an archaeologist, but anthropology is a pretty closely related field. He has almost certainly given lectures on gender roles in ancient societies, since it shows up in all sorts of artifacts.

Norgarth · RE: 2016-10-31: Hallowe'en in Another Reality

I agree with Minako, Canadian Smarties are better than American Smarties. As I tease my (American) sister-in-law every Halloween. 8P

There was a Ninja Turtle cartoon series by Nickelodeon that ran from 2012 to 2017 (the third Ninja Turtles animated series), so the kid's costume isn't all that surprising.

and footnote 16 is funny. 8)

AvrosRaven · 03-24-2025, 12:48 PM

this chapter was fun.

Mamorien · Yesterday, 04:17 PM

Are we still posting the latest chapter here, or just the AO3 link? Because if, as The Misfit's father said of him, "this is one of the latters", I just wanted to let anyone who missed it know that the next inciting exstalment, The Party Starts, is now out in the world.

**robkelk** · Yesterday, 05:14 PM

(Yesterday, 04:17 PM)Mamorien Wrote: Are we still posting the latest chapter here, or just the AO3 link?

Good question... and we don't have an answer for it yet.

***Bob Schroeck*** · Yesterday, 09:29 PM

Ah, geeze. I knew I forgot something in my rush to post stuff this morning.

***Bob Schroeck*** · 5 hours ago

Chapter 4: The Party Starts

"Harley! Hey, Harley!"

Harley Waters, dressed as Gandalf the Grey, paused in his determined march toward the newly-opened food tent and turned to see Bob trotting up to him, with Brent not far behind. "What's up, Bob?"

Bob skidded to a halt on the grass. "Can you do us a favor and introduce the first few bands that are playing tonight? I would do it, but..." He gestured to Brent as the other manager caught up to him. "We're just about to run out to supervise the trick-or-treating expedition."

"Peggy can't do it?" Harley asked, leaning on his staff and tilting his head.

Bob shook his head. "Her dysnomia kicks in big time if she's trying to talk to a crowd."

Behind his powdered beard, Harley frowned minutely. "Dysnomia?"

"She starts having problems finding words," Brent explained, "and ends up spending more time searching for what she's trying to say than actually saying anything." Bob looked over at him with raised eyebrows, and Brent shrugged. "I've known someone who had a similar condition."

Bob nodded at him then turned his attention back to Harley. "It's not a big job and the running order's been posted in the 'green room' tent like I said earlier, as well as on both sides of the stage. All you need to do is just get up and basically say, 'Ladies and gentlemen, thus-and-such-band'."

"And if they try to come on too early, you just hold your staff and shout, 'You shall not pass! Until the other band finishes their set, anyway'," Brent added.

Harley mock-scowled at that, then nodded. "Sure, not a problem. Let me just get a bite first."^[1]

"Thanks, Harley," Bob replied with a broad smile. "We didn't exactly schedule this terribly well."

Harley returned the smile. "You're welcome. When do you need me to kick things off?"

"The 33-Stars are the first act and they take the stage at 6:30," Bob said. "So, be at the stage like five minutes before that?"

"That I can do," Harley confirmed.

"Okay." Bob nodded. "We should be back not long after eight, so that means you'll only need to announce the 33-Stars, Hokago Tea Time, and OnNaGumi. Okay?"

"Sure thing," Harley replied.

Although the party had started spooling up as soon as the guests had arrived at six, it really didn't hit its stride until Harley completed his thirty seconds' worth of emcee duties and retreated from the stage to leave it in the hands of the 33-Stars. For the first venue on their debut American tour, it probably could have been a nicer location. It certainly wasn't going to lead to bigger gigs. But it had one big upside – the band members didn't have to hide their history, or the fact that they were all sexaroids.

The quintet of Meg Deckard, Sylvie Stratton, Lou Collins, Anri Astoria, and Nam River hadn't formed after school like so many bands. All five of them had memories of life in a space habitat, and of their dramatic escape. And of themselves shutting down, one by one. When they found themselves awake and aware twenty years in the past, well, there was only one thing to do: form a rock band, in tribute to Priss Asagiri.

They weren't in special costumes, either, just their normal stage outfits – perhaps a little more appropriate for a 1980s band than for 2016, but it was part of their charm. And, like a lot of girl bands, their charm was the ticket to their limited success so far. Plus, being not quite human, they could play a pretty long set... although they'd been informed by the stage manager, Nao Okuda, that there was a long list of bands who planned to play after them.

But they didn't start until a minor disagreement in the Ottawa crowd was cleared up.

"No, Ruiko, you are not recording 33-Stars' entire set ... on that cellphone. Plug a good-quality recorder into their soundboard." Mii held up a large solid-state audio recorder.

"I didn't bring one, Mii-sempai."

"What do you have in the rolling briefcase, then? Paper?" In reply, Ruiko simply looked over the top of the glasses that she was wearing. Mii took the hint. "Of course you brought paper. This isn't supposed to be a Buffy Halloween party."

"Why do you have a recorder?"

"Rob-san asked me to record what he's missing."

Ruiko noticed that there was already a girl with glasses running the soundboard, and she already had a bank of recording devices plugged in. She was wearing just a T-shirt and jeans, but on the chair behind her was a massive ... well, helmet was the only word that seemed to apply, with huge mouse ears and an opaque shield behind its grin-shaped opening. "Hi, I'm Ruiko Saten. Pleased to meet you! Mind if we plug this one in, too?"

"Nao Okuda. Happy to meet you. Sure, plug it in over there, between my deck and Meg Deckard's." She gestured toward a board behind her that already had a nest of patch cords connected to it. "I'll keep an eye on it with the others, you can go enjoy the party."

"Thanks!"

Once all of the recorders were plugged into the soundboard — with the band's permission — 33-Stars led off their set with a frantic, mathematically-precise cover of Joan Jett's "Bad Reputation" with Nam on vocals, belting out an almost perfect replica of Jett's angry girlish rasp:

"I don't give a damn 'bout my reputation!
Living in the past, it's a new generation!"^[2]

As she deftly manipulated the soundboard, Nao smirked at the lyrics. Livin' in the past, indeed.

Standing guard at the barriers that blocked off the access to Douglass Gardens from Hamilton Street, Nodoka Manabe (dressed in the distinctive blue and white uniform of a certain Gundam pilot) and Yuu Inagawa (in a panda costume, its head removed and perched on the nearby curb) grinned at each other. The sound of the 33-Stars' performance, only slightly muted, carried down Annette Court to make their shift at the barriers less onerous and more entertaining. Yuu began vigorously swinging her head to the powerful rock beat as Nodoka handed out candy to trick-or-treating passers-by — increasing numbers of whom weren't moving on but were lingering to listen to the music, too.

"What's going on?" a teenaged girl in an elaborate "Harley Quinn" costume asked Nodoka.

She grinned. "Our apartment complex is throwing a Halloween party."

"The whole complex?" asked another trick-or-treater from the small group who had walked up with her, dressed as Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz.

Nodoka nodded, smiling. "The whole complex."

"Harley" glanced at her friends. "Any chance we can come in?"

"Sorry, no, it's a private party," Yuu said between head bangs. "Insurance reasons. Sorry!" she repeated.

"Harley" pouted, as did a few of her friends. "Aww."

Sylvie swung her guitar to hang behind her back on its strap, pulled her microphone from its stand, and strode up to the edge of the stage. She favored the audience with a grin, and lifted the mic to her lips. "Nam River, everyone! All right!" she said, an Irish lilt making her speaking voice almost as musical as her singing voice. "How we doin' tonight? You havin' a good time?"

The audience cheered, and the grin transformed into a genuine smile. "So are we!" she said. "Tonight's a lot of firsts for us — first time out of Dublin since we got to Refuge, first real show... first time meetin' so many of ye." She glanced over first her left shoulder then her right at the other members of the 33-Stars. "And yeah — we're havin' a great time. Right, girls?"

A chorus of agreement rose up behind her, punctuated with a quick drum hit by Nam. Sylvie laughed. "Anyway — enough out of me. Let's get to the next one, yeah? It's another cover — we're not on the originals yet — but you might say this one has a special meaning for us." Behind her Lou rolled her eyes, and Anri giggled loudly enough to carry into the audience. "And singin' it," Sylvie continued as she returned the mic to its stand, "the one and only Meg Deckard!"

As Sylvie faded back and took up her guitar again, Meg strolled forward. "Yeah, like Sylvie said, this means somethin' to us." Where Sylvie's Irish accent was a faint lilt, Meg's was strong and up-front. "And if you know anythin' about us, you'll know just what." She whirled about to face the rest of the band and shouted, "One! Two! Three!" then launched into a pounding bass line. Nam struck one of her cymbals and began laying down the beat, followed by Sylvie and Lou leaping into a paired lead.

"Mmmmm, yeah," Meg crooned into the mic as the lead guitars picked up, leaning back as the entire band sang wordlessly to what some in the audience obviously recognized as the song's chorus. Meg shared a wicked grin with the audience and leaned back into the mic to leap right into the first verse: "Tonight," she sang, "I want to give it all to you...

"In the darkness, there's so much I wanna do.
And tonight, I wanna lay it at your feet
'Cause, boy, I was made for you..."^[3]

"They're not bad," Helen commented then sipped her drink.

"A little mechanical-sounding," Linda noted. "Technically perfect, or close to it, but not a lot of..." She waved a hand. "Artie, help me here."

"Humanity?" Arthur offered. "It's like they're trying to sound like a MIDI playback."

"Ah," Helen replied, nodding. "Well, they are androids, after all."

Linda and Arthur stared at her. "They're what?"

Peggy nodded. "They're from a science-fiction anime called Bubblegum Crisis."

"They were built by an evil corporation as sapient sex dolls," Helen added, "then they escaped from the space station where they were being held. In the anime most of them died in the escape, but it looks like they all made it to our universe." She took another sip from her drink. "In every way except for their construction they're human, so I expect they'll eventually develop a more natural sound."

"Oh, they will, don't worry," a woman's voice said, and everyone turned to look at its source. Standing a few feet away was a blonde woman in a white off-the-shoulder blouse with large, blousy elbow-length sleeves, a calf-length skirt of pale rose slit on both sides up to her hips, and white knee-high leather boots. She had eyes so blue they almost seemed to glow, and her shoulder-length hair shimmered in the yellow light of the tent. In one hand she held an elaborate-looking mixed drink with a twisty straw and a tiny bamboo umbrella, a hefty slice of pineapple garnishing the rim of the outsized hurricane glass. "I'm Terpsichore. May I join you?"

Peggy blinked. "Oh, sure!" she said after a moment. "Plenty of seats, make yourself comfortable."

"Terpsichore, like the muse?" Linda asked. Helen and Peggy traded knowing glances.

Terpsichore smiled. "Exactly like the muse."

Helen rolled her eyes while Peggy snickered. "That explains why you look like Olivia Newton-John," Helen commented dryly.

As she stepped around the table to pull out one of the folding chairs and seat herself, Terpsichore grinned and winked at her. "It seemed like an appropriate costume, don't you think?"

"Dressing up as yourself isn't much of a costume," Peggy said, laughing.

"Ah, but when I manifest on Earth I'm normally an olive-skinned brunette." She sipped a bit of her drink through the straw, then set the glass down on the tabletop. "The Nordic look is a new one for me."

"Does it really count though if every human guise you take is already basically a costume?" Helen asked with a smirk.

"When you manifest on Earth?" Linda asked, staring puzzled at Terpsichore. "You don't mean..."

Terpsichore nodded. "That's exactly what we mean. I'm the Muse of Dance and Choral Singing, although my remit actually includes pretty much any singing involving more than one voice, like the 33-Stars," she gestured to the stage, "and even solo artists multi-tracking themselves." She smiled again, and this time it felt like that of an old friend. "As a result, I'm very familiar with both of you and your work. In fact, I've whispered in both your ears once or twice."

Peggy chuckled as both Arthur and Linda's eyes widened. "Welcome to our world, where the gods hang out with us, drinking crazy tropical drinks, while we listen to the music of an android band." Looking up and past the others at the table, she added, "Uh-oh, it looks like I'm needed." She rose from her seat. "Enjoy yourselves, I'll be back shortly."

Smiling, the muse raised her glass to toast her departing hostess before taking another long pull on the straw.

"'Oh brave new world that has such people in't'," Arthur murmured as Peggy dashed off. Meanwhile, a black cat hopped up on the stage and sat down near the edge.

Sylvie introduced the next song, "This one is dedicated to everyone out there who wants to ride the fire to freedom – it was worth it!" She glanced back over her shoulder and shouted, "One! Two! Three! Four!" On "four" Nam started a simple downbeat as Sylie and Lou dove into a melodic hook that weaved back and forth between them for a few bars before Sylvie began to sing. She was a whole verse in before Meg's bass and Anri's keys made their appearance in the arrangement.

"And the phoenix flies straight and high
Back to Avalon.
Now I'm on my way back where I belong,
Gonna go there with the sun, back to Avalon..."^[4]

As a creditable recreation of Heart echoed down along Annette Court and out onto Hamilton Street, a pair of motorcycles pulled up to the barricades. After being recognized by Nodoka and Yuu, they proceeded from there into the parking lot on the right — the BMW with a sidecar being the more recognizable, but the custom ride drew the attention of those in the know (including Harley Waters and every member of the Okanoue Girls' School Motorcycle Club). The BMW's driver helped his passenger out of the sidecar while the other parked her bike where it wouldn't fall over... and then, as if they had practised, they all took off their helmets at the same time.

The two women were, in a word, beautiful. The sidecar's passenger was, in two words, divinely beautiful. The man who had arrived on the BMW was ... not handsome, but at least not plain.

"I'm sorry that our meeting ran long; the party started without us," Chihiro Fujimi commented. "Do you two need time to get into your costumes before you join the fun?" she asked as she carefully removed a few high-visibility additions to her own outfit, making her look almost the same as Top Gear's "tame racing driver".

"No need," replied the Goddess who waved one hand. After a brief light show, she and her driver were dressed as characters from ReBoot.

"I look ridiculous in tights, 'Dot'," Keiichi Morisato muttered.

"You are my beloved Guardian, and you look wonderful," Belldandy Morisato replied at the same volume, getting him to smile just before Urd and Skuld arrived in their own costumes from Mainframe... barely ahead of the Norns being mobbed by the party-goers who had spotted the bikes' arrival.

Usagi and Mamoru were inseparable, a Jareth and Sarah in their own little world. Shirou and Momoko Takamachi, following their lead, were as close as Masuo and Sazae-san. Kaorin followed Sakaki around like a distant shadow. And Aeka and Ryoko managed to get into a tiff over whose cooking was better. In other words, God was in his heaven, and all was right in the world.

And while some were eating, some were dancing, and some were just listening to the live music, others had already retreated from the chill October evening into one of the party's indoor spaces.

"Do we have Exploding Kittens?" Heather Raven asked, her plague doctor's mask shoved under one arm as she worked her way through a teetering stack of tabletop games in the complex's community center.

"Not at the moment, but I have some C4 if you can supply the cats," Sousuke replied, slightly muffled by the head of his Bonta-kun costume.

"C4?" May Hopkins, dressed an eclectic combination of tattered clothes in browns and pinks with a pink bunny apron over her ragged skirt and a bandage on the bridge of her nose, suddenly popped up between them, eyes large and hungry. "Where?"

"Don't you dare," hissed Luna, who had followed the others in, mostly out of curiosity that she was beginning to worry might be proverbial.^[5]

"Don't do that, sergeant," [url=https://kanrikyara.miraheze.org/wiki/Pam_Holder" title="Pam Holder]Pam Holder[/url] insisted. Her dark cyberpunk-themed costume, which drew attention to her bionic hand and its crab-like maker's mark, seemed at odds with the military demeanor she radiated. "We don't need to re-tell the story of The Loaded Dog. In fact," she added sternly, "you shouldn't be carrying anything like that to begin with. You had very specific orders." She held out her hand. "Give it here."

Reluctantly, Sousuke began withdrawing blocks of plastic explosive he'd had secreted in his costume. When he was done and both Pam's natural and bionic hands were full, she scowled at the sheer quantity. "Kurz," she snapped, "run this back to [url=https://kanrikyara.miraheze.org/wiki/The_Hangar" title="The Hangar]the Hangar[/url] right now and see that it's properly secured."

"Ma'am. Yes, ma'am." The Captain Kirk lookalike nodded once, relieved her of the C4, and promptly trotted out of the community center. May pouted and gazed longingly as he (and, more importantly to her, the explosives) disappeared out the door.

"Oh, dear. What's that doing here?" a soprano voice said from behind them, startling the group. A slender feminine arm darted past them and dove deep into the heart of the pile of games. "Please excuse me." Belldandy — instantly recognizable despite the green skin and short green-black hairstyle of Dot Matrix from Reboot — quickly withdrew the copy of Jumanji she found there without disturbing the unstable mound, then turned and dashed through the wall mirror overlooking the sectional sofa. A moment later she returned, empty-handed and smiling brilliantly at the small group as she sailed majestically past them and out to the rest of the party.

"Well," Heather said after a moment. "That was a close thing."

Pam glanced at her. "The game or the C4?"

"Yes," Heather replied.

"Where in the world am I now?" Ryouga Hibiki complained, as was his wont.

He went almost unheard over the hubbub of discussions at the nearby party. But only almost.

"Ryouga-kun? Is that you? I thought you weren't coming to the party!"

He looked around to see a girl approach him. What was her name, again? Ui? No, that was her sister. "Yui? What are you doing in Innsmouth?"

Yui was in a long blue tunic and white leggings quite unlike anything he had seen her in before. A hat — or was it a hood? — with two mirrored lenses above its front edge sat atop her head, and on her chest was a white and red logo that looked a little like a winged target. "Innsmouth? We aren't in Innsmouth, Ryouga-kun. We aren't even in New England. We're at my home in New Jersey. Did you forget to turn on your GPS again?"

"No, the battery's charge ran out."

"That happens a lot to you. Why did you want to go to Innsmouth?"

"I was getting hungry and thought I'd catch some fish for dinner."

"Oh, you don't need to catch fish for something to eat today. Come join the party!" And the eternally happy girl took the eternally lost boy by the hand and dragged him to the tables where all of the potluck dishes were spread out. "Mugi-chan! Sumire-chan! Look who's here!"

The two girls, who were wearing maids' uniforms while tending to the buffet, looked over and smiled. The younger girl said, "Hibiki-san! We thought you weren't coming to the party."

He laughed nervously, unused to having so much attention being paid to him by pretty girls who were close to his age. "Well, it looks like I found my way here anyway."

By that point, Ryouga's presence had been noticed by one of the residence managers. Peggy walked over, stopping only long enough to pick up a few alcohol wipes from the end of the table. "Ryouga! It's good to see you again. Yui, Tsumugi, make sure Ryouga doesn't leave until Sumire and I pack a meal for him."

"I'm right here, you know."

"For now," Sumire replied, "but I've noticed you have a habit of disappearing when nobody's looking at you."

"So Yui and I are going to look at you!" Mugi added.

"I like what I see when I look at you," Sumire said with a smile.

And that made Ryouga blush. "But... You do know I'm still hoping my girlfriend Akari will end up coming to this world, right?"

"That doesn't mean I can't look..."

"Sumire," Peggy said sternly from beside her, "stop teasing Ryouga and start helping me with this lunch box."

"Yes, Mrs. Schroeck." Sumire sighed as she turned her attention back to work; she hadn't lied when she said she liked what she saw, but she knew nothing could ever happen between her and somebody who didn't know whether he'd be coming home every evening.

"And you do know you don't have to call me 'Mrs. Schroeck'."

"Of course I do!"

Yui did what she was told and ignored them. Instead, she asked, "So what have you been doing since the last time I saw you, Ryouga-kun?"

"Oh, wandering around, defending the helpless, the usual. What's been keeping you busy?"

"Schoolwork, playing music, writing music – oh, I actually wrote an entire song in English! We're going to play it for everybody tonight. I hope you can stay and hear it."

"I hope so, too," he sighed, knowing that his sense of misdirection would probably lead him away from the party before Yui was on stage.

"We're making lots of recordings of the music! I'll make sure you get a copy."

"Oh, you don't have to do that..."

"I insist!" she replied while using her free hand to sneak a cookie from the buffet. "I like it when people listen to my music!"

Asahi Sakurai, who was putting together her own dinner (and being careful not to spill anything on her rabbit costume's fake-fur body stocking), couldn't help but overhear Yui's comment. But she knew better than to distract her from Ryouga if the boy was to have any chance of staying put long enough to finish a conversation. The singing-idol seiyuu, famous in a world that wasn't Refuge, made a mental note to mention Bandcamp, SoundCloud and Spotify to Hokago Tea Time after the party was over.

Then Ryouga was surprised to see Ranma in line for the potluck. He almost said something before remembering that it was a costume party, and let the cosplayer come to him.

"That's a great Hibiki Ryouga outfit," the girl said as she helped herself to some chicken fingers. "Hi, I'm Hikaru Shidou."

"I actually am Hibiki Ryouga," he replied. "I didn't expect to be here." In a quieter tone, he added, "I don't expect to be a lot of places."

"I never expected to be in another world," Hikaru replied, misunderstanding his comment, "but this is the second time I've been in a world that isn't my home."

"Why did you choose to dress like the only person who can give me a fair fight?"

"There's a fanfic starring the two of us. I've read it, well, what there is of it; Libby Thomas never finished writing it. And I was reading it when we had to choose who we'd dress up as for this party, so I thought, I've already got the hair," she reached around the back of her head to bring her red pigtail forward, "why not? Oh, hang on, I should fix that."

Ryouga and Yui watched as Hikaru reached under the lasagna tray and re-lit the alcohol burner that was under it... using only her fingertip and her elemental power.

Then Hikaru turned to Yui. "Have you seen Peggy anywhere? I should tell her who went trick-or-treating."

"I'm right here," Peggy said as she and Sumire re-joined the small group. Turning to Ryouga, she offered him a plastic box with a selection of potluck items that didn't need to be kept warm or cold, along with a set of single-use cutlery and the alcohol wipes that she'd grabbed earlier. "Ryouga, this is for you. If you do happen to wander off, you can at least share our dinner."

"Thank you, Pei-gi-san," Ryouga said as he accepted the packed meal with a slight bow.

"You still haven't lost your accent?" Yui asked teasingly.

"I lose my way often enough. I don't want to lose anything else!" But Ryouga was smiling when he said that. "Seriously, sometimes I get some funny looks from people in New England if I don't let them know that I'm not from that area, so I have to keep a bit of an accent. I blame Ranma."

"You blame Ranma for everything."

"I have to blame Ranma. To quote the Dirty Pair, it's not my fault!"

Just then, the person who was next in line, dressed in a white kimono with a pale green obi and lavender ribbons, said, "Excuse me, but can I get at that lasagna? I have to eat soon; both of my bands are due on stage soon."

Yui turned to her and said, "Oh, we're sorry, Azu-nyan! Here, eat, fast."^[6]

Ryouga got out of everyone else's way and found a quiet spot where he could put the meal into his backpack. Then he wondered why he couldn't hear the party any more. He looked around to discover he couldn't see the party any more, either.

"Where in the world am I now?" Ryouga Hibiki complained again, as was his wont.

"Azu-nyan's got a point, Sumire-chan," Yui noted. "If I'm going to eat anything before we go on, I'd best do it now."

Sumire smiled and pushed a plate already filled with an assortment of samples from the potluck into her hands. "No worries, Yui. This should see you through 'til your set's done." She blinked and glanced around. "Oh no... reckon we've lost Ryouga again."

"Mmph," Yui noted around the plastic fork already in her mouth, then swallowed. "I was hoping he could enjoy more of the party." She shared a knowing smile with Sumire. "You can catch him the next time he comes around."

Sumire blushed.

"Anri Astoria, everyone!" Sylvie declared as the last notes of "Back to Avalon" faded away and applause washed over the stage. "All right, that's nearly it for us tonight — gotta let the other bands have a go, yeah? So... last one. This one's an old favorite of mine. I'm dedicatin' it to a friend who didn't make it to Refuge." She paused as more applause broke out at the dedication. "So good night, everyone, and have a safe night everyone... 'cause... Tonight is a Hurricane!"

Sylvie slashed out the opening riff without warning, sharp and electric, and the rest of the band snapped into place around it — Lou's rhythm guitar building on and reinforcing the melody, Nam's drums kicking in like a piston-driven heartbeat, Meg's bass locking tight beneath, Anri's keyboards spilling a wash of neon-bright sound that rolled over the audience and filled the tent. They were barely a bar in when cheers broke out in the audience, lasting long enough to overlap with first chorus of wordless "aaaah"s, and only fading away when the girls sang "Did you love?" and Sylvie launched into the first verse.

"Arashi no highway hashiritsuzuketa
Togireta yume no yukue sagashite
Nigai maboroshi subete no uso o
Senaka de hajikitobashite."^[7]

As some of the audience began singing along with the Japanese lyrics, Linda leaned across the table. "Sounds a bit like Jim Steinman," she said.

"It does at that," Arthur agreed after a moment.

Terpsichore chuckled. "That's no accident," she declared knowingly. "The songwriters were influenced by Steinman's songs in the movie Streets of Fire."

"And only by Steinman's songs?" Helen asked with a faint smirk.

The muse returned the smirk. "Ask me no questions and I'll give you no divine revelations."

In the middle of Annette Court, halfway between the green party spaces and far enough from the stage to hear each other easily, a girl wearing a long coat over a frumpy suit and pulling a lawyer's briefcase was introducing herself to a boy just a couple years older than her, who was wearing a cheap Japanese-style school uniform. "Hi, I'm Ruiko Saten. Happy to meet you."

"Er... I'm Shinji Ikari. Hello."

"From Evangelion? Cool. Who are you supposed to be?"

"Kyon from Haruhi Suzumiya."

"Never heard of him."

"Who are you supposed to be?"

"Yomiko Readman from Read or Die."

"Never heard of her."

It took them three minutes to explain to each other who they were dressed as... which gave Asuka enough time to notice that Shinji was paying attention to another girl. But they disappeared into the food tent before she could make her way to them and reclaim him from her.

"Yui! Ui!"

Yui looked up from her plate to see a near mirror image of herself trotting across the tent, complete with a guitar slung over her back, dragging a taller redhead in a tight red blouse, a short grey plaid skirt and black knee boots. "Hane!" she squealed, leaping out of her seat. Next to her, resplendent in her white and pink magical girl's costume complete with wings and pink wig, Ui rose with a smile and followed at a more sedate pace. Azusa, taking care to avoid getting food on her kimono, took a moment more to get up and join them.

Hane and Yui collided between tables in a hug that Ui and Azusa quickly joined. The redhead hung back, looking vaguely embarrassed as the four exchanged high-pitched greetings.

"Oh!" Hane exclaimed once the hug broke and they had all stepped back slightly from each other. "I want you to meet Molly!" She turned to the redhead. "Molly, this is Yui Hirasawa..."

"Hi!" Yui smiled broadly.

"...and her sister, Ui," Hane added.

"It's nice to meet you, Molly," Ui said, less energetically but smiling as widely as her sister.

"And this is Azu-nyan," Hane added with a little grin.

Azusa rolled her eyes. Bad enough that Yui-sempai did it, now other people are calling her that. She sighed, then smiled. "Hi, I'm Azusa Nakano."

Hane gestured at the redhead. "Molly's dad Tom is our local liaison. Our place is too small to have a manager running it, Hayakawa does what little needs to be done, but Tom lives around the corner from us and does all the maintenance stuff for our house."

"Hi," Molly finally said, returning their smiles. "Hane's told me a lot about all of you... and she had me watch your anime."

Yui giggled. "That's still kind of strange to me, that we have one." Ui gave an amused sniff.

Azusa, meanwhile, was peering at Hane. "Hane-chan, are you... dressed as Yui-sempai?"

"Aw, you guessed!" Hane said, but her grin and her tone belied her apparent disappointment. "Of course I am!" She spun around to reveal the guitar on her back was plastic, painted to look like Gitah. "I found this toy guitar in a thrift shop and realized I could build an entire costume around it. I even have barrettes just like Yui's!" She ran her fingertips along her bangs on the right side of her face where two golden hair clips held back her brown locks instead of her usual wing-shaped barrettes. "And the rest of the club dressed like the rest of you guys, too!" She grinned. "We got the idea from what Jun-chan said about our show copying yours, back when we met you."

"Wow," Yui breathed. "Who're you dressed as, Molly-chan?"

Molly twisted back and forth, making her skirt flare a little. "Cady Heron. From the movie Mean Girls?" she added when Yui looked blank.

"We haven't seen that one yet," Azusa hastily interjected.

"Why don't you two join us while we finish eating?" Ui asked, waving toward the table where they'd been sitting. "Hokago Tea Time goes on stage in ten minutes or so, and Yui and Azusa need something in their bellies before then."

Hane and Molly traded smiles. "Sure!" they said in unison.

Helen, Linda, Terpsichore and Arthur were chatting while listening to the 33-Stars finish up their set when a middle-aged man in a boldly checked yellow zoot-styled suit, a black fedora and tinted glasses walked up to the table. He was on the short side of average height, and held a full rocks glass of what appeared to be whiskey in his left hand. "Mind if I join you folks? Missus Schroeck sent me this way." He held out his free hand. "Artie Duncan."

As the 33-Stars wound up their final song, greetings were exchanged. "The Artie Duncan? Owner of Artie's Artery?" Arthur asked as they took their seats again. "The man who single-handedly saved the live music scene in the Northeast?"

"Well, I don' know about the Northeast," Duncan replied amiably, "but I definitely kept it alive in New Brunswick. Well, sorta..."

"Sort of?" Linda asked.

"Ah, well, y'see, I'm one a' them displacees, only whatever stuck me inta this world gave me a whole package. I showed up wit' my club, an' a twenny-year history a' runnin' it in this universe." He shrugged. "Me an' the Banzai Institute an' a few other folks — don' ask me why or how, but we lucked out." He took a long sip of his whiskey. "Sure it ain't fair, but if life was fair, we wouldn't be in Refuge to begin with, now would we?" He set the glass back down on the table and nodded at the stage, where the 33-Stars had begun breaking down their kit. "So when there's a band with displacees in it an' they're halfway decent, I give'em gigs so they get known and maybe start doin' good for themselves. May not be much, but it's what I can do ta help," he added. "Me an' Gene over at th' Roadhouse both."

The tall, heavy-set fellow in the Gandalf costume reappeared on the stage. "Ladies and gentlemen, the 33-Stars!" The party-goers around them burst into applause, and they joined in.

"Me and Helen caught a few shows at the Artery back in the 90s," Attila said, shaking his head, once the clapping had faded away. "And now you say it wasn't really there. Fuckin' weird."

"Quite," Helen agreed.

"Tell me about it," Duncan replied. "If I think hard about it, I can remember stuff I know I didn't do 'cause I wasn't here to do it. Welsper — he's my contact at Funtom — tells me it's just part a' how Refuge goes about fittin' us displacees in once we're here." He shrugged. "Anyways, we're holdin' our own Halloween bash at the Artery, but I figgered I'd drop by for an hour or so, be neighborly while I check out some a' the bands. Been keepin' an eye on'em since I first found out about'em."

He gestured with his whiskey at the departing 33-Stars. "Them girls, good technical chops but they need seasonin'."

"It is one of their first performances," Terpsichore said, and held out her hand to Duncan. "Terpsichore," she added as he shook it.

"Th' muse?" he asked, and she smiled.

"One and the same," she confirmed. "As I was saying before you joined us, they'll improve."

Yui glanced over where Ui and Azusa were chatting with Molly. "Hane-chan... make sure you and Molly are up front near the stage while we play, okay?"

"Sure, I was going to, anyway." Hane's brow furrowed. "Why?"

Yui shot her a sly grin. "I need to check with the others, but once Molly told us her boyfriend's name..."

Hane's puzzlement persisted for another moment, and then enlightenment lit her face. "Oh, Yui, you are bad."

Several minutes later, the members of the band had taken their places, while (as requested) Molly, Hane and the other members of the Okanoue Girls' School Motorcycle Club had gathered on the dance floor right in front. At Yui's nod, Harley stepped back to the microphone stand located at center stage. "Ladies and gentlemen, our second band tonight," he announced, his amplified tenor voice stilling the chatter which had begun between sets, "Hokago Tea Time!"

As a wave of applause broke, he retreated down the stairs off stage right as Yui stepped up to the microphone. "Just one more," he muttered to himself.

"Hello, fellow displacees!" Yui, the hood of her Nausicaä costume thrown back over her shoulders, squealed into the microphone; the high pitch of her voice threatened explosive feedback in the amplifiers. "We are Hokago Tea Time, and we are here to rock! We've got a mix of songs for you tonight — some of our originals and a few covers to spice things up, selected for maximum fun. But right now... right now it's time..."

She launched into a riff familiar to everyone in the audience who'd ever seen an episode of K-On! in their home universe.

"Right now it's Fluffy Time!" She stepped back from the microphone, and as the audience began to clap to the beat, Ritsu (in a black tanktop and cargo pants and a yellow scarf) picked it up. Mio (with the cowl of her Spider-Man costume off and tucked into her waistband) leapt in with her bass, followed by Mugi wailing away on her keyboards with their "60s rock organ" setting dialed up to 11. (She had had enough time to change out of her maid's uniform and into an elaborate blue and gold gown from 17th Century France whose skirt was as wide as her keyboards.) A bar later Azusa (the sleeves of her white kimono tied back out of the way) dropped into place, underlying and reinforcing Yui. Smiling, Yui leaned back to the mic and started singing — not in Japanese, but in English:

"When I see your face, I feel my heartbeat go boom-boom.
Like a marshmallow, my thoughts just float around the room
Working hard each day"

Mio leaned into her microphone and echoed, "Working hard each day."

"And I watch you near..."

"And I watch you near," Mio echoed again; Yui glanced her way, smiling broadly as she nodded.

"...Still you never notice me at all, it seems
I wish in my dreams..."

"I wish in my dreams..."

"...We could be much closer than it feels to be.
Ah, dear God, please hear my call —
Give me one small Dream Time, that is all!
With my bunny in my arms, I close my eyes and say:
'Goodnight, it's okay'...

Fluffy time!" ("Fluffy fluffy time!" Mio sang in counterpoint.)
"Fluffy time!" ("Fluffy fluffy time!")
"Fluffy time!" ("Fluffy fluffy time!")^[8]

Linda didn't recognize the song, but it was obvious that many in the audience did, cheering as soon as the melody began. She could even hear a few nearby singing along in what she thought was Japanese. The tune was catchy, with an odd bubblegum pop-punk feel too it, and Linda found herself bobbing her head to the beat for a few moments before saying, "They're not bad. And that has to be the perkiest song I've ever heard about the heartbreak of unrequited love."

Arthur smiled. "The drummer needs a little work, but they've got potential."

Duncan leaned back in his seat and took a sip from his glass. "Yeah. They're one a' the groups I've been watchin' close-like. They're almost ready to get a gig at the Artery." He set his glass down again. "Openin' act, not headliners, not yet. But still..."

Helen snorted. "I'm not surprised. Their animated counterparts are still among the most popular bands in Japan, even though it's been a few years since their show ended."

"Thank you," Terpsichore said with a grin. "I've put in quite a bit of work on those girls — both sets of them," she added.

Helen raised an eyebrow, and then lifted her drink in salute. Terpsichore inclined her head, the grin morphing into a smirk, and returned the gesture with her own drink.

Meanwhile, in the shadow of some bushes at the base of building 4, safely out of the way of human foot traffic, two moon cats briefly conferred.

"What's wrong, Luna?" Artemis asked.

"It's that Sakaki girl from Los Angeles. She makes me uncomfortable for some reason."

"You, too? I thought I was imagining it."

"Her and that Sagara fellow." Luna shuddered. "If he tries putting any C4 on me, I'm clawing his eyes out."

Bill Preston (dressed as Ted Logan) and Ted Logan (dressed as Bill Preston) wandered aimlessly through the party space. (They weren't the only pair of party-goers to do an outfit-swap as their costumes, but they were certainly the least obvious or impressive.) Their girlfriends — the princesses Elizabeth and Joanna of York, daughters of King Edward IV of England, elaborately done up as the Wilson sisters of Heart circa 1985 — had shooed them off just before joining one of the many groups of teenage girls enthusiastically turning fellow displacees only known to each other online or by reputation into in-person friends.

"We'll be fine," Joanna had assured Bill with a kiss.

"Go enjoy yourselves," Elizabeth had instructed Ted. "We'll catch up with you later."

So now, red cups of soda in hand, the pair strolled through the party, admiring the costumes, the pretty girls, and the pretty girls in costumes. "Ted, my friend," Bill said with a grin, "this is a most excellent party, with babes aplenty."

"Indeed, Bill," Ted replied with a bobbing nod. "While we are of course faithful to our bodacious royal girlfriends, we can still enjoy the visions of beauty surrounding us on all sides."

"Just as long as you aren't being creepy about it," a Chinese girl in a skimpy black leather outfit commented in passing.

The pair grinned widely at each other. "Excellent!" they chorused.

Yui looked out over the audience. Just as she'd requested, Hane and Molly were down front. Off to one side, Mr. Duncan was sitting with Bob and Peggy's friends Helen and Attila and a few more people she didn't recognize. And that black cat — it wasn't Luna, because Luna's fur was kinda blue-black and this cat was a solid night-black, and it didn't have the crescent on its face — it was still sitting right in front of the stage-right speaker stack. She was sure it'd been waving its tail to the beat during "Fuwa Fuwa Time". Maybe it was another displacee like the Mau? She'd have to ask. Later. She leaned in to her microphone. "This next song is something new that Mugi-chan and I wrote since we came to New Jersey. Someone who's listened to a lot of our songs once said that I tend to write about the things I love — my guitar, my sister, my friends... Food..."^[9] She grinned. "They weren't wrong."

The audience laughed and a few applauded. Yui's grin grew wider and she inclined her head toward the ones clapping. "So of course the first song we've written since coming to Somerset is about my new favorite treat! I call it 'Blend-in!'"

Ritsu gave the group the beat: "One-two-three-four!", then Yui launched into a short but distinctive hook that led into the song proper, and leaned into the mike again.

"Chocolate or vanilla,
Strawberry's good too,
But it's what goes inside it
That makes it good, so true,
Can't have one too often
Or my waistline will balloon,
Gonna get a blend-in!

"Fill it up with fresh fruit
Or pick a nut or two,
If I'm really hungry
Get candies in there too,
To really fill my stomach
Add a milkshake, too,
Gonna get a blend-in!"

The tune was bouncy, the arrangement simple and the lyrics rapidfire. It had the same kind of energy as "Fuwa Fuwa Time" while not sounding like it at all, and within a few bars the audience was clapping along to the beat, and a few were energetically dancing. Others turned to each other, asking whether they had any idea what a "blend-in" was, only to get a hint of an answer as the band drove into the song's bridge:

"Chocolate and vanilla, oreos and cream,
French vanilla, butter brickle, each one is a dream.
Butter pecan, cappuccino, coffee, maple nut,
Cups and sundaes, cones and waffles are delicious but
There's something that they make there that simply nothing beats
That unique mix of ice cream and a million different treats!
Gonna get a blend-in!"

Up on the stage, Yui repeated the opening hook, a brief respite before the last verse.

"Peaches or blueberries
'Cause fruit is good for you,
Lots of different cookies
Give me something to chew,
Mixing them together
Is what makes it good,
Gonna get a blend-in!"

The other members of the band echoed the line.

"Gonna get a blend-in! (Gonna get a blend-in!)
Gonna get a blend-in (Gonna get a blend-in!)
With pineapple on top!
With pineapple on top!"^[10]

Yui and Azusa traded bars back and forth then abruptly brought it all to a close. As the audience broke out in applause and scattered cheers, Yui smiled broadly. "Yeah, it's a little short. But we're working on a bigger arrangement. Just wait until the next party!"

"You'd think after a month and a half I'd be used to havin' real food all th' time," Mal mused, pushing the wide-brimmed brown hat of his costume up and back away from his forehead, "then I see a spread like this an' I don't rightly know where to start." He waved at the table full of potluck dishes in front of them, each giving off its own different and enticing scent. Music from one of the bands playing the party drifted into the tent, barely audible over the conversations of the dozens of people around them.

Inara nodded. "The people of Earth have no idea how wealthy they are." She smiled faintly as she watched him load his paper plate with a selection of meats; her own was an assortment of fruits and non-root vegetables plus grilled slices of tofu covered with a tangy red sauce. "It will be hard to go back to the diet we had back... home."

"Makes a man mighty tempted not to leave," Mal noted as he topped his plate with a trio of meatballs on a skewer dripping a clear, sweet-smelling orange-hued sauce. "I tell you, 'Nara, if we had Serenity here with us, I wouldn't go back if you paid me." He straightened up and turned to look into her eyes. "Compared t' the 'Verse, this is paradise. You and the Serenity — that's all I'd need to be a happy man here for the rest of my life."

"Flatterer," she said, matching the intensity of his gaze with her own. "Let's find a table."

Not far away from them, Shinji stared at the first table in the tent, unsure of where to start. "That's the number one thing that's so different about Refuge — the food," he said to his companion. He gestured with the stiff cardboard plate in his hand at the entire line of tables running along the length of the tent wall. They didn't sag or groan, although given how heavily laden they were with potluck contributions, he really felt that they should.

Ruiko turned and raised an eyebrow at him over her costume glasses. "Really?" She'd parked her rolling briefcase at one of the round tables near the tent entrance and had two hands free with which to fill her own plate.

He nodded. "Uh-huh. Second Impact didn't just wipe out half of humanity — it also wiped out something like three quarters of all the land used for growing food. What didn't end up permanently underwater got contaminated or messed up in other ways." He shook his head. "A lot of people starved before the U.N. got farming all over the world going again. Even then, there was a lot less food, and fewer kinds of food, to go around. Something like this?" He waved again at the tables. "You couldn't get half the food here, and even what you could... well, this'd be a really expensive party. A rich man's party."

"Wow," Ruiko said. "So, what, like you've never had..." She glanced along the table and chose a dish at random. "Steak nachos?"

Shinji laughed. "Do you know how much land it takes to raise cattle? The U.N. would rather see it used to grow corn or potatoes or soybeans. Feeds a lot more people that way." He grew pensive. "Beef is so expensive and hard to get, Misato once promised us a steak dinner as a reward for a successful mission."

"Were you successful?" she asked.

He nodded. "But Rei doesn't eat meat, so we just had ramen."

"Well, in that case," Ruiko declared, determination flaring in her eyes, "let me reward you instead, with some of my favorites. Starting with the nachos!"

"What are you doing?" a girl's voice, shrill and angry, came from behind them. Out of the corner of her eye, Ruiko saw Shinji suddenly shrink in on himself.

"Just getting something to eat, Asuka," he said in a subdued tone. He turned around, his plate still empty; Ruiko turned with him to see a redhead in a brown sweater over an aqua and white seifuku, her fists planted on her hips and scowling at Shinji. She flicked her eyes over to Ruiko.

"Who's this?" she demanded.

Ruiko sighed mentally; meeting Asuka Soryu had not been on her list of things to do tonight, but she might as well try to make the best of it. She held out her hand. "Ruiko Saten, from Blossom Apartments in Ottawa. Hi!"

Asuka sniffed dismissively and turned her basilisk stare back to Shinji, who was actually cringing. "I knew you were a pervert, baka, but I didn't think you were into little girls."

"It's not like that, Asuka," Shinji protested as Ruiko frowned and surreptitiously tugged her trench coat tightly around herself to emphasize her precocious figure.

"We were talking about how Refuge has more food and more types of food," Ruiko forged ahead gamely. "He was telling me how your world's been coping with food shortages." She gave both fourteen-year-olds a deliberate once-over; they were only a few centimeters taller than she was, and she was barely twelve. "Shinji will probably get taller because of better nutrition here. You, too."

If anything, that annoyed Asuka more. "Baka Shinji's already having a growth spurt. He used to be shorter than me, now we're the same height," she growled. "He's grown three centimeters while I only grew one."

"See?" Ruiko said brightly. "It's having an effect already."

Back on the stage, Mio leaned in to her microphone. "So... Azusa found the next song on YouTube, and she and Yui talked me into doing it tonight. It was originally in, um... Swedish?" She glanced over at the other two guitarists.

Azusa nodded. "Yeah, Swedish," she said, leaning back into her mic.

"Right, Swedish," Mio said. "But it turns out there's an English version, which since I don't speak or sing Swedish, I'm going to do." She mock-glared at her bandmates. "Under protest!"^[11]

Laughter rippled through the audience again. "So anyway," she continuted, the glare evaporating, "it seems doing videos of characters from all kinds of stories and shows dancing to this song are real popular among Refuge's fans, and that's why our guitarists want me to sing it, so they can see all of you dancing to it."

"Don't worry, everyone," Yui said with a grin, "just watch Azu-nyan and me. It's a really simple dance."

Mio rolled her eyes, but was grinning. "It's a really silly dance."

"Your point, Mio?" Mugi asked from behind her keyboard.

The bassist shook her head with a sigh. "Just warning everyone, Mugi." She took up her guitar, her right hand on the neck, and her right hovering over the bridge, then announced with a broad smile, "Okay, everyone, it's time for 'Caramelldansen'!"

Some twenty minutes after they had relieved Nodoka and Yuu of their "gate guard" duties, Ayame Yoshida (shivering in her blue shorts and green tank top, and regretting dressing as Ayane Mitsui) and Fuu Hououji (somewhat warmer, dressed as Haru "Noir" Okumura in black tights, violet puffy shorts, and a black corset vest over a pink blouse, the entire ensemble topped by a black mask and cavalier's hat) watched with undisguised curiosity as a massive black stretch limousine appeared on Hamilton Street only to slow down, turn into Annette Court and come to a halt at the traffic barriers.

Fuu stepped up as the driver's window rolled smoothly down with a quiet whir. "Can I help you?" she asked.

At the wheel was slender, pale-skinned man with amber eyes and blue-black hair that was cut short except two locks which hung to either side of his face. "Good evening, ladies," he said with a faint smile. "Lord Phantomhive, here to attend the party."

Ayame made a wordless sound of surprise as Fuu nodded. "Of course. Just a moment, Mr. Michaelis."

He smiled again. "Sebastian, please."

Fuu returned the smile. "Of course, Mister Sebastian. Welcome to the party, both of you."

"Thank you," he replied, inclining his head in lieu of a bow.

A minute later, the limousine proceeded on to the parking lot as the two young women moved the barrier back into place.

"Dance to the beat, wave your hands together.
Come feel the heat forever and forever.
Listen and learn, it is time for prancing.
Now we are here with Caramell dancing."^[12]

The song ended abruptly with a soft chord struck by Mugi on her keyboard; the members of the audience who had been dancing took a moment more to stop. The last was a slender, pretty girl with long brown hair wearing a gray tanktop, black jeans and boots; a massive smile spanned her face, which was made up to look like half its skin had had been torn off to reveal a shining metal skull beneath. Up on the stage, Yui and Azusa lowered their hands from their "rabbit ears" positions, grinned at each other, and began to laugh, followed by Ritsu and Mugi. Mio mock-scowled at them before giving in and smiling as well. Yui reached over to where she had set Gitah on its stand, grabbed the guitar, and turned back to the audience. As she slid back under Gitah's strap, she stepped over to her mic. "That was fun! Thanks for dancing along with us! And watching everyone dance was just like watching one of those videos on YouTube!"

"I bet by tomorrow it's going to be one of those videos on YouTube!" Ritsu called from behind the drums, and both the band and the audience laughed.

Peggy was in the food tent, still working to set out all the potluck dishes, when a chorus of gasps echoed through the tent behind her. As she straightened up from where she had bent over a chafing tray to light the cans of Sterno beneath it, she saw that Sumire had frozen in place on the other side of the table, staring at something behind Peggy.

"What is it?" Peggy asked, and when Sumire didn't answer, she shrugged mentally and turned around.

Her breath caught momentarily at the sight of the tall figure with huge bat-like wings, massive ram's horns curling through his wild black hair, and burning fuschia eyes — wearing a butler's uniform and carrying a stack of aluminum catering trays. "Good evening, Mrs. Schroeck," he said amiably. "Where should I place these?"

She shook herself; she recognized that voice. "M-mister Michaelis!" she managed to stammer, before swallowing. As she did, she spied the young man casually strolling in behind him, dressed in an elaborately detailed, film-accurate (and clearly very expensive) "Jack Sparrow" costume.

"Sebastian, please," the demonic figure said with a smile that she supposed was intended to be reassuring.

Peggy nodded. "Sebastian, then." She nodded to the young man, who had come up alongside him. "And Lord Phantomhive?" she asked.

"Indeed," the young man said with a slight smirk and the faintest hint of a bow.

"Welcome, and thank you for coming," Peggy said. "Oh, and just put them down there on the end of the table," she said, gesturing. "We'll get them sorted out in a minute."

"As you wish," Sebastian said with a tiny bow of his own, before stepping over to the place she'd indicated.

Peggy glanced back over her shoulder. "Sumire, please help Sebastian with those trays."

The Australian girl started. "Oh, yes, of course," she said, and trotted around the back of the table to help the butler.

Turning back to the smirking pirate, Peggy asked, "Will you and Sebastian be needing rooms for the night, Lord Phantomhive?"

He shook his head, a genuinely regretful expression replacing the smirk. "Sadly, no. I'm afraid this is little more than a token appearance, as Sebastian and I must leave early. We each have obligations early tomorrow that preclude us staying for the whole party."

"I'm sorry to hear that," she replied. "So many of us only know you – either of you – by reputation; it would have been nice to get to know you as actual people."

"Well." He smiled, and this time it was warmer, not a smirk at all. "We shall see what we can do in the time we have."

As Minami served herself a slice of lasagna from the buffet, a female voice from above and behind her said, "That's an interesting costume. I like it."

"Thank you," she said before turning around to face the speaker. When she did, she froze for a moment in surprise. A humanoid lizard, some thirty or more centimeters taller than she was, stood there, wearing a skirt, jacket and fedora. Not a person in a lizard costume, she was certain, but an actual lizard. The giveaway was the mouth — it (and the tongue in it) moved and flexed in a way no mask would; inside it was moist like a real mouth, too. It was had to tell through the yellow lenses of her costume's mask, but she thought that the creature's skin was blue, with orange-yellow eyes that almost seemed to glow. "Um." Well, it wasn't like there weren't other non-humans among the displacees, after all. Just none this... extreme. "I'm dressed as Taylor Hebert from Worm, in her 'Skitter' identity. It's a little makeshift, but..." She shrugged.

The lizard tilted... her? yes, her... head and raised her eyebrows in a surprisingly human expression of surprise. "Worm? I've never heard of that."

Minami nodded. "It's a web novel that came out in this world a few years ago, set in an Earth with superhumans. Taylor is a teen-aged girl with insect-control powers who sets out to be a hero but ends up branded a villain because of a whole lot of stupidity, mostly on the part of other people." Under Skitter's mask Minami grimaced. "It's not the happiest story, especially not for Taylor. But she's such a great character..."

The lizard girl grinned — another surprisingly human-like expression identifiable on a nonhuman face, Minami thought. "I'll bet. Could you tell me more?"

"Oh, certainly," Minami said happily. "Let's go sit down and I'll tell you while I eat."

"Sounds good," the lizard girl replied, then she gestured at the plate in Minami's hand. "And let me know how you like the lasagna — I brought it."

Minami glanced down at it. "Oh, you did?"

She nodded. "It's my mother's recipe, a Family favorite. Oh, where are my manners?" She held out an imposingly claw-bedecked hand. "I'm Saurial."

Minami had been in New Jersey long enough to get used to Western customs, and shook the lizard girl's hand with her own. "Minami Makimura. Nice to meet you."

At a table filled with crudités and other vegetable dishes, two girls with paper plates in hand found themselves face-to-face. One had pale purple hair courtesy of spray coloring, glasses, and a brown sweater over an aqua and white seifuku. The other had a shaggy pale blue wig and wore reasonable facsimiles of a white plugsuit and matching white A10 nerve clips.

Rei Ayanami studied her doppelganger for a long moment as the other girl grew visibly nervous. Finally, she nodded with a faint smile gracing her lips. "I approve." She turned back to the table, retrieved a handful of celery sticks and placed them on her plate before walking off.

Sakura Matou blinked and watched the girl disappear among the other party-goers before shaking herself and taking some raw vegetables of her own.

Ruiko poked unenthusiastically at her dinner with a plastic fork. Asuka had clamped her hand around Shinji's upper arm so hard he'd winced, then after sneering at her dragged him off. The despondent look he'd given her as he and Asuka vanished into the crowd haunted her.

"So... I see Asuka's worked her special magic on you."

Ruiko looked up to see a young couple — in their twenties, she thought — had walked up to her table and were regarding her with sympathy. They were in matching costumes: he in plate armor with black and gold highlights and a simple crown with eight broad cross-shaped crenellations, she in a pale green medieval-styled gown with a high waist, scoop neck and a long train, and a crown of her own, this one more delicate with ten filigreed points which leaned outward from her bound chestnut hair. It had been the young man who had spoken.

Ruiko blinked. "I'm sorry, what?"

"I said, I see you've had the dubious pleasure of meeting Asuka Soryu." He held out his hand; Ruiko shook it. "Simon Tam, from Gulfside Rest in Florida." His English was measured and careful, almost precise, and made her think he might have been well off, possibly upper class in his home universe.

"Kaylee Frye," said his companion as Ruiko shook her hand as well. "From Gulfside Rest, too." She sounded almost rural by comparison, and Ruiko realized the contrast was visible in their body language: Simon held himself very formally, almost stiffly, while Kaylee seemed much more relaxed and casual.

"I'm Ruiko Saten, from Blossom Apartments in Ottawa," she said quickly. "You... you both live in the same building as her?"

Kaylee laughed. "Oh, yes. Been nigh on... what, six weeks now, Simon?"

Simon nodded. "Yes, just about that. We've gotten to know her quite well in that time." He gestured at the table. "May we join you?"

"Oh! Please!" She slid her plate to one side as the couple took the next couple of seats to her right.

"We couldn't help but see her treatin' you like niu shi," Kaylee said gently as she settled into place, "An' we wanted to let you know it ain't anythin' you did."

Ruiko didn't understand the oddly out-of-place bit of Chinese, but the meaning was obvious from context. She frowned minutely. "I've seen Evangelion, I thought I knew what to expect, but..." She trailed off and waved vaguely.

Simon nodded. "Then you know she's... emotionally damaged, correct? A good deal of that behavior is really just her holding herself together well enough to function."

Ruiko grimaced. "And I'm guessing from what I've seen that Shinji's part of that?"

"Yeah," Kaylee confirmed. "She acts all prickly 'cause she needs him and don't wanna admit it. Seen her get downright twitchy when he ain't around."

"What, can't go without her whipping boy?" Ruiko almost snarled.

Simon shook his head. "No, it isn't like that, though I suppose it resembles it from the outside. Kaylee and I have talked about it with... a couple people, and the conclusion we've mostly come to is that he represents safety to her. If he's with her, then in her mind, nothing terrible can happen."

Ruiko gave them a flat look. "What, and she's going to make sure he stays with her, regardless of what he wants, to keep her safe forever and ever? That's pretty fucked up."

"You ain't wrong," Kaylee admitted.

"I sincerely hope the managers, or Funtom, or someone arranges proper counseling for her, because I really don't see this ending well if nothing changes," Simon added.

Ruiko frowned. "What more can you tell me?" Maybe she could help, somehow. She didn't have to like Asuka to do that, did she?

"Now that is one scarily accurate costume!" The voice was male and redolent with the North of England.

Sam Tyler looked up from the table full of chafing pans to see a tall fellow with prominent ears and thick curling brown hair, dressed in the heavy coat, floppy hat, and ridiculously overlong scarf of the Fourth Doctor. "Thank you," he said, laying down his plate and turning to face him, tugging slightly at the bottom of his black Nehru jacket as he did. "Took me forever to get the beard right," he added, running a fingertip along the fake goatee he'd painstakingly spirit-gummed to his face.

"Oh, yes, that's good. Delgado. Proper creepy." He tilted his head, studying Sam. "...Yeah, no, hang on. I know that face." A flicker of a grin. "You're a Brit. And you've got a bit of him about you. Fantastic job."

"Thank you." Sam held his hand out. "Sam Tyler, from the Dublin gang of displacees."

The other man grabbed his hand and shook it enthusiastically. "Good to meet you, Sam. I'm the Doctor."

Sam raised an eyebrow. "Yes, I can see that."

The Doctor looked puzzled for a moment, then gave a bark of laughter. "Right, the costume. No, I actually am the Doctor — Nine, they call me when they have to make a distinction — and I figured it'd be a bit of self-referential fun to dress as one of my earlier regenerations, one of my favorites." He tugged on a lock of his curly brown hair. "You had difficulty with the beard; for me it's the hair." He mock-scowled. "I don't remember it being half the trouble this wig is."

Sam boggled for a moment, then managed a stumbling, "It's an honor, sir."

The Doctor waved dismissively. "None of that, Sam."

"If you insist..." Sam paused for a moment, then added, "Say, maybe you can help me with something. Back home — before Refuge — I had an experience that... well, it might've been time travel." He grimaced. "Or a hallucination. I still don't know which. And it— it still gets to me. Do you think you could help me figure it out?"

A broad grin appeared that looked as much at home on the Fourth Doctor's face as the Ninth. "Yeah. Easy. Tell you what — I'll get you a pint, you tell me everything, and we'll sort it out."

The returning grin looked out of place on the Master's face, but not on Sam's. "I won't say no to that."

The music from the stage wasn't being piped into the other tents, but for all that was still audible — loud enough to be heard clearly, but nowhere near loud enough to make conversation difficult. A teenaged girl, a soprano, was singing "Ui, ooh-ah-ah, ting-tang, walla-walla bing-bang"^[13] with an audible giggle in her voice, and her clear, high-pitched tones carried clearly through the tent where food and drink had been gathered.

At one of the beverage tables, two party-goers found themselves reaching for the same drink. They both yanked their arms back when their hands collided just in front of the can of soda.

"Oh, excuse me," said one, a college-age girl in an elaborately beaded and fringed gold flapper dress. Her chin-length brown hair was held back by a matching headband with a feather rising from it, and in her off hand she held a long cigarette holder; a fake cigarette, red glitter on its end simulating fire, was mounted in it. Those who could tell would know immediately that it was a Tomoyo Daidouji original.

"Sorry 'bout that," said the other, a much younger boy dressed in khaki pants, an olive-drab shirt, black combat boots and a camo jacket. The whole ensemble was topped off with an incongruous knit cap, complete with ear flaps, of brightly-colored wool. Those in the know would recognize it as a Jayne Cobb original.

"That's all right," the girl said, reaching for a different can. She glanced at the boy, then did a doubletake. "Do I know you? You look familiar."

"I don't think so," he said as he took the can they'd originally collided over. "But you know, you look a little like my dad," he added, looking her over.

She returned the look. "That's odd, you look a little like my mother. I'm Kaori Aida, from Aria House in California. Call me Kaorin, everyone does."

"Aida? Wow, that's a coincidence. I'm Kensuke Aida, from Gulfside Rest in Pensacola."

She frowned slightly as she took a closer look at him. "That's ... weird. We're not counterparts, are we? I was born in 1984."

He shook his head. "I was born in 2001. Maybe we're cousins or something? My dad's name is Hajime."^[14]

"Huh. My father's name is Hajime, too." Her frown deepened. "My mother's name is Kari^[15] . What's your mom's name?"

A look of sorrow flashed across his face. "My mom's... not around any more." Puzzlement replaced sorrow. "But she was named Kari, too..." He screwed his eyes shut in concentration. "Dad told me once that I had an older sister, but she died in Second Impact, before I was born." His eyes sprung open. "You don't think...?"

Kaorin bit her lip and studied the younger boy. "I don't know. Maybe we should ask one of the megami?"

Trying not to look like he was running, Shinji took advantage of a moment's distraction on Asuka's part and fled the tent holding the potluck. He'd had to leave his half-full plate behind, but it was the perfect opportunity — enough people getting food or just milling about to cover his escape, but not so many that he had to force his way through the crowd; in a matter of seconds he was out of sight of her.

He plunged through the tent's entrance and out into the chill night air, stepped to one side, out of the way of the other party-goers seeking sustenance, and took a deep breath. Okay, that worked, he thought. Now what?

"Ho ho. Nicely done, mate — didn't fancy bein' chewed up by the redhead, eh? Smart lad. She's the sort that'd bite." The voice was deep and gravelly and just a bit nasal, with an accent that he'd come to learn was British... but a lower-class British. Shinji managed to not start in surprise at the sound of it; instead he turned around to face the speaker.

Leaning against one of the pine trees that studded the green spaces hosting the party was a man in an expensive-looking Superman costume, a lit cigarette in one hand and a red plastic cup in the other. He was a Westerner, taller than Shinji — then again, pretty much all adults were — and a bit too thin to carry off the superhero look. A mop of black hair topped his head, with a thick mass of bangs hanging down in the front almost hiding his dark eyes; a lumpy potato of a nose that looked like it might have been broken once — or maybe twice — sat below and between them, giving him a thuggish look.

His skin was green.

Shinji blinked and looked again. Every inch of the man's exposed skin was a bright kryptonite green, which struck him as exactly wrong for Superman. And it wasn't makeup.

"Um," he managed to say.

"Superman" took a long, final drag on the cigarette, dropped it into the grass at his feet, and ground it out with the toe of one red boot. He pushed off from the tree then stuck out the hand that had just held it. "M'name's Murdoc — Murdoc Niccals. I knock about 'round here. Douglass Gardens, that is."

After nearly two months in Refuge, Shinji knew what to do, and shook his hand. "Shinji Ikari, from Pensacola in Florida."

Murdoc nodded. "Right, well... good meetin' ya, lad. Now, 'bout the redhead — reckon you'd rather she didn't find you for a bit, yeah?"

Shinji nodded. "Yeah."

He smirked and waved, half grandiosely, half mockingly, toward the center of the party space, where Shinji could hear a band playing. "Right then, follow your Uncle Murdoc — I'll get you tucked away proper. Outta sight, outta mind, yeah? An' you might even have a bit of fun while you're at it, see if you don't." He took a swig from the cup then immediately started walking, before looking back over his shoulder and asking, "Y'comin', lad?"

Shinji shook himself and then trotted after Murdoc.

As they made their way around and through the other costumed attendees, Shinji glanced over at the man. "Mister Niccals, if you don't mind my asking, why... why are you green?"

Murdoc snorted. "Bad life choices, lad... an' a handful of legendary ones."

Shinji tried to imagine the kind of life choices that would turn someone green without killing them first, and drew a blank. He was still puzzling over it when he realized that Murdoc was leading him to the stage tent. Five pretty girls were on the stage, playing a song he'd never heard before that was slow and rhythmic; one was using an odd device that combined her voice with her guitar as she sang, "My daddy was a Gibson, my momma was a Fender, that's why they call me 'Mind Bender' — 'Mind Bender', that's my name."^[16] He'd've liked to have stayed and watched, but to his surprise, Murdoc marched him around the side of the tent and into another behind it, which was filled with musicians — most of whom were again pretty girls.

Murdoc paused just as soon as they'd entered and didn't bother lowering his voice. "Oi, Noodle!"

At one of the tables at the back of the tent a taller girl with short black hair, Japanese like almost every other person there and wearing a black leather catsuit, looked up from where she had been in the midst of a conversation. She said something to the magenta-haired girl in a cheongsam next to her that Shinji couldn't hear (but imagined was an apology of sorts) and rose from her seat in one smooth motion, already watching them by the time she was on her feet and stalking toward them.

Her gaze flicked over Murdoc first — quick, measuring, familiar — and then settled on Shinji.

Shinji felt it immediately. Not harsh, not unfriendly... just direct. Like she was taking him in all at once.

He straightened without meaning to, suddenly aware of his hands, of where to look. She was—

He looked away, just as quickly.

"Murdoc," she said. Her voice was high and almost sweet — and to his surprise she spoke with a light but obvious Japanese accent.

Murdoc jerked a thumb in his direction. "Picked this one up out by the grub. Tryin' not to get himself murdered by a redhead."

Noodle's eyes shifted back to Shinji, quieter now.

"I see," she said.

Her voice was soft, but clear — no hesitation, no strain. Just a statement.

Shinji swallowed. "I— I'm sorry, I didn't mean to intrude—"

"Told 'im I'd sort 'im out somewhere to hide from the bint. This'll do. Keep an eye on 'im, yeah?"

She lifted a single eyebrow. "So you've brought me a guest." Her gaze shifted back to Shinji; it was calm and measuring, but not unkind. "That should not be difficult." She gave him a faint, knowing smile. "There are many ways to disappear here."

Murdoc smirked at her. "Yeah, cheers, Noodle. Owe you one." He clapped Shinji on the shoulder, almost enough to make him stagger. "Good luck, lad." He turned, and as he swaggered out of the tent, cup still in hand, he added, "Don't do anything I wouldn't."

And then he was gone.

As Shinji looked after him, he felt another, gentler, hand on his shoulder, and turned back to see "Noodle" looking down at him, that faint smile still on her face. "What's your name?"

"Shinji," he said hesitantly. "Shinji Ikari. I'm sorry, if I'm not supposed to be here..."

The smile grew ever so slightly larger. "Don't worry." She tilted her head toward the chattering girls at the back of the tent. "Come. There's food... and friends. You'll be all right here."

And with that, she guided him into the crowd.

"Give it up for Yui and Gitah as Mind Bender!" Azusa demanded of the audience, and they did, cheering and clapping.

"Thank you, thank you," Yui said, hopping down off the stool she'd perched on while using the talk box and pushing it back with one foot. "And Gitah thanks you, too!" she added brightly. She glanced around at the other members of Hokago Tea Time and shared a secretive smile with them as the audience contined to hoot and cheer, then glanced down front where Hane and Molly still stood with the rest of the Motorcycle Club.

"It's been great playing for everyone tonight," Yui continued, "but I'm afraid we're down to our last song. And to sing it... well, we have a special guest vocalist." That secretive smile was back. "One so special she doesn't even know she's going to sing with us! Everyone, give a big hand for Molly Ritter!"

"What? No!" Molly shrieked as the applause ramped up again while Hane (with Onsa and Rin's help) gently pushed her to and up the steps that led to the stage. "Oh no no no no..." she protested as she got within reach of Yui's microphone. "I know what song you want me to sing. You think you're the first ones to ask me to sing it?"

As a giggling Yui stepped aside to let Molly's friends carefully position her in front of the mic, Ritsu called out, "Maybe not, but I'll bet we've got the biggest crowd to encourage you."

"You're not helping!" Molly scowled, but it was obvious by how she wasn't trying to make a break for it that she had resigned herself to what was coming.

Yui leaned into Azusa's mic. "You see, everyone, Molly has a boyfriend who isn't here with us tonight. And his name is Desmond Jones!" Scattered sounds of amused comprehension rose from the crowd, followed by the murmur of explanations being made to those who lacked the cultural context or simply hadn't made the connection. "So, obviously," Yui went on, "Molly has to be a singer with the band!"

"If you say so, Yui," Molly said with a good-natured roll of her eyes. Laughter rippled through the audience, followed by cries of "Sing it!"

"And of course," Azusa added, a feline smile gracing her lips, "life goes on."

And with that Mugi banged out the familiar intro, her keyboard set to sound like an old upright bar piano. Yui jumped in with Gitah filtered to a level of distortion Hokago Tea Time had never used in one of their own songs, followed a few seconds later by Azusa, then Mio and Ritsu. Molly rolled her eyes again, but grinned in spite of herself as she began to sing:

"Desmond has a barrow in the market place,
Molly is the singer in a band.
Desmond says to Molly, 'Girl, I like your face'..."

Although she was no match for Yui or Mio, her voice was strong and pleasant. She had no trouble keeping to the melody, in key, and on the beat, and by the second line it was obvious that for all her protestations, she was actually enjoying herself. Behind her, the other girls were clearly having fun of their own playing backup singers to her, and adding in the little bits of silliness the Beatles had thrown into the original recording. The crowd was already cheering and hooting again by the time Molly reached the chorus, grinning like a madwoman:

"Ob-la-di, ob-la-da, life goes on, brah..."^[17]

Over near the gazebo, Princess Peach was tugging on the sleeve of a teenaged wolfman as live music from the stage echoed off the apartment buildings surrounding the green space on three sides. "C'mon, Marty! It sounds like they're having a great time!"

"Okay, okay, Jennifer. Geeze, no need to rush," he said with a smile barely visible through the fur covering his face. "They're like just a hundred feet away."

"They're pretty good!" Cameron, resplendent in the red tunic, black trousers and white turtleneck of a late Original Series Starfleet captain, commented. He, Ferris and Sloane were seated at one of the tables ringing the dance floor that occupied the middle of the tent immediately in front of the stage.

"Even that girl they pulled up there, she's not bad either," Sloane added, then took a sip from the cup of soda in front of her. She was in an elaborate gold-trimmed, ivory-colored medieval-style gown, with her ringletted hair held in place by a golden ornament that was too large to call a clip and too flat to call a crown. Cameron still wasn't sure where she'd gotten the whole ensemble; she'd said something about a bay, but he had no idea what she'd meant by that.

Ferris, done up in the brown longcoat and pinstriped suit of the Tenth Doctor, had pulled his chair up next to Sloane's, and had his arm around her. "Watching these girls reminds me of the time I wanted to start a band," he said, before glancing at the readers and mouthing "Later".

"I don't know what you were thinking, asking me to be in it," Sloane smirked. "I can't sing to save my life."

"You're better than you think," Ferris countered.

"Still not good enough for a band." She glanced over at Cameron. "Tell him!"

Cameron lifted a hand in a vaguely defensive gesture and shook his head. "I'm not getting involved in this." He paused, then added, "But whether Sloane can sing or not, you need more than just your keyboard to make a band."

"I..." Ferris began, only to be interrupted.

"Hey, mind if we sit at your table?"

They turned to see a well-done wolfman accompanied by a girl in a bright pink dress and white gloves, a small golden crown perched atop a voluminous blonde wig. The pair seemed to be teens about the same age as them. Cameron, Ferris and Sloane exchanged a glances, then Ferris said, "Sure!"

When "Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da" ended, Molly was still grinning broadly, all reticence and shyness long gone. The audience exploded into cheers and whistles as Yui said, "Molly Ritter, everyone!" A moment later she added, "And we are Hokago Tea Time! Thank you, everyone! Thank you, Douglass Gardens!"

"Thank you, Budokan!" Ritsu added to scattered laughter.

As the cheering continued, Molly scampered back down the steps into the audience and the band began to collect their gear prior to leaving the stage. Harley took that as his cue to mount the stage and return to the central microphone stand. "Ladies and gentlemen, Hokago Tea Time!" The applause grew again, before finally tapering off. "Up next in a few minutes, OnNaGumi!" he added when he was sure he'd be heard again, then left the stage as quickly as he could manage.

To his surprise, Shinji was not only welcomed by the musicians in the tent that they inexplicably called the "green room", but included. He quickly found himself deep in conversation with a revolving collection of the performers either waiting their turns on stage or (in the case of the women from Ireland) relaxing after their set. When asked if he played an instrument, he very reluctantly admitted to playing the cello, expecting to be immediately dismissed by rock'n'rollers around him. Instead, though, it just triggered a deeper discussion of instruments and playing styles.

"We've got more in common than you might think," a rather energetic girl who'd introduced herself as "Jun" said. He had trouble keeping his eyes on hers because she was distractingly dressed in an off-the-shoulder gown of black and gray satin and tulle. It had a short, wide skirt with black petticoats under it and a huge grey bow at the small of her back; an obviously fake tail tipped with a pointed spade snaked from somewhere under it and stood up stiffly behind her. Her hair was done up in two fluffy "pom-poms" on either side of her head, with a red rose tucked into the left one. He'd tried not to stare at her legs (which were quite nice), but had looked long enough to notice the thick-soled maryjane shoes, also black, from which ribbons inexplicably rose to twine around her calves almost to the knee. Hanging from a strap around her neck was a white guitar with a long black neck. "Y'see, a bass" — and here she gestured to her guitar — "is the exact same thing, but... you tip it on the side and, chell-oooo, you've got a bass!"

"Jun!" said the other girl sitting with him at the moment. Her name, she'd said, was Ui, and she was in a similar dress, only in pink and white with no tail, and she wore a pink wig with two similar short ponytails to either side tied off with darker pink ribbons. "You know that isn't right! A cello is tuned C-G-D-A and a bass is tuned E-A-D-G," she continued in a mildly chiding tone. She turned to Shinji. "I'm sorry, she's quoting a scene from the movie School of Rock at you." She had a mint-green guitar with a shorter neck propped up against the table they sat at.

"Oh. I haven't seen it," Shinji admitted.

"Oh, you should!" Jun enthused. "I think you'd really like it. And some of it was filmed nearby.^[18] But yeah, maybe I'm wrong, but I'm not exactly wrong, Ui." She teasingly scrunched up her face at her companion, smiling, before looking back at him. "Even though they're tuned differently, a bass and a cello play pretty much the same role, whether you're in a rock band or a string quartet."

"I... uh, I wouldn't know, I usually play alone," he said. Absently, he noted that the music from the stage tent had been replaced by applause and cheers.

"Oh, well that's cool, too," Jun said. "I used to be in the Jazz club, back at our old school, and I never got to play with the band, so I did that a lot, too."

Shinji wasn't sure what to say in response to that, but at that moment Ui suddenly perked up, looking past him at something. Or rather, someone, given that she said, "Oh, here they come!" before hopping up out of her seat.

"Here who come?" he asked Jun as he twisted around to try to see where she'd gone.

"Hokago Tea Time," Jun replied with a smirk.

"Who?" he asked, turning back to her.

Ui suddenly appeared at his side with a girl in an odd blue jacket and hood set who he realized was practically her twin — and the girl who had been singing with her guitar's voice. "Shinji, this is my sister Yui."

"Hi!" Yui chirped.

"Sorry about that," Peggy said as she finally took her seat at the table once more.

"I hope it wasn't some big emergency," Linda said as Peggy picked up her drink.

Peggy shook her head. "No... just one thing leading to another. But it eventually reached a point where I could step away again." She sipped her drink, now slightly diluted by melted ice.

"You missed all of Hokago Tea Time," Helen noted.

"No, I could hear them from the tent I was in." Peggy smiled over her cup. "And even if I didn't, it's not like Bob and I haven't sat in on some of their rehearsals over the last couple weeks."

"They definitely know how to work a crowd," Arthur noted. "Better than the band before them."

"Well, it's not their first time in front of an audience," Peggy said. "Outside of school shows, they've played in a couple clubs and at a festival in England."

"England?" Linda asked. "Really?"

Peggy nodded. "They were on a school trip to London, and got recruited at the last minute." She took another sip. "It's in the K-On! movie."

"Well, after seein' 'em tonight, I'm thinkin' they're ready for a gig at the Artery after all." Artie Duncan swirled the last of his whiskey around the bottom of his glass. "I'll give that teacher of theirs a call and set somethin' up."

Terpsichore smirked, licked the tip of her forefinger and drew a quick tally mark in the air.

Attila barked out a laugh.

"Oh, where is he?" Asuka Soryu growled as she stalked through the green space between the white pavilions that provided partygoers with shelter against the chill air of the New Jersey night. The thin brown sweater that was part of her "Mikuru Asahina" costume wasn't nearly enough to ward off the cold, but her anger and annoyance at her fellow pilot was sufficient to keep her warm despite that, at least for the moment. When she found Shinji again, she'd let him know in no uncertain terms what she thought of his irresponsibility. How could he run away like that? Didn't he want... Didn't he realize he was supposed to be with her? She suppressed a surge of fear and worry at the thought of being alo... unaccompanied. Yes, "unaccompanied" was a much better word.

A flash of crimson caught her eye and derailed her train of thought — a familiar crimson. She pivoted on one loafer-clad heel and made a beeline toward the unknown girl in a red plugsuit — in her plugsuit. Well, an inferior copy of it at least, she realized as she got closer. Whoever she was, she certainly didn't carry it off as well as Asuka did, even allowing for the poor quality of the replica.

Fake!Asuka, as it turned out, was talking to a fake!Ayanami in her own bogus plugsuit, and what was up with that? Who in their right mind would want to dress up as that boring little doll? Asuka's irritation with Shinji and his disappearance generously expanded to include these two unknown girls, and she stalked up to the pair with a scowl. As they turned to face her, Asuka took a moment to give a long head-to-foot scan first to fake!Asuka, then fake!Ayanami, and then fake!Asuka again. Her brow, already furrowed in annoyance thanks to baka-Shinji, deepened when she realized that the girl dressed as her was actually quite pretty.

Not as pretty as her. Definitely not. But pretty, nonetheless. Annoyingly so.

After a long silent moment, fake!Asuka returned her scowl. "What?" she demanded.

"Hmph," Asuka sniffed contemptuously. "First off, that's my look. Second, you are definitely wearing that plugsuit wrong."

Fake!Asuka glanced down at herself with exaggerated calm as fake!Ayanami's eyebrows crawled up into her scraggly blue bangs. "Really? Because from what I've heard, the secret ingredient is glaring at everyone like they personally offended you."

Asuka folded her arms across the front of her middy blouse. "Cute. Did you buy the attitude separately, or does it come free with the cosplay?"

"And here I thought you'd appreciate accuracy." Fake!Asuka smiled sweetly. "Though I guess I should've practiced looking more emotionally unstable."

For a moment they just stared at each other.

Then Asuka sniffed again and turned away. "Feh. The wig's too dark anyway."

As she stalked off, she heard the fake reply, "And the original is shorter than advertised." She clenched her fists and suppressed a snarl. She had more important things to to than argue with an impostor. She had her... a baka to find.

"Was that really necessary?" Sakura asked her sister as they watched Asuka Soryu disappear into the crowd.

Rin shrugged. "I was prepared to be pleasant to her. She was the one that stormed up to us already in a foul mood and got nasty."

As the trio took their places on the stage, Harley stepped up to the center mic for what he hoped really was going to be the last introduction he needed to make. "Ladies and gentlemen," he intoned, "give a big hand for our next band tonight, OnNaGumi!" As applause welled up — not nearly as strongly as for Hokago Tea Time — he hastily backed off and hurried off stage. As he did, the drummer — a bleach-blonde in athletic garb too thin and skimpy for the October night — settled in, and the bassist, a tallish girl with long light brown hair dressed in a sequined jacket, slacks, dress shirt and tie, all of an identical shade of black, dropped a shining silver helmet with a red visor on the drum platform before stepping up to one of the microphones and readying her gleaming mahogany Gibson Thunderbird.

A slender girl with an agressively spiky black pixie-cut, dressed in the same black-and-sequin suit as the bassist, followed. Holding a Les Paul Custom hanging from a strap flat against her hip with one hand, and carrying a gleaming gold helmet in the other, she strode up to the mic Harley'd vacated. She dropped the helmet on the stool nearby, then grabbed the mic in her now free hand. "Thank you!" she said, glancing to where Harley stood off the side of the stage. Looking back out at the audience, she continued, "I'm Akira Wada, and like Mr. Waters said, we are OnNaGumi!"

As someone in the audience shouted "Harley!", Akira released the mic and swung her guitar around in front of her, poised to play. Behind her, the drummer clicked her sticks once followed by tight, rapid hits on hi-hat. The bassist joined in immediately with an aggressive line that laid down the foundations on which Akira began building a guitar feedback swell, leading into a hook as she shouted "Count it down — Three! Two! One!"

The band detonated on the downbeat, and Akira launched into the first verse:

"Pull the wire,
Strike the spark,
Light me up against the dark.
You say 'slow down',
I say 'not yet',
Burning through each safety net.
We're glass triggers
Thin as air.
One more hit and we're everywhere!"^[19]

The contrast between OnNaGumi and Hokago Tea Time was all but palpable to the audience — where the previous band had been playful and enthusiastic, almost schoolgirlish in its buoyant charm, OnNaGumi were locked in and serious, almost grim, a band that had rehearsed until that opening hit landed like a punch to the gut. They had the precision of a machine carrying along the singer's unbound fury.

"Okay, here," Kevin said, releasing Garnett's hand. He'd led her out of the party proper back around building 4 and into the parking lot where the portals still loomed at the far end. Up against the brick wall past the first set of backdoor steps, they were surprisingly well-insulated from the sound of the band; it still echoed, but was oddly muffled, reduced enough that they could speak in a normal conversational tone.

That they were also alone was a bonus.

Garnett tugged on the cuffs of her peppermint-striped blouse and said, "Okay, Kevin, what's up?" She thought he looked quite spiffing in the cream jacket, brown trousers and sweater vest of the seventh Doctor, his paler cream hat pushed to hang almost off the back of his head. The contrast between the lighter colors and his brown skin was quite striking.

He searched her eyes for a moment, the light of the lamps illuminating the parking lot occasionally glinting off the lenses of his glasses. "Garnett, what the hell is going on here?"

She frowned. "What do you mean, what's going on? I told you."

"You didn't expect me to believe that, did you?" he demanded.

"Well, yeah," she said. "Why would I lie?"

He threw up his hands and turned on his heel. "Because it was completely crazy? I thought you were having me on."

Garnett parked her fists on her hips. "And why would I do that?"

"I don't know!" He threw up his arms again and turned back to her. "It was so out there it couldn't possibly be true." He drew a deep breath. "But..."

She tilted her head. "But...?"

Kevin swallowed. "But... the teleporting, flying girl. The black circle that took us from early afternoon to full on night in one step. People all around that I recognize from movies and anime..." He shook his head. "Explain it to me."

Garnett managed to avoid rolling her eyes; Kevin was really shaken, which she hadn't expected. She'd honestly thought he'd understand, especially after meeting the Masakis. "I already explained everything to you."

"Explain it again!" he snapped. Then he winced and rubbed a hand down his face. "Sorry. Just... go over it again, please? And this time I'll pay attention and believe you."

Garnett stepped forward and wrapped her arms around him. Then she started to tell him everything again, right from the beginning.

"Tell me again," Arisa growled, "why we decided doing gate duty was a good idea?" She shoved a handful of bite-sized chocolate bars (lifted from the bowl stationed at the sidewalk for passing trick-or-treaters) into her mouth and chewed resentfully before swallowing.

Back at the party proper, the band that was playing finished up a song with a hard rock flourish that echoed all the way down Annette Court to their duty station, and out into the park across the street.

Kyouko sighed, not for the first time since they took over at the barricades at 7:30. "Because we thought it might help us get back into Mr. and Mrs. Schroeck's good graces if we acted responsibly and volunteered."

"Grrr." Arisa grabbed another handful of candies from the bowl and began viciously tearing their wrappers off and letting them flutter to the ground, just like she had the previous three times. "And tell me why we thought these dumb costumes were a good idea? I mean, a pair of plainclothes cops from a thirty-five-year-old TV show? Who'd recognize Cagney & Lacey, if they even realized we were in costumes?" She crammed the new handful into her mouth.

"It doesn't matter — it's not like we recognized even a third of anyone else's costumes," Kyouko offered. "And I liked that show when we streamed it," she added after a moment, more softly.

Arisa didn't reply, and together they leaned against the yellow barricade as the band began another song, this one with a strong drum intro.

"Black lace gloves and amplifier hum,
Pretty little disaster on the run,
Lipstick smile like a switchblade shine,
Say we're trouble — maybe that's fine.
Velvet riot! Raise your hands!
Burn the rules but keep the glam!"^[20]

"Peggy!"

Peggy looked up to see Minami, her costume's mask in one hand, trotting up to the table. "Minami?" she asked.

The younger woman slid to a halt. "We have a situation," she said in a low, breathless tone.

Peggy nodded and stood. "Excuse me, please," she said to everyone else at the table before letting Minami lead her away. Once they were out of the tent, she asked, "What's up?"

"It's the Natsumes," Minami said.

"Shit. Take me there."

The couple dressed as Gomez and Morticia Addams weren't in the middle of the party traffic, but given the volume at which they were addressing each other, they didn't need to be.

"You deliberately waited until I was distracted and sent him out anyway," "Morticia" snarled.

"I'm letting our son spend one evening feeling like a normal kid, Akiko." It was obvious that "Gomez" was trying to be calm and patient, but that his ability to do so was fraying badly.

"A normal child does not live in an apartment complex full of teenage musicians, magical girls and psychics, Kyusaku!" Akiko wasn't moderating her tone, for all that she was nose-to-nose with her husband.

Kyusaku rubbed his eyes and sighed. "He's with adults. Responsible adults."

"One of those 'responsible adults' thought turning this entire complex into a public Halloween attraction was a good idea."

He gave her a flat look. "You do recall that the Schroecks were told to do this by the Megami?"

"That is not the point!" she hissed.

Kyusaku closed his eyes and tried to compose himself before replying, "No, the point is that Ryunosuke looked at me like he was asking for permission to breathe, Akiko."

"And what was I supposed to do? Smile and wave while he vanished into a crowd, disguised as another boy entirely?"

"Yes! It was trick-or-treating, not a black-ops mission!" Kyusaku had given up on controlling his voice.

"You do not get to mock me because I take his safety seriously!" She punctuated the last few words with finger-pokes to his chest.

"And you don't get to keep wrapping him in cotton wool and armor plate every time the world scares you," he said through gritted teeth.

"The world should scare you! It certainly seems to do a better job than common sense ever has."

"He wanted one night with friends. That's all."

"And he'd've still had one with him — you know Ascot would have stayed behind because he wouldn't want Ryunosuke left alone," Akiko noted smugly. "Which, unless you've forgotten, means someone in this family is at least teaching children loyalty."

"Don't do that," he growled. "Don't turn this into proof you were right."

"Then stop making me sound like a villain for refusing to gamble our son on the judgment of a pair of apartment managers and a holiday invented to encourage strangers to approach children in masks."

"Do you have a problem with how Bob and I run this complex, and how we provide for you and your family, Mrs. Natsume?" Peggy asked coolly as she walked up to the arguing pair. "If you don't trust your son with my husband, then we must have given you some reason. Do we need to contact Funtom and find you a residence where you feel more secure?"

Several minutes later Peggy had, if not talked the Natsumes down, at least shamed them into retreating to their apartment if they absolutely had to continue their argument. This was helped in great part by Akiko's complete mortification at letting her temper lead her into insulting her hosts.

Still, Peggy didn't look forward to telling Bob that the implosion of the Natsumes that they'd both feared had begun. Since their arrival the couple had been subdued and mutually supportive — a state of affairs that both managers knew from their exposure to multiple versions of their story was both uncharacteristic and likely to be temporary. The question had been just how temporary — Bob and Peggy had both agreed that as soon as the shock and numbness from their displacement wore off, Kyusaku and Akiko would inevitably go for each other's throats. And almost guaranteed it would be over Ryunosuke.

Naturally their détente had finally shattered in the middle of the freaking party. They should have expected it.

"Jesus Murphy!" Peggy swore quietly, then sighed. She needed to get away from the crowd for a few minutes to calm down a bit before she unintentionally lashed out at some undeserving innocent who just happened to catch her at the wrong moment. Someplace just a little bit quieter than right in front of the stage tent, where OnNaGumi were belting out their current song.

"Turn it up till the ceiling shakes!
Drown the doubt and the cheap mistakes!
Everybody wants a piece tonight,
Flashbulb halos in the stage-light white.
We disappear inside the sound,
Lost and finally found..."^[21]

She glanced around. Everything seemed to be going well for the moment, and Minami was ready to step in if necessary. Peggy nodded once to herself, then retreated from the party to the parking lot behind their apartment as quickly as she could without actually looking like she was rushing somewhere. If necessary she'd slip inside for a few minutes, but for now, fewer people and a little less noise would do wonders for her temper.

Rob stepped though the portal from Ottawa into a (mostly) empty parking lot. Following the sound of live music he walked to the end of the long two-story brick buildings on either side of him to the road which ran down the center of the complex and into what could only be the party. He'd barely reached the corner before he ran into a familiar face — one, he thought, that looked just a little stressed out.

"Rob! It's good to see you again. Welcome to Douglass Gardens."

"Peggy! It's good to see you, too. Sorry I'm late; I didn't run out of candy until a few minutes ago. Did I miss anything interesting?"

"Well, we're on the third band already. And you missed meeting Ryouga Hibiki."

"I thought Ryouga wasn't... oh, right. Eternally Lost Boy. Never mind."

With a grimace Peggy added, "And the Natsumes finally had their blow-up, just a few minutes ago."

"Oh, dear," he replied. "And at the worst possible moment, too."

She nodded. "Exactly what I was thinking."

He lowered his voice and continued, "On a happier note... Don't tell anybody, but I have a little something here for just you and Bob."

"A present? What is it?"

"It's an item given with no expectation of reimbursement, but that's not important right now."

"You've been hanging around Bob for too long."

Rob smiled. "The two of us would never have met if I hadn't. Here you go. I remembered you said you liked these."

He passed a bag to her, which she opened. "Oh, maple leaf cookies! Thank you!"

"You'd better put those away before somebody adds them to the snack selection."

"I'll do that now."

As Peggy made a quick visit to her apartment to drop off the box of cookies that would last her and Bob for at least a month, Rob made his way into the party proper and toward the bar. He had barely touched grass before he almost bumped into one of the other party-goers. "Oh! I'm sorry!"

"Oh, hello! I don't think we've met. Megumi Morisato." She was wearing a black leather jacket over a white t-shirt and blue jeans.

"Rob Donaldson. Pleased to meet you." He was wearing the standard-issue M.I.B. suit and glasses, complete with a faux "blinky thing" in his pocket. They shook hands, and Rob continued, "I've heard your name before, and I must say your mangaka didn't do you justice."

"Why, thank you! Which story are you from?"

"I'm one of the apartment managers. If I'm a character in a story, I don't know which one it is. And I just got here, fashionably late."

"Ah. In that case, you missed my sister-in-law's entrance; they just got home after meeting some of Whirlwind's new clients, but she stole the show." Megumi nodded toward the crowd that was still surrounding her family.

"I'm sure that they made an impression. Unlike me," he added quietly as absolutely nobody else rushed over to say hello to him. But he didn't expect that anybody would have.

"Maybe if you went and got a drink from the table over there, you might bump into somebody you know."

Rob could tell Megumi wasn't particularly interested in speaking with him. Diplomatically, he didn't mention that he'd already spoken with Peggy Schroeck. "That's a good idea; I'll do that. It was a pleasure meeting you, Ms. Morisato."

She gave him a thumbs-up and answered, "Ayyyy."

As Rob headed for the refreshments, he wondered what else he'd missed because he arrived late.

"You talk like we should stand in line,
Speak soft and never cross the line.
We learned too young to play that part
So now we wear our scars like art.

Your paper rules and plastic crowns
Mean nothing when the lights go down.
We built our sound from sleepless nights
And wired our names into the lights."^[22]

"I'm likin' these girls, too," Artie said as Akira laid down a fast, stylish lick that carried the song — a hard rock number heavy on the bass and sharp accents from the guitar that stepped right up to the edge of punk and stared down confrontationally into it. He ran his fingertip along the edge of his now-empty whiskey glass. "Think I might offer them a gig, too."

Attila was leaning back in his chair, nodding his head to the beat. "Yeah, they're good. I'd pay to see'em."

Linda glanced at Terpsichore. "Are they another of your projects?"

The muse laughed. "They're all my projects. Them, all the other bands here tonight, every little garage band anywhere in the world with any idea of vocal harmony... I keep an eye on them all."

"I'm surprised you have time to come to a party, then," Helen said with faint smirk. "You sound like a very busy woman."

Terpsichore grinned at her. "Anything to keep me off Olympus and out of Dad's sight."

"Raise your voice above the static haze!
Let every rooftop carry back the phrase!
We were never born to fade away unseen!
We are the fire deep within the machine!"

Rob had stopped by the bar, where he picked up both a ginger ale (he thought it was too early in the party to start getting drunk, and he didn't want to risk bringing cola anywhere near the next person who he wanted to meet) and the bartender's name (remembering to address Tom by name later was simple courtesy). Then he waited for a chance to make his way through the crowd surrounding the Norns... until the more traditional Japanese displacees politely made way for him. "I guess I really am getting old," he muttered as he took the opportunity to jump the queue rather than argue.

Once he was close enought to speak with the Megami, he bowed deeply to the goddesses and their escort. "Milady Urd, Milady Belldandy, Milord Morisato, it is an honour to finally make your acquaintance. And hello again, Milady Skuld."

"Please, Mr. Donaldson, call me Mrs. Morisato, or just Belldandy."

"Of course, just Belldandy."

"Hey! Treat my sister with..." Skuld finally realized that Rob had made a small joke. "Oh. I guess that's funny. What's with 'milady' and 'milord'?"

"He's using terms from Dumas."^[23] Urd turned from Skuld to Rob. "Aren't you?"

"Exactly. You are all worthy of my respect, but you are not Powers that I honour."

Keiichi put his hand behind his head. "I'm nothing special, really. You don't have to call me 'milord'."

"But you are special, Mr. Morisato. You've earned and won the love of a Goddess."

"That just means she's special, because she can fall in love with somebody like me." Belldandy smiled at Keiichi's answer.

The stagelights reflecting off the sheen of sweat on her face, Akira looked out over the applauding crowd with a broad smile. "Thank you, everyone," she said, wrapping her hands around the microphone and pulling it close to her mouth. "Well, that's almost it for us. Once more, we are OnNaGumi! But before we play our last song tonight, let me introduce the other members of the band: On drums, Ayame Yoshida!"

The bleach-blonde grinned her way through a short but energetic drum solo. As the applause briefly swelled, Akira looked back over her shoulder at her, and returned the grin. "Fear her high kick!" The drummer rolled her eyes.

Akira then gestured to her right. "And on bass, the irrepressible Sachi Hayashi!" The bassist barely glanced up at the audience before launching into a brief, noodling riff. Again, the applause grew heavier and louder for a moment, before Akira took the mic in both hands again. "And I'm Akira Wada. We've had a great time tonight, and we hope you have, too." She released the mic and took up her guitar again. "But we can't go without one more number, one that our landlord has decided is our signature song – 'Unbreakable'!"

Ayame hammered out a two-hit combo and Akira launched into an aggressive hook; Sachi's bass answered the guitar in spaced, thunderous hits until all three came together to drive deep into the song proper as Akira sang:

"I rise from the ashes, can't hold me down,
Fists clenched tight, I'll take back this town.
They tried to silence me, but I found my voice,
With fire in my veins, I've made my choice.

I'm unbreakable, I'm unstoppable,
Climbing higher, nothing's impossible.
Through the storm, I'll make my stand,
I'm taking my future, I'm in command!"

They were barely into the first chorus and the audience was already chanting along to the beat.

"Every setback's just fuel for my fight,
I'm turning the darkness into pure light.
They throw their doubts, but I wear them proud,
A warrior's heart, I'll shout it out loud!

I'm unbreakable, I'm unstoppable,
Climbing higher, nothing's impossible.
Through the storm, I'll make my stand,
I'm taking my future, I'm in command!"^[24]

"I'll break these chains, I'll tear down the walls,
With every heartbeat, I'll rise when I fall.
No more limits, I'll shatter the mold,
This fire inside me can't be controlled!"

Hi, readers. Ferris Bueller here, cleverly disguised as the Tenth Doctor. Great party, isn't it? I'd offer you a drink, but, well, you know. Those OnNaGumi girls really know how to rock, don't they? Kind of make me want to try to form my own band again. All I'd need would be a guitarist, a bassist, a drummer, maybe some backup singers...

Ah, I can think about that later. Right now, though, I'm busy enjoying the party. This is exactly the kind of thing I talk about, and I can't emphasize more: Every time life hands you a moment of joy and delight, you need to grab it with both hands and then live and love it for all it's worth. You know, seize the day. And not just seize it, but hold on tight and squeeze everything you can get out of it. You never know if or when you'll have another chance at it.

And this Halloween party? A once-in-a-lifetime, never-before-never-again thing that's simply begging to be experienced and appreciated to the fullest. So that's what I'm doing, and what I'm making sure Cameron and Sloane are doing, too.

Case in point, the couple who just joined us at our table – Marty McFly and Jennifer Parker. Yeah, from the Back to the Future movies. (Of course, only the first one came out before we were displaced, but we caught the other two since arriving in Refuge.) It's an opportunity we'd never have had in our home universe – and you know what? We're making the most of it. They're fun people to hang with. Sloane and Jennifer hit it off immediately, and if I'm not mistaken they're going to be new best friends. Marty, Cameron and me? Well, we're talking music and bands, and analyzing the groups who are playing the party.

We're having a great time.

Oh, hey, looks like the trick-or-treaters are back from their expedition into the wilds of New Jersey. And they seem to be queueing up for something... I'd keep my eyes open if I were you. Oh, hold on. You're going to have to wait – there's a chapter break coming.

You know what? Just kick back for the moment and enjoy the rest of OnNaGumi's last song tonight, and I'll see you when Chapter 5 comes out.

"I'm unbreakable, I'm unstoppable,
Climbing higher, nothing's impossible.
Through the storm, I'll make my stand,
I'm taking my future, I'm in command!

Unbreakable, hear my roar,
I'm rising up, I'm ready for war!
Nothing's gonna hold me back,
I'm on the attack, it's my time to act!
I'm unbreakable!"

RK: You'd better be careful how you phrase that. I think I saw a werewolf in the crowd.
Lyrics from "(I Don't Give a Damn About My) Bad Reputation" by Joan Jett and the Blackhearts, written by Joan Jett, Martin Kupersmith, Ritchie Cordell and Kenneth Benjamin Laguna, copyright © 1980 Jett Pack Music Inc.
Lyrics from "I Was Made For Lovin' You" by Kiss, written by Paul Stanley, Desmond Child, and Vini Poncia. Copyright © 1979 The Island Def Jam Music Group / Casablanca Record and Filmworks, Inc.
RK: "Curiousity killed the cat; satisfacton brought it back."
RMS: But if she eats and fasts, then it zeros out and she's still hungry... <rimshot> Thank you, thank you, I'm here all week. Try the lasagna.
Lyrics from "Konya wa Hurricane", music by Suzuki Kisaburō and lyrics by Aran Tomoko; originally copyright © 1987 Youmex/AIC/ARTMIC but now managed through successor labels under Universal Music Group.
Original English adaptation — not, strictly speaking, a literal translation — of "Fuwa Fuwa Time" by the KanriKyara Project team. Placed in the public domain for the use of other writers.
As reported by Azalynn dv'Ir Natashkan to Kaitlyn Hutchins in The Federation Lives Forever!: Supporting Documents, an Undocumented Features story.
Lyrics from "Blend-in!" by the KanriKyara Project team.
RMS: This is a bit of a meta-humor, for those who don't catch it — Mio's North American voice actress Cristina Vee posted YouTube videos of herself singing both the Swedish and English versions of "Caramelldansen". She did so a couple years after 2016, though, so no chance Yui or Azusa saw one of them.
Lyrics from "Caramelldansen (English Version)" by Caramella Girls, written by Jorge Vasconcelo and Juha Myllylä, copyright © 2001, 2008 EMI Blackwood Music Inc. o/b/o EMI Music Pub Scandinavia Ab and Universal Music-Mgb Songs o/b/o Remrec Songs/Remix Records.
Lyrics from "Witch Doctor" by David Seville; written by David Seville, copyright © 1958, Universal Music Publishing, Inc. Lyrics intentionally misspelled for effect.
RMS: As given in Rebuild of Evangelion.
RMS: Not even close to a canonical name, as Kaorin's mother has none.
RMS: Lyrics from "Mind Bender" by Stillwater, written by Buddy Buie and Rob Walker, copyright © 1977 Capricorn Records Inc. The device Yui's using is called a "talkbox", and involves her singing with a hose running into her mouth. Yeah, it looks as odd as it sounds.
Lyrics from "Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da" by the Beatles, written by John Lennon and Paul McCartney, copyright © 1968 Sony/ATV Music Publishing.
RMS: In particular, the "Immigrant Song" sequence was shot in Edison, only a few miles from Douglass Gardens. And most of the rest of the movie was filmed in the NJ/NY area.
Lyrics from "Glass Trigger", by the KanriKyara Project team.
Lyrics from "Velvet Riot", by the KanriKyara Project team.
Lyrics from "White Noise Parade" by the KanriKyara Project team.
Lyrics from "Iron Halo", by the KanriKyara Project team.
RK: Specifically, The Three Musketeers – the English noblewoman DeWinter is referred to as "Milady" by the French musketeers.
Lyrics from "Unbreakable", by the KanriKyara Project team.

If you didn't bother to read the footnotes, we just wanted to let you know that a couple of the original songs that appeared in this chapter can be downloaded from the project's Google Drive:

And there will be more in the next chapter!

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