With Friends Like These, All Hallow's Eve

I am ghooose! Simmie chirped in glee as shen darted all around the living room and kitchen, swathed in a bed sheet.

All in all, it had shaped up to be a good day, even if it was a Monday. Taylor had opted to stay home from school, both to spend more time with her Friends and to prepare for the coming evening. While the decorations had been all set up the week prior and their costumes had been finished and fitted that weekend, she still had a fair bit of work to do. But she had a lot of helping hands, claws and wings, so she wasn’t worried about it. A few chores and tasks to do before tonight, as well as some last minute prep work, such as the last batch of treats.

Speaking of. The timer on the stove began to ring, and Taylor stopped with her current task for a moment to slide on a pair of oven mitts to fetch the chocolate brownies from the oven. Said brownies now featured an intricate, wavy design, thanks to Simmie when she briefly became excitedly spastic with the piping bag of brownie mix that she’d separately mixed food coloring into.

Ghost! Declared her friend as she darted back into the kitchen. The pipe, now filled with icing, began to levitate as she floated over, grasping the implement in her hands.

“Could you be a little more careful this time Simmie? It took me a few minutes to wipe up all of the mix from earlier. Also, you might want to remove your costume first. Don’t want to get it stained, do you?”

Okay! Simmie chirped, shrugging off her costume. Simmie telekinetically wrapped it up before tucking it away into a pair of her wings. Then she got to work, applying the stylized designs that Taylor had chosen to the brownies with multicolored icing.

Taylor nodded. Satisfied that Simmie would be a bit more careful this time, she returned to her current task, making candied apples. With this she had help from Benny and Levi, the former keeping an ample and steady supply of freshly made caramel available in the large mixing bowl he was sitting in. As Taylor poured sugar into the bowl, Benny melted it, and as a result the entire house now smelled richly of the stuff. At the moment, Benny was literally up to his head in the viscous brown material, and utterly ecstatic about that fact.

Taylor had made sure to buy several colors of apple, red delicious, golden yellow, and especially her favorite, Granny Smith. To start with, she inserted into each one a wooden skewer to act as a handle. Then, she dipped the apple in caramel, making sure to carefully and evenly coat the entire surface with the rich brown goo before sending it off to Levi. At that moment, Levi was carefully painting intricate designs into an apple with food coloring, often using multiple colors on the same apple. The designs were mesmerising to look at, Taylor noted, and so far no two of the designs remotely resembled each other. The current one that Taylor held appeared to be some sort of fractal pattern, wrapping the surface of the apple in an intricate and repeating pattern of shapes.

Satisfied, Taylor placed it on a baking sheet to rest. You’re doing good work guys, keep it up,” she told Levi and Benny.

“Rggrhrf!” Snacks! Benny declared as he helped himself to a sticky handful of caramel.

Art, Levi stated. A glob of caramel floated out of the bowl, floating over to Levi where he too sampled it. Caramel seemed to be the rare snack that both of the brothers could enjoy, liquidy enough that Levi could manipulate and eat it easily, while not being too gooey that Benny made a gigantic mess while making an attempt. Well, a bigger mess than usual. At least for the moment it was contained in the bowl.

“Well guys, don’t eat too much of it,” Taylor chided them. You don't want to spoil your appetites for later. I’m making a chicken and vegetable bake for us.”

“Rawr!” Tasty snacks!

Taylor chuckled at that. Her friends had taken a liking to her cooking. She’d gotten a lot of practice as of late taking care of them. She’d been working her way through her mother’s cookbooks, starting with the more common ones like her favorite lasagna and working towards other, less frequent dishes. The chicken, rice and veggie dish that she’d settled on for tonight was one that she hoped they’d all like. After she was done with the apples, she would use the remaining caramel to make candies before moving onto dinner.

And then after that? Well, it was going to be an entertaining night.

--------

Kayden lowered the zipper on her sweater. It was unexpectedly warm this evening.

The forecast had claimed that it was going to be a chilly Halloween night, but par for the course for Brockton Bay, it turned out to not be the case. Theo had been insistent on going out for Halloween this year. But Kayden had been initially opposed to the idea. It was Brockton Bay after all, and going out after hours for any reason tended to be risky no matter the case. She had wanted to insist on staying close to Downtown, but Theo had instead wanted to visit the suburb near the docks further north. He claimed that they always had good candy and decorations.

The neighborhood that Theo had suggested was Empire turf, thankfully. But it was only nominally so, as such things tended to be where the borders of gang territories clashed. There, it brushed up against the ABB. Yes, things had been quiet as of late, as gang activities tended to wane in the winter months, but still it was better safe than sorry. Kayden had relented, but her conditions were that they would stay out no later than ten and Theo was to stay within her sight at all times, no matter what.

Things had been pleasant, so far at least. More than pleasant, even. Theo was proud of the costume he wore, a patriotic-themed and handmade ensemble modeled after some Earth Aleph superhero, complete with a star-studded shield. His father would probably scold him for being out tonight, but Kayden would prefer to let him have his fun, if only out of spite to that man. She had chosen to tag along with a predominantly white group of other moms, a couple of which also were pushing strollers like she was. Speaking of, Aster was asleep for the moment, the initial excitement of going out having worn her out. For the time being her daughter was peacefully asleep.

Now, their group came to a stop in front of one of the more richly decorated homes in the neighborhood. It sat on a corner lot, and both outward facing facades were appropriately decorated for the evening. While the house might have looked as equally run down as the rest of the houses around it, that night and that night alone, it only added to the experience. Wrapped all around the house was cotton cobwebbing, some even draped off of the edges of the roof. The yard was equally well decorated, with a variety of spookily-carved pumpkins and faux plastic skeletons lining the walkway to the front door.

“Well, this is a nice place Theo,” Kayden told her stepson. “Go along then.” Theo followed the rest of the gaggle of children to the front door, hoping that this home would have better candy than the last house. After all, if she was forced to come out tonight with Aster, her candy tax was going to be steep.

From the left side, from among the plastic, jack-o-lantern-lit tombstones, something floated out. Immediately she was on alert, her eyes on the ghost-shaped thing as it floated over to the approaching children. Whatever it was, it was dressed as a ghost, clad in what was clearly a tailored bed sheet. “Woooo~,” the ghost squeaked as it drifted over to the children. Their reactions were about what she expected from kids, even Theo. The ghost drifted over and around the kids, doing its best to scare them and failing with its squeaky woos.

From the right side of the walkway, something else emerged from amidst a pool of water ringed by large plastic rocks. It was clearly some sort of sea monster, wearing what was vaguely a representation of… something she couldn’t quite place. It took her a moment, but she recognized the homemade rubber costume as a mock-up of Cthulhu, complete with fake plastic bony wings and rubbery tentacles covering its mouth. The Lovecraft series was old, which meant that the owners of the home were certainly well read if that was the case. She herself hadn’t read them since she was a teenager still going through her goth emo phase.

Again, the gaggle of kids were ecstatic at the thing as it silently loomed over them. No, not merely loomed, the not-Cthulhu towered over the group. Hell, it towered over the adults and herself standing nearby. By her guess it had to be at least three meters tall. And now Kayden’s parahuman instincts began to scream at her, warning her of imminent danger.

Next came something from the porch. What looked like a pile of rocks suddenly became animated, standing up to greet the approaching kids. It seemed to roar and give a small wave with a stubby arm made of rocks. With a sinking, dawning realization, Kayden began to realize with eldritch horror just whose home she had stumbled across.

And then the front door opened, and it was all but confirmed. Standing there was what was presumably one of the homeowners, dressed down in an expertly well made costume of a witch that hugged and contoured her tall and thin frame. A mane of flowing, curly black hair cascaded down her back, reaching to her waist. It was the confidence that gave it away, more so than her appearance or costume.

The young woman standing in the doorway was none other than Tiamat. The Tiamat. The one that had capital-M Mastered the Endbringers, and had them at her beck and call. The newest member of the Guild, which now qualified as the strongest group of parahumans on the planet thanks to her. Kayden felt a bolt of panic at the realization that she had just sent her stepson into the literal belly of the beast, but the moment of panic passed and rationality took over once more. Tiamat was a hero after all, and had been spending much of her time dealing with S-Class threats around the world. And while she occasionally dealt with run of the mill villains, she wouldn’t break the Rules like that.

“Well now,” Tiamat the Witch said, looking down at the assortment of costumed kids walking up the steps of her home, “Who dares intrude upon a witch’s lair?”

“Trick or Treat!” the gaggle cheered in unison.

Tiamat laughed. “Treat it is.” She gestured, and over lumbered the not-Cthulhu, a giant jack-o-lantern bucket of treats clutched in one of its spindly clawed hands. From within it fetched handfuls of treats, depositing them into each of the kids’ own bags. It hadn’t been holding it a second ago, or maybe Kayden simply hadn’t noticed it?

“Woooo~” went the ghost, which startled Kayden as she realized it was floating right next to her. Kayden had pegged the giant sea monster to be the Leviathan, dolled up into the appearance of something slightly less threatening, and she presumed the rock golem creature to be the Behemoth. Which meant the bed sheet ghost was the Simurgh. With great trepidation she looked over at the innocent-looking nightmare, floating there with a tray held in its hands. A tray filled with goodie bags, the number of which equaled the number of adults in her little group. Tentatively Kayden took one, and the ghost gave a squeak of approval before floating over to the other moms there, handing out the remaining bags to them.

Kayden scrutinized the bag’s contents. Within was an old favorite of hers, a candied apple covered in thick caramel dyed orange and purple. There was also a large slice of a chocolate and frosted brownie, plus a handful of wrapped caramel dollops. Down in her stroller Aster had woken up, and she looked down to find her daughter contentedly nibbling on a caramel dollop. When the ghost had given Aster the treat, Kayden was unsure. She looked back toward the gaggle of kids and Theo, and they were on their way back with more of the hero cape’s homemade goodies.

Kayden smiled. Maybe Tiamat wasn't so bad.