Chapter Text
T'was the night of Halloween, and celebrations had gone into full swing!
Kids ran around their neighborhoods in costumes under the watch of their parents, knocking on every house that had it's lights on and basically yelling "trick or treat!"
As the hours rolled by in the night, most trick or treaters had retired to their homes to enjoy the fruits of their labor and possibly watch a scary movie.
For others however, the night had only just begun.
Several small groups of mobians were making their way down the stairs to the underground section of the restoration.
Among them was Tangle, sporting a hair extension that went down to her left shoulder, dyed to be yellow before fading into purple at the end.
Tangle's eyes, that were normally purple, had been covered by fashion contact lens, making them appear to have golden irises and yellow plus shaped pupils.
On the lemur's right ear, three clip on earrings in the shape of morray eel teeth were attached.
She wore a sleeveless yellow turtleneck crop top under a translucent yellow shawl.
The lemur had also put on extremely baggy off white pants with a tan belt around the waist, three intentional holes with light purple rims revealing black legging hiding underneath.
On the belt, a golden charm with purple tassels tied to it bounced up and down with every step.
Her hands were missing their signature fingerless gloves, instead being replaced with dye that faded from her natural light gray fur into magenta into a neon purple.
Tangle's shoes had been traded in for off white toe-less socks, with the toes also fading into purple.
Remembering something, Tangle turned to look at Whisper, who was right next to her.
Whisper's costume was similar to Tangle's, but different in obvious ways.
The wolf also wore a translucent shawl, except hers was an indigo blue. On the left side of the shawl was a silver charm, red tassels tied through the holes. Underneath the shawl, Whisper wore a sarashi chest wrap.
To contrast with Tangle's baggy pants, Whisper wore low cut black leggings that had two slashes on the right thigh, resembling shark gills.
In place of the military combat boots the wolf normally wore, there were black tabi-like ankle shoes with red wedge heels that made her be very careful with her steps, using Tangle for support.
Atop her head, a hachimaki headband rested on top of Whisper's biscotti fur which, while normally tied up in a ponytail, was freed from its restraints and styled to fully cover her left eye, fading from biscotti into a bright blue near the end.
To top it all off, Whisper also wore three clip on earrings on her right ear, only the ones she wore were designed to resemble shark teeth.
"Hey" Tangle started to get Whisper's attention, which worked as the wolf turned to face her. "If, at any point, everything gets to being too much for you, just let me know. Alright?"
The wolf gave a confident nod, bearing a smile that had the same certainty.
Tangle returned the smile and went back to watching the stairs, noticing they were on the last few steps now.
Reaching the bottom of the stairway, the two came to a pair of doors that were barely containing the celebration going on behind them.
Without any hesitation, Tangle and Whisper carelessly broke the seal to doors and let the absolute horrors be seen and heard in the form of almost all who worked on the restoration chatting and having a good time as the ghoulish tones of monster mash echoed throughout the vast expanse of room.
The wolf and lemur calmly strolled through the relatively open space as other party goers huddled into friend groups and hovering over confection tables, indulging themselves in the sweets as they spoke with their costumed companions.
As Tangle looked around at everyone, spotting Amy and Belle playing a Halloween themed game together, she felt herself get softly nudged on her right, turning to see Whisper pointing.
Following the canine's finger, she noticed two familiar faces in Jewel and Lanolin, talking to masked figure on the platform above the stores.
A smile on her face, Tangle took Whisper's and rushed towards and up the stairs to get to their friends.
"Hey girls!" Tangle called as she and her girlfriend made it to the top of the stairs, now able to take a closer look at their friend's costumes.
Lanolin was wearing a full military suit, several shades of black and grey, also wearing a full black bandana. The sheep gave a wave to the new arrivals as Jewel hurriedly fluttered over to them.
"Oh my chaos! I love your costume!" Tangle announced, hands to her cheeks.
The beetle looked very pale compared to normally and also appeared as though she was stitched together in several places, all presumably makeup.
In place of her usual attire, Jewel was wearing a ragged dress seeming to be made of several diverse fabrics all sewn together into one mass.
"Thanks! Yours too!" Jewel replied whilst pumping her fists in the air before reeling them back into her chest.
"So, Who's your friend?" Whisper questioned as she set her eyes on the mobian covered in detailed green armor with a yellow visor on the helmet.
The masked mobian raised it's gauntleted hands up to the helmet as a voice changer filtered their speech.
"I think the real question is..." They said before fully taking off their helmet to reveal the identity of who was underneath. "who are your friends?" Sally Acorn finished, hair pushed down by the helmet, as Nicole manifested beside her, blue in color and hair changed to resemble a bob cut.
Whisper stood in stunned silence while Tangle's upper half went slack, mouth agape staring at the clearly superior costume couple.
"How?" Tangle mustered up for the two of them and repeated several times, causing the other four to start laughing at the pair's reaction.
"If it's anything, director Jewel and I had a similar reaction when princess Sally and Nicole revealed themselves to us." Lanolin commented as she got her laughter under control.
Everyone else's hysterics ended shortly after with Sally wiping away a tear. "To answer your question, Tangle, I had this commissioned by some very talented people, it cost a lot of money, but was worth it. Especially because I can do this!"
As she finished that sentence, the chipmunk held out the arm that wasn't holding the helmet as one of her ring blades lit up from it in a blue flash.
"I see now why you chose to not have a costume contest." Tangle said, arms crossed with a mildly sarcastic smirk, eliciting a chuckle out of Sally and Jewel.
"Heh, yeah. But If I did, I would still have had competition." Sally replied, motioning over the guard rail out to the others at the party.
Walking over to the edge, Tangle and Whisper put their hands on the guard rail, Tangle using her tail for leverage to get a higher vantage point, and followed Sally's finger to a group of three surrounding a table of candy.
Shadow was furthest from the table, not wearing a costume of any kind and looking like he's constantly on the edge of just leaving.
Omega was near Shadow, wearing a steel mask over it's face amd wearing a fishnet pattern across their whole body. The machine also had a new shoulder mounted weapon and claws jutting out of their right forearm.
Next to the table, a beautiful silk gloved hand elegantly hovered over a candy bowl before diving into it with deadly precision like a hawk.
When the hand pulled back, a small chocolate, still in its wrapper, was trapped in between the hand's thumb and index finger, like helpless prey hiding in it's shell.
The hand brought the candy up the body, Tangle's eyes following to see an illustrious crimson coat with a white ruffled shirt, on top of which was a shining red gem locked away in a gold chain necklace.
The hand continued on, bringing it's victim up higher to the face of it's owner, fur white as snow and skin pale as the dead.
Eyes red as the bloodied moon stared down at the trapped treat, hunger and desire absolute in their gaze.
Catching it by surprise, a second gloved hand strikes out and also grabbed the candy, working with it's twin to strip it of it's protective shell.
Tossing the colored wrapping aside, the pair of hands ushered the now bare candy forward, bringing closer to the marvelous smile ahead, two pearly white fangs gleaming at it.
As teeth parted and the treat was brought under them, the jaws quickly came back down on the helpless candy, the force quickly becoming too much as the chocolate skin broke and tore, revealing the candy's caramel insides.
Tangle and Whisper both stared in stunned silence as Rouge put the other half of the caramel candy into her mouth, bringing her hands to her cheeks as she savored the flavor.
Now blushing, Tangle slowly leaned over to Whisper. "Whisper, you know I love you with all my being, but-"
"She is gorgeous." Whisper interrupted, blushing just as much as her partner.
"Oh good, we agree then " Tangle noted, pulling her head back.
The other four standing amused by Tangle and Whisper's reactions, Sally's face changed to one of seriousness.
"Before I forget to ask, did either of you see Sonic on the way here?" Sally asked the pair, them turning around to listen to the princess.
Both looked down in thought, Tangle bringing her hand to her mouth with the index finger covering her lips.
"Mmmno, I can't say I have." Tangle answered while shrugging. Whisper silently nodded alongside her.
Sally gave a face of displeasement, obviously not being the answer she was looking for.
"That's concerning." Sally told the two "I've been asking everyone if they have seen him, but no one has."
The princess thought it over for a few seconds before her face calmed and she shrugged with a smile. "Eh, knowing him, he'll probably pop in unannounced at some point."
"Yeah, that sounds like him." Tangle agreed, nodding her head before giving a wide grin. "Now, if we're done worrying about Mobius' greatest hero, there's a party to get to!"
"Oh! That reminds me!" Jewel announced before taking flight to Tangle's eye level. "Me, Lanolin and Sally tried some new Halloween pastries that a nearby bakery gave us, let's go get you two some! They got strawberry flavor!" Jewel informed, getting an excited "ooooohh!" out of her best friend.
The group of sox heard a horrified scream ring out over the mass of voices coming from party goers. It was strange, but not unnatural for a party of this kind.
Then they heard another scream that matched the previous. Then another, and another, and another in rapid succession. That wasn't normal.
The girls all turned and looked to see what the commotion was about. When they saw what it was, they all were surprised, Jewel in particular gasping loudly, before they all ran to the other side of the platform to get a closer look.
With confirmation they weren't seeing things, those who were freedom fighters narrowed their eyes before Tangle called out.
"Is that...a badnik?!"