Work Text:
With one last blow of the hammer locking a nail into place in the dark wood, Judai took a step back and admired his handiwork. Rich autumn sunlight filtered down through the forest canopy to frame the construction effort and he wiped a bead of sweat from his brow.
"You actually managed to finish it?" Johan was doing his best to hold back a look of surprise as he got up from his shady spot under a nearby tree.
"Was there ever any doubt?" Judai smirked, hands planted on his hips.
"I mean, yeah, normally it takes weeks or months to build a haunted house attraction." Johan said. "You started this just after breakfast today. And I'm pretty certain that you took a nap halfway through."
Judai chuckled and nodded. "I needed it. I earned it."
"How long was the planning stage?"
"The what?"
The two of them stood in silence, basking in the sight of Judai's odd accomplishment.
Around ten feet tall and made with thin boards that had been painted black, the walls started to bow out towards the top, giving the whole thing an air of odd-angles and a looming presence. The whole structure snaked out with odd corridors, all colliding with one another to create a maze, culminating in a large set of double doors at the front. They looked almost professionally carved, too, with grotesque gargoyles leering out at eye level, a mess of fake webs strung between them. A shallow roof had been carved to look as though it were made of black tiles, with a hasty splash of red paint across it proudly proclaiming:
OSIRIS RED SPOOKY HOUSE
"So what's the plan now?" Johan asked.
"Now?" Judai looked at the non-existent watch on his wrist. "We're almost halfway through Halloween. Now I say we get into our costumes and go grab something to eat!"
Johan smiled, "I can definitely get behind that plan."
The two of them set out in the direction of civilisation, back towards the main buildings of the academy and, more importantly, the cafeteria.
"Where did you even got all the wood to make it?" Johan asked.
"Oh, you know, here and there. Completely coincidentally, by the way, we can't take the bridge to get back."
~
If the pair had been impressed by Judai's ghost house, the set up of the cafeteria was downright mind-blowing. Macabre decorations lined every available surface and window, bats and spiders and grinning skulls in every conceivable colour turning the entire area into an explosion of spooky festivities. Tome had absolutely outdone herself, especially if the seasonal menu was anything to go by.
"Ghosted Sandwiches. Jelly and I Scream. Spookghetti and Meatballs, Children of the Sweetcorn." Judai read through it all with a grin plastered over his face. He held the menu in two weighty gloved hands, sitting proudly in his Bubbleman costume. Across from him, Johan was dressed in what looked to be medieval peasant garb, with a pair of horns jutting out through his thick teal hair and a furred tail tucked into his jeans.
"I'm a -," he hesitated explaining to the blankly-staring Judai when they had met back up outside the cafeteria. "It's a... It's a thing from home. I'll explain later."
They eventually chose their lunches, Johan settling for a bowl of Tomb-ato Soup and Judai opting for a "Fried-Egg-The-Thirteenth" Sandwich. As expected, everything was presented with all the trimmings and decorations expected of the season, served up on plates and bowls of orange and black with ghoulish illustrations across them.
"So, when do we start?" Johan asked.
"As soon as we're done here, we head back to the Haunted House," Judai explained, "and inside, I've set up a little control room area. From there you can see into every room, track the people who come in and then BOOM-" He slammed a gloved hand down on the table. "Trigger all kinds of terrifying effects."
"Okay, sounds good. Like what?"
""You name it, I've put it in there. Spooky noises, puffs of air, bats on strings-"
"Wait, wait, hold on." Johan motioned for a time out. "How did you get all of that sorted in that short amount of time? And I swear you only took wood and a few nails with you."
"It wasn't easy." Judai winked, but said nothing further. He picked up his greasy looking sandwich and clumsily bit into it, attempting to fit his mouth around the whole thing.
"So we sit in this control room and press buttons to scare whoever comes in?"
"Ah, that's the best part!" Judai said, hot sauce staining the visor of his Bubbleman costume. "You press buttons and scare whoever comes in, I'll roam around corridors and scare them in person."
"As Elemental Hero Bubbleman?"
"Ye-" Judai suddenly looked very defensive. "No. Why? Isn't Bubbleman scary?"
"I mean," Johan shrugged, "he's not exactly what I picture when I think of scary Duel Monsters."
"But he's got a gun on his arm. Guns are scary!"
"The gun shoots bubbles."
"It sure does!" Judai grinned and pressed a button on his wrist, letting a torrent of suds and bubbles erupt from the tip of the arm cannon. Johan chuckled and nodded in appreciation.
"That's... Impressive. I just don't know if it'll necessarily frighten people, you know?"
"Maybe you're right." Judai thoughtfully chewed on a bubble-soaked chunk of sandwich. "I'll think of something, I'm sure."
The two sat in silence for a little longer, a particularly tinny version of The Monster Mash warbling through the old speakers. Johan looked across the plastic table and tutted, picking up a napkin and leaning over. He delicately dabbed at Judai's cheek, gently removing the slightest tint of red hot sauce from his skin.
Judai glanced down at the napkin, and his eyes widened.
"Johan, you're a genius!" He shouted, getting up so fast that his chair audibly screeched across the floor and collided with the table behind.
"I- What?"
"Sunset, head into the Haunted House, go straight to the control room. I'll meet you there. I've got the best costume idea ever." Judai turned on his heel and sprinted out of the cafeteria, vanishing into the distance, leaving Johan still there holding the stained napkin.
~
Sunset came and went, and Johan had sealed himself in the control room of the haunted house as instructed. He was surprised and bewildered by just how much work had gone into the area. A control panel covered in switches and buttons, set under a wall covered in monitors that showed night-vision stationery camera shots of the tight corridors. It was truly a technical marvel, and that just confused Johan even more. Where was any of this even plugged into? They were out in the woods beyond the Slifer Red dorm. There shouldn't have been anywhere to power this. And how did Judai even build such a-
His thoughts were interrupted by the sound of the front door opening, the creak echoing down the halls. His gaze flitted over the monitors until he spotted the one that overlooked the main entrance, expecting to see Judai making his appearance in his new costume. Instead there was a bright flash across the screen as the night-vision was struck by the beam of a flashlight and in walked the darkly garbed form of Jun Manjoume.
He was wearing his usual black coat, a few bandages here and there the only nod to Halloween spirit that he had elected to show. Johan heard his voice picked up on speakers in the control room, apparently Judai had even found time to wire microphones into this thing.
"Hey, Judai!" He called out. "I got your note, but if you think you're going to scare me with this pathetic construction, you've got another thing coming."
Johan cast his eyes over the buttons, finding a group bunched together labelled "entrance". He pressed down on one and watched as the entrance slammed shut, making Manjoume jump despite himself.
"You're going to have to do better than that." Manjoume announced, his voice cracking ever so slightly.
He progressed through the halls of the haunted house, watched the whole way by Johan in the control room, pressing buttons and flipping switches. Periodically they would trigger effects in the buildings, dropping plastic spiders onto the young duelist, letting a crudely painted ghost appear from a hole in a wall, sending out a ghastly (if poorly recorded) wail from hidden speakers. More than a few buttons had no effect at all and, when pressed, simply elicited a very loud buzzing sound overhead along with the noise of something mechanical breaking. Johan made a mental note of each such button, making sure never to go near them again. For his part, Manjoume seemed unimpressed, sighing at each event and occasionally muttering something in annoyance under his breath.
Finally Manjoume made his way to an area that Johan could find no corresponding buttons for. A wider area, with the camera affixed to the ceiling and looking straight down. Johan struggled to determine exactly where within the building the room was, but figured it had to be close to the control room based on Manjoume's route. Darkness coated one end of the room, not even the night-vision cameras able to penetrate the gloom. It was from those shadows that the newcomer appeared.
Manjoume stumbled back for a moment at first at the sight of it. A huge, long-limbed creature with its face and most of its extremities swathed in stained rags. It walked unsteadily, as though on stilts, pressing one hand to the wall to steady itself. Johan heard the dull thud as it did so against the wall to his left, and thought he could see the tell-tale glint of a zipper running along the back of the monster.
Manjoume had regained his composure, crossing his arms in front of his chest.
"Is that you in there, Judai?" He asked, sneering.
The creature responded by lifting one long, powerfully-built arm, hoisting up a rather realistic looking chainsaw and pointing it in Manjoume's direction. Johan arched his eyebrow at the monitor, Judai was perhaps taking things a little too far.
"Is that supposed to scare me?" Manjoume asked. "It doesn't even look r-"
The chainsaw whirred to life, sparks flying from the spinning metal blades. It let out an unearthly scream of grinding gears and steel as the monster hoisted it up. Manjoume was already halfway back down the corridors, sprinting so hard that he bumped into every corner and turning along the way. He practically knocked the front door down on his way out, hurling himself out into the night air and running in panic through the woods. The costumed chainsaw monster gave chase for a while, but Johan quickly lost sight of it, the cameras flickering just a little and showing an empty Haunted House attraction.
Johan walked to the control room door, opening it and stepping out into the corridor.
"Judai?" He called out.
"Over here!" Came the young man's voice from behind him. Johan smiled, sighed and turned to the direction of the voice.
"I think you might have gone a little overboard th-" He stopped. Judai was at the end of the corridor, smiling sheepishly and blushing. He was about halfway up the wall, his Bubbleman costume's cape caught in a secret door.
"I was hoping you'd come find me, I've been stuck here for ages!"
"But weren't you in that other costume?"
"What other costume? I'm Bubbleman, remember?"
"But you said you had the idea for the scariest costume ever."
"Yeah, look!" Judai excitedly motioned to his cheek. A generous helping of fake blood was spattered around his lips and a pair of plastic fangs was propped into his mouth. "I'm VAMPIRE Bubbleman now. Scary, right? Got Vampire powers and Elemental Hero powers."
Johan pulled on the secret door, loosening it enough for Judai to pull himself free and dust himself down.
"Did you manage to scare anyone yet?" Judai asked, "I thought I heard Thunder shouting earlier."
"I-" Johan trailed off, looking back down the corridor, "I thought that was you in the big weird costume. With the chainsaw."
"Chainsaw?" Judai looked confused. "I don't need a chainsaw, I've got a bubble gun."
Johan frowned. He still couldn't tell whether the other duellist was playing a trick on him. In the end, he sighed and rubbed his forehead.
"I think maybe we should leave." He eventually said.
"Yeah," Judai nodded, "I've worked up quite an appetite. Oh! We can had back to the cafeteria! Get ourselves a slice of Shock-olate cake."
Johan sighed again, and put his arm around Judai's shoulder.
"I like the sound of that." He said. "Happy Halloween."