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“Ok, I’m gonna head out!” Powder called out to the others as she stood at the front door to the last drop.
“Not without a hug from me first!” Vi said as she ran out from wherever she had been and wrapped Powder in a bear hug, lifting her into the air and spinning her around once before setting her back down.
“You and Little Man better have a good time out there Pow Pow!”
“We will! I promise!”
“And you’re sure that you don’t want me to go with you!”
“I’m not a baby anymore! We’ll be fine. You just go have fun at your ‘grown up’ party!” Powder said as she pressed her hands into her sister’s cheeks and smooshed them around.
“Ok ok!” Vi laughed as she brushed powders hands away from her.
“Ok, I don’t want to make little man wait too long, so I better get going.”
“Just be careful ok? Don’t go anywhere too shady!” Vi said, her voice losing a bit of joviality.
“I promise!” Powder said as she opened the door and began to step outside.
“Happy halloween!” Vi called out to her as she left.
“Happy Halloween!” Powder said as she waved goodbye before running off in the direction of Benzo’s shop, where Ekko would be waiting.
When she got there, she found him standing outside the store front, looking around a bit impatiently.
“Little man!” she called out as she ran over to him, stopping kind of awkwardly in front of him.
“Hey Powder! Happy Halloween!”
“Happy Halloween! You ready to have some fun?”
“Sure, are we doing offerings first though?”
“Unless you want to get eaten by the demon!”
“Ok ok, I just wanted to make sure you still wanted to since Vi isn’t going this year.”
“Heh If the demon tried to eat her she’d just punch it.”
“Definitely.” Ekko agreed as they began to make their way towards the offering hall.
“So, what are you offering this year?” Ekko whispered conspiratorially to Powder as they walked.
“I made something special this time!” Powder said as she pulled what looked to be a metal jack-o-lantern with glowing eyes and mouth, and held it out proudly for Ekko to see.
“Its a jack-o-lantern bomb!”
“That's so cool! Does it work?”
“I don’t know, I hope it does, but I can’t really test it.”
` “Oh yeah, I bet it does work though, you made it after all!”
“That usually means it won’t work though.”
“Don’t say that, you’re a genius!”
“Thanks Little man. What do you have for offering?”
“Oh, I don’t think mine is as cool as yours but here it is.” Ekko said as he pulled a key from his pocket and held it out to Powder.
“A key? What does it go to?”
“No idea, some girl dropped it outside of Benzo’s and ran off before I could give it back to her, but look! Doesn’t it kinda look like it's glowing a little?”
Powder leaned her head in closer and cupped her eyes around the key.
“Wait, you’re right it is glowing! That's so cool Ekko, are you sure you want to give it up?”
“Yeah, I don’t really have use for it, and maybe it’ll give me good luck.”
“I’m sure it will.”
The Offering Hall was little more than an abandoned and repurposed factory, but that didn’t stop huge crowds of younger members of the city from all over Zaun from gathering around the dilapidated building and slowly filing their way in. The tradition of the offerings to the demon who’s name had been long forgotten on Halloween was one of the oldest in Zaun, with some saying it dated back to the foundation of the two cities. The building consisted of a single large open space which was slowly filling up with zaunites who had been filling in around the edges of the space. In the center of the massive room was an absolutely massive metal bowl-like structure that was slowly filling up with trinkets and knick knacks that people from all across the city had thrown in as offerings for the demon. The two of them made their way through the crowd and deposited their offerings into the bowl before moving back into the crowd to make way for newcomers.
Eventually the flow of bodies entering the building came to a trickle and as impatient murmurs of the crowd became louder, a tall robed man rose from the crowd and stepped onto a podium near the bowl and a hush fell over the crowd.
“Welcome, all those gathered here on this glorious Hallow’s Eve, tonight we honor and appease the demon so that we may once again guarantee safety and prosperity for Zaun, and so without further ado..” The robed man said as he pulled a torch out of one of his sleeves, lit it, and threw it into the offering bowl, where it ignited the gasoline and kindling that had been placed in the bowl ahead of time and the entire thing went up in flames. As the bonfire raged, the crowd began to chant the ancient words of an unknown language that had been spoken during every offering since the beginning. The moment the fire began to die down there was a rush of commotion through the building as the members of the crowd began to quickly make for the exits, in a hurry to arrive at their planned festivities on time.
By the time the flames had finally burnt out completely the building was empty with the robed man being the last one out, locking the doors behind him. It was because of this that there was no one to see a long, metallic arm reach up from the shadows beneath the bowl’s rim and stick a clawed hand into the ashes and embers of the offering. Slowly and methodically, the hand rooted around in the ashes until it found what it was looking for and slowly extracted a key, one that seemed to glow in the pitch blackness of the room. Content with its prize, the arm retreated back down into the shadows and vanished from sight, not that anyone was looking.
Powder and Ekko eventually managed to shoulder their way out of the crowd as hundreds of young zaunites rushed out to go unleash minor mayhem onto the city for a night.
“So, what do you want to do now?” Ekko asked as they made it free from the crowd.
“Well, in the past every time we’ve gone trick or treating it's just all been treats, I was thinking how about we do the opposite this year, you with me?” Powder replied as a wicked grin played across her face.
“Of course, where do we start?”
“Oh I don’t know, somewhere shady probably.”
They both laughed as they walked off into the night, completely unaware of the figure of metal and burlap crouched on the rooftop above them, eyes trained upon them.
The pair of them spent most of the night mildly harassing enforcers and unsuspecting zaunites and then running off giggling before their victims could begin to give chase. Their adventures eventually led them to a less populated area of the city where they were walking down an empty street when powder suddenly spoke up.
“What was that? Powder asked.
“What was what?” Ekko Asked as he looked towards her to see her eyes fixed on a darkened alley to the side of the road.
“Hold on for a second Little man, I’m just gonna..” she trailed off as she stepped into the alley and disappeared behind the shadows and rubbish piles.
“Powder? Is everything ok? Powder?” Ekko called out, but there was no response from his blue haired friend. Ekko gulped, and then stepped into the alley after her. He had gotten about ten feet into the ally when he thought he heard a noise behind him. He turned to see what it was when suddenly;
“BOOO!” Powder shouted as she sprang from her hiding place, leaping towards him arms outstretched. Ekko let out a high pitched shriek and fell back onto his ass as Powder laughed at his plight.
“Oh my god I got you good Little man, you should have seen the look on your face!”
“That wasn’t very funny powder.” Ekko grumbled as he stood up and dusted himself off.
“C’mon stop being a baby.” She laughed as she helped him brush away the alley grime.
“Ya’ know, it's pretty late fer y’ kids to be ou’ here all on yer own.” A slurred voice came from the entrance to the alley, causing the pair to quickly turn to face the new speaker. The man was tall and had a rounded belly, and was slowly sauntering towards them.
“Ya’ never know what kind a’ monsters might be walkin’ round a night like this.”
the man said, stepping ever closer. Ekko shared a panicked look with Powder as he frantically looked to the dead end of the alley behind him and then back to the looming man in front of them, when suddenly the man let out a gunt and staggered forward as a long metal blade emerged from his chest. Blood spurted from the wound and spattered onto the ground as the man let out a gurgling scream and fell to the ground. As his body fell Ekko could see an emaciated figure standing behind him as it roughly pulled the scythe out of the man's body. The creature was a hideous sight, a body of twisted metal in the vague shape of limbs and draped in torn burlap, one arm ending in a massive claw that dragged on the ground, and that face was a mess of jagged metal teeth and glowing red eyes. For a moment it stood there looking at the corpse of the man it had just murdered, then it slowly turned its head up to look at the terrified children and opened its maw to speak.
“I seeeee youuuuu!” Its voice was just as horrifying as its visage, somehow growling, rasping and a high pitched whine at once. That awful sound filled Ekko’s veins with ice as he stared, frozen in place. Ekko wasn’t sure if he would have ever moved from that spot on his own, though he didn’t need to find out as he felt himself jerked out of place by a strong tug on his arm, and he saw Powder desperately trying to pull him farther away from the creature, her face contorted in panic, her mouth open but without a sound escaping it. As Powder continued to pull Ekko further back in the alley, the nightmarish scarecrow tilted its head at an angle before bursting forwards at a speed that shouldn’t have been possible and wrapped a hand around Powder and yanked her away from Ekko before slamming her onto the ground and leaning its face closer towards her.
Powder could feel her heart beating in her chest so hard it felt like it might break. Her vision began to pulse as those burning red eyes that held more evil and malice than she could have ever hoped to to imagine came closer to her face. Its mouth opened again and Powder was sure that it was going to eat her, but instead it began to speak again.
“It's all your fault! It's always all your fault!” It wailed. As it watched the fear and pain play across her face, it made what could almost be considered a smile as it raised the scythe into the air.
“No!!” Ekko's voice rang out through the alley as he grabbed a hold of the scythe’s handle and pulled with all of his strength, trying to keep that wicked blade from Powder, but the creature might as well have been a statue for all he was able to move it. The creature did stop however and turned to face Ekko, lifting its clawed hand from Powder’s chest. Ekko gulped as it stepped closer to him, but it didn’t attack him and instead lifted its claw towards its neck and delicately grasped at something hanging from a rope around its neck that Ekko hadn’t noticed before. As Ekko looked at it more closely, he could see that it was a key, the key he had thrown into the fire earlier that night.
“Thank yoouuu.” it said as it let out a horrible noise that sounded only vaguely like a giggle before its body blurred as it scrambled up the alley wall at a blinding speed, carrying the man’s body with it before disappearing over the edge of the rooftop. Ekko stared at the place it had disappeared for a moment before his attention was drawn to the girl on the ground below him; Powder was laying shivering on the ground where the creature had left her, eyes staring straight up without really seeing anything.
“Powder are you ok?! Did it hurt you?” Ekko asked as he knelt down beside her and put a hand on her shoulder. As soon as his hand touched her she let out a scream and scrambled away from him until she was pressed to the wall behind her back and panting heavily.
“Woah! It's just me Powder, the thing left. Its just me.” Ekko said as he squatted down to look at her at eye level. Slowly her panting began to slow down and Ekko risked slowly inching closer and closer to her. She had calmed down enough for Ekko to get close to her and so he sat down next to her, carefully avoiding touching her just in case the same outcome as the last happened.
“Are you hurt at all Powder?” Ekko tried asking again.
“A little bit, not really. It just… it just…” Powder began to speak but as she trailed off her breathing started getting heavier again and Ekko could tell she was slipping back into the panicked state she had been in just moments ago.
“Let's not talk about it! Lets talk about… something else.” Ekko suggested somewhat lamely.
“Ok.”
“Hey Powder?”
“Yeah?”
“Do you think I could hold your hand right now? It's definitely not like I’m scared or anything, I just-” before Ekko could finish his explanation, Powder’s hand had shot out and took a hold of his, her grip like a vice as she pulled him in closer to her. Ekko was surprised at first but quickly leaned into her and for a while they just stayed there in the comfort of each other. After a while Ekko began to to stand up, still holding tightly onto Powder’s hand.
“We should leave, it's getting cold and Vi’s gonna get worried about you if you stay out too much longer.” Ekko said as she got to her feet with his help.
“Yeah, let's go home.” she said with a squeeze of his hand, and so the two of them stepped over the bloodstains on the ground and left the alley and began to make their way home.
“Powder… Can I stay over with you and Vi tonight?” Ekko asked hesitantly. Powder didn’t say anything, but leaned into him again and nodded.
“Thank you.”
“No Little man, thank you.”
“For what?”
“Saving me.”
“Oh, I didn’t really do anything, I just-” Ekko began, but when he felt Powder start to tense up next to him he cut himself off.
“Well, um, you’re welcome?” he tried, and to his surprise he felt Powder relax into him more. They didn’t speak much the rest of the walk home, but they each held the others hand the entire way back, and even once they returned and explained what had happened to them to Vander, Vi, and the others it took a great deal of coaxing from them to separate the two long enough to get them ready for bed after their nightmare of a Halloween.