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Barossa Zahgon glared down at his eighth little sister.
Barossa Gilda glared up at her nine thousandth, nine hundred and ninety-second older brother.
"Mother said no more going to Earth," he declared, in a tone that would have been solemn and responsible, if he hadn't so clearly only felt gleeful about getting to boss someone around.
"And since when did you care, o dear brother of mine?" Gilda replied, with a more pointed glare at the pile of weapons in his hands, which she knew full well had been gotten on an illicit trip out after curfew.
Of course, she also knew that he'd argue to his grave that he'd done no such thing. This particular brother of hers may have been a foolish boor, but he wasn't that dumb.
"Since I get in trouble when you do," Zahgon scoffed, hurriedly tossing his weapons into a locker that would be broken into within a week, at most. (He'd also break into at least three of their other siblings' own lockers, so it all evened out, in the end. Sort of.) "I'm the one who snuck us down there last time, so I'll get blamed again. No more Earth."
"It isn't even the same Earth! Mother didn't say anything about this one, so it's fine!" Gilda stomped her foot and whined, waving around her very important slip of paper as she added decisively: "Anyway, I have been invited! To an Earth party! Would you have me be as rude as to not go?!"
Too late, she realized that waving around the invitation had been a mistake – of course, her brother snatched it out of her hand in an instant, laughing as he held it above her reach long enough to read it. "Didn't realize you'd changed your name to 'Pigmon'. They even gonna let you in with that?"
Gilda, fuming, finally managed to jump high enough to snatch her invitation back. "It is in mine hand, is it not?! So, it is my invitation!" She said, turning around in a flounce towards the door, only pausing to make sure her Shaplay brooch was securely fastened on her dress. It was important to look one's best for a party. "I'm going! If you are very nice to me, I may consider bringing you back some of the traditional Earth party feast."
"Ooh, bring me back some of that 'boba' stuff and I won't tell Mother where you're going," Zahgon immediately pounced on the bait, laughing as though he were the winner of this confrontation.
Gilda hesitated slightly, but – unwilling to admit she had no idea, Earthly or otherwise, what he was talking about – she nodded confidently. "Tell her I am studying diligently, and I shall bring you two such 'boba'."
"Deal!"
The little Earth human stared down at the paper invitation, then up at the apparent-human who'd handed it over.
Barossa Gilda regarded the invitation as well, then smiled back at the host of the party.
"Your name is… Pigmon?" the human asked, eyes wide – her eyes wide; Gilda was confident in her ability to recognize human genders, unlike her mother. It was so easy – any time she found a human to be especially cute and loveable, it was a girl! Honestly, Mother.
Gilda nodded serenely, likewise confident in her ability to… smudge the truth, just a little. "My friends just call me Gilda. I was ever so delighted to receive a surprise party invitation!"
(It wasn't a lie. The nod could have just been done in politeness, not agreement, and anyway – if she'd had any friends, surely they would call her Gilda.)
"I told mom to double-check the address before she threw it in the collider…" the human mumbled, probably to herself but of course Gilda's ears couldn't help but overhear it. Anyway, the human's face lit up in a bright, adorable smile the very next second. "Well, whatever! The more the happier! Come on in – my name's Asahi, by the way! Minato Asahi!"
"You can call me Gilda," she replied without much thought, stepping into the party and looking around eagerly – so many sparkly decorations! Humans sure knew how to decorate. Oh, and those little hanging ghosts were so cute! Gilda's fingers twitched with the desire to steal, wondering if she could take just one and smuggle it back home with her –
– but, before she could plot too much, the human who'd let her in was bounding up beside her again. "Oh! If I can call you 'Gilda,' that means we're friends, right?" Asahi exclaimed, the smile on her cute face beaming as brightly as this Earth's sun, framed by beautiful wavy dark hair. Her orange and black dress was really pretty, too… Gilda's fingers twitched again. "Yay! Welcome to the party, Gilda! Happy Halloween!"
"H-Happy Halloween," Gilda parroted back without understanding, momentarily stunned. Quickly, though, she regained her composure, hiding a smug smile.
See, o dear brute of a brother? It works! An invitation in my hand is mine!
A group of girls, mostly human, stared down at a large washtub filled with green-dyed water, in which floated various small fruits.
Two of the girls, Asahi's friends, turned towards their friend with matching looks of concern.
(Those same looks had been focused on Gilda, not too long ago – but before she'd even had to do anything, the two had shrugged with wry smiles; "Well, she's less weird than some of the people who've turned up before…" Gilda had no idea how to take that, but she'd been relieved not to have to try and explain herself.)
"Are you sure this is a Halloween tradition?"
"Yeah, I've never heard of it."
Gilda switched from trying to look knowledgeable to nodding along with them, relieved that this was something she actually wasn't expected to know.
"Mr. Gai – he's the friend of my friend, I told you about him – said it's traditional!" Asahi protested, though even she was looking down at the bobbing fruits a little doubtfully now. "Though, he did say he couldn't remember what country it's from… Anyway, it'll be fun! C'mon, please?"
Asahi's friends – Erina and Nanaka, Asahi had introduced them as; both adorable, hence girls, though their costumes weren't as pretty as Asahi's – shared another look, and then grinned.
"Okay, fine, we'll try. As long as whoever wins gets a double serving of cake!" Erina said.
"And whoever loses has to pay for karaoke next week!" Nanaka added.
"How does one 'win'?" Gilda asked, eyeing the washtub of water with far more interest now.
"Um, whoever grabs a fruit with their mouth first, I guess– Eek, Gilda?!"
Gilda, with no further prompting, plunged her entire head into the washtub.
A few seconds and one hurriedly-readjusted brooch later, she popped back up, elegantly and victoriously transferring the snagged fruit into her hand. "A win for me! Yes?"
Asahi's friends hurried up with a towel, chattering like a pair of startled birds. "Oh my gosh, yeah I guess?… Wait, how'd you do that without getting your hair wet?!"
… Well, her hair wasn't especially real, was the answer there; it reset every time the brooch re-activated. But nobody here needed to know that, any more than they needed to know how much easier it was to catch something in a spiral vortex than a mouth. (Gilda assumed, anyway.)
"I'm very good at this 'bobbing' game," she declared confidently, instead. Once again, it wasn't a lie. Just… smudging the truth.
"I'll say!" It earned her adorable laughter and a little applause from Asahi, anyway, and so – in more than just the party game, Gilda considered herself to be the winner.
Two human boys, Asahi's brothers, stared down at the unexpected party guest with more than a little suspicion.
(They were… sort of cute, but not that cute, which was how Gilda knew before Asahi had even said anything that these were brothers, and not sisters. They'd probably at least look cuter in prince outfits, instead of the monster costumes they were wearing, but oh well.)
Barossa Gilda, confident in her brooch's disguise, stared up at them with her cutest smile.
"You really shouldn't just keep letting strangers into your parties, Asahi," the older one – Katsumi – said, completely unfazed; the younger one nodded, though he at least had the good grace to look a little charmed.
"Katsu-nii, Isa-nii, that's not fair! It's not Gilda's fault she got the invitation by mistake!" Asahi protested with a pout, wrapping an arm protectively around the Barossa-in-disguise's shoulders. (Gilda, very briefly, found herself wondering if it was possible for a beautiful princess to also be a guardian prince.) "Anyway, she's perfectly nice and not causing any trouble! And anyway anyway, at least she was on time! You guys are the ones who showed up late!"
The younger of the two brothers – Isami – laughed, holding out a bag from a pastry shop like a shield. "Okay, okay, sorry! Don't yell at me, I didn't say anything! We brought the cake like you asked, okay?"
"Oh!" Asahi's mood changed on a dime, letting go of Gilda to grab the cake instead. (To be fair, Gilda was also pretty excited by the idea of cake; she was owed two whole pieces, after all. She just hoped it didn't contain anything she'd dislike.) "Happy~! Thank you! You're my favorite brothers ever!"
"We're your only brothers," Isami laughed, ruffling his sister's hair mischievously.
Gilda's eyes, meanwhile, went wide, distracted from all thoughts of princesses or princes or cakes. "You only have two brothers?" Had something happened to the rest of them? Oh, dear, maybe she shouldn't have asked that –
Asahi blinked at her, seeming equally surprised. "I… isn't that a normal amount?" she asked, her voice quavering as she glanced towards her brothers for some kind of confirmation.
"Statistically, it's above Japan's average, I think," Isami said.
"Why, how many do you have?" Katsumi asked.
Gilda froze for a second, realizing she'd slipped up but unwilling to admit, even to herself, that she didn't know how many children was normal for an Earth matriarch to have. "Too many," she answered semi-honestly at last, with a pout that wasn't fake at all.
Asahi laughed, as did one of her brothers, while the other just looked tired.
Gilda decided to call this social interaction a win, too.
Barossa Gilda stared cautiously at the table of food.
The table of food couldn't stare back, but the various cute little human foods scattered across it sat innocently under her stare, uncaring.
Asahi, meanwhile, was busy talking to another late-arriving guest.
"Your brothers are staring at me again," that latest guest whispered to Asahi – Riku, Asahi had said his name was, a boy with a face so cute that Gilda had momentarily doubted her trick to perceiving human genders. He wasn't as cute as Asahi, though, so her trick was probably still working fine. Probably.
"Ugh, they're just being dumb," Asahi sighed, turning around to stick her tongue out at her brothers, who immediately ducked back behind a couch. "I figured it out recently – they're like this with every single boy. They think if they don't watch us, we'll spontaneously become married, or something."
"That's… that won't happen, right? That's not part of Halloween, right?" Riku asked, a note of panic suddenly entering his voice.
"Of course not!" Asahi laughed, right over the sound of Riku's sigh of relief.
Well, as much as it was a relief to know that Halloween (whatever that was) didn't involve spontaneous marriage…
Gilda, bored and tired of waiting for an appropriate break in the conversation, decided to simply make one. "There's not… tapioca, in any of these, is there?" she interjected to ask, her voice quivering a little fearfully.
Mother had sat her down, some years ago, to carefully warn her of various things in the universe that were best avoided, lest one risk some… untoward effects. Growing giant in the middle of an Earth party would be very untoward indeed, so she had been nervously trying to guess whether any of the food here was a hazard, to no success.
"Huh? Oh – are you allergic?" Riku asked, sounding sympathetic.
Gilda nodded. (Not lying, not lying, lying was rude to the humans of Earth; a nod didn't explicitly mean she was agreeing, it could just be polite…)
"Um, I'm pretty sure there's not any! Gosh, what's tapioca even used in, normally?" Asahi hurried to reassure her, before pausing with a contemplative frown. "I can't think of anything, really…"
Riku raised his hand energetically, all of a sudden, smiling cutely. "Oh, I know this one! It's in boba pearls!"
… Boba?
Gilda froze for a second, her shoulders starting to shake minutely as the infuriating realization struck. So that was what her brother had been after! He'd been trying to trick her into getting him some tapioca, so he could do some sort of mischief!
And he probably wasn't even going to invite her!
When she got back, she was going to stomp on all of his loot, see if she didn't!
… For now, though, summarily reassured, she loaded her plate with all sorts of Earth treats – and absolutely no boba whatsoever.
Barossa Zahgon stared smugly down at his eighth little sister.
Barossa Gilda glared up at her nine thousandth, nine hundred and ninety-second older brother.
The fact that they were still at the Earth Halloween Party was something of an issue, though luckily Gilda had managed to shove her brother behind a handy potted plant before anyone saw him or the portal he'd opened in the darkest corner of the room.
"Brother! What are you doing here?!" Gilda hissed, utterly outraged. He was always doing this! Just because Mother usually assigned him as her guardian, didn't mean he needed to haunt her every footstep –
"Just needed somewhere to lie low for a sec," Zahgon said, casually showing off some stupid weapon-or-other he'd stolen. Ugh. Boring. "Anyway, Mother's not gonna buy your cover story forever, so I thought I oughta remind you to get home already while I was at it."
"You can't lie low here!" Gilda hissed, choosing to ignore that last sentence. (She was having way too much fun to go home now.) "You'll scare the humans! You don't even have a disguise!"
If Zahgon had been wearing a disguise, he probably would have been rolling his eyes; as it was, he just scoffed at her. "Fine, gimme yours."
"What?! No!!" Gilda jerked back as Zahgon grabbed at her Shaplay brooch – rude! Tremendously, impossibly, unforgivably rude! She was a future matriarch, how dare he steal from her?!
"You said I needed a disguise!" Zahgon grabbed at the brooch again.
"Not mine! You are the worst brother ever!" Gilda whirled around and shoved an elbow into his stomach.
"Oh yeah?! Well you're the worst sister!"
The scuffle intensified, limbs flailing and ears getting tugged.
"How dare you!!"
The scuffle intensified still more –
"Gilda? Are you, um, okay…?"
– and then both Barossa siblings froze, at the sound of a concerned voice floating over from the main party.
Gilda hurriedly shoved her brother back into the corner more, then whirled around and stepped back out into view. "Yes! I am perfectly fine! Sorry, did I miss anything?"
For some reason, all the humans stared at her with blank expressions. To be fair, it was probably uncouth to hide behind a potted plant during a party, but still…
"Um, were you putting on a… costume…?" Erina was the first to speak up, asking her question very hesitantly.
Gilda blinked. What? A costume? What was she talking about –
And then, abruptly, another portal opened.
"ALIEN BAROSSA!!" The shout roared out from the portal ahead of its owner, and Gilda couldn't help but flinch. Oh no, what was this?! "I'm gonna stir up a black hole in your – uh. Oh. Hi, everybody…"
Everyone had whirled around to stare at the new arrival, who turned out to be – an Ultra?! Oh, no, not again…!
"Zero! You can't just burst in unannounced, you scared everybody!" Asahi was scolding the Ultra suddenly, in a truly impressive show of fearlessness – "But also, happy to see you! Thank you for not being giant and squishing my party!" – wait. Did Asahi know this Ultra? (And, more importantly, could she protect Gilda from whatever misunderstanding was going on here?)
The red-and-blue Ultra – Zero? Probably a guy, though Gilda had never found an Ultra to be cute, so for all she knew they didn't even have genders – anyway, he cleared his throat sheepishly. "S-Sorry, Gri– Asahi. Didn't realize the guy I was chasing had gone and run into your party," he said, clasping his hands apologetically – before straightening up and pointing one hand instead… directly at Gilda. "Speaking of which! Don't think you can escape me, Alien Barossa! You aren't fooling anyone by just putting on a dress, you know!"
"What?!" Gilda yelped – seriously, what was going on all of a sudden?! How could he even tell she was…
Wait.
Wait.
Her hands scrabbled uselessly at where her brooch was, or rather, where it had been… and no longer was. "No!!" she wailed, trying to cover her face – her face! Her real face! No no no, the worst! – with her arms, but it was even more useless than trying to find her brooch in the first place; she spun around on her heel, back towards her horrible traitor brother. "Nobody look at my ugly face, no! Zahgon, give me back my brooch right now!"
Unfortunately, her brother seemed even more loath to give it up than he usually was with stolen goods. Fortunately, she knew about fifty ways to come out ahead in any scrabble with her brothers. Unfortunately again, it still involved a raucous scuffle, and by the end of it… both Barossas were out in plain view.
"Aw, for crying out… You ruined my lying-low plan! Now we're both in trouble!" Zahgon grumbled, shooting his eighth sister a searing glare as he rolled back to his feet, stolen Ultra-loot in hand and whole body tense.
"I didn't do anything wrong! You're the one who stole my Shaplay brooch!" Gilda wailed, hurriedly re-affixing the brooch and tapping it active again with a sniffle. (Somewhere off to her left, for some reason, she heard Riku make a soft "oh!" noise, as if he'd suddenly figured something out.) "I'm never talking to you again!"
"O-kay, well, not really sure what's going on here, but…" the Ultra who'd chased her brother here cleared his throat again, before pointing dramatically once more – at Zahgon, this time. "Give my slugger back, or face justice, Alien Barossa!"
Wait, what had her brother stolen? Had he learned nothing from last time?! Stealing from Ultras never ended well! Gilda looked sharply over at her brother again to see… well, it just kind of looked like a random strip of metal? Familiar, though –
Oh.
Gilda turned to look at Zero again, and her fake face paled as she realized: that strip of metal had its match… on one side of the Ultra's head.
This stupid, boorish, idiotic brother of hers had stolen something right off an Ultra's head…!
"N-No way! It's mine now!"
… Really, the stupidest of all her brothers!!
The Ultra grinned, dropping into a combat stance as readily as if he'd only been waiting for that response. "Alright, justice it is!" Which would have been bad enough, but…
"This guy giving you problems, Zero?" A red Ultra was suddenly stepping up beside Zero, smiling calmly. Wait, where'd this one come from?!
"Good thing I figured out how we could be smaller a couple weeks ago, huh bro?" A blue Ultra stepped up along Zero's other side next, with a more mischievous grin. Seriously, were they multiplying or something?!
"R-Rem helped me figure out my Riser's size settings too, so… Need a hand?" And now there was a third one, this one silver and black and red with blue spiky eyes, and really, really, really, how many Ultras could suddenly be in one room?!
"Everybody, wait, no! Please don't fight at my party!" Asahi started to protest, just then, but –
– Gilda was already moving on impulse, jumping right in front of her stupid brother. "Wait, please don't!"
"Wh – I thought you were fighting with him?!" Zero yelled, throwing his arms into the air.
"Just because I'm never talking to him again doesn't mean he's not still my precious, only, nine thousandth, nine hundred and ninety-second older brother!" Gilda declared, fixing her most heart-wrenching, pathetic stare onto the exasperated-looking Ultras.
A brief, baffled silence met her declaration.
… Was it really that odd a thing to have said?
Well, it was in the name of survival anyway, so…
"Right, party's over," Zahgon muttered behind her at that point, before abruptly jumping around in front of her and throwing the Slugger back at its owner. "Fine, have your stupid thing back – I didn't want it anyway! C'mon, Gilda, time to go home!"
"Oh, must we?" Gilda sighed, but her brother was already signalling for Mother's ship to open a portal for them, and she stepped smartly but sadly into line behind her brother to leave. Behind her, she could hear Zero yelling, and the other Ultras were making confused noises, and the other party guests were starting to chatter, but…
"Wait!!" Everyone froze at the sudden shout, high-pitched and clear in an adorable voice.
Gilda turned – and automatically caught something small that Asahi had just tossed at her. A small piece of… candy? And, tied to it…
"An invitation! For you, this time!" Asahi called up to her, waving madly. "Come back next year, okay!"
"Asahi, no!" various voices shouted in dismay, and Zahgon scoffed in disdain as he dragged his sister out through the exit portal…
But Gilda clutched the invitation to her chest, her false face grinning wide, and waved until she couldn't see Asahi's matching grin anymore.
What a wonderful Halloween party after all – in spite of her brother's best attempts to ruin it. Next year, (whenever that was – for this, she'd tackle the complicated task of interdimensional timekeeping,) next year, she wasn't letting him show up. Next year, she was going to be even better at the bobbing game, and she'd eat even more cake, and she'd definitely steal more than just the one little ghost sitting in her pocket right now, and, and, and…!
… She couldn't wait until next year!