Happy Halloween, Xenosaga!

"No."

"Yes."

"No."

"Yes."

"No!"

"Just do it, Tony!!"

"Damn you! Damn you all to Hell! And when you get there, damn you back to Earth then back to Hell again!"

"That's not going to save you."

"I hate you."

"I can't help it if I'm charming."

"... I loathe you."

"What the hell are you girls arguing about this time?"

With Matthews's appearance on the bridge, the navigator and the pilot suddenly became utterly silent. They hated those silences. They knew that they had just done something stupid, hadn't realized it, and were about to get punished in some sick, sadistic way. The way Matthews's jaw line twitched, his lips pulled into one thin line, and his eyes narrowed to the width of a fishing line. Hammer looked at Tony.

"I bequeath my stereo unto you, dearest of friends."

"What good is it if I die too, idiot?" Tony growled back, still guarding himself against what Hammer held in his hands.

"Shut-up, both of you morons!" Matthews's voice could have leveled a small city, and Hammer ducked quickly behind his chair in fear. Tony crossed his arms and assumed the same visage as his captain. Matthews stared him down.

"Listen, Captain, I think that we should get the holidays off," Tony said under his breath. The vein in Matthews's right temple began to bulge.

"Holidays? What freakin' holidays? It's the middle of October! What the hell kind of holiday do you morons wanna take in October?"

"Actually, it's the end of October, Captain," Hammer offered from his place behind the chair. Matthews grunted loudly, and Hammer shot back out of view. Tony glared in his direction, seemed to sum up all of his energy, puffing out his chest.

"Hammer would like-"

"WE WOULD LIKE!" Hammer shouted from his safe haven behind the chair.

"We would like to have tomorrow off sir, for..." Tony rolled his eyes, and gave a long exasperated sigh.

"Say it!" Hammer urged.

"You say it!" Tony whined, widening his mouth in agony.

"SAY IT!"

"We would like to have.... Halloween off, sir." Tony said in a quick, exhaling sentence. The word 'Halloween' hung in the air like a bad smell, and the look on Matthews's face only heightened the sense of it. Then, against all reasoning, Matthews laughed.

"Halloween ain't no holiday, ya morons. It's an excuse to get the kids outta yer hair and for them to get free candy." He stopped suddenly, and Hammer swore that he could almost see the old, tired hamster wheezing as it turned the wheel inside Matthews's brain. Thought after thought was compounding in the captain's brain, and he raised one eyebrow slowly. Minutes passed in silence as the man thought. Hammer was even brave enough to come out from behind his chair. The navigator looked from Tony, to Matthews, then back to Tony.

"I knew that you would do it someday," Hammer said lucidly.

"Do what?" Tony asked, distracted from his staring vigil with Captain Matthews.

"Kill the Captain," Hammer stated, clasping his hands behind his back and rocking back and forth on the balls of his feet.

"What the-?!" Tony blurted.

"Now the only question is where to stash the body. I won't cover for you if you get found out, Tony."

"I didn't kill nobody! The old geezer's just thinkin'!"

"It was a clever plot, I'll give you that. Who would have thought that thinking would have killed him?"

"Shut-up, Hammer!"

"You shut-up, Tony!"

"I've got it!!" Matthews's sudden return to the conscious world knocked both the navigator and the pilot to the ground in shock. "Ya morons convinced me, you can have Halloween off!" The two underlings looked at each other in disbelief, then back to their captain.

"You're not joking?" Hammer asked.

"Nope," Matthews reassured him.

"And you won't jerk the curtain back and there'll be hidden cameras all over the place, will there?" Tony asked, looking around himself nervously.

"... Where the hell did that come from?" Matthews asked, digging his eyebrows downward. Tony flinched.

"Nothing, sir. We'll just be going down to the Foundation now." Tony grabbed Hammer by the arm, jerked him bodily to his feet, and began charging out of the bridge like Hell Fire was on his heels.

"Oh, there's just one thing, guys," Matthews said just as they were in the doorway. Tony halted abruptly, causing Hammer to fall to the ground beside him. He turned slowly, afraid of what devilish scheme the captain had cooking up.

"Yes, sir?" His voice was resolute despite his fear.

"You morons gotta take Little Master trick-or-treating on the Foundation tomorrow."

---

"Get my best suit!"

"Yes, Little Master!"

"Cologne! Dive into Gaignun's private stash!"

"Yes, Little Master!"

"Corsage?"

"No, Little Master, that's a bit over the top!"

"... All right, no corsage." Jr. tossed the tiny fake flower over his shoulder and allowed the little blue-haired Realians to slip his black jacket over his shoulders. While two of them buttoned the cuffs and inserted cufflinks, another sprayed the little man's underarms and neck with the strong-smelling cologne. Another little Realian was dashing about his room in search of one thing or another. Mary and Shelley observed all of this with an air of confusion. Mary told the searching Realian where she could find Jr.'s favorite boots, while Shelley approached her superior.

"Little Master, may I ask what this is all about?" Shelley's voice was, as normal, monotone, but her lips were turned up in an amusing half-smile.

"All about?" He hopped down off of the stool and stomped up to Shelley. "Don't you two remember what tomorrow is?!"

"Yes, Little Master. But try not to say it too lou-"

"It's Halloween!!" Jr. shouted, not realizing that he had just committed a horrible mistake. Suddenly, Mary was at his side, and her mouth was moving faster than anyone had thought possible.

"I do declare, Halloween is my favorite time of the year 'sides Christmas, but Christmas isn't for a while yet, so I do have plenty o' time to be all hippity-doo about Halloween, an' me an' Shelley are goin' shoppin' t'night, we're gonna get ourselves our dainty li'l costumes, the cutest things you ever did see, Little Mastah, an' I'm sure that we'll win the costume contest this year, Little Mastah, me an' Shelley, we're goin' as a pair-" Mary was silenced with a spray of Gaignun's overly potent cologne, where, taking one whiff, she fell to the ground. Jr. nodded to the little Realian who had knocked her out.

"Thanks. If she'd talked for about five seconds longer, I would've stuffed that corsage up her-"

"You didn't answer my question, Little Master," Shelley interrupted. "Why are you so dressed up when Hallo-" She corrected herself quickly, looking at her incapacitated sister at her feet. "... all Hallows Eve is tomorrow night?"

"Tonight's the night we go shopping for the decorations, and I try to get in with the judge of the costume contest of the parade."

"Little Master," Shelley sighed, rolling her eyes, "every year you try to shmooze on the costume judge, and every year you do not even place tenth. I think it would be best to leave the judge to his own abilities and just appreciate the parade."

"Wait, did you say 'him'?" Jr.'s suave glances in the mirror at himself suddenly turned to stone.

"Yes. They replaced the last judge, Ms. Freeman, with a mal judge, Mr. Hauptbahnhof." Shelley stared as Jr.'s face grew pale and stony. He straightened his gaudy tie and cleared his throat.

"I guess I should still have that candlelight dinner I promised..."

---

"Is this one big enough?" MOMO held the large pumpkin in front of her; the force needed to pick it up almost throwing her off balance. Ziggy's arm halted her fall and took the pumpkin from her hands, staking it on top of a pile of four overly large pumpkins that he and Shion had already picked out.

"It's fine," he told her and he helped her to regain her balance. He looked over his shoulder to see chaos lifting a tiny little pumpkin into the full arms of Allen. "How are you two holding up back there?" He called over the pumpkin field. Allen nearly toppled over, his pile of at least twenty tiny pumpkins staggering dangerously.

"Perfect!" chaos called back, taking another fist-sized pumpkin from the ground. Shion appeared beside Ziggy, three head-sized pumpkins balanced in her arms.

"It's amazing!" she exclaimed, looking at the dome of the Kukai Foundation above them. "The Foundation has everything, from beaches to pumpkin patches."

"It has to be self-sustaining, Shion," Ziggy muttered as he took one of the largest pumpkins from Shion's arms and placed it amongst his own. She noticed this, of course, but did not say anything about it. Ziggy always managed to take the majority of the burden, claiming that he was 'distributing it evenly.'

"Shion," MOMO asked, tugging at the woman's sleeve, "are you and KOS-MOS going to be in the parade too?" Shion blushed.

"I think that I'm a little too old to go trick-or-treating, MOMO, but I'll come with you if you'd like." To Shion's surprise, MOMO's face contorted in horror.

"Too old for Halloween?" She stared hard at Shion, then looked away, her eyes wide in fright. "Will I be too old for Halloween someday?"

"Of course not," Ziggy said quickly, bending down to pick up the largest pumpkin they had seen all day. Shion furrowed her brows at the cyborg.

"Ziggy, I don't think that you should get-"

"Shion Uzuki?" A man suddenly stood before them in an absurd yellow bellhop uniform. MOMO covered her mouth to keep from laughing, and Shion screwed up her face to try and remain calm.

"That's me," she said as calmly as she could, the laughter bubbling in her stomach.

"Got a message from Master Gaignun to the Pumpkin Search Party." He looked at the three of them, then to Allen and chaos, who were working much too hard to balance the twenty-seventh tiny pumpkin on top of the stack. "That you lot?"

"That's us," Shion said, grabbing the holographic telegraph from the yellow bellhop. "What's this all about?" The bellhop suddenly acted as if he was offended.

"You daft, lady? Bellhops can't looks at holographic telegrams! Voice activated, they are! And this one's for Shion Uzuki, so I'll be leaving now!" The angry bellhop in yellow waddled away as quickly as his oversized uniform would let him, and as soon as he was out of hearing range, both of the ladies fell into hysterical laughter. Allen and chaos were suddenly beside them, craning their necks around Ziggy's pile of enormous pumpkins to get a look at the girls.

"Go on, Shion, open it. What does Master Gaignun want?" chaos asked with interest. Shion wiped the tears from her eyes and broke the wax seal on the envelope, revealing a platform to project the image from.

"Shion Uzuki," she stated clearly. Summarily, a hovering hologram of Gaignun's head appeared in front of them.

"To the Pumpkin Search Party," Gaignun started, "Please return to the Durandal as soon as possible and dump your load of pumpkins in my office. The Realians will know what to do with them. There are important things that must be discussed. Also, I am to inform you that the KOS-MOS android has been fully charged and is ready to function again. Gaignun Kukai, signing off." The image did not turn off, or even flicker. A huge grin spread over Gaignun's face. "I am sorry, but I have always wanted to say that." The image was gone.

---

AN: Ta-DAH! A new holiday story from The ShoelessOne. I can only hope that this one is as well recieved as Christmas, but I doubt it. That one rocked. Verilly. Anyway... Feedback, please! Hope everyone loves it as much as I already do!