"Soldier, what did you do to piss him off this time?" Sniper asked, as he hid behind one of the neon-sign laden walls, the silver bullets in his pocket jangling in an annoying way. He was feeling rather embarrassed that he'd been the only one to dress up so far this Halloween, but that was rapidly being eclipsed by burning rage towards the Soldier.

"Well, he came by my castle yesterday-" the Soldier began.

"You mean his old castle?" Sniper interrupted.

"Yeah, if you want to be all technical about it. He started waving around a piece of paper, and saying some mumbo-jumbo about inviting me to something. So I sent Lieutenant Bites after him."

"You mean that rabid raccoon that always clings to your pants?"

"If you mean rabid for WAR, then yes."

"And you didn't consider, oh, I don't know, LISTENING TO HIM!"

"What, and have him work his insidious magic to force me to do his every command? Are you crazy, Sniper? I'd almost think you were working on his side!"

Sniper cradled his head in one hand. "Wait a minute," he said, "Isn't he a ghost? How would a raccoon affect him at all?"

"Well he wasn't, but that paper sure was. Then he got all mad, and yelled something about 'Swearing vengeance…again,' and disappeared in a puff of that green smoke." Sniper sighed.

Around the corner, the magician was sending giant bombs flying everywhere: at the walls, and the floor, and even that weird barrier of Plexiglas that served as a roof, which the administrator said was to prevent their battles from causing any unnecessary damage. He really, really wished that just one Halloween they'd be able to fight without having some crazy supernatural thing happen. It was starting to get on his nerves, especially because while he was "prepared" for vampires (which had better not actually exist, or his sanity might get stretched even thinner than it already was), he was not, in fact, prepared for mad ghost wizards trying to blow up everything, or the demo's giant eye coming back to blow them all up, or the ghost of their employer's father chopping of all their heads. Really, if for once the supernatural thing that showed up wasn't trying to kill them, he'd be happy. But that would probably never happen with people like the Soldier around.

He peeked out from behind his wall and took a potshot at Merasmus, who was busy peering closely at the Bombinomicon and muttering to himself something about pronunciations.

"Aaaagh! Why, you little - Now I'll have to read this all over again. Like my eyestrain wasn't bad enough already."

The Sniper turned back to his teammates, save the Scout who was running around in a panic distracting Merasmus, and the spy, who'd gone off somewhere cloaked. "Alright guys, since Soldier's gotten us into this mess again, let's just give this all we got. I say on the count of three, we just charge out there and shoot him."

"Heavy like this plan," said the Heavy, while the Soldier nodded.

"Yeah, why no'," said the Demo, taking a swig from his bottle.

The Engie shrugged and picked up his sentry gun, while the Pyro clapped excitedly. The Medic grinned maniacally and prepared to flip the switch on his Ubercharge.

"Alright, on the count of three," Sniper said. "One, two –"

"CHHHHAAAAAAARRRRGGGGE," the Soldier screamed, running around the corner.

"Or we could just go now," the Sniper said, sighing. "I don't know why I bother, sometimes," he whispered to himself while everyone else ran out towards the control point, which Merasmus was currently standing on. The Spy appeared from nowhere and patted him on the shoulder. "There, there. At least you got them slightly organized! Not in a very strategic way, but still!"

"You're not helping, Spy." The Spy laughed and recloaked.

The sudden assault had taken Merasmus by surprise, so he didn't have much of a plan beyond simply throwing bombs everywhere and hoping that they would hit some of the team. One flew directly towards the Heavy, but the Medic Ubercharged him just in time, so he just kept firing, laughing. The Engineer's minisentry wasn't so lucky, and he had to resort to simply using his shotgun. The Pyro was blissfully oblivious of any danger from the bombs, and continued to stand near Merasmus and shoot their flamethrower at him. The Demo simply[OW1] spammed grenades at Merasmus, managing to drunkenly stumble his way around the bombs, while the Soldier simply rocket jumped around them, sending a few rockets towards Merasmus when he could. The Spy was nowhere to be seen. From his vantage point on the stairway leading up towards the control point, the Sniper took potshots at the wizard's head.

The wizard tsk'ed in irritation and, still looking at the Bombinomicon, began to swing his staff around wildly, hoping to hit someone randomly. The team backed off him as best they could and continued firing, eventually causing him to stagger and kneel down. "Now," Sniper shouted, and every team member, even the spy, began shooting, stabbing, punching, throwing everything they had (not literally, except in the Scout's case) at him.

Merasmus tried to cover his face with the Bombinomicon, grunting in pain and screaming out, "You fools! I'm a ghost, that doesn't hurt at al-owww stop that!" The beating continued, until suddenly Merasmus stood up, knocking all the team members back. "Ah ha! I've found it! Porta ad Aliud Planum Convocem!" Nothing happened. The team looked at each other and shrugged. "Uh…hold on, hold on, one moment…" Merasmus flipped through the Bombinomicon, eventually coming to rest on one page. "Porta ad aliud," he mumbled to himself, before his face lit up. "Oh right, right, sorry." He cleared his throat. "Now, prepare yourselves, fools! Porta ad Aliud Planum Convocem via Magnum Crepitus! I'd forgotten that last part, you see." As he spoke, an enormous bomb appeared right in front of where Merasmus was standing. The team's eyes widened.

"EVERYBODY RUN," the Sniper shouted, as soon as he'd recovered from the shock, but before he could take a step, the bomb imploded, which would have been a relief, had it not created a rather large swirling vortex, which began to pull everyone save Merasmus in. The Pyro was the first to get sucked in, since they'd been standing closest to the bomb. They didn't seem to mind, however, as they simply raised their hands over their head and let out a happy sounding "Mppppphhhhh" as they were pulled into the vortex.

Next was the Demoman who, in his drunken state, had tripped and fallen right next to the now growing portal, and simply yelled, "Bloody heeeeellllll" as he was pulled through.

Next went the Engie, whose Gunslinger unfortunately gripped the wooden pole he was holding too hard and shattered it. All he managed to get out was an "Ah, hell," before he vanished into the vortex.

Then the Heavy, who'd pushed the Medic behind him once the bomb had appeared, lost his grip on the cracks in the wall he was grabbing on to, and was pulled into the abyss. The Medic, who'd been relying on the Heavy's body to block the suction, was immediately pulled in afterwards, though he was looking at the vortex more with curiosity than fear.

The Spy, who'd wedged his knife into the mortar between some of the flagstones and held on for dear life, felt the blade begin to bend under the pressure, and was reaching for one of his spares when the blade snapped. As he flew into the vortex, he uttered a simple "Merde," and then was gone.

The Scout, who had gotten a bit farther away from the bomb than the others before it went off and managed to grab a hold of one of the railings blocking off the underground, let out a loud "Ha," and flipped off the Spy as he was sucked in. Unfortunately, taking a hand off the railing had loosened his grip to the point that he could no longer hold on against the suction, and he was sucked in, screaming the whole time.

That only left the Sniper and the Soldier, the Sniper was still hidden behind his bulletin board, while the Soldier had Rocket Jumped and grabbed hold of a street light, which was somehow holding its position against the force. As he heard the Scout go in, the Sniper realized that the only members of the team who hadn't been sucked in were him and the Soldier, and he really didn't want to be left alone with him and Merasmus. And even if they left, he'd still get chewed out by the Administrator for letting everyone else on the team get taken away by some mysterious force, and he didn't much like that idea either. He sighed, knowing he really only had one decent option. He stepped out from behind the billboard and was quickly swept into the vortex, mumbling, "Bloody stupid soldier."

Now the Soldier was the only member of the team that remained. He was shouting expletives at Merasmus. As Sniper was taken in, he yelled, "Dammit, men! What kind of soldiers can't even take a little bit of extreme g-force! You have all let me down!" He turned back to Merasmus, who was floating in front of him. "You may have taken them, but you'll never take me! I can hang here all day with the help of my American clinging skills! You'll never-" Merasmus rapped his staff on the soldier's hands, and he let go. "That's cheating Meraaaasmuuuuus," the soldier yelled as he fell into the vortex. "You were the worst r-" was all he managed to get out before entering the vortex completely, at which point the portal sealed itself.

"Yes, yes, the worst roommate, I know," Merasmus said. "That was far more trouble than I thought it'd be." He turned to his side, where a woman was floating next to him. "Still, it worked out in the end."

"You know, I could have sent them the invitations," she said.

"No, no. They were mine to invite," he said, smiling.

"Alright, alright." She waved a hand and a portal appeared. "Shall we," she asked, gesturing towards it.

"After you," he said, bowing to her. She smiled and put him in a headlock, then laughed and said, "Let's go together," and floated into the portal.

Unbeknownst to either of them, right before the portal closed, someone else walked into it silently. Then the portal vanished, leaving no evidence that anyone had ever been at Kong King.

In Gensokyou, Reimu Hakurei, shrine maiden, sat on one of the walkways of her shrine, having just made herself some tea. She poured it into one of the two ceramic cups by her side, making sure it didn't spill. There was no one else at the shrine to share tea with anymore, Suika having gone to visit her property in heaven, but she always brought out an extra cup just in case a visitor dropped by. There were many occasions where the cup had sat beside her, unused, until she went to go put them back on the shelf, but every so often Marisa would show up, or Sanae, or sometimes even someone from the village, and the teacup would fulfill its purpose. Today didn't seem to be one of those days. Letting out a pleased sigh, she brought the teacup up to her lips, and was about to take a sip, when a loud boom echoed across Gensokyou, nearly making her drop her cup. Looking up, she saw a tiny point in the sky, out of which nine shapes seemed to fall in different directions, scattering them throughout Gensokyou. Then the hole in the sky closed itself, and things were silent once again. Reimu put down her teacup, reached for the teapot, and began filling the other cup. When the cup was about halfway full, she heard the telltale sign of Yukari's gaps opening (or at least, the sound Reimu had forced Yukari to have them make after Yukari's unexpectedly showing up in her bathroom one too many times), and the sound of two shoes touching the wooden walkway behind her.

"Reimu," a voice from behind her said, panting. "There's been a problem-" the voice began, before Reimu turned around and held the newly filled cup out to the newcomer, Ran. "Oh, uh…thanks," Ran said, grabbing the cup. She took a sip. "Mm, that's nice," she said, relaxing somewhat. "Anyway, a hole was punched in the barrier just a little while ago, and we think some thing fell through. Yukari's upset, she has no idea how something could have broken the barrier, even for just a few minutes, so she went to check on the stability of the barrier, and sent me to warn you."

"Mmmhm," was all that Reimu said in response.

"Um, so," Ran began, a bit put off by the blasé response, "can we count on you to resolve this incident?"

Reimu took a sip of her tea, and was silent for a few moments, seemingly staring off into the sky. Then she turned back to Ran, smiled, and said "Nope."