ID# 26130 and ID#13080
Slayer B.A.S. didn't wait for the vampires to reach her. She launched at one, leaping onto its back as she vaulted onto the roof of an ivy-covered mausoleum, and somersaulting into a crouched position. In one maneuver, she made it so that only a limited number of vampires could attack her at one time. One day, I hoped to be half the combatant she was.
I didn't have much time to appreciate Slayer B.A.S.'s tactics, though. Half-a-dozen vampires charged me as well. Their pointy fangs shone in the moonlight, a clear sign they wanted to make me their next meal. Thanks to some training of my own with Arcane Ace, I knew how best to fight many common supernatural threats. Werewolves didn't like silver. Undead didn't like sunlight or faith-imbued items. Vampires were vulnerable to wooden stakes and fire.
Fire wasn't in my repertoire, yet, but wood I could manage. I took the shape of the deadliest creature I could imagine to a vampire, thanks to the writing of J.R. Tolkein. My torso thickened, my skin became dense with thick layers of bark, and my arms became massive branches ending in sharp wooden stakes. I grew as nearly as tall as the oak trees surrounding me and kept the moss growth on top of my head for hair, instead of hanging from my chin like a beard.
Vampires, meet Ent.
I swiped at the closest vamp and skewered it on the tips of my sharpened fingers. It dusted like a puffball mushroom. The other vamps coming my way skidded to a stop, their eyes wide. They weren't the fiercer, more primitive-appearing vampires that were swarming Slayer B.A.S., but they bet they wished they were. I slapped my arms together in a twenty-foot area attack, trapping four of the vampires in my embrace, then forced wooden spikes out of my branches to pierce their chests.
Their howls as they turned to dust were grotesque, but strangely satisfying. I continued to fight the undead spawn that came at me, thinking they could break my limbs with ease. Being a living tree, not a dead one, they discovered I bent with their assault, but did not break. Not like they did when I swatted them one by one.
Slayer B.A.S. wasn't holding back either. She flipped and spun like she was performing a professionally choreographed ballet, but at the end of each of her lunges, an ancient vampire fell to pieces, their skulls bouncing off the stone roof and dropping to the ground as they also broke into ash. "Nice technique, Madam. Way to stick it too them."
"Thanks," I said, my voice much deeper and rumbly than I expected. One of the more impressive vampires leapt at her back. "Watch out!!"
"Got it," she said as she bent ever so slightly to one side, letting it fly past her and onto the ground in front of me. "Watch out for their leader. He's wearing an reaally old suit and a top hat."
I raised my arm and smashed down as hard as I could on the fallen vamp's back. He groaned in pain as I pulled back, not dead yet. I hit him again, this time with jagged spurs of wood jutting out from my created limbs. He evaporated into dry, dusty goodness. "What are they after?"
"Something the Spirit of Halloween told him was buried here. The spirit is kind of mad at me for messing up his Halloween fun this year after he possessed E.B." Slayer said after dual wielding two stakes and taking out a pair of vamps at the same time. "He didn't like that I figured out what he was up to."
"You too?" I asked. I'd encountered the Spirit of Halloween on a patrol Director Nova sent me on as well. "I tracked him to Salem and fought a bunch of pumpkins."
"Huh." Buffy shrugged just before kicking a vamp from the mausoleum roof. "I must have just missed you. I have to say, vamps are much easier to clean up after than those pumpkins."
A male figure with a tall Abe Lincoln stovetop hat rose up out of the pit of an open grave. "I've found it. The spirit didn't lie."
"I think we found your big bad," I pointed at the pale man as he climbed out of the hole. "Jump on. I'll do a fastball special with you."
"Oooh. Fun." Slayer B.A.S. hurled herself at my branches as I swung them near her, pulling her away from the throng of vampires that surrounded her. I did my best windup and sent her airborne at our foe.
"No. No. Not the Slayer," the man said as he stepped backwards, falling into the pit he just escaped.
The Slayer did an Olympic level handspring from where she landed and followed him into the earth. "Yes. Yes. It's the Slayer-," her arm raised up above ground level, stake in hand, and thrust back down in one swift motion, "- Sorry, I didn't catch your name."
The other vampires, hearing the cut of scream of their leader, took off in all directions. I swatted at several as they ran away, letting their dusty remains to be carried off by the light breeze.
Slayer B.A.S. hopped out of the open pit and looked down at her dress. "Fudge. I ripped my dress. I just bought it for a party at the Bronze, New Amsterdam."
"Did he get what he was after?" I asked as I reverted to my super-heroine form.
The Slayer raised up a black ticket that glowed with an unusual orange light. "Yeah. It's one of the invitations to a birthday bash for BADGE. I went to it earlier this year on a special patrol to collect an item for a gift for Director Nova."
"I've heard about it. I hadn't started being a hero until just afterward, but people have said it was a blast. Lots of fun and adventure." I reached out to take it, curious what an invitation to a party for Nova looked like. When my fingers touched it, I too started to glow. "Is it supposed to do that?"
The orange light grew, forming a ball of energy, that coalesced into the Spirit of Halloween.
You've found my treat, my little trick.Time to go, you may become a little sick.You were not there, so there you can now go. Time to repay a debt I do owe.The Mythics he favors and to parties they invite, now I send you to the party that night.Ruin his celebration, make him rue the day, make known the Spirit of Halloween's price to pay.No more will they ignore me, they shall pay my haunted fee,Share with Arx how he loses, his plans brought to naught,Remake the world, my lesson will then be taught!!
My hand started to sparkle and tingle, fading into a nothingness that crawled up my arm and enveloped my body. "What's happening? I feel so strange."
"Madam Marvelous. Hold on. I'll get ahold of BADGE," she shouted as I started to my time slip back to the day of BADGE's party aboard the BADGE space station.
Slayer B.A.S ran to the gate leading out of the graveyard. Eggie sat there waiting in Ecto 1 for me to return. Once she saw the Slayer running for the exit, she climbed out of the car. "Have you seen a woman in a blue and red costume. Maybe a snowy white owl or rhino? She went in there to help a woman in danger."
"Madam Marvelous. Yes. I saw her, but she's disappeared," Slayer B.A.S. called out. "We need to contact BADGE. We might be in for--"
I morphed out of the shape of one of the other tall trees standing near the edge of the graveyard. "No need. It's all OK."
"What?" Slayer B.A.S. said as she skidded to a halt. She looked over her shoulder and back at where she and I had been only moments ago. "Where did you go?"
"To the party. But I'm not some lackey of the Spirit of Halloween's. The magic must have sent me back because I wasn't there the first time. My presence wouldn't cause a paradox, I guess, so when you touched the ticket, the spell didn't activate," I said. I reached into the hole beneath where I had planted myself, removing several packages. "I kept to the background, didn't say anything to Arx or anyone else, and came back to this cemetery to waited for Halloween. Made myself into a tree so I wouldn't mess up any history by being in two places at once, you know. I did manage to get a bunch of party favors from the celebration, though. You were right, it was quite a bash."
And that's how I spent Halloween. Both times. Once fighting alongside Slayer B.A.S. against a bunch of vampires and then as a tree waiting for her to show up again.
How was your trick or treating?
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