This story is NOT part of the main story. It's a Halloween related special, split into multiple chapters. Updates will come during this month, so stay tuned. Also, tell me what you think about this! Enjoy!

Halloween Special Pt. 1

They had been sitting in the room for a while already. Stephanie was reading in a book she had dug up somewhere in the library, Jibril was using the tablet, which was still in her possession, and now also carried memories, aside from just a ton of books. Shiro was sitting in Jibril's lap, taking a liking to the place since recent days.

A sudden loud crashing sound shocked the three girls sitting in the room. A fraction of a second later, this was followed with a door slamming against the wall. Through the opening, a young boy dressed in a yellow shirt barged through. "Shiro, Jibril, Steph! Let's do something fun!"

"Like what, brother?" His little sister asked, not looking up from the screen that she was playing some kind of game on.

"Well, remember when we looked at the calendar here, and compared it to the one we used back there?"

"Yeah, to plan out the event timer on Avant Heim's appearance... What of it?"

"You know what day it will be tomorrow?" Sora said with a smirk, as all people in the room saw the gears in Shiro's head turning.

"HALLOWEEN!" She shouted, suddenly excited enough to even forget about her electronic device. Meanwhile, both Stephanie and Jibril were at a loss.

"Sora, I don't even have any gear here? How can I dress up for Halloween without the necessary gear?" Shiro said, looking worried. Halloween has always been her favourite time of the year. All of the games they played had super nice loot drops, or events in general.

"Don't worry sister, we have enough time on our hands still. Let's all get lunch, and then head into Elkia!" Sora said, extending a hand to pull up his little sister, before extending his other to his lover and dragging them both up. On the other side of the room, Stephanie sulked as she stood up on her own, yet forgot about this relatively quickly when she realised she would go shopping in just a moment.

Mere seconds after she was pulled up by her older brother, Shiro bolted out of the room, towards the room she used to share with her brother. In a way it still bothered her, his relationship with the Flügel. On the other side, it certainly did brighten him up. And that it gave her new options to tease Stephanie about till she finally figured it out was a nice side-effect.

As she rushed through her door she dove straight into her closet, pushing clothes aside as she did so. There, on the bottom below a pile of discarded clothes that would not fit her for several years to come, she found it. A small, non-electronic notebook. It was from their early days of playing computer games, back when they had dabbled in several smaller games. It also contained her memories of the first larger games they had played together, and the most wonderful event she had ever played through.

Shifting through the pages, she came across notes of almost every single aspect of that game. Bosses, Items, Quests, Loot, Races and Stats. Almost near the back, there was one last section: Events. Slowly turning the pages around, Shiro found what she was looking for.

"How To Create the Perfect Halloween Event"

Now, of course she could skip through most of the information about special dungeons and all that, but since they were bound to be shopping in a bit, there were some things in there that she could probably use. With it, she started making a shopping list.

Required gear:

Cat Ears (x2? 3?)
Red paint
Pumpkins (+cutting knife)
Candles, Red
Candles, Black
Candy, Halloween themed, or not…
Something to scare Steph with
Something to scare Jibril with
1700ish pamphlets.

And on and on she scribbled, making sure she would make this the perfect halloween.

With the free usage of a little bit of magic, Jibril had easily managed to 'convince' Stephanie to go somewhere else to prepare, leaving Sora and her all alone in the big room.

"So, Sora... What is Halloween?" She said, giving him a coquettish smile. His expression showed a small amount of shock first, then pity, then resignation.

"It's no surprise you never heard of this, and it's quite hard to explain. But I'll try." He walked towards the large door that was still open, beckoning Jibril to come with him as he walked through the castle.

"Back where we come from, Halloween is a very old pagan festival. It has his roots before the church, but turned into a festival to remember all the dead, saints and martyrs. Using all kinds of methods, people tried to scare the ghosts of the dead to their final resting place, giving them peace. It has since changed quite a bit, and is now a wholly different thing. Few people actually remember what it was originally meant to be, but it is still celebrated. People dress up in all different kind of dresses, and kids go around the streets or town to gather candy from everyone."

Jibril looked thoughtfully at him. "And you and Shiro did that? That contradicts with the shut-in image I have of both you and your sister."

Sora smiled and extended his hand to the winged girl, to then wrap it around hers as she took it.

"No, we did not, you're right about that. However, Halloween was inside quite a few of the games that we played as well, including the first large RPG we ever played. It is therefore that Shiro has such fond memories of the time, since she really enjoyed it. She probably rushed of so fast to create her shopping list, and it will probably be quite the list..."

"Is that what we're going to do as well then?" Jibril asked her boyfriend as she closed the distance between them a bit more.

Sora smirked. "Among other things, yes..."

A mischievous twinkle appeared in his Angel's eyes as she smirked back at him.

[Wanna see an outtakes of this? Doesn't matter if you do, I'll probably write it anyway.]

Stephanie was facing an imminent panic attack, at least that was how it felt. She had nothing to wear on her shopping date with Sora! Browsing through the first hundred pieces of wearable cloth had led to no significant results at all. Swiftly, she went to her seventh wardrobe, and started rummaging through all the clothes in here. While half her mind was focussed on the right piece of clothing, the other half was spent thinking up a plan to separate Sora and her from his sister and the Bitch, so that they could continue their date with just the two of them. Drawing up a mental map of Elkia, she started planning ahead. The Bitch had wings, so she would probably look for them from the air. Therefor, they needed to stay inside, preferably in a closed off area as well.

The moment of her finalizing her perfect master plan aligned with Stephanie deciding on a red dress that, while a bit cold in an autumn month, looked quite good on her, and would doubtlessly impress her king.

Shiro left her room completely hidden behind the large amount of empty shopping bags. While most bags only held more bags inside them, one was actually filled. Inside it was her shopping list, which was actually rather short with only it's one-hundred-seventeen centimeters. Peeking through two of the bags in front of her, she could barely see the way in front of her, yet still managed to reach the front gate of the castle with little problem. Dropping the bags, she sat down on a couch at the side of the hallway, waiting for the rest of her party to arrive.

It was fortunate that Steph wasn't there when Sora and Jibril entered the room, their appearances not flawless and clinging to each other. It didn't matter much that she was still so young, she still understood the implications and meaning of this. Now in the middle of the room, Jibril looked away from her brother and noticed the large pile of bags.

"What are all these bags?" She asked Sora, only to have Shiro answer her from behind the pile of said bags.

"Inventory Space. Otherwise we have to stop our raid halfway through..."

The Flügel nodded thoughtfully, rubbing her chin as she studied the pile. "I see..." Only to suddenly bright up enormously and, in a combination of jumping and flying, get on the other side of the pile, grasping Shiro by her shoulders. "Does this mean that we can shop more?"

Surprised, Shiro nodded once. In response, she was engulfed in a Flügel-hug, wings and all. "Shiro! I didn't know you liked shopping that much! You should have said so earlier... Oh, this is going to be so much fun!" She jumped up and down in excitement, and was still doing so as the previous heiress to Elkia's throne walked into the room. While the three of them were all dressed in relatively warmer clothes, Stephanie was dressed in a frilly red dress, which would have been a nice fit at a ball, but was ridiculously out of place when one would go shopping in the end of Autumn.

Releasing the little girl, Jibril took some time to gloat at the girl that had proclaimed herself a rival in a war she had lost before she even started. Who did she truly think she was? A spoiled child, winning someone's attention over a Flügel of all things? Had she acted before they had met her, Stephanie might have had a chance. Now, she was majorly outclassed, and joining the battlefield only when she had lost far before. True, not informing her of how hopeless her case was, might be a bit sadistic of her, but the arrogant princess could use a good dressing down. Even now, she was talking to her boyfriend, though every sentient creature would spot that he had been marked hers not ten minutes ago...

Deciding to cut it all off, she picked up most of the bags, dropped them in Sora's arms and walked out the gates together with Shiro, wondering what she would buy when in town. Sora had explained Halloween to her, and the dressing up part was something that she could clearly... entice him with. The tablet she had had provided her with... interesting pictures, and many good ideas for her own. She smirked again. Somehow, that tablet had given her a lot of good things.

The regular daily market was where they would start their shopping. There were three shops near the square that required a visit of the Queen of Immanity, and they sold the pumpkins on the market itself. She dragged Jibril with her into the "Tinker&Tinker" "for all your everyday things".

While she was not at all amused to be dragged away from Sora at first, it didn't take long before her inner 'shop-a-holic' spurred up, and she was browsing through the store to find as many of the items as listed on Shiro's list. It was quite a diverse list, ranging from pumpkins to something only described as "spooky stuff". With a shop owner that was browsing his backside storage for "Flickering Lights, preferably red." and "Flickering Lights, Any color.", he had asked Shiro for the reason of her sudden purchase, upon which Shiro had went on a ten minute ramble about the beauty and greatness of Halloween, while Jibril was taking other things on the list and the shop owner listened in close attention.

After that, the shop owner was a full and complete fan of Halloween, was already preparing a list of purchases of his own and had offered any and all assistance to his queen and her subject. It had surprised Jibril at first, since it was most often Sora that was the charming one that could get anything from everyone. That might have been more so for her, and maybe the shopkeeper looked at things differently, but Shiro really surprised Jibril. It was something that was definitely worthy of a discussion with Sora at some point.

She would definitely have to thank Shiro later, Stephanie Dola, Princess of Elkia and former heiress to the throne thought. She needed to do none of her seven plans, she could just walk away with Sora right now. Looking around, she spotted a small, dark restaurant. It would suit her interests just fine. "Come on Sora, we can go in there to-"

Noticing a distinct lack of Sora, she looked around, only to spot him again at a market stall, where he was seemingly bartering over some type of pumpkin. She walked over to them, only to notice that Sora was in a conversation with the farmer selling the pumpkins, speaking enthusiastically about this 'Halloween' thing his sister had come up with.

"Whoa! Are you serious? That means I can finally sell all those pumpkins I have lying around! Nobody ever buys them, but this would be a much better destination than food for the pigs 'n cows. You would honestly do me a huge service with this, my King! I will close my stall immediately, and go home to pick up all the pumpkins I have lying around. Thank you so much, my lord!" With that, he ran to the front of his stall, closed it and locked it tight before jumping on his cart and driving it towards the gate that led to most of the farmlands.

Before Stephanie could ask Sora what that was all about, the King had already walked on to another stall, which looked like a carpenter. Stephanie longingly looked back at the small restaurant once more, before just walking after Sora, studying the stalls around her as she went.

"- Come again? You need broken wood from me?"

"Yes, and wood that has an ominous sound to it when you step on it. Do you have that somewhere around here?"

She was already half through her list. Jibril was proving to be a huge help for her, and was also really into Halloween right now. Now, halfway through her list, she had only visited three shops. The next one was less of a shop, but would be quite important in making Halloween a successful event: the people of the newly activated Printing Press. As she and Jibril walked in, the presses were silent. The entire building was at rest, its staff lazing around near the back of the building, enjoying their lunch. One of them stood up as he noticed the visitors. He walked towards them with open arms, recognition briefly flashing through his eyes as he realised who were in front of him. Everyone knew the King and Queen nowadays, and Jibril had been an oddity that had been around for many years already.

"My Queen, miss Jibril. It's an honor to finally welcome you here. Please tell me what we can do for your Highness today?"

Jibril answered for the two of them: "The King and Queen are planning on hosting a large event relatively soon. They need you to produce at least seventeen hundred pamphlets, more if possible, in order to tell everyone about this. You think you can do that?"

"Of course we can, but…" The man looked between his two royal visitors. "What are we making the pamphlets for?"

It was here that Shiro took over, once again taking her conversation partner on a wonderful journey called Halloween-preperation.

Well... It's an update, sorta? It's part of a Halloween Special, together with 1 or 2 Outtakes, as well as 1 or 2 more chapters of this event. I don't have much of an excuse as to why there haven't been any updates to this in so long, aside from the thing called 'School', as well as that I've kinda written myself in a corner. So, until I'm out of there (the corner, not the school.) I can only offer you this.

There's some more exciting news as well. I'm doing NaNo this year, and plan to bring a world into fruition which I've been working on with several good friends over the summer. If I can, I'll keep you posted on that. If you do not know what it is, I recommend checking it out (google NaNoWriMo). If you're participating, hit me up, and I'll add you to a group of people I'm writing with.

For now, this is it. Stay tuned for the next chapter, and consider Reviewing and/or adding this story to your Fav's or Bookmarks