Serenity Trick, Serenity Treat - Chapter 1 (Patreon)

Happy Halloween, everyone!

Phew, it has been a month. A fun one - this is always the most interesting season in my line of work! (As long as you can dodge the various illnesses sweeping around, anyways.) As always I hope it's all going well for everyone out there.

But now it is time for the Serenity Halloween special! I don't know if I'll do many holiday stories for these girls - if I did, I don't think I'd have much room for anything else, knowing my schedule - but this time was a must. There's a few very special characters I've been wanting to introduce you all to.

(And if you'd like a look at one of them, here's some spectacular art of Clara Vale! Or, you may like to take a look at the Serenity Seasons enjoying the festivities to their fullest Here, though this might be spoilers!)

So, on with the show! Please let me know what you think of the story in the comments - feedback is the best part of writing. And otherwise: Enjoy!

-----

Serenity Spring took a breath as she stepped over the threshold. Dust kicked up around her feet, caught in the few beams of light penetrating through the boarded-up windows. Those beams were her only source of illumination, allowing her to see the rows and rows of rusted machines that were spread across the cracked stone floor. No one had been in this warehouse for a long, long time.

No one human, anyway.

The blonde’s eyes scanned the shadows, watching for any trace of movement. Nothing. Clear to advance. She was alone, but she knew her team wasn’t far away. They’d back her up if – when – things went south.

The Desire was in here somewhere. She didn’t know what it looked like, or what powers it had, but the location was a certainty. The Serenity Seal was up – it couldn’t escape. All they needed to do now was defeat it.

No problem. Spring had a plan. All she had to do was follow it through. And that meant stalking through this old, forgotten building. Alone.

It was a great plan. She was so, so proud she’d come up with it. Nooo regrets at all. Mm.

The sounds of a settling building tickled her ears and spiked her heartrate. Every clatter a hidden threat, every creak an incoming attack. Even the crunch of her own feet tracking through the dust was starting to make her jump. But she was calm. She was in control. She had a-

“Gyarh!”

Suddenly, a roar! From the shadows, a figure leaped, landing on top of one of the old metal machines, bellowing with all of her might.

The Desire had made herself known.

She was an intimidating specimen. Tall, even though they walked stooped over, and dressed in some kind of fur-toga that barely kept in her impressive (even for a Desire) chest. A pronounced brow poked out from  beneath a sea of messy brown hair, and you could see how sharp her incisors were every time she snarled.

“You in CaverElla territory!” The creature snarled, pointing a thick wooden club towards Spring. “Now you belong to her!”

Oh, seriously? This was the Desire? This was what she had to- Woah!

Spring dodged backwards just in time as CaverElla jumped at her, club swinging. It just barely missed her, the strike following around into a husk of a broken machine and shattering it to pieces.

“Strong!” The green Serenity gasped, grabbing her communicator. “Found the Desire! She’s here! Do it!”

The Desire roared again, dragging her club back from the wreckage she’d left (which glowed in her wake, before shifting from wrecked machine into a plain boulder formation). Eyes locked on Spring, she lifted her weapon up again, ready to go for the knock-out blow…

Only for the roof to crash down on her head instead.

“Fires of Justice, burning bright!” Serenity Magma’s voice rang out as she dropped down into the battle, her red hair flaring bright behind her like a curtain. “No Desire wins tonight!”

“Torrent of healing, have no fear!” Serenity Water’s cry joined her teammates as she followed her down, already summoning a swirling deluge over her head to bring down on her enemies. “Serenities of Hope are here!”

Ugh, those speeches. Who wrote this stuff? No, not the time to be worrying about that. They had to seal the deal.

“Great work!” Spring called. “Now keep her pinned while I charge up the-!”

“GRARGH!”

The pile of ceiling rubble exploded, blasting away the two Serenities standing on top of it. From beneath it, the Desire of devolution roared, smashing her way back onto the scene, shoving aside everything in her way as she charged out of the dust.

“CaverElla not some weak little cave mouse! She big! She strong! And You! You hers!”

The blonde Serenity’s eyes widened, taking a step backwards to retreat – but it was too late. The Desire towered over her, club already swinging – and Spring found herself far too close and too slow to dodge.

Bonk!

It bounced off her head – not hurting in the least, though the impact rang through her teeth. No, it just instantly transformed her short, neat haircut into long, tangled locks, knocking her glasses to the floor. And the wave of force continued down through her, rolling down her neck and into her body, where it forced her Serenity uniform to explode off of her, replacing it with a simple animal skin draped over her shoulders. Her chest swelled up as the ringing in her ears began to drown out her thoughts…

And as everything went dark, she saw her HP bar drop to zero…

-

“Can you tell me what you did wrong?” Morgan’s voice was waiting for her as she pulled off the VR helmet.

Lexi winced, even knowing it was coming. “Uh… Oh.” Her shoulders dropped. “My strategy was for an all-or-nothing attack, and it left us all exposed when it failed, didn’t it?

“Close.” The pink haired advisor nodded, giving a half shrug over where she sat at the main computer desk, pulling up a timeline and statistics from Lexi’s time in the simulation. “That’s definitely in there. I have a different critique, though.” She spun around in her chair, leaning over on the arm-rest as she looked directly at the blonde. “Why did you go in alone?”

Ah. Uh oh. “Well…” Lexi glanced away awkwardly. “We didn’t have good intel on where the Desire was or what they could do. I was the weakest of the team, so it made sense to use myself as bait to-”

“Wrong!” Surprisingly, though Morgan said the word, she wasn’t the loudest one to do so. No, that honour went to Sophia, who was stood next to the pink haired woman, and had politely been quietly watching the training exercise up until this point. “You’re never expendable, Lexi! Never ever.”

“Sophia.” Morgan looked up at the blue haired team leader, who had the grace to blush. “Please.”

“Sorry.”

“Mm.” The advisor swung her attention back to her main target. “Miss Locks, I appreciate you’re trying to think tactically, but self-sacrifice plays are not how we do things. Every Serenity lost to a Desire makes the Desire stronger, and makes the team weaker. I know you know this.”

She looked down. She did know that. She knew that very well. “I just thought… If the NPCs were quick enough…”

“That’s not the kind of thinking I want you relying on in the field,” Morgan said. “Train yourself out of it, quickly. I have enough trouble with that one already.” She nodded her head towards the fourth person present, sat over in the next room, visible through the wide door.

“I don’t do that shit anymore!” Rosa called back from the kitchen table. “And I’m reading your stupid text books! Lay off me, lady.”

A smirk tugged at the edge of the advisor’s lips. "You don't have anyone hired by the university to write your papers for you this time, kiddo."

The call back was immediate. "Screw you!"

Lexi and Sophia glanced at each other and shrugged. At this point, they had long given up on trying to work out those two. Sometimes it seemed like they were good friends, other times…

Honestly, Morgan was a mystery to both of them, even after all of this time. She’d disappeared without warning during the middle of a mission recently, only to return a few days later and get back to business without a word of explanation. She’d just said it was private business. It was more than a little concerning but even Rosa’s nettling hadn’t gotten more details out of her, so there wasn’t much to be done. The pink haired woman had insisted they get back to training, and so here they were.

“Now, Lexi…” Oh, and her attention had returned to the blonde who’d just flunked. Uh oh. “I’m going to ask you something, and I want you to think hard about your answer here, okay?”

“Um.” Lexi’s eyes flicked back to Sophia, who looked as unsure as she was, before going back to Morgan. “Sure? Okay. I’ll try.”

The advisor nodded. “Okay. Tell me: Why did you choose that plan?”

“Huh?” The blonde tilted her head. “Why did I-? I mean…”

“Think about it.” The rosette raised a hand to forestall her answer. “There were lots of ways you could have approached the situation. We picked your NPC teammates specifically because they had similar powers to your actual teammates. You should have been familiar with multiple approaches to your objective. Why did you choose the self-sacrifice route, instead of acting as support?”

Oh. Oh, well, that was easy. It wasn’t fun to talk about, but they all knew the truth of it. “Because I’m weak,” she said with a casual shrug. “I mean, no point lying about it, right? I know it, you know it, even the podcasters know it… There weren’t any plants around in the scenario, no one needed healing, so best thing I can do is be a distraction, give someone else an opportunity.”

“No, no, you’re not w-!”

“Sophia.” Morgan cut the team leader off again. “This is important. If your teammate is making a mistake, you have to correct what she’s actually doing, not just rush to make her feel better.” She glanced up at the blunette through the corner of her eye. “You need to learn this – I’m not always going to be around to help – but if you’re struggling, you can go and help Rosa study up instead.”

Sophia bit her lip, staring at the ground – but didn’t move. Lexi almost wished she had – she was probably about to get yelled at. She didn’t want her catching any strays.

But the advisor’s voice stayed level as she turned back to her. “Alexandria Locks, don’t try to bullshit me.” Oof, full name. She hated her full name. “You almost beat PaperPleaser on your own. You did beat MannerMaid on your own. Calling yourself weak is ridiculous, you’re obviously just as strong as your teammates.”

“But- But- I had plants for Manners! And I didn’t beat Papers. I- I mean, I tried that time, right?”

Uh oh. She- She hadn’t meant to say that – it just sort of tumbled off her tongue before she could stop herself. And by the flash in Morgan’s eyes, she could see the rosette had caught her.

“Exactly. That time, you tried. But I notice you only seem to do that when your teammates aren’t around for you to lean on. When you know there’s no one else to do it for you – Not a word, Sophia.”

This time Lexi couldn’t help the flinch. No one else to do it for her…? “N-no, that’s not… I know I’m a slacker, but I’m not…”

She couldn’t finish. And, worse, she didn’t have to.

“No. That’s not why you do it.”

Huh? The blonde looked up, confused.

“It’s not because you’re lazy, Lexi.” Morgan’s voice was gentle, but firm. “You’re a very diligent worker, as long as no one notices you’re doing it. Like all the social media accounts you manage for your friends.”

Urk. She knew about those? The blond glanced to Sophia, and saw only confusion. Oh no, she didn’t want her team to know she was doing that. That- That was-!

But Morgan wasn’t done. “As long as it’s not something someone can judge you for, you’re happy to give it all you’ve got. Because you’re not a slacker because you’re lazy, Lexi. You’re a slacker because you’re afraid of actually trying and failing. Of being seen as a failure, most of all.”

It had gone very, very quiet in Miss Morgan’s apartment.

“It doesn’t matter to you that the podcasts call you the weakest,” the woman continued. “Because you don’t want them to have expectations of you. You don’t want them to like you. If they did, you might let them down. And if you let them down, they might stop liking you, and it’s so much worse to lose something than to have never had it at all.” Her eyes flicked down to her wrist for a moment, before coming back up. “Right?”

… The blonde didn’t answer, looking away. This… This wasn’t…

“That’s why you do this. Insist you’re only good as bait, that you’re too weak to fight, even though we know that’s not true. Because as long as your friends think you’re useless, they won’t expect anything from you, and you don’t risk losing them by letting them down.”

“Miss Morgan.”

“Let me finish, Sophia. Look, Lexi, I’ve seen this before. You come from a home where nothing is-”

“Miss Morgan, enough.”

The blunette’s tone was serious – serious enough to actually get the advisor to pause. She turned around to face the team leader, her eyebrow raised in clear irritation.

“You… You have raised some points that Lexi needs to think about, maybe.” … Yeah. Yeah, maybe she did. “But that’s enough for one day. Especially for today.”

The pink haired advisor paused, giving Sophia a suspicious look, before pulling out her phone and checking the date. “Ah. Fuck. I thought that was next week.”

The blunette’s jaw dropped. “Wha- I- How do you lose track of Veilnight?”

Morgan gave an awkward half-shrug as she spun back to face her computer, shutting down the VR simulator. “Well, I lost a couple of days last- Never mind.” She shot the two of them a bright smile. “Anyway, I should get going. Got some stuff to sort out before sunset, all of that…”

Oh. Oh right. Lexi blanched at the thought of trying to get anything done today. Veilnight was one of the biggest holidays of the year, every shop was going to be closed, all the streets were going to be packed. Spooky season was in full swing, and everyone was going to be enjoying themselves far too much to get anything important done.

Well, everyone save the Serenities, of course. They weren’t going to be enjoying themselves – not if they could help it.

She started taking off the VR gear, Sophia quickly moving over to help (the blunette was clearly still feeling pretty protective of her), as Morgan shut the whole system down. By the time she was free from all the sensors and wires, the pink haired woman was slipping into her coat. She really was in a hurry, huh?

“Feel free to help yourselves to snacks or whatever’s in the kitchen, girls,” she was saying, “just remember to lock up when you leave. And make sure you give yourselves plenty of time to get home. I’ve heard Holi shows up earlier every year.”

“She really does!” Sophia laughed with her, waving her off as the rosette dashed off the door. Lexi laughed with her, but she was still distracted, of course. What Morgan had said…

“You don’t… really think I self-sabotage like that, do you?” She asked her leader as she got to her feet. It wasn’t something she wanted to believe about herself, but it was hard to get the idea out of her head.

What answer the blonde expected, she didn’t know. She should have seen the hug coming, though. Warm Sophia hugs were always a risk when she could sense you were feeling low.

“I think you struggle to believe in yourself,” the blunette said, holding her tight. “I don’t know if what Miss Morgan says is right, but I do know you have never, ever been useless on this team, and that no matter what happens, I will always be your friend.” She let up for a moment, but didn’t let go, just leaning back. “Do you want to talk about it?”

Lexi considered for a moment, then shook her head. “Not right now. I think I need to think it all over for a bit.”

Sophia nodded understandingly, giving her another squeeze, before letting her go. Together, the pair moved into the living dining room, where Rosa was staring blankly at an open text book, her notebook full of doodles next to her.

“Hey.” The brunette nodded to them, leaning back in her chair as they entered. “Was it as rough over there as it sounded?”

Lexi took a seat, snatching a soda can and shaking her head. “No, no. I know she’s trying to help. I just screwed up the simulation. That’s all.”

Taking a seat next to her, across from Rosa, Sophia shot her an uncertain look, but didn’t contradict her. Good. It just wasn’t something she wanted to talk about right now.

Rosa didn’t seem to notice, nodding as she went back to her books. “Hey, fair. Even Soph doesn’t pass all of them.”

“I… That one didn’t count!” The blunette had tripped on the tail of the naga-like Desire, and the NPCs had glitched through the floor trying to help her instead of continuing the fight, leaving her to get captured in the creature’s coils and defeated by her hypnotic gaze. “I keep telling Miss Morgan to update to Serenity Blitz 12, but she says she doesn’t have the budget…”

The blonde tried to hide her giggle in her soda, only half successful. It was always fun to see Sophia get defensive about her training record. She held herself to an insane standard, a much higher one than she used for either of her teammates. Lexi tried not to take that as proof of what her friend actually thought of her…

Meanwhile, the brunette of the group shared Lexi’s grin, before turning a page of ‘A History of Serenity, Volume 1’. “I’m surprised she just let you cut her off like that,” she said, trying not to sigh as she found a page full of very small text and empty of very big pictures. “It’s not like her to back off.”

The team leader snorted. “That was nothing to do with me. Consider it an early Veilnight treat.”

“Ha!” Rosa’s smile widened. “Oh right, yeah – that is tonight, isn’t it? Almost lost track with how long all the candy sales have been running…”

Lexi nodded. “Mm. Dentists all over the world will be celebrating in a few months.”

“Oof.” Sophia winced. “They really ought to try to make sugar-free candy more of a part of the tradition…”

“Yeah, that’s not happening.” Rosa rolled her eyes, before turning another page and finding even smaller text waiting for her. “Ugh… Heyyyy, Soph, can you help me out with all this…?”

She shot her leader a pleading look, only for her shoulders to droop when she saw the blunette’s expression.

“Miss Morgan said I wasn’t supposed to just summarise these for you anymore,” Sophia reminded her.

Of course, what Morgan had actually said was that Rosa had been given a free ride in her university, with people going so far as to take her exams for her, in exchange for being a sports star, and since she wasn’t a sports star anymore, no more free rides would be provided. Lexi had learned several new insults from Rosa on that day, and given how much time she spent on the internet, that was impressive.

The brunette clasped her hands. “Pleeeease. No, I mean, look, I’m trying to learn, I always tried to read the reports they wrote for my classes, but this is just too much! She wants me to learn world history here!”

Sophia gave her a sympathetic look, but still shook her head. “Sorry – the most I can do is read it with you. It’s only a chapter or two, though, right? It shouldn’t take us long.”

Rosa groaned, but nodded. She knew she wasn’t going to get a better deal today. Wordlessly, she passed a copy of her tome over to the blunette – and then, a moment later, one to Lexi as the blonde gestured to include her. Together, they cracked open the books to Rosa’s page – the middle of a chapter about early Serenity groups back in the feudal era. Lexi had always found stories from back then, back when there’d been no world unity, no Foundation, to be fascinating. The world had come close to the brink so many times…

But even she had to admit, this text was written so boringly that it sucked everything interesting out of the narrative. It wasn’t long before the Seasons were all getting a bit distracted.

It was, surprisingly, Sophia who broke the silence, looking across the table to ask Rosa a question.

“Was it really like that in the, you know, the sports world? I never really understood any of that stuff.”

The team jock raised an eyebrow. “Really? I thought you did sports at uni. Aren’t you on the fencing team?”

“Well, yeah.” Sophia half-shrugged. “That’s not sports, though. That’s… Y’know. Training.”

Of course that was how she thought of it. There wasn’t much in Sophia’s life that didn’t revolve around being a Serenity. Honestly, Lexi wasn’t sure what her friend did for fun when she wasn’t hanging out with them – but she suspected it was just throwing herself into Serenity Blitz 13. The day the blunette qualified to join the Foundation must have been the happiest day of her life.

Rosa snorted. “If you treat fencing like training to fight a Desire, then I’m surprised you don’t get your ass kicked more often, Soph.”

That got a laugh. “Okay, it’s not quite the same. It keeps a sword in my hand, though. Helps me keep everything fresh. Is it like that for you?”

“Oh god no.” The brunette shook her head. “If I tried to use my volleyball moves on Desires, I’m pretty sure they’d be too busy laughing at me to take me out of the fight.”

That got a round of giggles from the table.

But Sophia then tilted her head. “What about- What was the other sport you used to play?”

Rosa’s pen paused, mid-doodle, before resuming. “What, Strikeshot? … Yeah, I mean, some of that’s more useful. It’s a much more physical game.”

Lexi bit her lip. This was dangerous ground. Rosa didn’t talk about her past very much – just said she’d moved in from out of town recently, and that was it. After a few comments from Morgan, the blonde had looked her up, and found-

- Well, she’d found out just enough to see why Rosa didn’t want to talk about this stuff anymore, before she’d closed the search engine down. It felt like violating her teammate’s trust to go digging into that without her permission. The fact that the brunette had once been a major upcoming sports star, only to lose it all to a Desire attack… Of course that was going to be hard to talk about.

Which was why this was dangerous ground. She could tell what Sophia was doing, of course. The team leader was trying to encourage Rosa to talk about her past gently, to get her to open up to them. Which was a nice idea in theory, but if she wasn’t careful, she might really-

“Maybe you could teach us how to play some time!”

Oh god. Oh good god in heaven, Sophia, what are you doing?

Rosa stared at her hopeful friend with wide eyes, the archetypical deer in the headlights. For a moment, everything was still. Lexi’s heart hammered, trying to guess how the brunette might answer. Would she get angry? Storm off?

But in the end, she surprised her.

“Uh. Not Strikeshot – I don’t play that anymore,” Rosa said, carefully, doodle pen rolling between her fingers. “But, um. I mean, if you want to get into sports stuff, I could introduce you to my volleyball clu-”

And at just that moment, her phone beeped.

The tension in the room deflated as the brunette pulled it out to check her messages. “Oh, hey, speak of the devil. My captain just sent a reminder to tell me not to be late for the party tonight. Did you guys want to come? My team’s pretty cool.”

It was a sweet invitation – definitely far, far better than how Lexi had feared she’d react to Sophia’s prodding. And normally, she would have been happy to accept! (Well, kinda. Parties weren’t really her thing, but she could do it for a friend…)

However, there was a problem. One that she realised, looking between her teammates, that Sophia understood completely – while Rosa didn’t have a clue.

“Party?” The blunette croaked, having gone as white as a sheet. “Tonight?”

“Yeah.” The jock nodded, looking between her friends and getting slightly creeped out by their reactions. No surprise there – her sister Serenities looked like they’d just swallowed a frog each. “Veilnight party. It’s a stupid holiday, but it’s an excuse for some fun, at least. What’s wrong? Don’t we have tonight off?”

Lexi could feel the blunette having a heart attack right next to her, so she opened her mouth to reply instead – but before she could, there was a loud crack in the air above them, and a roll of thunder that seemed to spread through the foundation of the building itself. Tea cups rattled. Chairs shook. Lexi’s soda can toppled over and spilled.

Then it subsided. But the damage was done.

“What the hell was-?” Rosa tried to ask, voice loud and confused – but she was cut off completely and immediately.

“Car!” Sophia was pushing up from the table, going so fast she nearly knocked the entire thing over. “Get to the car, right now. Move!”

-

Rosa was confused.

To be fair, she’d spent the past few hours confused. She didn’t get why training to be a proper Serenity involved so much reading. What did history have to do with fighting Desires? Why did she have to know ancient mythology and lunar cycles in order to punch monsters in the face? It made no sense. When she’d been a Striker, she hadn’t had to know when the stadium was built to play in it, did she?

But this was a new confusion. Her friends were acting weird. Seriously weird – and weirdly serious. Sophia had grabbed her hand in Morgan’s apartment, and hadn’t let go until she was almost literally throwing her into her car, with Lexi barrelling into the back seat not long after.

“H-hey, wait my bike-!”

“You can collect it tomorrow!” The door slammed behind her, and a moment later the blunette was throwing herself into the driver’s seat.

Sophia’s car wasn’t exactly the most stylish kind of transport. It was a couple of years old at this point, and had never been a particularly impressive brand. A compact sedan, with plenty of room in the back for up to three people if they shoved a bit – and it was, naturally, blue. Very carefully maintained. The blunette took very good care of it.

You wouldn’t have thought so from the way she was currently driving it. Tires were not supposed to screech like that.

“What the hell, guys?” Rosa finally managed to get her seatbelt on and rubbed at her wrist. “What’s going on?”

“You upset her.” Sophia grunted as she changed gears.

Her? Lexi hadn’t looked upset. “Upset who?”

“HoliDaze.”

Rosa blinked, checking over her shoulder. Lexi was fiddling with her fingers, looking more nervous than she’d ever seen her – and she’d seen the blonde face down full-on Desires knowing that she was going to lose…

“Holi- The holiday Desire?” The brunette blinked. That was the old story – and it was an old one. Her mother had told it to her and- H-had told it to her years and years ago. HoliDaze, the spirit of the holiday. She who ensured every festival and celebration was as merry as it could be. Rosa’s brow furrowed with disbelief. “What are you talking about? She’s not real.”

This was playground level stuff. Kids debated whether or not she actually existed, or if the presents left under the Christmas tree were the work of their parents. After all, not even a Desire could visit every house in the world in one night, right? And why would a Desire the one who left all those chocolate eggs all over the place during Springwake?

It was one of those big markers of adulthood, when you realised that Holi wasn’t real. Desires were monsters, everyone knew that. She was a myth, a bad joke adults played on children to amuse themselves. That was all.

Only, Lexi didn’t look like she was joking. Nor did Sophia. In fact, the blunette was staring at Rosa like she’d grown a second head.

“Of course she’s real,” she almost whispered. “Who do you think- Woah!” Her attention snapped back to the road as her car began to swerve. “Lexi! Please!”

The blonde took up her leader’s torch, leaning between the front seats from behind. “She’s absolutely real, Rosa. Where did you think those presents came from?”

“Uh. W-well, from my mom?” Rosa’s mother had always played coy that kind of thing. As a teen, the brunette had always kind of hoped they’d been sent by her dad, the one she’d never actually known, but she’d only ever shared that thought with- The train of memory stopped dead and refused to go further.

Lexi didn’t notice her freeze. “What about the weather? The sky is always bright orange all Veilnight long, you didn’t think that was weird?”

“… No?”

“It snows on Christmas day every year!”

“Yeah? That’s normal, right? It’s a cold time of year!” Now Rosa was starting to feel defensive. Everyone knew Holi was just one of those stupid fake stories, didn’t they? Everyone knew that! She wasn’t an idiot for believing what everyone else believed!

The blonde raised an eyebrow. “Over the entire planet? In both northern and southern hemispheres?”

Okay, when she put it like that…

“So, she’s a real Desire?” She asked sheepishly, trying not to look too humiliated.

Fortunately, her friends were the understanding sort.

“A very powerful one, yes,” Sophia explained, nodding with relief. “Ancient, too. She’s been around for at least a thousand years or so.”

Woah. Rosa’s inner child was cheering as she learned that the holiday icon was actually out there and had absolutely been the one to send her that MegaWater Blaster back when she was seven – but the rest of her was doing some very disturbing math.

“Wait. Wait, I know how this works,” she said, frowning as she realised the horror of a millennia old Desire rampaging around the world for a full day. “I have been studying. If she can affect the entire planet, she has to be a Delirium, right?”

Desires came in three types – Sovereign, Vizier, and Vagrant. Rosa had learned that on day one, and pretended she’d already been aware of the fact. But those were just designations that described the kinds of powers that they had – it didn’t say anything about how powerful they were.

For that, there was a different kind of classification track. Desire, for your base level, uh, Desire. Then Delusion, for the grade above that. And then at the top, Delerium, the most powerful kind, as far as Rosa had been able to tell. She – okay, admittedly, she didn’t know much about either of the two ranks beyond Desire, but they sounded like bad news. Surely, then, a Desire like HoliDaze had to be the latter kind?

But Sophia shook her head. “No. I totally get why you’d think that, but she’s a Delusion. A powerful Delusion, but all the same.”

Oh. The brunette frowned. “What? What’s the difference?”

The blunette winced. “If she was a Delirium, you’d know.”

That got a nudge. (A careful one. Sophia was still driving, after all.) “Explain to me like I’m a moron who only started fighting Desires like half a year ago.”

“Rosa!” Now the team leader looked offended on her behalf. “You’re not a moron! You just didn’t know, somehow! It’s not your fault!”

Somehow, the attempted defence felt more offensive than if she’d just called her an idiot. “Soph. Explain.”

The blunette wilted, but nodded all the same. “Okay. Um. So, uh, a Delirium is just on a completely different scale. Delusions are still pretty Desire-like, even if they’re more powerful. It’s like, imagine if – what was that one with the circus? RingMistress! Imagine if, instead of turning the mall into a circus tent, she’d turned the entire city into a gigantic circus land. Swallowed in an instant, every person in its limits corrupted. That’s a Delusion’s level of power.”

Rosa went pale. That was far worse than she’d expected. “W-wait, if that’s what a Delusion can do, then what’s a Delirium?”

Sophia’s expression turned dark. “Rosa, every living creature on earth has to spend a third of their lives unconscious because a Delirium who has been sealed on the moon for millennia is still powerful enough to drag us all into her realm and hallucinate with her for eight hours a day.”

“A-actually!” A nervous voice piped up from the back seat. “Y’know, there’s been some archaeological studies that came out recently that say that sleeping – maybe even dreaming! – might predate Dream as an entity…”

“Oh, really?” Sophia glanced at Lexi over her shoulder, surprised. “I never heard that. How reliable is their data?”

The blonde fiddled with her fingers. “Well, they pulled a lot of their information out of the Nostalgia Delirium’s Zone of influence, so…”

“So, not reliable at all, got it.” The blunette nodded as she indicated to turn off the highway.

“H-hey, hold on, I’m still catching up here, girls…” Rosa tried to desperately wedge herself back into the conversation. “So, okay, Desires are the usual kind of monsters, and then Delusions are city eaters?”

“They can be.” Sophia’s attention was on the road again. They were moving into a nicer part of the suburbs. “I mean, that’s how a Sovereign Delusion would do it. A Vagrant Delusion would make you think that the city had always been a carnival, and that you’ve always been a clown. A Vizier Delusion would take control of everyone in the city and make them tear down their homes to build the carnival themselves.”

“Okay…” She nodded along, trying to get all of this properly memorized. “And a Delirium?”

“Would turn the entire country into the circus reality, where time and space bend and the laws of physics rewrite themselves in order to make the plates spin forever, the music never stops, and every person caught inside it all would be so thoroughly turned into a performer that even the history books in the real world won’t remember them anymore.”

“Oh.” Oh. “That’s horrifying.”

“Yep!” Sophia nodded, her tone oddly bright. “And we’ll beat them.” She shot Rosa a reassuring, confident smile. “Always and every time. No matter how powerful they become. That’s what Serenities do.”

“…” The brunette chuckled, trying to let the tension that had built in her chest out. “We’ll be there to set everything right, huh?”

“Thus we promise.” The blunette winked. Then she turned back to the road. “Anyway, I’m sorry to dump all of this on you at once. I had no idea you didn’t know so much…”

Oof. “W-well… I mean…”

“What she means is,” Lexi jumped in again to try to save the day. “Sophia was raised by a Serenity, so of course she knows this kind of stuff by heart. Right?”

The blunette winced. “Yeah- Yeah, you’re right. I never thought of what it must be like to be raised by civilians. Oh, no, there’s a lot of stuff you won’t know, now that I think of it…”

“And my mother’s been involved in supporting the Foundation for almost as long as I can remember,” the blonde continued. “So I heard a lot of this stuff over the years. Ooover and over…” She sighed, then patted Rosa’s shoulder. “You’re coming into all of this completely new. There’s going to be moments like this. It’s fine.”

“Heh… Yeah, okay. That’s fair.” The brunette sighed, slumping in her seat. “I just- I guess I’m only realising now how much I’ve got to learn. So, Holi is a real Desire, huh?” She looked to the others. “Kinda surprised the Foundation allows her to wander around, honestly.”

“Oh, we’ve tried to stop her. We’re still trying.” Sophia groaned. “She’s… difficult. We’re working on the problem. We’ll get her one day.”

There was a dark certainty to her words, and Rosa tried to remind herself that they were talking about a Desire, not just some lady who handed out toys to good children at Christmas. She needed to be stopped. It was what Serenities did.

“Right.” She nodded. “I’ll bet she hates us getting in her way, huh?”

The reaction she got was not the one she expected. Sophia’s shoulders slumped, and the blunette looked genuinely pained. “Oh god, I wish. That would be so much easier to deal with.”

“Uh. What?” Rosa blinked.

“Seconding that?” Lexi leaned forward from the back again, just as confused. “This is the first I’m hearing of this?”

“Oh. Um. Yeah.” Sophia grimaced. “I suppose they wouldn’t want to talk about this at sponsorship meetings… Hoboy.” She took advantage of another turn to take a breath and choose her words. “Holi… doesn’t hate us.”

The two Seasons continued to stare at their leader.

“She, ah. She likes us, actually.” There was a slight blush on the blunette’s cheeks now, growing deeper as she kept talking. “Loves us, really. She, ah, she might be the only Desire on the planet who, uh – Who supports the Serenities. She writes us thank you notes for sealing Desires, and sends awards out on New Years for the Serenities who conducted the most sealings in the previous year. Not even traps or anything.”

Rosa and Lexi shared a look. A quick, silent conversation. Then Rosa turned to her leader. “Are you – Are you sure she’s a Desire?”

“Oh, she’s a Desire.” Sophia nodded firmly. “And she supports us in ways that only make sense to Desires. Think about what that means.”

They did. They thought about all of the rampaging creatures turning people into sexualised parodies of themselves that they had met, and considered what any one of them would have considered a good gift. They both went pale.

“But- But the MegaWater Blaster she sent me was fine…” Rosa protested, weakly.

Sophia shrugged. “Well yeah, she doesn’t send weird stuff to kids. Desire powers don’t work on children anyway. But Serenities are adults. Adults who, according to her, work far too hard and need to enjoy the festivities more.”

Oh. Oh no.

The blunette paused at a traffic light to turn and face her friend directly. “Rosa, we don’t get the night off on Veilnight, or Christmas, or Springwake, because if we don’t bunker down hard and hide from her, she’ll make sure we enjoy the holiday to the fullest, no matter how much we don’t want to.”

Rosa swallowed. “Enjoy the-?”

A sigh. “Mom was late to Christmas dinner like seven times when I was a kid because she was off delivering presents or pulling Holi’s sleigh or…” She trailed off as the traffic lights changed, and she began driving again. “Honestly, she never went into that much detail about it. Which was- Oh! Right! I need to tell you about mom!”

Her tone shifted from glum to panic so quickly that it nearly gave her friends whiplash. Sophia had been all but matter-of-fact while discussing Desires, but now she actually sounded scared. Her teammates shared a concerned glance.

“Okay, so first rule.” She held up a finger, steering one handed. “No talking about Serenity stuff in the house, okay? We’re just friends from university. We met in the library and have been doing normal friend things. Like shopping and video games, those are normal, right?”

The shared glance grew more concerned. Questions were immediate.

“We can’t talk about-?”

“But isn’t your mom a-?”

“Second rule!” Sophia interrupted desperately. “Don’t think about that! My mom works as an executive in a corporation down town. She works in advertising or something! Always has. Very normal, very boring job. Got it?”

Concern was no longer an urgent enough word.

“Okay, Sophia, breathe, calm down…” Rosa raised her hands to try to assume the blunette without panicking her further.

“Third rule, take your shoes off at the door-! “

“Sophia!” The interruption seemed to finally break through the team leader’s worrying ramble. “What are you talking about? What’s the problem?”

Lexi was leaning forwards again. “Is everything, um, okay? With your mom?”

The blunette’s shoulders slumped. “Yeah, yeah, they’re fine. It’s mostly just normal mom stuff. It’s just…” She bit her lip, thinking for a moment. “Okay, look – she can read minds. Just a little.”

“What?” Both of her fellow Seasons were completely in sync.

“Well, more like memories. She, uh, she can read your memories if you get close enough.”

“What?!” Still in sync! This was the high standard of teamwork that Sophia had always hoped to inspire!

“Just the surface level stuff! And you know she probably won’t delete any of yours unless you see something you shouldn’t so that shouldn’t be a problem for you…”

“What?!?” Okay now that level of sync was getting creepy.

The blunette sighed, looking more than a little uncomfortable. “Mom’s in MemSec – the Foundation Department that deals with protecting people’s secret identities and stuff like that. Memory manipulation is part of her powers as a Serenity.”

Lexi blinked. “And she can use them without transforming? Or does she transform in the kitchen whenever you bring a boyfriend over?”

“H-hey, I’ve never brought a- I mean, no, yes, the first one. Um, it’s supposed to be a thing stronger Serenities can do sometimes – and mom is strong.”

“Oh.” Rosa looked back to Lexi once more, before turning to Sophia again. “Wait. I mean… If she’s Foundation – is it a problem if she knows we know? I mean, we’re all Serenities, right?”

Sophia didn’t answer.

“Right?”

The blunette was looking anywhere but at her friends. Since they were currently stuck in traffic, this didn’t leave her with a lot of options.

“Sophia.”

“She doesn’t know I’m a Serenity!” The blunette finally blurted. “I mean, I didn’t tell her! And she’d be furious if she found out, she made me and my sister swear we’d never even get assessed, and…”

Oh. Oh no.

“Why wouldn’t she want you to be a Serenity?” Lexi was the one who sounded the most confused – which was hard, given how Rosa was still trying to process her friend’s words.

“Well, I mean, it’s dangerous…” Sophia mumbled. “And she’s in MemSec – she sees a lot of the worst stuff Serenities have to deal with. She didn’t want us to ever deal with that.”

“But you did it anyway.” Honestly, that was the part Rosa found hard to believe. Sophia always seemed like such a goody two-shoes. Surely she’d never break a promise like that…

“I always had my fingers crossed.”

Ah. Well that’d do it.

“I see…” Hoo boy. “And, uh, why are we going to your mom’s place anyway?”

It was starting to sound like the last place in the world they wanted to be.

“Well, it’s my place too,” the blunette explained, taking another turn. “I grew up in Sapphire, so I attend university from home. ‘S cheaper. And we’re here because it’s the most secure house in the city.” She glanced over at Rosa. “It’s shielded, warded, protected against every kind of Desire attack there is.”

Lexi raised an eyebrow. “You live with her and she hasn’t noticed you’re a Serenity?”

Sophia ignored the interruption, powering on. “Now, we’re pretty small fry as far as Serenities go – for now – so normally we could just lay low in our homes. As long as we don’t get too close to festivities, we can usually skirt Holi’s notice. Since you upset her, however, we need to hide you – and, uh, probably the rest of us on your team by association. And this is the best place for it. We should be safe here. From Holi, anyway.”

Oh, right. She’d almost forgotten about that.

“Her powers only last for one night,” Sophia finished with a sigh as she indicated to turn down one last suburban street, and then drew in to park. “And she’llve forgotten by the next holiday. So, as long as we don’t do anything dramatic, we should be fine.” She flashed her friends a bright, hopeful smile as the engine died. “Easy!”

Rosa and Lexi returned her smile, albeit both a little nervously. Hide out from both the literal holiday spirit, while avoiding the literal mind-reading mom, and somehow not blowing their identities as the Serenity Seasons in front of another Foundation official. Easy. Yeah.

Well, hey, if their leader could still smile like that, maybe it wouldn’t be that bad…

-

Sophia suspected that her friends were picking up on her panic a little.

That was fine. As long as it was only a little, then they had no idea how worried she was! Right now, it felt like they needed the extra confidence.

In truth, the blunette had not stopped screaming inside her head since Rosa had insulted Veilnight in a room with three Serenities in it. The realisation that this meant she was going to have to introduce her team to her mother had only made the screams louder.

That was good. Having some strong internal screaming going was one of the best ways of stopping her mother from properly reading her mind. It also stopped her from dwelling on inconvenient thoughts, like the realisation that until twenty minutes ago, Rosa Haywood, one of the two women that she had entrusted her life to countless times over the past six months, hadn’t believed in HoliDaze.

That was something she was going to have to come to terms with later. And she might have to check some other stuff, too. Did Rosa know that the earth was round? Suddenly, it felt really important that she check!

But right now, she had to focus.

The house at 212 Farview Way had been Sophia’s home for pretty much all of her life. Her family had moved in a few years before she was born, and she’d grown up knowing its walls like the back of her hand. The faded pink-red borders, the glossy white walls, the slanted grey roof, and the window to her room that looked out on the street, perched over the garage door.

Right now, it was covered in decorations. The path to the front door was lined with spooky pumpkins carved with various faces, orange bunting hung from the eves, and the windows were all decorated with spiderweb patterns. The Veilnight vibes were strong here, maybe stronger than anywhere else on the street!

She loved this house. It was her home, a place where she had many happy memories. And as she got out of the car, it struck her that she’d never actually brought her friends back here. She’d always been too wary of introducing them to her family – of getting caught. She’d kind of closed off her life to them.

For as much as she sometimes realised she didn’t know her friends that well – she hated to push them for details they weren’t ready to give, and she was willing to be patient - maybe they didn’t know her so well either.

And maybe this was her chance to correct that.

Hopefully they wouldn’t hate what they found.

“Just remember what I told you, and it’ll be fine,” she assured them both as she led them to the front door. “Be polite, be friendly, say please and thank you Miss Vale, and everything’ll be great.”

Lexi paused just behind her. “Your last name is Vale?” Her brow creased, just a little. “Why do I feel like I know that name?”

“No idea!” Sophia outright lied. She did not have time to get into that right now, and it’d only distract her team. This would be a mission, just like anything they faced as the Seasons. “Anyway, we’ll hang out in my room all night, I’ll order pizza, we might not even run into anyone!” She slid her key into the door and twisted it open, leading the way…

“Oh, Sophia, is that you?” And then she froze in place as a voice called from down the hall. There was a clatter of plates from the kitchen. “I wasn’t expecting you back so early – can you do a run to the shop? We might be a little short on candy for the night.”

Fuck.

“Oh, um, sure thing Mom!” She called back. “But can it wait a bit? I brought some friends over.”

Well, it was time to bite the bullet, then. There was no way to sneak two people into the house while her mother was home. The woman had a seventh sense or something. She’d caught every attempt at being sneaky Sophia had ever tried.

“Friends?”  The clatter of plates stopped. Sophia took a breath. “You invited someone around tonight?”

“Uh, yeah.” She waved Rosa and Sophia in, gesturing over to the coat nook, pointing sharply at the shoe rack. “Not a problem, right? I know we don’t have anything planned.”

“Well, no, dear, but…”

And then Clara Vale swept into the hallway, and she felt the breath leave her friend’s lungs.

“… It is a little short notice.”

Because Clara Vale was a presence all of her own. You could feel it just by being in the same room as her. Even in a casual dress and in the process of stripping yellow washing up gloves off of her hands, she carried herself like a Queen, in complete command of her surroundings, and all who set foot within them. Her eyes were sharp, a shining teal, their strength barely hidden behind elegant spectacles. Her hair was the same blue as Sophia’s own, but cut far shorter into a delicate over-the-shoulder style. Some people used it to say that they looked kind of similar, but Sophia knew better. Her mother commanded respect effortlessly. She was lucky to get noticed if she accidentally set herself on fire.

The woman was a lot to live up to, honestly.

But she had, at least, had a long time to get used to her mother’s aura, brushing off that intense presence without a second thought. “Yeah, I know. Sorry. But the three of us were talking, and they’re from out of town and they want a quiet Veilnight. And where’s quieter than here?”

Clara arched an eyebrow. She thought she felt Lexi try to hide behind her. Wait, no, that was Rosa. “Sophia…”

The younger blunette gave her mother the brightest, most innocent smile she had.

“Sophia.”

Yeah, that was never going to work. She pivoted, rubbing the back of her neck while glancing away. “Okay, they maaay have said a few anti-festivities kind of thing, and I don’t want them getting swept up in anything… y’know.”

There it was. She saw the light of understanding dawn. Annnd there was the head tilt of annoyance, too. Yep, message had been received. Now, hopefully…

The older woman sighed. “Oh, very well. You know I can’t say no to you.” Then she smiled, stepping down the hall. “And these are your friends? How wonderful to finally meet. Sophia’s told me so much-”

“Mom.” Sophia glared. She hadn’t said a thing about either of them to her mother. She tended to keep her private life private! It turned out that when you grew up in a household where one of your parents could see all of your secrets at a glance, it made you surprisingly secretive once you got a little more independence!

Clara sighed again. “Just trying to be polite, dear.” She turned to the other two with a smile. “I hope you’re both looking after Sophie. I know she can be a bit of a klutz sometimes…”

“Mom!” This time the glare was fuelled by pure embarrassment.

“N-not at all, Miss Vale! Sophia’s a very reliable friend.” Lexi managed to interject at last, smiling up at the taller woman with all of the charm she could muster. Good. The blonde’s devastating cuteness would be instrumental in winning this war.

“It’s very nice to meet you, Miss Vale.” Rosa was hiding behind both of her shorter companions, trying to be polite to the house matriarch while drawing as little attention as possible. But that was perfect – the brunette had more of a rugged, boisterous appeal to people until you got to know her, and that wouldn’t mesh well with Sophia’s mother’s elegance. Her best chance was to wait in the reserves.

This battle wasn’t over yet!

Sophia stepped forward, giving her friends a shield to hide behind – and a clear route towards the stairs. “Mom, this is Rosa, and this is Lexi. We’ll just be hanging out upstairs tonight, don’t worry about us. I’ll probably just order us pizza, so we won’t be cleaning out the fridge or anything.”

Behind her back she gestured for the others to move towards the steps. Their best path to victory led to getting to the safety of her bedroom as quickly as possible. That was her sanctum, and she could protect them there.

But her mother had a secret weapon to play.

“Oh, all night? Well, that’s fine, dear, but…”

The younger blunette was still hurrying her friends to the stairs. They were starting to climb. Victory was within grasp!

“… You know, I’ve been so busy preparing everything for tonight that I need a little time to rest my feet. I was hoping you could give me a hand with the trick or treaters.”

Ah. Sophia licked her lips nervously. Normally, this wouldn’t be a problem – she liked handing out candy. But… “Can’t Kat do it?”

Clara chuckled. “Dearest, you know she wouldn’t hear anything that happened outside of her room even if the roof collapsed.” Yeeeeah. Yeah, no, that was completely fair. Damnit, she had facts and logic on her side! “I just need you to listen out for the doorbell and hand out candy to the kids, without…”

“… Without stepping over the threshold, yeah, I know.” Sophia slumped a little, but nodded. The odds of getting through this battle without taking losses were always unlikely, and she could take this kind of hit for the team. “Okay, mom, sure thing. I’ll head out and pick up some extra once I get everything sorted in my room.”

“That’s a good girl.” Her mother smiled and ruffled her hair. “I’ll see about making some snacks for you and your friends.”

“I mean, that’s really not necessary…”

But Clara was already walking away. “I insist, dear!”

… Well, that was probably as good as she was going to get. Sophia shrugged, and scurried off up the stairs to catch up with her friends.

-

Lexi wasn’t sure what to do with herself. Sophia’s home was… cute. Cozy! It was a nice place. Not as big as the kinds of places she’d grown up in, but that was, y’know, to be expected. Very few people were born into families as wealthy and influential as the Locks.

In fact, did this count as a sleepover? Sleepovers had been a rare thing for her as a child, and she’d never been left to her own devices. There had always been staff nearby keeping an eye on things…

That was a smothering influence that she’d done her best to break free of now that she was an adult – and that meant she was finding herself in more and more places where she was completely lost. She’d never really been given the rules to situations like this - which meant that right now she was trying not to touch or break anything as she followed the others down the hall. That seemed like a fairly safe bet.

Plus, there was something distracting her…

“My room’s just at the end of the hall here,” Sophia was saying, sounding much less panicked now that they were past her mother. “It should be big enough for the three of us, but if not I think I should be able to clear out the guest room – we use it for storage most of the time, but-Wah!”

Her talk was interrupted as she walked past a white-painted bedroom door, and suddenly found herself yanked through it by the arm. Her friends, their instincts well honed in what to do if this happened, immediately charged after her – only to crash into her back as they found her just inside the doorway.

The bedroom beyond was on the border between messy and ‘stylistically disorganised’. Clothes were slung over furniture, but never on the floor. The bed was covered in pillows, but also neatly made. There was a real order-in-chaos vibe to the whole place.

Posters decorated the walls. Old security slogans from decades ago in stark letters, paired with even starker art. One she kind of recognised, distantly, with a 'two-faced' woman - holding her hand out just underneath her chin and having a wedding ring slipped on it by someone while she faced left, and then, while she faced right, whispering into the wedding ring, which was broadcasting stylized radio waves.

‘SOMEONE WHO LOVES YOU TODAY COULD BE A SLEEPER AGENT TOMORROW,’ the text read beneath her. ‘Loyalty is not enough! Even the most dedicated and selfless among us could be brainwashed. Don't share secrets even with the trustworthy!’

Charming. And then there was the one next to it, which read ‘THERE IS A VIZIER IN THIS POSTER!’

Beneath the text was a five-by-five grid, with each square filled by a human woman. All of them were modest business women, with normal hair colours like blonde, brown, pink, and green… save for one – an obvious punk with a spiked collar, and spikier, multi-coloured hair.

‘YOU WON'T SEE THEM COMING,’ The text continued beneath. ‘PERCEPTION FILTERS ARE A TWO-WAY STREET!’

Okay, that one clearly meant well, but it kind of screwed it up by making the Desire so obvious. If they wanted to make their point, then one of the other twenty-four women should have been- Oh.

Business woman number ten didn’t have eyes. Right, okay, maybe whoever made this thing was better at their job than she’d thought.

Lexi blamed her slip on how loud it was in here. Music played from a surprisingly large set of speakers on the desk by the far wall, some old punk song Lexi didn’t recognise. It wasn’t so loud you couldn’t hear someone speak, but it was a layer of noise over everything. The soundproofing in the walls must have been pretty good, she hadn’t noticed it out in the hall.

“Oh hey, brat, you brought people around?” In front of the sudden pile-up, a young woman who could only have been a few years older than them was standing, watching in amusement as she sipped from a can of cola. She had short blue hair, in a slightly lighter shade than Sophia and her mother, and hers was decidedly spikier, trending towards unkempt. She wore casual jeans and a black t-shirt, with a logo for World Walk Warriors 2 printed on it in faded vinyl.

Lexi immediately felt an immediate sense of kinship with this complete stranger. Just an uncanny connection, the moment their eyes met. This girl, she knew instantly, was a slacker too.

“Yeah.” Sophia groaned in annoyance, before looking over her shoulder. “Guys, this is my sister Katrina. Don’t listen to anything she says, she’s a weirdo. Kat, this is Rosa and Lexi.”

“Heya.” The short haired woman gave a lazy salute, leaning against the wall. “Nice to meet you. I’m Serenity Flip – which one of you is Spring and which one is Summer?”

White, bubbling static filled Lexi’s head. She felt Rosa stiffen next to her. But they weren’t the same Serenities as they had been months ago, when Morgan sprang a similar trick on them. They had trained for this day. They were prepared. They were ready.

So, in the same breath, both blonde and brunette tried to react appropriately, speaking at the same time.

“W-What? Serenity? What’s one of those?”

“Never heard of her!”

Sophia was much more on the ball. “Kat!” She snapped, face turning bright red, her voice hushed so that her anger didn’t draw in a parent. “What the hell?!?”

“What?” Katrina took another swig of Cola. “We’re all Serenities here. Or- Wait, did you forget to tell them about me?”

“I didn’t forget,” the younger blunette hissed. “I kept it secret, because it’s supposed to be a secret!”

The older one snorted. “Yeah, sure. Like I wasn’t going to figure it out when you brought two friends over for the first time in your life on Veilnight, of all times.”

“That doesn’t mean you have to say anything!”

“What? That’d just be rude.”

“And this isn’t rude?!”

Lexi and Rosa watched the two sisters bicker with bewildered confusion, and no small amount of embarrassment as their attempts at protecting their secret identities reached their own ears. That… That had not gone well.

“Um, Sophia…” Rosa managed, pushing past her mortification. “Your sister knows that you’re… Y’know?” She mimed waving a sword about.

Sophia folded her arms, grumbling and glaring at Kat. “Yeah. She figured it out pretty much instantly.”

Huh. Lexi blinked. “You didn’t tell her?”

“Nah.” Kat shook her head with a shrug. “It was pretty obvious. I mean, I grew up with the brat. What kind of sister doesn’t know what their sister is thinking?”

The sister in question twitched. Behind her, Lexi noticed Rosa twitch too, for some reason.

“Rgh. Fine.” Sophia turned back to her friends. “This is my jerk of a sister, who is also Serenity Flipflop, which is her actual chosen Serenity name, because she is a giant nerd. You don’t have to tell her anything if you don’t want to.”

“Serenity Spring!” Lexi waved from the back of the group immediately, trying not to be too stunned at the idea of hearing Sophia call someone a nerd.

“S-Serenity Summer.” Rosa stammered, then shook her head, taking a breath. “Nice to meet you too.”

“Great.” Kat grinned, her smile only growing wider as Sophia obviously fumed. “Always good to meet a fellow fighter.”

“Not that you’re much of a fighter,” the younger sibling snarked.

“True!” The elder sibling seemed unbothered. “I work in R&D in the Foundation. My powers aren’t really…” She tapped the side of her head. “Great for dealing with the you-know-whats. But hey, if you ever want hooking up with the latest experimental tech, drop by with a couple of embarrassing stories about Sophie and I’ll see what I can do for you!”

Oh! Oooh, the Foundation had amazing tech, that was a super tempting off-

Lexi saw the way Sophia’s eyes narrowed as her own had lit up, and cut that thought off, trying to look innocent. Nope! No plans to betray her friend and leader for a simple bribe, nosiree! And she definitely wasn’t going to keep that offer in mind for when said friend wasn’t looking her way, not at all!

“Yes. Well.” The blunette’s voice had turned as frosty as her element. “Thanks for saying hi, Kat. I guess this is the last we’ll see of you tonight? You usually stay in your room for days on end.”

“Oh god yeah. I’m not sticking my head out again for this.” She waved a finger around, indicating all three of them. “You brought five Serenities under this roof today, Soph. I’m just listening to my music, and anything that happens outside this door?” She shoved her sister out through open the door, forcing the rest of them back with her. Then, raising her can of cola to the group, she vanished back within. “None of my business. Say hi to Holi for me. Good luck!”

The door swung shut with a click, and then the clack of a lock.

The Seasons were left in silence as their leader stewed.

Finally, Sophia raised a hand and dragged her fingers across her face. “Rgh! Damnit, I know I shouldn’t let her get to me, but she’s just… She’s just…”

Rosa clapped a hand on her shoulder. “She’s a pain in the ass, and you love her to death, right?” She gave her a sympathetic smile. “I know how difficult sisters can be.”

The blunette stared up at her, surprised, before returning her smile. “Yeah. Yeah, that sounds right.” She took a breath, shaking off her funk. “Come on. Ignore her. Like I said, my room is just down here…”

-

The day wore on, and soon the sun was setting, an orange sky spreading over Sapphire city, the moon shining full bright (despite having previously been waning). Across the city, costumed families began sweeping through the streets, seeking sweet treats and dealing out sinister tricks. A festive mood of delight, mystery, sugar, and above all, spooks took hold of the night.

On Farview Way, as darkness truly set in, the candles in countless jack-o-lanterns flickered, and then burned with renewed vigour, carved pumpkin teeth growing sharper, and eyes more malevolent. A chill rang through the air. Shadows swirled, and silence settled over the night.

Silence, save for the sound of footsteps. Creeping, slow, steady, and inexorable, towards the house at 212.

At the Vale residence, for the first time that evening, the doorbell rang. At that moment, the wind rushed down the street, howling loud – and if you listened very carefully, you could, perhaps, make out the sound of laughter, swelling beneath it all.

The true festivities were about to begin.

Chapter 2

Chapter 3