The bus pulled into the stop in the middle of the town of Threed. Paula jumped out first, and Ness came quickly behind. As soon as they left the bus, the crowd erupted in cheer: now the celebrations could really begin.

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The First Halloween After the War

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The entire town had been decorated for Halloween, and people from all over the countryside had flocked to the once-besieged town to celebrate the holiday. Tents were placed all over the empty grounds, and there were competitions on who had the best costume and who had the best jack-o-lantern, among other things. The four heroes who had defeated Giygas were invited to attend of course, and as Ness and Paula started to walk through the crowds hand in hand they were bombarded by praise for their deeds and questions of their travels. Unfortunately Prince Poo was unable to attend and had notified his friends of this days earlier, saying that affairs of the state required his attention, and going off to a party wouldn't be looked too highly on by his people. As sad as the group was to be without him though, they resolved to have an extra good time for him anyway. There was a lot they wanted to see, but first they had to find -

"Jeff!" Paula yelled, seeing him at one end of the crowd. The couple ran towards their friend from Winters, and as they advanced and Jeff saw them in return, he grew a great smile.

"Paula! Ness!" he said excitedly, "It's great to see you two! We haven't spoken since Saturn Valley - how have you been?"

"We can't complain," responded Paula, "Ness has been spending a lot of time at the Preschool, helping me with the kids."

"I'm sure he has." said Jeff with a knowing look.

"So how have you been?" continued Paula.

"Pretty good. I missed a lot of school, but the time I've spent with you guys and dad has taught me about as much as I'd learn blowing things up in Chem-" Before Jeff could finish, another figure jumped out of the crowd with a bag of treats. The boy was Jeff's age, and had red hair under a black bowler hat.

"Jeff!" the figure said. "Candy!"

"Score!" responded Jeff, before then gesturing to his other friends. "Tony, this is Ness and Paula. Guys, this is Tony - my best friend at Snow Wood. Dad didn't want to come, so I used his ticket to invite Tony."

"It's a pleasure to meet you two!" said Tony.

"The pleasure's all ours," responded Paula.

The group continued to catch up on lost times as they started partaking of the festivities. Something in particular that caught Ness's eye but which didn't have many party-goers around it was the community organizer's tent, where Ness and his friends had trapped the zombies in the town during the war. Inside, there was an exhibit about the war against Giygas, and specifically how Threed was attacked, and how it was later rescued by Ness and his friends - complete with photographs and newspaper clippings from the time. What was most interesting here, though, was that there was one zombie still left in the big cage in the back. He was different from the zombies of old, though. This particular zombie was wearing a suit and had on a pair of thick glasses. He was also not so much growling and moaning as he was just sitting down at a table and politely taking questions from the small crowd that had gathered around.

The group approached cautiously. As soon as the zombie saw them he gave a small gasp, then quickly addressed them. "Ah! Ness and company! Good to see you all!"

"Uhhmmm..." started Paula, "You're a zombie."

"Quite astute, young lass, yes! Quite astute indeed. A zombie I am!"

"But I thought all the zombies and ghosts disappeared earlier in the year, after you guys defeated Giygas!" said Tony.

"Well young man," the zombie continued, "most of my kind did indeed return to the Earth after the evil influence of Giygas drained out of our world, but for some reason I remain! My own hypothesis is that it is because I was never really affected by Giygas's evil at the time of the war. True, I was brought from the Earth to be one of his soldiers, but my mind remained intact from when I was alive, so instead of fighting I spent the time looking around at how the town had changed, and taking in the pleasant scenery. Of course, when your masterful plan to trap all the zombies with Zombie Paper unfurled I was trapped with the others, and nobody believed me when I told them that I was peaceful! In fact, I'm still held prisoner to this day by the townsfolk, though I am slowly convincing them that outside these bars I could be of use for the community, instead of a danger."

"A use?" asked Paula.

"Indeed! I've been reading law books in my time here, and I plan on becoming a criminal defense lawyer!"

After leaving the tent, the group spent a few hours hanging out and enjoying the rest of the festival, until it came time to hold the competitions. Ness and his friends were asked to be judges, and the group happily agreed to participate in the event. First there was a costume contest, and while there were many good entries (and many strange entries, too, such as a forty-year old dressed as a Putrid Moldy-Man) the winner was, unquestionably, the brown dog who stood on its hind feet and dressed as a human. The group wanted to know who the owner was, but the dog ran off soon after winning his prize. Next was the best-pumpkin contest, which was fairly interesting, but would be more difficult to convey in text than is worth the effort.

The competitions continued until finally there was only the finale left - Best Fright. The prize was to be awarded to the one whose antics had caused the biggest scare during the night. The group had narrowed the choice down to two: a man who had hidden in bushes all night and popped out with a scream while people were deep in conversation; and a woman who would approach people and read passages from Friedrich Nietzsche's book, Beyond Good and Evil.

They were leaning towards the woman when suddenly a shrill howl pierced through the night sky. The crowd all looked to the skies for the source of the disturbance, and there they saw, materializing before their very eyes, a colossal ghost of some sidereal horror with countless tentacles streaming across the sky and five heads each unleashing a different dread scream, which was then picked up by the crowd at large as some people at the edges of the crowd ran yelling for their homes and others simply stood with their mouths agape - too terrified to move.

The chosen four (minus one, Tony quickly ran behind Jeff) were the only ones in the crowd to keep their cool. Ness acted quickest, stepping forward while channeling his energy and then unleashing his power at the ghost with an electrifying "PSI-ROCKIN'!!!" [or whatever you like the most, I suppose. I personally always liked 'Psi Moon'] that flashed towards the ghost in a fractal pattern of rays that boggled the eyes. The power collected in the center of the ghostly form, then exploded with a terrific flash of light and power.

As the light from the blast receded, no trace of the ghost was found.

"Paula!" Jeff asked quickly, "Can you sense what's going on? Is there any other large energy sources in the area?"

"Actually," Paula responded, "The only other spike of energy is coming from right behind us!"

The group turned, and came face to face with their friend, Prince Poo, smiling from ear to ear.

"Boo." he said. "Is there still time to enter the Best Fright contest?" In the distance, a few people were still screaming.

"...yeah," said Jeff, "I think we can work you in."

It took quite a bit of work to convince what remained of the crowd that the Lovecraftian horror they saw in the skies was just an illusion, but even then the mood had pretty much been destroyed. Those who weren't already boarding themselves up in their homes started leaving one by one, leaving the kids to talk some more.

"So, Prince, I see you found you could make it after all?" said Jeff, prying Tony from the defensive position still held behind him.

"Yes, you could say that," Poo said.

"Didn't you have some sort of meeting?"

"Well, yes, and I'm in it right now actually. Or at least, the temporary copy of myself that I left is." answered the Prince with a smile.

"You're still learning new PSI? I haven't gotten anything new we defeated Giygas." said Paula.

"You haven't had a need to learn new PSI," responded Poo, "I, on the other hand, have found a lot of use for illusions lately. Being a Prince is boring work. But of course, my illusions still aren't perfect. They only last a few minutes before people realize I'm not actually in the room. Speaking of which, I hate to run, but I probably should be getting back. It was good to see you all again, but farewell!" Ness opened his mouth to speak, but in a poof the Prince had vanished.

"Well!" said Tony, and that was that.

By this point, everyone else had left, so the kids started to walk towards the parking lot where Jeff said he had left his vehicle. When they got there Ness and Paula were met with a familiar sight.

"Is that-" began Paula.

"-almost!" interrupted Jeff. "Lady and Gentleman - Behold! The Sky Runner Mk.VII!!! It's faster, it's leaner, it's less psychologically-damaging to ride in, and-"

"-It runs on happiness!" Tony yelled happily.

"Well, actually, it runs on regular gasoline, but thanks for participating." shrugged Jeff.

"Can it land without crashing?" asked Paula.

"No it cannot!" replied Jeff, "-but it now comes with extensive outer-air-bags that deploy pre-collision, so that the machine itself is unharmed!"

There was a small silence. "...that makes sense, I guess." conceded Paula.

After saying their final goodbyes, Ness and Paula waved as Jeff and Tony got inside the machine and sped off into the north sky. After that, Ness and Paula started walking slowly back towards Twoson.

"Tony seems nice," said Paula. Ness nodded. "He and Jeff make a good match," Paula continued. Ness nodded. "Feel like adding anything to the conversation?" Ness shrugged. "Fair enough...wanna speed up?" Ness nodded with a smile. "Then let's go!"

The kids started walking faster, then jogging, then running, then they were gone from the night.