Chapter Text
The air was chilly with a light autumn breeze, tinged with anticipation. Sebastian could feel it, and yet he had no clue why everyone seemed to be gearing up for something. His amnesia left some inconvenient gaps in his memory it seemed. It wasn’t just his housemates who were exuding that air of anticipation though, the entirety of Leppa Town was dripping with excitement. He considered asking a vendor about it the last time he had been out shopping for Jellie, but after realizing how stupid he might look asking, he held off. Instead, he asked that night over a bowl of the Tamato soup he had made for everyone.
“W-Why’s everyone so anticip- excited for… something?”
Everyone stopped eating and stared at him. He started to sweat a little under their gazes.
“You don’t know about Halloween!?” Jellie shouted.
“Not, um, really?” Sebastian replied. “Memory loss got me- hit me hard.”
“Oh my gosh, we get to be a part of your first Halloween!!” Ricky almost knocked over his soup in his excitement.
“Sure, but I still have no clue what, um, Halloween really is.”
“It’s a holiday,” Jellie explained. “It’s left over from human times, I think. We dress up in costumes as other pokémon, and-”
“Um, no?” Ricky interrupted. “Halloween is a celebration of all things spooky and scary/ You dress up as all kinds of ghouls, ghosts, goblins, or anything scary!”
“It doesn’t strictly need to be scary, Ricky is just picky about costumes.” Dare said, much to Ricky’s chagrin.
Jellie scoffed. “Maybe that’s what it was like for you, but I’m sticking to what I know. A celebration of pokémon and their differences sounds way more appealing to me than, what, a costume based on some supposedly scary creature that isn’t even real? Give me a break. As Ricky and Jellie stared daggers at each other, Sebastian couldn’t help but feel sorry he asked.
While the two began a petty squabble, Dare took the opportunity to talk to Sebastian. “Don’t let their arguing stop you, do what you want for Halloween.”
Later that night, as he was laying in bed, Sebastian wondered what kind of costume he could put together. A fake head on his lily pad lent itself well to the idea of a Headless Horseman, though he was surprised he even knew what was and not what Halloween was. On the other hand, he could paint the lily pad to look like a Vileplume’s flower. There were too many choices, and he didn’t even know what style of costume he would even be doing! He sighed in frustration and closed his eyes. He could deal with this tomorrow.
Jellie was always the first to wake up, but she spent her early morning holed up in her room, so Sebastian was surprised to see Ricky and Dare in the main room before him.
“Good morning, you two,” he said.
“Good moooaghh.” Ricky said, interrupting himself with a yawn.
“Morning.” Dare responded for him.
As Sebastian started breakfast–oatmeal with cinnamon and Leppa berries–Ricky impatiently shuffled in place. Sebastian kept cooking, the constant moving in the corner of his eye not a bother to him, until Ricky finally opened his beak to talk.
“So…” Ricky started. “We were thinking of going out and looking for pumpkins in the forest. To carve, you know?”
Sebastian didn’t know, but he nodded anyway.
Ricky continued. “Anyways, we were thinking you should come too! It’s your first Halloween, you gotta be a part of everything!!”
Sebastian didn’t exactly have anything better to do, and it did sound like fun…
“Let me finish breakfast and I’ll be right there,” he said.
Twenty minutes later, he was riding on the Doduo’s back as they ran through the forest, searching the floor for anything orange. The colorful leaves decorating the trees were distracting, and more than once Sebastian thought he had found a pumpkin, only to be looking at a particularly vivid pile of fallen leaves. As they ran further and further into the forest, the trees became thicker, the shade darker, and there were even some cobwebs hiding within the trees.
They ran for a little while longer until it got too dark, and Ricky and Dare tripped over a root they couldn’t see, Sebastian flying off their back and onto the ground. As he got up and looked around, he realized something.
He had fallen dangerously close to a gravestone.
“Perfect, this is the place!” Ricky said, as Dare sighed next to him.
“I still don’t think this was a good idea.”
Noticing Sebastian’s confused look, Ricky explained. “Halloween is all about the scary things in life, and what better place to really show you what it’s all about than a creepy forest with an abandoned graveyard in it!”
There were so many things wrong with this. Sebastian could barely process it all before he heard Ricky shout “Catch!” and he looked up to see a pumpkin flying towards him. He only just managed to angle his lily pad to catch it, knocking the wind out of him but leaving the pumpkin itself unharmed.
“Good catch!” Ricky shouted, standing over a pile of pumpkins hidden behind one of the gravestones. “We can take three or four these back home for carving, I’m sure even Jellie would appreciate that.”
Sebastian struggled to get over his speechlessness, but he managed to force a few words out. “I- You- This is… Ricky this is b-beyond disrespectful. To the dead pokémon here, I mean.”
“Hm? Oh, yeah, I forgot to tell you! There are none. The graveyard is fake!”
Sebastian stared at him while Dare sighed. “I told you this was a bad idea, Ricky. Pulling an all-nighter to make a fake graveyard in a ‘spooky forest’ isn’t going to make anybody like Halloween more.”
“But the vibes are so perfect! This is totally the kind of place you would see a ghost or a zombie, and I worked hard on making sure of that. And we can hold a Halloween party here later, too!!”
Sebastian sat and watched with his jaw on the floor. He knew Ricky really liked Halloween but this was entirely too much. Who in their right mind did something like that? He did have to admit the graveyard was exceptionally well-made, though. The gravestones weren’t perfectly shaped, but they were all engraved individually. The cobwebs on the trees were well-placed too, Ricky probably got some help from a bug-type to get those put together. And the whole area had this great balance of dark and abandoned to keep you on edge but still intrigued. The more he thought about it, the more he appreciated it, but he still didn’t like the whole ‘bring Sebastian to a fake graveyard to show him why I like Halloween’ plan.
While Sebastian was studying the graveyard, Ricky and Dare finished arguing, and they began to pick up the rest of the pumpkins to carry back home. Sebastian climbed up onto their back to keep them stable, though it was a struggle to keep his grip on all of them. Still, with a lot of struggling and just a little bit of good luck, they managed to get everything home unharmed. By then, Jellie had woken up and eaten already, so she was there to help unload the pumpkins off of Ricky and Dare’s back and into the kitchen.
“So you carve pumpkins too?” Jellie asked.
“Of course! It’s only one of the most important Halloween traditions, after all,” Ricky responded.
“I guess there are at least a few things we can agree on, then.” Jellie set the last pumpkin on the table before turning to Sebastian. “That reminds me! There’s a few events going on in town for the upcoming Halloween festival, you should go with me. I wanna show you what Halloween is all about! At least, what it’s all about here.” She said that last part with a side eye aimed at Ricky with as little subtlety as possible.
Sebastian sighed. His whole week was going to be like this wasn’t in. “Sure, I’ll go with- together with you.”
And with that she turned and floated out the door. Sebastian, having had no time to even sit down, resigned himself to his fate as he followed her out and the two began the trek to Leppa Town.
Sebastian was quickly learning that he wasn’t one for crowds. He spent so much attention trying to avoid being stepped on that he missed half of the sights. Between avoiding a flaming Quilava and trying to not get squashed by a Pangoro, Sebastian managed to spot strings of purple and orange banners, lanterns carved out of pumpkins, and all sorts of decorations based on different ghost type pokémon. He followed Jellie until they reached a small park near the Guild, one where they were holding some sort of event.
There were stalls set up, all with some sort of game. A ring-toss where you throw rings onto the horns of shuppet dolls, a ferris wheel with Drifblim-themed carriages, even a Dhelmise-themed strength test, using an anchor to hit the target as hard as possible.
“Every year, they focus on a different pokémon type,” Jellie explained. “This year, it’s ghost types, so all the decor and carnival games are ghost themed.”
As Sebastian looked around, he spotted something he wanted to try. It was the simplest of the games, just a large Spiritomb wheel you could spin for prizes. None of them were all that interesting, but there was a figure of a Bramblin that caught his eye, and he asked Jellie for the poke to give it a try. All he had to do was spin the wheel and hope it landed on the number corresponding to the Bramblin doll, which seemed to be 11.
He paid the vendor, a Croagunk, and grabbed the wheel to spin. Around and around it went, green spots blending with the purple until it began to slow down. It passed by the eleven once, twice, three times… As it slowed down, it crossed through the eight, the nine, and it almost stopped at the ten. It lost almost all it’s momentum, as it reached the end. Just when Sebastian had given up his hopes of getting that Bramblin, the wheel just barely squeaked past into the section marked eleven. The Croagunk passed over the Bramblin figure, a relieved smile on their face. Sebastian, very happy with his winnings, went on his merry way to check out more of the stalls, but Jellie stopped him.
“Aren’t you a little upset? You barely missed out on the Froslass charm that guy had. That was like, the grand prize too.”
“Why would I be upset?” Sebastian asked. “I got this awesome Bramblin!”
“...As long as you like it, I guess?” Jellie sighed.
The two of them spent a while there, though they won no more cool prizes. As it turns out, nubby limbs and weak psychic powers don’t win you much. Still, they had fun, and that’s the important part. As soon as they got home, Sebastian put his Bramblin figure on the nightstand next to his bed, and decided that maybe it would be best to hole up in his room before he gets dragged into more Halloween events. As fun as it had been so far, he didn’t think he could handle much more.
The next week was a stressful one for Sebastian. Ricky would pull him into some adventure to explore why he loved what Sebastian had started calling Spookyween, and Jellie would retaliate by showing Sebastian the wonders of what he called Pokéween. Ricky brought him through dimly lit caves, abandoned houses, even a library once, though Sebastian didn’t see anything scary about that last one. Jellie showed him the local events like a pumpkin carving contest, piles of seasonal foods, and a lot of ghost type battles. It would have been fun if it weren’t for Ricky and Jellie fighting about it every time they were in the same room.
“I’m telling you, nothing beats the spirit of a dusty, cobweb-infested, dilapidated manor.”
“Right, cause I’m sure that’s somewhere you can comfortably live.”
“It’s not, and that;s the point! It’s teh ideal place for ghosts!!”
“Ricky, there’s ghosts all over Leppa Town. We’re actively celebrating them. We don’t need some old house to do that.”
This sort of thing continued for a week until, finally, the day had come. Halloween. Sebastian had stressed about his costume for so long, he had no idea what he could possibly do. That was until one of the arguments gave him an idea. Spookyween had its merits, a spooky atmosphere or a few scares could be fun! Pokéween was also an amazing celebration, and it was fun to see everyone focus on a small demographic of pokémon every year. He couldn’t possibly choose between the two, so he didn’t.
As Halloween rolled around, he prepared his costume. He piled sand onto his lily pad, forming it into a sand castle and topping it with a red shovel. Using some face paint bought from one of the stalls in town, he got to work on his own face. It took a lot of time and effort, but he finally managed to get the look he was going for. He was dressed as the bones of other pokémon, buried underneath a Palossand out of control. It blended the celebration of ghost types in Jellie’s Halloween with the spookiness of Ricky’s Halloween. It was perfect.
As Ricky walked out of his room, he saw Jellie outside of her room early in the morning for once. She had somehow managed to change the color of the gelatin surrounding her, making it a deep purple color. Her core was also recolored, painted black. She looked like a particularly round Gastly, which Sebastian guessed was the idea. She took one look at his costume, albeit a very long look, and nodded in approval.
“Good idea, doing both kinds of costume. Nobody can complain about that.”
It wasn’t long before Ricky and Dare came out of their room, Ricky yawning once again. He probably stayed up all night in preparation. It paid off, though. Ricky and Dare’s costumes were amazing, even if they were just paint. Their feathers were stained to a more orange color, which fit well with the jack-o-lantern face on their body. Ricky was painted with a skull over his face and bones all down his neck. Dare had a corner of his head taken over by a brain painstakingly painted on. There was pink and white paint all over their heads and beaks, but they didn’t seem to care.
Dare nodded in approval at the costumes, while Ricky rushed over to get a closer look at Sebastian. “This is so cool!! And we’re both skeletons, we’re matching!!!”
Jellie also gave Ricky and Dare a few begrudging compliments before the group finally left to go explore the festival in Leppa Town. The crowd was even larger than when Sebastian and Jellie had explored the town, but Ricky and Dare let Sebastian ride on their back again to stay above it all. He had a much better view of the town this time, and the decorations had gotten even more dense. Paper lantern Drifloon drifted overhead as kids spun Claydol tops. Vendors hawked their wares, Yamask masks and Litwick candles, Honedge swords and Sinistea cups, anything and everything you could think of.
There were costumes everywhere too, almost every ghost type pokemon was represented in some way. A few people came over to compliment Sebastian’s costume, though they tended to give Ricky and Dare some confused looks. Dare didn’t seem to care, and Ricky didn’t let him get him down. He was still having loads of fun.
They stopped at every game, every stall, having fun with everything they could reach. It was a long night of celebrating ghosts and ghost types, and by the time they had tired themselves out, it was long past nightfall. Exhausted and sleep deprived, they slowly dragged themselves home, Sebastian half asleep on the Doduo’s back while Jellie fought to keep herself from falling to the ground.
They walked in through their front door to find a warm dinner on the table. They ate it gratefully, before going to bed. Sebastian knocked all the sand out of his lily pad before jumping onto his bed where someone pulled a blanket over him. The warmth was comforting, and he fell asleep almost immediately.
It wasn’t until the next day that everyone realized how strange that was.