4A/N: This is complete crap and a day late I'm so sorry. This entire series kind of ended up being a big flop. I didn't think it through much, and I really struggled to find time. Of course yesterday I had to lose internet for the night, so I couldn't post. Sorry for any OOCness, errors, typos and overall crappy writing. I hope you guys at least found this a bit funny, and I'm sorry if this last bit doesn't make a ton of sense. I tried xD
A young woman sat silently on a small pile of rubble in the Forbidden Zone. There was a the ghost of a smile on her face, just a slight upturn of her lips, that conveyed her amusement. Miden was as fun as she had thought it would be. The stories of her predecessors were every bit as accurate as she has believed.
The girl, a Neighbor from a far away nation, had been selected as the single warrior to go to Miden to carry on the long-running tradition of her country, which had begun years ago with a small handful of people. A group from their nation had ventured into space in search of a place to spread their influence and culture. The group had landed in Miden, and let loose the stories and traditions of their culture that would become the staple of the Miden holiday Halloween.
The original plan had been to colonize on the new planet, but the Neighbors quickly realized that the people of Miden lacked large Trion organs, and would be useless to conquer in the long run.
In the end, the nation decided to simply keep their cultural hold strong on Miden once they noticed how deeply their stories had taken root. They decided that they would send a trained warrior to Miden every year in the month of October to stir up trouble and keep the Halloween spirit strong. That way, if Miden's people ever started being born with better Trion, they Neighbors would have a leg up in conquering them.
Over time, the Neighbors had grown their pool of representatives by starting an academy that anyone could enter. In that academy, they trained their warriors, then the most promising amongst them was selected to go to Miden.
The young woman who sat in the Forbidden Zone was the selected warrior of the year, and she had just reached the end of her one month adventure. She was sad to see the end of it, but she'd had so much fun. The Miden people were extremely fun to trick and scare, living up to her high expectations.
Among those she'd followed and taunted, turning them around or stalking them from the shadows, her favorite had been the man with the little beard. She didn't know his name, but remembered his face well. He'd looked so sad and hopeless once she'd finished with him.
The white cat that got the ball rolling had been a bit difficult handle, but once the Neighbor girl had set it free directly in the path of her target, things started going a lot smoother. She ran ahead of the beard man and used the enhanced strength of her Trion body to break up part of the sidewalk, making it just big enough for his foot to get stuck. After that she'd watched with a smile as the man's toe caught perfectly in the crack and he smacked face-first into the ground, then she moved on to set another trap.
The jogger had been pure coincidence, but it was a golden chance. The Neighbor girl saw that the jogger wasn't on a path to even go near the beard man, so she quickly made her way around until she was across the street from the jogger at a crosswalk, pretending to text while standing in the middle of the path. It was enough to make the jogger rethink his route to avoid what he saw as an ignorant young person engrossed in their phone, and he turned just the way the girl had been hoping. After that, it was all luck. The perfect timing of the collision between the jogger and beard man had sent the later flying into the cold concrete for the second time that day. The loss of the bearded man's bagel was an added bonus.
The manhole cover had been easy, and she hadn't expected him to fall for it, but the guy turned out to be a huge idiot because he kissed the pavement for the third time in ten minutes. The Gate she spawned in the Forbidden Zone as one last trap had been a bit hard to create discreetly, but there was program in her Trigger that took care of the spawning itself for her. She had hoped the man would be spooked by the sudden appearance of an enemy, and was a bit surprised when he simply roared in anger and destroyed the Trion Soldier with ease. That part was a disappointment, but all in all it had been a great day.
Besides the beard man, some other targets, like the strawberry haired girl, were also quite fun. Strawberry girl hadn't been the original target, but the albino boy hadn't been scared at all by the story of the child killer, so the Neighbor girl needed to improvise. She hadn't seen much of the strawberry girl during the prank, but her screech when she'd seen the ketchup covered knife had been the highlight of the Neighbor's week. It was worth spending twenty minutes slowly knocking on the Miden girl's door, then following her and her friend to the house on the river to knock one the door one last time for good measure.
On the other hand, the big muscle guy had been no fun. The Neighbor girl had run through the corner of his vision not once, but twice, and even did the banshee scream she had practiced at the academy for months to perfect. The man had looked around the area after the scream, but there was no fear in his blank expression nor tension in his shoulders. He hadn't been scared at all. Disappointing.
The glasses man with the car hadn't been a ton of fun either. He was very kind and had listened to her story intently as he drove her, careful about interrupting her to ask questions. He had seemed a little creeped out by her story, but didn't let it show. Then, when she'd stepped out of her car and activated the invisibility in her Trigger to disappear, he hadn't shown much more than a little surprise. The Neighbor girl had been hoping for a little more from him than slight terror, and while he had looked a little confused and unnerved when she disappeared, he lacked the fearful expression she had been hoping for.
Other than those four, there had been a few other people who the girl had messed with, but their reactions were a bit generic, and didn't spark any joy in her. It had all just been activities to kill time until she found an interesting target, like beard man or strawberry girl.
"Unknown Trigger reaction…..over here…..likely Neighbors."
Foreign voices pulled the young woman from her thoughts, and her head snapped up. She glanced around and saw no one, but her keen ears could still hear the voices.
"Oh. They found me," the Neighbor mumbled, slightly disappointed. She wanted to stay on Miden a little longer, but it was also the primary job of her nation's representative to not get caught. With a defeated sigh, she got to her feet and held out her hand. A broomstick, which looked just like that of a stereotypical witch, appeared in her hand and she smiled. It was the typical transportation for the representatives just to keep up the image in the case that someone saw them while they were in uniform.
As the voices drew closer, the Neighbor girl leaned on her broom and created a Gate, frowning as sirens began to screech. At that point, it was only a matter of minutes until the Miden warriors found her, meaning she couldn't put it off any longer. She had to leave. With one last look at the Mikado City skyline, the girl sat down on her broom with a soft chuckle and flew through the Gate, which snapped shut behind her. The Border agents who arrived at the scene minutes later were met with nothing, but had it been Kazama squad, Kikuchihara likely could have heard the echo of the quiet laughter that the Neighbor girl left behind.
"I wish I could come back next year."