Halloween Special - 1. Tunnels Bridged (Patreon)

PoV:

1. Sora Moore (Our ATM Protag!)

In-Line Edit

Holiday Specials

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Sora breathed out a heavy sigh as Emilia jumped up and down, drawing them toward her room; everyone else was busy preparing for their journey to the Dragon Temple, but it was her daughter’s birthday, and what did she want?  Nothing Sora hadn’t come to expect from her daughter.

A small smirk lifted her mouth upon entering the girl’s expanded room—she’d been practicing her spatial magic; Aunt Nari would be proud once she saw her work—and a small chuckle shook Sora’s chest.

“Halloween?”

“Halloween!”  her thrilled thirteen-year-old squealed.  “I’ve prepared so many outfits over the last few months.  Oh—what about a vampire?!  I’ve been practicing transformation magic, too!”

Emilia hovered closer, showing her suddenly extended fangs.  “See!  I want to suck your blood!  Blah!  Blah!”

“You really loved those old monster movies,” Sora mused, feigning a frightened look that had her daughter snickering.  “Since I’ve got my vulpes magic back, and I can sense all kinds of stuff with Null-Void…  I think I’ve discovered a place we can go to have your Halloween fix.”

“You’re the best, Mom!  Oh, do you think when we get back, we can have Halloween here in the Vulpes Realm—Rayla and Luna can dress up too!”

“Haha.  Maybe, but you wanted the authentic experience first, so…”

Sora’s true chakram around the tail-end of her hair split into a copy, leaving the replica to enclose her locks while her primary ring expanded to a gateway size.  Balancing her vulpes and Null-Void forces, she fed her desire into the portal, punching a hole and creating a funnel through Existence.

She frowned when it took far more power than she would have liked, but that was the risk when trying something new, and a shimmering swirl of energy materialized into a dark, wooded street.

“There we go.  Pick quick, Emi!”

“W-Wait!  Mom, I didn’t think we were going right now, as in right now!  Uh… uh…”

Sora lifted an eyebrow as her daughter promptly transformed into her small fox state, looking up at her with her cute, big eyes.  “Uh-huh…  You’re going to go as a fox?”

“No!  I’m nervous,” she barked, burying her nose in her carpet and covering her face with her paws.  “What should I be?”

“Whatever you want to be, silly,” Sora laughed, feeling her magic becoming unstable.  “We gotta go if you want the real thing.”

“Fine!”

Copper locks and eight tails momentarily returning before she became ethereal—thanks to a defensive technique White had taught her—Emilia made herself appear as if a ghost.

“I’m spooky now!  Oh, let me get my ghost sheet…”

“Pfft!”  Sora couldn’t help but crack up, seeing all the outfits she’d made, yet decided to go with a ghost; it was so her daughter.

“Stop laughing!  I’m just… I’m not done perfecting the other ones.  How do I look?”

“Like a ghost,” Sora laughed, ushering her through the gateway as her ring tried to constrict.  “C’mon.  C’mon.  I gotta have enough power to get us back.”

“Okay!  Okay…  Stop pushing.  Oh.  My.  Gosh!  Everyone has such good costumes,” she hissed as they exited, wrapped in Sora’s illusions.  “Mom.  I need to go back and get my mermaid one.  I can fly, and…”

“No!  Remember?”

“Mmgm…  We can’t use our powers to be flashy…  Uh.  Mom?”

Sora’s eyebrows drew together as she saw a tiny pixie floating by them with a few others, using magic to hover their bags of candy.  “Huh.  Well…  I guess this world is…”

“Why are you making that face?”  Emilia mumbled, reverting back to her typical fox teen self.  “What did you do?”

Feeling the waves of Existence, she was a tad shocked to discover unique threads that were in a whirlwind of disorder like she’d never experienced before.

“Uh…  I may have overshot our destination a bit.”

Her daughter’s narrowed green eyes shifted to the animal people and giant trolls.  “How much…  Is that the big clock tower?”

“London?!”  Sora groaned, ears falling back as her five chakrams spread out to scan the space.  “How did I overshoot our whole Existence and mess up the location?”

Emilia gave her a dull look that said she should know the answer.  Ever since recovering her mom’s side, things had been a bit unstable with both halves; her daughter was still pissed that she’d dropped their whole kitchen island into a swamp of mutant lizards last week.

“It was an accident…”

“That destroyed all of the food Moppy made!”  Emilia huffed.  Sora sighed—she was only mad because it had been chocolate chip pancakes.

“Haaa.  Well, I guess we should make the best of this while we can…  Mmh.”

They turned around to see a big wormhole of sorts that sent a pulse wave, throwing out a screaming blonde-haired girl; Emilia was swifter on the magical net, catching the girl.

“Mom.  This place is weird…  Pokemon?!”

Sora couldn’t believe her eyes when a Buneary and Mawile jumped out of the capsules on the girl’s waist; the Steel Pokemon’s jaws opened threateningly as the wormhole above them vanished.

“M-Mya, Alice…  I-I’m okay,” the girl gasped, rolling out of the net; they were beginning to draw eyes.  “Uh…  Where are we?”

Emilia was already kneeling in front of the defensive bunny.  “Mom!  Mom!  You didn’t tell me Pokemon were real?”

“Did… guess they would probably be… somewhere in Existence.”

“Hello!  I’m Emilia.  Uh, so… you’re a Pokemon trainer?”  she asked, big green eyes focusing on the cautious blonde.

“Uh…  Yeah.  You’re…  Fennekin girls?  Umm.  I’m Rhea, by the way.  Where are we?”

Sora breathed out a long sigh and shrugged.  “Your guess is as good as mine…  A whole new and weird mess of Existences.  It looks very Halloween, though…”

She paused when an ominous ripple came at her back.

“Mom…”

“It’s okay.”

Her chakrams spread out to cover Rhea, Alice, and Mya as a giant gate materialized in the street; now, people were watching.  It slowly opened, allowing a white-haired woman holding a spear that radiated with the powers of death; a blazing desert showed beyond the doors.

“Humph…  A tunnel back to Earth?  What an inopportune time.”

Two of Sora’s chakrams shot forward to encircle the woman, yet she didn’t show any resistance, studying the objects as she created a separation field with her magic.

“What… fascinating energies,” the woman whispered, showing a light smile while running her hands against the barrier.  “Magic that weaves into the very fabric of Existence, molding it to one’s desire?  You… are far stronger than you let on, child.  Interesting.”

“Eh…  Hello?”  Rhea whispered, scooting closer to Emilia.  “Can I… catch a ride back to my friends?”

The white-haired woman’s eyes flicked to the left as Sora felt a new force rushing their way through the sky.  “Oh, darling, I don’t think there is any rush…  We are in the middle of a convergence of tunnels in the aftermath of some colossal backlash through this maelstrom…  I suppose it is a reflux from Dagon’s invasion.”

Delivering a short bow from her constrained area, the woman chuckled.  “I’m Elinor.  Might I get your names?”

Sora hesitantly gave hers as the others did the same; she was a little surprised so many people just blew off the unusual happenings, but Elinor threw another curveball when Rhea finished introducing her three Pokemon.

“Mmh…  It seems at 12 a.m., we will all be yanked back to our original places.  Such an unusual string of events.  Wouldn’t you agree, vulpes children?”

Analyzing Existence, she sighed and dropped the barrier around the undead woman; she couldn’t sense any malice or ill-intent from her.  “You’re right, but there’s something else hiding nearby; it retreated when I began to…  Oh, crap.  We’re in a Halloween movie, aren’t we?”

She turned a sidelong look at clown-like puppets that jumped out of the drains, yet a streak of violet and teal lines swiftly dispatched them, and another platinum-blonde girl slid to a stop atop the ice she’d skated on.

“Wonderful,” the girl huffed, displaying a rather regal attitude while observing them.  “You wouldn’t happen to be Rassi?  No… but you do have lovely tasting energy,” she hummed.

Running her fingers through her hair, Sora asked, “Got sent through a portal?”

“A Crimson Void…  First I’d seen.  I’m Clover Emberfield.  You wouldn’t happen to be Spirit Users?”

“Define Spirit User,” Emilia chuckled, rising into the air and generating a sphere of spiritual energy over her hand.

Rhea gasped.  “No way!  How can you do that?  I haven’t seen anyone able to do that but Ash.”

Her daughter’s eyes lit up.  “Ash can manipulate spiritual energy?  Oh, can I be a Pokemon Trainer, Mom?  Please!  Take us to the Pokemon world!”

“Uh…  Yeah, yeah,” Rhea hastily nodded, forcing a smile.  “I would really appreciate a trip back home.”

Elinor strode forward to stand in front of Sora, and she repelled the spiritual waves she was using to try and examine her Core.  “Very well done…  Practiced, I see.  I’m afraid no one is getting away from this until the appropriate time strikes like Cinderella, heh, only with chains dragging you back to your place of origin.”

A portal of blood drew their attention as a raven-haired vampire and bunny girl exited it; the rabbit had snow-white hair that radiated a pinkish hue, and Sora could sense a devilish power radiating from her Core.

The resonance that passed between the new pair and Elinor tightened Sora’s gut; some kind of oscillation reverberated between some type of Seeds within them that resembled what Emilia had done to Mofupsi, yet these made the Null-Void within her hunger to taste it.

Why is my first response always to just eat it…  Sora puffed out her sadness as the bunny spoke.

“So, you’re saying you all might as well have fun for a few hours?  Could we get in on this little gathering?  I’m Rachel, and she’s Scarlet.”

“Peace!  Heh.  Unless you’re bad aliens.”

“Oh, I’d say we’re the best kind,” Elinor chuckled.  “My, isn’t this going to be fun?  If only Ishtar and Thor could be here.”

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