Just Dance

Just outside the festivities, a group of vans slowly drive up to the streets blocked off by traffic blockers and police cruisers. A pair of officers per car keeping an eye on the humans and lycanthropes celebrating Halloween. The side doors opening from the vans, groups of men and women dressed in dark robes stepped out ad donned masks themed to the celebration and made their way inside without the police taking notice.

Seeing quite a few make their way past them, one of the officers brought up his whistle to get the robed group’s attention, seeing them all stop and turn to see the officer walk up to them.

“Woah now folks, the entrance to the festivities is over there, do you have tickets or wrist bands?”

Looking back to each other, the masked group of people remained silent until one of them pulled off his jack-o-lantern mask to smile back at the officer. “Sorry about that officer, parking’s pretty lousy at the entrance so we parked up here and hoped we could get back inside.”

“Do you have your tickets?”

“Yeah, yeah, just let me…” Padding his gloved hands down over the robes, the man seemed lost in finding his ticket through an assortment of pockets before he pulled out a pistol and shot the two officers with tranquilizers. “Oh look, THERE’s my ticket.”

Gathering around the two cops to haul them off the ground, they opened the police cruiser’s driver and passenger side doors to sit the two officers inside and make it look like they were sleeping.

“You should have killed them.” Grumbled the one in a Frankenstein mask.

“Pfff, what for? It’s why the boss gave us tranks as well as the live stuff if we ran into trouble. Besides, he said if we killed any of the humans, we’d be freak food.” Sitting up with a grin, the man shrugged. “Personally, I like myself a little TOO MUCH to end up like Herschel.”

The rest of the robed goons grumbled and nodded as they closed the car doors and made their way into the crowd. Putting his Jack-o-Lantern mask back on, the man took on a silly voice to go with the smiling pumpkin of his mask.

“Now remember kiddos, its Halloween! Time to scare and spook all the nasties that bump in the night… Cuz midnight’s when we get to bump’em off!”

*

A crowd built up around the arcade portion of the festivities. Games played for prizes or coupons for the sweets being offered nearby. Some tested wits, skills, agility, or just offered pure fun. Like the Dance Dance Revolution which saw a group of men cheering to the beat to ‘Your Unbelievable’.

Cheering and hollering at the sight of the vampire assassin and the Tamaranian princess in a dance off, their efforts had gathered a growing crowd of cheering men, all cat calling them as they swayed and gyrated to the pulse of the beat and their high scores reached higher and higher. Standing ahead of the crowd calling, cheering, whooping, and hollering at the sight of the two women putting on a show was an embarrassed Dick Grayson with his arms crossed and a hand to his face.

“They just had to pick the soundtrack from Coyote ugly to dance to, they just HAD to…”

Dragging his fingers down his face as more than a couple dozen men were cheering the two on behind him, it didn’t help that the pair were putting on a show for the crowd… For HIS sake. Every now and then when they gyrated their hips to the beat or tossed their hear over their heads, the two would give him a look in the corners of their eyes followed by a smirk.

‘They’re doing this to tease me, it has to be.”

“Or maybe they’re doing this FOR you, ever thought about that?”

Looking over to the sound of the familiar face, Dick was taken back somewhat from the familiar face. Barbara stood next to him in her arachnid form, smiling as best she could through her fangs and her clawed hands folded in her lap. Her eight legs shifted one step at a time, propping her more humanoid portion of her body up to see the man face to face. Tilting her head with a pursed grin, the red spider queen chuckled at the man’s reaction to her appearance.

“Babs?”

Pulling the man in for a welcomed hug, Barbara Gordon laughed as she felt him unsure how to hug her with such an alien body.

“It’s good to see you again Dick, I see you and Kori hit it off pretty well.” Pulling the man away to smile back at him and eye the two women competing at Dance Dance revolution and making a show of it like they were at a dance club… Or a burlesque stage. And with how loudly the crowd were cheering them on it was more the latter than the former.

“She’s going to kill me with embarrassment, and Talia will get to lap up the leftovers.”

Scoffing and rolling her eyes with a flick of her hand, Barbara gently rested her claws on his shoulders and turned him back around to watch the two women dance. “Take it from another girl Dick, when she’s dressed like that in public with you and putting on a show, its not for THEM!”

The crowd exploded into cheering when the game ended and the two women leaned against the bars of their dance platforms to make out, with Starfire slipping off her jacket and throwing it towards Nightwing for him to catch. Holding the jacket in his arms, he could hear several guys behind him grumble in disappointment, even hearing one of them mutter ‘lucky bastard’ all while the crowd dispersed when Talia and Kori joined Dick and Barbara, looping their arms around his as Starfire pulled Barbara in for a one-armed hug.

“FRIEND BARBARA! You are looking the spooky this night.” Chirped the orange skinned woman, a permanent smile on her face as she glommed herself over Nightwing’s shoulder. “WE were going to have snacks before the festivities, want to join us?”

“I don’t know… I don’t think the restaurant serves blood to go with the salad.” Barbara jabbed, eyeing Talia who rolled her eyes back and smirked.

“Well, if YOU are eating, I wonder if they put flies in the ice cream, just for you spiders. Got to keep up your girlish figure after all.”

The two glared at each other for several seconds before Barbara finally cracked and broke down into laughter, followed swiftly by the vampire who clung to Dick’s shoulder for support. “Well then, lead the way Oracle of the Web, I’d love to see what they have on menu this night.”

Heading deeper into the festivities, the crowd parted to give them space to walk as they chatted and made their way to the bistro at the corner of the street festival. But just as they got to the door where several costumed customers ate and laughed, Barbara made a straight face towards Talia.

“Seriously though, does the restaurant need to fill a pitcher of blood for you to have dinner? Because that might be asking a bit much.”

“No… I ‘ate’ before coming here.” Talia answered making quotations with her fingers. “I can still eat food… I just get nothing from it and it all tastes like Styrofoam to me.”

“Huh… You ate Styrofoam? Well, that explains a lot.” Joked the red spider, sticking out her tongue with a wink and opening the double doors wide so she could scurry inside. “Come on, I’m starving!”

*

On the other side of the festivities, a group of robed men and women carefully placed the unconscious officers in the driver and passenger seats of their police cruiser, making sure to have their hats over their faces to obscure the fact they weren’t awake, and turn off their radios. Nodding to each other as they closed the cruiser doors and entered the faire grounds, the last one pulled out a cell phone from her robes and dialed a number. Letting her leader be appraised of their progress.

“Yesss….? WhAt HaVe YoU gOt FoR mE?” She heard the gravel rough voice on the other end speak.

“It’s done boss, the police are out of the way, no one’s hurt, the front entrance is closed and blocked off and we’re all waiting for your grand arrival in…” Checking the time on her phone, she smirked. “… Just an hour from now.”

“Goood…” Hearing the phone click, the woman put her phone away and put on her wicked witch’s mask, joining the crowd who were none the wiser.

Making her way deeper into the festival, the woman could see a partition being formed for the games to be played amongst the lycanthropes. The charity tournament between the Vampire that killed so many of her friends and family and the big bad wolf that let a plague of animals run loose into the city. She and the others had made a pact, to get rid of the monsters that swept through her home and turned it into a damn forest. She and the others had lost everything, and now they were going to take it all back!

“Happy Halloween kiddies! I hope your ready for trick or treats.”