Spike thinks for a moment. “Uh, well actually I’m kind having a difficult time deciding...” He pulls out a roll of parchment and hands it to me. There are the standard things like ghost, mummy, vampire... Hmmm a draconic vampire. That would be pretty awesome to see... if Spike were a bit more imposing. I continue down the list, mentally marking a maybe on ‘vampire’.

Huh, he’s also got lich, explorer, dragon, spider, and ‘Frankemane’s Monster’. At least he got it right and didn’t put down ‘frankenstei-’ er, mane. I’ll get used to this eventually, but I fear that first I’d end up making the puns too...

I think over the options he’s come up with. “Hmmm, well it might be difficult with Rarity out of town. Whenever I made a costume I always had my mom help me. I’m not that good with... needles.” I shudder a little. “Is this all you could come up with? I’m sure there’s more options.”

“Well... uhm... I could be a... uh.. ooh! I can be an alien!”

“What kind of alien? A Grey? A Roswell? An LGM? A Xenomorph? A BEM? ‘Alien’ is like the world’s biggest umbrella term out there.”

“Oh... right. Sorry, I’ve read Buck Godot, I should know there’s tons of different types of aliens...”

“So what’s your choice? Slimy, scaly, big, small, fast, scary, disturbing, what do you want to look like?”

“Oh, now I’ve just got more choices! Dangit...” Spike puts his face into his hands as we arrive at the Library. “Ugh, I don’t know. Hey, maybe you could come up with something? Like, something from Earth.”

“Hmmm... maybe. We do have quite a few interesting cryptids to choose from. I’ll think on it.” Walking inside, I continue to ponder options. There’s a Yeti, but I don’t know where I’d get the fur. He could be an SCP, but a lot of those aren’t scary unless you know what they do...

You know what, I’m gonna try for the vampire one, I know plenty about vampires anyway. The fangs... easy, he’s a dragon. He just has to get into the habit of actually showing a bit of tooth for one night.

Should he be a ‘Clean & Fancy’ vampire or a ‘Messy Eater’ Vampire though... He clearly doesn’t seem to bothered by blood and such, but I doubt Twilight would go for it.

Alright, then we need a tiny cloak. Hmmmm... damnit, I don’t have any fabric, and the one person I know who does is gone. What could I do?

As I contemplate, sitting on the couch, I see Twilight idly working on cleaning the library, humming to herself as she simultaneously puts up some fairly basic and simple decorations, likely so they’re easy to take back down afterwards.

Shame you can’t just leave creepy decor around after the holiday if you live in a public place. Seriously, what’s the fun of decorating a house with creepy skeletons and tiny animatronics if people only see them for the two minutes they’re at your door?

“Halloween should be a week-long deal, it’d be so much better.”

Above me, Discord squeezes into the library via a knothole, and sets himself down ont he couch next to me. “I’m sure if I had any idea what that is, I’d agree with you, Anthony. So... what are we doing today?”

“Hmmmm. Well now that you’re here and I think about it, I could use your abilities. Not immediately, but on Nightmare Night. How would you like to be on my special effects team?”

“Oh? Well, you’ll need to start somewhere in the middle. What exactly is ‘nightmare night’? I haven’t exactly been very social in the last century, if you’ll remember. And even if you don’t remember, I suppose.”

I decide to describe the holiday in my own fashion. About the evil spirits, the purposes of the costumes, all the crazy stuff that was involved in All Hallow’s Eve before changing over the years. “Now kids dress up as whatever they want and go door to door getting candy in exchange for good behavior. We call it Trick-Or-Treating, because you either give out treats, or tricks will be played on you. At least, that’s Halloween. Not exactly sure how it works here, but the ponies call it ‘Nightmare Night’. I know it involves costumes, but I don’t know any similarities beyond that.”

Twilight calls over her shoulder. “It’s fairly similar, actually. there’s still trick-or-treating, though there’s actual rules for if somepony doesn’t give treats. Can’t get in trouble for pranking in response to bad give-outs, either! Also, it’s more about several myths created during Princess Luna’s imprisonment in-”

“Yes, yes, Twilight Spackler, go make use of your hot air to dry a wall.” Discord says, looking uncharacteristically disgruntled. Twilight and I both raise our eyebrows at him.

“Okay then. Moving on, I want to put on a show for the town, make this a holiday they’ll never forget. Feel like being part of that?”

“Hmmm... perhaps a chance to inflict a little creativity upon this town in a way that I can't get in trouble for would be nice...” Discord says, his brow still rather rumpled. He looks over at Twilight, who’s giving him a suspicious look. “Oh don’t worry, Twilight. I’m not going to cause any harm. In fact, I promise that no real living beings shall be hurt in ponyville on Nightmare Night. There. Now, Anthony, do elaborate. I’ve been stewing all morning, and I think I’m a bit overcooked.” Twilight rolls her eyes and goes back to decorating and cleaning.

“Actually, I have a bit of fine print myself. No members of the performance shall be at all responsible for any trauma or loss of bowel-control experienced by the audience because the show is too scary or awesome for their simple little minds.”

Discord grins widely. “Go on.”

Twilight quirks an eyebrow. “By ‘loss of bowel-control’ you mean...?”

“We are not liable if they shit themselves in public. I love this holiday to death and I’m not gonna cut corners or do anything halfway. This will be one hell of a show, and that’s just the way it is. After all, if it’s not scary enough to leave an impact it might as well be for any other holiday, right? This is about a night of fear, right?”

“Well... sort of? I guess its origins are founded on more of a freedom from fear through harmless shocks and surprises-”

“Close enough for me.” I say, and Discord smiles gleefully, glad we’re still doing this, and at full-force too. “Even if it’s not how your holiday works, it’s how mine does, and who knows? Maybe they’ll like it better?”

“But this is a special day for Princess Luna! What if you-”

“Invite her to be part of the show as well? I’ve planned on it since I met her in the dreamscape last night, I just haven’t asked yet because I haven’t gotten the chance.”

“Well, how do you intend to ask now?” Twilight asks as Spike walks past. Good timing, that.

“Hey buddy, I’ll make you a deal. You send a letter to Luna for us, and I’ll get you the best vampire outfit in the history of everything. Deal?”

“Sure! That sounds pretty neat. What do you need to send?”

“Hey! No bribing my assistant!” Twilight says, sounding indignant. Spike ignores her as he pulls out a quill and parchment.

“It’s not bribery if he’s agreeing, then it’s called ‘bargaining’.” I correct the now rather miffed unicorn. After I’ve dictated my letter and Spike has sent it off with that dragon fire trick that should totally just turn the paper into ashes but somehow sends it... I lean over to Discord and whisper the costume in his ear.

Grinning, he snaps his fingers and Spike is the spitting image of a vampire. The cloak is perfectly sized for him, and it sort of shrouds him when he pulls it around his front. His eyes seem a bit more... striking. I can’t seem to come up with a better word. But most notably, his draconic fangs are now slightly longer. When he pushes the cloak back, he even has green and red wings that are like a bat’s, but more scaly looking, though not exactly what I’d call ‘dragon wings’.

Overall, he looked awesome! He seems very impressed as well. “Wow guys this is incredible! I actually feel like the monster!”

I give him a large, knowing grin. “Ah, but vampires are not monsters. They are charmers, seducers, they are misleaders, and silent, mysterious, deadly creatures of the night. You find your prey, wait for them to show a moment of vulnerability, and then-”

Spike, looking super excited, and getting into character, has a rather predatory look on his face and hisses which sounds really awesome to be honest, though also a bit disconcerting.

“Just remember, you aren’t really a vampire. Besides, it’s not for a few days anyway.”

Spike nods and takes the cloak off which also seems to remove the other effects as well. He hangs the simple sheet of fabric on a coat rack and mentions how he can’t wait for Nightmare Night.

Now that I think about it, neither can I. Now, I need to collude with Discord. Heh, ‘collude’ is such a nifty-sounding word.

My plans with Discord are set and, halfway through our chat, Luna responded with a ‘yes’ and questions on what she would do. I have Spike send a response letter containing all the details she should know. Hopefully she won’t mind that I’d be scaring up her holiday. Not to mention scaring herself up a lot as well. Either way, our plans are set and we don’t have much else to do for the day.

Spike keeps eyeing the cloak pretty much every chance he gets. Magic clothes are cool. Magic costumes are even cooler.

“Hey, why can’t you guys do something like that? I mean, you can enchant fabric, can’t you? So why all the normal-looking costumes?” I’d gone through town and seen the few ponies in costumes early as is typical for Halloween... but none of them look as spectacular as that magic cloak Discord conjured up.

“Uhm, Anthony? Most ponies make their own costumes, and only one in six is a unicorn.”

“Well that’s no fun. Hey Discord, do you think we could help them out? After all, we want this to be a special night for everyone in town. Why don’t we add a little... realism to their costume choices?”

“Hmm... I like this idea. And then... the chaos will make itself! Glorious chaos! Yes!” Discord looks down from where he’d struck a dramatic pose. “Oh, don’t give me those looks, I already promised not to hurt anypony.”

I grin. “He’s right you know. The point of the reformation is to make him realize how chaos can be a good thing. If we say he can’t cause chaos at all, then that completely defeats the purpose. What, were you planning on pulling some kind of ‘reformation spell’ out your little books and just zapping the niceness into him?”

Twilight’s eyes shift left and right, and puts a pair of books on the shelf behind her, into the wrong spots. “Of course not, why would I do that? Heheheheh...” She smiles ingratiatingly at us.

I turn to Discord. “Forget the costumes, how about we make everyone actually semi-decent at lying?”

“Idunno, I’ve heard of poker and it seems that we might have an advantage.”

“I suppose. Anyhow, it’s still a few days before we can actually execute our little plan. What do we do in the meantime?”

Discord thinks for a minute. “Good question. What can we do that won’t get anyone so mad that they tell their pretty princesses on us?”

“You could try plotting and scheming out of the library?” Twilight suggests.

“But if you don’t hear our plans you won’t try and stop it. What’s so fun about doing something risky if there’s not even a little risk in it? Now I think I know how thrillseekers would feel if suddenly everything was legal...”

Twilight doesn’t even give me a good response.

“Well fine, party-unpooper. We’ll go off and have safe fun.”

We get outside and we still have the same number of ideas between us. None. “So... what would you do if you were bored?”

The Spirit beside me just sort of ties his long body into various knots, untying himself and reknotting over and over seemingly totally bored and with no ideas. “What can we do? The problem is I can’t go all out or we get in trouble, but there’s just no fun in doing something only part way!”

I sigh. “We could... give out free ice cream to the entire town and watch them deal with brain freezes. It’s not our fault they ate too much?”

“Nah. Literal frog in everyone’s throat?”

“Not sure how well Fluttershy would take the ‘live animals in peoples mouths’ thing. Also, choking hazard. If someone dies, then we’re screwed.”

“This is just unfair! What could we do without ticking off somepony?”

“Well, that secondary part kind of rules out just about everything I have from itching-powder rain to burning poop on their doorsteps.”

Discord gives me an odd look, one that is slightly disgusted. I explain. “It’s a form of revenge prank from back on Earth. I couldn’t come up with a second one myself.”

“Hmm... we could go hide candy in time-locked caches for the little ones to find. Candy with magical properties.” Discord suggests.

“Yeah, but there’s already a holiday for that, minus the magic. There’s gotta be something we can do. Everyone talks gibberish for an hour?”

“Nah, that doesn’t sound interesting. This is a first, I have nothing to do!”

“I miss videogames.”

Next Chapter: This is Nightmare Night Estimated time remaining: 11 Hours, 32 Minutes