Bakugan: Just Like Siblings

"Hollow ween? The heck is that, some sort of weird hollowed out Earth fruit?"

"No, that's Halloween. It's "some sort of weird Earth holiday"."

Alice and Lync stared at the sign that lay on the store's window. While Lync was both confused and in awe with curiosity, Alice stifled a giggling fit at the small shop's attempt at desperately getting rid of their out of date and rotting candy.

"So… it's a holiday about candy?"

"You can say that," Alice replied. "It's a holiday where you dress up as something and get candy by knocking at the houses of random people."

The pink haired kid stared up at his older friend with an unimpressed stare.

"No, that's really how you celebrate it."

"Seriously?"

"At least that's what I know," she sighed, her eyes closed. "The Russian government doesn't like us celebrating Western holidays, so it never really caught on in my town."

"Well we're in America right now. How about we give it a try?"

"No," The Russian girl lightly glared down at her otherworldly companion. "It's tomorrow night and we're heading back the day after. We have to pack up tomorrow."

"Oh come on," Lync whined, his nasally voice rising in pitch. "We didn't get to do anything fun the whole time we were here! It's just one day!"

"Look, I don't want to miss the plane. We're coming here the same time next year. Wait until then."

"Yeah, and then you'll say we'll have to skip the day to pack up again."

This was just irritating.

After a strange turn of events, last month marked Lync's permanent occupancy in the Gehabich household. It had been quite a nightmare ever since. Day after day, Alice would have to go through the alien kid's constant whining about how strange Earth was, how it was too cold there, and anything in between. She had thought that his attitude towards her would have changed following his betrayal to the Vexos way back when, but he ended up being the whiny brat she remembered him to be the first time he took refuge at her place. Needless to say, she'd probably crack by the next week.

"Come on Alice! Earth has been completely boring and I finally found something remotely fun to do! Can we just rush the packing tomorrow night and the morning after?"

"No," she groaned again. "I'm sorry, but the candy you'd probably end up getting won't fit into the luggage and the plane leaves at six in the morning. We're not going to have the time."

"I'll just eat all of it before then and I said we could just rush tomorrow. Come on!"

This felt endless…

"Please?"

…

Please?

That was the first time the red head had ever heard him use the phrase.

…

It'd be hard to top an argument past that feat.

"Fine," she sighed in defeat. "Under two conditions. One. Your costume will be budget. We don't have enough space in our luggage, so we can't take it with us. It'd be a waste of money if we buy an expensive costume that we'll just throw away after a night."

"A budget costume," Lync scowled. "That's just lame. What kind of crap costume do you expect me to wear?"

"I'll choose one for you then," Alice continued. "Two. We'll only be trick-or-treating until six thirty. After that, we're going straight back to Dan's house to pack. Plus, that'll give you less candy to ruin you teeth with for the night."

"What?!" Lync scoffed once again. "What fun is that?"

"Do you want to go trick-or-treating, or not?"

"… Yes ma'am," he sighed, his body bending down in defeat.

"Good," Alice smiled in victory, her arms crossed. "We're going to have to buy a costume now, so come on."

"…"

---
"This is not funny," Lync grumbled angrily.

"It's not my fault. You didn't like anything else in the stores I took you too."

"Couldn't you have at least given me a costume for guys?!"

Lo and behold. As punishment for being an impossible shopper, Alice had bought him a very frilly and petite witch costume. He stared on unexcitedly and furiously and his hard grip to the bag he'd be using was shaking wildly.

"Well you get mistaken for a girl all the time and we're only here for the last half of October. I didn't think it'd be much of a problem."

"Whatever," Lync blushed as he turned away. "And why are you wearing a costume? I thought you weren't into this."

He spoke the truth. Right behind him, Alice was fully clothed in an elegant pink princess dress, complete with a tiara.

"Well," she blushed a bright shade of red. "I've always kind of wanted to dress like this at least once."

"And tell me what happened to getting budget costumes. Yours probably cost us at least 1,500 rubles."

"…"

There was honestly no way she could reply.

"J-just remember, we're only going to be doing this until six thirty. It's already a quarter into four, so you've got two hours and fifteen minutes until we have to head back."

"Fine," Lync grumbled before sprinting over to the first house. Alice had a feeling that this would be a long and grueling night.

---
The first hour had passed by rather quickly and by the end of it, his face showed that he was honestly enjoying himself. Most of the time though, people would mistake Lync and Alice to be sisters. Too embarrassed by the possible outcome to correct them, Lync didn't even bother each time.

And through the whole hour, Alice just watched in a small distance, smiling sweetly. It was honestly kind of cute. The whole time he'd been on Earth so far, Lync never looked quite as cheerful and full of life as he did now. The crabbiness that he had shown off to everyone the past month was now replaced with the innocence that had been shelled in for the longest time.

I guess he's not that bad a guy, Alice thought. He really is just a kid.

…Maybe I was a bit too harsh on him this whole time. I mean aside from all the whining, he's a really sweet guy underneath.

"Hey, Alice," Lync said as he continuously tugged on her dress, startling her a bit in the process.

"Hm?"

"You seem kind of bored. You wanna join in?"

"What?!" She blushed. "I-I can't possibly do that! I mean, I'm seventeen pushing on eighteen here! A-and I don't have a bag or anything."

"Don't worry. You look a lot younger than you actually are," he replied deviously. "They'll think you're fifteen or something. And we can always just share the same bag."

Shaking her head with a smile. Alice agreed and the two walked over to the next house, posing as sisters for the whole night. It wasn't that far from accurate though. Deep down, they really did perceive each other as the siblings they never had.

---
"I'm so tired," Lync yawned as he slowly threw the last bit of his clothing sloppily into the luggage bag.

"Well I warned you that we shouldn't have gone past six thirty didn't I?" Alice yawned as well, rubbing her eyes from fatigue. "I mean honestly, why did you go on until nine?"

"Hey, you were the one that agreed," he yawned once more. "I thought candy was supposed to keep us up. We've been eating all night and we're still tired."

"I think it made things worse," Alice replied groggily as she slowly folded up one of her sweaters, a lot more messily and untidy than her usual work. "Now at least attempt to pack your things neatly."

"Whatever," he groaned, dumping everything in his bag to the ground. If he were to follow her request, he'd have to start from scratch. "I don't get it. Why can't Dan and his parents help us?"

"Cause it's rude to ask the people housing you for help. Now what time is it?"

Lync stared over at the clock. "Five fifteen."

"And you just restarted packing your luggage?"

"You wanted it neatly!"

"But we're definitely going to miss the plane now!"

"Well maybe if you didn't care about being tidy so much, I wouldn't have had to repack every ten minutes!"

"Well maybe if you didn't suggest going trick-or-treating, we would've been done last night!"

"Oh come on, you enjoyed it! Stop blaming all this on last night!"

"Are you telling me I'm wrong?!"

As they continued arguing, six o'clock passed and so did their flight back to Russia. They were stuck in America for an additional week and through that time, their arguments continued and any new opinion the two had of each other from Halloween were now gone and dissolved.

They honestly were the siblings the two never had, and they wouldn't have it any other way.