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There were two times of year that Nemu dreaded the most; April Fool’s, and Halloween. The first of April was obvious enough, a day of tricking people and playing pranks on them, Nemu being the likely target usually. The other… was Halloween, or at least the overall month that led to it. There was just something about the general vibe the month had, with people decorating their houses with spiders (and fake cobwebs everywhere), ghosts (in varying degrees of creepiness), and skeletons (and spider skeletons), that was just 2spooky4me for the green-haired girl.

It probably also didn’t help that this was also the month of scary horror movies, that her parents always said she and Satori were too young to watch, which took the place of the normal programming the twins would tune into. Even though they were generally banished from the living room when their parents would watch said movies, Nemu could still hear the screams and other scary sounds that kept her up at night.

Ideally, Nemu should have been in bed, tucked in and off in dreamland. Indeed, it was what she would have preferred, if she had any say in the matter, and previously, she had indeed been in the comfort of her own home. However, Satori had snuck out of the house after bedtime, for reasons Nemu didn’t quite catch, and thus she had gone out as well, powered up as Chibi Hokkaido, trying to convince her twin to come back home and back to bed. Bed was good, bed was safe, and bed wasn’t full of spooky things that went bump in the night.

Before Hokkaido could catch up with her twin, though, a thick fog rolled in, the mist obscuring her vision, leaving her unable to tell her left from her right. Try as she might, the chibi senshi of baku couldn’t seem to fumble her way through the haze, nor could she sense any trace of her twin, though she certainly attempted to do her best shot at it. When the mist finally dissipated, Hokkaido found herself very, very, far away from anything resembling home… or Destiny City in general.

It looked like something out of one of those fairytales, almost, the ones with the bad endings that is, where the little girl met with some untimely fate, or where her village was cursed (because of the untimely fate). Surely, there would be a monster lurking around as well… Hokkaido shuddered at the thought, but soldiered onwards. The buildings all looked abandoned, but the chibi peered into the windows of each one regardless, hoping to find any sign of Sato- Aomori. Where could she have gone?

The village itself wasn’t the friendliest looking place to begin with, but the ominously looming trees added to the feeling of uneasiness Hokkaido felt. There was a feeling that she was being watched somehow, but perhaps it was just… one of Aomori’s pranks. There didn’t seem to be any sign of her twin within any of the buildings she had checked so far- perhaps, though she hoped it wasn’t the case- Aomori could be… in the forest?

What Hokkaido would find in the forest, however, was not her twin, but another chibi senshi, whose reputation as someone who could be classified as 'reliable' was questionable at best. Lepus, having also arrived in the village when the fog came rolling along, was investigating the forest, looking for items of interest, or baddies to beat up. So far, she hadn't exactly found anything noteworthy, aside from noticing the way the forest seemed to loop around and around. The whole being spirited away ordeal had been nothing new to Lepus- she'd been transported to other 'dimensions' or 'parallel worlds' before, but it was always an adventure every single time... as long as she could use her magic, of course. And there were things to beat up.

The scenery looked like something out of one of her survival horror video games, maybe something like Darkwood, or Silent Hill, though the lack of monsters was highly disappointing. Where were the jumpscares, the ominous music, the spooky... anything? It was disappointing, and Lepus so far had yet to run into anyone familiar, including her very own guardian cat, Etoile. A flash of green and a fellow chibi senshi aura caught her attention, and Lepus followed after it, curious. Could it be...? Yes! Lepus was rewarded for her efforts by finding her 'apprentice' chibi senshi, or so she thought.

Actually, something seemed a little off- Aomori's hair was a little longer than Lepus remembered- but she ignored it in favor of greeting who she thought to be the chibi senshi she was currently mentoring. "Aha! I've finally found you, my dutiful disciple!" she exclaimed, completely oblivious to how startled and confused 'Aomori' looked, "The fates have aligned in our favor, to lead us to each other. Stick close- there's bound to be foul fiends afoot... somewhere."

Just what had she gotten herself into? Hokkaido didn’t know who this other girl was, but she seemed to either know who she was, or was she mistaking her for her twin? She wanted to escape, to get away from this strange girl, but Lepus seemed determined to 'drag' her along for the ride through this endlessly looping forest.

"Oho, what's this? Are you nervous? There's nothing to fear with me around!" Lepus declared, still unaware she had the wrong person.

If there was one thing Lepus wasn't known for, it was her critical thinking skills; indeed, 'impulsiveness' and 'recklessness' were traits normally associated with her, for better or for worse. At no point in time did she stop and recall her first meeting with Aomori, where she had sensed two chibi senshi auras running away from each other, nor did she ever bother to ask the younger girl about any family... both of which would have been her first clue as to what was so different about the 'Aomori' that current was trying her hardest to shrink away from the teen chibi senshi. Instead, all Lepus could ponder (and continue to ponder) was when had Aomori grown her hair out this long?

"Oh? Is something wrong, my devoted prote- Aomori?" Lepus inquired, wondering what spooked her apprentice so, "Have no fear! You're safe as long as you stick with me- we'll see through this to the end together- there's nothing to be afraid of with the two of us together! Our powers combined will surely frighten off any threats."

Her words were meant to be reassuring, or at least in Lepus' mind they were supposed to be, though that only served to make Hokkaido even more nervous, not that the teen seemed to notice. Indeed, Lepus was still thinking about how this was a good opportunity to show off in front of her younger mentee, should any threats emerge, and not about the general strangeness that the younger chibi seemed to exude. That all changed, though, when, in the middle of traversing the looping forest, she ran into...

...Aomori????

"Huh? There's two of you?" Lepus was highly confused at this new discovery, looking back and forth between Aomori and Hokkaido.

Lepus continued to glance back and forth between the two, utterly dumbfounded, at a loss for words, even in the usual pretentious manner of speech she adopted when she was in her chuuni 'defender of justice' persona. The concept of twin senshi technically wasn't new to her, since she knew a set of twins that were from her constellation, but-

Well, sure, if she looked at Hokkaido and Aomori again, there were subtle differences in their uniforms, aside from one girl having short hair and the other long. The rational part of her brain told her that these girls were twins, too, but the irrational part of her brain was louder, and it was that part that led her to speak without stopping to think.

"Ah- I see, you've learned to clone yourself- how impressive!" Lepus finally said, proving that with age didn't come wisdom, or something like that. After a moment of pondering, she frowned.

"Unless... one of you is the evil twin??"

Hokkaido shot Aomori a pleading look, as if to say 'This is what you got us into!' "You snuck out! Mama and Papa are going to be worried," is what she managed to say instead.

"Ah... aha! I see," Lepus replied, though she did not, in fact, see. In fact, she was still a little confused, even though the answer should have been plainly obvious that Hokkaido and Aomori were simply twin sisters that were chibi senshi, but perhaps it was just the part of her brain that was wanting something interesting to happen while they were stuck in this village. Evil twins, Aomori cloning herself? She was desperate, maybe, or it was just Lepus being Lepus, which was to say, she was too invested into staying in character. It didn't last long, though, as Lepus nodded (mostly to herself) in understanding.

"Well, Hokkaido, I must apologize for the case of mistaken identity!" the teen told the younger girl that she had previously been terrorizing, as if that made everything better, "I am Chibi Super Lepus, the senshi of rabbits! I also happen to be the mentor of your sister here."

Hokkaido honestly wasn't sure how she was supposed to feel in this situation. As new to being a senshi as she was, it still felt a little weird to meet someone who definitely much older than her or Aomori being a chibi senshi, and since when had Aomori gotten herself a mentor...?

But that wasn't really important right now, maybe. Well, Hokkaido would have to confront her twin about it later, much much later, but for now...

"But we don't know how to get out of here..." she told Aomori, her fretful nature coming to light once more.

"Of course I do!" Lepus declared, though it was, in fact, the exact opposite, and she had absolutely no idea how they were getting out of here. But of course, she couldn't exactly admit this in front of a couple of gradeschoolers, especially when one of them highly looked up to her, practically hanging onto her every word. "As I was telling your sister here, all you need to do is stick with me, and I'll find the way back home in no time flat."

She was definitely going to be eating those words soon, probably, though she certainly hoped not.

Hokkaido... wasn't super sure about placing so much faith into this older chibi, especially given that they had just met, and also given that said older chibi had just mistaken her for her twin sister, but did they really have a choice? Aomori seemed to be confident that Lepus would find the exit for them, not to mention seemed to hold her in pretty high regard, so maybe it was okay, just for a little while, to trust her twin's judgement. Besides, the only other option would be to split up, and Hokkaido really didn't want to be on her own, so...

Hopefully, they could get out of here and back home, before Mama and Papa realized they weren't sleeping in their beds anymore.

As much as she didn't like it, Hokkaido, once again, didn't really have much wriggle room in her options, except for as to try to trust in Lepus' and Aomori's words for now. Even if she didn't agree with their assessments that everything would be okay, what else could she do, though? In the end, the only clear option was to stick close and hope that they really would be home soon, as Lepus said...

Even if home seemed impossibly far away.