Chapter 14: Plans in motion

It was finally the 31st, Alice had woken at around 9am. Her mother was home all day on sundays, which is when they get to spend the most time together, it was nice. She headed out a little early to meet up with Clara and make sure they were ready. She had decided to go out in her costume so she didn’t have to come home and change.

“ Morning Alice,” Clara's mom greets her, “ Morning Mrs. Yue,” she greets her back taking a seat next to her friend. They sat in silence for a bit. Alice had thought the weight of what they were about to do today had finally set in her friend, but when she glanced over all she saw was Clara suppressing a smile. Alice had almost forgotten how odd she was. “ We wont be out late, bye!” Clara tells her mom before heading out, we had time but we still had to check in with Ken. The town was a lot more lively today, everything was decorated to celebrate the season, even Kens shop had a few decorations hung up. Ken had dressed up as well, he had gone as one of those old detectives, he wore a black fedora and a brown coat,

“ Everything is ready. All thats left is for you two to kill the collector and this whole thing will be over,” he says simply, as if its going to be so easy. They had a small amount of experience fighting one of these things thanks to Mr. Harrison, but it wont help much. They hung around in the shop until it was time. Before they left Ken handed them both a charm,

“ This should keep you safe from the Collector, it wont block physical attacks so please do be careful, but it should keep your soul from being harmed,” he clarifies, making sure Clara understood clearly what it did so she doesn’t do something stupid. They thank him and start trick or treating, they would try and visit as many houses as they could in the next hour and a half. The two of them had fun, they went from house to house, admiring all the effort people put into decorating their houses, as well as the other people who had dressed up. They had rounded back to Clara's house at around 8:28pm, they both had gotten a good amount of candy, one objective down. They dropped the bags off and headed straight for the house, they walked up the driveway to the broken down door. Clara had drawn her sword, Alice pat the gun just to make sure she brought it, they were ready. “ Lets do this!” Ken says just barely avoiding Claras sword, he was lucky Alice didn’t have a quickdraw. Clara looked tempted to stab him, “ I thought you were staying behind,” Alice asked, using one finger to push the sword away from Kens direction, just in case. “ Just in case I decided to come with, since this collector is old I have to make sure it dies for good,” He says, how reassuring. The three of them enter the home, they had decided to look around again. Clara and Ken would stick together since he didn’t really have a weapon, while Alice would go alone, she should be fine. Alice had drawn her gun in case she ran into the collector, she kept her finger off the trigger just to be safe. Alice went through each room to see if anything had changed, leaving Annes room for last. So far she had found nothing, each room had been the exact same, the same could be said for Annes room. Alice was kinda expecting something to be different here, disappointing. In the dressers drawer she had found the letter, on the other side were things Anne had used daily, like the red lipstick she had seen her wearing in her dream and in the painting. Alice decided to take it with her, was she robbing the dead? No, she had something in mind that would probably work. As she was going to make her way to the others a loud thud echos throughout the house, she run to the balcony to see Clara had been flung into the wall, her hat falling off her head. She seemed fine as she got up and took stance, the collector lumbers forward. Alice had a clear shot at its head, and she went for it. Carefully she kept her presence concealed while aiming the barrel at the things head, just as she pull the trigger it moves. The bullet pierced its abdomen, causing it to stagger. She quickly ducks out of view to maintain her position, didn’t really work. It had assumed she was up here somewhere so it brought the whole platform down by slamming its claws from beneath, Alice was able to reach the stairs in time as it claw its way through the floor to the upper level. She tried to aim at it again but its agile movements made it difficult to do so, it was up to Clara now. Alice stood back as her friend went at it with the thing, Clara defended against any attack that was thrown, stepping back to evade when she couldn’t, so far all she could manage was cuts along its arm and body. Alice took the opportunity to try and find the right moment to shoot it, which would take awhile. She would have to time a shot, Alice aimed down the barrel, following the movement of the collector. Instead of keeping her aim on it she would attempt to predict where it would move next, and predict she did. Just as it moved Alice shot, the collector moved at the right moment, allowing the bullet to pierce its arm. It cries out in annoyance, out of the corner of her eye she sees Ken standing off to the side, the collector also saw him and clearly was fed up with how much resistance the two of them put up and changed targets. Clara would’ve made it in time if Ken hadn’t whipped out the gold and white dagger and quick moves, dude was like 30 and still managed to move pretty quickly. The collector was right on top of him when he evaded its first swing and cut its right arm using the dagger, but Alice noticed a little too late. Making its move against Ken was bait, it needed to catch Clara off guard, which it can do now. It lunges right at Clara, smalling its claw into her blade, her pink kimono flowing behind her as shes slammed into the wall again, the wood fracturing from the impact. Fortunately she remained whole, probably just bruised. Unfortunately it jumped at her, again it pinned her to the ground, its eyes locking with hers. Normally in this kinda situation Alice would be terrified, she was, but just not as scared as she thought she would be. She finally figured it out. She cant help but smile, she place the muzzle of the gun to the collectors chest and shot the third bullet. It stumbles back. The stage was set. She had all she needed to beat this thing.