Pyrrha found herself question the wisdom of her other half.

On the one hand, Ruby looked really excited about where they were going – and by extension, the rest of their friends.

I don't want to break something that's tradition, plus Pyrrha could already see the pouting lip, the sad twinkle in her silver eyes if they didn't go. However, that did little to counter the… misgivings that the tall redhead had. Yet she didn't stop her from letting Ruby lead her by the hand towards their waiting friends.

Pyrrha Nikos is many things; winner of tournaments, a cereal mascot, teammate, a trusted friend to many, and even a girlfriend to a particularly cute cloaked team leader... But a fan of being scared on purpose was something she most definitely wasn't.

No one ever suspected that, especially given her six foot tall, heavily muscled frame, the redhead staring down monsters the size of buildings without flinching on a daily basis, yet… There was something weird about wanting to get scared on purpose to her. Fear is a survival mechanism, it tells you when to run away or when something is amiss… so why would anyone want to do this on purpose?

It went without saying that horror movies were not something that Pyrrha ever watched willingly, nor, by any leap in logic was the trip to the haunted house something that she wanted to do. Her personal beliefs did not change the group consensus to go get scared on a mid-October weekend.

I'll just stick close to Ruby, and close my eyes and it'll all be over in a few minutes. The thought brought a small smile to her face. That should work.

In short order, a disturbingly short amount of time in Pyrrha's mind, the group found themselves forming into smaller groups of four to head into the attraction – a huge barn with some walls set up inside, to no doubt simulate some eldritch horror.

"I call dibs on going first!"

"I call second dibs!"

Yang and Nora high-fived each other, as Blake raised her hand. "I suppose I'll go as well."

Relief flooded into Pyrrha, I'm not going without Ruby, which was a given considering she wasn't planning on letting go of Ruby's hand anytime soon, so we'll go in the second group. While it only prolonged the inevitable, Pyrrha didn't care.

"Well, I'm not going."

All eyes turned to Weiss. "Wait, then why did you come along?" Nora asked incredulously.

"Because someone," Weiss shot a very, VERY dirty look at Ruby, who merely smiled innocently back, "said that if I didn't, I was being, and I quote 'a stick in the mud,' which I'm not."

"But you are if you don't go." Nora pointed out, without missing a beat before giving a great big gasp and closing the distance between the two. "Are you a scaredy-cat?"

"I beg your pardon but I don't get scared that easily." The white-haired teen huffed.

The slightly shorter teen poked Weiss menacingly on the chest. "Oh yeah, well prove it!"

Weiss' mouth opened before clenching into a determined grimace. A second later, she grabbed Nora by the arm and angrily stalked into the open hallway, yanking the confused girl with her. "Watch me!"

Yang shrugged before following in after them, Blake close by.

"I suppose that just leaves us…?" Ruby said to Jaune, Ren and Pyrrha, who murmured some amount of agreement. "Right, well let the waiting begin."

It wasn't until a good ten, almost fifteen minutes later that Yang, Blake, Nora and Weiss emerged from the exit.

Neither Yang, nor Nora or even Blake looked especially frightened, maybe it won't be that scary, after all? However…

Weiss was clinging to the same arm of Nora's that she had dragged her by; both of her slim arms wrapped tightly around Nora's muscles limb, as she kept glancing around warily, as if she didn't quite believe that something wasn't going to jump out at her at any given second.

"Weissy is a scaredy-cat." There was a smugness to Nora's voice that on any other day Weiss would have clearly disagreed with… yet, not a peep came from her, much to Pyrrha's surprise. Instead she only pressed herself tighter against Nora. "Um, Weiss?"

It broke Weiss. Pyrrha felt fear starting to return, Weiss didn't seem all that scared going in, and it got to her… I'm already scared, this isn't go-

"Next." The guy running the attraction ushered in the second group, seeing as the haunted house was now empty, cutting off whatever train of thought Pyrrha had.

The first thing that Pyrrha noticed, was that the hallway they entered was almost pitch black, her eyes slowly adjusting to the dim light after the door behind the slammed shut. Her hand tightened its grip on Ruby's, almost painfully so. The old wooden floor, and peeling wallpaper reminded her of some decaying, rotting house from a bygone era – every step making the floorboards creak with stress.

Ruby led the way, pulling the reluctant redhead along with her. They are just trying to scare us, it's not real, none of this is real. That thought provided little comfort as they walked into the first room, some sort of bedroom with a body hanging from a noose, as strobe lights flickered, and a creepy skeleton started to edge closer, and closer-

Nope, I'm not doing this. Pyrrha squeezed her eyes shut, letting her girlfriend blindly lead her into the next room. If I keep my eyes closed, I can't see anything that will scare me and I'll be fine. Perfectly fin- Pyrrha bumped into something. Something that wasn't solid like a wall or furniture. Something wet. Reflexively, emerald eyes opened…

…and was greeted by some kind of bloody, all too realistic clown mask inches away from her face, freezing Pyrrha in place, before melting back into the shadows.

"Pyrrha?" Ruby's concerned voice called out, most likely because her girlfriend had just stopped moving, her hand clamped around her own. "You okay?"

"Can… can we go back?" Pyrrha's voice felt small, like a small child scared of monsters under their bed. "I-I don't wanna be here anymore."

"Um, we can't go back…" Ruby gestured to the way that they presumably came – not that Pyrrha had her eyes open when they came through – where a door without a knob was closed.

"O-Oh." Pyrrha fearfully looked around. "Where'd Jaune and Ren go?"

"I think they went on ahead?" Ruby scratched her head before refocusing on Pyrrha. "Are you going to be okay?"

Pyrrha lamely shook her head. "I'm sorry…"

"It's okay, Pyrrha!" Ruby grabbed her shaking hand in both of her own, clearly trying to calm Pyrrha down. "We'll find one of the emergency exits, and then we'll be out, okay?"

On one hand, that sounded like the greatest idea that Pyrrha had heard all night… on the other hand… Ruby has been looking forward to this all week; I'm not going to make her leave early. Taking a deep breath in and letting it out, Pyrrha tried to put on a brave face. "I-I could try and make it through to the end."

"You don't have to if you don't want to, that'd be cruel." Ruby shook her head. "Are you sure, Pyrrha?" Silver eyes stared imploringly into emerald ones.

"I can try."

"Well, okay." A small smile spread across Ruby's lips. "But just tell me if it gets too much, okay?"

"Of course."

With that settled, Pyrrha steeled herself for whatever fresh horrors awaited them in the next room of the attraction, whatever grisly ritual site might be there, or-

A cold, clammy hand grabbed at Pyrrha's left leg.

In an instant, Pyrrha let out a shriek before she jumped away into the only safe place she knew: Ruby's arms. "P-Pyrrha-!" Within a few more moments, the two toppled over.

As Pyrrha shook the stars out of her vision, she noticed whatever grabbed her had started to amble closer to her, a sinister clown mask crawling into view from the darkness. Its eyes glowing red, a long, wicked dagger with some red substance dripping wetly off of it in huge dollops, splattering against the creaky floor.

This time, however, Pyrrha's reaction wasn't to hide, no, rather in that moment, she acted. For a normal individual, that would have been to scramble up and run away from the horror. Unfortunately, Pyrrha's reflexes erred more on the 'fight' side instead of 'flight'.

The end result of which, was Pyrrha 'Invincible Girl' Nikos punching a high-schooler wearing a clown mask through a wall. That in turn knocked over the haunted house' prefabricated walls, and letting light bleed through the inky blackness.

"I'm sorry!"

AU: Not gonna lie, the first haunted house I went into, I did that... the bit about punching a dude, not jumping into Ruby's arms. Not my finest hour...

So I actually succeeded in doing a Halloween chapter this year (I kept failing last year), there should be another one in a few weeks, however.

Acceptance is FINALLY entering the editing process, with me significantly happier with the result now. So that's my update on that.

Thank you for reading, I hope everyone has a wonderful day! :D