It was nearly dusk. Inside, the four warriors rested after a grueling day of training. Blanchette nursed a welt on her arm. Adolfo had his legs propped up, a quiet hum leaving his lips. Lillian sat polishing her six-shooter. Albus leaned over a notebook, drawing runes.
Knock. Knock. Knock.
The sound echoed across the house like bones on wood. Albus stood, brow furrowed. He walked to the door, hand instinctively brushing his bracelet. The air shifted, chilled, damp, wrong. He opened the door.
There, on the porch, stood a man in a black and orange suit with a wide-brimmed hat adorned with tiny patchwork pumpkins stitched around the crown. His face was concealed behind a cracked pumpkin mask, carved with a toothy grin and burning ember eyes. Twisting green vines crept from beneath his coat like living appendages, dragging across the floor. In one gloved hand, he held a small basket of rotting candies, in the other a smoke grenade. He tilted his head.
"Trick or treat, my pretty prey. The harvest comes, in one place you cannot stay. Light may burn and swords may swing. But all must rot beneath my king…Shall we dance, heroes?"
He dropped the smoke grenade. The house was instantly choked in thick black smoke, smelling of mold and burning leaves. Albus leapt back, his bracelet flaring to life, creating a protective globe of golden light around the room. Lillian fired blindly into the smoke. BANG! BANG! However, her bullets found only walls and mist. Adolfo coughed, transforming mid-movement into the werewolf with a growl, claws slashing at the air. Vines exploded through the windows, green, writhing, sharp with thorns and whipped into the room. One wrapped around Blanchette's ankle and yanked her across the wooden floor.
"Get out of the house!" Albus shouted.
They crashed through windows and doors, leaping into the open field behind the cabin just as the smoke swallowed the house whole.
Outside in the Field, the pumpkin-masked man emerged through the mist, walking calmly from the front porch as though it were a stage. Vines twisted and lashed around him like pets eager for a kill.
"Oh little lambs, so full of fight. Let's carve your flesh in pumpkin light."
Lillian shot first, this time aiming true. Her bullet was about to hit him square in the chest, only for him to protect himself with vines. He swept a hand, and vines erupted from the earth beneath her. Lillian rolled away, cursing. Adolfo slammed into him, claws flashing, fangs bared, but the pumpkin man melted into vines, reforming again like a horror from a dream. He grabbed Adolfo's face, whispering,
"Even beasts rot when autumn comes."
With a blast of black spores, he sent the werewolf flying into a tree.
Blanchette lit her sword with a shout. The fire licked the blade like it was starving. She lunged, slashing through the vines, cutting a path to him. He grinned beneath the pumpkin mask. Vines whipped up, catching her wrist, her ankle, her throat, but she spun midair, carving them in two. She sliced into his side, fire searing through the vine-flesh. He screeched in rage as his body began to grow and cover the burnt.
"Fire burns and sword may gleam… But fear still festers in every scream…"
He hurled a spike of thorned vines from his hand. It hit her in the stomach, throwing her backward, the wind knocked from her lungs.
Albus, eyes glowing, stepped forward and raised his hand. A burning spear of pure light formed in his palm.
"Enough," he said.
He hurled the spear. The golden weapon flew true, impaling the Pumpkin-masked Man's chest. The villain gasped. Then laughed. His body disintegrated into dozens of vines, vanishing. The silence was thick. Until the ground beneath them exploded, and dozens of pumpkin-masked copies of him erupted, made of vines and rot and flame.
"I am the harvest," said every mouth. "You cannot stop what rots."
Now the field was a battleground. Adolfo, back on his feet, tore through the plant clones, rending vines with claws, howling at the sky. Blanchette, bruised but not broken, cleaved burning paths through them, her sword spinning in arcs of flame. Lillian fired shot after shot, planting bullets in every head—mask cracking, vines unraveling. Albus created a wall of golden light, blocking a wave of thorned roots, and channeled a beam of light down onto the largest copy of the pumpkin-masked man, searing away his illusion. But even as they destroyed one, more rose.
Then came the real one again, emerging from the trunk of a twisted oak, his vines now armored in bark, his body glowing with autumnal fury. He slammed both hands to the ground. The entire clearing erupted into a maze of twisted pumpkin vines, grabbing at ankles, tearing through clothing, pulsing with dark energy. Albus went down. Blanchette was buried up to her waist in vines. Adolfo roared as he was restrained. Lillian took a thorn through the arm. The pumpkin-masked man stood tall in the center of his garden of horror, laughing.
"Rot is patient. Rot is quiet. And now… you feed the riot."
He slammed both fists into the ground. A shockwave of thorned roots burst from the soil, flinging Adolfo back and knocking Lillian's gun from her hand. Blanchette gritted her teeth, gripping her fire sword tighter, using it like a torch to burn away the vines creeping up her legs.
Albus, still pinned by tendrils, clenched his teeth and summoned his bracelet's power. A pulse of golden heat flared out from him in all directions, incinerating the vines holding him, and sending searing light surging across the battleground. The light struck the Pumpkin Man's shoulder, blasting part of his vine-flesh apart, but the villain laughed, his body regrowing instantly, the flames snuffed out by steam rising from his regenerating form.
Lillian, now gunless, ducked behind a tree and lit a stick of dynamite she kept in her belt pouch. She rolled it toward the largest cluster of vine-minions. Boom! A massive explosion tore up a swath of the clearing, burning vines and sending pumpkin-faced illusions into the sky in pieces. Lillian leapt forward, grabbing her revolver and spinning back into position, landing three shots into a vine construct's chest before it evaporated into ash.
A massive vine burst from the earth beneath Albus, smashing him into the air. He landed hard, dazed, as the villain approached, dragging a scythe made of blackened thornwood behind him. Adolfo pounced, slamming into the side of the man. The two tumbled into a tangle of vines, rolling in a flurry of claws, blows, and slashing roots. The werewolf's eyes flashed, and with a roar, he flipped the villain over, slamming him into the dirt. A blast of golden fire hit him from behind, Albus had recovered, his eyes glowing, hands brimming with raw solar magic. The Pumpkin Man stumbled, steam rising from the fire eating away at his coat and vines. Still, he did not fall. He grew. The vines reknit. His hands became claws. His words became whispers from every corner of the battlefield.
"The harvest never ends."
Elsewhere, Cullen, Daisy, and Leo stood at the edge of a ravine, looking down into the fog-drenched expanse of Dead Wood. Below them, the forest had long since been stripped bare, a maze of blackened trunks, skeletal trees, and copper-gray soil. Rusted wind chimes hung from twisted branches, clinking dully in the breeze. In the distance, the remains of an old town loomed like a half-forgotten memory: crooked rooftops, smoke rising faintly from chimneys, shadows flitting behind boarded windows. Even the birds avoided this place. Cullen narrowed his eyes, adjusting the strap of the duffel on his back.
"Home sweet home," he muttered.
Leo leaned heavily against Daisy. His breath came in short, shallow bursts, but he did not complain.
"This place," Leo said through gritted teeth, "smells like copper and ghosts."
Daisy steadied him with a firm arm, her ears twitching as she scanned the terrain below. They descended slowly, dust and dead leaves crunching beneath their boots. As they passed deeper into the outskirts of the village, strange mechanical contraptions poked out of the dirt, half-buried arms, broken turrets, and long-forgotten tools grown over by vines and fungus. Flickers of old tech glowed faintly from within the ruins: blinking lights, wires that pulsed like veins.
The town of Dead Wood had once been a haven for the forgotten and the broken, a sanctuary where Cullen's father had given the lost a second chance, crafting cybernetic limbs for the maimed, the outcast, and the castaways. Now, it was more like a graveyard for his work. As they moved between the buildings, a strange realization set in: they saw no one. Not a single figure walked the crooked roads. No shop signs creaked in welcome. The doorways were all shut, windows shuttered from within. Yet they were being watched. Eyes tracked them from the darkness, shapes moved behind curtains, metallic hands gripped window frames.
Cullen stopped outside an old scrapyard gate, the metal rusted through in places but still bearing the sigil of his father's workshop, a gear split in half, a phoenix wing etched into one side. Then, a faint mechanical clank echoed from the side alley. A figure stepped out. He was old. His spinal column had been replaced by an exposed gear-rod, clicking with every step. One arm was fully mechanical, ending in a wide-blade welding tool. His face was half-covered in bronze plating, one eye a glowing red lens. Yet when he saw Cullen… the old man's expression softened with shock, then recognition.
"Cullen?" he rasped, his voice filtered through a throat-mic that whined faintly.
Cullen blinked.
"Ribolt?"
The old man took a cautious step forward.
"No way … it is you. You came back."
Cullen dropped his bag and crossed the space quickly, grabbing the old man's wrist and pulling him into a quick embrace.
"I honestly thought you were long gone," Cullen muttered.
"Thought the same about you," Ribolt replied, stepping back, his eyes flitting to Daisy and Leo. "Your friends?"
Cullen nodded.
"This is Daisy. You should remember her."
"Oh.. Hello, Daisy… You changed," Ribolt said.
"Hello, Ribolt," Daisy replied.
"And that is Leo. He needs parts. That is why we came… But um.. What is happening here?"
Ribolt's expression shifted. He looked around quickly, then ushered them toward the shadows beneath a hanging tarp.
"We should talk inside," he whispered. "No one comes out in the open anymore. Not since he showed up."
Cullen's brow furrowed.
"Who?"
Ribolt's voice dropped to a fearful hush.
"The Moth Man."
Daisy's ears perked up. Leo stiffened, glancing around. Ribolt continued, his breath trembling.
"He arrived weeks ago. No one knows how. No one has seen his face. He does not speak. Just… shows up. At night. His eyes glow like lanterns, and his wings cover the sky. He does not kill quick, he waits. Watches. Breaks people's minds before he breaks their bodies. It is like he harvests fear. Eleven dead. So far."
"Wings?" Leo asked.
Ribolt nodded.
"Huge ones. Black and veined. Not feathers. More like glass and bone. You can hear them flapping before he comes. Like a storm of moths."
Cullen's hands clenched.
"And no one has fought him?"
"Some tried," Ribolt said grimly. "A few of us still have fight left. But his presence alone… it is like he eats courage."
He leaned closer, whispering:
"They say he comes from the Night Vault, some locked-up dimension of fear the King of Darkness cracked open."
Daisy's voice was steady.
"Why hasn't he come for you yet?"
"We hide," Ribolt said. "Like cowards. Like prey. Because that is what he wants us to be. Fear is the only thing that keeps us alive, and even then, barely. I guess it also keeps him entertained."
Cullen stood tall, face hardening with resolve.
"Well, he is going to learn something new."
Ribolt blinked.
"What is that?"
Cullen looked over at Leo and Daisy. Leo smirked despite the pain.
"That not everyone here is afraid of the darkness.. And that these people can give him a taste of his fear medicine."