Young Writers Society

Most couples did couple costumes.

Puck liked the idea in theory. But he also really liked the idea of picking ironic costumes, so he sadly had to turn down being Arthur's knight-in-shining armor or being his Guinevere. Guinevere had cheated on King Arthur with Lancelot, anyways.

Instead, Puck was going to do someone he had always related to: Marvel's Loki. Specifically, Agent of Asgard Loki - the one in the MCU paled in comparison to that version of him. It wasn't hard to make the costume when he could shapeshift.

Puck and Arthur had been at party one of Arthur's classmates was holding when disaster struck. A group of demons wearing terrible, incredibly boring and cliche costumes arrived. Arthur suggested that they leave, but Puck was convinced that he could handle it with a little bit of magic. He'd transport them all to a graveyard and make their costumes real. They'd be so busy trying to figure out what was going on that Puck and Arthur would actually be able to enjoy the night.

...So why was he in the graveyard now?

And why did he have a striking resemblance to Tom Hiddleston now when he took off his headpiece and stared at its smooth, reflective metal?

"No," Puck whispered, his voice sounding very much like Loki's. "No, no, no. This was not supposed to happen-"

"Puck?" a groggy, unfamiliar voice said from nearby. Puck glanced over at the man propped up against a nearby tree. He looked like King Arthur - with the fancy medieval king's clothes, the sweeping cape, the beard and the crown - but Puck just knew that it was his Arthur. "What happened...Why is my voice so deep? And do I have a beard? And an actual sword?"

Arthur stared up at him.

"...Puck?" he quietly asked. "What did you do?"

The helmet went clattering to the ground.

"I don't know," Puck replied, running his fingers through his now black hair. "The spell wasn't supposed to do anything to us! It was just supposed to affect those demons. I said everything right. I'm sure I did. But now we're in a graveyard, you look like you're thirty-something, and I look like I'm one of Tumblr's favorite men!"

Arthur unsteadily got to his feet.

"We'll figure this out," he reassured him, putting an unfamiliar arm over his shoulder. "Don't worry, Puck. We just have to take this one step at a time-"

Arthur suddenly went silent. Puck went still, too. There was no need to comment on what they both were aware of - there were other people further in the graveyard, and it sounded like they were coming closer with every passing second. The two exchanged a look. Even if the spell had backfired on Puck, it must have hit its intended target.

Puck muttered the words of a teleportation spell underneath his breath.

...But nothing happened.

Arthur sent him a wide-eyed look.

"I-I lost my magic," Puck managed to get out. "I...I'm Loki right now, and Loki doesn't use my magic like I do." He sent his boyfriend a terrified look. "Pres, what are we supposed to do?"

Arthur grabbed onto his wrist and tugged him over to a nearby tree.

"Loki can do illusions," he pointed out, pressing himself flat against the tree. After a moment of hesitation, Puck followed his lead - even though he wasn't entirely sure where Arthur was going with this. "You can put up an illusion that makes us look like part of the tree."

Puck grinned, some of the panic fading from his eyes.

"Artie," he whispered, "you're a genius."

One moment later - after a bit of trial and error - Puck got the illusion up and going. But the two of them were so focused on trying to hide that they had forgotten something very important: Puck's headpiece, which was currently sitting just a few feet away on the ground from their hiding spot.

Kate managed to force herself to stop screaming and take a deep breath. You bumped into a tree, that's all, Kate. She thought. Get over yourself.

Kate looked around. Then she remembered she couldn't see. That might be a problem later.

She stamped her foot and "saw" a clear path to the other people. Kate worked her way over there without too much trouble. But when she stumbled, thin spires of rock that came up to her hip emerged next to her, allowing her to brace herself. It was almost as if her subconsciousness was protecting her.

That might help later. She thought.

She finally made it to the other people and stopped.

"Um, hi, random strangers." Kate said. She winced. That sounded bad. "I don't know where I am or what is going on, but I'm Kate. Are any of you Avatar the Last Airbender fans?"

"Something definitely moved down there...uhh...Rew," said James, forming what he hoped was some kind of smile, but with his current face, the large fangs probably did not help. "As for your other question...I'm afraid I'm not at liberty to say that one. Although yaa...I have to say this isn't the weirdest thing that's happened to me so that should be saying something. So do we uhh...? He waved his hands in the general direction of the noise.

Then someone else introduced themselves as Kate and he turned in that direction. Avatar, the Last Airbender...I've heard that before, haven't I? He tried for another smile, only to be foiled again by his fangs.

Rew mulled over the agent's comment.

"I've been in a lot of strange situations," he admitted, "but this is definitely one of the weirder ones."

He looked back over in the direction that Agent Khaos had gestured in - and tried his best to squint and make out the source of the noise. But no amount of squinting could help him; he had no idea what the noise had been. He really should have been paying attention. He couldn't even poof himself over there!

"Let's play detective," Rew agreed. He would have given a smile, but all that really happened was his mouth opening a little more. Skeletons sucked. He had to resort to just marching on over to the source of the noise - hoping that everyone else would follow.

Roxanne smiled at the others.

"I'm a big fan of Avatar: The Last Airbender," she told Kate. "Katara is my favorite character. I'm dressed as She-Ra."

Agent Khaos gestured to the direction that they had heard the noise.

"Let's play detective," Rew said, opening his mouth in what Roxanne guessed was a smile.

"Okay, let's do it," she agreed. Roxanne shouldered her sword and followed the others further into the graveyard, where the fog seemed thickest.

They walked in silence for a few moments.

"It's so quiet...and creepy," she said. Suddenly, she tripped over something. It nicked her leg as she landed. "Ow!"

Roxanne pressed the cut and picked up the object. "What the-? This looks like Loki's helmet. From the MCU," she clarified. She stood up and looked around. "Someone else is here."

Kate nodded. "Duh, there's someone here. You don't see them? They're squishing that tree."

She pointed to the tree where there was obviously two guys hugging it. She stamped her foot and the other people were looking at her like she had three heads....which given this nights activity, wasn't a bad assumption.

Kate rolled her eyes and stamped her foot again, uprooting the tree in a spray of dirt, causing the two men to fly into the air.

Rew glanced at the tree.

...He didn't see anything?

He glanced back at Kate, studying the glazed look to hers. She had to be blind, but she could see. How did that work? He was still trying to wrap his head around it when she suddenly stomped her foot against the ground. There was two startled yelps from over by the tree - one louder than the other - and a shimmering glint to the air as the illusion covering the two who had just been catapulted into the air disappeared.

The two landed in a tangled mess of limbs, dirt and cape on the ground.

The one in slightly more colorful clothes groaned.

"That hurt," he whined, seemingly content to stay down on the ground. Something about his appearance seemed familiar, but Rew couldn't put his finger on what. The man next to him, on the other hand, was clearly a king: the crown and the sword gave that much away. The king was in the middle of getting up when he caught a glimpse of Rew. He almost immediately froze, hand extended towards the man right next to him.

"Puck," the king whispered, eyes wide, "now would be a very good time to get up!"

The man on the ground - Puck - gave another groan.

"I feel like I've been hit by a speeding truck, Pres," he said, "and that's not even counting how tiring it is to cast all of that magic - even if the first one failed and the illusion didn't last long."

The king nudged him with a foot.

"Puck," he insisted. "The grim reaper is right in front of you."

Puck raised his head. "But there's multiple-"

He stared at the group.

Rew stared right back. Why couldn't he figure out where that man was from?

"...Is that Adora, Toph and Spiderman?" Puck finally said. "If it is, then I think I hit my head harder than I thought when we hit the ground."

Roxanne stared in shock as Loki and a man dressed as a king landed on the ground with a loud thud.

"Nice job, Kate," she said and pulled her sword out of its place from her back. The men groggily sat up, but they sounded a little nervous. Roxanne held her sword at a downward angle, to show them she wasn't going to hurt them, but she would if she had to. And then Loki, who was named Puck spoke up.

"Wait, you know our characters?" she asked. "And that guy called you Puck. You're in the same boat as us."

She sheathed her sword and held out a hand. "My name is Roxanne. Are you two okay?"

Autumn stared at the two with wide eyes. She had quietly followed the group as, what was their name, Kate? told them there were two men hiding beside a tree and flung them up into the air. There obviously wasn't anyone there(until they had been flung into the air and the illusion broken, that is), but Autumn could tell that her eyes were deceiving her. She jumped a little at her realization. Spidey-sense. It sounded weird when she thought too hard about it; after all, Spider-man was nothing more than an actor in a costume or a drawing in a comic book, but this was the only way to describe how she simply knew there was someone there before she could see them. I mean, I guess I am Spider-man now, so I shouldn't discount anything.

The one man groaned and grumbled. It seemed odd; he didn't look like the kind of person to complain. He looked a little too... powerful for that. The other man(a king!) got up and froze at the sight of Rew. But Autumn was still looking at the other one, groaning on the ground. She couldn't place her finger on it, but he was somehow familiar.

She-Ra pulled out her very real sword, but offered to help the two men up. Autumn, at the back of the group, moved to go forward and help as well, but she stopped suddenly. For whatever reason, her senses told her that she might not want to trust them. She shook her head. They looked to be in the same situation and didn't seem to pose any threat. Well, they definitely weren't any threat, so Autumn tucked away the knowledge and decided to stay put, hanging back a small ways from the group, feeling even more awkward than usual in her switched body.

Rew watched the two men fully get to their feet. When they heard the question, the king glanced over at the other man - Puck - and gave him a very worried look. Puck, meanwhile, looked like he had seen a ghost.

For a second, Rew almost thought that he had seen a ghost. But Rew hadn't seen any floating around, and he was pretty sure getting stuck as the grim reaper would keep that ability of his intact.

"This doesn't make any sense," Puck whispered, sounding surprisingly nervous for someone who had been so nonchalant when he noticed the grim reaper standing nearby.

(Rew kept forgetting he looked like that now. He couldn't wait to have skin again.)

"If there had been some kind of reflector," Puck muttered, staring down at his hands, "then it should have just affected me. Not Pres and people who weren't even there."

Rew tilted his head and stared at Puck. Something told him he wasn't talking about a mirror. Then it finally clicked - he was a magic user. No wonder he had been so good about that illusion until Kate hit him with rocks!

Following his guess, he decided to check the man's soul. It was masked a little by whatever spell had affected them all, but it was clear as day now: he had two kinds of magic running through his blood.

"If we're talking about magical theories," Rew mused, "part of the problem might have been the spell was too complex - demon and god magic don't always work well together."

Puck's eyes widened. He glanced down at where his soul was - his right side of his chest - and quickly covered it with his hand. Which didn't really do a whole lot; Rew could still see his soul if he wanted to check.

That was when Rew finally got it - he understood why the two men seemed so nervous.

"Ohhh," he said, looking the two of them over. "You're the ones responsible for this, aren't you?"

"So you made this whole mess?" began James, jumping in quickly and moving forward, "that's a pretty big mistake to make? Any particular reason you did that?" He was now switching completely into detective mode, putting everything aside to try and come to the bottom of things.

Kate smirked.

"See, I told you there were people there. You guys just didn't listen." She said mockingly. She turned to the two men. "So you're the ones responsible for this mess? Why shouldn't I kick your chest in with a boulder right now?" Kate pulled a boulder out of the ground next to her and hovered it in the air.

Huh. she thought. I like being an earthbender.

Puck, seeing the boulder, immediately started to mutter the words to a spell. It wasn't until he felt Arthur giving his shirt a tug that he remembered the spell wouldn't do anything - Loki frustratingly wasn't a sorcerer in the same kind of way he was.

Giving a little huff of frustration, Puck reached down and grabbed Loki's helmet off of the ground. He brushed off some of the dirt and slipped it on again. It wasn't really necessary, but it made him feel more put together than he was at the moment.

"I did listen!" the grim reaper insisted, his voice ancient but tone childish. "I just can't see past illusions right now. Which sucks. Why didn't someone think of letting the Grim Reaper do that-"

Puck cleared his throat.

The grim reaper, who had revealed the truth before Puck had even been able to fully comprehend it, fell silent.

"Thank you," Puck said. He glanced over at Arthur. His hand was rested on his sword's hilt now, but he knew Arthur had absolutely no idea how to use it. He was just barely beginning to learn how to use magic. They hadn't even gotten to swordplay yet.

Then he looked back at Toph.

"Because it wasn't intentional," he said, "and you're going to need us alive if you want to get back to normal."

The grim reaper opened his skeletal mouth like he wanted to interject something, but Puck almost beat him to it. In an ironic twist, it was Arthur who actually spoke before him. Arthur, hand slowly moving away from the sword's hilt, took a step forward that immediately made Puck panic.

"Pres," he hissed, "what are you doing?"

"I'm giving an explanation," Arthur replied, glancing over his shoulder at his boyfriend. "And I'm trying to stop a fight from breaking out."

He looked back at the monster thing and Toph, an apologetic expression on his face. Puck didn't get why he was so ready to give an apology. Puck was the one responsible for this whole thing.

"I'm sorry," Arthur apologized. "My boyfriend can use magic. He was trying to cast a spell on a group of people after us, but they must have had some kind of magic that reflected it back at us - and somehow affected you, too."

He held out a hand to Toph.

"My name is Arthur," he said. "Arthur Croft. My boyfriend is Puck Ward."

"We can't see past illusions, Kate," said Roxanne patiently. "You can because you have Toph's special skills."

Roxanne turned to Arthur and Puck. "So, you caused all this accidentally."

She folded her arms. "Anyway, you said you can get us back to normal?"

Puck crossed his arms.

From the expression on his face and the way that Arthur gave him a searching look, Rew was pretty sure neither one of them knew how to get out of this mess. Rew frowned - or would have, if his mouth wasn't skeletal - and crossed his arms in a good imitation of Puck. There had to be something he could suggest. He could call up them, but this might be too much for them to push. He could have done it himself, but his magic was limited by being the Grim Reaper.

Which left...

"The gods," Rew suddenly said. Puck and Arthur stared at him. "We can go to the gods! I'm sure one of them would be able to help us get back to normal-"

"We are not going to gods," Puck interrupted.

"But you're one of them," Rew pointed out. "If anyone would be able to sort out your magic, it's probably them."

"I'm not a god," Puck insisted. Arms still crossed and expression sour, he looked away. Rew wondered just why he'd have such a big problem with his relatives, but then he remembered he didn't really have any relatives of his own.

"Puck," Arthur said.

Puck faltered.

He looked between Arthur and the others, an unreadable expression on his face. Then he sighed, let his hands down, and said, "Fine-"

He cut himself off with a swear.

"We don't have to go to the gods if you don't want to," Rew said. "I'm sure we could find a friendly witch to help us."

"I don't have a problem with that," Puck said, shaking his head. He gestured behind the group. "The people I was trying to cast a spell on earlier are a different, more pressing story - considering that they're walking right up towards us!"

He let out another swear underneath his breath.

Rew spun around.

When he looked behind them, he saw just exactly who Puck was talking about. There was a group of seemingly normal humans approaching them, all dressed in simple but neat costumes: witches, pirates, zombies, etc. But they had a glint to their eyes that implied they were trouble, and the magic dancing at their fingertips didn't help their image.

On a hunch, Rew checked their souls.

They weren't really humans - they were demons.