The Seventh Sense, a ruby gloom fanfic

NOTE: This story will probably make more sense if you've read my origin story for Misery.

For two weeks, Misery had spent nearly all her time in her basement bedroom, meditating. She only came up at mealtimes (and some days she even fasted), never played games, and didn't even follow the soaps or the murder mysteries on the radio anymore. Her friends were getting worried about her. They knew Misery was a loner, but loners who stayed at the Gloom mansion for longer periods, tended to become more…social. To her friends, it probably seemed like she was having some sort of relapse. Which was why Ruby had decided they should throw her a "gosh-you've-been-spending-an-awful-lot-of-time-alone-in-the-basement-recently" party. You'd have to say that for Ruby, she was always very straight forward about her reasons for throwing a party.

Misery graciously accepted. For after spending two weeks deep in mediation, she might actually have had something to celebrate.

She had been developing her seventh sense. All banshees had a sixth sense. It was the sense that made them aware of impending disasters, and in some cases, enabled them control said disasters. Of course, the latter required a considerable amount of willpower and concentration. Misery had never been very good, at it, but she was making progress ever since coming to the Gloomsville. Recently, she had even managed to wrangle a small tornado. She was very proud of that.

The seventh sense was the one that enabled banshees to sense all supernatural creatures and distinguish between them. That one took a lot of time and concentration to develop. For many hundred years, while staying at the O'Neill mansion in Ireland, Misery never really bothered with it. Sure, there were couple of ghosts at the mansion, and on occasion, a bunch of leprechauns got into the kitchen - nasty little buggers - but none of them were worth the effort. On the Gloom mansion, however supernatural creatures were everywhere, and some of them came without being invited – or they were invited on false premises. It would be useful if someone could keep them in check, Misery felt.

The party wasn't for another three hours. There was time to take a stroll around the properties and see if her seventh sense was actually working. As she began walking up the stairs, she heard voices, although she wasn't sensing anything.

"No, I'm sure there were a dozen of them."

"You must've counted wrong."

It was Frank and Len. Of course, humans - which Frank and Len technically were - wouldn't be picked up by her seventh sense anyway. They were looking at a box of muffins

"What's the matter, guys?", she asked casually

"Mom brought us a dozen muffins for the party tonight", Frank explained. "But now there's only ten of them."

"Maybe there were only ten to begin with" Len suggested

"No, there were twelve, I counted them!" Frank insisted. "Look, there's a gaping hole where the two last muffins used to be."

Misery shrugged, and kept on walking. As she approached the kitchen, she heard a noise, but still couldn't pick up anything. Of course, that could simply mean that there was a human in there. And since it couldn't be Frank and Len, so that only left her with…

"Hello, Ruby."

Ruby, who had been standing in a closet at the time, came crawling out of it and looked at her friend.

"Oh hello, Misery", she replied cheerfully before she got a more confused look in her eyes. "Say, how did you know it was me?"

"Uh, lucky guess." Misery didn't want to explain the seventh sense to her just yet, especially since she still wasn't entirely sure if it really worked yet.

Ruby chuckled. "Yeah, I guess I am spending a lot of time at the kitchen, huh? Well, right now I'm making fudge for the party tonight", she explained, and prepared to put a batch into the stove. "But the first batch seems to missing."

"What do you mean?"

"I had only just taken it out of the stove, then I turned my back to it for a moment and – " Ruby snapped her fingers. "- Just like that, it was gone!"

"It's a mystery", Misery agreed. "I'll be on the lookout." She added, preparing to move on when something began tingling inside her. Her senses were finally picking up something. What was she sensing right now? It kind of felt like… a living skeleton…

The rear kitchen door opened.

"Hi guys, have you seen my roast beef?"

Skull Boy. Bingo!

"Your what?", Ruby asked.

"I had a piece of roast beef prepared for tonight. It was packed in tin foil. Have you seen it?"

Misery's sense tingled again, but she couldn't quite figure out what it was trying to tell her this time.

"No, sorry. In fact, I'm also missing – "

"I say, Skull Boy, are you sure there are supposed to be twenty-four of these? I can only count twenty-one."

Poe. Well, that made sense too; there's a bit of magic in all anthropomorphic creatures.

Ruby looked at the crow and the living skeleton, confused.

"I made devilled eggs for the party tonight." Skull Boy explained. Turning to Poe, he replied: "Yes, I'm sure I made twenty-four. Are you saying some of them are missing?"

Misery decided to leave the kitchen and the commencing discussion, but she was thinking the same thing as Ruby, Skull Boy and Poe were probably thinking right now: Did someone steal all of this? If someone was stealing food from the party being held in her honour, she took that as a personal insult.

But who would be petty enough to steal, here at the mansion?

Misery sensed something again.

A ghost.

More specifically, a spook…

"Boo Boo!"

"AHH!"

The tiny spook jumped.

"H-how… how did you know I was here? I - I was trying to stay invisible!"

"Never mind that!" Misery replied firmly. She had an idea. "But tell me, have you stayed invisible all day?"

Boo Boo shrugged. "Pretty much."

"Have you seen anyone in this house who shouldn't be here? Today, I mean?"

"Other than Mr. White and Mr. White?", he said bitterly, referring to his meddlesome mentors. "Well, actually…"

***

As Misery walked out in the backyard, a small thundercloud approached her. "Not now!" she said firmly, and frowned. "Wait for it!". Oddly enough, the thundercloud suddenly halted and then moved away, almost as if it was taking instructions from her. Misery smiled smugly. She was on top of the game. Concentrating even deeper, she walked around in the garden, staying close to the bushes and the trees.

After a couple of minutes, she finally started to feel a tiny tingle. Her instinct told her to move closer to the bushes. The tingle was getting stronger. Stealthy, her senses lead her to a thick, overgrown bush.

Was it…?

But of course, it all made sense now!

She pounced towards a specific point in the shrubbery, and landed on… something. Something groaned. Misery got off of it, and allowed it to get up.

It was a sort of goblin. It was about one head shorter than Misery, had large, pointy ears, a potato nose, uneven buck teeth and a pinkish green skin. Just as Boo Boo had described it to her.

Misery seized the goblin by the ankles and shook him hard. A variation of foodstuff fell out of his pockets and sleeves: two muffins, three devilled eggs, a piece of roast beef, and a plate of fudge.

She dropped her captive, and gave him a stern look.

"You should have used a basket, like the last time." She commented.

"Yeah, but I lost the basket in a poker game some time after you threw me…oops!" the goblin slapped his forehead.

"Ah, that's what I thought!" Misery exclaimed triumphantly. "So it was you who came to us disguised as a bunny! I've been so long in Ireland that I should've been able to recognize a pooka when I see one. But that's why you threw a cold spell on me, I guess, to clog my senses. That was pretty clever, I'll give you that."

"Why, thank you. Yeah, you gave me a good scare when I met you the first time – I didn't know they had a banshee at the Gloom mansion. So I had to think of something to keep you distracted. And since I was already faking a cold, the logical thing was to make you think you'd caught the same cold."

Misery rolled her eyes. Pookas couldn't resist the opportunity to brag when you complimented them on something, no matter what the compliment was. She grabbed the creature by his collar.

"What's your name, pooka?" she demanded.

"Ulweric."

For a moment, Misery looked surprised. She honestly wasn't expecting a straightforward answer.

"That's right, ma'am, I'm not afraid to give you my name." the pooka said, and added with self-assurance: "I don't buy into that old superstition about a banshee being able to kill people just by knowing their names. Telling you my name doesn't give you any sort of power over me, and we both know it!"

"But knowing what you are gives me power over you!" Misery declared. "Now that I know the truth about you, your tricks and amateur magic will have no effect on me!"

"Amateur magic is better than no magic!" the pooka hissed. "Everyone's so afraid of you banshees, but what can you actually do?"

All of a sudden, and for not apparent reason, a large tree tipped over and landed with a loud crash, on the ground just behind Ulweric.

"That, for instance." Misery said dryly.

Ulweric hesitated for a moment. Then he said: "Accidents just happens when you banshees are around. You can't control it!"

Misery grabbed a stick and made a vague "X" in the grass. Then she forcibly placed the pooka on that specific spot.

"You're halfway right", she said to him. "Accidents just happen, and we can't prevent that…" Misery hurriedly moved Ulweric away. Less than one second later, lightning suddenly struck at the exact spot where she had made an X just a moment ago.

Misery smiled wickedly. This was her sixth sense at work. For the moment, she was the master of disaster, rather than the other way around.

"…But we can control them, to a certain degree, if we concentrate.", she continued. "And I feel very concentrated right now!"

She grabbed the pooka by the collar again. He didn't say anything, but she could see that he was sweating.

"But getting back to the subject at hand: You have the nerve to come here and steal from us again, after what happened the last time?"

"It's only a few table scraps! I'm hungry!"

"First, I don't think a fresh plate of fudge, still hot from the stove, qualify as a "table scrap". Secondly, and more importantly, so what if you're hungry? Just like my kind, you pookas get hungry, but you never actually starve. People like us don't actually need to eat!"

Ulweric pointed at the foodstuff. The fudge was still in its pan, and the roast beef was still wrapped in tin foil. But the rest was scattered on the ground.

"Let's be reasonable" , he tried. "Let me have the eggs and the cupcakes – you're not gonna want them now that they've been on the ground, anyway – and I'm outta here, promise!"

"Why should I let you go?"

"What else are you gonna do? You didn't turn me in for the theft of your valued, personal items. Are you really gonna to turn me in for this?"

Misery sighed. She was getting soft – Probably as a result of having friends, which was a novel concept to her. For four hundred years, before coming to Gloomsville, she had never really trusted anyone who wasn't a relative.

She let go of the Pooka's collar.

"Ulweric", she said with her gravest voice. "If you ever come around these parts again, I will lock you in an enchanted cage and airmail you to the University of Dublin's folklorist institute!"

"You've got an enchanted cage?", the pooka said sceptically. "As if…"

"Maybe I do, and maybe I don't. Are you willing to take the chance?"

Ulweric was trying to put on a brave face, but Misery could see the uncertainty in his eyes. Hurriedly, he picked up the leftovers, and ran away.

"Misery?" said a voice from the porch. Misery turned around, seeing Ruby in the distance.

"Misery, the gosh-you've-been-spending-an-awful-lot-of-time-alone-in-the-basement-recently party is starting soon!"

"Coming!" Misery replied as she walked towards her friend. "And look what I found", she added as she walked up the porch, handing the items.

"My fudge! And the roast beef?" Ruby exclaimed. "How did you find it?"

Misery smiled. "I got lucky, I guess."

Suddenly, lightning struck again. This time it hit Misery, charcoaling her dress and burning off most of her hair.

Her concentration was slipping, and once again, disaster was the master of her.

"Ow", she muttered.

"Looks like your luck just ran out, huh?" Ruby said sympathetically.

"Yes, but it doesn't matter." Misery replied, and added in her mind: This evening is already a success, anyway. "Let's get this party started! Er, as soon as I've freshened up a bit."

Where would you guys be without me?, Misery thought, as she went inside, smoke still coming from her clothes, and her hair still sizzling. Well… better off, probably. But I'd like to believe that sometimes, I can make difference in a positive way.

THE END

Hi!

I hope you don't mind that I took short break from writing my "Ruby Gloom: Secret origins" stories in order to finish this Misery one-shot. Everyone (that is to say, all Ruby Gloom fans) loves Misery, right?

This story is obviously inspired by the episode "Bad Hare Day". I could've called it "Bad Pooka Day", but that would be giving away too much of the story. BTW, pookas are not something I made up; they are shape-shifting creatures from Irish folklore. In modern popular culture, pookas are best known being able to turn into rabbits, and that's the motif I'm going with here. Also, for the purpose of this story, it's important to remember that I've got Misery pegged as a banshee (a creature that also comes from Irish folklore)