Note: This story was written for ultrarecyclovegetarian, for Christmas Truce 2014.
Amity's starry sky was split by the sound of a hoverboard. Ghosts knew that sound, and feared it.
The Huntress was prowling. She patrolled Amity Park most nights now, tracking down anything spectral.
Her suit and board reflected no light from the sky. Taking a moment to stare down at the city below, she paused. Her suit's faceplate, had anyone been high enough to see it, was opaque, unreadable. With an imperceptible lean, she shifted her balance northwest, and the board followed her movements.
Before you could blink, she was gone.
From inside the suit, the Huntress saw it a little differently.
Amity was lit up by more than its nighttime neon soul. As the Huntress hovered over a residential district, her suit classified each facet of the city in glowing colors: known past haunting sites. Natural portals (none here, but you could never be too careful). The blue lines that would indicate an unwary ghost was down there, right now, ready for her to capture them.
There were no blue lines. She'd been a victim of her own success, these past weeks. Groaning, the Huntress set the board's autopilot to cover another section of Amity Park, thinking about what she could hunt. As the hoverboard glided to the northwest, she pulled up a list of the major entities in the area. The ones that were worth the time to track down, and the effort of capturing them.
Skulker would be a fun challenge, she thought to herself. The ghost used a battlesuit not unlike a mirror of her own, packed to the brim with high-tech weapons. She'd been waiting to use the jammer upgrade in her hoverboard and see how effective it could be.
Unfortunately, Skulker hadn't been active in Amity Park lately. That target was a no-go until he came back, and he had a wide range.
The next ghost on the list was Technus. The Huntress winced. The one and only time she'd fought against that entity, she'd ended up falling out of the sky Iron Man style. Only a stroke of luck had saved her. She flicked past him, looking at the next option.
The entry after Technus read only '13'. This was more an 'archival purposes' entry than anything else, but the biker ghost (first name, Johnny) and his girlfriend Kitty were interesting to think about. Their motorbike could apparently ride on air, and several strange 'unknown telekinetic disturbances' had been recorded around them.
Also, Kitty weighted her handbag with (according to the suit's sensors after she'd been hit by it) something with the approximate inertial density of bricks of lead.
They hadn't been seen in Amity Park since their initial incursion, but the Huntress was ready in case they ever showed up again.
She continued to page down the list. Some ghosts were nowhere to be found; a few were already stored in her suit's containment unit, and one or two were listed as being flat-out too powerful to tangle with.
Then, one entry at the bottom of the list caught the Huntress's eye.
Phantom.
Possibly the smartest of all the ghosts in Amity Park, Phantom seemed to have some sort of beef with the rest of them. The black-and-white-suited ghost girl had been seen capturing other ghosts with an unknown device. Whatever the effects were, though, they were temporary. Ghosts she captured always popped up again within a month or two.
Maybe it's some sort of ghostly hide-and-seek? she thought. Phantom had claimed to represent the citizens of Amity Park on several occasions, but the Huntress wasn't quite sure that claim stood up. Not after…
She shook her head, forcing the memories back. She'd hunt Phantom tonight. That was all.
Finding Phantom was easy… sort of. If there was any sort of trouble in Amity Park tonight, Phantom'd be there sooner or later. If there wasn't trouble, you wouldn't see hide or hair of her.
There wasn't anything going on tonight right now, but it was still early. If she waited, something'd happen— and then she'd pounce.
One Hour Later
The Huntress sighed, closing the web browser and looking out over Amity Park from her perch in midair.
Nothing. She'd say the city was 'quiet as the grave' if it wasn't such a bad pun.
Wordplay aside, it was obvious that Phantom wasn't coming out tonight— at least, not of her own volition. The Huntress sighed again. She could certainly go back to patrolling, and hope something turned up. But then again…
Poking around in her suit's menus, the Huntress checked the containment unit. Anything she could capture would be stored inside until she could deal with it later. There were two rather puny ghosts there now. When she chose to observe the first one, it just hissed at her. She opened a view on the second…
"—EWARE! YOOOOOU WILL LET ME OUT OF HERE OR FACE MY CONTAINED FUUUUURY! FOR I AM THE BOX GHOST! MASTER OF ALL—"
She closed the view again. He'd be perfect.
The only remaining question was where to find Phantom. The Huntress glided over Casper High; for a ghost, Phantom seemed to haunt that place a lot. Maybe she's the ghost of some teen suicide? she wondered.
However, it was after hours. The place was closed, and the lights were off. Phantom's hero complex would be better served somewhere people were.
Somewhere such as…
The Huntress's gaze drifted a block, to the dubiously named Nasty Burger. It was open 24/7, and it was still hopping with plenty of teenagers. And what harm could the Box Ghost do with french-fry boxes, anyway?
Taking a deep breath, she hit RELEASE, firing the Box Ghost away from her. The cardboard-loving specter straight down into the fast food restaurant.
For a few minutes, nothing happened. The Huntress made sure her suit and board were set in 'cloaking' mode. She didn't want Phantom to know she was onto her.
This was always the hardest part: the waiting game. She was alone up here, with only her thoughts for company. Sometimes, she had to wonder what would have happened if things had been different. Could she have ended up a fan of Phantom? Perhaps even—
POW!
The Huntress dodged as the Box Ghost came hurtling up through the ceiling of the Nasty Burger, almost right at her. As teenagers ran screaming below, a wispy form came after the ghost, her black-and-white jumpsuit instantly recognizable. Her glowing yellow eyes were focused on the Box Ghost.
It was Phantom. Stopping in midair, the self-proclaimed 'protector of Amity Park' pointed at the Box Ghost, saying, "I thought I told you to stay away from the Nasty Burger!"
"There are boxes theeeeere!" the Box Ghost responded, wiggling his fingers. "There are boxes everywheeeeeeeere! They caaaaaaall to meeeee, and—"
The ghost's speech was cut off by a perfectly timed ectoblast.
"If you're that interested, then how about we have a little boxing match?" said Phantom, her fists glowing green.
The Huntress watched with interest, her hoverboard pushing her out of the way when one of the fighters came too close. She'd never been this near Phantom before.
"Feel the fuuuury of my friiiiied potatoes!" the Box Ghost said, levitating a package of supplies from the Nasty Burger in each hand. They burst open, and frozen french fries— sharp as miniature spears— hurtled out, flying at the ghost girl.
"Man," said Phantom, dodging the rain of sharpened potato, "looks like you don't even have a career in fast food."
*BONK* "Ow!"
The Box Ghost's next container was full of frozen hamburger buns, and Phantom didn't dodge in time to avoid being pelted.
"Would you like a side of PAAAAAIN with that?" the Box Ghost taunted, as more boxes rose to hover around him. "How about—"
*WHAM!*
An ectoplasm-infused punch sent the Box Ghost and his boxes scattering. As the ghost struggled not to fall, the Huntress saw Phantom pull something into her hand. It was a…. thermos? Was this what Phantom's been capturing all those ghosts in? she thought.
Her guess was dead on. With a button press, a column of energy dragged the Box Ghost into captivity.
"NOOOOO! I hadn't given you your just desseeeeer….." he said, and then his voice was gone.
Phantom capped the thermos and looked pleased with herself. Looking around to make sure nobody was nearby, she began slowly flying away.
Now was the Huntress's moment. Her hoverboard couldn't fly even half as fast while cloaked, but it could move quickly enough to keep up with Phantom. The ghost girl wasn't making any effort to fly at speed. Her eyes were closed; it seemed as though she was enjoying soaring through the skies of Amity Park.
After a few minutes' travel away from the restaurant, Phantom slowly began to drift towards the ground. She seemed to be heading towards an alleyway near one of Amity Park's most eccentric buildings. Dodging the neon 'WORKS' sign, the Huntress saw Phantom dive into the alley. This was her big chance!
Dropping to the ground so she'd block the alley entrance, the Huntress let her cloak drop, grabbing an ectogun. Phantom didn't see her, at first. She was too busy…. ?!
Something was happening to Phantom. Rings of light were whirling around the ghost girl, transforming her into…
Into…
The Huntress almost dropped the gun.
Phantom was someone she knew. Someone she went to school with every day. She knew that black hair, those bright eyes.
"Y-you…" she said.
The ghost-girl-turned-human looked up, saw the Huntress, and froze.
"…you ruined my life!" said the Huntress. She couldn't stop herself; the words just flew out of her mouth. "I was popular, I was doing well in school, I could afford to hire lobbyists—"
"And now you hunt ghosts," the girl said. Her tone said she wasn't believing any of it. "If any of that's even true. So?"
The Huntress gritted her teeth. This wasn't going how she'd imagined. "So? Ghosts?!" she said. "You are one! You're a menace to the people of Amity Park, you cause all sorts of trouble, you—"
"Wait a second!" the girl said, glaring. "I'm one of the few people who's protecting everyone! Name just one time, Ms. Anonymous Purple Huntress, one, when I've screwed up—"
"You want to talk to someone who's had their life messed up? In that case…"
The Huntress touched her gauntlet with her free hand, and the faceplate of her glowing purple suit cleared. The famed Huntress was a girl, the same age as the half-ghost in the alley, with piercing purple eyes.
"…you can talk to me," said Sam Manson, staring at the girl who'd changed her whole world.
And Valerie Gray, also known as Phantom, stood there in the light of the GrayWorks sign and the jittering aim laser that betrayed Sam's shaking hands.