Disclaimer: I don't own the rights to ghostbusters. Wish I did, because Janine wouldn't have dated Louis in the second movie, and it wouldn't have taken so long to make a third movie. Oh well . . .
Present Past
The room was little more than a cavern, a small lake in the center that had what looked like a floating, ornate, gazebo with an Altar inside. Twenty people ranged around the lake, all wearing Blue robes that hid the gender. Another person stood in the ornate gazebo, dressed in a purple robe with scarlet trim.
"My Brethren, soon, we will triumph! The world will descend back into chaos, and the dead will reign!" The voice was masculine, deep and reverberating around the cavern. The lake seemed to swirl as he spoke. A group of four wearing red robes carried a coffin, walking on water to the altar. Depositing it, they knelt. A flash of magic, and the coffin burned, leaving a body draped in scarlet cloth. "Soon!"
"Watch out!" Dr. Peter Venkman tackled a civilian, an enraged class six throwing a temper tantrum (and anything not bolted down.) The man took off for safety a minute later. "Well, Egon, you got a plan?" Dr. Egon Spengler, a tall blonde Para physicist and the unofficial brains of the ghost busting team, glanced at the slightly annoyed Psychologist.
"If we can trap the Entity in the center of the streams, that should make it harder for it to escape the pull . . . Janine, duck!"
"Yipe!" The redhead obeyed. A bus bench went over her head. "Why did I insist on coming on this bust?"
"I have the sneaking suspicion it was to spend more time with a certain blonde." Winston Zeddemore murmured to the auburn haired Dr. Ray Stantz. Ray managed a grin, but the two dove away from each other as a car almost hit them. In one of the few moments where the ghost seemed to wind down, the Ghostbusting team got back into a group, waiting for the ghost to make a move again.
"Heads up!" Peter fired at the ghost as it charged at them. At that precise moment, something happened.
Later Egon would remember more, but the last thing he was conscious of was a flash of Light and Peter's cry of pain.
Then everything went dark.
"You're late, Spengler." The young trim Auburn haired man barely even glanced at the tall willowy red head that rushed in from the rain.
"Couldn't find my umbrella, Stantz." She glanced around the Firehouse, and at the white truck that was parked. A dark skinned young man had half his body in the engine cavity. "Um, How's Ecto 25?"
"She'll keep running. Might have to put in for a new truck soon." He grunted. She nodded.
"I know it's like, a tradition for there to always be at least one of the original's descendents to be in this precinct, but did we really have to be stuck to this place!" An auburn haired woman, the twin to Stantz, whined as she and a brown haired young man came down. "Oh, hi, Janice."
"Ruth." The red head smiled, and then headed up the stairs to the library. It split the top floor in half, one side the library, the other the lab. As she ascended the stairs, she heard Ruth speak up.
"She's so weird, isn't she, Alan?" Janice winced, a part of her wanting to confront Ruth.
"Yeah, total bookworm, no wonder she's a klutz on busts." Alan Venkman, great grandson to Peter Venkman, snorted. "Right Ed?" The only agreement was a laugh. And nothing came from Great grandson of Winston Zeddemore, Chad Zeddemore.
Struggling not to cry, Janice slipped into the library, and locked the door. Angry, she yanked a random book off the shelf and almost threw it. Almost because the bookcase that was against the wall moved. Curiosity replacing anger, she glanced at the book in hand. A hard backed copy of Tobin's, the latin version. Curious, she put it down, and walked into the revealed room.
There were splatters of building material, and the room had clearly been built to be psishieled, a technique the original Ghostbusters had discovered. There were a few machines, and absently, turned on the rather primitive computer.
"Hello, my name is Oscar Venkman. In some ways, I am the last surviving Ghostbuster . . ." The old man that met her eyes was clearly kind. "My youngest brother, Charles, has moved onto finishing renovating the old firehouse, but that has little to do with what I am going to say. This hidden room is meant to protect secrets that my father . . . died to protect. It will only respond to the psi elements of the descendents of the original five. Yes, I count Janine Melnitz-Spengler as one of the originals. But there is another measure. This room is connected to a sensor, to find when the time has come for the gate of the dead to open. This will be the last stand of the Ghostbusters, if the warnings are not heeded. Ghosts, even those benign in origin, will turn evil and wreck the world, until the ruler of the dead, known as Pluto in roman mythology, will come. The time for when that gate shall be open for the last time is not known, but looking at ancient Mayan and other sources, it will not come until the year 3000 at the least." The film distorted a moment, and then continued. "But you will not be without aid. My father and the other Ghostbusters discovered that Slimer, their loyal ghost friend and mascot, was sensitive to other ghosts. Perhaps as time will go on, they will say that our loyal spud dissolved, but I will say that is not true. He chose to be locked into this room, so he may help our descendents combat this evil. The password for him to trust you is Citizen . . . Citizen . . . Citizen . . ." The video warped and went blank. A drawer opened, revealing an old style trap that opened, revealing a green . . . blob, which shook itself, spraying slime - ectoplasmic residue - and then focused orange eyes on her.
"Hello Slimer, I'm Janice Spengler. Um . . ."
"Password." Slimer's falsetto sounded weird, but she understood.
"Um, Citizen . . . Kane?" He shook his head. "Citizen . . . Soldier?" Another shake, but this was accompanied by a grin. "No offense, but the video warped, so unless it's Citizen Ghost, I have no clue other than the fact he repeated Citizen three times."
Slimer cheered, hugging her.
"Citizen three times?" She looked at him. He nodded grinning. "Okay, so, Citizen, Citizen, Citizen?" He gave her a smack. "Yecch! I see why they call you slimer." The green ghost smiled, letting go and floating by her side. He darted once, pressing a button. Oscar Venkman reappeared.
"Well done. This console has all the information I have gathered to date. Use it, and the other resources to stop this potential Armageddon!" Janice leaned back in the chair.
"Well . . . I thought life was getting pretty boring." She tossed Slimer a granola bar. "This ought to be good."
To say the descendents of the original Ghostbusters were friends would have been a stretch. With the exception of the Stantz twins, they rarely did anything as a group. Chad Zeddemore was always working on something mechanical; he had a doctorate in both para-enginering (a field started by Ray Stantz) and normal engineering. He rarely said much, unless it pertained to Ecto 25, his pride and joy.
Ruth and Edward Stantz were doctors in para-physics and parapsychology. Both had minored in each other's field. Both were rather . . . high on themselves and each other. A far cry from Ray Stantz's perpetual optimism and joy in life.
Alan Venkman was a Vietnam 2 vet. A medic and a doctor in medicine, he was currently studying the effects of Ectoplasm and psycho-kinetic energy on humans over a long period of time. He and Ruth were currently in the step that came before actual dating. He had Peter Venkman's charm, but was less conceited than his predecessor.
And finally, Janice Spengler, She was a folklorist, also studied Mythology and anything to do with the history of the supernatural. She was the youngest, with innocence in her expression and some form of naivety that the others kept brushing off as ignorance. Even though she was tall, they kept stepping over her, ignoring anything she brought to their attention, believing that they knew best. With that brush off from the people she should have been able to trust her life with, her self confidence and esteem were taking a dive. With the team unable to work together, there was very little doubt that it would eventually fall apart.
But Janice (Jan, to the few she had as friends.) was not at the point she was willing to quit on the group. But there was little she could do with their . . . unwillingness to listen.
This was why for the next two weeks, she and Slimer snuck out at night to search. Slimer also agreed to stay hidden in the room, as the others were of the mentality to take out the ghost on sight.