Chapter One: Another Screwed up Day at the Office

"Oh come on Ray, it's not fair!" Rita cried with an agitated tone.

Ray replied as well. "No Rita, I can't let you do this; it's too dangerous!"

It was just another day at the Ghostbusters Headquarters of New York City, NY; apparently there had been a recent call about a disturbance held around the Museum of Natural History in downtown. Mainly Egon Spengler and Winston Zeddemore have already set up the next training session for the assignment, and so the recruits have all prepared themselves for the next busting. Well, almost all the recruits were prepared.

"I am not taking any chances Rita; you are not going with them!" Ray continued with a worried tone.

"Then why did you hire me in the first place?!" Rita replied.

One of the recruits, Oscar Venkman, couldn't help but listen to the extensive argument between Ray and Rita Stantz. He became a little worried but wasn't sure at first of what the two were arguing over, but most of the time it sounded as though it was about protection, regarding how much Ray has done for Rita.

"Man, the Stantzs have argued for over an hour now," He said. "What do you think this whole thing's about?"

"I heard Ray saying how this coming assignment's based on a possible Class-VII Extra-Dimensional Metaspecter… or something like that." Jenny explained. "And he doesn't want to get Rita involved, how it's too dangerous for her, blah blah blah, you know all that other stuff."

"But… we're all going over there to stop it. I mean each one of us, including the original guys, are gonna just take out whatever's bothering the public and then boom, everything goes back to normal. I don't see why Ray can't let Rita go with us; he's coming too, right?"

"Wrong." Elwood replied with a slight disappointed tone.

"What?" Jenny asked. "Why not?"

"I thought he was going too, but apparently I overheard Winston and Egon saying Ray can't attend the event, despite he's gone over to check it out early this past morning. So now he's trying to convince Rita not to go as well. It doesn't make much sense, I know."

"Maybe Ray's developed some kind of conscious bad feeling about this assignment," Joseph added. "But you know, somebody's got to go down and deal with it."

"It's not that easy, you know that; besides, this is just between only Ray and Rita. It's best we do not include ourselves… maybe… if things get a little out of hand."

As the recruits' conversation ended, they began to hear footsteps coming from the staircase. Sure enough, Ray came walking down the stairwell with a combined look of disturbance and worry, possibly from the argument. Rita followed behind with a more angered expression, but not as much, surprisingly; however, she still feels a little agitated by the confusion of the conversation.

"Oh my God, why do you have to be so complicated all the time;" Rita continued. "It's just for one lousy freaking day, let me go out there and bust this thing's ass! I'll even stay close to the guys, how about that?! I'll prove it to you if you'd just-"

"STOP! Just-stop it!" Ray interrupted angrily, but didn't mean to do so. Something really deep inside Ray kept telling him today's assignment wasn't a good idea for Rita to attend.

Around the same time, Winston came upstairs from the basement, dressed in uniform and prepared for the event. He walked up to the recruits as he carried up an extra proton pack in his hands, opened the back door of Ecto-1, and as he packed in the weapon he spoke to the recruits. "Kids go ahead and board in, Egon and I will join up in a couple minutes."

As the recruits board into Ecto-1, Ray spoke once more to Rita, trying to put an end to argument once and for all. "Rita, I don't want you to think it's all because of probation, or the retraining you've been surprisingly catching up on, and it's certainly not because of the time you were almost possessed by a Class IV Demon Possessor…"

"That's because you got yourself in my way as I had a clear shot of that thing;" Rita replied. "I had to use almost two gallons of positively charged slime to de-possess your ass!"

"I was only trying to protect you!"

"Yeah, that's the only problem with you, you're overprotective! You know, ever since I signed up to this job, all you kept doing is keeping me right under your 'wings' and you barely let me do anything on my own anymore! I know you're only trying to bring our old relationship back but this is getting out of control; you're out of control! I thought you actually want me to be a Ghostbuster-"

"I DO! … I really do; I know you'll be a great Ghostbuster, it's just… well… not today. I have this serious, unusual bad feeling something will go wrong if I let you go out there, even if it's with the others. I can't do it, I can't risk it; I'll never forgive myself if I do. There'll be plenty of other assignments in the future-"

"What if there won't be?" Rita asked once more.

"Don't you dare say that!"

"It's just a hypothetical question; I believe in the business, and I want to keep it going if you'd just let me do this with the guys! And maybe it'll boost up my training progresses and my college courses!"

"I can't let you…"

"Why are you holding me back-?!"

"I DON'T WANT TO LOSE YOU!" Ray cried as he grabbed Rita by both of her arms very tightly and begins to shake her a little by the fear he was so deeply feeling all at the same time.

Everything became immediately quiet all of a sudden. Ray couldn't help it, he just wanted Rita to be safe but at most times he does get a little carried away. Rita stared at her uncle with a baffled expression as Ray slowly calmed himself down; he looked into his niece's eyes, loosened his grip a little from Rita's arms, and he softly spoke.

"… I don't wanna lose you, sweetheart, I can't afford it. You're the only family I have in this world, and I can't lose it all."

Rita shook her head a little, thinking Ray's finally lost his mind.

She replied softly. "You're not going to lose me Ray; you're not letting me into this assignment because you're too afraid of what might happen to me. Just for once, let me go on my own; I'll come back in one piece, I swear it."

Ray however, just sighed as he still felt the same bad feeling inside himself. He spoke once more. "I'm sorry Rita, but I can't risk it all for today; you're not ready to handle situations like this. When I took a quick review this morning, I saw something in that museum so powerful; I knew for sure you wouldn't be able to take it. I swear to God Rita, it's unlike anything I let you experience!"

"Then let me go out there and stop it!" Rita said once more.

"No, it's too dangerous! You are not going and that… is… FINAL!"

"Will you- Aaargh!"

Rita then took a couple deep breaths and cried once more. "Just - FORGET IT!"

Finally, Rita stomped back upstairs in anger.

Winston, although most of the time pretended not to hear the whole conversation, finally locked up Ecto-1 for the event but at the same time he felt the Stantzs argument had gone out of hand. So, he tries to make things a little better soon after Rita ran back upstairs.

"(Sigh) I hate to say this Ray," He spoke. "But your niece is right; you have been acting a little overprotective of her. You know you're not always gonna be there for her."

"That's the one mistake I don't ever want to make again!" Ray replied. "I lost her once Winston, for too long, I don't ever want to lose her again."

"But you were there for every important moment for her."

"I wasn't there every single day for her! I don't want that to ever happen again. I just want to do what's right, and to let her know I'm still willing to do everything for her; I want to do what a real father would do for his child. I want to be that real father for Rita, and do whatever it takes to even let her see that she'll always be a daughter to me."

Secretly, Ray shed at least one teardrop from his right eye, not letting Winston notice.

Winston spoke once more. "Ray you're a good uncle to Rita, but you know, eventually Rita's going to get out there on her own and maybe you can't stop her. My kids are out most of the time on their own, but they even know I'll always be there for them, and today's one of those days. Just think about it Ray and then maybe you'll take it easy next time."

Then Winston finally climbed into the passenger's side of Ecto-1.

Egon appeared from the basement, all dressed in uniform and finally walked up to the driver's side of Ecto-1. Before he board in however, he noticed Ray's presence on the other side of the vehicle; then he asked with a slight confused tone.

"You sure you're not coming with us Ray?"

Ray stared at Egon, but replied with a soft tone. "You guys go on ahead, I'll be fine."

"Okay, if you say so."

So Egon climbed into Ecto-1 and finally start up her engines. The firehouse doors opened automatically by the switch of a door control from inside the car, and Ecto-1 finally drove out of the building and quickly speed up through West Broadway, driving toward the Museum of Natural History.

Around the back alley of the firehouse, one of the second floor's windows opened and out came Rita; she was dressed in her uniform, all geared and strapped on with the Proton Pack, a pair of Para goggles were worn around her head, her utility belt was geared with the Ghost Trap, PKE Meter, and a few hand held Ghost Bombs in which Egon and Elwood invented recently for most spectral knock-outs whenever a 'buster comes within near contact. Strapped around Rita's upper body as well, was her famous Ecto-5; a skateboard with a built in Mini Muon Trap in which she used at one time to trap a spirited skateboarder during a skateboarding duel that was held some time ago around eastern Manhattan.

Rita climbed out of the window and began to climb down a nearby fire escape route until she finally reached toward the ground. She unzipped her skateboard satchel, pulled out Ecto-5, and set it down to the ground preparing it for takeoff.

"Can't do this assignment on my own, huh?" Rita said with a sarcastic tone as she thought back of the argument with her uncle. "We'll see about that once I bag this spectral s.o.b. for myself!"

Then, Rita finally jumped onto Ecto-5 and took off in a flash by one swipe of her foot.

While on the way toward their destination, the Ghostbusters began to review over the assignment and the possibility of what they may encounter some time soon.

"Let's see, according to Ray's studies here, we're about to confront a possible Class VII Extra-Dimensional Metaspecter that's been terrorizing the museum visitors." Elwood explained as he skimmed through some of the notes. "It says here, some of the initial manifestation points are mostly held at the north wing of the museum."

"Isn't that where they're holding up that Dragons exhibit?" Jenny asked. "I heard one of the classmates back at the University saying how ever since the museum opened that exhibit some time ago, something started to act very strangely. Like at one time a student told me one of the replicated dragon heads started to move on its own, a few bone fragments started to levitate, and even a painting of a dragon description started to like, you know, animate itself like it was a movie."

"Well you guys know they've just had the exhibit open for a couple days now," Joseph replied. "Things just don't automatically go Night at the Museum all in one day, right?"

"Not necessarily," Egon replied. "Winston, remember they used to have that Gozer museum exhibit back in 1991?"

"Wow, yeah I remember it like it was just yesterday," Winston explained. "And to think an actual Shandor descendant was the cause of it all. Of course, she didn't actually do it on purpose; she was even almost used as a blood sacrifice."

"However, I believe this exhibit might have a similar occurrence as that of the Gozerian Configuration as well as its Mandala Node. Whatever's the cause, it's certainly starting out at the museum."

"Perfect, its 1991 all over again."

Then, Oscar began to join the conversation. "Wait a minute, you guys do know we're about to go check over a museum exhibit that's mostly about something that doesn't even exist. I mean, how exactly do dragons have any connection with the supernatural anyway?"

"Oscar, if you were around back in 1987, you would understand that the term of supernatural contains a lot more than just ghosts." Egon said.

Almost half an hour later, the Ghostbusters finally arrived at the Museum of Natural History; the building had been evacuated for some time, but the only other person still inside was the museum's curator. He stood in front of the main doors as he anxiously waited for the Ghostbusters' arrival. Soon after they parked Ecto-1 Egon, Winston, and the recruits all stepped out of the vehicle and began to unload the back of the car.

While the recruits strapped on their proton packs, Egon and Winston, both armed with only the Arm Packs, took the time discussing with the curator about the event going on for some time.

"Things had been acting strangely since we opened that dragon exhibit," He said with a slight nervous tone. "And the weirdest thing is that this exhibit is only about something that doesn't even exist. Of course I had no other option and that you do seem to be the only ones who can handle situations like this."

"Don't worry, we've handled something very similar to this," Winston replied.

Moments later, all of the recruits, Winston, and Egon finally entered the museum and began to search through a couple exhibits, checking over to make sure there were no other spectral inhabitants lurking around the building.

Back at the firehouse, Ray had just finished completing some payments for the month as well as he also finished some reports for the trainees' progress for their training programs. However, he couldn't get over the furious conversation he had with Rita awhile ago; somehow he felt a little bad for most of the things he said, despite they were mostly about the protection of his own niece. Ray couldn't help it; he just wanted to do what was right for Rita. So, he then decided to try and settle things down between him and her. Ray exits his office space and began to walk up toward the recruits' bunk room.

Inside, Ray saw the bunk room now a deserted area, but found no trace of Rita in plain sight; until he noticed a disfigured lump on one of the beds, looking like it was a person sleeping. So Ray figured it was actually Rita sleeping in bed, despite it was only 3:00pm in the afternoon. Ray walked up to the bed and finally sat down beside the figure, careful not to wake her up in an instant. He stared down at the bed-ridden lump with a worried but sad look on his face and finally spoke with a soft tone in his voice.

"Rita, sweetheart, (sigh) listen I just wanted to tell you I… I'm so sorry for what happened today; it's just… I was only trying to keep you safe and unharmed. I was only doing… what a real father would do for his child. I may not be your father sweetie, but I just… want you to know you will always be-"

Before he could finish, Ray finally noticed something unusual about the strange lump in the bed; so he stood to his feet and finally pulled the covers off, revealing no body, but actually two pillows for the upper and lower body, a small soccer ball for the head, and an old dismembered Neutron Wand in replacement of legs. All this was in placement as possibly a distraction mainly to fool only Ray, and sure enough Ray fell for it. But now he feels very angry as well as he felt a suspicious hunch as to who did this.

"Goddamn it," He cried furiously. "She did it again!"

After two hours of searching around the museum, the recruits all arrived into the north wing of the building and finally entered the new museum exhibit about dragons. Egon and Winston followed behind as they noticed some of the mock-up replicas of different dinosaur-like heads, some glass cases were filled with different bone fragments of possible reptilian-like creatures, a few jars were filled with smaller lizard-like animals that looked a bit like they were dragons; there was even a small section of the exhibit that talks about dragons in the entertainment, and there were also some small statuettes and figurines along with more bone structures and fragments of the possibilities of what dragons may have looked like if they really were in existence today.

"Well, I got to admit this is a pretty interesting exhibit." Jenny said.

"All this is actually are scientific theories, opinions, and mythologies of a creature or creatures that only exist in the imagination. We all know there is no such existence of dragons at all." Elwood explained.

"No such existence, Elwood;" Egon said with a slight disturbed look on his face. "Let me explain to you about my side of the story."

Then, Oscar cried from the center of the exhibit. "Hey guys, check this out!"

So the rest of the recruits, Winston, and Egon rushed over toward Oscar's location as they now stand in front of what looks like a large stone archway with foreign markings around the object. It looked thousands of years old, features unusual marks that looked like drawings of dragons, and it was even carved of unusual letterings around almost each drawing.

"I took a reading of this thing and the meter showed this little warning signal, but I didn't really see anything suspicious." Oscar said as he backed away a little bit from the object.

Elwood walked up to the subject and took out a much larger device from his belt and began to switch it on. The device was known as the Giga Meter; it detects paranormal entities as much as the PKE Meter does, but targets on more of an entity's psychomagnatheric energy.

"Hmm… I'm getting stronger emanations through the Giga Meter;" He explained as he began to study the stone markings. "These lettered carvings are actually in Norse readings, but these look more like an earlier depiction of the Norse language, possibly even before Vikings."

"Do you think you can make it out?" Joseph asked.

"I'll have to make a documentation of these carvings first; Joseph, hand me your camera phone."

As Joseph handed Elwood his phone, Oscar then noticed something starting to rise from a small center hole of the archway. Unusual blue reminiscent emerge and started to form itself into a large, swirling translucent doorway; however, this wasn't an ordinary doorway at all, it was actually an inter-dimensional gateway. But how was it activated?

"Uhh… guys…" Oscar said with a frightened voice.

Elwood, the Zeddemore twins, Egon, and Winston finally noticed the archway opening into a doorway. Then they began to fire up their weapons, preparing themselves for any unwelcome guests; but as they readied themselves, the portal slowly vanished into thin air, as if it never happened in the first place. The Ghostbusters began to feel baffled.

"What the Hell - Where did it go?" Joseph asked.

Egon looked over the archway, took out his PKE meter, and read no sign of any energy levels.

"Strange, this archway was emitting large amounts of PKE, but now there's no trace of it." He said with a confused tone.

"Unless… maybe something's already come out of there, but we didn't see it." Jenny replied.

RRAAAAAAAARRRRGGHH!

Sure enough, it did.

The Ghostbusters looked around and finally noticed a very long animal-like spirit flying around the museum exhibit! It was somewhat serpentine, had large segmented branch-like horns on its head, and it looked almost half human by the way it was physically built. Its eyes glowed a fiery red and very void, had no legs but a very long spirit tail, and its snout was a little more flat and rounder.

It started to use its levitation powers to pick up nearby jars and began to throw them at the recruits, Egon, and Winston; luckily the 'busters dodged its attack and started to charge up their weapons.

"Okay kids, get him!" Winston cried.

Quickly, all the recruits fired their Neutrona Wands at the new ghost, weakening it as fast as they could. Suddenly, the ghost raised its arms and quickly flicked them around, summoning a forceful pushing power in order to push away the recruits. The trainees fell up against the right wall and knocked over a glass case filled with a replicated model of a small dragon; the case and dragon shattered to pieces as the recruits fell over by the ghost's power.

"Aagh! Holy shit dude, that thing's really powerful!" Joseph cried.

"We're gonna need at least one or two more people for assistance, as well as a little more weaponry!" Elwood explained.

Then, just as the recruits stood back up to their feet, the ghost then pushed them down once more and finally neared itself toward them for a final attack. Egon and Winston rushed over to help, but the ghost used its same power to push them away as well; then it started to open its mouth very wide as it began to breathe in, preparing to breath out something far worse than black slime or any other form of ectoplasmic residue.

Suddenly, the ghost began to feel something painful as an unexpected object flew across the air and shattered a big pink aura explosion right onto the spirit, itself! The ghost then started to feel a little dizzy and weak, until a particle stream appeared around the specter, lassoing all around it as well as it made the specter weaker.

From behind the ghost was none other than Rita; she skateboard around the exhibit, particle wand in hand, and is actually the one who had thrown a ghost bomb earlier at the entity the whole time. She could barely keep a hold of it as the ghost struggles to get away, but then the recruits finally came through and began to fire their weapons at the target.

Now the ghost was finally entangled by the particle streams; then Rita unhooked the Ghost Trap from her utility belt and finally rolled it across the floor, and it stopped right underneath the specter. Immediately, she stomped onto the pedal of the trap which caused the small trap doors to open; a bright cone light appeared underneath and began to actually suck in the ghost, itself. Finally, Rita stomped onto the pedal once more, and the trap finally finished the entrapment and its doors closed.

The capture was now complete.

"Excellent! Well done recruits, especially you Rita, nice performance there." Egon said as he congratulated the recruits.

"Yeah way to go Rita," Oscar replied. "Nice way to show up at the last minute."

"Well I had a little trouble getting here as fast as I could, but thanks." Rita said as she picked up the ghost trap and Ecto-5.

Then, Jenny joined in on the conversation with a slight worried look on her face as well as a thought occurred. "Wait a minute Rita, aren't you a little worried Ray might notice you're gone, even after you were told not to come here?"

Rita replied with a slight worried tone. "… Well…"

Suddenly, an instant loud scream of a man's voice echoed through the museum.

"RITA!"

From that moment, Rita somehow knew exactly who that voice was. She replied with a soft, worried, but calming tone. "… Eventually, he'd figure it out sooner than I thought."

Jenny asked once more. "You set up that bogus decoy of yourself again, didn't you-?"

"Yes. Yes I did."

Sure enough, Ray Stantz came stomping up through the exhibit's entrance with a furious expression on his face, but felt a little more worried deep inside as he walked through. He noticed Rita standing over ten feet away from the archway, carrying the ghost trap still in her one hand and Ecto-5 in the other; and so he stomped closer to her while Rita, herself, noticed Ray's presence and just stood there waiting for what may come of her.

She greeted with a surprisingly calm voice. "Hey Ray-"

"Don't you Hey Ray me young lady," Ray cried with an angry tone. "I told you not to leave the firehouse today, but oh no, you just had to leave a cheesy decoy and then walk out of the building like there was no tomorrow!"

"… So… you're gonna extend another month or so to my probation since I escaped again, right?" Rita asked as though feeling her punishment would include such.

"As your employer, YES I would; but as your uncle, I insist you are to return to the firehouse immediately before anything else happens!"

Then as the argument continued, Winston finally stepped up to try and put an end to the Stantzs misunderstanding. "Ray, this has to stop; in fact, this isn't like you at all! You've been acting overprotective of Rita ever since you signed her up to train for the Ghostbusters position, what's wrong with you?"

"In fact, if it wasn't for your niece's actions today," Egon added. "The other recruits would've been victims of a Class V Manifesting Outlander…"

"In which I promptly trapped with awesome assistance." Rita finished as she held up the full ghost trap. "And you said there was gonna be some trouble with a Class VII Metaspecter; well look at what I got now Ray, what do you say to that?"

But for some reason, Ray's eyes widened with fear as they were now transfixed by something else; possibly from behind Rita, as a matter of fact.

The unusual stone archway began to glow a light blue aura, and the unusual ectoplasmic mist from before emerge once again. This time it formed into a much larger open doorway and it began to create some wind effects as it swirled in a counterclockwise position. The archway was, indeed, an open portal into a possible new world, or a more dimensional matter that is.

As Ray witnessed, he now felt something was preparing to come out at any second.

He spoke with a nervous tone. "That's not the metaspecter…"

"Of course it - say what?" Rita replied, now confused.

Ray placed a hand onto Rita's head and gently turned it for her to see what's going on. Sure enough, Rita saw the open portal actually increase slowly in size, until something actually started to slowly slither out. At first, it looked like a tip of a creature's nostrils until sooner an entire head actually came out along with an elongated neck, perhaps around five feet long until one of its shoulders barely peeked out from the portal.

It was almost the size of a Juvenile Sloar, and that's just the head and neck; its head was an uderbite jaw structure, multiple eyes (4 on each side as a matter of fact), ears were very small, its head horns were segmented and looked broken, side fins were of mostly horns as well, and the creature, itself, looked more like a decaying lich this whole time as it was most definitely a somewhat Ectoplasmic Outsider.

"That's the Class VII Extra-dimensional Metaspecter!" Ray cried with a nervous tone.

"… Oh poop…" Rita whispered, now realizing she should've listened to Ray.

The worst part was that the creature was definitely a more dragon-like figure than any of the specimens in the museum exhibit. Jenny screamed a little in fear, Joseph clung onto his sister, Elwood and Oscar gasped in fear, Egon felt a chilling memory coming back to him, Winston panicked slightly by the sheer sight of the creature, and the Stantzs even grab hold of each other for protection (well mostly Ray grabbed Rita to protect her). The creature notices the Ghostbusters' presence, but for some reason concentrated more on Rita as though she were its primary target; then it began to roar with rage, and at the same time the bone models of different dragons began to spring to life and started flying around the exhibit like a swarm of bees.

The recruits prepared to fire at the possessed models, but Egon then insisted they must concentrate more on the massive creature.

"Okay one two three-toast him!" Ray cried to the recruits.

All five of the recruits then fired their particle wands at the massive creature, causing it to react in pain by the particle streams. Soon Egon, Winston, and Ray joined in as they fired their arm packs as well, weakening the creature. But then, the monster furiously began to breath fire all around like a real dragon would, causing most of the place to catch fire; then, the Ghostbusters finally dodged a few of the flames, causing them to stop firing their particle wands for the moment.

Eventually, after the destruction, the large dragon-like fiend slowly slithers back through the portal, never to be seen again.

All the Ghostbusters recovered after noticing the monster's disappearance and finally realized they've finally got rid of the metaspecter for good; at least, that's what the recruits thought.

"Wait, this isn't over," Egon said. "That portal is still opened. We have to shut it down for good before anything else comes out."

"How do we do that?" Joseph asked. "Do we have to cross the streams for this one?"

"Not necessarily."

"Aww… I wanted to see it." Jenny whispered to herself.

"Since the portal is actually a somewhat transdimensional conduit, it would actually be wise to take down the archway pillars that seem to emit amounts of energy through the Class VII Metaspecter."

Before the 'busters could even take the chance, the portal itself slowly began to turn itself into a somewhat electromagnetic field, only it mostly had the effects of a wind-sucking tornado. The archway was actually closing itself, but the Ghostbusters decided once and for all to destroy the object for good. So, they fired their weapons at the archway pillars, except for Rita because Ray then set her behind him for protection.

"Get behind me Rita," He said. "You've had enough fun for one day."

"What? Oh come on Ray, I didn't even do much!" Rita objected as she felt Ray was overprotective again.

"Rita just hear me out on this; I almost lost you today and I don't ever want to! You're not ready to handle situations like this; you think you can do these things, but you just can't Rita!"

With hatred, Rita spoke once more as she turned her head away. "… I hate you!"

With those three words being said, Ray stood frozen in shock by what Rita just said. The thing is it was the very first time Ray has heard that dreaded sentence… from his very own niece!

Rita sulked away, never wanting to even look at Ray again, but Ray tries to explain with a now more saddening tone in his voice. "… Rita…"

But Joseph interrupted. "Hey, can we put the conversation away for another time; we could use a little help here!"

So Ray joined in, firing his arm pack, but at the same time his own heart began to break.

Suddenly, things became worse as the Ghostbusters started to hear loud roars coming from the portal, sounding almost as if they were actual roars of dragons. With a slight hint of curiosity however, Rita slowly peeked over Ray's shoulder as she heard the unusual sounds. Something inside of Rita somehow told her there was something so amazing and so incredible going on through that portal, that it must have some strange involvement with the museum exhibit. It's too bad, she must've thought, she'll miss out on whatever's through the portal.

Then, as the portal's closing neared its end, its wind powers grew stronger and started to suck in more than just wind conditions; some of the exhibit's models and bone fragments enter through, until immediately several floating skulls in shapes of dragon heads slither out of the portal and began to start grabbing at least one or two of the recruits; Jenny and Elwood were the first two victims as they were maliciously dragged across the floor by the heads once they started to grab hold. Winston and Ray grab hold of Jenny and fire an arm pack to destroy the swarmers, freeing Jenny from their grasp. Around the same time Joseph grabs Elwood while Egon fires his arm pack to destroy the combustible spirits.

As Elwood and Jenny were finally freed, more of those flying skulls emerge from the portal, but were now charging right toward Ray! Witnessing the horrible Class-I Osteo-focused Swarmers, Rita did the unthinkable. She jumped right in front of Ray, took out her Neutrona Wand, and before she even fired, the skulls quickly and finally grab hold of her instead and began to drag her across the floor toward the portal.

"RITA!" Ray cried in fear as he finally jumped over and grabbed Rita by the arms.

The rest of the recruits, Egon, and Winston joined in as they grab hold onto Rita. But then, the portal's effects grew stronger, it sucked in more of most of the exhibit, and Rita, and the roars from inside grew louder. Ray held tighter onto Rita's arms as he tries to pull her away, but she begins to slowly slip out of his grasp instead as more of those flying dragon skulls pulled her closer toward the portal.

"Don't let me go!" Rita cried, frightened.

"I won't let go, I swear it!" Ray replied. "Hold on Rita!"

Then, Egon noticed one of the pillars beginning to break slowly.

"Quick, destroy that pillar! If we can destroy at least one of the pillars the portal may finally close for good!" He said.

One of the recruits, Oscar, reached over to grab his Neutrona Wand, but before he fired Rita slowly but finally slipped away from Ray's grasp and was now finally sucked into the portal, itself!

"NO!" Ray cried in fear as he quickly began to go rush into the portal.

However, it was too late.

"Ray, get back!" Elwood cried.

Until then, the portal surgically burst into a large pulse of energy, pushing Ray and the others to the ground. Momentarily, Ray stood back up to his feet and ran toward the portal while it was still slightly opened; but as he arrived within inches, the doorway finally disappeared into thin air. Rita was now trapped inside an unknown universe.

"RITTAAAAA!" Ray cried in extraordinary fear.

With the portal gone, the exhibit now formed itself into almost its normal form, like it was never demolished in the first place. The flames from the massive creature from before deteriorated into thin air, leaving most of the structure looking as if it was never caught on fire but however left some burn marks around most areas. All of the dragon models "died out" from possession but shattered to pieces once they fell to the ground, some of the mock-up skulls, figurines, and even a few of the paintings were destroyed some by particle beams, ectoplasmic residue, and by even when they were in "lively" possession.

Ray then tries to reactivate the archway by at first just touching the subject, but failed; then he tries to kick it, punch it, or just even try knocking it down, but nothing happened. He banged onto the object furiously as well as he started to cry in heartbreak.

"No… no… no, NO, NO, NO, NOOOOO!"

Then he dropped to his knees as he slowly scratched the pillar with his gloved hands. Now in anguished fear, he has truly lost Rita; and at the same time he felt it was his own entire fault. Then, without letting his colleagues notice, he began to softly cry.

As the other Ghostbusters recover a bit by the actions, Egon quickly scans over the platform with his PKE meter, seeing if there was any more activity. Jenny notices Ray kneeling onto the center of the object so she casually walked up to him, trying to see if she would help him out after what just happened. The rest of the 'busters took a quick overview of the event, as well as they try to think of an idea to bring Rita back to the living plane.

Momentarily, Egon discovered something unusual about the now demolished archway. "Everyone, this looks extraordinarily bad."

"What could be worse than what just happened?!" Winston cried who also felt disturbed by the loss of Rita. "We had just lost a recruit into some paranormal doorway leading to God only knows where, and now you're saying this looks bad?!"

"That's just it; see the portal has been opened for too long. Something must've gotten out of there around the exact same time when Rita was taken inside. Now it's possible it may be wandering around this plane of existence."

Soon afterward, Ray slowly began to stop his crying by Egon's explanation. At that moment he started to feel his heart and soul change with unusual hope slowly rising through as he listened to Egon continue.

"If we could somehow find whatever's escaped the portal, then it may be possible to use it as a key resource into finding a new doorway, which could lead us into the location of where Rita has been taken into."

"Then let's start finding the damn thing." Winston replied.

Until, moments later a strange wail occurred.

RRRAAAAAAOOOOOUUURRGHHH!

It sounded as though it were another dragon, only this sound more as though it were frightened. It was coming from the other side of the exhibit, over possibly thirty feet away from the archway.

"Looks like it seemed to have found us instead." Elwood said.

With Egon's idea now swarming into his head, Ray instantaneously stood to his feet and began to prepare his arm pack. Then he took a head start from his colleagues to find whatever it was that made the unusual roar.

"Ray, wait!" Egon cried. "Come on, we got to follow him!"

Then, the recruits, Egon, and Winston all followed Ray, hoping as well to find whatever's escaped the portal.

A few minutes passed, Ray already scanned by a couple rooms very quickly but alas found no trace of the new escapee; until then, he heard a loud banging coming from his right side as well as he heard the frightening wail once more. So Ray rushed toward the sounds until he finally stopped as he entered a new section of the dragon exhibit; this one was mostly filled with large-scale replicas of dragon statues, each one with descriptive skull models indicating of what a certain species of a dragon may look like. Many of them, however, looked more ferocious than even the Class-VII metaspecter from before.

Ray continued walking down the hall for a couple more minutes until he suddenly began to feel a little chill, feeling there's an actual presence somewhere in the room; but this chill however, strangely felt good. He looked around for a little bit until he finally notice a pair of cat-like green eyes in slit form staring straight at him. Ray studied the eyes and then felt the same good vibe through him once more; he didn't move to touch them or anything, but something about those eyes strangely began to make Ray feel warm from deep within. It's as if he knew exactly about those eyes.

After a couple more minutes of silence later, a voice was heard from behind Ray.

"Ray, there you are!"

At the same time, the unthinkable happened.

RRAAAAAARRRGHH!

As if in fear, the green eyes suddenly moved, revealing a large open mouth as it let out an awful roar; it instantly jumped out of the shadows, over Ray's head to reveal a very large black creature with large wings!

Ray stumbled back from the instant appearance of this new creature, around the same time. The creature snarled and hissed as it landed five feet in front of Ray, as if it were only trying to keep away and only scare him off. But Ray just stood in position as he studied the creature, until momentarily the other 'busters quickly arrived upon the scene. That's when they finally witnessed the new black creature.

"Whoa! Holy- what is that?!" Oscar cried.

The creature sneered at the Ghostbusters. It was a definite form of a dragon but unusually had more different features than the models of the museum exhibit; it had a unique feline-like feature, giving a slender appearance; there weren't any horns or other monstrous features but small spinal frills, it has small appendages growing from the back of its head, large ears, strong and bulky arms and legs, green eyes, large fins on the tip of its tail, and its overbite was sort of flat and slender. This creature looked almost as if it were from a certain movie; one thing's for sure however, this creature looked more frightened than furious. But the thing is, this creature didn't look like a ghostly figure, but rather a more regular animal-like presentation.

Then Egon took a step up and scanned the creature for any psychokinetic energy with his PKE meter. He spoke with a calm tone. "These readings are somewhat average, but it's definitely of a supernatural being."

"Do you think this could be the one creature that escaped from the portal?" Oscar asked.

"Possibly."

"Well, you think maybe we could take it back to headquarters with us?" Elwood asked.

Egon took a moment to think, and he finally replied. "We may as well have to, otherwise the police, the mayor, or some governmental facility might do something horrible to this thing."

Jenny studied the creature as well; and from the look on its face, it wasn't happy but it felt more than just snarling anger.

"I think Dr. Spengler's right," She said. "I mean look at it. It looks more frightened than angry. We gotta do something."

So Egon placed away his PKE meter and slowly began to walk up toward the creature. The creature however, squint its eyes more, pulled its lips back as it bared its teeth, and then it growled viciously right at Egon! Egon backed away quickly, but then felt a little confused.

"Wait, I didn't even do anything." He said.

But then, Ray took another look at the creature; he then felt something unusual deep inside himself. A warm, familiar feeling in which he would feel whenever he was in Rita's presence; and that's when he began to think of an idea.

"Wait a minute Egon, let me give it a try." He spoke.

So Ray slowly walked up to the black creature; he crept within at least two feet close to the beast and finally stopped. He began to reach out for the creature with his armed hand, but the animal snarled, mostly at the arm pack. Ray realized he was armed with the weapon, so he unstrapped the arm pack, gently set it down to the floor beside him, and then he gently pushed it to the far side of the room with his foot.

This being done, the creature perked up its ears and slightly it even raised one of its eyebrow; but somehow it still wouldn't trust the Ghostbusters. Then Elwood developed an idea. "I think we should do the same thing guys; unhook your weapons, that way we'll let it know we mean no harm."

So then all the Ghostbusters started to unhook, unstrap, and took off their equipment. Then they all gently pushed their weapons aside, which then made the dark creature now looking confused. Its eye went to a normal pair of round pupil green, and its ears perked a bit higher, looking more confused than before.

Now that the Ghostbusters were unarmed, the creature would maybe now trust them; but unfortunately, it didn't even begin to move. Until, Ray began to kneel down onto one knee and then extend out one arm toward the creature, but the animal softly growled.

"No, no, it's okay," Ray whispered possibly to the creature. "It's alright we're not gonna hurt you. Come on, it's okay."

The creature stopped its growl for a moment and just stared at Ray with a somewhat slightly confused look on its face. It began to smell his scent, three feet from where Ray knelt, and then it softly snort as though it smelled a similar scent once before. So then, very slowly, it started to walk toward Ray.

The recruits became amazed by the creature's understanding as it slowly neared close to Ray, until it became frightened once more as though it were taking second thoughts. Ray however, tries to calm it down as he spoke once more. "It's alright, there's nothing to be scared of. It's okay, come here."

The creature calmed itself and started to walk closer to Ray.

With that, Ray extended out his arm further as the creature finally neared within inches toward Ray's hand. It stared at his hand, looked up at Ray for a moment, and then stared at his hand once more. Then, as the creature neared its stubby little nose toward the palm of Ray's hand, something unexpected happened…

BLAM! The main doors of the museum slammed opened!

"There they are!" A man's voice cried out.

By the sudden noises, the dragon's eyes went back into a slit persona, spread out its massive wings as it began to stand up onto its hind legs, and it finally let out a massive, awful roar right in front of the Ghostbusters! Then, it finally leaped over the 'busters and suddenly flew right toward the exit.

"NOOO!" Ray cried in fear.

But just as the strange man prepared to say something in command as there were policemen in presence, the creature immediately swooped over the men's heads and finally exit the museum altogether in a quick flash. Outside, crowds of people screamed in fear as they saw the appearance of an actual dragon flying over the city blocks.

"Don't just stand there, go after it!" The man cried.

This man, however, was none other than Walter Peck. For some reason, he has heard about the Ghostbusters doing an investigation at the museum and must've figured he would finally get the chance to rid the city of the famed paranormal investigators.

"You?! What're you doing here?!" Winston cried.

"The same thing as you." Peck replied with a devious grin.

"What?" Egon asked as well.

"Since I figured you bozos had been in the business for too long, I decided to do a little hunting for myself; and to prove once and for all you clowns are nothing but con artists with light shows."

"And what business is that?"

"Ah ah ahh… I'm not going to tell you that, at least not just yet. So, if I were you I'd better go and get a head start if you want to go capture this thing."

"We were until you showed up."

"Well then, I guess the chase is on. Good luck."

Then Peck finally walked away.

"Augh, I hate that guy!" Oscar said in anger.

"We were so close!" Jenny cried as well. "We had that thing in the palm of our hands, but oh no Peck just had to show up and ruin it all!"

"Tell me about it," Elwood replied. "That creature was our only other chance of getting Rita back!"

"Well, if we're now in competition with Peck," Winston finished. "We'd better start searching for that thing right now before Peck gets a hold of it; God only knows what he might do to that animal."

So all the Ghostbusters quickly grabbed their equipment, strapped them on, and finally exit the museum.