Spectral 1.2

I thought about one of my three chief tormentors on my ride home, Emma Barnes. Emma Baxter Barnes, I mentally corrected myself. It was strange, and very surprising, to move from one city to another, and have to deal with the same stuff. There was a big distance between Amity Park, Illinois and Brockton Bay, Massachusetts, but the Baxter family still managed to find me. I let out my annoyance in a sigh.

Whatever. The bullying was really starting to get to me, especially with no form of physical activities I could pour my all into. That form of stress relief had left me when I left Amity Park.

However, there was always…

The bus stopped at my stop, and I shook my head clear of thoughts. I got off of the bus, ignoring the pointed stares of the other passengers, whom took note of my wet backpack and truant nature. The walk was a block away, so I enjoyed myself as I could let my guard drop. Waves of tension melted from my shoulders as I let myself walk at a comfortable pace back home. When I reached home, I let myself in and kicked off my shoes, and then made a beeline for the shower.

I turned it on cold and walked in, reveling in the feeling of the water streaming down my back. Because of my ice core, I was more keen to colder temperatures than warmer temperatures, so an ice cold shower felt great to me. Plus, it left hot water for my sister.

I reflected on the day, but honestly just dismissed the occurrences. My problem at the moment wasn't the bullying, but the stress I had built up. I suppose I could take up some form of martial arts, but my fighting style was more street style than an official style. As well, most humans couldn't handle the sheer power I could throw behind my attacks.

Normal humans, that is.

I turned off the shower and dried myself off, continuing this line of thinking. Most parahumans, or capes (as the public called them), more more durable than the average human, as well as had powers to fight back.

I made my way to my bedroom, where I changed into a gray t-shirt with Dumpty Humpty's logo in white on the front, and jeans. Then I made my way into the basement of the house, and turned on the lights.

Before our parents left, they took the liberty of upgrading the new house. And by upgrading, I meant upgrading. All of the walls were reinforced with ectoranium, a metal alloy created by fusing titanium with refined ectoplasm, turning as hard as diamond. The walls of our normal house just had the stuff in the walls; the house's basement was literally made of the stuff. When my parents researched Endbringers, and found out most attacks occurred on populated coastal cities, they reinforced the basement to the point of being able to survive a nuclear fallout.

I wandered about aimlessly, moving random inventions either Jazz or I had put together in our spare time, before reaching the Ecto-Converter in the back of the room. It was attached to a miniature ghost portal, so anything that came through would just bump up the energy for a while. Not that anything came through was smarter than an ectopus.

The Ecto-Converter gave us a practically infinite amount of power, to the point where if the power fails, we'll be perfectly fine. Our electric bills were comically low, almost all of them never raising over $100.

I pushed a few tables of scrap out of the way before ending up with a small area of space, roughly seven feet in diameter. Checking over both of my shoulders - a habit I had developed and never lost - I felt ready.

"Goin' ghost."

The lab lit up like a firework had gone up. I felt at absolute ease as two rings of light - one at my feet and one at my hair level - came into existence. They began to pass over me, and I felt my entire body chill as ectoplasm overtook the main sequences of my DNA. My heartbeat, which was already half as slow as a normal human's, slowed down to the point where it didn't beat. The hard fabric of my clothes grew soft as it was replaced with my ghostly clothing. I stood a tad bit straighter as power I had not accessed in a while rushed into my system.

The rings continued moving up and down my body, until they passed each other and fizzled out of existence. My gloved hands cracked my knuckles, and I strode over to one wall, where a full body mirror was set up.

A ghost's image was entirely dependent of how they envisioned themselves at the point of their death. Ember saw herself as a diva, so a diva she became. Youngblood died with a childlike imagination, so he became a child who switched costumes. Amorpho considered herself the world's greatest actor, so he could shapeshift however he felt.

I had an advantage over most ghosts when it came to appearances. As a halfa, I had the ability to change my appearance based on how I saw myself. Jazz, as a psychologist, was a key factor in helping him change his mental appearance in his self, and helping his confidence levels.

My new costume was a change is style, but not color scheme. I still had my snow white hair and radioactive green eyes. However, that was all that remained exactly the same. I now wore a black trench coat over a white muscle t-shirt that had a skull design similar to the Punisher, except green in color with red eyes. My bottom half was covered with a pair of black cargo pants, with shiny green chains leading from the sides of my pants into my pockets. My white gloves became fingerless gloves, and my boots became white metal-tipped combat boots.

All in all, I think I looked pretty badass. Jazz thinks I look like a punk, but I think that's her severe dislike of Johnny 13 talking.

I look at and pick up random inventions, stuffing some in the inside pockets of my trench coat, like the collapsable Fenton Creep Stick and the military-grade Fenton Pepper Spray (the only difference with normal militaristic pepper spray was that it worked on ghosts). I shoved these items into my pockets before turning back to my image in the mirror.

After a year and a half of bullying, I had a lot of stress to work off. That's it, I decided, staring myself in the eyes in the mirror. I'm relieving myself of this right now. This weekend.

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[A/N]: So I just spent some time searching up where the heck Brockton Bay can possibly be located. So, after some searching, I found Brockton, MA. Earth Aleph/Bet are in a separate AU from our own, so is it much of a stretch to say that Brockton was founded eastwards of where is stands today, over the aquifer in Plympton? Maybe it is. Whatever. For the sake of the story, Brockton Bay is going to be located in Massachusetts.

Also, for those of you who haven't realized it yet, Phantom Planet never happened. But TUE did, as well as the ghost invasions. For future plot reasons.

~Slenderbrine