A young girl was reading a book in her bed, surrounded by a mountain of pillows. While her eyes danced across the page, a red glow would shine on her face every so often. It lit up her eyes and bounced off the shine in her curls.
"Valerie!" A man called from the other room. "I'm heading to work now. Call me if you need anything."
"Okay, dad!" Valerie called back before looking at her book again.
While reading, she flicked her hand absent-mindedly, igniting the source of the red glow. The fingertips of a red and black glove were appearing, much like the glove of a suit of armor, before forming fully and disappearing again.
The fingertips formed another time, and Valerie went to turn a page with that hand, when she suddenly stopped to look the appendage. Concentrating, more of the armor grew on her hand while some disappeared from her ring finger.
She never thought about how she could do this with her armor. At first she would only ever equip it and then change back once she was done. But at some point she started fiddling with it, seeing it could understand her every whim.
This suit was much better than the one Vlad gave her. It allowed her to keep her ghost hunting equipment with her at all times without worrying she'd get caught with weapons in school.
But the suit was just made out of metal scraps from the lab her dad worked at. How could that ghost have-?
Valerie's heart stopped as her stomach plummeted to the ground.
The ghost made her armor.
Her armor retracted as she gripped her stomach.
She was so pent up with anger in those moments, she didn't stop to consider what the ghost had done to her. What affect the armor would have.
She looked at her hand, bringing her armor back up, the terrifying red glow illuminating her face.
She's only really fought with guns, and the occasional grenade.
But I wonder… Valerie thought.
Valerie's armor covered hand glowed even brighter as a pool of red ectoplasm emanated from within her. The ball of ectoplasm released from her grip and flew into the wall, sending Valerie flush against the headboard in terror.
Valerie looked at her hand again, the ghastly color dispersing as her armor faded from view. Her breaths were short and rapid as she was hit full force with hundreds of horrifying thoughts of what this meant.
She couldn't be dead, could she? She never died. She never felt any pain in the moments she received her armor.
She looked up at the wall to where the ecto blast had hit, nausea rising up in her stomach.
What am I?