Disclaimer: I do not own the Legion. I do, however, own Ebony Dent. Touch her and I swear to God I will cut you.

Don't know if you'll find this scary or cute, but I had fun typing it, so there. Happy Halloween.

Halloween Single Side B

The Haunted Laundry Room

Garth Ranzz yawned and proceeded to scratch the back of his head. He then started mumbling to himself about the stinking chore duty as poured bleach into the automated washing unit.

"Don't know why I had to listen to Cos to all that speel about 'pulling our weight'."

You see, and this is kinda important to know, Garth Ranzz was in his mid-to-late twenties, a scruffy, muscular redhead from the planet Winath (pronounced "Wine-ath") who could generate electricity after a childhood incident involving his twin sister, older brother, and lightning beasts. He was married to the love of his life, a blonde telepath named Imra, had a wonderful baby boy named Graym, and helped found an intergalactic team of superheroes (the Legion of Super-Heroes). Oh, did I mention he was currently in another universe?

This superhero team which Garth was a founding member of was currently on a mission which took them to a parallel universe, home to alternate versions of himself, Imra, their friends, family, and enemies. They had no idea just how long they would be in this parallel world, and it was decided that his Legion would what they could to aid this Legion in both defending truth, justice, life, and liberty, as well doing their fair share of chores and work around the HQ. Garth got laundry duty. This wouldn't be a problem, if hadn't had to do it at 4 in the morning,

"Don't know why I got stuck with stupid laundry duty" he continued to mutter, shorting the whites and the colored clothing. He was a bit amazed that most of these kids had theme wardrobes, and started to wonder if they were the same way back home. (Currently he was wearing a dark blue t-shirt and black sweatpants)

Now, please don't get the wrong idea, Garth was a farm boy and was used to being up at such hours, for the first half of his life until he joined the Legion. And being a father he was used to waking up in the middle of the night to soothe whatever was bothering his child. But after a sleepless night and walking around barefoot on a cold metal floor is enough to make anyone cranky. Being the hothead that he is, though, at least it was nice to have a reason.

He yawned again as the machine began to whir. The clock on the wall was now reading 4:18 AM.

"*Sighs*. So, what now? I try and get two hours of sleep, or get breakfast now? Wonder how Imra would feel about breakfast this early? Nah. She'd probably be... why am I talking to myself?"

The soft moan coming from seemingly nowhere answered that. It was soft and quiet, but noticeable, above the whirring of the laundry machine. Enough to snap Garth fully in the waking world.

"Hello?" he asked, not completely sure where it came from. Another soft moan arose and began to egg on frustration.

"Really not in the mood at 4 freaking AM to deal with 'ghosts'." He said, peeved.

And the answer to that was a louder one. He still couldn't tell where it came from, due to the sounds of the machine. He could barely make out the first one he heard.

"Halloween isn't until next week, so you-"

He was cut off by another one, more distressed and scared. Tell me, if you were up in the middle of the night and heard someone moaning wouldn't that freak you out? Probably explains why Garth's eyes began to spark.

"Okay, enough now, seriously." Another moan, sadder, more fearful. "Cham, is that you?" Garth asked, obviously wanting to know if it was the young Durlan he was going to electrocute. The moans were turning into breathless gasps, frantic breathing.

"Whoever's doing this, knock it off." Garth's voice was getting more agitated as he kept getting no replies. His hands were beginning to spark as well. This was really getting to him. The machine kept whirring on.

"Come out now and maybe I'll dial the voltage down to 5000 instead of 10." Garth ordered.

Frantic cries and breathless gasps, louder.

"Okay, now to the count of 3!"

Louder. Breathless. Frantic. Whirring.

"1..." he counted.

Louder and quicker, fearful and sad, water rushing.

"2..." he was almost done.

Louder and louder and faster and faster, until-

DING!

"Aaaaahhh!!!" the voice screamed.

"Aahh!"

Thud!

"Ow!"

"'Ow'?"

Garth nearly jumped out of his skin when he heard that scream, his heart was racing, but he calmed down almsot as quickly when he recognized the little voice he could not tell was coming from the closet hamper as the machine stopped.

"Wait a minute..." he said to himself, angrily as the hampre door slid open. The light inside was on, and on the bottom shelf was little Ebony Dent, rubbing her forehead where she hit her head.

"Uh..." Garth really didn't know what to say, as she was the last person he expected to see.

This little, black-haired seven year old was, once, a seventeen year old dimensionally displaced vigilante who was recently deaged to her current state, with no memory of the last few months. And since then she saw Garth, this one at least, as a big brother/fatherly figure.

"What time'z it? Oww..." she moaned, rubbing a black and blue on her forehead.

"It's-never mind that. What are you doing in here at this time of night?" Garth question before picking her up to get a better look at her bump.

"I head a bad dream and couldn't fall asleep again. I remembered I left a book in here and went to get *yawns* it. I must've fallen asleep again." She held up the book in question, a book on Superstring Theory.

"And had another bad dream. Hmm, it's not too big." He said, commenting on the small bruise on her forehead. "You want some ice for that?" She shook her head. "Then, are you gonna tell me why you left a book in a laundry hamper?"

"It's one of the quietest rooms in this whole place. I came in here so I didn't have to listen to all the arguing that goes on when I'm trying to read." Ebony explained.

"Arguing? Since when do I argue?"

"When you thought Nemesis Kid was giving Imra looks and you started screaming at him." Ebony sharply eyed him.

"Oh, yeah. Sorry." He bashfully grinned. "But he WAS, you know."

"Uh huh."

"You know, if you had a bad dream, or dreams as the case may be, you could've said something to me. Or Imra."

"*Yawns* I didn't wanna annoy you guys this late." She tried to say as she rubbed her eye.

"Annoy us?" Garth's trickster mode decided to turn on just as the washing unit's drying mode turned on.

"Awww, you know you could never annoy us!" He jubilantly said as started to give her a bone crushing bear hug.

"Gkt. Can't. Breath. Too. Ack!"

"Okay, okay, I'll stop." Garth chuckled. "It's your own fault for getting me worked up."

"And that permits the bone crushing?"

"No, that was a bonus. Now come on, I'm getting you some ice for... that..." He trailed off.

"Monkeyboy?" She asked.

"So I know the moaning was you." He said. "Now I'm trying to figure out who's behind the oozing slime coming out of the wall."

Ebony turned around to see what Garth was seeing. The two watched rusty, orange-brown pus oozing out of the walls. The pus smelled as if a dead body had been set on fire inside a vat of methane. And it slowly began to spell out:

GET OUT NOW.

The two blankly stared at the oozing, bubbling walls.

"It's too early for this." Ebony said.

"Yes. Yes it is." Garth agreed.