Chapter 9: Who Ya Gonna Call?

"So, this is the place?" Tyria frowned, looking up at the tall, three-story mansion. It didn't look too bad, solid brown walls, white pillars rounding the outside, an ornate, angular entrance. The only issues were that no grass grew on the seemingly fertile earth for a mile around it, neither did any trees, and the roof was an ominous shade of red in the cool sunlight.

A slim lady with long, curly brown hair nodded. "That's the one. It's quite a nice property, and I would like to purchase it. But there is the small problem of the ghost,"

"G-g-ghost?" Eve echoed with a stammer.

"Yes. I can't call the police, and I can't call my friends about it, so I decided that the ones I was gonna call was a wizarding guild,"

"Don't worry, no ghost can stand up to the likes of this," Blanca smirked, tapping her chest.

Tyria noticed that she was tapping a certain part of her body, and chuckled. "What if it's a girl ghost?"

Blanca, realising her friend's meaning and unwilling to lose face, even by a joke, defended herself with "I'm willing to experiment,"

"Is there anything else we should know?" Tyria asked.

"The ghost seems to like taking the form of a woman wearing a wedding gown, with a veil covering her face," the woman explained.

"That has to mean something," Tyria frowned. "What's the history of this house? Did a bride who died before she could get married live here?"

Their employer raised her palms upwards, shrugging. "No. I've spent days researching this house's history, and nothing. The ghost just started appearing one day and making life hell for anyone who lived there. There didn't seem to be a particular reason,"

"So, a ghost who haunts a house for fun?" Blanca blinked. "That's scary," Eve weighed in.

"Come on, let's go. We won't get anywhere by standing around here," the dark-skinned wizard declared, beckoning her comrades to follow er as she strode towards the mansion. Eve frantically rushed after her. "How are we going to fight a ghost?" she asked.

Tyria thought about this for a second. "TechType: Charge Whip!" she commanded, morphing her right forearm into a silver weapon. "Ghosts are made of energy, so the only thing that can hit them is energy, right?"

Eve considered this. "Well, I can do energy," she nervously admitted, fishing a small set of objects out of her pocket. Tyria's eyes widened.

Lying in Eve's hand was a ring of metal, to which were attached four silver keys. "Those are Celestial Gate Keys," the tech wizard gasped. "I thought you were a Snow wizard?"

"Not really. I actually started out as a Celestial wizard, I just learnt Snow magic so that I could defend myself without relying on my Spirits. A nice boy in Blue Pegasus taught me it," Eve explained. "We actually bonded over having the same name . . . I'm sorry for deceiving you,"

"Aww, it's alright," Tyria shrugged, nodding reassuringly.

Eve gulped and nodded, pulling on key from the ring and throwing it into the air. As it span, end over end, she caught it, before thrusting it upwards and declaring, "Open, Gate of the North Star! Polaris!" There was a ding-dong noise, and a magic circle appeared, with a humanoid figure erupting out and landing in front of them in a perfect stance, crouched over with her right arm touching the ground in front of her and her left pointed backwards. "Good afternoon, my lady," she nodded.

Polaris was tall, with pale, white skin and long, dark hair. She wore a dark blue vest and short skirt, over a white shirt and brown leggings. Her head was clad in a massive bearskin that was tied by string around her neck and trailed behind her like a cape. "How may I assist?" she asked.

"Just stay close," Eve nervously nodded.

"Come on, Blanca!" Tyria called to their teammate as they ascended the steps leading to the manor's door.

The Plastic wizard nodded, abandoning her conversation with the client and running to catch up to them. As she did, she hummed; "If there's something strange, dun-dun, and it don't look good, dun-dun, who ya gonna call? Dun! Phoe-nixes!"

~P's E~

The mansion was large, and seemingly deserted. Dust coated every surface, causing the once-vibrant colours of the mansion's interior to take on a faded and haunted hue.

Polaris protectively stood nearby Eve, while Tyria went on ahead. "I think we should split up," Blanca suggested.

"What? No! Haven't you ever seen a horror movie lacrima? Splitting up just means we. Can be picked off one by one!" the Snow wizard moaned.

"Tell that to Tyria. If you can find her," Blanca pointed out.

Eve looked around, searching for their blue-haired teammate. "Tyria? Where did you go?" she demanded.

"I can't say I know. She is surprisingly stealthy," Polaris observed. "Also, I believe your other friend has also disappeared," she added, looking at a blinking white dotted outline where Blanca had been.

Eve whirled. "What? No! Blanca!" She inched closer to her Spirit, futilely trying to hide behind the bearskin-clad woman. "You don't think the g-g-g-ghost got them, do you?"

"No, it's more than likely that they just went to investigate on your own," Polaris reassured her mistress. "We shan't achieve anything by standing around here. I suggest that we get moving," she advised.

"But then we might also run into the ghost," Eve gulped.

Polaris sighed. All things considered, Eve was a good mistress - unlike some Celestial Wizards, she treated her spirits with respect, though she could be inconsiderate at times. But by far her greatest flaw was her shyness. It limited her, held her back, and she dearly wished that Eve could overcome it. She had, admittedly, made good strides during the fight against Phantom - or so Orion told her - but it seemed she still had strides to take. But for the time being, at least, she simply had to work within its bounds. "And if we do, I will protect you," she reassured the brown-haired girl.

Seeing that Eve was still unconvinced, she unfastened the strap of her white bearskin and removed it, before offering it to her mistress. "If you would prefer, you can wear my cloak?" she offered, and Eve gratefully donned it, letting it fall around her blue dress. "Thank you, Polaris,"

"Shall we go now?" Polaris asked, a touch impatiently.

"Okay," Eve nodded, allowing the spirit to lead her into the recesses of the manor.

~P's E~

Tyria kept a constant lookout as she investigated the house's upper floor. She walked into a large bedroom and looked around.

"That's odd," she frowned, looking at the four-poster bed, framed by white curtains all around. At least, it was supposed to be. The curtains at the foot and on the right side of the bed were intact, but the left curtain had been torn away, leaving empty brackets with patches of cloth clinging to them. "What happened there?"

~P's E~

Blanca cheerfully skipped down the hall, continuing to hum a fourth-wall-breaking tune. "An invisible man, dan dun, sleeping in your bed, dun dan, who ya gonna call? Buh-lanca! Oh yeah, I'm awesome, awesome, awesome, buh-duh-dah-lat-dad-dad! Awesome, awesome, awesome, buh-dah-lat-dad-dad!"

She paused, spotting a rolling river of mist slowly spilling down the corridor towards her. "Aww yeah! Who found the ghost first? Blanca found the ghost first! Yeah I did, oh yeah I did!"

The Plastic wizard fixed the mist with the sternest look she could muster. "Alright, ghost, if you know what's good for you you're gonna leave this building before I drag you out of it!"

The fog responded in booming, deep tones. "Turn ba-a-ack . . . Leave and never retu-u-urn,"

Blanca blinked. "Are you telling me to turn around? Nuh-uh, Blanca Pateridia never backs down from a challenge! Plasticmake shotgun!" A black plastic weapon appeared in her hand, and she fired bullets of pure magic energy out of its muzzle, each of which were absorbed by the mist to no effect.

The white cloud began to pool around her legs as a pair of glowing yellow eyes emerged in the mist. "Tu-u-urn ba-a-ack," the presence demanded.

Blanca gulped.

"Just for the record, I'm not running away!" she shouted as she pelted down the corridor in the other direction from her attacker. "This is a tactical retreat, nothing else! I'm simply, uh, making a new strategy! I'll be back!"

~P's E~

Eve and Polaris made their way into the west wing of the house. "Do you think the others are here?" Eve asked, nervously looking behind them.

Polaris paused. "I sincerely hope not, because if so, they have entered the afterlife," she frowned, a note of trepidation entering her voice.

"What?" Eve blinked, turning to look at her, and gasped.

At the end of the corridor was a floating figure, clad entirely in a white dress, with a veil entirely covering their head. The wizard and her Spirit shivered, feeling a cold gaze from behind the veil take them in.

Slowly, the ghost drifted towards them, her clothing rippling and shifting in the air. Polaris placed a reassuring hand on Eve's shoulder. "A-attack!" the Celestial wizard squeaked. Obligingly, Polaris generated a bola of crackling white energy in her hand, before expertly casting it at the ghost.

Somewhat surprisingly, it made contact, wrapping around the dress . . . but it almost immediately slid off and fell to the floor, where it winked out of existence. The Spirit blinked and cocked an eyebrow. "Strange,"

Eve was a lot less unflappable. "Run away!" she shrieked, turning and fleeing.

The ghost paused and shook, almost as if it was silently laughing. Polaris's expression darkened. "I don't appreciate you being so unkind to my mistress," she snorted, balling her fists. "Little Dipper!" she commanded, and a club that resembled the constellation in question appeared in her hand.

Eve paused at the far end of the corridor, watching her Spirit as she charged into battle.

The ghost flinched, before charging fowards itself. As it did, all manner of objects and furniture began to collect around it, paintings, shelves, old photographs and even a chest of drawers lifting into the air and swirling around it. Polaris swung her club in a mighty arc - and was promptly impeded by a nearby door that ripped itself from its hinges and blocked her attack.

A second later, a piece of heavy oaken furniture slammed into her, throwing her against the ground. Eve gasped. "Close, Gate of the North Star!" she squeaked, twisting Polaris' silver key in her hand, and the spirit vanished.

The ghost froze, objects and clutter poised in midair. The faceless shape slowly twisted to gaze at the wizard. And then, all of a sudden, it charged forwards with newfound ferocity.

Eve screamed and ran.

~P's E~

Tyria and Bianca met in what appeared to be a large ballroom. "Find anything?" they asked each other in unison. "I'll take that as a no," Tyria shook her head.

There was a piercing scream from beyond one of the doors. The two girls looked at each other in concern. "That's Eve," Blanca gulped. Tyria made for the door, but it suddenly was thrown open and the brown-haired Snow wizard pelted into the room.

She was quickly followed by what Tyria could only compare to an angry, flying yard sale. Old lamps, books, pieces of furniture and more all swerved around a floating wedding dress.

"I take it this is our ghost?" Blanca grinned.

"Let's light it up!" Tyria agreed, activating her TechType: Charge Whip. A twisting pulse of blue and orange energy flared out of the weapon, penetrating the storm and blasting a hole in the being's stomach.

Seemingly unbothered by the fact that there was now a chunk missing from its body, the ghost continued to pursue Eve. "Celestial Wiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiizards are not weeeeeeeeeeelcome here!" it screeched, bringing back a floating candlestick - only to find itself being suddenly lifted into the air by a massive plastic construction. "Plasticmake Slide!" Blanca commanded. The household objects clattered to the ground in a heap as the veil-clad entity found itself slipping and sliding down a long, twisting piece of playground equipment. Tyria leapt at the chance and strung her Charge Whip across the end, and when the being slid through it, it was promptly bisected foot to head. This, however, didn't bother it either, and while one part of the cloak fell to the ground, the other rose into the air, unperturbed. "Fooooooooooolish mooooooooortals! Your physical weapoooooooooons have noooooooooooo effect on meeeeeeeeee!" it declared.

And, at this, Tyria was struck with sudden realisation.

X

Kit was being a pain and lying on top of her lunch, preventing her from eating it. Tyria attempted to shoo him off, but the yokai had shifted out of the physical plane of existence and her hand just passed through him. Finally, she transformed her arm into a pneumatic club and brought it down on him in irritation.

Unfortunately, the only product of this was that her sandwich had been obliterated, as well as a large part of the table. Kit walked away unharmed. "Hah! Your physical weapons have no effect on me!" he melodramatically cackled.

Tyria leant over to Pierce, who was watching this as though it were an everyday occurrence. "You wouldn't happen to know an exorcist, would you?"

X

Tyria gasped. "You're a yokai, aren't you?" she suddenly asked, pointing at the ghost.

It paused, turning to look at her. "What do yooooooooou speak of?"

"I know, because I have a friend who's a yokai! And you're like him, aren't you?"

"Bullshit! No yokai would ever befriend a human!" the 'ghost' protested in a voice very unlike the one it had been using up until that moment. It immediately realised its slip, and added, in the previous tone; "Uh, I mean, nooooooo yokai would eeeeeeever befriend a huuuuuuuman! Not that I would knoooooooow, because I am noooooooooooot a yoooooookai!"

"Hang on, hang on, hang on," Blanca frowned, walking towards the 'ghost'. "You're telling me that under that pile of rags, there's a little white fox like Kit?"

"No!" it squeaked. The cloth fell to the floor, revealing a (comparatively) large, blue bird, with tints of green in her feathers, a black beak, and yellow eyes, who was hovering with their wings partially outstretched and not flapping. "For one thing, I am a falcon, and don't you forget it!" it squawked in a feminine tone of voice, rounding on Blanca, before turning to Tyria. "And for another . . ." She paused, as if hit her that she had been tricked. "Oh, forget it. The jig's up," she groaned.

"So, can we consider this ghost busted?" Blanca hopefully grinned.

"Depends. Do you intend to keep haunting this house?" Tyria asked the avian yokai, who huffed. "I guess not. Now that you know what I am, all you have to do is tell the owner to find someone who specialises in killing yokais and I'd be dead in a week. Plus, I'm curious about this 'human-befriended yokai'," she admitted, still uneasy at the prospect. "So, as unappealing as the idea is, I suppose that I'm following you home,"

Tyria looked at Blanca in response to this declaration, who shrugged with a smile. "Hey. Phoenix's Eye is already the only guild in Fiore with one yokai in its ranks. If we had two, things would only get better," she grinned. "Come on, Eve, it's safe,"

"Why do Celestial Spirits and yokais hate each other, anyway?" the TechType wizard asked.

"No no no. I may be putting up with you for the time being, but that does not mean I am going to tell you anything, not even my name. So you can drop that right there," the yokai declared.

"Fine," Tyria sighed. "Well, girls, let's head home!"

~P's E~

In the part of Fiore where Pierce, Sarph and Hare were working, dusk had finally fallen.

"I azzzzume it'zzzz time for uzzzz to go?" Victoria asked, eyeing Pierce.

"Sarph?" the blond boy deferred to the de facto leader.

The S-Class Archive user squinted at the tower. Slowly, the lights were beginning to vanish from the windows. "Perfect,"

"Hop on," Victoria told her wizard, offering her broad backside, and Pierce carefully climbed onto her back, making sure that he was leaving her wings room to flap. Hare felt Sarph's broad arms wrap around her waist, and he effortlessly lifted her. "This is degrading," she snorted as Sarph's Aera activated, causing him to sprout glowing white wings. The two pairs lifted off, a high-pitched whirring filling the air as Victoria's gossamer-like wings blurred.

"Your drones are at the ready?" Pierce asked the queen bee as she hovered higher, aiming for the uppermost part of the tower.

Victoria nodded, her abdomen twitching. "I hope it won't be nezzzzezzzzary, though," Her antennae shivered, and Pierce reassuringly patted the back of her neck. "I know it's not comfortable, but there's no reason not to take advantage of what you have," he encouraged her.

Victoria nodded. "Alright," she decided, and her abdomen split open, just below the stinger.

Hare, watching this, suddenly felt like puking. That feeling only intensified as hundreds of tiny black things, which after a second she identified as normal-sized bees, poured out of the rupture, forming a shimmering black swarm around their queen and her rider.

Sarph looked down at a sudden feeling on his sandalled feet and saw a thick, pasty liquid, coloured somewhere between white, green and brown, dripping off the toes of his leather sandals. "Is that really necessary?" he sighed.

"Shut up and fly in front of them. That's just wrong," Hare retched.

Overhearing her, Victoria rolled her multifaceted eyes.

Converse to Sarph's expectations, however, there was no enemy fire. They touched down on the top of the building with minimal hassle. "That wazzzz zzzzurprizzzzingly eazzzzy," Victoria commented.

Pierce looked at her awkwardly. "I guess you should head back inside. You aren't really good at close-quarters combat,"

The queen bee nodded, and Pierce played the flute to bring her back inside the flute. Without the influence of their queen, the drones scattered in every direction.

The three wizards looked towards a door that led into the interior of the facility. "Let's go," Sarph declared.

~P's E~

"So, I have to know, how did you do that thing with the mist and the eyes?" Blanca asked. The three wizards and their newfound acquaintance were on the train, returning to Magnolia. The moonlight in the night sky shone through the compartment window.

The yokai blinked, confused. "What mist?"

"You know, when I was over in the mansion's east wing, you created a massive bank of fog with yellow eyes that came rolling towards me. How'd you do it?"

"I don't know what you're talking about. I did nothing of the sort," she defended herself.

Tyria frowned. "Wait, if you didn't do that," She and Blanca exchanged a nervous glance. "Then who did?"

There was a pause.

"You don't really think there could have been more than one ghost in that house, do you? Because that's just absurd," Blanca snorted.

~P's E~

"Come one, come all, to Doctor Kit's Documentaries!"

Kit grinned. "This time around, we'll be discussing the subject of ghosts in Earth Land,"

"Historically, there have been more supposed 'ghost' sightings throughout Fiore than there have been girls squealing over how adorable I am. And that's a lot!"

"No it isn't!" Pierce's voice shouted from off stage.

Kit glared in that general direction. "I have a life outside of you!"

"Anyway. However, most of these so-called ghosts are hoaxes, the result of either dark wizards, yokais, or other such forces taking advantage of superstition to keep the general populace away from a location. For yokais, this is usually because they've found a house that they like and don't want any noisy, smelly humans interrupting them. For dark wizards, the purposes are varied, but generally much more sinister,"

"However, on occasion there is a genuinely supernatural presence. These, again, are generally the restless souls of the deceased who use the ethernano in the air to affect the world of the living. But this is very unusual, and the closest thing to a genuine ghost Fiore can have,"

"And again, there are more possibilities, but these are so vague, circumstantial and unlikely that Phoenix's Eye will ever actually encounter them that they're practically irrelevant, and if they are, they will be circumstantial enough that expanding on them before they might appear would be redundant. So, that's all for now! See you next time, on DK's Ds!"

A/N

A/N

It was only as I started writing this chapter that I realised how familiar the situation I had unintentionally set up was. A group of girls going to take care of a ghost as a job? One of which is black? Obviously I had to go the full mile and turn the job into a Ghostbusters parody. XD From using one of Eve's Celestial Spirits (that's true, by the way, I originally planned for her to be a Celestial Wizard. Then I realised that since Lucy had a relatively big part in the story, for a canon character, so it might not be a good idea, and gave her Snow magic instead. But now I'm just going 'screw it, I'm doing both. XD) to fill out the numbers to taking advantage of TechType to create veritable proton packs, and having a ghost who was a bride in a big dress? . . . . So Blanca ruined the effect by fighting the ghost with playground equipment, I don't care. XD

Also, I COMPLETELY forgot that there was already a canon character named Eve who uses the same kind of magic and supposedly taught my Eve how to do it . . . they bonded over having the same name. That's my hasty excuse for my sloppiness. XD