My dear readers, I am so sorry I have not updated ... well anything in so long. The last year I have been at a jobcorps center learning how to be a computer technician and when I returned, I got a job at my local Walmart.
The problem is that I work the night shift so my only days are Sunday and Monday, which I spend a lot of time catching up on sleep with.
But thanks to my friend, MistyLilyValley, this chapter is finally completed!
Hopefully you all will like this and you can forgive me for my absence for so long.
Chapter 10: Origin of the Specter Sisters
Several days later, the gang still hadn't seen any sign of Vlad since he had kidnapped Danielle and Mitchi. Despite the fact that Vlad had obviously taken Mitchi's blood in order to create a clone of her, things to do with Vlad had been eerily quiet. And that, in itself, was suspicious as Danny had never known the older Halfa to be so quiet.
"So," Mitchi said. "What's the story with Vlad?"
The group had been sitting in silence around a table at the Nasty Burger nearly all afternoon. Kim and Jazz had joined them only 20 minutes ago. At Mitchi's question, Danny, Sam, Tucker, Jazz and Danielle shared looks. Then Danny spoke.
"You should count yourselves lucky that you and Kim have never encountered Vlad before now." Danny said. "The dude is insane. His goal in life is to kill my dad, marry my mom and make me his half ghost son. Danielle is one result of that goal. He was in a lab accident similar to mine when he and my parents were in college. It gave him ecto acne, hospitalized him and gave him ghost powers. He's got twenty more years of experience on me and he loves making it a point to show me that."
"Sounds like your run-of-the-mill psychopath to me." Mitchi smirked, pushing her bangs out of her face and adjusting her sunglasses (although why she did that when she couldn't even see to be bothered by those was a mystery).
Danny nodded. "You don't know the half of it."
Jazz turned to face Mitchi and Kim. "So how exactly did you obtain your powers?" she asked, her turquoise eyes wide with curiosity.
"Yeah, I've been wondering that too." Sam said as Tucker nodded in agreement.
Mitchi smiled and turned towards where Kim had sat down next to her. "Should we tell them our origin story?"
"Origin story? Who are we? Superman?" Kim asked. Mitchi shrugged. Kim smiled and nodded. "Yes, I suppose we should. It's only fair since Danny told us his."
The Sander Sisters turned towards the group as Kim started. "It all started when…"
Mitchi's POV – Ryoku, Pennsylvania, 1 year ago…
I sighed as I walked down the sidewalk towards school. Kim had offered to drive me, but I had refused, opting to walk the way to have some peace and quiet. My home life wasn't one to brag about. My parents were so-called ghost experts and they were determined to get me and Kim into ghosts as well, even though we had told them many times that we weren't interested. Kim wanted to be a teacher and I hadn't figured out what I wanted to do yet. I hadn't heard of many jobs offered to blind people.
None of my family liked the fact that I wanted to hide my blindness. My family had tried several times to convince me to get a seeing-eye dog and go to a special school for the blind, but I had refused. So Kim just started watching me closely to make sure I didn't get hurt. The principal and teachers of the school knew about my blindness, but had ben told to never tell any student.
School that day went on as normal, that is until Scott Macalister, a seventeen-year-old junior decided it would be fun to lock me in my locker after fifth period. When I was finally let out, I wasn't so much scared as I was sore and a little embarrassed.
"Scott really shoved you in there good this time, didn't he?" Looking up, I saw my two best friends, Max Henyote and June Manson –
Present Day
"Wait," Sam interrupted, causing Mitchi to land a sightless glare on her. "June Manson?" Mitchi nodded. "Brown hair, usually worn in 2 ponytails, violet glasses, our age?" Again Mitchi nodded. "That sounds like my cousin!"
Mitchi jumped at Sam's sudden yell. She blinked. "Now that you mention it, June did say she had a cousin named Samantha who lived in Amity Park."
"Back to the story…" Tucker said, looking at the Sanders expectantly.
"Oh yeah!" Mitchi exclaimed, snapping her fingers. "Well, there I was, staring at the only friends I had in school…"
1 year ago…
"You have to stand up for yourself sweetie." June said as she helped me up, carefully adjusting my sunglasses as I brushed off my black t-shirt and green capris.
I sighed, bending over to retie my black and blue converse (Yes, I could tie my shoes blind. It's not that hard.). "You don't think I try?!" I snapped after standing up straight. "I do, but it's like he has cotton in his ears!"
"Go to the teachers." Max suggested.
"They're no help either." I sighed. "They can't do anything without virtually telling Scott he's beating up a blind kid." Picking up my bag, I walked down the hall to sixth period.
After school ended, I walked home. When I walked in the front door, I was startled by an alarm. Next thing I knew, I was covered head to toe in some kind of goo. "Oh sorry, Mitchi." I heard Mom say as her and Dad's footsteps came in the room. "This is just our latest invention."
"It's a security system." Dad explained. "If a ghost walks in, the alarm sounds and traps the ghost in pure ectoplasm."
"Do I look like a ghost to you!?" I snapped, pulling some of the goo out of my hair. I felt my sunglasses get pulled from my face.
"Go get changed, sweetheart." Mom said. "I'll wash your sunglasses."
I rolled my eyes before going down the hall to my room. Part of the compromise I had made with my parents was that my room would be on the ground floor since, even though my other senses were strong to compensate my lack of sight, I still struggled with getting up the stairs without falling on my face. A sound alerted me to the fact that Kim had no doubt tripped the goo alarm.
"Aaahhh!" Kim screamed. "MOM! DAD!"
For the rest of the evening, I said nothing to my parents regarding the goo incident and neither did Kim. After dinner, Kim helped me with my homework and I spent the rest of my free time reading a brail novel and listening to a movie. When I went to bed that night, I didn't think anything weird would happen to me and Kim.
However, when I woke up, I felt that something was off. I woke up that morning to find that I couldn't feel my bed around me. In fact, I couldn't feel anything at all. For a teenager with no sight, that, in itself, is terrifying. I very nearly screamed.
Hearing footsteps hurry up from down the hall, I tried to sit up but only fell through the bed while my head phased through the sheets as I heard the door open.
Hearing Kim's voice, I froze as she said, "Mitchi, what's going on?!"
"How should I know?" I exclaimed, trying to get to my feet. "Kim, where are you?"
"Right here in front of you!" Kim reaching a clear through hand to tap Mitchi's shoulder, which phased right through her sister as she stood there with a whimper. "Can't you hear me?"
"I can hear you, definitely. I just can't see you, remember?" I told my sister with a slight chuckle.
"Oh sure, make jokes," Kim fretted as she raised a hand to her face as she picked up one of Mitchi's books. "You're not the one who got up this morning and couldn't even see her reflection in the mirror!"
Scowling, I finally stood up in the middle of the bed and said, "What do you mean? I'm stuck phased right through a bed! What's your excuse?"
"KIM, MITCHI! What's going on in there?" we heard our Mom call out as she and Dad knocked at our door.
"Yeah, our sensors have picked up GHOSTS in the house somewhere. Oh boy, hang on, we're coming in!" our Dad joined in as they tried to jingle the handle.
"You locked them out? Oh, how smooth," I whispered to Kim as I just phased out of the bed and walked over to pull on my coat, which surprisingly became intangible even to my touch.
"Genius, we're the ghosts!" Kim panicked from the other side of the room as she bumped into my bookcase, which sent several of my audio braille books to litter the floor. "How can we explain that to Mom and Dad?"
"We won't," I said, most fervently as I tried to make myself go nontangible, again. "It's that simple."
"I don't know if I can do that," she said, finding a place to sit on the bed as she cried.
"Kim, we have to," I said, looking over to where her voice was coming from. Reaching out to balance my hesitant legs against the bed, I found myself solid, again, as I let out a nervous sigh of relief. "Well, that's one thing fixed."
"What about me? I'm still invisible!" Kim exclaimed, automatically covering her mouth as we heard the lock on the door click right as our parents were about to walk in.
"Girls?"
Waving her over to the closet, I whispered, "Hide in there, Kim, and think 'visible.' It might just work, believe me. All I had to do was think …"
Shutting the door behind her, she said, "Yeah, easy for you, but I'll try it anyways."
At that moment, our parents both bursted in with beeping scanners in their hands as Dad hollered out in a jovial voice, "Aha, we've got you now. No chance for escape, you Ghost!" Waving a weird net-like contraption around in the air, he searched the entire room as Mom came right over to check my bed as she sat her weird scanner right next to me on the bed as she looked out the window.
Hearing it start to beep cohesively, I plugged my ears as Mom suddenly looked over to see it registering me as a ghost as she picked it up and lowered its frequency as she said, "That's odd. It shouldn't be doing that …"
"What is that?" I called out over the noise as Mom messed with some of the buttons.
"It's called an Ectoplasm Ghost Tracker, one of your Father's and mine newest inventions. It's quite promising, but it keeps picking up that strange goo genetic makeup here in the house somewhere. Your Father and I just finished cleaning up the rest of it last night …"
Something dawned on me as I clenched my fist and felt it go intangible, again. To my shock, I stuffed my hand in my suit pocket as I swallowed, asking, "What … Do you mean that goo?"
"Exactly, dear," our Mom said, curiously looking up to see a nervous grin come fluttering up my lip as she felt my head. "Hmm, you do feel a little warm. You alright, sweetie?"
"Yeah, right as rain," I said, chuckling. "Kim and I stayed up late last night, studying for our …"
"Kim, what are you doing in here?" we both heard Dad say as he let Kim, who was now whole and visible, out of the closet.
"Nothing, Daddy! Mitchi and I were just … uh … playing a game," Kim said a little too loudly as I stepped over to join her as Dad simply took it and ventured over to Mom to look over her shoulder.
"Any ghosts?" he asked, tethering a hopeful expression.
"Nope, signal's gone," our Mother said, turning it over in her hands. "Silly thing must have a glitch in it somewhere …"
Herding our Mother to the door, Dad then said, "Well then, let's fix it. We can't have a ghost in the house lurking about with no way to track it."
Finding a moment to look over her shoulder at us, Mom then said, "Alright girls, why don't you two get ready for school while your Dad and I take care of this …?"
Once they shut the bedroom door, Kim and I both collapsed to our knees in relief as Kim looked up at me with the most serious look on her face, while I just found myself smiling with new thoughts and ideas about what else we could do …
"Mitchi, no!" Kim automatically said as I just met her back with a matching stare.
"Oh, come on … Kim, aren't you just the least bit curious …?"
Clamming up internally, Kim just watched as I pushed myself off of the ground and instinctively walked over to my vanity to grab my sunglasses off of the edge as I said, "I don't know about you, Kim, but I'm kind of excited about all of this … IN fact, I've never felt better!"
Present Day
So, as Kim and I both finished telling our story, I took a drink of my soda while Kim winked over at me as she took a bite of her Nasty burger.
Wanting answers, we then heard Tucker say, "So, why didn't you ever want your parents to know?"
Almost spitting out my soda, I almost choked on it as Kim grabbed my shoulder in concern as we both shot unbelievable and annoyed looks towards Tucker who just dipped a french fry into his sauce and plopping it up into his mouth.
As Danny spoke up, he then prompted, "Tucker … ghost-hunting parents? Sound familiar?"
Pulling out his PDA, Tucker just harrumphed to himself as he tapped away, saying, "I know all that, Danny. I'm not that dumb …"
"No one said you were, Tucker," Sam said, getting up to refill her drink. "So, Kim, Mitchi, who else knows of your secret … besides us, I mean?"
Looking up at each other, the sisters just smiled as Kim suddenly nudged her sister in the shoulder. "Well, thanks to Mitchi …" Kim started out, "… we've had to tell one or two people."
"What?" Mitchi suddenly shot up, laughing. "It's not I could have hid it, Max and June saw me 'go ghost' and …"
"Did someone mention my name?" a girl asked she sat down her tray and joined group at their table as she re-positioned her clear violet rimmed specks down over her eyes so she could see.
"June?!" Mitchi exclaimed, recognizing the girl's laugh as she smiled. "What are you doing here?"
At all the commotion, Tucker then took the moment to look up from his PDA just for a moment as his eyes instantly met up with June's. With his eyes taking on a dreamy gazed look, his PDA just dropped from his hands as he raised a slight hand to say hi.
"Hello there, I'm June. Junisol, really, but …" she said, suddenly changing the subject. "What's your name?"
Blabbering, Tucker pushed himself up from the table to speak, but then after June smiled at him, again, he just gave out and fainted.
"Did I say something …?" June asked them all as Danny got up and over to help Tucker back up.
"Nope, that's just … Tucker."