Thank you all so much for reviewing! Here's the replies!

Unlucky Alis: No, no they probably don't want people to know that, and don't worry, you definitely aren't reading too much into that line ;)

Pheek: Sorry, this update took longer than planned, but I'm glad you're enjoying it thus far! :)

MonsterousThings: :)

Joy Phantom: No, he doesn't have his symbol in this, but there are reasons for it, that you can likely guess :)

WolfMistwood: :)

SilverBlood5: I'm glad you're liking it so far! Sorry, my updates aren't usually this slow, but I had to figure some stuff out recently. And your theory is correct! It's not really a spoiler or anything so I'll just tell you, yes. If he were to transform just because or something, it would be the T, jeans, and converse again. Thanks for the R and R!

Thanks to everyone who reviewed! Enjoy the chapter! And there is an important note at the end!

Chapter 24

Valerie the Ghost Slayer

Summary: After her and her dad take some hard hits, Valerie becomes entangled in thoughts of vengeance.

Her arms trembled as she pulled herself over the pull up bar in her doorway once more. Her chin reached just above the black bar and she lowered herself again. Her eyes narrowed as she remembered her reason for being where she was. Phantom. She hoisted herself up again. If it hadn't been for that good for nothing ghost, she and her dad wouldn't have had to move into this tiny, cruddy apartment all the way out in Elmerton. Fortunately, she was able to stay at the same school she'd been going to, but the people she once called friends had basically dumped her. When it came to social statuses, hers had suddenly dropped so low in the high school social hierarchy that three of the class's losers had even offered to help her with the move.

Her dad was also barely hanging onto his nightguard job, and she'd found out last night that things weren't going too well between him and the woman he'd been going out with recently, which only added stress.

Valerie continued with another handful of pull ups. If it weren't for that filthy ghost and its slimy ghost dog, her life would've continued to be near perfect. The most she would've had to worry about would be her social life and acne. Now she had everything to worry about, her grades, money, pulling together the shreds of her past social life, and most of all, bringing the ghost scum that had caused it all to justice, although some might use the word revenge.

Just over a week ago, Valerie had mysteriously received a box in the mail filled with high tech ghost hunting equipment from someone in Wisconsin who claimed to have heard about what happened and wanted to help. Frankly, she didn't care who they were or whatever they really wanted. All she cared about was the fact that now she had exactly what she needed to get even.

Finally jumping down from her pull up bar, she went over to her bed where her remote sat and flicked on the small TV in the corner of her room. This past week Ghost Watch had been the only channel on TV she'd been watching, so it was no surprise when Tiffany Snow was the first person to appear on the little, old screen. When Valerie read the headline at the bottom she smirked slightly.

SIGHTINGS REPORT NEW GHOST HUNTER IN AMITY PARK?

"Hell yeah there is." she said quietly to herself.

She walked over to the window in her small apartment room and gripped the sill tightly. The stars were as usual, drowned out by the city lights, but the crescent moon still shone brightly.

In the distance, Valerie thought for a moment that she saw a streak zoom across the sky. Her gut began telling her to go out there and chase it down, but her father calling her from the other room kept her feet planted on the floor and her ectoguns concealed. At least for that night.

A few days later, Valerie got lucky when her dad's night shift started a little earlier, leaving her alone for the rest of the evening and night. This time she hadn't hesitated. She pulled on her red jeans and jacket, clipped on her black belt with two ectoguns in holsters, and slipped on two knee high black boots, which of course both had concealed knives in them. She quickly pulled her long curly hair back and slipped on a dark visor before pulling the hood of her jacket up. Valerie flipped a switch on the side of her visor and the screen came to life showing multiple stats on either side. Black leather gloves reached her elbows and on the back of her left wrist was a small keypad.

Valerie opened her window and stepped out onto the rickety, old fire escape. She lifted her left hand and punched in a code on the keypad before a smooth looking metallic and red colored hoverboard came from the soles of her boots.

After just a moment she balanced herself on the hoverboard and took to the skies. It had only been a couple weeks, but Valerie had found herself adjusting fairly well to the feel of her board.

She looked across the skyline of downtown Amity Park and switched on her sensors. "Alright. Time to kick some ghost butt."

It had been nearly an hour and she'd barely spotted any ghosts out and about the city tonight. Even the ones she had seen had all but disappeared before she could even reach them. Not like it was unheard of for there to be lulls in ecto activity from day to day, but Valerie was honestly feeling a little put off. The one night she was actually able to get out there at this hour, which was usually the prime hour for ghost activity, was the day that none of them decided to show up. Typical.

Valerie huffed and sat down on her board where she was a good 70 feet off the ground. From her current position, she had a spectacular view of the city nightlife. Skyscrapers were lit up like Christmas trees as cars drove by and people strolled down the sidewalks.

She imagined if it had been daytime, there would be a chorus of birds chirping, that is, if those rumors and sayings were true.

For years, people in Amity Park have claimed that when the birds sing, all is calm, but should a ghost come near, all will fall into silence. Or so they say. It'd never actually been proven so many people simply disregarded it.

With her thoughts travelling, Valerie began to wonder if she should've just used this night to get caught up on schoolwork instead of hunting down ghosts that obviously weren't there.

As if on cue, two ghosts rushed past her, one swooping below her, the other darting past above her. She was shocked out of her thoughts, but as soon as she caught sight of a black and white blur zooming away, she knew what to do.

Valerie quickly stood and kickstarted her board's forward thrust engines, following her most hated enemy through the night.

Trackers in her visor screen kept eyes on her target as she pulled one of her ectoguns from its holster. With a high pitched whine and a small glow, Valerie charged her weapon up and pressed on some more speed. Phantom was chasing after some huge shadow like ghost that was proving to be rather agile. She knew from the looks of it, that she'd have to make sure that one got taken care of too. It didn't exactly look like the type to be only mildly aggressive towards humans.

The two darted around the city for a few minutes before the shadow ghost finally decided to go through one of the buildings, which obviously wasn't a problem for Phantom, but Valerie lacked the amount of ghost like properties needed for intangibility. The building was wide so going around would take too much time.

Valerie shifted her weight back slightly and pulled the front of her hoverboard so it pointed straight up into the night sky. She gripped the side of her board with one hand to steady her until she made it above the building. She went to the other side and looked around only to find the two ghosts nowhere in sight. Growling, Valerie went a bit higher and turned on her high range sensors, but it seemed they were simply gone.

"AAAGGHH!" she screamed in rage, collapsing on her board once again. I was so close, she thought and powered down her gun before placing it back in its holster.

After looking around she noted she was around 150 feet off the ground currently and on the edge of downtown where the business based skyscrapers faded into high rise apartment buildings, like her own, only a bit less run down than in Elmerton.

Valerie took off her visor for a moment and simply starred off into space. Would she ever even be able to catch Phantom? How could some people even think of him as some sort of hero? What's worse is that the support seemed almost contagious at school. She felt like it was flu season and she'd been the only one to get the vaccine. Were people really this blind? This gullible? This easily swayed? Could it all just be from peer pressure? It seemed like everyone around her was being brainwashed. It was just so frustrating how they couldn't see simple logic! There has never been a "good" ghost and there never would be. Simple as that. She'd read tons of articles written by professionals and they all claimed it to be scientifically impossible. Well, there was that one that said otherwise…but apparently ghosts needed negative, aggressive thoughts to survive. That's basically what the majority of organizations and even private companies claimed. So, if there was so much evidence to prove that the existence of a good ghost is completely unfathomable, then why can't her dumb classmates understand that?

True, that not all of the student body leaned that way though, in fact it was really only around a quarter of the students or less. It probably just seemed like more because of how little to no ghost supporters there had been before.

Valerie remembered a couple days ago, Sam had gotten into a very loud, heated debate with that Weston kid, Wesley, right? What a weird full name… Anyways, almost anyone who witnessed it would tell you that Sam won the argument, but that's because she was brainwashed since elementary school with this stuff and had tons of illegitimate "facts" to back her up. Honestly, who would believe that every ghost hunting organization and the government's very own branch of security would give out all this fake information? And for what? What would they even get out of it?

She slipped her visor back on and stood up on her hoverboard. Valerie switched her high range sensors on once more and was expecting nothing, only to be met by a small beeping. Reading the stats, she turned and quickly headed in the direction the ghost supposedly was.

The signal led Valerie all the way through downtown again and farther. She put on some more speed after a moment when she realized the ghost was fleeing in the same direction, and would probably leave her sensor's range soon if she didn't hurry.

It wasn't until she came to the edge of a residential area that Valerie decided to turn on the thermal vision on her visor. Looking around, she noticed a bluish green blob amidst a sea of warmer colors. The blob movie quickly until it suddenly disappeared inside a building. Valerie hastily shut off her thermal vision and pulled the visor off, only to find herself starring right at Fenton Works, home and workplace of a family of world renowned ghost hunters.

Valerie suddenly found it to be far beyond her teenage mind as to why a ghost would ever even go near such a place, but since she didn't really feel like ringing the doorbell to tell people who probably already knew there's a ghost in their house, that there is, in fact a ghost in their house, she just turned away. She had some late homework assignments to do that were much more important to her at the moment than some suicidal ghost. What a strange concept that is.

Valerie looked over her shoulder one last time at the house and snorted.

"Dumbass."

A/N: IMPORTANT! Please read and thank you! :)

I have 6 chapters left after this one to do before I will be starting a new story set in this same AU I am creating here. This story has always been basically all of the background exposition and world building I needed to get out of the way before starting some of my bigger plots within this AU. Once I do these next six chapters here, there will be enough background info on this AU in order for me to begin the first bigger plot. The story will be posted separate from this one, as I will continue adding more to this even while the other story is going on.

Of course, you do not have to read the other one, but if you have happened to like this AU I'm building up until here, I highly suggest you check out this full length story coming up soon. :)

I have some big ideas planned for this AU and have already determined that it will be 3 separate stories plus these oneshots. The first story will be focused on the Alliance and the Royalists. The second story will focus more on the GIW and the human realm society. And the third is planned to be a mixture of both with a theme of "balance".

Personally, I am VERY excited to get started, seeing as I've been planning these stories out for at least a year, and I'm really hoping you all can enjoy it with me!

If you have any questions about all this, just go ahead and ask in the reviews. I will gladly reply at the top of the next chapter as usual :)

UP NEXT: Things are changing in Amity Park and Ember reflects on the past few months.

See ya soon and please, please review if you have time! :)