Chapter 25: Inside the Fire

Tuesday, June 25th, 2002

Cherry Hill Temple

Tokyo, Japan

8:45 AM

Raye had finished her chores as she always did - and some of Chad's, considering his clumsy nature - and proceeded to start stocking her fireplace with wood. She was just stoking the fire as Amy, Mina, and the cat guardians finally arrived. They walked into Raye's room, Amy holding a stack of papers. It was the size of a small Stephen King novel. Raye looked at the stack in the blue-haired woman's hand as she dropped her fire iron, "What is all that?"

"That's everything Egon sent Amy," Artemis answered, "Him and his student Kylie faxed whole parts of texts, pictures, and descriptions."

"Don't worry, Raye," Amy knelt down to the table in the room, "I had already gone through the pages and highlighted the information you need to focus on." She placed the stack of paper on the table. There were several bookmarks made of post-it notes marking pages, "It came with a note, 'I know there's a lot of information here, but if you feel you need more, just call us and we'll get you what you need. Signed, Kylie Griffin.'"

"Sounds like this Kylie girl is on her game," Luna stated as she jumped onto the table followed by Artemis, "I only wish Serena was this through." Raye started dragging the papers toward her and knelt down to start thumbing through them as Amy responded, "She's rather organized, as well. I feel like we'd get along great!"

Raye had an impressed expression on her face as she looked at the scanned pages of rare occult literature at her fingers, "Yeah, me too. She has information I didn't even know was out there!"

Mina finally knelt down to the table as she shook her head, "Come on, you guys, we have a long day ahead of us. Last thing Kylie, Eduardo, and the rest of them want is for us to take forever over your appreciation for… What?" Everyone was looking to Mina as though she said something strange. Raye looked to her, "Who's Eduardo?"

"One of the new Ghostbusters," Mina was confused as much as her fellow Sailor Scouts, "Didn't you tell me that?" Raye shook her head. Mina looked to Amy, "It wasn't you, was it?" "I'm sorry, but no." As soon as she looked to the cats, Luna immediately responded, "We don't know any of the new team outside of Kylie. Are you sure you didn't see it in a newspaper?"

"I might have. I…" she grabbed the side of her blonde-haired head and scratched it, "I have no idea why I said that." "Look," Raye broke in, "let's just start going through this stuff and figure out what Egon needs; we'll figure out their roster later." From there, Amy pulled a set of notebooks from her bag as Raye split the stack of papers into three separate stacks for each Scout to look over.

3:45 PM

For nearly 7 hours, the three women separated out various texts supplied by the Ghostbusters as a means of focus for Raye. There was something of a pattern shown in Kylie and Egon's notes that pointed to certain texts. A lot of the information was vague, but a lot of the information pointed towards certain objects - books, scrolls, talismans, ect. The pictures provided gave ornate detail descriptions to crafted items of certain time periods within Norse mythology. Even the description of the very object Egon was looking for as the center of the search proved useful. Mina took the description of the recorder and managed to craft a crude drawing of the recorder on notebook paper.

Several drinks, crumpled pieces of paper, and various notes laid spralled across the table. Mina had her elbows on the table, her hands on her temples massaging her head. Both cat guardians were asleep. Raye was taking a pain reliever tablet before drinking water from a bottle. Amy was still looking through the paperwork, her taking scans of some of the pages with her mini-computer. She was making strides to perform translations and using her old programming of the Ghostbusters' PKE detection array to make sure she didn't accidentally conjure anything nasty in Raye's temple. It was overwhelming to her, to say the least, "How do they do it? It's so… Archaic!"

Mina looked up to their team genius rather surprised, "That's the first time I've ever heard you complain about reading books." "I'm not used to reading up demonology. I hope paranormal physiology doesn't interrupt my ability to understand human physiology."

"Okay," Raye knelt down to her position at the table, "we've been at this all day. Sunset will be in another few hours or so. I think it would be best is we stopped for dinner. I'm going to need to go over what we have before it gets to twilight."

"Agreed," Amy and Mina said in unison. Amy stretched a bit as she stated, "Mina and I will head to that sandwich shop down the street bring you back something." The two girls stood and began walking out as Raye began gathering whatever the three of them turned up that looked significant. She looked to the recorder picture and kept her focus on it. There was something to the design that looked… familiar. Something about it…

Luna jumped onto the table before her. It startled the girl, "Oh, Geez…!" "Sorry about that, we seemed to have dozed off."

"That's okay, Luna. Our brains were starting to melt from the information, so I called a break. Amy and Mina just left."

"Did you find enough on what you're looking for?"

"Everything except for one thing," Raye had put down the drawing and picked up her notebook. She flipped back a couple of pages as she proceeded to point to a note she made with multiple questions marks around it, "Kylie had specifically asked me to find a book as well. Not exactly sure what it has to do with what we're looking for, but she says it was just stolen from a restricted part of the main library in New York. She noted it was going to take the Library and the police a while to find it."

"I'm worried, Raye," the black cat responded as she looked at the notes and the drawing of the recorder, "If this is serious like Egon said it was, and if what you told me is true about Lita becoming a Ghostbuster, she may very well be in danger."

"I know, Luna, I know!" Raye stood up and began putting more wood on the still burning fire. She let the flame burn for several hours knowing the fire itself needed to absorb some of the information they were collecting. She began stoking it again as she spoke, "I know Dan will watch over her. I'm not sure about the others. That Garrett character especially." Luna raised her head at that, "Garrett?"

Raye stopped what she was doing. She stood up and looked to Luna with a look of confusion, "Who's Garrett? That name just came into my mind." She looked back over her notes quickly hoping that name came from somewhere in there. Luna looked her over, a suspicion started to form. The cat shook its head and talked to her, "Raye, I wouldn't mind that right now. Once Mina and Amy return, and everything is settled, we'll seek out the information for the Ghostbusters."

5:57 PM

The fire was roaring. Mina and Amy as well as the cat guardians sat behind Raye who was now sporting her temple robes. She looked behind her, "Are we ready?" The others nodded their heads. She turned back and started focusing on the fire. She began her chant, "I am flame. Flame is light. I am fire. Fire is sight." She kept muttering the words over and over as she began placing herself into a trance.

Considering all of the information they were searching for, Amy had decided to use her Mini-Computer to record PKE readings in hopes Egon could use them. Very quietly, Mina spoke, "How sensitive is all this information? The Negaverse's moves were always so hard to predict."

"I'm not sure," Amy responded just as quietly. She kept checking her computer, "So far I'm not…" A small valley appeared on her graph. Another one spiked just a moment later. Raye continued her chant as Amy's PKE valances kept showing bigger and bigger spikes, but were still broken up by dead spaces. Luna jumped up onto Amy's shoulder to get a look at the readings, "What is that?" "I don't know. I haven't run the PKE function since we met the Ghostbusters, and I've never ran it during a fire reading. I don't know if this is normal."

The PKE valance just spiked a huge spike.

The flames of the fire flared up.

Raye suddenly grabbed her throat.

Mina yelled out "This is not normal!" Raye fell backwards onto the floor and started rolling around. Amy and Mina jumped from their positions as Amy looked again to her computer. The valances were beyond anything shes ever seen. That was when she switched energy detection modes and looked at the reading again, "That can't be!" The wind in the room became turbulent as the papers Egon and Kylie sent to them started whirling around the room. Raye was grabbing her head as she started screaming.

Just outside, Chad was finishing pouring more water into the Koi pond when he felt the ground shake below him, "Whoa, what was that?" That was when he heard Raye screaming. Still holding the half-full pail he started running inside. Approaching the room, he could tell it was definitely her.

"We have to break the connection!" Amy was yelling over the rustling wind. Mina responded in kind, "How do we do that?"

"We have to put out that fire!" she pointed to the fireplace, then showed the readings to Mina, "The psychic turbulence is overloading her mind! It's all coming from the fire!" That was when the door slid open and Chad entered the room, "What's going on?! Raye, are you alright?" Mina spotted the bucket in Chad's hand. She rushed to him, snatched the bucket from him, then proceeded to throw what was left of the water onto the fire. The water hissed as steam and smoke wafted into the chimney.

Throwing the bucket to the side, Mina ran up to Raye and knelt down to check on her. Chad did the same, "What happened?" He looked around the room. Before Chad realized it, Amy realized she still had her mini-computer out and running. She hid it behind her back. "Wow! Did a cyclone come through here or something?"

Raye opened her eyes…

They were blood red.

She reached up and grabbed Chad by his throat. She threw him behind her, him landing on the table. Raye stood and looked at the other two girls in the room. She growled an almost inhuman growl. Before too long, she began to levitate off the ground. "Amy?" Mina had a tremor in her voice, "What happened to her?"

"She must of absorbed too much energy!" She took out the computer again and started scanning, "Something came from inside the fire and is in possession of her!"

"Was I like this when we were in the tower?"

"Unfortunately."

Mina was starting to panic, "Then what do we do?" Chad rolled off the table and looked up to the possessed woman before him. From inside his robes, he produced scrolls. He suddenly started sweating bullets as he looked to Raye, "Dear God, what am I doing?" Raye lunged at him as he placed a scroll into his palm. He threw his hand out and attached the scroll to her face.

Immediately she fell to her knees. She had her hands up in front of her, shaking. Amy looked back to her computer, knowing that despite Chad being in the room, she had to know what was happening to Raye. She switched back to PKE mode and tried to see what the scroll was doing. Raye opened her eyes and her eyes were normal, but she looked to be in pain, "Amy, it's not enough! Help!"

"The scroll is only suppressing the energy!" Amy typed like mad on the small device as she looked at the results of the scan, "We have to drive it out!" Amy ran back to the table and started digging into her bag and started dumping the contents in her way on the floor. Mina looked at what she was doing, terrified of what was going on, "What are you doing?!"

"Dr. Stantz gave me something shortly after they went back to New York!" She produced a small glass vial of a pink viscous material, "I've carried it around since in case of an emergency!" Amy ran up to Chad and demanded a scroll. Obtaining one she opened the vial and coated the piece of paper with script in the contents. She slapped the scroll over the first one. Raye started to convulse, then she went limp. She collapsed into Chad's arms. A red vapor started leaving her body. It flew up the chimney and vanished out of the temple.

Chad picked her up and immediately brought her to her bed and laid her in it. He backed up as Amy and Mina tended to her, "Is she okay? Please tell me she's okay!"Amy was running another scan, "She's going to be okay. She's going to need to rest." Mina stood up from the opposite side of the bed and began to escort Chad out, "Chad, you're going to need to go and get us medical supplies. Can you do that?" He nodded his head. As soon as he finished, he started running out of the temple.

Tuesday, June 25th 2002

Ghostbusters HQ

New York City, NY USA

4:35 AM

Light snoring was heard. The firehouse was dark and empty sans 3 people and a ghost. Egon was face down on his workbench fast asleep, Dan and Lita in their bunks, also asleep. Slimer slept on the couch in the lounge area. The Containment Unit was green and operational. Ecto-1 sat in the garage bay silent and off. Janine's computer screensaver played a small animation of the Ghostbusters logo bouncing off the sides of the screen. The building was silent with very light snoring.

The loud ringing of the phone jarred Dan awake. What was a silent sleep was rudely interrupted. Dan snapped his eyes awake as he reached for the phone receiver, "Ghostbusters." He turned on his nightstand light as he heard the woman calling starting to talk really fast, "We have to talk to Dr. Spengler! We need help right now!" Dan swung his legs out from the bed and started shaking what's left of sleep from him as he attempted to slow down the person calling, "Woah, woah there, John Moschitta, start from the beginning."

"Dan, is that you?" The voice sounded familiar to him, "Amy? Yeah, it's Dan, what's up?" "We're at Raye's temple; Mina and myself. We were helping her out with the fire reading and something happened! Something went wrong! Is Dr. Spengler available?" "You're gonna have to give me a minute; it's almost a quarter to five in the morning here in New York."

"Please, Dan; it's very urgent! Raye ended up possessed by her fire reading!"

Dan's eyes shot open wide, "WHAT?! Is she okay?!" He was awake now. Dan's yelling woke Lita up. She turned over to see him on the phone. Amy was very unsettled and he heard it in her voice, "Yes, she's resting. Dan, that's not the worst of it."

Lita kicked her sheets off and looked at Dan as Amy told him the worst part. All the color drained from his face. He started to breathe unevenly, "Holy Shit! Amy," he started acting frantic as he stood up, "stay on the line! I'm gonna put you on hold and transfer you to Egon's Lab! Hang on!" He clicked the hold button on the phone and started scrambling out of the room. Lita quickly swung her legs out from the bed and called out to him, "Dan, what's wrong? What did Amy say?"

Dan stopped and turned to her, "The recorder we're looking for? The one Jeremy Whittington used?" Lita nodded, "Yeah?"

"It's of Negaverse origin."

To be continued in Lunar Impact: Phases