Drabble 18-Legends

Logan had been around long enough to hear every legend that's been past down for who-the-fuck-cares. He's also witnessed the birth of several others. Ghost Rider, Captain America, Thor, and about twenty other tight-wearing supers out there in the world doing Odin knows what. Gods, aliens, it's all old news.

However, ghosts are new.

It was on old town in Illinois called Amity Park. Wildly known for being the biggest paranormal hot spot in the United States, and probably not worth the mutant's time.

That thought occurred to him several times before but it still didn't stop him from checking in to a motel and searching the town, digging up some research.

The Amity Ghost Kid (nicknamed Inviso-Bill) had been a long running story, turned and twisted by bloggers who didn't know what they were talking about. But a few things in the variations of the stories were consistent. There was a lab accident, an explosion, and now he was apparently some kind of poltergeist who refused to move on. Some say he was still living, some say he died in the lab accident, and some say he's both living and dead. The story's been around for about twenty years or so, according to the internet. He didn't doubt that some of it was true.

Despite the trouble finding the town, he had no trouble finding the old Fenton place. It was a tall, run-down building with a satellite looking thing on top and a giant neon green sign that said Fentonworks.

That sure was helpful.

He had left his bike back at the motel, and a part of him wished he had brought him and saved him the walk if it was nothing, but it was too late now. He walked up the old, broken steps and knocked on the door. Nobody answered, but when he tried the door knob it was unlocked. The door swung open with only a little resistance from the neglect over the years, and he stepped inside.

The first thing that hit him was the smell.

It was rotten and moldy and had an underlying scent of...He didn't even know.

He wandered through the house, and easily found the living room, the kitchen, and the bathroom. When he explored upstairs he found the master bedroom, a girl's room with an abandoned bed and a boy's room with NASA posters everywhere. There was something glowing green in the trash bin, so he went over to investigate.

They looked like some kind of...Bandages? Rags? They were torn and stained from the dust, but it had definitely been used to keep some kind of bodily fluid inside. It had that dull smell of the thing he couldn't identify earlier. There must have been tons of this green stuff everywhere. Or remnants of it, at least.

He slowly made his way back down the stairs and into the basement, where there was a lab.

A lab?

Dusty ray guns and tools were strewn everywhere, and his eyes almost started watering. This was the source of the smell. The green stuff that made it was everywhere. On the walls, the floor...Even the ceiling. On the far wall was a giant octagon attached to the wall, and he couldn't help but go check it out.

Now, when he had first entered the home it was the smell that hit him. This time he was pretty sure it was a frying pan.

He tumbled to the side, catching himself on one of the counters as he whirled around, his claws coming out of his right hand.

It was a well built adult with white hair and intoxicating green eyes that matched the shade splattered all over the walls. He was well built and tall, and would probably be an even match for Logan.

"Who are you?" The man asked, a frying pan in one hand and a glowing, green ball of energy in the other. It illuminated his face in an almost terrifying way. His voice was deep but had a tinging, echo-like sound to it.

"Are you Inviso-Bill?" Logan asked, straightening up a little bit. He may be short but he was still tall.

"You gotta be kidding me," he mumbled. The green energy dissipated and he set the frying pan on the counter, not appearing at all afraid of Logan's silver claws.

"Geez, Halloween isn't even for like, another six months! Why can't you guys just leave me alone?"

He brought his legs up and sat cross legged in mid air, looking at Logan expectantly. The shorter man sheathed his claws and straightened out the old leather of his jacket.

"So you're real," Logan said evenly.

"Obviously. Now, what do you want?" The spirit replied wryly.

"Just wanted to see what the excitement was about, Bub."

"Well, it's just me. Name's Phantom. Not that dumb media name they gave me forever ago."

"So you...You're a ghost?"

"Yeah. I used to be a halfa-both human and ghost-but then I died. Again. It was kinda rough, but I think it's safe to say that the first time hurt more. This was my home. These were my parent's cool inventions-which by the way were only cool when they weren't being used on me. They were ghost hunters and didn't know that I was the scrawny superhero running around and beating up other ghosts."

"What happened to them?" Logan thought maybe he killed them. If they hunted him, that would be plenty of reason to murder, right?

"Old ghost named Plasmius. He was going for dad, got mom instead, and then out of anger killed my father. He was obsessed with my mom. But with his obsession dead, he just kinda...disappeared overtime, I guess. I haven't seen him since. He was a halfa too. Vlad Masters."

"So, you're a ghost that hangs out in your dead parent's basement?" Logan asked. There was an implied joke there, but he wasn't going to take it further than that. Phantom chuckled to himself.

"Pretty much, but it's not like I've got anything better to do. The town thinks I'm a myth and I don't need to eat or sleep anymore. The Zone got boring a long time ago, and the politics there are all in order. Plus, it's nice sometimes, you know?"

Jesus, does this kid ever shut up?

Logan sat there letting the kid talk for a while. It was obvious he hadn't had any normal interactions with people in a long time. He talked all night about the Ghost Zone and Amity and his friends Sam and Tucker who had their memories erased so they didn't remember him, and about how he died the first time and got his powers and all of the different ghosts he fought. His sister was one of his favorite subjects to talk about, right up there with space, and his parents came up a couple times, but not much, really. He didn't tell Logan about his second death that made him full ghost, but he told him of his coronation.

Huh, Logan thought, It's not every day you meet a ghost king.

When Phantom finally stopped talking it was the break of dawn, and he looked kind of sad again.

"What's wrong?" Logan asked, leaning back to pop his vertebrate.

"You're leaving. It's morning, you should go back home. All you wantwd to do was find a legend, right? Well, hell, he talked your ear off all night. You should go."

Phantom floated up towards the ceiling before doing a loop and headed towards the portal.

"You know, you could always come with."

Logan didn't know why he offered. He felt kind of sorry for the kid, dying at an early age and living alone for so long. His only friends either don't remember him or are dead. He was depressed and lonely being locked away in the ghost world and in the human world without something to do. Someone to protect.

The sentence made Phantom stop dead in his tracks.

"What?" he asked, flying back over to Logan. He looked calm and confused, but his eyes showed excitement.

"To the Xavier Institute. You can be a teacher or whatever. Save the world, all that good shit." Logan put his hands on his hips and waited patiently for an answer. But he hadn't slept in two days, and it was finally starting to get to him.

"Yeah," Phantom answered with a shrug, trying to be chill about it. "I mean, it's not like I have anything better to do."

"Good. That means you get to teach some of 'em how to drive."

Logan didn't think it was possible, but Phantom seemed to get three shades paler.

Logan just chuckled.