Hello everyone! Once again, I apologize for how slow I've been at updating so far, but hopefully I'll get through this hectic time I'm having writing this all down. I've got an idea for another story I want to work on after this but I need to push that aside until this one is done. (I've barely gotten into this one yet!)
In case I didn't make it clear in the description, I'm writing this story after the events of the game. I've played the Wii game, so that's the version I'm going off of. If that doesn't make any sense, just let me know! :D
Anyways, please leave a review if you have any questions, thoughts, or just want to tell me how it's going! I like to hear from my readers!
Winston and Peter followed Egon as he led them through the entire lower level of the library. They stopped as they came upon the bookcase concealing the secret passage and Egon quickly scanned the shelves for any sign of the ghost.
"Still nothing." He murmured as he turned to show the other two. Peter squinted at the screen and let his shoulders slump dejectedly.
"I was hoping we could wrap this up… I hate libraries." He muttered.
"Why?" Winston asked, bracing himself for Peter's sarcastic reply.
"They only exist to make people feel dumb. Surrounding them with so much knowledge is so overwhelming."
Egon's eyebrows raised as a flicker of a reading appeared on the screen. He looked in the direction from where it had come from and motioned for the other two Ghostbusters to follow.
"This way…" He said quietly. Peter looked at him halfheartedly but relented to trail after him when Winston nudged him on.
"What is it, Egon?" Winston asked after they'd rounded a corner, ending up at the stairs. Egon glanced up at the stairs skeptically.
"It's leading us in circles! It's just messing with us…" Peter grumbled. Egon held up his hand for silence and then quietly made his way up the stairs.
"If it takes us up here one more time and then disappears again, I'm going home." Peter threatened. Winston rolled his eyes and shoved the other man up the stairs after Egon.
Egon followed his PKE meter, zig-zagging through shelves. He stopped as he heard soft laughter echo through the room, and glanced quickly at his meter as it flashed briefly with the sound.
"Did you hear that?" Egon asked, listening again. He could hear the murmur of two voices in conversation and crept forward towards the sounds.
"Hear what?" Peter asked, suddenly alert. Winston reached up for his thrower as they rounded the end of the shelf. The laughter echoed again, this time slightly closer. Egon flinched as the meter in his hand spiked with the psychokinetic frequency of laughter. Egon raised his gaze to peer past the meter and his head titled to the side thoughtfully as he found the source of the laughter.
"Wait!" Egon hissed as he swung the other two Ghostbusters back behind the shelf. Peter and Winston both flashed him surprised glances.
"Ow!" Peter protested as his back hit the shelf, causing a few books to topple to the floor.
"What was it?!" Winston asked. Egon shook his head.
"Maybe the reason we can't find this ghost is because my equipment is malfunctioning…" Egon explained, fidgeting with the meter. The readings remained the same.
"What are you talking about?" Peter griped. Egon held it up for the other man to see.
"It says the entity is close…" Egon peeked his head from around the shelf once more, and the front desk came back into view.
Ray was leaned casually over the desk, talking to Keira as she worked to rearrange books. She laughed as he uttered something unintelligible to the three Ghostbusters. Cindy was also listening in on their conversation, laughing every once in a while with them. As Egon held the meter towards the crowd of three people standing at the desk, the meter flashed wildly.
"Oh no…are you telling me Ray's possessed again?" Winston asked worriedly. Egon shook his head.
"No, Ray's been with us all morning. We would have seen something by now if he was." Egon explained, glancing between the meter and the front desk.
"But you're implying that someone is." Peter stated.
"Cindy left yesterday while we were chasing down the ghost, so it can't be her, can it?" Winston said thoughtfully. Egon didn't say anything for a moment.
"Unless it happened before we got here this morning. She was here alone for a little while." Egon said. Peter and Winston glanced at the middle-aged librarian as she sat in one of the desk chairs filling out paperwork.
"She looks pretty harmless to me." Peter said. Winston nodded in agreement.
"Yeah, but maybe the ghost is in hiding like Keira suggested."
Egon, Winston and Peter all looked at each other, the same thought surfacing in their minds all at once. They all peered past the bookshelf once more to stare at the younger librarian.
"So you've fought a marshmallow, a painting, and…what did you say was at the museum?" Keira asked.
"Among other things, there was a reanimated dinosaur." He said. Keira smiled, scanning Ray's face for any sign that he was joking. He nodded seriously and Keira giggled.
"It's a lot scarier than it sounds." Ray admitted. Keira smiled.
"…So Cindy tells me there was a ghost in here before. What happened to it?" Keira asked. Ray smiled at the memory.
"Well, it was actually the very first ghost we'd ever seen so at first Egon, Peter and I ran for our lives. But once we'd established the Ghostbusters and everything, we kinda forgot about it. Then a few years ago, this strange burst of psychokinetic energy spread throughout the city and we were on call for weeks trying to hunt down ghosts. There were nodes all over the city with more powerful entities guarding them. One of the nodes was here in the library, which we called the Grey Lady's territory." Ray explained. Keira stared at him, intrigued.
"Was she the powerful ghost guarding the…whatever you call it?" She asked. Ray laughed.
"No…no. That was the Collector, and he was in the form of, get this: a giant bookworm." Ray paused to take in Keira's reaction. She frowned but didn't say anything. He smirked and went on. "But we did piece together how the Grey Lady died. It was all part of Ivo Shandor's plan and when she gave him the book he wanted, he killed her. We caught her right before we battled the Collector."
Keira was silent for a moment as she processed all of the information he had just dumped on her. She stared past the man as she thought about what he was saying. They had battled a giant bookworm in the library she had been working in for nearly a year and she hadn't known about it. Could anything else she'd read and put aside as fake in fact be true?
She was pulled back into reality and her eyes widened as she realized that the other three Ghostbusters were staring at her from the other side of the library. She gasped in surprise and then burst into a fit of soft laughter as they dove back behind the shelf.
"What's so funny?" Ray asked, sounding hurt as he thought she was laughing at the explanation he had just given her. Keira shook her head and pointed as Egon, Peter and Winston casually emerged from behind the bookshelves and headed towards the front desk.
"Still got nothing!" Peter called.
"Are you serious?" Ray asked dejectedly.
"Is he ever?" Winston replied. Keira smirked.
"Winston, maybe now would be a good time to show Ms. Drummond the secret passageway and what we've done so that she can make sure to call us if there's another change." Egon suggested. Winston nodded and gestured for the head librarian to follow him downstairs. Once they'd gone, Egon turned back to Ray and Keira.
"You did find something." Ray said. Egon nodded stiffly and glanced at Keira. She blinked and looked at the man uncertainly.
"Was it the ghost?" She asked when none of the three men said anything. Egon flashed Ray a guarded look before answering.
"In a way, yes."
"What does that mean?" Keira asked nervously.
"It means that this job is going to take a while." Peter blurted out. Keira flashed him a wary glance and he shrugged.
"This ghost is pretty aware of what's going on around it. We'll have to somehow catch it off guard like we did yesterday." Ray said. Egon nodded.
"Well, people are starting to come in…what's the plan?" Keira asked warily as a few students filed in and headed for their usual tables.
"I think two of us should be enough to hold down the fort here today. Pete and Egon are heading over to the restaurant down the street to capture a class 3 entity. It shouldn't take too long, right Egon?" Ray said.
"Well that's what you said about that graveyard haunt last month and we were there for almost three straight days…" Egon started but Ray rolled his eyes good humoredly.
"Whatever. Winston and I will stay here to look around for a while. We'll get that little spook to come out no matter how long it takes."