I've got no real excuse for my silence, just life being a pain as usual, a dash of laziness… And the sheer relaxation of having my roommate finally gone. And admittedly I kinda held off on this one when I realized what the date was so I figured I'll just hold off on this one until Halloween comes around.
And I'm sorry for the first chunk of this being a bit of an information dump, I might make an interquel story in the future, but I'm afraid you'll just have to bear with it for now.
So let's just skip all this and enjoy the-
*BANG*
*SHUNK*
Seriously guys? Silver bullets and wooden stakes?
[[]]
It has been a few months since Ruby had 'won' a Mansion on Patch. Though the Mansion had been revealed to be a trap created by the sinister ghost known as King Boo, Ruby not only evaded capture, she had also managed to capture all the ghosts within the mansion, including the King himself, and rescued her team.
At the same time, Ruby discovered her mother, Summer Rose, was still alive- Held prisoner by King Boo in the mansion as well. And after a climactic battle, Summer Rose was freed at last.
Going against the recommendations of most doctors, Summer Rose underwent a (rather extreme) workout regimen to bring herself back to her prime… Even if she isn't completely recovered, she did take up an offer from Professor Ozpin to be a teaching assistant to Professor Port… After a recommendation from Professor E. Gadd of course.
Students were split between despair that their 'napping' class was over, others were overjoyed that they could actually learn things in their Grimm Studies class thanks to Summer helpfully writing the information they would need on the blackboard… Not that Professor Port ever noticed.
Of course, the enjoyable times did not last.
When the Vytal Festival came around, things in Vale began to crumble.
It was during the first of the Single's rounds that Summer first noticed things were off, when Yang supposedly broke the leg of her opponent Mercury Black.
This set off several alarms in Summers' head. Firstly was Mercury himself, Summer remembered a man by the name of Marcus Black, a ruthless assassin she had met through Raven.
Second was that even though Yang was a hot head, she was not Raven who wouldn't have qualms about breaking the limbs of her opponents without reason (Though pity the fool who gives her a reason.)
And third, was that Summer had noticed that Mercury was acting, having had her own leg broken by Raven during their first year (A minor mishap with a Dust Blade infused with Gravity Dust that quickly taught Summer Gravity Dust was something to be extremely careful with and was not something to be used in sparring) Summer knew Mercury wouldn't be crying out in pain, he'd be letting out choked attempts to cry out, and if he was Marcus's son then the body would have had a higher pain tolerance considering Marcus's ruthless personality would no doubt translate to his training.
When Summer marched down the escort Yang away, ensuring Yang that she believed in whatever Yang was seeing, she noticed two more things.
First off, the paramedics were claiming he had bone exposed, but Summer saw no blood spilling from the wound, she saw a red liquid but she knew the scent of Electric Dust infused liquids when she smelled it.
And second was that Mercury's partner Emerald was focusing more on the paramedic's than her teammate, and that his team leader wasn't with him.
Summer brought all of this up to both Ozpin and Ironwood after Ruby's team was disqualified, however Ironwood had disregarded every last bit of information, claiming it was all simple coincidence and admittedly some of it could be coincidence.
Marcus Black couldn't be the only family with the last name of Black, considering Mercury used Boots, Dust could have leaked into the spilling blood, and Emerald could have chosen to focus on the paramedics due to having an issue with blood.
But Summer called Ironwood a fool for believing that no one would be willing to cheat during the Vytal Festival, due to its symbolism.
Summer had to threaten to expose Raven's fear of ghost's to the entire school to keep her from attempting to give the competition food poisoning, and thanks to Summer Semblance of Incoperiability, allowing her body become more akin to an illusion than a physical object and go through walls or let things go through her, Raven wouldn't be able to stop her.
But then Ironwood had decided to 'warn' Summer that because of such a violent action from Yang that she might be more like Raven than either of them realize, Summer was quick to remind James that she could be more violent than Raven.
James would not be having any children, and he needed to get a new arm, and have his nose set back in place.
Then things began to snowball.
Pyrrha Nikos was selected to battle Penny Polendina. The result of the battle was Pyrrha unleashing her Polarity Semblance in full force, and due to the wires on Penny's blades tangling her body, resulting in Penny being sliced to pieces- Revealing the woman to be an android.
Someone had hijacked the CCT, sowing distrust of Atlas among the people of Remnant, Grimm invaded, The White Fang attacked, The Atlesian machines were hacked and began attacking the people…
Yang lost an arm to Adam Taurus, something that had driven Summer into a justified fury, though she held off on it for a number of reasons.
The first was that she was focusing on keeping Pyrrha alive. Ozpin had made a STUPID and desperation choice and had offered to Pyrrha something she would NEVER be prepared for- So when Pyrrha had chosen to save Jaune by pushing him into a rocket locker and setting it off, Summer made use of her Semblance ahd pushed Pyrrha through the door of the locker, thus locking her inside with Jaune and sending it somewhere in Vale.
Confronting the culprit of the incident in Ozpin's tower was meant to be easy for Summer.
The Grimm Dragon that had been slumbering in the mountains was a joke to Summer, thanks to her Semblance she killed the Grimm from inside- And fighting the Culprit, one Cinder Fall, was just as easy.
So long as the fight doesn't drag out, Summer is invincible, simply because she can simply choose to let attacks go through her until her Aura runs out.
Then Ruby had arrived at the top of the tower at an awkward moment, when Cinder had attempted to impale Summer with a pipe- Which wasn't too effective seeing as Summer chose not to let it hurt her. And then the world went silver.
However this story doesn't cover these events in depth, this story shall cover the events that followed not too long after the "Battle of Beacon" As history shall know.
[]
Instead this story shall take place in Evershade Valley, hidden within the mountains of Mistral, considered the single most haunted place in all of Remnant, and very few know how to access this haunted location.
Within Evershade Valley there are five structures that have withstood centuries of abandonment (Just what any ghost would enjoy)
A large manor, a pair of towers built around a massive tree, an old clock tower, a mining station covered in constant snow and ice, and a mansion suspended over a massive pit.
The Gloomy Manor, the Haunted Towers, The Old Clockworks, The Secret Mines, and the Treacherous Mansion were the names of these locations within Evershade Valley.
And in the sky above it all- a large dark purple crystal floated in the sky, shaped like the crescent moon and glowing a soft shade of purple, blanketing the entire valley in its power.
The Dark Moon, despite the sinister name, was a powerful supernatural artifact, coating all of Evershade Valley in ghostly energies. But it also granted the ghosts that lived in Evershade peace, peace that some had not known for millennia.
Peace that protected them from being driven mad for millennia of existence.
It was the Dark Moon that allowed Humans, Faunus, and Ghost's to co-exist somewhat peacefully for centuries. The outliers among each group notwithstanding of course.
[Inside the Gloomy Manor]
Inside one of the darkened rooms of Gloomy Manor, lit only by a small lantern, sat one Professor E. Gadd, tinkering with a device at the table, the professor made sure to wear his Gadd Tech™ Night Vision Glasses just so he could see what he was doing.
At the same time however, a ghost floated up behind him. This ghost was a light green color and had an almost pill-shaped body, a pair of arms and mitten-like hands, and a pair of short tails that almost looked like legs. It's face only consisted of a mouth and two white eyes with green pupils in them.
This ghost was known as a Greenie- They named themselves that due to the fact that most of them had been ghosts so long they had forgotten their names and even their original forms.
The Greenie then floated into E. Gadd peripheral vision, which quickly made the professor jump and turn to face the ghost.
"Oh." E. Gadd said as he put the device he was working on down, "Finished that task I gave you?"
"Ya-huh." The Greenie said with a nod as he held out a manifest, "A list of all the local ghosts that still remember their names."
"Thank you." E. Gadd said as he took the list, glancing around the room.
E. Gadd had come to learn that the more simple formed ghosts of Evershade valley seemed to take form based on their personalities.
The Greenies seemed to be the more energetic of the Evershade ghost, eager to get down to manual labor, taking notes on E. Gadd's various experiments in the room… Or floating through an electric current between a pair of coils because they thought getting shocked was fun.
E. Gadd couldn't help but sweat drop at the sight of that one, he'd have to reset that machine again because of it.
"Oh and Miss Clairvoya is back at the bunker making sure all the camera's are hooked up properly." The Greenie added with a smile on his face.
"Glad to hear it." E. Gadd said, "How's Luigi doing?"
The Greenie's smile dropped for a moment, "He's still a bit shaky around the place, but he's getting better… Except when one of the spiders surprises him." The Greenie admitted.
E. Gadd sighed good naturedly, "Well it is progress after all." E. Gadd admitted.
[Inside the Haunted Towers]
Standing on one of the Haunted Towers greenhouses was a young man with brown hair wearing a green shirt with white stripes and blue jeans, gorilla fur covering both his arms and a red tie around his neck emblazoned with 'Cc'.
The young man was staring at a potted venus flytrap, one that oddly had little red eyes on it.
"Okay so in twenty four hours you've grown from six inches tall to..." The man said as he grabbed a ruler and placed it next to the flytrap, which quickly straightened it's body so the man could get an accurate measurement, however it proved to be useless as the ruler was too short to fully measure the plant, "Too tall for this ruler." The man said.
With that he set aside the ruler, "Well this does prove that plants here grow faster in any measure of time." The man chuckled.
The plant gave him a deadpan look and began to stretch out to grab the ruler the man had set aside, seeking to harm the man in retaliation to the horrible pun.
[The Old Clockworks]
Mario stood outside the Old Clockworks as he yawned, while he may be a Hunter turned Plumber, and currently paranormal research assistant, he still didn't like working early in the morning or very late.
Due to the dark cloud above the valley, it was hard to tell which was which.
He just wished he and his girlfriend were working in the same 'mansion'.
Though considering the sand in the old clockworks, probably for the best.
[At the Secret Mines]
At a table at the entrance to the Secret Mine, a large red ghost had it's hand grasped in the hand of a Faunus, the two in the middle of an arm wrestling match.
The Faunus in question was a large muscular man with fiery red hair, wearing a yellow tank top exposing his bare arms to the cold, baggy khaki's, black snow boots, spiked wristbands on his wrists, and a large green, spiked shell on his back.
"Come on!" The Faunus shouted, "You guys can't get tired, you can't be giving out on me this easily!"
The Red Ghost, known as a Slammer, grunted as it pushed against the Faunus's arm even harder, steam starting to come from the Faunus's arms.
"There we go!" The Faunus shouted with a grin on his face.
[At the Treacherous Mansion]
Standing outside the Treacherous Mansion was a young woman, with long blonde hair, shimmering blue eyes, wearing an expensive pink dress and having a parasol closed and at her side stood the woman that was Mario's girlfriend.
"Is there anything left here that needs to be done?" The woman asked herself as she reached into her dress to pull out the list of jobs at the mansion E. Gadd had given her.
She smiled at the fact everything had been checked off, "Great!" The woman cheered, "Hmm… What now though?"
The two Greenies that were near the woman shrugged their shoulders.
[E. Gadd's bunker]
Madame Clairvoya was watching the Dark Moon, reminiscing about the time she was alive and lived in the valley, "I wonder how much of the village is still standing?" Clairvoya asked herself.
Then she spotted something in the sky, approaching the Dark Moon.
"No…" Clairvoya uttered as she recognized the figure that was approaching the Dark Moon, "That can't be possible."
A purple glow began to emanate from the approaching figure, and then a bolt of lighting shot at the Dark Moon.
"NO!" Clairvoya shouted and dove into the bunker, grabbing a headset from in front of the monitors and flicking open communications to everyone in the valley, "Everyone get back to the Bunker NOW!"
A purple light filled most of the screens, drawing Clairvoya's attention to them, and she watched in horror as the Dark Moon was gone, with several chunks of crystal falling from the skies and a dark purple mist began to cover the valley.
The ghost prophet dropped the headset in horror, "That… That shouldn't be possible…" Clairvoya uttered.
[Gloomy Manor]
E. Gadd was wide eyed as he ran out of the manor, for mere seconds after Clairvoya shouted her warning did the Greenie's go mad in perfect synch.
The pupils in their eyes shrunk away into nothing and where they were once friendly, they were now destructive.
They grabbed documents and began shredding them wantonly, throwing equipment around the room, and soon enough started aiming for E. Gadd.
Thankfully E. Gadd knew the manor well enough to have formed an escape route, however he couldn't grab his newest Poltergust due to the commotion.
What he did find on his way to his bunk however was a chunk of crystal, covered in an energy foreign to the energy of the crystal itself.
E. Gadd locked himself in the bunker as soon as he arrived, an open door being the only way into the salt coated iron safe house.
"I need to contact Ruby." E. Gadd said as he was breathing heavily.
[[]]
Professor E. Gadd Ghost Dossiers.
Subject: Vincent Van Gore
Born in Atlas not long after the Great War, Vincent Van Gore was a member of Atlas's rare middle class citizens, where he found an interest in art during his childhood as Atlas was starting to express itself again.
When he turned 18 he began his career as a freelance artist, painting mostly landscapes or families for the rich, however when he attempted to paint without having a defined subject in front of him the nobility of Atlas shunned his work.
Deciding that Atlas would not be the best place to paint, he moved to Mistral.
However the people of Mistral, while a bit more appreciative of his non-defined subjects, would often complain that his works felt lifeless.
Rather than lashing out at the people of Mistral, Vincent took a visit to one of Mistral's local art galleries and understood what the people had said to him and thus he began to attempt to bring life to his art.
However, Vincent put himself at too high a standard, and despite many people of that age saying that he had created some beautiful artworks, he destroyed them complaining that they were far too lifeless- This eventually resulted in the man starving to death as he bought less and less food for himself and more on paints and easels.
After death his spirit lingered on and eventually his artwork did gain life, if only manifesting as the Painted Ghosts, and upon this first happening Vincent was overjoyed, however this quickly turned sour as his Painted Ghost's would dissolve into splatters of paint in the sunlight.
Viewing this as unacceptable, Vincent Van Gore still paints to this day, attempting to instill a permanent life to his creations.
Threat Level: Minimal-Extreme (Depending on time since last sunrise and available time and paint)