Episode 10: Bad Credit, No Credit, Ghost Credit – Or, Assessing the Damage to Rebuild

Rory's heart pounded as she pressed herself back against the brick. There was no way. Tyrell had never been that kind of guy! Sure, he wasn't perfect, and he slacked on his classwork sometimes, but he would never get mixed up in this kind of stuff. The thought of the pistol at his side made her want to throw up. She had to say something.

She kept listening in, and noted a few of the street names she heard mentioned as places to check out later. Otherwise, she couldn't stop her attention from drifting back to Tyrell. He looked so stony. What was he thinking about? What was he even doing in the city, he was supposed to be off at college!

Although, they were out of session now. How long had this been going on?

As the night drew later, they disbursed. Sailor Boreas dashed low along the rooftops, staying off her heels to minimize the noise, and she followed her brother out of there.

She followed him for almost ten minutes as he walked along with another member. For a second, she was worried they were going to stay in groups the whole time, until finally Tyrell broke off and began to walk by himself.

The moment he entered an empty alley, she dropped, her heels clacking sharply on the cement. He whipped around, freezing when he saw her in the darkness. "Yo. You're that girl! Holy shit, I thought they were lying."

The words took her by surprise for a second, before she realized he would be seeing her as Sailor Boreas. All the gang knew was that she had attacked a group of them before. He probably thought she was going to attack him. That hurt in a strange way, but maybe she could use this to her advantage.

She took a breath, making sure to lower her voice as to most obscure it. If anyone was going to hear her and know it was her, it was Tyrell. "That's right. I'm a guardian of Seattle, and you've got some explaining to do." She stepped forward, trying to look as intimidating as possible.

He tensed, backing up. "Whoa, whoa, hold it!"

"Are you affiliated with the gang that's infesting this city?" Unnecessary question; she knew he was. But maybe this would get him to talk about why he was messing around with them.

He waved his hands in front of himself, before dropping them. "Man, no way!"

"That's a lie," she said, but her heart jolted as she noticed his hand hovering near the gun. He...wouldn't shoot her, right?

Of course, he didn't know it was her.

He took her approach as a threat, and it was supposed to be, a little bit. But she wasn't expecting him to blurt out, "No, listen, you don't want to do this, man, you got the wrong guy."

"Doubt it." She gestured to the gun, scepter now in hand. Her heart pounded. "Now, don't do anything stupid. I could take you down before you even drew." She hoped he couldn't tell that she was bluffing.

He swore. "Shit. Look, I'm telling you, you don't want to turn me in." He eyed up and down the alley with a sense of visceral paranoia. He hissed, "Look, I can't say anything here. Get me out of this alley, and I can prove to you I'm clean." He jittered, wiping a hand over his shaven scalp.

Rory's brow furrowed. Now, what the heck did that mean? Uneasily, she leaned away before nodding. "...fine." Keeping one eye on her brother, she glanced around to the area outside the alley. Her eyes landed on an old dilapidated minimart nearby. "There." She nodded towards it. "After you." She hated that she didn't feel safe enough to walk in front.

They found a spot in the back room of the old store, which was apparently unlocked. It was disheartening, to wonder how he knew that. Still...man, if there was any chance he wasn't a freaking gangbanger, she wanted to chase that lead.

As they moved inside, Tyrell let out a breath she didn't realize he'd been holding. Uttering into the musty atmosphere, he hissed, "Jesus Christ. Okay, listen: I'm working for the police."

Rory stopped. Was...was that true? She wanted to say it made more sense than him being involved with the gang, but it really didn't make a lot of sense either. She narrowed her eyes. "Since when?"

He stopped panicking, seemingly caught off guard by the question. "Since...when? Uh."

She realized that was kind of an off question to be asking, if they were strangers. She cleared her throat, and tried to make it sound more natural. "When did you get involved with the police? I'm going to need more proof than just your word."

Tyrell sighed. "Look, a couple of months ago I was hanging out with some guys from school, just watching the game, right? And this guy suggested we make a bet. No big deal, but we were kind of drunk, and I got cocky. The betting pool just kept getting bigger and by the end, I was so sure we were going to win, I threw in the money I had reserved for the next semester. The guy took it." He sighed, scratching at the back of his neck. "They pulled out ten shots in the last quarter. I don't know how he knew, but I lost the bet. It was stupid—I had a part-time job, but no way was I making that back in time for classes in August. I needed a way to get money fast.

My roommate's pops is a cop, and he told me they were looking for informants, and they were willing to pay big. I...took the job. I knew it was dangerous, but I didn't know how I was going to explain to my mom I lost the money making the bet. She's already struggling as it is."

Rory didn't know what to say. She knew she had to keep up her face, though she wanted to yell at him for doing something so stupid, for putting himself in danger and getting mixed up in this stuff when he never had before. But she bit her tongue. Instead, she forced out, "So you plan to leave."

His face darkened, and he turned. The light from an upper window cut down through the room, catching his shoulder but leaving his eyes hidden. "I was going to," he said, and Boreas's stomach churned; "but then I found out these guys were heading for Seattle right about the time that school let out. I couldn't just let them bring this shit back home. Not that Seattle's ever been gang-free, not by a long shot, but there's a ton of these guys." He lifted his head, staring back to her with determination. "I can't let them fuck up my city. And they got big plans coming up; I know if I could just have more time I'll be able to give the police something they can use, and this won't be for nothing."

Okay, she hated this. She understood where he was coming from—heck, it reflected her own reasoning almost perfectly; they must have had the same reckless gene. But she didn't want to think about all the ways his plan could go wrong. At least she was in disguise! Slumping, she crossed her arms over her chest. "I'm been trying to look into the big plan too."

He clenched his fist. "Look, you can't rat me out or take me in or whatever. I need more time. And I don't trust the cops to believe me when I say I got snatched up by some super hero just for listening in for them." He straightened. "Hey, maybe I can even pass on what I know to you. No reason the cops have to get the first bite. The more people working against these freaks, the more likely we can take them in."

Man! He had a point. Having someone on the inside would be super valuable, even though she would have wanted it to be anyone but her own brother. As a night bird swept past the window overhead, she asked him, "So what is this big plan, anyways?"

His gaze flicked throughout the room nervously, as though he was expecting something to suddenly emerge from the shadows. "...how much do you know about arms deals?"


Narma had never worked on something with such decisiveness and fervor, and that may have been because it was turning out to be a rough, rough week.

Tensions with Manuel had gotten worse and worse as the week progressed, and she wasn't sure why. This was mostly because the conversation where she'd turned up at his workplace hadn't gone well, to say the least.

The moment she'd stepped in the door and seen him scrubbing determinedly at a glass, mouth pulled into a frown, she knew he was in a bad mood. As the bell rung over her head, her chest still heaving with the speed she'd come there, he looked up. He met her eyes—his soulful, hard—and immediately looked away, back to his glass. Mentally, she faltered, taken aback by his coldness. That had to be the cleanest glass in Seattle, at his scrubbing intensity. With an unfamiliar nervousness, she paused before approaching the counter. "Hey."

He pursed his lips, paused scrubbing. "...hey." Continued abusing the glass.

"I'm glad you're okay," she began, but he didn't soften. She waited for a response, but he said nothing. A knot of discomfort twisted in her chest—she wasn't used to being ignored. "Hey, come on, talk to me. I thought we were going to talk."

Manuel took a breath. "If we do, are you going to tell the truth?"

Narma inhaled sharply, heart dropping into her chest. "You think I'm lying?" The awful thing was, she was. But how did she know he was? She didn't like lying to him any more than he appreciated being lied to, but still! It's not as though she could tell him. "Look, I'm sorry about the phone thing, I should have called—" she felt like a broken record, and she abruptly cut herself off. This was getting her nowhere. She flipped over the tips of her numb fingers, showing them the blackened nailbeds. "Look, I got shocked, see? I'm telling the truth." She knew she must have sounded crazy to the woman coming up behind her to the counter, but she didn't care.

When Manuel saw her nails, his hard expression dropped, and he sighed before turning to the customer. "...I have a break in eighteen minutes. Find somewhere to sit down and...we'll talk."

The table in the corner was free. It felt stupidly large without all of her other friends around her, and she felt small and childish sitting there. Time seemed to drag on with her just sitting there, and she fidgeted with the leg of her salwar pant. Finally, after 22 minutes a blond girl took Manuel's spot at the counter and he made his way over, removing his apron on the way.

Her heart locked up. Yeesh! Get it together! If she could have slapped herself she would have. Just talk to him! There were no drinks between them—weird, but it also seemed to cast an omen of her not staying long. "Manuel. Why did you say that? I know I messed up, but..."

He sighed, folding his hands together. "Narma, I saw you run out the door back at the gift shop."

Narma inhaled sharply, body gone tense.

"Did you think I was just going to let you run out into danger by yourself? I went to go after you, and I saw you run out the door. You didn't stop. You didn't check the phone. You just left." He lifted his eyes. "From my point of view, you just ditched me."

"No," she denied immediately.

"I really want to believe that's not what happened," she snapped her mouth shut as he kept going, "but you lying about it doesn't help."

Oh, fuck. How was she supposed to respond to that? What reasonable explanation could she give? Everything else she'd told him was basically true, but without that one little detail, everything else seemed a lot more dubious. She swallowed. She tried to think—what could she tell him? What lie would patch this up but, as she thought about it, the more the thought made her feel sick. Like she'd swallowed hard oil.

"Manuel," she started, and she couldn't believe her freaking eyes were watering, if she weren't mortified enough. "I want you to understand—I swear I wasn't trying to ditch you." Ugh, this was terrible, and she really liked him. She'd mentally been making plans to go out on the sea at night with him, to see the stars together on his uncle's stupid boat. She leaned across the table, placing a hand near his, but he didn't move to take it. "And I know this is going to sound terrible, but I..." She swallowed. "I...can't... tell you."

Suddenly, he straightened, brows flying upward. "You can't tell me?" He sounded incredulous, and hurt. "Wow, okay, that's definitely not what I thought you were going to say. What does that mean, you can't tell me? You can't tell me why you ditched me when there was a monster running around, or what? I waited in that backroom after I saw you leave because I was hoping you would come back, because it was too dangerous to go out. But you were just gone. I didn't know what the hell had happened to you!"

Her pulse thudded—he'd never sworn at her before. For some reason, it made her think of her father, even though he was a man who never swore. She struck the table with the side of her hand. "Everything else I told you was true. I got shocked, I went home, and I passed out. I was going to come back to the gift shop!"

"But you didn't," he said, eyes piercing. "Why?"

She bit her lip.

His shoulders slummed. "You 'can't tell me.'"

She watched him run a hand through his hair. "I swear, there's a good reason. I just...can't tell you right now."

His head lifted. "Not now. What about later? Will you eventually?" The yellow-orange lights of the café set his curls on fire at the edges.

She folded her hands in her lap, picking at the plum polish. "...Maybe not ever," she confessed. "I don't know."

He closed his eyes. "...Narma, what am I supposed to do with that? Just go on, like nothing happened?"

"...trust me?"

Her heart sunk as Manuel's eyes avoided her. "...I need some time to think. I like you, Narma, but if you've got some kind of dark secret...I don't know if I'm ready to sign up for that. Maybe that's a little hypocritical of me. I'm not the most open guy in the world. But I can't even imagine what a good reason might look like here."

Defeated, he sent her home with a murmured please for her to see a doctor about her fingers. So now, she was working like a mad woman to get these dresses done.

[NA]: So basically, I fucked up and Manuel hates me.

[RW]: :( He doesn't hate you! He just doesn't understand.

[CR]: Just give him some time. He'll come around.

She had doubts. She tucked the needle under the next flower. She didn't usually use appliques, but she liked the contrast of the darker color with the nude tone of the dress, so she had committed to a lot of hand-sewing.

The designs, once she had found her inspiration, were somewhat different than her usual style. Maybe this was because she was subconsciously designing with the other girl's styles in mind, but only her own had the sari-inspired neckline common in the dresses she'd made in the past. Still, she seemed to be on it pumping them out in plenty of time.

[NA]: BTW, Carmen, the dresses are coming along. I need you guys to stop by sometime over the next week or so to fit

[CR]: ! That's really fast!

[NA]: yeah this is my therapy right now tbh

[CA]: By the way, do you guys mind if I invite Gwen and her sister? I'll let them know they would have to get their own dresses, of course, Narma, I wouldn't throw that on you.

[NA]; eh, well, let me check my productivity, I might actually have time

[NA]: But nah, I don't care

[RW]: I'm cool with it too! Might be cool to hang out with them a little, we need to do more to integrate them with the group.

[NA]: If you say so.

[CR]: Oh, by the way.

Carmen Rodriguez [locked] up-scrolling for joining members.

[CR]: We should absolutely not go to the haunted house thing.

/


The interns were like ghosts as they moved through the building—like stray photons. Erin was never sure how to interact with them, In a way, it was heartening to see so many young people running around, but at the same time she felt her own age as an odd transitionary stage between when she was more like them and...after.

She pulled the sample free from the microscope as her team shuffled about around her. "Yes," she said, examining the bond again, "I think we've made some progress."

Newman shuffled up behind her, hovering. "The bond only lasts twenty to thirty minutes, but that's way better than it was doing. It's improved by a factor of two."

She nodded. "Good work. We'll have to pass the news on to Hester and Wu when they come in in the morning. For now, I think we're about ready to call it a night."

One of the newer assistants, Florence, leaned back against the corner. "Don't you get tired of working nights, Professor Mooringer? You should get one of the others to switch out for you sometime. Have some time to yourself."

Erin suppressed a wry smile. A kind thought, but if she only knew just how much time she had 'to herself.' Nights alone in the silence of her business apartment were the last thing she wanted to face. Better to work until she passed out, perhaps make some progress. "I appreciate the night's calm," she said instead. "It's sweet of you to be concerned. You all should head home, get some rest. This breakthrough only means we'll have to work harder in the morning."

The rest of the team began to disease, though Newman lingered behind. "Professor," he murmured, lowering his voice. "I was wondering if you had an updates on the...ah. Other? Project?"

"Not yet," she shut him down, the man's rocking toes slapping flat to the tile. "We've reached a bit of a roadblock in the research. I will let you know if I need your expertise again."

"O-oh." Newman glanced away, hands stuffed in his lab coat pockets. "I see. Well, keep me posted, I guess."

"I certainly will. Thank you again, Oscar."

Newman brightened—merely from a lack of formality? Curious, perhaps a bit endearing. "Of course! It's exciting work. Have a good night, Professor Mooringer."

The lab cleared out, finally silent. Erin sighed, gathering up the last of her clipboards. Taking the steps, she descended down into the Institute's basement, where the old security room-cum-laboratory sat unassuming at the end of the hall. Her heels clicked as she made her way down, pulling the keyring from her pocket and unlocking the door.

"Certainly took your time," her Benefactor scoffed, re-purposed screens of the old security system flickering immediately to life.

"It was a progressive day," Professor Mooringer laid down the clipboards, immediately firing up the test module on another screen and consulting the read-outs on her desk. She glanced back and forth between them, and swore. "Dammit."

"What?" The other woman stared through the screen, lips pursed. It was a mutual source of frustration that she couldn't transmit the tests over in real-time.

"It's not re-stabilizing," Erin sighed, running a hand through her hair. "Whatever scrambled it's ions at the pier left its components too disparate to recover. Specimen 1 is compromised. And after all that work graphing its genetic code with specimen 2, that had eliminated so many of its weaknesses..."

Specimen 2 was heavier-hitting, more efficient to operate, but its energy collection just didn't compare. There had yet to be a collection as successful as the first on the bridge. A pit sat in her stomach.

Regardless, she knew it wouldn't be enough. Without that artifact and whatever composition it possessed which generated such exponential energy, there was no chance they would be able to send it back far enough.

Her 'Benefactor' shook her head, pushing up her glasses. "This isn't working. We can't just keep sending our creations out and hoping it will suddenly turn up. If we know the identities of the Soldiers in your time, we can hunt them down and find the artifact."

Erin brought her arms around herself, one hand fiddling with Emma's memento. She laughed, shortly. "'We can hunt them down?' How do you expect me to do that? If you haven't noticed, I don't especially cut the most intimidating figure. And they won't just give it to us; not after what we've done." She swallowed. "What I've done."

"'What we've done,'" the woman on the screen assessed finally. Erin turned to her. She looked...uncomfortable, the wrinkles beside her eyes even more pronounced. "That's not a burden you should take on to yourself alone, it was a mutual decision." She turned her eyes away from the screen. "You shouldn't have to carry that."

Erin laughed wetly, eyes stinging. Slamming a hand on the counter-top to steady herself, she bit out, "Well what exactly is the difference?" She wheezed—her chest was feeling tight, clinical signs of a panic attack, not good. She tried to inhale, and shouted, "If you haven't noticed, we're both me!"

How many people had she killed? How many other families had she destroyed because she could have done things better, took it too far, wasted time hoping things would change when in reality she was just taking more collateral damage, destruction in her wake as she just kept failing again, and again, and again, and again—

Black invaded the edges of her vision, blurring the image of her own face staring back at her with pity from the screen. She couldn't get air in, oh God she was dying, she was dying, she couldn't breathe.

At some point, she ended up on the floor, and she could just hear her future self's voice fading woozily in and out. "—is why, Erin. We both know you can't handle this on your own. And you don't have to. You don't have to be alone, can you hear me?" The strained simulacrum of her voice pandered out soothingly to her from the screen, so gentle, like trying not to scare an animal. "Whatever consequences there are, I am happy to take them later on. For now, you can't afford to break down like this, now, name five things you can see."

Her vision fought the prickling edges. "...the floor?"

"Okay?"

"The—my shoes. The cabinets." She brought her hands away from her head. "My hands. The-the console."

"Four things you can hear?"

Her Benefactor took her through the exercise—3 things she can smell (antiseptic, electricity, detergent,) 2 things she can feel (her sweater, the tile,) 1 she can taste (stale coffee.) Eventually, she was just sitting on the floor with full awareness, if not an aching chest. She didn't feel better, but at least she could get up.

The other woman kept talking at her as she wiped her eyes. "We just have to push through the unpleasant parts, and will have all been worth it. You owe it to her—we owe it to her." Her voice tightened. "She should have had a long, happy life."

Erin pursed her lips. "She should be back by now."

Her benefactor's voice floated past her, admonishing. "You know our influences are only reflected in real time."

"Originally," Future!Erin coaxed her through the feed as she rose to her feet, still unsteady, "the plan was to pinpoint their approximate location based on the Specimen's tracking abilities. Do we have any new information?"

Current!Erin took a breath, trying to steady herself. "I can only guess that Specimen 1's tracking had become refined enough to locate a single party, as the Soldiers weren't even mentioned by the media during the attack at the pier. But something happened to it. At least one of them was there." Erin's gaze passed over the new locations the creatures had spawned in at, searching for anything, anything that might indicate a common origin point. "So many of these locations are all over the city, in public places, which make them practically useless to us—hm."

"What is it?" Future!Erin encouraged. "Tell me."

"That bus. Not the first one, but the second one—the mass cluster of energy signatures we sent both 1 and 2 out for. It wasn't a city bus, it was a private charter. And it was coming in. I didn't recognize the company when we first compared notes, but..."

Oh, this...Erin's heart pounded. This could be vital. If they could find out who the bus was chartered out for, then maybe...

"We need to know where that bus was coming from. What's their number?"

Hands shaking, Erin scrambled to her desk and pulled out a phone book. The company had two offices in the city—they closed in five minutes.

Retrieving her phone from her pocket, she dialed in the first number and waited as the dial tone hissed back at her. She jumped as voice came on the line. "Seattle Charter Bus Company, how can I help you?"

"Hello," she shouted. "Sorry, I know it's late. I was hoping to get some information about the bus accident at the beginning of the month."

The man sighed. "Look, the company is not accepting media inquiries at this time."

"No! No, I'm not the media. I—" she had to come up with a compelling reason—her fingers paused on the locket. "My...my daughter. I know she was taking a trip with your company, but she didn't tell me exactly when she was leaving; I just saw this, and I haven't been able to get ahold of her. I just need to know who booked that bus, please."

The line was silent. There was a part of her that felt awful about the lie, like she was using Emma's memory. But this—this was all for her anyways, it had to be, it was really more like she was helping her, to find out what she needed. She would understand, wouldn't she? God, please, please.

The man made a disgruntled noise. "Okay, okay, hold on."

Erin brought her hand to her mouth, the sound of shuffling papers coming through the line.

After a moment, the man came back. "Okay, it looks like that bus was rented out to a 'Seattle Summer Athletics Camp.' Does that help?"

A camp? A camp! "Oh, my gosh, yes, thank you. Have a good night." She disconnected. She whipped around to face her future self.

"What did they say?"

"It was a camp. A summer camp."

The Benefactor clasped her hands. "There, see?" She sounded breathless, identical glass-green eyes glittering with anticipation. "A camp. Erin, this narrows the possibilities down so much. This could be exactly what we needed."

When she got home, she searched the camp on her computer. There was a phone number, but they were only open 8-5. There was, however, an email—she typed up an inquiry and hit send.

Her heart was full of an anxious hope.

Perhaps she could hunt them down, after all.


The last week of June crept up before Mallory expected it. Mostly, she had been stuck working out the logistics of getting up to Mt. Si, what bus routes ran up that way, how to get permission to visit (read: break into) the old Miller house without attracting the attention of the police. What equipment she had to pack. It feel like an anachronism to reach out to her old contact to rent out some of the pieces she couldn't afford herself, letting herself into his seedy basement through the window and pass over the money from the house card like some kind of black market deal. It put her mind in a weird state, as if she were inhabiting a body that didn't fit her anymore, from the time before she'd met the others where she didn't really have friends, only contacts—kind of like a ghost. Fantastic.

Still, it felt weird as hell.

She was grateful that the creatures seemed to have held off, at least. Narma's mono-e-mono showdown with Spindly Legs the Greater seemed to have put a chink in whatever system had thrown the cryptids out, girl was an absolute legend, 10/10, and that had afforded them a break. Now if only they could find something useful in the meanwhile.

She was looking forward to stepping away from the city for a while, to be honest. While camping wasn't necessarily her thing, tracking monsters definitely was, and being able to entrench herself in something that might not actively want to kill her was going to be a nice change.

And then everybody pulled this bullshit.

[CR]: Oh, geez, you know, all these chores just came up I have to take care of for the party, it's really too bad about the timing

[MD]: You're joking. This has been in production for weeks, Carmen, come on.

[RW]: Yeah, actually, now is kind of a bad time for me too? Some stuff just came up

[RW]: like, for real :/

[MD]: Is this a coup?

[NA]: Oh wait Oh nooo was that tomorrow? You know I might have volunteered to put in some extra hours at the internship on tomorrow's exact night that I am now obligated to attend oh nooooo

[CR]: Narma :/

[MD]: Okay, so is seriously no one is going to come tomorrow? I've put time in on this guys

[MD]: Fine, I guess I have to reschedule

[CR]: No, no! You should go! Like you said, you've already planned this out so well. And besides, this was meant to be like a training session for the new members, right? Less people just means one-on-one!

[MD]: ...let it be said I am narrowing my eyes to a never-before seen angle

[MD]: so thin, as to be the opposite of an angle

[MD]: then nega-angle

[CR]: acknowledged, lieutenant.

[NA]: suck up

[MD]: ...damn. Playing to my one weakness: logic

[MD:] and my other one weakness, military jargon.

[MD]: while I can't have but feel this is a bit of a betrayal, I already have arrangements made, and running the new recruits through some investigative tactics could still be beneficial, so.

[MD]: guess I'm walking to the bus stop by myself tomorrow, like an asshole

A bit of a change from what she had intended, but she was nothing if not adaptable. So the next morning, she trudged to the bus stop with her backpack full of heavy yet delicate equipment. As she approached, the morning light seeped muggily into the sky, and she cleared the hill to see a single figure standing at the stop.

She slowed, the figure in the distance turning to look at her. A frown pulled at her lip as she neared. With a suddenly clarity, she understood the con. "Let me guess," she said flatly, Gwen examining her over-stuffed backpack with sympathetic eyes. "Your sister's not coming."

"Nope," Gwen chirped back commiseratively.

Mallory forcefully tugged her phone from her pocket.

I've been hoodwinked

I've been swindled and perched

Carmen responded immediately. She must have just been waiting for the call.

Please don't be mad! You guys really need to talk.

You're a devious woman and I can never trust again

How did you even know it was just going to be Gwen?

Sylvia.

Dammit. Mallory should have realized.

...do you want us to come up there?

I can grab Narma, at least. Rory seems to actually have something going on.

She considered it. Going on this trip alone with Gwen was never something she would have agreed to. But.

She glanced over to the other girl, who was not-so-subtly watching her from the corner of her eye.

...they actually did need to talk, in reality. And she could appreciate the outcome of a well-laid scheme, if nothing else.

...Nah. We're good. Would be cool if you could pick us

up tomorrow; the bus schedule sucks.

You've got it!

Try to have fun! ^o^

Okay. Now, if she could just muster the balls enough to actually talk to her, that would be great.

She inhaled, hiding her phone in her pocket again, never to be acknowledged again ever. "So. I supposed we'll be undertaking this together."

"Seems like." She seemed to have an affinity for over wear, because again in the midst of summer she had a salmon-pink North Face jacket pulled over her shoulders in the misty morning. It was a similar color, actually, to the color of her uniform pleats, though without the fuchsia-bright tone of the accents. Had she bought it after? Or many she just knew the color complimented her eyes. At least the cosmic forces they were at the mercy of seemed bound to make them look good in the heat of battle.

Ugh, this was distracting.

She brought her eyes up, and nearly jumped as Gwen smirked back to her, where she had been, whoops, staring. She turned to the road, hefting her backpack to the ground. "I suppose we'll have to make the most of it then."

As she was nothing if not punctual, the bus pulled up just about then and they climbed on, Mallory paying one less fare than she had anticipated. She supposed that was one positive.

She took the seat across from Gwen, sprawling out as she stuffed her supplies beside the seat.

Gwen snorted at her, amused. "What, am 'too dangerous to be around?" She smiled, light-hearted, but Mallory just couldn't quite do it. There were...too many unknown factors. She didn't know how to feel.

"Maybe," she said, and Gwen went quiet.

The bus ride was kind of excruciating. She kept running in circles with herself about what she wanted to do—did she want to interrogate her just to be sure, really sure, she was actually on their side? Did she want to keep this professional? Did she want to spend the time breaking down her process the way she had always imagined she would, maybe with an audience someday, when she'd monologued to herself in times before as she walked through the woods alone?

Did she want to ask Gwen what she wanted, how she was feeling about the new things she'd discovered? She'd been nonchalant about it herself, but not everyone would. She spent so much time conflicted that she ended up not saying anything at all. They spent the ride in silence.


Okay, she had to do something about this.

Her supposed sensei was sulking from the other side of the bus until they were barely a mile out from their stop in the woods (according to MapQuest, at least.) Gwen had thought this was be a fun albeit reluctant learning experience, and possibly a route for making progress with her new mentor, but the other girl was so shut up in herself she was worried she was about to spend ten hours with a cute, disgruntled rock. This just wasn't the thing.

"So," she finally shuffled out to the end of her seat as the bus turned off the interstate (honestly, she still wasn't totally thrilled about being on a bus.) She leaned toward, trying to look as charismatic as possible. Time to channel Laura Croft. "So. What's the plan?"

Success—Mallory raised her eyes from the notebook in her lap. "What?"

"The plan." Gwen quirked a brow. "You do have a plan, don't you?"

Mallory blinked behind her glasses, before irritation twisted on her face. Ah, there it was—she had to admit, there was a small thrill in riling her up. "Of course I do," she groused. Huffing, she closed the notebook with a snap, shoving it away. "Once we get to the station, it's going to be a 2 hour hike up to the Miller house. We're going to start tracking as we near the site, in case of sporadic energy. We're going to be spending most of the evening in the house, though. We need to check if there actually is any evidence of supernatural activity."

A two hour hike—not exactly what she had been expecting. "And here I thought you weren't the outdoorsy type."

"I'm a ghost type," Mallory said without missing a beat, face totally straight.

They swayed as the bus came to a stop, and after stopping off at the mountain's ranger station for one last chance at civilization, they set out into the woods.


Admittedly, it was a sort of eerie atmosphere. Technically, it was still morning when they left from the station, a few minutes before the pivotal transition into noon. Still, the sky was spread thin with wispy gray clouds like shrouds, and even in the middle of the summer the forest felt dead.

In front of her, Mallory had pulled out a device with some kind of low-to-high meter, two little antenna sticking outwards in front of her. She moved with purpose, crunching over uneven, rocky soil without watching her feet as though she had walked this same path a thousand times. She grumbled under her breath as she fidgeted with the dials, hunched into her de-shouldered coat like ghoul.

She didn't look like she was getting much of anywhere with her device. Perhaps she wouldn't mind a conversation. "So. How did you get into..." Gwen gestured to the forest around them, teaming with small animal sounds, "...this?"

Mallory frowned at the device. "It's not an exciting story." After a moment of turning the thing back and forth, she tugged her backpack off and stuffed it back inside before slinging it back over her shoulder.

Gwen shrugged, encouraged when Mallory glanced back to her. "Mm, I'll be the judge,"

Mallory ticked her head to the side—from her position a few feet behind, she could see the girl's eyes take on a far-away look. "Well, there were some folks online—posted videos of themselves going out to track this creature in the woods. They were totally shit at it; I saw the video and immediately knew they hadn't found anything. So I started thinking about all the ways they could have done it better—at lunch, trying to do schoolwork, lying in bed at night. I guess I got a little obsessed about it." Mallory's fingers came up to scratch at the nape of her neck. She seemed uncomfortable to admit it.

Gwen watched her, curious. Mallory seemed at least a little aware that that was a trait she had, then—the obsessiveness. Gwen was honestly a little surprised at that observation. Given Mallory's prior behavior, her first expectation would have been for her to justify it to herself, make it seem necessary or more reasonable than it came off to be. But she didn't.

She was slightly taken aback. Maybe Mallory was more self-aware than she had given her credit for.

The girl sighed, brushing her hair back. "Eventually, I got so frustrated about it that I started complaining to my roommate about it. Finally, he said, "Then why don't you just do it yourself?" And I was like, 'You know what? I will.'"

Huh. Gwen sped up a bit to come to Mallory's side—easier to talk that way. "Did you find anything?"

She snorted. "No. Despite all the thought I had put into it, I still didn't know what I was doing." She took a deep breath. "But it was a learning experience. The next time I went out, I knew more, and I got better results."

Gwen didn't know if she should ask, but she couldn't help herself. "Have you gotten anything?"

Mallory turned to look at her flatly, raising a brow over her shades. "Of course. I have a series of proof recordings—just small things, for now, until I can find a contact with better equipment for rent. Larry's always good on short notice, but his stuff is kind of shit."

Just as quickly, she was tromping on ahead, the surprisingly speedy pace she'd been maintaining before.

Gwen stuck her hands in her pockets. "I'd like to see them sometime," she suggested, but Mallory was quiet.

A few minutes later, Mallory checked something from her bag before pulling out a device with a series of lights, and a gray pouch. "Okay. Give me your cell phone."

"Okay?" Reaching into her pocket, Gwen passed it over only for Mallory to drop it into the pouch. Her own joined it. "What is that?"

"This," she said, "is a Faraday bag. Blocks electronic signals." She sealed the little pouch, and then lifted the device turning it on. It emitted a faint hum, but was otherwise quiet. "This is an EMF. It picks up on electronic signals in the environment. Cellphones can cause false readings, so we have to block them while we're using them. We're about half a mile out from the house, so now's a good time to start checking for anything out of the ordinary."

"I think I've heard of those before." EMF—she had seen a Ghost Hunters once or twice in her time, so that might have been where. "So the...poltergeist. It might give off electronic signals?"

"It should," Mallory narrowed her eyes as she moved the device left to right as they moved through the woods. "Any sort of post-humous apparition would be manifesting some sort of electromagnetic field. If we even get a ping here in the middle of the woods, that will give us a starting point." Her eyes scanned the area methodically. She indicated out with the device. "That's not the only thing, of course. Like anything, you want to be aware of patterns as you are examining the area. Anything unusual—tire tracks or foot prints where there shouldn't be, broken foliage, stairs that go nowhere, designs that make no sense—could be an indication that something else is going on." She raised her eyes from the device, her other hand passing it back and forth in front of her. She peered over to her. "That's not just for ghosts."

She got what she meant—this was supposed to be the general investigation advice, now. She snickered, realizing what the other girl's diatribe had reminded her of. "You should come teach at the camp," she teased.

Mallory shook her head, but, hey! That was definitely a hint of a smile at the corner of her lips. "Bear Grylls, eat your heart out."

Gwen couldn't restrain the way her mood lifted, grinning broadly.

The rocks shifted beneath her feet, and she maneuvered to keep from tripping as the lightness began to fade. "...we are teammates, now, you know," she offered. "You can ask me some questions."

It was just such a dramatic difference from before, Mallory always on her for information. It was kind of flattering. Now, though, she could tell something was off.

Mallory let out a soft hm at the device gave a statically little whirr. She gestured her over to the right, Gwen following.

Indulging the ghost shtick, Gwen peered around the area, looking for anything weird. No foot prints, no flying sheets or spooky noises. Just a ringing in her ears from the forests quiet, and the shrill cawing of crows above. Personally, she didn't really buy the ghost thing, but apparently Mallory put a lot of stock in it, so no reason to go and say something insulting.

"I feel stupid about it."

The words came out of nowhere, and Gwen turned to see Mallory scowling into the dirt, kicking aside some wet leaves obscuring the path. "...about what?" She asked softly, though she had a guess, no doubt.

Mallory straightened sharply, her trench coat billowing out at her feet. She pushed her glasses up, the light's glace obscuring her eyes. The EMF hung limply in her hand. "I'm sorry," she said, "about harassing you like a maniac before. Like I knew something. Turns out, I was so off-base I was practically committing friendly fire." She pursed her lips, glancing away as she continued her scan. "So, yeah. Turns out I'm an idiot. Sorry."

Okay, that was...Gwen frowned. She was being awfully hard on herself, wasn't she?

She leaned forward, trying to catch Mallory's eyes behind her shades as they trudged onward. That didn't work, so she just decided to speak up anyways. "...you did what you felt like you needed to protect the ones you care about. I admire that, even though I'll admit, I questioned your methods at times."

She tried to sound humored, to show her how not a big deal it was, but she had no way of knowing if the other girl was actually listening to her or not. And it wasn't as though she had been entirely forthcoming herself, either.

"We both had to hide the truth for different reasons, because we had no way of knowing who we could trust." She raised one hand. "Now that we know we're on the same team, though, we can pool our resources."

"Do we know that, though?

Gwen stopped at that. Narrowing her eyes, she backtracked through what she had said to try and figure out what she was asking. Now that we know we're on the same team...

Ow, okay. So, fair. The other girl had said something similar earlier. She wasn't sure what more she could do to prove herself, though. Unsettled, she said, "I kind of though the magical powers thing sort of verified my affiliation."

Mallory sighed, hard. "I'm sorry. I'm trying to accept that you guys are with us, but I can't make the paranoia shut up. I got so used to thinking of you as someone I had to defend against. Maybe that wasn't fair."

This was a surprising amount of honestly. Hey, maybe they weren't backtracking after all. Maybe they'd just hit the rough terrain. "Well," she shrugged casually, "I guess you'll just have to keep interrogating me to make sure." She placed a hand to her chin as Mallory turned. To look at her.

Slowly, Mallory smirked wryly. "...the transmission," she said, and it took Gwen a second to realize she was asking about the motel. "of you two. What was in the background? Do you remember what it looked like?"

"It was white," she replied easily, stuffing her hands back in her pockets. "Bright white. Like there was a spotlight shining from behind us."

Mallory's pale brown eyes burned with curiosity.

Maybe they were getting somewhere with this, after all.

/


With the extra time Mallory gave them to survey the area around the site, they arrive to old Miller house at approximately 3 o'clock.

It's standard material. Big, creepy house. The shutters seem to be hanging on with twine and the paint is peeling so dramatically it could have been mistaken for a work of impressionist art—all those brush strokes. Van Goyt style. Probably just as well; cranberry windows was a mistake, Helen, now your house looks like a murder party.

Which is exactly what it was supposed to be.

"So this is it?"

Mallory peered over to see Gwen staring up at the withered structure. "Yup. Supposed trio of dead people just loitering all over the place like freaking pieces of garbage." Mm, maybe not the best impression to make, starting off. She clarified, "I'm bullshitting. Don't ever say shit like I just did while you're in a house." Walking up to the house, she slung her bag more securely over her shoulder and climbing up to the door. "Okay, time to do the B&E."

Gwen furrowed her brows, looking more cautious. "...really?"

"No, we have a key." She reached under the wilted flower pot to pull out the key the ranger had left there. "Sorry. I tend to talk shit when I'm getting ready to hit a sight. Helps me get in the right vibe."

Gwen leaned against the frame, watching her fiddle with the lock. "And what is the vibe?"

Mallory finally got the worn key to work, and the lock turned. "Like I can handle whatever's in there." The statement hung in the air as the house's door swung up with the squeak. She tossed the key over to Gwen, who caught it gracelessly in the air. "Confidence is key."

The place was just as worn down as Mallory had expected—of course, she had been in houses like this dozens of times. The first few times, she had snuck in, which had earned her a bit of a reputation with the local police. Nowadays, she always tried to get some kind of clearance first. Which she wasn't engaging in minor Crimes in the pursuit of knowledge, she tried to stay above the board with low-stakes investigations like this. Plus, she wasn't sure Gwen would appreciate a misdemeanor when she was trying to stay out of the attention of the police.

...she'd been so sure she'd be angry at her.

"So," Gwen took a deep breath—a risky move, as the room was so coated in dead skin cells it was surprising they didn't pay their own taxes—and turned to her with a raised brow. "So, is this the part where I get to see the pro at work?"

Mallory snorted. "What do you think you've been doing?" Gwen leaned against the couch as she carefully removed each of her remaining pieces of equipment from the bag. "But no, this is the main attraction. We have the EMF—we have to be careful there; there are all kinds of things in an old house that might set that off—the spirit box, the thermal and regular." She indicated each of the items in term. "Normally, I would start off doing a full sweep of the property, comb through every room, using the emf as a guide. We get any hot spots, that's where we spend our time tonight."

"It's going to be interesting if we find any ghosts," Gwen smirked as she abandoned her jacket over the couch, like a hooligan, as if she were coming home after a long day. "Don't know how they'd feel about an impromptu sleepover."

"Spin the bottle would be a lot easier," she quipped.

...before thinking about the greater implications of that comment, holy shit, she didn't mean to say that.

Gwen grinned, eye brows flying up. "Easier how?"

"Whelp guess we got to start the ghost tour now yep, here we go, time to get started," she babbled, grabbing the EMF and clicking the camcorder on. She shoved it up to her eye to check the quality, before shoving it to Gwen's chest. "You're on camera duty,"

"You got it," Gwen said, but there was something in her voice.

Mallory led them through the house at a snail's pace. It was super odd to be doing thing with another person there. She did her usual narrating, communicating what she was looking for, but Gwen didn't seem to mind. She hoped the camera quality was really bad. She didn't want to experience the mortification of watching her own face redden on playback, under the constant attention of Gwen's gaze.

Which still baffled her, how easily she was going along with all of this, how she joked as though Mallory had done nothing wrong. She'd said as much, but that didn't make any sense. She should have been angry. There was a big difference between avoiding blame when you've got some kind of scheme, and having false accusations thrown at you repeatedly for several weeks. But she was just cool with it?

Sometimes, Mallory just did not understand people.

Get a grip, operative, she scolded herself. She's just a girl.

...but that was kind of the problem?

(She was so sure she was going to be mad! Hold a grudge. But she just let her off the hook.

She didn't know how to feel.)

She cleared her throat, dimming any flush that may or may not have colored her ears. "So. When we're using the EMF to detect a presence, and we get any sort of reading, we want to scan closer, see if any particular object is giving it off."

"Because old houses sometimes just have things that would hold those fields?" Gwen called from behind the camera.

"Right," Mallory called, squinting into the dim room. Even though it was only around five, the muggy atmosphere made her wish she had unpacked her headlamp.

There was a low-level ping in this room, which was, as though dictated by stereotype, a kid's room. The lore she'd found about this house indicated that the alleged murdered family was (1) mother, (1) father, and a young boy, so that actually tracked.

Stepping forward, she brought the EMF closer to the wall, and the ping intensified. "Hm." Drawing a circle around the spot, she found a place where the higher gauge continued. It continued down the wall, until she pushed a trunk to the side to reveal a dilapidated looking outlet. "Ah, there, you see?" She began to move the device away from the wall, explanation found, but stopped, frowning. "Huh."

Gwen lowered the camera. "What is it?"

"...nothing too weird," Mallory murmured, before stepping back to look at the room. "The path this current followed keeps going, but I'm guessing that's just the wiring."

Gwen stepped forward, her shadow looming in the doorway. "So nothing supernatural?"

She held off answering. Frowning, she continued moving the device along the floor, until she reached the old metal bedframe. The higher EMF fluttered consistently as the same level. "...did you see anything metal in the previous rooms?"

Gwen gave a quiet noise. "Hm. The little table in the den—didn't that have a metal frame? And there was a lamp in the master bedroom, I think."

Mallory squinted, before turning towards the doorway. "...follow me for a second."

They back-tracked to the den. There was no point in re-checking the lamp; it would make sense of that was holding on to some residual EMFs. The table, though. It was low enough, she might not have picked up on it at first.

Holding the device close to it, the light clicked up a dot, picking up on higher EMFs. "I've got a theory," she told the camera without elaborating, leading them through a few of the rooms they hadn't passed through yet. She found an old statue, and examined the rail leading up to the second floor. "Okay," she admitted, straightening as Gwen trailed behind her into the entryway to the second floor. "That's weird."

"Higher than you were expecting?" Gwen guessed. And yes, sort of, but that wasn't what gave her pause.

"Metal," Mallory said finally. "Everything metal is giving off EMFs. The little statue, the beds, everything.

Gwen's brow wrinkled. "Hold on. But there's no current, right? They would have to be in a circuit?"

"Yes," said Mallory. "And no, there's not."

"…ghosts?" Gwen pipes up optimistically.

"Not like any poltergeist I've ever seen, but hey. Could be. One sec." Tromping back down to the table on the lower floor, she grabbed the voice recorder, and the spirit box. She climbed back to the second floor, "Let's go back to the kid's room again. If anything's haunted, it's that shit."

They settled down in the boy's room, and Mallory placed the box on the floor. "This," she told the camera, and by that fact Gwen, "is a spirit box. It tracks through radio signals, creating a sort of white noise. We ask questions, and we look for direct answers. Also, full phrases—if it tosses out something like 'spaghetti,' it's probably not relevant."

Gwen snickered, and quickly tried to cover it up. "That's suspiciously specific. Does that have a story behind it?"

"Eh, later," Mallory grumbles, the phrase apple taters floating through her mind with a sense of mocking. Not the time. "Beware. This is going to be loud."

The room filled with cacophonous static as she clicked it on. The both flinched, but Mallory was somewhat used to that racket, so she recovered quickly and turned on the voice recorder. "Hello," she said. "My name is Mallory. I am here to find out who you are, and what you want. Is there anyone here with us right now?"

The radio scanned through channels at a rapid-fire pace. She caught the first two notes of Feel Good Inc (hey, good song) and the briefest second of a news report ('invasive speci—',) but nothing that sounded like a reply. She waited a second, glancing back to Gwen almost sheepishly. She usually only had herself to disappoint in these situations. She repeated the question. "Is there anyone there?"

This time, there was a whirring noise of distortion, and something that sounded like it could have been a bitten-off clip from a radio drama. 'EM—' sharply in a woman's voice; could have been nothing, might have been a name. "Emily? Did I hear an Emily? Or no." She waited, but the noise didn't repeat itself. "What do you want?" Static. She frowned, leaning forward. "What is wrong with the metal in your house?" Nothing.

They tried some other combinations of questions, getting the same collection of amalgam nonsense as they had before, one a clip of low, low prices! that made Gwen laugh aloud. After thirty minutes, they moved on to the master bedroom, and had similar luck.

After about two hours, nearing 5:00 at a guess, they moved back out to the entry room to the upper floor. None of the spaces they had worked in seemed more responsive than any of the others, so moving to a more open space might be beneficial. Maybe. This was actually one of the least successful ventures she'd had in a while, but she may have just needed to give it time.

They set up the spirit box for a while and let it run, repeating their questions. "At this point, we probably just need to wait," she said eventually. "Manifestations tend to be more active at night, so it might be better to give it a couple hours to get dark and then break out the thermal camera. Maybe run through the house again, see if there are any abnormalities. This thing might give us something then." She cut the static off, leaving the room ringing with quiet. Or, no, maybe that was just her ears ringing. She slumped against the wall, Gwen taking a spot beside her. Quite, um. Quite close, actually. She tried not to notice.

Gwen lowered the camcorder, setting it on the floor. She tugged on the strap. "You ever put this stuff online.

Mallory laughed shortly. "Uh, yeah. Sure do. I actually have a YouTube channel, but right now my videos are just lost in the ether."

Gwen propped her hands on her knee, propped up—the bottom of her jeans were coated in dust like lace. "Wow, really? Honestly, I wondered, when you were explaining things. It seemed kind of rehearsed, to be honest."

It was a bit of a sore spot, but she so rarely talked about it. She leaned her head back against the wall's wooden paneling. "I want to do something with it—start my own show, or something. But it's such a saturated market, and it's mostly saturated by idiots—"

Gwen snorted suddenly—

"—so the people that are serious about it don't really get a lot of attention. No one really watches it, but I'm hoping it might get more attention someday." She shrugged. "Until then, I'll kept doing it."

Gwen made a soft noise. Mallory looked over and the girl's eyes were closed, her head tipped back to rest against the woodgrain. "Mm, I wish I knew what I wanted. I haven't really done a lot of planning; I've really just been trying to take it day by day until we figure something out."

"Yeah, you probably had to do some pretty extensive planning in order to flee home like that. I'm honestly surprised your parents didn't track you to Seattle immediately, given the prophetic TV station." Beside her, Gwen gave a doubtful hum, and Mallory narrowed her eyes. "What?"

Gwen peered around, as though she were about to tell her a secret. Squinting from the corner of her eyes, she said, "I'm actually just reeeeeally lucky?"

She said it like a fact—she is lucky, not that she got lucky. What the hell did that mean?

Wincing, Gwen said, "It's been a thing for as long as I can remember. If I want something to happen, it usually goes my way. I took off for Seattle with the money I'd saved and a rough idea of what we needed: a place to stay, a job, and, well, to find you guys. It worked out that I came upon all those things. There was a vacancy at a motel just inside the city. When I searched the city wanted ads, I saw they needed a fill-in at that fencing studio, which coincidentally was something I already knew how to do. I've worked with the camp before, so I knew they needed people. I just happened to check out the hospital right before you came in."

Mallory's mouth hung open. She snapped it shut. What! Okay, nope, this girl still fully retained her ability to make her furious. "You're shitting me." Luck was fake as shit, this girl was a moron! "You just derped onto the highway and hoped everything would work out? Is this how you work all the time?! How are you alive?"

Gwen just shrugged. "Believe what you want, but the luck is a real force, and it needs to be respected. It works better if I'm vague about it, and I kind of have to consciously want the luck. I basically need to ask for it."

Now hold on. She pointed a finger vaguely in an upward direction. "That sounds more like faith than luck," she sniped. "If you ask for specific 'blessings,' then credit some unknowable force when they work out, of course that looks like proof to you. What happens when they don't?"

Gwen raised a brow, expression no longer so self-conscious. Wow, okay, she actually believes all this.

Mallory was as skeptical as she'd even been. She knew, -knew- fate to be a definable force, given the nature of her powers, and it wasn't -luck- if you were always meant to win.

Gwen didn't hesitate, though. "They never 'don't,'" she shot back, "If I'm specifically asking for it. It's consistent. It always works."

She couldn't help the scoff that left her, and Gwen frowned. This...was it weird that she felt a little cheated, even if she didn't think it was real? She'd been thinking of Gwen as her competition, but if Gwen was using some arbitrary 'I always win' magic (which she still didn't think of as luck, let it be said,) then was it ever even a fair fight? She'd kind of come to view Gwen as a rival. But if she was cheating..."If that's true, that's overpowered as shit," Mallory said bluntly. "What's to stop you from just using it all the time?"

"Because it's usually not worth it," Gwen said, and that caused the rant that wanted to continue full-steam-ahead in Mallory's mind to pause.

That...wasn't what she was expecting. "What do you mean?"

Gwen glanced away, the self-righteous posture she'd taken on draining out of her. "I try not to use it too often," she said, hesitant. "Because, while it always works for small things, eventually...well, I have to pay back the luck I used, I guess is the best way to put it. And I never know when it's going to ask me to pay up. Like..." she lowered her voice, as if someone other than Mallory might be listening. "When I first discovered I could do it, I was a little kid, and I did use it all the time. I had about a solid week that was totally perfect; I asked for everything. Everything was exactly the way I wanted it to be, I was abusing the hell out of it." She took a breath. "And then at the end of the week, I woke up to find both my guinea pigs had died, and I was crying so hard when I went to get my parents that I fell down the steps and broke my leg in three places."

Mallory inhaled. "Oh, shit," was all she could manage. Okay, that was...a pretty bad turn of events. It still didn't 100% confirm Gwen's theories about her own abilities, but she could see why she was so convinced. "I'm sorry."

Gwen shook her head, and when she looked up again, she was smiling. "You'd think that would convince me to stop forever, right? But I couldn't resist; I got curious and started experimenting. From what I've learned so far, I can do it pretty freely every once in a while, but if I start asking for too much, that's when I start tipping the scales out of my favor. The kickbacks since that incident haven't been as bad, but they were obvious enough that I could list them all out for you." She tugged at the collar of her shit. "I'll admit, though, I'm a little nervous. It took a lot of meddling to get us to where we needed to be here in Seattle. Not sure when the other shoe's going to drop on that, but..." she trailed off.

The room was quiet, the EMF calm as it set on the floor between them. There was an eeriness to the statement, a feeling like something was looming, just out of sight. After a moment, Mallory let out a little exhale through her nose. "I'm supposed to be the one telling the ghost stories here," she said, and Gwen seemed to relax.

They just needed to wait out the time until sundown,

and,

then,


Mallory wasn't sure at first what had woken her up. It actually took her a second to realize that she had woken up—had they fallen asleep? Sloppy. With bleary eyes. She reached up to push her glasses into place—it was a little known fact, but this pair, one of two was outfitted with transition lens. Earlier, even indoors it had been bright enough to maintain the shade, but now in the house's darkness they were entirely clear.

She inhaled, trying to get her bearings. She froze when she realized something was touching her, pressed up against her side. Body tense, she turned and froze.

Her cheeks heated as she noted the warm presence pressed against her was Gwen. She apparently hadn't been the only one to fall asleep; the girls head was pillowed on her shoulder, eyes closed peacefully as dark lashes fanned across her cheek. She was right there, breathing softly in a way that made something tender in her ache. It was honestly a similar sort of feeling Carmen had evoked when she'd cried in front of her, except instead of making her want to fix whatever had caused it...it scared her a little, to find she wanted to hold onto that ache, that tenderness. She wasn't used to anyone being this vulnerable in front of her. Maybe because people tended to become tired with her very quickly. It was a trait she was often proud of, but sometimes, she...wasn't.

She was hesitant to move an inch, not wanting to break the moment.

And then she realized what had woken her, the constant background whine: the EMF was absolutely losing its shit.

Jolting, she jerked back and began to shake Gwen awake. "Gwen. Gwen. The meter's freaking out, you need to wake up."

Gwen jerked, breathing in sharply. "Huh?" The deep-sea blue of her eyes was almost black in the darkness. She frowned, gaze scanning rapidly. "Did we fall asleep?"

"Apparently," Mallory said roughly, snatching up the equipment as Gwen shook herself awake.

"We need to get the thermal now. The EMF is freaking out; this could be a sign of some kind of actual activity—"

A low moaning noise made them freeze. It wasn't like the oohing of a cartoon specter, the Scooby Doo villains in sheets. It was deep, and loud; it seemed to resonate over the house in a giant wave, distant enough that it had to have been something big in order to wash over them like it did.

She and Gwen stared at each other with wide eyes. "I," she forced herself to speak. "I thought it was a ghost. I didn't think it might be something else."

She's hunted for dozens of cryptids in the past, but she couldn't think of anything that sounded like that.

The noise came again, and goosebumps shot down her back like the surface of a basketball. "We have to get out there," she couldn't hide the hesitation in her voice.

They seemed to break out of their spell, and Mallory and Gwen swept down the staircase with little worry for the safety of their limps. The camera swung from Gwen's hand, and Mallory passed her the EMF, taking up the thermal camera as well. "This should help us see anything in the darkness." And it was dark.

It must have been past eight, although she didn't take the time to check the hour. How had they fallen asleep? The last thing she could remember, they were talking about Gwen's freaky luck powers, and then...

And then...

What?

They delved into the trees. The brush enveloped them suffocating thickness, and Mallory raised the thermal camera, clicking it on.

Jarring, as the scene around them was bathed in faint orange. What the hell? "Look at this." She held the camera up to Gwen.

"What's wrong with it?" Gwen asked, hushed.

Oh, duh, obviously she wouldn't have a context for it yet. Sure, trees tended to hold heat near the top, closer to the sun after a warm day like this. But if it were as late as she believed, the forest floor should have cooled more than this. "This should all be dark. Something just came through here registering a lot of heat."

It was faint, though. Like some kind of radiation, miasma of heat. The orangey-haze cut a path through the trees, so they vaguely knew which direction to go in.

"Should we...really be walking into this?" Gwen slowed down beside her, steps decidedly less assured than Mallory's were.

Because, while Mallory was kind of terrified, this could be her first real chance at an in-person encounter. Maybe that was reckless, like she was probably being the girl going down into the basement that you scream at in the horror movie. But she needed to know. "We at least need to see it. See what we're dealing with here." Something thin floated past her face and she swiped abruptly, thinking it was a spider web. Her hand hung in the air when she realized it was her own hair. "Oh shit," she said. "This isn't just heat. It's literally an EMF." What the hell could put out an electromagnetic field naturally powerful enough to feel warm?

"Whoa."

Mallory looked up when she heard Gwen's exhalation, and stopped, knowing immediately what she was talking about.

In the middle of the forest, a tower jutted up past the trees. They slowed their approach. The structure looming over them, rendered almost invisible at a distance with the surrounding foliage. Mallory pushed her glassed up more securely on her nose. "It looks like a radio tower. Why is it in the middle of the woods?" She turned to Gwen. "I mean, that's not super weird in and of itself, but if they were planning on putting one here, why didn't they clear the trees? This is a fire hazard."

Gwen quipped, "Hey, maybe we're chasing the spirit of Smokey the Bear."

"Funny," Mallory dead-panned, but...okay, it was actually a little funny. She eyed the tower. It didn't look professional, its pieces jammed together asymmetrically, bends in parts of the frame. Her eyes drifted to the bottom, and she frowned. "Hey..."

She kneeled, squinting at the boxes at the tower's base. They...looked familiar? She'd seen a radio tower or two living in Seattle, but she's never seen bulky boxes like this at the base. Some kind of breaker? Or...

No, wait a minute, maybe she did recognize these. Limply, she hovered a hand over the structure, only for it to drop back to her knee. Startled, she eyed the limb incredulously. Um, excuse me?

"Hey, uh," she heard Gwen pipe up from behind her. Peering back, she saw the other girl had taken to her knees, "do you feel really tired all the sudden?"

Mallory's eyes widened, and she stared down to her own kneeled position. She moved to get up, and was frightened by how difficult it suddenly was. Oh. Oh, shit. "Something's wrong," she said, staggering.

"Mallory," Gwen suddenly whispered. "Mallory, to the left, the trees."

The fear in her voice made Mallory's stomach drop. Slowly turning to peer behind her, she went very, very still.

At first, it almost looked like a layer of gel was hanging off the bark of the trees in bulbous masses. But then the gel moved, translucent, and faintly iridescent. It dragged its body through the trees, leaving no residue, its enormous mass being dragged along with it. With way too much effort, Mallory lifted the thermal camera.

Oh, okay, well, there it was. It was the size of a small house and it was radiating EMF into the air in waves. Like freaking fake-ass miasma, dammit. Or something that looked like EMF, at least. This explained why all the metal was electrified in the house; this guy must have come through before they did.

She tested the heaviness in her limbs, and cursed in the quietest voice. "I can't believe this. I think it's a freaking Cryptid."

Gwen wheezed. "Yeah, I had guessed."

Mallory flung her arms out like a ragdoll in frustration. "No, no, dammit, not a cryptid cryptid, a—oh, never mind, we've got to fight it." She dragged her scepter from her jacket pocket.

She was relieved that the other soldier seemed to have taken their advice to heart about keeping the thing on her at all times, and's Gwen's hand grappled weakly for her pocket. "We have to fight it? It's huge!"

The creature seemed to have realized it was being spectated. It slowly rotated towards them. It didn't have any features, but as it spotted them, thick appendages like arms formed from its body, as big around as tree trunks. It dug its way-too-human-looking-fingers into the dirt, dragging itself hand-over-hand towards them.

Okay, so it was big, and had creepy massive man-hands. And they were alone, she and Gwen who had only ever done one attack before. And the energy sucking thing was not great, and in fact might be classified as really bad, given that there didn't seem to be a place to get away from it, judging by the orange miasma in the thermal camera and the heaviness in her own limbs.

But this? She knew how to do.

She pushed down her fear. "Eh," Mallory said. "Not too much bigger than its spikey cousins. Besides, I had meant for this to be a training excursion, right? Guess I'm going to get my wish." With a distinct lack of vigor, she punched her scepter into the air. "Decima Star Power, Make-up!"

At the same moment, she heard Gwen frantically call behind her, "Agh, Crystal Power Fortuna, Make-up!"

'Fortuna.' Fortune.

Goddammit.

The light around her dimmed, her navy and tan uniform flaring around her. "That's close enough, buddy," she barked. "Destiny chain!" The chain shot out, piercing through the creature's featureless face. It gave a bellow, the chain interweaving through the trees the way she had intended. Nice.

Then, the chain slowly began to move through the creature's body, like a fork through jello. "Aw, really?"

"What am I supposed to do?"

Mallory by way of Sailor Decima turned back to see Gwen's face tense with uncertainty. She peered to the creature and to her hands sluggishly, the salmon-pink scepter sitting inert in her palm.

She—Mallory was taken aback. She looked—pretty scared, actually. She was expecting Gwen to take to this like a fish to water, but apparently not. Maybe she actually did need to be a bit more instructive here.

She stepped back, watching the creature slowly sink through her attack. She shuddered. "Okay, you attacked last time. Do you remember what you did? The name should come to you."

Gwen's eyes flicked around aimlessly, as if the answer would be written out somewhere. "Yeees," she said hesitantly. Bringing both arms out before herself, she placed her fists on top of one another.

Mallory wished she would hurry; she wasn't sure how long that chain was going to slow it down.

With the top hand, Gwen drew a circle in the air with her fist, saying, "Celestial Roulette!" The circle lit up in the air, filling in with what looking like a series of panels. One, brighter than the others, began to round the circle. Finally, she drew her arm back, as though she were drawing a bow.

Meeting her eyes, uneasy, Gwen let go.

There was a burst of light, near blinding in the darkness. Mallory remembered what the attack had looked like last time: almost like a gun blast (or a cross-bow, arrow burning with energy?) That wasn't what happened this time.

This time, a series of smaller projectiles carved through the air and sunk into the creature. It howled as they exploded from within.

Mallory's head whipped back to look at Gwen. It may have looked cool, but it was significantly less fire power than before. "What the hell was that?"

Gwen floundered. Like her, it seemed like transforming had lightened the pull of the Miasma's (she was going with that) influence, but she still seemed to be dragging. "I don't know!"

She thought about it, trying not to let the monster out of her sight, and then promptly smacked herself. "It's a Roulette," she groaned. "It won't always be the same thing. Okay. Can you do it again?"

Gwen placed her fists together and made the call, but no ring formed in the air. "No," she shot out, looking harried.

"That's okay," she assured her. "It probably has a turn time—it needs to recharge. We just need to stay out of this thing's way."

But they were hours away from help. Their phones were back at the house, in the Faraday bag, where no signal could reach them.

If they got hurt—

Mallory took a breath. We'll just have to not get hurt then.

"Get ready," she called out to her companion, both of them dragged their feet in the dirt as the Miasma dragged their strength away, and dragged itself through the chain with a sickening squelch. Her heart pounded as its oversized maw gapped, moaning out a note that sent horror rolling through her body. She grit her teeth. "Here it comes—"