Chapter Two: Hall of Doors
Several people gasped. Others simply stood frozen in place.
The spirit above flew around a bit, letting out a ghastly howling noise and small child-like laughs, ever flickering in blue and white tones as it soared. It seemed to consider the fighters standing below, before dissipating into tiny little sparkles that fell down like snowflakes.
The room fell silent, save for the slight sound of something tiny tapping onto metal. And then, out of nowhere, Min Min's phone's flashlight began to flicker, before dying altogether. They were back in the dark.
Just as quickly as it had all started, the lights came back on. Everyone let out a quick sigh of relief, glad that whole 'moment' was finally over.
Min Min looked to her phone held out in her palm. The flashlight was back on now, not that it was needed, but the whole thing was covered in gross golden Helix goo. "Yuck..." She groaned, shaking it a bit.
But... Wait. Where was Helix? He had been right there - Min Min had her hand inside him!
"G-Guys?" Mechanica nervously squeaked. "Spring Man's gone... "
Everyone looked around. "Twintelle's gone too." Coyle noted.
"And Batman!" Kid Cobra added. "Aw hell!"
"So's Helix and Mummy..." Min Min continued. "And Lola." She was somewhat thankful for that last one, in honesty. That costume was far too much.
"Six people..." Ribbon Girl mumbled. "I really don't like this..."
"Alright, alright, let's stay calm! " Min Min insisted. "BYTE, do you know if they're still in the building...?"
BYTE turned toward her. "I can confirm the number of heartbeats found within the designated area has not changed. The heart rates of almost of them have increased, however."
"If they're still in the building then we just gotta find 'em, right?" Min Min shrugged. "They're probably just pulling a prank on us and ducked out when the lights were off."
"Wait..." Ribbon Girl glared. "You said you were going to pull a prank...!"
She blinked. "Well yeah, but I meant putting that creepy doll by the punch bowl." She pointed to the creepy looking doll lying limp by the fruit juice.
"Wait, that was YOU?!" Kid Cobra jumped. "Ah man that scared the SCALES offa me! Fair play, dude." He gave a quick fist bump to Min Min, who seemed proud of herself.
"Right, well, let's set off." Coyle sighed. "I don't like Helix being out of my sight in a building I don't own. If he goos up the carpets they'll probably fine me." She opened the door to the lobby, which had unlocked again. "Come on."
The remaining eight fighters went out into the lobby, rather happy to be out of the dimly lit ballroom. The lobby was still completely devoid of any staff or other guests, though it felt a little less empty with all eight of them standing around.
"Attention citizens." BYTE began, earning everyone's focus. "I have determined that this situation is in need of additional police support."
"Ah, yes!" Ribbon Girl jumped. "Get back-up! We need lots. People who can deal with evil spirits, o-or whatever!" BYTE and intended for search-and-rescue officers, of course, but wasn't about to turn down a citizen's honest request.
"Yeah dawg, get the Ghostbusters!" Kid Cobra added. That much wasn't quite as feasible, sadly.
"I will submit a signal requesting additional officers." BYTE began. A small but unappealing beeping sound came from the side of his head. "...My signal has failed to transmit."
"Aw heck, we're DEAD!" Kid Cobra stammered.
"T-Try again." Ribbon Girl nervously requested. "P-Please?"
"...My signal has failed to transmit again." BYTE returned. "Please remain calm. I will retrieve backup myself." He walked over to the front doors. "Estimated return time... Fifty three minutes." And with that, both he and BARQ left the building.
Ribbon Girl groaned. Fifty three minutes wasn't too bad, especially considering their discrete location, but they'd have to wait here...?
"Alright, well, while we wait for the police to arrive I think we should take a look upstairs." Coyle commented, her ARMS folded.
The room seemed uneasy. No one seemed to agree to her plan.
"...Seriously? You're all scared of some 'ghost'?" She glared.
"I ain't afraid of no ghosts!" Kid Cobra butt in, shaking the fear out of his body and building up his fighting spirit. "Let's go, doc! Lemmie at 'em!"
She rolled her eyes, but didn't seem to mind him coming to stand by her. "And the rest of you...?"
Brass sighed deeply, somewhat nervous. "If it'll help the team..." He quietly made his way to her side, standing close by to her. She quietly floated a few steps away.
"Guess that's the plan." Min Min began to walk over, but was stopped by a tug on her ARM.
"D-Don't just agree to fighting that thing!" Ribbon Girl nervously held her. "We don't even know what it's capable of!"
"Well what else are we supposed to do?" She blinked.
"Wait for the police to get here!"
Coyle groaned, tapping her foot impatiently. "If we aren't capable of fighting it why do you think the police are...?"
"Coyle's right, hun." Min Min shrugged. "Better we all stick together, right?"
Ribbon Girl let out a long and uncomfortable groan. "Fiiiiiine... Th-Then I guess I'm coming too..." She sighed deeply.
"Misango?" Coyle raised an eyebrow.
"We are up against against an unknown spirit with great power." He commented.
"...Yeah. So are you comin'"? She began to tap her foot again.
"...In time." He walked over to the nearby seating area. "I shall connect with the Misangan spirit to bring us guidance and strength. We cannot win without." He sat himself down on the large and comfy sofa, crossed his legs, and began to meditate. The sight of a Brite Bomber Misango meditating on a hotel sofa sure was something.
"I'm in!" Mechanica nodded confidently, walking over. "I know we can beat-"
"Oh no no no no! " She glared. " Faaaar too dangerous. You stay here."
Mechanica pouted. "Isn't it safer with you?" She turned to the pink-and-blue Misangan hero between the cushions with uncertainty.
"...Ugh, yeah, I guess it is." Coyle sighed. "Fine, come on then. Six of us to find the other six, how fitting."
"Maybe we need a team name!" Max Brass smirked, earning him a glare from Coyle.
"OH!" Kid Cobra struck out a finger. " Mystery Incorporated! "
Coyle turned her glare to him, now. "That's Scooby Doo, idiot."
"No, that's my point!" He smiled behind his mask. "We're kinda like the Scooby Doo crew, right?" He moved his hand over each of them. "Brass is Fred, Coyle's Daphne-"
" What? " Coyle interjected, unhappy with being the one who gets captured all the time.
"...Mechanica is Velma, Min is Shaggy, and Ribs is Scoob!" He continued.
They all fell silent, simply staring at him. "...Jinkies." Mechanica commented.
"Wait, why am I the dog?" Ribbon Girl pouted.
"Don't worry - Scoobs is the best!" Kid Cobra reassured.
"But who's that make you, then?" Min Min asked, pointing out he had missed himself in that lineup.
"...Oh. Uhhhh..." He thought for a while, scratching his chin. "Damn, I didn't think this through..."
"Scrappy." Coyle answered bluntly, causing the others to start laughing quietly.
"Wha-? Noooo!" He objected. "Dude he's, like, the worst! "
"Exactly." She added. "Are we done messing around here?"
"Yeah, let's get started." Max Brass nodded. "Let's teach these ghouls a lesson n' find our friends!"
"Good." Coyle straightened her back. "Then let's split up. Min Min, you and Ribbon Girl can take the-"
"Wait wait wait wait, no. " Ribbon Girl interrupted. "Split up? Are you crazy?" She was, actually.
Coyle glared at her. "We'll cover more ground this way."
" And get ourselves captured too. " Ribbon Girl pouted. "If we do this we should stick together."
" Fine. " She muttered through her teeth. "Then I guess we'll do each floor one-by-one. There should be a stack of key cards in the reception desk, so we can check each room."
"Um... Actually, if I may?" Mechanica raised her hand quietly. "...I was just thinking that, if I were a spooky ghost thing and I captured six fighters, I-I'd probably put them... Somewhere specific? N-Not just randomly, I mean..." She shrugged.
"Ah!" Coyle smirked. "See? This is why I keep her around. She's right - we don't have to search every room, we just need to search the logical places. I'm thinking... Basement, roof, restaurant, pool..."
"Oh!" Min Min smiled, withdrawing her bedroom keycard from her medical dress. "We all had specific rooms assigned to us already, right? I mean Ribs & I are sharing a room, but the others are all on their own."
"Also smart." Coyle nodded. "I'd say that's worth looking into first. It's the only direction this hotel's ever given us, after all."
"Beats checkin' out the basement first..." Min Min mumbled, setting her card back into her pocket.
For whatever reason, the rooms assigned to the ARMS fighters happened to all be placed on the top floor of the hotel, with each of them lined up in a row. Upon noticing this, the thought silently occurred to pretty much all of them that it would have been rather annoying to be situated like that given how empty the rest of the hotel was - but now none of them intended to stay the night here anyway, so it really didn't matter so much.
The team came to the end of the hall where their rooms were, and stumbled right away into a rather interesting detail: each door had a fighter's name written on it. Max Brass was the first to notice this, running his fingers over the nameplate bearing his own title.
"That's... Weird." Mechanica commented. "There are rooms for all of us - Ribbon Girl, Min Min, Mechanica, Kid Cobra..." She didn't bother to list all of them. "...But where are the rooms for the others? The ones that got taken?" There were plenty of rooms nearby, but none of them bore a nameplate like these.
"I guess they..." Ribbon Girl gulped nervously. "I-I guess they don't have rooms because they were 'taken'?"
"Then why aren't there rooms for Misango and BYTE?" Brass mumbled, thinking.
"Min Min..." Coyle muttered, looking over each of the plated doors. "You said you and Ribbon GIrl were sharing a room...?"
"...Uh, yeah?" Min Min squinted. "We're... Dating? Did you not know that until just now...? I mean we weren't really hiding it..."
Coyle glared at her. "If you two are sharing a room, why are your names on separate doors? "
She was right - the first door in the sequence was marked with Ribbon Girl's name, but Min Min's was on the next door over. "Huh..." Min Min bit her lip. "I mean they only sent us one card?" She withdrew it again.
Ribbon Girl took the card from Min Min and looked over it - it seemed to be pretty normal. She slid it in the scanner by her own door and the door swung open. "It works for mine?"
Min Min took it back, and tried it on her own door. It also opened without error. "Weirdddd. They look like normal rooms too, right?" She peeked her head in her room - pretty normal! Just to be sure, she walked over to Ribbon Girl's door and did the same maneuver... But then her head banged hard against an unseen surface.
"Oof! Are you okay?" Ribbon Girl jumped, kneeling by her girlfriend, who had fallen back from the thump.
"Ow...!" She held her head. "Feels like I walked into a brick wall..."
Coyle put her hand flat on the empty doorway. "...There's no entry. There's literally some sort of invisible wall here, we can't get through."
"So we can go in Min Min's room but not Ribbon Girl's...?" Mechanica asked, putting her own hand through Min Min's doorway... Only to find it flat on something. "O-Oh! No, I can't go in here..."
"Huh? But I..." Min Min got back up and stuck her ARM through the doorway of her own room. "Yeah, you can go through here!"
Coyle stuck her hand flat where Mechanica's had been. "Interesting... Ribbon Girl, put your hand into your room."
As commanded, Ribbon Girl cautiously pressed her hand flat to the barrier Min Min had struck her head on - but instead found her hand could pass through without question.
"I'm thinking we can only go through the doors with our names on them." Coyle mumbled, as Brass unlocked his own door and wagged his ARM through without worry. But Kid Cobra's fell flat in that same doorway.
"But how does this help us?" Mechanica mumbled. "I mean they aren't in there, right? We can see they aren't."
Ribbon Girl stepped into her room.
"...Wait, wha-?" Min Min blinked. She hurried over to Ribbon Girl's room. "Wh-Where'd she go? She just stepped inside!"
Coyle quickly took a look around in Ribbon Girl's room from the outside. "She's vanished... Hm. Hm. " She quickly hurried to the end of the room sequence, slid her keycard through the scanner, and opened the door to her own room. "I have a feeling these doors... Are actually..." She stepped through, and suddenly she was gone too.
"Wha-...?" Min Min began. "Well what the hell do we do now?"
"Go through the doors, I guess?" Max Brass shrugged, looking into his own room.
"But then we-" Min Min began again, before Brass suddenly entered his room and disappeared too. "...Grrr. How do we know these doors are safe to go through? We've got no clue where we'll end up!"
Kid Cobra shrugged, unlocking his door. "S'better than just standin' 'round here, right? Peace!" He disappeared in a flash.
Min Min looked down at Mechanica, disappointed. She shrugged back, a nervous laugh. "I guess we might as well follow after them..."
Reluctantly and wordlessly, Min Min agreed. She stepped through her open doorway and vanished. After unlocking her own door, Mechanica did the same.