Ghost-Hunting: Victoria

*** 2 days before Halloween ***

"I'm just saying, there's solutions beyond punching," Tattletale said.

"Theoretically speaking, I agree. But there being other solutions does not mean that punching is not the best solution," Victoria replied, demonstrating her point by touching the tips of her ghost-dust infused boxing gloves together.

"Pfft, typical meathead"

"At least I have a head. Tell me, were you actually smart before you got your power?"

"Says the girl whose main power is never getting acne."

"Are you jealous of my perfect skin, or of skin in general?"

"Low blow Gloryhole, low blow."

"How could it be a low blow? We're two thousand feet of the ground!"

"Yeah, about that…" Tattletale said. "Why are we looking for ghosts in the sky again?"

"Because everyone else is down below," Victoria replied, pointing to the city below them, a hand held down to stop the glare of the sun, reflecting from the roof of a nearby skyscraper. In the distance, she could see the massive concrete containment unit, holding Genoscythe's remains. City government was still debating what to do about it, with ideas ranging between transporting them away with trucks, to burning them, to waiting until someone with the right power came along to help out. For now, Tecton's air-tight megastructure kept the rotting meat from polluting the area. "Basic flyer tactics, start in the places where no-one else can go. It'll give you a good overview, and a perspective that others do not have."

"Yeah, except it's daytime, and we're looking for ghosts," Tattletale said. "Ghosts don't fly two thousand feet above the city."

"Look in the mirror will you," Victoria replied. "Anyway, I haven't seen you come up with a better idea."

"What about waiting until nightfall? When the spirits actually come out?"

"Problem with that," Vicky said. For a high-level Thinker, Tattletwat could be such an idiot. "You're a ghost, you're here now."

"Because I have a sanctum. Something I can use to protect me from the sun. In case you hadn't noticed, I'm the only one of my kind flying around."

"So, where do the other ghosts go? Do they just disappear during the day, or are they in their own sanctums?"

"Natural sanctums, places to hide… Graveyards, that sort of thing," Tattletale said.

"So, why are we not checking out those places?" Victoria asked her.

"Good question, actually. Probably cultural impetus, letting the dead rest, that sort of thing."

"But, since the entire problem is that the dead aren't resting anymore," she said.

"So, you want to go around looking for the restless dead?"

"You happen to see any graveyards?"

"Well, I know where they are, which is what you mean," Tattletale said, being her wonderful obnoxious Thinkery self.

"Then let's go!"

***

"Hey, wanna hear a joke?" Victoria asked.

"Around here? really?" Tattletale answered.

"So a flying superhero and a mechanical Thinker are floating through a graveyard."

"Cemetery"

"What's the difference?"

"Graveyard is attached to a church, it's the yard of a church, with graves in it. This place isn't attached to one, so it's a cemetery," Tattletale explained.

"This your power again?" Victoria asked.

"No… I…I did some research on the topic a while ago, felt rather relevant to my situation," the floating orb said.

"I see…" Victoria replied.

She didn't like the Thinker, never had, on account of their drastically different ways of approaching a problem. Victoria was a Brute. Not a brute, but most definitely a Brute. Sure, her aura played a role in what she did, but strength, a forcefield and flight were her bread and butter. If she compared it to Tattletale, who relied on misdirection, hidden knowledge, and she had to admit, preparation.

Once, she'd been angry at the girl. Angrier than had been reasonable. Sure, the girl had robbed a bank, and used her power in the process. Doing that was bad. However, Tattletale had done so with a mental power, a Thinker power that worked through psychological, rather than physical, warfare. A power that did damage that Amy could not heal.

But, while that specific interplay might have hurt, it was not Tattletale's fault that she had a power that was specifically useful for psychological attacks. She'd been working with the tools she had, and those tools happened to be ones that penetrated through forcefields.

Seeing someone die fighting an Endbringer, seeing them fight it even though they were a pure Thinker, it forced you to put someone's behavior in a new perspective. Especially when that person suddenly turned up a few days later, having returned from the dead as a not-quite-ghost.

"So, you were telling a joke," Tattletale said.

"I was kind of hoping I'd think of something while telling it," Victoria admitted.

"I knew that," Tattletale said. "You know, being psychic and everything."

"You're not, psychics don't exist."

"Really Vicky? Really?"

The smugness almost radiated from the tiny blue orb. If tiny blue orbs could radiate feelings. Given magic, they probably could.

"What?"

"I mean, come on. I may not be psychic myself, but the idea that psychic's are impossible is preposterous. I mean, sure, the average brain isn't smart enough to decode other people's neural signals in real time, but someone like Alexandria or Accord? I mean, it's ridiculous to claim anything of the sort, let alone when we bring magic into this. Given what I already know, Taylor's going to learn telepathy in the future, whether you like it or not."

"Yeah, right, and you know better than…" Victoria was about to finish her sentence, when she remembered who she was talking to. "I have to admit, you probably do know better than some frumpy idiot with a degree at Brockton Bay University College."

"See? That wasn't so hard now was it?"

"You're pushing it Tattletale," Victoria said, evading a few tastefully placed trees that provided shade to the long rows of graves. The place they'd decided to inspect was rather nice, with large amounts of greenery among the graves, and tasteful decorations on top of them. It looked expensive, and old, which meant it was probably filled to the brim with evil spirits, what with them having been both rich, and dead for a hundred years or so.

"Lisa," Tattletale suddenly said.

"What?"

"Call me Lisa. I mean, my secret identity got spilled when Leviathan smashed me into tiny little chunks."

"No, I mean, wasn't it Sarah?" Victoria asked. Sarah, after all, had been the name mentioned in the obituary.

"Long story," Sarah, or Lisa, replied.

"Hate your parents?"

"Okay, short but more nuanced."

"You want to talk about it?" Victoria asked.

"Not really," Lisa replied. "Although…"

"Something wrong?" Vicky asked, floating around the graves, looking for, for lack of a better term, disturbances.

"I've been wondering… I made sure my real name would come out once I died. Some sort of final fuck you to my mother, you know? Except…"

"Except apparently, they didn't give a shit, even when you died."

"Exactly," Lisa said. "I mean, it's not like my power didn't tell me already, but…"

Lisa sighed, inasmuch as she could still sigh, and Victoria had to admit, she felt bad for the girl.

"I… I'd say I'm sorry, but I have no idea how you're feeling. I mean, I sure as hell have been angry with my parents, but that was about them caring too much. Even my father, given his condition."

"You wanna talk about it?" Lisa asked.

"Well, it's not like you don't already know anyway, right?"

"A bit… somewhat… I mean, most of what I do is bluffing and making shit up as I go along," Lisa said.

"Wait, really? Fuck… I did not expect that. I mean, you always seemed like you really had your shit together."

"Well, that's the trick isn't it? Fake it till you make it, like you do with your invincibility."

"Still bullshit how you saw through that so quickly."

"Why thank you!" Lisa replied.

"So, back to work. Ghost stuff, you see anything?" Vicky asked.

"Somewhat… The stuff laid to rest here, it's strong. Stronger than usual. Something I've been feeling myself. Whatever's been happening het last few days, it's affecting the barrier between the living and the dead or something. The ghosts, the ones driven mad by that barbed wire Taylor described? Us being busy with them is an ancillary benefit. If my assumptions here are right, someone is riling up the ghosts of Chicago in order tear at the wall. I'd have to check with Harry and some other sources, but it seems to me like the goal is weakening that barrier, in order to make all ghosts in the city stronger. I just can't figure out why, because I have no idea who could be behind this."

"Make all ghosts stronger? Or is that Ancillary too?"

"What, you think they're looking for a specific ghost?"

"I mean, it makes sense, I think. You don't hear a lot about good guy ghosts outside of Casper, so if you rile up the spirits to make all ghosts stronger, everyone involved in the people-not-horrifically-dying business is kept busy with ghosts that keep increasing in strength. But like you said, it's probably not a direct attack, so I'm guessing that whoever is behind this is trying to make a specific ghost stronger instead, and all of this chaos is just a side benefit."

"Good point Gloryhole," Lisa said.

Annoying as she was, Victoria had the idea that she was starting to figure the girl out, at least partially. Part of that, was that Lisa always wanted to get the last words in, put the finishing touches on the plan. She was the smart one. Hell, her entire power was being the smart one, the girl that knew stuff others didn't, the girl that could figure out your secrets in half a minute or less. Someone else coming up with a better idea than she had? That was annoying. Someone else taking her information and turning it into something she hadn't thought about? That was something that really annoyed the little flaptrap. Which meant that there were two things she could do right now. She could play into it, make a snide remark back at the girl, and return to their regularly scheduled bitch-off, or she could be the bigger person. Which, given the fact that Lisa was currently inhabiting a tiny drone, wasn't very difficult.

"So, what are you doing for Halloween?" she asked.

"Halloween? Fuck… of course, why didn't I think about that?"

"Think about what, your costume?" Vicky asked.

"No, I mean, it can't be coincidence someone's riling up the ghosts right around Halloween, right? I mean, it could be, but we can't afford to assume it is."

"Right, so we're looking for a super-ghost pretending it's someone else?"

"I don't think so, but… I don't really know enough about the spiritual significance of Halloween. I mean, there's so many different stories, I have absolutely no idea which one is true."

"Doesn't your power work there?"

"Not really. I mean, to really get going, I need to make sure I'm not working from faulty premises, and that's the entire problem here."

"So, got any insight on what we can do right no?" Victoria asked.

"Not really. I mean, cemeteries are nice and all, but…"

"But all the other ghosts are sleeping?"

"Wouldn't call it sleeping, but yes."

"So, find the ones that are, like, least sleepy?"

"Sure… I'll give it a try."

***

"Really? Really!?" Victoria yelled.

"Well, you have to admit, he is kind of hot," Tattletale answered.

"Eeeek!" the girl yelled.

"What the fuck!" the guy chimed in.

"Yes, that's what you were doing!" Tattletale said, her voice filled with absolute glee.

"On a fucking grave! What would your mother think?" Victoria yelled out.

"I think his mother thinks he can do better, but that's it nice that he brought his new girlfriend around to meet her," Tattletale continued.

"That's his mother's grave!?" Victoria yelled.

What the fuck kind of degenerate would take his girlfriend to the cemetery, only to do it on his mother's…

"Well, no. But the look on your face is amazing," Lisa said calmly. "I should ask Tecton for a camera."

"Where are my pants!" the guy screamed.

"Your mother is dead?" the girl asked.

"You bitch!" Victoria yelled.

"Hey, I did exactly what you asked!" Tattletale smirked with her non-existent mouth. Knowing her, she'd planned this about half an hour ago. Or, as she said before, she was improvising at a ridiculous rate. Both of them were equally annoying, yet also somehow hilarious. "I found the least restful grave in the cemetery!"