Maddie checked over her guns, making sure everything was in order.
They'd been getting readings for the last few hours - a huge concentration of ectoplasmic energy was developing in the nearby park. It surely had to be a ghost, and she was going to check it out.
She stopped the RV at the edge of the entrance, piling on her guns and defensive gear, taking a breath and checking her equipment one last time.
Her ecto-tracker watched as a blip detached from the main mass of energy, vanishing off her radar.
That, apparently, had been normal as well. If the pattern of her readings continued, it would return in a few minutes.
She stepped onto the grass, making her way stealthily through the brush. She could already feel the cold air whispering over her suit, somehow reaching down to her bones. Her wrist monitor beeped, the concentration of ectoplasm in the air steadily rising.
Maddie paused at the edge of a clearing, nibbling her lip unsurely. This kind of thing… she'd never seen it before.
Between the trees, arcing over the canopy and twixt even the smallest branches and leaves, a web of semi-translucent ectoplasm was woven. She peered through one of the gaps, and found the stringy substance was layered like a cobweb, leaving only the faintest shadow of a form inside.
Some sort of spider ghost?
She prodded the ectoplasm with a faintly green blade, nodding as it easily cut through. Not a physical defence, then.
A quiet hiss erupted from the core, and she backed off quickly, gun snapping up from her waist and readying. The sound quickly died down once she retreated from the…web.
A quick check of the ectoplasmic radar and the blip was returning - behind her!
She whipped around, readying her weapon, but fell back into the shadows of some trees before firing.
The black and white outfit, short stature… she had heard mention that there was a female version of Phantom running around, but hadn't put much credence into the rumors. She'd seen enough convincing cosplayers to know not to run after every jumpsuited individual walking down the street.
Those green eyes found her easily, widening and narrowing as shock turned to suspicion.
Maddie didn't' lower her weapon, heart pounding in her chest, but she didn't fire either.
The girl skirted around her, eyes constantly shifting back to the strange web with a worried sort of grimace. Finally, she must have decided that Maddie's inaction was enough to warrant being left along, and tapped the web gently.
She shifted the bundle in her arms awkwardly.
"Hey, lemme in. I'm back."
A string of words shifted through the spaces between ectoplasm, a horrifying fear following in its wake. The words - they must have been words - seemed to crawl under her skin, sending shivers through her marrow and up the back of her neck.
The webbing pulled open, revealing a short hallway into the center of the mass.
She drifted in, and Maddie quickly followed behind, mouth pursing as the web slithered back into place behind them.
This was a terrible idea, and her fingers itched on the triggers of three different anti-ecto foggers, hoping the toxic smoke would repel the half-sentient tendrils enough for her to escape…or blast her way through.
The girl didn't seem to realize she had been followed, starting to rush toward the figure curled up in a deep nest in the center. Maddie was less surprised than she could have been when the girl passed the bundle to familiar gloved hands that peeked out.
"Skulker sends his well-wishes; apparently he hunted them himself."
"Abg cbvfbarq?"
Those words again, layered with echoes and sounds that could not be made with the human tongue. The girl huffed a small laugh.
"Apparently we're endangered enough that he's happy with the added opportunity. For an obsessed creep, he's oddly future-oriented."
Maddie tried to shuffle around the edge of the inner enclosure, keeping her gun ready. The decision to enter had been foolish, perhaps, but she'd never seen this kind of activity. The girl twisted around, apparently noticing her again.
"You!"
She bolted into the air, hands lighting up with green fire.
Maddie's aim swung up to match the flight, but the girl seemed conflicted about firing at her. She still glanced back at Phantom, still curled up inside the strange nest. He was picking apart the bundle, now, strangely shaped and iridescent fruits spilling into his lap. A tiny squeal, and his hand shot out to catch the tiny blobby ghost that tried to race away once freed.
The huntress sucked in a quiet breath as Phantom leaned forward, mouth opening.
Sharp teeth closed around the tiny form, jellylike limbs going limp as he quickly devoured the entity. His eyes sent prickles over her skin, even through her suit. While they normally looked human, if glowing, they were currently entirely green - from corner to corner. An acidic, monstrous stare.
"Da- Phantom, Maddie Fenton is here!."
The girl hissed, trying to place herself between Maddie and the small opening.
He didn't respond, turning to the odd fruits and devouring them in the same focused, methodical way.
"What's going on?"
Maddie checked her watch, making sure her equipment was still functioning in the high saturation of ectoplasm. She was even getting some readings from the core of this strange web, from Phantom, a fluctuating energy that continued to grow.
The girl's face twisted unhappily, finally letting the fire die out and crossing her arms. She continued to glance back at Phantom, keeping her body between the two of them.
"None of your business."
A strangled cry broke the silence, energy spiking around them. She could feel it in the atmosphere, and the frantic bleating of her wrist monitor backed up the idea.
Phantom twisted, gasping and snarling at the ground.
He reached into his own chest, body seeming to split apart under his hand.
He let out a tiny whine, pulling his fist out.
He revealed the tiny silver-green ball to the air, holding it close to himself.
Maddie's watch beeped as the ectoplasm concentration in the air sharply plummeted. The pale green strands around them started shifting wildly, shooting down toward the orb in Phantom's palms.
They slithered down with an eerie lack of sound, wrapping around themselves and coalescing into a humanoid figure.
Phantom laughed quietly, and the Huntress noticed his eyes were back to normal, if a bit sunken and half-closed.
"Girl again, huh?"
She saw the anxious look that the ghost girl shot at her, out of the corner of her eye.
Maddie was too fascinated with what was going on in front of her.
The last delicate strands were settling into place, shuddering and smoothing together as details started to form. Fingers, toes, she could even see eyelashes pulled out from the figure as if moulded by an expert sculptor working with clay.
Finally, long hair tumbled over her shoulders, pure white and already starting to float faintly with that underwater sort of flow that surrounded Phantom and the other girl. She looked like she could be in highschool, the same age as Phantom. Wasn't it strange that she came out, looking fully formed like this? Was this how-
It finally struck her.
"Did you just… reproduce?"
Phantom looked up at her, jerking in shock and horror. Apparently he hadn't fully realized the huntress was present.
"Are they your daughters?"
The girl beside her gave a derisive click of the tongue, glaring at her.
"Cousin thank-you-very-much." A nod toward the newly formed ghost. "She might be a weird half-sister though."
The girl in his lap opened her eyes, irises just as green and fluorescent as the other two.
"Jub nz V?"
Phantom looked helplessly at the other two females, the younger girl making a face back at him.
"It's not like I came prepared with baby names, don't ask me."
"I named a ghost dog 'Cujo'"
"And you named yourself 'Phantom' - What a lame pun."
"You're not helping!"
"Melody."
"What?"
Three pairs of green eyes turned toward her, and Maddie took a tiny step back.
She cleared her throat.
"Her name should be 'Melody'."
The young woman slowly stood up, the skintight black suit morphing with a flourish into a flowing black-lace dress. Phantom scrambled to his own feet, staggering slightly and staring with worried eyes at the new ghost. She took a long look at Maddie, blank look slowly gentling into a smile.
Melody raised a hand, flicking it through her long hair and not even glancing down as it sliced off and dissolved into mist. In the wake of her gesture, the locks floated down, forming a pure white reflection of Maddie's own cropped style.
She smiled,
and vanished.