Prompt 07: "MISTAKES WERE MADE!" a.k.a "I love this plan!" part 2 (WC: 1173)

A/N: Alternate Title - In which Lee and Tucker fuck up.

blackcat711 - There isn't a whole lot of interaction here buuuut I think that it's quality over quantity, hopefully? Glad you liked it though.

AJPJweallluvJJ - Glad you like Lee! There's an explanation about '52 Pick Up' in my profile actually. Long story short, I will be returning to it. Just not right now because of some personal reasons.

coraluna - My God you poor thing, the heat is real. Yeah I ended up dorking around on the internet and stumbled onto the Danny Phantom fandom, which is surprisingly alive and well! And I was like hmm... and then.. and this took over my life. I'm glad you like Lee. I will be taking a lot of liberties with the world building because I always felt like the supernatural elements were sort of glossed over.

By working with Tucker, Lee learned two things. First, to never to put her trust into a fully electronic alarm system. Two, that Tucker was a genius. Enough of a genius that Lee made a mental note to keep on his good side in case she needed his skills again.

Needless to say, he got her into the museum with absolutely no trouble. He didn't stop at just getting her in and leaving her to it. He kept them on mics, with bluetooth earbuds that Lee hoped nothing happened to because she wasn't sure she could replace it for him. He offered to hack the cameras for her, but she quickly dissuaded him of that, telling him he didn't have to put that much work in. He listened, thankfully, which saved Lee from a messy explanation. Explaining to Tucker that cleansing was a thing that actually worked when he only dealt with science fiction ghost fighting gear would have been annoying - and that was half of the secret she was keeping. Lee wasn't about telling people things that they didn't absolutely need to know, and it had worked thus far.

The instant Lee walked into the Chinese exhibit, she could tell that the very air felt wrong. The room glowed with the unnatural aura that only Lee seemed to be able to see whenever there was something unnatural about. The glare was so bad, that even though it was the middle of the night, Lee was investing in sunglasses. They didn't really work, it was more of a placebo affect then anything, but she would take it over nothing.

To say it put Lee on edge was understatement. She didn't waste any time immediately getting to work. She had carefully prepared everything she needed for the cleansing earlier that day. All she had to do was dig through her bag for the white stage bushel she had stored with in.

A cleansing ceremony wasn't anything complicated. All it required was Lee to walk around the room, making sure she walked counterclockwise and hit the four corners of the room. Lee had no idea why it worked. She had always assumed that magic was just a thing that existed. It wasn't until Amity Park and Danny were introduced into her life that she had ever considered science might play a role in the supernatural. Since she didn't have the tools or the knowledge to go into the realm she stayed in the more occult and magical realm she was accustomed to and tried not to question how they could coexist.

She muted the mic (she'd claim technology incompetence later when Tucker asked about it) and began running through a few chants. Cleansing wasn't an exact science (she hadn't know that was even an option after all) there isn't one right way to do it and Lee was pretty sure that it somehow operated under belief (though if you walk in with just faith, you'd probably just get your intestines acquainted with the open air). So because Lee wasn't sure what would work she began to run through chants that she knew in various languages, starting with English.

The bright aura of the room didn't dim at all. So she moved on to the next language she thought would work, Chinese. She barely gets out a word before Tucker is screaming in her ear.

"Mistakes were made!"

Lee flipped on her mic, cutting off in mid chant, "Wait, what?" What mistake could Tucker have made?

"Mistakes were made, run!"

Lee saw what Tucker meant because there was suddenly a very large, and very angry, distinctly Chinese ghost in front of her.

Tucker babbled in her ear about ghost static that he had thought was just interference and how he hadn't realized it was mumbled Chinese until the mic went dead (small mercies?). Lee isn't really listening though. She's staring at the ghost who had a manic grin slowly growing on his incorporeal face. Her first instinct, to try to talk to the spirit dies on her tongue. She's looking into the ruby eyes of insanity. What can she say to that?

"A little maid has awoken me from my slumber."

Lee's blood ran cold in her veins. Tucker was right, mistakes were made. This wasn't a curse she should have broken. She shoudn't have touched it. Damn it, she shouldn't have come in with no information and just blundered around.

"LEE RUN!" Tucker's voice howled in her ear and she can hear his frantic typing.

Lee grabbed the iron cross at her hip and pulled it from her belt. She gave a wild, angry swing towards the ghost in a fluid motion. The ghost vanished with a shudder as the iron slid right through it's form. Lee knew better than to assume that was it, or that she had any time at all. Part of her, the part that always panics is screaming at her to run, but Lee knew that she couldn't run. Running would mean letting the ghost run free, and if the massive curse that had been in place was any indicator, this wasn't a ghost she could just leave.

"You don't sound like you're running!"

With the curse removed, the room isn't glowing so glaringly. The sunglasses are more of a hinderance then a help so Lee ripped them off and stuffed them in her shirt.

"Dammit Lee, I should be hearing panting by now!"

She could see the cursed vessel where the ghost came from now. It was still glowing, but faint and fading. Lee desperately hoped that didn't imply she had a time limit.

"I swear I will hack these cameras!"

She ran over to the vase and frantically read the museum description for any information. Of course, it's just nonsense about Chinese shinto spirits, so she moves her focus to the artifact itself.

"Dammit Lee-!"

There was ancient Chinese inscribed on the vase. Why couldn't more supernatural stuff come from Russia? Lee's Russian was near perfect.

"I'm translating ancient Chinese, stuff it!" Lee snapped, a few too many seconds after Tucker swore at her making her distraction all the more obvious.

Lee was in luck, because the inscription appeared to be instructions. She's less lucky in the fact that she can barely comprehend what's written. She was barely through the first line when a cold hand gripped her shoulder and spun her around. Suddenly Lee was eye to eye with the glowing red eyes of the ghost. As Lee began to feel the world fall away, she realized her mistake. She had mistranslated a character. She wasn't supposed to look into his eyes. Knowing that now doesn't help her, because she can't look away.

Everything fell away, like a puzzle plucked away from her piece by piece. Lee rapidly began to forget where she was, who she was, all she knew was the red was sucking her in.

Distantly she heard a voice call out (her own?), "Tucker... mistakes... were made..." then she was plunged into the red.

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