AN: Here is chapter 6 sorry for the wait. Thank you to Dark Angel Erissa & Starling Powers for thier Reviews. Beetlejuice & Lydia is owned by Universal Studios, Nightshade belongs to Rubydesires, This version of the Boogieman belongs to me. Ryan belongs to Dark Angel Erissa & Cassie Belong to Starling Powers.
Chapter 6
The group slowly entered the shack seeing the inside was designed as a mansion. Nightshade growled under her breath. Boogie was using her colors. The others just looked around the big room till Boogie's voice came over an intercom.
"Well well Beetlejuice, you brought guests-and one of them is a traitor. How could you betray me Nightshade? We had a good partnership going on."
Everyone looked at Nightshade with a shocked look on their faces but Nights was mad.
"Helping you kidnap and kill breather children isn't what I signed up for!"
Beetlejuice regained his composer. "If she is a traitor, I'm proud I trained her well. You need to be like family to have a good dishonest partnership." Nights gave a little evil smile as the intercom went quiet.
Cassie looked around the huge room. "Look guys, I dig your proud to have a tight bond going on, but if we are going to find this Lydia girl we are going to have to split up to search this whole place."
The three ghosts knew she was right. Even though splitting up would probably end up a bad idea, they needed to find Lydia quickly. The four of them each took a different hallway. Cassie studied her surroundings. Her senses told her she wasn't alone. Someone was watching her. Then she heard his voice.
"A breather living in the Neitherworld. But you know just 'cause you were born here, you will never fully master the ghost powers your infant body adsorbed. Sooner or later you will fall." The floor started to give way beneath her and she started to run, but ended up trapped against a wall with the floor giving away behind her. She pressed firmly against the wall, her fear of heights clearly visible on her face.
Meanwhile, Ryan walked into a one of the rooms from his hall and found a girl lying in the corner of the room. He ran to her, thinking it was Beetlejuice's Lydia, but when he rolled her over he saw it was Eris, beaten and bloody. Her eyes shot open causing Ryan to jump and fall back. Tears were in his eyes seeing his breather, his love so hurt.
"Ryan, this is all your fault. You were supposed to keep me safe, but you let the Boogieman get me," she cried to him, and then started to yell. "I HATE YOU! I wish you never showed up at my door!"
If his heart had been beating, it would have stopped for sure. Eris then rose to her feet and stabbed two sharp fingers through the pyro-ghost's shirt and into his stab wound, causing him to collapse farther to the floor.
Nights had entered an area with a full sized mirror along the wall. As she passed the mirror, something strange caught her eye. She stopped, looking at the mirror, and let out a scream, her eyes bugging out and her pony tail standing straight out. Her eyes studied her reflection. She was bald-all of her beautiful blond hair was gone. She wanted to cry. The female poltergeist reached for her head and felt her hair, grabbing a strand to pull it over her shoulder, looking at it…then her eyes narrowed. "Boogie."
The reflection smiled evilly at her. "You worthless traitor." Then it jumped from the mirror, tackling her to the ground.
Back with Cassie, the feeling she was going to fall made her by instinct stomp down in front of her to get her balance, finding the empty space in front of her was solid. She heard it yelp in pain under her purple heal. Smirking, Cassie pulled her sword but when she stabbed it into the floor, the empty space quickly retreated so not to get stabbed. "Nice try, Boogie."
Ryan still lay on the floor as Eris pulled her fingers from his chest. Just then, Ryan's eye caught something. Her fingers were a burnt orange and her nails were black like onyx. "Hey, how about a hot foot, Boogieman," he gasped, still in a bit of pain, as the floor beneath Boogie-Eris turned red hot making her jump like a flea and returning to Boogieman form. Ryan rose to his feet. "You're getting sloppy in your old age." He then blew fire at the Boogie double, making him slam into the wall. The Boogie double disappeared with a hiss.
Nightshade was still fighting with her Boogie double who was still in her bald form by the time Ryan and Cassie found her. Nights was getting feed up with this fight already. "Ok, enough of this cat and mouse game." She then turned into a black and red cat while the Boogie double turned to a little burnt orange mouse. Nights hissed at the mouse and chased it till it finally got away through a small hole. She then turned to her true form, walking back over to the others. "Come on, we got to find B. He has a hard time overcoming his fears. He will either freeze up or go to pieces on us." They went to go find their friend.
Beetlejuice was having no luck finding Lydia or the Boogieman. It was like Boogie was leaving him alone. It started to make him wonder what the others came across or if they found anything at all. Room after room he checked was empty. "Damn it! Where the fuck are they? This is going to make me blow my top." The top of his head blew up, and then reformed itself. He then heard something. It sounded like muffled yells. He decided it was best to float to the door to be as quiet as possible. Slowly opening the door, he sees Lydia hanging there. He finally found her, but no Boogie anywhere. Beetle could just grab her and run. When he entered the room and started to make his way to her, a huge Sandworm busted out of the floor. Beetlejuice's eyes went wide as he screamed in terror. "AHHHHHHHHHH! SANDWORM!" Just like Nightshade knew he would, he fell to pieces. Literally.
The Boogieman had planned this. He wanted Beetlejuice to be the one to find her, so he left him alone while he delayed the others with their own fears. He would now destroy the ghost who turned him into the police.
Beetle starred up at the giant ghost eating monster, the inner head coming out of its protective covering. His body parts shook as he lay in a pile on the floor. That was it. It was game over for him. Lydia was doomed. He was doomed. Why did he even need to come and try to find her and rescue her from that demonic thing? There was no profit in it for him. No money. He didn't want to prank her.
He knew being nice to this breather would be the end of him.
The other three finally found him. Nights could only shake her head, seeing her surrogate brother in a pile of limbs on the ground. The sandworm didn't scare the other three; they knew what it really was. Then she got an idea remembering the worry she saw in Beetle's eyes. Something she hadn't seen in them since the night he saved her from Spider. He cared for this girl, which meant the last thing he wanted was to lose her.
"BJ, what are you really scared of more: the sandworm or losing Lydibug? Think about it, B!" she called out to him, making sure he heard her.
Beetlejuice at first couldn't figure out what she meant. Of course sandworms scared the hell out of him! Then he looked over to Lydia hanging there all tied up and gagged. Something snapped in his mind. He cared deeply for her.
More than anyone else before.
He cared about her even more then himself or Nightshade (although not by very much). Then he remembered what he told her about the bond between a ghost and their breather: an unbreakable, deep bond. He realized sandworms weren't his worse fear. It was losing Lydia. He didn't want an afterlife without her in it.
His body parts leapt from the ground as he pulled himself together. He would go up against 100 sandworms to save her (though he hoped it wouldn't come to that) and he would fight this Boogieworm too. "It's Showtime!" he yelled with an evil grin. Nights could almost cheer, but made sure she didn't. Something got through her partner's thick skull.
He made a record player appear. Everyone looked at it, wondering how music was going to help. They didn't think it was time to try the "sooth the savage beast" thing.
As the music played, it revealed the song to be "Hush, Hush, Hush (Here comes the Boogieman)". The sandworm lunged at Beetle, but the poltergeist poofed away just in time and onto the worm's back dressed as a cowboy. "Ride him, Wormboy!" the blond ghost called to himself as the music got louder, calling the Boogieman a coward and a moron in so many words the worm twitched with annoyance and formed back into the Boogieman himself. He hated that song.
Boogie slammed the record player out of the air with a growl. "Phobetor! Get him."
Beetlejuice saw the raven flying at him. Changing his clothes to those of a tennis player, he held a badminton racket in his hand and swatted the evil bird across the room. Returning his clothes to his normal black and white stripes, he headed at Boogie.
"Come on, Boogieman. I'm going to rip that tail off and shove it so far up your ass you can pull it out your nose."
Boogie knew he had to get out of there and attempted to run, but thanks to Ryan, a ring of fire surrounded the swamp demon and poltergeist. There would be no running. Beetlejuice grabbed the Boogieman by the horns from behind, slamming him into the ground. When he went to punch the swamp ghost, his feet were taken from under him by the monster's tail. The fight continued, looking like something you would see in cage fights but more dirty and underhanded by both sides.
The only thing that stopped the fight was the sound of cops outside the shack, and Ryan lowered the flames enough for Beetle to get out before raising them again to trap Boogie inside. They had come to get Lydia, and that's what mattered most. Beetle ran to her, untying and removing the gag. She looked softly up to him. He couldn't help but hug her tight.
"Come on, babes, we got to get you home now so say those magic B words." He stretched his arm, wrapping it around the other three members of the rescue party as the young gothic girl chanted his name. Upon saying it the third time, they all appeared in her bedroom.
Beetle, still hugging her, poofed her outside the front door of the house, now in his Betty form and knocked on the door. He knew he would have to come up with some lie of where she was all day. Delia and Charles answered the door and quickly let them in when they saw Beetle/Betty and Lydia.
"I fell and hit my head so I don't remember much before Betty found me." Lydia was quick to come up with a story. It almost made Beetle/Betty proud. Charles looked at his daughter's head, seeing a bruise under her hair.
"Mr. Deetz, I'll take Lyds up to her room and make sure she is all comfy." Beetle/Betty smiled showing her green teeth.
Charles nodded. "Thank you, Betty. we will call the cops and tell them we found her."
Beetle/Betty took Lydia back to her room where the other three waited. Ryan was looking at a picture of Lydia and Eris.
"It's good to finally meet you, Lydia. Eris talks a lot about you." Lydia looked at him strangely. So did Beetlejuice as he turned back to his normal form. The pyro-ghost explained. "Eris is my breather and I'm her ghost. She kinda thought you would think she was crazy or be hurt if she told you her best friend was a fire ghost."
Lydia hugged Ryan which made him jump some. "Tell her that I have a ghost now, too, and that I miss her."
He smiled softly and returned the hug. "I'll tell her."
Cassie awed at the sweetness, but Nightshade had enough of it for now and was ready to go. "Come on, B, it's time for us to head back home. I got to reopen my shop."
Beetle nodded and went to Lyds. She looked down a bit. "He knew my worse fear was you would hate me. I'm glad we are friends, Beej."
The blond poltergeist smiled, taking out the ring he had tried to put on her finger at their wedding. "Best friends, babes, and this ring will show we will always be there for one another." He slipped it on her right ring finger and smiled at her. Beetlejuice went back over to his other friends and took a hold of them.
Lydia sighed, she was happy to be home, and she chanted his name, sending her four friends back to the Neitherworld. Lydia had would have tons of adventures with Beetle, and Nights would teach her how to make clothes.
AN: Sorry for the long wait but I hope it was worth it. I will do a wedding story for Beetle & Lyds some time soon. Thank you for reading. Please let me know what you think in Reviews.