LAST EPISODE: Daisuke and Star took in a movie, with rather poor previews. You tried to take it up with the staff, but they were otherwise engaged. As usual, debate regarding religious topics got heated, things were said, windows were broken, and Star was asked to come and see some different viewpoints. Daisuke, was detained, having a health-focused discussion with a young girl. He's back on the right side of Reality now, and ready to ruin more people's lives!
EPISODE SIX: KILLING THE VIDEO STAR!
"So," You ask. "How are we following Akira?"
"Sana's scooter." Sato says pointing. "I think it can take three."
You see a blue vespa...a blue vespa that's seen better days and that's had a home-done paint repair job in places and a stitched seat.
You can probably seat three on it...but you have the feeling that you'd be beat by walking old women, in terms of speed. Also, that you three will be QUITE close.
"Sana, can you go back to the Dumpling factory?" You say as you take her helmet out of her hands. "In case Akira got lucky and goes back there with Star."
"Someone should also call the cops, P-COC, and Central." Sato says.
"Money." Sana says.
"Huh?" You and Sato ask.
"For the train, morons. And if there's a SCRATCH on my vespa, you will know such terrors that only a Ghostbuster Administrative Assistant can create!" She says.
The two of you fork over the money, and Sana walks away grumbling.
"How's your driving?" You ask.
"Eh." Sato says. "What about you?"
"Not great." You admit.
"Alright, I'll give it a shot. Oh, your pack is in the bag." He points to a big duffle bag, you unzip it and strap on your proton pack.
"We're going against people though...what does this thing do?" You ask.
"You'll want to stick to the slime blower or," Sato says as he start up the vespa and follows Akira's trail of destruction. "If you don't mind the smell you could use the boson dart. NOT the pulse. Use the pulse and we have a lawsuit."
"What does the boson dart do?" You ask, a little wary.
"Prolapse." Sato shudders.
"What?!" You ask, slightly horrified.
"Oh, hang on, we're going through a series of backyards." Sato says.
It's a very VERY bumpy ride, but you manage to follow at a pretty steady clip.
Eventually you see the shape of YOMI-1. You've arrived at another area of Tokyo that's been seeing tough times. Empty stores and slummy buildings are present, and there's more than a few homeless people pan handling. It's pretty clear a couple of them are on drugs. You feel a little sense of community pride, seeing as the Reject Zone isn't SO bad off that there's OBVIOUS signs of drug use there.
...you know if you had just kept your mouth shut you'd probably be half-way into getting some nurse-in-training's skirt off...
Not driving a dented vespa through bad neighborhoods towards a large white (but labeled) van with a mysterious box on your back.
Life's funny that way.
There's a man standing there waiting for you.
It's not Akira.
He's dressed in a white button down shirt, black pants, and...apparently has a towel on his head. It looks like something he stole from a hotel.
He holds up a hand and the pair of you stop about 30 feet from the van. "If you wish to see your associates in wretchedness again, you will stop, remove those profane devices and leave them there. You can then approach us and we will talk."
You step off the Vespa and charge your pack and point it at the guy.
"One: we're not stupid. Two: I'm pointing something INCREDIBLY dangerous right at you." You say.
The man takes a step back. You see that 'man' is kind of a loose word. He's older, yeah, but you doubt that he can be called an adult.
"And finally, we want to see our friends. NOW." You snap. "Or else you have a VERY bad day."
"Umm..." The dishcloth-head guy says. "Be cool, okay? Be cool!" He bangs on YOMI's side, and the door slides open. Five people in white shirts and black pants get out. You see Akira inside. Bound, gagged, and a little bloody and bruised. He's trying to get free and giving muffled screams and swears. You see more than a few broken noses and black eyes on the cultists.
"Okay, that's one of them. The other one is inside our Sanctuary."
"Get her outside then." Sato says. "And then give us our van back, and we'll go."
"We know what you are." The man says. "Ghostbusters."
"Yeah, yeah. We know." You say. "Con art-"
"Godkillers! Heretics! Defilers of the Otherworld." He snaps.
"Okay." You say. "That's different."
"Well...it's nice to be recognized." Sato says with a shrug.
"What do we need to do to get our friend back?" You say.
A pause as they all talk among themselves for a while.
"Accept our Lady's Blessing and make a Copy of her Blessing. We will ensure that it is spread, as is Her will." He nods. "We will see that as sufficient. Otherwise, we will expose your fellow Ghostbuster to Her Blessing...and destroy the tape used. Thus, dooming her."
"Is that building behind you your place?" You ask.
"Yes." Dishcloth says.
"Okay, then this is my counteroffer. You all run away, leaving our friend and our property behind, or this!"
You shoot a beam at a window. It explodes into a shower of shards and sparks.
"You didn't pick a dumpster or a tree?" Sato says.
"Wanted something showy, and trees could cause a fire." You say.
The cult looks at the settling glass and then at each other. Three of them take off running down the road.
There's just Dishcloth, the guy standing by Akira, and one girl. The girl has the 'psycho eyes,' no question.
"LADY SADAKO! HELP US! WE BESEECH YOU!" She screams up at the heavens.
Nothing happens.
"Huh." Sato says. "So..." He charges up his pack.
The girl takes a step back.
"You CAN'T give INTO them!" The girl says. "This is a TEST of our FAITH!"
You see Akira's arms shift. It's clear that he got his arms loose. His eyes are set for murder...or a close proximity.
You take a moment to look at Sato.
"Hose em!"
You shout.
Sato turns on the slime net, just as you do.
Akira rises up and grapples with the cultist that was watching him, screaming through his gag.
You only get a little slime on Dishtowel, and Akira's in a dead lock with his guy.
Crazy Girl dodges Sato's slime and stumbles back, and she looks at the side mirror of YOMI-1.
Her face breaks out into a giant smile. "SHE HAS HEARD! SHE COMES!"
"WHAT?!" All the others yell.
"Yes! Yes!" She points at the mirror, the broken glass on the ground, and she twirls around. "I can FEEL her! Oh, this is SO much better than just the hallucinations...her love FEELS so GOOD!"
"Goggles on!" You say. "Slime the mirror and the glass and... well anything reflective!"
"IM NT CLNING TH VN!" Akira shouts through his gag as he pushes the man aside to get his goggles and pack that are in the back of the van.
The cultists are...well they look like they're in the middle of a drug high. The men look terrified, and dishtowel says 'Not...today...made...copy...'
Either way both men's skin is starting to grow pale and they're sweating.
The girl is having a different reaction. She's got her head rolled back in ecstasy, and small little bumps are appearing all over her face. "I knew it! I knew swapping tapes with Kyrie would be the KEY! You could have claimed us at any time! THANK YOU! THANK Y-WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!" She says as you cover the last mirror of YOMI-1 with slime. "STOP!"
She lunges at you.
You hose the girl in a deluge of slime, and she slips and falls flat on her face.
Sato and Akira hose the other two men as well, just for safety's sake. Akira then punches the guy who was holding him and gags him, as well as the girl.
"Is...is she gone?" Dishtowel asks.
"There's a lot of windows, but they're pretty dirty. So, I think you got a reprieve. Now, where's Star?" You snap.
"Inside, third floor...please don't make us go in there! It's full of old TVs!" He begs.
"Great, next time let's fight her in an electronics shop." Akira says. "Or how about in the scramble. She can come out of the 109's screen and be 50 feet tall!"
"Well...there's franchise precedent for those kind of creatures." Sato says.
Akira glares at Sato and he shrugs.
"Fuck me man..." Dishtowel groans. "This wasn't supposed to go like this." He slumps down next to his fellow members. "You just see weird shit, get high, and fuck crazy girls like this." He nods at her. "How the fuck were we supposed to know that they'd take this 'Our Lady' shit seriously?"
"So... you don't worship the ghost girl?" Sato says.
"Fuck no, man. She KILLS people. But you can get REALLY fucked up while she messes with your head, and there's no needles or dealers or shit like that." He shrugs. "Nearly everyone in the Ring's a NEET. Not like we have much else left."
"So how did the whole 'Our Lady' thing start?" You ask.
He shrugs. "I think it was Toshi or Hiro, I dunno. Chicks don't fuck junkies, but a High Holy Keeper of Our Lady's Blessing?" He grins. "More tail then when I was even in flight school."
"What's your name oh great "keeper?" And where's Star?" Sato asks.
"Enenra Ichiro." He says. "This got so fucked up. She's inside, third floor. Here." He fishes out a key and holds it out. "We just tied her up."
"You didn't show her Her Lady's Blessing or whatever it is?" Akira asks.
"Fuck no! That shit kills people!"
You take the key.
"Akira, watch them. If they try anything..."
"Prolapse." Akira says. "It's not a problem."
You go inside the building. It's a flop house. The third floor is a little better. It has an actually locked and intact door, and a 'wreath' made out of video tape on it.
"We always go to the nicest places." Sato says.
You open the door. The place is...well...it's a 'Temple of Infinite Knowledge' created by people who've only seen movies about the American '60s. Bean bag chairs, mattresses on the ground, the only difference is that there's a black and white color scheme, old busted TVs everywhere, and art that's come from the 'black crayon scribble' collection.
Also a couple of bongs, snack food wrappers, and condoms.
Star is on a mattress tied up and gagged with duct tape. She's trying to gnaw herself free, which is harder that it looks apparently. She perks up at your arrival.
"Hey. You okay?" You ask as you untie her.
"Pleh." She spits out her tongue for a bit and then looks at you and grins. "Aren't you a little short for a Ghostbuster?"
You roll your eyes. "Wasn't that the 70s?"
"Classics are for the ages." She grins.
"You okay?" Sato asks.
"Yeah, you guys?"
"Akira's a bit banged up, but nothing bad." You say.
"Okay, now tell me that there's at least one of those three crazy girls left alive, because I REALLY want to hurt something right now!"
You take out your PKE meter.
There's a BIG spike at a pile of what look like old VHS tapes. It's a Blue/Red reading, so it's dangerous but not hostile. They're all dated and have names, a few have COPY written on it.
From what you can tell, the brain trust that dwelled here had one person watch the tape, and then after six days, they'd make a copy of the tape. The next person would watch, and so on, until they'd go back and the guy who watched the earliest tape would watch the new one.
"So these morons were doing the ghost equivalent of sharing needles?" Star asks.
"Maybe, apparently they get euphoric effects from the hallucinations that the spirit invokes." Sato says.
"Which might be two spirits...or three." You say. You explain to the pair what you heard from the girl.
"Well..." Sato taps his nose. "A fractured spirit with an 'innocent' self is NOT an unheard of scenario. It's in the handbook. But...the Ghost of the Smallpox virus?"
"Really? We have this kind of job and THAT'S what you're questioning?" Star says.
"True." He shrugs. "Alright, so...let me check if there's anything on ghost diseases." He flips through the handbook.
"Okay, found some Crazy Journals." Star says, as you start to spray Slime over the tapes. "It's from one of the three girls here. They were REALLY into this."
"Which the men made up just so they'd look mysterious, in order to score tail." You say.
"Well, the girls believed..."
"Wait...three?" Sato says. "Did you see them?"
"Yeah. One that grabbed us back in the alley. The other two were here and ran out to fight Akira." Star says. "And... yeah, they believed it and from this I'm thinking that one was either PKE sensitive or a PKE Manipulator."
"What?" You ask.
"A proper term for 'psychic' that Central has us use." Sato says.
"Start with the disease." You say as you bag one of the tapes for later examination. Since the rest are dangerous, they needed to be slimed. At the very least, your asses are now covered by legal.
"Alright...there's a few case by case examples. But there's good news, it's transmission vector has to be from the Source itself." Sato says. "It can't jump from person to person without the entity's will present."
"So, just being near an infected person, or being in this room won't infect us?" Star asks.
"No, no the ghost actively has to GIVE you the disease, and when we bust this one, all of it should disappear, since the PKE source will be severed." He nods. "But..." He holds up a hand. "That's not a reason not to panic, for example, if a ghost can spread a PKE Miasma fog over an area, everyone in that area WILL be infected. So, it CAN be airborne.
"Also, anyone croaks to the disease...oh dear...it powers the Ghost spreading the disease. Dr. Stanz wrote about seeing a collection of trapped spirits. 'They were there, like an endless field of seaweed, all floating there, in the dark.' He can be very poetic."
"Floating? Heh, next person who makes a King reference gets smacked." A pause. "No one? Really?"
You and Sato shrug.
"Uncultured jackasses." Star says. "Alright, well the journals are a more basic story. Three girls, lives are in the shit, they come here because it's warm, weed and food are free, and these guys don't ask for rough sex." She shrugs. "As they get deeper into it, the PKE sensitive girl starts to get visions from the Entity."
"Which one?" You ask. "The little girl, the nasty girl, or the Smallpox virus?"
"I think all three, she didn't realize they were different." Star says. "Well...they ARE the same one, but that's irrelevant.
"So the ghost is sick of just being spread in a circle among the same people. It wants to spread out, so the girls find some more people to lure into the group.
This works, but it's not enough." Star says. "They go further and further...and then they got some people that freaked out and ran, taking the DVD they were infected on with them.
"The journals end there, but I think we can guess what happened."
"Those two were the ones who put that tape in the movie theater." You say. "You think that was them, or were they influenced by the Ghost?"
Sato shrugs. "Does it matter? We've got a week to get the Entity in a box."
You hear sirens and see flashing lights from outside.
"Up, looks like Sana's back-up has arrived." Sato says.
You do a final scan of the area.
You get a weak PKE spike from something under this pile of crazy drawings. It's just a black circle over and over and over again...and underneath we get the source of the two blue reading.
A rock.
It's about as big as a baseball.
Well, you've been in this job too long, and the Handbook says that rocks are ESPECIALLY important. Never underestimate a rock.
You bag it.
"Okay, we can go." You say.
"I certainly hope so." A new voice says.
A man about your age is standing at the doorway. He's dressed in a suit, and has a nice silver tie, small round glasses, and a look as if he's got a small forest of rods jammed up his ass.
"I am Rao Yasuo." He says, showing a badge. "Field Agent for P-COC. This area is safe for human presence. It has no lingering dangers of any source, physical, psychic, memetic, or other?"
"No." Star says.
"Very well. Please report downstairs for cleansing and debrie-"
"Uh, no we don't. Ghostbusters are Grandfathered past that certification." Sato says. "We're supposed to just clear the site and go."
Yasuo takes out his own handbook and flips. He nods. "I see, very well. Please vacate the premises at once."
"Gladly." You say.
"Hold." He says when you walk by him. He hands you a slip of paper. "That's your violation ticket for entering a known paranormal site without informing the neighbors."
"The neighbors are meth addicts passed out in their own vomit." You say.
"They still have a right to know that people are poking around, possibly summoning up ancient beings of incomprehensible terror." Yasuo says. "Also, sir, I feel that the editorials about you were unfounded and hyperbole. You are an upstanding citizen; I wish you had picked a better organization when entering this field."
You take the ticket and look for any sarcasm in his eyes. There's none. "Thank you." You say.
"Just ensure that you follow protocol next time." Yasuo says.
People in Hazmat suits go up as you come down.
Akira is waiting for you down at YOMI-1. He jerks his head over to a group of policemen filling out reports with other people in silver ties, Yasuo's men probably.
You see the two male 'cultists' sitting on the sidewalk. The girl is being loaded into an ambulance. Her stretcher has a plastic quarantine 'bubble' around it.
"The stiff with the Silver Tie didn't even blink when I told him she was possibly infectious. Jumped right on it and had a guy call CDC." He shrugs. "Anyway, the two idiots are going away, if you want to get any more information out of them...do it quick."
"Oh shit." Star says. "Where's the third one?"
"What?" Sato asks.
"The third girl...one died back in the alley, the other one's there...we're missing one." She says.
You run up to the cultists.
"The third girl, where is she?" You snap.
"What?"
"There was a girl in the alley, and a girl here. Where's the last one? Tell me or so help me I will show you all what REAL pain is! And THEN I'll give you to P-COC!" You snap.
"Kyrie was upset about the movie thing. She kept going on and on about how 'Her Children were Ignorant and Alone.' Look man, Kyrie...crazy in bed but she kinda scared us. She took the 'cult' thing WAY too far, using all the weed money on that new place."
"What new place?"
"I dunno, some place in Nerima. Said she got the place cheap." He sniffs. "Said that the 'new flock should incubate in a better garden' or some weird shit."
"It was Shinjuku not Nerima."
"No...no, both are wrong. It was Shibuya. Right, Nerima's where we got that sweet weed."
"It was Shinjuku!"
"No, it was Shibuya...dude...are we going to jail?"
You shudder. How close were you to getting to THIS level? You walk away from the idiots.
"She's going to try and find the people from the movie that've been infected and continue the cult." You say. "She's got a base in Shibuya of Shinjuku...don't know which."
The other two men look at Star. "Hey, I don't know all of them. I can contact a few, see what I can get."
"Alright," you say. "We should tell Yasuo this as well. Don't want to get fined." You wave the ticket.
Akira takes it from you and grins. "Central has a wall COVERED in these things. Nice to know we've started ours."
You inform Yasuo, and he agrees that the areas need to be searched. He also says that he has no desire, whatsoever, to keep you in the loop, you're still an independent organization.
You drive home. YOMI-1 needs to be cleaned, and you've got that tape and the rock to research.
"You know...it's funny." Sato says to you, as Akira drives and Star looks for the perfect 'Yes' song to play.
"What is?" You ask.
"Yasuo...that's the name of Oiwa's big brother. He tries to save her soul in some of the stories."
"Does he succeed?" You ask.
"Depends on the story." Sato says. "I'd say it's a weird coincidence, since his boss is 'Lady' Une, the name of the woman who Oiwa was killed for. But in this job..." He sighs. "And not to mention that weird shit with that thing in the restaurant." He grins and looks at you. "This is much better than med school, right?"
You just glare at him.