Chapter 4

Quality Scare

It hadn't been more than a few hours since Josette and her team had secured their base of operation, and all the ghosts had made themselves at home, each finding a place that they would claim as their own spot.

Jabu had found a comfortable place in the café canteen, relaxing over one of the tables, reading an outdated newspaper, while the Gremlin Twitch, hung out by the coffee maker. Swarm, on the other hand, had found a living wasp nest outdoor, that the Horde felt a special kinship with.

Firecracker had his sights set higher, and moved to the top floor, where the only open fireplace in the entire building was located. Lighting a phantasmal fire to sleep in, the Fire Elemental wasn't going anywhere for a while.

Josette also settled down on the top floor, in the largest of the apartments, claiming the bedroom as her personal chamber, while the living room became her 'office'. Placing the map on the table, she studied the layout of the city for a while before retiring to rest and recover.

But once those hours had passed, a green portal opened above the Ghoul Room, and Charles appeared, adjusting his glasses before heading down to meet with the team. Phasing through the roof, he entered the map room.

"Miss Josette? It is me, Charles. Are you here?" he said, announcing himself. Hearing this, Josette entered the room.

"Yes? What can I do for you?"

"You have secured a fine Ghoul Room. Impressive, and a promising start. But, I'm afraid I come bearing bad news. There is a risk that you may not be able to stay here."

"What?! Why not? Is it someone on the Committee that-"

"Please, calm down and listen. While doing additional research on the area, I found evidence of a businessman that has plans on building a shopping-centre in the city, and they are thinking of selling him a large portion of land for that purpose, this area to be precise."

"And we that just barely have settled in here, and now we have to find another base?"

"I'm afraid that might be the case. However, they haven't agreed on everything yet, so until they do, you're safe. I'll keep see what more I can find out about this, see if I can find a way to stop their plans, and if I can not, I will locate another Ghoul Room for you, you have my word on that."

"I suppose there is nothing else we can do then. Thank you."

"There is no use to worry about this now, we'll cross that bridge when we reach it. In the meantime, I have your first mission for you. Normally, I won't deliver it personally, but rather leave a message for you via your book and map, but considering the other news I had, this seemed more appropriate. If you would be so kind to summon your haunters, I'll brief you all on the mission."

A short time later, Josette and her team had gathered in the map room, and Charles began explaining the situation, starting by touching a spot on the map. Shortly after, a piece of the paper rose and unfolded into a small house with a green glow above it.

"The flow of plasm in the city is rather low," he began. "since there is very little unrest among the mortals. That is the main reason of this campaign, and this home is your first target. Inhabited by a family of six, it should be a perfect start to both spread the fear of us and gain some field experience for yourself. The main reason for choosing this particular house, is that there are several restless spirits that, if saved, most likely will join your squad, adding to your forces. When you are ready, simply touch the green light above the map and a portal will open here, but I recommend that you wait until tomorrow night, as dawn will be upon us shortly."

"Understood. We will begin tomorrow then."

"I wish you all the best of luck, and I'll be in touch as soon as I discover anything."

Day came, and the ghosts slept peacefully in their respective places, all except Josette, who spent a fair amount of time thinking about what she had been told, from the danger to the Ghoul Room, to the mission ahead of her, especially the restless spirits trapped in the house. She knew that it wasn't easy for a spirit to be trapped somewhere, and she was familiar with that feeling, both before and after her death.

According to mortals, restless spirits are ghosts of people that can't move on to the afterlife, and they weren't far from the truth, but there was more to it. While those that died had the risk of not being able to move on, it mostly happened to those that had been murdered, betrayed, or had something else that they couldn't leave behind, the reasons were as many as there were people.

But even spirits that had been dead for centuries or longer, even Elementals that weren't even 'alive' to begin with, could become trapped in various ways. Dream catchers and vacuum-cleaners were all too common causes for trapped spirits.

The main worry she had, was that she wouldn't be able to help them, that they would remain trapped. She didn't want to fail them.

Once night came, Josette and her team emerged through the green portal above the house. Their mission was clear; save the trapped spirits and scare away every mortal that lived there. Josette flew ahead to scout the building, and find everyone that were there. According to her handbook, there were six mortals present, the parents and their three children, one of which was in her mid-teens, while the other two were roughly ten, and finally an uncle.

The house had two floors, with all the bedrooms on the top floor, together with a guest room and an office room, while the ground floor had a kitchen, a dining hall and a living room. The youngest of the children were asleep in their rooms, while the teen was still awake and doing something on her computer. The father and uncle sat down in the living room, watching the TV, and the mother was preparing dinner for the next day.

As Josette investigated the house, she saw one of the ghosts that were trapped there. A small jack-o-lantern hovered over the unlit fireplace in the living room, a green ethereal chain binding it to one of the several candle blocks on top of the fireplace. Noticing the rookie Ghost Master, the spirit immediately seemed to become happier and greeted her.

"Hiya, I'm Jack. Yeah, yeah, I know, Jack, Jack-o-lantern, really original, right? But let me tell you, I was Jack before there even was any 'o-lantern'. Maybe you could help me, you see, I got stuck by this candle after I fell asleep one Halloween, and the mortals put out the flame and placed the candle here. Think you can do something about it?"

"That is why we are here. I will see what I can do for you."

"Great! I'll wait, eh, well, here then." Jack said with a wide smile.

Leaving the ghost to find the other restless spirits, Josette noticed that her handbook vibrated for an instant. Opening it, she found a pair of pages that changed before her eyes, text being written and a picture of Jack appearing. The information consisted of what he was, his powers and anything else she could need to know. Except how to help him, that seemed to be something she had to figure out on her own.

Moving up to the second floor, she heard a splash from the office, and curious she went to investigate. Inside the office, she found what one would expect of an office room, a desk, a computer, archives and a water dispenser. Suddenly, the water inside the dispenser moved a little on its own, and a small figure appeared. Vaguely feminine, the small humanoid had webbed hands and feet, a fin-like growth on the head almost resembling a tiara and light blue skin. Just like Jack, she was chained to the water inside the dispenser.

"A Water Elemental."

"Hail, spirit. Please hear the woe of poor Flow. Long has it been since I was trapped by mortals' machines, bottled up inside this foul container, never to be released. I beg of you, please set me free, and I will aid your cause."

"I promise, I will find some way to help you."

"Thank you, kind spirit."

While trying to think of a way to help this spirit as well, Josette left the office, also wondering if there were any more spirits trapped in the area. That question was answered when she reached the guest room, and saw probably one of the strangest ghosts she had ever seen. At first she thought that it was a ghost zombie, but taking a closer look, she saw that that was not the case, it was in fact only a costumed ghost. His bare right foot was a shoe, and the knife through his head was part of the plastic wig he wore, all the tears in his clothes were deliberately made and the wounds were fake, with the exception of the gunshot wound where his right eye should be. It seemed like he was chained the room itself.

'This should be interesting' she thought as she approached the ghost. Seeing her, he wasted no time telling his tale.

"All my life, I've been haunted by bad luck, and when things finally look up for me, bang, I'm dead. Happened right outside this house too, and now I'm a ghost stuck here. I tried to scare people, since I looked the part, both before and after my death, but they can't even see me, just my luck. I guess I just don't have the power to do anything."

That sounded like an easy enough problem to solve for Josette. She could allow him to tap into the plasm that they used to get the energy he needed for his powers, that should allow him to be able to scare someone. But at the moment, the amount of plasm was so low, that even her own team would have a hard time to use their powers. They would have to start small, use the less powerful abilities and soften up the mortals, building up more plasm slowly but steady, eventually they would be able to go all out and send the family fleeing in terror.

Promising to help him, Josette then returned to her team to think out a plan. She then sent her team to various areas of the house, to start the haunting for real, but they had to be quick, if the mortals started to calm down too much, the plasm would start to falter and dry up.

Twitch zipped into the kitchen, all the electrical appliances there would allow the hyper rodent to work wonders. Choosing the oven as his fetter, he used his Spark power to start things off, causing the machine spark violently with blue electricity. This sudden event caught the attention of the mother just as she was about to leave, and just as sudden as the sparks had started, they stopped. Curious, the mortal woman walked over to the oven to investigate, and that's when Twitch unleashed his favourite power, Wild and Crazy.

Without any warning, every electronic device went berserk. The fridge and freezer opened their doors and threw out food a plenty, while the oven constantly opened and closed, smaller appliances jumped around on the benches and the radio broadcasted all the different stations at once, resulting in chaos in the kitchen, and the woman running screaming out of it.

The screams alerted both the father and uncle, and shortly the woman ran into the living room. But before any of the men could ask what had happened, they all heard a loud moan echoing in the room, followed by a swarm of wasps appeared from underneath the couch and the lights going out.

The Wisp Jack watched amused as the haunters assailed the unprepared mortals, and he could feel how their terror generated more plasm for them to use, and while he was still trapped, he could use his own powers to some extent. Deciding to pitch in, he tapped into the plasm and powered up his Human Torch. The fire within him flared up, and the uncle burst into flames without any kind of warning. Too shocked and terrified to even notice that the fire wasn't hurting in any way, the man ran out of the house, throwing himself on the ground and started rolling to put out the flames.

Laughing as he enjoyed his handiwork, Jack gave up the plasm that he occupied, so that the others could use it, even though the amount of plasm had increased to good levels. Shortly after, he noticed that Firecracker gathered a rather large amount of power and unleashed his Bonfire, setting the entire living room ablaze, which proved more than the mortal couple could take, as they left the room in a hurry, going to the second floor to gather their children. But that was not the only thing that happened. As the fire ignited everything, and lit the candles, the chain binding Jack snapped and faded away.

"Oh yeah! Now this really brightens my day! I owe you big time for this, so you just tell me what to do. This is gonna be fun!" Jack cheered as he was freed, falling in line with the rest of the crew. Josette was pleased to welcome the new addition to her team, and directed most of them upstairs. While it was very likely that the parents would flee the house with their family, she couldn't let them leave yet, they were still needed to free Bobby, and possibly Flow as well.

Jabu and Swarm were the first to move to the second floor, to start work on the children and keep the parents at bay. Swarm occupied the hallway with the stairs, the army of insects forcing the parents back down, while Jabu went after the first of the children. They were already awake from the sounds downstairs, and Jabu wasted no time using his Kinesis in the room of one of them, causing every little toy to fly around, scaring the ten year old quite a lot.

Meanwhile, Josette had discovered a handy feature of her handbook; by having the page of a Haunter open, she could communicate telepathically with said Haunter. She wasn't sure how she had managed to miss that, but at the time she didn't care, it was an advantage that she would use to the fullest of her abilities. Checking the powers of the still trapped Bobby, she concentrated and sent him a message.

"Bobby, can you hear me?"

"Yeah, I don't know how, but yeah."

"Do you know how to use your powers?"

"Uh… I guess so."

"Then tap into our plasm supply and use Hidden Maze, that should cause someone to arrive at you. Also, use Fascinate to draw in the mortals even more, once someone's there, hit them with Spooky Surprise."

Bobby wasn't sure if he could manage what she wanted him to do, but he tried his best. Feeling the power build up inside, he activated the first one, Hidden Maze, and somewhere in one of the house's doorways, a swirling blue portal opened, only visible to ghosts. Any and all mortals who passed through the portal, would be instantly teleported to the doorway leading to the room where Bobby was.

In the teenage girl's room, she had only now noticed that something strange was happening, having been completely absorbed in the social media on her computer, and for no reason, she felt drawn to the guest room, but she resisted the urge to go there. That was when Jack struck, binding himself to the computer and using his Brief Scare, he popped out of the screen, completely visible.

"Boo!" he shouted, scaring the girl so she fell of her chair. Suddenly, the guest room felt like a good place to hide, and she hurried to the door once he got back on her feet, but as soon as she stepped through the door, she immediately found herself in the guest room. Had she been a ghost, she would have seen the blue portal in the doorway, but as it was, she had no idea of how she got there, and she never had the chance to figure it out, as a zombie-like creature appeared before her, hovering over the floor. With a quick motion, Bobby pulled off his head, holding it in front of himself.

That was more than the young girl could handle, and she ran as quick as she possibly could, down to the bottom-floor, out of the house and as far away as she could get from the horror she had seen.

Back in the guest room, the chain that bond Bobby to the room broke, and he was free.

"Whoa! I didn't even know I could do that! Guess I've finally found my life's calling, or death's, I don't know, doesn't matter. Lead the way."

With both Jack and Bobby free, that left only Flow to be rescued, but Josette wasn't sure how. Going back to the office where the Elemental was, she tried to think of a way to free the poor spirit. She was thinking of letting Jabu try using his Kinesis to break the bottle, but then she noticed something about the dispenser, it was a modern one, with electronics, and now the answer was as clear as day.

"Twitch, I need your help in the office." she said telepathically, and the small Gremlin replied with several squeaks before hurrying to her side. Once there, he received his orders and bound himself to the computer, unleashing his Wild and Crazy, and every device went nuts, including the water dispenser, which started to empty itself of all its water. Soon, the floor was pretty much flooded, and Flow was free.

"Again may I follow the currents wherever they may lead. From the core of my essence, I thank you, kind spirit, for giving me back my freedom. I am forever in your debt."

"You owe me nothing, I am just glad that I could help. But if you want to help, then I will gladly accept it."

"Then I am at your service. Again, thank you, kind spirit."

"Now, let us deal with the remaining mortals, and we can be off."

That was a far easier task than Josette had expected at that time, since the rest of her team and continued to harass the mortals. Bobby and Jabu had been able to send the mother, and the remaining two children, screaming into the night, only by appearing in front of them. The father was a little tougher, but not enough to withstand the constant barrage of ghostly powers from Firecracker and Twitch, who had joined the Fire Elemental after helping Josette, and it wasn't long before he too fled the house in terror. Meanwhile, the uncle had finally worked up the courage to enter the house again, only to be met by a swarm of angry wasps, forcing him out again. Swarm continued to chase him around, and it wasn't long before Jack joined the fray, setting the man on fire again, and sending him running into the dark night like a living torch.

With all the mortals scared away, the mission objective was complete, and a portal opened above the house. The ghosts felt a pull from it and knew that it was time for them to return to the Ghoul Room together with the new members. Josette felt both proud and happy that they had been successful with their first mission, and even more that they had been able to help the restless spirits.

Once they exited the portal, Josette's hand book vibrated a bit. After opening it, she found a page that stated that she had earned Gold Plasm as reward for successfully completing the mission, along with a lot of statistics of her performance. Gold Plasm was rewarded to Ghost Masters, and was used as a form of currency that they can pay for new powers to their Haunters. Glancing over everything on the page, Josette would check what she could teach her team later, right now, they had all earned a rest.

The new additions to the team quickly found a place of their own in the Ghoul Room. Flow made her home in the shower in an apartment on the third floor, while Bobby had found a stuffed ferret that he seemed to like being near on the fourth floor. And Jack kept himself outdoors, near the old electric sign belonging to the café.

With seven Haunters on the team, things were looking good for Josette and her team, and after their victory, belief of the supernatural would start to spread little by little, but they still had a lot to do before their campaign would be successful.

And that ends their first real mission, quite a success if you ask me. But there appears to be danger ahead, as their base may not be theirs for much longer. Check in next time for more. Happy Halloween!

Also, check my Deiantart page for new pictures of the new team members, will be up in the near future.