Chapter 9: The Comeback
"Two weeks, two weeks! It would've been fine if we lived anywhere else, but this is Amity Park. We have reports on about the ghosts, the Fenton's, and let's not forget our town hero, up to our knees. If he tries to skip another week, I'm gonna wring his neck. I swear I will and don't you dare try to stop me."
"I should've stayed home." I tried tuning Lilith's ranting out.
O picked up a card and sighed. "You and me both."
K slammed his his deck down with a smirk. "Four aces."
O and I grumbled in defeat.
"What are you whining about? I'm the one losing money, all you lost was your afternoon to go on a date." O pulled out his wallet and took out a twenty.
"Not just any date, but a date at L'escargot." I folded my arms.
O laughed. "What? Shouldn't girls be all happy when their boyfriends take them somewhere fancy?"
"First of all we're not official,"I corrected, "and second of all...I'm meeting his parents." I glared at K who was looking sheepishly.
"His parents?" O sounded hurt. "I only got to met his sister."
"You have a sister?" I questioned.
K scratched the back of his neck. "Yeah, sorry I didn't tell you. But, to be fair, you never talk about your family."
I froze, sudden memories of my family rushed through my head, thoughts of never seeing them again, and regret for barely staying in contact with most of them.
Holding myself, I gave a shaky sigh. "I...my family is bit of a touchy subject."
I felt bad for not telling K the truth, but what was I supposed to tell him? 'Hey, I don't talk about my family because I'm from another world!' or 'Because you're a cartoon character, you'll never met my family!' Both sounded insane and could get me to the loony bin or Guys In White HQ for a possible ghost possession.
"I hear ya'," O spoke up, "haven't spoke to my old man in ten years."
"Talking like that makes you sound old." I snorted.
"I'm only twenty-nine!" O shouted. "My baldness has nothing to do with my age!" He covered his head.
"I didn't say a thing about you being bald!" I felt a burst of laughter fighting it's way through. Noticing K gingerly touching his own head, I burst into laughter.
"It's seems I arrived at a bad moment."
Everyone in the build froze. Lilith stopped her ranting, K and O stopped grabbing their heads, and I stopped laughing. Slowly turning around, we all see Vlad Master standing at the entrance. His eyes looked darker, he wore a red suit, and as he walked up to Lilith's desk, a red ribbon held his ponytail. He actually looked like an evil villain and not like a bitter old man with mounds of money.
"According to all your deathly messages Lilith, I have an abundance of paperwork to get started on." Vlad calming spoke.
Lilith regained her posture and snarled. "You darn right you do."
As she pulled opened a file cabinet, Vlad turned around to face the rest of us. "I heard about your...courting, Ms. Velia and K." I noticed a strain in his voice when he mentioned K. "I wish the best for the both of you."
"Thank you sir." K nodded.
"Well, here's some of it." Lilith slammed down a huge pile of papers. "I'll send the rest to your office with Velia."
"I'll be looking forward to it." Vlad bitterly muttered. Taking the stack, he walked to his office with ease.
The tension in the room stayed. I wondered why Vlad didn't sound so happy about me and K dating. Or was it K in general? Did he hear about K punching Russell and was dealing with legal problems? But if it was about Russell, K would've told me. Right?
"So, the mayor's new look." O finally broke the ice. "What do you think he was aiming for?"
"Two weeks ago, I would've said 'Tryin` ta` woo Velia`, but that ain't happening." Lilith was sorting out files after files, I could already feel the paper cuts.
"Oh yeah, the whole Mayor Masters and Velia thing. Kinda makes you glad that wasn't true, huh K?" O jokingly nudged K. K blushed and nudged his partner back.
Suddenly K was pushed out of his seat. "What the?" O raised his hands up in innocence.
"Stop acting like idiots and someone go get us some coffee." Lilith pushed a pile of papers forward. "Velia, go give these to Vlad."
Groaning, I picked up the papers off the desk. O dashed out the door for the coffees and K opened the office door for me. "Thanks." K nodded as he closed the door behind me.
Vlad was at his desk staring at me. Swallowing, I held up the pile. "Here're the papers Lilith promised." I laughed nervously.
"Put them to the side." He pointed a pen on his desk. As I walked towards him, a clone sprouted from him. I froze as I saw it walked across the room to grab another chair. The double placed the chair in front of the empty space of the desk. "I'm waiting." The clone impatiently clicked a pen in his hand.
Finally putting the papers down, I noticed something missing. "Where's the picture?" I wondered out loud.
"What picture?" Both Vlad's questioned.
I flushed in embarrassment as I noticed what I said outloud. "Oh, um...the picture. You know, the one that's always on your desk."
"Oh that," he said nonchalantly waving his hand, "I threw it away."
My was blown away with questions. Why would he throw away a picture of Maddie? Wasn't he still in love with her? Did his transformation cause him to stop obsessing over Maddie? If so, was my 'mission' complete? Was it almost time for me and my friends to go home?
"Ms. Velia," Vlad's voice snapped me back to reality, "is there something you need?"
"Oh," I blushed, completely forgetting where I was. "Sorry, I was, um, thinking."
"About?" His clone was quickly putting files away, as he sat at his desk.
My mind went back to what O was saying earlier. "I was, uh, wondering why the change of look." I forced a smile on my face, hoping he bought it.
"Is it…a bad look?" He pulled at his jacket anxiously.
I looked at him shocked. Was he really worried about how he looked? "I think you look nice, but honestly...I liked your old look better."
Vlad looked at me with a blank on his face before smiling. A beep from his desk got him frowning, a screen popped from his desk and he groaned. "Lilith is at the door with another pile."
I snorted. "Yeah, she told me she'll have you workin' all week to finish it all."
The door slammed opened as Lilith stomped in. "Velia, go get the other pile off my desk." She dropped the pile she had on Vlad's desk. "And you, " she jabbed a finger to his face, "one of your ghost powers better be cloning because it'll take you a long time to finish this."
"Did someone say ghost?" K's head popped in.
"No!" All three of us yelled.
K jumped and ducked out of the office.
"Velia," Lilith said glaring at Vlad, "go get the other pile, I need to have a word with the mayor."
I rushed out of the room before she started yelling, or whatever punishment she was planing. Heading to her desk, I noticed a note next to pile. Picking it up, I felt my heart sink
Your mission is far from over
-C
I felt like screaming, he could leave me about it, the mission, being over, or not, but tell me what it is. All I knew was that I had to be Vlad's secretary's assistant, nothing else. Crumpling up the paper, I threw it in the trash.
"Something wrong?"
I turned around to see K's brow scrunched worriedly.
"It's nothing." I grabbed the papers and flinched as I felt a paper cut. Storming to Vlad's office I opened the door to see a very frustrated Vlad and smug Lilith. "Did I miss something?"
"We're getting a raise." Lilith hummed.
I raised a brow at that. I was thinking we'll probably be getting a ten percent raise, maybe twenty since Vlad is rich.
"How does double of what you're making sound like." Lilith smirked.
My jaw dropped. Double? Me and the girls were saving money to move into a bigger apartment and double the wage meant moving sooner. But, why would Vlad double our wages just like that?
Lilith walked past me as she exit the office.
"Blackmailing." Vlad said outloud. "She's blackmailing me to double your wages." He sighed as he made multiple clones. "It won't affect me financially, but I would've gladly given you all raises because of what you all went through. Those reporters must've done a number to you all, especially you Ms. Velia."
I paled at the way he looked at me, but there was no way. He was obsessed with Maddie,I mean he even named his cat after her! Then again, he did just throw her picture away.
"Ms. Velia, you know about my ghostly counter-path?" I nodded. "You as well remember what happened when I fell...ill." I nodded again. "I should tell you that, that was no illness, but...an evolution of the sort. All ghosts go through an evolution to unlock their true potential, but it's only unlocked if they meet another ghost with similar traits. Do you mind explaining yourself?"
My eyes grew wide. Me, a ghost? Last time I checked I was human. "But I'm not a ghost." I felt a hand around my neck and saw Plasmius' angry face inches away from mine. He's cold breath hit my face as he lifted me off the ground.
"Don't lie to me." He snarled.
I dropped the papers I was carrying and clawed at his hand. I felt myself grow weak as I tried to claw and kick myself free from his grip. I aimed to kick his face, but my neck felt like it would snap if I aimed too high. Hot tears poured down my face as my vision started to fade. I was going to die at the hands of a guy I was once obsessed with, kind of ironic since he's the obsessive one. I couldn't help but feel bad that I never asked K for us to be official. Then again, we could never. I had to go back home, but now I was going to die. I closed my eyes, giving up. I wasn't going to free myself from such a strong grip. My conscious was started to leave me, but I felt myself fall to the ground.
"Why didn't you, why didn't you transform?" Plasmius asked confused.
Gasping for breath, I tenderly touched my bruised neck. Seeing Vlad kneel down made me flinch. Crawling away from him, I stumbled up to get to the door. I should've gotten my head out of the gutter and known this would happen. He was evil, obsessive, and heartless. Cartoon, or no cartoon, this was real life now, I had to take this seriously. At least I knew he was obsessed with me because he thought I was a ghost, but at the same time it didn't explain why he threw Maddie's picture away.
Plasmius slowly made his way towards me, but I already had my hand on the knob. Throwing the door open, I ran. I ran out of the building, I ran across the streets, I ran past the apartment, I ran till I made it towards the sign that greeted visitors to Amity Park...a nice place to live my ass.