Author's Note: Phantom Bride is hands-down my favorite TWST event that doesn't involve the cast leaving the main campus! I'm so excited to get started on this arc and I hope you all will enjoy reading it!
"Mraaah! This sucks! I don't wanna do no lousy cleaning!" Grim complained as he swept one of the Ramshackle hallways. "C'mon, Dev! Help me out here!"
"I would, but you lost our rock-paper-scissors game," Devon replied with a shrug. "I can't violate the sanctity of the game, Grim. It wouldn't be right."
"Fine! Let's play one more game, then," Grim challenged. "Best two outta-"
"Halt, you foul intruders!" shouted an unfamiliar voice.
"Myah!/Ay!" Grim and Devon shouted in unison, whipping around to find out who had just yelled at them and more than a little surprised that Regina hadn't alerted them to anyone approaching. Their eyes immediately landed on three ghosts hovering nearby, glaring at them.
"What are you unsightly vermin doing here?" demanded one of the ghosts.
"Ugh, false alarm. It's just one of our resident prankster ghosts," Grim said with a sigh.
"I'm not so sure about that, Grim," Devon replied. The ghosts did resemble the Ramshackle ghosts at first glance, but Devon noticed that these three were wearing what looked like white and light blue livery. "I've never seen our ghosts in getups like that."
"This building is to be used as Her Highness' guesthouse. Outsiders are not permitted on the premises!" one of the ghosts shouted.
Devon blinked. "Her Highness? What are you talkin' about?"
"And who're you callin' outsiders?! We live here, y'know!" Grim said defiantly, crossing his arms and glaring at the ghostly intruders.
"Pah! Don't be absurd!" another ghost scoffed. "This manor belonged to our country long before you two degenerates were born!"
'Degenerates, huh?' Devon thought. Her eyes landed on the nearby vacuum cleaner and she began subtly inching toward it. Regina, catching on to what Devon was planning and not thrilled at the intruders barging in and immediately threatening Devon and Grim, pulsed encouragingly and the vacuum began to glow a light gold.
The ghosts didn't seem to notice as they prepared to level an attack on Devon and Grim. "If you refuse to vacate the premises, we will have no choice but to give you a sound thrashing."
"Try me, bitch," Devon challenged as she grabbed the vacuum's hose-like attachment and pointed it at one of the ghosts. The vacuum roared to life despite being unplugged-courtesy of Regina, naturally-and immediately sucked the ghost into it. The ghost's muffled shouts could be heard from inside the vacuum and the device shook as he struggled to break free, but Regina's magic kept him from phasing through the vacuum to get out of it. Devon leveled a challenging glare at the remaining two ghosts before pointing the nozzle at them. "Any other takers?"
"Myaha! That's my henchman!" Grim cheered as he hopped up onto Devon's shoulder. "You weirdos better back off!"
"Why you…!" the second ghost growled. He attempted to charge at them…and was promptly sucked into the vacuum as well.
"And then there was one," Devon said with a smirk. "How 'bout you scoot on outta here, yeah? Unless you wanna join your buddies here."
The ghost responded by firing off a blast of fire magic that Grim promptly countered with one of his own. Devon pointed the nozzle at the ghost and pulled him toward the vacuum, eager to get back to enjoying her day. Just before vanishing into the vacuum, the ghost let out a shrill blast on a whistle, causing a swarm of more ghosts dressed in the same uniforms as the first three to appear.
"Oh crud," Grim muttered.
"Yeah, I don't think the vacuum can suck up that many," Devon agreed. "I think we'd better retreat for now." She immediately took off for the front door, Zephyr and Grim deflected the magic blasts the pursuing ghosts were hurling at them as Devon's staff warped into her hand. In a matter of moments, she'd reached the door and rushed out onto the front steps once Regina had opened it.
The ghosts chased them as far as the threshold before stopping. "Now see here. If we see you two on the premises again, we won't think twice before blasting you on sight!" The lead ghost harrumphed once more before floating back inside Ramshackle and slamming the door behind them.
Devon and Grim could only exchange a quick look in stunned silence before Devon finally found her voice. "Regina? Please tell me you have some idea what that was all about." She paused as Regina answered her. "A ghost princess, huh? Guess that explains all those guards. So why has she just popped in outta the blue?" Regina started to answer before pausing briefly and manipulating the steps to usher Devon and Grim toward the front gate.
"Fgnya?! What gives, Regina?! You didn't answer Dev's question!" Grim demanded.
"Don't worry, Grim. They were just moving us outta the way," Devon translated. "Apparently the ghosts could hear us talkin' and were about to attack again. It's not safe for us to be here right now, so Regina suggests we go talk to Crowley about this."
Grim nodded. "Good idea! He oughta be able to give those ghosts the boot!"
"I see," Crowley said once Devon and Grim had explained their situation to him. "A gaggle of ghosts in white uniforms to over Ramshackle and forcefully evicted you?"
"Yeah, that's right! They just barged on in and acted like they owned the place!" Grim added. "Kept talkin' about some princess too. It was so weird!"
Crowley leaned forward in his desk chair. "A princess, you say? Ah, I understand now." He nodded his head. "Ramshackle was unoccupied by any students until the two of you showed up, so I never thought to actually address the issue but," He smiled brightly, "it looks like it's that time of year again!"
Devon quirked a brow. ""Again"? You mean this has happened before?"
"Those ghosts that ejected you from your dorm are retainers of a spirit known as the Ghost Bride," Crowley explained.
"What the heck kinda title is that? Am I supposed to be happy for her or scared of her?" Grim snarked.
"She is the ghost of a princess whose kingdom fell a long time ago, or so the stories say," Crowley elaborated. "In life, her greatest wish was to marry her ideal prince, but her tragic and untimely death meant that her dream was never realized. To this day, her ghost clings to the idea of marrying the perfect prince. This is the time of year when she comes to Twisted Wonderland in search of a groom. Each time she does, she and her retainers use Ramshackle as their base of operations." He smiled brightly, practically preening. "To think, out of all the decrepit, abandoned dwellings she could have picked, she ended up choosing ours. It really is quite the honor, you know."
"That ain't somethin' to brag about!" Grim exclaimed. "We've just been kicked out of our own home! Get your tailfeathers over there and throw those spooks out!"
"But that would be a right pain in the-ahem!-," Crowley cleared his throat quickly, "That is to say… While I sympathize with your plight, it would be in everyone's best interests not to bother them. After all, she's searching for a groom she has no hope of finding."
"Why is that?" Devon asked.
"Because her qualifications for her perfect prince are, and I quote:," Crowley forced his voice into a comically disturbing falsetto, ""At least 180 centimeters tall with an air of nonchalance! Healthy, lustrous skin; lidded eyes; a charming smile! Bright, shimmering hair with lips so arresting you just have to kiss them!" He cleared his throat again, his voice returning to normal. "There's much more than that, but I think you get the gist. In short: she's after a preposterously prepossessing gentleman." He gave them a self-assured smile and crossed his arms. "Her standards are the stuff of pure fairytales. She'll never find a man in Twisted Wonderland who even comes close! Ha ha ha!"
"Okay… So where does that leave us?" Devon pressed.
"Not to worry, hatchling. Ramshackle is the only building that's effected by her little flight of fancy. Just give her a few days; she'll give up and leave soon enough," Crowley replied. "It's really not worth making a fuss over. You two have made plenty of friends by now, so why don't you see if you can stay with one of them in the meantime?"
"Pfft. Some headmaster you are!" Grim scoffed.
Suddenly the door to the headmaster's office was thrown open with a loud bang and Ortho flew in, looking more distressed than Devon could ever recall seeing him. "Headmaster!" he cried.
"Well, well, if it isn't Ortho Shroud of Ignihyde. What's gotten you so worked up?" Crowley asked.
"We've got an emergency, sir! It's my brother!" Ortho exclaimed.
"About Idia? What's happened?" Crowley pressed.
"My big brother's been kidnapped by ghosts!" Ortho shouted, his eyes wide with worry.
"What?!" Crowley and Grim yelled in unison.
"Idia's been kidnapped?!" Devon exclaimed.
"I know it sounds crazy, but I swear it's true!" Ortho promised. "Here, look, I can prove it!" A light began to glow from the projector in the tip of one of his fingers and an image of Main Street appeared on the wall of the office. "The campus security cameras recorded this footage last night."
"Now hold on a moment!" Crowley interjected. "You can't just hack our security and access the footage whenever it suits you!"
"You can scold me for it later! Just watch the feed for now!" Ortho shot back, his concern over his brother and his sense of urgency overriding his politeness protocols.
Everyone turned their attention to the feed Ortho was projecting, ignoring Crowley's grumbling about youth these days having no respect. Ortho made sure to enhance the audio and video so they could get a clearer picture of what was happening as Idia was into the frame with a distressed expression on his face.
"I can't believe the manga I preordered didn't arrive on time!" Idia complained to himself as he hurried along Main Street. "It was the special edition too, with an autographed card and everything! There goes my nerd cred." He sighed and shook his head. "Well, nobody's out this late anyway. Guess I might as well hit up the school store and grab some-"
"…inally…," whispered an unfamiliar voice, barely audible even with the feed enhanced.
Idia stopped in his tracks, looking around nervously. "Wha…? Who's there?"
"Finally…," the voice whispered again, though it was slightly louder this time. "I've finally found you…" There was a brief moment of static on the feed. When it cleared, the ghost of a woman was floating right in front of Idia. Her skin and eyes were blue and she was wearing a white wedding dress and veil with a crown of pale blue flowers holding it in place. She closed her eyes and beamed, holding her gloved hands up to her mouth as if to demurely hide her giggles. When she spoke again, her voice was clear as day. "I've finally found my prince!"
Idia could only scream in terror as the feed cut out once again. When the video was restored, both he and the ghost were gone.
Crowley, Devon, and Grim stared in stunned silence as Ortho shut off the feed. "Was… Was that…?" Grim stammered.
Crowley nodded. "I'm afraid it was." He shook his head. "Dear, oh, dear… It seems the Ghost Bride has found her perfect prince after all!"
"Wait, wait, hold up… You're tellin' me Idia is the Ghost Bride's perfect prince?!" Grim exclaimed. "Out of all the guys that go to school here, he's probably the furthest from prime prince material, let alone husband! He's all slouchy, he never leaves his room, and when he's not givin' ya that creepy smile of his, he looks like he couldn't care less about whatever's going on!" He paused as realization washed over him. "Wait a second…"
"Let's see… tall, nonchalant, lidded eyes, skin that's blemish-free and has never been exposed to UV rays…I suppose "charming" is one way to describe his smile," Crowley said. "His hair is literally made of fire, so I suppose you could call it bright and shimmering, and his unique blue lip color could certainly be considered "arresting"-"
"Wait, is he saying Idia's lips are naturally blue?" Devon whispered to Ortho. "I always thought that was lipstick. I mean, he totally rocks the look either way."
"Most members of the Shroud family have naturally blue lips," Ortho whispered back. "I think the only ones who don't are the ones that married in."
"It's a rather liberal interpretation, but I guess it could be argued that the elder Shroud does, in fact, tick all of her boxes," Crowley continued, pulling Devon and Ortho's attention back to him.
"It's not surprise to me that the ghost wants to marry him, but I wish she didn't have such discerning taste!" Ortho lamented.
"Believe what you want, but I still ain't convinced," Grim snarked.
"Either way, it would appear the situation has taken a rather grave turn," Crowley informed them. "Pun only slightly intended."
Devon and Ortho exchanged a worried look. "What do you mean?" Devon asked.
Crowley expression darkened. "Being chosen by the Ghost Bride means-"
"Headmaster, we've got a situation out here!" shouted a voice from just outside Crowley's office doors. The sound of shouts and running footsteps could be heard as well, though they were muffled by the closed doors.
"Goodness, it seems there's quite the ruckus going on outside," Crowley commented. He walked to the doors and threw them open, with Devon, Grim, and Ortho following close behind. "What in the world is going on out here?!"
Standing in the doorway were Ace and Deuce, panting as though they'd run the entire way from wherever they were to the headmaster's office. "Headmaster-" Ace began, only for his eyes to land on Devon and Grim, causing him to look mildly relieved, "oh good, Devon and Grim are with you. Anyway, we've got trouble!"
"Some ghosts we've never seen before barged into the cafeteria and said they were going to turn it into a wedding venue!" Deuce reported. "They tried to shove all the students out! We fought back, naturally, but they just kept reviving every time we beat them!"
"That sounds just like what happened to us at Ramshackle, Grim," Devon said before turning her attention back to her friends. "Did you guys get a good look at the ghosts? Did you see if they had-"
"Stop right there!" shouted a voice that Devon and Grim recognized. Looking in the direction they shout had come from, they saw a trio of ghosts in the tattered guard uniforms chasing after a couple of Diasomnia students, Sebek and Lilia to be exact.
"Are you guys okay?!" Devon asked.
"Not to worry, little bat, we're both fine," Lilia assured her before looking back toward the ghosts mischievously. "All I did was tease them a little and they chased after us. These ghosts could really do with some thicker skin."
"Ugh, are you serious?!" Ace shouted. "Why'd you have to lead 'em here?!"
"How dare you take such an aggressive tone with Master Lilia!" Sebek bellowed at the ghosts. "If you refuse to learn your place, I'll have no choice but to send you packing back to the other side!"
"Huh…suddenly I have a really powerful urge to punch a ghost in the face," Dominic said aloud to Gizmo as he tended to the plants in his room. The cat 'Mrrph'd in response, barely even opening his eyes from his nap. Dominic smiled at the sight before glancing over at his phone on its' standing charger, hoping to see the flicker of Idia's flaming blue hair on the screen. His smile immediately dropped when there was no sign that Idia was trying to connect to him.
The Ignihyde dorm leader had spent a decent chunk of the previous evening ranting to him about how his preordered manga hadn't arrived on time-something he was easily able to relate to, being an otaku himself-and how he was going to have to leave his room to go to the school store and see if he could snag a copy there. He'd promised to give Dominic the full report once he'd returned, but he hadn't reached back out to him yet. Dominic didn't think too much of it at first-he'd been known to get pretty wrapped up in whatever games, anime, or manga he was invested in at any given time, after all-but the fact that he still hadn't heard so much as a peep from Idia almost a full day later got the gears turning in his mind.
His immediate thought was that he'd done something to upset Idia somehow (thanks, anxiety), but after taking a mental step back and thinking over their last interaction, Idia hadn't given him any indication that anything he said or did had bothered him. Despite only having known one another for barely a month and a half, Dominic realized that he'd become something of an expert on reading Idia's expressions and body language. Idia was so passionate about what he cared about-something Dom had quickly come to love about him-that he usually ended up giving his true feelings away nonverbally even when he was trying to keep them in. There had been nothing in Idia's tone or in his nonverbal cues that indicated that Dom had made him angry. That realization made Dominic feel extremely relieved but it did nothing to quell the feeling that something was wrong.
He glanced down at his Sending Stone and wondered if he should use his blessing to take a look through his sister's eyes and ascertain if something was amiss. Ever since the giant octopus Overblot, he and DJ had been practicing activating their blessings at will. Thus far, they'd learned that-thankfully-neither they nor Devon had to be in imminent danger for their powers to work, though DJ did have a harder time activating his consistently if nothing needed protecting, which resulted in them asking Mateo to throw various objects at Dom's head, much to their parents' chagrin. It did seem that their abilities grew stronger the more they used them too and Dominic found that, much like during the last Overblot, he was able to communicate telepathically when whomever's sight he was sharing at the time and that he could connect and three of the siblings together in a sort of three-way phone call. Doing so took a lot out of him, however, so he'd agreed to only do so sparingly at the urging of his brother and sister.
He debated with himself for another moment before deciding that it would be worth the exhaustion so long as he could be sure that there wasn't some crisis going on. After all, if Idia was in his room he would've contacted Dom by now and Dom knew perfectly well by now how much Idia hated most forms of social interaction, so if something was keeping him away from his room, it must be a big deal. He took a deep breath to clear his mind, his eyes and Sending Stone beginning to glow as he pictured Devon in his mind. "Let me look through your eyes, sis."
The scene he was met with when he connected with his sister was chaotic, to say the least. It looked like she, Grim, and a handful of other students he kind of recognized along with a masked man that he could only assume was the headmaster based off Devon's descriptions of the man battling it out with…a bunch of ghosts? He knew ghosts frequented the campus-and that Devon and Grim shared Ramshackle with three of them-but Devon never mentioned anything about them being hostile toward the students, nor had he ever heard of ghosts dressed as guards. The ghosts kept yelling something about a princess and a wedding and would respawn every time they were taken out.
"What the actual hell is happening…?" Dominic muttered to himself, unable to look away from the fracas.
After a moment, he saw Devon take out her staff. "Oh, screw this!" she shouted as the orb at the top began to glow red. "Get close, everyone; I'm gettin' us outta here!"
"Heh! How do you like that!" Sebek shouted as he hit one of the ghosts with a blast of magic.
"This isn't the time for you to gloat, man!" Ace chided as he pointed toward another wave of ghosts rushing toward them. "We've got another batch of ghosts incoming!"
"There doesn't seem to be an end in sight," Crowley said. "Fall back, everyone! We must retreat!"
"Retreat where?!" Grim asked, looking around frantically for an opening. "These ghosts have us surrounded!"
"Oh, screw this!" Devon shouted, exasperated, as she pulled out her staff. "'Death by stupid-looking retainer ghosts' is not how I'm leavin' this world!" She turned to her friends (and Crowley) as the top of her staff took on Flapjack's signature red glow. "Get close, everyone; I'm gettin' us outta here!"
Flapjack's magic crackled to life and the group was gone in the blink of an eye.
Ending Notes: Plenty of you have probably already guessed by now, but Dom/Idia is going to finally get some more focus this arc in addition to Devon/Ace. I really would've loved to find some sort of loophole to bring Dom to Twisted Wonderland so he could actually physically be there for this arc, but there was really no feasible way to make it work. This arc is one of the few times we'll see him get genuinely aggressive toward someone; like the rest of the Lopez family, he does not take threats to his family, friends, and especially not his budding love interest lightly.
Thank you all so much for reading! As always, feedback and constructive criticism are welcome. Geekinthepink, out!