The demons rained down on the city. Some did so gracefully while landing on their back talons, while others crashed into things in their rush to make as much trouble as possible. As soon as they landed where they wanted to, they did their worst, and their worst made the riots of the 1977 blackout look like a tea party. Any store that sold the latest things that anybody gave a damn about were broken into and looted. One by one, alps hobbled out of electronic stores with brand new VCRs, stereos and televisions. They didn't care that all those gadgets made them too heavy to fly. The police were too overwhelmed with the ones that were elsewhere, so these ones could go as slow as they wanted.

What they did was an updated version of the mischief that was described in centuries-old texts. Some opened up fire hydrants and made streams in the street while others jumped cars and drove them until their gas ran out. There were alps that broke into the zoos, picked the locks on the enclosures and let the exotic animals loose into the city. The usual vermin now had to reckon with bigger, more ferocious prey. There were alps that broke into food stores to eat and throw as much of the food as they could. The junk food and sweet drinks suffered the most casualties while the fruit and vegetable section remained largely untouched (except maybe for the packages of caramel that were used for dunking apples).

As the chaos reigned, Mayor Lenny stood in front of City Hall not believing his eyes. His secretary stood next to him taking notes of the scenery.

"Oooooooooh boy…" said Mayor Lenny, "I am really kicking myself now."

Just then, an alp landed in front of him and looked him in the eye.

"Oh you don't have to go through the trouble," he said, "I'll do it for you!" The demon jumped into the air, clutched his foot talon and kicked the mayor directly in the crotch.

The mayor winced, doubled over and groaned as if he were pulling a stationary truck with a rope all by himself.

"Thank… you…" he said through his teeth as he covered his privates.

Downtown, a bar was hopping with music, dancing and drinking. It was almost to capacity when an alp broke the window and landed on one of the tables. The people immediately took notice and panicked, leading to everyone clamoring for every exit possible, even if it meant that some trampling went on. Some more alps entered the bar and went for the alcohol, drinking straight from the bottles and taps.

The bartender grabbed the gun that he had been hiding in a secret location and fired it at the one that stood on the bar. The bullets landed on their target but didn't affect the demon. Instead, he absorbed them into his body, regurgitated them into his mouth and fired them back at the bartender. Luckily, the bartender was quick enough that none of the bullets hit.

"Man…" he said with labored breathing, "They don't teach you this in bartender school!"

One by one, the mailboxes of the city exploded along with the mail that would unfortunately not reach its destination. Crashes and screams were heard along with the wailing sirens of whichever emergency vehicle had come onto the scene.

One alp had cornered a woman in an alleyway. He crept closer while the terrified woman backed up as far as she possibly could.

"That necklace looks awfully heavy," hissed the alp, "Allow me to relieve you of your burden." He looked at the woman's neck lustfully and was about to swipe her necklace until…

PEW BZZZZZZ…

A proton beam from the latest version of the proton pack latched onto the demon, stopping him where he was. That proton pack was strapped to one of the trained college students, who was having the time of his life.

"Yeah!" he said as he pumped his arm. He turned around. "Did you get that on tape, Pat? Remember, I want this for that audio-visual club."

Meanwhile, Patrick was trying to spear as many demons as he could with one proton beam.

"If you didn't notice, I can't prop that camera on my shoulder and get these guys at the same time!" said Patrick.

The college students had come to the rescue, as well as the ghostbusters that trained them. The Ghostbusters split into two groups - Egon and Ray, Peter and Winston. Their intention was to explore as far away from each other as possible so that they could cover as much of the city as they could. Of course, they had no choice but to keep moving because everywhere they went, there were demons up to no good.

Peter ran into an ice cream parlor. The bright colors of the ice cream and the decorations contrasted wildly with the dark and gray colors of the demons who were gorging on them. Yes, they were even gorging on the decorations. One demon nursed from the soft serve machine until he found himself shaking the machine to get the rest out. Two demons were throwing chocolate and rainbow jimmies at each other.

"I scream, you scream, we all scream for proton streams," said Peter with an air of fake seriousness. He fired his proton gun at one of the demons with the jimmies and then moved the stream in order to get the rest of them as if he were making a tasty demon kebab. Winston tossed the trap under the demons and stepped on the pedal, vacuuming up those misbehaving creatures.

"Boo-yeah!" said Winston.

"What did you think of what I said before we sucked them in?" asked Peter, "Was it badass enough?"

"Uh… I say it was the right amount of badass."

The two of them went back outside to scout the rest of the area.

"I spent all of last night thinking of badass things to say based on the setting of our ghostbustings," said Peter, "If we bust another ice cream parlor, I was thinking of saying 'Ice to meet you…'"

On the roof of her apartment building, Yasmine looked down at the chaos that she had brought into the city. She grinned while grasping her staff. She was so enthralled with what she saw that she didn't much mind the strands of erratic hair that hung down in front of her eyes. She chuckled to herself. Once upon a time, she had been JUST an old woman living with only her cats. Now, she could potentially take on the world. At that moment, nobody knew who was behind the demon storm but soon, the time would come when she would reveal herself.

Glibbus transformed from his cat form to his demon form as he walked toward Yasmine.

"I think it's time to steal that remaining ingredient for your spell," he said, "Egon is distracted enough by the rest of us that only his mate is there to safeguard the child."

"Yes, go on!" snapped Yasmine, "And this time, don't screw up! You mind as well not come back at all!"

Meanwhile, at Gabby's house, some alps had broken in and were destroying the place. A gray-and-white spotted one was having fun dropping porcelain dishware onto the ground one by one. Mr. and Mrs. Bermudez were powerless to stop it since they were tightly tied to their kitchen chairs. They couldn't have guessed that creatures with pointed claws would be so good at tying knots.

Even though Mr. and Mrs. Bermudez were positioned back-to-back in their chairs, they still managed to make conversation.

"You know, Raul," said Izzy, "I've never been tied up before, but… it feels kind of nice."

Raul sighed.

"Izzy, is now really the time to make self-discoveries?" he asked.

"It's not like we can do anything else right now, Raul!"

Down the street, the demons were making waste of the family business. They weren't just trying on the shoes but also having shoe fights, especially with the pointier-heeled ones. The antics ranged from relatively harmless (demons building a fort with the shoe boxes) to quite serious (one demon disappearing into the night with the cash register).

"Boy, are these things fun to rip!" said one of them as she pulled apart the thin, disposable socks used for trying on shoes.

And so, the shoe store was trashed along with the other public places. Demons who wanted to have fun at the expense of others didn't discriminate.

Amongst the screaming of both people and sirens, there was one part of the city where the demons' brand of mayhem was welcome: the frat houses. One such frat house was hosting a party that was in full swing when the demons showed up with a (stolen) keg of beer. They were met with cheers.

A while after the Bacchanal got started, one demon received all of the attention from the students. He was downing two bottles of beer at once.

"Chug! Chug! Chug!" chanted the party-goers.

Once the demon was done, he smashed both bottles against his horns, did a flip onto the ground and made a double peace-sign with his claws. The crowd went wild, stomping and opening up cans of shaken beverages.

"One of these guys is like four Spuds McKenzies!" remarked one guy.

Another demon zipped past on a unicycle. Yet another took a swig of whiskey and blew on a lighter, resulting in a mighty flame. The house was crowded enough that the party-goers were lucky not to get burned.

Everyone was so enamored by their paranormal guests that they didn't notice Peter and Winston barging down the door. Peter and Winston wasted no time in zapping and trapping the alps, leaving behind any toys and tools that the alps used. Winston ran upstairs and zapped the final demon, which was swinging from the chandelier.

When Winston ran back downstairs, Peter was ready to make his proclamation to the now-silent crowd.

"All right, everyone!" he said, "The threat is now gone. You may now move on with your lives."

"What did you do that for?!" asked one student, "They were the life of the party!"

"Lame!" shouted another student.

"Sorry, guys," said Winston, "We're The Ghostbusters and the name of the game is lame."

"Aw, man!" said another student, "They didn't even bring the gorilla!"

Peter sighed.

"Wrong Ghostbusters!" he said.

Egon zapped each demon as he saw them. Doing so was surprisingly easy, especially with the new proton packs. It was the number of the demons that made the task challenging. But Egon was never one to back off from a challenge, whether it was a demon or a math equation that had remained unsolved for centuries.

Ray was with him, wearing his night vision goggles. Egon was convinced that Ray wore these more as a fashion statement than for any practical reason, especially since none of the other busters had theirs on. But it was harmless. If anything, it was useful.

They snuck through one of many identical-looking alleyways. The best way to get these troublemakers was to do so before they could sneak into anybody's apartment. They had gotten most of the demons in that area, so things were a little quiet…

…until they heard the sound of claws scratching brick.

"I hope you're on high alert, Ray," said Egon while looking at the PKE meter, "Because ectoplasmic activity remains at alarming levels."

"I can clearly see that," said Ray, "There's no mistaking what it looks like with these babies on."

Suddenly, an alp swooped in, letting out a terrifying screech that echoed in the alleyway and rattled the trash cans. He got so close to Egon that he managed to touch the curl in his pompadour. Egon was quick to grab his proton gun and fire, managing to land the shot the first time. Ray slid the trap under the demon and sucked him in as usual.

Egon sighed with relief.

"Well, I'm pretty sure that takes care of this area," he said.

Just then, Ray received a call on his walkie-talkie. He listened intently once he put it up to his ear.

"Uh-huh… uh-huh… uh-huh… thanks for telling me, Jamie," said Ray, "We'll be right on it."

Egon recognized the name as one of the college students. Although the message wasn't as obvious, he had a pretty good idea of the nature of it.

"Where are we expected?" asked Egon.

"There's increasing demonic activity and…"

"And what?"

"And it happens to be in the part of the city where Janine lives."

Egon's heart sank. His breathing became shallow. Now, the problem in the city on that cold October night had become deeply personal. He took a deep, jagged breath.

"We need to get there NOW," he said.