KHRrarepairweek2023 Day 1:Monster Hunter AU/Ghosts
"Have you tried a Ouija board?" Skull asks, voice almost tinny over the phone. For once, the stuntman is quiet, almost cautious in his suggestion, but Mammon wants to throw the phone across the room anyways. Of course they haven't tried a Ouija board. The suggestion is firstly ridiculous as the sheer fact they are calling Skull about the possibility of ghosts in the first place is truly a moment of desperation, and secondly Ouija boards are notoriously easy to mess with, even if one isn't living with a horde of constantly bored, Varia assassins.
"Myu, why would I call you when I could simply acquire a Ouija board myself if I desired?"
"… so that's a no then?"
Mammon refuses to deign that with an answer. Instead, they finish reading the report in their hands, sign it, and put it in the completed stack while they wait for Skull to continue.
"Why did you call the Great Skull-sama then? Perhaps you have finally realized his greatness at everything he sets his mind to?" Skull's voice grows louder and more dramatic as he talks, but where Reborn says such things dead-pan with a straight-face, there's a grin in Skull's voice.
Even so, Mammon feels obligated to pop Skull's bubble. "Myu, like when you exploded half-blended smoothie over the kitchen?" Skull splutters on the other side of the phone, and they allow themself a self-satisfied smirk. Tugging another report off of the steadily diminishing pile, they say, "Out of my contacts, you are both the one most likely to be familiar with potential hauntings as well as hoaxes and the cheapest-" Skull squawks indignantly- "to hire to make this determination."
"You're saying that you are willing to pay me to figure out whether or not you are being haunted? You? Give me money?"
"Myu, it is an unfortunate side effect of the exchange of goods and services yes. I expect you to arrive by next week unless you have actually died. In which case, I shall see you at your funeral."
"Now hang on a minute! I didn't agree to-"
Mammon ends the call and clicks their phone closed, setting it aside on their desk and turning their full attention to the reports requiring their attention. They'll know when Skull arrives in Sicily when he inevitably calls them to gripe about 'not having directions, Viper'. Until then, they have assassins to terrorize because this report is not filled out correctly.
The phone call comes first thing in the morning, right as Mammon steps into their office and finds the contents of their bookshelves have exploded all over the place. Their furniture has also all been moved slightly out of place. Though, thankfully, the furniture has not been moved enough to require them to find somebody currently not in the body of a toddler to move it back into place. They answer Skull sharply, giving directions to the Varia castle when he does indeed indicate he managed to follow their trail to Sicily but no further.
Skull's strangled whimper in response almost made their day. Would have, if their office wasn't the scene of a disaster.
They spend the subsequent hours until Skull arrives cleaning their office. The sea of papers and folders interspersed with books turns into towering stacks on their desk, couch, and chairs for sorting after they move the furniture back into position. Moving the furniture takes a lot more effort than it would have almost two decades ago, and they vow vengeance on Checkerface yet again.
It doesn't help that their progress is impeded by the occasional shower of rethrown paperwork.
Skull walks into their office, shuts the door, and slides down it to the floor, which is admittedly appropriate reaction to the Varia for anyone who isn't Quality. "How do you manage them?" he asks, not looking at Mammon.
"Myu, I charge them money every time they inconvenience me. Eventually they stop in order to save their paychecks." Mammon floats with another of their more valuable books to the top shelf of the bookcase behind and to the right of their desk. Whoever this 'ghost' is, they're lucky none of the truly rare or antique books were damaged, if they were thrown at all. Mammon is not above charging the dead.
"Of course you do," Skull sighs. He stands and brushes himself off. "So what happened here?"
Mammon pauses in their tidying to give him a deadpan look, and Skull responds with one of his own. The camaraderie Skull displays sometimes is disgusting. They've clearly known him for far too long. "My office was totaled when I walked in this morning."
"You think it's the ghost?" Skull pulls off his helmet and sets it on an empty spot of their couch, hopping up next to it. There's a gleam in his eyes that Mammon's only seen when he talks shop with mechanics and other motorcyclists. "That's one hell of a haunting you've got here if so."
Another book to its appropriate place on the shelves, and another pile of paperwork that needs to be skimmed over and resorted into the proper file placed to the side. "It needs dealing with," Mammon says sharply. "This," they throw their arms out to the side in mid-air, "cannot happen again. There are financial reports, mission reports, mission assignments, and my books! all mixed together, and I can't find anything in this mess."
Skull nods. "And you've wasted an entire day just cleaning up and it's still a huge mess." He hops off the couch and approaches a stack of books. "I think I remember your book organization system, so I'll start putting these away while you get started on sorting the paperwork." He picks up a thick reference book and playfully staggers under the weight.
Mammon's lips definitely do not twitch at his antics as they settled in their desk chair. "Myu," they say, "you have thoughts."
"Well," Skull gently tips the reference book on to the bottom shelf of the bookcase to the immediate left of the door, "it's certainly not any of your people given the size of the mess- they wouldn't see their paychecks for weeks! So it is likely to be a ghost, but the exact reason why…" He trails off, watching as some of the paperwork is thrown into the air again for seemingly no reason. "Hey now! Stop that!" he shouts toward the ceiling. "We can't do anything if you keep making a mess of things!" Picking up another book, he reshelves it and then another one. Every now and then he glares in the general direction of the ceiling.
Taking a deep breath, Mammon refuses to cave to their impatience and demand Skull finish his thought. Instead, they focus on sorting the paperwork into piles by type, a much easier job now that the ghost appears to have ceased and desisted. When that's done, they can then move on to putting them in chronological order.
"It's like the ghost had something very important for you to notice," Skull finally continues, "but they're not skilled enough with manipulating the physical world to pick out the specific thing. They ended up trashing the place by accident, or at least in part. Given it's likely to be a Varia ghost, they may very well have thrown a few extra things from sheer frustration and rage."
Mammon twitches at the thought of a long-dead Varia assassin throwing their things around just because it wanted to draw their attention to one specific paper now lost in the mess. So help them, they will bring the culprit back to life just to kill them again if it happens again.
It takes the two of them until close to Midnight to get the office back in order, and Mammon repeatedly curses their tiny sizes over the course of those hours. They could have reshelved their books so much faster if the books weren't almost as big as them! And Skull simply cannot handle any of the paperwork due to not being Vongola, much less Varia, though he does crack a joke about the hypocrisy of a criminal organization being concerned with Op-Sec.
Mammon threw a pencil at him and pointed out being a criminal organization made keeping Op-Sec arguably even more important. The ghost must have agreed with them as an additional fistful of pens is thrown at the stuntman.
However, the books are finally put away, and the paperwork is no longer teetering in towers on Mammon's desk. The two Arcobaleno both flop onto Mammon's thick rug, heads next to each other and feet pointing opposite directions, and stare up at the ceiling. "So…" Skull drawls out. "Did you figure out what the ghost threw a fit over?"
Mammon sighs disgustedly.
"I'll take that as a 'no' then." There's a distant thud somewhere in the castle, and a loud shout in response. "What would a Varia ghost want to bring your attention to anyway?"
Mammon shrugs. "Myu, most of the Varia are here to prove they're the best and to do work that challenges them. Once they die, they are dead."
"And by dying have proven they are no longer the best, so if any of them end up haunting the place, they're more likely to generically throw a fit about it," Skull says. "Or work to become the first literal ghost assassin."
Turning their head to glare at Skull, Mammon hisses, "Do not give any of them ideas. The paperwork alone would be a nightmare."
Skull laughs and heaves himself upright. "Right well, time for the Ouija board."
"You did not."
"I did," Skull says gleefully, pulling out the board in question and laying it out on the ground. Mammon sighs but sits up and settles themself on the opposite side of the board from Skull.
The board is more solid than what Mammon was expecting. It's a solid piece of wood, almost like someone took a cutting board and carved letters and numbers into it. Skull sets the planchett in the middle and then pulls a handful of candle jars seemingly out of nowhere, placing them at the corners of the border. "Myu, how does this work?"
"Well," Skull strikes a match on the matchbox he also pulled out of hammer space and begins lighting the candles, "your ghost has already proven themself able to move physical objects around, so I was just going to let them move the planchett on their own." He gives Mammon a raised-eyebrow-knowing-smirk. "That way it can't be argued one or both of us is influencing the results."
"Myu, fine." Mammon pulls their miniature notebook out of the pouch they keep on their belt under their cloak. At Skull's questioning look, they say, "Someone should take notes. If the ghost has something so important to say, I want evidence."
Skull doesn't say anything in response, but his face says he's putting all sorts of endings onto Mammon's assertion. Such as, so they can charge them in ghost taxes or have proof it wasn't actually important and get a priest to exorcise the problem. With all the candles lit, Skull sits back and wraps his arms around his legs. "Ready?" he asks.
Mammon nods.
Skull takes a deep breath, holding it for a moment before saying, "Are there any spirits here?"
The planchett rockets across the board toward 'Yes' so hard it flies off into the corner. Mammon stares blankly at the now empty board.
"Right, um," Skull chews on his lip piercing. He stands and collects the planchett, putting it back in the center of the board. "A bit less force next time, I think. It's like blowing on hot soup, not moving a mountain with your breath."
"Myu, you would know this how?" Mammon asks, ignoring the planchett now inching slowly back towards 'Yes'.
Skull shrugs. "I don't. It's just something my aunt would say. This was her board," he gestures at the board. The planchett settles on 'Yes', and there's a feeling of anticipation in the air. "There you go," Skull says with a smile. "That's so much better, isn't it? Can you tell us what you were trying to bring to Mammon's attention earlier?"
The planchett seems to shiver before it starts moving again, picking up speed as the ghost becomes more familiar with the motion. M-I-S-S-I-O-N W-R-O-N-G I-N-F-O F-I-L-E-D.
Mammon makes a sound not unsimiliar to a tea kettle. "Myu, what mission? Who filed the misinformation?"
O-T-T-A-B-I-O.
Oh that mission. Mammon would be lying if they said it didn't seem somewhat off. Everything about it was just a little too perfect, a little too lined up, a little too placed in their lap. They had been planning on sending one of their junior squads on it as a learning experience for how exactly one conducts a financial assassination but now…
Mammon scowls. They're going to have to double-check all of that information with their own contacts, which will spend precious time and money. If they're going to do that…
"Myu, who exactly are you?" they demand. The ghost must prove their own credibility before Mammon takes their information with anything less than a grain of salt.
Skull makes a strangled noise, and Mammon's heart drops into their stomach when the planchett moves to 'X'. "There's no way," Skull whispers. He glances up at Mammon, "Maybe it's a different assassin? From before your time?"
Mammon wouldn't gamble on those odds, even with the Varia's general turnover rate over the past few decades. Why would the ghost linger for so long and how would they have not been noticed before?
The planchett moves to 'A'.
"Don Vongola says he's imprisoned, not dead." Skull's very clearly grasping at straws, and Mammon's a bit touched by his attempt. But-
The planchett moves to 'N', and Mammon doesn't know. None of the Varia, not even Squalo, has been allowed to know anything about their Sky and what happened to him after the Cradle Affair. For all they knew, he could very well be dead and the Ninth's covering it up.
The planchett moves to 'X' again.
Skull reaches over and grasps Mammon's hand. He has a strong grip, and it's the only thing grounding Mammon. Without it, they might have been able to convince themself this was nothing but a nightmare.
It moves to 'U'. Then 'S'.
Xanxus, their boss, their Sky. Mammon's eyes narrow, and they burn like they haven't since the Promised Day. They wrench their hand out of Skull's grip with a snarl, cursing Vongola Ninth in every language they know. Their Sky is dead, and there will be hell to pay.
"Mammon," Skull says, slowly, quietly. When they turn to face him, his eyes are bright but serious. His voice cold, he asks, "What do you need me to do?"