Gabby sat by the Containment Unit with Marta and made conversation since there was nothing much they could do. None of the alps went downstairs and posed any threat to the Containment Unit, so far so good.

"So let me get this straight…" said Marta, "You tried to summon one of us into your world, only to get a fluffy pink thing?"

"Yes," said Gabby, "It resembled something with a bird's head, a llama's body, blades for feet and an umbrella for a tail."

Marta laughed.

"It wasn't really funny at the time," said Gabby. She suddenly regretted bringing up this story.

"I'm pretty sure I've seen the demon that you're talking about," said Marta.

"What are they called?"

"Beats me. But what I know is that there are far weirder-looking demons in the depths of the Demon Realm. You didn't even scratch the surface of how truly destructive and unsettling we can all be!" Marta was getting joy out of relaying this information.

Gabby pretended to chuckle at this story but then the pretend chuckle turned into a real one. Enough time had passed that she could look back and laugh at this debacle. After all, who HASN'T accidentally let a demon loose in a neighborhood, either literally or figuratively?

A crash was heard upstairs. The alps had gotten in. Gabby stood up and had her proton gun at the ready. If this were any being that was purely physical, she would have been staring at the stairwell, but these were creatures that could phase in and out of physical barriers if need be. She had to dart her eyes everywhere and be conscious of every sound.

"Who wants noogies!" said one of them from the main floor.

Judging from the sounds of struggle that Slimer was making, he was the unfortunate recipient of the head rubs. Gabby heard some crashes and laughter. She thought about the property that was being damaged but none of that was important compared to a potentially damaged Containment Unit. Marta was on high alert as well. She bore her teeth and dug her foot talons into the floor. Her eyes were wild with shrunken pupils. This was terrifying for Gabby but she wasn't quite sure how well it would scare a fellow demon.

Suddenly, everything went quiet. It sounded as though the demons left. Maybe they thought The Firehouse didn't have much for them to toy with. Gabby put down her proton gun and sighed with relief…

Until…

CRASH!

One demon clung to the railing on the stairwell with manic eyes and a tongue hanging out of the side of his mouth.

"There's more down here!" he shouted. He grinned at Gabby. The other alps flew into the large room, leaving gusts of black and gray feathers.

Gabby fired her proton gun, getting as many of the demons as possible, but more of them kept coming in through the door while some of them came through the walls. She couldn't hear her thoughts over the hollers and shrieks but what she could hear was Winston's voice shouting at her to keep moving. Always keep moving. She evaded as many of the demon attacks as possible but she managed to get at least one scratch on her cheek. She got an entire clump of them into the proton beam before she sucked them into the trap.

There wasn't much that Marta could do besides attack them one by one, but she seemed particularly good at that. It wasn't hard to tell her apart from the others, since she was the one white one amongst the others, who were on a spectrum of black to light gray, although some of them did have large white spots.

Gabby was ultimately glad that she cast that protection spell. Several of the demons tried to attack The Containment Unit while she was busy blasting the others, although these efforts to get to The Unit were futile. Gabby was careful not to fire any proton beams near the magical shield. She did not know what effect they would have on a magical shield and frankly, she didn't want to know.

Gabby wanted so badly to cover her ears from the harpy-ish screeching of the alps but two hands needed to be on the proton gun at all times. She managed to get what she thought was her last clump of alps into her proton beam when two more grabbed onto her. One of them started gnawing on her leg. Not even the thick jumpsuit could keep out the sting of each tooth.

Gabby was losing her concentration and nearly stopped the proton beam but she did not cave into the distraction, no matter how painful it was.

"Marta!" shouted Gabby, "I need you to slide the trap to that clump of demons and step on the button to activate it! But be careful!"

"Why?!" asked Marta.

"Because you're a demon and you could get sucked in, too!"

It wasn't like Marta had a choice. She took a spare trap and slid it across the floor like a curling stone. It stopped right under the demon clump. Marta stood a foot away from the trap pedal and looked away while pressing it with her claw as hard as she could.

The blinding light told Gabby to look away as well. Underneath the high pitch noise of the open trap, the shrieking of the alps became smaller and smaller. Eventually, their infernal noises disappeared completely, signaling Marta to take her claw off of the pedal. She stood there with her body trembling and her eyes sealed shut.

"Umm… you can open your eyes now," said Gabby.

Marta did as she was told (very unlike her) and looked at the smoldering trap. A grin spread across her face.

"Yes!" she said.

But they couldn't celebrate just yet. Out of the corner of her eye, Gabby spotted one more demon that escaped his fate in the trap. He was right by the Containment Unit, light gray with moth wings just like Marta's. Gabby fired her proton beam as close to the alp as she could without touching the magic shield. The alp lept into the air and fell back toward the ground. Why he didn't use his wings to fly away was anyone's guess.

"Marta, I want you to capture him and hold him still!" said Gabby, "I have something to ask him."

"You got it!" said Marta.

Marta chased the other alp around the room, crashing into the same things that he was. Just because Marta was now officially on the side of The Ghostbusters didn't necessarily mean that she respected their property. As far as she was concerned, those were the eggs that had to be broken in order to make this omelet.

After a minute or so of Marta chasing this demon, she finally pinned him against the wall. All he could do was kick his legs and turn his head. Marta hissed at this demon in an attempt to show dominance and it was debatable how much this worked..

"I've got him right where we want him, Gab," said Marta, "Better say what you need to say because I don't know how long I can hold him."

"So what they say is true," said the demon, "You did become a traitor! You're just a shell of an alp, working and not playing!"

"Say whatever slanderous things you want," responded Marta, "I'm perfectly fine with my life choices."

Gabby figured that she had to ask her question before they continued to argue. She locked eyes with the demon and, in that contact, she could see the most nefarious intentions with only physical limitation holding him back.

"Why are you and your ilk here?" asked Gabby.

"Why do you want to know?" asked the alp.

"Answer me!"

"We're just here to have a little fun, that's all!"

Gabby gritted her teeth as her rage escalated. She was going to get to the bottom of this even if it killed her.

"Why are you here?!" she shouted, "There has to be a reason why you guys are doing this AND the Halloween attack. What is it?!"

The demon paused and shrugged.

"Go on, answer her question!" said Marta, "Or you're going to be in a world of pain!"

"All right, all right!" said the demon, "If you must know… we planned this night in order to weed out the weaklings. Yasmine knew that you would come out and zap as many of us as possible. The ones that remain will attack the city on All Hallow's Eve."

Gabby shook in her boots. She almost couldn't grasp her proton gun but she squeezed it as hard as possible while this terrifying truth took hold.

"Re… really?" she asked.

"Yes, really," said the alp, "And, try as you might, you're not going to catch all of us." The demon's eyes started to look greener than usual while he stared and grinned.

Gabby felt something rise within her, an urge to tell this demon off.

"No!" she said. Gabby could feel literal electricity coming from her fingers as her strong feeling translated into unpredictable magic. "We will catch all of the demons tonight! We've been training non-stop!"

"Do I need to repeat myself?" asked the alp, "I said you won't catch all of us!"

Gabby knew that she needed to calm down lest she cause a lightning storm in that room. She waited until her rapid breathing went back to normal and electricity was no longer dancing between her fingers before grabbing her proton gun.

Marta made sure to move out of the way before Gabby fired. Gabby blasted her gun at the demon but he did not writhe and struggle like other ghosts would. Instead, he floated there, laughing at The Ghostbusters' impending failure, laughing as if the proton beam were merely tickling him. Marta slid the trap under him and opened it up, sucking him in. And not a moment too soon; Gabby couldn't stand this creature's taunts any longer.

The emotional exhaustion got to Gabby to the point where she fell on her knees. She withstood the pain of doing this against a concrete floor because she was too obsessed with what the alp said. It was now quiet enough in the building that Marta felt it safe to have an intimate moment with her.

"You okay, Gabby?" asked Marta, "You did pretty well blasting that guy."

Gabby took some jagged breaths and looked at Marta.

"How do I know you didn't know about this?!" she snapped, "You've been the closest to this witch! Why didn't she tell you?!"

Marta was taken aback at this reaction to her kindness.

"That witch is a wily one, Gabby!" said Marta, "She doesn't spill her info until right as it's about to happen!"

Gabby suddenly felt bad that she unleashed her stress at this creature; not just ANY creature but a creature that had willingly joined her side. Gabby wanted to cry but knew she had a job to do. She imagined that doctors had to constantly keep themselves together in order to get through a harrowing job. Being a ghostbuster was no different.

Slimer floated up to Gabby and rubbed her back.

"Urrrrr…" he said sympathetically, "There, there…"

Gabby got back up and took note of her surroundings. They had gotten all of the alps… for now. She could only assume that more were coming and all she could do to attack them is fire a very expensive device that she was carrying on her back. It was times like this that she wished she could do more. She wished she could punch one of those demons.

But that wasn't possible… was it?