Chapter 13: The Escalation Begins

Holly quickly pulled into her garage. Her heart was racing the whole time as she drove like a maniac to get back home. Matthew just did something that even in her wildest dreams she never thought she would see and the lump in her throat illustrated exactly how far everything had gone. It was finally starting to dawn on her that this was more than just ending the world and she was only a mere part of it. She was trembling so bad once she put her car in park and put her head against the steering wheel and started to lose control of her emotions. She started rubbing her chest and squirming around becoming very distraught as suddenly she lost any sense of security she had. She began to cry.

"Holly?" The strong voice tried to talk to her, remaining calm as it tried to address her, "Holly, I need you to try and relax. You're going through alcohol withdrawals. I know this is an intense situation, but I need you to try and breathe." "You know what's going on! I know you do!" she yelled, "Why is all of this happening?! What the hell is going on?!"

"I don't know if you can handle that…"

Holly punched the horn on her wheel several times in anger as her anxiety went through the roof, screaming at the void around her once she was done, "Stop fucking lying to me! You said it was happening all over again! Why the hell were you talking about?! What is happening again?!"

"Alright! Alright!" The voice became stern and boomed its voice at her making her jump in her seat. After a moment Holly was still scared stiff at the voice but found it had calmed down to speak to her again, this time more soft, "A number of years ago I stumbled across a situation that was directly tied to what we're seeing now; to what you just started. I laid witness to several phenomena knowing there was a bigger consequence to what had happened in the past, especially with the recorder. I never realized it - even a bit after the time - but when that recorder was originally used in modern times a doorway opened and let a horrible evil that had been sealed away for 1000 years through. Even though it was sealed, something else was awakened and it started coming through."

"You mean," Holly was now calmed a bit, but was still rubbing her chest in stress, "when Whittington played the recorder, something went wrong?" The voice went silent for a moment. The silence caused her to begin tensing again as she waited for his answer. She almost felt like bringing up Jeremy Whittington made the situation become far more tense than before.

She heard the voice sigh, "Yeah. When Whittington tried to play the damaged flute it woke up something far worse than just the Dark Entity itself. All deities in all religious and mythological pantheons always had a following; a grouping of minions, if you will. You are aware of this, seeing you've led a group of them yourself. The time disconnection between our world and the world the entity occupied was so vastly different it took time to sync them up. For them it was moments, for us it was almost a decade. When the two worlds finally synced these minions picked the first accessible place it could lay waste: Tokyo, Japan."

"Wait," Holly was starting to see what the voice was saying, "are you telling me this Dark Entity has absolutely nothing to do with Norse gods? Hel has nothing to do with this?"

"I hate to break it to you, Holly, but…" That was all she needed to hear. She went from panic to anger in a matter of seconds as she started realizing what was happening and why she was needed, "He used me… That motherfucker used me?!" "Your father's death led you to Matthew. It also led you to have a motive and allowed for a means to get the materials and support necessary to keep from anyone interfering with his plan. Once the Bishops took your father's company over it opened the door to have the flow of possession swung in the other direction. All he needed was someone he could control. Being as angry and jaded - not to mention intoxicated - as you were, you were left open to suggestion which allowed him to manipulate you. Being you were the rightful heir to your father's business, he needed you to gain possession of all of the Bishop's family possessions."

"Now that the Second Stanza has been played and he has his army," she summarized, "He doesn't need me anymore." "He still has one last use for you. You see, Matthew has a very direct tie to the whole thing. As part of his curse, he can never use the recorder himself. He can only use others to play the recorder; he can't summon it or play it himself. So long as this limitation is placed on him, he has to use others to achieve his goals."

That scared her. Now she was feeling her skin crawl, "You don't mean…?"

"So long as the curse stays in place, Matthew can't play the recorder himself. He still has one last Stanza to play in order for the end to come, but he still needs the person that summoned the recorder itself. Without you - because the recorder is directly bonded to you when you summoned it - the recorder is useless to him otherwise."

"But if I don't play it, then the world doesn't end, right?"

"Not necessarily," The voice stated, "You see, because two thirds of the Stanzas have been played, it'll simply be a slow erosion of the world even without the Entity. The world is doomed now that you're started the destruction. The Entity itself will not have direct dominion over this world, but its creatures will come through forever more thus creating chaos. You saw what the creature toxin did to the Forgotten, correct?" Holly nodded. "You see, those creatures aren't just here and doing as they please. They're also not working under the Entity's direct control. No, there's someone responsible for these things."

Holly choked up. She knew exactly what that meant, "Matthew has control of… Oh my fucking GOD!"

"And now that the Forgotten have the toxin in them, he has the same level of control over them."

There was something she didn't understand. Well, she didn't understand a lot of what was happening, but there were a few things about the new information the voice had that confused her the most, "What is he? Who put this curse on him that made him unable to play the thing? Why Tokyo? I-I don't get any of this!" "There's a lot to unpack, I agree. I can't give you all of the details because you may start thinking I'm making it up. What I can tell you is this: He's a danger to us. Everyone in this world is in serious danger because of him and what he has wrought on this world. He's been waiting for a long time for this; far longer than you could imagine."

Holly gripped the steering wheel and closed her eyes. The sense of guilt started to compound the anxiety that was welling ever more inside her as she closed her eyes harder and harder the more she thought of it. She felt so torn. All because of a huge guilt she had about her father being killed and believing she had done it…

That was when she had a moment of clarity. He worked pro-bono, as he stated. Why did he help her at all? She only had one thing left to ask, "Why me? Of all of the people he decided to target, why did he pick me?" "The short answer," the voice said, "was because he needed to combine powers. He couldn't keep working for the Bishops because of the lack of control."

That was it!

"He was a Bishop goon?!"

"That was why I was pleading with you to stop what you were doing, even before my own demise." "Your own…?" That was when she realized it; why the voice was so familiar, "Mr. Dub, is that you?" She was again left in silence. The voice that had tried to help her through her alcoholism and personal torment was the one that was trying to talk sense to her. She remembered the man well, since the day they met he was a soft-spoken man and cared immensely for others. The fact he tried to take care of Holly even after her being ineligible for care at the Angel Guardian home.

Ghostbusters HQ

4:35 PM

Dan stood on the roof of the firehouse with his arms crossed across his chest. He looked out toward the city, the gloomy sky hanging over the skyscrapers as he eyed the lightning that flashed out in the ocean. After being quickly awakened after the Luna Mind Meld with the crystal and Darien in the mix he had a lot of things on his mind. He learned Garrett hated him even as a Solar Knight in the Silver Millenium; he even learned Doc Brown had a hand in King Darien blanking his mind while crossing time barriers. Worst of it all, Dan found out he was responsible for Garrett becoming a Ghostbuster. He had to tell him, and that time was seconds away.

Garrett unloaded himself off the elevator on the roof. He wheeled himself to behind his manager, the guilt still filling his chest as he stopped behind him. He spoke softly, "So, everyone tells me you wanted to see me?" Dan sighed as he turned around, "Yeah. Look, I get you feeling bad about the whole diner thing - among others - but we need to put that behind us. There's something I need to tell you…"

"I heard," the wheelchair bound Ghostbuster stated as he looked to his lap, "I heard we didn't get along even back then. Does it really matter?"

"Garrett, there's something you don't understand," Dan dropped his arms to his sides, "I just learned about something that ultimately, it might make you seriously pissed as all hell. You remember what happened during that whole Tempus incident where you were unknown to that Issac kid that switched places with Kylie?" "Yeah, he didn't remember me," Garrett answered, "made me feel kinda dejected." Now Dan was unsure if he should say anything… No, he had to do it. No matter how goddamned angry Garrett was going to become he had to tell the truth and it had to be now.

Dan drew a breath through his nose as he cleared his throat, "Garrett, you were forgotten not because you had something befall you the moment the Ghost Wars started; you weren't a Ghostbuster at all." Garrett raised his head and screwed his face into a look of confusion Dan rarely ever saw from the man. Dan took the crystal out of his pocket, "This was used on me and Darien earlier today when you weren't here. This crystal contains information that was put into my head by way of a playback. Two years ago we received an experiment from the government. Inside was - and I'm not making this up - a time machine. The machine had a malfunction when me and Eduardo went to figure out what was going on with it and we were stuck. After going to California to get the inventor in the past, something happened where we had to hop around time and at one point, the time machine was hijacked."

"I…" Garrett was lost, "What?!"

Dan lightly groaned as he lowered the crystal then put his free forefinger and thumb to the bridge of his nose, "Look, the short version is, I found out through another damaged timeline that you never became a Ghostbuster," he looked back to the man before him in the wheelchair, "You were bullied off the basketball court at your elementary school by your buddy Spence, right?"

"Ex-Buddy," he corrected his superior, "I don't talk to that clown anymore."

Dan nodded, "Anyway, on that day, you were pushed out. You met a man at the bus stop…" Garrett's eyes nearly blew out of his head when he said that. He approached closer as he heard the man tell him further…

October 22nd, 1986

PS 261 Zipporiah Hills

Brooklyn Heights, New York

Around the corner from the school it was a rather empty street. After a few moments the wind picked up a bit… BANG! BANG! BANG! Intense flashes and bangs filled the space of the streets as a silver car with several attached pieces of equipment suddenly appeared. The DeLorean Time Machine skidded to a stop on the empty street as its occupants surveyed the area. Eduardo - having been rescued from being taken hostage by Biff Tannen alongside Marty McFly and Jennifer Parker - friends of Doc Brown - he looked around and noticed it was daylight out. He was clearly confused, "Hey, man, I thought we were gonna do that back at Staten? What're we doing here anyway?"

Dan took the car out of gear and also looked around. He looked at the display and seemed to have been confused. As soon as Dan hit the city limits he had been non-talkative and somewhat aloof. He was having an issue keeping a conversation, "I have to do something. Stay with the DeLorean; I gotta take care of something." He opened the gullwing door and stepped out. After he closed the door he started walking to a payphone. After a moment of grabbing the phone and dialing a number, Eduardo watched him finish his call then grab his Blackhawks hat from his head and point the bill forward. That confused him, "What the hell is he…?" before he could even finish asking himself that question Dan walked around the corner and disappeared. He shook his head, "I hope he didn't use a 2000 quarter in that phone or someone's gonna start asking questions."

Dan walked softly and slowly toward the front of the school. He had his hat brought down low over his eyes, the bill of the hat casting a shadow over them. He approached the bus stop in front of the building and saw a little boy in a wheelchair sulking and crying as he waited for a bus. He smoothly sat down on the bench and pulled the bill lower, "Hey kiddo, why the waterworks?"

A few minutes went by. Eduardo kept looking at the time display in the center console as he noticed that Dan was gone for 30 minutes. He wasn't sure what was going on, but it seemed… unnatural for Dan to put his bill forward when he wasn't filled with intense rage. He seemed way to out of it to be angry at anything.

He heard a familiar sound. Ecto-1 rounded the corner Dan went and skidded around to pass the DeLorean, lights and siren running. At first Eduardo wanted to duck to avoid being seen, but he had to remember it was 1986 and that it wasn't the others in the car; instead it was the original Ghostbusters. He rubbed his head after the vehicle flew past him and disappeared around another corner. He was confused yet again, "Why did they just go by?" After a few more moments, Dan finally emerged back around the corner he went and walked back to the car. Getting in he took his hat off and put it back in his cargo pocket, suddenly being confused as to where he was. He looked around, "What just happened?"

"Uh, Dan?" Eduardo was starting to worry, "Are you alright?" Dan looked at him with a blank expression on his face. "Man, these long runs of you not sleeping is starting to scare me." Dan started the time machine and started inputting the correct time, "Which'll be fixed once I get back to the firehouse. Those old creaky bunks sound good right about now." After setting the time Dan started rolling the car toward Staten Island to head back to Harlan Airport. Eduardo had to ask one last time, "What exactly did you have to do?" "Do?" Dan asked, "I donno, I had to call the office for something and I talked to a kid. That's all I remember for some reason." "Talk to the office?" Eduardo asked, "In 1986?" Dan saw what Eduardo was saying, and it was absurd, "Maybe you're right, Eddie," he conceded, "I gotta stop pulling these multiday stunts. It's really fucking with my brain."

Just as they rounded the corner, they saw Ecto-1 on the side of the road. The DeLorean passed Ecto-1 and nearly disappeared around the corner when the Ghostbusters of 1986 walked out of a building. Peter, Ray, Egon, and Winston walked back to the car as they removed their Proton Packs to load up, Peter openly complaining, "Stupid crank calls. They're getting started early this Halloween." "Tell me about it," Winston agreed as he took the packs and loaded them onto the car's equipment cart, "Every time October comes around…"

Egon was looking to the street and saw the strange silver car begin to disappear around the corner. He caught a glimpse of the equipment adorned on it, "That's peculiar." Ray looked toward the car as he turned the corner onto the next street and disappeared behind a building, "What?" he looked to Egon, "That car that just went by?" "Yes, we passed it on the street a few moments ago. If I didn't know any better, I'd say it was loaded with a miniaturized fast reactor with an integrated coolant system. For what purpose…" He trailed off. Peter looked at is old friend, "Spengs, if you didn't know any better, you wouldn't know what that was." Egon shrugged then proceeded to hand his Proton Pack to Winston, "Probably nothing."

Garrett was appalled, to say the least. That same look of disdain he had before knowing he caused the fire in the diner was now back on his face. He was going to express his outright come hell or high water, "You went back in time and manipulated me?! What in the hell is the matter with you, you unstable…"

"Hold on! Hold on!" Dan had to stop Garrett and interject, "You ain't the only poor shithead that got manipulated," he took out the crystal again, "This Goddamn thing messed up my brain and my memory as far back as me being a Knight. This thing gave me the instruction to do what I did without me knowing I did it. Whether you believe me or not is up to you, but Eduardo can confirm it happened. Hell," he pointed to the floor of the roof essentially pointing inside the building, "Darien can confirm it. He saw everything, too."

Garrett was still angry, but he started to calm down knowing there had to be a reason, "What happened to me when I wasn't a Ghostbuster?" Dan didn't like what he knew, but he knew he had to tell him, "You were a lanky kid that never played sports or achieved anything worth a damn. You never became friends with Spence or the others. As much as it angers you now, those kids - despite their faults - shaped you into a much better person. Now you just need to fine tune it. Raye's depending on you, and so am I. So, like I asked you before, I need to trust you, Garrett. Can I?" Dan once again extended his hand.

Garrett looked at Dan's hand. After what he just learned about his own past and how things had been shaped he realized he would have given up if it weren't for Dan being in the past. He was angry at first, but he started to feel appreciative of what happened at that moment in time. This time, there was no need to feel guilt. If anything, Garrett was starting to realize Dan saved his life more than just at O'Leary's Diner. This man he hated; this man he wanted to hurt so bad, he wouldn't have even known him if it weren't for the risk he took to allow him to become a Ghostbuster. Being a Ghostbuster was the greatest thrill he ever had; it was an adrenaline high that was of choice consumption. He would have missed out on that if it weren't for Dan.

Garrett looked at the Chicago man's hand again. He knew all he'd have to do is just be a good person and stop being vindictive. He nodded his head, rolled forward, and took the outreached hand. Yesterday Garrett was about to give up on himself again, and Raye convinced him not to leave being a Ghostbuster. 14 years ago, Dan had to do the same to convince him to be a Ghostbuster. If it weren't for Garrett's rage and grudge, these two men would have been fast friends. He realized that if Egon could trust him, he knew he could have. He wished he could have seen that sooner. Nevertheless, the future was open and now these two could go forward. Where it led them was going to be dark and dangerous, but now they were on common ground.

It's never too late. From here, the escalation begins.