Chapter 2 has arrived, this time focusing on Ollie and his parents. I estimate each chapter will take around two weeks to write, more or less depending on the length.
Why did Ollie only get to sing once in the show?! I believe he could have gotten a Theme Song Takeover had Season 3 happened. So, I wrote one for him.
This follows after the 'Robe Knows Best' episode, if you've read the script good, if you haven't then the chapter should catch you up on Ollie's new role.
Entering his garage, Ollie was perplexed to find a giant logo in the center of the room. "Theme Song Takeover?"
"OLLIE!" Molly burst out from behind the logo with Scratch, unintentionally jumpscaring her boyfriend.
Letting out a short scream, Ollie jumped back an inch while Molly and Scratch came around to the front beside him. "GAH! Molly?! What is this?"
"It's your Theme Song Takeover-" Scratch told him. "You do your own take on our theme song, that sort of thing. The squirrel let us borrow back the logo for the afternoon."
Molly pulled an arm around his shoulder and brought Ollie closer. "It's a fun and catchy, non-canon way to summarize your character arc this season."
Scratch rolled his eyes. "Which everyone should know anyway. I mean it's not like the episodes only made it to script form or something crazy like that."
"Hmm…" Ollie thoughtfully put a finger to his chin. "I guess I could give it a shot."
"That's the spirit!" Molly shoved a microphone into his hand. "Speaking of spirits-Hit it Scratch!" She pointed over to her ghost BFF.
"Hitting it!" Scratch pressed the play button on the music player. The music cued up, and the scenery changed in an instant to a blue background.
"Lost on what I should do~" Ollie stood in the center and started singing.
"My ghost hunting days were through~" An old Ghost Chaser Chen's poster is crossed out in red marker by the ex-ghost Hunter and then tossed in the trash.
"I had to find a new way to engoodify the world~" Waving his arm over his head, Ollie let a trail of sparkles scatter about as he longingly sang about his need for a purpose.
"Turns out I was needed most~" Ollie stepped backwards into a ghost portal, splitting his soul from his empty shell body.
"By a council run by ghosts~" Falling into the portal, Wraith Ollie landed at the Dark Dias. The Ghost Council eagerly surrounded him and the Chairman robes flew across the screen.
"Cause the robe, cause the robe it has chosen me~" Wraith Ollie slides down the robe like the rainbow in the original theme song.
"That's better~" The chairman's robe landed on Ollie and gave him his chairman appearance.
"Lotta pressure~" A mountain of scrolls and expectant ghosts surround the new leader of the ghost world. Ollie folds in on himself nervously with a lopsided grin to match.
"To prove I'm worthy~" Ollie shakes off the doubt and lifts himself into the sky.
"A kid with a ghost world to lead~" The council pass down a scroll until it reaches Ollie sitting at the end.
"Hope this gets you caught up to speed~" Ollie turns to look directly at the audience while he stamps the scroll.
"Fixing it all must be my destiny~" As chairman, Ollie fixes various problems for ghosts. Straightening a sign, fixing a hole in the ground, giving Bartholomew a thumbs up on his mini quiches. For the last three notes, he sings to a light shining down on him.
"He's so dreamy!" Molly stage-whispers to Scratch beside her as they watch him sing.
"So now I'm Chairman Ollie~" Ollie finished his song and the background returned to the original location in the Chen garage. Molly was eagerly applauding her boyfriend, while Shell Ollie beside her gave an apathetic "Woo."
Rejoining with his body, Ollie passed the microphone back to Molly. "That was pretty fun actually!"
"Told ya!" Molly smugly grinned.
"I've got some homework to do, but afterwards I'd love to hear some of the other theme songs!" The boy suggested his plans to his girlfriend.
"You got it, Olliepop!" Molly winked, pointing a finger-gun at her boyfriend.
Ollie waved goodbye and went back inside his house, leaving Molly and Scratch with the Theme Song Takeover logo. "Aaaawwww" Scratch smacked his face, realizing what came next. "We gotta push this thing all the way back where it came from! I knew we should have put wheels on it!"
"Come on Scratch, put some backbone into it!" Molly started shoving the heavy logo offscreen.
"I don't have ANY bones!" Scratch protested as he pushed the logo with her.
OXOXOXOX
A portal whirled open inside of Ollie's room, a figure wearing a long black robe floated through before closing the portal. "Yes! Got it on the first try this time!" The figure pulled the hood of the cloak down to reveal Wraith Ollie, glowing orange and grinning at having gotten the hang of using portals. "Hey me, I'm home!"
Shell Ollie was sitting on the bed reading a book (upside down, but he didn't care) and looked up at the chipper soul that addressed him. "Welcome back to the unending torment that is life."
Ollie paid his soulless body's comment no mind as he dived back in. It felt weird readjusting to a solid, walking body after floating around as a spirit for the last three hours. Leaving his room and heading down the hallway, Ollie's good mood was interrupted by the sight of a spider crawling across the wall. "AH-"
"There she is!" A young boy's voice called out. Darryl and June rounded the corner and ran to grab the spider. "Heidi, we told you not to wander off!" Darryl scolded his spider, who seemed apologetic. Ollie shuttered while watching Heidi hop into her owner's hands.
"Oh, Ollie, you're home." June realized it was actually her brother standing before her and not just his shell. "How was the Ghost World?"
"It was great!" Putting the spider freak-out behind him, Ollie was excited to tell his sister about his day. "The council gave me the grand tour and explained what duties I'll be upholding as the chairman. I even get a monogramed stapler!"
Darryl snapped his fingers, recalling what June had told him earlier. "Right, you've got the robe now! Congrats on the new job."
Ollie was about to thank Darryl, before his sister added. "He still hasn't told mom or dad about it." Ollie's face froze into a panicked smile and nervous sweating.
"I'm… working up to it." The new chairman rubbed the back of his neck. Telling his sister he was in charge of the Ghost World was easy, but telling his parents, on the other hand… he wasn't afraid of how they'd react, but he was very, very nervous about how they'd react. "I need to wait for the right moment to break the news. Uh-Hey what are you guys up to?" He changed the subject.
June took his bait, and took Heidi into her hands. "We're building a robotic body for Heidi Hairylegs!"
"It's going to be sick!" Darryl was pumped up. Imagine the possibilities of having a spider with a mechanical body the size of a person! Imagine the pranks that could be pulled…
The 'chaos duo' (as they've been dubbed by the school staff) hurried along to June's lab. Now alone, Ollie sighed. He had to tell his parents today, he couldn't keep putting it off.
OXOXOXOX
Ollie poked his head out the side of the kitchen door, eyeing his parents who were in the middle of a conversation. "-and then it hit me… we add Root Beer Floats!" Ruben excitedly told his wife his latest idea.
Esther loved it. "Perfect! It'll add some variety to the menu! We'll need to get a steady supply of vanilla ice cream though…" Business was booming at Ruben's Root Beer Pub. It made their son happy to see them have something new to pour their passion into. Shutting down the MeTube channel and giving up on chasing ghosts had left a big hole in their daily lives. "We'll work on ice cream arrangements on Monday. Tomorrow is a family-bonding Sunday and you know what that means…"
"The Chen Ghost chaser dri-" Ruben's enthusiasm dropped as the words left his mouth. "-ills… which we don't do anymore. Because we don't hate ghosts… except the one in the canister."
Ollie cringed, at least his dad caught himself. They had been hunting ghosts for as far back as he could remember. It was a big change and his parents were still adjusting to it. His mom and dad had been against ghosts since they started dating, so some old reflexes and habits kicked up before they stopped themselves. Ruben couldn't help but shudder when Geoff hugged him and got ectoplasm all over his clothes. And before they remembered to disarm an ecto-sensor, it picked up Scratch's signature and his mom instinctively grabbed a boo blaster.
They were trying. They listened to their kids while trying to navigate this new normal. Sure, it would have been nice if they'd started listening to Ollie back when he first tried talking to them. Yes, it hurt him when they dismissed him at the convention, and he may never have brought it up with them, because why would he want an old wound reopened? At least his stress nightmares didn't include his parents rejecting him anymore-
"Ollie?" His mom finally noticed his swoopy-haired head watching from the doorway.
The boy cleared his throat and awkwardly shuffled up to the kitchen counter by his parents. "Hey… y'all…" Ollie mentally facepalmed, 'y'all'? That sounded like a cowboy!
His parents didn't seem to mind his odd greeting, or if they did, they didn't say anything about it. "Your mother and I were just talking about what we should do as a family this Sunday. Maybe you or June have some ideas?" His father asked.
"Actually, I wanted to talk to you guys about something…" Ollie hesitated.
"If it's about the birds and the bees, let's wait until after Darryl goes home." Esther spoke way too casually.
"OH MY COB NO! It's absolutely nothing like that!" Ollie's mortified outburst was loud enough to startle his dad. Realizing he'd accidentally yelled in his dad's ear, Ollie sheepishly apologized. "Sorry."
Ruben chuckled, understanding why his son suddenly shouted. "It's fine, Ollie. So what did you want to talk about?"
His parents' expecting gazes made Ollie feel smaller. Come on, he could work up the courage to talk to them! It wasn't like he had to convince them that their worldview was wrong, just that he was now the leader of an entire world. At 14. And it's made up of the very beings they used to hunt. "Mom, dad, I-"
The tense air was shattered by the arrival of Heidi Hairylegs in a robot body. June and Darryl followed behind as they excitedly showed off their project. "Check out Heidi! She's tall enough to blend in with society!" Darryl proudly exclaimed. All they needed was a trench coat and they'd be set to sneak into R-Rated movies!
The vibe was totally thrown off, and now all the attention went to the spider maneuvering the robot suit. Actually, June was piloting the suit, but the mini-control panel made Heidi feel like she was actually driving. "Don't mind us. We just came in for a juice break." June assured her parents as she directed the robot body to open the fridge and pass them some juice boxes.
"You built that in one afternoon?" Esther was impressed by the creation.
"It didn't take the whole afternoon." June had worked on the blueprints and frame for three days now. But the final build only took eight hours to build with Darryl as her lab partner. He had no idea how the stuff worked, but he listened to her instructions and worked hard, for the sake of giving his spider a mech suit.
Darryl took a long sip of his apple juice. "It still needs some oil, the joints squeak when they move."
"I think we've got some in storage, let me go check." Esther led the kids and spider with a robot body out of the kitchen.
Left with just his dad, Ollie figured he'd hold off on the reveal until his mom returned. It'd be easier to tell them both at the same time rather than telling one and then have to do it all over a second time. "Speaking of storage-'' Ruben reached over into a box on the counter, one leftover from the recent re-packing, then unpacking over the canceled move. "Look what I found while I was putting the stuff away."
Ruben held out an old photograph and passed it to his son. Ollie's eyes widened as he recognized his younger self and his dad in the photo. "I remember this…"
Flashback sequence engaged!
Eight-year-old Ollie intently watched as his father demonstrated the proper way to hold a goo gun. "Now once you make sure you're holding it steady-" Ruben aimed the modified water gun at a fake ghost. "You aim and press!" His goo gun shot out a blast of green, sticky substance.
Esther loaded up another water gun with the ghost-immobilizing slime. They hadn't expected their son to ask to join his parents in hunting ghosts, but they welcomed his interest with open arms. True, the couple had yet to actually capture a ghost, and it was more of a side hobby than a business, but now that their son wanted to join in, maybe they could make this into something more. If they did, they'd certainly need better equipment than what they were using. "Ready, Ollie?" Esther handed her boy the loaded goo gun, keeping hold until she was sure he had a grip on it.
Little Ollie did what his dad had shown him, sticking out his tongue as he concentrated on his aim. He pressed the release and watched the slime blast forward and hit his target. "I did it! I hit the ghost!" His first training session was off to a good start.
"That's my boy!" Ruben affectionately ruffled his son's swoopy hair, making the kid laugh.
"Look at my little ghost hunter in-training! Pretty soon this will be a real family business." Esther praised her oldest child. Her phone suddenly went off, and she checked the caller ID. "It's the babysitter." She relayed before taking the call. "Hello?... June took apart the toaster?! … Well, did you let her try putting it back together?"
With his wife on the phone, Ruben knelt down to Ollie's level. "Dad, getting rid of ghosts is going to make the world nicer, right?" Little Ollie asked.
"It will." Ruben assured him. "You're such a good kid Ollie, always wanting to do good and help others. Being a ghost hunter won't be easy, but know that we'll always have your back." He pulled Ollie into a hug.
Ollie was thrilled, he'd found a way to not only engoodify the world but also make his parents proud of him. The latter was why he wanted to hunt ghosts like them, so they'd be with him instead of leaving him at home with his sister and a babysitter. Their expectations would be higher, and he couldn't afford to disappoint them. Ollie would become someone they could be proud of.
A flash went off, and the guys looked to see Esther snapping a photo of them with a Polaroid camera. "Now this one's a keeper."
Returning to the present time…
The photo of Ollie and his dad hugging was scratched and slightly bent, yet the picture was as vibrant as the day it was taken. Ollie smiled bitter-sweetly, it was a dear memory of his parents' love, and a sour reminder that he'd been so eager to hurt ghosts at a young age. "You were so little back then-" Ollie heard his dad say. "But you've always had a big heart. Always wanting to 'engoodify' the world."
'I wanted to engoodify by hurting innocent ghosts, you mean' Ollie dared not voice his thoughts.
Esther returned from helping the chaos duo, and she looked like she had an idea to share. "The kids told me there's a new mini-golf place in Mewline. That could be fun for the weekend."
Her husband liked her idea, and they conversed about it. Ollie wasn't paying much attention to what they were saying. Maybe he should back out now? What if they were against his new job and forbade him from doing it? No, they weren't like that, they liked ghosts now. Ollie was not exactly sure why this was so difficult, was he afraid they'd disapprove of him-it! Disapprove of it! He needed to rip the bandage off!
"I'm the new Chairman of the Ghost World!" Ollie blurted out, immediately clasping his hands to his mouth once he realized he had actually said it out loud.
… "What?" His dad tilted his head. Both adults were understandably confused by the sudden outburst.
Taking a deep breath, Ollie readied himself. "Mom, dad, remember how Scratch cursed the Chairman's robe to seek the most worthy? It-it chose me."
(Behind Ollie outside the window, Heidi's robot body had gone rogue and was running around on its own. Darryl and June chased after it.)
"Wait-" Esther pinched the bridge of her nose, processing what her son was telling them. "That robe chose you! Wasn't that meant to find a new ruler of ghosts?"
(Darryl caught Heidi as she was ejected from the robot body. June frantically pressed the buttons on her remote but it wasn't responding.)
Ollie nervously grinned. "Yeah, so Scratch brought me and Molly to the Ghost World-which was completely falling apart-and the robe insisted that I become the chairman. At first, I turned it down, and we tried to find someone better suited for the job… and there wasn't. We had to save the presidents, I magically closed a bottomless abyss, and I took the job. Part-time, of course!"
(The robot was going haywire, its arms and torso rotating like helicopter blades. It whacked the remote from June's hands and crushed it.)
"Then… Ollie, you're in charge of the ENTIRE Ghost World?!" Ruben was still wrapping his head around the idea. His son, ruler of the afterlife?!
(Darryl briefly ran off to grab something, while June stood in the robot's path. Blocking it whenever it tries to move.)
"I know it's a lot to take in. And it sounds like it's way too much for me to handle." Ollie rubbed his arm, nervously looking away. "But the Ghost Council will help me figure things out. So you don't have to worry about me doing this alone."
(The robot whirled its arms again, trying to hit June. Darryl ran back over and smashed a plastic lawn chair over it. June took her turn to run off-screen while it was preoccupied with Darryl.)
The wait for his parents to respond was agonizing. Ollie tensed up and clenched his eyes shut, then two gentle hands reached out and held his shoulders. He opened his eyes to see his parents smiling proudly at him. "It's a shock to say the least…" his dad spoke. "But we're proud that you've found this path for yourself."
(June returns with her jumper cables, driving them into the robot's back and letting the electricity overload it.)
"R-really?" Ollie's voice sounded hopeful yet uncertain.
(With the robot stunned, Heidi used her webbing to string her former robo-body up like a pinata. And just like a pinata, Darryl and June grabbed sticks to whack it with. They alternated hitting it until it blew up.)
Esther looked her son in the eyes. "You will always make us proud Ollie, no matter what." Her reassurance drove Ollie to pull his arms around his parents and pull the three of them into a hug. Ruben and Esther returned the gesture, holding their boy close.
A burned smell entered the room. "Did someone burn toast?" Ruben asked, causing the hug to break up as the other two noticed the smell and its source; the lightly charred chaos duo entering the kitchen.
"The robot body turned evil, and we had to destroy it." June explained before anyone could ask. "We need a trash bag and a broom to clean up the debris."
Ollie moved to help the younger duo. "Want some extra help?" His sister and Darryl nodded eagerly. They grabbed what they needed and went back to the yard, before leaving, Ollie shot his parents a thankful smile.
Ruben and Esther waited until the kids were gone to turn to one another with concern. "Ollie is in charge of the whole Ghost World! That is a massive responsibility!"
"He's not even in high school yet! This is more than some part-time job…" Ruben shook his head. A year ago his son was a ghost hunter, and now he's the ghost LEADER!
"Do you think he'll be able to handle it?" Esther trusted Ollie, he wanted to engoodify the world, and now he could engoodify an entire world. A job like that would come with immense stress. What if it became too much?
Ruben held his wife close. "I can't answer that. But Ollie knows we'll support him however we can. If he's in trouble, he can count on us."
Change could be scary and uncertain, but the Chen's were a family, and they would grow stronger and closer as they changed.