A/N: Might be pretty late, but here comes the Halloween Chapter. Here, we focus on 5 members from teams PASM and CPER, and they are wrapped up in some crazy hijinks that fit surprisingly well with a certain ghost detective gang they are dressed up as for Halloween.
Aria belongs to my friend Koyukiy.
Chapter 72: The Ghost of Beacon Academy
It's Halloween Night.
The Kingdom of Vale is really festive for the night.
Beacon Academy is dark and empty, yet it is also festive for Halloween. There's only one room in the whole dorm where there's light, and it's very faint. Along with a scary voice coming out of the cracked door.
"And so: The guy opens the door, slowly, filled to the brim with fear, even startled by the creepy sound of the door creaking. But as he looks inside, he can only scream in fear as he sees...The Man with an Axe for an arm!"
Peter pulls out his axe in a swift sudden and lets out an ominous scary yell.
In the room is the other members of CPER and PASM: Clawdia, Aria, Selena, and Marlene. In the dark room, there's only a single lantern lighting up the room, to act as an indoor campfire. Everyone is dressed up in a Custom from a Scooby-Dooby-Doo character. Peter as Fred. Selena as Daphne. Marlene as Velma. Aria as Shaggy, and Clawdia as a cat version of Scooby.
"That wasn't a scary story." Marlene says.
"The saddest thing about it is that it's actually the best story he's ever told." Clawdia says.
"I-I-I thought it was s-sort of scary." Aria says.
"Don't encourage him." Clawdia tells Aria.
Peter sits back down. "Aw, come on. I'm just trying to get us in the Halloween mood."
"I wish we could without wearing these costumes." Selena says.
"What's wrong with going as Scrappy-Happy-Mew and the Mysterious Meddlers?" Marlene asks.
"It's not, just that...I feel uncomfortable dressing up as Danielle of the group." Selena leans in to whisper to Marlene. "I even feel like it's gonna give away my identity to some people." Selena tilts her head towards Aria.
"You know, we're gonna have to tell her someday." Marlene whispers.
Clawdia then stands up. "Well, we should start heading out. Instructor Mashika and the others must be waiting for us at the Halloween Festival."
The group starts heading out. The hallways are dark, so they had to use the lantern to light their way. They make their way through the darken hallways until they made it to the doors. Peter tries opening the doors, but they won't budge.
"It's locked." Peter says.
"What? How is it locked?" Marlene asks.
Aria tries opening the door herself, but nothing. "It's definitely locked. W-w-what are we gonna do?"
"We can just take the back exit." Selena says. "It should be-"
Suddenly, there's a loud crash. Everyone jumped hearing it. "What was that?!" Clawdia asks.
"I don't know. Let's check it out." Marlene says.
The group heads down Beacon's dark hallways. They head towards the direction of the crashing sound. As they walked, they arrived at a fork in the road. Clawdia raises the lantern in two directions. "The sound could have come from any direction."
"Then we split up." Marlene looks at Clawdia and Aria. "You two head straight. The rest of us go in this direction." Marlene takes the lantern and her team heads out, while Clawdia and Aria take the other way. Being Faunus's, they are able to see in the dark with their Night Vision.
The two groups wander through the dark hallways trying to find the source of the sound. Clawdia and Aria find themselves arriving at the kitchen. Clawdia flips the light switch, but nothing happens. She flips it repeatedly, but not still nothing.
"The lights aren't working. This is Claw-ful." Clawdia says.
"Oh boy. Th-th-this is bad. W-w-we're locked in. Th-the lights are out. And s-something scary's going on." Just then, Aria's stomach suddenly starts growling. She puts her hands on her stomach. "Oh. To top it all off, I'm getting hungry." Aria blushes saying that.
"Well, we are in a kitchen. We can whip up a snack." Clawida opens up the fridge to see everything inside. "This'll be Purr-fect!"
Meanwhile, Marlene's team are still in search of the strange noise. As they wandered down the hallway, they arrived in the teacher's lounge. The place looks deserted in the dark. Marlene tries turning on the lights, but nothing's happening.
"The lights aren't working. The power must have blown." Marlene says.
"First we're locked in the school, then the loud noise, and now the lights are off." Selena says.
"Oh boy, this is just like the Mysterious Meddlers. What if..." Peter suddenly feels nervous. "We're dealing with...A ghost?"
"Don't be ridiculous, Peter. There are no such things as ghosts." Selena says.
"Selena's right. Ghosts are nothing but superstitious specters." Marlene says. Marlene looked around until she found some papers. Marlene goes over and reads them. "Hmm...This is odd."
"What is it?" Selena asks.
"I'm looking over some record files on the professors here in Beacon." Marlene takes out one of the files. "There's a file here on Professor Hong. Listen to this: 'Professor Hong had served Beacon Academy for 40 years. I remember he challenged me for the position of Headmaster. Over the past year, I have noticed he has been showing signs of suspicious behavior. It pains me to have his employment here terminated.'"
Selena takes the file and looks it over. "Terminated? But Professor Ozpin said he had retired, and Professor Marina took his place."
"It sounds like we've found our first clue." Peter says.
Marlene closes the file. "Let's find Aria and Clawdia. See if they learned anything."
Sadly, Marlene's assumption is wrong. Clawdia and Aria are putting the finishing touches on their large sandwiches in the kitchen. Aria looks at her sandwich in delight. "Oooh. This looks so good!"
Clawdia has already taken a bite of her sandwich and looks at it puzzled. "Hmm...Still needs something...Could mew pass the cat-chup?" Just then, a creep hand hands over a bottle of ketchup over Clawdia shoulder, of which she gladly accepts. "Oh, thank mew, Aria."
"Uh, C-c-clawdia?" Clawdia looks ahead. "I'm over here."
Clawdia is confused, then suddenly is terrified. Clawdia then turns and finds a massive hideous figure in a torn black robe with a skull mask. Once she looks at it, the figure lets out a loud shriek. "G-g-g-g...GHOST!" Clawdia then jumps and lands in the terrified Aria's arms. The Ghost then flips the table over and lets out another shriek, causing Aria to say: "BOINKS!" Aria and Clawdia make a run for it just as the ghost is about to swipe them. Seeing that they have fled, the ghost chases after them.
The ghost chases them out of the kitchen and into the dining hall of the cafeteria. Only once the ghost enters the room, it's instead greeted by Aria and Clawdia wearing some cheesy mustache and cooking hat disguises.
"Ah, Welcome to a-Clawdia's and Aria-a's Italian Bis-a-tro." Aria says with an Italian accent. Aria grabs the ghost's hand and starts dragging it to a table. "This a-way." Aria seats the ghost and Clawdia lays down a tray of food. The ghost actually takes a taste and shits it out with a growl. "You no like? How-a about this?" Aria then slams a trash can on the ghost, and she and Clawdia use what metal items they have to smash on the trash can. Once they enough enough hits, they start running out of the cafeteria. "A-come again!"
The ghost growls as it removes the trash can from its head and lets out a roar as it chases after them.
Aria and Clawdia burst out of the cafeteria doors and rushed down the hallway, even running past Marlene's team who were about to ask what was going on but Clawdia shouts: "Can't talk! Big angry ghost chasing after us!"
Three of them confused, look to see the ghost coming out of the cafeteria. Selena and Peter are startled but Marlene's just surprised. "A-A ghost? But that's impossible! The scientific logic shows the possibility that-"
Peter then picks up Marlene. "Less chatty! More runny!" Then he and Selena start running.
The ghost catches the team through the hallways until they come into the hallway with the dorms. They entered one of the dorms with the ghost following them. Next thing that happens, is they start bursting burst out from a dorm on the other side of the hallway and into another dorm, and the whole thing repeats over and over and over with strange pairings happening such as Peter chasing the ghost. Aria shoulder-carrying Selena with the ghost chasing them. Marlene riding down on a bicycle with Peter mounting on the ghost. Then just everyone individually popped out of the dorms and entered another one, sometimes at the same time.
Eventually, it all comes to a stop when Peter hits the brakes and everyone just crashes into him. "Whoa! Whoa! Whoa! Hold on!" Peter turns to his friends. "Has anyone noticed we kept running from dorm to dorm in a completely senseless yet comedic matter just like the Mysterious Meddlers?"
"You know, for once, he's right. How is that even possible? These dorms don't even connect with one another." Marlene says. "It defies all logic."
Suddenly, Peter feels offended. "Wait! What do you mean 'for once'?"
Just then, the ghost shows up from one of the dorms and roars. The group resumes their running with the ghost chasing after them. The chase goes all over the school until they start barricading themselves in the library. There's a loud banging coming from the doors.
"We've gotta find a way out of here!" Aria says.
Suddenly, Peter starts pulling books out of the shelves. "What are mew doing, Peter?" Clawdia asks.
"We're living the life of the Mysterious Meddlers! That means there's gotta be some hidden trap door book just like the old mansions from the show." Peter says.
"Really, Peter, that is just impossible. This is a school and we've been here for over a year! There's no way-" Just then Peter pulled one of the books and a trap door triggers. Everyone falls right in, screaming in the process as well. The trapdoor takes everyone to the basement below. "Okay. That doesn't make any sense."
"Forget about making sense. What are we gonna do about the ghost?" Selena asks.
"If we're living the life of the Myersious Meddlers, then we're gonna have to think like them." Peter says. "And in every situation they've been in, they always trapped ghosts with some crazy elaborate trap."
"That's...actually not a bad idea." Clawdia says. "But how are we gonna trap the ghost?"
After a brief moment, everyone then turns their attention to Marlene. Marlene can see the stares right at her then sighs in defeat. "Oh, all right. I'm gonna need some rollerskates, a long rope, a net, some Ice Dust Crystals and..." Marlene points at Clawdia and Aria. "You two."
Clawdia and Aria are both surprised. "What/W-what? Us? What fur/f-f-for?"
"For ghostbait," Marlene says. "Just go out there, get the ghost's attention, and lore it to the second-floor stairs descending to the training hall." Clawdia and Aria aren't happy about it, but they just decided to go with it, and make their leave. "Now, let's get to work."
The three of them start moving, only Selena comes to a hold when she hears something by her feet. She looks down to find some file with a bunch of papers on the floor by it. "Hey guys, check this out!" Marlene and Peter turn back and move towards Selena. Selena bends down to pick up some of the papers, eand ven reads them. "It looks like a bunch of papers carrying something from the other Huntsman Academies."
Marlene takes some of the papers and looks over it. "I know this stuff listed under Atlas: It's all top-secret information. There's also Huntsman/Huntress ID's, assigned missions. Bank records. Budget charts. It even contains the info of the Relics and Salem."
"This is where you say, 'Kajoinkers! We've found another clue.' Marlene." Peter says.
Marlene gives Peter a look. "Just cause I'm dressed as Velvet doesn't mean I have to act like her." Marlene looks back at the papers. "But this does seem to be a clue...I think I have an idea who our 'ghost' is."
While Marlene's team makes the preparations, Clawdia and Aria wander all over the second-floor hallways, shouting to try and get the ghost's attention. "Oh dear. We are two helpless students wandering aimlessly through the hallways. We sure hope that no ghost comes out and chases us! That would be so claw-ful"
"M-maybe we should stop. Clearly the gh-gh-ghost doesn't want to come out." Aria says.
Just then, a loud roar fills the halls. They both turn to see the ghost is coming right at them. "Mew were saying?" Clawdia asks Aria.
"Brag later. Run now!" Aria says, making her escape shortly afterwards with Clawdia following her.
The ghost chases after Clawdia and Aria through the halls of Beacon. The two of them lure the ghost on the route Marlene tells them to take until they eventually arrive at the stairs where the rollerskates are mounted on the top of the stairs. Clawdia and Aria jump off the stairs, while the ghost still runs and lands on the rollerskates.
The ghost rolls down the stairs. Clawdia and Aria run and move out of the way. Once they pass, Peter pulls the rope at the bottom of the stairs, and the ghost trips over it. The ghost goes flying right into the net that's hanging on the training hall entrance and crashes at the end of the wall, of which Marlene and Selena use their Ice Dust Crystals to freeze the ghost's body in place.
"We got the ghost!" Selena cheers, even high-fives Marlene. Once Peter, Clawdia, and Aria meet up, they now have one last thing to take care of. "Now, let's see who this ghost really is." Marlene says. Peter removes the mask and the face is revealed. "As I suspected: Professor Hong!"
"Professor who?" Aria asks.
"He was a professor here in Beacon last year, but his employment was terminated and Professor Marina took his place." Selena says.
"Yes. And here's why." Marlene takes out the file. "This file contained all information about him. And in his final year, Hong has been stealing money and top-secret information from Professor Ozpin."
"Now why would he do that?" Peter asks.
"So I can frame Ozpin for everything. He would be fired and I would take my rightful place as Headmaster of this academy!" Hong says.
"But your plan failed, so you decided to come back and try to frame Ozpin once again. Which explains why we found that other file in the basement." Marlene says. "But when we learned we were still in the building, you decided to try and scare us away."
"And I would have gotten away with it too if it weren't for you meddling kids!" Hong angrily says.
"Okay, even now I'm convinced we're living the life of the Mysterious Meddlers." Clawdia says.
The group calls the police. Once they drag Hong outside, the police arrive to take him away. With that handled, the five of them decided to head out to the festival, where the rest of their friends were waiting for them for some Halloween Night Fun.