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ladylynse · 4 years ago

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Chapter 6 [FF | AO3] of Protocol: The world has changed since the Merge. Ghosts--threats--are everywhere, the Guys in White are in control, and trust is a risk when friends can so easily become foes. Dystopian AU (courtesy of competent, world-merging GiW)

The Day of the Merge was a new beginning for all of them, even if they didn’t know it at the time.

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For @fallingfish! Because your kind review on this fic is the reason I finished this chapter now and not in...however many months it would’ve been....

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Valerie was working her final shift at the Nasty Burger when the first ripple hit, though she didn’t know what it was at the time. She was on the grill, listening as the orders came through her headset, and then— Static. She’d assumed it was just on the fritz again—half of them were after Technus’s attack last week—and she knocked the earpiece against one shoulder, which usually fixed it.

Nothing.

She grumbled to herself but started to flip the burgers, figuring she could fix it once these orders were out, since they weren’t too busy at the moment.

She woke up on the floor, head and shoulders against the opposite cabinets, to the smell of burning meat and the incessant sound of something beeping. “Crud,” she muttered, reaching back to feel the goose egg that was beginning to form on the back of her head. “What happened?”

Since this was Amity Park, the safe bet was ghosts. That, and the fact that her watch was screaming at her.

Valerie silenced her watch alarm, but it started up again as if she hadn’t touched it. Fun. Broken tech was Future Valerie’s problem. She cursed and grabbed the spatula off the floor, tossing it in the sink and washing her hands before she returned to the grill with a clean spatula. The burgers she’d been doing were charcoal lumps, so she’d need to start fresh, and—

Behind her, the door of the walk-in fridge opened. The raw meat flew out, and Valerie ducked as the charcoal pucks behind her whizzed overhead and out the back door. The Lunch Lady must be back. Val was tempted to leave the fighting to Phantom—it’s not like she could wash her suit, and there was no one to cover her right now—but she couldn’t just ignore the fact that there was a ghost, and—

All the lights died.

Sparked to life.

Brightened to bursting.

“What the heck is going on?” Valerie muttered. She hoped there wasn’t shattered glass in her hair, but she’d have to be extra careful combing through it after she took off the hairnet. Great. There was a window in here, set in the door leading outside, but she didn’t get much light from the front, and her eyes hadn’t adjusted the sudden darkness anyway. There was still heat in front of her—the grill—so as long as she didn’t touch anything….

Valerie could hear the screaming, but that wasn’t unusual. Any tourist who happened to find Amity Park would inevitably find their way to the Nasty Burger, and the residents themselves were only calm when they didn’t think they were in much danger. (No one ran from the Box Ghost, even now.) Other than that, though, it was quiet. No hum of machines like there should be, not even from the one holding the Nasty Sauce. Great. The power must have gone out, too. And the backup generators hadn’t kicked in. Perfect. Maybe the Lunch Lady had teamed up with Technus.

Valerie sidled to the left and promptly stumbled over something that had shifted in the darkness, maybe knocked over from the flying meat earlier. She grabbed hold of the opposite counter to steady herself as her head spun. That earlier fall clearly hadn’t done her any favours—why had she fainted, anyway? That wasn’t like her—and the general unsteadiness she felt on her feet must be from—

“What are you doing here?”

Valerie froze, blinked, and turned around.

A boy stood there, maybe six or eight or something; she wasn’t good at guessing the ages of kids. “I should be asking you that! How did you get back here?”

He stepped towards her, and she abruptly realize why she could see him so well. Wide dark eyes, tight curls of dark hair, bright green shirt, jeans with both knees worn through— That was all surrounded by a gentle white glow. “You’re a ghost,” she said dumbly. Her watch was still going off, of course—the Lunch Lady had to be out there; maybe Technus, too—and Technus might be the reason it wasn’t working correctly, but this kid…. This kid looked normal. No blue or green skin or anything. He wasn’t floating or flying or—

He took another step, this time right through the counter. “This is my house.”

“It’s really not.” What was going on? This…. She’d never seen this kid before. And ghosts didn’t just show up and pretend something like this; they made a show of claiming it.

“It is,” insisted the boy. The ghost. “You’re not supposed to be here.”

Valerie opened her mouth to protest, even though she wasn’t sure how far she wanted to push a ghost when she didn’t have an ectogun in her hands—

—and the world shuddered, and her vision swam, and for a brief moment, she could see a kitchen table instead of the sandwich station, six chairs crowded around it, with some game set on its tabletop—crokinole, maybe?—and—

It went away with the next blink.

Even the boy was gone.

At least, she couldn’t see him anymore.

Her watch was still screaming at her, and she felt like he was still there, watching her, so she said, “Okay, okay, I’m just going to go outside, okay?” The last thing she wanted was for him to go all vengeful spirit on her before she had a chance to figure out what the heck Phantom had done this time. Had the entire town been sucked into the Ghost Zone again?

Valerie made a beeline for the back door, bursting outside and expecting to see the shimmering green sheen of the Fenton Ghost Shield or the nebulous atmosphere that was the Ghost Zone itself. Instead, she was met with ordinary sunlight and an ordinary blue sky.

And more unfamiliar ghosts than she could count.

They were in the alley, on the fence, perched on the edge of the dumpster and nothing but air. The ghost animals were as prevalent as the humanoid ones, chittering and scampering or flying as if they were alive until they crossed through something solid. Ghosts hung off the roof and were already graffitiing the walls—she’d have to scrub that later—and there were a pair of children playing hopscotch and—

“Crud,” she breathed, not knowing what this meant or where she could hide. She’d be able to take some down as the Red Huntress before the others got her, but how was she supposed to prioritize? She took off her watch and shoved it deep into her pocket—as deep as she could, anyway; stupid shallow pockets—in an attempt to muffle it. No need to give herself away immediately. If she didn’t know these ghosts, there was a good chance they didn’t know her, either.

Some of the ghosts who noticed her pulled away, clearing her a path. She wasn’t sure if it was out of fear, respect, or the simple fact that they didn’t want her to walk right through them. She edged past a couple of ghosts who hadn’t moved from their place in the alley, staring upwards as if transfixed, and circled around to the front of the Nasty Burger.

More ghosts.

Some of them looked just as scared as the humans she saw. Most did, actually.

“What’s going on?”

It wasn’t a question addressed to anyone in particular, but one of the ghosts heard her and looked up from his mid-air perch. He straightened his legs and drifted towards her, pulling a book from somewhere and flipping through it before holding it out towards her. “This should explain it.”

Valerie wasn’t about to touch a ghost book, not knowing what it might do to her, so she just leaned forward to peer at the pages. A quick skim of the words had her breath caught in her throat. “If the Ghost Zone is destroyed, our world will be destroyed, too?”

“That was the theory,” the ghost said as he snapped his book shut. “Turns out, destroying our realm merely merged it with yours.”

“It what?”

He frowned at her, shooting her a look over his glasses that meant he was clearly questioning her intelligence. “This isn’t a ghost’s doing. We were perfectly happy in the Infinite Realms. Most of us, at any rate. I only ever came out when pursuing a particularly good story. None of us would dare destroy our realm or yours. You humans, on the other hand….”

“Do you know what happened? Besides this merging thing, I mean?”

The ghost straightened his glasses. She hadn’t seen the book disappear, but it was gone now. “I have a few good guesses.”

“Please, anything.”

“First promise you won’t harm me, little hunter.”

She started. “What?” He couldn’t know. Had she even seen this ghost before? She definitely didn’t remember capturing him in a thermos and passing it off to Mr. Masters, but—

“Promise,” the ghost repeated.

“I…. Okay. I promise. I won’t harm you unless it’s in my own defense or that of someone I love.”

That apparently satisfied the ghost, as he nodded and said, “You’re aware that various people and organizations are studying us, yes? Not just the people here in Amity Park?”

Valerie nodded. “I mean, I don’t know if I knew knew, but I know there are other ghost hunters, so it makes sense.”

“Well, we were all aware of the Guys in White long before the last time they tried to pull a stunt like this, but sadly, it seems they succeeded this time.”

Valerie blinked. She couldn’t remember anyone who called themselves the Guys in White. What kind of name was that? She focused instead on the important implication in the ghost’s words: “So it’s just…gone? Gone gone? Not, like, you guys got shunted here for a little bit until things settle down and then you can go back?”

The ghost frowned at her for a moment before his features softened. “I don’t know,” he admitted quietly. “I hope they’ll settle out and separate into individual phases again, given enough time, but it was always considered a dangerous topic of study, and I don’t know a scientist on our side who was pursuing it.”

“Wait, you guys have scientists?”

“We do try to be welcoming to more than just the arts, yes,” came the dry response.

It felt strange to have a civil conversation with a ghost.

True, she’d be a fool to attack any of them when she was so outnumbered, even if she hadn’t given her word, but…. While she didn’t remember the name of the Guys in White, exactly, she remembered the ghost hunters who’d dressed in white. They’d had tech, if not as much experience (and frankly competence) as she felt she did. If they had caused this, then it was trouble wrought by human hands. These ghosts hadn’t been involved, hadn’t wanted it to happen any more than she had—or would have, if she’d known such a thing could be done. Still, trying to destroy the entire Ghost Zone? She wouldn’t have thought it possible.

Except that was apparently exactly what had happened.

Valerie swallowed and looked around. It was hard to see the humans in the veritable sea of translucent faces, and it wasn’t like she could pick them out by sound when half the screaming and sobbing seemed to come from ghosts. Ghosts. Ghosts who were panicked, distraught, torn from their home and thrust into this world without warning—

If this was what it was like here, where people were accustomed to ghosts, what was it like where they weren’t?

“Is this everywhere?” The question was out of her mouth before she could stop it. “Maybe it was just your own little corner of the Ghost Zone that got destroyed or something.”

“Hardly. If there had been somewhere left for us to go, don’t you think we would have gone there? Our realm was rent and we were forced into this plane. I’ve been studying the possibility between stories, but I can’t say anyone is happy that it’s become a reality.”

“Except for the people who wanted it, you mean.”

“Perhaps.” The ghost looked more solemn than before, though that might be because a literal shadow had just passed over his face as a flock of ghost birds took to the air. “They no doubt thought they would destroy us, and now they find themselves outnumbered. And our numbers will only grow.”

“Um. Maybe don’t, uh, say that too loudly.” He had a point, she’d grant him that, but geez, that sounded kinda threatening even to her ears, and she’d already decided she wasn’t going to shoot him. Or anyone else. Besides, he was being helpful. “Look, I’m sure if you guys just clear out of town for a bit, Mr. Masters will—”

The ghost’s laughter cut her off. “This problem of ours is so much bigger than this one town, little hunter. Even Mr. Masters will face a reckoning.”

Why did he sneer that name at her? What the heck did he know that she didn’t? Did he think she didn’t know Mr. Masters was a ghost hunter, or at least accomplished in the field, even if he didn’t do any actual ghost hunting himself anymore? This ghost obviously knew who she was, so it wasn’t a stretch to think he knew who supplied her, but to assume she still didn’t know the truth, either—

“Then what do you think we should be doing, if you’re so smart?”

The ghost raised his eyebrows at her, and Valerie ground her teeth at the show of false surprise. “Why, we survive.”

Stupid ghost. “How?”

The ghost shrugged. “Pick your side,” he said, “and fight. You might manage to hide in the cracks off the start if you want to avoid the fight, but that’s not how these stories go. You’ll find yourself part of it eventually, or you’ll be lost before you’ve had a chance to see where your story could have gone. If these people are content to destroy an entire realm in an attempt to destroy every ghost, they’re not going to be terribly sympathetic to humans who don’t fall in line with them as they try to correct their mistake.”

Valerie winced. From what she remembered about these Guys in White, assuming she was thinking about the right group, he probably wasn’t wrong, which wouldn’t make them any better than most of the ghosts she’d fought. Few of them seemed to care who got hurt as they tried to get whatever they wanted.

Thinking on it now, sometimes she wasn’t much better. At least, she hadn’t been. She was going to try to do better than that now.

“If you don’t think a human can do anything about this, then a ghost will.” He didn’t deny her immediately, so she continued, “Phantom—”

That’s as far as she got before he started laughing again.

“I can’t believe it’s been so long and you still know so little,” he said. He had to be trying to push her buttons, get her to explode and give herself away, and she clenched her hands into fists in an attempt to keep a tight rein on her temper. The condescension practically dripped from his voice. “Phantom will certainly try. He might even succeed.”

“Then how come I know so little if you think I’m right about that?”

“Because you do. Oh, I don’t think you’ll remain ignorant for long—such secrets can’t be kept forever, not when there are so many eyes—but it is so amusing watching you try to puzzle out what’s going to happen when you don’t even have half the pieces.”

“So fill me in!”

“Oh, but that’s not my part in this story. I’m not your narrator.”

Too bad she’d promised not to harm him and not just not to shoot him. She wasn’t going to break her word, even to a ghost, but she would’ve liked to have punched him. Even if it didn’t work, she would’ve felt better. But, no, even if she could’ve done it, that would’ve been foolish. She knew better than to fight while angry; it would make her more careless than focused, as her fights with Phantom had proven entirely too often. Valerie took a slow breath instead and let it out before saying, “What is your part in this story, then?”

The ghost smiled at her. “This story or your story?”

There was a difference now? “Both.”

“If it’s both,” the ghost said, “then there’s only one part I’m well suited to play.” He offered her a hand. “Allies?”

This was crazy. He hadn’t even told her his name. Not that she’d introduced herself, either, but that wasn’t the point, since he apparently knew who she was.

Valerie shook his hand anyway. “Allies.”

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