Who Ya Gonna Call

Sam’s phone had gone off in his pocket at exactly the wrong time. He’d been shadowing a renegade baku that was suspected of eating not just dreams but ambitions. All had been going well, but Sam had never quite figured out how to reliably silence his damn phone. So, when Koban’s very distinct ring tone (a squeaky voice shouting “JUSTICE FLASH!”) went off, the shady baku knew he was being stalked.

What followed was a fight that took place as much in an ever-shifting dreamscape as much as it did a filthy alley in Satan City. The baku fought back with its infinite arsenal of nightmares, drained from its many hosts. But Sam was himself a living nightmare, and so the baku could do little to prevent its eventual defeat.

As the baku lay unconscious on the pavement of the alley in which it had hidden, the stolen ambitions of local innocents draining from its body and returning to their rightful homes, Sam finally was able to check his phone. Koban’s text was, as always, brief and to the point (and contained a bunch of emoji), asking Sam if he wanted to get in on a job. There was a house that was, by all reports, a hotbed of supernatural activity and a life could be in danger.

Sam didn’t need convincing. He copied the address into his phone’s GPS and made his way to the house with haste. Koban was strong and dedicated and always meant well, but every time that man set foot in a haunted house, he came out cursed. Every time. It was uncanny, really. It happened even if the haunting in question normally was incapable of laying curses. The man was a menace!

As he arrived at the house in question, Sam took one look at the place and knew something wasn’t right about it. Enormous and old, way up on an overgrown hill dotted with dead and twisted trees. Add a black thundercloud overhead and you’d have a textbook malevolence or omen. There was a faint aroma of dread, likely residue from any number of daily passers-by, but it was punctuated by a fresh note of desperation that would come from someone who’s been kidnapped or otherwise trapped. But, encouragingly, there was that unique ozone smell of Koban’s special brand of optimistic courage. The big blue menace was in that house, likely yelling at a skeleton or something. That skeleton would no doubt lay a curse on him, and everything he ate would turn to cotton candy in his mouth for a year or some bullshit. Skeleton curses were always weird.

Drawing in a deep breath, Sam made his way up to the front door of the house. The door, he found, was slightly ajar. Whether this was from Koban not shutting it behind himself like an animal or the malevolence within taunting Sam, daring him to come in, was no matter. Duty awaited, and so Sam stepped forward into the foyer of the house, left hand raised open-palmed in front of him.

“Koban,” Sam called out in a loud, but calm voice, “If you can hear me, smash something so I can find you. I’d rather not play Scooby Doo for the next hour trying to track your ass down before dealing with the real problem.”

Thread PL 5500

Sam waited after calling out to Koban, giving the man a chance to hear him, figure out what to smash, and then smash it good. As time went on, however, he started to doubt that Koban had heard him to begin with. This wouldn’t have been surprising, of course - if this place was as much of a hotbed as it seemed, then Koban could just as likely be in a different country as he could another room of this house.

Sam considered pressing forward, making his way through the house and hopefully finding some solution to whatever this all was, and hopefully not finding the corpse of his friend. The other Troopers would likely be fairly upset if Koban died in a haunted mansion from some sort of skeleton curse, so time was of the essence.

Then he heard it. The mother of all crashes, a veritable explosion followed by the sound of rending wood and an undertone of mournful wailing. Either Koban had gotten the message, or some serious shit had just gone down. Either way, Sam was needed in the place that sound had happened.

He closed his eyes and concentrated - which direction had it come from? This place sported a heavy echo, so Sam needed to sort through the distortion of it before coming to a conclusion - the east wing of the house. He set his course and started down the hallway that felt the most direct.

Were a human or other mortal creature in Sam’s position, they would likely get irretrievably lost in a matter of minutes in this place - that much was certain. That Koban hadn’t been swallowed up by this house was a testament to his strength of character. Sam, however, was kin to this place, like distant cousins. This allowed him some greater freedom of navigation through its hallways and rooms, insulated by his abyssal blood from the tricks and traps of this particular haunting.

When Sam came to the ballroom, he saw that the floor was all but annihilated, and a familiar blue man was stood on the ceiling. He looked up at Koban, then down at the floor, and back up again.

“Seven circles man, I said smash, not obliterate. Now hold on, I’m coming up there.”

Sam stepped into the room and, for a brief moment, allowed the house’s presence to take a hold of his body. He felt the pull of gravity reverse as the spiteful spirit of this place was finally able to lash out at him, if only a little. Moments later, he’d joined Koban on the ceiling. It was...disorienting.

“Okay, so did you find anything, or have you been living like a spider since you texted me?”

“I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. When you get a job like this, wait for me to show up before you go gallivanting around inside the bowels of some haunted mansion. You’re lucky you didn’t run into any curse-happy skeletons.” Sam paused, then narrowed his eyes. “You didn’t run into any curse-happy skeletons, did you?”

When Koban pointed out that the chandelier had completely annihilated the floor below (above?), Sam nodded very slightly. The cave beyond where the ballroom floor had been certainly was out of place. If this house had been built on a burial ground, or the lair of some sort of extradimensional hunger spirit, it would explain pretty much everything. What worried Sam was not knowing the exact nature of the beast they were dealing with.

“That said, your instincts are sharp as ever. That hole, that cavern, is definitely the way forward. I can get us down there, but before we move on I want to make it clear that I don’t know what this is yet. What I do know is that it’s old and it’s cranky, and most things that get to be old and cranky don’t just set you up to find the path to their lair. Either you got incredibly lucky, or this hole is a great big dinner invitation.”

Sam didn’t wait for Koban’s feedback, however - he knew the man well enough, and he wasn’t one to back down from danger in any of its forms. So, he laid a hand on Koban’s shoulder and focused his demonic energy. He took the same sort of ‘courtesy’ the house had granted to him in getting to this ballroom and extended it to Koban. It wouldn’t last too long, but it would be enough to free them both from the reverse gravity and restore their ability to fly - at least until they got down into that hole.

Sam started off towards the hole in the ballroom floor, now properly below them, his body limned in a thick black smoke as he flew. He still hadn’t mastered hiding every aspect of his strange nature, but thankfully knew Koban was okay with it.

“Shall we find the dining room?”

“Oh, you son of a-” Sam said, laughing as Koban launched himself deep into the darkness below. He gave chase, making sure to laugh loud enough for Koban to hear.

That laughter was only partly genuine. Mostly, however, it was a defensive measure. From Koban’s description of his experience in this place, Sam had become increasingly concerned with regards to what they were facing. These sort of tactics were familiar to him, in that they were similar to the sort of things he would do in order to secure a meal, once upon a time. Mortals were curious and defiant by nature. Make them think something important is inside, then let them think they’re safe, right up until they’re not…

Most paranormal creatures didn’t bother to think that far ahead. They were more like fishermen than chess players - bait, hook, meal. This was much more. Which meant that the creature they were up against likely fed on more than just flesh, if flesh at all. Whatever negativity it wanted, Sam had to encourage its opposite. Laughter and mirth, as it turns out, were a good cure-all in situations like these. Laughter was contagious, after all, and could easily become uncontrollable. Some hunters tended to believe that true love was the ultimate weapon against evil. Sam disagreed. Nobody likes it when you laugh in their face, after all.

“If we get out of here without you being cursed, I’m buying drinks!”

Sam started to catch up, but only as the two began to near the bottom of the cavern. It was a large, mostly natural cave, with ankle-deep water stagnating on its floor and mosses of strange colors growing on its walls. Sam could see bones in the water, but chose not to point them out in hopes that his companion wouldn’t notice.

Sam’s hopes were dashed almost immediately, not that he could really claim to be surprised. Koban was a bit goofy and overzealous, but he was sharp and his instincts were strong. There was no way he wasn’t going to be picking up on every possible detail. He was the Captain for a reason, after all. When he spoke, Sam winced - to hear Koban ask about the nature of their enemy in such a straightforward and almost innocent manner made his heart sink. It wasn’t going to be that simple. It never was.

“It’s...definitely not good. Best case scenario, we’re looking at something like my father - old and powerful and malicious, but ultimately with a physical form we can use against it. Worst case scenario, we’re looking at something that transcends any sort of physical form we could imagine - something quite literally incomprehensible. In the worst case scenario, we’re already dead.”

Sam pressed forward, towards a tunnel he spotted just a couple of yards away. He made no effort to move quietly - the thing knew they were there the moment they set foot in this place. As he reached the tunnel, he placed a hand on the surface of one of its walls. The rock was warm and smooth, almost like glass.

“I think it burrows. Makes tunnels like this with intense heat, or intense energy maybe. With any luck we’ll find a piece of it lodged in a tunnel wall or discarded on the floor, shedded. Keep your eyes open for anything out of the ordinary as we move forward. And if I say run, we get the fuck out, okay?”

“Yeah, good call. You never know what’s in this water, either.”

Sam raised up from the ground, that thick black smoke billowing off his body and coming to rest in the gray water below. He followed Koban, allowing the larger man to take point even with his relative inexperience with the supernatural. The fact was that Koban was better equipped to handle physical threats, regardless of their paranormal nature, so Sam would have have to hang back until he could find more evidence of what they were up against.

As they progressed, that strong energy only became more pronounced and omnipresent than it was before. It was clear to Sam that whatever was giving off that energy wasn’t necessarily the SOURCE of the house’s dark presence, but rather the cause. Whatever powerful beast they were tracking was so strong and so cruel that other, less sapient dark forces flocked to it, like remora fish to a great white shark. That house had been little more than a barnacle on the ass of whatever ancient thing they were truly tracking, whatever creature was feeding on humans like that missing girl.

“Do you feel that?” Sam said quietly, “It’s getting hot in here. Like, too hot.”

As he asked, Sam spotted an exit to the tunnel they were in, one which looked like it led into another large cavern. And from that cavern came a slowly pulsating orange light, like that of a forge or a volcano. They were close.

“Yeah, you know I just didn’t have time to go get it,” Sam replied when Koban had suggested he should be wearing his super suit. When the Captain had presented him with his official Pride Trooper super suit, he’d quickly packed it away in his belongings with little intent to wear it. Still, he couldn’t just throw it away - that would invite all sorts of bad energy. Gifts are powerful things, after all.

As the two heroes crossed over into the new cavern and Sam laid eyes on the creature within, he was immediately confused. To be certain, this thing was what he classified as a “Horror”, something from beyond the mortal plane of existence and thus far more dangerous than most monsters native to it, but not quite so powerful that it would be exuding such a powerfully malevolent presence. He studied its form - like a snake of lava with too many legs, and shook his head slowly and contemplatively.

“That...that’s a complicated question with a complicated answer. The short version is that this thing is probably responsible for the loss of lives and either ate or is going to eat our missing girl. But it’s...not the source.”

Sam pulled an ornate lighter from his pocket and flicked it open. An eerie green flame flickered to life, and Sam stared at it intensely for a long, silent moment. The two were lucky that the creature seemed content to let them exist in its periphery - or that it hadn’t noticed them.

“This is stranger than I’d thought. Explanation will take too long, for now let’s just get the main job done. Thankfully, you’re uniquely qualified for this one - break open his shell and his gooey insides will pour out. Like an evil water balloon.”