Dave, one of the orderlies, sprinted into the cafeteria. "Hey, Doc Sanders?"
"Yes?"
"Isn't your new girlfriend one of the researchers at that Ghostbuster department over at Columbia?"
"The Spengler Institute, yes." Edward nodded. "Something wrong?"
"They just brought in some of the staff there. I heard someone saying there's been like a werewolf attack or something."
Edward was up and moving before he even consciously realized it.
"I keep telling you, I'm fine!" Abby was saying grouchily to the nurse taking her pulse.
"We're just being cautious, Dr. Yates." the nurse countered as politely as he could.
"You did get thrown into a table, Abby." Holtzmann said breezily.
"I didn't get thrown--I jumped behind it!"
Kylie noticed Edward was there. "Edward?"
"Dr. Griffin." Edward nodded. He looked around. "I don't see Eden. What happened?"
"Werewolf attack." Kevin said blithely.
"Dr. Gilbert's on her way, Mr. Beckman." one of the nurses told him; he nodded.
Kylie shook her head. She bit her bottom lip as she answered Edward's question. "The Ghostbusters showed up after the werewolf kidnapped our client. Eden went with them."
Abby and Holtzmann both looked at her. "Yeah...that's what happened." Abby nodded vigorously after a few seconds.
Edward had mixed feelings. I know it's her other job, but I'd feel much better if she was here right now and leaving the dangerous stuff to John and the others...
If he'd known the truth, he would have been even more worried.
After a time trip on the night of their twenty-fifth birthday, Eden and John each found themselves in a different cracked version of reality as of the day they were born. With the help of the two distorted versions of their parents and the other original Ghostbusters, the mad plan of the man called Josiah Nodus was thwarted and reality was restored. But in the process, Nodus made the shocking claim that John is the missing Child of Zodiac, Gemini of the Primordial Winds.
John met with the Dean of the Sons of Ether, Dr. Enrico Amore, who reveals himself as another of the Children, Libra of the Dynamic Winds. But even he doesn't know if John is the one they've been looking for--no one will until something happens that would otherwise kill John.
To make matters worse, a mysterious woman visits Ghostbusters Central when the others are gone--the Herald of Gozer, aka Scorpio of the Steady Waters, the fallen Child of Zodiac not seen since GBI closed the Tonnes Quarry Crossrip in 2004.
Then she turns up at the Spengler Institute, claiming to be stalked by a werewolf--Reinhold "Tungsten" Talbot, the same one Marie and TJ encountered two years earlier! The twist is--he's working with the Herald. And together they kidnap Eden Spengler!
"Sharon", who had just finished pulling her black hood over her head, snorted. "He will get over it. And if he doesn't, I will completely shut down his brain. Not that much difference would be noticed if I did."
Ahagotsu shook his head. "Well, our friend the Count would be rather cross about it. He has Tungsten bonded, you know--and most Garou are immune to it."
"He will also get over it."
Ahagotsu shrugged, and started playing with a fidget spinner.
She had managed to unbuckle her smart watch; the watch band had a metal clip in the buckle, and with a bit of work she'd managed to wear down part of the zip tie holding her wrists together. I dropped my GBX and I left my phone at the Institute, but at least I have this...
Now all she needed was an opportunity...
Eric Stantz was driving the car; Marie Lupin was in the back seat that controlled the rooftop proton cannon; in the passenger seat was founding Ghostbuster Egon Spengler, in full uniform, intently studying the red-trimmed GBX in his right hand. Pippi, Eric's familiar, was laying on top of the computer keyboard, sprawled out like roadkill.
"Anything yet, Unc?" Eric asked.
Egon nodded, and talked into the headset he was wearing. "ECTO-3, ECTO-1. Do you copy?"
"I seem to have acquired a lock. Anything yet?"
She was also holding a GBX. "Half a moment...I had something...Doctor Stantz, can we go back down that last street?"
"On my way." Ray nodded.
They were riding on 1955 Harley-Davidson Police FLH painted white, with a license plate reading "ECTO-3". It was a lesser known vehicle of the Ghostbusters' arsenal, though Ray had purchased it back in 1985, and it saw its first use the next year during an encounter with prankster imps. It had a side car that Slimer had sometimes ridden in back in the day, though it was currently occupied by TJ.
"Don't wear a hole in the floor, John." his mother, Janine, told him.
"I still can't believe I have to sit here and wait..."
"I know, Dear. It sucks, believe me, I know. But TJ was right--we couldn't risk it."
John exhaled, and plopped into a chair at the computer desk. The conversation from a short time earlier replayed in his head...
John nodded. "Sounds like a plan. PK scanning for a normal human is tricky, but we do have the trace from Tungsten on the Paris case." He looked at TJ "Take the ECTO-3 with Uncle Ray, I'll go with Eric and Marie in ECTO-1."
"We really have an ECTO-3?" Marie asked.
"Not one of the best known ones." Eric chuckled.
"I think there is one problem with your plan, Johnathan." TJ said, face hardening. "I think it would be best that you remained at the Firehouse."
He blinked, and looked at the woman he loved like she'd just told him to smash his dick in a car door. "Are you shitting me?!?! Eden's my sister! I'm the whole reason they're doing this! I can't..."
"That's exactly the problem, Johnathan!" she interrupted, voice raising. "You're the one that 'Sharon Baylor' apparently wants, and I don't think it's for any benevolent reason. The Firehouse can be sealed to all psychokinetic intrusion--it's the safest place in the world for you to be right now."
John looked stunned. Emotion and logic were having an epic pie fight in his head at that moment.
Eric and Marie looked at each other. I think they're having their first lover's spat... Eric thought to himself.
John exhaled, and slumped down, before looking at TJ with a slight smirk. "I know I'll be saying this many times in the future, but...you're right." He hugged her. "And there's no one I'd trust more to handle it when I can't."
If that doesn't back up his story, not much else will...
"Is there any word, Dr. Spengler?" Amore asked.
John shook his head. "No. The others are out looking. They took my Pop with them because noone knows how to use a PKE Meter better than him, and Uncle Ray to drive one of the vehicles." He looked at Amore. "When I talked to you earlier, you said you didn't know what happened to her."
Amore shook his head. "I didn't. The last any of us knew of her was twenty years ago, when she disappeared while battling Lord Aquarius. The Archmage resurfaced almost two years later, so we knew Lady Scorpio's return was probable, but we didn't know....until I saw her with my own eyes earlier this evening."
Amore stood up. "We had best hope that Professor Spengler and the others find her soon. My own guess is that your sister was captured as an effort to draw you out--Miss Anderson's advice in the matter was wise."
John nodded, rolling his eyes with affection. "It usually is."
Amore smirked slightly. "I image your recent affection for the city of London may have...roots in one of its natives?"
"Okay, yeah..." John nodded, blushing slightly. "Guilty as charged."
"I am pleased to hear this." Amore responded. "Hold her close, Johnathan. Whether you are Lord Gemini or not, tomorrow is promised to no one--not even us." He looked away. "And centuries can be even longer when they're filled with regrets."
"We're triangulating, TJ." Egon's voice answered.
"We'll catch up as quick as we can!" Eric added.
"Hang on." Ray said as he goosed the motorcycle's throttle.
She jumped up onto the back of the car's front seats.
"Something wrong, Pippi?" Eric asked. He already knew, through their bond, that something was bothering the cat.
"I smell the Lich..." Pippi bristled.
" 'Lich'?" Egon raised an eyebrow.
"Ahagotsu?!" Eric said incredulously.
"And..." Pippi's eyes narrowed. "The Blonde Twin!!!"
Egon switched the meter's settings with lightning speed.
"You mean Eden?!" Eric asked.
"I have her trace!!!" Egon's voice was now louder, and noticeably--and understandably--no longer so dispassionate. "Left!!!"
Eric slammed the brakes, barely making the next turn.
"I'm telling you, Herald..." the ninety year old man wheezed. "1983 is the best date. That's why I calibrated my masterpiece to reach full power that year."
"You're an idiot." I snorted in reply. "1983 is an inferior alignment--waiting until 2004, or even 2020, is the optimum choice."
He laughed ruefully. "That might be too long." He wheezed again. "I will be sealed in my glass coffin, the sorcery in it will keep me from final death for decades--but I don't know how many." He snarled. "Not all of us just get centuries of life dropped in our lap."
"Not all of us are worthy of it." I replied with a sneer. "Do it your way, then, Ivo Shandor. I will be awaiting my own sign from the Master."
I walked out in the Oklahoma air. Ivo Shandor had always disgusted me--he was far from the great man his mentor, Micheal Zhorchev, was. Why couldn't he have been the one to see the Traveler's return coming to fruition, instead of his loathsome protege?
...Zhorchev...there were times he almost made me feel...something...
That's the problem with mayflies like Zhorchev and Shandor--they die so quickly and easily, thus they have no patience.
I shook that thought off ruefully, and vanished into the night
"Nothing." she shook her head angrily. "Remembering someone who's long dead. He was...unpleasant."
"Long dead and unpleasant?" Ahagotsu asked. "You were thinking of me?"
Before "Sharon" could spit off a suitably acid retort, the white van suddenly lurched to a screeching halt.
"Dammit, Bombie, am I going to have to send you to Drivers Ed again?!" Ahagotsu shouted.
The zombie just groaned, and pointed out the front window.
Where the ECTO-1 had blocked their way.
She inhaled, reared her legs back, and kicked at the back door of the van with all of her might.
The doors flew open with a loud crack.
Eden scrambled out JUST RUN!!! her inner voice screamed.
So she ran away from the van as fast as she could
"I'm kind of impressed." Ahagotsu admitted. "Quite resourceful, that young one is. If I were five thousand years younger and still had genitals..."
"YOU go be resourceful and deal with the Ghostbusters!!!" Sharon barked "I have to get my hostage back."
Ahagotsu smirked under his bandages. "Oh I have just the thing..."
"The Roach Brothers?" Egon raised an eyebrow.
"Like from the Murray the Mantis cartoons!" Eric agreed.
"Though Murray only had three to deal with..." Egon added. He glanced to Marie. "Cover us while we gear up!"
Marie adopted a shit eating grin. "Music to my ears--I got just the enormous bug zapper for the job!!!" she said, charging the roof's proton cannon.
"I ain't never seen one so big before..." one nonplussed cabby said as one started to eat his cab's tires. "...'cept maybe my landlord.--*
*--This joke dedicated to James Van Hise, as it's almost the exact same joke he made in Real Ghostbusters No. 12
A second later, that particular Roach Brother was immolated by a proton beam fired from the ECTO-1.
"The Roaches don't seem to have much ectopresence cohesion." Egon mused as he and Eric finished gearing up. "I'm not quite sure what..."
"They're Ahagotsu's projections!" Pippi shouted.
Egon nodded. Now he remembered: Johnathan and Eden had dealt with some of them two years earlier. "Wide dispersion!" he shouted.
"Turn me loose..." Pippi snarled.
"I can't!" Eric shook his head, firing at the Roach Brothers. "There's too many witnesses!"
Pippi growled again, rolling her eyes. Eric had explained about the need to keep his life as a wizard out of public view, and having his cat suddenly become a panther would certainly be a breach of that secrecy...but she didn't have to like it.
"We need to clear a path so we can find Eden!" Egon shouted.
"Leave it to us, Unc!!!" Eric nodded.
"Not since they got a trace on Eden." TJ replied. "I rather hope this doesn't mean they've run into trouble."
"You know who we're talking about, right?" Ray chuckled.
TJ sighed. "Indeed."
Eden felt like her lungs were about to explode, and her legs were about to fall off. She almost ran into the policeman who asked the question.
"I'm..." Eden panted "...I'm Dr Eden Spengler from..Ghostbusters International...I need to contact them and I lost...my phone..."
The pleasant-faced cop nodded. "You're safe now, Doctor Spengler. What's the phone nu..."
There was a flash of green-blue light, and the policeman was thrown into a nearby lamp post; there was a sickening crunch as he hit, and he didn't seem to be moving afterward.
You are being quite troublesome to me, Eden Spengler. The voice was inside her head But you cast your lot with troublesome associates, and are spawn of a troublesome family.
"You...didn't need to kill him..." She looked at the injured officer
I don't believe I did. But he is of no consequence.
"Sharon" appeared, floating six feet above the ground. She was wearing a black hood over her head.
I've seen someone like that before...when I was five...I..., Eden realized. "Who are you, really? And what do you want with me?!"
This time, "Sharon" spoke aloud. "I am the Herald of the Destructor,he who is also known as the Traveler; Volguus Zildrohar, Lord of the Sebouillia."
Eden's eyes widened "Gozer!" She is the one who opened the Containment Unit in 2004!
"And I don't want you at all, Mayfly." the Herald continued. "You are just a means to an end."
Eden felt herself being grabbed by invisible telekinetic force. "And what would that end be?"
"The last starseed." Sharon answered. "The as-yet-to-ascend Lord of the Primordial Wind."
With that statement, Eden knew. The Herald didn't have to finish, but she did anyway.
"Lord Gemini. Johnathan Christopher Spengler. Your brother."
"Hey, Eric, I got a question."
"Go for it, Marie."
Marie mowed down a few more Roach Brothers with the rooftop proton gun. "Why, of all people, did we send the almost sixty-seven year old guy off to do the running?"
"Uncle Egon's the best one of us with a PKE Meter." Eric answered. "Reason Two: We're better shots. Reason three...give me a minute or two."
"Oh?"
"It's a surprise." Eric said with a wink. He started to adjust something on his proton gun. "Can you hold them off yourself for about thirty seconds?"
"Not the first time I've heard that..." Marie replied mischievously. "Don't disappoint me, Big Guy."
"Not the first time I've heard that either..."
He was stopping to take a breath, when he heard a commotion only a few hundred feet away. And a flash of green-blue light from that direction.
He glanced at his meter. Eden was in that same area.
That's why. He put the meter away and drew his nutrona wand. To paraphrase Sarek, when it comes to my children, my sense of logic fails
Ray saw a scruffy looking dog running down the street. As the light from the ECTO-3 hit it, it turned and looked at them.
TJ could swear the dog's muzzle mouthed the words "You have got to be fucking kidding me!!!" Then he started to run away quicker.
"That's definitely him!!!" TJ said, verifying the GBX readings.
Ray nodded, smiled slightly, and gunned the engine.
He adjusted the wand one more time.
But the key word, as Master Vincent pointed out to me, is obvious
"I'm ready to use the Special Mix!!!" Eric called out.
Marie was confused. "What in the fuck are you..."
Perdo vim...magnitudo quattuor...oblivione aeterna daemonis!!! "EAT ETERNAL OBLIVION, SUCKERS!!!"
What happened next looked like an explosion of energy from Eric's nutrona wand.
The remaining crowd of Roach Brothers writhed in pain for a few seconds, then poofed into nothing.
What it actually was...
"The Ghostbusters have a reputation for using some very powerful, eccentric, and even dangerous science. But that gives us an unexpected advantage--disguise your spell as some weird bit of mad science, and noone will know the wiser."
"Oh yeah..." Marie rolled her eyes, remembering what that particular code phrase--that they hadn't actually used yet--meant. "That Special Mix."
The next thing Eric and Marie heard was clapping.
"Bravo!!!" a voice like John Cleese gargling razor blades called out.
"The Lich!!!" Pippi hissed.
"This your new servant, Kittems? I can see why..." It was indeed Ahagotsu, with Bombie at his side.
Eric brandished his thrower for real.
"Oh, I'd say you'd do better to get going after Sharon and your friends." Ahagotsu twirled around, and then pointed. "They went that-away!"
Eric was confused. "Wait...aren't you helping the Herald, or Sharon, or whatever her name is?"
Ahagotsu nodded. "Sometimes..." He shrugged. "But other times I'm not."
"That doesn't make any sense!" Eric protested. "It's like when you helped kidnap TJ's uncle, then told JC and TJ where to find him. Why are you doing this?"
Ahagotsu chuckled dryly. "For the same reason I do anything, Young Sir." He made a bony smile. "For the lulz."
Twenty years ago, when she freed the Corpus.
A proton blast.
She almost released her hostage, as she turned to the source of the attack.
"Drop her! Now!!!" an angry baritone voice barked.
"Egon Spengler..." the Herald snarled.
A nearby street sign jumped up and flew towards him; he was barely able to get out of the way.
"Father!!!" Eden called out
He fired again; she dodged. "Release my daughter." he said simply but firmly.
She placed her left index finder on her chin. "You are, in many ways, a more tempting hostage than the starseed's sibling. You are, alter all, the one who made the Ghostbusters possible." the Herald continued. "The one who thus set into motion the defeat of the Shapeless Destructor not once, but twice."
Things were quiet for a good ten seconds. Egon felt a bead of sweat drip down his face.
"You are already near the end of your brief life." the Herald finally said. "I could so easily kill you, and kill you painfully, in the name of the Master's revenge.
Ten more seconds passed.
"But no, I will allow you to live. Instead...you will get to watch me destroy your legacy. And your pain will be to know, for all of your few remaining years, that your intellect was not enough to save it."
"And how will we do that?" TJ responded.
"Try the rail gun." Ray suggested. "He's darn close to losing me!"
"Firing a proton beam from a moving vehicle is reckless and insane." TJ grumbled, reaching for the device Ray mentioned. "Which is why Lupin always volunteers to use the roof cannon."
The device was a proton rail gun, invented twenty-one years earlier not by Ray or Egon, but by the GBI team in Los Angeles.
TJ pulled out another device, about the size of a C-cell battery, and plugged it into the side. She flicked the switch that was followed by the familiar start up whine. Setting four, solar beam, side feed on...
It was an experimental cartridge that the Spengler Twins had devised--it released an ionized chemical into the stream.
She took aim.
She fired.
The proton beam that was emitted was different than the usual beam; it was white.
The beam almost missed Tungsten, just grazing his left front leg. "Yeeowtch!!!" Tungsten howled.
He rolled, shifting to his crinos form, the midway point between human and wolf forms. "You dumb fuckers!!! Stop shooting at me and let me do your job for you!!!" He didn't even explain any further--he just transformed into the dire wolf-like hispo form, and tore away from them even faster.
"Shit." TJ said simply.
"He did react to the beam, though!" Ray noted. "Means it might have worked like we'd hoped."
The chemical was silver iodide. Silver iodide.
"Still got lock?" Ray asked.
TJ nodded. What the bloody hell did he mean by "let me do your job for you!!!"?
Ray revved the ECTO-3's engine.
Eden squirmed. Despite it all, she still felt a pang of anger at being dismissed so casually. Like she was nothing compared to him.
She tried to struggle against the telekinetic bond, but it was no good.
"Someplace safe." Egon replied simply.
The Herald adopted a smug posture. "If you end all of this theatre and bring him to me, I will assure that his death will be as quick and painless as possible." She gestured toward Eden. "And you may have your other offspring back unharmed."
"I can't make that deal." Egon shook his head. "Gozer is gone, at least for the next one hundred and ten years. You have no reason to be doing any of this."
"Spite, Doctor Spengler." the Herald snarled. "Johnathan Christopher is the son of one who wronged my master twice, and he himself is someone a circle of deluded fools see as some kind of fulfillment of prophesy." She clenched a fist. "His death will strike at both of you."
"And why would I allow that?"
"To prevent the deaths of everyone else I will kill to get to him."
Am I going to be too late?!
"SHARON YOU FUCKING BITCH!!!"
A snarling blur of fur and claws.
A sudden blur of green-blue light.
A spray of blood.
A scream.
The werewolf with blood all over his claws, his face a mix of rage and confusion.
Lying on the ground, in a pool of her own blood, the daughter Egon Spengler and his wife welcomed to the world just twenty-five years earlier. Her shirt was shredded...and what was underneath was in no better condition.
"EEEEEDEEEEN!!!"
The Real Ghostbusters 2024 Created by Fritz Baugh and OgreBBQ
The Ectozone version of the ECTO-3 combines elements of both the RGB ECTO-3 that first appeared in "The Joke's On Ray" (RGB-175003; #401) by Len Jansen and Chuck Menville, and the ECTO-C seen in Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire written by Jason Reitman and Gil Kenan. This story is its first appearance.
The ability of the Firehouse to be sealed, via the use of shutters impervious to ectoplasm, comes from "The Copycat" by Micheal Reaves (RGB-140009; #312).
Ivo Shandor and his connections to the Gozer cult are, of course, from Ghostbusters written by Dan Aykroyd and Harold Ramis, with some material from Ghostbusters Afterlife written by Jason Reitman and Gil Kenan. Micheal Zhorchev is from the Ghostbusters International RPG supplement Tobin's Spirit Guide, by Kim Mohan with Robert S. Babcock. (West End Games, 1989).
Ahagotsu is also from the Ghostbusters International RPG supplement Tobin's Spirit Guide, by Kim Mohan with Robert S. Babcock. (West End Games, 1989).
The Roach Brothers, Murray the Mantis, and Posey refer to an in-universe cartoon established by "The Revenge of Murray The Mantis" (RGB-76052;#236) by Richard Mueller.
Vincent Belmont mention courtesy of Pointy Hat Games
Eric's magic is based on that of Ars Magica, created by Jonathan Tweet and Mark Rein-Hagen. It is currently being published by Atlas Games, though the name "Order of Hermes" and a few other elements are still owned by White Wolf Games.
Latin invocations came from Google Translate. So if I got anything wrong, Pat, blame it on that :P
Characters not taken from official material were created by Fritz Baugh unless otherwise specified.
Marie Lupin, Eric Stantz, and the Herald of Gozer created by OgreBBQ
Edward Sanders created by Ghostdiva
The Monsters (Count Levant, Tungsten, and Bombie) were created by OgreBBQ and Fritz Baugh, and are loosely inspired by the "Classic Monsters" from Kenner's Real Ghostbusters toy line. Bombie's name is a tribute to the classic Donald Duck story "Voodoo Hoodoo" by Carl Barks (W OS 238-02).
Proton Rail Gun created by Dr. Jeff Nash/RazorsEdge1701 and originally appeared in fan fictions written by RazorsEdge for the Ghostbusters West Coast Division