#I wonder if his grades for PE go up after they start ghost hunting because of all the running and fighting | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

barpurplewrites · 6 years

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A Spirited Agreement

Greetings all. Today we take a jaunted to a haunted house. This fic was inspired by one of @writing-prompt-s posts.

-x-x-x-

Belle had always wanted to further her education. She never expected to be able to do so, but after her death she found the opportunity.

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General Certificate of Ghost Training

Individual Candidate Statement of Results

Centre Name and Number: 0815, Storybrooke

Candidate Number: 2122012

Date of Death: 04/10/1918

Candidate Name (Post-Life): Belle

Syllabus Number, Title and Result

1001 – Chills and Flesh Creep – A

1011 – Screaming and Moaning – A

1111 – Whispering (Advanced) – B

1015 – Odours (Flowers) – A

1019 – Object Levitation – A

1025 – Mortal Communication – A

1031 – Physical Manifestation – A

1037 – Possession - F

Belle sighed at her GCGT results. She’d taken the Possession course three times now and had finally managed to scrap the lowest acceptable grade. She just could hold the focus required to keep herself in control of the subject. There was too much to get distracted by being in a living body again after so long. The rapid beat of a heart was enough to distract her to the point of ejection.

She shook her hair out of her face and sat up straighter. Her other results were great, and after a century of study she was finally ready for her first full time haunting. Discovering that the afterlife placed a great value on study had come as a surprise. The larger surprise was that her gender did not restrict her options, death truly was the great leveller.

“Belle?”

A cloud of cigarette smoke announced the arrival of her mentor, Juno.

“Sorry for the wait. New arrivals driving me crazy.”

Belle smiled as she followed Juno into her office. Dying could come as quite the shock and everyone reacted to their sudden vital change in different ways. She’d been spitting mad and used language that would have shocked her father. She shook her head as she recalled how she had focused on her desire to slap Gaston for staining her dress, it had taken her an hour to realise that she was dead, and a bloody dress was the least of her concerns.

Juno sat behind her cluttered desk and blew out smoke rings as she hunted for Belle’s file.

“Ah, here we go. Congratulations, these are very impressive results.”

“Thank you, shame about the possession one.”

Juno waved a dismissive hand; “Nonsense. Possession isn’t everything. I sometimes question the sense of teaching it at all.”

Belle didn’t say anything, everyone knew why, or rather who, had turned Juno against possession. It was best not to bring up that name.

Juno took a long drag on her ever-present cigarette; “Okay, have you read your assignment file?”

“I have, it’s an interesting place.”

Burworth Grange had been built as a hunting lodge in the 1880. During the Great War it had served as a convalescence home for wounded soldiers. A member of the family who own the estate had lived there during the inter-war years, but it returned to a medical facility in 1940. In the late 1950’s the house and grounds had been gifted to the village and was now used as a community centre.

“Have you given any thought to how you will haunt the place?”

Every newly qualified ghost was given the chance to reinvent themselves. Many chose something close to the person they had been in life, or something heavily influenced by their manner of death. If Belle chose the latter she would style herself as a corpse bride. It was tempting, but she was loath to give Gaston that much influence in her afterlife.

“I’m going to go with Great War nurse, it’s a role I know.”

Juno gave her a rare smile; “Good, good sensible to start with the familiar. Play to your strengths, and remember you are limited to three full manifestations per year for the first decade.”

Belle stood and offered her hand across the desk; “Thank you Juno.”

Juno sook her hand; “Scare them stiff Belle.”

Just as Belle reached the door Juno said; “Just so you know there is a ghost in the grounds. He restyled himself as an Imp a few centuries back. He’s an odd sort, keeps to himself, you probably won’t see much of him.”

Belle hoped her confusion didn’t show on her face. There had been nothing in her assignment file about another ghost at the Grange.

“What’s his name?”

“Rumplestiltskin.”

Belle’s first month in Burrworth Grange had been uneventful. She wanted to get use to the rhythm of the building before she set to haunting, there would be no point wasting one of her manifestations if there was no one around to see it.

She had caught glimpses of her fellow ghost. He had truly embraced the persona of Imp. Rumplestiltskin’s skin sparkled and made his reptilian eyes all the more off putting. His high-pitched giggles could be mistaken for birds, as long as you’d never heard a bird before. They had not yet spoken to each other, but he’d given her a ridiculously foppish bow when their eyes had met the first time through a window. It would have been nice to have someone to talk to, but Belle was going to impose her company where it was clearly unwanted.

Besides she had plenty to keep her occupied.

Nobody stayed in the house overnight, so she was going to have to go with daytime creeps. It was harder to get a fright out of a live person in the daylight, common sense ruled the mind rather than the nerves that came with the dark.

The local secondary school used the high-ceilinged ballroom twice a week for badminton. The PE teacher was a serious no-nonsense woman with no tolerance for ‘foolish flights of fancy’. With an authority figure that didn’t believe in the supernatural Belle was certain she could cause chaos among the more open-minded and impressionable teenagers under her care.

She planned carefully. For the weeks running up to her first big event she worked at minor hauntings. The long narrow corridor that led to the ballroom reeked of lilies. The lights flickered and popped for no reason that the caretaker could discover. A lingering chill filled the corridor and ballroom, that no amount of cussing at the radiators would dispel.

She’d hugged herself with delight when she’d heard two of the staff discussing her efforts.

“I’m telling you it’s the ghost.”

“Don’t be daft…”

Belle drifted unseen and unfelt behind them. She was making an impact. Wonderful.

“…the Gremlin doesn’t do flowers. It’s always the sheep stink from him.”

Belle frowned. The Gremlin? Oh, they must mean Rumplestiltskin. It stung a little that the live ones were crediting her work to the Imp, but they hadn’t seen her yet, so it was only a temporary mistake.

“Maybe he fancied a change? Or we’ve got a new ghost?”

“Wonder if this one’s got a sweet tooth too.”

Belle let them wander away, still bickering about if it was the Gremlin who stole the biscuits or not. She chewed on her thumbnail as she considered the situation. Rumplestiltskin was an old ghost. If the live ones thought that her tricks were his then she was doing something right. After tomorrow’s manifestation they would know that there was a new ghost in the house. It would still take time to build up her legend, but she was in no hurry.

The day of her manifestation dawned foggy and grey. She couldn’t have asked for better weather. Invisible she walked the route she was planning to take; a simple stroll along the corridor, and into the ballroom as if she was checking on patients in beds. As long as she got her timing right she would be seen by several lone individuals. The hodgepodge of alterations that had been made to the Grange over the years would help keep her out of sight of groups. She didn’t want a mass sighting just yet.

The grumbling of a sluggish class reached her ears. The PE teacher was already snappish as she chided them to hurry. Belle schooled her feature into the stern look she had copied from the ward sister she used to work under. The front door opened an blew in a swirl of fog. Belle wasn’t going to miss a perfect opportunity like that, she stepped into the mist and let herself become partially visible.

Two of the girls caught sight of her and gave a shriek. Belle disappeared as the teacher listened to their babbled report. So far so good. The class were spooked and looking around for her. A few muttered that even a ghost wouldn’t get them out of this lesson.

Belle focused on her planned route. The class were straggling out in a reluctant line, they were less keen than usual this morning. A boy caught sight of her in a shadowy doorway, he stopped suddenly and peered into the dark office, but didn’t scream. Undeterred Belle carried on, she had to get to the ballroom before the teacher. Three more children jumped at the shadows she passed through, each catching a glimpse of her. By the time she reached the ballroom, the class were on edge and the teacher was sighing and huffing at their foolishness.

“Come on hurry along! There is not need for this silliness just because it’s a bit foggy!”

The teacher stood at the door of the ballroom and impatiently hurrying the class inside. This was it. Belle let herself become almost solid and walked through the room. The first four children into the room screamed at the sight of her. She quickly turned to face them and made her eyes glow as she raised a finger to her lips to shush them. They screamed again as she vanished from sight.

“What is going on in here!”

Belle floated along to the kitchen which would be empty at thins hour of the day. The high ceilings and long corridors echoed with the near-hysterical babble of children and the irritated voice of the teacher.

“Bravo dearie. I’d begun to think you were never going to get started.”

Belle stopped with a gasp. Rumplestiltskin was lounging in a chair with his feet up on the table top. It was the first time she had seen him so close, in fact the first time she had found him in the house at all. Remembering his dramatic bow, she bobbed a curtsy; “Thank you very much.”

He twirled a hand; “Tis not matter dearie. Nice to finally have someone who knows their stuff here.”

He cocked his head to one side and peered at her, then rapidly pulled his booted feet from the table and leaned forward on his elbows.

“How would you feel about working together from time to time?”

There was nothing to stop them collaborating, but Belle had thought he would never want to because of his aloof nature. Perhaps he’d just been waiting to see how good she was before he made an offer. She smoothed down her uniform and settled herself in the chair opposite him.

“What do you have in mind?”

In recent years Burrworth Grange has become known to ghost hunters as one of the most haunted places in the north of England. The varied sightings are often dismissed as pranks and fakes, but many collaborating accounts have sparked new interest in the history of this building.

- Ghosts of the North.

#halloween house of horror 2018 #RumBelle #ghosts

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emilyelizabethfowl · 7 years

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Fic Wars [OWH] Chapter 1

This is the first chapter of a fanfic @ostrichwearingheadphones and I are writing for the Fic Wars! The official event’s blog is @fandomficwars!

Fandom: Danny Phantom

Enjoy!

Danny was pretty sure that was the worst year of his life.

His freshman year of high school felt like a nightmare, one even worse that Christmas at his place.

He never got particularly good grades but he always managed to get decent final mark. This year however?

Math teacher could've been speaking Chinese and he still would’ve understood exactly the same amount of info- big fat zero.

English? You'd think he would be able to string a few sentences together. His grade showed that no, he apparently couldn't.

And let’s not even get started on PE!

In short, that year sucked. Objectively sucked.

He was sure it couldn't get any worse, and that's why he let his guard down during the summer.

Which appeared to be the biggest mistake of his life.

First of a long, long string of grave mistakes.

***

His parents finally finished their biggest invention, the one they were working on since the college.

It was their only love, their beloved child, the axis around which their lives had been resolving, their biggest dream.

Obviously, it didn't work.

I mean, it was supposed to be a portal connecting their world and the realm of ghosts. Which they started to work on without any proof that said realm had ever existed.

No wonder it didn't work out well.

Danny had never in his life been more sure about something than he had been about the nonexistence of ghosts.

And that's exactly why he decided to mock the hundreds of hours his parents spent on that useless thing by snapping a selfie inside.

Obviously, being the clumsy idiot he's always been, he tripped and pushed some button that for some reason had been placed inside the machine.

“What kind of a moron places the on button inside?” someone would later ask.

Danny would only shrug in answer, because honestly, his father was rather famous for his idiocy.

But currently the biggest problem he had was the current flowing through his body.

It felt like he had been set on fire, his nervous endings screaming, his muscles burning, too tight to even let out a scream.

He was dying; He knew it.

And that’s why he was so surprised when he woke up at the lab’s floor later.

Well, until he saw his dead body lying next to him, then he was too busy barfing to be surprised.

The corpse was scorched beyond recognition - if Danny wasn’t sure he was the only one who died, he would’ve never recognized himself.

However, that would mean....

That would mean he was a ghost himself!

“Yep, welcome to the World Of The Dead, Kiddo.”

If he wasn’t already dead, he would have twisted his own neck.

Right next to the portal was standing (or rather, floating) a white-haired teenager.

“Sup!” The ghost raised his hand in greeting, and Danny shrieked.

Or rather, he tried to.

“You’re newly formed,” the other one explained, inspecting his gloves with bored expression. “It’s going to take a while for you to start talking again.”

Okay, maybe Danny overreacted a bit, so what?

Yeah, throwing the first thing he managed to grab at the specter probably wasn’t the greatest idea he’s ever had, but he panicked and couldn’t think clearly!

“Are you fucking serious?” the ghost asked, now completely covered in some kind of green goo.

Not being able to answer, even if he knew what to say, the boy just shrugged.

“I’ve been considering helping you, but now I’m no longer sure I will…”

Danny sneered. Like you even could hung in the air, unsaid but clear.

“Oh yeah I can! I’ll have you know I’m one of the big fish in the Ghost Zone!”

The ghost had been standing straight now, radiant green eyes glowing bright. Danny just cocked his eyebrow, challenge clear in his expression.

Prove it his body language was screaming. Or are those only empty words thrown for the wind to take?

“I will! I will prove it! For I, Phantom, am one of the most powerful ghosts and I can do anything I want!”

Phantom took off his glove in one swift move and grabbed Danny’s hand, tugging him closer. The boy was too surprised to do anything, and simply let the ghost do his thing, which appeared to be dancing apparently.

But before he could try to wordlessly complain, he got dipped - the only thing lacking was a rose between Phantom’s teeth - and later he was too busy worrying about the weird feeling in his stomach to think about anything else.

That feeling was fusing, but Danny had never experienced it before.

***

Phantom was dissipating.

He knew he didn’t have much time left. That’s why, when he felt the new opening to the Realm of Living right in the centre of his lair, he immediately rushed out.

The hunt had never been expected to be hard, but to find a freshly dead soul right after entering the other dimension? That’s too much luck even for him!

Well, he wasn’t going to look a gift soul in the mouth.

One thing he didn’t expect to do as well was immediate possession of the soul. He wanted to toy with the boy a bit, but… Okay, maybe he does have a bit of a short temper.

But he possessed the soul anyway, so it didn’t matter anymore! It was going to last him for at least few weeks, and if he processed the body as well… It was really destroyed, but he still could get some nutritional value out of it.

Or so he thought, until he heard the voice in his head.

“What the hell have you done?!”

“How are you still alive?!”

“WHAT DO YOU MEAN BY THAT?!”

Phantom stilled.

That boy had way too much influence on him! He met him like 10 minutes ago, and he already lost his temper twice! If he go around giving out important information like that, he’ll never hunt enough prey to sustain himself!

He took a deep breath.

“Alright, so I wasn’t going to help you.” He said finally. “Like, at all. I wanted to consume your life energy cuz I was fading slowing.”

Even though he couldn’t see the teen’s expression, he could tell he was resentful.

“In my defence, who the fuck accepts help from a stranger after the just met? A stranger from an entirely new, unknown dimension no less!”

A wave of shame reached him. Only after a second he realized that no, it wasn’t his own emotion. Having another living being inside his head, one with capability to think and feel emotion was certainly a really weird and unnatural experience.

It’s like you ate a chicken and it started bawking inside your stomach!

“In my defence, I just died! I don’t think I can be held accountable for anything I did in that state!”

Fair point.

“Still, I’m a hunter, you’re a prey, you should’ve kno-oUCH!”

His leg randomly lost support on the ground - when did he even stop floating?

He felt- smug? Oh, it wasn’t his emotion again.

“I think you’re forgetting we’re somehow fused together now, and I can actually hurt you in my own version of revenge until you get me back to how I was.”

The ghost lied on the floor, deciding he didn’t want to get up anytime soon. Who know what the human might try to do!

Though he might not be masochistic enough to try and do something really hurtful.

“You’re hurting yourself too!” He pointed out, just in case post-mortal adrenaline clogged the teen’s nerve ending too much for him to feel anything.

“Jokes on you, I didn’t feel a thing!”

That was… Unexpected.

Well, it wasn’t like he had any sort of experience in that matter, it was first time he didn’t absorb someone completely. He didn’t even know something like that could happen!

Phantom summoned a small ectoball and burned his own ball, trying and failing not to flinch. However you look at it, hurting yourself isn’t pretty nor nice.

“Did you feel it?” he asked.

“Feel what?” the answer came with another wave of emotion, this time it was confusion.

“I just burned my hand, did you feel it?”

“So I told you I didn’t feel it when you got hurt and your immediate reaction was to hurt yourself more? Dude.”

This wave of shame was definitely his own.

“I had to check if you weren’t just tricking me!”

“Oh, yeah, I guess when you betray everyone you meet, you learn never to trust anyone.”

The teen sounded genuinely hurt under the thick layer of sarcasm, and for some reason it made Phantom feel bad.

“I’m sorry, okay? It’s just-”

The emotions he felt were had to describe, but he knew for sure the teen was sulking.

“You’re sorry just because you’re stuck with me.”

“Obviously!” Phantom yelled, losing his control again. “If everything went as it was supposed to, you wouldn’t exist and there would be no sulking teens demanding an apology in my head!”

Danny quietened, and for a short sweet while the ghost thought that maybe, just maybe, the digesting took some time, and he finally got rid of that nuisance-

In that moment he unwillingly turned intangible and fell through the floor to some weird dungeon full of medieval torture tools, knowing full well he wasn’t going to like the next few weeks.

At all.

“I’m going to turn your afterlife into an afterliving hell, and the only thing you can do to stop me, is giving me my life and body back.”

Phantoms, as it was already said, was an important ghost in the Zone; There wasn’t a lot of people he could say he was genuinely afraid of.

But in that moment, he felt really, truly horrified.

“Okay, okay!” He said “But we need to go back to the lag first!”

“What’s for?” He did give the teen a reason to doubt him, but he had a feeling these constant questions and suspicions were going to drive him crazy.

“Do you want to leave your body lying around?”

Wave of understanding. He was getting better at distinguishing the ownership of the emotions.

He wanted to move upwards, but when trying to access his powers, he bumped off an unexpected obstacle.

“What are you doing to do with it?” the teen asked.

Phantom took a moment to think.

“I can’t absorb the matter, as it’s not really compatible with my digestive system,” he said finally, “But I can overshadow it, mask the scorches with an illusion humans won’t be able to look through and put it in a kind of stasis, so it wouldn’t decay further.”

“Okay,” the barrier disappeared suddenly, and Phantom surged forward, hitting his head on the ceiling.

“Ouch!” he yelped.

“Ooops,” came from the boy, but the emotion that came alongside didn’t feel apologetic in the slightest.

He decided to let it go, considering it was mostly his fault and the human was mostly justified in his childish forms of revenge. Having back the full power, he phased back to the laboratory and hovered a bit awkwardly above the body.

“This might feel gross for a while,” he warned, and dived into the corpse.

Gross didn’t bloody cover it, as Danny painfully found out a moment later.

He was glad he could feel things again, but he would definitely prefer if his nose wasn’t instantly attacked by the smell of burned skin and if his nerve endings could stop resonating with pain, constantly reliving the accident.

But the ghost disappeared, so it was all for the-

“What the hell?” The tiny voice in his head said.

Danny groaned loudly.

“You aren’t gone?” he asked, exasperation and crushed hopes clear in his voice.

“Now you know how I felt!” Phantom responded, not really answering the question, sending a small wave of smugness alongside. Danny only noticed the emotion wasn’t his because he didn’t feel in the slightest bit smug.

Flexing the fingers, he realized he had been wrong. The worst year of his life has barely began.

#Danny Phantom #Danny Fenton #fanfiction #Phandom #fic wars #ostrichwearingheadphones #Emily's writing #my writing #my fanfction #fandomficwars

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