Lewis Joins the Gang (Again)
As usual, Arthur was the first to wake up. He felt like he’d taken too much pain medication before going to bed and…there was something on top of him that was not Vivi or Mystery. It felt smooth and warm. He sat up. “What.” He stared at the pile of purple ghosts covering him, Vivi, and Mystery. On a purple bed. In…a large room. It looked like the entrance room of a mansion.
Wait, wait, wait…He was starting to remember. “Uh, ghost guy, you there?” Arthur started shaking Vivi. “Hey, hey, Vivi. Wake up. Something crazy. And ghosty. And maybe cursy. And I think you’ll need to drive today.” He picked up one of the Deadbeats. “Why are you not scaring me?”
Vivi groaned. “Five more minutes.”
“You are literally covered in ghosts,” Arthur said as he attached his prosthetic.
Vivi almost immediately shot up. “Oh my gosh! They’re so cute!” She started scratching one on the top of its head. “Yes, you are, yes you are.” She paused. “Hey, where are we?”
“Haunted house,” replied Arthur.
Vivi blinked. “Huh. Why don’t I remember that?”
“Ghost guy said…” Arthur paused and looked around. “Actually, where is he?” One of the ghosts popped up holding a pretty blue heart with orange filigree all over it. “Huh. Why does that seem familiar?”
“Hm…” Vivi picked up the heart. “Why is the color-”
Vivi was interrupted when purple fire shot out of the heart and formed a familiar ghost. Well, familiar to Arthur anyway. “Hey, ghost guy.”
Lewis blinked. “Uh, hey.”
“Whoa! You look so cool!” crowed Vivi.
Lewis blushed a little. “R-really?”
“Yeah, the suit, and the skull, and the fire, it’s awesome!” said Vivi. She frowned. “Uh, did you do something to our memories?”
Lewis quickly held his hands up. “Not on purpose! I tried to introduce myself, but whenever I said my name, you passed out and forgot stuff!”
Vivi frowned. “Maybe it’s a safeguard? Knowing someone’s true name can give you power over them…”
“But I really wanted to tell you my name!” protested Lewis.
“And we appreciate that, but given the side effects, you probably shouldn’t,” mused Vivi.
“And-and there was that other thing,” said Lewis. “See?” Lewis put his glamour back on. “This is supposed to be what I looked like when I was alive, and that’s what I see when I look in the mirror, but Artie said that’s not what I look like!”
Both humans winced. “Oof, yeah, that’s not a human face,” agreed Vivi. “Could you…” Lewis dropped the glamour. “Thanks. Okay, that makes less sense. Glamours are specifically for blending in.” Vivi hummed in thought for several moments. “This could take a while to figure out…But we need to get to Techno Con.”
Lewis blinked. “Techno Con?”
“I’ve got a booth there to show off my prosthetics,” explained Arthur. “And I’m hoping to pick up a few new things myself.”
“Oh, congratulations,” said Lewis as an idea started to occur to him. “But…Maybe…If it’s a not a problem, I could go with you. Then you’d have plenty of time to figure out what’s wrong.”
Arthur’s mouth fell open in shock and nervousness. Vivi thought a moment. “That’s a tempting offer, but I have some concerns.” She pointed at Arthur. “Firstly, Arthur has to agree.”
Lewis nodded. “Of course.”
“Secondly, how do we know you won’t try to kill us or drain our energy?” pointed out Vivi.
“I could’ve done that while you were sleeping,” pointed out Lewis. He paused. “Not that I would!”
“Hm…” Vivi nodded. “Good point. Secondly, why would you want to come with us? Most ghosts are tethered to a place.”
Lewis winced. “I didn’t want to stay there.”
Vivi winced. “Ah. Sorry.”
“And…I was lonely,” admitted Lewis. “I don’t want to be alone.”
“What about these guys?” asked Arthur, holding up a chirping Deadbeat.
“The Deadbeats are more like cats. I can talk to them, but they don’t give me a response,” explained Lewis. “They are my friends, and they helped me stay sane, but I missed being able to talk to people.” Especially these people.
“Bit of an unusual motive, but I can believe it,” commented Vivi. “But why us, haven’t you run into other people before?”
“I’ve only been dead for a few months.” At least Lewis thought it was months. He hadn’t been able to keep track of time during his trek to civilization. “And I kind of died in the middle of nowhere, and it turns out it can take a while to find a road if you don’t have a map or compass.”
“I think I saw an episode of Mythbusters about that,” commented Arthur.
Vivi nodded. “Okay, you want friends, but if you haven’t been dead that long, wouldn’t it make more sense to return home where your friends and family are? Or are you worried about how they’ll react?” she asked.
“Oh, I actually was on my way home,” said Lewis. “I just ran into you first, and I figured I could hitch a ride with you since I’m from Tempo too.”
“How do you know we’re from Tempo?” asked Arthur.
“You guys are kind of infamous. I wouldn’t be surprised if everyone in town knew who you were,” explained Lewis.
“True, random strangers will walk up to me and ask me tips about ghosts and stuff,” agreed Vivi. “What about you? Any chance we’ve ever met before.”
Lewis perked up. “Yeah! I was a chef at Pepper Paradiso!”
Arthur frowned. “Pepper Paradiso’s a restaurant?” he asked in confusion.
“Yeah, it serves pretty spicy food so you wouldn’t like it,” said Vivi. It was why she’d never taken him there for a date.
“Huh? You’ve both been there plenty of times though,” said Lewis.
“Nah, I can’t stand spicy food,” said Arthur. “If it’s mostly spicy stuff I’d avoid it.”
Oh, this was so much worse than Lewis had thought. “A-And we went to the same high school!”
“Were we in the same grade?” asked Arthur.
“Uh, I was in the grade below you,” said Lewis.
“Then you might be in some of our yearbooks,” reasoned Arthur. “Of course we don’t exactly carry those around.”
“Ugh, yeah, and it’s probably been long enough that you can’t look at it online,” muttered Lewis. “I went to Tome Tomb all the time…Why don’t either of you remember me…” Lewis finished sadly.
“Well, in one’s day-to-day life you don’t remember every single person you run into,” pointed out Arthur.
“I’m seven feet tall though!” shouted Lewis, getting frustrated. “I stood out like a sore thumb!”
“Okay, yeah, that’d be pretty memorable,” agreed Arthur. “You’d think we’d remember someone like that.”
“Hm…You know, I don’t remember anyone talking about a chef at Pepper Paradiso going missing,” mused Vivi. “I wonder if any memories were erased from everyone’s minds.”
The thought was so horrifying that Lewis could just stare at them in horror.
“Whoa, that’s a bit of a big leap!” pointed out Arthur. “I mean it’s weird neither of us have heard about a local giant, but we might just be clueless. Heck, maybe we could call home and ask while we’re traveling.”
“True,” agreed Vivi. “Although even if that’s wrong, I’d like to help this guy. Something really odd is going on with him.”
Arthur bit his lip and studied the nervous looking Lewis. He weighed the pros and cons. He sighed. “If you can’t disguise yourself, you can’t really go out in public. You okay with that?”
“Well, I could turn invisible,” pointed out Lewis, doing so for a moment to prove that was a thing he could do. “If I didn’t let other people know I was around, would that be all right?”
Arthur thought for a moment before sighing. “As long as you let us know where you are, yeah.”
Vivi gave Arthur a startled look, not expecting him to support this. Still, if he was okay with it, she wasn’t gonna give up this opportunity to get a ghost teammate who would maybe help them out on investigations and let her study him a bit. “Okay, so if you and your Deadbeats (Heh, funny name.) agree to behave and stay out of sight, you can travel with us until we got back to Tempo. Deal?”
“When will you be going back to Tempo?” asked Lewis.
“Well, we have like 8 days funds, but depending on if we earn anything we might travel around a bit longer,” explained Arthur.
Lewis was familiar with this traveling plan, so he nodded. “It’s a deal.”
“Great! Now we should probably head out,” said Vivi. “We don’t want to fall too far behind in our plans.”
Lewis nodded. “Sure thing.” He then proceeded to collapse the entire house into fire and absorb it into his anchor. He paused as he saw the other three staring at him in shock. “Uh, did I forget to mention I could do that?”
“Oops.” Lewis chuckled nervously. “Well, yeah, I can make houses. And other stuff.” He coughed nervously somehow. “So, that’s your van, right? I’ll just go settle into the back.” He zoomed off.
Arthur turned to Vivi. “I feel like we might’ve bitten off more than we can chew.”
Vivi shrugged. “Well, nothing we can do now. Wanna go grab some waffles?”
“Hm…I’d rather just have some yogurt and fruit. Not that hungry,” said Arthur as they walked back to the van.