11.45 pm, and i somehow still managed to finished day 3 of the ectober haunt challenge ! Only drew something for one of the prompts though: meteorology
Pointdexter was popping his head in and out of various lockers, re-activating Danny's ghost sense every time. Danny was trying not to be annoyed about it, but the clear mischief involved was making it hard.
"Gosh, school's so empty right now! Kinda wish it could be like this all the time. Nobody around ta see what we're doing."
"Nobody." Danny agreed dully. He couldn't remember how he'd been talked into this hangout; Even after they'd made peace with each other they were different kinds of nerds, and quite literally from different times when that had a different weight to it.
"Kinda wish I'd gotten it way back when- nobody but a pal to give each other a hard time."
"I... don't know that we're friends yet. Isn't this the second time we've spoken peacefully? That wasn't... whatever two days ago was. I don't think that counts. And after your first meeting, we need more than that."
"Probably doesn't count, but, well, I know I wasn't polite myself but I don't know why you're being a wet blanket about it. It's not like you weren't being a delinquent." Pointdexter huffed, obviously offended.
"Do you ever think about how I didn't even get my own fifteen minutes of fame? Or was that never a concern to you?" Danny asked.
He shouldn't have; He knew it immediately. Pointdexter clearly flickered with instability as he tried to process if the lack of thought constituted bullying or not.
"Well, I knew being in my lair was no gas, but it wasn't supposed to be one. But what's a fifteen minutes of fame?"
"Pointdexter you've been in this school since the sixties- I know you know slang terms. You hear them every day."
Pointdexter only grimaced in response and slid back into a locker, reappearing a couple closer to Danny with a more neutral look.
Too bad Pointdexter was a bad liar, and 'more neutral' was still 'clearly aware he'd been had'.
"Whatever you're accusing me of, I didn't do a thing on purpose after that; Don't flip your wig on me." Pointdexter tried to firmly shake the conversation off, but if he wasn't going to really engage with what Danny was saying then Danny wasn't going to have it.
"On purpose maybe you are technically correct. But you walk into my life and somehow you're better at it than me. You don't think I wouldn't be a little mad? Because you sure don't seem to think I've got a reason to be mad, when you know as well as I do that just because they weren't doing it on purpose doesn't mean it can't sting."
Pointdexter flickered out of sight, and Danny knew he should've let it lie.
Whatever. This was probably better than expected, anyways.
Not all doors contain haunts. Sometimes they may hold entities that are open for bargaining. Knowledge, wisdom, and guidance in exchange for a little Chaos.
There is a boy sitting across the table from you, balancing a coin on edge.
The boy has your face.
"Order and chaos are two sides of the same coin," says the boy. He flicks the side of the coin, and it spins across the table like a top. It comes to a stop in front of you, still spinning, right between and in front of where your hands grip the table.
"Oh?" you say. You aren't sure what else to say. "How so?"
"Think about it. What is, in your opinion, the ultimate expression of chaos?"
You watch the coin continue to spin. Part of you wants to smack it down. A stronger part of you is curious. You want to see how long it will spin. And you've never been good at denying your curiosity, anyway.
"Entropy," you say, finally.
The boy nods. "Disorder. Ultimate disorder. And the end. The universe in its ground state. But it's called the law of entropy, isn't it?”
"That's only a convention. Nature doesn't call it anything."
The boy waves a negligent hand. "Entropy. The end. The heat death of the universe. A universe where everything is the same, everywhere, forever. Doesn't that sound like order."
"Maybe," you allow, but, at this point in the conversation, you have more important questions. Even if you would like to continue a conversation that has to do with space. "I know I'm dreaming."
"Do you? That explains some things."
"I practice. But I didn't come up with you. Who are you? And why are you here?"
"Order and chaos." The boy tilted his head. "You're taking this much better than the others."
"What others?"
.
You are sitting at a table. Across from you is something that looks like you, something wearing your face. It is opening a pack of cards, short neat nails exactly the color of yours tear through plastic and start to pick at the sticker holding the box closed.
You can't take this anymore. You stand and slam your hands down on the table.
"Who are you?" you demand. "Where am I?"
The thing across from you looks up, and you feel relieved it got the eyes wrong, until you remember - mirrors. It doesn't have anything wrong at all.
"You've been dealt a bad hand, haven't you?"
"What?"
The thing looked back down at the box of cards and finally got them open. The paper rectangles slid out into its hand, and it started shuffling them. "Did you know, there are more than eight times ten to the sixty-seventh different combinations for a deck of cards? That's fifty-two factorial, by the way."
You narrow your eyes and cross your arms. You are feeling for the wires under your skin, but they lie quiescent. Unresponsive.
"Why have you brought me here?"
"It's sort of ordered chaos. Card games, I mean. Chaos from order. Or order from chaos. You're aiming more for the second one."
"Answer my question, ghost."
"You have every right to be angry." It slid a card from the top of the deck and flipped it over. The king of clubs. "Racism." It drew another card, the queen of hearts. "A missing mother." The ten of diamonds. "Poverty." The jack of spades. "A doomed love. And then there's you." It revealed one more card, the ace of diamonds. "All alone. But you are what you need to make a bad hand a good one." It rearranged the cards, lightning fast.
The hand it dealt was a straight, you realize. Not the best hand, but not a low one, either.
"So… the question is, which side are you going to choose?"
"Side?"
.
There is a chessboard in front of you, ready for a new game, all the pieces set up. The white pieces are on your side.
Seated in the white velvet chair across from you is your doppleganger. It smiles, all your own cunning and trickery reflected back at you full force.
“Fancy a match?” the doppleganger asks, gesturing to the board.
“What is the meaning of this?” you ask. You are, you notice as your hands curl around armrests, sitting in a black leather chair. The room you are in has no visible doors. It also doesn’t feel like a proper room, and you have to wonder what part of the Ghost Zone you are in.
“Chess?” your double asks, deliberately misunderstanding. “It doesn’t particularly have a meaning, except as a diversion, an entertainment. Or do you mean the metaphor?”
You stand and throw the board, table and all, to one side in a single, powerful motion. “I’m not in the mood,” you say. “You must know who you are dealing with. So, why have you brought me here? What are you playing at?”
Your doppelganger laughs. You grit your teeth. You’re a billionaire, a public figure. You’ve heard yourself recorded more times than you can count. But your laugh can’t possibly sound like this, can it?
"It's one thing applied to your young rival, but for you it's different, is that it?" The doppelganger smirked. "It's about applying order to chaos - your order. No one else's."
You've had quite enough of this, and you reach for your other side, your other half, your ghost--
It doesn't come.
The doppelganger laughs again and stands. They put both hands on your chest.
"I hope you have fun," they say. "The other players are ready."
Then they push you and you fall back into the dark.
.
The first thing you notice is that you are no longer wearing your own clothes. The next thing is that you’re lying down and not particularly comfortable. The third is that the coin the other-you had earlier is still spinning, hovering an inch or so over your palm.
So. You get up. Look around. Resist the urge to swear, because you’re not that kind of a hero, and if you get into the habit you know you’ll never stop.
The ground is stone. Marble. Big squares of alternating black and white, like a chessboard. It’s also shaped, molded into hills and valleys and even some fairly convincing trees. You can see a castle in the distance.
You must, you reasons, be somewhere in the Ghost Zone.
Not that that really helps all that much. They’re called the Infinite Realms, not the Easily Navigable Backyard.
Still. The chess theme makes you feel uneasy. Will you be expected to fight someone?
You hear a sound behind you and turn.
.
The first thing you see is Danny. He is standing, holding something cupped between his hands, looking away across the checkerboard hills. He is wearing all black, loose clothes, topped by a soft, round, almost spherical hat.
You must make some kind of sound, because he turns to face you, and you can see, now, that the thing in his hand is a silver coin, levitating, spinning, in the palm of his left hand. He looks at you in surprise, blue eyes bright against the monochrome features of this place.
“Oh,” says Danny, softly, “Valerie. I guess it was you they were talking about?”
“Someone was talking about me?”
“Sort of. There was… I guess they must have been a shapeshifter or something, because they looked just like me. They said there were others. So, you, and I guess there must be someone else?”
“Not with me,” you say. “What are you wearing?”
“Don’t know. Just woke up with it. I guess it’s the same for you?”
You look down at yourself. You haven’t done so since you first… appeared here. You’re wearing red, vibrant and garish. The color distracts you, momentarily, from the fact that it’s in a military cut.
You are holding the deck of cards in your left hand. You drop the cards in surprise, but, to your dismay, they scatter back into your hand.
Danny stares at the cards in mild… She isn’t sure what to call the expression, but it isn’t surprise.
His head jerks up, suddenly, and an expression of disgust passes over his face. You turn to see Vlad Masters, all in white. A cape snaps behind him, although there is no wind. You feel your lips curl as well.
.
You look down at the two teenagers, your disdain matching theirs.
“Daniel,” you say.
“Vlad,” he spits back.
Valerie Gray says nothing. You aren’t sure what you’ve done to earn her enmity. Perhaps she still has some hard feelings regarding that mess with Danielle despite seeming to accept your explanation.
“Well,” you say into the silence. “It would appear we are on opposite sides, Daniel.”
“Don’t give me that,” says Daniel. “You don’t know what’s going on any more than we do. Do you really want to start fighting us when there could be so many other enemies out there?”
The coin spinning in Daniels hand stops for a split second, a winking head catching your eye. Of course, Daniel didn’t notice at all, too busy glaring up at you.
“Oh,” you say. “Of course I didn’t mean that we should cooperate with whatever horrible ghosts put us here. But I am certain there’s a reason you are black and I am white. This is a chessboard, after all.”
“Or a checkerboard. Val’s in red.”
“Of course she is.” That is the color of her suit, after all.
“And,” says Daniel, as if scoring a grand point in the ongoing and very one-sided battle of wits the two of you engage in, “you’re the only one carrying a chess set. Colors mean different things in cards.”
“Or blind luck?” you sneer at his coin.
Daniel falls silent, the coin flashes tails. Then a flower. How many sides does it have?
“Maybe. But considering the circumstances, I think you could use some luck, don’t you?”
You survey your surroundings. “Well. Yes. I suppose so. Now… I believe we should go that way.” You point to a castle you see in the distance, one that shines a gleaming white. You don’t know anything about it, but seizing control of the situation early on is important.
“No,” says Valerie, crossing her arms. “You don’t know anything about ghosts, right?” Her eyes flicked to Danny.
Oh, trying to use a witness to manipulate you? How precious.
“I did work with Daniel’s parents, my dear.”
“I don’t think we should go near the ghost castle,” insists Valerie.
“I agree,” says Daniel, quickly. “We should try to find a small group of people first. Something we can handle. Castles have armies. We don’t want to deal with a hostile one.”
A white castle being more likely to be friendly to a fellow man in white, you would generally disagree. However, Daniel and Valerie trying to leverage each other against you is amusing. So, you’ll play their little game for a while longer.
These two were supposed to have colours and legs and the whole thing was supposed to have some coherent visual metaphor to justify the connection to “bond” but whatever I’m tired
