Woe to Summoning Circles
DannyMay Day 8: Summoning
The world at large has found out about ghosts. And worse, they've found out how to summon them at will.
Some of the ghosts are cool with this. Some dread it. Kitty would just like to finish a single game of cards in peace, please and fucking thank you.
One-shot below the cut, or read it on AO3 here
They weren’t scared. Why would they be scared? They were among the strongest ghosts in the Ghost Zone. They had their own domains, were known far and wide, across both the Zone and the human world—
The latter of which was exactly the problem.
They weren’t scared. It was more like…
“Fuck!” Kitty yelled, throwing down her hand of cards. Several of them slid to the ground. One skidded over the chips in the middle of the table to land on the recently-occupied chair on the other side.
Ember, sitting to Kitty’s left and still holding her cards close, as if sure the game would restart any minute, rolled her eyes. “Who the hell is summoning Penny, anyway? Do they want to be depressed?”
Kitty scoffed and threw her hands into the air. “Who the fuck knows, these kids are crazy!”
It had only been a few weeks since the Fentons’ files on each of them had been leaked to the public—no one knew how or by whom, human or ghost or something in between, but every stat and measurement that had ever been taken via their use of the portal or their proximity to a Fenton gadget had been made public knowledge.
Some people thought it was a hoax. Others thought it was a story, a game.
Unfortunately, those who already suspected or knew from first-hand encounters that ghosts were real took the information as an opportunity.
Within hours of the leak, summoning circles were being tested using all that shiny new data. Within a day, they were functional.
Ember, still unbothered, leaned over the back of her chair and turned her head to face Skulker, who was sitting on a couch on the other side of the room, a small mountain of metal plates, gears, and screws on the floor in front of him. “Babe, have you heard from Technus? Wasn’t he supposed to be wiping our shit from the net?”
Skulker paused his tinkering with the vaguely arm-shaped hunk of machinery on his lap and turned to face Ember with a grimace. “Nooooo he’s, uh. Taken up residence in the whelp’s school. I believe he is actually helping them bolster the database. Of both ghosts and summoning circles.”
“What?!” Kitty demanded. She stood suddenly, and her chair slammed onto the ground behind her. “Nicky’s abandoned us?! Oh, we’re fucked!”
“Relax, Kit, it’s not that bad,” Ember said with a wave of the hand not holding her cards. “Like, it doesn’t even happen that oft—”
Her cards fluttered to the ground as she poofed out of existence.
“ARGH!” Kitty kicked the table over. Ember’s cards had landed akimbo but face-up. She’d have won if they’d been able to finish their game.
Skulker sighed and fully set his arm project aside. “Is Johnny still stuck on the other side?”
Kitty pouted. “Yeah. It’s so stupid, they don’t even want him, they just want Shadow! But they can’t figure out how to summon one without the other.” She walked over and sat on the back of the couch, crossing her arms for a full-body sulk. “I’d love some time without Shadow. They’d be doing me a favor if they took him for a bit. But I want my Johnny back.”
“Ha! I’ll let Technus know. If he’s going to betray all our secrets, he may as well put some of that knowledge to good use.”
Kitty fiddled with the zipper of her coat. “Yeah, maybe.”
With a small pop, Spectra reappeared in her chair, the only part of the game setup that was still upright. The giant grin on her face fell as she looked at the card-carnage around her. “Oh, what happened here? Is the game over?”
“You and Em both got called away, so yeah, game over.” Kitty stomped back over and began scooping up cards and chips, heedless of whose they had been. The chips were just for show, anyway. They gambled favors more than currency, and even then only when they really needed something.
Spectra made no move to help clean up, but the smile did return to her face a second later. “I love it when I’m called on! These humans have the most devious ideas for how to torture each other. I’m going to need a way to store all this extra misery for later, or I’ll start looking like a toddler before long!”
She laughed and kicked over a small pile of chips Kitty had been stacking. Kitty grabbed her ankle and pulled her to the ground. Spectra caught herself before she hit the floor but snarled at Kitty anyway, letting her human form fall away in favor of her shadowy true self. Kitty, used to the posturing, hissed back.
Before either of them could make another move, Ember reappeared. She stood in the spot where her chair had been, one hand holding a small picture frame, her expression oddly blank.
“Em?” Kitty asked, Spectra momentarily forgotten. “You okay?”
Ember took a few more seconds before responding. “Uh, yeah. They. This girl. She said… She said I was the reason she didn’t kill herself last year. Wanted to thank me.”
“Ugh, you’re souring my mood!” said Spectra. “I’m out of here.” Then she wisped away—the normal way this time.
Feeling maybe a little tiny bit sorry for her previous anger, Kitty stood and put a hand on Ember’s shoulder. “That’s… that’s really cool.” She offered a tentative smile, which Ember returned.
“Yeah, I guess it is.”
Leaning closer, Kitty asked, “What’s that?”
Ember held the frame up a little higher. It was just bigger than her palm, thin gold metal surrounding a smudged glass pane. The picture was of a teen girl with bright, multi-colored hair, one bright blue streak prominent up front. She had clips in her hair and a whole stack of beaded bracelets on her arm. Her hands were set under her enormous smile in the shape of a heart.
“She said this was her at a festival last week. Had a friend take it and print it out for her so she could give it to me.” Ember’s voice was quiet with something like awe, tinged with a fondness Kitty had rarely heard her use.
Ember stepped away from Kitty and over to a shelf along the wall. It was empty except for a small hunk of beat up metal, the first piece of Skulker’s first suit. Ember set the frame up next to it.
Then shook out her hands and rolled her neck. “Whoo! Okay, that’s enough mushy feelings for one day! I need to break something.” Hands on her hips, she looked back at Kitty with a grin. “Wanna go save your man from human babysitting duty?”
Kitty clapped. “Yes, please.”
The two of them flew out together, leaving Skulker alone on the couch.
“Finally,” he said to himself, reaching for the backup arm he’d been working on. “Peace and quiet.”
He disappeared from the couch with a pop.