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PostPosted: February 14th, 2012, 12:52 pm 
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Command

"Wren, fetch me a spellbook." Vigo commanded.

Ava stood still for almost a full minute, swaying in place with a blank expression. She blinked a couple times and continued her earlier chatter.

Vigo snorted. How disappointing. It would seem he had only deduced part of her true name, which only gave him control for a short period of time. Her action also told him that she could not complete commands if she herself did not know the meaning of, and that she had not read any proper spellbooks during her occupation of the building.

"Wren, fetch me a child from outside."

She turned and shambled over to the stairs before wondering aloud how she had gotten over there.

Damnation. A thought then occurred to him. It would take planning, but Vigo had nothing but time to plan. "Wren, race upstairs and fetch one of their weapons, bring it back to me."

And so she scrambled upstairs to fulfill the task. She was back on the landing by the time the effect wore off, close enough for him to invoke her name once more and have her hide the proton gun somewhere. It was small, smaller than he remembered, but it would serve his purpose.

"Wren, you feel tired and must sleep."

Ava yawned and stretched, bid him goodnight, and crawled back into her nest.

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PostPosted: February 29th, 2012, 1:31 pm 
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Don't Call Me Shirley

Ray scrubbed a hand across his face and sighed aloud over the phone. "Well, from what I've been able to figure out from our tests...She's not a fey. If she was, she'd have caught on and probably done terrible things to us by now. I'm about 90% sure she's an atypical fetch. Some kind of bird, based on the imaging."

"A small Passeriforme, but that's all I could deduce," said Egon. Behind him Eduardo mouthed 'passeriforme?' and wrinkled his nose at Kylie, who elbowed him in the side.

"The strange thing is that she hasn't died. If the person who attacked her was her creator - and I don't see any reason it wouldn't be - then she should have gotten sick and died. It's just what fetches do."

"Which means that this person who attacked her intended to do something else." Egon supplied.

"That's what I'm having trouble figuring out. The coke bottle is probably our best clue, but we don't have it to inspect. Which just leaves her."

"Back to square one."

"Pretty much, yeah."

'What if her creator didn't want her to die?" Kylie asked. "Maybe she was trying to save her, not attack her?"

"You can't save a fetch, it's against their nature. Besides, they don't even have souls to...save..."

"Surely not." Egon looked taken aback, having lighted on the same train of thought.

"It would explain some things, and if it was botched or interrupted it could certainly cause some problems."

"And if she has it now, then her counterpart may no longer be in the realm of the living."

"Which would give reason for a fey to try and preserve a fetch - usually they get attached to their stolen kids one way or another. It would also make our job that much more difficult."

"What?" Eduardo stared at the speakerphone, then at Egon for clarification.

"We would either have to save her soul by making sure it's bound to her...or destroy her permanently."

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PostPosted: February 29th, 2012, 7:26 pm 
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I'm really enjoying this story. All sorts of twists and turns.

I especially like the way descriptions of the Ghostbusters were kept very vague, as we're seeing things from Ava's point of few, and she might not have much idea who they are, especially the EGBs. It's a very good touch.

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PostPosted: March 2nd, 2012, 1:06 pm 
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Interrogation

"-And that's what we're going to have to do." Ray leaned forward on his stool , his suitcase on the floor beside him.

Ava looked down at herself, dressed as she was in a too-large sweatshirt and jeans that now required a belt. Living off of whatever she could find was taking a toll on her body. "I don't have to be naked for that right? I mean I could probably hack it, I modeled for an art class for a while but that was in a swimsuit..."

"No, just your underwear will be fine. You understand the risks?"

"Yeah. I think." Ava scratched her head. "Anything has to be better than all of...this though."

"Alright then. We'll do it in the sub-basement, there's better..." Ray paused for a moment. "Acoustics down there."

Egon looked vaguely uncomfortable at the mention. Ava filed that away for further reference. If there was one benefit from being so easily forgotten it was that she was able to see different facets of each of these peoples' personalities depending on how she approached them.

"Alright...I've sort of been living down there too so don't be surprised at the mess." She wrung her hands nervously, avoiding looking at anyone.

"I do have to ask you a few questions before we get started. I thought maybe tomorrow would be best, so we can all get a good night's sleep." Ray picked a notepad up off the lab table.

"Alright." Ava shuffled her feet.

"How old are you?"

"Twenty-six."

"Have you had any traumatic events that you can remember? Think back to when you were younger. Any loss of consciousness, anything."

"Well, I took an I-Beam to the head when I was twelve...I think I blacked out for a couple seconds, because I don't remember falling." Her hand went to the top of her head.

"Alright. What's your birthday, and where you born in the afternoon or the morning?"

"Twelve Oh-Nine Eighty-Five, about two o'clock."

Ray scratched on the pad, then paused and re-read what he had written. "Could you repeat that?"

Ava did as asked with a shrug.

Ray wrote it down again, then tapped the pen on the side of the pad. "I think that's all I need from you for now, why don't you go watch a movie or something?"

"Yeah, okay." Ava hurried away, her shoes squeaking as she went.

As soon as she was out of sight Ray turned to Egon and made a wordless gesture at the pad with a look of exasperation. "That is what we call a problem."

"A big problem."

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PostPosted: March 14th, 2012, 1:56 pm 
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Morning Ablutions

The next day came both too slowly and too quickly for Ava. She had over the past few months developed nervous sleeping habits which caused her to wake every couple hours.

Finally, at about six, she crept upstairs and went to take a shower, carefully balancing a step stool against the door. She had found out the hard way that the lock was broken. Garrett's blank stare as he slowly re-shut the door was still engraved into her skull. At the very least he wouldn't remember, but she was no less embarrassed.

She turned on the shower and waited patiently for the aging water heater to do it's job and fished her toothbrush out of her backpack. No soap, Ray had said, but he didn't mention toothpaste. Besides, it had fluorite in it so it was at least partially natural, right? After a moment of considering the ingredients she opted to forgo toothpaste and just use water. That done she took a quick shower and dressed herself in her other set of clothes.

She repacked her backpack and left it into a corner of the living room, settling herself on the sofa and turning on the TV. It struck her as odd that so much of their equipment was out of date, heck they didn't even change their calenders. Weird.

"Aaaavaaaa?"

"Hey Slimer," Ava didn't look up, flipping the channel as the spud hovered nearby. "Guess what? Ray might fix me up today, break whatever this is. Pretty cool, huh?"

"Uh huh, uh huh!" He nodded so enthusiastically that slime flecked onto her shirt. She dabbed at it with her fingers absently.

"Wha y'onna do affer?" He asked, handing her a napkin he had seized off the in table.

"No idea." Ava shrugged, dabbing at her shirt. "I guess go back home and get back to normal."

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PostPosted: March 14th, 2012, 2:08 pm 
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Ray, I Hope That Isn't Wode or She Might Have a Heart Attack.

Also Stupid Science Jokes.


"Can you at least turn on some music or something? I mean, I usually don't mind people staring at me in my underwear, but usually they have sketch pads in hand, not nuclear accelerators..."

"Boys," Kylie growled. Eduardo and Garrett gave her put upon looks but turned away from her regardless.

"Told you," Roland muttered, his back already turned.

"I'm going to do your feet next, so hold still." Ray wiped sweat off his brow, holding a thin reed brush in his hand. Blue lines already crossed over Ava's thighs and calves. For her part she was true to her work and had stood very still for the process. He touched the brush to her foot and pulled away just as she flinched.

"Oh God, I'm ticklish there!"

"Has to be done."

Ava gritted her teeth and curled her hands into fists against the chair she was leaning on. "Yeah, I know..."

"We'll be done soon enough, then we can go to the sub-basement and get this over with."

"Not like I don't have all the time in the world, being legally dead and all." Ava shot a weak grin at him.

Ray paused and look up at her over his reading glasses.

"It's a joke. I'm joking. Why doesn't anyone know when I'm joking?" She huffed.

"It just isn't that funny, I guess." Ray finished with her feet and started on her back.

"Well, I can either laugh about it or cry about it...And I think I'm about out of tears. I cried my way halfway across the US. Better to laugh I think. It could always be worse."

Ray smiled faintly. "There is that."

"Want to hear some stupid science jokes?"

"Sure." If it kept her calm, why not?

"So two Hydrogen atoms are walking down the street and one trips and yells 'Help! I lost an electron!' and the other says 'Are you sure?'..."

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PostPosted: March 20th, 2012, 1:02 pm 
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Fade to Black

Ava did her best not to shiver in the cool basement air, holding her hands cross over her heart. She had closed her eyes, not because Ray told her to, but because she just didn't want to watch.

Ray's voice came from the right, circling her clockwise, chanting low and steady. Elsewhere she knew the others were waiting with their proton packs ready - for what she wasn't sure.

"Wren."

The word rang through all the background noise even though it was a whisper. She opened her eyes, but no one else seemed to have heard it. Ray had warned her not to speak. Maybe she had imagined it? The hair on the back of her neck stood up.

"Wren. Fetch the gun, shoot them."

Everything went hazy and gray. Like a dream she felt herself moving but didn't know what she was doing or why. Her hands found the proton gun hidden under a box and somewhere in the distance Kylie was screaming at her to stand still or it wouldn't work.

What wouldn't work?

She turned and fired. The kick was surprising and the shot went wild. On the edge of her vision color began to bleed back into reality. She shook her head and looked down at the gun in her hands.

What was going on?

"WREN, SHOOT THEM," Vigo thundered.

And everything went gray again.

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PostPosted: March 20th, 2012, 1:15 pm 
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Spoohw.

When Ava was next aware she was being held down by Roland's knee in her back and her arm twisted painfully behind her back. "Tahw."

"Don't move!" Roland tightened his grip on her arm. "Stay where you are!"

"It's alright Roland, we've got the situation under control." Egon. On the left?

Ava shifted her head and smeared blue paint across the floor. "No gniog s'tahw?"

That sounded weird.

"No gniog s'tahw em llet ot gniog enoyna si?" The words just left her mouth weird...She blinked and tried to shift her head again. Her head hurt, she must have slipped and struck it.

"I see why you kept turpentine down here." Egon, speaking to Ray probably. His tone changed when he talked to Ray versus one of the kids.

"Yeah, well...Oh shit." Ray. She squirmed, trying to see him past Roland.

"Roland, let her up."

Roland moved away and Ava flipped onto her back, gasping. She hadn't realized how much air was being squished out of her. "Ereh no gniog si lleh eht tahw nialpxe enoemos dluow?!"

Ray looked at Egon over his shoulder. "This is worse than I thought..."

Ava struggled to sit up and found she couldn't muster the strength. Her body ached and itched all over. She scratched at her arm and looked down when her nails caught on something hard and stiff on her skin.

A scale.

She trailed it up her arm to her shoulder where tiny pinpricks were bursting from her skin like the feathers of a newborn bird.

Then she screamed.

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PostPosted: March 20th, 2012, 1:24 pm 
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Horrible Bird Monster

"So, any ideas on how to get her down?" Ray put his hands on his hips, staring up into the rafters where Ava was crouched, hissing at them. Her neck had elongated so she could turn her head to stare at them even though her body was crammed into a corner, covered in gray feathers and black scales. She opened her mouth to hiss again, revealing an impressive set of teeth.

"Not a one." Kylie bit her lip.

"Jackie Wilson?" Egon suggested.

"Worth a shot." Ray concurred.

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PostPosted: March 20th, 2012, 4:40 pm 
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All of a sudden, I'm really glad I practiced the art of reading words backwards during the latest Zatanna series :lol:

Quote:
"I see why you kept turpentine down here."


True fact: That's the recommended way to get rid of Vigo in the Ghostbusters 2 module for the GBI role playing game. It's also apparently in some drafts of GB2.

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PostPosted: March 20th, 2012, 5:02 pm 
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Ha! Totally did not know. I've only played enough of the game to be running horrified through a hotel kitchen yelling "Knives! There are knives in here! Why are we in here?! MY GOD THAT IS A WHOLE TURKEY STABBED TO THE WALL! Shut up Egon, there is a TURKEY on the wall! I quit!" and then not having the opportunity to play again. My fiance was amused anyway.

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PostPosted: March 20th, 2012, 5:19 pm 
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OH YEEEAAAAHHH

"Your love keeps lifting me hiiigher!"

The song was interrupted by the Ava-monstrosity making the most God awful racket. She shrieked, she hissed, she cawed. Down fluttered out of the rafters, but nothing else.

Egon scratched the notes on a Steno pad, marking the experiment a failure. Oh well, it worked once and was unlikely to work again. "Okay, new tactic. Does anyone know what she actually likes?"

Silence.

He flipped a few pages back in the Steno pad and sighed. Nothing about who she actually was, just dates and a description of the fey that attacked her.

"Alright. What's the movie you kids were watching yesterday?"

"Ferris Bueller's Day Off?"

"Bring the TV and the tape down here. It might be all we have to go on."

"Yeah, bring the TV down Eddy." Garrett punched him in the side lightly with a smirk.

"Maaaaaan..." Eduardo trudged up the stairs to get it.

---

Some time later the TV was tilted on some bricks so the screen faced the bird creature and the VCR was successfully plugged in and playing the beginning of the movie. Though Ava didn't make a move to come closer she did watch quietly.

Then the most peculiar thing happened. When the soundtrack queued up "Oh Yeah" she began bobbing her head to the beat, making a soft squeaking noise which became more pronounced as the song went on.

"Oh bow bow!" Her head bobbed up and down.

"Chik-chikka!" She shook her head, flaring a crest of feathers around her head.

"Oh bow bow!" More head bobbing. She stomped back and forth on the rafter, raining dust down on them.

Eduardo put his hands on his hips. "Okay, so we found a way to make it dance, but how do we get it down here?"

Egon groaned and marked this experiment as inconclusive.

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PostPosted: March 22nd, 2012, 12:44 pm 
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Didn't Any of You Study Basic Biology? Gosh.

"So, are we just going to leave it up there? What do we do now?"

"I don't think we can get this one to peacefully disperse."

"I can't say I am inviting of the prospect of having a bird fetch living in my basement."

"She doesn't read as ecto, so that means she's physical. Like a werewolf."

"And that means she needs to eat sometime..."

"Whoa, don't look at me! I'm not gonna be bird food! I am not the bait this time."

"Aw, but Eddy I think she likes you."

"She isn't a carnivore. Look at her teeth. An insectivore maybe, probably frugivorous, and very likely capable of some omnivorous feeding. But those are not the teeth of a full carnivore."

"Sorry, I didn't care to take a closer look. Giant bird monsters and their habits don't exactly thrill me."

"I think if we put some food down she'll eventually get hungry enough to come get it."

"I think we have half of a musk melon in the refrigerator and maybe an apple or two."

"Anything's worth a shot."

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PostPosted: March 22nd, 2012, 1:05 pm 
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It Followed Me Home, Can I Keep It?

I Promise Not to Feed Anyone to It.


The pile of slightly old and slightly smelly fruit had been sitting beside the television for almost an hour. The others had eventually gone upstairs, but Ray and Kylie had opted to stay a short distance away to watch and see if Ava went for the food.

And so she did, gliding out of the rafters and landing with an ungainly thud on the floor. She quickly righted herself and shook from head to toe, fluffing out gray feathers along the length of her body. Previously the had been peach, like her skin, but the color was slowly bleeding out of them. A purple tinge was spreading across her forehead.

She paused, observing them. She stood up straighter, a full head taller than she was as a human. Then she hissed, baring those 'frugivorous' teeth at them and charging at them.

Kylie was halfway up the stairs when she realized Ray wasn't following her. When she turned to look he had his hands up in the air and was talking low and soft to the creature, which had backed away, still hissing and growling.

"Shhhh, it's okay, I won't hurt you," Ray murmured, stretching out a hand.

Ava backed away a few steps then snaked out her neck to snap at him. Ray, to his credit, did not even flinch.

"Be a good girl now."

Ava sidestepped twice, Ray turning to keep her straight in front of him. Then she snaked out her neck again, not snapping but sniffing at him.

Ray cautiously reached down to his feet and picked up the musk melon, extending it to her. "Come on now, you've got to be hungry."

Ava fidgeted in place, her scaled feet scratching at the concrete. Then she reached out with a wing, revealing a three fingered hand sheltered underneath, and snatched the melon away. she scampered away a few feet and commenced to devouring it eagerly.

That done she turned back to Ray expectantly, circling him once and stopping in front of him.

"I think you made a friend." Kylie commented from the stairs.

"Well, she's no golden retriever and my wife would kill me if I kept her." Ray grinned.

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PostPosted: March 27th, 2012, 12:55 pm 
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A Listing of Things That Are Awkward When Dealing With Bird Monsters As Told by Ray.

- Breakfast. Don't crack an egg open in front of her, apparently it makes her mad.
--addendum; Egon discovered that tea cozies placed over her head calm her (I didn't know falconry was even offered at Columbia, much less counted as an elective credit).

- Sleeping. Six foot tall bird monsters are not good bed mates. She won't even sleep on the foot of the bed.

- Paperwork. Wings.

- Trying to leave the building without her following me onto the street.
--note; pay Egon back for that window. And the door locks.

- Phone calls. God she's loud.

- Any kind of music. See above.

- Won't sit still long enough to be painted with the runes again.
--We need to figure out how to tranquilize her. I think I can still call in a favor at the zoo...

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