Season 1, Episode 3 - The Ring Dings XIII - "The Ghost"

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Reed knelt down in the alleyway, pointing to her target.

"This little glass window," she explained. Right at ground level, there was a thin strip of window that led into some basement area below the Bay Mart.

"How'd you know this?" Audrey asked.

Reed shrugged. "You think this is the first time I've had to get my money back when I've been wronged? I always look for hidden entryways."

Audrey didn't know whether to be impressed or concerned.

Reed felt around the edges, then grinned.

"Unlocked," she observed. "That's twice we've been lucky now."

"Won't that mean we'll be unlucky again to balance it out?"

Reed slowly pushed the window inwards, opening an entryway just big enough for a body to slip through.

"You're too superstitious, Audrey. Are you the kind of person who thinks that stepping on a crack will break your mother's back?"

Audrey put her hands on her hips. "I don't walk under ladders either, for your information. I also hold my breath when the train I'm on goes by a graveyard."

Reed, about to slide inside, stopped and looked back at her.

"What?"

"I don't walk under ladders."

"No, the graveyard part."

"What about it?"

Reed pinched the bridge of her nose.

"The holding your breath part."

"It's out of respect. And to prevent the dead from getting jealous and mad at you. They know, Reed."

Not sure where to take the conversation anymore, Reed went back to sliding herself through the open window.

"Wow, it's a good thing you're so small and skinny, Reed."

"Yeah, you oughta try to my diet sometime," Reed murmured, more focused on getting her head through. A two foot drop greeted Reed as she landed on a linoleum floor within the basement room.

Audrey peered through the open window. "Are there...are there ghosts in there?"

"Shut up and just come in," Reed muttered, taking stock of the basement. The small room appeared cramp and dimly lit in a sickly bluish color; even the walls were blue too. The basement room had two closets with closed doors, a television...a small kitchen area...and a bed.

"Uh oh," Reed mumbled. She heard a thud behind her and saw Audrey sprawled on the ground, having fallen through the window.

Audrey picked herself up and dusted herself off. She looked around the room.

"This is kind of cozy!"

"Kind of freaky," Reed replied.

The hamster ball of a brain spun in Audrey's head.

"A bed, Reed, a bed! Do you think...do you think someone really does live in here?"

Reed kicked the "bed" which was actually just a rotting mattress and dirty blanket.

"I sure hope not," Reed said, even though her own apartment was just barely better than this. "Fortunately, if someone does, they're not here right now."

"What if they come back?"

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"Then we'll be quick."

"What if...what if they died...and their g-g-g-ghost is here!"

Reed rolled her eyes and then saw a small staircase leading out of the basement.

Audrey noticed an odd smell and began sniffing the air aggressively.

"Hey, Reed, you smell that?"

Reed sniffed. "Smell what?"

"How can you not smell that?"

"I have a very bad sense of smell. But I'm like a blind person who can hear really well. Because I can't smell that good, I swear I can hear great."

"Well, you do have a sound-based power."

"Life's like poetry sometimes. But anyway, what am I supposed to be smelling?"

Audrey sniffed again, then covered her nose. "It smells...awful. Like...awful."

"...okay."

"What if...what if the person who lived here died?"

"Then they can't stop us from taking the money back."

Reed reached the top of the stairs and saw that it was locked from the basement-side. She flipped the lock and the door made a small sound of opening. She pushed it and there it was, the Bay Mart convenience store in all it's evening glory.

Since it was after closing, the store was pitch black, of course.

"I can barely see in here," Audrey complained.

"See, that's what you get for having five balanced senses. Me, I can see perfectly fine. Like a cat, or some other animal with good night vision."

"Like an owl!"

"Like an owl."

Reed, of course, was lying out of her ass and could barely see two feet in front of her.

"Should we put the lights on?" Audrey asked.

"Then the whole military would see us," Reed said. She bumped into a shelf and cursed.

Slowly but surely, the two made their way to the front of the store, finally feeling the countertop with their fingers.

"I'd hate to be blind," Audrey said.

"Yeah, no kidding." Reed pointed to the ground. "You stay out here, I'm going behind the counter."

"Why can't I go behind the counter? I've always wanted to go behind the counter."

"It's dark and small back there."

"What, I can't be that close to you?"

Reed didn't say anything.

Audrey fumed. "Do you still think I was coming on to you back there?"

"Just stay two feet away from me. I don't want you groping me or nothing."

"Reed, life's not like your Japanimation stories! I respect people's personal space...sometimes. But never in a gropey way. More like in a huggy way."

"Same thing."

Reed walked around the counter and arrived at the register. At that moment, she realized she had no idea how to operation a cash register. Reed, of course, lied out of her ass earlier when she said she'd gone back for her money before (though she did always look for hidden entryways in every place of business she went to).

"Alright, let's see here..." Reed fumbled around with the cash register buttons. "One of these must open it..."

Audrey stumbled when a loud banging noise shook the whole store.

"Uh, Reed..."

Suddenly, it seemed like the whole store exploded with noise as gunshots rang out. Individual rifle sounds popped, quickly joined by consistent rattle of machine gun fire.

"Uh, Reed..."

"Relax, Audrey, it's not coming from inside the store. We'll be fine."

Audrey looked over toward the back wall, on the other side of the store, where the gunshots picked up their pace. "Uh, Reed..."

"Hold on, hold on," Reed said, shooing her off, ignoring rumbles from explosions. "Christ, how do I open this? Is this thing child-proofed or something-"

A roaring explosion from the other side of the wall rocked the Bay Mart. Audrey yelped; Reed closed her eyes and sighed.

"One of those days," Reed muttered, when the door to the basement suddenly opened.

Two men came inside, one reaching inside his black coat. "Let's get out of here-"

The two men noticed the outline of the two girls snooping around the front of the store. Audrey gulped, while Reed smiled cheekily and shrugged.

The coat-reacher collected himself. "Light 'em up!"

As the coat-reacher pulled out a pistol, both Audrey and Reed entered combat mode. They were trained for situations like this, after all. A green vine exploded out of Audrey's palm, snaking its way quickly across the store, rocketing through the aisles, red energy flowing through out it, until it struck the goon's hand, knocking the pistol away.

Meanwhile, Reed sent a sound wave, bouncing it off a wall, right into the backside of a hot-dog fryer, propelling it forward in an arc, all the way until it slammed into the coat-reacher's face, knocking him out cold.

The second man stepped forward, smiling darkly. Reed sent a sound wave directly at him, but the man sidestepped it, red Rddhi flickering from his hands, shielding him from any collateral damage of the soundwave.

Laughing a low, almost possessed kind of laugh, maniacal but subtle, the man slammed his fist into the wall, right onto a red button. Iron bars emerged from behind him, sliding across the door to the basement. Audrey and Reed watched as more iron bars slammed down, blocking off the windows and the front door.

The man kept laughing as he hit another switch; all the lights in the store flickered on, and both Audrey and Reed recognized the man immediately.

"Ah, hell, it's Roman," Reed muttered, looking back down at the register.

"It's you," Roman realized, his grin growing wide. "Reed. You've come back to me, my love. I knew you'd come back."

Reed pinched the bridge of her nose.

"What's going on over there?" Audrey asked, her voice trembling.

"On the other side, we smuggle things, and the cops finally showed up," Roman answered simply, his focus appearing to be more centered on the girl behind the cash register. "Oh, my lovely Reed, you came back. I didn't have to take you in a park or anything like the last one. Things are so much simpler for us."

Reed didn't quite like where this was going.

"You said you were a dropout, right?" Reed questioned, gripping her sword firmly. "But you just used the Rddhi. There's no way you could drop out, the government wouldn't allow it."

"I was always at the bottom of my class," Roman explained, his eyes wild. "Nobody cared about me or where I went. But my Sensei...he recruited me...made me feel wanted."

"I don't care-" Reed said, but Roman was already monologuing.