The Dazzlings Are Insane

by Justice3442


I Ain't Afraid of No Blobbish Gray... Piles.

Her boots clicked against crust-covered linoleum as Aria half-ran, half-stumbled through the nearly pitch black hallways of Greasy’s. Her sprint occasionally interrupted with a bump against a table or small, plastic chair with a shin. Cursing to herself, she fumbled with the device in her hand and her flashlight briefly until she got the latter on, just in time to light-up a red-sauce splattered wall she was about to get a little too personal with. Aria rotated slightly and slid in an attempt to stop, something that only happened when she felt her left shoulder slam into the wall.

Grunting in displeasure as she practically peeled her shoulder off the sickeningly sticky wall, Aria could hear Oddjob’s tennis shoes squeaking after her and noted another flashlight bobbing up and down as her ‘wing-guard’ did her best to catch up. “WAAAAAAAIT!” Oddjob’s pleading voice called out.

Aria smirked and pointed her flashlight forward, noting her target was just in sight. “Sorry, O.J., but the first kill… er… bust is mine!” She exclaimed as she marched purposely into the room containing what Aria had identified as ‘a whiteish-gray slime monster, or some junk’.

While holding the flashlight up in her left hand, she used her left forearm to help prop-up her right arm and took careful aim. A small red button under a small toggle called out for her thumb which she stretched out to press the—

“WAAAAAIT!” Oddjob screamed, throwing herself in front of Aria.

Her eyes going wide, Aria quickly pointed her device upward where a fiery-orange blast of energy fired out as blue arcs of what looked like electricity danced around it.

Her face contorted in fear, Oddjob stared up at the singed and still-burning ceiling as she attempted to say something coherent. “Bwa-ba-bwa-bwa-bwa…” This was proving exceedingly difficult at the moment.

“Oddjob?! The HELL?! I was gonna shot a slime monster!”

“Well you almost shot me!” Oddjob shouted incredulously.

“Not my fault!” insisted Aria. “You jumped in the line of fire! Semper Fi!”

“I am positive that doesn’t mean what you think it means, and there’s no slime monster in here!”

Aria rolled her eyes. “Yeah, ‘cause you ran in and it got spooked… no pun intended.”

“No… ugh…” Oddjob shifted slightly out of the way of Aria’s flashlight and pointed to a grayish blob on the counter next to the oven. The grey semi-solid goo that made up its composition ran down the side of the counter, over a couple of drawers and even pooled on the floor somewhat. Her teeth clamped tightly as she heard another hum from Aria’s device, something like electricity spooling up to fire out bolts of lightning. “It’s just the grease pile!”

Aria lowered the aperture of her device once more. “‘The grease pile’ ?!” She asked in a disbelieving tone. “As in a designated place to pile grease?!”

“Well yeah…” Oddjob said. “Like… okay… you know how you make bacon and you keep like a jar or a coffee can on the side to fill with the excess grease?”

Aria tossed a sideways glance at the disgusting pile of dingy grey material. “I know that’s a thing that people do, sure.”

“Okay… it’s like that.”

“But there’s no jar or coffee can!” Aria countered.

“Rumor is there is one under the pile somewhere!” Oddjob said with a smile.

“Oddjob?”

“Yes, Aria?”

“Your job and your unreasonable upbeat attitude about it disgust me.”

Oddjob sighed. “I know…” Her eyes finally settled on the aperture in Aria’s right hand that was connected to whatever was slung on Aria’s back, which was some sort of misshapen black backpack sized item. Towards the bottom a quad of four red lights were set in a round dish that looked to be held in place with a black bracket and the mother of all bolts. Wires lead up from this into other parts of the more rectangular, if sometimes bulbous pack which connected elsewhere in the device only for a few more wires and hoses to come out and reattach elsewhere. A single blue strip of LEDs, which probably indicated something, set near the upper left hand corner of the device, and on the near opposite end, a hose attachment let into the aperture which Aria held.

An aperture that fired lightning, real lightning, as far as Oddjob could tell. The whole thing looked very sciencey, a technical term Oddjob was sure, and somehow makeshift at the same time… Like some mad scientist type had made it in his garage.

“Where the heck did you even get that?!” Oddjob exclaimed, pointing with enough enthusiasm to match her tone.

“Oh,” Aria glanced at the aperture in her hand proudly. “I kinda have it on loan from some people… you know… The Real Ghostbusters.”

“…Uh… I thought they were made up…”

Aria threw her hands up in the air. “Why the hell would I say ‘real’ if they were fake?! What would be the point?!”

“Well, why did you bother to add in the ‘real’ part anyways?!”

Aria grunted in displeasure. “There’s just been a handful of ghostbuster teams, and not all of them have exactly added a lot of ‘cred’ to the whole ghost busting gig…” Aria rubbed her chin and thought for a moment. “I think like two had a gorilla in them.”

Oddjob’s lips tightened slightly as her eyes widened. “... What?”

“I know, right!” Aria exclaimed. “And I guess the gorilla was the smartest of the bunch in those cases, too! Like… Who's going to take a profession seriously where the leading expert’s favorite pastime most likely involves a tire swing?”

“Er… Fair enough… I guess…”  Oddjob nodded towards the pack on Aria’s back.  “So… you can really catch ghosts with it?”

Aria face tightened. “No, stupid. I just lug this thing around incase someone decides to throw an impromptu cosplay party at venues I know will be closed and empt- OF COURSE I CAN REALLY CATCH GHOST WITH IT!”

“Okay, but you almost set fire to this whole place with it…” Oddjob looked up. “In fact, I should get that smoldering ceiling…”

Aria watched, her face a mixture of surprise and pity, as Oddjob turned on the sink, which spat out water only after a groan that suggested the sink might be haunted, and hunted down a rusty pot. Oddjob half-filled the pot with water and then brought it over towards the small flames above where she flung the water in the direction of the errant flames that were slowly eating at the smoke soaked ceiling.

The dingy water splashed against the top and the flames went out, much to Oddjob’s satisfaction.

Aria raised a thumb and forefinger to her face and rubbed at her eyes. “Okay… I’m going to forego asking about any fire extinguishers.”

“Thanks,” Oddjob said, “I appreciate that.”  

However!” Aria exclaimed dramatically.

Oddjob let out a long, annoyed sigh.

Aria continued as she scowled up at the scorched ceiling that Oddjob had just dampened. I just blasted the ceiling and melted a sprinkler head…” Aria nodded upwards to a slagged metal lump that was attached to a pipe above. “Shouldn’t there be like… water pouring out of it, or something? You know… comically drenching the two of us?”

“Comically?”

“Well, I’d say ‘sexily’, but my jumpsuit and your uniform aren’t exactly going to up that factor just by getting wet.”

“… Who the heck would we be getting ‘sexy’ for in this case?!”

“The camera, stupid,” Aria replied, her eyes dropping slightly.

“What camera?!”

Aria rolled her eyes and pointed towards the security camera.

“Oh, right… Uh, the sprinkler-heads are just for show, anyways.”

“… What?”

“Yeah… They’re not hooked up to any water pipes or anything… They’re just kinda there to give the pizza cooks a false sense of security.”

Oddjob suddenly felt stinging pain in the side of her face courtesy of Aria slapping her hard.

“OW! What the heck, Aria?!” Oddjob exclaimed as she raised a hand to her face.

“The thing you just said made me very angry,” Aria informed, “… And like… I think maybe you should take a moment to reevaluate your life choices or at least try to dig down and found some dignity or something regarding where you work?”

Oddjob rubbed her cheek. “Okay, but you work here now, too!”

“Yeah, but only ‘cause I want to bust ghosts… I mean… Getting hired and having them hand you a key to this place makes what I’m doing substantially less illegal… I think... At the very least if the fuzz shows up I can tell them I’m a security guard and don’t have to explain any broken windows or doors cracked open with a crowbar.”    

“Okay, but what about THAT?” Oddjob asked as she pointed at Aria’s ghostbusting equipment. “These have got to be crazy illegal.”

“Naw,” Aria said dismissively. “There’s no laws on the books about simply having a device that fires off positively charged protons.”

“… Are you trying to tell me weapon laws work on the ‘Airbud’ principle?!”

 “They kinda do,” Aria replied. “I mean… flamethrowers are legal in most states...”

Oddjob clamped her eyes shut and began to massage her temples with her fingertips. “I can’t believe this…”

Aria rolled her eyes. “Oh, stop being such a little whiner about this! I brought you one too.”

“I…” Oddjob trailed off slightly. Her emerald eyes suddenly lighting up as if flickers of positively charged energy beams were being fired past. She suddenly felt her cares and concerns for her place of work melt like so much grease collecting on a countertop. Finally, a smirk flashed across her face. “Let’s bust some frickin’ ghosts!” she declared.

Aria put on a smirk to match. “That’s the spirit!”

Oddjob’s face tightened. “Did you just—?!”

Her smiling widening, Aria slapped a hand down on Oddjob’s shoulder and exited the kitchen. “Alright, let’s suit up.”

Despite her initial excitement, Oddjob found herself letting out groan of anticipated displeasure. “I just know I’m going to regret doing this…”

“What?!” Aria called back. “Like you regret every day of being a waitress here?!”

“I… Wow! Shut up!” Oddjob demanded as she turned and began following Aria. “I mean… Good point, but still! Shut up!”