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Ghostbusters: Regenesis Chapter 30 (Nightfall) Written by Leo_Todrius

The horizon glowed with a rich ruby light, an aurora caused not by the sun but by the world of the supernatural. The streams of concentrated psychokinetic energy had spooled out of breached containment units across North America and Europe, traveling high in the atmosphere across the world, kicking up storms and disruptions as they went. Some ghosts returned to the locations they had been haunting, but others ventured to new territories, drawn to areas of significance, to new opportunities.

The Pacific Northwest was no stranger to the supernatural, but as the pink glow washed over the city of Portland, four shadows stretched out beneath the light. The shadows elongated, then stretched upward off the ground, taking the shape of horses and their riders. Four in all, the shadow giving way to their colors; a pale ash, black, white, and red. The pink aurora of light had a hard time illuminating under the riders' robes, but what it did hit was bone more than flesh. The horses snorted, their red eyes glowing before the riders took the bridles in hand and ushered the horses forth, moving down the hillside towards the city at large.

They pushed onto the streets, moving between cars that swerved and stopped to avoid them. The horsemen split up, the red and pale horses racing into downtown while the white and black horses split off, crossing the bridges. As they moved over the Willamette River, the water started to shift, taking on crimson tones, turning redder by the second, staining the shores the color of blood.

**** Beeps, alarms, chirps and whistles filled the laboratory space on the first floor of the Portland Firehouse. Gray was typing quickly, trying to improve their software, looking up every so often. The computers were using every device at their disposal to track the influx of PKE, to chart where it was going, to catalogue sightings... and the phone was ringing off the hook. Up on the roof Eli and Seth stood in the wind, trying to redirect one of the antennas. Eli's blond hair whipped across his face, lashing the skin, making it red and tender. Seth's massive goatee was slapping back and forth depending on how he turned his head.

"Is that any better?" Eli asked over the radio, holding the antenna in place while Seth held him by the shoulders to keep him steady.

"Yeah, perfect! We're getting up to Tacoma now." Gray replied.

"We better get back inside." Seth said, though he paused as the hair on the back of his neck stood up on end. The street down below shimmered before covered wagons appeared, filled with ghost settlers, knocking cars out of the way. A fire hydrant was hit, sending a massive jet of water up into the sky.

"That's a local phenomenon!" Seth said over the wind.

"All that energy's making what's already here stronger!" Eli called back, looking at the cuff on Seth's arm as it started flashing. He looped an arm with Seth to try and help him across the roof and back through the door, heading down the stairs into the firehouse. Even with the wind shut, they could hear the wind outside whipping against the building. Rain droplets started hitting the glass hard, sounding like little needles. They looped around and took the next flight of stairs down to the main floor before stepping into the laboratory space.

"I don't recall the weather forecast being quite that severe." Seth said, trying to brush his hair down with his hand and fingers.

"When the containment units were breached in the different franchises, the highly compressed PKE escaped in an almost jet stream like effect. It's carrying the energy to various different points across the continental US. One of those branches is 'splashing down' right over downtown Portland, and it's bringing that wind with it." Gray said, looking at the screens.

"We can't face this all by ourselves. These are ghosts that have been pent up for who knows how long, dumped all at once." Nico said.

"The joint taskforce is already stepping in, though they've been focusing on areas that lost their Ghostbusters already. We're not going to get a mop up crew for at least five days." Gray replied.

"So what do we do in the meantime?" Seth asked. Eli looked up at that.

"Triage... Target the worst incidents, try to thin it down. The low class ghosts are going to be more of a nuisance than a threat." Eli said.

"And I can help." Rerun said from the doorway. His usual green hourglass t-shirt had been replaced with one of the black no-ghost emblem shirts that the Ghostbusters left for children at their busts, and he had on Dakota's old proton pack.

"Thanks buddy. We're going to need all the help we can get." Seth admitted. Rerun smiled at that.

"So, how do we start triage?" Nico asked.

"We're going to have to sift through those calls, and I'll try to isolate the strongest PK signals from around town." Gray said.

"I think I can help with that second one, I've been working on a new compression algorithm." Nico offered. Gray slid his chair to the side to make room as the two got to work. There wasn't any time to lose.

**** The steady orange glow of the Portland streetlights seemed somehow more sinister, shimmering across the rain slicked red brick crosswalk and the black asphalt road, color draining from it until it seemed sickly and weak. It cast sharp, narrow shadows, but the shadows seemed almost infected as one stretched out, warping and contorting, wriggling up into the shape of a robed figure atop a white horse.

As the horse moved forward, the hooves clopped on the asphalt, echoing into the night. The horse let out a snort, the rider peering through the night. His eyes gleamed a dull, pale green, his body oscillating between solid and gas, stretching his senses out to this new realm. He sensed... sickness. There were so many new strains, and so many of the old strains had grown stronger. The rider closed his eyes and basked in it for a moment until something caught him off guard - a cough.

The rider urged his horse forward, the two sinking back down into the shadows until they moved across the cement like sentient oil stains, wriggling and slipping, moving around corners. The shrubs shuddered as the rider passed through their shadows. Again the cough cut into the night. It was wet, deep, hoarse. A young man stood on a street corner, his sand colored hair soaked with rain, his black frame glasses resting on a pale nose. His sweatshirt had tried to resist, but it had given in, getting quite wet.

After several moments the streetlight changed, the red hand becoming the figure of a white human. The light passed over the young man, throwing a shadow. Tendrils shot out from the shadow of the bush, hitting the shadow of the human. As he started to walk across the street, he shuddered. His shadow changed first, the legs becoming bonier, the feet becoming boxy. The young man grunted, stumbling forward before he fell onto his hand and knees, coughing violently before his back seized up and he lifted his head.

Steam started to leak from his nostrils as his nose widened and blunted. His ears stretched up suddenly, taking on points and his eyes became a dull, pale white with a hint of a green glow. Bones popped and snapped as his lower jaw began pushing forward, his teeth blunting. A tearing sound came from his shoes as the leather was pulled in every direction. Stitches snapped, fabric split and two huge hooves broke free where his feet had been. The young man moaned, lifting up his shirt to reveal white fur spreading up from his groin.

He ran his thickening fingernails through the fur as his face continued to stretch out and distort into a muzzle. His eyes pushed apart, his ears twitched and his sand colored hair faded to a silvery gray, growing out into a short ruffled mane. As the fur spread over his shoulders and down his back, his shirt split out, revealing a large but rather boney body. Soft green splotches started to appear beneath the white fur, coming from sores leaking ectoplasm.

More tearing came as his pants split out, fur spiraling down his legs as they got longer, thicker, stronger, and a furry sheath grew up over his member, the human meat disappearing inside as it began to mature, to evolve, to change. Again the youth coughed, but this time more steam spilled from his mouth before he pushed himself up, slowly rising onto his hooves. The cloud over his mind started to clear.

He realized what he was... He wasn't a rider or a beast of burden, he wasn't a lowly human. He was all three, he was a horseman of the apocalypse. He was disease, and there was so much to work with. He shuddered at the power of it, feeling the echoes of his predecessors. A slow smile crept across his lips as he resumed walking, crossing the street, reaching out slowly to run his hand across the side of the building on the other side.

"Feel my disease..." he murmured, starting to broadcast his powers, letting them truly manifest for the first time in so long.

**** Fire burst from the bottle as it hit the ground, spreading a puddle of fuel across the wet cement. The shards of broken glass glittered as the fuel was consumed, licking and popping into the night's sky. Car alarms were going off from the disturbance as a group of individuals ran through the parking lot. The damage had been severe. Tires had been slashed, graffiti had been painted, and bumper stickers had been burned off.

It had been the most volatile in a recent string of demonstrations. The political climate even in a town as liberal as Portland was still tough, and there was ironically no mercy to those that showed no mercy to others. In the distance the sound of sirens were growing. The protesters looked to each other, gauging their degree of intent.

Their target had been hit, the damage done, there was little more they could do. With a quick nod to each other they split up, darting in different directions. Some went down the alleyways, others down the streets. One of the rioters doubled back, heading past the Molotov cocktail he had thrown. As he ran, though, he felt his body skid to an unexpected stop... and then start to rise.

The rioter had to be barely eighteen, wearing black cargo pants and a jacket with a lot of pockets, his face covered in a red bandanna and a streak of red in his black hair. His cinnamon colored skin blended into the night well. He struggled and grunted as he floated in mid-air until a mist like form appeared standing before him, a figure on a red horse.

Deep red eyes looked into the young punk's. The teenager stopped struggling suddenly, going limp. The rider grinned slowly, his teeth dark and sharp. The rider and his horse burst into a cloud of red that spiraled up, moving into the punk's nose and mouth. As it forced its way down his lungs, the teen lowered to the ground, touching down again.

He stood there, lit by the firelight, his body invaded... until suddenly he gasped, throwing his head back... and he let out a sudden snort. He threw his head down, grunting, moaning as his face warped and contorted. His skull began to ooze and stretch and burn and tingle as it elongated, taking on inch after inch. His ears popped out from beneath his mane of shaggy hair, stretching into points.

His fingers tightened and loosened, the nails turning black and growing tough, slipping over his finger tips to make short hooflets. The rioter grunted more before he doubled over, hugging at his stomach. As he hunched, his shirt suddenly grew tight before it split down the back. Reddish brown fur was sprouting down along his spine, but more than that his muscles were growing. They got thicker, wider, taller, deeper. They spread like wildfire, blossoming, growing. His groans dropped an octave, then another, his voice getting deeper.

As the young man stood back up, throwing his head back his pectorals and abdomen expanded, filling out. His belt suddenly popped, then the button on his pants flung off. The zipper shuddered and split out before the pants began splitting down the backside. Two huge hunks of muscled ass emerged, pulling apart as they made room for a long equine tail. The teenager panted hard, feeling his fists throb and ache as they grew taller, thicker, tougher.

Each breath made his chest grow larger, but even as he exhaled it didn't get any smaller. He expanded taller as his spine stretched, wider as his shoulders grew, and thicker as his ribs pushed outwards. A fiery rage filled his heart and mind, guided by a simple edict... Those that were not with him were against him. Nothing could hold back the wrath of war, not race, creed, or even family. The newly born horseman's eyes gleamed red like fire.

He looked back to the cars that his group had firebombed. The owners were content to make millions off of individuals without giving them the basic means of survival. They condoned murder, violence, sickness, death... all in the name of their own self interest. The horseman raised his fists and let out a howl as fire swirled out, engulfing the cars in the searing hot flames of the underworld. The paint bubbled and burned off as the metal got red hot. The gas tank suddenly erupted as a fireball climbed high into the night.

**** Night time was supposed to be a time of peace, of comfort, of relaxation, but it wasn't for Mark. He was in his late thirties, he'd had a son, and his wife had passed away. Now he barely made ends meet between child care and rent, but that didn't leave anything else. Not enough for him, and certainly not enough for his son.

Mark sat in the threadbare recliner in his duplex, only one lamp on next to his chair. His son had finally fallen asleep after a few hours of discomfort from not eating. Mark had exhausted all his options... Food stamps, emergency food boxes from the churches, hand outs, loans. Mark had given everything he had to his son... and it wasn't enough.

The man leaned back in his chair, though he thought suddenly that might have been a mistake. His stomach started to gurgle and cramp. He winced, closing his brown eyes. He grunted, fingers digging into his chair.

"Fuck..." He whispered before he grunted again, doubling over. It felt like his stomach was ripping itself apart, or worse, him... As he held on, he shuddered, biting his lip, trying not to scream out. He felt his skin get tighter on his arms, compressing around what little muscle he had. His stomach was a little distended from the lack of good nutrition, but it too suddenly pulled back taut. His face got sallow and his eyes got milky before he felt an odd itching spreading across his skin. The brown hairs on his arms and legs turned black and new ones formed, growing out across his limbs.

Black fur poked out from his collar before it swept up his neck, covering his face. His thinning hair got thicker before it pushed out of his scalp into a thin but long mane. His face popped and snapped, contorting in wildly sudden and uneven surges, taking on equine features. For a moment he heart the clicking of the clock, the racing of his heart, his stomach rumbling - but that all disappeared as he went suddenly deaf. His head throbbed, his head tingled, and then the hearing came funneling back in, this time from a different source.

Dark teardrop shaped ears twitched on the top of his newly elongated head. His lips parted over blunt, flat teeth and dark gums. His fingers let go of the chair, revealing their own hoof tips on each digit, and his feet had swollen, toes fusing, keratin spreading until he had hooves of his own.

Mark... remembered his life, but he also knew what he was now, what his purpose was. He was famine, he was a horseman. He slowly rose to his hooves, looking at the door to his son's room. He couldn't help him as he was, but he could make the ones that did that to them pay. He could bring famine to the gluttonous, to the greedy. He could make humanity pay for their sins. He turned, moving for the front door, heading out into the night.

**** On any normal day, the morgue was a quiet place. It wasn't as if the guests could keep much conversation. Today had not been a normal day for Lewis. The fifty four year old moved down the linoleum covered floor, surrounded on three sides by stainless steel cooled storage. He looked down at his roster. He'd spent years as a coroner, and he'd been a damn good one - but that night alone, there were nine new bodies in need of answers.

Lewis moved over and leaned against one of the stainless steel doors. His skin was a rich, dark brown, his hair salt and pepper. It felt like too much, like the world was getting worse and worse, as if it'd passed some unseen expiration date. Still, what was the alternative? Lewis pushed himself back up slowly, but his reflection remained where it was.

The coroner stepped back in shock as his reflection lifted its head, its eyes glowing green. The reflection spooled off of the stainless steel and swept into his mouth and nose. The coroner stumbled back a few steps, grunting and shuddering. The first change came not to his face, but his hair. The remaining black faded out of it, leaving the salt and not the pepper. The hair turned a pale grey and soon the color began to drain from his skin as well.

In mottled streaks, in an ever changing watercolor, his skin became sallow, colorless, lifeless and pale. It warped and stretched as his jaw pushed out, his mouth elongating and stretching into a muzzle. His ears distorted, distending out into the tear-drop shape although they were thin and weathered.

Lewis grunted, feeling another presence inside himself, something that embraced his nihilistic views. Humanity HAD gone too far. It was festering, it was limping on, it was time... for death. It was time to put humanity out of its misery. He wouldn't just investigate what had happened to the few that had passed, he would be the answer to why the rest would cross over to the other side.

His suit began to tear out, bursting as his chest grew. Furry grey fur sprouted out from where the buttons popped. His shoes groaned before rough hooves burst, and a long tail pushed out from above his belt, dropping down behind him to whip around. The clothing fell away as the grey horse stretched taller, wider, bigger. Nostrils flared and steam came out as solid white eyes peered around. It was time to get to work.

**** The PKE meter warbled and groaned, the signal on the screen going from green to orange to red. The machine was finding it harder and harder to compensate with the flood of energy and information, and finally it shorted out. The screen went blank. Grayson's eyes were wide. Technology had never failed him before, not like this. There was too much psychokinetic energy to chart, to keep a hold of. He'd have to build something stronger, but they were running out of time.

The air suddenly sizzled as a proton stream shot past his ear. Nico moved out, his energy stream lassoing around a pudgy prune shaped purple ghost that had been grabbing things and hurtling it at them. Gray reached to his hip and grabbed a trap, tossing it out. It rattled down the cement alleyway until Gray pressed the remote on his belt loop.

The little black box snapped open, its yellow and black doors releasing a gleaming pearlescent cone of energy. Nico moved the grabber ghost into the cone and it dropped down out of sight. The trap snapped shut and the indicator flashed red. Containment was successful. Gray felt a slight relief at that. At least the trap was one piece of tech that wouldn't fail them.

"One down, only... some more to go." Nico said. Grayson chuckled at that, though both paused as they heard more things being thrown. A garbage can rolled down the street, then a newspaper display. Another prune shaped ghost waddled into view, then another, then a third. Gray's shoulders slumped, but only for a moment before he grabbed the blaster from his back and opened fire.

**** The riots that had broken out in the streets were only getting worse. The fear was amplifying, the anger was intensifying, and in the midst of it all stood the red horseman. He saw those that advocated bigotry, hatred, and the suffering of those that were not like them. Their anger was potent, so potent that it was starting to manifest in physical form. The humans couldn't see it, hear it, or feel it, but he could... Beneath the streets that concentrated hatred was turning into slime - a deep purple, psychoactive slime.

The red horseman continued walking, his hooves clomping down the street. The counter protestors were doing what they could to go after the bigots, but it wasn't enough... they needed help. And what was he, if not a former protester? The horseman walked through a wall of fire, between two clashing rioters. It was if he was there and not there at the same time.... but his glowing eyes fell to a wounded protester slumped against a building.

The wounded man was in his twenties, his blond hair tied back into a short ponytail. He had a cut across his left eye and his arm was bruised. He'd stood up for what he believed in, he'd faced off against his fellow man, and he'd come out the worse for it. He shifted a little before he smelled something... spicy? Musky? He looked up and his eyes widened in shock.

Standing before him was a tall, muscled, red furred horse man with an immense, thick, dripping cock. It glistened in the pale light. It had a blunt head, a wide urethra, a fat medial ring. It was the color of fire and it jutted out from a huge set of balls. The horseman's nostrils flared as he looked into the human's soul, seeing the wounded spirit.

"If they are not with us, they are against us..." The horseman said, his voice echoing deeply, "Drink from me, and feel our strength." he said. The human hesitated only a moment, feeling that this beast was more than just what he appeared to be. He was an idea, a conceit. The human leaned forward and wrapped his mouth around the fat horse shaft and began to suck, bobbing his head back and forth.

War tipped his muzzle back and moaned, feeling such pleasure for the first time in centuries. He began to thrust his hips forward and back, filling the protester's mouth with his cock, snarling and snorting. Almost at once he began to cum, letting out a flow of his musky spunk. The human began to gulp and swallow, and as he did his wound began to knit shut into a scar, his bruises fading as his muscles began to grow.

The human lapped and suckled at War's seed, his ears stretching slowly into points. His hand furiously flew to his own pants, fumbling with the zipper and the button before he pulled out his shaft - a shaft that was already growing. He wrapped his fingers around the meat as it stretched longer and longer, thickening up. The protester drank the seed deep, forcing his lips over the medial ring, taking the cock down his throat.

War got rougher and faster, sliding down the human's esophagus like a sleeve, snorting harder. The human twitched and jerked, his cock rock hard, the tip stretching out flat and blunt and wide. It slipped up past his navel, climbing toward his nipples. War snorted again, stomping his hoof before he finally came fully. What had been a steady flow became a torrent of hot seed, flowing down into the human's stomach.

The protestor drank it down greedily before he came as well, cum erupting from his shaft, spraying all over himself. When he opened his eyes, the mysterious horseman was gone... but his horse cock remained, as did his pointed ears. He had been blessed by the horseman, and he wasn't going to waste his new strength. A grin crossed his lips as he slowly got up, ready to continue on the fight.

**** Sparks descended down from the welder as Nico worked, fusing the metal housing over the receiver array. The flashes refracted off of the special lens cover of his welding helmet, keeping his eyes safe as he worked. Eli did what he could to offer aid, bringing the next pieces for Nico when he finished a segment. The design appeared to be a familiar one, utilizing the sensor probes and the oscillating antenna of various PKE meter designs, but it was the size of a large vacuum, containing a lot more power and punch than the usual scanners.

Seth set down some chilled water bottles next to the boys before he crossed the lab and moved over to where Grayson was hunched over his laptop. Seth gave his boyfriend a soft smile, looking at his fair features and his straight black hair. Even when he was tired, worn out and stressed, he looked damn fine. Seth reached out to brush Gray's bangs back. Gray looked up with a tired but loving expression.

"Is that the software for the PKE array?" Seth asked. Gray smiled a little more sheepishly, shaking his head.

"Actually, I finished that about an hour ago. This is... a back up plan I guess." Grayson said. Seth's eyebrow arched and he looked down at the screen. He read several lines of code before his face shifted again - this time taking on a bit more of a look of concern.

"That's some pretty dense stuff." Seth said. Gray nodded softly, leaning back and inhaling a little as he winced, realizing that his shoulders had locked up from being in the same position for too long. He reached back for it but stopped as Seth began massaging the muscle. Gray murmured in relief, feeling it start to loosen. Seth gave it a few seconds before he eased back. Gray murmured at that, exhaling again.

"Thanks."

"Do you think it'll help?" Seth asked after a moment. Gray felt his eyes slip down.

"I hope it doesn't have to, but I'm worried about this one. I feel like I can't see the end of this, and I need to leave some bread crumbs." Gray said.

"Just be careful, those fairy tales didn't have happy endings at first." Seth said. Gray nodded at that and reached over his shoulder, resting his hand on Seth's as he looked back to the screen where the computer code had started to encrypt itself in several layers of very different kinds of encoding.

**** There was a steady chatter in the hospital, even in the middle of the night. Those in the emergency room made small talk to pass the time, those in triage had a litany of questions to discuss, the employees had their day to day lives to share to stay sane in the high stress environment, and the hospitality workers had to keep the spirits of their guests up. It was almost like a pulse of the hospital itself, a pulse that Pestilence could feel from the doorway where he stood, his form fluctuating between his human host and that of his hybrid horseman state.

The sand colored youth looked up, gazing out of his hood at those waiting. His skin was white as snow, his eyes a waxy, sallow looking shade. He was seen and unseen at the same time as he walked in. A hand reached out and grazed a shoulder of a father leaning forward, elbows on his knees. He shifted as he started coughing, trying to reclaim his breath. His family moved to make sure he was okay, but Pestilence knew better.

The horseman continued down the row, reaching out to run his hand across the forehead of a teenager listening to music on his phone. The teen blinked slowly, starting to feel hot... then dizzy, sweating suddenly as his fever climbed rapidly. Step by step, touch by tough, the waiting room was descending into chaos. The steady pulse of the hospital was off rhythm, becoming wilder by the second.

Pestilence reached the end of the row and reached out, though his hand froze in place before he could tough a young boy sitting in the last seat. The boy lifted his head, gazing at the figure with cool grey eyes. The horseman looked at the spirit for a moment before turning, heading deeper into the hospital. The Grey Eyed boy took a breath, looking out at the sick humans deteriorating so rapidly. Their mortal forms were so fragile, so fleeting, and yet they had such an impact on the world, on all worlds. It was fascinating, but as much as he wanted to see it unravel, there was still so much work to do before Nightfall.

**** The phone rang yet again, the screen on the cordless set flashing orange as Eli grabbed it, bringing it up to his ear, his shag of blond hair falling over the receiver. He grabbed a pad of paper and flipped to the next page, taking down details.

"The Cornelius hotel? Yes, we're familiar with it-" Eli said, using the laptop on the desk to get the address, "Yakama Indians? That's a long way for them to travel as spirits..." Eli murmured, "So Colonel Cornelius is there with his men too..." Eli said, "We'll add it to our roster, but our wait list is getting pretty long. For now all I can suggest is putting the spirits up in different floors." Eli said, shaking his head, "No, that's not a joke... Keeping them apart will delay the conflict. I'll call you when we have an opening. Thank you for your patience." Eli said before ending the call. He looked up as the garage doors opened and the Ecto pulled back in, driving slowly up to its stopping spot just short of the reception desk.

The doors opened and Nico got out of the back, coming out with a fist full of box traps in one hand and a steaming disc trap in the other. Eli moved over to help him with the load as Gray emerged from the driver's side. Instead of heading to the lockers or bathroom like usual, he leaned against the side of the Explorer and reached up to where the PKE array had been affixed to the roof, the long armature's side panel flipping open.

"How many did you do?" Eli asked.

"Seven... Five simple, two not so simple." Seth replied as he got out of the car, though he looked worse for the wear. His arms were splotched blue, green and purple - all ectoplasmic colors. Grayson ran a cable from the PKE array on the Ecto down the windshield, across the hood and over to the computer and plugged it in. Eli watched him go to work as Nico headed down the stairs behind the desk into the basement. In moments they heard the familiar deep shunting sound of the traps being emptied into the containment grid.

"Okay... Data's uploading from the array now." Grayson said, watching the screen. While their PKE meters were great for short range, they had lacked a sophisticated way to track the bigger systems, but while they had been driving around the array had been triangulating data, tracking changes, and extrapolating. The map that usually showed their incoming calls and duty rosters began to over-lay with color splotches of ghost magnitude. There was a haze of enhanced energy signals blanketing the city, far more than normal, but as the map filled in, specific details began to appear.

"What is that bright pink-" Eli stopped, "Those bright pink spots..."

"Those are some incredibly high level spirits, spirits we've rarely come up against." Grayson murmured. Seth came around the desk to look, his shoulders slipping a little.

"They're moving too, based on that decay pattern." Seth said. Gray reached out, running his gloved finger across the screen.

"Eli, didn't you say Legacy Emmanuel Hospital called earlier?" Gray asked. Eli nodded.

"They're having an insane amount of unusual cases... Things that just don't make sense." Eli said. Gray pointed to one of the pink blobs over the hospital.

"And Nico, you had the police blotter?" Gray asked.

"Yeah, some insane riots downtown, the cops that investigated became part of it and aren't responding." Nico said, "It was about... here." he pointed to another blob.

"And we drove past this one here." Seth said, "Out by the farmer's market."

"Where all those people looked like walking zombies?" Nico asked.

"Sickness, conflict, famine... and a fourth signal." Grayson murmured. Seth started shaking his head.

"No, no, no... That can't be it. Grayson, it can't be that..." Seth said, "Didn't the O.G.'s deal with them already?" Seth asked.

"Who? The what?" Eli asked, glancing over his shoulder as Nico came up the steps, grimacing at the map as he moved over.

"The four horsemen of the apocalypse. Pestilence, War, Famine and Death." Gray said softly. Seth shook his head more.

"No, I remember reading that one... The Original Ghostbusters had to seal them away with some monk's seal, they went to Greece and everything." Seth said. Gray shook his head.

"These may be copy cats, or multiple spirits might have inspired the stories, or it may be a case of the Tulpa Effect." Gray said. Nico leaned on the desk.

"Can we skip the part where we make some witty remark about not knowing what that is?" Nico asked. Gray looked at his teammate before looking back at the map.

"The Tulpa Effect is where a shared, common belief or desire or feeling is held strongly enough that it takes on an existence of its own. It's a thoughtform, a being created by our own psychokinetic energy. If enough people think something exists, it just might." Gray said.

"Would that explain Santa Claus?" Seth asked. Grey smirked despite himself.

"It might, but we're a long way from getting a helping hand from him." Gray said.

"So it's the four horsemen of the apocalypse?" Eli asked.

"And they're converging." Nico said. Gray looked surprised at that and looked back at the screen. Sure enough, that was what the data supported. They had started in four distinct parts of Portland and were moving toward one another.

"Where is that?" Seth asked, pointing vaguely to the center of the four converging signals. Grayson zoomed in on the map, his heart feeling like it was sinking in his chest.

"Doernbecher Children's Hospital." Gray said softly.

"If the reports we got from Legacy were just one of those, having all four of them in one place? It's going to be pandemonium." Nico said.

"We won't let them get that far. We know where they're headed." Grayson said, standing up, "Load up the ecto with our best gear, and grab anything you think might help. We're going to save those kids." Gray said. Nico and Eli nodded, heading into the lab and basement to gather up gear. Grayson waited for them to disappear from view before he moved to the laptop and accessed their private server, bringing up the files he had been working on earlier. Seth shook his head gently.

"It's a black box, isn't it?" Seth asked. Gray nodded gently.

"Call me a pragmatist... But I like covering our bases." Gray replied.

"I'm going to go grab the slime packs, just in case we need them." Seth said, "Maybe some mood slime could help us all get in better spirits."

"Couldn't hurt." Gray said, looking down at the laptop as the computer code started to propagate itself. Gray left the computer to its work as he looked back up the stairs, knowing Rerun was occupying himself somewhere up there, unaware of just what was going on. He'd have to find some way to break it to him and tell him what to do if the worst really did happen.

****

Orange, red and green lights flashed as the Ecto sped up the street towards Doernbercher. The call had gone out ahead to evacuate the area, but that was easier said than done. The entire area was jam packed with those that couldn't be moved easily. There were university health research centers, the Veterans Affairs building, a nursing school... and that was where it was all coming down.

The Ecto pulled to a stop and the doors flung open. The Ghostbusters were out in moments, their black jumpsuits and boots sharp and clean, their emblem distinct and bright on their arms. Seth pulled open the back of the Ecto, the rack of equipment rumbling into its extended position. Gray grabbed his pack, then Seth, then Nico. Eli grabbed a slime back and slung it onto his shoulders, tightening the straps.

"Game plan?" Nico asked. Gray took his positron collider in his hand and flicked the series of switches. His proton pack hummed to life as the red lights started to throb and pulse with energy.

"Diplomacy, and when that fails, throw everything we have at them." Gray said.

"I like the way you think." Nico chuckled, activating his own pack. Seth smiled a bit and turned his on as well. They grabbed meters and traps and hooked them to their hips before closing the Ecto up.

"So, how long do you think we have?" Eli asked.

"Not long..." Seth said, pointing. The campus was bordered by trees, but one patch of them was darkening swiftly. The green, gold and red drained away from the leaves. They turned to a parched white and then shattered into dust as the wind brushed them. They fell away to reveal a figure approaching them with steady, dull footsteps. He was tall, pale, his skin weathered and beaten. His clothes seemed formal, almost business appropriate... and his face was a strange after image of a horse muzzle extending outward from a human face, both images at once before solidifying to that of a horse.

Gray spun around as he heard a growing clamor from down the road. There were shouts, screams, yells and chants. A crowd was coming up the road, following one man in the lead dressed in red. His clothes were singed, torn, battered, but they were recognizable as the street clothes of an urban youth.

Eli felt a stronger gust of wind hit him - cold, chilling, cutting... and foul. He turned to look under the sky bridge of one of the buildings to see another figure, this one with pitch black skin covered in fur, his muzzle emaciated and his chest so tight that ribs could be seen. Nico looked at the three figures, seeing how close they were. There was no way the last horseman wouldn't have been there too, and likely from the only other direction. Nico turned and yelped, ducking back in time to narrowly avoid the touch of the white furred horseman. He brought up his proton blaster.

"Wait!" Seth shouted, bringing out his PKE meter. The antenna snapped to life, dancing up and down as lights blinked swiftly, processing the signals. It was hard to keep it from shorting out, but despite the overwhelming signal, it did detect that there were two overlapping signals.

"We can't let them touch us, we can't let them unify!" Nico said.

"We can't shoot them either, they're human under there!" Seth said. Eli's jaw dropped.

"They're possessed? I can work with that." Eli said, opening the nozzle of his slime blower. It shuddered before erupting with a stream of thick pink slime that arched out toward the horseman closest to him. The slime hit the black horse, but as it did, the slime turned black too. It hit the ground, sizzling and crackling, cooking into the cement. Eli's skin went cold and Gray's muscled tensed.

"Caustic slime!" Gray shouted. Eli turned his blower off as quickly as he could, trying not to make a very bad situation worse. Caustic slime had the ability to kill humans from prolonged exposure.

"If we can't slime them, we can't knock the ghosts out!" Eli said.

"Maybe the resonance packs, like we used in the Bigfoot epidemic?" Seth asked. Gray looked out at the horsemen, turning slowly, seeing their pale and tired eyes... the eyes shared by the humans and the ghosts. One, two, three, four... five.

Grayson turned and opened fire. Red and yellow dancing, arcing, chaotic streams of proton energy arched out from his blaster, shooting past the Horseman embodying war, almost managing to hit the Grey Eyed boy. The blast bent around him and arced off to strike a lamp post, exploding the glass and the element inside. The boy looked a little shocked at that, though intrigued at the same time.

"You are very perceptive..." He commented, brushing his shoulder. Grayson was almost shaking he was so furious.

"You arranged this. You brought them here, you did all of this!" Grayson shouted.

"I did..." The boy said, "And while we could discuss the semantics of that all evening, you do find yourself in this particular predicament."

"The four horsemen of the apocalypse, poised to bring their evils to innocent masses, and our equipment isn't anything close enough to dealing with them. Is that about right?" Grayson asked. The grey eyed boy nodded softly.

"Like I said, you are very perceptive." he smiled. Grayson lowered his proton blaster.

"And our equipment isn't close enough to dealing with you either." Gray replied, walking closer to the boy, "You didn't even show up when we took readings of the city. All we saw were these four ghosts." Grayson said.

"Oh, come now, that's not entirely correct." The grey eyed boy said. This time it was Seth that had the look of dawning realization.

"The background noise, the haze?" he asked. The grey eyed boy let out a soft whistle at that.

"No WONDER you Ghostbusters were the hardest to crack so far." he said, "Friends with a Time Wyrm, touched by so many spirits, smart and capable." he shook his head.

"But here we are, in the middle of your mouse trap." Gray said. The boy's grey eyes nearly sparkled at that.

"Not mouse trap. Man trap." he replied. Grey looked at the boy for a moment, his mind reeling. He nearly took a step back as everything started to connect. It had all started with missing Ghostbusters.... and with the teams missing, their containment units had faltered and the ghosts had gotten out.

"You're the man trap... You're meant to trap Ghostbusters..." Grayson said.

"And that is exactly what I've done." the boy replied, "The problem was I knew you'd figure it out so quickly. Maybe not this quickly, but certainly before our conversation was over... So I had to devise a trap that you'd have to walk into willingly." The boy smiled.

"We can't shoot the humans possessed by the spirits." Nico murmured.

"And we can't let the children be harmed." Eli added.

"So there has to be a third alternative, something you'd force us to take." Seth said, looking around. Grayson didn't break eye contact with their youthful captor.

"You want us to take on the spirits of the four horsemen..." Gray said. The boy shrugged.

"That is part of it... I mean, that's the part you can't refuse." The boy said, "That's the only way to save the four poor souls they inhabit now."

"And then what? That's not enough to stop the apocalypse." Seth replied.

"No, it's not... For that you'd need a much more powerful ghost, one capable of containing PKE energies, of purifying and digesting them slowly." the boy said, "I want you to submit yourselves to me, to give yourselves up for the good of the world. I promise that with the horsemen in you, and you in my trap, that they won't pose any threat to Portland or the world at large." the boy smiled. Grayson was silent for a few moments as he contemplated, playing and replaying all the different possibilities in his head.

"This can't be it..." Nico murmured. Eli moved over to rub his shoulder. Seth wanted to do the same to Gray, but he knew that he couldn't tamper with his resolve. This was bigger than all of them. This wasn't a blaze of glory, it was a choice to save the world... They knew the risks when they signed up.

"I'll do it." Seth said. Nico gasped, looking up. Eli grimaced, nearly whimpering before he shook his head.

"I will too." he said. Nico looked shell shocked.

"Guys, we can't, just like... like that? We haven't even tried." Nico said.

"This is bigger than us right now." Grayson said softly, "Thought form or not, these are the horsemen of the apocalypse. We can't lose this battle and win the war.." Gray said, looking back at the boy, "I'll do it." he said. The boy nearly bounced in glee, looking back at Nico. Nico shook his head.

"We have to think of some other-" Nico trailed off, seeing colored particulate starting to come off three of the horsemen around them. Black particulate was coming off of Famine, swirling like dust in the wind before hitting Eli. The blond Ghostbuster grunted, shuddering as it started to soak into his skin, staining him. He felt his baby fat melting away, his healthy cushion draining. His skin tightened, his bones were exposed, but he felt something else stirring inside him.

Eli threw his head back as his face began to throb and ache and distort. His bottom jaw pushed forward as his teeth flattened. His nostrils flared, his nose widened and his ears started to stretch into points. He shuddered and stomped as his face took on a muzzle. His pants tightened as his legs grew longer, thicker, more powerful, and his pants began to bloat out as his shaft stretched out longer and longer without getting any thicker, the tip blunting and flattening as it shifted.

Nico's eyes drank in the form of his changing lover before he saw Seth stumbling as well. It was almost like seeing him become a gargoyle again as pale fur sprouted across his well tanned skin, covering his muscles. The brown drained from his hair as it became a grayish tone again. His fingertips blunted, his boots warped and groaned and shuddered before they exploded outward with wide hooves. His shirt began to split at the shoulder seams with his enhancing muscles.

"No..." Nico whispered, looking to their leader. Grayson's hair had shifted from black to a wild, bright red, his boots shredded where the hooves emerged. He tipped his head back as his spine lengthened, his groin filled out, his ears grew into points and began shifting up his head, but Gray brought his eyes back down to look at the humans that were being released from their hold.

The Hispanic rioter looked dazed and confused, conflicted as well as his equine traits left his body. He missed the high of being in the midst of the chaos, the conflict, the elation of combat - especially his horse cock, but as his mind cleared and he remembered his life, everything he had momentarily lost, he turned tail and ran - and as he did, the tail he had faded away into dust, drifting across the cement to where Grayson was standing.

The single father crumpled to the ground as the last of the black energy left his body, swirling up around where Eli had been. The blond twenty something now was an elegant, if lean, black horseman with a slime pack on his back. A grunt came as the mortician was released from his thrall. He took a gasping breath, then another, feeling his heart start to beat again. Being blended had been a living hell, suspended between life and death itself. Tears began to leak from his face, thinking of how close he had come to killing so many people.

A hot, steamy snort left the nostrils of Pestilence. The white horse stood alone, looking at his new brothers. His hand slipped down to slowly unzip his pants. Nico tensed at that, feeling as if it struck too closely to home. He'd always been sensitive about his own condition, being too obsessed with sex. He'd considered it at times to be an addiction, but if the horse was trying to say something about it being a disease, or worse, spreading that to his teammates...

"How do I know you'll hold up the bargain?" Nico asked, "And not just let them loose on the city?"

"That is not my objective, not my purpose. I exist to trap Ghostbusters." The grey eyed boy said. Nico looked almost disgusted before he hesitated.

"Wait, that's... that's why you exist? It's not a new purpose, that's why you exist?" Nico asked, eyes widening in realization, "You're a Tupla thingy, aren't you?" he asked. The boy's lips curled in confusion.

"Are you going to accept the deal or not?" he asked, "I assure you, Pestilence can bring plenty of deaths on his own."

"You look like a boy because you're a young spirit, a thought form, thought up with the common desire to see Ghostbusters trapped..." Nico murmured, "just like... the ghosts... that thought you up." he said with a growing grin on his face. Sometimes it was intimidating being Nico's teammate as he rushed to every conclusion, but this part he figured out on his own. Nico grinned in accomplishment, "You are the desire of the ghosts caught by Ghostbusters, all the spirits in the containment units." he declared.

"Like I said... very perceptive for humans." The boy said, his annoyance tempered by his bit of wonder at the humans putting it together, "So you see, my purpose is my promise. If you give me what I want, I have no reason to see more humans harmed." he said. Nico turned and looked around him at War, Death, and Famine... his former friends, his teammates, his boyfriend, his family. There wasn't anything he wouldn't give for them, and he trusted Grayson.

"I... agree." Nico said. The grey eyed boy grinned from ear to ear, closing his eyes as a warm wind began to sweep over them. The fading light of day grew darker and darker as the horseman began dissolving away from the sand colored teen, sweeping around the parking lot to wrap across Nico, floating through his clothes and sinking into his skin. Nico stumbled slightly as Pestilence hit him, feeling the ache in his bones, the fever in his brow, the quiver in his stomach. He felt every cold, every flu, every bit of sickness he'd ever had rolling through his body.

Patch blotches of white fur burst out of irritated skin. His bones creaked and groaned, warping and shifting as his face pushed out inch by excruciating inch, taking on the muzzle. His clothes started to strain and tear, his pants got fuller and fuller as his tail grew in, pushing his ass cheeks apart. His body shifted and shuddered and changed as his eyes glazed over, his ears stretched out, and his hands transformed.

As the stars struggled to poke out from behind the clouds, as the lights of the city started to snap on, as night fell across Portland, the transfer had completed. The four horsemen of the apocalypse had transferred to the Ghostbusters as their hosts. With them fully contained, the Grey Eyed Boy had his promise to keep. He took in a deep breath to fill his modest lungs and held his arms out to his sides, tapping into his immense Psychokinetic field.

The haze of energy blanketing the city folded in on itself, wrapping around the parking lot, closing in tighter and tighter until it wrapped around him and the four horsemen, all five of them vanishing from sight. No shadow, no echo, no trace of where they had been... and with them gone, with their influence silenced in the blink of an eye, the city of Portland began to grow just a bit quieter. The coughs and wails at the hospital muffled, those parched by famine felt a wave of relief, and those near death started to breathe again. The Ecto's lights continued to flash on the empty parking lot, cycling and circling, spinning steadily beneath the night's sky. The Ghostbusters had won the battle by losing the war.

****

Night had only gotten darker as the hours passed. It almost seemed like a struggle for the city lights to fight back. The Morrison bridge lights glimmered faintly on the water of the Willamette river, the peachy glow from the Pearl District was dulled by a fog rolling in. The riots had ended, the ambulances had finally caught up to the calls of disease that had run rampant earlier, but not all was quiet. There were screams, there were shouts, there were calls for help going unanswered.

Slowly the Grey Eyed Boy's body began to coalesce again, appearing as a faint echo, then solidifying slowly as he walked along the street. It always took him time to bring himself back after trapping humans, but this time had been more of a struggle. His image solidified as he crossed the street, coming up to the block where the firehouse was.

He could feel the Ghostbusters in the netherspace where his other victims were, but they were... a lot more complex than the other humans. They had been touched by tentacle monsters, snakes, bats, satyrs, werewolves and orcs. Their spirits had been corrupted, tainted, altered, and Seth... he was the strangest morsel of all.

The grey eyed boy stepped through the door of the firehouse, emerging on the other side. He could feel how empty the building was... Equipment hastily grabbed, the phone ringing off the hook. That was the part that always got him... The other humans depending on so few for their own well being, and when they were gone, they were helpless. He had liberated the spirits of so many in the other cities and the other states, but this would be the biggest release yet.

The boy's small feet echoed on the metal steps as he descended down into the basement, laying eyes on the huge fire engine red device that dominated the space. Yellow light radiated up through the metal grill floor and the device hummed with an unassuming dignity. It was beautiful, and to the boy it was horrid. An artificial universe trapping spirits both ancient and new, from this and hundreds of other realms.

It was this containment unit, or at least devices like it, that had brought him into existence... So many spirits trapped, wanting revenge, wishing the same on their captors. It was that seething rage that had brought him into reality, just like the slime slowly building under the city. The boy walked up to the containment unit, barely tall enough to come face to face with the trap port in the center. He reached out for the control panel, but his hand hesitated.

There were no simple buttons, no levers, nothing of the sort. He bit his bottom lip and moved around the back of the containment unit. The power supply was running off the power grid, but the boy was able to see battery compartments. He'd waited out backups before. It took time, but it could be done. He crossed the basement, grabbed a stool and slid it over into place, climbing up high enough to reach the breaker box.

He pulled the cover back and brought his fingers up, snapping the breakers to the off position. The lights upstairs turned off, then downstairs. Then the basement lights turned off, plunging the space into the glow from beneath the grill. At last, at long last, the grey eyed boy reached the big ones. He pulled them back with the satisfying snap, then another, then a third... and nothing happened - at least at first.

The containment unit continued to hum, the glow from beneath the floor remained unchanged.

"If you are seeing this message, your attempt to deactivate our containment grid has failed." the voice startled the grey eyed boy. He spun around to see it came from a computer monitor showing Grayson's image. He took a second to make sure he still felt the human in his trap before he moved over, looking at the screen. Grayson looked directly into the camera, "We have faced evil before... Thana, Zytu, and others. We've fought off possessions, demons from other dimensions, and the red tape of our own kind."

"And then you lost." The boy smirked.

"Fighting these battles has not made us weak or weary, but wise. Ghostbusters have gone missing. Containment units have been breached. Your goal has been all too clear. Even if we fall, this victory will be denied to you." Grayson's message continued.

"You are in no position to stop me..." The boy smirked, sounding impetuous as he snapped back at a recording.

"Our containment unit has been reconfigured. It will draw power harmlessly from the surplus of PKE that forms the natural barrier between dimensions, and if for some reason that source starts to drain it will draw power from those that it traps. It can run in this fashion for thousands of years without human needs for repairs. You will not free those trapped here... and you will not find peace. Others will take up the mantle where we have fallen. Others will hunt you down. Now, get the hell out of my Firehouse." Gray said.

The grey eyed boy was confused for a moment, but there was a deep rumble beneath the grill before an orange flash spread outward in a growing sphere. The boy hissed as his image shuddered, flickering. He was knocked off his feet, lifted up and blasted back, passing through the walls of the basement, the floor of the garage, and the outside wall of the firehouse. He landed on the sidewalk and rolled into the street before coming to a stop. He looked up just as an orange field snapped over the firehouse, visible for only a second... but he could feel it there, encasing the building, protecting it in a defensive shell. The grey eyed boy's mouth curled into a fang filled snarl of anger and rage before he let out a scream that echoed into the night.

**** Music blared, filling the confines of the small room with the dark blue paint. Moonlight came in through the window, reflecting off of the double mirrors on the freestanding closet in the corner. Soft, gentle moans came from the bed where an eighteen year old sat, his hands working up and down his immense, plump, very red canine cock. His red hair had been let down, hanging in a short messy mane around his face.

Nine Mercer had been left with the animal anatomy in one of his encounters with the paranormal, the last vestige of a reality warping notebook that couldn't be undone. It had been embarrassing at first. Gym class had taken on entirely new terrifying ideas, but... it felt so damn good, it was hard to resist - especially when he had homework to do.

Across the room, Nine's laptop had been left with far too many tabs open. He had been cross referencing historical sites around the city with paranormal history and reports from the Public Commission on Ghosts. He even had the notes from one of Grayson Kale's lectures open, hoping to glean some small detail that would help him fight back in his own small way against the growing chaos outside - at least until his own internal heat had gotten the best of him.

"Come on... Come on!" Nine muttered, feeling himself coming closer and closer until he gasped and came, letting out jet after jet of pearly cum, splattering himself across the chest and chin. He moaned, slumping back on his bed, panting hard. It felt so good, so complete, so amazing. It was the perfect way to unwind for the day.

Nine felt his brain clouding with the sleep of an orgasm well spent, though something caught his attention through half lidded eyes. He opened them and looked at his laptop, seeing the screen flicker and distort, pixels flashing. His post orgasmic bliss turned into dread as he sprung to his feet, grabbing a towel to wrap around his waist.

"No, no, no! I've got a term paper on there! Don't die on me!" Nine muttered, running over. As he reached his laptop, the flickering and flashing coalesced into a black window with the Ghostbuster logo. Nine's brow twitched in surprise as he slowly moved the mouse over the window and clicked it. The logo dissolved into a lime green circle with an hourglass in the center. The sand was ticking down and the window asked for a password. Nine stared at the window, intrigued and baffled.

"What is this?" he whispered softly, sitting in his chair and scooting up. He looked at the window, then at the notes from the lecture. He thought about the local Ghostbusters and what little Grayson had said about their house ghost... He was a Time Wyrm... he had a funny name... All at once it came back to him. "Rerun!" Nine remembered, typing it in. The hourglass disappeared, replaced with a much more sophisticated looking cipher lock. Nine's eyes widened. Whatever this puzzle was, it wasn't going to be an easy one to get into.