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Wow okay we apologize for the long wait guys, we've been very busy these past few months. Hopefully we can make up for it this summer!

A pretty relevant note!! You might want to read or re-read the last part of the first chapter, if you don’t remember, the one concerning the Lotus and Hachisu-no-Hana. It’s gonna be important from now on

    It had been super late by the time Dr. Prankenstein was able to call it a mission successful, and even Donnie’s lab was dark and quiet. He’d had to wait for Leo to fall asleep to scheme his newest evil plot, and then sneak out to the bathroom to retrieve Karai’s other makeup case. But he’d done it…and he couldn’t wait to see everybody’s faces in the morning. It totally would make up for how much sleep he hadn’t gotten tonight, he thought, as he tucked himself and Beatrice into bed at last.
    “Nighty-night, Beatrice,” he said around a mighty yawn, squeezing the bug plush and patting her white bow. With that, he let himself be carried away into the land of dreams.
    He was already at the gates too—it looked like a toy store, only it was casually on fire and Mr. O’Neil was there with him—when he felt something tugging at his mind, bringing him back to the waking world. Maybe it was the aftertaste of Karaiwa’s and Master Splinter’s argument. In the dead of night, their hurtful words boomed inside his head.
    He couldn’t stand seeing his family fight like this. There had always been bickering and brawling in the lair, but today had been different. The way she left halfway through the movie had to mean she was still upset, and that worried him.
    Cold anguish coiled itself around his heart, and he turned in his bed, grasping for the soft touch of Beatrice’s plush carapace. When he found it, he held her tight against him, the pressure against his plastron offering some comfort. But sleep evaded him now, and he opened his eyes with a soft sigh.
    That’s when he saw it: a figure silhouetted against the translucent glass on his door. For a moment, he wondered if he had actually fallen asleep, because it was too slender to be any of his brothers.
    The second thing he thought was that it was possibly his cardboard Chris Bradford. But how did it get all the way over there?
    Mikey flicked on the bedside lamp and the sudden light flooded his field of vision. He blinked a couple of times and even in the dim light he quickly realized the figure between him and the door was actually a woman. She was thin and elegant even in those modest jeans and that plain white shirt. He couldn’t see her face as she had her back to him, but she had beautiful long black hair. Probably just one of the Lotus girls. Atsuko, right?
    Of course, one question still needed answering: what was she doing there, in his room, at that hour, and dressed in street clothes? Maybe she was looking for the bathroom and got lost...
    “Lady?” he ventured, and was surprised when she answered with a choked sob. Now that he looked at her, she had a kind of sad aura to her, hunched forward and arms wrapped around herself as if she was cold. His first instinct was to run to her aid, and he would have done it already if this whole thing didn’t seem so… off. He couldn’t quite put his finger on it, but it was getting him all twitchy. “Are-are you alright?”
    Whoever she was, Mikey couldn’t just stand around while someone was crying. Sad-woman-in-need-of-comfort alert.
    Mikey slowly slipped out of bed. If this woman needed his help, then he’d help her. He tried to ignore the fact that the closer he got, the more uneasy he felt. He could hear her quiet sobs as he extended a shaky hand, trying to ignore the nauseating knot in his stomach.
    “E-excuse me, lady?” he squeezed out, and in that same moment that his fingertips came in contact with the woman’s shoulder, he knew.
    This woman wasn’t alive.
    Mikey gasped and yanked back his hand. The touch had burned him. In his retreat, he bonked his shell against his TV set. Several objects toppled over and hit the floor, but Mikey hardly noticed.
    The woman turned, and his blood froze.
    Bleeding heavily from three deep gashes on her torso, blazing eyes staring at him through the thick black curtain of her hair, she started shuffling slowly towards him. Mikey tripped on something, couldn’t tell what—all his attention was on the horrifying sight creeping nearer. Heart pounding, he clambered on his bed with shaking legs, and pushed back against the wall, whimpering in terror as the woman got closer and closer.
    Through the glass of his door he saw a light from Donnie’s room, like a beacon of safety calling out to him. He moved against the wall towards the exit, his shell scraping off some of the posters, ninja instincts taking over. Eventually he made it to the edge of the bed, where he jumped over the desk, dodging the dead lady and bolting through the door without looking back.

    ****

    Donnie looked at the page and snorted into his hand at one of the mammoths. It was unicycling downhill, completely out of control and about to run over an old lady and her dog, all to demonstrate the principles of precession and inertia.
    He sat on his bed with April’s gift, his bedside lamp casting an island of warm light in the otherwise pitch-black room. He’d been looking over the heavy book on his lap for half an hour now, and it only got funnier with every illustration.
    Suddenly his bedroom door flew open without so much as a warning knock, and Donnie came close to throwing the book in self-defense before he saw Mikey scrambling in.
    “For the love of—Mikey!” Donnie gasped, heart in his mouth, and lowered the improvised weapon. He pet the book, murmuring, “Sorry, old boy.” But his brother shushed him before turning his shell to him, hunching in front of the door.
    “I saw your light on,” he squeaked.
    Donnie heard the click of the lock being turned and frowned when his brother attempted to look through the translucent glass. “Mikey, what’s going on?” he whispered impatiently.
    “There’s a woman in my room!” Mikey breathed frantically. His face was sweaty, his hands shaky.
    “A wom-”
    “And she’s dead!”
    “What?” Donnie set the heavy book aside and kicked off his sheets to get up, but Mikey shoved him back.
    “No-no-no dude, don’t go!”
    “Mikey, is there a dead body in your room or isn’t there? It’s kind of important!” Donnie insisted.
    “No, bro, she’s a zombie!”
    Donnie gave his brother a long look and then let out an exasperated sigh.
    “I told you not to eat that old chili-marshmallow pizza before bed. Indigestion leads to uneasy sleep, and I’m positive that pizza had fermented.”
    Mikey could be sleepwalking, he thought analytically, watching closely for the symptoms, hoping his brother’s somnambulism days wouldn’t be back. When they were younger and Mikey got obsessed with that old Wolfenstein game, he’d come in Donnie’s room in the middle of the night, crying, saying he couldn’t find the stupid key to the next level. Donnie would then have to play along with his imaginary “key-detector” to get him back to bed.
    “It wasn’t a nightmare, D! I’m telling ya, there’s a zombie in my room! And she’s all staring and creepy and she has blood and—” Mikey covered his mouth, stifling a gasp.
    “Now what?” Donnie asked, unimpressed.
    “Beatrice!” Mikey squeaked. “I left Beatrice, we have to go back!” And at once he grabbed Donnie’s wrist and yanked him to his feet. Donnie groaned, but followed. There wasn’t much of a choice anyway, as Mikey practically dragged him across the hallway to his room. Zombies, Donnie sighed inwardly.
    The door stood ajar. Mikey halted at the threshold to slowly peek inside. The room seemed empty, but Mikey lingered at the entrance. Donnie could see him shaking from head to toes and breathing in little gasps, and pity replaced his anger.
    “Come on, Mikey,” he said gently, leading the way, as Mikey watched him with wide eyes. There was no one in the room, nothing out of the ordinary—unless he counted all the trash from movie night that hadn’t been picked up, a couple of fallen posters, and the pink giant isopod with the bow sitting on the bed. “See? No zombies. And Beatrice is fine,” he said, motioning towards the bed and hoping to inspire some confidence.
    Mikey looked around craning his neck one last time before coming in.
    “So it was just a nightmare,” Donnie concluded. “Now just get to bed and-”
    “It wasn’t a dream, Don, I swear!” Mikey complained, Beatrice finally safe in his arms.
    “Shh, you’ll wake up the Lotus.”
    But Mikey was still inspecting the room, looking behind the desk and under the bed, as if that zombie was the ball-point pen you can never find when you need to write down a number. “She was right here!”
    “Mikey, I’m sure it felt very real, but dreams sometimes do that,” Donnie insisted, the little patience he’d mustered wearing thin again. “There’s no one here; no footprints, no blood. Now will you please just let me—” But as he spoke he felt his confidence slowly draining, dying in his throat to be replaced with a strange chill pooling in his gut. And then he saw Mikey’s eyes.
    His brother’s petrified stare, directed at something moving behind him, sent a shiver up his neck and his shoulders quaked involuntarily. The chill became a bone-biting air that filled his lungs, and he winced.
    Somehow he knew turning around would be a mistake, but he risked a quick side glance over his shoulder, and what he saw in his peripheral vision made every hint of a doubt disappear. This was very real.
    Donnie moved slowly away from the door, very aware of every movement his own limbs did, eyes trained on his brother. “Mikey,” he breathed, and motioned at his own eyes trying to get his attention. “Look at me, don’t look at her. Only look at me.”
    Mikey obeyed at once and fixed his terrified gaze on Donnie. When he’d finally reached him, Donnie embraced him tightly and laid his brother’s head on his plastron to keep him from looking beyond. Beatrice lay squished between both armored chests.
    Feeling a cold breeze on his shell, Donnie fixed his own gaze on the floor next to the bed, paying close attention to his peripheral vision. If he stayed still, he could see the female shape shifting near the door. For a few seconds, it seemed as though the entity would remain at the threshold forever, trapping them in Mikey’s room, but then the shape moved and he couldn’t see her anymore.
    Eventually the cold subsided, so he could once again breathe normally, and he knew she was gone for certain.
    When he finally turned to the door, there was no sign of the strange visitor; not even blood. Donnie let go of Mikey to take a prudent look in the hallway and verify that she had indeed disappeared.
    “We have to wake up the others,” Mikey whimpered behind him, hugging Beatrice tight.
    “No,” Donnie said, once he got his voice back, heart still pounding. “It’ll take ages to get them to believe us, and we don’t have time for explanations. Besides, it might be best if they don’t interfere for now,” he went on, dreading all the doubts and questions their brothers were bound to waste time with.
    His brain sped along at a hundred miles an hour, trying to find some logic in what he’d seen, processing every bit of information he’d gathered: her appearance, the bone-biting cold… that indefinable feeling in his core that he hadn’t quite shaken off yet. This is the real deal, he thought, befuddled.
    Not that they hadn’t come across weirder things... But comparing Ho Chan to this ghost was like trying to measure a shih tzu’s sneeze in the Ritcher scale.
    He had the worst hunch, one he needed to put to the test. “She wasn’t a zombie, Mikey,” he said seriously—because that he knew—and his brother looked up at him from behind Beatrice’s bow. “By the looks of it, I think she might have been some kind of onryō: a vengeful ghost.”
    Mikey lowered his voice to a whisper. “Dude, I hope you don’t mean one of those Japanese ghosts, like from that movie with the girl that comes out of the well, and she sets her evil cat after you while she goes,” and here he emitted a low rattle deep in his throat.
    “I think you’re mixing up two or more movies, Mikey. But yes, that would be the type.”
     Mikey made a choking sound as sole reply and gave Beatrice a squeeze.
    Donnie continued, hurriedly. “And if I’m right, then waking the guys up for this could actually put them in more danger. According to the lore, you can’t acknowledge an onryō’s presence, and you certainly don’t want to make contact. That’s when they get you.”
    “That’s what happened!” Mikey exclaimed, pointing a shaky finger towards the door, and Donnie shushed him.
    “Come on, let’s go to my lab, I need my instruments,” he said, the idea of turning this into another experiment already making him feel much braver.
    “Yeah, that’s right! Get your proton pack, bro, and teach that ghost a lesson!”
    “Um, yeah... I don’t have one of those, Mikey,” Donnie said as he led the way towards the lab.
    “Then why are we going?” Mikey stopped walking and looked at Donnie with skeptical eyes, clearly wishing they would just head back and lock themselves in a room.
    Donnie put a forefinger to his lips. “For science, Mikey. Science,” he whispered emphatically. He had no real hopes of catching this ghost—and no means of containing it, for that matter. For now, he was okay with simply learning more, before they tried anything else. Once he knew what kind of threat they were facing, he could organize a ghost-hunting party.
    So ignoring Mikey’s glare, he pulled his hand to get him to keep moving, not wanting to leave his brother alone now with that thing on the loose.
    Outside, the Lotus clan was a shapeless mass of sleeping bodies and luggage on the floor at the opposite side of the dark common room. Swallowing his nerves, Donnie straightened up to amble his way to the lab as casually as possible, in case any of the ninjas happened to open an eye. The situation was hazardous enough as it was; he didn’t want anyone getting suspicious and following them. At least the loud snores were a good sign—as well as a pretty efficient sound mask.
    Once in his lab, Donnie started rummaging about for anything that could be useful.
    “Keep an ear out, Mikey. We don’t want anyone waking up,” he whispered. They’d kept the lab door open since such a heavy metal contraption was too noisy to move.
    Donnie had never gone ghost hunting before and lacked the proper equipment—beacuse really, how was he supposed to foresee this. The infrared mode on his tracker might work, he thought, holstering it on his belt, next to his flashlight. But if there was a chance that they were going up against an onryō, they needed more than that. He was startled by an idea, and turned around to rummage through some drawers.
    “What’s that?” Mikey whispered, peering over Donnie’s shoulder to see what he was doing.
    “It’s just your common battery charger.” Donnie snapped it open and started tinkering at record speed. “But with a few adjustments, it should work as an EM gun, which will emit a pulse strong enough to disrupt the ghost’s electromagnetic field, if we should need to defend ourselves. Hypothetically, at least...” he explained as he worked, assembling the makeshift weapon. After their experience with Ho Chan, he’d done some minor research on the matter, but since then had been a little distracted, what with saving the world from aliens and curing his sister’s mutation.
    The prototype required a generator, but fortunately Donnie had a few of those lying around, one of them rigged to be pretty silent, running on a biofuel of his own invention.
    “At this scale it wouldn’t be any use against a physical opponent, such as you or me,” he rambled on nervously as he worked, fighting to keep his voice steady, “but against ghosts it should be good. In theory. You know, just to be safe. Here, you’ll have to carry this. Leave Beatrice, she can hide out in here.” He did his best to sound reassuring as he handed Mikey the small portable generator.
    “What—wait, Don,” Mikey breathed, juggling both generator and doll in his arms. “Can… can that ghost hurt us?”
    Donnie looked at the terrified face of his brother and hesitated. “Um… Unlikely,” he lied, knowing damn well what the stories told about onryō, legend or not, and the horrible things they did to their victims. But the last thing he wanted right now was for Mikey to panic. “We don’t know that she’s an onryō. But just in case I need you to put that stealth talent of yours to work now. Like when you covered me in sticky notes while I slept. And Raph and Casey? That was amazing!”
    “Yeah, that was good.” The flash of a smirk crossed Mikey’s face and then it was gone. “But that was different, man! There was no pressure then! And no ghosts!”
    Donnie sighed. “Well… Will you do it for a Mikey snack?” he joked, at a loss, heading for the exit.
    “That’s not funny!”
    Donnie shushed him again, and motioned for him to tag along. Mikey whimpered, but finally set Beatrice on a desk and followed.
    Donnie turned on the tracker at the top of the steps, making sure to set it to mute first. The little screen came alive and started displaying its analysis of their surroundings. The infrared showed the big orange mass where the Lotus were sleeping. There were also a few shapeless blotches of red here and there from the lair’s heating system, and a couple of cold leaks from a broken pipe that went to show that a sewer wasn’t the most propitious ghost-hunting ground.
    He thoroughly scanned the big room a few times before giving the all clear.
    “Keep your eyes peeled, Mikey,” he whispered to his brother, and headed for the bedrooms. The extra pair of eyes would come in handy if he had to keep a close watch on the tiny screen of his tracker.
    They turned the corner into the corridor, and when he pointed the device at the ground, he stopped.
    “What? What did you see?” Mikey breathed urgently, grasping the strap across Donnie’s shell.
    Donnie pointed at the screen, where they could see a series of blue tracks staining the dim green of the floor. They lead to one of the doors.
    “It’s in Raph’s room!” he exclaimed under his breath, stalking down the corridor up to their brother’s door with Mikey in his wake. Slowly he reached out and turned the handle.
    The door opened to the darkness within, and Raph’s light snoring. On the screen, a shapeless black fog stood next to the bright red shape of their brother.
    Donnie heard Mikey’s breath hitch as they shone the flashlight on the figure.
    There she was again, standing by Raph’s bed, her back to Donnie and Mikey as if too concentrated on Raph to have noticed them.
    That horrible chill was back, soaking through his skin a strange feeling of despair. He could feel Mikey trembling beside him. Wishing he’d had more time to think of a better plan, he racked his brains for a way to proceed. Raph shivered and pulled his covers over his chin, but fortunately kept sleeping.
    As Donnie pondered in a panicked daze, he saw the ghost starting to lean forward. It reached out to Raph’s sleeping form. Donnie gasped. No time to think!
    Moving quickly, he fumbled around for the generator that Mikey was holding and flicked the switch. The machine came on with a dull humming sound. He pointed the EM gun at the ghost in his shaky grasp and fired before the pale fingers could reach Raph.
    The electromagnetic pulse hit its target. The ghost swivelled around, and Donnie reeled at the bewildered expression on the woman’s cadaveric face before her image rippled. Raph’s radio blared on and Donnie choked on a yelp, startled by the sudden sound of static.
    And then she was gone, and the room was once again engulfed in silence, only broken by Donnie’s and Mikey’s agitated panting.
    In all the commotion, Donnie hadn’t noticed Raph springing to a sitting position. His brother looked around, eyes squinted, until he saw them at his door.
    “The hell are you doing?” he yelled. “Go play with your stupid gadgets somewhere else!”
    Donnie tried to silence him, frantic. “No, Raph, you don’t understand! There’s a gh-agh!” He couldn’t finish his sentence because Raph’s pillow had just slammed into his face with a hard phlump.
    “Get out!” Raph demanded before furiously shoving his blanket over himself, and Donnie pushed Mikey outwards into the hallway to close the door.
    Well, nuts to that. He scoffed, scratching all thought of getting their temperamental brother in on the game.
    He checked his tracker again. Good news: the ghost seemed gone from Raph’s room, and now he knew the EM gun worked. But it wasn’t over yet.
    He had to get to the bottom of this.
    “Did we get it, Donnie? Is it gone?” Mikey breathed in his ear, head twitching to and fro.
    “No, we only scattered it,” Donnie said, pointing his tracker around, down the corridor in shadows, looking for movement. “It must have relocated.” He searched the floor, but only their own warm, three-toed footprints were visible. Leo’s room seemed clear as well. Careful not to wake anybody, he headed back towards the stairs, peeking inside Mikey’s room and his own before aiming it towards the entrance.
    He saw a shape there, slipping slowly through the turnstiles.
    “She’s going in the tunnels!” Donnie said, careful not to lose sight of the hazy dark stain moving in the screen.
    Mikey groaned pitifully, clearly not thrilled about the prospect of a haunted house ride through the sewers.
    “Suit yourself.” Donnie shrugged as he pointedly turned his back to him and started walking.
    He mentally counted to five, and smiled when he heard the light padding of feet behind him. Mikey was back at his side before he’d passed the turnstiles.
    The sewers made ghost hunting even harder. All the cold water and puffs of hot steam interfered with the infrared, and he had difficulty picking an actual signature among all the noise.
    He clucked his tongue and stood as still as he could, looking for movement.
    “There,” he said, gesturing at an exit down the tunnel, where he thought he’d seen the dark-blue shape shift.
    They found the rusty metal door to one of the subway station’s abandoned maintenance tunnels, still slightly ajar. Donnie pushed the door and it opened with a screech.
    They were about to step through the threshold when a gleaming white shape burst before them, hissing fiercely. They screamed, stumbling backwards away from the apparition… before realizing it was only a cloud of vapor from a leaky pipe. The gleam of the flashlight had reflected off the thick steam making it seem solid.
    “Those stupid pipes always do that! Every horror game, man!” Mikey yelled angrily, clutching at his plastron. Donnie agreed with a fervent nod, also in the process of catching his breath, pulse thudding in his ears. He hated jumpscares.
    Donnie steeled himself, and pushed through. Beyond the door, they found themselves in a long narrow passage, flooded by murky water.
    “I think I have a lock on her. Let’s go,” Donnie sing-songed in feigned merriment, before stepping into the opaque liquid. The bottom felt disgustingly soft on his bare feet.
    “Why? Why do we have to go?” Mikey whined, but it was only a rhetorical question, and still kept close.
    Their flashlight allowed them to see a only few feet of the mossy brick wall and the brown water in front of them. The rest was an impenetrable darkness that seemed to go on infinitely, broken only by the occasional burst of water vapor.
    “Stupid steam!” Mikey grumbled each time.
    Donnie had never really explored the whole tunnel since he deemed it unsafe years ago. There was nothing useful in there and it was dangerously decrepit. Curtains of dust fell from the ceiling with every tremor of the nearby subway.
    They moved as fast as they could while trying not to make too much noise, which was difficult having in mind they were standing to their calves in filthy water. Donnie couldn’t see an end to that endless rabbit hole, or the ghost for that matter. He kept his eyes on the tiny screen, on the faint tar-like shape moving slowly ahead of them, invisible. It was the only indication that there was even something there. He tapped the device, muttering encouraging words to it, pleased that they seemed to be gaining on the entity.
    After minutes of walking through that endless passage, he finally thought they were close enough to catch her in the beam of their flashlight. He braced himself, holding his breath, expecting to see her spectral shape and pale bloodied face any moment now.
    But then, just like that, the shape disappeared from the screen, evaporating like a wisp of smoke.
    Donnie gaped at the device in utter confusion. He realized he had been squishing against Mikey’s side, before fear gave way to frustration.
    “Oh, no, come on!” Donnie shook the tracker, even though the tracker wasn’t the problem. The thing had just disappeared all of a sudden.
    “What is it?” Mikey demanded, gripping Donnie’s arm.
    “We lost it!” Donnie protested, racking his brains. “It’s not interference, it’s just gone!”
    “Wait, bro, you hear that?” Mikey said.
    Donnie turned off the tracker, and without its constant whirring the place was suddenly engulfed in eerie silence, but for the drip-drop of a distant leaky pipe.
    He strained his ears. This time he heard it: a quiet moan. The echo made it hard to tell whether it was in front of them or behind them.
    “I think it’s that way,” Mikey squeaked, pointing ahead, and got behind Donnie to push him along. Despite their best efforts, their feet splashed noisily in the silty water.
    They came to an intersection and Donnie halted, putting a hand in front of Mikey to stop him too, and they waited for the sound of water to fade.
    There it was again—a woman’s hushed voice, sounding a lot closer. He pointed his flashlight down one of the tunnels and there, standing still in the middle, was a figure.
    They’d found her. They’d found her and now Donnie realized he was once again without a plan. Should they try to talk to her or would that just make it worse? Can you even reason with an onryō? This was completely new terrain for him, what was he supposed to do? At least they had their EM gun. Maybe if they waited she would keep moving and lead them to some clues. Or maybe they were about to be murdered horribly, and the rest of their family would find their bodies days later, turned inside out or something.
    The figure shifted and Donnie started, bumping backwards into Mikey, and at his brother’s loud yelp, the shape lifted its head. There was a low, angry grumble and Donnie felt his blood freeze, before he realized where the sound was really coming from: Mikey had turned on the generator.
    “Get it, Donnie, get it!” Mikey cried, hugging the machine and nudging the EM gun at Donnie.
    “Who’s there?” said a voice.
    Donnie whipped back at the figure, gun at the ready, and the woman’s face gleamed in the flashlight. But it wasn’t a ghost at all.
    He would never have suspected it... But there was Hachisu-no-Hana, one hand in front of her eyes to shield the beam of light.
    “Hachisu-no-Hana-san?” Donnie exclaimed.
    Stumbling, the woman moved to lean against the wall, propping herself as if her feet could barely hold her.
    Recovered from the shock, they ran to her aid, ready to catch her if she fell.
    “What are you doing here?” Donnie asked in bewilderment, and looked around with the flashlight for any sign of a battle. But they were alone, and the tracker confirmed it.
    She looked really sick—her face contorted, pale and sweaty like a wax candle—but not wounded. She didn’t take his hand when he offered it.
    “Hello, I… I was only taking a walk,” she said, voice shaky as though nauseous.
    “In the sewers? Hachisu-no-Hana-san, not even we go for walks around here,” Mikey said while Donnie gauged the woman closely. Looking for more symptoms, he noticed her hand cupping her sash on her right side, as though it hurt, but also like she was... trying to hide something?
    So he didn’t ask, and instead filed the bit of information in his memory for later.
    “I didn’t feel well. I think it’s… what is the name? Jet-lag,” she said.
    “Well… Let us help you get back,” Donnie insisted, finding her story a little hard to believe.
    “That’s alright, I can walk. I feel better now,” she said, once again rejecting Donnie’s hand. What she said seemed true, though, as she was actually starting to look a little better now, her voice steadier. Her hand finally left the brick wall and she stood straight and proud once again.
    “You sure?” Mikey asked, looking her up and down with concerned eyes.
    “Yes, thank you,” she repeated kindly. “But if you have some lemon balm, I will make some tea.”
    “I’m sure Leo has lemon balm in his arsenal,” Donnie said, and offered an obliging smile.
    “Thank you very much,” Hachisu said, timid eyes apparently grateful. She was still shaken, but the color had returned to her cheeks. Donnie couldn’t help but lift an eyebrow at her fast recovery. Her hand left her sash and he risked a quick glance, but noticed nothing unusual. There might have been a slight bulge, but so discreet that it could be anything.
    “I am sorry about the trouble. I did not mean to worry you,” she said on their way back through the tunnels.
    “No biggie, Hachisu-no-Hana-san,” Mikey said, back to his usual cheerful self as he gave the Lotus leader his freckled smile, whose warmth could melt an iceberg.
    Donnie took one last peek at his tracker, switching it on and pointing it around Hachisu-no-Hana when she wasn’t looking, and only found the usual static of a myriad of small interferences. Nothing like the vibrant blue pulse of the ghost. The entity was certainly gone, at least for now. And Mikey was sometimes as good a strange-o-meter as his tracker, he thought with an inward smirk as he watched his brother happily lead Hachisu through the tunnels back to the lair like nothing had happened. He even managed to make Hachisu smile with his silly jokes.
    With Hachisu back in her sleeping bag, after many bows and apologies, Mikey then followed Donnie back to bed, bringing Beatrice with him—because no way was he going to sleep alone in his room after that, no frikkin’ way, bro. And when Mikey was already snoring in Donnie’s ear, Donnie was still thinking about what had just happened.
    None of them was a stranger to the supernatural—their encounter with Ho Chan one of the most recent proofs for it. Aliens and ghosts and werewolves? Sure, why not. Ironically he’d been more skeptical as a child than he was now. Over the years and with everything that his strange family was subjected to almost on a daily basis, he had inevitably learned not to take anything at face value. He’d come to the conclusion, long ago, that ultimately magic was science unexplained. And he was determined to find and explain the science in any kind of magic that dared present itself as such. This ghost business definitely called for a more thorough investigation.
    This isn’t over, he promised himself.
While Mikey mumbled and kicked in his sleep, Donnie thought about the spirit, and how it happened to have lead them straight to Hachisu-no-Hana before vanishing. There was no way the two were not connected.

;) (Wink) — Description
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Wow okay we apologize for the long wait guys, we've been very busy these past few months. Hopefully we can make up for it this summer!

A pretty relevant note!! You might want to read or re-read the last part of the first chapter, if you don’t remember, the one concerning the Lotus and Hachisu-no-Hana. It’s gonna be important from now on

    It had been super late by the time Dr. Prankenstein was able to call it a mission successful, and even Donnie’s lab was dark and quiet. He’d had to wait for Leo to fall asleep to scheme his newest evil plot, and then sneak out to the bathroom to retrieve Karai’s other makeup case. But he’d done it…and he couldn’t wait to see everybody’s faces in the morning. It totally would make up for how much sleep he hadn’t gotten tonight, he thought, as he tucked himself and Beatrice into bed at last.
    “Nighty-night, Beatrice,” he said around a mighty yawn, squeezing the bug plush and patting her white bow. With that, he let himself be carried away into the land of dreams.
    He was already at the gates too—it looked like a toy store, only it was casually on fire and Mr. O’Neil was there with him—when he felt something tugging at his mind, bringing him back to the waking world. Maybe it was the aftertaste of Karaiwa’s and Master Splinter’s argument. In the dead of night, their hurtful words boomed inside his head.
    He couldn’t stand seeing his family fight like this. There had always been bickering and brawling in the lair, but today had been different. The way she left halfway through the movie had to mean she was still upset, and that worried him.
    Cold anguish coiled itself around his heart, and he turned in his bed, grasping for the soft touch of Beatrice’s plush carapace. When he found it, he held her tight against him, the pressure against his plastron offering some comfort. But sleep evaded him now, and he opened his eyes with a soft sigh.
    That’s when he saw it: a figure silhouetted against the translucent glass on his door. For a moment, he wondered if he had actually fallen asleep, because it was too slender to be any of his brothers.
    The second thing he thought was that it was possibly his cardboard Chris Bradford. But how did it get all the way over there?
    Mikey flicked on the bedside lamp and the sudden light flooded his field of vision. He blinked a couple of times and even in the dim light he quickly realized the figure between him and the door was actually a woman. She was thin and elegant even in those modest jeans and that plain white shirt. He couldn’t see her face as she had her back to him, but she had beautiful long black hair. Probably just one of the Lotus girls. Atsuko, right?
    Of course, one question still needed answering: what was she doing there, in his room, at that hour, and dressed in street clothes? Maybe she was looking for the bathroom and got lost...
    “Lady?” he ventured, and was surprised when she answered with a choked sob. Now that he looked at her, she had a kind of sad aura to her, hunched forward and arms wrapped around herself as if she was cold. His first instinct was to run to her aid, and he would have done it already if this whole thing didn’t seem so… off. He couldn’t quite put his finger on it, but it was getting him all twitchy. “Are-are you alright?”
    Whoever she was, Mikey couldn’t just stand around while someone was crying. Sad-woman-in-need-of-comfort alert.
    Mikey slowly slipped out of bed. If this woman needed his help, then he’d help her. He tried to ignore the fact that the closer he got, the more uneasy he felt. He could hear her quiet sobs as he extended a shaky hand, trying to ignore the nauseating knot in his stomach.
    “E-excuse me, lady?” he squeezed out, and in that same moment that his fingertips came in contact with the woman’s shoulder, he knew.
    This woman wasn’t alive.
    Mikey gasped and yanked back his hand. The touch had burned him. In his retreat, he bonked his shell against his TV set. Several objects toppled over and hit the floor, but Mikey hardly noticed.
    The woman turned, and his blood froze.
    Bleeding heavily from three deep gashes on her torso, blazing eyes staring at him through the thick black curtain of her hair, she started shuffling slowly towards him. Mikey tripped on something, couldn’t tell what—all his attention was on the horrifying sight creeping nearer. Heart pounding, he clambered on his bed with shaking legs, and pushed back against the wall, whimpering in terror as the woman got closer and closer.
    Through the glass of his door he saw a light from Donnie’s room, like a beacon of safety calling out to him. He moved against the wall towards the exit, his shell scraping off some of the posters, ninja instincts taking over. Eventually he made it to the edge of the bed, where he jumped over the desk, dodging the dead lady and bolting through the door without looking back.

    ****

    Donnie looked at the page and snorted into his hand at one of the mammoths. It was unicycling downhill, completely out of control and about to run over an old lady and her dog, all to demonstrate the principles of precession and inertia.
    He sat on his bed with April’s gift, his bedside lamp casting an island of warm light in the otherwise pitch-black room. He’d been looking over the heavy book on his lap for half an hour now, and it only got funnier with every illustration.
    Suddenly his bedroom door flew open without so much as a warning knock, and Donnie came close to throwing the book in self-defense before he saw Mikey scrambling in.
    “For the love of—Mikey!” Donnie gasped, heart in his mouth, and lowered the improvised weapon. He pet the book, murmuring, “Sorry, old boy.” But his brother shushed him before turning his shell to him, hunching in front of the door.
    “I saw your light on,” he squeaked.
    Donnie heard the click of the lock being turned and frowned when his brother attempted to look through the translucent glass. “Mikey, what’s going on?” he whispered impatiently.
    “There’s a woman in my room!” Mikey breathed frantically. His face was sweaty, his hands shaky.
    “A wom-”
    “And she’s dead!”
    “What?” Donnie set the heavy book aside and kicked off his sheets to get up, but Mikey shoved him back.
    “No-no-no dude, don’t go!”
    “Mikey, is there a dead body in your room or isn’t there? It’s kind of important!” Donnie insisted.
    “No, bro, she’s a zombie!”
    Donnie gave his brother a long look and then let out an exasperated sigh.
    “I told you not to eat that old chili-marshmallow pizza before bed. Indigestion leads to uneasy sleep, and I’m positive that pizza had fermented.”
    Mikey could be sleepwalking, he thought analytically, watching closely for the symptoms, hoping his brother’s somnambulism days wouldn’t be back. When they were younger and Mikey got obsessed with that old Wolfenstein game, he’d come in Donnie’s room in the middle of the night, crying, saying he couldn’t find the stupid key to the next level. Donnie would then have to play along with his imaginary “key-detector” to get him back to bed.
    “It wasn’t a nightmare, D! I’m telling ya, there’s a zombie in my room! And she’s all staring and creepy and she has blood and—” Mikey covered his mouth, stifling a gasp.
    “Now what?” Donnie asked, unimpressed.
    “Beatrice!” Mikey squeaked. “I left Beatrice, we have to go back!” And at once he grabbed Donnie’s wrist and yanked him to his feet. Donnie groaned, but followed. There wasn’t much of a choice anyway, as Mikey practically dragged him across the hallway to his room. Zombies, Donnie sighed inwardly.
    The door stood ajar. Mikey halted at the threshold to slowly peek inside. The room seemed empty, but Mikey lingered at the entrance. Donnie could see him shaking from head to toes and breathing in little gasps, and pity replaced his anger.
    “Come on, Mikey,” he said gently, leading the way, as Mikey watched him with wide eyes. There was no one in the room, nothing out of the ordinary—unless he counted all the trash from movie night that hadn’t been picked up, a couple of fallen posters, and the pink giant isopod with the bow sitting on the bed. “See? No zombies. And Beatrice is fine,” he said, motioning towards the bed and hoping to inspire some confidence.
    Mikey looked around craning his neck one last time before coming in.
    “So it was just a nightmare,” Donnie concluded. “Now just get to bed and-”
    “It wasn’t a dream, Don, I swear!” Mikey complained, Beatrice finally safe in his arms.
    “Shh, you’ll wake up the Lotus.”
    But Mikey was still inspecting the room, looking behind the desk and under the bed, as if that zombie was the ball-point pen you can never find when you need to write down a number. “She was right here!”
    “Mikey, I’m sure it felt very real, but dreams sometimes do that,” Donnie insisted, the little patience he’d mustered wearing thin again. “There’s no one here; no footprints, no blood. Now will you please just let me—” But as he spoke he felt his confidence slowly draining, dying in his throat to be replaced with a strange chill pooling in his gut. And then he saw Mikey’s eyes.
    His brother’s petrified stare, directed at something moving behind him, sent a shiver up his neck and his shoulders quaked involuntarily. The chill became a bone-biting air that filled his lungs, and he winced.
    Somehow he knew turning around would be a mistake, but he risked a quick side glance over his shoulder, and what he saw in his peripheral vision made every hint of a doubt disappear. This was very real.
    Donnie moved slowly away from the door, very aware of every movement his own limbs did, eyes trained on his brother. “Mikey,” he breathed, and motioned at his own eyes trying to get his attention. “Look at me, don’t look at her. Only look at me.”
    Mikey obeyed at once and fixed his terrified gaze on Donnie. When he’d finally reached him, Donnie embraced him tightly and laid his brother’s head on his plastron to keep him from looking beyond. Beatrice lay squished between both armored chests.
    Feeling a cold breeze on his shell, Donnie fixed his own gaze on the floor next to the bed, paying close attention to his peripheral vision. If he stayed still, he could see the female shape shifting near the door. For a few seconds, it seemed as though the entity would remain at the threshold forever, trapping them in Mikey’s room, but then the shape moved and he couldn’t see her anymore.
    Eventually the cold subsided, so he could once again breathe normally, and he knew she was gone for certain.
    When he finally turned to the door, there was no sign of the strange visitor; not even blood. Donnie let go of Mikey to take a prudent look in the hallway and verify that she had indeed disappeared.
    “We have to wake up the others,” Mikey whimpered behind him, hugging Beatrice tight.
    “No,” Donnie said, once he got his voice back, heart still pounding. “It’ll take ages to get them to believe us, and we don’t have time for explanations. Besides, it might be best if they don’t interfere for now,” he went on, dreading all the doubts and questions their brothers were bound to waste time with.
    His brain sped along at a hundred miles an hour, trying to find some logic in what he’d seen, processing every bit of information he’d gathered: her appearance, the bone-biting cold… that indefinable feeling in his core that he hadn’t quite shaken off yet. This is the real deal, he thought, befuddled.
    Not that they hadn’t come across weirder things... But comparing Ho Chan to this ghost was like trying to measure a shih tzu’s sneeze in the Ritcher scale.
    He had the worst hunch, one he needed to put to the test. “She wasn’t a zombie, Mikey,” he said seriously—because that he knew—and his brother looked up at him from behind Beatrice’s bow. “By the looks of it, I think she might have been some kind of onryō: a vengeful ghost.”
    Mikey lowered his voice to a whisper. “Dude, I hope you don’t mean one of those Japanese ghosts, like from that movie with the girl that comes out of the well, and she sets her evil cat after you while she goes,” and here he emitted a low rattle deep in his throat.
    “I think you’re mixing up two or more movies, Mikey. But yes, that would be the type.”
     Mikey made a choking sound as sole reply and gave Beatrice a squeeze.
    Donnie continued, hurriedly. “And if I’m right, then waking the guys up for this could actually put them in more danger. According to the lore, you can’t acknowledge an onryō’s presence, and you certainly don’t want to make contact. That’s when they get you.”
    “That’s what happened!” Mikey exclaimed, pointing a shaky finger towards the door, and Donnie shushed him.
    “Come on, let’s go to my lab, I need my instruments,” he said, the idea of turning this into another experiment already making him feel much braver.
    “Yeah, that’s right! Get your proton pack, bro, and teach that ghost a lesson!”
    “Um, yeah... I don’t have one of those, Mikey,” Donnie said as he led the way towards the lab.
    “Then why are we going?” Mikey stopped walking and looked at Donnie with skeptical eyes, clearly wishing they would just head back and lock themselves in a room.
    Donnie put a forefinger to his lips. “For science, Mikey. Science,” he whispered emphatically. He had no real hopes of catching this ghost—and no means of containing it, for that matter. For now, he was okay with simply learning more, before they tried anything else. Once he knew what kind of threat they were facing, he could organize a ghost-hunting party.
    So ignoring Mikey’s glare, he pulled his hand to get him to keep moving, not wanting to leave his brother alone now with that thing on the loose.
    Outside, the Lotus clan was a shapeless mass of sleeping bodies and luggage on the floor at the opposite side of the dark common room. Swallowing his nerves, Donnie straightened up to amble his way to the lab as casually as possible, in case any of the ninjas happened to open an eye. The situation was hazardous enough as it was; he didn’t want anyone getting suspicious and following them. At least the loud snores were a good sign—as well as a pretty efficient sound mask.
    Once in his lab, Donnie started rummaging about for anything that could be useful.
    “Keep an ear out, Mikey. We don’t want anyone waking up,” he whispered. They’d kept the lab door open since such a heavy metal contraption was too noisy to move.
    Donnie had never gone ghost hunting before and lacked the proper equipment—beacuse really, how was he supposed to foresee this. The infrared mode on his tracker might work, he thought, holstering it on his belt, next to his flashlight. But if there was a chance that they were going up against an onryō, they needed more than that. He was startled by an idea, and turned around to rummage through some drawers.
    “What’s that?” Mikey whispered, peering over Donnie’s shoulder to see what he was doing.
    “It’s just your common battery charger.” Donnie snapped it open and started tinkering at record speed. “But with a few adjustments, it should work as an EM gun, which will emit a pulse strong enough to disrupt the ghost’s electromagnetic field, if we should need to defend ourselves. Hypothetically, at least...” he explained as he worked, assembling the makeshift weapon. After their experience with Ho Chan, he’d done some minor research on the matter, but since then had been a little distracted, what with saving the world from aliens and curing his sister’s mutation.
    The prototype required a generator, but fortunately Donnie had a few of those lying around, one of them rigged to be pretty silent, running on a biofuel of his own invention.
    “At this scale it wouldn’t be any use against a physical opponent, such as you or me,” he rambled on nervously as he worked, fighting to keep his voice steady, “but against ghosts it should be good. In theory. You know, just to be safe. Here, you’ll have to carry this. Leave Beatrice, she can hide out in here.” He did his best to sound reassuring as he handed Mikey the small portable generator.
    “What—wait, Don,” Mikey breathed, juggling both generator and doll in his arms. “Can… can that ghost hurt us?”
    Donnie looked at the terrified face of his brother and hesitated. “Um… Unlikely,” he lied, knowing damn well what the stories told about onryō, legend or not, and the horrible things they did to their victims. But the last thing he wanted right now was for Mikey to panic. “We don’t know that she’s an onryō. But just in case I need you to put that stealth talent of yours to work now. Like when you covered me in sticky notes while I slept. And Raph and Casey? That was amazing!”
    “Yeah, that was good.” The flash of a smirk crossed Mikey’s face and then it was gone. “But that was different, man! There was no pressure then! And no ghosts!”
    Donnie sighed. “Well… Will you do it for a Mikey snack?” he joked, at a loss, heading for the exit.
    “That’s not funny!”
    Donnie shushed him again, and motioned for him to tag along. Mikey whimpered, but finally set Beatrice on a desk and followed.
    Donnie turned on the tracker at the top of the steps, making sure to set it to mute first. The little screen came alive and started displaying its analysis of their surroundings. The infrared showed the big orange mass where the Lotus were sleeping. There were also a few shapeless blotches of red here and there from the lair’s heating system, and a couple of cold leaks from a broken pipe that went to show that a sewer wasn’t the most propitious ghost-hunting ground.
    He thoroughly scanned the big room a few times before giving the all clear.
    “Keep your eyes peeled, Mikey,” he whispered to his brother, and headed for the bedrooms. The extra pair of eyes would come in handy if he had to keep a close watch on the tiny screen of his tracker.
    They turned the corner into the corridor, and when he pointed the device at the ground, he stopped.
    “What? What did you see?” Mikey breathed urgently, grasping the strap across Donnie’s shell.
    Donnie pointed at the screen, where they could see a series of blue tracks staining the dim green of the floor. They lead to one of the doors.
    “It’s in Raph’s room!” he exclaimed under his breath, stalking down the corridor up to their brother’s door with Mikey in his wake. Slowly he reached out and turned the handle.
    The door opened to the darkness within, and Raph’s light snoring. On the screen, a shapeless black fog stood next to the bright red shape of their brother.
    Donnie heard Mikey’s breath hitch as they shone the flashlight on the figure.
    There she was again, standing by Raph’s bed, her back to Donnie and Mikey as if too concentrated on Raph to have noticed them.
    That horrible chill was back, soaking through his skin a strange feeling of despair. He could feel Mikey trembling beside him. Wishing he’d had more time to think of a better plan, he racked his brains for a way to proceed. Raph shivered and pulled his covers over his chin, but fortunately kept sleeping.
    As Donnie pondered in a panicked daze, he saw the ghost starting to lean forward. It reached out to Raph’s sleeping form. Donnie gasped. No time to think!
    Moving quickly, he fumbled around for the generator that Mikey was holding and flicked the switch. The machine came on with a dull humming sound. He pointed the EM gun at the ghost in his shaky grasp and fired before the pale fingers could reach Raph.
    The electromagnetic pulse hit its target. The ghost swivelled around, and Donnie reeled at the bewildered expression on the woman’s cadaveric face before her image rippled. Raph’s radio blared on and Donnie choked on a yelp, startled by the sudden sound of static.
    And then she was gone, and the room was once again engulfed in silence, only broken by Donnie’s and Mikey’s agitated panting.
    In all the commotion, Donnie hadn’t noticed Raph springing to a sitting position. His brother looked around, eyes squinted, until he saw them at his door.
    “The hell are you doing?” he yelled. “Go play with your stupid gadgets somewhere else!”
    Donnie tried to silence him, frantic. “No, Raph, you don’t understand! There’s a gh-agh!” He couldn’t finish his sentence because Raph’s pillow had just slammed into his face with a hard phlump.
    “Get out!” Raph demanded before furiously shoving his blanket over himself, and Donnie pushed Mikey outwards into the hallway to close the door.
    Well, nuts to that. He scoffed, scratching all thought of getting their temperamental brother in on the game.
    He checked his tracker again. Good news: the ghost seemed gone from Raph’s room, and now he knew the EM gun worked. But it wasn’t over yet.
    He had to get to the bottom of this.
    “Did we get it, Donnie? Is it gone?” Mikey breathed in his ear, head twitching to and fro.
    “No, we only scattered it,” Donnie said, pointing his tracker around, down the corridor in shadows, looking for movement. “It must have relocated.” He searched the floor, but only their own warm, three-toed footprints were visible. Leo’s room seemed clear as well. Careful not to wake anybody, he headed back towards the stairs, peeking inside Mikey’s room and his own before aiming it towards the entrance.
    He saw a shape there, slipping slowly through the turnstiles.
    “She’s going in the tunnels!” Donnie said, careful not to lose sight of the hazy dark stain moving in the screen.
    Mikey groaned pitifully, clearly not thrilled about the prospect of a haunted house ride through the sewers.
    “Suit yourself.” Donnie shrugged as he pointedly turned his back to him and started walking.
    He mentally counted to five, and smiled when he heard the light padding of feet behind him. Mikey was back at his side before he’d passed the turnstiles.
    The sewers made ghost hunting even harder. All the cold water and puffs of hot steam interfered with the infrared, and he had difficulty picking an actual signature among all the noise.
    He clucked his tongue and stood as still as he could, looking for movement.
    “There,” he said, gesturing at an exit down the tunnel, where he thought he’d seen the dark-blue shape shift.
    They found the rusty metal door to one of the subway station’s abandoned maintenance tunnels, still slightly ajar. Donnie pushed the door and it opened with a screech.
    They were about to step through the threshold when a gleaming white shape burst before them, hissing fiercely. They screamed, stumbling backwards away from the apparition… before realizing it was only a cloud of vapor from a leaky pipe. The gleam of the flashlight had reflected off the thick steam making it seem solid.
    “Those stupid pipes always do that! Every horror game, man!” Mikey yelled angrily, clutching at his plastron. Donnie agreed with a fervent nod, also in the process of catching his breath, pulse thudding in his ears. He hated jumpscares.
    Donnie steeled himself, and pushed through. Beyond the door, they found themselves in a long narrow passage, flooded by murky water.
    “I think I have a lock on her. Let’s go,” Donnie sing-songed in feigned merriment, before stepping into the opaque liquid. The bottom felt disgustingly soft on his bare feet.
    “Why? Why do we have to go?” Mikey whined, but it was only a rhetorical question, and still kept close.
    Their flashlight allowed them to see a only few feet of the mossy brick wall and the brown water in front of them. The rest was an impenetrable darkness that seemed to go on infinitely, broken only by the occasional burst of water vapor.
    “Stupid steam!” Mikey grumbled each time.
    Donnie had never really explored the whole tunnel since he deemed it unsafe years ago. There was nothing useful in there and it was dangerously decrepit. Curtains of dust fell from the ceiling with every tremor of the nearby subway.
    They moved as fast as they could while trying not to make too much noise, which was difficult having in mind they were standing to their calves in filthy water. Donnie couldn’t see an end to that endless rabbit hole, or the ghost for that matter. He kept his eyes on the tiny screen, on the faint tar-like shape moving slowly ahead of them, invisible. It was the only indication that there was even something there. He tapped the device, muttering encouraging words to it, pleased that they seemed to be gaining on the entity.
    After minutes of walking through that endless passage, he finally thought they were close enough to catch her in the beam of their flashlight. He braced himself, holding his breath, expecting to see her spectral shape and pale bloodied face any moment now.
    But then, just like that, the shape disappeared from the screen, evaporating like a wisp of smoke.
    Donnie gaped at the device in utter confusion. He realized he had been squishing against Mikey’s side, before fear gave way to frustration.
    “Oh, no, come on!” Donnie shook the tracker, even though the tracker wasn’t the problem. The thing had just disappeared all of a sudden.
    “What is it?” Mikey demanded, gripping Donnie’s arm.
    “We lost it!” Donnie protested, racking his brains. “It’s not interference, it’s just gone!”
    “Wait, bro, you hear that?” Mikey said.
    Donnie turned off the tracker, and without its constant whirring the place was suddenly engulfed in eerie silence, but for the drip-drop of a distant leaky pipe.
    He strained his ears. This time he heard it: a quiet moan. The echo made it hard to tell whether it was in front of them or behind them.
    “I think it’s that way,” Mikey squeaked, pointing ahead, and got behind Donnie to push him along. Despite their best efforts, their feet splashed noisily in the silty water.
    They came to an intersection and Donnie halted, putting a hand in front of Mikey to stop him too, and they waited for the sound of water to fade.
    There it was again—a woman’s hushed voice, sounding a lot closer. He pointed his flashlight down one of the tunnels and there, standing still in the middle, was a figure.
    They’d found her. They’d found her and now Donnie realized he was once again without a plan. Should they try to talk to her or would that just make it worse? Can you even reason with an onryō? This was completely new terrain for him, what was he supposed to do? At least they had their EM gun. Maybe if they waited she would keep moving and lead them to some clues. Or maybe they were about to be murdered horribly, and the rest of their family would find their bodies days later, turned inside out or something.
    The figure shifted and Donnie started, bumping backwards into Mikey, and at his brother’s loud yelp, the shape lifted its head. There was a low, angry grumble and Donnie felt his blood freeze, before he realized where the sound was really coming from: Mikey had turned on the generator.
    “Get it, Donnie, get it!” Mikey cried, hugging the machine and nudging the EM gun at Donnie.
    “Who’s there?” said a voice.
    Donnie whipped back at the figure, gun at the ready, and the woman’s face gleamed in the flashlight. But it wasn’t a ghost at all.
    He would never have suspected it... But there was Hachisu-no-Hana, one hand in front of her eyes to shield the beam of light.
    “Hachisu-no-Hana-san?” Donnie exclaimed.
    Stumbling, the woman moved to lean against the wall, propping herself as if her feet could barely hold her.
    Recovered from the shock, they ran to her aid, ready to catch her if she fell.
    “What are you doing here?” Donnie asked in bewilderment, and looked around with the flashlight for any sign of a battle. But they were alone, and the tracker confirmed it.
    She looked really sick—her face contorted, pale and sweaty like a wax candle—but not wounded. She didn’t take his hand when he offered it.
    “Hello, I… I was only taking a walk,” she said, voice shaky as though nauseous.
    “In the sewers? Hachisu-no-Hana-san, not even we go for walks around here,” Mikey said while Donnie gauged the woman closely. Looking for more symptoms, he noticed her hand cupping her sash on her right side, as though it hurt, but also like she was... trying to hide something?
    So he didn’t ask, and instead filed the bit of information in his memory for later.
    “I didn’t feel well. I think it’s… what is the name? Jet-lag,” she said.
    “Well… Let us help you get back,” Donnie insisted, finding her story a little hard to believe.
    “That’s alright, I can walk. I feel better now,” she said, once again rejecting Donnie’s hand. What she said seemed true, though, as she was actually starting to look a little better now, her voice steadier. Her hand finally left the brick wall and she stood straight and proud once again.
    “You sure?” Mikey asked, looking her up and down with concerned eyes.
    “Yes, thank you,” she repeated kindly. “But if you have some lemon balm, I will make some tea.”
    “I’m sure Leo has lemon balm in his arsenal,” Donnie said, and offered an obliging smile.
    “Thank you very much,” Hachisu said, timid eyes apparently grateful. She was still shaken, but the color had returned to her cheeks. Donnie couldn’t help but lift an eyebrow at her fast recovery. Her hand left her sash and he risked a quick glance, but noticed nothing unusual. There might have been a slight bulge, but so discreet that it could be anything.
    “I am sorry about the trouble. I did not mean to worry you,” she said on their way back through the tunnels.
    “No biggie, Hachisu-no-Hana-san,” Mikey said, back to his usual cheerful self as he gave the Lotus leader his freckled smile, whose warmth could melt an iceberg.
    Donnie took one last peek at his tracker, switching it on and pointing it around Hachisu-no-Hana when she wasn’t looking, and only found the usual static of a myriad of small interferences. Nothing like the vibrant blue pulse of the ghost. The entity was certainly gone, at least for now. And Mikey was sometimes as good a strange-o-meter as his tracker, he thought with an inward smirk as he watched his brother happily lead Hachisu through the tunnels back to the lair like nothing had happened. He even managed to make Hachisu smile with his silly jokes.
    With Hachisu back in her sleeping bag, after many bows and apologies, Mikey then followed Donnie back to bed, bringing Beatrice with him—because no way was he going to sleep alone in his room after that, no frikkin’ way, bro. And when Mikey was already snoring in Donnie’s ear, Donnie was still thinking about what had just happened.
    None of them was a stranger to the supernatural—their encounter with Ho Chan one of the most recent proofs for it. Aliens and ghosts and werewolves? Sure, why not. Ironically he’d been more skeptical as a child than he was now. Over the years and with everything that his strange family was subjected to almost on a daily basis, he had inevitably learned not to take anything at face value. He’d come to the conclusion, long ago, that ultimately magic was science unexplained. And he was determined to find and explain the science in any kind of magic that dared present itself as such. This ghost business definitely called for a more thorough investigation.
    This isn’t over, he promised himself.
While Mikey mumbled and kicked in his sleep, Donnie thought about the spirit, and how it happened to have lead them straight to Hachisu-no-Hana before vanishing. There was no way the two were not connected.