Audience - Dan

[holyspirits]

Comments

[holyspirits]

[ they reach into what looks like a homemade tote bag and pull out a new phone for him. take. ]

Uh huh. It's not my judgment you're under, I'm just giving that out for free. [ at least they are honest. but after a moment... ]

Wanna sit down, or are you walking?

[foreverphantom]

[ me abusing affection week to make him tolerable. his way of showing affection is talking instead of violence. so he sits. ]

What are you even doing down here anyway?

[holyspirits]

[ this is so valid of you. ]

I like being outside. [ simple answer. ] The beach is nice, but there's something more peaceful about this for me. I come out here a lot. Besides, dirt doesn't hurt anything, and enough of you have found your way here anyway.

[foreverphantom]

Found our way where, to this stupid church?

It's just a patch of dirt.

[holyspirits]

I am ignoring the church. [ for being an angel, they don't seem to have many thoughts on religion. ] And it's not just dirt.

[ a gesture around them. there are plants and flowers along the path. granted they would also just sit in the dirt but whatever. ]

Some people are fussy about that kind of thing.

[foreverphantom]

[ grabs the nearest flower by the stem and rips it out before letting it fall back down to the ground ]

[holyspirits]

[ he will get the sense they are not remotely fazed by this. ]

Does it actually make you feel better to destroy things that can't fight back, or is it overcompensation?

[foreverphantom]

[ looking away: ]

...it's all I can do. It's all I have left.

[holyspirits]

[ hm... ]

What were you, before? Just a ghost? [ that doesn't entirely sound right to them, but they are giving this some thought. ]

[foreverphantom]

"Just." [ scoffs at the idea of a ghost being "just" anything, compared to a human. ]

But yes. I was.

[holyspirits]

Don't scoff. I wanted to be sure you weren't a demon or something else and I classified you incorrectly. [ damn, excuse them. ] Were your powers from before you were a ghost? Or was that a side-effect?

[foreverphantom]

No. All my powers came from the fact that I was a ghost. But I might as well have been a demon, with how much power I had and how I wielded it.

[ okay edgelord. ]

[holyspirits]

Uh huh. [ yeah, this is really in the tone of "okay edgelord." ] So what kind of powers did the demon-in-a-ghost-suit have before? What were you doing before?

[foreverphantom]

Do you really want the whole laundry list?

[holyspirits]

Yup. Go ahead and impress me.

[foreverphantom]

[ you're doing this just to make me, lisa, wither into dust while i look up every goddamn ghost power ]

Flight, intangibility, invisibility, strength, nigh-invulnerability, manipulation of the body and shapeshifting, ectoplasmic blasts and constructs, possession, ability to sense other ghosts, telekinesis, duplication, and my personal favorite: something I like to call my Ghostly Wail.

[holyspirits]

[ you did choose this...

zuriel listens to this, and they consider it for a moment before there's a little huff. ]

So the minimum for ghosts. I see. I suppose it would feel jarring to suddenly be reduced to the status of mere mortals. [ this is giving such "teenage boy trying to flex" energy and they are so used to that (unfortunately) that this is how they're choosing to have this conversation. ]

But you weren't always a ghost. Do you remember the before?

[foreverphantom]

No, not the minimum. Half of those are unusual--and in combination, only I could do all of it. [ because of course this loser has to correct ppl about his power levels ]

...but yes, I do remember being human before that.

[holyspirits]

For your ghosts, where you're from. You have to remember that people are from other places.

[ but he can correct them, and they move on from there. ]

How different were you then?

[foreverphantom]

Well, I was two entirely different people, one an oblivious teenager and the other an obsessed middle aged man.

So, pretty different.

[holyspirits]

[ what. ]

Like a hybrid? How did that happen...? [ that is such an identity crisis. ]

[foreverphantom]

Funny you should use that word; they were both half-ghost hybrids themselves. The ghost got ripped out of one, which then ripped the ghost out of the other one, they combined into one, and I was the result.

[holyspirits]

And here you are. [ they are both a little confused and lowkey fascinated by this, sorry. ]

I'm going to guess it's not entirely common for half-ghosts to exist where you're from either, so creating a superghost was unheard of. But if you're both of them and neither of them at the same time, what happens for you next? You were brought into this body so you wouldn't be eliminated, but are you living among other people? Or other ghosts?

[foreverphantom]

Right now, I'm living amongst other dead people in fake Heaven.

...but before that, I was living with one of the people I used to be, one of the half-ghosts. It's a different timeline, one where they stayed separate. So I was living with him, pretending to be "his son."

We were still working out all the logistics before I bit it.

[holyspirits]

[ they wave a hand as if to say "details." ]

That sounds... [ very weird, actually, but they are thinking this over. ] It's still a better alternative from your other option, it seems. If it's a different timeline does he know who you are and where you came from? Or is "working out logistics" code for "there's a different story here"?