undergrounds | The Case of Blackthorn Mansion [closed to Apollo, Stiles, and Heiji]

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The Case of Blackthorn Mansion [closed to Apollo, Stiles, and Heiji]

"Dear Mr. Justice,

My family has recently suffered a great misfortune, of whose exact manner I am loathe to discuss by letter. An acquaintance of mine suggested that your law offices may be able to provide some remedy. I pray that this is the case.

Enclosed are instructions to the family estate. I hope you will forgive me for this impersonal manner of address, but if you can at all find it within your heart to lend an ear to my troubles, you would have my eternal gratitude. I shall be waiting for your visit on the date provided.

Best Regards,
Violet Blackthorn."

Heiji looked up from the letter and the swirl of the writer's signature. After a moment, he folded it up, and handed it back to Apollo. "Hey, I've actually heard of these guys. Real old family, used to make a lotta donations. High-society, but now it's down to two or three people."

The neighborhood of Viola Blackthorn's house certainly seemed to be a storied one. One particular house, grey, stately, and slightly dilapidated, rose at the end of the street. It was to this house that they'd been summoned, and it was indeed quite large -- practically a mansion. A heavy oak door served as its entrance, with a lion's head door knocker mounted on its face. The lawn was immaculately kept.

Oddly, they'd been directed to the service entrance, not the main one. Or maybe this was by design and Miss Violet Blackthorn simply didn't want Mr. Apollo Justice and co. using the door meant for high society. In any case, they'd arrived just in time; the sky was darkening with the rain clouds that promised quite a drenching...

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Heiji plucked the portrait of Grey off the wall and turned it around. "November 14, 2015. What the --"

He did a bit of a double-take as he saw the trail of books. "Remind me never to lend any books to you. Whatcha got there?"

Interestingly, Stiles would find that a ways into the journal, the pages ceased. Or rather, that someone had cut a hole straight through the rest of the pages, forming a sort of compartment. Inside that compartment was... a small metal photo frame?

Apollo stumbles when Stiles runs into him, though he doesn't so much as even glare at Stiles, way too focused on the book he just opened. And, evidently, invites himself to pull that photo frame right out.

... More clues, it seemed like. This was going to be more complicated than finding some dumb bottle.

"Okay. I wonder if this frame was covering that spot?" Only a guess, put Apollo holds it in place, over the spot, checking if it would fit.

He then spots the date Heiji just found (dated in the future? what?), so he turns around the frame to check his.

"I gotta give it to Stiles, he's finding some pretty good stuff."

Grasping the book by either cover end, he shakes it vigorously over the ground to ascertain there’s nothing else hidden in it. Then it gets chucked over the shoulder as well to join its abandoned brethren. Apollo is quickly rising in the ranks of People Stiles Likes, and he cheerily grins at the lawyer in response to the praise—as if they hadn’t all nearly been murdered twenty minutes ago.

“So, uh, did we travel into the future when we fell into the basement?” Peering at Grey’s portrait, he frowns at the wall. “Why would it be dated months ahead of time? I don’t get it.”

"... Maybe something is due by this date?"

Most likely, anyway.

When Apollo tried placing the picture in the empty spot, nothing happened. On the other hand, when he flipped the picture around, there was another date: July 8, 1944.

Hmmmmm.

"How much you wanna bet this frame should have ghosty's picture in it?"

Sliding past Apollo to examine the wall, he glances at the row of portraits before digging his fingernails under the peeling edge of the wallpaper. Then he starts to tear it off, wondering if the darkened splotch has a clue on the actual plaster.

"Is there a missing frame on the wall over there? It seems like they've been hung up in chronological order or something."

The wallpaper peeled off. On the other side of the wallpaper was... wallpaper backing. No help there.

"Hold on, let's think about this," said Heiji. "If the ghost's picture goes on this wall, then they were probably a member of the family. And if they're in chronological order, then they must belong somewhere in the middle of these pictures, not at the end. Someone must've removed their photo and shifted the other ones over to 'erase' them from the family tree. That's why there's an empty spot after Grey."

"But why would they erase themselves from the wall? I mean, did they expect to throw us to the bottom of the house?"

Apollo looks at the dates again, a frown on his face. "I guess we have to know exactly what we're dealing with before we go and seal it. The family didn't like her at all, we know that much."

Heiji started moving Violet and Grey's pictures to the end just as the lights flickered. There was a brief crackling noise from what sounded like a speaker somewhere in the library.

"Yes, why would anyone waste their time doing something like that? Now get away from that wall, you little vermin, or I'll remove you myself!"

There was a slight pause.

"I can't sand nosy houseguests!"

"I SWEAR TO GOD, LADY, IF I HEAR ONE MORE PUN I AM TORCHING THIS HOUSE TO THE GROUND!" Apollo screams at the ceiling, finally losing it, before he literally punches the wall.

... Okay. Calm down. Inhale, exhale—

"We gotta search this wall," Apollo answers, completely doing the opposite thing, "I'll go back and check the library since that's where the noise came from. Maybe we missed something."

Wow, Apollo. Under that dorky vest beats a heart raging red. As he turned to watch where Apollo was headed, however, Heiji's eyes widened and he gave Apollo shoulder a little shove out of the way. "Watch out!"

Books were beginning to fly off the shelves, whizzing through the air at the three nosy houseguests.

"You know, if the ghost thing doesn't work out for her, she could always get a gig in show business," Stiles remarks, as if one of his companions hadn't just had a near meltdown at the utterance of yet another god-awful pun. When Heiji shouts his warning, Stiles turns to face the hall in confusion—and is smacked right in the face with a book. Fortunately, it was a fairly light one, but his nose bleeds regardless. "Oh my god, I officially hate this place!"

Where's his lacrosse stick when he needed it!?

Heiji started pulling portraits and moving them over, ducking as another book flew through the air at him. An old jukebox in the corner blinked to sudden life, whirring as it queued up a new song for the first time in what must have been years.

"If they're here bein' a pain in our necks, then they ain't possessing Violet!" Heiji shouted, raising his voice over the din. Those were the ghost rules, after all.

"Oh, right. Can only be one place at a time, right? And turn that DUMB MUSIC OFF!" Apollo was losing it. He was seriously losing it. He can only deal with ghost bullshit for so long.

He grabs one of the books from the air, instead throwing it at the jukebox with surprisingly accurate aim.

Fine, he'll distract this thing until Heiji was done fixing up the photos. "Why'd they have to pick Queen's worst song!?"

Joining in Heiji's efforts to rearrange the portraits (and leaving bloody fingerprints on the frames), he works through this new information. As he mentioned, he really doesn't have much experience with ghosts. It makes sense that the spirit can't possess multiple things at once, though he's confused as to where this leaves Violet.

"So, like, is she dead!?" he calls out, maybe with less sensitivity than proper. "Or is she up there wondering why the hell she's holding a gun?"

"I don't know," Heiji said as the jukebox squawked indignantly and instead of shutting off switched to the next song. "I don't think that ghost woulda killed her, or else how would they collect the money? But we should get up there fast and make sure -- "

Aha! As the last portrait fell into place, there was a click. The frame that Stiles had found lit up with the image of a woman dressed all in black. She looked a little like Violet, but her face was frozen in a sarcastic little curl of the lips.

With the whirr of hidden machinery, the wall pulled in and moved aside, revealing another room beyond. In this new room were more books, but also something lying on the floor -- a nondescript-looking bottle with a cork nearby. There was a label on the bottle, but far too faded to really make out.

Best of all, there were stairs leading up from the room, leading up to... somewhere?

Edited 2015-06-07 20:13 (UTC)

Stiles dodges one book only to be nailed by a second, but manages to drag himself into the newly revealed room without further injury. The nosebleed has subsided for the time being, fortunately, though his t-shirt is totally ruined. He’ll need a change of clothes before returning to his grandparents’ place, or they’ll freak out for sure. These thoughts, however, are on subconscious auto-drive; as soon as he enters the room, the majority of his attention hones in on the bottle.

With a triumphant noise, he moves to snatch the object up with every intention of going full throttle ghost buster on the poltergeist. Except just before he can touch it, his whole body stiffens visibly like a car running empty on fuel. He makes another noise, this one small and strangled, and then straightens.

“It’s no good,” he tells his companions calmly, turning to face them. Now, he stands between them and the bottle. “It’s a fake. She’s trying to trick us. Don’t try to pick it up.”

Oh. Oh, dear. Heiji cut a quick glance at Apollo. He wasn't actually sure how to get ghosts out of people under normal circumstances -- usually he was the victim of would-be exorcists, not the other way around. But the good news was that if Stiles was acting super creepy and telling them not to touch the bottle, the bottle was probably what they wanted?

"Y-you think it's booby-trapped or somethin'?" he asked, trying desperately with his eyes to convey the suggestion that Apollo grab the bottle or something while he got Stiles to focus on him. AND DEFINITELY NOT PUNCH STILES.

I CAME ALL THIS WAY TO PUNCH STILES AND NOW—

Apollo is confused at first, watching Heiji successfully solve a puzzle while he steps in to look at the strange room. This seemed to be the end of the mess before Stiles went and... get possessed... by this idiot ghost. Good job, Stiles.

Apollo meets Heiji's eyes and gets the hint, so Apollo instead walks towards the books to fake that he was looking for clues inside of them instead.

Just buy Apollo some time before he's close enough to the bottle, dude.

A ripple of irritation creases an otherwise placid countenance. Zeroing in on the one drawing too close for comfort, Stiles holds up his hands and tries to usher Apollo out of the room and back into the hallway. As he approaches, he leans down and picks up a book from earlier; Stiles glances over his shoulder, the look anything but subtle, and prepares to hurl the title at the bottle.

Oh, shit.

"Apollo, stop him!" Heiji dashed for the bottle, body poised to curl protectively over it like a runningback expecting a sack. I watched Eyeshield21.

Plan A definitely didn't work, and by the looks of it, the complete opposite of what they wanted was definitely gonna happen.

Well, I didn't watch Eyeshield 21, but Apollo dives just enough to grab Stiles by the wrist and sock him across the face with his free hand.

THIS IS IT, THIS IS WHAT I'M IN THE THREAD FOR, WE'VE SUCCEEDED EVERYBODY.

Heiji scrabbled at the bottle and just barely managed to make sure it didn't simply rocket away from him and across the room. There was no time to criticize Apollo's impromptu exorcism skills -- though come to think of it, he wasn't really sure how to use the ghost jar either.

Like did the ghost have to be free-floating? He didn't think so. In fact, he was fairly sure that as long as it touched the possessed, it'd... work out, somehow? Usually he checked out pretty hard when people tried to exorcise him.

So instead Heiji got to his feet and shoved the bottle at Stiles's face, aiming the mouth of the bottle so it would sucker onto Stiles's forehead. And... hopefully get the ghost out? Magic?

Alas, this ghost is a tricksy one; the moment Apollo’s hand closes over Stiles’ wrist, it releases him from possession. So as a fist comes flying toward his face, the teenager only has a single moment to croak out “oh fu—” before he’s on his ass groaning miserably. Life is so cruel and unusual. Now not only do his insides feel sucked dry, but also his face is throbbing. Apollo packs a wallop. Then something cold is pressing against his forehead and he’s going cross-eyed from staring at the bottle.

“Um.”

There’s an ungodly shriek of rage from upstairs, in Violet’s voice.

“As the unofficial intern for Apollo, do I get compensation for this?”

O-oops. Heiji shoved the bottle into his jacket pocket and offered a hand to Stiles.

"You okay? You get any, uh... intel on the ghost?" Hey, that was how it worked in the movies, right?

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