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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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?

"Yeah and no." Accepting the hand, Stiles hauls himself up and winces, eyes rolling a bit as a wave of vertigo hit him. Though the possession had been brief, he really does feel wrung out. "I just got weird impressions of what she was feeling. She's uh...not really a nice lady."

"... I think my punch worked," Apollo declares, purely and honesty, before he pats Stiles on the shoulder with a firm face of dedication.

"I'm sorry for punching you. Thanks for taking one for the team." Is this supposed to be reassuring or something?

And let's be real, anyone could tell that the ghost wasn't a nice lady. "Well, she's gone now, so we should take the time to actually look at this room, right?"

Since the bottle was in their possession and still intact, they could probably gather more evidence around here.

Heiji just kind of. Gave Apollo a look. And people said he was impulsive...

The room was old and rather disused, with papers strewn about everywhere, due in part to their brief struggle with Stiles as Angry Ghost. They might be able to find something of use among the odd collection of knickknacks.

Heiji poked around a bit, then peered up the stairs at the very end of the room. They smelled a bit musty. "Well... she knows we're here. We could go up, or wait for her to come down..."

Stiles also gives Apollo a look, though he doesn't actually offer any form of rebuke. Privately, he's just relieved the ghost released him so soon. It could have gone a lot worse for him.

"If she has the gun, it might be better to try and set up an ambush. Or...I don't know, can you do some kind of fox magic on her?"

Heiji made a bit of a face. "I could, I guess... but I don't wanna hurt Violet, and I ain't too sure how the ghost is gonna act. Never really tried it on a ghost before, either, but... I might be able to get her to zone out for a little while. That'd give us a chance to grab the gun."

Because he really didn't want to get shot, yo. Been there, done that.

And Stiles, of course, could care less about hurting Violet at this point. With a vague, dismissive hand gesture as if to say it'll be fine, he gives Heiji a solid pat on the shoulder.

"Good plan, dude. You do your hoodoo, me and anger management problems over here will get the gun away from her. But...how do we make sure she doesn't, y'know, possess one of us again?"

Heiji looked over at Apollo and held out the bottle, congratulations Mr. Anger Management. "I think it'll be okay. As long as you don't jar her out of it. Just kinda... touch her with that and it should take care of the ghost. I think we're just gonna have to take on a little risk here."

Upstairs, 'Violet' was stalking angrily through the house. When she'd vacated her current body, the old woman had fallen to the floor and gotten a knock on the head. Stupid, stupid! She shouldn't have underestimated the three stooges.

As she arrived at the top of the stairs, however, her eyes were drawn to the chandelier, which had somehow lit itself while she was gone. But she hadn't lit it... She stared at the small blue flames, her gun slowly flagging until the barrel touched the floor.

Mr. Anger Management takes the bottle and looks down at it, holding it up to the light to check out the colors of the glass and gives up when he realizes it's pointless.

"Then we don't have a lot of time either way," Apollo decides, bottle gripped firmly in one hand and a book in another. This was his only weapon.

"Alright. Grab the gun, get the ghost. Everybody good?" Apollo waits politely one second before he turns on his heel and peers out the door. Now to only get upstairs without any obstacles again.

"I'm really not in the mood for any zombies and I have a feeling it's possible," he comments flatly. Just saying.

Heiji followed Apollo and made his way up the steps, peeking up to see Violet just sort of zoning out, staring at the lit chandelier. She made no motion to turn.

So far, so good...

Squeezing past both men (wow these stairs were cramped sorry if he accidentally elbows one of you), Stiles cautiously creeps toward Violet...AND THEN LAUNCHES HIMSELF AT THE POOR LITTLE OLD LADY WITH A WAR CRY.

"Argh!"

The gun goes clattering down the steps.

"— STILES!" Never in Apollo's entire career did anyone dare tackle a little old lady, but his eyes are trained on the gun before he makes a dive for it.

And hits the stairs hard.

This could've gone way better.

The gun went off, pelting the wall and sending little pellets of stone into the air as little bits of the stairwell were blown off. JESUS, STILES.

The spell broken, Violet turned toward Stiles with a sneer, only to be tackled to the ground. "Why, you ---!"

Hope you were fast with that ghost jar, Apollo.

Okay, the gun was now officially away from the cute little lady. With no spell, he just relies on Stiles's stupid anger management problems (I'm not the only one apparently), before APOLLO JUST—

gently

bonks the bottle's opening on Violet's forehead.

Violet pinwheeled her arms, flailing them around angrily and only partially at Stiles. There was a brief pop, and then... she went slack. Heiji ran up and stoppered the bottle, which now contained a pale green light.

Silence for a moment.

"You... YOU...!"

It was awfully loud for a jar.

"Worm! Vermin! I should have ended you before you ever set foot in this house! You think you've solved anything? The Blackthorn family is done for, and that boy is going down for attempted murder! We'll see who has the last laugh, you Apoll-ing miscarriage of justice!"

"Can we drop this jar in the ocean."

Success. Sweet, beautiful success. Slumping, Stiles removed himself from the real Violet, then apologetically helped to prop her up. The old woman appears to be in a faint, passed out cold. Thankfully... Maybe she won't remember Stiles launching himself at her like a rocket.

"Yeah, are we gonna Jumanji that thing?" he agrees, eyes narrowed purposefully at the bottle. "Let's find a place where no one will hear her puns ever again."

Sloooowly, Heiji grabbed a tablecloth off a nearby end table and put it over the jar. After a few more ranting protests, it fell quiet.

Ghosts. Kind of like pet canaries.

"Well," said Heiji. "None of us knows how to exorcise it, right? So I guess storin' it somewhere is the best we can do for now. Probably not in this house, 'cause look how that turned out."

He looked up at Stiles. ".....one in the jar, ready to go!"

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