Chapter Three: The Traveler

Chapter Three: The Traveler

            “THE STAY-PUFT MARSHMALLOW MAN!”

            Cody and the rest of the crowd looked up in shock at the gigantic white figure looming over them. It was dressed in a tiny sailor’s hat and a blue vest with a button undone in the middle, revealing a white belly.

            People in the street fled in panic as the marshmallow feet padded along, kicking over lampposts and mailboxes. The driver of a Volkswagen jumped out from his car just before an enormous white marshmallow foot came down and flattened the automobile.

            While everyone else ran in panic, London Tipton remained where she was, gawking up at the marshmallow man in utter disbelief.

            Her cell phone still in hand and placed next to her ear, she muttered into the receiver, “Uh, Daddy? Remember that cute little mascot I loved so much on those marshmallows you always bought for me to make s’mores?”

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            “I don’t know if it might be the economy or George W. Bush,” Natalie said, “but this city has lost its mind.”

            The Ghostbusters watched as the Stay-Puft Man plodded relentlessly uptown, coming directly towards them. The ground rumbled as his big, soft feet came down on the pavement.

            “What do we do now?” Jacqueline asked, hoping someone would have a reasonable plan in less than a second.

            Spengler adjusted his Proton Gun as he said, “Full-stream with strogon pulse!”

            “Dude, I don’t know what you just said,” Natalie remarked, “but I’m all for it!”

            They stepped to the edge of the roof, moving like warriors ready to face the consequences. Looking down, they saw the Stay-Puft Man reach the building and then, using the church next door as a stepping stone, begin climbing the wall.

            “Oh, no that big, cute glob of marshmallow goodness did not just step on a church in my town,” Natalie snapped. “Roast his big fat fluffy butt!”

            They each fired point-blank at the Stay-Puft Man.

            He bellowed with pain and rage, as the beams struck him right in the chest and set his skin on fire. He began to burn with a blue flame that spread quickly across his torso and down his arms. He swatted one of those flaming arms at the Ghostbusters, forcing them to back away from the edge of the rooftop before he caught them.

            Jacqueline shook her head. “This is unbelievable! We’re gonna be killed by a hundred-foot marshmallow!”

            “Ironic, isn’t it?” said Hades, still standing in front of the temple. “A bunch of marshmallows killed by a marshmallow. That’s gotta be the most brilliant death there is. I mean, ya can’t write this stuff!”

            The Ghostbusters glared at Hades, growing extremely agitated over his obscene commentary. Gazing towards his vicinity, however, Sean recognized the suspended pyramid past the two Terror Dogs. He then looked to his Proton Gun, a plan quickly popping into his thoughts.

            “I have a radical idea,” he exclaimed, his teammates centering on him with hopeful expressions. “The temple door swings both ways. We could reverse the particle flow through the gate by…” He paused for a brief moment, hesitating to utter the last part of his plan, “…crossing the streams.”

            Those hopeful expressions from his teammates melted into doubtful ones.

            “Whoa, excuse me, Sean,” Natalie told him. “But as I remember from the last time our butts were on the line in this stupid hotel, you told me that crossing the streams was bad! And now you’re willing to risk everything, including our lives and the hefty payment we’re getting from the crazy black dude with the stick up his behind!”

            “Not necessarily,” Spengler contradicted. “There’s definitely a very slim chance we’ll survive.”

            The others hesitated for a long moment, completely uncertain of whether to go through with this; but then, as the flaming head of the Stay-Puft Man suddenly popped up and roared behind them, Natalie immediately charged up her Proton Gun and said, “I love this plan! I’m excited to be a part of it! LET’S DO IT!”

            The rest of them charged up their wands as well, and they fired directly into the temple straight ahead.

            Combining their particle beams into one large stream, Hades started to realize the danger and exploded in intense rage, orange flames surrounding his body. “I don’t believe this! I am not gonna be beaten by a bunch of mort—!”

            And before he could even finish his rant, the entire front of the temple was obliterated along with the door, taking Hades and his minions with it.

            With the destruction of the earthly portal, the Stay-Puft Man was engulfed in a cyclonic wind that began to swirl around him like a firestorm. The flames were whipped higher and higher as the tornado picked up rotational speed. The Marshmallow Man then seemed to have exploded from deep inside, creating a flaming air burst high above the rooftops.

            All this had occurred while the Ghostbusters were blasted off their feet.

            The fireball reached its maximum explosive force and a sudden jet of air pressure occurred like a titanium vacuum cleaner in the sky, sucking the flaming mass of gases and ash up through the atmosphere and right out of the dimension. The dark clouds disappeared with it, leaving a beautiful clear blue sky over the whole area.

            Down below, Genevieve was amazed beyond belief.

            Globs of marshmallow goo were all over the street corner, and even London Tipton was showered by some, covering her from head to toe.

            Zack and Cody were safe, as were Maddie and Mr. Moseby (despite the fact that he had thrown out his back).

            Everyone seemed to have been alright down there.

            But what about the people up there?

            What about the Ghostbusters?

            The explosion was quite intense.

No way could anyone have survived it.

            For a while, Genevieve believed that her favorite heroes, the Ghostbusters, had reached the end of their run.

            And then she heard Zack and Cody say in unison, “Here they come!”

            She looked up towards the entrance to the Tipton Hotel and saw the Ghostbusters emerge, all covered in marshmallow goo, with Carey and Arwin—safe, unharmed, and (most of all) normal—by their side.

            They were met with roaring applause from the crowd of New Yorkers.

            Once again, they had saved the day…and the world.

            And Genevieve Marie was there to witness it all.

Chapter Two: Gods and Busters

Chapter Two: Gods and Busters

            “What the…?!” Jacqueline began, until the creep with the blue fire for hair interrupted her.

            “Now, now, before you finish that wonderful phrase,” Hades said, “Allow me to introduce myself…”

            “Don’t bother, dude,” Natalie interjected. “We’ve all seen Hercules and played Kingdom Hearts about a billion times already.”

            J.G. cleared his throat and sheepishly uttered, “A billion and two.”

            Natalie snickered, while Hades was a bit frustrated over the interruption. “Anyways! I should warn you measly mortals that you are way in over your heads with this Gozer guy. I mean, he’s like bad news, man!”

            “Let us be the judge of that,” J.G. challenged. “What connections do you even have with Gozer?”

            Hades let out an amused chuckle. “Hello? I’m a god! He’s a god!”

            “Yeah,” Natalie said, “A little candlelight dinner, and you two crazy fruitcakes can really set it off.”

            Hades verged on a comeback to her witty comment, but then stopped when he realized that he didn’t have one. “Oy! And I thought I had all the good one-liners.” Shaking off the embarrassment, he refocused his attention on the moment at hand: “Alright! Have it your way, mortals! It’s your funeral…literally. I’ll be waiting here to collect the bodies.” He then turned his attention to an unseen party and yelled, “Pain! Panic! Introduction, please!”

            Out of nowhere, two small, strange-looking demons—one pink and one turquoise—magically appeared at the feet of Hades. The pink demon (Panic) said, “Presenting the Sumerian God you all know and fear…”

            “…Gozer the Gozerian!” The turquoise demon (Pain) finished.

            Hades, Pain, and Panic then moved to the side, as a bright white light emerged and descended the stairs, slowly materializing into a human form. That form was a thin, hollow-cheeked woman in her mid-twenties, her eyes burning red pinholes, looking around at the spectacular rooftop view. She acknowledged the two Terror Dogs, stroking them like house pets.

            The Ghostbusters stared at the apparition with wide-eyed bewilderment.

            “Hold up!” Natalie objected. “Gozer’s a chick?!”

            “Yeah, I thought he was a man,” Jacqueline added to the confusion.

            “He becomes whatever he wants to be,” Spengler clarified.

            Hades guffawed over the bewildered mortals. “Suddenly that ‘candlelight dinner’ crack isn’t soundin’ all that smart anymore, is it?”

            Natalie shot him a smug look.

            “I don’t care what she, he, or it is,” she declared. “She’s not gonna get past us!”

            “That’s right,” J.G. agreed. “Because we’re a team!”

            “Absolutely,” Natalie said before she gave Stantz a pat on the shoulder. “Now go get her!”

            Stantz slowly turned in her direction and almost glared.

            She winked at him in a way that was hard to determine as being genuine or mocked. Whatever it might’ve been, he was put into position at that point in time to deal with the massive threat they currently faced.

            Cautiously, he took a few steps up the staircase.

            “Gozer the Gozerian,” he boldly addressed, stricken thereafter when the demigod’s gaze centered on him.

            J.G. took a deep breath, swallowed hard, and rapidly uttered, “As a duly-constituted representative of the city of New York, and on behalf of the county and state of New York, the United States of America, the planet Earth and all its inhabitants, I hereby order you to cease and desist any and all supernatural activity and return at once to your place of origin or next parallel dimension.” He then took another deep breath and sighed, feeling somewhat relieved.

            “Well, that ought to do it,” Natalie surveyed. “Thanks very much, Jay.”

            Hades rolled his eyes, annoyed. “Idiots,” he muttered.

            Gozer stood up to her full height and regarded Stantz curiously. “Are you a god?”

            “Oh, this should be good,” murmured Hades, looking on with a hint of interest.

            J.G. turned to Natalie, as if summoning her for some sort of advice. She simply shrugged her shoulders and motioned for him to do whatever was best. So, Stantz returned his glance on Gozer and, being compulsively honest, gave a simple answer: “No.”

            “Then…DIE!!!”

            The deity blew away the Ghostbusters with searing bolts of energy.

            Hades watched this with intense excitement, flames shooting out from his body as he screamed, “Yes, baby! Yes! That is what I’m talkin’ about! YES!”

            Momentarily stunned, the Ghostbusters tumbled all the way down the stairs and nearly fell over the edge of the rooftop. Down below, Genevieve and the large crowd of New Yorkers saw the searing bolts of energy sparkle in all directions. They knew whatever was going on up there couldn’t be going well.

            The Ghostbusters quickly recovered, picking themselves up, moving as far away from the edge as possible.

            Jacqueline grabbed J.G. by the collar of his jumpsuit and shouted directly to his face, “The next time when someone asks you if you’re a god…YOU SAY ‘YES’ LIKE YOUR LIFE DEPENDS ON IT!!!”

            J.G. gingerly nodded in agreement.

            Natalie stepped forward, glaring down the two supernatural figures ahead of them.

            “Are you twerps ready to give up?” Hades affronted.

            “The only thing we’re ready to do is kick the living crud outta you jerks,” Natalie raged, as she and her teammates leaped into action, one-by-one activating their Proton Guns and taking up positions for an entrapment.

            Gozer braced for the onslaught, crouching down low.

            “Let’s toast this chick,” Natalie ordered her team.

            Together, they fired the particle streams.

            However, their mark was missed when Gozer soared out of the way with superhuman agility, executing a perfect double-flip with a half-twisting round-off at the end. She landed flawlessly on the altar right behind the team.

            “Please! I made better moves than that while on the cheerleading squad!”

            Even though she pretended not to be all that impressed, Natalie was stoked out of her mind from the demigod’s moves.

            “Forget the trapping! Just blast her!” J.G. yelled.

            Gozer stood calmly, absorbing the force of their streams.

            And then, in a brilliant pink flash, she disappeared.

            Hades and his two minions blinked rapidly in mystification. “Wait! Wh-What just happened here?”

            “Maybe she just, like, spontaneously combusted or something?” Panic assumed.

            “Can ghosts even do that?” Pain inquiringly asked.

            The Ghostbusters stared for a long moment, finding it hard to believe themselves that they won so easily.

            “Yeah!” Jacqueline triumphantly whooped. “That’s what I’m talkin’ about! Nobody can mess with us! We are the best!”

            Sean scanned the area with his Psycho-Kinetic Energy meter (or “P.K.E. Meter” for short), a handheld device used to locate and measure that kind of energy emitted by ghosts; he wasn’t at all convinced that the danger had passed.

            “I don’t believe it! We neutronized it!” J.G. happily exclaimed. “She’s a molecular non-entity now!”

            “Not only do we have the tools, but we’ve got the talent to back it up,” Jacqueline jubilantly cheered.

            “We bad tonight, ya’ll,” Natalie exchanged high-fives with Stantz and Zeddemore.

            Spengler’s face suddenly registered extreme shock as he addressed his teammates: “I hate to break up the celebration...but this is extraordinarily bad!”

            Suddenly, there was a deep seismic rumble.

            The entire Tipton Hotel itself vibrated and swayed.

            Cement carvings and moldings around the edge of the roof cracked and broke off, falling toward the crowd below.

            Noting the oncoming danger, Genevieve rushed to Zack and Cody and shielded them the best way she could while the rest of the crowd screamed and ran to avoid the cement debris.

            Mr. Moseby tried to calm down the hotel residents:

            “People, please! Stay in an orderly fashion as you flee for your lives here! We don’t want anybody getting hurt!”

            Maddie, who stood by in disbelief over Moseby’s assertive attitude in the midst of all the chaos, realized her boss was standing directly in the path of danger – a huge chuck of debris was falling towards him.

            “Mr. Moseby! Look out!” she cried, running and tackling him out of harm’s way. Lying on top of him, Maddie asked, “Are you alright?”

            He had a look on his face that registered great pain. “My…back!”

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            An incredibly loud thunderclap rocked the entire rooftop even further.

            Hades continued to stand by, reveling in the chaos that erupted all around, while Pain and Panic ran like chickens with their heads cut off.          

            The Ghostbusters searched to the swirling dark cloud in the sky, facing their new god like Moses on Mount Sinai as it spoke to them in a voice that could be heard throughout the entire world:

            SUBCREATURES! GOZER THE GOZERIAN, GOZER THE DESTRUCTOR, VOLGUUS ZILDROHAR, THE TRAVELLER HAS COME! CHOOSE AND PERISH!

            “Didn’t I warn ya not to miss with the gods?” Hades wickedly cackled.

            “What’s he talking about? Choose what?” Jacqueline questioned.

            CHOOSE! CHOOSE THE FORM OF THE DESTRUCTOR!

            “I believe what he’s saying is that since we’re going to be sacrificed anyway, we get to choose the form we want him to take,” Sean assessed.

            “You mean the form of a Yugoslavian model wasn’t enough for him?” Jacqueline belittled. “I don’t know whether to find that sad or appalling.”

            Natalie’s mind was fixed on what Spengler just told them.

            “You mean to tell me if I stand here and think of Hannah Montana, then Hannah Montana’s gonna come and destroy us all?” She scoffed at the idea, but then quickly realized how much sense it made, considering all that was already happening. “Alright! Just everybody clear your heads, okay? Don’t think of anything. We’ve only got one shot at this.”

            THE CHOICE IS MADE!

            “What the…?! Nobody chose anything!” shouted a panic-stricken Natalie.

            THE TRAVELLER HAS COME!

            “But we didn’t choose anything,” Natalie bellowed. She turned to Spengler. “Did you choose anything?”

            “No,” Sean immediately responded.

            Natalie then looked to Jacqueline. “Did you?”

            “My mind’s a total void,” Jacqueline defended.

            Venkman returned towards the sky and innocently proclaimed, “I sure as heck didn’t choose any…” She stopped once she realized there was one person who she hadn’t turned to yet: J.G.

            They all turned and looked towards him, and right away he spoke in his defense, “Why’s everybody looking at me? I didn’t think of anything either!”

            “There’s only four of us here, Jay,” Natalie said. “So that would only leave you.”

            “Unless…” said Spengler, surmising over a possibility while he looked over the edge of the building and down towards the crowd of people. “One of them could be accounted for as well.”

            “Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me,” Natalie griped. “You mean our lives could be destroyed by some fruit loop’s imagination of a—”

            “LOOK!” J.G. screamed, pointing southward.

            They all turned and looked in that direction, past Columbus Circle, where part of something big and white moved between the buildings, accompanied by thunderous footsteps of almost seismic proportions. By the time it reached Broadway and 55th, they caught a glimpse of what appeared to be a fat, white arm. The thundering footsteps continued to plod upon reaching Columbus Circle as the thing started to emerge from behind the buildings.

            From what the Ghostbusters could additionally make out, a blue garment seemed to be covering its enormous chest.

            “What in the name of all that is holy is that thing?!” Jacqueline cried, noticing a large, square, bobbing, and laughing white head atop a massive body of similar puffed white squares.

            J.G. recognized it instantly, a look of shock registering his face.

            “Oh, man! It’s…It’s…”