Chapter Nineteen: Hello and Goodbye

Chapter Nineteen: Hello and Goodbye

            As Genevieve aimed her Proton Gun at the glowing orb of the staff, she suddenly noticed a huge fluff of white hair sticking out from over the edge, signifying Ursula’s return. It’s either now or never, she thought, directing her attention back to the staff. Ursula’s body appeared from the edge of the rooftop, looming right behind the four original Ghostbusters. Her massive shadow engulfed them, and they stopped firing long enough to turn around and see her ominous form.

Ursula glared at the Ghostbusters and shrieked in fury. Then, at the corner of her eye, she spotted Genevieve aiming her weapon at the staff. Panicked, she immediately alerted Maleficent. “WATCH OUT!”

Maleficent turned and her eyes widened, just as Genevieve fired her stream at the glowing orb. As the protonic energy surrounded it, the orb cracked apart. It shattered, emitting a bright flash of white light from the throne and swallowing up everyone on the rooftop, including Ursula. The Sea Witch shielded her eyes, but it was soon to no avail; they instantly burned to ash at the same time her tentacles and other parts of her had as well. She let out a horrid scream before she finally faded away, nothing more than dust scattered in the wind.

The white light soon reached the rest of the thorn-shrouded building, each and every thorn burned away into ash. All of the Tipton Hotel shined like a ten-thousand watt light bulb in the middle of the city, momentarily turning night into day. The demons and monsters in the swirling vortex above growled at the white light, which burned the parts of their bodies every time they tried to reach out for it. It shined immensely into the vortex, slowing down its growing and swirling process while shrinking it down. Within seconds, the vortex vanished, leaving no trace of it behind.

The city of New York suddenly stopped glowing green and returned to its natural, individual colors. The sky above it had been cleared of the black clouds, revealing the dawn approaching at the horizon. It was by this time that the white light surrounding the Tipton Hotel had extinguished. The rooftop was heavily smoking afterwards, and the people on it were not moving. All they were doing was lying across the floor, completely motionless. They remained inert for minutes until Genevieve opened up her bright blue eyes and gasped. After a few coughs, she slowly and carefully got to her feet, feeling extremely dizzy and cold at the same time; but she soon felt relieved once she noticed Maleficent’s staff lying in pieces over the remains of Hades’ throne. She also realized the vortex was missing and all of New York City no longer glowing.

“Ohhhh, man!” She heard J.G.’s voice groaning near her and turned to see him sprawled over the floor and smoking.

Genevieve ran over to him and knelt down beside his body, checking it for any signs of cuts, bruises, or burns. There didn’t appear to be any, yet that didn’t stop her from asking, “Are you O.K.?”

She seemed to have gotten her answer once he started laughing. “I hadn’t had a rush like that since Spengler and I tested out our theory on electromagnetic microwaves!” Although it was an odd response to what had just occurred, Genevieve was just glad to know he was alright. “You saved the world, Genevieve…and you really could’ve gotten yourself killed doing it.”

Genevieve sheepishly smiled and shrugged. “It seemed like the coolest thing to do at the time.”

As she helped Stantz to his feet, they looked to the other Ghostbusters, seeing their smoking forms slowly begin to shift. They soon got up and took a deep breath, recovering from the unnatural occurrence they were involved in. One look around, and they realized how everything was back to normal. The only thing that stood out of place from the previous chaos was Hades, who lied on the ground motionless and non-flammable; his eyes were wide open, as was his mouth, giving off a rather disturbing, hypnotic expression. The bottom of his black toga was no longer shrouded in a dark gray fog. Instead, for the first time ever, pale blue feet stuck out from it, complete with disgusting yellowish brown toenails that stuck out like talons.

“Hey, check out Hades,” Jacqueline indicated as they crouched around him. “What’s up with him?”

Sean pulled out the P.K.E. Meter and scanned across Hades’ body. The bewildered look on his face after checking out the readouts described what kind of information he received. “He’s mortal,” he revealed. “The readings indicate that he no longer has any levels of psycho-kinetic energy surrounding him.”

Natalie shook her head in confusion. “Wait just a minute. How is that possible?”

“That wave of energy the staff had given off after it was destroyed,” Sean remarked, “when it disrupted Maleficent’s psycho-kinetic hold over the city, it must’ve also disrupted the link between her and Hades.”

“So it took her out of him?” Genevieve inquired.

“And all of Hades’ godly powers, too,” J.G. added.

Venkman felt that she didn’t need to worry about the little details. All that really mattered to her was that peace and order had once again been restored, and all was well with the world. She happily clapped her hands and said, “Mission accomplished. New York’s back to normal, Hades has been reduced to a vegetable, and Ursula and Maleficent are dead…again.”

“What if this isn’t totally over?” Jacqueline examined. “I mean, the last time we took advantage of a situation like this, we ended getting marshmallow stuck in our…”

KA-KURRRRRR!

A bolt of green lightning shot out from the clear sky and struck the rooftop, nearly striking the Ghostbusters. They looked up to see where it had come from, and it shocked them to find out how there were no clouds for it to emerge out from. However, there was some kind of a small green light that almost looked like a star, and that was exactly what they believed it to be until it started growing and swirling, much like the vortex from before. Its size increased to the point that it had become some sort of dimensional portal; but, unlike the previous vortex, there was only one monster or demon that appeared: a massive, four-headed, four-winged purple and black dragon.

“Oh, my…!” Genevieve cried as she watched the supernatural creature fly out from the portal and make its way for the Tipton rooftop. “It’s comin’ right toward us!”

“Then let’s not give it the chance,” Natalie suggested before she and the other three original Ghostbusters fired streams at the dragon, hitting areas of its body, from the chest to the wings. Despite the efforts of the team, the deformed dragon continued coming towards the rooftop, green flames seeping from its mouths. It let out a horrid shriek that echoed throughout the sky, blowing out several windows from nearby skyscrapers. The Ghostbusters continued to fire, but they eventually saw the lack of help it had done.

Witnessing their useless attempts at stopping the remarkable creature, Genevieve suddenly had a sense of déjà vu as she thought back to her battle with Cerberus; a multi-headed behemoth like him could only be slowed down through attacks on the heads themselves. Although this would only slow it down, there had to be something more powerful to put an end to it, and the only power she could think of for such a situation was the weapon she held in her hands.

“Aim for its heads!” she told her teammates.

The four original Ghostbusters did as the rookie instructed and fired streams at the dragon’s four heads, one stream for each head. Genevieve’s plan instantly worked. The moment that the streams struck the heads, the dragon stopped and hovered in midair, flailing its arms and wings about in agony. Smoke formed from its heads, but no burns or marks were on them. That was where Genevieve stepped in and aimed the Proton Gun of her highly advanced Proton Pack directly at the dragon’s torso; she fired a long, heavy stream that struck the monster’s body with great force. To the surprise of her teammates, the stream was successfully burning through the dragon’s once-impenetrable skin. The monster howled immensely from the intense pain, feeling itself dying each second the stream burned through it.

Everything seemed to have been going according to plan until Genevieve’s Proton Pack began rapidly beeping. A red light on her Proton Gun flashed repeatedly while parts of the Pack started smoking. Noticing this, Sean quickly went into panic. “Genevieve! Shut off your stream! Your Pack’s overheating!”

“Not until I’ve pushed it back into the portal!” Genevieve responded as more smoke poured out from the Pack, clouding the entire area.

Natalie and the others coughed. The smell that the smoke gave off was like burnt rubber mixed with sweaty socks. “Seriously, girl! Shut it off! We can take it from here!”

Genevieve shook her head. “Your Packs aren’t strong enough to finish the job!” She nodded her head towards the rooftop exit. “Go! Get outta here! If this thing blows, I don’t want you guys to be caught in the explosion!”

“NO!” J.G. yelled. “We’re getting out of this together!”

Genevieve winced, feeling the Proton Gun getting hotter under her grip; she looked up at the dragon and saw a flaming hole gaping wide open in its stomach. The longer she fired the powerful stream, the further the monster had been pushed back towards the portal. Once again, she turned to her teammates and cried, “GO! NOW!”

For a moment, the Ghostbusters hesitated, not wanting to leave one of their own behind to deal with the impending danger alone; but, with Genevieve too stubborn to shut off the overheating machine, it would be too risky to stay and try to convince her any longer. They shut off their own streams and ran away, taking the senseless mortal known as Hades along with them in their escape. Sean and Natalie carried him over their shoulders to the door that lead to the stairwell.

While they were exiting through the door, J.G. stopped and looked behind to see how Genevieve was holding up. He was shocked to see what effects the overheating Pack had on her: it burnt away sections of her already-ravaged flight suit; the gloves she had been wearing melted, exposing her hands to the intense heat given off from the Proton Gun; her flesh sizzled, and her sweating, reddened face registered extreme pain in response to it.

“Jay! Come on!” He heard Jacqueline call out to him from halfway down the stairwell; but he didn’t budge an inch. It disheartened him to see this girl – the one person who truly cared about him – sacrifice her own life for them.

I’m not leaving her behind.

Gripping his Proton Gun firmly, he ran back to Genevieve, whose flight suit had halfway burnt away and rendered her partially scorched and naked. The massive dragon she fired on had reached closer to the portal, just as Genevieve had intended. Its remarkable energy, combined with that of the particle stream from the Proton Pack, was enough to generate a great collapse. The portal instantly closed, crushing the dragon’s huge body in the process. It let out one final shriek of agony before vanishing into nothingness.

The worn-out Genevieve shut off her stream, but only several minutes too late. The Proton Pack continued to smoke, overheat, and beep. She attempted to take it off her body, but it gave her too much pain to do so. It was on the brink of self-destructing, and it planned on taking her along with it.

“GENEVIEVE!” Stantz cried as he continued to run to her.

Her bloodshot eyes grew wide in shock, seeing him come towards her. She reached out in his direction and attempted to drive him off again, but she suddenly felt a bizarre sensation overwhelm her body, as if it were dissolving to pieces. This was just as a bright blue light shined beneath her and engulfed her entire body. She screamed…or at least she thought she had…as everything went white right before her very eyes.

From a distance, J.G. watched as a wall of blue protonic energy came towards him and knock him right off his feet. As it phased through his body, he felt like every molecule in him jumped, giving off a weird tickling sensation over his body. He fell on his back, with his Proton Pack somewhat breaking his fall, and remained there momentarily.

The blue protonic energy continued its trek throughout the city, coming in contact with several buildings and knocking out the electricity within them. It even went as far as disintegrating small chunks of them, exposing their interiors. Inside the Tipton Hotel, Spengler, Venkman, and Zeddemore felt an odd tremor as the lights in the stairwell went out and were replaced with red emergency ones.

Back on the rooftop, J.G. got to his feet and looked over the edge to see the blue protonic energy reach outside the city limits and dissolve, no longer a threat to any other organic and non-organic forms in any other areas. After witnessing its disappearance, J.G. turned to where the source of the energy had come from: Genevieve and her advanced Proton Pack. While the Proton Pack reduced to a smoking chunk of rubble on the ground, there were no signs of Genevieve’s body anywhere. All that was left were the tattered remains of the flight suit she wore throughout their entire adventure.