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I stood in the middle of the ORES armory, scratching the back of my head as I surveyed what looked like the inventory screen of every video game weapon shop combined into one room. Swords of various lengths and designs hung on one wall. Guns—some looking normal, others decidedly not—lined another. Display cases full of daggers, throwing stars, and other pointy things that would absolutely get you expelled from campus filled the center of the room.
And here I was, wearing my NPU varsity jacket and compression shirt like I was heading to the gym instead of ghost hunting.
Brittany tapped her foot against the concrete floor, each click of her steel-toed combat boots echoing my approaching doom. She was already kitted out in her hunting gear—a reinforced black cropped hoodie that showed off her toned stomach covered partially by what looked like armored fishnet stockings, paired with black pants that screamed "I can kill you fourteen different ways."
"Twelve hours," she said, crossing her arms. "We had twelve hours to prepare, and you're just now realizing you don't have a weapon?"
Those twelve hours had been a disaster. Three were spent cramming case files on St. Ophelia's... but the rest? A two-hour video call with Zack, an Olympic-level exercise in creative lying.
"Dude, you haven't been home in days," Zack had said, his face filling my phone screen as he paced our dorm room. "What's going on? Is this about that chick from the rave?"
"Sort of," I'd answered.
"Wait," Zack had stopped, his eyes widening. "Are you at her place right now? Is that why you've been ghosting me?"
I'd angled my phone to show a corner of my new room at Shinra House without revealing any of the supernatural texts on the bookshelf.
"Holy shit!" Zack's voice had risen to a pitch that probably shattered nearby glassware. "You actually moved in with her? After one hookup?"
"It's complicated," I'd muttered, hoping he'd fill in the blanks with his overactive imagination.
He didn't disappoint. "Dude, it wasn't just a hookup. She's got you brainwashed! That's some next-level, Grade-A pound town. You moved in with her?!"
I'd just smiled and shrugged. It was easier to let him think I was having some wild sexual adventure than explain I was half-demon and being trained to hunt—
"Isaiah!"
Brittany's fingers snapped an inch from my face, yanking me back to the present. Her eyes locked with mine, close enough that I could see the tiny flecks of silver in her blue eye.
"We have fifteen minutes before Kobeni gets here. Are you going to fight the Phantoms with your fists, or are you going to pick something that hurts?"
"Right, sorry," I mumbled, moving toward the weapon racks. "Just... thinking about the mission."
I approached the sword rack first, reaching for a katana that looked both deadly and cool. When I lifted it from its stand, my arm dropped like I'd grabbed a bowling ball. The tip clanged against the floor as I struggled to lift it.
"That's hand-forged daemonic steel, genius," Brittany said. "Not the aluminum cosplay crap you're thinking of."
I awkwardly sheathed it and moved on.
Next, I tried a pair of curved daggers. I attempted what I hoped was a cool, experimental twirl. The dagger in my right hand had other ideas, flipping in my grip and nearly taking my thumb with it.
Brittany snorted. "You look like you're about to ask if the ghost has any cilantro."
"They're harder to hold than they look," I muttered, carefully placing them back in their case.
"Try something you can't accidentally kill yourself with," she suggested, leaning against a display of what looked like medieval torture devices.
For the next ten minutes, I attempted to find something, anything, that felt right in my hands. A staff? Too long. Brass knuckles? Too small. Some weird glowing whip thing? Hell no.
"This is hopeless," I groaned. "Can't I just use my hands? The whole energy-draining thing?"
"Sure," Brittany rolled her eyes. "If you want to get close enough to kiss every phantom we encounter."
"I didn't have to kiss that one in the apartment," I protested.
"Because it was weak," she countered. "Free-roaming phantoms move fast. Really fast. And they're not going to stand still."
I slumped against the wall, my eyes scanning the room one last time. That's when I spotted it, tucked away in a corner, leaning against a rack of riot shields: a simple aluminum baseball bat.
Unlike everything else in the room, it looked... normal. Well, almost normal. Its surface was covered in faint, silvery engravings that caught the light as I approached. Upon closer inspection, they were intricate symbols similar to the ones I'd seen in some of the texts at Shinra House.
I picked it up. The weight felt right, balanced. I gave it a practice swing, the whoosh of air oddly satisfying.
"You cannot be serious," Brittany said, staring at me with a look of profound disbelief.
I took another swing, enjoying the familiar motion. I'd played baseball in high school—the one extracurricular activity most foster families were willing to sign me up for. I wasn't great, but I knew how to swing.
"It feels right," I said, surprised by how much I meant it.
"It's a baseball bat," she said slowly, as if explaining to a child.
"What are these markings?" I asked, running my thumb over the silvery engravings.
Brittany sighed. "Basic purification seals. Amelia says it's one of the training weapons they used when starting out as kids. The Daemonic equivalent of pool noodles."
"So it works on phantoms?"
"Technically, yes, but—"
The armory intercom crackled to life. "Team, I'm pulling up. Five minutes," Kobeni's voice announced, sounding slightly frazzled even through the static.
I looked at Brittany and shrugged, gripping the bat. "It feels right."
She pinched the bridge of her nose. "Fine. Whatever. Just don't come crying to me when a phantom eats your face because you brought a baseball bat to a spiritual gunfight."
I tucked the bat under my arm, feeling strangely confident. "So, what's the game plan?."
"The game plan," Brittany said, checking her phone, "is that I go in first and assess the situation. You stay behind me and do exactly what I say. If I tell you to run, you run. If I tell you to hit something, you hit it. If I tell you to shut up and stand still, you—"
"Shut up and stand still?" I offered.
"Oh? So you can listen." She grabbed a small backpack from a nearby table and tossed it to me. "Put these in there. Backup supplies."
I unzipped the bag to find several small glass vials filled with what looked a handful of paper talismans with red symbols and a first aid kit.
"What are these?" I held up one of the paper talismans.
"Binding tags. Stick them on a wall near a phantom to slow it down. Again, emergencies only." She checked her watch. "We should head up. Kobeni hates waiting."
As we made our way to the elevator, I caught my reflection in a polished metal surface. A college kid in casual clothes, holding a baseball bat, about to go hunt ghosts in an abandoned orphanage. If someone had told me this would be my life a week ago, I'd have asked what drugs they were on and if they were willing to share.
"One more thing," Brittany said as the elevator doors closed. "If you go full sex demon, I'm authorized to knock you unconscious."
"Noted." I said, twirling the bat nervously.
The elevator pinged as we reached the ground floor. "Just stay close to me and try not to die. Amelia would kill me if I brought you back broken."
"Aww, you do care," I teased.
"I care about not pissing off the woman who signs my checks." She stepped out of the elevator. "Though between you and the baseball bat, my expectations for tonight couldn't possibly be lower. So at least there's that."
I followed her, my new weapon in hand. "First rule of baseball: it's not over until the last out. Maybe I'll surprise you."
"That's what I'm afraid of," she muttered as we walked toward the entrance where Kobeni was waiting. "Your kind of surprise might end with more than just property damage."