Chapter Text
It started with a pothole. Specifically, the giant pothole outside of Spring Mall in West City. The owners of the businesses that leased space throughout the mall put pressure on the property owner to fix the problem, but the tycoon fought it for years. Eventually they argued that technically the pothole was on city property, and therefore it had to be fixed by the local government. The city argued they didn't have it in the budget, and the pothole grew.
Finally, one of the shopkeepers offered a suggestion. Hold an auction, and use the money to fix the disputed issue. That was why someone finally thought of the best idea that West City's government ever had; they would auction off one night at the headquarters of the old Capsule Corporation compound.
The compound had been in government hands for close to a hundred years now. Abram Fawcet, an eccentric inventor and billionaire, had made a name for himself in the town's history by inventing capsulization; a way to shrink goods and place them indefinitely in small portable containers. He'd made a mint in his youth, and built his illustrious compound with plans to live there forever, continuing his work in luxury.
Unfortunately, his ambition was greater than his ability. Capsules fell out of use except for some government contracts, a stroke of bad fortune. After two years of producing no new material, sales plummeted and he lost the home he'd constructed. It was returned to the bank, and when the bank itself went defunct, it was given to the city.
Despite it's few years of use, the security of the main building was airtight. Fawcet's plans had an excellent system to prevent trespassers, and it was still doing its job well to this day. The city held the only passcode, and it was heavily guarded as they didn't want anyone traipsing through an old building and suing the government when they fell through the floor.
Many groups had tried to break through the security over the years, but none had succeeded. These weren't just bored teenagers, but professionals who had grown tired of waiting for a permit to explore that would never make it through the red tape of bureaucracy. It wasn't curiosity, not most of the time. Everyone knew what the true treasure of Capsule Corporation was.
It was the most haunted building in the entire world.
Fawcet himself had begun the rumors, shortly after moving into his new home. He claimed he'd hear doors slam and floorboards creak at all hours, though he lived alone. He went further than that; he claimed he heard voices around him all the time, low but not whispering, talking as plainly as if they were in the room with him. In fact, he credited these spirits as being the main reason he couldn't invent anything new in his home; he was constantly on edge, afraid of his own shadow.
Most chalked it up to insanity at first, but when he left the compound he remained a stable, decent inventor for the rest of his life. He swore up and down to his deathbed that the place was a portal to hell, and all virtuous people should stay away from it.
So of course everyone wanted to check it out.
He wasn't the last person to report odd happenings at the home. For the first several decades the city had tried to maintain the building, sending out maintenance crews a few times a year to keep it liveable should anyone ever be able to afford it. Every crew that had stepped inside had a story, and all of them were terrifying. Voices, footsteps, screaming; one man even swore an apparition had charged him with a raised fist and knocked him back twenty feet into a table. Dozens of books had been written about the property and the questions it raised; if it was so unused, where did the ghosts come from? What did they want? Why were they there?
When the word went out that West City was willing to allow one group of people into the compound for a night to do whatever they wanted, thousands of people put in applications with large bids. Some wanted the house to throw a massive haunted party, some as a creepy weekend getaway, but the most common bids came from paranormal research teams. There were hundreds of such organizations across the world that attended the online auction, willing to pay a ridiculous amount of money to experience a true, guaranteed haunting.
------------------
Vegeta sat in front of his computer, constantly refreshing the page. There were only five remaining bidders on the screen, and his company's name was among them. The small-time bidders had dropped out a million Zenni ago. They were weak. It didn't matter how high the cost was, he was getting inside of Capsule Corporation, and no one was going to stop him.
He was so intensely focused that when his apartment door opened he jumped. His roommate dropped his gym bag onto their table, flopping down on the couch and throwing his feet up on their coffee table with an exhausted huff.
"Get your feet down, Goku!" He snapped. "That's disgusting."
"Whatcha doin'?"
"Bidding."
His eyes widened. " Still ? It's been hours! How long is it going to take?"
"It doesn't matter," he grumbled, clicking the button to raise his bid. "I could do this all night. Ha! See? Another team just withdrew their bid. I'm in the final stretch."
Goku wandered over to glance over his shoulder. He balked at the price, looking at the man nervously. "Vegeta… can you afford that?"
"Of course I can! Don't be ridiculous. One hundred days."
"It's just, it's not like this is a paying gig. There's no client this time, so we wouldn't get a paycheck."
"If you want to skip it due to non-payment be my guest. Ha! There went another!"
"I didn't say that, Man. You know I'll help you. Just, if you spend that much how are going to pay for rent or--"
"Two left," Vegeta said, ignoring him. "I'm almost there."
"Do you really think this place is going to be worth it?"
"Every person that has stepped inside of that house has left with a horror story. There will never be another opportunity like this." He stood up as the timer started winding down, a slow smirk sliding over his face. "Come on. Give it up."
With a final ding, the second to last bidder faded away, leaving only ECTOS flashing on the screen. Vegeta slapped the table victoriously, grabbing his phone. An email came through almost instantly, congratulating ECTOS on its successful bid and giving instructions for their purchased night.
Goku winced. "Four million Zenni, Vegeta? For one night?"
"Stay home if you want to," he growled.
"I'm coming!" He swore. "There's no way you ate today. Come on, let's go get some dinner."
------------------
Bulma lounged unprofessionally in her chair, rolling an ashtray sideways on the desk. She'd quit smoking a month before, but if things didn't pick up soon she was seriously considering starting back up again. She was bored out of her mind, listening to the same non-paying client she always listened to on Thursday afternoon. Maybe she should just change her business cards to say 'therapist' instead of 'paranormal investigator'. She seemed to do more counseling than anything else.
"So that was when the ghost came into my bedroom again," continued the small woman in an old housecoat that sat across from her. "But this time, he wore a rainbow colored sheet. What does that mean, in your professional opinion?"
"He was celebrating pride month?" Bulma drawled sarcastically. She'd learned long ago that it didn't matter what she said to Mrs.Combe. They'd investigated her house a dozen times and never came up with any evidence, and she was far behind with her payments. She would have dropped her as a client if she had anything better to do.
"Well," the woman continued without listening, "I think it's all a conspiracy so that I will plant more flowers. Spirits don't like begonias, if you didn't know."
"Fascinating," Bulma sighed.
The door to her office burst open and her assistant almost fell in, eyes wide.
"Chichi?" She asked, frowning. "Is something wrong?"
"There's something you need to see, Ma'am."
Bulma gestured to Mrs.Combe. "I'm with a 'client'. Technically. Can it wait?"
" Bulma ," Chichi said grinning. "Get out here."
Bulma got up quickly, relieved to see it at least didn't look like bad news. Mrs.Combe made a sound of protest but Bulma ignored her, following Chichi out to the small desk in their waiting room.
They couldn't afford much; their entire office was just the two rooms with a coffee pot balanced precariously on a stack of books. The computers were old and loud, and there was a stack of unpaid invoices on their reception desk that Bulma tried to avoid looking at as much as she could. None of this seemed to bother Chichi as she strode around the desk and spun her monitor around.
"We got it."
"Got what?" Bulma asked, looking at the email on the screen.
"The old Capsule Corporation building! We got it! I've just been sent the confirmation email. We won the auction."
Bulma smiled cautiously. "That… that's impossible. We only bid a thousand Zenni. Last I heard it was going for millions."
Chichi shrugged. "It must have been a bunch of people who weren't actually willing to pay what they were offering, and we were the highest real bid. Just look," she insisted, pointing to the text, "they mention us by name. 'Congratulations Ectos on being the highest bidder in our online auction. Please meet our representative at the North entrance of the Capsule Corporation compound on Saturday, June 5th, just before 5pm for legal paperwork.' It's us, Bulma! We're investigating the most haunted building in the world!"
Bulma grinned for real now, rereading the message carefully. She grabbed Chichi's hand excitedly, stomping her feet. "This is it. This is really it! We're bound to catch real evidence in there!"
"I know," Chichi said. "How do we even prepare for this? What do we even bring?"
------------------
"EMF meter?" Vegeta asked, holding up a checklist.
"Got it," Goku confirmed, loading another bag into the van.
"Full spectrum cameras, units one, two, three, and four, five, six, seven, eight--"
"Yep, all of them."
"EVP recorders one and two?"
"Yep."
"Thermal camera?"
"Yeeeeees," Goku moaned. "I told you, I already ran down the checklist. We have everything."
"We cannot afford another incident like the Mule Hotel," Vegeta snapped. "We drove two hours to that dump and realized we had none of our hookups, and had to go back for them. It wasted half our night, and we can't afford it with Capsule Corporation. Every hour we're there is costing us 266,000 Zenni."
Goku whistled. "What if we don't catch anything?"
"We will," he said simply.
Goku smiled nervously. "Hey! I remembered the most important bag."
"Which one?"
He held up a green duffle bag. "Snacks."
Vegeta rolled his eyes, pulling open the door to their van and climbing into the driver's seat.
"We can't ghost-hunt on an empty stomach!" Goku insisted, crawling in to sit next to him.
"When we review our footage for EVP I don't want to have to listen to you chewing goddamn Funyuns all night."
"I bought those creamy cakes you like," he said enticingly, waving one in front of him. "How long has it been since you ate?"
Vegeta popped the package open and bit half of the cake off in one sweep. "For the record, this does not count as food. It's junk. How do you eat like this and stay in shape?"
"I'm carbo-loading," Goku said thickly through a mouth full of cake.
"Would you take this seriously?"
"I'm one hundred percent serious," Goku said, saluting. "Just point me at equipment and give me a job. You want me to drive?"
"No. I'd rather arrive in one piece."
"How much sleep did you get last night?"
"As much as I needed."
Goku snorted suspiciously. "Can we at least get coffee? It's like eight hours."
" Fine . We'll get coffee."
"Woo!" He clapped as they started out of the driveway.