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Chapter Text

Once upon a time, in a kingdom called "Amity Park", there once lived a young Prince with wild hair of jet black and eyes as blue as a cloudless, open summer sky.

He, much like his parents, the beloved King and Queen of the land, was a ghost hunter, who fought to protect his home, and it's citizens from the reviled inhabitants of a strange and mysterious realm known only as the "Ghost Zone".

That is, until the Prince found himself afflicted with a frightening condition that manifested itself each and every night from then on. In fear of how his friends, family, and dear subjects would react, the Prince resolved to keep his condition a secret.

But alas, despite the Prince's best efforts, his cherished family and friends, along with the entire kingdom, eventually discovered the truth in the worst way the Prince had ever thought was possible.

After several attempts to "fix" him proved fruitless, the King and Queen of Amity Park, in spite of their son pleading with them not to, locked the young Prince away in a dilapidated manor-house far, far away from Amity Park, with the intention of keeping him there until a cure for his ailment was found.

'And just what became of the poor boy' you ask? Well...

Chapter Text

A small group of athletic-looking male teens trekked through the labyrinth of tangling vines, gnarled trees and their foot-tripping roots, sharp thorn-bearing bushes and creeping, crawling, and occasionally bioluminescent plant life that was the woods.

The males all wore a rather peculiar livery which consisted of red and white Letterman jackets with slightly worn steel spaulders harnessed to their shoulders, their muscle-bound arms in no way hidden by it and bronze maltese cross-shaped badges emblazoned with stylized, ebony ravens clipped to said jackets, black muscle shirts which showed off their impressive, strapping torsos, light-washed jeans that revealed the teens' equally impressive, ripped legs with heavily scuffed steel poleyns over their knees, and dirty white mix boots of football and combat. A few of them wore steel sallets that had been painted solid white with a cherry red stripe down the middle. All of them carried ecto-guns, metallic silver and glowing lime green devices in the shape of various guns, some had them slung on their back, some had them in a metallic black holster on their bizarre-looking, full-metal belts while the rest held them in their arms, the green fluorescence of their odd weapons lighting the way for the others and casting the whole party in an eerie glow of radioactive green in the darkness, which the group would glance at every now and again, as if expecting something to come out of it and ambush them.

These young men were jocks, teens who had been selected for their athletic ability to serve as the soldiers, city watch, and kind of police of a city-state by the name of "Casper" by it's young but very superficial governess.

Upon entering a decently sized clearing, the body of robust, teenage males stopped dead in their tracks.

Towards the back of the clearing, was a fairly large, rustic shack clothed in jungle-like greenery with an ivied and timeworn well a few feet away from it and a large, well-maintained kitchen garden encircled by a fence of healthy green thorns standing a foot or two from the aforementioned shack. The familiar amber glow and crackling of a fire escaped from the plant-ridden structure's only window.

"I think it's in there," one of the jocks said, gesturing towards the lit shack with his ecto-gun.

"Alright," another one replied, charging towards the shack, ecto-gun at the ready. "Let's get-"

"Whoa-hold it, man!" another one interjected, gripping his comrade's shoulder and pulling him back, "Do you know what that thing could do to you?" he hissed in a hushed voice.

"Yeah," a fourth whispered in agreement, "it'll feed you to the Growgantuan*."

"'The Growgantuan?'" an unamused, feminine voice with a slight raspy, echoic quality to it said from behind.

The teens whipped around to face the voice's owner and gasped in alarm and terror at who they saw.

The Dryad… and despite all the rumors and tall tales they had heard from passersby about her being a half-human half-plant abomination, or the unholy spawnling of the Growgantuan, she could've passed herself off as a sixteen-year-old light-complexioned girl with short, dark hair with a small ponytail at the top and back of her head… if it weren't for the red flag-giving dark clothes, the hazy glow of vibrant green shrouding her form, and the luminous pools of chlorophyll for eyes.

"Is that seriously what you guys call Undergrowth?" The Dryad asked, her solid eyes of glowing green reflecting her unamusement.

"Get back, Dryad!" One of the taller, bulkier, clearly less intelligent jocks shouted foolhardily, whipping out his ecto-gun from his holster and brandishing it, "Put your hands up, or I'll shoot!" He threatened, his voice cracking slightly.

The Dryad quirked an eyebrow at him, her expression flat and unimpressed, her eyes flashing an even brighter green than before. The ground seemed to quake, then twin, ghostly vines of glowing olive green erupted from the grass-carpeted earth, flanking the Dryad on either side, each twice the width of a fully grown man's arm. Before any of the jocks could react, the vines snatched up the offending ecto-gun and crushed it like a soda can before the group's very eyes, carelessly tossing it to the side.

The group gasped, thunderstruck. The now unarmed jock gaped at his now empty hands before giving the Dryad a sheepish look, "Right."

The Dryad snarled at the teen and his companions. The ground shook again, and this time, four vines bursted from the earth, these ones even thicker than the first two.

"Anyone else?" The Dryad said dangerously, the six vines looming over the jocks menacingly, the latters taking a collective step back.

The teens all shook their heads no, now beginning to visibly tremble as the ground seemed to tremble with them. What issued from the soil this time was not a vine, but a huge Venus flytrap with a boulder-sized, onion purple head. The plant-based grotesquerie growled at the males, bearing it's ivory white, dagger-like teeth at them, a viscous, poisonous green saliva dripping from said teeth.

"RUN!" One of the jocks finally cried, bolting from the group and dashing into the clearing's tree line, disappearing from sight.

The Venus flytrap-like beast roared at the teens, who hurriedly followed after their friend, their Lettermans and jeans becoming torn and dirty as they raced back through the treacherous maze of twisted trees and their tripping roots, netting vines and cutting thorn-bearing bushes that was the woods, their screams of terror piercing the night air as they fled, leaving the Dryad alone with the monstrous Venus flytrap.

"AND STAY OUT!" The Dryad shouted after them.

The dark-haired girl gazed in the direction the males had fled in, waiting to see if any of them would come back for a "Round #2". When she was certain that the teens would not return, she sighed in exasperation, closing her fluorescent eyes of chlorophyll as the unearthly glow around her dissipated, the vines she had summoned up from the soil shriveling up as their eerie luminescence vanished, slithering back into the earth from whence they came.

The girl opened her eyes to reveal tired orbs of violet. She turned to the colossal plant monster, tenderly patting it's dark verdant stem which was as wide and thick as a fully grown tree's trunk. The monstrous Venus flytrap, who had been "staring" daggers in the direction the intruders had fled in with it's nonexistent eyes and growling, ceased it's noise and "stared" down at the dark-clothed girl, "It's alright, DeMilo,'' she murmured with a smile of fondness, "they're gone now. You can go back to sleep."

DeMilo, the colossal Venus flytrap, rumbled, then nodded, the "collar" of deep fuchsia petals closing up around it's head before slinking back into the dirt, which closed up the break, like the plant beast had never emerged from the ground in the first place.

The dark-haired girl sighed again, "Another day, another night of chasing stupid intruders out of my woods," she muttered, sparing the direction the jocks had fled in one last glare before turning away, slowly trudging towards the flora-covered shack.

She didn't get it, she really didn't. She had never bothered that stupid town even once. So why did they feel the need to bother her?

Actually, she frowned, she did get why they kept bothering her.

It was because she was different. It was always because she was different. What did they call her again? 'Dryad'? They didn't even think of her as a human, only a freak.

"That's why I'm better off alone," the girl muttered to herself with conviction, albeit with a bit of sadness.

And with that, the dark-haired girl, having finally reached the spongy, moss-coated wood door to her home of six years now, and grasping the flimsy-looking but sturdy handle, opened the door and walked in, slamming the door behind her.

Perhaps, if she had paid more attention, she would have noticed that one of the jocks had dropped a dog-eared, slightly tattered flyer, which read in elegant, bold, italic letters:

"BY THE ORDER OF LADY PAULINA OF CASPER, All GHOSTS ARE TO BE ROUNDED UP TO BE RELOCATED FAR AWAY FROM CASPER! ANYONE WITH INFORMATION ON A GHOST'S WHEREABOUTS IS TO REPORT TO THE JOCKS IMMEDIATELY!"

That next afternoon, in a large, sunlight-filled clearing, was a rather bizarre sight.

Ghosts, the ethereal residents of the Ghost Zone, who resembled both humans and animals alike, were being prodded like cattle into the many horse-drawn, cherry and cream colored paddy wagons stationed around the clearing, all of which were the size and length of fire trucks, the stylized icon of a raven adorning their sides.

The prodders in question were jocks like the ones who had intruded on the dark-haired girl's lands, only these teens carried a far more diverse variety of ghost-fighting weaponry, ranging from and including (but not limited to): glowing green whips with steel handles and knives with radiant, whitish blue blades, to gleaming, metallic, silvery white bo-staffs, and crossbow-like ecto-guns.

The jocks glowered at the spirits, who were shackled with irons that had a curious azure radiance.

In the midst of all this, being dragged by his arm by a jock towards a worn but sturdy-looking oaken table, was, not a ghost, but an four-eyed, geeky-looking, mocha-skinned boy no older than sixteen, dressed in a long-sleeved jasmine shirt, olive green cargo pants with a black, steel-buckled belt, castaneous, knee-high hiking boots, with pavonated eyes which glanced around at all the armed jocks and ghosts being led into the paddy wagons, which when deemed "full", would drive off, taking the spirits inside no doubt far away from here. A red beret covered the teen's head, a faded indigo randoseru on his back and a highly-sophisticated-looking palm (PDA) in his free right hand.

Looking at his captor, the mocha-skinned boy pleaded, "Look, James, we can talk about this! I won't ever be a smart aleck again! I can change! Please! Just please don't turn me in!"

James, the jock, glared at the four-eyed teen, "Shut it, Foley!" He snapped harshly, Foley, the latter flinching from the former's hard gaze and shutting his mouth. "You did this to yourself, carrying Ecto-Contraband and harboring spectral entities are high crimes in Casper, ones punishable by a long time in the big house and/or quite a hefty fine," James' snarl twisted into a smirk. "Besides," he added, "I've been waiting a long time for a moment like this, and I'm not about to give it up because you don't wanna face punishment for your crimes!"

At that, James dragged the still struggling and protesting Foley to the wooden table, where the Captain of the Jocks, Dash Baxter, sat.

Dash was a tall, tanned, brawny male of seventeen years, with long buzz cut golden blonde hair and navy blue eyes. He wore the signature attire of all the other Casper jocks, with the exception of wearing noticeably scratched but brightly burnished steel greaves and gauntlets, a golden maltese cross-shaped badge emblazoned with a stylized, ebony raven, his metallic white and cardinal painted steel pickelhaube resting on the table along with the sawed-off shotgun style ecto-gun, and the ammo belt for the aforementioned ghost-fighting weapon. Currently, the blonde was busy sharpening a shimmering, lime green bladed arming sword with a whetstone made specifically for the job, his second-in-command, Kwan Ishiyama, to his right and Mikey, one of Casper's best "nerds", to his left.

Kwan was a seventeen year old jock of Asian descent, with sea foam green eyes and bowl cut dark hair. He also wore the trademark clothing of the jocks, but like Dash, his armor included worn but polished greaves and gauntlets, and he carried a sword with a glowing green blade, but unlike Dash, Kwan's badge was silver, and his armor and weapons had an Oriental design to them, the armor resembling that of a samurai's and the sword a dao, which the jock had sunk into the ground as he watched James and Foley approached the table.

Mikey was a fifteen year old, four-eyed, significantly shorter, redhead boy with bowl-cut hair, cyan-green eyes, and freckles. He wore a white polo shirt, beige dress pants and pointed dress shoes. The boy was absorbed in a ledger, writing down in it with a black-inked pen as James and Foley drew nearer to the table.

"What'cha got?" Dash asked when the jock James and Foley reached the table, the blonde sitting up straight and putting his sword and the whetstone on said table, as he eyed the two attentively.

James sneered at Foley before snatching the PDA out of the teen's hand, which earned the former a cry of protest from the latter, and carelessly tossing the pocket PC onto the table.

"This nerd's been hiding a ghost inside his technogeek device!" James replied matter-of-factly, smirking proudly at Dash.

"It's called a PDA, you moron!" Foley retorted.

Dash narrowed his eyes at the mocha-skinned teen in a weighty scowl. "Possession of Ecto-Contraband and harboring spectral entities," he summarized. "Those are high crimes, geek-"

"Or so I've been told," Foley muttered in a desert-dry, sarcastic voice.

Dash shot the technogeek a warning glare. "As I was saying, possession of Ecto-Contraband and harboring spectral entities are very serious crimes, geek, you could face at least a month in detention or/and a fine of-" the blonde faltered, his uncomic expression falling off his face and a look of perplexion replacing it as the Captain of the Jocks scratched his hair in concentration. "A fine of…" Dash trailed off before a blank expression passed over his tanned face, which quickly turned to annoyance as he realized he had forgotten what the fine was and turned to the glasses-wearing ginger boy on his left. "Mikey!" He barked.

The nerdy redhead boy jumped and looked up from the ledger he had been writing in.

"Ye-yes?" He asked feebly.

"What's the amount you could be fined if you've been caught having Ecto-Contraband?" Dash inquired, "Or if you've been caught harboring ghosts?" He added.

"Up to $5,000 each, sir." Mikey replied quietly.

Dash nodded in satisfaction. "Right," the blonde said before turning back to Foley and James. "Now, where was I? Ah, yes!" Dash said to himself before his stern, leaden scowl returned "You'll face at least a month in detention and/or a fine of up to $10,000," the blonde turned his gaze on James. "If, you can prove it, James," the Captain of the Jocks added.

James smirked at a now poker-faced Foley. "Go on, Foley," James ordered snidely, "Turn on your little geek device."

"Whatever you say, James," Foley deadpanned, picking up his PDA from the table and pressing the power button, turning on the pocket PC and placing it back on the table. Dash, Kwan, Mikey, and James watched the mobile device intently, the last one with a toothy grin.

Nothing. No ominous, echoic voice that could only belong to a ghost. No eerie glow radiated from the PDA's screen, which displayed about a dozen different icons, no doubt features of the personal digital assistant. No spectral aura enveloped the palm. Nothing.

Dash, Kwan, and Mikey gave James a questioning eyebrow raise, the latter's grin sliding off his face.

"It's, uhh, it's in here somewhere." James said nervously, picking up the PDA and scrolling through it's features, "I just gotta find it."

"James," Dash started.

"No! It's in here, I saw it! It's there, see!?" James held up the mobile device's screen so Dash, Kwan and Mikey could see it, pointing to an app on the said screen, whose icon was a stylized, evil black capital "T" encased in a sinister neon red circle outlined in evil black, a silhouette of twin x-crossed lightning bolts behind it in darker black**. Tapping it with the stylus took them to a universally dark screen, but other than that, nothing.

James gripped the pocket PC tightly, turning it so that it's screen was to him, "I KNOW YOU'RE IN THERE!" He roared in the PDA's "face", shaking it in his hands, "STOP MAKING ME LOOK LIKE AN IDIOT!"

By now, Dash and Kwan were giving James flat, unamused, unimpressed looks. Mikey had gone back to recording information in the ledger, having decided that was more important than watching the show in front of him. James was glaring daggers at Foley's palm, the latter trying his best to hide his smirk.

Dash rolled his eyes and sighed tiredly, resting his face in his hands. He glared up at James, "Give me the PDA, James."

"But sir-"

"Give. Me. The. PDA." Dash stated firmly, holding out his hand.

James shut his mouth, his eyes wide. He handed Dash the pocket PC, the latter handing the mobile device back to Foley, "Our job here, James, is to rid Casper of the ghosts infesting it. Not arrest geeks," the blonde said to James before turning to Foley. "You're free to go, geek," Dash said.

"Thanks, Captain Dash sir," Foley smiled, taking his PDA with a snide leer at James before walking away.

Turning back to James, Dash continued, "And I think you and I need to have a talk about the responsibility of being a jock."

Hearing this, with his back to the jocks, Foley smirked. However, he had only gotten a few feet away from the table, when a grinning, glowing electric green skull with electric crimson eyes appeared on the pocket PC's screen. The skull seemed to peer up at Foley.

"Well, that was easy," a nasally voice called from inside the mobile device, a little too loudly, garnering the attention of Captain Dash, Kwan, James, Mikey, and about half a decade other jocks.

The eyes of Dash, Kwan, James, Mikey and the other five jocks became as round as quarters.

"See?! He's got a ghost in his PDA!" James exclaimed.

"Get him!" Dash ordered, picking his sword and ecto-shotgun off the table. Kwan and the other jocks followed his example, drawing their own weapons.

"Oh crap," Foley whispered, his own eyes widening.

The technogeek broke into a sprint, heading into the surrounding forest, the jocks following in hot pursuit.

Foley dodged ensnaring tree branches, clothes-snagging brambly bushes, and stumble-inducing tree roots as he ran deeper and deeper into the woods, trying to lose the jocks in the dense warren of double-edged green.

Foley glared at the green, crimson-eyed skull on the screen of his pocket PC. "Really, dude? We were in the clear, and you just had to talk and blow our cover?"

The glowing green, red-eyed skull seemed to glare back at the technogeek. "How was I supposed to know that we were still within hearing range of those beef-witted muscle boys?" the skull retorted.

"Maybe next time we're in public, I'll put you on mute," Foley spat.

"You do that and I'll delete all your precious data," The skull threatened, narrowing it's eyes, "We both know how much you'll love that," it added with punctuated sarcasm in "love".

The two's squabbling was cut short as the sound of the jocks' heavy boots pounding against the forest floor grew closer, prompting Foley to speed up.

In his rush, however, the four-eyed teen failed to see the tripping root of an encroaching tree until it was too late, crashing into the ground, the flap of his bag flying open, a laptop, rugged smartphone and a subnotebook falling out of it along with his ghost-possessed PDA, which all clattered on said ground.

"I've got to stop carrying around so many gadgets," Foley sighed to himself, "It's going to be the death of me."

It was then that the jocks caught up with the technogeek, circling him on all sides.

"You got that right, Foley," James sneered.

"Tried to pull a fast one on us, eh?" Dash glowered, Foley shrinking under his gaze. "That'll cost you" Dash added, fishing his hand into his jacket and pulling out a scroll. Delicately unfurling it, the Captain of the Jocks announced in a steely voice, "By the order of Lady Paulina of Casper, I hereby place you, Foley, under arrest for harboring spectral entities, possession of Ecto-Contraband, attempting to trick authorities, and resisting arrest! Nigel, Chris, grab him!"

Before Foley could protest, two of the jocks roughly seized his arms, forcing him to his feet and lifting him a few inches off the ground. The technogeek flailed his legs, squirming in the grip of his captors in a desperate attempt to get away, but it was no use. The jocks were so much stronger than him.

James was smirking at him, satisfied in the knowledge that the obnoxious, wise guy thorn in his side that was this tech-loving geek was finally receiving his just desserts.

"Hey!" A feminine voice shouted.

Foley and the jocks turned to their left to see a pair of bright violet eyes glaring at the latter from the tree-provided shade.

When the owner stepped out of the shadows, Foley and the jocks could now see that the owner of the eyes in question was a girl around Foley's age, with short, frizzed, dark hair, a small ponytail tied at the top and back of her head with a shadow gray hair tie. Her skin was fair and contrasted with the onyx and bog oak choker around her neck, midriff-exposing funeral black tank top, funeral black striped, silver crosshatch patterned skirt, jet and berlin iron bracelets, dull gray leggings and shoe black combat boots***. A Goth if Foley had ever seen one. The only color on her body was her eyes, the lotus purple oval in the center of her tank top, and her lilac painted lips.

"Why don't you pick on somebody your own size?" The girl spat.

"Stay out of this, ya Goth freak!" Dash growled at her, "This is our business!"

"And if I don't?" The Goth girl challenged, narrowing her eyes.

"Then I'll put you under arrest too!" Dash declared, brandishing his sword.

The dark-haired girl raised an eyebrow at the blonde, "Oh yeah?" She said, her lips quivering into a smirk as her violet eyes flashed chlorophyll green, a spring green brilliance veiling her figure. The ground trembled for a second, then a trio of slender, luminescent, olive-colored, barb-bearing vines with sprout green, watermelon-sized heads of sharp-toothed Venus flytraps sprouted from said ground.

"You and what army?" The plants snaked towards Dash and loomed over him, poised to strike at any given moment.

Glancing behind him, the Captain of the Jocks saw that all of the other jocks, except for Kwan and James, had vanished, as evidenced by the forgotten ecto-weapons that lay where they once stood, the remaining jocks' faces masks of wide-eyed fear. Glancing to his left, Dash could see Foley inching away from him, Kwan and James, and towards his fallen gizmos, hastily picking them up and putting them back in his bag. Conflict invaded the Captain of the Jocks' mind; he really didn't want to be on the receiving end of those plants' bite, but he also didn't want Foley to get away. He had to choose between health and safety or duty.

When the Venus flytraps bared their serrated, toxic green substance-dripping chompers, and one took a big bite out of his sword's viridescent blade, rendering it utterly impractical as a weapon, the blonde picked his poison;

"Retreat!" he ordered.

James and Kwan didn't need to be told twice, sprinting off into the gnarly greenness of the woods.

"Don't think for a second that you're off the hook, Foley!" Dash shouted with a glare at the addressed technogeek, throwing his now useless sword onto the ground before following after Kwan and James.

The girl rolled her eyes, which within minutes, changed back to violet, the virescent light cloaking her fading away as the Venus flytraps crept back into the earth.

As she walked off, though, Foley followed her.

"Hey," he started, "thanks for that. Those guys' grip was getting uncomfortable," Foley added, hissing in pain as he rubbed his arms. He was definitely going to have bruises there in the morning.

The girl stopped in her tracks when she realized who the four-eyed teen was speaking to.

"Aren't you gonna run?" she asked in confusion.

"No," Foley replied, "Why?"

"Take a look at me. What am I?" She pointed to herself.

"A big fan of black?" Foley guessed.

"No! I'm a Goth! Ya know, 'gloomy, dark, spooky-ooky weirdo!'" The girl raised her hands and wiggled them in a "spooky" fashion, "Doesn't that bother you?"

"Not really" Foley blinked, "My name's Tucker. Tucker Foley. What's yours?"

The Goth looked at Tucker, silently debating with herself. Back when she still lived with her parents and grandmother, people had avoided and treated her as though she had the plague. Why was this guy being friendly towards her of all things?

"...Sam." She said after a long pause, "...Shouldn't you be heading back home?"

Tucker winced, the reminder of his current situation hitting him like a wall of bricks, "Yes well, I'm pretty sure Captain Dash and the jocks will arrest me on the spot if I set a foot in Casper, and I don't wanna spend my night in a cold cell guarded by jocks who hate my guts. Soo-"

"You wanna stay with me until the heat dies down?" Sam guessed.

"Well, I mean.." Tucker paid special interest to a spot on the grassy dirt, "..Can I?" he queried, looking back up at Sam.

The Goth girl took a good look at Tucker. The four-eyed boy didn't look like the type of person who enjoyed being out in the remote outdoors very much, if not at all. And in Sam's part of the bush country, there were little to no animals to hunt for food, and Sam highly doubted that Tucker was an Ultra-Recyclo Vegetarian like her. Plus, since her place was in the middle of what some people would call "nowheresville", the tech-obsessed teen would probably complain about there being no signal. But, he was also the first person in a long time to treat her like an actual person and not like a freak, the very first and second person to have accepted her for who she was having long since passed on. So-

"Sure, why not? Just don't break anything or disturb the plants."

No sooner had that sentence left the Goth girl's mouth, that the oxygen was evicted from her lungs by the crushingly tight bear hug Tucker had pulled her into.

"THANKYOUTHANKYOUTHANKYOU!" The technogeek gushed.

Sam managed to regain control of her arms and pried herself free from Tucker's constricting hug before she suffocated. She wheezed and panted, trying to replenish her air-deprived lungs.

"C'mon," she said finally after two minutes of heavy breathing, "I'll show you my place."

"Sweet!" Tucker grinned, "Lead the way!"

And with that, the technogeek and the Goth girl walked off into the close-knit underbrush of the woods, but not before the former snatched up the jocks' abandoned ecto-weapons, including Dash's discarded sword, and stuffed them into his bag.

Sam smiled. It seems like she had gotten herself… a friend.