Working with Ghosts

By Lennon (Geminiman) and Gauntlet (Shadowman)

Part Two: A Cursed Video

A few days have passed since the zombie case outside of Megalopolis and the paranormal investigator known as Geminiman of the Mechanical Maniacs had been enjoying some good downtime from his job. There were no odd occurrences being reported to him, so each day he would just swing by his office located in the basement of the Megalopolis Police Department and sit back and relax as the days went by then occasionally walk out and have a good night in the city with his fellow team-mates or simply on his own. After all, who needs company when you can split yourself into six? He was expecting this day to be no different when he walked into his office and was greeted by his secretary Sohee, whom he had hired as a result of the incident during the completion of the zombie case.

“Ah… Master Geminiman, Good Morning!” said the adorably cute ghost, levitating behind her deck setup next to the basement entrance, “Shall I make you some tea to wake you up?” Geminiman nodded as Sohee hovered towards the kitchen. It didn’t take long for Sohee to adjust to working with the Twin Terror, after all she had been a servant in her previous life for the royal couple Bongun and Munak so for her, her new life didn’t seem all that different. Sadly, the same could not be said about his two assistants.

“You!” shouted the arrogant prince as Lennon walked into the office, and beside him was his wife-to-be Munak, the prim and proper princess whom had appeared content with her new living conditions but still seemed upset that she had been pushed into work despite being royalty, and deceased for that matter. “Good Morning Mister Geminiman. Please excuse my beloved for his rudeness.” she spoke in a very polite manner.

“Greetings your majesties, I trust the both of you slept well.” replied the robot master as he sat down at his desk and flipped through some of the leftover paperwork on his desk before Sohee floated by with his cup of tea. “Nothing has really been happening these days, besides filing the paperwork for the last case we haven’t had any real work. I suppose today will probably be the same as well.”

His coworkers seemed to have acknowledged this but didn’t seem to care and continued to his around the office doing nothing.

“It’s a beautiful day outside; perhaps we should go out and do something during the lunch break. Maybe even patrol the city.” suggested the Mechanical Maniac, feeling rather uncomfortable in the silence with nothing to do.

“I care not for the happenings of the surface.” scoffed Bongun looking disgruntled as usual. Munak just sighed while Sohee floated back to her desk.

“Sorry Master Geminiman, but since we’re ghosts we don’t really have much of an interest of the outside world. We prefer to simply rest in peace if you would forgive the pun.” Munak said looking rather tired.

“Well as long as there is no work I suppose you two can get your beauty sleep.” the Twin Terror sighed.

Time had passed and not much had happened until a knocking sound could be heard at his office door.

“Um, can I help you?” Sohee floated over to answer the door and revealed none other than Classi, the Mechanical Maniac’s Sparkchan and support unit for the robotic police force.

“Aww, look at you! You’re so cute!” Classi was quick to pick up and hug the bewildered secretary and walk up to the investigator who had a combined look of surprised and amused on his face. “Hiya hun, I was just passing by when I thought I should just drop by and say hello.”

“Hello Miss ClassiCal, I see you’ve become acquainted with my new assistant.” Gemini said gesturing towards Sohee, who was still trapped in Sparkchan’s bear hug.

“Oh, I am so sorry! She’s just so adorable I couldn’t help it!” she embarrassingly replied letting go of the cute little ghost who was looking rather flustered.

“She gets that a lot.” He replied, laughing quite a bit. “Sohee, could you please prepare us a cup of tea?” The secretary flew off into the kitchen once more as the regal robot pulled out a chair for his beloved team-mate. Having been close friends for such a long time prior to her joining of the Mechanical Maniacs, Lennon had developed a very open crush towards the former flimsy prototype and had devoted himself to her whenever she was around. Unfortunately for him, she did not reciprocate these feelings, and while she did love Geminiman; her love was more platonic. He was well aware of this, but still persisted out of either optimism or denial.

“So, how are things?” Not being that good at casual conversation, Lennon decided to start with something simple and work on from there.

“Oh nothing much, I’ve just been tending to the mango tree with Ken-san and doing my rounds supporting those who are less unfortunate.”

Magnetman’s name popped up again, much to Lennon’s dismay, he knew that the name would pop up in conversation since he knew that the two of them were together during the zombie incident but it didn’t stop it from striking a chord in his head. Still, the Twin Terror shrugged off the mention of the name and decided to not talk about him.

“Your position in the service seems to fit you like a glove. Must make you feel happy to actually help those in need.”

“Oh, I’m not that much of a saint.” Classi replied beginning to blush, “I’ve heard from Needlegal that you did some impressive work in investigating those zombie attacks just outside the city. You should feel proud about that.”

“Did she also tell you the part where I got beaten up by a fox girl?”

“No, she left that part out.” laughed the motherly mech. Sohee soon came by with their tea and the two thanked the ghost and Geminiman decided to grab a mango from the fruit bowl at the corner of his desk.

“Can I interest you in a mango, my dear?” he asked holding the fruit out her.

“Well aren’t we the gentleman?” She replied, taking the mango from his hand. “Of course I'll have one.”

The regal robot began to blush but was soon interrupted by a knocking on his office door. It was the police chief (the one in charge of the human side of things; Gemini hadn't had much contact with him, but it wasn't unusual to get a request every now and then). It could only mean one thing.

“Sorry to interrupt. But there’s been a situation.”

Geminiman sighed, and decided to wake up the two sleeping nobles to go help him out on the field.

“Well, the corpse isn’t exactly the nicest thing to look at.”

“Quiet Bongun, you’re being disrespectful.”

Geminiman and Sparkchan, along with Bongun and Munak stood over the victim’s body. There were no signs of physical harm on the body, however the victim’s face was a different story, the mouth was abnormally wide open as if the victim died in the middle of screaming.

“The officers tell me that there doesn’t appear to be any fingerprints of a murderer, and even if there was, the victim doesn’t appear to have suffered any form of injury or lethal blow and to make matters worse, there were no witnesses and the person who found the body had a backed-up alibi. Apparently he was supposed to come over to watch a movie with the victim but was caught in a traffic jam in which various of people can vouch for, the funny thing though was that the man in question and the victim weren’t on the best of terms so one has to wonder why he would be invited by the victim to watch a movie.” Lennon read out his report while Classi started examining the corpse. “His face clearly depicts a feeling of fear, however I can’t rule out the possibility of poison until I do an autopsy.”

The paranormal investigator looked around his surroundings, it was clear that there was a struggle at the scene; objects had been thrown around the room, all of which seemed to have been aimed at the victim’s television. If there was an assailant, then they were most likely standing somewhere near the television during the attack. The officers at the scene probably thought the same thing when they were looking around. However, the fact that they called in the Mechanical Maniac would imply something was odd and chances are that something would be where the attacker was standing. “Well I guess I might as well put my theory to the test.” Lennon said while looking at his two assistants. “Can you two sense anything coming from that television?”

“Just because we’re undead do you instantly assume that we have some sort of sixth sense to the paranormal?” Bongun responded sounding very irritated at the chrome-plated robot’s request.

“It’s the main reason I signed you guys up to this job actually. And besides, you’ve clearly demonstrated that you can sense something back in the caves during the fox girl incident. So don’t try to worm your way out of working.”

“Why do I have to work with you? You are beneath me, you lousy surface dweller!”

“Before you two go any further with this bickering, there’s work to be done!”

The two regal-looking men were startled as both Sparkchan and Munak scolded them in unison.

“I’m sorry…” they both replied in a rather dejected tone.

“I am picking up some sort of feeling from the television,” said Munak as she seemed to pace around the area in front of it, “a feeling of… anger and vengefulness.” The words clicked in Lennon’s head. He had a pretty good idea what killed the victim, however he didn’t want to jump to a conclusion until he had gathered all the information.

“Milady ClassiCal, I am sorry to break our time together short, but I’m going to need an autopsy as soon as possible, so once the other officers are done examining the scene could you please get the body to the morgue as quick as you can.” the electric robot nodded and left while Geminiman looked to his two undead helpers. “And I want you two to look for a video; chances are it is probably unlabeled or disposed of, once you’ve done that send it straight to the office and inform me.”

After some time, Sparkchan had the corpse moved to the morgue while Lennon and the undead royals did a search all over the house for the video but ended up finding nothing.

“We have searched the entire house and there is not a single trace of any video tape.” Bongun complained.

“I guess that means my intuition was wrong. Which I suppose is a good thing, but that would also mean that we would be facing another problem of what caused this man’s death.” remembrance of the hardship Geminiman had to go through, throughout that ordeal was not pleasant.

“I guess that means I have some good news and bad news then.” Munak interrupted as she hopped back on the scene. “I just got back from talking to one of the officers, he told me that all the evidence had been gathered and sent in advance before we even got to the scene.”

“Why was I not informed about this?” asked the bishounen robot

“He said he thought you were already told about this. Although I’m guessing the ones who sent the evidence probably didn’t want you to outshine them. What with you being a robot and all.” The undead princess replied.

“Great, so we’ve been spending the past few hours searching for something that may or may not have been found and may or may not already be at the station. I guess we’ll just have to send Sohee to ask about it and head back to the station.”

And with that the paranormal investigations team left the scene none too pleased about the days work. When they got back, Sohee was sent up to ask about the evidence while shortly afterwards Sparkchan came back with the autopsy.

“Well, I got the autopsy report straight from the morgue,” Classi sighing as she handed a copy of the report to the paranormal investigator, “No traces of poison were found in the body, no internal or external injuries either, I also did a check for any viruses just to be sure it isn't soemthing medical but nothing turned up. Everyone seemed to be at a loss on what could have killed this man other than fright.”

The reflective investigator sighed and stared at the autopsy report with a disgruntled look and then slammed his fist on his desk.

“Damn it! Why did they send the evidence back to the station before I started my half of the investigation?” Geminiman knew that this situation was going to occur sooner or later in his career, but it didn’t stop him from getting angered by it. “I can understand that the rest of the force is uneasy and untrusting of my contribution given my background, but it’s not right to keep me uninformed on certain aspects of the investigation, especially the most vital part!”

The narcissistic robot master slammed his fist against the desk again in frustration until his team-mate was quick to console him.

“There, there hun, I know we encounter some hardships at work because of our past, but we just have to be strong and eventually they’ll accept us. It’ll all work out in the end.”

The motherly Maniac’s words soothed Geminiman’s frustration over the lack of trust the rest of the Megalopolis Police Department had given him. He knew she was right, if it wasn’t for the endorsement of Dr Light, the Mechanical Maniacs wouldn’t even be official police officers. They were on a very short leash and so it was only natural that there would be some difficulties in working with other officers, however if they were to perform an exceptional job for the force, maybe the Maniacs would be more recognized by the public as actual enforcers of the law rather than some vigilante team of former weapons of mass destruction trying to play hero. While it might not be much of a reputation, it might make the public more accepting about the use of a robotic police force. He just had to keep an optimistic mind and soon that might be the reality.

“Umm, Master Geminiman, the chief wants to see you up in his office.” Sohee’s soft voice came from the office intercom. “This must be about the evidence.” Lennon thought as he got out of his chair and headed upstairs to the commissioner’s office.

As he walked his way to the office he noticed the eyes of all the officers seem to lock on to him as he marched from the basement office across the department office to see the chief, they all seemed to be filled with a mixture of awe and fear of the robot and quite frankly it made him feel rather uncomfortable and so he quickly increased his pace towards the commissioner’s office and opened the door to find Sohee hovering next to a rather troubled looking police chief.

“You wanted to see me, sir?” asked the chrome-plated robot as he closed the door in his attempt to ignore the looks of the officers outside the room.

“Ah Geminiman, yes come in and take a seat.”

There was a notable stress in the chief's voice as he seemed to be in some sort of a panic and he was beginning to sweat profusely, and while Lennon had noted the commissioner acting rather uneasy when he was in the same room, it was usually nothing like this. Something was definitely troubling him.

“Your, um… assistant informed me… you were looking for a… a video tape at the crime scene today.” The police chief was sounding very anxious, which in turn made Geminiman begin to suspect his intuition was right.

“Yes, I had heard that the investigation team before me sent over some evidence to the station before my arrival at the scene. In fact, I was hoping to talk to you about…”

“That video tape… You know what it is, right? You can cure it?” the chief interrupted now sounding almost desperate.

“I’m not quite sure I understand, sir.”

“That video, the one with the man with a towel, the people writhing on the ground, the blinking eye and that well, it said that I would die in 7 days. Can you stop it?”

The chief was almost in tears. While Sohee didn’t really know how to handle the situation, Lennon had understood it. The man who died earlier this morning had watched the Sadako video 7 days prior to his death, chances are he also knew the cure of it due to the fact he had asked a person to come over and watch it today. He could think of many reasons on how the tape got into his possession but that was rather irrelevant at this point. What mattered at this point was the police commissioner found the Sadako tape

“Do you have something that can create a copy of that tape?” asked the twin terror.

“Copy? Why on earth would you want to copy something so terrible?” the chief replied.

“That video you’re referring to is the legacy of a poor woman who died a tragic death and swore vengeance against the world for it. All those who watch that video are infected by her malice and as a result die 7 days afterwards…”

“If the cause of death spreads through the tape, then that’s just more reason to not copy it!”

“You didn’t let me finish, sir. As I was saying, those who watch the tape die 7 days afterwards, however there is a way to prevent this, and that is to copy the tape and pass the malice on to another by making them watch the tape. It is the only way to set you free of that woman’s anger.” Lennon said in a grim voice.

“But… I can’t kill another just to save my own. It would be completely unjust!” complained the police chief.

There was an awkward silence in the room as Lennon began to ponder what to do with the situation. He certainly couldn’t have the chief copy the video and pass it on to someone else, and even if he did, there was no guarantee that the person would watch it. We simply couldn’t force an imprisoned criminal to watch the tape since that would cause a scandal if word got out, unless of course the prisoner was scheduled to die on death row 7 days from the tape we forced them to watch the tape but even then, executions are public and Sadako’s method of killing unfortunately drives all witnesses insane.

“Umm… what if the person watching the tape wasn’t technically alive to begin with?” Sohee asked, breaking the silence.

“That’s a brilliant idea, Sohee. How about you make a copy of the video and then pass it on to me? Seeing as I’m robotic, I would be incapable of dying from Sadako’s malice and in the event that I do, well I guess that would be most unfortunate. But the main thing is that you would be free of the curse and since I am a mere robot I can be easily replaced.”

“But Master Gemini…”

“Don’t worry, Sohee. I have no real intention of dying. Besides, the final decision lies with the chief.”

The police chief was caught off guard. The robot before him had just suggested taking his place on the chopping block. He didn’t know how to respond to such a suggestion and could it really be trusted? But he didn’t know any other alternative and simply just nodded and then said “I’ll have a copy delivered to your office ASAP.”

“Then it is decided, I shall await the arrival of the video tape.” Lennon said as he smiled and left the chief’s office with Sohee hovering behind him.

“Master Geminiman, are you really serious about this?” she said out of concern for her new master.

“It was your idea Sohee, and as the head of paranormal investigations I think it should be my responsibility to carry the burden of this curse. Besides, I am curious to how this is all going to end.” Gemini replied with a devious grin on his face as he opened the door to his basement office.

“So how did it go?” Sparkchan had asked happily greeting her team-mate’s return.

“The video I was looking for was among the evidence sent to the station and as a result the chief was hit with a 7 day curse in which he would die at the end of. But that’s not going to happen because I am going to take his place.” the twin terror said somewhat triumphantly as his audience was faced with great shock.

“Ha! The master is going to kick the bucket. This is wonderful news.” Bongun exclaimed trying to contain his laughter.

“Bongun, how dare you act so insensitive towards the master; He is making a noble sacrifice for his own superior. This kind of action should be honoured!” Munak yelled.

“Lenny-kun, why would you offer your own life so willingly like this? There must be another option you could think of.” Classi asked with tears forming in her eyes.

“Don’t be so quick to think I’ll die from this. The Sadako curse has never been tested against something that possesses artificial life such as us; I highly doubt she’ll be able to do any harm. And if I do pull through, then the force will have no choice but to recognise us as the saviours of the chief.” Lennon said in a very proud voice.

“But… but what if you don’t live? Haven’t you considered how the rest of us would react to your death? You can’t just proudly say that you won’t die when you don’t even know what that curse can do to you.” Classi was now in tears, Lennon was taken aback by her reaction and his pride began to fade into sorrow.

“Classi…” the twin terror tried to comfort his electric companion but she backed away from him.

“No! You can’t just give me a hug and tell me that everything will be ok! It’s not that simple! This is your life we’re talking about! You can’t keep on throwing it away to impress everyone else because you’re only going to make everyone who cares about you sad!”

And with that, Classi just stormed out of the office wiping away her tears leaving Lennon with his ghostly companions whom all just stood in silence, not even Bongun could come up with some sort of jab at his master’s actions, it just wasn’t an appropriate time. The narcissistic robot just sat in his chair with a melancholic look on his face.

“Master Geminiman, don’t be saddened by this. She only said that because she cares deeply about you.” Munak said in an attempt to comfort him.

“I know that Munak… I know.”

“Not very becoming of you to upset Sparkchan like that, Gem.” said a familiar voice, Lennon knew exactly who it was and looked up and asked. “How long have you been here, Gauntlet?”

“Long enough to know what’s going on with this whole cursed video thing.” The leader of the Mechanical Maniacs said as he slipped out of the shadows. “This is a nice place you’ve got setup here, and a rather interesting group of employees you’ve gathered.”

“Who is this man?” asked Bongun, taken aback by the sudden appearance of the ninja robot.

“This is Gauntlet; he’s the leader of our group, the Mechanical Maniacs and despite what others might say he is the man I respect and trust the most.” Lennon calmly faced his leader and simply asked, “So what brings you here, fearless leader?”

“Well you haven’t been around the Technodrome lately so I figured I may as well check out what keeps you here all day.” Gauntlet said as he pulled up a seat.

“Paperwork can be tedious, you find the remains of an ancient civilization and even some of the residents of it and suddenly you get buried under several files to go through so that the world can learn of our discoveries.” Lennon replied in a rather bored tone of voice.

There was a short moment of silence as Bongun and Munak decided their job was done and hopped back to their quarters while Sohee suddenly spoke up.

“Oh! I forgot to make some tea!” the spirit started to float over to the kitchen until Gauntlet stopped her.

“I won’t be here for long, so there will be no need for tea. But thanks for the gesture.” The ninja then turned to his co-captain and spoke. “You know, Sparkchan is right. You shouldn’t be so quick to sacrifice yourself to save others. While it may seem like a ‘beautiful and noble’ thing to do for you having seen you pull this off before to save Needle in which I am thankful for, you’re ignoring the feelings of the people you leave behind. You’ve been on this team longer than most of the others and accomplished a great deal as well, so I can’t afford to lose someone with your experience.”

Lennon sighed and replied, “You’re right… so I suppose you’re going to have me find some other way to solve this problem?”

Shadowman shook his head. “Actually, I think your idea holds some weight, so I am going to allow it. However I wanted to make it clear to you that there are limits to chivalry. To continuously throw your life away while ignoring the consequences is not honourable, it’s foolishness.”

There was a knock on the office door and a police officer came into the room holding a video tape.

“Um, the chief told me to deliver this to you immediately.” the officer said as he nervously came into the twin terror’s office.

“Well, I guess I’ll leave you to your curse. I hope for all our sakes that this works out how you plan it.” Shadowman said as he got up from his chair and left the office.

“I’ll make sure that I don’t disappoint you then. It would be rather disgraceful if I failed.” Geminiman said as he bowed to his leader as he departed before turning his attention to the officer with the video, “Thank you for your delivery, it would be best if you left this room now. I would be most saddened if I got you involved with this ordeal.”

The officer handed the video to the bishounen robot and then left.

“Well then Sohee, if you could be as so kind to go prepare me some tea, I have a video to watch and I’d rather you’d not see it.” Lennon said as he prepared to start up the tape.

It was just as the chief had described it, the video showed an image of a man staring down from a well, then switched to a wall with a mirror image of a lady combing here hair then the mirror suddenly switching sides revealing a creepy looking girl, then the scene changed to what appeared to be people crawling on the ground, afterwards a man with a towel covering his head could be seen pointing ominously to the side, there was some Japanese lettering moving around and an eye that had the Japanese symbol “Sada” inside it, then finally there was an image of a well in the middle of the screen and then the tape finished and the phone began to ring all of a sudden. Expecting the call, Lennon picked up the phone and heard an eerie voice on the other line.

“Seven days…”

The twin terror laughed and hung up the phone and muttered, “I guess this is good news for the chief, not sure on how this bodes for me though.”

Seven days had passed since the paranormal investigator watched the cursed video and not much had happened since then. Geminiman just found himself sitting at his desk, writing up the paperwork for the curse’s most recent victim while his colleagues sat around the office waiting to see what his fate would be.

“For a man who is about to die, you seem awfully calm.” Bongun chimed in while his master was finishing up the last few pages of paperwork.

“Well, I have to get all this paperwork done if I am going to die today, but I highly doubt anything is going to happen.”

At that moment, the TV screen in the paranormal investigations office switched on and went static for a moment before the image of a well could be seen in the centre of the screen.

“Looks like it’s begun,” the twin terror sneered as a woman’s hand could be seen climbing up the edge of the well, “This ought to be interesting.”

Geminiman got out of his chair and watched in interest as the yurei known as Sadako made her way out of the well and slowly approached the foreground of the scene, only to then slowly climb out of the TV screen while Bongun, Munak and Sohee all just watched on in awe as the broken woman slowly stood up and then stared directly at their master.

There was an awkward silence as everything in the room appeared to have gone into a stand still. The vengeful yurei had emerged in all her glory to complete the 7 day cycle, but something was wrong, her target didn’t show any signs of emotion or fear, he just simply stood there with a devious grin on his face staring directly at her.

“You… why do you not die?”

“I guess my hypothesis was right after all.” Lennon said, as he moved towards the yurei, observing her, “Sadako, I’m afraid that you cannot kill me, nor can you kill anymore in this very room. This is all because of one slight detail. None of us are actually alive to begin with.”

Sadako showed no change of emotion as she remained standing in front of the TV while Geminiman continued talking.

“So if you cannot kill us, you in theory cannot kill anyone as long as I have you in police custody. So henceforth,” Geminiman spun around gracefully and grabbed a pair of handcuffs from a nearby shelf and proceeded to handcuff Sadako and say “I, Geminiman, the Twin Terror of the Mechanical Maniacs hereby declare that you, Sadako Yamamura are under arrest for murder.”

The narcissistic robot stood triumphant as the yurei just stared at him, now with her hands cuffed together while Bongun just shook his head in embarrassment at the sight of Geminiman’s melodramatic performance or a rather anti-climatic arrest. Sohee on the other hand stood in awe while Munak just sighed and decided to go read a book.

“You realize that you cannot stop me simply by containing me in some prison, I am omnipresent. As long as my vengeance is alive I will continue to kill until all know of my pain!” Sadako said in a chilling voice.

“Yes, but in order for you to be able to kill them, they would first need to watch the videotape. And that won’t be happening for quite a while.” Geminiman sneered.

“Fool, as long as you are under my curse, I will be bound to you so no matter where you decide to lock me up, I will still be right by your side, and while your colleagues here may already be dead, I’m sure sooner or later you will encounter a human and while I may not be able to kill them, my mere presence will install them with enough fear to drive them insane. Face it; you will lose this battle against me.”

“Well if that is the case, then I suppose that means we’ll just stay here in this office until one of us gives in.”

The twin terror then returned to his desk and sat down while Sadako continued to stare down at him.

“Munak, would you be so kind and pass me that particularly large book on my bookshelf over there?”

“Oh, you mean this one?” The undead princess said as she hopped to the bookshelf and pulled out a rather heavy looking book and placed it on the Maniac’s desk.

“Yes, that is much appreciated.” he replied as he quickly summoned a couple of clones to keep Sadako from attempting to interfere with what he was beginning to plan.

Lennon quickly began to flick through the book, while he certainly showed a brave and confident face in front of his foe, he realized that she had all the time in the world to watch him slowly crack. After all, legend had it that she was alive in that well for over 40 years before cursing the world and while Geminiman also had all the time in the world, he certainly wasn’t going to spend it watching over a pissed off Japanese ghost for all eternity while also making sure that no one else ventured close to his office.

“A slight flaw in your plan, I see.” came a voice from the shadows.

“You could say that, Gauntlet. Seeing as I knew how this whole curse works I should have anticipated that I would reach this dilemma.”

The cybernetic shinobi came out from the shadows and watched over his team-mate as he was quickly skimming through his large book.

“So may I ask what were you trying to accomplish, locking up an omnipresent spirit of vengeance?”

“I forgot that she was omnipresent, I’m now thinking of a new solution to this problem, although it doesn’t particularly help that the person I am trying to rid myself of is standing right in front of us.”

“You will all suffer for what you have done!” screamed out the vengeful yurei but she was unable to do much while being restrained by the twin terror. But that was soon going to change as a knock could be heard on the door to the office.

“Is everything ok in here? The chief sent me down to check up on you.”

The voice on the other side did not resemble any of the other Mechanical Maniacs. So it had to be a subordinate of the police chief.

Upon hearing this voice, Sadako made an eerie grin as Geminiman started to turn the pages faster while Bongun, Munak, Sohee and Shadowman quickly made their way to the door to prevent the officer from coming in.

“Everything is fine, sir” replied Shadowman but it was too late.

The room began to get darker and Sadako started glowing, this effect could be seen from outside the office and Shadowman noticed that the officer outside had gone upstairs to inform others about it. This was not good, if the entire police force came down to investigate this commotion then Sadako would render the entire lot of them insane, time was getting short.

Finally, Geminiman found the page he was looking for and yelled out, “Sohee! I need to borrow you for a while!”

“Um, what is it Master Geminiman?” said Sohee as she floated towards Geminiman and the glowing Sadako.

“You’re a spirit, am I correct?”

“Um, yes that’s right. Why do you ask?” she asked in her usual shy tone.

“From my research I have noticed that some yurei can fuse with other spirits so, in order to get rid of Sadako I’m going to need to merge the two of you together. But in order for my plan to work, I need you to be strong enough to overcome her power and become the dominant spirit.”

“Wha… But, I’m not sure that I could…”

Sadako quickly jumped out of her seat but was promptly forced back down by Geminiman’s clones.

“You insolent fool! You will never be able to get rid of me that easily!”

The servant spirit floated in panic as her master pleaded for her help and the other spirit screamed at her but then slowly nodded to Geminiman as he then turned to Bongun.

“Bongun, I need you to recite this spell and do it quick!”

“I am not your lackey! So don’t expect me to…”

“Now is not the time beloved! There are people about to come down those stairs and eventually try to get into this room and if Sadako is still here when that happens, everything is going to come crashing down and as much as you don’t want to associate with the surface dwellers, you will be involved in this. So cast the spell!” Munak screamed.

Muttering to himself in disappointment, Bongun began reciting the spell Geminiman gave him and Sohee then started to glow and then slowly lost her form until she became a wisp, while Sadako also started doing the same.

“No, I will not let you stop my vengeance like this!” she cried as she turned into a wisp and then merged with Sohee causing a bright flash of light.

As the lighting returned to normal, Geminiman, Shadowman, Bongun and Munak looked at the girl who had taken shape from the result of the spell.

“Um… Did everything turn out ok?” the girl asked as she revealed her face to her colleagues, it was Sohee and with a sigh of relief Geminiman started to walk towards her to thank her until Sohee’s eyes began to darken and Sadako’s voice rang out of her mouth.

“You haven’t gotten rid of me yet! You have merely trapped me within this weak and fragile body. Soon, I will break free and my vengeance will be paid in full!”

Lennon was taken aback by this outcome where as Bongun and Munak gasped at the sight of their friend suddenly changing personalities while Gauntlet just smiled.

“Since you simply merged the two of them together, it should be expected that both personalities exist, however within Sohee’s body, I don’t think Sadako is going to be as threatening as she used to be.”

Sohee’s eyes suddenly reverted back to normal and she looked around at the surprised faces of her colleagues and made a rather puzzled look.

“Um… why’s everyone looking at me? Is there something on my face?”

Geminiman made a sigh of relief and then gave Sohee a pat on the head.

“Everything’s fine Sohee, you did well.”

A bunch of officers came through the door along with the chief in order to investigate the commotion that had previously occurred but were surprised to find nothing out of the ordinary.

“We heard that something strange was going on in this office.” The police chief said, “Is it here? Is that thing here to kill me?”

“The situation has been taken care of, sir.” Shadowman said as he gestured to the chief and the other officers to leave. “Nothing really left to see here except for a couple of hopping corpses and a demonic spirit so you might as well go back upstairs while we finish up the paperwork.”

The officers made their way back upstairs somewhat disappointed and blissfully unaware of how close to insanity they were while Shadowman closed the door.

“So why did you show up when you did, Gauntlet?” the paranormal investigator said in a rather disgruntled voice. “Did you not trust me with my experiment?”

“I was in the neighborhood and I decided to check up on you, to make sure that you weren’t dead. I guess your gamble was a success. Sparkchan will be relieved to see that you’re ok.”

Lennon sighed for a moment and then walked over to the TV and picked up the cursed videotape and destroyed it. “I suppose with Sadako trapped in Sohee’s body I won’t have to worry about whether or not I should copy the tape or not.”

“Another case closed for Geminiman, paranormal investigator then?” asked the Maniacs Leader.

“Heh, coming from you, that doesn’t make me feel any better.” replied the chrome-plated robot.

Part 2 - End