Discordant Ray Guns

A Slow Dance of Autumn Evening

A/N: VIP was a powerful thing. Phantom truly realized this as no one questioned a teenager renting a room while looking like the back end of a dump truck. 

Mr. Fruitloop Masters would be maaaad-er. 

                                                                ***********************

"My goodness you-- you're, you're--"

"Yes," Phantom hissed all too wary of the sundown patrons present. "Now please can you be subtle about it. Now a small room--"

"My daughter just loves you," gushed the silver haired, apple cheeked landlady of the quaint, decaying Bed and Breakfast he had found.

"Thank you very much, but a room please," he said in curt professionalism. "Your smallest is just fine which was forty dollars a night?"

"Why yes dear usually but please for our special guests," the woman crooned.

"No that's fine," Phantom said quickly, feeling a blush creep up the back of his neck. Hotels always had that 'celebrity discount' and then Vlad would get all patronizing about the hidden fees he was slapped with after. Ones he would pay for with a bigger cut from his royalties and ticket sales.

"Please I insist," she jaunted, then turning to a sly, low whisper added on, "mark all 'em like you in this and the staff'll know to keep their lips sealed."

"Okay then."

"Perfect then that's a thirty-two dollar one bed room and a free-- do you like chocolate or mint?"

"Chocolate duh," he replied. "And umm by any chance, robes?"

His clothes were dried but would definitely need a wash and he'd only brought the one change.

"Of course, come free with the room for your stay."

His eye wandered over to some activity brochures and business cards.

Picking one pamphlet he took the pen while she rang him up.

Receipt punched and verified she made to hand it to him finding him bent.

"Oh, for uhh for your daughter," he said handing over a brochure now scrawled with his sharp, stylized cursive.

"Thank you! What a darling you are," she said, face tinged red. "Now room thirteen is all yours."

He clutched the key and with a bow headed to the indicated hallway.

The musician found a quaint little space with a soft, plushy bed, low window and a compression of the floor and ceiling, making so he could imagine himself tall enough to touch the ceiling.

Balmy air of a humid evening snuck inside the room while he lay his tired body upon the bed, deciding to settle for the night.

Turned on his side he had to wonder where Vlad Masters was now.

He was surely going insane by now to find him gone. Phantom could only hope no one got in too much trouble. Likely he would hold off on calling his family or the authorities for that matter, despite all that 24 hour stuff.

To the chirp of crickets and the creaking silence of a dust drowned building Phantom fell asleep.

***********************

The tall, imposing figure of a man sat in a hardback office chair in a modern hotel room.

"FIND HIM AND I'LL RECONSIDER!" he screamed to the telephone before slamming it back down to the landline.

Rubbing his head he cursed that rat of a child.

All his plans for the year, and to that town of all places.

A wash of heat stole over his chest, scalding and dangerous.

If he were any normal dolt.

"Why hello," he said barely suppressing his ire, "I'm sorry wrong room. Yours is staying three doors down."

"Hahaha, funny Plasmius," Skulker scoffed.

"I do try," he retorted sourly. "Now what does bring you here?"

Plasmius' eyes narrowed upon the ghost.

"I hear you're songbird's run away. Word on the ghost roads and all that," he said.

"If you're going to tell me he's in Amity Park then you're too late," he drawled. "Boy hardly covered his tracks."

The map with the X had been inside a family photo that now lay shattered in the trash.

"More to warn you," he chuckled. "That whole half-human, half-ghost look you have for him, hard for even me to resist."

"If you've killed him..."

"Relax I haven't. Yet. Fenton though--"

"What about her?" he snarled, eyes going wide and mad.

"Kid. Fenton kid. He's killed more. At least three of us, he's starting to become a big nuisance."

"I will not allow you to kill the boy, I want you to keep an eye, tell me of his movements. By midday tomorrow I'll have a search party at the ready," and for a scant moment he contemplated, before taking out a miniscule device hidden among his files and the boy's new music. "Give him a little gift too when you get that chance.

"Axion Labs is also due a few inspections from it's newest chairman too," he mused. "Ahh I can't wait for those two to meet, not even Maddie could fix all that damage and if she lands herself a lawsuit all the better."

While he descended into his scheming Skulker took his leave.

With a sigh he took the photograph of his white haired nuisance. When he'd been just another dark haired boy with the blue eyes of a cherub. "Oh Blaire Wesley, just what am I going to do with you?"