Brief and Crewsocks: Ghost Hunters

Chapter 3

The park in this area of town had probably been very lovely. But over time, it had suffered major decay. The trees had wilted, the playground equipment had rusted over and the pond that dominated much of the area had transformed into foul, putrid muck that could hardly even be described as "water" anymore. The public restrooms had broken mirrors, gravity across the walls, and toilets that had been out of order for longer than anyone could remember. But at least the water that flowed from the rusted faucets above the stained sinks remained as clear as any water one could find in the city.

Crewsocks did what he could to wash off his face and other exposed parts of his body, even trying to wipe some of the garbage and dust off his clothes.

Brief, who had remained relatively clean during this outing simply waited outside the restroom, leaning against the wall with his arms above his head and staring up at the night sky, wistfully dreaming about the fun he would have with Panty if he could just collect another 8 coins before the night was through.

Not far away, the lake began to gurgle and bubble. Slowly small ghostly turtles began emerging from the pond and making their way towards the boys.

Brief noticed at first, seeing the small, cute turtles put a smile on his face and he leaned down to pet them. "Well, aren't you quite adorable?" he asked.

The nearby turtle responded by chomping on his finger. Brief yelped in pain and stood up straight trying to shake the ghostly turtle from his index finger.

Hearing the commotion, Crewsocks emerged from the restroom, grabbing his shield, and unsheathing his sword. He stared upon the scene, a light from his shield illuminating just how many of these turtles there were. "Looks like we just found our next ghosts," he commented unenthusiastically.

Brief finally managed to shake off the turtle before unhooking his gun. However, he paused—both because of how cute the targets were and knowing that the slow rate of fire of his gun meant he couldn't take out this sheer number of targets.

Crewsocks had far less issue taking to the offense, his sword sweeps were able to either slice and destroy some of the turtles while sending others flying away. But even his more active efforts seemed in vain—for their numbers were simply too great.

Brief finally lowered his gun and began taking shots at the small targets, but, just as he feared, it seemed like he couldn't make much of a dent in their numbers. "What do we do when there are this many?"

Crewsocks grimaced and spit back, "I thought you were the expert in this. What do the angels usually do?"

The turtles began nipping at the boy's feet and legs causing them to yelp and jump in pain to try to get away. But they were small creatures, quite weak so while the bites were painful, they weren't damaging.

"Ah! Ah!" cried Brief as he tried hopping away from the turtles while shaking his leg to try to get off the ones that were attached, "They have much better weapons!"

Crewsocks tried planting down his shield between him and the small creatures, but it was only so wide and there were so many descending on them. He yelped in pain as he got bitten again and just began hammering his sword down again and again to try to get rid of as many as he could.

But behind the wave of small turtles, a lump was growing. The turtles that had been smashed or knocked back were forming a growing pile, fueled by ever more of the creatures emerging from the lake. However, the boys were so distracted with their dwindling small opponents that they remained completely oblivious to it.

Only once it formed the shape of a giant turtle shell, the size of a shipping container and about twice as wide and a head and legs emerged did the boys finally take notice, staring up at their intimidating opponent with fright.