Mutated Ectoplasm

8. One of a Kind

Another chapter up and we're getting further into the fray. Karkat's getting used to ghost powers for better or for worse, but things will begin to get mess up soon. Hopefully, he'll learn to get past it as well.

For anyone that notes how different this is to the actual episodes so far, I'd like to say that I'm mostly sticking to the premises of each episode and the arrival of each ghost, but avoiding repeating lines from the actual episode since they roles are being played by far different people. This keeps things fresh and new so that something different can be added to the story.

Also, I hope everyone out there is keeping safe and make sure to practice cleanliness habits these days. I won't mention the situation directly, but I wish everyone the best during this troubling time and I hope this fanfiction provides some form of escape for you if you need it.

Now, onto the show!

Karkat realized one thing after being a superhero for one week that he probably should've considered; being a superhero was really inconvenient.

Spades had been keeping the portal open for only short periods of time while trying to come up with ways to study it, especially the inside of it. To his son's great frustration, the occasional ghost would slip out of it and get outside the house.

On the upside, most of them were mindless ectopuses that honestly felt less dangerous after dealing with the lunch lady ghost or random animals that ranged from harmless to only a minor threat. Some consisted of wayward ghost cats searching for something to the occasional ghost wolf that had to be sucked up into the thermos. The only real threat they presented to him was the existential nightmare of animals having souls and waking him up late at night.

He rarely even had to fight them in some cases as long as he caught them by surprise.

However, he did have to deal with one human ghost that apparently wanted nothing more to do than cause some serious headaches to him and his friends.

"I am the Box Ghost! Beware!"

This fucking guy was going to be the death of him, he just knew it.

"Beware yourself, you overall-wearing bastard!" Karkat yelled, attempting to catch the ghost quickly before he could do anymore damage to the warehouse they found themselves in. The ghost was simply dodging him at this point, throwing boxes at him telekinetically the entire time.

None of the members of the group knew where he came from, who he was before becoming a ghost, or why exactly he was focused on boxes of all things, but he was determined to make his life hell apparently.

Karkat dodged the boxes expertly or simply phased through them whenever he could. He hadn't yet mastered using his powers simultaneously, but it wasn't like the boxes themselves were a great danger. Anything within them could cause it though. Eventually, the Box Ghost reached the end of the warehouse and cornered himself.

"Alright," The half-ghost teen huffed, slowing to a stop in front of the grown ghost. "Can we please just take a minute here and not fight for ten seconds? I'm getting real tired of putting you back in the Ghost Zone."

"I am too!" The Box Ghost huffed, almost pouting like a small child. "If you just let me hang around with my cubicle wonders, I wouldn't have to escape."

"Look," Karkat pulled out the thermos, pointing it at him. "I'll figure out how to let you do that, but you gotta give me time. Until then, stay in the fucking Ghost Zone."

"But-" Karkat would've felt guilty for interrupting him if this wasn't the fourth time he sucked him into the thermos this week.

He really would try to find some way to make sure he's happy or something. It wasn't like he found the Box Ghost doing anything particularly heinous or anything, he was just more or less hanging out in the warehouses. But his dad did have that ecto-detector laying around and until he found a way to make sure Boxy didn't end up on a dissection table, he was going to stay inside the Ghost Zone.