Lights Out

After extracting himself from the tangled mess of aprons, Percy is eager to prove his worth. So when Parish drops the mason jar, Percy is at the ready! His body is hot enough to melt glass, so he rushes forward, planning to absorb the glass shards and protect his more delicate friends.

He doesn't see the ghost until he's moving through it. Its unearthly chill makes his skin feel tight and clumsier than usual. With a start, Percy realizes that if it freezes him up at the wrong time, it could trip him down the stairs into the indeterminably deep depths, or worse, cause him to fall on top of one of his companions and injure them!

"I'll just be here," he tells Parish faintly. "I don't need to eat or anything, so I'll be fine until you find time to come back someday."

The ghost moans and wraps its incorporeal arms around Percy, clinging to the lava elemental and refusing to let go. The dracula shakes his butt in Hey Kid's direction, laughing with delight! Who will be brave enough to press on through the basement to find the generator's fuel?!?

Sal watched the chaos unfolding around him, and thought he had not seen so much chaos since his old job. This, though, was compounded by the darkness and the storm that continued to rage outside. He was dusty, and a little afraid, and quite ready to return to his guitar upstairs. It had been a mistake to come down here.

Then his eyes caught on Dracula, who was in the middle of twerking, and the pure ridiculousness of the situation hit him square in the gut. What was he getting all worked out about? He couldn't help it; he began to laugh.

In the wake of Sal's laughter, there is an uneasy moment of quiet...

Parish is starting to get a little flustered. His friends were beset by fiends and Sal appears to have come unhinged based on the laughter. He had to press.on! Shifting from exit to exit, Parish boldly strides towards the darkest, steepest most cobwebbed passage he can see.

Parish blusters forward through the cobwebs, batting them out of the way. Something large looms in the shadows ahead! Egads! Is that an enormous monster?!?

Shining his flashlight on the shape, Parish discovers that it is, in fact, only the water heater. Phew! But you are no closer to finding the fuel...

Parish knew what had to lie at the end of this webbed passage. Segmented body, eight legs, cousin to Shelob the great spider!. Parish would not be fooled by the clever arachnid's water heater disguise! Sometimes windmills are giants! With a great battle croak, Parish starts slamming his broom handle into the hot water heater. At the first metal clang, he thought, "Gadzoooks, the spider is armored!" After the third or fourth, he realized that couldn't be right. He lowered his broom, peered forward again, and sheepishly hoped he had not broken the water heater.

The water heater is a bit dented, but still intact, luckily. And say! What's that in that room over there? Parish looks closely and spots the gas canister he has been looking for--clutched in the bony fingers of a skeleton slumped against the masonry.

Hey Kid is so sick and tired of all this! Clearly the grownups are doing it on purpose. They yell at Parish, "You did that on purpose just to scare me. You’re just leading us to scary things because you don’t like me. That’s what this is all about!"

They get about that far before the blood sucker dive bombs them again and makes them scream and scurry for some sort of safety.

With Sal laughing at him, Hey Kid dealing with their own spooky situation, and Parish rushing on ahead, Percy assumes that his role is indeed to wait for help to arrive.

"I don't know you very well, but I care about you," Percy tells Hey Kid as he settles into a more comfortable sitting position. "It was real nice of you to invite me to that game the other day. And hey, if we're stuck here at least we're stuck together!"

He shivers violently as the ghost makes another whooshing pass through him. "Besides," he muses, "us flammable folk ought to stick together!"

Parish frowns at the skeleton holding the gas can. Did this poor wretch perish from touching the gas? Or worse did someone drape this skeleton over the gas can as a sick joke? Either way, Parish did not want to disturb their slumber if he did not have to. He would have to search elsewhere. He retraced his steps in time hear Percy comfort Hey Kid and almost absent-mindedly bats away the ghost and dracula with his broom. He makes a note not to have his flammable friends carry the fuel when they find it.

Despite the continued menacing antics of the cackling dracula and spooky ghost, Percy decides to comfort Hey Kid. And as Hey Kid begins to calm down a bit, they spot something in the corner of the next room. It's a cardboard box filled with baby clothes that the devilish child used to wear, topped with a macaroni picture of the Bed & Breakfast.

Yazeba's B&B is Hey Kid's home, and the basement is a part of that home. The box is a little reminder of that fact. Seeing it makes Hey Kid feel more courageous. Courageous enough, maybe, to finally stand up to that annoying dracula with too much time on his hands...

Parish smiles at the discovered baby clothes. He lifts out one shirt and a classic Neutron Gal stared out. Parish chuckles. He'd forgotten how early Hey Kids fandom started.

He shows Hey Kid the shirt and points at the Dracula. "Is it pew pew o'clock? Parish asks, completely misremembering the iconic catchphrase.

Hey Kid does their best to find courage. Parish hilariously get the catchphrase wrong but that’s okay. Hey Kid stands tall, hands at their sides, "It’s fighting time." They can almost imagine the breeze flowing over their imaginary cape as they monologue just like Nuetron Gal.

"You made a mistake today. You attacked my home, my family. Well for that you’ll pay. It’s fighting time!" They stand boldly ready to fight off Dracula.

The dracula regards Hey Kid and their newfound confidence with annoyance. "Bleh, it's no fun anymore if you're not a scaredy-cat!" he laments. With a swoosh of his cape, the dracula transforms into a bat and flies away!

"OohoohOoOoOH!" moans the ghost still menacing Percy.

"Well done," Percy praises Hey Kid warmly. Or as warmly as he can with a spooky ghost still chilling him. "Maybe you can help me scare away this ghost, too!"

He leans back against the door behind him, trying not to let the others see how scared he is of getting left and forgotten down here. But it's all he can think about! What if he's left down here for a week? A month? Until he burns out into nothing?? He reflexively flares to warm himself, but greatly underestimates how scared he really is and goes up in a WHOOSH.

"Oh Nooooooooo," he moans as he burns through the door and falls down the staircase beyond. He tumbles down, down, until he at last comes to an oozing stop at the bottom. "Don't worry! That didn't hurt!" he calls up to his companions. But instead of the reassuring faces of Hey Kid and Parish, it's the ghost who comes rushing down to him.

The ghost sweeps down the staircase to follow Percy, its filthy sheet flapping in an unseen wind. As Percy collects himself, he spots a terrifying silhouette... that turns out to be a dress form with Yazeba's old wizard school robes and hat on it. Can you believe she used to wear anything so... silly? That sight makes Percy laugh, and that laughter fills him with warmth and courage.

As he turns around, he sees something else--EEK! Is that a goblin? No, no. It's just a weird watering can! Nothing to be alarmed about. Not like that ancient ghost, over there.

"OOhhhhoohoOOOOH!"

Hey Kid sees Percy and takes their hand. Hey Kid gives Percy a big smile and says, "It's okay. I'm right here and we're friends, right? Friends don't care if someone makes a fire or is a bit clumsy. I know because Gertrude told me and she's, my friend. Plus, she's like lots older than me."

Hey Kid then looks up to Parish, "Thanks Parish, you helped too. Didn't you used to be a real knight or were you like a regular frog and some princess kissed you?"

A faint blush comes to Parish's cheeks as he remembers a long ago kiss. "You have it a little jumbled. The princess was cursed to be a frog and I took her curse upon myself." Buoyed by the memory of his noblest deed, Parish once more marches forth in search of what they need to bring warmth to the B&B.

Parish boldly leads the group through the dark and twisting tunnels. After several minutes, he finds himself back at the skeleton that is still clutching the precious fuel tank. But this time, Percy might just be brave enough to retrieve the fuel! How scary can a skeleton be compared to the ghost already haunting him? And if the lights come back on, the ghost will probably fly off anyway, right?