Ghost Opera <Shego>

[giselle]

As if obeying some unwritten rule that all cemeteries with foreboding mansions on the property had to have a constant thunderstorm, the sky that had been a beautiful blue moments before the ginger haired girl's arrival had become black as night, brightened only by cracks of lightning that streaked across the sky, immediately followed by a deafening crash of thunder.

The rain poured down as Giselle ran for the house as quickly as she could, her heart pounding in her chest. By the time she made it to the porch, she was positively drenched, her pink dress clinging to her like a second skin, and her red locks matted to her face. Hoping that the owner of the house would be home, and would allow her shelter to wait out the storm, Giselle raised a fist to knock at the door, her cerulean eyes widening as it opened, seemingly of it's own accord.

Giselle tentatively stepped in, running her hands up and down her bare arms to ward off the chill that had settled over her small frame.

"Hello?" She called out. "Is anyone here?"

The only answer she received was the sound of her own voice echoing off the walls. Just as she was considering whether or not to stay here uninvited, the front door suddenly slammed shut. A frightened gasp flew past her lips as she spun around and clutched at the door knob. But try as she might, she couldn't get the heavy door to budge even an inch.

Seeing no other option, Giselle turned back toward the hall of the mansion she'd found herself in. Having no idea of where she could go that might improve her situation, she decided to climb the staircase. Perhaps the owner might be in one of the bedchambers...

[Shego]

As it happened, the owner of the mansion was in one of the bedchambers, however they were in no position to release the newcomer from the confines of the house. Shego had purchased the mansion for a ludicrously low price just under twelve hours ago, the lure of being able to own a mansion that legally couldn’t be taken away from her overriding her trepidation that such a deal was too good to be true. Unfortunately, of all the possible things that could have been wrong with the house, it being haunted wasn’t the first thing she’d have guessed.

When you stayed on the move as much as Shego did you didn’t assemble that many possessions (which was certainly one of the things she was hoping to rectify now that she had her own permanent base of operations), so she’d been able to move everything over at once in her car. Unfortunately the mansion had proved a lot harder to locate than she’d expected (the fact that it didn’t even exist according to her car’s GPS system didn’t help), with the result that the sky had gone pitch-black by the time she finally pulled up outside the door.

“Okay, it better not do that every time,” muttered Shego as the door opened before her without her ever laying a hand on it, “I mean that’s just asking for trouble.” One of the reasons she’d been attracted to this place in the listings was that it claimed to be fully furnished, and as she hauled her suitcases inside she was relieved to see that this was indeed the case. Of course, this did also add to the mystery of why it had been so cheap to buy, however she felt the cemetery that surrounded the house probably had something to do with it. Not that this particularly bothered Shego, in fact she rather felt it added character to the mansion.

As she began to drag her suitcases up the grand staircase, she heard the unmistakable sounds of a storm brewing outside, and was mildly relieved that she’d managed to find the place before the clouds parted. Smirking at the amusing thought that there might still be people stuck out in those conditions, she quickly located the master bedroom and dumped her cases in a corner... only for the corner to spit them back at her.

“Hey!” exclaimed Shego in alarm as she ducked, her luggage crashing into the spot on the wall where here head had been a second before, “what’s going on here!?”

[giselle]

Chills ran through Giselle's body, part from being cold and wet, and part from a feeling that she was being watched. She wrapped her arms around herself tightly as she continued down the hall. The sound of people murmuring quietly reached her ears, and she quickly followed the voices into the library.

Confusion covered her features as she entered as she saw that no one was in the room. In fact, the voiced had stopped entirely, making her wonder if she'd imagined them.

"But I was sure..." Giselle murmured. She wondered if perhaps the people she'd heard had gone deeper into the room, and started toward the bookshelves. Suddenly, the books came flying off the shelves, hurtling toward her. Giselle raised her arms to shield herself, yelping as the leather bound books kept striking her, one right after the other.

It was obvious that someone (or rather, something) didn't want her in this room, so Giselle turned on her heels and raced out the door, still being pelted by the books. She ran back down the hall and into the first open room she came across.

Giselle leaned heavily against the wall, relieved that she seemed to escape the flying books. As she tried to catch her breath, Giselle suddenly realized that she wasn't alone in this room.

"Oh!" Her eyes widened a bit as they fell on the dark haired woman standing in the room. "I'm so sorry for intruding, I didn't mean any harm... It's just that the storm came so suddenly, and when I came in the front door slammed shut and I couldn't open it again, and then I was in the library and books were flying at me, and..."

Giselle paused for a moment, her breathing still not under control. Feeling faint, she raised a hand to her forehead, desperately trying to stay conscious. But between being lost, without any of her friends, not to mention trapped in a haunted house whose ghostly inhabitants had just attacked her, well... Giselle couldn't handle so much stress at once. She slid to the ground, blackness pulling at her vision until her entire world went dark.

[Shego]

Shego rolled to the side as her luggage wheeled around for a fresh assault, staying on the move so that whatever force was controlling them wouldn’t have an easy target. Her mind was racing with possible causes of this phenomenon, however to the best of her recollection she didn’t have any known enemies who possessed this sort of ability. Besides, she’d only purchased the mansion today, and had only found it a matter of minutes ago; there was no way one of her rivals could have had time to set a trap for her.

“Enough!” snarled Shego angrily, igniting her hands and hurling a blast of energy at each suitcase with two sharp jabs. Emerald flames coated the cases, which began to writhe and hiss, as if they were actually in pain. Taking advantage of this momentary lull in their assault, Shego aimed a couple of swift kicks at her errant luggage, propelling them cleanly through the ornate window that looked out over the cemetery below. She watched with some degree of relief as they plummeted to earth in a shower of broken glass, relieved that whatever force had been controlling them apparently lost its effect outside of the mansion’s walls.

“This is just freaky,” muttered Shego darkly as, before her very eyes, the broken shards of the window soared back up into the frame and sealed it up again, repairing the window so thoroughly that it was impossible to tell it had been damaged at all. It was like the building itself was reacting negatively to her presence and attempting to defend itself, like something out of a bad horror story. Oh she was so going to give that estate agent a piece of her mind when she got out of this. She reached out for the door handle to leave, however before she could touch it the door burst open, and a woman practically flew into the room.

For a moment Shego half-thought it was Kim Possible and leapt back in alarm, however she was relieved to see that this wasn’t the case. The woman standing before her (well, technically she was leaning against the wall, but same difference) quickly stammered an apology, and promptly collapsed to the ground in a faint. Shego raised one eyebrow in surprise, taking a step closer and kneeling beside the unconscious woman. She was undeniably attractive, with dazzling red hair and features that looked like she’d just stepped out of a fairytale movie.

“Great, this is just what I need right now,” murmured Shego in an irritated tone, slowly reaching out one hand as she did so and shaking the woman’s shoulder, “Hey pumpkin, you in there?”

[giselle]

Luckily, the fainting spell was able to help get Giselle's heart rate back to a normal speed, and the shake on her shoulder was enough to bring her back to consciousness.

Giselle opened her eyes, blinking to clear her head of the lingering fog. She shook her head lightly before turning toward the woman kneeling next to her. She didn't seem at all like anyone she'd ever met before. Her skin had a slight green tint to it, but it didn't make her look unattractive. She had a mass of raven black hair that traveled well past her waist, and was dressed in a skin tight green and black outfit.

"Oh... I'm sorry." Giselle said as a faint blush stained her cheeks. She wasn't quite sure why the fact that she'd fainted in front of this particular person had made her feel embarrassed, and she quickly ducked her head, letting her ginger locks fall forward and cover her cheeks.

"I didn't mean to intrude on your home..." Giselle said again, assuming that this woman was the owner. "I only meant to get out of the storm, but the door slammed shut, and I couldn't get it to open again... and just now in the library, books were flying at me... I'm not sure what's happening here, but if there's a way for me to get out... could you show me the way?"

[Shego]

Although she wasn’t sure why, Shego was mildly relieved when the girl woke up after only the first shake, however this feeling quickly turned to amusement as she stammered yet another apology at her. Apparently this woman was under the impression that she was actually under any control of this situation, something which couldn’t be further from the truth.

“Yeah well,” muttered Shego, quickly rising to her feet and putting a few feet between them, “maybe next time you’ll think twice before waltzing into someone’s house uninvited.” She sighed, her usual bravado conflicting with the need to resolve this situation as quickly as possible. Shego was never one to ask for assistance from another (especially from one as ditzy as this stranger appeared to be); however she couldn’t deny that this wasn’t the right time to be pushing away anyone who could help.

“Gotta say though,” continued Shego slowly, perching on the edge of the ornate, queen-sized bed as she gazed at the woman, “I may own this place, but that doesn’t mean I have any idea what’s going on here.” She glanced back at the window involuntarily; half expecting to see her suitcases flying back up for round two. Giselle’s story appeared to corroborate her theory about this mansion; it really did seem to be haunted.

[giselle]

Giselle slowly stood to her feet as the woman moved away. She hung her head when she made a comment about coming in uninvited. Giselle obviously hadn't meant to do that... the door had after all, moved both times entirely on it's own. Still, she was right... she had entered the house without being invited, and now she was paying for it.

Giselle sighed a little when she admitted to not knowing what was happening... How long would they be trapped in this strange house? What was happening here?

Giselle desperately didn't want to start crying, especially in front of this woman, so she quickly spoke up, relieved when she was able to speak normally.

"Maybe there's another way out... we have to try..." She said.

She paused for a moment, following the other woman's gaze out the window.

"I'm Giselle." She said as an afterthought. It seemed like they were going to be trapped here for a while... the least they could do was know each other's name.

[Shego]

Shego rolled her eyes as Giselle suggested that they try another way out, as if that wasn’t the painfully obvious course of action for them to take.

“No, I thought we could stay in here forever,” replied Shego dryly, clambering to her feet again and stretching her back in readiness for action, not that she had any idea what to expect when they stepped out of this room. To be honest, she wasn’t exactly sure that they were safe in this one, however as nothing else supernatural had happened since the fight it almost seemed as if by defeating her luggage she’d managed to claim this room as her territory.

“The name’s Shego,” she stated, in a tone that implied that it would be good for Giselle to remember this fact, “and just don’t get in my way. Okay?” The last thing she’d need if another fight broke out was this girl ditzily wandering across it and getting herself killed. For reasons she wasn’t sure of Shego didn’t particularly want to see the redhead get harmed, although she supposed it could just be because another death would mean another ghost working against her.

[giselle]

Why was it Giselle felt so flustered around this woman? Another blush stained her cheeks as she belatedly realized the stupidity of her statement.

"I won't." She promised.

She thought about saying it was nice to meet her, despite the situation, but Giselle wasn't entirely sure the feeling was mutual. They'd known each other for all of five minutes, and Giselle got the feeling that Shego was annoyed by her mere presence. Of course, she had fainted, and had yet to say anything of real intelligence in that five minutes. Shego seemed so strong and sure of herself, nothing at all like her. No wonder she was annoyed.

Giselle decided for the time being to just be quiet and follow Shego's lead. Maybe she'd get the chance to redeem herself, maybe not. What she wanted more than anything else at this particular moment in time was to just be back outside.

[Shego]

“Good,” muttered Shego as Giselle promised to stay out of her way, “just try and remember that when it counts, ‘kay Princess?” She headed for the door without waiting for an answer, pulling it open and slipping out into the corridor beyond. Fortunately, there was no-one (either living or dead) in sight, so she felt it safe to hold the door ajar for a moment for Giselle to pass through.

“Stay alert,” she ordered quietly, ears straining for any suspicious sounds, “just because you can’t see danger doesn’t mean it’s not there.” She was thinking of her luggage as she said this, and the way some invisible force had manipulated them. It seemed likely that if some force wanted to harm them then it would expect them to head for the main door, so it was in the opposite direction that Shego set off in, hoping that there would be a set of back stairs they could escape down.