This Genre Of Photos? Gotta Be My Favorite Gender.

This genre of photos? Gotta be my favorite gender.

All photos by adamrosssi

From The Pinnacle: Ch. 9

WC: 2,076

Chapter one here

Read under the cut or on AO3

I hope I can be nice to Phantom next chapter. Maybe. Who knows.

Cw: heavy reference to SA, skip after the three asterisks (* * *) if you don't want to see.

They hissed, circling the carcass on the ground, eyes locked on the ghoul across from them.

They were too weak for this fight. Their ribs jutted from their skin, their tail barely had the muscle to move anymore. Their magic felt weak and far away.

They needed this food, and they needed it badly.

The ghoul across from them hissed back and leapt onto them, knocking them immediately into the ground. It was much stronger, muscle hard as iron and teeth sharp and slobbering in their face.

They rolled and tussled, clawing at the ghoul's chest and ribs until they were panting and too tired to move, bloodied and bruised.

They expected teeth to go for their jugular, but instead they were flipped on their stomach.

They didn't have any energy to struggle anymore.

Even after it left, as they tore into the carcass running on sheer instinct, they think they would have preferred having their throat ripped out instead.

* * *

Phantom gripped Aurora’s wrist and ran.

They heard one of the ghouls roar with their fury, but didn't pay it any mind as they dashed past Earth as fast as they could, dragging Aurora behind them.

He was still flailing around aimlessly, trying to shake the dancing spots of light from his eyes.

Behind them, Phantom heard Aurora hiss in pain. They whipped around to face Earth, his arms darting to claw at whatever he could reach. Before they knew what they were doing, they let their quintessence slash Earth ruthlessly over the face, reveling in the roar of pain it ripped from him.

Aurora had made her way further down the hall, and Phantom sprinted after her, fighting to catch up.

She rounded a corner, and they followed, skirting to a stop as they spotted her leant against a wall, chest heaving.

“Aurora, you okay?” Phantom asked, hovering their hands over her shoulders, too scared to touch her.

She grit her teeth, one hand clutched over her side. “I’ve had worse.”

“Then come on, we can't waste time,” Phantom said, wrapping his arm around her and half guiding, half carrying her as they ran to the next bend in the hall, eyes sparking with hope as they saw the stone stairs at the end.

The pair continued to stumble down the dingy hall, Phantom faltering and tripping, adrenaline fading and leaving them exhausted despite not being in the clear yet. Aurora wrapped her arm around Phantom’s torso as well, and Phantom winced as they glanced back at the sparse trail of blood behind them, not daring to mention it to Aurora. Thankfully, however, neither of the odd ghouls were following.

Phantom looked back to the stairs, sighing in one big whoosh of air. Aurora mirrored them, and they leaned their head against hers as much as they were able, stumbling towards the stairs.

Though they were relieved that the two ghouls hadn't followed, they were also worried. The halls were ominously empty, not a soul in sight.

They both tensed and stopped on a dime as a door opened a little ways in front of them, a looming ghoul neither of them recognized stepping out and perking up when he saw them.

“Oh, hello. Do you need…” he trailed off, squinting his eyes at the pair, eyes darting from Phantom’s bared teeth to where Aurora had her hand clutched to her side, fingers red.

He exhaled, running a hand over his face. “Okay…” his eyes darted between them. “Listen, I'm going to go out on a limb and say that you are the new ghouls, you went wandering, and now you're lost?”

Aurora hissed, tail lashing behind her. “And we'll find our own way out, thank you very much.”

He sighed, again running his hand over his face. “Let me get my mask, and then we can go.”

“We're not going to go with you,” Phantom deadpanned, dragging essence from the air in preparation for another fight.

Both their eyes widened as the ghoul sighed, lowering himself to his knees, head bowed to the ground instead of meeting their eyes as a sign or deference.

“I'm Ifrit,” he began, head still bowed towards the ground. “I tutored Dew. I was summoned at the same time as Mountain, and we know each other very well. In fact, I was just going to meet him.” He glanced up, catching Phantom's eye, before looking back down. “I was in the band before you. I promise, I'm not going to hurt you.”

“How do we know we can trust you?” Aurora spat, clenching her hand tighter around her wound. Phantom's ear twitched as they sniffed the air, before wrapping their tail around her arm in an attempt to placate her.

“Listen, I know you don't want to, but I promise-”

Phantom cut him off. “Go get your mask,” they instructed sharply, making Ifrit glance up in surprise. “Get Mountain and bring him back to us. Then we can trust you.”

Ifrit nodded once, twice, before slowly rising to his feet, eyes mildly calculating. “Okay. Okay.”

As he stepped back through the door, Aurora whipped her head to face Phantom, hissing. “What are you doing?” She asked accusingly.

“Shush, I have a good feeling about him,” Phantom tried to reassure, unwinding their tail from her arm in a sudden rush of self-consciousness. “I just…”

They were cut off as Ifrit stepped out of the room, a silver mask much like their own shining on his face and a rectangular shape held up to his ear.

Phantom perked up, eyes squinting as they met Ifrit's, who just gave a nod before turning his attention back to the rectangle.

“Hi Mountain,” Ifrit said, and Phantom whipped their head around, looking for him. Aurora did the same. “You missing something?” Ifrit continued.

He paused for a while, turning to face the two new ghouls and squinting slightly at them. After a few moments, he spoke again. “I'm going to put you on speaker,” he said simply.

Phantom hissed at him as he stepped forward, removing the rectangle from his ear and tapping it, extending it towards them. Their tail lashed, a spark alighting from it.

“Phantom? Are you there?” Suddenly Mountain’s voice was echoing down the hall, emitting from the box. Aurora tilted her head in confusion. “Aurora, are you with them?”

“Where are you?” Phantom asked, tilting their head and creeping closer to the rectangle, oblivious of the fire ghoul in front of them.

“I'm on my way, still in the ghoul dorms, listen, just go with Frit, I'll meet you there,” Mountain babbled.

Aurora crept up to Phantom's side, studying the rectangle as well. “No, no, that's not what they meant. Why can we hear you? You're not here, just this… box…” Aurora trailed off, studying the colors on the shape.

Mountain’s sigh was audible. “I'll explain later. But please, go with Ifrit, you can trust him.”

Phantom shifted his gaze from the rectangle to Ifrit above them. They blinked once. He blinked back. “Okay.”

“Okay, perfect. I'm on my way. Frit, meet you halfway. Bye,” Mountain’s voice was rushed, then it cut off abruptly, a shrill beeping emitting from the phone. Even as Aurora jumped, Ifrit seemed unaffected, sliding the object into his pocket.

“Come on, you know you can trust me now. Let's go meet up with Mountain, he'll get you taken care of.”

Phantom and Aurora linked themselves together again, hands clinging to arms and tails wrapped close around each other. Their fear and hesitance was mostly gone, leaving in its place a vibrant curiosity.

The halls stayed silent as they trailed behind Ifrit, the walls gradually getting more familiar and the floors more populated.

Phantom perked up as they saw Mountain rushing towards them, pushing through people until he reached them, brushing past Ifrit and placing hands on each of the new summons’ shoulders.

“Are you both okay? Are you hurt anywhere, what happened?”

Phantom felt themself melt a little into Mountain's comforting touch, letting it calm the last of their racing nerves. “‘Rora got clawed,” they mumbled, eyes darting up at Ifrit before looking back down.

“You never do that again,” Mountain scolded suddenly, hand leaving Phantom’s shoulder as he leant to inspect Aurora’s wound. Phantom felt themself recoil a little, soul twisting and untwisting, pulsing with shame. “You ask someone to take you somewhere if you don't know what you're doing, do you hear me?” A growl crept its way into Mountain’s voice.

“I- I’m sorry Mountain, it's-” Phantom stammered, pulling away from Aurora.

“Aurora, let's get you to medical,” Mountain instructed her, voice not quite stern but not soft either. Phantom felt a pang of hurt in their chest as Mountain ignored them, instead turning to talk to Ifrit. “Take them back to the den. You can wait there for me to come back if you want.”

Ifrit nodded once, accompanying his action with a quiet “yep” as Mountain ushered Aurora away.

Phantom swayed his tail a little dejectedly, looking up at Ifrit with tired eyes. “He didn't mean to be rude, y'know. He's just worried,” Ifrit said, trying to console the little ghoul.

Phantom didn't respond, so Ifrit shrugged and began walking, leaving Phantom to once again follow him.

Ifrit stopped in front of the familiar entrance to the dorm, looking back as Phantom caught up. “You got a key?” He asked, and Phantom quickly looked down and away, feeling intimidated by the other ghoul.

“Aurora had hers,” they muttered.

Ifrit sighed, raising his fist to knock before pausing. “How's Dew doing these days?” He asked, voice a little strained.

Phantom looked up and bared his teeth, hissing a little. Ifrit's eyes widened only slightly, and he rapidly knocked on the wood.

Shuffled and steps could be heard on the other side, before the handle jiggled. “Mount? You found-” Cirrus opened the door and stopped. “Ifrit, good to see you. Where's Mountain?” She peeked her head out a little, squinting at Phantom. “Nevermind. Come in,” she said, rapidly ushering them in before shutting the door behind them.

They both stayed quiet as they followed Cirrus into the common room, stopping in place as she turned around, eyes locked on Phantom. “Ifrit, if you would please,” she said, gesturing towards the kitchen. “Pretty sure Rain is in there.”

She stayed silent as Ifrit nodded, hurrying to the kitchen and out of sight. Phantom shuffled in place under Cirrus’ gaze, unable to read it. Their tail lashed nervously.

Cirrus took a deep breath in, then let it out, placing one hand to her temple. “Just give me a rundown of what happened.”

Phantom lowered their head, lifting their tail into their hands and fidgeting with the tip of it. “Aurora wanted to take me to the charity bins but we got lost,” they mumbled, brain instinctively locking out the other events.

Cirrus nodded thoughtfully. “I'll take you tomorrow, if you still want to. But that doesn't explain why Mountain left in such a hurry and didn't come back with Aurora.”

Phantom wishes they were as small as possible, so small they eventually vanished into nothing. “She got hurt.”

Cirrus' ears strained forward to hear, eyes widening a little bit. “How bad? No, scratch that, how?”

Phantom felt themself sway on their feet, eyesight going wavy and unfocused. “She- we met- they were…” Phantom found themself unable to form their sentences, feeling their quintessence flicker.

They suddenly felt a hand on their shoulder, holding them still and bringing them back to Earth.

“Phantom?” Cirrus' voice echoed through their head, almost too loud.

“I think his name was Chain…” Phantom mumbled, voice quiet and near indecipherable.

Cirrus let a small curse fall from her lips, following it up with a close-lipped smile. “Guess we need some work on our stranger-danger,” she said, words directed at Phantom but seeming to slip right past. She patted them twice in the shoulder before stepping back. “Go get some rest. I'll handle the rest of this.”

Phantom didn't know what else to do but obey her, stepping back and slowly padding down the hall to their room. Their spine prickled with double heated gazes pinned on their back as they picked up speed to hurry past the kitchen.

Their hand rested gently on the handle, head cocked to the side a little, painfully void of thoughts.

With a deep sigh, they stepped into their equally void room and shut the door.

No update on the fic, sorry, I'm unfortunately losing interest in Ghost, however I will hopefully be continuing the fic because I still enjoy the writing I've done for it.

I'll hopefully be able to get a new chapter out soon, within the week or so if possible.

I'm sorry the fic hasn't been updated recently, however in other news!!

I've learned how to sew and now I'm making my build a bear a battle jacket

Yippee!