Chapter 9 - Meow!

Flo couldn't believe her eyes. There it was, the golden-white core, just like the one she had glimpsed during the mountain disaster, except this time, there was no chaotic wind blowing debris everywhere and no blinding dust getting into her eyes. She could finally look at it properly without squinting through a storm.

It wasn't a rigid sphere. It was more like a tiny, floating jellyfish formed from woven streams of flowing golden-white light. Its outline stretched, curled and folded in on itself, constantly shifting even while hovering in nearly the exact same spot in the middle of the room.

And somehow... it was super adorable!

Flo took a careful step forward and the little glowing entity drifted backwards. As Flo stopped, it stopped too. As she took another step, it moved back again, keeping the exact same distance.

Flo's eyes widened. "Are you playing with me?"

The entity wiggled its light tendrils.

"YOU ARE!"

Behind her, Mr.Hugo was beginning to look deeply concerned. "Flo?"

She didn't answer.

"Flo, what on earth are you doing?"

"Mr.Hugo."

"Yes?"

"Activate your ObserVation."

"I have it activated!"

Flo turned towards him while pointing to the translucent being. "Do you not see it?"

"What?" Mr.Hugo looked around the empty room. "I don't see anything."

Flo pointed directly at the floating golden-white entity. "Right here!"

Mr.Hugo stared at the exact patch of air she was pointing at, then looked back at her. "Flo, I can see your DayShine aura flaring... but there is nothing else there."

"You really don't see him?"

"No."

"Are you completely sure?"

"Flo, I am staring directly at the air. There is nothing there."

Flo turned back to the entity. It drifted lazily in a small circle around her head. Then she began to laugh. Not her usual bright laugh but a completely unhinged, diabolical laugh.

"HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!"

Mr.Hugo took a cautious step backwards. "Flo, please do not scare me like this. Don't tell me you're possessed!"

"I FOUND IT!"

"Found what?!"

"I FOUND WHAT I WAS LOOKING FOR! SOMETHING ENTIRELY NEW! BEYOND COMPREHENSION!" She laughed again, clutching her notebook.

Flo completely ignored Mr.Hugo’s panic and reached a hand towards the glowing creature. It drifted closer, brushing against her fingertips. Her eyes sparkled. "Ohhhh..."

She pulled her hand back, then slowly extended it again. The creature followed. She moved her hand to the left and it followed. She moved it to the right and it followed again.

Flo gasped. "You really are playing tag with me!"

"Flo..."

"Wait, wait, wait!" She crouched down and the entity lowered itself. She stood up and it rose. She took a little hop and it bobbed up and down in unison.

Mr.Hugo watched in complete, speechless bewilderment. "You are possessed! Oh my god, my little Flo is possessed! Curse you, house demon!"

"I am conducting field research!"

"That does not look like research, Flo."

"It is highly sophisticated behavioural research!" Flo waved her hand again and the entity looped around her wrist.

Then, heavy footsteps echoed from the top of the stairwell. The elderly couple was coming back down.

Flo yelped. "OH NO."

She immediately planted herself directly in front of the floating entity, trying to shield it with her back. Amelia stepped off the bottom stair, looking thoroughly exhausted from dragging the tour out.

Flo pointed frantically. "Look at Amelia!"

Amelia blinked. "What?"

"Everyone look at Amelia!" Flo shouted.

Amelia narrowed her eyes suspiciously. "Why?"

"Just look at her!"

Caecilius glanced at Amelia. Mr.Hugo did the same. Amelia let out a tired sigh. "Okay...?"

The elderly couple reached the ground floor. "Did you young people find anything upstairs?"

Flo turned around, plastering on a wildly suspicious smile. "Nope! Absolutely nothing!"

The entity drifted out from behind her, floating upwards towards the ceiling. Flo slowly shuffled backwards to stay under it.

Caecilius watched her strange movement. "Why are you walking backwards?"

"I love walking backwards! It's great exercise!"

Amelia immediately chimed in, nodding firmly. "She does. She does it all the time."

Caecilius looked between them. "Oh, is that so?"

"Yeah."

Flo gave Amelia a look of profound, tearful gratitude.

The entity drifted further upwards, floating straight towards Caecilius's head. Flo's eyes went wide with panic. She began waving her arms frantically at Amelia who picked up the signal instantly and took a massive step forward, blocking Caecilius's line of sight.

"So, Caecilius!" Amelia announced loudly.

"Yes?"

"Have you ever noticed how..." Amelia paused, glancing over her shoulder at Flo, who was making desperate pushing motions with her hands. "...how remarkably tall you are?"

Caecilius stared at her. "Pardon?"

"Exceedingly tall!"

"...Thank you?"

Flo managed to coax the glowing entity towards the front doorway, waving her arms like an airport signal crew. Mr.Hugo stared at her, deadpan.

"Flo."

She ignored him.

"Flo."

Nothing.

"Flo!"

She snapped around. "Yes?!"

"Why are you conducting semaphore with the front wall?"

Flo looked at her hands, then at the wall, then back at him. "Stretching. Very important pre-workout routine."

Mr.Hugo narrowed his eyes. "Of course it is."

The golden-white entity finally drifted through the open front door and out into the yard. Flo slipped through after it, keeping her back to the room as she guided it towards the garden gate. A few seconds later, she glanced back. No one had followed her outside. She grinned, “Mission accomplished.”

Inside, the elderly couple looked at the remaining three. "So... is the ghost gone?"

Mr.Hugo cleared his throat, adjusting his tie. "There was no ghost."

The old woman looked confused. "Then what was causing the piano to play and the books to fall?"

Mr.Hugo opened his mouth, paused and closed it. "We are... currently analysing the ghostly environmental variables."

"But you just said there was no ghost."

"Correct."

"So what did you find?"

Mr.Hugo looked longingly at the front exit. "Nothing, really."

The old man stared at him. "Then why did you inspect our hall for an hour?"

"Professional protocols," Mr.Hugo stated solemnly.

The couple exchanged a bewildered look. Amelia covered her face with her coat sleeve while Caecilius simply turned towards the door. "We should take our leave."

The four of them swiftly evacuated the house. The elderly couple stood on the porch, watching them hurry down the street. "What an exceedingly odd group of young people."

Outside near the main road, Amelia looked around but Flo was nowhere in sight. "Where did she vanish to?"

"I do not know," Caecilius replied. "She slipped away while we were speaking to the owners."

‘She definitely found something,’ Amelia thought.

Caecilius looked towards the mountain path. "She left without notifying us."

"That's just how she is when she gets distracted."

He frowned slightly. It was strange but he didn't suspect anything malicious and didn't think much of it anyway. He had only joined the investigation for science, after all.

Mr.Hugo, meanwhile, was already making a beeline for the upper district. "I am returning to the Observatory. She promised me a full explanation," Mr.Hugo declared to Amelia, adjusting his coat straps. "And I intend to collect it immediately."

By the time Mr.Hugo reached the Observatory's main laboratory, Flo was already standing in the middle of the room. He stopped in the doorway. Flo was reaching her hand out towards empty air, murmuring softly, "Come here... just a little to the left... come on..."

However, nothing was visible in the room. Mr.Hugo slowly reached for the desk telephone. "Hello, yes, is this the famous Ms.Xor? I have an extremely urgent case for you..."

Flo whipped around. "What are you doing?!"

"Calling an exorcist."

"MR.HUGO!" Flo rushed over and yanked the receiver out of his hand. "I am not possessed!"

"You were speaking coaxingly to thin air, Flo!"

"It isn't thin air!"

"That is exactly what a possessed individual would claim!"

Flo huffed, dragging a heavy wooden chair across the floor. "Sit down."

Mr.Hugo raised an eyebrow. "And why should I listen to an evil ghost?"

"Just sit!!"

"Yes, ma'am!"

Flo grabbed a fresh notebook, slamming it onto the table. "Because I have a breakthrough to explain!"

They sat opposite each other at the primary research table.

"The golden-white phenomenon I witnessed during the mountain disaster... it was real," Flo began, tapping her pencil on the paper.

Mr.Hugo nodded. "I gathered as much."

"And standard ObserVation cannot detect it."

"Also clear."

"But when I layer DayShine and ObserVation simultaneously, the sensory field shifts." She flipped to her drawing of the entity. "Remember when I told you my ObserVation felt different during the storm?"

"Yes."

"It wasn't an upgrade. It was a fusion," Flo insisted, leaning across the table. "DayShine was active at the exact same moment I cast ObserVation."

Mr.Hugo looked thoughtful, resting his chin on his hand. "An active-passive ability interaction..."

"Exactly!"

"How have we never documented this phenomenon in dual-type scholarship?"

Flo paused, staring down at her hands. "Because everyone treats abilities as separate tools. DayShine is DayShine. ObserVation is ObserVation. But when both cores reside within the same ability user..." She brought her two index fingers together. "...maybe they can merge to create a third, specialised state."

Mr.Hugo stared at her. "You are suggesting your dual ability created a hybridised perceptual field."

"Yes!"

"Not a third distinct ability but a merged operational state?"

Flo nodded rapidly. "Yes, exactly!"

Mr.Hugo tapped his fingers against the table. "Then why couldn't a DayShine user and an ObserVation user simply synchronise their casts to achieve the same result?"

Flo answered without hesitation. "Because they are two separate individuals. The magic streams have to fuse internally within a single vessel."

Silence fell over the laboratory. Mr.Hugo slowly nodded. "That... is a testable hypothesis."

Flo grinned. "Finally!"