NTWF Mafia: The Little Country Town

[Luna]

"There she is!" Luna jumped. Oh god they found her. All the ghosts looked at the Pastor.

"If you guys want to live, I suggest you get out now,"

Oh no. Luna thought. She backed up. All the ghosts flew away.

It was just them and her.

Pastor Willaims walked up to Luna, and grabbed a wooden cross inlaid with Iron and held it up to Luna. Just the cross made Luna's chest hurt.

"In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, you shall be banished to the other side, oh restless spirit. Let your mind and soul drift away to ascend to the Kingdom of Heaven. Leave this mortal earth where you do not belong,"

Luna nearly exploded. The pain heart worst than anything she could imagine. Luna yelled in pain. Way would Celes try to make Luna go to "the other side". She thought she wanted her to confess the last Mafiao.

Her mind started to act weird. Memories of thinks started to pop out. Luna when she was a small pup, she remembered watching scary movies, and whenever a person screamed and got murdered, she'd laugh.

She remembered her dad going to jail. She'd always put that in the back of her mind. She was young and didn't quite understand why he had went to jail, but after he went, she never saw her mom again. She hadn't seen her mother a couple week's before that, come to think of it. Luna had put the pieces of the puzzle together on that one by now.

Luna was panicking. It hurt so bad, so she did the only thing her instincts knew to do. Run away. Luna shot up,and flew through the ceiling.

She popped up through the ground, and fell straight down. The pain was still surging through her, but it was starting to stop. She heard someone laughing crazily. Not just someone. Drake. She got up and looked behind herself. There it was, Drake's ghost. The last Mafia member.

No! No no no! Luna cried to herself. "Drake! They got you?" She looked at him.

"They...They won." Luna frowned.

[Robyn]

And just like that, Icon was a murderer. Robyn, who had not yet gone off to find Terra, so absorbed in the sudden revelation of the last mafioso as she was, stared at her friend with a mixture of awe and fear. She had no idea he was capable of such quick, devastating actions, and yet there he was, with the blood quite literally on his hands. She wasn't sure whether to be glad it was over or to mourn how far everything had fallen. His inevitable after-death pun didn't help. (Though it was pretty good, as always.)

Any congratulations she might've had caught in her throat as Terra floated down to Icon. She gripped the knife tighter, reminding herself that there was nothing Terra could truly do to hurt him and trying to keep herself prepared for an attack.

“I can’t believe you did that. You, a killer? I wouldn’t have thought," she cackled.

I wouldn't have either, thought Robyn. She kept her eyes glued on Terra, knife raised. Terra went on to confess her respect for Icon, and to try and justify Robyn's death as one of those it-just-had-to-be-done things.

“It was a lot of fun watching you struggle to come to terms with her death. You’re really sweet when you’re suffering, you know that? It almost made me...”

Robyn saw the look on Terra's face and recoiled. Oh, she was sick. For someone's suffering to lead to that? There was a sour taste in Robyn's mouth as Terra went on.

“Of course, you don’t have to deal with her death anymore, do you? Not now that she’s a ghost! She can stay with you for eternity now! ...Unless ghosts can die again. And I plan to find out. Want to watch?”

Terra's maniacal grin went Cheshire-- it was the last part of her Robyn saw before her ghost had completely phased into invisibility, leaving only the specter of Luna's knife racing towards her.

Icon shouted from somewhere beside her. "Robyn, run! RUN!"

Robyn shook her head. There was no running now. She'd known it was going to come down to this. She thrust forward with her own knife just as she saw the tip of the other blade disappear below her line of sight, only hoping that she would at least be able to take Terra out with her.

There was a noise like ripping a chicken leg off of its roast body, and an intense heat came before the pain. Stars exploded behind her eyes, and she coughed, drowning. Her vision began to tunnel as she felt a falling sensation, the voices around her becoming less and less distinct as her muscles shook and weakened.

Her hand slid off of the knife.

[Avery]

The Narrator is a little stunned when she discovers Drake was the last mafia member. Of course she'd never liked him, had even flung accusations at him, but deep down she'd never truly believed he was guilty of such heinous crimes. The rest of the mafia members made sense, sort of-- Amati the elderly madman intent on claiming a kingdom for his cat; Terra, born into the carnage, never had a chance; Luna, fascinated by weapons, tantalized by money. But Drake... she hadn't seen it coming.

At least his death seems to have momentarily distracted Terra from lambasting her. And the Narrator knows she can't dwell too long over Drake. She must finish this fight with the GSIS, expel them for good. Must fight in the names of all those who are gone, even those who did make particularly delicious pies.

So she fights on, robot-like, a woman on a mission. She will get these GSIS men out of Netwaffle if it's the last thing she ever does.

[Terra]

Terra stabbed Robyn with Luna’s knife. The girl hadn’t even tried to run, despite Icon’s yelling. It was almost too easy - but no less satisfying.

However, Terra didn’t have time to smile before she felt a piercing, splitting pain as another blade slid between her ribs. Her own blade. She had gotten stabbed with her own blade.

Terra’s head spun and she clung to the handle of Luna’s knife like it was the only thing anchoring her to this world. She tried to drive it in further, but couldn’t muster the strength.

She gritted her teeth. She wasn't going to let her win. Not this time...not ever.

She struggled and pushed, but despite her efforts, the knife slid out of Terra’s grip and she fell straight down and hung right above the ground, limp, like a marionette.

Then she looked up.

“Well, I gave it all I’ve got,” she said. “How about you?”

She pulled her knife from her chest. Dark blue blood spilled from the wound. “Thanks for giving this back. It’s much more comfortable in my hand than Luna’s was.”

She flipped it in the air and caught it.

“While this isn’t a definitive answer...it’s looking less and less like we can die. From stabbings, at least.” She sighed. “Shame. But at the same time, one less thing to worry about.”

She smiled. “You know, I wouldn’t mind living in eternity locked in combat with you. I mean, not exclusively you, but it’d be fun. Never letting you have a moment of peace.

“Or maybe we could agree to work together. Find out all the secrets of the afterlife. It’s not like either of us have anything to lose now. What do you say?”

She looked around and saw Icon being dragged off by a GSIS man.

"Hey, look where your boyfriend's going," she said. "What do you suppose they're going to do with him?

[icon]

Candy was trying to plead with the investigator. "He was only trying to protect us...! We've lost so many friends from the mafia, he wanted to kill Drake, the only living member!"

The GSIS agent pushed off her comments, trying to force Icon to move off with him. "Look, girl, the kid killed a guy... Don't worry, we aren't gonna hurt him, just need a few questions, gotta make sure everything is... 'taken care of'..."

The last part sent shivers down Icon's spine. He didn't even know what he was doing anymore, but he had a really bad feeling about what was to come next. He protested as the man dragged him down the street.

"He was going to kill us next, had to make sure he didn't get anyone else, who knows what could have happened..." He struggled as the man carried him off.

The investigator moved on, voice wavering- but just barely. "Look, kid, I don't care if he could have killed off all of Tabloid Town, you just killed a man and you're coming in for questioning. Now come on, or I'll have to use force, and that won't be good for either of us."

Icon's heart sank; all the work they had done, everything that had happened. Was it all useless? What would happen to the town that he grew up in?

Something inside him snapped.

They had worked too hard to let everything go to waste. He wasn't going to let this town- his home- die, simply because of a few mysterious men in suits.

He ducked under the man's hand, trying to push him over from the back and knock him off balance. It was clumsy, but it worked- the man stumbled over backwards. There wasn't too much time to think- hoisting the investigator up by the collar, Icon aimed his stungun against him. "Look. I don't like you. I spent the better half of this day chained up with a dozen of your coworkers staring at me, and the rest of it trying to avoid getting arrested or killed by them. I am pretty peeved right now."

There was a voice in the back of his mind yelling. What the heck are you doing? You don't stand a chance against this guy! Run, run, you can make it! He just ignored that part and continued glaring at the man.

"I am pretty certain that you guys want me alive. You guys couldn't be- wouldn't be- dragging me off somewhere just to kill me without getting something out of it first. You need me to be alive and well. I, on the other hand- I'd hate to use this on you, I just finished... you saw it already- but I can, if it boils down to it. You- you see what I mean?" He was stuttering. His hands were shaking. This was certainly the worst idea he could have worked with, but it still seemed to be working. Barely.

"...Now, why don't you and your GSIS buddies just leave town and scratch this one out of the record book? It will- it'll make everything much easier on all of us..." He dropped the man's collar and watched him stumble, practically half-crawling, to get away from them.

Nearly dropping the stungun through trembling fingers, Icon watched the man heading off for a while. He then turned and scanned the air above him for Robyn and Terra.

[Deleted]

Ari shuddered when she heard Drake's maniacal laughter. No one had stopped fighting.

She would have to finish this herself.

She floated above the mostly ghostly town fighting off the GSIS. She snuck up behind a GSIS man and nabbed his Ghost Sparker.

Then she began to look for Terra. To her horror, she spotted them stabbing each other.

"Terra..." she said to herself. She floated downward and aimed the Ghost Sparker at the mafioso.

[Lizzie]

Candy wasn't going to let Icon go that easily. She followed the two, not letting Icon out of sight.

Speechlessly, she watched Icon and the GSIS man. She spoke up as the investigator crawled away.

"Woah, that was awesome!" Candy squealed. She would have said more, but Icon had turned his face to the sky, looking for something. She saw Ari's ghost, holding a sparker. She called out, "Ari!" and ran to greet the girl.

[Robyn]

“Well, I gave it all I’ve got. How about you?”

Robyn cringed as she pulled Luna's knife out of her chest. Cobalt flowered around the wound and plastered her ever-professional shirt to her skin, but the worst of the pain seemed to be over. Her vision refocused, and she cleared her throat decisively as she let the blade dangle down at her side.

"Ugh," she coughed, "Yeah. Yeah, I'm done." A bit of blood splattered across her lips as she spoke, but she wiped it off with the back of her hand. Terra thanked her for returning the knife, and Robyn rolled her eyes. She didn't exactly call jamming it into her heart "returning it", but if she preferred to look at it that way, then so be it.

Terra performed an expert flipping maneuver with the knife and said, “While this isn’t a definitive answer...it’s looking less and less like we can die. From stabbings, at least. Shame. But at the same time, one less thing to worry about. You know, I wouldn’t mind living in eternity locked in combat with you. I mean, not exclusively you, but it’d be fun. Never letting you have a moment of peace. Or maybe we could agree to work together. Find out all the secrets of the afterlife. It’s not like either of us have anything to lose now. What do you say?”

Robyn struggled to keep her jaw from dropping as she listened to Terra speak.

"Wow," was the first and only thing she could manage, but it didn't take her too long to collect the rest of her thoughts.

"Well. First of all, yeah, it looks like we're not going to be stabbing each other to death any time soon. Which, by the way, you're a jerk for trying-- just thought I'd put that out there where we can all hear it. Second, do you honestly have nothing better to do with your afterlife, Terra? Honestly? I know you were born into this mafia stuff. I know you haven't known anything other than carnage and power through death, but maybe you could learn differently in this plane. Existence doesn't always have to be a battle. And third, if there are any secrets to the afterlife..." Robyn smiled, "...you can best believe I'll be getting my hands on the finest ghost camera there is and getting it on film. By myself."

Her soul began to soar near the end of her little speech, her optimism for what was to come beginning to rise for the first time in a long time. Terra was quick to puncture it with her next statement.

"Hey, look where your boyfriend's going. What do you suppose they're going to do with him?"

"Huh?"

Robyn couldn't even spare her a dirty look at the word "boyfriend" as she immediately spun around to see Icon in the clutches of one of the GSIS agents.

"Oh my God!" she gasped. She racked her mind for something she could do to help...and then Icon promptly sent the man running with his tail between his legs with a couple of choice words and his stun gun. Robyn grinned. "COOL."

[Draco]

((For the record Sae, Nameless threw away his GSIS uniform, he pretty much quit So you stole from a innocent person ^^ How evil! Also, don't expect much from the Ghost Sparker, it's a annoyance not real weapon XD So good luck ))

Drake stops laughing when Luna floats on over.

"You should have seen Icon! He caught me and with a flick of the wrist he declared 'Off with his head!' However, he only had a knife, so it was more of a slice to the necks. It was really something!"

He holds up his sword.

"Look! Shiny ghost sword! I got it from your sho.....p....."

He stares in the direction of a now burning hole in the ground.

"Yeah... Those darn GSIS blowing up your shop!" Speaking up... Shouldn't it be raining blades?"

He spies Glenda's shop and gets a idea.

"I think I'm going to run over to the tea shop! I want to pay Glenda a visit."

He flies away, making sure to give the GSIS that Icon scared.

"Wimp!"

He continues to fly to the shop, entering it.

"Oh Glendaaaaa. Come out and plaaaaaay."

----
Elsewhere, Nameless sits on the floor. His Ghost Sparker just got stolen from one of the ghosts he was watching. He begins to cry. He quit being a GSIS to stay alive in this town. He blew a load of cash on that Ghost Sparker that only annoys ghosts (even though it does put a smile on his face when that happens, it was supposed to hurt them). And now ghosts are robbing him? He just sat on the floor and wept.

A cat walks up to him and rubs against him. He begins to pet the cat. A smile on his face now.

Behind him, another cat steals his wallet and runs off.

[Gelquie]

Glenda was feeling quite pleased with herself.

She was kind of worried at first that she wouldn't be able to interact with anything in the physical world, and that she would be tea-less for all of eternity. Thinking about it... The fact of never making tea ever again... Glenda shuddered to think about it.

So she had spent most of her time in her shop trying to figure out just what she could do as a ghost. Turns out picking up teapots wasn't as simple as it seemed in mortal life; her hand just passed right through them. She couldn't even feel the heat of the pot. (She was also very thankful that she only left her tea on simmer. The GSIS didn't even think to turn it off.) But Glenda heard about what other ghosts could do; she couldn't just leave her tea house at that, even if there was a big ruckus going on outside.

So she went around, trying what she could. She was happy that she at least had a small cup with her, though she didn't have any tea to go with it. So she tried many things, be it in the main tea shop or down in her potions room. Sadly though, none of her potions were effective in allowing ghosts to cling to things. Glenda made a mental note to make an attempt at one if she could manage to find a way to brew.

She was just at the peak of frustration when she started to mentally envision thing just coming to her and obeying her will. She started to mentally envision all of her herbs just coming together, almost by themselves. If she could just make it happen... She looked over to a tin of herbs and focused on what kind of teas she could make, and she imagined them coming out.

She couldn't believe it when it worked. Well, sort of. It only worked when she floated closer. But then they started to come out of the tin, all by themselves. But Glenda couldn't keep the concentration for that long before they scattered on the table. She did notice, however, that when she reached her hand closer, they began to take up an eerie glow. Kind of like the ghost that Glenda now was.

”I don't know what I'm doing, but I think I'll keep doing it,” Glenda decided. And so she went to work.

Some time later, Glenda found herself with a cup of ethereal tea, which Glenda was sipping happily. At least she could brew in the afterlife. Sure, it needed a different technique, but it's not like she didn't have time.

It was while she was sipping tea that she saw Drake's ghost enter.

"Oh Glendaaaaa. Come out and plaaaaaay."

"Oh, Drake, you died," Glenda said, sipping her tea. "It's okay, I have plenty of tea to accommodate me. Maybe I could make enough to make the rest of the ghosts happy. It's my play time right here. ...Wait wait, you're dead?"

[Deleted]

((Ari doesn't know she stole from someone innocent, though))

[Luna]

Drake stopped laughing and looked at Luna.

"You should have seen Icon! He caught me and with a flick of the wrist he declared 'Off with his head!' However, he only had a knife, so it was more of a slice to the necks. It was really something!"

"You idiot." Luna facepalmed.

Drake held up his sword. Well, technically her sword that he had stolen.

"Look! Shiny ghost sword! I got it from your sho.....p....."

He looked at her house, which was now a burning piece of rubbish.

"Yeah... Those darn GSIS blowing up your shop!"

"Oh my god my house!" Luna looked at her now burnt down house. Everything from her mortal life was burnt, besides the knives she had made to kill everyone. She made those flame resistant.

Drake floated off to Glenda's shop.

Luna sighed and went off to find Robyn, or someone that didn't try to re-kill her.

[Deleted]

Suddenly, Ari pressed the ghost sparker button and thrust it at Terra's back in a stabbing motion. The sparker's tip touched one of her shoulderblades.

Ari glared at Terra.

"Leader of the mafia," she said. "I'm surprised you were stupid enough to know that it would come to this. I have you to thank for everything."

-------

Ari's kitten Mimi, however, had a different thing on her mind. Ever since Ari had died, it dawned on her that she would have no money for cat food. She smiled as she watched the two cats she'd hired steal Nameless's wallet.

[Terra]

"Well. First of all, yeah, it looks like we're not going to be stabbing each other to death any time soon. Which, by the way, you're a jerk for trying-- just thought I'd put that out there where we can all hear it.

“I’m a jerk? I would’ve thought I’d be a bit more than that, actually. Can’t say I’m not a bit disappointed.” She sighed.

Second, do you honestly have nothing better to do with your afterlife, Terra? Honestly? I know you were born into this mafia stuff. I know you haven't known anything other than carnage and power through death, but maybe you could learn differently in this plane. Existence doesn't always have to be a battle. And third, if there are any secrets to the afterlife..." Robyn smiled, "...you can best believe I'll be getting my hands on the finest ghost camera there is and getting it on film. By myself."

Terra stared at Robyn, slightly shocked.

“How can you say that?” she said. “You really didn’t grow up the way I did, did you? You must have had such a sheltered childhood...sounds nice, to be honest...but it doesn’t prepare you for the real world.”

She scowled. “It’s a dog-eat-dog world. You can’t avoid it. It may be unpleasant...but people kill each other. That’s just what they do.”

She was about to continue, but they were distracted by Icon, who made a surprisingly impressive display of threatening a GSIS officer. Impressive, but sort of stupid.

She turned to Robyn.

“As I was saying...I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but the place we live isn’t exactly peaceful and secure. You have to get on top before someone stomps you down. I didn’t quite manage that in life...and I’ve probably screwed things up a bit now in the afterlife. I though that there wouldn’t be any consequences anymore. That was stupid of me, I admit it.

“I’m being honest with you now,” said Terra. “I don’t really want to try to kill you anymore. I mean, I said that thing about being locked in battle with you...but you’re frustrating. I’m sure you take satisfaction in that, and I don’t blame you. But it’s true. You’re shockingly stubborn.

“We can try to make peace, of sorts. At least agree not to try to kill each other anymore. Or you can decide to turn against me, and then who knows? I could come back any time. I could come back years from now, when you’ve settled into your ghostly life, and completely uproot it. What do you think?”

Suddenly, Terra felt a strange, unpleasant tingling sensation on her back. She looked around to see a thin stream of light coming from a small pen-like object that Ariana was holding - just like the ghost sparker that the GSIS man had used against Robyn and Ariana earlier.

"Leader of the mafia," she said. "I'm surprised you were stupid enough to know that it would come to this. I have you to thank for everything."

“Oh, hey, there, Ari,” she said sweetly. “That’s a pretty toy you’ve got there. Stole it from a poor nameless GSIS agent, did you? That’s not very nice.”

She smirked. “Come to get your revenge on me, have you? Well, you should come better armed next time. That thing isn’t going to do much, sorry. Are you asking to get stabbed again? Because I could.” She raised her knife, ready to bring it down to Ariana’s neck. “Or you could run. Your choice.”

[Avery]

The mafia had fallen, and all that now stood in the way of peace in Netwaffle was the GSIS. Their numbers had waned, but still the remaining agents fought brutally, sparring with the people of the town, determined to win the battle.

At some points, the fight seemed hopeless. Even dwindled in manpower, the GSIS still reigned supreme when it came to weapons and sheer might; the little, hardy town was ill-equipped by comparison, scrawny-- more than half their numbers dead, the remaining citizens battle-shocked.

But unlike the GSIS, they were warring for something they cared about. They were fighting for their town, their beloved town, already so sullied. They would not let it crumble for good. After all of the bloodshed, they would sooner fall on their own swords than let the GSIS come out on top.

**

The sun set. Darkness fell. Still the battle raged on.

The GSIS had been reduced to just a few diehard investigators. Once most of their comrades had fallen, the majority of the remaining agents-- even the semi-determined ones-- had high-tailed it out of town.

And in the blackness of the night, the citizens of Netwaffle suddenly had an advantage: they knew this town, this once idyllic place, like the back of their hands. They knew the terrain, knew where to hide, knew how to navigate the treacherous dark.

When there were only two GSIS men left, the citizens rallied together to corner them. Demanded the investigators leave the town alone.

"The mafia is gone," the residents declared. "We have proven we will not let you bully us. Leave now, and we'll let you go unharmed. Otherwise, you will pay."

The two investigators were reluctant to agree, but in the end they valued their own lives over any so-called, perverted justice. And so they left.

For a while, the residents of Netwaffle thought law enforcement would be back, and with greater reinforcements. But word about the mighty battle in the little city had traveled far. No one dared risk coming back.

They were free, at last, from the tyranny of the mafia and GSIS both.

**
Six Months Later

When most of the residents are dead, it's hard to rebuild a town.

But once the surviving citizens had cleared the battle rubble, the living and ghostly folks gathered for a meeting in the civic center-- now, mercifully, GSIS and Porpington free-- to discuss the future of their little city. The meeting was at first downtrodden, the people pessimistic. But then bubbled an idea, a possibility.

The town was mostly dead, sure. But ghosts of the fallen remained. And just as word of the battle had spread through the area, so had word of the fantastical, supernatural state of Netwaffle's murdered denizens. Outsiders were curious. Already in the days following the battle, a few "tourists" had come meandering through, gaping at the ghosts, plunking down their hard-earned cash at the businesses of both the living and dead.

Profitable. As much as the people of Netwaffle hated to admit it, being dead was profitable.

So ghostly Glenda started selling "Undead Tea" to the travelers brave enough to drink it; business shot through the roof. Nelly began to bake "Ghost Pies"-- these ones actually made with beef, now that the human body supply had dried up. The ghost of Chane Moura managed the deli from beyond the grave and was exhilarated to see profits soar. And even the ghosts of the mafia had discovered a new delightful business in haunting the old hotel, terrorizing any person who decided to stay (and there were many).

The town of Netwaffle was dead, but who ever said dead was so bad? Peaceful country towns are overrated, you know.

Long live the exciting tourist hot spot of GhostWaffle!