She was a true fighter. Then one day she woke up, and everything felt different. Her body felt stronger and lighter, her mind felt sharper, and she was filled with tons of ancient knowledge that was broad enough to be that of a dozen well-traveled lifetimes. Simone didn’t know it, but an ancient lost soul called a ghost orphan had phantom-fused with her spirit, and was now living inside of her.

The ghost orphan didn’t completely take control of Simone, and for the most part the school teacher’s life continued on as it had. However, the power she felt inside made her a more ferocious fighter than ever. She continued to battle against what she believed to be an unfair education system, and rallied even more people to her cause. Her and her husband, David’s relationship flourished in new, and more passionate ways (as he had been phantom-fused with a ghost orphan as well) and some of her more adventurous hobbies and activities, like fencing and kickboxing, led her teenage son, Zane, to believe she was the coolest mom on the planet.

But Simone didn’t understand the true nature of her existence and powers, until one night, when she and David were confronted by a group of evil beings who call themselves reapers.  The thing is, for at least five centuries, ghost orphans had been being hunted by two groups of dangerous agents. The first were descendants of seven noble bloodlines, collectively known as The Veil, who were purportedly sent to capture ghost orphans and grant them passage to an eternal resting place in heaven. The second were reapers, a merc squad of dark spawns who also offered passage into the afterlife, but to hell.

It was the powerful reaper Alva Devine that showed up in the Kicklighter house and explained this to Simone and David. The hellspawn first attempted to draw the ghost orphans out through a reverse phantom-fusing technique commonly used in these instances. But the spirits clung to their hosts, and honestly, Simone and David did not want to relinquish them. And so Alva and her cohorts brandished their ghost-blades and attacked. The working class couple fought back, and quickly realized the plethora of powers the ghost orphans afforded them, including enhanced speed and strength, and the ability to blast ghostly energy from their hands. Furthermore, Simone’s fencing lessons (and David’s construction-worker tools) came in handy. And on top of all of that, their son, Zane, though not a ghost orphan himself, also had powers – pyrokinesis, to be precise.

Then, just as the fight looked like it couldn’t get any crazier, members of The Veil showed up and joined the fray. Disa Philadelphia, along with her son, Peter, and her daughter, Valerie, quickly engaged the reapers. However, they also did everything they could to stop Simone and David from escaping. It was an epic three-way smackdown.

Simone fought valiantly, but in the end, she was injured, disarmed, and eventually slain by Alva Devine’s ghost-blade. A blast of dark light filled the sky and the ground rumbled, as the ghost orphan was pulled out of her body and swept away to a torturous afterlife, leaving her husband David, and her son Zane to fend for themselves. And also leaving the children of Platinum City one less advocate to fight on their behalf.

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