Hey how about instead of Flambae losing his fingers during the whole burning mall thing, he gets hit on the head by falling debris and gets knocked out cold.
He’s taken to the hospital, where it’s determined that he’s not badly injured and should wake up any day now, upon which he’ll be tried and sentenced accordingly.
Except he doesn’t. Days and weeks and months pass by, and despite all his doctors and nurses scratching their heads and insisting that there’s really nothing physically wrong with him anymore, Flambae doesn’t wake up.
And it’s because, through the power of some hand-wavey magic bullshit (my favorite kind), Flambae’s consciousness somehow managed to attach itself to the astral pulse that night. In other words, Flambae’s body won’t wake up because his soul isn’t inside it.
Flambae’s soul stays with the astral pulse, memories and personality fully intact. Depending on how you look at it, he sort of functions like either a slightly ornery poltergeist or your average housecat—he learns how to interact with the physical world in small ways, knocking things over, making random noises in the middle of the night, etc. Just generally being as much of a nuisance as he can to Mecha Man, who it turns out is some sad loser named Robert who lives in a shithole and can’t even take care of himself properly.
Best part best part best part: after months of strange noises, Beef randomly stopping and staring at fixed points in the apartment, and objects somehow not being where he left them, Robert finally figures out that something weird’s going on. After a night of heavy drinking and some half-hearted research, he concludes that he must have a ghost. Robert being Robert, he sets up an ultra sensitive touch screen keyboard so his uninvited guest can communicate with him.
In the beginning, it’s hard to get it to say anything other than bitch and idiot and loser. When pushed, it finally introduces itself as Chad.
Robert snorts. “90s ghost, huh? Should I picture you with a puka shell necklace and frosted tips?”
fuck off, it types, bitch bitch btch bith—
“Joking, joking,” he says, holding up his hands. “Seriously, though, thanks for telling me. It’s nice to have a name to call you by... and to feel a little less crazy. I couldn't have come up with a ghost named 'Chad' by myself."
He clears his throat. "So, you wanna tell me why you're here?”
And Chad explains, as well as he can considering he's typing everything out with half-corporeal (at best) fingers. He tells Robert that he got separated from his body, but he knows he didn't die. He tells him that he's tried to go back to his body, but he keeps getting pulled back to the astral pulse. And he asks, reluctantly and with gritted teeth, for Robert's help getting back where he belongs.
"Well, can't exactly say no," Robert says lightly. "I need to get you out of here before you knock anything else off the counter. I'm running out of mugs."
After a moment, he sobers. "Listen, I don't know anything about any of this, but I promise I'll do what I can."
Since the astral pulse never leaves Robert's vicinity, Chad's been forced to follow him around for months. He regularly has a front row seat to what Robert is capable of when he puts his all into something.
For the first time in months (and if he's being honest, a lot longer than that), Chad feels something like hope.
And maybe he feels a little guilty for keeping his full identity a secret from Robert, but what the fuck else can he do? He needs to get back into his body, and he seriously fucking doubts Mecha Man would help him if he knew who he was.
It’s just a harmless little lie by omission, and everybody knows those don’t fucking count.
