Plasmane sighed, staring at the readout on her psycho-kinetic energy meter. Brushing her neon green mane away from her pink-furred face she nodded, “Yeah, this definitely checks out. You are absolutely what you say you are.”

“YES!” The tiny pony pumped a hoof from his spot on the tabletop. He was right by town square in a weird old scale model of Ponyville that she had found in an old abandoned house on the edge of town. “I TOLD ya that I was a ghost, but noooooo,” he growled out in his weird, gravelly voice.

She reached out to give him a gentle poke which sent the stallion tumbling across the street. “Hey, none of that, I'm the scientist here.”

Picking himself up he brushed himself off, actually making even more dust in the process. His coat was a sickly purplish gray. His eyes were yellow and sunken in, giving him a look of perpetual exhaustion. His greenish blonde mane and tail were wild and unkempt, spiking all over the place and what looked like grave moss was growing in patches on his fur.

“Yeesh! No need to get so rough, babe,” he snorted, giving a little lecherous grin that flashed his yellowed, rotting teeth, “Unless, y'know, you're inta that...”

“You know, I could just flatten you and be done with it.”

“Mmm, nah, I don't think that would be a good idea,” the stallion quipped, his body sprouting what looked like a coat of painfully sharp bone spikes for a moment before retracting them. “Besides, we had a deal, didn't we?”

She was looking into her book again, causing the tiny spirit to roll his eyes in annoyance. Poking her hoof at a page, she murmured, “I don't know, according to Tobin's Spirit Guide, the amount of power you're giving off is way higher than should be possible for this kind of spirit.”

“JUST SAY IT!!” He practically screamed at her, panting in rage. Frowning down at him, she slammed the book shot with a hoof and started gathering her things to leave.

Nearly in a panic now, the tiny stallion raced right up to the edge of the table, “Babe, babebabebabe, wait! Please! I'm sorry, okay? I've just been stuck here so damned long. C'mon, gimme a break here! I'm the one piece of solid evidence you have of ghosts!”

She paused at the doorway, not looking back over her shoulder, “I'm listening...”

The little stallion had actually closed one eye and was holding his hooves in front of him as is he were lining up a camera shot, focused on the mare's flank. “Yeah! Oh, uh, well.. You wanna prove that ghosts are real, right? Show your colleagues that your field of study isn't just a joke?”

“Yeah. Do you really think you'll be able to convince them?”

The stallion turned away from her for a second to hide himself making a lewd gesture, “Babe, get me outta here and I'll be able to do anything your weird, twisted little heart desires.”

“I don't know, I should really do at least a little more research.”

“Oh, COME ON!” He stopped himself, taking a slow, deep breath, “You'll be able to get revenge on Professor Dust Jacket for cutting your funding.” He murmured the last in a singsong voice.

Nodding to herself, she turned back towards the table, “Alright.”

“Beetlejuice...”

He smiled up at her, dusting off his fur and shaking the stiffness out of his forelegs.

“Beetlejuice..”

“C'mon, one more time, babe, hit me with it one more time..”

“Beetlejuice.”

There was a loud clap of thunder as the attic suddenly went pitch black except for a spotlight illuminating the center of the scale model town. The tiny stallion gave a wide, rotten grin as Plasmane's PKE meter overloaded and exploded in a shower of sparks nearby!

“It's showtime...”