If you're reading this before reading Gravitational Phantoms, please read that first! You will be really confused if you only read this.
For The Keeper of Worlds, who wanted ghost!Sam.
Sam looks how she did when Undergrowth was controlling her (not the Maleficent way, the first way. Green outfit, ya know). Same powers too.
Tucker is like Technus powerwise, only a whole lot smarter and not evil.
In terms of Gravitational Phantoms: After the Storm, most of this takes place in between Supernatural Protection (Part One) and Supernatural Protection (Part Two), but the beginning is at the end of Witch Bottle.
I was listening/watching to Psych while I wrote this, and I'm not sure if that reflects the in the writing.
Disclaimer: I don't own anything except for the plot.
Samantha Manson blinked her eyes open to the familiar green and purple of the Ghost Zone.
She sat up, pure emerald eyes with no pupils blinking away grogginess. Oh, she could remember what happened just fine, but... It felt as if it had been longer than a month.
Maybe she just couldn't judge time as well here.
Boom.
Something shook the earth-well, shook the ground beneath her. It wasn't the earth if they were in an alternate dimension.
Boom.
Sam jumped off of the floating island she found herself on, and took off in a random direction. She had to find Tucker.
She had to find Danny.
Sam missed the portal that opened behind her, depositing a very confused and angry Technus who screamed something like "Curse you!" behind him.
.
.
Sam soon fell into a kind of routine.
Wake up (even ghosts need to sleep sometimes). Find something to eat. Look for Danny with Tucker, whom she found on her first day searching. Eat again. Go to sleep. Repeat.
Until the day (was it a day? A night? Neither? Something in between?) Walker attacked.
He and his sidekick (Bullet, or something like that. Sam couldn't quite remember his name) opened fire on the two ghosts from out of nowhere, and Sam's ears popped as Tucker sent an arc of lightning back at them.
She felt the strong, now familiar tugging in her gut, but she couldn't give in to the temptation. While Tucker may have mastered his powers within a few days of her finding him, Sam's were still uncontrollable.
They responded negatively to her emotions, and whenever she tried to channel her thoughts into manipulating the plants, she just... Lost control.
That didn't mean that she couldn't just use her other, more controllable powers to take them down, however.
Sam launched a pair of her dark green ectoblasts at her opponents, not even looking to make sure that they hit their marks. Then she dropped into invisibility and tried to sneak up behind the other two ghosts. But she didn't make it far.
Walker's skull face grinned even more sharply than it did before.
"Now, men!" He bellowed.
There was a loud click and a whooshing sound-and suddenly the two young ghosts found themselves surrounded by the enemy on all sides, ghastly officers aiming their spectral guns at the pair.
Walker smirked, or at least tried to. It was pretty hard to smirk with a naked skull for a face. "Surrender now, or we'll end you two punks."
Slowly, reluctantly, Sam and Tucker raised their hands above their heads.
"You know," someone new and unfamiliar said. "It's not nice to attack children. Even if they can take care of themselves."
A blue ball of fire suddenly exploded across the circle, and it formed a cerulean ring around them. Less like a trap, and more like... Protection.
Sam used the distraction to send another blast in Walker's direction, while Tucker grabbed her arm.
"Let's get out of here," he muttered in her ear.
Sam shook her head and gave Walker and his goons one of her famous glares. "No way! I'm not letting these guys go!"
"They won't. Can't you see that they're getting their butts kicked?"
Sam looked at the ghostly warden and his men. Sure enough, fiery blue and red flashes and smoke explosions signified that whoever was attacking Walker and defending them was winning easily.
If only they could see them…
With one last regretful sigh that she wouldn't be able to have some small form of revenge, she sank down through the ground and sat down in one of the caves that mottled the large floating mountain that they had been ambushed on.
Tucker sat down across from her, his bright yellow skin glowing in the darkness as his pure orange eyes flashed.
"Where do you think we should look for Danny next?" Tucker asked, trying to distract his best friend from the battle above them that was currently shaking the mountain above them. He knew that she would want to take part in the attack-the plant-cored ghost had never been one to run from a fight, and she hated to have to be saved from an enemy.
Sam blinked. "What?"
"Danny," Tucker prompted. "Missing. Guys in White. His parents. Half ghost? Basically a superhero? Our best friend? You and him were totally lovebirds? Remember him?"
The island stopped trembling, and Sam shook her head and blinked to snap herself out of her train of thought. She didn't bother giving Tucker a kick for calling her a "lovebird."
"Oh, uh, yeah. Sorry. Just a little… Distracted." Sam thought for a moment, trying not to think of kicking Walker and his officer's butts. "Maybe we should check out the Far Frozen? If he's not there, Frostbite and his warriors might at the very least know where he's gone."
"Far Frozen? Where the hell is that?"
The two formerly living teens froze and whipped around.
Another ghost was standing at the back of the cave, one that they had never seen before.
He (or at least Sam thought it was a he-gender was pretty weird in the Zone) had grey skin like stone, blue fire for hair, glowing red eyes, and a gaping hole in the center of his chest-most likely the wound that killed him, as Sam knew that sometimes ghosts wouldn't want to change their appearance from the day that they died. To try to keep the memories that they had of being alive. Embers shifted and fell inside of it, occasionally tumbling out and scorching the ground. He was leaning on a black cane with a brightly glowing orb at one end.
He nodded to them. "Well, maybe I'm mistaken and it's different in wherever the fuck this place is, but it seems like it would be good manners to introduce yourself to the person that saved you from whoever the hell that was."
"Um…" Tucker trailed off, and Sam swatted at him in annoyance.
"Ignore him. I'm Sam, and he's Tucker." She planted her hands on her hips. "And maybe I'm mistaken, but it's good manners to introduce yourself to the people who had everything under control until you decided that they needed saving."
The ghost blinked at her, and for a moment Sam was worried that he was going to attack. That is, until he laughed. "I think I'm going to like you, kid. And my name is Stan. Stanley Pines. And if you think that you had that situation under control, than you may have hit your head a little bit too hard on the wall of this cave when you were going through it."
Sam bristled, and was about to launch a (hopefully witty) report, when Stan squinted at her.
"Wait a minute. Your names are Sam and Tucker?"
The two younger-looking ghosts exchanged glances.
"Uh, yes?" Tucker offered, orange eyes blinking in confusion.
"You wouldn't happen to know a kid named Danny, would you?"
The pair brightened-literally. The pale green or light yellow glow that surrounded them shone a great deal stronger in the dim light.
"Yes!" They both shouted in unison.
Sam calmed down slightly and sat down on the floor, although her voice was still at a higher pitch than normal in her excitement.
"Do you know where he is?" She asked hopefully.
"Eh." Stan made a so-so gesture with his hand and squinted his fully scarlet eyes. "Kinda?"
"What's that supposed to mean?" Tucker tried to raise one of his eyebrows and failed miserably.
"Well, uh," Stan hesitated slightly, like he was wary of what to say next. "His body... His body is what killed me."
Sam jumped back up to her feet in the blink of an eye and let out a noise that sounded suspiciously like an angry snarl. "What?! Danny would never kill someone! He's a hero!"
Thorny black vines snaked over the top of the cavern like deadly clawed fingers, and spiny roots grabbed at Stan. Fanged venus fly traps bared sharp teeth at him as if he were the source of their next meal-nothing more than a juicy fly. The other ghost formed a blue protective bubble of flames around himself and glared at Sam.
"Look, kid, get rid of your plants and then we can sit down and have a civilized conversation. "
Sam narrowed her eyes at him, but he didn't seem like he was going to attack anything other than her friend's honor. Although she was loathe to get rid of the upper hand in this fight in case it came to blows or ectoblasts.
She took deep breaths and closed her eyes, trying to remove the flora that she had called to her aid. Achingly slowly, the leaves and stems retracted back to their former positions on the walls. But Sam let her power hum beneath her skin-if Stan made any sign to attack, she wouldn't hesitate to willingly relinquish control.
Sam reopened her glowing green eyes, and Stan slowly dropped his fiery bubble.
"Now, as I was saying before Poison Ivy over here interrupted me-" Stan nodded at Sam, who huffed in annoyance "-Danny's body is what killed me. Not his soul. Does that make any sense?"
Tucker frowned. "Like… Someone was controlling him? The same way that Freakshow did?"
"I have no idea who the hell that is, but yes and no." Stan narrowed his eyes at the two other ghosts. "Do you believe in demons?"
Sam opened her mouth to answer-and then closed it again. Usually she would dismiss something like that, but if ghosts existed then why couldn't other more monstrous creatures like vampires, werewolves, succubi, or, well… Demons?
"Yeah, I guess so." She whispered, although it still sounded loud in the small space.
Tucker gave her a look like he thought that she was crazy. Sam continued to ignore him.
Stan nodded. "Good. Basically, my great-niece and nephew found your friend in the forest, bleeding out, and brought him home. Long story short, an isosceles jackass with a top hat took an interest in him, possessed his body, and then killed me with it."
He sounded very nonchalant, and the plant-cored female ghost wondered if he was crazy.
"Yeah, well, I don't believe you," Tucker huffed and rolled his eyes.
Stan arched an eyebrow at him. "I may be a liar, a conman, a crooked grifter, a pickpocket, a lama murderer, and probably a host of other things that I forgot about, but this is one thing that I'm telling the truth about. Whether you believe me or not is your problem."
"I do."
Tucker turned to Sam. "What? Sam, are you nuts? This guy is crazy!"
She crossed her arms. "I believe him. It's a personal thing to talk about your death, and he just outright told us because we said that we were looking for Danny."
"I know where he is, by the way," Stan cut across.
Tucker spun around with electricity sparking across his yellow skin in wide-eyed excitement. "Really?!"
"Yep." He extended a grey hand to Sam. "I can show you where he is, if you like. But-" he narrowed his eyes at her "-you have to stay invisible."
"Why?" Sam frowned.
Stan winced. "The kid's not exactly… Stable."
"What do you mean?" the girl asked, dread knotting in the pit of her stomach at the thought of her best friend (read: not-so-secret crush) in pain.
"Those agents-the Guys in White, I think he called them-tortured him. His parents too. Cut him open like some kind of disgusting high school science project."
Sam clapped her hands over her mouth in revulsion. She knew that the agents were twisted and had experimented on Danny before, but vivisection? That was too far, even for ghost hunters as messed up as them.
And the Fentons… Oh, god. That must have made it even worse. Oh, poor Danny.
"Plus," Stan added. "I don't want my kids to see you. Unless they're already back in California, in which case they won't anyway."
Tucker recoiled. "Your kids?"
"Great-uh, niblings? I think that's what Mabel called it. Great-niece and nephew."
Sam nodded with a small frown. "Yeah, I think niblings is the right word. Now can we get going?"
Stan smiled. "Of course. You're the only one holding us back."
Tucker sighed and stood up-he had sat back down again when Stan said that they had to stay invisible. "Well then, lead the way."
.
.
As it turned out, Stan didn't know exactly where a naturally forming portal was going to be. The older (only in terms of living age. Sam and Tucker had been dead for a little bit longer) ghost just knew that if they managed to get to the real world, he could show them the way to wherever Danny was.
Sam almost slapped him for not telling them that part, but decided against it at the last moment and settled for kicking a large rock off of one of cliffs that they were currently travelling over.
As they walked-well, flew, but it looked like walking on air-through the air of the Ghost Zone, Tucker tried to ease the tension by constantly babbling on about random things. However, he only really succeeded in making Sam and Stan almost end him out of sheer annoyance. Finally, Stan formed a gag out of ectoplasm in one hand and slapped it over Tucker's mouth.
Sam silently thanked him with a nod and an eyeroll. She didn't know how much more of that she could have taken.
There was a loud sound similar to ripping cardboard or maybe a thick sheet of metal from the air above them.
The sky cleaved apart with a screech, and a glowing green portal formed in the purple "clouds."
Stan grinned triumphantly at her. "I told you so."
Sam didn't pay him any attention before letting out a small cry of euphoria and swooping into the portal with Tucker right on her heels.
.
.
The place in front of them certainly didn't look like a house, but when she thought about it and studied the way that the roof and the doors were angled she realized that it was perfect.
If Stan was a house, then this is what he would look like. If a little less smart. If a house could be smart.
Wait… if he was dead, then why were they here? Was Danny living in this place? With who?
"You're sure that this is the right place?" Sam asked in Stan's general direction. Talking to other invisible people was a lot harder than it looked in movies and cartoons.
"Positive." The fiery-haired ghost answered from somewhere on her left.
Before Sam could ask any other follow up questions, the door to the sort-of house in front of him opened and Danny stepped out.
Someone clutched Sam's shoulder tightly, and she automatically knew that it was Tucker. But that didn't matter because Danny was right in front of her, after so, so long.
Danny looked... Good. Not like he had just been dissected, although Sam supposed that it had been at least a month, probably more, since then.
Like gender, time was really weird in the Ghost Zone.
Danny was wearing a black-and-white sweater that looked handmade, along with a faded pair of jeans and some beaten up sneakers. His blue eyes were brighter than Sam expected them to be, which was a good sign. The Halfa's black hair was short, and it looked like it had been cut in someone's kitchen or bathroom.
But in spite of all of that, Danny looked happy. Or at least not too depressed.
As the two-no, three, she forgot about Stan-ghosts watched, a puff of blue mist drifted out of Danny's mouth. But instead of the usual tense stance that the teenager had once dropped into at the slightest hint of a ghost attack, Danny just looked around warily for a moment and kept walking.
The ghost boy waited by the flattened dirt that looked like it had once been a parking lot, and Sam almost approached him.
Almost.
A bike zoomed up into the lot, the rider jumping off in one smooth motion as it crashed to the ground and landing neatly in front of Danny.
"Yo, Danny!" The person on the bike was a girl, with long red hair, green eyes, a spray of freckles across her nose, and wiry muscles. She was tall, and looked to be about a year older than Danny. There was a small ax with a sharply gleaming blade clipped to her belt, but the Halfa seemed completely at ease with her.
Danny smiled at her. "Hey, Wendy."
So, now the mystery redheaded girl had a name. Wendy.
Wendy reached out and ruffled Danny's black hair. "You ready to see our progress? Candy and Grenda have been bugging me about it all day. And I think that Rusty may have a crush on you. Which is pretty weird, all things considering."
Danny ducked away from her hand on his head. "I guess so. Do dragons have crushes? And I thought that you were going to call the twins today?"
"I was." Wendy shrugged. "But their mom answered the phone instead, so I had to pretend to be a telemarketer to avoid suspicion."
"Seriously?" Danny chuckled. "Telemarketer was the first thing that you thought of?"
"Yup. I had to hang up early, though. Hopefully she doesn't think that I was serious about selling her used vintage snow globes with limited edition photographs inside."
The teenage boy laughed at smiled at her. "Are you ready to go?"
"Mmm. Onwards!" Wendy pointed into the forest dramatically and beamed before clambering back up onto her bike.
Sam squashed down the jealousy that rose in her throat. Was it possible that Danny and this Wendy girl were...?
No. Sam knew how to read people, and if she had a gun to her head (what a funny figure of speech, she thought wryly) she would have to say that they had more of a sibling relationship than a romantic one.
As the two of them passed within six inches of her-Danny walking and Wendy pedaling as slowly as she could on her somehow not-broken bike-Sam had to physically restrain herself from reaching out and touching his shoulder. She had to make sure that he was real, that this wasn't just a dream.
From the small sound of grief and pain that Tucker made beside her, she knew that she wasn't the only one.
Sam watched them until they were gone, not realizing that several small pine tree seedlings had sprouted up around her due to her unstable emotions.
"I'll wait for you, Danny," she whispered. "Don't worry."
Psst, The Keeper of Worlds. Did I do well?