Shivers
Danny pushed the chair back from his desk, stretching his arms above his head with a satisfied groan. Today, he decided, had definitely been a good day. The only ghost to appear had been Boxy, and with a record low of three reappearances, Danny didn't see any reason to let that sour his otherwise exceptional day. He'd been on time to every class, had actually completed his homework, and as an extra bonus, Dash had been away at some sort of state football meet. Letting his arms drop, the halfa glanced out the window at the darkening sky with a sigh before wrinkling his nose.
"What is that?" he muttered, getting to his feet and stretching a second time before padding down the hallway. Descending the stairs to the kitchen, the teen moaned inwardly as he caught sight of the pot on the stove, its glowing contents visible from where he stood. Jack, who was on the phone, caught sight of Danny's face and sent his son a grin coupled with a thumbs up.
Pizza, the large man mouthed, pointing at the receiver. Danny grinned, bounding down the final three steps and heading to the living room. He collapsed onto the couch with a happy sigh, sending Maddie a smile where she sat in an armchair.
Maddie's expression shifted so suddenly that Danny glanced down at himself to check that he wasn't accidentally in ghost form. "Mum?" He moved to sit up straight, only then noticing the object clasped in her slender fingers. "What, your watch busted or something? I thought that thing was indestructible!"
...
Maddie's frown became more pronounced as she studied the aura surrounding her son. The sensation of a nearby spectral presence had been apparent as soon as the band had loosened from around her wrist, and now that Danny sat before her, small shivers had begun to wrap around the woman's spine.
Her son blinked and Maddie remembered his question. "I just felt like a change, since I haven't taken this thing off since I married your father!" She forced a smile, trying to slide into her son's mind telepathically. Immediately, she hit a wall of solid glass. A mirror. Maddie shook her head slightly, frowning at her own folly. If Danny was hiding something, his own mind would subconsciously throw up barriers to protect it. The fewer people he confided in, the more opaque the walls.
She kept her eyes on the teen, waiting for a change in behaviour that indicated he sensed her as well, poised for his own mental counterattack… Danny rubbed at his temples with a grimace, and the woman realised that perhaps his powers were not as developed as his aura had led her to believe. "Are you alright?" she asked.
"Why do you ask?"
Maddie shrugged. "You look like you have a headache."
Danny nodded wearily. "Must be the three essays I just wrote."
"Take an aspirin," the woman advised, inwardly knowing that human medication would do nothing to dull the pain brought on by premature telepathy. The guilt twisted in her chest, and Maddie tightened her gloved grasp around the watch that bound her powers as long as it touched her skin. Not even five minutes in, and I've already hurt him…
Jack bounded into the room with a triumphant exclamation. "The pizza'll be here in fifteen minutes!"
"That's great." Danny's voice had become flat and strained, his fingers still pressed against his temples. Jack stilled and Maddie flinched as blue tendrils slipped through their son's lips. Danny glanced up, his head swinging from one parent to the other with terror clear on his face. "I-I gotta go, bathroom," he spluttered, leaping to his feet and taking the stairs two at a time.
...
Locking the door behind him, Danny sank down to sit on the edge of the bath. He pressed a trembling hand to his mouth. Did they see? Screwing his eyes shut, he shook his head and shakily got to his feet. I guess I'll know when I get back.
He called up the blue-white rings that trapped him between life and death. Their painful sting paralysed his chest, a burst of intense cold issuing from his core – until the transformation was complete Danny could not draw breath, and his heart faltered in its already slow beating. This was due to his immaturity; until his core reached a 'mature' state in the year of his tenth deathday, Danny would have to deal with painful transformations, undeveloped powers, and infrequent but uncontrollable displays of his ghostly characteristics in relation to his mood. This frustrated the halfa, and the sting of each transformation served to remind him that in relation to his opponents, he was still an infant. No wonder Skulker had become so infuriated after two years of repeated failure…
As the lights winked out at his head and feet Danny drew in breath and launched himself through the wall, floating above the street invisibly. Focusing on his ghost sense, Danny felt a bright, cold light pulse in his mind, establishing where his opponent was. Realising from the signal that the intruder was fairly weak, Danny looped through the air with a sigh before beginning his pursuit. I swear, if it's that damned Box Ghost again…
...
Maddie shivered as Danny slammed the bathroom door, her own ghost sense going off moments later in a breath of icy air. Jack glanced at her sharply as she tensed, violet eyes sweeping to the ceiling in panic as a freezing aura left the house.
"Mads, wha-"
The realisation slammed into her gut and she exhaled in a strangled shriek. "Danny's a halfa!"
Jack leaned heavily against the back of the couch. "What?"
Maddie pressed her eyelids closed, feeling her hands begin to shake. The speck in her mind that was Danny sped in the direction of the docks, encountering a dimmer and therefore less powerful speck. Jack was talking, but she couldn't make sense of what he was saying – the words blended together into background noise, no more significant than the spinning of their washing machine or the distant sound of traffic two streets over. Her mind felt dead as she tried to find an explanation, something, anything which could have acted as an ectoplasmic catalyst to awaken Danny's powers. It would have had to be an exposure of unparalleled proportions to provide a dose of ectoplasm that would usually be administered to a child over several months. Danny had never come into contact with anything that powerful, as nothing of its description existed…
The huntress blanched, glancing at her husband as the colour leached from his own face, and they said it at the same time. "The portal!"
...
Danny hovered above the warehouses lining the docks, screwing the cap back onto the thermos as he surveyed his surroundings with disgust – cardboard boxes, some empty but most not, were scattered over the shoreline. Trust Boxy to make a mess, the teen fumed. He shook the thermos vigorously before angling himself towards home and the promise of food which for once would not make him violently sick.
Landing in the bathroom, he took a deep breath and changed back into his human form with a grimace before flushing the toilet, squaring his shoulders, and descending to the kitchen as though nothing was amiss. Maybe they didn't notice my ghost sense. Please, let them not have noticed…
...
"Should we tell him everything, or just leave things as they are?" Jack asked childishly, looking to his wife for the answer.
Maddie felt her eyes begin to burn. "We have to, don't we? He's got to be registered, or that gun…" She trailed off, tears beginning to cut her face into sections. The huntress felt Danny re-enter the house, and she supposed that he had switched to human form as his aura diminished considerably. The doorbell rang, and Danny answered the door as Jack forced himself to his feet, producing money to pay the delivery man.
...
Dinner was an awkward affair. The loudest sounds were the ticking clock and Maddie's occasional sobs as she tried to unsuccessfully hold back her tears. Jack stared at his son when he thought that Danny wasn't looking, and the teen felt his shoulders steadily creep closer to his ears. After his first slice, the hero couldn't stand it any longer. "What's wrong?" he asked, pushing away his plate and trying to catch his mother's eyes.
Maddie dissolved into hysterics and hunched over her own plate, sobbing to her hands. Danny flinched. "What's wrong?!" he cried, moving to stand. The headache continued to throb through his temples, and Danny grimaced in discomfort.
Jack waved him away with a sympathetic look. "Take your dinner upstairs, Danny-boy. Your mother's had a really rough day, and it'd be best if you left us alone for a while."
Danny wasn't going anywhere. "Is this because of me?"
Jack's voice was remarkably steady given the circumstances. "Why would it be because of you?"
Danny met his father's unwavering blue gaze before faltering. How he ached to meet the challenge in those eyes, to just throw the words into the centre of the kitchen table. I'm Phantom. Those two words struggled to climb from where they nestled in his chest, but Danny couldn't find the strength to force them up his suddenly dry throat and through stuttering lips. I've got ghost powers and you damned well know it too, don't you?
He snagged the rest of his dinner and fled the scene without making another sound.
...
Maddie blew her nose for what felt like the millionth time, dabbing at the tear tracks on her cheeks. Jack rubbed his hand in small, slow circles on her back as he tried to hold back his own rebellious waterworks – it wouldn't do for both of them to break down together. Not yet, anyway. "He must be terrified of us," the huntress rasped. "We're always talking about tearing ghosts apart!" She had felt her son change and fly off shortly after dinner. He had yet to return.
The clock chimed once, indicating that they had under half an hour to meet the agents. Jack tenderly wiped the tears from his wife's face with the pads of his thumbs. "Come on, let's learn how to work this gun. Maybe we can warn Danny in the process."
"We don't even know his ghost form," the huntress moaned.
"We'll figure it out," Jack assured her, planting a kiss on the tip of her nose and taking her hand. The hunter guided his wife out the door and into the RV, and Maddie simply sat and watched listlessly, not even scolding her husband when he ran two red lights and drove through the council gardens. This worried Jack more than anything else had – their son would be fine, after all. They'd simply talk to him in the morning.
...
The gun was big alright. Speckles demonstrated the controls to the Fentons with a grin on his face the entire time, not at all fazed by the drizzle misting his hair and making Jack's nose freeze. The explanation had already lasted for half an hour, and mostly consisted of the agents congratulating themselves on developing such a unique and advanced piece of technology.
Phantom and Ghost X were fighting again several hundred metres above them, but Jack was the only one who glanced up often. None of the hunters felt that they were in the slightest bit of danger, considering the frequency of this particular fight coupled with the Fentons' longstanding truce with the town's resident hero.
Maddie hugged herself, shivering as the rain grew heavier. Phantom. As soon as she got to the bottom of her son's secrets she would pursue Phantom's wholeheartedly. The young halfa was obviously a selfless individual, and lately the huntress had begun to worry about the injuries that he seemed to sustain. His apparent lack of several basic powers indicated that Phantom's core was young, and possibly still in early stages of development, but the level of his proficiency spoke of untold strength and years of training.
Maddie blinked, jerked out of her thoughts as Speckles loudly announced that it was now officially a new era and keyed the activation code into the gun. Maddie gave a shout of protest. "Phantom's up there!" she screeched as it came to life, whirring whilst lights flickered on all over its surface. The agents grinned and the blood drained from Jack's face as he looked up to gauge exactly how far the teen was above the ground.
"Phantom, land now!" Maddie screamed at the top of her lungs. The glowing form about two dozen metres above her twisted, and the woman fancied that she could see Phantom's frown through the drizzle.
With a high-pitched whine five shots were loosed into the sky in quick succession, followed by a terrified scream.
Thank you for reading! Feedback? Opinions?
