Hello, peoples of the internet. Temporal Break here!

Today's announcements are...there are no announcements! That's right, I finally ran out of interesting things to say. Except for the chapter name. I'm sorry for those of you who hate puns. All hate can be directed to my PM box.

I'm also probably going to make some physicists cry.

Anyways, please enjoy Chapter 2 of 150 Milliamps!

Chapter 2: Minor Technus-calities

Jaike sat at the edge of her bedroom window sill in a red brick house, twirling a sheet of copper between her fingers and wondering where the night had gone so wrong.

"I didn't mean to make Danielle angry like that, I really didn't," the blonde inventor mumbled miserably to herself. "It's just that, well, it's so cool having a real life hero, er, heroine in my house! Her past must have been so amazing: what were her adventures like, how long was she fighting with Danny, who did she meet and defeat? It's so…well…"

She breathed a heavy sigh, her momentary excitement fading away as she remembered why she was sitting on the window sill in the first place. Jaike knew that Danielle would be flying around town in search of the portal, and if the inventor got lucky, the ghost girl might accidentally turn visible, giving Jaike a chance to speak to her.

Just to make sure that she wouldn't appear to be a stuttering idiot when she found Danielle (assuming that she wasn't already), Jaike ran through a quick checklist of thing to say.

"Alright, first: apologize for the prying. Second: Ask for forgiveness. Third," she added, staring at the scrap of metal in her hand, "ask about her powers. I've never seen a human who could generate any electricity, much less enough to cause a first degree burn."

She glanced at her burned hand, curious as to how spectral energy could generate electricity then sighed, realizing that her best answers would probably come from the halfa herself. She began scanning the skies for a glowing figure, a green light, anything to identify her half-ghost friend.

Suddenly, she spotted a figure, well, more of a blot, wreathed in white light and floating above the town between the mesas. She squinted her eyes, trying to make out the figure above her; unfortunately, Jaike couldn't see who it was from her vantage point with eyes alone, 300 feet below the peak of the plateaus. In a flash, she remembered the goggles lying on the junk table' which doubled as makeshift binoculars in a pinch.

Knowing that Danielle could turn invisible at any moment, Jaike quickly swung her legs over the sill and into her room, leapt off the window sill, and snagged the goggles on the edge of the table. Unfortunately, as fate would have it, a familiar alarm went off just as the eccentric grabbed her welding goggles.

*AWOOGA! AWOOGA!*

"Oh, no…" Jaike moaned worryingly, slipping on the goggles and taking up her vantage point at the window. After adjusting the focus on the goggles, she saw the clear image of Danielle flying above Vaga with, sure enough, another ghost engaged in conversation with her. Despite the distance, she could clearly see that the conversation would not end in a peaceful resolution.

Suddenly, a brilliant green and blue light momentarily blinded Jaike, who was forced to cover the lens of her goggles to avoid the glare. In the split second that she looked away, however, she heard a muted booming sound above her. The worried inventor glanced up and was startled to see a translucent shockwave forming above the mesas…and a monochrome speck falling from the point of impact.

With that, Jaike felt something that she hadn't felt before: a sense of conviction.

"Alright, you jerk ghost," she hissed, walking toward her closet with a determined glint in her eye, "you may think you're tough, but no one hurts my friend and gets away with it!"

She brushed away the few miscellaneous articles left on her closet floor, revealing a small patch of loose floorboards. With a few quick yanks, the boards lay beside a small alcove set into the floor. Inside was a metal box nearly three feet in length and half a foot high.

"You mess with my buddy," she said, grunting as she lifted the box out of the indent in the floor, "you mess with Jaike."

Unfortunately, intervening eccentrics were the last people on Dani's mind. Gravity, on the other hand, was a much more pressing matter.

The explosion that resulted from the two ghosts colliding had left her reeling, which is generally not a safe position to be in three hundred feet above the surface of Earth. Unfortunately, gravity had realized this as well, and was soon pulling a tumbling Dani toward the unyielding earth below. She tried to keep her thoughts straight as the ground drew closer.

"Okay Dani, think. You can't keep falling, or you'll be a puddle of green goo on pavement. But if you try to fly, there's a chance you'll splat into the Earth faster. What do you…oh. Duh. Blonde moment."

Moments later, a translucent blue blur sped towards and through the cracked earth; mere seconds after that, Dani reappeared where she had fallen through the Earth. She brushed some dust off the sleeves of her costume, muttering, "Of course: intangibility. The Ghost Zone's gift to specters."

A cackling laugh drew the halfa's attention above her, where Technus stood with a sinister grin on his face and a shimmering lightning-blue shield covering his body.

"You know, I have seen a lot of die-hard members of the Phandom, but you are the first to actually try and one up him! I take it that your costume was completely your idea, right?" he said sarcastically, motioning toward Dani's own monochrome gear.

The hybrid clone decided not to dignify Technus with a response; instead, she launched a massive acid green ghost ray at her opponent. He merely grinned in amusement as the laser approached; moments later, the shot hit his shield and was shot back toward the startled halfa. In her confusion, she barely had enough time to turn intangible and avoid the laser, which exploded on the cliff behind her.

"HahahaHA! Violence will get you nowhere with my new Specter Defector Armor Version 9.9!" Technus cackled maliciously as she faded back into existence. "This shield utilizes my self-generated electricity to create a wall of electrons with quantum numbers similar to that of your ectoplasmic signature, which I obtained using a spectral spectrometer installed in my sunglasses. This application of Pauli's Exclusion Principle keeps-"

"I-I'm sorry. What?" Dani asked, confused at the jargon that Technus was spouting.

"-your electrons from colliding with my electrons," he continued, ignoring the ghost girl's bewilderment. "As such, your energy cannot penetrate this wall of similarly charged particles. Though I suppose that a ghost of your station could not possibly understand my intellectual genius; you must be stupid as well as weak."

At this, Dani tensed up as rage built in her system, "Did you just say…weak?" she hissed with a slight tremble in her voice.

Seeing the halfa enraged and bewildered made Technus smile; as much as he hated emotions, he knew that they could turn great men into sniveling children or unthinking brutes, and by the look on his opponent's face, he knew that he had struck a tender nerve. This would go swimmingly.

Dani stomped toward the smiling ghost and lit her hands up with a ghostly green flame so fierce it seemed to sear the air around it. She eventually stood in front of Technus, who continued grinning even as the flames consuming her hands went from a translucent green to a blinding white. She wound up for a crippling strike and venomously hissed,

"I. Am. Not. Weak."

She threw her fist into the ghost shield, channeling all of her energy into a singular point of impact. In an instant, the lightning-blue shield shattered in a flurry of sparks and binary code. Technus was thrown backwards and slammed into the south plateau before falling to the ground, leaving a Technus-shaped imprint on the rock face.

Dani stared at the crumpled form of Technus, exhausted from the blow but satisfied that he had been beaten without any trouble. That relief, however, quickly turned into anger as the glowing form slowly got to his feet with another lightning-blue shield covering his body.

"Oof, I take it back, child. You are not just stupid and weak," he said, now standing tall with crossed arms and teasing look on his face, "You are ignorant to boot. Do you not remember that I said that this shield is manifested using my energy? You could break it n times, assuming n is a positive integer, and I could still create n plus one more. Your odds of defeating me are slim to none."

Technus glanced at the halfa, feeling cocky as he watched the halfa drop to her knees and sob in defeat…except for the itty bitty minor fact that the halfa wasn't sobbing in defeat. She wasn't even on her knees. Instead, she just stood there trembling slightly with small drops of ectoplasm dripping from her left hand. Her teeth were clenched, her breath was heavy, and her eyes burned into Technus with a gaze rivaling that of Pariah.

For a moment, Technus gave into his emotions and stumbled backward, terrified of the ghost's death glare, then snapped out of it as he realized that he had this girl right where he wanted her. Enraged, insulted, and now weakened! She would be easier to take down than the Box Ghost on a federal holiday.

"Perhaps you wish to continue testing me." Technus said mockingly, reaching a hand out and curling his fingers toward himself. "Very well, then. I didn't have any plans for the night, so why don't I spend it taunting an ectopus like you?"

As was expected, Dani gave a pointless roar and charged at Technus for the second time that night. This time, he morphed into a cloud of binary code and allowed the girl to pass through his formless figure. At the moment she passed through, he transformed back and grabbed the girl by her neck. The ghost gave a sinster chuckle as he sent a large jolt of electricity through his arm and into the girl's spine.

Immediately, the girl went limp and he tossed her to the ground, hoping that she wasn't unconscious; not because he was worried for her safety, but because it was amusing to watch her struggle. It wasn't long before she got up again, looking even angrier than before. The fire surrounding her fists began to crackle, spark and hiss, as though lightning had collected in the palms of her hands.

Before Technus had time to register the change, the girl shot forward and slammed her fist into his gut. He doubled over and held his gut in pain, allowing Dani to launch an uppercut into his chin. An audible crack was heard as Technus stumbled backward. Not finished yet, she fired off what she supposed was a ghost ray; instead, a thick bolt of white lighting arced from her fingertips toward the ghost.

Technus dissolved into a binary cloud, allowing the bolt to travelthrough him and into the ground. When he regained his form, Dani was already readying another blow. This time, however, Technus countered the strike with his own fists, and the two met with a resounding crack. She pulled back and swung her right leg around, hoping to catch him off guard. Instead, he blocked the strike with his forearm and countered with a ghost ray aimed at her face. She ducked the blow while simultaneously sweeping her legs across the ground, tripping Technus.

As the two battled, neither one noticed what appeared to be a clay grenade roll between the two. That is, until a voice shouted out,

"Dani! Get down!"

Dani immediately saw the grenade and created a spherical ghost shield; Tehcnus on the other hand, put up an extra thick layer of ghost armor. The moment both of them shielded, the grenade exploded into ceramic shards and a white hot liquid. After the smoke cleared, Dani lowered her shield and was shocked to see a bright orange glass-like substance in the same shape as her shield.

Technus, on the other hand, was covered in the burning liquid; his shield hadn't been effective against the grenade at all. He began to peel the semi-solid glass off of his skin until a flying kick both removed the glass and pinned him to the side of the cliff. He fired off a ghost ray, sending Dani skidding back. Technus quickly advanced, but was stopped by a booming sound and a fast…something embedding itself into the nape of his neck.

He stopped advancing and yanked out the foreign object in his neck. Despite the current conflict, he was curious see what could have penetrated his ghost shield without breaking it. Technus brought the object in front of his gaze; it appeared to be a four-inch long nail, with about half of an inch of its length glazed in ectoplasm. His ectoplasm.

A flash of white caught Technus's eye; he dodged as another lightning bolt traveled his was. Suddenly, it occurred to him that the same person who fired the nail must have tossed the grenade, too. A single look at Dani's now smug face cemented it; someone was helping the ghost girl.

As the two fought, he indiscreetly turned a dial on the sides of his sunglasses. His surroundings immediately flickered into shades of violet, orange, and red; thermal vision was a wonderful invention. A quick scan of his surrounding revealed several heat signatures, but two caught his eye: one was the ghost girl, and the other was a figure laying belly down on the roof of a two story building. It also appeared to be holding a weapon of some sort.

A click that he hadn't heard before rang out from the roof, and he dodged out of the way as a shining nail whizzed by. He ignored the halfa for a moment and flew up to the roof where a female human teenager dressed in a wite tank top and a cargo vest and pants lay on the roof. The human turned to face him, and he saw the girl wearing some form of night vision goggles.

The girl gasped and tried to run away, but before she could take three steps, Technus grabbed her by her shirt collar and turned both him and the girl invisible. As she struggled to escape his grasp, she dropped her firearm, which Technus immediately picked up. The gun was modded sniper rifle that had seen better days, but what it lacked in durability it made up for in uniqueness.

Where the barrel of the rifle once rested were two long rails that hummed with energy. The magazine had been altered to hold nails instead of bullets, and an electric motor was fitted onto the back. In essence, he was holding a rail gun sniper rifle. He had seen some incredible technology in his time, but this was ingenious. It also explained how the glass and nail had penetrated his shield: it stopped ectoplasmic charges, but not all objects. He'd have to get that fixed back in the Ghost Zone. In the meantime...

He phased back into the visible plain and yelled, "Hello, Phantom copycat! I have something here that you might want to see!"

Dani shot up to the rooftop with an ecto-charge ready, but gaped in horror as she saw Jaike struggling in the grasp of Technus.

"If you are anything like Danny, I would suspect that feel some sense of duty to protect your pathetic comrade here", he said, a spark of electricity lighting up his index finger. He also held Jaike out at his side to allow the halfa a better view. "So let me offer you a deal. If you tell me where the Alutanium Shockhammer is, I will not be forced to light your friend up like a Christmas tree."

"Hey, here's a better deal!" she shouted, gathering an orb of crackling energy in her palms. "How about I roast you like a marshmallow, save her, and we all go home happy? Three seconds to choose!"

Technus silently smiled as he saw the conviction in her eyes. She was serious. Either she didn't value the life of her friend, or she really didn't know how her new powers would work.

"Three…"

"Child, stop!" he shouted in what he hoped was a quasi-desperate voice. "If you shoot, you will strike-"

"Oops, I forgot. I'm bad at math. Zero!"

At that moment, something strange happened. Just as the halfa was about to shoot, Jaike noticed a small box attached to Technus's belt that read "Warning! Removal of this wireless grounding wire will result in loss of grounded state!"

"Perfect," Jaike thought as she kicked the box with her boots. It came loose and went flying off of the edge of the building.

That was all she had time to do before Dani released a thick white lightning bolt at the ghost. Technus, who had been sure that his grounding wire would keep him safe, was shocked to feel a searing pain travel across his body and make his undead muscles spasm. Despite the pain, he did have a small comfort knowing that the current would travel from his body into-

"JAIKE!" Dani shouted as noticed the girl's body spasming. She immediately stopped her strike, and both the ghost and Jaike came tumbling to the rooftop. The halfa flew to Jaike's side, not noticing Technus quietly and painfully get up and fly away behind her back, rail gun rifle in his hands.

"Come on, come ooonn…" Dani whispered roughly, trying to bring the blonde back to consciousness. Shaking, poking, even slapping wouldn't wake Jaike's twitching form. Lights began to turn on in the building behind her, alerting Dani to the fact that she wasn't alone in this town. Dani quickly scooped Jaike's body up and flew them both away from any attention. As they took off, Dani, quite close to tears, desperately whispered,

"Please, please get up. I can't have anyone dying on my hands again."

Wait, what does Dani, mean, again? When has any death happened in the series? How did it happen? Is this some bad form of foreshadowing?

So this is it: my first attempt at some serious content in this series. Did you enjoy it! Did you hate it? Do you think it could it have been written better? I dunno, I can't read your minds.

This chapter gave me trouble for so long since I wasn't really sure of the direction I wanted this to go. But I eventually came out with something I really liked, and I hope you like it, too.

In the next chapter, the past three years of Dani's life will be revealed, so stick around and find out what happened.