"You are all alone on this island," Skulker continued. The knife was pulled back, allowing the singer to breathe again. 2D opened his mouth to retort, but was roughly shaken by the ghost. Suddenly wise, he fell silent. "Your green companion is out, the robot is down," 2D almost smiled at this "and all others are too absorbed in their own tasks to notice you."
"Wait, then Dave is still here, right?" 2D said after an extended moment of silence, his spark of common sense extinguished. "I mean, I'm not really alone alone if there's a bloke working on the electric someplace else, am I?"
The ghost fell silent, and the knife was returned to the man's throat. Skulker was amazed at how composed the human was. True, he was a little rattled at first, but once he had figured out what was going on, he had calmed down. He tried to terrify him once more by regaining his visibility.
"Aww, you're just a robot. Murdoc put you up to this, didn't he?" 2D said softly, trying to keep the blade from aggravating his skin again. He looked a little uncomfortable, but not too scared. "Is it April Fool's Day?" he added, shrinking away as best as he could as Skulker pulled his thin body towards his metallic face. The ghost snarled, glaring in anger.
"I am Skulker, Ghost Zone's greatest predator!" he announced. To punctuate this, he threw the knife away roughly. 2D followed it with his eyes, flinching slightly when it embedded it into the wall.
"You're a hunter?" 2D asked, squirming in the ghosts' powerful grasp. Memories of childhood cartoons with hunters and rabbits filled his mind. "Why are you here then?"
"I am a collector of things rare and unique."
"You've lost me." 2D admitted. Skulker rolled his eyes before flinging the man away, sending him across the room. 2D crashed into his life size model of Spiderman, knocking the pair of them to the ground.
"What the hell?" he protested. "Is that what you do to everyone, eh? Rough 'em up a bit?"
"As I have said, I am a hunter. My usual prey is unavailable, so I searched to find something, someone, to bide my time with."
2D groaned to himself, pushing the mannequin off of him before getting to his feet. Standing up to his full height, he was able to stare at the intruder eye to eye. The ghost considered his change in attitude, assuming the man was making an attempt at standing up for himself. 2D's expression fell into a curious and clearly annoyed frown after a moment in which Skulker did nothing to assert his dominance over the situation. The expression turned to wonder as the ghost took a few steps away from the door before turning to face it. A metallic hand was raised; a ball of ectoplasmic energy summoned… and the door was blasted away. 2D's cage was open.
Skulker sneered, staring at his prey. The act had been to display his power, the door and its frame had been completely destroyed after all, but the vocalist, giddy with happiness and stupid from it, shoved past Skulker and raced from his room instead.
"Hey, thanks!" he called over his shoulder before racing up a set of poorly hidden stairs.
"Get back here, you punk!" Skulker snarled, chasing after the fleeing man. He only heard the swiftly retreating footsteps of the man, and a whoop of glee. Skulker turned his body intangible, phasing through the floors to cut the man off. As he had guessed, 2D had charged out of the door leading towards the main entrance of the island. He was already at the base of the stairs, running across the pink landscape. Skulker hung back, considering his options and choosing to simply stalk the idiot for a minute in an attempt to try and learn something useful about him.
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Tucker took back what he had said as the Twitter account updated itself.
"MAYDAY! Faceache on the loose!"
"Well, that was fast." The boy commented, looking up at Sam. "But that other post was put up a few days ago. Hey, we're on the same page that a celebrity is on at the same time!"
"That's great Tucker," Sam sighed, though it was clear that she didn't care. "Stay there and see if he says anything else."
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2D was flying down the beach, tripping over odd piles of rubbish as he went. The cyborg gurgled at him when he raced past, but he only pulled a face at her as he went, heading for the subs. There was still the little submarine, waiting in the water for him, it seemed.
The water.
Where was the whale? 2D came to a skidding halt, shuffling over to seek refuge under a plastic tree. Stupidly, he clung to it, wondering for a moment if it would be best to climb the thing to get a better view of the sea and his greatest foe- other than Murdoc. He bit his lip, scanning the area. There was the cyborg, twitching now over to his left, and the jetty was before him, a little to the right. Straight ahead was the sea. Did he dare? No, he'd rather not… But his freedom depended on it! 2D took in a deep breath before releasing his death grip on the tree, and then set off at a pace identical to an unarmed man approaching a bomb- slow and hesitant. It seemed to take ages, but at last his hands fell upon the warm surface of his ticket to freedom. Grinning, he pulled at the top to open the door, his grin falling when he registered the fact that something was wrong. He moved his hands back, inspecting the hatch with wide eyes.
"Damn!" he howled, pulling at his hair in frustration. The hatch had a thick lock on it, no doubt a courtesy of Murdoc. Who was even around to steal the thing? 2D was the sole person with an actual motive to want to leave the stinking place, and he was only out here because his captor was out getting food and some ghost had blasted his door down. It wasn't exactly something that happened every day. Murdoc must have planned on the possibility of this happening though, clever bastard; there was no other reason for it.
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Danny gave a start as the fanfare to a video game thundered in his ears, recognizing the ringtone for his cell phone, sneezing as he awoke and stiffly rose from a halo of used tissues. He pried his arms free of the blanket cocoon he had wrapped himself in before blearily groping for his cell phone beside his bed. The screen was glowing, revealing the caller to be Tucker. With a sniff, he answered.
"What?" he demanded thickly into the receiver. Any harsh tone to his voice had been lost in another sneeze, and he missed what Tucker had announced. "Sorry, I didn't catch what you just said."
"I said that Sam and I think that Skulker is hunting rock stars."
"That's new. I hope I haven't done anything to upset him; he hasn't been after me for some time. No, I was kidding, Tuck. So, what's the problem?"
"Nothing yet, I think. It's just weird, you know? Sam and I are trying to figure out a motive."
"You're that bored? He must be."
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Skulker allowed the bluehead to get to the sub; he had correctly guessed that it would be locked, before interfering once more. He did this because he had noticed the odd behavior of the man as he had run down the beach. Something in the water troubled the man, but what was it? It was time to find out, and maybe get some revenge. Skulker sneered as he recalled how the singer had hardly shivered when he, Ghost Zone's greatest predator, had announced himself and his motive. The man was a complete fool! Regaining tangibility, he flew at the singer, seizing him by the arm before flying up into the air. He had moved so quickly that by the time 2D screamed in alarm, they were already over the glassy surface of the sea, sweeping up into the air, higher and higher.
2D began shouting curses at him, clinging to his arm. Clearly, he was not enjoying the ride, but Skulker could care less. The ghost was actually laughing at 2D's misfortune, finding the event to be enjoyable. Things went from bad to worse, by the singer's standards, when the ghost decided to turn his robotic body intangible for a moment, thus dropping 2D. The man fell like a stone down towards the sea, his arms and legs flailing wildly as he shrieked in terror, and was only saved from a painful impact when the paranormal robot appeared beside him once more, seizing him around the middle.
"What was that for?" 2D gasped, his voice shaking as he fought to get air back into his wheezy lungs. Skulker's arm was about as soft as a refrigerator, so the man just knew he'd be waking up the next day with a lovely bruise across his stomach. The singer clung to his arm, biting his lip as he studied the water below. He swore to himself that the whale was there, just below the surface, waiting for him. "Do you have any idea- aghh!"
Skulker only smirked, shutting 2D up by dropping him once more, allowing him to fall the final three feet before crashing loudly down into the water. The effect was immediate, and the vocalist became hysterical, splashing around as his eyes frantically searched for the shortest route to land when his head broke the surface.
"Get me out!" 2D screeched, going under for a second before reappearing. Skulker assumed this was aimed at him. "Get me the fuck out of here! That bloody whale's gonna eat me!"
Skulker openly laughed, knowing that whale's didn't prey on humans, that no whale had actually consumed a human before. He didn't know that the whale, employed by Murdoc, had an eye on the terrified singer, wondering all the while if it was worth it to just swallow him whole.
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