At last, you have received chapter 7. :D Hope you liked the last chapter, thanks for the reviews... and with the shortest author's note ever, I say adeiu.
Frontlines Chapter 7- To Build a Better Mouse Trap
Danny opened his eye to sunlight streaming in through an old broken window. He moaned and turned over onto his stomach. At first, he questioned why he could only see out of one eye, and what he was doing lying on a dirty old mattress. Then he remembered. He couldn't see out of his right eye because it had been injured by a dog. Plus, it was covered with bandages. He was on a dirty mattress because Tucker had found it and set it up for him to sleep on that previous night. He had gone to sleep hoping for a better day to wake up to.
Well, here we go, today, Danny thought, sitting up. He was famished, so he dug around in his pocket for a tiny bread crust he'd put there days before. He took it out and made a fast meal of it. It was nowhere near satisfactory, but at least it was some kind of sustenance for his body.
"Good morning, Sleepyhead," said Sam from somewhere in the room.
"Yeah," said Tucker. "It's been bright daylight for a really long time. We missed you on the bird hunt."
"Well, why didn't you wake me up?" asked Danny, turning to look at his friends.
"You needed the sleep," Tucker replied. "I caught something for you and cooked it. Griffin cleaned it." Tucker held up a large chunk of meat sitting on a wooden board.
"Why?" Danny asked. "Why did you catch food for me and nobody else?" There was an edge to his voice.
"You need to eat, too," Tucker answered. "You've only been eating crumbs for the past few days, aside from what little bits of meat you've eaten. I mean, the entirety of food you ate this week wouldn't even add up to half a meal."
"I like to conserve it, OK?" Danny said. "No big deal."
"Yes, big deal," Sam said. "If you want those scars to heal up faster, you've got to eat something aside from bread crumbs. Besides, you're the head leader of this team. You need to stay strong."
"But the team needs to be fed, too," Danny argued stubbornly. "Moreso than me. Shouldn't a leader make sacrifices for his team?"
"Shouldn't a leader also stay strong and healthy for his team?"
"I guess so," Danny mumbled.
"You two have been arguing a lot," Tucker noted. "And it's over some seemingly pointless or obvious stuff."
"As if you and Sam arguing over meat and vegetables isn't pointless," Danny said, chuckling.
"Hey, that's a totally valid argument!" said Tucker, smiling despite himself. "But I wouldn't really care about it now with you; you could do meat or veggies. Although, even Sam agrees that meat would be best for you right now. You've lost a lot of weight."
"I'll eat it, OK?" Danny said. "I'll admit it, I'm starving right now. But I'll still probably feel a little guilty for eating valuable food that can help feed my team." The boy took the meat from Tucker's hands and took a slow bite. Fresh and warm, it was the best thing he'd eaten in a month. Before long, it was reduced to an assortment of tiny bones. "Thanks, Tuck," Danny said.
"Don't mention it," Tucker replied, holding up his hands.
"Robin, wasn't it?"
"Yup. That seems to be your favorite bird we catch."
"It is. Thanks again."
Sam shook her head. "Now you even know what flavor of bird you like best," she muttered, halfway smirking.
Then they all heard a loud screech of tires from a distance. Danny hopped up and ran outside. He and his friends ran up the stairs to the ivy-covered building's balcony. From up high, Danny could see one of the peacekeepers' gray trucks stopped in front of FentonWorks. No surprise there, he thought. He was about to pass the sight off as just a routine peacekeeper meeting before the back of the truck flew open. Peacekeepers stormed out, dragging two individuals in handcuffs with them. One was a huge man in a tattered orange jumpsuit. The other was a slender woman in a weathered blue jumpsuit.
Danny could barely contain himself. "It's Mom and Dad!" he exclaimed, grinning from ear to ear. But the smile quickly vanished when a man in a black suit, red tie, and slicked back raven-black hair stepped out from the passenger seat of the van. The epitome of evil. Carpathan. "Carpathan still has them," Danny hissed, narrowing his eye. There was that freaky empty feeling again.
Directly behind the Fentons was a man with long silver hair tied up in a ponytail. He was wearing what appeared to be a fancy black version of a peacekeeper's uniform, which was typically dark blueish-gray in color. Danny could only watch helplessly as the peacekeepers and this man shoved his parents into the old house.
"Who knows what's going to happen in there?" Danny asked aloud. He wasn't entirely sure he wanted to know.
,.~*~.,
Maddie sent a glare to the latest peacekeeper to jab her in the side with his gun. They didn't have to do that so often; she was smart enough to keep walking. She silently cursed them.
She silently cursed her husband for readily agreeing to Vlad's offers for the sake of a long-gone friendship. Anyone could tell that Vlad couldn't stand Jack- Anyone but Jack himself, that is.
"Come on, Vladdy, what's with the handcuffs?" the man asked. Vlad scowled. Jack continued, "And can you tell these guys to stop poking me in the gut? It's really unnerving..." He narrowed his eyes at a peacekeeper.
The peacekeepers shoved the ghost hunters inside and led them down through the house and into the lab. Would Danny still be living here? Maddie thought, her heart pounding. He wasn't arrested. And what about Jazz? Is she all right? Are they safe? The peacekeepers stopped in the lab, holding each Fenton by the arm. With a rough shove, the couple found themselves standing right in front of their ghost portal.
It was partially dismantled and surrounded by extremely frustrated peacekeepers holding wrenches, hammers, and other tools. Carpathan strode in front of the ghost portal and faced the Fentons. "How would you dismantle it?" he asked, narrowing his eyes threateningly. "Tell me how."
Jack opened his mouth to speak, but Maddie cut him off. "Not until you tell me where my kids are," she demanded.
Carpathan gave her a sickening smile. "Ah, no problem there, Mrs. Fenton," he said smoothly. "Your daughter is dead and your son is roaming the streets trying to survive with a ramshackle lot of kids from his school." Both Jack and Maddie gasped at the news. "They did not cooperate," continued the mayor. "And if you do not cooperate, I will make sure you suffer or die. Understood?"
Maddie and Jack nodded, shaken with the knowledge they had just acquired. Jazz was dead and Danny was somewhere on the streets, most likely close to death? That to them was scarier than any threat Carpathan could make.
Carpathan smirked. "Good. Perfect answer. Now you will answer my other question."
Jack furrowed an eyebrow. "What question was that again?" he asked.
Carpathan approached the man slowly until he was face-to-face with the ghost hunter. Blue eyes locked. The mayor slowly began to enunciate each word in his sentence. "How. Would. You. Dismantle. That." He pointed sharply at the ghost portal.
"Uh... you would take it apart?" Jack asked, a hint of mocking in his tone.
"We've tried!" one frustrated peacekeeper snarled, throwing down a large wrench.
"Order, Mr. Fenton," Carpathan shouted. "In what order and with what would you take it apart?!"
"Special Fenton building tools," Jack replied proudly. He grinned. "Only I know how to get to them."
Carpathan nodded. "Peacekeepers," he told the bunch they had come in with, "unshackle these two. They will dismantle the portal for us. And if they do not..." He signaled to the armed guards by the lab stairs. They cocked their guns. "I will have them shot."
Maddie and Jack were both equally distressed. Now they were being forced to tear down all their hard work. Maddie resisted the urge to take on Carpathan as soon as the cuffs snapped off her wrists. Jack looked extremely upset at the terrible news and a bit confused by it. No doubt the news about his kids and the knowledge that he had to take down his own invention grieved him as it had her.
"Get those tools and get to work," Carpathan ordered.
Maddie glared icily at him before following her husband to the weapons vault to get the tools.
,.~*~.,
Danny stayed on the balcony all day until the sun went down. He wanted to know if his parents were safe. Did they know how much he thought about him? Did they know how much he wanted to save them? Heck, did they even know he was alive? "I wish I knew how to get you out of there," he whispered. "But I don't. I failed. Now I can't."
The doors of FentonWorks suddenly flew open. Danny breathed a sigh of relief when his parents, seemingly unharmed, were led out of the building. He kept watching silently, even after the gray truck had sped off into the distance.
Footsteps pounded behind him. "Danny!" That was Rich, a kid with black hair and an overly sentimental attachment to his old brown cap. "There you are! Cam wants to talk to you."
Danny turned to face the teen. "He's still alive?" he asked, voice cracked from neglected use.
"Yeah, but not for long," Rich replied. "He needs to tell you something. I think it's important."
Danny nodded and followed Rich down the stairs and through the streets to an alley that wasn't all that far away. There, cushioned by multiple garbage bags, lay Cam Cass.
He looked even worse then he had that previous day. His face was pale and almost colorless, his white shirt stained almost totally red. He looked up at Danny with dull blue eyes. "Thank goodness Richie found you," Cam rasped. "I meant to tell you last night, but you went crazy and ran off. Then Tucker said you needed to sleep. I guessed it could wait."
He took a rattly breath and reached for something at his side. He lifted the object up for Danny to see. It was a large, shiny sword edged with dried blood. The leader steadied Cam's shaky arm. "Careful, don't cut yourself up," he said.
"Doesn't matter," the blonde rasped. "Take the sword. It was Michael's."
Danny took the sword by the hilt and gently removed it from Cam's hand. "How did you get it?" Danny asked. He looked into the sword's shiny blade to find a total stranger staring back at him. The dark hair looked familiar, but he couldn't place it.
Cam took a slow, deep breath. "I got it from Michael's body after he fell. You should've seen him fight. That kid was determined to beat every one of those peacekeepers. Got a few right through the heart and cut the throats of others. For a moment I thought we would win.
"But then this guy in black came. Fought Michael while I was struggling in my own fight." He paused to cough. "The guy in black never got hit. No matter how many swings Michael gave him, he was never hurt. He grabbed Michael's sword right out of his hand. Then that mayor guy showed up, took the sword, and ran the kid through. They left after that."
Danny looked closer at the sword and scratched some of the blood off. "So this is his blood," the teen said. "He was run through with his own sword... by Carpathan." He felt the strange emptiness inside him grow wider. I couldn't protect little Michael from Carpathan, he thought, gazing sadly at the face in the sword. It stared back at him with the same melancholic expression. "Why'd you tell me this?" Danny asked, looking back at Cam.
The boy gave his leader a crooked, painful smile. "To give you the sword. And to let you know Mike fought his hardest for you."
Danny nodded, tightening his eyebrows. "Goodbye, Cam. I respect you," he said.
Cam nodded his head. "Find Ginger," he whispered, his eyes falling shut. His ragged breathing began to slow down.
"I'll do that," Danny whispered. "Promise."
Cam's mouth twitched into a little smile. Then his chest stopped moving. His body fell limp. Danny shut his eyes. At least Cam didn't have his eyes open; that would have given Danny another blow to his sanity.
He looked back at the sword, once more greeted by a dirty, one-eyed face. "Guess we gotta find Ginger," he rasped, surprised when the face's lips moved in sync with his. His blue eye widened. "Oh my gosh, is that supposed to be me?" he asked aloud. He touched the bandages on his face, and the reflection did the same. He stuck out his tongue. Waved. Raised and lowered his eyebrow repeatedly. "That's me," he confirmed, shaking his head. "Sam and Tucker are right. I really do need more food and sleep." He sighed tiredly.
Danny stood up and left the alley, taking the sword with him. He could learn to use this, right? He already had experience with a knife. This blade shouldn't be too much different. "I'll learn," he told himself. "Then I'm coming for you, Mom and Dad. Don't worry."
,.~*~.,
"You've done well," Carpathan told the air in his office. "Beautiful performance last night."
"Thank you," a ghostly voice said. "It is always an honor to fight by your side, Carpathan."
"Honor or no, my shirt is still soiled," Carpathan grumbled. "It would not matter so much if the blood had hit the tie or the jacket. But of course, it had to hit my nice white shirt."
"I am sorry," the ghost said.
"I suppose that is my fault," the mayor said. "I have a new assignment for you, ghost."
"What is it?" the ghost asked. He floated closer to the man's desk.
Carpathan folded his hands. "A warehouse, by a vacant lot in the older area of this town."
The ghost answered, "Yes, what of it?"
Carpathan snapped his fingers. "Burn it."
,.~*~.,
"Danny, where'd you get the sword?" asked Tucker, watching his friend wash the shiny blade.
Danny sighed. "It was Michael's. Cam gave it to me to fight with." He resumed washing the weapon. "Any luck finding Ginger?"
Tucker shook his head. "No."
Danny sighed. "She can't be far from where they found the others," he said, scrubbing hard at the tip of the sword. "Send more people and have them spread further out. You can't fail this. I can't fail this. Not like I did before. The least we can do is find her, and then bury her with the other two. Make up for sending her to die..." Danny's voice trailed off at the end.
"Take it easy, man," Tucker said. "You couldn't have known..."
"But I did. I knew someone would die last night! And I feel like I let them." The boy continued to clean the sword.
"You didn't let them die; you didn't send them to die either," Tucker argued. "You didn't kill any of them. This all leads up to Carpathan! He's the one to blame."
"He may have killed them, but I'm the one to blame. If I'd never come up with that stupid plan they would still be alive." Danny took a final swipe of his wet cloth to the shiny sword and stood up. He brushed past Tucker and left the alley he had been in.
This alley, complete with garbage cans and a blue dumpster, was becoming his home away from the warehouse. He kept his weapons and a minuscule food stash in this alley, as well as a blanket heaped on top of the dumpster. He stayed in there to do most of his planning and storing, of course, but otherwise stayed in the streets or the warehouse.
He stormed toward the warehouse, angry with himself and at Tucker for telling him he wasn't to blame at all. Sam was waiting for him by the door. "Danny!" she called. "I need to change your bandage and check up on your wounds."
Danny huffed. He was mad at Sam now, too. In fact, every other person who had spoken to him that night had made him angry. He just wanted to be left alone. "Don't waste your bandages on me, Sam," Danny said, shoving past her to get in the warehouse. "Just replace them after you check. Then leave me alone." He sat down on the mattress and glared up at his friend.
"Somebody's grumpy," Sam said, bringing her stuff over to Danny and sitting down next to him.
"Everything is making me angry tonight!" the boy exclaimed, exasperated. "I just want to be by myself for once."
Sam started to unwrap the bandages from her friend's face. "Then I'll just let the others know you're unavailable," she said.
"Thanks," Danny said quietly.
Sam grimaced about halfway through with removing the bandages. "Danny, this scar..." She shook her head and continued to unwrap the strips.
Danny's stomach twisted. What did his face look like? He imagined his face with a particularly gruesome red-and-brown mark down the right side of his face, edged with inflamed, scarlet skin. His breakfast threatened to repay him a visit. "It's ugly, isn't it?" he croaked.
"Beyond ugly," Sam replied. "Best we can do is clean it again and apply fresh bandaging." She glared at him on "fresh".
Danny rolled his eye. "Fine. Whatever. But can I open my eye?"
"You could try, but there's a crusty, film-thin scab forming there. It'll be hard. Not as painful, though. The swelling's sort of gone down."
"Clean it first, please," Danny ordered, half-sighing. Sam wet a clean cloth and began to clean the wound. "Check your wounds yet?" asked the boy, eyeing Sam's shoulder.
"No, not yet," the girl said, wiping around Danny's eye in tiny circular patterns.
"Stubborn Sam. Why don't you?"
"Because you come first."
"Why me?"
"You're the head leader," Sam groaned. "How many times must I say that?"
"As long as it takes," Danny replied.
"Calling me stubborn," Sam said with a smirk. They both chuckled softly.
"I think this is the first time we've had a laugh together in a while," Danny noted.
"Yeah, I suppose it is," Sam replied. she finished cleaning and reapplying bandages to her friend's wounds.
"We need a more thought-through plan to get my parents back this time," Danny said. "We need to build a better mouse trap. I was thinking... maybe Carpathan isn't holding them in his mansion after all."
Sam nodded. "Go on."
"I don't know where they're being held, but I have a plan to find out. I'm going to follow the peacekeeper van away from FentonWorks when it leaves tomorrow, find out where they are, and find an entrance from there."
"Alone?"
Danny's eyes flashed. "Yes! Alone," he snapped. "I can't let anyone else die because of me!" He took deep breaths and lowered his voice. "We're still trying to find that girl, Ginger. There are teams out looking for her now. That's dangerous enough. The safest place anyone can be right now is in an alley or in here."
"Let's go back to your alley together if it's that dangerous," Sam said, standing up. "I usually sleep in here, but those boys snore loud." She smiled.
Danny stood up as well. "That'd be nice. Thanks." He smiled back at her.
The teens left the warehouse and silently began to walk back to Danny's alley. The sky was now a very dark shade of blue- almost black. Almost as dark as Danny's outlook on this life of war and death he had helped create. Not even a single star shone in that dark sky.
"I was hoping the stars would be out earlier tonight," Danny said. "I watch them when I go to sleep. They give me peace..."
"From nightmares?" Sam finished.
Danny hesitated. "Y- Yeah," he stuttered, voice cracking. He shook his head and sighed. "But it's so dark tonight already. And there are storm clouds moving in..."
The two turned into Danny's alley. The boy crawled up onto his dumpster and laid back on his blanket. He started to mess with his sword.
"Then I'm glad I'm staying with you tonight," Sam said, leaning up against the dumpster and sitting down.
Danny smiled and shut his eyes. "Me too."
,.~*~.,
The sky was black and starless. Thunder rumbled as the oncoming storm began to roll in. The ghost floated above the large warehouse, invisible. The Fighters appeared to have turned in for the night. The ghost floated down closer to the building and peeked in through an old, broken window.
There were sleeping teenagers inside the warehouse; supplies, water, and foodstuffs as well. They were unlikely to see or hear anything the ghost might do. He phased into the warehouse and floated around it for a while. He counted six Fighters- four boys and two girls- and estimated that the food and water would last one person for at least two weeks.
He would have preferred the warehouse to be empty, but killing off six more of Carpathan's enemies would make the mayor very happy. The ghost phased back out through the roof and looked down on the building once more. He charged a glowing purple ball in his palm. Then, without hesitation, he threw it down.
,.~*~.,
It was the sound that woke him up. Not his nightmare, not even the disgusting smoky smell reeking slightly of metal that filled his nostrils. It was the loud boom, not the large flash of light that came with it, nor the screams.
Danny bolted up and jumped down from the dumpster he had been sleeping on. "Noooooo!" he screamed, running from the alley. Something terrible had just happened. He ran toward the screaming and the purple blaze, sword gripped tightly in his hand. If there was some idiot blowing up his team's home, which he knew had probably happened, he felt completely willing to slice him or her to bits. Nobody was going to get away with putting his team in that kind of danger.
Danny stopped in front of the blazing purple fire, too angry to wonder why the flames were such a color. Despite the metallic smell and the smoke, there was also the overwhelming stench of burning flesh. The ugly truth was that there were people in that warehouse when it burst into flames.
"Show yourself!" Danny snarled, pointing his sword in every direction, half-expecting the arsonist to show up and get himself killed. But nobody showed up. The adrenaline began to wear off and reality took over. The blade fell from the boy's hand, as his arm no longer held the strength to bear it. His posture drooped. His knees shook and buckled beneath him as the tears began to fall. With his receding energy levels came the expanse of the emptiness in his fragile, angry heart once more.
"I've failed again," he muttered to himself. "No, no... not again..."
Sam came up from behind him, panting. "Who did this?" she hissed.
"I don't know," Danny muttered. "I should have died in there with them..." He began to raise his voice, slowly rising to his feet. "My own alley, another perfect example of my selfishness! I let them die again!" Now he was shouting so loudly that his voice was hoarse and gritty. "Tell me I should have died in that fire!" he screamed, staring at Sam with a manic look in his eye.
"No," Sam said strongly. "You should never die meaninglessly in a fire! You want to know what you should do with that fire? You should take it and use it to make yourself stronger, not decide you should have died in it!"
Danny backed off at her tone, mouth agape. Lightning lit up her face and amplified her rage. She continued, "Your death wouldn't have protected them, so what's the point? Just one more person dies! And since you're the leader, your death would just make everything we've strived for fall apart!"
"Sam, I-"
"Do you understand?" her face was inches from Danny's, her violet eyes burning like the fire.
"I know, I understand now!" he snapped, backing off further. He took deep breaths and shut his eye. Thunder rolled as the first raindrops of the storm began to fall. "Let's see if we can get everyone together again," he breathed. "We have to know who died tonight." He picked up his sword and walked away.
,.~*~.,
The rain from the storm had put out most of the strange purple flames. The only remnants of the fire were a few flickering flames and the blackened metal shell of the warehouse. The glass from the windows was shattered and scorched, and a giant hole was in the roof. It was useless as a safehouse now. No supplies or food was salvageable. Sam had had the sense to carry her bandaging supplies to Danny's alley, but she had no water ready to clean wounds now.
Water bottles that were not in the warehouse at the time of the fire were open and filling up with rainwater as it fell like a blessing from the sky. Danny himself caught the blessed raindrops in his cupped hands. Once he had caught enough, he greedily drank it down to sooth his parched throat. It was the most water all of the Fighters had seen in a very long time.
Danny had decided that, despite the death of several Fighters and the loss of food and supplies, the good had overcome the bad in this situation. Once again he felt completely confident his team could defeat Carpathan.
I will go through with my plan tomorrow, the teen thought to himself. I won't fail this time. He clenched his fist. For Mom, Dad, Jazz, Michael, Cam, and Ginger... I'm not going to fail.
He would have to tell the Freedom Fighters about his parents before the actual mission took place, but his own quest would precede that. His plans were finally coming together for what seemed to be a brighter future. This made him smile.
,.~*~.,
EDITED: 8/3/13
Finally done typing this chapter! ^^ I promised this week and this week it is. Now what makes these author's notes special is this:
I'M DECIDING TO HAVE A FRONTLINES ART CONTEST! READ BELOW FOR RULES!
So yeah. I'm having an art contest that will end on, let's say, the day I post chapter 8! XD No definitives, but that's probably gonna be sometime in July, so I'd like all entries in sometime in July.
RULES: Pick your favorite scene in Frontlines and draw it. Simple enough, eh? Winners will recieve an exclusive sneak peek at Chapter 9 and an exclusive sneak peek at my unpublished story, War Games! My DeviantART name is PoisonIVy10, so be sure to look there for art surrounding Frontlines and other stories of mine. :3 I may come up with other prizes later that will be posted in a DA journal. Watch me if you dare XD
I would be really happy if you entered! ^^ And happy if you reviewed this chapter! Be warned: Chapter 8 is next...
