A/N: CHAPTER 10! And we've still got a bit to go, too.
I realize I forgot to update yesterday, and I am SO sorry for that! There's really no good excuse, I just sort of... forgot. Sorry!
Either way, here's the new chapter! Enjoy!
Chapter 10
General POV
"So, what happened here?" asked Danny. He, Jazz, Sam and Tucker were sat down in the Fentons' living room. "Where are mom and Dad?"
The inside of FentonWorks was remarkably undamaged by the invasion. Aside from the mess, which was a constant in this household, the entire building was in prime condition. The only thing missing was, well, half of the family.
"Well…" began Jazz,
Jazz's POV, 24 hours earlier
Jazz Fenton was sat in her room, studying. She normally didn't have much trouble with these kinds of problems, but there was this one question she couldn't find the answer to, no matter how many times she re-read the book.
"Jazz, sweetie?" came Maddie's voice from the doorway, and Jazz looked up.
"Yes, mom?" asked the girl, "What is it?"
"Your father and I are leaving for a bit. One of our scanners detected some unusual activity in the Ghost Zone, and we're going there to investigate it. We should be back quickly, but I wanted to let you know before we left so you wouldn't worry," said her mother.
"Oh. Yeah, thanks for telling me," said Jazz and went back to studying.
A few minutes later, Jazz felt thirsty and went to get a drink in the kitchen. However, as she was walking down the stairs a really bright light filled the room. Surprised, she lifted her arms to cover her eyes – and completely forgot where she was standing. The quick shift of balance caused her to fall – all the way down the stairs. She was pretty sure she hit her head – along with various other body parts – as even though the light had yet to fade, blackness was creeping in at the edges of her vision. The last thing she heard before slipping into unconsciousness was the blaring of the house's ghost alarms, and the slight fizzling sound that accompanied the ghost shield starting up outside.
When Jazz came to, she was alone. Her head ached, and her right leg felt like it had been ran over by a truck. She was pretty sure it wasn't broken, though. She'd had broken limbs before, and as much as this hurt it was nothing compared to then.
The light had faded, and she was lying almost motionlessly at the bottom of the stairs. With a groan she forced herself to sit up, the sudden movement making her head spin. She felt like throwing up, but that wasn't an option right now. Carefully she stood up – leaning heavily on the wall for support – and made her way towards the kitchen.
After rummaging around in a few boxes, she found what she was looking for. Her parents had in a stroke of genius come up with a pill that would speed up a human's healing process significantly. It was only for use in emergencies, but she figured this was one. She downed one of the pills with a glass of water, and then slowly made her way towards the living room, where she lay down in the couch to rest.
Logically, she knew that she might very well have a concussion and should be making sure to stay awake, but she just couldn't bring herself to care. Besides, she had the Fenton Miracle cure – not the actual name, but she couldn't be bothered to remember what it was actually called – in her system. Surely a bit of rest would be fine, she reasoned as she slowly fell asleep on the couch.
When Jazz woke up, she had no idea how long she'd slept. A quick glance at the clock on the wall told her she'd slept for about three hours. Thankfully, the pill had worked as it should, and her head felt completely fine.
That's when she realized, she was still on the couch in the living room. She didn't even have a blanket. If her parents had found her, they would have tried to get her up to her room or at least put a blanket on her. But she was sitting in the couch, alone and with no idea where the rest of her family was.
"Mom? Dad?" she asked loudly.
When she got no response she rushed down to the basement to find the Specter Speeder still gone and the Ghost Zone portal shut down. Vaguely remembering the alarms she had heard while she fell down the stairs, the young woman realized the house's emergency shutdown procedures must have been activated – and her parents were still in the Ghost Zone.
Still, she knew what had happened to them, which was more than she could say about Danny. Her brother had gone to a friend's house earlier – was it Tucker? – and she hadn't seen him return. Jazz rushed up to his room, to see if he was there, but she couldn't see him anywhere.
What she did see, however, was what was happening outside.
There were ghosts everywhere, most of them empty-handed but a few of them were carrying around people. Not just any people either, those were her neighbors and friends. All of them had this dazed look in their eyes, staring straight ahead and doing nothing even though they were clearly conscious. A few of them were injured – a girl she recognized from the family across the street was even bleeding from her head, but none of them seemed to care. And for all Jazz knew, Danny and his friends were out there.
The only reason she wasn't was the ghost shield.
She barely made it to the bathroom in time to throw up.
For the next few hours, Jazz lay crying in her bedroom. She was all alone, her parents were trapped in the Ghost Zone, and her brother was most likely stuck in the middle of a ghost invasion. Normally, she wouldn't be worried – after all, her brother was a freaking superhero, but something about those people outside had filled her with despair. Besides, the invasion had been going on for so long without any sign of it getting better, and there was no sign of Danny. If there was something he could do, surely he would have done it by now.
Eventually, her mind wandered to the realization that this would be her life for the rest of, well, forever. FentonWorks was completely self-sufficient, complete with a water pump, a generator and even a small underground farm. Granted, the water wasn't always entirely clean and the only plant they could grow in the dark was some tasteless genetically engineered experiment that was supposed to hold loads of nutrients or something – that wasn't the point. The point was she could theoretically survive here long enough to live a full human life.
That is, if you could call what her existence was rapidly devolving into a life.
Sighing, the young woman shifted her position slightly. After a few hours, she managed to cry herself to sleep.
The morning after – if it could be called a morning, what with the endless portals blocking almost the entire sky from view – Jazz was woken up by her hunger. She realized she hadn't eaten anything since lunch the day before, and by now she was starving. Slowly the young woman got up and made for the kitchen, leaning slightly on her left leg the entire time – while her headache was completely gone, her leg still hurt a bit.
Thankfully, the kitchen was stocked, so it would be a while before she had to start eating the weird underground plant experiment. She couldn't be bothered to cook anything properly so she settled for making a quick sandwich, which she later downed together with a big glass of orange juice.
She didn't bother to wash the dishes; instead she just put everything on the kitchen counter. She could clean it later.
As she was walking back to her room, she heard a voice from outside. A very familiar voice.
"Danny! Are you okay?!"
Sam. That was Sam's voice. And she was talking about Danny.
Jazz immediately bolted for the door. Her brother was here, and he was safe, and she had to see him.
"Danny? Sam? Tucker? Is that you?"
General POV, present time
"And, well, you know what happened next," finished Jazz, "Any questions?"
There was a moment of silence.
"Okay, so, if you have so much food, why have I still not gotten any?" asked Tucker, and everyone – including the tech-geek himself – laughed.
A/N: There you go!
Asgardian words:
Midgard - The human world
Helheim - The Ghost Zone
Asgard - The part of the Ghost Zone where the Asgardians live
Halfling - Halfa
Jotun - Ghost