"Don't you lay another hand on her!"
"And if I do...?" the weird ghost asked me.
"You don't want to know that."
Sam looked at me, barely able to keep her eyes open. "Da...nny..." And she passed out. She called me 'Danny' this time, instead of 'Daniel'. It's because she passed out before saying the 'el', but still... It makes me happy. I looked at the ghost. My happiness changed into hatred just by looking at him. It made me feel sick.
"I don't understand... people don't break in here quite often. You must really be longing to have some fun, right? Well, I don't mind, I was getting bored playing with these weaklings anyway."
"Sam... she is not weak. She is trying her hardest to fight for what she believes in, even though everything seems hopeless. Looking at her... gives me strength to fight for her. To fight with her. But you... You make me sick..."
"Well, that turned into quite a speech. Why don't we try to solve this with actions, instead of words?"
"Agreed!" He grabbed his glowing whip and tried to hit me. I made a shield, and it deflected his whip. A cloud of dust appeared and I started coughing. I feel a bit... powerless... Have I already used up too much of my power today? This is no good... I need to beat that attitude out of him, but at this rate... His whip made an overwhelming sound when it hit the ground. It had missed me by an inch.
"No good. I missed."
No time to think! I grabbed my backpack. Anything useful in here?
A contact device. Useless!
A warning belt that gives me a shock when I touch it. Could have been useful, only problem is that I'd be in just as much pain as he would be in.
A gun. Yes!
I grabbed the gun and dropped my backpack. I aimed it at the ghost's head. Please work! I fired some shots at him. They all hit his forehead. Yes!
The green bullets turned liquid and disappeared into his forehead.
"What?"
The ghost, who had kinda looked like a man until now, changed into something that looked like a lion made of ecto-energy.
"This is my real form! I'm made of ecto-energy, and I can absorb it as much as I like! Your ecto-bullets are useless against me!"
I ditched the gun. No good either. I made blue rings appear around me. Good, I still have enough power to do this. The rings travelled up and down and changed me into my ghost form.
"Well, well, I already thought you were no human, but this exceeds my expectations."
I have to end this quick, before I'm all out of power.
I let the temperature in the room drop, preparing a powerful ice-blast. My neon-green eyes turned ice-blue and... turned neon-green again. Not because I was out of power, but because Sam, Dash and Valerie, who were unconscious started shivering. The lion's eyes twinkeled as they looked at me.
"What's this? Afraid to attack?"
"Nothing like that!" I ran up to him, and hit him with the most powerful ecto-blast I could make. I repeated that several times, but he didn't move an inch.
"I told you, didn't I? I can absorb ecto-energy as I like."
I took a step backwards. I felt my power running out. I needed a way to beat him, without harming Sam and the others, without using too much power and without using ecto-energy. I can think of only... one way. It'll hurt, but for their sake... I'll endure it!
I ran up to my backpack and put my hand in it.
"What's this? More weapons? You're full of surprises, aren't you?"
There it was. The warning belt. I grabbed it, and instantly felt an enormous pain. It ran through my nerves and I felt like I was struck by a thousand knifes. I dropped the backpack and slowly walked up to the lion. It hurt. It hurt. It hurt. And he would aslo be hurt. Before he knew what I was doing, I put the belt around his neck, and he started screaming. He tried to remove it, but I held on tight.
"Let me go! Why're you doing this? It hurts you as much as it hurts me, right?"
"I'll endure it! For their sake, I'll endure whatever is necessary to help them!"
"Stubborn, eh? Well, anyway, I wanna thank you. Finally someone I could enjoy fighting. Someday, I'll come back for you. And then, I'll beat you." And he fell to the ground. I let go of the belt. Now that the pain was over, I finally felt how much power I had used up today. My body forced me to change back to a human. I walked over to my bag and pulled the key out.
I wonder... if... it works... on their... chains...
With the key in my hand, I walked over to Sam. My vision was blurry, and I could barely stand, let alone walk. I reached the hand with the key out for the chains, but everything turned black, and I didn't even feel the impact of falling to the ground.
"Wake up!"
I felt something painful. Someone hit me on my head. I slowly rubbed the painful place and opened my eyes. Sam was looking at me. Behind here stood Valerie and Dash.
"Come on! How long are you gonna make us wait!?"
I quickly went into sitting position before she would hit me again and pulled my hoodie even more over my eyes, in order not to be recognized.
"Are you guys... alright?"
"Yeah we are. That blue key freed us from the chains, and we're okay now," Valerie told me. Taking a good look at her, she had a lot of wounds from the whip.
"Wait, what happened to that ghost?"
"Behind you."
I turned around. The ghost had returned to his human-like form and was caught in a ghost-proof net.
I sighed. "That's good. So, what're we doing now?"
"That's obvious. We're gonna rescue Jazz Fenton."
"Oh, you're gonna save her... That's good... Wait! WHAT!?"
"Oh yeah, I forgot to tell you. She's also one of our members. She got caught last month. This entire mission was about rescueing her. She knows more about ghosts than anyone here, and Tucker needs her help in making weapons. You didn't actually think we came to this zone without a main goal, right?"
"O-of course not!" Of course I did! I felt so stupid.
Suddenly I thought of something. How was I supposed to save the Box Ghost right now?
"She has to be in one of these cells. We need to find her without the guards noticing."
"And exactly how are we gonna do that?" Dash interfered.
Sam hit him on his head. "How should I know? You're the ones who are going to do it!"
"WHAT!? You're our leader right!?"
"Yeah, I am! And that's why you always have to respect me in everything I'm doing!" She hit Dash on his head again.
"Please stop, we need to think clearly!" Valerie said.
"Yeah, I agree with her."
"Why don't we split up into two groups," Dash said, "I'll go with Val, and you two go together."
"Sure!" we all agreed.
A while later, Sam and I were walking in the depths of the prison, and watching the people in the cells. Some begged us to save them, some threatened to kill us and some had gone crazy. It was hard to watch, but both Sam and I knew we'd only waste our time listening to them, so we tried not to pay attention.
I was looking at the ground, walking behind Sam. I thought of the Box Ghost and how to save him. I started walking more and more slowly and suddenly I noticed I was standing still.
I looked up. "Hey, Sam, I..." Sam was gone. I had been walking too slowly. I started walking around and around, searching for her, but it seemed hopeless. I looked at the cells. I sighed. I kept walking and walking, until I came to a cell that looked empty. I stopped and looked at it.
"What do you want?"
In the shadow, there was a chair facing away from me. The person who sat on it stood up and walked over to me. The person came face-to-face with me, and her expression changed from dull to surprised to scared. She started screaming, loud and long.
"Jazz..."