He looked far less fearsome than Kwan remembered him. Age hadn't been kind to the notorious man who had once held the entire world hostage. He was still dressed in an expensive suit, but the colors were faded and threads hung from worn sleeves. His beard was no longer as well kempt as it could be and the word 'sleek' no longer applied to him. A lot of the fire and cleverness which drove the former major of Amity Park had gone the way of the Disasteroid, but his eyes remained those of a successful businessman, always searching for that one deal.
The mobility scooter was new, though. His legs were small and didn't fit in with the rest of his body anymore. The scooter itself was pure black, an elegant design which could fit in with the future Sydney they had visited. The column supporting the handle bars was as thin as a toothbrush, wires spiraling around it before disappearing into the frame. Kwan spotted an ecto-converter sticking out in the back, not fully integrated in the frame of the scooter. But the ecto-converter powered it in this place with no electricity or even trees to build a fire in order to survive.
Vlad Masters looked as human as Danny, but Kwan knew they stood on opposite sides of the fence. Hell, you could build a space elevator between the two and it still wouldn't be enough to visualize how high their views differed from each other. It was hard to believe that this man threatened the entire world. Well, the Disasteroid threatened it, but he was the one who took major advantage of his unique position. Any other man would have used his powers for good, or at least try to stop humanity's extinction. But it took a man of Masters' capability to earn money from it. If his plan had succeeded, he would have been a god to them.
But fate twisted sideways and let the small possibility of the Disasteroid coated entirely with ectoranium slip through somehow. It was a rare mineral, and it took the science geeks years to find out how it could exist in the first place. It had something to do with rock entering and exiting the Ghost Zone, taking ectoplasm with them, solar particles subsequently bombarding the ectoplasmic residue until it turned into ectoranium. Or was it solar wind? Something to do with the sun, anyhow, Kwan knew.
None of this science had helped Vlad Masters. He was now alone, crippled and shunned in the real world.
"Vlad," Danny said in a low tone. His hands fisted at his sides, his shoulders all the way up to his ears. You could bounce a penny off his taut muscles. "I thought you were lurking near Pandora's palace."
"And now I'm here. Funny, isn't it, how space bends inside this place? But I'm sure you're banking on that, since you're dragging the International Space Station through the Ghost Zone. You must have a very good reason, taking one of mankind's greatest achievements into this dimension. I hope it isn't going to be the victim of one of your rash decisions."
Kwan could see why Danny hated this man so much. It wasn't just the way he effortlessly picked the one thing which would hurt Danny the most. It was his ability to talk as if he had rehearsed it a hundred times in the mirror. The pauses were perfect, the delivery of the lines flawless. No stutter, no umms and ahhs. Just flowing, hurtful speech.
"We don't have time for your delusions, old man. Kwan, fill the converter with more ectoplasm. We're leaving," Danny said with finality to his tone. He kept his gaze locked onto Vlad.
Vlad rolled his mobility scooter closer to the edge. The two islands still drifted in the Ghost Zone, heading in different directions, although they now hovered so close Kwan could get from one to the other if he took a running jump. Kwan hoped that Vlad's scooter couldn't hover, otherwise they would have a megalomaniac on their hands, chasing them through this dimension. It was a good thing Vlad didn't get to the space station when they were off through one of the doors. A ghost getting its hands on the ISS was bad enough, but Vlad would probably turn it into a weapon of mass destruction.
"What's the hurry? I'm hardly a threat to you anymore, Daniel. Why don't you introduce me to your colleague?" Vlad asked, rolling along with them.
Danny swooped lower, eyes glowing so bright. "I know about your deals with the Fright Knight, Plasmius. You're about as harmless as my Wailing Pulse. Which is one of my ghost powers. I thought I should remind you, since you barely have any powers anymore."
Vlad's mask of civility slipped and Kwan saw the man the world had spit out appear. He was as broken as his crippled legs, barely masked by the thin fabric covering his diminished importance. He appeared smooth and strong, but Danny had either learned or been taught the art of hitting where it hurts, whether it was a ghost's weak spot or the metaphorical fist to the temple to knock the opponent out.
Yet, despite the older man's disability, he still made deals and was able to keep himself alive in a hostile environment without the benefit of ghost powers. He could call himself hardly a threat, but Kwan knew that it was no coincidence that their islands scraped by each other with inches to spare.
"This astronaut is not one of your little band of adventurers, is he? How much does he know?" Vlad asked. Danny looked briefly back at Kwan before snapping his attention back to the front, hovering a bit lower, one knee slightly bent at the knee.
"He knows enough. Kwan, the converter?"
Kwan was reluctant to go inside the station and leave Danny alone with this... villain. Judging by the brightness of Danny's eyes his temper was bucking and jumping like a rodeo horse, ready to be let out as soon as the gate opened. But Danny had fought this guy for more years than Kwan was happy with, so five more minutes alone with him wouldn't hurt. Probably.
The ecto-converter's output was steady, but the beauty of it was that when more ectoplasm entered it, it would temporarily emit more power. If they did this too much it would burn out, but doing it once kept the dials in the green. Kwan hoped that the transformer would let the surge pass on to the propellers so they could get out of here as soon as possible. Vlad's scooter looked like it was land-bound, but the man had a surprise up his sleeve, no doubt about it.
Kwan hoped that it wasn't one of the killing kind.
XXX
The windows inside the space station were sparse and small, calculated to keep as much heat in as possible. There was a small viewing port where an astronaut could look at the Earth in all its glory in 360 degree view. It was one of Kwan's favorite spots inside the cramped station.
So when something once again hit the space station, Kwan had no idea what or who it was, although he would bet a thousand dollars it wasn't Technus. The nearest window was twenty-five feet away and showed nothing but the swirling green vista of the Ghost Zone. No sound penetrated the thick hull, no ghost, half-ghost or glob phased through the metal. After the first hit it remained quiet outside. Which led Kwan to run faster to the open airlock. His foot was inches away from hitting the purple grass when he was flung against the side. The metal screeched and Kwan heard things snap as the station got shoved sideways forcefully by an unseen force.
Briefly Kwan visualized what would happen if the space station got tipped over the edge of the island with him still inside it. His mind arrived at the conclusion that the Ghost Zone would have one more ghost haunting the place.
"Kwan!" Danny screamed. His voice was soft, as if far away, but Kwan heard the urgency behind it. A ghost powerful enough to move the space station was one to watch out for. Was it a ghost, though? Vlad was powerful, although even with all the technology in the world there was no way a mobility scooter possessed the horse power to pull or push the ISS so hard. Even if it was ecto-powered and invented by a man smart enough to fool an entire city for a year.
Kwan peeled himself off the wall and rubbed his head where it had made its acquaintance with Mr. metal. Finally his feet met grass as he stepped forward, out of the death trap should it get shoved over the edge.
Well, Vlad was not the one who had shoved the space station so hard. It was someone else, but at the moment the ghost was too much of a blur as he/she/it and Danny chased each other around. Vlad watched the fight impassively, slipping on the mask of polite boredom, like one wore attending an equestrian event when one preferred monster truck rallies. Despite the fight raging on above, below, beside them he appeared calm.
Kwan chanced a glance backwards to check if the station was still whole. The module which had already stuck out over the edge did so by a foot more, but the station got mostly shoved backwards instead of sideways. Another shove like that, though, and there wouldn't be much of a station left.
Kwan's arrival hadn't gone unnoticed by Vlad. The old man and the astronaut looked each other in the eye. Kwan wished NASA allowed weaponry on board, even a mini blaster would be useful right now. But all he had was himself.
Vlad activated something in his mobility scooter and it began to hover, like Kwan had feared. The advance of technology hadn't gone by Vlad unnoticed, despite that he was confined to this dimension. Maybe he could start over in a country where there wasn't much in the way of police, but even over there his face was bound to show up on some kind of record sooner or later. A man like Vlad Masters stood out wherever he went, thanks to his striking white hair, his intelligence and his tendency towards villainy.
Kwan jumped out of the way as Vlad maneuvered his mobility scooter towards their island. Danny zipped by fairly close to the island, but otherwise the fight was still a blur to Kwan.
"Well, who would've known. Kwan Lin, joining team Phantom." Vlad came to a stop too close for comfort.
"Vlad Masters," Kwan said in return, not knowing what else to say. 'Leave us alone?'. He had no idea why Vlad remembered his name, or how come the ex-billionaire could even recognize him. "I haven't exactly joined team Phantom. We are busy surviving and getting home, I don't have time to think about what fictional team I'm on."
"But you do know you're not on mine, right, boy?"
As long as the man was talking, he didn't have the opportunity to steal the ISS from under their noses. But even with limited knowledge about his life Vlad was able to make Kwan mad by calling him 'boy.' Since he hit his growth spurt few people called him 'boy'. Kwan forced himself to keep on talking, distract the man until Danny defeated whatever foe he was fighting.
"I'm on the get home team. And I don't think that it matters what 'team' you're on. The world hasn't seen your face since the Disasteroid incident. If you are as formidable as you like yourself to think, you would've shown up, not scurried away to the Ghost Zone and hid here in your miserable mansion for all those years."
A flash of light and something punched Kwan in the shoulder hard enough that he fell backwards. Pain blossomed a second afterwards, and the wind got knocked out of him as he fell on his back. The smell of singeing cloth bombarded his senses, along with pain in his left shoulder. He gripped it with his right automatically and rolled on his side, gasping for air. After a few precious seconds he was able to draw in a small breath, but that only resulted in a coughing fit. Whenever he was briefly able to open his eyes he saw pink smoke waft upwards from his injured shoulder, but it faded after a few seconds and left a circular burn mark behind.
So that was what it felt like to be hit with a ghost ray, the detached part of his mind observed. The adrenalin kicked in soon after that mental remark and the high whine of Vlad's scooter alerted him to danger.
"Would you care to repeat that?" the old man asked in a whisper. The front wheels of his scooter rested only inches from Kwan's elbow. Kwan could smell the ozone the ecto-converter produced, and Vlad himself wasn't as daisy fresh as his suit suggested.
Fear hit Kwan a second too late. He was in a submissive position, at the feet (well, wheels) of a man who had shown the entire world he wasn't above sacrificing humans if he gained something from it. Kwan could be murdered in the next ten seconds, and at this range there was no dodging. Danny was busy, so he could expect no rescue from above.
Just like in the bank of future Sydney, it was up to him. And to his surprise, he stepped up to the task.
The brief reprieve of Vlad's taunting question gave him enough time to get some air into his lungs. His hand shot out towards the steering column of the mobility scooter. The wires wrapped around the column were hard to grab, but he managed to wrestle his fingers around three of them. He used his whole body to yank them free, rolling with the pull. The pain in his left shoulder returned with the motion, but the wires snapped.
"What?!" Vlad barked, but by then it was too late. The mobility scooter gave an almighty whine before rolling onwards, picking up speed as it went. The ecto-converter added some much-needed oomph to the mobility scooter's top speed.
"Thrice-poured buckets of fudge!" Vlad spat out, trying to steer the mobility scooter or get it to stop. But apparently the wires had been important, because they sent the scooter rocketing off the island in a straight line. In the nick of time Vlad activated the anti-gravs and he floated away, speeding up even more now that there was no friction holding the wheels back.
Kwan grinned to himself as he watched the old man yell out random things, the volume dwindling down the further he went away.
It was one of the first fights against a ghostly enemy Kwan had won on his own. Well, he hoped he had won, because he did not want to get hit by a ghost ray again. Gingerly he got to his feet, his hand clasping his injured shoulder. A cursory examination revealed his shoulder to be still in its joint, and his sturdy jumpsuit had protected him from the worst of the blast. But he couldn't move his left arm without pain and he tasted blood in his mouth from when he bit his tongue when he fell down. Imagine what that power could do if it hit his chest, or worse, his solar plexus. He could be killed in a single blow, without even the chance to fight back.
It was a good thing there weren't many hybrids around, because they were too powerful. He shuddered to think what would happen if Danny ever went rogue.
Speaking of Danny, what was he up to? During the entire altercation between Vlad and Kwan he had heard the ghosts fight in the background, but he hadn't seen the combatants fly by. Maybe the fight took place below the two islands, out of sight. Kwan walked over to the edge, carefully peering downwards, trying to spot Danny.
And there he was, a speck in the distance. His movements were marked by flashes of ghost rays, flung towards the other ghost. The ghost used purple rays and looked a bit larger than should be. Maybe the size of two humans stacked upon each other, maybe even larger, Kwan couldn't make out any details. The fact that Danny was still flying about made Kwan calm down a bit.
With that ascertained he moved back to the ISS, bent on finding at least one weapon inside in case Vlad returned.
XXX
Kwan didn't like to wait, and especially not with such uncertainty. He had no way of helping Danny out or finding out where Vlad ran off to and to top it all off he had limited supplies to cool his shoulder. Ice was recommended for a sprained shoulder, but when the electricity went out after their plunge into the Ghost Zone the *refrigerator / freezer combo went with it. So he popped a strong painkiller, filled a bag with cool water and took up post next to the airlock, waiting for something to happen.
The island had cleared Vlad's island with the mansion on it and already he could no longer make out certain details. Mentally he willed the ecto-converter to work even harder to carry them out of the vicinity. Vlad hadn't shown up either, but at the speed the mobility scooter took off it would take a while for him to get back.
The wrench made a good weapon, he decided. Heavy, metal, relatively long reach. It was a hand-to-hand weapon, but Kwan carried the muscle strength to back his swings up should it come to that.
Almost every minute he walked over to the edge and tried to see what was going on in the fight raging below. It took fourteen trips before something tipped the scales. The two ghosts had flitted left and right, up and down, but generally kept in the same area. But now the speck that was Danny flew upwards, breaking out of the imaginary box. He approached the island fast, too fast. At the last second he flipped around and Kwan could imagine the screech of rubber on asphalt when Danny threw on the brakes. He disappeared from sight but Kwan heard a dull thump coming from below. A second later Danny rocketed away, heading straight for the ghost giving chase.
The ghost was close enough to identify and Kwan felt himself go cold. It was the same ghost that caused Amity Park to be transported to the Ghost Zone. The helmet the ghost wore was bigger and had more jagged edges, but the sword he raised to strike Danny was the same one that had been stuck in the football field.
Danny wouldn't be able to dodge the fatal swing, he was going too fast, leaving an afterimage of green behind as he accelerated. The frightening ghost yelled a triumphant "Ha!" as he swung, following through all the way for maximum effect.
The sword sliced through Danny, although he hadn't gone intangible. A ghost's sword wouldn't be fooled by that, Kwan knew at least that much. There was a slight gap around the sword as it passed through Danny's body, as if he made way for the sword by only splitting that part of his body.
When Danny cleared the swing he twisted his body around and the green glow got brighter, coalescing around his hands. At this range he couldn't miss, so he let loose the biggest blast Kwan had seen yet. The column of green encompassed the frightening ghost completely and it narrowly missed their island, shooting off into the distance. Kwan jerked back from the edge of the island in response. The blast bathed the entire station in green and the purple grass appeared to be all the wrong colors. The ghost screamed but it swiftly faded away to nothing, much like the disco ghost had done.
Danny kept up the big blast for maybe three seconds before abruptly stopping the flow. Kwan blinked a few times against the spots dancing in his vision before he crawled back over to the edge to make sure the ghost was gone and Danny was okay.
When he looked over the edge, he didn't see the familiar black-white figure of Phantom anywhere. Had he gone invisible? The frightening ghost was gone as well, so at least that counted as progress. Danny wasn't even visible as a speck down below, it was as if he had vanished.
"Hey," sounded from behind him, startling Kwan so bad he nearly fell over the edge. He quickly moved away from the edge and got up, trying to hide the fact that Danny had unknowingly sneaked up on him. But it was no use, the half-ghost probably felt the small spike of fear accurately. Usually accidentally startling someone made Danny smile, but when Kwan looked at him happiness was far from Danny's expression.
He was back in human form, skin pale and swaying lightly. A green smudge covered his cheek and the wound now began oozing red. His eyes were lidded and somehow in these past fifteen minutes he had gained bags under his eyes. Despite his pale skin his cheeks looked bright red and Kwan could pretty much smell on him how hard Danny had worked getting rid of the ghost. The fact that he had transformed back was a bad sign in itself, he remembered. When he passed out, he transformed back to human form. And Danny looked pretty close to passing out.
"Nice job," Kwan said. "Now come on, let's get you something to drink and a place to sit."
"Here's good," Danny responded, half-collapsing onto the ground in cross-legged position. He bent forward, resting his forehead on the ground and taking deep breaths. These kinds of scenarios hadn't come up in first-aid, but Kwan was a trained astronaut. Dealing with the unknown was part of the job description, as was keeping cool in weird and possibly dangerous situations. Vlad could come back any second, another ghost like the one Danny just disposed of could be around the next figurative corner of the Ghost Zone, but Kwan shoved all that aside for the moment.
He had to take care of Danny.
XXX
Danny had overtaxed himself these past few days, Kwan found out. It all started with Danny somehow lifting the entire International Space Station onto an island and it all went downhill from there.
The half-ghost never said a word, but the way he gathered himself told everything Kwan needed to know. Danny was at the end of his rope and there was still no possibility of some down-time in the foreseeable future. Not if they wanted to keep the space station intact. Losing it at this point would be a blow Kwan didn't know either of them could ever recover from. Especially not with Danny already relenting half his life when he was still way below voting age, giving up some sanity and lots of sleep along with it.
Pangs of pain shot through Kwan's shoulder as he reached for the food and water, making him wince and use his other hand. Danny sat quietly on the ground, taking deep breaths. Kwan had to take two trips in order to get the first-aid kit by Danny's side as well, but finally he settled down on his knees next to his colleague.
"You up for some water?" he asked, palming a bottle. Danny didn't respond, but his body trembled all over. Kwan put a hand on his shoulder and unconsciously leaned closer to check up on the guy. That wasn't the smartest move to pull on a trained fighter.
Danny jerked back and sprung up like a somersaulting toy puppy, eyes flashing green for a second. He breathed fast, fists half-raised to ward off enemies.
Too bad his body wasn't up for that anymore. Kwan reacted just in time to catch the suddenly limp weight of the half-ghost as whatever energy he still had fled out, the lithe body crumbling where he stood. The dead weight wrenched a pained cry from Kwan as he supported him awkwardly, gently letting him slide to the ground despite the agony hammering on his shoulder.
"Yeah, I'm taking you inside," Kwan announced to the Ghost Zone at large. Nobody responded. He hooked his good arm around Danny's torso and began the laborious journey back to the space station. Danny wasn't heavy, but Kwan still went slow, extremely conscious of the abuse his body went through. Although it wasn't that much safer inside the space station, it sure felt like home, and home was safe. They crossed the threshold, with Kwan grunting with effort to lift his burden, when Danny came to. Kwan gently put him down on the sleeping bags now that he could ask questions and ascertain that it was only exhaustion which made Danny faint.
Well, his eyes opened, but it took longer for him to form words. And even then Kwan couldn't understand them. Danny lifted a hand to his head and winced, mumbling nonsense until he seemed to regain more of his senses. His thick eyebrows curled into a frown as he looked around.
"Wha'happened?" he asked. Kwan jerked his head to the airlock and regretted it a second later as various pains knocked on the door to his nervous system.
"You fought a strong ghost, came back and fainted. I took you inside. Vlad is gone, hopefully for good, and I'm going to patch you up. Somehow."
"I fainted?" Danny asked, voice incredulous. He tried to work himself to his elbows but had to lay down again. His voice took on a whiny quality. "That hasn't happened to me in, well, years." He wiped at some leftover sweat on his brow and frowned. "The Fright Knight's gotten stronger. Again," he mumbled as he studied the drops of liquid on his hand.
Kwan took that as his cue to step outside for a bit to gather up the food, water and first-aid kit. It took him two trips this time as well, and he wished that the pain medication would kick in any minute now, because his shoulder throbbed with every heartbeat. It didn't take long to coax Danny to drink and eat something. The half-ghost no longer mumbled his words and his eyelids were no longer lidded, although there was still a paleness to his face Kwan didn't like.
"The Fright Knight... how strong is he?" Kwan asked once he'd bandaged the cut on Danny's cheek and determined that, other than exhaustion and some spectacular bruises, Danny would be fine. Eventually.
Danny turned over on the sleeping bag to look at Kwan, seated on the floor. "Very strong. His sword's got the ability to send people to their own personal hell, tailored to every fear you've ever carried around. It can also transport people or things to the Ghost Zone." He rolled to his back, hands latched behind his head. "He used to be a servant of the King of the Ghost Zone, but since I locked that guy away in his sarcophagus he's been working with Vlad. I'm still not sure what he wants, but whatever it is, he won't have much trouble getting it."
"I could swear I've seen him before," Kwan said. "He's the one who sent Amity Park to the Ghost Zone, right?"
"I'm impressed," Danny said, pulling the corners of his mouth downwards, pressing his lips together and softly bobbing his head a few times. "He's the guy. Ghost. At any rate, he's gone for the moment, as is Vlad. Awesome move, by the way, ruining that stupid scooter of his. Though I wouldn't put it past him that this was all part of his plan. Once we're both awake we have to secure the station somehow."
"Agreed," Kwan said. "Although I won't be much use, I'm afraid."
Danny threw him a confused look, which made Kwan point at his shoulder. "I got this one busted during my fight with Vlad. I think it's just sprained, and the pain meds are helping, but it'll still be a while before I can lift anything with it."
"I'm sorry," Danny said, unlatching his hands and bunching the material of the sleeping bag between his hands. His face was neutral, only his hands moved as he wrung the bunched material as if trying to squeeze water from it.
"Don't be," Kwan retorted sharply. Danny would find a way to blame himself for this, Kwan knew it. Best to head it off at the pass. "There's absolutely nothing you could have done about it."
"I could have," Danny stubbornly claimed. "You went toe-to-wheel with Vlad Masters. He's my enemy, not yours, you shouldn't even have met him. I wasn't able to claim any successes against the man until I had my ghost powers for two years, and even then it was hard. And you're human!"
Kwan cocked his head at Danny's words. "So are you. Well, now, at least."
Danny opened his mouth to reply, but looked away and fiddled with something in his hands. "Can any human do this?" he asked. In the palm of his hand rested a few diamond-shaped ice-cubes, already melting at the edges. "If you get me a bag, I can create some ice for your shoulder," Danny said.
Kwan let the matter whether Danny identified with humans or ghosts drop and grabbed an opened zip-lock bag from the first-aid kit. It had contained bandages, but since those now rested on either Danny or Kwan, they could reuse it. Astronauts were good at that. Danny tipped the ice-cubes inside and went on to form some more, immediately dropping them in the bag until Kwan zipped it shut. He pressed it to his shoulder and sighed in relief as the cold worked its magic.
"I'mma sleep now," Danny announced, already sagging back onto the sleeping bag. Kwan decided he would scold Danny later for exerting the last of his energy on creating ice cubes. But for now he could rest his shoulder and think of a plan to make sure that Vlad would never get his hands on the ISS.
XXX
It didn't take long for them to notice that something was wrong once they were both awake enough to function. That one took a bit longer than usual as well, but it was hard to pinpoint what exactly was wrong.
Kwan's mind immediately sprang to Vlad's recent unwilling departure and the certainty that the man would take revenge. It was a matter of getting dodge of out. That wasn't right either, his overworked brain told his mental voice. So he had a second voice inside his head, Kwan mused. Or was it once again Danny?
That couldn't be, Danny sat there, eyes slowly searching the inside of the compartment. At least he wasn't as pale as before, but Kwan knew that the guy could use some food. Fighting a strong ghost like that had to awaken the hunger pangs, and if he didn't interfere now he would have a Danny on his hands who would do his utmost best to scare Kwan. Even if he did look rather harmless at the moment, a dried spot of drool at the corner of his mouth and his hair sticking out in gravity-defying positions.
"Something's wrong," Danny said rather redundantly.
"Yes," Kwan said. But what? It was hard to think of what could be wrong. They were both alive, well, at least Kwan was, Danny's status was up for debate. No ghost had stolen the station, they weren't currently under attack and the whine of Vlad's mobility scooter didn't appear. But still, the station was silent.
Too silent! His mental voice gleefully added, glad for an opportunity to use those words. Because brains love predictability, and those words fit in that category so neatly that it came up with an entire name for that category: cliche.
The thrum of the ecto-converter was gone and Kwan didn't see the propellers move from his vantage point. Kwan alerted Danny to that fact and they stumbled across the temporary floor towards the ecto-converter.
"I'll inspect the propellers outside," Danny announced before changing forms, slipping through the hull in a skip and a jump. Kwan turned towards the ecto-converter and set to work, his astronaut-brain gearing up for a challenge. He had fixed so many things before, they could pull this one off as well. Hell, they had created their engine from scratch and parts from three, count 'em, three different dimensions and/or timelines. His self-pep-talk cheered him up a little as he examined the ecto-converter.
The problem was fixed in ten seconds.
The frosty aura of the half-ghost announced Danny's presence even before the guy spoke. "How'd you fix it?"
Kwan held an empty container of ectoplasm up for Danny to see. The green slime-like substance still clung to parts of the container. "It ran out of gas," he said.
"Oh," Danny replied intelligently. "That makes sense." A yawn overtook his face and he stretched, limbs a bit too bendy for a regular human. "How long was I asleep anyway?"
Kwan shrugged as he put the container down, adding some more of the green goo to the tankards for good measure. That should tide them over for a couple of hours. "I dropped off as well," Kwan said. "How far are we from that Frostbite ghost?"
Danny popped his head outside, and yeah, that didn't look freaky at all. When his whole body was back inside the station he shook his head. "I don't know exactly. Relative distance and all. But I do know that we're heading in the right direction."
"How could you possibly know that?" Kwan asked. Was it some sort of extra sense humans lacked? Had Danny been playing him all along, guiding them in the right direction while pretending to not know where they were going? How could he benefit from that? Well, paranoia wasn't a truly unhealthy thing when you were stuck inside a hostile dimension with undead beings bent on using your emotions as food. But, his brain provided, that's a bit harsh, isn't it? Innocent until proven guilty and all that.
"Because I can see it."
"You're kidding me," Kwan said, already heading towards the airlock. The smile on Danny's face was enormous and Kwan felt the corners of his own mouth turn upwards in response. The moment he stepped outside he saw it. A speck in the distance, but it was definitely blue and moving closer at a slow rate.
"It's going to take an hour or so to get close enough," Danny said, hovering at Kwan's back. "But we'll get there. How about I go ahead and warn Frostbite that we're coming?"
"As long as you don't leave me alone for too long," Kwan said. He wanted to stay outside and watch salvation drift ever closer, but with ghosts out there that would be very interested in his body, he was going to stick inside.
"Back in five," Danny promised before zooming off, his ghostly tail stretching out behind him.
Kwan rechecked the backpack he carried around with his supplies while he waited. Frostbite's lair sounded like a cold place, and Kwan could use some extra clothes to ward off the cold. Kwan could by now navigate the inside of the space station in his dreams. Even before he got here he had memorized everything about the station, down to the diameter of the bolts needed to keep the toilet in place. Even so, he was hard-pressed to find some warmer clothes in the place. The space station's temperature was carefully regulated and he rarely needed more than his jumpsuit to keep himself warm.
Before he could find anything useful Danny was back, hollering for Kwan to appear from wherever he was hiding. When Kwan got back to the main module they now used as entry and exit Danny hovered there, still grinning that boisterous grin of his.
"Frostbite said he'd be happy to have us and that he'd have a team ready to help us move the station," Danny announced.
"Great! And you're absolutely sure you can trust this ghost?" Kwan asked, just to be certain. Danny threw him a withering look which made Kwan tremble a little inside. Danny might now be his colleague, the guy had also been his childhood hero and was all-around a powerful being, geek jokes or not.
"Yes," Danny simply answered in a flat tone before his joyful one bounced back. "C'mon, let's go outside and see how much longer it'll be."
Kwan followed the half-ghost outside and they spent a fun few minutes guessing how much longer it'd take them. Kwan thought it would take them forty minutes, Danny guesstimated half an hour.
Within reach of Frostbite's lair where no enemies of Danny's, so whenever his ghost sense went off, the guy ignored that. He did that a lot while they had been in here, considering this was the Ghost Zone. Kwan wondered how come his ... ghost sense didn't go off all the time with so many globs around, but saved that question for another time. Danny was having too much fun pointing out peculiarities of Frostbite's lair, including the hole he accidentally blew in one side when he had practiced some new powers of his. This was by now fixed, but if Kwan squinted he could still see the difference between the old, blue ice and the fresher white ice.
Neither of them heard or saw anything untoward, so when they turned around and found out that the International Space Station was gone, well, that came as quite a surprise.
A/N: I reckon one more chapter and an epilogue before this fic is finished. Thanks for reading this far, and as always: comments are much appreciated.