Cassiopeia

Chapter 11

The engine idled and whirled, kicking the steering wheel with miniature stutters as it shimmied and turned beneath his grip. The Fenton RV, or as he lovingly dubbed it, the Fenton Ghost Assault Vehicle, shuttered violently, seemingly upset with its rough treatment. They'd been crawling the rural countryside over more dilapidated roads than he thought possible. Twice now, he had to repair the left tread. It got banged against an outcropping of stone jutting from the road early in their trip and kept repeatedly kinking.

Boredom thrummed his fingers in a repetitive pattern as he watched the lone blip on the tracker. It was a weak signal, not even registering as much more than an atmospheric anomaly. And unmoving. Motion sensors couldn't sense anything from the thing.

Still though, a blip, however small and unassuming, was something. A tiny, underpowered piece of hope.

His lips quirked. His thigh cramped. His scalp suddenly itched. How anyone stayed still for an extended period of time was beyond him. He needed to move. He needed to do something. His wife could be in there right now!

A drawn, shaky sigh interrupted his musings and impulsive fidgeting. Jazz, his Jazzerinces, his little girl, was next to him watching the blip on the monitor too. A black eye decorated the side of her face that he couldn't see. He was an oblivious man, but he did not let her injury escape his notice. She kept running her fingers through her long hair, drawing it forward to cover the bruise almost self-consciously.

Finally, a despondent beep rang from the console. His attention was immediately drawn forward through the windshield towards the derelict building sprawling across the valley. It was old, older than the road they were on, and broken down. Windows were shattered. A door hung ajar. From here, he couldn't even make out the other end of the property. It was just a huge, bloated corpse of a building, collapsing under its own weight like a beached whale.

"It's moving," Jazz whispered. She sounded almost bubbly, giddy as she traced the movement of the tracker.

Another beep. And another. Quicker still, yet another beeping noise.

"It's getting closer-" Jack warned. He looked at his daughter. She was pretty roughed up. He was roughed up too. They wouldn't match the ghost boy's strength as they were now. Mind made, he threw an oversized switch. A small alarm chimed, and the engine went dead only to be replaced with high pitched whines.

"You're activating the defensive systems!?"

Stress had a strange effect on Jazz. She was throwing herself headlong into this search for the ghost kid, injury notwithstanding. She was becoming irrational, losing sight of their shared mission.

Af first, Jack understood this behavior as some sort of vendetta. Phantom's ectosignature was among the most prominent recorded at their portal the moment Maddie went missing. There were some other signatures, but none known. As soon as Jazz had heard about this, she demanded to know the whereabouts of the BOO~merang, presumably to track down Phantom herself and exact some sort of revenge...

Now, after seeing the happiness and hope that hung off of her crooked grin, he didn't think as much. If anything, she seemed more excited to see the ghost than to capture it.

Odd.

However, panic was quickly fading that crooked smile. "You can't activate those now! What if they target him?!" She wrestled for the controls, heatedly flipping the DIP switches that controlled numerous automated systems.

"So what if they target him?" Switches flipped with metallic clicks barely audible behind the increasing pace of the motion tracker. With one arm, he swept her aside, barring his daughter from the center console. His free hand flicked the switches back into their rightful positions as he re-established control of the GAV.

Stuttering, his daughter groped fruitlessly for the dash again. Her tone pitched and cracked, and none of the words coming from her lips made any articulate sense. Her eyes met his, and the sincerity of her worry hammered him in the gut. Maybe he was getting sentimental. Maybe he was cracking under the pressure of finding Maddie. Maybe he was finally off his rocker and about to commit his worst careless blunder of all.

But he couldn't stand to see his Jasmine like that. The teal of her eyes cut through her hair which was swathed carelessly in all directions. The bruise on her eye spoke of his own gross incompetence to protect her. Her skin was flushed as she struggled against his own brute strength.

Jazz is smart. She knows what she is doing.

Sucking in a huge breath, he released Jazz. Brief confusion followed by a murmur of appreciation accompanied her as she returned to flipping the switches for the weapons off. The vehicle shuttered as it rerouted power through its cores. "Might want to bring the car around-"

Jack agreed. He popped the gear shift into neutral, and turned the vehicle such that it could make a quick getaway. He watched the tracker again. The little green dot was closing in on their position.

Jazz positioned herself by the door, eyes glued on the entrance to the ramshackled building. "Now. The ghost shield." Without a further word, she flung the door open. Jack turned and flicked the switch for the shield. A red alarm light lit on the dash, warning him that they were vulnerable now.

"-Did you do that to him!?"

"No."

"Well, what did?"

"Don't know."

The Red Huntress clambered heavily into the RV, the weight of her and her unwilling passenger causing it to shift unsettlingly. Jack was reminded of the dented treading on that side and hoped that it would hold. Jazz hopped back in immediately after, looking somewhat angry.

"Well, something had to do that to him!"

The stranger dumped Phantom onto a couch and crossed her arms. "Do I look like a psychic?" The blood red armor around her shifted and bristled at the prodding.

Jazz stopped cold in her tracks, hands hovering uncomfortably mid rant. "... He's not moving."

"Tell me something I don't know."

"Maybe we should use the containment field?" Jack suggested. He really didn't like the proximity of his daughter to this ghost. He'd feel a lot better if it was contained somewhere safe.

"No point wasting energy on that." The huntress prodded the ghost's cheek with the tip of her boot. "Phantom's out cold. Probably isn't even aware of where he is."

Green was pooling on the floor boards in sluggish puddles. Was it all coming from the ghost kid?

"There was another ghost in there. A nasty one. Shot it a couple of times before it took off."

"Was Maddie in there?"

"... no."

The three sat in silence. The forth laid prone with ragged breathing and the occasional gurgling sound.

"What-" Jack was stunned. They found him. He was supposed to have Maddie. She had to be in there. "Are you sure you checked everywhere?"

The huntress whipped around towards Jack. "What do you think!?" She threw her arm to the side, pointing at the enormous structure through the window. "I could spend days in there, weeks! It's huge!" She kicked the leg of the couch, the metal giving a hearty clung against her plated boots. "Friggin took me long enough just finding Phantom, and I had a tracker!" Head shaking, the metal lattices of her armor laid just a little flatter, deflating a little with defeat. "Finding a human in there… we'd need directions."

Their eyes all fell once again on Phantom. Twin gouges tore into his shoulders. A long laceration tore into his right thigh. An older, more rotten looking gash spanned the length of his arm. More and more green spilled onto the clean metal of the RV's floorboards.

"Well, he ain't getting any deader." Without much more warning, the huntress cracked her fingers and rolled her neck. Her hand wound back before sharply snapping forward and smacking Phantom in the face. The sound rang like a metal baseball bat hitting a tree trunk, and the ghost rolled forward groaning.

"What are you doing!?" Jack and Jazz both shouted in unison.

In response, the huntress rolled her shoulders. She dismissively waved Jack down. "I got this." To Jazz, she added, "he's more sturdy than he looks." She tossed a look over her shoulders, and Jack got the distinct feeling that she had rolled her eyes at him. "Just drive us out of here."

Jack fingered the wheel and eyed the ghost through the rearview mirror with suspicion. Something was off. He could sense it. These two, Jazz and the Red Huntress, were expressing a familiarity to the ghost kid that they shouldn't have.

Then, he caught something suspicious, a flash of recognition in the ghost kid's green eyes. He reached out towards Jazz, and Jack shifted uneasily, fighting the urge to wrestle back that appendage. It fell halfway. The ghost wasn't even able to lift his head as Jazz hurriedly laid the arm back at his side.

Jack side eyed the Red Huntress. She was watching the interaction with a cool detachment, weapon trained should the ghost try anything. She caught him watching and tipped her head in challenge. Jack motioned for her to keep her eyes on the ghost kid, to which she nodded once and made a shoo-ing motion with her hand.

The command was clear. 'I got this. You just get driving.'

Jack blew out a breath that he had been holding long enough to make his chest ache. His arms were shaking, both from the strain of the previous days and the stress of having a ghost, a volatile one at that, held up on his couch.

He threw the lever again, switching the power from the defensive systems to the engine. It kicked once, twice, and a third time before roaring back to life. Jack frowned at the weak start. He was going to need to recharge the power source when he got home.

The RV crawled forward as Jack tested the onry left tread. When he decided that it was holding strong, he punched it. The vehicle peeled away, tossing mud, dirt, and gravel in its wake as the old road wound through the hillside.

Every once in a while, Jack would sneak a peek at the ghost boy through the rear view mirror. A small pillow, one he had cross stitched a smiling ghost onto, was wedged beneath its head. Jazz kept a hand on his side, holding him still whenever the RV rocked unsteadily. She and the Red Huntress were whispering to each other now, arguing about something.

When had he lost track of Jazz? When had she developed such a relationship with Phantom? It was a slap in the face. A wake up call. A bucket of ice water on a cold winter's day. He disapproved, but something in the way Jazz was glaring at the Red Huntress told him to not press his luck. He'd have to approach that subject some other time.

CAR!

The RV swerved around the single car that had appeared in the oncoming lane. It rolled, careening into a dangerous path on the far shoulder of the road, rattling as it collided with various roadside debris.

"Pay attention!" The Red Huntress snapped.

"Are you trying to kill us?" His daughter complained.

He really wasn't. He was trying his best, but too much was happening at once. He gradually pulled the RV back into the driving lane with an apologetic glance backwards which only earned him more goading.

"-stop looking back here and watch the road!" The external speakers warbled when the huntress raised her voice, giving her an alien sound. She stomped, or rather, stampeded her way to the front, bulldozing through some stashed electronics. She slammed her fist on the dash. "Phantom isn't the one I should be worried about," she declared heatedly. "You're the one that needs watching."

"I'm doing the best I can," the man mumbled tiredly. This was a lot for one guy to handle. He wondered if his wife could have handled it better.

"Then do better." Metal clanked rudely as she deposited herself in the passenger seat. "Consider me your co-pilot."

Jack glanced back at the rear view mirror, but the huntress caught the action. She was sharp, gifted with a hawk-like precision. Before he knew it, she snapped the rear view mirror from its mount. "Pay. Attention." She growled the command as she dropped the mirror onto the floor. "Phantom is no threat right now."

Mouth open, Jack prepared to complain, but belatedly decided that the stranger beside him was right. He clicked his jaw closed and chewed the inside of his cheek instead.

"There was a clearing for runaway trucks just a ways down this road. It's flat enough to park on."

Jack hummed in agreement. He needed to park and settle down. They were too far out to trek back home without Maddie, now. They needed to regroup. He caught himself before he could sneak another glance back. If they were going to find Maddie, then they needed to get information from the ghost kid. That would be no easy task.

"Focus."

Trees zipped by along with the occasional car. The left tread kept pulling, so Jack had to keep a steady rightward counter steer to keep the RV going straight. He could swear that he heard Jazz whispering to Phantom in the back.

Just what is her relationship to that ghost?

"There!" The huntress stood in her seat, pointing to a straightaway of flattened earth. "Pull over there, and throw up the shield again."

He wrenched the wheel to the left, fighting the broken tread as it bucked beneath the vehicle. Honestly, he was too tired to argue with the huntress's strong personality, so he quietly complied, barreling into the turn. Here was as good a place as any other.

But he forgot to hit the break, as per usual. Brakes were a hard thing to remember on the best of days. Today, they were practically non-existent, only coming into use when slammed. Slowing down was only a waste of time anyway.

The RV rocked and threw a couple of violent bumps before Jack pulled the parking brake. The first took out the huntress who was standing in her seat. The second managed to take out Jazz who had braced herself, but not well enough. The ghost boy remained where he was. Jazz had successfully managed to keep him in place with a steady hand.

The lever for the defense system was thrown. The engine quieted with a sad, desolate putter. His knees creaked and groaned as he rocked forward and out of the driver's seat. It was a surreal situation, really. One he never expected to be in.

The Red Huntress removed herself from the windshield, suit sparking in unspoken rage. Jack left her before she could unleash it on him. He just really didn't have the energy to deal with that right now.

He approached the ghost, the primary suspect in his wife's disappearance, with undisguised contempt. Green littered the area as ectoplasm oozed from numerous wounds. It was slow to respond, eyes glazed as it gradually became aware of Jack's presence. There was something in there, his mind told him. There was something inside of Phantom that spoke of intelligence.

Jazz recovered from her spill and bounced back up, effectively blocking his advance on the ghost boy. There was stern look about her. She was not going to let Jack pass. Not without speaking her mind first.

"Just what do you think you're doing?!" Her voice was harsh and grating, tempered with fresh panic. Panic… and worry? For the ghost boy? "He's hurt, concussed, and bleeding out. Do you have any idea what he's just been through? The damage you're causing?" She was so flustered that she started listing things and ticking them off on her fingers. "He needs water, food, first aid, rest, and most importantly care." She stood on her toes, waving her hand in his face. "He needs care, Dad! Not whatever you're about to do. Just look at him!"

Jazz was panting, shaking. Her clothes were streaked with ectoplasm, and there was a scared, feral look in her eyes. This was not something that she would back down on. Not easily, at least.

There was a hushed noise as Phantom tried to press himself into the back of the couch. Green eyes were open and trained on him, the ghost's expressive face giving way to a fearful, wide-eyed stare. Ectoplasm of all colors were matted in his hair and smeared across his rubbery suit. He… no not he… it was a picture of pity, barely able to even raise its head up enough to meet Jack's gaze.

But, however small, however childlike and endearing, this ghost was still just that. A ghost. It knew where Maddie was, and that was more than enough of a reason to question it. Jazz had to understand that. She had to.

He looked back at his daughter, understanding now what this must look like from her point of view. He must seem monsterous for wanting to fish for answers from Phantom. He needed her to understand. Phantom couldn't hurt like they could. Finding Maddie was the priority right now.

He spoke as gently as he could, but frustration still bleed through, . "Maddie is gone, Jazz! Gone!" Throat tight, Jack had to take a breath to calm down. He placed a large hand on his daughter's shoulder. She was so small compared to him, so young and naive. "She's gone, and the only clue we have is that!" He flicked his head in Phantom's direction, not really caring how angry he sounded.

Jazz stood there a moment, probably a little shell-shocked before her face clouded with frustration. Her fingers wrapped around the hand he had settled on her shoulder and wrenched it away. She jutted her jaw and glared… glared at Jack. "He. Didn't. Do. It." Her arms flew around wildly as she emphasized her words and exasperation. "Just… look at him! He can't even stand let alone kidnap anyone! He needs help!"

Not this again.

Jack grumbled threats to himself, mostly directed at Phantom for swaying his daughter's mind. She needed to understand that. She really really did. He growled, voice gravelly with exhaustion. 'It's tricking you, Jazz." Then, with an extra hint of desperation, "Why can't you see that?" His eyes were tearing up. He needed her to understand. "This ghost is lying to you!"

The Red Huntress pushed past Jack. For all of her previous sass and ire, here she looked a little sheepish and out of place. "Uhm, not to overstep my boundaries, but Phantom is not pretending." To prove the point, she stalked close to the ghost, prodding him with the barrel of her sidearm. The ghost had a delayed reaction, only just barely flinching. His body was moving sluggishly, and his eyes kept closing as though he was feeling faint."You should've seen where he was." The huntress shuddered and rubbed her armor as though she was trying to rid herself of the memory.

Jack scowled at her. It was going to be hard enough to get Jazz to back down without some stranger coming in and validating her claims.

The huntress quickly stepped back, hands up in complacency. "Not that I'm suggesting we trust him!" she amended. "I just don't think he did it. It's not his style."

Something snapped in Jack. These two people, they didn't know ghosts like he did. They didn't dedicate decades of their lives to the subject. "Not his style!?" His voice was raised, and it echoed in the metal of the RV. He jabbed an accusing finger in the ghost's direction. "This piece of scum knows where Maddie is! I know that it does!"

Jazz backed up from the outburst, mentioning something about not wanting them to turn on each other, but the sentiment was lost.

"You do not speak to me that way, Mr. Fenton." The hair on Jack's neck rose from a sudden static charge in the air. The huntress's voice dropped low to a growl. "I've fought against him for over a year now." Red reflected from the overhead light as she crossed her arms haughtily. "I think I know when something reeks of Phantom and when something does not."

"Fought him? Fought him?" Jack was shaking now he was so mad. "I've studied him! I've studied ghosts for decades! They're unpredictable, undead terrors. This one is no different! You think that just because it's acted one way for so long doesn't mean that it can't act another?"

"Yes!" The huntress threw her hands in the air, exasperated. "I've tracked this ghost, recorded patterns in his behavior. He's so predictable, it hurts!"

"That's how it tricks you!" He ran his hand down his face, frustrated that the huntress couldn't see the facts. "It acts in one way to lull you into a false sense of security. Then, when you least expect it, it-"

"It what?" the huntress shouted. "Gets himself trapped and beaten half to death!" She laughed darkly. "Yeah, I guess that was unpredictable. A real good ruse." She leaned against the wall, nodding in the ghost's direction. "Good job, Phantom. Finally surprised me. Good show."

Her gaze lingered for a moment too long. Guilty? Was the huntress guilty? Now that he thought about it, she was acting oddly defensive of the ghost boy.

First, his daughter. Now, the Red Huntress. Just what did these two see in him?

Speaking of, Jazz bolted upright, face flushed and stubborn as ever. Shouting, "family meeting now," at the top of her small lungs. She began roughly escorting the Red Huntress to the side door, ignoring her complaints and protests.

Bang!

The door slammed as the huntress made her dramatic exit, and suddenly it was just him and his daughter… and the ghost kid, but he wasn't really moving so he didn't count. When she turned to face him, there was something angry that burned behind her gaze. "This ends today," she ground out between clenched teeth. "And this ends now."

One step cleared their shared distance, and she was on him in an instant. "I am tired of you, and mom for that matter, not looking at the facts. Have you ever captured a specimen as intelligent as Phantom is? Have you ever held a conversation?"

You can't converse with a ghost… That's why we built the ghost gabber-

He opened his mouth prepared to say as much, but his daughter was having none of that.

"He's a thinking being, Dad! He's sentient!" She punctuated the phrase 'thinking being' by slapping the butt of her fist into her palm. It was a habit of hers to over dramatize things like this. One that she never let go of over the years.

Jack waved dismissively. "None of the ghosts we capture are sentient, Jazzy. They can't feel." Even as he said this, he found his gaze almost magnetised to the ghost kid. He… no not he… stop lapsing into that. It was regarding him with a wide-eyed stare. It looked exposed, weak, vulnerable… scared?

Jazz interrupted his thoughts, throwing her arms up in a fit of frustration. "That's exactly what I'm saying! None of the ghosts you capture are sentient! You haven't captured one that is. You can't compare the reactions of an ectopus to someone like Phantom! That's like comparing something like an earthworm to a human! It's just not right!"

Oof. That stung. That declaration stung more than any physical ailment. Jasmine, his own daughter, tossing into question the methods by which he performed his life-long pursuit. Dizzy with the consequence, Jack sat anxiously on the edge a seat, fidgeting and running his fingers over the stubble that was accumulating on his chin.

The implications… the implications were staggering.

His daughter circled around, approaching the ghost. "You want answers? You want to know where Mom is?" Her hair whipped as she spun on her heel to face him. "Just ask him. Talk to him. He's not just some reanimated glob of consciousness. He's a person. He can respond with intelligent answers, and he doesn't need goading or…" She glanced upward at the fork protruding from the ceiling. "or-or-or torture, or whatever you were about to do."

Torture?

He looked at the ghost lying prone on the couch in front of him. Torturing that creature now would be more of an act of cruelty than anything. Was that why Jazz was looking at him like some sort of monster?

"You really think so low of me?" The sentence was out of his mouth, whispered before he was even aware that he was speaking. The confused features on Jazz's face confirmed his suspicions. His little girl really thought he was going to torture this ghost for information. A natural assumption, he supposed, given his profession. But there was more to spectral psychology than that.

He leaned heavily into the chair, tensions making the muscles in his back ache with unsung stress.

How to explain this… sensitively.

"You can't torture a ghost," he began, cautious to not sound so callous. Jazz was volatile right now. She needed to understand that no undue harm would befall anything by his hand. "It doesn't understand torture." He remembered back to the lab, to the test subjects. They responded to violence with violence. There would be no cooperation between a scientist and a subject that had been harmed during testing. "It would know that it is being injured, but it wouldn't know how to respond."

How will I get Phantom to talk, then?

Everything seemed so hopeless and bleak. With Maddie gone, Jack felt like he was floundering about like a fish out of water. He was one half of a two-person team. He had to find her. He felt so lost without her.

"Torture wouldn't work," he reiterated, more to himself than anything. "The ghost would simply not understand that the injury will stop if it gives me answers."

A soft sound of fabric heralded his daughter as she closed the distance between them. Her eyes were bright and a little more hopeful than they were before. "Talking will work. Trust me." Her attention shifted momentarily to the ghost, but when she looked back, a shy smile dusted her face. "He wants to talk to you. He's just too tired and hurt to initiate it."

Could it really be that easy?

… Jazz is smart, smarter than I am, at least. She would know better than I.

Suddenly, Jack felt overcome with an appreciative affection towards his daughter. He was lucky she visited when she did. It was nice to have such a smart, capable partner at his side. He lunged forward and swallowed his daughter in a huge hug, ignoring the green smears of ectoplasm that transferred from her clothes to his.

When he released her, he almost laughed at her expression. She must've thought he was being ridiculous and clingy, but before she could protest, he had to get a point across. He'd hate for something to happen to him before he could pay her this due compliment. He brushed her cheek gently, tracing the bruise she got defending him. He was foolish for thinking he could do this alone.

"You're a good person, Jazz." His fingers found themselves knotted in the hair that she kept pulling over her face, so he proudly ruffled her hair instead. "And as stubborn as your old man!" She looked so stunned, that Jack couldn't help the laugh that escaped him. "I might have taught you too well…" Really, she was handling the situation well considering this was the first emergency situation she had to work in. Jack couldn't help but count his lucky stars.

Leaning to the side, he looked over his daughter's shoulder to the ghost occupying the couch. It was breathing heavier now, looking a little bit more alert than it had when the Red Huntress first slung it there. Discreetly, it pressed itself away from him, shying away from his attentions. This reaction was a lot different from Phantom's usual unapologetic and boisterous self. He hoped that didn't mean that Phantom had lost his fire. The little guy could actually be quite reliable so long as you didn't expect him to stick around after a fight.

"I just hope you're right. This ghost kid is tricky. I don't like trusting his word."

Jazz pulled away, out of Jack's grasp, eagerly returning to the ghost's side. "You can trust him." Her voice hitched as though she was just barely suppressing a hiccup or a sob as she abruptly turned and startled rifling through the first aid cabinets. "He's a good person, too. He will only help if you give him the chance."

A/N: This is sort of a sister chapter to the last one. Not a whole lot new revealed here, so I'll be posting the following chapter tomorrow. Enjoy!

Don't know if black friday is as big a deal in other places as it is here, but stay safe guys! I went out this morning for breakfast and was nearly hit by distracted drivers on three separate occasions. Please remember to keep your cool and to be kind to the folks in the service industry. Happy holidays!