Here I am again...the prodigal writer...Sorry...

Hope whoever still reads these updates enjoys this!

And the answer to the trivia question is...THE ULTIMATE ENEMY!

The winners are...

Marvel-Fanatic

Dark raven

Congrats to all those who got it, and better luck next time to those who didn't!

Disclaimer: I don't own Danny Phantom. I don't have enough time to own such a phantastic series.


A Hopeless Cause

Chapter 12: Ghostly Nature

Maddie's POV

"Good morning, Madeline." That voice. That man, who ran a hand over my sweat covered forehead. Perhaps Jack had a cold? My eyes stole took a status quo of my new reality.

Vlad Masters sat on my bed next to me, giving me not a look of love but of possession. It took everything in me not to scream. His hand felt several thousand degrees warmer than that of a normal human...which I suppose should not have surprised me. Ghosts tend to either have cold or hot cores correlating with some kind of elemental abilities when they were powerful enough.

I squirmed as I sat up, trying to not panic, trying to be strong. "How did you sleep, love-muffin?" His voice was coated in sugar and made me almost gag—Jack new I hated pet names with a passion and stuck to shortened versions of my name. He understood me, but...this...this enamored monster staring me knew nothing of me: he loved my body and the idea of loving me.

A shaky breath escaped me as I tried not to start crying again, "Okay." How well could he have expected me to sleep? He'd just stolen the last few people who were still important to me.

"That's good." A sick, larger than necessary smile filled his face. He hopped off the bed, "Breakfast will be ready in an hour, I was hoping you'd get cleaned up and dine with me?" This was not a question but a demand. I nodded and he leaned over the bed and caressed my sweaty forehead. "See you soon then, pudding cake. Phantom knows the way."

As one tormentor left the room, the red eyed zombie entered, floating several inches off the ground. The veins around his face were glowing bright green under his anemic, emaciated skin, very unlike the tanned, green-eyed child that plagued my dreams. Whatever Plasmius was doing to him was tearing him apart from the inside—somehow, it was hard for me to feel joy about this despite my hatred for him.

Ripping my eyes away as silent, unwarranted tears fell from my eyes when I caught a look at myself in the mirror across from the bed. I looked old, wrinkled and tired with ratty, sweaty hair. Almost not believing it was me, I reached up and touched my face lacking all color or liveliness. More tears fell for my loss of youth. Though not a vain person by nature, it hurt to see how far I'd gotten in so little time.

Thinking about putting up streamers and balloons for my pity party, a knock came to the door and it opened to show a green skinned ghost in a maid's outfit entered with very tired looked red eyes she kept affixed to the ground. Phantom, while initially eyeing her skeptically, paid her no other mind. "Excuse me, you majesty," she bowed, "My name is Dorthea Madingly, and I am here to help you dress and prepare yourself for the king." She looked like a child, so young and fragile: just like Phantom. My hatred waned; Plasmius and his army of broken, dead, evil children.

"Why?" I asked, curling in on myself.

Her eyes walked up the room to meet mine, "Because it is as he orders." Her lips are pursed, and it became obvious to me that she was not being controlled by Plasiums but here under own will. A Plasmius follower: just like all ghosts. I ignored the damning contradictory evidence plainly covering her face.

"I don't need your help," I said, sliding off the bed as I examined the threat closer. Long, braided blond hair, with a face that seemed to have seen eons yet have the complexion of a nineteen year-old. Her feet were on the ground—wait. Her feet were on the ground: ghosts don't usually land on human turf unless forced by some outside factor. My eyes fell on her two metal, glowing bracelets; they must be core suppressors.

Again, I ignored this evidence until I heard her gasp, "Phantom." Her expression fell into one of distress and hopelessness as she tried to understand the scene in front of her. She almost dropped the dress she currently held as what could only be impossible tears formed in her eyes. Incredulously, I watched the petrified child stare at the monster.

"You know him?" I asked before I even knew my curiosity overtook me.

"In a sense, Ma'am," she straightened herself in an attempt to be proper though tears fell from her face. "We must get you dressed, for even though you may not desire my attention, your," she choked on her words, "lord and master commands me to." I tried to decipher her antics. What could her angle possibly be to manipulate me? Perhaps she found some kind of joy in confusing humans in distress, but I couldn't help but feel her pain. She truly cried and was crying in front of me as she inched closer to hand me the dress.

I tore my eyes from her as I swiped the dress. She took a moment to control herself: "The restroom is just through that door, your majesty. If you desire my help, you need only ask."

Not turning my back on either of the two ectoplasmic beings, I edged into the restroom and shut the door. A ghost that can...cry? It must be a ploy. It has to be. Ghosts don't feel emotions—they mock what humanity experiences in some desperate attempt to become human again. Yet...I felt her sadness, it was tangible in the room. Phantom's words for last night flashed be for me. Am I finally dead? Is it over? Finally over? I slammed my hand on the counter and bit back a scream. No. Ghosts sought the very inner turmoil I currently fought with; they desired only to see pain and frustration in their victims. More hate-filled tears fell and rubbed them away with my spandex covered hand.

I took off my jump suit and held the fabric close to me for a moment. So many fond memories of experimenting with Jack flooded to my mind and choked on my sorrows as
I dropped it to the ground with a plop, nudging it aside. Grabbing a wash cloth, I wiped off my face and body, not feeling strong enough to brave a shower with those ghosts so close. Being willingly naked so close to them left me feeling as though this must be some kind of horrible dream.

I then stared high Renaissance style dressed. I ran my hand over the various parts, most I didn't know the name of nor where it was supposed to go in the heavy dress. The ghost girl probably knew, but that meant letting her help me while I stood naked and crying and utterly vulnerable. I breathed out shakily. If I didn't put this on and embody the Madeline that Plasmius desired, Jack and Jazz didn't stand a chance.

"D-Dorthea?" She opened the door just far enough to stick her head through with one hand over her eyes modestly.

"How may I help you, your highness?"

"I—" Her face was still tear stained and shaking making my previous conjecture start flopping away like a fish out of water. I netted it again and swallowed my pride in one swift, Fenton-like manner. "I-I don't know how to put this on."

She sent me a smile that reminded me of the one that my daughter gave me when I couldn't figure out some complex math formula Jack and I were trying to crack. I turned my head away as she edged into the room and removed her blind. She avoided looking at my body, instead reaching for the dress and pulling off the hard hoop drooped over the hanger. "This," she said simply, looking me in the eyes. "Goes around your waist. It's called the bum roll. Step into it and then pull it up to your waist."

Doing as she directed, I held the two ends of the drawstrings and cinched them, but when I attempted to tie them into a bow, it slipped and fell onto my hips. "May I help you?" she asked instead of assuming. I nodded slightly, and she pulled it tight and tied the first part of a knot. "Finger." I set my finger tightly over the strings and she completed the knot.

A corset then straightened my back and made all of my breath escape me. Now the over skirt, or so she called it. Finagling the monstrosity over myself and my newly extended bum rolled hips, the two of us moved awkwardly around each other, both flinching whenever skin touched skin. After running scarfs through various portions and tying what seemed to be millions of ribbons, I came to look not at myself in the mirror, but some woman from the renaissance. Longingly, I looked at my jumpsuit and all it symbolized.

For while, all I could do was stare, until the monster beside me asked quietly, "Your hair, my lady?" I nodded to her, unable to articulate because my situation seemed so foreign, so...unreal. She began to braid my hair, twisting it between her long green fingers and pinning it with pearls on clips. Her silent tears continued to disprove everything I believed in.

"How are you crying?" the scientist in me finally asked. Her red eyes flew wide open and she began stumbling out apologies before saying something that could only be a lie:

"I...I suppose it's because I'm sad, my lady, I...apologize if it's something you don't approve of: I will do better in the future to contain my feelings," her fake breath hitched multiple times as her the whites of her eyes continued to become more concentrated with ectoplasm very similar to the way humans' eyes got red when they cried.

"But how? Ghosts don't feel emotions." The scientist in my took over the family driven mother counterpart. It was easier to be colder and opinionated then loving and understanding—and right now I needed that objective viewpoint to not loose what was left of my marbles.

She bit into her lip to suppress what could have only been a sob for attempting to end her tears. "I...feel everything you do, My lady. Even if I were a dead one, for I was born a ghost, we all have emotions, probably stronger than that of a human. We...feel it throughout our whole forms, you could say we are made of it. I apologize for breaking your theory, ma'am."

My jaw fell slightly as I narrowed my eyes at the manipulative ghost doing my hair. "Impossible. Ghosts are just—"

"Excuse my interruption, ma'am. But if you are about to say ghosts are just obsession driven post-human consciousness imprinted on ectoplasm, I must correct you. Some are 'post-human consciousnesses,' or strong emotions imprinted on ectoplasm with the ability to think that eventually leads them to realize the difference between right and wrong, love, and other abstract concepts. Others, such as my kind, were born ghosts, and I, if you'll excuse my bluntness, your majesty, consider myself just as alive, aware, and emotional as your kind."

If...No. She had to be lying. Manipulating me into thinking what she was saying was true so I'd trust her and then she'd betray me to feel my pain. Ghosts felt things vicariously through the living, like a drug. They then imprinted it on themselves so they could use it to manipulate other humans. But...if she weren't...She continued to cry those impossible tears. I rephrased my question as something I never imagine myself saying, "Why are you crying?"

She stared incredulously at me through the mirror and stopped manipulating my hair. New tears formed in her eyes. Her nose ran and her eyes grew puffy. "I..." She shook her head, looked at the door, and continued with my hair. "It's not appropriate for me to say, I apologize, My Lady."

This time biting my own lip, my eyes flew over her features, finding myself for the first time wanting to believe something a ghost said. If she spoke the truth it would be, well, astronomical both in the paranormal sciences and the rebellion. Ghosts having feelings. Phantom's face from last night flew into my consciousness. Mom. He called me mom. Mimicking Danny—he had to be. Her statement had to be bogus, it was the only way what he said made sense.

And yet...if Phantom sided with Plasmius, why would "our all supreme ruler" have to mentally control him to keep him here? Perhaps Phantom was a loner. Or so old he hated younger ghosts such as Plasmius. Or...maybe what Dorothea said was true, and this ghost was trying to reach out to his long dead mother. Shivers the size of rats ran over me at trying to imagine Phantom as a human with a family and friends as something inside me slowly broke. Big, heavy tears began to run down my face. If my Danny were dead and...became a ghost, would he one day be desperate for me? Or would he have forgotten me?

Given how old Phantom had to be, he could never have remembered his mother: she'd simply be a concept buried deep within himself. No face, no contact comfort, just some lingering thought in his unconscious mind. Phantom, clearly delusional last night, may have been grasping at some deep internals strife begging for a mother that would never come.

"I won't tell him," I, the mother, the human, the consciousness, said.

Her hands shook as she sniveled. "My lady, that's not...I..." She breathed in and out as she affixed the final pin to my hair and I turned to look her in the eyes. "I suppose I lost my last reason to feel hope."

"Explain." A mixture between scientist and mother.

"Phantom...we all believed...We thought he would liberate us—he's a very protective spirit, would never do anything to hurt another soul unless provoked. But...I suppose..." Her body shook but I understood what she meant.

"None of that matters now," I finished for her. That broken part of me tried to fix the wall with crumbling mortar "He...He's attacked us before," I stumbled out, "He's hurt people, attacked unprovoked, and he...he...took my son from me." Why was I telling a ghost? This creature of post-human consciousness—the vary kind that had such a sense of self that she was able to renounce this. The evidence, however, still stood. Phantom ripped apart towns, land, and families—my family. How could I ever believe a creature—human or not—capable of stealing my baby form me was anything but a monster?

"Phantom is but a child, Ma'am." It all crumbled to the ground. My eyes widened in shock causing her to back peddle, "You don't know of his age?" Mouth opening and closing, I tried to defend my obliviousness. "He's less than three years a ghost, but his power...He holds great power that our Lord Plasmius fears and Phantom still does not fully grasp. He always kept to himself, never letting anyone in on the cause of his power, if he even knew. So powerful is he that he could defeat our King and save my kin and yours from our servitude. Certainly, his creation was to full-fill this great destiny: he's capable of wonderful things...or, I suppose, that he was. Plasmius...our Lord and Master now took even hope from us."

A silence fell between the two of us as her ideas and words soaked into my brain. Could it be true? Could...Phantom only be three? But what of Danny and how was Phantom even possible? The things he's capable even a halfa such as Plasmius with increased abilities cannot do. My heart ached for my child and my mind throbbed over the idea of the one I considered his kidnapper was only a child himself. Impossible. It had to be impossible. This...this ghost standing in front of me...with tears cascading down her delicate face could only be...had to be lying to manipulate me: the very thing ghosts are so good at. Yet, the wall would not be rebuilt.

A knock at the door. Phantom's voice, "My lady, your Lord and Master beckons for you." His voice sounded young and imagined the youthful face attached to it. Mom? Is it over? Am I finally dead? My anger left from that statement and morphed into a tormented confusion, was that an evil demon spouting my son's last words or a scared child-ghost revamping his own final words? Was I that desperate for a scapegoat that I would blame a dead child? Though, even some children are capable of wickedness.

All I could do was open the door and have the brainwashed red-eyed creature walk me to the breakfast hall where my new future sat. It took everything in me to stop crying.


Sam's POV

When I woke up, Dora was gone and Jazz laid with wide open eyes when I peered down at her. She lightly smiled at me as an alarm rang about the complex calling for all of the so-called 'factory workers' to wake up. I heard a groan from the other set of bunks and baldy sat up and rubbed her eyes before glaring at me. "Where's your friend?" I asked.

"Not that it's any of your business, but she works at the castle. She leaves hours before we even wake up," she jumped of the bunk and landed awkwardly on the ground, as if still not used to feeling it under her feet. Keeping a hesitant eye on the ghost, I climbed down and Jazz sat up.

"Good morning," the red head said. The dark hemispheres under her eyes some grew larger over night. She stretched and asked, "How'd you sleep?"

I shrugged, not wishing to relate my reoccurring nightmare to a girl and a ghost I've known for only a day. Watching your parent's burn alive doesn't quite have the most uplifting imagery. I returned her question with a slight alteration, "Did you sleep?"

She shrugged back to me with dry, red eyes as if her sadness had run out only leaving a physically and emotionally empty person. "Please," sassed the spectral voice across the room, "Don't bother to ask me." The ghost rubbed her weary green eyes as her bracelets clanked together.

Jazz looked at her quizzically as I simply glared. "Do you sleep?"

Baldy seemed taken aback by this question, "Duh. Not the same way you humans do, but yeah. Geez, what do they teach you kids?"

"We're not kids," I said stiffly.

She huffed, "Right. Let me know when you're one hundred years old and then tell me who's a child compared to the other."

I continued to glare but bit my tongue. One hundred years? And she—it—still sleeps? Probably just some way that ghosts try to copy humans: another sick trait to make them more humanistic so they can hurt you easier. So they can burn down your aspirations and rip out your aspirations.

Jazz began running her hand through her long orange hair and I followed in suit with my short black locks as baldy sat bemused at our antics. The red head looked over at Ember, "What exactly happens at this factory? What will we be doing?"

"You don't know?" Ember seemed shocked by this and something akin to pity ran through her eyes. "It's...they..." she cleared her throat, "We're guinea pigs. Plasmius's attempts to try and recreate...a halfa." My stomach clenched and the little food actually left in it threatened to jump out.

"What?" Jazz asked breathlessly.

"We may not be picked today," Ember said, for the first time she looked me in the eyes and I saw into her soul as she saw into mine. We saw eye to eye for a brief moment, bonding over one thing: hope. "Until we are, they make us run tests while providing for the kingdom."

"Shit," I said as I broke eye contact, wondering just what 'tests' and 'providing' entailed before falling onto Jazz's bed next to her, trying not to let my emotions get the better of me.

Jazz, however, sat up a little straighter, saying, "I take it that's what happened to your last two roommates." I was sitting on a dead girl's bed. The realization simultaneously made me want to scream in protest and curl into a ball to cry.

"Live experimentation," Ember said, "Sometimes you can hear the screams. I wonder if it burns." She looked at me again with scared eyes, the very kind I pictured on my parents' faces when they...when they...

Call it heat of the moment, but the spitfire in me made me stand up and spit in the ghost's evil face, "How did you know that?"

"What?" Ember defended.

I jumped at her, grabbing her by the throat and dragging her to the ground as Jazz yelled for me to get off of her—no! it. "How did you know that my parents died in fire!? How dare you!"

I pulled back an arm to punch her as she uttered, "Let me go! It's...got...me..." Jazz pulled me off and I fought to shrug her off. The ghost coughed multiple times before leaning up against the bed frame, "I don't know what happened to your stupid parents!" Her eyes fell down. "It's none of your business, but I died by fire. I burned alive. You happy now! You know why I'm dead! You can now knowingly persecute me now for existing because of your kind's stupidity and subjection. Happy?"

I stopped struggling and felt a certain amount of shame enter my being. A sorry tried to choke its way out but I quashed it and turned from the ghost, unwilling to let myself look at her any longer now that I noticed the scars, the long ones running down her face and neck. She couldn't understand it. One hundred years...could she be afraid? Could she...be what my parent's are? Did she remember it?

"I'm sorry, Ember," Jazz said for me as I sunk deeper into a puddle of my pride. Fenton cleared her throat, "How do we know if we're called?"

"When the door opens, we line up and they take whoever they want according to the numbers on our jumpsuits. Spitfire's is over there." She pointed at the chair before laying down on Dora's bed, obviously not in the mood to talk anymore. I grabbed mine and began to pull of my clothes to put on ones that could be my last. I was so vain, not wanting to die in a gray jumpsuit.

With a sick creak the door opened and Ember motioned us to walk out of the room. And there I stood in between Baldy and Jazz while praying to God whom I hoped was listening. At one point, Jazz took my hand, whether to support me or contain herself, I could only guess. Perhaps both. The multi-species group of crying females walked behind a man wearing all white and not looking completely unlike some cross processed version of Al Capone and a large robot who acted almost like a cattle herder. He looked at us three for a moment and I squeezed Jazz's hand. Cattle herder's eyes fell on Ember making her tense up next to me and I grabbed her hand. Cold and limp at first, Baldy squeezed back sending the message of hope through the line. I fought over my feelings for her kind because currently a known enemy and a stranger holding my hands felt better than no one. She burned alive...it hurt to keep trying to hate her. Hope moves in chains, destroying the rust of hate. They passed, and we all let out a collective gasp, releasing each other with the silent agreement that no one would ever speak of this.

"What now?" Jazz whispered.

"They'll file us to the showers, nutrition center, and then the factory," she murmured, keeping her eyes locked on the metal ghost.

"What happens in the fact—" I tried to ask.

"Move, swine!" Pasty-face yelled, and the line in which we stood with the rest of the female population that could only be called a dormitory trudged into the next room which was, indeed, a shower. A giant room where water fell from the ceiling in buckets. I could barely breathe as the suffocating liquid fell over me, washing both myself and my clothing. Numerous times, I slipped on what I quickly realized was a girl who hadn't made it through—I regret not reaching down to help them, but they were already gone. Given into the hopeless cycle of showstopping rain.

Drenched, we left moved into a room where air spun around us at a dizzying pace. My hair and clothes blew around me, the jumpsuit I wore flying up and showing those around me more than I wished to reveal. Hair frizzed and bewildered to the point of almost tears at a relatively simple procedure I found myself in another room with a much more wretched fate: a line. Nothing, on a full mind, was worse that being forced to stand silently while you thought about your fate and everywhere today could lead. I felt sick when I reached the food and had a large, sloppy gray mess that looked like Hasty Pudding (but definitely didn't smell like the soul-inspiring mush) given to me by a ghost with those same bracelets, green skins and a sad face. She muttered something about it being meatloaf day but being to tired to do anything about it. I tried not to feel sorry for her because her plight was impossible...but maybe it wasn't... In the few seconds I saw the ghost who looked more like she should be haunting a bingo hall than doing slave work. Her aura was gone, her eyes dull, and shackles hung loosely about her wrists as a of heavy reminder of deathlong-bondage.

Shaking off the radical thoughts, I sat next to Jazz and Ember but this was not a talking time. We were prisoners and this was war, not a lunch date. Vaguely, I remembered the days where I had enough prosperity to be an Ultra-Recyclo-Vegetarian—now I just hoped to eat. That's the goal, I thought dimly, bemusing myself monetarily, be well off enough in the future to never have to eat meat again.

A guard, about five minutes later, barked that breakfast was over—literally, barked: it was a giant dog...thing...One of the few guards that differed from the standard cop-like ghosts. I caught, in the moment as we passed, a look exchanged between him and Ember. They knew each other. I quickly realized, intending on asking her about it...him...later.

The guards filtered us into a room that, under other circumstances, I would have marveled at as the most steampunk thing I'd ever seen. Open gears spun along the walls as long conveyor belts pumped along, powered by steam that naturally heated the room. Copper tones painted the entire room and my momentary amazement was shared by Jazz who received an eye roll from Ember.

My amazement, however was cut short when I realized that all skinny, mechanical arms worked the assembly lines: what would we be doing? Following the pack, I was lead into a very hot, steamy room and told one word, "Run." Like a hoard of hamsters in a very large wheel, all one hundred-ish of us girls started to jog to power the factory. Judging by the scientist-looking ghost at the front, this must be one of their tests that doubled as providing for the kingdom. Suddenly realizing just how weak malnutrition had made me, blood rushed to my head as I ran longer than I had in a very long time to earn both my daily mush and my spot as a prisoner in the grand scheme of life.


Maddie's POV

"So love-crumpet," Plasmius began, or, rather, continued. He never stopped talking: frivolous conversations filled with useless laughter and delusions of grandeur. However, as ruler of the dimensions, they weren't quite "delusions" and more like tasteless and bigoted observations. His talk warranted my patented faked smiles and the kind of giggles that choked back tears as I remembered my reasons to pretend.

Phantom stood behind me with a stoic Dora to his left. She...confused me. Her ideas were so complex and the thoughts she articulated didn't match my conjecture for the mental capability of ghosts. If she spoke the truth and if Phantom was...good...it would give the world a real hope: a true hero to save us from the monster currently retelling of his deeds of grandeur in such finite detail that I desired to jam my fork in my ear. Call me a pessimist, but it just seemed too idealistic to be true.

In the middle of one of my nodding and careless laughter lines, Plasmius reached out and grabbed my hands which had laid in my lap. "Dance with me, Madeline," he ordered in a 'loving' voice. Numbly nodding, his boiling hand grabbed mine and he pulled me out to a dance floor. We waltzed. One, two, three. One, two, three. The classical music being played by someone who looked an awful lot like the ghost of Mozart. He looked miserable, something that further tormented by befuddled mind.

Plasmius's hand slid further and further down my back, having a firm grasp around my waist that almost hurt. His fingernails dug into my hand as his form snaked against mine. He undressed me with his eyes as anxiety bubbled within me. His burning body made me sweat as he whispered promises of love in my ear that sent me to a state of almost clear panic. His hand tightened obsessively around my waste and out of my mouth, in a very small, un-me voice pleaded, "Please, Vlad, you're hurting me."

"Yes, Maddie-blosom," he whispered, somehow finding away to hold me tighter, "And doesn't that feel yummy?" His grip constricted and I almost cried out as he crushed me with his obsession, his cold lips just beginning to caress my forhead. Suddenly a blast flung Plasmius backwards, and my hot, sweaty body fell to the ground in weakness. Black dots riddled my vision but failed to overcome my will to be alert. A black-jumpsuited ghost with stark white hair stood in front of me, protectively, yet shaking. He looked back a me for one moment: green eyes, scared, child-like, green eyes. This was Phantom.

For barely a millisecond, I saw on Plasmius's face a look of confusion and something akin to fear. That, however, quickly melded into a frown with a slow clap as he transformed. "Very good, Phantom, I suppose I may have underestimated you." Plasmius jumped into his ghost form and his suppressive energy seemed to almost duel Phantom's playful one. Both are evil, I kept telling myself, but no longer believing it. The old halfa shot a blast at the teenager who quickly threw up a shield that absorbed the blast and sent it flying back at dogging Plasmius.

"Dorothea, escort Madeline back to her chambers, she need not see this fight," Plasmius ordered.

Dora began to rush to my side but Phantom pointed a hand radiating with energy at her. "Don't touch her," he hissed, not even looking at the poor ghost maid: the very ghost that spoke of his goodness was now being threatened by him. Surely, that proved that all she said was fiction.

"She'll simply be taking her to safety—surely, you would like that considering your little protection of all life campaign. She is too frail to see her way through this: it would disturb her so. Women are never to be fought near."

Phantom growled, "Because safety from you exists. You are such a thorn in my side, you know that Plasmius?" The teenagers, slowly backing up to me, glanced toward the door and using some kind of external ectoplasmic telekinetic ability shut and locked the already ecto-proof doors just before Plasmius's guards could rush into the room.

I watched shocked as he mounted his defense around me: protecting me. "We don't need to fight, Phantom. In fact, if we were to work together, you wouldn't have to be put under the orbs influence ever again," Plasmius offered. Dora waved me over to the table she'd taken refuge under and I quickly took her suggestion, dizzily scrambling under a table. Great. The only thing between me and two of the most powerful ectoplasmic beings was a hard wood table. Lovely.

Phantom, however, wasn't in the mood for negotiations. "How about you just leave me the hell alone!" the boy screamed throwing a series of ecto- and ice blasts at their king. Plasmius threw up a shield and then teleported directly in front of the Phantom punching him into an adjacent wall, leaving quite the crater.

"Really," Plasmius sneered, "Why must you act like such a child!" The older ghost channeled his inner electric core, sending bolts of electricity towards the younger who screamed in agony. "The legends say you died by electrocution. Funny, so did I." Phantom writhed as the onslaught continued. "Some say that if a ghost is hurt in the same way they died it can make them relive the experience." He stopped electrocuting the now pitiful, shaking 'only hope for the future' and grabbed the poor sap by the collar "How do you feel now, hmm?"

Bleeding from various places and eyes floating across the room, one word fell from his mouth, "Mom?"

Plasmius had the tenacity to laugh before throwing the bleeding, burnt creature to the ground. As the halfa in the room went off on a shpeel of his superiority even without some orb the boy on the floor with bulging veins, third-degree burn wounds, and the most fearful eyes I'd ever seen looked straight into my soul. Tears fell from them but without sobs; just silent, involuntary streams. He mouthed a word to me, probably involuntary as well, 'mom.' Did his mother find him after he died? I can't even imagine: finding your child dead. Perhaps his spirit had still been lingering but not yet corporeal so he couldn't make her perceive him when she saw his body. That could explain his regression to that moment.

Or maybe he was still just a scared kid who really needed his mom who was denied him by death.

The next thing I did was the only thing I could think to do when dealing with a scared, hurt child. I said—or mouthed, in this particular case—'I'm here.' Almost instantly Phantom's eyes widened as he snapped out of his stupor. His eyes narrowed, not at me or Dora, but at the bastard above him who had somehow ruined his life...or, I suppose, afterlife.

He turned onto his back and shot Plasmius out of the sky and onto the ground with a hefty smack. His opponent momentarily disoriented, the next few things Phantom did were quick and irrational. Shooting a hole through an exterior wall, he grabbed me and Dora and bolted intangibly through the opening at a breakneck flying speed. I clung to him resisting the urge to scream as he invisibly brought us to one of the turrets. I heard Plasmius scream, "FIND THEM!"

Phantom quickly put us dropped as he tumbled into a small heap across the room. His whole body convulsed and unintelligible murmurs flew from his lips. Head whipping up, the boy's eyes flashed red before falling back to green. Science fiction angles, or perhaps, more accurately, angles only achievable by the stretchable, porous qualities of ectoplasm put wholes in this scrawny form and made his head spin like an owl. His veins were even more pronounced, now to the point of popping and bleeding under the surface of his almost see through skin. He screamed and I knew that it would only be moments before this brief escape would be over.

"Sir Phantom?" Dora asked. I glanced at her: she looked utterly horrified. Here sat her hero: reduced to nothing more than a slave of Plasmius fighting hopelessly just like the rest of us. Bright green eyes flashing a bloody red flew to her. "Do you remember me? You stayed in my castle many a year ago?" They widened in recognition and with an open mouth, he nodded.

"D-D-" He tried to choke out what I could only assume to be her name but ended up only hacking up ectoplasm. Body still convulsing he whispered, "Dora."

She smiled, "Yes. What...What has happened to you, child?"

He seemed to suddenly take a census of his condition. "It...it never ends. I thought it'd be over by now," he murmured, "Dora, why isn't it over?" A single tear fell from the young woman's eye as she shook her head in a wordless apology for the cruelty that came with living and dying.

"Phantom," I said and the young face jerked over to me as though he only just realized I was in the room with him.

"M-M-Maddie!" he breathed. If I didn't know better, I'd call him fearful: of me.

"Yes," I said. A ghost. I was talking to a ghost: the ghost that took my son from me who I now fought over the notion of his innocence. But...all his evil deeds, everything he's destroyed from fights he seemed to consider games. Then his recent actions, his child-like behavior, his regression to his death, his attempt at my rescue. He boggled me. An enigma wrapped in a mystic tortilla and seasoned with fantasy. I decided to keep my words professional and stiff, if I got emotionally involved right now, I'd never get the answer I needed. I had two questions and the one I cared the least about came out first, "What has Plasmius done to you?"

He looked at his shaking hand that appeared and disappeared. Amazing. One of the most powerful ecto entities in existence was still capable of destabilizing. "I...I don't know." His eyes flashed red. "But the orb." The orb: Plasmius had mentioned that same object. His eyes stayed red for a moment as he looked above and behind Dora and I at some unknown point in the darkness. He shook his head quickly as if to break away from some kind of trance. "It's...beautiful."

As Phantom began to disengage from the world, I realized that I had to ask my next question as quickly as possible before this reality crumbled to some unachievable point in time. "Where is my son? Where's Danny?" I practically screamed the last one as Phantom's eyes began to glaze over part way through, the red fully taking over his vision.

"No!" he screamed and green eyes opened as he began to float into the air like some possessed creature. Dora pulled me back to huddled against the wall as energy began erupting from him externally while his internal fight raged.

The mother in me pulled away from the maiden and I stood as the wind of Phantom's fight ripped around me. He, arms out as if ready for crucifixion and legs spread like a drawing of Galileo's, snapped open bright red eyes that looked into mine mere inches away. I screamed, "Where is my Danny!?"

A flash of green in this eyes paralleled a ring of bright white light around his waist that sent me falling back against the wall in shock. It moved half way up his form before returning to the middle and fizzing out. He...Phantom...was...

Half ghost?

The wind stopped with a vengeance and the boy fell to the ground. "Mom?" a small voice asked. With face frosted with disillusion, he stared at nothing in particular and said, "Is it over? Finally over?" before his head snapped back, green replaced blue and red replacing green.

This time, when he rose, it was not with pain or any kind of fight: it was stiff and inhuman. "We must return you to your soon to be husband, ma'am." The voice was as flat as warm soda but I still saw scared green eyes paired with that half-death ring.

Phantom was more of a child then even Dora knew: he was human. I cried for whomever his mother was because Lord knows I would ask the same of any person in my position.


Good? Bad? Ugly? I won't know unless you review!

Worth the wait? It was fun to write so I hope so. I already started work on the next chapter, so I'd like to think I'd have it out in the next few weeks, but we'll see.

This issue's trivia question is...

Which ghost does Jazz call Ghost X?

Hope you guys still are enjoying this story...but I guess that's slowly becoming a hopeless cause! "Rim Shot!" (Not looking for pity, I just really wanted to make that pun!)

Please review.

~Pheek out