Author's Note:
The average chapter length of this story sometimes makes it difficult to motivate myself to get updates out consistently, but I guess I'm also proud of that it's decently long. Makes the story feel more like the novel-type affair it's supposed to be.

I really, really want to finish this. It will be the first time I've finished anything even a third as long as the current length of this story. I know it's just fanfiction, but I feel like I'm learning so much from writing it… about my writing style and also how my stories tend to develop. It's worth it.

Layman Scripts
A fanfic by Pseudinymous

~ 14 ~
- The Script of Cause and Effect -

A gentle smile. Its owner tittered quietly to herself.

"Oh…" she said, "Isn't this cute?"

There were many dimensions stacked across the multiverse, each unique and most devoid of life. The Real World, or so some of the humans and most of the ghosts have come to call it, was one of the few that had a real distinction between day and night. All dimensions had a time stream, but few had such a straightforward, natural means of measuring it.

The Real World was also one of the few dimensions, along with the Ghost Zone, that was populated with any life at all. The Ghostwriter didn't know what lay beyond the building in which they'd been incarcerated, but suspected that if he and Jazz ever escaped into the pocket dimension outside, they would be very much alone.

He'd woken up before her. To his irritation, he had no idea what time it was — Jazz's strange cordless phone had run flat during the middle of the night (was it really appropriate to call it night?), and its screen no longer cast its illuminating glow. Even in the Ghost Zone he had several clocks adorning the library walls, as it was just as natural for a ghost to keep the time as it was for a human.

For one, he liked to make a habit of mostly normal sleeping hours.

He laid there thinking about these things of such little consequence, before the slow, inevitable realisation that he had just spent the previous night with his arms wrapped around another person. In fact, he was still holding onto her now that he'd woken up, and he wasn't going to let go anytime soon, lest she be disturbed. It was the sort of realisation that sowed the seeds of both panic and relief, which conducted a brief struggle in his mind until he finally decided to disregard them altogether, and simply lie there.

Nonetheless, they nagged.

What have you done?! one part of his mind yelled. You can't be here. You can't be doing this. Oh God, it's too late now. Look what you've done, John!

The Ghostwriter closed his eyes, trying not to panic. He was lying down with a very nice, extraordinarily strong-willed and brave young woman — and to comfort her, no less. Nothing wrong with that.

… Except, oh God, there was so many things wrong with that. If they ever got out of this mess it wasn't something they'd ever be able to conduct publicly. And that was before you even got started with her parents — they added a whole new layer of complexity to a problem that really shouldn't have arisen in the first place.

Jazz shifted uncomfortably in her sleep; he realised he'd been tensing and quickly relaxed his arms. After she was done, he watched her rest, quietly.

…

She wasn't what he would typically describe as beautiful. Her face was quite rounded, her cheekbones low, but it gave those large teal eyes a sincere look that you didn't quite get with 'perfect' features. It was a pleasing aesthetic, and it worked for her.

But looks were rudimentary. He liked how she could provide intelligent, thoughtful conversation. The way she would turn even the most problematic topics on their heads. The way she respected books… with the slight exception of the few she had thrown at Mira. It was almost as if they'd known each other for far longer than just half a week, although perhaps familiarity grew quickly when situations had gotten as complicated as theirs.

Just beyond the bedroll sat a few buttered slices of bread on a plate. It looked like the Sorceress had at least remembered that humans needed to eat, which backed up the idea that she wanted to keep Jazz alive and well. But it also meant the ghost had been back in this cell, and would have seen the pair bundled up together like that. He wondered what the Sorceress would have thought, though it was probably of little consequence, in the grand scheme of things…

"Mmph…" Jazz muttered, starting to turn over. But instead of remaining asleep her eyes fluttered open, finding herself staring into the Ghostwriter's collar. She seemed confused, as if she couldn't quite remember how she'd gotten there, but relaxed again once her mind broke through to proper conscious thought.

"… I'd say good morning, but I really have no idea if it's actually morning," he admitted. And then he turned green, a reflex he had absolutely no control over. "This is a little strange, isn't it? Waking up next to someone…"

"I think it's reassuring," she said, quietly. "Um, your face is changing colour."

"I imagine so!"

"And your voice is very high."

The writer nodded. Perhaps shutting up for the moment would be best.

"… This is the first time I think I've seen you properly with those glasses off too, I think."

I can't very well sleep with them on my face, the Ghostwriter thought fiercely, hoping that she might — by some miracle or another — hear it. She did not.

"Like a fish out of water," Jazz noted, with a short-lived but unmistakably wry grin. "It's okay. It's really… okay."

Unfortunately, the Ghostwriter's voice had all but disappeared. Presumably it was hiding somewhere in there, but didn't seem keen on making another appearance in light of the current circumstances. So he closed his eyes again and tried to calm himself down.

"Are you going to go back to sleep?"

"Well… I'm not getting up, at least," he managed, thankful for the direct question. "It's not a problem, is it?" He opened his eyes just a peak to catch her shaking her head.

"No," she said. "I'm good."

Jazz stretched herself out properly, and then curled back in with a deep sigh. Bright orange-red hair splayed over the pillow on which she lay, tangled but not dreadfully so. What did she see in him, especially when their lives were literally worlds apart? What would happen if they got out of this unscathed? Could it even continue? Surely something like this couldn't really work…

"You look upset," she noted.

The Ghostwriter's lip curled.

"… Just, uhh… just an unpleasant thought, it's nothing."

She didn't make further comment. His eyes were closed, however, so he missed the worried look she'd shot him, and now he was retreating back into his own mind. Perhaps there wasn't any point in worrying about this mess right now. Of course, on several levels he understood that it was wrong for them to be here like this, but it wasn't like he was planning on using her, or as if anyone could criticise them while they were trapped and mostly alone. The rest would just have to work itself out later, even if it all fell apart in the end.

… Even if all it all fell apart.

"You're like me," she said, out of the blue. "A version of me who's already made all of the mistakes and knows better than to see them happen to someone else. That's what I see in you," she paused, a hint of nervousness in her voice. "Since you were wondering."

Nothing much happened throughout what was presumed to be 'day'. It wasn't even accented by a second episode of telepathy.

There weren't any guards here. As the other cells down the hall seemed to be empty, there probably wasn't much of a calling for them, and it wasn't like Jazz and the Ghostwriter were going to start a two-man prison riot. When they called out to the other cells to see if anyone was there, all that replied was silence. The inward-set bars made it nearly impossible to see much of the rest of the hall.

In both boredom and desperation, the Ghostwriter eventually made several half-hearted attempts to phase through the walls, roof, floor, and bars. But intangibility made not an ounce of difference. They were ghost proof.

Eventually he gave up and settled into a corner. His pockets were still lined with pens and notepads, and for a while he decided simply to sit there and write things down. Jazz joined him after a while, up against his shoulder as if it were a leaning post, and it wasn't long before he found himself lending her more of his precious writing tools.

He stopped his own work, however, as she began, peering over her shoulder as she put pen to paper.

… She wasn't bad, for someone so unpracticed. It was the first time he'd actually seen anything she'd written — the story she'd crafted back at Sam's mansion had been kept well and truly away from prying eyes — but it wasn't quite a story, this time around. Instead she was busily preparing a series of psychological notes on ghost behaviour.

After ten minutes of feeling that this was far too close to home for his own liking, the Ghostwriter stowed his own pen and paper back into his pockets and closed his eyes. Though he was regaining some of his own writing ability it still hadn't completely returned, and he dreaded to think how many of Jazz's notes might be based on him. With a twitch, he cast his mind elsewhere. Onto more comfortable thoughts.

Was this going to be their lives, now? Forever stuck in this tiny little cell?

… Or less comfortable thoughts. He jerked his eyes back open and focused intently on the bars of the containment area. A dark flicker cast a deep shadow into the centre of his mind, all-consuming and unable to be penetrated by light. If they really were completely stuck, then the real boredom, the true agony of being trapped here, was still yet to be seen. That would come in a few days time when the hopelessness of it all told them how little chance of escape they actually had. The humdrum would continue into infinity. And eventually they'd run out of notepaper, too — he had plenty, but he wasn't capable of summoning it out of nowhere.

He'd been lost in a loop of these thoughts for far too long when he finally felt a tug at his arm. The Ghostwriter looked down.

"It's faded a bit," Jazz told him, apprehensively.

Her sleeve was rolled up. And she was right, too; the words that kept the Script of Truth and Lies from taking her mind were starting to disappear right off her skin. There was nothing for it but to pull out a pen and put down a fresh layer of ink, hoping against hope his power alone truly was enough to stop the Sorceress's vile, archaic magic.

"What happens when we run out of ink?" she asked, looking up.

The Ghostwriter inwardly squirmed. There was a solution to that, if an unideal one. He chewed the side of his lip, an old nervous habit he'd learned to tone down significantly since gaining a set of teeth that were more befitting a shark than a human being, and decided to run with it anyway.

"If you could prick your finger and get a decent flow of blood, we could use that," he suggested, trying to keep his usual nervous gestures to a minimum. "I mean, I'd use ectoplasm, but if it's true that you've developed a core I have horrible feeling your body would just absorb it."

He'd expected a disgusted reaction, but no, she didn't seem as put off by the idea as he'd thought she'd be. She closed her own notepad and gave a determined nod. "Okay, good." she said. "At least we've got a backup plan."

At least indeed. But he sincerely hoped it never came to it.

The night had passed without incident. The Sorceress had reappeared briefly to offer Jazz dinner, which consisted of a dish of pasta that looked so hastily put together that the cook indeed may not have known what a saucepan was. Of course, the ghost had disappeared as quickly as she'd come, steadfastly avoiding any questions either one of them could throw at her.

When the ghost was gone, Jazz had eaten the provided 'meal' with about as much enthusiasm as a librarian reading a book at a death metal concert.

As the night came to an end, they'd found themselves curled up against each other again. She seemed… happy probably wasn't the right word, considering the circumstances. But she was content. And having her here like this made the Ghostwriter happier than he ever wanted to admit, in spite of everything.

He wrapped an arm around her shoulders, closed his eyes, and went to sleep.

When the Ghostwriter awoke the next morning, something was very wrong. And this time it had nothing to do with Jazz.

He sat up slowly, doing his best not to disturb the haphazard mess of blankets as he went. The tips of his fingers felt as if burning but any pain was strangely absent, with shots of energy ricocheting through straight from his core. On the outside his hands appeared their usual unassuming shade of pale grey, but that was definitely a rouse. He knew better than that.

He wracked his mind to attribute this to something. A new power, perhaps? But he'd existed as a ghost for decades, now, and hadn't gained a power in well over twenty years. For that matter neither had Randy, and genetics ought to have counted for something.

But the lack of sense this made was far from going to stop the process, and now a sensation like pins and needles was spidering its way around his hands from the points of his fingertips, heating them with an overwhelming amount of energy. They started to ache. It began dull, but increased in intensity the longer he sat there, stunned into silence.

There was nothing for it. He'd have to discharge whatever this was, somehow. He took much less care about not disturbing his companion now, and as soon as he was on his feet he bolted to the bars, curling two trembling hands around them. Energy was continuing to build, and he winced through the intensifying pain. … But how to get rid of it?

"… Writer…?" Jazz mumbled sleepily, woken by his desperate scrambling. "What's going on?"

The Ghostwriter tried to find his voice, but couldn't. His arms were shaking. He was starting to feel ill. And, perhaps as a stress response, he was breathing. Deeply.

"Are you okay?"

No. He was not okay. He didn't know how to use whatever this energy was, he didn't understand what was happening, he couldn't—

Energy was leaking. It poured from the skin of his hands, curling around them to form a bright aura that latched onto the cell bars and snaked its way all the way through them.

And then there was the burst.

Words in rushed cursive script shot over the metal in both directions, coloured a vivid, gleaming green that burned in unapologetically. Under this pressure the bars warped, bent, and after some brief resistance lost all semblance of structural integrity, exploding into thousands of little pieces.

A shower of metal shavings rained down in the cell. Jazz had had the foresight to duck swiftly under the blankets, which shielded her from the threat of hundreds of little cuts and scratches. The Ghostwriter was not so lucky and got pelted straight in the face by a spray of metal, but ghosts were more durable than living people, and he emerged relatively unscathed. A small cut on the side of his face showed the liquid ectoplasm that flowed just beneath his skin.

The bars, suffice to say, were well and truly gone.

As the throbbing ache subsided, Jazz's small, terrified little breaths could be heard even from underneath the covers. But all he could do was stare at the gap he'd created by obliterating metal with a power he never should have had. The swirling, sparking energy inside of him wasn't done yet, either — merely, it had settled into a form that was just tolerable. For now.

When he spoke, his voice was meek. "What just happened?" he asked the universe. It offered no clarification.

Jazz's head peeped out from the blankets. Little clumps of metal filings tumbled from the woven fabric. "… That wasn't normal, was it?" she asked.

He would have swallowed, if he could. "No," he said. "Not even slightly."

And now his mind was doing overtime, trying to get to the bottom of this strange new power. Perhaps it had something to do with the surrounding environment? Perhaps there was something odd to do with this dimension? There were stranger explanations out there, after all. On the other hand, could it perhaps be an evolution of his current powers brought on from stress and necessity?

… But that just didn't seem right. He'd always thought he was over developing new powers. With his keyboard functioning normally he was more powerful than he sometimes cared to acknowledge, and unlike many others, he hadn't so much developed his powers as discovered they were available all along. This power was wrong. Everything about it was—

Wait.

There was one thing that could have reasonably done this, just one. And the Sorceress had stuffed it into her bag before taking them to this godforsaken prison. If she'd kept it with her, if he was right about this hunch, then that meant that something had occurred without his knowledge, likely while he and Jazz were asleep.

The realisation hit slowly, like the revelation that you were being diagnosed with cancer. He'd touched the Script of Cause and Effect, and he hadn't even known it. All in his sleep. And between then and now it had had time to stew away in his very core, probably having fermented there for hours. Maybe even a day, if he was only beginning to show symptoms now.

The Ghostwriter shook with something between horror and rage. It was hard to predict the effect this one would have upon the individual. It all depended on what their own powers and abilities were in the first place. It was something to be used on disposable soldiers, to make them willing and able to perform terrifying feats at the risk of burning themselves up in the process. If it continued like this, he would be compelled to discharge power like that again and again and again, until there wasn't anything left. And with uncontrollable bursts of power like that, one might never be able to reform ever again.

"… Writer?" asked Jazz, hesitating. Her voice was high, higher than how he'd heard her speak at any point before. Was he frightening her? He hadn't been thinking about how he was acting, he was too caught up in…

"I-it…" he began, shakily, taking yet more deep breaths in a paltry attempt to calm himself. "I just… no, it's fine. I'm okay."

"But it wasn't right, was it? You said yourself that wasn't normal!"

The urgent look she was giving him caused a twang of guilt. He winced, and turned back to the destroyed bars. "I think I know what happened, but I'll explain later. This looks like it might be our only opportunity for escape."

She poked her head further out of the covers, folding them back until they fell into a pile in her lap. "What happens if we get caught?!"

"She won't kill you," he said, confidently. "You're an experiment to her. … And I don't think she'll kill me, either. Nothing to lose."

"You seem to be making a lot of assumptions!"

"I know, but this might really be our only shot. You want your brother back, don't you?"

A terrified pause. But she nodded desperately after only a moment.

She was right, though. He was making a lot of assumptions — too many of them, in fact. He could see it coming already that the Sorceress might have banked on this strange ability all along. Any ghost with the misfortune to come into contact with that script could easily have developed a power destructive enough to break out of a cell, so predicting and betting on that happening wasn't too much a stretch of the imagination.

That meant the real test was whatever awaited them outside.

Jazz climbed out of her nest, still looking somewhat groggy from the sudden wake-up. She'd just have to cope, because they just couldn't risk staying around here with the bars broken open. Although the Sorceress had only returned thus far to deliver meals, and although "breakfast" had already been served, it still wasn't a risk that could be taken. The ancient ghost had already demonstrated an ability to form telepathic links, and it was impossible to tell over what distance she could manage them.

"Where are we going to go?" Jazz asked, appearing behind him. "… What are we going to do once we get outside?"

"I'm sorry Jasmine, I don't know. We'll have to play it by ear."

As the Ghostwriter squeezed his way through the tight gap, a small amount of leftover metal bar crumbled and fluttered to the floor, glinting along the way. Jazz followed him through without too much trouble herself, and they both looked down the long corridor for the first time. Other cells adorned the hall, all of them seemingly empty. Not a noise had been heard since the time they arrived, so they must surely have been the only residents.

"Keep your voice down," he instructed, quietly. "But how are you feeling?"

She didn't offer immediate response. He took her firmly by the hand and started heading down the corridor, towards the stairway at the end of this place. Her eyes darted about quickly from room to room, searching for even the slightest trace of life, finding nothing.

"I don't know…" she replied, finally. "I know we have to get out of here, but… what's on the outside? If it really is another dimension, then what do we do? What if there's just… nothing?"

He hadn't the faintest clue how to answer her. They continued onwards.

"And what about that weird power you used? Were you even in control of that?" she hissed.

Answering truthfully probably wasn't going to help the poor girl's mental state. He gritted his teeth back, trying to think. "Well… no, not then," he said, carefully. "It might be okay now, though. Sometimes powers are like that. The first time they appear it's spontaneous and startling, but you get a handle on them later."

He didn't look back to see if she seemed satisfied with his answer. He just kept walking.

"… What actually happened, though?" she continued to pry. "There were words on the bars, I didn't get to see what they were, though."

"I didn't get to see them, either," he admitted. "Vision was a mess. It was too overwhelming."

She sighed. "Oh…"

When they got to the stairs, it didn't take long to notice how strange they were. Though they seemed straightforward enough from the outside, one's perspective would change on the way up. The stair line twisted slowly onto the walls and eventually onto the ceiling, gravity following suit. By the time they'd climbed to what was arguably not exactly the second floor, the Ghostwriter was no longer sure which way was supposed to be up, and wondered vaguely if it was made by a four-dimensional architect with a fondness for substance abuse.

The next floor presented another set of stairs on the other side of the hall, with another long line of cells. But here there was also a suspicious-looking wooden door in the centre of the hallway, closed tightly and barred shut from the inside. A light hung above it, blinking and sparking, casting slivers of light through the bars of the cells.

Jazz was quiet. The Ghostwriter found himself checking back with her to make sure she was okay, but she was apparently stunned into silence, staring forward with a steady gaze.

"We've got to keep moving," he offered, as kindly as he could. "Come on."

"But what about my parents?" she breathed. Her hand tensed around his as she said it. "They're locked up on the next floor, aren't they?"

He tried to disguise his utter distaste for the pair of humans who had brought her into this world, and wondered if he'd come even close to hiding that sentiment from this all-seeing enthusiast of psychology. "… What are they going to do to me if we rescue them?" he asked, carefully.

Jazz couldn't answer that. Not exactly unexpected, of course — he knew as well as she did that her mother would be quite happy to tear him apart to see how he worked. But empathy tugged at his mind, because if no one tried to save them, the Fentons would likely be trapped in this place for what could be the rest of their lives. There was only one decision that was truly right, here, even if it put his own wellbeing and sanity at risk.

"We'll have to be quick," he declared. "And if they don't comply, we'll have to force them. They won't like it."

Jazz nodded desperately. "Please, anything you have to do. Maybe they'll come around eventually."

The Ghostwriter tried not to laugh. Jazz's father might have been easier to convince, but her mother was truly something else — calling her a dogmatic extremist probably wasn't all that far off the money. A small gesture like saving her life or breaking her out of a prison probably wasn't going to change her mind.

They started for the other side of the hall, slinking past the empty cells. There was a certain eeriness to this. He kept expecting to see someone, somewhere, but there was nothing. They must have been the only people the Sorceress had cared to capture.

… Perhaps the best course of action was to just ignore it outright. It could mean her quest — whatever it was — was still young, and that she hadn't needed to collect vast amounts of prisoners yet. That was the most hopeful idea.

They climbed the second set of stairs. Again, the dimensions twisted as they went. Had he been human the Ghostwriter imagined all of this might have started to make him sick, but Jazz seemed mostly unaffected. In fact, he was a little startled at how she was taking this with such little comment. Was she now so used to the bizarre that strange things like warped dimensions didn't even warrant a second thought?

Another row of cells stood before them on the second floor, but at the end of the corridor there was no third set of stairs. This was it. They started forward, until finally they came to the only inhabited cell. Jazz skipped ahead and peered inside.

Maddie and Jack Fenton slept, but even asleep they seemed tense. Jazz eyed them for a couple of seconds before looking back up to the Ghostwriter for guidance.

"I'll have to try using that power again…" he muttered. "This time will be better, I think."

"I hope you're right," said Jazz, backing away. It was certainly a sensible response.

He took a moment to think things through, and finally decided to pull off his coat. "Take this," he instructed. "Shield yourself, just in case."

Jazz took the item of clothing as if it were a treasured object, fumbled with it, and finally ended up with it over her head as if she was trying to dress up as a purple bed sheet ghost. The Ghostwriter suppressed a chuckle and a grin, which were far from appropriate for the situation, and let his eyes fall back to the bars.

"Right," he breathed. "Once this is done, you need to go in there, wake them up, use whatever method you think will be best to get them to assess the situation sensibly, and then we all get out of here as fast as we can. Ready?"

Jazz nodded, moving the coat in an awkward manner to get her point across. One sleeve was draped over the top, and the writer wasn't quite sure how it had gotten there.

"Ready," she said, voice muffled. "Let's do this."

Author's Note:
I spent so much time just messing with this chapter. It's been hard to pull words out of my brain, lately. But, it's also about time I declare this bit done and dusted.

Next Up:
Chapter 15: Amongst the Midnight Swirls