Chapter 13:
The Man With The Ghostly Gun

Try and guess what the title is hinting at. I bet you can't, because I doubt even I would've XD

Anywho, enjoy! :)))

Ellie grinned, as she flew towards the part of the Building Johnny was in. The older ghost had just told all of them his plan over the Fenton Phones, and she was so ready for this. She looked over at Youngblood, who floated beside her. He wore a smug smirk and was rubbing his hands together like a cartoon villain, giggling sporadically.

Oh, yeah. She was so ready.

Five minutes later...

Skulker brandished an enormous, glowing sword in Ray's face, and the short man ran screaming across the room, faster than any of the others were aware he could move. The pair kept disappearing around corners, only to come streaking back through every few minutes, with different weapons, different threats, and different expressions of glee and terror. They would grab the attention of everyone else in the vicinity for a few awkward seconds, then they would shoot back through a different doorway, their voices echoing all through the building with impressive volume.

If the Crew's lives hadn't been in danger, it would have been comical.

Meanwhile, Carrie and Ember were having some sort of sword-fight, only their 'swords' were a guitar and an old pipe. Dave was being double-teamed by Johnny and Shadow, who kept appearing and diving at him from all sides, every time he turned to escape. But, somehow, he kept managing to dodge their attacks, even though a few of the times seemed almost like happy accidents. Like, when the big man tripped, causing Johnny to tackle his friend by mistake. Or, when Shadow grabbed Dave's ankles and phased his feet into the floor, causing Johnny, who had been diving for their victim's head, to crash into the wall behind them.

Youngblood was trying his best to scare Toby with various, ghastly faces, which kept getting more and more elaborate. But, this only served to irritate the grey brat, since all the man did was laugh hysterically. Eventually, Toby actually started giving him suggestions, feeding the kid's already-enormous ego with pleads for more, and it ended up turning into a freakish game, both of them cackling loudly amidst all the supernatural chaos.

Ellie had been trying to handle Angie. But, once the two saw how their respective friend and brother were acting, they couldn't help but stop and stare. They glanced at each other out of the corners of their eyes, the mutual feeling of 'Seriously?' conveying loud and clear, without the need for words.

Everyone turned to watch again, as Ray and Skulker streamed through the middle of the strange scene. Only, this time, the brown-eyed man stopped, when Johnny finally managed to tackle Dave and the two fell into his path. He turned around, trembling, and the others in the room suddenly realized what was in his hand.

The Ecto-Blaster. How he'd gotten it, no one knew. The Crew was pretty sure they'd left it in the secret room, but the two obviously hadn't run through there, since the mechanical ghost's form would've blocked the doorway entirely and the room was a dead end.

...Y'know, unless the walls now had a new, Ray-shaped exit...

Before anyone but the ghosts could completely register what was happening, the short man fired. Skulker's head flew across the room, landing near a wall, his little feet kicking angrily, as his squeaky shouts arose from inside. Then, everything else stopped.

The humans watched the little... Creature? ...In stunned silence. Had there really been a tiny, green being controlling that big suit, the entire time?

Meanwhile, the ghosts were equally shocked, and the four elder of them looked at each other, silently coming to an agreement.

These people claimed to be there to investigate the ghosts, and they had G.I.W. weapons. This was no longer a game.

This was a threat.

Ember swooped down, grabbing her boyfriend's head and quickly instructing the kids to get the rest of his suit and follow her. They did, putting him back together outside the building, as Ember deflected all of Ellie and Youngblood's questions. Then, just as they got Skulker's head back on and the two younger ghosts were about to lose their patience, the Crew ran out in a panic, as the entire building began to shake.

The tremors stopped and the group of humans paused at the edge of the trees, looking cautiously at the ghosts on the other side of the clearing. "And, stay out!" Johnny warned, appearing just above the front entrance with Shadow. When they didn't make a move to leave, he sent a warning blast towards them, destroying the ecto-blaster still in Ray's hand. The Crew jumped back, before they continued away from the building, as quickly as their mortal legs would carry them.

The biker-ghost turned to Shadow and nodded. The black blob nodded back and disappeared into one of the walls, as the shaking returned. Within seconds, the base began to crumble, and in only a matter of minutes, the entire building was nothing but rubble.

Which was fine by the ghosts. That place was too awful. It needed to be gone.

Ellie looked after the group of humans. Part of her didn't like the way the others had handled the situation, but they hadn't hurt anyone. (Even Ray's hand seemed fine.

The more important thing on her mind was where and how they had gotten that blaster. Or, any ecto-weaponry, for that matter. She'd heard the group claim not to believe in ghosts, several times, so why would they even bother with supposed, 'ghost-fighting' tech?

She floated up off the ground slightly, turning to the others. "I-I think I need to go home."

At the edge of the woods that stood between the city and the base, the Crew finally felt safe enough to pause and catch their breaths. They looked at each other for a long moment. That was way too close. It wasn't the most-dangerous thing they'd been through since they'd started investigating any and all things out-of-the-ordinary. But, it was definitely the strangest.

The group remained in relative silence, for some time. Save for the sounds of their breathing and the occasional, rhetorical exclamation of, "WHAT, THE HECK, WAS THAT!?", among other similar sentiments.

Finally, Carrie, still leaning on her knees, turned to grin at Ray. "I can't believe you shot a ghost."

"Yeah," Toby joined, a bit less enthusiastically. "How'd you even do that?"

Ray, who was sitting on the ground, propped up against a tree, looked at him, seeming surprised. "Honestly? I have no idea," He replied, shaking his head. "I don't even remember doing it. I wasn't even completely certain it really happened, until you said that."

"So, what? It was just luck?" The blonde Crew-member asked, incredulous. "But, you're not lucky."

"I can have good luck, sometimes," He argued.

"No, you can't," Carrie, Toby, and Angie chorused blandly. Ray just groaned, sliding down the tree's trunk so he was lying on the ground.

He glanced up at his tallest friend, who had that terrifying, exhausted-yet-curious look on his face. "What?" He asked, almost afraid of the answer.

Dave looked at him. "You knocked the robotic one's head off," He said, as though it explained everything.

"Yeah," Carrie grinned. "Did you see those little feet? If it weren't so, completely messed-up, it would've been cute."

The big man shook his head. "No, I mean, why would an android need a battle-suit? Why not just build it with that body, in the first place? Why make it so small?"

"Unless that wasn't it's original purpose," Angela posed.

"Exactly," Dave agreed. The others looked at each other.

"So, you think, maybe they weren't intended to fight people?" Toby wondered.

"Why would the tiny one have a suit, and not one of the bigger ones? Surely, it would've been easier and taken less material to build one for one of the kids, or one of the adult-looking ghosts, than for a little blob," Carrie mused.

"Unless they do have on suits, and theirs just look more human than that one," Ray added. "Maybe they're all little blobs."

"Actually, come to think of it, they felt pretty real when I touched them," Angie said, shuddering, as Toby and Carrie nodded. "Too real. Besides, Carrie's right. I'm pretty sure making something that advanced, that small, would be a lot more complicated than making a full-sized one."

"If they can make an android thing that behaves that realistically, I'm pretty sure they can make a battle-suit that feels like human skin," Ray argued.

"And, maybe the blobby one was some sort of prototype, and they built the suit as a kind of add-on for it," Toby relented, seeming almost disappointed.

"Or, maybe," Dave started uncertainly. "They're not machines."

The others blinked. "What? You mean, like, you think they might be real?" Carrie asked, voice rising an octave. Of course, she did believe in that kind of stuff, to a degree, but she usually found it all pretty unlikely. In this case, though, she was beginning to wonder.

"I'm saying that they might be humans," He admitted. "Or, at least, were humans, at some point. Maybe not the little blob, but the bigger ones certainly act like people. And, when Ray fired that gun, they seemed scared. Genuinely scared. What if the G.I.W. were doing something a little darker than what we're used to, in that base? What if that's why they were shut down? And, what if the Fentons weren't trying to monopolize on a power source, but were trying to hide a potentially-deadly substance from people who would use it for the wrong reasons? - That stuff spattered all over the walls of the base certainly looked and smelled like the 'ectoplasm' we've seen so far. - But, what if the Fentons failed to keep it a secret, and now they're trying to protect the 'ghosts' created by it from people like the G.I.W., who would use the stuff on living creatures, for their own purposes?"

The group thought about it for a moment. "...That's an awful lot of speculation, Dave," Ray finally said, propping himself up on his elbows. "Not that most of our investigations don't involve their fair share, in the beginning," He added, almost as an afterthought.

"It is," The green-eyed man conceded. "Maybe more than usual. But, I think we can allow for some unusual theories when we just faced down flying people with laser-guns," He reasoned, barely hiding just how frazzled he really felt. "That big, black blob one grabbed my ankles and I felt tingly all over. Then, it looked like the ceiling got higher and I couldn't move my feet, and I could've sworn that they disappeared for a second. All I saw was concrete under my legs. But, I got distracted when the blond ghost flew over my head and hit the wall behind me. And, when I looked back, my feet were fine."

"That reminds me," Toby noted, pulling the Fenton Finder/Specter Detector thing out of his bag. "Anybody else count six ghosts in the room? I thought the whatsit-do said there were only five."

"It did," Dave replied.

"How could you find the time to count, WHILE I WAS BEING MURDERED!?" Ray half-screeched, at the same moment, losing his own pretend-cool.

Carrie scoffed. "You were not being murdered. He was just chasing you in circles."

"WITH A SWORD!" The short man emphasized.

The blonde remained unimpressed. "Yeah, a sword that looked like it came from the dollar store. It was green and glowed in the dark, Ray. I'm pretty sure it was plastic. Honestly, you were probably in more danger of the big guy falling on you."

"IT WAS NOT PLASTIC, I SAW IT SLICE THROUGH A CHAIR, AS THE FLYING, ROBOT-MAN CACKLED MANIACALLY," Ray argued, waving his arms around.

"~Hello, Weirdtown, USA,~" Toby singsonged under his breath.

After the initial reaction to Ray's revelation, which mostly consisted of slight panic and arguments of whether or not he was hallucinating from panic, - "Because, you tend to do that, Ray-Ray." - they all went silent for several more minutes, all trying to calm themselves. Yelling at each other would get them nowhere.

Toby and Carrie looked over the weird tracker-thing, while Dave scribbled in his notepad. Angie worked on getting all the chunks of debris off of herself, before working on her brother, who didn't even bother arguing. It was a comfort thing for her. Meanwhile, Ray sat on the ground, glaring at his camera.

"Back to the five-versus-six ghosts thing," The short man finally began. "How good do you think the chances are we're alone?"

The others looked at him. "...Not sure," Dave admitted. "But, if we're all done panting in the dirt, I think we should get moving. We've got things to unearth, bigger than our rear-ends."

The group chuckled lightly at the joke, as they got up and dusted themselves off, heading back to where they'd parked the van.

Which was completely broken-down, again.

Wonderful.

Told ya this chapter'd be longer! :)))

...Not by much, but it is longer...

AN: Hey, everybody! :)

It has come to my attention that I haven't made a Danny-centric chapter in a while. But, that's mostly just because he's at school, doing his thing, being bored in classes between fights with Boxy. So, hopefully, he'll be back soon, (like, maybe next chapter,) but for the moment I have no idea how I'm going to play this out. (I mean, I know where I'm going, I'm just not sure how many stops I'm gonna make along the way... If that makes any sense...)

Also, I have gone back and fixed some mistakes in Chapters 10, 11, & 12, since I didn't do much editing before I posted them. So, they should look a little better, now :) Lemme know if I missed anything :)

Special thanks to these awesome people, for favoriting/following/reviewing! :)

speedyowl152

Unprofessional Writer

doomxdesire94

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[That is so many people! *Extra-Happy Happy-Dance*] You guys seriously rock! :)))

As always,
God bless, and I hope you enjoyed! :)
- Ellie