A/N: The majority of the Robots' Report aerial fight was penned by my husband/editor, and I added in all the necessary details to bring it to life. I have the hardest time with dogfights and air combat scenes, but he's a natural with them. So this chapter is a collaboration work between us both and all reviews about it will be taken to heart by the two of us. Thank you and enjoy the chapter!
21
Shortly after order of execution~
EX1-4: Executioner Squads 1 through 4
STU: Standard Time Unit
RTB: Return to Base
Log 0-11720-10
Central: Status update: EX1 Away, EX2 Away, EX3 Deploying, EX4 Deploying. ETA: 15 STU.
Dirty silver seemed to gleam as the executioner squads made their way towards Cell Blocks A and B to complete the order. Two Perfect Murders, four Murders, and ten Raybits; a sizable force with plenty of firepower for a massacre. Somewhere in the distance, Nebilim laughed in anticipated victory. With the deployment of the four squads, it was certain that the Fallen Angel was fully aware that he had signed the death warrants for nearly a hundred human lives.
EX4-Ry5: Unknown contact approaching from sector 5 on intercept course. Contact traveling at velocity of R13. Interception in 0.5 STU.
Or perhaps he still believed he could save them all?
Central: Received.
One of the Murder units twisted its head around to search the entire range of vision it possessed, which was limited to whatever was in front of itself and a decent portion of its left and right sides.
It finally decided to just turn around and check from the back.
EX4-Mu2: Contact identified: FA Rev-M.
Hidden cameras scattered around points of Welgaia in close range to the Murder unit suddenly swiveled around and focused on the little figure shooting right for the two rear squadrons. Red hair, red wings, and green clothes were the first major details captured by their lenses, and as it drew closer, more information was gathered and sent back to their base of command. It was analyzed and compared to a ready image for identification, all in the span of a few moments.
Central: Confirmed. EX4, EX3, all Mu units break formation and engage target designated "Rev-M". All Ry units provide cover fire.
The small, disc-like Raybits turned in place, opening fire in sporadic bursts that the winged figure evaded quickly, all while maintaining that rush of speed. Murder units banked away from their charge of defending the Perfect Murders and flew in to intercept Rev-M. It wove around them as the machines spun their massive arms, almost dancing out of their reach and brushing them with mist-light touches of its red wings. Closer and closer the figure came, aiming itself directly at the most immediate-looking threat to Welgaia's prisoners. The Raybits turned to follow its trajectory, keeping up a steady rain of firepower that seemed to fall just short of the figure while pelting the trailing Murders by mistake.
It whipped out a weapon, a giant utensil, and swiped it along the side of one of the cargo carriers supporting the Perfect Murders on their route. Not even stopping to check its handiwork, it sped on, out of range of the Raybits and too fast for the Murders to keep a lock on without the aid of close proximity to the Perfect Murders.
EX3-PM1: Contact lost. Losing altitude. Carrier thrusters offline.
Cameras turned to watch the bulky machine drop almost straight down, the sabotaged carrier flipping end over end on its way to the streets below.
Central: Communications with EX3-PM1 lost. Rev-M is disabling carrier thrusters.
The Perfect Murder squatting on the second carrier had twisted its own head around when it first learned the incoming hostile was Rev-M. The sole blue eye locked onto the green figure, watched it slice off Squad 3's Perfect Murder's carrier thrusters, then traced its comrade's figure as it fell several stories down.
It swiveled its head around, one way, then another, searching for Rev-M. The swift motion could almost be considered... panicked.
EX4-PM1: EX4, EX3, all Ry units, use suppressive firing solution. EX4, EX3, all Mu units, eliminate Rev-M with extreme prejudice.
The Raybits clustered around Squad 4's Perfect Murder, facing guns outward as they kept their sensors free for signs of the hostile little figure. Several of them were smoking, victims of friendly fire, and they sparked while waiting for their opportunity to return the favor.
The Murders sped out to hunt down Rev-M, foregoing mêlee combat for the traditional long-range slaughter only their two main guns and endless ammunition could provide. Sensors focused for the figure so tightly, the images trembled in the video feed being provided to Central.
EX4-Mu2: Rev-M approaching from sector 11.
It was coming in almost directly opposite its initial run through their ranks, as though it had simply made an about-face and raced back. Murders gathered hurriedly, trying to close their gaps and provide a wall of defense against the agile little hostile.
They opened fire as soon as they registered Rev-M flying right for them with the utensil at the ready.
EX4-Mu1: Target within secondary cannon firing range.
Odd how that simple phrase could sound so stunned when it was fairly certain these automatons had no emotion.
Central: Communications lost with EX4-Mu1.
Murder1's comrade had been nearby when the utensil punctured one of the few non-armored places on the robot's body, ripping through cable and circuitry to cut the processing core out and lob it aside like some metallic meatball. Its head twisted to follow the path Rev-M took, body turning as well to realign guns with its target.
Nearby, the Murder Units for Execution Squad 3 were twisting around, trying to get a lock after that initial hit took out one of their numbers. They picked up a glimpse of green on their sensors before the next transmission was sent to Central and relayed to the rest of the squads.
EX4-Mu2: Stabilizer thrusters offline. Losing altitude. Rev-M closing on EX3-Mu2.
Mana streamed from the disabled robot and wound around the figure's utensil, Rev-M spinning away from the machine towards the next target. Squad 3 fired their thrusters in reverse, falling back to the last Perfect Murder to increase their own accuracy and gain distance for attack. Raybits parted for them, spreading out and immediately catching sight of the hostile figure. Blue-white laser fire rained down once more.
EX3-Mu2: Contact lost, reacquiring.
Cameras turned away from the swan dive of Execution Squad 4's last Murder unit in favor of watching Squad 3 scramble to pinpoint the little winged threat.
Central: Communications lost with EX4-Mu2.
No one shed a single tear. Not that anyone could, organic or not, in the city of Welgaia.
The platform on which the final Perfect Murder crouched seemed to tremble, just a bit, and the machine's head swiveled around even faster. It had been following Rev-M since it came back to destroy Squad 3's Murder units. Unlike its lighter, flight-capable counterpart, Perfect Murders could see in 360 degrees by simply spinning its head. However, its blind spots were always directly above and directly below.
Rev-M had made a dive below its line of sight.
EX4-PM1: Contact lost. Carrier thrusters malfunctioning. Request support.
The transmission was sent, relayed, processed, all very quickly as machines were apt to do things.
Central: Received. Deploying support. Designation: EX4-Mu3.
EX4-Mu3: Link established. Velocity set to R15; ETA 1 STU.
Maybe that would quiet the thing down and rid them of their gnat. As it was, EX1 and EX2 were already three-quarters of the way to the cell blocks. One minute or five, it didn't matter. In the end, it would all be moot.
In the meantime, Squad 3's Murder2 unit made the leap of logic in seeking the cause of the carrier's malfunction in order to preserve EX4-PM1 -which now seemed to be stamping slightly like some twitchy child who wanted off the pony ride now- by dropping altitude just enough to peek under it.
EX3-Mu2: Rev-M reacquired.
The viewers back at Central were treated to the image of a 'caught with his hands in the cookie jar' expression on their target's face as it pressed the large utensil against the mana fuel relays in the carrier's undercarriage. Then it switched to one of irritation and the utensil was driven into the Murder's torso at an angle, Rev-M using the momentum of that forward thrust to flip the two of them over, kick it off the utensil, and free fall away from its desired results.
EX4-PM1: WARNING!: COLLISION. Carrier thrusters offline.
EX3-Mu2: WARNING!: COLLISION. Losing altitude.
It was a rather impressive blast, and the shockwave from it sent nearly everything around it spinning with mechanical disorientation.
EX3-Mu1: Concussion force explosion detected. Contact with Rev-M lost. ...Correcting flight path. ...Reacquiring target.
The Raybits weren't of much help there, scattering about like disturbed flies while the cameras simply watched the spectacle unfold and fed all the video back to command.
Central: Communications with EX3-Mu2 lost. Communications with EX4-PM1 lost.
Nearly everything around the explosion was spinning with mechanical disorientation, save for stubborn target that could not be locked onto for more than ten seconds. It raced through the smoke, using it and the debris as a sensor shield to lash out at the staggering Raybits while they were unable to fire with anything resembling aim.
The Murder unit didn't quite recover from the force as well as Rev-M had.
Central: Communications with EX3-Mu1 lost. Last transmission: Losing altitude.
Racing onto the scene with all the speed a member of the 'beloved' calvary could possess, the supporting Murder unit immediately set to seeking out the target. It rushed straight on, its head twisting back and forth in swift, sure scans.
EX4-Mu3: Contact lost, reacquiring.
The smoke hadn't even shown signs of thinning, yet the winged figure that had caused so much trouble for the two Squads flew out of it directly for the incoming Murder. Its utensil was held tightly in both hands, braced against its body, and the two streaked through the air as though an arrow fired from a bow.
EX3-Ry1: Rev-M approaching EX4-Mu3 from sector 12.
It was a head-on collision, to be sure. The massive against the diminutive; had the bulk and brawn of the Murder3 finally put an end to exploits of Rev-M? Metal had been tore into, components trailing behind like debris from a wounded planetoid hurtling through space.
EX4-Mu3: Power supply compartment compromised. Shut down in 0.25 STU.
EX3-Ry1: Explosion detected from sector 6.
Had anything in Welgaia -besides the living and truly alive, of course- been capable of emotion, they would certainly have felt white-hot fury at seeing Rev-M come out of the encounter in still-functioning capacity.
Central: Communications lost with EX4-Mu3. EX4, EX3, all Ry units RTB. EX1, EX2, contact Rev-M vectoring for intercept. Increase velocity from R7 to R10.
Caleb sped away from the falling debris that had been the frantic little skirmish he'd gotten into in hopes of heading off the execution squads. The Raybits had worried him a little -he really hoped they didn't try squeezing off a few potshots at him while he was in this state- but he breathed a little easier when his sensors noted them retreating. That just left the massive number of machines still heading off towards Danny and all his friends, family, and of course, the innocent civilians. He wanted to cry right there at the idea of having to repeat his aerial battle, but tears were for later. Lives had to be saved now and despite his internal, ever-pragmatic diagnostic system screaming at him to just touch down and stop abusing himself -his damage count had spiked from his real initial count of thirty-eight to fifty-two percent in just those few hectic minutes and he blamed a majority of it on that concussion force explosion-, he raced on as fast as his wings could carry him.
The Wonder Fork had been used to drain mana before, mostly deflecting and redirecting it as needed to sustain the source of its power, and it worked beautifully against those Murders and the carrier when he had the chance to use it for that. The shearing of metal and the stabbing into machines... that kind of grated on him. Just the memory of seeing it stab into his double's body still gave Caleb the creeps; the Fork wasn't ever meant for that sort of thing. Ohhh, was he going to be in for it the day he gave it back...
Cosmetically, he still looked all right. He might have lost some strands of hair, his hands might have suffered a few rips in the synthetic flesh, but as long as his face was relatively unharmed, it was fine. His face was what Danny and his friends focused on most, judged him by at any given time, was used as the baseline for how 'okay' he was in their line of thinking. He knew this from their vital signs. The more human and normal his face looked to them, the calmer and more sure of him and themselves they seemed to be in the Book. Walk around with a mutilated face and it would be like telling them he had been completely torn into, pitted against something that far overpowered him, in a place that was supposed to be well within his capacity to deal with. It would utterly demoralize the teens, so Caleb had to maintain a pretty face, as vain and stupid as it sounded.
However...
He winced as metal scraped against dislodged metal in one of his legs, he wasn't sure which now, the sensor for it had burnt out some time ago. Repairs being made every chance he was alone weren't enough to catch up to all the damages he hid beneath the pretty face and clothes. And as tempting as it was to use the Pin to sweep it all under the rug and start clean, it couldn't be done. Not until after everyone was out of the Book, when he was certain there was no more dire need for its power, and from there he could still refuse it because then he'd be out of the Book and free to collapse into one of the Archives' sponsored labs and get a full repair there. Until then, he had to swallow it down, cope with the internal errors, lie like crazy about his damage count, and snap at Danny to try keeping him at a distance when it seemed like he was getting too close, lest the boy discover those tiny signs that spilled out in spades how 'not okay' he really was inside.
Too bad he was already starting to get suspicious, and that was just based on Caleb's habit of false breathing. How the heck did that kid learn anything from a habit he didn't even really need?
Ah well, he'd ponder it later. Caleb could already see the backs of the next two Perfect Murders sitting on their little modified cargo carriers. He braced himself, ignored the way the color green -or was it red now? Wonderful; how long before that fails?- seemed to invert in his right eye, and flew straight for the closest Perfect Murder unit.
Present time~
The blasts peppered Danny's shield, rattling it and him with their force. He flipped downwards, curled tightly into a small ball to make himself less of a target, then leveled out to scan the sky above him. He could see the large platform passing over him at a steady speed, hurrying along as best it could with the massive weight camped on it. Caleb had tried to hit that thing, tried to flip it over and dump the doom machine onto the streets.
"Maybe I can do it instead." he murmured and raced upward, both fists forward and charging with the Ghost Ray again. Whatever he did must have tipped something off; those weird little machine with the flat round bodies scattered and dove after him, opening fire with the crackling blue-white laser bursts that the android had been so intent on avoiding. Yelping in surprise, he spun and wove around them, stretching his body to twist it more fluidly and bend it out of reach of those shots. One of the benefits of a ghostly form was that ability to distort his shape, briefly, beyond the range of a normal human. Sometimes, he did it without even realizing it, as though more and more of his ghost powers were becoming instinct to him. Danny realized that in a little flash of insight when he glanced aside and saw the bottoms of his boots from about three feet away.
There was a shriek of metal not far off. The halfa swept past the first flock of little machines and twisted around to trace the sound back to where it came from, then fired on one of the flying humanoid robots that flailed in place. It wasn't until the beams of ghostly green hit the thing that his brain kicked in and told his eyes to take another look at it. Why had the metal seemed to scream? Because Caleb had driven his fork into the robot from an angle, the android twisting it in place forcefully before pushing off back into the air, taking the fork and a round grayish chunk of the robot with him. He spun with that, slinging the thing away before rushing off, three more of those blade robots chasing after him.
"Is he allowed to do that with the Wonder Fork?" Danny muttered to himself before shaking his head and turning his focus back on the little ones still trying to spray him with laser fire, "Back off!" He brushed his fingers over the armlets, murmuring for the Light element to lay low and let him use his ice powers again. "Let's see how your microchips like to run!" the halfa yelled, hands glowing brilliant blue, "Red hot... or frost white!" He fired the Ice Ray into the swarm of flying guns -because that's all they seemed to be, which was really annoying- and watched a small chunk of that swarm freeze over into blocks, dropping like so much massive hail onto the streets of Welgaia.
Oh, sweet! Ghostly ice worked just fine on these things! Laughing, he rushed ahead to deal with the big one on its platform.
Whoa. Valerie swooped in on her hoverboard, firing rapidly on the squatting bullfrog robot. It returned the fire with its own guns and missiles, forcing her to swerve around and evade the attacks. A quick spray down of his Ice Ray halted some of the missiles from reaching her and he pulled alongside the Red Huntress, grinning.
"You're late to the party, Val! Caleb's already taken out one of the big guy's friends, and probably a second one of these things." Danny told her quickly, "He's been trying to hit this one, but the bladed robots won't let him so I figured the two of us could probably handle it." Valerie clicked her tongue derisively.
"I'm only working with you on this to keep those people safe. We've evacuated one of the cell blocks, and the other's starting to move out." she growled, firing on the swarm of little machines that started moving towards them, "With the firepower that big one's packing, it's a safe bet to say that thing's gonna be the executioner if it gets there." She tilted her head, considering the target moving at a steady clip. "Have you tried getting close to it and just pushing it off the platform?" she pointed out. Danny gestured towards the smaller machines.
"Those things seem to be protecting it. They don't really fire back unless we get close." he explained and gave them a puzzled glare, "Wish I knew what they were..."
"Here's something you might like, Tucker." Sam remarked with a dry grin, thrusting her open textbook into the techno-geek's face, "Read it while I keep these people running in the same direction as the rest." She turned and waved towards the panicking masses, yelling instructions along the lines of 'Go this way if you wanna live, you mindless throngs of consumers!' Or something like that. Tucker lost interest in her words the second he spotted what looked like a hovering robot in the book.
It was round and kind of flat, with a thin mounted gun and flaps that seemed to help keep it airborne.
"Ooh, more angel tech!" he purred and ran his fingers down its listing, "Let's see what you are, sweetie. 'Raybit. Angelic magitechnology created this defensive automaton designed for suppressive fire in combat. Alone, they pose little threat, but large swarms of them can be destructive and difficult to deal with for any heroic figure.'
"'The bursts they fire were a combination of Light and Lightning elements, though they themselves are weak to Lightning. Often appear with Murders and Perfect Murders...' Ooh, let's see those!" Tucker exclaimed, flipping through the pages eagerly.
"Where's Caleb in all this?" Valerie yelled in irritation, her rifle making little to no damage on the annoying machines that kept flitting about the big robot on its ride to the cell blocks, "Just one hit of that Incineration spell and we'd be done by now!"
Danny ignored that last remark, following up all of her shots with bursts of ice in an effort to clear out the last of the protection around the now named -in his head at least- Bullfrog. He'd seen the android already, when he streaked back through the scene, one blade robot less than before following after him. As far as Danny knew, Caleb seemed to be doing just fine with the repairs he'd made earlier.
That one instance where he kind of paused in surprise at his and Valerie's double team tactic in shooting the Bullfrog did seem a little... weird.
"Oh, speak of the devil." Valerie suddenly quipped dryly and the halfa blinked, turning quickly to try spotting him. One of the blade robots was popping a lot of smoke and sparks, losing altitude even as it continued chasing after Caleb, its arms split open and firing after the android. The second rushed close behind him in a race to get a hit in one way or another.
"Valerie! We're not getting anywhere hitting that Bullfrog directly! Try attacking the thing carrying it; I bet it can't fly with the way it's just sitting there!" Danny told the girl sternly, not liking the looks of Caleb's evasive flight. Something looked a little shaky on that path, "At the rate it's moving, we'll all reach the cell blocks in about three or four minutes! I'm going to take out the two robots on Caleb's case!"
"Tch! I know what to do!" the Huntress shot back and crouched on her hoverboard, zooming off to circle the platform and Bullfrog, looking for a blind spot to attack from so she could avoid more of the missiles and return fire. Danny sighed and rushed off himself, flying straight for the robot chasing Caleb the closest.
"All right, then I've got this one ta-aack!" he declared, then yelped in shock as the robot suddenly went into a frenzied twirl, arms out and slamming into him at full speed.
"Let's see here. 'Murders were excellent at close range combat, using their thick, blade-like arms to batter their targets when the robot spun in three hundred and sixty degrees on their swivel-designed bodies. Firing from the arms was usually preferred when using long-range combat, and there was a secondary cannon hidden in their chests that fired powerful beams of concentrated mana.'
"'The recoil of this attack often pushed the Murder back and disoriented it for a few moments due to its lack of legs and the weak forward thrusters used to try countering it. Because of this, Murder units are best used in combat at closer ranges.'"
Tucker grinned hugely as he finished reading the brief entry for the next grade up of angel robots. Sam was yelling something about things falling from above and there were more people stampeding towards the safety of the tower doors -he faintly heard Jazz among those being herded that way but shrugged it off as just his imagination- but who cared about that stuff?
He wanted to hack a Murder! Who knew what kind of sweet programming code went into one of those things?
Intangibility spared him from the rest of that attack. Danny flew back from the robot, cringing in pain as he dodged and wove through the air to keep out of range. He'd been pretty badly battered by that one barrage of smacks -felt like the time Jazz lay into him while wearing the Fenton Ecto-Suit- but ghostly healing was already working on the worst of the damages, bruised ribs and muscles most likely. Stupid thing was now tailing him, though, and he'd already watched the other robot fall to the streets below, several yards short of the mass of people evacuating the cell blocks.
He spun around, gritting his teeth and letting loose a blast of ghostly ice on his pursuer. They were cutting this too close, way too close. And Valerie was still having trouble getting the flying platform to come down. Where had Caleb gone in all this? The reason for Danny pulling away from the Bullfrog had been to check on him, but the android managed to vanish into thin air. And he said he was incompatible with ghost powers...
'Darn it! I don't have time to find him now!' The half-ghost growled softly and raced back to help the Red Huntress. Caleb had been hitting for the platform the first time he'd seen the android. Valerie's rifle wasn't doing any damage -could the Light element in it be weak against whatever these machines were using?- but his own Ice powers were doing awesome against them.
"Hey, Technus bait!" Danny yelled with a slightly maniacal smile on his face, "Wanna know what a computer does just before it crashes? It freezes!" The aura of frost blue surrounded his body as he flew in close to the Bullfrog. He pulled up to a standing position in one sharp move, throwing out the built up cold within him in a wave of energy, the Phantom Phreeze as Sam once called it though Danny preferred Cold Snap for a name.
Valerie ducked, sprawling out on her board to avoid the linear attack as it washed over a sizable distance, encasing anything and everything it touched in thick glittering ice. The Bullfrog and its flying platform continued moving forward, a massive aerial iceberg with a glowing blue eye, then slowly it tapered downward before catching speed and whistling through the air, down, down, down to the streets of Welgaia below.
Cut it way too close.
The buzzing little machines that remained -only three as far as Danny could see- immediately turned and rushed off. The sky was theirs; the people were safe. Danny let out a huge sigh of relief, relaxing at last and feeling almost dizzy with the lack of tension.
"That's it? Nothing else is coming after anyone?" Valerie questioned uncertainly as the halfa scanned their surroundings quickly. Nothing hostile seemed to be coming, and oh good, there was Caleb, on his way back to them from wherever he'd gone. Danny flinched slightly; that was the shine of ice wrapping around one leg. Probably got nicked by the Phantom Phreeze -Cold Snap. Whatever.- somewhere.
"Nah. Looks clear to me. Good thing, too, since it looks like I accidentally hit Caleb with the ice." he sighed with a faintly guilty smirk. He was probably going to get chewed out for that, but at least Caleb was still around to do the chewing.
"Good. 'Cause now I can take you out!" the huntress declared with grim satisfaction, leveling a small ecto-gun at him from where she stood on her hoverboard. Danny whipped his head around to stare at her in disbelief. This again?
"What the heck are you doing?" he exclaimed, "Caleb already fixed your weapons to keep them from hurting me; why waste shots again?" And it was just as those words left his mouth that he noticed the green and silver color of the gun, the familiar Fenton logo emblazoned on it as well. She didn't have that on her before hand; not her colors, not Vlad's style. It was a Fenton weapon, and she had come from...
His eyes widened as pieces fell into place in rapid sequence; she'd gone with Jazz to the cell blocks, his parents were in those blocks, she'd been with his parents, his parents, who had the last of the Fenton ghost hunting gear that didn't get patched. Valerie had gone to get an ecto-gun that could hurt him.
"Don't." he heard himself say in a small voice. His mouth was dry and he licked at his lips in a quick little swipe out of nervousness. Why now? Why here? After everything she had been told, been taught, experienced even? Why? "Soulfire. Needs everyone..."
"Only the lives of the people who are gonna burn the Book." Valerie pointed out with that same dark tone, "Lives, Spook. You're already dead; you have nothing to do with this. Nebilim's gonna try to use ghosts to take over, and you're a ghost. Gotta weaken the problem so we have a better chance to end it." The ecto-gun gave a soft whine as it charged. "Nothin' personal, just saving the world. Oh wait. It is personal." the girl added with a purr.
She fired.
Tucker looked up from the textbook just as the iced Perfect Murder crashed into the street, sending a shockwave that had everyone sprawling on the street. Sam glared at it, then up at the tiny specks in the sky that were their friends.
"Danny! Watch where you drop the bad guys!" she fumed with a shake of her fist, "We're still down here, ya know!" Then she paused, her eyes widening. "Something... something's not right." she murmured, "I just got this sudden horrible feeling that something's not right at all." Tucker gave her a worried expression.
"If it's about Danny, there's not much we can do. He's way up there, we're down here, and if we get too involved while everyone's here, they'll start asking questions we can't answer." he told her quietly and searched the crowd, picking out the carrot-colored hair of Jazz Fenton as she raced towards them from one of the towers, her parents running after her in alarm. "Jazz is coming. Maybe the two of you can figure out what might be wrong." he added and turned a new grin on the Goth, "Meantime, I'm gonna go see if I can break through that ice and get access to that Perfect Murder thing. I just read up on it and the book says that it's the most wicked of the angel robot systems!" He handed her the book and took off running, already whipping out a PDA to do the work.
Sam watched him leave, still feeling that heavy dread in her gut. Something was terribly wrong and fear crept with its icy fingers over her again. She searched the pockets of her white robes, gripping the black heart in one fist once she found it and focusing hard on it. She couldn't fall into that trap again, couldn't let fear rule her heart.
'Danny's in trouble, but I won't be afraid. I know he'll come through. He has to come through. He's strong and he's good, and he has all of us who care about him, for him. And he has me. Just like I have him. He'll come through, for me!'
"Valerie's got one of Mom and Dad's ecto-guns!" Jazz blurted out as she reached the Goth, her eyes almost wild from panic, "Danny doesn't know! She's gonna shoot him with it the second she gets a chance!" Sam turned a frosty glare on the carrot-top.
"He's going to make it. He's coming back to me, and nothing's stopping him." she growled, "Somehow... Valerie won't take him away!"
Danny blinked.
"I thought I fixed your guns to keep this from happening." Caleb mused aloud, wings fluttering as he hovered before the halfa. Danny sniffed -burning electronics and cloth, ew- and floated aside to rub at his nose and avoid smelling it again.
"Hey! No fair taking the hit! And give me back that gun!" Valerie yelled angrily. The halfa watched Caleb give her a disinterested look, twisting the small gun in his hands until it snapped in two. He tossed the pieces to either side of himself, shrugging as he did so.
"You don't seem all that interested in learning anything, I see. Fine. I'll let your Trial be your lesson." he retorted and turned to face the startled boy, "Danny? Are you all right? You hit my leg with ice power, so I thought your aim might have been off by a bit."
"I'm okay, but what about you? You've got a frozen leg, and you were just shot in the heart!" Danny blurted out in a panic, "What if a crystal broke?" Caleb rolled his eyes.
"My clothes are my armor, remember? And ectotechnology can't touch anything purely mana-based, so my mana crystals are perfectly intact." he said calmly, "As for my leg, I told you I can't feel cold." He kicked at his frozen leg with the toe of his other boot. "Should be fine. If it bothers you that much, I'll break off the ice when we land. Where are the people?"
"Mostly evacuated." Valerie supplied, arms folded over her chest in a slouched sulk, "They're inside the buildings, on the street, and some are still in one of the cell blocks." Caleb only gave her a flat glare and she scowled back under her mask. "What?"
"Apologize to Danny for trying to shoot him."
"What?"
Danny held up his hands, laughing nervously at the huntress now looking like she'd rather start hunting angels. "That's not really necessary! I get shot at all the time and I don't expect to get any apologies for it!" he piped in, hoping to dispel that murderous air around them, "She just thought she was doing the right thing; I personally might not like it -being the target and all- but I can't blame her for trying to be right!" The android now gave him a surprised expression and Danny blinked back at him. 'That face... that's not a mask!'
"You're not angry? She just tried to kill you, you realize." Caleb pointed out. Danny rolled his eyes, exasperated.
"A lot of people and things have tried to kill me. I can't exactly spend all my time being ticked off at them when I'm busy trying to keep everyone safe." he retorted, "No point in it. Let's just get to those people and make sure they're all in one piece..."
"Ah, that's right! The civilians!" Caleb exclaimed, as though just now realizing they'd been talking about living people, real hostages. He took off ahead of them, diving down to the streets. Danny was left trailing off into silence, baffled and wide-eyed by what had just happened. Valerie tilted her head, fury now replaced with confusion.
"What's gotten into him?" she asked the halfa, "Something you did?" Danny shook his head absently, another faintly suspicious feeling creeping over him. What was wrong with him? Caleb wasn't acting quite right; had that fight with those flying machines damaged him more? Let's see, he said he started with about twenty-five percent damage already on him. Had he taken any hits? Platform, chasing, ramming the fork into things... maybe another ten or fifteen percent?
But he looked perfectly fine! His hands were a little worse for wear and his hair had been messier than usual but he looked almost pristine otherwise. He always seemed to come out of his battles mostly untouched, pretty face and aloof expression in place.
'The smell of burning electronics, the scream of metal... maybe he looks perfect on the outside, but what if he's hiding the real damage on the inside?' Danny wondered to himself. He'd look into it later.
On the ground, Danny and Valerie came across the rest of the team already working to gather the escaped hostages into the streets. With the impending threat of execution gone, everyone felt safer and took to idle chatter to help ignore the strange surroundings. Mr. Lancer and the Fentons had already tracked down Caleb and surrounded the android, demanding answers and explanations.
"What the-? Why'd they zero in on him?" Danny wondered aloud and Valerie broke into faintly malicious laughter.
"Probably 'cause I told them it's all his fault Jazz, Sam, and Tucker were here and that he's not even human either." she replied, hands on her hips, "Serves him right for screwing up my guns."
"You shouldn't have done that!" the halfa snapped at her angrily, "Why is it that all you think about is revenge? I thought there was more to you than that; the way you helped save so many people when Pariah Dark was free, when we had our truce to escape Skulker, I thought you were getting the idea of really helping everyone!" He shook his head. "I can't believe you. To think I once liked you, too." he murmured regretfully and shot down to help out the teacher. Valerie stared after him, speechless.
He sounded almost like Danny Fenton when he did that.
She jerked at the thought, shaking it from her head quickly. No way, Danny Fenton was a sweet guy, the kind of caring person any girl should be happy to nab. He was nothing like Danny Phantom, that self-righteous jerk of a spook pretending to be heroic while trashing everything in sight. Still, that kind of stung; she wasn't all about revenge, she was doing this to protect Amity Park, too! She was a hero for these people by hunting and destroying ghosts! Right?
Danny drew close, catching the tail ends of a few of the endless string of questions and accusations being thrown at Caleb, the android simply standing there with the broken remnants of ice scattered at his feet. He looked stoic, unreadable, and Danny cringed mentally at the emotional black hole that guarded the guy. Everything was going in, nothing was coming out.
"...dragging children into this dangerous dimension? You should be ashamed of yourself, sir!" Maddie lectured sternly.
"War of the Worlds! The madness that is this entire place is likely to get us all killed! Mr. Altessa, if you don't provide some method of escape...!" Lancer ranted on.
"GHOST!" Jack bellowed at the sight of Danny floating near the redhead, whipping out a rifle to aim right for him.
"Ack! I forgot you've got those!" Danny blurted out in shock, taking cover behind the android again.
"He's protecting the ghost! He's a ghost too!" his father yelled and the people began moving restlessly, reading to break and panic with the right conditions. Maddie studied her equipment carefully, eyes darting between it and the two before them rapidly.
"Well, it's registering the ghost boy, but not the teacher. Jack, I really don't think Mr. Altessa's a ghost." she pointed out carefully, "But I still want answers and he's not telling us anything."
"You haven't stopped yelling long enough for me to answer." Caleb returned crisply, "Let me see your weapons, all of them. I'll modify them to combat the ghosts that are currently in your city." The Fentons only stared at him in distrust while Jazz and Sam raced onto the scene, huffing from the exertion.
"Mom, Dad, just do it!" Jazz blurted out, holding up her arm while still in her Peeler armor, "He fixed the Fenton Peeler to let us fight our way to you guys, and it works just fine! Look!" She and the Fentons set to discussing all the reasons for going with it or not. Sam left them as they were to hug Danny behind Caleb's back.
"I knew you'd make it back!" she declared, then jumped back nervously, face flushing, "I mean, Jazz told me about Valerie getting a new ecto-gun and everything..." Danny nodded. "So what happened up there?" the Goth asked him, "With the executioners and everything?"
"I'll tell you later. Let's just try to get Caleb out of this mess so he can send them all home." the halfa murmured.
In the end, it was the efforts of Jazz, Sam, and even Danny and Valerie -once she shook herself off enough to join in- that had the three adults stop blasting questions at the redhead. A small pile of ghost hunting gear was assembled for Caleb to modify, and he sat by a small campfire -one of many as the people of Casper High and the various adults and other ghost hunters decided to get some rest and see what happened next- with them. He worked in silence, opening up the guns and gear and tweaking away at them with his tools and what looked like a modified PDA.
Not too far from him, the Fentons sat around a campfire with Sam, Tucker and Valerie, waiting for the modifications to be done. Valerie had voiced opposition to the Fentons giving up their weapons, claiming that they'd never be able to hit Danny Phantom ever again if they let him touch those guns.
Caleb shut her up -and scared the daylights out of Team Phantom- by immediately taking one of the modified guns, pointing it at Danny's leg, and firing a single shot. Danny had hopped around, howling in pain and clutching the injured area, which was apparently proof enough that the modified weapons still worked and was all the Fentons needed to hand over everything they had, and the weapons of the other ghost hunters as well.
Jazz, Sam, and Tucker looked ready to lynch the android, sparing him when Danny got in the way and explained it had been an act, and a pretty ad-libbed one at that. Caleb didn't have much chance to warn him of it, only gave him a brief hint to fake it using a slightly pained expression before firing. The shot had passed through him without touching, and he had to hold his leg to hide the lack of a burn or hole so he could easily explain later that it healed over.
In the meantime, Danny sat by his mother, suffering through her constant poking him with small syringes to draw ectoplasm, as Caleb confiscated everything he deemed a weapon -including syringes full of something he couldn't identify- but left her with her empty ones. Jack alternated between loud plots to rip him apart and pleas for another serving of fudge, which Danny had explained to the android was his father's weakness and kept him quiet, and Caleb immediately gave him a recipe for the stuff and told him to make as much as he could with the rations in his food pack. Maddie wasn't happy with her husband eating ghost-made food, but it kept him fairly quiet so her complaints faded.
Sam's white robes and boots earned her some catcalls and whistles from the jocks that sat in their own huddle at a campfire, enough to finally draw Danny's attention away from his mother's growing ectoplasm collection to her. The Goth's face burned at his faint blush, glowing green eyes sweeping over the flowing white clothing, silver adornments and soft little boots in a quick assessment. At first chance, Danny scrambled away from the Fentons -Jazz provided an additional distraction by telling them about her Trial level and leaving out the Trial itself- and plopped himself by Sam. Tucker made no comment himself, absorbed by something he was reading on the screen of his PDA. He had apparently managed to pull something out of the frozen Perfect Murder and plugged it into the PDA; now he was searching through the quantities of data for something or another.
"Nice outfit, but I thought black was your color." Danny teased with a nervous grin. Sam rolled her eyes, smiling back.
"White's the new black, didn't you hear?" she retorted and picked at the clothing, "I got soaked in one of the towers, so I grabbed some angel robes to wear until my clothes dried. Haven't had the chance to go change since the tower we were in got hit by something that tore chunks of it out. Was that you or Caleb?"
"Caleb. I saw him pull himself out of a tower, but I never thought you guys would be right below us." the halfa returned and gave a little shrug, "It... it looks good on you. I mean, it would probably be more suited to you if it was black, but... white is good too."
From the huddle of Populars came another stream of whistles and calls. "Goth Geek's got a crush on Danny Phaaantom!" Dash taunted and seemed to fall over in laughter as the jocks roared out with him, more taunts and teasing flooding out in regards to that single statement. Danny and Sam shot glares in their direction, faces bright red.
"Shut up! We're not like that!" they snapped back before giving each other a sheepish expression.
"I'd better go change, now that everyone's free and nothing's coming after us." Sam mumbled, picking at the robes again, "You'll explain what happened up there later, right? When?" Danny seemed to think it over, pensive expression on his face as he rubbed at his chin.
"You take Jazz with you when you change and tell Tucker to make up some excuse to go along. I'll meet you guys at the moving walkway." he planned quickly, "We'll have the chance to talk without Caleb listening in since he's busy with the modifications." Sam gave him a surprised look.
"This has something to do with Caleb?" she questioned. Danny shrugged.
"I don't know for sure. But I learned some stuff and I think it's best that we're all on the same page with this one, for his sake at least." he whispered, eyebrows puckering together in concern, "I'm worried about him. Something's really wrong, but I can't quite pin it down yet."
"What about Valerie?"
Danny's mouth tightened, an angry look to him that seemed to explain everything. "I want to help Caleb; Valerie's done enough to hurt him, getting him in trouble with Mom and Dad and Lancer. If we figure anything out that's important, she might try to use it to hurt him more." he murmured, "And I have this gut feeling... perfect neutrality is a really good shield, best I've seen so far, but it hides things too well. I don't want to know what could happen if Caleb gets pushed too far one way, and it's almost like he's starting to lose ground somewhere."
The Goth nodded and stood up, walking past Tucker to peer at what he was reading. Her lips moved almost imperceptibly, dropping the message softly. Tucker's eyes widened slightly, and he gave the barest of nods in understanding. Satisfied, she moved on to talk to Jazz. Trusting in his friends to gather together, Danny went invisible on the spot, rising from the campfire to fly off and set his thoughts straight. Once they got to talking, he would need his mind clear to really get what was going on.
Because if Caleb was falling in any way, be it from Nebilim's tricks or the damages of battle, Danny and his friends might be the only ones who had a chance to catch him and keep them all moving forward. For Amity Park, for the world, for the people in his memories that counted on him to be their Guardian Angel...