In which Sam has some trouble with Goons...
Here is to staying safe in a mad world.
Disclaimer! I dont own Danny Phantom... its probably a good thing too.
Sam was playing a dangerous game. She couldn't go at max speed because the Goons would lose her and Sam didn't want them returning to attack the Life Clan she had left behind. However she couldn't figure out how these Goons had found her much less track her. Had it been an accident, or were they able to seek out her unique ecto signature? In the end Sam figured she would just have to destroy them all so she wouldn't have to worry about it. However she was finding this harder to do than she had hoped.
"Dam Dark Parmius must have upgraded these Goons… Fan-freaken-tastic." Sam growled narrowly avoiding a beam of ecto energy from one of the Goons that was gaining. She took it out and a few others that were ahead of the pack but there were too many of them to face head on and Sam realized that her energy simply couldn't hold out for very much longer. She was going to have to make a stand somewhere sometime soon and as she looked up green light enveloped her making her yelp and loose control of her flight. She was falling disoriented and while passing a decent sized rocky island she finally recovered enough sense to stop her fall and simply float. Recovering her balance and looking around her Sam witnessed several goons seemingly magically appear in the air. She destroyed those easily and in the next instant seven more appeared but only halfway. They looked as if several at once were all trying to get through a door way and it was so comical that Sam had to laugh as realization struck. She had fallen or rather flew through a random portal and it had transferred her from a hilly grassland area to what appeared to be a jungle. This wasn't Undergrowths lands and it didn't appear that any single ghost had claimed this area. Floating islands littered the sky and were all different sizes. It reminded Sam of the asteroid field she and Danny had visited long ago, except these islands at least some of them were covered in plant life. A moaning brought her attention back to the struggling Goons that were seriously stuck halfway out of the portal less than 100 feet away. For a moment Sam almost started to blast them but in the end she figured it would be better to leave them bottlenecked the way they were. Now they couldn't chase her anymore and if they did catch back up she would know for a fact that they were tracking her. Shaking her head feeling worn out Sam took off as fast as she could fly hoping to get plenty of distance between her and them before they figured out how to free themselves.
She flew for several hours bringing her energy levels dangerously low because Sam had used up a ton of power fighting and she had been flying top speed since leaving the Goons. It was very close to dusk and Sam decided to find a place to sleep for the night. Out here in the wilds weird creatures came out at night and Sam had no desire to become part of the food chain. She settled down on a rocky island and when she found a shallow unoccupied cave she settled in before growing some blood blossom vines across the entrance to keep ghostly predators out. She was glad that she had run into the Living clan group because she now had a new plant in her arsenal that she could use. Blood Blossoms were a strange plant that had two classes, an attack class and a shield class. The attack class of Blood Blossoms radiated energy that hurt a ghost if it came too close while a shield class simply repelled. This particular species of blood blossoms was a rather potent shield class form and yet as long as she didn't touch the flowers they didn't bother her to be near them. The flowers even though they were a shield class could still hurt if she tried to push through them but she could handle the vines and seeds with no issues. With a sigh Sam curled up in her sleeping bag and fell asleep with plans to find a new road in the morning.
Light woke her in the morning and Sam got up feeling better. Her vines were untouched at the entrance and after checking her surroundings for Goons or anything else Sam switched into her ghost form before taking off. She flew for several hours and other than a predator ghost like bird attempting to attack her the morning was uneventful. Around lunchtime Sam stopped to eat on one of the numerous floating islands and changed into her human form to rest although she could keep going for far longer if needed. From the island Sam could see a great distance and she couldn't see any roads or manmade objects anywhere around her. A little ways off it looked as if the jungle bulged upwards a little higher than normal but that seemed like a small defining feature when it came to the carpet of green that spread out on all sides around her all the way to the horizon. When she was done eating Sam sat down cross-legged near the edge of the island and closed her eyes.
Undergrowth had taught her many tricks when it came to plants and one of them was a way to feel out living plants from inorganic objects. When he had first taught her range was very small but now that she was better at running her energy down natural plant pathways her range had expanded to nearly a hundred miles. It wasn't detailed in any way because that much information would overload her mind. It was literally just a way to find buildings or trash buried in the plant life around her. If she wanted details of an area such as animals, people, or ghosts she would have to shorten her range to within two miles. Entering her core Sam gathered a strand of her power and cast it out to the green carpet below. Then she listened. Green warmth flooded her mind as soon as she began overwhelming her for a moment before she pushed back hard slowly separating the flood into multiple streams and pools that represented the different plants that crisscrossed the land below her. Silently she chose a stream and followed the line outward into the jungle far beyond what her eyes could see. It was a type of creeper vine that she was following and it was very common in the jungle. She spread her senses out further but she could find no trace of a city anywhere. The only thing that was inorganic was part of the bulge in the jungle she had noticed earlier and she was pretty sure from the feel of it that it was ectoplasmic in nature. Slowly she made her way in a half circle ignoring the way she had come until her senses rang out a warning. The plants were very unsettled in the area she had come from. The unsettling feeling was coming from an area just outside her range and Sam tried reaching out to it trying to at least get some kind of answer as to why. A spike of pain slammed through her skull and Sam swallowed hard coming back to her mind with a snap. She clutched her head a slight throbbing echoing in her mind.
"Ow, ow, ow, ok too far to reach." Sam muttered holding her head and wiping a thin trickle of blood away from under her nose. Pulling a cloth napkin from her bag she blew her nose the small bleed already healed from her abnormally aggressive healing factor. She had tried to reach too far with that last one but if she could feel a plants unease from that far out there was probably something really nasty coming and she had no interest in finding out what it was. She stood and shook her head clearing her mind of the riot of color that hung there as an afterimage. Leaping off the edge of the floating island Sam let herself fall for a meter or so before going ghost and began flying towards the nearby bulge she had noted earlier. She had been flying for less than five minutes when she was ambushed.
The Goons came out from behind two floating islands and from the forest itself. Sam cursed her stupidity as she threw a shield around herself to block the first wave of ectoblasts. The Goons had gone past her in the night probably not noticing her because of the Blood Blossoms and seeded themselves through the area once they reached a certain distance away from the portal that led her here. They had probably been following her for a while now and had set up this ambush when she was least expectant of it. This new batch was smarter than the ones she was used to and now she was too high up and too far away from an island for her plant powers to be of much use. Sam shot forward laying on the speed to try and out run the Goons. Some fired away at her while others built themselves into a living wall trying to block her escape. Ducking her head Sam crashed thought them, one of the lucky goons managing to keep a hold of her even as she smashed through. It slowed her down just enough to be a problem and as she punched it with an ectoenergy covered fist making it dissolve its cohorts had already caught back up. Sam fired off an energy wave buying a few more precious seconds trying to make it to an island that floated nearby. A blast caught her in the back and side knocking her off track and towards the jungle below. There was a clearing down near the strange bulge and Sam turned her back towards it firing off another couple of shots at the Goons that followed. Seeming to realize what she was attempting to do some Goons came at her as a pack taking hold of her before she could fire off enough shots to wipe the majority out. Two grabbed her dominate arm before she could pull her dagger while another grabbed her leg before she could kick the first two off. A third Goon pulled her hair yanking her head back cruelly and Sam let out yell of frustration as more came in to try and take hold of her. Her one free arm flung out and collided with a Goon that grabbed it before she could strike again. Flexing her torso Sam desperately tried to wrench herself free but it was no use. A moment later a large blast of ectoenergy slammed into her chest stunning her for several moments and severely ticking her off. Energy spiked from her core and she channeled it lashing out at all the Goons surrounding her with an electrical attack. Their jaws opened with an eerie shriek and the energy kept spreading outwards beyond the few that pinned her causing the Goons to overload and dissolve. Sam gasped as she fell the Goons that had been pinning her midair had turned to wisps and the recoil of releasing so much energy, instantaneously reverted her back to her human form. No Goons chased her falling form and Sam figured she was about to fully die. She couldn't stop her fall and her consciousness was fading swiftly. She had the brief impression of leaves and a black gear before her body was jolted to a stop, her mind succumbing to the darkness.
Sam woke up to a throbbing head and a shivery gasp as her ghost sense went off. Groaning she sat up and noticed she was human and laying in a hammock like contraption in the corner of a rectangular room. Grey bricks made up the walls while a black floor of some stone lined the floor, both of them had the eerie glow of a ghost construct. Shelves lined one wall opposite of her broken clocks covering most of the available space and as Sam eyed the hammock material she had the strangest sense of déjà-vu. The hammock was the only human object in the room and was probably the only reason she had stopped falling before splatting on to the rock below since humans pass through ghost constructs. Slowly Sam climbed from the hammock and stood up. A slight dizziness troubled her for a few brief moments but then it passed leaving a throbbing headache. Her ghost sense went off again and Sam looked around the room noticing for the first time a dull banging sound coming from close by. There was no door to this room and Sam realized she would have to walk through the wall or jump through the ceiling to get out. Something most likely Goons were clearly trying to break in to the room and Sam decided to get out before they broke through the walls that were keeping her somewhat safe. Ignoring the broken clocks and that wall since that was where the banging was coming from she stepped towards the opposite wall before a glint of metal caught her eye.
A tube like shape sat on the opposite end of the room on a single thin shelf. For a long moment Sam almost ignored it and continued moving on but for some reason that glint of metal called to her. Feeling strange Sam walked over to where it innocently sat and lifted the metal tube off the shelf blowing years of dust off the canister. A fuzzy feeling swept through her and the headache she had, the aches from being blasted as well as using too much energy were all instantly gone. Sam felt energized and she looked down at the tube recognizing what it was. The metal tube was a Fenton thermos, a very old, very beat up Fenton thermos. It was strange though Sam thought as she rolled the thermos in her hands, the bulges and dings marring its surface seemed to come from the inside. Without realizing it Sam had crossed the room and stood before the hammock structure she had woken up in, still studying the thermos in her hands. The cap of the thermos was screwed on tight and a small light blinked lazily at her signifying the thermos was full. She turned the thermos further and took notice of a major feature jutting from the surface. It was a face grinning manically from the steel, a face she recognized and had once feared. Suddenly Sam knew where she was although she didn't know how it was possible and recognized this thermos in her hands.
"Back again Clockwork?" a silky voice growled from inside the thermos and Sam shrieked in surprise dropping it.
From that point on everything went to hell around her.
Hehehe I'm totally evil and I really love this cliffhanger. I told you guys that one chapter was important so if you are still reading buckle up because we are about to take off. Any guesses as to who our mystery ghost is? See you all in three days!