Error's Rival
Chapter 21: Meeting Friends and Enemies
For several minutes Danny clung to Klayton like a child clinging to a stuffed animal, feeling no embarrassment as he cried into Klayton's sweater. Klayton didn't pull away or even want to pull away; he still had his arms wrapped around his friend in comfort. Danny failed to notice, but Klayton did, that Sam had followed the two of them into the hallway and was standing about ten feet away, waiting patiently.
"Hey," Klayton spoke softly to Danny, "you asked why I was here, right? Heh, you do realize that you're terrible at keeping yourself a secret. News travels fast when the famous Ghost Boy is spotted. I've been trying to find you for a while now, ever since I found out that you were alive. I saw a picture of you on a website and recognized you immediately, even with a different hair and eye colour, I still knew. When I came here though, it seemed like you were already dead. And then I met your girlfriend, I wasn't really expecting to stay long…but things change…
"You also asked how I escaped? Technically I didn't escape; I was rescued by one of the doctors there. Do you remember the woman Allison Takarra?"
Danny looked up at the mention of her name, of course he remembered her. That was the woman who had tried to save Danny and died in the process, she helped him and Sam escape from Hell's Dungeon!
"I was on my way out of the building and I ran into a doctor, he captured me and put me in containment. I thought for sure I was done for, but later that day, Allison came into my containment and told me to come with her, she hid me in her room for several days and then in the middle of the night she brought me out of the building and left me with her sister. Allison's sister, Katie, was also taking care of another child that was taken from that place. Allison saved both me and another girl; the other girl however was not in good shape… Allison came to visit us often, she would always cry after we had gone to bed and talk to her sister about wanting to leave the job…she hated it there.
"It was about a year later when he got the news that Allison had been killed. I knew that the men at that place were still searching for me because I was dangerous, so to keep Katie safe I left, and the other girl followed me as well. We've been surviving on our own ever since."
"Who's the girl that was saved?" Danny asked.
Klayton sighed before replying, "We both had to change our names for safety, mine was changed to Keo and hers was changed to Aunally…but her real name is Jezebel."
-Flashback-
Across from their cell was a cage that had little room and about a dozen locks on the door. Inside, a young girl of about five years old hugged her knees and rocked back and forth. She had been tested on the previous week. And that was one that had failed.
Her once long brown hair that was pulled into a ponytail was now a disgusting mane that hung in her face. She had dry blood all across her skin, caused by her own nails and teeth. The result of the experiment was a bloodthirsty animal, and the small girl had attacked herself unknowingly.
She refused to eat, drink, or sleep. Her time of death was closing in on her very quickly, and there was nothing anyone could do.
The guards weren't nearby. Danny crawled to the opposite side of the cell that was facing the small child's cage. He had everyone's eyes following him. He sat cross-legged on the floor and looked at the girl with his icy blue eyes.
"Hey." Danny spoke softly, "How're you feeling?" there was no reply, Danny sighed, "What's your name?"
At this, the girl's eyes met his, she had yellow glowing eyes, almost like a cat, "What do you want?" she stuttered.
"Nothing. I just want to talk."
"Why?"
"To keep you company...I know how hard this is for you...for all of us...but...I don't want to die without any friends...I've never had a friend before. And I know that you haven't either."
"I am Subject 83." She stated flatly.
"No. You're not. That is not your name. And you know it! You have a real name." Danny said.
"My name doesn't matter!"
"Yes it does! Your name is everything! It's who you are! Do you really want to be known as a Subject!?"
A tear fell from the girl's eye, "I'm afraid...I don't want to die..."
"Don't be afraid." Danny calmly spoke, "things will get better. I know it."
"How? How can you be sure?"
"Because my mom promised me. She said it would all be alright in the end." Danny smiled.
The girl weakly smiled, "Jezebel. My name is Jezebel."
"That's a nice name...my name is Danny."
"Danny...thank you...I don't think I will be seeing you after tonight."
Danny's eyes widened in horror.
"I've already been labeled for death, and they plan on getting rid of me."
"They've already labeled you!"
Jezebel nodded and tuned her back to him, sure enough, the back of her shirt was nearly torn apart which revealed a large, scabbed "X" from both shoulders to the opposite hip.
When you've been labeled with an "X," that is meaning that you are too dangerous to keep alive, and they will destroy you before you can cause any damage.
Danny bit his lip, "Jezebel...I..."
"I'm glad to have met you Danny. Even if it was only for a moment, I am grateful."
A group of footsteps came into hearing. Jezebel sighed, "here they come."
Danny gasped, "No!"
"Goodbye Danny."
The men came up to Jezebel's cage and began unlocking it, once it was open, they ushered her out while pointing guns at her in case she tried to escape.
"No!" Danny cried. He reached his arm between the bars toward her, "Jezebel!" He didn't want another innocent person to be killed!
Jezebel looked at him and in return, reached out to him. Their hands touched for a brief moment, then she was pulled away roughly. One guard gave Danny's hand a sharp kick and ordered him to get back. Danny cradled his throbbing hand and watched Jezebel be taken away.
"...Jezebel.... I won't forget you..."
-End Flashback-
"Jezebel?"
Klayton nodded.
"She survived?" Danny remembered how things were back then, friends were hard to come by during those times, but something about Jezebel seemed to make him feel at home, even if he knew her for a few precious minutes…those few minutes meant a lot to him. Danny looked up at Klayton once more, "You said that the men from that place were still after you because you were too dangerous…what do you mean?"
Sam, still unnoticed by Danny, narrowed her eyes at this.
Klayton turned his head, "Sam, if you want to listen in, don't try to do it in secret."
Sam turned red with embarrassment.
"Same to you, Tucker."
Tucker slowly appeared from behind a locker and walked forward with Sam. "How'd you know I was there?"
"I saw Sam standing there, and I figured that you seemed like the listening-in type, so I just assumed you were there." Klayton smirked.
Danny felt so pathetic in this situation; he turned his head away, not wanting Sam to see him cry.
"Keo…I mean, Klayton…" Sam corrected herself, "When you fought that giant ghost lizard…was that because…" She wasn't quite sure what she was trying to say, but Klayton seemed to catch on.
"It's better if I show you than tell you." Klayton released Danny from his arms, "it's okay, I won't leave." He assured his friend before taking a few steps back, "Danny…you didn't really think that you were the only one of your kind did you?" A cold sensation filled the area, making both Sam and Tucker shiver, but Danny's eyes widened at the familiar feeling. Klayton gave them a brief smile before his entire body turned intangible and phased through the floor.
"Oh my god!" Sam gasped.
"What the hell?" Tucker jumped.
Danny just stayed put, his face showed all the surprise it needed to. "No…way…"
"Surprised?" Klayton phased back, "I can do more but I don't think that throwing ghost beams in the hallway is such a good idea."
"You mean that you're just like Danny?" Sam asked.
"Are you forgetting, Sam, that Danny and I were being tested by the same freak? The tests were very similar for both of us, so yes, I'm very much like Danny."
"Actually, yes I keep forgetting that detail considering that I just learned about it three minutes ago!"
"Danny," Klayton softly said, "do you have any other questions?"
Danny shook his head slowly, still staring at Klayton with shock from all the new information.
"Keo! I have a question!" Sam barked, "I mean Klayton! Care to tell me why you weren't at school on time? Did you know that Danny was there?"
Klayton laughed at this, "of course I knew! You know Danny's power right? We can sense other ghosts around us! You actually believed me when I said that I had an MP3 that detected ghosts? I don't have that; I only have my ghost sense to guide me. I just had to come up with an excuse… but to answer your question…I wasn't exactly in the best of conditions the past few days…"
"What do you mean?"
-A few days earlier-
Down a dark alley, where the sun couldn't touch even if it wanted to, a form was lying horizontal to the ground, leaning up against the brick wall near him. It was such a beautiful day, however, he wasn't able to enjoy it with the condition he was in. Sweat gleamed against his pale skin, his chest going up and down rapidly as he took in deep breaths of air.
"Brother?" A gentle voice called out.
Keo gritted his teeth with fury and looked over to where his sister was poking her head out of the door to their apartment. Her eyes were closed, as they often were, but she glanced around as if expecting to find him. She waited for his response, shrinking down in fear when there was no reply.
"Brother, are you there?"
"Goddamn it!" Keo hissed, bringing his hand into a fist. Finally, he focused on raising his voice, trying to sound natural while he spoke, "It's alright, Aunally! I'm over here, I'm fine…just go back inside, I'll be back in a minute!"
The corners of Aunally's lips pulled lightly into a smile when she heard her brother's voice; she gave a quick nod in response and retreated back into their home. Leaving Keo to himself once again.
"Damnit! Damnit! Damnit!" Keo rolled over onto his stomach and drove his fist into the cement beneath him, as though hoping it might make him better. "I used too much energy! I'm so stupid!" He let his head fall down to rest on his fist that now had blood running down his knuckles. "I can't let Aunally worry…"
Keo had nothing to grab onto in order to help himself up, so he ended up pulling his knees up beneath him like an inchworm, looking ridiculous as he slowly worked his body up till he was kneeling, and from there things were easier to get to his feet. Keo wobbled a bit once he was standing, but he managed to mask how he was feeling and made his way toward where his sister waited for him. "Only a few days…a few days till school starts up again…" he thought of Sam and the promise he made to her, "Was it stupid to agree to that?" He shook his head. "Oh well, no taking it back now."
"The only thing I can really do is hope that she'll accept everything."
-Current Time-
Klayton looked at Sam and then at Danny, "Well…I…uh…I'm not sure how to explain it…I realized that Danny was in town again, and I also realized that he was not in great shape, so I helped out a bit. Long distance energy transfer is actually much harder than most people realize! You have no idea!" He laughed, but no one else seemed to understand him, so he put it into other words, "I helped Danny get better by giving him my own energy."
"You can do that!?" Both Sam and Tucker asked eagerly.
Klayton nodded, "I can transfer both ghost energy and human energy, but giving my own energy is quite hard, so I was really weak for several days. This morning I was still resting, but I'm doing much better now."
Danny's eyes widened, "so that's why I healed so fast? You were helping?"
"Yeah."
It was silent for a moment as their minds all wrapped around the new information. In his head, Danny was thinking to himself: An energy transfer, just like Venom was able to do at Hell's Dungeon and what my aunt was able to do when I was trying to get back home, Klay' can do it too? Danny couldn't remember a time when he was able to do that with his powers. He had taken away wounds from others but only when he was physically touching them…and Danny couldn't help but feel weaker than the others.
"Klay'? Can…" Danny hesitated, "Can I visit Jezebel? I…just want to see how she's doing."
--
"Brother?" The girl, known as Aunally, previously named Jezebel, peeked around the corner of the wall toward the entrance of the apartment, "is that you?" Her appearance was a mess; her spine was awkwardly twisted so that she hunched over and her brown hair came down past her waist, her skin was very pale and she had such a thin body it was almost scary. Her eyes were completely closed, so she couldn't see who had arrived.
"Yeah, it's me." Klayton quietly spoke to her, "Remember when I told you about my friends a little while ago? Well, I brought them home with me today so you could meet them."
Jezebel's mouth pulled up into a bright smile, "really!?" She allowed herself to come out completely from behind the wall and took a shaking step forward.
Klayton came forward and grabbed Jezebel by the shoulders, slowly walking her toward the group of people inside, "This is Tucker."
Jezebel put her hands forward and lightly traced the lines of Tucker's face with her hands, running them along his glasses and even was able to notice that he had a hat on. She was then introduced to Sam, and did the same as she did with Tucker.
"And…this is Danny."
There was a pause in the room before Jezebel put her hands out to the boy in front of her, she seemed to take her time running her hands across Danny's face and then brought her hands up to his messy hair, and she let out a sharp gasp when her hand brushed against the back of his neck where there was a large scarred scab where his Chip was located.
"Hi…Jezebel…" Danny whispered a greeting.
When he spoke, Jezebel slowly opened her eyes. Those bright yellow cat-like eyes stared at Danny, even though her vision was near blind, she was able to see Danny's hair and eye colour vaguely, "It…is you…isn't it?"
Danny chuckled, "I'm surprised you remember." He was even more surprised when Jezebel wrapped her arms around him.
"You escaped?"
Danny nodded "yeah, I did."
"I didn't think I would ever see you again."
"Same here."
Both Klayton and Sam watched as the two reunited, but Tucker was staring at the clock on the wall and quietly muttered to himself "we're supposed to be in class…" However, he was unheard by all the others.
"Jezebel, how did you get out?"
"The nice woman saved me. Even though she was supposed to kill me that day because my condition was getting worse and worse, she saved me! I was so happy when she got me out of there. And then I met brother!" She beamed.
Klayton gave a short laugh at the look he got from Sam and Tucker, "we're not actually siblings. But she started calling me brother and she's called me that ever since." Klayton then looked at the time; "well…it's sort of lunch time, who wants to eat?"
--
Later that week, Klayton was lying down on his bed staring blankly at the ceiling when a cold feeling shot through him causing him to flinch in an almost seizing way. "What the hell?" He whispered to himself. He knew right away that it was a ghost, but it was much stronger than most ghosts he had fought in the past. Quietly, making sure that he didn't wake up Jezebel, he left the apartment, and started running toward where he felt the ghostly energy. While running, he pulled the sleeve up on his arm where the metal weapon was attached and started moving some things around to get it ready for a battle.
It was the middle of the night, so most people were asleep, which was good because otherwise things got difficult when there were people around. As he neared his destination, he was shocked when he saw three others running the same way. "Danny? Sam? Tucker?"
"Klay'? What're you doing here?" Danny asked, holding a large ecto gun at his side. Sam had a much smaller gun and a belt with several different weapons. Tucker had, what looked like brass knuckles, but probably did something more than that, Klayton assumed.
"I sensed a ghost. You?"
"The Fentons have things that sense ghosts throughout Amity Park, so I called Sam and she called Tucker and we headed over right away."
Klayton rolled his eyes, "just don't get in my way…and don't get hurt."
"I'm guessing that last bit was directed at me huh?" Sam snapped.
"Possibly." Klayton grinned. He then felt another cold wave run along his spine, "this is a tough one though, be careful." He started running again, but stopped suddenly, "wait…it's here."
All four of them stood still, waiting for a sign of the ghost's presence.
"Move!" Klayton immediately dropped down and used his leg to trip all three of the others just as a green beam went through where they had been standing. He steadied his right weapon arm with his left hand and began rapidly firing ectoblasts.
They all heard a cackling laugh echo around them. The four of them stood up, each of them holding up their weapons. "Too easy!" A voice cried out and then blasts seemed to come from every angle at them, making it impossible to get away.
Klayton growled, "Damn it!" and raised both his arms above him, creating a large ectoplasmic dome around all of them, which caused the blasts to dissolve into nothing. Klayton released the dome once the attacks stopped and focused on getting his weapon ready again. If I don't have to, I won't use my ghost powers! He promised himself.
Danny narrowed his eyes. "show yourself!" He snarled.
"You better start running or I'll catch you!" The voice of the ghost responded.
"This isn't a game!"
More laughing now, "well not yet."
"I'm getting tired of this," Klayton growled. "Alright that's it!" He closed his eyes tightly and reached down into the core of his body, feeling the ghostly chills run through his veins, and then focused on sensing the creature around them. "There!" He aimed and fired with unnatural speed, managing to strike their opponent.
A wail like cry rang through the air as a young boy fell to the ground about twenty feet away. "That's not nice ya guys!" It stood up with no actual damage to its body.
"What the hell are you!?" Danny demanded.
The young boy in front of them looked to be younger than a teenager, he had long pointed ears sticking out of his head, two fangs stuck out of his mouth, cat-like whiskers came out of his cheeks and he had neon green hair that came down past his neck. The boy had razor sharp claws as hands and knife-like weapons coming out of his forearms. Long spikes emerged from his spine, sticking straight out about a foot, and skin was growing between each spike, and veins could be seen within the paper-like skin. Its ankles were built very strangely, with less heel and longer toes, which also matched his hands with their talon-structure.
"My name is Pyrros!" The young boy exclaimed proudly, creating a bright ball of ectoplasm with each of his hands, "Nice ta meetcha!"
A/N: Woohoo! I've been excited to add Pyrros in here!
I wanted to make an announcement that I won't have time to work on the new chapter for several weeks, I'm going to be going on vacation with some friends tomorrow. I'm very sorry! But I hope they you will enjoy this chapter! I'll post the next one hopefully soon after I return. Thanks so much!