Sam was, once again, amazed by the eldest Fenton's agility as they clambered from fire escape to fire escape, sometimes daring to go through the buildings to get to the other side. Anything felt better than travelling by ground, where ghosts were quickly filling the streets.

"We're not far now." Maddie shouted, as loud as she dared, over her shoulder to the team following. "A few more buildings and we'll be there."

"What...do you mean...by a few?" Tucker panted. Sam couldn't blame him. She hastily wiped the sweat from her brow, remembering Maddie saying nearly the same thing three buildings ago. Amity was not a very big or complex city, but when alley ways and fire escapes were the only possible methods of travel, it seemed the size of New York.

Instead of answering, Maddie crouched on top of the railing of the fire escape and grabbed the ledge of the roof. She pulled herself up and stuck her hand down for the next poor soul. That poor soul happened to be Sam, who accepted the hand readily. She was far beyond pride now.

Sam thrashed her way up to the roof and held her hand out for Tucker, who's face was as sheen with sweat as she imagined her own was. At least she wasn't the only one getting her ass kicked by this cross-city adventure.

"There it is." Maddie muttered, staring at the swirling vortex in the sky. The closer they got, the less Sam liked the look of it-she'd hated the look of it when she was still half-an-Amity away. And she had a feeling they were going to have to get a lot closer if they wanted to do anything about it. The vortex pulsed, releasing another wave of dead into the world of the living.

"How are we supposed to destroy that thing?" Tucker voiced the question in all of their heads, aside from Maddie's.

"With the gauntlets."

"The whats?"

Maddie tore her eyes from the swirling, pulsing green and swung her backpack down from her shoulders. She dropped it to the ground and knelt by it, unzipping the last and largest pocket.

"The gauntlets. It's something Ja-" Maddie stuttered. She gulped, struggling to keep her hands steady as she unzipped the pocket of her backpack. "something Jack and I were working on before..." she gave up on the zipper, curling her hands into a fist. Sam cupped Maddie's trembling hands in her own. Maddie's eyes fell to the ground as a bead of sweat, or more likely, a tear trailed down her cheek.

"Mrs. Fenton-" Sam whispered gently. Maddie squeezed her hand, two quick and strong compressions, like a heartbeat. Then she let go and finished unzipping the pocket. It mostly unzipped on its own, the pressure of the large load forcing it open.

"It can grab ecto energy, like..." she held them up, two shiny, metal gloves that looked like something an old, ghostly knight would put on. "like the portal." Her eyes strayed to the thing above their heads. "It absorbs energy, amplifies it even, so that whoever put these on could shoot ecto energy from the gauntlet. And if that amplified energy could be forced back into the portal, it could revert the course of the ecto waves..."

"Making the portal collapse in on itself." Sam finished. A tight grin twitched at the corners of Maddie's cracked lips. "But how are we going to get up there?" Sam's eyes burned as she stared at the vortex, hovering high above the town. She was pretty good at the high jump in track and field, but it would take a lot more than that. They needed someone that could fly.

"This is where it's going to get tough." Maddie muttered. Her eyes, crinkled with thought, watched the portal and it's steady, pulsating beat.

"I thought it was already tough." Tucker grumbled. Sam, for the first time in a while, laughed.

"Tougher." She corrected. She felt her wrist wray, just for the assurance that it was still there. Though the sting of the raw skin underneath it was assurance enough. "We'll need Valerie." Tucker's eyebrows shot to the heavens. Bet he'd never thought he would hear anything like that come out of Sam's mouth.

"With her suit, she can fly. And with Danny...out of the picture, she's the best thing we've got."

"I'll get the message to Valerie." Tucker said, touching his finger to the Fenton Phone in his ear.

"Good." Maddie said, clearing her throat and turning back to them. The glow of the portal turned the wet trails on her cheeks into green streams, tiny rivers of the softest jade. "Tell Valerie to hurry. The longer that portal is up, the less chance there is of Amity surviving this."

Sam's gaze lingered on the portal, feeling the weight of its presence more than ever. The burn of smoke and fire filled her nostrils, howls and screams echoed in her ears. Those green swirls, as terrible a sight it was, had to be better than looking down and seeing what her city had become. She closed her eyes and wondered if, by the time they tore down that portal, there would be anything left of Amity to save.


It was all going well, and then it wasn't.

Perched at a broken window eight stories high, Sam watched with a racing heart as Valerie swooped and swerved towards that glowing green vortex in the sky. A seemingly ever present swarm trailed behind her, but none of them dared get too close. Except that one.

A little blue one, fast as all hell, grasped at Valerie's heels, and missed. Sam pulled the trigger of her gun, and it didn't get another chance. She got two more shots in, and two more ghosts fell from the swarm with fading colors.

"I'm moving up. Tuck, are you in place?" Sam whispered into her Fenton phone.

"Just made it." A flash of light, from a four story window, pummeled an offending ghost in the chest.

"Nice shot."

"Thanks."

Sam dropped her hand from her ear and moved, stepping over pieces of shattered glass as she made her way through the ravaged apartment. She blended into the shadows, thankful for some kind of cover to hide her as she hurried past the living room of the apartment.

"Window, window.." Sam whispered to herself. She jumped over a recliner chair, shredding and tipped on it's side. "That'll do." Something had torn, or by the signature scorch marks of an ectoblast, burned a hole in the wall big enough for her gun to fit through. She knelt to it and used the butt of her gun to widen the hole, just enough for her eyes to see through it as well.

"Okay," she said, touching her earpiece. She narrowed her eye and aimed. "I'm good." Her finger pulled the trigger. Another one down.

"Cool." Tucker responded. "I'm set. How are you, Mrs. Fenton?"

"I'm fine where I am." Maddie's voice, somehow soft and strong at the same time, filled Sam's earpiece. "She hasn't passed me yet."

Sam shifted into a squat and pulled the trigger-once, twice-as two more shots exploded from the window opposite, and a little to the right, of her, and one from an apartment up ahead. Sam only saw color falling from the sky in blues and greens. Valerie soared ahead.

"She's almost there." Sam shifted again and peeked through her sniper hole. Valerie was close. Really close. Silver gloves glinted on the Red Huntress' hands. Gauntlets.

"I'm moving." Sam gasped at Tucker's voice. "Sam, cover me."

"Got it." Sam responded. Her eyes narrowed over the barrel of the gun again. One shot, the closest one to Valerie fell. Second shot, a poor soul at the end of the group tumbled down. The third shot wasn't hers. A specter from the center of the swarm fell.

"I'm...there." Tucker panted. He must have been running. "Sixth floor." A shot burst from somewhere, Sam couldn't pinpoint exactly where, in the sixth floor opposing her.

"Good one." Sam responded, watching the impact of the ectoblast dead center on a ghost's chest. "I'm-"

An eye met Sam's through her sniper hole. Glowing, red, and very angry.

"Shit!" Sam hissed automatically, dropping her gun. She fell on her butt as the eye vanished, replaced by a sharp-nailed hand phasing through the wall.

"Sam!" Tucker wailed in her ear.

"Sam?" Mrs. Fenton cried.

"Shit!" Sam cried again. She scrambled for her gun as the arm, and the body it was attached to, materialized through an ectoplasm-splattered wall and clawed for her face. "It's fine. Ke-"

She pulled the trigger just as the face emerged, narrow red eyes and a gaping, fanged mouth.

"Sam!"

The shot made contact, and the face was no longer. Sam fell back on her rear, and the gun clattered to the floor.

"SAM?"

"Keep shooting. I-it's fine. I'm fine." She said hoarsely. "I'm fine." She said again, to herself this time. "I'm fine." She rose shakily to her knees, slipped in a puddle of ectoplasm, and fell back to her rear. Her shoulders shuddered as she took a deep breath. "I'm moving up."

"What happened?" Maddie.

"I got spotted." Sam gulped at the puddle of oozing ectoplasm she had slipped in. The same ectoplasm that was now smeared all over her. "I took care of it. How's Valerie?"

"She's...shit, where is she?"

The phone went silent, aside from Tucker's quick breaths and inaudible mumbling.

"What do you mean 'where is she?'" Sam shrieked. She fell back to her knees, pressing her face against the sniper hole. Dust and bits of wall paper clung to her lashes. She blinked away what she could, and ignored the little fragments speckling the sight before her. A horrible sight already. Valerie, gripping the rim of the portal with one silver-clad hand, the other hand fervently blasting ectoblasts at the ghosts clinging to her. The whole swarm, it seems, tore at her suit, clung to her ankles, as she fought them off best she could with one hand.

"She's at the portal!" Sam shouted into the Fenton Phone. She was on her feet a second later, if that, and was already clambering through the wrecked apartment by the time Tucker's cursed reply sounded through her earpiece.

"I see her." Maddie's voice crackled to life.

"I can't get a good shot from where I am." Sam tripped over a broken plate, a forgotten meal still smeared over its porcelain surface, and smacked into the wall. Dust rained on her hair from the weakened ceiling above. A picture fell from the wall and shattered into a hundred shards of glinting glass. "Ow! Damn it." Sam cursed. She rubbed her shoulder where she had collided with the wall (yet another self-inflicted injury), but didn't slow. If there was a living room, there had to be a bedroom, too, and bedrooms always have windows. Right?

"-help!" Sam's earpiece chirped. Her stomach clenched at that voice.

"Valerie?"

"Someone shoot these assholes!" Valerie grunted, and a faint cry was heard through the phone. A ghostly cry.

"I'm trying!" Tucker

"Well try-Hey!" Sam winced and covered her ear as Valerie screamed. "Don't shoot me, idiot!"

"Sorry!"

A door, barely clinging to its hinges stood in between Sam and what she hoped was a bedroom, or at least some room with windows. Any other person probably would have stopped when they heard the wails echoing from it, but not Sam. She charged towards it, into it, through it, and-

"Woah." Sam screeched to a halt so fast, the rubber of her boots were probably disintegrated. She'd asked for a window, and gotten a lot more than that. There might have been a window at some point, if there had ever been a wall between the apartment and the eight story drop back to the city. But at that point, there was not. Sam took a gulp of cold, dust filled air as she stared out into the city. She inched forward, praying that the floor wouldn't give in like the wall, and a good part of the ceiling, had. The building groaned with her first step, creaked with her second, but didn't collapse. At least she had one thing to be thankful for.

Her feet kicked up roof fragments as she hurried as fast as she dared towards the edge of the apartment, the fine line between some degree of safety and a fatal drop. She knelt, gulped a breath of fresh air, and raised her gun to her eye. Valerie and her leeches were a toy car compared to the vortex she clung to. Sam watched Valerie thrash against the ghosts holding her heels over the barrel of her gun. She held her breath until she couldn't anymore. The shot rang as the air fled from her lungs. A colored splotch fell from the sky.

"Hang in there, Valerie." Maddie urged.

"I'm...trying.." Came Valerie's strained response. Sam watched her kick at her captors, refusing to release her hold on the portal. She'd gotten that far, and Sam doubted she would let go now. Sam fired a few more shots. And then a few more. She didn't bother trying to stay undetected. That hadn't worked too well before, and she didn't have any cover if she wanted to. There was nothing but open air between her, Valerie, the portal, and a brainwashed swarm of ghosts.

"Valerie, are the gauntlets working?" Maddie again. Bright green ectoblasts came from her direction. Each one found their target with deadly accuracy.

"I, um, I think so." Valerie grunted, and another clinging ghost fell.

"Are they firing?"

"Yeah, but.. but not much. The blasts aren't very strong."

Maddie was quiet.

"How long do I have to stay here until it powers up?" For the first time, Sam thought she heard something like desperation in Valerie's voice. It was several long, silent seconds before Maddie answered.

"I don't know."

"There's only a few left." Tucker added. "Valerie, can you hang on for that much longer?"

"That….better not.. be doubt I hear in your voice, Foley." Valerie panted

A grin twitched at Sam's lips.

"'Course not."

"Sam, where are you?" Maddie asked. Sam never lowered her gun as she responded.

"Fifth floor." She answered, her finger pulling the trigger at will. "The building with half the side blown off."

"Are there any more coming?"

Sam lowered her gun. For the sake of having both hands, she left it on the partially crumbled floor and inched even closer to the edge. On her hands and knees, she peeked her head into open air. Wind ripped at her hair, pulling silky strands of black from her ponytail.

"Not that I can see." Sam said into her Fenton phone. "Whatever is guarding the portal is currently clinging to Valerie's legs."

"That's good." Maddie sighed.

"Excuse me?" Valerie nearly shrieked.

"Stay still, Miss Gray. As still as you can." Maddie told her. "There's only a few more on your tail." Another went down as she spoke. "Get rid of these, and we're clear to g-"

The portal pulsed as if it was laughing at Maddie's very words, at their hope. It trembled and with a scream, Valerie lost her hold. She fell as the portal burst.

An army poured from it, enough to blot the entire portal out of sight. The three fighters perched high in the wreckage could only watch in horrible fascination as the sky filled with the multitude of Vlad's army. Sam reached for her gun, but didn't dare raise it. What good would one shot to against ten thousand? Her heart settled like a stone in her stomach. More and more, they poured from the portal until one last figure made its way through, a glowing, red staff poised overhead. Vlad. Plasmius.

"Bastard." Sam hissed through gritted teeth. Her jaws ached with fury. There he was. Floating like a king, head tilted back in horrid laughter as his own city fell to the claws of his ghost army.

"Bastard!" Sam screamed. The fervent protests of Maddie and Tucker filled her ears, but she didn't hear them. She was already on her feet, gun clutched in her white knuckled hands. She pulled the trigger.

Whether he heard her scream, or felt the shot coming at him, Vlad saw it coming. The shot bounced uselessly off a pink shield he'd formed in the air. It wasn't until Sam felt his cold eyes fall on her that she realized what she'd done. She'd given herself away.

He moved the staff with a flourish of red, and suddenly, ten thousand red eyes were trained on her. Uh oh.

"Sam!" Tucker's voice screamed in her ear. "RUN!"

She didn't need to be told twice. Sam turned her back and ran. She could hear them, a thousand shrieking screams, following behind her as she tore through the apartment. She didn't have much time, that was clear enough. Everything that stood in her way, the tipped sofa, walls, doors, chairs, were nothing to them. But to her, they were the obstacles between life and a very painful death at the claws of the already dead.

"Sam!" Now it was Maddie screaming, pleading her name. "Get to the hospital! Find shelter!"

Sam didn't think she had that long. She clutched her gun to her chest, not that it would do her much good. Something yanked at her hair. Something else tore at the back of her suit. She was dead. So dead.

"Valerie!" Sam begged for Valerie to answer. For Valerie's sake and her own.

"Sam? What's happening?" Sam nearly cried in relief.

"Never.." she gulped for a breath of air. She was already getting tired. "mind that. I..need help."

Laughter, screeching, wailing laughter filled her ears. It was close behind. She dared a quick glance over her shoulder. Her eyes met with vivid scarlet, no more than a few feet from her own. So they were really close.

"-at?"

"Val...if I jump..." she gulped, "can you catch me?"

"What?"

Her feet pounded down the fifth floor lobby, breath hoarse with exhaustion.

"There's a..window...I can..."

"Sam, are you crazy?"

"I'm coming, Sam!" Tucker's trembling voice flooded into her ears.

"NO!" she shouted, the demand coming out more as a croak. "Stay out of this, Tucker!" She warned, rounding the corner. The window was gone, and once again, so was the wall. A gnarled hand snatched a handful of her hair, throwing her to the ground. A scream burned in Sam's throat. The panicked voices of her friends shouted her name. Sam grappled for her gun and shot whatever she could. A hiss followed the shot, and Sam was back on her feet again, tripping, running, towards that gaping hole where a wall used to be.

"Val...the building..with the sid-"

"I see it. Half the building is gone."

"I'm-" a croaking cough filled Sam's throat. What was left of her voice faltered. It didn't matter. She had about thirty yards, and then a free fall. A dead end drop to, well..probably death. "Please, Valerie!"

Howls chased behind her, claws ripping at her back. They were toying with her now, she was sure of it. She was doomed, and they knew it as well as she did.

"Get off!" Valerie shouted. "Sam, don't jump. I can't..." her voice was drowned out static and howls. "I'm...Sam. I...stuck!"

"What?" Sam tried to ask, but only a weak croak came from her cracked throat. Don't jump. She had made that much out. But...

Hands grabbed her by the neck, and nails dug into her back. Her mouth opened in a scream, but nothing came out. What breath she still had escaped from her lungs in a huff as the hands threw her against the wall. Her head cracked against the wall and she saw stars.

"Sam!" She didn't know whose voice it was. Everything seemed to blend together. Screaming and cackling, cheers of jubilation, Maddie's voice shouting for her son.

"Danny..." Sam thought as she struggled to her knees. Red trickled into her eyes, smearing her world with a scarlet haze. "I'm sorry, Danny."

She swore she could hear his voice right then. She heard Maddie crying, or laughing. Danny's name again. Tucker shouting something she couldn't discern. Pain seared through her as nails raked down her back. She heard a scream, but wasn't sure if it was her own or the voices she was hearing in her head. Her eyes clouded with blood, she scrambled for her gun. She was finished, probably, but she could at least take a few more down with her.

The army laughed as Sam struggled to her knees, then to her feet. She shot blindly. She couldn't see what hit her, but she sure as hell felt it. The impact came from the side of her head, where the Fenton phone was still chirping in her ear.

"SAM-"

Was the last thing she heard before the Fenton phone was crushed by the impact, crumpling into pieces. She couldn't tell whose voice it was, but she had a horrible feeling it was going to be the last one she'd ever hear. The burn filled her stomach, and she smelled the odor of burning flesh as she soared through the air. An ectoblast, most likely, had buried itself in her stomach and sent her flying. Sam hit the ground and rolled. She gasped for breath. Her hands searched the floor for her gun. A gun that had been left behind when she'd been launched a dozen feet down the lobby. Fresh air filled her lungs, and, wiping the blood from her eyes, Sam cracked them open to see the open air in front of her. Shrieks and ghostly laughter behind her, certain death there, and an eight story drop in front of her. Certain death there, too. But if she was going to die, she was going to die on her own terms. She touched her finger to her ear, only to remember that her Fenton phone was in pieces. Taking a deep breath, and possibly her last, she struggled to her knees, and then to her feet. She could feel the ghosts stirring behind her, closing in on her once again. Bloody tears streamed down her face as she took a running start. She stared at the sky, never looking down and never giving herself a chance to reconsider. She was going to jump, and she was going to die, but it was on her own terms. Her last hope was that Valerie would be there to catch her.