A week after reporting to Plasmus, Red and Technus were ready to try their first cloning attempt. The power gem had been hooked to a low level laser above the pool of pure ecto energy. The laser beam would travel through the gem, draw the near limitless energy from the gem, and dump it into the pool. Red set a small container into a needle on a swing arm. They were going to use the DNA from the teen they had captured from the music hall fire for the test.
Technus wiped some sweat from his brow as he quickly typed in equations. "Are you sure you want to do this?"
"No one has ever risen to power by playing it safe." Red slid the safety glass into place. "If this works, he will have his apprentice and son."
"Even if this test gives us a viable clone, there is no guarantee the next attempt will. We are essentially rolling the cosmic dice and hoping for double sixes."
"Not a gambling ghost?"
"Not when I can expect anything from a normal human boy to a giant blob creature."
Red nodded and walked over to the master controls. "That is why Skulker is on standby." He gripped the master switch. "Here we go!" He pulled the switch and the laser began energizing the pool. It took less than an hour for the pool to reach maximum energy saturation. Red reached for the button that would dump the DNA sample into the pool. "What are the odds of success?"
"I have told you a thousand times, I have no clue. I had to do some major calculus just to make an educated guess on how to set this experiment up."
"Well, this should be fun." Red pressed the button and backed away from the controls.
The swing arm moved and dumped the content of the container into the center of the pool. The pool began to bubble wildly and change colors. The ecto energy began to grow and the protective glass began to crack. Both Red and Technus flew out of the room as it exploded.
Vlad Plasmus was sitting on his throne with his floating computer in front of him. His throne room shook and the power cut out. "What is going on?" He stood up as the doors that led to the science section burst open and a wave of glowing green slime flowed toward him. "Oh fish sticks!" He threw out his hands and a purple energy dome appeared around him. The slime hit the dome and flowed around Plasmus. For the time, he was stuck until the level of the slime dropped.
Locked in the prison area, Johnny 13 was board out of his mind. Kitty was locked in the cell next to him, but both had to yell in order to hear each other through the wall. Eventually, her voice grew horse and she had stopped. Plasmus hadn't gone through with his experiments he had promised the both of them, but he knew that it was only a matter of time. The single light that was embedded in the ceiling flickered and shut off. An alarm went off in the distance and a red emergency light shone through the small window slot in the door.
Johnny stood up and pounded on the wall that adjoined Kitty's cell. "Kitty?" He waited for a few moments with no response. He yelled louder, but still didn't get a response. A third attempt was stopped with a bubbling sound coming from the door.
A green slime began to seep into the room from the edges of the door. He jumped onto his cot as the slime covered the floor. The small drain in the center of the cell was inadequate for the amount of the slime coming in. The slime flashed with black light and began to shrink into a form on the floor. The form it was taking was an exact match of his shadow that was being cast on the floor. The slime seem to vanish into his shadow and his shadow slowly began to take a three dimensional shape.
"What is going on?"
It rose up and floated in front of Johnny. It looked like a black ghost with a ghostly tail instead of legs. A pair of glowing red eyes appeared with a mouth full of sharp green teeth. It seemed content to let Johnny freak out about it for a few minutes.
"Are you my shadow?" The shadow nodded. Johnny reached out and poked the shadow. It was like sticking his finger into ice cold gravy. "So what now?" The shadow glanced at the door to the cell. "Can you open the door?" The shadow nodded again and flew at the door. It slipped through the edges of the door as easily as the slime had. The door's electronic lock sparked and the door swung open. "Cool!"
Johnny stepped out of his cell and was heel deep in a river of that glowing green slime. The alarm was louder and he could hear shouting from other parts of the base. His shadow appeared next to him. "Now open Kitty's cell!" The shadow repeated the move on the door and it opened. Johnny found Kitty curled up on her cot. She was shivering, from fear of the slime or from withdraw symptoms, he couldn't be sure. "Kitty?"
Her face seemed to brighten when she saw him. "Johnny!" She started to get off the cot, but stopped short of stepping into the slime. "What is going on? What is this stuff?"
"Not sure, Kitten. But we better not waste this chance to bail."
"Is that stuff safe?"
Johnny glanced back and looked for his shadow. It seemed to have returned to its two dimensional place it had before it had transformed. "Not sure exactly." Kitty smiled and Johnny groaned. He scooped the girl up in his arms and made his way down the hall.
They passed by several other cells, but didn't hear anyone trying to escape. As they turned a corner, they were spotted by two ghosts. SWAT ghosts that had defected from Walker's Prison, they wore football gear instead of police armor. They charged at the pair. Johnny's shadow rose up and flew at the ghosts. The ghosts casted shadows and Johnny's shadow flew into one of them. The ghost in question suddenly stopped moving and rammed his fist into his partner's face. An argument broke out as they exchanged blows. Johnny slinked by them as well as he could with Kitty in his arms. When they were clear, Johnny's shadow flew up and return to its normal place.
Kitty couldn't believe her eyes. "Johnny, what was that?"
"My shadow, I think."
Johnny grunted with effort and moved as fast as he could. The alarm seemed to grow louder as he reached an impasse, a gray door to his left or another hall in front of him. Kitty reached for the knob and found it unlocked. Johnny kicked the door open and stepped down into a pool of slime that was waist deep. "Oh this is just great!"
"Johnny!"
"What?" Kitty pointed and Johnny looked up at a large spinning turbine as small bolts of electricity sparked from wires on the ceiling. "Damn!"
"Welcome to the backup generator." Johnny turned and saw Eyevar's large main eye floating in the doorway. It was flanked by two smaller basketball sized eyes. "I don't know how you managed to escape, but you're going right back."
"Sorry, freak. But my girl and I are splitting this place."
The eyes began to glow red. "Oh, you will be splitting, but not in the way you desire." All three eyes fired beams of red energy. The hit the slime in front of the pair and the force from the blasts knocked Johnny off of his feet and Kitty flew from his arms. She landed a few feet away in the slime.
Johnny spat out some of the slime that managed to get into his mouth. "You'll pay for that freak. Shadow!" His shadow rose up and flew at the floating eyes. Unfortunately, none of the eyes were casting a significant shadow for it to take control of. The shadow dodged eye blasts and flew into the shadow of a fire axe that was on the wall. A thin black line shot from the axe and Johnny grabbed it. A shadowy form of the axe appeared in his hand. Johnny gave it a test swing. The real axe flew off the wall and matched his swings from several feet away. "Nice!" He swung the shadow axe and the real one flew at the large main eye of Eyevar.
"Fool!" Eyevar's main eye flew low and fired a beam that knocked the axe towards the ceiling. The axe spun in the air and sliced through a few of the overhead wires. They sparked and one large one fell towards the slime.
"Kitty!" Johnny tried to reach the downed girl, but the two smaller eyeballs fired pink energy beams and the beams wrapped around his arms and lifted him up.
The large main eye took careful aim at Johnny. "Now to end this mild annoyance."
The large wire hit the pool and it was instantly electrified. Kitty screamed out as green and white energy sparked all around her body. The slime around her began to bubble and swirl. The level of the slime seemed to drop a bit as the girl's screams intensified as the energy shot through her body. Eyevar's smaller eyes still held Johnny in place, but his main eye was transfixed on the sight bellow. The backup generator died and so did the energy from the wire. The room was dark save for the light coming from Kitty. Her skin had taken a bluish tint and her normally brown flat hair had turned green and slightly spiked.
"Let go of my Johnny!" She yelled and large bolts of electricity flowed from her hands. The bolts tore through the smaller eyes and they exploded with loud pops. Eyevar cried out in pain and floated away. Johnny fell from the air and managed to land on his feet. The pool of slime only came to his knees. Kitty stumbled and fell down.
"Kitty!" Johnny pulled her out of the pool. The bluish tint had lightened, but her hair was the same. "Kitten?"
Her eyes fluttered open for a few seconds. "I want to go home." She passed out.
"Whatever you want!" Johnny picked up Kitty. "Shadow!" His shadow flew down from the ceiling. "Clear a path!" The shadow nodded and flew down the hall Johnny had passed up earlier. Eyevar was floating near a corner, still crying about his lost eyes. "Another time freak!"
Johnny ran out of the room and down the hall. He passed by a few ghosts who were slumped on the floor. A pair of sliding double doors had been wedged open ahead of him. He met his shadow as he walked through them and found himself in a very large vehicle bay. Cars, tanks, and even a few planes sat in the darken room. Even with the poor light, Johnny found something he liked. A large bike was sitting off to one side. Its back was enlarged with what looked like a trio of jet engines and he spotted a pair of laser blasters mounted on the front axle. A large metal skull adored the handle bars with the eyes serving as headlights.
"Now that is a bike." He set Kitty on the back of the seat as he sat down and grabbed the handle bars. His shadow wrapped around both of their waists to keep Kitty from falling off. Johnny smiled as he pressed the start button and the bike roared to life. He flipped a small switch mounted on the gas tank and the bike started to hover off the ground.
"Nice!" He found a pair of triggers above the break levers on the handle bars. He pressed them and the laser blasters fired and shot a hole in the large bay door. Sunlight streamed from the hole. He laughed as he fired several more times until the hole was large enough for the bike to fly through. "I'll be back to settle things." He flew the bike out of the bay.
It took two hours for the slime to settle and for it to be moved to the lower area of the base. Red and Technus stood in front of Plasmus' still slimy throne. The ghost lord was standing in front of them. Skulker and Spectra stood ready to deliver whatever punishment Plasmus was going to dish out. Amazingly, not much anger could be seen on his face.
"Let's see! My entire science wing of my base is completely destroyed, untold damage has been inflicted throughout, the power gem is missing, and two of my prisoners have escaped."
"And yet you don't seem that mad about it." Red slapped Technus over the head.
"While I am can say for certain that the cloning idea is being thrown out, some interesting results did occur." He glanced at the still sulking Eyevar. The ghost mutant had recalled all of his remaining eyes and now stood in his humanoid form. It would be awhile before he would be willing to send them out again. "Both of those losers have developed interesting abilities after being exposed to the ecto energy."
"But why only those two?" Spectra walked over to Plasmus. "Plenty of ghosts were hit with that sludge."
Skulker pounded his metal fist against the wall. "Let me hunt those whelp downs and bring back their corpses." It had been his bike that Johnny and Kitty had stolen.
Plasmus sighed and waved the pair off. "They will show up sooner or later. All questions can be answered then." He turned to Red. "How goes the reprograming of the boy?"
"I have never done such a massive replacement of memories. But I believe he will be ready soon. And I am developing some new techniques that will make it easier to bring Danny to your side."
"Good!" He sighed as he looked at his throne. "Clean all this up." He walked out of the room.
Red sighed. "Technus, clean all this up!" He flew through the ceiling.
Technus twirled his power staff. "Skulker, clean all this up!"
"And why should I do that?"
Technus smirked and pressed a small button on his staff. Skulker's right hand curled into a fist and began to repeatedly punch him in the face. "Because I built your suit and can control its every function." He pressed the button again and started for the destroyed science wing.
Skulker turned to Spectra who gave him a just try it look and walked past him. The ghost hunter sighed and got to work.
