I'm coming off hiatus! It lasted longer than I thought it would, and my buffer still isn't quite where I want it to be, but I'm under somewhat less stress now. Yay! I shouldn't need to go on hiatus again for a while.
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Chapter 233: Contact With the Enemy
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The president watched as a stand of trees near the GIW facility came to life, roots bursting from the ground to grapple GIW watch towers and tear weapons and people both to the ground. He watched as green fire splashed the sides of buildings. Watched as horrible, glowing birds stooped from the sky, talons outstretched. Watched as an army of literal, personified death rolled over an army that had been equipped and trained to fight exactly that.
He wanted to curse, but instead just, sort of… croaked. Hoarsely.
Could the ghosts distinguish between the GIW and the American people at large? Would they distinguish? In any case, the GIW had been partially funded by government, taxpayer, money, and the agency had often characterized themselves as part of the government.
The actual army wouldn't stand a chance.
Why had the universe decided to dump this in his lap? Why couldn't it wait until he was out of office?
A bright flash of orange light overtook the screen. When the camera could focus again, the GIW were wheeling something like a giant antenna out into the middle of the bloodbath. Many of the ghosts that had just been raining havoc were now on the ground, twitching.
"We need that," said the president. "Hey, hey, do we know what that is? We need some kind of defense against… this."
"We'll look, sir."
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"It's an ectoplasmic signal, we can cancel it out with interference, just like light or sound waves," said Mar. "We just need to figure out the frequency, and get the right offset…"
"Great," said the librarian, her teeth clenched as she hid behind a tree. "How?"
"Uhm. I'm more of a teacher than an engineer…"
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The Unstoppable Mailman paused. The primary intended recipient of his entirely justified rage… was not here.
He tugged gently on his reigns. The others could take care of this place, for now. He was off to find the leader of the GIW. After all, with a lizard like this, it wasn't enough to cut off the tail. You had to put a knife into its head.
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The former members of Circus Gothica, who currently belonged to the Cirque de Guerre were very, very capable of recognizing Lydia's tattoos.
They were also, as it turns out, still interested in revenge. Against Lydia and her master.
Surely, they could track her down and continue their role as the army's back up. It was unlikely that Lydia herself was part of the fighting.
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Getting detained by the National Guard, Alicia had to admit, was a new one.
She'd been leading her group away from the main fight, intending to regroup, when the much more heavily armed men had surrounded and called out to them. Now, Alicia was no fan of the government by any means, but she and the boys were here on account of the GIW, not the National Guard, and they weren't exactly keen on dying, either.
They surrendered.
They were then bustled away and subjected to a number of tests designed to determine whether or not they were ghosts in disguise, all the while there was a full-blown war happening not a mile away. The neatly camouflaged tents fluttered with every shrieking, screaming explosion.
Alicia itched for her gun. It had been taken away.
Maybe it was for the best. The battle had been going on for hours, and, unlike half of the other combatants, she was only human.
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Danny drafted an introductory letter to the president and wondered who should deliver it, since the Unstoppable Mailman seemed to be away. He really needed this to be delivered in a timely matter, all things considered.
Perhaps he could send a copy on with Sam. There had to be a military presence other than the GIW's around Amity Park at this point. They'd read the letter, of course, and the contents would probably be leaked faster that way, but the president would still hear about it, still see it. Maybe. Danny had to confess that he didn't know much about—
Oh, he was dumb.
He got up, stretched, and walked out of his room.
"Do you know where Sojourn is?" he asked Fright Knight, who had been half guarding the door, half lecturing Damien about how to properly care for chain mail.
… Was Fright Knight thinking of acquiring chain mail for Damien? That was… interesting.
Very interesting.
Once again, Danny wondered if there was some weird fate thing going on, assigning Phantoms to Ancients. Maybe it was a 'member of the royal family' thing.
(Royal Phamily.)
(No. Bad brain. Stop that.)
"I believe he was speaking to some of the merchants off-island. He said something about wanting to find something nice for Chief Frostbite, on account of his induction into the Council of Ancients."
"I assume 'something nice' is a euphemism for 'prank.'"
"Presumably, yes," agreed Fright Knight.
"Do you know where Nephthys is?"
"No, but I heard," he paused. "Dan," he said finally, followed by another long pause. "Mention 'terrorizing old geezers.' It is, however, my understanding that they will be back before too long. The sentencing hearing will be starting soon, after all."
"Yeah," said Danny, uneasily. "Maybe I should leave a message with their advocates…"
"In the absence of other retainers, that is often the best option."
"In the absence of other retainers," said Damien. "Isn't that the only option?"
Fright Knight's face was covered, and he had a good grasp of the emotional energy be put out, but every line of his body language read pleased.
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"Sure," said Nephthys, rolling the magazine of farming implements she had been perusing into a tube, "I can drop a letter on the president's desk." She paused. "Which president?"
(Reports of a 'female grim reaper and a Disney Hades lookalike' riding a so-called 'death tractor' through several highly exclusive golf courses were widely considered to be a hoax spurred on by the news about Amity Park.)
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As everyone who would otherwise be in the oval office was currently watching a ghost army and the GIW attempt to beat each other into the after-afterlife, no one noticed the letter until several hours later.
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Freakshow giggled.
"You gentlemen seem to be in a bit of a predicament." He was, of course, referring to the ghostly horseman bearing down on them as if he were late to the apocalypse.
"If you don't have a solution," said the agent supervising him, "shut up."
"But I do have a solution," said Freakshow, grinning. "I just need a little help in order to implement it."
The agent looked out the tiny back window of the prisoner transport van again and let a curse slip from between his teeth. "I need to check with the boss," he said.
A few minutes later, he took his hand off his earpiece, looking annoyed. "What do you need?"
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They had forgotten, Elastica noted, how fast Lydia could be. Neither Goliath nor Green Kid had the speed to keep up with her, and Elastica couldn't match her frankly ludicrous pace while also fighting off her tattoos.
Even so, it seemed as if Lydia was tiring. Goliath and Green kid both had good stamina, they had to, after working for Freakshow for so long, so if they could wear her out…
Elastica had not forgotten Lydia's ability to create tornados with her tattoos, and, even so, the sudden appearance of one caught her off guard. When the dust cleared, Lydia was gone.
And Elastica and the others were miles away from their assigned location.
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"Ah, monkeys," said Skulker, observing the situation through his binoculars.
"What?" asked Johnny, leaning over his handlebars.
The Far Frozen warrior who had brought the situation to his attention grimaced and Johnny's questions, which was a very intimidating expression on someone who was well over eight feet tall and had fangs several inches long.
"They're being led into a trap," said Skulker, gesturing. "Johnny, get your boys, see if you can get them to pull back."
"You got it!" said Johnny, lazily saluting.
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The GIW were not above booby-trapping their own base. Especially not when everyone important had already retreated.
The bomb was based on a failed portal design.
This had consequences.
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Some distance away, the Unstoppable Mailman paused, reigning his horse in for just long enough to look back at the greenish plume of smoke rising from the GIW headquarters.
Freakshow leaned out of the prisoner transport, grinning.
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Johnny laid several meters from his bike, Shadow wrapped around him. Shadow was leaking ectoplasm, banners of greenish black mist streaming into the air. Johnny's head pounded. He hadn't felt this crappy since that one time he'd totally totaled his bike—and himself along with it.
Between that and the fires, he felt like death warmed over, wheeeeeeeee.
He put his hand to his chest. No core injury. A few days of rest and he'd be fine. More or less. Assuming that Kitty didn't beat him up for 'recklessness.'
"Hey," he said, reaching up to touch Shadow, "buddy, you okay?"
Shadow hissed.
"Haha, okay, yeah, dumb question." He hauled himself into a sitting/floating position, just in time for a white GIW van to roll up. The back doors were thrown open, revealing what looked like an industrial vacuum cleaner, except with far too many glowing bits.
"Aw," said Johnny. "Heck."
He was sucked in.
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Skulker started cursing.
Oh, he had no doubt the ghosts would carry the day, but he also had no doubt that at least some of those vans and jets and hovercraft and tanks would get past them. Too many of his units had broken ranks to chase the enemy when it appeared that they were weak and disorganized.
The wounded were being vacuumed up.
He recalled Desiree's warning about the GIW, recalled what Phantom had told her.
This was… bad.
Internally, he traced the most probable line of future events. Some of the GIW would escape with prisoners. Phantom would be informed. Phantom, newly crowned king and therefore technically responsible for all of them, would go absolutely feral. Exactly what would happen after that, Skulker didn't know. He wasn't Clockwork, and he sure as heck wasn't an Observant.
This was going to suck.
"Call up everyone on standby," he said, "we have to catch all of those vacuums." And hope the Cirque du Guerre did their jobs.
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"Why," said the president, sounding aggrieved, "do they have hovercraft and jetpacks?" He had asked the question before, most notably at the meeting several days ago when they went over some of the more troubling line items in the GIW's budget. "How come we don't have jetpacks?"
No one answered him. Not even when he began to pull at his usually perfect but currently unkempt hair.
Presidents, he reminded himself, much like elementary school teachers, did not swear in public.
"We need to stop them from leaving," he said. "Any vehicle that tries to pass our perimeter needs to be stopped. For the flying vehicles… Do we have enough air support? It isn't enough air support. Get the Air Force on the line. We need this contained." He sighed. "At least you got all the… civilian combatants?"
Every military person in the room winced at the president's misuse of terminology. He was, frankly, too tired to care.
"There's no way to confirm that, sir, but we got all of them we could see. Apparently, they live in Spitoon. Closest town. We're still not sure why they decided to do… this."
"Joy," said the president, flatly. "Just the usual, then. We don't know anything. How do we still not know anything? We made this problem!"
"Sir," said the one PR person in the room. "You really shouldn't say that."
The president rubbed his eyes. How much longer before he could get the doctor to prescribe him some of the serious stay-awake drugs?
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Danny and Tucker waved goodbye to Sam, most of their classmates, and the majority of the Amity Parkers who had only come to testify in the main trial as they passed through the portal. It had taken some negotiating with Nephthys, because apparently official correspondence between heads of state was fit for her dignity but being 'a glorified bus' was not.
Except Danny was pretty sure she was just messing with him. At least fifty percent sure. Or messing with Dan. She seemed to derive great joy from that pastime.
Danny had to bring up Sojourn, and how he would help in order for her to relent.
The portal closed, and Nephthys cheerily put her hands on her hips. "Now then," she said, and didn't get any farther. A wave a nausea rolled over Danny, and she seemed to feel it too.
Danny swallowed and blinked.
"I don't know what that was," he said, faintly, crown blazing blue over his head, "but I'm going to blame it on the GIW."
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The colonel scratched his head, looking at the captured van and the equipment in it. If these were human prisoners, he'd have some idea of what to do. If they were just bodies, he'd know what to do.
But… the undead? Yeah. He had no idea on what the policy or protocol or whatever for that was.
He hoped the higher ups would come up with one soon.