The Fenton Ecto Cell Bettery (aka the Better Battery) was designed to draw power from not only an internal, pre-charged store of ectoplasm, but also from ambient, atmospheric ectoplasm. This meant that it would never run out of juice so long as it was in the Ghost Zone. The Specter Speeder was designed to travel in the Ghost Zone. Thus, the Betteries were the perfect power source for it. In theory.
In practice… Well, that just wasn't working out, and Maddie didn't know why. She gripped the underside of the dash and tried to push herself deeper beneath it to get a better view of the machinery.
"Maddie? You see anything?" asked Jack, who couldn't fit under the dash. He'd been inspecting as much of the engine as he could from the inside, which wasn't much. The Speeder wasn't designed to be serviced while free-floating in the Ghost Zone.
Which, now that she thought of it, was a serious oversight.
"Everything looks fine," said Maddie. "Except that it doesn't have any power. Nothing's lighting up, but all the connections look good. You?"
"I can't get anything to work. Anything. It's like… we're in some kind of technological dead zone. But that doesn't make sense."
Maddie pulled herself out to see Jack vigorously scratching his head and shedding dandruff everywhere. "Ghosts do tend to disrupt technology."
"But we fixed that. We designed all our weapons to work with that."
"We know there are things we don't know," said Maddie, "and it's always good to find new things! Though not pleasant to find them out like this…" They should really test their inventions more, honestly.
But it had been over a year of testing since they opened the portal. They had to jump in at some point, didn't they? That was the whole point of the portal.
She sighed. "Well, we didn't have a lot of forward momentum when the portal cut out." She looked out the window. "We could see if we can get out and engage our jetpacks."
"Uh, about that," said Jack. He swung open the door to the jetpack cabinet. The empty jetpack cabinet. "I may have forgotten to put them back after refueling them."
"Jack…"
"I know, I'm sorry."
Maddie massaged the bridge of her nose with her mostly-clean knuckles. This was a repeat of the handle inside the weapons vault. At least he wasn't pushing the blame for it back onto Danny or Jazz. That would definitely have started a fight.
On the other hand, there really wasn't any guarantee the jetpacks would even still be functional, so maybe it was for the best. For certain values of best.
She groaned.
There was a knocking sound. "Is that coming from the engine?" Maddie asked.
"No…" said Jack, slowly. "I think it came from the door…"
They both turned to stare. Something moved outside it. They shifted to get a better view out the window.
Phantom was out there, tapping on the door with a ten-foot pole.
"That little unnatural abomination," cursed Jack under his breath. "He's going to scratch the paint!"
Phantom apparently saw them and waved. "Hey!" he shouted, just loud enough to be heard through the walls of the Speeder. "Do you guys need a lift?"
Jack and Maddie turned to each other.
"How did he know we were here?"
"I don't know," said Jack. "Do you think he followed us?"
"It wouldn't be difficult, but I'm surprised he didn't show up on our detectors."
"He does seem to have the ability to drop off of them."
"True," said Maddie. "So, how do we handle this? Fenton bat?"
"I don't know, Mads. He might be, uh, sincere? That time with the ectofiltrator he did help me."
"That's one, single, datapoint. He's a been a menace every other time we've encountered him."
"I don't know that we have much other choice," said Jack, nodding towards the dead engines and the empty jetpack cabinet.
Maddie huffed out a sigh, then looked back at Phantom, who waved again.
"Fine. We still have to decide how to deal with him while we're cooperating with him. Or if he decides to show his true colors."
"Good idea."
.
Danny knew this had been a terrible, terrible idea the moment his parents opened the door to the Speeder armed to the teeth. Why did they always feel the need to do that? None of the weapons, with the possible exceptions of the Fenton Bat and the Fenton Crowbar could even work here.
How his parents had, on their first jaunt into the Ghost Zone, managed to run smack into the Time Locked Lands was beyond him. They had to go to the one place in the Ghost Zone that the Speeder wouldn't work and after coating the Speeder with some kind of anti-ghost spray that Danny absolutely refused to touch again. Ever. Especially in ghost form. Except with a ten-foot pole.
(If they'd left the spray off, he could have just pushed the Speeder back out of the Time Locked Lands. But, no, they had to make everything as difficult and painful as possible.)
"I am not carrying all that," said Danny, flatly.
(Especially because it would all turn back on once they left the Time Lost Lands, and if there wasn't a Specter Deflector under all that, he'd eat his own belt.)
"Then we aren't going anywhere with you!" proclaimed Maddie.
"You're stranded in the middle of the Ghost Zone. I don't think you have a choice."
"We do!"
"I could literally just fly over there and snatch you right now. Plus, again, stranded. Do you even have any food in there?"
"Of course we do!" said Maddie. "We aren't incompetent."
Jack looked guilty. Danny decided not to bring it up.
"Okay, but still, you're going to run out eventually, and then you'll still be floating in the Ghost Zone with no way to get out. You aren't going to get another friendly ghost coming by."
"I've never seen a friendly ghost to begin with!"
"Maddie…"
"I can just leave, you know," said Danny, planting his hands on his hips and bluffing for all he was worth. He was not leaving his parents here to be used as hostages or who knew what else.
Hopefully, they wouldn't call the bluff. They shouldn't. No sane, reasonable person would. He was their only way out of this mess. On the other hand, his parents had never been completely sane, reasonable people.
Danny thought his odds were about fifty-fifty. Which meant he could hope.
Jack and Maddie had an intense, whispered conversation. This, thankfully, lead to them divesting themselves of most of their visible weaponry. Which meant that they still had more guns on them than most professional soldiers during a firefight.
Well, it was better than he'd expected. But it was still too many.
"Take the Specter Deflectors off," he said. "What do you think will happen if I try to carry you and you have those on."
There was muttering.
"Come on, come on," said Danny, snapping his fingers. Which really shouldn't work through his gloves but did anyway.
Sometimes ghost nonsense was good for making lasers fly from your hands, and sometimes it was good for tiny aesthetic breaks in physics. It was a grab bag, really.
"Alright," said Danny. "I'm going to fly over and pick you up. Don't hit me."
Oh, jeez, he was not looking forward to carrying them all the way over to the portal. Sure, he could bench press a school bus, but there was a difference between holding up a school bus for a minute and carrying two people who hated his guts a mile through enemy territory while flying slowly enough not to give them windburn.
Sure, it'd probably only take a few minutes, even then, but those would be the longest few minutes in his entire life. Not counting his actual death.
.
Being carried by Phantom had to be the single worst experience in Jack's entire life.
It wasn't the speed or the lack of control – he loved carnival rides – or the height – Jack couldn't tell you how many buildings he'd jumped off in pursuit of ghosts – or even the fact that Phantom was a sinister specter, and ectoplasmic emanation, a putrid piece of protoplasm – he'd been carried by ghosts before, usually ones who were a lot more upfront about wanting to kill him.
Actually, Jack didn't know why he didn't like it. He just didn't.
Maybe it was just how uncomfortable it was? But Jack did way more uncomfortable things. Like interacting with his sister-in-law. Brr.
Maybe it was the lurking feeling behind every interaction he ever had with Phantom that there was something he just wasn't seeing, some hidden truth that would make everything about Phantom, every contradiction, every confusion, make sense.
Nah, that couldn't be it. Maddie would have figured it out by now. That's why they made such a great team. He noticed the things she didn't, and she noticed the things he didn't.
"You're going the wrong way," snapped Maddie.
Just like that!
Wait. That was a really bad thing.
"I'm not going the wrong way," snapped Phantom. "I'm avoiding Walker's prison. I don't know how he didn't catch you on your way out, but I'm not eager to be thrown in jail for a thousand years."
"Ghosts have jail?" asked Jack surprised.
"Depends where you are," said Phantom. "Walker isn't really a sheriff, though. There's no government behind him and he just makes up rules randomly so he can lock up anybody he doesn't like."
"Like you," observed Jack.
"Why doesn't it surprise me that you're even wanted by whatever passes for the law here?"
"First, rude. Secondly, there are realms in here that are just as organized and civilized as any country on Earth. Just because you opened your portal into the equivalent of post-apocalyptic Detroit doesn't mean it's all like this."
"I'll believe it when I see it," said Maddie.
"I could arrange that, you know," said Phantom, stilling.
Jack laughed nervously. "Maybe another time?" The ghost would do what it would do, but they didn't need to encourage him to bring them even deeper into the Ghost Zone. They were currently banking on Phantom's obsession with heroics to get them home, but if they changed the equation… Yeah, Jack didn't want to deal with the consequences of that.
Ghosts were like computers that ran only one program. One homicidal, destructive program.
It was like that thought experiment about an AI whose job was to maximize the number of paperclips. It'd just keep on making more and more paperclips until nothing was left. Which was why they had to be stopped.
Easier said than done, as Jack and Maddie had learned.
"You don't have to be so freaked out," muttered Phantom. "It isn't like I'm going to kidnap you or anything." He pretended to sigh.
What was the point of that? He had to know that Jack and Maddie wouldn't fall for his tricks. Actually, come to think of it, he was miming breathing, too, and had been the whole time.
Maybe that's why Jack was so uncomfortable. The constant undercurrent of deception.
Hmmm… something to think on.
"What's that?" asked Maddie, pointing.
"Uh," said Phantom, who did a double take.
Ooh, that wasn't reassuring.
.
Danny clenched his teeth, his parents' reactions to him weren't reassuring, and even less reassuring was the way Pariah's Keep had moved from its usual creepy location and to this new creepy location. Not that there were any non-creepy locations in the Ghost Zone. It was part of the place's charm.
No, really. Some part of Danny craved the creepiness. He was half-ghost, after all.
(Even if his idea of creepiness was, according to his friends, sort of lame.)
But back to the main point. The keep really, really shouldn't be here. And it was creeping him out.
It should be okay to just… fly past it, though, right? Just being in its airspace in the past hadn't done anything bad. So, flying by with his parents in tow shouldn't do anything either. Right?
Danny put on more speed, just in case. This coincided with a bunch of large ghost ravens (or were they crows?) dive bombing them and forcing him to land to defend himself and parents. The only land around being the rim of the island that supported the keep.
He knew something like this would happen. Maybe not exactly this, but he just knew he'd be attacked and everything would devolve into nonsense, and—
Huh. The birds weren't attacking him, just his parents. Oh, these were racist (mortalist?) birds. Gross. Trust Pariah Dark to have bigoted birds. He called up a shield to protect his parents. Whereupon they shot him in the back, shouting about how he betrayed them to the birds, because why not?
Why was his life like this?
He pushed himself up off the ground. Starbursts twinkled behind his eyes. Neither his parents nor the crows were in sight. The crows could have gone anywhere. His parents on the other hand…
There was only one place they could have gone.
Well. At least none of the nonsentient traps would work on them, seeing as they were humans. What were the odds that they'd run into one of the sentient defenders?
Well… considering the ravens?
Yeah. That'd be about one hundred percent.
.
"Maddie, I don't know about this…" said Jack, examining the tall, vaulted ceiling.
"We had to get away from Phantom. This was the only way to go."
"But he came here for a reason, Mads," whispered Jack, tip-toing.
"Yeah, this is definitely a trap. But what can we do?"
"Jack? Maddie? This is not a place you want to wander around in! Oh, holy—" There was a loud thump.
Maddie grabbed Jack's hand and pulled him forward. "We have to get away from him."
"Come on! This is a floating island! I'm your only way off! Why are you like this?"
"He has a point," said Jack.
Maddie stopped. "I guess he does."
"This is literally the worst place you could have picked to run away!" A sound like a very large door opening and closing reached their ears. "This is Pariah Dark's place! Where did you even go?"
"Mads?"
"Yeah?"
"Who's Pariah Dark?"
"I think that was the name of the ghost that sucked the town into the Ghost Zone a few months ago."
"Please, guys! I'm trying to help you here! This place is ultra-dangerous! You could accidentally – yikes! – wake up Pariah Dark."
"Maybe we should…"
"Yeah," said Maddie, "maybe we should."
"Phantom!" called Jack. "Phantom! We're over—" The floor opened up underneath them and they fell into the dark.
.
Maddie woke to a dark room, tied to a chair. She noticed the faintly glowing ghost in front of her and jolted backwards.
The ghost wore a set of painted and engraved plate armor, a pair of lavender-white eyes glowing from behind the slats of its visor. A knight, of sorts, Maddie supposed.
"You…" droned the ghost in a painfully stereotypical ghostly moan. "Enemies of the king… why have you come here?"
"Huh?"
That was Jack's voice. He was tied behind her, apparently.
"We don't have anything to say to you," snapped Maddie.
"Uh," said Jack. Something twisted behind Maddie. "Are you a friend of Phantom?"
"A friend? A friend?"
"I'm going to take that as a no," muttered Maddie.
The door of the room flew off its hinges. "Fright Knight!" shouted Phantom, pointing a glowing finger. "Wait, you aren't Fright Knight. Who are you, and what do you want with my- With, uh, the Fenton ghost hunters? Who I don't know very well at all. Promise."
"What," said the ghost.
"What," said Maddie.
"What," said Jack.
"Okay, forget everything I just said." He gestured at the ghost. "Who are you?"
"My name is Paladin, my liege."
"Okay, okay, cool, cool. I- Wait, what? What did you call me?"
"My liege?"
Phantom looked like he was having an existential crisis.
"Maddie was right!" exclaimed Jack, who couldn't see Phantom's face. "You did lead us into a trap!"
"What? No? I've never even met this guy before! You are a guy, right?"
"Yes, my liege."
"Right. I'm going to put that on the backburner and freak out about it later. How are you- Why are you—" Phantom shook his head. "Why are you here in Pariah's Keep?"
"It's your keep."
"Since when?"
"Say what now?" asked Jack and Maddie at once.
"Look, this is news to me, too. But, back to the question. You. The keep. Why? I mean, you weren't here before."
"That is because Pariah sealed me, my liege. When you defeated him, I was released and immediately swore fealty to the true king. You."
"I am so freaking out right now, but we'll revisit that. Later. Right now, I have to get these guys home."
"But they have hostile intentions towards your person, my liege!"
"Everyone has hostile intentions towards me. I'm honestly surprised you haven't attacked me yet."
"Ah. My liege, perhaps you should seek the services of a priest, if all your experiences with new people are such."
"Is that the medieval equivalent of a therapist?"
"I fear I do not know what that is. Why do you ask?"
"Because the last time I talked to one of those, they purposefully picked at every one of my insecurities and then tried to murder my, uh. Someone close to me."
"An evil counselor, then," said the knight, gravely.
"I want to agree with you, but somehow I feel like you're talking about something completely different than the image in my head."
"That may be true, my liege. Doubtless, you are very wise."
Maddie was… lost.
Very lost.
Even so, her prerogative was escaping. She started twisting, trying to get to the knots around her wrists.
"Did you, uh, pilot the castle out here?"
"Yes. I sensed that mortal enemies of the king, that's you—"
"I will debate that as soon as my brain stops screaming at me."
"—had entered the Realm."
"Right. Yeah. Thank you. But I can handle these guys. And I need to get them home. Please. I made a deal with them."
"With these?"
"Hey!" said Jack, offended.
"I mean, I use the term deal pretty loosely."
"Hey!"
"But yes. Please. Just. Dang. How did you tie them up that quickly?"
"It's a hobby."
"Do you mind if I take the chairs?"
"They are your chairs, my liege."
"I'm still not used to that."
"Are you quite certain you want to take them? And just… Let them loose? The dungeon here is very functional. We even have an oubliette."
"Raincheck. But thank you. Really, I mean it." Phantom flew behind Maddie, and she protested as the chair she was in was yanked upward. "Uh… I might have gotten turned around a time or two, so if you could…"
"Of course! The keep does seem to have sustained some damage, so we will have to take some detours."
"Phantom! Phantom! Put us down and untie us."
"Nah, I think I like this better. Your kids can untie you once I bring you back!"
"You're going to drag us all the way through the Ghost Zone?"
"That's the plan."
.
The rest of the flight was surprisingly pleasant. No one attacked, and his parents were much easier to carry in the chairs. Sure, they struggled, but the struggling was much more manageable than the wriggling from before.
They were mad at him. But they were always mad at him. So.
No loss, really.
With the utmost carefulness, Danny set them down in the middle of the lab, still tied up, and then began zapping then tossing their most troublesome inventions into the gaping maw of the portal while they screamed at him.
Normally, he wouldn't do this, especially after successfully rescuing his parents and hopefully raising their opinion of him, but some of those inventions were painful. Like. A lot painful. And dangerous. Also, he was doing his level best to avoid thinking about the whole 'king' thing.
Which he couldn't do forever.
Especially since Jazz walked down the stairs, probably drawn by the screaming, to see Danny shoving half of the Ghost Catcher through the portal sans-strings.
"Uh," said Danny.
"Get that ghost, Jazzy-pants!"
Danny vanished and fled upstairs.
.
Jazz had seen many strange things in her life, but that scene was one of the weirder ones.
It took some time to untie her parents, longer to extract herself from the ensuing rant and their attempt to salvage their equipment from Danny's all-too-explicable rampage. Honestly, she was surprised Danny hadn't snapped earlier.
She opened the door to his room. It was empty. She squinted. He was not just leaving her hanging like that, with no context to what happened other than their parents' ranting. She opened her door.
Danny was lying on his side on the middle of her rag rug, hugging Bearbert Einstein.
"A ghost told me I was king and that I needed a priest."
Oh boy.