School couldn't have dragged on longer, Danny thought to himself as the bell rang to leave. Lancer wouldn't relent with the math questions, and today, of all days, he needed to add insult to his injuries ghost fighting by having Danny demonstrate the use of the quadratic formula. He bungled his way through it, somehow. Grumbling to himself, he made a mental reminder to pay Lancer some invisible payback later. School always seemed harder when Danny didn't eat, and now, meeting Sam at the Nasty Burger, would help immensely.
As Danny expected, Sam didn't eat, she just sipped water slowly while Danny nearly inhaled his food. He couldn't express the relief to himself, knowing his stomach was going to be on a rocky trip later, eating so much fried food.
"I was really worried about those Harbringers first, but maybe those two you ran into last time were just strong. You were able to beat that one at school easily." Sam cheered.
"That's because you weren't fighting it. It must look easier then it actually is." Danny sipped his soda.
"But you were still winning, and you weren't in serious condition."
"I think he was just egotistical and weak." Danny responded.
"Don't be so pessimistic, that's what I do." Sam joked. "You look much better smiling."
"Argh, now you sound like my mom." Danny groaned.
"Well, you've finally eaten today. Feel better?"
"Yeah. If I knew I was attacked at lunch, I wouldn't have skipped breakfast."
"I think I'll come home with you. We should really prepare together for that English test."
"I could ask Jazz." Danny stated.
"Jazz would tell you that you need to do it yourself." Sam reminded, and Danny shrugged. She probably would, she was almost insistent that Danny do his work by himself. It was the only way to do it right, she had always told him.
After a quick motor-scooter ride home, Danny and Sam hit the books. Hamlet was boring and impossible to read, but as the two of them muddled through and translated it into something they could understand, Danny found himself interested in it, if only slightly. As he tried to make sense of a long speech by Hamlet stating that "Frailty, thy name is woman," Danny's ghost sense, like a smoky omen, drifted from his mouth.
"Another." Sam, catching the ghost sense, groaned.
"Just wait right here, I'll be right back." Danny went ghost and turned himself intangible. The upstairs was quiet; Jazz was writing an essay quietly in her room, so Danny figured the ghost was in the basement. And his instinct wasn't wrong. There was a hooded figure fiddling with the controls to the Fenton Ghost Portal, but since the Genetic Lock was still in place, there was little it could do more then fiddle.
"Hey, haven't you ever heard of knocking on the door before entering someone's house?" Danny asked, while simultaneously blasting with an ectoblast. The blast caught the thing in the head, causing it's hood to fall down.
"I am the Harbringer of Judgment." The new one spoke. Again, he sounded nothing like the first two from the Nasty Burger. As the black robe dissipated from around the figure, Danny could see that this one was dressed as a priest, which he thought was strange. But, strange or not, Danny would have to send the priest to his maker.
"Foolish child. I am not like that fool you fought earlier." Judgment retaliated with his own volley of blasts, but Pain had shot his a lot faster; Danny found them easy to dodge. Only the last one he fired came close to hitting, and, although it only grazed his shoulder, it still hurt like a mother. What they lacked in speed, they made up for in punch.
"So I'll just beat him fast." Danny reasoned to himself. He fired another blast, but Judgment simply clutched his hands to the cross he wore around his neck, and a green shield of ectoplasmic energy surrounded him. Danny's blast was harmlessly absorbed.
"Fool. You cannot hope to penetrate the shield of my power?"
"Heh, don't you mean God's power?" Danny taunted. "You're not much of a priest, are you?"
"This has nothing to do with God, boy!" Judgment was actually quite angered by Danny's taunting, and responded with another string of blasts. Danny had hoped they would have been blocked by his own shield, but they passed through it as if it wasn't there. Danny dodged again, but the last one had reflected off of one of the lights and nailed Danny in the arm. He screamed in pain.
"I've gotta be more careful." Danny thought, but careful or not, he had to be more careful. That last blast had really hurt his arm, making it hard to move it to shoot an ectoblast or punch.
"Maybe…" Danny thought, turning intangible and dashing forward, extending his uninjured right arm forward. He turned tangible at the last second, hoping that Judgment's shield, although it blocked ectoblasts, would not block a straight right hook. But fortune would not favor the ghost boy, as he bounced off the shield and flew straight backward, allowing Judgment time to fire a powerful blast at Danny, who could not avoid it this time. It caught him right in the chest, and it felt like a sucker punch from Dash, if Dash punched with the strength of three men. Slamming into the wall, Danny was gasping for breath, the vicious attack barely allowing him to stand. But Danny, attempting to move his crippled left arm as best he could, clasped his hands together to unleash the most powerful blast he could. It connected squarely with Judgment's shield, who only laughed as the futile blast fell harmlessly into the shield. But the shield quivered, as if it was still water being hit with a rock.
"I must be overloading it." Danny thought to himself. "I'll just keep it up. C'mon, just a little longer." He willed his body, which trembled and ached more then ever, to keep up.
"What is going on downstairs?" Sam heard Jazz from upstairs shout, as she made her way downstairs. She panicked. She didn't go to the basement because Danny didn't want her to be at risk, but she definitely heard the fight. Although she couldn't tell who was on the losing end, it definitely seemed like someone wasn't going to last much longer. Sam had faith in Danny, but she was still worried. Danny would want her to stall Jazz and prevent her from being in the crossfire. Jazz came into the kitchen.
"I guess it's just an invention of your dad's going haywire, I wouldn't worry about it."
"Where's Danny?" Jazz asked.
"Bathroom." Sam lied coolly.
"That can't be an invention, Mom and Dad just called and said they wouldn't be home until later tonight."
"Uhh…well…"
"Sam." Jazz insisted. "What do you know about what's going on downstairs?"
"Nothing." She insisted, which was only a half-truth. She knew there was a ghost fight with Danny, but that was it.
"I'm going downstairs." Jazz stated, turning towards the basement door. Sam immediately grabbed Jazz's wrist.
"Don't you hear that, it could be dangerous!" Sam stated.
"So what?" Jazz retorted. "This is my house and I won't let anyone or any weird invention put either you or Danny at risk." For an instant, Sam wondered if she could keep Jazz from going inside, but realized she knew she could not. Jazz was much stronger then Danny, and Danny was much stronger then Sam. Jazz could do practically anything, and could pierce Danny's trainwreck of emotions during Spectra's stint as counselor when Sam herself could not.
"I'll go with you." Sam offered. If things were really bad, Sam could hide Danny and make sure Jazz didn't see Danny's transformation. Just as Sam counted on Danny to fight, Danny counted on Sam to keep clandestine his identity. And Sam would not fail him.
Judgment's shield was shaking more then ever, and the ghost himself was concentrating on maintaining his shield. Which was good, Danny wasn't sure how many more attacks he could take from him. The shield quivered, it almost looked like it was ready to pop like a giant bubble.
"Just a…little…" Danny kept up his attack, he could feel nothing else other then his hands, and the blast. Once that shield was gone, then he couldn't block any of his attacks; otherwise, he wouldn't have bothered doing it in the first place.
"Just…a…" Danny's mind was swimming, barely able to form coherent thoughts. He wasn't sure how much more he could do.
Jazz had taken the stairs three at a time, and Sam had to hustle to keep up with her. Once they reached the bottom, Sam saw the sight she was dreading. Danny was splayed against the wall, blasting with all his might, but his entire body was trembling, as if it was a strain to even stay conscious, let alone fight. Danny's green eyes were barely open, and covered in tears. That ghost, who had the appearance of a Catholic priest, was trying to prevent Danny from attacking him with a shield, although the shield seemed to quiver much like Danny did.
Sam glanced briefly at Jazz. The older Fenton's eyes darkened with rage, and her mouth changed quickly from gaping in surprise to a knifelike slash of bitterness and anger. Sam had never seen Jazz like this.
And in that instant, Sam thought she heard a snap. The shield around the ghost burst like a punctured beach ball, but the blasts stopped from Danny's hand. Sam watched in horror as Danny's body went limp and slumped against the wall. The two glowing rings formed around his body, and turned him back into his teenage self.
She had failed. There was absolutely no way Jazz could have missed that.
"Sam." Jazz stated, but the voice sounded nothing like her. It sounded malicious and dark, two emotions that would have never characterized Jasmine Fenton. "Get out of the way." Not daring to disobey, Sam dashed toward Danny's limp form. She could tell from here that he was in horrible condition, up close, he was bound to look horrible. Whatever Jazz was going to do, she had to do it quick. Those Harbringers meant business, and Danny was severely weakened. They could have finished him.
Sam wouldn't let that happen, but what could she do?
"Whatever it took." Sam thought. Even if it cost her everything, she would not let Danny die.
As Sam Mason dashed away, Jazz realized that this was the only shot she'd have to protect them. Whoever this ghostpriest was, he clearly had hurt Danny, hurt him critically. And that meant he was the mortal enemy of Jasmine Fenton.
In one swift motion, Jazz grabbed the first thing she could lay her hands on. It was a firearm-type weapon, clearly an invention of Maddie's since their father's face was not on the grip. It looked like a pistol, and the name clearly said "Ecto-Pistol" on the barrel, but Jazz didn't care much about names now. Twisting it like a trained like an expert marksman, Jazz fired. Blue beams of energy, not unlike the beams Danny shot from his hands, fired from the weapon.
The priest dodged and retaliated, but Jazz moved too, dodging to her right and tucking into a roll. Firing again, she managed to blast the ghost in its hand. It staggered, and Jazz looked around for another weapon, and found it in another one of her mother's inventions. It appeared to be a normal ladies right-handed glove. She tossed the ecto-pistol into the sky, quickly slipped on the glove. Once it was on her hand, three glowing, blue claws stretched out from the knuckles and extended to the length of Jazz's fingertips. Catching the pistol in her left hand and clenching her right into a fist so the claws were extended further then her fingers, she moved forward as fast as she could. As quickly as she could, she punched the ghost straight in the stomach while firing at point blank range with the ecto-pistol into the ghost's face.
As Sam tended to Danny, she couldn't help but watch Jazz's brutal slaughter of the ghost. It was amazing. She'd seen Danny fight, and she'd seen his vicious side. Whenever she and Tucker, or any of Danny's family, were in danger, Danny tapped into a bitter, vicious side that offered him tremendous power and endurance.
And this was Jazz's strength. Sam couldn't help but notice how beautiful she was. As she used a claw like weapon to viciously punch and slash, and fire with the pistol, Sam found herself overcome at the grace and beauty of the older Fenton. It was just like Danny, only Jazz.
"Stop thinking like that!" Sam's mind scolded. "You need to take care of Danny, let Jazz handle that ghost." That ghost wouldn't have enough time to say its final prayers anyway. Blasted to oblivion and ripped to shreds by the fury of a sister.
