Skulker flew through the Ghost Zone as fast as he could, his damaged jet pack set to its top speed and concentrated on getting back safely to his island. He didn't want to give anyone the opportunity to lay eyes on him in his current state. While injuries inflicted by Danny Phantom were now a common and expected sight the closer one got to the Fenton ghost portal – and were sometimes even admired as signs of bravery – the battle scars the hunter brought home with him today felt far too humiliating to show this time around.
The ghost child had left several dents in his armour: two in his stomach and back, his shoulder gear and jet pack had been all but torn off, and the upper right side of his face had been bashed in, giving him the cyborg equivalent of a black eye with how much his eyelid was twitching. Despite this, they really didn't seem so bad compared to previous encounters. He hadn't lost any body parts like his hands or his head, nor was separated from his suit at any point during the fight. It was the context behind these ones that made Skulker fume.
He had spent days planning this particular trap. He ordinarily would have chalked his loss up as catching the boy on the wrong day before a stressful test at school or something along those lines. He could also cope with a beating every now and then to give him something active to do afterwards while he mused on his mistakes. But this one should have been fool-proof, one that could withstand Danny's worst bouts of hormonal anger, not to mention all executed without the use of live bait. Apparently not, and Skulker was taking this personally.
When he got back to his island, Skulker deactivated his now spluttering jet pack once he was confident that he was fully shielded by the tops of the trees. Opting to walk the rest of the way, he scooped up a small stack of papers that had gathered on the ground by his lair entrance during his absence. The last thing he needed on such a rotten day was junk mail. Nevertheless, it made for some colourful kindling for his fireplace.
Before going to his workshop, Skulker took a detour through his front room to dispose of the mess. The rustic room was decorated by the many, many trophies he had acquired throughout his afterlife, yet his gaze was focussed on the blank space on the wall just above the mantel, which only served to make his failure sting all the more. The spot of the undecorated area would sometimes change to the floor or even another room, but no matter where it was, he was determined to fill it with that boy's pelt someday.
One by one, he tossed the useless pieces of paper into the flames. These included a few updated wanted posters with bounties too small in value to care about, a regular self-publication from the Ghost Writer filled with more flowery language than necessary, and a couple of sealed envelopes that produced disturbing, high-pitched screaming noises when they burned.
The last one nearly suffered the same fate, but a curious glance at it caused the hunter to stop. At the very bottom of the pile was a small pamphlet that one might find at a doctor's office. It was different at least, and made Skulker raise the eyebrow on the undamaged side of his face.
The word "Vessels" was printed at the top in bright yellow letters. While it was unclear what it was advertising at first, it looked to be some sort of a human skin suit that hid a ghost's natural glow and appearance.
How insulting! What kind of ghost in the right mind would actively want to look that human? Skulker couldn't care less about mortal bystanders so long as they didn't interfere with his work, so blending in with the masses in the living world was never something that had crossed his mind.
Still, he continued to humour the ridiculous publication and skim-read the rest, as it threw around selling points such as "natural skin tones", "authentic bruising" and "synthesised heartbeat". But then a couple of phrases caught his eye: "Alternative stealth method! Slip by a keen eye!"
Stealth. That had been his main problem with Phantom lately. A ghost's ability to turn invisible was barely effective around other ghosts, plus that tricky ghost sense of his made it all the more difficult to sneak up on him from behind for a satisfying finishing blow. Having access to all the greatest hunting equipment in the world didn't matter if the prey could see it coming.
The more the hunter thought about it, the more he could see the appeal of this "vessel" being advertised and potentially using it in a new and better plan to trap the ghost boy, one that he wouldn't expect from Skulker at all.
Skulker flicked to the back of the pamphlet where a map to the supplier was drawn up. It appeared to be a pop-up establishment set up not too far away from his island. He put it to one side. Perhaps after he'd tuned his body up and ironed out all the dents, he would pay them a visit. He had to make sure the sizeable one in his head wasn't somehow affecting his common sense after all.
Besides, if it was all a ruse, he had plenty of built-in ways to express his frustration.